A Picture Says A Whole Bunch of Words.

No, I don't understand this sign. I understand it's about a picnic, that much I've got. It's in my neighborhood, though, so I might pop over just to see what the phrase "I Smokiem Waweskim" really means, because in English, it's funny as hell. Kind of like "Smoke 'em if you got 'em."

I threatened to wear this to the church picnic Sunday, during which my band is playing. A friend quadruple-dog-dared me. Hey, chickie babies, I'm all for it. But you wouldn't catch me dead playing with Pro-Mark sticks. I'm a strict Vic Firther. And no, I don't play PINK drums. [eye roll]

Yes, as a matter of fact, I found this utterly hysterical. I think my new favorite phrase is "Cruci-fuckin'-Around." It's tacky to the gills, but no less humorous. Strict Fundamentalists who oppose gayness in all of its forms seem to forget one little smidgy detail about what Jesus said in the New Testament, paraphrased: "I have a NEW COMMANDMENT: LOVE ONE ANOTHER." (John 13:34) Jesus, refuting the archaic laws of the Old Testament, didn't put a condition on who-loves-whom-and-why. (Read: He never said "boo" about men loving men or women loving women. Sorry, Rabid Fundamentalists.) 

Fuck yeah. I totally love this guy.

The question isn't "Did I do this to Luke?" It's "Would I do this to Luke?" Answered simply? Of course I would! My son has indiscriminate taste when it comes to food, loves onions, so it'd be a total win. It's the other kids I'd laugh at, not mine.

If you're going to consider yourself a progressive American, and you choose to inflict your opinions upon the masses, for the love of Christ, would you PLEASE learn how to fucking SPELL? Sometimes I wish the term "Grammar Nazi" had more realistic practicality.

The Reds had an old coot talking to an empty chair. Millions of more evolved Blue Americans had William Jefferson Clinton, who, if this country allowed multiple-term presidents, would still be in office and we'd all be happy AND gay.

Because I don't have enough academic reading to do, NOT, I bought another leisure book. Why? Because my packed-to-the-gills shelf of half-read leisure books was missing something. This is perhaps the only major Russian novel I haven't read, and I love me some serious Tolstoy. Ordered this version from Amazon, and while realizing that it was over 1,000 pages long, didn't quite expect it to clock in at 1,386 pages in a 4 POINT FONT. My desperate need for bifocals just intensified 1,386 times. How long did it take Kate to read War & Peace? Three years. How long will it take me? Until I'm on Social Security. Hey, it's either read or go out on a date. My second attempt at virginity is more looming than Christ's second coming, no pun intended.

Though no longer topical for me personally, I have to start employing this line when I encounter crotchety women:

He'll get it eventually. It just takes a lot of practice and finding your natural rhythm, which as of yet he hasn't. It's either he learn the skins or re-string his electric guitar, get a new practice amp and take some lessons, kiddo. Admittedly, he was trying the Rogers kit out without me having raised the cymbals and setting up properly, but it's oh-so-fun to toy around. Children never cease to amaze me with their fascination with the drums. Nobody, after the service, walks up and fucks with the guitars. Or the piano. But every child under 18 (and some grown men in the congregation) flocks to the front of the church as I'm trying to break down my gear, liberally picks up my sticks and begins to tinker with my kit. Unless it's Luke, and I've sanctioned said playing, kids? I know you're curious. And drums are fun. But don't dick around with my thousands of dollars worth of awesome. I'm terribly picky.

Social media has turned everyone into Aristotle with a whisper of Frost, the vision of Chagall, intermixed with a whack of Lester Bangs. Thus, everyone's an armchair expert on something. But unless you can back up your shit, give it up.

An email just surfaced from the First Lady. Wowzers, I had no idea I had such profound an impact on the POTUS and FLOTUS. 

"Andrea, thank you for an amazing week.

Barack and I felt your energy up there."

Oh, anytime, Michelle. No, I can't send you any more money.

Smooches, Annie

Um, The Second Time I've Mentioned Vomit in Two Days.

I just got last night's blog in under the (literal electrical) wire, my heart-note to Guy Friend not quite finished and sent via email last night, when high winds and booming thunder claps zapped the power out at Camp Miklasz, Mother Nature effectively calling it a premature night for all of us. I borrowed a flashlight from Luke  to make my way downstairs to the land line to call Com Ed, whose recorded message essentially said, "Yeah, your power's out. Take a look outside, moron. It's storming." I pressed "1" for English, and was told that they'd be capable of even approximating a restore time "in six hours." Thanks, but by that time, I'll be in the shower getting ready for school, so buh-bye. Luke wanted his industrial-strength flashlight to finish learning more card tricks, so he relegated my night-lighting to a medical pen light Guy Friend gave me to give to Luke a long time ago. I suppose I could've spent the next hour looking at my tonsils, but hell, I crawled into bed and heatedly nodded off eventually.

Triple rats, because I had planned on reading psychological theory history until I naturally dozed off for the night, which I never *did* finish, which didn't matter because I saw 104 Power Point slides on it this morning. Having trouble getting to sleep last night, the temperature in the house ever-rising without air conditioning, I groggily awakened at 5:15am, or 15 minutes after my cell phone alarm went off. I don't understand. I had it on full-blast, and it went off on-time, but clearly the sound is too pleasant, serene or I sleep too hard for it to have made a hill of beans' difference. The power had come back on at 2am, and I was irritated that I had to manually, gasp, make my coffee as the timer was thus reset. Finished my missive to Guy re: last night's blog, xoxo, and woke Luke up before I headed for the train at daybreak.

It was difficult to hear my soft-spoken Theory professor who likes to interject "um," "like," "uh," "ok" and "you know" into almost every sentence over a police-siren-a-riffic, large and rowdy crowd of picketing Chicago Public School teachers outside. It was 8am and I was half asleep as the professor, who is also my academic advisor, vaguely went over the layout of our group's educational plans for the next two years. I *did* catch that, at some point, we are allowed 6 weeks off, but don't ask me when that happens. (I'll be attending school year-round to squeeze out my masters in 2 years.) I don't have vacation plans, though I might jump over to MA to see Kate, or visit Best Male Friend, as I'm saving the trip to meditate with the Yogis of the Himalayas until graduation, which, as I thought I understood, takes place in October for some strange reason, and is held in a downtown theater.

