Let’s say I may have taken this metaphor too far.

Let’s say you were in the habit of running on a daily basis, or at least 4 or 5 times a week. You’d been doing it for a while, so your legs were in good enough shape and your lungs were strong enough to power through several miles or more easily.

Now let’s say that one day, despite stretching and warming up, when you were out running, you pulled something. Badly. Let’s say you’ve hit your mid-30s, and these sorts of things seem to be happening rather spontaneously to a lot of people you know who were supposedly in decent shape. Let’s say you went to the doctor and he told you to rest said muscle. Let’s say four months went by, during which time you were trying desperately to heal your leg. Finally, when you could jog without pain, you began to start your running routine again. Except because you’d been sitting on the couch watching writers’-strike-spawned reruns for four months, you found that your lungs could barely get you down the block. The wheezing! And your legs! Each attempt at running left you exhausted and barely able to crawl out of bed the next morning.

Now let’s say that by “running,” I really mean “writing.” I have just gotten off of the metaphorical couch — well, OK, maybe not that metaphorical — and have been trying to get to work on some essays. Except that rather than my lungs not providing me with enough oxygen or my legs getting tired, by not writing for four months due to spontaneous injury in my forearm that prevented me from using the computer, I am finding that my writing is, well … terrible. My sentences come out choppy. My word order is off, as if I have been speaking another language for the past few months. My spelling, atrocious. Even my typing is not what it was: I see a word in my head but I type gibberish. I skip words completely. Verbs? I am trying to remember some that are not forms of “to be.”

Obviously, returning to writing is just like returning to a running routine that’s been interrupted. It will take practice and daily, habitual work to rebuild my strengths. And maybe coffee. And snacks. Lots of snacks.

Japantown stop

Yesterday after my acupuncture* appointment I couldn’t resist a stroll around Japantown.

It’s one of my favorite places to visit in San Francisco. It’s a small taste of Japan, but enough to fill me with nostalgia over the time I’ve spent there and the friends I have who live there.

It was a perfect spring day yesterday, warm and sunny. The cherry blossoms weren’t out in Japantown, though they are elsewhere in the city, and the plaza outside the collection of restaurants and stores that Japantown consists of still had a wintery feel despite the warmth.

I didn’t stay long, but I did peruse Kinokuniya Bookstore, which I love to do. The store has an impressive collection of books by Japanese, Chinese and Korean writers in English translation. Somehow, I managed not to buy anything.

Before I headed home, I stopped to grab a quick snack at the Japanese grocery — a roll filled with sweet red bean paste. It was light and not-too-sweet, enough to sustain me on the bus ride home.

*In which, unlike last time, I did not get my ear squeezed. Instead: needles in my earlobe, shins, shoulder, arm, and hand.

getting reacquainted

I spent the afternoon sifting through dusty Word documents on my hard drive: my writing. Fiction and non-, old and new, in progress, done, and abandoned.

It’s been a while since I looked at any of it. When I cannot do something that I want to, I am the kind of person who tries to put that wanted, desired thing out of my mind completely. That sounds rather cryptic; what I mean is that because my arm has been injured and I haven’t been able to type much for a few months, I have tried not to think about my writing at all. Thinking about it, my logic went, will only make me more frustrated that I can’t do it.

This was, of course, flawed logic. Thinking about my writing, particularly those pieces that were nascent ideas, that I had started but not finished, would have been a smart thing to do while I was not writing. I would have a jumping-off point now that I’m ready to begin again. I’d like to think I’d have a jumping off point.

My arm is not better, really, but I decided at the beginning of February that even if it wasn’t better by March I would find a way to write again, and to work again. I can’t wait any longer. March is the month. Between acupuncture and a new ergonomic set-up in my home office, I am trying. It’s time. My arm cooperates, or it doesn’t. I do what I can.

And so, today, I read through some of my writing. It feels like a long time ago that I wrote the pieces I read, even though nothing I read was written before June of last year. I re-read the novel I began for NaNoWriMo in November — 50 pages of it — and wondered where it came from. Did I write this? I thought. And then: I wrote 50 pages in less than two weeks? I am having to reconnect with unfinished pieces. (There are so many.) I am having to make a starting point. The plan I made for my writing at the beginning of the year, when what I wanted for myself and for my writing was so, so clear, feels far away and foggy. I feel as though I should start over; that I should make a new plan. Not being able to type with my right arm has made me want to focus my goals more, instead of trying to work on so many things at once. I want to make progress on something, after months of making no progress on much of anything. First I will have to choose a place to begin.

needled

Yesterday I paid good money to have a man I don’t know pinch my right earlobe.

