Not Excited Yet

But I’m hopeful I will get there.

I realized tonight when I wrapped up with my last client that I only have one client left to see before I go to Paris.

Paris seems far away and a touch surreal at the moment.

I have been so busy walking through this housing situation that I have spent little to no time thinking about Paris.

Cue standing in the dental aisle at Walgreens this afternoon when I went in to fill a prescription.

Why am I standing in front of the toothpaste?

I have toothpaste at home.

I don’t need toothpaste.

But I kept coming back.

Until I remembered.

Oh snap!

I need travel size toothpaste!

I’m traveling soon.

I leave in three days!

It just has not really landed at all.

I am, of course, very much looking forward to seeing my dear friend.

I miss her so much and it was hard to finish my last semester of school without her.

Friends are so damn important.

It will be good to reconnect, to have lots of time with her, and of course, to have the best and most brilliant of insider guides to the city that I love only second to San Francisco.

I am always so happy that I get to live here.

Yesterday I went and visited a friend who used to live in the city but has done what so many of my friends have done, moved out of the city across the Bay.

She lives high up in the Berkeley Hills and it was a beautiful home and a lovely, stunning really, view of the city, the bay, the fog pushing over Twin Peaks, but I could not imagine living there.

I love San Francisco.

Sure.

It’s changed, but everything changes.

And it’s still, to me, one of the most beautiful places in the world, especially to live.

I also ran an errand and took back a bicycle rack that a friend had loaned me last year for Burning Man.

That took me to Alameda.

Where I did see a few cute houses, but it felt so suburban and removed and I also could not see myself there.

Or in Oakland.

Or in Berkeley.

I see myself in San Francisco.

My focus on finding a place is focused on the city proper.

And let me tell you.

I have been looking.

I have seen a few things, but not much.

I have responded to a few things, but gotten no response.

I do feel like when the dust is settled here and all the paperwork signed and taken care of that I will be throwing all my might behind finding a new place.

I will also officially throw it up on social media and I’m quite hopeful that I will find a good place.

I have been quietly telling a few friends and starting to put the word out.

The fact is though, at this point, it’s so close to me leaving for Paris that I really should skip even looking, I don’t know that I could do anything or get anything together before I leave.

I think it’s time I get excited!

I think it’s time to contemplate what I am going to be doing, walking around in the best city to walk, seeing art, street art and art, art.

Getting to spend time shopping in the Marais at all the little paper shops for notebooks to smuggle home with me.

Gah.

I bought a book today to read on the plane and I couldn’t help myself, I bought a new notebook too.

It was too cool to pass up and I knew I must have it.

There was a little voice in my head saying don’t accrue any more stuff!  I need to get ready to move and the less to pack, the better.

But.

Well.

I couldn’t help it, I bought the notebook.

And I did some writing siting in a cafe waiting for my friend and her new baby to come and join me.

I don’t often sit in cafes in San Francisco and write anymore.

I do the majority of my writing here where I am sitting right now, at a tiny table in my tiny kitchen, heaped high with notebooks and folders and books.

God.

I love paper.

I love writing.

I wrote a love letter in the new notebook.

I think that’s why I decided I had to buy it.

It is perfect for writing love letters.

And it was.

After my friend left I had some down time to sit for a while before I headed into my internship.

To sit outside, in the warm late afternoon sun, with a bottle of sparkling water, at a park in the Mission on Valencia Street that I used to bring former charges too and write a love letter while looking up at the bright blue sky, well, it was something else.

So no regrets about buying the notebook.

It will be used.

I will also buy more when I am in Paris.

Along with my standard pair of earrings, lipstick/lip gloss or eyeshadow, postcards, museum magnets and whatever else small momento I feel I should need.

I am so looking forward to seeing Paris through my friends eyes that I will have to buy something outside of my normal repertoire of souvenirs.

I thought about perhaps buying a market basket, I do love how they look.

And.

Yes.

I have contemplated a new tattoo.

I have one in mind, I will see if it stands the test of time when I arrive.

There’s a shop in the Marais that I get my work done at and I’ll see if they have an opening when my friend is off to a wedding out-of-town one of the weekends I am there, get myself a souvenir that I can wear always.

I like that quite a bit.

Of course.