By the time she started teaching Theory today, my face was literally smashing into my book on the desk in sleepiness. I was reading a case study with one eye open, as both eyes were crossing in an overtired malaise. Fuck, the girl next to me (we were in the back row) was Tweeting, so it wasn't like I was the only slacker in the bunch this morning. During our discussion on Jung, the professor said that in order to truly become a Jungian therapist, one must study 3-5 years post-doctorate. (Sort of like acquiring a medical specialty, only far less practical.) Bologna, I say. It's not like you get an Extra Certificate or Diploma for Having Studied More Theory Than Was Necessary To Obtain Your License. If I plan to be an "eclectic" therapist, I plan on studying up on a lot of everybody (ok, I'm done with Freud. Totally. I'm sorry. No mas.) and everything and using whatever method is best suited for my client, unless I'm specifically asked to employ a certain method in particular. Just don't ask me for psychoanalysis. 'Cause I'll tell you you're a sex-obsessed freakaholic who probably *should've* married your mother/father in 5 minutes and STILL charge you $150.

Anyway, I was awake enough to bolt out of school at noon and came home, unable to nap as I had to go to Walgreeens and then pick Luke up from school. I was directly behind Super Colossal Total Helicopter Mom in the driveway queue at school today, not having seen her since I witnessed (at last week's confirmation meeting) her actually sitting and stroking her 7th grade son's HAIR as she sat with her arm firmly around his neck, and upon seeing such torturous horror (which explains why he still sleeps in Angry Birds pajamas), I wrote a note to MY 7th grader (who was sitting in an entirely different ROW away from me), "Why aren't we cuddling?"

Two things you kind of don't want to hear from your son when you pick him up from school and he Fonzie's his way into the car:

1) "Nicole just almost totally threw up on me!"

and

2) "I remembered something that happened when you were drunk. It's really kind of sad. Do you want me to tell you about it?"

Repressed psychological trauma and a vomit story? WELCOME HOME, SON.

Having "whew'd" that Nicole's vomit missed Luke's church pants of the day (they can't wear jeans on Wednesdays), I hesitantly agreed to hear Luke's regaling of how my alcoholism permanently damaged his memories.

"You were sitting on the stairs at Swanky, drinking beer with Stacey," he said. (Stacey is NOT my friend anymore, for as of the last time we spoke in 2007, she, herself, was a foul, perpetually-drunken sleazebag with whom I'd never remotely be friends in recovery.) Luke said that he came out on the stairs and we collectively made fun of him for some reason or another and told him to get lost, which was really mean of me (us), and he told me I was a "stupid, fucking drunk" and slammed the door on me (us). He was 7 years old at the time. Ouch. Yeah, that hurt. Made my 10,000th amend to my child, apologized again, and was reminded once more that the years I spent drinking and not being a good mother left an indelible imprint on my boy's heart.

Fortunately, those stories are few and far between, but they are painful just the same, and while I know Luke has already forgiven me and adores me to the point of idolization for my fortitude, I can't just make bad experiences or memories just disappear out of that big, ever-zapping brain of his.

I am far from angelic, as we all know. Just as Luke was leaping into the car, I had finished Twitpic'ing a photograph from my phone of the 400+ lb woman who wears the same Hooters sweatpants to school every day and waits for her kid by the door. I had a clear shot today and had Tweeted in the past about how disproportionate she looked holding her young child's tiny backpack slung over her gigantic arms, which I reiterated via Twitter today (Jesus, do you all understand why I keep my Twitter on lockdown now?), which makes me one hell of a bitch myself, who is uniformly disliked by the vast majority of parents at my son's school. Gee, I can't imagine why. It's not just the smoking in my car and blaring Dinosaur Jr. coming out of my speakers, as I refuse to greet Luke as he emerges from his learning institute each day, ever-trusting that the haze and noise that are trademark Mom will guide him towards the car. Super Colossal Total Helicopter Mom fuckin' goes in and gets her boy FROM HIS CLASSROOM, Luke reports.

Having spent some time reading about ethics and whatnot tonight, The Offbeat Drummer's going to have to go covert at some point, methinks. I can't be a therapist and an open headcase/resident rebel/punk ass bitch at the same time, blogging under my real name. Perhaps the damage is already done, but newcomers might just have to deal at some juncture in the future. Awesome Therapy prof wants us to journal. In a little book. By hand. You know how much extra expelled energy I don't have which that would require, when I can liberally crank out a blog in a tenth of the time?

Not speaking of vomit, I'm totally getting off on listening to Bill Clinton speak at the DNC. He was the man. He's still the man. He fucking quoted Reagan AGAINST the GOP! He's brilliant!!!!

Stinkin' Badges

This started out as an email to Guy Friend before class today, but I figured what the hell, I might as well infect all of my readers with my ever-evolving, yet charming brand of 296.89 (the basic differential which has a specificity to it for me that's not yet formally a clinical statistic, because I'm THAT weird). If you don't routinely carry around the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, IV-TR, phooey on you. If it makes you feel any better, Guy Friend doesn't carry one, either, though he has some pocket doohickey on his own diagnoses and how-to's, etc. (Hey! Spell-check thinks "doohickey" is a real, correctly spelled word. Glory!) If memory serves me correctly, which in all Guy Friend matters, it does, his lab coat pockets are packed to the gills with to-do lists, little charts, calendars, pocket guides, and sometimes Mrs. Guy Friend will lovingly throw in a Hershey's kiss or two (NO! I didn't rifle through the man's pockets. He either, over time, a) spilled them out looking for something in front of me or b) told me about the chocolates, which yes, made me want to roll my eyes, for obvious reasons, er, reasons obvious to everyone except, it appears, Guy Friend.) 

I shot him a someecard this morning before school (NOT THE ONE ABOVE) indicating that "I'd climb the highest treadmill incline for him," which is indeed true, and solicited his advice on how to best retain my thin frame amid this "healthy" looking gut that's emerged since I, let's be honest, started eating food again, which is really weird and awkward when you have an eating disorder and you're pissed about a skinny jeans issue. (Some call it the dreaded "middle-aged spread," though mine is more of a pooch than a "spread.") While the anorexic, starvation, smoking diet was extremely effective, to the point of, well, kinda almost killing me, I think the better route would be to get some physical exercise. There's always the yoga studio @ Adler, but I'm infamously, chronically imbalanced, klutzy and I'm not sure a class is my avenue, typically preferring solo workouts. Some band friends recently joined this cheap-ass but nice gym in the area, so I'm toying with the idea of getting back into my pre-Chicago firefighter physical agility test shape, minus the rabid alcoholism and hangovers. (That was a couple of failed career plans ago. I was strong as a bloody ox at one point. But as I said before, my friend, Robbie, said he'd never mess with a chick who could, at one point in her life, haul 75lb of fire hose over her shoulder up 5 flights of stairs, which I could at the time.)

