Almost Completely Lame

Myself as well as this post.

I think somebody somewhere has a voodoo doll of me and is sticking pins in it. He or she picks different spots. One day it’s the sinuses, one day the upper back, one day the lower back, later that day the bunions. This evil person’s evil plan is to make it so nobody likes me any more because all I can do is complain. I fear it is working.

Yesterday at work my headache reached nightmarish proportions. Seriously, I felt that I was in a nightmare. As I walked up the stairs to the ladies’ room I was surprised to see that I actually made it to the top of the stairs. I expected them to continue infinitely, as happens in some dreams (or have you never gotten the never-ending staircase or road or hallway?). When I got to the bathroom I was relieved to see real toilets not disgustingly dirty. I don’t know about anyone else, but when I dream about bathrooms they are either too wet and dirty for use or they are not real toilets but in the dream you are expected to use them as such, usually in full view of other people (or, again, is that just my sicko dreams? Paging Dr. Freud!).

After I got home and took a nap the pain subsided into mere lightheadedness. I could rock that, at least till bedtime, which would be early. Then as I was walking up the stairs (one flight) to the (normal) bathroom, I felt this sudden jab in my back. What the hell was that? After I went back downstairs and sat down, I found I could not get back up. This sucks! Well, I went to bed (after Steven helped me up). Sleep would help.

It did, somewhat. When I described my symptoms to a friend at work, she said it sounded like sciatica, which she suffers from. I do not know much about sciatica, except that it is fun to say (try it!). After a while the pain subsided. I reported this encouraging development to my friend.

“It comes and goes,” she told me. Damn! She went on to describe her own tribulations with sciatica. Oh dear! I said maybe I should not complain, because her case was obviously much worse than mine.

“You go right ahead and complain,” she told me. “That’s your prerogative. To complain and to change your mind!”

“Maybe I’ll change my mind about complaining,” I said.

The pain was practically gone by the end of the day. I thought I might even go running. Then I thought it might be more sensible to walk with my dog Tabby. Obviously she would prefer that alternative. By the time I got home, however, the pain was back. I could still rock a walk, I thought. Um, no.

I got on the computer. I would check my email, make my blog post, then decide. I checked the email. “Oh yeah, I wanted to email Entertainment Weekly and complain about YET ANOTHER double issue!” I stood up to go downstairs and get the magazine for the address. OOOWWW!

I went and laid down instead. I read, I relaxed. I made my painful way downstairs and ate something. I really really really wanted to make my blog post and get it over with. I had not written anything, but I had a tentative title, “Not Completely Lame,” and I had a tentative subject, my walk with Tabby which I had not yet taken.

In desperation, I came up with the above title and started typing, the results of which you see. You know, I think it is the hoariest cliche in fiction where the character wants to write a book, wants to write a book, wants to write a book, has some movie-ish adventure, then writes a book and it’s THE MOVIE YOU’VE JUST BEEN WATCHING!!! Have I just been guilty of a hideous piece of hypocrisy? How lame would that be? I would say, almost completely.