What I Need

I need a lot of things, but the two things I want right now are a hot stone massage and new photographs. Okay, maybe not right this instant, but soon. Perhaps you can help me.

Massage: I’m not a big fan of the traditional Swedish massage that you generally get when you go to a professional. The long strokes usually feel uncomfortable to me, like it’s pulling my skin. It’s never relaxing and sometimes it’s downright painful. (And not in a good way.) Oddly, when friends and lovers rub my back, it feels good - they usually do smaller, deeper, more circular strokes, and I love that. But I’ve never been able to get a professional masseur/masseuse to do it the way I like it.

However, I may have found something I like. My mom and I always go to spas together when she’s here visiting, and on our recent spa trip, I had a hot stone massage, and it was very nice. It seemed like using the rocks made a difference in the type of strokes the MT used, and adding the heat element worked nicely for me, too.

However, the place we were at is way over on the Eastside, and while the massage was nice, I wasn’t impressed enough with the spa overall with to trek back over there again. (It wasn’t terrible. It was just kinda meh.)

So, okay, Seattle massage fans, who does a good hot-rock massage, in the downtown/Cap Hill/Leschi or Columbia City neighborhood?

Photos: I need new pictures. Now, I do have a ton of friends – yes, like you, Malixe – who shoot as a hobby or semi-professionally, and I’d like to do some stuff with them. But I need new professional images for the MM.com website, so I want to book a glamour shoot with a serious professional photographer with a studio and fancy lights and a makeup artist and all that jazz. (I also need a new website, but that’s a whole other matter.)

Normally I would call Tommy Edwards for this. I’ve worked with Tommy numerous times for years, and he rocks. But this time I feel like I want something different, a fresh eye, new ideas. I like this guy’s work, and it’s exactly the kind of thing I need. She has some interesting stuff, too, although I don’t know it’s quite as glam as I need. Any of you model-girls know anybody else good for glamour work? In Seattle, needless to say - I’m not traveling for this.

All suggestions warmly appreciated.