Anyway, I was on a matter of law & order with law & order re: local shenanigans in my municipality (talking to a cop...in shorts....come on...) when Guy Friend phoned this evening. (And I was thisclose to leaving Luke at the "Baby Safe Haven" in the police station for acting like a brat. Hey, y'all, there's no AGE LIMIT on the Baby Safe Haven SIGNAGE.) Guy said I should shoot him a text or an email (however he phrased it--it involved this world wide web/electronic communication phenomenon that's assuredly going to out-style itself just as the TV dinner has). I still have like 25 pages of post-Freudian theory to read before my 8am class tomorrow, but I'm saving that for when I am more ready to go to bed, because it's extraordinarily boring. In my opinion, we spent about 100 pages and 94 slides on too much Freud and approximately 75 pages on not-enough-Jung. But if I had to declare a theory in stone, which my Therapy professor would like us to do soon, even as first-semester, first-year grad students, The Offbeat Drummer is hereby "An Eclectic Jungian (Who Likes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy But Hates Worksheets)." That's kind of wordy for my professional identity statement, though. Elena, my Alder student therapist, was eclectic. I loved that. Uniformly, I would tell Elena "Mission accomplished." I always walked out of therapy feeling better than when I walked in.

You know how much I love to watch people. And, as we're learning, perceiving nonverbal cues of people--our clients and otherwise, is a chief skill to have, at which I'm already pretty keen. My feeling is that often times, what we do, our mannerisms, are equal to or even more important than the words that come out of our mouths. Guy Friend, for example. One of the last times we'd seen each other over the summer, for a quick coffee, I afterwards rattled off to him, via text I think, at least a half dozen nonverbal methods he uses to listen, to communicate or that can be implied or inferred, usually correctly. Usually, it's the little things we do that have the largest impact on our observers. Our professor is teaching us how to be "the archaeologists of people's minds." (Which should incite fear into pretty much anyone who knows me personally, especially my mother.) I'm either a heightened observer or Guy Friend's just really, really easy to read. I'm not sure. We need to make plans to make plans now that we have all the kiddos settled into school for the semester (myself included). 

When I get off the train @ Washington, I sit on a bench in Daley Plaza and have a smoke, the ear candy being whatever craptastic music they're playing in the plaza. Sometimes, they showcase bands. Other times, it's this piped-in-speaker stuff that's just strange but is really, I think, meant to give tourists something else with which to load their senses apart from the Picasso, which we're all tired of, and the giant municipal building behind it, which is of zero interest architecturally. Today was R&B. My smoke ended when the Barry White started, the discontent of perceived sexual tension in the air putting everyone in the plaza seemingly ill-at-ease.  I'd planned to eat lunch, but in rifling through my briefcase, which weighs more than I do, I noted that not only had I forgotten my mouse and my pad, but also my apple. I had exactly enough money on me to buy a $.75 bag of pretzels and made due w/the H20 I had along, meandering across the street to school.

Maybe I should've majored in sociology/anthropology. There's got to be socio-merit to a study of the prevalence of fake Louis Vuitton handbags in the general populous, beginning with my Therapy professor, though she was carrying some other type of handbag today. Whether they're classic monogram, or Damier, or Vernis, I can spot a fake from a mile away. It's a rare, un-punk personality characteristic I picked up when Luke was little, when I was a materialistic snot who dressed her toddler in $120 Burberry sweaters and $200 Dolce & Gabbana shoes, during which I blew tens of thousands of dollars on not-so-piddly shit like Louis Vuitton bags. Craig would come home and there'd be a new, bigger TV in the entertainment center because (Hello! Drunk, unmedicated bipolar!) I decided on a whim that I wanted a bigger TV. Anyway, I'm having trouble rationalizing my professor carrying a fake when it's blatantly obvious that she can afford a real one. I love her; she's great, otherwise. What I lacked in lunch today, she made up for in Rice Krispee treats, homemade! With sprinkles! I ate one! And she had me hooked when she uttered the first rule of being a good counselor, which, as I said, is to "listen with your heart." A therapy veteran, I cannot tell you how many times I've sat in session after session, for months on end, being heard but not listened to, after which I'd come home from therapy and write a 10,000 word blog about how I felt about the topic du jour instead. 

But I digress.

What I'd started composing to Guy Friend had to do with autonomy. In a miniature research question I posed on Facebook, I'd asked the following question: 

"There's just something odd and uncomfortable when I'm observing passersby out on Dearborn, or in Daley Plaza. It's indicative of contemporary society and both a lack-of and a testament to our human individuality....can you guess what 90% of people are all wearing?"

My mother chimed in with "flip-flops." Nope. Nor was another friend's answer of "sneakers" correct. I commented that it was far more Orwellian and had nothing to do with footwear. That lead to a guess on "earbuds or iPods," which was a good guess, but still incorrect. I further said it was something that made us heteronomous yet distinct all at once.

Give up? Already?

My theory is that it's more obvious downtown, where so many people work in large office complexes, though Guy Friend wears one every day too in the institution where he works, where I was issued one but refused to ever wear it, for I deemed it inconsequential. I do, however, wear one every day around my neck for school. It's either around your neck, or dangling from your suit coat lapel, or casually donned clipped to your belt, all depending on how suave you're trying to appear.

An identification badge.

What's even more Orwellian? When they have bar codes on them. They indicate that one belongs at or inside a certain organization or institution, with permission and privilege granted, and while they might bear one's smiling pictorial face, and a name, therein lies the humanistic complexity of wearing one at all. To NOT wear the badge, you might not be allowed inside your school or place of business. To NOT wear the badge, you surrender your valid right in belonging somewhere and are thus a stranger. See what I mean about ID badges simultaneously grouping you into a subset of a certain society in one swoop, while maintaining your personal identity as an individual? (In other words, yes, this is probably the least interesting email I would've ever composed to Guy Friend.)

