Massage Freak

I am getting a massage today.

I’ve never had one before. I don’t think rubbing against the Criss Angel waxwork at Madame Tussaud counts. Although I did get my mind “freaked.”

My last birthday my husband gave me a gift certificate to a swanky spa. It has heated foot pools, herbal-infused steam rooms, rich people and unicorn rides.

I made the appointment a couple of days ago because I have been feeling tense. We had a death in the family. I feel like I’m treading water in my professional life. My husband is running for political office. And like Demi Lovato, I am worried about Miley Cyrus’ twerking.

Of course, the spa phone call made me even more tense because I’m generally awkward when dealing in unfamiliar subjects. I ended up ordering the “Monet” massage, which I guess involves being kneaded with a rolled-up Water Lillies poster.

I was told to arrive early and bring my bathing suit so I can enjoy the other “amenities.” Jesus christ, I have to wear a bathing suit now? Maybe I can also rewatch that film strip about a girl’s changing body to feel the highest level of discomfort.

The whole spa idea makes me a bit anxious. I’m not much for pampering. I did get a manicure once before my wedding, and sweated through the whole process trying to make agonizing small talk with the manicurist.

Did you know that it looks like your nails grow after you die? That’s because your skin is receding and decaying. . . Oh, you just do one nail for a manicure? It looks good. Thanks.

My limited understanding of massages comes from playing the Justin Bieber Massage game.

I’m hoping my experience involves less hubris and trucker hats.

Maybe I would feel more comfortable if I took someone with me, someone who has gone through the experience and knows what to expect.

On second thought, maybe I’ll keep Hugo at home.

Is Gangnam Style Still Fresh?

You know, I never really thought about it until YouTube emailed me.

YouTube initially guilted me for forgetting Gangnam Style’s 1-year-old birthday and then posited that existential question:

I really wanted to answer: “Fuck yes, it is!” But before I did, I figured I should ask YouTube since that’s what the computer was telling me to do and you do not say no to your computer, amirite humans?

YouTube was surprisingly reticient. It wanted to show me parodies of the song, but didn’t–or wouldn’t–provide the answer.

This was a journey of discovery I had to make on my own.

I figured I should probably watch the video having never seen it, but jesus, who has that kind of time? Those candies aren’t going to crush themselves.

Apparently 1.7 billion people found the time. I am lazier than 1.7 billion people.

I decided to consult a trusted advisor.

Hugo, I’m sorry to disturb you, but I need to know if Gangham Style is still fresh a year later.

True, but not very helpful.

Nowhere closer to an answer, I looked it up in the dictionary and realized I had been spelling it “gingham” all along.  Gangnam is something like the Korean version of the soul-killing phrase YOLO, which is an acronym for “Nearly as Annoying as You Go Girl”

What makes something fresh? Doesn’t everything–except radioactive isotopes and styrofoam lunch trays–have an expiration date? I would think anything Internet-based is fresh for about as long as it takes to pin The Towel Workout onto a Pinterest board.

Mathematical formula: Viral video + Today show – quinoa recipe – sharkando = freshness.

I guess since YouTube is still talking about Gangnam Style a year later means it is still relatively fresh so I will stick by my original response because, after all, you only live once and you go girl.

Amusing Ourselves To. . . I Forget

My brain is distracted.

I realized this when I was reading a book called The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains and I would hear the siren call of Facebook. I put the book down and lunged for my computer so I could look at stuff like this:

There, all better. Now what was that book saying?

Something about how distraction has always been around since the advent of electronic media, but:

(N)ever has there been a medium that has been programmed to so widely scatter our attention and to do it so insistently.

I knew it was happening to me. I saw it when trying to read The New York Times online and finding I could only make it through three paragraphs before losing interest and clicking elsewhere–usually on ads for the Chillow pillow

I can read the physical paper in its entirety as long as I can continue to check Facebook every ten minutes.

It’s probably unsurprising, but reading print materials activitates different parts of the brain than reading online. For instance, as you read this, the part of your brain that regulates break dancing has been stimulated. That book readin’ activiates them language, memory and visual processing parts. Now you tell me, which is better?

I’ve experienced the moment when it feels like the whole world recedes as I look at a Buzzfeed list of the craziest bras ever created. That’s what the Internet does. It grabs our attention only to scatter it like a bra made out of birdseed.

In Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death (disclaimer: I tried to read this online and made it three sentences in before giving up. I’m reading a print version now), he brings up the two varying views of the future: George Orwell’s and Aldous Huxley’s. Orwell predicted a totalitarian world where information was scarce. Huxley’s world was one of excess where people willingly gave up their autonomy in exchange for their distractions. Information was everywhere.

