Sleepy Skunk

Culling

I have found that I am not so good at keeping in touch with people. Never was. If our friendship is more than 4 or 5 years previous, there's a pretty good chance I'm not talking much with you... if at all. I've not been very good at keeping in touch with people from my life. From Japan, to Utah, to Alaska, to everywhere else... I've kinda been crummy at keeping in touch with people long-long term. I haven't talked or emailed with my best friend from college... and he got married last year. I'm not sure why I do this... maybe it's because I put most of my energy into the now and the forward than the past... tough to say. It's not malicious or a writing off kind of thing, so don't feel bad, I'll do it for both of us.

DING fries are done...

The wife and I went out a wassailing last night... er, looking at Christmas lights in the rain... and for some reason the theme running through my head for this Christmas is the "ding fries are done" song from Family Guy (and the internet) sung to the tune of "Carol of the Bells", as seen here: Family Guy Ding Fries Are Done

The words:

Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done

I gotta run
I gotta run
I gotta run
I gotta run

I work at Burger King making flame broiled whoppers
I wear paper hats
Would you like an apple pie with that?
Would you like an apple pie with that?

Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done

I gotta run
I gotta run
I gotta run
I gotta run

Don't bob for fries in hot fat
it really hurts bad
and so do skin grafts
Would you like an apple pie with that?
Would you like an apple pie with that?

Can't hear the bell
Wait for the bell
Where is the bell?
Wait for the bell

Ding fries are done
Ding fries are done

Fortunately my wife has realized she's pretty much married an idiot.

These are a few of my favorite things

Hospitals, shelters, diversions plans, symptoms, medication, decompensation, treatment plans, behavioral assessments, criminal records, case files, crisis diversion, single room occupancy, motels, primary care physicians, billing codes, location codes, active community treatment, medical model, recovery model, housing applications, respite, walk in clinic, emergency department, emergency room, triage, med deliveries, food boxes, vouchers, social security, food stamps, TB tests, screening criteria, releases of information, faxes, SAS sheets, status change, interoffice mail, prescriber appointments, inpatient drug treatment, outpatient drug treatment, groups, outreach, insight…

But am I doing anything?

Guitar Hero

If you're at all like me (probably not, but if so, you have my condolences), you've played the air guitar at least a few times in your life. Admit it. You've bounced around your apartment flailing your invisible air guitar to Master of Puppets. You've put an empty hand up to your mouth and belted out the lyrics to Back in Black. Finally, for the rock star in all of us, there is a game. That game is Guitar Hero.

Guitar Hero is to cool guitar god wanna-bes what Dance Dance Revolution is to people who wish they could have gotten on MTV's The Grind just once. You have a controller that you hold in your hands that looks like this:



And as notes scroll by on the on screen fretboard, you press the accorded button, and hit the strum bar. You have thus commenced rocking.



Whoever was in charge of selecting the music for Guitar Hero deserves a Grammy Award--or at least a raise. For a game like this, the soundtrack is practically impeccable. Rather than going for the MTV crowd, this game is chock full of riffs that will open your stance and get your head banging back and forth.

None of the songs are the original recordings, but the recreations have been so lovingly crafted that you'll have a difficult time telling the difference. The track list runs the gamut from metal romps like Judas Priest's "You've Got another Thing Coming" to Joan Jett's seminal '80s rocker "I Love Rock and Roll" to recent jams like Franz Ferdinand's "Take me Out." The list goes on and on with favorites like Motorhead's "Ace of Spades," The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated," and a smattering of power punk hits from groups like Sum 41. If you're even vaguely into rock music, you'll find something to like across the game's 30-plus songs. The only downer is that there are no AC/DC or Led Zepplin tracks, but there has to be something for the sequel, right?

The other thing that's reasonably fun about the game is that it's almost as fun to watch someone play as it is to play it. When you're playing, you're concentrating on the buttons and rhythm, not the song or the band... so when someone else has a turn you get to see all the cool and crazy thing your guy does!

