The other night I dreamed I had this total buddhist throwdown with Shell, starting with her dissing a security guard at a hockey game and ending with me getting up in her face and yelling, "Have you even read the Five Mindfulness Trainings?!" and then stalking off in a huff. No, Shell, I don't know why.
Slept poorly last night, with the Hubster back in the country and snoring like a wild animal. Now I'm brooding over the summer Smallville hiatus and thinking of napping.
There is an embarassingly large possibility that I am hung over. After two beers. Fucking antidepressants.
There's a chance that I'm legitimately sick, but my tolerance for alcohol has been rapidly declining in the past couple of months--as in, drinking one glass of wine now makes me queasy--so I'm inclined to think it's the beer. Dammit, I wasn't ready to stop drinking just yet. I could see that day coming, sometime down the road, but I wasn't ready. And when I get pushed into changes I get resentful. I really resent my body right now.
On a happy note, the Hubster's back from Germany! I picked him up about two hours ago, and he's chillin' and marveling at the size of our American refrigerator.
Wow. I had a beer or two when I got home, because when I left work I was having what was either a mild anxiety or blood sugar crisis, and obviously the best way to handle either of those situations would be by dousing them in alcohol. And so now I'm tempted to give this post one of those lame taglines, like, "Major Random Lovage!" or something.
The point: all of my kids were bizarrely affectionate today. SM, he of the hot pink boob incident, leaned into the crook of my elbow throughout our session, forgetting that he's usually standoffish. AR, who's nine, climbed on my lap and wrapped her arm around my neck during book reading. And my beloved EM, who tends to be touchy-feely in the way that relaxed, self-confident little boys can be, but is not generally overtly loving, leaned over and planted a smacker on my lips while I was tying his shoes. I was quite startled--he's a huggy little boy, but in over two years I've never seen him kiss anybody before. I don't know what vibe I was sending today, but apparently my kids were receiving it loud and clear.
Best line I heard today: I talked to EP, who had heard--through a complicated series of relationships--that I was kind of cranky with LH, the new speech therapist, this week, and she relayed her conversation with the woman who spread the gossip: "Whoa! You caught Sara when she was that mad? Dude! I've seen her steaming, but I never lifted the lid!"
SMW: the mystery prankster (someone changed my work screensaver to scrolling text: "Ask Sara about her days as a cowgirl waitress...") turned out to be CMJ, the social worker.
Today in the waiting room while I was returning my client, RJ, to his mother, I spotted my other client JD and his brother V, who is fast becoming infamous around these parts. So V's clowning around, making JD wave to me and such, and then lifts his own hand in my direction, and I about fall on the floor laughing. Drawn on his palm in black pen is a perfect octagon with Kryptonian symbols around the edges. It's Clark's spaceship's key, straight out of "Calling." I lunge at him and grab his palm to examine it closely, all the while frantically signing/pantomiming, "Oh my God you are a dork, but squeeeeee!" Meanwhile, his mom is rolling her eyes at both of us, perhaps wondering if she should turn us over for deprogramming.
I asked V later what he thought of "Exodus," but he said he didn't watch it. I asked why, but I didn't understand what he signed in response, and his mom was talking to another therapist and couldn't translate. There was a time earlier in the year when he was, uh, grounded, so maybe that happened again. And then I thought really hard about the implications of that, and then I thought brightly, "Well! At least I'm a total pervert who appreciates V's taste in body art!"
Damn. I wish I wasn't such a complete sucker for guys who like my TV shows. I mean, what's the protocol here? Should I ask his mom when he'll be legal? Maybe consider electroshock? Oy. The WB is destroying my morals.
I made it back, barely. The trip was uneventful, and not really all that painful until the flight from Atlanta back to Texas, where I desperately wanted to sleep, but couldn't due to a bad case of the leg-jerks. After that the trip was painful, even more so when I arrived at the baggage claim and realized nobody was there to meet me. C and S thought my flight came in later, a perfectly valid excuse, but I was still pretty unhappy.
Dreamed last night that I was attacked on a street corner, and offered to blow the guy to avoid being raped. Woke up with my mouth tasting like spunk.
GG's last day at work is tomorrow. Apparently he gave his two weeks' notice Monday, then Tuesday got a recommendation from the "transition team" that he was not to say goodbye to his clients, and if they already knew he was not to tell them any information about why he was leaving beyond that he was "moving on." He told PB, "You know I can't agree to that, right?" PB said of course she knew, and understood. But the transition team didn't understand, and said if he didn't feel he could comply with the recommendations they would rescind his two weeks' notice and he should get out by Friday.
That's tomorrow. I think tomorrow will be a bad day.
More German phrases that would have been useful to know prior to arrival:
"Please bring me a beverage that is not a diuretic, stat!"
"Okay, grandmotherly woman on the late-night naked phone sex commercial channel! Thank you for bringing my cultural biases regarding age and sexuality into stark relief! Now for God's sake, will you put those away!"
Yesterday was actually kind of miserable. I had many, many minor mishaps (great name for a band) that piled up and up until I broke, like, "Argh! Germany thwarts me!" Today hasn't really started off all that much better, but I'm gonna find some caffeine and go to a museum, so that should be good.
So, Germany. A whole lot of exercise. So far I--motherfucker! The keyboards are different over here!
