Surgery, finishing a project at work, and looking for a new apartment

I'm having surgery tomorrow. Removal of uterine fibroids. I'm actually very excited about it, tho I'm also managing some anxiety at the moment. I strongly believe that once I've healed from this, I'll have control of my body again! I'll no longer be losing blood in huge amounts at random times, and I'll get back the ability to exercise, ride my bike, and walk up a flight of stairs without wheezing! Woo Hoo! Balance that with the first ever total knockout anesthesia experience of my life, and you have the kind of anxiety that I'm grumbling about tonight. Thankfully, my sweetie brought me a prescription of Chocolate from Dr. Haagen Dazs, so I feel like I'm handling it.

Scott is being a completely awesome Primary Caregiver, and my dear friend Randy (who's living in my extra room while he's job hunting) will take over after Wednesday when Scott has to go back home. I'm hoping that I'll be healing quickly enough to put in a few hours of work on the later half of this week although I'm clear that that's a goal, not a requirement.

My co-workers have been pretty darn supportive, and they're ready to deal with my unpredictability this week. Work's been hell the past few weeks, but I kicked ass this past week, especially on Friday, and I got all the ahead work done I could do. I also wrapped up a very difficult project that included a number of difficult people, politics, and databases. I did my best, and I'm satisfied with my work, and I was able to let go with grace when I finished up at about midnight on Friday. I had dreams of rescuing various people and projects, but I had to accept only a portion of dream realization. Some people really don't want to be rescued even when they're steering the Titanic. I waved my red flags, sent up my red star clusters, and talked sincerely to all the mentors I had. So, I did my best and I'm moving on.

And speaking about moving... I will be moving out of my current apartment this December. My lease is up on January 4th, and I'll be moving into a "satellite home" in time for that. I was going to move in with my buddy Caitlin, but her situation at home and my situation at work changed and now it won't be an advantage for both of us to room together again. *sigh* I was looking forward to it, but it's not meant to be this time. So, I'm on the hunt again for a new place to live. I'm looking for a room with a private bath, but roommates and shared common areas are fine. Must be near Crystal City, preferably near a metro or VRE station, and absolutely no more than $800 per month including utilities. I really want to move in before Christmas. Let me know if you have a lead for me.

Wish me luck in surgery, managing my utilization at work, and finding a new apartment. And Happy New Federal Fiscal Year to you all! ;)

catch up weekend

I won't tell you how many emails I had in my inbox today when I dived in to try to catch up... but let's say I was at 99% of the capacity that Earthlink allows for storage before downloading to my hard drive. *ugh*

I did catch up on the really critical/time sensitive ones tho, so if you're waiting for an email response from me and you didn't get one today, please be reassured that it will come soon. It does mean that I'm getting back into a swing that's healthier. I don't want to jinx it by talking about how my health has been better in the last two weeks, but I will say that everything looks good so far for my October 5th surgery.

Work is hell right now. I'm working with a lot of different people, different projects, and different personalities. Deadlines abound, and where we don't have deadlines, we have amorphous blobs of uncertainty. I will be changing projects at the end of this month - just in time to cope with it at the same time as surgery. *ugh* Again I say *ugh*.

I am, however, deeply grateful to God and all his helpers that I have a job and it pays me enough to pay my bills, keep me out of debt, and still visit my beloved support network people every so often. I have health insurance, a body that's free of horrible cureless diseases, and I live in a land of plenty.

Scott and I are about to move a lot of stuff from one storage facility to another, so wish us luck and healthy back movements.

I'm still planning on moving *most* of my stuff into Scott's house sometime in November. The remaining stuff will establish a satellite home for me in DC that will allow me to keep my beloved job. Come January 2010, I will be working in DC Monday - Thursday, tellecommuting Fridays, and commuting to and from Raleigh on Monday mornings and Thursday evening. My first satellite home will be with my dear friend Caitlin. She's returning the favor of my putting her up for about six months when she was transitioning *from* Raleigh to DC last year at this time. She's giving me the spot formerly occupied by her former boyfriend (who is now getting a job as a pest control operator which I think is rather cool since I nudged him towards it as a good fit for his brain and prior experience in construction). He's moving on, I'm moving in, and Caitlin and I will be roommates again for 6 months. After that, I will move into a small apartment somewhere in Alexandria, VA near my office. If you know of good places to look for people renting out a small room with a private bathroom near Crystal City, please let me know. :)

Other bits:
-- Happy new baby thrills to my beloved Cat and Preston!
-- Happy Birthday to my Uncle!
-- Happy Birthday to my new first cousin once removed!
-- Happy Anniversary to my beloved Kirsten and Dylan!

And still prayers are requested for supporting Scott's ex-wife Muir who is still with her father in New Orleans. He made it through his surgery, is now home, and I believe is receiving hospice care at home with his family around him. This is the worst of times for this family, so all prayers of strength and support are appreciated.

My surgery is on October 5; I hate faux little girls

I'm having surgery to fix my malfunctioning uterus on October 5! Yea!!! I'm actually extremely thrilled about this because I've been waiting for the secretaries and doctors to do their thing and tell me when my damn date is. I will *finally* have the surgery which will eliminate the extreme blood loss, the suprises of said blood loss events, and the associated mega cramps. I'm thrilled and excited, and I can't wait to get into that OR!

I'm feeling cranky at the moment because of my growing hatred for little girls - not actual little girls (there are a great many littel girls that I adore), but rather young adult women who are actually little girls inside but they're going around masquerading as grown ups who are responsible, reliable, and deserve the paycheck they get every month. I'm so god damned sick of working with people who have a poorer work ethic than I do, and so many of them are young Generation Y women who don't understand the extent of their responsibilities and *I* HAVE TO FREAKING MAKE UP FOR IT!!! If they were just screwing up their own lives, I wouldn't care so much. It's when their lack of work ethic makes my job harder is when I get pissed. When I rely on them because I'm supposed to and they slack off or just go around thinking that they're doing just fine and I *DON'T* have the position or power to counsel them, I just get stuck with an idiot on my team that drags me down and causes me more late hours at the office! ARGH!!!!

I know... I know... we've all been there. Ever since our first group project in Junior High School we've all had idiots and slackers on our team. I just hate it and today it's annoying me a great deal.

So, to throw some funny on an annoying situation, I will link to a page where you can see the magnificent song from the musical "Annie" entitled "Little Girls!"
If I do this right, this text will hold the link.

Alan's 53rd birthday is today

Alan's birthday is today, and he would have been 53 years old. He's been gone for four years now, and I'm constantly amazed at how the passage of time seems different depending on my mood. Sometimes it feels like it was just a few days ago that I was in the ICU feeling my brain twist into a pretzel shape, and sometimes it feels like there's a whole huge world of time, history, events, aches and pains inbetween his death four years ago and now.

Welcome to life on earth.

Prayer Request

Scott's ex-wife, Muir (SCA: Mistress Francesca) , is currently on an all night vigil with her father in New Orleans in the cardiac ICU. He had major surgery today that did not go very well. I don't know any details other than that, but now's the time for prayers if you're in that business.

Muir is a gem of a woman. She's been in a very positive, healing relationship with Scott since their divorce in 2004, and I've rarely seen a couple so dedicated to building a friendship of sincere mutual support after a break up. Muir has welcomed me lovingly into her life, and I have genuinely enjoyed my growing friendship with her. She is a strong woman with a lion's heart, and now she is facing a major challenge in watching her father go through this process. No one knows what the next few hours or days will bring.

I pray for her to feel strength and know that there are many people sending strength to her from far away. I pray for her to feel not alone even in the midst of some dysfunctional people who may react to this stress in ways that make Muir's coping more difficult. I pray that she may know in her soul and foundation that she is loved, she is worthy, and she is just fine the way she is.

If you're a praying person, please pray for Muir Dean, her father Donald Bradburn, and the rest of their family and friends.

IT'S A BOY!!!!!!

FINALLY!!!!! My dear dear dear beloved friends Cat and Preston have finally had their baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'M SOOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!

Most births are happy times that I applaud for my loved ones who decide to become parents, but this one is super particularly special. This is a baby who has been many many years in coming. This is a baby who has come to parents that are very particularly in need of becoming parents. The world needs these people to be parents, and now that they are, I feel like my faith in God and all that's good in the universe is reinvigorated!

Cat has had more than her fair share of physical challenges and heartbreaks on this journey, and Preston has been right there along with her. Their marriage has been tested and strengthened by every new mountain to get over, and it has been a roller coaster of successes and failures amazing to witness. These two people have shown extraordinary commitment to each other and to their goal of creating a family like few people are required to show. Other words I can use to describe them include but are not limited to: endurance, passion, resilience, determination, doggedness, and sticktoitiveness! They now have the most powerful and precious reward they could ever want, and my heart is bursting with thanks to the universe!

Cat and Preston were mourning one of their own losses when they joined me for the memorial ceremony I held at Pennsic the year after Alan died. I was amazed at how they kept going, putting one foot in front of the other, even to come join me in my horrible grief. I remember that it rained like hell that night, and it was the only rain we had that Pennsic. Cat sat on the ground in the little tent we had, and I felt so powerless to do anything other than hate the universe for all the unfair losses it caused me and my loved ones.

This new birth is undeniably a huge piece of the balancing act the universe is giving us after that horrible time. It touches me in that place way deep down where my grief for Alan is. It’s a piece of light brought into the black cavern of pain in me that was created when Alan died. Very few things bring light down there, and this new baby is one of them.

Welcome to the world little baby!!! We have SOOOOOOO been waiting for you! :)

Uterus, weekly commuting, Pennsic, pet sitting, work, Woman Within, Scott's family

