Sometimes I wonder

Today I thought about song writing. The variety of quality in song writing, like those songs that get "produced" by somebody else for a tween queen, who has no time to actually grow into a teenager, and have organic first loves, first curfew breaks, and whatever it is that materializes into deep-seated emotional development eventually and allows us to feel the makings of beautiful song lyrics. Then there are lyrics that are completely artistic, that don't naturally follow a verse-chorus-verse layout. Lyrics that must be put to music, that are, for better or worse (I'd say better), someone's publicized poetry. Of course, without lyrics, emotions can be conveyed too, and how that process works, from a human head to another, with emotional interpretation built in through sound somewhere in between, really beats me.

Today, Belle had heatstroke for hamsters, otherwise known as "The Sleeping Disease." She got catatonic, which we of course, after Bridget's pronouncement of Wednesday's 'dogatonic' behavior, call 'hamstertonic,' and she was lifeless from the neck down, and wouldn't eat or drink, even with water and food put right under her nose. Once we figured out what it was (thank goodness for online hamster vets), we got to give Belle a bath, splashing her with ice cold water from a dish, which I think she found very undignified, as she curled up on a corner of the bed afterward, like she just needed a moment to herself. She did look, as Steve said, like a wet rat. After the wake up call, Belle went to the sleeping corner of her cage and proceeded to groom herself, becoming lovely and fluffy again in no time. Now, she is in her exercise ball, crashing into walls all over the apartment, and being otherwise joyful.

I am pretty excited for tomorrow, because we are planning to go on a hike, albeit a short one, at a nearby state park. I am a busybody, and whenever we make plans to do some specific activity over the weekend instead of just playing it by ear, I am pleased. It is surprising, because as fidgety as I am, it would be such a good idea for me to actually have a routine, other than that which is imposed on me by work hours. I can imagine an amazing weekend routine, for instance, that goes like this for Saturdays: 8AM - Get up, take a shower, throw on some extremely comfortable, clean cotton clothes, and have some fruit 9AM - Go to the Farmer's Market, people browse, pick up some fresh flowers and healthy munchies for lunch, 10AM - Tidy the apartment, read a little bit, catch up on all the news I hadn't followed up on during the week, 12PM - Hop on the shuttle and go to Red Emma's, get a bagel and a large iced coffee or chai that I eat over browsing their selection of books, 1PM - buy a book, walk around Mt. Vernon and read on the benches, 2PM - ride back on the shuttle, swing on the Wyman Park swings, 3PM - Sudoku, Cards, Word Whomp, 4pm - TV and snuggling, 5PM - Church, 6PM - Cooking dinner together, eating and talking, 7PM - mindless reality TV, 8PM - Gym, 9PM - Cold shower, 10PM - More reading, especially magazines, 11PM - Comedy/News with Jon Stewart and Stephen T. Colbert, 12AM - Daydreaming followed by night dreaming..

While I honestly wouldn't do this every week, I would like some more structure, like going to the Farmer's Market and Red Emma's every Saturday, and waking up before noon (baby steps). I could substitute the reading with some music, though since Record and Tape Traders closed down (to be replaced by - Nothing!), I am not sure where I would find new stuff. Or rather, where I would find old stuff I think has potential to impress me. Nevertheless, we have planned to go hiking, and I can't wait.

Oh, also, before I leave, since I need to, since I am rambling beyond all measure, I am going to start religiously watching The Wire. I am not sure whether the plot will interest me much, other than the threads which I've heard about being related to the corruption and poor choices of our former mayor, but I can't not see this show, and despite this, I have not. I think what will appeal to me most, given my penchant for reality TV and because I live where they've taped, is seeing the back drops and settings of The Wire and trying to identify all those places that are shot on site. I think in that regard, I might become obsessed. But yes, I am checking out the first season from Video Americain as soon as Steve leaves, and I hope to be done with the first 4 seasons by the time he comes back in mid-August. I know this will take discipline. I will do what it takes. I will get the job done.

There's much more to discuss, but no cogent way to discuss it. I had a weird dream last night - red pleather pants were involved. We'll see how tonight goes.

Subtle life

So, today I wrote out a summary of my first qualitative interview, and I think my boss will hate it. It drones on, and gives examples, and taps into the heart of what my interviewee said, so I strongly predict that she won't like it. She is more a matrices type of gal, a - put their feelings into columns and we'll rate them - type person. So maybe I'll end up with a chart for all the the interviews when I am done, to suit her. If I have any goal at work, it is to do my job well, and then to do it in another way, equally well, to keep everyone's options open. This explains, this and doing qualitative interviews all the time (i.e. - chatting with strangers like they're your friends for the betterment of each party) why I am tired most days.

