I spent more than an hour on hold with them today, waiting to find out why they’re telling me again they’re going to seize my property.

“You told me I was in non-collectible status,” I said.

“That was for 2011. This is for 2009,” the agent informed me.

“Why would you assume I could come up with $6000 when I couldn’t pay a thousand?” I said.

“You have to talk to someone in another department,” she said.

Still waiting.

I really fucked up my leg again (slammed my foot into a footstool). I also twisted my knee two weeks ago, and it wasn’t feeling any better. So I went to the physiatrist again today, and we spent about a half hour, just trying to figure out what to do next. “You’re still in pain, which tells me it’s really inflamed,” he said. “Ordinarily, I’d throw a couple of acupuncture needles in there, but since you had such a strong reaction the last time, I’m reluctant to do it.”

We finally decided to do a cortisone shot, since it would at least deal with the pain, and that’s what was making it so hard to walk. (I’d like to be able to get around at Netroots Nation next week. I can dream, can’t I?)

Then he taped up my knee and told me to go home and ice it. Here’s hoping! It’s amazing, how much of middle age is dealing with these little problems. (Which is why they should lower the Medicare age to 50.)

I found a video of the little beach on the upper eastern shore where I vacation. I can’t wait to get back!

Last week, while I was helping my kid move, I started getting these really awful pains in my knees. I mean, as in crippling — I was hobbling around all week like a 90-year-old, and it was all too reminiscent of when I hurt my ankle a few years ago and went into a downward spiral. I figured it had something to do with my sneakers, because when I put them on, the knee pain was even more excruciating.

So when my friend Maya dropped by yesterday, she took one look at me and wanted to know what was wrong. (She used to be a massage therapist.) So I got on the floor and she started to check me out. When she prodded an area at the top of my hip, I almost went through the ceiling. “What the hell was that?” I said.

She muttered something about a spasm in my psoas muscle and the iliacus. Then she told me to flip over onto my stomach. That’s when I first noticed that the right side of my rib cage was really, really painful.

We eventually traced all this back to a couple of weeks ago, when I tripped over a footstool and fell onto my left side. I had a pain in my neck for several days, and then it went away. No big deal! As it turned out, it actually was a big deal. My left hip was rotated way out, and as a result, it was pulling everything else out of whack and causing the pain. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you I winced with every step I took.

I’m sharing this story because I want you all to remember how many of our aches and pains are mechanical malfunctions, not the inevitable result of aging. I am so grateful I learned that, because 1) I intend to be functional to the very end and 2) my life is a lot less painful as a result.

Even though I wasn’t really lifting anything significant yesterday, I was just completely wrung out today. I even felt kind of drunk and uncoordinated and sleepy all day. Can you have symptoms from too much sun, even the day after?

I told my son he’d better get his ass in gear and become rich because at 58 years old, I ain’t helping him move again. It was 96 degrees today, and I spent most of it sitting in an unshaded car, waiting for him and his friend to load it up. Oh, and I lost my keys. Magically, someone found them and turned them in and I was happy again. But my knees hurt really, really bad. (Okay, I helped a little.)

I spent the past few days working through my control issues, via the fact that my son is moving this Saturday. Until yesterday, he did not even have a place to move to! Of course, he does not have a truck because he didn’t realize until yesterday that you need to reserve one, and also was unaware that the last day of May is the single most popular moving day of the year. But I digress.

Remember when your mother would say, “I hope you have one just like you!”? My mother is looking down at me right now, laughing her ass off.

He shrugs and says, “I’ll rent a U-Haul.”

“They’re already booked up,” I say.

He doesn’t have much stuff; so I gave him the number of a guy with a pickup truck from Craigslist.

For the past year, he’s been keeping his two roommates afloat — college graduates who couldn’t find anything but part-time jobs, contract jobs, or jobs where they kept getting fired. I’m really happy he’s going to be on his own — and that he’s still employed.

Keep your fingers crossed!