When we write things, in print, black and white, it makes things more real, like we're owning it or something. Emily has said things not unlike this several times, and as I'm sitting here looking at my seldomly updated blog as of late, I wonder... maybe lately I've been liking things to be less real? Reality is stressful, and I like to escape. That's why I like books, movies, video games... for just a little while I get to be someone else or at least somewhere else. Not that where or who I am is bad (NOT AT ALL!) but that... getting away is like a little vacation in my head.

Death to the travelogue!

I haven't been posting. My life in a nutshell:

Work, work work, wife wife wife, skunk, skunk, play play on computer, damn I wish I could have a cheeseburger, sleep.

There's stuff going on in and around it but I've become pretty mundane. Skye commented something the other day, "I really want you to be around when we're old farts to talk about the good times." I've always thought, what's so great about being old? I don't mean the whole life is over when you're 50 crap, but like... the tail end nursing home years... what's great about sitting in a room waiting for the nurse to bring the jello and wishing the grandkids would call? I suppose the sponge bathing could be sublime, but still. I think I'll start hoping for early onset dementia. One of the most mentally ill people I know is one of the happiest. He's never alone, and people are always happy to see him... in his head. We should all be so lucky. If it happens to me, y'all can be sitting around talking and I'll be sitting there singing a song to myself about daffodils that look like pudding pops or something.

The counter opinion in my head just now points out that this isn't too different from what I currently do in most social settings.

Sigh.

The Battle of Food

Like the wife, I am also on a diet.
It appears to be serious.
I'm very grouchy.
VERY GROUCHY.

Fortunately, I love some foods that are healthy. Like sushi, cottage cheese, fibery cereals, vegetarian curry... but it's only been a week and there's a decent chance I might kill someone for a double western bacon cheeseburger. Fortunately there's a good chance it might only be a transient, or some other person you don't know, but still the potential for homicide is definitely there.

Otherwise, life is fine. I work work work, come home and survey what dilemma wife and skunk may have, then sleep a bit, then back to work.

Boy and Skunk Alone.

The cheese stands alone.
The cheese stands alone.
Hi ho the dairy-o
The cheese stands alone.

I never got why the cheese stands alone. Who doesn't like cheese? EVERYONE likes cheese!

The woman is out of town while I'm on the pager at work. I miss my wife. It is nice to be able to let the dishes go for a day or two and completely hog the bed... but... I'm lonely :( I can't wait until my honey comes home.

Shame on you, Squinty McGee

One of the biggest mistakes of my life has been voting for George W. Bush when he ran against Al Gore. I don't claim full responsibility for this decision, since Gore ran the most dull and lifeless campaign and came off like a lifelong Washington politician, while Bush came off as the opposite. The highs and lows of his presidency have been well documented, but one of the things that particularly raised my ire came out a month or two ago when it was revealed that the National Security Agency had been obtaining phone call records of American Citizens for years. Obtaining them without warrant or probable cause, and thus far for no announced reason other than “national security” To put it plainly, the government has been keeping track of who you call, when you call them, and how often they do it. Verizon? BellSouth? AT&T? Sprint? They’ve all been handing over their phone records for years, again, without a warrant. This is illegal, by the way.

So when this came to light, naturally millions of people were understandably pissed off. So an investigation was launched by the Justice Department, trying to find out what, who, and why. In order to investigate who authorized this illegal invasion of American’s privacy (and is a criminal) with regards to “matters of national security”, the lawyers and investigators from the Justice Department have to obtain security clearances, since they might come in contact with sensitive information. This is pretty much standard procedure for any sort of government investigation.

Standard, until President Bush said no.

“Someone in your administration is breaking the law and spying on Americans, may we please investigate who is doing this that we might bring them to justice?”
“No.”

