I wish I knew what I did last night that made me wake up with such a stiff neck. Goddang. I could barely turn my head to check my blind spot while driving to work this morning; by lunch, my neck muscles were sore from holding my head up. They felt almost sprained, I swear. I took a couple Excedrin QuickTabs from Scott, my cube-mate… nasty, nasty stuff, and they have 65mg of caffeine, but they seem to work. Not only did my neck muscles get just a touch less painful, but I also got quite wired and talkative and happy and smiley. Damn… oughta caffeinate myself more often. As Aaron and I said last weekend: with our abstinance from caffeine and sugar of late, we’re really cheap dates. 🙂
Anyway, when I came home, I took Aaron’s advice and spent some quality time on the couch with Harry Potter and a heating pad. My neck’s feeling better now, just a little tense—hopefully I don’t do whatever I did last night while I’m asleep tonight. Sheesh.
In other news, my middle-school friend Carolyn had her first child last week! The new baby pics almost got deleted in my Gmail spam folder, but I recognized one of the e-mails as being from Carrie’s mom, Candy, and marked it as Not Spam. Glad I rescued that one.
You know, I haven’t seen Carrie for years, and we’ve had a weird relationship at times (we’ve both got warped senses of humor that don’t always jive with each other); but for some reason, I’m happier for her than I’ve been for any new parent I can think of offhand. I’m not rejecting the emotion—I’m just perplexed by my reaction, given the years and miles between.
later: On the same day as Carolyn’s baby shower in West Salem (aka BFE), there’s a Pietasters concert at the Grog Shop in Cleveland. If we were to do both, which would require me dragging Aaron out to a girlie-giggles baby open-house in the middle of nowhere where he knows literally no one but me, it would be:
2 hours from Toledo to West Salem
Open House at Carrie’s from 2pm to 5pm
(likely arriving closer to 3:30 or 4pm)
1 hour to Cleveland Heights
(with dinner somewhere en route)
Doors at 9pm at the Grog Shop – three opening bands before the Pietasters even go on
2 hours from Cleveland Heights home to Toledo
But part of me really wants to do that, despite the fact that Aaron’s not too keen on the NE Ohio BFE area, having seen part of it once before and having been bored out of his freaking skull. But I’d love to see Burbank again, the half-mile-square village where I spent my junior high years. It’s not much… at all… but I’m curious if the tenants of our old house have dug up Mom’s lavender after 15 years. They hadn’t the last time Mom and I happened to drive by, when I was in college.
Just the thought of getting off at Exit 204 off I-71… seeing how they’ve straightened out the S-curve into town that used to scare the living shit out of everyone who gave me and my Mom a ride home… seeing how the town has (or hasn’t) grown… whether the old Variety Store is still there (restaurant, bar, grocery, video store, and library, all in one)… driving past the city park… Then driving further north up I-71 through Medina… It’s really giving me the weirdest sense of nostalgia. Kind of happy, kind of depressed. Kind of anxious to see, kind of anxious to avoid the experience.
Again, I don’t understand my reaction here.