Search me

I've been keeping a list of searches that brought people to this blog. Some themes have appeared.

By far and away, there were three EXTREMELY popular searches. I don't want to mention the keywords here because frankly, I kinda hope these searches will taper off. Someday. Here's a hint about the general areas:

1. A LOT of people are having trouble with the cars of a prominent German manufacturer. Specifically, one dashboard light.
2. Nobody seems to understand what constitutes a good score on the standardized tests students take to get into private high school.
3. An oddly large amount of people want to take karate. In NJ.

Otherwise, the searches were pretty hilarious. Or depressing, depending on how you look at things.

There was a lot of hate out there. Some was reserved for husbands:

• my husband hates me
• dealing with hurt husband
• i think my husband hates me
• hate husband
• i love my husband even when i mean to him
• my husband seems to hate me
• borderline personality disorder i don't love my husband
• why my husband hates me so much
• husband hate

There was a lot of parental/in-law hate to go around too:

• my parents hate me
• is ok that my mom wears a long
• narcissistic mother controlling
• my parents hate my husband
• my father hates me
• my husband hates my parents
• my husband's parents hate me

A lot of you need to see a doctor:

• 2006 never ending cold virus
• i really had to pee
• my glands hurt
• she apologized for her voice hoarse laryngitis
• chest wall muscle pull
  
• my glands hurt when i turn my head to the side
• fall forward ikea poang chair dangerous
  

And you need to talk to the doctor about how to take your meds.

• seroquel and ambien
• seroquel taper
• tapered off seroquel
• desiprimine recreation [Recreation? Seriously?]
• desiprimine
• diazepam tapering have the morning but not the afternoon
• taking darvaset while pregnant

There were some interesting perspectives on borderline... characteristics:

• borderline personality unusually perceptive
• do borderlines really hear voices
• how do borderlines goodbye
• what's annoying
  
• my therapist is annoying me
  

Apparently, it is a borderline characteristic to try to find your DBT homework online:

• dbt workbook
• dbt opposite action worksheet
• linehan invalidating environment cry about
• dbt emotion regulation homework sheet 1

And to track down the real identity of the best borderline autobiographer out there:

• rachel reiland blog
• rachel reiland pseudonym
• who is rachel reiland
• rachel reiland parents

Sure, I had some favorites, ones that made me laugh and scratch my head with puzzlement:

• entropy explained
• standing motionlesssubmissive
• how to make curly fries
• george seinfled t-bone

But if the author of these last two searches ever comes back here again... I wanna talk to you. At length. How come you're interested in this topic? Contact me. Seriously. We gotta talk.

• institute of living/hartford is crazy
• institute of living underground tunnels

Dear Future: any day now...

Dear Future:

I've got a bone to pick with you. Lately, I've begun to notice how many things are, well... hanging. Too many things. I'd like to have SOME concept, some vision of what my life will look like in five or six months. This lack of direction is starting to annoy me. Here are the items I would like you to resolve ASAP:

1. All future travel plans. Are those trips to Utah, North Carolina and Santa Fe going to happen? Are they going to happen by the end of March? Will I need to make more trips to prepare for relocation in April-June? Will my father be visiting in the coming months? And who will watch the cat while we jet around the country?

2. My husband's job. Will he get one? How soon? Will it be nice? Will he like the salary? Oh yeah, and where the hell will it be located? Can we narrow it down to one time zone at least?

3. My job. If we stay here, will I keep it? Do I even like it? If we live somewhere else, would I continue tutoring or will I go back to architecture? Full time or part time? Hmmm?

4. Babies. Like... will I ever have one? I know we've been only trying for six months and some months have been half-hearted attempts. But, I'd kinda like to know. NOW. And if I'm not pregnant this month (I don't know yet) why is my chest so swollen and tender? And why is my GI system all screwy? Just for fun?

5. The new car. What color will it be? How much will it cost? And when will I get it? How much will they give me for the trade in? Will it run ok or will it be a lemon? When will it get it's first scratch?

6. Our home. Ok, I realize that I won't be living here in this particular crap-shack in six months... that's good. But what will I be living in? Will we have purchased our first home? Will we still be in an apartment? Will it be nicer? Will this furniture be coming with us?

