Balance

For the most part, balance is achievable through slight readjustments; in fact I find that I give easily and freely of my time, energy, and money, when I choose where I will spend them and do so of my own volition. On Friday I picked up a student and her mom and drove them to the dentist for an appointment they were both nervous about. Colleagues would tell me this puts things out of balance to spend an afternoon of my vacation time doing “work” but it did not feel that way to me because I chose it and because I wanted to remove that particular barrier for them. In giving this help to them I was giving something to myself as well.

This evening Shawn and I spent the evening with a neighbour whose wife died recently. Again this wasn’t like work because I wanted to be there for someone who is feeling alone, and who could use some friends right now.  We don’t really know him, but that’s only because we have never been the type of people who invest much energy in our neighbours, for whatever reason.  As we grow older (wiser?) perhaps we can see ourselves reflected in our community more easily. We moved into a neighbourhood in our early thirties at a time when it may have been more difficult to imagine needing our neighbours for anything... and now ten years later it is somehow very easy to picture ourselves in their shoes.  I invited us to his house very easily this evening- and I invited him to our home next week just as easily.  This is how balance is achieved, not by holding back our resources and hoarding them to ourselves— rather by spending them freely in places where it matters.



*

favourite people

Things about today -

1.  Today the DBS who audited our school files told me that mine were the best she has seen in the District.  This gave me, A). a momentary wave of pride, followed by B). a momentary wave of annoyance at everyone else in the District for being dumber than me, followed by C). a lasting wave of recognition that I am a lunatic who can never take a compliment without making it into something stupid.


2.  Today I did EMDR on a student who shared a trauma with me.  This was not my first attempt, but it was absolutely, to date, my best attempt.  It was textbook perfect.  I followed the protocol exactly, and she responded exactly the way we learned it; I did it right.  I think I was even more shocked than she was when we cleared the whole trauma in under an hour.


3.  Today I spent another small session with R, the selective mute student I previously wanted to avoid.  Not to brag, but today he spoke to me.  He said.... (get ready for it).... "uh huh".  He said it because I was talking about video games, not because we were talking about anything particularly meaningful, but the point is that he said something.  I'm celebrating small successes.


4.(a) I'm realizing that I am really good at my job when I can do one thing at a time instead of trying to do everything at once.  And I'm realizing that there will always be a million things to do and so I need to learn better ways to stem the tide when things get really wild.

4.(b) I'm realizing that I might eventually return to my PhD work, after giving it up for a very long time.  Maybe.



*

EMDR works

EMDR really works, at least it works on me.  A big part of the training course, obviously, is the practicum part where we try what we're learning on each other.  This time I chose my targets carefully, a real attempt to get some work done rather than a vague trust fall.

Target 1 was my difficulty with R as a client.  R is a selective mute, and not the kind who will happily write down what he's thinking or draw me a picture.  His body is nearly as mute as his voice.  He just sits and looks at me, expressionless, lifeless, barely breathing.  It makes me uncomfortable and I have struggled to force myself to work with him.  I wanted to clear that apprehension of mine, get over my own fears, so that I could persist with this kid.  I processed it, and today I called him down to my office and worked with him a bit.  Just briefly, but not because I was letting him push me away.  Just because I had a plan to titrate his discomfort - rather than my own.  It was interesting.  I was able.

Target 2 was my vacillation around undergoing EMDR therapy with a professional practitioner.  The flaky psychologist who couldn't organize her schedule briefly dissolved my confidence.  I processed that too, my fear and my weird stigma-oriented response to doing therapy even though I make a living at providing therapy.  And then I came home and looked for a new EMDR practitioner, who happened to be a man with big white teeth and a muscle-y looking neck.  I picked him on purpose because he repelled me the first time I saw his picture.  But he actually has better qualifications than the first one I picked.  We have set up a meeting in four weeks.  I have no doubt I will feel nervous about this meeting - but I also believe I will follow through.

So yeah, EMDR works.  I am going to use it more often with my kids.


*

How not to choose a clinical counsellor

My first EMDR appointment was supposed to be tonight, Thursday.  I booked it that day on purpose because I am taking the course again tomorrow and I had this nerdy idea in my brain that I would be a better student and absorb more from the course if I had experienced a session just prior.  Things started to fuck up on Wednesday when the counsellor emailed me to say she had thought I was coming on Wednesday instead, apologizing for her confusion and wondering if I could come later on Thursday because she didn’t have time when I had originally booked.  I accommodated this (because I still wanted the session and because part of me was assuming the mix up was somehow my fault- which it wasn’t).

So I drove over there tonight arriving five minutes early like a respectful little client.  And waited in the waiting area and waited and waited.  Finally, nearly half an hour late she emerged from her office and walked past me in the waiting room, heading out to go home.  I stopped her and asked about our appointment.  She was flummoxed and confused and didn’t realize that we still had an appointment.  She made a halfhearted attempt to say something about having an appointment then, but I said no.  Not unkindly.  Just that she had that look of someone who is done for the day and there was no way I wanted an hour of time that looked like me keeping this woman from her bed.

I chose her very impulsively, because I liked her face in the profile picture she posted on her website. She looked older and wiser, and with a smiling sense of humour.  Maybe someone who would get me.  I picked her after scrolling past a couple of men with big white teeth and muscle-y looking necks.  I also scrolled past anyone with bleached blonde hair (personal bias) and anyone who appeared to be under the age of thirty.  Apparently this is not a good way to select a counsellor.  Shawn laughed at me when I told him what happened and told me the twenty-somethings would have better apps to manage their calendars.

The counsellor has sent me two emails since I got home, the first one apologizing and the second one inviting me to have a Skype session with her tonight.  Eww.  I have ignored both emails so I can think about whether I really want to do this after all.  With her. Or with anyone.  I was quite nervous about the whole thing and it took a lot of inner push to get there at all.  Now that I’ve been botched twice I seem to have lost some of my initial resolve.  Shields up.

*

none of this

Cannabis has been legalized, and I have tried twice, totally unsuccessfully, to get high with my husband in the last week.  Why I have been unsuccessful I do not really know.  I have never been much of a weed smoker, since a really scary experience in high school.  It just isn't my drug of choice.  (When learning about addictions counselling we talked a lot about the concept of drug of choice, and why different people gravitate toward different drugs.  The most popular DOC is opioids, the least popular is alcohol.  Those, like me, who prefer alcohol tend to cite social reasons for their choice; this makes perfect sense to me.)  Anyway, I spent most of Saturday in a cheap white lady kind of buzzy haze brought on by pink champagne served at a one-year old's birthday party, and when I thought about that the next morning it kind of made me hate myself a little bit.  So I decided to lay off the drink for at least a week and see if I'm actually a drunk (i.e. will I go into withdrawal?) or just an overanalyzing idiot.

So it's Tuesday now and so far I seem to be fine (no delirium tremens).  Fine, except for the fact that I tried to get high on both Sunday and Monday night, but both times without luck.  I don't know how to use cannabis properly, not the kind we have in our house, which is THC/CBD oil.  My husband just puts a drop or two in his mouth and seems perfectly happy, but this idea scares me because I don't know much is too much or too little - because I haven't smoked pot since I was about eighteen and I think that was laced with something else because it was a horrible experience.

So Shawn decided to make some candies with oil in them, diluting the product, but perhaps too much?  I have been tentatively nibbling at his homemade candies, and can't seem to feel a thing.  He, on the other hand, is enjoying himself.  Tonight I didn't even bother trying.  Too bad weed, you just don't seem to be my thing.

*

My EMDR course is continuing this weekend - Friday through Sunday.  It's an intensive course.  I hope one day I can use what I have learned to help people.  Right now I might just be giving people headaches.

*

I decided I would see an EMDR therapist myself.  It is absurd that I am a professional counsellor who has never been to counselling.  (I say that to myself, and then I remember that I went to family counselling once with my whole family after one of my sister's many suicide attempts as a teenager.  I was resentful.  I cannot remember why there was only one session.)  Anyway, I made an appointment to see an EMDR therapist.  My first appointment is on Thursday night - the day before I go back to my course.  My goal is to experience what I am trying to learn from the client's perspective because I feel so inauthentic trying to do this magic on other people when I do not fully understand what they are experiencing.  If I can also figure out a way to sort out some of my own shit in the process, that would be even better.  I would like to go into it with my mind open to the possibility of being happier (at work) because I am so frustrated (at work) lately that I want to tell K to go fuck her crutch and then I want to tell N to go fuck K.

*

The book I am reading is called My Year of Rest and Relaxation.  I think the reader is meant to be saddened at the image of the young heroine drugging herself to the gills with Ativan so she can sleep all the time, but the part of the image that actually bothers me is the fact that Ativan is an opioid, and not really my thing.  If she were to spend a year in a wine-induced fog I would be all in favour.  (I don't know why I am saying this - I'm not tired.  I'm just fucking sick and tired.  I'm also not really a drunk.  I just aspire to be.)

