The Peeps That I Rub

Lack of posting doesn't mean lack of busy-ness. It actually means quite the opposite, with a dash of attempted A&P IV repressed memories as well...

Today, I share the delightful melange of clients I've had so far this semester. They are as diverse as the characters flying along on the bus in Speed.

1. Bony Man--He is bony and he is a man. I've worked on him twice, and I always feel like saying, "Dude, why do you come in--you have no muscles at all to massage, just bones." He also sounds like he's suffocating when I work on him. This I have no explanation for. Except that perhaps his giant bones impede all his other physiological processes.



2. Awesome Lady--Every once in a while you get a client you just wanna marry and have little massage-babies with. She is the one. She is in her 60's, and she knows PRECISELY the right amount of talking to do where I don't get distracted or feel like strangling her for being obnoxious. She is into beer-brewing and is super-active. And we just gel, kind of like nice flannel pjs and a pair of slippers on a cold winter day. It's a mutual appreciation as well--I realized this after my first massage with her when she said, "How can I get you as my 'therapist' for the rest of the semester?"



3. Cute Southern Guy--His son dragged him in one week, and he's come back ever since. We talk about mountains and cars. I know little about either but love talking with him nonetheless.



4. Nekkid Moaner Guy--He is a pasty-assed skinny nerd of a white boy who strips down buck-nekkid and offers up quiet little appreciative moans the whole time. And he doesn't tip. I still don't understand what possesses people to moan when in the presence of someone massaging them. Even if I was being massaged by Sex itself, draped in chocolate and more Sex, I *still* think I'd feel uncomfortable about being quite so vociferous with my enjoyment. But that being beside the point: If you moan, you should tip. Especially if you're buck-nekkid. And a guy. And pasty-assed. And the sheets over your bare ass look like waves on the ocean or frosting on a cake and this fact has tainted my appreciation of both forevermore. Otherwise, next time I'm gonna be inclined to loogie my massage oil.



5. More Generalized Characters--For some reason this semester is the semester of late-people. Not just one late person, but EVERY SINGLE PERSON. Many of which are Late People Who Act Shocked That Your Massage Schedule Does Not Revolve Around Them and That You *DO* Have Other Clients.

All in all, clinic's not been so bad this semester. Except for the fact that it's on Saturday mornings. Then again, in the face of my upcoming semester of seminars (5 weekends of seminars that run Fridays, 6-10pm, and Saturdays & Sundays from 9-5), clinic is the equivalent of Magical Unicorn Land.

It has been *WAY* too long since I've posted last. I've been busy like I've not been busy for years. Especially at work. Hence the lack of posting.

Oh, but that doesn't mean that nothing's going on. Oh no.

Here's some fragments from the Land of Massage Therapy:

1. I massaged a minor a few weeks ago--a 17-year old lacrosse player. Made me feel a bit old--he was so little, and I wanted to be like, "You're so young, you baby you." He was cute and delightful and chatty and blissfully and obliviously 17-years old, which was symbolized by him actually not giving thought to the fact that *perhaps* you shouldn't ask the person massaging you: "So, like, the guy massage therapists who go to this school, like, um, are any of them straight?" Oh, little boy, you are lucky the door was ajar and you caught me off-guard, otherwise you might've received a mouthful.


2. Our new instructor, the one of maggot-infamy, is turning out to be not quite so good, and I'm not sure whether I should be directing my anger and disgust at *him* or at *the school* for not cluing him in as to what's going on. Despite being a wicked-smart fellow, he's not big into explaining things. Actually, that's not quite right: he's big into explaining the same few things over and over again, while glossing over the rest. Instead, he'll just pass it on by with a warning that "you should probably know this, so make sure to look at it." Is it just me, or isn't it the job of the instructor to EXPLAIN the stuff that we "should probably know" so that we might be able to understand it? Yesterday, after class started 45 minutes late due to his lack of organizational skills and planning, and after we went an hour and a half without a break, despite him NEVER EXPLAINING ANYTHING TO US IN A WAY THAT OFFERS US CLARITY, I got disgusted and left during break. If I'm gonna get stuck teaching this shit to myself, why should I waste four hours sitting in a classroom, eyes glazed over, not learning a goddamn thing, when I could be at work and getting out at 3pm instead of 8?


3. I am shocked and amazed that after this semester, I will only technically have three classes (and one seminar) left. It is such a strange (and delightful) feeling.


4. In business class, our final project this semester is gonna be a business plan we have to create for our own business. I am actually a bit excited about this project since it's an idea I've toyed around with anyways--I would like to own my own place eventually, and after reading The Massage Therapy Journal and realizing that the #1 complaint among most MTs is that they didn't receive any business-training at their school, I feel a bit appreciative that we will be learning at least a LITTLE bit about what would be involved in starting our own business.


5. In the aforementioned business class last week, I thought for a second that I had coined my own witty phrase and was gonna have to write a whole goddamn business book, just to show it off in all its glory. Alas, I googled the phrase the next morning, and someone else had already thought of it: "If you've got a niche, scratch it." *sigh*


6. My back and right leg are all fucked up and have been for the past few weeks. I am a bit afraid that this is because I've started clinic again and am massaging people 3 hours a week... It frightens me that there is a possibility that, despite my attempts at using good body-mechanics while massaging, that giving massages may result in me being in pain. I am hope hope hoping that perhaps the problem is a pre-existing hip-problem that I have, and that once Chiro-man fixes me, I'll be perfectly fine after 3 hours of massage. Otherwise I'm fucked.


7. I think my crush on Chiro-man has finally been snuffed out. And apparently all it took was a conversation in which he talked about grilling ribs and playing baseball.

