It's The Economy, Stupid!

While I have been neglecting you, I have been attending to my house. Here's the story behind the headline (and oh, parenthetically, forgive me if I'm repeating myself...). My fact finding trip to LA revealed these two facts.

1. Regarding my career as a Marriage and Family Therapist: The internship in LA would/will be a fantastic opportunity and I am still jazzed about it. Basically, they train you and mentor you and guide you and etc. etc. you in creating a private practice. Bbuuuttttt, it doesn't pay for the first three months. And then it pays a portion of the fees you take in from your clients. And you pretty much have to find the clients, which is indeed a major part of building a practice and you get lots of support, etc. etc., but it takes time. And the current economy is not one in which people, even in LA, are lining up to see their therapists. "Let's see, shall I put gas in my car or pay my shrink?" So we're talking three months without any income and then however long with however limited income.
   
2. My foray into the rental market in LA revealed, as I've told you, the fact that I've passed the point in life where I'm willing to suck it up lifestyle-wise. That being the case, I would have to pay about twice what I could get for renting my house to lease a "do-able" place in LA. Ah, but you over the in the corner, waving your hand wildly: Why, you ask, don't I just sell my house? As Husband #1 used to say, "Good question, Batman." (Isn't it funny the things that stick with you decades after a relationship is over?) And the answer is that I live smack in the middle of the most depressed housing market in the United States. If I could sell my house, it would mean pricing it to compete with all the foreclosures, which (a) would mean a HUGE loss, and (b) wouldn't be enough to buy a place in LA.
   

So you do the math. No income plus major outlay for rent equals gross spending of capital--or as I have come to think of it, major money down the toilet.

Having done the math myself, I came to the conclusion that I must stay put until the market evens out. I have to be able to take enough out of my house to buy a condo in LA. That's not an unheard of exchange of real estate; I just need to have patience. And surprisingly, having made that decision, I am feeling quote hopeful--about, I dunno, my life or something. Which just goes to show you--something. Or not, as the case may be.

The Wayward Wind

PhatMommy has writer's block. Me two...or rather, too. All of the wonderful things, the pithiest of my normally pithy comments, have gone the way of the wind...and it's a restless wind, that's born to wander......

Ahem--in today's mail I got a Xeroxed notice from the Family Life Center. At first, I thought it was one of the many varieties of Christian churches that have come to minister to Elk Grove's needs. But no, t'was an Employment Opportunity, two of them actually. The first was for a "mature couple" willing to minister in a "highly respected residential treatment program" for adolescents in "the beautiful countryside of Petaluma." Indeed, Petaluma is quite lovely, and since the job came with "Housing in a beautifully furnished country home including utilities, food and household expenses," I was enticed. Alas, I am not part of a couple, so that job could not be mine. But wait, wait, on the other side of the marigold sheet was another Employment Opportunity, and this one was for a mature, caring MFT Intern. Doesn't that just sound like me. I'm mature. I'm caring. I'm definitely an MFT Intern.

I got quite excited--was the universe offering me something new? I've been of a mind to move to the Bay Area and, hey, I think Petaluma qualifies. Or near enough. Plus this position offered the same beautifully furnished country home and a "competitive salary." In return, I would provide a "nurturing, stable home environment for four male students." Yes, I would, because I was mature and caring AND an MFT-Intern AND I like boys (I actually prefer them to girls, who I find to be rather MEAN). My imagination took of like a tumbleweed along the Texarkana border.

Yes, yes, I would apply for this job. I'm good with kids. Particularly wayward male kids. I would move to Petaluma and and and---.

I'd have to get up early, wouldn't I? And probably prepare three meals a day. And would I be keeping that beautifully furnished country home tidy? Oh no no no, that is so not me.

For I'm a wayward wind.....

Memorial Day: Thoughts, in no particular order

• I was married, the first time, on Memorial Day. Funny, but I didn't remember that until just now, after I wrote the title. Of course, the year I was married, Memorial Day was not on May 25th, so I suppose I could be excused for not remembering my anniversary. Since it wasn't.
• I was about to say that mine was not a military family. Until I thought about my Uncle Bert, my dad's brother, who served in World War II. And my Aunt Teddy, my mother's sister, who was a WAC in World War II. And my brother-in-law who served in no war, having enlisted and gotten out just before Viet Nam.
  
