So refreshing…

Chronic pain is the absolute worst.

I couldn’t get in to see the only massage therapist I even trust to work on me anymore, because she’s so good she’s usually booked 3 weeks in advance, so I went to community acupuncture, which is something I do about once every other year. The Man has had great success with it for his neurological headaches, which no other treatment can even touch, but somehow it’s only very moderately useful for me. Sometimes it causes extreme, electrical pain, which is not good in a community setting because it’s unfair to other people if I’m screaming in the quiet room. When the needles go in all right, I can only keep them in for about 15 minutes before my muscles start to spasm. The relief is usually temporary–in this case, it lasted about an hour.

Apparently he released something else inside of me because about halfway through the treatment I was overcome with a tidal wave of sorrow–something about the generic Chinese-sounding new age music they play struck me as inconsolably sad–and tears began to stream down my face.

That part actually was OK.

I managed to get about half the office cleaned today but made no progress on the comic even though it’s a really simple, one-panel comic that I should have been able to draw in an hour. I spent an hour last night trying to write one word (part of the image rather than the text) and erasing it over and over because it didn’t look right. I suspect the template is too small, as I’ve had trouble getting word bubbles to look legible in the one-panels in the past.

Chronic pain also makes me stupid. Like, when I talk the wrong words come out of my mouth. I was trying to tell the acupuncturist about my disc problem and I said, “It’s between L4 and L5,” when obviously, based on the location of the pain, I meant “C4 and C5.” He knew what I meant, but it was bizarre that my mouth referenced a completely different part of my body than what my brain wanted to discuss. Later, talking about arranging my office, I said “shelves” when I wanted “drawers.”

I am still beating The Man in Words with Friends, though.

He just remembered that we own a TENS unit, which is a thing we both tend to forget until we’re incapacitated. It provides a good measure of relief. Maybe I can get the comic started. I think it’s a good gag; I described it to The Man and he laughed, even though he was trying not to because he doesn’t like to admit that I’m pretty funny. He likes to be the funny one. But there can be room for 2 comedians in a marriage: George and Gracie, Lucy and Desi. Of course, the woman is usually the funnier one…

Lame blog post. I usually don’t talk about chronic pain but sometimes that’s all there is.

As for this mandala, it would make a pretty cool T-shirt.