An apology to my readers.

I was born with a weak spine. Literally but not figuratively — I hope.

So, I’ve had these recurring back problems since I reached middle age. They’re usually fixable, but it takes some time, and I’m in one of those time periods right now. The doctors started working on it in early February, and they — and I — hope to have the problem fixed in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, I just haven’t felt like sitting down at my computer and typing out the long screeds you’re getting used to here. For one, it’s uncomfortable, although the medication I’m on keeps me hobbling around the house. But as I told my doctor, some days the medication makes me feeling like I was back in college in the ’60s. Which means I really don’t trust myself to share much with the world. I can sit down and scribble out a few words on Facebook from time to time just to keep my engine running, but that’s about the extent of my current literary capabilities.

It’s kind of sad because there’s so much to write about right now, with the Legislature in town (I could scream about them shutting down wind energy in North Dakota, in spite of the fact that the phrase “North Dakota is the Saudi Arabia of wind energy” has become the most overused bragging cliche of every politician here in the past 25 years),  the carnival that Donald Trump brought with him to Washington (thank God, he goes home on weekends, like a college student going home to see his high school girlfriend, which, in theory at least, cuts the damage by 25 percent or so) and Wednesday’s likely showdown between the U.S. Army and the Great Sioux Nation at Cannonball (Return to Little Bighorn?).

But I’m on hiatus for a few more weeks. So to politicians, oil companies, polluters and others who find themselves on my cranky side from time to time, I’ll just say this: I’m storing it all up. Beware the Ides of March.