This is My Body, This is My Blood

The Perfect Storm

So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time
Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial
For what it's worth it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

"Good Riddance" (Time of your life) by Green Day

About a year ago, our county decided to rebuild a small bridge that passes over a walking trail before emptying onto the main road to Avila Beach, where I work. The resulting detour required an additional five minutes drive time to the next exit before backtracking to the bridge's intersection with San Luis Bay Drive. That extra stretch of road took me past a wooded resort, a hot springs, the infamous Avila Barn, and this ramshackle frame of a building that seems to defy nature from every angle.

Something about the way it stood so proudly, rotting posts like crutches under the arms of a sagging roof despite its obvious near-death status, drew my gaze every time I drove past. I felt some sort of odd kinship with this freak of nature, understood on a cellular level how it feels to defy gravity; stand steadfast with feet planted firmly on one's foundation even when the rest of you leans into certain fate. I've seen it in myself many times, but mostly I've seen it in people who've drawn the short straw in life's cosmic gamble for days on earth.

Over time, the transparency of wind and sun through aging timber affected me so greatly that I finally pulled over one morning to photograph it. Later that day the spa booked a massage for a couple who were spending the man's last precious days near the ocean. He was sick, and despite all medical and spiritual methods to stop the cancer from spreading, they'd finally made peace with the inevitable. But making peace, for them, meant celebrating life rather than grieving impending death. Massages, wine-tasting, hot springs, and, as I would soon learn, laughing and smiling, were self-prescribed treatments for a man leaning into certain fate.

Ivan's smile preceded him by several yards. He was older than his wife by nearly twenty years, and there was grace in that. I like to think she'd eventually find love again. When I complimented his sweater, he offered to give it to me right then and there. I would have taken it had it not been so brisk a day and had he not been so thin and needing a sweater. We both knew what was unspoken in that offer: he was surrendering himself to our hands in exchange for an experience neither of us would take for granted.

I heard him laughing on the other side of the door where he and his wife changed into robes before being seated in the foyer. He made jokes as we soaked and scrubbed their feet and they sipped tea. The wine-tasting had made him a little silly, but I'm convinced the laughter came from a childlike place within the depths of a man who'd suddenly been freed from the constraints of societal expectations rather than the contents of a bottle. Watching him, I understood what it means to care more for one's true nature than the nature of manufactured propriety.

I found myself smiling and laughing throughout an event that could easily have been awkward and sad. Before they left the spa, Ivan turned and walked behind the counter to throw his arms around my massage partner and me, pulling the three of us into a voluptuous group hug. "I love you!" he shouted, and he meant it. As they were leaving, I  discovered he'd left behind his St. Christopher's, and raced out the front door to return it. He thanked me and winked, as the irony of a saint on a chain passed between us.

The following weekend California was hit with a major storm. It took down trees, knocked out the power, overflowed creeks, and caused mudslides up and down the coast. I railed against the wind and rain, hoeing the back yard to create a trench for the water to drain off, set plastic over the skylights on the roof, caulked around the patio doors. Despite my efforts, water seeped into my tenant's bedroom, the roof leaked, and rain found its way under the patio doors. When the power went out I was forced to stop fighting and give into the experience instead. I lit candles, listened to the wind howl through the trees, and hoped. Eventually, I found myself smiling.

Sometime during the preceding week, the bridge was completed so I took the shorter route to Avila on the day following the storm. When I arrived at the spa, one of the estheticians mentioned that the old building on Avila Drive had blown down during the night. She'd seen me photographing it on her way to work a few weeks ago, and thought I'd want to take an "after" picture. I set my camera on the front seat so I wouldn't forget on my way home, but at the last minute turned and crossed the new bridge instead. I've decided I'd rather remember the beauty of a keening barn than a pile of wood on the ground; a story in progress rather than an easy ending.

A living man's cacophony of laughter over a dead man's pithy obituary.

Miss Understanding

To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding. ~~Anatole Broyard

There was a time in my life when I needed to be right, would have traded my favorite toe ring, nay, my toe, for a resounding "I told you, so!" rather than let a misconception linger in another's mind. For some reason, it used to be very important to me that I made my point, disproved somebody's wrong assumptions, shed light on what longed to remain in shadowy shades of ambiguity rather than leave our backs to one another in steadfast attachment to conviction.

