Separation of Church and State

And it finally happened.

I am so grateful to report that after much time, many failed attempts, yelling at my computer, yelling at the WordPress chat help, not literally, although I do think I told one of the people on the chat that I was as computer conversant as a tired four-year old.

I really felt like throwing a tantrum with that chat and I excused myself from it quickly when I realized I might, probably not, but might throw my computer on the floor and stomp on it.

So it is with much happiness and relief that I can report my website, my professional website, and my personal blog are no longer connected.

Oh.

They still are, but not really, not in a way that anyone could figure out and my friend who helped me even made the suggestion to change my face on the profile picture so I couldn’t be recognized that way.

Hence the new icon which is a graffiti photo I took many years ago in Paris.

Six years ago it feels like.

Paris was much on my mind today.

And in many of my conversations.

I went and saw my dear friend Barnaby at his new shop in Oakland, East Bay Tattoo, and he touched up the color on my pink jackalope bunny tattoo that he gave me for my 40th birthday when we were living as room mates in Paris.

We both marveled at how far we’d come since that time in Paris.

We were both trying to figure things out and neither one of us thought that we’d actually be moving back here.

Barnaby landed in Oakland and I in the Outer Sunset.

Six years later he’s the father of two boys and he and his partner own a house in Oakland and he just opened a new shop.

Six years later I’m a psychotherapist, not going to tell you my name though, oh no, I don’t want you finding my website from my personal blog (this baby is dark, no social media, no LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, nada), I’m also a PhD student and I own a car!

I mean.

I remember how I felt leaving Paris when we did, my heart-felt bruised, I felt defeated, broken, I had tried so damn hard to make it work and Paris was not having it.

Not having me.

Although she has welcomed me back with open arms and love every time that I have gone back since.

I feel like I have learned so much about myself from my time spent in Paris.

So my friend and I reminisced and talked about all the things we did there and the conversations and all the things that we have done in the time between and how life is.

You know.

Life is pretty damn good.

Even though.

Fuck my life.

I just found out that my paper is due at 5p.m. instead of midnight.

And!!!

Hahhahahahahahahaha.

God.

I must be a little on edge about getting my shit done by all the deadlines.

I forgot, tomorrow is Sunday, not Monday.

The paper is due Monday.

Of course I’ll be working and not really have time to address the paper, so I’ve been planning all along to have the work done by Sunday night and turn it in Sunday night after I get back from doing the deal up in the Castro.

Whew.

What a goofy little moment of panic.

I was all sorts of mad.

Heh.

Ah.

Breathing deeply again.

So.

I will hopefully be posting on a much more regular basis on my blog now that I don’t have any worry about potential clients finding out about it.

I mean.

Ahem.

My most “popular” blog is about cocaine and vodka enemas, not something I want any perspective client to be reading about.

I know how that sounds.

I never have and never will administer or be given a cocaine vodka enema, but I had a friend tell me a story once and I was so horrified by the idea, I’d never heard of it and I guess it’s actually a thing, that I wrote a blog about it many moons ago and what do you know.

It’s the most searched for tag that leads people to my blog.

I have actually thought about deleting it, but you know, it’s actually well written and it does in fact allude to recovery, so maybe someone out there who happens to stumble upon it might get the idea that they actually have a better shot at life without shooting cocaine up their bum mixed with vodka.

Anyway.

There are lots of other things in my blog I’d rather not have my therapy clients find out.

Like I’ve been to Burning Man eleven times.

(Dirty hippy)

(Sex addict)

(addict in general)

(weirdo)

I won’t say that any of those things don’t apply, but ahem, you know, I’m happy with who I am and not really shy about sharing.

God forbid a client read any of the blogs I wrote about my brief and tumultuous jaunt on Tinder.

God was that a heap of crap.

With one or two shining moments, but mostly a lot of yuck.

And now.

Well.

THANK YOU FRIEND!

I don’t have to worry about it.

I can write happily and freely about everything.

Well.

heh.

I don’t actually write about everything either, you know a girl has to have a few things kept back.

At least for right now.

There may well be a time and place when that changes, but right now, yeah, there are a few things that don’t wind up in these posts and that’s alright too.

I’m just so happy to have my little blog space back.

I don’t mind that it’s gone so dark, it’s like my own little private universe with a few select friends that like to hang out and have a cup of coffee with me and catch up.

I’ve got some followers who know me in my personal life as a real bona fide person, and I’m cool with that, but the rest of the world can keep right on thinking of me as Auntie Bubba.

I’m very.

Very.

Very.

Cool with that.

Hello Stranger

I’m back!

Oh my God, I’m actually back.

Wow.

This feels so surreal.

It also feels weird because WordPress has once again changed some things on the site and the layout I’m used to using has changed.  But so far, well, so freaking good.

It is nice to be home.

I have missed you!

I have been busy, I won’t lie.

So busy that it makes me wonder how it is that I can even take the time to be sitting here in front of my computer not working on homework.

My God.

The amount of homework.

It is horrendous.

There is literally not a day.

Ok.

There was a day.

That I don’t do homework.

I didn’t do homework on Thanksgiving.

I almost did, but then I just cut myself some slack and said, no, take the day off or you’re going to be pissed.

And the day was taken off.

I went to a movie!

In fact, heh, I went to two movies!

I cannot remember the last time I saw a movie in the theater, probably last Christmas?  And to see not one, but two in the same day was crazy.

I went with my people to a matinée at the Embarcadero Cinemas, which I love.  I do adore a good art house space, plus, there is just something pretty about that part of town when it is emptied out, as it was being a holiday.   The view of the city, the Embarcadero, the bay, the Bay Bridge, the downtown skyscrapers and plenty of parking, which in and of itself is a miracle.

We saw At Eternity’s Gate, the Vincent Van Gough movie with William DaFoe.

First of all, DaFoe is a fucking genius, he’s got the Oscar on this one.

Second.

Horrendously sad.

But I mean, you know it’s not going to end well, the man cuts off his ear for fucks sake, it’s not like this is going to be a happy movie.

Yet.

It was a gorgeous movie, Julian Schnabel did amazing work.

It’s filmed on site where Van Gough did his paintings, Paris first, than the South of France in Arles, and the light he manages to capture is just exquisite.

It felt like being in one of Van Gough’s paintings.

