The Hazards of Reading

Here is why I’m not playing in my beloved Wednesday Tennis Clinic this morning.

Last night, I was lying in bed, minding my own business, reading my Kindle, and decided it would be a good idea to flex my leg muscles as tight as they could be.  I did this for a few reasons. 

One is, I had taken a particularly rough spin class in the morning and whenever we are “climbing hills” the instructor is always quick to point out how we are building muscle, up there, at the top of the leg.  That it isn’t just rampant sadism on his part, these hills, it’s actually a torture that he throws in for our benefit.  I don’t have muscular legs – I never have – and so last night, out of the blue, I decided to see whether my sadistic spin instructor was speaking the truth. 

The other reason is that I don’t like reading on a Kindle, and no matter how good the book is – and this book I’m reading (To The End of The Land by David Grossman) is VERY good – I find little ways to distract myself, because deep down I hate the fact that what I’m holding in my hands is an awkward, confounding piece of electronic gadgetry and not a nice, refined, tree-wasting paperback.  Flexing my leg muscles – the upper muscles, tightening my right thigh as much as I can, then pounding on it with my fist – that’s exactly the type of small distraction that keeps me from finishing my book in time for my book group meeting.

I don’t recall that musculature being tight or compromised during the day, but it must have been.  Why else then would a few flexes and pounds result in the type of throbbing ache that prevents me from falling quickly to sleep? 

A little after midnight, my leg ached so badly I had to get up and take some Advil, and hobble downstairs to get the icepack.  After that I was able to sleep, but when I woke up this morning that whole area was tight and unmoving.  I considered the possibility of playing tennis anyway – something I would have tried to do in the past – but my experience has shown me that doing so only makes this kind of thing worse.  So I quickly resigned myself to a tennis-free day – perhaps a tennis free week – and, overall, I have to say I’m taking it quite well.

The silver lining here could have been that my muscle flexing antics produced thighs of steel.  That my oft-jiggly legs were so toned and tight that I actually hurt my fist in pounding.

Or that I set aside my cheapskate tendencies and, despite having paid for my Kindle version of Grossman’s amazing novel, I go out and buy the book (which is only available in hardcover right now, dang!) so I can actually enjoy it.

But, more likely, it’s that I’m going to get to see my beloved Dr. H before the week is through.

How I've Become So Well Adjusted

Gina shows up to tennis 15 minutes late.  “Sorry, ladies.  I was at the chiropractor.  He gave me an extra long hot oil massage before my adjustment,” she says in my general direction, “and I completely lost track of the time.”

I shoot her a look.  “Hot oil massage?”

“Oh.  Doesn’t he do that for you?”

Gina tries to make me believe that Dr. H. likes her more than he likes me, but it’s just not true.

“Who are you talking about?” asks one of the other women.

One of us utters his name and the rest of us nod dreamy eyed.  Half the women I play tennis with see him.  “We all love him,” Gina says. 

I met Dr. H. a decade ago, when I crawled into his office, unable to lift myself onto his examining table.  I was brand new to town and the former owners of our house had done an amazing thing: they had gone to the trouble of writing up a 7-page guide of all the Need to Knows about Montclair.  Best hardware store, best liquor store, best bagels, best haircuts, and thank heaven, best chiropractor.

“I don’t know if you go in for this type of stuff,” wrote our house seller, “but Dr. H. is no voodoo practitioner.  He’s helped me and my wife out many times over the years,”

That number came in handy when I threw my back out and found myself completely incapacitated, not even able to drive myself the mile to his office.  That was the first time Dr. H. put me back together again, but it would not be the last.  Since then, we have gone through a lot together. 

I can’t speak to chiropractic technique; I’ve been to lots of practitioners and they all seem to do similar things.  But Dr. H. is a master handler.  And I need a lot of handling.

Once I pegged him as a Doc Who Listens, I began seeing him for everything under the sun.  “My toe hurts.  I have a toothache.  I can’t find my keys in the morning.”  He was somehow able to fix it all. 

