name generator

Yes, I realize that EVERYONE puts these in thier blog, and they're overused and overrated, but the names this name generator came up with were too funny... Especially the band name.

Hillary Beth Wilson's Aliases

Your movie star name: Peanut Butter Norm

Your fashion designer name is Hillary Prague

Your socialite name is Punkin Chicago

Your fly girl / guy name is H Wil

Your detective name is Cat J.o. Johnson

Your barfly name is Peppermint Shake Mudslide

Your soap opera name is Beth Skyline

Your rock star name is Mint Kisses Car

Your star wars name is Hilfis Wilchr

Your punk rock band name is The Bored Dildo

The Amazing Meganame Generator

Vo0's list of things not to do on vacation

1. Don't belive people when they say something is "less than a ten minute walk".
2. Don't complain that your feet hurt for two hours straight every day unless you want to get growled at.
3. don't say things like "i wonder how big of an explosion you could create with a 24 oz bottle of water" after the TSA agents make you put your bottle of water in an X-ray bin.
4. Conversations on how you could create alot more havoc on a plane with your bare hands or a pencil than a pair of nail clippers are also a bad idea.
5. don't believe the dirty canadians when they tell you you won't be able to eat dinner.
6. don't get the disney dining plan unless you want to come home twice the size of an elephant.
7. don't eat the bread pudding at Ohana--they put crack in it or something.
8. Don't be surprised if an arcade or an electronic game on disney property is broken.

Yay disney! Boo housework!

We are going to disney next week!!! I am excited! We get to go on rides and play video games and make rollercoasters and draw and see cheezey shows and eat ourself into a stupor on overpriced food!!! AND we get to hang out with my parents, mother-in-law and my aunt. yay!
But, in order to get ready for all of this, I have to put away a huge pile of laundry, which i have been washing since wednesday evening, wash more dishes, take out the trash a couple more times, do this weeks billing for work, do backbilling for work, co corrections for work (if there's time), wrap some presents for some homeless people, clean the house, mail out some custom jewelry orders and glaze some painted teacups. All before sunday afternoon.
HOLY SHIT.

I am awsome!

I made gravy!!!!!
I know, it's something people do every day. BUT, my mother can't make gravy to save her life. Her gravy was, at best, a lumpy, salty, mess, and at worst, a seperated, lumpy, salty mess. I figured that I, too, would have the same affliction, especially since I have difficulty with dishes that require a similar cohesion (like any cheese sauce involving parmesian). However, tonight, i am proud to say that i made awsome turkey gravy from the drippings that we froze over thanksgiving. yayy!!!!!!!

Charity rocks, but it's not cheap.

Every year since I can remember, I have done some manner of donation to charity. When I was little, my mother would pick out an angel from the tree and we would shop together. When I was older, mom would pick one for her and one for me, and she would give me the money for it. Once I got old enough to earn my own money, I started doing them myself. For two years I was unable to do anything like this because of our financial situation. The first year I donated some hand-made jewelry to toys for tots. Last year, I donated some hand-made items to the YWCA and I gave 20% of Christmas jewelry sales to Child's Play. I raised $100 by just donating 20% of all non-show sales from thanksgiving until Dec 20th.
This year, I actually have money, so I'm spreading it around. I got more extravagant gifts than I would normally get for family, I bought myself some seriously kickass winter clothes and snow boots (which have been well worth it so far), I donated $50 to an adolescent boys home per the request of my uncle, and I just spent about $275 on clothes, toys, etc. for a homeless family--and that was pretty much just for winter essentials and only a handful of toys. The point of this is not for you all to go "wow, vo0 rocks", but so you understand how much this stuff is needed. I spent approximately $325 for charity and I barely put a dent in what the world needs-- I barely bought clothes for a family of four and one or two small toys for each kid, and sent enough money to a teen boys home to feed them for a night. People need help and one person alone can only do so much.
This year, I am donating 20% of my Christmas jewelry sales to Child's Play again, and so far all we have is approximately $30. I would really like to be able to top last years figure of $100. This is part of the reason for the pushy, soapboxy, holier-than-thou statements about how your help is needed. If I am going to get the figure up around $100, then I need some help. My website is http://hippybeads.com . You don't have to do anything special to have the charity money deducted, I automatically take it out of every order. Child's Play is a great charity designed to help kids while proving that gamers aren't a bunch of heartless murdering assholes. I know some people are thinking "that's great, vo0, but doesn't the other 80% go into your pocket?" Yes, it does. I won't deny it for a second. I personally like the idea of being able to get shiny things that I, or someone else, will enjoy AND donating to charity at the same time. However, if you don't want the shiny things, or don't want me to have the money, then donate directly. Even if you don't like that charity, donate to something, it's really needed, especially this time of year.
Even if you don't buy things from me, you can donate directly to them.

Comments on anonymous postings.

So, when I came home from work Friday, someone had posted a "tell me a secret anonymously" thread on a forum that I frequent. This became one of the single most engaging threads I have ever read.
There's also now a live journal group for the same type of thing

Lots of people were commenting on the fact that some of the things discouraged them and made them feel like the human race was deteriorating. I thought it really showed our diversity and it was a good exercise in letting people know they are not alone. Several people confessed to childhood abuse, quite a few confessed to not knowing what to do about the relationships they're in, some confessed to being more in love than they ever had been, and a few confessed secret fantasies. I think it's amazing that you can have a group of people with so many similar things going on in their lives without a single one of them knowing.

yay!

I've been whining off and on about various things related to not being able to establish regular exercise/dance routines. I have felt moody and crappy and fat for a couple months now because I couldn't get myself back into a regular dance class and regular at home exercise. This Saturday, I discovered NIA
Yes, it's as new age, hippy, liberal and crazy as it sounds, but it's a fucking blast. It's kind of like creative/modern dance without the actual "instruction and technique" section... you just kind of follow along with the teacher and occasionally improv. I'd still love to get into an actual dance technique class regularly, but I'm too stubborn to go to the "other" dance school still and the classes at my chosen school are all too early. So for right now, I'll do NIA at least once a week and then dance or play DDR or something at home on other days. Today I actually worked on some dance choreography. Why the hell I'm doing that, I don't know, since I can't go to the choreography competition, I have nowhere to perform, and I don't teach, But, fuck it, it felt good and it's actually healthy for me.

Christmas trees and XM radio

I forgot to mention yesterday that we put up the tree last weekend. It's small but it's beautiful. And it has ornaments *I* made on it.






Here's a Picture of the tree topper, which I also made.





Okay, now that all the warm fuzzies and bragging are out of the way, it's time for some good old fashioned whining. XM in it's infinite wisdom decided to make certain stations Christmas from thanksgiving on. I am not a big fan of this idea because, I don't like 24/7 Christmas music on any day except MAYBE Christmas. Normally, I would shrug and change the channel because XM has like 200 other channels. HOWEVER, they put this Christmas music on instead of some of my favorite channels. They're playing novelty Christmas songs (hellooooo Dr. Demento) on what is normally the seriously kickass electronic station, and they put COUNTRY CHRISTMAS on what is normally a kickass Latin jazz station. They have 7 country stations, and other categories with more than 7 stations... They couldn't pick another type of music to pre-empt? There are 4 stations in the electronic category and one of them is disco. There are 5 stations in the Latin section. Where does it make sense to pre-empt the stations that are 95% unique because there only 4-5 to a category versus the stations in categories where there's constant overlap and you can't tell the difference easily between switching stations? I am missing two of my favorite stations for a month so they can play fucking Christmas tunes of an unrelated type of music?

Maybe I should stop whining and take the time to make a serious note to XM's programming director:


YOU ARE OFFICIALLY ON THE FUCKO LIST.

Thank you,
--Vo0do0chile

update

Let's see, what's happened in the last 10 days?
Well, our anniversary was on the 15th and we were both sick, so we did nothing, but I did get come cool faeries






Over the weekend, I made sesame chicken and wonton soup as an anniversary present to whitey. Most of you probably think that this is not a big deal, but we have no chinese restaurant worth eating at unless we go all the way to spokane, which is 1.5-2 hours. I am happy to say that the sesame chicken was as good as any i've had at any restaurant and the wontons tasted better than the ones that i've had from restaurants.
The extra fun part of that is that we had a wonton/egg roll extravaganza yesterday. I made jalapeno brie baked wontons, gorgonzola pear baked wontons, chicken cheese fajita fried eggrolls, and fried apple pie eggrolls for dinner yesterday. YUM YUM YUM!
Today I went to one of the assisted living homes that several of our clients live at for thanksgiving lunch. I am so glad I went; I had an absolute blast. Me and one of the clients giggled our way through lunch, which was fairly tasty considering it was basically cafeteria food.

We cooked turkey, mashed potatoes, stove top, gravy, carrots, and pillsbury biscuits. We went the easy route and ordered our pumpkin pie from panhandler pies here. Whitey dug some of our games out of the box and we played gloom and baloon cup today.
Baloon cup is one of my all time favorites for 2 players and gloom is pretty cool (we played for the first time today). There are some pretty mean cards in that game, and it's really funny in a mordbid sort of way. I'd definitely reccommend it.
Also, my husband says, "moo".

stupid sick!

