Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

So, the end of 2006 is nigh. The reign of 2007 is winging in.

I find this to be an interesting upcoming year. We as a world have a lot going on and it will be curious to see how things will pan out, or how they will continue to sink like a dead frog filled with lead pellets. Two more years of Bush. I'm guessing they aren't going to get all that better. I'm thinking frog with lead, personally. But, you never know. And if there's one thing that I'm slowly learning in my life is that the only permanent thing is impermanence.

I always get a little depressed nearing the coming of the New Year. I think it might have something to do with feeling like I haven't really done anything the previous year. When, if I sat down and thought about it, I probably did quite a bit. But it's the feeling that counts.

Now, I have this strange weakness for First Days. I like to start "Master Plans" on the First of things. Monday, first day of the week. The First, first day of the month. January 1st, first day of the year. Now, you can imagine how much my lust for January the First to land on a Monday would be. Oh say like, TOMORROW!!! January 1, 2007 this year lands on a Monday. So, therefore, I must put my Uber Master Plan into action! I say this with a bit of self-mockery because I often get myself so hyped for such an event which thusly only lasts about two weeks. But I continue stalwartly onwards, over and over. I think it's sort of like the Gambler's Fallacy: THIS TIME it will work!! Only with the Gambler's Fallacy, it's designed NOT to work THIS TIME. Whereas, in my situation, it's completely under my control. I won't get into the whole psychology of it right now because I know it's there, the issue of dropping my Master Plan. "Ooops, I tripped and dropped my paperwork right in the storm drain! Oh wring hands about!!"

This year, 2007, will be an interesting year personally, I think. Firstly, I'm shaving my head on Jan. 1st. Yes, all gone. Hair today, gone tomorrow. I look at this in several ways.

1. It's a symbolic clearing away.
2. It challenges my body image stuff and brings up lots of crap to work on.
3. I want to see how much my hair grows in a year.
4. I've never done it before.

"Bye bye hair, bye bye silkiness
Hello stubbliness, I think I'm gonna cry."

It's amazing how attached we are to body image. I confess a penchant for watching "America's Next Top Model" (hey, that's along with Battlestar Galactica, Stargate: SG1, Stargate: Atlantis, Doctor Who, Jericho, Heroes, so I'm really more of a Sci-Fi buff than a crazy, socialized "reality" TV show maniac, I promise) and every season, the model wanna-be's have to go through a "makeover" episode. Invariably, someone with long hair gets it all whacked off to a short cut and invariably balls her eyes out about it. I always roll my eyes and say to myself "It's just HAIR, girl, it'll grow back." And besides, someone that sensitive about their hair should not be getting into a career where half the time all they do is mess with your hair. So say I. And to my surprise I found myself very attached to my hair as the process of deciding to shave all off fomented. I think I was laughing at myself for mentally chiding all those models. This is a pretty edgy thing to do in this society so attached and addicted to Body Image. It's more acceptable for guys to shave their heads, I've noticed. Not many people blink on that one. But it is a "risky" thing for a woman to do. "You'll look like a cancer patient.", "What if your head is ugly?", "Why would you want to do that!?!?" A couple of questions I've gotten, all usually accompanied by looks of shock. My residents are very excited to see it, "Girl, you're gonna be off the hook!!" (meaning, in this case, fantastic!) Hmm, what does that say about our society when the "mentally ill" can accept things with openness (of course, not all the time, mind you) and the rest of us have a hard time (or course, not all the time, mind you)?

I don't think I've ever noticed my hair so much as I have in the past two weeks. From, "I hate this mop!!" to "Hey, that hair doesn't look so bad." I don't think I've ever run my hands through my hair as much as I have in the past two weeks. I've really NOTICED my hair!!

Another question I get is, "Oh my gosh, what does Marty think about this??" I love answering, "He's helping me cut it all off." Heh. He can't remember what color my hair is or my eyes are in any case, so really, he's not very attached to it (my hair).

I guess we'll see if I too, cry like a baby tomorrow.

Also, starting January 1st, I want to get back onto my no wheat, very low high-carb food, very low sugar intake nutritional plan I did for four months, testing whether or not I was allergic to wheat/gluten/sugar. I did discover that I do have a sensitivity, although I wouldn't say allergy, to wheat/gluten/sugar.

