Spring                                                                       Bloodroot Moon

On Saturday the class with Scott Edelstein on marketing and selling books happened in a typical classroom setting, a meeting room of the Loft at their space at Open Book on Washington Avenue.  The room had a blackboard, a white board, exposed beams and brick walls, the usual rectangular tables and plastic chairs with backs.

In the morning, fresh and eager, I leaned in or sat up, entranced by Scott’s revelation of a new world, publishing in the high electronic age.  At breaks I stretched and at lunch I visited the small deli cum coffee shop downstairs for lunch.  Another plastic chair.

The time after lunch was long.  My nap went missing as the clock hit 1, then 2, then 3.  By 4 my shoulder had begun to ping me.  I don’t like this anymore.  Let’s leave.  Get outta here. Scram.

Since the last part of the class involved romancing the agent, my intentions overrode my bodies urgent signals.  I stayed through the last word.  But I left immediately after it, went downstairs and headed home.

Back home the shoulder felt like a small knife had been inserted just below the clavicle, nestling up next to the shoulder joint and pressed through all the way through to my back. It didn’t hurt in  sharp, glancing away sort of pain, but more in a subdued ache with–small flames like you used to use to decorate the model cars of your youth– flickering around the knife.  It’s agony, a soft agony, spread throughout the body, inviting other muscles to tense up, join in the attempt to isolate the pain, make it stay up there.  Having, of course, the opposite effect.

Not fun.  Kate heated up a neck wrap and after two applications my shoulder settled down, rejoined the rest of the body and allowed as how I might go on with the rest of the evening.