tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-274005732024-03-23T11:27:54.376-07:00Lightning Rod WomanAll grown up and a full-sized lightning rod. Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.comBlogger375125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-64508109952279936612023-04-03T00:39:00.003-07:002023-04-03T00:42:53.240-07:00It's a Yard Sale!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnFcjdmu0ujaNpzW2mYKPpkItmRuvNEJzAqICm9GqTr3D0znKu_O0D6Z9zU05RrNMVmXvoFZXdavZ318-GFPF9qisedtKAFjya3dgnFrJnqaZH2E_zGe8sStcn1jtUXLF8bXmS9A_KsN3cp6pV6adxGSSszMH0NxY5UKL95kNP_K1J6XSGXg/s1080/Overlords%20Selfie%20NYE%202018.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnFcjdmu0ujaNpzW2mYKPpkItmRuvNEJzAqICm9GqTr3D0znKu_O0D6Z9zU05RrNMVmXvoFZXdavZ318-GFPF9qisedtKAFjya3dgnFrJnqaZH2E_zGe8sStcn1jtUXLF8bXmS9A_KsN3cp6pV6adxGSSszMH0NxY5UKL95kNP_K1J6XSGXg/s320/Overlords%20Selfie%20NYE%202018.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />Hello! I'm going to post my hockey schedule, mostly because some of the peeps at my kickboxing gym expressed interest in coming to see me play. This is an explanatory post to go over some general information.<p></p><p>I normally wear <b># 57</b>, although on my women's team (the Yetis), I wear <b># 20</b>. I have a white helmet and black skates with green laces. I am currently playing on 3 teams:</p><p><b>White Yetis</b> - This is my women's team. We only have one color jersey, so we always wear white. There are only 4 teams in the womens division - Red Hots, Bluefooted Bloobies, Black Sheesh, and us. We always play on Tuesdays, and are currently still in our regular season. In our playoffs, the team that is in first place in the rankings plays the fourth place team, and the teams in second and third place play each other. The winner of those games play in the final (the following Tuesday) and the losing teams play in a consolation game. Our games are also always at the same rink, so if you want to see both games you can!</p><p><b>Scrooge McPuck</b> - This is a coed team, with almost equal numbers of men and women. There is no requirement to have a certain number of women on the coed teams, so there are some teams we play against that are all men, although most teams have a handful of women. We are currently in the beginning of the playoffs, which are double elimination. So that means you don't get eliminated until you lose 2 games. We were the third place team going into the playoffs, and we already lost a game with the second place team. We are in Division 8, and our home jerseys are cream colored, and our away jerseys are maroon.</p><p><b>All Blacks</b> - Apparently we are named after the New Zealand rugby team, if you are wondering about the name! We have playing cards on our jerseys though. We wear white for home games and black for away games. I am one of two women on this team. This team has the same playoff structure as Scrooge McPuck, but we are not in the same division so we don't play each other. We have not played in a playoff game yet. We are also third going into the playoffs, and playing the second place team for our first game of the playoffs. We are in Division 7B. </p><p>There are 24 divisions in the league, in case you are wondering. There is the Womens Division, two Over 40 divisions, and the rest are numbered and lettered divisions, where Division 1 is the highest skill level, and 10B is the most beginner. Our league, the Kraken Hockey League, puts on Learn to Skate clinics, and then many of the people in the clinics form new teams and start in Division 10 and 10B. As their teams improve, they can move up divisions. </p><p>For the numbered leagues, there are two seasons - a long fall/winter/spring season and a shorter summer season. So we are now going into the playoffs for the long season. After the playoffs are done, there's usually a short break, 2 or 3 weeks, and then we start the next season. For the Womens and Over 40 divisions, the seasons are approximately equal lengths, so we have a Fall, Winter, and Summer season each year. </p><p>If you want to see the schedule for the whole league, it is here: <a href="https://krakenhockeyleague.com/schedule">https://krakenhockeyleague.com/schedule</a> and the website for the league is here: <a href="https://krakenhockeyleague.com/home">https://krakenhockeyleague.com/home</a> </p>Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-20428804759827201052020-02-20T19:04:00.001-08:002020-02-20T19:04:35.330-08:00I'm NOT melting. <br />
Hello blog! Long time, no write. I was in a writing workshop quite a while ago where some people talked about how they struggled to think of themselves as writers. I so don't have that problem. I can go years of not writing and still think that being a writer is fundamentally who I am. Writing is my calling in life. I've never doubted it. I have got down on myself a lot because I wasn't writing, but quitting entirely is not an option. To be so sure of myself in that part of my being is having a beautiful, glittering jewel that is always inside me. Glittering wildly.<br />
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The reason I haven't been blogging is that the whole thing with co-workers at my job in L.A. finding my blog and telling other co-workers that I was "bad mojo" really hit a nerve. Some people thought it was the loss of anonymity that was the problem. It wasn't. My name is on this blog. I have no problem with other people knowing about it. That's kind of the point. Otherwise I wouldn't be sharing it with potentially anyone in the world! (Except China. My blog is blocked there.) It's because it touched on my most agonizing fear - that deep down inside I'm a bad, broken person. That I was abused and raped because I was born with something unspeakably vile inside me that made those things happen, or that the abuse made me so damaged that I will never be okay. <div>
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There were some, with good intentions I realize, who told me I shouldn't have made my blog public in the first place and should immediately take it down before it causes me more harm. Which, surprise! That made me feel even worse about myself, like writing about myself is revealing the rot inside me. It made me feel like the things I lived through and that are part of me, and how I think and feel about them, is something to be ashamed of. Which, again, goes directly against what the blog is all about. I started it because I was trying to stand up to the shame that had kept me in denial and numb and not able to share myself with other people. </div>
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Blogging was the thing that did the most for me when I started dealing with how dead I felt inside. It was like how the Wizard of Oz movie went from black and white to color when Dorothy arrived in Oz. Sure, there was a dead wicked witch, and another wicked witch willing to kill for a pair of shoes, and a fraud was running Oz, but Dorothy went on a journey and made friends and successfully overcame her antagonists. (In the books she also goes back to Oz again and again and ends up living there with her aunt and uncle, so it wasn't a dream or escape from reality that the 1939 movie makes it out to be.) Isn't that what life is all about? That was what I wanted. A life that I could experience rather than hide from. Friends I could rely on and they could rely on me. Being able to grow emotionally rather than being stuck in the same place. </div>
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People say it all the time, but it's true. Being able to talk about these horrible things that were done to us is powerful. It subverts the powerlessness and shame we feel. Holding it inside is like carrying around rocks in your pockets and you keep needing more pockets, more room for rocks until you're wearing five winter coats stuffed with rocks and it's a sunny day and you can barely move with the weight you're carrying and you're sweating like crazy and trying to hide it because you want to walk in the sun with everyone else. You're a weirdo in five winter coats, but the rocks are hidden. You think if one rock falls out, then another will, then an avalanche you can't control, and the other people out walking will freak out and run away from you, or stop and stare at you while you cry and lose your shit and want to melt into the sidewalk. Which, not gonna lie, does happen. </div>
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You may find yourself in front of a huge room of people and cameras talking about the most painful and humiliating experience of your life. Then this huge room of people are like, there there, we believe you, but we're still going to put the person responsible in a position that will influence the lives of everyone in this country because we don't think what he did to you is relevant. Theoretically. People could see you differently and feel uncomfortable with who you really are. You may lose friends. You could lose your job. You will probably cry a lot more and lose your shit a bunch more times and feel humiliated and exposed again. Your life and how you thought about yourself could change irrevocably. Some people decide that carrying the rocks is a better option for them. You could drop some of the rocks and decide to keep holding the rest. There really are no great options when someone dumps a bunch of soul-crushing rocks on you, just the one you can tolerate the most at the time. </div>
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So yeah, I got overwhelmed with all the pain and insecurity that came up when I was exposed as the blogger with yucky victimization all over her, and retreated into myself. I couldn't stand feeling judged and found to be damaged goods. I was mortified that my co-workers believed I would get my bad mojo on them if they talked to me. I lost my dream job that I had been fighting to get to for the previous ten years. I felt broken, unsure of who I was anymore and where I was trying to get. It probably would be accurate to say that it broke me - not permanently though. It was more like a serious injury that required surgery, but the first one wasn't entirely successful, and I had to keep going back to the hospital for more surgeries and to try different therapies. It didn't feel like it would get better but then it did start getting better. In actuality, I had two surgeries during that time. I had my appendix removed while I was still in L.A. and my gall bladder removed after I moved back to Seattle. I also worked on different types of therapy. Most recently, I went through a cognitive behavioral therapy program that was specifically designed for child abuse survivors with PTSD. Can you imagine?! I never thought that would exist when I was diagnosed. </div>
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I'm still slogging through it and making discoveries about myself and untangling my own web of confusing emotions and reactions and defense mechanisms. It's frustrating. I wish I didn't still have that part of my brain that interprets the bad stuff as being my fault and sees myself as undeserving and unlovable. I wish I didn't have a vast expanse of subconscious motivations that drag me into re-traumatizing situations. I wish I could be done with these dysfunctional patterns of behavior and thought. I wish it was as straightforward as dropping the rocks, taking off the coats, flipping off the people staring at me, and walking away. The yellow brick road is just ahead. </div>
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That makes me think, 1) damn, I love the Oz books so much, and 2) maybe I'm at that part where the Wicked Witch of the West captures Dorothy, which means I'm pretty far into the story and will get back to the Emerald City in no time after I escape. The book is a little different from the movie - when Dorothy is captured by the Wicked Witch of the West, the witch keeps her prisoner while she schemes to get Dorothy to take off the silver shoes (ruby slippers in the movie) so she can take them. The witch eventually tricks Dorothy into taking off one of the shoes, which makes Dorothy so angry she throws a bucket of water on her. Because she's pissed. Like the movie, the water unexpectedly melts her away.</div>
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Just to stay with the metaphor, my blog is not the flying monkeys or the Munchkins or even the Good Witch of the North. My blog is the ruby slippers/silver shoes. They've been with me since I started this journey. They are the most valuable things I have and I will not take them off no matter how many wolves, crows, or swarms of black bees come after me. They take me places and while I could walk without them, they do so much than regular shoes. Because my blog is magical. It's powerful. I have never regretted anything I shared on this public blog. It's not the blog's fault I got off track any more than it's the magic shoes fault that Dorothy was captured by the witch. The blog set me free. The blog did more than anything else to fight the shame that kept me hidden, even and especially from myself. The blog got me here, which is not the final destination but it's a world away from where I started. The blog helped me connect with other survivors. The blog is everything.</div>
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I generally have a rule that I won't apologize for my writing. It came from that writing workshop, where people who didn't feel like writers gave speeches about how terrible their writing was before sharing it. It kind of annoys the crap out of me. But, this is the first time I've really written about my recovery in a very long time. I feel out of practice, but surprisingly comfortable writing again. So I'm not apologizing, just noting that it's been a really long time and I'm not going to edit the hell out of this before I post!</div>
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Just kidding, I did do a bunch of editing. I can't help it. </div>
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Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-58110943438058961692015-10-08T00:28:00.000-07:002015-10-08T00:49:40.223-07:00Can I live tweet a hockey game on my blog instead of Twitter?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kings season opening against Sharks, Oct 7, 2015</td></tr>
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I'm watching the first day of the NHL regular season on TV. They are still showing the game before my game, so I am impatiently waiting to see my Los Angeles Kings play at home against the San Jose Sharks. It's been a fast and fancy/finesse-y game, which has been fun to watch even though I don't like either team.<br />
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Last minute and a half! Penalties...and a fight! Pierre McGuire just called it nasty! Penalties called, timeout accompanied by Metallica. They're playing the exciting music because the home team has a power play and is down by one. And they score, but it was waved off. Calling Toronto. Playing "Highway to Hell." Repeated replays while we wait.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Game before the Kings. Another loss by the home team. Oct 7, 2015</td></tr>
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And the ruling- call stands, the play was complete. It was already whistled dead. More dramatic music. One minute to go. It's cleared. Two more shots on net. This is the Henrik Lundqvist show. It's cleared again, and it's over. We're on to L.A. Wait, it looked like the camera person on the ice fell down.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">We lost a couple players over the off-season. Oct 7, 2015</span></td></tr>
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14:58 left in the 1st period. I missed a Kings goal and a fight! Nooooooooo! Is that the Zombie Kyle Clifford? So glad he got to be in the first fight of the regular season. Ah, it's my friend Pickles (Marc-Edouard Vlasic). I'm glad I learned to type because I can write and watch at the same time. It's my friend Tommy Wingels! He wears my number, 57. There aren't a lot of 57's in the league, so I treasure each one. I swear all my "friends" are not on the Sharks. So weird to see Martin Jones playing for the Sharks. He used to be on the Kings. Oooooo, noooo, Joe Thornton scored. That was one of those goals you saw happening as soon as he touched it. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Too much Joe, Oct 7, 2015</td></tr>
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Dustin Brown just showed off the moves! Nice shot. Just saw Christian Ehrhoff in #10. Ugh. Not because he is Christian Ehrhoff, because that's Mike Richards number and I miss him. I like Christian Ehrhoff and we need him. Eeee, we just had a great scoring chance. And a penalty is called. Commercial break. We have a power play. Martin Jones looks like he's having fun. Issue with the clock. Marian Gaborik! Red Hot Chilly Peppers! And Gaborik got a penalty. 4-on-4. Damn, Brent Burns! Trim your beard! You don't get to pretend its the post-season just because both teams missed the playoffs last season. We pressure their goalie, now they are pressuring ours. We're tired and can't get off the ice. Wow, its getting rough in the corner. Replay of mid-ice check on Logan Couture by Dustin Brown. He looks outraged.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ehrhoff goes to the sin bin, Oct 7, 2015</td></tr>
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We have a penalty kill, and, we got scored on. It's 2-1. Almost four minutes to go in the first period. They are gushing about how great Dustin Brown looked coming into training camp. He's 30! He had to change up his conditioning because he's an old man now! The 70's line is still together (#77 Jeff Carter, #70 Tanner Pearson, #73 Tyler Toffoli). This game has a lot more checking and elbows than the last game! Jonathan Quick covers. And we got another penalty. Christian Ehrhoff. Period is over. I don't think I can keep writing so much. This is going to get really long if I do. I usually talk to the TV a lot, but now I'm chattering via the written word. Maybe I should go back to talking to the TV. I don't yell, I just moan a lot and calmly make suggestions. Also, I say "ooo, ooo, ooo" when it looks like something exciting is happening, which is how I got the nickname Monkey. Maybe it's good I'm not watching this in public.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Canucks game is going better. Oct 7, 2015</td></tr>
