Doesn't mean to say my feet aren't on the ground
I walked into a street sign tonight. I was getting off a bus, making sure I had zipped up my computer bag so that it wasn't raining in on Vicki Baum's Grand Hotel (trans. Basil Creighton/Margot Bettauer Dembo, 2016), and all of a sudden there was a piece of vertical steel against my left cheekbone and temple and my teeth clicked together very hard. Someone behind me asked if I was all right. I said I thought so, thanks. I had not stopped moving, just reoriented around the sign and kept walking down the slushy sidewalk. It took me until after dinner—I had brought a chicken Caesar wrap and a lime-pistachio cookie home from Dave's Fresh Pasta as a treat and ate them while reading more Grand Hotel—to notice that the left side of my face hurt at all. I think if I had hit it hard enough to cause real damage, it would hurt a lot more, or have started to come out in bruises, or something else exciting. I am more concerned about the way Autolycus keeps sneezing.

no subject