[1208] It's Just That Easy

There’s something so fundamentally human that I think I will go my entire life unable to grasp “completely” or “seriously” or “empathetically.”

I don’t understand how people stay convinced.

I consider myself a deeply critical person. I’m exercising my judgment about everything, constantly, and it’s why I have simplified heuristics to remain sane. My cars are often old, dented, or cost less than my guitar. I just need it to get me where I’m going and it’s the greatest car it ever has to be. I have no genuine opinion that stems from the type of car that I have.

By contrast, I routinely experience people who functionally identify with their car and consider it an extension of their personality, taste, wisdom, etc. What this does is removes any obligation to say or think about anything “objective” regarding the car. Who cares how it was made, if it’s safe, or if it’s famous for being preferred by some notable despot of history, it’s my car, man, and nothing you can say about it matters.

I’m stuck just seeing “a car,” and it’s a “nice” car or “good” car if it cars correctly. If I need it for a more specific purpose, again, all that’s implicated is my sense of meeting the need. I don’t want to make a long trip in the backseat of a sports car. I don’t want to load wood onto the hood of my Buick. I love my truck because it helps me get work done, not because, “Geeerrr, man, truck!” Or because I want to be seen some kind of way. Incidentally, almost always if someone’s a cunt riding my ass, they’re in a truck.

To me, when you’re convinced, you’re stupid. You’re consciously and deliberately motivated to stay a specific kind of stupid to maintain some relationship to the identity you’ve…let’s call it worked-ish out. You train to prefer dodging skepticism, questions, or critical thoughts about whatever you’re convinced of. This is the maintenance of toxic family or relationship dynamics. This is religion. This is the heights of vitriol in music preferences. This is the irrational basis for war and control.

I’m extremely unconvinced. I’m interested in immediately changing something I’m doing particularly egregiously wrong. I know you can only have so much evidence and there’s always confounds, but I’m starving for ways to do “it” or “things” or “life” in ways that don’t make the whole project feel pointless and stupid. I feel incredibly alone in that posture. I’ve met maybe a handful of people interested in operating the same way, and often it’s extremely domain specific.

Well before the cesspool of the internet, I’ve been the kind of person who has fielded an immense amount of feedback about who I, allegedly, am. Boy howdy, do people sound convinced. I learned very quickly how that seemed to be most often what someone was willing to share, often a less than flattering opinion about how I talk, think, or behave. For most people, I suspect when they encountered the same thing it was pretty disorienting. The people I meet in counseling have an endless treasure trove of the traumas of youth and generational passings-on. I wasn’t one to be convinced. I immediately had thoughts, notes, and questions.

My mom used to call my brother and I “Serbian princes.” She considered us, as single-digit aged children mind you, on some pedestal because my grandmother would cook for us, and otherwise treat us nicely, I guess? My mother grew up in a verbally and mentally abusive home. She saw fit to pass on the tradition. She, clearly, was convinced about herself whatever she was told. So convinced, she found the wisdom to beat, belittle, and terrorize children. Also, you’ll be excited to hear, my brother doesn’t consider it abuse! He’s convinced! Pay no attention to me who has literally removed children, as a DCS assessor, from their homes for 1/10th of what happened to us. Same state, different decades, makes all the difference apparently.

I don’t want to be the kind of person who’s stuck doing something categorically stupid indefinitely. I think violently and routinely beating children is pretty stupid. I think using power in aggressive and domineering ways on people in sensitive situations is stupid. I think conversations where neither side complete sentences and begin to get loud are stupid. I think bending over and asking to take someone’s rapey dick move a little deeper is stupid. I think pretending like you’re too busy, too moral, too smart are all categorically fucking stupid.

I got a classic “criticism” in IOP class the other day. “What could you possibly teach us about addiction if you ain’t going through the same thing?” Many people in recovery, because they’re people, not because they’re in recovery, make a show out of how convinced they are correct. He’s right, no? Addiction is something so categorically different, defined, and dominated by those struggling with it. Obviously. Every scientist studying it. Every debate. Every counselor worth a damn is, or was, chronically abusing a substance in spite of the self-destruction.