Today, I feel good though. After the summary I ended up kind of mulling around, finally meeting with the clinical lady about co-occurring disorders, and then gathering up some more resources about Latino clinics from the one resource guide that exists in the city. Just so you know, there are about 6 places to go if you only speak spanish and you are seeking mental health services. Whether you can get there, will want to, and well, will, is another story, for another day.

After clearing all of that up, I went to yet another meeting where I knew no one (except a surprise participant who happened to be a girl studying part-time in HBS, yea!) and had no idea what was going on. Then again, they were all fun, all smart, all working with at-risk youth, and the pediatrician brought chocolate cake and kale from the Yabba Pot! So that was that.

Instead of going back to the office at 4:55, I went to snuggle and have dinner at Papermoon, which you may be saddened to know that, as of today, is no longer a 24 hour establishment. Yup, from Sunday-Thursday it opens at 7am and closes at midnight. Some might not care, but I have maintained solace in the fact for a long time, that as with UniMini and Subway, I can always go to Papermoon. My only other complaint about that place is that the 'chocolate cow' (glorified chocolate milk) always makes me think of a 'black cow' drink, which my mom taught me was a half-and-half mixture of coke and milk. It is so much better than the former, which I order, and am disappointed with, whenever I forget the distinction.

Shortly after digesting Papermoon, we stopped off at Wyman park to "play" field hockey. It is much more fun for me, a perennial bench warmer, to play hockey nowadays, when it is non-competitive, with a boy, and the field is mostly occupied by puppies whose owners use it as a dog park. We made friends with a terrier named Petey who liked us better than the polo-shirted dude who was his master.

So I was thinking about being born again. And I think it's a constant thing, not a singular, decisive, pledge-my-old-life-away thing. Because the metaphor, being born, is pretty deep. As a newborn, we have no concept of good and evil. We do terribly selfish things almost constantly, but in our innocence, we are blameless. We expect nothing from anyone or anything in particular, and in that way, we accept endless possibility, from any and every direction. We live for the moment, we know ourselves without labeling ourselves, and we don't judge others. At least, that is what I can extrapolate, from my observation of babies and my Forrest-Gump-like lack of recollection of my own birth. I think being born again also means being washed clean, with the chance to live a better life not once over, as in baptism, but with every breath, step, and blink, as if rebirth moved along the tides and never stopped renewing us. Of course literally 'being born again,' that requires just as much hardship, and as much joy, as the first very gooey time around.

And why the happy mood, really? Well, its cool outside for the first time in weeks. And we are simple creatures.

I <3 Al Gore, but, most of all, I <3 you

The above correspondence was produced by my mother, by whom I am impressed constantly, but currently for her probably new knowledge of the less than three shortcut for virtual love.

Lately we are bombarded by politics, though I was enthusiastic about the current presidential race as early as well, let's not kid ourselves, as early as January of 2001. When I watched the second George Bush take office as sleet poured down over an already dismal ceremony in D.C., I literally became sick. By the time I got back home to Frederick, my temperature was right around 102 degrees F and my head was throbbing. I was anxious then, about what the president might do to divert the country away from core domestic issues and from genuine concerns about national security, and I remain baffled by the unraveling of these past seven and a half years. These times have truly been an exercise in patience and perseverance for me, as someone blessed with the opportunity to go to school in an age when the United States invades multiple countries in which that option is not made available to the poor and especially to the female.

Now, however, after a year of non-stop campaign hype/hope and 7 plus more years of school, I am partially free from the world of the classroom, as I work full-time with mental health programming in Baltimore city as a part of my masters' field placement. Here, in the liberal, idealistic world of public health, I considered naively, and just for a second, that I could be free of political thoughts. Maybe I am - in the legitimate sense. When I walk into a work site, and the staff are all people from a Baltimore community so close-knit in geography and culture, they're free from certain pretenses. There's not much of a clinical veil around this health care system, and much less of some kind of clinical ego. But structured care? Not so much either.

Quality mental health care is fortunately injected into the system, but unfortunately, not without introducing politics into the mix. This politics comes in the form of beneficence of course, in donor grants that aren't meant as a permanent form of funding, in contracts that may bind people's loyalties a bit too tightly to their business commitments, and in people's well-meaning personalities and emotions, which are necessary and inevitable, but which complicate a system's politics and blow them up in a whole new way.

And perhaps why I perceive politics, where I could chose to see the relatively staggering success of these grass-roots initiatives and community-centered services, is because I am critical, and I will always be critical beyond all intervention. Yes, there are street politics very much at play, and beyond that, there is the immovable divide between those working on the system (the researchers, civil servants, etc.) and those working in it. But what I could see are people given hope by what is, instead of every potential logistical nightmare down the road which might take that hope away from them. I do see it, day-to-day, and it makes me smile fleetingly to be around these small miracles as they pass me by. But in my criticism of the system, I also see a fear in myself, that one day, far too soon, I will get caught up in an agenda that forgets the bottom line: I am here for people, not for a field placement, and certainly not for politics.