Radio Silence

Not how I had planned to spend my day.

My employers gave me a brand new Iphone 8 yesterday for my birthday.

At one point I tried to set it up but I had many other things on my plate and figured I would just do it today.

However.

That didn’t work.

The dad helped me out, took the sim card from my old phone and put it into my new phone and then headed off to work.

I actually have no idea what he did.

Just that he did something.

Then I swapped over all the information, got the new phone charged up and started and then.

Nothing.

Nada.

Didn’t work.

At all.

I was bummed.

As it turns out, the mom did some research, I had to have the number off the box the phone came in, um, yeah, left that at home, to activate the account with my phone company.

So.

As soon as I came home I logged onto my account plugged in the numbers, did all the things, and nothing.

Ugh again.

The sim card from my old phone was not doing the deal.

I got through to an online chat with my phone company and I was told I have to take the phone into Sprint store and get a new sim card, the card from my old phone is obsolete.

Of course it is.

It was from an Iphone 5C.

I mean what a relic, an antique really.

I thought about taking the sim cared out of the phone and putting it back in my old phone, but first I have no clue, nor the little tool the dad used, and second I deactivated the phone.

Sprint has that all tied up.

I just need to get the new one activated.

So.

Ugh.

No phone for a little bit more.

Not the worst thing in the world.

I do have a chat on my computer that is working and I was able to make contact via that, although I had no access to any messages that came in while I was away, my laptop was powered down, I just had the old stream of messages.

Sigh.

Oh well.

It’s not a tragedy.

And considering how much I processed in therapy and cried, maybe it was God’s way of saying, take a break, get re-centered, focus on taking care of what needs to be done at work.

I am, however, bummed, I will be going in early tomorrow at work, I won’t have time to go to a Sprint store and deal with it.

I am hoping that the mom will let me out sometime during the day to hop to a store and buy a new sim card and get the new phone fully activated.

It could be a fun little adventure to even do with one of my charges, the oldest boy is all things technology and phones, I could see him having fun in a store full of gadgets.

Fingers crossed.

Otherwise I’ll be doing it after I get off work at six pm.

No thank you.

I don’t like being out of touch.

I had a client cancel and wasn’t able to respond until I got home.

I know I missed text messages.

I may have missed phone calls.

The client who cancelled had even requested a phone session, of course, nothing I could do with that one.

I didn’t lose the hour though.

I did progress notes and I talked with the head of my agency and got some ideas about internship stuff and continuing education and what that looks like.

I also did an hour of client advocacy.

And I picked up my trainee evaluation from my supervisor there.

Which was all high marks.

Very happy to be able to send that out.

I found out I don’t actually have to drop it off to the school, I can just send it in the mail, I am loath to go anywhere near campus for a while, I need a break.

Speaking of, the kids had their last day at school today.

Winter break has officially begun.

I will be working longer days for a bit, earlier start at work while the kids are out of school.

But getting to have next Friday off is such a nice bonus.

I was supposed to go in and see my new chiropractor tomorrow, but the mom was desperate for help and asked me to come in at 8:15a.m.

I will be going in and making pancakes for the monkeys.

It’s a long day.

I rescheduled the chiropractor for next Friday at noon and I’ll just have to keep doing the little stretches she suggested.

I do feel a bit out of whack.

I had to carry the baby a bit today in the carrier and he was having a hard time, a bit sick and fussy and there was a lot of screaming, which so rarely happens with the baby that it can be hard to hold.

But.

Hold it I did.

And when he finally fell asleep I just sat on a chair in the bedroom and closed my eyes and drifted.

No phone distractions.

Only warm, heavy, soft baby, breathing against my heart.

I cried a bit.

I processed some stuff.

I thought too much.

Then told myself to stop thinking.

Figure it out is not a slogan.

Then I just drifted in and out of quiet mediation until the baby woke up.

It was quite nice in the end.

The day went by fast and I had plenty on my hands, the baby, both the older kids, the cleaning ladies, cooking dinner, trying to figure out my phone, giving up on trying to figure out my phone, getting to my internship, and seeing the one client who didn’t cancel.

I wasn’t home until 9p.m. then on the chat line for a while, I had to remind myself to eat dinner and drink some water.

And I should pretty much go right to bed now.

But.

A cup of tea.

Just to unwind.

Just to pause and re-center.

It wasn’t a bad day, just different.

Just quiet.

Nothing wrong with quiet.

Bye Bye

Faceplant.

I took Facebook off my phone today.

It gave me a great big scary warning about losing content and I was like, what the fuck ever.

Let me lose political arguments.

