May be too intense for some viewers.

Every 3 months or so I teach a class that prepares my students for the paperwork involved in working in various massage settings. To do so they roleplay being clients and therapists for each other and in doing so they fill out simulated medical files as if they were really checking in to a medical center, chiropractors office etc.

Sometimes they fill these forms out as if for their real life selves and sometimes they make up characters and fill in the forms with fake or humorous things. Here are a few examples, with excerpts from the forms from my latest class:

Name: Dolly Parton
Is your life stressful? Please describe Yes, fans from all over the world drive me crazy
Surgeries: facelift, breast implants, silicone injections
Is there anything else we should know about you? Breasts are full of silicone

Name: Henny Penny
Are you pregnant? No eggs
Is your life stressful? Please describe Yes, the sky is falling
Is there anything else we should know about you? I have feathers


Some random bits and pieces:

Occupation:

• full time couch potato
• slave to the Man

Referred by: Big sign outside

Reasons for wanting a massage: Stressed the F out!

Are you taking any medication?

• medical marijuana from California doctor
• just street drugs

Is your life stressful? Please describe

• Yes my neck hurts from propping it up on couch arm
• Yes, I need money

Are you currently experiencing emotional difficulties?

• yes, people get on my nerves
• who isn't?

Is there anything else we should know about you?

• no, its not your business!
• I am grouchy
• I am very lovable
• I'm awesome!

This has been a pretty cool 24 hours.

I taught my new class last night which I was anxious about because I was worried I'd forgotten too much to fill up the time (4 hours) but I barely fit it all in. Once my big ol' mouth opened info just started flying out. Cool. I actually plan to slow down next time and not bombard them.

Then I had dinner with some new pals and naughty photo / slap & tickle-time with a cute and sweet cub. Got home super late - got up and went to school to trade massages with one of my students (ahhhhh so that's what my legs are supposed to feel like), got comic books with Houndie and am now hanging out with he and Piper while I wait for Sabrina to come over to work on her character for my super-hero game.

Rock. 2008 can officially stay.

Professor Woofy just called me and said that our little one-day every 6 weeks 6-hr long class was gonna be expanded into the full 90-hr program we used to teach out in Conyers, but at our school here in town!  The one where the people *aren't* asshole freakazoids! Woohoo!

And he said he called me first - not to ask if I was available but to tell me that I WAS available LOL!  We have 3 campuses now and they are gonna need several teachers for this class and I'll be one!  This could go into effect by year's end! Yay!  I have been waiting for this for over a year!

Can you tell I'm excited?! Huh?! Can ya!?

Take THAT August!

The unprecedented massage blitz continues as after 3 months with hardly any private clients, suddenly I got 6 client calls in the last week.  I guess its something to do with Spring.

Thanks to Lt.J.G. Eric ericdabear(newly promoted) and a certain non-LJ feller I did nearly 4 hours of massage (lots of deep work too) on Sunday and have decided that 4 hours is about all I wanna do in one day!  Whew!  A nice soak in the tub was called for after that!

In addition this weekend I taught class, supervised clinic, and shall be teaching a class tomorrow (all of which was a fill-in for a sick colleague) and then its off to Bear Pride to rub on some of you!

The good news is that now I have some money to actually enjoy the trip, the bad news is time to prepare is running out - guess I better get off of here and pack some more!

Marty, I promise I'll clean out the massage room soon as I get home, it won't take that long, really! :)

Worked at the school clinic Friday, which went fine but for some reason I was very tired at the end of the day...but had to get up early to make it to the spa party gig at a client's home on Saturday.  That went very well in spite of my general tiredness but after 4 hours of rubbin' in a row my ass was T-Y-R-D tired.  Happily, I had some cub time that evening and the next morning to help recharge my batteries. 

Then I worked at the Alive! Expo (a big health fair, essentially) at the World Congress Center downtown - helping the school with their chair massage station.  I picked a spot in the front and worked another 4 hours going full tilt...the poor noobs looked like they were gonna drop dead, but I was like "fah, I've done this for 10 hours in 90+ degree heat and humidity (Pride) this is nuthin."  The only thing that got me was the concrete floor...even with carpet on it, it still killed the legs and feet.  Owie. 