Bow Chicka Bow Wow

Last Thursday I had my first p0rn0 massage experience. (Well, mostly just the part of the p0rn0 leading up to the point where the lady bends over the copier with her skirt hiked high up and says, "Mr. Copier-repairman, can you PLEASE fix my copier? It needs to be unjammed. And then jammed. And then unjammed. Over and over." Not so much the aftermath.) My second client was the hottest guy ever. Fireman. Cute little alternative-looking eyeglasses and snug little winter cap while dressed. Pierced nipples and coated in tattoos when undressed. And a foxy wife, though we'll slide on past that.

It all started when I returned to the room after having him strip down, and his boxers were covered only with a teeny-tiny towel (he had "misunderstood" my directions to climb under the top sheet and climbed under the top TOWEL instead). Then it continued on with the naked lady tattoo that kept staring at me and the pierced nipples which, for some reason, he decided not to pull his sheet up over. So needless to say, they drew my stare like a tractor beam. But it wasn't until he started making little appreciative moany noises whenever I did something particularly well that I had to stop and make sure that the relaxation music filtering in didn't have a bit of the old BOW CHICKA BOW WOW pumping through it. It didn't, and yet he continued to make charming little moany and breathy noises while I massaged him, to the point that I just wanted to hop on up there with him, rip off my scrubs, and shout, "Well, if that's the way you're gonna play this, then bring it on, bitch."

But I didn't.

That would've been unprofessional.

Fucking hot, but unprofessional.

So instead he fell asleep, not even the quietest of Bow Chicka Bow Wows echoing in the humid air of the massage room.

And then he awoke, disoriented and groggy, his nipple rings winking at me with a bit of sand in the corners of their eyes.

And then he was gone.

A Christmas Plop

Last Thursday was a little gem of Christmas plopped square into the middle of Spa Massage. I got "cornered" into doing a hot stone massage finally. I've been paranoid about having to fulfill this requirement since we started the class. With pretty much no practice, I had visions of me knocking my client out with a large stone dancing through my head. (Read about the origin of my paranoia HERE.) Despite my initial jitteriness, it went fantastically well--I had the girl laughing so hard a couple times that her sacral stone almost fell off. And despite burning my palms a bit (I am lazy and didn't feel like scooping the stones out with a spoon since it takes forever--the scalding hot temperature apparently catches up to your skin eventually), it was a damn enjoyable experience. On her survey, she noted that she would change absolutely nothing about the experience, that she "Absolutely loved it." And I walked out of there with a $20 tip. I'm not uber-materialistic, and I don't like to gloat on the amount of tips I make. But after the whole tip-less Man-Boob Experience, it just signified to me that maybe I'm not so horrible a massage therapist after all.

Santa blessed us with even more good tidings afterwards--our only 9 pm client didn't show, so we were able to hold our potluck earlier than planned (we'd been planning to hang around after clinic, til about 11, to gorge). We all converged in the back massage room, a sheet draped over the massage table like a table cloth, our tasty grub strewn all about, and we chatted and goofed around for the final hour. Someone made vegan chili. Folks were surprised to find that they actually *LIKED* something as weird as couscous (last week, I found out no one there had ever *HAD* couscous and several folks had never even heard of it--so after S____ said, Oh hey! Isn't couscous the stuff that Rachel on Friends talked about eating with her hands in that one episode? I decided to bring it in along with cookies). And people tried not to look like big fat fatties by only eating 3 or 4 of my cookies, despite begging me to let them take some leftovers along with them (presumably to stuff their faces with on the drive home).

All in all, I felt good driving home. I've really come to like my classes this semester and grow fond of the folks in them. I'm gonna miss them next semester.

Damn you, Father Time (and people unable to pass anatomy).

The Man-Boob Experience

Last Thursday night in spa massage, I had a male client ask me if I'd "massage his chest for him."

I should've known that the night was going to be a strange one, awash in unintentionally sexualized moments after J____ accidentally spooged lotion all over my backpack and hoodie when the pump-bottle's coagulated head spurted goop every which way in the office, leaving us looking at each other, him apologizing by saying that "it just sorta exploded everywhere" as we stared at the jismy mess and tried not to mutually reach the conclusion that it just looked too damn close to man-juice for comfort.

Let me stop right here though (so that you don't get all excited and then find yourself sorely disappointed at the end of this story) and warn you that, despite the harbingers and the strange request, a) nothing naughty happens, and b) there were no major indications that my man-boob client had been *hoping* that something naughty would happen.

Nonetheless, no matter what a male client's intentions are--the good, the bad, the ugly--it is hard not to feel at least a *wee* bit uncomfortable when someone you've never met before and who's stripped down half-nekkid on a table in front of you asks you to fondle their man-boobs for them... in a professional way of course. It's damn near impossible not to find yourself leerily questioning whether or not they're HOPING something will indeed happen.

It threw me for a loop.

Especially when the request came after I'd returned to the room to find him splayed out face up on the table, the sheets pulled down to his waist, his man nipples glinting at me like little anatomical flying saucers, sucking me into their tractor beam. It was, needless to say, a bit daunting.

We've always been taught to steer clear of the chest in massage classes, and this was a major part of the problem--I had no clue what to do, especially since the man had a nice plush, hairy chest. And after this episode on Thursday, I find myself realizing how silly this is. Guys exercise and use their arms to do things (as do women, for pete's sake). So is it really that surprising that they might just as easily pull a muscle in their man-boobs? I think not. And giving Man-Boob (as I henceforth will refer to him) the benefit of the doubt, he could've very well been tight in the chest. So why in the hell wouldn't you teach students how to massage a person's chest muscles?

However, given that we've never *learned* any massages to use on the chest, I was at a complete loss as to what to do. I found myself having a panicked Ross-from-Friends moment where I thought--"Grab the wooden spoons and maybe you can just fake him out that you know what you're doing." But when the time came and I'd finished up on his shoulders, I realized there was no faking it--I didn't wanna be wrapping my fingers around his chrome nipples and wiggling my fingers around in his bountiful chest hairs if I had *NO FRICKING IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING*. And that sincerely was the case.