Really. But it’s not as weird as it sounds.

Ok, it’s kind of weird. But: the guy was my new acupuncturist, who I am seeing because of ongoing tendinitis problems with my right arm. I have tried physical therapy, various stretches, exercises and ice packs. I have tried anti-inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxers and Advil. I’ve tried rest. I’ve gotten a new chair for my home office, and a new keyboard tray for a better ergonomic set-up. But my arm has been bothering me still. And that means I have trouble writing — typing is painful. So my doctor recommended acupuncture. I figured, why not?

The reason my new acupuncturist was pinching my right ear had to do with reflexology, he said, and impacting the nerves that go into my arm and hand.

“Instead of in the foot, this reflexology is in the ear,” he said.

I said: “Oh, I see.” But I didn’t, really. It kind of hurt, having my earlobe squeezed.

Anyway, after massaging my shoulder and neck (which have been badly knotted since I injured my arm) we got down to needles, and he popped maybe 10 of them into my back and arm. It pricked, then I felt nothing. Except in my arm, where the injury is. Some of those hurt, in an achy, burning sort of way, which I had to tolerate for 10 minutes or so. My acupuncturist attached electric current to some of the needles, which felt like someone was tapping on my arm. He aimed a heatlamp at my upper body, and because there was a sound machine in the room, playing ocean wave noise, I felt a little like I was at the beach. Except that I had a bunch of needles sticking out of me and between those and the electric current, I couldn’t move my arm at all.

It’s true that I’ve had very high expectations for acupuncture. I’ve had to: If it doesn’t work, what else can I do? But when I left my appointment I felt, well, weird. If you think about it, it’s kind of odd to pay someone to pinch your ear and stick needles in your arm for an hour. It’s weird, at least compared to what I’m used to with doctors’ offices, to go to an office and not sign pages of health documents and I-promise-not-to-sue documents. It’s weird to visit an office where there is no receptionist, no nurse, and no magazines.

Still, I was hopeful when I left. My arm felt a little weak, but otherwise, not too sore. There were little red marks where the needles had been, and I’d been warned that I might bruise. My neck and shoulder felt a lot looser. Promising! By evening though, I was starting to feel differently. My arm hurt, my neck hurt, and my back hurt. They ached, in the way that things ache when you have a fever. I felt stiff, and very, very tired.

“I don’t know about this acupuncture stuff,” I said to Billy.

I slept hard and woke up with a stiff neck and arm. But after moving around a bit, I must admit my arm feels … well, better. It feels good, actually. I can type some without it getting too sore. I drove our stick-shift car around this morning, an activity that of late has been guaranteed to aggravate my arm. My arm is weak, but it’s not hurting as much as it has been. Maybe there’s something to earlobe pinching after all.

Happy Year of the Rat!

Today is Chinese New Year’s Day, which marks the beginning of the Year of the Rat. I was actually born in the Year of the Rat*, so I’m considering this year auspicious.

It has to be.

What I mean is that it has to be better than the past couple of months, and in particular last month. January was a bad month for me. It was a month in which the tendinitis in my arm got worse and not better, which meant no typing, which meant that not only did I turn down freelance work, I didn’t work on any of my own writing projects, and I watched as deadlines for contests, workshops, scholarship applications, etc. passed me by. I have been feeling pretty down about it, and even wondering if I needed to consider finding a new career that didn’t involve a computer. January was a month in which the doctor I was seeing about my arm offered no helpful solutions, and even got angry with me for asking about simple, noninvasive treatment options. January was a month in which I had a persistent toothache that turned out to be a cracked tooth. And at the end of January I got a nasty virus and bacterial infection which landed me on the couch, feverish, watching bad TV for a week. And all the while, it rained. We had nearly 20 rainy days last month, and two Fridays during which we received 3 inches of rain. Each.

