I got in a terribly scary bike crash yesterday morning. I was biking down the sidewalk, and a car pulled into a garage without seeing me. I slammed on my brakes just in time to go careening over the handlebars into the purple Grand Am. Here's a picture of my eyebrow at the emergency room:

"My eyebrow may be broken, but my MacBook is not."

Having spent all day at the hospital, I have, as you can imagine, lots of stories to tell. Most of them are not funny. But some of them are. Here are the some of the funniest things that happened:

1) Lying prostrate on the sidewalk after the accident, surrounded by ten passersby, I decided the most important thing for me to do was to pull out the iPhone, call my professor, and tell her I wouldn't, after all, be able to make it to office hours that day.

2) Ambulances are required to take their charges to the closest hospital. In my case, this was the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital near my apartment. After the paramedics dropped me off, I made up my mind that I didn't like the looks of this hospital. The waiting room was a bit full, and the surly employee at the registration desk instructed me to step aside until he called my name. I got all huffy and thought to myself, "Oh, hell no." So, with bloodied face and (I later discovered) fractured humerus, I walked out of the hospital and took a cab to the Penn ER. The poor driver kept giving me a look as if to say, "Don't bleed on my leather. Or die in my cab."

3) The ER was pretty full, so I spent the day in "Room 6A," which was in fact a collapsible bed lying hapahazardly in the middle of the hallway. This made it difficult for me to furtively steal bites from the chocolate chip cookie my matron saint and cohort member Bridget brought me (My doctor imposed this bullshit eating ban in case I needed a breathing tube. I was hungry!). But, I got to hear all the good nurse talk. This included a half-hour conversation trying to answer the question, "Where *is* Brokeback Mountain?" (It's in Wyoming.) And apparently, all the doctors in ortho are, like, really cliquey.

I have learned a valuable lesson from this experience: not to leave my bike helmet at the Grad Student Center. Or, really, not to bike at all in this crazy city. I have also decided, until I heal, I'm eating bacon. Life is too short. Rafael's bringing some over in a few minutes.