So instead, I 'fessed up to my lack of knowledge, telling him that we'd never actually *learned* any massage techniques for the chest in our classes. But, I told him, I could hop, skip, and jump it out of the room for a sec and ask my massage instructor if he had any suggestions or tips, no problem. Apparently he was not keen on that idea though, immediately blurting, "Nah, that's ok. Don't worry about it."

Now, again, I have to assure you (and myself) that I suspect the man was completely harmless--afterwards, we accidentally found another patient folder of his (somehow he'd filled out two sets of forms) showing he'd been here over a dozen times or so, and if he was a major weirdo, I suspect someone would've complained at *SOME* point or another. But again--as the massage continued and he started making meager chit-chat that involved questions the likes of "So where do you live?" and "So what kind of things do you like to do in your spare time?" I found myself feeling uncomfortably like I was auditioning for some slot in a personals ad somewhere:

LIKES: Painting my nails, puppies, and pillow fights.

DISLIKES: Mean people, taxes, and dishonesty.

Needless to say, it was not my best moment as a massage therapist. Sincerely a bit uncomfortable about his intentions after both the man-boob request and his rather personal questions, I overcompensated horribly by being overzealously chatty to the point where my brain was actually shouting YOU MUST STOP TALKING--OH MY GOD YOU MUST STOP TALKING!

That and I found myself being anything but relaxing when it came to the actual massage. It's hard to deliver a light, relaxing touch (including gentle stroking from the trunk of a person to the tips of their fingers and toes, which is a typical part of the massage routine) when you feel like you're in a slightly-uncomfortable, potentially sexually-charged scenario. Light brushing fingertips are the kinda shit you throw at a person that you're trying to pick up at a bar or something, and god knows, you don't want the added confusion of *that* kinda communication thrown into an already potentially inflammatory situation. So I ended up being rather rough and brisque, not wanting to give him the wrong idea. There was not a moment of light relaxing touch in the whole damn massage. My head was also inserted way up my ass, into a land of magical fairies and fluffy mountains made of mashed potatoes, and when you're not in the moment, feeling it and connecting, it does not make for a good massage.

The only redeeming aspect of the whole massage experience was that, upside down, the man was the spitting image of an older version of the stone-cold foxy Peter Krause, so I was able to (at least for some of the time) get wrapped up in the fantasy that I was massaging the star of Six Feet Under--which was not too damn shabby.

I was not surprised when I did not get a tip afterwards (though when someone asks you to massage their man-boobs for you, they should be willing to shell out a nice juicy tip, if I may say so).

Thankfully, he left peacefully and with no major incidents.

After sharing the strange experience with one of the folks in my clinic, however, I also had to endure a bizarre confession that left me rather confused and dumbfounded and which went something like this: "Yeah, I don't know why, but with guys, I always feel the need to want to please them and make them as relaxed as humanly possible. I mean, not like I want to give them a happy ending or something. But you wanna get them like *close* to that. I mean, sorta. I mean, not a happy ending, per se. But you want to make them as relaxed as possible, you know? And, I mean, that *would* be the ultimate in relaxation. But I find myself wanting to relax them. Like as much as possible. Like to please them and make them enjoy the experience like no other."

Um, yes.

Ahem.

*Straightening necktie awkwardly*

The night finally ended with our instructor demonstrating some chest-massage techniques on J____ who shortly thereafter told me to stop referring to a man's chest as "man-boobs" as it was creeping him out.

Point being--fellas, if you're gonna ask a female massage therapist to massage your chest for you, no matter if it's because you're hoping to get Mr. Wiggles a bit excited or because you pulled a muscle doing some heavy-lifting, please please please heed this suggestion and make sure to tell her (regardless of your intentions) that you've been exercising a lot and your chest muscles are just really really sore. That way we can at least grasp onto the illusion that you're not just being a dirty dirty boy.

Even if you are.

Things About the Things and the Subarachnoid Space and C1 is Not a Dermatome and Hi and Dysfunctional Gaydar Blaring Pre-Central Gyri!

(Otherwise Known as "Things That Have Happened in Massage-Land Over the Past Couple Weeks")

1. My mom came in for an aromatherapy massage last week. Of course, I fucked up a whole bunch of shit that I normally don't fuck up (forgot my bolster-placement and forgot a pillow-case for the face-rest thing). She apparently enjoyed it nonetheless, despite the fact that the office-folks had queued up some sorta of bizarre flamenco relaxation music that made it feel like a short man in a sombrero was standing in the corner, playing joyfully on his extremely tiny guitar.



2. I scared both me and my A&P instructor by getting a 100% on my Physiology midterm. And apparently multiple non-100% test scores averaged with a 100% midterm score somehow = 100% (which is my grade for the class thus far). I am a bit confused as to how this is mathematically feasible (anything under 100% averaged with 100% would make the end result inevitably less than 100%), but I am just gonna chalk it up to his mad math skillz which (according to rumors) are as piss-poor as his spelling ("vigina!"). I mention the grade not to brag, but because my brain feels all creepy lately, like Rain-Man-esque or something. Like it's just stacking up all these little tiny notecards with random pieces of info all over the place in that little 3-lb. area and it just keeps flipping and flipping and flipping through them at random.* Quiet, brain. Quiet. Quiet, I say. In particular, it's been absorbing A&P information in this voracious manner like it's some behemoth black hole or some super-stoned frat-boy chowing down on Cheetos. I mean, I can almost physically hear the suction noise as the tidbit of info is vortexed into my brain and jammed somewhere into its recesses. It's a-starting to scare me a bit as it feels like when I speak I'm gonna diarrhea out some weird (but interesting) tidbit about the brain or spinal cord instead of normal human conversation. Or instead of saying Hi to some coworker in passing, I'm going to blurt out the name of a spinal segment and its attached nerves. Also daunting is the fact that I can now watch really bad crime investigation/medical-drama shows and actually recognize what they're talking about. Last night, one of Dr. Gregory House's henchmen said something about "the subarachnoid space" and I shouted, "I FUCKING KNOW THAT!" at my cats. They seemed unimpressed.



