I am it.

It hurts.

There is something to be said for sleeping in one's own bed.  When S. and I got married we decided that the best gift we could give ourselves was a wonderful surface to both sleep and get jiggy on.  And so we splurged on a king sized memory foam space mattress.  Best thing we ever spent money on, EVER.  It's like sleeping on a soccer field of marshmallows.  But whenever we go away, it means that our spoiled little spines have to deal with less than heavenly sleep surfaces.  I know, I know, wah wah wah, poor me.

There is a book, I think it's called "Healing Emotional Back Pain Forever," that postulates quite convincingly that we carry emotional pain in our skeleton and musculature.  This is actually not a new idea.  But what is interesting is the idea that physical healing may REQUIRE emotional healing.  And this is something that our anal-retentive insuranced society will not take quickly to, no matter how often Oprah talks about it.  I mean, c'mon, she's been actively saying that douching is bad for over a decade and there is no shortage of  "Women's Breeze" in my local drugstore.

What's my point here?  Loosely, it's that we need to pay more attention to the mind-body connection.  Our bodies are a physical manifestation of our psychological well-being.  Our emotions LIVE not in some metaphysical soul, but in our muscles and joints.  E-MOTION IS MOTION.  Ask any RMT, physiotherapist, or acrobat and they will tell you... you need to have your spirit supported if you want your spine to support your posture.

And they must be worked on together, not one after the other, in order to continue working at all.

How do we nurture our souls WITH our bodies?  Why is it that while I was away, and the trip was not going so well, that I developed a throbbing pain in my left knee?  Is the pain to let me know that I need to take care of what I can't see?  Is the resolution to see my chiropractor or my therapist?  Is there anyway to breed a superhuman therapist-rmt who can work on both at once without violating professional ethics?

Can clown be used as a healing tool?

Okay, okay, I know I go on and on about this idea ad nauseum.  But I'm committed to it.  I DID see Slava with S the other night.  I'm torn about discussing it because quite honestly, Slava seemed to be experiencing the same Montreal curse that I was.  His tech was off, his timing really suffered, and the audience was over-zealous, which I don't think he expected, and they threatened to take control from in at several points during the show.  He and Angela had also played around with a few turns considerably since I'd seen them last and I'm not sure that the alterations worked.  There was a chorus of about 7 younger clowns all working as clones of Angela for a gag that continued long past it being funny.  I think they were just having an off night.  It happens.

But even with an off night... it was magical.

Clown takes you back to a state of childlike response.  Emotion without superego... or at least witnessing the struggle WITH the superego.  It is understood in any language.  And it's healing.  For some reason, watching the clown struggling in the bide creates a therapuetic alliance.  When the clown emerges, the audience emerges... transformed... okay.  We have all earned our supper.

Sigh... I hope they let me write a thesis about this.

Still in Montreal.  I've discovered that the hotel I'm staying at is dealing with an employee strike.  EVERYONE except the management is unionized and gone.  Well, to be fair, they are here.  They're just picketing outside instead of bringing fresh towels, or making sure that there is not broken china in my ceasar salad.  

I'm in the hotel bar and there are tons of Just for Laughs people around. I just saw a few members of the Frantics go by, and the guy, somebody Foot, who just got elminated from Last Comic Standing.    I'm hanging out waiting for S to get back from an interview so we can go see Slava's Snowshow.  This is a clown performance by Slava Polonin and to a lesser extent, Angela deCastro.  Likely the two best clowns alive in my lifetime.  I've seen this show twice before and I've always wanted the people I care about to see it.  Slava is brilliant, quirky and brutaly human in his suffering.  Hysterical.  When I see him perform, I want to throw everything away and go back to clowning.  He is the perfect crossover of theatre/performance and psychology.

When I saw him last, well, every time I've seen him, I have been on the edge of my seat in chidlike wonder.  I've lost track of time. I've cried, been exillerated, held the arm/hand of the stranger sitting next to me.

I took Mummer once in the hopes that it would help her understand me.  Understand something about my soul, my authentic self.  She liked it.  She really liked it.  But I don't think it sang to her.  I'm not sure she connected the dots. 

This kind of clown was healing.  It was medicine.

I hope S gets it.  I think he will, after all, he gets me.

And it couldn't come at a better time. I didn't have a very good day yesterday.  I'm feeling very lonely and rejected (an old friend from highschool seems to be avoiding my calls - but I could just be being sensitive about that) and need a pick me up that speaks to me directly.  I was feeling the same way in England almost 9 years ago when I first saw Slava (alone) and I came away transformed and free.

