This may take a while

26 March 2011

I'm more stressed than usual and having commensurate difficulty focusing on everything.

Light is home for spring break. Superman is on his way home with Twitch as I write this. They'll probably be back by the time I write the end of this post. As I said, this may take a while.

Two big complicated things: school and Diva.

School: I took on an overloaded schedule this semester. Theoretically I should be able to handle it. I did not account for the rest of my life being so complicated. I'm not sure what to do about it yet, but I will not be able to complete all the work I have before the end of the semester. Will keep you updated as I figure stuff out and actually write a post.

[Interlude: Superman and Twitch got home before the previous paragraph. Five minutes later Sproing came home from spending the day with the Wonderful Social Worker. C and N are hosting a gathering of half a dozen of our friends. Things are hectic and I need to have some deep conversation with my husband. I'll continue this dissertation probably tomorrow.]

27 March 2011

Man, I'm so unmotivated to do any school work. I have to write a resume (don't have one already) for tomorrow's senior seminar class. I so don't want to. I don't give a shit. Light told me that she has a resume builder program, or free access to a website or some such, and she'll help me put in the info. Yes, my daughter is helping me with my homework. I told her to do it for me because I don't give a shit, but she's so honest and noble and honorable she won't do it. I taught her well, didn't I? Because that's my philosophy on course work, homework, education in general. To students I say "It's your education. Correct answers aren't as important as you learning the material. I'd rather see your work with mistakes than someone else's perfect work." And usually I live by that ethic. But with this crock of bullshit, I don't even think it matters. Perhaps my standards are slipping. I blame the nervous breakdown. But I don't feel this way about my other classes, so I'm not too worried about it.

We were about to get into the second of my complicated things. Diva. Oh, shit. This is weighing very heavy on my soul.

Where to begin? Here's the post from a year ago that describes the events that finally sent her to the mental hospital. For further information read the rest of the March 2010 posts. But if you've been following this drama for a while, you know that the problems started long, long before last spring. The summer of 2009 was a living hell. I can't bring myself to look at those posts and I can't remember how much I chronicled. So take a look if you want. Long story short(er), she has been messed up in the head and a huge problem for many years. And she's only 13 years old now. Yep. Bad news.

I'm stalling. I need to write it out, but my fingers and my heart don't want to go there. Let's try again.

The residential treatment facility (RTF) where she is currently incarcerated/committed has done about as much as they can do for her. Or they are tired of having her around. Or the agency that placed her there (and I don't even remember which branch of mental health agency that was) is tired of paying for her to be there. (I honestly don't know how that works. Medicaid is paying for it, I think, but the costs might be accounted through the agency, which would be a large expense on their paperwork. But I might be wrong.) At any rate, Diva's current treatment plan has her leaving the RTF very soon. Next month, possibly.

I made it clear to Diva's case worker at the RTF at least six months ago that we would not be able to bring her back home from the RTF, that we needed some kind of transitional arrangement for her to go elsewhere before coming here. Now that the move is imminent, Superman and I are getting nervous. Because the state agency in control of her residence status is now trying to prepare everyone for her homecoming. As in coming to this house, to live under the roof where I live, where her Daddy lives. You have no idea how gut-wrenchingly frightening that is.

And we can't do it. Shit, this is hard. La-ti-da-ti-da. La-la-la-la-la-la I can't hear you! Java, honey, write it down. You need to get this out. It won't get better until you get through it, process it, come out the other side. You'll be OK. You're strong. Yes, this hurts. It's hard. But you have the strength to make it through.

OK, trying again... We can not bring her home. Ever. Damn you have no idea how hard this is to write. My fingers don't want to hit that key combination. My stomach physically hurts.

I want for her to get the best care possible under the circumstances. Oh HELL no, I know that isn't with me. Of that I am confident. Shit, she's such a trigger for me emotionally. I'm afraid that I would hurt her, and I don't want that for her. I want her to get the best care she can get. She is a very sick young lady and probably will never be quite right in the head. She can improve, be better than she otherwise might be, but she needs to have consistent and persistent therapy to guide her thoughts. The child has no natural ability for empathy, though the mental health professionals tell me that she can be taught to consider the feelings of others. Don't know if I believe them. It will be an intellectual exercise for her, with no real emotional component. The only thing she truly cares about is herself. If she wants something, she feels entitled to it no matter who else might have a claim to whatever it is. Yes, she is a psychopath. Or sociopath. Neither of those terms is used in modern psychology. Officially she has conduct disorder, early onset. Once she reaches the age of 18 she will qualify for a personality disorder diagnosis. There are a few that might apply. Borderline personality disorder, anti-social p.d., narcissistic p.d., etc. I'm getting technical in order to distance myself from the personal. 'Cause the personal hurts real bad.

I sort of love her. I care very much about her. I love who I hoped she would be. My heart is breaking. Can you hear it?

She doesn't connect to me emotionally. When we talk, either on the phone or in person, she is distant, almost mechanical. I feel as though she constantly tries to manipulate my emotions. She has none of her own (except to be angry and indignant) . And it seems as though playing with my emotions is a game for her. I'm very emotional, loving, caring, nurturing. I can't turn those things off. She exploits that.

