I just realized today that I never posted anything about the boardie meet-up at Busch Gardens, because despite being made of awesome, I also sometimes suck.

To make up for it, I share with you this video, taken by Tami and featuring Gavin and myself taking Mooby for a ride of Sheikra - a coaster we were told we were insane for getting on. But it was FANTASTIC.



We are clearly the coolest people on that ride, because we are the only ones with our hands in the air.

And, some pictures:

I was ready to do battle, but circle of death won.


At least I didn't lose alone.


I'm exploring!


We're no angles.


No, Dory is at the other park...


These people rock the casbah.


Someone is trying to taste fame!


Get boardies together....and they post. Nerds!


Clearly I am bitter about missing the fun in New York, guys. Need I say it again? OK, very well: GRAD SCHOOL SUCKS!! I can't wait until I can go places again. I miss you guys. I miss having FUN! GAH. Oh well....in 7 weeks I am DONE. And I am going to the KEYS and it will be awesome.

As an aside, what's with my inability to form a coherent thought, much less a non rambling sentence? Perhaps it has something to do with the mind numbingly awful research paper I just finished writing? If anyone wants to read about how culture may impact treatment outcomes on individuals with schizophrenia, just let me know. It's a real page turner.

I don't hate South Florida. But I don't much like it either. My family is here, but I have very few friends, owing to the fact that the vast majority of people down here are full of suck. Of course, this is likely because today has been completely rotten and there isn't anything I can do about it and no one I can really talk to either. And I am not going to bore everyone by talking about it here for paragraphs on end. Instead, I will give you the short version I gave a friend via e-mail.

Short version:

People at work were nasty because their budget is being cut. So, pick on the intern day was apparently enacted. And then I took my laptop in to the apple store and they were absolutely no help whatsoever, but offered the benefit of talking to me like I am an utter moron who couldn't possibly understand all the intricacies of setting up a network.

I was thinking it would be really cool to simply have a place to get away. It's not even like I really need to talk about how rotten today was, as much as it would be nice to have a big group of friends to call on and find someone who was free, even last minute, and go hang out and have a couple beers and order a pizza and sit on the floor in comfortable clothes and maybe watch a movie. I had that in Orlando, in great abundance. South Florida doesn't even come CLOSE. Nor has it ever felt like 'home" in any sense other then it being where my family is.

And the fact that my family is here is a pretty big deal. But today I am completely miserable and people suck so badly, that I am looking for alternatives. I am looking at other cities for employment. I am looking at Washington D.C. and Boston and Chicago. I am looking at the UK, which is suffering a shortage of therapists and social workers at the moment. Where else should I look?

Tell me about how cool it is where you live. Or about a city you went to that was completely awesome. I need an escape plan.

The semester is barely more than a month old and I am already exhausted and don't want to go anymore. I have a countdown of how much time I have left before graduation. 8 weeks, for the curious. Of course, I also need to get a job so I can pay off these student loans. Which will be extra fun with the economy in the crapper that it is, which kind of throws my 5 year plan into something of a tailspin, since theoretically I had wanted to buy property within a year of graduation and now that is looking like a slim possibility indeed. Which is rather depressing and I deal with enough of that from my clients, I really don't need any of my own thank-you-very-much.

Also getting me down is the state of my laptop. I do believe that perhaps my AirPort card is failing, or its connection to my logic board is, because I need to be practically on top of the AirPort Extreme Base Station in order to get a WiFi signal and connect to the internet. Which is something of a problem, because I cannot, in fact, take this position with any great regularity. Alas & Alack. ALAS & ALACK. This means that I must take the little white slice of heaven in to get service, which may or may not require sending her back to California, which will make me quite unhappy indeed. Also, I need to find some spare time in which to do this. *sigh* Hell, I was going to wait until the 15th to order an iMac, but I might as well do it now at this point. GAH.

On the upside, I have a fantastic vehicle, a new 120gb iPod (I filled the 30gb one and so shuffled it off to me 'da), the ground level of my pyramid of needs is met (thanks Maslow), and I am contemplating a few trips to occur over the coming year after graduation which should take me a bit around this continent as well as allow me to step foot on a few others, hopefully. So, it certainly could be worse, right? Hell, come this time next year, I might be living on another continent, so there is that.

