I Swear

Inspirational song: Hair of the Dog (Nazareth)

Dry needling gets results. That is indisputable, as far as I am concerned. But I say this with conviction, it SUCKS while it's happening. Sometimes the sensations are tiny flicks of electricity, close to the surface, and they feel about as sharp and tingly as a horse fly sting. Sometimes the muscle feels oddly numb, not unlike going to the dentist or getting in-office surgery, when your body part feels warm and swollen, but all you feel while the doc is working is a little pushing and tugging. And then there are the hardcore muscle twitch moments. This is what the therapist is looking for, where he can actually see the muscle jump while he pounces the needle up and down in the trigger point. It's an overwhelming feeling. Imagine someone hits you really hard with a hammer in your shin, but instead of a sharp pain that fades after a few seconds, the sensation of the initial impact goes on until the man with the needle decides he's done with you. "Almost done," almost always has been followed by "just another 30 seconds." It is all I can do to preserve my ladylike facade and control my exclamations.

I don't have a great track record of remembering not to curse vehemently under stress. I remember being twenty years old, needing an infected little knob of flesh cut out of the ball of my foot. My mother took me to a doctor to remove it. In his office, I lay on my belly, my foot in his hand, trying to talk to my mom to avoid thinking about the gross little procedure about to happen. Getting distracted turned out to be the wrong course, because my guard was down. When that big hypodermic full of anesthetic went into the sole of my foot, I swore foully and loudly. I probably did it at length. When I turned to look over my shoulder to see how long the stinging would last, I found that the doc had already turned away, and was fiddling with his instruments, with a slightly embarrassed look on his face, and it occurred to me what I had said, in front of him and my mom. I think he was the most flustered of the three of us. Going farther back, I was a young teenager, when my dad drove me out to visit with his friends on their farm in Mississippi. I was given the opportunity to ride a horse, and while I and the other teenager were in the woods, by ourselves, the horse I was riding decided he really wanted to go to the pond to drink. He judged that he fit just fine underneath some trees, and oddly, he didn't do the math to include the human sitting above him. I tried to duck, but a tree branch pierced my t-shirt between the shoulderblades, and I dropped the reins and grabbed it. I ended up swinging off the back of the horse, and into the tree, slamming hard against the trunk with my ear. I remember letting loose a string of profanity far above my competitive class. I thought we were off in the middle of nowhere, and I didn't have an audience. It turned out that the farm was much smaller than I knew, and my dad and his friend were probably fifty or sixty yards away. My bad.

When we first moved to North Dakota, over a decade ago, I made a conscious decision to clean up my language. No one there had any preconceived notions about me, and I wanted to see what kind of an image I would develop if I never had a reputation as a potty mouth. I made it a long time. More than a year, I'm sure. Since it was the frozen tundra and there was little to do on those long, cold nights, we ended up being hardcore regulars at a club with a karaoke bar. I remember the bartender apologizing for swearing in front of me, and it was such a novel thing, having someone assume I was more delicate than I am. I wondered whether to say something like, "it's okay, I say that too," or just smile and nod.

In early posts, I wrote a little more like I speak, with a few expletives sprinkled in for emphasis. But the longer I go on, the less I feel it adds to this blog. Using that kind of language feels like a copout, being too lazy to find a more accurate way to phrase my message. I feel like my writing is getting stronger as I exercise my skills every day, but also, I feel like it's not the image I want to portray here. I'm not trying to shock anyone, or use vulgar humor to appeal to baser instincts. I'm trying to provide a little respite from negativity, to entertain in a more gentle way. I want my readers to feel at peace, not jarred or offended.