• My dad was exempt from World War II because he was Needed At Home. That is, he worked in a job in an industry that had priority. He had extra gas rations because of whatever that priority was, but the story my mother always told was that my father hated not being in uniform during those years.
  
• One of the careers that I contemplated during that period in my 20s when I didn't know what to do with myself was joining the Navy. It is a good thing that I didn't because I now realize that I would have been a Court Martial Waiting To Happen.
• Dateline had an excellent (except for Keith Morrison's delivery) hour long segment called "Coming Home." The gist of it was that to have killed someone during war marks these soldiers forever and is often the precurser of PTSD.
  
• When I was in grad school, one thing I hoped to do with my MFT degree was work with vets who had PTSD. I was all geared up to do that until I learned that you need a doctorate to work for the VA. I don't know if I would have been good at it or not, but the urge is still strong.
  

I don't think it's appropriate to say Happy Memorial Day, but I want to thank every soldier, then and now, who fought for our country. Hokey? I don't think so. Or rather, I don't care.

The Check Arrived Today

...from the Superior Courts of California, the lofty sum of $23.50, of which a goodly sum was for mileage--and that should tell you something about distances in our great state. However, I didn't announce this so that you could feel cheered for me, having that extra money in my pocket, but because I now feel absolutely free to tell you exactly what I think of jury duty.

Don't, under any circumstances, commit a crime, because the last thing you want is for your fate to be in the hands of a "jury of your peers." I realized this the first time I sat on a jury. It was a relatively simple case: a homeless man was thrown out of McDonald's by Downtown L.A.'s Security Forces, known to all as "The Pink Police," so-named for the color of their uniform shirts. The homeless man, let's call him Mr. X, was an older fellow with an abundance of white hair and a cane. That last is important, because--clue coming--it figures in the case. Mr. X objected to being routed from his warm seat at the back of McDonald's where he was simply resting his eyes, and when the Pink Police suggested he had to leave, with some physical maneuvering on their part, Mr. X may have reached for his cane. To rise...or to strike, that is the question upon which The People vs. Mr. X rested. This case, which required the services of both an Assistant D.A. and a Public Defender (both being paid for by The People), lasted a good two or three days. Mostly it was taken up with the Assistant D.A. being taken to task by the Judge (also an employee of The People) for a multitude of mistakes, all of which were due to the fact that this was the very first case he had ever tried. That this was just a bogus charge, without merit, blah blah blah, was obvious to anyone who had a brain. I knew that and figured, we the People, would take care of the bullshit is short order. I was wrong. My fellow jury members willingly sat for another three days--oh, and did I mention that this took place the week before Christmas?--arguing about when a cane was a weapon or a prop for a handicapped man and who said what when why or not. There certainly was a lot of blah blah blah, as this one and then that one on the jury wanted to be heard, to be agreed with, to be right. As you might imagine, I had little patience with this, and I wasn't the light of the deliberation room. But no matter--eventually, we agreed to disagree (it was December 23rd by now) and the jury was officially hung. Mr. X presumably went free, which maybe wasn't the best thing for him over the Christmas holiday.

I will not go into the same detail about the second case I was on the jury, except to say it was a civil case involving a van carrying about seven people, several of whom were pregnant, none of whom had seatbelts. Said van went over a metal sheet in the road and so jarred the passengers that they suffered all manner of whiplash, not to mention prepartum depression and scabies. Thus, they were suing the large construction company who had placed the metal in the road to cover a trench they were digging, all of which was, as you might imagine, well-marked but missed by the driver of the van. Again, the jury was a mess of warring egos, but this time, I was the Foreperson and I wrestled them to the ground. We found for the construction company, even the most bleeding-heart, anti-Capitalist of us.