7. Will all the spiders and mold hiding in this apartment eventually rise up in the night and suffocate us? Or will the gas heater finally explode? Will this shack eventually do us in before we make it to our new home?

8. Will my patience give out?

'cmon future. Let's see a few results here. Understand? Good.

sincerely,

Juniper

Blame the graveyard shift

Soooo… did you all have a good week? Yes? Good. Glad to hear it.




Oh me? Uh… yeah, I had an ok week.




What did I do all week? Uh…



Nothing. No seriously, nothing.

Hence the lack of blogging. Early Wednesday morning, my husband left town for his first job interview. He got back yesterday afternoon. So, in celebration of my three days as a single woman I became…

a zombie.

Don’t get me wrong; I did manage to leave the house occasionally. I had one client each afternoon and group therapy on Wednesday and Friday. But other than those commitments, I did as little as possible. Lots of TV, hours of sleep, and some quality time with my couch. Sometimes this happens when my husband’s away. It’s like my brain tells the day shift to go home and lets the graveyard shift take over just the necessary operations.

I wasn’t exactly PROUD of this. I avoided a lot of things that shouldn’t have been avoided. Work, friends, exercise, housework… Most of the week I was pretty hard on myself about it, worrying I had become a permanently lazy slug. It’s hard to know what comes first with depression… being depressed or being depressed about being depressed.

But, let’s face it, after last week’s trip to New Jersey, I needed the rest. When I got back I felt discombobulated and rattled. I was exhausted from the journey itself, the jet lag and my busy schedule. But I was more emotionally exhausted. Spending time with my parents always wears me out, especially when the visit is intense, like this one was.

I’ll write more about that later.

Finally, on Friday morning, I woke up feeling more like myself… like I had a vague interest in doing something that might not include my couch. Yesterday I made it to the gym and today we actually started the onerous task of car shopping.

My husband leaves for another interview trip first thing tomorrow morning. He now has eight interviews! Eight! And an invitation to a conference in Madrid! It’s going to be a busy couple of months… Hopefully I won’t resort to being such a hermit, stuck in my own head. It’s a lot nicer to be out in the REAL world with the day shift.

Wise-Ass Onesie Wednesday (a day late)

So, I know that this one isn't exactly "hand-crafted" but I can't keep making onesies until I have a baby to put them in!

For now, the onesies are going to be digital.

I love my job... ?

Today I went to see one of my regular clients. She's a 7th grader at a local private school; one of the most academically challenging in the area. I've worked with her for a while now and her homework kicks my ass.

Right before Christmas, she was asked to write an outline for an English paper on "a controversy." Some of her classmates wrote about why they should offer lunch a bit later. My kid... she wanted to write about racial profiling. Hmmm... Did I mention that she's African American and I'm so white I'm practically translucent? I tried to be... delicate. Ultimately, she did a lot of great research and has since written a pretty good rough draft.

Right after the holidays, she told me that she had a new history assignment. She has to lead a class discussion on a topic relating to "race." Not again, I thought. She then proceeded to tell me how she'd decided to talk about "scientific racism." Um... did I mention that she's in 7th grade? (When I was in 7th grade, the most challenging thing Mrs. Oliver asked us to do was a research paper on animals in poetry.) When we looked at the assignment, we discovered that she was supposed to find a primary document (relating to this topic) to present and discuss with her class. Did I have any suggestions, she asked?

Oh yeah. I'm just a wealth of primary documents. I drive around with a reference section in my trunk. Better yet, I have a microfiche reader and 100 years of the New York Times in my bag. The only thing I could think of off the top of my head was The Bell Curve.

Well, thank god for the internet. We looked up scientific racism on Wikipedia which led us to the Eugenics article. Which led us to the Nuremberg Laws. Perfect, I thought! Nazis + racism = social studies gold. Why don't you focus on one kind of scientific racism like eugenics, I suggested. Everyone was happy.

Until she talked to her teacher. Who reminded her that this was an AMERICAN history class. Fantastic.

So tonight, we spent 1/2 of an hour trying to get her dad's laptop to work and the other 1/2 of an hour trying to find another primary document. We found part of the Immigration Act of 1924 online... not the interesting part, of course. Finally, I had to leave and we'd made no progress. I told her to talk to her school's reference librarian and I'd be back in a couple of days.