Here's hopin'.

So, I'll keep going.  I'm going to go check nad see if room service has finally been to ma chambre.  Then I'm going to go enjoy my partner and a clown or two, and maybe get a bite to eat afterwards.  C'mon restoring my faith in humanity!  C'mon Slava!

You've heard the old joke right?  A guy goes into a doctor's office and says, "Doctor, you have to help me, I'm terribly depressed and nothing seems to cheer me up."  The doctor says, "I see you've tried therapy, antidepressants, shock therapy... well, I have something that is fail-proof.  The world famous clown, Pagliacci is in town tonight. Take my ticket and go see him. He never fails to cheer anyone up.  He's briliant."

"But doctor... I AM Pagliacci..."

Bu-dum-bum.

Reporting from day two in la vieulle ville.  Last night it finally happened: I slept like a baby.

There is something absolutely wonderful about sinking down into a comfy cozy bed with fresh, clean, smartly-tucked sheets.  I loved it.  Asleep before my head hit the pillow, didn`t move at all sleep.  Then it was morning, fresh towels, fresh soaps, fresh coffee and someone else cooking breakfast.  I know I have a champagne taste on a beer budget (and I`m not even talking imported beer here... my budget covers that totally crappy Blue Light ass-juice and that`s about it.)  Bud GAWD, I fucking love hotels.

I could live my life as a regular Eloise.

But with more wine and the odd massage thrown in.

I`m at work now, I still haven`t figured out how to make an apostrophe appear on my screen so I`m using the accent grave.  And uh, I gotta be honest here, I totally feel like I`m just passing time.  I have one very quiet, I think non-english speaking, colleague behind the wall in front of me... everyone else seems to be on break or taking a nap.  No manager is in.  Yup...

So the whole combination of staying in a hotel and working as a guest in another office has got me thinking about the entire art of hospitality.  Hospitality is an art... it`s hard... it`s all about making someone else feel comfortable in your place.  It requires a balance of offering and attentiveness with respect for privacy.  How do you show an interest in someone without coming on too strong?  How do you anticipate someone`s needs and provide for them while also giving them space to get done what they are there to do?  It is actually a very tricky balance.  And I have great respect for the few people out there who do it truly well.

It is an always moving point between servant and master.

I met a phenomenal concierge once while I was at the Banff Springs Hotel.  He belonged to an elite group of concierge who are considered the best in Canada.  He was brilliant.  He immediately made me feel like the most important person in the world.  He somehow knew the unique prononciation of my name, as opposed to the better-known-yet-still-little-known Welsh one.  He anticipated what I might need remembered every single thing any of his guests had ever told him.  I suspected that he actually had cameras mounted in our suite because he knew what I had ordered from room service the night before and which particular tea I preferred from the selection available in our room.  He had a team that functioned like a well-oiled machine, obviously communicating little details (such as the prononciation of my name and the fact that I drank decaf) to each other.  What`s more, these people, and this man in particular, seemed to truly ENJOY taking care of me.  They were friendly, but not befriend me.  They shepparded me without herding me.  They were caretakers, wonderful angels in long kilts.

I certainly don`t expect to get that kind of service everywhere I go.  In fact, I can count on one hand the number of establishments I`ve been in that were able to provide that kind of attention.  One of them was a organization that I worked for where the bosses (a husband and wife) treated their staff with the same attention, giving them everything they needed in terms of support to do their jobs.  It made me smile so much going in to work everyday, knowing that if I needed something, I would be given it or supported to get it myself.  That there was someone there checking in with me on a regular basis, and monitoring my general well-being.  Don`t get me wrong, I knew that they were doing it for themselves because it made for good business to have well-functioning, happy employees (just like it`s good for business to have happy hotel guests), but it FELT like they cared about me.  And who knows?  Maybe they did.

So I know it can be done.  It`s just so rare that I wonder if it`s a "lost art?"  Like conversation?  These experiences hae been rare.  When I have been part of team that practised this, however, I LOVED it.  I loved just making someone smile like that.  It made me smile back.  Everyone was happy.  Basically, I discovered people were nice, fair, honest, good.

I miss that.

And I wonder... is it something you just UNDERSTAND?  Or can it be learned?  And if so, can it be taught?

