So, at some point just before or after I got sick, I threw my back out. I have a vague idea of how I managed to do it; I started taking these new fitness classes a couple weeks ago, and as I do with most things, I approached them with far more enthusiasm than good judgement.
And when it comes to athletic prowess...well, I don't have any. So this was a particularly dangerous combination. Heretofore I had merely suffered some sore quads, angry calves, throbbing abs, etc. Only enough pain to assure me my efforts were working and I would soon have Gwen Stefani's physique.
Alas, I may have overdone it in that last class with the leg lifts and the stretchy bands.
The Russian lover will laugh (maybe cry or scream) at the notion of me admitting that I "may have overdone" something. This confession is not unusual from me, and it usually precedes some additional declaration of fail. Such as: I'm coughing up green bio-hazard now, or: I'm unable to put on my own pants.
And he's right to be frustrated, because on this point I don't seem to learn from my mistakes. I repeat them with the tenacity of someone who wants to excel at poor decision-making. I appreciate that I'm too intelligent to try picking up heavy things just as my lower back hints it might be on the mend. And then the part of my brain that did not get an A in calculus says, "But the heavy thing, it must be picked up!"
And so here we are with little discernible progress and substantially more chagrin.
No matter how much I promise myself that I WILL be sensible, I WILL, I have an undeniable inclination to flout good sense. Not wanting to be overly self-indulgent, I push myself past all point of making any point. And then, suffering the unnecessarily inflated consequences, I become self-indulgent. And loathing that self-indulgence, I too soon push myself...and, you see the cycle.
I thought the Russian lover was insane --INSANE-- to suggest I take more than one day off of work for the flu last week. But I know, my body knows, that he was right. So why would I never have allowed for that without his insistence? I'm not sure to whom I am trying to prove what; maybe that if I can't get an A in calculus, at least I can get an A in self-flagellation!
Anyway, what's done is done and now my responsibility lies with trying not to do it again. Not not throwing my back out, per se, but not making the masochist's march down the path that inevitably leads to thrown-out backs.
ANYWAY. If I keep this up I'll have to rename the site "She's Keeping a Log of Her Various Maladies." I will try to avoid that.