Archive for January, 2003

this week in massage school we practiced the head/neck/shoulders massage we learned last week, and we were introduced to the hand and arm techniques.

elyse, the instructor, also showed up how to employ proper body mechanics in our work. mostly, she taught us the correct positions of standing/kneeling, using the force of the entire body to conserve hand strength, how to hold our heads.

the steps in the hand/arm massage:

• have client lie supine. center and ground.
• grab hand and pull arm inferiorly, gently rotating arm in glenohumero joint.
• corkscrew each finger, pulling gently.
• cat’s-paw top of hand, massaging metacarpals and between metacarpals.
• interlace fingers, stretching palm, using thumbs to massage palm and carpals.
• sandwich halfway up the forearm, petrissage back down to wrist.
• bracelet from elbow to wrist.
• arm role, gently stretching shoulder, bringing arm up and around. while holding arm up, effleurage elbow.
• petrissage deltoid, bicep, tricep, flexors and extensors.
• effleurage from wrist to shoulder.
• rake trapezius.
• move breast tissue, massage pectoralis.
• push down on shoulder, stretching pectoralis.
• friction circles deltoid, tricep, bicep.
• ground out.

i need to practice this for at least two hours from today until monday. massage is a dance, and last night elyse told me that i was born to do it. she’s a very skilled practioner who has been a bodyworker for seven years, which is a long time in this profession, and her compliments made me feel really good.

i have a couple of volunteers lined up, but i need to find more.

When Rick and I got together, I had been a pescatarian, meaning a vegetarian who was still eating sea creatures, but had recently started to eat land creatures again. my reasons for taking up eating meat again were largely social, but when Rick and I moved in together, since I worked and he did not, we agreed that he would do the majority of the meal preparation and domestic duties. In return, I promised him that I would eat whatever he prepared. Well, Rick’s idea of dinner is a solidly midwestern one, a largish meat dish, with some form of potato, and boiled vegetables. And dessert every night.

So, three years later, and I easily gained forty pounds. Now, I don’t blame him for this, after all, I’m the one who ate these large meals and portions, and did little or nothing to exercise the pounds away. Back in 1996, I weighed 260 svelte pounds, and now I’m up to an (in my mind) ungainly 380ish. My knees and ankles (my poor ankles) are truly uncomfortable, sometimes pained, and I don’t like the way I look. I don’t feel guilty about it, or ashamed, but I am doing something about it.

As of January 1, 2003, I went back to being a pescatarian. My bicycle is repaired and being ridden. I can already notice a loosening of my clothing. I’m going to update this journal and my personal website with the details of my journey. http://www.paulbrown.net/weightloss/ is the URL. I’ll post an update link here periodically.

i was waiting for some great inspiration to hit me for a look to the new site, but one never materialized, so i decided to go with the most simple look i could.

http://www.paulbrown.net/

the old content is still there, but there are no links to it anymore. i’m going to figure a way to incorporate some of that stuff into BearFinder.com, and perhaps some other sites i’m thinking about doing.

thanks to albadger for suggesting this in gusmacroy’s journal. i have disabled posting comments so everyone writes their own haiku in their own journal. more readership that way, i think.

write the best haiku you can beginning with “a box of kittens”

for instance:

a box of kittens
mewling beneath a full moon
five cries of hunger

I met a really nice guy while in Tucson at Fiesta, one David R. He runs a Yahoo! Group called bearslycraspeedo devoted to pics and messages from bearish men into wearing wrestling singlets, speedos, and other garments made from lycra. Also, many of the men on the list are into wrestling, as well. Well, it’s an interesting group.

So I visited him this past Sunday at his home in Pacifica, California. He lives with his partner, who was out of town partying in Palm Springs. David is one handsome fellow, with a furry barrel chest, big shoulders, strong arms, and yummy rest of him. He has some of the most incredibly penetrating blue eyes I’ve encountered on a man in a long time. After the passionate hours we spent together in Tucson, I must admit I’m a bit smitten.

The past few months have been difficult for me, and it was nice to have had these few morsels of joy. If I wasn’t mourning the loss of my relationship, and he was single, I could see the budding of exploration, and the flowering of more tender moments. Alas, I dream that my garden will be well-tended when Cupid’s dewy arrows strike again. Still, to have made a new friend of the pelvic variety isn’t bad, either.

Surprise, surprise, one that actually looks ok.

I’m going to be in NYC from February 7 through 11. albadger and I will be seeing Hairspray and Il Pirata. ultrabithorax is going to come to see Shanghai Moon with us, too. Any LJers wanna meet up sometime that weekend for some coffee or tourguide, or something?

http://www.bearfinder.com/ has photos from both the pie ceremony and Friday night’s Roman-themed dinner. You have to be a member to see them, but it’s completely free to sign up and use.

i tend to suffer. it started with a small cough in tucson, but now is a full-blown headache and green-brown phelgm hack.

of course, the fact that i didn’t blow my nose right after my massage last night may be part of the reason.

tonight at massage school we studied the skeletal and muscular systems of the head and neck. Our instructor, Elyse, is a bit scatterbrained, but a skilled practioner of the somatic arts. she knows her anatomy but seems to have a hard time verbalizing it in a useful way. once the lecture was over, though, and the hands-on experience began, one could tell almost instantly that she is a highly talented body-worker.

she showed us the routine that we were to practice that night: grounding, effluerage shoulder/pecs, neck down to clavicle, across the tops of the pecs, around the shoulders, back up to the neck, and another couple of series of strokes finishing with some ear pressure work.

the class broke into pairs: i was paired tonight with a 22-year old man-boy named Randall – he’s 6′6″ and very thin. we decided that he would be the therapist first, and i, the client. randall was very nervous at first, and didn’t ground himself properly, and his nervousness was transmitted to me almost immediately. i made him stop and re-ground himself. this time he was much better.

it’s funny, because as the client, you have to get naked, and draped with a sheet. many of the women and two of the men were kinda nervous about that, but Elyse showed up the proper way to use the drape for modesty.

so, i was the therapist, and randall the client. he had never laid upon a massage table before, nor had a professional massage before, so he didn’t know what to expect. of course, i am not professional, but i have a good touch, so i’ve been told. i went through the routine much more smoothly than he did, but i do need to trim my nails just a bit shorter before class tomorrow. i thought i had cut them short enough, but i managed to… not scratch him, but he was aware of one of my nails during the petrissage of the SCM muscle.

i had pinched a nerve in my neck before i left for LA/Tucson, and the pain is completely gone! i’m definately liking this class, and need to do some practice upon family and friends. any volunteers?