I have put a lot of emotional energy into that child over the past 12 years. She was 14 months old when we got custody of her. Eleven months later the adoption was legally accomplished. We made a promise to love her and raise her as our own. Well, we did the best we could. She has never been an easy child. She has worked hard and consistently to break my trust in her. And I have none left. The only thing I can trust her to do is lie and manipulate. I can't be her mother, not in the traditional sense of motherhood. I can help manage her care, be a part of her treatment team. But I cannot give direct care to the child. It's too late. She's too far gone. I'm too far gone. Superman is too far gone. Her siblings have been over her for a while now.

Superman told me last night about dreams he's been having in which Diva comes into the house to kill us. After she threatened to do that very thing, I'm not surprised he has these dreams. Sometimes in the dreams she comes after Superman, or me, or another loved one. Sometimes Superman hunts her down to kill her in these dreams. He told me the scariest dream was one in which he actually did kill her. He's obviously been having these dreams for a while, but he only told me last night. He isn't nearly as troubled as I am about her never coming home.

OK. There it is. I did it. And now you know.

Don't feel obligated to leave a comment. This is big ugly stuff which is hard to respond to. If you have something to add, please do. But don't feel obligated.

Thank you for slogging through it all.

Conversations with myself

This is a sample of what's happening in my brain on this Sunday morning.

I didn't do any school work yesterday. There is so much to do!

I know. I'm so easily distracted.

That's a sorry excuse. I'm lazy and undisciplined.

And fat as a direct result.

Let's not go down that road. Think of something more positive.

[that's the influence of cognitive behavioral therapy]

When will people realize I'm a genius and not bother me with mundane things like laundry and housework?

There is value in the mundane. It helps balance you. That's what I've heard, anyway.

Yeah, I've also heard that exercise is fun, exhilarating even. I've never gotten that far even after sticking with an exercise program for months. Crock of shit in my experience. I believe it works for others.

Or perhaps I'm not doing it right. I certainly don't have a ...

I forgot what I was saying. Back to my genius. I want them to take care of the mundane so I can concentrate on ... whatever it is I do best. And they need to quit just quit making me feel guilty for being ... whatever it is that doesn't fit their design for me.

Who are "they" anyway?

They know who they are.

"They" are me. I accept guilt for things I don't do, ways I don't fit perfection. Ways I don't even come close to approaching perfection.

Eat the cookie crumbs from my shirt.

I need to find my ear plugs. Sproing is awake now, making noise, arguing with the players on his Xbox sports game. Distracting.

I'm easily distracted. I use it as an excuse.

Or maybe ... I forgot what I was going to say.

Get up, Java. Move your legs around, get the blood flowing, walk across the room and find the ear plugs in your desk drawer.

I hope they're in my desk drawer. I'm not sure where.. Wait, I know I have some in my toolbox.

Oh! I need to go to the hardware store today to get the supplies for the next art project.

I also need to elaborate on my sketches for that project.

[I'll tell you about the next sculpture project later. It involves sculpting cement. Mortar mix, actually]

I'm getting distracted even writing the side notes here.

And I still haven't gotten my ear plugs.

Hang on.

Back. Looked in 4, no 5, no 6 desk drawers (I have two desks) and got distracted by the stuff I found. Didn't find the earplugs. Smelled the incense (can't spell incense) in one of the drawers, had to light that.

Incense adds another dimension (can't spell dimension) to a space. Helps delineate (can spell delineate) one space from others.

Took 6 minutes to get my ear plugs. They weren't in any of the desk drawers, but I found them in my toolbox.

Also found other stuff in my toolbox. So that's where my other long-sleeved shirt is! I've been looking for it.

Still missing at least one long-sleeved shirt. The one with the most burn holes in it. Might be in my workspace at school.

The earplugs aren't working as well as I wish they would. Perhaps I'll find the noise-reducing ear muffs-that-look-like-headphones and wear those as well.

I can hear myself breathing when my ears are plugged. It's distracting.

Everything is distracting; get real.

Oh, Light has my Get Real DVD, and all my other gay movies. I need my gay movies back.

Perhaps I should wait util the end of the semester to get my gay movies back. I certainly don't have time to waste watching movies, dammit.

I want this semester to be over, except I don't. I want to have some time to waste. If I didn't have schoolwork to do I'd watch some movies, start another knitting project. I want to make that new hat pattern I bought. Have the yarn for it, too. I've never knitted a hat, and I like the style of that pattern.

Or I could quit typing here and get on with my school work.

What do I need to do today? Let's see, get stuff from the hardware store. Don't want to do that yet. Will go this afternoon, but before the sun gets low enough that it's in my eyes as I drive over there. Hate that.

Want more coffee. Where's Superman?

Also need to write that position paper for Dr. B's class. Dammit, I should have worked on that during spring break. Didn't do squat that whole week. What a waste of time. Lazy ass. Fat lazy ass.

That's where this discussion started. Done that already. Back to what I need to accomplish today.

OK, the position paper for Dr. B, Oh, and study for the test Tuesday in Dr. W's class! Shit. What an idiot

[Dr. W is an idiot, not me. Not that I'm not sometimes an idiot, too, but I'm referring to Dr. W this time. He's the same fool who taught the sexuality class last semester. This is the third class I've had with him. This time it's substance abuse. This is his specialty, what he does as a clinician. He should have more of a clue about this. He doesn't. He's an idiot. I need to have a discussion... oh, never mind.]

Once again, my asides get as rambling as my stream of consciousness bullshit.