You can see why I am eager to move on to February. And a new lunar year. I’m embracing anything that turns the page, so to speak. And so far, so good! (Well, aside from the parking ticket I got today. Ahem.) Today the sun shone! Today I saw a new doctor. I was worried about seeing him, as I’d been warned that though he was a good doctor, he was not friendly, possibly even rude, and rushed through appointments. He had a prickly blowfish in the aquarium in his waiting room that somehow reinforced my dread. But the doctor turned out to be nice enough, and he didn’t rush. He listened. And he gave me prescriptions for drugs I should have been prescribed three months ago. He was all about action and finding a way to get me working and writing again, which is the kind of doctor I have been looking for. He recommended acupuncture, too, and I left his office full of hope about my arm and the possibility that I might actually be able to handle sustained typing again at some point in the not too distant future.

In the mean time, it’s the Year of the Rat. Happy New Year!

* Ahem. People born in the Year of the Rat are (apparently):

noted for their charm and attraction for the opposite sex. They work hard to achieve their goals, acquire possessions, and are likely to be perfectionists. They are basically thrifty with money. Rat people are easily angered and love to gossip. Their ambitions are big, and they are usually very successful. They are most compatible with people born in the years of the Dragon, Monkey, and Ox.

There’s a slightly less rosy view of rats here. Want to know what sign you were born under? Look here.

Voice recognition

I dropped my cellphone in the toilet the other night. After I retrieved it, it flickered briefly and then sputtered to what seemed like a rather unsurprising death. The screen went black, and the keys oozed water when I pressed them. I popped the battery out later and spread the phone in front of a dehumidifier we recently bought because of our warped hardwood floor. Yesterday, when I pressed the “on” button, the keypad lights brightened to a dull blue behind the panel. The phone was not dead, just comatose. I set it on the window sill in bright sun to warm it and dry it out more.

Later, encouraged by the return of the photo of my dog on the screen, I charged the phone. (I backed away even as I plugged it in, visions of my waterlogged phone giving me an electric shock.) Now, all seems to be well with my poor phone. The screen has returned, the buttons work, and I can scroll through my contacts. Except. Except that when I make a call, my phone connects, but I can’t hear anything. And when my phone gets an incoming call, the call registers on the screen, but … nothing. Silence.

In a way the silence is fitting, or at least metaphorical. I’m supposed to be taking a break from writing, which is in itself a kind of silence. Even these few paragraphs are aggravating my arm. My physical therapist has begun kneading at mysterious spots on my neck and shoulder that are knotted tight, the result of favoring my forearm, or perhaps my ill-fitting office chair, or perhaps my posture. It doesn’t matter: I am supposed to take a break. Stop typing. Stop writing. Stop gripping pencils. Except. Except that there are words, piling up in my brain, waiting for their turn, for release, whatever you want to call it. I can last a few days, without writing, and then I want to get them down. I imagine a cartoon: A steep hill, with a brick wall at the end of it, black typeface sliding down as if on sleds, then smack, into the wall, again and again, words upon words upon words, until the screen goes black with all that’s unwritten, piled behind the wall in my head.

I’ll admit to not liking my cell phone. Perhaps it was a subconscious attempt to sabotage the thing, dropping it like that, right into the toilet. I’ll admit that I covet an iPhone. In fact, the first thing I thought (in half-seriousness) when I retrieved my phone from the toilet was, “Maybe it won’t work, and I’ll have to get an iPhone. Darn.” Then I remembered hearing about a friend who’d washed her cell phone with the laundry, and how it came back, after a few days of drying out. I sighed and saw myself laying out the metal pieces on my sunny windowsill. It’ll come back, I thought.

Something about my phone’s silence is pushing at me though, making my forced break from writing unenforcible. I can’t help but notice the parallel silences, however overdramatic that may seem. Billy is away for the weekend, an occasion that would normally have me typing away, no distractions, no interruptions (except the dog, patiently waiting for his walks). Without being able to write I’ve been rattling around the house, wondering what it is that I am supposed to do when I am not writing. It’s not as though I have been exactly diligent about writing for the last few months, but suddenly I am conscious of the choice that isn’t really a choice: I can’t write this afternoon, so I will ____. I’m not going to be writing, so I’ll have time to ___. I made grand plans for my time spent not writing. I tried to prepare myself, to accomplish tasks that normally might prevent me from getting writing done. But instead mostly I sat under a warm sun on the deck with my feet up, drinking coffee, and read Best American Essays 2007, which only made me want to write even more.