I will take lots and lots and lots of photos too.

I promise.

Psst.

Here are a few from my recent trip to New York.

Back yard patio at a lovely little restaurant in Williamsburg, The Rabbit Hole, where I had the most amazing soup and salad–broccoli cheese consume and the salad was like a deconstructed BLT with avocado and fried leeks.

So good.

Bunny rabbit lamps!

From Le Grand Strip, on Grand Ave in Williamsburg.

I swear to God I almost bought them, but not knowing where I am going to live stopped me.  Once I’m settled I may actually buy them, the owner said she could ship them for me.

Bunny lamps!

A triptych of feminist Latina women at the Brooklyn Museum.

Why, yes.

That is me in the middle.

Mural in Fort Greene Brooklyn.

More to come.

Paris soon.

T-minus three days and counting.

But who’s counting?

 

I Got Poked Today

I got poked a week ago.

That sounds weird doesn’t it?

Poking.

What the fuck is that?

Thanks Facecrack for “Like” and “poke.”

Where would my life be without the ubiquitous thumbs up sign on my life.

And the poke.

I mostly ignore.

In fact, that’s what happened with this guy.

I got poked a week ago.

It’s like a soft feel out.

Hey, there, girl, I’m thinking about you, but either I don’t have the balls to reach out directly, or I’m curious to see if maybe you’re interested, by, say, poking me back?

And what did I do?

I took the bait.

I poked back.

And then I forgot it.

Until I got the message saying, hey gorgeous, long time, I’m in town, let’s hang out, I’d love to see you.

And.

BTW.

I’m single.

Well.

Hello.

It’s been a few years since I have spoken to this particular gentleman and suffice to say since there are folks who know folks who know folks, I’m going to keep this on the very vague.

But the BTW I’m single bit.

Well.

Turns out I was sleeping with the guy who was not available to be slept with.

And how I found that out?

She messaged me.

On Facebook.

The day before I was leaving for Burning Man?

No.

Ha!

The day I was leaving for Burning Man.

This was right after moving back from Paris, so three burns ago.

Yes.

And I had tried to talk the gentleman in question into coming with.

It would be so much fun.

It wouldn’t have, in hindsight, I worked 23 or 24 days out on playa that year.

I think I might have had two days off?

I digress.

So.

I find out said gentleman, is not in fact quite as gentlemanly as he could have been.

And wow.

I mean.

WOW.

Did I get a message in the inbox.

I was so startled by the message at first, I did not quite get it.

I was confused.

I didn’t recognize the name.

I didn’t know exactly what was going on.

I had to read it again.

More than once.

I was at work and I was nannying, so I was distracted.

And, yes, I was getting ready to leave with the family that I was nannying for to go to Burning Man for three weeks so I didn’t understand why this woman was messaging me on Facecrack about throwing all her boyfriends shit out into the street and how I better let him know that he should call her.

Huh?

Oh.

Oh.

OH FUCK.

I might have slapped myself on the forehead.

And minutes before l was to leave as I was straightening up a few things in the kitchen and the mom was grabbing to go coffees from a cafe and the dad was doing the last-minute cross check and the baby was bouncing around the kitchen, he called.

I recall being a little terse.

I got an excuse for why he never called me back and then.

And then.

And then.

The bomb.

“I asked you not to blog about it.”

Um, excuse me?

I didn’t.

Well.

Ok.

I did.

I did indeed write about having had sex with someone.

But.

I didn’t write his name.

I was so incredibly vague that the most anyone could have gotten out of it was that I had slept with a man.

I mean.

Vague.

Vague as fuck.

But.

Apparently said girlfriend was smart and I won’t go into how she figured it out.

But she figured it out.

Then.

I told him that she had reached out to me.

Silence.

Fumbling words I listened to but did not register.

And I do recall saying, “I thought you were single.”

His response?

“You didn’t know I was in a relationship?”

Um.

No.

Because you never told me.

And yes.

I had asked.

Anyway.

I got poked today.

And I responded back to the poke.

“You get whatever you write about in your blog,” my friend teased me, “new mattress, scooter, trip to Paris for Christmas.”