A few months ago I experienced one of these conflicting realities opportunities for growth and a part of me really, really wanted to convince the other person that they were wrong about me. I composed long emails in which I  proved their incorrectness, held imaginary conversations where I articulated my truth, turned a spotlight on my history so that they could see the lack of blemish on my record of good intentions. But I never sent those emails, never picked up the phone, gave up investing my energy in someone else's wrong perception of me. Frankly, it's just silly to throw away all that energy in exchange for righteous conversion.

My wasband once belonged to a group I kiddingly referred to as his Libbing Lub Kult, (it's actually called Living Love) in which the members have to memorize a long list of tenets and humiliate themselves to the degree they give into "group process" and admit they are "addicted" to some set of limiting behaviors. I'm not one for organized religion or anti-religion for that matter, and as much as I disagree with the methods of LL, one can always glean something useful from any set of principals. My take-away from this one is something they call being stuck in the g.o.o., short for Good Opinion of Others. For most of my life I was not only stuck in the goo, I'd been planted in it from the moment of conception. Growing up a preacher's kid, it's really important to set an example for others, and lord forbid anyone thought we were sinning at the Edwards parsonage let alone actually doing it.  We weren't free from sin by any means, but I did learn that it's a lot easier to be a good person than to try and cover being a bad one.

So I let it go, this need to be right--or mostly, anyway. And when he called and asked for a treatment, I said yes, and not much more. As is often the case, once I'm in massage mode Love takes over and I felt any residual resentment and frustration leave me as I did what I do. Afterwards we hugged tenderly, nearly silently. He left without the wall he'd been wearing when he arrived, and I was grateful for the opportunity to heal something without having to do it with words.

Once again, a phrase out of my father's mouth, memorized from the underlined and tattered pages of his favorite Bible that now rests on my bookshelf, comes crawling back to me. Specifically, Matthew seven, verse seven.  And you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. I believe there is no truth that matters more than one's own, and so long as you know it, you are free from defending it. It took a while, but having (finally) learned from past experiences,  I've decided it is far better, as they say,  to be happy than to be right.

Plus, I'm really bad at math so I need all these silly toes.

Keeping In Touch

Oh give it to me, give it to me
I don't want to know much about much
Give it to me, give it to me
I need, I need, I need the human touch

~~Elvis Costello, "Human Touch" from the album, Get Happy.

You'd think a massage therapist would never take for granted the power of human touch but you know, sometimes I do. Sometimes I get so caught up in the day to day demands of heading a household and housing and holding all those dreamy heads I lose my place at the table.

Massage therapists will often claim they're not healers, they are merely vessels for healing. The downside to this belief is that in order to let that big of a love to flow through one's body she must, to a degree, get out of her own way. This dichotomy of receiving and re-gifting while simultaneously being accountable for the transfusion of touch is a tricky thing. When you get it right, when every moment feels like a dance between you and the gods and one of their precious children, it's better than any dopamine-induced trip you'll ever take.

But like most highs, in order to reach nirvana you sometimes take leave of your own body. And occasionally, you forget to come back. For me, all it takes is a tender reach, a simple hand on my back or a squeezed shoulder to send me keening toward home--that place within my body where the marriage of cell and soul feels complete. Somewhere inside these moments I remember why I do what I do,  why I need the same thing in order to continue doing it, and why, if I'm starved for touch, I simply cannot give to others from an empty well.

On my 48th birthday a dear friend offered to help me with a staggering list of neglected chores around my house and yard. We replanted shrubs, worked on the bike shed I'm building, took down old rotted shutters, patched stucco, and lastly, re-lit the pilot on my tenant's space heater. As we lay splayed out on the apartment floor--me with the lighter and M with the flashlight-- he looked at me and said, "Happy Birthday." I mumbled a thanks and continued to fumble with the knob. He rested his hand on my arm and said again, "Happy Birthday, Ellie," and this time I heard him.

Later that afternoon M rubbed my feet while we caught up on our lives, and I felt myself gradually return to the physical container that supports this delicious life. After dinner he massaged me for what I guess was probably hours, but time lost any linear quality as soon as I surrendered to the receiving end of tenderness, knowing there were no expectations, no strings, no need for reciprocity. According to M I fell asleep audibly purring.