None of this is true.

*

New Westminster

It was actually predictable that there would be a problem with picking up the ashes. My sister made every breath difficult in life; why would anything be different in death?  The police officer spoke to me through bulletproof glass, telling me that their storage space was in the process of moving, and that everything was packaged up for transport, making it impossible to retrieve my property until January 1st.  I explained to her that the officer who called specifically said I should come to get my property and did not mention anything about waiting until January 1.  What is the property? she asked me.  I think I hesitated a little strangely because I had not anticipated discussing it.  Then I told her.  Her demeanor changed.  She asked my name and date of birth, and she stepped away from the glass and went to a computer and began typing.  Tracy said, Breathe.  You're not breathing.  

The officer came back to the little window in the glass and asked me my father's name and birthdate, and my sister's name and birthdate.  More typing.  I asked for a key to the washroom while she typed more things.

Then another officer joined her and they murmured things I could not hear through the glass, and then she asked me to sit down.  Tracy and I sat and I tried to breathe and breathe and breathe some more.  It shouldn't be such a big fucking deal to pick up a box of dirt, but you know what, it is.

Eventually the second officer came out and gave me a business card, telling me he was with Victims' Services.  I'm not sure who the victim was meant to be, my sister or me.  He told me exactly the same thing that the first officer told me, that it was not possible to retrieve my sister's ashes because they would be packed up along with all the stolen bicycles and jewels and fur coats and guns and whatever the hell else is kept in police storage.  (He didn't say any of that; I just made it up.  He just said he couldn't retrieve the ashes.)

I told him I understood, and he stared at me a lot, doing the kind eyes thing that people do when they want you to know that they really see you.  I guess he had to learn that to be able to work for Victims' Services.  He said it would take about a week before he could get them out of the storage area wherever they were currently located, and offered to call me at that time.  I asked him if there was some way he could send the ashes to me rather than having me come back to pick them up.  I explained I had taken the day off work and gave me the kind eyes some more, which I was sort of hating.  He said he would find out if that was possible, and that was it.

Tracy stood on the sidewalk with me while I smoked.  How convenient that I have been carrying a mostly empty stale pack of cigarettes for the last two months since the last time I went to a staff party.  I could not have been more pleased to find these stale gross things in my bag.  I smoked just one, and then gave the remaining four to a guy who walked by us to stop myself from smoking all of them.

And that was it.  A completely unproductive day.  I returned home and opened my work email, which had 46 messages in it that I could not resist dealing with because I am neurotic and determined to burn myself out.


*

legwork

Today I had a bit of a melt at the end of the workday.  I never cry at work.  Which is not to say I never have, but it's a really rare thing.  I think I cried once in the first nine years, and I wasn't crying about work.  I was crying because I was scared my husband was ill, like seriously ill, and for some reason it really hit me when I was at work.

The only other time I remember crying at work was during the Crazy Sue years (the latter 9), when I was about to be force transferred because that crazy woman had decimated my theatre program so it got too small for two teachers.  That didn't end up happening, but it was a hard time.

The thing is that I don't cry at work.  Not normally.  And when I do, it's big stuff, and it's not in front of anyone.  It's just me.

Today I was about to leave when the secretary asked me if I was okay, and it turns out I wasn't.  I ended up sniffling all over myself with the secretary, and then K came over and joined the party.  I hadn't wanted to talk to K about what has been going on because of professional boundaries... but by this point I guess I just didn't care anymore about being professional.  I just kind of let it out.  I don't know if that was a good idea.  But it turns out I am out of ideas.  Seriously out of ideas.  I'm so tired.

Some of this is my own damn fault, my tendency to take on work that isn't mine.  And some of it is just bad luck, that for whatever reason, all the new registrants with severe mental health issues seem to be on my caseload.  And some of it (much of it) is that my counselling colleagues are weak, and don't help when there is need for help (except for N).  And most of it is that we have a new VP who is untrained and not doing his job, which blocks me from doing my job.  And the pressure has been mounting.  I'm just tired.

I had booked tomorrow off anyway because I am owed a few lieu days from working in the summer.  If I hadn't, I would probably have needed to.  I need a day to be away from this mess and go deal with the other mess - the fact that my sister's ashes are hanging out at a police station in a nearby city.  This was something I'd talked myself into doing alone, but T came back and reinvited herself.  So there's that, the fact that I have a dear friend who recognizes that I am the kind of person who sometimes needs to be asked twice.


*

bell

So far I have not retrieved my sister's ashes from the police station, which is okay for now.  They will rest there for 90 days.  There is a little bit of time to decide upon a plan.  It will take up a lieu day, of which I have three to spend.  I do not like NWM city where the police station is located.  My memories of this city have only to do with fighting in court for the custody of J, my sister wearing my old hiking boots and clearly too high to form coherent thoughts beyond telling the judge over and over that she loves her daughter as though it is her capacity for love that is on trial, as opposed to her capacity to provide food, shelter, and safety.  It still makes my stomach hurt.  I do not like this city but I have to go back there to collect my sister's ashes.

Although I appreciate T's kindness so much I wonder if I should just go alone.  Her offer made me wobbly in a way that has since made me ask myself if I should stop being an idiot and go deal with the grown up world like a grown up.  I might just do that.  I haven't decided yet.

D's sister may be dying too - we might have that in common.  When I drove him home (home means foster home) on Wednesday after school he told me I was pretty okay for a white lady.  I side-eyed him while we sat at a traffic light.  I'm not really totally white, I said.  Having none of that, he said, You're actually number one for a white lady.  This kid busts my heart into a million pieces again and again.  Fuck.

*

my sister's ashes

My sister's ashes have me more rattled than I would have expected.  I guess being confronted with her ashes again after thinking they were gone from my world is strange.  It opens up channels that seemed closed, and it stirs up memories that were sleeping quietly.

I meant to tell T on Thursday but Thursday felt too emotionally raw.  Probably because I told J that morning which shook us both a bit.  And T was happy and bubbly and talky and I just didn't want to talk about it.

This morning I had a meeting with the VP about the measles outbreak.  She wanted my advice about how to approach teachers about not being punitive to the students who were not allowed to attend school because they were either unvaccinated or didn't have immunization records.  She was wanting a way to evoke empathy for those students.  And I started to tell her that my belief is that the students who are in the "excluded" category are many of the same students who are already at risk, because the same parents who were too disorganized to keep records or get their children immunized are the same parents who don't help their kids with homework, are the same parents who don't read their kids bedtime stories, are the same parents who are also at risk... and so forth.  And as I was saying this the truth of it was so overwhelming I almost couldn't breathe.  I wanted to tell her my own immunization records were lost and my parents didn't know if I'd been immunized or if I'd had measles, but I suddenly couldn't speak.

I told T about my sister's ashes today instead, shortly after the meeting with the VP.  I did not cry.  But I have realised that T is my person I can cry with.  I have never really had anyone in my life that I could cry with and feel good about it.  I am not a person who cries much or cries easily.  I almost always choose silence over tears.  Which is why I am quiet so often, perhaps.  It is certainly why everyone else in my family spoke at my sister's funeral and I did not.  I appreciate the fact that as I get older I see myself learning to speak through tears when I need to.  And I appreciate that I have made a friend who will be with me when I cry.  T texted me tonight to ask if she could take a day off work with me to go to the police station and get the ashes together.  I was thinking about the day I went to the funeral home to plan my sister's cremation and how alone I felt doing this terrible thing by myself.  And then I was thinking that this moment, the moment I received T's message, was one of the times I have felt most supported in my whole life.


*

or something like it.

The police called my parents to inform them that "human remains" linked to them had been found in the course of a criminal investigation.  By this they meant my sister's ashes had been found.  Her slimy ex-boyfriend had them, and apparently abandoned them, which surprises me not in the least.  Nor does the notion that he would somehow be connected to a criminal investigation.

Now I get to go and pick them up at the police station.  (And do what with them?)  I hope J will want to scatter them rather than keep them, but I won't push her.  It's her mother.  She will have to decide.  She was always annoyed that he had the ashes in the first place, so maybe this will bring her some peace.

*

Roy

Our neighbour's wife had cancer for two years.  She passed away yesterday.  When I try to imagine that kind of loss it feels impossible.  I imagine he had two years to prepare himself for her death; if he is anything like me he thought about it all the time and tried to figure out ways to prevent it, ways to live with it, ways and ways and ways.  But it still seems impossible to me, impossible that a person can lose their life partner and still keep on living their life.  It is my worst fear, truly my worst fear.  Sometimes Shawn tells me he plans to die first so he doesn't have to go through this exact thing, and he assures me that science is on his side.  Statistically women outlive men.  It scares me, and I don't think it's funny.  He thinks he's funny.  Or maybe he really is scared, like me.  Both things could be true at the same time.  Perhaps we need a suicide pact.  Canada has been improving their assisted suicide laws; by the time we are ready maybe we can have a civilized conversation and make an informed decision.  It isn't funny.