Honestly, sometimes I feel like this job asks the impossible. Find a primary document on scientific racism in one hour? Sure. That can be found online? Uh, ok. That can be comprehended by a 7th grader? Wait... does that exist?

Anyone have any suggestions?

Postscript: Next month, she has to do a presentation on socioeconomic or class issues. Thank god we read Nickel and Dimed this summer. Can you believe this is 7th grade!

You don't know what you want... 'til it's found

Last week, I blogged a bit about some tension I was having with my therapist. Here's what I wrote at the time:

"Three years ago, when she was my counselor at the residential program, she confiscated four pocket knives that I was occasionally using to cut myself. I don't cut myself anymore so this summer, I asked for them back. They were gone. Someone had taken them from the "locked" medicine cabinet that only staff have the keys to. Thanks guys. To replace the knives would cost about $200. She said she'd talk to the director (who hates me and kicked me out two years ago) about getting my money back. For the last six months, she's chickened out. Finally today, I told her that if she didn't talk to the guy in the next two weeks, I was going to skip two sessions with her to recoup the $200. I told her that I didn't think it was fair that she should lose the business and I should lose the therapy, but what other choice do I have??"

My husband was NOT happy about this decision. He said that the only person I was punishing was myself.

My doc wasn't crazy about my decision either. He thought I shouldn't penalize my therapist since she's not the one who lost the knives. He suggested that I should write a letter to the director of the residential program.

Just Me had some similar advice:

"I wonder... if maybe the therapist is in a bad situation but doesn't have the balls to say THAT either. The gripe really is between you and the hospital. The therapist is the go-between. You can't really blame the messenger, right? So suck it up yourself and go to the hospital... and ask for your personal property... [and] put in a deadline... If [your therapist] doesn't want to do it, she should say that. If she does, why doesn't she do it? you should GO to the two sessions but NOT PAY."

Oh and there was an added bonus: I felt like a complete LOSER, blogging about how much I missed my knives. How unfair... some nice people tried to keep you from cutting yourself. Boo hoo you big baby.

Well... last week, (only two days after the conversation with my therapist, by the way) she called and said that she'd finally spoken to the director. He promised to look for the knives and if he couldn't find them, he'd cut me a check.

"I know you didn't want to do this, so I really appreciate it." I said. "I just didn't want to have this between us any longer."

"Actually, I thought you handled it pretty well." She said. "You were pretty skilled about it."

Really? Glad she thought so.

So I was getting pretty happy about the situation. Soon, I'd have a big fat $200 check! And the check is from someone I truly hate. Beautiful.

Then today, when I met with my therapist, she said that she had good news.

"[The director] told me that he thinks he found your pocket knives!"

Yay. Four pocket knives. I think I really just wanted the check.

For my 100th post, I shall attempt to demonstrate how labile emotions can make you weep with exhaustion

So… my dad’s retirement dinner on Tuesday night… Many have asked how it went. And, I don’t have a great answer. That’s probably why I haven’t blogged for a few days.

That, and the extreme psychological exhaustion. Allow me to explain:

Tuesday was a blur: After 3 fitful hours of sleep, I meet my parents for breakfast at 7:30am. My parents dislike the waiter and leave him no tip. A stellar way to start the day… After breakfast, we drive to see this school my dad helped build. Apparently, it wouldn’t have been built if it weren’t for his leadership. The faculty and staff seem incredibly appreciative and fawn over him. This is… nice, but confusing to watch. I’m proud of my dad but embarrassed at the same time. Oh yeah, did I mention that the school is still under construction? Walking around the job site reminds me of my abandoned architecture career. My dad introduces me to everyone as “an architect.” Throughout the tour, I feel my emotions welling up… like I’m about to cry.

Mom and I have a couple of hours before our appointments at the salon so we drive back to her old neighborhood. We try to catch up with a meeting of her old garden club at the local library but miss them. We go to lunch instead. Question: if you order a “Thai shrimp wrap” would you expect that to be a do-it-yourself plate with separate piles of lettuce, cold shrimp, various nuts, rice, and spicy clear goo? No, you wouldn’t. For $20 you’d expect them to, I dunno, COOK?

