someone you really love

FIRST REBOOK!
there have been so many milestones lately: first client, first tip, first time a PAYING client falls asleep, first minor (that was weird- her mom waited in the lobby), first woman who unselfconsciously flashed her tits, first dude who probably had an erection... and first rebook. none of these people know that they've got their own pages in my mental LMP scrapbook... they're living their lives and crossing my path when i'm at my most wide-eyed and virginal. i love not feeling jaded about my job. it's been far too long since i've felt truly excited and passionate about how i earn a living.
it makes the ER seem even grimmer than it already is. i very nearly walked out last night. i was tired and disgusted and hypoglycemic and the fucking bullshit was relentless- it's been awful all week. there have been far too many patients who, for lack of a more delicate term, deserve to die. and because of their selfish clueless owners, they are disallowed this dignity. so we are to lift their dog's obtunded 50kg body up to try to walk them, which doesn't happen, or we wrestle with their cat's hissing claws-out tantrum as they scatter piss and cat food across the floor, or we syringe-feed utterly cachexic wraiths and get most of it in their matted fur because their rotten teeth are locked down and their eyes are willing us to burn in hell. or the owner finally comes to terms with the doomed prognosis and we're so fucking busy with the other dying shit that when we eventually go into the room where the dog was euthanized to bag the body, it's in total rigor mortis and its extended limbs claw slashes in the bag.
it is a stark contrast from massage: i do not get soiled, i have a candlelit diffuser that burns essential oils (current favorite: orange with nutmeg), it is quiet and serene, people are relaxed and lovely, i get to listen to fucking sigur ros, i am genuinely thanked, and i go home with a wad of cash in my clean pocket.
i am not including bbh in the above paragraph. bbh is like the ER of massage. all that prettiness is nonexistent there.
i do love the ER. and i do love bbh. i love them both because of the people i get to work with- the actual *work* at both places i could really do without. and they do provide excellent perspective. i would not adore my massage job as much if i didn't have its humbling, sloppy, cacophonic yang to contend to.
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yang.
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i have really done little else over the last few days but work. i took time to make kick-ass curried fried rice, which i am blaming on my weekend of gastric lament- but it was fucking delicious. i finished "septugenarian stew", my latest bukowski, and reread "such times", which i do about once a year. it's interesting to read things about AIDS that were written prior to cocktail regimens- perspective has changed so much, which is bad- it's become more of a *shrug* diagnosis, like cancer. i read about bedsores in the sunday paper whilst eating, of all things, pulpy red bedsore-like cherries. uh... the snake shit twice. what else? sold my scissor sisters tickets to a guy with extremely white teeth. he was very excited to give them to his wife. this pleases me. walked downtown in the soft evening- mellow cadence to "georgia on my mind", uncontrollably faster to "wynonna's big brown beaver." ah, shuffle.
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i didn't have an ipod when the memes were so fucking ubiquitous on fucking facebook a few years ago... the '5 favorite drinks' and '5 favorite smells' and 'what's your shuffle?' bullshit. now i am modern! modern, and LATE.
what's my shuffle?
playlist #1: what i listen to when i'm out doing my thang, i.e. walking or on the bus.
1. xx "crystalised"
2. captain beefheart & his magic band "her eyes are a blue million miles"
3. van der graaf "the sphinx in the face"
4. the pixies "is she weird"
5. brian eno "everything merges with the night"
6. phish "tweezer"
7. del shannon "runaway"
8. pink floyd "one of these days"
9. ike & tina "i've been loving you too long"
10. busdriver "casting agents and cowgirls"
playlist #2: massage
1. engineers "thrasher"
2. nick drake "one of these things first"
3. sigur ros "heysatan"
4. air "le voyage de penelope"
5. black sabbath "planet caravan"
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that was undoubtedly fascinating to no one but myself.
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last week d was talking about this sweet young thing he works with- nearly half his age. the flirt-fest is painful for everyone around to endure (i have not met her). "there's girls i want to fuck, and there's girls where i don't want to fuck it up" he said earnestly.
i could paraphrase that: girls you could, and girls you would. it really isn't gender-specific, i suppose.
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the goal in everyone's life should be to personify the latter, but everyone embodies the former by default.
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procured a free "blur: greatest hits" cd at a garage sale yesterday. i've been listening to "girls and boys" on repeat. it reminds me of dancing around my apartment in mountain view, the place with the shag carpet and overall ghetto funk. last night i was driving home at 2am across the aurora bridge, the skyline a-twinkle in the distance, singing along (and possibly involving hand gestures) and i smugly thought "oh, how times have changed." and i smiled like a dipshit.