I’m a huge fan of the human body. It’s one of the coolest things there is. If you spend too long with your head turned sideways looking at the screen for the machine you’re installing Linux onto, you strain a muscle in your neck. And when you go to bed, the muscle starts healing itself, which means you wake up the next morning unable to support the weight of your head.

And then, over the next few days, your neck heals itself over time, until you can support your head, and then you get back your range of motion, and then the pain is just a dull ache in your shoulder, and then it goes away.

And then you begin to pay attention to your posture, because you’re grateful to have a posture to pay attention to.

I haven’t quite gotten the full range of motion, but the pain is a dull ache. No panicky tensing of muscles today. Every time I stretch my shoulders, the left one pops and crackles like faraway fireworks.

I can feel the real culprit: A tiny muscle connecting my skull to a vertebra about midway up my neck. It feels like it was replaced with steel cable, and is tender to the touch. Ok, maybe not steel. But still.

In other news, my psoas has decided to give up the limelight to the neck muscles. Why try to garner all the attention? it asks. It’s given up trying, and this makes me happy. No doubt it took this attitude because I haven’t been sitting at the computer all day for the past few days.

Anyway. The body. It’s cool.

A running total of the cost of the Iraq war, with handy comparisons of what else could have been done with the money.

Update: Neck much better. Still in S-formation, however. Thanks for the good wishes.

Part of the reason I go on road trips is to kick my mind out of it’s grooves. I’ve been back for a couple weeks, and I’m back in the grooves. It’s simultaneously reassuring and regretful.

I’m back into feeling as though I’ll never find a way to balance the grooves with the freedom. How much of my desire to be relevant to the world do I have to give up? I want to be out there working, in terms of job or activism or both, but the fear… Not just the fear of success or failure, but just the raw panicky fear of leaving the safe groove of my existence, atop the raw panicky fear of social navigation.

But the feeling is that I have to give up that challenge, because it’s just too much. I’m autistic; should I even believe that I’m capable of the things I want?

Yesterday I got sick of sitting around the house, so I popped an extra ibuprofen and went to get fish and chips (Spud’s, Juanita bay).

Here’s the conscious-mind version of what happened when I got there: Walked in, only customer. Got ‘the look’ from the gang of 18-19 year old kids behind the counter (I was wearing shorts, a bright orange t-shirt, the wool flannel shirt in my profile pic, and hiking boots, and I was bent up and unable to turn my head). One of them singled himself out to take my order. I ordered with as few words as possible. He took my money. I sat down and they all started talking about bad movies they’d seen. I waited for my food, largely by staring out the window at the passing traffic. Food came, ate it, left immediately.

Here’s the unconscious version of what happened: Encountered a terrifying group of exuberant young men who judged me immediately and would have ignored me except it was their job to serve me food. After giving my order and sitting down, I stared out the window to avoid accidental eye contact. They started talking about movies; I fought the urge to blurt about bad movies I had seen, even though bad movies used to be a prevarication, since it would lead to a Lead Balloon Scenario. Finally got the food, sat at the table eating, trying to digest, stomach in knots. Left quickly.

This is not an unusual scenario for me. Who fucking cares what the little boys think? Why should I? And yet I’m compelled to, because, by default, in my mind, I’m lower on the social heirarchy than college kids at a fish and chip joint.

It’s hard to think you can be at all valuable when you’re stuck there.

And I don’t want this to be all boo-hoo, Homer’s feeling sorry for himself. It’s more like Homer Hates God For Being A Motherfucker, But Must Try To Do Things Anyway. Job was a shill, a sucker, a mark. If Job were around here, I’d punch him in the belly for being a dumbass.

Faith and hope: The eternal burdens.