Pretty Good, Thanks, How Are You?

I’m feeling a little iffy about therapy lately. I don’t know exactly why. It’s a combination of the fact that I don’t get paid…and you all know how I love to get paid…and the fact that people keep cancelling their appointments. It’s not November and so no one’s seasonally affectively depressed, and so I sit there in the office watching the minutes tick by and wondering if my client is going to show. Please, everyone, when you’re going to cancel your cheap therapy from your therapist who does it for free, please call and let her know. She has things to do, you know?

I go through this. Don’t worry, your therapist doesn’t. I do, though. I sometimes feel really ridiculous sitting there in the chair and nodding my head and going “Hmm. Tell me more about that.” My fellow-therapist friend Michelle has this Magic-8-ball thing that’s a Therapist Ball. You shake it and it gives you messages like, “We’re getting somewhere now!” and “That’s a very strong emotion you’re expressing.” I wish I knew where she got it because I think that maybe it would be better for my clients if they just put the 8-ball in the chair opposite from them and talked to it. You know you’re disillusioned with your therapy gig when you start saying things to yourself like, “Oh, man, what is it with these people? They’re always complaining. Everything is always about them. ”

I don’t even know why I’m complaining, because really everything is going well right now. I’m liking the job a whole lot. I’m a little embarrased to say that, if you must know. It’s not a very romantic or exciting job. I sit at a desk under some shelves in front of a computer most of the time. Today I stuck labels on some postcards. Other times I ask people personal questions in the name of science over the phone: “Please rate your sexual satisfaction on this one-to-five scale.” “Agree or disagree: ‘Sometimes my life doesn’t feel worth living.’” This is when I’m not getting up super early to go to a hospital and talk to people about how they feel after having limbs cut off. I’m really looking forward to the next couple of months, when I get to have my hypnosis training. All y’all better watch out, is all I’m saying. Soon as I learn how to do that, I expect my cash flow and my sex life to pick up considerably. LOOK INTO MY EYES. No, wait, don’t look yet. I don’t know how to do it yet and who knows what I would make you do. Wait until I’ve been on the job a little longer, okay?

I really like the women I work with. We’re getting someone new (newer than me, even) on Monday, and I’m hoping I’ll like her too. So far we are all women, between 21 and 35. All in Relationships of various kinds. We’re getting a guy in part time in a couple of weeks as well, so it will be interesting to see how he fits in. I can see why they didn’t want that other dude to steal my job though. All we talk about, when we’re not talking about confidentiality issues and phone protocols and grant money, is boys and sex and periods and bras and babies and candy and puppies and kittens and boys some more. It’s like going to a slumber party eight hours a day. We don’t do Light As A Feather Stiff As A Board or anything…but what am I saying? Hypnosis training, remember? I just have to wait a while! Okay, well, we don’t do Bloody Bloody Mary in the opthamology department bathrooms, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time. They never let us use their microwave in Opthamology, and they’re going to get theirs! Ha!

I like having people to go to lunch with every day. Usually we go downstairs to the hospital cafeteria. Can I tell you how comforting I find the concept of a cafeteria a mere seven floors below me? I usually bring my lunch, but it’s very nice to know I can have a yogurt if I forget mine, or a salisbury steak if I need one. I haven’t seen
rectangle pizza yet, but that’s okay. I’m sure they’ll have it one day. I like looking around at all the doctors and PTs and nurses and janitorial staff and administrative assistants and patients and family members. I like thinking about what everyone does for work, and what they do when they’re not at work. I even like, sort of, looking at the different patients and wondering why they’re there and hoping they feel better. (Although there have been a couple of images lately that I don’t think I’ll
be forgetting any time soon. One was a bald boy sitting in a wheelchair by the bus stop with his mom, burying his face in his hands and just sobbing, sobbing. The other one was today, when I was on my way into lunch and had to dodge a dude in a suit pushing a gurney with, well, a dead body in it). I especially like working on the Rehab floor (away from the meanies in Opthamology) because the hall is always filled with people with prosthetic legs and people with cool stickers on their wheelchairs. It feels very hopeful, somehow. Am I being a jerk for saying that? I just think it’s cool that losing your leg doesn’t mean your life ends.

But where was I? Work. Well, the thing about work, I’m finding, is that you pretty much go in all day every day. Really cuts into your leisure time. That’s taking some getting used to. Also it feels like the weeks are really short right now. I’m all, “It’s Thursday? What? Huh? Why are my dishes still in the sink?” I keep thinking of stuff I want to write about but there doesn’t seem to be any time. How lame is that. Carl and I were talking, with little gleams in our eyes, about looking forward very much to Friday night. Why, you ask? Well, I know this may sound shocking, but we’ve decided to…organize our respective filing systems! And sort our laundry! And pick all the tupperware tops off the floor, where, inexplicably, they have been residing for two weeks! Okay, that’s just at my house. I am feverishly hoping no one asks me to do anything on Monday and Wednesday next week because I just want to be at home, puttering around. Also, it feels like I haven’t read a book in weeks. I’m pretty much reduced to reading on the bus and a little before I go to bed, and that’s just not very much. I was all bragging to Carl a couple of weeks ago that I probably read something like four or five books a week (many of those are re-reads, I admit). I’ll be lucky if I read four or five books a month, at the rate I’m going. So, everyone in Seattle who reads this? Don’t call me, okay? I’m tired. I need my rest.

In other news, Cirque du Soleil was fabulous last night. Again. I don’t care if I saw it in April. We were joking about going to Vegas to see one of the other permanent shows…oh, I can just see Chiara and Carl, Ms. and Mr. Goody Two-Shoes, in Vegas. We wouldn’t drink or gamble or patronize the services of legal prostitutes. We wouldn’t either dress up as Elvis or be married by him. We wouldn’t partake of buffets. No, we would put on our sensible shoes and wander around the strip, looking for a natural foods store and making sure to keep hydrated. We’d be really put out because we couldn’t find a bookstore that had the latest copy of The New Yorker. We would go to Vegas to see the artsy French circus, but we would ignore the real circus outside on the strip. Yes, that’s us. I think I hear people calling me to invite me to be their party planner right now.

And in more other news, I’m going to a wedding on Saturday as an “and guest.” I don’t even know the bride and groom…Carl grew up across the street from the bride or something. Now, Carl has very graciously been an “and guest” at a couple of weddings with me, so I’m not complaining. I’m just saying, that as a seasoned wedding veteran, I much prefer being part of the wedding party to being just a guest who gets their own invitation…let alone an “and guest.” So we’ll see how that goes.

So that’s what’s going on. I figure, enough of this talking about other people in my journal. Time to hear about me, right? Uh, right?


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