I am going to Milan with Tony to see a performance of the Yellow Shark by Frank Zappa on the 25th anniversary of his death. Tony and I have travelled before, having gone to England and Scotland in 1995. We generally work well together and have similar interests and preferences. Neither of us wants to spend a lot of money and we want to have a good time close to the roots.

The accident came about the night before I was supposed to leave. Tami and I had planned to get up early at 5 am in order to drive into Boston so I could go to work and then fly out from there. I’m lying in bed having that typical anxiety one gets when one knows one has to go to sleep so one can get up early but can’t get to sleep because they are worried about getting enough sleep to get up early. My hip started hurting me (old injury from running for a bus) so I figure I’ll get up and take some ibuprofen. At the same time, Luna starts barking bloody murder at some unseen intruder in the back yard. She has been doing this lately. I take the aspririn and take a drink in my cupped hands, it goes down wrong, she keeps barking, I start coughing, she keeps barking, I cough harder, then I’m sitting on the floor of the bathroom. I must have blacked out from the coughing. I have this dizzy feeling faint thing for which they have run a ton of tests but have found nothing. Anyway, I climb back up to standing. I look in the mirror and there’s a scrape on my head and my ribs hurt. I must have hit them going down. I go back to bed and tell Tami what happened. I don’t think she really knows how to react. It’s probably scary for her. Luna doesn’t care.

The pain in my ribs is bad and I feel like I’ll want to go to Copake Rapid Care in the morning. I start thinking about cancelling some meetings. I can’t get to sleep so I abandon the idea of waking up at 5. I finally get to sleep around 4. We get up around 7:30. I hurt less now so decide not to go to Rapid Care. We leave around 8 for an uneventful drive. At work, I have lunch with Jeff who is always a joy to see. Since I work remotely now, I rarely see him.