The spiny anteaters that are in my husband's throat apparently had their cousins move in to my throat at 3 am. I woke up with an absolute burning in the back of my throat and said "GODDAMNIT!" So then I had to figure out a way to get drug interaction information at 3 am (praise jesus for 24 hour pharmacies). I would like to go back to bed because the spinyness seems to be calmed down between the water, milk and drugs, but I now face the problem that I need to be awake around 8:30 to call people to try to get someone to cover my caseload today. I was HOPING that if I was going to get sick, it would happen before 9 pm yesterday, so I could make arrangements to have my caseload covered before everyone gets up and at em on monday morning, but it ALWAYS happens that I get sick at the last damn minute. *grumble*. I'm actually not doing that bad and could probably manage myself at work at least for a little while. However, #1 I don't know that for certain #2 If I'm wrong I could make myself more sick and rediculously miserable and #3 Regardless of how I feel, I'm probably contagious, and the nature of my job makes it difficult for me to avoid getting others sick.

i promised my husband...

...that i would write in my blog that he is really not an asshole.
He made me ride in the car all the way to spokane with a meal stop and walking around target to "kill time" without me having a damn clue what was going on. The only thing that kept me from throwing up was the fact that I could distract myself with the PSP (which he actually let me bring in the car). This rather sucked. Two plus hours on the road with no fucking idea where I'm going. I assumed he was either going to lead me to the end of a rainbow and shower me with gold or pull off to the side of the road, tie bricks to my feet and dump me in the spokane river.

Thankfully, I am not currently typing this while flying out over the edge of the falls in Spokane. However, I also do not currently have gold coins sprinkled in my hair, but I did get to hear Henry Rollins walk up on stage in front of me and proceed to spew amazingness from his mouth for TWO AND A HALF HOURS. This guy never fucking ceases to amaze me. He has numerous spoken word CD's out and a DVD all of which have different stories (okay there's one repeat, but it doesn't even sound like the same story by the time he's finished), and then he gets up on stage for two and a half hours and doesn't repeat a bit of what's on the CD's. IT was fucking amazing. IF you've never seen Henry's spoken word tour, you should totally check it out. For those of you who are going "what? henry rollins sings! what is this about him telling stories?", check out the CD merchandise section of http://www.henryrollins.com/ and pick up the CD called "Eric the pilot". You'll be hooked immediately, I promise.
Anyways, after the show, it was snowing so we stayed the night in a hotel and then we went to an arcade/indoor golf/family fun place. Later we had dinner at panhandler piw, which is my favorite restaurant AND which will give you FREE DINNER AND PIE on your birthday if you bring in your ID.

my husband....

is OFFICIALLY an asshole.

http://whitehowler.blogspot.com/2005/11/woohoo.html

halloween pictures!

Halloween decisions

I'm definitely going to be a kitty for Halloween tomorrow, but not an inappropriate kitty. I got a purple wig with kitty ears from wal-mart and an actually purple pet collar from the pet store. I'll wear that with a black sweater and a pair of knit pants and a black maribou boa for a tail and some goofy makeup for my kitty face. I hope I don't freak any of the clients out.... I seriously doubt I will, though.

So anyways, I know what I'm going to be for Halloween. But now I have this gorgeous pumpkin in my living room and no idea what to carve in it's flesh.

halloween

I don't know what to be for halloween. I can always be a hippy because i have the clothes for it readily available. I thought of wearing some of my ruffly cotton things, and sticking a flower in my hair and being "a spanish girl", but how much does that really count as "being something"? There's a purple kitty wig at wal-mart that I love, but I would be too tempted to be majoraly sexy as a kitty and the only place i'd be wearing this is at work, which is not the place to look like a half-dressed slut. I could also get some more ribbon and go as a medieval lady in waiting like I did last year. I don't wanna do the same costume two years in a row, but it was definitely pretty and work appropriate. I could also be a disco chick, but the shirt for that is also not work appropriate and I would probably freeze to death in it given that it's not getting above 47 these days. I have always wanted to be a samurai since I have a replic kitana, but the costume for that was like $60 (at least i could find one this year; last year I could only find pants and they were like $60 alone). So anyways, I'm out of ideas. You guys got any?

quick update

I've been posting lately, but mostly about my ever so engaging philosophies on life. So I thgouth I would actually post about what's going on.

I love my job, and I had my review today in which my supervisor basically said that I seriously rocked and that he'd already applied for me to have a raise. Actually he said something about leadership or something because I helped train the new employee a while back. It was odd to hear someone say that I had taken on a role of "leadership". I still don't think of myself as a "leader" even after he pointed out the things I do that could be considered leadership. The boss also encouraged me to come to him for questions or concerns about my clients OR myself (a burnt out social worker is worthless). I mention this because I recall so many times being told not to ask so many questions by previous employers.

Also on the work front, during a staff meeting we were throwing around ideas for different things and I said "I know how to dance, and I had kind of maybe thought about teaching a dance class for the clients" and everyone immediately said "What a fabulous idea, that would be so good for our clients" and started talking about the logistics of how we could do it. So, I might start a dance class for the people we work with. This is such a fabulous idea for the clients and for me. The clients could benefit from movement because it's therapeutic and physically healthy and helps open up parts of you that you never knew existed. I could benefit because I haven't been able to take a class regularly, I love teaching, and I go fucking bonkers if I don't have an outlet for choreography.

Which leads me into the next thing. I have been a moody whore and it all boils down to things that relate to lack of regular excercise and dance. In birmingham, I had 2 dance classes and a pilates class that I tried to make it to on a regular basis. I usually made it to at least ONE during the week despite my crazy ass job. When I didn't go out and exercise, I would play DDR at home. I now cannot establish a regular routine due to lack of availability and difficulty scheduling. Sometimes, I will schedule everything right and someone will have an emergency or go to the gym only to find the door locked unless you have a key card (which I don't). This frustrates me to no end, and generally I get so mad about missing things that I then don't play DDR or walk or anything else; either that or I fuck around until it's too late to play loud music and jump around.
Aside from making me mentally tired, lack of exercise also does not do anything to help my weight, which has unfortunatley been going up lately. Which in turn makes me bitchier... Not a good cycle.

Other than working and lack of exercise, I have a few other things planned for the near future. In a couple of weeks on veteran's day, our craft group from work is going to go to a bazaar, and the group leader was nice enough to allow me to display a few things along with the clients'. The day after that is my birthday! The next weekend I go to another craft fair on my own and then in about a month, we're taking a vacation to disney.

The tortoise Wins the race.

If I had to make a motto that described Sandpoint, Idaho it would be "slow, thorough and really fucking good." Everything here takes a little longer, but is always worth the wait. We don't have a lot of fast food, but the restaurants here are some of the best I've ever been to. I definitely prefer our little "cafe's" to McDonald's any day and I seriously prefer our mom and pop diners over even the fancier chains, like cheesecake factory. I always have to wait a couple minutes more for my coffee at the local shop than I would at Starbucks, but it's perfect every time, and where else could you get a decaf mocha, decaf tea, organic coffee or the best cinnamon rolls in the world all while sitting in a comfy chair and staring up at the ceiling covered with coffee bags from around the world? Shopping may take a while because I can't go to the super mega strip mall complex with 10 department stores in it, but the products are quality, the shop owners know me by sight, and if it's not raining, walking downtown is fun.

An area where this attitude particularly benefits me is my job. Throughout my life, I have always been the last one finished, but usually also the one with a lot more polish than anyone else. I am a social worker, and most social work jobs are geared toward high case loads and fast service. In my job, I am supposed to help people the best way I know how, and I have the time to do it. We're allotted anywhere from 2-14 hours a week (the average on my caseload is probably 9) to spend with each client. Any time I have a question or need to run something by someone, I can slow down and do it. There is no more of this "you're spending way too much time with these people who you are helping to keep sane and helping to make decisions that could affect the rest of their lives and you're wasting waaaayy too much time on asking questions that you should already know the answer to." If I have an idea, they say "sure, we can slow down to figure out how to do this." I feel so important and so at home now, it's crazy. All my life I thought I just couldn't do well or maybe I couldn't find the right job, but it turns out, I was just in the wrong place.

Whoah

This woman is a saint just for doing something very simple

cunt whore bitch goddamn

Goddamnit you stupid cunt why can't you rememeber your password!? and goddamn you you ass how dare you ask me what I want for dinner. And goddamn you stupid whorish cunt how could you stay up late again or be so stupid as to think you'll ever be healthy or lose weight. Go eat some doughtnuts you fat bitch. fat ugly stupid bitch. You are the worst goddamn social worker on the face of the planet and it's a fucking wonder all your clients haven't either raped you or died.