So much beauty.

So much grief too.

I was in tears and the ending just had me with tears pouring down my face, but ultimately, it was such an extraordinary work of beauty that I was grateful to be able to see it.

And I was grateful to reflect that I have gotten to see a number of Van Gough paintings in person.

Although I have never been to the Van Gough museum, I have seen his works in the Louvre, the MOMA New York and the MOMA San Francisco, and The National Gallery in London.

That’s pretty damn good if I think about it.

I am blessed with having gotten to see the amount of art I have seen in my life.

There is so much more to see.

So much more.

Speaking of art, I had hoped that during my down time from work with the holiday I would get to the MOMA, but I did not, too many other things were happening.

Lots of homework, internship work, seeing clients, seeing friends, running errands that needed desperately to be run, clothes shopping–I hadn’t been clothes shopping in so long it felt kind of crazy.

I’ve lost a little weight the last few months and really had to get new jeans.

And I’m not complaining about that at all, it just took forever for me to have the time to get to it.

You may see a theme here.

Busy.

The new internship is going well and I feel like it will grow me into a very healthy private practice therapy business.

Which is also part of the reason why I haven’t been blogging here for some time.

I’m not much of a tech person, not really, not at all, and for my internship I needed to build a website.

Now if I had the money I’d just hire a friend to do it, in fact, when I do have the money I will most likely do just that, but in the mean time.

Well.

Shoot.

I already have a blog on WordPress, I’ll just use WordPress.

Except.

Ugh.

I didn’t realize that I had inadvertently connected the two, my professional website with my, very private, thank you very much, blog.

I mean.

Some of you out there know who I am.

But most of the people reading my blog don’t know who I am.

I am anonymous here and I always have been, since it allows me to pretty freely write about what ever I want to write about.

Oh.

Sure.

There are things y’all don’t know and that will stay like that for ever, thank you.

But.

I am really transparent here.

I write about all sorts of things.

All sorts of things that no therapist wants their clients to know about.

So you may imagine my horror when I realized that you could access this blog through my professional site.

I don’t believe I let that oversight go more than a few days.

The horror I felt though when I realized that the website I’d worked on so hard was linked to my personal blog was no bueno.

I mean.

Yuck.

I don’t believe any of my clients found it.

In fact, I do wonder if anyone actually did figure it out.

It wasn’t very obvious, but for a couple of days the “About Me” was my “About Me” blog from this site, which isn’t exactly scandalous, but it is sassy and certainly not anything I would want a therapy client to read.

NO.

So once I fixed that I spent too much time trying to figure out how to separate the two entities.

I spent too many precious minutes and hours away from my homework on the help chat.

And then WordPress went down, well, it didn’t go do per se, but the administrative support did and really, the couple of chats I did have done nothing for me, except taunt me with the fact that there was a way to separate the two from each other, but I couldn’t figure it out.

Like.

My understanding of technology is a five-year olds.

So for a while, like a petulant five-year old, I just stopped trying.

Then I started reaching out to friends.

I have had three-hour long sessions with friends and nothing was accomplished, except for me to get more frustrated.

I wanted to blow up the site.

I wanted to pull my website, but I’d fucking bought the domain and paid for two years of hosting.

I wanted to delete my blog, my baby, this guy, but really?

No way.

l have over 2,500 blogs on this site and they are valuable to me.

More about that later.

So.

My best idea was to lay as low as possible and not write any blogs while I was getting it all sorted.

And yesterday.

I think.

I hope.

Fingers fucking crossed, I figured it out.

Well.

Not the real solution.

But something that would allow me to be anonymous here and not have any tie to my professional site’s identity.

For now it seems to be working, so I’m not going to jinx it.

And hey.

Look at that.

I got to run.

It’s time for me to get ready to go to bed.

I have early supervision now before work and I’ve got a six am start.

Blah.

But hey.

It’s so nice to be here again!

I am.

So fucking nice.

I promise, I won’t be a stranger no more.

Nighty night.

Apple Cider Vinegar

For the win!

Who the fuck knew?

I didn’t.

I had no clue.

But.

I was up for trying anything and so last night after doing some more internet research on foods to not eat, I thought, hmm, what about foods I should eat.

And there it was.

A huge amount of information about things that are helpful, including, apple cider vinegar.

Having tried all sorts of over the counter meds and this prescription that I’ve been taking now for over three months, I thought, why not try it.

It was a fucking Christmas miracle.

I cannot even begin to describe the intense relief I got almost immediately.

Relief which lasted through the night, giving me one of the better nights of sleep I’ve had in weeks.

Although it wasn’t long enough, I had to be up early for supervision before work, it was restful and I didn’t lie there in agony trying to fall asleep.

I mean.

Sure.

My brain kept me busy for a while with travel plans and graduation plans and things that need to be done, but I wasn’t in pain.

Just marveling at that it took a minute or two to drift off.

But.

Oh.

When I did.

It was such nice, deep, restful sleep.

Hopefully I will have another night like that.

Especially as I just had some more of the apple cider vinegar.

The reflux began to kick in at the end of my first client and was in full riot gear by the time I was finished with my second client.

I chewed sugar-free bubble gum on the way home to take the bite off it, but I felt pretty sore and tired and a bit head achy from it.

The reflux simmered down immediately upon taking the vinegar.

I still have a touch of a headache, but I’m hoping that too shall pass.

Especially since I have had some dinner.

I notice the reflux too when I don’t have much food in my stomach.

Which is apparently the opposite of what usually happens, most folks get it on an over full stomach.

My stomach is not really full.

I usually eat dinner after I get home from my clients, which makes dinner fairly late, tonight is was around 9p.m.

You could say I’m practicing for being in Paris, where dinner is often quite late.

My friend messaged me this morning as I was getting ready to go to supervision about my trip over.

She relayed to me that she will have more time than she originally thought she would, although it does look like the family will be gone for a weekend to Hungary for a wedding.

“You could come, or you can stay in Paris.”

I opted for stay in Paris.

I’m not sure of the exact dates for their trip, but if it’s a weekend thing that would be the 20-22nd.

I think.

Which is fine.

I have plenty of experience being on my own in Paris.

I’ll have their home to be my base and I can spend time wandering around.

I’ll do much walking in the Marais, I am very sure of that, since that’s where they live, on Rue de Temple.