Or, this is such an unimaginably stupid question, that it sits squarely at the center of my opening confusion. I don’t know how to sound that stupid on my worst day. I have no analogous topic or sense of defensiveness about something in my life that is like, “Oh, yeah, I sound like that when we talk about…” For most people, it’s their faith that occupies that space. They believe what they believe, circularly, forever, because. I don’t have that. I’m certainly not convinced of any given sky-daddy, nor am I convinced I have any fucking clue what it means to be alive, dead, or inextricably intertwined with everything.

I think it’s stupid to adopt catch phrases. Free Palestine? From what? The terrorists they elected to routinely terrorize? From the influence of Iran? Or are you, most likely, pretending to be an expert on global affairs, religious extremism, or Israeli foreign policy, and accidentally doing an antisemitism? I don’t have to be an expert to listen to 10 hours over 5 days on my drives to and from work the opinions of people who’ve lived, studied, or hobnobbed with the players involved for longer than I’ve been alive. Do you know what my opinion is after all that? You should listen to them too, and share who you’ve been listening to. Then, if we both want to pretend we, as individuals, have a dog in that fight, maybe we talk a few days later.

But people are convinced! The narrative is popular, therefore true! All my favorite bands and friends are saying it, and what’s ever gone wrong with punk or youthful energy? If there was a habit I wish we would adopt globally, it would be starting most sentences with, “I could be wrong, but here’s what I think.” Not picking a side. Not judgmentally labeling someone. Not decrying some grand victimized frame and indictment of power as though you have none.

When you’re convinced, you’re forgoing responsibility or choice. The conclusion gets to do the work for you. More importantly, it gets to take the blame when things invariably go awry. When you demonstrate to me how convinced you are, I return to one of my simple heuristics. “Oh, this is stupid, time to move on.” You’re not actually convinced, you’re woefully incomplete. You don’t like how that feels, so you anchor on literally anything, but especially on things that are culturally normative. Your car. Your girl. Your politics. But always your indignant posture that you met someone who sees through it and how it works instinctively, begrudgingly.

What are we to make then if you’re over there stewing and waiting to decry, “Ha! Fool! You’re convinced beating children is wrong!” Am I so unserious a thinker that I made some gross oversight? Or, in your eager temptuous posture did you not just highlight the nature of what I’m talking about? Are you genuinely trying to debate a child’s experience of abuse, or obfuscating because that’s all you know?

More to the point, I’m not convinced beating children is wrong. That’s not my framing, nor my language. I would describe, in detail, the research, the litany of people’s experiences, and my own, and use a mountain of evidence to say something like, “I’m 99% sure abusing a child is unlikely to get the desired outcome of doing so.” The more specific the scenario, details about the players involved, the better. Unless your goal is to fuck with that child, you’re probably doing it wrong. Don’t you want to know that?

[1207] Extra Ordinary

The last 2 days it’s been incredibly hard to focus. I’m entirely sure if anything happened. I feel like I’ve lost a beat, or like something that was previously animating dropped away. The days prior I was having fun, or trying, in spite of some aggressive feelings I was having towards no one in particular. When the weekend ended and I started back to work, I found it, and frankly still find it, hard to lock in and give a shit.

Yesterday evening I emailed my boss indicating a desire to maybe pull back on some of my work responsibilities and focus. My job, while not proving to be the often immoral and ridiculous environments most show themselves to be very quickly, is pretty messy in some foundational ways. I work for a sober-living/IOP operation. I conduct groups and carry out casework tasks. I’m currently obligated to carry out new person orientation and have been creating material for life-skills and case management that didn’t seem exist…at a company that’s been around for at least 5 years.

At first, this job was supplementing the paltry salary I was getting working for the Y. I got there in the morning after my first Y shift, left before the beginning of my 2nd Y shift. It’s messiness barely touched me. I decided to get myself fired from the Y, then I could neatly become “full time.” The messiness grew. I took steps to try to make it less messy like asking for the materials I’d be teaching in advance so I could make copies. I insisted we get a white board that showed the daily schedule so everyone could be right or wrong in the same way. There’s many, very simple, fixes like that which the place still needs, that I think can be accomplished in relatively short order.

