Relaxing Uncomfortably

Inspired by Hotrod’s account of his haircut, I thought I’d spin my own tale of beautification. Actually, it’s going to be two tales, both of which risk me losing some man points, or even cause me to turn in my man card, but hopefully you’ll get a chuckle out of it, and it’ll all have been worthwhile.

A while ago, before I got all married up, we had to do a wedding list. We chose to do this in the House of Fraser. As a thank you from Fraser’s House, a complimentary make up thing was offered to both the bride to be, and the mother of the bride. For the groom, the free gift was that of a facial. Yes, a facial.

Now, not being a gay man I had never had a facial (and yes, that’s a sentence that works on two levels), so had no idea of what exactly it involved. Jenny had dropped words like ‘exfoliate’ and ‘cleansing’ to try and make me understand, but to no avail. My daily face washing routine involves, wiping my face in the shower with a soapy cloth before I go anywhere else on my body with said cloth. And if I get the order of that wrong, then my face doesn’t get washed that day.

So I approached the facial with some trepidation. When the time came, a not unattractive young lady came out and told me that the room had been prepared. That alone made me feel a little strange. What preparations are needed to do stuff to a person’s face? Anyway, I entered the room, and it’s your standard relaxing environment; candles, soft jazzy stuff playing, and mood lighting, which would all be grand if it weren’t for the Evil Chair of Doom, dominating the entire room. I’ve always though they should redesign these chairs in these beauty places (not that I’ve been to many), to make them look less like redesigned dentist chairs, with a whole at the top. It destroys the relaxation mood they’re trying to convey.

But unlike a massage, I had to lie on my back for a facial. Which was slightly more unnerving, as I could see everything she was doing, but more so because I didn’t quite know where to look. Do I just stare at the ceiling, or try and maintain eye contact? In the end, I went for something in between. Then I got a bit self conscious about my wandering eyes (so to speak) that I decided to try and start up a conversation.

But once the facial started I got a bit nervous. I mean, this person was essentially cleaning my own face. I’ve become quite adept at doing that myself, however trying to maintain a conversation while lying flat on your back, with someone rubbing your face is quite hard. I started off with a few ‘hello’s’ and ‘how are you’s?’ and got all the ‘when are you getting married?’ stuff out of the way. But then I ran out of topics of conversation. After a little while of rigorous thinking, I decided to talk about her job, and I thought to myself that she must get some right uggo’s coming in for facials. And I said that to her. Then I thought to myself, hang on, did I actually just say that? And in doing so did I just declare myself as not an ugly person? Well, that’s a bit presumptuous of me. And not really my decision to make. I might think I’m gorgeous (note: I don’t) but to assume that another person thinks the same, well…it’s a bit of a dick thing to say, isn’t it? I toyed with the idea of hastily back tracking my way out of it, in a charming Hugh Grantish kind of way. But in the end, she just sort of laughed and continued rubbing my face.

I said nothing else for the rest of the facial.

So, in my silence I began to notice other things about the room. Specifically the music. It was soft, jazzy stuff; heavy on the saxophone. I was racking my brains to try and work out what it reminded me of. And then it hit me. But I wish it hadn’t. It sounded like the music they put on sex scenes on those soft focus movies they used to show on Channel 5. And don’t you dare judge me, you were 14 once too. So, for the rest of the facial I was trying to think unsexy thoughts, which is hard when the saxophone reached a crescendo (and we all know what that means) and you settle back into a post orgasmic bliss. She just continued rubbing my face.

The third thing that made the facial a little odd (although this time for her, not me) were the little things she put over your face every so often. I don’t know what it was or what it did, but with my eyes closed, it felt like she was putting a toilet seat cover over my face. It covered everything aside from my nose and imagine it looked fairly stupid. What made it worse though is that (and I really couldn’t resist doing this) was that fact that I stuck my tongue out every so often, just cause I thought it would be funny, and in so doing I was mimicking an old Real Ghostbusters toy I used to own: Fearsome Flush he was called.

She just continued rubbing my face.

I wouldn’t recommend a facial if you’re male. I didn’t really feel refreshed, exfoliated, or even cleaner afterwards. I just had a red face for like an hour after, and looked like I’d been on E’s. And it was really really weird.

The second self beautification story involves me, a burly Egyptian man and lots of oil. Oh yeah, it about to get sexy up in here…

So I’m on my honeymoon and there’s a health spa on the resort. Some reps came down by the pool every day and don’t leave you alone until you order a treatment. So we did. We ordered one treatment for that day, and a second a week later. And by gumbo, it was odd.

First of all we requested that both of us get massaged in the same room. That didn’t happen. I was taken aside by a big Egyptian dude, who I’ll call Julio for easiness sake, and this guy couldn’t speak English (not that I expected him to, what with me being in his country and all) so it made following instructions difficult, so he resorted to treating me like a dog, pointing to where he wanted me to go, and saying “Go there.” This did unnerve me a bit; as it was possible I was agreeing to something that I didn’t really have any idea of what it was. I’m British and therefore don’t like to say no, even if it meant I ended up getting bummed.

Thankfully I didn’t.