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So the new NBC hockey music is interesting. Is it new? I think it's new. I have a feeling that music is going to get old pretty quick. They like to pick some intense, hard-hitting music that is only not irritating the first couple of times you hear it. This is terrible that the Vancouver Canucks v. Calgary Flames game is at the same time as this game. It looks fun! They totally hate each other. I'm making tea during the intermission. That doesn't sound very hockey-appropriate. At least it's a hot beverage.<br />
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Oh, they just showed the Staples Center and I miss it there so much.<br />
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So, the second period did not go well for us. At least I had relaxing tea. Sharks are doing a good job of protecting Jones. He hasn't even faced that many shots, but when he does, he's making the saves.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bad 2nd period! Bad! Oct 7, 2015</td></tr>
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Did he just refer to the Sharks as Anaheim or did I imagine that? Normally, the friends that I am staying with would not be getting this game, but they are doing a freebie of NHL Center Ice until almost the end of October. To get you hooked. Also, I am doing the <a href="http://hugohouse.org/" target="_blank">Richard Hugo House's</a> 30/30 Writing Challenge this month. I'm writing at least 30 minutes a day for 30 days. Also, it's a fundraiser for Hugo House, and I have my own <a href="http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/kristina-morgan/3030-writing-challenge-2015" target="_blank">fundraising page</a>! (If you click on the link it will open on a new window.) Ouch, San Jose just scored again, to make it 5-1. Maybe I'm slightly glad I'm not in Staples Center right now. The crowd is very, very quiet. Carter is getting frustrated.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b1mJ1V9nyXg/VhYFSG2EWfI/AAAAAAAAFBM/yRnOI9zHP5c/s1600/Kings%2B2%2B10.7.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b1mJ1V9nyXg/VhYFSG2EWfI/AAAAAAAAFBM/yRnOI9zHP5c/s320/Kings%2B2%2B10.7.15.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jeff Schultz, Oct 7, 2015</td></tr>
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Ugh, large fight. The Sharks' Barclay Goodrow got hit into the ice by Matt Greene, and then Andy Andreoff beat the crap out of him. That was painful to watch (although his name is awesomely funny, and he's 6 foot 2 inches. I guess when another over 6 foot guy is whaling on you, you don't look tall.) We looked like bullies. Not a big fan of fighting to "get your team back in the game." It never seems to work for one thing. Not that the Sharks didn't have anything to do with the fight. I guess everybody loves to see the Kings and the Sharks beating on each other. It is an entertainingly physical game, but if they're going to have to work this hard in every game, they're going to get awfully worn out awfully fast.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DYjM1CzSTfQ/VhYE6jNm2II/AAAAAAAAFAs/EDJtIqO4Ly8/s1600/Canucks%2B4%2B10.7.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DYjM1CzSTfQ/VhYE6jNm2II/AAAAAAAAFAs/EDJtIqO4Ly8/s320/Canucks%2B4%2B10.7.15.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sedin power! Oct 7, 2015</td></tr>
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Awww, the guys in the box look sad. There are three in our box, and two in theirs. Carter has another good chance after the penalties are over, but it looks grim regardless. I do have a soft spot for the Sharks because they are my favorite color, teal, and I like Vlasic and Wingels. But they have too many Joes, especially in this game. The Joes are killing us. I'm not feeling very fond of them right now. At least the Canucks dominated the Flames. Maybe I should have switched to that game.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vqzDveHuJFU/VhYFSSoI0vI/AAAAAAAAFBQ/npbOnfCtNGg/s1600/Kings%2B10%2Blast%2Bgoal%2B10.7.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vqzDveHuJFU/VhYFSSoI0vI/AAAAAAAAFBQ/npbOnfCtNGg/s320/Kings%2B10%2Blast%2Bgoal%2B10.7.15.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another goal. Oct 7, 2015</td></tr>
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Ow, Couture just knocked Quick over, landed in the goal, and got punched in the face by Quick. Now San Jose has two guys in the penalty box. 5 on 3! Can we score? We haven't scored since the beginning of the game, which I missed. I need to see a goal!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ySwyP-_3la0/VhYFZcMkvNI/AAAAAAAAFBc/HMpYqMR7e64/s1600/Kings%2B9%2BQuick%2B10.7.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ySwyP-_3la0/VhYFZcMkvNI/AAAAAAAAFBc/HMpYqMR7e64/s320/Kings%2B9%2BQuick%2B10.7.15.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rough night for Jonathan Quick, Oct 7, 2015</td></tr>
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Well, instead of a goal we got a melee in front of the Sharks bench. Couture is going to need some ice after this game. Damn, they just said Joel Ward (of the Sharks) is coming off two consecutive seasons of playing all 82 games. Damn! He's even over the hill (34). They called him durable. I guess! That's amazing. And the game is over.<br />
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Well, hope springs eternal. Bring on the next game! We're playing the Arizona Coyotes this Friday at home. The Canucks are playing the Flames again this Saturday, and then the Anaheim Ducks on Monday and the Kings on Tuesday! Looking forward to the next week in hockey!Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-9523352697878338892015-10-01T00:18:00.000-07:002015-10-02T19:12:25.736-07:00Of course my beaver is angry<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6GMOdFY2BLY/VgzBOhUmFgI/AAAAAAAAE_o/BZlNhoOyaiY/s1600/Angry%2BBeaver%2B9.29.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6GMOdFY2BLY/VgzBOhUmFgI/AAAAAAAAE_o/BZlNhoOyaiY/s320/Angry%2BBeaver%2B9.29.15.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Angry Beaver in Seattle, WA on September 29, 2015</td></tr>
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Last night I went to Seattle's only hockey bar, The Angry Beaver. It happened to be the night of the "Save The Angry Beaver" gathering (the off-season was not kind to them), and a Los Angeles Kings vs. Anaheim Ducks preseason game at the Staples Center in L.A. Also, the L.A. Dodgers won the National League West, so it was an eventful night. I'm not going to lie- this was the first time I've watched a Kings game since I moved, and especially because the game was at the Staples Center where I've been to at least a hundred Kings games, it made me miss L.A. a lot. If for nothing else, it is so damn cold in Seattle. The second I got here, it was, hello, I know you've been in a place with no seasons for eight years, but it's autumn not summer anymore! It really doesn't get freezing cold that often in Seattle, but the damp chilliness here is a typical weather feature. I'm wearing a hoodie plus gloves or a hat almost every waking hour, except for the brief but much appreciated mid-afternoon sun most days because it is still September. I did miss my hoodies and wearing actual clothes, and the heat in L.A. was driving me bonkers. This is certainly closer to hockey weather than L.A. I'm not constantly worrying about my tattoos getting too much sun, and then grudgingly smearing "healthy" (not full of dangerous chemicals with a shockingly bad Environmental Working Group rating) sunscreen all over, leaving a sunscreen film everywhere I go and grease stains on my skimpy L.A. clothes.<br />
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The bar was pretty great. It was dive-y, but not too much so (like you're afraid someone will be beaten up by a biker or some coked-up weirdo will attempt to express his interest in you using physical assault) and there was Canadian-appropriate food, that was both good and plentiful (if a tad slow to come out.) Of course I got poutine, with curry gravy which was completely awesome. I did get a stomachache, but that was probably the four glasses of Coca-Cola I drank while watching the entire game with laser focus. A friend met me there, and lasted a little bit into the second period before she had to go home. Even though she is not a hockey fan, she listened politely as I tried to explain the rules, how to watch without trying to follow the puck which is tempting but nearly impossible and you miss a lot of the good stuff, and various factoids about the Kings players. I am very nerdy in my own ways, primarily about accounting and hockey. It's always nice when people don't get bored and visibly annoyed when you talk about your passions. Yes, people have come up to me at parties and asked, "What do you do?" and when I tell them I'm an accountant, just turn around and walk away. For real.<br />
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When I lived in Seattle before, I never found my hockey people. Most people I knew didn't even like sports, so I was the lone hockey obsessive. One of the coolest things that happened last night is that the owner of the bar came over to talk to me within five minutes of me sitting down. He was so enthusiastic that I was a hockey fan, and there. Just being in a bar full of hockey fans warmed my heart. Everyone was friendly and lots of people smiled at me. I didn't get a single scowl, except when one of the only people I know in Seattle who plays hockey showed up. He's an acquaintance who is from L.A., who I unfriended a couple months ago when he posted an article about an NHL player who has been accused of rape (not going to say his name, but you probably know who I'm talking about), did the, "I'm reserving judgement until the facts come out" thing, followed by what people usually mean when they say something like that- "I'm trying to sound reasonable and fair just before I shit on every rape victim who reads this by speculating, speculating without any factual evidence, that the woman deserved it, deserved to be raped, for drinking and going somewhere with a man." Because that's a completely reasonable expectation, that a woman can never be alone with a man that she doesn't know really, really well, like a family member. No, not even a family member and certainly not an internationally known father-figure. I can only conclude that men who say these things want every woman to regard him as a potential rapist and refuse to spend time alone with him or have a drink around him, because according to his moral compass, if he drugs your drink, you get drunk, or you go home with him with some naive idea that you'd talk, get to know each other, maybe kiss or make-out instead of him holding you down and forcing himself in you, he regards it as your responsibility. Message received. So yeah, he saw me, said hello and then scowled at me.<br />
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I kind of took that as a positive, as I knew I would run into him at some point because it is a small hockey community and why not the first time I ventured in? I was just happy to be there, watching the Kings game, talking hockey with various people I just met, basking in the good hockey feelings I'd been missing. The Kings ended up losing in overtime, and a handful of people cheered at the bar. The owner had warned me ahead of time that Kings fans hang out there but there is good-natured ribbing directed at them in particular. Can't say I'm surprised. Lots of people hate L.A., but I totally don't care. I still love the Kings. I even feel some love for the Dodgers, even though I'm not much of a baseball fan. I did go to a Dodgers game right before I left L.A. It was Kings night. I got a t-shirt, and talked to various people we just met because we changed seats about eight times and made new friends every time. The world feels like a much friendlier place when you find your people.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-2540681202293270692015-09-27T00:06:00.000-07:002015-09-27T00:06:40.387-07:00A Guide to Seattle, Hipsters, and You<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wmI5HbvZAJM/VgdTVxdaVGI/AAAAAAAAE_M/khE1tMVy4WI/s1600/Red%2BMill%2BBurgers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wmI5HbvZAJM/VgdTVxdaVGI/AAAAAAAAE_M/khE1tMVy4WI/s320/Red%2BMill%2BBurgers.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Mill Burgers, opened 1994 (original 1937)</td></tr>
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I've been staying with some friends who have a house in Shoreline, which is just north of Seattle. The house is big enough that they can avoid me, which is good, because they are a couple and I worry about imposing on their couple time. But they have been nothing but completely gracious about hosting this unemployed, homeless migrant (not refugee, Los Angeles isn't that bad.) They insist on sharing Suzie's home-cooked dinners with me, she cleaned out their garage so I could get all my possessions out of my car parked on the street, they let me use their washer and dryer, which make the cutest little dings when they are done, and Suzie has driven me around town so I can see the wreckage that all the Californians moving up here has wrought.<br />
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Actually, Seattleites have been blaming Californians for driving up housing prices and bringing traffic congestion with them way before I moved to L.A. It's kind of like the "punk is dead" refrain that started in the late seventies and continued to declare that punk today is nothing like real punk which is gone forever thanks to these posers with no concept of where it all came from! That said, it's hard not to think Seattle is going the way of San Francisco where you seemingly need a high paying job at a tech firm or a trust fund to afford a decent place within Seattle, and the traffic, while far from what it is in L.A., is going in that direction. It's cracked the<a href="http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/08/28/10-cities-with-the-worst-traffic/3/" target="_blank"> top 10</a> in the US, above Chicago and just below Boston. The condos that were popping up around the city before I left, like thistles that you don't notice until they get so tall and sturdy you're not sure how to remove them, or took over a whole area seemingly overnight (ahm, Belltown), have taken hold in or around practically every neighborhood that had it's own unique personality and people.<br />
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I think the condo buildings might be somewhat tolerable if they weren't so horribly ugly. They look like giant square building blocks, interchangeably mindless and towering over the buildings that actually have character. They look like they went up overnight, without a thought for how they would look in the area or fit in with the existing architecture. What happened to Ballard, my tour guide has told me, is what every other neighborhood that has a chance to head off uncontrolled growth is trying to avoid. Ballard was once the part of town known for having a lot of old people that drove painfully slow and vaguely nautically themed bars for the people (i.e. men, mostly) from the fishing boats that come into the port from Alaska. It was the Scandinavian part of town. Tourists would sometimes go there to see the locks, and I took my Scandinavian relatives to the stores that sold Scandinavian flags and potholders, and to commune with other people who knew what lutefisk was, and ate it! I'll wait while you look up what lutefisk is, and check out the videos of the lutefisk eating contest that was held at the Ballard SeafoodFest every year. Every year, that is, until 2013. That is the last year they had the "crowd-pleaser" lutefisk eating contest, as far as I can tell.<br />
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They still have the SeafoodFest, but I sure didn't see any signs that this was still the Scandinavian part of town. It is now the absolutely overrun with condos and precious hipster restaurants and bars part of town, wait, that's everywhere. Didn't see many hipsters though. Ballard, long ignored by the cool kids and left to the old sailors, had been discovered by hipsters that were over it with Capitol Hill and driven away from Fremont by the brewpub fratty meat market crowd, but it was the secret, only appreciated by those willing to make the trek for a handful of dive bars and diners. Where do the hipsters go now? When the hipster themed businesses move in, you know they are only going there to work. It is awful, absolutely awful, that so much of Seattle is so generic and expensive and flavorless, when it used to have such distinct neighborhoods, places that were unique unto themselves, and so uniquely Seattle. But, this is not new for Seattle, and not new for any growing city. The whole reason Ballard was the secret cool place for a moment was that unappreciated, quirky places are only that until other people figure it out. It's kind of a Seattle thing to always be looking for what is odd and unappreciated, and appreciating it until everyone else figures out how cool it is and ruins it.<br />
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That said, Seattle is bursting at the seams with people moving here and not enough housing and asphalt and places to hang out to contain them all, which, like San Francisco, is driving out the locals and people with personality but not tons of disposable income that can't afford to compete with not just Californians, but with people who are recruited here by certain Seattle-based businesses, businesses who are too good to hire University of Washington MBA's. They throw bonuses, high salaries, and perks at people who put in their two years of burn-out and then are looking for another job locally, or are ranked and involuntarily yanked, with the same result. Rank and yank is the employee motivational method proudly followed by another powerful and admired company, until it went bankrupt due to such massive fraud that it spawned my specialty, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. It all comes around.<br />