*sigh*
That's how I've been feeling all day today. Hopefully typing it will help get it out of my system.
As you can imagine, I'm not a very pleasant person to deal with when I'm in that mindset. I always try to be reasonable and hold back reactions, but it only works so well when I've been working all damn day with people who take alot of patience. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day, but I'm honestly not optimistic because I'm already worn out from the week.

So anyways, I owe some people some apologies, especially my husband. I love you even if i act like a cunt.

no one can know...

here's a poem of sorts that I wrote. Comments, serious and otherwise, are welcome.


No one can know
where my heart really is;
who I really am;
what I really want.

No one can know what you want either.
Your desires are all secret:
Kept away next to your heart,
hidden under a rock
in a parallel universe
somewhere in eternity.

We must all keep ourselves hidden,
for speaking spreads temptation and ignorance.

Beauty does not even reach our skin;
It does not touch the surface of our being.
Beauty has to be buried and encrypted and secreted.

When I tried to show the world the things underneath my rock,
it simply pushed the rock back down effortlessly
without so much as a peek.

The world wants none of me, but I want all of it.
How can I have all of the world--all of life
without what's hidden away?

How can anyone know beauty without what's hidden away?

Rituals

When I was little, if I had a problem, I would ask god to fix it. I would pray when I needed help, when I was happy, when I wanted world peace, when someone died and even when I wanted a VCR. When I got older, I started to feel more that a father figure would never allow the horrible things to happen with no intervention, and would never indiscriminately dislike certain groups of people because of the way they were born. I also came to realize that I could not love myself and god at the same time--it simply didn't work. I eventually concluded that the idea of an all knowing father figure didn't make sense. But I can't shake the comfort I get from singing hymns and even praying.

Every Christmas eve I am a little forlorn because I no longer get to go to church to sing. The Christmas eve service at the church I grew up in was always involved a ton of singing and candles. Every year when we get close to Christmas, I can't help shake the feeling that it's time to go to church--even though I haven't been in 7 years. Sure, I could go and sing even though I don't believe in the things I'm singing about, but 1. Churches always find a new way to annoy me every time I go in 2. My husband will not set foot in a church for any reason and 3. If I went with my mother or mother-in-law, they might get the idea that I want to, or at least should, go to church on a regular basis.

I have no desire to go to church on a regular basis or be pressured to go on a regular basis. Every time I go to a church, I find a new reason to be uncomfortable there. Of course, lately the only reason I've been going to churches is for funerals, and those are naturally a little uncomfortable. However, I've been to a few funeral services where they took a naturally uncomfortable situation and turned it into the kind of uncomfortable you only feel when doctors stick their fingers in special places. At both my grandmother's and great grandmother's funeral they prayed the prayer of acceptance, which basically says "you all suck and will go to hell if you don't become God's submissive right now!" Okay, so it doesn't directly say that, but they do go on and on about how the deceased has nothing to worry about because they had god in their hearts and then they ask you to ask God into your heart. As someone who does not believe in God, I automatically hear "Since Grandma had God in her heart, she went to heaven, but since you refuse to, Hillary, you're kind of fucked regardless of the fact that you are an angry human being who constantly feels like a worthless piece of crap if you believe in God and the bible."

Even with all this hostility toward the church and hatred for funeral services, I still pray my little heart out every time someone dies. A couple of years ago, I used to say that it was because "Even if I don't believe in God, *if* there is a heaven, grandma deserves to go there, and praying could help the process." I think this is part of my reasoning for praying at funerals or when someone is in the hospital. Mostly, however, I think it comforts me. I think that I pray because when I was 6 and didn't know what to do, I would pray and it helped me feel better. It still helps now even though I know that a prayer is just a bunch of thoughts in my head that no magic person in the sky is going to hear and take care of. Even though I know nothing is going to happen, I feel comfort in just hearing and repeating the words in my head, and, yes, I know this is ridiculous. However, if thinking a few pretty setences in my head or singing a few words about a baby in a manger can help calm me down in times of stress, I could think of worse things I could be doing.

embarassment

why is that I see someone I know right as I am picking lacy thongs up form the rack in target? Furthermore, why is it that i turn six shades of purple whne they say "hi" and I realise that I have lacy panties in my hands. Precisely what is wrong with a grown woman owning lacy panties? Truthfully, nothing. But for some reason, I'm ashamed. I'm not sure if it's out of the part of me that knows that society wants us to think that sexy things are evil, or the part of me that struggles with idea that my 212 pound body can be sexy or the part of me that thinks the rest of the world doesn't want to know that I am sexy, but whatever it is, my face always turns 8 shades of purple. It's quite a shame, too, if you ask me. The people who said "hi" now got the message that's it's not okay to buy pretty things for yourself or think of yourself as sexy as did anyone else who was in the area. This is not the idea I want to transmit to everyone. Everyone is goregeous and has a right to the laciest, stringiest thongs if they want them, and they should never be ashamed to buy them.

fishing.... or something

"Feed a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." Cool, right? What's really cool is when he starts teaching others to fish.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I do my job...



Remind me of this the next time I get called a 3 am.

serenity quiz

You scored as Simon Tam. The Doctor. You have a gift for healing that goes beyond education. You took an oath to do no harm, even when your patients have tried to kill you. You are out of place where you are, being used to refined society. However, if you take that stick out of your arse you should be fine. Simon Tam 69% Shepherd Derrial Book 63% Capt. Mal Reynolds 56% The Operative 56% Zoe Alleyne Washburne 56% Inara Serra 44% Hoban 'Wash' Washburne 44% Kaylee Frye 38% River Tam 38% Jayne Cobb 19% Which Serenity character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Perfectionism

While my earlier post on perfection was somewhat done jokingly, I really do feel like that some days. It really feels like I'm being consumed by guilt and self-hatred for not having done the smallest of things correctly.

I always struggle with perfectionism, and I feel like I have done well in my job up until now. I am still mostly doing okay, but some day I a m going to burst into tears, walk into the office, and tell them "I fucking quit because I am a worthless social worker" over the fact that I didn't have time to take a client to wal-mart when they really wanted to go. This example is only slightly exaggerated.

I have an extremely difficult time with the idea that I actually know my stuff and am a good social worker. I have a very difficult time with the fact that I am not going to fulfill everyone's needs, make all the impulsive clients see the error of their ways, make it to meetings on time and get all my notes in on time with every single I dotted and t crossed. It doesn't fucking happen. No one can do this. Yet, I want to go absolutely ballistic if even one of these things is wrong. Why? Who the hell knows?

The best answer I can come up with is "because I'm imperfect." It's funny to think that perfectionism in and of itself makes someone imperfect, but I think it's true. I absolutely believe that perfectionism is a problem to be overcome and not an ideal lifestyle. How funny is that that perfectionism by it's very nature makes you imperfect?
Isn't it ironic... Don't you think?

On funerals and religion

Going to funerals generally makes me wonder where the hell our beliefs came from. Where the hell did we get the idea that there's some magical person in the sky who can make everything better? Why is it not okay for us to be the ones who can make things better? I know my way is lonely because I have no magical person to turn to when I am overburdened and no real people will talk to me. However, my way leaves me in charge of my own happiness and direction in life. No one magically guides me through that, and it feels awfully good to know that. I want to know that I am worth something and that the things I do are good. The only way for me to do this is to know that I am independent and can make my own decisions. For me, there is no magical person in the sky who wants me to live a certain way; I do what I do because I know within myself that it is the right thing. My independence is probably one of my most prized possessions, and I never feel right being independent when I think there's someone looking over my shoulder disapproving if I don't do things their way.

Why do most people have to have someone to approve or disapprove their work? Don't we know that what we do is good because it helps ourselves and others? Why can't we accept the gift of free will and the warmth that we feel from doing the right thing without the approval or disapproval of a proverbial omniscient parent?

Furthermore, Why does this whole idea of a god work so well for others and not at all for me? Most people who "pray on" everything and try to "let go and let god" are happy that way and don't feel in any way dependent or put under the microscope. However, somehow, after the age of 20, I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of going to church and not feeling inadequate or guilty or dependent. I remember feeling guilty for having and wanting Christmas presents when I was in high school. For most people, things like this are not a conflict, but for me, I can't be in a religion that advocates giving away all of your possessions AND enjoy having a computer and beads and Christmas presents and cake. Even though I have no desire to get back into organized religion, I'd like to think that maybe one day I'll at least be able to understand how my mom lives with herself when she buys nail polish.

DAMN YOU

damn you damn you damnyoudamnyoudamnyoudamnyou DAMN YOU!
Damn you for making me write a "final note" on you that says you committed suicide. DAMN YOU GODDAMNIT.

Revelation

After re-reading my previous post and reflecting on some other things my mother told me, I have come to a revelation.
The reason my mother is suddenly "decorative" and "frilly" is that for 50someodd years of her life, my mother never felt pretty. It's sad to think that such a wonderful woman thought for all of her life that she was not an attractive woman. For fifty years, my mother looked at her pictures, new and old, and did not see someone particularly worth looking at. She said she always wondered why I was so pretty in high school because she was so ugly. One night, she had to do some work for a nutrition class where they talked about their body image and self esteem. She said that lesson was very hard, but during it, she chose to look at her high school pictures again. She said that some of them were dorky because of her clothing or glasses but when she looked this time, she did not see an ugly girl.

