Lately I feel like I have no free time at all, and that’s why this is the first entry posted to this blog from home since the 9th of July, and the first posted from home with actual content in over a month.

Recapping what’s been going on in my life would be pointless, considering my readership already knows what I’ve been doing. So all I have the time and energy for is some little minutiae, as well as a couple of discoveries, a complaint or two, and some procrastination.

Over the last week or so my back has been bothering me. Just like a year ago, and off and on since then, yoga’s the only thing that helps. Over-the-counter drugs don’t even have any effect. Yesterday before work I even bought some ibuprofen, figuring switching to what I don’t usually take might be more effective. Nothin’. I’ve iced it (I literally spent all Friday evening with a bag of frozen peas down the back of my pants), I’ve used heat, I’ve rested, I’ve stretched, blah, blah, blah.

Today when I woke up I could hardly move.

So I went to the urgent care place, where, as it turns out, I last saw the doctor a year and a week ago for the same thing. At the time she told me it was muscular, but this time the pain and a little tingling is radiating down my legs, especially on the right, so she says it’s probably a herniated disc. That’s what I thought too. She gave me a small Vicodin prescription, and reinforced the sensible and truthful insistence that I need a primary care doctor.

Finding a primary care doctor I like has been a real hassle. I’ve seen four doctors at three different practices in the last couple of years, and not one of them left me with a feeling that he or she was someone I could be honest and forthcoming with. It’s frustrating as hell. The one doctor I’ve seen who I actually really like is the one at the urgent care center, and of course I can’t have her!

At Giant I had the prescription filled and bought a bunch of stuff. The bunch of stuff I bought was kind of funny. I bought three kinds of heating pads/ice packs, a tube of capsaicin cream, some frozen chicken, a six-pack of bottled water, a Games magazine, a 12-pack of Diet Coke, and a writing pad.

Here’s why that’s funny. The heating pads and ice packs are funny because for a while they were all I had in the cart. Coupled with the fact I was limping (the pain and stiffness are such that I do not have full range of motion in my right hip), I bet I got some sidelong glances and hopefully sympathy from fellow shoppers. I only bought the water so I could take a couple of Vicodin the instant I’d paid for the prescription. I only bought the magazine so I’d have something to do if I had to wait for the pharmacist to finish. I only bought the writing pad so I’d have a hard surface under the magazine. I only bought the chicken because it was buy-one-get-one-free.

Ironically, the chicken was not buy-one-get-one-free; only that brand’s buffalo wings were, not the kind I got. I just had some for lunch, though, and it was tasty and good, so that’s fine after all.

Capsaicin cream is an interesting thing. It was on sale, and their TV ads are intriguing, so I figured what the hell. I read the instructions (“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T TOUCH YOUR EYE” etc.) and rubbed a bunch on my back. That was about 45 minutes ago, and the effect is just starting to wear off. It feels like I have a heating pad on my back, but with no cord, no stickiness, no bulk. It’s an invisible, rub-on heating pad. And it’s really hot. It doesn’t burn or itch, it doesn’t hurt. It’s the same soft heat you get from having something warm touching you. It’s AWESOME. I cannot recommend this stuff highly enough. It would be wonderful for any sore joints. I think it would be great for carpal tunnel, and I know it would be great for the next time I throw my neck out of whack.

It took hours to get home yesterday because of delays on the train. Why is it that whenever I’m packed into a crowded train I end up with my head in some guy’s armpit? How is it possible that grown-up, professional people can possibly function without understanding that bathing every day is expected of them? I live in a culturally diverse metropolitan area, and my daily commute constitutes research. You would not believe how bad some people smell. This is America. Rub soap on your body and rinse it off. If you insist you can’t, then at least have the courtesy not to use the overhead bars to keep your balance on the train. Hands at your sides, gentlemen.

The lady at work who’s in charge of composition (what I do) demonstrated their standard method of getting data tables from Excel to InDesign. It involves both a Windows PC and a Mac, both Excel and Word, a complex Visual Basic macro, reading and checking of coded tags, and more steps we didn’t even cover. I estimate doing tables this way probably takes six to seven times longer than it needs to.

On Wednesday she gave me twenty-seven data tables to lay out. They had come in late, and she was concerned because I only had five working days to get them done. To my great joy, she did not intend to stand over me while I did them. I took this opportunity to do them a different way. My way involves importing the original Excel file directly into InDesign (after very minor cleanup in Excel) and formatting using WoodWing SmartStyles, a commercial product that is worth much more than its 199-euro price tag.

It took me just over five hours to do the twenty-seven tables. Not five days. Five hours. And I was slow and lazy. Had I been in good form, I would have had them done in under four. Thursday night when I left, I left the printout on her desk. I spent Thursday night in frenzied worry that she would be mad I hadn’t followed her procedure (because it would be obvious I hadn’t). I even considered going back in to work before she got there and taking the printout off her desk so she wouldn’t know it was done.

Friday, she came up to me and said, basically, Show me how you did these so fast. So I did. I told her I’d seen an opportunity to demonstrate my method (we’d talked about this before, and she’d been very reluctant to vary from what she knew), and that if the results weren’t okay I still had time to do it her way. I showed her how I’d done a table. It took about three minutes. She was flabbergasted. I mean, she was flabbergasted. She immediately went in to our boss’s office and got him to promise to buy SmartStyles for everyone. She must have said “That’s it?!” at least four times. “Yes,” I kept saying. “That’s all there is to it.”

It felt great. Really great. I needn’t have worried at all.

I started watching a new old show that I downloaded a few weeks ago, “Cupid,” starring Jeremy Piven. It was on ABC in 1998–99 or thereabouts. I remember the advertising for it because we were in New York and the subway was full of the bright yellow ABC signs advertising all their new shows. “Sports Night” was another one that was new that year. I remember the slogan even. “It’s about sports. Like ‘Charlie’s Angels’ was about fighting crime.” I do wish I’d stolen that sign.

Anyway, I’ve only watched the pilot so far, but “Cupid” is awesome. I can’t believe how much I like it. I recommend downloading it. Only about thirteen episodes were made, and the BitTorrent download is still about 6 GB, but it was worth it.

Let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to hear about.