Concentrate Java! I need to write the damned paper, study for the idiot's test, and pleasepleasepleaseplease read all the way through at least one of the articles for the research class.

Yeah, the research class. Was going to read a bunch of those articles over spring break.

Don't go there again. We've had that discussion.

Moving right along, have approximately 26 articles to read, and write a thingie (she called it an annotated bibliography) for every one of them. How many articles have I read? Zero. When is the semester over? Damn, about 5 or 6 weeks.

Don't want to take the time to count the weeks right now. Don't want to actually know how many. Can stay in denial better if I don't look at the calendar.

Damn, I have so much to do. Projects in two art classes. Want to play in the mud more, have the rest of one, then two more pieces to do in ceramics. Should have been completely finished with these vessels two weeks ago.

This isn't helping. I'm just making myself more stressed thinking about all the shit I have to do for school, much less for the rest of my life.

When will they realize ("they" know who they are) that I'm a genius, a mad genius maybe probably and let me concentrate on the important stuff?

[Have you ever seen a picture of Einstein's desk? Google it. Thomas Edison's too. Geniuses. That's what my whole fucking life looks like. Pain in the ass.]

But is that a good thing? Not necessarily. Can't find shit half the time. I want my life to be a bit more organized.

Is my brain capable of that? Am I so ADD that it's impossible for me to get my shit together?

[Did I mention that I actually do have ADD? My psychiatrist finally told me so. Then he moved away. Good enough. He was largely useless except for giving me drugs. But he didn't medicate me for the ADD. What's up with that?]

Yum. Coffee good. Fresh hot coffee good. The combination of bananas and pecans taste better than bananas with walnuts, IMHO. I'm not a huge fan of walnuts. Breakfast.

Where were we? Ah yes, back to the whole "spend the day studying" idea.

Writing this stream of consciousness bullshit has been a lovely way to distract myself from the real purpose of my day. Studying. Writing that damned paper. Reading the articles. Oh, and studying for that idiot's test. What a waste of time, that last one. I'll do it because I love getting good grades. But damn, what an idiot.

I said that already.

Shut up already! Can't I find a way to end this post?

Java, walk away from the blog. Hit "publish post" then close the browser.

Now, Java!

...

The road to hell is paved with good intentions of posting on my blog

Here are some pictures I've been meaning to post since Christmas. This first one is a new t-shirt that Light got for Christmas. She's a well-endowed young lady, much to her delight and consternation. She's ambi-sexual; sometimes she feels feminine, sometimes masculine. It's hard to be a boy with a rack like that. She has a few t-shirts that allude to what's underneath, and this is her newest.

And speaking of what's new with Light, she is dating! As you may or may not know, in addition to being ambi-sexual, she's also bi-sexual, so when she told me she was going on a date, I had to ask "boy or girl?" It's a girl. Not only did she go on a date, she now has a girlfriend. I'm thrilled. I've met the young lady in question, and find her to be a delightful specimen of the sex. *
This is N at his high school graduation. Yes! He graduated! We're all so proud of him. He graduated at the end of the first semester, in mid January. That was a while ago, and I've been meaning to tell you about it and provide a picture ever since then.

Yesterday N and I went to the local beauty college to see about getting him enrolled. He keeps calling but not getting anyone. But they were open yesterday so we went. He may be able to start as early as next Wednesday, depending on his Pell Grant application and what Vocational Rehabilitation (Voc Rehab) is able to do. The next thing on my agenda with him is to get him a driver's learner's permit. This fella needs to get off his ass and get busy with life.

And this is what I've been busy with in my sculpture class. Those are pieces of steel that I cut out, welded (yes, welded) together, and painted.
In three views, since it's a 3D piece of art.

After seeing the finished product painted and all, I now want to repaint it in darker colors. I like the colors, but they need to be darker. It looks too washed out the way it is now.

I am in the middle of my spring break this week. My intention (road-to-hell) was to do a lot of studying and get a lot of assignments done. However, my motivation got lost somewhere in the basement. I finally finished the first assignment on my list yesterday, after fooling around with it for three days. It's an easy assignment, too. I could have done it in less than 30 minutes if I'd been serious about it. There is a lot more work to do, and here I sit.

Since I'm not studying anyway, I decided to get my sewing stuff out yesterday. I have pretty much everything set out, finally. It took me a long time to find all that I need because my sewing stuff is so disorganized. OK, my whole house is disorganized if you want to know the truth. Didn't actually sew anything yesterday, though, because once I got it all together, I had to go run the errands with N.

My truck, Manny, is in the shop again. The brakes were acting wonky, catching and stopping me suddenly as I tried to gently slow down. The poor ol' boy is on his last bearings. We've put so much money into repairs, and Superman is more and more frustrated about that. I told the mechanic that if it's a cheap, easy fix, then fix it. If it's a major problem, lead the ol' boy around back and shoot him. I love my truck. He's a piece of junk, but I love him. He's not that safe anymore, and certainly not dependable, and I realize it's time to think about replacing him. It's sad, but necessary. He has been an important element in my life over the past four years or so.

Sproing is doing pretty well, all things considered. He's a whole lot better than he was the last time I posted. He has his days, his episodes, but he recovers better than he used to, and his outbursts are less frequent. Baby steps. It's progress; slow but good.