And now I know why they call it the World Congress Center - you could fit the whole world inside it, holy crap it's huge...and looooooong to walk through.  Our booth must have been a dang mile from the MARTA stop.  However there was lots of swag and samples given out by exhibitors and I did have a good time - met some cool folks and networked and handed out my cards.

One guy I worked on said he used to be a pro wrestler for 2 months...but there was so much drug use - they gave everyone drugs to keep them going on the road 300 days a year and through injuries, etc that he had to drop out...he was already on drugs for back injuries from football and martial arts.  So its not *all* glamour and posturing, apparently.  He said he's planning to open a wellness center in town and took my card, we'll see how that goes.

The executive director (and founder) of the school asked me to work on him which I realized I never had, so he got the deluxe treatment and was very vocal in his appreciation of it (hopefully he'll remember that when I ask him about teaching the Chair Massage class, cause some of these students could use some help! lol).  As soon as he got up one of the outside therapists he'd called in to volunteer with us wanted one because "he picked you so I want one from you."  Soon after one of my students came up to get one but the Asst. Director shooed him away since there was a line of clients waiting at the front table.  Sorry, kid. Just watch and learn. ;)

Towards the end of my shift, I noticed an elderly black man in a celestial-themed daishiki wander by our area. Shortly thereafter I noticed him watching all of us working, but especially me.  He got in the line to sign up for a massage but then stood around a long time I thought, others going ahead of him out of turn.  It was the end of my shift and my dogs were killin' me so I was ret to go.  As I walked up to turn in my supplies, the director on deck said "Mikey, you have a request!" 

As it turns out Mr. Daishiki had been waiting for me to become available.  Well of course I had to stay now, and I'm glad I did.  He told me that he waited for me because of all the MT's working the booth (we had about a dozen on tap at any given moment) I was the most focused on what I was doing and on my client while others where staring off into the void with a "what's my motivation in this scene" look on their faces (paraphrasing).  I'd noticed that too as I'd been critiquing and correcting the students here and there as I had time.  He said "but you're not a student, you're an instructor." I assume he had asked the director about me.  I told him "Thanks I'm glad to know you could tell the difference!" LOL!  So we got to it and he was most pleased with his massage (I cheated a little and went over time - a good reason to flatter your therapist, for those massage consumers out there).

As I was just about to make my arduous trek back to the MARTA stop when one of my students offered me a ride to Lindbergh if I could wait 15 minutes, so I gladly accepted and wandered about the fair collecting samples and literature.

There was also a new agey expo thing going on in the same space as the health fair and the two always run together somewhat anyway as all the health-loonies come out of the woodwork - looking for the next great chakra-boosting organic vegan karma-cleansing protein shake and a crystal-power electro-aura massage (I did sample some awesome super-organic-un-processed mega-antioxidant dark chocolate...YUM!)...

I always think of the Rennfest and pagan gathers in such situations...you can always tell the diehards from the poseurs and the merely curious.  The wannabes will have that one big costume piece on over their street clothes, where the diehards will be so into it they leave behind their outside world and are in full costume /garb complete with accents and affected body language - they'll be all doe-eyed when they talk about whatever totally most awesome life-changing thing EVAR! they've discovered and then get all misty-eyed and morose when the event is over.

One of my favorite things in life is spotting examples of advertising irony.  In one booth on the "food row" there was a small table with a lone black man (somehow this mattered, as the booth was something like Black Vegetarians of Georgia?) with a sign that said "Did your food have a face?" with a picture of a pig's head on it.  Well, I have sympathy for the poor piggies but I hate guilt-based advocacy so I just rolled my eyes and kept going - to the booth directly across from him: Grass-Fed Organic Beef!  LOL!  The folks there were cooking and serving up samples of their tasty formerly-faced foods.  The vegetarian guy only had a few brochures and recipe cards to hand out. 