3. I realized that I have to stop assuming people are gay when I don't know for sure. Even if they are flaming. I used to yell at people for doing just that, and yet I've found myself doing exactly the same, only to be proven wrong in both instances despite the fact that my "gaydar" was blaring. Flaming spa-massage fellow has a wife. I got to see her in a paper-bra. Gaydar is clearly clearly broken and/or needs new batteries.



4. I also got to see my mom's eyes widen as the extremely-tattooed fellow in my clinic put his hands all over my shoulders and back while introducing himself to her last Thursday. I have finally gotten used to the fact that he is very touchy-feely in a (thankfully) non-threatening way, but it was TOTALLY worth it not to have warned her ahead of time, just to see her eyes half-bulge out of her head.



5. I feel like I drank a lot of coffee in the past hour, but I totally didn't. *Twitching just a little and flipping through those notecards one more time*

----------
*LL: It reminds me of how you described when you were little trying to count all the cracks in the sidewalk (or lifting your feet up over them or something to that effect) as you drove quickly by in the car. I probably totally butchered the details of that tale, but I love that story nonetheless. *Flipping some more and shutting up*

Every time I cheer because someone's cancelled or I'm not booked solid for the night, my Spa Massage instructor always looks at me with a "Why are you in the massage program if you don't want to be doing massages" kind of look.

To him I say: it's a lot easier to be enthusiastic about the fact that you're booked solid with 4-hours worth of massage appointments for the evening when you haven't already been at work for 10.5 hours and are tired and slightly crabby and your eyes burn and you wish that you didn't still have 1.25 hours of work to go and your spine feels like somebody punched you in it and did I forget to mention the tired part.

Proof of the Existence of God

It is very very difficult to massage someone while carrying on a non-stop conversation with them for an hour.

I repeat:

It is very very difficult to massage someone while carrying on a non-stop conversation with them for an hour.

Though I sort of already knew this, this fact was concretized on Thursday night with my second massage client. I should've known it was gonna be a ride and a half when she a) didn't even know what she was signed up for as her husband had purchased the services for her for sweetest day, and b) despite sitting in the lobby area for 15 minutes or so, she waited until I greeted her and started to take her back to the room to decide that she needed to use the rest room.

But even when all that was said and done, I had no clue she was going to talk NON-STOP for the whole hour. I kid you not. Non-stop.

Things discussed during said hour:

The Seinfeld massage episode where George thinks he might be gay because "it moves" while he's being massaged by a guy.
A childhood experience where she was ice skating and her friend had an allergic reaction to the cold and her face swelled up.
Almost every conceivable question a person could ask about massage therapy.
What muscle I was massaging at that specific moment in time.
The topic of chiropractors.
The topic of physical therapists.
The topic of my boyfriend and what kind of work he does.
How when she was little, she took a friend with her to the chiropractor, and they giggled so much that the chiropractor got pissed because he had a difficult time trying to adjust her.
The topic of what massage actually does to the body.
Questions concerning what kind of things will relax/stretch the muscles other than massage.
The topic of whether or not I've ever massaged someone with fibromyalgia before.
A discussion of the fact that going to a massage therapist is like going to get your haircut--it's not only a time to relax but a time to socialize.
Disbelief with regard to the fact that anyone could ever possibly think that there wasn't a God, given the fact that the body is so elaborate and crazy and fascinating and complicated.

I thought I'd finally have some sorta of respite from the endless tirade when I flipped her over and jammed her face into the face-rest (it's damned hard to talk while your cheeks are being smashed into your eyes sockets), but she apparently has superheroic powers and was able to carry on unimpeded.

She was perhaps one of the most unabashedly cute and bizarrely charming women I'd met in a long while, a fact that I would've appreciated a bit more had I not been worried the whole time that she was bothering everyone else in the surrounding rooms with the volume-level of her voice (apparently, however, she was not).

She adored the massage and gushed about it for like 10 minutes afterwards, though I'm not quite sure how she could've even noticed the damn experience given the distraction of all the incessant talking.

But the pinnacle of the experience with her (it almost was obligatory that this scene took place because there is nothing more accurate that could've captured her personality) was when, upon leaving, she reached into her wallet to tip me, handed me four singles, and then asked, while fishing around in the change pocket, whether I'd mind if she gave me some of her change for a tip so she could get rid of some of the excess she was carrying around.

It took all my willpower (and the willpower of those around me--most of whom I thought were going to wet themselves) to withhold full-out laughter.

Hello, Buck-Nekkid!

Last Thursday was our first night of actual clients in our Spa Massage class. I was a bit mothy in the stomach the hour prior, but that quickly dissipated as we hurriedly distracted ourselves by spending the first hour scurrying around like little squirrels, desperate to bury our nuts before the first snow hits.

As I mentioned, I had two aromatherapies to do. And once I blundered through introductions with the first client, I felt a little bit more comfortable. Amusingly, the massage part isn't so much what was making me nervous as it was the "being sociable" part. Because I SOOOO suck at that. But apparently I am sometimes capable of faking it. (A curt "shut the fuck up so I can massage your stupid ass" apparently works wonders.) So the massages went well.

The first woman was extremely tense--it had been her first time to a massage therapist in 8 years or so. And it was a bit nerve-wracking working with her, just because her energy was a bit high-strung and battling MY energy's attempt to relax her. *CAGE MATCH* I had to laugh though because when I went back in to break down the room, she had thrown a couple five-dollar bills on the mussed-up sheets that were on the massage table, and damned if it didn't make me feel like a dirty whore, like she had left it on my nightstand, sneaking out and not even wanting to look me in the face. But I got over it cuz, hell, it was a $10 tip. Woot woot.

