Sweat it out, or laugh it off.

Dear Diary,
I spent most of last week warding off the inevitable blues that strike when bad things happen. I did this partly by focusing on good stuff.

13. For instance, Princess was dropped off by her mom (me) at her new dwelling. I drove her and her things and tried not to leave skid marks as I backed out of the driveway.
Happy points: +2.

12. Himself the Baboo and I threw open the doors and acted like grownups. Grownups without nosy houseguests. We went to Costco and re-stocked up on all the things that Pricess had helped herself to.
Happy points:+3

11. Coincidentally, at the same time that herself left, the oppressive heat lifted. It rained nearly every day. Access to the trails was open again. Like a curse had been lifted. Yes, I am melodramatic, why do you ask? Happy points, +3

10. So Sunday, I hiked up La Luz, and did it faster that last year, but it still took me much longer than I thought it would. I estimate it will take as much as 3.5 hours. It's 10 miles, and it rises from 6200 feet above sea level to 10800 I sweated like crazy and smelled pretty bad when I was done...I think it makes me feel better to do that, because I'm like, HA! Take that, stupid VA....I can climb a mountain. AND, I found out that the La Luz cutoff is 5 hours. Happy points +2

9. This weekend, Ima start a groupon week.
Saturday, hair, lunch.
Wednesday, body, feet, nails, lunch
Just what I need. Take that, VA!!
Happy points: tbd

8. Each week at work seems to have a theme. This week's theme was BAD PARENTS.  One parent told me that the length of time it might take to treat her kid "just wouldn't work for her."  Another no-showed, then tried to come 40 minutes late to the second appointment, then demanded someone see her when she was told she'd missed her appointment (denied) Another mother complained to me that her teenage son, who has low BMI, "eats too much".
I know it can be shocking, the amount of food they eat, i said soothingly.  Then she complained about other developmentally normal behaviors of teenage boys...I'll leave you to imagine what those might be.
 
Whatever.
Anway: Distraction points, 10

7. I have been reading every article on tips and tricks and hints about the iPad so that I will be a power iPad user user..ser...ser. It does one really good thing for me; it forces me not to multitask. That is something badly needed.
Happy points: +1

6. I have noticed that the nicest, most expensive hotels charge for wi-fi, up to $15 per day in some places. Really Albuquerque Hilton? Are you really going to milk that cow for all its worth? I'll pick Best Western or Holiday Inn, thanks. And you can keep trying to figure out why business is falling off. Happy points, -2

5.  I discovered #6 when I went to a psychopharmacology seminar on Thursday - oh, hell, that's today.  They had no tables for us to sit at.  I had to claim the empty chair next to me for all my snacks, drinks, and other stuff.  And then I had to pay AND DON'T TELL ME NOBODY FORCED YOU TO PAY FOR WIFI, MISTY since I was not a guest of the hotel, I was not going to ask about a microwave, so I ate my food cold. Happy points, -2
But, the speaker was good, and interesting, and funny, and I enjoy the topic. If I wasn't 46, I would so totally go to medical school and study psychiatry. Happy points, +2

But, the the hotel was full of teenagers, and I sat outside during lunch and smellled the smoke and watched them work their way toward emphysema. Happy points, -3

4. Wednesday night I ran with Baboo. With Baboo (mistake #1) and on a full stomach, too (mistake #2). still, I got in another 3 miles before it got dark. Happy points, +2

3. Interesting articles here and here. Comments welcome. Happy points: +0

2. I used to mock pre-cooked, packaged bacon.  Of course, my eating is way out of control again.  But about the pre-cooked bacon: Now I totally get it. Happy points: +3

1. In the end, though, I don't know where my future is, professionally.  I used to have this very clear picture in front of me, this vision of my future.  Now there's just a blank.
I'm so pissed at the people who took away my vision.
I'm so angry that I have to start all over, making a new picture, with that uncertain, unknown future.