*

November 1

That time I said October might not really be as difficult as I tell myself it is, I was mistaken.  October really is the worst.  It's over now.

When my sister was in the first rehab facility, one of her counsellors asked me if I was being an "enabler", because I was bringing her cigarettes.  Not because I was bringing them willingly, but because my sister was threatening to leave rehab if she had no cigarettes, and I was folding into that fear.  It certainly was not the first time I heard the word enabler, but perhaps the first time I had the pointy end of it poked at me.  And it stung a little and  I wasn't sure what to do with it.  In a way I would say it made me angry because I felt, at the time, that the counsellor could not possibly understand my choice and my life and all the complicating factors that went into my decision-making process.  And this, of course, is both true and not true at the same time.

Last week I was in the photocopy room making copies of worksheets from a book I'd purchased for one of my kids, and my new VP stopped to ask me about it, with a few questions about why I had purchased the book, and why I was doing the photocopying, rather than the classroom teacher.  He didn't say the word enabler but I heard it anyway.

Sometimes when I am enabling people I mistake my behaviour for being awesome.  I think I'm being supportive of my colleagues and I think I'm being supportive of my kids.  But maybe what I'm really doing is running myself ragged for the pleasure of people developing the expectation that I will continue to do so.  And maybe I'm disempowering people who may need me to let them find their own power.  But then the kids pay the price while the adults flounder - and I can't stomach it.  I don't know what all this means.  I need to think more.

*

Last week RG called me to tell me that the top HR guy called him to ask if he wanted to come to work at my school, and trade jobs with The Twit.  This is a fascinating development.  RG, unfortunately, did NOT want to trade jobs with The Twit because he likes the job he has, and so the information pipeline closed there.  But it left a million questions whirling through my head.  Is she finally being moved/disciplined?  Will someone else be replacing her?  Or does RG's refusal mark the end of this line?  What is happening?

*

Hello my name is

I've made a decision, which is that I am going to work on Monday and inviting my students to call me by my first name.  If they want to, they can.  If they don't want to, they don't have to.  But I'm sick of having a title imposed on me that only serves to create a false barrier that I do not believe in.  I'm letting the kids decide.

My colleagues might not like it and that has stopped me from doing this for long time.  I have been concerned about annoying others.  And now I've realised I don't care if it bothers them because that is their issue and not mine.

My administration might not like it, and I don't care about that either.  I have a colleague who has not been fired after putting a suicidal student's safety plan in jeopardy; if that doesn't get somebody fired, using my first name certainly isn't going to.  My job is fine.  If they don't like it, they can ask themselves why.



*

With respect to secondary losses

The notion of secondary losses has resonated at times, particularly when I think of one who has been ill regaining strength and regretting the loss of their caregiver’s attention.  When I was a child I revelled in having the flu; it was the only time my mother seemed to like me much at all.  In the EMDR coursework I am doing now today I came up against my own resistance to healing in the recognition of the simple fact that staying angry prevents me from being scared of the fact that she is aging and will one day die.  The first connection, that it gives me distance, was made in class.  The second connection was later tonight.  Processing is quite exhausting.

*

BPPV- left

I am thinking the most sensible response to recurrent bouts of vertigo is to remain drunk as consistently as possible.  It makes vertigo less noticeable, and certainly less troubling.


*

SBT

Thursday's meeting was the funniest in a long time.  I was laughing at my own stupidity as much as anyone else's.  Truncated meeting notes:

admin:  Last June, I placed a billion pieces of paper in each of your mailboxes with no instructions as to what to do with them.  My assumption is that you pulled out the pieces relevant to you and your students and filed them, then passed on the rest of the pile to another department.  Did everyone do that?

N:  (lost down an entirely different rabbit hole)  I am looking at our intake form and wondering if I should adjust the font... mumble mumble

C:  What?  No one told me that!  I didn't know what to do with the giant pile of paper so I threw the whole thing in the recycling bin.  This is someone else's fault.

M:  Umm... what are we talking about?  I didn't get any papers.  No one can prove I did.

me:  Fuck, I thought I was supposed to file all the papers.  So I stayed late three days in a row and did everyone else's work as well as my own.

 (curtain)

 This dialogue summed up all our dysfunction beautifully and I could not stop laughing during this meeting even though admin was becoming irritated.  I have no regrets.  Except for the part where I did all the filing.


*

make the trip

Today I would like to remember what it feels like to call out bullshit right when it happens.  And to stay calm and to stick to my guns, and to let people be accountable for their behaviour.

It would normally have been something that would keep me awake.  But instead I asked CR if I could just address the bullshit with the information he'd given me and he said he was fine with it.  People often don't want to get involved, so having an unexpected ally to support me was a good surprise, especially coming from CR.

So I called it out.  I called them out.  And let them twist with it.  And ignored the deflection.  And accepted the apology.

It was a win.

*

trauma

Today was an admin directed Pro-D day in the sense that they directed me to do it for them.  It was supposed to be their responsibility to find a presenter, but they obviously left it too long and couldn't find one, which was how it ended up on my plate.  When they asked the counselling "team" if we could offer a session on mental health, I cringed at the thought of delivering a workshop with my team.

I work with people who need to be educated about trauma-informed counselling.  I do not work with people who should be educating others about these things.  

The same way that I choose not to sit next to BB in staff meetings because I do not want anyone to think that I agree with her loud sighs, eye rolling, and sarcastic mumblings, I do not want to stand next to my counselling team and have anyone confuse their idiocy with mine.  (I am confident I am an idiot about many things, and in many ways, but I do not want to be mixed into their kind of idiocy.)

So I said I would give the presentation, the whole thing, no help from them.  And none of them had a problem with that, which makes me laugh because if one of them did that, I would have a lot of questions about why.  But not one of them wonders why I don't want their help, don't want them near me, don't want to collaborate with them.... (Or perhaps they want nothing to do with me, either, and are relieved?)

I created the presentation myself, and delivered it myself, and I think it went over well.  My staff is so supportive and kind (and it helps that I drank a lot of beer with many of them on Saturday night).  Giving presentations actually makes me want to throw up, which just illustrates how awful it is that I would rather put myself through it than work with the other counsellors. 

*

ID10T

Tomorrow night I am going to a work party.  Normally I avoid work parties, however, at the last staff meeting I sat beside SU who scolded me for my lack of participation in these things.  He asked me why I never show up, and I agreed with him that for the most part, I am terrible at being any fun whatsoever.  It is entirely possible that I spent an adequate amount of time drinking in my twenties, but that's hard for people to understand, people who either didn't spend an adequate amount of time drinking in their twenties, or people who have unlimited capacity for drinking and partying.

A day after promising to try harder, SU invited me to a thing.  Dammit.

And I don't want to go, which makes me wonder why I am going, and makes me wonder why I want to be invited even though I never want to go.  And I want to have gone, even when I don't want to go.  And it makes me wonder why at my age I should care about the fact that the cool kids still want me to play with them, because I don't want to play with them, but I still want them to want me.  The only possible answer is that I am an idiot.

*

Yesterday afternoon Victim Services showed up at work, asked for one of my colleagues, and took her with them out of the building.  This almost certainly means someone in her immediate family has been killed and her life has changed forever.  Just minutes before that we were trying to figure out how to print student timetables so she could read them more easily, and laughing our heads off as they came out of the printer all wonky and wrong.  We were laughing while someone she loves was probably already dead or dying.  This part of real life never makes sense.

*

21st century

Yesterday I gave a presentation to my staff about our province's new initiative toward more complete inclusion for students in the LGBTQ community.  I am our staff "Lead" for this initiative (a title that means nothing) which makes it my responsibility to keep staff educated and updated about our District's work in this realm.

I don't especially love public speaking, particularly presenting to teachers -- who tend to make poor students.  But the staff was receptive, and I appreciated it.  I suspect they sensed my discomfort and felt compelled to be kind.

My favourite part happened during the coffee break when the dance teacher came up to ask me why the new class lists don't show students' sex the way they did back in 1998.  I explained to her that this has become a non-issue in that we no longer divide classes by sex, and we also try not to make assumptions about a students' gender - not to be confused with their sex.  All this was in the presentation, but I don't know that she really understood it.  She seemed unconvinced.

Then she told me that she hated the fact that our large South Asian population seems to favour names that are used for both males and females, preventing her from figuring out sex that way too.  She said she wanted to know why they can't just have normal names like John and Sally and Bob.

While I was still recovering from that, she leaned in close to whisper in my ear and ask me if one of our staff members (who identifies as two-spirited) has both male and female genitalia.  At that point I busted out laughing because I really couldn't take it anymore.

