Suffering is back!

I haven't written about being ill in a long time. This is the result of a happy confluence between (1) a renewed realisation that we Americans bitch far, far too much about petty crap leading to conscious effort on my part to do less of this (did anyone notice?) and (2) the fact that I haven't been sick since Halloween. I've avoided mentioned this latter fact out of deep-seated superstitious fears of karmic retribution. But I must've thought this too much, since the inevitable smackdown arrived yesterday morning in the form of an completely unexpected back injury.

I'm writing about it mostly to reassure monshu, who saw me last night at my worst. I couldn't even walk fully erect--not because the pain was crippling, but because straightening up caused muscles in my lumbar region to spasm. They kept doing this anyway, triggered by full-body shivers on the walk back from dinner. So far, IcyHot and long, hot baths are keeping the problem at bay. I actually slept well last night and wasn't in bad shape this morning, though four hours of sitting up at work have taken their toll.

I continue to be a spaz, though: My original plan for today was to use my lunch hour to pick up one last gift at Barnes & Noble. (Note: My last-minute shipment from them was not among the 2,000 packages burned in the UPS warehouse fire last week. It's my very own Christmas miracle!) But I remembered too late my front desk shift and had to wolf down lunch next door instead--only to arrive to find that we had two people[*] scheduled for a day that barely required one. Instead, that errand will have to be tacked to the end of the day somewhere before picking up food and wine for the end-of-term party with my Chinese class and the possible visit to monshu's to retrive the muscle relaxant I left there.

[*] Us old-timers now share the desk with student workers from IT who call themselves "cons", presumably short for "consultants". When I asked my former desk partner what we should call ourselves he replied "pros". Duh!