I'm afraid I did not help in my mother's journey throughout her life. I remember telling her she was fat several times when I was little (she probably weighed less than I do now) and I never really saw her as a pretty lady, nor treated her as such. This is such a shame because it prevented her from learning a lesson I learned when I was 25 until she was 50: Everyone is pretty and sexy in their own way. I remember when a friend of mine told me this when I was about 22 and I told him he was crazy and that I would never be sexy. I came to realize that he was right and that everyone has something attractive about themselves. I think it's sad that my mother never realized this until now.

As a social worker, I work with people of all ages, shapes, sizes, genders, races, etc. and pretty much every one I can remember a moment, where I said to myself "WOW... how beautiful". There's beauty in everyone and I'm glad my mother finally found hers.

Who are you and what have you done with my mother?

My mother is awesome and has always been awesome. She has a her quirks, like talking too much and being overprotective, but she's always been supportive of me even if what I do isn't her cup of tea. Up until recently, a lot of what I did was not her her cup of tea. She's always been compassionate, so she has no problems with me being a social worker, donating to charity, etc. She started me in dance classes and she even started taking when I was in high school. But mom was never a very "girly" woman. She wasn't a tomboy and didn't go out of her way to look manly, but there was only so much frilliness and decoration she would tolerate. She always wore makeup, but she would never wear much jewelry, and half the time she bought things they would just sit in the jewelry box until she gave them away three years later.
At my cousin's wedding she went to a "girl's day at the spa" with my cousin's fiance and some of my aunts where she got a haircut, massage, manicure and pedicure. When she got home she started talking about buying nail polish and earrings. I'm sure that my expression at the moment I heard this could've been described as nothing but odd and very humorous. This expression was nothing compared to the look I had on my face just now. There's no other way to explain why than to paste the email I just got from my mother:
"What kind or face paint would you use for a butterfly costume- That is what I am for Halloween- Was going to make wings myself- but found cool ones in party city-they also have purple Fairy wings!"

My mother, who has never done anything fancy in her life unless it was for me, has chosen to be a butterfly for Halloween. This leaves me with only one question: What universe were the aliens that abducted my real mother from?

fuck you

Goddamnit I don't care if your life sucks and you were mistreated as a child and you have more problems than you understand, you don't fucking kill yourself. Do you hear me loud and clear?! You selfish bastard take two seconds to stop and think about what doing yourself in is going to do to those around you. If you honestly take two seconds to think about all the people who will miss you, how the hell could you do that to them? You are a asset to the earth. There is something about you that no one else can duplicate or replace. If you leave, the world will be deprived of all the great things you could add to it. How the hell could you intentionally take your uniqueness out of this world? It is the uniqueness of individuals that makes this world the amazing place that it is. Don't deprive the world of you.




__________________________________________________________________
Suicide is fucking serious. If you want to hurt yourself or know someone who does, get help now! Tell a trusted friend, counselor, social worker, teacher, etc. Or call a hotline like 1-800-suicide. Please. I shouldn't have to write this ever again and neither should anyone else.

So I just went to a belly dance class, and it was really fun. I was there because I like to dance. There were alot of people there who were into "energy work" and "healing." It seems that alot of the places I go and alot of the things i'm into involve people into "healing" or having a preist bless their home because there's ghosts in it, or burning sage to "cleanse" a house. I find this odd because, while I am very open and earthy, I have never been into new age, paganism, the supernatural and I haven't been into religion in a long time. It's no secret that I'm somehwat of a hippy, but people who are into "energy work" baffle me. Why is it that you come across this stuff so frequently in the arts an exercise communities (like pilates and yoga). I am a hippy and i appreciate other hippys but i don't get and will never get people who "heal" others.

the perfectionist takes over

I am in charge of Vo0 now and frankly, I don't like what I'm seeing. This body has more extra weight than the last time I was in control and this pathetic girl has had a client ask for another worker. She's also late to everything and turns her paperwork in late all the damn time. How the fuck does she expect to keep a job as a fat, disorganized flighty little cunt. How does she expect to do anything well in life? She doesn't. She wants me to go away and live in ignorant bliss doing everything half-assed for the rest of her life. But I'm going to fix this problem because I know that if you don't do something %150, then you might as well not have done anything. That little wimpy-assed emotional bitch thinks that everythings okay as long as you try your best. Aside from this being complete drivel, I know she doesn't try her best--she only trys her best when it suits her. She stays up until midnight and then is too tired to get to anything on time in the morning. She thinks she's doing "well", but I know no one would keep her sorry ass on a job for much more than 2 months. Dealing with suicidal clients or no, she still has an abundance of bullshit problems that anyone should know how to fix. No self-respecting boos in their right mind wouldn't throw her ass out in the damn rain and tell her to play in traffic. In fact, if things don't shape up soon, she may need to do just that.

quick random update

Things are good. My mother-in-law was here last week and we had a blast. I actually took a day off and we went to bonner's ferry to walk around and then we went two miles outside of dragonla...err Canada to this seriously kickass waterfall. I had a client in crisis over the weekend and I had to take care of that a couple of times. It was no picnic, but it got me up to a good amount of hours considering I only worked half a day monday and not at all on thursday.
I found a kickass jacket thingy at the coldwater creek outlet store, but it was $30 and I don't pay more than $15 for much of anything related to clothing these days (God, I love thrift stores). Today, I spent a rediculous amount of money on a pair of boots http://www.cozyboots.com/ugg-boot.shtml?group=58 and generally took it easy (I had about a 3 hour lunch today). Also, I had pie. Pie is good.

judgement calls suck

I hate making judgement calls. The reason I didn't want to get into child protectice originally was because if I made the wrong judgement call, someone could end up dead. The problem is that you get into the same issue with suicidal/depressed adults. I *hate* trying to decide if I think someone will make it through the night and what sucks is that i've been wrong once already (but the person didn't die). That is the worst goddamn decision to have to make ever.

negativity

I'm looking at my blog entries and realising that most of them lately have been negative. It's not bevause my life is overall negative, or because I feel the need to rain on everyone's parade. Things are mostly good and I'm mostly happy. It's just that my life is many many minor good things combined to make it an overall good. When bad things happen, they're not so minor. In my opinion, talking about major things is more interesting than minor ones. So anyways, Let me not rain on your parade for at least one journal entry and try to come up with some positive things.

I'm doing fabulously well at work and get compliments all the time (particularly on one of the cases I post about alot on here). I love the farmer's market here and I look forward to it every week. I know it sounds silly, but it brightens my morning to go buy fresh veggies and get henna tatoos. We have a craft group at work and I'm getting to teach people how to do jewelry every week. We had a new girl come in and I was one of the people that trained her after being here only 2 months. My mother in law is here and we have been going out to all the good restaurants and cooking yummy food. I also have the day off today so we can take a road trip to look at a waterfall. As much as I love my job, having a day off is an awsome thing. So anyways, everything is mostly good, I am just having alot of anomalous negative annoyances here and there, but it's no biggie 8)

following the rules really hurts sometimes

I have always been a very "lawful good" type of person. I play things by the book as much as possible and I generally feel guilty if I don't. When I was younger, I was also always the one in the group who tattled on everyone (myself included). This is generally a good thing because in my career, you really have to try to go by the book if you want to keep your job and if you want the workplace to be able to keep thier funding. Sometimes this becomes a burden, and sometimes it's a downright pain in the ass.

I have a client, who I am really rooting for and who I really want to do well. She broke a rule. I wanted to ignore it, but there was no way that I could. If anything happened as a result of the broken rule and I hadn't notified anyone, I would've gotten in trouble and possibly in jail. So, I told on her and she was furious with me. I was practically to the point of tears over the fact that I had to say something and she was yelling at me about how unfair I was being and about how everything was my fault. I don't blame her for being upset because 1. I would have too and 2. She has issues that prevent her from seeing things clearly. But nonetheless, the whole situation sucked.

Sometimes I really wish I wasn't bound by a code of ethics and I weren't so damn "lawful good". It would sure as fuck make life easier on occasion.

Fate can kiss my ass

Fate you suck. You can go suck an egg for all I care. I hope someone drop kicks you off a bridge.

Fate can seriously be a bitch sometimes. Throughout my life I have met and worked with some remarkable people. What makes me curse fate is things like this:
I know lots of people, obviously. A couple of these people are brilliant. They can reason better and faster than I can. They can pick up on things that I would never notice. The part that pisses me off is the part where their IQ could probably come out in 50-75 range. You see, fate decided that they needed to have mental problems.

I do accept that some people have mental illness and developmental disabilities and things. However, it makes me furious to see certain people weighed down by their problems. I am not exaggerating when I say that if these people hadn't been dealt the hand they were, we would have a couple more brilliant doctors or engineers on this planet.

