Busy Nothings

I have two items of business to discuss, ladies and gentlemen.

1. You know how everyone in Utah right now is all, “It’s like we’re living in Seattle!” because of the weather? Well, I have a theory about this.

I hypothesise that, a month or two ago, while we were all asleep, a large comet hit the earth and knocked it off balance a little. It shifted the earth’s position a few hundred miles, and gave us a temperate, humid climate.

Guys, we ARE in Seattle.

I’m a little surprised that none of the TV meteorologists have mentioned this possibility. Although maybe they have. I wouldn’t really know, I don’t have a working TV any more.

2. Last month I took a work trip to Phoenix, visiting both Bryn and Britt in the process, and Britt told me I needed to blog about what happened at her house, which I frankly think shows a lack of delicacy, CONSIDERING.

She and I went for a swim/hot tub, and she wore a dress down to the pool as a cover up. I wore a swimsuit and towel.

Later, we walked back to the building, and Brittany said “oops.” Which is rarely a good omen. She’d forgotten the key to the back door of the building.
“So we’re locked out?” said I.
“Not exactly. We can get in the front...”

Which is all well and good, except they live on Central Avenue. Opposite a Metro Station. And while I’m not THE most modest person on earth, I do prefer not to walk down major thoroughfares in large cities dressed in a two-piece swimsuit.

Brittany appeared to think the situation hilarious, and openly, if insensitively, bemoaned the fact that there weren’t MORE people around to see and be entertained.

So if every you see someone walking around who seems to be inappropriately dressed, and you hastily judge them as crazy, take a moment to pause. Perhaps they are a trusting friend, who thought they were out for a dip in a private pool. Or perhaps they were trying on their Hallowe’en costume and got locked out when they took a moment to empty the rubbish. You just don’t know.

Sex

I do hope that got your attention. I realise sex is talked about waaaay too much already in our society, but it would be a little sad if it didn’t get a second look as a blog headline. Also, this isn’t one of those tricky posts where one puts a headline up that SOUNDS provocative but really has a tame other-meaning attached to it--I’m not just going to talk about gender, I’m not talking about cows mating or something, this is the real deal. A little sex talk.

OK, maybe I’m holding out on you a LITTLE. I’m not sharing any juicy details about my own or anyone else’s super-sexy private life--I’m not sure that I’d be able to fill a whole blog post with that, anyway. I have kind of an ulterior motive...but it’s a good one, I promise.

Here are two points I want to make.
a) Sex can cause cancer.
b) You can win some pretty nice prizes by blogging about that.

a) You may already know, but most cervical cancer is linked to the HPV virus, which is sexually transmitted. Now, before you sigh and ask if AIDS, herpes, genital warts, and syphilis weren’t enough to take the glamour out of sex, don’t be discouraged. There’s always abstinence! No, it gets better. Because abstinence hopefully isn’t a terminal condition, and because EVEN MARRIED PEOPLE IN UTAH (previous marriage? previous indiscretion? current indiscretion(shame on you)?) can get STDs, some kind scientists developed an HPV vaccine. It’s pretty safe and effective and if you’re a chick you should probably get it. (Guys can’t get one yet, but I believe there are future plans for that).
a) http://www.cancerutah.org/prevent/ Please visit this link. And then blog. You were going to blog about something, right? Make it useful for a change. If you’re lazy, you can just use Twitter. And you really can win some cool prizes. I helped choose them. Including the spa package. I recommended the spa. It’s really wonderful. And I can’t enter the contest because of the fine print rules and my job. So you should.

Again: http://www.cancerutah.org/prevent/ Click on the big “Cervical Cancer Prevention Contest” link at the top.

Ow

I guess there are people who don’t like massages--I expect they’re the same people who don’t like chocolate or babies. But for me, having my back rubbed, and having sore spots kneaded out of me is sublime.

I’ve had some neck issues for a couple of years. Over the last couple of months I decided to finally go for it and have semi-regular massage for a while to see if it could help. I’m not sure that it’s been as therapeutic as I’d hoped, but it’s felt great.

So, today, I got a call from the massage place, and was told that my regular therapist, Julie, was sick, and did I mind having...let’s call him “Chad”....take her place. No problem, I said, as long as he can do deep tissue.

Oh, he can do deep tissue, she assured me. What she didn’t mention was that he was a sadist who’d been kicked out of the CIA’s elite Department of Waterboarding and Torture for being Too Brutal.

