My right hip

I was getting all geared up to check out the salsa night at Lava Gina tomorrow.

That's right: Lava. Gina. As in Lavagina. Or: La Vagina.

Gotta love this town.

And lest you think the lounge owners weren't aware of their pun, well, the bar is triangle-shaped. Tehee.

So anyway, I discovered on some salsa-centric site a few weeks ago that Lava Gina, which does world music every night, has this salsa night, and I alerted the cocktailing posse. The only problem was, just as we were planning to go, I got stuck doing the late shift at work, which had me in the chair until 2 a.m. -- an hour that even the most die-hard of the die-hard cocktailing posse aren't necessarily willing to wait for.

The problem being, I have this thing where I don't like going to clubs by myself. Chill bars, O.K. Dance studios, O.K. The Lindy scene, O.K. But not salsa clubs. In my experience, the men there are just more, well, grabby. And I don't like to go dancing in a grabby environment if I don't have a friendly out in the room. It's a safety thing. Paranoid? Probably.

But the point is, now I'm off the late shift on Tuesdays, as of this week. For the past two days we've been chanting it: Lava Gina Lava Gina Lava Gina. But today, I woke up and my hip was kind of tweaky -- as in, "Hm, I think I slept on this wrong" tweaky. Nothing awful, just mildly uncomfortable.

I got around on it O.K. in the morning, and then I went to the gym. But when I dismounted from the elliptical, something was off. I couldn't walk properly. My right hip felt as if it needed to be popped out of its socket and back. So I tried (yup, I'm a hip popper). And it popped. But it still felt stiff. It was in my hip flexor, a deep ache. So I tried stretching it. Still no give.

At that point, I could walk sort of like a normal person. I walked to work, for instance. But the first two hours I was there, it started getting worse. I walked to the cafeteria to get a hot chocolate. Stiffer. Sat down to chat, then got up to go down to work. Stiffererer. Then I sat down for a few hours working on a story. At 9:30 p.m. I got up to go reheat my dinner, and all at once, my hip gave out. I stepped with my right foot and it hurt so much that my leg went all jiggly underneath me.

Okaaaaaay.

More gingerly, then, I wobbled to the lounge. And looked as if I'd just had my hip replaced.

Who knew we used our hip flexors so much?! I mean, just to walk? It's an integral part of flexing the thigh and moving it forward. I know, because when I tried to do that, it hurt. Amazing!

By the end of the night it had devolved so much that there was no way I was walking home, unless I wanted it to take an hour.

And when I got home? Well, I have this little ritual. I started doing it years ago, because I accidentally discovered that it felt good. I like to wash my feet before bed. It's refreshing. Makes me feel sweet and clean. But tonight, my hip was so bad that I couldn't lift my leg high enough to get my right foot to the sink. And it hurt so much to put my full weight on my right leg that I couldn't lift my left foot, either.

I popped a couple of pain pills and settled into the couch with a heating pad. But all that did was make my hip hot and hurt. So now I get to go to bed with stinky feet. Ick. AND there's a possibility I may not get to salsa at Lava Gina. Blast!

At least a gimpy can still go pout and drink muchos mojitos. Clink!

Comments

[Jon]

Yeah, I know what you mean - I'm a shoulder popper (and a thumb popper, although that one doesn't come in useful much). And the hip, much like the torso, is a really bad thing to injure because it's involved in so many of the body's movements.

You're on a roll lately with the blogging! I'm gonna get back to it, too.

And finally, the rules of the game are somewhere toward the bottom of my last night's blog entry. Happy blogging :)

[Tony S]

Not to be a worry wart here, but you may wanna get that hip looked at by doc and machine. Once when I was writing for you my knee started hurting bad out of nowhere. Weeks later, I went to the doc to find it was a deer tick, and waiting made it worse. I'm not saying you have a tick; I'm just saying...