In other crackpot news today, I received word that North Dakota Rep. Rick Berg (R) is running for a Senate seat. In light of the atrocity spewed by the RNC and the GOP, I can no longer sit idly by as a passive anarchist as well as being a rape victim. I'd had quite enough grumbling back and forth with family and friends over the abortion in cases of rape and incest, of which I have a very pro-choice, anti-rapist stance, as per my previous blogs. But what came out of Berg's mouth today was, frankly, the most absurd nonsense I've ever politically heard. He's lobbying for a bill to permanently incarcerate any woman, without the possibility of parole, who chooses to abort her zygote/embryo/fetus for ANY reason, even rape or incest. That's a really great fucking idea, Rick. What's doubly insane? That ignorant right-wingers, chiefly Christians, would actually support this veritable nonsense. I don't care what denomination you practice, or what God you worship, but the very notion of such an absurd solution to what's not even a legitimate problem exists in a free country. On Facebook, as a Christian, I flat out said, "What the fuck? What the fucking fuck? This is fucked up. Even Jesus would think so." Thus far, no one's argued against me, but I'm waiting for the "Free Radicals" (a Flaming Lipsism) to hunt down the poor, uterusless me. Be my guest. Rapists? Set 'em all free. Innocent women who refuse to salute the rights of the (what's with this new term?) "preborn?" Lock them up for life like the Manson family. Hellllooooo? If a woman selectively chooses to abort the growth of a clump of cells inside her own body that were transplanted there via the route of a rapist, and that's tantamount to homicide in North Dakota, they can all rot in hell, not me, for clearly, none of them have been assaulted.

I'm super-happy that the Dems are getting their chance to erase the balderdash that the Romney/Ryan flock vomited upon America last week. They're doing a bang-up job already. Seriously. Furthermore, look at it this way. Betty White is 90 years old. She's lived through more than any of us ever has. If her imparted wisdom guides her towards supporting our incumbent President, I'm with Betty. She loves the guy!

Well, friends, up at 5am tomorrow for the 6:45 train into the city. About to finish my dry reading and fall dead ass asleep. I'll compose a short note to Guy Friend leading him here, which he'll just LOVE, I'm sure. The Pandora's set to the ambient music channel, and I'm about wiped out.

A blessed good-night and go Run-DNC!

JAQK

When you think about it logically, your babies growing in your womb do indeed hear your heartbeat before they're born. The only other person who may hear your heartbeat is your physician or cardiologist. Hell, Guy Friend's listened to my heartbeat lots of times, me not realizing how vaguely intimate the act was, albeit routine for a doctor. My son, however...nowadays, Luke won't even share a drinking straw with me, though I tell him I carried him for 9 months--cut me a little slack. Please, child. I don't have cooties.

Luke's new obsession is collecting playing cards.  He's performing and learning and creating dozens of card tricks and is totally into the decks he collects. One is from JAQK--a wine making company. The collectible card deck certainly makes wine more advertisingly pleasurable. And as Luke knows, I was a HUGE fan of wine back in my drinking days.

Knowing that much, we had the discussion about alcohol recently. Luke said, "I'll drink if I want to. You can't stop me." I said, "I should think that watching your mother almost die from drinking would deter you from drinking or forming an unhealthy habit." He just shrugged.

No, I can't control Luke's drinking when he's an adult, but he has a 50/50 chance of becoming an alcoholic, just as he has a 50% chance of developing his father's blood clotting disorder, Factor V Leiden, for which he needs to be tested. I wish there was a prediction blood test to tell if his gene for alcoholism would be activated. It scares me to death. My brother, who also had a 50/50 chance of alcoholism, never became an alcoholic. So it varies, the degree of genetic predisposition.  Lifestyle and behavior patterns, as well as mental illness, play a role in the development of addictions and mental defects as well. In fact, the patient base I want to help after I get my master's in counseling psychology is precisely that subgroup of individuals, those who are struggling with addictions and also present with other mental health issues.

No, I wasn't a model parent when I was drinking or on drugs, the drugs, at least, chiefly occurred before he was born. (I got pregnant with Luke 4 months after I got clean from narcotics, having had a miscarriage when I was using, which to me, was God's way of telling me "Something would be totally wrong with this baby, so I'm delaying your motherhood for the time being. and He was right.) I became an alcoholic when Luke was a pre-schooler and really was only an active alcoholic for about 3-4 years, which in comparison to lots of alcoholics, is a short period of time. But enough for the addiction gene to rear its ugly head again.

Luke was literally my miracle child, given all I'd lived through and done to my body. He was born healthy, even if the genetic odds are against him. He says he wants glasses and braces. I told him he doesn't NEED glasses (yet) and the braces, I'm holding out on until he's 14 because I believe his teeth will have a better chance at staying straight the older he gets beginning to wear them. I know his teeth are crooked and it bothers him. But he's going to have to wait.

I won't be able to deter him from drinking as an adult, but my main point is that he physically witnessed my demise from booze, and as I said in a previous blog, he thinks my sobriety was the most significant event in my life, NOT having had him. I said that the very thought that my son would sacrifice his own existence in favor of me staying alive was astounding.

No, we don't raise heroes. At a certain point, we have to cut the cord and allow our children to be themselves, capable of making their own sound decisions. Luke's at an age now where he questions anything I say or dictate. That's perfectly natural and I don't fight him on it, though I try and encourage good choices in him and a value system that is in tune with the mores and philosophies of our home.

I have taught my son what it's like to withdraw from narcotics cold turkey. He visually and emotionally witnessed me almost dying from accidental overdoses and alcohol a number of times. That said, I also saw the drinking as a daily habit with my own father, and ended up mirroring his lifestyle. I think, therefore, that a lot of the pro-abstinence is out of practical knowledge and experience, not the drug campaigns they might have at school or whatever. I still remember and think about the Manhattan-dipped cherries my dad would let me have from his drinks when I was a kid, or how he'd ask me to fetch him a beer from the fridge and I'd take a few sips before giving him the can. I remember knowing where all his bottles of vodka were hidden in the house, and refused to "turn him in" to my mom for fear of the retribution of ratting my dad out. And then still, at age 42, he succumbed to alcoholism after only 24 hours in a rehab program, from a massive heart attack brought on by delerium tremens.

