The technical term, I believe, is arse over teakettle. Here at MarnCo, the ruthless multinational behind The Big Adventure, we're all about the technical terms.

Friday I was just a few feet from the garage where the Marnmobile is parked during the winter when I hit a hidden patch of glare ice. In a heartbeat my feet rocketed up in the air and WHAM I hit the ground. Hard. In one hand I had my gym bag, in the other my purse and a large bag of recycling, so there was no hope of using my hands to break the fall.

The spousal unit was just a few feet ahead of me, so he had no time to react. His face turned white when he saw that I wasn't moving, just lying there on the road. "Tell me you haven't hurt your back," he pleaded.

"It's not my back. It's my ass."

Now we come to a sad truth.

If you're hobbling about because you've slipped on glare ice and, oh, say, sprained your ankle, you get nothing but sympathy.

If you're hobbling about because you've slipped on glare ice and oh, say, sprained your butt, people treat this as pure comedy gold.

Before my butt boo boo I never realized just how much the muscles in the derri�re are used. If you walk up a slope, you use them. Running? You use them hard. Steps? Oh, man. Rising up from a sitting position or sitting down? Ouch ouch OUCH.

Do I get even a scintilla of sympathy?

No, no I do not.

It is hard not to be bitter.

And, of course, because the universe is a cold and uncaring place, tomorrow is supposed to be the day when the final part of the squat rack appears at my gym, making the rack totally functional.

Unlike my butt.

The butt that I would have to use hard to use the squat rack. The squat rack it took me months to convince my gym's trainer and owners to purchase. The squat rack I have been anticipating for weeks.

Bitter? Me? Whatever makes you say that?

From hard experience I know that the only way to get my body to heal is to pound down vast amounts of protein, drink lots of fluid, and let the affected part heal by using it as little as possible.

There are certain things I have to do. I have to walk a quarter mile uphill and a quarter mile downhill if I want to get home or leave home. I can choose my trips carefully, though, and save myself unnecessary walking..

I don't have to run on the treadmill at the gym, I use the exercise bike or rowing machine. I don't have to engage in exercises that work the glutes hard, so I won't.

But I want to. I enjoy intense cardio and I enjoy heavy duty workouts. I like looking in the mirror and seeing rivulets of sweat running down my temples, pretty gym muscles swollen with exertion. I like feeling like Marn-Ra, Warrior Princess.

It is more than a little humiliating to be reduced to being a butt gimp. I hope by next week to be back to normal.

Well, as close to normal as I can be, considering just how weird charmingly eccentric I am.

--Marn