Terror.

Sniping.

Ugliness.

Trauma.

Policy intrigue.

And frankly a great big suck of my time.

I was on Facebook a bit more than I typically am via my phone today as the baby was sick and the only way to nap was to get him in the carrier and rock him until he could sleep.

It took a while and the screaming was tremendous, mostly just because the poor little guy was exhausted, he has croup.

In fact.

All my little monkeys have it.

Thanks to some kids who came to school sick last week and it spread like wildfire.

So today I had two boys, both who were sick and not so happy.

I did get to have them out in the world today as I helped the mom with some errands and for a very sweet hour I had the baby napping in the stroller and my big guy curled up on my lap telling me stories while he nibbled a pastry from Arizmendi bakery.

I got sunshine on my face, good snuggles, and sweet connection.

So.

When we got back to the house and I had the baby again I ended up being on my phone a bit, but the more I was on it, the more annoyed I got.

I have been contemplating taking myself off Facebook entirely, since the current administration and even a bit before it, I was beginning to have a lot of negative feelings about the forum.

First of all.

It’s extraordinarily challenging, I find, to see horror story after horror story, the fires in Sonoma and Napa, the mass gun shooting in Vegas, the hurricane in Puerto Rico, to name just a few, all the celebrity and musician deaths, deaths in my community and fellowship, the suicide at Burning Man, Jesus fuck, all of it and more, and then see Facebook selling me shit.

I am at once terrorized by the horror show of the world and then I am being sold some period panties, or a dress or high heels or what the fuck?

I can’t take in both information.

I can’t want to look at a pair of shoes and then feel extraordinary guilt that I can buy a pair of shoes when people in Puerto Rico haven’t had electricity for a month.

I can’t see story after story after story of women who have been raped and sexually assaulted and then see an ad for a dating site.

Fuck off.

It’s too much.

So.

When I found myself being disturbed, I put down my phone and I focused on what was happening right there in the moment.

I looked at the room I was in.

I felt the weight of the baby on my chest, his warmth and heaviness.

And then I closed my eyes.

Oh.

Why.

This is lovely!

I meditated and then.

Yes.

It happened.

I fell asleep!

I had what I like to call “naptation.”

It’s the best ever.

I couldn’t have slept more than ten minutes, a nap snack if you will, but wow, I felt so much better and refreshed and not irate at the world and upset.

I was present.

It was pretty damn nice.

Then.

Later at my office when I went into see my clients I realized that looking at social media tends to destabilize me and there have been more than a few incidents when I will be idly flipping through Facebook and see something disturbing and then I’m lost in la la land and minutes fly by and I’ve been sucked in and I’m upset now.

Well, fuck me, that’s not how I want to hold my therapy frame.

No.

I want to be calm and serene and ready and empathic to whatever my client brings in, not whatever algorithm Facebook has my feed on.

Fuck that.

So.

I deleted it off my phone.

Yes.

I do still have an account.

And I did not delete the messenger app.

I actually use that more often than one would think, especially with my classmates.

And, irony, school is one of the reasons I won’t get rid of it entirely, my cohort has a closed private group where we facilitate conversations about school and I have found the connection really important.

Facebook still has some things that I want to keep and there are friends and family that are out-of-town that I like to keep in touch with.

But.

No more on my phone.

I don’t like it and I don’t like how often I can be pulled out of the moment, out of the present, and away into something else.

I want to be present for what or whom is in front of me.

I remember when I realized that I could turn off the volume on my phone when I went to bed and not be woken up by a beep or ping or tweet.

I haven’t put my phone in night mode, except once accidentally, that was hilarious, yet, but I am close to doing that as well.

No interruptions.

Just pure sweet sleep.

I also try very hard to turn off my phone and put it away when I am with someone, I don’t like how distracting it is.

As I lean in more to being a therapist as I see what works for me and how I can better show up for friends, for those I love, for my fellowship and my clients, I lean further and further away from social media.

It was such a lot of fun, but it stopped being fun a long time ago.

When I stopped posting my blog to social media I noticed a distinct shift in how I use it and I have to say, I really don’t need the validation of people commenting on my blog from Facebook.

I missed it for a little while, but what I realized, what I have always known, is that the process of writing is what is important.

If someone gets something from what I write, well, huzzah, but ultimately, it is for me and I am grateful for that, that I kept it up and that I continue to do so and I can give a fuck about Facebook.

I think it will get along very well without me.

Probably won’t notice at all that I am gone.

And that is fine with me.

I don’t mind living under the radar.

That’s where the interesting stuff happens most of the time anyway.

Seriously.

