The not very good, not terrible but almost awful day

Not today such much as yesterday. Well today too, sort of. Yesterday was a very hard session with my client, I wanted to shake her until the sense that I know must be there but has unfortunately congealed from too much ear wax or something burst free and allowed her to see the light, as it were. Yeah, the honeymoon that never was is officially over with that session. If she answers another question with "I don't know" I will scream. On the inside. To her face I will smile, beaming with magnanimous patience, and say something deeply profound, like, "Oh Cara*, I'm sure you have more of a real answer than "I don't know". You are a smart young woman." Yeah right. Actually she has some great insight and is on target about how some of her teachers see her. If I had to give myself a grade on yesterday's session I would say I started out a strong B, maybe even B+, but by the end, well, a D.

And then there's BirthWays. Somehow some ads didn't run. Yeah, I'm organized. Sometimes. But there have been many obstacles, some of which I hope to have solved, soon. Most I had hoped to have solved by now. But, well, obviously that hasn't happened. Some of them are not in my control - dammit all to hell! I just hate when I screw up. It makes me feel, well, like it's not my Universe. In all seriousness it makes me have to face my limitations, not a pleasant task, I assure you.

The good news, is a took BART into San Francisco to get my hair cut at the recommended salon, Festoon with not the owner (good thing she isn't taking new clients - $115 for a cut! Sheesh). A lovely woman named Cally cut my hair. I do have before and after photos, but I'm shy. Walking back to BART I looked upwards just a bit and thought I saw...why yes I did see, the word "YARN". Did I have time for an impromptu stop, hell no! But, but it was yarn! There is was, a tiny doorway, up a flight of stairs (there is an elevator I found out later so it is accessible), down a long hallway decorated with collage art of photos where the garment is excised out and underneath is actual knit fabric. Thus was my entry into Artfibers. What a joy to behold. Every yarn has a sample knit up. Every one, sometimes more than one, different colours, different stitches. The Celtic yarn is absolutely scumptious, if they had the right colour for The Girl Friend I would have walked out with 100 yards to whip out a warmer scarf for her walks at Point Isabel. After much discussion and disappointment about recycled sari yarn on the GLBT Knit list, I was delighted to see lovely soft hanks of the stuff. I don't see it in the yarn catalog online but there is mention of it here. Luckily for my bank account I didn't have enough time to roll around in the yarn and see what stuck. The woman who was there, I think it was the owner, was lovely, so enthusiastic about the yarn it was hard to leave without any. Empty handed I did leave the luscious store, vowing to return.

Another good thing, I actually read a text book on the train. I know! It's incredibly dull so far. It is one of the books I should have read last semester. Understanding Race, Ethnicity, & Power: the Key to Efficacy in Clinical Practice by Elaine Pinderhughes (reading this I found out she has a connection to Smith School for Social Work - I used to work there) Sounds like a page turner, doesn't it? Well it isn't so far. Maybe it's because so far it isn't telling me anything I have thought about, read about.

So maybe yesterday and today wasn't so bad, but I feel kinda bad anyway. It's that vague but heavy sense of dread, something being wrong somewhere in my world. I can't put my finger on any one thing. It's many things.

To really succeed with school this semester I need to churn out 6 back papers, and complete 3 other classes. Now I realize it's doable. And it would mean that I finished about 1.5 semesters worth of work in one semester. It means about a paper a week (because I have at least 4 other papers due this semester) from now until early July. Work is hard. For lots of reasons. I have mixed feelings about the intensive amount of time I am supposed to spend with my client. I also am running out of ideas about how to stretch out the time. Then there is the little detail of not getting ANY feedback on my notes. I mean none! My supervisor hasn't read my work yet. I am hoping she has by tomorrow meeting. And that she's on time for once. I've had two individual supervision meetings and she's been late both times. Is my frustration showing?

Another minor concern is that my mother continued to have symptoms of wretching way after the chemo treatments ended. This meant she went to see her oncologist, after swearing she would never set foot in that building again. She did take a friend with her (Lindsay was out of town that day), took valium and since she was sick was additionally doped up on cough syrup. It all worked. There were two possibilities that the doctor came up with. One, an ulcer which is one of the side effects of chemotherapy. The other, is "remote, remote, remote" - brain cancer. Yesterday was the appointment with the gastroenterologist. Today was an MRI. Sunny and I have also talked about it just being a learned physiological habit and that she simply needs some body retraining - de-Pavlov'ing in effect. So maybe that is part of my vague but debilatating sense of dread and the world falling in. Oh yeah, I just remembered that I just passed the one year anniversary of declaring my other relationship over and done. My dear love, this is not a reflection on our relationship or my great joy therein. I have a seasonal cellular memory thing, so this makes sense.

Yeah, there are a lot of reasons for dread.


* not her real name