... so I did the laundry last night after all, and my back never likes that, especially when the elevator is broken and I have to take the full load down and back up a flight of stairs after circling the building to get to the rear lobby. I folded my stuff down in the laundry room because the tables are higher than, say, my bed, which makes it easier on my back, but it hurt anyway.

Then I tried to put the clean laundry away and couldn't. My loose organizational system was screwed; I needed to move things to more appropriate locations. I shouldn't be trying to wedge in turtlenecks with t-shirts. It pissed me off. I got righteously angry enough to get over my inertia and dislike of change and say YES! I can move my socks from my top right dresser drawer to one of the canvas boxes! I feel empowered.

Somewhere along the line, I wound up sitting on the floor in a small space between my bed and my wooden trunk, which is where I put the towels. Eventually I felt stiff and shifted position. And right then, I did something unspeakably awful to my back.

I don't know exactly what happened, but my money's on "sprained sacroiliac ligament."

I was surprised when I woke this morning to find that I wasn't really in pain. I took a hot shower and some Advil and I was fine. But what did I do after that? I went to the gym.

I don't know who chooses the music for my gym, but it plays a lot of alt-dot top-40, about which I am mostly indifferent. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I like Sugar Ray, which I do, but like it or not, it's on the gym's all-pervasive stereo system. Of course, so is Avril Lavigne. And I have to admit it: I like "Complicated."

I've read so much anger about this kid, so much online discussion and debate, most of which is fine, as long as they spell her name right, right? (I figured she was April Levine from some suburb, but I'm told the name is real.) Bowie can handle being dissed by a teenager (her worst PR mistake). I wish she'd chill on the attitude, because her music's kinda cool.

My back, however, is not cool. I'm probably going back to physical therapy for this one. But what the hell is with this endless cycle? I go through PT, I graduate to the gym, I get injured, I go to PT. I mean, hello? Tara Lipinski has two artificial hips (or maybe one, I forget). Why can't they fix my back?

Anyway. Moments and observations:

---> When I walked in to class (late), someone was sitting in my seat. My seat, the one in the front, all the way over. This just shook my whole worldview for a minute. My seat. I'm a creature of habit, as anyone who knows me will tell you, and I was set in my ways from the day I was born.

I tried to minimize my reaction and took the next desk over. I know she saw my little doubletake; she's a smart girl, and I suspect I'd like her if we got to talking. Another student told me later that the other girl, whose name escapes me, had also arrived late, and had taken my seat in haste. This interests me on so many levels.

For one, it means that even after class had started, no one was sitting in my seat. It's possible that no one wanted to sit up front, but it's also possible that other students had claimed desks and assumed that one was mine. For another, Marco chose to tell me why someone had ended up in my seat. And finally: people gravitate to walls. The front row was empty, so she chose the one next to the wall. It's what I would have done.

---> The insane repository-for-overstock Gap is gone from Downtown Crossing. I cannot believe that a major shopping district in a major tourist city is Gapless. I'd checked there for the lambswool sweaters they pulled off the shelves in a week, and no Gap. Unreal. Then again, if I were a tourist, I wouldn't want to hang out in Downtown Crossing.

---> There is a curious choice of light blue, almost Tiffany blue, for women's wool coats this year. Those strange Laura Ashley-esque tote bags of small-pattern quilting from last season are still around, too. While most of the coat wearers look wonderful, the tote bags are ugly on everyone.

---> Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was sentenced to life. Isn't that beautiful? He tried to kill himself to take a bunch of people with him, and his punishment is that he doesn't get to die. No martyr he, just a mentally ill terrorist.

And now I have to go do 500 words on how a certain photograph makes me feel and what it makes me think and so on. But she only warms up with a softball; at the end of the term, I have to find a contemporary photographer and interview him or her. Yikes.

Damn, my back hurts.