Well, what the hell.  I guess I've done that before.

Happy points earned this week: 10. I think. That's 10 more than I started with.

...

Angry tears and happy tears: Thursday 13.

Dear Diary,
It's been a bit of an up and down week.  

13. Princess found herself a part-time job and was not interested in getting another job, and why should she? She had a very nice guest room, fully furnished, and cable, wi-fi, food, etc. With her part-time income, she was inelligiible for most apartments.

  I was in despair.

12. I finally became proactive, because the best way to get out of feeling depressed and helpless is to do something. I found her a room. She is paying half the rent in a very small house with generous access to buses. She will have to buy herself towels, linens, plasticware, food, cable, wi-fi...
Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, Princess! Oh, and if things don't work out, here's a brochure for Joy Junction. 

11. Sunday, I slept a full night. I was four pounds down. I ran 13 miles when i got up in the morning. I ran this elevation profile, on trails and roads, and I did it in 2:48, faster than my first half marathon. My first half back in 2006, was almost completely flat and/or downhill.

10. Sunday night, I did a local 10K. It was 94 degrees out. I did a 10K a few weeks ago, on the same course, in the same temperature, at the same time of day, after running 10 miles, running the entire time, in 1:15. This time, I decided to "Galloway" it, and I did this one was 1:09:42, using the Galloway method. My pace was about 11:10. I also wrapped a bandana full of ice around my neck. For road races 10K or longer, I'm becoming a devote of the Galloway method.

9. This week I began another new adventure; New employee orienation at the VA hospital, where I was selected to be in a highly competive internship back in May. I took an oath of office, had a TB test, was fingerprinted electronically.  I was jazzed.

8. Tuesday morning, I ran the first of what will be weekly hill repeats. This is a .95 mile hill that changes abouut 400 feet in vertical altitude over its course. Jog/hike/stagger up, jog down. Twice. Then add a litttle at the end.

7. So.     Then.

On day two of my four-day training at the VA, I was called in and told that not one single instructor, including those I hadn't met yet, wanted to work with me.
 It didn't make any sense. I felt blindsided, and I left in tears. Before my internship began, it was over.
Then unbelievably, before I left, I was told you should apply for any open position here because those people who don't want to work with you don't do the hiring.
What. The. Fuck?

6. Interestingly, I did not go home. I went to work at the children's hospital, where I feel competent and happy.  They were happy to see me, since they weren't expecting me until Friday and unexpected problems had come up.  I ate my lunch. I did some work. I felt better. But I cried when I told them what happened.  They were as confused as I was.

5. I talked to professors, mentors, advisor, friends, colleagues, fellow students, and supervisors about what happened at the VA, and they all said the same thing: Smells like political bullshit to me.  

4. Wednesday morning I woke up with swollen eyes and went for a run, and decided that I absolutely, positively, was going to quit social work school. Social workers were petty, bitchy, heiarchical, and back-stabbing. I absolutely didn't want to be one.  Fuck them.  FUCK SOCIAL WORK SCHOOL.

3. Later that morning, I went to a local hospital's acute ward to visit some kids. As I was leaving one of the social workers asked how my internship was going. I only cried a little when I told her what happened. Her mouth fell open, and without missing a beat, she offered me an internship. Just like that.

2. I am now finally free to say that I am happiest working with children and families. I kept finding myself headed in that direction, time and again. I believe this is where I belong. It is where I feel that I'm good at what I do.

This VA is not where I belong. I am not cut out for it. I don't like conflict. I don't like asserting myself. I don't want to be a leader. I don't want to join the fray. I don't want to feel like I suck. I like to fly under the radar, doing my job. most of all, I do not like political bullshit.

1. So it's been an emotional week. But there is running, and fried chicken, and Jose Cuervo Lite Margaritas.

 And today, at work, I made a parent so happy that she cried.

....

Mostly one-liners.

Dear Diary,

Yes, she is that spoiled.
No, I don't know why.

