You win this time, gravity

Well, less gravity than genetic disposition to a prolapsed disk at L4-L5.

On Wednesday last I felt a ‘ping’ in my back, followed by a ‘twang’ … sure signs that I’ve not been stretching enough and have been wearing high heels too many days in a row … and sure as eggs by Thursday morning (in spite of a lot of stretching on Wednesday night, which, yes, counts as closing the stable door after the horse has bolted) my lower back was no longer speaking to me … and the upper back had gone out in sympathy with the lower back in protest at my neglect.

To wit: I have been in bed for almost 3 days now and I am bored out of my gourd. Oh, I’ve been writing and reading (Nemesis the Warlock graphic novels, volumes 1 & 2; Karen Joy Fowler’s The Jane Austen Book Club; Veniss Underground by the VanderMeer) … and watching eps of Big Bang Theory (for the provision of which I am eternally grateful to The Old Man of the Mountains – even if that sentence is ungrammatical in the extreme). I shuffle out to the kitchen on occasion, stock up on choclit, hotcross buns and coffee to help the painkillers do their duty, and shuffle back to my nest. If I order pizza again, I think the delivery guy is going to think I’m coming onto him.

And so a list of things that a bad back renders difficult:

1. Underpants – or indeed the application of any kind of lower body covering. A lot of slithering is required and I suspect there may be some serpent in my DNA.

2. Picking things up off the floor – to this end, almost all of my possessions are now perched on things that are waist-high, including my shoes.

3. Getting into the hot, relaxing epsom salts bath.

4. Getting out of the hot, relaxing epsom salts bath.

5. Shaving one’s legs.

6. The application of shoes.

The upside? I get to stay in bed! The issue is that it’s enforced upon me … and like all children the moment my choice is taken away, I get fractious … so what might otherwise appear to be a kind of Nerdvana (a horizontal Easter with internetz, pizza and choclit) is now … well, it’s like being sent to my room … by God.

And this is my view: