Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Um, The Second Time I've Mentioned Vomit in Two Days.

I just got last night's blog in under the (literal electrical) wire, my heart-note to Guy Friend not quite finished and sent via email last night, when high winds and booming thunder claps zapped the power out at Camp Miklasz, Mother Nature effectively calling it a premature night for all of us. I borrowed a flashlight from Luke  to make my way downstairs to the land line to call Com Ed, whose recorded message essentially said, "Yeah, your power's out. Take a look outside, moron. It's storming." I pressed "1" for English, and was told that they'd be capable of even approximating a restore time "in six hours." Thanks, but by that time, I'll be in the shower getting ready for school, so buh-bye. Luke wanted his industrial-strength flashlight to finish learning more card tricks, so he relegated my night-lighting to a medical pen light Guy Friend gave me to give to Luke a long time ago. I suppose I could've spent the next hour looking at my tonsils, but hell, I crawled into bed and heatedly nodded off eventually.

Triple rats, because I had planned on reading psychological theory history until I naturally dozed off for the night, which I never *did* finish, which didn't matter because I saw 104 Power Point slides on it this morning. Having trouble getting to sleep last night, the temperature in the house ever-rising without air conditioning, I groggily awakened at 5:15am, or 15 minutes after my cell phone alarm went off. I don't understand. I had it on full-blast, and it went off on-time, but clearly the sound is too pleasant, serene or I sleep too hard for it to have made a hill of beans' difference. The power had come back on at 2am, and I was irritated that I had to manually, gasp, make my coffee as the timer was thus reset. Finished my missive to Guy re: last night's blog, xoxo, and woke Luke up before I headed for the train at daybreak.

It was difficult to hear my soft-spoken Theory professor who likes to interject "um," "like," "uh," "ok" and "you know" into almost every sentence over a police-siren-a-riffic, large and rowdy crowd of picketing Chicago Public School teachers outside. It was 8am and I was half asleep as the professor, who is also my academic advisor, vaguely went over the layout of our group's educational plans for the next two years. I *did* catch that, at some point, we are allowed 6 weeks off, but don't ask me when that happens. (I'll be attending school year-round to squeeze out my masters in 2 years.) I don't have vacation plans, though I might jump over to MA to see Kate, or visit Best Male Friend, as I'm saving the trip to meditate with the Yogis of the Himalayas until graduation, which, as I thought I understood, takes place in October for some strange reason, and is held in a downtown theater.

By the time she started teaching Theory today, my face was literally smashing into my book on the desk in sleepiness. I was reading a case study with one eye open, as both eyes were crossing in an overtired malaise. Fuck, the girl next to me (we were in the back row) was Tweeting, so it wasn't like I was the only slacker in the bunch this morning. During our discussion on Jung, the professor said that in order to truly become a Jungian therapist, one must study 3-5 years post-doctorate. (Sort of like acquiring a medical specialty, only far less practical.) Bologna, I say. It's not like you get an Extra Certificate or Diploma for Having Studied More Theory Than Was Necessary To Obtain Your License. If I plan to be an "eclectic" therapist, I plan on studying up on a lot of everybody (ok, I'm done with Freud. Totally. I'm sorry. No mas.) and everything and using whatever method is best suited for my client, unless I'm specifically asked to employ a certain method in particular. Just don't ask me for psychoanalysis. 'Cause I'll tell you you're a sex-obsessed freakaholic who probably *should've* married your mother/father in 5 minutes and STILL charge you $150.



Anyway, I was awake enough to bolt out of school at noon and came home, unable to nap as I had to go to Walgreeens and then pick Luke up from school. I was directly behind Super Colossal Total Helicopter Mom in the driveway queue at school today, not having seen her since I witnessed (at last week's confirmation meeting) her actually sitting and stroking her 7th grade son's HAIR as she sat with her arm firmly around his neck, and upon seeing such torturous horror (which explains why he still sleeps in Angry Birds pajamas), I wrote a note to MY 7th grader (who was sitting in an entirely different ROW away from me), "Why aren't we cuddling?"

Two things you kind of don't want to hear from your son when you pick him up from school and he Fonzie's his way into the car:

1) "Nicole just almost totally threw up on me!"

and

2) "I remembered something that happened when you were drunk. It's really kind of sad. Do you want me to tell you about it?"

Repressed psychological trauma and a vomit story? WELCOME HOME, SON.

Having "whew'd" that Nicole's vomit missed Luke's church pants of the day (they can't wear jeans on Wednesdays), I hesitantly agreed to hear Luke's regaling of how my alcoholism permanently damaged his memories.

"You were sitting on the stairs at Swanky, drinking beer with Stacey," he said. (Stacey is NOT my friend anymore, for as of the last time we spoke in 2007, she, herself, was a foul, perpetually-drunken sleazebag with whom I'd never remotely be friends in recovery.) Luke said that he came out on the stairs and we collectively made fun of him for some reason or another and told him to get lost, which was really mean of me (us), and he told me I was a "stupid, fucking drunk" and slammed the door on me (us). He was 7 years old at the time. Ouch. Yeah, that hurt. Made my 10,000th amend to my child, apologized again, and was reminded once more that the years I spent drinking and not being a good mother left an indelible imprint on my boy's heart.

Fortunately, those stories are few and far between, but they are painful just the same, and while I know Luke has already forgiven me and adores me to the point of idolization for my fortitude, I can't just make bad experiences or memories just disappear out of that big, ever-zapping brain of his.

I am far from angelic, as we all know. Just as Luke was leaping into the car, I had finished Twitpic'ing a photograph from my phone of the 400+ lb woman who wears the same Hooters sweatpants to school every day and waits for her kid by the door. I had a clear shot today and had Tweeted in the past about how disproportionate she looked holding her young child's tiny backpack slung over her gigantic arms, which I reiterated via Twitter today (Jesus, do you all understand why I keep my Twitter on lockdown now?), which makes me one hell of a bitch myself, who is uniformly disliked by the vast majority of parents at my son's school. Gee, I can't imagine why. It's not just the smoking in my car and blaring Dinosaur Jr. coming out of my speakers, as I refuse to greet Luke as he emerges from his learning institute each day, ever-trusting that the haze and noise that are trademark Mom will guide him towards the car. Super Colossal Total Helicopter Mom fuckin' goes in and gets her boy FROM HIS CLASSROOM, Luke reports.

Having spent some time reading about ethics and whatnot tonight, The Offbeat Drummer's going to have to go covert at some point, methinks. I can't be a therapist and an open headcase/resident rebel/punk ass bitch at the same time, blogging under my real name. Perhaps the damage is already done, but newcomers might just have to deal at some juncture in the future. Awesome Therapy prof wants us to journal. In a little book. By hand. You know how much extra expelled energy I don't have which that would require, when I can liberally crank out a blog in a tenth of the time?

Not speaking of vomit, I'm totally getting off on listening to Bill Clinton speak at the DNC. He was the man. He's still the man. He fucking quoted Reagan AGAINST the GOP! He's brilliant!!!!






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