In between groups of clients, the relaxation music (which we filter in through a cd player that goes to the lobby and all the rooms) suddenly got a bit strange, enough so that a couple of us (including my instructor) stopped mid-sentence to ask what the hell was in the cd player. It sounded like weird horror-movie orchestral bells that were swelling to signify some ensuing Freddy Krueger attack, and I couldn't help but laugh when W___ very cheerily told us all that he thought it might be fitting since it seemed "kinda Halloweenish." Needless to say, a shared vision of the music jangling while we leaned in to wrap our hands around our client's suddenly pale necks (in order to massage them, of course) made our instructor quickly nix that idea.

When our second set of clients came in, a very tiny ultra-conservative older woman shuffled in with her husband and, catching my eye, managed to look mildly terrified for a second, and I swear to god, I could almost palpably see the words above her head reading "Oh my god, please let me get one of the more normal-looking MTs." Needless to say, I almost wet myself when she got J___, our very imposing and very tattooed (but extremely mild-mannered and relatively gentle) fellow.

Served her right. Hee hee.

I, on the other hand, got a very nice and cheerful middle-aged woman who bubbled her way through the introductions. And I quickly discovered that she was not one for modesty. I didn't notice her nekkdiness at first, and I suppose it's nothing that unusual (though typically at massage school, clients normally only strip down to their skivvies). But when I had to ask her to move her arms down to her sides (so that I could do her neck and shoulders) and she proceeded to flip the sheets to get her arms underneath, causing them to balloon upwards and revealing EVERY SQUARE INCH OF HER BODY, I found myself having to squirm so as not to blurt out Hello buck-nekkid!

But hey, she was ridiculously nice and spent ten minutes inquiring about what other services we provide and telling me how relaxing my massage was that I couldn't really complain too much.

All in all, I was pleased with the evening (though wicked tired upon my return home).

Thank god for proper draping, though.

The Popping of the Cherry

Tonight is our first night working on the public in my Spa Massage class. *GULP*

* * * * * *

Last Thursday we finally got trained on how to "give" a hot stone massage. I say "give" in quotation marks as it is the most elaborate, confusing routine I've ever taken part in, and my first attempt was not so much a gift the likes of a carefully wrapped diamond ring as it was the equivalent of giving someone one of those sucker-pop rings wrapped up in a used maxi-pad and stuffed in a plastic bag from Giant Eagle.

The routine is two pages long, about 50+ steps (all of which have sub-steps to them), and one of the most taxing performances you'd probably ever take part in as a massage therapist. I was literally exhausted and cranky when I got home (exhausted from it being so taxing, cranky at myself for being so klutzy at it).

And yet, our instructor (and presumably anyone else who's being doing it a long time) makes it look like a gorgeous ballet. Which makes me want to knock him down and steal his wallet. Just because.

There are like a trazillion stones involved in it. There are 10 spinal stones. There are large stones. There are medium stones. (It is difficult to differentiate between the two.) There are small stones. There are toe stones. There is a belly stone. There is a third-eye stone. And I'm sure there are more that i'm just absolutely not thinking of.

You are constantly removing them from the hot water and then putting them back in and then taking out more and then returning more and then jamming some in a sock and then jamming them onto people's necks and then jamming them under people's shoulders and then resting them on their feet and then switching the ones on their feet with hotter ones and then... well, you get my drift.

The actual massage involves a lot of pre-stone placement: stones under the spine, stones on the hands and feet, a stone on the belly, and a stone on the third eye. And it also involves using stones to massage with. It is an amazing feeling, the sensation of the heat and then the smoothness of the stones as they're driven back and forth over the contours of your body. It is more difficult to be the one doing this. You have to constantly remember to flip the stones around as you're massaging so that the side that's hotter is always touching the client. And the client (and the stones) are super-lubed up so they can glide smoothly over the skin, so you also have to manage to do all this flipping *while* gropingly trying to hang onto the stones for dear life.

For an hour last Thursday, the air was filled with the sound of stones hitting the floor and muttered curses from one of my classmates in the room next door. It was way too funny, but I do sympathize. (It really WAS way too funny though. Hee hee.)

And man, do you lube the clients up. I mean, I think you could use them as an effective slip-and-slide once they're all done, at least on their backs. Granted, you'd probably shoot right off into a wall, but it's still worth contemplating.

And the massage is set up to be only an hour, but it's a routine that's condensed from 90 minutes (and I'd say it's damn near impossible to finish it in an hour, especially if you're just starting).

All that being said in done, I want to conquer this damn massage routine. It really is marvelous and beautiful and stimulating to *all* of the senses (touch from the stones, smell from some essential oils, sound from the delightfully peaceful clink of the stones hitting one another, sight, obviously, and perhaps even taste, if you licked your therapist while they were doing it to you!). And I WANT TO BE GOOD AT IT, GODDAMMIT! The problem is that I ain't ever gonna be able to practice it at home since I don't have the stones. So yeah, one time I've done it. And I'll be doing it sometime soon on some sad sap who was mistaken enough to sign up for it through the clinic. Lucky them.

But until then, I'm just not gonna worry about it. Because I have more important things to worry about right now, like MY FIRST TIME WORKING ON THE PUBLIC (GIVING AROMATHERAPY MASSAGES) IN LESS THAN THREE HOURS.

Lordie.

Hot stone massages tonight. Woot woot!

*Smacking my own ass and doing a little dance*

So. The full-body paraffin. Rocks out. Yes, it does.

I got to give and get one on Thursday, and it was quite the experience, let me tell you.