Okay. I'm spending a lot of time with absolutely no idea where I am, so there's been a lot of walking. Like yesterday, we wanted to go see this art exhibit with some guy who's basically taken a bunch of bodies, freeze-dried them, and arranged them artistically. So we spent about 45 minutes traipsing all over the Olympic Park looking for the exhibit, walking and walking and walking and with neither of us speaking any useful German phrases, like, "Excuse me! Which way to the freeze-dried body art, please!" But we did eventually find it, although I honestly thought it was kind of boring after all that.
Munich is beautiful in a way. And yesterday I saw a few minutes of German Smallville! It was a first season episode, dubbed, which the Hubster really enjoyed. "So right there Lex is saying 'I'm a little girly-man!' No, he really is. I've been learning lots of German while you were back home holding down a job!"
Leaving for Germany tomorrow. Like all the hot German chicks, I will be sporting a facial blemish the size of a plum on my chin. Seriously, this thing makes me look like a freaking krypto-mutant, like maybe my special powers include super pus production. Whee! Won't the Hubster be glad to see me!
Nah, really, I can't wait to see him. And Germany.
Professional crisis of the day: V, my client's deaf brother who loves Smallville, had a question for me today. Where could he find pictures of Lex on the internet? I hemmed and hawed a little and finally told him through his mom that I'd write some URLs down. All during his brother's therapy session, I was like, crap. What sites can I give him that will be any good at all, and yet won't lead him directly to the gay porn? I ended up giving him MR and TW's official sites and kryptonsite, and then just telling him key words to put into google. While he was reading the paper and not lipreading me, I told his mom to make sure he used his discretion with the google search. She's a pretty relaxed lady, but I'd rather not find out what would happen if I sent her underage kid to a bunch of slash archives.
I can't stand it: so I had this party on Saturday, and I've reached the duration of time in a city where you know a lot of people from several different circles, so there were about ten or eleven completely random people at my house all evening. And there was this guy, a friend of a friend, and I can't think about him without cracking up, because he was such the quintessential country boy. Boots! Jeans! Plaid shirt! Cowboy hat! Swagger! Drawl! The party was a crawfish boil, and I kid you not, an actual crawfish-related sentence that came out of this guy's mouth was: "Yeah, crawfish are okay, but you ever been crabbin'? Now crabbin', that's gooooood fun."
Oh, Mr. Crabbin'GoodFun. You made my evening. Now get the hell out of my head.
For KH, because I told her I would write it down: the one at the base of my skull is for strength, for perseverance, for freedom. For remembering that anxiety is not my determining characteristic. A small part of it is for escape: escape from depression, from grad school, from an entire year where I got out of bed for Alex Krycek and no one else. For Missy, who said it was a cool idea, lo these many years ago.
The one on my hip is for...October. For the change of the seasons, the dying of the year. For the inevitable turn of the tide. For the passage of time, the passage of days from the blue skies and crisp golden air of fall to the greys and mists of winter. For the elves, passing away over the sea to the Undying Lands. For the Pure Land, for a vessel on the sea of suffering. For the Vikings, for all seafarers, for the sight of a tall dark ship appearing out of the gloom.
Try explaining this to a stranger, or a casual acquaintance. Try explaining this to a friend, even.
*I got the go-ahead for Germany and bought my ticket yesterday. Week in Munich! Yay!
*A bunch of people from work are coming to my house on Saturday for a pre-Second Annual Crawfish Boil crawfish boil (the official one is a couple weeks away at PB's house). SMW, I forgot to tell you but you're invited.
*I went to this informal running class yesterday and did a lot of speed drills, which usually kick my ass, and yet today I am still ambulatory! My hip flexors are sore, but hell, I'm walking.
*I had bread for dinner. Bread! Bread and soymilk!
Bad News:
*KH is about 90% certain she's going to quit. I have--I wouldn't characterize it as a crush, really, but you know that feeling when you're just a little bit beyond the boundaries of friendly admiration and it's really important that the other person think you're cool? I like KH. I respect her. She's the only person I work with who I'd even consider giving my blog URL to, and...that's big.
*GG and KH are kind of a matched set--if one goes, the other's almost certain to leave as well.
*We got email from the Evil Overlord today with the name of the person who I think has been appointed to PB's position. I'm currently in a frantic state of annoyance, because I don't like her! But she could be extremely competent! But she's taking PB's position, and PB got canned under highly unprofessional circumstances! But she might be competent enough to make us solvent! But I still don't like her!
*There was also some business in the email about appointing a "transition team" to help my department (read: us therapists) deal with the changes that are occurring. Because we are all five-year-olds, and need hand-holding when we get a new boss. Fuck. We don't need "peer support," we need a boss who's going to advocate for us when the Evil Overlord says, "Our camp director's not available this year? Well, KH can do all the planning for three one-week day camps during her cancellation times, and then GG can run them. What? They have scheduled clients during the weeks of camp? Oh, that's okay, they can cover each other's caseload. No no, it's perfectly ethical to have one therapist handle twenty clients a day, even if our average is nine. Running camps isn't in their job description? Change the description."
*They're also phasing out our transportation program, which means a good chunk of my caseload will have no way to get to therapy. Bye, AV. Bye, EM and AS.
*I do not wish for Lex to get married, and yet I do not wish for Helen to bite the big one. Is there a happy medium?
*The damn loan people keep calling and yelling into my voicemail about how rates are dropping by as much as a whole point and don't we want to refinance and why haven't I faxed them the mortgage note yet?
*I should be looking for the mortgage note right now.
