Best Pack Job - Ever!

I am taking a vacation this week! Tuesday morning bight and early I will board a place in Nashville and fly to Chicago. From there I will transfer to a flight that lands in Reno at about 12 noon. On the leg from Chicago to Reno I will fly with two dear lifelong friends, Pam who lives in Raleigh and Jeanne from Oakland, Michigan. We all knew each other from college days at the University of Michigan. Usually I carefully pick books to read, puzzle books, and movies to download onto my iphone to pass the time during the 5 hour flight. Not this time. We have not seen each other for 3 years and have many flights of catching up to do. So, my backpack is as light as it has been in a long while! And my lightened purse fits in it.
But that's not all! We will be met in Reno by our hostess, Judy, the fourth among us who lives in Escondido, CA and has a cabin in the mountains at Mammoth. We will spend 4 days hiking, kayaking, canoeing, eating and laughing, and whatever else catches our fancy. Get this - 6 underpants, 1 bra, 1 sleep outfit, 3 pr socks, 2 pairs of shoes, 1 Capri, 1 lightweight jacket (new from Anthropologie!) and 1 tee for a nice dinner out, 2 Capri, 1 shorts and 1 long pant plus 4 tops. All rolled into my smallest suitcase. Bathroom stuff fit right to the side and there was even enough room for the 4 pairs of earrings I bought as gifts. One small suitcase, 1 light backpack and I am off! I'll tell you all about the reunion Saturday when I get back

Well, well well. Dec 16th to May 16th. 6 months without a thing to say. Well...


I'm on the couch - have been since about Dec. Analysis is an amazing thing. For some reason I am different. I have to keep getting better. It is good.

B

bridge - a good game. Not played enough these days.
berries - one of my favorite fruits - blueberries, strawberries, raspberries - yum
bitchy - women have been taught to lead with either niceness or bitchiness. I had the corner on niceness for a long time. It is a good thing except when you need to access your bitch. Bitchiness can be fun.
Bagger Vance - one of my favorite movies.
baseball - one of my favorite sports if not my favorite. I played first base and hit the long ball.

leftover a
anger - not always a bad thing

Encyclopedia Exercise A

Recently I have been reading books written in an encyclopedia style. Also a blog called The Last Psychiatrist who simply updates his blog every Tuesday and Friday. So, my latest attempt to blog more frequently.

A

Age: I am 61 and I don't believe that. When I was 31 or so we had a friend who was 81. One night she came to dinner. I had a softball game and came home in my uniform passing the ball between my hands. "Throw it ot me," she said. "I used to play." I tossed the ball ever so gently in her direction - like I was tossing to my 3 year old. Ann was quite disappointed. "I meant really throw it," she said. "I am the same person inside this body and I like playing ball". I have never forgotten that and I am here now to tell you it's true. Just because the body does not let us do all we used to , it doesn't mean we don't want to. We are the same person in here. Or hopefully a better person.

Aprons" I never wear them but love to look at them in stores. Anthropologie has really cute ones this season and I have bought two as gifts. I wish I had bought myself one.

Analysis: Still feels like regular therapy. We are talking about failure in empathy these days.

Arrested Development: A very funny, on many levles, TV show. Second only to The Carol Burnett Show.

Ass: The first thing that got fat on me. I noticed it after the birth of my second child.

So much for every day.
The analysis is going well. I am not on the couch yet. We meet three times a week.
I want to leave my job and am not sure how to go about that. This is the topic of most of the sessions. Plus all the stuff that goes with that.

SPORTS SEASONS

OK so I missed yesterday. Here is yesterday's blog.
As sports seasons go this one is pretty typical. My team favorites are the Cleveland Indians and the Michigan Wolverines. Fall is a time when one is finishing the season and the other is beginning. A perfect October to me would be the Cleveland Indians in the World Series and the Wolverines in contention for the national championship. In other words, undefeated. (I don't ask much )
But this September, things looked good. The Indians were peaking and actually made the playoffs, and Michigan was ranked 9th. Well, we all know what happened and this is just to wonder what it would feel like if one or both of my teams could actually win the big one(s) and go all the way.
Congratulations to the Red Sox (choke) and Kansas???

HABIT

OK I am going to write every day. Forget the theme - what I learn on the couch - or trying to be cute or funny - I'm both - or telling myself I don't have anything interesting to write about - I don't but few do and it doesn't matter because it's fun to read and is a slice into people's minds and lives. And forget trying to be a writer or doing it in the right way. I'm not and there's not. And I have to practice writing if I want to write.

Practice is underrated by the way. At least by me. If I want to write - or play golf or do therapy or anything with ease I have to practice. And if I want to know what I think, I have to practice throwing ideas around and changing my mind. Exploring.

Jemm in session today: I don't know what I'm saying

Shrink: That's OK you're just exploring.

An unfamilar concept for someone who was told what they thought. (Might or might not be a blog for another day.)



Best moments at the clinic today. Two men walked in. One Caucasian, one African. The African had a dirty bandage on the back of his neck. He did not speak English. The Caucasian who brought him did not know what language he spoke, or even his name. He was bringing him for medical care as he stated that the African had been "dumped" on their doorstep. (I missed some of this. The Caucasian must have been some kind of a church or mission worker.) A few tense moments as the African could not make himself understood and did not understand what was being told to him. At one point the Caucasian told us he would leave the African and pick him up later. The African became panicy and ran after him. The staff member who checks patients in tried to calm him. She called a friend whom she thought might speak his language. She gave the phone to him. He kept saying huh? He gave the phone back and her friend thought he might be speaking Somalian. So we called the language line and asked for a Somailan translator. We gave the phone to him. He said Huh? The interpretor on the phone thought it might be Swahili. So another call to the language line. Got a Swahili translator. Gave the phone to the patient. He waved his hands around excitedly! I saw him in the waiting room about an hour later. Sitting quietly with a clean bandage on his neck.

TENDERNESS

The children all have their stories. About how they had to be tough and not let little things like physical illness be a detriment to getting done what had to be done. I can still see my daughter dressed in her pastel Sunday school dress sitting on the couch in our kitchen. She was about 8. She was bent over both arms wraped around her stomach. "My stomach hurts". Ah, I thought. Just trying to get out of Sunday school. "You'll be fine, just get in the car."
My son was about the same age. He had been playing on the monkey bars at the pool during a summer afternoon spent swimming. "I landed on my foot wrong and it hurts". I remember we did ice it and he rested on the lounge chair. When it was time to go, I needed help carring out supplies we had brought for a day at the pool. "Here, help me and carry this to the car"
Other son was 5 and in kindergarten. He was obsessed at the time with The Karate Kid movie and "being" the character Daniel. He had spent weeks - months, years - going around kicking out at eveything and everybody. "My hip hurts" he said one afternoon before school. "Oh you'll be fine. Scott is coming over to play today when you get home. Go ahead and go and I will see you later." He walked to school in those idyllic days.
An upset stomach - getting sick at church -; a cast from knee to toes - a broken metatarsal -; and a 5 day hospital stay in traction - synovitis - later I still feel guilty.
"You know I saw a movie the other day and the character was very tender" I tell shrink. "What is that about me that I don't react that way? "
I got some great insight. Not exactly guilt erasing, but I have offered to help with the cost of their therapies.