Thursday is gorgeous. It is in the sixties, bright sunshine, clear
blue sky - the kind of day that makes hooky sound tempting. I decide when I get home from work, alas - I
did not play hooky - to take a long walk, maybe even try running.
Before I even embark on the tale, let me
file two disclaimers: #1 I recently had another bout of pneumonia and I am
starting to think my lungs cannot continue to recover fully from having the
same infection so often, and #2 my butt muscle still hurts from when I pulled
it running uphill through a thunderstorm at Salem State in August. Swear to gawd, it really does, especially
when I'm driving. Every morning when I
get to work, I try to get out of the car and my left butt-cheek at the top of
my thigh hurts like it has a searing hot knife running through it. I have decided that work gives me a pain in
my ass.
I start walking, circumventing the gas
station so I don't get distracted by Gas Station Attendant Man waving to me and
saying, "How are you, my dear" as I plod on by in my spandex. I walk around, down the street, behind
stores, across the park, and find myself at the track. Let me be perfectly honest, I assumed there
would be junior football practice or soccer or field hockey or some other after-school
activity that might prevent me from actually being able to use the track. ("Too bad, so sad, no jogging
today!")
There
is no one on the track except a little old Asian woman, who stares at me over
her shoulder with a scary evil eye as if I am a malcontent with intentions of
robbing her or worse. (Maybe she's the
same lady who endlessly ran the track at Moakley Stadium in South Boston all
those years ago during lacrosse games.)
I walk halfway around the track, put my sweatshirt and water bottle
down, and start running. I make it one
full way around the track, lapping Asian Scary Woman in the process, and feel a
slight twinge in my left ass cheek.
I
decide to walk one turn around the track to see if it gets worse. By the time I am back to my water, my thigh
is moaning a little bit, but I am determined to run, so off I go again, another
turn around the track, lapping Asian Scary Lady one more time. I am three-quarters of the way around when I
suddenly feel a ripping sensation, an agonizing pain in my ass. I walk a few steps then finish my run to the
bench, determined not to let any onlookers (the town offices and a school
oversee the track) witness my Jog of Shame.
At
the bench, I grab a swig of water then do some make-believe stretches. Surely this stupid butt muscle crap can't
still be happening. It has been about
seven weeks since the original injury. A
pulled muscle … right? As I am trying to
work through the gripping, twisting, tightening pain, I begin to frightfully
wonder, What if my butt never recovers? What if my thigh muscle is weak forever? Oh my God, I BROKE MY OWN ASS.
I
force myself to walk two and a half more miles, going way beyond where I should
have before turning around to trek home.
I cut back through town, avoiding the frozen yogurt shop where some of
my students might see me (seeing me is scary enough; seeing me in spandex could
leave permanent scars on them), and checking out shop windows to see possible
dresses for the weddings I have next fall (yes, I admit it, I actually liked
the draped dress in the window, the one with the crystallized top like a shiny
and torturous modernistic breast plate).
By the time I begin the descent that leads to my street, my damn gluteus
maximus is in paineus maximus.
I limp to the house, start gathering
laundry (my next big adventure), and crawl into the shower … when … the phone
rings. That's right, the old Let's Wait Until She's Covered With Soap,
Shampoo, and Water Before Placing That Call
trick. Walking home I saw the
medevac helicopter on a low flight in the direction of the nearest
hospital. It flew over me on its way to
Boston when I was standing in front of the house, and judging by the height of
my landlord's home, I can honestly say that the helicopter was maybe one
hundred feet over my head. So when the
phone rings and I am covered with soap, my mind goes right to the medevac and
to my kids and to The Dark Place.
I rapidly shut off the water, jump out of
the tub, wipe my hands on a towel, and grab the phone. "Hello!" I yell into the phone. I am greeted with silence. After about ten seconds, why I am still
holding the line open I've no idea, I hear, "Hi, this is Ben from the
Epilepsy Foundation ---" My finger
slips across the button, but it hits its mark.
CLICK. Is he even kidding me right now? There is conditioner in my eyes, the shower
curtain is flying all over the place, and there are soap bubbles all over my
cordless phone.
A few minutes later, I am clean, dry, and
my ass cheek is still screaming at me, but I convince myself this is what exercise is all about; this is progress! I eat pasta and drink milk and think healthy
thoughts of how great my ass cheek will look if it ever, ever stops
throbbing. I continue with this delusion
for about, oh, sixty seconds (okay, I go about three hours) before heading to
the bathroom in search of drugs. Four
hundred plus milligrams of Naproxen later, I decide that the only way I'm going
to feel any better is with a frozen pomegranate acai margarita.
Exercise for the body is a wonderful thing,
and suffering for health is truly noble, but the way I figure it is that Man
created self-medication for a reason and God created pomegranates, so there
must be something to it. Besides, all
this thinking is getting to me. Quite
frankly, it's a pain in my ass.