In the days that followed, I felt strangely awkward on my feet, as if I were breaking in new shoes. Eventually I recognized that newness as a much-needed reunion with my touch-starved body. In an effort to sustain that feeling of wholeness, I immediately booked a massage for the following Friday with my current assistant, D. Next week I have another massage scheduled with a new gal I'm contemplating hiring for the day spa we're opening in Avila.

Today when the phone rings and I once again find myself standing at the head of my massage table, I will be steady on these bare feet, my hands will carry the memory of recent touch, and I'll be able to reach deeply into a well now overflowing with gratitude and good intentions. With one hand cradling her heavy head, one slipping beneath the sheet to cup her weary sacrum, the dance will begin again. One, two, three, breathe, one, two, three, breathe, one, two, three...

This post is dedicated to M, for the Best. Birthday. Ever. Thank you for mapping the way back home with your strong yet gentle hands. I really, really, needed that.

Aged Whine

The years teach much which the days never knew.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

is this how it starts--
this sliding away of brain cells
like change down the sofa cushions
hidden away in dusty recesses--unseen
but not unmissed?

Take this morning, for instance
reaching for massage oil
you pump liquid soap instead
an easy mistake, maybe
but later you're making a point
--or trying to--about famous people
in politics,when suddenly the name of that actor 
(you can see his face) turns to vapor
before reaching your tongue

you squint real hard as if
you might squeeze the name
from behind your eyelids
well, you know who I mean, you say

it's not just the memory, no
it's the body, this body
once lean and strong and sexy, my god
how it thrilled you to own it
before you began waking during the night
right arm aching, fingers numb
the wood floor like gravel
beneath your bare feet each morning

as you stumble to the kitchen
groaning--ow, ow, ow
no one hears you complain, though
because the bed is empty
no lover waiting for your return
no coffee delivered by gentle hands
no dent left by his body
in the crumpled sheets

and you're okay with it, really
measured it all very carefully
the weight of love against
this solitary life, their neediness
against your need to mold each day
with your own hands, hands that remind you
of your mother's now, folded
across your chest, listening to your own breath
as you wade through a hot flash t
hen bolt upright, eyes wide
Martin Sheen!
   
Technorati Tags: aging, growing older, memory loss,second half of life,aging, perimenopause, menopause, hot flashes, essay, blog, baby boomers, writing, writers, poetry, prose, women, hormones, massage,martin sheen,

Right Livelihood

It is not doing the things we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do
that makes life blessed. Goethe

Last week we had dinner at Chow Novo to celebrate our friends anniversary and S's birthday in one fell swoop. Sometime between the first bottle of Pinot Gris and a tapas plate of Samosas, the conversation turned to livelihoods. Our friends are nearing retirement, and looking forward to when they can live each day as they choose instead of peddling like mad just to keep pace with yesterday's bills. I replied that I love my work and couldn't imagine doing anything else.

"Well, you have all day to do whatever you want," S commented.

Although it's true that my hours are certainly more flexible than people who work outside the home, it's not just the schedule I love. I love the work itself. In fact, if I were financially endowed, I'd probably practice massage therapy anyway, at least to the degree that my body can sustain the physical demands. Especially if I had the opportunity to offer bodywork to those who most need it, and are the least apt to be able to afford it.

When people complain about their work, I wonder what it is that keeps them stuck. Sure, we all need a paycheck, but if you're not enjoying your work, why aren't you aggressively looking for a job more suited to your needs? And if it's absolutely impossible to change jobs, why not just change your attitude toward your job? Thirteen years ago, I was just beginning my second decade in real estate. When I'd first started, the job was about helping people find a home and helping others find a buyer for theirs. Sounds like a win-win situation, right? It was, mostly, and I loved the challenge of bringing the right buyer and seller together. But then gradually, the closings began to take much longer, as the escrow papers grew from a trust deed and a purchase agreement to a stack of legal forms thicker than Barry Bonds biceps. What was once a fun and rewarding career had become mostly litigation prevention. As one who loathes paperwork, I started thinking about a new livelihood.

At the time I was a single parent of three children, but knew it was better to take a financial risk than come home to them crabby from a job I no longer enjoyed. Besides, I'd always encouraged them to explore and develop their innate gifts, so I needed to mentor that philosophy. A few months later I enrolled at KCHA, and made the segue from guiding people into houses, to guiding the bodies that housed those people. Obviously, I didn't go into massage for the money. Although I'm blessed with a faithful clientele and the opportunity to work with lots of interesting, new people at my Avila gig, when it comes right down to it I do this because I love the work.

