This Gettin' Old Ain't For Sissies.

Okay, okay, I know I'm late with this post.  Geez, I better get on the stick before somebody cuts my salary in half.  I know, right?  Well, things have been interesting around here.  I somehow managed to hurt my back by doing--absolutely nothing. 

Well, at least I don't know what I did, exactly.  I know I took out the trash and that made it worse, but I don't know what I did originally to piss it off.  The most likely suspect is falling asleep on the couch. I gotta admit, that's not as dramatic as most of my clients, who hurt their backs in the kinds of auto collisions where they have to be extracted with the Jaws of Life.  I can't wait till the nice lady from my health insurance calls to ask who they can go after to get reimbursed for my medical bills.  "Well, you can talk to my couch."  Yeah.  That'll go over well. 

Anyway, one serious advantage to working at a personal injury law firm is that I know all the chiropractors in town.  Another advantage is having my pick of the good ones.  When, after three days of sort of dragging myself around and not-getting-any-better, I showed up at the clinic, they practically fell all over themselves because I was from That Law Firm.  Yes, we send them a lot of clients, but geez.  I didn't realize that ranked us celebrity status.  

I dunno if you've ever been to a chiropractor, but it's kind of like going in for a massage, sort of, except it also hurts.  Somewhat.  And it's a little weird.  Usually it consists of having someone do something to your back that you can't see that feels kind of mildly painful but nice at the same time that makes a crackling noise that's a little scary because, well, it's your back, but afterward you actually feel better, somewhat, except that you think you might have bruises, and then they generally stick electrodes to you and zap you a little bit with electricity, which should hurt but doesn't.  And when you leave, you're usually sticky with the gunk they put on you that makes it easier to conduct electricity, so if you take my advice you'll go after work and not during or before.  I'm just sayin'. 

I've only been the one time, and maybe I would have felt better anyway, but I'm down to a 3 out of 10 from more like a 7 on the pain scale.  Exercise helps, believe it or not, so I've done some walking on the treadmill.  The worst thing for it is sitting still for long periods of time, because my back tends to tense up.  Which means I missed the big trip to Austin for the Texas Book Fair that I was supposed to go on this weekend.  Pretty not-happy about that.  But there was no way.  3 1/2 hours in a car?  I wouldn't have been able to walk after that.  I mean, unless my fellow jolly travelers were okay with stopping about every 45 minutes so I could walk around and stretch.  Um, I don't think so.  Plus I wouldn't have been good company.  Cranky from the back pain and sleepy from the handfuls of Advil I've been swallowing.  But, as one of my fellow jolly travelers pointed out, there will be other trips. 

In other news, the intrepid Joan has had a job interview with a Prestigious Institution and is pretty excited.  They're checking her references and e-mailed to double-check her salary requirements, so it's starting to sound like they're interested in hiring her.  We may not know for a month or so (Prestigious Institutions don't move very quickly) but if they do want to hire her, we'll have a whole different set of Interesting Issues.  So watch this space.