Tawdry Talk

You may remember that I posted back on Christmas Eve about the guy from Egypt calling to gush over the square cut suit. Well, I forgot to mention the other weird phone call. At 05:44 on Christmas morning my phone rang, waking me from a deep sleep. I wondered who might be calling me so early, and looked at the caller ID - it was an area code in New York City, although I didn’t know that at the time, so I answered.

“hello, who’s this?” I groggily asked.

“is this Paul Brown?” the voice on the other end asked.

“who’s this, please?” I replied. This was getting tedious.

“do you do massage? can we talk about massage?”

It just went downhill from there. I was able to pry out of him that he had googled his name, “Vince the Carpenter,” and found my professional services site. He had forgotten about the concept of time zones, though, which made baby jesus cry. He wanted me to fly to New York and give him a massage. Finally, I said to him that it wasn’t even 6am yet and that I had to go, perhaps a touch more rudely than I should have and hung up.

O Lovely Rita, I know you’re only a parking goddess, but if you could do something about freaks calling me up at all hours of the day and night, that would be extra double-plus goodness! Your supplicant, Vince

My winter break so far:

12/18 - out of school sick - I was pretty miserable still, even after returning from LA
12/19 - out of school sick - getting better, though
12/20 - stayed home sick, but really worked on two clients
12/21 - first day of break, worked on two clients, went to my Midnight Squares’ Advanced Square Dance Class, and we finished the A1 call list. Woo-hoo!
12/22 - one no-show, worked on one client, went to the Lone Star
12/23 - two clients, then went out to the Lone Star again, where I saw Steve hanging out.
12/24 - Met with Steve, came back to my place for a visit. John made a roast pork shoulder, mashed potatoes, and broccoli for Peter (hardybear), Mark (markosf), Herman, Mike (progbear), himself, and me. Dessert was an apple pie with cream cheese frosting. Yum!
12/25 - Very low-key day.
12/26 - back to the marathon - one client
12/27 - two clients, including my fabulous muse - oh joy!
12/28 - the roofers showed up, then I did a client that evening.
12/29 - more roofers, all clients postponed, went out to two parties, the powerhouse for the Men in Gear party, and very briefly into the Lone Star
12/30 - last client of 2006 (so far)

All told, it’s been a great winter break! Girth is where it’s at!

Well, I did 12 of the 14 booked massages during this school break’s massage marathon. I had to postpone the two I had booked yesterday because the roofers were finishing their work, and it felt like a herd of pachyderms traipsing and gallivanting all over the roof. One I did this morning, and the other is upcoming still. And number 14, which would have been right now, is postponed due to illness, so all in all, I feel like I really tested myself.

I was able to go out and book these clients, do the massages, and feel great. I’m barely tired at all! This gives me a great deal of hope that I’ll be able to really expand the number of massages I can do.

School starts back up on 2 January, and I am looking forward to that, too. Then Fiesta de los Osos is the 11th - 15th, and after that it’s a straight shot to March 22nd. I will have to really buckle down (as it were) and finish school.

Well, my massage marathon is on a one-day hiatis while the roofers finish their labors - 11 of 14 is pretty darned good, and I have one more on Saturday to bring me up to 12. Being able to fill my schedule up over the past week and a half fills me with confidence that I’ll be able to fill my schedule up when I’m done with school in March. My immediate scheduling goal for when school is completed is to do 20 hours of massage a week, be booked an entire month at a time, and a little bit of marketing each week, too. I know I can do it now.

In other news, I spent yesterday working on Connecticut Phenom, a youth basketball camp website.  I have a little bit more to do on it, but it’s pretty much done. A couple of tweaks to get things lined up. I did this site for fun as a favor to a friend.

So, what’s a boy to do with his day when his schedule goes up in smoke?

… than asphalt in the morning.  Absurd, I can hear you snorting into your morning coffee.  Well, when the house is UGH, and when the roof has seriously leaked for 10 years (Thanks, Lurch, Rest in Peace), it’s a welcome odor to behold.  The roofing crew is a stocky bunch of Mexicans and Salvadorans.  If I weren’t busy trying to finish this little web project for a Connecticut Basketball camp today, I’d take some
pictures of them.

Just imagine not having to move the furniture around during the rain, not having to empty roasting pans and buckets of roof-infused rainwater, and not having to have Plumpylumps (dhpbear) climb up on the roof and put up tarps and 2×4s anymore!

