Indisposed

As one might have said in Victorian times, I was "indisposed" over the weekend and did not do much of anything, let alone blogging.

After a busy week where I even had insomnia a couple nights from the overstimulating news and politics, I had to abstain from coffee for a medical test. Well! Let me tell you, without caffeine, I folded like a cheap tent and spent almost all of Saturday sleeping. A myriad of aches and pains that may have been masked by the insidious drug came to the fore, topped off by the classic caffeine-withdrawal headache.

I would pick up a book to read and put it down, open Blogger to file something and then just close it, and so on. Without caffeine I found it hard to focus, obviously. I couldn't wait until this morning, when I would be able to take up my bad habit again.

Looking back, I realized I had accumulated a burden of stress from visiting a dentist Monday and covering a council meeting at night, then seeing a new doctor Tuesday (my roster of medical experts is growing). Incidentally to the reason for my visit, this doctor reminded me that I am old and could injure myself carrying groceries or opening the garage door myself. Like many an oldster, I may be a septuagenarian on the outside but my inside age hovers around my mid-thirties or younger, and this notion of limitations offends me.

I had in fact lugged about five bags of groceries up two flights on Wednesday and also had pushed up the heavy wooden garage door. My garage has no car inside, just a lot of garden tools, and gardening just happens to be my favorite escape from the travails of the world.

On Thursday, I hustled on foot over to Plainfield High School for the forum and stayed up too late afterwards listening to Radio Unnameable on WBAI with Bob Fass. It's on from midnight to 3 a.m. There is nobody quite like Bob Fass to mellow a person out. Well, maybe Hapte Selassie, who is on at 2 a.m. Saturday. (You see where the insomnia gets started.)

On Saturday, without caffeine, I was totally willing to concede that I am old and incapable of heavy lifting and probably a lot of other things that I still cling to, like sitting on a hard bench for four hours to cover the City Council.

But now I can once again take up the two-tablespoon coffee scoop and the Melitta one-cup apparatus and indulge in my petty vice. Hey, things are looking up!

--Bernice