After that she patted my arm and told me I was doing a good job on the presentation and that if I was nervous I could just picture everyone naked.  I wonder if that's why she feels the need to know what kind of genitals everyone has, so she can picture them naked accurately.


*

don't bark

This afternoon I went for a massage.  Massage therapy is something that has intrigued and repelled me for years.  I have only ever been for a massage one other time.

What intrigues me (obviously) is:
* health benefits
* endorphin snacks
* using health benefits I pay for

What repels me is:
* being touched by a stranger
* paying for being touched by a stranger
* and something more difficult to define that has to do with socioeconomic classes, the same way I cannot pay someone to clean my house or give me a pedicure because it feels too close to paying someone to pull me in a rickshaw while their feet are bleeding, and I know this is sort of irrational, but I can't totally get over it, and believe me when I say I have tried.

Still.  I managed to let go of what was repelling me long enough to do some research, find a registered massage therapist, make an appointment, and attend it.  It was not blissful like the other time I went for a massage.  (I think the first time was a "relaxation" massage, while this one was meant to be therapeutic.)  There was some pain, not really the good kind.  Although it felt good afterward, the way pain does, when the endorphins rush in to fill up the spot that was hurting.

I am trying to push through my semi-phobia about massage therapy and just do it, because I feel like it could be beneficial.  My stupid back and neck get sore from working at my stupid computer, and I do believe there is good reason to think a proper massage once in awhile could help.

I have set some goals for myself this school year, goals around attending better to my own selfish self, because I began to recognize what burnout would feel like if one more person asked me for one more thing on the last day of school... when I felt some kinship with people who go on killing sprees.  And attending better means things like going home at the end of a work day instead of trying to do the whole next day's work at the end of the day to save myself stress the following day (it never works like that).  And it means not doing work at home in the evenings and on weekends all the time.  Not letting my career completely devour my life (and me) and spitting out bone dust.  And it probably means that using my health benefits to have a massage every few weeks would be a good thing too to prevent my spine from turning into a circle.  So I'm trying to make some shifts in my thinking and my behaviour, and choosing a change I can make.  Paying a stranger to inflict pain on me is a strange place to start, but probably one of the easiest.  I can only imagine what the cascade effect will be.

*

September

I worked my first day back from summer on Monday.  It was a nice day because I was working alone; the rest of my department was not invited for this one.  This was just me and my computer fixing up schedules.  It's fantastic how quickly things get done when you aren't being interrupted every five minutes.

I was interrupted at one point, however, by my adminstrator, K.  K wanted me to go through my notes (and memories) to see what instances I could recall of M's incompetence.  M is being investigated by the licensing body, and this is a serious thing, the kind of investigation that can result in a person losing their license if found grossly incompetent, and even if only found to be somewhat incompetent, a person's name can be published for all to see.  I think I might find that worse than losing my license.

Something that surprised me was the fact that K doesn't seem to have her own file or memories of all the crazy things that M has done in the last few years.  Things that been burned into my memory.  Maybe this means K is disorganized.  (Or maybe it means I ruminate too much.)  It seems to me that the fact that M has been allowed to continue her pattern of incompetence for so long is a comment on several cylces of administration as well as it is on her.  The fear of our union (I assume) has prevented them from taking appropriate action for a very long time, but it seems clear, now that the licensing body is investigating, that things have gone too far.

M did not make me very angry last school year.  She was only working half time, and so she had less time to be irritating.  In the time she was there, she seemed to be working more often than not (which is new) and seemed to get more done than she has in the last decade.  So she wasn't high on my radar.  (Interesting that now is when things are coming to light.)  I have gotten better at ignoring her too, which is a relief.  Frankly, I hope this investigation results in her being removed from her position - although I think this is unlikely - because sometimes I want to believe in Justice.

Next, C.  C is not grossly incompetent.  She is simply aggravating.  Obnoxious.  Entitled.  That kind of thing.  I guess she can't be investigated for that.  But I can work on doing a better job of ignoring her too.  And I will.  Because here comes September.


*

sorry

D

D has been writing to me the last couple of days.  I normally try (really hard) not to use my work email over the summer, not to encourage kids or parents to contact me when they need to learn to contact professionals in the community.  Or just deal.  But with D it's different.  He wasn't looking for me to help him or to do anything for him.  He just wanted to tell me he was doing okay and ask me how my summer was going.  I love this kid so much.

*

pen

Do you ever notice how different people are in writing than they are in person?  I guess it has to do with a mix of a.) literary skill/training/interest and b.) social skills.

For example... my husband is not especially good in writing.  He is abrupt, to say the least.  One word answers are generally what I expect from texting him, and so I usually only text him to make small requests: Can you get the mail? or to give him information: You have a dentist appointment today at 4:00.  I might even say, I love you and get Love in return, but I know better than to expect a sonnet.

If I met him on an online dating service, I would skip over him very quickly, because I would assume he was a bit of an ape, which in actual fact he is not.  But he doesn't enjoy typing, and he doesn't enjoy putting his thoughts into written form.  He's happy to talk about things, but I don't ask him to write things down.  His social game is high, his written game is low to average.

I think I'm the opposite.  I like putting thoughts into writing because I can rethink them or correct them or delete them.  And it helps me sort myself out.  However, my social game is lame.  It involves a lot of long pauses and sarcasm.  It makes me think of Gavin, who writes very beautiful things, witty things, self-deprecating things; if I met Gavin in an online dating forum I would be highly intrigued by him, but in reality he is a very peculiar man who does not recognize faces, and does not know about things like sharing, or being on time, or making small talk.  I have a lot of empathy for people like Gavin (I think I have some of these shortcomings too) but I would not want to be married to him.
And then there's Rohan, who I always enjoyed in person, but who makes me furious when he writes things because somehow everything he puts down in writing comes off as arrogant and rude and intolerant.  It makes me dislike him, even though I liked him very much when we saw each other regularly.

I wonder which version of yourself is more real, the written version or the in-person version.



*

no yoga.

No it's not decompensation; it's a real relapse and I'm not going to yoga today after all.  I was stretching in the living room, trying to psych myself up for yoga, trying to prove to myself that I was fine, when it happened again.  There is a problem again.  Fuck fuck fuck.  It's not really that surprising.  According to the literature, half of people with BPPV relapse in the first five years.

I've already made a physio appointment for tomorrow afternoon.  My guy doesn't work there anymore, but they have a new vestibular therapy person.  I hope she knows what she's doing.  I'm so mad.  But I'm trying to keep breathing.  This is different from last time.  Different because the dizziness is far milder.  And also different because this time I know what it is and there's not the same kind of fear about what might happen or what it is.  I know what it is.  It sucks, but it's liveable.  I'll be fine.  It just fucks up my plans to spend the next month in yoga class.

*

BPPV again

The BPPV started in April of 2015, according to the notes I made, which means more than three years ago.  This summer I have returned to Bikram yoga more fully than I ever have since then.  For the first time in three years I have been doing full inversions, and even being able to get through the whole series without really thinking about vertigo at all.

This morning I woke up, sat up, and felt a weird wave of vertigo.  Not like the first time (the first time it was so strong I could not walk and had to cling to Shawn just to get across the room without falling down).  Not like that.  Just a wave, washed over and passed, almost gone before I was able to fully register it had even happened.

It leaves me wondering if it really occurred at all.

But it also scares me.  (Vertigo is a strangely terrifying thing; it doesn't seem like a person would be so afraid of dizziness when it's just a word.  Dizziness doesn't seem that scary until it's happening and you cannot stop it.)

We went on a hike this morning anyway, as we planned.  I scanned the ground the whole time, looking for evidence that I was relapsing.  Couldn't find it.  Except for the fact that when you are hyper-alert looking for it, every sensation feels like it could be something.

I did some Epley maneuvers.  Felt strange.  A little wobbly.  But not like the other time.  The ceiling stayed up and the floor stayed down.

So I'm not really sure what's going on.  Decompensation, perhaps.  But why?

Or if it's actually a relapse, it's far less serious than last time.

Tomorrow I'm going to yoga anyway.  Treat it with indifference, the Winter Prairie doctor told me once.  (He was referring to a virus, but I think it still applies.)

I really really really really hope it's just decompensation, and I can push my stupid little pea-brain to fix it.

*

open letters

Dear Mark Zukerberg,

I guess I've already addressed you on the issue of dead people's accounts, but it doesn't seem to stop coming up in new and sort of horrifying ways.  This morning I found I had been "tagged" by a dead friend who wanted me to know that Ray Bans are on sale for a ten percent discount.  In life, he was not the sort of person who would have worn (or promoted) Ray Bans, and even less so in death.  Not only had he tagged me, but also about forty of our other mutual high school friends, and among the list of those tagged, another one was, you guessed it, dead.  She might have worn Ray Bans but I doubt it.  I wonder how many of the people who received notifications about Ray Bans through one of these dead friends or another went out today and bought some?  I wonder how many will?

