Multiconstruct

I was scanning the archive list and saw i’ve hit every month since i started. It seems like i’ve hardly put up anything when i think of all the things i’d like to say but haven’t. I did some editing on going crazy part 6, strengthening the ending mostly. I haven’t gotten a lot of comments on the series and i know it makes some people uncomfortable. It is a story i like to tell though. The most transformative time of my life and i’ve lived in continuous transition. I only settle down now as constant transition is static. I have been blessed to see significane and meaning in what i do pretty universally. Sometimes in the moment i lose that, working for dr tod and with cortez i felt that way, also as a case manager for folks with developmental disabilities. But even in those eras, for me a year or two in more objective time i had these tremendous moments; the call from guy whose color blindness was cured by cannabis, mastering batterer intervention, teaching a sociopath to feel, getting an agoraphobic out of the house after 3 years so she could go to her son’s graduation, doing cutting edge stuff with autism. But mostly i allowed the routine of it all to override the joy. Mostly because intensity has its costs. These days, this era, I am more intense. I am more conscious of what i have learned and what i am doing. I am more engaged less detached and more heavily invested. Not bound but tied certainly.

greetings constant reader. Just on an organizational note i edited “going crazy part 4” and am going to plunge on with that narrative by request. Thank you for the positive feedback, although it would be cooler to see it in the comment section. I am also thinking of some more childhood truckdriving stories, maybe John can help me out with some ideas. I went house hunting today, there are an overwhelming number in my price range. I saw one stucco “arts & crafts” bungalow i really liked and i am going to schedule an appointment with a realtor tomorrow. I am feeling very grown up and i almost had a panic attack when i thought i won’t just be able to tell work to shove it up their ass and take off hitchhiking anymore. On the plus side i talked to The Popster and he is sounding excited about coming to live with me so i suspect it’ll be worth it. I was on facebook confirming i was friends with phoebe and stacey and a pretty girl i did not know pinged me. i pinged her back, is that the right thing to do? i also made bean soup with my ham bone from easter, it came out a little greasy. I will try to scoop it off the top when it congeals, my apologies to the vegetarians. I have been thinking more and more that veganism is more akin to an eating disorder than social statement. Like anyone cares what the fat guy thinks about eating disorders. Well i’d better publish this before my battery dies. All of the plugs were taken.

Hi faithful readers. Sorry i have not posted anything personal and substantive and i’m sorry for again opening with an apology. I’ve added a link to my friend Lisa’s blog, travels with trevor, which is allegedly about their exploits in zambia as peace corps volunteers. Apparently it is hard to get internet access in zambia and their blog is looking worse than mine. Nonetheless i wish them well and hope to visit them this winter or next. Tarot has me locked down in my job indefinitely so it will be a while before i can get away to go adventuring. It has long been a dream of mine to spend the winter in the southern hemisphere, spring-summer-fall-summer-spring-summer-fall-summer it has such a magic ring to it. if not this year then next for sure. the good part, or one of the good parts, about tarot making me a responsible person is the bank account is climbing nicely and when i do go i’ll have the money to travel abroad, something i’ve never been able to do in the past. Work goes well but is becoming increasingly demanding. i have had back to back appointments all day every day for 4 weeks in a row, which is bad enough before you consider paperwork, 10-40 phone calls a day, plus incidentals. its dragging me down. We have hired 2 new members for the team and my supervisory role is finally here. Of course it takes more time to teach someone to do something than to do it yourself but i can see the payoff. I like my new co-workers very much, one is very young and very smart and she is already taking some of the organizational responsibilities off of my weary shoulders. The other is very earthy and real ablbeit a bit funky, but who isn’t. i think she is going to be fine and she knows her way around como better than anyone. We are moving our daily meeting to first thing in the morning and I hope to make case assignments then and get out of the running around doing errands and focus more on the counseling type things, the difficult cases (i get all the potentially dangerous psychopaths), and administrative crap. My boss and i have been having a mutual admiration party, we both revealed we each were the only reason we stayed at this fucked up agency (its getting better, really). On a personal front Dave Smith blew through town. I had promised him that if he ever wanted to get into recovery i would get him into a program. He called me after getting out of Flower Hosp. psych unit and getting refused acceptance at the Cherry Street Mission recovery was looking kind of good. I told him it was hard and he would really have to change and that i wasn’t taking him in if he washed out and he decided to come. I got him an assessment, he called me from the treatment center and i saw him there a couple of times where he struggled with the rules and playing nice with the other kids. After 2 weeks he called me from Mid-Mo (our local paragon of inpatient psychiatric care-this is sarcasm if it didn’t translate). They cut his meds (you know your on a lot of meds when a psych unit takes them away). He was pissed, they cut his stimulant in half, took away his ambien, and wouldn’t give him Xanax for the transition. Apparently, Mid-Mo thought some greyhound therapy would be best (God bless Midmo) and they shipped him off for Reno NV. Dave picked there because he heard it was a good place to be homeless. All in all i feel like i got off lightly. A lot of calls and whiny requests for assistance, most of which i refused. At first i was disapointed with my company. We are a substance abuse agency allegedly trying to provide integrated substance abuse-mental health counseling or be co-occurring competent, and i thought Dave was a fair test of seeing where we were at and i thought we had failed, because Dave did try, bless his heart. But when i saw my substance abuse agency did quite a bit better than the psychiatric unit i had to admit we are doing OK on this front. The sad part is my program probably could have helped him and i wouldn’t let dave in because we were friends and i didn’t want to work with him. What is it about me that i spend my life helping strangers in a way that i won’t help someone close to me (alright he is incredibly annoying so i’m not beating myself up, i still talk to him which is better than most of the people who know him will do). I thought about ethical considerations of posting here but then i thought i only know dave through personal contacts and i only revealed stuff he told me personally and not anything i learned as a worker so i’m probably safe here. The final straw to publish this was when he tried to hit me up for my Dad’s phone #. My dad is struggling enough without having Dave trying to manipulate him into assisting him. i told him my dad lived in an undisclosed location and i couldn’t give him the #. I did give him $6.00 to start his new life. Dave’s a survivor, so i suspect he will be OK, but the world is getting to be a harder place. On other fronts, I spoke at a Sociology and Gender class on domestic violence. I’ll try to post the notes next week. It was fun and went well. Next week i speak to a social work class on batterer intervention. I also continue to be a former smoker, 18 days and counting.

