December 7, 1999

Massage Night

Massage night, massage night, rolly polly massage night.

Okay. I'll admit it. I look forward to this. A LOT and it's good. Work is really getting me down again, and for not any really good reasons. Mostly just too much to do and no focus at work, mostly because I'm chasing things when they come up rather than doing what it is that I need to do because there's just so many things to do. That's not really useful for my brain. So it was actually a pretty frustrating sort of day.

I did one thing right, however, I did get in a session on the exercise bicycle and a short time with the weight machine. The other thing I noticed was that the waistband on my jeans has gotten much looser. This is a very good thing indeed. Better yet was the fact that the fifteen minute session on the bike felt really good and I pushed pretty hard to get through the whole thing. The exercise felt very good and I was mellower and a bit more productive through the afternoon.

By the time it was time to get home, I was in no mood to cook, so we ordered chicken wings and pizza from Ricoli's and by the time we arrived in Erie, they were ready for us. We picked 'em up with a cheerful hello to the guys working there that late, and off we went for home. Mmmm... chicken wings. There isn't all that much to those things, mostly crisp, hot skin, a bit of meat, and a lot of taste. The blue cheese dressing came in a little pouch and was hot from the wings themselves, but the creaminess of it really helped with the heat of the wings.

When I was done with my wings my nose was running from the hotness, and I was very happy.

The pizza was good filler after the appetizer, and Fezzik hung around by my elbow waiting for more.

I had a little time before the massage appointment, and John was playing Bandicoot racing, so I didn't have to pay too much attention. It was one of the 'get all the crystals in a little bit of time' ones, which is really frustrating because you have to do it all perfect before you can even get close to doing it. So he didn't really need any help in figuring out what he could do. So I got out a clipboard, the Esterbrook with a flexible tip on it and just wrote out our Christmas letter on regular paper with a regular pen.

Words flow differently that way, and when I was done, I showed it to John. About four pages of free-hand writing is about a page and a half of computer text, which would fit on a two-sided copy, easily. John really liked it. I could dictate it in tomorrow, and then we could print it out and make copies to stuff into all the cards we'd written yesterday.

John was really nice and drove me to Massage Therapy. He knows that I get a little lightheaded afterwards, and it's much easier to just have someone else drive me. There were also a whole lot of predictions for anywhere from 4 to 10 inches of snow tonight and he knows how nervous I get about driving in snow. He, on the other hand, was as excited as a little boy about the prospect of snow. It was really, really cool to listen to him get all joyous about the possibility. I hope it really does snow and he gets to play in it. Fezzik loves the snow, too, the cold seems to keep his joints happier and it really helps up his energy level.

It was bitter cold outside the business complex, but warmer inside. I was glad that the outside door was unlocked when John drove away without even seeing if I'd made it inside. CeLena and her pup Boon were there, all right, with the heater cranked and the room nice and warm. I asked CeLena to concentrate on my left arm and hand as they were feeling worse than everything else. She did a much gentler massage this time, not really working at all the really sore bits other than the left arm. Deep, slow strokes that comforted skin and rolled muscles until they loosened and she worked with small, deep pressure on the taut tendons of my left arm. She was very thorough with that, and afterwards I felt very refreshed, without the pain of the previous three sets, at all. John showed up to whisk me back home at the perfect time. That was very keen.

I took the salt soak anyway, because it feels good and it really helps me warm up enough to get to sleep easily and quickly. The weather has really turned cold, real winter, so the evenings are cold enough, when the heat drops from the timer, that I really do need something to help warm me up enough to relax. There have been some evenings when I've just been hunched and tense simply because of cold. Not a really good way to get to sleep.

When Johanna was here I'd bought a packet of sea salt bath salts, and I put those into the water and it turned it silky smooth when I slid into the wet heat. I could almost float in the bath, it was so good and salted. One thing I've noticed when I salt the bath is that my skin doesn't wrinkle nearly as quickly and I don't dehydrate quite as much as when it's just water. I think that osmosis thing really is a practical consideration. It's also pretty obvious that when I salt the bath that muscle fatigue acids seem to leach out of my body quickly, from all directions rather than overloading my internal filtering system. So it seems to be a good thing to do, all around. Just close my eyes and let all the aches and pains and tension leak slowly out with each breath and lap of water.

I traded pillows back to my old set, tonight. It made it much easier to just fall asleep in the comfort of what was familiar. My back is much better than it was, and I think that it's a combination of more exercise, less stress, and more sleep. Since my back was better, I wasn't as worried about spinal alignment while sleeping. I might to back to the shaped pillow of things go out of wack again.

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