It’s nice to think about travel plans.

It’s nice to think about graduation plans.

Those will come first, since that’s the order of things.

Graduate.

New York.

Paris.

Start PhD program.

I feel like I am actually going to have a real summer vacation.

New York at the end of June and Paris in mid-July.

I am going to get to experience some warm weather, some sun dresses, some sandals, hair up off my neck, bare skin, warm nights.

Sigh.

I love summertime weather.

And I don’t get that much of it out here in the Outer Sunset.

It does happen though.

And when it does one fervently, or I should just say I, hope that no one in the other parts of the city know that it’s nice at the beach.

I have a friend who lives in the Mission and will literally text me to ask how the weather is out at the beach.

Just because it’s sunny in the Mission does not mean sunny in the Sunset.

But when it is, wow, it’s spectacular.

My life feels pretty spectacular when I take a step back, even now, even with the constant reflux stuff happening.

I’m soldiering through it and learning to do even more self-care.

God.

I am just constantly learning.

There is no end to it.

I am also.

Speaking of learning.

Thinking about starting a new blog.

Yes.

I did say that.

I happened to be thinking about it last night, amongst a few other tantalizing things in regards to my upcoming travel, about starting a blog specifically for my clients.

A way of giving back some of what I learn and practice.

Part of our Integrative Seminar at school is to have website, it’s an option instead of doing the 30 page paper, blogs were noted as a great tool to connect to clients.

And.

Well.

I like to blog.

I would have to tailor it to fit a different audience.

But I think I would like to try to since it won’t be so much about my own personal, daily process, and since it will be aimed out towards the public, I think I will go live with it on social media.

I’m staying the fuck off of Twitter.

Fuck you Twitter.

I’m not really out there with my politics, but fuck you, I won’t ever use your platform again.

Anyway.

Not that facecrack is much better, but I can put it out there and see if there’s a decent response or feedback as well as hooking to my Instagram.

I may also start a second Instagram account that is client focused and centered, rather than on me and my selfies.

Thoughts.

Things to explore.

And grateful to get to explore them with a modicum of relief from the reflux.

Go apple cider vinegar go!

Reading The Fine Print

I just went through the handbook for my Master’s program with a fine tooth comb.

The one thing that I have found challenging in my program is the apparent lack of information as well as the over abundance of information.

I feel like there is so much information that just is not applicable to my experience or the learning and then there’s information that I really need, but it’s buried on page 41 of the 50 page handbook.

I’m glad I found it though.

I have gotten a mixed bag of mis-information from fellows in my cohort as well as interns in my group supervision about how many hours I need to have accrued in practicum to graduate.

I need 225 to graduate.

Of those hours I must have 150 direct client hours–sessions with my clients, not phone sessions or e-mails or paperwork or progress work–face to face sessions.

I had thought that I needed 250 direct hours and I was beginning to get a little nervous.

I should not have any problems getting the hours.

Or so I thought.

I have eight clients that I see on a weekly basis.

But.

They cancel.

Or.

They no-show.

And it’s rare, I’m seeing quite clearly now as I just got home early because a client no-showed, that I actually see all eight clients during the week.

So when I was thinking I needed 250 direct face to face hours by May, I started to get concerned.

I won’t make it, it won’t happen, how is that possible?

How is it possible that I am heading into my third semester of practicum and don’t have enough hours?

How?

As of right now I have 240 hours.

But only 130 of them are direct face to face hours.

I felt flummoxed and upset and annoyed and then I begin to berate myself.

Why did I post that stupid thing about graduating in May and filling out my graduation application?

I’m not going to graduate!

Whoa.

Slow down there.

I don’t have enough information.

I realized that I cannot just go on the information drifting about through the hallways at school or in the office where I do my group supervision.

I have to take responsibility and find out that myself.

So I went to the academics page on the school’s website, signed into my account, found my program.

And.

Voila!

There on page 46 of the 49 page hand book:

Students must complete a minimum of 225 hours [at least 150 direct client contact hours plus 75 Client-Centered Advocacy (CCA) hours] while enrolled in practicum prior to graduation.

Sweet Jesus.

I am fucking fine.

I am only twenty hours shy of having the direct client contact hours.

As for client centered advocacy I don’t have nearly that much, I have six hours.

But I do know this much, it doesn’t matter if I don’t get all the client centered advocacy hours, if I have more direct client hours, I can count those towards graduation.

Ultimately it is the face to face sessions that mean the most and I have to acquire the majority of my hours there.

And I also recognize that I could be actively going after more CCA hours as well.

Client centered advocacy could be doing research on a client and their family lineage, it could be watching a movie about alcoholics, it could be reading a CAMFT (California Assoication of Marriage Family Therapists) magazine or a psychology magazine.

Today I actually had some down time at work, and while the baby napped I read a number of articles in a psychology magazine on workaholism and chuckled to myself, multi-tasking, working and also accruing hours, sounds like I’m the workaholic in this instance.

But I’m happy I did the reading as I had that no-show and I was able to mark down another hour.

I think that I will try to acquire two hours of CCA per week as I move forward, more if I can.

I can also read outside articles, books, and go to seminars and do trainings.

But just knowing that I actually have enough moving forward is a bit of a relief.

I was getting a little worried.

I also realize that I am probably going to have to let one client go with whom I have been doing pre-dominantly phone sessions.

I am not allowed to count Telemedicine through my school.

I can towards my license, but not towards my graduation needs.

I want to be safe and make sure that I’m not squandering my time.

I am excited and relieved to have reckoned all of that out and grateful for a really good talk with my solo supervisor today.

Who happened to be quite intrigued with my dissertation idea and to my surprise, completely supports me going for the PhD.

I told him I had actually had hesitation to even mention that I was going to apply for the PhD because I thought he might disapprove of my decision.

But he did not.

And it was amazing to sit and talk to him about my ideas and to also get some really interesting feedback from him and some areas where I will be honing in more.

I made a call to the Dean of the Transformative department after I got out of supervision.

I wasn’t able to talk to her, she was stuck in a budget meeting, but I left a message and I will follow-up tomorrow.

My advisor got back to me and said he would support my efforts and write me a letter of recommendation and we made an appointment to meet the first weekend of classes.

It’s all falling together.

Even when my brain tells me it’s not.