Friday

I finally made it.

Tomorrow is my first day off in two weeks.

It feels surreal and already gone, wasted, like I didn’t do enough.

Sigh.

Sometimes the days they are like that.

But.

I did do a lot today and though I didn’t make it far past the church on the corner across from Safeway, it was enough after work fellowship to feel like I was plugged back into the matrix.

It didn’t hurt that I got a new phone today too.

The rice thing didn’t work with my old phone, I didn’t actually think it would, my phone was submersed for too long in the water, but hey, I tried, and having a day off from my phone was not a bad thing.

Weird.

But weird is ok.

I think that’s how I feel right now.

Just a little bit weird.

Not a bad thing, but just a little turned around, a little unsure the lay of the land.

And probably just a little tired and needing to decompress from the work week, the school week, the stuff and things, the phone.

All of it.

I am super glad I did not buy a phone yesterday as well.

The difference in the place on Mission Street versus going to the Radio Shack in the Inner Sunset was night and day.

First difference was they had a similar model Iphone to the one I dipped into the toilet.

I had an Iphone 5C.

I was able to get an Iphone 5S.

And.

It had a big promotional, so I got it for half of what I would have paid at the store in the Mission which was pushing me to sign up for a lease to buy the Iphone 7.

No thank you.

I mean.

Sure.

If I had a lot of spending cash, but I don’t really need it and the cost seems to out weigh, and I mean out weigh by a lot,  my needs for it.

I’d rather go get my butt back to yoga class and sign up for another six months of studio time then lease a new Iphone 7.

Besides.

I just wanted to buy it out right and not have payments over my head.

So I was super grateful to find out that though I thought I was being flip when I told the man at the store, “I know you don’t carry five’s anymore, but I don’t need a seven…”

And he replied, “actually we have some 5S’s in stock and they’re on promo and you’ve got an upgrade.”

And he got me a great deal.

Half, actually more than half of what I was looking to pay.

And.

The second biggest difference in the two stores, this customer service guy went over my contract with a fine tooth comb and got rid of some superfluous things, got me unlimited talk and text and got me a plan that is $10 less a month than what I’ve been spending.

That was awesome.

Even when I realized I had no contacts in my phone once it was turned on.

Although I did have some texts and was able to get a few numbers programmed in.

Then.

Later today someone made a comment about “why didn’t I back up to the cloud” and I was like, all fuck you in my head, then, I remembered.

Fuck me!

I had.

And now, this is weird.

I did it two days ago.

Two.

The day before I dropped my phone in the toilet I backed it up to the cloud.

I have no idea why, it just occurred to me out of the blue and I did it while I was at work.

I mean.

I have had that phone for years and never once thought to back it up to the cloud.

Then the day before yesterday I decide to do it, its super simple, not sure why I hadn’t before, and when I remembered that I had in fact done the back up I went into my new phone connected to the cloud.

And voila!

All my contacts back.

Fuck yes.

That was super nice.

Also super nice was the realization that I was trying to go to fast again.

And going to fast yesterday was part of the problem with dropping my phone in the loo.

So.

I cancelled an appointment that I was scheduled to be at to do the phone thing and not feel pressed for time and remade it for next week at the same time.

I got a positive response, confirmed and then when the phone wrapped up easily and quickly and I was paid and out the door.

I thought, fuck it, I’m getting my nails done.

I had the time and I don’t want to be out riding around a lot tomorrow on my scooter.

The crazy is already happening.

Hardly, Strictly Bluegrass is going on and there are a lot of extra drivers and people in the city and I just want to keep a low profile.

There is the off-chance I might take the scooter over to a garage of a friend who has a part for a cosmetic fix on my scooter that I didn’t have my shop take care of.

But.

That’s not confirmed.

The only thing that I will definitely do is hit my 7 p.m. spot and I’m thinking about going to yoga in the morning and committing to that now that my brain doesn’t seem so on fire with life in general.

I also picked up my favorite new perfume from Tiger Lily today, Rose Flash, and had a nice time chatting up the ladies there who remembered me and were happy to help me out with the task of smelling really fucking good.

I smell delightful I tell ya.

Tomorrow I think I shall be chill.

And I will probably do some reading for school.

The towering stack of text books to my right is not going anywhere soon and I need to read them.

All of them.

And write some papers.

Although I may not this weekend.

I may just do as much reading as I can and let the papers go until next weekend.

Anyway.

Friday.

I made it.

Thank you God.

Sound of me sighing.

Good night.

Sleep tight.

Don’t let the bed bugs bite.

Those fuckers have big teeth.

heh.