And during that four months of "testing", meaning I didn't eat ANY simple starches, simple carbs, no sugar, pretty much ate meat and veggies (please understand this IS NOT an Atkins Diet thing, I hate that plan); I lost almost 20 pounds (I didn't even exercise which would have really helped as well) and felt a hell of a lot better with all my chronic pain crap.

Oh the chronic pain crap? Pain in my joints, muscles, head. Constant misalignment of my skeleton. Tired achiness, like having a low grade flu throughout my entire body. Heart palpitations (arrhythmia). Low energy, low libido, depression, anxiety, lack of motivation, mental fogginess and confusion. Weight gain. Life generally sucks with it.

Part of the nutritional plan is also following "The Diet Cure" by Julia Ross and taking supplements like Amino Acids and regular vitamins and minerals. So that's also starting first thing Jan. 1, 2007.

And I'm going to start exercising. Slow stretching at first, I've really tightened in on myself in the past year. Lost a lot of muscle tone and strength. I'm going to continue to work with my Rosen body worker, which I'm hoping will jump to more than once a month (he's still gathering up hours for his certification). Body image. That's a theme for this year for sure and I'm really wanting to challenge myself on that one this year.

Then mid-January I start my first photography class towards my Associates of Science degree (in photography) and continue on with my light diet of computer programming (last semester regular HTML which I already knew but needed for a certificate, this semester XHTML and CSS, of which I know a little bit). And I'm taking an intermediate singing class at my music school, Blue Bear Music. I sing all the time and used to sing in show choirs and such but I'm wanting to shape my voice up, retrain my breathing techniques. I've actually often had fantasies of singing in a band but then I get terribly shy and struck by stage fright (and I haven't even made it to the stage yet!).

Also this year, at some point I am going to have to make That Decision. Whether or not I am going to finish my hours up for my MFT licensure (or at least finish the hours for the privilege of studying for months for the licensure exams). This is the Existential Impasse I've been in for... well, a year now. Since I left my internship in February 2006. Sigh.

I'd like to get back into my Fire Dancing again, which I have sort of taken an extended break since coming back from Burning Man, and also due to not really wanting to move because of not feeling physically great or having no energy. Guitar and crafting are on my list too. Getting my room in order because "bomb-went-off-in-my-room" and I haven't done anything about it in two years, is high priority.

I'm not interested in overwhelming myself with things to do because I really can get myself into a crazed, almost manic state where I burn out all this stuff in two weeks and drop it all, going back to well, ending up with year I regret. So I'm trying to take my Uber Master Plan that usually I go all bonkers and bugger nuts about, slowly, casually if you will. NO freaking out allowed. Although an occasional freak-out is, of course, permissible.

2007, we shall see, shan't we?

New Year's Eve at Work

You never know what you're going to get at Eucalyptus House for the holidays. It could be a houseful of the morose or the extremely hyper. I've spent quite a few holidays over the four years I've worked here. ...... Wait, four years???

Today has been full of energy, especially at dinner time when I broke out the sparkling cider (we have folks in recovery from substances so alcohol or any other kind of substance is not allowed). Although most people go to bed after taking their medications, there are a couple of stalwart residents who want to give it a go to midnight. So I reserved three bottles of the cider for that occasion.

There's 80's music on the radio and you can never go wrong with the 80's. I can hear some folks singing and dancing around in the community room, having fun. Good energy this year. I hope it holds throughout the night because often times 9pm hits and people seem to get depressed, irritated, angry and withdrawn.

I encourage people to write goals for the upcoming year and try to reflect on the past year and what they might want to keep the same or let go of or bring into their lives in the new year to come. Some get into it, some go to bed, it all depends.

The paperwork is immense today, three URs (Utilization Reviews, basically documenting why they should "stay" at the program longer), three monthlies (a monthly summary of progress) and two weeklies (a weekly summary of progress) and of course, the never ending daily notes which have been changed to almost resemble weeklies for twelve residents. So I basically sit at the computer all day when I'd rather be out of the office sitting with the residents doing what I'm supposed to be doing, milieu social rehab. Sigh.

And hopefully, I'll get to sit down and write up my goals for the new year at some point.............