Now, you need to understand that I really do like deep tissue massage. Though I can cry at the drop of a hat, I have really high pain tolerance for certain things--like when I broke my ankle and drove my stick shift to the doctor’s office--and then to and from the radiology department a few miles away. Not a brilliant idea in the end, because once they’d bandaged me up it was physically impossible to drive home and I had to call Heather and beg for a lift. But you get the idea. Also, (TMI warning), I have had electrolysis on a Very Sensitive Area. Without any pain gel or pills or anything.

Again, you get the idea--and previous massage therapists have commented on it, “You really DO like deep tissue,” etc. And I think I’ve become a little proud of it, as one sometimes does become proud of things that one has no reason to be proud of. So when Chad said “let me know if you need me to ease up,” I thought “ha.”

And then a few minutes later I thought “how am I supposed to tell him to ease up when his heel and full weight is between my spine and my shoulder blade and I CAN’T BREATHE?” And when he started digging his elbow into my thigh muscles I wondered if I could reach to kick him in the teeth.

They do Fijian-style massage there, where they walk on you and balance themselves with straps hanging from the ceiling. It’s great...except when it’s not. This wasn’t so great. Of course, I really should have told him to ease up right away, but I thought “no pain, no gain,” and Pride was a barrier, and when I finally did speak up, we were near the end anyway.

He did ease up when he got to my neck, but it still lacked...finesse. And instead of my muscles feeling all stretched out and gooey at the end, I felt tense. And a little uneven. And honestly, there was a spot on my neck that wasn’t feeling so hot.

He asked how I felt at the end. I mentioned that there was an area on my neck that was feeling...odd. “Odd?” he said. “Yes,” I said. Silence from both of us. He gave me a glass of water. I went home.

Right now, I feel in need of a neck rub. A gentle one. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow. If necessary, one of them can do a little extra work and fix me. I can be assertive when I’m not being Prideful.

LOL

A few years ago, I was due to give a talk in church. I told my roommate Margaret that I was going to have a secret theme, and see if anyone noticed it. The theme was to be the Sound of Music, and I was going to incorporate as many references as possible, for example, starting sentences with phrases like “I have confidence...” and “A wise woman [the abbess] once said “these walls were not meant to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live.””

Margaret’s response was, “you do know that not everything in life has to be a joke, right?”

OK, so I didn’t go with the theme, but I think I did mention the Sound of Music once, just to Show Her.

Now, last week, my brother’s family talked in church--I wasn’t able to go, so they all gave me a synopsis of their talks, youngest to oldest, and before my brother said anything, my sister-in-law said, “and of course, Mike got up and thought he was a comedian.” He gave me a copy of his talk to read, and it is actually excellent (be obedient! It’s better in the end), but it’s true, there are a lot of laughs there. I told him what Margaret had told me all those years ago, and he had the same reaction as me.

“Huh.”
and then.
“Really?”
and then
“Hahahahaha.”

And then we proceeded to make jokes about it. How bad is it that that phrase itself has become a bit of a giggle to us? Do we D’s use humour as a crutch? Is that a problem?

So today, I was talking to my brother and happened to cry a bit, and apologised for being all emotional in the middle of his Friday and he said “It’s fine, I’m used to it,” and then sniggered and said “I HAVE to remember that not everything in life is a joke,” and then we both laughed and commented on how it probably wasn’t good that we’ve actually had to ponder that concept as rather a novel one.

So my two thoughts on this topic are:
That’s the second time that someone has said “I’m used to it” in regards to me crying this week (I’m really totally fine, just being a bit of a girl), so maybe I need to get a grip on the waterworks. And,
This whole “life isn’t a joke,” thing? I’m not so sure.

I don’t for one second claim to be a comedian, and, like Elizabeth in P&P, I hope I never laugh at what is wise or good, but whims or inconsistencies do divert me, and I laugh at them whenever I can. And there are a whole lot of whims and inconsistencies in all of us, right? So, I get Darcy’s and Margaret’s point, and I don’t want to be the girl whose first object in life is a joke, and secret themes in sacrament talks really isn’t my style, but I do think there are very few occasions that CAN’T be laughed about in some way and aren’t a little better for it.

Amen?

p.s. I should probably just mention here that Margaret is hilarious, tons funnier than I will ever be. She is also wise.

Finished!

I’m not sure if that title describes our accomplishment or my emotional state.

For the last few weekends, my Sistrines and I have been recording for our upcoming CD, and we are DONE. Expect me to be dropping lots of unsubtle references to that on here and FB as soon as it’s floggable.

