I Didn't Fall But I Can't Get Up

I alluded to this in an earlier post, but I injured my back about a month ago. Though it didn't start hurting until a week after the fact, I think it's the fault of the trampolining. To say I feel betrayed by something I love so much, that I've loved my entire life, is an understatement. I am, of course, talking about the trampoline.

On the Wednesday or Thursday after I trampolined on the Sunday, the middle of my back started hurting. I have frequent lower back problems so I was surprised to have the middle start hurting. This was also a different sort of pain, less achey, and more throbbing. Every time I took a step it hurt. Which is inconvenient if, you know, you are used to taking many steps.

After a week of it hurting, several days of working from home, and a lot of moving as little as possible, I finally went to the doctor. She said it was a spasm and not anything more severe and prescribed me lidocaine patches and a high dose of ibuprofen. Almost a month later it isn't painful but now more occasionally achey. By the time I get home most nights I go straight for the heating pad. This is what 30 looks like, people.

This really isn't meant to complain, but to provide background on the following list. Things I Have Learned About Having a Hurt Back:

• If you whimper, people will move away from you.
• If you walk bent over like a hunchback, people will move away from you.
• If you wince or moan every time you move your bag, people will move away from you.
• If you moan every time the metro hits a bump or brakes harshly, people will move away from you.
• If you can't handle the patch on your back any longer and take it off while walking down the street, people will move away from you.
• If you look healthy on the outside, people won't offer you a seat on the metro no matter how longingly you look at their seat.
• If you want a use for those frozen potatoes and green beans you keep putting off trying, they work well as an ice pack.

• If you buy two really big bags of groceries, and have to walk a mile with them, you will cry when you get home.
• If you don't want to spend any money at Target, walk around folded in half until you can't take it anymore.
• If you fall asleep on a heating pad, you will wake up thinking you're on fire.
• If you have to empty the dishwasher, get something off a high shelf, do laundry, pick up more than two books, or vacuum, you will use your back muscles and it will hurt.

One Man's Jacket and Another Man's Boots

My last few years of high school, denim jackets were popular. I had a stretchy, light-colored one from Gap but I also "borrowed" my Dad's denim jacket from the '70s. The Gap one was donated at some point but Daddy's has moved with me from place to place to place. Now that denim jackets are popular again, and it's light-jacket weather, I pulled his out.

I safety pinned the back to pull it in a bit and stitched up some of the holes. The shoulders are quite boxy so it would be great to take those in, too. I can do this because I have no intention of giving it back to Daddy. Sorry. It's been in my closet for more than 10 years so I don't think he misses it.

My grandfather, Poppy, was a born and raised Texan. He also lived in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, but he spent his last years back in Texas. After he died, there were two pairs of cowboy boots in his closet. He had small feet so the men couldn't fit in them, and the women either couldn't or didn't want them. So one pair went to my small-footed great uncle, and one pair went to me.

I've worn them once before and always mean to wear them, but am afraid of messing them up. I tend to do this with important things, especially things that belonged to my grandparents. Yet I don't think Poppy would want them just sitting in my closet. He also might not have wanted them paired with a dress and pearls, but hey, I'm a country girl in the city, that's just how it is.

Let's not go to the movies

Some people attract people with money. Some people attract people with luck. I attract people in movie theatres with the need to talk to the screen.

To some degree, I get it. When I'm alone at home watching TV or a movie, I talk back to the characters like they're in the room with me. The key words here are "home" and "alone." (Though "alone" often means "with my roommate.") I don't go out in public with a room full of people who have paid $10 to see something and then act like I'm home in my living room.

Here are some of the memorable asides I've heard the pleasure to overhear at the movies.

The movie: Wanted
The perpetrator: Large man watching the movie alone
The scene: Every time Angelina Jolie came on
The words: A five-syllable “Daaaaaamn, girl.”

The movie: Slumdog Millionaire
The perpetrators: Two senior citizens
The scene: When young Latika is running to get on the train with the brothers.
The words: "Noooooo! Run faster! Grab her hand! Grab her hand!"

The movie: Eat, Pray, Love
The perpetrator: The 30ish woman beside me watching the movie alone
The scene: Any scene where Julia Roberts' character is being whiny. So every scene.
The words: "Girl, you gotta love yourself, first."

The movie: The Other Woman
The perpetrators: Two young women in back row
The first scene: Any funny scene
The words: No words, just a high-pitched shriek before the booming laugh.
The second scene: The one scene where Leslie Mann gets deservedly sad
The words: "She needs some anti-depressants."
The third scene: When the dog licks Leslie Mann's face
The words: "Eww, eww, eww! That tongue went in her mouth!"
The fourth scene: Me getting up and walking to the front section, which I hate, just to get away from them.
The words: [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted] [expletive deleted]

I realize as I look back at these, that none of them were at the theatre in Chinatown, which I’ve stopped going to. I mainly stopped going because of SCREAMING children during very non-child friendly movies. Seriously. A screaming newborn at “Hunger Games” and a 3-year-old at “Gangster Squad,” in which a man is literally torn in half in the first scene. Great parenting, DC!

Maybe I'll just wait for videos to come out on DVD.