I am not exactly a stupid gal, but these ladies don't miss a thing. They can run circles around me when it comes to observation and certain types of reasoning. I honestly get humbled in their presence sometimes because of the things they say and do. But, yet I'm the one with the college degree and they'll never be able to have one.

So, I say a great big FUCK YOU to fate for what it arbitrarily does to brilliant and amazing people.

Personalizing

I always personalize at home... If whitey says "could you do the dishes" I always hear "why didn't you do the dished two days ago you lazy whore?", and react accordingly. This is a bad thing as it causes lots of unneccesary arguments and name calling. I have also lately been interpreting eye rolls when I recieve calls from clients after hours as "your job fucking sucks and so do you." Again, not a good thing as it tends to make me either defensive or rediculously clingy ("are you sure you don't hate me?").

I have started personalizing some things at work too. This is very bad and also very odd. I almost never personalize stuff at work and when I do, it's generally not something small. But right now, we have a new worker and she started seeing one of my clients as a way to get my client more socialized and such. My client is more comfortable with her. This bugs me to no end. I just keep thinking that I did something wrong and that my bosses are going to scold me for something. The thing is, I can't see anything I've done wrong.

The only difficult thing that I could potentially be handling wrong is that said client is in crisis right now and the other worker has mostly been dealing with it. I don't want the client to feel that I don't support her. However, She seems to feel alot more comfortable with the other worker as she'll barely even discuss the details of the crisis with me. This bugs me even more. If I really look at it though, what she really needs is to be comfortable, and if this is the way to make that happen, then I just need to let go and realize that some people get along better with certain people.

The only thing I could have done better with her was to see her more often. No one is going to fault me for this because I have a heavy case load. I should try to keep it in mind in the future, however, so that I make sure my clients are all getting the right amount of attention.

I also think this feeling of "doing something wrong" is a part of the normal "work paranoia" I get the first few months on the job. I'm acutally doing pretty good considering this is the first time I've really freaked out that "OMFG I MUST BE DOING SOMETHING WRONG". I have a tendency to do that so much in the first few months of a job that I actually hinder my performance. What usually messes me up the most in a job is my fear of not doing things correctly. Given that I'm about 2 months in and it's only hit twice in fairly minor ways, I'd say I'm doing pretty damn good. I haven't heard a word of complaint from supervisors, but I'm used to supervisors saving up complaints, so that still makes me a little nervous, but I know if I just ride it out, I'll be fine.

I think that's the biggest lessons in life... When difficulty or uncertainty comes, think is through, but don't excessivley worry. Then just put on some music, relax, and enjoy the ride.

holy shit

holy shit! new orleans is a fucking lake and coastal mississippi is now... just a coast. It's funny how nature in reality has no rhyme or reason, but sometimes it seems to say "YOU WANNA FUCK WITH ME?@! YOU ASSHOLES HAVE BEEN DEFILING MY LAND FOR TOO LONG! GET THE HELL OFF YOU GREEDY WHORES!#$@#!" It always makes me think about the bittersweet nature of the development of civilization. One the hone hand, it's good for us to further ourselves and innovate, but on the other hand, it's bad for the earth. It's also fleeting... All these things that took us years to build were flattened in a matter of hours by some freaking winds. The thing I keep going back to is all the cool things my mom told me about thier vacation at bay saint louis and the pictures on the news of nothing but coast dotted by a few broken buildings there. It's like those wood and brick two story buildings were no more than a measly house of cards.... wierd.

I didn't really want to get paid anyways....

Paperwork is taking so long these days that I am almost seriously considering just saying "fuck it" and not getting paid despite working 35-40 hours per week.
This officially sucks.
I would seriously bake some cookies if someone could give me a program that would search through my notes for the information needed for billing and do my daily activity sheets and my timesheet for me.

abbreviated musings

When you really peel back all the layers and get deep into why someone has emotionally unhealthy habits... The answers you get will blow your mind.

don't tell anyone....

But i've been promising the spiders outside the house juicy flies if they will come inside and scare my husband to the edge of insanity.

the hosebeast has awoken!

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA GIVE FOOD.
@#@#($*!~!)@#$(*$ HATE MORNINGS.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr WHY CLOTHES AND PHONE AND OTHER THINGS I NEED SMARTER THAN ME? WHY THEY ALWAYS HIDE?
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR ME NICE GIRL! WHY YOU LOOK AT ME LIKE ME MONSTER?!

Quick update

I haven't done a real update in a few days, so I thought I'd post something to let you know that I'm still alive and doing well. Work is busy and a little crazy, but overall, it's fun. However, paperwork is still the devil.

Whitey is doing well but he's getting a little homesick for big city living. I rather like having all the kickass good local businesses here... even if that's all that's here. And, while it takes forever to get anywhere that's not within the city, the drive is always fucking gorgeous.

We've been watching lots of 24 lately. Everyone says season 3 sucks, but so far, I would seriously beg to differ.
In other news, I finally got my hair cut!!

so umm... yeah that's all. nothing interesting here. move along.

My Husband always said you can't live without pie...

i guess he was right...
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-08092005-525263.html

everything i need to know i learned from working crazy ass jobs

1. Things will always take at least twice as long as they seem like they should.
2. Never EVER let someone go past thier noon meds. EVER.
3. Just when you know someone well enough to know that they won't do any of the bad things they say they want to....they'll do them.
4. Being "the nice girl" means that everyone will talk to you more than they will other people, but they won't necessarily respect what you say when you try to teach them something or give them advice.
5. Therapists are your best friends.
6. Psychiatrists are fucking gods.
7. If no one is laughing at you or trying to fire you, you probably know what the hell you're doing even if it constantly feels like you have no idea.
8. If you act like you know what you're doing, people will believe that you do.
9. Paperwork was invented by the devil.
10. Being a workaholic is going to send you to an early grave (if you work too late at a social services place, you can feel another 3 years peel off of you for every minute you're there after quitting time).
11. You cannot control other people and it is pointless to get upset when someone does something other than what you would like--it will only serve to add grey hairs to your head.
12. Everyone has at least one positive quality.

OMFG

We now have REAL mexican food in sandpoint. And there's actual mexican (hispanic anyways) people in the restaurant too. For those of you who don't live up here... people come in 2 colors: white and native american. There are a handful of other assorted races that you see on occasion, but i can seriously go through at least one whole day with plenty of contact with the outside world and see only white people all day.
We have another mexican restaurant in town that everyone loves except me, and the staff is all white people. IT's a horrible restaurant. This new one is yummy! Hurray for yummy food and cultural diversity!!!!!

Assertiveness and limits

I like to think of myself as a nice and accomodating person. I want to be helpful and I want people to be happy. The problem is that I sometimes forget to think of myself because I'm so busy thinking of others. Everyone always tells me that I need to set limits and learn to say "no". I hate doing this because I like to do everything, I want people to like me, and I also sometimes feel more confident that things will be done right if I have my hand in them.

However, there are times when setting limits becomes absolutely necessary to make sure I do not allow myself to be used up and burned out. What I always find interesting is that people respond well when I set reasonable limits. I hate telling people not to do certain things because I'm afraid they'll be mad or feel put out. But what generally happens when I set limits so that I can stay sane, is that people respect them without too many problems. Other limits, such as whether or not a kid can have ice cream, are another issue altogether--they don't generally respect those types of limits. However, if I command a little respect and consideration of myself, I usually get it. This will never make sense to me, but if it helps keep me sane, it's a good thing.

Is there a full moon out ?

Good lord this week has been nuts.
Monday... Or.. Someday anyways, I was on the phone with a client for an hour talking through her problems. Tuesday I was on with her two hours talking her out of making a stupid decision. Today I had someone else go to the hospital for making a stupid decision. Fucking hell. I like my job, and I'm hanging in there knowing that this will calm down once the clients get used to me, etc. However, if it does not mostly calm down in a couple of months, it will be time to consider a new job, if I am not already in the damn looney bin. I am doing my best to do things that will keep me out of the looney bin, but I honestly cannot spend too many more nights/weekends on the phone talking someone through something or out checking on someone before my brain starts to erode.

However, I am happy to report that I am feeling much more confident about my work and my judgment calls related to work than I generally do. I am usually really uneasy about anything with a new job, and especially when we're talking about making judgment calls on what mentally unstable people may or may not do. But the last few days, the more I think about things, the more I am okay with what I'm doing. I haven't talked to anyone and there's some possibility that I'll lose my job over something that happened tonight, but I think that most of my co-workers would have done the same thing in my position.

All I can say is, thank goodness for supportive co-workers. They have been more than willing to give me ideas for how to work with people. The one therapist spent about a half hour on the phone with me just coming up with ways to set limits with other people. I loved my old job, but I feel like this one is much more understanding of individual styles. The therapists and other workers seem to understand that not everyone likes to set hard limits and that not everyone is comfortable being super-assertive. They have really talked me through a lot of options and ways of handling things, and tried to make me feel like I'm doing well. They really seem to take the attitude of "lets help you understand this better" as opposed to "why don't you understand this better?" (which is sometimes how I ended up feeling in my old job).

