First day of "vacation"

I'm officially not at work now, as of yesterday at 4:45 PM. And I officially do not have to return until January 5th, in the afternoon. (L-o-n-g-.........-e-x-h-a-l-e.)

Part of me feels, oddly, very upset by the prospect of all this idleness. Clearly I seem to have, overall, lost touch with my inner irresponsible child parts.

It will be a first real break (longer than three weeks) from work in over 14 years. It will be the first time I will have been out from under the Dark Grey December Sky Lid of the temperate rain forest in 18 years. The part that feels upset is undergoing a taste of Freedom Vertigo, is all. It's a minor cognitive tilt-a-whirl that I'm sure will pass, once I get to Maui and experience immersion in high photon density. Maybe even before then.

I'm thinking I'll get some time to contemplate what I'd like to be when I grow up (a job that is never really over), how to safely disengage from the life I've constructed here and move on, hopefully to a more sunny location, and some kind of reasonable time frame to conduct this transition, make it gentle on everyone including me.

Does the economy worry me? A little.. so it's a good thing that I have never really worried a whole lot about stuff over which I have no control, like the value of money. When the opportunity to move smoothly presents itself, I will do so in a heartbeat, even if I lose money in the process.

If I were really concerned about money, I'd never spend any, and I'd not have become a PT in the first place, because you never get rich doing human primate social grooming. At best, you make a comfortable living doing honest work that's meaningful in the moment, involves helping others, and does no harm. I can do that anywhere. It's one of the things that attracted me to PT in the first place. Who needs more than that out of life? Really?

Speaking of doing no harm, I received yet another missive from my good friend and correspondent, "anonymous," who regaled me yet again on the blogpost I wrote concerning Sandy Nette and her lawsuit. See Alberta woman with chiropractic stroke sues bigtime. Sorry anonymous, I am not going to publish your comment. Surely you can read, and have already read this part:

"Since I put this blogpost up I've received a couple comments from one or two readers, both named "anonymous." I did not allow their comments to appear. They are glaringly pro-neck-manipulation, and I think the pro-neck-manipulators have already had far too much leeway in the realm of swaying public opinion to give them any sort of platform, however buried, obscure and humble this blog may be.

It's because of:
1. chiro training in a rationalized (as opposed to rational), deliberately propagated, bizarre belief system, combined with
2. a cultivated and honed persuasive attitude,
3. which appears aimed at propagating reckless enactment of a type of human physical social grooming (high-neck-manipulation) which is irrelevant and unnecessary in the first place,
4. against all common sense AND scientific investigation,
5. for the sole purpose of making $,

... that this woman became tetraplegic.

I have too much respect for the human nervous system to ever condone manipulation of its high-neck housing; therefore, "anonymous," I consider my prevention of your promotion of it on my blog, a positive choice - an action (however tiny) against letting myself and this blog be a vector for further perpetuation of your particular memeplex. And I happen to think it's an accumulation of tiny actions that count in life."

I suspect that my dear friend anonymous constructed his straw man argument in Word and is simply surfing his way around with the help of google, and like a crazed harpy (even though probably male), is dropping his load everywhere he can. I'm sure I've already read the exact same prose many other times, in many places.. anyway, no need for me to allow it here. I get to set editorial policy in my own blog, anon. Tough darts, but that's how it's gonna be. Try popping this delightful bubblewrap instead.

See? I just guided someone from a harmful activity over into an enjoyable and harmless one. That's part of what I help people figure out how to do in my work.

Another part is helping people figure out how to do what they want to do without having to endure pain while doing it. The last but not least part is teaching people about pain, and engaging with their physical nervous system to relieve it while they and their nervous system simultaneously learn how not to have it. Do I treat necks? Yes, of course I do. Do they improve? Yes of course they do. Do I pop them? Never. See?

Really, I do love my work. But also, really, I do need this trip to a Land of Photons, and I need it now. I want a big blue-dome sky over me and gorgeous glinting light ricocheting around, vigorously bouncing off surfaces of everything instead of feebly allowing itself to be sucked straight into them. I want vibrant color all round, color that here would seem garish but there will seem blanched in the vibrancy of ambient blue-sky light. I want to see light bending off water and water that looks blueblueblue, not this dark green black stuff that we call "the ocean" here where I live, that up close reminds me of wrinkled, liquid trash bags rippling slightly in the breeze, weakly fwapping at the shoreline, sucking away sand, depositing dead cold darkgreenbrown slimey seaweed. I want sharp contrast, not fuzzy edges. I want black shadow, not a dull grey haze. I want light that hurts my eyes, burrows directly into my brain, forces me to wear shades to protect my peepers from sheer sizzle. I want to be dazzled by direct light, not fooled by artificial street lights tossed haphazardly upward from puddles on the street, not placeboed by a sun lamp with which, frankly speaking, the honeymoon was over long ago. Let there be light. Real light. Honest. Sun. Light. Puhleeze.

Update Nov.30
My friend "anonymous" has written to me again. This time, he said he agreed that avoiding neck manipulation was a good idea (which is a step forward), but said I was off the mark on chiro education. Come on Anon, get over yourself. Perhaps your chiro school was (relatively) wonderful, but I have it on quite good authority that there is no particular standard amongst U.S. chiro schools. So don't presume to speak on behalf of all chiro. Go read Chirotalk, where I get all my info about chiro from ex-chiros who are fighting their way back to sanity, who engage true believers in hilarious discussions. It was you who drank the chiro koolaid, not me - I see no reason to change my overall opinion of chiropractic.