Jessica

Here's what I gave my boyfriend for Valentine's Day: When he asked what I wanted, I said, "Nothing baby, it's a stupid fake holiday." Skydiving is for cool people only

Val, don't let Erk teach you to snowboard...take a lesson while he and Rachel ski, you'll all be a lot happier. My calves gave out five minutes after putting on the board and Eric kept casting longing glances at the lift and trying to to get me to stand up while I whined and laid in the snow. That said, it was really a lot of fun. I felt like a badass even lying in the snow. Skydiving is for cool people only

(I wrote this for my web journal, but thought I'd cross-post it here.) It's now nine weeks and four days since I broke my pelvis and tailbone in a dumbass skydiving accident. Sitting doesn't hurt much these days, unless I lean back too far and put pressure on my tailbone. It's lucky that I broke it pretty high up, because it only hurts if I move in certain ways. I know people with broken coccyxes who couldn't even sit in hard chairs for six months. My hip hurts a lot sometimes, especially in cold or humid weather. If I have a limp at all, it's imperceptible, but walking is still not so fun. Since I don't look gimpy at all, I hate taking the elevator at work if I don't have more than one or two flights to go. I feel like people are looking at me and thinking, "Huh! Asshole!" But gorry the stairs hurt. I feel like I'm hauling my body weight in a wheelbarrow with a flat tire. Anyway, that's pretty much it. Getting out of bed hurts, as does getting out of the car and any other situation where I'm having to lift my hips up farther than normal. But it's not a big deal. I remain very grateful that all I'm left to deal with is a little lingering pain when I get out of bed. My ass is still kind of numb, but I'm not much worried about that these days, since right after it happened I couldn't feel my entire left leg. The feeling has slowly returned to my calf and thigh, and I'm sure that the rest of the nerves will recover too. My insurance has already been stretched to the limit, and I don't want to get another $3,000 MRI for numbness that's probably not treatable and that will, with any luck, eventually go away. Though I complain a lot, all of the above is good news. I'm a very lucky chica. The reason I'm performing such a careful evaluation of my lower half is that I'm supposed to skydive this weekend for the first time since I broke myself. I don't mind telling you that I'm very fucking frightened. See, skydiving used to bring to mind for me a happy collage of delighted, wind-burned faces, of swimming on air that smells like heaven, of euphoria meted out in 5-minute increments. I understood that sometimes, ambulances and funerals were the price of the happy collage. But.... Right now all I can see are ambulances and all I can hear are bones cracking, and when I picture skydives, all I see are spinning, useless, malfunctioned canopies. Sigh. My boyfriend plans to come out with me to watch me jump, which will help. That'll be the very first time a non-skydiving friend has come out to the dropzone with me; it's never interested anyone before. (My best friend came out one time, but he made his first two skydives that day so he doesn't count as a non-skydiving friend.) I'm very scared. But even though for the very first time since I started jumping, quitting seems like an actual option to me -- it's not time. I'm not ready to stop. I want to do this team, I want to compete, I want to feel the wind burn my face for at least one more season. Anyway, if I weren't skydiving, I'd have to find another outlet to let off steam. And the only ones I can think of that would work have equal potential to kill and break bones. Or at the very least give me venereal disease. Skydiving is for cool people only

Oh my.... 1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%) Click here for info 2. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (82%) Click here for info Skydiving is for cool people only

Oh yes, I have been rather fucked up there.

Maybe piano bars are rarer than I thought. Skydiving is for cool people only

Me too. B-25202 Skydiving is for cool people only

Yes. Skydiving is for cool people only

...to get drunk! Why do we smoke? ...Anyone? Skydiving is for cool people only

I put "lost more." It's been three months since I broke my ass and it still hurts to stand up and get out of bed and get out of the car and a bunch of other things. My bill for the hospital alone was $13,000 and I still don't know how much of that insurance will cover. I've lost friends. I've seen bad things. Skydiving costs, but for me, right now, it's still worth the cost. Skydiving is for cool people only

Thanks, I'll take care of it. Skydiving is for cool people only

I'm not really a cartoon penguin. Sorry guys. I decided it's time to come clean. I changed my avatar. Skydiving is for cool people only

True, but they BOTH suck compared to Habenero's in San Antonio. Heaven in a giant tortilla, I'm telling you. Skydiving is for cool people only

I'm right here! I've been too busy drinking to get online. Skydiving is for cool people only

Me too. They have tunnel camps and four-way camps and all kinds of camps for skydivers.... But it seems like the only formal continuing education for riggers is the PIA conference. It would be nice to have some options. Skydiving is for cool people only

I just got an e-mail from Betsy regarding the gear I offered Elsinore, and she said that they are OK right now on lender gear and are just trying to get the school set back up. She also said many manufacturers are helping Elsinore at their own expense, which is wonderful. I love this sport.

"Human mistakes" are a very real part of this sport. I'm a bright, responsible woman who jumped when it was windy and smashed the fuck out of her pelvis. You can't discount human nature in your evaluation of skydiving's "safety." People are not infallable. Many injuries and fatalities are traceable to human error. That doesn't mean they're not going to happen again and again. A sloppy gear check, a quick downsize without proper canopy training, misjudged altitude, a bad spot...these are things that are unfortunately not going to disappear. Skydiving is for cool people only

I'll send you a PM. Skydiving is for cool people only

Homemade! I whipped it up in the bathtub! Mmmm. Skydiving is for cool people only

Ha! You guys, I MOVED...call my cell if you want to talk. Anyway, I haven't gotten a PM from any one of you buttheads. By the way, no more IM at work. Skydiving is for cool people only

Really? Is that a compliment or should I put you on my shit list? Skydiving is for cool people only

Do it!

@#$%@#$^%!!! Y'all can kiss my broken ass! Skydiving is for cool people only

It's rainy and crappy, and I think the humidity is making my broken pelvis and tailbone hurt. I can hardly walk. I'm going to start sitting on a rocking chair with a jelly-jar full of whisky and predicting the weather based on the pains in my ass. Skydiving is for cool people only

I've got debilitating ADD -- so bad, in fact, that as a young adult my inability to handle everyday life put me in a major depressive episode that lasted for years. Bleah. I really think meds saved my life. Skydiving is for cool people only