massage

Every few months, I treat myself to a massage at the Sutherland-Chan clinic. I have a weakness for professional massages. If I was a zillionaire, I'd have them every day. Though perhaps then they wouldn't be such a treat, who knows.

There's something enormously relaxing and liberating about having a total stranger run their hands over your body. You feel pretty vulnerable, lying there naked except for a carefully-arranged towel, but there's also freedom in that vulnerability.

I've tried different massages in different places, and I've found that not all massages are as good. On one of my Toronto-Philadelphia commutes, my flight home was cancelled; I was stuck in an airport hotel overnight. Tired and frustrated and depressed, I decided to treat myself to a massage in the hotel spa.

I was massively disappointed. The masseuse was a girl who seemed to have never gone to massage school (or whereever good masseurs and masseuses go for their education); she could have been someone I dragged off the street. She was tentative, poking and prodding me as if I was a wad of yeasty dough sitting on a kitchen counter that still hadn't risen enough.

The Sutherland-Chan people seem to know what they're doing; I've never had a bad massage in their hands. Yesterday was no exception. Yesterday was also my most painful massage...at my request. Usually when the masseur asks me what kind of pressure I want, I reply with "medium". This time, I asked for a firmer pressure because I was pretty stiff and sore around my shoulders and neck, probably as a result of the long drive we had on the weekend combined with not carrying a heavy knapsack properly afterwards.

So Stephen complied, telling me that if it ever got TOO painful, to let him know. He kneaded and pulled while I lay on the treatment table in blissful agony. One part of the treatment involved him pinching various nerves in my neck.

"This is going to hurt," he warned me. "Tell me when the pain goes away, and then I'll move to the next spot."

And wow, it sure did hurt. My first impulse was to lie and say, "Ok! It's fine now!" right away, but I restrained myself. I even dozed off once.

Anyway, by the time I came out of the treatment room, I was wobbly and lightheaded and virtually pain-free.





Sent out another query yesterday. The article query that was accepted last week is due this Friday. I wrote over 1,000 words for my novel. I'm pretty happy with how things are going with my writing in general.

Dustin Hoffman and Susan Sarandon were across the street from our apartment building yesterday, for the premiere of "Moonlight Mile" at the Toronto Film Festival. I was at the gym on the treadmill (too hot/humid outside to run) when I saw him on tv being interviewed by the media on about thirty feet away from our front door.

Parki came over last night, and we watched three episodes of The Sopranos from Scott's DVDs. Scott watched all the Season Three episodes over three evenings already. I have a craving for Italian food now.

Links/News:

Harald Koch has a blog! (Harald writes as "chk" in Blatherchat).

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Today's Blatherpics:

	From our condo window, we get to see some pretty spectacular sunsets. Not as spectacular as the ones at the cottage, granted, but breathtaking in their own way. The light from one of them recently transformed our living room into something almost magical.
	Sign on the elevator to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.