Okay, I am the tiniest bit weird when it comes to health stuff. I can do something as simple as cut my finger, for instance, and within seconds I have managed to picture my funeral, the remarriage of my husband, and then skip right over to worrying if I really did prepare my children for all the intricacies of life. Do they really understand that you shouldn’t leave the stuffing inside the turkey after Thanksgiving dinner, that you must scrape every last morsel out before you put the leftovers away? Never mind that Thanksgiving is a while from now. Perhaps I should call them up and remind them right now, before I bleed to death.

And so it is that when I bruised my leg the other day by tripping over a box of books, it was just a short distance from “ouch, my leg hurts” to “oh my God, I will probably die of a blood clot during the night.”

You see? This is one of my best skills. From zero worries to complete catastrophic death in less than ten seconds. To be fair, I probably wouldn’t have been so aware of the grim possibilities of Disaster By Way of Leg Bruises were it not for the fact that I heard of three people recently to whom this happened. And thank God they didn’t die, but they did develop blood clots that went to their lungs, and for a time, doctors stood over them wringing their hands and then said they could have died. That is all I needed to hear. Blood clots are irrational things: sometimes they don’t just zip over to the lungs and wait there to be discovered. Sometimes they can take an unfortunate detour to the heart or the brain and then…well. You know.

So I called up the people I knew who’d had experience with these things, and reported about my leg and they reeled off for me all they’ve learned about blood clots, and told me the list of risk factors–and other than the bruise, I didn’t have any. It would have been foolish, we all decided, for me to call a doctor when I have no reason to suspect that I am in any real danger.

But still, I am great–really great–at imagining danger. So every morning lately when I wake up, my first thought has been: Hmm. I didn’t die during the night. Wow. That’s so incredible! (I sometimes have had to awaken myself during the night just to check to see if I am dead yet…and I’m just as pleased at 4 a.m. to discover myself still here.)
You would think a person who is going through a time of half-expecting that her life might be threatened would do some practical things. Maybe make out a will, for instance. Clean out closets. Pay all the bills. Mail that package to her mother. Destroy once and for all that incriminating diary from ninth grade. Send a bulletin to the kids about turkey stuffing dangers. Sign up for more life insurance.

But–well, I notice that I’ve gone another way.

In the face of sudden death, I’ve become what you’d have to call a derelict.

I have taken to squirting whipped cream onto my hand and eating it whenever I pass the refrigerator.

I have taken long, hot baths–up to three daily on some days–and once in the tub, I eat roast beef sandwiches and drink iced tea.

I watched all the comedy shows the other night on television, one after the other.

I petted the dog for a full hour one day when I was supposed to be working.

I talk to my kids for hours on the phone, every minute they can spare.

Every day that it hasn’t rained, I have sat outside in the sun and listened to songs on my iPod. Once I even went to the beach and ate popcorn there. During work hours.

I read other people’s hilarious blogs on the internet, especially dooce, who makes me laugh every single day, and all the back entries of Jenny Crusie.
I don’t know how long a leg bruise can be considered a menace to life. Now that it’s healed, am I truly out of danger? If indeed I ever was in danger to begin with.

I woke up this morning and didn’t think about how surprising it was that I was alive. Instead I thought that I really should do laundry, and that I have to get to work, and that it was cold in the bedroom–not a good day to sit in the sun, and there’s too much to do anyway, and how will I get it all done, and I really should be less lazy and less prone to eating anything I want. The whipped cream is gone, and I will have to go to the store if I intend to keep up that particular habit. The dog wants to go out. There’s dust on the tables. The flowers are dying if I don’t water them.

But, hey, my bruise is gone. That’s the good news.