It really is.

So nice.

So.

Very.

Very.

Very.

Nice.

When Was I Happiest

Today?

I just asked myself that.

In a prompting kind of way, hey you, you need to write your blog, get your fingers moving on that keyboard, make some fucking magic happen.

Because all of the seven people who read my blog really want to know what I did today.

Meh.

I recently got an update from WordPress that I have once again celebrated an anniversary.

Eight years of blogging.

Eight.

What the fuck did I write about?

So many things, so many thoughts.

I have published over 2,400 blogs.

My average blog is somewhere between 1100-1300 words.

But for the sake of simplicity, let’s just say 1,000.

That means that I have written over 2,4000,000 words.

Over two million words!

Who the hell knew there were so many words in my head?

I never suspected that I would be where I am in now in my life when I started writing this blog.

I was living on Taylor and Washington in a large studio that was on a cable car line.

I was working as a nanny in China Basin.

I made really good money.

More than I actually make now, if you can believe that, because it was all under the table.

I had a very nice Felt 35 racing bike that I did my commute on.

I was horribly lonely.

I felt like all I did was grind at work, I worked at least 50 hours a week.

Which is funny, as I put in about fifty hours a week now and go to graduate school full-time.

But at that time I was going through a lot of weird stuff.

I was desperately trying to get abstinent with my food, which I did do in that apartment, but it took a hot ass second.

I was trying, oh so very hard, to get some head way on my book, said head way has come to naught in many ways, but you know, I started this blog by publishing each of the chapters one by one in the pages.

If you should want to read some really bad writing, well it’s there.

For sure.

I had a friend read the book in manuscript form about four years ago and he told me with no mincing of words that if he didn’t know better he would have never believed that the person who wrote this blog was the same person who had written that book.

My writing, suffice to say, has gotten much better.

That’s what happens when you practice.

You get better.

I have had eight years of practicing this blog.

Some days I am so inordinately pleased with what I have written that I may actually go back and re-read a blog.

But not very often.

I generally throw it down on the page, I”m just transcribing my thoughts, and really, thank god I have some fast typing skills, I’m just writing what I am thinking.

It’s a little like having a one-sided conversation with me.

Hey how was your day?

Let me tell you about mine, and then I’m unleashed upon you.

Or something like that.

I am reflecting as I did my Morning Pages this morning in the place where Morning Pages originated for me, about ten years ago.

Yeah.

If you thought writing a blog eight years in a row was something, check out my history with writing my Morning Pages.

Ten years, going on eleven.

I realized that this morning as I sat in Muddy Waters on Valencia and 24th.

I had a chiropractor appointment this morning and some time to kill before I had to be into work.

So instead of getting up stupid early, I let myself sleep in, packed my breakfast and brought it with me, planning to eat it at the cafe while having a cafe au lait before going into work.

The cafe is much the same as when I first started hanging out at it.

I had moved to a shared apartment in a rent controlled Victorian on Capp Street and 23rd and Muddy’s was the closest cafe to me and the one where I did a lot, and I do mean a lot, of sitting with another woman and reading out of a big blue book.

So many women in that cafe, before my regular Wednesday haunt, as well as my regular Saturday gig and many other times in between.

And it was also the scene of The Artist Way group that I was a part of for a year and a half.

It was an awesome group.

We met for an hour before rolling up the hill to a spot in Noe Valley on Wednesday nights.

We would grab the big round table towards the back of the cafe and anywhere from 6 to 10 of us would sit down for about an hour and share about the assignments we had done from the book.

We did one chapter a week, followed the instructions regarding the assignments, and talked about our experiences working the projects and doing the morning pages.

The book suggests that every morning you take time to write three pages long hand.

Emphasis on long hand.

No typewrite, keyboard, tablet, computer.

My blog does not count as morning pages and never has.

There is something so captivating about writing on paper with a good pen.

I was writing in one of my Claire Fontaine notebooks that I brought back from Paris this morning and I reflected on how it was in that group that I came to the realization that I wanted to go to Paris.

That I actually wanted to move to Paris.

It would take some years before I moved, but by participating in that group I realized how much I wanted to go to Paris and I took myself on a solo trip for ten days after doing the work in the book.

I took myself on artists dates, I went to museums, I bought myself nice paper, I sat and daydreamed in cafes and watched clouds roll by.

I looked out those same windows today and marveled.

Look how far I have come.

Look where I am now.

My best friend in Paris messaged me today about when I’ll be going back.

I have been to Paris five times since I made that decision, and yes, one of those times was to live there for six months.

I have re-written that book.

Although I still don’t think it’s at a publishable place.

I have written poems.

I have performed with djs in nightclubs reciting my poems.

One of them became a recording.

I have lectured on stage.

I have traveled.

I went to Burning Man, a lot.

I traveled to New York by myself as well as New Orleans to go see art.

I have taken 1,000s and 1,000s of photographs.

I have written millions of words.

I think I have a few million more.

I have done morning pages in Paris, London, Rome, New York, L.A., New Orleans, Madison, Wisconsin, Anchorage, Alaska, Burning Man, Reno, San Diego, Las Vegas, and probably a bunch of other places I can’t remember now.

But they all started one night in a Muddy Waters coffee shop on Valencia and 24th.

Opening a door that has led me down this meandering path of creation and love.

How lucky am I?

Luckiest girl in the world.

Hello Monday

You weren’t so bad.

Time went by quick.

When I thought it was going to drag.

There was plenty to fill the hours.

Supervision before work, work, a couple of clients.

Some sneaky grocery shopping in between work and supervision and again in between work and clients.

Sometimes I am amazed that I can get in as much as I do.

I am pretty efficient.

I just excused myself from a group conversation with my cohort along those same lines.

The thread of the conversation was in regards to using the pre-2021 regulations versus the post 2021 regulations for the BBS requirements to get licenced.

The lean of the conversation was that it was impossible to get all the hours in the amount of time listed.

I believe that I will get the hours in.

I have faith.

And if I don’t, well, fuck it, I will have at least tried.

I am sure that many in my cohort will scoff, but a few, well, they know me and when I set my sights on something I tend to get it.

There is much work to be done.

So much work.

But I feel that it will happen.

Or course.

I dream of coming into money so that I didn’t have to work while I’m trying to get my hours.