We spend 3 hours at the salon. I submit to the most painful “blowout” I’ve ever had which leaves me with a puffy head of straw. Yes, I did suggest “volume” but… OW. After that torture is done, the nice lady applies so much makeup that I look… plastic. She complements me on my eye color and tells me that I could even wear blue eye shadow if I wanted. Ummm…. Really? Let’s just stick to browns, I tell her. This is as much conversation as we will have all afternoon. The rest of the time she just frowns and I try to dissociate. I’m feeling REALLY uncomfortable… kinda like a whore.

We drive back to the hotel, change and go to the retirement dinner. More about that tomorrow.

Wednesday, I spend the day with my friend, her wife, and their one year-old son. He. Is. Adorable. And only bit me once! I had a great time hanging out with them but… I am extremely tired at this point. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep for five days. And, it’s a little depressing to see my friend’s baby. Why can’t I have one of those? What’s wrong with me?

Thursday morning, I wake up at 6am. Shower, dress, and say good-bye. Then gas up the rental car, out to the Belt Parkway, drop off the car, take the air train to the terminal, check in, walk what feels like FIVE MILES through the terminal to the gate and onto the plane by 8:30am. Whew. The guy next to me orders four drinks. Thanks buddy. I enjoyed watching you drink those three bloody Marys and that beer.

When I arrive at SFO, I’m shattered… emotionally and physically worn out. I wasn’t feeling that great when I left for this trip (see last week’s posts) and now I feel even worse. When I call my husband’s cell phone and see that it’s not turned on, I lose it. Where is he? Is he on his way to get me? Will I be sitting outside on the curb for hours? Why can’t he turn on his phone? I’m starting to panic. I leave him a cranky voicemail. Then, I see him walk into baggage claim. And I start to cry.

Sooo… I’ve spent the last 48 hours trying to get my feet back under me. There’s been hours of sleep, lots of unpacking, cleaning, and many, many hugs from my husband. And slowly, but surely, I’m starting to feel like myself again.

I hate how… weak all this has made me feel. It seems so… stupid. Why should a trip like this wear me out? I was only gone for 4 ½ days! It’s so hard for me to accept the limitations of my diagnosis. Even though I’ve spent the last four years working hard to treat my Borderline Personality Disorder, it still slows me down. Whenever I talk to my doc about this, he reminds me that some people deal with this by cloistering themselves. They never travel, never do anything new, never break out of their rut. And you know what? It helps them deal with their symptoms… cuts down on the dysphoria and anxiety and mood swings that come with this disorder. But, he always reminds me, they miss out on a lot.

So those are my choices… slow way down and regulate my emotions more easily OR live my life and get bounced around by the ride. Aaaand… the only way I’m going to know what too much looks like… is by experience. You know, like this past week? Whee.

As they say in Jersey...

The hair and makeup are done.

Oh.

My.

Gaawwd.

Where's a good rut when you need it?

The trip was going pretty well up until this point. It’s now 2am and I can’t sleep. I slept poorly last night so I probably COULD sleep, but every time I close my eyes, my lovely brain won’t shut up. Have I become such a creature of habit that I can’t sleep without my… my what? My own bed, husband, apartment, state… time zone? I have my little habits and bedtime rituals and apparently, the comforts of a nice cushy Hilton just mess that all up. No… just let me stick in my nice familiar rut please.

Yesterday went pretty well actually:

• Got a decent night’s sleep and woke up halfway rested at 6am.
• Everything at SFO went smoothly and the flight was on schedule.
• JFK wasn’t too bad and neither was the traffic into NYC.
• I had a good time at my friend’s house and didn’t feel like too much of a fifth wheel around her family.
• Her one and four-year old daughters seemed to warm to me a bit.
• I had a nice talk with her husband last night.

Today was mostly ok too:

• I didn’t get much sleep, but I didn’t feel wrecked this morning.
• I had a good time playing with my friends’ little girls in our pajamas.
• My friend and I snuck in some decent conversations about parents (although I worried that was talking about myself too much).
• Not too much traffic in NJ and I even got an hour to myself at the hotel (which is very nice and has wireless Internet.)
• Running errands with dad wasn’t too bad.
  
• We had a good, light, talk at dinner.

