+, -

- My back is killing me today. Between my shoulders, along about (I seem to recall from earlier learnings) the fourth or fifth thoracic vertebrae. I do not know what can have caused this -- it didn't hurt when I got up this morning or in fact until I'd been at work for a couple of hours, and I haven't been any more hunched over my desk today than I am any other day, so what gives? -- but it hurts like hell. I've been trying to sit so my shoulders touch the back of my chair and my neck isn't lurched forward like a Neanderthal's. It feels better to sit like this, but there's not a lot of work I can do from there, and when I move it hurts again. Soon I will give up and go home and lie down with a heating pad.

+ YOU GUYS. My seasonal allergies may be cured. No, okay, not cured, but listen, I've been hearing for weeks and weeks how this is like the worst allergy season the area has ever seen, and watching my friends whose allergies are not as bad as mine wish they could just die and get it overwith, and aside from the week or so when the cherries were flowering and I was absolutely miserable (note: it is not the cherries that make anyone miserable, I know, but I don't know what it is that flowers at the same time but isn't pretty and must therefore get its pollen around using wind, which doesn't care about pretty blossoms), I've been really 95% fine. The oak pollen is still out (grr) and my eyes burn a little toward the end of the day, but I really haven't been sneezing or stuffed up or itchy or anything that I'm used to being in the spring. There have been years the pollen in the air made my skin itch. This year I've been fine. It seems that all the months and years of allergy shots have accomplished something and I've turned a corner. It's kind of freaking me out. (Your cats will still kill me, though, so I don't have to rethink my identity or anything like that.)

good afternoon, good evening ...

So I left work around 3:30 because my back was hurting enough that I couldn't really focus; cashed a couple of leave hours and I'll be much better for it tomorrow. I was on my way to wordplay's to pick up a couple of books she's lending me (and some Merlin she's giving me, yay!), when the phone rang: Costco, telling me my contacts are in.

I should pause here to note that I had the optometrist fax the prescription to Costco on Saturday morning right after my appointment, having just called the Costco people to get the fax number, so they knew it was coming right away because they heard me reading the numbers off to the optometrist people. They don't keep my brand in stock, so they always have to be ordered; I knew it would be a couple of days. But yesterday was Wednesday and I still hadn't heard that the order had come in, so I called them -- and they reminded me that orders have to be prepaid, and they don't keep credit card information in their file, so although they had my prescription, I hadn't actually ordered any contacts. Ack! My own fault, I admit, so I had them order it right away, and the ETA was Friday or Monday at the latest ... and I had five pairs of contacts left, which would get me to Monday exactly, assuming I could get to the Costco on the way back into town on Monday, which was by no means a sure thing. So I was really hoping for Friday -- and then they came in today. Well done Costco!

But I was already on the Beltway, and the traffic was SUCKING, because it's Thursday before a three-day weekend, so everyone was getting out of town now to make it a four-day weekend, UGH. But I couldn't face getting all the way home and then going back out again to get all the way back there ... so I got off at the next exit and doubled back, calling wordplay to consult about the best cross street on the way. Went to Costco, got my contacts and some cereal and mangos, and fought my way back to her place without going anywhere near the Beltway, because there was no way I was doing the same stretch of it again. Ugh.

And just as I pulled up to the house, my phone rang. It was my father's eldest cousin, a lovely woman who lives in Baltimore and has officially and well and truly got her yenta on, as she was calling to ask me if I'd like to hear from a nice young man whose mother she knows. She can't remember the guy's name, or whether he lives in Washington or New York, but the mother says the son is single and wouldn't it be nice if he met someone and she immediately thought of me, and I'll tell you what, there is not a single stereotype anywhere that got to be that way without at least once being actually observed, amiright? [sigh]

So then I had a lovely visit with wordplay and chromodynamics and even saw the kids a bit, and finally managed to drag myself away from their comfy sofa and drag myself home. I am going to think about dinner, and I might even eat some, and then put some heat on the back of my neck and stare at the television for a bit. My afternoon of relaxing to make my back stop hurting hasn't gone quite as I'd planned, but like I said the other day, things that start rough and end better are vastly preferable to the other kind. :-)