I wonder whose view is more spot on?

It would appear that the notion of the U.S. government collecting the phone records and Internet searches of millions of Americans, an act that is in direct violation of the 4th amendment, would be somewhat troubling.

Shouldn’t it be?

I don’t know because while I was looking up the NSA story, I was sidetracked by a video of Justin Bieber pissing in a mop bucket.

My journey ultimately ended here:

There, all better.

Confessions of a Non Shopaholic

I am a woman so therefore I like “woman” things, according to them.

I like to substitute actual dessert with shitty, chemical-laced low-fat yogurt bearing the same name of the actual dessert.

I like to have old white men with shriveled balls control my family planning.

I’ve watched Sex and The City so I know I’m supposed to love expensive shoes, mindless consumerism, and two horrible movies, but I don’t. I fucking hate shoes.

I get the necessity of them. They’re helpful when walking on broken glass, hypodermic needles and tar balls of gonorrhea. They conceal hairy toes, yellowed toenails, and feet stench (not mine…a friend’s). They assist when kicking a ball or a nutsack.

But I just don’t get the shoe-shopping fetish that has been ascribed to women ever since Cinderella screwed her foot into a glass slipper and married a dolt.

The shoes are mostly uncomfortable, yes? I can’t be the only one who experiences the sensation my toes are merging into one when I cram a high heel onto my foot and proceed to trot-wobble around like a newly-born foal. They also seem to be made on the cheap. When I picked up a slingback, it disintegrated into a pile of insulation, sawdust and the tears of the seven-year-old who made it.*

*This is a lie because it would mean I would have to know what the fuck a slingback is and that I’ve also gone shoe-shopping in the last decade.

Shoe-shopping is on par with making a sandwich at the beach without plates, and attending weekend-long dance recitals not starring your child.

The trouble is, I need to go shoe-shopping. Like me, my shoes are falling apart. It became apparent when I mistakenly left a pair of shoes at the gym, and they went untouched for a month. I figured if they were pretty good shoes, someone would have walked away with them–literally.

But they were these:

I’ve worn these for over the last five years. These shoes are the worst shoes because they have no back to them yet I wear them in the winter, during rainstorms, mud tornadoes, etc. because I am a moron. They slip on easily and I guess I can’t be bothered to spend that extra millisecond wedging my heel into a shoe.

I used to have other “dressy” shoes for work, but they’re in even worse condition and/or lost because I can’t be bothered to look in my closet.

I nearly left these shoes, but I do have a wedding coming up.

I do have my “summer” shoes:

They’ve taken on the appearance of a roadside attraction in central Florida.

And I own a pair of sneakers for Zumba. They are currently caked in grass snippets because I mowed a wet lawn in them when I had mistakenly left my “dressy” shoes at the gym.

This Will Put Hair On Your Chest

Chest hair symbolizes “masculinity” according to some horribly vapid article I skimmed on the Internet.

It can be caused by drinking whiskey, eating sardines and spreading maple syrup on your chest, according to a variety of Internet answer sites I perused. Apart from the maple syrup, I can’t imagine why I now sport three chest hairs.

Some of you may be unsurprised because some of you think I’m a dude. It’s likely my compulsion to take incessantly about my penis that has led to that incorrect assumption.

My chest hair was pointed out to me a few weeks ago. I finally wore something other than my usual ensemble:

I like to be the yin to my own yang.

The shirt, while it did nothing to accentuate my grape-sized chest, it highlighted the three chest hairs in all their glory.

Unlike these photos:

This is my hand. I was trying to turn the iTouch around when I snapped this.

Here’s part of my chest. Not the part with the hair. This was the best of 15 shots.

I finally went with the computer camera. I’m yanking on one of the hairs.

The following day, the friend asked me if I got rid of my hair. I hadn’t. I was fearful that if I shaved, I would wake up the next morning looking like the love child of Alec Baldwin and Robin Williams. Also, I’m really lazy.

Is it a sign of aging? Aging is such a wonderous thing–what with the depletion of all energy, the realization that your life is a series of inconsequential failures, and the inability to extract oneself from furniture without grunting like a tennis player. It was upon turning 35 that a wirey hair began growing out of my neck. My darling child never fails to pipe up about “mommy’s mustache.”

I’m still not sure what to do with them. Bleach them? Pluck them? Instagram them?

I am at a loss. Luckily unitard season begins in a few weeks.