And I thought Massage CHAIRS were great...

On saturday, at approximately 11:13, I experienced my first ever full body massage. At Christmas me and Donna received a certificate for a free one hour massage from a dad who works at this chiropractic clinic. When we first got it, we were kind of worried that it would be sammy’s dad that would be performing the massage on our less-than-clad selves. That led to considerable delay in attempting to set up an appointment. We only recently remembered that the certificates expired, today actually. So last week I called and set up my appointment, slightly nervous but also excited.

I arrived a little early, and waited out in my car for a few minutes steeling my nerves for...whatever...The place had the generic health clinic feel, a bit 70s-ish. Brown carpet, brown wood siding, brown chairs, brown clocks. The place was dead quiet, spookily so. I waited in a chair and read about how regular visits to your chiropractor can help prevent heart disease and other maladies. I thought only dentists could do that.

The masseuesesse named Jessica came up to me and wisely surmised that I “must be Lindsey.” I followed her down a longish hallway of exam rooms full of contraptions resembling exercise equipment. I can only assume that they are for aligning spines. We entered the massage chamber...where I saw......
Just kidding. Actually, it was just a room, like an exam room, only it had a massage bed and candles, charts of backs and bodies and new agey music playing in the background. So Jessica asked me if I’d ever had a massage before, I said nooooooo. She said they’re pretty relaxing...hmm, yes so I’ve heard. I was also asked if I had any “problem areas” that she should know about. I stupidly told her that sometimes if I slept funny, my neck hurt when I woke up. She wisely ignored that comment, and told me what she’d be doing, 25 minutes on my back, followed by my arms and legs and then ending with my neck. Then she told me to take off my clothes but I could “go ahead and leave my lower underwear on and hop into bed.” I’m guessing this is where Maryn would leave.

So she leaves and I uh, follow her instructions. The bed was heated and I reassured myself that they definitely washed the sheets in between each massagee. I had my face in the little head thingy mathing. With the candles and the space hearter and the heated mattress it was pretty much toasty in there...I was almost asleep by the time she knocked. The music also didn’t help my general awareness. It was your standard new age instrumental stuff. Harps and chimes and background noises. My favorite was the cd that had this vocal lady softly and very highly singing “Ahhhhhhhhhoooooooo ooooh oooooh yoooouuuu are miiiinnnnnnnee oooooooh oooooooh AHHHHHHHHHHH” with synth noises and a chime and other coma-inducing instruments. I think this is when Lauren would leave.

I couldn’t see anything on account of the face thingy, but I heard her put some goopy goop on her hands. It ended up being like vapo-rub really hot you know? Gads everything in and about that room was hot. She went uh, pretty low down my back and that was a little awkward at first. Actually, the whole Stranger Touching My Naked Body thing was a little awkward, but I got over that once I started to feel wonderful muscle things. Basically I was incapable of movement, I was so chilled out. I’m thinking we would have lost Mom somewhere around when her hands touched body. Mom’s reaction: “AHHHHH!!! are you trying to KILL me??”

At first she was talking to me, hair salon style, and when she found out that I got the certificate from Dr. Heath because his daughter was in my class that provided some conversation. For example:
Her: “I’ve met sammy a couple times, real cutie.”
Me: “Uh, oh...yeah....cute...yep...”
Her: “She seems like the classic little princess type”
Me: “Uh, yeah, she’s...yeah ha ha yep...”
Her: “Pretty smart though right? Bright little kid?”
Me: “Well, yeah uh you know, yep pretty uh huh...”

She gave up pretty quickly. When she did my feet, I almost died, it was so ticklish, but it felt dang good. When they say full body, they mean full body, she even massaged my fingers. Every inch of me was covered in slimy vapo-goop. She told me while working on my back that it felt like something was “out of alignment” as if I knew what that meant. I expressed my unknowledge and she said that that was basically what Dr. Heath did all day. At that moment I heard another person moving around in the hall outside, and I remembered Jessica saying that we were all alone, which had kind of creeped me out (Perfect, we’re alone and I’m naked). I imagined all these scenarios in my head that it was actually Dr. Heath (better known to me as Sammy’s Daddy) out in the hall and that Jessica would say “Oh you know what, that’s probably him right now, let me just grab him and he can re-align you right now.” At which point she would go out into the hall, call my student’s dad into the room with my naked self and he would proceed to align me. It basically could not get much more awkward than that, so I was pretty relieved that my ridiculous imagination had once again overworked itself and Jessica went right on whacking my vertebrae.

Halfway through things I had to flip over, that was awkward since I really didn’t want to make eye contact with the woman who was touching me. The more anonymous and faceless the better, I have a similar feeling about eye contact with people cutting my hair. I kept my eyes closed while she kneaded my neck, shoulders, arms, hands, shins, calves, thighs, kneecaps, armpits, jaw...then she said we’re over and that I should get up slowly and come out front when I was ready.

It was wonderful. I felt like I had a new body. I was a little awkward the rest of the day, and kind of tired. Playing guitar was fun, right after a massage. I had a hard time playing any faster than one strum per measure.

So there you have it. Everyone rush out and get a massage, you’ll thank me when you’re lying naked in a hot bed with someone else’s goopy hands folding your shoulderblades backwards.



