Wow, I think I have both the time, inclination and alertness to write an actual entry.  This would be the picture of pretty much how I spent the day.  I was going to go do a practice massage on a friend today which I cancelled because of feeling somewhat sub par this morning.  I'm hoping it's just the effects of too much in the schedule and not actually coming down with something.  Right now I'm feeling pretty perky, having had three naps throughout the course of the day. Hubby was home all day too - some 24-hour thing I think, so we were both mostly useless.  We rented Ghost Town on cable, cute movie.  Bit of a tear-jerker for a comedy (but then I've always been a softie, doesn't take much to activate my lacrimal glands). Remainder of the week?  Assuming I bounce back, a few massages, some quality gym time and... ... car shopping. ICK. Hubby's 93 Dodge Caravan is now officially Yard Art.  Our neighbor, the eco-wise botanist had some suggestions for it: bury it and use it as a bomb shelter, or perhaps as a crypt and we could sell space in it.  I was kind of leaning more toward Ivy Planter, turn it into a van-shaped topiary as an homage to suburban soccer moms everywhere.  Maybe even use it as an experimental support for some genetically engineered self-aware wisteria that might crush it as revenge for all the dough it's cost us for repairs.  Although that route might be a bit dangerous for my mode of transport since it seems everything that needs to be fixed on my Volvo costs $1100... the Wisterzilla might attack it first.  The Husbear is thinking he'd like a nice used Subaru.  Our credit rating kinda sucks out loud (and not in that happy fun way, either)... so a lot depends on what I'm able to work out with my credit union tomorrow.  It would be ever so lovely if we could get enough of those ducks in a row so we can get him something dependable. Massage school?  Going well.  We finished Massage Therapy 1 and 2, Anatomy 1 and 2.  Saturday we started Anatomy 3 (the last one) and Regional Massage Applications 1.  RMA 1, 2 and 3 are the massage courses that I will be taking through the end of the program next March.  These are the classes that will teach us the techniques we'll need to treat client's problem areas. In some ways this new class (RMA) is a bit more daunting than anything we've done so far.  MT 1 and 2 was about learning a specific sequence, specific strokes, timed and counted precisely.  All very concrete.  Now the elements of intuition and creativity are expected.  There is a basic framework to go by, so yes, some new memorization, but I'm a little nervous about whether I know enough to be creative with or if I have the right kind of intuitiveness.    Guess that depends on how you define intuition.  Truth be told, I'm not too worried about it, I'm a musician, so I'm sure there are parallels in the experience... just a little unnerved by the newness is all. But now HERE'S a thing that came up in the last couple of classes and I'm going to have to deal with through August: In the last MT 2 class we learned a technique called tucking.  It's a Plan B for when you have a client at the door for whom you discover (despite phone screening) that massage may NOT be appropriate, or perhaps they are uncomfortable with removing clothing (and for whatever reason didn't understand this before they came).  The client lies on the table face up, clothed.  The therapist takes a sheet and basically makes a rope of it and tucks it around the body.  Think a chalk outline, but with the body still in the middle, and outlined with sheets.  A sheet is used to cover the client when the tucking is finished.  The therapist then lays hands (no pressure, no movement) on the joints (shoulder and elbow, then elbow and wrist, hip and knee, etc.) working around the body, staying at each position for one or several minutes. We practiced this technique on each other.  I was fine with it as the therapist.  It was quite gentle, soothing even.  HOWEVER, when it was my turn to be the client... ...man was I ANNOYED.  The session only lasted 30 minutes, but I was ready to be done after 20.  I think it was partly because I can't sit still.  In a Swedish massage stuff gets moved around and there's some shifting (even if it's minimal).  With this there was no movement at all.  AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!! The last straw was when the instructor had the classmates in the therapist roles finish by putting a hand on the head and on the "heart chakra." I have stated in previous entries here that I am NOT a chakra kind of guy.  In fact, the only chakra I want to hear about is when you ask me "What are you eating?" and I reply with my mouth full and cheeks bulging with a sweetened cacao product: "Chakra."  Perhaps the wrapper has the descriptors "Belgian" and "dark." At the first RMA class it turns out that the new instructor (new to us, 20 years experience, teaching for 10) is into all the new agey crystal, chakra, energy work stuff that Hubster is into and I avoid like the plague.  It's just another set of metaphors to get fundamentalist over.   I ended up asking her if she thought the tucking was a lot like energy work (it did remind me of George's Reiki sessions), to which she said yes.  I wondered aloud if that was why I had such a strong reaction to it.  To which she replied that obviously I was experiencing some kind of blockage and later suggested that her psychic visions were predicting I would be doing energy work as part of my massage practice. Jesus fucking christ. Sigh. So I had to put it out there that I don't object to anyone else's spiritual path.  Life is tough, whatever gets you through the night.  But I draw the line at having MY experience interpreted FOR me.  Pisses me off faster than just about anything.  I did find a way to explain this without profanity (!) and in what I THINK was a civil tone.  As long as we keep it to the objective and concrete I'll be fine. It's like playing the cello.  You spend uncounted HOURS fine-tuning your control of physical minutae as you master a piece of music.  Bow speed, relaxation of the joints, finger placement, lightness of touch, sequence of finger movements, speed and width of vibrato, fingering choices... At some point you reach some critical mass of work when the music begins to speak and become transparent to the physical technique.  The listener doesn't think "wow what a great player" - the listener is moved by the music. Spirituality, for me, is like that.  I think it arises out of the mundane, the concrete, the objective, the simple.  When enough time is spent on a particular endeavor I think it has the ability to become something more than just the activity itself.  Washing dishes can be an act of love.   I think a massage is just a massage, but it can be a deeply human experience.  Depends on what the client and the therapist bring to it.  The spiritual stuff, the stuff you can't see or really name because language simply CAN'T, well, YES, that can be there... but I am of the opinion that it is for the INDIVIDUAL to interpret personally.  I really really REALLY don't want or need someone to tell me my chakras are blocked or that my third eye has conjunctivitis.  Rant over for now, I think.  At any rate, we have this new instructor until August.  I like her enthusiasm and sense of humor; I just hope I don't have to bite holes in my tongue over the spiritual shit.  And Wednesday, yup, I turn 50.  Have I mentioned that yet, like in every journal entry for the last several weeks?