Take today, for instance. A bride's mother had booked massages for her daughter and seven of her friends. One of those young women requested a clothed "mat massage" so I put her at the end when I could fold up my table and put down the pad. When her turn came, she looked at the table rather longingly, having watched as six of her friends each returned to their suite blissed out from their massages. It was immediately clear that she was afraid she was too heavy for my table, too embarrassed by her body to undress.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like a table massage?" I asked. "It feels really good."

"I've never had a massage," she said. Moving toward the center of the room, she put her hand on the foam pad. "It feels really soft."

"How about we give it a try? Nothing too deep--just a relaxing, nurturing massage."

"I suppose we could do that," she said.

Half an hour later, as I cradled her head in my hands, I thought about how much I take for granted in this world. How blessed I was to be giving this girl her first massage. How much I love this thing I do.

Technorati Tags: aging, retirement, right livelihood, body image, dieting, weight gain, essay, blog, self image, baby boomers, writing, writers, prose, women, massage therapy, massage

Room to Breathe

It's raining again. Just when I think the knee-high grass weeds have dried out enough to hit with the Whack-O-Matic, we're slammed with another batch of showers. If you've been a reader for some time, you'll remember that although I'm fond of rain, I'm not so fond of what happens to my yard when it falls. In a nutshell, I have a grading problem that causes the back bedroom of my attached apartment to flood when water wicks up through the concrete pad. However, today it's raining buckets, and I'm not the least bit stressed about it, because when my  tenant moved out last month, I closed off the bedroom and rented the place out as a studio only. This way I no longer have to deal with the dreaded knock on the door, followed by, "My bedroom carpet is soaked".

I've thought about turning the former bedroom into a massage space as it's much larger than my camper-studio, but then clients would have to walk through my house or go through the gate and past two over-zealous dogs. Plus, on days like this, the back yard is a virtual mud bath. So I gave the room to S instead. Recently, S, who has been sharing this little house with me since August, wrote about needing a room of one's own. After mulling it over, we agreed he'd take the room to use as an office, to practice yoga, or just to have a space he can call his own. He's already begun browsing paint chips, made plans to vapor-seal the floor, and put up lattice on which to grow flowering vines.

Yesterday I created a pathway through the yard  with red and gray stone blocks to where the gate will be. Looking at the crooked little path out the living room window this morning, I felt a twang of envy. Although this was my home before S moved in, none of the rooms are just for me. We share them all, save for J's bedroom, which lays in wait for his return from Mexico in a couple of weeks.

As the rain picks up intensity, I decide I'd better get my butt in gear and prepare for my next client. Inside my little camper, I turn on the heater, plug in the table warmer, put on some music, light a candle or two. After dressing the table with flannel sheets and covering the face cradle with a cotton protector, I lean back against pillows on the sofa/daybed to take a few deep breaths before E's arrival. Looking around the room, I begin to relax. Burlap on the ceiling, wooden shades over the windows, the smell of lavender and sage and rosemary wafting up from the oil as it warms. And the rain. Fat drops tink-tinking on the roof, splashing onto the driveway, nudging the wind chimes into a clunky little woodsong.

This is my room, I think to myself. A place I can come to--even when I don't have a client--to rest, to write, or just to soak up the leftover bits of sweetness bouncing off  paneled walls. As Brendan Kennelly asks in his poem, "We Are Living," What is this room, but the moments we have lived in it? 

This moment right here? Lived perfectly.

Technorati Tags: relationships, essay, blog, self image, baby boomers, writing, writers, poetry, prose, women, massage

Old Faithful

And I thought about years, how they take so long, and they go so fast. --Mary Chapin Carpenter

The first time I met E, she made it clear that her doctor had recommended massage therapy for her stiff neck, lest I think she was the type who spends money on wasteful pampering (as if seeking treatment for pain after a chandelier falls on your 81 year-old head is a luxury). Like me, she and her husband had moved to California from the Midwest--a clue to her apologetic comments.  Back East (that's what they call anything east of the Rockies over here), people are taught to put themselves last. Self-Indulgence is the tenth deadly sin, right after divorce and dancing.