Hint: next time you are on "food row"...bring some food!  Some good soul food veggies and cornpone might have stood a chance against the meaty goodness across the aisle.  And for some reason as we exited the event, Nature's Own was handing out entire loaves of bread.  Yay, swag!

All in all a good day, I was fairly energized morale-wise even if my legs wuz sore.  They're better now ;)

The damn dogs woke me up at 5frigginAM barking at something and then proceeded to bark once every 5 minutes or so just to make sure I could never fall back to sleep.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Then worked my first official clinic supervisor shift (yesterday was training), which while hectic (some due to FNG Syndrome, some due to student flakiness) was generally pretty enjoyable and didn't drag by too badly.

Went for some dinner at Chili's while I waited for Chamberlain Nate mindchaos to arrive at the MARTA station...bought me some fat pants at the mall. ARG!  Must. Stop. Eating. So. Much. Chocolate.

Picked Natimus up and we visited joezer the Joezerarian a bit before Nate got his truck back from Joe's parking lot.

Now I'm caught up on messages and sleeeeeeeepy and have a big day planned tomorrow!

Nite nite y'all!

The boss man at my massage alma mater just offered me a clinic supervisor position at the main campus starting January, and maybe one at the satellite campus early in the Spring!

It's just every other Saturday right now, but that's a) better than nothing -- and nearly as much per hour as I was getting teaching at Conyers b) good on a resume and c) won't interfere with the doctor office gig if I get that.

And now it's off to meet Ensign Gene for dinner at Vatica and then the Peaches concert at Variety Playhouse! Woohoo!

I finally bit the bullet and sent a letter to Conyers letting them know that I was interested in teaching again, at Professor Woofy's behest. I didn't rant and rail about last time, I just made a couple of "if we can work things out to be mutually beneficial" type comments since this wasn't a kiss-off letter like I thought it would be to start with. We can hammer out the details if they are interested, and a lot of the problems form last time have taken care of themselves by being fired, quitting, or graduating. ;)

Wish me luck.

Now it's off to help a cub in distress and then to have dinner with Contender Cub.

I sent  Prof. Woofy an email to ask him if there had been any news on the teaching gig front (he'd mentioned it and we agree I should make contact with the school again) without thinking about my email signature - my website.

I haven't ever exactly clued him in on certain things (like my faguliciousness), though he's had puh-lenty of opportunity to clue in all the time I was in school (I wasn't in the closet but wasn't wearing a rainbow flag dress either) but at the school in Conyers I play a lot of things closer to the vest - frankly things are weird enough out there, even though I know the school has a policy of non-discrimination, an obvious queen or two on staff and some gay-friendly staff members, I just don't feel like I need to complicate things with the student body - Conyers is a pretty backwards area, and even though some of the students are out, its hardly Ansley Mall. The enviroment has been hostile enough in other ways that I just felt like keeping work there professional and non-personal was a smarter choice.

I'm not sure my site would totally scream "fag!" to people not in the bear or gay scene (I decided to try to be professional and sex-neutral there for a dozen good reasons) but if he has half a brain, it shouldn't take much to figure it out.

So what does he say?

Nice looking web site man! Take care, Keep up the “awesomeness.” :)

...Teacher let his dignity out.

Tonight was the night class' final for this term at school in Conyers.  It was also likely my final time there.  The story is long and I'm tired, but suffice to say the jist of it is: "Local massage instructor goes out on a limb, then gets hung out to dry by oblivious functionaries, film at 11."

I've already told Professor Woofy that while my loyalty to him is unchanged, that I don't know if I will be back there even if they ask me to (which is not that likely either).  I left my number with a few trusted former students and said my appreciation and so-longs to the few colleagues I care about.

This term has been if not quite hell, at least purgatory. In light of recent days there, and my shiny new National Certification, I'm really in a very "hit the ground running and don't look back" mindset about it.

Rennfest this weekend, Bear Pride next week, ATL Pride next month and a new opportunity I haven't told anyone about except Rob...

Yeah...Fuck 'em, I have a *real* career to attend to.