Yesterday I used this massage certificate that Dan and I got for Christmas last year. I would have left it for him if he weren’t adamantly against receiving massages…he doesn’t like it. I understand where he’s coming from because, for reasons that are slightly different from his, I don’t like it either. It hurts and I am an incredibly uptight person and it feels like I’m supposed to enjoy it, and that only makes me feel frustrated because it hurts in a way that is boring. The few times I’ve done it all I can think of is “how much longer until I can go home. I have shit to do!!”

Because I’m a super fun, warm, open person. Or wait. The opposite. I’m like a closed fist. Physically at least. Mentally and verbally, I’m wide open. But as I’ve been saying to a few friends recently, I’m so shy and nervous about turning to people and actually talking to them if I don’t know them well, as well as making eye contact and standing with an open posture, that I’m only really like that if I know you well. So the net affect is that I feel like I’m pretty closed off, pretty uptight. And my massage aversion only reinforces that feeling about myself. The only satisfaction I used to get from it was hearing from the masseuse that I had one of the most knot-filled backs they’d laid hands on. I like almost any superlative that is applied to me.

OR SO I THOUGHT! But I took a friend with me yesterday and she insisted we do shiatsu massage instead of the regular “relaxation” kind, and it turns out that I love massage. I love that shitty music. I love being touched by a stranger. I love giving up the tension in my back like a good little massagee. I love hearing that I had “a lot of good releases.” I love ignoring my skepticism when she says she “did a lot of emotional work” on me and believing wholeheartedly (for 5 minutes, at least) that I may be out of it for the next few days as a result.

I just hate massage oil and the action of kneading on my shoulders and legs. Don’t just squeeze, please. Pull them shits out of their sockets! Crack them backs!

So, I’m not as neurotic and cerebral as I thought. I am not going to turn out like Judy Davis in Husbands and Wives. 

Still a ‘no’ on orgasmic birth, though. In case that ever comes up. If I ever start saying I like the idea of that, check me for brain swelling. If I ever do bring someone in the world, they will not pay for their passage by giving me a big orgasm. Barf, hippies. Barf.*

*i support all choices of all people. but i get to think you’re gross. it’s the rules.