There's a young man who is squatting a few doors down, and I see high schoolers coyly meet in his house for 5-10 minutes apiece, then leave, quite aware that the young man is selling dope. Drugs, in the high school where my son will attend, while it's one of the best in the state, has a horrible drug problem with kids, especially kids with a lot of money. It's a pervasive problem in our neighborhood, and, as I'm physically working on my laptop on the patio outside, I see all these high school aged kids flock in to buy drugs and then leave. It's not a mystery. They're not his "friends" coming over. Sometimes, he runs to meet kids in cars in the alley, then sprints back into his townhouse. They're the next generation of addicts.

I can't protect Luke from drinking when he's of age, or even underage, but I can supply plenty of practical experience and knowledge, apart from my psychological training, with regard to substance use and abuse. My prayer is that Luke stays away from all that shit when he's a teenager in high school. Peer pressure's a bitch, but I am hoping that, since he'll be in all accelerated and Advanced Placement classes, he'll make friends with the geeky smart kids who don't use drugs. It would break my heart if he got involved with drugs or alcohol. I'm as vigilant with addiction and my son as my friends in recovery are also. We have a tendency to watch them like hawks for signs of mental illness or addictive behaviors.

Was Luke born with bipolar disorder that will remain latent until he's in his late teens or early adulthood? That's a huge subject of debate, but I do know that genetics play a GINORMOUS role in developing the illness, which I still maintain it was the disease, in addition to alcohol abuse, from which my father suffered. But back in the 80's, it wasn't cool to see a psychiatrist. Having something "wrong in your head" was so voraciously stigmatized, it was ridiculous. People suffered immeasurably for no damn good reason.

I believe firmly in this next picture, a quote from the astute and wise Khalil Gibran. We birthed these children, but we're not meant to be their caretakers as they grow older. If anything, they'll juggle with taking care of US when we're elderly.

Parents, love your children without condition. Watch your children if you, yourself, have struggled with addiction or mental illness. There is plenty of help out there of which you can take advantage. We can only hold their hands for so long before they tug away and want to drift off on their own.

For God's sake, Luke, I hate to Nancy Reagan you, but please...for me..."just say no."

No, Really. Mr. Rogers Did Give Y'all the Finger. Legit.

Ok, so there IS actually an explanation per my last blog about Mr. Rogers giving the finger. 

Darn.

I thought he was just actually pissed off about something. 

Cheer Up, Fuckface!

And a fine Sunday morning to you all! The above should be the theme for the day, with all the sourpusses I've encountered.

The Holy Bible arrived at the house the other day:

My brain's been so overloaded with psychology information the last several days, that I neglected to do what we were instructed at Adler, which was to take some time out for ourselves during the week to do what we love the most. I can tell you that verily the first week of school was overwhelming--it's all so deeply formal and professional--meanwhile, I'm still the snot-nosed Offbeat Drummer, despite being one of the oldest in the pack. (I have a LOT of reading to do between now and Tuesday, provided Professor Bingo Luke doen'st keep interrupting me with original card tricks he's made up, all of which are savant crazy insane good. He is SO going to Vegas with me when he turns 21. He can count cards! He is a master of illusion!) Our mission is to be forcefully kicked out of as many casinos as possible, after running away with all of their money. Speaking of money...

Having had to join like a dozen professional psychology associations, one of the perks of membership in select ones is that of malpractice insurance, which I now have $6,000,000 of. For counselors, that's to protect you if, say, someone commits suicide on your watch, and the family blames you. That kind of thing. I'm sure it's a pittance of a sum compared to that carried by MD's but it's certainly something. All of these professional organizations look good on a curriculum vitae, though I'm really interested in the chapter through the Illinois Counseling Association on religion & spirituality as well as the specialized branch dealing with addictions. But they all cost $$$, which I've been liberally charging to my mom's credit card. Damn, I can't wait until the end of the month, when my living stipend check arrives.

The school still expects me to find a part-time work-study job, so I've applied for a few, though my "proficiency" in things like Excel and Outlook are VERY limited. I also don't speak conversational German, which was one of the qualifications for another job I was otherwise qualified to get. Right now, I'm scrambling to get in as a writing consultant on Fridays. It seems like every department wants someone who can work Tuesdays, but I'm in class from 1-5 that day, so it wouldn't work out. Meh, I'm on a "must hire" contingency, so somebody, somewhere, has to hire me.

I've found myself more vehemently politically enraged this week than I usually EVER get over politics. Romney/Ryan are douchebags, pure and simple. Whether it's pro-choice issues, or budget cuts to Medicaid (which I'm on), or a decrease in spending on education and affordable health care, I'm advocating in the most irreverent way I know how, given I'm an anarchist at heart.  No, I didn't watch the convention. I wouldn't have been able to stomach it. Yes, I watched Clint Eastwood's speech online. It was insanely distasteful.  I admire Obama's confidence. It's cute. This is all I have to say:

Waiting for our turn for the convention....it ought to be a pip!

I had to write a semi-difficult paper this week (due Tuesday, but I'm done and just have more reading to do) for my Basic Skills for Psychotherapy class, the one where we give one another therapy...it was a "reflection paper." Those of you who assume I'm self-aggrandizing would've loved it, for it was all about me and my values. As per a couple of blogs ago, in deciding which event in my life was the most significant, I asked Luke what he thought. I asked him if the thought my getting sober was a more important life event than having had Luke. He said, "Your sobriety. Definitely." When I asked him why, he said, "Had you not gotten sober, you'd have died. You wouldn't have died NOT having had me." Which was very true. I was so torn between the two answers to that loaded question that I finally said "the opportunity to be a sober mom" as the most important thing that's ever happened to me. Luke thought that sounded just about right. This is what I wrote in my paper:

"Foregoing the conundrum in my heart, after grappling with a difficult question for a couple of days, I decided to ask a wise young man for some definitive assistance. “Luke,” I said. “I have a question for you. What would you say is the greatest gift EVER in my life, my sobriety or having had you?” (Luke’s only 12 ½ years old, yet is often found uttering philosophy a’la Thich Nhat Hanh, but with a far more foul mouth, which he inherited mimicking me, which drives my ex-husband insane.) “Your sobriety. Definitely,” Luke replied.  When I asked my son why, in his opinion, he would unconditionally value my living over his own existence, he frankly quipped, taking the iPod earbuds out of his canals, “Because if you never got sober, you’d have died. You wouldn’t die not ever having had me.”