Also, mom deserves a big thank you for sitting up with me for an hour at 4 am to help my nerves calm down. As do numerous people on the internet. And my husband for just generally putting up with my crazy ass work schedule and high stress levels.

The final thanks and praise goes to wal-mart for being open 24 hours so that sleepless social workers can get a sub sandwich and chocolate milk before going back to bed.

very random thoughts

Well, I managed to completely forget everything I said about being nice to my parents ebcause the did my laundry. Last night we went somewhere, and I didn't know where the place was so i was riving around in circles cursing at everyone in the car. I was very rude to say the least. Once we got where we were going, all was good.

We went on a cruise around lake pend orielle and ate some yummy food and saw some eagles. It was quite cool. Here are some pictures me and my husband took last night.






The other cool thing about the cruise was that I decided that it was not going to be interrupted and turned off my phone. Technically, I am on call 24 hours for all of my clients, but both my boss and co-worker said that it's no problem to do stuff like that where you can't return calls or go help someone right away. I knew the only way I wouldn't stress over my clients was to turn off my phone altogether. So, I did. Hurray for me!

Then I got home and ended up being up with one of my unstable clients until 1 am. We have to do something to get her a touch more stable soon or I am going to become very unstable very quickly (I have gotten to the point where my job has made me mentally unstable and it is not a fun place to be). But the people at work are very cooperative and have alot of good ideas. I also came up with some good ideas of my own. So, this will get under control one way or the other because I am not going fucking crazy because of a client.

Random thoughts

I have a lot going on currently. My parents are here from Alabama. I thought I was going to go fucking crazy on Sunday because I kept walking around finding unclean knives laying on my counter (damnit RINSE the dishes BEFORE they sit in the sink and the peanut butter dries up and cakes on them) and somehow ended up with enough food for a thousand people (which makes it difficult to find anything and makes it take a lot longer to cook). However, my parents did ALL of our laundry yesterday and then took it to a laundry mat to dry it and then folded all of it. I will be ever grateful to them for this. So, the next time I have to clean pie filling or peanut butter off a knife left on my counter, I'll just suppress the curses and be thankful mom and dad are so nice.

Secondly, I have a new job and this is my first week in full swing. It's a little crazy getting everything coordinated time wise and I feel like I'm being pulled in 8 directions at once. This will settle down once I get used to it and once I stop writing appointments on the wrong damn day on my calendar (seriously, WTH is up with that?).

The other fun thing about my job is that I have a couple of clients that are not stabilized right now. This means that I have to talk on the phone to them, go see them, etc. after hours. This is a bit draining. Sometimes this happens right before bed, so I dream about the things we talked about. I don't view this as a positive thing, especially since it sometimes gives me trouble sleeping. I am aware that part of this is a coping skill on my part, and I am aware that maybe I should get my ass back to therapy. Therapy is actually fun for me because I *know* the therapist knows what I'm talking about when I talk about being drained and creating relationships with clients and other things because therapists deal with this stuff everyday.

The last Random thought for the day is that we are going on a dinner cruise on the lake with my parents. This should be pretty cool. Hopefully, it will also help me de-stress, but that will only work if I don't worry aobut my unstable clients the whole hour and a half I'm out there. I am going to work out some kind of plan so that if the unstable client calls me, they an get a response, but I won't have to spend an hour on the phone while I'm on the boat.

parents...

A friend of mine, xerocube, posted in his blog about the "hot coffee" mod for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and how it highlights how many parents in this country pay no attention to what their kids are using. You can find his article here:
http://xerocube.blogspot.com/2005/07/just-thought.html

I completely agree with him, and I think that not enough parents pay attention to what thier kids are playing, watching, and listening to. I will go one further and say that ratings systems and censorship by the FCC are quite possibly making this situation worse. Because the government slaps an E rating on a game, alot of moms think that it's okay for thier spawnlings to play it. There are plenty of games that are rated E that I would not find appropriate for children under the age of 15 or so because of one or two certain things. For example, Many of the DDR games are rated E. In general, DDR is a pretty innocuous concept, and most of the songs are fine for family consumption. However, some of the DDR games include songs with very specific sexual content, such as "oh nick please not so quick" and "blow my whistle".

This just goes to show that you should ALWAYS always pay attention to what your kids are into. That way, they hopefully don't get into anything unwholsesome, and if they do, you can talk to them about what they saw/heard. Kids want parents who are there for them in every way, Including setting limits. While they may whine and tell you how suzie's mom lets her watch the movie/play the game/listen to the album, they crave discipline. If you are fair and consistent in other matters, they will come to understand that you have a good reason for limits on TV, games, movies, music, etc, even if they don't "like" it.

In addition to the ratings system making parents feel "comfortable" when they should not, I think that censoring content and saying that it is then "okay" for kids is also doing nothing but making parents comfortable. All censoring words does is take one word out of the middle of something that's generally completely innapropriate for children to hear. For example: " I wanna _____ you like an animal/ I wanna feel you from the inside" ends up being just as adult as "I wanna fuck you like an animal/I wanna feel you from the inside" because of the context. This is the case with most songs with "curse words."

Songs and movies use adult words because they're about adult subjects. Children do not need to hear adult things all day every day, which is what ends up happening when we censor certain words and do not pay attention to context. I think that we should do away with censorship of words in songs on TV, etc.. However, I think that there should be a concerted effort to make truly "family appropriate", movies, TV, and music. What I would love is for me to be able to turn on the radio and hear whatever filthy song I want to hear, AND for Suzie Soccermom to be able to turn on the radio and hot have to worry that her children are going to get an education in human sexuality or guns or drugs. I would be willing to support the Government taking some of the money away from the FCC to put it towards incentives for people who develop truly family appropriate media.

freewrite #2

My other goofy friend on trillian has selected the topic of "heartache".

This is a good topic. Thank god it's not "borneo cat population". Heartache is something I can write about. The thing that keeps coming to mind is a song called "good day" by the dresden dolls. It's really more about getting over heartache than anything, but I really like the way it deals with the subject. The dolls deal with a lot of subjects well. Good day says things like "I took out the trash today and I'm on fire." I like this line so much because I've been through some ugly breakups and it goes very slowly. Most days you go through the whole day sad, and when you don't have time scheduled, you sit in your room with your headphones on. Much like in one of the other Dolls songs. Anyways, I went through an ugly break up, and it was the little things that I did that were so triumphant. It wasn't getting on with my life and graduating and finding a new guy to love me--all of which eventually happened later--but waking up, getting out of bed, and actually working on homework or cooking some rice-a-roni that felt like major ummm... What's the word... Major.... Awesomeness. I'm trying to say that it's always the little stuff you can do for yourself that's important when you're heart is aching. Don't try to conquer the world.
These freewrites always turn out with an audience in mind. I always feel like I am writing to you the imaginary readers out there. Maybe one day I can try to work on my internal voice. My freewrites come out much better when they're private.

remind me again....

why i like this job.

Crisis mode

As you probably know, in my job, I sometimes have to deal with crises. It ranges from "my tooth hurts and I need to go to the dentist now" to "I'm running out of medication today and I forgot to tell you until now" to "I'm upset (and have a history of suicide attempts)". The other night after I spent some crisis time with a client, I was wondering what the hell was wrong with me because, it's not like that's the first time I've dealt with a client in crisis, but I was shaking and I swear my brain took a vacation to Aruba or something. I have been really concerned about this because it's a problem to be panicked during a crisis at all. It makes it difficult to make a decision without someone else telling you what to do. Being branded as someone who can't make decisions isn't the thing you want to be in a field like social work.
So, I have been pondering the problem and what to do about it and was feeling pretty concerned. Until I saw a large bug in my house. I was shaking (and still feel a little unsteady 20 minutes later) and figuring out what to do took every ounce of concentration that I had. I was twice as bad over this stupid bug in my house than I was any crisis I've ever faced with a client.

The situation with the bug made me realize that I am too goddamn panicky, but at least I remain much calmer in situations where a clear head is needed.

weekend plans

my parents are coming up for a week, so I don't know how much I'll be updating over the weekend and the next week. I do have an entry or two stored up for a rainy day, but I dunno how much time i'll have to update other than that.

Freewrite

When I started this blog, I said I might do some freewrites, but I haven't done one yet. Today I think I will do a freewrite on a random topic selected by one of my goofy friends on trillian. For those of you not familiar with the format, a freewrite is a type of writing in which you set a certain amount of time and don't stop writing for that period of time. It's very "stream of consciousness", so I don't know how much sense this will make, but, nonetheless, I will be spewing forth god knows what for the next 5 minutes.