It would make such a huge difference if I didn’t have to work to support myself on top of doing my internship and gaining my hours.

But, for the moment, for today, it is what it is.

I have to work today.

Well.

I have to work tomorrow.

Although.

I have something exciting to do before hand.

I will be going to the Mission District to interview for People Who Don’t Usually Lecture.

I had lunch with my dear friend yesterday, it already seems years ago, and we talked quite a bit about the project and how he knows the producers and the people behind it and how my name came up.

It was really quite the story to hear and I was so struck by how serendipitous my life is.

Some may call it luck.

I call it grace.

Either way.

I am excited to be considered and I’m interested to see what they ask me and what they want to know.

I suspect that they have been on my blog.

I had a spike in readership the last couple of days and though I have no idea who reads the blog, it is unusual to get a lot of reads without there being something pretty specific behind it.

Unless some one was missing me and just wanted to catch up on my life, I think it was probably the people behind the project.

I have no idea what they may think of my little blog.

Sometimes, most times, I don’t know what to think of it, only that it fills me and feeds me and that I want to continue doing it for as long as I can.

I could do this all my life, it feels.

What a gift, that, the desire to write every day and the gift to myself to give myself the time to do so.

Sure.

I could read some homework, but this settles me, winds me down, helps me ease into the evening.

And as such is more proactively self-care than doing my homework.

Oh.

I’ll get my homework done, I always do, but it does feel nice to give myself a tiny bit of a break from it.

Tomorrow will also be a kind of break too.

It’s Halloween and since I’m doing the interview I won’t be doing therapy and I also don’t have clients tomorrow night, it’s a “short” day for me.

It should be pretty fun too.

My charges have begged me to dress up with them.

So.

Yeah.

I will be dressing up.

Albeit, not quite like what I did over the weekend.

But I will wear a fun dress and bring some flowers to stick in my hair and I’m going to bring my make up kit too.

So that after I do the interview, no way in hell am I going to the interview in super big makeup, I will go to work and do a little makeup.

I will also help my charges too.

The big guy is going as an astronaut and won’t really need any makeup.

But the little lady is going as a unicorn and well, I think some glitter make up might need to make an appearance.

I know she’ll be over the moon if I do that, so yeah, I’ll be happy to indulge their sweet whims.

The oldest was particularly concerned that I dress up.

I was not going to and I had an outfit picked out for tomorrow to do the interview, black skinny jeans, soft cashmere sweater in grey, from Paris, my black high-heeled Mary Jane Fluevogs, but well, I guess urban chic is not going to be the order of the day.

Instead.

I will be wearing one of my Hell Bunny dresses.

It’s super cute, and it’s so totally Halloween, I think my charges will be super happy that I am in it.

Here’s a shot of it.

It’s called the Idaho Dress.

Why?

Fuck if I know, but it’s hella cute.

It’s got Day of the Dead skulls on it just like the dress I wore over the weekend, it’s from the same company, but they are different colors and the style of the dress is slightly different.

I am super happy to wear it.

I think I will have a very fun time with my charges.

They will have a little Halloween parade at school and then it’s off to trick or treat.

Not exactly sure where we will be going, but I have been asked to accompany them and I can’t think of something sweeter than taking a child trick or treating on Halloween.

So grateful for my sweet little life.

And that the hours passed quickly today.

All the things my friends.

All the things.

It’s Not Time

To write this blog yet.

But.

Well.

It wants to be written.

Even though I opened up my WordPress site and sat and stared at the blank screen and thought, I don’t have a thing to write about.

Denial.

I should fold my laundry and put it away.

I will wash my dinner dishes.

So instead of starting to write I got up and put my laundry away and I did the dishes.

I even pre-emptively filled the kettle for a cup of tea after I finish writing.

I know, hot tea, sounds excruciating to think about in July, but it’s July in San Francisco, I’m in bunny slippers and thought for a minute about turning on the heat.

It’s chilly here in July, unlike anywhere else.

Although there was some warmth in the city today after the fog lifted and I got out of the Outer Sunset, I even put on a little sunblock just in case.

Anyway.

I digress.

It was when I was filling my kettle that I realized that I was avoiding the elephant in the room.

Or the plum, as the case may be.

I bought a plum today.

A beautiful, gorgeous, fat black plum.

I’m not a big fan of plums.

I mean, they’re nice and all, but I wouldn’t typically choose to buy a plum, not really my thing.

A persimmon?

Get the fuck out of my way, I’m buying them all.

But a plum?

Nope.

But.

Ugh.

I usually buy one around this time of year.

And it’s not because it’s stone fruit time.

I want stone fruit I eat cherries.

I love cherries.

Or.

Yellow nectarines.

So good.

Not the white ones, only the yellow, and not peaches.

I know, what kind of monster am I?

I don’t like the texture of skin on a peach and the fruit is typically too soft for me, I know friends who would kill for a perfect peach.

Me?

Not so much.

But.

There I was at Gus’s Community Market on Harrison and 17th in front of the plums and I saw it and just reached for it.

My heart in my throat.

Tears prickling my eyes.

I picked out the biggest, prettiest plum in the pile.

I thought about him.

I wrote a story about it once upon a time, a children’s story, about sharing.

I called it “Shadrach and The Plum.”

It was about a little boy and how he shared his most precious treat, a big juicy sweet plum (insert some ee cummings here and an icebox please) with a little girl at school who had forgotten her lunch.

He sat down next to her with his brown paper bag and saw that she had nothing in front of her, her parents had sent her to school with no lunch, he thought to himself as he took the food out of his paper sack, “I’ll share my lunch but not the plum, plums are my favorite, she’s can’t have my plum.”

He asked her, “do you want some of my lunch?”

She nodded eagerly and pointed to what she wanted, “I want the plum.”

He didn’t say a word, he just handed it to her and ate his peanut butter sandwich and drank his milk.

I heard about her later when I read the story I had written to his family.

In hindsight I don’t know if it was the best idea, they were still grieving, it was their first Christmas without him and here I was some girl from San Francisco wearing flowers in her hair and her heart on her sleeve reading a story about lessons we learn from our friends.

Because.

Well.

Shadrach was like that.

He would give you what you needed without question.

I might get teased about it later, I might be razzed, but he always saw me so much clearer than I saw myself.