Time in a Year

Well, the year winds down, just as every year has before this one. Time sometimes is a curious concept to me. Well, not Time itself but our conception of time. Or maybe I should say our conception of anything beyond a day.

A day I can understand. Sun comes up, Sun goes down. That's pretty simple, fairly easy to track. No problem. And no, I'm not going to bring Time Zones into this because yes, Sun comes up and goes down at the same time in different parts of the world. So I'm talking about the basic concept of a day. One full revolution of the Earth on its own axis. And we are about to complete one full revolution (okay, orbit) of the Earth around the Sun. Oh, and don't forget, we tilt too, creating our summers and winters (again, I'm talking Northern Hemisphere, West Coast North America). So, one day and the seasons are fairly accurate tracking devices. Good there.

But what the hell is an hour? A month? A year!?! Human constructs of Time. Although I am curious as to how the 60 sec minute, 60 minute hour did come about. Who gets to decide these things and why wasn't I consulted. And why aren't there 60 hours in a day? Because the Sun comes up and the Sun goes down. Yeah, but so what? Why couldn't three Sunrises and three Sunsets be a week? Sun comes up, go to work. Get sleepy in the afternoon, take long break. Sun goes down into deep night, go to bed. Who needs 5:00pm anyway. And I just have to say, having visited countries that implement the highly civilized concept of a siesta, and once getting over the fact that things close down and aren't accessible ALL THE TIME, siesta is a massive boon on the daily self. And I mean it, civilized as all get out.

Now I'm not saying that countries that don't have siesta times aren't civilized or losers or that siesta countries are better than others. Because really, I don't know the statistics of various countries and their rates of mental health or lack thereof in connection with siestas but my personal opinion is the slower you take things, the better off you are. And siesta countries tend to be slower paced than say, oh, AMERICA. Granted, they do not have all the uber things we have, World Super Power opportunities and all. And more often then not much of the population is living in abject poverty in comparison. So maybe it's just a crazy gringo concept of mine, idealizing as my husband would say. But again, I'm not denying these countries too have issues, big ones, hard to be idealized issues.

But I want to point out that America is not "all that". It certainly has its issues as well, some that are very deeply ingrained, so deep that they might not be seen off the bat. And America... okay, on Speed or something. Constant rushing about, especially within the commercial realm. Well, and the work realm.

9 to 5. Work, work, work. Be a productive and good citizen. Meh.

I'd be curious to see what would happen if everyone was able to take a nap in the afternoon. Or have nice, long drawn out lunches with their fellow humans. Or go for a nice stroll. (Ahh, in Malta, people turn out by droves at dusk to stroll on the beaches, boardwalks, what-have-you, in a daily ritual... little gelato, strolling hand in hand with your friend/family/partner while the sun goes down??).

So, any theories about what might happen? Post a comment and let me know.

Just Don't Grab Santa

So, I'm at my husband's family's house for Christmas this year. Or I should say just about every Christmas since I've met him. My family primarily lives on the East Coast, a much harder trip than the two hour drive to Sacramento. And far more expensive than a tank of gas or two.

So my husband's family does Christmas differently than mine. Firstly, they open Christmas gifts on Christmas Day morning rather than Christmas Eve night. Secondly, they don't eat Jule Gröd on Christmas Eve or any other day for that matter. And then there's Santa's Grab Bag.

Formally held on Christmas Eve amidst lots of tasty edibles, everyone (meaning the Coopers and various family and friends) bring some random gift for the event. Then all the gifts are put in a box/bag/center of the room after all the regular tasties have been eaten and the crowd is starting on the sweet tasties. Ahh, Judie Cooper's (Marty's mom) chocolate pecan fudge. Everyone draws numbers and the lowest number (Number One) gets to choose a gift from the pile. Number Two goes next and so on. But wait! There's a catch. Okay, so say Number Three gets a cool gift and Number Four goes next. Well, if Number Four wants the gift Number Three got, they can "steal" it for themselves. Granted, Number Three gets to choose again but I was just all ablink the first time I encountered this game. But it is pretty good natured and the gifts are usually benign. I think Marty and I got a stretchy plastic duck-like creature called a "Hyper Head Duck". Occasionally however there are some coveted gifts like a gift card to Starbucks or Borders and this year, a $20 bill. That one got stolen by last number Number Thirteen, Gavin, taking it away from his sister Tamsen, claiming it in the name of his gas tank.