When I get frustrated with these typing limits, I start considering my options. I can be patient, I think, just wait, hold out for when my arm regains strength and the inflammation goes away. I might have to wait months to be able to write without my arm flaring up, perhaps longer. I could try to write by hand, I think, but I know that this isn’t a serious option, either, as my arm hurts if I hold a pen to write too much, and besides, I have never been a hand-write sort of writer, anyway. And then there’s voice recognition software, which I have been telling myself steadily that I don’t want to buy. I tell myself that speaking isn’t the same as writing, that there’s something fundamentally different about those two processes. That it won’t be writing if I’m speaking.

I recently read The Echo Maker by Richard Powers, which won the National Book Award for fiction in 2006. I heard an interview with Powers in which he said that he’d used voice recognition software to write the book. He didn’t say why, whether he, too, has tendinitis in his arm, or carpal tunnel syndrome or what, but after reading the book, which is bursting with explorations of consciousness and full of characters who cannot recognize themselves, I suspect him of using the software as an experiment, to see whether the brain writes the same silently as it does out loud. In the interview he says:

Typing and speaking are two completely different neurological activities. … We put a tremendous amount of effort into learning how to compose and type at the same time. It’s a highly artificial interface. It’s like a dog walking on its hind legs.

I have been thinking about the term “voice recognition,” and how as a writing student you are always told to “find” your voice. I’ve been thinking about the “highly artificial interface” that I feel so compelled to participate in, and yet because it’s so artificial, has damaged my arm. I have been thinking about self-recognition, and how Powers’ characters had to recognize each other in order to be able to recognize themselves. I’ve been wondering if there’s a difference between your voice and your self. Or maybe I’ve been wondering whether there’s a difference between a writer’s voice and a writer’s self.

On February 15, new voice recognition software becomes available for Macs. I’m waiting for it. Maybe my arm will be better by then. Maybe not. Today I will go to see what I can do about my cell phone. Probably I will take the cheapest option, a comparable replacement phone, or perhaps repair to my current phone. I just need to be able to make calls, to be able to make my voice heard.

jumpstarted arm

I’m still having a lot of problems with tendinitis in my arm. I was a lot better, but over the past couple of days it got worse again, for a variety of reasons.

My physical therapist showed me a picture from an anatomy textbook today, and basically all of the tendons in my forearm are inflamed, especially just below my elbow. There’s even some inflammation around the nerve there. Today she tried something new: a dose of an anti-inflammatory drug that’s topical. To make sure it gets into the affected area as fast as possible, she used electric current to conduct the drug into my muscles. I had to be grounded (!) and then she attached cables to pads on my arm. The whole set-up looked a lot like what you might use to jumpstart your car, only miniaturized.

I have no idea whether the drug worked, as my arm feels the same, but it was kind of neat. It felt prickly. In any case, I’m taking another computer break, hopefully just for the next couple of days, but possibly into next week.

The rain has finally stopped here, and the sun is out. It’s a good time to get outside.
Have a great weekend!

I can’t write vs. I won’t write.

Somehow it is the end of November. I left my job three weeks ago to get back to my own writing (while freelancing, of course) and since then have been struggling with the limitations of my right arm, which has decided that using a computer is not so comfortable. Instead of finishing a NaNoWriMo novel, like I had planned to be doing right about now, I have been limping through some freelance articles and resting my arm as much as possible. For a while there it hurt to do just about anything with my right hand, including writing with a pen, so I did not. I tried to stay away from the computer over the Thanksgiving holiday and my wrist is a little better — it doesn’t hurt to type anymore. But I feel it if I am at the computer for more than an hour or two, and using the mouse or touchpad is tough. I’m still waiting to get in to see a doctor about it, since the first appointment I could find despite calling several offices, was in mid-December.

And so, for the last three weeks I’ve written almost nothing, and I considered the possibility that I might have seriously damaged my hand/wrist/shoulder with my overuse of my computer, my poor posture, and by using poorly set-up workstations. I have wondered what would happen (I have a vivid imagination and am masterful at what-iffing) if I was told I could not risk using the computer any longer. What would I do if I could not write? A bit maudlin, I know, but I considered this anyway.

