A Banner Day

Actually.

The last two days have been pretty stellar.

I was reflecting on one of the nice turns of events that happened for me yesterday–I went from owing taxes to getting a tax return–and I thought, hmmm.

How interesting that I was in deep acceptance about paying the unexpected tax bill after an enlightening couple of conversations with a friend and work on my scarcity mentality.

And then.

Yesterday, when meeting with the final accountant before my 2021 taxes were filed, did it finally come clear.

I was right!

Fuck.

I mean.

I don’t often dance about going, I was right, I was right, but when one is unexpectedly looking at dropping another 5k towards taxes, when inside you’d been secretly hoping you’d get a return, well.

I WAS RIGHT!

Ugh.

It was a slogging walk through a lot of discomfort though.

Last week, after a bit of prompting with the accounting firm I use, I finally got a set time to go over the return, sign it and file.

When I got the draft of the taxes I was aghast, upset, angry, and in tears.

How was it possible that I owed money?

Ugh.

Again.

Here I was being really diligent about making my quarterly payments and being on time with it all, and aside, doll, it is your first time doing taxes as a private practice and there’s so much to learn about being a business owner, but still.

Fuck.

I really had been crossing all the “t’s” and dotting all the “i’s” but I still owed.

It was baffling.

Especially because in April the accounting firm had dropped a bomb on me and said, oops, hahahaha, looks like you have to pay more in then we realized, and you only have three days to do it before penalty this and penalty that.

It was $9,302.

I wanted to vomit on my laptop when saw that.

I was beyond aghast.

I emailed the accountant and I asked for clarification and I expressed what a devastating thing it was to have just made the quarterly tax payment, and then less the twelve hours later I was being told I owed another 9k.

I was flummoxed.

I got a sincere apology from the co-founder of the firm, who I had cc’d on the message back to the accountant, an explanation for why it happened and they refunded the $900 I had paid for the service.

Great.

And, I still had to pay the money.

So I basically emptied my savings and did that.

Which was why I had turned down the original Burning Man ticket I was going to get.

I can’t go to the event and be there for two weeks and work on playa and help out and miss two weeks of work after taking that kind of hit.

So.

I gave up the commitment, gave up the ticket, and resigned myself to not going.

Things changed over the next few months.

I had a really stellar month in May and a strong month in June.

July, not so great since COVID happened to me and I had to take a week off, but I had secured a new ticket and gotten my gear sourced and I was ready to go.

Then the tax bill arrived.

I was so upset.

Fuck.

I thought I was going to have to bow out completely from going to the event.

I spent some time thinking about it and decided to just pause, lean into the discomfort, think about what I wanted and act like I had the money to pay the bill.

Which I did.

Even if it meant wiping out the savings I had just rebuilt after the April tax kerfuffle.

I even asked the CPA who had drafted my tax filing about the April payment and got a brush off.

So.

I had done a bit of inventory, a lot of breathing, and got very into acceptance, I’ll meet with the accountant with the firm and just fucking sign and pay the fucking taxes.

And.

Oh.

This is good.

I was right.

The firm had missed the payment.

The IRS had not.

The IRS had a record of it and I accessed it, shared it with the accountant and I went from having to pay in $5,761 to getting back $4,340.

Fuck yes!

I was over the moon.

And the week of work I missed with being sick was now made up for and I’m ok to go to the event and.

Woohoo!

Then.

Today.

I got back the final dissertation draft with all the edits properly executed and accepted.

There was only one.

One fucking edit I could not fix myself and I had to chase after help, but I got it and it was returned complete and done and perfect this morning.

So.

I logged into the ProQuest portion of the publication process and I fucking finished the deal.

I chose how I wanted to publish, Traditional versus Open Source, which means I could actually get royalties (though I will not bank on it), my dissertation.

I filled in all the blanks.

I paid for my own hard cover copy to be sent to me.

And I hit the upload button.

It does not immediately get published, the school will gate keep it one more time and make sure all the edits are correct, then once those final edits are affirmed, they will publish it an I will get a link to a copy of the dissertation on ProQuest.

Holy fucking shit.

This last piece has finally fallen into place.

And it was a harrowing last piece of work.

I cannot even begin to talk about how intense it was to deal with the lapse in holding the administration at my school had.

I will tell you what I did get, however.

First, I got an apology from the head of the Writing Center, then my dean, followed by a profound apology from the Provost, in a 45 minute Zoom call where I went over everything that happened and how the program and the school dropped me and publishing my dissertation.

I contacted the provost when things were fucking falling apart in a bewildering way and she helped push through some admin bullshit that was once again damaging to have to walk through.

She also affirmed what I had experienced, did not gaslight what happened, and noted what I had accomplished, the depth of the work I had done and gave me a beautiful, “Congratulations Doctor _______________”.

She promised to make sure that I would matriculate.

And, once the publication happens I will be matriculated at the end of the summer semester.

Considering how batshit the administration of the school is, I won’t expect my diploma until this fall, but for now, all the things that I needed to do are done.

I just need the manager of the dissertation portion of the Writing Center to confirm I did the final edit and send to ProQuest.

I did follow up with an email, although he gets an automatic email from the upload. I saved it anyway, which I have learned, I needed to do with the school.

Which is how I was able to show where they had dropped the ball and how, I hope, they will not for future cohorts.

I really am ready to be done with the institution.

And.

I am ready for my own damn version of graduation.

Back in May when I walked, when I had gotten the approval to graduate, despite the fact of finding out later that there were things missing, I was also missing part of my regalia–the god damn hood.

The one piece of the graduation outfit for doctors that signifies the degree.

The way it works is that your committee chair hoods you at the graduation ceremony.

My graduation was virtual and though we had a little in person reception at the school, it was weak sauce.

And the outfit responsible for getting my regalia to me never sent me my hood.

I got my hood in the mail this Monday.

Two months after my “graduation.”

The Universe is funny.

So.

I am going to have a graduation ceremony on playa, at Burning Man, at my friend’s art piece, the Museum of No Spectators.

I think Wednesday or Thursday of the event.