“Is this sepsis?” I asked him one day, referring to the rash running up and down my legs.  “How do you know about sepsis?” he asked back.  “I watch House,” I said.

The rash ended up being Fifth Disease, but no more House for me.  Dr. H forbade me to watch it ever again, along with ER, Gray’s Anatomy and every other doctor show.  I was also not to read the Linda Sanders, MD column in the New York Times Magazine.  And I must stay off the CDC website.

Much of my relationship with Dr. H. involves his digging his thumb deep into my muscle tissue and my cursing him out.  But there is also his unique ability to counsel me through my myriad health worries.   He’s taught me how to gauge the seriousness of my maladies, so I don’t have to run in and see him every three days with this or that problem.  He’s taught me how to manage my particular brand of health anxiety and he’s also taught me how to keep myself from kicking him in the groin if he hits a tender spot.  Or maybe he’s just figured out how to move more swiftly out of harm’s way.

I know he doesn’t give hot oil massages, and I know he likes me better than he likes Gina.  Dr. H. and I have real history together.  She’s just a recent fling.

“He gave me his cell phone number,” Gina says in a stage whisper as she takes her spot next to me on the tennis court.

“Well, he gave me his home number.  Ages ago,” I say.

“Home number? You mean the number where any family member could answer?  That doesn’t seem very private,” says Gina.

“I have his daughter’s cell number, too.  I’m like part of his family!” I say.

I know I’ve gotten to her with that, but she appears imperturbable.  “Yeah.  If you say so,” she says.

Stuck

The ladies that play on the adjacent court on Wednesdays are old.  Not older than the hills, but they all have at least 20 years on our group.  They’re all gray and braced and slow and accurate.  They wear Christmas sweaters over their tennis clothes during the holidays.  Sometimes during water breaks, we speculate which one each of us will grow into.  (I think I’ll become the one who wears her tennis duds just a little too tight – the skirt is too short, the top rides up on her belly.  Sometimes I think I’ve become her already.)

If I had to pick one word that described yesterday morning it would have been “stuck.”  At the last minute, the teenager texted me that he’d forgotten his gym shorts, could I please drop them off at the main office at school?  Because the teenager is more apt to get into a college on his grades, rather on any sports scholarship, I agreed.  I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the school ruin his GPA because of gym.  So, already a little late for tennis, I ran into the high school with gym shorts in hand, only to be stopped by the Entrance Monitor.  These are people who, at first, appear as if they might function like a concierge, directing you helpfully toward points of interest at the high school that you surely don’t want to miss.  But in fact they’re there to thwart efficiency, requiring photo ID and a monotonous sign in process before you’re able to proceed to your destination.  As if there are so many adults in this world who actually want to spend that much more time with a teenager that they would try and sneak into a school and attempt to procure one.  That desk at the high school – that was the first place I was stuck.

Next I was stuck behind a school bus.  No further explanation needed there.

Then, the parking lot was full of snowdrifts and plowed piles, reducing the available parking spots by a third.  Women were stuck in parking lot limbo, waiting for others to get in their cars and leave so they could take their spots.

When I got inside, the older women from the next court had just amassed in the lobby and were descending the stairs.  They take the stairs slowly.  One step.  Then a little rest.  Another step.  Rest.  It’s hard to believe these are people who are about to play tennis for 90 minutes.  I was stuck on the stairs behind them.

I wasn’t even the last one to arrive.  After I’d gotten settled in, Laura the Tennis Pro announced she’d just received a text from Gina.  “I’m in the parking lot but I can’t come in.  My effing key is stuck in the ignition.”

I always marvel at Gina’s ability to be ladylike.  To use “effing,” instead of “fucking” even in a private text message.  Even when she’s stuck.

Eventually, she did get her key out and came down to join us.  During the break, she and I imagined ourselves twenty years hence, taking the court steps one at a time – maybe having a twinge of arthritis that slows us down even further – and when we do, pulling out our trusty iPhones to message the other ladies in the group.  “I’ll be a little late today,” we’ll tap out with our rickety old thumbs, “I’m stuck on the effin steps.”