Every year for Thanksgiving, I travel all the way up to Humboldt County (700 miles) to have Turkey Dinner with my son’s mother. She and I have been good friends over the years since the birth of the Golden Child, even though we were not living together when raising him. Turns out, having two very good, stable, consistent residences in which the parents try to mirror each other’s policies and bed times is good for a child. My boy, as you know, is about to get his Ph.D in Aerospace Engineering at Michigan University.
So I’ve been making this drive for years. This year I rented a Kia which was a little bigger than the Little Black Pony (Kia Rio) I normally drive.
Don’t know how it happened, but when I came home from the 11 1/2 hour trip from Humboldt to Barstow, I went to bed with a little stinger in my hip and woke up with a full-blown bad back.
I mean, the kind of bad back where it’s almost impossible to stand upright.
The kind that makes you feel like someone is taking a chainsaw to your torso and cutting you in half.
The kind of bad back that makes you walk like an old man because you’re slow and you’re limping and you shuffle.
Okay, I’m 65 as of two weeks ago. But come on.
I have two girlfriends with bad backs. (Both are ex-girlfriends, I should say). I am happy to say that I never made fun of their back issues, nor did I ever insist on lovin’ when they said their backs hurt. I say this to let you know that it is not Karma who is taking the chainsaw to my back.
I think this is temporary. Already, four days in, the pain is lessening. I can actually stand up in the morning without feeling like my body’s about to split in two.
What effect on the writing has this had? None. I finished Nano on Sunday by writing 4000 words to get to 50,000. I did another 2000 last night and will put at least another 1000 in tonight.
Because, bad back or not, I am a writer, dammit. You can canonize me later.
Mark Bruce, Writer 