This year, Sam (Samantha), daughter of Corey (Marty's brother) and Karen (Corey's wife), had to gone on Christmas Day so we joined in watching her open presents on the morning of Christmas Eve. The rest of us opened on Christmas Day.

I personally received several signs from the "Heavens" that I need to get off my ass and learn to use my sewing machine. Last year, maybe two years ago, I had requested a sewing machine to get into quilting, at least the machine set up kind, probably hand-finishing. Heh. So I signed up for a class where you can bring your own machine and make a project on it to learn its wily ways.

I'm doomed. Photography class, singing class, short sewing class... who knows what other class. Work. Exercise, eeeww! Major life decisions! Action, drama, romance! Everything you'd want for the movie trailer of "Heather: 2007"!! Well, maybe everything YOU'D want. I'M not so sure!! :)

Cabbage and Roasted Jesus

You know, many strange things happen when you work where I do. Profound insights brought on by cabbage and of course, Roasted Jesus.

Remember, I work in a milieu type setting, so I basically "live" here too, when I'm on shift. I eat with the residents and hang out with them along with assisting with skills of daily living and basic counseling. Of course you build relationships, and they are different from those of a one to one therapist/client relationship. More boundaries in that, less disclosure. But here, disclosure sometimes is part of the interaction. Our clients may not know a lot but I'm willing to share far more than I would with a private practice type of client.

Take my fire dancing video. Which you can see here. I showed that to one of my primary residents (we all closely follow two - four residents, almost like a case manager, during their stay) because we were talking about building practice poi. She was very moved, almost to tears. One might say curiously enough but I wouldn't. This is a woman who is struggling to find passion in her life and if there's one thing about fire that I have learned in my life (never mind me being an Aries and all), it's that it is the epitome of passion. Symbolically.

She and I have a pretty good rapport and she impishly said, "Heather, you lied to me!", totally outraged (kidding, which she is very good at). I blinked and said, "What did I lie about?" She says, "You told me you didn't smoke!!" and we both laughed and I followed up with "Well, I would only smoke if I caught myself on fire and I don't plan on getting roasted." She blinks and says, "Jesus." I shook my head and said, "Roasted Jesus." And really, I don't know why. It is not upon me to question why these things come into my mind during my time at a rehabilitation house for the severely mentally ill. But, we just started to howl. Especially after I started singing "Plastic Jesus" with a little... ahem, poetic license. "Long as I have my Roasted Jesus, riding on the dashboard of my car." I'm telling you, working here temporarily affects the brain.

Of course, my husband probably would say... "Temporarily??"

The intern therapist was here, Melissa, and present for the unveiling of the Roasted Jesus and really, it's not all me and one resident because she thought it was funny too. It only got worse after the resident said, "Well, Goddamn, that's funny." and I made the interpretation that Goddamn is basically Roasted Jesus in a different form. God=Jesus, Damn=Hell=Roasted. Okay. I'm fairly certain it's one of those things you... had to be there for.

So onwards to cabbage, with a helping of Roasted Jesus. At dinner, I was sitting with this same resident and Melissa and we were cracking up over the Roasted Jesus quite frequently. I was eating the dinner salad (all food is prepared by the residents, different pair for each day of the week, part of that whole daily living skills thing), which had raw cabbage in it. I like cabbage as well as the next odd person out and I was noting its presence. I must have been taken by the spirit of the Roasted Jesus because I was in a contemplative mood on one of my bites and notice the subtle flavor of the cabbage, which, really was pleasant. No, I mean it.

As I sat there chewing, I went through a common process (for me) called non-linear thought. Well, it might have some linearity to it. So, I'm sitting there and suddenly have the thought of "Wow, this is pretty good." "Hey, animals eat food." "Animals find food all around them. Like cabbage. And so do we." "The Earth made this to feed animals. And us." "Isn't that amazing!! It's like no plan we could ever organize and implement. It's perfect." "What the HELL are we doing? Look at all that processed food when we could be eating cabbage!"

And suddenly, I experienced this deep disgust for humankind's mark upon the world of food. It was like I could see the entire history of processed food laid out before me and I felt the echoes of rage stirring within. Years and years falling away before my eyes, layers and layers of experimentation, factory production, commercial capitalism. It was almost visual, conveyor belts carrying Twinkies and boxed foods. All of this in the midst of Roasted Jesus laughter.

