WEEK 10

Everyone has taken their final now -- Rachel took hers early. Now no school until the tenth.

TAKING IT TO HEART II

Correspondence with my GP:

"hi, dr. s_____, saw dr. p_____ today, he described my cholesterol as "not great" but he would rather not put me on any statins. i agree. probably losing 20-25 lbs would help.

The GP's response:

"Hi

Can you do it?"

As If I couldn't do anything I put my mind to.

TAKING IT TO HEART

Saw the cardiologist today. He sez my cholesterol is "not great." This is not the first time anyone has said anything about it. Probably losing 20 lbs would not be a bad idea.

WOOT!

It turns out my anatomy and physiology grade should have been a "high B" (a B-plus) rather than a "C." Fortunately the person responsible does not teach math.

EXTRA CREDIT

Turned in my extra credit project. Shirl is pleased with it. I'm relieved to have it literally out of my hands and on the wall.

THE SWEAT OF MY BROW

Worked into the wee hours on my extra credit project until I was sweating. Then I realized I had turned the A/C off.

MY WORST CLIENT EVER

He was married. And fat. And boring. And he lived in a boring house in a boring neighbourhood in a town notorius for inbreeding. And he could't do math. He owed me $75.00 and thought he only owed me 50. All he claimed to have was $67.00. When I told him I took credit cards he said he didn't have one. When I asked him to write me a check he told me his wife, whom he hadn't been married to that long, was in charge of the checkbook. Loser.

NEW SHOES II

Rebel that I am, I got these shoes to go with my uniform. Let's see if I can get away with wearing them. This afternoon I wore them to a funeral, my fourth in less than four months.

WEEK NINE

Not much at school this week. The trip to the Walter Reed Museum was cancelled so I made up the time in the clinic working on my extra credit project.

G-D HAS A SENSE OF HUMOUR

As I mentioned Tuesday, a lady in Bethesda said her son found my keys. I thought G-d was cutting me a break, saying "she's stuck in a job she hates and earns no money, her sex life sucks, at least give her her keys back. This lasted one day. Yesterday my car died. G-d probably thought "that's enough comforting for one day. Now I'll kill her car. (It was resuscitated to the tune of over $800.00.

THE FOOT-BUTT CONNECTION

My asshole relief guy showed up an hour and 45 minutes late. We almost made medical history -- surgical removal of my foot from his ass. It would have been an interesting class project.

BLESSED BE

Blessed Summer Solstice!

ST. ANTHONY ROCKS!

As I mentioned Saturday, I lost my keys Thursday -- car, condo, work, mailbox, massage space. This happened three years ago and immediately I had the whole set replaced. It turned out I had left them in the bathroom and the woman who found them didn't bother asking to whom they belonged. This year I figured it was the same thing, so I didn't bother having new ones made. By Sunday night there was no sign of them so Mom and I both said prayers to St. Anthony. Next morning CVS called to say someone had found them. St. Anthony rules!

GOATS AND CALVES

Yesterday's epistle was about goats and calves. I listened to that about as much as I do to anything else and immediately thought "soleus, plantaris, gastrocnemius."

FATHER'S DAY

Not much more I can say, other than that I am still hurting from my own father's death.

THINGS THAT SUCK

Losing your keys.

THINGS THAT SUCK MORE:

Going back to the sex toy store and not finding them there.

WEEK EIGHT

Well, I am still in the one-class-per-week mode. And I have still not been thrown out of school .

EVERYBODY HURTS

And so do I, at the moment, so I'm going home.

DRINK MORE WATER

At least two makeup artists have told me to drink more water. There is a water company called "Drinkmore Water." When Ariana told me about it I thought it was a command. I guess you had to be there.

TO TIP OR NOT TO TIP

That is the question: MT's, car wash attendants, cab drivers who charge you out the whazoo for "incidentals," Starbucks "team members" who do nothing but ring up your order?

SICK FANTASY

I come directly from school to your apartment. I am completely in uniform, right down to my Capezio jazz shoes. First I take off my scrub top, then the pants. I am wearing a really hot blue bra and matching panties underneath.

THIS IS NOT YOUR MOTHER'S BLUE EYE SHADOW

Since our uniforms are the same colour as those US Air attendants wear, I figured my face needed some brightening up. I took a makeup artistry course at First Class and learned something new. A couple days later I bought a blue shadow stick at Mac and a matching eyeliner at Blue Mercury. This is the first time I have worn blue eye makeup since 1988. My next mission will be to buy green.

GRAY'S ANATOMY

No, not the ABC TV version. You can find it online at Bartleby.com. You know your sex life sucks when you look at pictures of spermatozoa on the internet.

TALK TO THE HAND

‘Cause the face ain’t listening

We get to do an extra credit project and two possible topics are “fun facts about the musculoskeletal system” and “pathology of the musculoskeletal system.” Just about everyone else is doing diseases, I did a project on vitamins in sixth grade and I’m afraid if I did anything on dwarfism or giantism or something like that it would look like Tod Browning’s Freaks.