15. I spent most of my free computer time this week working - see #3 for explanation.

14. I think it's safe to say I don't much like being a parent these days.

13. But I do like being a runner. I am right back on track with my running again. After several months of not being terribly discipliined, I am finally back into the habit of making up missed miles and making sure thatt I get all my miles in.  Which brings me to today, when I ditched my run.  I now have 12 miles to make up, somehow.  :-/

12. #13 is important, because I put on five pounds last month.

11. WeightWatchers just updated their app for ipad. It rocks. They also have a kick-ass kitchen-helper app.

10. The running is keeping me from wrapping my hands around a certain surly twenty-something's neck and squeezing.

9. There are ants in my house that are particularly bad this year. It requires that I keep pet food put up. :-( and not leave anything sitting out too long.

8. This has been a tough week at work. Hug your kids.

7. I am also back on track with my eating. It was getting a llittle out of control. I was temped by stress to fall back into my old ways, in which I would buy a whole rotissere chicken and sit out on my car and eat it. (ugly, but true).

There is a dress code, you know.

6. Thursday evening, I drank cheap beer and and made "Chicken Helper". Now in my defense, it was whole grain chicken helper, to which I added lots of vegetables. The cheap beer I have no excuse for. It's interesting, though, that Bud Light is the only beer I can drink, being as I hate most beers and think they are a cold bitter mess. I've been told that Bud Light has no taste, which would explain why I can drink it. So there you have it: I have dental problems, eat chicken helper, and drink cheap beer. I am one step away from hanging up laundry wearing my bra and shorts and curlers.

5.  Stress has also made me not sleep well.  Today, instead of running, I slept in.  Later I will take Herself the Daughter to look at rent houses.

4. I have prepared a "move-out" box for Herself the Daughter that has TP (the cheap kind), laundry soap, and cup-a-noodle (Might as well get used to it now.  Life is WAYYY different outside mom's house, princess)

3. This next week I will be attending four full days of "New Employee Orientation" at the VA for my internship.

Ah, dinner by candlelight. 

2. I am beginning to feel, finally, like a mental health professional. So that's a new identity for me. I was a mother, then a teacher, and then a runner, and then I didn't know what I was for a while.

1. Work related: Here's a little tip from me.  If, in the process of knifing your boyfriend/dealer to death, you assign your mother POA for your kids, make sure she's not homeless.  (The lives some people lead.  Jeesh.)

...

Untitled. The on-time version.

Dear Diary,

13.  One of the reasons I"m on time this week is this: from Think Geek, it's a ipad case with a tiny built-in keyboard.  Bliss!  Between this an an app called Blogsy, I'm much more able to do everything I want from the iPad.

Now: The tooth saga.

12.  Okay.  I was born with very soft enamel (a genetic gift from my father), was a mouth breather, and then had braces as a kid and as a kid was a lazy brusher.  And there you have it: a recipe for dental disaster.When my braces were removed, I had cavities wrapping around every single tooth. Since then, it's been an uphill battle staying ahead of time and age.

11. By my 20s, I'd had had six root canals, paid for by my parents. Later, as a student and single mom, I had molars on my lower jaw pulled, since I could not afford root canals. After I graduated and got my first real job, I had more three root canals, bringing the total to nine.

10. haven't been very public about this because, well, it's embarassing. When I think about the shape that my teeth are in, I feel like I am one step away from an off-broadway version of Deliverance.

9.  After a decade of no lower back teeth I've been chewing on my front teeth, putting increasing stress on those teeth, and shifted my jaw forward. Those teeth are now giving way.

8. I have put this off for years because even with good dental insurance, the cost is pretty enormous and I. Am cheap.  But, I have finally decided once and for all to take care of this. I'm to have two more root canals which, thankfully, are my last. I'm also about to get partials for my lower jaw.

7. I am pretty excited about this. The expense is going to be enormous, but hopefully this will be the last of it. To be DONE.  That.  Is exciting.