Diva is batshit crazy, but that's a well established fact. Superman and I had a good talk with one of her mental health service coordinators earlier this week. The upshot is that we love her, care about her, and want the best for her, but are not capable of providing the level of care and supervision she needs at home right now. The service coordinator is working to get her into a therapeutic foster home when she leaves the treatment facility she's in now. The child is making some progress, but it's slow and unsteady with lots of reversals. There is a general upward trend (improvement), but the slope is shallow, low, whatever. She's a very sick (mentally) girl.

And I'm taking Child Psychopathology this semester. Psycho-Child! In our last class we started talking about some of the more serious mental disorders, and covered Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), which Sproing has, and Conduct Disorder which Diva has. It was a depressing class, really affected my emotional state. It was hard to sit there and have the major difficulties in my life discussed in all their gory glory. It's much easier to deal with it in smaller doses, a piece at a time. I survived. Didn't even cry or anything.

I think I was going to discuss something else, but I forget what, so I'll quit writing now and post this. Enjoy. Hopefully I'll post again soon, more sooner than the latest interval. If you don't hear from me again soon, it's because I'm inundated with school work. I graduate at the end of April. I might not post again until May. Hopefully sooner, but no promises.

*Yes, I really do talk like that sometimes. It delights some, and irritates others.

Under Siege **Updated

So we had a meeting with Sproing's social worker yesterday evening. Superman and I sat down with him in our living room and discussed things for about an hour. It was a bit stressful, the social worker was very straightforward about some methods in our parenting style. He thinks that if we make some adjustments, Sproing might do better. He may well be right. It's hard to tell.

Then Sproing joined us and we all discussed some of the plans that he and the social worker (perhaps I should call him SW) developed that we hope will bring about some improvements in his behaviors and our expectations of him. That discussion didn't go as well, but wasn't too terrible.

Then SW left, and all hell broke loose. Sproing told his dad that he wanted to go out to dinner. Then Sproing came and asked me if I wanted to go. I said "sure, it's a good chance to spend some good time together" (one of those activities we need to increase). All of a sudden Sproing said that he didn't want to go, but wanted me and Superman to go and leave him at home. We didn't really want to go out. We've been spending too much money doing stuff like that recently so we both wanted to stay home and cook stuff. (Superman cooked. I did some homework.) Sproing got unbelievably upset. He accused me of not listening to him (another thing we need to do more of), but I did listen to him. I understood completely that he wanted us to go out and leave him alone. I just wasn't going to do it. I'm the mom. I don't have to do what my 13 year old son says.

And yada yada yada. He screamed, slammed doors, threw stuff, refused to do anything he needed to do. Like eat. He was hungry, but he refused to eat, just because, well, he's like that.

That's an example of what the boy is doing these days. It started late last week, and has happened at least every other day since then. This is what he was like before he went to the treatment facility 18 months ago. We've been through this hell before, and carry some emotional scars from the experience. He's ripping open my scars. We can't go on like this for long. I really hope he decides to get it together and work with us. If he doesn't, he's going back into a treatment facility.

I'm writing this post on one of the library compters at school. I got out of class 45 minutes ago. I had a couple of things I needed to check on before going home, but writing a blog post wasn't one of them. Frankly, I'm afraid to go home. Sproing was acting out again this morning. I don't know what he'll be like when I get home, but I expect the worst. I've been on the verge of tears again today. Being in class was helpful because the lectures distracted me from thinking about this mess.

But I have to go home. For one thing, I'm hungry. And the longer I stay away the worse it will be. So I'm going home now. Good bye.

Addendum

Sproing was pleasant this evening. He was hyperactive, but that's normal. Although he balked some, he was mostly compliant. This is what "normal" has looked like for the past six months, and quite a bit better than his behavior of the past week. I hope this is the continuing trend. Stay tuned for more adventures of Java in Sproing-Drama Land.

Did I mention that this is a very busy semester for me?

The semester got off to a slow start, unfortunately. I know there is a bazillion to do, but most of my classes have been sort of sluggish. We're beginning the 4th week of the term, and it feels like the roller coaster is approaching the top of that first big drop. Did I mention that I'm not a big fan of roller coasters? Especially that first big drop.

I'm taking a sculpture class. Our first project involves welding. Yesterday (Monday) in class we did some welding practice. My piece looks terrible. It's just two small pieces of sheet steel welded at a 90 degree angle to each other. Yesterday it looked terrible. I went by the art studio this afternoon and took another look at it. If anything it looks worse today. The prof says I'll get better with practice.

And speaking of welding, guess what Superman has done? The darling ordered a new welding helmet for me!! The school has four helmets available, but they're no great shakes. Superman has bought a fancy magic helmet for me, one that has the auto-darkening lens! Here, let me show you what I found on Google:

Auto darkening welding helmets have lenses that automatically darken when a welding arc is struck, and returns to a light state when welding ceases, it allows the wearer to continue work without removing the helmet

That's the idea anyhow. I don't know what brand or anything. One of the suppliers that he uses at work had a sale on magic welding helmets. It should be delivered to the house tomorrow (Wednesday). I'm so excited!! Oh, and "magic welding helmet" is my name for it. The industry uses another term (probably "auto darkening") to describe the phenomenon. I like "magic helmet" better.

Which is all very well and good, but not really what I came to talk to you about. It's Sproing. His behavior is getting worse. This past weekend was hellacious. He had one of those huge fits of anger on Saturday afternoon that had me on the brink of... I don't know what exactly. He got angry at something, I don't even remember what, but he started screaming, slamming doors, and throwing things. We eventually got him confined to his bedroom where he began throwing everything he could comfortably lift. There are dents and divots in the walls of his room, and a new one in his new door.

While all this was going on, Superman 'bout lost it. In order to keep himself from hurting the child he left the house, took a drive, went to the home improvement store to pick up a few things. Which was cool, I understand he needed to remove himself from the situation. I was better able to keep my hands off the raging child. Sproing eventually (after an hour? more? less? I don't remember, being in a state of trauma myself) calmed down and came back to earth and was all sweetness and sugarplums. I think I got worse as he got better, though, just because I'd steadied myself during the storm and after it was over I was a basket case.

Superman, though, stayed out for two hours. I expected he'd be back in an hour or less. But the fool ran away from the problem rather than stepping back to catch his breath. When he finally got home he was still upset. He snapped at me, which unleashed my flood. I cried for probably 20 minutes, and he felt all guilty because he'd made me cry. Thing is, as I tried to explain to him, I had been on the verge of tears for two hours. The crying was maybe 10% about him and 90% about the whole Sproing mess.

That tantrum Saturday afternoon was so much like our experiences of two summers ago, when tantrums like that occurred at least once a day, and often two or three times a day. It was hell. It was traumatic. Saturday's experience brought up all those old wounds. I don't remember, did I blog much then? It's too late and I'm too tired (or lazy) to check the archives, but if you're interested go back to July/August/September of 2009 to see if I wrote much about it. Alternatively, go to October 2009 through February 2010 to see what I might have said as I was mentally processing the trauma.

Anyway, to get back to my story, see, yesterday it happened again. He got upset while playing his Xbox NFL football game (Madden 11) because, I don't know, his team lost or something. He threw the controller onto the floor, coffee table, something hard - three times - and it broke. He was screaming and crying the whole time, and screamed "I don't care if the controller broke!!" which of course wasn't true. Ever since the outburst Saturday my nerves have been on edge. I keep having short episodes where I get kinda shaky, my hands slightly trembling. It's as if an old war wound has re-opened.

Sproing went into his room to continue his tirade (actually, I think I "escorted" him to his room) and I removed the Xbox from the TV in the living room. It's hidden in my office now. He had the gall to tell me today that I didn't need to take it. He expects me to hook it back up now because, I don't know, he's not mad right now or something. He has some money he got for his birthday, and wanted to go out this afternoon to buy himself a new controller. Oh Hell NO!!, though what I said was "We need to discuss this." The point is, of course, Oh Hell NO!!

So we need to discuss this. Superman and I have had some conversations along this line. I also spent 1.5 hours this evening on the phone with the fellow who is now working with Sproing, sort of like a case worker.* The three of us adults need to have a pow-wow with the boy about his behavior and about earning his Xbox back. But I dread having this conversation. When I think about it my stomach gets tied in knots. It will not be a pleasant conversation, I fear. There's the crux of the matter: I fear. Here we are again, seeing some of the same behaviors that drove him to being put in a psychiatric residential treatment facility (aka "loony bin") a year and a half ago. Behaviors that nearly put me into the loony bin.

And I've been on edge. Close to tears. Having trouble concentrating. Forgetting details, especially details of the events leading up to and following his emotional explosions. This, for those of you following along in your programs, is Not Good. If he doesn't get his shit together we're going to have to send him back to the loony bin. I know he doesn't want to do that. I don't want to have to do that. But it's ultimately up to him, isn't it? This, I'm fairly sure, will be part of the discussion we will have with him.

The case worker will spend some time with him after school tomorrow (Wednesday). Then when Superman and I get home from work and school, respectively, we will all sit down and hash out some stuff. Or, if Sproing and the case worker do not have a productive time tomorrow afternoon, this meeting with the parents will be just the adults, with Sproing hanging back in his room or something. We shall see what we shall see.

OK, it's time for me to go to bed. As soon as I'm able I will post a follow-up.

*It's been so long since I last posted. Sproing has a new case worker, an older black man with lots of experience working with troubled adolescents. As you may or may not know, Sproing is black ("African-American" in Newspeak) and was adopted into this lily-white ("European-American" in Newspeak) family when he was but a babe in arms. So for the boy to have a case worker of the same race and sex is a boon. Also, as I've worked with the case worker over the past couple of weeks I've found that he's extremely good at his job, we get along well, and are developing a good working relationship. This is a Good Thing.

Because I was mad

For the past few months my depression has been, I dunno, in remission or something. I've been feeling pretty good. Happy, even, some days. But the depression monster is creeping back in. I have days that are not good. The good days are not as good as they were a couple of months ago. Yesterday was a very not good day.

I don't know why. I can't think of anything that has or has not happened to tip me over. I'm overly sensitive, which smacks of hormones. On Saturday night C and N failed to include me in a project they were doing, one that I'd mentioned an interest in. I was incredibly hurt, more so than the situation warranted. I don't know, maybe that had something to do with why I felt a bit off yesterday. But it doesn't explain why I got so upset on Saturday. I just don't know.

