Happy Blog Birthday Gatochy!!

Mariana has been blogging her heart out for a year now. I have been a faithful reader since I first came across Gatochy's Blog by accident last November. I can honestly say I have learned to enjoy my computer more thanks to her example. Hers was the very first blog I ever saw, when I had never heard the word before. I was puzzled, I was pleased, and ultimately, I was inspired when I was done being puzzled. It took me a bit to understand what a valuable resource for self expression blogging is, and Mariana set an example for eclectic, witty, philosophical, and funny blogging.
Here's to another year of So Cute You Could Puke.
Another year of Image Association.
Another year of Celebrity Look alikes.
Another year (please!) of Thank You, Sir.
Another 12 months of Only in Portugal.
More Lovely Creatures, If They Mated, and all the rest, and all the new things that will no doubt evolve in this second year of blogging. Looking forward to it, as ever.
http://gatochy.blogspot.com/

My First Day of Sunday School--a 60's memory

We have a strange custom here of sending children to "sunday school"-- two words that were never meant to sit beside each other. School on Sunday ? Oxymoronic. I remember the earliest years of my "religious education"-- we made silkscreened pictures of praying children and origami swans. It was great fun, being creative and mingling with the other children. It was a comfy place, with cooperative play and kindness enforced-- no fear of ill manneed bullies spoiling the fun. Suddenly, or so it seemed, I was too old for the little kids group, and graduated to the more formal indoctrination process.
The lady in charge of us was an older plump white haired dear named Mrs. Winsett. She had a kind face and a soothing voice, and a really soft lap to sit on. She had us pull our chairs into a circle-- I dug that ( lil' pagan me). Then she asked us to close our eyes and imagine what god must look like. That struck me as a bit silly-- if someone is everywhere at once, how could they look like anything but a thin mist- at best? But I was game, so.... kabam! I instantly got an image! It was of a thirty-ish man with black hair, dark eyes, olive complexion, wearing a white nehru jacket, sitting on a flying carpet. He looked alot like Alejandro Rey ( though "The Flying Nun" had yet to debut). It was thrilling, and I was eager to share with the group-- up goes my hand-- but fortunately, Mrs. W. chose to go around the circle, starting with the wee lad to her left. He spoke of an old man with a long white beard. I was amused, and somewhat embarassed for him, anticipating how humiliated he would be when the next kid told him about the flying carpet guy. But, to my surprize, the next kid parroted the first, and so on.
I was lost in thought waiting for my turn. I was remembering a conversation I'd had with Ma about a year before. I'd been playing with my building blocks in her room, and had just built a towering high rise in one minute! Look, Ma! I put up a block of flats in one minute! She oohed and aaawed, and asked me "Who are you? Tony the Tiger?" I replied "NO, even better-- I'm Jesus!" Bless Ma-- she totally kept her cool-- annd we had a chat about how other people would find such a statement offensive. We concluded the chat with the understanding that religious matters were quite sensitive, and the best course of action was not to " rock the boat " or otherwise provoke superstitious ire.
So there I was, dreading my turn, not wanting to lie, but understanding that it was probably the safest thing to do. When my turn came, I mumbled " I saw the same thing he saw".
I don't know what I felt the worst about-- lying, or knowing I was alone in my vision. Heavy shit for a 4 year old.

Inappropriate Clients

I joined an on line group for massage therapists-- it puts a ton of e-mail in my box on a daily basis. Some are about job opportunities, others about classes offered, and the rest are open forum discussions about various issues we encounter. I am new to the group, and generally "keep my mouth shut and try to learn". But one question begged an answer. A female therapist asked the group about how to deal with a male client who was behaving in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. He would stare at her during the session, touch her, and drop hints. She was trying to give him benefit of the doubt, but her description of his behavior set off my personal alarms. I replied that she should honor her intuition and grasp of the obvious, and that she owed this gent nothing more than direct honest communication, as in "I am uncomfortable working with you any more". This brought on a flurry of responses, mostly from a male practitioner who works in tandem with another. His position was "don't discard this poor individual, educate them with love and light so they can benefit from the experience." Many long posts about not being judgmental, not discarding a paying client because of "squeamishness"-- looked like hippy bullshit to me, and I'm pretty much an old hippy myself. After about a week of this (with the "love and light" guy getting increasingly self righteous and judgmental himself), the woman who posted the original question got back to us with a follow up. She tried the "love and light" routine, to no avail. The guy was full of shit, and did his best to weasel around her boundaries--even asked her for a date! My point is-- we know when someone is pushing our limits/being creepy. Wherever you may encounter this in life-- honor your gut feeling. If you don't feel safe in a situation, get out of it. Err on the side of caution. It is not the therapist's job to rehabilitate sexual predators. Show them the door, and warn your peers.
On a MUCH happier note-- Mariana has a second blog!! It's called "Why Hello ,Kitty", and it is delightful-- she posts HK sighting she finds on the 'net. I must admit, I wasn't much of a HK fan before reading her faboo Gatochy's Blog-- I caught on pretty quick, though. So for your blog reading pleasure, here are links to her twin blogs http://gatochy.blogspot.com/ the original
and http://kittyhellohellokitty.blogspot.com/

Contact Juggling Update

I am still pretty obsessed with CJ. "The Kids" have a huge nest I made, and I have gotten much more fluid. I CJ the produce in the grocery store when no one's looking. If I ever figure out how to link video on this durn blog, I'll show ya'll some tricks or something. It is SO MUCH FUN!!