So pretty soon I will start smiling bigger than I used to. Look for it.

End tooth saga.

6. I am running every morning, back on a training plan, and sticking to it. Mostly. I love the way I feel when I go to work, all mellow and stuff.  I love the feeling of accomplishment when I put in those numbers each day.  MOSTLY,  I love knowing that when I come home, I don't have to run in the heat. What's the point? I'm not training for any long hot races. So, I get up insanely early run in the dawn, when it's cooler, sit out for a while with Baboo and drink coffee, and then heard for work.
AWESOME.

5. Unfortunately, just in time for this revelation, they shut down all the parklands around the city, including the trails, to protect the lands from idiots with fireworks. So, I'm running around the hilly neighborhoods where I live, which itself is not all that unpleasant.

4. My internship starts the week of the 18th. I am STOKED. We had to pick two rotations, one in medical social work and one in behavioral health. My rotation in medical social work will be a split rotation in 1) poly trauma, which includes TBI and comorbid PTSD, and 2) spinal cord injury. So I will be working with some of the newer veterans.

3. During the two days I am at internship each week, since I won't have an office there, I bought a bag. Well, of course you knew I would use this as some excuse to shop...anyway, I needed something to haul around my phone, wallet, ipad, and sundries. It's called an Uptown Bagg by Baggellini. It's a crossbody bag. I got one in charcoal gray.  I searched and searched, and so, well, maybe I'm the only one who is excited about it, but this is my diary, so there it is.


2. My morrning runs are getting to be a habit. How much of a habit it will remain when its below freezing I do not know, but hopefully by then I will have put together my treadmill room. Unlike many, I don't mind running on the treadmill in the winter, so long as there is a dvd player and movies.  I enjoy running some of those mornings with Sweet Baboo, although I often run much faster than I should, and wind up blowing out around mile 3 or 4.

1. Sweet Baboo and I began Salsa dance lessons this week.  It is harder than I expected, or maybe it's as hard as I expected but I somehow fantasized I would be much better at this than I am.  Of course, it's only one lesson.  We had to switch partners continuously, and there was a guy in there that reminded me faintly of Ben Stiller in the scene in "Along Came Polly" where he's dancing, but overall, a great time. We both had fun.

Enjoy!


...

A very special Thursday Thirteen: It's time to go, hijita

Dear Diary (and grown child),


I'm not sure if you'll even see this, since you have little interest in what it is that I do, where I go, or what I think.

These tips and tricks are meant to be a guide to living in my house.  They are by no means all inclusive. They they may explain, however, why I'm beginning to take a rather passitve-aggressive and oftentimes aggressive-aggressive stance towards you as of late.

13.  Be Courteous.  You are not fulfilling me somehow by being here; in fact, my closest friends groaned when I told them you were moving in with me.  I am a person, with a life, pursuits, friends, hobbies, activities, routines, and interests.  Do not expect me to re-arrange to accommodate you. Once you are old enough to look me in the eye, you are no longer my precious baby, my hijita, my bundle of joy. You are a homeless person living in my house and eating my food.

12.  Be Real.  You've told me that your goal is to be a housewife.  I don't have a problem with that per se, but remember that you have to:
1) be a wife, and 2) have a house.

11.  Be Neat.   Don't leave wet towels on the floor.  Don't leave pee in the toilet.  Don't leave your makeup and toiletries all over.  It's not your bathroom.  It's my guest bath.  Don't take dishes in to the guest room.  Don't leave dishes in the guest room.  Don't put dirty dishes into the drawers in the guest room.  Don't call it your room...It's my guest room. Those are my dishes.  And goddamned it, MY ANTS.
This is not a hotel.  There is no maid service.


10.  Don't take my stuff.  My work is emotionally draining.  I sometimes have small amounts of certain comfort foods set aside and I come home to relax.  I may go for weeks without touching them but that doesn't mean it's open season on anything in the cabinet or fridge, or that you have free use of my ipod dock, or any of my stuff.  Recent examples: frozen shrimp, the provolone, my wheat thins, anything else I haven't discovered yet.

