Paying good money to be bruised and battered

I should be cleaning my office, but instead I'm sitting here wondering whether I'm good sore or bad sore. I went to a new massage guy yesterday.

He says he likes to work at a level of 'good pain'. So there was nothing unbearable, but there were some moments where I felt challenged. So I guess that's a good thing.

But this morning, I feel like I have bruises in some interesting places: along the sides of the back of my neck, approaching my nuchal line but mostly along the edges of my traps/scapula elevators. Around the along my lower back/ileac crest area, where I know I'm very tight (and there was some serious work there yseterday. Not, interestingly enough, along my, um, gluteal region, which I do not think of as stiff or a site where I carry stress, but as he was elbowing me around the back of my ileum and hip joint he assured me I was very tight. Which is where I remember experienced the most pain, but apparently my butt was able to absorb it.

Shut up.

And not, interestingly, along my forearms, which I remember specifically reading in the Trail Guide to the Body there's some muscle that you can only really get at along the same space where the radial artery runs, and you don't want to be screwing around with your radial artery. Or at least I didn't want to. This guy didn't seem to have a problem.

So he's definitely identified some places where I'm unusually tight. "Gummy", is the word he use. And it would be worth going back to work on these things. On the other hand, I'm sore today, and I'm not sure I'm really anxious to put myself through that again. At least until I stop feeling like I've been in a car accident. So I'm now considering what sort of schedule I think I'd like to do this on. I used to do relaxation massage every 4-6 weeks, and thought of it as a luxury. This seems to be therapeutic massage, and unless I get seriously endorphined up, I'm not sure I want to experience this on a weekly basis. But obviously if we're going to 'work' on my 'gumminess', 4-6 weeks ain't gonna cut it. Maybe I'll schedule several more over the summer and see how it goes. Hmm.