Quick update:
I’m having health problems. My uterus is malfunctioning. I have one big problematic fibroid and two polyps. There are other fibroids that aren’t causing trouble at the moment, but I’m wondering what they will do in the future. My GYN office is scheduling the surgery, and as soon as I get word on when that surgery is, I’ll be a much happier camper. I’ve lost a lot of blood and I’m feeling tired all the time. I get painful cramps on and off, but so far Aleve has been able to keep them from putting me in bed. What’s really bugging me is the unpredictable nature of the huge blood losses that surprise me at various and random moments. I’d really love it if I could just stop bleeding. I’d love to go back to the days of relatively predictable bleeding that I haven’t seen since early spring. I will someday soon, I just have to wait for the doctor’s secretaries to do their job. Apparently the two business days we’ve had since my last appointment weren’t enough. *sigh*
I’m moving in with Scott and adopting a lifestyle of a Washington DC weekly commuter. This is apparently a relatively popular lifestyle in DC where people want to work here but live somewhere else. I love DC – even with the tourists and traffic – but Scott and I want to move our relationship along in a forward direction. That means taking some action to move one of us closer to the other one. Scott owns a house in Raleigh (specifically Cary, NC), and his job is 100% tied to his location at the University of North Carolina. I do not own a house and selling a house nowadays is just stupid if you have another option. My job is a little more flexible than his, so I’m going to take on the stress of commuting, and he’d going to take on the stress of more laundry and food shopping. I’m going to keep a “satellite home” in Washington DC, the first of which will be sharing some space in my friend Caitlin’s apartment. Caitlin stayed with me for about 6 months last year, so now she’s going to put me up as I try out this new lifestyle. Next summer when her lease is up, I’ll find another tiny studio apartment or roommate situation close to my office. When my current lease is up on January 4, I’ll start commuting from Scott’s. I’ll drive into DC on Monday mornings, missing the regular rush hour traffic, work long days Monday through Thursday, drive back Thursday night, and telecommute Friday. This means I also get to keep meeting with my egroup on Tuesdays and stay connected with all my Washington DC loved ones. November is the month of moving, so I’ll be able to take my time and not have to move in one horrible, painful weekend.
Pennsic was great, and I can’t believe I didn’t post anything about it yet. The most significant thing for me was that I decided to *not* produce my own commedia dell’ arte show. My malfunctioning uterus was giving me enough stress that I knew I couldn’t keep up a normal “Sophie At Pennsic” energy level all week. The truly lucky thing was that iSebastiani was doing a show for the Casa Bardicci low brow party on Sunday night, and Anton wrote a whole new show for that event that I got to play in. I then reworked the show a bit for a slightly different cast and redid the show for the Thursday night high brow party! It was wonderful and a fraction of the work producing my own commedia show at Pennsic usually is. I was so happy to roll with the punches and just work with what I had. I had a ton of fun playing with Anton and the iSeb gang, and my sweetie Scott also joined in! He played Flavio and was absolutely hilarious in his attempts to woo Isabella. I was the lusty Columbina, so I was flirting with Arlecchino instead of Flavio. Actually I was flirting with anyone I could – it’s commedia!
Pennsic was also a wonderful time to reconnect with friends. I cherish the annual “family reunion” feel I get at Pennsic.
I also got to play great music with my beloved Musica Subterranea! My favorite gig was playing Casa Bardicci, but it was really crowded with performers and this one “band” that played for belly dancers was trying to kick us out of our spot after we played just one tune! We played for about 45 minutes, and a bunch of the dancers from the regular dance tent came to give us a really authentic feeling to the actual practice of playing for dancers at a big party. It was crowded, full of rude people and high ranking people, but also full of people who loved what we were doing! It was a beautiful environment and loads of fun!
We also played the Knowne World Crown Heads dinner at Midrealm Royal encampment, and that was ok, but less fun. We played because our beloved friend Zof (who was on Royal staff this year) asked us to come and make the Midrealm King and Queen look good by having their kingdom’s coolest music group provide dinner music for all twenty-some royalty pairs from all the kingdoms attending Pennsic. But as Pennsic luck would have it, the light was bad, they didn’t feed us, and we ended up playing for 2.5 hours instead of 1. I had just run the Fools’ Parade (over an hour on stilts corralling 20+ crazy Pennsic Fools) just before hand and only had time to scarf down a sandwich before dressing and prepping for the royalty gig. And I had to completely miss the iSebastiani ICOD performance.  So it goes at Pennsic – there’s always too much fun to be had and too little time to take care of oneself. The King and Queen of Calontir were absolutely wonderful, tho, because after we’d played a few tunes, they sent over to the band their own glasses of mead! I credit my beloved sister, Scott, and Francesca with taking care of me after I crashed hard when we were done playing that gig. They took me back to camp, fed me, and put me to bed. They were awesome!
Other wonderful things include but are not limited to: Midair’s annual improv comedy fest called “Who’s Line Doth It Be Anyway?” where I got to play with many good old friends including Paul Hudert (Paulo Garbonzo) who taught me by example much of what I know about performing as a professional, meeting Accolon’s sweet new wife, helping to launch the new Club Cunradus in camp Spartii, seeing many of my friends including Kat Kinney and Accolon in Zof’s production of Much Ado About Nothing, and ending up the week with a proper Peeps Sacrifice on the campfire with my sister and the rest of the Red Winged Lion gang.
Going back to work wasn’t bad at all because I was happy to get back to air conditioning, flush toilets, and I do love my job. For the week and a half after Pennsic I housesat/petsat for Lisa and Mona – actually for Cobber and Rambo! Cobber is a sweet doggie of medium size and very puppy like temperament. He does really well with the walking and peeing only in places he should, and he likes to jump up on people and pretend he’s small enough to sit in one’s lap or cuddle in one’s bed. He’s only slightly too big for such activities, but I didn’t mind. His eternal sweetness and doggie love easily overcame the awkwardness of his size. I did, however, learn really quickly to quit with the cute baby talk voice when he jumped up on me. I discovered a new voice for animal discipline. I think it surprised me more than it surprised him! But it got the job done.
And Rambo is the coolest cat there ever was! He is *huge* as cats go, and completely mello – even when the dog is trying to eat his head. He defends himself from Cobber’s attempts to play very effectively, but I still feel sorry for him when he looks like he just wants to cat nap and Cobber’s jumping all around him and trying to eat his head. I rescued the kitty as much as I could, and it was really wonderful having kitty loving around again.
Work has been good, and busy as all heck. I’ve had to take some time off here and there to cope with my uterus problems, and I’m now juggling three projects! My favorite new one is the Annual Report to Congress for the Defense Department’s Environmental Programs! I get to lead the chapter on FUDS (Formerly Used Defense Sites) since I worked in the HQ for that program for the past three years. I also get to just be part of this incredible team that’s actually pulling together the data and narratives for *THE* *BOOK* that congress uses to learn what all’s going on in the environmental programs for the Department of Defense! This book is available in a searchable format to the public, and I’ll post the link here as soon as I can, but the coolest part is that I just get to work on this project!! Woo hoo!! It makes me feel like I really can make a difference in this world. I’m a key part of a team that feeds data to the people who make the decisions for our whole country! I’m a tiny cog in the great machine, but I know that what I do makes a difference in the vast mechanism that runs our lives. This is exactly why I love Booz Allen!
I also happen to have gotten into a really wild tiny gig at work supporting the Systems Resource Center – an internal Booz Allen group that focuses on technology trends of the moment – and I’m doing voice recordings for their podcasts! I’m actually standing in a sound booth reading/performing scripts about what Booz Allen is doing in current technology for the internal Booz Allen communication structure. It’s only about 1-2 hours of work per month, but it’s cool!!! I’m actually getting *paid* to do performing work! It’s a tiny tiny tiny amount of my work, but it’s wonderfully fun to be able to say that I am actually doing voice performing for real money!
In other news, Scott went with me to a really awesome workshop done by one of my favorite wise women in the world, Judith Pauly! Judith held a one day, Saturday, workshop about how to actually connect with one’s soul and make changes that really heal and improve a person’s life. Judith is one of my favorite people in the whole world and one of the best leaders and workshop creators I’ve ever met through the Woman Within program. Scott earned Boyfriend of the Year again by just agreeing to go with me, but as we went through it, I was enheartened beyond belief to see him understanding the exercises and actually getting some good stuff out of it! It was wonderful to see him enjoying this work that means so much to me and makes up so much of my life. I got a lot out of the workshop too, but just sharing it with Scott was the most significant piece for me.
I’ve been wanting to blog a lot about “What is this Woman Within thing anyway?” I really don’t have time to do it right now, but I do want to write something here to remind myself to make time to do more of this. Woman Within is just one program out of many that has been created by people involved in the mental & emotional health industry to do something for personal growth that’s different than regular talk-therapy. There is plenty that a person can do with a professional therapist to heal the emotional crap in one’s life and get through emotional challenges in life. This program, however, does different things along the same line. It’s based on many of the same theories, but provides a more experiential learning experience than sitting on someone’s couch and talking to them for an hour a week. It’s no better or worse than talk therapy, and I’ve found that it provides a different method of learning how to cope that works well for lots of people. Ya know how people learn in different ways? Some people are more visual and like PowerPoint slides with graphics a lot? Some people prefer to read a book and think about it for a few weeks? This is an experiential method of learning that has really worked amazingly well for me. I’m going to write more about this concept here on my blog, but I wanted to at least get that thought down. More to come soon.
I just spent the Labor Day weekend with Scott’s family, dad’s side, at a family reunion in Madison, Wisconsin. This completes the summer of getting to meet each other’s families. Scott met my whole family at my grandma El’s funeral this March, I met his mom’s family at their family reunion on the outer banks this June, and then I met his dad’s family this Labor Day weekend. It’s truly amazing how our families are different in size. My mom is an only child and my dad had just one brother. I have just the one uncle who married my wonderful aunt and they had three kids, so my extended family that I grew up with – excluding the marriages and babies that ensued after adulthood – is a grand total of 5 people. If you include my parents and my sister, my blood related family is a total of 8 people. (I’m excluding grandparents since all of ours are dead by now and we had the same number growing up.) Scott’s mom is one of 6 siblings, and his dad is ALSO one of 6 siblings! Scott has 10, count em *TEN* aunts and uncles!!! Each one of them got married at least once – some more than once – and each of them had kids!!! That’s 20, count em *TWENTY* people who all have professions and lives and other families and kids – and now some of those kids have kids!!! It’s HUGE!!! Scott’s family tree makes mine look like a twig! I have, however, worked very hard this summer to memorize everyone’s names, and I’ve done a good job. I can recognize all of them by face now, except for the one uncle/aunt couple from Scott’s mom’s side that didn’t make it to the reunion in June.
Scott has is *SOOOOOOOO* easy! He has ONE aunt/uncle pair to memorize. *ONE*! And just three cousins! I swear to you that I cannot, seriously and honestly, at this point even *count* all of Scott’s cousins! I can rattle off all the aunts and uncles, and for the most part I can name off their kids names, but I know I’m still missing a few in my memory files. Naturally, those are the ones that couldn’t come to the reunions this summer so I didn’t actually meet them in person.
So, it’s been loads of fun to meet Scott’s *HUGE* family, and I do like them. They’ve been very sweet and welcoming to me, and everyone is impressed that I’ve managed to memorize the aunts and uncles! They all took time to chat with me and ask about my life and how Scott and I came together. I felt like they were genuinely interested in me and how I am affecting their beloved Scott. I really appreciated how they reached out to me and consciously connected with me on a sincerely genuine level. Our families are very different in size, but I feel very much at home with both of them.

Facebook...O...M...G!!!

I joined Facebook yesterday upon a whim of distraction in the middle of the workday. I spent 18 minutes on that web page, and now, less than 24 hours later, I am discovering deep new things about myself as a human being.

I have always identified myself as a hard wired extrovert who lives vivaciously in the connections I have with other people. Since Alan died, I have discovered a growing appreciation for introverted times when I really want all those connections to go away. It's been a piece of work for me to learn to accept and roll with those times when I really need to disconnect and spend time alone just for the sake of spending time alone. This all seemed like pretty understandable life processing, though, and I have always felt that my connections to other people is what gives me reason to live. I love reveling in the shared energy of my connection with loved ones, and I never thought that there could possibly be an end or a limit to my enjoyment of that connection.

Then I joined Facebook.

I am reminded of the times shortly after Alan's death when I discovered the meaning of the word "can't." There were times when I had to say "I can't" do something or be something or accomplish something. This is understandable for anyone with an ounce of real world experience and compassion. Grief fucks with a person and takes the grand majority of a survivor's life energy to process, cope, heal, etc. But Facebook??? Why does Facebook now bring to mind the evil four letter contraction???

Because there are only so many hours in the day. I have to spend at least and often more than 40 hours a week working on making a paycheck, I travel to and from work which typically takes about 2 hours out of each day, I have to perform a long list of life maintenance chores, and I absolutely must get at least 7 hours a day of real, healthy sleep. Time invested daily in my relationship with Scott is also a place where some of those 24 hours goes, and that's a joy that does feed my life's energy. Same goes for the blessedly long list of friends and family in my support network. So, please hear me gently when I say...

"I may not respond quickly to anything you say to me on Facebook. The speed of my response to you is in no way related to any judgment I have made about you, how important you are, or how much I love you."

Facebook is officially, in my world, icing on the cake of my life's communications. The real meat of my connections with people outside my brain (which is everyone except my sister) will still live in the times when we genuinely connect - and that quality time will still be juggled and fit into our lives as best we can. Facebook may help add some more quality time into my day, but for the love of all that's good on this planet, please do not take a lack of my attention to you on Facebook as a negative event in any way.

Now if I could just figure out what the difference is between my "wall" and my "profile" I'll be happy...

I figured it out

Ok, well, I simplified a concept I already understood, considered it in my present situation, and felt better about my life by the time I finished the mental process. No real new stuff in the world, but I feel better.

The simplification is this: Every August 12th I'm going to be returning to August 12th 2005. I'm going to remember. There's just no question about that. And since there was just SO much god damned shit hitting the fan because of Alan's death and the secondary, tertiary, and cascading losses and challenges I experienced afterwards, I have about a lifetime of emotional work to do to get through it.

I haven't been doing a lot of work in egroup over the past few months. Admittedly, it's been easy to just pass because my egroup sisters have a lot of work to do too, so we're never bored. But I feel like I've been slacking off on my homework. I've been letting the reading assignments pile up, often with good reason (like going anemic) but I'm still feeling behind.