(Dear blog, I want to get married, and be kissed on top of the ferris wheel at Place de la Concorde, and go on a honeymoon to Venice, and get all As in graduate school, and never have to be a nanny again, unless I’m taking care of my own children.  Dear blog, I would also like to be very securely well off financially so that I don’t have to worry about retirement, student loans, groceries, or health insurance.  Oh, I would also like a Jeep Wrangler, preferably in black, but I will take dark midnight blue and a Bambi Airstream trailer.  Dear blog, I also want to go to Hawaii, I’ve never been and I’m part Polynesian I would like to see where I came from.  Dear blog.  I want to get laid but I want it to be romantic, see, I want my cake and eat it too and icing and fondant, and chocolate sprinkles, and cherries on top, multiple kinds, because why not, and maybe crushed up Almond Joy bars because you know, I want what I want.)

And here it was.

Sex.

Sex on a stick.

Sex.

Poke, poke, poke.

I mean.

I am not stupid.

This was not a let’s go on a date and see if we have chemistry, we obviously had chemistry, but there was this thing, a girl friend, unbeknownst to me, and um, yeah, so you, my friend, good sir, revealed to me exactly who you are and what you are interested in.

Sex.

And.

You know what?

Great.

Sex is smashing.

Sex is awesome.

Yes.

I want sex.

Damn it.

But.

I do not want to be used and I don’t want to have to even think that there might be another woman out there who I am cheating on her boyfriend, husband, lover, with.

That’s called a living amends.

Not sleeping with a married man or a coupled man.

The imperious urge did rear its head.

It happens.

I entertained the thought.

Then you know what I did?

I paused.

I didn’t respond.

I wrote instead.

I read my reader for my Psych(e)analytic class.

There it was, in black and white, The Repetition Compulsion.

Oh fuck my mother.

Did that ring way too close to the truth.

I was looking down the street at a pothole I have fallen into before wondering how close I could get to the edge without falling in.

I walked away from the street.

I crossed to the other side.

I hid in a bush.

I stalled.

I went to work.

I debated.

What do I really want?

Oh.

Like I don’t know.

I do.

I know what I want.

Dear blog.

I want love.

And sex.

Both of them.

It exists.

I know it does.

I don’t have to sacrifice one for the other and I don’t have to worry about one or the other and fuck, hello, I’m in graduate school, when do I have the time to get laid anyhow and he wasn’t that great in bed anyhow.

Note to self.

Ahem.

I get wound up sometimes.

Ha.

I got home.

I had a long conversation with my Psych(e)analytic professor about the paper I wrote and I have to admit, I cried a little on the phone tears mostly, I got to see some characteristics of myself and work with them and her, my professor, that I didn’t like seeing and make some insights that I got from doing the paper clear to her.

I got an A.

Not sure I got a hard A.

I did drop the ball on one half of a salient point that she wanted the paper to make.

So out of three things she was looking for I had 2.5.

That being said, she also said in her 30 years of teaching she had never received a paper quite like mine.

That was nice to hear.

And the timing with the poke, really.

Hahahaha.

How FREUDIAN can you get?

It all aligned.

I can answer the message.

I can repeat the same silly cycle that I have done all my life.

Or.

I can let love in through the front door and be patient while it makes itself at home.

I don’t have to rush it right off to my bedroom.

I can invite it in for a cup or tea.

Or at least a Coke Zero.

And let it take its time.

Time.

I have in abundance.

Love.

There too.

On the threshold.

Standing in the sunshine.

Perhaps I’ll sit patient on the Davenport and feel the plaid patchwork rough under the palms of my hands.

While love takes off his hat and scarf.

Hang them there.

There’s a hook by the door.

Love.

Stay awhile.

Make yourself at home.

I’m not going anywhere.

Um, I Think I’m Like

A grad student.

Or something.

It just really struck me as I sent off the next paper in what seems like an endless stream of papers, that I am really in graduate school.

Like.

I’m getting my Masters in Pscyhology.

Huh?

Sometimes I just feel like I am supposed to be in a therapists office, not getting trained to be a therapist.

And school.

It’s almost become normalized for me.

I have a routine, it’s tight, it’s full, but as someone said to me this evening when I was catching up with them after doing the deal, “if you want something done, you give it to someone who is busy.”

Ha.

Yes.

Busy.

That I am.

But I am getting it done and despite or perhaps because of the anxiety I feel every time I have a paper I have to write, I am moving forward.

