Well, I hurt today. And no, it's not from last night's rugby practice (though I may use that as an excuse). It's a sad, humiliating story . . . so I thought I'd share it with all of you.

Early this morning Nature called, as it so often does. A few things to know. In the morning, my legs are so tight that it is difficult for me to walk, I do more of this shuffle and lurch thing (I should start doing yoga). Two, I wear glasses. Without them, things are pretty blurry. Three, I live in a studio with a sunken living room. Four, my apartment gets almost no light.

So, after taking care of business, I was shuffle-lurching back to my bed, which is in the sunken living room. Between the lack of light and my lack of glasses, I misjudged the stairs. This has happened before and I've always managed to catch myself before falling. Today I didn't.

I landed on my ass, back and right arm. Which would have been more or less okay had I fallen on a flat surface, but no, I had to fall backwards onto the stairs. Humiliated, but somewhat amused by the situation, I tried to stand up. My body would have none of that; that's when the pain hit. So I crawled back to bed and went back to sleep.

When I woke back up, my arm and back felt better. Unfortunately, my right hip, both knees and my butt are in a hell of a lot of pain. Climbing the stairs at the subway was a major bitch this morning.

On the upside, I'm going to have some really cool bruises. And I'm going to tell people I got them during rugby practice.