Short letters.

Dear my neck,

I feel I should apologize to you, for the fact that you have been aching for four days. I'm sorry, truly.

But I also feel like the two airplane flights I took on Sunday should apologize to you. And the people whom I was sitting next to, against whom I did not want to lean, and therefore leaned hard the other way--maybe they should apologize, just a tiny little apology, even though it was I who, in fact, did the leaning.

Also a strange hotel bed, and sitting in uncomfortable chairs for three days--all should apologize to you, my neck, for making you sore, and compounding the soreness.

However, my neck, today, the 100 emails I wrote should apologize, and abjectly. One hundred emails is too many and I am certain that they should, collectively, own up to their share of the hurt.

In the end, though, apologies only go so far. After that, it's got to be ibuprofen.

Okay, I'm getting it right now,

htms

*

Dear fire alarm,

I admit, I was annoyed to hear you go off, after I had just put on my gym clothes to work out. Sometimes, when one is feeling tired, a little bit of mental twistiness needs to happen to make the workout actually 'happen.' Fire alarm, I think you'll have to admit that you pretty much created an insurmountable obstacle to my best intentions.

No, really: I want you to admit it.

I will, in turn, acknowledge that I did appreciate the fact that, if you had to go off--as in, I guess, a real alarm situation--you waited until after all my clothes were actually on.

Tomorrow = upper body work, I guess,

htms

**

Dear soup,

Today, you were the 'on the other hand,' the compensation for a disruption of plans. When I waited outside the gym to see if the alarm would cease its decibelitude, I thought: well, if it doesn't stop, I'll go home and maybe I'll take a walk.

Then, when the alarm kept ringing, I thought, maybe I'll go home and take a rest, and then take a walk.

When the fire truck rolled up, I got in my car and thought, Maybe I'll go home, soak beans for soup, take a rest, and put the maybe-walk in brackets.

Soup, today I constituted you out of sophisticated white beans soaked with bay leaf and coriander seeds, then cooked in broth with sautéed red onion, sliced carrot, jalapeño, and a little bit of chopped kale. A pan of perfect cornbread did not go amiss.

I'm not saying I didn't need that walk, or the workout. But tonight, soup, you were hot and soothing and savory and delicious.

Could my workout have said the same?

htms