Now, I'm cramming. There's no test with a deadline, but I only have so much of a cushion/margin/bandwidth and it got full to bursting last week. Alan's 4 year death anniversary, the train suicide, and plenty of Post Pennsic stuff to take care of was apparently more than I could handle. I was extremely exhausted by the end of the week - and I still hadn't gotten anything done. No journalling, no egroup. But I did get in a few good phone calls. That was good.

A lot of people, a sad majority of the people in our glorious modern american society, resist emotional work. It's hard, and getting through life is hard enough, and you can really really get quite far in life here with a rather messy emotional makeup. People treat each other - and themselves - with a lack of respect and honesty as a way of life very often, and we have for millennia. We talk about lofty moral goals, but the status quo is full of lies, fakery, fear, cowardice, shame, and laziness. This is why it's hard for me to do emotional work on a Wednesday. I have to get up, go to work, think and act like a professional, produce something that's worth paying for with taxpayer dollars, and go back to the metro station only after I've done that for at least 8 straight hours. No, I don't get enough Paid Time Off to really take time off when I need to do emotional work. I can't just call in sick. Not if I want to take time off to go see the doctor when I'm physically sick and also go to Pennsic and go see my family at Christmastime.

This is why I was so bothered by being on that train that guy committed suicide on. I only have so much bandwidth, and I was already stretched thin. Now that I've had a day to myself to be not at work, to be in my own home, in the air conditioning (*see later story about AC), I'm feeling very rejuvinated.

Muir was right on the money when she said "Don't take it on." My mom was right (dear god I'm agreeing with my mother) when she said there was simply no call to action that day. I looked, I was available, and there was nothing. No call. Someone else's llama. So, my lesson was to remember to not take it on.

This brings be around to the great question of "What is my lesson for this life?" I like to believe in reincarnation and the concept that we come down to earth as souls looking to learn a lesson about "LIFE" (tm). I'm leaning more and more towards deciding that my lesson for this time around (the big one, not the only one) is to learn how to deal with death - in all its forms. Maybe I've been so damned afraid of dying or of my loved ones dying that I decided once and for all to go and figure the damn thing out.

I can see it all now: Me in my pretty white flowing robes chatting with God in his office. God's flipping through his manila file folders and skimming down a check sheet on his clipboard.

God: "Now then, you've covered a lot of ground in the last few centuries. Not bad for a young soul like yourself. You've learned a lot about love and families, you've gotten started on contributing back something to your society, but you haven't made much progress on the understanding of spiritual existence. You've never had a good relationship with me when you're down there on earth - you never pray, you never write - and you're still letting your mortality slow you down. You don't have much time to be down there in any one life, and you're still holding onto the fear of finishing a life and coming back home. You've got to do something about that or else you'll just keep wasting time."

Me: "Well, I keep ending up in societies where there's not enough food all the time, and I keep getting sick. How am I supposed to get any work done on studying spiritual life if I'm always trying to just keep my body fed and healthy?"

God: "You know that's just an excuse."

Me: (gives God a well practiced puppy-dog-eyes look)

God: *sigh* "Oh all right. If we put you somewhere where you're sure to have enough food, no life threatening diseases, and enough shelter and safety that you can concentrate on your studies, will you go learn how to get over your fear of death?"

Me: "Yea, I think I can." "But I really don't know where to start. I mean, how am I supposed to know what's going on down there if I'm out of contact with you?"

God: "Well that's your first step! Learn to get out of your head and listen for me once in a while! I can't tell you how many times I've been screaming my head off at you from up here and you're just all 'La dee da! I wonder what I'm doing here on earth? Where is God and why won't he talk to me?' If you'd learn to listen, you'd have an easier time down there. And don't worry about figuring out where to start. You'll find plenty of soul mates down there, and plenty of them are going to have to come back here before you do, so you'll be watching a lot of death before you have to face your own."

Me: "Really? Plenty of soul mates?! That sounds great!"

God: "Sure, you've been around long enough to get connected to a lot of souls. It'll be great while you're all down there, but it's going to be hard for you to say goodbye. That's your lesson this time, and I'm not letting you back up here until you get it. I mean really get it."

Me: "Wow. Ok. So, this life is going to be painful?"

God: "Geeeeze.....Add "Balance" to this life's lesson plan and surround yourself with yin-yang symbols once you get there. Don't you get it yet that in order for it to get painful, you get the joyous love part first?! Man! I give you guys the blessing of getting good and bad, both guaranteed, and you *still* complain about the bad! Right up front! How would you like it if I took away that universal balance thing? Huh? Then if it was bad, you'd never know if you'd ever get any good again! You could have a whole life, many whole lives, of just BAD BAD BAD!"

ME: "OK OK - I'm sorry! Thanks for the balance thing. I'll make sure to keep that in my lesson plan. I'll watch out for the yin yangs when the pain comes around."

God: "And if you listen to me when you're praying, I'll remind you that you got joy first - before the pain - and you'll get joy again if you keep your head about yourself."

Me: "Yes sir."

God: "Ok, kid, now get out of here. You've got a life to go live. And if you don't get the lesson this time, you're just going to have to go back and do it again later. I'm not letting you out of this one. It's key."

(I hesitate...)

God: "Now what?"

Me: "Um, it's an awful lot of work to do...and, um... I know I'm going to do my best...but could I have a little help?"

God: "You'll get by with a little help from your friends."

Me: "Well, I'm taking on a lot this time... I was hoping for someone in a closer position."

God: *sigh* "Ok. I'll give you a sister. I'll see if anyone in the Saint Pool is available. If they're booked, you may get a Saint In Training."

Me: "Oh! No problem! If they're in training still, they're sure to get enough experience with me to warrant getting their wings!"

God: "Play nice."

Me: "Yes sir."

God: "Get going."

Me: "See you soon, sir."

God: "Not too soon."

Brought to you by the infamous Voices In My Head Players! ;)

Anyway...
The air conditioning bit I mentioned before is that I'm house sitting/pet sitting for a loved one, and there's only one room that's air conditioned. It's not a massive problem, but it does mean that by the time I'm done with work, doing pet duties, feeding myself, and cleaning my sweaty body, I hit that air conditioned room and feel like passing out. All it means is that it's very hard to get work done - personal, professional, or emotional - after I leave the office. This means that I'm going to devise a different plan for this next week. I'm going to set up a few specific tasks for the evening hours, and make them short and easy. If I plan ahead, and do all my thinking while in my comfy air conditioned office, I should be able to still be productive in the evening.

Washington DC is a swamp and it's August. And I'm part of a modern American society where air conditioning spoils those of us who live with it all day every day. But I must say that it's better than New York City in the summer. :P

Healing.

This is what the Washington Post has to say about the metro death yesterday:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081201791.html

I appreciate the feedback I'm getting from blogging friends. I'm sure now that there was no immediate call to action from the universe for yesterday, and I'm just going to keep my ears perked for one to come in the future. One friend made the comparison that I was just as out of control and powerless to change the outcome as I was sitting on the train yesterday as I was watching Alan die four years ago. This may have been an event where I can simply see the lesson repeating in my life - but in a more gentle fashion this time. This time it's not one of my own loved ones dying, but I feel the death's significance because I was physically close to it.

I'm in the zone. Watching for lessons. More to come.

August Twelfth is a really fucked up day.

Alan died on this day four years ago. Because of this fact, I was moving as slow as molassas in January this morning, in a mental fog. For an as of yet unknown reason, I felt compelled, I mean *compelled*, to do laundry. I had the typical 3-4 loads of Pennsic laundry that I'd started last night, but I just felt absolutely compelled to continue the process, including the sorting of the clean laundry that I normally hate to do. Anyone who's seen "Mount Laundry" on my bedroom floor knows how much I hate sorting and putting away clean laundry. Don't ask me why.

So, long around 11:00am I ask my new temporary roommate Randy (dear friend from Indiana who's currently unemployed/job hunting) to drive me to the metro station. This is another unusual circumstance because I normally take the bus, but I was just feeling so awful this morning I decided it would just be nice to get a ride, and Randy's been awesome about jumping at the chance to do little favors like this since I'm putting him up. Randy's always been an awesome friend, and getting a ride from a person whose company I enjoy is a nice little thing on a difficult day like today.

So, imagine my suprise when I'm on the metro train, the orange line headed in the direction of New Carrolton, into town to get to my office for a half day of work, and it stops at West Falls Church station. The train powers down and all of us sigh that frustrated sigh of "Not again. What's wrong with Metro now?" A metro employee saunters into our car and presses the red button for the speakerphone intercom. She looks as calm as anything. She walks through our car to the next car, and we can hear her say "Everything alright in here?"

We have to wait a few minutes for any news. Next thing we hear on the intercom is something like "We have a situation." I hear the same female metro employee that'd just been in our car yelling at the folks on the platform "All passengers down here!" Apparently she was ushering folks away from the front end of the train.

Next thing I remember is hearing over the intercom "Someone's jumped in front of the train." The same male voice also announced something about us exiting the train, but it took a few minutes for the train doors to open. All my fellow passengers were calm, slightly frustrated, curiously looking at each other, and standing waiting to exit the soon to open doors. Once they did, about 200 people were milling about on the platform. The metro employees were walking up and down the train, looking down through the crack between the train and the concrete of the platform, and periodically huddling.

A new train came into the middle track, eventually opened its doors, and a metro employee yelled into the crowd that we should all board the train. Again, it took a few minutes for the doors to open, a few minutes for the people to board, some more minutes for us to wait for something unknown, and then the train went on its way like normal.

Now I'm wondering, why did all this happen? The metro web page has this to say:

http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/news/PressReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=4008

"Trains single-tracking, expect delays.
Emergency personnel are on the scene at West Falls Church-VT/UVA Metrorail station where a man has reportedly been struck by a train today, Wednesday, August 12, at 11:18 a.m.

Preliminary reports indicate that a six-car Orange Line train headed in the direction of New Carrollton struck a male customer who was on the tracks intentionally as the train pulled into the station.

Trains are sharing one track through the station to allow train service to pass through the area. This is likely to result in delays of up to 30 minutes in the area of the incident as well as some other delays along the Orange Line until mid-afternoon.

(This is the second update to the incident.)

Media contact for this news release: Lisa Farbstein at 202-962-1051.
For all other inquiries, please call customer service at 202-637-7000.
News release issued at 12:03 pm, August 12, 2009."

So, why was I there? Why did my unusual morning put me on this train where someone seems to have been trying to commit suicide? Was I supposed to go help somewhere? Am I supposed to take up the fight against suicide? Am I supposed to serve as the mysterious guardian angel that someone needs at just the right time? Or do I just post the story to my blog, reassure my friends and family that I've avoided yet another metro train accident, and finish the data evaluation I'm supposed to have done for my boss by tomorrow?

I have no idea at present. Suggestions welcome.

I've been ill; I am going to Pennsic

"She's lost a lot of blood!" is a line spoken in many a dramatic movie & TV scene, especially vampire themed shows like Buffy and Twilight (which I just rented and enjoyed enough to want to read the books.) Naturally, Hollywood, and even our beloved Joss Whedon, are far from representing exactly what happens to a young woman's body when she looses a lot of blood. I guess Twilight did an ok job, now that I think of it, given that after she was served as a vampire snack, the next time we see her she's on an IV in a hospital. Anyway...

I lost a lot of blood in early July from having a malfunctioning uterus. Both fibroids and polyps showed up on a uterine ultrasound I had on July 14th, but the detail wasn't enough for my GYN to go ahead with any surgery. I have another slightly more advanced type ultrasound ("Sonohistogram") scheduled for August 19th - which had to be scheduled so late because my body had to cycle again apparently. After this ultrasound, my GYN is sending me to a partner of hers who does a lot of polyp removals. I expect he's going to look at the test results and have what he needs to put me through the proceedure to remove the polyp. They say it's a rather quick and easy outpatient procedure, so I expect to take minimal time off work.

