THE CALL SHEET

Call time: 11:00 a.m., Saturday

Location: Peak Life Acupuncture, Glendale

Wardrobe: leggings, a bralette, tube socks and my dirty-ass New Balance

Budget: shoestring (a $20 copay)

Needle count: 15

There are always roses in bloom in Dr. Benita Safaryans’s waiting room. That was the first thing I noticed on Saturday, July 25, at 11 a.m. The second was the needles. I wasn’t nervous… until I saw them.

The room sounds like a spa, all soft music and a running fountain, and it smells like orchids. Before she touched a single needle, Dr. Safaryans asked how I was. I told her the truth. A new season was starting, the hours were long, and I had just come out of a five-year relationship that left me completely drained. I needed my sparkle back. She gave me a look and told me to lie down. I knew I was in the right place.

Fifteen needles later, I was a very calm pincushion. They ran from my feet along my ankles and up my legs, then through my hands near the thumbs, up my shoulders and across my chest. A few lined the center of my stomach, one sat in the middle of my forehead, and a stack ran down the center of my head. She set a red light over my feet, handed me a button in case I needed her, and told me to breathe. Then the light went off and the door closed.

I lasted about 30 seconds into the breathwork. After that, I was out.

How I ended up on that table is a story about a pilot.

The first season of RJ Decker started the way pilots do, with too much work and not nearly enough time. Ours felt like the Olympics of pilots. If you’ve watched The Bear, you know the pace: everyone moving fast, nobody sitting down, the whole thing held together by people who skipped lunch. When it was over, I spent three months recovering. Not resting. Recovering.

So when we were renewed for season two, I was thrilled, and I made myself one promise: not again. The new season would start at the end of July, and my last day would be October 23. Self-care, the Goop version, comes with a retreat and a price tag. Mine came with a shoestring budget and one requirement: it had to be open on Saturdays. Weekdays belong to the show. Saturday was the only window I had.

Acupuncture and I had history. Five years ago, a Reiki healer I used to see sent me to the clinic at Yo San University to see their master acupuncturist, and I never once left disappointed. Five years later to the day, my chiropractor sent me to Peak Life Acupuncture in Glendale. When I Googled its founder, I found she had earned her master’s, and later her doctorate, at Yo San. Full circle.

When I woke up, Dr. Safaryans asked how I felt. I had no idea how I was supposed to feel. I didn’t feel anything.

The table wasn’t the surprise. The drive home was.

Glendale to West Hollywood, on surface streets the entire way, no freeway. Anyone who has made that drive on a Saturday knows it means 30 to 45 minutes of other people’s decisions, and on the way there, every one of them had gotten to me. On the way back, somewhere on Santa Monica Boulevard, I noticed my hands on the steering wheel. They were loose. So were my arms, my neck and my back. Gone was the weaving between lanes and the clenching at every red light. I was patient. In Los Angeles traffic. On a Saturday. 

When I got home, I sat down on the couch and didn’t get up until 7 or 8 that night. 

Nobody warns you about that part. It wasn’t workout tired, because nothing was sore. It was kid’s-birthday-party tired. Food-truck-street-fair-with-long-lines-on-a-sun-drenched-day tired. Completely drained, and perfectly content not to move.

The next Saturday, I asked Dr. Safaryans about the crash. She said it was expected, and a sign of a good session. [LEAH: her quote, in her words and with her OK.]

By 7 a.m. Sunday, I was at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market on Sunset ready to bump into my future husband.

Monday was the real test. There was no easing in: no prep day, no time to set anything up. I walked in and went straight to dailies, which has to be synced and ready before my editor can start. 

There was no stress. My head was clear, I was focused, and I felt great. When I mentioned acupuncture to another assistant, she wanted every detail. She’d heard it was good for stress, and we’re on the same health plan.

By the end of my second session, I had booked every Saturday in August at 11 a.m. Then I went on to book all of September.

The feeling on the drive home isn’t as strong now as it was that first Saturday. Still, my whole body leaves the table relaxed, and this season has been less stressful than the last. That isn’t really why I go, though.

This industry takes so much of our time. It takes the holidays at home and the hours with the people we love. It takes the friend’s birthday party on a random Tuesday, and sometimes the one on a Friday night, too. It takes friendships, and it takes dating. Saturdays on the table are how I take some of it back.

Saturdays on the table so far: 10.

October has been a different story. I worked Saturday, October 3. By October 10, I was 128 hours in and too burnt out to make the appointment I’d booked to keep me from burning out, which is not a sentence I’m proud of. This morning, I had to reschedule.

My last day on the show is Friday, October 23. On Saturday, October 24, at 11 a.m., I have a standing date with a needle. The roses, I’m sure, will be in bloom.

Saturday Needles is a diary of my own experience with acupuncture, not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before starting any new treatment.