Apparently, youth is wasted on me, too

Last night my friend Andrea called from San Francisco to firm up plans for this weekend (she's coming to Atlanta for Labor Day). It was 8:47 p.m. when she called, and I had to get up and out of bed and turn the lights on to answer the phone. Another 10 minutes and she would have missed me, because I would have already been asleep.

At least Jason has an excuse. He's working crazy hours this week and is out of the house by 5 a.m., so he has to get up at 4:30. I get up with him to make him his lunch and coffee and get him out the door, because he is so not a morning person, it's scary. But then I go back to bed and sleep until 7. So I'm not sure why I'm ready to climb into bed and go to sleep before the sun is even down in the evening.

I think much of it is the injury. I've been trying to keep my arm out of the sling during the day, so by the time I'm done with work, I'm hurting. Most of the time I'm able to hold my arm in a way that doesn't tax my shoulder too much, but I frequently jostle it or try to pick up something a little too heavy, or I just get tired. So all I want to do when I get home is prop my arm on a pillow, take a couple of Lortabs, and veg out.

I am also quite a source of amusement to Jason, who finds nothing more hilarious than me, whining and feeling sorry for myself. Last night I was trying to change out of my work clothes and simply could not get my bra and shirt off, to the point that my bra was still hooked over my left shoulder but hanging out of the neck of my shirt, and I'm trying with one arm to lift my shirt over my head but can't quite reach, so I'm flailing around like a total spaz (and please, no emails about how insensitive that term is to the disabled -- it's funny, OK? Plus I work for the benefit of disabled kids, so I'm allowed to be an asshole from time to time). I'm hanging my head in frustration, and my lower lip is pushing further and further out as I commence pouting. Jason takes one look at me and starts laughing his ass off, the kind where he's laughing so hard he's not even making any noise, just silently wheezing. I was afraid he was going to bust something. (He did the same thing the last time we went to the movies, when one of those fake movie ads came on where there's this big action sequence and then you hear a baby start to cry and the words "silence is golden" come on the screen. I was totally faked out by it, and said, loudly, "Oh, come on," in an exasperated tone, thinking that some bonehead had brought an infant to see Talladega Nights. Jason was so hysterical with laughter he had tears in his eyes. Anyway.)

I finally managed to get my pajamas on and got into bed. We were lying there watching Whose Line is it Anyway? when I had a premonition that we would be doing the exact same thing -- having trouble dressing ourselves, watching corny tv shows, going to bed when the sun was still up -- when we're 80. That made me smile, because I'd like to still be with Jason, having fun and giggling about everything, when I'm 80. But I'm not quite ready to be 80 yet. So come on, shoulder. Heal!