Fashion forward
I felt a strange sensation yesterday as I settled into the car seat on the way to another of Todd's movie shoots.
A cool sensation.
So I stuck my hand under there and, sure enough, found a hole in my jeans.
Of course, it's my favorite pair.
As soon as I told Todd, he started mocking me for my expensive taste in jeans.
"Oh, I buy a pair of $40 jeans that last for years, and yours cost $200 and last for a month!"
So I pointed out that these were the cheap jeans, at $50, and that I'd never paid $200 for a pair. Yet. I buy all the expensive brands on sale. Plus, those expensive jeans are made in the mainland USA. Nobody's being forced to take $3 a day or have an abortion because pregnant women are not allowed to sew.
Maybe those great guys in the Marianas Islands are afraid the babies might jinx the machines.
Anyway...
All afternoon long I was bending over to pick stuff up, set stuff up, and ripping my jeans even more. By the time we went to dinner, I had to hold my purse in a strategic location. The hot pants look just doesn't go over well in February.
But actually, I think they will make a cool pair of shorts for this summer. Which I need.
Hypervigilance
So I bent over on Sunday (hey, you with the dirty mind, I was getting something out of a file), and my back seized up.
Some people say their backs "went out." Mine doesn't go anywhere. It's like someone stuck their hands into my lower back and then clenched them really hard. Then I can't stand up straight, and I walk around like I've got something stuck up my butt for a few days. It doesn't hurt much; it's just really stiff.
The first time this happened, in 1995, it felt like a zipper was being zipped up across my back. That time, at least, I was doing something marginally cool: I'd decided that if I could do 75 pounds on the stomach machine, I could do 75 on the back machine.
That is so not true.
Having some minor health problem like this always reminds me, unfortunately, of the weird ways in which my mind works. Within a few seconds, I was imagining all the reasons I could have back problems.
Doctor: Well, I've read the MRI, and you have a spinal tumor. Generally, they're benign, but we'll have to do a spinal tap.
(Cut to me on a metal table, and some white-coated sadistic type sticking a two-foot-long needle into my back.)
The Doctor again: There are two options. We can remove it surgically, or we can try to manage it.
Me: Which do you recommend?
Doctor: People who've had the spinal surgery generally develop mobility problems later in life.
Me: How much later?
Doctor: Five years or so.
Me (a little desperately): What's the other treatment?
Doctor: It involves weekly injections into the tumor for about 6 months. That usually shrinks it to the point that it doesn't interfere with mobility.
(Cut back to the shot of the person with the big needle.)
I don't know if this reaction is genetic or has to do with years of waiting for some big fight to break out between my parents and one of my siblings. It can be amusing.
But right now, when I'm about to go on a diving trip where I have to hoist a 40-pound tank on my back, it's annoying.