Yesterday I worked an early shift so that I could leave early to catch a train to Montreal.  My train was to board at 4:30 and leave at 5pm.  I arrived at 4:15 with a very heavy hiker`s backpack, a laptop case on wheels with a lot of paperwork I planned to do on the train, and of course, my giant purse|pharmacy.  I was also planning on attending a Board Meeting and Event Committee Meeting via teleconference with the charity I Chair.

It was not to be.

There was a problem at track level. Rumours spread of a frieght train derailment holding things up on this corridor.  They gave us meal tickets to take to Harvey`s (no thank you) and told us to meet  them back in line at 7:30 to board a bus.

Oh, crap...

A bus...

Oh, no, no no no no no no Jeebus no.

I hate buses with the white hot intensity of a thousand burning suns.  More than that, I hate the people on buses even more.  I go buy a sandwich and some water and some candy and a soda, stuff them into my already overflowing purse and make for the bus - which almost leaves without me because they decided to board early and didn`t bother tallying up how many of us there were who needed to get to Montreal that night.

Okay.  So I`m the last person boarding the bus.  So kiss my chances of getting a seat all to myself.  Instead I get what can only be described as "someone else`s derranged lesbian mother," - really pleasant and funny for the first hour, then progressively more bat-shit crazy until at 12:30 am she`s reading every road sign we pass out loud and discussing her 15 years at weight-watchers with the passion of a religious zealot.  No amount of polite, non-committal "hmms" are going to do it for me.  No matter how politely I returned to my book, she just would not get the point.  Eventually, I had t pretend I was asleep.

I could not even find solace in my ipod, because of course, as I`ve been reminded lately, everything is crap and my ipod won`t play even though I`ve just recharged it.  I could watch a movie on my laptop, but I can`t get to it in the stuffed overhead baggage compartment.  Oh, great, now she`s forcing her Harvey`s fries and onion rings on me because she doesn`t want to have a bad weigh in at fucking weight watchers tomorrow!  Well, you know what, TOOTS?  Maybe you shouldn`t have ordered BOTH.  Just because something is free doesn`t mean you have to eat it all!

I texted S to express my desire to hulk-out on a bus and wonder if they would still be obliged to take me all the way to centre-ville or if they would just have me carted off by the sourtee.

Eventually... FINALLY we arrive in Montreal, after stopping at Dorval.  Oh, in Dorval the plebian masses all got off the bus and I thought, "Great!  Just me heading to Montreal on my own."  But no.  They had all just not bothered to listen to the Via Lady and got off and took their luggage and THEN realized that she had said "Dorval."  Then they all had to reboard.  That added a nice half hour to our trip.

Right, got into Montreal.  It`s like 1:30 in the am.  I get off first (I made certain of that) and headed for the nearest taxi.  It was taken.  I place myself on the street to flag down the first one I see and then one of my FELLOW GENERAL PUBLIC IDIOTS steals my cab!  That`s right.  Just steals it.  I try to protest, the completely ignore me, the cabby is no help.  They leave.  

That`s when the tears started.  I had been up since 6:30 am.  People seemed to back off when they saw the tears, so (I admit it) I turned them on a little more.  I got the next cab.

Now I`m in the hotel.  Very nice if laid out a bit like like a game of Perfection in 3D.  I get into my room.  It`s freezing.  More cold than the bus was, and I was shivering so much that at one point I actually snuggled up to my seat-mate incarnation of Kramer`s mom.  I couldn`t for the life of me figure out how to turn the temperature up.  Part of the reason for this was that I couldn`t get the lamp to go on so I couldn`t see anything.  The bulbs had burned out.  I called for help.  Half and hour later I have light and heat.

Good.  Time for a drink.  The hotel bar has closed by this point.  Oh, crap, so has room service.  At least I have the mini-bar.  Oh wait, no I don`t, because it`s fucking EMPTY.  Okay... okay, I`ll just watch a bit of TV, oh I can`t do that either because the remote is BROKEN.  Okay, then at least I can check the weather for tomorrow on my wireless internet connection which the guy at the desk said would be FREE.  Oh, wait, I can`t even do that because the wireless network doesn`t seem to reach my floor.

(Sound of dilete`s brain leaking out onto her pajamas.)

I just crawled into bed and passed out at that point.  Blinked.  Then my alarm was going off.