Besides the obvious hassle and severely annoying cramping, this illness has caused me to enjoy a mere fraction of the energy I usually have. The weekend of July 18 & 19 was spent entirely in bed or on the sofa, I've taken portions of days off work, and I can barely keep a normal schedule going. What this means for you, my dear friends and family that occasionally click over here to see what's up in my life, is that I've fallen off the face of the earth. Communications that are not critical to keeping my life and job functioning have had to take a back seat and just not get done. I'm deeply saddened by this, so I'm apologizing sincerely and publicly, and I'm asking you to hear that you mean no less to me just because I've been out of touch. I'm returning phone calls and emails... just at a snail's pace.

I am eternally blessed with the support of my sweet honey Scott, who has been a trooper of massive support this whole time. He's been doing the lion's share of hard labor for Pennsic prep, and I predict my Pennsic would be severely abbreviated if not cancelled entirely if it weren't for his support. So much public applause goes to him for being Boyfriend of the Year - again!

Public appreciation also goes to Caitlin who took care of me all day one Saturday when I needed to get car repairs done. Y'all can rest assured that I have a sturdy support network with Scott, Caitlin, Lisa, and Shannon nearby and a mother without a paycheck-job who's ready to come to my rescue at a moment's notice. I have a good rapport with my GYN, I've researched my condition, and I'm doing everything that seems reasonable to do. Your positive thoughts are always appreciated, but don't worry overmuch about me. This is dealable.

I *AM* going to Pennsic, and I expect to get on the road with Scott after work on Thursday - tomorrow - stay at a hotel, and arrive at Pennsic Friday around noon. Camp Spartii as always. Fool's Parade is Tuesday at 4:00 at the barn, and that's my only scheduled obligation at the moment.

NB: Commedia will happen! If any of my commedia buddies are reading this, and dear god I hope a few of them are (Johannes? Jess? Paula? Anton?), you should know that I do in fact have a plan for implementing mayhem via i Rosi Lioni again! Wackiness will ensue, and if you want to come play, please let me know via email. We will most likely perform once for Camp Spartii and Duke Dagan, and once for Casa Bardici - likely both will be Thursday night. My plan to cope with my unpredictable energy level is to just direct the show if I'm on low energy. I can at least sit in a chair in the shade and shout directions. I'll be damned if I will miss out on doing commedia completely. Laughter is the best medicine, and I need all I can get.

Jess - I haven't forgotten about you and i Greeni Whatevers... I'll be there for you and we'll see what mischief we can manage when we meet up.

So, think positive thoughts for me full of iron, protien, and plump healthy red blood cells!

Love, Sophie/Lara

Life is hard

There is a lot of life going on at the moment. Sure, that ain't news, but I'm particularly aware of it tonight. I had some health problems come up since the July 4th weekend. There's been more death around my orbit lately than I care to deal with. My psychiatrist changed my anti-depression meds, and I don't think the new ones are doing as great a job as the old ones. So, I know I'm in an altered state of mind as I type this.

I've been trying to post to my blogs and failing miserably. I'm having a hard time, but I know my times are no harder than most others. I at least have my job, most of my health, and a roof over my head.

At times like this, I remember how bad it was at the worst of times right after Alan died. I learned something then that I pull up when the going gets rough: What *do* I have and what *can* I do?

What do I have?
- a network of loved ones I know I can count on, and I know what I can count on them for.
- a body that's young and mostly healthy and able to heal
- a brain that's still pretty capable
- a job that provides me money to take care of my body and brain in this society
- a roof over my head that I can keep in livable condition
- a car to allow me to function in this society

What can I do?
- I can keep making decisions and performing tasks to maintain my health and physical healing
- I can keep working at my job enough to keep that job safe and maintained.
- I can keep putting one foot in front of the other every day.
- I can post to my blog to tell those of my loved ones that read it that I care about them. You know who you are, and I wish deeply that I could reach out to each of you personally, thoughtfully, and individually, but I haven't been able to recently and I can't do so in the next few weeks. Please take this as a tiny attempt to reach out to you, my loved ones, and tell you that I love you. I think about you all many times a day, and I miss you all terribly. I wish I could be in touch with you all better, and someday I will get there. Just not right now. You all mean a great deal to me, I care about you, and I hope that you're coping with your own lives as well as possible.

I'm fine, I wasn't on the Metro yesterday.

It's really heartwarming to know I'm loved by so many people, and that those people pay attention to the news. Sorry to be so out of touch. My job has kept me busy like I've never been busy before.

I wasn't commuting on the metro trains yesterday because Mondays are my day to work in the McLean, VA office of Booz Allen for one of my projects that has a workspace there. When I'm there, I drive about 15 minutes north on Gallow's Road from my apartment. No public transportation helps me out on that route.

Normally, I ride the Metro orange line (yes - very cool for me) and the blue line into work. The crash was on the red line. I ride the red line sometimes to go to my grief therapist, chiropractor, the Corps of Engineers office, or Dupont Circle. I was lucky yesterday.

So, there's another reminder for y'all. Life is short, delicate, and very easily snuffed out by suprise.

I HAVE MY OWN OFFICE!!!!! WITH A WINDOW!!!!

Yes, I have finally made it. I have my window office in a big city skyscraper. Dreamed of this since I started dreamin.

At least since I started dreaming of what I wanted to be when I grew up. I'm not quite as thin or fashionably dressed as I was in my teenage visions, but the stability I've built myself here is looking pretty darn good.

I left the Corps of Engineers behind yesterday, and they threw me the most wonderful going away party! We went to lunch at my favorite place in Chinatown, Clyde's, and came back to the office for cake and presents. The folks from the Army Reserves that I work next to gave me a teddy bear in an army uniform! :))) How cute is that?! My friend Sylvia gave me a beautiful box of awesome truffles, and my friend Hilda gave me a huge bouquet of flowers! Then, as if that weren't enough, Hilda produced two photographs of our beautiful building with mats that had been covered in signatures and little good luck notes. I was seriously near to tears. It's been three years since I first came to the Corps, and I will seriously miss the folks I work with.

And now... the next morning... after staying up until 2:00am finishing the last dregs of work I needed to do for the contract... I am now freed to be a regular Booz Allen consultant, fully and completely supported by Uncle Booz and his never ending office supplies. I'm not even really joking. Office supplies are hard to come by in federal buildings, and I always had to just grab some pens and post its when I went to meetings in Booz offices to bring back to my corps desk. No April Foolery here - I'm serious. If you think the federal government wastes money, don't look for the leaks in the cube farms of the hard working desk folks. Also, the coffee at the Corps office was a co-op kind of club where one poor shmoe had to go do the shopping and collect money. Here at Booz Allen, coffee and tea and cocoa are part of the regular office supplies - and in abundance!

There's always copy paper here. There's always someone working hard at fixing the copiers and printers when they're down. There's always enough toner. There's always someone to call to get computer help. There are janitors to do the cleaning and admin people to help keep everything straight. All the stuff an office needs to run smoothly is here in abundance and it's so not there in federal offices. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders just knowing I am not on my own for making my office logistics work.

And did I mention my window?? ;) And the fact that I don't have a roommate? Usually we share 2 to an office, but sometimes someone gets lucky and no one's assigned to the other half of your office for a while. So, for the moment, I have my own office, with a window overlooking Crystal City, and I can revel in my stability. I worked hard to get here, and I'm damn proud.

I also experienced actual hunger for the first time in four days today! The grumbling in my stomach and intestines has come down to a dull roar, the gas production seems to have stopped, and my tummy actually feels like a tummy again! I had a whole can of chicken noodle soup for lunch and it actually tasted good!

So, I have some challenges ahead that are significant, and I feel prepared to deal with them. Juggling more than one contract is new to me, but I have loads of support from my truly awesome Booz Allen team. I am looking forward to my new work, I'm magnificently blissful about my glorious office, and I'm relieved that I have control of my body again. And on top of that, the next Battlestar Galactica DVD just came in from Netflix. The clouds from this latest storm are parting, and the next chapter is beginning. Re-freakin-birth is here baby.

I'm back in DC, but not plugged back in yet.

I'm physically back in DC, but I haven't checked email or voicemail anywhere, and I probably won't until Wednesday. Scott and I had a lovely time in Disneyland Thursday, Friday, and most of Saturday. Then somewhere in the LAX airport on Saturday evening, I ate something that gave me food poisoning. I started vomiting violently when our plane into Atlanta started the downward approach, and I ended up having to go to some unknown Atlanta hospital - whichever one was the closest to the airport - and spend the afternoon in the ER. The nurses did not have much in the way of positive bedside manner, and I won't recommend this hospital whenever I figure out what it's name was.

So, I was treated for severe vomiting and diareah, managed to stop puking, and Scott and I returned to the LAX ticket counter to try to reschedule our flights. I spent the next stretch of hours curled up on a pair of airport seats waiting for my 10:00pm flight home. I got home, luggage was at Dulles instead of National, and I drove home at about 1:30am.

This evening, I'm at work trying to finish the tasks I am contractually obligated to do by the end of business tomorrow, so I won't be thinking about anything else except getting my work done and getting some sleep and food in me at appropriate intervals. So, please don't take it personally if you're trying to get ahold of me and I don't get back with you. I'm not checking messages anywhere, and I won't until I get my own life back to a stable condition. "Put your own oxygen mask on first before assisting others."

And BTW: Scott was an absolute *angel*! He was the only reason I kept going through the ordeal yesterday. He handled the tasks like telling the police, ambulance people, and ER people what my name was and giving them my insurance card. He was there for me *every* single moment, even the gross ones in the bathroom. This is a brave, selfless, dedicated man who stepped up to help me without an ounce of complaint or hesitation. I know from experience that not every man does this for his partner regardless of what title he has - boyfriend, fiance', husband, unmarried life partner, etc. Scott's just *awesome*. :)

Talk to y'all later.

In California til Sunday

Mickey is throwing Scott a birthday party on Friday, and he went to the trouble to put together a parade, fireworks, the whole nine yards! Scott's conference finished up today, and I performed a photo finish of my own To Do list for work before hopping a plane to LA. I'm here safe and sound and about to crash in a nice warm hotel bed with my sweetiemuffingushiboo.

Don't come lookin' for me until Sunday.

Lara "I'm taking a damn vacation and no one can stop me" Coutinho

No wonder we have addictions...

Not that I’m going to go start smoking, numbing out with alcohol, or emptying out my Rx bottles all at once, but days like this make me really understand why some people do. I just spent a chunk of hours cleaning out that pile of upturned boxes from three weeks ago, culling out lots of old papers from pre-DC days, and I am amazed I haven’t turned to some substance to numb out from all the crap I’ve brought into my life.

I had kept some old email printouts as CYA documentation for three specific dramas I had in conflict with people who were friends at the time. I read them over again and threw them away finally. There was just so much horrible, painful, immature crap going on between us I’m amazed that no one actually got arrested (as far as I know – those doors closed way before Alan died).

I worked a lot on letting go of old crap today, and I still only made a dent in that pile. I still have so much work to do, I’m absolutely boggled at how I’m supposed to clean out all this old crap, eat and sleep a healthy amount, still go to work 40+ hours per week, pay bills and still get in some exercise. There’s just no way.

So, I quit with the boxes and papers and turned to making myself a dinner. I’m currently waiting for the potato boiling to finish. As I was cutting up the potatoes, I was craving some TV time with something completely non-real life oriented like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. (No, I haven’t seen or heard anything about the series finale that just aired, so don’t tell me anything.) As I was wishing I could pop in a DVD of escapist sci-fi, I realized that my Netflix disc won’t show up until tomorrow, and the Season 1 set I have borrowed from Caitlin has been committed to memory at this point.

At times like this, when my craving for escapism is powerful, my normal resources are dry up, and the mountain of real life crap is depressingly overwhelming, I can really understand why some people turn to alcohol and drugs. Or chocolate. Or curling up in a ball and neglecting to get out of bed.

The potatoes are done, however, and I have chicken sausages in the microwave. I have three Dove bars in the freezer that are 6 points a piece and low risk for overeating triggering if I have one late at night with a cup of sugar free cocoa. I am coping by typing shit out here and releasing it to the universe and committing to counting my points. I am grateful for my job, my lack of disease, and the loved ones in my life. I am grateful. I am grateful. I am grateful. And I’ll be more grateful tomorrow when my next BSG disc arrives.

