That's the thing - I don't even know how I did it. I was at the barn and I felt fine - I picked up a cat to pet her and that was fine, then I picked up my saddle and I felt a slight pain in my back. But not like I hurt it picking up the saddle, more like the kind of twinge you get when you've already hurt something but you've forgotten and then you do something and are reminded. Anyways, so I finished tacking up, fine, getting on felt fine, walk was a little uncomfortable, and when I picked up a rising trot (trot is usually the bounciest gait so the rider will often sit up and down with the motion of the horse. Jer described it once as "that humping thing") and everytime I sat down it felt like my vertebrae were being mashed together. So I got off, put the horse away, did a few other non-riding things (feeding and tending some busted hooves), drove home, and by the time I got home I was so sore I had to hook the top of my socks around the corner of my cabinet to get them off.

Thanks for the offer Al - I thought about giving you a call tonight, but there wasn't really anything I needed. I've just been laying down watching t.v. Boring t.v. I might add. It was very nice to know I had someone I could call though!

dammit, I'm late for twister. But wait'll you fucks see the text design shit I've been carving.

"niggly"?

As in: "playing basketball is a niggly thing to do"?

nobody frowns. no more white prides.

yeah, pretty much... 'gofer this... gofer that...' whatever niggly things need to be taken care of...

"gofer"?

As in: "Might as well gofer a soda, nobody hurts, nobody cries"?

nobody drowns. nobody dies.

Jess, how the hell did you throw your back out?

damn, I hope you get better soon. if you want any help just let me know, one of the benefits of me being unemployed (for you) is that I can become a helper or gofer if necessary. ... but only for you! Thrown out backs, depending on the health of the individual tend to improve within a couple days, i think...

Depends on what you exactly did to it.

I've written a shit-load of papers in these last 5 years, so let me explain:

[sic] is used when there is an error (whether it be spelling, grammatical or factual errors) in a quotation that you are using. So yes, AD is right about how [sic] is used, but it is not limited to just spelling.

The other way to use square brackets in a quotation is when you need to replace a word in the quotation you are using for the purpose of what MCs would call "flow". For example, if you're incorporating a quotation in a paper that is in the wrong tense from the rest of your paper, you could change the tense of the word in question, but you would have to put the entire word in square brackets to show that you modified it.

Too bad we don't know any English majors....

Anyways, Eric - thanks for the invite, but I'm usually not home 'til 10 or so on Tuesdays. Except tonight. Who knew that throwing your back out hurt THIS much? Honestly, I can't even take my own socks off. Does anyone know how long I can expect this to hurt?

my understanding of the [sic] is that it's used in a quotation to acknowledge that the spelling error you made in it was in the origional text. But then I may be on smack, ask an english major.