How it works is that you get lubed up with a massive amount of lotion and then MTs dip strips of what kind of look like birthday-streamer decorative paper into paraffin and plaster you with it. Then you get cocooned up in some plastic sheets for about 45 minutes while the hot paraffin begins to cool and solidify. Easy 'nuff.

But damn is it messy. When you set up, you have to cover the floor with plastic sheeting so that the carpet doesn't get caked. And you have to wear gloves in order to apply the paraffin so that it doesn't stick all over your hands. Consequently, as the paraffin begins to dry, it starts falling off the gloves onto the plastic sheeting on the floor. And consequently, the cute overly-hyperbolic gay man in your class will walk all through it and then track it all the way down the hallway so that you have to spend about 20 minutes trying to pick it all out.

The effects of it are quiet awesome though. As it's getting put on you, it actually feels like a burning-smack on certain more sensitive areas of your skin--your back and your stomach mostly. When I got it done on my stomach, it actually made me tickle as well, so I had to keep trying to smother my smiles and giggles.

And you get to wear towels all tucked into your what-whats and who-whos so as to keep you from being exposed--the end result is that you feel like a very large, very grotesque baby with a weird terry-cloth diaper on.

But when it's all done, your skin feels ultra-sensitive, like a feather could brush by you and it'd have the force of a semi. All the way home, I was very aware of the way my clothes felt against my skin--apparently the paraffin shluffs off that top layer of flesh and makes you feel all WHAT WHAT! And at school, I kept wanting to walk around and say, Blow on me. Yeah, do it! just because your skin is THAT hyper-aware. Most definitely a nice luxurious shag would be a good follow-up to this procedure--but, no, we don't provide that option, so don't ask. ; )

* * * * * * * * *

Someone asked me a few months ago if there are ever weird situations in class where folks are taking advantage of all the exposed flesh and professional-fondling, and though I'm sure that does sometimes maliciously happen, for the most part, I think what sometimes feels like that is just a bizarre obliviousness that folks seem to develop as they get further along in these sorts of programs.

The rules we have with regard to personal space and touch in the real world don't seem to apply in the land of massage therapy school, where you're constantly working hands-on with people. So in massage school, there is often a gray area between the a) awkward and slightly-inappropriate and the b) oblivious touchy-feelie hands-on nature of the program, and it is often a difficult area to navigate.

I've found myself uncomfortable in class before, yes. I've had an instructor spontaneously rub my back for a few seconds while I was talking to someone. Last night I had my instructor wrap his arms around me from behind (in the kind of pose you take when you're trying to show someone how to take a golf-swing) in order to position me so that I could palpate the trapezius muscle in the woman I was working with. I've had a fellow-student check up on me and pack in my sheets around my hips way more than appeared to be necessary.

And though I'm fairly certain that every single one of these instances had an absolutely benign intent, nothing more than a caring hand or a helpful gesture, there's always that worm of doubt. That worm is one of suspicion and discomfort, and I hate feeling that way.

It's so very weird and sad that we've really done such a fantastic job of making touch all f-ed up and taboo and confusing in this society, especially if you're a woman. I joke and joke and joke about sex and touch on this blog, and sometimes it's for no other reason than that sex is good and sex is fun and sex is a silly silly thing (*thinking of Barbie and Ken bumping their plastic non-parts together*). But often it's also because the associations with regard to sex and massage (and the power dynamic in massage as well) sometimes make me a wee bit uncomfortable, and because if someone in any given situation is gonna be in charge of sexualizing that touch, I WANT IT TO BE ME. I want to own it.

I often think though that many of the folks going into this field are partially doing so because they are in some very basic ways starved for touch, and with massage they can satisfy this craving in a safe setting. It is sad that we often become this way. I think the reason I crave touch so much as well and fixate on it and ramble about it is because I so desperately want to be able to share that very human connection with other people without feeling a sense of threat or discomfort or suspicion. And, particularly for females, perhaps that is an impossibility. Which is really really sad and unfortunate.

And it's even more sad that it's this big self-propagating mess. You have people starved for touch innocently reaching out to others to feed this need but the others are confused and suspicious of it based on past experiences and react accordingly, just reinforcing the awkwardness and tabooness to both parties and continuing to make them leery of extending it or receiving it. And that's just really goddamn unfortunate.

This suspicion, this confusion of motives, this uncomfortability with what is presumably completely innocent touch also emphasizes to me that every (hu)man is in fact an island, and that we spend so much of our lives trying to form bridges across the waters separating us when perhaps it isn't possible at all. We may technically be a piece of the continent, but miles of water separate us from the next piece of land.

Damn am I inexplicably melancholic today.

*Donning my terry-cloth diaper and waddling around in the hopes of lifting my mood back up again*

Full-body paraffin: by far my favorite (so far) of the spa-services we provide. Perhaps I will gush more about it once I shake off this Mondy-morning sluggishness.

I also realized on Thursday that a fellow in my spa-massage class (who has his last name tattooed on the back of his neck in 4-inch high, super-thick black letters) has a thing for me.

I am not yet sure whether to be flattered or just kinda a-scared.

Earthy, But Sexually Deviant

Thursday was crazy with madness and craziness in spa massage. I really dig having only a handful of people in our "class" as it forces us to very quickly bond and get comfortable with one another, seeing as you're practicing techniques on the same people over and over. And the folks in my class are a strange but lovely variety--there's M, a middle-aged woman whose mouth talks faster than her words and is always asking 1500 questions. There's S, a gal a bit younger than me who is the bubbliest but nicest person I've met there and who calls everyone "hon" all the time. There's W, a fellow who says cutely flaming stuff every two seconds (this week, he started fanning himself and squealing about how he thought he was having a heart attack) and who coughs a lot and instead of just letting it go (so as not to be any more disruptive than the coughing) always has to say really loudly "Oh, excuse me! Sorry 'bout that" every time it happens. And there's J, the salon-owning fellow with the thick southern-Ohio-esque drawl who is short but built like the thick trunk of a tree and has a tribal tattoo that starts on each forearm and crawls up both arms and apparently onto both his chest and his back.