My goofy friend has chosen "Bornea feline population". I honestly know nothing about this other than the fact that Bornea is a country and "feline" means "cat". I like cats a lot. They are cute, but I am very allergic to them. My parents still have the cat I had when I was in high school. He looks like a rabbit. We got him from my friend Melissa. The cat before him got run over by a car. Princess was really sweet and was a tortoise shell. I think tortoise shell cats are awesome and really pretty,--much prettier than calicos. That reminds me: There was a lady once with a kitten on a plane. She had him in a kennel under her seat, and he was tranquilized, I think. However, she took him out during the "walking around" time and kept him in her arms. He was adorable, and the stewardesses all cooed. You know what else coos on airplanes? Babys. Except they more scream than anything. I think that if you have a baby over the age of about 12 months, you should them in a seat next to you. Toddlers do not do well being held in someone's arms. They try to wiggle out and scream when they can't go. Which brings me to another topic: If you have a child of any age, and you are bringing them on an airplane, BRING STUFF FOR THEM TO DO. They will sit much stiller and be much quieter if you do. This also goes for bringing your children to anyplace where they will have to wait a long time or sit a long time--dr's offices, restaurants, etc. Now I'm out of thoughts so I will just talk about chocolate. I love chocolate. Can you believe that I actually got enough material out of this method of writing to do a really cool mixed media art project for someone? It wouldn't seem like it the way this freewrite is going. I just feel like I'm rambling. But now, it's time for me to be done.

Wake up

There's something so positive and glowy and awesome about watching them wake up the shuttle crew. I think space travel is awesomeness, even though I couldn't understand it if I tried. Aside from that, the wake up call is just plain neato because they always play a song and congratulate somebody on something and then the astronauts say "thank you" and everyone is happy. It's just an all around positive thing that happens every day during what must be one of the most physically and mentally difficult jobs out there. They work their assess off all day and night, and then the next morning, they get woken up with a song they like and a nice southern lady saying "good morning discovery". And then they go back to work immediately as she gives them their notes for the next couple hours.

I wish my mornings were like that. A nice happy shiny song, and I hop out of bed and am ready to work within 2 minutes! But my mornings go more like this: Whitey's alarm goes off at 7:00. Five minutes before whitey leaves at 7:50, I realize that I need to get my ass out of bed because I have a meeting at 8:30. I find some clothes, pull my hair back, eat some cereal and make it to the meeting 10 minutes late where I am barely awake enough to comprehend what's going on... And sure as hell no one congratulates me on nothing.

I guess we can add astronaut to the list of things I want to be when I grow up

I'm going fucking crazy

I have issues at any job that I have if I don't have a calendar and write all of my appointments down on it as soon as I'm told when they are. That's easy enough. I have a bigass binder from staples with both a monthly and daily calendar as well as other paperwork I need for work. I shouldn't have any problems, right? WRONG! I write things down on the wrong day. The bad thing is that I *know* that I repeat myself when I'm talking to whomever to make sure I'm getting it down correctly, and somehow I still get stuff on the wrong day. HOW THE FUCK DO I DO THAT? And, more importantly, WTH do I do about it? My work relies on me to help my clients however they need. I'm not going to be very helpful if I always get people's Dr's appointments on the wrong damn day. Blah, if I can't get this straightened out, I may just have to start working somewhere where the work is the same every damn day, like a call center.

Death isn't always permanent...

...But I wish it was.


When I was about 10 years old my grandfather had surgery and wasn't doing well, but things started looking up, the day before he died. When we got the news about his death, we disrupted everything, and flew to New York, where I spent large parts of the day listening to people's memories of grandpa and the details of the last few days of his life. There was an open casket wake, which I managed to hang out at for about 30 minutes before I got so uncomfortable that my mom had to walk me home. There I spent the evening with the people preparing food and such for the gathering after the wake--a great distraction for a ten year old who's never dealth with death before. The next day there was a long, elaborate funeral with a priest and incense and the whole bit. It was rather dramatic and did nothing to lessen the pit in my stomach. Thank goodness for gatherings with food and my awsome uncle who took me to the arcade countless times. Death is never pleasant to deal with and this was a very emotional time for me. But at the end of it all, I understood that Granpa was never coming back, but that I was lucky to have known him when he was alive.

About three years later came his wife. We disrupted, saw the open casket, did the funeral thing and did the gathering thing. We followed the same procedure for My mom's mother, father and grandmother throughout my high school and college years. It did get a little easier with time, but every time, I was emotional and sad when I had to come to the realization that this was permanent and these dear people were never coming back to me.

One death in particular stands out as having taught me a lesson about the beauty of life and the abruptness with which it can end. In my senior year, I walked into dance one day and the studio owner sat us all down and said "Shannon was in an accident coming down the mountain on her way to dance. She didn't make it." Immediately we had a whole studio of heartbroken girls.

It took a while for the permanance to hit me, but when it did it felt like someone had offset the very balance of nature itself. She was 18 and had just graduated. I was 17 and had just graduated. She was my age and she died. This was, to say the least, mind boggling. I think alot of the girls felt the same way because what followed was a barrage of planning for how we were going to deal with this for the recital which was all of two weeks away and outpourings of emotion and just a virtual whirlwind of... everything.

To have someone your age die when you're young is a serious mindfuck because, at the age of 17, you know everything and only grandmothers die. I think all the girls felt a similar confusion and dysphoria because we weren't sure if we wanted everything to stop or to go on or to go on slightly altered. One of the girls who also happened to teach, performed a solo she had taught to shannon at the recital. The first words out of her mouth were, "I want her solo" when we found out what had happened. There were girls who said things like "Mom, i don't know if i can make it. I'm going to cry in the ballet dance where I'm supposed to hold her hand." Simple choreography became a complex emotional obstacle. Death had never been so painful, so real and so permanent as it was in may of 1995.

Throughout my life people have continued to die, and I have mourned them because even if I didn't know them very well, because those who did had lost someone important forever. Sometimes, they are not lost forever.

The first person who didn't really die was a boy who had gone to my high school and sang in choir with me. Micheal was not my best friend and not really in the crowd I would normally hang out with, but he was a good guy at heart. We never had any heartfelt conversations, but I did have to sit on his knee in show choir once. This was utterly nerve racking experience for me because I have difficulty with physical contact with people I am not dating. He helped me relax, and I always felt a little tiny connection with him because of that moment.

When I was in college Micheal was shot because he happened to be in the house of someone who supposedly stole a cell phone or some such nonsense. His death was stupid and in vain. But, to me, he never died.
I was in college and very busy at the time, and it was not feasible for me to disrupt or do much of anything to mourn his death. I was trying to pass classes, I was rehearsing for a dance job I had gotten, and I was in a long distance relationship. When my mom told me, I just kind of went on about my business and it never really hit. Someone else my age had died, and I barely even noticed.
When I think about high school reunions and seeing my colleagues from choir, Micheal is there just as if he had never really died. In my mind, he is still joking around, smoking weed and dating his high school sweetheart.

The second person whose death wasn't permanent was my husband's grandmother. "Meemaw" was an amazing woman. During the few years I knew her, she was always amiable, gracious, accomodating, patient, principled and stubborn as mule--the perfect combination if you ask me. She cooked for us everytime we visited pensacola. She also often took us out to eat, refusing to accept any money to help pay for the bill. She was the first person to know about our engagement. That was the last time I saw her.

We kept saying we needed to go see her, especially after the wedding, but we never found a time both of us could go. My husband and his mother got to go right after easter, and she at least got to see our wedding pictures. However, meemaw's health was starting to go downhill. I kept sayng that I wanted to go visit her, but not too long after easter, we found out we were moving here. I desperately wanted to see her before we moved, because I knew it would probably be my last chance, but the move just happened too fast.
We moved up here and everything got frantic between finding a place to live and unpacking and getting utilites turned on and getting directv set up and me finding a new job and all those crazy little things that happen when you move.

One day my husband told me that meemaw had died. I continued frantically on. When newscasters talk about hurricanes hitting pensacola, I still think "oh, I hope meemaw's going to be okay". Maybe one day I will finally be heartbroken when we visit florida and I realize that she is not there too cook potatoes for me in her convection oven.

HURRAJ!

http://www.nasa.gov//returntoflight/multimedia/launchday2_gallery.html

Shuttle launch yay!

Remind me why I do my job again...

Obviously I can't post details, but it's 11:30 at night and I just spent an hour an a half with a client. Why do I think this is fun?

On euphemisms

In my "guide for people who read romance novels", I touched on some of the rediculous euphemisms that romance noveslists use for human genitala. Romance novelists are not alone in this quest to call body parts anything other than thier actual name. Pretty much everyone in the states has a name, pet name, or otherwise odd labeling of their and other people's private parts. I have heard people say all of the following instead of vagina: "pink parts", suzie, cha-cha, "bearded clam", fish taco, daisy, cunt, snatch, pussy, cat, kitty, "hatchet wound", purse, "grilled cheese sandwich", love button, love canal, pearl, and others. For "penis" we have: "dick", "peepee", "weewee", " hoo hoo dilly", "Salty sausage", "love pole", "trouser snake", "stick shift", "twig and berries", "meat and two potatoes", willy, "skin flute", "family jewels", "love muscle", shrinkydink, manhood, wiener, banana, and many many others. I could continue with a list for breasts, but I think you get the point.