I am one of those people who has never quite committed to being anything, careerwise, and am always thinking along the lines of “maybe I’ll become a … proofreader/environmental activist/writer/photographer/translator/entrepreneur/artist/fill in the blank.” But the idea that writing might be taken away from me, however far-fetched that might be (it’s just a temporary injury, no doubt) made me realize that I consider myself to be a writer and editor, at least in some form or another — and that if I was physically unable to work in either of those capacities, I have absolutely no idea what I would do. A scary thought, but also kind of a freeing thought really, because I suppose now I can stop considering what else I could be doing for a career. And also, because not being able to write reminded me how necessary some form of creativity (preferably writing) is to my well-being. (Strange, too, how not being able to write physically felt so different from not being able to write because of time constraints or mental blocks. The first comes down to “I can’t write,” the second, though it’s often hard to admit it, comes down to “I won’t write.”)

The first week of self-imposed wrist rest, my mood sunk. I moped around quite a bit. I was extremely frustrated. I had just left my job. For the first time in nearly six months, I had more time on my hands to write. And I couldn’t.

Since then I’ve been trying to make something every day. I’ve drawn, painted, collaged, photographed, cooked. These things all help. And now, I can write again, at least a little. I feel, even though it’s been just a short time, rusty. My mind is drawn toward the visual, the painting that I started yesterday that sits on the table near my laptop. I’m pulling back to language. I think, I hope I’m getting started again.

Bummer.

I’m having a ton of trouble with my right arm/wrist/hand.

It hurts to type, it hurts to use a mouse, and it just generally hurts. Tendinitis, I think. Too much time on the computer, I’m sure. I’ve been popping Advil and trying to ignore it. I’ve been trying to use my left hand as much as possible.

I have to admit that my strategies aren’t working.

I really want to finish my NaNoWriMo novel. But I’m starting to think that’s not going to happen after all. I wrote about 900 words this morning and it resulted in my arm throbbing. And being 9,000 plus words behind, I kind of need to be able to make it through more than 900 words a day.

Unfortunately, I think I’ve got to take a break. At least as much as I can. I have some freelance work to do, so I can’t avoid the computer completely. But I have to, as much as possible. It’s horrible timing. I’ve just quit my job and have tons more time to write now…and my arm is acting up and I can’t. Maybe I’ll try to keep writing in my notebook, and see how that goes.

In any case, the blog will be offline for a while. I don’t know how long. As long as it takes, I guess. And if you send me an email and I’m slow to respond/don’t respond, don’t hold it against me.

As for the rest of you NaNoWriMo-ans, good luck! Keep going!

Look: No hands! (On the computer.)

I tried not to use my computer all weekend — so difficult! I did not write. I did not surf. I did not email (much). Instead, I put all my creativity this weekend into cooking and drawing, both with mixed results.

You might ask why I couldn’t have written in a notebook, by hand. I have no good answer to that except to say that I am stubborn and had decided that if I was not going to be able to write the way I wanted to write, I wouldn’t write at all.

You might also ask why it was so hard to stay away from the computer, and to that I say, I am a slave to technology and completely addicted to knowing what’s going on and being on the Internet. I admit it. I’ve actually gotten better about this, believe it or not. Still, briefly, on both days, I did turn on my laptop, though I told myself that I was using it to do practical things, like rent a car and pay a bill. I am having to use my left hand to steer and click my mouse, and I’m getting more proficient at it. The tendinitis in my right hand makes it painful to click, and to some extent, type. Which is frustrating to say the least. Last night, despite not using the computer much, I looked down at my hand and noticed that the fleshy area between my thumb and forefinger was (and is) quite swollen, and a little discolored. Argh.

In any case, it was nice to focus on other creative things. I drew in a sketchbook, with pencil. I have never enjoyed drawing as much as painting, and it’s rare that I would sit down and make an attempt to create a likeness of something in pencil, but I did, and I actually found it pretty satisfying. I even drew a person, which I never, ever do, because I am generally not good at drawing people and get frustrated by all of the difficult body parts, like hands, and elbows.

And I cooked. I made a pot roast, the French kind, with the wine and the garlic and sage and the long cooking time. It wasn’t my best pot roast (though it was, I think, only my second attempt) but still, it was comfort food and it was good. And yesterday I made an autumn risotto — sort of an experiment, actually, in that I didn’t quite follow any one recipe. In my opinion gooey rice that has wine, butter and cheese in it can’t be all bad no matter what else you do to it, and that theory held true. I threw in some pumpkin and acorn squash that had come in the box of organic veggies we get every couple of weeks, and it wasn’t half bad. Which is all the more surprising since neither Billy nor I like acorn squash much, and I had never cooked with fresh pumpkin before.

