I’ve been other places, lived other places, but no matter where I go I always want to come home. But it seems like my whole life people have been giving me the advice to leave. “You need to get out of Wyoming.” “Come live with me in Anchorage!” “Why don’t you move to Boise?” “There’s nothing to do where you are, how do you live there?” For some reason, people insist that I move to a city.

Instead, I took a couple days off and went here

Yep. Just me and Maximus and not another person for a squillion miles. While sitting on my rock, pondering things (I had a lot of time to ponder) I decided that next time I’m told I need to go to the city, I will politely suggest to my city friends that they come here instead. If it’s all about getting out of your comfort zone, then I think spending a few days in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a bunch of nothing, having to just sit and think and put up with yourself would be good for them.

If they don’t get the hint I guess I’ll just move up to my camp. I don’t get cell service there so all their “advice” will just go to my voicemail.

There were seven of us and the lodge–named “Unity Lodge”–was in a big field about thirty miles from my house.  The lady who owned the land/put on the lodge said she was trained in the Lakota fashion, not that I would know the difference between a Lakota lodge or any other. A fire pit had been going all day, heating the stones that would be placed in the lodge. There were some other things, a small ceremonial mound, etc. but the significance of these things wasn’t explained.

We were smudged with sage before we went in, one at a time. The way to enter the lodge was on the knees, saying a phrase, and always moving clockwise once you were in the lodge. Once we were in and in our “spots” one of the guys brought in the hot rocks from outside and placed them in a pit in the middle of the lodge. The rocks–”the grandfathers”–were then blessed one at a time with some herbs and sweetgrass. The flap was closed and it was totally dark.

The theme for the meeting that night was “integrity.” Leading by example. Being honest. I could agree with that. So began our prayers.

The first round focused on our “theme.” After each person said their general prayer, a cupful of water was put on the stones. After that round was completed, more stones were brought in from outside and we were sealed in again. (After each round, the flap was opened to let in some fresh air and water was passed around.) The second round of prayers were “for the children.” I have to admit, I had to work to come up with something civil and not sarcastic. (I think I’m just too contrary for all the seriousness and ceremony.) This time, two cupfuls were poured on the rocks after each prayer. After this second round, my mom left the lodge because she didn’t want to get overheated. The third round were prayers for healing and, as you’ve likely guessed, three cupfuls of water were poured on after each prayer. Another person excused himself after this round. The final round were prayers of gratitude, pouring four cupfuls after each prayer. It was very hot. The first two rounds didn’t seem that hot so the intensity of the third and especially fourth rounds caught me by surprise.

So why did I go? To check it out. To network (almost everyone was from out of town, though, so not a lot of business leads there). To say I did it and made it through.

And for Enoch.

I know that may not be anything he wants to hear, but his loss has always made me feel…guilty, I guess. I felt in some messed up way this was my atonement for those of us who do these crazy things; like somehow this proved we may be “wackos” but we aren’t dangerous, that what happened in Sedona was wrong. I thought of Enoch while sitting in the lodge, waiting for the others to pick their places. I wondered what he would think of something like this; like many of these things, the lodge had that contradicting quality of being simultaneously hokey and authentic. There was no money involved; just a group of silly people praying for healing.

After the sweat, I didn’t feel all that cleansed or renewed. Mostly I felt soaked with sweat and stinky. But now that I’ve written this, I realize I got more out of the experience than I originally thought.

“It would have been difficult to miss the recent news stories about a massage therapist in Oregon making accusations against a former U.S. vice president. Coverage that reflects badly on massage therapy is an unfortunately familiar occurrence, even though we as a profession have come a long way in educating consumers and the media about your outstanding contributions to health and wellness.

While Associated Bodywork & Massage Professionals (ABMP) has strongly worked for change and education with the media and consumers, we are taking a slightly different tack with ABC’s program “The View,” which recently featured several co-hosts, including a comedian, discussing the current story with a fair amount of sarcasm and innuendo about the role of the massage therapist.

We are choosing this particular event as an opportunity to continue educating the media and consumers about what constitutes legitimate, therapeutic massage—your work, your accomplishments, and your ethical conduct.

We have extended an invitation to the producers and co-hosts of ABC’s “The View” for a complimentary, one-hour massage, courtesy of ABMP, so they can experience for themselves how healing and relaxing therapeutic massage can be. We believe this approach could go a long way in educating, rather than shooting, the messenger.

All of us can participate in this opportunity to educate the public about what massage therapy is—and isn’t.”

As I read this, I had a couple thoughts:

-Nothing like rewarding bad behavior with free massages.

-I didn’t know anyone actually watched The View.