So, about yesterday (Sunday). Self-loathing was the theme of the day. In related news, I needed a haircut. Why am I uncomfortable about getting my hair cut by professionals? My theory is that, to me, a haircut is an intimate encounter. Not as intimate as cuddling, but more intimate than sitting beside someone on a bus/train/airplane. I don't want just any stranger to cut my hair. Even the woman who cut my hair for 10 years was too much of a stranger. She moved out of town, and I'm not going to Erie or Cleveland or wherever she went just to get my hair cut. I was kind of used to her cutting my hair, but I wasn't comfortable.

But the hair was annoying me. It has that habit. Feeling unworthy to get a professional cut, I cut it myself. It's a mild, perhaps passive-aggressive, definitely less painful form of self-mutilation. No one was at home, Sproing and Superman having gone out to do something they told me they were going to do but I now forget. I think it involved washing the car, but no matter. I got my scissors and went into the bathroom. I emptied the garbage can and put in a fresh liner, then sat on the edge of the toilet, leaned over the garbage can, and began cutting my hair. And crying. Crying silently, which is how I usually cry. I'm good at it, except for the annoying sniffles that I can't stifle. It's a duct thing.

When Superman and Sproing got home, they came into my office where I was sitting doing my homework (or goofing off online, like I am now). Superman looked at me in surprise and asked what I'd done, why I'd done it, something like that. I forget exactly what he said. Sproing knew, though. He said that I got mad and cut my hair. The kid knows more than he lets on.

It looks pretty bad. I can't figure out if I'm upset about that or not. I'm staying home today, but I have school tomorrow. Maybe I can convince Superman to even up the back. I took the clippers to my neck with very uneven results. It looks bad and/or funny, depending on one's perspective. Oh well. I cut my hair and now I have to lie in it.

What's your opinion?

One of my courses this semester is an independent study research on a topic of my choice. Well, duh, the topic of my choice is homosexuality. The Gay. LGBT. Queer. But I obviously need to narrow that down to something more specific. I know a few things I don't want to study, mostly involving politics and activism. Oh, I heartily support efforts to improve the social-political climate for sexual minorities. (I learned that term recently, referring to lgbtq etc. as sexual minorities.) But I know I don't want for that to be the focus of my study.

I am interested in the process of "coming out." There are a lot of things I could focus on there, including coming out issues for adolescents or minors, coming out in college, after college but still young, coming out in mid-life, coming out while in a heterosexual marriage (or shortly thereafter).

Bullying of those perceived to be gay is another hot topic. This seems to happen mostly to young men and the transgender, I haven't seen anything about overt bullying of lesbians though I may be misinformed.

Whatever my focus, I will need to read a shit-load of academic articles on that topic. Therefore, the topic needs to be discussed in professional/academic journals. No, I haven't looked in the databases to see what's there. Articles should be fairly recent, I think within the past five years, though the time limit my be different. I'll need to ask my advising professor. The exception to that would be seminal articles, those from longer ago that have brought significant new ideas to the field. I'll find those by reading the more recent articles, because the recent stuff will refer to the older significant works.

The format of this course work is article review/annotated bibliography. I won't be giving my personal opinions or anything interesting like that. My professor will teach me how to read articles for the content I need and how she wants me to write the annotated bibliography for each article. I'm not entirely clear yet on what needs to be done, but it is past time for me to begin looking for articles. Which necessitates having some idea what my topic is.

So what do you think? Give me your opinions about what kind of glbt research I should look into.

The obligatory snow post

I like the word "obligatory." How do the British pronounce it? I pronounce it "o-blig-uh-tory" though I've heard it said with the emphasis on the first syllable, "ob-lig-uh-tory."

Moving right along...

Today was supposed to be the first day of spring semester. Didn't happen. We got snow instead. This little southern town closes down when it snows. We had 12+ hours of mostly steady snow beginning sometime in the middle of last night. Things slacked off in the early afternoon before changing to sleet, then freezing rain. That's what we've got now, freezing rain. Our high temp today was about 31F I think, though the weather widget on my desktop never got above -2C. I have my desktop widget set on Celsius just for fun.

Superman went to work for a few hours this morning. Driving wasn't too bad early this morning. I left home at 5:40 this morning to take C to the donut shop. He didn't want to drive in this nastiness. It wasn't bad, really. After I dropped C off I went to the grocery store to buy marshmallows and Hershey bars, thinking we had graham crackers. Got home and damn, no grahams! Before Superman went to work he took Sproing with him to pick up some grahams. Sproing and I have been snacking on s'mores throughout the day. I've had I think 3. Goodness knows how many the boy has eaten.

Anyway, Superman got to work sometime around 8:30 this morning and was home at noon. By then the streets were much worse. Snow had packed down and iced over. Actually, on my way home from the grocery at 6:00 I took an unexpectedly wide turn onto the road that leads to our house because I was going a bit too fast at 15 mph to make the turn without sliding. Thankfully traffic was extremely light. Now with all this freezing rain everything is coated with ice. I've heard a few cars crunching down the road in front of our house this evening. Damn fools out there hot-dogging it. I only say that because I'm not out there having slip-slidery fun in my little buggy. Our front stoop is iced over. I'm afraid to go out the door for fear of slipping on the ice and having my overly ample backside hit the ground hard. However, if I had good snow boots and some deicing salts and a big 4-wheel-drive F-250 with good tires, I'd be out there having a blast.

The snow in our front yard is about 6 inches deep. That's more snow than we've had in over a decade. Right now it's still fun, as long as I get to stay inside.

