I hate my knee and other new things

Hello.

As you may know, I injured my knee a few weeks ago, in the dumbest way possible. It's an overuse injury from WALKING TOO MUCH. It's basically all new york city's fault. I was there for three days, which pretty much equated to three solid days of walking, as that's the main thing to do in NYC: walk around the neighborhoods, walk around central park, walk around art museums, etc. By day three I had a serious limp and excruciating pain. Not really an ideal vacation, plus it was cold and rainy the whole time. I would much rather have been relaxing on a beach somewhere.

Anyway, after continuing to limp for 2 weeks with little improvement, I finally gave in and went to the doctor, where I was diagnosed with patellar bursitis. The fluid sac between my knee and thigh bone is all inflamed from overuse. So I was given an anti-inflammatory/painkiller, and told to avoid excessive walking, and if it's not better in 2 weeks I can get x-rays and try physical therapy. The two week period is almost up, and I am walking significantly better. However I still have to be really careful with it, it still hurts to bend it in certain ways, which means I can't dance. Not being able to dance is absolute torture. I think I do need physical therapy, because clearly I don't know how to walk properly if I could hurt myself so easily. I'm just worried I will not be able to afford it, as my insurance sucks.

In other news, my birthday is soon. I've decided not to do anything for it this year though. Since I'm turning 28 I had the idea to have a "28 days later" themed party entitled "28 years later," but I couldn't figure out how to translate that into decorations and activities, probably because I've never seen the movie. Trying to think of something cool to do ended up being too stressful so I gave up. I will just be going on a quiet dinner date with matt, which I'm actually quite excited for.

Also, I moved into the most amazing new apartment with matt and our other roommate kevin. It's in Wicker Park, right near the intersection of milwaukee north and damen. I hope you guys can come see it one day, the neighborhood is really cool.

I'm excited to hear about thom's trip to australia!!

ROAD TRIP

For the third summer in a row, I want to try a road trip to the New England area. And for the third year in a row I assume it will fail. But I am going to try anyway. I want to have at least 2 people come with (but ideally 2). That way gas prices won't be quite so disheartening, and there will still be room in the car for stuff. I also don't know if my car will be the best vehicle for this trip, so it's doubtful it'd happen unless someone else said, "Yeah! Let's take my car!" Really, the only reason my car wouldn't be good is because it doesn't have working AC, but that can be fixed easily enough. It also doesn't have a whole lot of space in the back (hence only 2 other people) and it isn't fast (over 70 and it is just loud, as if it's saying "What did I do to deserve this?"). So I want to know what all of you clowns think of this. I foresee it being about a 10-day trip. One day there, one day back, and 8 days in a lot of states.

Discuss:
availability/vacation time
car use
duration
ideas for making the trip better (I am flexible on the location, but if you have ideas on things to do/see in the area that'd help motivate people, like me)

Also, I have family/friends in Baltimore & DC that we could stay with for free, and Randall & Jayna are in RI. Just sayin'.