                While certainly true from a pragmatic standpoint, I still failed to employ logic into my determination of a choice between the two most significant gifts that God has seen fit with which to bless me. Luke and I were driving home in the dark from my AA sponsor’s house when I posed the question, my son helping me navigate the city streets, knowing my notorious night blindness and having one blurry, infected eye and one good eye. “How about this? What if I say, ‘The opportunity to be a sober mom?’” I said, right after Luke directed me out of a street that said “DO NOT ENTER.” With the same characteristic snarkiness of his mother, Luke said, “Yeah. Exactly. Too bad God didn’t bless you with good eyesight.” 

The paper also wanted us to outline what our value system was as we grew up, if those values are in conflict with what we believe and think as adults (Fuck yeah!), what we deem our greatest strengths and weaknesses and upon what we'd like to improve.

"Taking all of that into account, I often underestimate myself and my own strengths. I wasn’t dragged to rehab kicking and screaming. I decided to hospitalize myself. When I lost my last job, I decided that I wanted to go to graduate school full-time and earn a master’s degree in counseling psychology. At age 40, I’m taking a huge risk and choosing a 360-degree turn in terms of my education and eventual career path, in order to pay forward the compassion and wisdom bestowed upon me in both recovery and the care of my mental illnesses to people whose conditions are either as grave or even worse than the depths of despair I endured.  I’m successfully raising a highly intelligent, likewise resilient young man, with encouragement and dedication I feel I missed growing up. I am courageous. I am bold. So is Luke. I might be on a giant cocktail of medications that stabilize me and allow me to function properly, but I am not defined by what is wrong with me. I do not pity myself. I am proud but not arrogant, because I believe I have been unduly blessed with, not entitled to what (some people call “what little”) I have achieved in life."

After deep reflection, I came to the conclusion, which has probably been blatantly obvious to my readers from Day One, regarding my choice in men:

"I was the jewel of my father’s eye and I learned how to play him like a finely tuned violin at a very young age, often pitting him against my mother in order to get what I wanted, or to not get in trouble, or to simply assert my position as a “Daddy’s girl.” Consequently, as a grown woman, I have historically sought out specific, patriarchal males who share my passions and with whom I sense I can likewise “play,” either for gratification or with whom I can attempt to feed my insatiable “daddy complex,” which amounts to a constant need for validation and unconditional love, attention and acceptance (usually with men who are otherwise committed to other women or who are otherwise emotionally unavailable, not single, potential mates). My ex-husband was a rare exception, and we mixed like oil and water despite 15 total years together.  He was sort of a pansy and never did a terribly good job of caretaking me, which made me unhappy.

Admittedly, I am probably one of the neediest females on earth, with out-of-the-stratosphere desires to be wanted and cared for by men. THAT is the trait in me as an adult that I would most like to reverse.  Independence and fortitude are characteristics that I want to adopt, yet they frighten me to death. My ex-husband Craig’s  favorite question to me used to be, “What are the chances of you shutting up until you get exactly what you want?” I’d always say, “Slim to none.” And I’m still like that."

Yes, I came to this discovery myself.  It's why I'm in love with Guy Friend, to be blunt. My relationship with Best Male Friend is a totally different dynamic, as we're close in age (by 3 years) and probably healthier in the long run. I don't almost literally beg for BMF's love and affection--he gives it freely. But with Guy Friend? It's like pulling teeth to get him to do, as you know, ANYTHING. (He still hasn't procured a new cell phone, what he's waiting for, I don't know. But all he can do on his phone is make and receive calls. He can't retrieve voicemails or text, which is a HUGE bummer for me and BMF is dying over the number of texts he gets from me on a daily basis, particularly when I'm at school, or on the train to and from school. He's literally begged me to tell Guy Friend to get a new phone. Guy Friend finally called to check in Thursday night, just as I was en route to Luke's therapy, so I called him back when I got home.)

I went on in the self-reflective paper about my religious views being in opposition to how I was raised, and the residual conflict that's caused me as an adult, combining two of the professor's questions. I said:

"I am a woman of faith, and while I was taught to rattle off the books of the Bible by wrote memory,  and absorb and embrace what is taught in the most conservative synod of Lutheranism in the USA, I am the church’s resident Extreme Square Peg. People ask me how I can call myself a Lutheran when so much of what’s taught and practiced in my church is in direct conflict with what I morally, ethically and philosophically believe as a feminist, pro-choice, left-wing liberal-come-anarchist. While I do believe in eternal salvation through Christ, I refuse to discredit other world religions and believe in orthopraxy for all of humankind. I “practice” Christianity because that’s the value system I knew from little onward. But what do I truly believe, religiously, anyway?

Trust that I’ve been labeled a hypocrite and a demon-possessed, fallen one by my congregation and my family (I attend church regularly and play drums and percussion in the church’s contemporary praise band.) for believing that God is God is God, with many names, many identities, many faces, cross-culturally and socially. It’s not terribly popular to openly declare oneself a “Christian Hindu with Buddhist Tendencies” when you’re supposed to be a conservative fundamentalist. My belief is that we’re ALL “right.” All of us who believe in a power greater than our own that guides and directs the universe have effectively nailed it. (I’ve been told I’d make an excellent Unitarian Universalist, but I still hold onto the Lutheran church.)

                I grew up being taught at home, at school and in church, that whatever the Bible says is absolutely, irrefutably THE TRUTH and THE LAW, even though my parents weren’t themselves exactly models of exemplifying morals.  Does that make me a walking contradiction to send my son to a Lutheran school, where he learns, as I was taught, that the earth is only as old as the Bible, or that homosexuality is a sin, when I support LGBTQ rights with vigor and believe in evolution, bearing a Hindu “OM” tattoo beside a Christian cross tattoo on my wrist? One of the chief tenets of my intellectual and spiritual path from birth until early adulthood was to question nothing, yet the more I learn, the more I absorb, the different theories and philosophies that are presented before me cause me to question EVERYTHING, which I certainly encourage in Luke, who a bit hesitant. While vehemently anti-authoritarian, I abide by the “rules” on a case-by-case basis, and have taught my son to electively do the same, when his own code of conduct is in opposition to what in which he’s being instructed. Jesus’ greatest commandment?  “Love one another.” That’s what I’m striving to do as an adult, sometimes with more success than other times, while judgment and assumptions about people loom large in my legend. Another trait on which to work, methinks."

