Quotidian and Rambly

I forget, even in so short a time, what massage does for me. I was exhausted, having run an hour or two short of sleep for many days: I warned Emily I'd probably fall asleep on the table. But I didn't. And an hour later I was centered, steady. Still needing sleep, of course; but clear, and the desperate edge taken off it. Very like what meditation does. When I came out, Emily looked up at me, from the couch of the trendy salon where she's working now, and laughed. "You're so funny about massage," she said indulgently. I was no doubt rather spacey-looking, swaying on my feet, with beatific glow about me. I felt that I'd been rebooted. All caches cleared. I imagine snakes feel that way after a molt.

So I slept, last night, a full night. And still feeling renewed. I hope some at least of my clients feel this way.

My gastroenterologist wants me back in five years; just one polyp, but one of the wrong sort. And she wants me to eat like a sane person, alas! Meaning fruit and veg and less fat and less red meat. Less fat and red meat isn't going to happen -- I know better than to set that pendulum in motion -- but I can at least add in some fruit and veg. So I'm having fruit with my breakfast this morning. It's good. Really good. Why haven't I been having it for years? (Another of those inexplicable resistances. There's a lot of them. I resist meditation. I put off taking my shower in the morning. I avoid exercise. These are all things that I love to do; so far as I can tell the only reason I resist them is that I feel I ought to do them.)

Rachel has a novel method of getting her five fruit & veg, but I'm afraid alcohol completely disrupts my sleep cycles; it's a choice between having drinking in my life and having enough sleep in my life, and I'm old enough to prefer having enough sleep.

"When I drink alcohol, I get sick. I can't sleep, and then usually within a day or two I come down with a cold. I mean, like every time." I told the naturopath Martha dragged me to, maybe ten years ago.

He looked at me mildly for a few moments. "Does that tell you anything?" he asked.

Oh. Like, maybe drinking isn't such a good idea for me? (Why do we need experts to tell us this sort of thing?)

So for the past ten years or so, I haven't been drinking at all. I can't even have the heart-recommended glass of red wine with dinner, and still sleep. Which is too bad, because I like drinking; it loosens up my damned self-consciousness and makes me better able to converse. But you can't have everything.