PS. I GOT A JOB.

Holy Swan Batman!

Oh yeah, I forgot that I wanted to post this. It requires explanation. Here is the assignment description:

"You are the patron of a new portal tympanum that will be sculpted for a church sometime between 1000 and 1200. You are in charge of designing a program for this doorway that reflects the current situation at your monastery or cathedral. Choose a fairy tale as your symbolic narrative. Produce a drawing of the portal to illustrate the composition and iconography. Lastly write an explanation of the tympanum that link the symbolism of your chosen iconography to the circumstances of the commission."

So I created a circumstance, the relics of St. Bill were returned to his home town of Arbitrary, and the residents built a cathedral to house them. However, they were extremely unwelcoming of pilgrims and treated them like outcasts. So my fairy tail was.......guess......

"What's the matter with these scissors??"

Greetings. Many gifts to anyone who can guess what movie the above quote is from. If you need help, call me and I'll do it in the voice.

Anyways: on the news front, my car has been experiencing some health problems. A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I was getting very poor gas mileage. Sandy asked me when was the last time I had changed my air filter. My response of "Air what?" was enough for her to ascertain that it had been quite some time indeed. She then herded me to my car for a trip to the nearest auto parts store to purchase a new air filter and a PVC valve (or pcv, whichever is the thingy in your car), when I turned on my windshield wipers, she added new wiper blades to our list. I have been operating under the misapprehension that my car is a 1994 Buick LeSabre, when in fact it is a 1992 Buick LeSabre. This useful information was garnered by Sandy from my handy owner's manual. I think that was the first time it had been opened in years. Well, we purchased the filter, valve and wiper blades. It took a while for us (by which I mean Sandy) to figure out the air filter thingy on my car, since apparently every car she's ever owned has had a much simpler filter thingy, silly Buick. We (still Sandy here) were also unable to locate the existing Pwhatever valve, and our attempts at changing the wiper blades also failed. So we headed home and decided to take the car over to our neighbors, active members of the Backyard Auto Association.

Bill (not his real name) said that for sure he could change the valve, but we definitely had gotten the wrong wiper blades. So while the guys worked on switching the valves, Sandy and I went back to the store in search of the right blade. Don't get me started on the racket those dang wiper blade manufacturers have got going. I ended up just buying a whole new set of wipers. Sigh. But they were the cheapest, so it wasn't too bad. When we got back to the garage, Bill informed me that while he was changing the valve he noticed that antifreeze was leaking from my engine, a potentially explosive problem. He said he could fix it, if I got the part and paid him 50 bucks. I listened very carefully as he told me very slowly that the part I needed was an INTAKE GASKET.

I repeated that exact phrase later that week to the auto store guy, but he had no idea what I meant. He threw out other parts that included words like "thermal housing" and "manifold" but I was too scared to purchase anything. So Sandy came in with me a couple days later and said two words that sent the store guy immediately to the shelves. Yes, she said "Intake Gasket." I think the main difference in our two experiences was a matter of punctuation. My version of Intake Gasket ended with a question mark. "I need an intake gasket? for my car? buick?" Sandy's was a most definite period. So the guys now had all the things necessary to fix my car.

Apparently it was only going to take them a day to work on it, but come Sunday with my car still parked on the street, I was starting to panic about being able to drive to work the next day. I ended up borrowing Sandy's jeep that week because the guys found out that there was actually more wrong with the car than they'd thought and they'd had to get a buddy to do some "milling" for them of some part. They weren't done with the car by last friday, and I needed to get home for a very important job interview (which, in hindsight is probably more interesting news to my readers than all my car troubles, but I'm far too involved to quit now), so I borrowed Sandy's nice car, which got a flat tire somehow during Sunday night so Sandy had to drive her jeep to work on monday (apparently not my fault, but I still felt bad, the guys fixed it).

I drove my car, and I noticed that they hadn't changed my oil like I had asked them. I'd even gone to the Store and purchased oil and a filter! Things I didn't really know you needed for an oil change. I asked my dad "So I'll need oil right? like a quart?" Dad said "like Five." Anyways, while I was driving my cigarette smoky/beery car I noticed that whenever I took my foot from the break but before I accelerated and whenever I was parked...the car would shake! Not like wrrrrrrrr but more like wrrrrrUHwrrrrUH, call me if you need the sound effects, they were very helpful for the guys when I went over and made them. Actually, they laughed at me, but then asked when my car was making these sounds and movements. So Bill asked me when was the last time my spark plugs were changed? My response was "My whats?" So he said that if I got the parts, he'd fix it this weekend and change my oil. So I went to sandy and told her the good news, that I needed a new Spark Plug! She responded, "well you probably need more than that, how many valves is your engine?" My response was an unintelligent blank stare. She sent me back to the guys, I asked them stupidly how many plugs I should buy. Bill said I'd need six. So I went that very night to get the plugs, and the guy asked me all those questions that had previously caused me to stumble (such as make, model, year...custom or limited? 3.8 engine?) and I answered with unshakable calm. I told him I needed spark plugs for my 1992 Buick LeSabre Custom 3.8 engine car.

So, now I'm going to get my spark plugs and my oil changed this weekend. And I think I need air in my tires.