Him: Does it hurt up here?
Me: No, just in the small of my back.
Him: Here, then?
Me: Well, mostly on the left side.
Him: Below the waist, one side only? Um, are you running a fever?
Me: I don't think so...I'll check. (A minute later) Ninety-nine point four.
Him: Fever plus the kind of pain you're describing can be kidney-related.

Uh-oh. Those are not the kinds of words I need to hear. I'm very prone to kidney problems, due to a tilted bladder or some such. I tend toward inflammations with no other symptoms than a low-grade fever; when I was a kid, I had to take monthly urine samples to the doctor for years. Kidney problems are not something I relish taking up again.

So I scheduled a doctor's appointment for tomorrow, but not before I called my daddy and asked him if I should. Hey, eighteen years of conditioning doesn't wear off overnight.

The pain is less today, though I still can't bend or twist and it still hurts tremendously when I sneeze. I made Eric sleep on my side of the bed last night, just in case it is the mattress after all. He said he did wake up a little stiff, but he thinks it was just gas. I actually dreamt that I was complaining to somebody, and they told me to check the box-spring. Hmmm.

The worst part is...oh, this is embarrassing. The worst part is when I have to wipe after using the bathroom. I can't twist or bend without incredible pain. This is one of those things that has to be done, though, so I grit my teeth like twenty pissed-off rodents (how's that for vivid imagery?) and do it.

Every time I call to talk to my parents, my brother answers the phone. Actually, he picks up the phone and grunts, because I've woken him up. He seems to be sleeping upwards of eighteen hours a day; Mom says he's been staying up all night, which is something of a relief - at least he hasn't picked up some sort of wasting disease. But he always answers the phone, then grumbles when he has to go seek out our parents. If he had let it ring, he could have stayed in bed, but he never does. Slow kid.

I remember hearing him answer the phone whenever I called home from my first year of college. He was a freshman in high school at the time, and that was the year that he "morphed" into a man. Overnight, it went from high-pitched "Hello?"s to big bass "Yeah?"s. On multiple occasions I thought I had dialed a wrong number; I certainly knew nobody with such a voice living in my home.

I think Mom and Dad are enjoying having him home over his college break; he gets bored quickly, and goes around fixing doors and other faulty hardware. We don't know where he got that inclination; certainly it didn't come from Dad.

Everybody all moved into their new calendars? I practically live out of my Day Runner, and it feels so wonderful to transfer new birthdays and addresses from the old to the new. Though it may be a little late for New Year's Resolutions, here another of mine that I just added today: to send out birthday and anniversary cards to my relatives without being terribly tardy.

Here's the question, though: do you keep sending cards to relatives by marriage with whom your blood relative has separated? How long do you hold out hope that they'll reconcile? My cousin's wife is a sweet lady, and I'm really no closer to him than I am to her; should I send birthday cards to her?

While you're at it, why don't you tell me why the sons of my uncles have such trouble with women. They both keep falling back on the excuse, "I should be allowed to run around like other guys my age," to leave their wives and act like idiots. It's a shame; the women they marry are such angels. Why, if they're going to act like this, couldn't they at least marry difficult women? Then they'd at least earn some sympathy.