Bodily Manifestations

Things are happening awfully quickly around here, despite my unemployed situation.

For one thing, I got a bunch of editing work in the past week, so, really, I'm not exactly unemployed, which is good. Plus, getting this bunch of work allows me to delay making any other moves until I find out about some of the other irons in the fire.

Speaking of which, for a second thing, I emailed my old boss this morning (he's a COO of a major non-profit in New York, as well as a good friend and an ex-boss, so I use him for all kinds of advice) and told him about last week's interviews and asked him what to do about not having heard anything from anyone since last Wednesday's interview. He told me to sit tight until Monday. Later in the day, though, he emailed me to tell me he'd gotten a phone call from the HR people at the place I've been interviewing, so yay for that--I find it hard to believe they'd go through the trouble of doing that if I weren't at least in the running. And I know him--I'm sure he told the woman that I walk on water. As he said, it wasn't the same things as he would have told the person who would be my boss, but he said the "right" things (and boy howdy does he know how to work that).

I had a zen shiatsu treatment today, and that was extremely interesting. I've been working with this woman for about six months now, and I've been going in approximately every two weeks; thus, she's seen me three times since I quit the bakery, as well as a half-dozen times while I was working there. Today she was marveling at how relaxed I am--all those stuck spots (save one, and I'll return to that in a second) are just gone. More to the point, the "surface tension" engendered by the long hours and hard work at the bakery is gone, enabling us to get to other things--or, in my case, to discover that there just aren't that many other things. The meridians that were cranky as little as two weeks ago were not today (liver and gallbladder, for those of you who care; the practitioner said those both have to do with moving forward, making plans, etc., so I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise).

One of the effects of this is that it reaffirms for me that I've done the right thing in leaving the bakery. Much as I like the people, much as I enjoy the baking, the job itself was not the right thing for me, which I knew rationally; it's nice to have it confirmed by other parts of the system. Yes, there's still uncertainty about what I'm going to do now/next; that's not the point.

Another effect is that she and I have figured out that the persistent pain in my right hip is probably inflammation of some kind more than tightness. As she worked through the crunchy bits, the tenderness remained---kind of reemerged, actually. It felt like inflammation. Thus, I'm going to take ibuprofen for a few days and see if that helps. I suspect I pulled or tweaked something in the general low-back-mid-hip area, and the tightness is my body's way of protecting that area. I'll probably try some yoga, but I may avoid some of the working out (I haven't worked out since last Friday, in part because I have not been motivated or have been hanging out at Friend's house, and today because it was too damned cold). We'll see; I do want to heal it.

I find the body work to be quite interesting--it's a whole other kind of feedback system, and, given that I have not been playing handball or practicing yoga regularly, I haven't had much feedback of any kind other than the pains and creaks and stiffnesses that were part of the bakery work. Adding a professional bodyworker into the mix is useful, because she can give me more detailed feedback. She can also get into places that I have a hard time reaching. I have a particularly dense body--every bodyworker and several yoga teachers have said this about/to me--so having someone else be able to get in there is useful.

I also think that bodily density is part of what makes me think and act as though I'm bigger than I really am. I'm only about 5'4, and I now weigh around 145 pounds (and would like to get back to the 130 I weighed when i started at the bakery--or, rather, would like to get back to fitting into the clothes I wore when I started at the bakery; I don't care what the scale says). Not very big, really--but I feel like I'm, I don't know, maybe 5'10? I know I'm not (just watch me try to reach something on an upper shelf), but I really do feel that way. It's kind of strange; it's not even that I wish I were that tall. But then I stand next to someone who really IS tall--Friend is over 6' tall; Chuck is, too; and the ex-boss mentioned above is something like 6'4 or more, i.e., really goddamned tall--and I realize that I'm kinda short. I don't care, mind you, I just think it's kind of curious that there's such a disconnect between how tall I think I am and how tall I actually am. (How tall/big do you act? Am I the only one who does this?)

Finally, courtesy of Susie, here's your laugh for the day. It took me a second to get all of it (note the arm positions of the people and the painting . . .), but it cracked me up.