Deep Pressure

Picture yourself, laying under a sheet, in a darkened room…soft music playing, and in walks a hot Russian massage therapist.  He quietly asks “Where do you need special attention?” and for a brief moment, you want to tell him. Ha!  But then you lie, and say “Nowhere *special*, but my shoulders have been tensing up.”

No, this is not some daydream or trashy romance novel; this was my real massage experience just the other day.  My life has been stressful lately.  Wait.  I need to rephrase that...my life has been over-the-moon stressful.  Highly agitating.  Pressure-and-stress-beyond-what-the-typical-full-grown-adult-can-handle kind of stressful.  Cross country move for 7.5 people (one kid staying behind to go to college, but he’ll be travelling with us for the summer, and I’m taking his stuff) and a dog; no heater in our house through the winter, and no A/C now, so our house is hotter inside than it is outside. Car troubles, new job responsibilities, pest problems in our house, oodles of people to see and commitments to meet before we move…it all adds up to Mom being shipped off to the funny farm.

So, for Christmas, my very generous mother gave me a very generous gift certificate to my favorite massage studio.  There, I found the nirvana that is: male therapists.  I had never had a male therapist before…being a large, ample, pooh-sized woman, it’s an uncomfortable and embarrassing thing to be semi-nude in a dark room with a man other than your loving and supportive husband…but one day, I simply had no choice, so I accepted.  AND I WILL NEVER GO BACK.  I have a theory about why my male therapist experience was so life-changing.   I prefer extremely firm pressure.  Stress-filled muscles like mine, hidden under a couple of extra layers of….skin, (yeah, extra skin!) require someone with sharp elbows, steel bones, and a sadist’s outlook on life.  If I don’t get an elbow ground down deep into my shoulder blade, it just ain’t gonna cut it for me.  It’s not a true massage if I’m not near tears at least a few times during the hour.  Yes,  yes... soothing soft touch is wonderful too, and I want a balance, but my muscles need to be beaten into submission.

When you ask a woman to do this, they really have to ramp it up.  Let’s face it…political correctness aside, we ladies generally are not as strong as men.  So to apply the REALLY hard pressure that I need, a female therapist has to go beyond her normal application of pressure, and summon up all her strength. This rarely, in my limited massage experience, lasts long enough to truly work out the kinks.  After a ferocious burst of effort, I can feel the strength ebb out of her fingers and arms...and eventually, the huffing and puffing begins while she slowly winds down and tries to get her heart rate back to normal.  I end up feeling bad for them, and the next time she asks if she's doing it hard enough, I say "Oh yeah, that's perfect."  *sigh*

But for a guy…they often come equipped with near-monstrous levels of strength.  During THEIR massage training, they simply have to learn to harness their strength, and get to spend the entire time learning to perfect the art of soothing, supplicating and caressing.  So when I say “I like firm pressure…like REALLY hard,” their eyes light up, and their little boy excitement of being able to use their entire physical range is fun to watch.  They spend the entire massage asking constantly if the pressure is too much, and I purr back “No, it’s perfect…more, please.”

So Dimitri and Austin at Hand & Stone spa at the Loop, I salute you.  I thank you for spoiling me for any future female massage therapist in the world.   All inappropriate references to a hot Russian asking me if I ‘want any more special areas taken care of’ aside, my husband might thank you too…I have not asked him nearly as often lately to work out my knotty (naughty..haha, see that very appropriate word play I inserted in there??) shoulders for me, because I come home a melted puddle of happily relaxed, bruised and subjugated muscle…ready to do battle with the world.  At least until I enter that 97 degree house and do battle with that itty-bitty bug.

Love Notes

I realize that it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on this blog.  I extend my heartfelt apologies to anyone who uses the blog as their toilet reading. (Yes, I have followers that do exactly that.)  Since early February, I’ve been deeply involved in arranging our upcoming cross-country move.  I will definitely be sharing some stories and thoughts, both funny and unfunny about that whole process and the thoughts and feelings behind it.  Today though, in a slightly related-mostly unrelated topic, however, I want to talk about love notes.