The art piece has a stage.

I’m not sure how I’m going to organize it, but a little hooding ceremony, a walk out to the Temple in my regalia, and then laying it at rest there.

It feels right.

I had a kind of dark night of the soul on playa in 2014 that led to me applying to graduate school to get my Master’s in Psychology.

This feels like the closing of a circle and a celebration of all the freaking hard work I did to get here.

From playa nanny to Doctor.

I am beyond grateful.

Like I said.

It was a banner day.

Seriously.

Today I Got Pissed

It started out a little off kilter as I missed a calendar alert to be in on a Zoom meeting with some of my cohort and my committee chair and the TA to my Methods class.

Thankfully I was up and puttering around and making breakfast when I noticed the incoming email from the TA as a reminder to get the call.

Shit!

Fortunately I was only two minutes late.

I have had homework on the back burner this week.

It’s time to move it up front.

I have a draft of a large, very important paper due in tomorrow for this class.

I am so grateful that last week, before all the crazy shelter in place hit, I worked a lot on the paper and really turned in a polished draft to my peer reviewers.

Who did not really review it.

Guys!

Ugh.

Granted both my reviewers said it looked great and they both said, “Wow!” so that was nice, but no comments, no questions, no observations about how to make it stronger.

I know my TA, she is going to find something and kick my ass and make me do a bunch of rewriting.

Which is fine, but I also don’t want to send in a draft that I have not laid eyes on in a week.

Tomorrow I throw myself back into school mode.

I have to.

I actually will have a fairly busy week this week.

I have 22 client sessions, meetings (FaceTime) with three sponsees, and homework due for all three of my classes.

I’m not super stoked for shelter in place, but I am not going to have any issues filling the time.

I’m actually a bit happy to be back here blogging on the daily again.

It feels real nice.

Really, really nice.

I have missed it.

The processing my day at the end of the day while I listen to music.

I have definitely been listening to lots of music and taking dance breaks to move my body around.

Which I needed to today after making my way out into the world.

I helped a friend out who doesn’t have a car and ran her to get groceries and supplies.

On my way I drove past Ocean Beach.

And that was when I got pissed.

There were so many people at the beach!

What the fuck people.

SERIOUSLY.

This is not a fucking tornado drill.

Get your dumb asses off the beach.

Get your GROUPS OF PEOPLE the fuck home.

I LIVE HERE!

This is my neighborhood.

A few days ago I was making my way to the beach and thought there were going to be days of long, quiet walks around the neighborhood.

Then yesterday I noticed a really big up tick in the number of people there and today, fuck.

It actually freaked me out.

I live in a quiet residential neighborhood, but when it’s nice in the city the beach gets packed.

Today was nice.

Yeah.

It wasn’t as packed as say a regular Saturday with nice weather, but it really was overcrowded considering the situation.

I wanted to yell out my window, “go the fuck home.”

My friend in Spain told me that she can only go outside to walk to the grocery store, no where else.

And.

That all the beaches are closed.

All of them.

I sort of want that now.

I really thought to myself, I should call the fucking cops.

I should tip off the news.

I should mind my own business.

I cannot afford to get worked up over this.

And I can be the change I want to see.

I can avoid the beach.

There are other places I can walk to be outside.

I can also sit out on my deck and get outside time that way.

So.

That’s what I did today.

And a lot of dancing, which felt really good.

Tomorrow I need to stay on schedule, get up, shower, be mindful and do my morning routine, do some writing, go to the laundry mat (ugh, my one thing about my current situation that I just do not like, I have no laundry here that I can access, I have to go to a laundry mat, but I won’t sit inside the mat, I will walk while my laundry is washing and drying), Facetime sessions with lady bugs, then work on that paper.

And walks away from the beach for a little while.

It’s not worth getting angry about.

I need to stay calm, cool, collected

I have, and I am lucky to have it, a busy week ahead.

Be in good health and take gentle care.

And.

Avoid the beach.

Seriously.

On The Eve

Of my fifteenth year of sobriety.

I had to stop and ponder and wonder in awe at the scope of my life in these last fourteen years and 364 days.

I have come so far.

So fucking far.

It leaves me breathless with awe.

I’m a psychotherapist.

I live by myself in the most expensive city in the United States.

Although.

I still cringe at my rent, I can afford to live alone and I understand what a precious gift that is.

I work a lot, it’s true.

I’m still working six days a week and two jobs.

But!

Soon.

I will be done nannying.

I have been a nanny for thirteen years.

That’s a lot of time to be in any career, let alone one in which I have gotten to have so much unconditional love poured into my heart.

Nannying has been a tough job and the most incredible gift too.

I have never had children.

Shit.

I have never even had a pregnancy scare.

I have occasionally thought of what it would be like to have my own child, but really, I have gotten to raise so many beautiful, sweet, amazing children.

I have had so many children tell me they love me.

I have had so many babies fall asleep on my breast and in my arms.

I have felt the soft sweet breath of a child on my neck so many times as I lay them to sleep that I cannot count them.

I have sung a lot of lullabies.

I feel replete.

I do not feel grief stricken for not having had a child of my own.

I have had children.

I have also gotten to give them back at the end of the day and go my own way.

I will be hanging up my nanny clogs soon, my last day with my current family is February 24th.

So by the end of February I will just be working full time as a psychotherapist and a full time PhD student.

Just.

Hahahahahhahahaha.

Oh.

I also got my grades back for this past semester.

Straight “A’s.”

Not like anyone has every question someone with a PhD, “hey how were your grades during your course work?”

Most folks don’t give a fuck, you got a doctorate, you are doing great kid.

I had a 4.0 all through my Masters and I am looking to repeat that with my PhD.

I have also received the news that I have been granted the first person I requested to be my PhD committee chair.

Over the moon.

I found out from a fellow in my cohort that my pick only chose two of us to work with.

I am thrilled and honored that he took me on, it’s going to be some work, the work is nowhere near done yet, but it’s still a great big wonderful thing to be entering the last semester of my course work.

And I’m doing it in two years.

