So then I looked up from the massage chair and I saw

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This afternoon saw me with no office hours. A full 1.5 hour window with no claims on my time. Simple pleasure. My back had been hurting and because I am now a woman of a certain age, I am pretty much one ache away from walking with the Dowager Countess' cane unless I do beaucoup stretching or get a massage.

Choices.

I sought out one of those chair massage places in the mall where you don't need an appointment.

A very brawny woman, presumably Chinese, smiled when I pointed to the 22 minute chair massage on their menu of services. She led me behind two Asian screens to an area where there were several very weathered looking massage chairs. She put a paper towel over the face pillow with the doughnut hole in the middle. My back hurt so much; this was no time for luxury. She told me to sit down and she put my purse on the rung of the massage chair.

The massage began well. Knots were starting to unravel. I was entering the happy place, forgetting that if someone wanted to steal my purse from right under my nose, they could literally do so.

At about minute 15, things started to get really awkward. The pressure started to get strong and then fierce. The massage therapist was punching me. She was punching my backside. She was punching like if you wanted to hurt somebody.

Then it was over. And, honestly, I was feeling rejuvenated and all-around better.

Until I opened my eyes and saw my massage therapist. It was Yao Ming.

Or at least his Tennessee doppelganger.

It was a bizarre bait and switch and I have no idea how it was achieved. I was certain a female therapist had started off the treatment. I have no idea when Yao Ming took over or who did rear-punching treatment but later when I was watching Little Man's gymnastics class, my toosh felt incredibly sore.

I have an appointment for another massage later this month. There is sure to be one massage table. One door. One masseuse. It's going to be so boring. And by boring, I mean awesome.

Review: Old Fashioned #oldfashionedmovie

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I am probably too medicated to have been able to cry at all the right parts in the indie film "Old Fashioned." Oh, don't say that, they will say. Don't cop to your being medicated. That doesn't reflect well on Christianity. You should be able to pray away all your depression and anxiety....

I know I run a risk in reviewing a film that is Christian-themed. I might align myself with the more-righteous-than-thou who decry my meds. I might also align myself with the fanwagoners who try to pack the theaters when any faith-based film projects onto a silver screen.

The cool thing about Old Fashioned, which several of my colleagues helped to direct and produce, is that it is a film that is so counter-cultural, it is effectively without niche. It is not a Kirk Cameron morality tale. It is not a saccharine rom-com with Nicholas Sparks-caliber lines.

Old Fashioned is, on the surface, a sweet romantic tale about a born-again believer man who has grown a tad curmudgeonly in his set apart ways, and the attractive tenant who moves in above his antique store. The romance spools slowly and sweetly. As each character unpacks his and her personal histories, we see their fine lines and their friction.

But Old Fashioned is also about a larger love story. The film is an allegory for the Gospel, about how a perfect God came to offer a perfect love in a broken world. There are moments in Old Fashioned, whose lighting is perfect and whose soundwork is really strong, that crystallize perfectly the way divine grace is offered freely, and how we reject it and fail to offer it to each other in the form of forgiveness.

Old Fashioned is not a perfect movie. At times the script felt a little uneven to me.  Sometimes scenes where body language and facial expressions were totally winning felt a little squandered because the dialogue bordered on the preachy. But it is a good film with solid performances and a wonderful message for the righteous, the proud, the hypocritical, dastardly, wicked and vain. And even the overly medicated.

Seven feet of invisible snow in New England

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The snow was so high and stiffly packed that winter; it was impossible to trudge home from the train without collecting snowflake souvenirs in my boots every night. It was my first full year of living in Boston and the winter was kicking my tail. The sun was still setting at some obscenely early hour, and I was a desk jockey pulling long hours for little pay, so I basically never saw the sun or my boyfriend or my friends. Color me depressed. I remember looking up and seeing a sign posted on a telephone pole that someone had Sharpied in black:

I'LL PAY YOU $10 TO DIG OUT MY CAR

I remember thinking how much would be reasonable to charge for someone to dig me out of my McJob life, to be perfectly dramatic.

*** My Boston comrades are still digging out of seven feet of snow. As is their trolley/subway system. New Englanders are bandying about phrases like "ice dam" which should only ever refer to a slip-n'-slide for penguins in the Arctic Circle. Their cabin fevers are spiking to epic highs. I mean--have you SEEN it up there? The whole situation is terribly unfair.

*** We agree, you and I, don't we? That the Nor-easters that keep dumping more snow on an already bewildered geography really smack of injustice and horror? We see the pictures of (or we experience firsthand) the shoveling and the roof-clearing and the endless headaches of commuting and we all are very much of one accord: That's painful stuff. Nobody deserves that. I'm really sorry.

I'm guessing that neighborliness increases in these times, too. There's a sort of camaraderie to picking up the shovels and knowing we're all in this Us v. Winter thing together.

But we all know that eventually winter ends. The snow melts. The swan boats emerge in the Public Gardens once more. The solution to the winter problem is the reliability of the earth orbiting as it should around the sun.

*** I have to remind myself that the private pains people carry are very much like the seven feet of snow, only invisible. I have friends dealing with diabetes, cancer, the grief of losing a parent. I have students who are hungry, lonely, hyper-anxious. My husband treats clients whose secrets could ruin lives--are ruining lives. They are buried under heavy blankets of snow. The meteorologists can't forecast what's ahead. They are not sure when this winter will end.

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I've lived through my share of winters, literal and figurative, and the invisible winters are always harder to weather.  Friends, if you need someone to help you dig out, I hope someone you trust can be there. If you call me, I'll probably send you links to cat videos on Youtube, but at least you'll know you are loved and you can keep the $10.