Oh. Wait. In all the stuff I’ve read, she’s a masseuse. I hate to be all “I’m not a stewardess, I’m a flight attendant” here, but thanks to the evolution of the word and its connotation, there’s a big difference. Sure, I get some people who just don’t know any better and I don’t get huffy about it–but I do correct them. “Massage therapist” implies education, licensing, ethics, and being legal. “Masseuse” is code for someone who works in a “massage parlor.”

I’m not accusing the accuser of being a hooker. I just wanted to set the record straight because I am tired of people calling me a masseuse and asking about happy endings.

One last thing: while there are a variety of reasons the woman may have declined pursuing a police investigation (money, power, threat of losing her job, fear of having to put up with Al Gore being super serial) the whole thing makes me cringe. You don’t report these things just for yourself, but also to attempt to protect others in the profession from being subjected to a known perv. Well, known forceful perv, anyway.

I don’t expect to see ManBearPig (emphasis on “pig”) anytime soon, but I’m getting to work on a new sign for my business: “We reserve the right to refuse business to anyone. Especially Al Gore.”

UPDATE: @jtLOL just tweeted this article, which is the first time I’ve seen “massage therapist” used. The fact she’s a licensed massage therapist makes this particularly interesting to me. Also interesting is the article says the massage took place in his hotel room; this is not unheard of and on some level makes sense from a business perspective. I interviewed with a massage outfit that offered in-room massages and had a list of the people willing to do them. I briefly considered offering something similar in my own practice but dismissed it after deciding massaging while wearing a hip holster would be a bit too awkward. And while I’d like to believe in the goodness of people (ha), I just felt hotel room massages conveyed the wrong message and were asking for trouble.

Of course, the real story isn’t about masseuse vs. massage therapist, but about this: “The FBI, Secret Service and Oregon State Police all declined Portland Police request to investigate the assault claim against Gore, according to the police report.”

This sounds super serial, guys.

Anyway, the other night I was really depressed and something interesting happened. My dog was already snoring away and the cat jumped up on the bed. This cat in particular is…well, he’s gorgeous. Soft and silky and beautiful and he knows it. So I was sitting there, feeling like crap, and ToPu starts rubbing his head against my hand, demanding to be petted. So I petted him. After rubbing his belly for about five minutes, I thought, “Wait. What just happened here? You don’t love me, you just wanted belly rubs!” But I did realize that by demanding my attention and making me focus on him, he did distract me from my own problems and actually made me feel better. I chuckled to myself, thinking that was pretty clever on his part and that only an animal could pull that off. If a person had done that, I’d be pretty pissed.

And that’s when I realized the difference between cat people and dog people. I love and have cats and dogs; if someone asked me if I were a “cat person” or a “dog person” I wouldn’t have an answer. But as I thought about it, when my friends are sad, I do one of two things: I try to make them laugh or (well, this usually comes after trying to make them  laugh fails miserably) I just tell them I’m here, to listen if/when they need listened to, to give them support.

So of course I thought of those “cat people” I know. These people prefer cats over dogs and sure enough, when I start talking about my problems, they interrupt to talk about theirs. They do the “one-up your problem” game. What I’m going through is insignificant because, geez, I should be grateful my situation is so simple compared to theirs! 

However, I feel I should confess I kept taking breaks writing this post to pet ToPu’s belly.

My mom is my best friend. I have two friends who lost their mothers in their teens and another friend who hasn’t spoken to her mom in over ten years. I don’t know how they do it; I would be totally lost without my mom.

This doesn’t even scratch the surface, but I wanted to share a few things about her:

As long as I can remember, she’s told me I can do anything a guy can do, except pee standing up and “if we really had to, we’d find a way to do that too.”

She went to the Olympic Trials for javelin; her high school javelin record stood for about a million years. She was a cheerleader and Homecoming Queen in high school. (Before you ask, I never did track, hated cheerleaders, and was totally not homecoming queen material.)

She used Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got A Gun” and Pat Benatar’s “Hell is for Children” to explain child abuse to me. She came from a much more populated area and was always worried about me getting kidnapped. My friends always thought it was weird that she was so overprotective and worried about that stuff.

At certain ages she awarded the privilege of using certain curse words. I think it was maybe sixth grade I got to start using the word “bitch.” People are always surprised that I so casually drop the f-bomb in front of my parents; I’m always surprised that people curse all day long and still try to convince their folks they never cuss.

Speaking of that, my mom finally watched the “Whale Whores” episode of South Park a while back. The other day we were detailing and David Bowie’s “Heroes” came on the iPod. At the part where he sings “…like dolphins can swim…” my mom yells, “Fuck you, dolphin!”

