Sunny Day

It's gorgeous out there, at least from my perspective at the window.

I'm very sleepy today, in a peaceful drowsy way.

The blue funk passed, and yesterday was mostly good. Sproing had some behavior issues which we handled, but I can see the struggle is still there. He has so much trouble resisting the urge to pick on other people. There's something that ain't quite right about that boy. He and Diva get into it. She falls into the trap he sets, and both of them end up in trouble. He sat in the hallway yesterday and cried for 45 minutes until I let him get up.

Superman took Sproing back to the treatment facility, which Sproing kept referring to as "home." Eh, whatever. It has been his home for the past couple of months.

I'm so sleepy it's hard to write. I'm going to go hunt for a nap. I think I might have left one under my covers in the bedroom.

Woe is me Christmas

Warning: moody ruminations ahead. Proceed at your own risk.

Well, it started out nicely. The gift opening, breakfast, happy family time all together - it was about as lovely as things get around here. Humble but lovable.

I got really sleepy mid-morning, not surprisingly. Not sure what time I went back to sleep, but I slept until 2:00. It was a good sleep, if full of strange dreams. I dreamt, among other things, that I made C's in my classes. I got up and shuffled into the kitchen to do that Christmas Dinner thing. I actually accomplished it, too! Superman helped with a couple of things, but I was the one who mixed up the sweet potato casserole, seasoned and baked the ham, and made the roll dough. Light formed the rolls after the first rising, then I popped them in the oven when they had risen again. (Kinda like Easter, huh?) From a technical perspective, dinner went well.

Sometime toward late afternoon I was overcome by a wave of depression. Nothing specific happened, I can't pinpoint a specific cause. Maybe it was a chemical flood or something, I dunno. I just felt awfully sad. It was so hard to get out of my chair to finish preparing dinner. Twitch and Superman got into an altercation over a longstanding issue, so they were upset. Sproing got restless and uncomfortable this afternoon. I think he misses the structure and dependability of the treatment facility. He likely misses some of the staff, as well. All normal stuff. It's been overcast, dark and wet all day, which hampers everyone's mood. Diva was in a tweener fog watching a Ciley Myrus movie, which irritated me. Being depressed, most everything irritated me. By the time we sat down to dinner, I felt awful. Twitch didn't join us for dinner, either. I ate, the food was good. The rolls were really good! I love good yeast rolls. My tongue was happy about the rolls, but the entire rest of my being was depressed. I would rather have skipped the dinner table, but I sat there out of obligation, which made me even more depressed.

The kids went to bed at 9:00 and Superman and I watched the movie "Up." I'd heard good things about the movie, and bought it as a family Christmas gift. The kids watched it this morning with their dad while I took a nap. He insisted that we watch it together this evening. It's good. It's touching. It made me cry. Do I like this? I don't know. Right now I'm looking at the world through mud-colored glasses, so my testimony isn't dependable.

It's 11:30 and Sproing just got up again. He had trouble sleeping last night, too. He doesn't sleep well anyway, and of course last night was Christmas Eve, so that made sense. He's tired, though, and had a long day. I worry about him. I scratched his back for a few minutes and sent him back to bed. I hear him coughing a little bit and being generally restless. I need to ask the third shift staff at the facility if he has trouble sleeping there, too. Come to think of it, I want a third shift staff here, too.

I'm going to drown my sorrows in sleep. Maybe when I wake up tomorrow the sky will be clear and so will my head.

I-woke-up-early Ramblings

Alright, who ordered rain for this morning?!

I woke up sometime close to 4:00 this morning. I don't know why. I'm not all excited about Christmas, not like I was 40 years ago when I was 7 years old. I lay in the bed for a while, then my extremities got twitchy. I stretched, tried to settle back down, but I was awake. Oh well. So I got up.

Sproing is up now, too. He is a very light sleeper anyway. It's Christmas, he's sleeping in the room with Twitch (who is a noisy, active sleeper), he's used to sleeping at the treatment facility so to him now his bed here is the different bed. He's also got a slight cough. So he's up with me, sitting in my comfy chair petting the cat.

Last night before we went to bed, Superman and I put together a breakfast casserole for this morning. It's cubed Italian bread, chunks of cream cheese, a cup or so of frozen blueberries, and milk and a lot of eggs. It gets refrigerated overnight. He also cooked up a blueberry sauce that we'll pour over our individual servings. I just put it in the oven so it will be ready when the rest of the house wakes up.

Our younger kidlets* are still more excited about Christmas than they are about sleep, so we set an official wake-up time for Christmas morning, lest they wake up at, say, 4:00 and want to get us up for the gift exchange. This year it's 6:00. Sproing is up already, but Diva is as likely as not to sleep until 10:00 if left to her own devices. And here I am, awake since 4:00. Oh well.

I feel pretty good about today, so far. I will need a nap later on, but that shouldn't be a problem. I baked a couple of pies last night (pumpkin and pecan) and Superman has requested an apple pie as well. The dinner menu includes ham, sweet potato casserole, green beans, and some kind of fruit salad or something. Oh, and rolls if I make them.

Now it's 5:45 and Twitch just got up. He is an early-to-bed, early-to-rise guy. Always has been. Says he's been up for three hours, snoozing some and having strange dreams. I think we're all going to be sleepy later this afternoon. Twitch is a napper, too, a lot like his Mama.

Alas, the wake-up hour approacheth. Time for me to start the coffee. I hope you all have a lovely day today, enjoying the holiday in the way that most pleases you.

* Evidently, the category that defines "more excited about Christmas" is our boys. Both of the girls are zonked.

Aaaand we're off!

Superman is on his way home with Sproing. The college kids are home for the holiday. Diva is here, of course out of school for the season (plus two days, but that's a different story). Isn't that lovely?

Yeah, it's lovely from a theoretical perspective, or a physical distance of 50 miles or more. I feel a bit overwhelmed, and Sproing isn't even here yet. He should be here within the hour, though.

As for Sproing's visit, I am not afraid of it/him now. I look forward to having him home, if not the experience of too many people around me. All the expectations I heap upon myself are nagging at me a bit, but not as much as last year. Yet.

We have two cats, Samhain and Scheherazade. My fluffy little girl Scheherazade hides under the bed or in the closet when she gets overwhelmed. Samhain, being too manly to cower under the bed (very much) has to assert his supremacy by marking territory. He's been active with the spraying this week. We are not amused. We are, however, sympathetic to the cause.

I am currently hiding in my office and on the blogs. I must soon emerge to face my responsibilities. Right now I am doing the one thing that I look forward to every year: listening to the public radio broadcast of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College, Cambridge, England. I look forward all year to that first glorious note sung by the chosen boy, the carol "Once in Royal David's City."

You know I don't like this small southern town where I live. I want to live in an area that is metropolitan enough so that I can tune in my local public radio station and get a clear signal. We live far enough from the broadcast location that my reception is fuzzy. Also, there are too many locally produced programs on this station. It ain't so good.

Random stuff on a Friday

It's early. I slept a lot yesterday, went to sleep at 10:00 last night, and woke up when Superman got up to use the bathroom at 2:30. I lay there for a while pretending to sleep, but it didn't work, so I got up.

It's been a long week. A lot has happened. I'm DONE with school until the second week in January, and that is a good thing! I had a confab with my Research Methods prof yesterday about my final grade. It's a B. A very high B, but a B nonetheless. And I'm OK with it, because it's a fair grade. I did well, but not quite well enough for an A. So be it. We had a good discussion, though, and I feel better about the whole mess.