IT"S NOT AS THOUGH WE HAVEN'T ALREADY HAD THIS CONVERSATION ABOUT SIX TIMES.  


(And while we're at it, you didn't "find" it in the cabinet, because it wasn't "lost".)

9.  Plan Ahead.  Don't use up the mayonnaise, the catsup, the hot sauce, the tuna, toilet paper, paper towels, various clearing supplies, or any household stuff without telling me and tell me if we're about to run out.  I do not go to the store in the middle of the week.  Recent examples: AGAIN, WE'VE HAD THIS CONVERSATION 6 TIMES.

8. Get moving.   If I'm in the kitchen eating a peanut butter sandwich because I just ran eight miles, do not hint at how nice it would be if I made you one, too.  You don't even work out.  Go run eight miles, then, make your own sandwich.

7.  Quit bugging me about your virtual boyfriend.  He's not your boyfriend.  You don't know him.  You've never met him.  You've seen his picture, and talked on phone.  No, I don't have any advice for you on your recent spat.  Why?  BECAUSE I'VE NEVER MET HIM, AND NEITHER HAVE YOU.

6.  Get moving, Part 2.  Sitting on your ass all day on the internet turning in online applications is not "looking for a job."  Also, you don't get weekends off from being unemployed. 

5.  Be Courterous, Part 2.  Do not stay up until midnight and THEN decide to go do things in the kitchen.  The people who are supporting you are trying to sleep.

4.  Mine.  Not Yours. It doesn't matter if I have unlimited long distance and local; I am the one who pays the bill.  It's just plain rude to use my cell phone late at night after I've gone to sleep, or to spend hours on the house phone.

Yeah - it's all funny until the homicide squad arrives.

3.  WAKE UP.  Don't act put out when I wake you up in the morning by banging loudly on the guest room door.  Alarm clocks are simple to operate.  WAKE YOURSELF UP.

2.  It's my house, deal with it.  Do not presume to snicker or mock me or complain about how messy I am, how I leave cabinet doors open, or how loud I was last night.  And don't try to manipulate me; if you tell me you'll have to live in a shelter if I make you leave, I will merely offer tips and tricks to avoid being mugged.  By the way, you should be so lucky at age 46 to have something to be loud about.

 1.  Don't be such a drama queen.  Do not sing loudly enough along with Sarah McLaughlin while you're in the kitchen to wake the coyotes.  Don't post your angst about how I "treat" you on FaceBook...or how despondent you are over my latest tirade.  I'm a therapist, but I'm not your therapist.
--------------------------
Sweetie, adults who live with their parents regress.  You have regressed.
It's time for you to move out.
It's time for you to move along.

Love, Mom.

...

Sorry I'm late, honey, but I can explain.

Dear Diary,

13.  I spent much of the week with some pals planning a surprise birthday party for Herself, the Dreadpirate Rackham.  She who turns 42 this year has been lacking a party in the recent past, and so we decided to pull this off.  And, it worked.  She had no idea.  She tried in vain to go train in Leadville this weekend, but mysteriously, nobody was available to go with her.  Buwahaha.

Anyway, there was cake, and snacks, and charbroiled meat.  All-in-all, a very good time.  Pictures to come.

12. Last weekend, I had a nice parenthood moment: I had a grownup-dinner with my grown-up oldest son.  We ate at an Indian Restaurant. It was nice, eating with another adult. It's interesting seeing the development that continues of a young person.  He has been having deep thoughts lately about human nature and electronic media, as well as self examination.

11. Thursday morning, the aforementioned oldest grabbed his inhaler, a pair of running shoes, and went for a run. 9.5 pace, not bad considering he's gained about 30 lbs and hasn't run in over a year. In fact, it kind of pisses me off; 19 minutes for 2 miles is something that I have to work hard to attain.  When he was a toddler, his pediatrician said that something about the way his knees were built meant he'd be a good runner. Maybe we'll see that happen.