I am getting the reading done.

I am staying on top of the papers.

I have not sent in any papers late and I have sent in every single paper I have been assigned so far.

And though I am not entirely sure that I will have all the reading done for this next round of weekend classes, I will have had a lot more done than I have for any of my other school weekends.

This is the most on top of it I have been.

It’s been this steady finding my way through the papers and the readings and setting up a routine for me.

I seem to do best when I read a little bit every morning and I do the paper writing on the weekends.

This weekend I techinically had two papers that I had to get done, but I couldn’t pull it together to do the second one.

ALthough it was shorter, 3-4 versus the 10 page guy that I had to pull out on Saturday, it took a lot more mental space than I wanted it to.

And so I had to do it tonight.

On my work day.

When I really did not want to, but I knew that I was going to get to.

And in the getting to get to write the paper.

In the getting it done before it was due and not procrasitating, I felt like a grad school student, I felt like an adult, I felt on top of things.

And this is a nice feeling.

What is not a nice feeling is the up coming phone appointment I have with my Psysh(e)analytic professor.

She has been out sick for sometime, we were supposed to meet in person, but what with trying to get to everyone she has been reduced to setting up appointments to discuss our papers over the phone.

Between her schedule and my wonky schedule I am going to be discussing my Freudian dream state paper on melancholia and mourning via the phone tomorrow night at 8:45 p.m.

It was to be at 8:30 p.m. but the stress of getting home on my bike whipping out my laptop and queuing up my paper to have a conversation with Milly D and why I used 10 sonnets to write my paper to discuss Freud was making me hyperventilate on my bike coming into work today.

I pulled up fifteen minutes before the start of my shift and stretched and called her back and gave myself another few minutes to navigate the phone appointment.

And she said the cutest thing.

“Now if this is a stress, you just let me know!  This is supposed to be a fun learning experience.”

Bless your heart, Mildred Dubitzky.

That might have been the best thing a professor has said to me since I started this program.

A fun learning experience indeed.

Rather than one that makes me feel like a might throw up every time I am in it–T-Group.

Or one in which I am so stressed I fear I will never be able to deliver all the deliverables being asked for (five reaction papers, a final class presentation project with handout, a chapter outline and powerpoint presentation and so much reading I could choke a T-Rex), hello Human Development class.

Or any of the other experiences I have had.

There has been joy.

I won’t say that there hasn’t.

It’s just been anxiety riddled too.

Which is funny.

Ha.

Fucking.

Ha.

I am in school to be a therapist and I get to practice first coping with my own anxiety.

Thanks for the learning experience grad school!

I am learning.

Learning a lot.

Learning that I am intelligent and capable and that I have a strong work ethic and that I work hard and I get it done.

I show up.

I am accountable.

I am not always happy.

But I am more often than not serene.

Except.

Well.

When I am not.

But.

I have faith in the experience.

I have seen it demonstarted again and again that I can sit down and write and get my point across, and I remember a lot more than I feel that I do and I make connections.

And I use a lot of post-it notes and pens.

Note to self.

Stock up on pens at Walgreens this week, I’m about to run out.

Might as well get some post-it-notes too.

I still have papers to write.

But nothing else that is due this week.

Thank the lord.

I just have to do more reading.

But there’s always that.

And considering that I just did a ton of work.

I am going to stop with the reading for the evening, make a snack, drink some tea, and watch a snippet of a video.

Life is good.

Especially when the papers are turned in!

Nightmare

On 46th Avenue.

I woke up this morning from a nightmare.

I don’t have them much any more and it wasn’t the worst nightmare I have ever had, in fact, it so pales in comparison to the night terrors that I had just prior to getting sober that I hesitate to even call it a nightmare.

It was a bad dream, however.

And though I can laugh at the absurdity of it when I shared it with a friend earlier today, I can also recognize that my stress level and my anxiety about having enough time are making themselves known in my subconsciousness.

I dreamt I was back at The Angelic.

That is, I dreamt that I was back running the Angelic.

The Angelic Brewing Company that is.

A now defunct micro-brewery that I helped manage for six years from the time I was 22 years old to the time I was 29.

Yes.

I know, that looks like seven years, but it was six years, perhaps 6.25.