His death anniversary is coming up.

Sigh.

Ten years now.

And sometimes it still feels like I’m in that ICU at General holding his hand, or in my room on in that crazy old Victorian on Capp and 23rd, sobbing my heart out into a pillow as I prayed and prayed and prayed to God.

I knew better than to ask God to save Shadrach, I pretty much knew he was gone, I never said boo about it, I never tried to change anyone’s mind about their hopes and I certainly did not express any of my doubts about him waking up from the coma to his family, I just kept showing up and asking them what they needed, put I kept asking God to help me through it and the only way I knew how was to not focus on myself.

How can I be of service?

I was brought up that way, in my recovery community.

“How do I do this?”  I called a friend who had just lost a mentor, a man who had 43 years of recovery and who I also knew quite well, the past week.

“You show up and help his family and you ask ‘how may I be of service?’ and you help them that way, and that’s how you get through.  And through you will get.”

He told me how brave I was and how much he loved me and that I could hang in there.

I did.

And I do.

I still hang in there.

I still show up.

I saw that damn plum and almost cried, but as a reminder that I get to live today I bought it.

I did what I needed to do today and I went where I was supposed to go and when I saw someone in my community who was losing it over the recent loss of our young mutual friend tonight, well, I held her hand and I didn’t let her run out of the room.

I just held her and hugged her and hugged her more until she got all the sobs out.

“You don’t do this alone,” I told her, “don’t run out.”

“I can’t handle all this death, it’s too much,” she said and tried to break away again.

I hugged her some more and then I told her some stories.

I told her about losing my best friend to a scooter accident, my best friend who was sober, who was committed, who was about to run the SF Marathon.

The same marathon that is about to be run here on the 23rd of this month.

The signs just went up by the park and I thought of Shadrach, I thought of how beautiful he was when he was running and how strong and graceful.

I thought of the last thing that I said to him, the best gift the moment, that moment when you realize you have to say something or regret it for the rest of your life.

Although, of course, how could I know?

“Shadrach, I just have to tell you, if I never see you again you have to know how beautiful you are right now, you are just glowing,” I touched his arm.

He raised an eyebrow at me and was about to say something witty and cryptic and instead he smiled at me and hugged me to him.

That was the last thing I said to him.

Well.

It was the last thing that I said to him when he was still coherent and not brain-dead in a hospital bed for a week before his family pulled the plug.

I shared my story.

And.

I told her about another woman we both know and how she lost her best friend on the day of his one year sobriety birthday, how he was hit by a bus coming home from his anniversary party.

I mean.

Fuck.

I told her she didn’t have to do it alone and that she was strong enough to shoulder it and that she was lucky, lucky that she got to feel the depth of love she felt for this person who just died a few days ago, that she could be grateful for the time she got to know him.

I hugged her again.

I’m a hugger.

And.

Told her to call me and lean in.

It’s not easy grieving and sometimes I felt like the sadness of Shadrach’s passing would never leave me, but it did.

Well.

That’s also not true, but it lessened, or I got used to it I suppose.

Although seeing that big purple plum sitting on top of a Mason jar on my kitchen counter brought it all home.

I still miss my friend.

He taught me so much.

Not just how to love.

But.

More importantly, that I was lovable and worthy of love.

A lesson that took many years to sink in.

But in it did.

So.

Tonight.

I will raise my plum to my lips and taste the sweetness and let my fingers be sticky with gratitude and love and memory and honor my friend and all the gifts he gave me, so many years ago now.

All the love he planted in my heart that has grown and flourished and bloomed.

All the things.

All the love.

And.

Always.

The best.

The sweetest, coldest, juiciest plums for you.

Always.

 

 

Two Days Left

Just sayin’.

Before.

This blog is going to be going dark.

Well.

Sort of dark.

Just off social media.

I also realized, after talking with my therapist about it, she’s a huge advocate that I don’t stop writing and has in fact, encouraged me to submit to Psyched, that I have to pull as many blogs off my facecrack page as possible.

One could foreseeably go through my page and find the link to it.

So.

Periodically I am going to start removing them from my timeline.

I am not sure if I should delete them completely.

I mean.

I already have copies of them here on my blog, I can go into my archives at any time and access them.

But.

Would I miss the comments that some of my blogs drew?

I have had some really amazing feed back from people who follow my blog and sometimes that feed back has come from comments left on my Facecrack page.

Sometimes people comment directly on the blog, but most of the commentary has come from facecrook and a few from Twitter.

Once in a great while I have gotten a comment from elsewhere, one of my blogs a few years ago now got picked up by Buzzfeed and I got a bunch of comments from that.

That blog was about Burning Man.

Definitely something that Buzzfeed would have wanted to carry, most of my other blogs are interesting, but I’m biased, but not to the degree that one was.

I don’t even remember what the fuck I wrote about.

I could go back and read the blog I suppose, it still has the highest number of reads for a day, so stands out on my stats board.

I can read a lot between the line when I read my stats.

No, it doesn’t give me names of people, but it does give me locations.

And that is information.

And some blogs get hit more than others.

And some blogs may have gotten more hits from certain areas about certain topics.

It’s fun to read in between the lines.

Sometimes sad too.

I remember someone I was dating not dating a few years ago and he would read my blogs and sometimes I felt that I spoke more to him through my blogs then we did face to face and I broke my heart a lot trying to communicate and make things happen.

Of course nothing ever did.

But, man, the writing was good, sometimes being in pain elicits better art.

Or so I’ve been told.

There’s the break up blog with an ex-boyfriend that got a lot of play for about a week.

I am assuming it was the ex reading the blog.

And I wondered about that.

I also remember wishing that he had paid that much attention to actually talking to me than reading what I wrote.

It can be an easy out.

You can catch up on me here, have some ideas about what is happening in my life, make some assumptions and maybe sometimes those assumptions are right.

And maybe.

MAYBE.

They’re completely off base.

Suffice to say there have been times when I have written with a person in mind and another has made the mistake thinking it was about them.

I try not to use names.

But sometimes I steal images or words or ideas.

I am a thief, I admit it, if it looks pretty I’m going to steal it and put it in my bag of words.

Mine now, my sweetie thing.

Sometimes I want desperately that a person reads what I have to say and hears my voice.

My voice, specifically saying the words that are written here.

