Mail Call

Today was a good mail day. We received our tax relief check today, easing the bite marks from the married-people-tax penalty a bit. AMA's step-mother also sent us a check to cover expenses on airplane tickets to his dad's 60th birthday celebration. And perhaps most importantly, I got a sampler CD from Lost Highway Records which brings together the country-rock stylin's of Lucinda Williams, Whiskeytown and Billy Bob Thornton (!)

As I type, I'm listening to "Forever" by BBT. Walking bass line, casually strummed acoustic guitar, and BBT's husky, obscene-phone-caller whisper. Not the worst thing I ever heard, but nothing too special. Oh, and now here comes "Angelina"--I'm guessing this one isn't about Laura Dern. Very simple country-rock ballad like....Poco or somethin'. So the rumors that the album was too wretched to release are unfounded, although again, there's nothing revelatory here.

Get Back

There was a guy in class today who was having trouble doing forward bends. He's been in my class before, actually, and I showed him some ways to overcome those problems. One point I'd made is that he doesn't have to do seated forward bends even while the rest of the class is--he can do other postures that support the back more. I noticed that he was still attempting seated forward bends, so I came over at one point and just gave him a little Reiki.

Afterwards he said, "Were you correcting me?" and I was a little caught short, so my words tumbled out: "Um, no, I was just applying my hands to your back, so that you'd know that, um, you were...loved."

There was a brief moment of awkward silence, and then he continued, "Oh. Well when we were on the back pressing the lower back into the floor, that really kinda hurt...." and he went on and on in a kind of complaining tone. Weird. There's a limit to what I do for students, if they're not going to take my advice...

The Good Enough Book