I will be driving up to Charlotte this morning to bring Twitch home. I'm actually looking forward to that. He and I talked last night, and he told me about an incident in which he Helped someone. You know, Help- like the kind of Help I do. I'll tell you about it. There was another student there at school, sitting on the bench all dejected and stuff. Frantic, nearly, because he had a final assignment to turn in and he thought the professor was gone already and he'd missed his last opportunity to turn in this assignment. Well, my darling son went looking for the professor and found her! He led the prof to the student, and the kid was ape-shit relieved/joyful/thankful. And Twitch got that rush. Have you ever had that rush, when you do something that makes a huge difference in someone else's life? It could be a small, simple act, but it makes literally a world of difference in the life of the other person. It's why I do what I do. It's what I live for*. And I am beyond thrilled that Twitch knows that feeling.

In other not-so-good news, Diva has managed to get suspended AGAIN, this time for fighting. She did not get into a knock-down drag-out fight. Rather, she got into two different situations in which fighting was imminent or barely begun. She "put up her dukes" to threaten one girl, and in a separate incident she punched another child in the ribs. She denies both accusations, but I don't really believe her. I want to believe her. I always want to believe my kids in situations like this. But with Diva, she has lied to me so many times that I can't believe her anymore. I have doubts. Maybe she did and maybe she didn't. I don't necessarily trust those at the school who made these accusations. By that I refer to both the students in question and the school administrators. The school system administration around here, at least on the high school level and to some extent at the middle school level, has proven itself untrustworthy. I feel helpless to know the true truth.

So Diva is suspended for two days. But lookie**, yesterday was the last day of school until after the holidays. Her suspension will take effect on Monday and Tuesday the 4th and 5th of January. This effectively rewards my darling daughter with two extra days of vacation. Shit. The system is fucked up.

I asked her last night about how she likes the way she spends her suspension days. If given a choice between being at school or being at home, where she can't watch TV at all (no movies, either) and has academic work and housework keeping her busy all day, which would she rather do? She said she'd rather be at home. Again, shit. I'm not doing a good enough job of making her life miserable. Or perhaps school is so miserable that even being miserable at home is better than being at school. I'm inclined to believe that. The very idea of being in middle school makes my tummy hurt. She also gets a lot of attention, albeit somewhat negative, when she stays home and works.

In some ways I think I'd like to homeschool her. It would drive both of us over the edge, I'm sure, and is totally impractical, but there would be advantages. Not enough advantages to outweigh the disadvantages, and I'm not going to do it, but the idea is compelling.

At least this time, when she's suspended and home all day, I will not have school obligations myself. The last couple of times she was suspended both Superman and I had to be at work and school ourselves, so she was here for a few hours by herself. Not an ideal situation from any perspective.

I found something amusing at this blog. Blue Gal, from what I gather after a very brief perusal, is a fairly popular blogger and writer. I really don't know anything about her or the blog, but I want to give credit for my source, so there you are. The particular post where I found this is quite good. Anyway, after too much ado, I present my pen is:

And there you have it.

*Well, one of the things I live for anyway.

** Another Grandmama-ism (TM)

Semester's End

That sounds like a good name for a book or movie.

I'm done! Took my final final this morning and sold a couple of books at the Book Buy Back in the campus book store. I just checked my grades. I have A's in Theater and Psychotherapies, and I'm confident that I've got an A in Abnormal Psych, though the final grade isn't officially posted yet.

So, what about Research Methods? Well, that final grade isn't posted yet, either, but I think I have all the scores for all the tests and assignments. I only made an 85 on the final. The pisser about that (among other things) is that the final was the easiest test of all the exams we had all semester. I simply didn't study enough. I waited a bit too late (just a bit, mind you) to begin studying (maybe by a day or two, really), and there was another paper due in the class, to be turned in when we came to take the final. I spent a good deal of effort on that one, and did a fair job of it. Not spectacular (80%) but decent. In other, better news, I made a 92 on the BIG Paper! I'm thrilled about that. Anyway, according to my calculations, I think I made a high B in the class. A very high B. If my calculations are correct, I missed an A by 0.67%. Yep, less than 1%. 2/3rds of one percent. I don't have the final grade yet, so we shall see. I'm trying to pretend it doesn't matter. It's good to make a B.

It's time to change the subject. I'm beginning to get upset.

So, in celebration (and because I have some cash from selling my books) Superman and I are going out on a date tonight. We're both looking forward to that. Light is home now, having finished her semester last week. She can stay with Diva. (She doesn't know about this yet.)

Did I tell you that Sproing earned a day pass from his current digs? Diva, Superman and I went to the facility for a family therapy session at 10:00 Sunday morning, and afterwards we brought the boy home for a few hours. It was great having him home, I think. I'm glad, theoretically, that he was able to come home, but I wasn't having a good day. Stress, you know. I ended up sleeping almost the entire few hours he was home. I did, however, drive him back to the place. We had 1.5 hours alone, just the two of us. It was pretty good, I think. I'm not sure how he feels about it.

Tonight is the next visiting opportunity, but Superman and I are going on a date, as mentioned previously, rather than driving up to see him. We'll go see him again on Sunday, and probably call him some time this evening.

Twitch comes home next Monday. I'm sort of looking forward to that, too. I love the boy, you know. I enjoy interacting with him. Last time they were all (except Sproing) home at Thanksgiving, I was stressed out. To all of a sudden have the kids back in the house was a bit more excitement than I could handle. It's weird, and I don't know how normal this is, but I used to thrive with that level of activity. When C and S lived here we had 6 kids/young adults living in this house. It was great. Perhaps I wore out my nerves with that one. Or perhaps the recent unpleasantness with the younger two frazzled me enough that I've not recovered. I dunno.

I just talked to Sproing's therapist about his Christmas visit. We'll be able to pick him up on the morning of the 24th, and he'll stay with us until Saturday evening, the 26th. If things get a bit dodgy we can take him back a little early, but his therapist thinks he'll do really well. She says he's changed a lot, grown up a lot. I need to discover who this new child is. I saw bits of "my boy" when he was home last Sunday. It was very good. He's been so messed up for the past, I dunno, year or so that he hasn't shown us that charming boy whom I love so much. That boy is coming back, but he's a lot more grown up than he was. We must get to know each other again. It's a bit scary. Good, but scary.

I'm off to find some lunch. Have a lovely day, one and all.

Because I must

Circle of Friends Award

Mr. Larry Ohio passed onto RG a Circle of Friends Award and RG passed onto me a Circle of Friends Award. What's really cool is that Ultra Dave also passed on this Circle of Friends Award. I feel so loved! So I must name five things I enjoy and pass on my own Circle of Friends Awards. Cool, huh?

This is a good exercise for me. Lately I've not had much enjoyment in my life. It's been a hard year. I seem to have forgotten how to enjoy myself. Let's try this. In no particular order, here are five things that I enjoy:

1. Blogging I really enjoy reading other blogs and getting to know other bloggers. I'm particularly fond of gay men. I like men in general for many reasons, and now that I've discovered all these wonderful blogs written by gay men, I'm in a fairy-land heaven.