There was a blog I wrote recently and I read it out loud, as though I was speaking to the person whom I was thinking about, after I wrote it.

It helps sometimes in the editing.

To feel the words.

To feel how they sound coming out of my mouth.

I believe that I write very much like I speak, that you could be having a conversation with me.

Now.

This writing, let’s be frank, is more eloquent than my spoken words, there’s a bit of craft involved.

Sure.

I am writing at the speed of thought, but I go back after and I tweak here and there and blow up some images or sounds or I toss some glitter colored poetry into the mix and I think about.

 

His hands in my hair.

The sun through the window.

The flowers in a jar on my table.

The globe on its persimmon colored stand lit up, a nightlight of travel in my dreams, the ease and burden of being kissed so well that my heart shakes underneath my breast and my breath.

Shatters soft in my mouth.

 

Sure.

You know.

Moments like that when I want to whisper wanton woman poetry into the shell of another’s ear, so I read it out loud and there is a power there, a knowing of when I should end a sentence.

Pause.

I use a period.

I break the line, or sometimes, a comma, a hitch in the voice of the writing, a pause but not quite so firm.

When I may need firmness.

And then.

Short.

Quick.

Fast.

And it can be done, these subtle manipulations of language, the power of the word, the sword I split myself in half upon.

 

Like.

An apple you push your tongue into, eating me alive.

Devoured and sacrificed  on scriptures of play and the pleasure of prayer that is laugher.

Dimple song.

Torch song.

Flamed.

By.

The music of the spheres and the light of stars still echoing and crashing against the thrall of your collar bones.

And the soft, sweet dip of skin there, a sing-song of pulse and blood and the thrum of the rain of sunshine flooding through the back door.

Let me shelter you through the rain.

Let me be.

Your baby.

Baby.

Doll.

Baby.

Let me be your girl.

News!

Aside from the fact that I am super tired.

And.

Hello.

It’s Monday.

Bwahahahahaha.

Ugh.

It is what it is and I know once I’m in the groove of the week I will be just fine.

I usually am.

I just need to hit my stride and there was some extra work that I hustled into my schedule today aside from my work and going to meet with my supervisor, I also went to school to take care of some more paperwork.

My God.

The amount of stuff I have to get signed.

I know it’s a necessary evil, but man, there’s a lot of stuff to keep track of.

I had a moment when I was going to leave something in my scooter basket, just a cloth sack with a file folder in it.

Then.

I had this vision of someone breaking into my scooter basket and taking that file.

I was like.

Oh, no you don’t, motherfucker.

Not leaving any paperwork to be stolen.

Not that I think that anyone wants my BBS forms (Behavioral Board of Sciences) but they might break into the basket to see if there’s anything of value and rifle through shit and drop that in the piss and used rigs on Minna Street.

And just.

NO.

I spent too much time and effort getting just a couple of those forms filled out–one of them has four different signatures and also three different initialed spots, spots that are not my own signature.

I did not want to risk it at all.

Anyway.

I took it with, popped into the practicum office at school, had a really nice chat with the woman there and got some more paperwork and went to another floor of the school and got some more paperwork there, all the papers, and then scootered off to work with a big smile on my face.

I got some good news today.

I don’t have to stop writing my blog!

OH MY FUCKING GOD AM I HAPPY OR WHAT?!

I brought it up again with my supervisor and what the group of interns at my internship had suggested and while I was talking he gets on his phone and says after a minute, “don’t bother, you’re not coming up on any searches, you’re buried.”

And then.

“Take that with a grain of salt,” he continued, “you get a stalker client, and I’ve had my share, you’ll get someone who will find your stuff, but you are anonymous enough, I think you’re going to be fine as long as you don’t post your blog any longer to social media.”

So.

Hurray!

I am so very pleased.

But.

Yes.

I am going to be going off social media with my blog pretty damn quick.

My end date on it is this Wednesday.

I am not longer posting on Twitter.

In fact, I tried to deactivate it today, but it had me a bit flummoxed, man when you’re on the site they want to keep you there.

I did log out of it and I took it off my phone and I won’t be linking my blog to it any longer.

That is a start.

My supervisor also prescribed all the privacy actions that I have already taken with my Facecrack account and then told me to make sure that my LinkedIn account is not public.

Fact is.

I have no clue.

I set up a LinkedIn account over six years ago, maybe longer?

I have never used it.

I have no idea what it may say about me, but I need to clean it out and make sure it’s private and obviously update it.

A bit has changed in the last six, seven years, to say the least.

But.

I can do that.

I can keep writing this blog.

Oh.

I know.

A client might find it and my supervisor and I talked about that too and how that can be handled and how that can be brought into the therapy and I felt really good discussing it all with him.

He is a fantastic supervisor.

He scares me a little, he’s just that smart, but he’s good and I’m learning so much from him, I am beyond grateful we are working together.

So I was pretty happy to walk out of his office knowing that Auntie Bubba will ride again, not that she’d been stabled, but that I did think I was going to have to put her out to pasture.

I have gotten some amazing responses over the last couple of days from folks who want to continue getting the blog or some semblance there of and I am happy to report you, my dear reader, that you can still read the blog right here on WordPress.

I would suggest you either subscribe to my blog and get it e-mailed to you or you can, by signing into WordPress set up an account and become a follower.  I have about 11 people who get it e-mailed to them and 284 followers.

You’re welcome to become 285, or 286, or whatever the number may be.

I don’t have many followers, but I feel like I have rapport with many of them.

I feel honored that some folks have been reading from the very beginning and that many, most of the reader who follow me don’t even know who I am.

Which, hey, is how it’s supposed to be, right?

Especially now as I begin my therapeutic endeavors.

“You have your first client this week?!” A friend asked me tonight, “they are a super lucky person, they really are.”

I could tell my friend was sincere and in his warm face I felt all the love and strength and trust and faith in myself that I could ever hope to feel.

I am so lucky.

Blessed.

Graced.

You pick.

To get to do this kind of work.

And.

Really.

When I look back over my life, I have been in so many situations where I was privileged to hold a confidence, to listen to someone walking through pain, to be a shoulder, literally and figuratively, I have been prepping most of my life, it would seem.

Grateful for every damn thing that has brought me here.

I am the luckiest girl in the world.

I absolutely believe that.

So much love.