Then, on the way to the airport to pick her up, I mentioned the clothing thing. Really casually, I just said that mom seemed really focused on what we were all wearing tomorrow. He said that she told him she "can’t talk to me about clothes anymore.” That kinda stung. It makes it sound like I’m the difficult one. He also said “You don’t normally hang out with all the senior executives at his company.” True… but I still felt like he was saying I couldn’t dress myself. Things felt more stilted once mom showed up. Back at the hotel, mom and I tried on our outfits for each other. Honestly, the skirt looks really stupid on me and now I’m worried.

Last night, when I couldn’t fall right asleep, I wasn’t too hard on myself. Even though I didn’t get a full night’s sleep the previous night, I just don’t sleep well in strange places. I know this. I just lay there patiently, drifting from one thing to another. Tonight, that wasn’t happening. I just started thinking about well… I don’t know, EVERYTHING. (And thinking about how silly and unattractive I was going to feel all day tomorrow didn’t help either. Now I’m going to look tired as well as fat and pasty and weird.)

Nights like this, I miss my buddies, Ambien and Seroquel.

Tomorrow could be be rough. There’s the tour of the school my dad built (well, project managed) in the morning, the afternoon of staring at myself in the mirror at the salon, and then, the evening of awkward conversation and feeling like a bloated Barbie.

Maybe, I’ll just overload on DBT skills. Be mindful of myself. Take care of myself. Be mindful of the brevity of the day and it’s importance to my parents. Take care of myself but remember it’s not about ME tomorrow. It's a big transition for my dad and I want to support him.

And then Wednesday (which is now, technically tomorrow) I’ll get to hang out with my friend in Queens. And the next day, I’ll get to go home and squeeze back into my nice little rut. My nice little comforting rut that keeps my moods from flying around and banging into all the nice people.

Oh hell… and now one of my glands on my neck feels sore and swollen. If I get sick as soon as I get back… well there goes the rut...

My mom dresses me funny

After posting my last entry, I walked away from the computer a bit worried. I don’t want this blog to devolve into a forum for my rants and whinging. I worry that I’ve been doing too much of that lately. I’d prefer that this blog illustrate what it’s like to live with (and recover from) Borderline Personality Disorder. Yes, along the way, you’ll get a healthy dose of the everyday, but hopefully the everyday as seen through the (oh so perceptive) eyes of a Borderline.

So yes, in my last post, I bitched about a lot of things: my apartment, my car, store clerks, my ass… But the topic that stood out the most, the topic that was largely to blame for my bad mood in the first place…

My mom dresses me funny.

So, how does this illustrate what it's like to live with Borderline? Ummmm.... Well, for starters, it illustrates how my emotions swing between extremes that are hard to manage. Like my intense anger. And it explains (pretty well, in fact) the kind of invalidating environment that CREATES Borderline. Like how my mom trying to dress me invalidates my individuality and oh, I dunno, my adulthood.

I’ve spent a lot of the last few days trying to explain to people (ok, mainly therapists and my husband) how I wound up in this situation. Again.

Here’s the conclusion I’ve come to. It happens by degrees. It’s not like my mom just walks up to me, slaps me on the back and says “Well Juniper, it’s obvious you’re a wreck and can’t manage to look presentable in public. To avoid a lot of embarrassment, your father and I are going to strap you down and make you look like the good little preppy clone we always wanted.” Maybe that’s what she’s thinking, but these situations tend to unravel more sloooowly.

Here’s the chronology of this current mess:

ACT I:
Among my birthday presents are a black skirt and white sweater. I don’t love em’ but then, you don’t always love birthday presents. I feign happiness and gratitude. Mom suggests I wear them to my dad’s party. Hmmm. I hadn’t even been thinking about what I was going to wear. The party’s not for weeks. I don’t want to spend money on a new outfit… I make some non-committal murmurs, not realizing that in her mind, this equals “Yes, thanks mom. Don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t save me from my own ineptitude.”

ACT II:
Christmas morning, I get a gift certificate for shoes at Nine West. I like Nine West. I need some dressy black sandals. Good gift. I’m happy. “Maybe you can use this to get some nice shoes to go with your new outfit!” Mom happily suggests. That’s NOT gonna happen, I think. But do I have shoes that go with that outfit, I wonder? Maybe I will have to use part of it.

ACT III:
Mom tells me she’s getting her hair done while she’s in NJ. She loves that salon and has missed it ever since she moved. Would I like to get a haircut too? Uh, yeah, sure. I was gonna get a haircut in January anyway… why not. Saves me the time and money. And that way they can “style” my hair too. She says. That way I’ll look nice for the party. Ummmm… ok. I don’t usually do that much to my hair but I always let the stylist do something to it after I get a haircut. It’s fun to have “styled” hair for a day.