Hello faithful readers. Sorry i haven’t written anything of note for a while and i still am not. I’m just not feeling it but i thought i would at least throw some updates at you. 1. I voted, lightning didn’t strike and i even felt pretty good about it, the barackmonster took Missouri in a close race and i felt good about it. they made me show ID at the polls even though i distinctly recall the courts throwing out the ID requirements. hmmm. 2. I decided to keep my nose on the grindstone, so no fantasy vacation in the immediate future. 3. I started my agency’s Freedom from Smoking thing, i saw my doctor and got a chantix prescription, let the dreaming begin. this time i am going to keep a dream diary, might give me something to post about, except my dreams tend to be banal. My quit date is 2/26 and i feel pretty good about my chances. My company is going to pay for my chantix, feed me luch weekly while i talk about quitting and get me a gym membership. 4. work is going a little better, my boss has finally learned to say no to referrals that we can’t handle, we have been interviewing potential new case managers and she is trying to clean house a little before handing over the reigns. 5. I got a possible lead on a new-old job that i don’t want to go to far on in a public forum, but it would be a nice change. 6. I am into the middle of season 3 watching Lost (watching tv, voting, staying at a job more than a year i hope i am not losing my edge). 6. i’ve been walking again, i’m up to 10 miles a week and pushing it up each week. On that note, its time to walk home. peace.

Sorry i haven’t had an entry for a minute. I have 2 pieces at home plus a new poem to post but with the winter weather i haven’t been motivated to get out. I also lost my cell phone so if you think i have your number i probably don’t and you should call me. Mike

For anyone who may be interested I will be on the 5:00 news show on KOPN tonight (11/27) around 5:30 for 15-20 minutes. I think I will be talking about co-occurring disorders (mental illness & substance abuse) and the holidays. I may try to sneak in a poem at the end. They stream live on the internet if your not local.

I am hanging out at my friend Trevor’s waiting for him to finish up with the plumber. I was showing him my blog and wanted to impress on him the immediacy of the thing so i am writing a quick mini-post. Trevor are doing a trip to Detroit for thanksgiving. We are going to visit Jeff Pavlik and Co in Farmington Hills and running by my old stomping grounds. I think i will have to retract any commitments i’ve made to do any particular thing and freestyle it. He is going to Eastern Europe in the peace corps in March and needs to see a doctor the day before turkey day. Do you know anyone who wants to rent his house? It comes with a cat named Ms Fezziwig. There is a lot of stuff you have to do to go to the peace corps. Thats why i’ve never joined. I have pledged to visit he and his wife and am hoping for kazakhstan or lithuania, now that Fiji has been ruled out. I will tell you all about the trip as it develops.