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Seattle is still here though, the real Seattle, the weird fishing town. To quote Art Chantry (look him up) in the movie Hype! (look it up), which came out in 1996, "So all these people come here, and then there's all this publicity, and... "Northern Exposure" and "Twin Peaks" and all this stuff, and everyone wants to come here and live the good yuppie lifestyle, but all this time there's all these people that are underneath that were here first and they're just starving and they're all crazy."Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-84367044106762184072015-09-24T01:20:00.000-07:002015-09-27T14:53:07.789-07:00Seattle's Batman is a lawyer that works on 3rd Avenue.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XTdmj9gk3hU/VgOMSnTcykI/AAAAAAAAE-4/_YVS33m6FqU/s1600/Bat%2521.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="288" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XTdmj9gk3hU/VgOMSnTcykI/AAAAAAAAE-4/_YVS33m6FqU/s320/Bat%2521.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look at this little brown bat! Are they cute or what?!?!</td></tr>
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I'm started to feel better about my move to Seattle. I took the bus downtown and met with some job recruiters, in person, so they saw my lip piercings, and one of them mentioned my tongue piercing. I've had my tongue pierced for twenty-four years, and it's one of my body modifications I forget about, or at least forget that people do notice it when I talk. The two that I talked to are totally clear that I will not take them out, and that I'm looking for a place that will not have issues with me not looking or being a cookie-cutter finance and accounting clone. They both seemed completely comfortable with me and this limitation. That probably had more to do with my comfort with myself and my own boundaries than anything else. Also talking to them about my resume made me realize that I have a very good resume with a lot of valuable experience.<br />
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I do still have significant doubts about whether any corporate environment would be tolerable to me, but the beauty of the piercings is that I'm putting it out there, on my face, that I am not going to be a good fit with a company that I probably wouldn't want to work at anyway. We're also dealing with this issue up front as they are making sure to discuss this with the company before any interviews take place. I was rejected for two jobs within 12 hours though. I passed on one before they even approached them because it was at a biotech with drama. I worked at a biotech with drama already, and a medical company with drama, and have no desire to get anywhere near medical/biotech drama ever again. Instability and power struggles seem fairly common in this particular industry, and when I google a company name and the first thing that comes up is a recent article about the board forcing out its second CEO in less than a year, it does not bode well. The ones that rejected me were, company is fun and casual but the CFO is too conservative for that, and a temporary project that someone at the recruiting firm pitched to me over the phone but hadn't met me in person, and I said, did you know about the piercings? So she put me on hold for quite a while, and then said she'd call me back, and then asked if I'd take them out, and I said no, and then she kept saying, "well, it's your choice" and I thought, but didn't say, uh, yeah, it sure is my choice.<br />
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Anyway, somehow I just feel better having it out there, and giving myself the chance to potentially find a place that I would fit in with and greatly reducing the chance I would fall into a job where I hate the culture. One of the other avenues I'm pursuing is a government/university job. I had an interview at my alma mater today. I interviewed with three people, and while they probably wouldn't have said anything about my piercings if they did have a problem with it, they didn't stare or look startled or freaked out, so that was a good sign. I was the first person to interview for the job, which they told me several times, which I don't really know how to interpret? Hopefully I blew them away and all the rest of the interviewees pale in comparison. I really felt comfortable with all three of the people, and them seemed very smart and down to earth, and the job sounds really cool and interesting, and OH MY GOD I WOULD LOVE TO WORK AT MY ALMA MATER! I love that university. I went there for undergrad and grad school, and would be totally trying to get into their MFA program except that they don't offer creative nonfiction.<br />
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But one of the issues with government/university is that the interview process can move really slowly, I'm told, so pursuing these jobs requires patience. Not my strong suit. I also kind of fall in love with some jobs I interview for, or the idea of the job, prematurely, so I'm trying to just move on and not think about this one until I hear something. Also, while they did seem to like me and my experience, I had some moments of unfocused blabbing (like what I do on my blog pretty much all the time lately) which does not necessarily help my case. I hate those, give an example of some blah blah difficult situation, how did you handle it, what would you have done differently, questions. So dangerous for an arguably overly open, chatty person such as myself.<br />
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In conclusion, be patient, work on the unfocused blabbing, there are a ton of job postings for this university in finance and accounting and I have an interview for another job there next week. Things are looking up. Also, the area of downtown I was in and the university district don't look nearly as different as Capitol Hill, so that made me feel less like I had come back to a completely changed Seattle. It is kind of a bummer that I am probably priced out of living in Capitol Hill when it was where I live for the three years before I moved, and, is it even possible to park on Capitol Hill at all? But Capitol Hill was one of the busiest and most expensive parts of town even back then, so I'm not totally surprised. It is unfortunate that the condos have taken over, but I do like the rainbow crosswalks.<br />
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In other news, as I have shared on Facebook, I attempted to participate in a bat rescue in downtown yesterday. Why this poor bat was in a tree downtown and fell out of it onto the street during rush hour morning traffic we may never know. I was walking to my interview with one of the recruiters, and I saw this guy trying to get this tiny bat out of the street and on to the sidewalk. He seemed pretty frazzled, so initially I was just trying to offer some moral support to this kind man who was obviously on his way to work and was unable to just walk past an injured animal like so many others were. We got the poor critter on the sidewalk, when promptly a group of people who seemed to come out of a sitcom about horrible, selfish people started taking pictures with their cell phones and telling us with glee in their voices that this bat is going to die! I couldn't even look at them I was so pissed, so I focused on the bat and brainstorming with the guy as to who we would call for bat rescue services.<br />
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Meanwhile, it did look brutal. The bat was on his back, shaking in the cold, and every time a bus drove by, it created a wind that blew right into her. (The bat would have definitely been hit by a bus if not for this man because we were next to a bus stop and buses were swooping in close to the curb every minute or two.) I was trying to shield the bat from the wind and cold by cupping my hands around him, which was super ineffective. A doorman from the building we were in front of came over and tried to help, and they moved a orange cone on the sidewalk next to the bat, and then the doorman brought over a plastic trashcan that he put over the bat to protect him. The guy got a hold of someone from the city who was sending someone over, no eta, and he obviously wanted to get to work but didn't want to abandon the situation, so I told him I'd stay and wait with the little bat.<br />
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The doorman picked up the trashcan, and little bat (who was tiny, would fit in the palm of my hand) had flipped over. She made a beeline for the cone and crawled underneath. The two of them went into the building, and I sat on the sidewalk next to the cone, hoping he didn't crawl under the cone to die. She had pulled her wings into his body and was sticking her tongue out before he was under the trashcan, and scurried under the cone so quickly that I had a lot more hope for her than I did when we first got him on the sidewalk.<br />
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The guy from the city actually showed up in less than an hour, which is amazing! Downtown, morning traffic, I don't know how he got there so fast. Soon after he showed up, this woman stopped by and said she sat across from the heroic man, who is a lawyer that works in the building we were in front of and told her the amazing bat story, The city guy gave us business cards, and took my name and number, and scooped the bat into a coffee can. This was the first time the bat showed any aggression at all. She hissed at the city guy, or the coffee can, I couldn't tell which. The city guy thought I was very brave to have my hands near the bat because bats can have rabies. Thing is, the bat didn't act aggressively towards us at all. I imagine he was preoccupied with survival. When I think back on the whole thing, I am just awed by how bravely this tiny bat fought for her life, and hope he is still alive. Also, it reminds me that some people are incredibly compassionate, and some people are incredibly callous, and it's hard to tell about everyone else who walked by. Human nature is often to not get involved, and to keep walking.<br />
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I actually had an experience of this back when I was the age that I got my first piercings. I was waiting for the bus on Broadway, the main street through Capitol Hill. There was a guy, possibly someone I had seen at parties or even knew, passed out just down the street. I assumed he was drunk, even though it was the middle of the day. I had a bad feeling and kept looking over there, thinking that I should go check on him but feeling frozen and anxious. I don't even know what I was afraid of, what was holding me back. Maybe that I didn't know what I would do if there was something wrong, that I felt too powerless to help him? Finally a woman did stop to check on him, which initially I was relieved that someone besides me had done, but then she started calling out to people to call an ambulance (days before cell phones). A crowd gathered, and the consensus seemed to be that he had overdosed on heroin.<br />
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I never heard anyone in my little punk scene mention someone who had overdosed after that, so I don't know what happened to him, if he lived or died. I felt the most intense shame that I did nothing. This was even someone like me, about the same age, a punk boy, someone I probably did have friends in common with. Maybe if I had gone over the ambulance would have come sooner and he would have had a better chance. What if he died? I'll never know what happened to him. It haunted me. After that, I tried to never keep walking. I know I can't live with myself if I don't stop. Sometimes I just check to make sure someone is breathing. It was overwhelming when I lived in San Francisco. I walked by so many people, literally in the gutter, and I saw so many people step over people lying on the sidewalk without even looking at them. But I can still understand that it's hard to stop. It sometimes feels like a primal thing, that you are fighting against all your instincts to get involved. So I really can't blame people. But it is a wonderful thing that there are people who stop and try to help.<br />
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I give Lawyer Batman all the credit on that one. I don't think I could have handled that on my own. But it does seem that if that first person stops, usually a couple others will too. It's a nice caveat to human nature, a bit of a counterbalance to all the people who keep walking.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-77683386697110554332015-09-19T18:04:00.000-07:002015-09-19T18:04:23.961-07:00Stereoscopic is the show<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Been almost a week now. I can't say that I am any less uncomfortable, but I am focused on getting a job. That seems like step one of regaining some stability in my life. I've been applying to university and government jobs, and I broke down and contacted a recruiter. I've had more negative experiences with finance and accounting recruiters than positive. They always tell you they are working for you, but they are working for the companies. Problem is, if you approach a lot of these companies yourself, they direct you to submit your resume online, and then totally ignore online applications. I also broke down and changed my hair color back to a normal color, and took out one of my lip piercings and put a retainer in my septum (nose). But I left the other two lip piercings in.<br />
<br />
I'm in kind of a bind because I like working in accounting and audit, but even in "creative" companies the accounting department tends to be the most conservative. I suspect that a contributing factor is that they teach you in big-four audit firms to overdress as compared to the client, and companies love to hire people with big-four experience who bring that culture with them. Part of it is the intimidation factor- when the auditors in suits come in, people snap to attention. But there is also this odd lust for conformity, and an insistence on something that accountants should really know better about, form over substance. Looking like you know what you are talking about is more important than actually knowing what you are talking about. Conformity is very dangerous too. It's so common in fraud cases for people to overlook the ethics of what they are doing because everyone else is okay with it. People have actually used that as an argument when I've questioned things, i.e. you're the only one who has a problem with this, so it must be a problem with you! In an environment where people are afraid to stand out and disagree, and appearances matter more than reality, the best work is not done. The best people aren't hired and promoted. Mistakes aren't acknowledged and fixed. I find it wildly ironic that audit especially, who's whole reason for existence is to be a voice of dissent, is so constrained by social conformity and not challenging people's assumptions.<br />
<br />
Lately, I feel like I made a giant mistake- I thought if I "paid my dues" in accounting that I would get past the having to continuously prove myself and be appreciated for my experience and knowledge. And passion for the work. And ethical standards. After 15 years, I'm not sure that will ever be the case. I'm worried I won't be able to afford to live in Seattle, even for the short term, without the type of job I'm so loathe to return to. I don't know what else to do. I realize that I am engaging in black and white thinking right now though. Getting a job takes time, and I haven't actually been rejected for anything based on my appearance, and maybe I will find a job in my field that will be at a place with a more diverse culture. That is exactly why I'm trying to stay away from the more intensely corporate environments, and why I have a lot of skepticism about the kinds of jobs that recruiters steer me towards. So we'll see. I'm wondering what my plan B should be though.<br />
<br />
It feels strange to be driving around Seattle, and it seems like the same place I've lived in for most of my adult life, but then a completely different place at the same time. I don't know how to get around, and where to go, and oh my god the parking. I remember feeling this way when I first moved to Los Angeles. I didn't know the city and it was hard. I have this weird thing about parking. If I don't know where to park I get really anxious, and I don't want to go places where I don't have the parking figured out. That was L.A. when I first moved there, and it's Seattle now. I've been hanging out in coffee shops applying for jobs online, but I'm kind of constrained as to where I feel comfortable going because I panic if there's not parking. I just drive around some of the time, which is not a bad thing necessarily. I'm getting used to the way Seattle looks now. It might be withdrawal from all the L.A. driving. I've also put out feelers for hockey, which would really help me feel better. The women's league here has a evaluation skate this Monday, but in my communication with them they keep emphasizing how there's only four spots left, and if you don't sign up ahead of time there might not be a spot, and the teams fill up, and if there's no spots you can't play. Signing up involves becomes a member ($550 to $625) plus a $75 fee for the evaluation skate. Uh, no. So yeah. Wondering about plan B.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-65420862845361150892015-09-17T00:01:00.000-07:002015-09-17T00:01:42.525-07:00Who are you, exactly?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZWVRqew_IZY/Vfpc3ltFr3I/AAAAAAAAE-I/OPxJ5fzka2I/s1600/me%2Band%2Bkitty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZWVRqew_IZY/Vfpc3ltFr3I/AAAAAAAAE-I/OPxJ5fzka2I/s320/me%2Band%2Bkitty.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
