Last night I was at school until nearly 9:30pm for “8th grade parents’ orientation”, and by the end of the night my back was throbbing so much I could not bend at all! I knew I had to stay home from school today–something which I rarely do!–to ice it, rest it, walk as much as possible, and hope it recovers enough so that tomorrow I can stay at school until 10:30pm for an Asian Club dance!

I should not complain about my back. Yeah, it “goes out” periodically, maybe once a year, but since I am VERY faithful to my morning stretching and going to the YMCA whenever school permits, it is rarely as bad as it is this time. I know I do need to change my attitude though. I am too much a “Type A” person who takes EVERYTHING seriously and lets stress affect me a lot more than it should. Laid-back people don’t suffer from bad backs as much.

But I don’t have any serious disabilities, and after 55 years that’s a pretty good situation, so I should just shrug off the back, relax a bit more emotionally than I do, and enjoy life! Otherwise I’ll soon find myself really old, my body much worse off than it is, and I will have wasted the pleasure of all the good years without even realizing they were slipping away!

CURRENTLY READING: Jack Vance’s THE STAR KING, first of his “Demon Princes” series. It is great fun, one of his typical wondrous mysteries, and I feel a little bit guilty reading so many “fun” stories consecutively. ☺

CURRENTLY LISTENING: David Bowie’s boxed-set SOUND AND VISION. Bowie is definitely one of the finest and most innovative rock artists, but because he changes his style so frequently and experiments so much, he does not have as large a faithful audience as many artists who mine one smaller area of rock regularly. I’m upset though since my boxed-set was released a decade ago and is only 3 disks. Recently Bowie updated it to a fourth disk covering the past decade, but I cannot afford to buy an entire boxed set for 1 disk! They should allow current owners to update and buy the missing disk!