Also, apropos of nothing, this weekend a squirrel threw a pine cone at me. I was sitting on my deck, talking on the phone, and I heard a huge crack and then a large pine cone crashed to the deck a few feet from me. Howie scuttled away, a worried look on his face. I looked up and saw a fat red squirrel flashing his tail at me. I suspect he was trying to say that it was no accident, that pine cone. I had, in fact, sent Howie after the squirrel that morning, when I saw the little guy digging in my garden. I guess we’re even now.

Cool Ranch is a mood.

I went to a favorite local independent bookstore yesterday, and two weird things happened.

1. I left without buying anything. Highly unusual.
2. I freaked out about the plot I’ve chosen to write next month.

I went there in search of travel writing about Thailand – not
guidebooks, but essays or travel memoirs. My thinking was, hey, since
my novel is to be set in Thailand, it would be a great idea to get in
the mood by reading about someone’s journey there. I have some
guidebooks, and I plan to surround myself with them this weekend and
next month, but I wanted to get inspired about Thailand by being taken
there by someone’s else’s writing. The problem was, I found nothing. I
was looking for this, and they didn’t have it. I browsed the store and
was reminded that the writing I tend to see about Thailand has to do
with drugs or the sex industry there — basically the seedy side of
Thailand — and I was looking for a nice, wholesome travel memoir. Ah
well.

Maybe I will re-read this collection of short stories, and scour
some travel writing anthologies I’ve got around the house.

Somehow though, in the process of looking at so many books in the store, I
began to worry that I might not be able to successfully write about
Thailand. Or write a novel at all. I wondered if I should switch my
setting to Japan. I wondered if I should have my main character live in San Francisco and spend most of the book there rather than in Thailand. I wondered if my plot would carry me through the month. I thought about how I really wanted some Cool Ranch Doritos. I thought about how my main character could be obsessed with Cool Ranch Doritos, and how that was ridiculous, and how I was projecting.

All of this crazed and jumbled thought led to me leaving the store, no books in hand (which bummed me out) and walking over to a Walgreen’s, where I promptly bought a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, practically snatching them from the stock girl who was putting them on the shelf. I demolished half the bag before I even
walked the three blocks back to the office.

Clearly, Cool Ranch Doritos are not a solution to plot woes. Or maybe they are. I’m
not sure what my point is, but I’m feeling unsettled. The fact that I
couldn’t zero in on a book I wanted to read always leaves me feeling
strange. So many lovely books, and not one grabbed my attention today.

I was supposed to go to San Diego this weekend, but now I am not, due to
the fires and the smoke. My friend (the one I was to visit) was
evacuated but has now, thankfully, been able to return to her home (her
neighborhood was untouched by the fires). Still, the air is bad, and
many businesses are closed. Not the best time to visit, and the change
in plans has thrown me off. I have a weekend ahead of me that I wasn’t
expecting to have, and for some reason I’m feeling unsettled about
that, too.

I’m feeling unsettled about the fact that I am
supposed to write 50,000 words next month, and because I have been
having troubles churning out blog posts, for example, without a great
deal of pondering of word choice, this is worrisome. I have been
writing so little in the past few months that I feel I have become
sluggish. I’ve lost my writing voice a little, too. I need to write for
a while to get it back, so I guess 50,000 words can’t hurt.

And
I’m feeling unsettled and slowed by my wrist, which continues to ache.
I suspect I need to go computer-free this weekend, to recover. Which
means no writing, no blogging, no Flickr-ing…. which gets me back to the unsettled feeling again.

I think I need more Cool Ranch Doritos.

karmic retribution

It’s because I chuckled at the image of NaNoWriMo-ans with icepacks on their wrists while reading No Plot? No Problem!

Yes, I am a believer in such karmic retribution. My wrist hurts. It feels like the tendinitis I had a while back in Boston has flared up again. (Also, um, why is there no “o” in tendinitis, but there’s an “o” in tendon?) I’ve got my wrist brace out again, which is helping but not curing. The biggest help/cure would be not using the computer, but I unfortunately need to for most of every work day, and well, here I am doing a little bit of writing and so on outside of work.

This isn’t a good way to go into next month at all.