clothespin

Part of the reason I never write here is that I feel this pressure to be interesting, which my fellow bloggers on this site seem to be so good at, but I never pull off on a consistent basis. So I had this idea; why not write about something I know will be boring, something I know no one will want to read? That just takes the pressure off the whole thing.

So here's the deal; I'm reinventing this blog (for at least another day--we'll see how long it lasts) as a record of my body. I arrived at this idea while stretching my back today, and I remembered something my sister told me about--a poem she heard read aloud or a performance piece in which the author said, over and over again, well beyond audience tolerance, "My pain. My pain. My pain. My pain my pain my pain my pain my pain." It was supposed to be a funny and ironic comment on writers' solipcism, but it became, well, painful.

That's my goal. Or at least, I'm pretty sure that's how it will end up. This will be a blog of pain. My physical pain that I have every day. And the occasional lack of pain. Don't you want to read more?

I also am really into collecting data on my body right now (I've been charting my menstrual cycle religiously), and this will provide another sort of record. I'm sure I'll think of other bodily things to talk about as well, but there's a limit to what I'll write that my students, professors, and colleagues have immediate access to. The rest will just have to go into my dissertation.

Here goes:

I never really recovered from the massage I got a couple weeks ago. After it, I could sit and stand up straighter than I have in years, but it also hurt a lot. My theory is that my muscles are not used to good posture, and it will take a while to retrain them. But when, when? The space between my should-blades aches and pinches. My collarbone feels like it’s being bent back into shape or stretching out, feels strained where it connects to my shoulders. (I have no idea about the anatomy there; I'll look it up when I feel the next urge to procrastinate.) I feel like I don’t know how to sit and stand and do the things I used to know how to do.

The problem is exacerbated by sitting in the computer lab for 30 hours a week, my TA appointment this quarter.

My mid-right back also hurts still from when I strained it while painting the bathroom last week. Talk about rebirth: the bathroom is so lovely now, a sort of taupe instead of headache-inspiring blue.

Knees are crabby this week, I think due to the weather, which has been alternating rain and shine by the hour. It’s also 70 degrees today, about a 20 degree jump from yesterday.

Tune in (or not) for tomorrow’s installment of...I’ll let you fill in the blank.

I wonder how much being hydrated has to do with how much pain I feel. Yesterday after a big gulp of water my back felt much better and has continued to feel so through most of today (the heat-pad before bed helps too). I致e been pretty good about keeping my Nalgene replenished lately, so perhaps that痴 not it; that same moment might have coincided with a change in barometric pressure.

I chatted with a friend the other day about getting off the pill, comparing notes. She said she壇 heard a roaring in her ears since stopping. Her doc said it had to do with fluid in head or something, which might make if it has to do with fluid retention. I致e been a bit bloated myself since taking that last little disc. Talk of fluids also makes me think about PMS clumsiness. (I知 even more clumsy than usual then, and I致e heard of others having the same problem. My female boss at a deli first diagnosed this when I dropped a tray of glasses about a month after I cut my finger on a meat slicer.) Fluid in the ears has to do with balance, right? So perhaps when you retain water when you池e PMSing, it affects fluid levels in your ears as well.

Please do not place any sort of faith in my crackpot pseudo-scientific theories about how the body works. These are stories I make up to placate the constant roar of 努hy why why� in my ears.