Stupid social media.  It's all free, and so we haven't any right to complain, not really, not even when ghoulish things like this happen, but I find it jarring when the dead send me messages - through Facebook or any other medium.  I fear it also means I might start to tune out the messages from the dead until I miss a real one.  Mark Zukerberg, it isn't your problem alone to address this.  But I wonder what you can do, if anything.  I know I would appreciate it.

okay

It is hilarious to me that although most of what I write here goes unread, this post perpetually attracts attention from spambots who want to sell my dog prescription drugs without a prescription.  I have stopped deleting their responses because I like them.

Yesterday M posted something about how "junkies" get their naloxone shots for free, but people with allergies have to pay a lot of money for their epipens.  (She blames it on Trudeau.)  I teeter on the brink of saying caustic things, sometimes, but M is in her seventies and I decided to leave her alone.  She sees the world that way, and that's a luxury that maybe she deserves.  I don't know, maybe she does.  Maybe.


*

John

John died about three weeks ago.  I didn't really know John, although I considered him a nemesis of sorts.  We were briefly engaged in a battle over the devotion of about twenty-five seventeen year-olds when I was hired to do his job in 2008, while he was recovering from an illness.  Who won that battle is unclear; perhaps it was a draw.  When he did not come back to work, and I kept the job, that was when the tide turned in my favour and that crop of kids graduated and took their I HEART JOHN t-shirts with them.  I was hired because he was sick, and yet I always felt there was some animosity between us as though I had pushed him out.  He kept in touch with the kids while I was teaching them and encouraged them not to connect with me because he would be back soon.  This turned out not to be the case, but his poison was still semi-effective.  There was a group I could never reach.

I only met John once, and he was pleasant enough that day.  He told me he intended to sleep on the floor of our shared office during his spare block.  He told me he was lucky to have the right kind of insurance that allowed him to work part time but be paid full time.  I cannot say he made a good impression on me.  Fortunately he ended up not coming back to work at my school after all, and therefore I never had to step over his sleeping body to get to my books, nor hear anything else about his finances.  He was pleasant enough.  Most of my understanding of him was developed through the words of others: staff members who told me how obnoxious he was to work with, and kids who told me he'd messaged them on Facebook to tell them to tell me what plays he would prefer I not teach.  I had a low key hatred for him that may or may not have been accurately rooted in reality.

Now John has died of a heart attack, which apparently was not a surprise to anyone.  It is interesting to see what people write about him now he is gone.  It is almost as though their words erase the reality of a perfectly imperfect human being, it is almost as though they intentionally choose words that reflect the opposite.

It makes me think about what I would want for myself if I was to die all of a sudden at the age of forty-eight.  I would not want to canonized on social media, nor in person.  As a theatre major, I know my most interesting qualities are my flaws - and I suspect John knew this too.  I would hate for anyone to proclaim me to be "principled" and "devoted" and "adored" when we all know damn well that I'm awesome only until I'm not.

The best funeral I ever went to was for Carol, a secretary from my first school.  Carol was a fiesty old lady who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day and sassed everyone who got thinking they were too important.  Her family recognized her for her true self in that service, and told hilarious stories that reflected her comic genius and her true character.  And then they invited us to come up and share our stories too.  I laughed a lot at the funeral and left feeling like I knew her better, and loving her all the more.  That is how I want to be remembered, by people who really know me, and aren't afraid to point out my flaws and laugh at them with me.

Poor John.  He died very young.  I'm not afraid to say he was probably a narcissistic, insecure fuck who was taking advantage of his union.  I wouldn't put it his obituary, nor post it on his Facebook wall, but let's laugh about it here.  And let's also recognize that my information has been filtered through other opinionated people, and my eulogy of John may say more about me and them than it does about him.  Amen.



*

I've missed what could have been

When I read The Scarlet Ibis in tenth grade I overidentified with Brother, and it made me ill.  I was mean to my sister in childhood just as he was mean to his brother.  There were times I wanted to leave her behind, gasping for air, so I could keep up with my friends and not have everyone see my damaged sister lagging behind.  There were times I did leave her to die.  (There was that one time when she actually died.)  The story has always been my most and least favourite.

(The other day J came home from her internship at the hospital, telling me about a baby who was born in a caul.  I do not think she read The Scarlet Ibis in her English class in high school.  Her English teachers were my colleagues.  Neither of them, in my opinion, would have had the fortitude to tackle James Hurst.)

Sometimes, in high school, I would discuss literature with my mother.  In fact it was the only conversation we could safely have.  She knew The Scarlet Ibis well, and she also had a brother who was damaged.  The difference was (is) that her brother did not die, strangled by the knot of cruelty that is perhaps, genetic.  Her brother is still alive today, and she claims to have been kind to him when they were children.  Perhaps she was.  He does not refute it.  My mother may have recognized, briefly, the way the story was striking me. But my sister was alive when we had these conversations; perhaps my mother could still look at my sister then without seeing gravestones.  Regardless, we agreed, at a time in our lives when we agreed on nearly nothing, that The Scarlet Ibis was a brilliant illustration of the complexity of sibling relationships and of human nature.

Sometimes I try to pick at the knot of cruelty, even try to pick it apart it just a little, but it is a tighter knot than one might expect. Being small it is easy to miss.  But there are times it nearly stops me from breathing.  It would be, wouldn't it, the ultimate justice if the knot strangled its owner instead of someone else?

*


When I started writing this, I meant it to be about the ways in which I try (sometimes unsuccessfully) to stifle the urge to sabotage CC.  I have spent absurd amounts of time on self-reflection asking myself why I want to destroy her, and the answer is unclear.  She is shallow.  Is that enough of a reason?  Why does that mean I should be engaged in a perpetual battle with myself to smother my desire to undo her work, hide her belongings, discredit her with our colleagues?  Why do I hate her so fervently, why?  If I thought I could get away with more active displays of my distaste for her, I would not hold back as much as I do.  As it stands, I simply disclude her as much as possible, and I recognize that this is mean, old school mean, like a jealous sixteen year old lashing out, but I have spent time with this problem.  It isn't jealousy.  It's something else, something far more complex.

It is, like James Hurst's character Brother, me picking up on a weakness, a social mismatch, and instead of nurturing her, I want to exploit that weakness and make her face her imperfection and rue it properly and thoroughly, and concede that she is less able to chameleon herself in socially desirable ways.  Basically, I want to destroy her.  And this is twisted.  My entire career is based upon nurturing misfits and helping them find their niche outside the mainstream, embracing their true quirky selves, and I do this with genuine love and compassion.  It doesn't make sense that this one person activates such primal ugliness in me.  It makes me question whether I have capacity for sociopathy.  Does thinking such things qualify one for the diagnosis, or does one have to act upon those thoughts?  It's a fine line, isn't it.



*

what did you order?

I am becoming suspicious that R may have an alcohol problem.  Yesterday when I stepped into his office to borrow his address stamp, the office smelled of alcohol.  I could be wrong about this.  But that's what I think.


*

I gave R permission to go windsurfing with the Outdoor Ed class today instead of working in the counselling office.  I did this for a couple of reasons:  I believe in supporting other departments where we can, and the O.E. department needed another chaperone; I believe in the counselling value of quality time spent with our kids outside of our offices; but mostly, I like it when M comes back to work on Monday and has to do her own work because R wasn't there to do it for her.


*

grate

It is roadkill season.  Which I will not write about because it (seriously) bothers me.  A lot.

*

The former student, kid but not kid, adult manchild - who contacted me on New Year's Eve to tell me his mother had died - was lying.  That's fucked up, right?  He was lying to me.  Why?

*

Mediation fascinates me.  When I meet the first person, I always find myself taken with their story, ready to align myself (secretly) against the other person.  And then the second person comes in and woos me over to their side and I find myself completely torn.  I think this is exactly the way it should be, that I should find myself on side with both people - because that means I want what is best for both of them.  Because it means I am motivated to help them find a solution that makes them both happy.

The first woman today was warm and bubbly and funny, wept openly and wore her heart on her sleeve.  I was completely charmed.  She was exactly the sort of woman I am always friends with, the extroverted mama type who folds me up in her arms and makes me feel loved.  Like T.  I liked her immediately.

And then the second woman told her story and I over-identified with her to a degree that I was stunned by it.  Stunned because her friend described her as cold and rigid and inflexible.  And stunned because she, herself, told me she could not tolerate weakness in herself or others.  And I wanted to ask her about her overly critical mother, because obviously she has one of those, and I wanted to tell her that she can soften a little without losing control, but I didn't say that because I'm not a counsellor in this situation.  But really.  She was me, just a bit more sure of her me-ness than I am.