I've been back in Seattle since Sunday, and I'm already going a little bonkers. I have a hard time with not having my own space. I did fine with the hotel rooms. I've been staying with friends, and it's difficult to do my evening routine and wind down. Plus, I'm a cat magnet. I'm not a cat person, so of course cats love me. They are cute, but I get kneaded on a lot with claws, and I'm kind of allergic. I'm especially human catnip when I try to work on my computer. I'm staying with two tiny kittens for the next four days, and they are loving all over me. And climbing up my legs. And chewing on my cords. My evening routine involves a lot of cords. I am very much eager to get a job and an apartment.<br />
<br />
I forget how difficult it is for me to control my PTSD symptoms without being able to control my environment, at least my home environment. I would think I would understand what I need to manage my condition by now, but I seem to forget. To be fair, I was finding Los Angeles to be very stressful and triggering, which is a big reason why I wanted to leave. So ultimately it was to manage my PTSD. Also, my dog had become my major coping mechanism. I swear, he had doggie PTSD. He came from the streets too, and we comforted each other. I don't want to try to replace him, but I don't know that I can find that kind of comfort any other way. It's frustrating to be struggling so much, after all this time, and feeling that I'm back to square one. Even worse than square one, because I'm more aware than ever of how I feel. The only goal that makes sense to me right now is to orient my life around reducing my symptoms.<br />
<br />
One thing that I've noticed is that almost everyone I know is struggling in some way. I'm certainly not the only person I know who's dealing with depression. It seems a little odd to me that so many people are depressed. Is this the world we live in? Is this just part of our modern, first-world life? So many people seem to hate their jobs. They demand complete loyalty and devotion, but will lay you off in a second, and you're supposed thank them for the opportunity. Corporate life. I don't think I can possibly do that again, even for the freedom the money brings. It's trading one freedom for another. I actually don't see how I can make it work regardless of what I do, so I'm just having faith I will somehow figure it out.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-56716348446667604572015-09-12T22:24:00.000-07:002015-09-12T22:48:29.601-07:00Screaming Horse In My Belly<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xburzOmo9qk/VfT2uxa56mI/AAAAAAAAE90/ZNTXQKu3e4o/s1600/California%2BCoast%2B9.11.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xburzOmo9qk/VfT2uxa56mI/AAAAAAAAE90/ZNTXQKu3e4o/s320/California%2BCoast%2B9.11.15.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">California Coast, Sept 11, 2015</td></tr>
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I'm in Eugene, Oregon. I didn't intend on stopping in Oregon, especially Eugene. My brother lived here for a year before he moved back to Pullman and killed himself, and since I'm angry at everything that could have possibly contributed to Jeff's death, Eugene is on my list. It is better than Salem, though, and Portland is too expensive. Oregon is the Texas of the West Coast. Driving through the state on I-5 is an awesome experience if you can't get enough Jesus billboards and adult stores, all named "Adult Store" or "Adult Shop". (I wonder if seeing Jesus on a cross and being reminded that he died for our sins after going to an Adult Store is kind of like going to confession. Wipe away your sins with this billboard!) Don't forget all the guys in dirty t-shirts without sleeves (I'm not going to use that name, but you know what I'm saying) roaming the sides of the freeway, and RV's. And RV parks! And RV dealers! I actually saw a car driving in Eugene that had a huge "no fat chicks" sticker covering the back. If that doesn't make you want to visit Western Oregon, would you be interested in visiting a town called Drain? How about the next town over, Curtin? It's too bad there's not a Shower nearby. That was really a missed opportunity.<br />
<br />
When I left Pismo Beach, I really tried to roam free without using GPS, which lasted about 20 minutes in which I ended up in a marina parking lot. So I pointed Gina (my Garmin GPS) towards Half Moon Bay. Half Moon Bay was my favorite place to go to the beach when I lived in San Francisco. I drove along the coast, through Big Sur and Monterey, ending up in Santa Cruz. I'd never taken that drive before and it was gorgeous. The next day I made it to Half Moon Bay, but by way of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. That's means I drove in a big circle. Don't ask.<br />
<br />
Of course I'm going to tell you. I woke up in Santa Cruz thinking I'd had enough of the scenic route, and headed on the most direct route to Seattle. I was on some freeway, and reached a point where the freeway split in two. If you went right, you were going to Sacramento (which was the way the GPS was taking me), and if you went left, you were on the road to San Francisco. Suddenly I realized that I was skipping San Francisco entirely, in favor of Sacramento, and I was like, hell no. So I went left. That split second decision led to me driving on the top part of the Bay Bridge, which I've always found both exhilarating and terrifying. Part of the time, I can't see where I'm going, and it feels like I am driving way too high in the air for any sane person to tolerate, and I'm going to drive off the end of the world. Then suddenly, I'm driving into San Francisco! I hung out in Half Moon Bay for a bit, and then headed for an Indian restaurant in Petaluma. I really can't explain that one, but it meant that, unexpectedly, I ended up going north on the Golden Gate Bridge, which was 1) amazing, 2) free (no toll going north). So I hit both the S.F. bridges. Totally worth it. But that's not all! When I did decide to go back to some kind of logical route to Seattle, my GPS took me through Napa, which is another place I'd never been and was beautiful. I had one of those transcendent moments, driving through the farmland of Northern California, singing at the top of my lungs to "Wild Hearted Son" by The Cult, when I thought, "I'm exactly where I should be, when I should be, and I'm going to remember this for the rest of my life."<br />
<br />
Yesterday I learned:<br />
1) I am just someone who doesn't take the direct route, and even if I try, I end up going in circles.<br />
2) I have a strange internal compass that takes me where I don't even know I want to go.<br />
3) It's not logical, but it makes sense.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-14583257054341011872015-09-10T01:03:00.001-07:002015-09-10T01:03:13.468-07:00Escape from West L.A.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tnqCxe5cTZs/VfEWbyD0_nI/AAAAAAAAE9U/V7Px4L19oGM/s1600/2015-9-9%2BPismo%2BBeach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tnqCxe5cTZs/VfEWbyD0_nI/AAAAAAAAE9U/V7Px4L19oGM/s320/2015-9-9%2BPismo%2BBeach.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pismo Beach, Sept 9, 2015</td></tr>
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I'm on my way back up to Seattle. I don't know if this is day one, or day nine, as I was supposed to be out of my apartment in West Los Angeles on August 31. It took me until September 8, at about 10:30 pm, to actually get out of my apartment. It seems like most things I try to do these days becomes more complicated, plodding, and energy-consuming than planned.<br />
<br />
The whole moving away from L.A. plan started with moving to Spokane at the end of July, for the MFA program. I didn't get a teaching position or even a financial aid offer. I actually never got a yes or no on the teaching position, and the financial aid offer was kept being delayed. First, I was supposed to find out mid-April, then June, then July, then August. You get the picture. Every time I emailed or called the financial aid office it was going to be another 2-4 weeks, with different reasons each time. The total amount of financial aid changed for the university, so all awards had to be recalculated. Graduate students get their aid offer after undergraduates. There's no reason, it's just going to be another three weeks. It finally occurred to me that, 1) teaching is a integral part of my Plan For The Future, and there is little to zero chance of me teaching creative writing after an MFA program without teaching experience in said MFA program, and 2) I can't afford more student loan debt. Business school was expensive, and even when I was making the big bucks my loan balance didn't go down significantly. With teaching comes a tuition waiver, and usually a stipend, and many MFA programs are moving to a fully funded model because MFA degrees don't get you the big bucks. So on July 20 I cancelled with EWU, with the intention of applying to fully funded programs for next year.<br />
<br />
I'm still moving back to Washington, to Seattle, because reasons. Seattle still feels like home to me, even after eight years of living in Los Angeles. L.A. stresses me out- traffic, poor air quality which has meant annual sinus infections and a reoccurring cough, and so, so hot. Oh my god, so hot. I need to re-group, re-set, re-whatever. But, I delayed moving another month because my dog, Sparky, was getting sick and I had a feeling that it was serious this time. My feelings were right. I had to put him to sleep on August 14. I don't even know what to say about that. I can't sum up how devastated I am. At the same time, I've dealt with this in a fundamentally different way than I've handled emotional difficulty in the past. I was able to stay with it, in the moment so to speak. I didn't numb out or shut down. It's a significant milestone in my trauma recovery. Before, when I experienced bad things, upsetting, traumatic, triggering things, my emotions took a walk. I didn't know how I felt about my life most of the time. It happened at such a subconscious level that I didn't get a chance to consciously decide whether to turn off my emotions or deal with them. I should clarify that it was protective, life-saving even, when I was a child. It needed to happen so I could get through that trauma. It's been a problem in my adult life though. I couldn't manage my life very well, because I was running on auto-pilot so much of the time. The worse a situation was, the more disconnected I got, which meant I was emotionally unavailable to respond, that is, get the hell out of that situation.<br />
<br />
Now I am definitely in phase two, the feelings all the time, as they happen, with fire hose strength. It is much better because I am finally getting real-time feedback on my emotional reactions. I know what I'm feeling, absolutely, unfiltered, no moderating it, no avoiding it. Phase two is not the final phase. It can't be. This is kind of like being a teenager again, at least emotionally, with the life experience of an adult. I can keep the strength of my emotions in perspective most of the time, and realize that it's a phase and that eventually my emotional reactions will calm down, and be tempered with, you know, stuff that keeps you from crying in public all the time. But right now, I don't have a filter, and getting hit with fire hose strength emotions is exhausting. Exhausting enough that I can only handle so much, and moving back up to Seattle is a lot of so much. When I moved to L.A., it happened very fast. I got the job, and then movers came and packed up my apartment, and I drove 14 hours the first day, and it was a tornado. In eight years I didn't even unpack a lot of that stuff. This time, I got rid of a lot, but there was only so much I could handle. I ended up throwing things in storage that I couldn't get rid of, and it took me eight extra days. I don't really know why I couldn't finish by August 31st. It took me until September 8th.<br />
<br />
Last night I made it to Sylmar, where my friend lives. Today, I made it to Pismo Beach. Pismo Beach was a little random. I want to see the coast. Both google maps (wow, font change!) and my Garmin GPS just can't get off the direct route through the middle of California, so I was trying to trick them into going to the Pacific Coast Highway. I'm actually staying in a cheap hotel on PCH, the Blue Seal. I got here at 6 pm and stopped for dinner, and wanted to walk on the pier and the beach and decided to stay for the night. I didn't have a plan for the next place to get to. It's stunningly beautiful here, very California. I've never seen so many surfers in one place, running down the street towards the beach with their surfboards, and people can take their dogs on the beach. Seeing so many dogs made me cry, and I thought about turning around and hiding in the hotel room. But I sucked it up and kept walking down the pier and on to the beach and to the water, where I ran from the waves to keep my Doc Martens relatively dry, and picked up garbage on the sand. Garbage on the beach drives me crazy, especially plastic.<br />
<br />
When I was an undergrad, we read a book called <i>My Old Sweetheart</i> by Susanna Moore. I don't remember the class, or what the book was meant to teach us, but I remember the book. It stayed with me. It is about a girl in a dysfunctional family, a family where the parents don't take care of the kids, and the girl takes care of her mother. The book is set in Hawaii, and unfolds like a flower. The family splinters, but slowly, languorously.The girl's sister runs away, but the way she runs away is to go to a neighbor's house. Then she goes to a neighbor who lives a little farther away. House by house, bit by bit, she gets farther and farther away until she's in a completely different place.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-50159766215570973342015-03-19T01:19:00.000-07:002015-03-19T01:19:29.672-07:00"Do what I do. Hold tight and pretend it's a plan!"<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iOsYvlYdVYU/VQpfthxqDMI/AAAAAAAAE3s/E3ezBZHMd4g/s1600/DrWhoOhtheplaces.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iOsYvlYdVYU/VQpfthxqDMI/AAAAAAAAE3s/E3ezBZHMd4g/s1600/DrWhoOhtheplaces.jpg" height="320" width="241" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blog title is quoted from Doctor Who, season 7</td></tr>
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I found out last Sunday night that I was accepted to Eastern Washington University's Masters of Fine Arts program in creative nonfiction. I'm still waiting on financial aid and other financial assistance, i.e. a teaching position, but I feel hopeful that this will work out. Classes start in September, which means moving back to Washington at the end of the summer. Moving is a big enough deal, but moving back to Eastern Washington is a REALLY BIG DEAL. Washington state is like a lot of states and the U.S. generally where there are urban, liberal areas and rural, conservative areas, and Eastern Washington is the more rural conservative part of the state. Actually, outside of Seattle but still on the western side is a lot of small logging communities that are not all that liberal either, and where I grew up, Pullman, is a college town and somewhat liberal compared to other parts of Eastern Washington, but I digress. I haven't lived in that area since I was eighteen, which in case you are wondering, was 25 years ago. I never in a million years thought I would move back there, so just the idea that I will probably be living in Spokane by the end of this year is mind-boggling. For me. And most people who know me. Like I can hardly wrap my mind around it.<br />
<br />
There's the, I have a lot of tattoos and I'm a liberal weirdo who is completely unremarkable in Los Angeles but probably not going to blend into the Spokane culture, aspect of this, and then there's the moving from the second largest city in the United States to a city that is 3% that size. Even Seattle is almost 20 times larger than Spokane. It's hard for me to imagine, and I was born and raised in a town that is 20 times smaller than Spokane. Small towns or cities are different in so many ways from large urban areas, too many to list. So I'm expecting a significant degree of culture shock. At the same time, I feel like I'm getting a do-over. Even better than a do-over, because I have the benefit of years of experience, having lived my life in a completely different way than I would have imagined before I went to business school. Now I'm going back to what I always believed was my calling in life, to be a writer. I go back to writing with a skill (accounting) that most writers don't have, and a bunch of related skills that I developed while working in accounting, like training and managing people. Then I have what I learned in business school, including the art of faking it until you make it, or bullshitting your way through, if you want to say it in a less generous way. This is a skill that some people learn as they are growing up. If you are moderately privileged, you might assume that you will be successful in life and in the projects you undertake, including school and careers and relationships, and setbacks can be overcome, so if you don't totally know what you're doing it's fine, you'll pick it up. Or, like me, you might have grown up expecting to die in a gutter somewhere, but were lucky enough to gradually learn that you could accomplish your goals like other people, even if inside you felt undeserving and fraudulent most of the time.<br />
<br />