In the meantime, rather than listen to more of my general malaise, here's a couple of my most favorite poems. Guess the theme (yes, I am being totally facetious).

Witch-Wife
by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)

SHE is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun 'tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.


No Second Troy
by W.B. Yeats (1865–1939)

WHY should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

I'm on a roll. It's crazy.

Sometimes the universe aligns in a weird way and you have to take notice. At least pause a little. Serendipity is a silly sounding word, but it's also hard to ignore.

So, a few days after enduring some discomfort (which was easy compared to the years of things far worse, which served as the impetus to said discomfort) I was poking around on this here intarweb and lo & behold, I found this site and got the very last small of this shirt. And now, having seen the quality (American Apparel) I am comfortable recommending their products to others. I just bought another myself. Yes, they are THAT GOOD. Go. Spend money. Be awesome.

I know, it's insanity that nary a day has passed since my last blog. I KNOW. But I wanted to share some more information about the super cool video I posted yesterday (last night? This morning? Whatever), as I came across this little bit of data while reading Neil Gaiman's blog about this, that and the other. And since I am doing that, I might as well just round it off with an entire actual blog. I'm already here and all.

From Neil:
Meanwhile, the remarkable Peri Lyons (for whom I actually wrote the song) (not because I was Googling her late at night, but because she asked me last December to write a song for her one-woman show) will be doing the aforementioned show in New York (The Metropolitan Room: 34 West 22nd St Betw. 5th & 6th Ave. - New York, NY 10010) later this month -- details at The Metropolitan Room Website, here.

The show runs 4 days, starting this weekend. So, if you are in New York, GO and make me incredibly jealous that you get to do super awesome things while I languish away in Florida, AKA HELL'S WAITING ROOM.

Speaking of languishing in Florida, who can give me cost of living information about the UK? Apparently they are seriously hurting for people in my line of work over there, and I could make double the salary I would get in the US (partially because the dollar is crazy weak compared to the pound currently, but whatever, double is double).

Also, who knew that planning an international itinerary was so crazy difficult? I DID NOT, clearly. Now I see why people pay travel agents to do this crap for them.

In news of the 'huh. I'm not really sure how to feel about that', grades were posted for this previous semester and the two classes I got A's in were the two I dreaded the most. One of which was a class on policy and legislation and laws and those are all things that I want to have as little to do with as possible. However, I am able to recall facts about Dorthea Dix and understand lobbying and write a more then adequate causal chain, so there you have it. The other was Psychopathology, and I would like to think that my perfect grade in that class means that I am really superb at telling you what your problem is and being exactly right about it. However, it is far more likely that all it means is that I am quite good at taking tests that provide a patient vignette and ask us to come up with a diagnosis. And also remembering what words like Enuresis means and that medications like thorazine are dopamine receptor antagonists. B's were received in the other classes. So, this means that should I decide to pursue a doctoral degree in a few years, my grades thus far will support my acceptance into a program. If I can stave off the C's for one more semester I may be well on my way to becoming a PhD and still earn a salary that is just barely above the poverty line. Glamorous, no?

Then again, when I left the house today, mom called out "Help lots of people!". So, there is that.

Things I miss the about who I used to be.

Before I considered a PhD, I used to be rather creative. Long before I got paid to watch reality television, I used to write just because....just because I liked to write. Before I lost my faith in people, I used to take part in some rather grand collectives of shared energy that moved us all along towards doing things. Things that maybe we could have done alone, but that were so much more fun to do together. I sat in lofts in downtown Orlando, above night clubs and art galleries, sharing a bottle of wine and a canvas with another artist while a play write clacked away on a keyboard not far away and we all discussed the finer points of Portishead. Images were passed around like secret codexes as we were all collective enigma machines working overtime to break and make the secrets a little harder. Better. Paintings became poses became photographs became paintings again. Plastic was spun into hair, cotton candy colored and big enough to make a drag queen green with envy. My walls were red then. I would wear my kitty ears downtown because sometimes, the day demanded it. Striped stockings were for more then Halloween. I slept only 4 hours each night, and it was more then I needed. The rest of the time was spent reading, painting, watching movies, writing, creating. I had stacks of paintings in front of my fireplace. Friends would come over and I would give them whatever paintings they wanted, because each week the pile just got bigger and I got tired of looking at them. There was always music, live or otherwise, in my house. There was always paint on my clothes, my hands, my face, my coffee table and there were always people coming over and adding their own ideas to the mix, taking a few of mine out the door. Always plans being made, shows being conceptualized, stories being written. .