Laughter must win.

Ok - so the message from the universe today is "lighten up!" At three in the morning Saturday morning (yesterday) someone posted the URL below to my the LJ posting my sister did for me when Bonkers died. It's anonymous, which I don't like, but I accept the beauty of the picture it led to anyway. I had no idea that the week before Alan died my Bonkers was so busy! She must've been happier than she let on about moving to DC. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/37503

Don't let the spoiled brats get you down.

I sit here today at home, quiet, allowing myself a weekend of time dedicated to my own needs for the first time in a very long time. I don’t regret spending the time I have on helping Scott with Lafayette or my blood related family with the passing of my Grandma El. I chose very clearly to spend my time this way, and it cost me in some ways. My own Life Maintenance has been sorely neglected, my laundry is clean but spread over the bedroom floor instead of neatly put away in drawers and on hangers, my bathroom is a collection of artfully distributed toothpaste speckles, and the paper that enters my life through the US Postal Service is covering nearly every flat surface in my apartment.

My Christmas trees, both of them, are still up and sparkling. The piles of upturned file boxes I made a mess out of in a fit of rage one day are still sitting there waiting to be cleaned up. Dust has collected on large swaths of my computer desk, and various piles of art supplies, presents needing to be sent, and sentimentally valuable objects fill in every nook and cranny of non-walking space. I have extra weekend hours of work to do for my actual paycheck oriented work, and I honestly don’t know how I’m going to prioritize my To Do list today. What I do know is that it’s Sunday afternoon already, and I have to put an end to the quiet time I’ve allowed myself so far since Friday night services. It’s been clearly not enough quiet time, but it’s been at least some.

I know life can be worse. Much worse. I’ve lived it and I’ve seen it be worse for other people. I know someone who just had to kick out a spouse/parent from the family home because of a slip up in addiction rehab while also dealing with a loved one with Alzheimers. I know a lot of people who are jobless and cannot live on the money they have in savings. I know a few married couples who are struggling with the realization that they cannot bear their own children. I know a few people who are struggling with the realization that the person they relied on for primary emotional support is incapable of performing that job. And I know there are people every day joining the Griefnet email lists for “Young Widows” and “Young Widows with Kids.”

I know life can be a lot worse, especially for me. I am currently enjoying a complete lack of disease, my primary support pillar people are all for the most part free of disease as well, and the deaths that are happening around me are people and cats that have lived long lives and are passing on in relatively peaceful and predictable ways. No sudden tragedies are happening, and I am continuing to ask the universe to please keep sudden tragedies from happening to me and my loved ones. I also know of some very happy couples who have had babies and are having babies completely free of disease, critical family members, or unemployment. These are folks who have worked hard for their security in life, and they are far from spoiled or unappreciative. Yea for them!

And right now, I’m hung up on jealousy. I’m angry with spoiled people, and I’m having a hell of a time letting go of this hang up.

I hear in the hallway of my apartment building the screaming of children in foreign languages. My apartment complex is highly populated with young families, many of whom have very little money, don’t speak much English, and have lots of children. Most of these neighbors I actually get to meet are sweet, polite people, and their kids are well behaved enough to not cause trouble for me outside a little noise. However, when I look into their eyes, I see people who are nervous. They’re afraid. I’m polite and sweet to them as I smile and say hello, but I know these people are struggling. I also ride the bus with lots of low-income minorities, and every one of them looks profoundly sad.

I live in a wonderfully diverse large city, and I love it, and it shows me loads of suffering every day. I also know many people directly who are struggling painfully every day to just carve out a peaceful if not prosperous existence. I’m struggling, and I also know I have little to complain about compared to these people. And I also know people who are cruel in their ignorance. They have been spoiled by having an easy life, and they have no appreciation for the blessings they swim in. It’s these people that are my challenge right now.

Most of these people are Caucasian, many are women who married early to men who take care of them, and many have peaceful suburban lives. Some are men who got lucky enough to land jobs that pay well without having to expend much effort or take much risk. Most of these people have never had a disease, major loss, or any kind of tragedy mar the peaceful Norman Rockwell image of their lucky lives. We all know someone or some people like this, and in my awesome, big, international, crossroads city of mine here in DC, I get to see a lot of them.

And then there’s the woman with one leg who rides the same metro train I do. She uses crutches instead of a wheelchair, and she crutch-swing-steps her way down the metro platform and across the parking lot like the rest of us. I honestly have no idea what kind of a person she is, all I know is that her handicap is particularly noticeable. And it reminds me how good I have it every time I see her. At least I’m not missing any limbs.

And then I see the fat Caucasian tourists with kids that are rude – both the parents and the kids – on the metro. And I think of the spoiled people I know. And I feel the hatred for them. And I feel jealous because I wish my life were as comfy as theirs. I wish I didn’t have to live with the deep wounds I live with. And then I see the woman with one leg again. And I feel ashamed.

I’m living in conflict. I’m simply there. I’ve had it bad, and it could be worse, and I wish it were easier. I value the perspective I’ve gained and the appreciation for my blessings I’ve learned from the deep wounds I’ve suffered and healed, and somehow I’m still living in this conflict.

I resent that God didn’t give me any more than he did, and I’m also thankful because I know I’ll never be one of those spoiled brats who thinks their life is so hard because they can’t go on a cruise this year. I’ve never been on a cruise, and I think if I ever did go on one that I’d be marveling at all the luxuries. I’d also probably feel conflicted and guilty about them.

There is a woman who shall remain anonymous on this blog, but she probably knows who she is, who is a life-long inspiration to me, and today I am choosing to think of her as inspiration to keep from getting stuck. This woman is the mother of a friend of mine, and this mother married early to a man who brought home all the bacon a human could want. He made a very good living, and so this mom didn’t need to earn her own paycheck in order to support the family. But dear lord that didn’t mean that the woman didn’t work. She devoted her life to volunteer work in addition to raising three kids, and I’ve never known a more hard working person than her. The volunteer work she did wasn’t easy either. She helped battered women and at-risk teenagers. She created programs out of thin air that continued for over twenty years and benefited thousands of people – including me. She still has me on her Christmas Card List and includes a personal note every time. She’s had her own share of losses and diseases throughout her family, and she still decided to make a life of passing on her blessings. I’ve told her what an inspiration she is, and her kid that’s my friend, and I think I need to sit down and do it again.

When Alan died, this woman was there for me, and so was her kid/my friend even though they were full up with their own life challenges in August 2005. Certainly other people were there for me too, but this woman was particularly inspiring my whole life so when Alan died I saw her just doing what she always did – sending along energy and love to those who needed it. I really wish wish wish more people in this world were like her.

Life is not clean. Life is not fair. Life is full of conflict. Life is full of selfish, spoiled brats. And maybe I don’t know why they seem spoiled from my little speck of a view of their lives. Maybe I’m just catching them on a bad day. We’re all on this planet to just live and try to survive and try to steal some happiness before we die, and I certainly won’t know the circumstances that brought these guys with easy jobs and spoiled young wives to the cushy spots in life that they’re in. Maybe they were beaten slaves in another life and this is their karmic payback. I don’t know, and I probably won’t ever know them well enough to really know.

So, maybe I won’t ever know enough to really judge if someone is right or not to assume their spoiled lifestyle. Maybe they’re just serving a purpose in life to challenge me so I’ll learn the lesson of telling them to fuck off and really letting go. My grief therapist is constantly reminding me to focus on what is instead of what is not. Invest my life in those people who are invested in my life and let go of those who are not. The spoiled brats of the world are certainly not involved or invested in my life, so I need to let them go and not look back. What they do with their lives is their business, and they are not truly connected to me in any way.

I believe we are all connected to each other on a spirit level since we are all living together on this planet, so it’s hard for me to really draw a line in the sand and say that I won’t connect with spoiled brats at all any more ever again. And some people I’ve loved in my life turned out to be spoiled brats once I got to know them at a certain level, so they’re even harder to let go of and really mean it. And there are some things I truly believe in, and one of those is that if someone’s going to stay stuck in their own shit to the point where they behave like a spoiled brat who’s blind to their own blessings, then I do not want them in my life – stranger on the subway or not. I may have to live with them on the subway, but that doesn’t mean I need to allow them into my life.

So, I’d better go practice what I preach. Don’t stay stuck in my own shit, value my blessings, and don’t let spoiled brats into my life – even if it’s just the idea of them getting me depressed on a Sunday afternoon.

More death. Death death death. Oh that death. The Kitty Lafayette has gone.

More fucking death. We are not pleased. It was as good as it can get, but dear God, I'm wondering why all this death is here in my life.

Scott's kitty, Lafayette, has now passed. He had a year and a half with cancer in his bladder, a kidney infection that wasn't succumbing to the antibiotics, and just this week we found out the poor little guy had a strange hernia complete with loops of intestine poking out into the wrong places and causing problems. He was peeing blood on Friday night, the vets wanted to put him into surgery for the hernia immediately on Saturday, and Scott chose to just take him home with hospice style big ass pain meds for a few days. I had had the same choice with Bonkers back in November, and at the time I'd chosen to take advantage of the amazingly wonderful services and support I got at the Hope Center and go ahead and assist Bonkers in passing painlessly instead of taking her home for more wobbling around on heavy pain meds. Lafayette, did, however, really enjoy a final day of massive cuddles and scritchy scratches. He got loads of lovin' from Scott and me all Saturday and most of today. He wasn't much interested in eating, but he did eat a little Fancy Feast, some milk, and some Pounce treats. When I saw him trying to pee, twice, and nothing was coming out, I myself knew that it would be the most humane thing to just help him pass as soon as reasonbly possible.

Scott's ex-wife, M, who had originally adopted both Lafayette and his adopted brother Galahad with Scott about 12 years ago, came over Saturday evening to hang out with us and add to the Team of Love for Lafayette. The kitty took turns in all our laps as we watched bits of amusing movies on cable (Revenge of the Nerds, Empire Strikes Back) and M's copy of "Kung Foo Panda" which I'd been dying to see for a while. It was a really lovely evening of comfort food, kitty loving, and quality time. M knew what the deal was, and I'm really glad she could make it over that evening.

So, this morning was certainly strange. It's not strange for me to be waking up around noon on a Saturday, but for Scott to be there in the bed with me at that hour is strange. He's usually up and attam before 9:00am and bringing me coffee and wake up kisses by 10. Scott was snoring next to me, and both kitties were sacked out with us. We had a nice long slow morning of kitty scritchy scratches, then I got up and got into nurturing mode. I knew Scott would be struggling with the concept of when exactly to call the vet for a home visit for euthenasia, and I was struggling with what I thought would be "good timing" too. I decided that pancakes should take priority (comfort food), so I managed to not entirely burn a nice stack of them for Scott and me to eat with the kitties watching TV.

The process that got us from pancakes to calling the vet was long and awkward, but I am convinced yet again that a person can and will come to their own correct answers if given some space, time, and food. Somewhere in there Scott did decide that Lafayette's current level of suffering and probable future level of suffering was certain enough that helping him pass over now would spare him a lot of suffering without sacrificing non-suffering quality time. The way he put it, it was as if Lafayette was at the top of a tall ski slope hill. He was about to start going downhill, and now was the time to call the tradeoff even. It was nearly identical to the decision I felt myself make in the Hope Center office with Bonkers. I heard Scott speak with grounded clarity, and I could tell that the shift had been made.

So, I cannot say enough good things about the Bowman Animal Hospital (www.bowmananimalhospital.vetsuite.com) and the lovely vet and tech that came to Scott's house to perform the euthenasia. They were compassionate and professional, and I couldn't come up with a critique for improvement. They were perfect. I have huge respect for people who can do that job, so whenever I can look up the names of the women who came, I'm going to rock the world and actually send a handwritten thank you letter. They were that good.

Tonight I was surfing a little on "pet memorials" and I found a forums site called petmemorials.com, and there was a poem someone posted there that I'm going to post here. His user name was Charles214, and if I can figure out how to get ahold of him, I'll complete the process of putting credit where credit is due. His piece was just so damn perfect, I want more people to see it. He put words to my own feelings about pet death, so please consider them as you remember the value of your own fuzzy, feathery, scaley friends.

