My Back Hurts

So I went to the gym yesterday and, obviously, worked my back muscles. I overdid it just a tad, because now my back feels like it’s wound up like a hemp rope. The irony is that I did this before about a month ago when I first started working out again after a long hiatus. I go through cycles of months of working out consistently, to months of not working out at all. Well after a month or two of not working out over the summer, let me tell you, my back was not happy about it. Every time I get back into an exercise schedule, I always hurt myself because for some reason I try to jump right back into lifting the weights I was doing right before I stopped. Even when I try to scale it back so I don’t hurt myself, I end up doing it anyway. It’s really frustrating because I usually have to take at least a week off from going to the gym so that I can lift my school bag without feeling pain (or bending down, in this case).

Fortunately, my back is not as bad as the last time I did this. I think I will be OK by the time I am supposed to do my back again. You have to be really careful to not overextend yourself (like I did) when exercising your back muscles. Much like your shoulders, your back will just keep working and working and won’t complain about it until that night or the next day. You could be in the gym just wailing away on your back and feel fine, but in a few hours you’ll barely be able to walk. Considering this, I always try to be careful not to over do it with my back, but clearly that doesn’t always work out too well. The annoying part is that I even did one less set of exercises to give my back a rest! Oh well, I guess I’ll get over it.

I know I’ve been delinquent in posting pictures of my neighborhood, so finally here they are. Make sure you click on them because I’m too lazy to figure out how to make the entire picture to show up on the page, not cropped like they are now:

This is the view out of my living room windows. Keep in mind I am on the third floor, so you can get an idea of how big this tree is. The leaves are just starting to turn to beautiful shades of red and yellow. It also creates a really nice filtered-light effect so that my apartment is illuminated by the sun, but never gets too bright. I love the sound of leaves rustling in the wind–one of my favorite night-time sounds from back home–so this tree is a welcome comfort.

This is a view of the street intersecting the street I live on. My street is the second on the right, after the three cars parked on the right.

This is my street. My apartment building is the first doorway on the right. A lot of the streets in my immediate area are lined with trees and these old brown-stone buildings, it’s a really unique area that I think truly shows the elegance of the old city. It’s hard to believe that I’m only a few blocks away from city hall and downtown Philadelphia, huh?

This is the opposite view of the second picture. I walk this walk almost every day for school and going to the gym. You can see a couple of the skyscrapers in the background. There are a lot more on either side of the street, but the buildings in the foreground are blocking them.

So that’s my neighborhood, what do you think? To me it has a lot of character and has that old money, colonial feel to it that I enjoy. It’s in a good area near downtown so as far as I know there is little crime (as compared to west Philly) and it is usually very quiet. About once a night I’ll hear sirens, but I’m used to that after spending four years in the ghetto of Buffalo. This week for some reason there has been some kind of truck going by at 5 AM that is really loud. I think it is a street cleaner or something, but God knows why it needs to clean the streets so early.

Right now I’m listening to Dave Matthew’s Band – Grace is Gone. I never really liked this band, but after I went to a performance at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, I really got into their music. It’s really heartfelt, soulful music. This particular song is a lament to a woman, Grace, leaving him, and he’s sitting in bar (shocking, I know). My favorite line is: “Excuse me, please? One more drink. Could you make it strong? ‘Cuz I don’t need to think.” For some reason this line strikes a chord in me, I’m not sure why, maybe because I know all too well the feeling of just wanting to drink until I can’t feel or think anymore. I think it’s no secret that I’ve struggled with stress and depression pretty much my entire adult life, and alcohol is a release that I have abused way too much in the past. But that’s a topic that could go on and on, and, like I wrote in my last post, I don’t want to be writing essays here that are so long people don’t care to read them. So I’ll save that one for another time.