Yesterday at the gym, by some utterly inexplicable means, I strained the muscles in my neck. Back right side. I don’t even know what muscles those are. Probably the trapezius. At first I didn’t notice, but by evening I literally couldn’t turn my head. The pain is insane. The worst part is that there’s no head position in which my neck doesn’t hurt. It hurts to sleep with a pillow; without one, it’s absolute hell. Rolling from one side to the other is a whole ordeal: I lift my head with my hands, then use my hands to keep it completely still, then I roll over, and only after that do I turn my head with my hands. If I need to look to the side, I turn not my head but my whole body. And if I need to turn just my head, it looks like the Terminator after he’s been blasted by an anti-aircraft gun—the head on an unnaturally straight neck slowly, very slowly turns. The only thing missing is the whir of the servo drive. My wife is laughing. I didn’t go to work. What’s annoying is that I can’t even read or watch TV. Keep your head in one position for ten minutes, and it starts hurting even more. I’m going to eat some tasty pills, smear on some ointment, and lie there staring at the ceiling. Maybe I’ll come up with something brilliant. A perpetual motion machine, or how to overthrow Putin.
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