"My beloved dog Bessie died 2 days ago - riddled with cancer. Not the first time my best friend has ended his/her life on a vet's table. Here's something I wrote, as much for myself as for others:
-----------------

On the Death of a Beautiful Animal.

The pain is there. The tears are there. And there is nothing,
absolutely NOTHING you can do about it.
Let it be.
Let the tears come.
Let it be.
Accept the loss.
Hard, I know, but there's no choice anyway.

And the emptiness, the great gaping hole in your heart - let that be there also.
Let it be - don't try to fill it.
Don't try to escape it.
Don't try to do ANYTHING with it.
You can't anyway.

And then something dies in you.
Something dies, and already the healing begins.
And there will come a time when you can remember, but there will be no bitterness anymore.

And what you loved about them - the strength, or bravery,
The gentleness or playfullness.
The unquestioning love they gave.
The absence of pretense and artifice - so lacking in humans.
THAT is not lost.
No - THAT is not lost.

There will come a time when you see those very things are now in yourself.
They are a part of YOU.
It is your friend's bequest to you.

So I thank you, you beautiful animal
For what you gave me
In life
And in death.


So, please join me in raising a glass of your favorite fat level of milk in honor of a beloved kitty cat named Lafayette. He's been a blessing for 12 years to Scott, M, me, Galahad, and other family friends. He will be sorely missed.

And a word also to Bonkers, Nutmeg, Daphne, Max, Wiggles, and Louisa: another kitty in your soul group is now needing your help. Lafayette is the name us humans called him, and he is a stalwart warrior worthy of your company. Please help him aclimate to his new surroundings and remind him to say hello to his humans down here and reassure us that he's made it alright when he gets a chance.

With many thanks,
Your staffer,
Lara

Grandma's funeral last Friday was fine.

Grandma's funeral last Friday was fine. No major dramas. The cookies were appreciated, Kathi made it to the event, and no one got into any heated disagreements.

When it came time for Kathi and me to play our violin/cello musical contributions, the ice cold chapel contributed greatly to my horrible out of tune performance, and so that part sucked, but that was the worst thing I personally experienced. Not bad.

I've been trying to post since I got back, but I haven't had much energy for it. There's a lot more to say about it, but I don't have time right now.

Grandma's death was actually the best one can hope for. Relatively painless and gentle. Plenty of warning. Everyone had a chance to say goodbye over the preceeding year. Her family all survived her except Grandpa, so she never lost a child or grandchild. She never suffered some horrific disease like cancer, diabetes, ALS, epilepsy, and all the rest you know. She always had all the food, housing, vacations, and life maintenance resources she ever needed. She had enough to pass on lots of support to her loved ones, and her memory continues on with a bunch of us. She's a person who had a really great run, hit all the marks, and finished gently. Her death was a thousand times easier than any I've witnessed so far. One of her sons was with her just hours before she passed, and that was a moment not uncommon for her - supported and loved and remembered. Way to go, Grandma. I'll miss you.

Codependents Anonymous, Funeral Eve, Cookies Accomplished

It's the eve of the funeral, and cookies have been made. I had set myself a mission of baking a bunch of chocolate chip cookies in the style that my Grandma El did to share around at the funeral. Caitlin and I had a really good time last night baking, and I can't tell you how theraputic it was. Caitlin's an uber-nuturer in the first place, but we were baking cookies, in her nice clean kitchen, with her extensive cooking brain at my disposal. We also used her Kitchen Aid mixer which I predict my grandma didn't use, but it did produce the extremely well creamed butter that my grandma did use.

We tried to stick to the method grandma used as closely as possible:
-- use the recipe on the back of the Toll House Chocolate Chip bag
-- use real butter, no margerine
-- use exact measurements
-- cream the butter really well
-- reduce the heat in the oven for the last (about) half of the cooking time to increase crispiness
-- be consistent in cookie size.

I made some boy and some girl cookies. With and without nuts. ;)

I think we produced about 10 dozen cookies, which I think is a record for me. We actually probably made dough for 11 dozen, but I was insisting on quality control tasting on a regular basis at all phases of the process. Points be damned. And we did wrap them in sandwich baggies 2 per bag. This is what I remember from when grandma sent me care packages in college - and even once when I was in Holland! I'll never forget my host mother exclaiming repeatedly "Die Oma van jou!" ("That Grandmother of yours!")

The cookies didn't turn out exactly like Grandma's but I tried. Hers were always a little whiter than anyone else's, and I didn't get that accomplished. I think I did get the crispiness right, and my size of cookies varied a lot, but they're a close impersonation of Grandma's cookies. Maybe that's just cool as it is to honor her and acknowledge that no one could do it quite like her. :)

So, now I just need to finish packing, get my music stuff together (and maybe practice a little of the tunes we'll do tomorrow if Kathi's hand it up to it), pack up the memorabilia I'm bringing (White House Easter Eggs, Christmas Tree Ornaments, and flower vase, and my Queen costume she made me when I was a kid) oh and a few tablecloths just in case we need them. I was going to try to get in a haircut, but I think I'm going to ditch that.

I also wanted to get something down here mostly for my own reference so I don't forget. It's been recommended to me, and I'm finding great help in, the web page for Codependents Anonymous (CODA). This is the 12 step group for codependents - people whose lives are out of control due to control/approval/denial issues with other people. http://www.codependents.org/

Specifically - the first step: We admitted we were powerless over others - that our lives had become unmanageable.
http://www.codependents.org/foundation-docs-12-steps.php
In Egroup, I adjusted my First Step statement because I don't believe my life is out of control, but my life has suffered from this ailment. So, my First Step statement is: "I admit that I am powerless over other people and that my life has become more unmanageable than I want it to be."

The feeling I get when I speak the words "I am powerless over other people" is palpable. I feel it in every fiber of my being. It ripples through so many of my relationships it's amazing.

I also get a ring out of the Affirmations: http://www.codependents.org/foundation-docs-affirmations.php The one saying "I am enough, and I have enough" was amazing for me to read because I've used that as a mantra for *years* already! I found that one doing a High Ropes course with Taneah.

I believe a lot in the 12 step programs even though I know they have a strong "God" component. That doesn't work for everyone, but I do belive there is a higher power of some kind that everyone can believe in. Even if it's your own self - the part that sometimes does know what to do - you still have something you can look up to.

There are parts of the 12 steps that ring true for everyone. Mine in particular include the parts about doing a fearless moral inventory of onesself and making amends with other people you have "wronged." Now, I don't believe that "wronged" is a great word because we're all on a journey of learning down here, and oftentimes people just don't know that something is wrong when they're doing it. It's really hard to learn everything you're supposed to learn by the time you're 18 and set free in the world. I don't know what word to use in place of "wronged" but I'm working on it.

I know so many people who have benefitted from the 12 steps, I'm amazed more people don't use them. They work for any addiction, even when that addiction hasn't pulled you down to a horrific "rock bottom." A friend of mine says that "You choose your own bottom" meaning that you can choose when the time is that you will turn around and no longer numb out or hide behind your addiction of choice. I have a friend who used the 12 steps around chocolate. It doesn't have to ruin your life before you throw away the crutch.

And of course, the 12 steps do not work for everyone. It's extremely common in the Woman Within program and Man Kind Project because people who are attracted to those programs are already people who are attracted to self healing. The 12 steps are as common in these communities as The Princess Bride is to the SCA. To say "Hi, I'm Lara and I'm an addict" in a Woman Within gathering is a lot like saying "I am not left handed!" at an SCA fencing tournament. It's so damn common that it might get a flicker of a smile reaction from people around you, but for the most part, the reactions will be "Yea, what else ya got?"

I love them, but not everyone has to. Your mileage may vary. If you don't get help here, get help somewhere.

Life can always get worse.

There was a blind guy on the metro this morning with a very sweet service dog. It reminded me of the one legged lady that I sometimes see at my metro stop. The metro is a great place to go to be reminded that my life can always be worse.

Rumor has it that Kathi will be released from the hospital today. Mom promised to call me once she's been sprung. Things look good for her arrival in Baltimore tomorrow for attending Grandma El's funeral, but god only knows if she'll be able to play the violin. She won't even know until Friday morning.

I honestly tried to think of something I could play as a solo, and I just can't. If anyone reading this has some idea of a *simple* and *short* solo cello piece - and can point me to sheet music on the internet - please do. I think I'll call Bethany.

Work Grace Work Group Work work work work work

I went to work today and did a pretty darn good job. My grief therapist, Grace, calls me out of the blue to tell me that she had a cancellation today at 5:00 and asked if I wanted it. I've been meaning to call her for about 2 weeks to get an appointment, but frankly I've been letting other things get in the way. So, these are the times when I know God's nudging me in the right direction.

So, Grace is awesome, as always, and helps me through a big piece that's been weighing on me for a *long* time that's been just *poked* all to death from recent events. I felt that wave of relief when I know I've let go of an old concept that was killing me. It's not easy, and it is painful, but it works a lot better now. I'm choosing a much more truth oriented lifestyle. Grace pointed out one way in which I give away my own power to determine my own life. It's frightening when she can do that. It's also frightening that I still have times when I do give away my power - after all these YEARS doing empowerment work!! You'd think I'd be all fixed up by now. :S

And after grief therapy with Grace, I had Egroup at home. And lordy did we rock tonight. Only one of the five of us did *not* have huge life altering work to do, and she helped with everyone else's. I am constantly amazed at how much life insanity we can handle in my Egroup. I really don't know how some people cope without it. I think a lot of people just suffer alone.

So, now I'm kindof full. My brain can't hold much more. I'm eternally grateful that the work I have to do tomorrow at the office - ya know that work that I do that I actually get paid to do - is painfully simple. I won't have to use any creative brain cells at all.

Time for sleep.

Doing Better.

Getting a snow day out of no where really does a body good. I got up at normal time this morning and proceeded to enjoy one of the perks of being a contractor by emailing my boss and clients to say I was working from home. I thankfully have data and stuff to work on at home, so I can legitimately stay billable, but that's a kind of billable that's in sweats and slippers. Sadly, no more kitty cat to sit in my lap on snow days, but it's still nice to just hang around the house in sweats, farting whenever I please, snacking on whatever I want, and hacking away at my spreadsheets listening to Carbon Leaf.

This is Day #4 of my cloistering. I haven't left the apartment since I went to services Friday night. I think this is good. It's good because the evidence is that I'm much less insane than I was yesterday or the day before. Reduced insanity is good hard data.

Actually, it's not hard data. Ok, so what *is* hard data? Well, I have managed to clean my dishes, finish doing my laundry, and cook an actual meal from scratch. I also did decent work on spreadsheets that kept me billable for a full 8 hour workday. I actually have a product I can show someone if anyone cared to hold me accountable tomorrow. Not that anyone does, but I always play it safe.

I also talked to Kathi this evening. I'm continually bummed that I can do nothing to help. Mom just has it all *handled*. Good luck trying to get a contribution in when you have SuperMom in charge. At least Kathi is getting what she needs. She's working on farting now which Dad was working on a few weeks ago. Apparently when you have surgery, your bowels shut down enough that they have to be kickstarted or something when you wake up, and so your first duty to your own intestines is to do everything you can to allow them to fart. She did let one really good one go that apparently cleared the room, and she's working on a second. I'm so proud. :)

And there's another piece of hard data. I can joke about farting. Admittedly this is an easy reach, but at least it's better than screaming and crying my eyes out.

I still can't apply any intellectual steam to this experience. I don't know why I'm such a mess. I'm hoping that I can get back on my feet this week and figure it out later.

Wish me luck.

I'm not "fine"

I really don't understand intellectually what's happening to my life, but I know it's big. Big enough that I'm currently in process and unable to really summarize or interpret. Here's what I can identify:

1) My Grandma El died on Tuesday. My valiant aunt and uncle clicked into gear for implementing the plan for putting on Grandma's funeral as had been planned head of time. The plan is now for a funeral this coming Friday here in DC at the cemetery where my Grandpa John, his parents, and his sister are buried. This is heartily convenient for me since I live here so I don't have to buy a plane ticket. Scott can also easily come up too. This will be his first meeting of the whole Coutinho Clan.