Kriyas

In bodywork--particularly the deeper modalities--we look for "working signs" as cues to move to the next spot. Working signs include borborisms ( stomache noises),facial expressions, and "kriyas", or twitches that signal a release. Today was kriya day.
We have several projects this semester-- I was working with my final project partner--the recipient of 10 sessions of structural bodywork-- and we seemed to hit on some good spots. I saw a number and variety of kriyas, some so dramatic that it kinda spooked me for a second. But once my friend expressed that not only was he ok, but feeling great, it became intensely groovy to watch his body respond in unexpected ways. His forearm spasmed when I was working on the back of his thigh. Like I said, unexpected.
The more I learn about this stuff, the happier I am with my choice of livlihood.

Don't Ya Just Hate It When......

you are watching a movie, la la la,and then a character pops up that makes you squirm with embarassed self recognition? For me, it was the SouthPark movie. No, seriously--I'm not kidding! The character "The Mole" is a bitter, foul mouthed, chainsmoking atheist - so much like little Trey was. Here's some bits from the Wikipedia entry on him:

"The Mole is a mercenary for hire who specializes in digging and navigating
tunnels, hence his nickname. He is French and speaks with an accent, although he
is fluent in English. According to him, his mother tried to perform an abortion
on herself while pregnant with him; however, the veracity of this statement is
debatable. All we know of his mother is that she is also French and is to some
degree religious. The Mole, in keeping with his French existentialist
stereotype, frequently says derogatory things about God, which get him grounded.
He is a worldly chain-smoker who seems as though he belongs somewhere in Les
Miserables or possibly the French Resistance of WWII. He wears a dark green
shirt with rolled-up sleeves, dark brown pants, and black gloves with no
fingers. He has a shovel and wears a baldric from his left shoulder to his right
hip that keeps it in place. The Mole also keeps a coil of rope wrapped around
his right shoulder. His hair is dark brown and messy; his eyebrows are rather
bushy, compared to those of the other children. He has crow's feet and dark
circles under his eyes. "

Quotes
"Shh! Who are you?! Who sent you?!"
"Come on,
bitches."
"Careful? Was my mother careful when she stabbed me in ze heart
with a clotheshanger while still in ze womb?"
"God? He is the biggest bitch
of them all."
"Why am I grounded? Because God hates me, that's why. He has
made my life miserable, so I call him a cock-sucking asshole, and I get
grounded."
"Meet me in the backyard in five minutes. Viva la Résistance.
We'll show God that we're not gonna fucking take anymore--" ("WHAT IS THAT?!
CHRISTOPHE, GET IN HERE!") "--coming, Mother!"
(Dying) "Where is your
God when you need him? Where is your beautiful, merciful faggot now? Here I come
God, here I come, you fucking rat!"
"You realize that by doing zis, we could
be grounded for two, maybe even three weeks."
"You have to stop thinking
with your dick! You need to be on your toes! Because I am not going to be
grounded again! Not for you! Not for anybody!"

Cute, no?

Yeah, I was a pissed off kid. I told my family when I was 9 that I was not going to attend church any longer, as I didn't believe and it was a dishonest sham for me to pretend otherwise (but in a 9 year old's vocabulary). This started a battle with the local Baptist church, played out in my livingroom every Wednesday night for the next several years. Two adults and a kid my age would turn up like fucking clockwork, trying to convince me to return to their fold. Every week I would begin by politely declining and asking them to please leave. They NEVER did. Eventually I would demand that they leave-- ok, I think my exact words were "fuck off right now, you bastards"-- this drama played out over and over again. The poor bastards. It must have been somewhat humiliating to be given the bum's rush by a child. They probably had some masochistic tendencies, so I guess they were getting some secondary benefits from the experience.

For Blog's Sake!!

Ok, no excuses.......ok, that was patently B.S., here's my excuse--no, excuses ( a list! No -brainer blogging!!)

For not posting in such a long damn time: school's a bitch right now-- we've been on the structural bodywork thing a few weeks now, and it's busting my bonce. No fear, I have a dodgy learning style that requires complete non-comprehension followed by an epiphany. The we get to learn shiatsu, so suspect while I'm absorbing the whole eastern concept of meridians, I'll either be blogless or bashing on about shiatsu. You've been warned.

For the broken glass pane on the coffee table: It was Rufus, the red sphere. In fact, he's been renamed "Vivian", after the character in "The Young Ones". I wasn't even in the room, yeah, that's it, I was.....writing a sunday sermon/helping an old lady out of a tree/baking cookies for the illiterate when I heard a loud crash, and ther was Vivian, bits of glass all around him, and two new slash marks on his surface. Yeah--it's not like I got clumsy/careless/overconfident or anything...........

For the immaculate state of my living space these days: I'm possessed. It's the only possible reason I would suddenly blossom into a good housekeeper. I fucking SCOURED THE STOVE TOP, for god's sake!! Who ARE you, and what have you done with Trey? And where's all the clutter? Next thing you know, I'll be exercising and eating healthy- somebody stop me! Becoming a massage therapist has moulded me into a mellow, health conscious hippy; being self employed has made me more organised and productive. wow.

Mariana's stellar talent continues to shine--her "Thank You, Sir" series is provocative and mysterious--(insert my usual reference to G's editing prowess)http://gatochy.blogspot.com/

Delta has survived a *shudder* hair-c-c-cut! cut! cut!cutting! blood! artery spurt-hitchcock--psycho-oh-what-a-giveaway! But be warned--graphic image of shorn hair--I keep waking up in a puddle of...well, let's say I've got a carpet to clean just in front of the monitor, and let it go. Oh, yes, other things have transpired post the*ahem*event........................http://deltaavidelta.blogspot.com/