Relax - don't do it

As I get older, I've come to accept that I'm good at some things and bad at some things and absolutely, hopelessly awful at others. I'm no good at pool, for example - if you tried to lose against me, you would win (and thus lose). My attempt at a Scottish accent is terrible - not a great problem in Norfolk but it would have been useful to sound like a local when I lived in Stirling and the SNP cornered me pre-election. Drawing recognisable pictures of, well, anything, is also beyond me: Monkeyrina leans over the paper, shakes her head sorrowfully and tells me they're "not very good". But the thing I'm worst at of all is relaxing.

I've realised that, while they're lying on the massage couch, other people close their eyes and dream. They don't want to ask their beauty therapists questions about their typical customers or how they can possibly bear to touch strangers' bodies. The last time I had a pamper day, I noticed that my therapist was left-handed and it took all my self-control not to ask her whether she had to learn all the treatments in reverse. (I'm left handed too - it means that guitar playing and crochet are included in the "bad at" category - or really in the "never tried it because it's easier for right handers so why make work for myself when there are books to be read instead?" category).

Clearly, I am too tightly wound, or have too strong a sense of self-preservation, to fall asleep in public, and in any case, that would require my mind to be still for a moment. During a recent facial (at the pamper day - I don't want to suggest that my life is one long spa experience), my thoughts went like this:

"She's putting something on my face. It's cold. She's wiping my face with something soft and cold. Is it a dead mouse? Should I shut my eyes? There's a bulb gone in that ceiling light. Eyes open or closed? She might stick her finger in my eye if it's open, so closed. No more broken ceiling lights. What is she wiping on me? Could be anything. It's been years since I've had a facial. Probably Debbie's hen weekend in 1999. My mum was there. What was my mum doing at Debbie's hen weekend? Don't know. Wasn't it in Wales? What was my Mum doing in Wales? That facial had a massage too. I wonder if I'll get one now. Massages are usually good. That one at that hotel that time, with work. Oh no, I had a St Tropez then, not a massage. The therapist said she'd treated someone out of that girl band, what was it, All Saints, and she was the only person she'd ever come across with no cellulite. I always think of that. Whatever happened to All Saints? When were they famous, mid-90s, I was at uni. What were they called? Shaznay was one, Shaznay Lewis. How do I remember that? You don't get many Shaznays. Appleton. Nicole Appleton and her sister, now what was her name? And the other one. Didn't Nicole Appleton marry a Gallagher brother? I expect they're all married to other people now. Oh. Itchy nose. Oooh, itchy nose! Shall I scratch it? No, can't do that. Oooh, itchy itchy! Maybe she'll massage it away. If she does any massage with that dead mouse."

From what other people say, their thoughts in the same situation are more like this:

"Mmm. Nice. Zzzzz."

So what does relax me? Reading a book, surfing the net, chatting to friends... hmm, there's a pattern there. My mind just doesn't like resting - lying on a sun-bright Seychelles beach and snoozing the day away is great in its way (so I imagine - the chances of it actually happening are even more remote than the Seychelles) but isn't very constructive. I have to be realistic about myself: I like to think. I like to reflect. I like to get things done. And then I can... relax.