2. Learning new things I'm very curious. I love to learn about stuff, typically the less pertinent it is to real life, the better. Trivia and such, you know. But I also enjoy gaining knowledge, exercising my brain. Sometimes I'm not so fond of it when I'm in the midst of the mental crunches, but I like the results.

Aside: There's a difference between "like" and "enjoy." Maybe not for you, but as I consider what to write here, the distinction seems important.

3. Laughing This is a broad entry, as it encompasses many things. I like to laugh at funny stories, funny movies, funny pictures, my husband laughing (he's very silly), and the irony of life. I get the "laughter is the best medicine" kind of body work-out when I laugh at the funny stuff. When I laugh at life's ironies, though, it's more like "I laugh to keep from crying." Both kinds of laughter are good, but in different ways. A corollary: I enjoy making people laugh. I like being funny and inducing laughter in others, especially the times when I get them to see something from a new perspective.

4. Helping others I get the greatest sense of satisfaction when I'm able to help someone. It means a lot to me when I can make a positive difference in the lives of others. And it's much easier for me to give help than to receive it.

5. Sex I mean, really. I recently saw this analogy: "It's as boring as married sex." HA! Married sex does not have to be boring. Really good sex is, well, really good. Even if there isn't much variety, if it's really really good, variety isn't that important. Go with what works, you know? If it ain't broke, keep doin' it. And that's all I have to say about that.

So now it's time for me to pass on this Circle of Friendship Award. I bestow this award on

Greg at The Midnight Garden. He loves to garden, loves plant and animal life in general, he's a gentle and loving soul who lives on Cape Cod year 'round. He has been a good friend and sounding board for me since I first discovered him about 18 months ago. His cheerful approach to life is inspiring.

Patrick at Loose Ends. Patrick is one of the few bloggers I've met face-to-face. He gives great hugs. He has passion for life, though he suffers from dark times. He and I have similar depression monsters that haunt our souls. He's a New York City resident who loves trees and nature and paths that lead to mysterious places.

Bigg at Bigg on Life. An interesting fellow, writes very well and has fascinating stories to tell. He's a cancer survivor. He and his partner are of different generations, and it amazes me how in love they are. He was married to a woman (gasp) and has a few kids. He loves the kids.

Rox at Heart in Hand. She's one of them Canadians you hear so much about. She lives way on up there in Canada, too, not like 15 minutes from the U.S. border or anything. She sees a lot of snow. She's an amazing woman, making her life with her husband and two daughters as peaceful and happy as possible. Sometimes it's not so peaceful, but it is a life, and the love she has for her family is obvious.

Kevin at la Casa del Retardo. He's a curmudgeonly gent who along with his partner is raising four children they adopted. He writes well when he writes, and he keeps threatening to quit blogging. He needs us, though, and hasn't been able to make the break yet. He has a small but loyal following. Though he tries to disguise it, there's something very lovable about him. He'll deny it, though.

These are my choices. If any of these folks wants to take up the challenge and post this on their blogs, that's great. If they choose not to, that's great too. I'm easy like that.

A couple of things...

Firstly, Sproing: he has been doing much better recently. He's earned a day pass! We have a family therapy session Sunday morning, then Sproing gets to come with us for the day. If I recall correctly, he has to be back there by 7:00 p.m. Hopefully he will be able to come home for a couple of days at Christmas.

He's been much nicer to me over the past couple of weeks. I intended to visit him on Wednesday, but I had to sleep. I'd been up the whole previous night. I will go see him Sunday, obviously. I think he wants to come home for a couple of hours. It would be more efficient (or something) for us to stay up near there, go to one of the malls in Greenville or something, but the poor kid hasn't seen home since late September, so we'll probably bring him home.

Light and Twitch come home next week. Light is finished with school already, but is spending the weekend with Cameron and Lady Grace. I think we're picking her up after we take Sproing back to his lock-up. I can't remember when Twitch is officially finished with his school term, but he comes home at the end of the week.

In other news, and this is an indirect biggie, my boys broke up. C and S are no longer a couple. I got a phone call from C Friday morning. He said that Thursday night S told him that he was no longer interested in pursuing the relationship, he needed a change, and felt that he was holding C back. When we spoke, C was still in a state of shock. He didn't see it coming. He spent the day with one of his girlfriends. She's a great gal, also a student where C and I go to school. He worked Friday night until close (he works at a fast-food fish fry place). Dunno what he's got planned for Saturday.

I want to talk to S. I saw him briefly Thursday night when Superman and I went to the fish fry restaurant where C works. That was a few hours before he broke up with C. He's such a dear young man. I'd like to talk to him, just to check on him and see how he's doing. I love him so. I love them both. They've been together for almost 4 years. 3 years and 9 months, I think. They're both so young, too. S just turned 20 last month, so yeah, he was only 16 when they got together. Man, he's grown so much! So has C, of course. C is 21 now, I think. He was not quite 18 when we first met. I think I've got those ages right, but I might be confused. In the grand scheme of things, and considering their age, they've been together for an amazingly long time. They've been through a lot. I hope they can remain friends.

This week: a retrospective (academic edition)

I feel as though the first paragraph should be my abstract.

The big news from this week was my term paper in psychology Research Methods. (Not really, but that's what took the most energy.) I vaguely recall writing something last weekend about having spent much of the previous days sleeping a lot. Well, I needed it, because I stayed up all night to write my term paper. It's stupid. I'm too old for this shit. I've known about the paper since the beginning of the semester, and have had ample opportunity to work on it for the last two months or so. I didn't even read the source articles until Sunday. After class Tuesday I came home and began writing. I wrote and wrote and wrote until about 8:00 a.m. I got the sucker done.

Oh, somewhere in there I also studied for an exam in that class. Not the final, mind you. That happens this Tuesday. There are 4 exams plus the cumulative final exam. Each exam increases in difficulty through the 4th. The final is actually much easier, so says the prof. We shall see on Tuesday.

Of course I want to make a good grade on the paper, but that's a double-edged sword. If I get a good grade on the damn thing it's likely to reinforce my tendency to procrastinate. Though it's possible that having to stay up all night might mitigate that reinforcement. Hard to say.

The paper was due on Wednesday afternoon, but at the last minute the prof extended the deadline to Thursday morning. Most everyone had the paper done by Wednesday afternoon, so having that extra day just pissed us off. One of my classmates was uber-pissed. I was mildly annoyed. Maybe it's my age, maybe my experience, but I don't usually get angry about shit like that. It is what it is, and getting angry just wastes energy. By mid-morning Wednesday I didn't have the extra energy to expend in getting angry.

But since I had the sucker finished, I had the prof look it over. I told him that if it needed major revision I probably wouldn't rewrite. I was exhausted. He skimmed through it and made a couple of very simple formatting suggestions. That was cool. He said I had obviously read and understood the source articles (HA! Yeah, two days before the paper was due!) and it all looked pretty good.

There was a bit of amusement in the discussion. He looked at my abstract in which I briefly stated the results. (Yes! I was brief! amazing, really.) He said my results were incorrect, that our data showed that group 2 responses were in the other direction from that of group 1. Huh? No it wasn't. Group 1 had a much stronger response, and group 2's response was statistically insignificant, but it was in the same direction. Then he looked at my graphs to prove me wrong, and was instead proved wrong himself. Hee hee hee. He used this same study when he taught this class over the summer, but had used a different set of data. He was thinking about the data from the summer session. So he was wrong and I was right. That tickles me.