By denying security clearance to federal attorneys from the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) seeking to gather evidence in the NSA illegal surveillance scandal, President Bush has effectively blocked the Justice Department’s investigation into the matter of who exactly authorized the illegal actions to take place. The president is apparently able to strictly control who does and does not have security clearance to examine documents regarding the program, citing that giving more people access would endanger national security. His denial is the first of its kind in American history. Last time I checked, when Richard Nixon committed obstruction of justice, he didn't get to keep his job.

Oh well, what’s one more lie, one more obfuscation of the truth to ol’ Squinty McGee? But hey! At least he hasn’t gotten it on with an intern.

And this is Tobias, our skunk.

As most of you know

We got a pet skunk. Named her Lucille. Then found out it was a boy and named it Tobias. It's still an adorable skunk. He likes to run and play, and has made a game of us catching him.

Gage says it's great owning a skunk, you just get the same questions over and over... so with no adieu, I answer them for you:
1) No, it doesn't stink, the stink glands have been removed.
2) They eat veggies, a little bit of dog food, dairy, pretty much anything in moderation.
3) They live to be 10-15.
4) We got it from a breeder in Ohio.
5) No, it's going to be fixed, you really don't want to try and be a skunk breeder.

Friend of mine grew up with a hot girl next door. The HGND's dad was an avid hunter, with many a long gun. Whenever she would bring home a new guy, the dad would take him aside and introduce himself, and get the kid's name. He would then take a cartridge for his elephant gun, and write the kid's name on it, telling him "I love my daughter very much, and if you ever do anything to hurt her, this bullet has your name on it." Next, he would take the now amused/scared/indiffernt kid into the room where the rifle was stored, show him it, and put the cartridge on a shelf, next to a row of empty casings with names on it.

Apparently, it scared one kid so much he went crying home to dad, who called the sheriff. Sheriff deputy shows up, asks for the story, dad tells it, deputy decides with a grin on his face that there was no threat made, the kid was just being informed that there was a bullet with his name on it.

Friend of mine grew up with a hot girl next door. The HGND's dad was an avid hunter, with many a long gun. Whenever she would bring home a new guy, the dad would take him aside and introduce himself, and get the kid's name. He would then take a cartridge for his elephant gun, and write the kid's name on it, telling him "I love my daughter very much, and if you ever do anything to hurt her, this bullet has your name on it." Next, he would take the now amused/scared/indiffernt kid into the room where the rifle was stored, show him it, and put the cartridge on a shelf, next to a row of empty casings with names on it.

Apparently, it scared one kid so much he went crying home to dad, who called the sheriff. Sheriff deputy shows up, asks for the story, dad tells it, deputy decides with a grin on his face that there was no threat made, the kid was just being informed that there was a bullet with his name on it.

On Our Vacation

One of the interesting places we visited was the Sleepy Hollow cemetery.



On the hillside behind where this picture was taken, some of the greatest authors in the history of American Literature are buried. They all lived in the area near here. Walt Whitman lived here too, but he's not interred at this cemetary, so I won't make "Anonymous" fret by referring any more to a poet who might have been gay.

Here is Henry David Thoreau, one of my favorites (for the unaware, he wrote Walden, the book that the boys in Dead Poet's Society read and use)



Right next to him is Louisa May Alcott:



Then Ralph Waldo Emerson:



And lastly a little further along is Nathaniel Hawthorne:



How strange is it that some of the greatest writers in American history are all buried within 20 yards of each other, let alone in the same cemetary?

Cool things that I did on vacation.

Primary Spousal Unit and I have decided to blog about and post pics of whatever we want to, in whatever order we like. I like this approach more than feeling bound to some kind of order.

We flew in to Newark Airport in New Jersey. My first reaction upon exiting the airport: "What stinks? Is that garbage or a dead body?" Deciding to be charitiable, I took another wiff inbetween train transfers on two other occasions on the way to the inlaw's place. As far as I can tell, New Jersey either locates all of their public transportation next to open sewers and landfills, or the state reeks. I have no pic of the horrid smells of New Jersey, but rest assurred that if I did, this is where they'd be:

So I'm home now.