Tomorrow we have the part where we all meet and try to generate solutions to the problem.  Clearly the T-Doppelganger will cry, and apologize, and over-own the problem.  And extend herself to do what she can to make things better.  And the Me will not cry with all her might, and will say she needs nothing from this mediation, nothing other than to be left alone with herself.  She is a rock, she is an island.  And in the end, will they find a resolution to their dispute?  I do hope so.


*

source

I am booked the next two days to facilitate a mediation between two elementary teachers who are embroiled in a dispute.  Apparently they both applied for the same job, and since one got it and the other didn't, they have been fighting at work.  Yelling.  Harassing.  This sort of behaviour.  This kind of thing blows my mind, which I guess isn't appropriate for a mediator to say, but it really does.  Although I do not have the most effective filter when I am out in the wilds (especially while consuming wine), my filter at work is strong and effective.  I cannot fathom yelling at a co-worker - although imagining it is delicious.  If yelling at co-workers was an option, there are a number of people upon whom I would unleash my wrath --  and it would be satisfying.  (But why do people think they can do this??)

*

We are closing in on the end of the school year and I am hopeful that I have cleared the biggest of the hurdles to be faced.  D, of course, has been my most time-consuming and heart-wrenching investment.  I feel he is in a good place, as good as he can be.   Next year I will have my EMDR license and I see him at the top of my list of people who would benefit.  He has PTSD, for certain.  Meanwhile, his foster mother has formed a beautiful bond with him, enough so that he has decided to forego independent living and stay with her until he turns 19.  I see this as an incredible development.

*

first a look at our top stories

Why do newscasters deliver the news as though it is happening in the present rather than the past?  "Next up, a man startles a woman by getting into her car with her while she is having a nap in the parking lot behind the grocery store!"  The immediacy of it makes it seem even more alarming.  But it happened yesterday.  The woman is okay.  The man is in custody.  It's past.  (It's still super weird though.  Who has a nap in their car in the middle of the day?)

*

Schönbrunn

I had planned to decline going on the next trip with RW.  It was a back-and-forth internal debate, but I could not get past the negatives, until LM decided to come with us, which is a game changer.  She makes everything more tolerable, even the sound of RW chewing, snoring, and talking incessantly.  It changes everything.  So I told RW I would go; Germany (again), Austria, Switzerland.

*

it'sthatbad

Friday was the kind of work day I like best.  M does not work on Fridays and C called in sick (which she does quite frequently).  That meant it was me and N and R, the team I far prefer.  However, N made the mistake of opening a file in the shared drive to ask me a question, during which I noticed that the entire team had neglected to do some important paper work that was meant to be done back in October.

I was mad.  It isn't that I am a person who yells and screams - because I don't - but I was mad, clearly mad.  N tried to tell me he didn't know he was supposed to do this paperwork, but then meekly subsided when we found that he had actually started one of the forms and didn't finish it.  Clearly he knew he was meant to do it because at some point he had started.  (R wasn't part of the team at this time so he was out of the line of fire.)  C and M hadn't even started.  I wasn't in the least bit surprised by M because she consistently does not do her job, but I was surprised and extra annoyed by C, who dislikes being asked to do anything because she already knows everything.  R witnessed me ranting but did not say a word.  At the time I thought I was educating him (potentially) about the importance of doing his paperwork lest his Department Head lose her shit.

At the end of the day, R stopped by my office to chat.  It wasn't until he left that I realized he had sneakily been counselling me for the last twenty minutes.  With all the apparent naiveté of a twenty-something counselling student he doled out some very gentle wisdom, gently enough I almost didn't notice he had given it to me, or that I had taken it.  It was quite lovely.  It gave me clarity to let N off the hook (since he was already squirming), to address it with C on Monday morning (calmly), and to ignore M with purpose and decisiveness.  It is my opinion that R is going to be a better counsellor than any of us.  He spoke to me about relinquishing that which doesn't belong to us.  I think I like listening to him because he comes off like a bit of a dumb jock, but then surprises me with his insight and vocabulary.  It's disarming.

*

Paul

On Wednesday evening I sent B a text to remind him we are going to the Paul Simon concert next week.  Normally B responds very quickly when I talk to him.  When I went to bed he still had not responded, and I knew that he was going to bail.  He finally answered at 4:00 on Thursday, admitting that he was double-booked.  He was apologetic.  I was unsurprised.  (The surprise was when he accepted my invitation - because he would have had to take a night off his other job, which he clearly did not.)

What he could not know was that I had been somewhat dreading our night together.  While it seemed like fun when I invited him, it's indubitable that my exuberance was at least partially bolstered by wine.  A sober eight weeks later it was starting to make me nervous to imagine trying to talk to him for longer than five minutes, face to face rather than by text.

B is a nice guy, but he's so introverted.  I have never been alone with him, and I didn't (don't) have confidence in my ability to facilitate an entire night of back and forth with him.  Prior to the concert we would have had to manage transportation conversation, and then dinner conversation.  I was apprehensive about all of it, so when he apologized profusely and asked me for another date in the summer, it was with no difficulty that I forgave him lightly and completely ignored the request for another chance.

I am taking J to the concert instead, and there is nothing inside me that feels uncomfortable with that.


*

D

D.

I made a mistake, I think, in not spending more time with him to prepare him for this week.  The interview with the immigration lawyer shook him more than I thought it would.  But of course I had no idea what kinds of things the lawyer would want to talk about.  D told the lawyer about his sister, that his mother sold her when she was five, for ten thousand dollars.  He shared that with me quite awhile ago, but I did not think it would come up at this meeting.  Does it bring back the nightmares?

D.

He skipped his interview for the trade program this morning.  We had arranged for me to drive him.  Instead he skipped class and hid from me.  Again, I think I made a mistake in not preparing him better for this interview.  But I had not anticipated his mother would phone him.  I had not expected her to sabotage his confidence.  She told him not to go into the program.  Instead she would come to get him and they could move together to a new home.

D.

He knows in his heart, in the dark ink-stained part of his damaged heart that his mother is not coming back.  She abandoned him.  She will not be back.  She says she loves him, she says things will be better.  He loves her, he wants his mama.  But she cannot cross the border.  She has a criminal record.  She simply cannot be who he wants her to be.  She is too broken and damaged herself to be anything to him but a drain.  And last night she drained away his confidence before his interview to make sure he wouldn't take another step away from her.

D.

He told me he didn't want to talk to me.  I did not let him go.  I usually let him go when he wants to go.  I told him that I thought he probably felt like he was having to choose between himself and his mother.  He started to cry when I said that.  That's how you know you hit the bullseye, when they cry.  We talked about how he could choose himself without cutting out his mother.  We talked about how he could take care of himself without hurting her.  It's all so painful.  These things are true, but they hurt him because he knows that every step he takes toward independence inevitably takes him further away from her.

D.

It mirrors what happened with J and her mom, my sister.  It's so hard to watch.

D.

Steve managed to convince them to give D another interview time tomorrow.  I am not going to waste a minute finding him tomorrow to make sure I get in his head first, with all the positivity I can muster about his potential and his future and his endless possibilities.  If his mother were to die it would probably help him in the long run.  My sister was considerate enough to do that for J.


EMDR

I have registered to take an EMDR course next school year.  This is specialized training for treatment of post traumatic stress.  It costs 2K for me to take this training - and my district, of course, does not pay for it.  It is coming from my pocket.  Because I want kids like D not to suffer so much, so long.  I need a better tool.

sarcastic dishrag

S is leaving, which makes me both sad and hopeful about the future.  He is a lovely person, kindhearted and warm.  He is easy to work with because his expectations are minimal, and he thinks everything I do is wonderful.  This is a soft place to be, and I like it, but it does not challenge me; all my challenge comes from other sources, but it is his office where I spend the most time collaborating, and he has little to offer to that process beyond compliments.  He has been offered an opportunity that is good for him, and for which he is well-suited.  In the interim until summer I will be working with H, which is great.  H is stronger than S in terms of discipline.  He isn't afraid to call parents and to call kids out on stupid behaviour.  He is also kind and warm, and his compliments (unlike S's compliments) contain a bit of innuendo.  He will listen to me and do what I tell him - for the most part.

The real question is who will be assigned to the position in September, because I will work with that person closely for the next five years.  It could be anyone, but I have a vision in my mind's eye of who it should be.  The District doesn't generally (has never) answered my prayers in this regard and yet I chose to hope this time it will be different.  I don't care if they send me a man or a woman; I just want someone smart who will balance their kindness with some leadership and direction.  I want it all.  (Amen.)


*

I am not going to work today because I am owed time, and it always strikes me funny how I struggle with these days off.  Although they are a treat, at the same time I cannot help but check my email throughout the day to find out what I'm missing, and I cannot help but feel aggravated imagining the fuck-up things that the rest of them will do for my kids while I am gone.  Yes, that's right.  I am irreplaceable.  (Haha.)