Free eggs came next, followed by a quest to find the Place Des Armes metro station.  I did not find it however.  Instead I found the Place Des Arts.  I figured I could still get where I was going so I hopped on and indeed, half and hour later I was standing outside of the french side of our little org.

J'aime le bureau de Montreal, saufe que je ne peu pas decouve comment d'ulilizez le keyboard en francais.  |"/$%??&**())__+¯­´É.'`:¨^>^+_)  Ou et le cedile, par example?  Le Metro etais pas difficile, and beaucoup des gens ici parle anglais et aussi le francais.  C'est importante parsque mon francais et limite.  Le bureau et vraiment petit avec seulemnt 6 stations de ordinateur.  Mais il y a des fenetres que puet fait overte!!!  Oh, oh, mais le chose que m'impresse le plus et que ce bureau a du cafe.  Oui!  Vraiment!  Et on ne droit payer!  J'ai travaille pour deux annees sur la line dans la nuit... et il n y avait pas de cafe saufe que Tim Hortons!!!

Je pense d'un reveloution.

In order to facilitate the catching of a train tonight, I'm working an early, or shall I say, "normal" shift?  I have only ever worked one other in my entire time at this org, years ago.  I picked it up thinking it would be totally easy, but ended up being bored out of my mind with very little work to do.  Until we started responding to web-counselling requests very little work came in through the phones during regular business hours.  Therefore, the majority of people work evenings, nights and weekend but WISH that they worked business hours but end up hating them when they do get to work them.

But it becomes this trap.

The work is actually not too fulfiling during the day, and there is a sharp, spikey in crease in brain-cell-exploding office politics.  But you are actually working normal hours and get to see your family or do things at night.  You are sleeping better but then you are awake enough to realize the human-rights abuses going on around you.  You want out, but you're being paid way better than most social-workyt-type jobs AND are in no danger of being assaulted by clients (coworkers are another story)...

And that's it, you are stuck in the hole of THIS PLACE.  

You become angry yet complacent.  Your already sardonic sense of humour deepens, but you have to keep the jokes to yourself for fear of being labelled a miscreant.  Eventually, someone points out that you've been fetally rocking for over an hour and there's a silverfish crawling on your eyeball and you realize that you really need to find something else to do with your day.  You might find another job. Going back to school to do a Masters degree is another popular choice.  And some have even been known to leave the city and start a new life in Winnepeg.  The choices form a rich tapestry in comparison to a landscape which colour can only be described as "varying shades of puce."

So, yeah... I'm working my second EVER completely DAY shift.  Whooo!  Let's see what happens.  It's not even nine as I write this and I've only fielded two calls, neither having anything to do with counselling.  One was an adult man from a small community wanting to register a complaint about a drunken mom in his town (funny only because I could smell rum through the phone connection) and an adult woman who called the counselling line because she was too lazy to look up the office number in the phone book and wanted to make a donation.  What is brain busting about that is that those two calls had to be logged into our statistics program.

I HATE the wording used in our statistics collection.

Pranks and abusvie calls are under an umbrella section called, "short counselling calls."  Huh... I wonder how that's going to be skewed to give someone a false impression of what?

Hopefully there will be an upswing as the day goes on.  It's summer, so I wonder if there will still be the lunch hour crazies, or if the insanity will be more evenly spread out over the day?  Ooh!  We'll just have to wait and see.

And we'll have to wait and see how I fare as well.  With only 5 hours of sleep in me and the idea of attending a three hour board meeting be teleconference on my cellphone from a train looming ahead of me... I might end up being the crazy one today.  Which would be funny, because I've always had this fantasy about calling our service from my desk and headset and getting counselling from someone in the centre, maybe sitting  in the next pod.  

In my version of The Office, that's exactly what would happen. 

I have just returned to work from a week's vacation, and I really must say that my heart is just not in it.  It's not that I had some sort of super-expensive, ultra-cool or even just lethargically relaxing vacation.  I had a staycation.  Didn't leave the city, some days didn't leave my appartment.  It's just that I'm done.  Done like turkey dinner.  Someone stick a fork in me...

Over the past week, I've had a *bit* of time to destress, so to speak.  It's no secret that I have an incredibly emotionally stressful job.  Like Air-'Traffic Controllers, my job consists of 90% mind-numbing boredom contrasted with about 5% blinding panic.  Oh, the other 5% is going to the bathroom.  Which, I might add, they used to police pretty heavily at this place.  Imagine THAT being brought up in you PA one year!  "Well, dilete, you are a phenomenal counsellor, excellent clinical skills, awesome creativity, take a leadership position among your peers.  This organization is really proud of you.  But we have noticed that you log out of your phone a lot to go to the bathroom.  What's up with that and how can you improve?"  I seriously balked in the most politely indignant way that I could at the time.  In retrospect, I wish I'd plotsed.