Most of my cohort is doing it in three and some in four years.

I know one other person who is doing the course work at the same pace as I am and we made a pact to get through the whole damn program in 3.5 years.

I am still on track with that.

I am also really on track with getting my hours for my MFT license.

I am 737 hours away from being able to be on my own without supervision, without having to pay extra for supervision and fees and stuff and things.

I will get my hours before the year ends and I am fucking thrilled by that.

My life is pretty amazing.

I looked at my things today, I looked at the art on my walls and the pictures and the beauty that I have surrounded myself with.

I am not rich.

But I am awash in beauty and prosperity and abundance.

I am so grateful.

I have slept on cardboard.

No more of that.

I have been homeless.

I have had to go to food pantries and be on food stamps.

I have worked some pretty grimy jobs.

I have struggled and worked and struggled some more.

I own a car.

What the hell?

A new car, my own car, the first new car I have ever bought.

I go to yoga.

I still can’t always get over that.

Who is this person hopping into her cute little marshmallow colored Fiat and heading up Balboa Street to do yoga?

I have nice clothes.

I bought in Paris. 

I used to wear hand me downs from my youngest aunts.

I used to have only one pair of shoes.

I have a lot of shoes.

I mean.

A girl likes her shoes.

I have framed art that I have bought in Paris too.

I remember having posters pinned up to my walls, when I had walls, I didn’t always.

Or magazine photos taped to my walls.

I always have liked to look at things.

I have gone to so many museums.

I have traveled the world.

Not a lot, but a good amount you know.

Paris, New York, London, LA, Miami, Chicago, Anchorage, Marseilles, Rome, Aix-en-Provence, Austin, Havana, Cuba, Burning Man.

Not bad for a girl raised in an unincorporated town in rural Wisconsin.

I have some pretty amazing tattoos.

I have gotten to meet and hang out with one of my musical hero’s–more than once.

I have extraordinary friends.

I have a way of life that is full of purpose and meaning and service.

I have love.

I have had terrible heart ache and I have survived it.

I have resiliency.

I have lost dear friends to death far too soon.

I have danced under the stars until dawn, in underground clubs in Paris, on top of speakers in dancehalls in San Francisco, arts cars out in deep playa at Burning Man.

I have narrated my story and performed  in front of 100s.

I have recited poetry to audiences small and grand.

I am in the world and I am alive and I am so grateful for that.

For this wonderful, sometimes painful, but always so full, so amazing, so extraordinary, beyond my wildest dreams, life.

Here’s to (almost) fifteen years of sobriety.

And many, many, many more years to come.

So many.

 

Back it Up

I mean.

Seriously.

Back that shit up.

I had the most uncomfortable experience today.

Like the fucking worst, I thought I was going to vomit, I definitely burst into tears, and I cried for about a half hour after the event happened.

Slow.

Steady.

Leaky tears.

Which doesn’t bode well for having to see therapy clients when I finished my nanny job.

I cried off most of my eye makeup, and I didn’t wear the waterproof mascara today.

Not that I think my clients ever notice the state or disarray of my makeup, but I felt pretty raw today heading out to see clients.

I deleted my paper.

I deleted a work in progress paper that I have been working on since the beginning of the semester, meaning, I have been on and off writing this paper for seven or eight weeks.

50 pages.

86 references.

Fully formatted bibliography.

Poof.

Fucking gone.

I deleted it.

It was a total accident.

I can’t get into the specifics of it exactly, it would mean trying to explain APA formatting and the technology platform that I use to help me format my papers and that said technology has definitely not been doing so well holding this gigantic thing and it sort of just disappeared.

There were warnings that something like this would happen.

I had a near panic attack at work about three weeks ago when I couldn’t open the paper and I had to send the bibliography into my professor to show the progress on the work.

It’s actually a journal, not a formally written paper, it’s rather like an annotated bibliography where I have a running list of all the references, books, articles, websites, etc, that I have been collecting to help me write my dissertation.

By the end of the semester I need to have 250-300 references.

The one that got deleted today has 86.

So I still have a ways to go, but hey, 86 ain’t bad.

There’s an upcoming assignment that’s due on November 4th where I will have to provide 25-50 pages of the journal to the professor along with the full bibliography and a bunch of other stuff I won’t bore you with.

I have been diligent about doing the work, but the app has been pretty slow, but I’m used to it and I sort of just look the other way and let the damn thing do it’s thing.

Which is what I was doing, I had just formatted another reference and had another queued up to go and I wanted to look at the paper that I was citing and I toggled out of the paper and into Chrome and I was typing something and the app popped me from Chrome back into the paper and I hit backspace and deleted the whole thing, but I also typed the letter e and that replaced the paper.  So when I hit undo, all it did was undo the letter e and leave me with a blank paper.

I couldn’t undo the undo.

I literally just about vomited.

And it was such horrid timing.

The monkey woke up form his nap and both mom and dad were working from home.

I didn’t say anything.

I went to get the monkey.

The mom saw my face though and asked if something was wrong and I started crying and said “no, well, um, yeah, I think I just deleted a 50 page paper with 86 references that I have been working on for weeks and excuse me a second.”

I ran to the bathroom and sobbed for a few moments.

Then.

I washed my face,

Dried my hands.

And.

Walked back out and started to try and get a semblance of normality back together.

All I could think about though was the gigantic stack of books on my desk and how I was going to have to go back through all of them to find the quotes I had pulled, plus all the articles and how long it had taken me to just accrue what I had.

And fuck, would I even be able to get enough together to turn in the upcoming assignment and what the fuck was I going to do about the other two classes I have work in.

I mean I felt fucking floored.

I texted a friend in my cohort who immediately called, but I couldn’t pick up, I had the monkey in my lap and mom and dad doing their work and shit.

My friend texted me a bunch of helpful stuff and I thought, I do know one super tech savvy guy, maybe I can reach out to him.

Then the dad stepped in.

He asked me to show him the app and I showed him what happened and how the paper came up just as 1 page and the letter “e.”

He did the same undo thing and it just went blank.

