back in the saddle again

by mg at 11:51 AM on August 29, 2001

The world looks very different from where I am. That is to say, the floor.

Yep, five days after I did whatever it was I did to hurt my back, and I’m still spending the majority of my time flat on my back.

I’ve spent several other long periods of time lying on my back before, but mostly, those times involved being naked and sweaty and having someone naked and sweaty lying on top of me while rhythmically grinding their hips into mine. At those times, looking up at the world around me wasn’t the thing running foremost through mind.

But, when you’re lying on the floor for five straight days, with pain shooting through your back with even the slightest motion, you begin looking for things to do to occupy your time. You begin to think about important things, and you start to ask yourself important questions about your life. Like staring at your living room ceiling and wondering whether it is time to repaint.

There are, however, other, more amazing changes to the way you look at the world from the floor. There are so many things you’d never notice when your eye level is the same as everyone else’s ankle level.

Like, if you’ve got a hardwood floor no matter how often you sweep, it still looks dirty. And then noticing how chunky a hardwood floor gets after a couple days, imagining how disgusting a carpeted floor gets if you don’t vacuum constantly. If my apartment was carpeted I’d be using my Hoover and sucking so much my friends would call me Big Brother 2.

When you are living life below the belt, you notice other things as well, like how Amanda needs to do a better job shaving her legs. Sure, it is shallow of me to care that my roommate (not ready to call her girlfriend yet) has hairy legs. I mean, I know body hair is a natural thing. It’s just that if you are going to shave, you should do a good job. There shouldn’t be alternating patches of hair and bare skin, unless you’re Dennis Rodman and are getting ready for another run in the NBA.

You know how all those medical companies say you shouldn’t take more than X pills in N hours? The Advil people, for example, say that you shouldn’t take more than six in a period of twenty-four hours. Well, I’ve always paid attention to those rules, because I thought I’d turn purple or something if I didn’t. But, I’ve discovered that they are a bunch of bald-faced liars. I’m not sure why the Advil bottle says that, since nothing bad happened to me since I’ve been taking two or three (or nine) extra ones for the past couple days.

And, since we are on the topic of pharmaceuticals, I’ve discovered that in some cases, Icy Hot is neither icy enough nor hot enough for some kinds of pain.

I’ve also learned some money saving tips. For example, if you sleep on an ice pack, it’ll keep you cool enough so that you don’t have to turn on the air conditioning, even if the heat index has swelled up to three digits. Unfortunately, you begin to lose all feeling in your back, which would be a good thing, unless you happen to accidentally lie on top of something pointy, which you won’t even notice for three hours after you’ve woken up when all the tiny blood vessels in your back unfreeze.

Ugh. I need to go lie down again. All this sitting has sure tired me out.