ye ebb & flow

according to the cuss-o-meter (whose site i will not link to because it contains their 'dating site', and i have obviously lofty standards):

Around 31.3% of the pages on your website contain cussing.
This is 213% MORE than other websites who took this test.

...to which i say, that is fucking right.

today, day 2 of massage school, i undressed under a sheet held in a respectful tent by my polite, male partner. there were 26 of us in the room- 12 'drapers', 12 'drapees', 2 instructors. i learned: one should not wear cordoroys when trying to undress under and between cotton sheets. nor should one ribaldly rip off one's shirt and render it inside-out when trying to redress under same sheets.
and everyone, everyone, is self-conscious. i think. i know that, once faced with the rest of the world's scrutiny, i am. my 'survival' mechanism: i am happy in my home (my body, my skin) unto myself. your judgments only reflect on you. i am far too classy a broad to nitpick your anatomy, so leave me the fuck alone.
overall i was totally, weirdly cool with it.
but i broke out in a silly sweat when having to drape him. i didn't want to fuck up. i feel the same way when i have to speak in public. he was very nice. he has had many massages and calmly instructed me on what to do. we are to "hold the leg as if it's a baguette." we were also told to "not hold the leg as if it's a flailing anaconda." the instructors are great. it is simply the giddy childish waves of "i really want to learn this and be good at it NOW and fuck, i don't know ANYTHING yet"- scary, the rug pulled out, as though i am five years old again. someday this will all be automatic and i will LAUGH and LAUGH over how deer-in-headlights i once was. but that 'was' is still now.
i hope i can do this. i hope my fucking body doesn't fuck with me.
i am on the full dose of avonex. no one knows i have anything aberrant...
this is both a source of inflated pride and further isolation.
whenever i (frequently) feel neurotic and damaged, i think "no one around me has any idea. how would i even say something? and why should i? they're living their own lives and certainly don't wish to be burdened by someone else's weird abstract shit. no, i'll just soldier on, alone, because i'm so, like, good at that, and so well-adjusted and shit." or similar.
i am far more frightened of what i may or may not do to sabotage something really fucking cool, than by anything reality could possibly toss at me.