I haven't picked up a paintbrush in years.


In far cooler news, check out this video of Amanda Palmer (Yes, of The Dresden Dolls, who if you are not listening too, you really need to disengage your head from your sphincter and get on that, because they are awesome [and I only imply your head is in that very dark place as a comical aside, not because I am feeling a bit melancholy mixed with something far darker and bitchier.......ok it might be a bit of both]) performing a song written by Neil Gaiman (Yes, writer supreme of such things as Sandman and Good Omens and American Gods and Neverwhere, and read him, you will love him too [nothing about sphincters this time, I PROMISE]).

Watch!



And here are the lyrics:

I Google you
late at night when I don't know what to do
I find photos
you've forgotten
you were in
put up by your friends

I Google you
when the day is done and everything is through
I read your journal
that you kept
that month in France
I've watched you dance

And I'm pleased your name is practically unique
it's only you and
a would-be PhD in Chesapeake
who writes papers on
the structure of the sun
I've read each one

I know that I
should let you fade
but there's that box
and there's your name
somehow it never makes the pain
grow less or fade or disappear
I think that I should save my soul and
I should crawl back in my hole
But it's too easy just to fold
and type your name again
I fear
I google you
Whenever I'm alone and feeling blue
And each scrap of information
That I gather
says you've found somebody new
And it really shouldn't matter
ought to blow up my computer
but instead….
I google you

-Neil Gaiman

I challenge you not to fall in love. No really. If you don't, then I am afraid I cannot have anything to do with you anymore, because I have enough not awesome in my life.

Let's list them!

NOT AWESOME THINGS:

* Humidity that makes my hair frizzy and I need a hair cut desperately.
* Katchoo waking me up by horfing up glob of hair and mucus beside my bed.
* Rough skin, applying moisturizer every hour, ON THE HOUR, and knowing that I have a good week of itchiness coming up all for the pretty bits of color.
* Going back to classes in a couple weeks.
*I have not even STARTED making my halloween costume. Because I have no ideas that I think I can pull off in the time allotted. DAMNIT, do I not even get to keep that shred of creativity?
* Oh Big Brother. Sing your swan song, please.
* They are closing The Adventurer's Club. ALACK!

And Quid Quo Pro, lets cover the awesome. Symmetry is beauty, after all.

* The above video is ten pounds of awesome
* I graduate in December! Masters degree, yay!
* Simon R. is also a whole lot of awesome for sending me CDs of NiN remixed by him, goodness and joy. YES. JOY.
* I plan on making a trip to enjoy The Adventurer's Club one last time.
* House MD starts soon!
* Halloween is on a Friday. So even if I have to recycle an old costume, I can stay out and not worry about work in the morning.
* Reading Cleolinda's chapter by chapter synopsis of Twilight. I laughed so hard, I cried. TEARS of HAPPINESS. And then I found the following quote from R.Patt and squealed some more because it is SO FABULOUS.

"When you read the book," says Pattinson, looking appropriately pallid and interesting even without makeup, "it's like, 'Edward Cullen was so beautiful I creamed myself.' I mean, every line is like that. He's the most ridiculous person who's so amazing at everything. I think a lot of actors tried to play that aspect. I just couldn't do that. And the more I read the script, the more I hated this guy, so that's how I played him, as a manic-depressive who hates himself. Plus, he's a 108-year-old virgin so he's obviously got some issues there."

Clearly, he is awesome as well.

Four years.
One day.

There are some days you can't forget. No matter how much you want to. No matter how much you fill your day with minutia and responsibility. They just...keep showing up and reminding you. In this case, that I am not the person I was, and that I never will be again.

And I don't know that I will ever be completely at peace with that.

The client is a 24-year-old married female who arrives at Ye Old Mental Health Crisis Unit (YOMHCU) for voluntary assessment.  Although the client reported hallucinations and suicidal ideations on her application for inpatient admission, she later denies both statements. Instead, the client informs that she missed her outpatient appointment at YOMHCU and contacted the police to drive her to this facility because, "I didn't want to walk."