2) Friday morning I had a severe grief breakdown. Came out of nowhere. Alan always said that this shit ambushes you when you least expect it. As it is, I can see it as kindof logical that a death event like Grandma's death could trigger memories of previous death events, but this is not a logical thing going on. I felt overwhelmed with anger. Down to my core. It was the same anger I felt when Alan died. It was as if it had broken out of whatever mental tupperware I had stored it in.

3) Friday afternoon I called to cancel my participation in a Woman Within workshop in Philly that I'd been signed up for. There was just no way in hell I was going to be able to focus on anything besides my own emotional volcano.

4) Friday evening I went to services and said Kaddish for Grandma. There was blessedly no Bar or Bat Mitzvah going on, so there was a small showing of the congregation. There were three other deaths that week being honored, so I felt like I was in good company.

5) Saturday, I slept in and felt numb when I did get up. I got a call at noon saying that Kathi was in the hospital for an emergency appendix removal. I spent the rest of the day either on the phone or fighting the urge to entirely flip out. By the end of the day I did get confirmation that she was fine and got through surgery with flying colors.

Now, I may be frightfully paranoid, but I know... I mean I *KNOW* that if my sister leaves this earth before I do, I will cease to live. Healing from Alan's death was hell, and will never really be done. I won't go through it again. I've seen too many real people who lost someone they love through seemingly non-threatening events. Sudden heart attacks. brain aneurysms. Motorcycle accidents. Some crazy accident that "wasn't his fault."

There's just too much of that harsh reality that's part of my real every day life for me to not consider Kathi's entirely routine surgery as sincerely life threatening. And if Kathi goes, I go. She's my soul mate. I don't want to be here without her.

So, I'm surrounded by death. I'm feeling overwhelming fear and anger, and I'm exhausted. I'm going to go back to work tomorrow, and it feels a lot like when I had to haul my sorry grieving ass out of bed and go to work at Camp Atterbury after Alan died. It's a hateful and horrible situation, but I only get so much time off and I have to keep working to pay my own rent. This is the situation, and it's the best option I have.

I don't really know what's happening. I don't know what to say to anyone. I know I'm angry, aching, and tired, and this is just part of my journey.

She's fine. Thank god.

Here's the latest update from Mom:

"Kathi is out of surgery and doing well. Roy & I just talked with the chief resident who assisted in the surgery. The surgery went well and they removed her inflamed appendix and some stuff that had leaked out but was contained in a small area of her lower right abdomen. Prognosis is excellent. If she heals well, she MIGHT be able to be Grandma's funeral on Friday. A lot has go right for that to happen, so keep her in your prayers, please."

*whew*

Kathi's in the hospital. Appendix. Methodist.

Kathi called me at about noon today. Here's how the conversation went:

Kathi: "Hey La. I'm in Methodist about to have my appendix taken out."

Five long seconds of silence.

Me: "Ok."

Kathi: "I'm ok. Sam and Shel brought me to the hospital last night. I've actually been having tummy problems for about a week. At first I thought it was overdoing it on some sauerkraut, then I thought it was constipation from my iron pills, then I looked it up on Web MD."

So, the public service announcement for the day is to make use of Web MD when you have a health question. Then call your mom.

So, our mom is on a flight this afternoon headed to Indy, Elliot is on the road and about to arrive as I'm typing this, and Kathi has been awesome in sending out all the requests for help. She's got her E group (which used to be my E group) in Indy on alert, she's got her circle of friends in Indy already helping (Ellen's at the hospital now, Sam and Shel are on alert, and therefore the SCA crowd is bound to be on alert too), and she has me and the folks updated and ready to act. I swear that Kathi is the most amazing human being I know. Takes care of herself in a crisis, asks for help from the support network she's carefully nurtured, and faces her fears head on. I really want to be her when I grow up.

Oh - what about that funeral I was just talking about? Fuck if I know. We get to play the "Wait and See" game. Kathi's in surgery as I type, and we don't really know if her appendix is a classic case, a "perforated" case, or some other wild card no one expected. Ya know, I really hate looking at those words "Kathi's in surgery."

God, here's what I want you to hear: "I GOT IT ALREADY!!!!!!! I value my loved ones above all else in the universe and I know I'd give my life or any valuable organs to them if it becomes at all useful for them. I have my priorities clear and straight, I donate as much of myself to charitable causes as I possibly can, I extend myself to helping others less fortunate than me as often as possible, and I've lived a life devoted to humble self-improvement. I just cannot imagine what other lessons you want me to learn by continuing to put such massive stresses on me and my loved ones. If I'm not getting something, please please please find some other way to communicate that lesson to me *BESIDES* fucking with my family."

*ahem*

I was going to be at a Woman Within workshop in Philly today, but yesterday I had my own little grief breakdown and chose to postpone until the April 25 workshop. There was just no freaking way I was going to be able to focus on circle processes. So, I chose to stay home and spend the weekend attending to the many Life Maintenance tasks I've been putting off for the last month so I can go to Raleigh on the weekends. I actually did get to go to services last night to say Kaddish for Grandma El, and it felt good. Grandma was very Catholic, not anywhere near Jewish, and probably wouldn't know what Kaddish was if you asked her, but it felt good to me to do it anyway. This grief ceremony stuff is for the living anyway. And I got to meet two other families who were grieving losses this week: a mother/grandmother died and someone else's mom too. We all agreed that they must be partying together at some newcomer's reception upstairs.

So I slept in this morning, ate breakfast, started watching an episode of Battlestar Galactica (the Sci-Fi bubble gum mental vacation method of the past few weeks), and then Kathi called. *sigh* So, now we get to pray that Kathi's experience in the hospital goes smoothly, that my mom and Elliot operate smoothly as her support team together, and she heals quickly enough to attend Grandma El's funeral this Friday.

Wish us luck.

Grieving vicariously; taking on other people's stuff.

I'm getting clearer on why I'm feeling so angry and conflicted about said anger. I'm not directly devastated by my grandma's death - I'm actually partially happy for her that she got a peaceful death with her son nearby her and she's now free of the suffering. But the closest circle of people in my life - they're the ones I'm concerned about. My folks, my aunt and uncle, and my grandma's remaining sister and sister in law are the ones who are hurting the most, and they're the ones I'm thinking about. Last night I was talking to my mom and I could feel pain in my throat and chest as she talked about how my dad is coping. He's a trooper like no other, and if there's a man in the universe who knows how to and can get emotional support - it's my dad. Over twenty years in the Man Kind Project had better be worth something when your mom dies. It just still clogs me up to think about what he and the rest of the inner circle are feeling.

It wasn't like this when grandpa died 4 years ago. I remember making an intellectual effort to try to put myself in grandma's shoes back then - to try to be aware of her needs - and it was hard. I remember hearing how challenging it was for grandma to go through the steps of logistics with the funeral home the day after grandpa died, and believe it or not, I thought, "Gosh, why is it so hard for her? We've known this was coming for many months, haven't we?" Well, I guess I got that question answered for me over the next few years. No matter what, this death shit is hard. No matter who you are, what your relationship was, how the death happened, or how long you had to prep for it, the death is never easy peasey no problemo.

Why? And why is it so constant for all humans across race, nationality, religion, and all that?

I think it's because our relationships with others is what gives our lives meaning. And when those relationships end because the person died - or you might say "transformed" into a relationship where you can't talk or interact with the person or get feedback etc - it's like one more reason to live has been eliminated from someones life. So many people claim that a pet, lover, or other important person was the reason they did not commit suicide. Their own life wasn't important at all unless the other being was in it.

Naturally, since all life boils down to something I can relate to either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Weight Watchers, I will point out a Buffy episode I often refer to as an excellent example of why we bother to heal from grief at all in the first place.

Remember when Tara died and Willow became the evil hopped up uber-witch? During the great battle between Evil Willow and Giles, he asked her if Tara's death meant that all the other loved ones she had were worth nothing now. The climactic end had Willow's best friend declaring his unwavering love for her. The concept that other loved ones did in fact matter to her even though her true love was now dead was the beautiful, climactic, dramatic, universal truth ending worthy of a Joss Whedon season finale. It also happened to get through my thick skull and help me decide that life was worth living after Alan died. Other people still mattered. I'll give you one guess which sister of mine made the biggest difference. ;)

So, our lives loose meaning every time a loved one dies. If we stick around, we may create more loved ones that can become more and other reasons to live. We continue this process until we ourselves die, and then maybe we even try it all again if reincarnations truly happen.

So, it's painful. It's like the great cafeteria lady in the sky takes a huge ice cream scoop of your soul and splats it on the lunch plate of "Sucks To Be Human" and you get to go try to grow that hole back again. Lucky us.

And I seem to be taking on the pain of other people's ice cream scoop holes. This could be called compassionate, or co-dependent, or caretaking, or wasteful, or generous, or lots of other pretty vocab words from self help books nationwide.

And the first step is admitting you have a problem. *sigh* Welcome, Lara, to another fucking opportunity to grow.ggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Death is so wierd

I am all over the map. I'm angry, sad, happy, fearful, proud... the whole nine yards. I just took 15 minutes to respond to an email asking about SCA dance music. I haven't chosen to face my email in weeks, and now I take time for dance music? wtf? I'm nauseous, I have a killer headache, and I keep farting a lot. Thank god no one's in the cube next to me.

Every death is unique just like every person and every relationship is unique. I know this, and yet I'm suprised at my reactions. I'm more angry than anything, yet I can chat with my co-workers just as pleasantly as can be. I just chatted up this lovely young lady who's a new addition to my office from the LA Corps District in California. She's got lots of great ideas about how this office can move in a more politically correct and professional direction, and I'm really enjoying talking with her.

This morning I was noticing that I'm not giving myself permission to just have whatever emotions I want. Anger seems fine, but not all the time. Grandma's death is *way* easier to cope with than Alan's or even the kitties', probably because we've been watching Grandma dwindle away to nothing for a few years now. The "Anticipatory Grief" has let us down slowly to the point where I was expecting this phone call from my folks. And Grandma was someone I reached out to every so often when I made a visit to the Midwest or when I could carve out time to send something in the mail. And my aunt and uncle actively kept the whole family connected to Grandma by reporting on her life and medical issues via email. So, Grandma was a dwindling presence in my life, but still critical, so why do I have a hard time giving myself permission to break down?

I don't really feel like I have a right to break down. I want to more than anything, I want to crawl into bed and sleep for a week, but Grandma's death is such a gentler transition than Alan's, and other family members of mine have more reason to suffer from her passing than I do, I feel like an idiot for even having these headaches. I've been through so much worse than this. Why in the name of god should this be "hard" at all? This should be a "been there done that" death. Not a "be sure to call Lara so she has a reason to get out of bed in the morning" death.

I dunno. I have no answers. I'll just keep journalling and see what develops.

My Grandma El has died. Break out the crash helmet.

He we go again. Grandma's died this time. The upsides to this one is that her life had dwindled down to nearly nothing, and she was suffering with Alzheimer's and a stack of illnesses. Not that that's positive, but the suffering is over.

My aunt and uncle are also going to get their lives back. They've been the primary caretakers of my grandma since grandpa died (almost exactly) 4 years ago. There will be some work to be done for wrapping up grandma's estate and distributing her belongings, but I know that is different work from the constant trips to the hospital, nursing home, and pharmacy. It all sucks, but from here on out it can only get better.

So, how does this affect me? Hrmmm. I don't know yet. No, I do know some things. I'm worried about juggling my job issues right now since I'm in transition already, trying to solidify my professional life for after March 24th. I get a week of bereavement leave - because of course a grandparent's death is "worthy" of the damn policy - but it's inconvenient as hell to take it before my current contract is up. This is, however, just another little thing that comes from death being on God's schedule, not mine. Nothing anyone can do about it. I'll take it when it's really the most reasonable to take it and cope with the fallout. I have supportive teammates at Booz Allen, so now's the time to count on them to be supportive.

