Even so, our faith in our own idealism is strong, bolstered by the higher prices we pay and the smiling black and brown faces in those Fair Trade brochures. If this faith crumbles at its edges into sentimentality, isn’t that better than not giving a damn? As I put it in a recent poem:
A certain hope,/disdained by the cynical,/in the power of collective action/burns yet on, burns yet on,/in my throat now.
Image by Rod Filbrandt
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Read Uptight Excerpt: Part II -- Preamble to "The Care and Feeding of Kunio While I'm in Mexico: Toward a Whole-Dog Approach"
The Uptight Seattleite (and his ghostwriting contributor David Stoesz) will appear at the University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., on Thurs., March 4 at 7 p.m. for a multicultural, multimedia, musically-inspired performance.
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But what I want to address here is the innermost circle of shame, your interaction with the stylish-and-yet-no-health-insurance-having worker who prepares your beverage. The heart of this interaction is the tip, which must be delivered with great delicacy. If the barista at any point thanks you, you’ve blown it. You want the tip to be noticed, but you don’t want it to appear that you want it to be noticed. Drop that dollar in the jar immediately after receiving your change while smiling blankly at a point six inches to the left of your barista’s face.
. . . and with your massage therapist
Taking off your clothes in a candlelit room to the sounds of a tropical rain forest? You must be getting a massage! If this is a new experience for you, you may have some questions. Maybe you wonder if it’s weird to feel uncomfortable about getting a massage from someone of the opposite sex. Or if it’s even weirder to prefer someone of the same sex. And how about chitchat—how much is expected during and after the massage? Should you feel guilty about being able to afford a massage? Can people who give massages afford to get massages? And finally, can you remember the difference between a masseuse and a masseur?
No, you can’t. No one can. No one can remember the price of a first-class stamp either. That’s why we use two stamps and say “massage therapist.” Our mail doesn’t come back and we avoid that impossible masseuse/ur swamp. The word “therapist” also extends the proper respect to these highly trained professionals. And you should rest easy about whether their income level puts them in the massagee class or not. We can safely assume they have some kind of exchange arrangement with their fellow therapists.
To relax about all of this, all you need is a little more knowledge. Plus, your therapist will surely appreciate your taking the time to learn about their craft. I personally like to use that pre-massage chitchat to show that I realize there’s a whole universe beyond the basic Swedish rubdowns so popular with the masses. “Do you agree,” I’ll ask, “that the Shiatsu versus Derivative Shiatsu debate is totally missing the virtues of a Qi Gong approach? And what is your position on transverse friction? Is it better than light petrissage or effleurage when treating subcutaneous adipose tissue?
When the massage itself starts, I like to space out and stare at the anatomical charts. I’ve always wondered if the color they choose for the muscles on those charts is based on the color of raw beef. Or if that’s the real color of muscles for mammals.
Tipping, alternative health care workers, and you
We inhabit a wilderness of Reiki Masters, Healing Touchers, Low Qi Specialists, Rolfers, Dulas, Hydrotherapists, and Orthomolecularists. While some of these alternative practitioners may welcome your tip, others may see it as an affront to the validity of their discipline. Think how your X-ray technician would feel if you tried to tip her. This isn’t as hard to sort out as you may think, though. Just watch for any of the following signs that your therapists would see a gratuity as gratuitous:
--Their title includes a word of three or more syllables.
--They wear a white lab coat.
--Their job involves human birth.
--Their office is a place of clinical silence rather than softly noodling Celtic harps.
In the absence of these signs, the standard 15 to 20 percent applies, depending on the degree to which your spirit was refreshed.
Jottings from my Moleskine: Public communication on a city street. Who owns the means of production? Corporations with their billboards. Taggers with their tags. The maintenance guy with his stencils. The stencils give his words official power. ALL OTHERS TOWED. What else could he say? What if he used his power instead to lift us up? ALL SPIRITS SOAR.
The Uptight Seattleite has been a columnist for Seattle Weekly since October 2006. This is his first book.