 

Some clients know how to navigate the system. In some cases, they can navigate better then many of the people who work within it. In some cases, they have been there longer then the employee of said system. It says something of their ability, of their personal resources…we've had clients walk for over 10 hours to get to our doors. Maybe they should have called the cops and told them they were going to jump instead.

 

Of course, you learn there are no easy solutions in mental health. Call the cops and you save yourself some blisters, but gain the possibility of being Baker Acted or court ordered.

 

The client is a 58 year old male brought into YOMHCU via law enforcement Baker Act. Client is grossly disorganized, irritable, threatening and uncooperative. Client was too incoherent to be properly assessed. When client was asked about his religion he replied "it is salad". Client spoke in rhymes and at times in song. When client was asked about how many children he had and the names, he stated that he had 5 children and then started naming American presidents.

 

Baker Acts are hard for a number of reasons. No one wants a resistant patient. My supervisor once said they were tortured by their illness (resistant patients, that is - not necessarily all Baker Acted patients)…much harder to cope with then the "pleasant psychotic", who is happy within the confines their illness has created for them. To be ordered into a locked unit…well, it can create for angry individuals. Which leads to assaults on other patients and staff. In the handful of months I have been in my practicum, I've witnessed 3 staff members get bitten. By other adults. And I was amazed how unfazed everyone was. "Did he break the skin? Are you going to have to get the shots?"

 

The client is a 45 year old married male who presents appropriately dressed and groomed, looking his stated age. Client's speech is clear and unpressured, of normal rate and rhythm, productive and goal oriented. Client's thought processes appear organized and he exhibits no delusions, obsessions, compulsions or preoccupation with internal stimuli. Client sits with relaxed posture, eye contact is intermittent. Client reports mood as "good" and displays with euthymic mood with congruent and appropriate affect.

 

Other times, they check themselves in, knowing their illness well enough to know that they are nearing the brink. Know that their moods are spiking and dipping too much. Know that they need to have their meds adjusted. Clients who have insight seem even more amazing after working with those clouded by disorder.

 

The client is a 38 year old female who arrives at YOMHCU via police escort. Client was contacted by the police after being reported removing her clothing and wondering across several lanes of traffic nude. Client's speech is pressured, hyperverbal, and is preoccupied with the belief that her life is in danger. Client is tearful throughout the interview and is responding to internal stimuli. Client displays various bodily motor tics and upon physical assessment may be under the influence of illegal substances. A full drug screen is to be administered.

 

Sometimes you just find yourself at a loss….trying to convince your client that you are not, in fact, attempting to murder them. You promise.

 

The client is an 18 year old female who arrives at YOMHCU via professional Baker Act after revealing suicidal ideation with advanced plan. Client admits to having kept various prescriptions originally intended as painkillers after dental work, anti-anxiety medications and a bottle of Adderall stolen from a friend in order to use them to attempt to overdose. Client reports a history of physical and sexual abuse. Client presents as flat with blunt and restricted affect and latency of response to verbal questioning.

 

And sometimes you just ache with them

 

It's an odd language we use in the mental health field. It has its own dialect and patina. And sometimes I have no doubt that it was designed specifically to allow those of us that use it to take a few steps back and get the distance we need for objective treatment.

 

(And, for the record, none of these are actual clients. I would never in a million years ever share actual client information in any way, shape or form.  This was more an exercise in the array of client archtypes - in a manner of speaking - I have been seeing over the past several months, and in how assessments are typically worded. Pointing out the things that are common makes me more aware of them and keeps me from falling into the trap of spitting out the same stock phrases in my clinical reports.)

In less than 30 days, I will graduate.

 

Approximately 6 months later, I will do it again.

 

I should have my masters degree in less then a year. 

 

It's been a long road.  And the last 4 months of it have included working about 75 hours a week, all told.  And the next 6 months will be about the same workload.  But there is a definable end, now that I have gotten accepted into the advanced standing graduate program.  The two years of working my ass off on my masters foundation work while completing my bachelors had a purpose!  I mean a purpose other than testing the limits of my sanity.

 

Speaking of sanity, my practicum ends in less than 2 weeks. I cannot say I have loved every moment I have been there.  I have worked with difficult patients and difficult co-workers (AKA 'co-irkers'). But I can honestly say that I have appreciated everything that I have learned, which has been considerable. And I think they've appreciated me too – because they offered me a full time job with full benefits today.

 

Heh.

