Back again...

That amazing philosopher packaged in the humble guise of baseball catcher, and later manager, Yogi Berra, was famous for his malapropisms. One of my favorites is, "It's deja vu all over again." Whenever I hear the phrase (with which I've titled this post) "back again", I'm given pause, like I am whenever I encounter one of Berra's Bloopers, because it seems to me that if you have returned somewhere, you are "back", and you are also there "again", so wouldn't it be sufficient to say, simply, "Back?" or "Again?" Now that I've clarified my awareness of the dubious doubling up of similar meanings to embrace a single event, I am now free to tell you, that's not what I meant.

No, indeed, I really mean, "back again!" Last week, my lower back was a little sore. I have a recurring problem which made a profound onset after a five-vehicle pile-up on July 12, 1993, in which we were unpleasantly engaged as vehicle number 2 -- a date which will live in infamy; at least it will in our household. It's nothing unusual for me to have back pain, and sometimes of debilitating severity. By last Friday I could barely get myself out of bed, and getting up was probably the most painful part of the process -- walking the second most painful, but not very far behind -- and doing anything else at all a very close third.

Friday I didn't go to work. Sunday I didn't go to church. Monday was, thankfully, a holiday. By Tuesday I felt better and went to work. As the day went on, I even seemed to feel better every hour. Wednesday I felt pretty good, until... and "untils" are important when it involves pain... about 30 minutes after my afternoon students left. I was sitting in my chair at my desk innocently reading the introduction in a paperback of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (my favorite Shakespearean play, by the way), and when I got up to go fetch my lunch from the refrigerator of a neighboring office, I began to hurt again. By the time my night class was over, I was miserable. Wednesday night -- pain! Even rolling over in the bed was excruciating. Thursday morning -- more pain! And that on the tail end of a very restless night. I went to work today, but I was in misery the whole time.

After I got home from work this evening, I went to bed and read for a while. I decided to get up and eat a little something so I could take my medications (for physical stuff, not mental, lest you should get a wrong impression...even though I could probably do with something for mental stuff at this point), and getting up was its most painful yet. I've been listening to some of my podcasts, checking e-mail and some blogs, and otherwise sitting here hurting like hades. I guess I'll make a Friday trip to the doctor (not that that usually helps) who will bless me by separating me from a portion of my filthy lucre (that's cash, for those of you of a non-Biblically literate persuasion). We'll see afterwards which hurts worse.