Flat-backing for weeks and no money to show for it.

As much as this pains me, and believe me, it does, I have reached the point where (a) I am acutely aware that I either need to write SOMETHING to explain my absence and quell the curiosity of my three loyal readers, or (b) simply stop blogging altogether and slip away into obscurity...you know...the place where I came from originally.

So, I'm writing. I know, y'all were crossing your fingers it was going to be (b), even as you were actually reading this post which clearly nullifies (b), but hope does spring eternal, as they say.

I haven't been blogging because just before Thanksgiving I threw out my back. And sitting in front of the computer long enough to write something -- and even more importantly -- to read enough political crap to have something interesting to write about is excruciating.

Years ago, when I was young and stupid,  I took a fall over a cross country fence. I was hopped up on adrenaline and so jumped back on and finished the course. Later that night my back started giving me trouble, but stadium was the next day and I hadn't scheduled an injury, so I ignored it. I made it through the competition with no real damage, it seemed. It's great to be young.

But years later, when I was in my thirties, I came off a cranky bitch of a mare who decided that Tuesday wasn't her day to be ridden...or was it Thursday? Whatever...she was pretty adamant that day wasn't good for her. I eventually ended up flat out in the arena while she did pirouettes and caprioles around me in sheer, spiteful joy. Never one to know when to quit, I caught her and got back on, riding her for another 45 minutes just to show her who was boss.

I won, but it cost me my back.

By the time I had untacked her and put her away, I could barely walk to my car. The injury to my back was in the same spot as the earlier one and I have always thought it "helped" make it all so much worse. I could not even move my right leg when I tried to climb behind the steering wheel. I was forced to drive home by using my left foot for both the accelerator and the brake, shoving my right leg out to the side over the gear shift. When I finally arrived in my driveway my husband was home (THANK GOD!) and I sat there, honking the horn, until he came out to investigate. He had to carry me into the house. And there I remained for two weeks, flat out on my back.

I eventually healed and went back to riding, swearing, and shoveling horse manure like nothing had happened, but every so often, if I am not RELIGIOUS about doing yoga and Pilates, my back will go out -- especially if I am sitting for long periods and/or doing hard physical labor. Or both.

This fall contained a heaping helping of both. It seemed for months I had been schizophrenically caught in a schedule that was either completely inactive in front of a computer or was suddenly and without respite demanding I work like an illegal immigrant on a California farm.

So one morning I merely reached out to pull my laptop onto my lap...and that was it. It was all over but the shouting. And, believe me, there was plenty of shouting. And screaming. And lots and lots of swearing. None of which made anything even slightly better.

However, eventually there were sweet, sweet little pills which were kick ass and utterly necessary because we were on a plane two days later to visit relatives for Thanksgiving.  I made it through the holiday because I had my lovely little Vicodin every four hours, which I named Vicky because "she" was FABULOUS! and therefore needed a name, as well as a hot tub with my name on it fired up with the jets. Oh...and a signature Mai Tai, WITH an umbrella.

I was good.

Really, really good.

Now we are weeks past the injury, but I'm still "tender" in that I haven't toughened up like normal. If I sit for too long, my back screams at me just to let me know that we still aren't really on speaking terms; we're still yelling at each other. So I don't sit. And I don't read. And I don't write.

So, if I don't post again before Christmas:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!