 

Of course, I cannot accept it. At least, not for the next 6 months. The graduate program I will be in is simply too intensive to allow me to maintain a 40 hour a week daytime job. But there is talk of per diem, so we'll see.

 

Sadly, this means I will also likely have to leave the employ of the psychiatrist I have worked with for the last 2 years.  Which is a matter I am not thrilled about. But his practice is open 4 days a week (about 10-12 hours each day) and with school alone I will have to miss 2 of those days in their entirety. Factor in the next rotation for clinical practice into my schedule and the likelihood I will be able to be at the office the other two days is diminished significantly.  It's really not worth it for him to keep me if I can only work 1 day a week – and I totally understand that. Still, I will miss the job. I've learned a lot working with him.

 

Speaking of jobs, I am also still parading about as a writer. Someone will see through my clever ruse at some point, but in the meantime the company I write for is paying for some nice travel for me, all in the name of writing. Woot! I do love to travel. Thus, in May I will be hanging out with other fancy pantsed writer types, celebrating our ultimate coolness (ie: doing an obscene amount of drinking, eating good food, and going to a meeting or two to pretend to be all writerly and shit). Also, my thirty-second birthday. Also that whole graduating, getting into an exclusive program – oh yeah, and getting big fat merit scholarship! Nearly forgot about that. Graduate program is not cheap, but scholarships make it easier. Hopefully, I can maintain the grants I got this semester and cut my loans down. The less debt the better.

 

Also in May, I will be going to Busch Gardens with some VA folks.  Tami and I will have the Wine Room.  Watch out Tampa!

 

In short: I will be as busy as ever.  But damn, life is good right now, and I am enjoying it - even all the hard work!

 

Ok, as you were.

I know. I've been very incommunicado lately. But you guys know me - busier then ever. The brass tacks:

Started practicum - which has me working in ye old locked mental health facility 4 days a week.
Still working in the psychiatric office, also 4 days a week.
Have one 3 hour class each week.
Still getting paid for writing (I'm as bewildered as you), only now it's not just to write about specific TV shows. Now, I am also getting paid to write whatever the hell I damn well want, as long as it can fall under the heading of Sci-Fi related. Which means I write about movies, tv, comics, conventions...whatever. For example, my most recent article was about romantic couples from sci-fi-dom.
All this amounts to over 70 hours a week of "work" of one stripe another.

I went to a convention up in Orlando a few weeks back, where I met the ever so charming Nathan Fillion, and hung out with Rob & Tami before darting off to see old friends around my old haunts. But other than that brief respite, my life has been consumed by my work. And you know what? It's awesome.

There are two locked units - one that is mostly polysubstance abusers and one that is mostly populated with the actively psychotic. Thus, in the average day, I may hear about someone's latest crack binge and a few hours later converse with someone who is utterly convinced that the television is beaming messages directly into his mind and the only way to block them is to speak in rhyme...all the time. I do a mental status exam and assessment and then create a treatment plan for them. But the best part is meeting them each day and watching their status improve. I've seen schizoaffectives come in with active auditory hallucinations (and recently the very rare auditory+visual+tactile hallucination combination), suicidal ideations, responding to internal stimuli and hyperverbal like you would not believe...and over the course of a couple weeks I watch them return to being functional people who can present well, carry out the activities of daily living and hold a legitimate conversation.

Of course, it's not exactly rare that we release them, they stop taking all their medications and are bounced right back in to our facility or another similar one...but that's the nature of their illnesses. They are "frequent fliers" and often their baseline is still so fraught with disability that it can take years to find workable solutions to effectively combat all their disorders in a way that allows them to achieve balance. And, sadly, for some we may never get there. But that doesn't mean we stop trying.

In addition to the crisis units, I've also gone on several outside crisis calls. Most often this means going to a school to assess a child who is claiming suicidal thoughts or who is acting out violently towards the staff or other students. One such trip even took me to one of my old schools and face to face with my old guidance counselor. But, in other cases, the team may respond to a nursing facility, a residence or a public place where there has been a "disturbance". Not in the force. In a person who is pacing, talking to people who are not there, unwilling to get out of bed or eat, or something of that nature. There have even been calls where the team has been called to the site of a jumper, to talk them down.

Thus, I can say, each and every day is different and poses new challenges, engaging my mind, forcing me to adapt, to utilize theory and turn it to skill.

I do believe I love it.