As I mentioned, I took exam 4 on Tuesday. He posted the grades Wednesday evening. I made a 96! I'm thrilled. Thrilled, I tell you! He hasn't posted the grades for the paper yet. I just checked.

On Thursday I took my final exam in the theater and film class. It was insultingly easy, and the instructor admitted as much. Oh well, it's an easy A, and I enjoyed the class. I learned a lot of interesting things, so it's all good.

I had no classes on Friday, but had to go to school for a meeting. I was inducted into the Psi Chi honor society, the international psychology honor society. That was cool. It will look good on my grad school applications. I even got a lapel pin. Perhaps I should get a suit with lapels so I can wear it, huh?

I have an article review to write for the Research Methods class. It's so much less significant than the other paper, and as long as I work on it this weekend and don't procrastinate, I'll be fine. And I need to study for the final exam. As I say, it shouldn't be overly difficult, but there are a lot of details I need to recall (or stuff into my brain again). I have the last exam in my Abnormal Psychology class on Wednesday. There again, some details I need to be able to regurgitate on the exam. (Sounds messy)

There's more non-academic stuff, but I'll save that for the next post.

Sunday and whatnot

• To answer rjjs - I saw "The Blind Side" for my film class. It's a very good movie. I want to see "Precious" too, but it isn't coming to this podunk town. I want out of this town. Anyway, I finished writing the review for the movie and emailed it to the instructor last night. I only have the final exam to do for that class. It's being conducted on Thursday. I'm not going to think about it until Wednesday, or perhaps Tuesday evening for a few minutes.
• Diva was baptized in the Baptist Church this morning. Her decision. This has little or nothing to do with any meaningful spirituality on her part, and Superman and I both think she shouldn't have done it. I am in favor of baptism in general, so long as it's done for the right reasons. She did it because it was the cool thing to do, or perhaps because she was pressured into it by the zealots in that congregation. I dunno, but there's nothing to be done about it now.
• Superman's bicycle was stolen from our locked garage yesterday afternoon. I was napping and Superman had taken the kids to the park. Whoever it was also stole Diva's bike. The friendly neighborhood police man came over to take the report. Who knows if we'll ever see the bikes again. I'm pissed. Superman is super-pissed.
• Our podunk town is conducting a podunk Christmas parade this afternoon. I'm not going, of course. My point, though, is that Diva gets to be in the parade. She has been taking cheer leading lessons at the YMCA, and the class gets to march in the parade. Isn't that lovely? I might send my camera with Superman so he can snap some photos. Yes, I found my camera.
• I started reading the material I need to know to write my journal article. Slog, slog, slog. I'm supposed to be reading more now, but I'm goofing off. Later I will deeply regret goofing off. It's the way I work, unfortunately.
• I spoke briefly with Sproing this afternoon. None of us is going to visit him today. We only have one car that works right now (the truck is "resting") and Diva "must" be in the parade. Eh. I don't have the 4-5 hours necessary to make the trip even if I did have transportation. Anyway, Sproing talked to his Daddy longer than he talked to me. We had a brief dialog, then he asked to talk to Daddy. From what I overheard from their conversation, he seems to be doing fairly well. Don't have that from the therapist's point of view, but we see her next Sunday. He said it was OK if I didn't come today. I apologized.
• That's about all I know. I'm going to go study some more.

Rush toward the end - with updates!

I'm so tired. So very, very tired. I slept a lot yesterday. I skipped my Friday morning class, stayed home and took a nap. It was my second nap. I took a third one later. And I was tired and ready for bed at 9:00, though I stayed up for a couple hours more. I felt rested when I got up this morning, but it's 3:00 now and I'm desperately tired again.

I am also very dizzy. I noticed it last night. As I rolled over in bed during the night my head kept turning after I stopped. And no, I hadn't been drinking. It was pretty dizzifying getting out of bed today, too. I almost fell backwards out of the shower this morning. I have felt dizzy all day long, even while sitting still at my desk.

It's nearly the end of the semester, and I have some significantly important assignments to finish on or before Wednesday. Or Tuesday. Or something. It's frightening to think about. I have a paper due in my film class. It is almost finished, I've been working on it this mid-day. All I have left is the summary analysis. I like that term. It's a summative evaluation and prescriptive analysis, as described by the instructor. It's spinning bullshit, mostly. Tedious, but not overly difficult.

The real difficult one is my article for psych research methods. I'm nervous about it because I'm woefully unprepared. I have what I need, but haven't read it. It's due at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon. I have to read 5 or 6 other scholarly journal articles (thick boring things, even though the subject is mildly interesting). Then I have to write mine.

There's also the 4th exam and the final exam, two different beasts, for psych research. I did well on the 3rd exam, but the stuff since then has me a bit confounded. I almost understand it. It makes sense when the prof describes it in class, and if I go slowly I can explain it. But give me an hour or so doing something else and I lose most of my grasp on the subject. I really need to work over the examples and study my notes. I have what I think is good material to study, but I haven't done that yet. I've been doing other school related things, or sleeping. I'm so tired.

Oh, and yesterday (December 4th) was Diva's birthday. She's 12 now. She thinks she's hot shit, but then she always has. Superman and I took her out to dinner to the Crimson Crustacean. It was as loverly as usual. I got her a doll that really poops and pees! Now I think Superman is mad at me. I know he's mad at Diva. She's been feeding her doll the non-food glop that came with it, and it runs out the doll's poop shoot, requiring a change of diaper. Well, the damned doll only came with two disposable diapers, and now the child is using up all the kitchen towels to catch the mess. He went to get a towel out of the drawer to use, you know, for some authentic need in the kitchen. But alas, there were none. She's got them strewn all over the house with wet doll mess all over 'em. Yeah, well.

He bought her the Miley Cyrus Movie DVD. Ugh. She watched it last night, but I was cloistered in my office and didn't have to suffer through any of it.

So Java, what happened to Diva when she was suspended from school last week? Oh, yes, I made her life difficult. I took the DVD player and locked it in my office, and disconnected the cable from the TV in the living room. I keep my office door locked when I'm not in here, and the only other TV with cable is in our bedroom, which also remains locked when we aren't here. Diva had a long list of household chores to do, most of which she did. Among other things she swept the whole house and mopped the kitchen, folded and put away a bunch of clothes. She did two math lessons from an older Grade 5/6 math textbook I have, and studied a literature passage (short, only two small paragraphs) and did some exercises with that. She also read a newspaper article and answered a bunch of questions about it. And I wasn't particularly nice to her. I don't think I was cruel, mostly, but I wasn't friendly.

When I took her back to school on Thursday we had to go in for a brief conference with the assistant principal. The woman took one look at Diva and said that she was violating the dress code. OK, I suppose I should be up on these things, if I'm a good mother and all that crap. Whatever. So after discussing the other issues with the assistant principal, I had to take the child home to change clothes. And oh, dear, she doesn't have anything decent to wear! Part of the problem is that she's taken her perfectly good pairs of jeans and cut them off into shorts that are too short to wear to school! I'm so pissed at her right now. The other problem, though, is that she has outgrown some of her clothes. That's a legit excuse.

