September is turning out to be rowdier than August. August was lazy, hot, slow, and whiny—never wanting to do anything, go anwhere, see anyone. Always wanting to put things off. September, on the other hand, is a workaholic with ADD and a sugar high.

I’ve been putting in some overtime at work for the deadlines, and I’ve got more than a few projects lined up for my evening hours—a couple of caricatures, a couple of editing gigs, a couple of cover art commissions, etc. I should have my head examined for taking on so much in such a short time, but I’m actually enjoying the busy-ness. Compared to how I felt in August, I feel so alive.

There are, however, a couple of drawbacks to this whirlwind activity. For one, my body is as jumpy and as tense as a taut rubberband.

Last night, as I was winding my alarm clock for the next morning, the pesky thing jumped out of my hand and flew in an arc towards the nightstand. I thought for sure that it would bounce off it and onto my bare feet, so—like a startled cat—I leapt backwards onto the bottom corner of the bed, the momentum carrying me further past the foot’s edge and scrambling over it, down onto my hips, butt and back on the carpeted floor. The soundtrack went a little bit like: Whoosh! Aah! Ding! Whump-squeak! Whoa! Aah! Thud! Thump! Ohh… sigh. Then it was followed by H.E.’s uproarious laughter.

That same night, while I must have been dreaming up new maneuvers for gymnasts and trapeze artists, I was woken by an extremely painful muscle cramp in my left calf.

The most annoying thing about a middle-of-the-night muscle cramp is that it seems to come out of nowhere. There you are, sleeping soundly, peacefully, minding your own business and supposedly completely relaxed, when all of a sudden—BAM! Mind numbing pain wakes you up and makes you cry out “mommy.”

And the only cure for that is a complete relaxation of the muscle, which may mean massaging it while consciously trying to relax, but believe you me, it isn’t easy. I get these cramps as far away from my hands as possible. When I danced a lot, I’d get them in my feet. I would stretch in my sleep, maybe slightly arch my foot a little, and BAM! my foot gets stuck in that position as I wake up with a rebel yell in the midnight hour. Try forcing yourself to relax in that state while reaching down to massage your foot. The pain only makes you more tense, which increases the pain, which makes you more tense, which increases the pain. Trying to warm and massage your foot with your far-away hands is practically a mission impossible.

Having the pain in my left calf didn’t make it much better. Even as I write this, my muscle still hurts from the cramping, and all day today, I walked with a slight limp.

Truly, no pun intended: I’m so lame.

My body hates me.

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