funny thing happened on the way to the show....

went to the mall to see "big fish", which was, in fact, a very circuitous, and interesting movie...not a big tear jerker as i had imagined, but more filled with rich imagery and pictures. good stuff. kind of like the imagery i saw in "brazil", by terry gilliam.

anyway, before the movie, i was having the worst cramps i have ever had in my entire life. as i'm writing this, after the movie, i'm still sulking, still cramping...anyway, i went to the drug store, and i went to get two things. one, a pain reliever for my cramps, and two, a sleep aid for those nights when i just can't get to sleep, but desperately need sleep for surviving the next day. so, kind of sweating due to my pain, in a bit of a rush for the movie, and just generally feeling a bit ill, i asked the pharmacist for a (get this!) "non-addicting sleep aid that won't affect my short term memory, and a pain reliever"...okay, that probably sounds stupid, and probably rings alarm bells for pharmacists (i mean, what do you think of when people come up to you, asking for a non-addicting substance?), but that's what i asked for. it's really a consequence of knowing what drugs like narcotics can do to you...that's what courses in pharmacology does! makes you paranoid about any drug! ha! and the pharmacist told me that blah blah blah blah and showed me different brands blah blah blah and i was listening, kind of listless, sweating a bit, hurting a lot....and i was just kind of staring...at her name tag....which happened to be "nadia"...and turns out to be the wife of darryl, who's in my class.....funny thing...

you know, this pain, reminds me, or wakens me up to the debilitating nature of pain. i cannot imagine how people who are constantly in pain must feel, and it must take a tremendous amount of endurance to live with physical pain. it must be terrible. even with this relatively minor stomach pain, i can't think, i can't eat, i don't know even what to do except pace, and kind of hunch over once in a while and wince.

i will now go back to nursing my stomach...