Trust me, I'm a licensed semi-professional
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
After my ordeal of the previous days, I was up and around at more or less a normal hour on this day.
The first thing that happened was that Oto-san listened to Mari's rendition of my complaints about my stiff neck (I wonder how I got that!) and he recalled a sports masseuse friend. The friend made a house call at 11 that morning, and it went very well indeed.
At first he lulled me into a near sleep (again, not sure how I could drift off so easily, being so rested!) with a fifteen minute period of very little activity. He'd had me lie down on a futon face up, and simply seemed to be resting the base of my head on his hands. Then he told Mari, "I need to adjust his neck. Does he sit in front of a computer a lot?" and went on to announce that he suspected that something was wrong with my back.
Assenting to having my neck realigned, he had my cross my arms to hold either shoulder. Then he had my turn my head in one direction, and began turning my torso in the opposite direction. Then he placed a hand on my neck and CRACK!
Blinking against the sudden, electric jolt through my body, I could immediately feel a lot of the pressure gone from my neck. He then rearranged me (and his grip on me) and CRA-CRACK! He'd realinged two of my neck bones. After that he did some muscle work on the part of my back that constantly aches following an old injury to my shoulder. He left me feeling marvelous.
I did a bunch of things I'd been meaning to do. At some point during the previous days' madness, the paints taken from my by the airline staff at Haneda in Tokyo had arrived. I quickly got to work on the wooden toy. Then by mid-afternoon, I managed to call those members of my family on the west coast who were still up and answering their phones.
Then it turned out that it was Oto-san's birthday, and we had a celebratory dinner. I contributed by not being sick (all over everything).