tomorrow

Going to the rehab center to start getting my back into order. This is the problem I apparently contracted from spending too much time bent over this laptop on a short desk. It’s only mildly painful, but the main problem with it is that I can’t really run in this condition. Not that I do a lot of running anymore, but a bit of sports is a nice part of the mix in a happy life, and I doubt I could play anything right now.

If the first rehab session is any indication, the next eight weeks may hurt a bit. The therapist (who used to study Schelling in Germany, oddly enough) did some fairly painful things while pulling and twisting my legs last time, but it was worth it– I already felt better, just from that one time.

The one thing that sort of bothers me is that the route to get to the center involves walking past a vacant lot where two mean stray dogs live, and they look just like the one that bit me last summer. These stray dogs in Cairo don’t seem to like me; perhaps they smell evil spirits of some kind near my soul. Last time they followed me and barked softly even though I hadn’t even looked at them once. Yet they totally ignored the Egyptian guy who came up right after me.

Also tomorrow, the 28th anniversary of a terrible childhood accident that took the lives of two friends, one of them a very close friend. I suppose there’s no way to get through life without a few days that bad, but it’s a day I wish I could erase, and it’s a date as deeply etched in memory as my own birthdate. Whenever I meet people from Iowa, especially those of around my age, they all remember reading and hearing about it. I don’t think about it much anymore except as the anniversary approaches, but it has lost little of its unpleasantness with the passage of time.