And so it was that all of us who were quickly beginning to bond learned on Thursday how to give an herbal wrap. And this is where all the crazy madness comes in.

I happened to have my bathing suit on under my scrubs (since he told us to make sure to bring it with us in case we got to the body paraffins), so I got volunteered to be the one he demonstrated on. Which is no big deal--it's always more fun to get a technique done on you by an instructor rather than a student since they already know what they're doing.

Despite me being the guineau pig, he insisted I follow them around to find out where everything's located before they "experimented" on me. The preparation for the herbal wrap is freakishly complicated and drawn out, requiring thick rubber gloves and lots of fricking patience. On the massage table, you lay out a sheet and then a towel and then another sheet and then a mylar sheet and then a plastic sheet. Then you lay out a wet blanket that's been soaking in herbs in a 180-degree herb bath and cocoon your patient up in that along with the overhang of most of your lower-layers of sheets and mylar. And then you wrap up 4-8 hot-packs (that have also been soaking in 180-degree water) in towels and place them at various areas on the person--ankles, hips, shoulders, etc. Hence the need for rubber gloves. And then you wrap them up the rest of the way in the cocoon and then lay a blanket over them. The idea is to get them to enjoyably sweat out any toxins and to relax all the muscles in their body.

After all that was explained to us, my instructor told me to go back in the room and take off my scrubs and put on a robe. (*bow chicka bow wow--and then the cable repair guy showed up and asked if I needed him to "fix my cable"--ah, but I kid*) Anyways, I did, and then a few of the female students reentered the room donning the infamous rubber gloves and the large herbal blanket that had steam billowing off of it. They stretched it out over the table, and then my instructor told me to remove my robe while they stepped out and lay down on it--they returned and proceeded to cocoon me up in the lovely warm layers of tea-smelling earthiness. We'd already been in class for about 3 hours, so everyone was reaching that slightly-cracked out giddy stage of night, so people were jokey and goofbally and grinning and giggling at me as they wrapped me up so tight that I could no longer move and my head was the only thing sticking out, making me look like a human burrito. And then they layered on about 4 hot packs, a couple by my ankles and two on my hips. And as they did so, I could feel a sudden and unexpected wave of panic and claustrophobia wash over me. My throat and chest tightened and I tried to calmly breathe and contain myself. The sensation passed quickly, thankfully, and the warm cuddliness of the blanket sunk in.

My instructor reminded everyone that you should always check back on your client after about 5 minutes or so and make sure that the hot-packs aren't burning them. He told me they'd be back in a few to do so and in the meantime, they went and set up another room for W (they were demonstrating on one woman and one man).

As I lay there quietly, the hot-packs on my hips slowly started to increase in intensity. I pondered this. A second later, S peeked in and asked, "How ya doin', hon?" I told her that my hips were starting to get a bit hot, but that I'd give it a little bit longer because maybe the heat would level off. "Ok, hon. We'll come check on you again in a few."

The heat didn't level off though. Very quickly my hips began to burn. Fuck, I thought. But then I reminded myself they'd be back shortly to check and I'd just ask them to adjust the hot packs then. Minutes passed. My hips continued to burn even more violently. I sucked in my gut to try to get the heat away from my skin. This worked for a few seconds, and then not so much. I tried to wiggle my hands down to that area to pull the heat pads up. No such luck. So I just lay there and sweated and burned. For minutes and minutes and more minutes. Apparently the other students were so wrapped up (no pun intended) in the other fellow's herbal wrap that I'd been forgotten. And then, thank jeebus, M walked back in again.

"I sure don't like the smell of the herbal stuff on these blankets," she mused. I tried not to shriek as I responded, uncharacteristically high-pitched, "Really? Yeah, I kind of like it myself. It's kind of earthy and nice-smelling." S entered. M said, "Yeah, you SEEM like an earthy kinda gal, so I could see that." (And so goes the dirty hippie stereotype again--even more mind-bogglingly so, seeing as they've never even seen how I dress outside of scrubs.) "Yeah, down-to-earthy," S shouted, grinning. "Um, yeah. Can you get these hot packs off of me, cuz they're burning my hips?!?" I finally blurted out. "Oh my god, yeah," both women said and scurried around as my instructor came in and asked what was going on and helped them replace the hot packs on my shoulders instead of my hips. Sweet motherf-ing relief.

But then our instructor started in on the claustrophobia stuff. "Another thing you want to be aware of is that some people can get really claustrophobic when they're getting this done, enough so that you'll come back after 5 minutes and they want out and that's the end of the session." My heart started a-thumpin' at the reminder that I was completely incapable of moving and/or freeing myself from the sweltering hot burrito I was cocooned in. I began to feel like something out of a really lame sitcom as my mannerisms began to coincide directly with his comments. I started to breathe heavily and tried to calm myself down by attempting to ignore his words. "If you come back into the room after five minutes, and the person's eyes are wide open and gaping..." S____ looked down at me curiously, my eyes bulging nervously... "...and they don't look like they're relaxed at all..." S___ glanced at me again; my muscles had started to tighten, and I was trying to talk myself out of hyperventilating--I know I'm claustrophobic when it comes to crowds, but it was news to me that I'm apparently not a big fan of enclosed spaces--"You may want to ask them if they're ok and/or feeling claustrophobic and whether they would like to be unwrapped." S____ peered at me again and then whispered hoarsely, "Are you feeling claustrophobic, hon?" I nodded my head vigorously (though sheepishly) and told her not to worry, that it should pass. Meanwhile, I was using the last of my willpower to quell the increasing urge to explode into a panic attack, complete with hyperventilation and struggling and screeching to "Get me out of here." My brain was no more than 30 seconds off from this when, thankfully, right then, they all scurried out of the room back to W____.