Superman and I took her to The Great Retail Empire and got her a new pair of pants for school, decent shorts for gym, and a few shirts. I have told her that I'm instituting a uniform for her. She won't have to wear exactly the same thing every day, but it'll be similar. Pants or skirts in plain colors, and t-shirts or other plain modest shirts also in plain solid colors. No patterns, no adornment. And close toed shoes. She would rather wear flip-flops, even though it's getting too cold to wear those now. She needs a few more pair of pants and maybe another skirt or two. She has one that I know works well. It's a pale pink corduroy skirt that I made for her. I don't know where it is right now, though. I saw her wearing it last week, but Jeebus only knows where it is now.

Today she is having what passes for a birthday party. Two of her friends are here. They have balloons, and Diva made a strawberry cake with strawberry icing (we bought the cake mix and can of frosting last night). Superman just took the three of them over to the municipal park/play ground not far from here. Light, it's the same place where you broke your arm when you were Diva's age. Remember that? I hope no one breaks any bones today. I'm too busy and too old for that shit.

The whole birthday party thing is her idea and her Daddy's responsibility. That was understood from the very beginning by all involved. I didn't even have to make excuses for myself. They both already knew that I wouldn't be involved. I love that they automatically assume I'm not going to participate. Actually, I did participate in a small way. I've been in my office ever since the guests arrived, trying to ignore them. At one point they were popping balloons and jumping around in the living room. It was too loud and rambunctious, and Superman was busy with something else. I walked into the room and spoke firmly (and was perhaps a bit loud) saying that this was NOT indoor kind of behavior, and if they wanted to make such a ruckus they needed to go outside. That's all the guests have seen of me. Diva's Mama is a fussy bitch! I value that impression.

Enough of this foolishness. I'm gonna post this, go take a nap, then get up and finish the paper I've started. After which I will attack the big bad journal article. Ugh.

Update: Diva's party is over. No one broke any bones and all survived until the end, even Superman. I slept through most of it.

I finished my film review paper and emailed it to the instructor. Now I have to start research for my article. Going crazy in 3...2...1

Alright,

I've had it with these stupid spambots. I have resisted thus far, but I'm having too much trouble with comment spam so I've instituted the word verification feature.

I'm all kinds of pissed at Diva again. She got herself suspended from school for two days. Again. Does she not know that if you say "f*** you" to a teacher, you're going to get in serious trouble? I'm trying to make her suspension miserable in hopes that the experience will convince her not to get herself into this situation again.

I'm too mad and too busy with school work to write any more now.

A pretty picture and a funny story

From Botany Photo of the Day

Lupinus pilosus, commonly known as the blue lupine, is an Old World lupine, occurring from southern Greece through western Turkey to Israel.

More information can be found at the above-linked website.

And now for something I think is hilarious. I called my Mama tonight, since I failed to call her on Thanksgiving or the weekend that followed. She spent the holiday weekend with my youngest brother and his wife and kids. She reports that a good time was had by all. Evidently it is my brother's tradition to assemble his Christmas tree during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. This is the second year in a row that Mama has been present for the process. She told me that she is their official Christmas Tree Fluffer.

I blame it on you, my dear gay blog buddies. I've been hanging with y'all enough so that my mind jumps to associations I've picked up from you. She said "fluffer" and I started to laugh. Then laugh louder. And harder. Until I could barely breathe. She didn't understand what I found so funny. It took me a minute to catch my breath so I could tell her that I know another meaning for that term. I said it was all your doing, and asked her, knowing from whence I came upon the knowledge, if she wanted me to tell her. She did, so I told her. I couldn't tell over the phone whether she was more amused or put off. I don't care. I had a jolly good laugh out of the whole thing, and I really needed a good laugh. And I have you, indirectly, to thank for it.

I love you all.

It was a good day

I wasn't looking forward to Thanksgiving. It's another big obligation, and I don't feel festive. But it played out unexpectedly well.

I got up early but not too early (7:00) and made pie crust. It's not a daily routine, and the newness of it set the pace for the day. I showered and put on my posh frock, then Superman and I drove up to see Sproing at the laughing academy. We joined him for a holiday lunch. He said it tasted better than the stuff they usually eat. There was turkey, green bean casserole, cornbread, cranberry sauce, etc. I ate a small helping of some of it. I didn't overdo! I was pleased.

The visit with Sproing was really good. We enjoyed each other's company. He was more like my boy than he's been in a few months. I miss that boy. The little snit who has been in his place is NOT my boy! But I saw a lot more of my boy today. I had a chance to explain to him why he is there, and what it takes to get out. He's been of the opinion that if he just does his time, eventually he'll get out. I was able to demonstrate, I think successfully, that the determining factor is his behavior, his willingness to meet the goals that determines when he comes home. I've been trying to get that message across to him since he first was incarcerated, but today was the first time he'd listen to me. I don't know what the next visit will be like. He might be the monster again. But I'm more hopeful than I've been in a while.

Superman and I had a wonderful time being together for the 3 hours we were traveling to and from Sproing's current residence. We talked a lot about a lot of things without being interrupted by children. It was great!

Once home, I prepared the turkey and put it in the oven to roast. While it cooked, I took a nap. Isn't that lovely? I recommend that as a method for roasting meat. Superman woke me when the turkey was done. I then made the guts of a lemon meringue pie, having baked the crust earlier this morning. Light and Superman, with some help from Twitch, cooked everything else. It's a good thing, this sharing of the kitchen. We were all conscientious about keeping the dishes washed up, so that after dinner there was very little clean-up to do. From that perspective, it's the best holiday dinner we've had in forever.

After pie (pumpkin, lemon meringue, and pecan) and coffee and the rest of the clean-up, all of us except Twitch played a game of Apples to Apples. It was fun. Superman won. I lost pathetically. Since then I've been cruising the blogs, watching silly YouTube videos, and having a generally lovely evening.

I hope your holiday has been pleasant, and the weekend ahead is just as great, if not more so.

Thanksgiving at the House of Java

My kids are home for Thanksgiving. I drove for 6+ hours yesterday evening to gather them. It's a good thing I like to drive, eh?

Here's Light. This is what she was doing when I got up this morning.

Here's Twitch. This is what he was doing when I got up this morning.

The best part is the sound effects, which you can't hear by looking at this picture. He snores. It's cute, as long as it doesn't disturb my sleep.

Diva is, of course, at home. She and Twitch have been griping at each other since they woke up. The only one missing is Sproing. I'm sad that he isn't able to be here, and by that I mean that he's not well enough to be home. I'm glad, since he is as messed up as he is, that he's not here to wreck havoc with this delicate balance of the family dynamic.

I'm glad to have them here, with a caveat. I like the still-picture of everyone together. As the day gets moving and we are interacting, I'm having trouble with my emotions. I'm tense, anxious, hypersensitive, impatient. I thought I was getting better, but evidently I can't handle the stress. I've been "better" because the stress is lessened. Or maybe I'm having a bad day and need to eat a healthy lunch to get my humours in balance. Perhaps a nap will help.

Ah, Superman is home for lunch now. He's going to fix a good-for-me sandwich, and after lunch I'll take a nap with my special nocturnal afternoon-nap kitty. (Samhain)

Thank Therapy

My dear friend Tobey over at Bald Emotions has posted a "thank therapy" list. This is a great idea for this season, but it's probably useful many other times of the year. Remind me of this next time I get into a blue funk.