Highlights and pics to be done tomorrow.

I'm thinking of naming the skunk Shiloh.

edit - I think Lucille might be even better.

So, I'm in New York.

So Today's My Birthday

And I'm another year older. We're taking off for NYC tomorrow to go visit the inlaws and see the sites. So what did I get for my birthday? It hasn't arrived yet... but we're getting a pet... a skunk! These photos are not pics of the actual skunk in question. She (I think we're getting a she) will be about 6 inches long (and 4 or 5 weeks old) when she comes and will take about 18 months to fully mature into a 20-28" adult skunk. Yes, the stinky part's removed, though we will have to get her spayed (going into heat and not mating can KILL a female skunk, think about that, lonely singles!) I get to pick a name for her. I'm still mulling that one over.

Splurging: The Final Frontier pt II: Electric Boogaloo

So, I get an email from the wife today, and we find out that we're getting a lot more from her student loans than we originally planned. Naturally, we're not going completely buck wild, but certain plots start bubbling to the surface, like paying the new car off if the interest rate is lower on the student loans than the car... maybe buying some business clothes for both of us... other things that never quite find their way into the monthly budget. So, if you found yourself with a couple of extra thousand (or $30,000-50,000 more) than you thought you might have, and you know you have to pay it back, would you get anything? Cheese on your Whopper (tm) perhaps?

Me, I knew exactly what I wanted. Unfortunately, the wife deemed it to be wasteful. I respectfully disagreed, and the negotiations began. We discovered we both looked at splurging somewhat differently. I'm not entirely sure that we even now understand where the other one is coming from. But I toss the thought out to you: what would you do? Be uber-responsible and not spend a penny beyond school and living costs? Go out to dinner? Buy a new pair of shoes? A nice new big computer monitor? What would you do?

Q: How many emo kids does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: It doesn't matter, they're all going to sit in the dark and cry anyway.

Assertion. Noun. 1: A declaration that is made emphatically. 2: The act of affirming or asserting or stating something.

I think being assertive is commonly taken to be a male trait in our society, as women used to be taught to be demure, which is often taken to the extreme of being passive. I don’t like passive, which is to say I don’t respect it very much. Don’t get me wrong, I like silence a LOT, but there’s a difference between not saying anything because you don’t have anything important to say, and not saying anything because you don’t dare. In my dating history, I tended to enjoy the company of more independent women. My wife is a fairly strong willed lady. But it’s interesting to me how many people allow themselves to be walked on, because they don’t want to be rude, or perhaps feel like they could be wrong.

I have come to the conclusion lately that I am not just going to let people exert their will on me anymore. If that makes me rude because I’m telling some call center slave something they don’t want to hear, that’s fine, I’ll be able to sleep at night with that on my conscience.A couple weeks ago, Comcast called to find out why the check we sent them for our service was $30 short, and mentioned that if the full payment wasn’t received, there would be a LATE FEE! (dum-dum-DUM!). The reason was I gave the installer a $30 check when we had the internet and cable installed, and was told that this would be applied to the first bill. It wasn’t. But I was told that and even had the receipt to that effect. The lady on the phone started to try to pass the buck and told me I’d have to talk to billing and that it wasn’t her department, when I stopped her in mid-sentence and said no. No, I wasn’t going to call billing, I gave her company a check and if they couldn’t find it, that was their problem, and that if they were going to call me up and threaten me with a late fee, it was inappropriate to be then trying to send me on a game of phone tag within their bureaucracy. She tried to say that it wasn’t on her system, but I wasn’t going to let her off the hook. I told her that I had given her company a check and now she was telling me that they didn’t know what happened to it, and that she needed to find out whether it was lost, or stolen, or heaven knows what, and that it was not my responsibility to be doing her company’s work for them. She said she’d forward this issue to her manager, and I told her that I expected a return call to resolve the issue and to make a note of it on the case. Three days later, I got a call, and all was well. I didn’t have to deal with a single robotic phone menu. I can't help but think that if they had called me at another juncture in life, I would have followed their instructions and whined and complained about having to deal with Comcast. Was I rude? maybe a tiny bit, but no less rude than a company making a customer track down a payment that the company itself had misplaced.