And this case, the one for which I was paid that princely sum, this was a real horror involving some Really Bad Stuff. Such that one of their questions during voir dire was to ask of if we knew of this case from Oprah or America's Most Wanted. Of course, none of the fortyeight of us in the panel watched either program. Ever. We were untainted. We were also all perfectly comfortable with talk of vaginas and such. All of us. Including the man who twitched every time the judge said the word. I could see that this case would push the buttons of the good people who were eventually chosen and they would, some of them, turn into seething masses of neurotic needs, which would be unleashed in the jury room. Think Snakepit. I didn't want to be there.

As you know, I was saved by the numbers. One other man and I walked away of the original forty-eight. But if I had been called into the box, I felt sure that my answers to a couple of the voir dire questions would have gotten me thanked and dismissed:

"What's your attitude toward the presumption of innocence?" I think it's great as a concept but it doesn't work so well in real life these days. In fact, it barely works at all. We're so juiced up on who's right and who's not, who's good and who's bad that we make up our minds before the case has even gotten to court.
Do you have any special knowledge of child molestation? Yes, courses on child abuse were a part of the curriculum during my MA degree in psychology. And in my work with children as a marriage and family therapist intern, I was a mandated reporter. I had to know both the law and the implications of evidence.
Can you base your decisions entirely on the evidence and the law? No. To ignore what I know from my experience and my education about child molestation would immoral.
Do you believe a false accusation is possible? Likely? Are you kidding? It happens all the time; just read the newspapers.

I once met a big time defense attorney from New York and he told me I would be the last person he would sit on a jury because I'm smart and I have a strong sense of right and wrong. And that, folks, is our justice system. It stinks.

I Quit

At ten something this morning, I called up the Boss Lady's boss. I didn't know what I was going to say until I said it. "I can't do this anymore." I elaborated a bit, a short version of my post last night. She was neither surprised nor upset. In the least. Clearly I saved her some disagreeableness of her own--like telling me that I would not be continuing to teach the Parent/Teen class the next time. I said it for her and she agreed, "Yes, we are going with another teacher next time." I knew it when she pulled in Patty Pigtails two weeks ago, but when I asked her then, she just said that Patty P. needed more hours.

Permit me a short disquisition on how much I FUCKING HATE THAT SORT OF BULLSHIT. Christ, if people who counsel others on "keeping it real" can't keep it real themselves--! But why should I be surprised? I know that most of us (present company definitely included) got into the therapy business because we once sat in the client's chair and thought, "Hey, I could do that." That being the case, it makes perfect sense that most of us still qualify for the DSM in one way or another.

So--now what?

Well, that's the end of my career as a Marriage & Family Therapist Intern. I've burnt enough bridges and there are so few of them here that I can say, to slightly change the title of the Julia Phillips book, I'll Never Work As An MFT-I In This Town Again. Knowing that was part of my calculations as to how I wanted to handle this situation. Am I sad about that? Somewhat. But relieved as well. And excited. That I can say, for the first time, stand up straight, breathe in and admit: I failed at this. Despite my best intentions, I couldn't do it. Instead of being humiliated, I feel liberated.

I'm in one of those periods in my life when the pieces that have been hurtling through the air are beginning to slow down, to seem to be wafting into some sort of discernible pattern. Call it the jigsaw puzzle of the rest of my life--and doesn't ByJane seem a good place to work at solving it?

Wednesday's Child Is Woeful

It's a tough day, my Wednesdays. The weekly meeting. I dread it. I go in armed to the gills with good intentions to keep my mouth shut. Sometimes I'm successful. It doesn't matter, though, because somehow the boss lady will find a way to shoot me down, and invariably I leave feeling like a two inch piece of crud. She doesn't like me, the boss lady. Perhaps it's some atavistic thing; maybe my pheromones clash with hers. More likely, and this too is atavistic, I'm too much of an alpha being for her. Only one strong dog allowed, and she is most definitely it. The rest of us must fall in line, chorus our yelps in concert with hers and bare our necks from time to time to show submission. I would do it if I could, but with me, it's just not believable. One of my colleagues told me she's deliberately played dumb, so the the boss lady won't pick on her. That's smart--but somehow it's beyond the range of my dramatic skills.

And/or -- I don't want to. One would think that in the business we're in, authenticity would be prized. One would think that, wouldn't one.