ACT IV:
On the last day of our visit, mom asks us to try on our new clothes and see if everything fits. The white sweater doesn’t fit that great. Probably because it’s incredibly ugly and unflattering. I tell mom that it’s not going to “work.” She sighs. “Oh noooo, really? And that’s the one I had to go to two stores for and then they had to order it in another size and have it shipped… “ Well thanks mom. Thanks for being so gracious about it. I’m trying to save her the money and she’s giving me a guilt trip. “I’ll just give you a check for what it’s worth and you can go get yourself something that works with that skirt.” Uh… what? Did I just agree to go shopping for an item of clothing I don’t really need to match a skirt that I don’t really expect to get a lot of use out of?

ACT V:
In the week and a half since we’ve been home, mom has reminded me to get some new shoes and a new blouse. About six times. In emails, letters, and phone conversations. Here’s the most recent email:

“Just wondering – did you get some new nice dress shoes yet? And also did you find a top you like for the black skirt? Hope so. Let’s talk about outfits for Dad’s big “do” next time we talk. By the way, when we go to the salon, Ann Marie, the tiny one with long black hair, who is from Maine will be cutting your hair along with shampoo and styling. Would you like her or someone there to do a make-up application for you while you are waiting for me to get beautified? Might be fun.”

So now the shoes and skirt have become mandatory. Great. I leave in less than a week and now I have to fit in a shopping trip.

As for the makeup, this was my reply:

“I’m ok with them doing my makeup... As long as it’s not too “NJ.” I’ll have to be firm with them and remind them that I’m a CT/CA “natural” girl. But it’s a nice idea.”

This was NOT what I originally wrote. This was probably the third draft of my reply. The polite draft. Don’t wanna seem ungrateful, now do I.


So you see… I agree to a new skirt, and a few days later, I’m in over my head. It’s not for any lack of will or spine on my part. It just sneaks up on me… like sinking into quicksand. THAT”S what makes it so hard to escape. (thrashing makes you sink more quickly, right?)

What's annoying me:

today... EVERYTHING

But I'll give you the top ten:

1. My apartment - specifically, its inability to come clean. When will my landlord ever learn that a millimeter of caulking is not the way to fix everything. Also, how can one 6 pound cat shed 100 cubic meters of fur?
2. My car - specifically, how much time I spend in it. Today, for example, I left the house at 8:45am and didn't get home until 6pm. Throughout the day, I had three, one hour long meetings. The rest of the time... driving from one store to another.
3. Those stores. Yes, shoe shopping is usually a happy occasion, but not today! Today, I had to use half of a Christmas gift certificate on shoes I didn't want. My mother was dead set on me wearing new shoes for my father's retirement dinner next week. I didn't fall in love with anything at the store, but I don't have all week to go hunting around. I have this thing... maybe you've heard of it... it's called, A JOB. Oh, and ladies (the ones working at the shoe outlet) not everyone else loves R&B as much as you do.
4. Oh yeah, my job. What is wrong with our company's tutors? Today a young man told me that he couldn't take a student because it wasn't worth his while to drive to the kid's house for only one hour. If I could magically whip another student (immediately afterwards and in the same neighborhood, of course) out of MY ASS, then maybe he'd consider it. Dude. Sorry work is so much... work. Suck it up.
5. My ass - specifically, its large size. Thanks to years of therapy, I now actually care enough about myself and my appearance that it's finally starting to bug me. Thanks doc. What a gift of health.
6. My therapist. Three years ago, when she was my counselor at the residential program, she confiscated four pocket knives that I was occasionally using to cut myself. I don't cut myself anymore so this summer, I asked for them back. They were gone. Someone had taken them from the "locked" medicine cabinet that only staff have the keys to. Thanks guys. To replace the knives would cost about $200. She said she'd talk to the director (who hates me and kicked me out two years ago) about getting my money back. For the last six months, she's chickened out. Finally today, I told her that if she didn't talk to the guy in the next two weeks, I was going to skip two sessions with her to recoup the $200. I told her that I didn't think it was fair that she should lose the business and I should lose the therapy, but what other choice do I have??
7. Waste. Today, I brought two bags full of stuff to Goodwill. One whole bag was full of awful clothes my mother has bought me. Exhibit two: these socks. Seriously woman. I used to be an architect. I used to dress all in black. Do these look like they're for me?
8. My mother. She's always dressed me funny and now she's trying to get me appropriately gussied up for my father's retirement party. I already mentioned the shoes. Exhibit 3: the sweater I managed to avoid at Christmas (similar to this but in white): Exhibit 4: the skirt from Talbots I did not manage to avoid. It's got a very special 1950's Donna Reed, big hips kinda thing happening. Thaaanks. Oh yeah, and did I mention, she wants me to get my hair and makeup done that afternoon. Hair and makeup. In New Jersey. Why did I give up medication?
9. My freaky subconscious and the sleep it robs from me. For some reason, I've slept horribly the last two nights. I've particularly hated all the disturbing baby dreams. In some, I have a baby and then I lose it. In some, I have a baby and its deformed. And then in others, I have a baby and it's wonderful but then I have to wake up to realize that I do not, in fact have a baby yet.
10. PMS. I wish I could say that my intense emotions today were due to raging pregnancy hormones but most likely, it's just PMS. Let's just say that spending the holidays with your family = great birth control. And if I'm not pregnant, why did I wake up at 4:30am craving dim sum?!! That's just adding insult to injury. (See number 5.)