Yesterday I went to the parking garage where our treatment team has parking passes, one of those little ratty buildings that's been converted into a parking garage. The guys that run the place overbook the lot, so occasionally they have to operate like a valet service and double and triple park cars (they totaled my manager's car there once, but that's another story). They had double parked a car across from mine making it tough to get out. Now I don't have the nicest car, but it is pretty new and it was just too close a shave to get out, I tried backing out several different ways, and none of them were good. I go downstairs and tell parking garage monkey that I need the silver Sentra across from my car moved. He walks upstairs and and then tells me that he doesn't have the key on him and tries to tell me to back it out again. I looked at him, and said "No. You. Move. That. Car. Right. Now." He again said that he didn't have the key on him, and I said "You should have thought of that before you came upstairs when I told you which car needed to be moved, now you're going to have to go back downstairs and get it." Now, I'm sure he isn't my biggest fan now, but hey, I'm just not going to do other people's jobs for them anymore.

Do you find yourself bending over backwards just to get treated like a human when you're a customer? You might need Assertion, a new fragrance by James. Do you find yourself telling stories that begin or end with "I can't believe he/she/they treated me like that!?!?" You too might need Assertion. Companies, stores, service personel will only treat you like that if you let them. For some people (Samuel L. Jackson, Jack Nicholson, Megan Mullally, Mr. T, Sean Connery), assertion is a part of their character. When in doubt, think about how one of them might handle the situation. Sam Jackson is who I use.

Oh, but if you're my wife, trust me, you probably don't need Assertion.

Well then...

So I come in to work this morning and find out one of my clients jumped off the Burnside bridge. He survived, thankfully enough. Apparently God told him to do it, and he though he was flying across the river Jordan. I hate it when God tells my clients to do crazy wacked out things.

Bad news: he jumped. Good news: makes my job of getting him into the state mental hospital a little bit easier.

ALSO: I have decided to turn off my cell phone. Anyone needing to get ahold of me during the day, email me and I'll spot you my work #, a phone I carry with me almost 24/7. If you need me after work times, call Audrey's phone! I decided two phones for me was too much, and to axe the $30-$40 a month I'm paying for it, since the new job gives me a phone.

My head is full of blackbirds

So I am trucking along at the new job. Starting a new job in my career chosen field is a strange experience. I know how to be a case manager or a counselor or to interact with clients, but every program has different priorities and different people and different ways of doing things. This job has different responsibilities than my previous one, and eventually, a much greater degree of autonomy. The clients are also vastly different. In mental healthspeak, they are severe and persistant mentally ill, with histories of abuse, addiction, and violence. In layman's terms, they are the craziest of the crazy. I went with another case worker for a secure escort (when we're with a potentiall dangerous client, we don't go alone) We took this guy from our clinic to a safe house (that he was kicked out of later that day), and I got to listen to the most interesting disjointed conversation I've ever heard. I so wish I had a tape recorder. You'd ask him a question, and the first three or four words would be on topic, but then the next four would be an phrase about something completely different, and the last half of the sentance about something. It wasn't word salad... it was full blown sentance salad.

"You know, none of this is real... they say the world is round but it isn't... girls can't see colors... so the angels opened their hands and... you know I'm okay with you I feel safe... and I told the angel that I want to be inside if I can .... and make you feel safe within all the paper... I like magenta and gree but the bus is leaving tomorrow... Cars are very safe, they protect you..."

And it went on like that for 20-30 minutes. I can't keep an impresion up for more than 30 seconds at a a time... but really, it was kind of beautiful in it's own way. I spent time today with someone who lives on the same planet as I do, but definitely not the same world.