Doctors and educators often tell us to use correct names for genitalia with our children. I think most people think that this is to help create a more educated sounding populous similarly to those who encourage us not to say "ain't" or "where's my pen at?". However, I would contend that making us not sound like morons is only a tiny part of what us using correct names for genitals is actually intended to do.

When we use names like "suzie" and "weewee", it's because we're for some reason embarrased to say the real thing. Somehow, we in America got the idea that sex is dirty and should not be discussed. We also got the idea that just about everything associated with sex is somehow "naughty" and taboo. When we say things like "peepee" and "daisy" to our children, we send the message not only that the names for their genitals are something that is better off unspoken, but that the genitals themselves are something that is better off not spoken about. Most adults very embarassedly say "well my child was looking at his.... his... you know... his... (whispered) 'jewels'..." Kids pick up on the fact that everyone turns red faced and refuses to use correct terms when talking about genitals, and so they learn the embarassment.

Most people feel that genitals are private and should not be discussed or shown to the general public. I am not going to disagree with this sentiment. However, an inability to talk about your body without a redface and alot of euphemisms not only looks and sounds rediculous, but it can be a hinderance to your adult sex life. Many people can't ask for what they want in bed without turning red and/or using words like "she" "girl parts" and "manhood". By using euphemisms for body parts, we're teaching future generations to be emabarrsed of who they are and what they want. No one should be embarrassed of what they want done to their body when they are a fully consenting adult alone in private with another fully consenting adult.

Something alot of my friends don't know about me...

I thouhgt of something alot of you guys don't know about me... I eat fruit--other than bananas.
When I was around most of my friends, I ate no fruit except bananas and occasionally pineapples if they were in or on something. I now eat raspberries, strawberries, honeydew, watermelon, oranges on occasion, and think fresh pineapple is godly.

I also fucking love the farmer's market here because I can get fresh fruit and veggies. But most of you have heard my gushing over the farmer's market before.

Three things you don't know about me?

My husband did a post about three things that most people didn't know about him. So, I am now trying to follow suit. However, this is ungodly difficult because anyone who's talked to me for more than four conversations knows that I am a dancer, I am a social worker, I wear too much damn glitter, I wear skirts alot, my favorite color is purple, I love chocolate, I play lots of video games, I love to excercise, I shop at thrift stores almost exclusively, I'm allergic to pets, I love to cook, and i'm a little touched in the head. From reading the blog you also know that I watch porn, have read romance novels, wish I could be a music video concept designer, gave my ass to science and recently moved to Idaho from the bible belt.
Let's see... some of you might not know that I used to sing throughout junior high and high school and was acutally pretty good. I got the highest rating (a 4 i think) for one of my junior high solos and the second highest (a 3) for my only high school solo. I was in all city two or three times and all state girls chorus once. In my senior year, I tried out for all state mixed chorus and didn't get in, but decided it was okay because I would've missed the boys to men concert.

Which brings me to something that some people don't know. I liked boys to men and I still do. Do not look at me as if I am evil. Name a genre, and I can name you at least one band/artist I like. Dancing gave me access to an incredible array of music, and I found alot of different styles I liked. I like new and old swing, I like some rock, I like some indy rock, I like alot of math rock, I like some metal, I like classical, I like new age, I like lots of electronica, I like some rap (snoop especially), I like alot of funk, I like blues, I like certain experimental things, and I even get the occasional 80's flashback.

I loved cyndi lauper when I was younger, but what little girl didn't?

I had strawberry shortcake suspenders when I was like 6.
Um... I am grasping at straws because most people already know everything...
Well, that's three things anyways....

Oh yeah, I used to swin on a swim team when I was younger. I was slow as a fucking snail, but I liked swimming.

So um.... there, maybe you guys didn't know some of that stuff.

i'm busy

I haven't been updating much these days and I *think* it has something to do with the new job. I have less free time, and most of my brain power is spent cracking on these cases. In case any of you don't know or have forgotten, I am a social worker. For this particular job, I will be working mostly with adults (to start with anyways) with mental health issues. The way the state of Idaho works, adults have to have specific diagnoses and be more severe than kids. Let me tell you that things like conduct disorder and adhd don't hold a candle to things like paranoid schizophrenia in difficulty. Mind you, conduct disorder means the person has horrendous behavior, but they are generally in touch with the same world we are. Kids who break every fucking rule in the book I can understand in an odd sort of way. It might be like beating your head against a wall to get them to stop, but it really boils down to a kid who doesn't cope well with our world due to various reasons.
People with paranoia live in a world where the simplest thing becomes interpreted in ways you wouldn't believe. It's not like beating your head against a wall to get them to listen to you, it's more like navigating a complex web of laser trips with bombs attatched to them while flying in a VIPIR with no map and a blindfold over your eyes just to get them to feel that you are friendly and not threatening. I had someone be very afraid i didn't like them because I had to go to another appointment. This may not seem completely odd, but under the circumstances it was pretty out in left field.
I shouldn't say anymore about specific clients, but, holy shit does paranoid schizophrenia take the cake on wierd ass things that happen to people's brains.

awsomeness

Okay, I said I wouldn't post alot of random links and I generally don't, but this rocks
http://www.pathguy.com/TimeDead.htm

Dogs, Dogs everywhere...

Everyone in this town has a dog and most of them don't use leashes. It's odd to see a town full of people with dogs walking in front of them. Another frequent odd sight is neighbor dogs hanging out in your yard and walking across the street unhindered by a chain or fence. Most of the people here don't just have dogs, they have BIG dogs. They're not only walking around the neighborhood and in places you would expect to see dogs like parks and walking trails, but lots of people bring their dogs to work. I expect to see the occasional pet in a small, locally owned shop (which is pretty much every shop in town), but I'm more used to seeing cats. Today I went to an assisted living home and the director had her LARGE dog in her office with no leash or other hindering device. The person in the office next to her also had her LARGE dog there at work. This kind of makes sense because a lot of the residents there have their own dogs. But what took the cake today is that someone had their dog in walmart. Mind you, this was a small dog that stayed in the customers' arms and a family of at least three people who was keeping him at bay. Still... A dog in walmart?

Dreams really suck sometimes

I had a dream last night that my mother was going to die within a day and that once she died, the guy I was involved with was going to leave me for another girl. I hate having dreams like this because I wake up and all I want to do is stay in my pajamas and eat comfort food. Anyways, I'll feel better when I get on with my day. I should get ready for work now.

Why do new things always leave me conflicted?

I got a new job and I started Friday. This is really cool. I hated leaving my old job and I am a bitch if I don't have work during the day. I have been miserable and whiney for the last month because I didn't have a job. Now that I have one, I am freaking out because I'm the new girl. I never think that I am worthy of the credit that people give me. My boss doesn't seem worried that he is giving me four difficult cases of adults with diagnoses I have never worked with before. It should tell me something that other people have confidence in me. Somehow it usually fails to do anything but inspire dread and perfectionism. The sad things is that what usually messes me up the most is the fear of messing up. The boss has stated more than once that the people they have working at this place are awesome and somehow they think I fit in to this. One of these days I will learn that I really am not the worst social worker on the face of the planet...
...Probably right before I increase the number of hours in a day.

What do you do when you miss someone and can't get in touch with them?

...You whine about it in your blog. I have so many friends who I am no longer in contact with, many due to my own negligence. This is really stupid, but it seems to be the one mistake I can't learn from. I had lots of friends in high school. I talk to none of them anymore. I kept in touch with a couple for a few years after high school and then decided that I had "outgrown" them.

Then I have others who I would see now and again, get their contact info, and forget to call them for months which turned into years by which point I had lost thier contact info. I miss every last one of them. There are some that I really think "wow, they would totally fit in with the crowd I hang out with now." Some totally wouldn't, but who says all of my friends have to hang out together.

In college I made a geniune attempt to keep in touch with one of my friends, and we did for a while. But then she changed emails and I moved out of the house I was in all at once. She promised to send me snail mail, but I don't know if she did because the person who lived in that house didn't forward all of my mail to me (asshole).

More recently as I changed jobs, etc. I have had opportunities to keept in contact with people. I have even made the effort to make sure to exchange contact information, but I never call them. I always say I'm going to, and I always mean it when I say it. However, when I think about calling them it's the middle of the day when we're both at work and then I forget about it for a couple of weeks. I repeat this sad process until somehow a year has passed and I'm not even sure if the person would remmeber who the hell I was anymore.

Now, we come to another test of my abilities. I have just moved a four days drive away from the whole fucking world, or so it would seem. So far, I have been okay about emailing, im'ing and calling old acquaintances. Maybe this time I can make it stick a little.

To all of you out there who think they've been forgotten by me or who may end up thinking that in the near future: Just know that I remember every last one of you and I miss you all. If only you could see this blog *sigh*.