My Back Is Tight...

...so I'm ducking work and calling in sick. Though, I would've anyway, because everybody there is acting like something that rhymes with "ducking work." I know you got the first reference right away, but the second word begins with a "j," capisce?

I did get into particulars, work politics, artificial glass ceilings and the like, then I thought better of posting it. HIGHLIGHT, BACKSPACE, ENTER.

I don't want to get sued, because...where I work? They would file one on me if I acquired a modest amount of success or wealth. I still might get hit with one just for the hell of it. That's part of the reason for the pen name and why I don't go shouting my real name all over the Internet.

So I might have toughed it out tonight, but "I wasn't feelin' it" as the kids say. Last Thursday night, my iPod froze as I pulled it out of the iHome clock radio. The screen says "Charged" and the big battery icon is stuck there. I tried to reset it like both the manual and help page said, but no dice.

I've become complete dependent upon the thing. Going to work and the stress involved in it, is like diving and my iPod is the decompression chamber that keeps me from getting the bends:

plural but singular or plural in construction : a sometimes fatal disorder that is marked by neuralgic pains and paralysis, distress in breathing, and often collapse and that is caused by the release of gas bubbles (as of nitrogen) in tissue upon too rapid decrease in air pressure after a stay in a compressed atmosphere

No Brubeck or Coltrane to restrain the inner postal worker in me, no Steely Dan to soothe the savage Procrastinator.

Sure, my back aches from overexertion, but from stress as well. Not to mention that even though the calendar says June 5, the Ides of March are upon me. Wrap me in a toga, place an olive wreath upon my head and call me "Scrib-ius Caesar."