I talked myself back down and after a few minutes began to feel much better. Powerful, the power of suggestion, apparently.

Tattooed J peeked his head in my room a short while later and then snuck in, adjusting my hot packs as he chuckled at me. "How is it in there? Was starting to get you claustrophobic, huh?" I nodded my head as much as I could, given that I was wrapped up to my chin in blankets. "Yeah, I never realized it, but I guess I'm not very fond of being wrapped up so tightly that I can't move at all." He chuckled, "At least not at school," he murmured in response. My glasses were off, so I couldn't see him--but I could hear the big fat grin in his voice as he waited for his words to sink in. And then they did and I laughed out loud. "Yeah, exactly," I said, and he dipped back out of the room laughing to himself. Despite the blandness of the scrubs, apparently I wear the mark of a sexual deviant on me like a scarlet letter A.

A short while later, they returned to my room and (gloriously, joyously) unwrapped me and then rubbed me down with all sorts of lotions. (There is a thin line between massage school and p0rn; another thin line between massage school and harems.) And then finally I was done. And I was chilled (even after putting my scrubs back on). And I was damp (from the blankets, weirdos).

I threw on my hoodie, shivering, and shuffled around, helping folks clean up so we could leave. A couple minutes later, I suddenly felt particularly clammy and reached down to the ass of my scrubs only to find that my bathing suit trunks had soaked straight through and it looked like I'd majorly wet myself. I was peering at them as J rounded the corner, and he burst out laughing when he saw my ass. Ah, comraderie.

I grinned at him half-miserably, thinking of what a fun ride home it was gonna be, my burnt-hips throbbing (I had red welts all over them when I got home), my wet ass soaking into my car seat, a loaf of bread blooming in my pants from all the excess moisture. And of course, on my way out, ass sopping, I ran into my A&P crush of an instructor from my first semester. I looked so damn attractive, shivering, a bit high-strung as I came down from the claustrophobia panic-attack, hair askew, ass dripping, I'm not quite sure how he was able to control himself enough not to jump me.

But he somehow managed.

Herbal wraps--awesomest ever.

Come Hither, My Little Flipper-Babies

This past Thursday was my first Spa Massage "class," and it was absolutely nothing like what I'd expected. First off, it's not really a "class" per se (hence the quotation marks). Apparently we spend only the first five weeks learning about 5 different spa massage techniques which we will spend the next 10 weeks using on paying clients that sign up for appointments through the clinic. So no grades, but I'm finding myself a wee bit terrified at the prospect of being thrown in with actual living non-students that I basically will have the opportunity to a) scald, b) fuck up, or c) stone to death. Yes, mildly intimidating. We do get to keep tips though, which rocks. And we don't get graded, which also rocks.

I ordered myself a new set of scrubs for the occasion, mostly after our instructor looked around at everybody while discussing cleanliness and scrubs and all that and stated that we "looked ok, for the most part." Always the paranoid one, I assumed that the "for the most part" was intended for me, seeing as my white scrubs top is not quite so white anymore and was kinda scraggly to begin with. So woot woot to new tie-in-the-back and bell-bottomed neutral beige scrubs. *Waving hands in the air like I just don't care*

This week we learned how to do hand/foot paraffin waxes. It basically consists of having your hands and feet dipped into 120-140° hot wax and then sitting around for a while and watching it coagulate and make your hands look like you have creepy mime-mittens on. Upon receiving my hand and foot paraffin wax, I felt the urge to wave my waxy white hands around erratically and make monsterly noises a la House of Wax while lurching around the room, but then I realized there weren't really any monsters in that movie, per se, at least ones that make monsterly noises, so really, I'd have to be mute and sit motionless like the people in the movie who get made into wax figures if I really wanted to do an accurate impression, and that just seemed kind of pointless. So instead I just sat there for 1/2 an hour or so trying not to fall asleep.

I was initially a bit disgruntled because I thought paraffin was not vegan, but woot-double-woot, apparently that ain't the case. Thank god. Initially I wasn't all that impressed with the whole experience. My hands just felt softy afterwards, kinda like if I had put lotion on them, but without the lotion. Being that I'm not a spa-massage kinda gal (I'm more interested in medical-massage--massaging rich, vain folks don't do that much for me) I kinda scoffed. But on my drive home, I rubbed my cheek with my hand to alleviate an itch, and found myself thinking DAMN IS MY FACE DRY. But then I realized that it wasn't that my skin was suddenly dry, it was that my hands were suddenly 3x as sensitive as they had been earlier in the day. I spent the rest of the night touching stuff just to feel what it REALLY feels like when your hands are at maximum sensitivity-capacity. I never in a million years would spend money on one of these things (it's called a pot and a stove and some wax, folks) but hey, if you dig that kinda shit, you should definitely check it out.

And you can do so by signing up to be spa-ified by me on a Thursday night between 6 and 10 if you so choose (though not until November). You will have to pay, of course, but apparently our spa services are only a 1/3 of the price of the equivalent spa-services at actual spas, so perhaps that isn't TOO terrible of an idea for some of you. And I of course will not expect (or accept) tips from ya. What I'll be learning (and what I can inflict upon you) will be paraffin waxes (hand, foot, or full body (!!)), full-body herbal wraps (which apparently consists of a kinda sweat-inducing wrap with heating pads, a heated blanket, and some blankets soaked in kick-ass smelling herbs), reflexology (I poke-ah da feets and da hands), aromatherapy, and hot stone massages (this and reflexology are the two I'm actually looking most forward to learning about). So if you're interested, gimme a holler and I'll send you more details.

And for the record, if you come in for a hand paraffin wax, you get to wear little footies on your hands, which means you'll get to look and feel like a little Thalidomide flipper-baby! How can you turn THAT shit down???