Then he quit the app and toggled around and found a back up in Word and saved it, cut and pasted the entirety to an email and sent it to me.

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.

I have my paper back.

This is not an experience I ever want to have again.

I have another app that I bought and paid for at the beginning of the semester, but being a little tech phobic I never even opened it up to use it, relying on the comfortable and known to do the work for this semester.

No more of that shit.

I will be opening up Scrivener and not using Perrla any more.

I actually couldn’t bear to look at it tonight when I got home.

It’s safe.

It’s not going anywhere.

I have a file.

I have it backed up.

I am taking a break.

I need to do that.

I’m going to post my little blog.

How nice it is to be here again, sweet, sweet blog, I don’t get around to you so much anymore.

This PhD semester is kicking my ass.

And.

I am seriously grateful that I get to be pursuing a PhD and that, thank every freaking God, deity, Goddess, Universe, Spirit et al, that my paper is still amongst the living.

Because if it weren’t I’d be seriously screwed and if you think you don’t see much of me now, there would be none of me the rest of the semester.

Thank god my paper was saved.

Thank freaking god.

And now.

Netflix.

I’m taking the rest of the night off.

I have earned a god damn study break.

Seriously.

Buried Alive

This is it folks.

You may not see or hear from me in weeks.

In fact.

I am already askance at myself for not throwing myself headlong into some reading, writing, researching, or the other.

Why, I’m writing my blog when there is a shit ton, a fuck ton, a whole lot of things to do this semester.

I knew that at my intensive, when just after two days of one class I realized that class alone was going to be a full time job.

Then.

Add in two more classes.

One is “light,” like I only have to read five books.

But the other is fairly substantial and I am thinking about using the work in progress project to write a potential publishable paper.

I get ahead of myself, but it was suggested that I might want to do that by a fellow who’s on the three year course track.

He listened to my project and was like, “you should publish that,” then told me how to do it, then approached my professor and told him what we had discussed and the professor liked it!

Holy fuck.

Anyway.

One day back from the intensive and I haven’t done a lot, although I have done plenty.

Since I have been back I have had supervision, seen 7 clients, worked a nanny shift, went grocery shopping, did laundry, and food prepped for the week.

That in and of itself is full time work.

Then, today at work, while the little guy napped (why oh why have his naps grown shorter!?) I plugged in all the due dates and assignments and readings that I needed to do over the semester into my Google calendar.

My calendar looks crazy.

It looks like every spare minute has been accounted for until mid December when the semester ends.

I sense the days are going to fly by because they will all be so very full with the work that I have to do.

I have a lot to do.

This is by far the heaviest work load.

And.

In a sense the most clear cut.

I figured out who I want to be my chair for my PhD dissertation committee and I also asked said person, or at least gave him the heads up.

It will still have to go through the channels and what not, but I know who I want and I believe he wants to work with me.

Plus.

I asked another person to be on my committee and she said yes.

So, that’s positive.

Granted, I can’t actually assign anyone to my committee without my chair’s approval.

So first the chair.

That will officially happen in November.

But I interviewed with three professors at the intensive and with each one I talk substantively about what I am doing and what my inquiry is and how I want to pursue the work.

Two of the professors I talked to for an hour.

One professor I only got to catch for ten minutes between classes, but she was ecstatic with my idea and really impressed with how I’m going about it.

She recommended that I sit in on a former TA’s dissertation defense, which I did and she was the person I asked to be my second committee member.

The professor also suggested I take her elective in Spring, which I had already written down to take!

So my courses are lined up.

I will get through this semester and I’m going to light it on fire.

I’m going to bring it.

The fact that I am going down two days of nannying a week for me is even a bigger deal now.

I need that time.

I also want to have incoming therapy clients fill up those spots, but every spare minute is going to be used.

I had clients cancel for this Friday, not all, but two, Labor Day weekend travel plans, and I immediately blocked the time off to do homework.

I will always, always, always, be carrying my laptop with me so that I can take whatever time I get whenever I get it, to be online, posting discussion posts.

I will always have one, if not two or even three books with me so that I have something I am consistently reading.

This is the semester to get my literature together.

For my Ecology of Ideas class I have to submit a literature journal with 250-300 pieces of literature–dissertations, studies, books, articles, etc.

I don’t have to read them through, but I will need to be consistently searching for materials as well as consistently skimming and scanning and adding them to my annotated bibliography and my journal.

There is so much to do.

It’s exciting too.

I’m not going to lie.

I can really see it coming together and I plan on submitting my proposal next fall instead of waiting for the fall semester to work on the proposal, I am going to do it over the summer.

I am going to dig in next summer and get it done, it will literally save me a year of tuition and waiting for approval.

A friend of mine who TA’s for some of the courses did that this intensive.

She did all her course work in two years, like I am in the middle of doing, took the summer to work on her proposal and the second day of the intensive, the first day of classes, she defended her proposal and got it approved.

Which means she moves right into her dissertation.

I’m all for it.

I made a pact with a friend of mine in the cohort and that’s what we’re going to do.

It will knock out time and a lot of tuition.

Fuck my student loans are big.

But you know.

I am so fucking worth it.

And so is my idea.

I can’t wait to show it to the world.

Until then though.

You will not see a lot of me this semester.

I literally am going to be buried under books.

I might come up for a breather around Thanksgiving.

But for now.

Well.

See ya.

I got shit to read.

So much.

One More Week

Of freedom.

From school.

Which is fucking hilarious as I carted around two gigantic text books today on the off chance of being somewhere I was going to read.

I learned to always carry my books with me, because inevitably the day will come when I don’t, (this past Saturday) when a client no shows and I have down time to read.

Or I’m at work and unexpectedly get time to read.

I probably won’t at all be able to do that at work tomorrow, I just don’t see it happening, but sometimes it does and as my time is super precious I use whatever I can get.

I have finished one of my text books for the fall semester and started in on another one and I am simultaneously reviewing a few articles for the class I will be guest lecturing on the 21st of September and reading a book for that class as well.

