God help me, I do love to shop the week before The Big Day. It’s not for the buying. I don’t spend any money, but I just like to be out there. So sue me.

The spa was wonderful and being in San Marco made me miss living in the city. It was almost a physical ache, and I’m glad the weather and my wussiness regarding the weather kept me from really exploring the streets. By the end of the day I was mooning over people’s babies, and once I heard a far-way child’s laughter and swore it wasToddlerA, and that’s when I knew it was time to come home.

Now, I know that some men get wood when they’re on the massage table, and that, among other things, was on my mind today while I lay there, being pummeled by the mot frenetic masseuse I have ever met. (Granted my last massage was over a year and a half ago. I don’t have much for frames of reference, here.) My point is, how is it possible that people truly relax “on the table”? Especially enough to get a woody? Let me explain, by giving you, the Internet, a short list of what went through my mind while I was “relaxing”:

I wonder if she resents getting pedicures, since she has to get them because people look at her feet all day.

I wish I had a pretty pinkie toe. My pinkie toe is deformed. ToddlerA has a deformed pinkie toe too. I guess it’s genetic, like the Yasho Ear.

I need a pedicure. Maybe tomorrow we can do manis and pedis at our house, for TeenHer’s birthday. I’ll give her a French manicure but with black and red polish.

Oh my god! I have to order her a cake!

How can anyone relax with the traffic noises right outside the window?

I wish I had the ovaries to tell her that her hangnail is scratching the shit out of my back.

I shouldn’t have had chili for dinner last night.

I should have scheduled the seaweed wrap

I wish they had a mud bath here

I’m hungry

We really should get a massage table for the house

And then I should go to massage school, so I can give TeenHer and M massages too, and then make some money on the side doing massage! Perfect! I could specialize in prenatal massage!

Wait… massage school, I wonder how much it costs and how many massages I’d have to do to pay it off?

I wonder what it’s like to be someone who comes to the spa like, once a month?

I hope the facial makes my skin look better. I need new makeup. Should I buy makeup here? Should I ask them if they have a makeup person who can talk to me?

I wish I could take Mel on a whole spa vacation or something. This would be more fun if we were here for the whole day and then we got to go sleep in a hotel at night, or something. The spa in California was cooler since it had that hot tub and sauna/steam room to hang out in as long as you wanted before and after your services. I wonder if there’s a place like that in Jax?

I wish I could go sit in a big vat of mud like in The Player.

I wonder when TeenHer will start getting into stuff like this, because a mom/daughter spa day would be really cool.

I bet by the time she gets into it, she won’t want to go anywhere in public with me

My neck still hurts.

My other massage person had a holster for the oil, that was way cooler than storing the bottle between my feet.

I wish they had a sound machine in here.

How can this give a man an erection?

And so on, and so on, and so on. For an hour, my mind went in circles like this. Now, I knew it might be hard to relax, so I made sure my gingerbread latte was decaf this morning. I took no chances. I worked out before I left the house. I ate a good, not to sugary breakfast. I was early.

And that is why the NEXT time I have a spa gift certificate and a WHOLE DAY to myself, I will refrain from scheduling a massage. The facial was WONDERFUL, and I’m not just saying that because the facialist told me I have beautiful skin. I really did look better after she was done, and I could barely see my normally crater-sized pores when I inspected my face in the mirror. My next short-term goal is to learn how to duplicate the facial experience here at home.