Here's my list of 25 things for which I am thankful:

1. Indoor plumbing, a perennial favorite

2. Sex

3. Validation that Sproing really is psychologically disturbed

4. Sproing being in a residential treatment facility where he is getting help

5. ...and by extension, Sproing not being here to wreck daily havoc on my life

6. My precious kitty cats, who bring so much comfort and fun to my days

7. Central air conditioning

8. Autumn

9. Twitch doing so well in college

10. Light, ditto

11. The interwebs, specifically blogs and those who write them

12. My computer, through which I access this interwebby thing

13. The dear friends I have made through blogging

14. My wonderful husband Superman, our marriage, and the joy we share with each other

15. Being in college again -- it makes me feel alive!

16. Psychotropic medication, which makes this list possible

17. Cool weather

18. Diva, and being able to spend time with her alone, getting to know her outside of the Sproing dynamic

19. Indigo, my beloved friend who has changed my life is so many good ways

20. Therapy, and specifically my therapist

21. My health, such as it is, and would that I take better care of it

22. Music that soothes the savage beast (that would be me)

23. Having my own room, my office, which is mine, dammit

24. My intellect and insight, when it works

25. Modern kitchen appliances: beware the trap of taking them for granted

Celebrations

It's that time of year. But really, we build celebrations into the fabric of our culture to break up the monotony of the mundane at regular intervals throughout the year. That is, I believe, the underlying purpose of celebrations. You've got your birthdays, anniversaries, community festivals, various national days of remembrance for one thing or another, and the always popular religious holidays. Then there are the parties, which I suppose fit into this category as well.

Is it important to take part in celebrations? What celebrations are most important to you? Why? Why do you celebrate the things that you do?

This is open-thread, folks. I am genuinely curious about why people do these things. I have a few poorly-formed thoughts on this subject myself, and may share them in a later post if I can get them to coalesce well enough to stay put. Perhaps your answers may help.

Quote of the day

"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your
opinions and content with your knowledge."

-- Elbert Hubbard

There ya' go, that's more like it

Big exam in Research Methods yesterday. Score - 97

Goin' back to college to kick some butt, baby.

Existential Angst

I over-think these things.

I'm currently studying for a test in Psychotherapies, specifically Gestalt therapy. Here's what my notes say:

-True growth starts with awareness of how one is affected and how one affects others.

-We need to clarify, be in contact with reality.

-We need to identify and trust what we genuinely feel and want, being honest with ourselves and others.

-Be Fully Present: problems: living in the past, worrying about the future, clinging to illusions of shoulda' coulda' woulda'

-Contact: be in touch with what's emerging here and now, moment to moment.

I'll pass the test, I don't worry about that. The point, though, is that I'm failing at life in these areas. I'm an existential mess, without a firm grasp of reality. I blame the internet. And blogging. I type these messages and send them into an ethereal plane, where you, who are of questionable reality, read and perhaps respond in the same frame of nothingness.

Yeah, I'm definitely over-thinking this.

Some days are like that

Thankfully, today isn't one of them. But I couldn't resist posting this picture.

I found this here.

Sunday Snippets - With Updates!!

~Last night I watched a lot of Dan Savage's YouTube videos. I like that guy. He makes a lot of sense about a lot of things. I don't always agree with him, but I have a huge hunk of respect for him. That he's cute doesn't hurt anything, either.

~Superman appears to be coming down with the ick. He's very achy, his chest feels tight, and the glimmer in his eye is dampened. My Mama worries that he gets sick so often. I take it one day at a time and try not to think worrying thoughts.

~Still having trouble motivating myself to study. I have a mondo important test in Research Methods on Tuesday. I should be studying now. I should have studied last night instead of listening to Dan Savage talk about sex. I also need to write a review of a play I saw last week. Went to see it twice, just to get a better feel for it. I'm glad I did, too, since the second time I had a better seat and picked up on a few subtleties I missed the first time. Did I tell you about the play? I mentioned it somewhere. It was the play "Picnic" written by William Inge. 'Twas good.

~Since Superman is sick today, it looks like I'll be going to visit Sproing alone. I haven't seen him in almost two weeks. I was planning to go for today's visiting hour anyway, but I'm not so sure about going by myself. I'll be fine; I'll be strong for him. Who knows what kind of mess I'll be once I leave the visiting area.

~Twitch has gotten himself in financial trouble again. He's not very wise. Smart, yes; wise, no. He overdrew his bank account by $12 and hasn't had any money to take care of that. He currently owes $152.51 in penalties, fees, etc. I was planning to give him a little bit of money this week, and when I mentioned it, he asked that I send a check, rather than deposit the money directly into his account the way I usually do. I suspected trouble, and was once again correct. I'm not sending him a check. If I give him anything, I'll deposit some money into the account to decrease his financial obligation. His dad had a firm discussion with him last night, "suggesting" that he go talk to someone at the bank about this. Teenagers give me a rash.

~I have enjoyed visiting blogs this morning. I like to check up on all my peeps. Everyone seems to be doing fairly well, all things considered. Tigeryogiji is back! I'm glad to see new posts from him. Seriously, y'all, I need to reconstruct my blogroll on this here blog thingie. It's something I keep meaning to do, but am too busy reading all my favorite blogs to mess with my blog layout.

~Time to get ready for the afternoon. I'll try to get back here this evening to report on my visit with The Boy.

I'm back from visiting The Boy Sproing. It was a good visit! We sat and talked for over an hour, played a slow game of Othello, ate sour cream and onion flavored fake potato chips from a tall can, drank some apple juice, and generally pleasant time. He copied some recipes out of magazines to give to me, and some of them look pretty good. One is chipotle meatballs, and there's one for Samosa meat pies. We both said that we didn't like that last visit he and I had. This one was much better. I'm glad I went alone, somehow that made it seem better. No competition or something.

Pictures of my cat clock, just like I said I might show you

This is my new clock for my office. I didn't have a clock in here, and if my computer isn't turned on I didn't know the time. I do now.
I don't, however, know how to hold the camera still to get a non-blurry photograph.

I like my new clock. It's got cute appeal without being too terribly tacky.

The wall is actually a greener green than that. It shows up too gray on my monitor. I have no idea what it looks like on your monitor. I'm not overly fond of the wall color. This is the paint that Light picked out, since it was her room before it was mine. I'd like to find a nice blue for these walls, but I'm not sure what shade, tone, etc. I want. Any suggestions?

I have tests and papers and such like in the next week. I don't have time to blog much. The semester is about 66% gone, so I'm supposed to be gearing up for the final push. My heart isn't in it as much as I'd like, but I will muddle through.

Right now I need to figure out what courses to take next semester. I meet with my advisor tomorrow, and I need to have a clue what I'm doing before then.

There are probably some more topics I should address. It seems like I'm forgetting something. I'm too tired to worry much about it now. Oh! I would like to thank you for all the encouragement (and comments!!) on the previous post. Superman appreciates the sentiments, of course. He's such a nice guy. I'm glad I stayed married to him.

On to more scholastic things. TTFN

A guest post by Superman in which he discusses homophobia, The Gay, and educating the unwashed masses

After a bit of conversation last night with Java, she has asked me to set down for perusal the events I described. This I gladly do, somewhat encapsulated in a small essay on the general topic of being a gay-friendly straight guy who is stuck working with a bunch of homophobes in the Deep South.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes I wonder whether the world

is being run by smart people who are putting us on

or by imbeciles who really mean it.