Ironically, some of us pursue goals that seem purposely difficult, while maintaining a belief that we are losers even as we work harder and do better than those around us. Plus, those goals that we work so hard at proving we can do despite ourselves tend to not reflect what we really want, rather what we think is expected of us or what is safe. As much as I genuinely like accounting and the feeling of accomplishment it gives me, I chose it as a career because it seemed safer than to do what I wanted, be a writer. A professional, full-time writer. I thought it was easier to get into business school, get hired by one of the five top audit firms, pass the CPA exam, and work in a fairly technical, complicated, and specialized field that is super-conservative and has a culture that doesn't reflect me at all than do what I have know I was born to do from the time I was able to write words. I was so afraid of failing at something that defines me that I succeeded at something that was only hard for me because I didn't believe in myself. But I get to try again, realizing now that I didn't exactly make it easy on myself while I was trying to make it easy on myself. Turns out denying who you are is hard work, and not a satisfying goal to accomplish. Regardless, I am still alive, which means this game isn't over.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-33137379761496339652015-02-24T00:21:00.000-08:002015-02-24T00:21:38.027-08:00Returning to the scene of the crime<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the last two weeks, I've been working on my application to an MFA program in eastern Washington, for creative non-fiction. I've been looking at the MFA rankings in <i>Poets & Writers</i> for the last three years, and location had been a very important criterion until I looked at the 2014 magazine and saw that this program's deadline hadn't passed and I liked what I read about the program. Suddenly, I don’t care where I move as long as it’s for an MFA program. Going back to Washington is appealing, but moving back to eastern Washington is not something I'd considered before. The university is in Spokane, and Spokane is less than two hours away from where I grew up. That would mean I could visit my brother's grave any time I wanted to, but in recent history, when I've gone to the cemetery I've gotten the hell out of there as soon as possible. Strangely, I now have no anxiety about the idea of moving there. Not only does it seem plausible, it seems perfectly natural. Which is weird. Really weird.<br />
<br />
Also weird- going through my blog to find posts to include in my writing sample. There is a lot in there I forgot I wrote, forgot happened, or forgot thinking about. My favorite post is still "My Heart" from February 2006. It's about my brother's death, and every time I read it, I cry. I just did some light editing of it in my writing sample and had to take a break afterwards because it made me so emotional. I don't know if it affects anyone else who reads it, but it says everything about how I feel about Jeff's suicide. It is everything about why it’s been so hard since he died. <br />
<br />
I picked nine blog posts for the sample, but I re-read most of what I wrote for the last ten years, and I noticed some patterns. <br />
<br />
1. I am sick a lot. It's kind of discouraging to read just how often I'm sick, but I'm not surprised. Stress ravages your immune system, and I really wonder if my immune system even developed properly. I have been under massive amounts of stress since I was a little kid. <br />
<br />
2. This recovery thing is a difficult, long slog and I am really trying so hard. I keep chiding myself for not being dedicated enough, but I really am trying and it is hard work. Plus, I'm constantly sick. I'm making progress, and that is easier to see when I review the last ten years. But the day to day reality is that it feels like one step forward, three quarters of a step back, over and over and over with no end in sight. <br />
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3. I keep getting boyfriends that I think are so supportive and understanding, and I'm so lucky to have them, and then they turn out to be not what I thought. To be fair (to me), it's happened four times in ten years, so it's not like I'm going through boyfriends like Kleenex. The thing that strikes me is that the way I describe them when things are going well is so similar, and I’m soooo grateful that someone is accepting of me because I’m soooo awful to be with. Even though I haven't written about the breakups very much because I don't feel right about making my complaints public, the breakups have been very similar as well. This tells me that there is something specific I'm looking for in a romantic relationship, something I don’t seem to think I deserve, and I keep mistaking it in similar people. That I can see that actually seems encouraging, because maybe I can figure out why these relationships are so appealing, and find a way to fulfill those needs some other way. <br />
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This blog, on the other hand, never disappoints me. What an amazing gift to myself that I have documented the last ten years (more in some years than others) and can look back and see my progress, my patterns and my obstacles. In the next ten years I can make exponentially more progress and be somewhere I can't even imagine right now. Hopefully I will be in a place where I'm not always sick.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-41095765567947546022015-02-10T00:29:00.001-08:002015-02-10T00:29:46.024-08:00To My Well-Meaning Friends and Acquaintances, or Manifesto of an Uncomfortable Blogger<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-32D7ZwzIhkw/VNnAZ1KoM9I/AAAAAAAAE1A/6p_Ydf5s0rk/s1600/Writing%2BCompanion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-32D7ZwzIhkw/VNnAZ1KoM9I/AAAAAAAAE1A/6p_Ydf5s0rk/s1600/Writing%2BCompanion.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My writing companion</td></tr>
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Since I was bullied out of my job, my biggest desire has been to get back to my blog, even though it may be construed that this blog is what lost me my job. Blogging has never been easy for me, and I’ve never been naïve to the dangers of sharing the intimate details of my life. I spent thirty years keeping quiet, and I had to overcome a lot of my own fear and embarrassment. Before I started blogging I though, this is a stupid idea that will make everyone think you’re a freak, and besides, confessional writing is usually awful. The only thing that got me past the first couple of months was telling myself that no one was reading it. So when I was “outed” at work and treated like a freak, it wasn’t like I was completely flabbergasted. What I was less prepared for is the well-meaning acquaintances who said things like, “I could have told you this would happen” and “You shouldn’t be putting this kind of stuff on the internet; keep it in your support group.” Well. There are reasons why started this blog, and why it is public and not private. This blog is far more beneficial to me than harmful. It is the single most effective way that I’ve found for dealing with my trauma. <br />
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I grew up equating silence with survival, and there is a powerful part of me that wants to avoid anything that might put me in a vulnerable situation. My biggest priority growing up was to survive my family, and I developed emotionally and socially around that necessity. Much of, if not all of my adult life is influenced by the belief that I need to keep my focus on the basics of survival. When I’m scared or just don’t know how to judge a situation, the reaction to clam-up is instinctual and automatic. I do value and respect that part of me, even though it exerts almost tyrannical control over my life. It’s what powered me through, regardless of how depressed or suicidal I was. No matter how much I hated myself and hated my life, that part of me could not be dissuaded from doing whatever it took to keep going. When my therapist marvels that I’m not addicted to drugs or dead, that part of me is why. The challenge is to get past that singular focus, to have goals and aspirations that are greater than just survival. It feels natural to defer to that part of me, and the coping mechanisms that accompany it are so automatically and immediate that it takes consistent effort and self-awareness to stop them from taking over. It is so determined and sure of itself, and is hard to counter when it’s the first one there with a really compelling argument for all situations- “If you don’t do what I think is best, your life is in danger.” <br />
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The definition of danger is not just physical. When you’re a child, you’re dependent on adults to care for you, including emotionally. Children need to be loved. I was in danger with my parents from as far back as I remember. My dad was violent and routinely threatened to kill me, and my mom was emotionally, sometimes physically absent. She was depressed, and her inability to bond with me made my survival precarious. They were both verbally and emotionally abusive. You can’t help loving and depending on your parents when you’re a child, and I learned how to love and depend on people that mistreated me. I learned to tolerate and accept people that were unreliable, emotionally absent, unpredictable, and cruel, and to look to them to meet my emotional needs. You can probably see where this is going. If I follow the script I learned as a child, I think I’m taking care of myself in dysfunctional relationships. This is one of the areas where, if I don’t challenge my survival self, I accept familiar but emotionally frustrating and unfulfilling relationships instead of expecting something better. I also struggle to connect with people because of my reluctance to be open with my feelings, because it feels too dangerous. It feels too dangerous to be open with myself about my feelings, especially when I feel threatened.<br />
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Paradoxically, child abuse also potentially sets you up to be overly dependent. Children learn how to take care of themselves by imitating their caregivers, in ways that most people are not even conscious of. For example, when a baby cries and an adult comes to comfort them, their brain is actually learning what it feels like to be comforted and calmed. They are able to use that feedback to learn how to self-soothe when they get upset and an adult isn’t there. The stability of your caregivers creates stability in yourself, and that leads to self-reliance and independence. So if you don’t learn self-care as a child, you either need other people to help you regulate your emotions, learn to live with a heighted sense of fear and instability, or numb yourself out so you’re not overwhelmed. Either that, or you try to learn how to manage your feelings as an adult, which involves letting go of your coping mechanisms and allowing yourself to feel out of control until you learn other ways of dealing with yourself.<br />
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I did have a relationship that was an exception to my norm, the one with my brother. As much as I understand what he was dealing with and don’t judge him for taking his life, it felt like a huge betrayal. His death took away the only relationship I felt I could count on. It was also terrifying because I struggle so much with being suicidal, and having someone close to me act on it made it feel a lot more possible for me. That is the other side of me that grew strong off the misery of my childhood, my depression. That’s what I’m really terrified will get a foothold, and the part of me that is so hell-bent on survival is what I’ve relied on to keep that part of me that doesn’t want to be alive from rising to the forefront. More than anything, the threat to my survival as an adult is my own depression. <br />
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It’s this battle between the two parts of me that were fed and nurtured for most of my life that continues to suck up my emotional resources. To move beyond the limits of that existence, I need to make room in my head for something else. When I got to the point in my life that I felt both unbearably numb and unbearably depressed, realized I didn’t feel close to anyone because I’d locked myself down so completely and couldn’t reveal any of myself, was incapable of talking about my brother at all because my grief was so intense and was only getting worse, felt trapped in a prison of my own making and couldn’t even comprehend a future for myself, I decided to take radical steps. I did the thing I was the most afraid of; I started sharing my feelings. <br />
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It has been total hell. I feel lost and out of control a lot of the time. I am both exhausted and painfully awake, and feel like I’ve peeled off my own skin and am just raw to the world. I have so much grief, so much suppressed emotion, so much trauma to work though, and it’s the hardest work I can imagine. I try to moderate the time and energy I spend with it because it can totally take over, but I’m also fighting the urge to push it back down and try to forget about it. The thing that has been the most effective at keeping me moving forward is blogging. It is an act of total rebellion against the self that clings to silence and denial. I want to go back to putting up a front and hiding it all, go back to that comfort. My mind is more powerful than drugs or alcohol at numbing the pain. It takes conscious effort to keep pushing forward, and I lose my way when I stop blogging. I have to keep pulling myself back. It has not gotten easier. If anything, it just gets harder. My survival instinct runs on such an unconscious level that I don’t even know where the resistance is coming from. The unconscious is a vast ocean that can easily throw a tiny boat of conscious intention off course.<br />
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So I keep trying to write about it. I try to make it as raw and uncomfortable as possible. I counteract my desire be invisible by dredging up the feelings I am the most reluctant to be aware of or share with anyone else. Once I put it on my blog, I can’t hide it anymore. It’s out there. It’s more effective than thinking about it, or writing about it but keeping it to myself, or sharing it in a support group. It reminds me of writing a poem. It takes shape in your brain, and you write it, and then obsess over it, and rewrite it, and edit it, and rewrite it again, and hopefully you get to a point where you decide it’s as finished as you can make it, and you let it go out into the world. It is your creation, but it’s no longer yours. Creative work becomes something outside of you when you put it out there. As confessional and messy and hard to control as this blog is, it is still my creative work, and I feel like I am letting go and making space for myself.<br />
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If you think I shouldn’t be writing like this in a public space, that I’m over-sharing and needlessly exposing myself, and that I’m making my life more difficult, you, 1. Have no idea how painful it’s been to keep this all inside, 2. Don’t know me. At all. This is the most real I can get, and there is nothing that can happen that would be worse than the emptiness I felt when I was too fearful to reveal anything about myself. What I don’t understand is why anyone would read my blog in the first place if they think it’s inappropriate, but I have received that feedback. If it makes you feel icky, don’t read it. One of the reasons this works for me is that I know I’m not forcing anyone to hear about my crap if they don’t want to. If you look down on me for revealing these things about myself, that’s your issue, not mine. I’m not here to fulfill other people’s standards of how trauma victims should act or feel or talk about themselves. In real life, people don’t go through trauma, get it processed and packaged up all pretty so everyone can say, oh, she’s so brave and strong and look how amazing she is but now she can move on with her “life” and we can go back to pretending that child abuse is so rare we can ignore it, rape is not a big deal and has no lasting affects, people who commit suicide don’t mean anything to anyone, and when bad things happen to people it’s because they brought it on themselves. <br />
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If you think I don’t understand the consequences of what I’m doing, believe me, I do. I know things you put online will always be out there for people to find. I’m actually fairly internet savvy, and not naively wandering into computerland and thinking, hey, this is so cool! I can post selfies and talk about myself! Please stop with the warnings and advice. I actually didn’t lose my job because of my blog. I lost my job because of office politics and they just choose a particularly nasty way to take me down. Next time you feel the need to let me know the downsides of writing what I’m writing and posting it online, take a breath, restrain yourself, and remember, I got this. I’ve got bigger downsides that I’m dealing with. Okay? Okay. I’m glad we had this talk. Thank you for your support.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-30996374941974635992015-01-05T23:31:00.001-08:002015-01-06T11:36:38.342-08:00Valley of Untenable Vamps<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I listened to a podcast called "<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley.html" target="_blank">Lexicon Valley</a>", and they interviewed Peter Sokolowski from Merriam-Webster, Katherine Martin from Oxford University Press, and Jane Solomon from Dictionary.com on their publications' choices for Word of the Year- culture, vape, and exposure, respectively. (The name of the podcast is "<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/lexicon_valley/2014/12/lexicon_valley_peter_sokolowski_of_merriam_webster_erin_mckean_of_wordnik.html" target="_blank">Exposure to Vape Culture</a>". Until I listened to the podcast, I saw the title and thought vape was some vampire reference, and wondered if I had missed something since I thought the height of vampire obsession happened at least five years ago. Actually, it's a reference to electronic cigarettes.) The criteria used to select the words are, interestingly, completely different. Merriam-Webster chose culture because it was the most looked-up word on their website, especially when school starts. (As to why that is, you'll have to listen to the podcast.) Vape is more of a "of the moment" word; a word used in a subculture that rocketed into popular usage in 2014. (Obviously not used by me.) Exposure is reflective of the events of 2014, such as the ebola outbreak and hackers infiltrating businesses and stealing photos. Lastly, they talked to the Erin McKean, the founder of Reverb and Wordnik, about why crowning a Word of the Year is limiting and unnecessary. In that spirit, they suggested listeners could suggest their own Words of the Year. <br />