So, after taking one of Peggie’s classes at First Class I decided to do something on hand analysis.

My boss sent his ex-wife a letter with the first line “Carla, talk to the hand.”

PIG FUR

As I mentioned before, our uniforms are the same colour as the uniforms US Air Attendants wear. Unfortunately, they show pig fur. Some of the pig people say change schools, others say change pigs.

WEEK SEVEN

After last week this week has been kind of an anticlimax. For the next couple weeks all I have to do is physically show up for one class a week. Then next morning I go back to work and have to deal with Shamu and the other assholes, which only strengthens my resolve to become a CMT and get the hell out of here.

EEEEEWWWWW!

Jay insists we keep our nails cut. For this purpose he keeps a toenail clipper. Unfortunately when I came to school the next morning I found bits of nail on my massage table .

ANIMAL HOUSE

After finals last week Jay let us send out for pizza and watch videos. I figured not everyone likes Woody Allen or Tobey Maguire and John Irving is an acquired taste. And not everyone is as fascinated with the older woman-younger man thing (The Graduate , Harold and Maude , Tadpole , Something’s Gotta Give , The Door in the Floor ) as I am. So I brought Animal House because the good guys win out. After about ten minutes of Princess Bride we decided we’d rather watch Animal House . I explained to Lida that there would be four-letter words, bare breasts and exposed bottoms. Then we got to the part in which Tim Matheson takes a dildo out of his bag. Lida had never seen or even heard of a dildo so we had to explain that to her.

The first time I saw Animal House I was about about 15 or 16 and it convinced me there was SOME college in the continental United States which would accept me. I saw it again in undergraduate school and again in grad school and both times I knew it would be OK. The dorm in which I lived looked like those on the Faber College campus. And Faber College was supposed to be in Pennsylvania. I was taking statistics at the time. Enough said.

MASSAGE THERAPIST, HEAL THYSELF

MASSAGE THERAPIST, HEAL THYSELF

In one of our text books we learn about the difference between "healing" and "curing." "Curing" is a passive thing in which the patient is completely passive. "Healing" is a process in which the patient takes an active part.

I guess I have to learn to accept healing as well as to give it, even though I have been told "there's nothing wrong with you or "there are other people worse off than you." Part of that includes learning when to say "no." And how to say "my back hurts like a Mofo. I need a massage right now."

THE PICTURES HAVE ARRIVED

The pictures from Puerto Rico arrived. The one in front of the Golden Door is kind of grainy but some of the others are great. One of my male friends called Sunday night requesting pictures. He can have himself a field day with these.

WIRES AND BUTTONS

We did a remote over the weekend. It was all wires and buttons -- very little human contact except for when a co-worker clapped me on the back and asked "how's it going?"

FLESHLY THING

"...A wild, weird, fleshly thing"

Sir W.S. Gilbert

"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians 5-19

Boy, am I screwed.

I HAVE A PLAN

A conversation between me and Sproul:

Me: I'm gonna go to Starbucks to eat animal fat and compensate for my shortcomings. This will cause me to pack in more weight and feel worse about myself, thus perpetuating the cycle.

Sproul: Yes, but at least you have a plan.

I feel better already.

TAKIN' IT EASY

"Take it easy
Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can don't even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand and take it easy"

Jackson Browne/Glenn Frey

And that's what I plan to do -- take it easy. I am enjoying the nice weather and catching up on some much-needed sleep.

WEEK SIX

Wow, these six weeks have flown by. I aced the final and will be going onto the next mod after the Fourth of July weekend. Jay will be teaching another class andmy classmates will either stay in the morning class or graduate. It doesn't pay to get too attached to people or things.

Coming back to work having to decode Shamu's handwriting and listen to her butcher the English Language have only strengthened my resolved to get the hell out of here.

I CAN MAKE YOU A MAN

But a deltoid and a bicep
A hot groin and a tricep
Makes me - Ooh! - shake
Makes me wanna take Charles Atlas by the hand --
In just seven days --Oh, baby -- I can make you a man

By Richard O'Brien

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Yeah, that's about all that's on my mind -- biceps, triceps etc. And I wouldn't mind a hot groin, depending on whose it is.

CHILDHOOD TRAUMA RELIVED

For extra credit we are making flashcards. I hated them as a child -- it made me feel tard - like. In second grade Brian Gallagher made fun of his little sister, Kitty, who needed flashcards. Still, it's 100 points.

Every morning I drive past my old house, my kindergarten, my dentist's office and the office of a deceased doctor who should never have been allowed to treat children.

Then in the afternoon I drive past my elementary school and the church in which I made my first communion, confession and confirmation.

SPELLING BEE II

Saw video from the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee on TV this morning. They showed some kid misspelling "sesamoid." She looked older than 14, the maximum age allowed. The anchorbabe told the viewers what it meant. G-ddamnit, I should be on TV, not them. I didn't starve myself, get my nose fixed and take singing, dancing and acting lessons to spend my day talking to retarded hicks and massaging horny fat guys.