---Mark Twain

First, some context. As most of you know, the state of Maine held a referendum on same-sex marriage, and the vote was (very narrowly) lost to the haters on Tuesday. There has been much gloating over this outcome on the various conservative-and/or-religious-right web outlets that I follow. And why do I follow them, you may ask? Because I used to be one. For much of my life – having been raised by devout Southern Baptists, and having attended a very conservative Reform-doctrine church for twenty years – I held the view that homosexuality was nothing more than a choice, and a bad one at that. A college friend of mine (“Steven”) Came Out shortly after graduation, and to compress a long and painful story rather a lot, I treated him shabbily. He wanted to come by for a visit, and I said he could come by for an hour, as long as he didn’t bring his partner.

Yeah, I know. I was a real monument to Christian love. Gag.

About ten years ago events started to come together that made me think that perhaps I wasn’t quite as perfectly 100% correct in all my ways as I thought I was. I ran into Steven and his partner in a local store, we re-connected, and I started trying to do a little bit (a very little bit) to educate myself about what it really meant to be gay. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on it because I knew, waaay down deep, below the radar, that if I took an honest, unbiased look at this issue, and found my worldview wanting, that it would be the first of many dominoes. As it turned out, I was right.

In 2006 we took in a young friend of my daughter’s whose ogre – er, that is, stepfather – had kicked him to the curb when he found out he was gay. The kid was 17 and seriously bad off. He had been doing everything he could, for as long as he could remember, to “be straight”. It hadn’t worked, and he finally gave in and admitted to himself that he was gay. Java had never been as draconian in her views on homosexuality as I had, and she got the bug to find out as much as she could about the issue. Let me tell you, when that girl gets a goal, she goes for it. I got to tag along for the ride. Over the next year or so we learned just about all there was to learn* about the issue of sexual orientation. (“So tell me, when did you decide to become heterosexual?”) I realized, and internalized, the fact that my previous position on the topic was wrong, that what I’d been taught in church was wrong, and it led me to a state of extreme dissatisfaction with my religious practice. From all I was able to discern, the church missed it by a mile. That, inevitably, led me to wonder what else they got wrong. That’s where I am now. I don’t know as I’d call it a crisis of faith, but it certainly is a re-examination of everything I believe.

Anyhow, I consider myself a realist, and when presented with facts and evidence that does not fit my theories and paradigms, I change the theories rather than ignoring the evidence. So here I am.

------------------------------------------------------------

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge,

but the refusal to acquire it.

---Karl Popper

On the prevalence of homophobes: they are everywhere. They are in the workforce. They are in the supermarket. They are driving next to you on the freeway. They are very sure of themselves. They are loud. And most of all, they are unaware (by and large) that they ARE homophobes. The “wrongness” of The Gay is taken so much for granted, is ingrained so deeply into the culture, that even when one explains what one means when using the term “homophobe”, one probably won’t be understood, let alone believed. I know this because I was IN that mindset for a lot of years. I didn’t “hate gays”. I didn’t even wish them ill. I just didn’t want them around me … or my kids … or my extended family … or anywhere I could see them or hear them or realize, even subconsciously, that they existed. So if someone of a more enlightened viewpoint had pointed out to me that I was, in fact, a homophobe, I would have vigorously denied it.

That’s what we are up against. And it can be exhausting. I had a conversation with a coworker a few months ago wherein I maintained that homosexuals typically do not “choose” to “become” gay, but rather are born with that orientation. I presented evidence from several compelling studies on the subject, all of which pointed rather dramatically to the salient fact that one’s sexual preference is present very, very early in the game. He simply refused to believe it. He said the studies must have been done by “gay people with an agenda”. As if gays are the only ones who have an agenda. Call me nuts, but I don’t think Karl Rove is gay, and if there was ever a man with an agenda, he’s it. But I digress. When I said that homosexuals deserved the same rights and privileges as anyone else, he got mad. He said homosexuals couldn’t be born that way, because that would mean that God made a mistake. When I tried to explain that being gay isn’t a “mistake”, he simply shut me off.

This scenario has been repeated several times, in different venues.

---------------------------------------------------------

He who does not bellow out the truth

when he knows the truth

makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.

---Charles Peguy

Which brings us to today … or rather, to Wednesday. A fellow came into my office, a vendor of ours (I’ll call him “Tom”) that I’ve known for years. He is generally “good folks”, honest, a hard worker, and a crackerjack machinist who has helped us out more times than I can count. We usually visit for a while when he comes in, which is about once every week or two, and this day was no different. He had given me a flash drive with over a hundred old radio programs from the 50’s and 60’s and wanted to know if I’d listened to any of them. (We are contemporaries, and are both Golden Age science-fiction buffs.) I hadn’t. In fact, the flash drive hadn’t been touched since he dropped it off. I’ve been kinda busy, as any of you who follow this blog will understand. The conversation turned to broadcast programming in general and the dearth of anything worth watching, then to the FCC and their latest assault on the First Amendment, then Our Dear Leader in Washington, who has been a monumental disappointment to me in a lot of respects, and then, oddly, to the referendum in Maine.

Tom: “I can’t stand that these people want to force their lifestyle down my throat.”

Me (seeing a golden opportunity when it smacks me on the snout): “That’s not what they want to do at all.”

Tom: “Huh?”

Me: “Your average gay guy just wants to be left alone to make his way in the world without a bunch of people getting all over his case if they find out he isn’t straight.”

Tom: “But they want all these special rights and shit.”

Me: “Like what?”

Tom: “Like in Maine, where they want to get married …”

Me: “You mean like everyone else? How’s that special?”

Tom: “……… uh ………”

Me: “Basically they’re being punished because of who they love.”

Tom: “Why don’t they just marry a girl then?”

Me: “They aren’t into girls.”

Tom: “So they do want special rights, see, because of their perver …” At this point he gets a glimmer that maybe, just possibly I don’t consider homosexuality to be a perversion. “… because of their lifestyle choice. I mean, come on. Is that fair?”

Me: “But it’s not a choice.”

Tom: “Sure it is.”

Me: “Think about it. Who in his right mind would consciously choose to participate in a lifestyle that would guarantee discrimination in most workplaces, bias in most courts, and threat to his person in a lot of areas of the country?”

Tom: “……………………Huh.”

He was very thoughtful after that and soon left. But I think the seed might have been planted.

*HA! That's far from all there is to learn. Way far. I will never know all there is to learn about sexual orientation if I studied it continuously from now until the end of my life. As with most things I find that the more I learn, the more I realize there is to learn.

The Boy, a brief update:

Superman, Diva, and I went to visit Sproing Wednesday evening. We had a family therapy session from 6:00 to 7:00, then the semi-weekly visiting hour. Therapy went well, I think. Sproing didn't join us until the last 10 minutes or so.

Then we all went into the dining hall for the visit. It lasted maybe five minutes. During therapy we discussed Thanksgiving plans. Ideally he would come home for the day, maybe a couple of days, at Thanksgiving. But he's got to prove he's ready for that responsibility, and his therapist has set the qualifications for meeting that goal. He blew his opportunity the first day, so he isn't coming home for Thanksgiving. That was confirmed for him in therapy, so he went into the visit with a sour attitude. He started complaining about being there, he wants to come home, everyone there picks on him, etc. He was headed into the "you hate me" lane when I said "It's time for us to leave now. You need to go back to your room." Like I said, maybe five minutes.

