One of the few items I own that belonged to my late father is a worn collection of Robert Service poems.  The book is hardback — light blue cloth and gold leaf lettering on the outside, yellowed pages inside. The book is about 50 years old and it’s got that old book smell of wood and wet leaves.

My dad once told me that his favorite poem is in that book. It’s called, “Comfort.”

It’s been years since I thought of that poem, but the verses just popped into my mind as I read Emily Achenbaum Harris’ musings to wish us all a happy first day of fall.

This sounds cheesy, but the following poem is the only one that I have committed to memory, and can recite with any feeling. I’m willing to embarrass myself a little here by sharing, because maybe you’ll get comfort from the poem too:

Comfort
By Robert Service

Say! You’ve struck a heap of trouble –
Bust in business, lost your wife;
No one cares a cent about you,
You don’t care a cent for life;

Hard luck has of hope bereft you,
Health is failing, wish you’d die –
Why, you’ve still the sunshine left you
And the big, blue sky.

Sky so blue it makes you wonder
If it’s heaven shining through;
Earth so smiling ‘way out yonder,
Sun so bright it dazzles you;

Birds a-singing, flowers a-flinging
All their fragrance on the breeze;
Dancing shadows, green, still meadows –
Don’t you mope, you’ve still got these.

These, and none can take them from you;
These, and none can weigh their worth.
What! you’re tired and broke and beaten? –
Why, you’re rich — you’ve got the earth!

Yes, if you’re a tramp in tatters,
While the blue sky bends above
You’ve got nearly all that matters –
You’ve got God, and God is love.

-###-

On the same day that hundreds of thousands of Obama critics took to the national mall in Washington, D.C., to rally, the President flew to Minneapolis for a public rally of his own. I was there.

Obama drew a crowd of 17,000 who stood in the heat for more than two hours to see him speak. His supporters turned out in full force on just a few days notice, sacrificing one of the last few sunny Saturdays left before the Minnesota winter blows in. The Target Center was filled near capacity, despite the fact that Obama’s visit competed for attention with a Twins game at the Metrodome and the University of Minnesota Gophers first game in their new stadium.

The rally was set up to mimic Obama’s 2008 campaign, surrounding the president with thousands of adoring supporters.

What surprised me most, especially after a summer of passionate town hall meetings, was that virtually no protestors entered the arena, preferring to tout their opinions with signs outside.  I did notice one scuffle where someone stood up to protest, but people around him booed him, and he left pretty quietly.

So, while the probamas seemed to arrive in droves, most of the nobamas stayed home (or maybe they were at the 9/12 march on our capital?)

Here are photos followed by a recapture of my live tweets.

I apologize for my low-quality photos. I intend to get a better camera one of these days.

Better photos can be found at Minnesota Independent.

Following are my tweets, which I posted live over the course of five hours. They are in reverse order of when I tweeted them. Think of this as a bullet-point list of observations. (Thanks to those of you who followed along online!)

(more…)

My trapezius muscle hates me.

That’s the big muscle that spans the neck and shoulders, the one that feels soooo good when it gets massaged.

About two years ago, I began getting neck pains so sharp that they brought me tears. The pain would come on pretty rapidly, starting as a dull ache, and within hours, I would not be able to turn my head. I spent my 26th birthday unable to look up, down, left or right. I had to turn my whole body to see the person I was talking to.

The doctor told me that my troubles were the simple result of long hours in front of the computer with poor posture. My trapezius got so tired of having to hold up my head at an angle that the whole muscle would just up and quit. It would seize up, or contract, and not let go for days.

When my HR manager, who doubles as my friend, found out about my pain and its causes, she suggested I file a workman’s comp claim. This felt lame. To me, workman’s comp was reserved for the guy in the hardhat whose foot just got run over by a forklift.

I was a notepad-totin, air-conditioned-office dweller. I was an avid jogger, skiier and hiker. How could a keyboard and mouse get the best of me?

But I filed a claim, and got free physical therapy, (thanks state of Washington!), and learned some things that I will share with you, fellow office dwellers:

• If you don’t sit up straight and use your core muscles — that is, your abdominals and lower back — your bones will change shape to accommodate your bad posture. By the time your hair is gray, you will be permanently hunched over. My physical therapist showed me that I have a lump at the back of my neck because of poor posture and shifting bones, and she said this is common.
• Be conscious of hunching over to read your monitor. Have the monitor raised to eye level.
• My posture was so bad for so long that some of my neck muscles had atrophied. I had to do little neck-ups (like situps with your head) to get those muscles back and working again. Also, my physical therapist massaged some of my neck tendons to stimulate them. I don’t fully understand what she did, but those massages felt like flavor crystals being released into my muscles.
• Yoga is the best way that I have found to undo the damage of long hours of mouse-clicking. I have a prescription for muscle relaxant drugs to get my trapezius to let go after it seizes up. One yoga session works just as well as a muscle relaxant. (This is my Seattle yoga teacher. She’s all about strengthening and getting a fierce workout, yet at the same time, “honoring yourself.” Check her out!)