Unabashedly, I am a sucker for love notes.  Somewhere in my primordial ooze, a gene established itself as a complete romantic, mushy-gushy scrapbook type of individual, and I cherish and love each note of encouragement, love, affection, holiday greeting, etc that passes through my fingers and my heart.  What this means is that as I pack and purge, I am constantly faced with an impossible choice…to save or toss this amazingly precious bit of paper?  Always. always the choice is to save it, after all, it says so much..and so the packing pile grows.

The love notes can be from anyone.  Of course, notes from my husband and beautiful children melt my heart and are always a good way for any of them to get out of trouble.  And they know this.  My quiet, introspective husband writes a damn fine love note and although you, dear reader will never know their contents, you are certainly allowed to be jealous.  He’s goooood.

But right at this moment, as I make one of the biggest changes in my life, after some of the most stressful years of my life, I find that some of the most precious love notes I have are those that came from my Cast when I was their manager.  Adventureland-Liberty Square Cast Members are people exuding with personality and vitality, and filled with creativity and with no fear of expressing it.  As the job, schedule, policies and other assorted work-related headaches are more extreme than necessary for what should be such a magical place, the Cast was often left feeling discouraged and without advocates.  When I would step in and assist my Cast with whatever they need, or at least listen with a sympathetic ear, I would often return to my office after a long shift and find little love notes written on post-its and pasted to my cubicle.  Anything from the silly: “Jennifer is the lemon in my iced tea” to the suck-up: “Your kids are the cutest kids on the planet!”  Frequently, they were veiled taunts at my other team members: “Jennifer is my favorite manager!” surrounded by swirly hearts.  Once, after loaning my jacket to a former Cast Member who was visiting from England, I put the jacket on 3 days later, reached into the pocket, and found a little slice of sweetness in the form of a hidden note from her.  That note, worn and faded, still resides in the same pocket, and always warms my heart when I wear the jacket.

My cast also enjoyed my subversive ways of dealing with ridiculous management dictates.  My boss, an unnamed ass who will go down in the annals of spectacularly ineffectual and uninspired pseudo-leaders, once pulled me into the office and demanded that I “do something about all those notes.”  I asked what he wanted me to do with them.  He replied that my desk looked messy and disorganized because of all those notes and “all those pictures of your kids.”  Now, keep in mind, other managers had so much Disney/Baseball/Simpsons/Whatever memorabilia that there was no room to write or effectively use a keyboard on their desk, but MY desk was the problem desk.   Even HIS office was a mish-mash of Disney crap, Dolly Parton altar, and ugly cat pictures, but I was supposed to remove the photos of my children.  No waaaay, Mister.  I clung to his claim that it was disorganized, and promptly walked out to my desk, removed everything, and meticulously put it back, in nice neat rows.  All pink post-its were lined up vertically to the millimeter; all the smaller, white ones went horizontally across my cubby door.  My childrens' pictures in frames were lined up in a precise row across the back of my desk, in age order, and all the snapshots under my clear plastic blotter magically became arranged by size.  All the cast leaving notes in the future followed my lead, and each subsequent note continued whatever pattern suited it best, and never did the subject come up again. 

Upon my layoff, one of my greatest fears was that during the packing process, my beautiful and meaningful notes would get “lost.”  Thankfully, a friendly face was assigned to pack up my things, and very sweetly she included every single note.  They reside in a box, ready for the day when I can go through them without bawling my face off, and can put them in a scrapbook of my Disney career.  Each Cast Member who took 15 seconds on some random day to thank me, to brighten my spirits, or to leave me a reminder of some crazy inside joke has no idea how much those notes buoyed me on my difficult days, and how they remain close to my heart to this day.

I challenge you today to write a love note to someone.  Make it long and heartfelt, make it short and silly.  Make it spontaneous and meaningless, or a ridiculous declaration of your love.  Whatever.  Just make someone happy for at least the time it takes to read it, and whether or not they are a pack-ratting scrapper like me who will save and cherish it, it will make an imprint on their heart.