I did question myself a little about that today as I sat in a training in Berkeley for my agency, what am I doing teaching a class too this semester?!

But, I feel it’s good for me to do and I’m excited for the topic and the few people, outside of school, I have run it by, really like listening to me talk about it.

I find that encouraging, if someone who doesn’t have a background in psychology finds it fascinating, those who are pursuing the Master’s degree should like it too.

Or so I hope.

Regardless of whether they do or not,  I am learning as I prepare to teach.

Which is always how it goes.

Want to learn something on a deeper level?

Teach it.

I have had that experience over and over and over again.

And I’m grateful to get to go before an incoming Master’s cohort who are just beginning their journey and say here I am, in my second year of a PhD program, as a licensed Associate Marriage and Family Therapist with a burgeoning private practice.

I get to model what they can become and that’s really a sweet gift to give back.

I didn’t know how much work it was going to be and I’m pretty glad I didn’t, I did know I was right where I was supposed to be and I want to share all the things that I have gotten to learn over the past few years.

An hour and a half lecture will not encapsulate that, but it should be enough time to lecture on Reverie, which I find totally fascinating.

Reverie is something that happens in sessions where daydreams, wayward thoughts, fantasies, visions, intuitions, come to the therapist.

The first time it happened to me in a session, a dyad at school with a classmate, I got spooked.

I thought I had drifted off.

But there was something so potent about it, the image that came to mind, that I mentioned it to my professor who then told me that I had experienced  reverie and that it was clinically significant.

We discussed what I saw, how it was clinically relevant, and how to make an intervention around it.

It was fascinating.

It still is and there’s lots to talk about, and I won’t bore you with it at this time, since I don’t know that you’re really here to listen to me practice my lecture in Psychodynamics.

Heh.

Who knows why you’re here anyway.

I don’t.

I mean.

This blog has been dark for almost two years now, maybe actually it has been a little more than two years.

I don’t link it to social media.

I don’t post it anywhere.

This is just me noodling away at my keyboard.

There are perhaps of handful of folks that still follow me out there who know me, but most of the people that read this have no idea who I am.

Once in a while it gets read a whole bunch and I’ll be curious who has discovered it and why is it so fascinating.

Recently it was getting a ton of reads in, of all places, Hong Kong.

No idea why.

But for a few days, on and off for the last couple of months, literally hundreds of my blogs were being read in Hong Kong.

That was kind of cool to see.

I don’t know how many blogs I’m going to get out before the semester starts, I’ll be starting with some new clients this week and trying to get some homework done before the intensive.

One of my classes doesn’t have the syllabus up yet, which always makes me nervous, but the other two do and there is going to be some major work and a lot of reading to do this semester just for these two classes.

But.

I am not going to stop blogging.

Especially since I am going to actually try to incorporate my blog into a “Work In Progress” assignment for my class in Arts Based Research.

I know that I won’t be able to do a blog a day like I still managed to do with my Master’s degree.

That became really evident I am sure when my blogs took a total nose dive once I began my PhD and started building up my private practice.

The blog took such a hit.

But.

I have never stopped writing and I’m going to keep sending out these little missives to the Universe whenever I can.

It helps me to keep my writing chops and it helps me process all the things.

Like not speaking or being in contact with my ex and what that feels like.

Good and super hard all at the same time and scary and sad.

Or thinking about the time I was in Cuba, just recently and had an overwhelming spiritual experience at a Catholic church where Santoria is practiced.

Floods of tears, praying on my knees, and asking for forgiveness in front of a black Madonna.

Or when I was walking the cobblestone streets of Old Havana with my hair up, a long white dress on, a bright turquoise parasol protecting me from the sun and the feeling of awe in wonder at who I get to be in this life and where I get to go.

And.

Where I get to go home to.

San Francisco.

I am still here.

Hanging on at the edge of the city.

The ledge of the Western seaboard.

Two blocks from the Ocean.

The moon rise and the the dark breach of universe turning above me.

I am so fucking grateful to be alive.

It’s ok that I got my heart broke.

It’s ok that my rent’s ridiculous.

It’s ok that I’m still a nanny.

I get to do all these miraculous things.

It’s ok that I’m busy with my PhD and nervous to teach the class.

I get to do all these things.

Because.

I am graced.

Happy.

Joyous.

And so very.

Very.

Very.

Free.

There is So Much

To write about.

And where to begin?

I almost titled this blog, One Hour, as an homage to something quite big.

I also thought about naming it, “Are you Here?” as I suspect my ex is back in town.

At least it feels that way.

More about that later.

Then I thought I should write about my awesome and amazing Mike Doughty experience and having gotten to see him on Wednesday of this week and how I played hooky from clients and went out on a school night.

I didn’t really play hooky, I just rescheduled them for later in the week, I had one tonight and I’ll see the other tomorrow after my regular Saturday clients.

Then I thought, oh yeah, I should call this, “Vive La France!”

As I bought a ticket to Paris last night!

Yeah.

So.

All the things.

All of them.

So much going on.

Plus, of course, the school thing that is happening and how I managed to get all my papers done and turned in on time and also how I got back some really amazing comments on my last couple of papers.

“Clarity, erudition, adept usage of third person, meticulous APA style,” I could go on, but then I think that’s just ego.

I”m right on schedule with school at the moment and extremely happy about that, despite feeling a little disconnected from school since I did not get much time this week at work to do homework.

The family had the flu.

Like seriously bad, fevers, aches, chills, super bad sore throat, coughing.

I do not know how I escaped, but I did.

I also got my flu shot this year so that might have helped and as soon as the family was diagnosed with the flu at the doctors they called me and said call my doctor and get Tamiflu, which is a preventative medicine that will work if taken within 72 hours of exposure.

So I’ve been taking that all week and seemed to have skated by the flu.

Thank fucking God.

I cannot afford to be sick.

And.

I don’t like being sick.

Even the small part of me that rather enjoys lying around all day in bed.

The rest of me drives itself crazy when I’m sick.

So I’m super happy I avoided it.

But man, work was a tough one this week.