So I return to work and check my email.  Apparently, after 19 years in operation, our org is finally getting an EAP.  I have ambivelent feelings about this, having just gone through 2 years of hell here when I could have really used one but instead... well, you know the story.  Apparently it was 1400 and I was a weighed the same as a duck.  On one hand, I'm so thankful and hopeful.  An EAP is much needed when you are doing any kind of stressful work, let alone crisis counselling.  Imagine doing crisis counselling in the Dunder-Mifflin office.  There, that's my job.  Anyway, what was I saying?  Oh, right Employee Assistance Program.  Right.  So on one hand, thankful.  On the other hand, where the fuck was this while these people were growing bamboo shoots under my emotional fingernails?  And since I'm going to part time in T-25 shifts, it feels like too little too late.

Right.  Back at work.  Since I've pretty much mentally checked out (I want to be clear OF THE WORKPLACE NOT OF THE WORK ITSELF), that it would be a neat idea to try to chronicle my last five weeks of full-time on the job in the land of crazy.

One really interesting thing I've noticed is my tolerance for stupid pranks.  I used to work very hard with prank callers to look for a window of opportunity to engage, to use humour and remind them that the service will still be here for them if they need it.  I'm now classing pranks in the same category as "abusive."  I'm doing my best as well to just enjoy my violent revenge fantasies.  Sigh... Revenge fantasies is a topic that has caused me some trouble in the past.  You know when people used the tired, hackneyed phrase, "too much inforMAtion!"  Well, there is a similar one when you blow off steam among social work-y types.  The sort of "oh I can't believe you said that if you are feeling stress with this job then maybe you shouldn't be doing it cause you obviously can't handle it" reaction.  It almost inevitably comes from people who are so repressed that they are going home to do pre-emptive pennance every night or eventually end up knifing a guy in the coffee line up for saying "good morning" the wrong way.  Here's the thing people: Human beings get ticked off.  They get angry.  When people hurt them, they want to hurt back.  Yes I work from a place (hopefully) of enlightenment.  But sometimes in order to get to enlightenment we have to go through endarkenment.  (Thanks to T for that phrase.)  Suck it up prudes.  I'm a fucking human being.  And to quote Uncle Milton, "I damn well exist!"

Anyway, it would be interesting to see my stats at the end of these 5 weeks.  I'm thinking there will be a huge spike in abusive calls.  And a huge spike in revenge fantasies involving me punching somone with a blender.

What else to tell you?  

I went back to SP for a support group last friday.  Huh, just a few days ago.  It's funny how despite the fact that things are changing for the better (going back to school, leaving full-time, awesome partner, moving to a cheaper place in a great neighbourhood), I felt a resurgeance of syptoms.  So, off I went...

Group was okay-ish.  I haven't been in a really long time.  A varied group, a bit big for my tastes.  I think there were 12 people there.  Ideal would be 6-8.  I was glad that I only really recognized one or two people there.  I think in order for me to benefit from it right now, I need to be around people who don't know my history too well.  A fresh start so to speak.  Anyway... it's a challenge to be a therapist yourself and in a support group.  I have a tendancy to caretake others and end up not really getting anything out of it for myself.  This time I put on my selfish hat and feel like I did get something out of it.  There was one woman there, older... I'm guessing early mid-fifties.  Former crack user, lost her kids to Child Protection Services.  Anyway... she's pretty new to the whole therapy thing so it was neat to see it through her eyes.  A sort of born-again thing going on.  She explained to me a really basic therapy lesson about how we learn to self-soothe from our mothers as children.  And how when we have a healthy mother, they kiss our boo-boos and soothe us with words and hugs and then we learn how to do that for ourselves.  But if we don't have a mother who does that, or who does it inconsistently or soothes us inappropriately, that we never really learn to do it for ourselves.  Hearing this through her new realization was pretty neat for me.  It's something that I talk about SO much with young people that I'd kind of forgot what it really meant.  And I realized that I hadn't been doing this myself for a while.

Fast forward to that night... there's dilete, lying in bed, patting her own head and telling her she loves her.

Like I said, "I damn well exist."