Her octogenarian husband, G, waited on the curb in their white Cadillac, reading a dog-eared copy of a Louis L'Amour paperback while I led his wife up the stairs to my studio for her first massage.   As I gently worked through layers of tension in her neck, I assured E that she'd done the right thing by scheduling a massage. She seemed relieved as much by the permission to have the bodywork, as the therapy  itself. By her third appointment, I'd convinced her that a half-hour was not long enough to address over 80 year's of life's toll on the body of a mother, teacher, and farmer's wife and she happily agreed to extend her treatments to an hour.

Over the past nine years, E has become much more than just a faithful client.  I know all her grandchildren by name, and she's watched J grow from a little boy to a seventeen year-old young man--always remembering him on birthdays and holidays. Her friendly but shy husband, G,  packs a paper sack filled with peppermint candy, nuts, fruit, and homemade cookies to send along every week, and every week I pretend not to notice he's fallen asleep in the car, while reading his book.

G turned 90 a couple years ago, and E will reach that milestone in November. Although they're both amazingly sprite and clear-headed for their age, G now takes a lot more naps and E's balance is often unsteady. A few months ago her children bought a massage table so I could treat her in their home. Our Friday morning ritual has shifted--me pulling into their driveway instead of G at the curb, the three of us sharing a cup of coffee and toast at the kitchen table before E's treatment, G telling stories in the way one does after having told them a hundred times.

There have been other changes as well. Store-bought biscotti has replaced the home baked cookies in my parting treat bag.  E, who has long prided herself on remaining physically self-reliant through her eighties, now lets me clip her toenails and pluck the occasional stray hair from her chin. Something about growing older allows people to grow out of old standards of stiff propriety and stoic resolute. Even G's shyness has faded some, and he now lets me hug him before I leave.

I have come to dearly love these two precious human beings, and know that when the time comes, their passing will leave a huge dent in my heart. The closer we become, the closer they move toward their eventual departure from this life. Every kiss on E's soft, wrinkly cheek at the end of her massage, could be my last, each lingering wave from the living room window, the closing frame on a favorite movie.  I know this as well as I know every familiar bone in her body under my hands.

"I love you, Honey," E said, as she handed me her check this morning. "Don't forget your goodies on your way out."

"I love you, too," I said.

G stood nearby while I folded up the massage table and tucked it into the hall closet. "You'll like that biscotti," he said."It's chocolate."

When I turned to face him, It was as almost as if those old eyes could see through my fragile smile, straight to that most tender place in ones gentle life. In an uncharacteristic act of unspoken love, he not only let me hug him a little longer than usual, he opened his arms even before I made my move.

Technorati Tags: aging, massage, relationships Mary Chapin Carpenter

The Other Me

Sometimes when I walk into that room, the smell of tiger balm nods at me from the center of the bottom shelf.  I remember warm flesh under my hands as I worked gnarled muscles like stubborn dough into the empty corners of their bodies. They always leave feeling lighter, having left behind a blessing  in return for an exchange of grace.

Just once, I wish I knew what it would be like to fall  under the spell of my own hands. How it feels to lie limp in a puddle of complete surrender, dance across the surface of myself until I forget where the sheet ends and my body begins. Given the chance, I'd spend extra time on my feet; ply them with cream until my toes were drunk. I’d linger over the spot between T-7 and T-8 that groans when I sit too long. I'd pay special attention to my upper arms--those hang-me-down pillows that lost the will of youth a few years back.

Afterwards,  I’d rock myself back and forth, back and forth.  I'd kiss my forehead and whisper, Take all the time you want, Hon, or, Sweet dreams, Sunshine, just like I tell the others--as if I were one of my own.  Then I’d lie there suspended above the table, drenched in oil and relief, until I walked into the room and put the lid on the tiger balm, closing off the memory of the other me.

What the Massage Therapist Knows

jasmine added to oil will disguise the smell of stinky feet
but it has changed the way she feels
about jasmine

coconut butter is cheaper than  fancy massage creams and oils
though nothing beats a $16 jar of radiance
from new frontiers

mascara stains the cradle covers
not even bleach and borax take it out
next time she'll order navy blue

breasts don't stay perky after forty
they droop and slide to the side, except
store bought ones

you'll apologize for not shaving your legs
no need
you should see hers

redheads have a unique smell
stronger, more pungent under the sheet
you know, down there

standing on the edge of the futon
helps her gain leverage, the weight of her body
against yours

men tell jokes to break the silence
as opposed to women, who
tell secrets

they love it when she reaches under the sheet
all the way down the spine, and lift
she knows that