Wow

I am humbled by the awesome friends I/we have. I am just now getting to read all of your comments from the last few weeks. I had been thinking I was more alone than I was. Thanks to all for the thoughtfulness, support, and sympathy.

Oh, and I am NOT girly, T-Durk. I only wanted to go so I could see you and Kaarina. I got to see Kaarina the night before, so the biggest truth is I would have gone to see you! Ha! And you dare call me girly!

I'm an idiot.

Fixed my comments. It was all my fault.

I am employed.

So here's the thing.

I applied for a couple openings that my parent company had, and interviewed last week for a spot on the Core-ACT program, as a case manager and therapist. This week I went in and spent a chunk of the day with them shadowing. At the end the manager took me into his office and asked me "when can you start?" So I'm happy now. Too bad about that whole fear engine thing, but time makes fools of us all, I guess... not unlike the time I made cottage cheese in my locker. So all told, it's a new job for the same company, a little bit of a pay raise, some added job security, and even paid parking downtown! I work about two or three blocks from Powells, the best bookstore in the whole world!

So what will I be doing?

This program is called the Core-ACT program, it stands for Active Community Treatment. Basically it's a nonprofit that works to relieve the load on the police, hospitals, and community with regards to handling and caring for people with acute mental illnesses. Basically, the craziest of the crazies that blow out of the more ordinary programs. My exact responsibilities on the team are yet to be determined, as the program is basically doubling in size. I'll either be an "ordinary" caseworker, a Drug and Alcohol specialist, or the State Hospital Waiting List reduction case manager. So the next time you're downtown and you see the guy having a debate with the phone pole who looks like he hasn't showered in a month, say hi, chances are he knows me.

Mostly, my ire has been raised.

I've been angry at work a lot.

So, like I mentioned, I have ben actively searching for a new job.

In order to do so, I had to mourn the old job.

I think this is the first time that I've lost a job where I was not only doing an excellent job, but it was completely unexpected. Now that some time has past I have a better understanding of what may have really been going on. My program got the shaft from the director of the state's Counseling and Treatment Services division. He thinks he can get two counselors, a supervisor, and an office specialist to do the work of two managers, two mental health specialists, three counselors, and two office specialists. Obviously the quality of care is going to suffer considerably, but that's not CTS' priority, money is. That's life in the real world, true, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

But mostly, I've been angry at work lately.

If I have to sit in one more meeting while I listen to state workers obfuscate the truth of matters, I swear I'll jam my ballpoint pen directly into the base of my skull and kill myself. But oh no, that will not be the end of it. When my tainted spirit finds it's ultimate destination, I will topple the master of that dark place. From my black throne I will lash together a machine of bone and blood, and fueled by my hatred this fear engine will bore a hole between that world and this one. When it happens, all they will hear is the sound of children screaming, as if from a great distance. A smoking orb of nothing will form and pulsate above their expensively coiffed heads, and from that orb will emerge a thousand starving crows. As I slip through the widening blackened maw in my new form, they will only catch a glimpse of my radiance before they are incinerated. Then, as tears of bubbling pitch stream down my face, my dark work will begin.

I will open one of my six mouths, and I will sing the song that ends the earth, and all things that in it are.

Yeah, you could say I've been angry about how this whole work situation has turned out.

It's been too long since I've posted

1) Happy Birthday Audrey!
My wonderful wife is 25 today. We're going to dinner, dessert, and then a concert (The Samples are in town!)

2) Looking for work, had an interview that went real well, expecting offer soon, another interview or two next week. I'm not worried about being employed, but I'm contemplating the effect of taking a different position might have on my career.

3) I'm a slob.

Und hence

Thanks to the one person who called and offered condolences about my job going bye bye. I don' tknow where things are going ot end up or what I'm going to do next, so here's a dancing orc.

There's the rub.