I digress.

The point is, that it was a stressful job and there was a period of four years when I was not only running the Angelic, I was also in school full-time and I was training in Shaolin Kempo Karate at a dojo on State Street.

Said dojo being conveniently located between campus and the brewery.

I spent a lot of time in downtown Madison between those three places.

And I worked hard.

I am good at working hard, if you haven’t noticed.

I ran a successful business.

Was my job title the most prestigious?

Nope.

Floor manager does not have a prestigious ring to it, like say, General Manager, Kitchen Manager, Bar Manager, Head Brewer, etc.

Shit.

Sometimes it felt like the bar back was getting a better job title than I.

However, I had a lot of responsibility for the establishment and I worked full time hours when I was not in school and about 32-35 hours a week when I was in class.

Similar to what I am doing now.

The only difference being is that I drank to cope then.

And I certainly do not have that option now.

Not that I even want that option.

I used up all my drink tickets from the holiday party.

And yours.

And yours.

And hers over there.

And definitely his.

He’s holding out, there’s some I stole from his back pocket.

Needless to say,  I was managing my drinking or I might not have been able to manage the brewery as well as I did.

I would go through periods, then, when I had stress dreams about work.

i would dream I had forgotten to set the alarm or I left the safe unlocked, or I had miscounted a till, or somehow, while I was busy in the back, some bartender or cocktail waitress had left for home, after the bar had closed for the night, accidentally leaving the door wide open and somehow all sorts of people wandered in and I had to get them all out and no one would listen and the cops were on the way.

And.

You get the point.

This morning I woke up having dreamt that the General Manager had booked a band (the brewery was also a default nightclub and very popular bar during the evening hours–day time hours it functioned mostly as a mirco brewery with a semi-decent pub fare menu–burgers, fries, nachos, homemade soups, etc) that was too expensive to pay out.

I dreamed I was in the office counting out tills (the queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey, the king was in the counting house counting all his money) and I noticed that people were coming into the bar.

We didn’t have video monitors or cameras at the brewery, so that’s a made up thing in my brain, but it was very real in the dream and l looked in aghast at the doors to the establishment swinging back and forth as more and more people were coming in for the show and no one was paying.

Fuck.

Where are my bouncers?

I need to put someone on the door and start collecting money.

There won’t be enough money to pay the piper.

But there was.

And I paid the piper yesterday.

My scooter is parked in front of my house, locked thank you–I got a disc lock–safe and sound and fully paid for.

But I could see my financial insecurity coming out in the dream.

As well as my time management issues.

I’m not going to have enough time, I hustled about the office at work, finding the contract for the band and gasping at what the GM had agreed to pay and furthermore.

What the fuck was Metallica doing playing at the Angelic?

That’s when I woke up.

Part of me laughed.

And part of me sighed.

It’s been a while since I have had a stress dream and I know that ultimately, I do all my own stressing.

I tell myself that I am not going to have enough time.

That the things I need to do are going to take up too much time.

Like picking up my scooter today.

Which I successfully did and it got it’s plates put on it and a tidy little basket and rack on the back.

One, said basket, that I have already used today, I went grocery shopping!

Oh how lovely was that?

To not wear my messenger bag over my shoulder and haul a big sack of groceries on my back.

There’s still going to be some bike riding for a bit until I get the parking permit at work, but soon, my bicycle will be getting a lot less action.

I intimated to myself that I wasn’t going to have enough time.

Time to get the scooter.

Time to meet with the ladies.

Time to hear a big inventory.

Time to grocery shop.

Time to do that Therapeutic Communications transcription that was due today.

(I just sent it out an hour and a half ago)

Time to do anything.

Of course, but fret.

And have anxiety.

But the thing is.

All the things got done.

And it wasn’t a nightmare.

And time just sort of folded and here I am sitting at my table, writing my blog having sent in a big transcription project and read a long tiresome chapter in preparation for a paper I’m going to have to write next weekend, and I met the ladies, and I got a ride in on my scooter along the Great Highway at sunset to get groceries.

There’s no need to hold onto any anxiety.

All the stuff.

It got done.

And.

I have a lovely new scooter.

Yay!

Life.

She is grand.

Yes.

Not a nightmare at all.

But a truly sweet dream.