sometimes she'll do it twice
just to hear them sigh, even though it exacerbates
her tendonitis

you put on heavy perfume to cover the fact
you didn't take a shower
the perfume is worse

you like looking at her bare feet through the face cradle
something about it makes you relax
feel safe

she turned on the fan not because
you might be getting too warm,
it was a hot flash

there are times you'd rather not listen
to new age music, sometimes
you just need quiet

when she leans into your sacrum it almost feels
like you grow two inches
doesn't it

flannel sheets are better
warm and cozy like her room
her hug

 

you'll know right away if she's good or not
seventeen seconds, they say
that's all it takes

you talk a lot, laugh loudly, tell jokes
hoping she won't notice
that pesky erection

you hold your legs tightly together
she almost has to pry them apart
to massage your thighs

it has nothing to do with modesty
you may have forgotten the past but
your body hasn't

she wishes she had a big spatula
so she didn't have to wake you up
to turn over

when she rubs your crooked old feet sometimes
she cries, thinking of all those miles
behind you

the pregnant ones are hardest to work on
but then the baby talks to her
through her hands

god

you want her to press harder, there
under the scapula, so tight
like a frozen wing

your nose may stuff up from lying face down
or from of the sadness you feel
untouched for so long

it's best to rub toes from pinky to biggest
or that song gets in her head, we we we
all the way home

you're wondering if she heard you fart
no, but
she smelled it

there is a difference between hurts
and hurts good
a big one

she rests her hands on your head, shoulders, hips, feet
to make you feel like one piece
connected again

you wish you didn't have to get up
could just sleep there a while, not knowing
she would've let you

you left that extra twenty on purpose
knowing the kid's tuition is due next week
thank you

when you get home the dog wags his tail
licks your arms and feet, sniffing
hers does it too

there are days when she can't wait for you
to arrive so she can touch someone
anyone

NOTE: My writer friend, Kay is a poetry therapist. She recently shared a poem by Ginger Andrews titled, "What the Cleaning Lady Knows"  that inspired me to write this "list poem" of my own.

A Kneaded Touch

My name is Ellie and I am a massage whore. 

1. I admit I am powerless over my addiction to therapeutic touch  and my inner skin slut has become unmanageable. 

2. I have come to believe that a power greater than myself could possibly, maybe, restore my life to sanity. It's called a Bio Pulser 3000 and, thanks to one of my favorite massage therapists, LS, I have felt the twelve-pulse-per-second kisses of God from my tensor fascia lata to my sternocleidomastoid. Blessed Be.

3. I have turned my life over to my Higher Power (see number two, above) which, as I understand it, comes with a money-back guarantee. I do not promise, however, to exchange the exquisite bliss of human touch completely for a machine. I mean, come on.

4. I have made a fearless and searching inventory of myself, especially my feet, which apparently have the most nerve endings.

5. I have admitted the exact nature of my wrongs, which is to say, I have been massaging around for years in search of "perfect" hands. 

6. I am entirely willing to have the defects in my neck and shoulder muscles removed, thereby alleviating my dependence on the hands of various men and women who promise me an hour of blissful escape from pain and stiffness associated with laptopping in bed.

7. I humbly ask my Greater Power to remove my shortcomings, such as putting my feet in strangers' laps and claiming it was an accident.

8. I have made a list of all people I have harmed and am willing to make amends, or in lieu of that, offer a massage trade.

9. I have made amends with anyone named in Number Eight, except for the "therapist' who burned my back with hot stones because I think we're even for my comment about his incompetence, given the crop circles he left along my spine.

10. I continue to take personal inventory and promptly admit when I fuck up, like telling that woman who wanted me to focus on "negative energy" while she held her thumbs on my forehead that I'd rather not. When she insisted, I focused on my negativity toward her for attempting to "release" past hurts instead of the ones in my shoulder, which is what I asked for. I think she was disappointed when I didn't cry, but shit,  I thought I did pretty good not laughing. Not out loud, anyway.

11. I seek to improve my conscious contact with my Higher Power, hereafter called BP3000,  and submit to its will and the power to carry it out.  in fact, I will buy LS an extension cord in order to assure that contact.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, I will carry the message of BP3000 to other massage whores, skin sluts, and epidermic addicts, while practicing the above principles in all my affairs.

Boy do I feel better. In fact, I think I'll reward myself with a massage.