All true.

Yet I keep a stiff upper lip, and press onward, especially when faced with bullshit like "she's so self-aggrandizing." This is an autobiographical blog about MY LIFE. If course it's going to come across as self-aggrandizing. This is a mystery to people?  I seem to always forget Rule #1 of people: Most people are fucknuts dumb.

I best get cracking at that 2nd tattoo soon. Looking around school, I look virtually nude with only 2 small tattoos side-by-side. This is what I want to get, the Sanskrit word (symbol) for mindfulness, which is a huge part of the psychology I want to practice eventually, cognitive behavioral therapy, on my left inner arm, and approximately to scale here, in all black, though maybe a smidge bigger:

स्मृतिसंप्रजन्ये

It's a little wordy and confusing, but totally fucking cool, don't you think? My mom'll have a heart attack.

Mitt Romney's scared of ABBA? He thinks their music is too "angry?" Has he ever HEARD ABBA? Or SEEN ABBA? This image is confusing, granted, but far from scary,. unless foil behind the Swedish flag really disturbs you:

I have to love amazon.com. After paying out of my ASS for 2-day or overnight shipping of my school books, last night, as I was ordering the last of them, BAM! They reportedly have a "free 2-day shipping for students!" I joined it for next semester's $1000 in books, but for this term, I'm already screwed. "Oh, Annie, we noticed that you bought a crapload of academic books...allow us to offer you one of our student perks."
 Too little, too late, but I'll take it anyway. (UPDATE! I got ticked enough to email them about it this afternoon, and they're refunding me $42 in extra shipping charges. It pays to bitch!)

Best meme I saw ALL week? Definitely this one:

With that, the Offbeat Drummer has homework to tackle. 

More soon, dear ones and enemies alike. Wonder if that new stalker person in Lenexa , KS will check in today. (UPDATE: Yes, he/she did. For 8 1/2 minutes!) Surprise! I have a new entry to pour over! No, I didn't mention The Flaming Lips or slow-nerve-action.com, or did I?

UPDATE: SUNDAY NIGHT:

100 pages on ethics and Freud, and frankly, too little on Jung....I tried reading outside today and nodded off on the patio. I read at my desk and closed my eyes. I read on my bed and ended up taking a 3-hour nap. Can we please move onto a more exciting subject? I'm half done. More to read tonight, like when I'm not drowsy.

What An Email to Guy Friend Looks Like.

In the interest of saving time, as I covered most of what I had planned to blog about in the first place, some of which to my readers, is repetitious, I am cutting/pasting my email last night to Guy Friend. An inner-sanctum look at our life. I've corrected my half-awake typos and random errors, like going totally off-topic, mid-sentence. I shouldn't type emails when I'm tired. I like how I am trying to explain auto-correcting on smartphones in a sentence that makes no literal sense to begin with. I was half asleep at the time. FYI, another sleep walking night without Luke home to shepherd me back into bed. Ack.

Note to self: When out smoking and really tired, try not to pick up the can of seltzer and accidentally try to start drinking out of the cup-shaped ashtray. Blech!

Guy Friend best get a new phone NOW, to avoid such lengthy catch-up emails with me.

Part One: 

Hi (Guy Friend):

Jeepers creepers, you could've told me half the reason you are compelled to join 4,000 different professional associations was because it looks good on your CV!

Yes, journals, and research, and conferences...bippety boppety boo. Time to bite the bullet and start networking, which I'm notoriously horrible at doing. 

I'm now a member of the Illinois Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association. Me. In the APA. What does that REALLY mean, in practicality? They're letting the loonies run the asylum.  My Adlerian therapist, Elena, would be so elatedly amused right now. I should look her up in the alumni directory. 

Speaking of my Adlerian therapists, who did I run into today but Harumi, the dumbshit they paired me with at Swedish after Elena left last year. Her misuse of the English language was strike one. Strike two was how I had to not only ask, but answer all of my own questions while she just sat there like a stump, neither guiding nor providing me with anything of practicality. And she's a PsyD candidate for the sake of Christ!  As was my right as a patient, I was thisclose to asking to be re-assigned a new therapist when Harumi abruptly quit "for personal reasons." Ended up with Erin, who was super, though she goes to the IL School of Prof Psych, which is like the bottom-of-the barrel of the local professional schools. Adler is the only one that preps you for licensing of some obscure nature that supposedly really, really engages potential employers. I can't remember what it's called, but "CRAP" is part of its acronym. De doo doo doo, de dah dah dah.

Oh shit. I smell skunk. I best sit still and turn down The Police. No, it really smells like skunk. And it's not the neighbor's marijuana for once.

I went 2 hours early to get my official ID and CTA pass. That only took 1/2 hour. Copped a squat at a table in the hallway & pumped up my laptop for some pre-class fiddling (er, like figuring out if all my Amazon orders shipped. Like 6 books arrived today, and I had a hell of a time matching them up to all the syllabi and folders I have meticulously laid out in my room.). Today was 3 hours of  professional ethics. (Hang on, I had to legitimately yawn. Twice.) It's interesting, if not a tad ironic at best. There are 9 gregarious, forthcoming students in the class. I'm one of the remaining 2, who are observant introverts, who naturally got paired up to give a presentation in December on the broad issue of "confidentiality." Gee, perhaps a case study in Dr. B*******ka, when she had both Craig and myself as patients, though we were separated, blabbing to Craig that I'd come in for a pregnancy test in '07. Hell, it was either confidentiality or subpoenas and court orders. That was all that was left after my shyness trumped the chance to present end-of-life issues and child/adolescent ethics. I need 7 peer-reviewed citations, and a group activity. Maybe I'll play the game with them where I confidentially tell one of them something specific, have them tell the next person, so on and so forth, to see how fucked up the end resulting story is. Granted, it's not very scientific. I'm sure Quiet Girl and I will think of something animated and interesting. Pray for mania!!!!!