But I really need to get started on this school stuff. I have an extremely full schedule. I plan to read the first chapters in at least three of my textbooks either tonight or tomorrow. Our first assignment in Senior Seminar is due Wednesday. I've only got to answer a few questions about the first reading assignment, it's no big deal, but I do need to read the book. I'm glad we've got an online network at school where the profs post the syllabus, assignments, assessments, etc. I can get started on a few things. Can't do diddly for my two studio art classes, but oh well.

In other news, Superman, Light and I went to Atlanta for a conference this past weekend. I drove up to get Light on Thursday night, and we left home early Friday afternoon for Atlanta. It was a Filk convention. Any of you ever heard of Filk before? It's a geeky thing that both Light and Superman really like. It's sci-fi/fantasy, which isn't so much my cup o' tea, but the songs can be funny. I enjoyed the people most of all. Strange, I know. I don't like people much. It took until Sunday morning for me to warm up to most of the folks, but Superman helped me some. He had some lively conversations with a few guys and dragged me into the fray. Good people. Odd, but good.

On the bright side, I got to make a quilt square. One of the ladies in the group puts together a quilt every year at this annual conference. It gets raffled off at the end of the weekend. She brought a bunch of fabric, some of it pre-cut into squares of the proper size, and other tools and notions for constructing quilt squares. A few people took the opportunity to make squares for the quilt. When I asked on Sunday, she said she got a dozen squares (8") which is a nice size for a wall hanging or maybe a small lap quilt. She'll take all the squares home and put them together, then mail it to the raffle winner. I don't know who won the raffle. I didn't buy a ticket, not because I don't support the cause (money for the Filk group for further conferences and associated expenses, as I understand) but because I really didn't want the quilt. Filk isn't my thing so much. Also, I didn't have any cash.

And why did I not have any cash? Because I left my purse at home! My purse, which isn't big, but carries my wallet with all my credit and debit cards, my check book, my camera, all of my ID, and a nice full jar of lip balm for my poor chapped lips. I packed carefully, made sure I had everything I needed. I helped Superman and Light carry stuff out to the car. I set my purse down on the cabinet that's in our foyer, and walked right past it on my last trip out of the house. Oy. Superman has all the debit and credit cards that I have, and he had a bit of cash. It's a good thing I didn't need to show any ID. I got along quite well without the purse, and it was kind of nice to not have to worry about toting it around. But I was glad to have it back when I got home.

So, this Filk thing is a small-ish community of odd birds. Nice folks, like I said. There are quite a lot of pagans represented in the group, and not a small percentage of the glbt. I gotta tell you about this guy that Superman met. Really nice guy, kinda loud, and funny. He's 5 years older than Superman. He's a bit overweight, but not as big as I am. Anyhow, on Sunday morning he and Superman were both in the consuite. (What the heck is a consuite? Also spelled "con suite." I've never heard of it before. Obviously I don't hang around conventions much.) They were chatting, getting to know each other. At some point in the conversation this fella said to Superman "You're hot." Then he said he hoped he hadn't offended my dear patient husband. No, there was no offense taken. When Superman told me about it, I thought the whole thing was kinda hot. See, I'm not the only one who thinks my husband is sexy!

Stuff to do and getting stuff done

On today's agenda: go to school to get the rest of my schedule figured out. I need to add two classes, as if I didn't have enough already. Right now I have six, but two of them are itty bitty one or two credit things, basically hoops I need to jump through to graduate. I have one art class, advanced sculpture, and I want to add advanced ceramics to my schedule. The other class I have to add is another itty bitty one hour thing, fieldwork.

Fieldwork. Working in the field. Not the wheat field, either, thankfully. That sounds sweaty. I need to volunteer for a few hours (times two) in some agency or other in the "helping profession." (I dislike that term, but it's what they say.) I'm supposed to have two units of fieldwork to graduate, and the one time I registered for it last spring, I ended up dropping the class. So I need to work twice as much (notice I didn't say twice as hard!) for two credits. I can't remember how many hours are required for the semester, but if I start early and pack them in tight, I think I can be done well before the end of the semester. I think. There is fear involved; fear of calling to arrange the volunteer particulars. I'm such a wuss.

Having said that, I just called two places. Left a message at one, and found out from the other (shelter for abused women, or something like it) that I need four different background checks. The nice lady is going to email me the list and directions for accomplishing these. They need 3 years driving record, and background checks from the child sex offender registry, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, and something she called the central registry. All fees payable by me, of course. Eh, school expenses don'tcha know.

There's nothing quite like telling you that I'm afraid to call (or do something) to motivate me to do it. Perhaps I should do this more often, eh?

Alrighty then, if I'm going to get stuff done, I need to get going.

Back for another trip around the sun

Happy New Year. I didn't make any resolutions. I know myself better than that.

I am reading a book that Light strongly recommended. It's Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. It's a good book, but I'm not totally into it. Because I am too afraid. Honestly, fear is a huge problem for me in regards to making art. For instance, there are a few things currently in queue for my sewing machine. They require some creative attention. I have been avoiding the sewing machine ever since the end of last semester. I want(ed) to get some sewing done over the break. Maybe. OK, part of me wanted to sew. Another part is afraid to. And I get so angry at myself for being such a wuss. Let's move to another topic, this one is making me squirm.