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It was a challenge to come up with a word to represent my entire 2014, not because so much happened, but because I have blocked out most of it. I really racked my brain for a good half hour until I came up with the perfect word: untenable. Untenable: not able to be occupied or defended against attack or criticism, unsustainable, unjustifiable, weak. I think of it as selecting a place to set up camp, then looking up from your site preparation and realizing there's no way you can stay there, and you can either pull up camp now and look for a better place or decide you've already pitched your tent there, you don't want to move, and hold on until you can't anymore. Or I think of a critical battle in a war, watching your position slip away and your troops inching back, and being in the moment where you're wondering if you should turn and run or fight it out knowing you'll get torn apart. It seems like one of those big fancy words, but it isn't. <br />
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I could hardly have a conversation with a friend this past year without untenable popping into my head to describe my situation. It is a word I was aware of but hardly used before this year. I could probably come up with a sociopolitical argument for how perfect it was for the last year. Really, how many situations, even ones that while not positive seemed to be under control, blew up in our faces in 2014? Iraq went from slowly disintegrating to a monumental, unfathomable shitstorm. Ukraine's president fled the country and Vladimir Putin went from problematic but tolerated to an almost cartoonish villain. Ebola went from a horrific but rare and isolated disease to one that aid groups were begging the world to pay attention to, and then it spread outside of Africa and the rest of the world started paying attention. Ferguson, Missouri became the flashpoint for the treatment of people of color by law enforcement. All of these things were problems before 2014, but they all hit a tipping point and became unavoidable. How many people do you know who say they don't pay attention to the news because it's too depressing? It would be hard to find even a news-averse person who hasn't heard about the news in 2014. That's the thing about an untenable situation, you either find a way to get out of it or it gets you. Sometimes you eat the bar<a href="http://dudeism.com/lebowskilexicon/" target="_blank">... </a><br />
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There were a couple of high points, but my personal year was mostly suffering through a rapidly imploding marriage that didn't so much blow up as make me feel like I was in a two-year hostage situation. To survive it, I returned to coping strategies that I learned a long time ago and thought I was past needing anymore, like numbing and retreating into myself. I used to consider myself an extrovert. Now I don't. For the first time since I moved to Los Angeles, I am homesick for Seattle. Home is the operative word. I don't feel like I belong here. My breaking point has been the weather, something that is usually cited as an advantage L.A. has over Seattle. The summer was hot, and it sucked the energy out of me, but this winter has been more of a winter than I've ever experienced in L.A. It's rained so much that I used my rain jacket for the first time, and loved it. It got so cold I wore my big furry coat. The weather was Seattle but nothing else is; I write as I can hear people arguing in the alley behind my apartment building, a regular occurrence. Two days ago a "sniper" (later downgraded to a guy who shot into the air and then ran into an apartment building and shot his gun some more so they knew exactly where he was) was in a standoff with police one block, and by one block I mean literally one block, up the street. A helicopter was flying directly overhead all night. Thankfully no one was hurt, even the gunman. (Guess what race he is? I'll give you a hint. He's not black.) I go by accidents on the freeway multiple times a week, two last week with ambulances and fire trucks screaming by. We all have to face mortality, but I notice death walking next to me more than I did when I was a goth kid who wore only black. I can't even listen to my music without starting to cry because it reminds me of the person I used to be that I feel so removed from. This is why it's such a struggle to write, which is the most intolerable thing of all. So weather isn't the only reason, it is just the overcast icing on the cake. I truly am only happy when it rains. Who knew?<br />
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I've already decided on my word for 2015: clean.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-78996465622053031002014-01-22T17:04:00.000-08:002014-12-26T11:34:24.872-08:00Bodies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In the little over a year that I went to ASCA (Adult Survivors of Child Abuse) meetings every week, the biggest thing that struck me was how similar I was to the other people in the group. I had no idea how much of my life had been impacted by the way I grew up. There were so many things about my personality, my way of dealing with people, work, conflict and stress, and the patterns in my life that were eerily similar to these people who I didn't necessarily have a lot of other things in common with besides that we were abused as children. One of the things that kept coming up was that women who had been sexually abused had problems with food. We either had a hard time eating or ate too much for reasons besides hunger. Some women, like me, fluctuated between the two. The ASCA meetings were the first time in my life I ever talked about being bulimic. It was amazing since I've been talking openly about a lot of things for the last eight years that I never talked about before. I've just had a lot of practice keeping things hidden, even from myself, and I still moderate how much I share, even subconsciously. It wasn't like I just flipped a switch and a completely dark room became illuminated. It's more like I lit a torch in a forest with a lot of winding paths going in many directions, and I've been exploring them ever since. One reason I didn't deal with my issues with eating was that it wasn't a priority at the time. I had a lot more pressing things to deal with. But when I heard other people talking about it in relation to being abused as a child, it felt safe for me to talk about it. Outside of the ASCA group, talking about having an eating disorder felt like I was bringing up yet another unrelated problem out of nowhere, but in the group, it fit naturally into the other symptoms and outgrowths of the abuse.<br />
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It started with my parents telling me that they fed me and put a roof over my head, so what more did I want from them? It was the alternate reality that was drummed into me from childhood- this is all normal, you deserve to be threatened, yelled at, and hit; this is your fault; we are good parents. Part of the rituals of "we are a good family" is that we ate dinner together every night and everyone was expected to play the parts of normal family members. When I got to middle and high school, this charade became more and more intolerable. It was torturous to look my parents in the face, let alone talk to them about mundane things as if I wasn't going to be fighting for my life a couple hours later. I tried bringing books to the kitchen table, since they were my escape. That got me in a lot of trouble. I hid in baggy clothing. I slouched down in my chair. Then I started refusing to eat in front of them. It was a hunger strike. They couldn't make me eat, and they couldn't say they were feeding me if I wasn't eating. They couldn't have their precious normal dinners if I wasn't eating. It made sense from a physical standpoint as well. I was trying to disappear in clothes and under black hair and make-up. The thinner I was the more I wasn't there. During soccer season, I had practice after school and came home after dinner anyways. I went straight to my room without eating. In the off-season, I came home from school when no one else was home. My brother was still at school, my dad was at work, and my mom had started going to school. That was when I started bingeing on pasta and bread. I was so hungry, and I felt relaxed after I ate. I liked eating in secret. It felt like I had something my parents couldn't control. All the sharp edges and emptiness of the day was gone when my stomach was full. I was satisfied. My weight fluctuated wildly between soccer season and the off-season, but I was the only one who knew because my clothes were so loose.<br />
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When I started drinking I discovered throwing-up. It was like smoking because at first it felt awful, and then it felt good. I felt purified after I threw-up. Not only did it get all the alcohol and anything churning in my stomach out, but also it felt like all the black feelings in my body came out, like an exorcism. I had a rush of warmth to my head and felt light and floaty. For a couple seconds, I was free from the confusion and anger and self-hatred and feeling like I had so much pain inside me I couldn't keep it all down and it would come flying out of me, cracking my skull open and bursting my heart and guts into a bloody mess. Throwing up sounds like a gross way to deal with bad feelings, but considering that some of the other options I saw around me were heroin addiction and suicide, it seemed pretty mild. Eating disorders can have a lot of different reasons and messing with your food is always available. It's easier to do than getting drugs and usually less addictive, and less final than suicide. I thought it was a lot less dangerous than other options, although I've realized that's not always true. There are very serious and life-threatening immediate and long-term dangers to eating disorders that can hit at any time or wear away at you over time. In our diet-heavy culture, we consider anyone the slightest bit over "normal" weight unhealthy, and assume anyone who is skinny is healthy (we even call it "healthy" weight). We are largely unaware of how unhealthy it is to deprive your body of the nutrients it needs, which compounds over time. In treatment, I met teenagers with the beginnings of osteoporosis because their bodies were so desperate for calcium that it was being leached out of their bones. When you're not eating enough to fuel the basic functioning of your body, your body eats away at itself. Starvation is not healthy. I myself have erosive esophagitis, which can be reversed, but if it isn't, it could lead to cancer.<br />
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Sexual abused really complicates your relationship with your body. At the time, I disassociated so I could mentally and emotionally get through what was happening to me physically. That agony, I don't know how else to describe it, had nowhere to go and lived buried in my body and my subconscious. It causes discord inside me, and the more its confined in my body the more I blame my body for the pain I'm still in. I wonder if there's something about my body that makes abuse happen to me, and I want to change that part of myself. I want to get far away from the body that experienced the abuse, either by changing myself physically, disconnecting from my body, punishing my body, or some combination of those. At the same time, my body is mine, one of the few areas I do have some control. So much of abuse was to have control taken away from me, to take my body from me, to treat me like a doll with a consciousness trapped inside. The abuse completely messed up my ability to develop into an adult who felt agency over my body and my life. I grew up not feeling in control of my body, and not even feeling like I was in my body a lot of the time, which didn't make me feel like I had control. To heal, you really have to go the opposite way, and connect with yourself, but that's a long process. I'm a lot more aware of myself than I used to be, and more connected to my body.<br />
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I used to disassociate with just about any stress, which meant my body went numb, my mind went blank, and my feelings disappeared. It was frustrating because situations that I could potentially handle I wasn't able to because my survival response had took over and I wasn't emotionally there to respond. But I'm still very blunted, so that I'm doing a lot of emotional work to put together what's going on with myself. I have instincts, but I really have to tease out my own feelings, and even things that are going on in my body. The thing is, emotions aren't just in the mind. They are so much a physical experience, and I really struggle to feel present in my own body. It sounds strange, even to myself that I don't feel in my body. I do feel my body, but it gets away from me, and especially the physical manifestations of feelings don't seem to make it to my brain. My consciousness is chronically under-informed. The eating disorder was actually an imperfect way to get some control of the situation and my body. It was the shortcut and what I could manage with my body at the time. It is also still easy for me to get back to that place, even now. PTSD keeps those defense mechanisms close by. When I felt physically threatened with the rape talk at work, the terror over my body put me back there. You can't work on healing when you don't feel safe. I was desperate to find some safety and nothing felt safe. The eating disorder gave me a little bit of a safe feeling. Without real, dependable safety, the eating disorder still has a purpose.<br />
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<br />Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-20107259533305086492014-01-06T20:08:00.000-08:002014-12-26T11:34:54.830-08:00A waltz with discomfort<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This last year was all about dealing with my health. I had a whole range- the more conventional and sudden (having my appendix removed in September), a resurgence of an old problem (bulimia, with more than three months of near full-time treatment), external (gaining a lot of weight), internal (bacterial overgrowth in my lower intestine), hormonal (started having my period every two weeks in October, which remains a mystery), and pharmaceutical (stopped taking all my medications in July and went through a very nasty withdrawal period from one which I would never take again, went back on two, added two more). Primarily I'm just dealing with the constant in my life for as long as I can remember, my companion, my curse, my friend, my foe, the terms and conditions of my life, my PTSD. It has been my biggest struggle over this last year, and the year before. It was something that I kept compartmentalized and separate, as much as I could and as much as I imagined I could, from the rest of my life. Now the goal is to live with it, be integrated, fit the pieces of myself together and present a united front. Not that I'm at that point. I've really been shell-shocked since I stopped working. Of course, shell-shocked is just another term for PTSD, so how do you stop being shell-shocked about the fact that you're in a lifelong state of shell shock? I know that in some cases PTSD can be overcome, but I went through trauma so early in my life, for such a sustained period, and reinforced by multiple major events. It will be with me for life and the best I can do is work to lessen and manage the symptoms. I'm not being negative. I just know my illness by now.<br />
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My therapist once said that she didn't "think of me as mentally ill" because anyone that grew up the way I did would have PTSD. I thought that was strange, first because she's a therapist and I would think a therapist would consider PTSD just as much a mental illness as any other mental illness. Besides, what difference does it make that the conditions were so extreme that there was no chance of me surviving without developing PTSD? Does that mean that someone who theoretically "could" have survived without developing a mental illness is "more" mentally ill than someone who had no chance? It plays right into the derogatory belief that people with mental illnesses are weak and if they were stronger they would be able to overcome or avoid getting ill altogether. This is a widespread, ridiculous idea that makes it that much harder to live with a mental illness.<br />
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Imagine the pressure you'd feel if you had an illness that permeates every aspect of your life, where you go through periods where you isolate yourself from other people because you are so sick even though that's the time you need people the most. You find it hard make and/or maintain relationships because your health is so up and down. You go through periods where you are close to death but to people who don't understand what it's like to be suicidal it's "all in your head". You work twice as hard to maintain a career or get through school and need to take breaks, even start over, repeatedly, and find the motivation to pick yourself up again and again. You have doctors and medication, but dosages are always being adjusted and medications just stop working, or the side effects get too disruptive to live with. You try other drugs but every change comes the risk of taking a nosedive or having truly terrible side effects instead of merely onerous ones. The medicines don't cure you anyway. Hopefully they alleviate crippling depression or anxiety so you can function without interfering with your personality to the point where you don't know who you are anymore. Besides the side effects, there are usually other medical problems, like digestive difficulties, sleep issues, hormone imbalances, thyroid issues, and back problems. All the while you're trying to maintain as much of a normal exterior as possible because in most workplaces and social circles, no matter how open-minded, people knowing you have a mental illness is going to hurt your social standing and credibility. So you put a lot, a lot, of energy and effort into managing your anxiety and fighting off depression and stabilizing your emotions. It's exhausting. I do it every day just to get through.<br />