My statistics book came today. Thank GOD that class is online. I was near tears just thumbing through it. Luke. Where's Luke? I have 3 assignments due by Sept 12th in it. He better get crackin', as long as we're talking about ethics and shit, and make Mommy proud. I need at least a B. Seriously. He could totally handle this and I would buy him as many packs of collectible playing cards as my grad budget allowed.  You could've told me it required not only algebra skills but also geometry, both of which I failed in high school!  (No, I'm not serious. I'll do the damn math.)

Spent most of last night armchair counseling my next door neighbor/church friend, who lost her mother yesterday. Her mom was really good friends with my late grandma. So I have wake/funeral shenanigans Thurs/Fri.  The now-deceased was in hospice for only 24 hours when she took her last breath, surrounded by family. I tried my best to explain the grief of losing a parent as coming in waves, especially when you know it's looming and inevitable. Sure, it lessens the shock of losing a parent prematurely and suddenly, but I assured her there are going to be moments of grief and joy and resentment over the shitty way her mother treated her, of which she complained relentlessly. The mom, while still coherent, asked for no more tests and no treatment, as she was 85 and felt like the tests were all torture, and it was pretty clear she had bone cancer. They started the famous morphine drip on Saturday, from which she'd never regain consciousness. The world just celebrated the 116th birthday of the Oldest Woman on Earth. Bravo! Luke asked me when I'll be 100. In 2072, I told him. Luke'll be 72. He has every faith that modern medicine will come up with some longevity-producer by the time I'm elderly, and feeling extra grateful I didn't crap out on him when I was this young. That goes for you too! Stay alive, I need you. 

Still looking for that elusive campus part-time job. I might just apply for the writing tutor one and tell them I can work all day Fridays, but not Tuesdays and see if they'll break the job into 2 people. More jobs are reportedly to post soon, which is good, because anything involving Excel and Outlook and non-envelope stuffing seems unattainable. Like I have time for this shit.

See, now it smells like weed. Hard to tell sometimes.

Tomorrow is 4 hours of "how to counsel people," where we role play and whatnot. For that, I had to buy my own digital dictaphone. No tapes with these mofos. It converts the conversations into mp3's which go on a flash drive for the professor. Without training in medical transcription, We have to dictate progress notes on our pretend sessions. That'll be fun because even though I think we'll be given "roles," it lets my inner nutcase come out and I can use my practical knowledge and experience. You had cadavers. We all get to screw with one another's heads. 

Weds are 3 hours of theory/theorists/history, and an hour-long weekly meeting w/our academic advisors, mine whom I ran into in the smoke hole outside today. She's alright in my book already. No, I'm not quitting until that check for my stipend comes in the mail. Weds night is a meeting at church re: Luke's confirmation. Woot! He asked me what's different at church once you become a real "member" after confirmation. I told him, "You get offering envelopes and you can vote in meetings. Apart from that, nothing."

(Friday night practice was great. I went in the sacristy--the little room where they prepare communion and flowers--and opened the fridge to put in my extra water bottle. Literally, the Consecrated Remains of Our Holy Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came flying out of the fridge, in a jar that came opened, and I stood there picking up the gluten-free version of Jesus' body and shoving the wafers back into the jar, which Pastor Dave caught me doing. "I'll bless them again later," he said. Whoops.)

Still don't know what the online Life Development course is all about, but it doesn't start until Sept 10th. Maybe they'll help explain why the Christian right wing insists a clump of cells deserves more human rights than a living mother, and people who are misguided and naive will stop referring to me as a Zygote Murderer for being pro-choice. I know, I know, you're Catholic. "An eminence front...it's a put on..." as The Who so aptly said. 

That's it in a nutshell. I'll get used to the schedule and material and it won't seem so daunting. But it's all good. It's all God. But I'm sorry, I'm not going to enter into a discourse with a 22 year old on how "psychodynamic" my semester is packed. In casual conversation!. 

Get some rest, I can see why you want to come home and veg out. I get it. 

Let me know when you get a new phone! This is insanity! Wait until you have to type with your fingers directly on the smartphone, or it'll automatically correct in appropriate solutions, direction aside. Try to get the text-by-spoken word that's in the new on the iPhone-s-i think it's called. Could be very useful for your purposes.

I really am excited and happy to part of the Adler organization. I just feel a little out place with all the young people. I'll get into the swing of things by next week. But a a fuill-blown manic episode would come in VERY handy right now. Too bad I'm stabilized.

Shoot me a few when you get a chance. I couldn't wait to tell you all about it.  :)

Lots of love,

Annie xoxo

Addendum this morning:

I, again, really shouldn't type when I'm half asleep.I I just re-read this and half it is laden with typos and half-thoughts, oh, the horror. Sleep walked into my mom's room asking her some random question at 11:30 pm, had closed Luke's door though he wasn't home (as is typical when I sleepwalk--I go looking for Luke), and lost my glasses AGAIN. Where'd I find them? In the kitchen drawer where the eyeglass cleaning towels are located. So at some point in my half-consciousness, I went to clean my glasses and put them in the drawer & went back to bed, my mother furious, as is also per usual. At least it wasn't 4am. Now it's 6am and I'm totally coherent. More or less.

Enjoy your day at work. I have a new perspective on how hard you work even after just one day at Adler. And what you had to go through to become a doctor. For that, you have my eternal respect. You must be in peak fitness and used to the frantic pace to keep up with what you're doing. I just pray I have your wherewithal after I'm a shrink.

I forgot to tell you that after we graduate, we can practice as licensed counseling psychologists for 2 years under supervision of a PsyD, PhD or MD for an additional set of initials after our names, and at that time, if we pass that board exam, we can open a private practice. Not that I want to do that, as I'll probably work in a non-profit or other social service organization that treats substance abusers and alcoholics. Plenty of time to sort that out.

We'll have to start making plans to make plans to make plans after Labor Day. My schedule's packed but I have nights free (except for every other Thurs, which is Luke's therapy).  It's looking like October for Tattoo #2, the word "mindfulness" in Sanskrit, bigger and on the inside of my LEFT arm. This time, P'Dave's taking me, as I'm tagging along with his niece, Chloe, who is getting 2 tattoos. Dave's thinking of getting his tattoo filled in. 

Wow. on iTunes, a George Harrison song ("Woman, You've Been on My Mind," or something to that effect, from that demos CD I gave you) which segued directly into a song by his son, Dhani's band, thenewno2. It sounded literally just like George but doing electronica. Bizarre.

Hare Krishna!

Annie