If you recall, last Wednesday's visit was a disaster. When I talked to his therapist on Thursday she recommended that if he starts with the disrespectful attitude, we should kindly but firmly end the session. And that's what we did. I'm ok with it this time, especially since I was able to see him while in the therapy session. He looks pretty good. I can tell that he is growing. His face is getting a bit longer and thinner, though I wasn't able to assess whether he's gotten any taller. He'll be 12 years old in a couple of months, so this growth is to be expected. His emotional development, as we see, is stuck in idle. It's a process, and he has to get to the point where he's ready to do what needs to be done. Right now I'm just glad he's in a high maintenance facility with professionals to care for him, and NOT here at home for me to deal with. His mental condition is out of my league. Has been for years, frankly.

Happy snippets

Remember the grief I had with The Boy last Wednesday? We discussed whether or not I should go up to visit him Sunday (yesterday). I did not go, though Superman and Twitch did. (Then they drove up to Charlotte to return Twitch to his college abode.) According to Superman, Sproing was a thing of beauty and a joy until the next breakdown. He was pleasant, respectful, and all-around fun to be with. I sent one of his little toy cars (he loves vehicles) for Superman to give him, and he was glad to get it.

It gets even better. Sunday evening Sproing called me. And still he was pleasant, friendly, interesting. Then he apologized for the way he treated me last Wednesday!! 'Bout knocked my socks off. I told him I appreciated his apology, I forgive him, and mentioned that I did not like that last visit. He seemed relieved to be forgiven. I will be there this Wednesday, too. We have a family therapy session right before visiting hours, so I need to go anyway. But now I want to go. That makes a significant difference.

I took another one of those little tests today. (He calls it a quiz, but it seems more like a small test to me. In my head there is a difference.) I did some studying on Saturday, then crammed some more this morning. I feel confident about my performance on this one. And I got the score from last week's test. I made another 100%! That makes me happy.

It's time to register for next semester's courses. I want to get it done soon so I can get into the classes I need. Thing is, I'm not sure what I need. That's what I should be doing right now, really. I printed out my transcript this afternoon, and I need to work out what I've got, what's required, what I need, and how and when to get those classes.

In looking over my transcript I observed that so far, for the two semesters I've already been here in school, I am carrying a 4.0 GPA. I really like that, and want to continue that trend, but I need to work on being OK with myself if I don't make a 4.0 this semester. There is some question now as to whether I can pull an A out of Research Methods. I got a sorry start, and am not working as hard as I should. I made a low A on the latest test.

I had a good weekend. I watched a few movies, some from Netflix and one DVD. I picked up "Waitress" from the $5 bin at K-Mart Sunday morning, and Diva and I watched it together in the afternoon while Superman was driving all over this corner of the state. It was a good movie, but even better, it was a good time of sitting together with my youngest daughter.

When the movie was over we went into the kitchen to figure out what to do for supper. She was in the mood for scrambled eggs, and decided she would fix eggs for me. She followed her daddy's recipe, but in her inimitable style. (translation: she got most of the ingredients right, but got the proportions and the cooking time and temperature wrong) Bless her heart. Even though I had to warm my plate in the microwave so the eggs would be warm enough to eat, and they were slightly rubbery, I was touched by her desire and attempt, and I ate the eggs without complaint. Good mommy points? The two of us got along well, which doesn't always happen. I'm not sure if that means anything to her, if it was of any significance in her strange little world, but I'm not worried about that today. I'm enjoying my experience of getting along with the girl.

Superman and I went out together Sunday morning to pick up a few things for the house. I finally got a wall clock for my office. Been meaning to pick one up for months. I figured I'd get a cheap plain round plastic run-of-the-mill clock, but when we were looking over the selection I saw one I like much better. I'll tell you now that I will take a picture of it once we get it on the wall and post it here so you can see it. I say that, but I haven't used my camera in a few months, and the only pictures I've posted have been from the internet, not ones I took myself. Why? I dunno. I've got some kind of resistance thing going with my camera right now. There may be some deep unconscious psychological significance to it, but I don't care. I see it. It's sitting there on the corner of my little desk, taunting me. We'll work it out eventually. Hey, maybe I should name it. Patrick recently wrote about his camera Camille, who has gone missing. An anthropomorphic camera somehow seems more friendly than that little box of [magic digital computerized camera parts] sitting over there.

*sigh* I tried to write about my new wall clock (it's a cat with a clock in its belly, but it looks much better than that sounds) but ended up philosophizing about my relationship with my camera. That's probably a sign that I'm tired. I ramble when I get tired. Have you ever noticed? Wrapping up here; I had a good weekend and have a few pleasant things to report. See above for more detail than you ever wanted.

warm wishes to all and sundry

Wait! I remember what I came here to tell you about in the first place. Today, November 2nd, is the 27th anniversary of my engagement to Superman. He proposed to me on this date back in 1982. It was Tuesday, election day, though I have no clue who was running. It was not a presidential election year. Other than that, I got no clue. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that Superman asked me if I'd marry him. I said yes. It was evening, and I was sitting in his lap telling him a story (probably long, boring, and rambling) about something that had happened to me that day, and in the middle of the story the topic of my future and my relationship with him came up. He asked if I'd marry him, I said yes, and then continued with my story. We did not discuss it at all that night, but the next day I thought about it all day long. We discussed it for hours Wednesday night. Eventually we got married, had a few kids, and I started blogging. What else is there? :)

And another thing...

Here's the thing. I'm old. Not so old as to be elderly, but well into middle age. I mark my 48th year next January. By this time in my life I should have figured out what I want to be when I grow up, and should by damn be doing it.

Since graduating from college in 1986 I have wanted to go back to college. It wasn't a high priority in the 80s and 90s, and I did other things. Other things that for the most part I don't regret, exactly. Mostly. But now I'm doing the school thing again, and while I enjoy the academic scholarship, there are other aspects of college life that, well, I'm having trouble with. Refer to the second sentence there at the top of the post.

My classmates are, with few exceptions, 25 (or more) years younger than I am. Comparisons are odious. I catch the brunt of the odium in this comparison. And hells bells, a goodly number of my professors are younger than I am.

Let's review my reasons for going back to school.

1. I love the academic scholarship. check
2. I'm not doing much else, so why not do something I want to do? check
3. I am stuck in this backwater reservoir of bigotry and intolerance, trying to find a spark of intelligent camaraderie. not so much
4. This leads to further scholarship, upward and onward. eh, I can't see it from here

For the nonce, let's review #3. One of the plans was to meet people with whom I could have intelligent conversations, people who have something in common with me, get my jokes, can follow my logic. The problem I've encountered is my position as student. Maybe I'm not putting myself out there enough (a real possibility; I have introvert tendencies) but I've found no other students who will really engage with me. We don't have much in common, really.

The people who are closer to my age with similar cultural histories are the professors, but since I'm a student, it's inappropriate to get too close to them. It causes tricky ethical problems of dual relationships.* So once again I'm a social misfit.

Think I'll address #4 in a subsequent post.

* "Social workers enter into dual relationships when they engage in more than one relationship with a client, becoming social worker and friend, employer, teacher, business associate, or sex partner." Replace "social worker" with "instructor, professor, administrator, or staff" and "client" with "student" and there ya' go. It messes stuff up. Oh, and that "sex partner" bit? I don't see that happenin'. Ain't going there.