So, P recently pointed out that one of my banner ads (which I don't ask for but they put up in exchange for a free LJ) guarantees him that they will find the "asian lady of his dreams."

Sigh...

Stupid. 

What on earth could I have possibly written about that would make the Intertubes think that was an applicable or appropriate ad.  I swear LJ, if any porn shows up on my journal (and if it is, it's going to now that I've written the word down) I'm out of here!  Switching to some other blogosphere that respects my righteous indignation.

Can anyone recommend a blog site where I don't have to have advertising on my page to get the cool features?  Or is it all like this?
 

Huzzah!  I have hunted and killed an appartment for my family - that consisting of my partner and two cats and their invisible enemies.  I am totally thrilled because:

1. I will have only ONE bus ride to school!  One!  And the bus stop is litterally one short block away.

2. S, and I will have either a 20 minute walk plus subway OR one 5 minute bus plus subway to work downtown.

3. It is a safe, well-established neighbourhood, up in the promised land.

4. It is an older, but well-maintained building with lots of long-term (30+ year) tennants.  Quiet and respectful building.

5. I am the one who found it!

6. It's $35 below our rent cut off.

Hee hee hee!  So excited!  We're moving either July 31 or Aug. 1.  I'm not sure how that works.  I mean, we had to give notice for the END of the month, but all the rentals I've looked at say that you can move in on the first of the month.  So how does this work?  Do we move our stuff into a truck on the 31st and then drive around til 8am on the 1st?

[Fat Tony voice]  "For certain reasons of a legal nature, the trucks are ALWAYS rolling..." 

I guess I'll have to make some inquiries about that.  Anyway, for those of you who love me and write letters of the old fashioned kind, give me a email and I'll give you my paper address deets.

Summer seems to be coming together rather well.  I've proclaimed 2008 the Summer of Irresponsibility.  But it is off to an unreasonably responsible start.  This week alone saw me chair two meetings after work, run the NGOs 30th AGM, graduate, attend my mother-in-law's retirement party, and host a bachellorette/shower for a friend.  Oh, and I found the appartment.  Yeah, so I'm being a bit too responsible, I think.  I need to rachet-up my not-thinking-ahead.  Maybe excessive drinking will help?

I'll keep you posted.  BUT, if you have irresponsible suggestions for me, please bring it on!

So, when it's time for a medication change, your life can be thrown into havoc.  WIERD things can start happenning as you *withdrawl.*  Isn't that nice?  Isn't that cute?  That I'm experiencing withdrawl from my prescription medication that I have always taken according to my doctor's directions?

It's actually been pretty mild.  I'm feeling a bit twitchy, anxious - like there are too many books in our appartment or like it bothers me how many people are wearing sandals today and it makes me want to snap at folks.  But there is actually very little danger of an actual snap.  The other thing though is this strange interference with my CNS.  I feel like I am constantly aware of my pulse in a variety of bodily locations.  Hands, feet, under the knee, neck.  Like a mild electric shock or pins and needles thing goes on in random pulses.  My doctor assures me this will wear off and has given me some Lorazepam to help me keep it together until then.  Then he asks, 

"What will you do if the anxiousness lasts longer than the lorazepam?"

[WTF????  What do you mean what will I DO?]

 "Excuse me?  I don't know what WE will do."  He says we can deal with it when the time comes.  WHEN the time comes?  What about IF the time comes?  Seriously...

So I've decided to remember my committment to the Summer of Irresponsibility and just ride it out and enjoy the lorazepam "as needed."

Work should be interesting...

 It's my 33rd birthday and I am pretty sick.  Sore throat, headache, earache, decreased cuteness.  It's terrible.  I was scheduled to work today and had to take it off, which is something I'm very self-conscious about doing since Fridays aren't my usual days and I had to switch to get this shift... so then calling in sick always looks suspect.  It really sucks when you actually have nothing to hide.  I'm also supposed to work tomorrow and have guests that evening for a party.  Sigh... I won't be able to do both for sure, if either.

Major suckage.  After two days you need a sick note.  Where will I get one on a Sunday?  And I have to be at a conference all day Monday and Tuesday.  I'm going to have to go in to work and clock at least half an hour, and then go home sick.  That will hugely suck.

