the living room, again

After painting the dresser such a beautiful green last week, I kept honing in on how I didn't like it in the living room.  What if I just got a new rug? And new chairs?  I shopped like I was actually going to go out and drop hundreds of dollars on new furniture and rugs.  Because, you know, I'm ridiculous.

After a few days of insanity and sulking about the $1250 pair of blue velvet bergere chairs on craigslist rejecting my lowball offer of $300, I thought, WWGD?  (What would my Grandma do?) She would say paint the green dresser a color that will better fit in the living room, and try rearranging the furniture. (Duh.)

Lo and behold! I rearranged the furniture. For the 499th time.

 Despite the fact that my beta testers gasped in horror at the tv being in front of the window, I think I have a winner here.  I sold the Beast chair on craigslist for $5 more than I paid for it.  It was just too enormous in scale for this house.  I also like having the sofa facing the tv, instead of along the side.  I am all about the laziest tv watching possible.  I don't want to turn my head.

Then I painted the dresser and the  mirror over it Benjamin Moore Hale Navy. Although I am fan of more deeply hued cobalt blues, the Hale Navy is a muddy navy which goes nicely with the ugly beige on the walls.  It also complements the living room instead of fighting it.

Now the green painting feels like a pop of fresh color instead of the bookend of a competing Christmas color scheme.

Finis!

More beige and a Thai massage

Our landlord had the house painted--wait for it--a nice beige.

Every inch of our house, inside and out, is the color of Sadness and Mediocrity beige.

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Because of my frequent back and neck pain, I have had a membership to a national massage therapy chain for a few years. For anyone who hasn't had a massage, the masseuses at reputable massage parlors are generally very concerned with your modesty.  You are naked under the sheet, but the sheet is always draped modestly, covers you from neck to ankles, and there shouldn't be any body parts sticking out except for the limb the masseuse is working on.  

This past week, with temperatures in the high 90s, my massage place called me twice to cancel my scheduled massage because the air conditioner in the building wasn't working.  My back was getting very tense, so I called around and went to a Thai massage parlor nearby.

It was....a very different experience.

I was handed a pair of bloomers to put on before getting face down on the table. I was topless, as usual, since my back was the focus of the massage, but there was no sheet to get under.

The masseuse was a tiny woman about 70 years old.  She tossed a very large hand towel on my back (no queen size sheet here), jumped up on the table, and using bars affixed to the ceiling, started walking on my back.  There was much tut-tutting and "so tight! Your back is too tight!"

There was a lot of stretching and pulling and a few pretzel poses and a figure-four leg lock, but for the most part, it was the same as the national massage chain.  There was not, however, a ton of concern for my modesty or the placement of the extra large hand towel.

At the end, she told me to sit up, which I did, nervously clutching the hand towel to my exposed front.  The masseuse got up on the table behind me, put her feet in my back, grabbed both of my hands, and pulled back.  Like this, but I wasn't wearing a tank top.

via 

The hand towel fell down.

For the grand finale, she kept ahold of my hands, scootched her butt up closer to me while keeping her feet in my back and lying on her back (I can't find a picture of this pose), and HOISTED ME UP IN THE AIR ON HER FEET.  Take the above picture and just imagine that guy rolling onto his back and taking the woman up in the air, all the while she is being stretched on his feet and unable to free her hands to cover her front.

My mostly naked body was hoisted aloft in the naked-mermaid-on-pirate-ship pose.

You're welcome for that image.

I left without my dignity, but my back felt better.  I went back again the next weekend.