Now

I just returned from two hours at a day spa called "The Pool of Bethesda". I'm typing this without looking (for the most part) because my head is reclining on the back of the couch, my neck feeling more relaxed than it has in over two weeks; at the base of my spine, I've tucked a microwavable warming cuddly thingee, and the aquarium is bubbling background noise from the direction of the kitchen.

There is a room in the back of this salon that is a microscopic analogue of what I hope to see waiting for me in the afterlife. I enter on my cushy white terry-cloth flip-flops and find: a beautiful, pristine, neck-deep bathtub brimming with hot water and mineral bath bubbles, gurgling all over from jacuzzi-type jets cranked all the way up, and lit from beneath so that several different colors pulse throughout the water. In each corner of this cozy, warm little room sit several burning candles, and just behind the huge silver spout of the bath there is a counter loaded down with shampoos and conditioners, rosemary-mint body wash and green-tea facial gel...geranium-amber scents and lavender and tingly goodness all within a finger's reach. Did I mention that this was how I spent half an hour BEFORE my hour-and-a-half massage? How much, you ask? One hundred even. Well, to be honest, they knocked ten bucks off the bath because I was so sweet and special--so a hundred is what it would've cost normally. These women were kind and smiley, and the massage therapist (Heather)caressed my head after working over every aching inch of me, and I swear I felt like a regular rich girl.

Now I just feel...relaxed. For the first time in a long time, my eyes and face are soft, my feet are propped up, I could go to bed and sleep for hours: and all this without popping a single bottlecap.

"Lap of luxury" nothin'. I just reemerged from the womb.