carvers and scrapers

Six years ago I had my neck poked and dissected in a search for some pernicious disease. I remember it because I blogged about it. No one found anything and I went home, sore but victorious.

Yesterday, I had a rerun of this. I’ll hand it to them – they do try very hard to find a problem, but so far, this has eluded them. I escape.

And so I was let off the hook (what an awful image, considering) yet again. Darn, we found nothing that warrants a carving job. Not this time anyway. Yawn... You may as well go home.

In the afternoon today, I present a lecture to my class of 71 (though 4 are absent, so that makes it 66) and it feels quite raw back there in the neck area. And I think – well, that’s okay, good in fact: I beat the carvers and scrapers and here I am standing in front of all the students – why, this is just fine!

But as I walk, late in the evening to the shop, the mood changes. I feel defeated.

It’s the weather: I cannot like it. Too bitter, too gray, too prickly, too dreary.

February, you have done worse things to the psyche than the butcher team down at the clinic. Change your tone already.