corpse mode

i got a massage today (hands down my favorite activity). even though i'd been speaking to the masseuses in mandarin, they still asked catherine what i was and remarked that i could be singaporean or malaysian...or indian. the masseuses were migrant worker girls who would chatter away at each other in hushed but clearly audible tones about gossip at work, their children (plural - don't know how they managed to defy the one-child policy), husbands, sex lives, and us, the curios of the west. "her neck is very bad." "it's because they sit in front of the computer all day." throughout i felt like a corpse deaf and dumb or a kobe beef cow being rubbed and marbled. my masseuse kept telling her masseuse friend about how flexible i am and then to demonstrate she would start bending my arms and legs backwards as if i were gumby.