After a week's worth of missed connections, Val and I were finally able to meet tonight for my second assessment. (The results of the first assessment are still online.)

I can't say I'm terribly surprised: there was progress, but not nearly so much as last time. In the 62 days since May 6, I have:

There's a rule in life. I know this rule, and I broke this rule, and now I'm paying for it. Never, ever say, "I'm having a good week," no matter how true the statement is. The cosmos has ears, and it doesn't take well to being taunted.

(Sigh.)

So, a complete recap of the weekend: swim a quarter-mile for the first time, fit into size 14 jeans for the first time in a decade, get mauled by skittish seventeen-pound cat.

Top of left arm:

It took eight weeks, but I can finally say it: the size 14 jeans button and zip. As usual, just because they button and zip doesn't mean that they're public-ready, but getting in them at all is plenty of a victory, given how much I've struggled since mid-May.

(Need a refresher course? Take a look at the 'weighty issues' category page for a listing of all entries on the subject.)

To retrace my steps:

The TV anchors were mourning the loss of Ronald Reagan, and I was sitting in a random Tex-Mex restaurant in metro Atlanta, wondering if I, too, had lost my bloody mind. My brain was having trouble processing everything going on at once: Brian telling stories, chipper music from the radio station, Maggie Thatcher eulogizing Reagan, the utter tastiness of the quesadilla I was eating.

It had been nothing but a random provocation of muscle, an awkward-standing up that led to a consistent, throbbing ache in my right lat.

"Rub it?" I asked Jeff, hopefully. "Not like scritchies, but real massage work?"

Some recent finds from the joys of the interweb:

#1: What Planet Is This?

From this article from the Sun-Sentinel (italics are mine):