I realise my only option is to only ever read this book, over and over and over, so I never have to start smoking again. I bet I'll be fascinating at dinner parties.

Seriously though, I highly recommend Jeff at that lovely new place, Slope Wellness on 8th Ave. He's highly trained and extremely tolerant of wimpy clients who are trying to filibuster their way out of sessions. His treatments are painless and super helpful.

And, at the risk of being a yurtz, reflexology is aces for mystery neck pain.

Feel better!

It happened to me when I was in the throes of finishing a huge, important writing assignment. After hours of intermittently weeping and thinking I was going to die from meningitis, I went to the ER, where they pumped me full of thousands (not joking) of milligrams (so...I guess we reached grams, if I had thousands of milligrams...) of ibuprofen, then Valium, then Percocet, then a sweet Valium+Percocet sandwich. All of which did nothing for the pain or my state of mind. The nurse was either impressed at my drug tolerance, or thought I was a drug-seeking nutjob, I dunno which. After a couple hours, the doctor shrugged and wrote me a prescription for Flexeril, a "mild" muscle relaxant, and told me to go on home.

All that stuff the hospital gave me + Flexeril + antidepressants = three days of my life that I cannot to this day account for. But the torticollis went away, and I had a sweet leftover stash of muscle relaxers.

And Deirdre's comment made me giggle, "If you dare." (And still I giggle because it seems so sinister. And needle-y.)