Now I’m a Real Cook
About twenty-four hours after giving blood, while chopping collard greens, I chopped a bit off my finger. Sorry if it’s gross for you, but it reminds me of something I learned when I dated a woman who was a chef: if you cook enough, you cut and burn yourself.
I don’t know if this picture captures it. I took it today, about twenty-four hours after cutting it. I should have taken a picture then, when the blood wouldn’t stop flowing. I’ve cut myself many times, but I don’t remember chopping a piece off.
It wasn’t that the knife was dull. I sharpen it often. I was talking on the phone, distracting myself. I wasn’t respecting the craft enough.
It hurt. I got to experience The rare taste of blood while remaining vegan. I thought I had band aids left but didn’t, so used the gauze left over from my PSA test that the blood donor nurse wouldn’t use.
I had obligations to follow up with the rest of the day and the blood stopped flowing enough after about sixty or ninety minutes. I didn’t think it affected my evening calisthenics, which I did when I got home in my mostly dark apartment, but I saw drops of blood on the floor and yoga mat. The cut hurt in the shower. Actually, in the shower the cut probably hurt the most.
The big issue was doing my exercises this morning. The Turkish get-ups went fine, but not the kettle bell swings or farmers walk. The swings cause blood into my fingers and pressure them. How do I know? One, it caused my cut to hurt more again. Two, drops of blood flew out of my finger, despite the cut having stopped bleeding the day before.
Then doing a farmers walk led the cut to reopen, with more blood flowing. I opted to postpone finishing the farmers walk.
Today’s calisthenics led to the cut reopening, especially during burpees. I saw blood on the ground during the pushups. I was worried about more blood appearing on the ceiling from when I jump during the burpees. I already have a spot of blood on the ceiling above where I do my morning burpees and didn’t want to cause another.
It’s evening now, too dark to look for lingering blood spots, but I expect to find others when it brightens in the morning.
Oh yeah, don’t read more if you’re squeamish, but I couldn’t find the bit I cut off anywhere around the chopping board. As best I can tell, it ended up in with the collard greens. I salted them to make sauerkraut, so I guess that sauerkraut won’t be vegan to anyone else but me.
Read my weekly newsletter
On initiative, leadership, the environment, and burpees