So, here's the thing. Found out Monday that the state funding through the DOC had been cut, and our program is going bye bye as of the 31st of May. So my co workers and I are off to look for jobs. This cut is of questionable nature, the timing shady and dubious (mid contract). I wonder if we'll ever get the full story, but the easiest summation is that we were pawns in a career game move by one of the state CTS mental health directors. He thinks he can cut our program and get more for less money. He'll be surprised. State employees of my/our qualification level earn about $1000-1500 more a month. If they reduce staff, then quality will go down. The clients are of course caught in the middle... and unfortunately, I can't care about that now, I have a family to keep a roof over and food in front of.

I'm angry, of course. I love (loved) my job. I thought I was finally 100% on a career path moving in the right direction. I was doing something I really loved and being fed in a lot of different ways. Now, to further someone else's selfish ambitions, it's going away. Someone deserves to burn in hell for what they're doing to my family, to my co-worker's families, and the men we're charged to care for.

As for me, I have to go update my resume.

Argh!

SOO BUSY!

We've moved into a new apartment, only half unpacked. We're both really busy and I'm kinda lazy.

Work has been really high stress the last few weeks, there's a lot of political drama and a clique of clients who are making trouble. It's made work interesting, to say the least.

My wife got into graduate school, and we're all really glad for that. In 15 months time, she'll have a new job and hopefully be making more money than I.

We went to Skye's a week ago and had a wonderful time with our friends. We don't get to spend as much time with friends as we'd like. Good thing I'm married, or I might get really lonely!

Amberlynn had her baby, super-congrats. Someone asked Audrey when we're going to have a kid, and she said "when the one I have at home grows up". Ouch.

Hold fast enough to the Silence
And of the ten thousand things in the world
All can be worked on by you.
-Lao Tsu

I love me some peace and quiet. Which is admittedly strange since I'm a bit of a talker as well, an orator, if you will. Me, I think of myself as a bit of a storyteller (albeit a long winded one) and I like to paint my scenes with words. But I find I also have an appreciation for the opposite. I like to sit and get absorbed into something like a book or writing or surfing the net and just enjoy the sound of air around me. I can't study with music or the TV on. One of my most favorite things about snow is how it muffles the entire world.

Sometimes, when my wife and I argue, she will frustratingly exclaim, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!?!?" And many times I just answer "Peace!" It doesn't seem to work. But like all too often, practicing peace tends to work better than asking for it.

Moving Right Along

We're moving into a new apartment this weekend. It's nice, a roomy 2 bedroom place over in the Parkrose area (East of 215 off of 122nd). I'm excited to get everything in and make it "ours". We got some paint and are going to do a wall or two, and we have lots of artwork, and I'm excited to see how it all shakes out.

So I just sent this to my wife...

Viva la Valentine's day.



Yeah, I know, I'm a nerd. Thanks to Diesel Sweeties for the idea.

Sitcking this here so I can refer to it later...

Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one. A moment. In childhood. When it first occured to you that you don't go on forever. Must have been shattering. Stamped into one's memory. And yet, I can't remember it. It never occured to me at all. We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the word for it. Before we know that there are words. Out we come, bloodied and squawling, with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, theres only one direction. And time is its only measure.

And his good friend Harvey...

There's a new client at work...

He has a friend named Andres that has been known to occasionally exert a bad influence on the client in question. Apparently Andres helped get him involved with drugs, and later with crime, assisting the client in some of his illegal hijinx. As it turns out, Andres doesn't actually exist. At least he doesn't exist in the mortal plane you and I now occupy. Now, I've had a lot of clients in my time, some highly functional, some not as much, but this is the first time that I've been around a person that doesn't exist, unless you count taking pictures with Santa at the mall when I was a kid. Add to that his interesting habit of standing around for about 30 seconds before responding to a question, and we've got a real challenge on our hands!