Recording involved being in a smallish room in close contact with twelve other women with no air-conditioning all Friday evening and all Saturday for three weekends straight, singing phrases like “ooh....oh” over and over and over and over and over again and being told that my vowels were wrong. How fun does that sound? And we’ve actually come off pretty easily--Rowan and the band are still recording away.

But it was fun, sorta. At least, rewarding. Our performance standard is going to be raised a notch as a result of the intense repetition. And we managed to avoid catfights and hair-pulling pretty consistently. Sure, my fellow-commuters and I considered having a “no speaking” rule in the car to ward off being sick of each other, and we had sore backs from standing all day long (thank you, yoga stretches), and there were a few times when I wanted to snap my headphones in half and make for the door, and I’m not experiencing any wistfulness for being a real musician, BUT having a group working hard together to get something right is a good feeling. And hearing even the rough version made the perfectionism worthwhile for me. In fact, when we hear the final version, we’ll probably think we weren’t perfectionist ENOUGH. Well, maybe. I’m not suggesting we go back and re-record or anything.

Dinner Convo.

It was a couple of years ago that Gwyneth made some comments about Britons being more civilized than you Yanks, and how we are very refined and talk about much more erudite things at dinner parties than say, work and money. It’s true, I was reminded of that this weekend.

Me: Have you watched DWTS lately? [Aside to teenage niece] There’s a really hot French guy on there.
Sis-in-Law: No, but isn’t the Bachelor chick on there?
Georgie Girl: The one who got...
Me: Dumped! Yes! She’s really good
Mum: What happened?
Me: OK, I’ve never watched this program, but the Bachelor supposedly fell in love with generic leggy brunette and asked her to marry him. Then weeks later he dumps her on TV for another generic leggy brunette..
S-in-L: No, she was a blonde!
Me: Even better. Holly, or something.
G: Molly.
SiL: Isn’t she dating the host of DWTS?
G: Ew, he’s...
Me: Too old. Tom Bergeron? No, don’t think so.
Mum: Holly?
G: Molly.
Me: No, the dumped chick.
SiL: Oh, I think it’s her partner she’s dating.
Me: Tony? No, he’s married.
SiL: Well, she’s dating someone.
Me: And now everyone is all “THAT shows HIM” about the Bachelor, because she’s a good dancer.
Mike: I bet he’s kicking himself. If only he’d realised she could dance.
Me: Exactly.
SiL: We’re going to sign you up for the Bachelorette.
Me: Thanks a LOT.
Mike: What? You could pick from all those great guys.
Me: Yes, I’m sure I’d meet such quality people on a reality show.
SiL: Don’t you want a trip to NZ?

G: And the special OVERNIGHT STAY?
Me: Well, when you put it like that. I do want to go to NZ.
Littlest Niece: But if someone’s going to be my uncle, I want to see what he’s like first.
Me: Sweetie, if that happens, I promise you will meet him first and have a say in it.

You Are the Light

Sometimes, you just have to be there. My friend, colleague, and fellow yoga bunny Kim told me earlier this week about glowga, a special class at Centered City Yoga. Naturally, I said I’d go.

What’s glowga, I hear you scream?

The idea behind it was that we are in a dark place in the universe right now, but light is persistent, and often the light comes from ourselves and others. There is a divine light within that can help us through difficult times.

We kitted ourselves out in shorts and tops--the advice was the more skin, the better. Our yoga instructor handed out glow-in-the-dark body paint and glowing plastic string, and we proceeded to decorate ourselves and each other with swirls and dots and other designs. The paint looked and felt a lot like glue, and didn’t seem to be very glowy, so I was a bit worried that we’d got the wrong bottle. But when the lights went out, it was fantastic! Some people were polka dotted, Kim had a big heart on her thigh and an om on her back, the guy in front of me had one big spiral on his torso, and I was a mishmash of swirls and streaks, with my midriff glowing particularly brightly. We did yoga by the light of each others' bodies, with musicians playing as we moved. About halfway through, our instructor noticed that we were fading, so he turned on the blacklight for us to recharge, and we danced to Staying Alive as our glow brightened.

It was hot and sweaty and we stuck to our mats and flaked glow paint til my mat looked like the milky way, and I got some in my eye during shoulder stand, and I found I have terrible balance in the dark, and then there were strobe lights and we danced again, and then we chanted and sang along to the music, and then did savasana as we were sung to, and our instructor quoted poetry and Leonard Cohen to us, and I loved loved loved every second.

The instructor seemed to enjoy it too, as he says he’s going to do it again. I will be there. You should too. Namaste.