The New Bag

I have a new bag.  My previous man purse broke where the strap attaches to the bag, and there wasn't an easy way to fix it.  I really liked the man purse because it had a lot of pockets, and it was great for traveling.  I tried using it as a soft briefcase, but not having the shoulder strap was problematic, especially when I was in the men's room and there wasn't a good place to hook it off of the ground.

I looked around on the web to try to find an ergonomic currier bag--the other down side of the man purse was that it may have been giving me scoliosis, especially when I loaded it up with manuscripts.  And stuff.  What web-surfing taught me was that if I wanted a more comfortable bag, I was going to have to spend some bucks for it, and I probably wanted to have the bag in my hands and try it out before laying down cash.   One bag I wanted was available in REI... in Portland.  

I'd consigned myself to lugging around my man-purse for a few more weeks when I chanced by some nicely ergonomic bags in the local UO Bookstore.  The new bag is slimmer, so I'll be less likely to through my back out lugging two tons of writer's schlock.  It doesn't exactly have a waist strap, but it does have a strap arrangement that distributes weight more evenly across my back, shoulders and hips.   Probably the biggest feature is that the inside is bright orange, instead of black--so I'll be less likely to lose my black wallet, black folders, and keys.

The tricky things about my new bag is that it only wants to be worn one way:  over my left shoulder.  I haven't yet got into the habit of putting it on without having to mentally rotate it in three dimensions so I know which arm to raise and which arm to hoist it over my head.  I also have to figure out a system of which interior pockets to use--until then I feel like I'm doing a calculus problem whenever I put something into or search for something to take out of the bag.  

I've already comfortably toted it on a twenty-block walk, and I'm looking forward to years ahead.

Yesterday I had a headache for most of the day, which put a crimp on writing and going to the gym.  Mark blames my Sunday writing spree; I'm not sure it isn't a glasses thing or a sinus thing; Medicinal Mexi-coke seemed to help, and Mark lectured me that there's no such thing as Medicinal Mexi-coke.  I said there was, because it (and the two ibuprofens I took) sure seemed to help.  Mark countered that my headache probably went away because I went outside and walked to the store...

Writing:  Racing against the clock to finish a 5500 word story to turn in tonight.  Alas, the clock won.  This sort of means I need to turn in two stories next week if I want to meet my goal. 

Working Out:  Missed working out Monday.  Spent Tuesday afternoon writing, finalizing critiques, and going to Wordos.  Will aim for Wednesday afternoon.