SARS gossip on Muni. I took the bus to Union Square, and heard this chinese woman coughing. The couple in back of her jokingly said "I hope you don't have SARS". Then the woman said that her mother was in the hotel in China on the 9th floor when the breakout happened, but said her mother was fine.

How scary is that? I was sitting only two seats away from that woman thinking, her mother might have brought back SARS and gave it to her daughter without even knowing it. Every time somebody coughs and tells me they have a cold, I also jokingly say "I hope you don't have SARS", but perhaps it's not a laughing matter anymore.

It was fun bopping around Union Square, and sitting in every couch I could find. Sofas are so expensive. I did find a couple I like, but they were comparable to the one I liked at Ikea, so I'll probably end up getting my sofa there one day.

I tested out the firmest mattres I could find at Macy's, the extra extra firm one, but it still didn't compare to my hard futon. The salesman told me that I wouldn't find a mattress as hard as a futon, and I think he's right. I think he was sneering at me because I told him I sleep on a futon. How rude! I love sleeping on a futon, and I rarely have problems, which is like the most common ache in the world.

My chiropractor keeps asking me if I have lower back pain, because he says everyone else does. It makes me wonder what kind of mattress the people with lower back pain sleep on.

The only time I had lower back pain was when I took a yoga class, after not having done yoga in a long time. I took the yoga class, and then went to the gym to do a serious weight lifting session, and it was the combination of using back muscles during yoga that hadn't been used in a long time and the weight lifting that threw my back out.

I didn't even know what was wrong with me at first, having never had a back pain before. I called a friend of mine to tell her what was happening, and she said I threw my back out. I called my doctor, and he said the same thing. He told me to take some aspirin, lie on the floor for awhile and rest. In three days it was gone, and I haven't had any back pain since, and I continued to take yoga class and lift weight afterwards.