Acupuncture

Not that this has anything to do with today's main topic, but today is "Talk Like a Pirate Day". Arrr, matey, batten down the swabs or ah'll grog ya wit' the yardarms.

Obviously, I don't really know how to talk like a pirate, or even why Pirates think parrots are cool, or anything. But I'll try to throw at least one "arrr" into each conversation I have today. That's about the best I can do.

Seriously, though, what's up with the parrots? My college roommate had a peach-faced lovebird, which was about 1/10th the size of a parrot...and that thing squawked, pooped, and caused enough general havoc to force me to flunk out of graduate school. (OK, I didn't really flunk out...it's just that once my attempt to enlist in the army didn't pan out, I guess I felt I was ready to join the workforce. Stupid, sure--there's nothing better than being a college student--but I could hear the siren call of the aerospace industry, and have never looked back. Or maybe it was just because I hated that damn bird so much.)

I'm sure that some people derive great joy out of keeping a bird as a pet, but I just don't get it. The only enjoyment I got out of sharing an apartment with Mickey's stupid bird (I don't think he ever got around to naming the nasty thing) was when it got knocked unconscious.

Oh, good grief, lighten up -- don't go getting all PETA on me or anything. It's not like I smacked Mr. Peachface on the head with a mallet or a wrench (though the thought did occasionally cross my mind when I found my homework assignments with bird poo on them, etc). No, what happened was this: Mickey (freedom-loving spirit that he was) felt that his bird would enjoy life more if it wasn't continually caged...and therefore let it fly around at will within his bedroom. And sometimes (@#$%!) throughout the rest of the apartment as well. That meant, of course, that his bedroom was awash in droppings, covered in tattered paper from where the bird had chewed up books and magazines, and littered with feathers as well. So obviously, there were one or two times during the semester when Mickey felt the need to do some housekeeping. That meant that the bird needed to be put back into its cage for a bit.

There were also a few other events that required avian captivity. Guests, perhaps -- like when our girlfriends came over, etc.

[HA! I crack myself up! As if either of us had a girlfriend. HA! Parents might drop by, or siblings, or maybe some guys from the swim team, but I'm pretty sure that no non-relative females ever set foot inside our domicile.]

Anyway, when it was time to capture the bird for caging, Mickey employed a relatively simple strategy; he opened the curtains. When the bird saw the wide open spaces beyond the room, he'd fly over to the window and continue to flap around there (baffled by the concept of clear glass), and Mickey would be able to capture him in a towel or the curtains or something. But once in a while...the dimwitted critter would take a warmup loop around the room and then fly hell-for-leather right into the window pane. You can imagine the sound -- and then he'd drop like a stone. Then Mickey could pick him up and set him in the cage. In a minute or two, the bird would regain consciousness and start squawking as if nothing had happened.

To the best of my knowledge, these concussions didn't do any permanent damage. When I visited Mickey in Tulsa a few years later, he still possessed the little feathered demon, and had even purchased a mate for it. I'm not sure if the two peach-faced cagemates ever became true "lovebirds" in the sense of, like, laying eggs and stuff, but Mickey apparently thought they were happy together.

The point is, if a bird the size of motel soap can create so much noise and excrete so much doo as to make me drop out of graduate school, then how the heck could a busy entrepreneurial fellow such as a pirate stand to deal with a fowl the size of a freakin' football?

I mean, "Arrr, it shivers me timbers to ponder it, it does now. Arr."

But I digress. As I said, the whole "talk like a pirate" thing has nothing to do with this blog entry. It's about my personal journey into the mysterious world of oriental healing techniques.

That's right--I got stabbed with 14 needles last night. Fourteen needles. Stuck into my flesh. As you may recall, I purchased a 1-hour acupuncture treatment during a silent auction at a charity fundraiser event I attended a couple of weeks ago. I've tried alternative treatments before (ie, chiropractic, various kinds of massage, meditiation with new-age whale songs, getting really really drunk, etc), but had never experienced the ancient art of becoming a pincushion. With the chronic lack of cooperation from my hamstring starting to really annoy me, though, I figured "what the heck", let's give this a shot.

I arrived early to turn in the paperwork about how often I urinate, whether I eat chocolate, and all the other essential medical history. While I waited, I read through the women's magazines in the waiting room. (Side question: Do women really enjoy reading articles about "The 5 favorite snack foods of Olympic curling competitors" and "Angelina Jolie's billfold recycling project"? And seriously, how many different ways can you package an article about losing hip fat in 30 seconds per day? Geez.)

The acupuncturist (therapist? needler?) introduced herself with a surprisingly limp handshake for someone who makes their living stabbing people. But she seemed nice, and apparently paid close attention to what I said as I described my symptoms. (I always hate the part where they make you feel guilty about consuming a gallon of soda and six bags of cinnamon gummi bears each day. But on the other hand, she seemed impressed that I was able to fall asleep so easily...even at the office.) And before I knew it, I was face down on the massage table with my running shorts bunched up to allow maximum access to my as-yet-unperforated legs.

As advertised, the actual insertion of the needles was mostly painless. A couple of times, I couldn't feel it at all. She started with my ankles and worked her way up to my lower back, putting the same number of pins in each side of my body. After all, wild porcupines have good symmetry, too, don't they?

She chatted the entire time, talking about "meridians", the way that the health of different organs affects the pulse, and her enjoyment of her profession. She answered my questions about how much bleeding there was with each puncture (none, usually), and about what exactly poking a needle into my ankle was supposed to do for my malfunctioning muscles. She didn't ever go all Master Po on me or anything, but a couple of the things she said did remind me of quotes from old TV shows:

Young Caine: "But Master, I feel I am drowning under the weight of my tasks."
Master Po: "Ah, Grasshopper, but does not the pebble, entering the water, begin fresh journeys?"

or

Longstreet: "I am struggling with these moves you're teaching me."
Lee: "It is like tea flowing into a cup. You must become the cup."

I suspect in each of these examples, they edited out the next response, which was something along the lines of "What in tarnation are you talking about, ya commie weirdo?"

But I made no such queries, and basically just stayed flat on my stomach while she did her thing. When all the needles were protruding in the right places, she hooked some of them up to electrodes, explaining that the current strengthened the energy flow, the same as if you threw additional pebbles into the water. OK, whatever. And as the little electric tingles started to pulse up and down my legs, she also explained that she was going to heat up a few of the needles, too, for the same reason.

Now that was an interesting process. She had these little charcoal cones that sorta resembled the "Black Snakes" that make such a mess of your sidewalk on the 4th of July. Apparently, though, these cones burn smokelessly, and when ignited while perched on top of a needle, transfer heat down the needle and into the muscle. I'm not sure how this is more efficient that a heating pad, but it probably looks a lot cooler. Little flames on top of spikes, looking like little legtop birthday candles; I guess I can dig it.

Honestly, I didn't feel a whole lot. The electricity and the heat were mild, and when the treatment was over, I wasn't even able to tell when she removed the needles. But it took her mere seconds to de-pin me and release me back into the wild. Now I'll just have to see if I notice any improvement in my leg function. And then, based on how I feel, decide what I want to do to follow up on this. If I won the lottery or something, then I'd be getting massaged, chiropracted, and acupunked on a daily basis. But until that happens and my discretionary medical funds remain somewhat limited, I might have to rely on the Fitness Channel and my own self-discipline in stretching, yoga, and auto-massage. If there are any breakthroughs, you'll be the first to know.

In the meantime, have a spectacul-arrrr day!