Tonight I came home, squeezed my dog, and had a glass of wine. Wine definitely helps. My chin is not scraping the floor, as it has in weeks gone by. I don't expect to be immobilized for the next 36 hours by a deep, dark depression--as I have been in weeks gone by.

Tomorrow morning I'll get up and decide how to deal with this situation. Suck it up? Cry uncle? What would you do?

So it's 11:11 and I can tell I'm giddier than a rattlesnake with a toothache.

I spent the working hours of tonight coaching a group of parents trying to find the magic button that will turn their teens into proper, respectful, God-fearing American citizens. It ain't happening, people, is what I want to tell them. I am probably older than every one of them so why am I having to say over and over again: don't you remember what it was like? don't you remember how you felt? Some of them do remember and they're the ones whose kids will probably end up okay--after some period of drugs, alcohol and illicit sex (don't you remember what it was like?). The kids I fear for are those whose parents refuse to remember, who have come to me to Fix The Kid--or else. I have little patience for these parents, which is not such a good thing affecting as it does my empathy, which is, as we all know, the bottom line of any good shrink. But then, I'm still just a shrink-intern, so maybe my patience will gather moss as I gather hours.

See, you can tell by the utter what-the-fuck-is-she-talking-about of that last sentence that I'm giddy.

Flotsam and Jetsam...post Christmas

I don't know if several days break is what I've been giving myself. I don't think it is the beginning of the end. More, I want to really get at why I'm doing ByJane, the "good" reasons and the "ill". I've erased that last phrase several times, because I don't like the opposition of good and ill. But it keeps coming back into my head, and I think it's because in some ways the "ill" reasons are those that I consider parts of my psyche that I would rather not exist. In other words, shit that I do.

One majorly (as they say) reason I've done (tense intentional) ByJane is because I want to play with the big guys, the A-listers. Not because I particularly like them (some I do; some--eh) or because I have anything really in common with them, thirty- and forty-something mommybloggers that they are. I want to play with the big guys because, pure and simple, that will signal to all and sundry, not the least of which is moi, that I have great worth. This is so obviously "ill" that I need say no more.

Another reason, which is nestled right in tight with the one above, is that I want to make money writing. Now I could, as I have done before, work to do it the traditional way: query, article, rewrite, revise rewrite, revise revised rewrite, wait for pay. Can you tell what fond memories I have of freelancing? So one would think I would do most anything to avoid it. Yes, one would. Unless one knew my uber-contrary ways.

Here are the things that I have been told/asked to do on my blog so as to make it PAY: (1) Focus on just one topic. I am constitutionally incapable of doing this. I have ADD for chrissake, people; my focus is in the best of times scattered. And besides, I don't wanna. And besides that, shouldn't the sharpness of my prose make up for the lack of focus? I mean, some days I reread what I've written and I think, hot damn, that's good. I wait for the world to beat a path to my door and...and...and...I'm still waiting. Then I think, hey , maybe it's not so good, maybe I'm fooling myself, maybe I've lost It. And then I'm all depressed and sad and who wants to write cheery things in that state of mind.

(2) Write about the breakup of my marriage. Do you have any idea how my stats went up when I first broke the news? Not to mention that I got a contract to write about divorce for a site that either never got going or is swinging without me. Because, frankly, I'm not so good at putting that ironic twist on someone else's, my soontobex's, psyche. I figure he's entitled to do his thing without my commenting on it and drawing the world's attention to it and creating subtle jokes and cynical snipes about it. And since all of that is one half of the story, I sorta can't write about the breakup of my marriage. Even if it would pay handsomely to do so. And maybe, even, make me an A-lister (because even I realize that Divorce is a focus, a single subject, that elusive grail). Not writing about it also means that some days what is on my mind is a great big ole elephant in the blog. A subtle beige one, with floppy ears. About which I will say no more because who wants to write cheery things in that state of mind.

Okay, the symmetry of these two final sentences is very nice and all, but really leads to the impression that I'm walking around wounded, dragging my limp and shattered ego/heart behind me. Well, t'ain't so, McGee. Generally speaking, I'm pretty up these days. I'm working on stuff and there's movement and life is good. Maybe because I'm working on Stuff. The advantage to having this shrink education (not to mention the wisdom of, ahem, the elders) is that I really can see my Stuff. I can lay it out and go, Ohho so that's what that's about...Hmmmm, very interesting. And then I think, oh, great for the blog. And then I think, why do I have to turn my every insight into a blog post? Am I living my life to live it--or to blog it?