Plenty of which, I shall have tonight.

May you as well.

Sweet dreams.

Good night.

(don’t let the bed bugs bite!)

And Drumroll Please

It was a good day.

I have a brand new Casper mattress coming in the mail.

What?!

I received a text today asking for my address.

I thought someone was sending me flowers.

Nope.

Holy shit batman.

The Universe really was listening.

I am just a little stunned.

(just a little fucking stunned, just a little)

And.

Relieved too.

I had actually decided earlier today that I was probably not going to get the mattress until next semester’s disbursement.

I wanted to make sure that I could make it through the next few months.

I received my first financial aid disbursement and it was about $1300 less than I thought I was going to get.

Oh yeah.

That’s right.

The “retreat”.

AKA graduate school boot camp.

I had forgotten that was going to be taken out of my tuition bill as a fee.

So what I received was $1555.00

Basically one months rent and utilities with a couple of weeks of groceries thrown in.

I was not going to get a new mattress with that tiny bit of wiggle room.

I decided I would pay rent right away and I waffled on actually paying for November as well, but I want to see how October plays out and if I can keep the $1500 in my savings and collect a little interest on it before I use it to pay rent.  I want to see how long I can go without using the money.

Granted.

If I need to.

I absolutely will.

But it feels really nice to have a little cushion behind me.

I let go the idea of getting a new bed and wrote my pages this morning and expressed a great amount of gratitude for my life, and I won’t lie, I did actually write another affirmation about the mattress–along with about fifteen other ones–as well as a gratitude list before I hopped on my bicycle and headed in to beard the lion.

Otherwise known as.

Doing my year review with the family.

And it went well.

They balked at giving me a raise.

I got to let them have their experience and I said what I needed to say, I came into the job under my ask, at the same amount as the outgoing nanny, I expressed how they themselves have stated I was the best nanny they have ever had, and that I only expected to get better at my job.

I also said how grateful I was for their flexibility with me.

They have agreed to keep me at 35 hours a week and continue to pay my health insurance, which is huge, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be getting that.

We also agreed that we would see how everything plays out and stay at 35 hours a week until the end of the year.

I won’t have to look for supplemental work and I won’t have to look for another family.

They will deal with me being unavailable every third Friday while I am in school.

We tied it up with them saying they would think about a raise.

And.

I am good with that.

The fact is.

I am going to be taken care of and I will be fine even without the raise, though it’s nice to get and I don’t recall having had a single job where I didn’t get some sort of raise after a year.

The flexibility with my schedule is the coup and the still getting my health insurance covered is huge.

And.

When the boys are on school break, I will work more for them, I will work my 40 hours like I was all last year and be of service to the family.

Win.

WIn.

Win.

Then I had myself a busy day.

I earned my keep.

I made homemade pizza for the family and for the family that came over for a play date.

Four boys.

Two three-year old boys and two five-year old boys and one delicious 8 month old baby girl.

So much deliciousness.

The baby let me cuddle and snuggle her and the three-year olds let me read them stories and the five-year olds helped me “prep” dinner, and the parents had a visit and the dog kept me company and I did the laundry and marketed too and set them up.

I did my job.

I did it well.

And I felt really good about how the conversation went and grateful that I asked.

Now I get to let go of the results and know implicitly in my heart that all is taken care of.

I mean.

Hello.

I really thought I was getting some flowers delivered, I did not expect that the message was, the Universe reads your blog and wants you to get some good sleep for graduate school studies.

Fuck.

Can’t come soon enough.

I have so much work to do this weekend.

I was trying to not be hyperventilating on my bicycle ride home.

I had taken the time to do the deal and popped into Our Lady of Safeway right at 8p.m.

So grateful I got my God on.

That hour reset me, refreshed me, and despite having anxious thoughts plague my ride home, I knew that I was going to get it all done and it was going to be ok.

I asked for a raise.

I asked for a review.

I got a great review, by the way.

I got tons of thank you’s and I love you’s and sweet little boy hugs.

I got a beautiful ride home through the park on a Friday night.

I got a gift coming in the mail.

SERIOUSLY?

Seriously.

I also have the gift of getting to go to school.

That is a gift too.

I am graced.

I am loved.

Don’t let me ever tell you different.

Loved I say.