Birthdays have traditionally given me a lot of trouble.  They are very emotionally laden for me.  They get blown up into these huge things and I've been encouraged historically to have these expectations.  Then, for example, my dad just plum forgets it and runs out to the 5th Wheel Truck Stop to buy me a card with a picture of a First Nations woman on her wedding day on the front.  Or my aunt gets mad at me for not fawning all over her baby themed music box on my sweet sixteenth.  Or my mom just sits and watches me like I'm supposed to give her an evening-long monologue and entertain her all night.

Sigh...

In the recent past, I've tried to counteract all of this by planning these giant parties for myself and going all out, only to be disappointed when people don't show up, or leave early to go somewhere "cooler."  I started to realize that I was just doing more of what hurt me, because people actually got an attitude with me when they didn't like how my own birthday didn't fit in with their plans, or actually had the nads to say that "it wasn't as good as last year."

So this year I thought I'd do nothing, you know?  And in order to make sure I stuck to that, nature got me good and sick.  So I can't do nothin'!

Yesterday, I received a card from my dear old grandma in law.  Today, my sweet mother in law called me to wish me a happy day.  My family of origin?  Oh, well, I don't expect to hear from my dad, I never do.  My mom texted me... I'm not sure if it's because she loves texting or if because she doesn't want to speak with me in real time.  Probably because it's cheaper, you know, long distance being what it is.

Sigh...

I hope S is home soon.

Although, you know what?  I'm going to include someone else in my family of orignin. Niz.  She is coming tomorrow, and whether or not the party has to be cancelled or not, I'm going to get to see her for a bit and that is wonderful.  I have a wonderful sister. 

So there.

 

The meeting went as well as it could. I said my piece and totally teared up during the meeting BUT the point is, I said my piece, respectfully and thouroughly, and without losing sight of the person I want to be.

Integrity.

I also hope that in th process, I may have turned on some of my friends to Viktor Frankl.

So, I basically just have to hand in my final draft of my thesis now at school.  I'm totally procrastinating the last edit... It's done, I'm accepted to grad skule, so I guess I've sort of mentally checked out.  I may have mentally checked out of my workplace as well, though not the work.

It makes me wonder what my summer will be about.  Sure, we have to find a new and more affordable appartment.  Then we need to move in to it.  But other than that, I don't have anything planned.   At some point, I will get a week's vacation, but we're not sure when that is yet.  I don't want to just glide through the summer though.  I want to experience it huge.  Anyone with any suggestions should feel free to shout 'em out.

Maybe I'll get a webcam and start submitting pics of my cats to www.ultrakawaii.com! 

Over.

 

 

A lot of times, I don't post to my livejournal because I am just too tired.  Not too tired to write, but too tired to be witty and charming and delightful.

Well, screw it.  This is a journal, not a performance art piece.

I got into grad school.  I'm going to York.  I am very pleased with this decision.

My thesis advisor might just be the most emotionally healthy person on earth and I adore her professionally and want to be like her.  So again, a good thing.

Grad school means I won't be working full-time much longer... only 21 weeks and 1 day more at the most.  Huzzah!  I am perhaps MOST delighted about this prospect.

I have only one more paper to hand in before I'm done for the summer, which is also totally delightful.

I saw  play last night, my first in months.  I felt this surge of some familiar energy.  After discussing it, I realized that it was my directing libido.  Exiting that I wanted to give them notes?  I felt almost avuncular in wanting to give an impromptu workshop in animating inanimate objects... ah... memories of MA #1.  Hmmm.... maybe there's a crossover episode coming?  We can only dream.

Anyway, I want to check out the possibilities for non (or ex-pat) theatre majors to get involved in performance.  Hopefully that will help me cope with the fact that York's archetecture makes me want to riot.

Ha!  See?  I CAN be bitchy!  Although, to be honest... not very. 

So, it's been a long time coming. That is, I haven't posted in a while. This is partially due to the allure of shiny, shiny facebook. One more thing whittling down my much needed study time.

Ah yes. Study time.

So, I have some things to brag about, and I'm going to do that here. Here because I feel pretty safe in this community. Those few who read my blog rarely attempt to crucify me for having self-esteem and feeling good about my accomplishments!

I have finished the GREs! Finally, I can go back to a normal amount of crazy stress as opposed to the Basil-Fawlty-juggling-a-flaming-bag-of-badgers amount of stress that was induced by these mind-fucking exams. And now, my scores:

Verbal: 660 (puts me around the 94th percentile)
Quantitative: 690: (puts me around the 74th percentile - much higher percentile when you factor out all of the engineering students!)
Psychology Subject Test: 740 (puts me in the 92nd percentile rank) 

I can't begin to tell you how relieved and excited I am at these scores.  I honestly scored about 100 points higher in each area than I did on my best practice test.  The relief of having them done, combined with exceeding my own expectations has made me one incredibly happy woman.