Which made it easy to ask off for time to work with a client.

Yes.

It’s official.

This week I got my tenth client.

I took a leap of faith when the person reached out and offered expanded hours beyond what I have available.

Meaning.

Wednesdays I work from 9 a.m. to 5p.m. then see clients at 5:30p.m., 6:30p.m. and 7:30p.m.

I offered the client a 4:30p.m. slot.

Technically I’m working as a nanny, but I’ve been in conversation for months now that at some point I would slowly begin the transitioning down of nanny hours for therapy hours.

I hesitated for just a brief moment but knew, really knew, that I had to offer hours that would overlap into my nanny shifts.

And the client took the Wednesday slot.

Which means I have to be done at the nanny gig by 4p.m. now on Wednesdays.

One hour less of being a nanny.

One hour more of being a therapist.

Plus.

This new client found me on Psychology Today and was not a referral from my agency, meaning the client is full fee.

Yippee!

The more full fee clients I get the faster I will transition out of nannying.

I mean, I love the family, but $30/hour versus $140 an hour.

Well.

I know what works better for me.

Anyway.

That’s therapy business.

Then there’s Paris business which in a way segues into ex-boyfriend business.

Yesterday at work I was checking e-mails in a brief moment of time when I wasn’t picking up used Kleenex, hydrating some small child, washing dishes, drawing, cuddling, or making hot tea with honey and saw an interesting email from a friend.

It was an e-mail that he forwarded that there was a one day sale happening for round trip tickets to Paris.

Oooh.

I wasn’t planning on going to Paris this year, I’ve been planning on going to Hawaii in July,(but still haven’t done anything about it as I’m waiting on my employers to let me know when they’re going to be in Finland and if, probably not, but if they are also planning on taking me to Helsinki with them)  going to Maui and staying in Paia, where my grandmother was born in 1928.

But.

I was curious about the flights and a little bug got in my ear and so I searched and shit, the price was too good to pass by.

So I picked the best time for me to go, end of the fall semester, in December.

Yes.

That’s right.

I’ll be in Paris on my birthday and for Christmas.

I fly out of SFO on December 17th, landing the next day at Charles de Gaulle on December 18th, my birthday, in the early afternoon.  I’ll fly back on December 27th.

So I’ll be there from my birthday through Christmas.

I will sit in cafes, go to museums (the Louvre, the D’Orsay, the Jeu de Paume, the Pompidou–which is open on Christmas, I know where I will be, wandering the galleries there for sure on Christmas day, the Orangerie, the Palais de Tokyo, the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais, the Musee de l’Art Moderne), walk everywhere, read books, go do the deal with the Paris fellowship, hang out with my best girlfriend from my Masters degree cohort…we’ve already made plans to go to the ballet (I messaged her right after I bought the ticket).

I got the ticket from Air France round trip, direct flights there and back for $579.32!

I still can’t believe that!

My girlfriend asked me why December after exclaiming at the cost of the ticket.

I told her that my birthday and Christmas have been really tied up with my ex the last two years and maybe its better for me to be in Paris then in San Francisco and really just do something for myself.

I always wanted him to come to Paris with me and I had even brought it up in the days before we broke up that I wanted to plan a trip with him there.

It is such a screamingly romantic city.

And he’s such a foodie, he would have loved it.

I’m still sad we didn’t get to experience that together.

She understood.

Plus, I told her that it makes sense with my school schedule and it’s the slowest time of year for therapy clients….the last two holiday seasons were really slow and I hear that it’s that way for most therapist.

So.

Yeah.

Booked that ticket.

I don’t think I’ll stay with my girlfriend, despite knowing she’d let me, I think I want a little more autonomy and she’s got young twins, who are super sweet and adorable, but the house isn’t huge and as much as I loved staying with them, I don’t want to stress them out at Christmas.

I figure I’ll Air BnB in the Marais where they live, it’s super central and I know it well enough, and just be an independent lady at Christmas time in the City of Lights.

God.

There’s more to say.

The feeling of my ex being in town, and wanting him to reach out or to somehow bump into him, it’s big, but I’ve not got time to write more.

I need to get up early, lots of clients tomorrow.

So.

I bid you adieu and I’ll see you on the flip.

 

I Need Off Canvas

And its only just begun.

I made myself take a break today (I was at work and the baby took a long nap) after two solid hours of writing, engaging and interacting the three different classes I have on Canvas with CIIS.

Canvas is the tech platform the classes are set up on and why yes, not a single one of my professors uses it the same as the others.

Every single one of them does it slightly differently.

And once again I had the feeling of being on top of things to only realize that I hadn’t checked into one of my classes in a few days since I was so busy posting up to the other two.

Sure as shit.

I needed to post and post pretty immediately.

I wasn’t exactly annoyed, but I was tired and I don’t know that I put up the most relevant post, but what I came to understand from last semester is that it almost doesn’t matter.

I just have to constantly be posting something.

Either a substantive post on an assignment or reading, or responding to one of my classmates.

Pretty much every week I need to be in Canvas posting and replying.

I almost didn’t want to write my blog tonight, I just wanted to come home, warm up, eat a hot dinner and crawl into bed.

But if I’m not going to do school work, and I still might do a little more tonight, I am also not going to get into bed and watch hours of Netflix, as tempting as that may be.

I will watch some.

Just not a marathon.

I need to keep that and social media to a dull roar.

The blogging is going to be helter skelter.

I have no clue when I will have time, but I figure, it’s good to stay as close to it as I can.

It’s good for my brain to unload the day and it’s good for me to have something that is not academic writing.

Besides, I’ve said it many times.

The process of writing the blog really keeps me sharp for when I need to write papers.

And boy howdy, the papers are already coming.

I have two due by next Monday.

I also have a training for my internship in Berkeley on Sunday.

I will need to be careful with my time so that I can do all the things that need to be done and all my life stuff as well too.

When I go on trainings I’m gone for half the day, 45 minutes to get to Berkeley, three-hour long training, and then on average the traffic back has been an hour and a half.

