The red and the black

If you haven't ever sat bolt upright in a massage to say "Ow!" then, my friends, you haven't lived. Likewise if the massage doesn't leave you sore for the next couple of days and segue directly into a cold that keeps you from going into the office.

The woman who administered this stern treatment also scolded me, which is kind of fun. I liked her scolding better than that of the Stalinist relic who gave me my first ever massage, after I lost my job during the transit strike. "What did you major in?" barked the Cossack. Upon hearing my answer, she shook her head in disgust. "Oh no, you will never get job with that." She then advised me to find an older man to look out for me in my next office and not to trust other women, who will necessarily be back-stabby.

Anyway, this woman told me I wasn't taking good enough care of myself. My entire right side, she informed me, is screwed up. Her best efforts over 70 minutes hadn't really made a dent. (So she claimed. I felt dented all over.) She gave me a very disapproving look, to which I responded meekly. When I was leaving, I gave an elaborate tip.

It's always nice to be validated, even, or especially, in one's troubles. I didn't have time to explain, nor did she seem to care, *why* my body is dysfunctional. But I have a wild idea: It's because I don't know how to properly manage sadness and anger.

Over the past six months or so, I have been to four funerals / shiva calls and spent significant time at the bedside of dying people in two different hospice facilities. I've taken off work and traveled and helped bury the dead and eaten round things and listened to people cry. Where I should have felt sad, most of the time I was furious.

By contrast, a once-good friend has hurt me more deeply than I have been hurt in years. I should be justly enraged; I try to be. Thinking in strong words helps for a while ("How DARE you?"). Eventually, though, I keep sliding back into mystified whimpering ("how could she?").

Worst of all, there's nothing I can do about anything. I have had almost no agency in any of these situations. The stress of that might be worst of all.

Sadness is a liquid; anger is a solid. My poor body has been melting and freezing and melting again. Is there any wonder it's a mess?

what's with today today?

I got my massage! It was pretty exciting -- only the second time in my life it's ever happened, and the first time was not terribly successful. Right after I'd been let go from my (admittedly crappy) job before Christmas 15 months ago, I decided to treat myself. Sadly, the masseuse who was to treat me was a Stalinist relic, a hardened Back-to-the-USSR type, a human tattoo who had no sympathy for my damaged emotional state.

This was our conversation.

BttU: How are you?
Me: I'm a little bummed. I just lost my job.
BttU: That's no good. What was your major in college?
Me: Film & American History.
BttU: Oh, no, that's no good -- you'll never get a job with that.

She told me her daughter majored in something practical.

[after a pause in which I tried to feel soothed]

BttU: The office where you lost your job. Was there a man there?
Me: Uh ...
BttU: I tell my daughter, when you go into an office, make friends with a man. An older man, to look out for you. Not woman. You can never trust women -- they are always jealous of young pretty girls. You need a man to look out for you.

$50 worth of free advice. Thanks, Eastern Europe.

The only other time I had something like a massage was when I visited the secret lair of the free acupressurist at Swarthmore. They had to keep her existence tightly under wraps, and by "they" of course I mean the Quaker CIA, because had it gotten out that there was a woman on campus who could do such wonders for a tense body, there would have been riots. It would have been like 1789, with Worth, the health building, as the Bastille.

The mystery woman was indeed fantastic. What was really exciting though was that in addition to blissing me out, she told me things about myself that she could tell from my shoulders. Like, I'd had a serious loss recently and the pain was keeping me from being able to fully love, and that I should get a pet to help open my heart again. And she was right! I totally need a pet. And cable TV.

Anyway, this massage -- at Lather Spa -- was wonderful. The young woman who handled me was so skillful I was half in love with her in the during, and bless her heart, she talked very little. She laughed at one point after I started laughing (because she pulled my leg! I dare you not to giggle when your leg is pulled).

And then she asked me to flip over and put my face on the griddle.
"On the griddle?" I asked.
"On the CRADLE," she said, laughing again. "Did you think we were going to bake you?"

Before I get married I'm going to go back and do it again.