Special bonus annoyance: Those T-Mobile commercials that end with the ring tone. The ring tone that sounds like my work phone.
Oh yeah. And her. She just looks annoying. Grrr...

The flip side

In my last post, I promised to write about the flip side to an "intellectually balanced life." After posting, I realized that I kind of alluded to it already:

"I was ill a lot in high school.... I was stressed out and irritated and frequently difficult to spend time with.... I felt fortunate to have survived those four years. Prep school put me through the wringer.... my high school experience was hellish..."

It was thrilling to work so hard. But mostly, it was exhausting. If someone could've taught me the pleasures of doing nice things for myself at a younger age, I would've learned what REAL balance is. At some point, we all have an obligation to ENJOY life. What a concept!

"now that I’ve been out of school... there’s even less time and money for these things. There are dishes and dinner and laundry and work..."

Oh yeah... money. I wasn't exactly supporting myself in high school. To support oneself, specialization becomes somewhat... necessary! It's fantastic to be a generalist and renaissance woman, but how many people get paid for that? (Um... ok, tutors frequently do. Perhaps THAT explains my affection for my adopted profession.) And I wasn't exactly keeping a house, a husband or a child in those days (as anonymous mom so rightly pointed out). All those things require work. Hard work. And loads of time.

Finally, I'm learning that this desire to recapture every lost bit of knowledge, every abandoned pursuit is really just another way for me to be hard on myself... how I beat myself up, compare myself to others. I hold myself to the high standards that were suggested to me when I was younger. And there's nothing that says that those were the RIGHT standards. Or that such a thing even exists.

How I SHOULD'VE explained entropy to my student this afternoon

Sometimes, I feel as if I’ll never live up to my earlier self – that I’ll never be as good as I was when I was younger. Specifically, my high school self. Don’t get me wrong… I’m not trying to glorify high school. Far from it. I was ill a lot in high school (there’s an understatement…). And I still lived at home, which was miserable. I was stressed out and irritated and frequently difficult to spend time with. It was a period of my life when I made everything a dramatic crisis. When I graduated, I felt fortunate to have survived those four years. Prep school put me through the wringer.

But ever since then, I’ve wanted to get back to the sense of perfection I created while I was there. There was something so… balanced to my high school experience. Parts of the day were spent discussing science, math, literature, history and foreign language. In my spare time, I’d go hang out in the book stacks and pick through the school’s collection. I was well read (for someone my age). I kept a journal and wrote and even published pieces in the school’s literary magazine.

In the summers, I took care of children. I taught canoing, windsurfing, art, swimming, rock climbing, cycling and team building. I was a lifeguard. I was BLOND and even a little tan. Back at school, we walked miles around campus in the New England air and after school there were mandatory hours of exercise. I was in GOOD shape (and of course, didn’t realize it). And then, in the evenings, there was little time for TV. I still took piano lessons and practiced an hour a day. I performed in two choirs and took classes in music theory. I sang a lot. I had solos in front of orchestras. I sang with Dave Brubeck for God’s sake. And on the nights when I wasn’t practicing or performing, there were lectures and concerts and plays to watch. I even went to the symphony with my parents.