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But if I was stronger, I'd be able to just stop being ill. If there was any chance I could do that, since I'm pretty smart and driven, I'd be putting all that effort and more into being free from this huge stone around my neck. The reality is that people who live with mental illnesses are some of the strongest people out there. It is a constant struggle that most people have no idea is going on. What is really weak is when just hearing about mental illness is intolerably uncomfortable, making the effort to be open-minded and consider the experience of someone different from you is too hard, and having compassion and empathy rather than judgment and distain is too much effort. Maybe they genuinely believe in a tough love approach. "If you are socially isolated and treated like a freak for decades, you will suddenly have an epiphany into how you can be magically cured of your moral failings as a person!" Or maybe they really believe it's contagious and they might get the "crazies" if they don't distance themselves.<br />
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I read about the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1428981893985157/" target="_blank">Lines Project</a> online, which is the picture above. For a week in December, you draw 6 lines with a Sharpie on your left wrist if you self-harm and/or are depressed, and on your right wrist to show support. I participated, and I think it is a really brilliant idea because of how invisible people's suffering usually is. Suicide and self-harm is especially hard for people who haven't experienced it to understand, and is often seen as something you are choosing to do rather than a symptom of an illness. I have no desire to go back in the closet with my mental illness or my, gasp, loose talk about things we don't acknowledge lest someone think we brought it on ourselves, so I don't care about drawing bright lines on my wrist and posting pictures. If you look closely you can still see the lines I put on my wrists permanently. For me, they will always be there, whether other people can see them or not. Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-86790729742001017872013-08-11T11:12:00.001-07:002013-08-11T11:13:54.310-07:00How long have I been here?It’s hard to keep the days straight around here. This truly is Hotel California. Speaking of, the real Hotel California is near here. It is an insane asylum in the desert. People don’t leave because there is no where to go but desert. Normally, I would call something like that a mental facility or something like that, but it really looks more like a place to get people out of the way rather than a treatment center. Not that where I am is really an asylum, but it is hard not to feel a little like I am locked up since I am under more strict controls that I ever have been. Last night I got yelled at a little for going to the bathroom without finding a staff member to come with me, and I had to really work it to find a time to take a shower when I wasn’t on observation. I should probably go outside more often, but I’ve been spending most of my free time lying on the heating pad. I’ve been asking for Tylenol, which helps my back. It was hard to sleep last night because of the backache and I had a bad headache too. This morning the headache is better but I am bloated. One of the staff talked to me about how to pick my meals to reduce the bloating. I don’t want to eat meat, but some of the meat substitutes are not sitting well with me. The fruit here is really good but the rest of the food I really don’t want any part of. We are supposed to drink two glasses of water or a glass of water and tea (except lunch is just water) with each meal and snack. Even that is hard because of the bloating and because I don’t want to have to pee and go through the whole thing of getting someone to go with me. I’m pretty fixated on how I feel physically because it is hard to ignore right now.<br />
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I am also taken with a panic of what I am missing while I’m here. Last night my co-ed hockey team had a play-off game, and my women’s hockey team played my bestie’s team on Friday night. They started their season three weeks ago and I won’t be able to come back for at least a month. I cried last night because I was so upset I couldn’t be there. I am worried about my pets and that my husband will stop loving me. I’ve been super-crabby lately and I worry he will decide he is happier without me. I felt like I was withdrawing from people for the last year, and I’m not sure if I will be able to come back into a social life, or heal enough to do that, or if I do, if my friends will let me.<br />
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This morning I noticed two references to lightning rods. I was reading the music review section in the <i>Los Angeles Time</i>. Amanda Shires album “Down Fell the Doves” is on Lightning Rod Records, and a review for Public Image Ltd.’s first album “First Issue” says:<br />
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“The primal scream of the post-punk era, John Lydon’s first post-Sex Pistols project is, in retrospect, as influential as his work as a lightning rod punk singer in a cartoon shock-punk band.”Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-80715425560800041092013-08-10T16:02:00.003-07:002013-08-10T16:02:57.169-07:00Sh*t just got weird Today is my second day in eating disorder jail. Ha, ha, treatment. I did do this to myself. I started acknowledging my eating disorder behavior in my ASCA group after other women talked about it, and decided to pursue treatment 2 or 3 months ago, and now I’m in a residential program. The biggest change is how structured it is. We eat three meals and three snacks, and the time is all structured, even the free time. I have to be on it for the free time, because the last couple of times I tried to do something, suddenly it was time for something else. I spent most of my time today lying on a heating pad because my lower back is really pissed off about something and the muscles are spasming. It started yesterday, and I didn’t sleep well because of it, so I am exhausted. Plus, it was strange to be sleeping someplace different, and I have a roommate. Every time I shifted around I was afraid I was waking her up. I miss my husband and pets intensely, and just being at home, and my hockey teams. I was in Chicago last week and I’ve been away from my women’s hockey team for the whole season. The other big thing to get used to is that two hours after eating I’m under observation, so someone has to come with me when I go to the bathroom. They wait outside the door and I count so they know I’m not up to something. It is so irritating that my biggest pleasure, after talking to my husband on the phone, is to go to the bathroom during the small window (30 minutes, usually) that is two hours after eating and before eating again. Also, it is just a lot of eating and drinking water, so I feel bloated for most of the time too. Finally, my last complaint for now, they took my cell phone and computer away, and there is a 20 minute time limit on the public computer. So I have to stop writing soon. I have a journal to write in, and I have so much to say. But I also have a sore back that wants the heating pad back. So I will stop for now.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-30974112947836859312013-08-03T20:52:00.001-07:002013-08-03T22:43:30.964-07:00Shrine space <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-j8QrtEwv3OE/Uf3P8h05JRI/AAAAAAAABg8/5vrdLLZ06tk/s320/2013-08-03_08-34-00_539.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me in the Akhu shrine (blessed dead). Seshat is to my right.</td></tr>
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It is now a new year, the year of Heru-sa-Aset (Horus). We've kissed the face of Ra, turned the dangers of the year, ate a feast of offerings, danced pseudo-belly-dancing to, get this, "Walk Like An Egyptian", had auctions, took various group photos, and ate another ton of food at a buffet. I do feel better than I did yesterday, especially after a coffee run. My hair is extra-bright today for some reason. I added stars for two people to the Akhu shrine wall to honor people who have passed to the unseen world- my friend's brother who committed suicide last year, and David Rakoff, a writer who was on NPR a lot who died of cancer. Of course my brother has a star up on the wall. I felt his presence yesterday when I was in the room. I enjoy spending time with the shrine. It includes Seshat, who is not usually considered a funerary goddess, but is triple-aspected with Nit (creatrix goddess) and Nebt-het (Nephthys). Nebt-het is the Egyptian goddess who appears when you're dying. So Nit, Seshat, and Nebt-het are like the three fates- Nit is there at the beginning of your life, Seshat measures out your life, and Nebt-het is there at the end. I am a spiritual child of Seshat, who is also the goddess of accounting and measuring the foundations of buildings, educating the king, and keeping the Kings List, which is how Ancient Egyptians recorded their history.<br />
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Tomorrow we are having the healing baths. I was also hoping to get some Reiki from one of the women here, but I think we'll run out of time. Hopefully she can work on me after the baths. The baths are amazing. I didn't do them the first time I came to retreat. They are an extra, and some people leave early and skip them. So this will be my third. The hardest decision to make with regards to the bath has to do with the Serqet (or Serket) bath. By the way, I'm usually using the translated Egyptian name for the gods and goddesses, and including the Greek/Roman version of the name in parenthesis. Serqet is an Egyptian goddess who wears a scorpion on her head and protects against poison. In her bath, you have to chose between the reductive bath, which washes away trauma, and the additive bath, which gives you extra sight. People swear by the powers of the additive bath, and the reductive bath is another tear-jerker since trauma passes through you as it is washed out. Yet, when you've had a bad year, or decade, or life, being able to wash some of that away is huge. The first year I did the reductive bath since I've had trauma for as long as I can remember. The next year I tried the additive bath, because who doesn't want clairvoyant sight. This year, I'm going back to the reductive bath. I need a serious cleanse. My lip is still just as bad, by the way. This new year hasn't fixed that.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-38529642745512677942013-08-02T21:01:00.001-07:002013-08-02T21:01:47.269-07:00Hellllllo, butt crack of dawn!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2hYjnoLeOzE/Ufx2T0VDUkI/AAAAAAAABgo/iSZD-K5Zsxo/s1600/Egyptian-Calendar.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2hYjnoLeOzE/Ufx2T0VDUkI/AAAAAAAABgo/iSZD-K5Zsxo/s400/Egyptian-Calendar.gif" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Egyptian Calendar with Nut and Geb</td></tr>
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Tomorrow we are getting up before dawn, so we can be ready at dawn to celebrate the new year starting tomorrow. It will be a fun day. We will great the new year, clear out the energies from the old year, make music, make offerings, and have a big breakfast feast together. Later will be an auction and raffle. We usually laugh our way through the auction. It can be a competitive crowd, so some of the bidding gets fierce, and the fierceness is entertaining. I probably won't do a lot of bidding, since I have no money. I did make some sales of my own though, so maybe I'll look for bargains. I have some books from previous years that went for very affordable prices. Tonight we can hear fireworks. I don't know why there would be fireworks tonight, but it is appropriate for us since it is New Years Eve.<br />
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Today I bawled like a baby in the ritual. I don't usually cry that much, but it is completely normal for people to have big emotional releases. Often I'm jealous because I imagine they feel a big cathartic release and they are getting to a higher level of connection. Having lost my composure, I most feel tired right now. It might feel better later. I might feel like I can let more go. I got more acknowledgement today that it was a hard year, and that this coming year will not be so difficult for me. I know that is a relief, but I don't feel it yet. It was such a difficult year that I still feel exhausted by everything that happened. Maybe tomorrow I'll start to feel the hopefulness and joy of a new, better year. Maybe I will feel it when things start to happen in my life that make me feel more in control of my life, and that I can move on from the intense disappointment I still feel at being forced out of a job I worked so hard for and put so much of myself into, the disappointment of being bullied in hockey and in ASCA and not getting the support I thought I should have, and the constant drumbeat of social and political events in this country that highlighted the injustice we live with and perpetuate. This last year it's felt like I couldn't accomplish anything, move forward with anything, change anything. I'm hoping this year I'll see the support I have more clearly, and that will give me the courage to go back into battle. Onward!<br />
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Even if I don't feel better tomorrow, I see it coming. I developed a cold sore on my lip last night, and it keeps getting big despite the time I'm spending trying to be at a higher level of consciousness that the level that cold sores live on. The timing is interesting. I keep having intensifications of the physical discomforts I'm having like dizziness, headaches, sore throat, muscle cramping, nausea, followed by a dramatic alleviation of the symptoms. Then they return. The cold sore hurts! A lot! My left ankle has felt all day like I twisted it, but I don't remember doing anything to it. I've been poring "special" purified water on my lip, and we have the Sekhmet healing baths on Sunday, but I have a feeling my detox period will be longer than a few days of retreat.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-46422894881740368172013-08-01T23:02:00.000-07:002013-08-01T23:02:37.862-07:00The best defense is a good offense.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-67ts3_420vA/Ufsnn6V_vkI/AAAAAAAABgY/06tCm3RyVzk/s1600/sekhmet3-l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-67ts3_420vA/Ufsnn6V_vkI/AAAAAAAABgY/06tCm3RyVzk/s320/sekhmet3-l.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sekhmet, Eye of Ra</td></tr>
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I got some good messages today. It's been a great retreat week because the doors seem to open. I was told to be fierce! I was told to keep fighting. I was also told my brother is doing well but misses me. We, the general retreat audience, were told to fight for justice. I like it! Just what I am ready for. I am ready to get out of my head. Tomorrow should be a good day too. <br />
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It's been a little difficult to write because I have too much to write about and I'm having a hard time focusing. It's better than having writer's block though. I have writer's overwhelm. Then, when I sit down to write, I'm flitting around and not settling down on what I'm talking about specifically, so I'm also afraid I'm not being clear. So maybe I should say, in the interest of clarity, I'm at a religious retreat, and we are doing rituals and workshops. Today we made Sekhmet healing amulets. We had a lecture. Then we had a ceremony. In between, we talk, eat, and have a marketplace. I brought jewelry and scarves to sell. I've made some money to help pay for the hotel bill, and I also traded for some cool things that I didn't have to money to buy. I was actually just talking to someone here about her doing some reiki on me, which I really need. Tomorrow, we have a long ritual. It's about 6 hours. I should go to bed soon. My roommate is asleep already, and our friend is in here re-beading her necklace. I'm in my pajamas and chilling on my bed. We have a mellow, go to bed early room. We're chatting but we'll go to bed soon. <br />
<br />Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-20488278014709346112013-07-31T22:40:00.000-07:002013-07-31T22:40:01.915-07:00She Who Has Had Enough of This Crap<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-59_rFjuUmD8/UfnzAJKGniI/AAAAAAAABgI/4CQykaGWBTw/s1600/Red_tailed_hawk_saoring_Maryland_USA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-59_rFjuUmD8/UfnzAJKGniI/AAAAAAAABgI/4CQykaGWBTw/s320/Red_tailed_hawk_saoring_Maryland_USA.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
I'm annoyed because I've been trying to get to a screen where I can actually write for the last 40 minutes instead of screwing around with websites and browsers and internet connections. Such is the pain in the ass world of writing online instead of by pen and paper, or even typewriter (unless you have an electric typewriter that craps out on you). I have my cute little netbook with me, that unfortunately is full of ridiculousness from Best Buy. I will never buy a computer from Best Buy again. I used to be fairly self-sufficient with a computer. I could do my own troubleshooting, clean up my drives, clear my browser, install my own memory, all that good stuff. Now I can't even remove the worthless garbage Best Buy molests my computer with before I even buy it without crashing the system. I tried to download the Firefox browser today so I wasn't stuck with Microsoft "an IT person would never use because you can fly a Dreamliner through it's security holes" Explorer, but Firefox dumped a bunch of spyware on my computer without actually installing the browser, and now I can't get rid of that crap either. Computers have gone from freedom to bondage, from moving us forward to getting us good and stuck in the mud. I'm not even websurfing or Facebooking and I'm struggling to get anything done. <br />