I'm worried about my family, especially my dad. This grandma of mine is his mom. He's been unemployed for a year now, the job he's on the brink of getting is being help up by bureaucratic bullshit, and my parents are still trying to close the sale on their house. The headaches just keep on piling up, and now we have a huge transition to go through as a family. God's just not going to make this an easy time for the Coutinhos. Now we get to find the lesson and learn it so it doesn't come back again. Lucky us.

And this is where I get angry. I mean, I've been working my ass off to learn as many life lessons as I can, improve and heal myself as fast as I can, and accept all the crap life sends me as lessons that are good for me. And so where does it get me? People still die. Government is still full of horrid mountains to climb just to participate in society. People who do get to stay alive are still jerks, idiots, and self serving monsters. We continue to be idiots as a society, and even with the increases in enlightened folks who try to make a difference, idiocy still reigns.

I actually talked to a woman who works a few cubes down from me about recycling. She was impatient at the printer and threw away the document I'd printed out a few minutes prior to her print job. I said it was no problem as long as it was in the recycle bin. I didn't think I'd left it there on the printer for very long, but I was willing to take the hit for the sake of etiquette. And then she said she didn't know which bin was the recycle bin and which was the trash. After a few minutes of conversation, she said that she doesn't recycle at home at *all*. She can't be bothered. She said it's everything she can do to get her teenage son to take the garbage out, she's not going to make it harder with trying to figure out what needs to get recycled. Now, this woman is a fully employed, intelligent federal employee who seems to be just as capable as the rest of the employees around here, and there are huge blue bins everywhere with "RECYCLE" printed on them and signs telling you what you recycle and what you trash. What in the name of god makes it ok for this woman to just *not bother* to learn and practice recycling??

This is the same thing that pisses me off about emotional work. What entitles some people to just not bother to grow the fuck up? I read an article about people complaining about the stimulus bill because they felt that they as taxpayers were bailing out idiots that simply didn't live within their means. A guy was spouting about how he lived within his means, saved money, and worked hard to keep himself employed, so why should he be bailing out people who chose to not live within their means? I know it's more complicated than that, but I feel his pain.

I go to my women's group every single week. I still see my grief therapist once a month (and yes I'm calling her this afternoon to make my next appointment). I take self-improvement workshops and read books constantly with the aim of cleaning up my act and living as well as I possibly can. I journal, talk to loved ones, and meditate instead of loosing my temper at people who may or may not deserve to get yelled at. I do everything I can to keep self-improvement at the top of my priority list, and where does it get me?

People still die. People still leave me. People still become jackasses.

Grandma El. February 2009
Bonkers. November 2008
Nutmeg. March 2007
Alan. August 2005
Grandpa John. March 2005
Grandma Alice. June 2004

Grandma El just put me over the average of one per year. And only half of these are worthy of bereavement leave. Jackass policies.

So, it keeps happening. People still keep dying. People still act like jackasses, and I keep going to E-group. I think I just don't accept the pain of death. It's not fair. It shouldn't be this bad. It shouldn't put a knot in my stomach and a rock on my head. I keep thinking about what could possibly be the lesson I was sent into this life to learn, and it's got to be about loss. Something about accepting loss and being ok with it. I'm not getting it right now, and I'm feeling so damn angry I don't think it's going to happen soon.

Ok, so enough with the pity party. Back to work.

Coping

Ok, so life is hard. Remy said it best. "First of all, I'm a rat, and that means life is hard." Ok, so accepting the universal rule that life is hard, no matter what life you've got, from your perspective - it's hard.

I got a few lessons today in coping - reminders of what I already know really - that I'm forcing myself to write down in a place where I'll be reminded of them later. Here in blogville.

I started out today in a slightly better than normal fashion. I got out to the bus on time, on the metro, complete with gym clothes, dried hair, and neat looking professional attire. I'm thinking I'm doing well this morning when the train stops. Apparently we're "single tracking it" because the early morning maintenance train-buggy-thingy *derailed* therefore causing a rush hour headache the size of the national deficit.

A full hour later I finally arrive at the stop that normally takes me 25-30 minutes to get to. The train I transfer to is full of teenagers headed to the National Buildings Museum with a chaperon who thinks it's important enough to bring the advertisement for wind power to the attention of a particular student named Neil that shouting down the length of the car is necessary.

Fast forward to the office where I'm welcomed by an email from Defense Environmental Alert - an online news source - that the EPA is all of a sudden deciding that the new administration is a good reason to reprioritize munitions cleanup guidance to the top and trying again to put pressure on the DoD to bend to the EPA's will. I'll spare you the minutia, but basically this is a bad sign for my client - the Formerly Used Defense Sites program. They actually already have a monsterous amount of pressure on them to perform their mission, so the EPA isn't really going to help. I can always pray that the people the EPA assigns to this task are reasonable and focused on the common goal of getting the land actually cleaned up, but if we end up with political appointee bureaucrats who care more about the press they can get than the actual performance of the program... well... don't blame me.

Oh - and speaking of blame... I'm currently working on documenting my whole life here at FUDS muchly for the sake of ensuring that my work is documented in writing - therefore providing *HARD DATA* of what I did to support my client, so that when I leave next month I won't be blamed for any failings in the program simply because I'm not here to defend myself.

Thankfully, I'm not getting fired and I will still have a paycheck, but I am loosing my contract. A guy three levels higher up than me - and therefore pretty unaware of my value in the context of our work in the trenches - decided that I was a budget item that could be easily cut. See, everyone here, I think Corps wide, has to reduce their Management and Support budgets by 25% this year - after a 17% reduction requirement last year. Therefore - it's easy to cut a contractor and simply increase the workload for the permanent federal employees. Things will be rough for my co-workers, but I understand what budget pressure does to a program. People get cut. And frankly, when I get cut, I just go back to the Booz Allen office and find another assignment. I don't actually loose my paycheck like it would be if one of my co-workers were cut. So, if someone needs to go, I can accept that it's me.

What this means tho, is that I'm now job hunting internally to Booz Allen, and it's rough. My team has been torpedoed by an exodus of about half our people. Our fearless leader, her second in command, and then a slew of other middle managers have all left the firm or our team since October. These are the people that normally would be working to find me another gig once I finish the one I'm on. As you might conclude then, this adds to my stress. I must say tho that I have a really great direct supervisor that I respect who is working on my behalf to help me find my next gig. She, however, is in much the same boat since she's loosing her part of my contract as well. She is working hard tho, with an 18 month old cute little girl at home, and I have faith that she and I will succeed somehow.

So, this is all very unpleasant, stressing me out a lot, and I really have to put on a very happy face at work that says "I'm not taking any of this personally!" "I have absolutely no problem at all with being cut from my job regardless of the high quality of my work and having my upper management abandon me in my time of need. No problemo!! See I'm fine!!"

Sigh...

So, this morning when I got into the office and faced my To Do list of documentation and chart building tasks, I sincerely couldn't put one mental foot in front of the other. My brain was in a fog like I haven't had in... well... I don't want to think about when I last felt this way. However, in order to build the drama of this story and increase the payoff of happy resolution at the end, I'll list the mountain of crap I was slogging through in my attempt to become professionally viable this morning:

1 - internal job hunting is slow and difficult and I have to have something reliably in place by March 24th.
2 - Scott's truck is on the fritz so I've been doing the driving for the past month so we can see each other on the weekends. This also means that I'm getting no life maintenance chores done on the weekends. We are working on Scott's stuff, and we'll shift back to my stuff in a few weeks, but this is just the time in the process where the pressure is high on my end.
3 - Caitlin has moved into her new apartment - which is *GOOD* mind you! But it means that my driving buddy for Raleigh trips and my dinner cooking food shopping kitchen cleaning dishwasher filling Battlestar Galactica buddy is no longer conveniently located in my home. It is absolutely the right and proper thing for her to be out of my place and into her own and on the road to further successes - but I do miss her.
4 - Weight Watchers is not going well. I now weigh 162. I started the program three years ago exactly weighing 156. My goal is 130. This is driving me nuts. Fitting in exercise is a *bitch* when it's too cold to ride my bike.
5 - I haven't kept up with the commitment I made to support my spiritual life by meditating three times a week. This is the tiniest of efforts, but I've still found it near impossible to fit in 15 minutes of quiet time on any given day. Scott got me this ultra cool orange meditation pillow that's shaped to help me sit and lean forward further open up my chest so I can breathe deeper, and it does help, but the pillow isn't going to cook dinner for me or keep other pressures at bay.
6 - My dad is currently coming up on one year of job hunting, my folks are selling their house on Long Island and moving into the house my grandma left mom up in the Catskill mountains, and the sale of said house is such a cascade of dominoing headaches I just can't type it all out. My sister's also stressing out - and this just means that my whole family is feeling pretty needy right now. I'm actually the one doing the best at the moment. That's scary.
7 - I have no kitty. I can tell that I do have more time on my hands now that was the time I had been spending taking Bonkers to the vet, medicating her, and stressing out about her. And I don't have the drain on my finances from her medical care. And I don't have to worry about her whenever I leave the apartment. But I also don't have the obvious support and warm fuzzies that I loved so much. I do visit Scott's kittys, and I got in a good long cuddle with Caitlin's kitty in a visit to her new place last night, but it's really not the same as having an insistent little MEOW! Where've you been?! Feed me! greet me at the door.

I'm beginning to think I went to Warrior Monk at the wrong time. I went a week after Bonkers died, and while the experience was an emotional retreat where my loss and grief were honored, it was a lot of freaking work. I went from intense hospice care for Bonkers, to Bonkers dying, to Warrior Monk, to Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year's, then learning in early January that my contract was going to be not renewed when it was up at the end of March. While I loved what I got out of Warrior Monk, it was rather more hard monk-like work than the nurturing warm squishy supportive environment at the Woman Within events. Lotsa good there, but hard.

So, let us return to this morning where I'm in a fog of metro-induced stress and self pity. I'm reading my work email, and I have to re-read every sentence about three times before I grok it. So, who do I think might be able to help me?

I called my sister. :)

She told me the following joke:
"So, two atoms walk into a bar. The first one says to the second, "Shit! I've lost an electron!" The second one says "Are you sure?" The first one says, "Yes! I'm positive!"

Bu-dum-ching!

She's here all week folks! Tip your waitress! Try the veal!

This reminded me of another joke she left on my voicemail a few months ago that I think is still there:
"So, a neutron walks into a bar. It orders a beer and puts a five dollar bill to the bartender. The bartender gives it the beer but gives back the money and says, "For you - no charge!"

Grooooooooooooan.

This is why I call my sister in a spiritual mental emotional self-pity crisis. She cuts through the fog and reminds me why I'm on this earth. To laugh.

So, I typed & printed out these jokes and posted them on the bulletin board in the coffee room. I also gleefully enjoyed the make-your-own pasta bar in the cafeteria downstairs that surprisingly was going on today instead of the traditional Wednesday - which I had missed yesterday for a lunch meeting at Booz Allen.

And I chose to remind myself that I still have the tools that matter to me. I have a job that I can maintain with mostly good work to do and people to work with. I am no longer trapping skunks at Camp Atterbury (this is always a good cheer me up). I have a fully functioning body and no major life threatening diseases. I have, and I can continue to provide myself, a good living condition with a roof over my head and enough money to buy food and necessities and the occasional present for someone I love. And I have a list of over 200 people that I know would miss me if I left. People I love are sick and some dying, but the unburdened love is there. I've gotten used to the concept of saying goodbye on God's schedule instead of my own, and I know I've taken care of all the business that could have remained unfinished and haunting if hadn't done the work.

Scott is a wonderful part of my life, a kitty can be added if and when I decide I really need it, and my sister can always be counted on for a juicy bad joke. My folks are capable grown ups that do have a home to go to even if it is in BFE. My egroup is solidly present, my grief therapist is confident in me, and I have an extensive puppet collection. I have also been much lower than this with much fewer resources and I clawed my way out of that pit pretty well. Life can be worse, and it is not right now.

Please send me this URL in the future if I forget.