*

I have embarked on another water fast.  Our first fast was highly successful (though difficult) and we managed seven days without any cheating.  Since then we have attempted a few more, and always broken down around the end of day two, which is when hunger peaks - along with irritability and fatigue.  It's the hardest part, and we have been weak.  This time I am doing it alone (S is doing cardio and doesn't want to lose momentum), and somehow I think this will make it easier rather than more difficult, because I cave when he caves.  It's only the start of day 2, however, so I may not be as strong as I think I am.  But I have strategically organized my time so that I will return to work on day 5, by which point the misery should have abated.  I will save my worst self for my family, who are forced to tolerate me in spite of my plan to morph into a sarcastic dishrag for the next 48 hours.


*

pending

My heart aches for those affected by this terrible tragedy... blah blah blah... May this small gesture provide some comfort in their time of loss... blah blah blah.... --insert narcissistic selfie of me wearing hockey jersey, attempting a balanced blend of somber and cuteness--

I don't get how that provides anyone a "small measure of comfort".  It sort of makes me want to make retching noises at people.  But I should be kinder.  People want to make gestures, they just don't know how (while still clinging tightly to their wallets).

*

I keep having strange dreams of being back in high school where I am expected to perform mathematical feats of brilliance that I could not have accomplished when I was a student, let alone now with the benefit of more than twenty five years to forget what little I knew.  I wonder what this means.

*

the next system moves in tomorrow

When L told me he'd read my mother's book, I felt an odd and unexpected sense of betrayal, odd on several counts.  Odd because, a.) L owes no loyalty as we don't really know one another anymore, b.) L does not know I have any problem with the book, and c.) he likely read the book because I promoted it, at my mother's request.

Logic does not exactly assuage the feeling, however, and something prickly inside me wanted to pursue it.  He told me his wife (ex-wife?) is similarly ill.  This is sad, of course, for him and for their children.  But I still wanted to point out that he has been chasing the mentally ill since I met him in eighth grade.  And I wanted to ask him what he gets out of being in a relationship with someone who is damaged and dependant - because clearly this is exactly what he seeks.  It is what he was drawn to as a young teenager, and it is who he continued to be drawn to in adulthood and took seriously enough to marry and have children...  (This might be the least compassionate response a person could have when an old friend is expressing a vulnerable part of himself.  What tempts me to take a bloody swipe at his jugular while it's softly exposed?)

I resisted the pull toward this ugly line of interrogation, but felt relieved when he had to go to take a business call in case I lost control of my tongue.  (T always tells me she is frightened in meetings when I do not speak because my silence is so loud.  I prefer this vision of myself, as having the power to capture everyone's attention without speaking.  But unfortunately I have less discipline over the things that come out of my mouth than she thinks.)  I managed to keep myself quiet.

*

T texted me this morning to tell me she is taking the day off work to go to a doctor appointment.  She did not know that I had also booked today off.  My purpose - to take one of the dogs to the doggy dentist.  This is not a valid use of sick time, but it is my first sick day this school year, so I feel no guilt.  And I am pleased that T and I are away on the same day because I dislike working without her.  People will likely think we have taken the day off to play hooky together - which would have been fun if we had organized ourselves better.

*

I am rather fascinated by Kinder Morgan's announcement today about halting work on the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project.  Rachel Notley is losing her shit at British Columbia and the whole thing has me mesmerized.  I wonder if this is like a bull fight - or if it is more a game of chicken.  Are the threats real?  Are the weapons really sharp?  Will Albertans really stop drinking BC wine?


*

why are you yelling

On Wednesday a colleague of mine received word her eldest son had died of an accidental overdose.  Heroin and Fentanyl.  Her daughter is a student at the school.   Immediately administration took over how the news would be broken to the daughter.  And how many days off school she would be told to take.  And her counsellor took over instructing her on how to grieve and how to recover.

The whole affair made me sick to my stomach.  It has been a long time now since Colleen died of her overdose, but the memory of people trying to tell me how to live with that is powerfully clear.  Her counsellor trying to talk to me about enabling.  My mother trying to talk to me about how it is okay to feel relief when someone dies.  All the opinions of people who did not know our relationship, did not know how I felt, telling me how I felt, how I should feel, and how I should proceed.  I came back to work very quickly after her death, sooner than all my helpful advisors wanted, because it seemed worse to be alone at home with it.  And one day, after everyone thought I was fine, I went home from work in the middle of the day without asking or telling anyone.

In our team meeting, I asked my administrative and counselling colleagues not to tell our colleague or her daughter what they need right now.  I suggested instead to ask them what they need, and then facilitate it without judgment or questions.  They all looked at me like I was crazy.  K said, I appreciate that Lisa, and then proceeded to carry on with making her plans.

*

mistrial

Travelling with him causes me to puzzle over my relationship with RW.  There are times we are very much in synch with each other; those moments when you can look across a room and make eye contact and know exactly what the other person is thinking and it makes you bust out laughing.  Likewise we have these lovely moments where we are able to predict what the other one needs and provide it ahead of time preventing the momentary glitch that would otherwise have caused a jolt.

And yet, there are also moments where I find myself irritated to a degree that I have to leave the space he occupies.  We are such different people, and I struggle with some aspects of his personality - in particular his incessant narrative, delivered at full volume, without time for a breath.  I believe in his intentions (to entertain, to share, to connect) but I find it exhausting that he fills every space with noise and rarely ever stops to listen.  It leaves no room for anyone else to have a thought, an idea, a personality, and everyone around him becomes an audience member (welcome) or invisible (unwelcome).  I start out as audience but always fade to invisible by the end of the trip because I cannot maintain interest or patience.  And it seems that the more I retreat, the more manic his need to be the centre of attention becomes.

It is now another year until we do this again (maybe) - which gives me plenty of time to recover.  And him plenty of time to develop new material.

*

i'm gonna give you some of my good time

Ronda, Spain.

Portugal

In the last 24 hours in Lisbon I have been offered cocaine and hash more times than I have been offered these things in the whole rest of my life.  I am pretending in my head that it is because I am on a working trip that I have declined everything offered to me, but the truth is that it is mostly because the great risk-taking days of my life are done anyway.  My wild nights now in Lisbon consist of sneaking a few glasses of wine and some cigarettes at the end of the day.  It does not make me sad to find myself more interested in getting six hours of sleep than in testing these waters.  It probably makes RW a little sad; I have accepted the fact that on these trips I am the voice of reason.

Being the voice of reason is not my strongest suit, but I recognize that I choose my people this way.  I choose people with good boundaries who say no on my behalf and make it easy for me to shrug and tell myself that I am far more exciting than I really am.  In this way RW is a terrible match for me because I think he would prefer me to say yes on his behalf so he would have someone else to blame when things go crazy.

I do not accept that there is something about me that attracts these offers.  I believe the 82 year old grandmothers received the same invitations I did today. Truly.

sooner than you think

Not to jinx it but today I managed to set my own schedule at work and to catch up on some paperwork because there were no crises.  None!  Only one small panic attack and a complaint about a stressful weekend with family members fighting.  Beyond that, I did my paper and got caught up.  I'd be bored if it was always that quiet, but today I was very grateful for the time.

The one who had the bad weekend... he told me that his stepfather calls him "Nips" in reference to the fact that stepdad thinks the kid's nipples are inordinately large, and humiliates him about it at every opportunity.  Hearing this kind of thing makes me so angry.  How can an adult person think this is an acceptable way to treat a self-conscious, shy fourteen year old?  Does he want the child to hate his body?  Does he want the child to hate him?  Why would anyone do this?

In the big picture, this isn't a big thing.  I have kids in foster homes, and kids whose parents are drug addicted and physically violent.  But it still makes me mad.  I want to meet this stepparent and figure out what he's most self-conscious about and mention it loudly until he slinks away in embarrassment.


*

tu me manques

This is C, who wears this shirt to staff meetings and professional development activities as a form of sarcastic protest.  His name tag says Beta4, which is in reference to a stupid team building game we were made to play.  I think I love C because I was afraid of him for several years when we first met, and in my twisted world this kind of fear dissolves and funnels itself into respect and eventually adoration.  Now I call him Prickly to his face and pinch his prickly face, but I like the fact that I'm still slightly afraid he will snap and bite me.

*

that's all i'm qualified to be

There was a strange period of time in my life that I seemed to have the power to conjure up people by talking about or thinking about them.  It worked on former boyfriends, former teachers, former colleagues, and strangely enough it even once worked on a celebrity.  That is to say, I mentioned him and then suddenly he was there, in a Pub in downtown Winter Prairie.  My friends were super impressed.  This was how it worked on all of them.  I would say something like, Remember so-and-so, how they used to do such-and-such?  And then right after I said it, so-and-so would show up, just like magic.  But I only possessed this magic for a short period of time, about six weeks one summer, around 1998.  The power went away before I could use it to try and summon Chris Cornell.  (If you didn't know me and you read this you would think I had delusions of reference.)