Well, I’m 10 massages into a 14 massage marathon during this school break, and I feel exhilarated.  My work reached a new level of intensity and sensitivity, especially after the session with my massage muse this morning.  He is the absolute perfect man for my brainstorming sessions - a perfect combination of muscle and padding, with peach fuzz covering his alabaster and freckled skin.  Whenever I work on him, I feel so utterly inspired to try new things.  Today’s brainstorming was all about finding new hand shapes that are mechanically sound, and incorporating the rhythms of the music into the vibration work that I put into almost every single stroke. 

During some of the work, I was doing cross-fiber work on the tendons of the origin and insertion of a muscle.  I’d start off like feathers, and with each layer of relaxation, would slowly sink more deeply into the tendon.  When that was accomplished, the muscle would invariably be relaxed.  From this work, the Golgi Tendon Organs signal to the nervous system
that ongoing contraction can cease, and the muscle fibers relax.  Work
on the muscle belly itself can be very gentle as a result, and still
the client will see significant benefit.

I just love my work! I’m going to write about the five principles of body mechanics for massage therapists in upcoming posts.   They are:

• Weight Transfer
• Line of Force
• Back Up To Get Low
• Whole Body Does Massage
• Hands Move Last

After my evening client, I went to Eureka Valley Recreation Center in John’s van to attend the InterClub Holiday Dance that John was hosting as a fund-raiser for All Join Hands, the foundation of the Gay Callers Association.  The party was well attended, there were lots of goodies to nibble upon, and the attendees raised over $325!  Hooray!

Now I must sleep.

Between a session of this weeks’ four-day client marathon, here.  This was my muse client.  Ah, my sweet, tender muse.  Listened to the incredible mix that my friend, Damian Saunders, made for me.  These brainstorming sessions are always fantastic!  That exists such love in the world!

Time to take a short break, do a little laundry, and nap.  Ciao!

The Peaceful Crusader - New York Times (registration req’d)

How do we find peace in this troubled world?  It is not enough to speak of peace - we must be peace. 

When I quit smoking in January 2003, it was my second attempt to stop that two-pack-a-day habit I had picked up when I was a dot-commer.  I did research to learn about how nicotine is metabolized in the body, and how the cravings worked.  What I learned is that it takes approximately 72 hours for the store of nicotine to be processed out of the body, and that while it’s happening, the body will crave it for about 5 minutes at a time every couple of hours, and that the “jonesing” feelings and behaviors that linger on beyond the actual craving are all psychological.

Armed with that knowledge, I decided that instead of fighting the sensations, I would embrace it, knowing that those 5 minutes of want were a sign of my body cleansing itself.   Each time I felt the desire to smoke, I would say to myself “I am a non-smoker,” or “I don’t smoke,” and after a few minutes, the sensation would pass.  Three days later, I became a non-smoker again, and my body normalized, finding balance.

Embracing the desires of our better nature, even though there may be some discomfort, is an ultimately worthwhile thing to do.  In the case of my smoking, I knew that I was starting massage school upon my return from Fiesta de los Osos that January, and that I couldn’t be a body worker who smoked, so I went through that purge to make it through school and to serve others better into the future.

Through that embrace, I made peace with myself, and a tiny bit of peace with the world.  Everyday, I try to find another morsel of peace for myself.

Today and everyday, I wish you peace.

So, some of you may know that I am one of the moderators of Yahoo Group, BearsLycraSpeedos.  I posted that pic of me on the beach in my squarecut swimsuit from two posts back to the group.

This morning the phone rang with a country code I didn’t recognize, but I figured what the heck, it’s not my nickel, and I picked up the phone. The gentleman on the other end of the phone just wanted to call from Cairo, Egypt, to tell me that I was the hottest man he’d ever seen, and that he wished he could have my hands on him, massaging him.

I said that that would be an expensive out-call. That joke fell flat, though, and he just kept gushing on and on and on.  I let him ramble on until he ran out of superlatives, thinking to myself, I really need to remember to cut my professional services sig at the bottom of my posts to the group. 

I thanked him as graciously as I could without my morning coffee yet, and promised him that if ever I was in Cairo, I’d look him up.

Thanks, Steven (kitchenbeard), for pointing out this Joe. My. God. - Dance of the Sugar Plum Lesbians

Check it out, it’s great.