So, now I have to actually finish the applications and do my honours thesis.  Work that should have been done about a month ago for class is really piling up.  But I think I can do it.  So many thanks go out to my wonderful friends for supporting me emtionally and challenging me with endless cue-cards.  Extra thanks to Matt for nerding out with me and making sure I was doing the math in the fastest way possible.  And super-extra thanks to Sean for allowing me to make this a team Haner-Davidson endeavor, sending me vocab challenges, and doing the dishes while I was studying.  And especially for his exuberant reaction to my scores!  I couldn't have done it without ya'll.

Well, that's the big news for today.  

But my thoughts are also filled with work.  Unfortunately, it seems bo$$lady has sunk to new levels of sociopathic insecurity.  It's not a superbig deal to me, just more powerfucking.  We're in negotiations right now, and it seems as though she is trying the same thing that she tried with me, with a member of the negotiating team.  Having private conversations (for over an hour)... this particular "cheif steward" has always had an odd relationship with me.  She's one of the ones who sabotaged things when I was president.  I don't trust her, and I think there is a major conflict of interest going on.  Sigh...

I also got more news when I spoke to a former high-level manager of my counselling centre.  Apparently, management has been "threatened" (her words) by me from the beginning and looking for a way to get me fired.  Jeebuz!  Don't these people have better things to do with their time?

I was thinking about it.  You know, good companies try to retain their best workers.  They go out of their way to do so.  What's up with the management that feels threatened by their best workers and tries to take them out?  I mean, really?  Check into fucking therapy people and deal with your issues.  Oh, but right... bo$$lady only runs a counselling centre... she's never actually been in counselling or done counselling with anyone.  She has absolutely no idea what the job entails.  Weak.

So, the struggle continues for me to try to find the healthiest relationship possible while still here.  I hold on to the hope that my relationship with this particular centre is time-limited.  With luck, I will be in graduate school next September.  And while it would be nice to be able to keep part-time hours here, I sincerely doubt that they'll let me.  And even so, it might be a good idea to cut all ties here.  I'm sure that the emotional health I find will more than compensate for the loss of income.

Okay... so... that it for today.  More later skaters.  I'll try not to let such a long period go by before posting again!
 

They... she... gone... fired... free?

Wha? I don't understa...

Does this mean that there is goodness in the world?

I came into work and she was gone. Gone forever. NO explanation, just gone.

I have to admit, this isn't what I wanted. I didn't want anyone to get fired or be blacklisted. I wanted a discussion, reason, an opportunity to talk things through, to see both sides, to work it out.

But I'll take what I can get.

I did this really wondering training today about working with kids who self injure. But that's not the point. The point is that the facilitator was talking about encouraging kids to learn forgiveness so that they can move on from hurting themselves. It was a really healing thing to listen to considering the toxic environment at work. I know that personally, I've been clinging to a lot of resentment towards people who have been emotionally/verbally abusive. And to people who manipulate and do that high-schoolish social bullying crap.

It's been taking a lot of energy from me. It's really exhausting to resent someone.

So we're talking about forgiveness and 12 step programs and all that. Which is neat because it's normally so associated with religion and "forgetting." As though it was something done for the person who hurts you.

Not so people.

Forgivenss is for the person who does the forgiving.

It's not "just getting over it" or even "getting on with life." It's about being WILLNG to make amends with people, and that offer not being tied to their willingness to do the same. There is something about that genuine offer that is incredibly freeing. A weight is lifted off and liberty is found.

I believe that forgiveness is often something we have to do over and over. Like a phantom that becomes more like a decaying corpse each time we nail take it off our shoulders and burry it. It floats up to us less easily each time. Okay, I know that was an awkward and creepy metaphor... I'll work on it before bringing it to my clients!

The point is that I felt very inspired to forgive. Not for them. Oh, no. For me. I deserve to let go of it. To be unemcumbered. It's also an amazing way to stop letting someone have power over you.

So, as I once again nail down this etheral corpse that tries to follow me around, I do so with hope that he'll stay in the ground a little bit longer and have a harder time finding me next time around.

Hee hee. Stay dead, asshole.