Some Better

The electrician, Mark, said, first thing this morning, "you threw out your back didn't you?" We talked about that for a few minutes. This is a fairly common injury in the trades. I'm getting better, but I still walk hunched over for the first few steps after I get up. Pain, as Kim mentioned, does mean that you're alive. I did ask Pegi, at one point this afternoon (we've having a find-raiser auction on Sunday, and stuff needed to be carried in and put somewhere) to just shoot me and get it over with. D was off on his second job, teaching, TR was gone, and the old ladies bringing in things for the auction were more delicate than me. I let Trisha go and stayed with the elevator guy until six, because I needed to touch base with him, how were we doing, were we on schedule. I don't know elevators from doodle-squat, I assume there's a cable, and brakes of some kind. I get the sense that he's winging this, that all these jobs are different, he's on the phone a lot. I'm reminded how D and I realized we could build a bridge over the Ohio with two phones and a good directory. It's not brain surgery. It's just a matter of calling someone who knows what they're doing. Barge in steel trusses, you can get a price on that, two thousand yards of concrete, you can get a price on that, the shoring, the cribbing, you can figure that, the labor you can ballpark, pick a number and multiply by two; making a bid, you cover your ass. I've never been so far off that it exceeded the parameters, close, a couple of times, but never really exceeding the guidelines. I look at this fairly closely, as a non-professional merely pre-viewing data, raw stuff that comes in. I was pretty sure Linda would remember that Rikki Lee Jones thing, which actually happened. I had a fallback position, I can't remember it now. Fell asleep writing, fighting pain is tiring work. Passed out on the sofa and didn't wake up. Got to work on time and the back hallway was filled with junk for the auction. When TR and D got there, we moved everything into the main gallery; they did, mostly, while I addressed the floor. Pegi had said to let it go until after the auction, but I couldn't do that, it was just too awful. I couldn't manage my Modified Chevron stroke, with my back the way it was, but I could mop like a girl, a simple forward and back motion, and managed to get the job done. That exhausted me for the day. Ephemeral pain, those twinges that disappear quickly but hurt like hell. Payday, and I went over to my bank's drive-through walk-up kiosk to deposit my check and there were a couple of people in front of me. The register, that delivers AC for that little building, is in the floor, against a wall of glass that faces the street. I leaned back into that flow of cool air, holding the back of my damp tee-shirt open with both hands, and I got one of those rays of pain that makes you see spots, but was able to grab the metal mullion to keep from falling, and everything was fine, the spasm passed. Healing is a painful process. I'm doing a minimal installation in the Men's Room tomorrow. A simple label at eye-level, that reads: "If I catch you throwing chewing gum into the urinal, I will kill you." People are so stupid it mystifies me. Tuna in oil is so much more flavorful than tuna in water. I had a salad of bitter greens with a can, and a sprinkle of really bright white balsamic vinegar. Taste is a relative thing.