Wednesday Words

"You have to stop acting like a lunatic."

-Don Draper, Mad Men

What I'm Doing Instead of Blogging

This is what  my work calendar looked like this morning. Four meetings at the same time. Though one by one, all but one, got cancelled. Nowadays I have more meetings in a day than I used to have in months. And all are on the phone. And some are in French. (Just the invite and, interestingly, the conference call dial in recording. Either I remember enough of my college French, or I just know the con call script so well, that it barely phased me this morning.)

I want to blog, I want to not have 7 am phone calls. (That was Friday.) I want to not actually cry when I see that the call that was supposed to be at 8 am was pushed back to 9 am, meaning I get a precious additional half hour of sleep. I want to get to work on time for a call so I can stop taking a cab from my work metro to work. (Which is only a 15-minute walk but every minute counts for me.)

I want to be in bed but instead I just spray painted a necklace in my shower. I'm not even kidding.

But all is not bad. The brilliant TV show "Orphan Black" is keeping me entertained. I just spent a lovely night watching TV and laughing with K. I got a $50+ West Elm floor pillow cover at the thrift store today for $3.50. I missed a couple of work yesterday because a friend just needed to talk, and when we got back and apologized to our boss, she just said, "I don't care! You all work so hard, I really don't care." I get to wear red, white, and blue and wave an American flag tomorrow to celebrate a co-worker's new citizenship. With an exceptionally and newly (spray-painted) red necklace to top it all off.

Best of all, my only scheduled con call isn't until 2:00. In the afternoon. Eastern standard time.

You Wish You Had My Friends

"Look at me. I'm your new something shiny."

-MW, trying to get my attention

"But they can look at your chart and see that you're 

actually a toddler."

-Karey, after we discussed that I'm glad for a different doctor 

each time I go to urgent care since I've gone for an iron burn, pink eye, 

a cough, and a hurt back after trampolining

Wednesday Words

“There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning and another who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage, conceal her true emotions because they were weaknesses, helplessness, despair, and present to the world only a smile, an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.” 

-Anaïs Nin

Wednesday Words (on a Friday)

"The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for."

-Maureen Dowd

Things I Learned This Weekend

Yeah, yeah, I know it's almost the next weekend. Better late and short than never and ever.

It is possible to drink sangria and not lose your mind.
We had happy hour on Friday at my most favorite HH place with sangria! Sangria has featured quite heavily in previous things I've learned, but I do believe this is the first time it's been featured for not making me do something stupid. I had my three glasses--that were severely lacking in the fruit department--lots and lots of food, and then was on my sober way.

Don't go to Target when you're sad.
So last week I was sad. I don't know why. In "Breakfast at Tiffany's" parlance I had the mean reds. It happens and you just have to deal. When I get like that I have to do things to make me happy. One of those is Target. Of course, since I spend too much money at Target on a good day, this probably wasn't the wisest decision. But just being out and around pretty things did make it better.

You can never have too many sets of sheets.
How many sets of sheets do you have? I just bought my sixth and I don't see a problem with it. My mom, however, thinks I'm crazy. But I say that there is nothing in life that can't be fixed with a good set of sheets and some chocolate. Just not at the same time. Aren't they pretty?

Decorating for spring is a great mood lifter.
Bright colors were another solution to getting me out of my funk. Some plastic eggs, some glitter eggs, a vase, and some felt flowers plus some stuff I already had certainly helped brighten things up a bit.

Trampoline jumping is just the best.
On Saturday B and K and I went to a trampoline park! I'm still excited just typing that. I first heard of these some time last year and have been dying to go to one. I found one in Northern Virginia not far from where Brandie and her husband just bought a house. So on a rainy and bleak Saturday two late 20-somethings and an early 30-something got their trampoline on! And it was exhilarating and exhausting and electrifying and exhausting. I'd definitely do it again, but not for a whole hour, probably just a solid 15 minutes.

Good and true Mexican food does exist in Northern Virginia.
We're super picky about our Mexican food but we found a good one on a random street across from a car dealership. Thanks, Brandie's GPS! We stuffed ourselves silly whilst sitting at a beautiful calla lily table. It doesn't get much better than that.

A little kid singing "Let it Go" on the metro is way preferable to a little kid screaming her guts out on the metro.
The metro trip out to see Brandie isn't short. It's not quite an hour, which really isn't terrible when you have a book and music and a good friend. However, when you add a screaming, screeching, howling child to the mix, it feels interminable. We had such a raucous child on the ride down I thought she was being murdered. (She wasn't; I checked.) Then on the ride home we got an adorable girl who was so excited to be riding the metro that her and her Dad sang a little "Let it Go." It was almost worth the devil child from earlier.

Wednesday Words

Only need the light when it's burning low 

Only miss the sun when it starts to snow 

Only know you love her when you let her go 

Only know you've been high when you're feeling low 

Only hate the road when you're missin' home

Only know you love her when you let her go

-"Let Her Go" by Passenger

This is one of those songs that, within a day of buying, was second on my most played list. I just love it. It sticks with me, though, because I'm opposite of what it's portraying. When it's snowing I don't think it will ever be sunny again, and when I'm feeling low I can't remember what it's like to feel high. I don't know which way is better.