So, as I’m lying on my belly, he asked if I wanted him to go soft, medium or hard (note: not getting bummed). I replied medium, and holy shit, if that was him going medium I’d hate to see hard. It was painful, especially on the legs. I know a massage is supposed to be relaxing but I was clenching my teeth just so as not to yell out in pain (note: still not getti…ah, never mind).

Now, in situations such as these my brain either goes for the funny, or the scary. The funny is usually what if I accidentally fart while this person is massaging my back. Oh, how embarrassing.

However, as we weren’t able to converse in a language I knew my brain went to the scary. Looking down through the hole in the bed, I noticed there was a tray the same shape and length of the bed I was lying on, and it was kind of the same depth as a bath. And I started freaking out. I honestly believed this guy was going to slit my throat and collect my blood in the tray below. We’ve all seen Hostel. It happens. Compounding matters was every so often during the massage he asked “You like?” which any other time would have made me laugh, and is a perfectly innocent question, but right now it sounded menacing and slightly ominous. To paraphrase Sideshow Bob he was sending me to Heaven, before sending me to Hell.

Making things worse was the fact that I had no idea where Jenny was, and in my brain the same thing was currently happening to her. Happily I got out of there without losing any blood, and was escorted to another room for an exfoliating coconut scrub. The scrub itself was fine, but afterwards they wrapped me up in towels for reasons I have yet to discern. And when I say wrapped me up, I mean really wrapped me up. Snug as a terrified bug in a rug. Have you ever seen Dexter? You know when he wraps the people in saran wrap before he kills them? It was like that, except with towels. I was actually planning an escape strategy in case anyone came at me with a knife. That’s not even me being funny; I really had it all worked out in my mind. There was a candle stick in the room I was planning on using as a weapon.

Once I’d been released from the cocoon of doom, I was told to jump in the Jacuzzi. This was the most relaxing part of the session, mainly because there were other people in it with me. I relaxed further when I saw Jenny coming out of a private room. I don’t think the same things were running through her mind during the massage as were running through mine.

But then again, we didn’t go for our second treatment.

So maybe they were.

Walking Etiquette

As I was walking into town this fine lunchtime I noticed that there was a fellow work colleague waiting for the green man to appear at the crossing. Now, this colleague wouldn’t be someone I could really hold a conversation with as a) she’s a woman, not that that’s a problem but combined with, b) she’s around 50, and as such isn’t someone I can really make small talk with. Well, I could but it’d be half hearted small talk. And I imagine it’s the same for her.

So as we both wait for the red man to change to the green one, it becomes almost like a race. Which one of us is going to fire out of the trap first, so as to be walking ahead of the other? As it turned out it was her (I was fiddling with my phone and didn’t notice that the traffic had stopped), and she was halfway across the road before I had even started moving. Trouble was, despite her having a head start, she wasn’t a particularly fast walker. Unlike myself. And I had caught up with her not too far down the road.

So I found myself in a quandary. Do I continue walking behind her or do I overtake?

There are considerable problems with both.

If you decide to walk behind the person, it eventually looks like you’re following them. Not so much a problem if you’re at least a little familiar with said person, but if it’s an acquaintance it becomes a little odd. Especially if you need to take the same turns as the person in front, which inevitably you always do. I remember I was in a similar situation once at night, and unfortunately it was another woman who was ahead of me. You don’t want to seem rude and overtake, but being a fast walker I always end up catching up, and then I realise that I’ve caught up and then start to slow down. Which looks even more suspicious, as it looks as though I’m trying to hard not to look like a mental person. At points, I do remember wanting to reassure this poor girl by shouting “IT’S ALRIGHT. I’M NOT ACTUALLY A RAPIST. CONTINUE WALKING.”

That may have been a bit odd though.

Because let’s face it, anytime anyone is walking behind you, you get paranoid. And suspect that this person is evil, and wants to violate you. When in reality, they’re just doing the same as you. Only 50 yards back. It’s the same when you’re driving and the person behind takes every turn you do: “Oh no, this person is going to follow me and kill me in my own home.”

And also, it makes it slightly uncomfortable for the person in front, if someone behind is closing in but not quite overtaking. Do you slow down to let them pass, or do you speed up to create a large enough distance between you, and possibly knacker yourself in the process, because as you do that the person behind will match your speed, and you’ll have to walk even faster to maintain the distance you’ve put between you? Vicious cycle.

And then, if you overtake. Well, then you’re just rude. You’re basically undermining the speed and stamina, hell, the entire life, of the person who you’re overtaking. Saying “fuck you and your little short legs. You can’t even walk fast; you must be a terrible lover, parent and person. I despise you. And your children, and your children’s children.” The worst bit though is if for some reason you have to stop and then a situation arises where you may have to overtake that person again.

I tell you, it’s a stressful business this walking lark.

Anyone else encounter problems like this? Or do y’all just walk like normal people?



[note: it’s very hard to find pictures of what I’m describing here. It’s doubly hard to find pictures of ‘threatening behaviour’ or ‘stalking’ when in work, so as such, this blog is pictureless. Soz.]

So yeah...

...I got married and stuff.

And as a result, the blogging suffered. The last two months of 2010 got a bit mad, but never fear! I'm in my new house with my lovely wife, and we now have a laptop, so the blogging RETURNS!

But not yet.

Later.

Promise.

JC