Diva. Now here's an uncomfortable topic of conversation. For those of you just joining us, Diva is my 13 year old adopted daughter. She currently resides in a residential treatment facility (RTF) for the emotionally distressed. Or something like it. Colloquially speaking, she's in the loony bin.

I may have mentioned a few weeks ago that the RTF was going to get an MRI scan of her brain. They did an EEG back in November (I think it was) that showed abnormal results. Today Diva's therapist told me the results of the MRI. Diva's brain is abby-normal.

The official diagnosis is (let me see if I can remember it) Periventricular Leukomalacia. (Yes, I got it right.) A preliminary Google search gave me lots of information that has nothing to do with Diva's symptoms. Evidently most children with this condition develop neuromuscular problems, specifically cerebral palsy. Diva has excellent control of her motor functions. She's a good dancer, even. What happens with this leukomalicia is the white matter of the brain is deficient, damaged, or somehow abnormal. The white matter is what's beneath the gray matter. It's not what the brain uses for thinking, but contains neurons that relay information from the thinking parts of the brain to other parts of the body (where the muscular systems are affected) or to other parts of the brain. As I understand it (don't bet the farm on this explanation) Diva's white matter does not adequately relay information from one brain action to another, from one thought to another. She has a lot of trouble making cognitive connections. For example, cause and effect aren't always evident. I realized many years ago that there is a disconnect somewhere in her mental processing. Now I know why.

In one psychological test she took a few years ago the doctor found that she has problems with her short-term or working memory. This is the memory cache where you hold onto a phone number while looking for a pencil and a place to write it down. Stuff stays in the working memory for a few seconds while the brain determines whether to keep it, and if so, how and where to store it. When I was helping the child learn to read she'd see a new word in a sentence, I'd help her sound it out, then she would forget the word by the end of the sentence. Sometimes if it took a while to figure out the word, I'd have her restart the sentence so she could get the whole flavor of the meaning. But when she got to the same word the second time, she'd have no idea what the word was. Talk about frustrating! I used to think she was doing it on purpose to irritate me. I fussed at her. Now I know that at least some of that was genuine. Do I feel bad about fussing at her about it? Maybe a little bit. What with all the other polluted water under that bridge, I don't feel much guilt about this.

And let me tell you the latest foolishness she pulled. On Boxing Day evening around 9:30 she ran away from the RTF. She hooked up with a couple of 16 year old girls from her unit and they sneaked out and jumped the fence. One of the other girls called a friend of hers (a guy, young but over 18) who picked them up and took them to his house across town. Thankfully this idiot lives with his mother (that's what I understand from what they told me) who saw the fool sneaking in with three under-aged girls. The mother realized it was a very bad idea for these troubled run-away teens to stay with her son overnight. She called, or convinced one of the girls to call the RTF, and a couple of the staff drove out to retrieve the girls. They got back to the facility at 2:45 a.m. And boy, is Diva ever in trouble!

All of the work she's done, all the advancements she's made in their program levels since going to the facility in early April are gone. She has to start over as if she just arrived. This means that she won't qualify for outings and other rewards until she moves up the ranks again. Perhaps she can advance quicker than she originally did, having been through it before. I don't know. We saw her on the 27th, the day after she ran away. She was pretty upset, and didn't contribute much to the conversation on our visit.

We did not go see her on Christmas Day*. Frankly, I didn't want to. I wanted to have a nice Christmas, peaceful and laid-back, therefore going to visit the Diva was not on the program. We planned to go on Boxing Day, but the weather was sketchy. It snowed most of the morning, and we weren't sure about the roads. It's 70+ miles from here to the RTF, on old county back roads that don't receive much maintenance. The roads probably were OK, but my heart wasn't into a visit. If my motivation had been stronger I may have made the trip. So we planned to see her Monday. Then we got a call from the RTF informing us of her shenanigans. Superman talked to them a few times Monday morning, trying to get the whole story. Actually, they had called us around 11:00 the night before, but we missed the call because we were asleep. We didn't leave here as early as planned on Monday because we wanted to be sure we could see the fool child.

Superman and I went to see Diva. Her therapist, who was officially on vacation, had come in to check on things and happened to be there when we arrived, which was good. The four of us had a visit/meeting: Diva, the Therapist, Superman, and me. Diva didn't say much. Mostly she slouched with her arms crossed and her head hung low. It wasn't the most pleasant visit we've had.

Diva called tonight. She was pleasant but vague when talking to me. When she talked to her daddy she told him that she'd had a visit with the lady from one of the state mental health agencies. This is the agency that wants to help bring her home. I talked about this in a recent post. Anyhoo, Diva told Superman that the agency lady told her that if she has very good behavior from here on out, she may be able to come home in three months. Oh HELL No!! Especially not after that bullshit she pulled last week. Shit.

In related news, I talked to Twitch on the phone today. (I took him back to Charlotte yesterday (Monday).) The topic got around to Diva coming home. His opinion: Oh HELL No!! He said he doesn't want her to be near us, meaning his dad and me. There's something about the cavalier way she threatened to kill us in our sleep (it happened last March) that has all of us pretty creeped out.

This has gotten long. I'll quit now so you can get back to your life.

*I visited her the Wednesday before Christmas, and took a big bag of presents to her. She had gifts from us, and there were also gifts for the residents from other do-goody organizations. It's not like I ignored her entirely. We talked to her on the phone on Christmas Eve and, if I recall, on Christmas Day as well.