By the time I get home I need to eat lunch, which is late as it’s around three p.m. and I need to go to the laundry mat.

I am still not happy about having to go to the laundry mat.

But I am making the best of it.

For instance, this Sunday while the majority of the country was watching the Super Bowl, I was doing laundry and read 46 pages of material in my Varieties of Scholarly Expression reader.

I also did a paper on Sunday as well.

First one of the semester.

And cooked and organized things and went birthday shopping for my oldest boy charge who turns nine tomorrow.

And.

Oh yes.

I took myself on an Artist Date to Cliff’s Variety in the Castro and I bought art supplies for my Arts and Creativity in Leadership class.

I had a lot of fun.

I probably also spent more than I needed to, but honestly, I really think I needed to do it.

It felt good to say yes to myself and to splurge a little.

I mean, it’s art supplies, not crack.

Although when I was checking out I couldn’t help but giggle at all the glittering supplies I had gotten.

Glitter glue.

Glitter markers.

Glitter colored pencils.

Glitter stickers.

Plus some fancy origami paper (I won’t be doing origami with it, I just liked the paper), watercolor markers, pastel markers, and tiny colorful clothes pin holders.

No idea what I’ll do with the latter, but they were so fucking cute I had to buy them.

It was a nice splurge.

I also yesterday, had a Zoom session with one of my TA’s.

This was good, clarifying, and really just sunk it home, I’m in a PhD program.

I really have a lot of work to do and keep doing.

This is a long haul program.

But.

I am hoping to follow my TA’s cue and do some work the summer after I finish my course work so that I can get a head start into that next semester of work where I will be independent.

She told me what she did and it was basically to not take the summer off and work on her proposal for her dissertation so that as soon as the first day of fall semester hit she turned it in to her dissertation chair and was off and running.

She will likely be done in three and a half years as opposed to four and a half.

I’m all for doing it that way.

Get it done.

I am excited, more and more, as the process becomes clearer to me.

Yes, so much work, but rather fascinating work and I’ll be writing about something I am very interested in.

So, yeah, Canvas.

I have gotten three notifications while I have been writing this blog that something new has been posted in my classes, so I will likely hit it up for a few more minutes before calling it a day.

It’s how I managed to get through last semester without falling behind.

The horror stories of people in my cohort who fell behind is enough to keep me active.

Or.

The people who just dropped out completely or disappeared.

I think we lost five people?

I don’t want to drop out and I do want to get my dissertation through, I want to have a PhD.

I want to be Dr. Carmen.

I really.

Really.

Really.

Do.

So Good

To be home.

My God.

So good.

I’m super grateful I went to the intensive and I reconnected with all the folks in my PhD cohort, don’t get me wrong, but fuck, I was ready to get the heck out.

I cannot wait to sleep in my own bed again.

Five nights in a hotel in Burlingame is not exactly my cup of tea.

Granted.

I got super lucky, again!

I had no room-mate.

Although I had been assigned to share a room with another woman, I did not pay the extra $702 to have  room to myself (there were quite a few who did drop the money, but I really couldn’t see doing it) to have it to myself.  My room-mate just never showed up.

Not sure why either.

The name of the person was not someone who I knew from my cohort, which meant I would have basically been bunking with a second year person.

Which isn’t horrible, it would have just been an unknown and another layer of the experience.

Grateful as fuck that I had the room to myself and I didn’t have to pay the extra to be alone.

It was nice to sleep and do my thing at my own schedule.

It was nice to get up in the morning and shower without having to be concerned about a room mate or another’s sleep schedule, or wearing pajamas to bed, I sleep in the nude thank you very much.

It was lovely to have the quiet, especially as I have been incorporating a fifteen minute meditation into my morning the last few days.

I had a friend suggest an abundance meditation and I started doing it the first morning of the intensive.

I do a little reading, mull on the reading, then sit and meditate and after words write down what comes up.

Sometimes my brain is just too busy, but I have found pretty consistently over the past five mornings that I have felt more abundance and my flow and I have felt more generous, both with my money and with my time.

I definitely can suffer from a scarcity mentality and I feel like I have worked a long time on turning that around.

Now I want to bring more abundance in and that means conversely being more generous.

Faith.

Not fear.

I’m grateful for that.

I found myself tipping more at the intensive, offering to get things for people, more coffee when I was doing a refill for myself, asking others what they needed, buying flowers.

That experience was really sweet actually.

The second year students had their last intensive, there’s four in total for the program if you’re on the two-year track, six if you’re on the three-year track.

I am on the get it done as fast as possible track, two years of course work, instead of three years.

It means that once again I am full tilt boogie for the semester, but having survived the first semester I feel like I have a slight leg up over the person who walked in pretty blind last semester.

Granted, I still did have an anxiety attack the third day of classes going over my third class syllabus and realizing how much the professor wanted of us.

But, I managed to not die and a dear friend reminded me that I had a near panic attack last semester going over the syllabus in my third class too.

So I was right on time.

Lean into the process.

Fuck.

He was right.

And I got through it.

So it was nice yesterday to have a big chunk of time, I had my elective scheduled on Sunday, to run around a touch and get out of the hotel and go get flowers.

I had been tapped along with two other women to do the adieu ceremony for those in the program who were moving on and wouldn’t be with us next semester.

They will instead be doing the independent research that they need to do to get their dissertations done.

I drove my car into downtown Burlingame and went window shopping and walked around.

Downtown Burlingame is surreal, FYI.

It was like a big outdoor mall.

Very little that felt unique or town like, although there was a town like sort of structure to it, it felt like a big suburb.

It was nice to be out though and considering that most of my time I spend in San Francisco, it was nice to see something new, granted, not my cup of tea, but still seeing new things is good.

I won’t be going back anytime soon, unless they decide to do the next intensive in Burlingame too.

It’s hard to say, the place that the school had been doing them is under a huge remodel and may not be ready by next fall.

Anyway, I had fun window shopping and got a few new lip glosses at Sephora and then got flowers to give to the outgoing cohort.