Yet, as heady and educational as college is supposed to be, your focus inevitably narrows. I purposefully pursued a liberal arts degree so I could keep taking classes in a variety of fields. But most of my time was spent reading literature and architectural history. I kept writing. But after a while, the singing faded away. I volunteered and learned about popular culture but the daily swimming workouts faded. I went to lectures and readings but I also stayed home and watched a lot more TV.

Graduate school was three years hunched over a drafting table, drawing and making models. Lots of art, but any free time was spent building my relationship with my husband. There was less and less time for reading, concerts, piano and the like. And now that I’ve been out of school for 6 years there’s even less time and money for these things. There are dishes and dinner and laundry and work and yes, my constant obsession with TV.

On New Year’s Day, we went to see The History Boys. It’s a film adaptation of a play about a British grammar school. What struck me was how well rounded the student’s education seemed. These boys don’t just quote literature and history but also debate it and relate the topics to their own lives. And the music! They sing beautifully. I walked out of the movie thinking a lot about high school. About how good my education was and how much I value it. How much I’d like to give that to my students. Most of the high school students I work with are given just a brief taste of each discipline. They might play an instrument, but usually they’ve abandoned it by that point. Even though my high school experience was hellish (as we’d say in our 80’s vernacular) it was a wonderful time of intellectual privilege.

I wish there was some way to create that in my adult life. I try. But I spend most of my time beating myself up over it – comparing myself to others. Here’s my current inventory:

• Language: Right now, I finish a good book about once a month. Not bad, not great. I still write (here, of course) and over the last couple of years I’ve finished the first draft of a book.
  
  
• Music: I still play the piano but I don’t practice every day. I did in 2003 when I was in the residential treatment program and miss it. I’m currently trying to learn my favorite Mozart sonata. I joined an orchestral choir a few years ago but I only stayed for two years. I think a lot about taking it up again. I think it might be cool to sing in a choir while pregnant. The kid might like that…
  
• Art: Abandoned with my architecture career. In NM though, I got some ideas for some new paintings…
  

• Culture: When we move this summer, I’d like to start going back to live performances, lectures, and readings. Right now, we don’t do much. Sigh.
  

• Science: I’m married to a scientist and we watch a lot of nerdy programs on TV. It should be enough for a layperson… but when I try, and fail, to teach chemistry or physics, I feel like a loser.

• Math: I teach math every day but I can’t remember calculus. I suck.

• Social Sciences: I used to read a lot of the New York Times every day. Now I read some of it on some days. Did I mention that I suck?

• Fitness: A couple years ago I got back into cycling quite a bit, but that’s since lapsed. I try to swim once a week and we hike and paddle on occasion. We ski whenever we have the time and can afford to.

There’s a flip side to this… perhaps tomorrow I’ll tackle that. Right now, it’s time bedtime. I read old comic books over and over again to get to sleep. Sometimes, when I look over and see my husband reading a thick book I feel like a bimbo. Still, better to be a bimbo than an insomniac.

aaaaand we're back

Soooo, we made it home. Right after my last post, my parent's satellite TV died (probably too much snow in the dish) so we never got to watch that movie. Instead, my dad and my husband went outside and cleared out the driveway a bit. Finally, at noon, we were able to leave. I managed to keep my cool and didn't get too bitchy.

Once we were underway, the bad weather didn't cause us too much trouble... except for the two hours we were stuck on hwy 40 just west of Albuquerque. I wouldn't have minded the wait, but I really had to pee! I spent most of the time trying to figure out which was the lesser of two evils: peeing in a ziploc bag inside the car or peeing outside in the snow with all the truckers staring at my naked ass (in the middle of the desert there are no trees to hide behind) Luckily, the traffic finally started moving and I made it to a truck stop.

We finally got home on Saturday around 5pm, completely exhausted and smelling of In-and-Out burgers. When I called my parents to let them know we arrived home safe, they told us that the snow STILL hadn't stopped. It's a good thing we left when we did... or else we'd still be there! Whew!

Best wishes for a Happy 2007!