Why My Neck Hurts

"Did you have trouble turning on the tv? TBG asked me the first night he was gone.  

I laughed.  The notion that I would voluntarily turn on the television amused me.  "i told you - left to my own devices I would never turn on the tv."

The second day began with a sunrise trip to the airport, hours of deep cleaning the kitchen, and a delightful early afternoon playing mah jongg at Scarlet's round table.   Then I was home and without a plan or a large print book.  

I looked at the tv.  It looked at me.  It smiled the way only an inanimate object can smile - that I know what you're thinking and I can help you..... come closer.... come closer..... 

 And so I opened the pretty wooden box which hides the remote that only I understand.  I pressed all on and, surprisingly, everything I needed was powered up and ready to go.  Netflix took its own sweet time buffering itself into existence on my screen, but once my icon - a sultry, featureless face with a hat tipped over the place for an eye and a Lana Turner curve to her hair - showed up I clicked right through to My List.

It was empty.

The Good Place was available and so was Stranger Things but I chose Grace and Frankie. TBG and I started it but he lost interest and since there's a lot of tv available when he's around and I have no desire to watch any more, I never finished Season One.  I gathered a fresh ice tea and the pitcher to refill my Contigo bottle, my cell phone, the house phone, and all the pillows in the land.  

Four hours later, I bestirred myself.

It went on like that for 3 days.  TBG came home with jet lag and fell asleep on the couch beside me.  I switched Netflix from John Mulaney to Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin and Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen and every actor over 50 and watched several more episodes before he stirred.

The next day, while he napped to college football, I came home and turned on my iPad mini.  With my earplugs in, I made some serious headway into Season Four.  Then I tried to move my neck.

I have some advice for you - do not resume binge watching at 11am.  I don't care how tired you are after spending hours deep cleaning the pantry with Perfect Patty's Youngest.  The fact that your back is speaking a new and interesting language is of no consequence.  Your hip's appeal to your better nature holds no sway.  Do Not Start In The Morning........ it will be evening before you know it.

\

Big Cuter approved of my orderly array of devices on the coffee table.  Little Cuter was pleased to know that I had, indeed, gone outside at least once each day.  A Pilates Teacher-Kid (suddenly, there are a lot of 20 somethings in the studio; for our purposes, they are all part of P T-K) was glad I stayed hydrated.

I felt quite Millennial, until I tried to move my neck.  

It turns out that watching nearly 30 hours of television does interesting things to the relationship your (very heavy) head has to your neck, your cervical vertebrae, your scapula and trapezius, and all those connective tissues that allow you to look and see who is knocking at the door.  

I may have been behaving like a 30-something, but my body refused to follow suit.  Ah, yes.... the mind is willing, but the flesh is weak.

"Hey, do you want to watch your thing if I watched football tonight?  Would that be fun for you?"

That, right there, is why I stay married.  

Plus, he rubs my neck.