And that brings me right back to the Original Ill--blogging as a manifestation of an untoward ego need.

Wooow! who said that?

C is for Clients

...and yes, that's what we actually call them. Or you, as the case may be. Unless we have the magic Doctor in front of our name when we might also call them (or you) patients. Often we just refer to them by time, as in "My ten o'clock." But never by diagnosis, since that is verboten, not to mention forbidden, by the rules of the various boards that license us.

...and yes, I'm seeing them again.

...and yes, I'm questioning myself again.

The clients that I thought I wanted to treat when I was in school--the poor, the needy, the really fucked-up--well, maybe I was wrong. Maybe when I insisted that the one kind of client I never wanted was the Middle Class Woman Who Whined, maybe anyone with an ounce of understanding about things psychodynamic could see that this was a huge case of countertransference. Which none of my instructors thought to mention to me.

Basically what it means is that I didn't want to treat myself. Or people like me. Who I seem to think are weak, sniveling people with weak, sniveling issues to deal with. Like wobbly self-esteem and shitty mates and tedious workplace traumas. No, I wanted the real thing: Bring me your psychotic, your medicated, your traumatized, personality-disordered huddled masses--and I will wave my torch of empathy and grant them instant calm, if not bliss.

Well, ha! And ha! again. The huddled masses--they are so incredibly complicated, not to mention relatively hopeless, and sometimes scarey. They live in neighborhoods that are alien, in houses that are so tiny and ramshackle as to be barely there. If they live in houses at all, because remember, my very first client was a schizophrenic homeless woman.

I loved her. Not literally, but all the parts of her that were middle class, and dealing with a overbearing mother. But not so much when she started getting into the groups of martyred soldiers who were following her down the street, beckoning to her from doorways, trying to entice her into a life of sin. I knew delusions when I heard them. But from a middle class woman? Was it possible--? Nah, it was just me, middle class me, having a major countertransference issue.

Countertransference is a good thing and a bad thing. It's part of what enables psychotherapy at all, but damn, I'd rather not have my shit forced in my face where I can't ignore it. But my choices, it seems, are either to face it--or find an excellent excuse when I don't want to be a therapist after all.

Logging Hours...

I am logging my hours for the BBS so I can get them signed by past supervisors so that when I finally have 3000, I can take yet another impossible exam. You probably didn't understand any of that except for the last bit--unless you are a marriage & family therapist, counselor, clinician, whatever--take your pick. So let me translate: The BBS is the Board of Behavioral Sciences which is responsible for California therapists licenses (not psychologists, however, that's another board) In order to get licensed in California, one must have an MA in Psychology at least AND 3000 hours of various kinds of experience, training, etc. which must be supervised by a licensed BBS MFT supervisor. Or some such thing. I haven't paid all that much attention because it seems to me that by the time I have the 3000 hours, I'll be dead. Currently, I am pre-licensed, which, although it makes me sound like a used car, means I can do therapy under the supervision of a yadayadayada.

If you are still with me, it's probably because you're either bored at work or have a friend/family member who is going through the logging of hours business. In which case, you must send them to this nifty site, which offers, for a nominal fee, software so one can do the whole thing on the computer. Which is a vast improvement over doing it by hand, a task that always includes much stress over my post-aneurysm crappy handwriting ("She used to have such lovely handwriting...almost calligraphic in nature...sigh...").

This logging of hours means I am going back over my calendar for the past two years. And finding addresses. And phone numbers. And the license # of my supervisors. And lots of other shit that I should have done at the time. My friend Marlene has a spreadsheet of her own going. But then my friend Marlene is well-organized. Her friend Jane is not. Her friend Jane has bits and pieces all over the place, which I mean to file and sometimes I do file them but then I forget that I've filed them or where I've filed them. In LA, there were only certain places where this detritus of my life could be lurking, but here in Elk Grove--sheesh! all the world's a stage.