10. In the tradition of food-themed runs. This Sunday night will be the Cherry Garcia run. yeah baby.  Oldest has decided to do it too.  

9.  Really?  You're only charging me $30 to inject vitamins  into my ass?  Vtamins I could take for 50 cents in pill form or a bowl of cereal?  Wow.  What a Bargain.

I want to say, "seriously, who pays for this?" but then again, I bought two months of some stupid stuff called "Sensa" in 2009.  I know that when you're heavy, sometimes you think, well, just maybe...I mean, they couldn't say it if it wasn't true, right?  And that really is what pisses me off about places that do things like this (above) know that people are that desperate.  They prey on people and their sad desperation. I want to take the charlitans and make them run. For, oh, say, about 26.2 miles.

8.  A couple weeks ago I had a bad morning.   I'd spent it at the local children's acute psychiatric ward at a hospital, where I met an 11-year-old girl who wanted to kill herself.  She had a plan and everything - slit her own throat with a kitchen knife. 

When I got to work, I told the director of Admissions I was feeling pretty low, and she sent me to a website.  Normally, that wouldn't do the trick, but this one actually did, so I'll share it: DAMN YOU AUTO CORRECT!

7.  The other thing is, I just didn't do much this week.  

I ran with a friend on Monday, but only about 1.88 miles.  She's a friend who is in the Guard, and is in danger of being kicked out because she keeps failing the physical fitness part.  So, I told her I'd run with her a cuople times per week.  

6.  Most of this week I relaxed, ate, and worked.  But tomorrow, I"m back at it again, starting from scratch as I work on both a marathon training plan and continue working on training for La Luz.

Why would I start over?  Well, I"m not actually starting over.  I'm starting at like the 4th week of the training plan, actually.  It's just that I'll be working on speed more over the coming months.  Tomorrow, I'm doing a run called the Cherry Garcia 10K, and yes, it is named precisely that for a reason.  Pizza and ice cream.

5. Then comes the Daughter.  She worked out with me for one week, and then did another final workout a week later with Women In Training, and then stopped.  She's continued to lose weight, slowly, mainly has to leave the house to look for work every day, and while it's true she just sits on the internet all day and "looks" for work, at least she isn't home to sit and eat all day (when I'm at home, the house is locked, and she doesn't have a key).  So, anyway, she heard there was pizza and ice cream and now wants to do this run. 

Then at the last moment, she remembered a very important Skype call she had to make at the same time as the run, so, oh, well...

4.  For the record, daughter has to be working by June 30th or she gets a one-way plane ticket back home.  Who will pick her up at the airport is her decision to make and plan.  Now, she's been all mopy about this, talking about how she'll have to go and live in a shelter and such.  I said, if you want to spend all your time looking for shelters, go ahead.  *I* would spend my time looking for friends to stay with. 

3.  The other reason I was late posting my blog is that I stupidly installed FireFox on my PC at home.  My PC at home is running on Windows XP.  I rarely use it except for uploading my Garmin data, and although I write and publish most of The Athena Diaries from my iPad, I "fine tune" it on the PC.

Firefox web Browser is like a husband that beats you.  You start thinking, now why did I stop seeing him?  And so you go back, and at first, everything is fine.  And then you start to realize: Oh yes, I deleted it because it SUCKS.  It uses enormous resources and freezes when I'm trying to write.  Then when I tried to download another browser - and don't tell me this is a coincidence - it freezes continuously, requiring computer restarts.  

I'm going to put a note on my computer at home reminding me not to ever, ever go back to Firefox again.

2.  Did I mention she also ate my wheat things without asking?  MY WHEAT THINS.  WITHOUT ASKING.

1.  I'm going to go do an ice cream run now.  Peace out.

...