So much gratitude.

Happy.

Joyous.

Motherfucking.

Free.

Don’t Stop Writing

I was told recently.

“I like reading what you write.”

God.

I love that.

Validation.

Although it’s not why I write and I am struggling with that.

Let go, I whisper to myself.

But.

It’s hard to let go of something that I have been in relationship with for seven years.

I have to shut down my blog.

I haven’t written the last few days and I can feel it in my bones.

Actually, that’s not true.

I have been writing, a lot.

Just not my blog.

I have been busy.

And the not writing I can take with a great big grain of salt because I was busy doing wonderful things and having life altering experiences.

Life is happening.

My God, is it ever.

I started my internship.

I take my first client next week.

I have read my client file, contacted said client and set up our first session.

I am navigating all the paper work and all the insurance stuff, more stuff, all the stuff, the policy papers and the keys, oh my God, the keys, I have a lot of keys right now.

Which is fine.

I jangle when I walk, but whatever.

Today I had my first group supervision training.

It was great, I learned a lot, it’s rather like being in a small classroom and getting to ask the teacher all the things, and I took some notes and got the questions I needed answered.

Most of my questions had to do with administrative stuff as I haven’t met with a client yet.

All the others in the group have been seeing clients and thus they brought up what they needed to have addressed.

It was great learning for me to just sit and listen and I did have some input and that was nice, I was able to see a few things and offer some different perspective and I was thanked for my experience and my insight.

Which I appreciated as well.

I also asked about my blog.

This blog.

My baby.

My love child.

My little place in the universe to pour out my heart and talk about all the stuff on my heart and in my mind, or to get out all the stuff in my mind so that I can listen to my heart better.

I have known, probably since I started school, that one day the blog was going to end.

But.

The writing doesn’t have to end.

And that was what my supervision group gave me today.

I got very affirmative feedback from everyone to take down the blog off social media and make it completely anonymous.

I have already pulled it from my Instagram account and I privatized that account so random folks can’t join it, I have to approve the follow request.

I have also dropped a few folks off the friends list on Facecrack.

I could probably winnow that out a little more as well.

It was recommended that I change my name on Facecrack.

I’m not sure to what, but I know a few people in my cohort have already started doing that.

It’s a damn good idea.

The next suggestion was to not link my blog to Facecrack.

It would eliminate a lot of my readers.

I mean.

A lot.

But.

It would provide me with more anonymity and it would also give my client room to see me as a therapist, not as some poet girl, Burning Man aficionado, single lady in the Outer Sunset riding around the city on a scooter.

Then.

Sigh.

Ugh.

It was suggested and I knew the moment I heard it that it was the next action to take.

That I stop writing this blog.

Double ugh.

I knew it in my gut, but I teared up.

I am tearing up now.

Fuck.

I know that because I have such big feelings that I am going to be a great therapist because I can empathize, but shit, sometimes it’s just a bitch being sensitive.

Granted, I wouldn’t wear it any other way, that is, my heart on my sleeve.

 

Gerber daisies in a Mason jar.

Dark pink stars on slippery green stalks opening toward the light.

Petals kissing.

And blushing soft.

Mouths like hungry little beasts blossoming into the warm air.

My heart.

Threaded with light.

Opening and beating against the back of my ribcage.

Tender under the bruised spaces on my breastplate.

This then.

Each moment timeless and gone only to be longed for again.

And again.

And again.

 

I digress.

But you get the point?

I like to express.

I like poetry.

I lie.

I love poetry.

I am a whore for it, like cello music and Clair de Lune and Brahms and Mozart and Chopin, I prostrate myself to it and hope, really I do hope, to gracefully surrender to whatever beauty is taking me at that moment with a kind of asunder that only perhaps is heard inside my soul.

But hear it I do.

And to renounce this forum feels terrifying and sad.

So sad, the richness of sweet lipped tears on the tops of my cheeks and the sudden catch of my breath in my throat.

Oh.

All the feelings I don’t want to feel.

But.

OH.

All the feelings I get to feel, I am so grateful and graced and loved.

Beloved.

I am.

And I am aware of my great fortune.

But.

This then, begins the end of my blog.

I have to let you know I won’t stop writing.

Nope.

I just won’t be writing here any longer.

I will have an end date on Auntie Bubba.

She has been such a good girl to me and shown me my strengths, and oh yes, my defects, those in spades, all things intimate and good and intense and wounded and sad and well, just all the things.

Yes.

All the lovely things.

This bearing witness to my own journey.

I am forever grateful for it.

So.

As this chapter closes.

As the Book of Bubba comes to an end.

I will admit.

That I am not finished.

That I am not written out.

That there are more words and worlds of words and galaxies and yes, a universe to still discover and write about.

There is a theory about the Big Bang and how the universe was created and when the universe will end and that it all came from one spot and explodes out and then shrinks back in on itself.

This is called the Big Bounce.

This is all very general and not very theoretically informed, mind you.

However.

It speaks to me and what I endeavor now to share with you.

I will be starting a new blog.

I am not done.

This blog is, however, just about done.

I will only publish a few more blogs here.

I am not quite ready to say good-bye yet.

But it is only days away.

I will start a new blog and I will continue my writing, my growth, my learning, my pushing my edges and finding out more and more who I am through this medium that speaks so much to me.

Writing.

I will not be connecting it to my Twitter account, in fact I am damn close to doing a deactivation on my Twitter account, I don’t feel like I use it all the often any way.

I will not be posting my blog on Facecrack.

I will not be making it known who I am.

I will be writing anonymously.

I haven’t a name yet.

Just a taste on my lips, like the last kiss at the end of the night, the push of tongue into my mouth and the startled stillness in my heart that precursor to the shaking tremble that befalls me and  tells me, yes, here, go here.

I will consider sharing with some of my readers my new blog.

But you will have to message me privately.

Which you may do by posting a comment.

I approve all comments before they are linked to my blog.

I will message you my new blog when it goes live.

Otherwise, seven years later, I will bid this space adieu.

They say that after seven years all the cells in your body turn over.

I know not what will be next.

I just know that there is a next.

And I thank you.

My readers.

Who ever you are, where ever you are, for humoring me and my poetry and my words and my tears and my heart ever beating upon my bloody damn sleeve.

With so much gratitude.

I thank you.