  Next weekend, it's the infamous urlLink Sleazefest here in the Chapel Hill/Carrboro area. Bands at Local 506, The Sports Bar, and The Cave--all within walking distance of each other. It's a good time to listen to some sleazy rock music and hang out with some sleazy characters. Maybe urlLink Mike Wallace will be there. He's a rowdy old guy. urlLink This is a little on the rowdy side, too. Way to market, Hershey's. You know what's not rowdy? My back. Well, wait. One might consider my back and it's ruptured disk to be rowdy because it's always acting up, but it makes me hobble along like a troll--which isn't rowdy.
Not Hot Fun in the Summertime, Just More Beth Complaints Quick recap for the uninitiated (which can only apply to a few people, I bitch about this so much). I ruptured a disk four years ago. Ruptured it good. Had surgery. That sucked donkey. I ruptured it again a little over two years ago. No surgery this time because the rupture wasn't as bad and I don't have insurance. I just get to deal with it and try crap like physical therapy which has its limits and which I'm not diligent about anyway--I know, I know. If I were diligent about it the problem might go away. But I still need professional assistance here and I can't afford it on the ongoing basis the situation merits. And lovely old Blue Cross/Blue Shield said they'd insure me for a mere $1400 a month, thanks to pre-existing conditions--and they still wouldn't cover anything involving my back for a year. *blink* If I could afford $1400 a month I could afford to pay my own doctor bills. So anyway, my back is like a senile old person.
Has its good days and its bad days. Yesterday was exceptionally bad. I chalk it up to my back being spunky and out for a little mean-spirited fun at my expense rather than the fact that I overdid it at the gym yesterday and failed to stop what I was doing when I felt a wrong pain rather than a right pain. This lead to me needing a cane to get up from the couch last night. And having breathtakingly painful spasms when I coughed.
Handfuls of aspirin and too much booze are the only things that make it stop hurting. Not good, but fun. Now, my knees are going (no BJ jokes please) and my stupid ankles seem to be rolling out more and more, making me walk even more on the sides of my feet, which is pretty uncomfortable/sometimes painful. I've always walked weird--I remember it from childhood--my stupid brother used to tease me about it.
But it's getting worse and worse and causing more and more trouble as I get older. I know all the back/foot/knee stuff is connected. Must speak with a trainer at the gym today. I will, no doubt, be crippled one day. How sexy am I? Time to go Googling for advice/exercises. 