On Friday afternoon, while I was looking forward to the weekend, I was standing near the client not really saying or doing anything, and he turns to me and says, "He's taken pieces of me that I'll never get back." Then he turned and walked away. I may not forget that for a long time... "He's taken pieces of me that I'll never get back."

*shakes head*

The Birth Of Words

So Ansley was discussing on her blog whether or not it was alright to feel pride in your work... and I must admit that my first reaction was more along the lines of "well duhhh...." But that made me think about the meanings of the words that we have, that we use, or even don't use very often. There's an exchange in the Matrix Revolutions that makes me think about that. Neo is speaking to Rama, who is, in fact, a computer program:

Neo: I just have never...
Rama-Kandra: ...heard a program speak of love?
Neo: It's a... human emotion.
Rama-Kandra: No, it is a word. What matters is the connection the word implies. I see that you are in love. Can you tell me what you would give to hold on to that connection?
Neo: Anything.
Rama-Kandra: Then perhaps the reason you're here is not so different from the reason I'm here.

They go on to discuss Rama's daughter, Sati, and how Rama is attempting to save her from her fate in the machine world, concluding with:

Rama-Kandra: That is our karma.
Neo: You believe in karma?
Rama-Kandra: Karma's a word. Like "love". A way of saying 'what I am here to do.' I do not resent my karma - I'm grateful for it. Grateful for my wonderful wife, for my beautiful daughter. They are gifts. And so I do what I must do to honour them.

See, here's the thing. I'm bilingual, so I understand that words that we use are mere verbal constructs wrapped around an idea, thought, or concept that we're trying to communicate to another person. Words fail us. English is a delightful language, but can it really describe karma? There are words and phrases that I used often in Japanese that just don't translate into English. I imagine there are lots of things that work like that. I wonder why God made a world in which only small portions of the inhabitants are able to effectively communicate one with another? I speak the same language as my wife and we have a hard enough time seeing eye to eye as it is!

Life or Something Like It.

I work, come home, spend time with the wife, and on the weekends we try to have a little adventure. I read, I think, and I play a bit. Sadly, I haven't blogged about it. My job makes me question my view of the world. This is not a bad thing. I like having a different sense of perspicacity. I ask myself questions I've never asked before, and I see things from a different view that I've never had to consider.

Things like:

When should a person be forgiven? I mean for doing truly awful things... The Doctrine & Covenants and Bible both say that there is no forgiveness in this world or the next for someone who commits murder... but I actually know some murderers now. Who am I to say they're not worthy of that? Where does mental illness come into play? Is there really such a limit to something like the atonement? The scriptures say yes but my heart doesn't seem to agree. I have no conclusion.

Are some people not worth the effort to help? I have a wide variety of clients who take their recovery and treatment to a varying degree of seriousness. Is it not more effective to spend more energy helping people that deserve it? But on the other hand, doesn't everyone deserve a chance... the same chance?

It may sound negative, but I like that I have a job that stretches and challenges me emotionally, professionally, educationally and mentally. My wife is glad that I work at a place that appreciates me, as opposed to a vampiric institution like Northwest Behavioral.

New Toy.

So, I wheeled and dealed and canoodled and got myself a new iPod.



So you might be asking "Wait, didn't you already have one, goofball?" and the answer would be... Yeah, but this one is NEW. Old and busted versus new hotness. They retooled the iPod line, and this one had a couple cool new features for the same price ($300) as the one I got last year. The new iPod 5th Generations are thinner, lighter, come in a color other than white (finally), have a much larger COLOR LCD screen, can play VIDEO, and hold 10 gigs more than the original entry model... basically everything that made my iPod cool just got cooler. They're new enough that my old one was still selling for a decent price on ebay, so I made most of the purchase price of a new one from that. So now it's ticking away here as I upload my entire music collection. Gosh... these things are so cool! The saying is "I thought I was happy, then I got an iPod". I like being able to carry every song I've ever downloaded and every CD I ever listen to in a cool looking sleek device that weighs 4.8 ounces and is only .4 inches thick!