Bachelorhood, Revisted

Oh, I had such high hopes for the next several weeks. While the wife is away, the mouse was fully intending to play. I even made the sacrifice of NOT creating a list of the things I wanted to accomplish in my maelstrom of activity, hoping to fly from project to project as whim drew me. [After about 3 or 4 days I was likely to break down and spend a solid 2-3 days drawing up a list, revising it, prioritizing projects, and shuffling papers on my desk anyway.]

But no ... even before I could get out of the gate I have been derailed in a ridiculous way. Secondary to being hit by a car over 12 years ago, I have a mildly screwed-up back. As long as I am careful with lifting and watch my posture, don't sleep in funky positions, etc. - it's really not a problem. Until that frickin' exercise DVD. I won't go into details here - suffice to say that trying to combine a shoulder press with a deeper-than-I-had-tried-recently deep knee bend was a baaaaad idea.

Now I've thrown out my back before, from staying in an awkward position too long in the operating room, or even from sneezing too forcefully. Usually I walk funny for a day or two, but can get back to normal fairly rapidly and even function pretty well throughout - other than the funny walking. This time, ugh - the back pain has been so persistent that I had been really crooked in my posture. So much so, that a couple of days later a whole 'nother group of muscles went into spasm - I guess from overcompensation. And then I aggravated all that by helping my wife haul the laundry around. Thankfully she refused to let me carry her suitcases around too much.

Got her to the airport yesterday, came back and pretty much crashed out on the couch. Today also crashed out on the couch ... hopefully after a solid night's rest I'll be able to tackle some of the cleaning and sorting and extended sessions tackling e-mail and other posture-intensive activities. I did manage some pseudo-productivity - cleared some movies from our netflix queue that my wife was less than enthusiastic to view with me. For good reason. :-)

In the meantime, I'm back to all the trappings of bachelorhood (messy apartment, grooming activities considered "optional," diet unsupervised, tv on 25 hours / day) without the hoped-for benefits - like normal mobility and a modicum of energy. I'll give it another day or two - then I'll try for some better living through pharmacology. MMMmmmmmm, muscle relaxers. *Drooool*