INTERNAL SCREAMING

I have been struggling with shoulder and back pain for some time, so yesterday I finally decided, "enough is enough," and took the time to drive into town for a massage. Nowadays, the stress of dealing with the increased urban traffic almost negates the benefit of massage therapy, but need was becoming dire.

The massage was less than relaxing due to the deep tissue pressure applied to tense muscles. I drank a lot of water to help re-hydrate afterward. Assertions it helps flush out lactic acid or other "toxins" released by massage appear to be unfounded, but it seems to help recovery nonetheless. I also took a hot shower after I got home.

Unfortunately, recovery from such long-term tension is not immediate, and today's shift at the library was complicated by constant soreness. My internal voice was fluctuating between moan and howl the whole time, but I think I managed to keep myself mostly calm and collected on the outside. I definitely felt myself struggling to focus, though, especially when there was a lot of auditory input and new problems to solve.

And there were plenty of problems. Today has been one of those days.

On top of waking up sore everywhere, there were sounds of power tools. Then my rig wouldn't start, because something drained the battery overnight. I was breaking in a new pair of boots, so my feet were unhappy. We're also training a new librarian, so there were lots of questions about basic library stuff, but on top of that, there were oddities cropping up with unusual frequency in our computer system.

I do have some good news amidst the gloom, though. While in town for that massage and those much-needed new boots, I also stopped in at the local game shop to trade in a foil full-art land card from Magic: The Gathering that I've had in my collection for a few years. Store credit means more Magic card packs, and I'll be opening them in the near future. Should I make one big post, or bait the folks using auto-voting with a new post per pack every few days?