I really was disgusted. How did we get to this point where cabbage became the Devil? I've been reading The Mood Cure by Julia Ross, a book about using nutrition to, well, cure emotional moods rather than using synthetic medications. It may be a high possibility that we can blame the Devilizing of cabbage on sugar and white simple carbohydrate starches. Did you know sugar used to be considered a drug when it was first brought over to Europe and locked carefully away in the apothecary? And it was called "crack" in France in the Sixteenth century. Wow. She calls it the most addictive substance in the history of mankind. And apparently messes with us just as much as the things we call "crack" now.

Now, I imagine I won't forgo processed foods and sugar from this point on but it was an interesting moment in time. The experience itself was brief although still lingers a little bit. Not that I might not allow myself to enter my experience in a more permanent fashion. Especially it so plays into my issues around body image. Which is next post since it's three am and I'm not sure what I'm even writing anymore.

Oh, and who knew the "Plastic Jesus" song was crazy long like this???? And errr... I say to the lyrics... WTF??!! (What The Fuck??!!)

F.E.A.R.

I was working yesterday with our house manager (the person who shops for the house and takes care of the physical plant of the house) and training her for the relief counselor position (someone who is called in when regular staff is on vacation or sick) and we were talking with one of the residents about fear. My colleague said to the resident that fear stands for "False Experiences Appearing Real".

I was struck by this in the moment. Later thinking led me to believe that there are experiences that are quite real in connection with fear. And there are ones that are false too, so I agree and disagree with the anagram. But more on fear itself later.

In the moment however, I was thinking, "That's fantastic!!" And I think in the moment, it fit the resident's situation as her fear was based on what she perceives in other people, ie, "I know so and so is upset with me." I've often challenged residents and my clients (when I was in internship) around this. Depending on my rapport with the person, it often goes like this "Wow, when did you develop telepathy!! That's amazing that you know just what people are thinking!" Which I can do with this resident. Meaning, we aren't a telepathic species and cannot know for sure what another person is experiencing unless WE ASK. So go ask. "Hey, so and so, are you upset with me?" So in her case, it was definitely a false experience (so and so is upset with me) appearing real (so and so IS upset with me).

Hmmm, fear. Nothing to fear but fear itself. Good old fear, for so many a constant companion throughout their lives. And when I mean so many, I mean just about all of us. Maybe the Dali Lama does not have fear. Maybe. Well, he probably has a very different relationship with his fear. One far beyond the rest of us. Fear takes so many different forms so I don't want to hear anyone say, "Oh, I'm not afraid of anything." And I'm not talking about fear in the sense of being afraid of the dark, of spiders, etc.

I'm talking about Fear. When you have that idea that you really want to start your own company selling crochet, jewelry or photographs (some of ideas I've had) and you don't do it, that's fear. Inner Critic shit is fear. "Oh, no one would buy my stuff, it's no good." Fear. And I guess that is a false experience appearing real. "I'm no good." Lies! People all the time say this to themselves. Lies! Straight out lies. "But it's true!" Lies!

We are so often controlled by our own fears; we miss out on so much. I know I have. I know my residents do, moment to moment. From not being able to go on a simple walk to getting their own independent living situation. For me, I think, fear has had a wild tap dancing party on my creativity. And not just the ideas of having my own company. But everything from writing a poem (which I used to do frequently) to figuring out what I want to do in my life as a career. What's really hard is that I'm AWARE of it!! I know it's Fear lurking and plotting and controlling but yet, I still fall prey over and over. Sigh.

Burning Man's theme this year was about fear, well, and hope too. "Hope and Fear: The Future" Here are some quotes about fear that I found at Burning Man in different areas of Black Rock City but that have been with me all my life, excepting the Temple quote since it was my first time to BRC.

Marianne Williamson, from A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. As as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Dune, by Frank Herbert:

"I shall not fear. Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will allow it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

Author unknown, found on Temple wall at Burning Man 2006:

"Life's journey is not to arrive safely at the grave in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, "Holy shit... What a ride!!"

We are so controlled! Fear is our master and we let it be as such. We are
slaves to its whim.

So, what are you going to do about it?