Background: my back has been hurting lately. A lot. I made a quick trip to the doctor for some emergency medicine and came away with a prescription for physical therapy. Let the adventure begin:

I sprained my ankle walking to physical therapy yesterday. Seriously. What are the odds? It was like an omen of stupidity to come.

But I was looking at the world instead of at my feet because it was gorgeous out; it was one of those clear-blue-sky sun-drenched days when the city is so beautiful you can't believe it's real and open to the public. And my reaction time to twisted ankles has doubled over the years, so it's not as bad as it could have been.

As for the omen of stupidity part, it came true in a painfully trivial way. I'll get to that.

The physical therapy place turned out to be a small, crowded room. The building is a classic old Boston style with high ceilings and big windows, which kept crowded from feeling cramped. A TV suspended from the ceiling in one corner was playing Notting Hill; a staffer (glowing with health) was working on someone's knee; a woman was doing leg lifts with electrodes from a TENS unit on her SI joints (you bet I noticed). It was a good vibe.

My PT is cool. Her name is Beth. She's a neat, compact woman with a no-bullshit manner, a strong handshake, and a very thorough knowledge of human backs. She asked a lot of questions at the start, taking notes, wanting to know my date of diagnosis for hypothyroid, for hypermobility, for scoliosis; dates of injury, like last year's concussion; description of various pains, sharp or vague. I tried to stay focused, but the television above us was playing The Mummy, employees and patients were talking, someone was on the bike machine, and then I had to ask her to repeat her questions.

"I'm sorry. ADD moment," I said, and she nodded and said she understood, and I hope she did understand because it kept happening. (The Mummy turned out to be hysterical, which added to the distraction factor.)

One of the first things Beth told me was not to untie my shoes like that. (If you don't know what I mean, you haven't been reading my blog, which is more casual and updated daily.) It's bad for the back. Interestingly, the inverse position, a backbend -- a bridge -- is not. I saved that much of my stretching routine.

Beth poked and prodded and did a bunch of muscle-resistance tests and watched me walk normally, then on my toes, then on my heels. (Try it. If you are able-bodied, get up and try walking on your heels. It's harder than it looks.) She checked my leg length and reflexes and range of motion. She watched how I moved when I wasn't thinking about it, saw my slouch, noted my wobbly joints and bad posture habits. She doesn't miss much.

When she was done, I lay on my stomach with a delicious hot pack on my lower back for twenty minutes or so. Beth brought over a couple of models of the human back and rattled off a speech about how it all works. It was like being taught by the guy in the old FedEx commercials.

Beth told me that one of my legs is longer than the other. I don't remember which. I think it's the left. It's only about a quarter of an inch, and she said that if we corrected it with a lift in my shoe, everything else in my body would be out of line and then everything would hurt. Thank you, I'll pass.

And the rest is what we expected. I'm hypermobile and all my joints are loose. My hip flexors are short and my abs are weak and I have lousy posture. That's the bad news.

The good news is that Beth sounded confident that PT would help me. "You shouldn't have chronic pain after workouts. It's not normal." Then she said she didn't see any reason why I couldn't rehab my way back to sports. I could have kissed her. (I didn't.)

We set up a series of twice-weekly sessions of an hour and a half each. I don't know what I'll be doing, exactly; I'll get back to you on that. But I like Beth, which matters, and I'm hopeful.

This is where the stupidity part comes in. When I left PT, I stopped by Kinko's to pick up a poster I'd had drymounted onto foam board. I checked it out, paid for it, and brought it home before I realized there wasn't a wall hanger on the back. Bueller... Bueller...

I propped it against a wall. I'll figure it out today.

My back hurts.