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Today we found out the God of the Year is Heru-sa-Aset (Horus, son of Isis). My biggest interest in Heru-sa-Aset is his focus on JUSTICE. I like justice. I don't feel like I've had a lot of it in the last year. Not only is a lack of justice a big concern for my personal/professional life, but the news of the world is a big part of my world. With Bradley Manning, Trayvon Martin, Bob Filner, Wendy Davis, Huma Abedin, all the nameless faceless rape victims, fast food workers, Moral Monday filling my head from just the last 3 days alone, justice is what I don't see. Last year, our God of the Year was Nut, who was about balance and self-sacrifice. I don't think I was the only one who had a rough year. Nut does not have it easy. She is the sky, and she balances there apart from her brother and consort Geb, the earth. For me, her year was about dealing with weaknesses in my foundation. It was important work, but painful, and Nut holding herself up off the earth is necessary, but painful. Ever try to hold the same position for longer than a few seconds? It's rough, especially if your spine is all out of alignment. My metaphorical spine has been out of alignment all year.<br />
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We did some heka today. Heka is magic, but not just magic. Magic sounds like a ritual, but heka is intention. Heka is what you do, what you say, what you think. It is the results of what you put out in the world through your words, your deeds, and the thoughts you manifest in yourself. The heka we did was to bind the negatives in our lives so they won't hold us back in the next year. We bound things like blocks to our creativity, force used against us, and difficulties in relationships. I had an epiphany while we did the heka. One of the reasons Ancient Egyptian religion works for me is that it don't try to sugar coat the difficult stuff. Difficult stuff is a huge part of life, and a religion that goes silent when it comes to grief, anger, injustice, and pain is not a religion that works for me. I can't abide by people telling me to get over my anger and let go of my grief, especially while the causes of my anger and grief continue uncontested. For me, it is not healthy to accept injustice and move on. It is not proper to praise a bird in a cage while a free bird lies dying in front of you. But it is a heavy burden to feel the pain of everything around you. It is not so heavy I'm willing to drop it so I can lie to myself about who I am and who people around me are, and lead a make-belief life. Fighting back against corruption and lies is worth suffering for because I chose to fight back. But I don't need to let the fighting happen within myself. I can push it out into the world where it belongs. I imagined trapping the bad feelings within myself in the heka object. This heka is meant to rile the gods up so they will help you fight and bind these bad things. The gods get angry. We got angry. This is bad stuff and we want to be good and angry when we fight it. Anger can be appropriate. It can be motivating. It can drive you to change things that are unjust. <br />
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Then there is grief. We may not want to think of the people we've lost and feel their absence, but the alternative is to go numb to your feelings and forget about who we love, and forget about that part of ourselves. So we remember, and cry, and keep them in our hearts. Just like we open our eyes to injustice, get angry, and we change the world. We are angry and we don't forget. Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-54518530087366976362013-07-30T19:15:00.001-07:002013-07-30T23:13:06.679-07:00I iz in Chicago.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-iTK1x_XPq3A/UfhzVmhOD6I/AAAAAAAABf0/j1NkqLyDeQQ/s400/2013-07-30_21-02-19_628.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hotel shrine- Seshat, Seshat, Set, Seshat, Ma'autseshat (me!)</td></tr>
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I arrived in Chicago yesterday. I'm here for Kemetic (Ancient Egypt) New Year. We have convention every year to celebrate, which I have attended for the last four years. Festivities begin tomorrow morning, but people have been arriving for the last couple of days. Most of our activities are at the Holiday Inn & Convention Center in Joliet (suburb south of Chicago), which is where most of us stay for the week. Those of us who have arrived have been running around the hotel, meeting for meals, and are currently enjoying "Sharknado" with coconut tequila and rum. We suspect that the tequila and rum are critical to really appreciating "Sharknado", although the acting of Ian Ziering and Tara Reid is delightful as usual. We've actually decided the character Nova, played by Cassie Scerbo, is the most competent and sympathetic so far. I could talk sharknado all night. I am convinced that some executive at SyFy has been pushing these fantastical disaster movies since the days when SyFy was actually the Science Fiction channel. He was reaching the point where everyone at the network thought he was crazy for supporting these movies, which he considers visionary but are usually consumed in the form of clips on "The Soup", but "Sharknado" has brought him the recognition that has so far eluded him. Good for him. His persistence has brought us the most enjoyable "wishes it was good enough to be a B movie" movie ever on SyFy, maybe even in the history of cable TV. <br />
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I was hoping to start blogging my adventures yesterday, but my travel itinerary was rough. I took Southwest because you can check two bags for free, but I was trying to fit everything into one suitcase. It exceeded the weight limit, so after packing all night I repacked the suitcase three times and then finally transferred everything to two smaller suitcases. Ergo, I was late leaving for the airport and late checking the bags in. I was warned that they might not make the flight. I then discovered the security line was out the door and down the sidewalk to the next terminal. I was so convinced I wouldn't make the flight I called my husband to alert him to turn around and come get me. The line was MOVING though, and I made it to the gate before my check-in group had even started boarding. I made it on the plane in plenty of time, although there were no aisle seats left. I have been insanely nauseous for the last couple days, so I was hoping to be a quick lunge to the bathroom. I ended up between two teenage young women and behind two screaming babies and in front of an occasionally screaming toddler. I picked that seat both for me and the young women since I didn't want to end up next to someone creepy and talkative, and I imagined they didn't want that either. I only had to crawl over the woman on the aisle to stumble to the bathroom once, for privacy to moan over abdominal cramps. Plus, I had a piercing migraine, wicked acid reflux, and was dizzy, so I spent most of the flight lying on the seatback tray trying to sleep. If I turned my head a certain way and kept perfectly still I could drift off for 10 minutes at a time. It got bad when the plane started to descend. The nausea hit me like a bus. I dug the air sickness bag out of the seat pocket and carefully positioned it so I could projectile directly into it. The teenagers looked horrified. <br />
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Disturbingly, this kind of illness mitigation is pretty normal for me. I have lots of experience with situations and physical conditions that cannot be escaped and only managed. I was also anticipating a long day of managing- bags that may or may not arrive, taking a number of buses for almost three hours to the hotel, and trying to find something to eat that wouldn't make my symptoms dramatically worse. I made it off the plane without hurling, ran to the first store I saw to get acid reflux medication and water (safe liquid), and, hooray! my bags made it. Little victories. The rest of the day I averted major disaster- after an hour on the first bus, I was unable to find the bus stop for my connection. My cell phone died, but just before I wrote down my friend and retreat roommate's cell number and called her from a bank. She drove to retreat and was able to find me even though her phone was about to die and I was in some strange suburb 20 miles from Joliet that neither of us had ever heard of. She was driving around getting supplies when I called, and after she rescued me we got fruit and other food gentle for my stomach. So I survived, but when I got back to the hotel I was ready to lie down for the rest of the day. <br />
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Bottom line is that I survived, and I am now sipping coconut tequila, laughing at the greatest TV movie ever and the commentary from a room full of new sharknado enthusiasts, and enjoying the company of people I see only once a year if that, but feel like know me better than most people who see me far often. I am hoping that the rest of the week continues to rise above mere survival. Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-5612035572687975492012-12-15T06:55:00.001-08:002012-12-16T00:04:05.552-08:00Normal is the watchword<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vs_hSJEqd_I/UMpfYbHLQII/AAAAAAAABYA/5srUkHQbBiI/s1600/IMG_3172.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vs_hSJEqd_I/UMpfYbHLQII/AAAAAAAABYA/5srUkHQbBiI/s1600/IMG_3172.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
Hidy ho, readerenos. If you've ever experienced a serious depression, you'll understand why I haven't been writing. I have a hard time returning emails, phone calls, texts (so many more ways feel guilty about being a flake), even leaving the apartment. When I do need to leave for something, I drag my feet leaving and get there late. Almost everywhere I go, I need to leave an hour and half beforehand to avoid being late thanks to fabulous L.A. traffic, and even when I'm ready to go I seem to forget what I'm doing and get distracted, or I just don't get ready to leave until the time I should be leaving. Even in the presence of other people, I sometimes feel hands wrapped around my throat and I can barely speak. <br />
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A depression like this can feel like it takes on a life of its own. It's a nasty little gremlin wearing steel-toed boots that kicks you in the chest and stomach, and then when you double over it's kicking you in the head. It hangs on you, pinching and kicking and stabbing you with it's sharp nails. It's not like you can just walk away from it; it won't let you. The things that make me feel better, like being around friends, getting out of the apartment, writing, and exercising, are the hardest things to get myself to do. I don't have the energy and a lot of fear is surrounding me. Like the depression, the fear has taken on a life of its own. Actually, it's from another time in my own life. I wanted the time to process the horrors in my past, and I got my wish. Those feelings of terror are no longer shoved down in my subconscious. They are swirling around me like a fog. The trick is to let them dissipate instead of shoving them back down. I need to accept those feelings as real, even though they don't match my life now. I know that my current reality is not that scary. There's enough hostility and conflict in my life to make my distrust of other people seem warranted and necessary. Such is the life of a lightning rod. The big difference is that I'm an adult now with options that I didn't have as a kid. I'm not trapped and helpless like I was then.<br />
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As soon as I started to feel like I was pulling away from the depression, I had a huge breakthrough. Or breakthrough crisis, to use the ASCA terminology. I go to ASCA (Adult Survivors of Child Abuse) every Thursday night. I think it's important to go every week because it keeps me from avoiding the work of processing my trauma. At least once a week I am opening myself up to remembering and re-experiencing the parts of my life that were too chaotic and painful to feel at the time. When a part of my life opens up to me, it is a confusing mix of emotions. It was something that I kept in the corners of my mind, with little hints in my memory to keep it from sinking into oblivion. It doesn't creep into my consciousness though. It slams into my mind with such force I wonder how I could have ignored it for so long. Such was the remaining void in my life- my time on the streets. It is so obviously a huge source of unprocessed trauma in my life. Living on the streets was an unmitigated horror.<br />
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My friends were other kids from abusive homes. Most of the girls had been sexually abused, and the ones that grew up in Seattle were mostly from abusive and alcoholic families. They left home when their alcoholic and violent parent was on a bender, and sometimes returned when the parent had hit bottom and were remorseful. Then the cycle would start again. Heroin was everywhere at the time, and friends overdosed. Some died. Some disappeared and I never found out what happened to them. People started using and they were no longer the same person. Shooting up heroin is like committing suicide but staying in your body while it rots. I could hear heroin in peoples' voices and see it in the way they walked, and I knew my friend was no longer in control of that body and that mind. I saw so many track marks and so many abscesses they seemed normal. The first abscess I saw was eight inches long. It tore a girl's bicep open like something had clawed its way out of her, and I almost threw up. I knew women who's dealer/boyfriend/husband pimped them out to fund both of their habits. I got my first tattoo from a very talented artist and junkie, and realized later he had pored ink with his blood in it back in the bottle he used for my tattoo, and I spent the next 12 years terrified that I would become HIV positive. (I've gotten tested annually since then and 20 years out I finally don't dread them anymore.) I kept the needle out of my arm, but the death and despair I saw never left me. It was a terrifying life of drugs and vomit and blood, skinheads and frat boys who attacked us for sport, corrupt cops that took a cut of the illegal drug sales and treated the street kids as badly as our parents did, and sickening adults who preyed on the desperation of children thrown out by their families, their schools, and society as a whole. We were human garbage. Yet, it was preferable to living with our families. Think about that.<br />
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I didn't see a future for myself after foster care kicked me out when I turned 18 and had to drop out of high school. My friends went to college and I went to the live on the Ave in Seattle. I was angry, scared, abandoned, crushed, resentful, defiant, ashamed, aching, numb, frozen, raw, and hurting. Hurting all the time. I stopped thinking about how much I wanted to die because I thought I'd be dying soon anyway. But I held on to a tiny piece of hope and a stubborn refusal to give up on myself, and I figured a way out. I found help, a lot of help, but I still had to give it everything I had to drag myself out. I feel grateful, but just as angry that I was in that position in the first place and angry that it was so hard and that every one of us deserved a lot more than we were given. This whole time I've felt survivor's guilt for leaving friends behind that deserved a chance too. And before I even made it through college, my brother committed suicide and I had to work doubly, triply hard to push through the grief and loss and get someplace safe. I had to get as far away as I could, but I guess now I'm removed enough and safe enough to let that part of my life back into my history. I feel relieved to replace that void in my life with the memories of a time in my life that has been very influential on me ever since. It shaped who I am today in a lot of ways. But I saw horrible things that make me sob and shake all over when I try to talk about them. I felt horrible things. I saw the extremes of human depravity and selflessness. It was it's own education, and I wasn't just slumming it. It wasn't like spending a year living amongst the poor people to learn their ways. I lived it. I survived it.<br />
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Having those memories back, not just of things that happen but how it felt to be there, my survival wrapped up with the people I've related to the most but felt the worst with, the life that was both the most real and the most precarious, my body wasting away (from lack of food, not drugs) but prickling and raw, actually makes me feel more substantial than I've ever felt. I've stopped feeling derailed. When all the pieces float up to the surface, they fit together. I fit together. I am exactly who I am, at this moment, where I should be. That is a good feeling, despite all the horror and sadness. It is whole.Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27400573.post-124592969662269942012-11-27T08:39:00.001-08:002012-11-27T08:39:39.811-08:00Guggenheim <div><p>Pictures from the Guggenheim museum in New York. </p>
<br/><img src='http://lh4.ggpht.com/-hHmzdpnQa20/ULTsnpPRdrI/AAAAAAAABWU/FT_6-0vQmHI/2012-11-25_17-52-20_934.png' /><br/><img src='http://lh5.ggpht.com/-vaJ3HTi2bZ0/ULTspPic1KI/AAAAAAAABWc/nWqGuCQR_Ko/2012-11-25_17-54-28_967.png' /><br/><img src='http://lh4.ggpht.com/-7ApJO0DUYSk/ULTsp81YkFI/AAAAAAAABWk/IBOjxpge8Ro/2012-11-25_17-52-06_264.png' /><br/><img src='http://lh3.ggpht.com/-8CDrdiZo1Yk/ULTsrGwyT7I/AAAAAAAABWs/sH6twS3S4ZY/2012-11-25_17-51-33_705.png' /><br/><img src='http://lh3.ggpht.com/-lvSrCxcXDEI/ULTsr3U3ikI/AAAAAAAABW0/btqf4hiOZWE/2012-11-25_17-50-49_753.png' /><br/><img src='http://lh4.ggpht.com/-UBRNL6ezxlY/ULTss6eESII/AAAAAAAABW8/PUcvIFfMi50/2012-11-25_17-50-30_449.png' /><br/><img src='http://lh6.ggpht.com/-wFVj8668J-s/ULTstxvGfhI/AAAAAAAABXE/wlu5FHEZDSU/1353883755115.png' /><br/><img src='http://lh4.ggpht.com/-zBW5yIj1gnc/ULTsu5_MPFI/AAAAAAAABXM/yaJhgbEPoFQ/2012-11-25_17-48-57_649.png' /><br/><img src='http://lh5.ggpht.com/-AXeSE-NkoYY/ULTswABg-kI/AAAAAAAABXU/HPYW7Yda1qI/2012-11-25_17-53-46_100.png' /><br/><img src='http://lh3.ggpht.com/-spRdgXVmKwI/ULTsxQ5x-uI/AAAAAAAABXY/LZ-I7V402Uo/2012-11-25_17-53-09_491.png' /><br/><img src='http://lh5.ggpht.com/-cEXTdwATGfQ/ULTsycxDKgI/AAAAAAAABXk/zIRuXhsDweg/2012-11-25_17-52-36_864.png' /></div>Tealrathttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12433499845511810541noreply@blogger.com0