*

B did not stop texting me, and I did not stop responding.  I have gone back to thinking he just wants a friend.  And I can be that.  Maybe he wants to be my work-husband, which is a platonic position.  My first work-husband was Dodo, and I can never really replace him.  But maybe B would like to be my second most loved work-husband.


*

We'll do it together, Morris.

I used to have a t-shirt that read, "Lord Jesus, your sheep have sharp teeth" across the chest, and there was a picture of a cute lamb with evil looking vampire teeth.  I had no idea what this meant, and I also have no idea what happened to that shirt.  I liked it a lot.  It is possible that I was wearing a doomsday Christian message, much like the man on the corner of 152 and Fraser who wears a sandwich board, "Repent, Jesus Comes", and didn't even know it.

Today I am skipping work because I intentionally scheduled a dentist appointment in the middle of the day, which allows me to take the whole day off without feeling like I am doing the wrong thing.  My first "sick" day this year.  I messaged T to let her know I would help her with her purchase order later and she responded, "We'll do it together, Morris." Autocorrect slays me sometimes.  Shawn and I went for breakfast and sunrise walk on the beach.  It helps me envision retirement.  Shawn found a phone on the sand; the owner called it an hour later, and now they are meeting at a coffee shop to hand it back.  These kinds of chance meetings fascinate me.  Who is she?

B stopped texting, which probably means he picked up my (subtle?) hint.  I don't want to hurt his feelings but isn't it more hurtful to encourage him to think something that isn't so?  I can't remember how to do this; it has been a long time since I have been in this sort of a situation.


*

may your heart always be ardent

It is possible that B thinks we are dating.  (Is that really possible?)  It may be my fault; I asked him to go to see Paul Simon with me - mostly because I want to see Paul Simon but also because I like B, and largely because I am exuberant when I am drinking wine.  The next day he asked me to see another concert with him, a band I do not know.  And now he has begun texting me things throughout the day, innocuous enough... but I am unsure how to respond.

Through most of my twenties and thirties I drove Shawn mad being that girl who never thought anyone was hitting on me, that everyone was just friendly.  And now in my forties - my sensible-slash-paranoid decade when no one should be remotely interested in hitting on me at all, I am picking up something that feels a bit strange.  Like, I think B is testing the waters to see what I might do.  He's a sweet guy, quite shy, rather introverted, and I do not believe he will try anything.  But I do believe that he is waiting to see if I have enough wine if I'll accidentally fall into bed with him.  And that makes me nervous because I am always quite likely to have too much wine, and I prefer being able to rely on others to have clear boundaries when mine get porous.

Will I have to go to these concerts sober?  (!!)  Being in a crowd of several thousand people without a buzz seems implausible.

*

it's not the band i hate, it's their fans

Sometimes we struggle as a nation to define our sound, to find our voices, to speak our truth.  Or at least to make a clean apology.  We may not know exactly what it is we're sorry for, but we certainly do know we are sorry.  But that is only because we get stuck with sounds like Nickelback -that do not accurately define us the way we want to be remembered - which is why I recommend going back to the cassette tapes and having another listen.  It makes everything that much clearer.

I means yes.  There are bigger ones.  Our Lady Peace.  Tragically Hip (of course).  Blue Rodeo.  Cowboy Junkies.  But there are better ones.

(But I mean, whose voice represents yours best when your throat is all closed up with tears and you cannot speak at all?)

:
Weakerthans (Winnepeg, oh, one great city)
Grapes of Wrath (Kelowna, home of the houseboat and unlicensed teachers, haha)
Sloan (they say they're from Halifax, but let's be honest, I think they're actually from Truro)

My city's still breathing, though barely it's true, through buildings gone missing like teeth.  The sidewalks are watching me think about you, all sparkled with broken glass.  (In dreams this is how the world talks to me; orgasmic poetic easily swept away awash in words.)  It does not take much wine for this sort of clarity.

In five weeks we are leaving for Portugal, cities I have never seen...   Lisbon, which Lara says is the most perfect place in the world.  She is the most well-travelled person I know, and so I listen when she tells me things like this.  Last time I brought her maple syrup and jade.  Perhaps this time I will bring her Canadian music.  I think this could be a valuable gift.


*

retirement

I slept through the night last night, the whole night, right until 4:58am.  (I get up at 5:15 anyway, so I don't count this as waking up early.)  Prior to last night, I have woken up in the middle of the middle of the night every night for about a month.  When I wake up, I wake up abruptly, plunged immediately into some stupid dilemma from work, and trying to figure out what to do about C, or remembering kids I have forgotten to see.  So to sleep through the night was good, very good.  I think it happened because I did a little bit of yoga last night before bed.  (Not a class, just fifteen minutes by myself on the living room floor, but it was still better than having a glass of wine, which has been my other very clever stress management technique - and has not helped me to sleep at all.)

I recognize there is something about my coworker, C, that is becoming unmanageable for me.  And I recognize my pattern of impatience with my colleagues and their imperfections.  M drives me crazy too - but she is predictable.  I can always count on her to be late, to miss her deadlines, to contribute nothing to a team effort.  But also, she is emotionally flat and requires no maintenance.  C, on the other hand, is totally unpredictable.  Sometimes she surprises me by being helpful when I expected her to be useless.  But then she also frequently startles me by insulting our colleagues to their faces, and then bursting into tears when they call her out on it.  The moral of the story is that I am becoming too wrapped up in this woman's behaviour and I need to go back to yoga class so I can sleep.

I am starting tonight at 5:30.  Although I've gone back in starts and stops many times since the vertigo, I have never fully returned to daily practice.  I keep psyching myself out, which is unnecessary.  The vertigo has ended, and besides, even it it comes back, it isn't life threatening.  This time I am not promising myself that this is a return to daily practice, because it likely isn't.  But I hope it can be a return to some kind of self-management that will help me take my focus away from work and to get some rest.

That said, today I plan to have an uncomfortable conversation with C about the fact that a lot of her work is slipping onto my desk because there are several people in the building who don't want to talk to her and therefore bring their requests to me instead, even when she is the one who should be handling them.  This will likely cause her to have another cry and I will keep taking long slow breaths in through the mouth, out through the nose.

*

16 is 80

Tonight I spoke with Lars, who reminded me of numerous things I seem to have forgotten.  (Perhaps also some things I wasn't aware of when they happened.)  We were together in the Nerdroom in eighth (or maybe ninth?) grade, when four of us were singled out for special attention from the school's resource program teacher.  I think she was meant to provide some sort of enrichment for the nerds, but as far as I can recall, she did not.  At best, it gave us some sense of normalcy to house us and our great big brains all together in one room.  We normalized each other's intelligence, I suppose, but we also normalized each other's neuroses.

AB was hands-down the craziest.  All through ninth grade she had pretend fainting spells.  In high school she flooded her father's house intentionally to punish him for divorcing her mother.  Later that year she tried to light the same house on fire.  I wonder what their insurance company did with this situation.

BG was angry and bitter and pretended to be a motorhead so his brother wouldn't call him a pussy.  His mother was verbally abusive, and not just in private, but right out in public where we all could be impressed with her vocabulary.  She once called me a whoreslut when I kissed my boyfriend in front of her house.  (I was thirteen.)  BG slumped around trying to be invisible, trying to blend in with the industrial arts crew.

Lars was probably the brightest star in the Nerdroom.  He was blond, of course, and handsome and well-spoken.  The sort of boy who teachers wanted in their classes.  The sort of boy who we knew would be a professor (he is) and do impressive things (he does).  Except he was also angry, secretly angry.  He quietly hated his father.  And sometimes he pretended to have lost his voice when we knew he hadn't.

And me.  I do not think I was as smart as the other three.  I was chosen for my reading skills, but they must have forgotten to test me in math.  If they had checked my math skills, they'd have known I was subordinary.  I was the token artist, maybe; the others were all far better rounded.  I may well have been as angry as my three co-nerds, but I do not think I was quite aware of it yet.  I was moderately well behaved at this age, and respectfully frightened of adults.

Lars reminded me of weird class projects he paid attention to, and I did not.  It was interesting to me that he could remember the projects, but not the names of the people with whom we shared them.  (I remembered all the people, but not the projects.)  He remembered all the pavilions at Expo '86.  I had clearer memories of the travel - and the personalities of my classmates.

And after a little wade through these memories of the past, I poked a bit at the present because I cannot resist asking personal and inappropriate questions.  And we talked about his separation from his wife, her addiction and mental illness, and his life as a single parent.  At this point I probably overwhelmed him because I specialize in that.  And that was how we ended our reunion.

*