supervision

...is the term bandied about the massage industry to describe your peers and mentors with whom you can ask questions, get advice, or merely vent about the (usually) ethical and emotional aspects of the profession. it was prattled about relentlessly during school- massage is a lonely, draining, physically and mentally exhausting job. during school we, the students, nodded our heads. but now, without my classmates and teachers and other "support system" immediately nearby- NOW I get it.
bbh kicks my ass. every fucking week. I love it. I do. but every day I leave there feeling utterly wrung. staring out the window. listening to my headphones and feeling dulled. the first guy was so filthy his back-dirt turned into little pills under my hands. the second guy had one of those kyphotic backs that comes from aids medication- it was like his ribs expanded dorsally, and floating on top randomly were his completely adhesed scapulae. they were both very nice- everyone I've worked with there has been lovely- but I had that fucking awful thought with guy #2: I'm massaging someone who has aids. and I got really fucking sad. somehow I imagined my touch to be more loaded- I get far more emotionally involved than I would with, say, a strapping 30 year old who overdid it at the gym.
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after being so fucking jaded in veterinary medicine, I am grateful to still be affect-able. I'm relieved that the world can still get to me.
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I start my new job, officially, on Sunday. holy FUCK! I am so excited. terrified. I hope I have a client. I go in for more reception training tomorrow. it will be nice to work at a place where I don't leave covered in beast-hair and reeking of beast-ass. I suspect the clientele won't try to bite or scratch, either.
like last night: adorable stray dog. fed it food. ate with frantic enthusiasm. five minutes later the doctor walks by. "what did you feed that dog?did you put water in with canned food?" the dog had ejected SOMETHING from it's body and into the empty food dish: near as I could discern, it involved diarrhea and urine. he hit the bowl perfectly. or maybe it was vomit? who fucking knows? it was VILE. so I'm carrying this brimming bowl of FUCK-ALL to the back sink, praying it doesn't slosh, thinking of that fucking video of the ritualistic vomiting-shit-eating (thanks j!). "this is the worst moment of the night" I announced to the doctor, who was covering her mouth and nose with the collar of her shirt.
see, I probably won't have to deal with shit like THAT.
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everything else is interesting. interesting.
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didja know? giraffes clean their ears with their tongue! I mean, of course- I just never thought about it. unlucky tongue.
"unlucky tongue" would be a great band name. it flows. similar dipthongs.
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I am sitting in bright sunshine at the beloved Canterbury before meeting someone for a show. I needed some introversion. riding around on the bus listening to van der graaf, while awesome, wasn't quite therapeutic enough. god, I listened to vdgg obsessively when I was in nice. I would ride the train to villefranche-sur-Mille and Cannes and ventmiglia and stare at the midieval villages on crags and the weirdly placid water... listening to "cats eye/yellow fever" on full volume, expressionless.
I regret never visiting the parfumeries. what a fucking obnoxious sentence! gross! I rephrase: north of the cote d'azur is the region where the essenses for ~85% of the perfumes worldwide are produced. grasse is one such town. anyway, the professional 'smellers' -the sommeliers of the scent world!- are forbidden to do or eat pretty much anything, so valued and delicate are their palettes. so: French folk forbidden to eat garlic and onions; to drink any form of alcohol; to smoke; I am sure there are sundry other stipulations. knowing that, doesn't it seem like a big self-loathing "fuck you" to the French and French culture? I would xenophobically snicker about it whilst there anyway.
in nice there was a huge farmers market- and every day I would stroll through, all surreptitious with my Afro and sloppy American garb, to procure free samples.
i had my left nostril pierced in nice. there might be a photo somewhere. I took it out within a week.
an Aussie I met at the hostel sang "kalifornication" at some horrible Irish pub in the vieux carre. if you had a vagina you could pay a 1€ cover and drink free wine all night.
I saw the original LOVE painting in nice.
I ate a lot of bottled pesto.
I smoked Montclair Blancs everywhere.
ordered a pastis at 11am once because I read in a fucking guidebook that it was how the locals rolled. harsh booze at 11am- not a fan. I just felt stupid and squinty after.
shriveled breasts on bronzed old women. I went topless on the beach there... AND WROTE ABOUT IT IN A POSTCARD TO MY COWORKERS. nearly a decade later, I'm still mortified by that. humans get weird when there's no one right there to share their every moment- with me, at least, I become stupidly non-discriminatory.
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I am, as is customary of late, writing this on the fucking iPhone, so shall uneditedly cease now.
the sun just hid behind the clouds, again.
and someone just put "run to the hills" on the jukebox! how's YOUR evening?