We had a little ceremony later that night and I have to say I was super happy that I had made the suggestion to get flowers and then went and got them, it felt right and it was so sweet to see how touched the outgoing students were.

I like this kind of generosity.

I like bringing happiness to others.

I do like feeling in the flow and in abundance.

And I realize, quite well that when I am in scarcity I tend to hold too tightly to money or objects, afraid to lose what I have.

But it’s really hard to accept what is trying to be given to me if I hold on too tightly.

Giving back, being generous, even in small ways, seems to shift that for me and I found that I felt really positive and good in my interactions with my cohort and the second years moving on.

I also participated a lot more than I did last semester.

Sat longer at meals and talked more.

Participated in the talent show.

Made myself known.

Sure.

I also ducked out of going to the bars and grabbing margaritas or drinking wine with the ladies after class and went to my room and read, but I really did try to socialize a lot.

It was good.

I am proud of myself for getting through.

And I’m ready to go back to “normal” life.

Heh.

Busy life.

Full on tomorrow, work and three clients after work–I had to reschedule some of the folks that I had not been able to meet with for having been out-of-town.

Plus!

I picked up two new clients while I was at the intensive, which was really cool.

Anyway.

Grateful to be home, it’s home, and my bed is going to be a miracle, I can tell.

And I’ll do my best, I think I really do want to do that for you and for me, by writing my blogs as often as I can.

This week I’m pretty caught up on my reading and ready, but I know there will come a time when I fall off the face of the earth for a while.

Don’t worry though.

I will be back.

I promise.

I love this too much.

I really do.

Playing Hooky

By going to school.

I’m currently ensconced at the Crowne Plaza in Burlingame.

I know.

Sexy.

Meh.

But in some ways it’s totally freaking cool.

I’m not responsible for clients this week, I saw all the clients I could early on in the week and rescheduled my weekend clients for when I get back.

And.

I’m not at work.

So in a way it feels like I’m on vacation, and I know it will change really soon, like tomorrow soon, like 7 a.m.soon, it will feel like I’m at work, it will feel like I am doing work, because, well, classes start in the morning.

But for right now.

For the last three hours in fact.

It has felt like hooky.

Or.

Vacation.

I didn’t go into work today, although I did have to go to group supervision this morning, so I was up at 6 a.m. bright and early to do that, but once supervision was done at 10:15 a.m. I was free to go about my day until I checked into the hotel at 3:30p.m. this afternoon.

I went and got a mani/pedi.

I read trashy magazines.

I went home and packed and made a really nice lunch.

I sat on the deck in the sun!

It was so decadent to be at my house in the middle of the afternoon and have lunch on the deck!

I was very, very, very happy.

I could get used to this I thought.

Not like that’s going to happen anytime soon, but it was such a small, simple pleasure, to sit outside on the deck in one of my Adirondack chairs and soak in a little sunshine.

It rained so much the last week it was marvelous to have sunshine.

I had a phone call with a friend in France and then I headed out to Burlingame to the intensive.

As I was heading in I was tackled by one of my TA’s, who I’d not had a lot of interaction with during the course, mostly just connected with the professor, who gave me a huge hug and told me what a “badass” I was.

It turns out that she read everything that I had written and was really taken with my writing and loved the group project that I did and raved about my poetry.

That was so nice.

It felt like such an unexpected and welcoming way to begin the intensive.

I got settled into my room and my room-mate hadn’t shown up yet, so I got to pick my side of the room and make it mine.

And.

She hasn’t shown up still.

I did check with the coordinator when I got my room and I have been assigned a roommate, but so far, she’s not here.

I don’t know how long that will last, but it feels really nice to have the room to myself.

I got ridiculously lucky and my roommate last semester no-showed, so I had the room all to myself the entire time.

I could really handle that happening again.

I’m not counting on it though, there are people still arriving, some are getting in later tonight, some are getting in tomorrow morning.

We had a nice welcome ceremony and check in about the schedule and some tips for navigating the space and a quaint map of Burlingame.

Which makes me laugh, but I am sure at some point I am going to want to get outside of the hotel and I may drive around Burlingame and go to a cafe just for a change of scenery.

The hotel is also alongside the Bay and there’s a path along it and a nice little park, so I could see getting out to stretch my legs too.

There’s some malls, but I don’t find malls very attractive, so I won’t be doing that, most of the time I do feel like I will be here, be in classes, be with the cohort, be doing the work.

I have, as a matter of fact already read through 3/4s of an article that was posted for one of the classes.

And I’ve read three books already, so I’m not going to be too concerned about holing up in my room on my down time and reading.

Although I might.

There won’t be another week like this where I’m off from work and off from seeing clients that all I’m doing is school.

Although a girl can dream.

Dinner was lovely and I’m happily surprised by the quality of the food.

So much better than the last intensive.

I know some folks were upset that we weren’t in Pacifica, and grant it, it’s certainly prettier by the beach, but the food was absolutely morbid and since I already live so close to the beach it wasn’t a huge deal for me.

Here, well, it’s not so scenic, I mean, it’s Burlingame, and it’s by the airport, but the hotel amenities are so much better and like I said, the food was actually surprisingly good.

I’m happy about that.

And the conversation!

Oh.

God.

I forget sometimes what it’s like to sit around with really smart people and have really fucking fascinating conversations.

Not that I don’t, but to sit for three hours over a meal and talk with someone, with intelligent, smart, driven people, it was so exhilarating.

I needed that.

The online part of the course work is a bit challenging, for me anyway, but what I found the hardest was the feeling of being in a vacuum sometimes.

So it was super nice to connect with my cohort and talk about the experience of doing the work over last semester and to find that my experiences were similar to many and, well, hey, it’s not like I actually know a ton of folks with a PhD or people going after a PhD.

Although, granted, I do actually know more than I’d say most people do.

But to have a room full of us all working at the same time towards this goal and to commiserate and laugh felt really good.

So, yeah, I’m happy to be here and though I know at some point I’m going to be really happy to be home, it does feel enough like a vacation to make me feel a bit rejuvenated.

And that is really nice.

Seriously.

So nice.