When I was little, I went to work with my mom and sat in the office with her. I begged her to teach me cursive because she wrote in cursive all the time and I just knew if I knew cursive, I could write fast, like she could. She let me play on the huge old IBM computer and on the typewriter. I wanted to learn to type because I wanted to type at lightning speed like she could.

When we go places, people often mistake us for sisters. They always say, “You get along too well to be mother and daughter.”

But you know, forget about my personal experiences and opinions. Simply put, a 13-year-old middle school girl was drinking with her 21-year-old brother and 19-year-old step-cousin when her brother passed out, then awoke to find his sister and step-cousin having sex, so he put his sister in a choke hold and when she went limp he threw her against a weight bench, killing her. Realizing she was dead, he and the step-cousin dragged her out of the house and hid the body under a tree. Then they resumed their drinking after deciding they just wouldn’t tell anyone about it.

Somehow I’m sure that’s the white man’s fault. The “white man” did exempt

If you’re not queasy yet, I’d like to suggest this story about a Reservation man who believes he shouldn’t be prosecuted for beating his 22-month old daughter to death because it happened in “Indian Country” and therefore white man’s law doesn’t apply to him.

Likely I’ll get called RACIST for this. But that word has been thrown around so much does it even mean anything anymore? I don’t give a —- what “race” a person is and I think it’s about time we cared less about that and more about acting like human beings.

UPDATE:

I made fun of the Yaris all day because it’s such a silly little car. As I continued to work on it, with the dog hair, the dust, the dead insects, the puke, the “what the heck is that sticky stuff on the windshield?!” I thought to myself, “I don’t care if it is a stupid little car. No car deserves this.”

We’ve done some pretty gross vehicles before–I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent vacuuming, vacuuming, vacuuming dog hair. Or steaming out spilled candy/juice/milk/I-don’t-want-to-know stains from children. Scrubbing mud and blood out of ranch and hunting trucks. But the thing about those disgusting vehicles is you feel the life in them (uh, hopefully you don’t actually find anything living in them, though). Even though they’re gross, you can tell that someone drives them and loves them. Heck, before I started cleaning cars for a living, my own vehicle was a total pig sty but I love my Jeep and there isn’t a vehicle out there right now I’d rather have.

This little car was a repo, and one of the most unloved vehicles I’ve worked on. You might say, “Well, if they knew it was going to get repo’ed, of course they treated it like crap.” I thought the same thing. But would I puke in a car because I bought it and couldn’t pay for it? Would you? Do I even want to know the answer to that question?

Now, why am I telling you about my dog’s bowel problems? Because I think this episode is pretty symbolic of what’s going on in a lot of people’s lives right now. I feel like I’ve been on the verge of a breakdown the entire month of February and so many people I know are going through the same thing. It seems like everyone I know is braving their own personal shitstorm. Tragedy and disaster happen to everyone, yet we feel alone when it happens because of course there’s no way anyone could possibly understand what we’re going through. What we’re suffering supersedes what anyone else is experiencing; it’s impossible for anyone else to really “get it.” Right?

I don’t mean to mock anyone by this. Pain is pain, plain and simple. I don’t know what you’re going through–even if I’ve suffered a similar tragedy–because I’m not you. But I’m not a dog with shit stuck to my butt either, yet I know it has to be a pretty nasty and uncomfortable thing.

So to anyone and everyone out there, going through whatever it is that’s got you down: I hope you have someone who even if they don’t “understand,” at least cares enough to brave the stench and help clean you up.

Call me old fashioned but I was appalled. The stories got worse about how much the kids DON’T do. Well, unless you count texting all through class as “doing” something. By the time Client left, I was totally depressed about how self-centered and oblivious kids are these days. As I filed her intake form away, I noticed Ms. Honors English had misspelled the word “ankle.”

Tonight I watched Glenn Beck’s “The Revolutionary Holocaust: Live Free or Die” special–my dad TiVoed it for me. The day dad watched it, he was all fired up and ranting to me about it and what have things come to and how kids don’t know anything and I said, “I never learned any of that in school. We never talked about Che Guevara.” Of course dad reacted with, “What? You never talked about that?!” I said, “No. To me he’s the revolutionary guy on t-shirts. I never heard his name once in school.” “Well, what about Mao?” Me: “Nope, not a word.”

So as I watched the show, I thought back to how depressed I was about the high school twit dear…and realized I now depress MYSELF. In my defense, I did pay attention in school and my teachers just didn’t teach any of “this stuff.” But that doesn’t make me any less ignorant in the end. I guess what I’m saying is we’re moving full-speed toward “Idiocracy.” So be sure to get plenty of electrolytes.