At the same time, it hit me how often I seem to experience the same pattern in my relationship to work. I show up, experienced, energetic, consistent, and with a good and genuine nature at the prospect of demonstrating the work or a fix. A slow-creep of things that undermine the effort come in, and if I notice and speak to it, I also have to ensure I don’t do so in a hyperbolic or sounding-too-aggrieved type of way. There’s all this excess labor that forms “shouldn’t have to be this way” kind of sentiments in my head and gut.

If I don’t want to be rushed to make copies right before class, and to their credit, they give me the lesson plans in advance for 2 weeks, but forget the 3rd, I’m pulled right back into the anxiety and frustration over something “dumb” and “simple” that I’ve tried to fix several times in asking for the whole curriculum so I can spend one afternoon getting prepared for months in advance. Surely, it’s just a series of .pdfs somewhere. The rush in the morning bleeds into my attitude or sense of preparedness for group. The notes and tasks due after group maybe take a hit. Now I’m angling to “reset” the next day, trust violated, and my grasp of the spirit to make things work better loosened ever so.

On balance, I don’t know if I get 3 out of 5 days a week that I’ve worked there (it’s only been 2 months) that I’ve been able to anticipate, technically, scheduled and easily anticipated things. It’s incredibly disorienting and feels compounded when we’re trying to model behavior we hope our clients will adopt in service to maintaining sobriety. Do as I say, not as I do?

In 2 months, I’ve been witness to improvements. I’ve contributed heavily to them. I’m feeling protective or maybe defensive of my perspective that, for reasons I’ll never understand, needed to be the one to show up and make the changes. I’m worried the changes won’t stick. Or that the people who I’m trying to shape up and do better are stuck in a place that’s going to continually undermine the attempts to create better beats and downstream effects. I, never, just “trust” that my effort will be recognized or rewarded, nor do I think as a rule most people are concerned with quickly and materially altering the consequences of their blind spots.

It seems out of nowhere, but it’s also relevant that I just got some outside work done around my property. It was a reminder that I like shaping up my property and working to build/organize things. It’s something that takes a lot of time and I usually only ever have the time when I don’t have the money or the weather. It’s been incredibly hot lately, I have a little more time, and I’d rather be doing mostly anything here than somewhere else.

It feels key to point out I’m not impatient. I know change takes time. I know I’m not prepared to ride that empty broad sentiment indefinitely. I know I still retain the power to say I don’t want to nor can work as much as I previously thought if the instability feeling persists. I’m not shooting for some vague notion of stability either. I’ve worked for enough companies at all layers of social work and interpersonal drama to know what works or doesn’t independent of the players involved. Paperwork can be a savior. A shared calendar can cut through a lot of noise.

I want to believe really bad, in something beyond my friends, indulgences, and self. I don’t have a magic sky daddy or in-crowd I practice apologetics for. I don't have bad solipsistic philosophy or the personality disorder to uncritically tout my brand and content. I want to show the principles I’ve applied to my life in order to achieve what I have so far in a context explicitly suited to doing so. It feels like such an opportunity for a Shakespearean play-level tragedy to embody the fucking up when you’re proof positive, individually, the fuck ups need not be.

I don’t know if my focus fucking off is me trying to protect myself from what might be yet another catastrophic failure. I don’t know if I’m looking for license to distance myself in a more deliberate and polite way so that I might maintain a reference that won’t throw me under the bus. I don’t know if the heat is just making the ambient space we’re all operating within wonky in a way that can’t be accurately accounted for. I do know that I’ve been pretty locked in and inspired and motivated, and then it aggressively drifted away. It’s not gone. It’s not hopeless. It’s not even got a decently long list of issues that can’t be fixed. No one has shut down attempts to try or deny they are problems altogether like they did at the Y.

My coworkers are overwhelmingly fun and funny people as well. It’s as close to DCS coworkers as I’ve found, and even more raw in places. We’re dealing with about 80 people, on rotation, in early recovery and regularly getting shit on for things both in and out of our control. We got jokes. The elements that were impeding structure and growth were removed from the work landscape, the ones recently hired (basically 85% of the staff is less than 4 months) read as capable and reliable.

I want my focus back. There might be more begging for my attention, but this is my best first guess.

[1206] Bet

I’m not going to pretend like I don’t have days where I simply feel aggressive or like I want to fight. They are few and far between, but they happen. I don’t know if it’s a guy thing, or a me thing. What’s important for our purpose of writing today is that it’s not some innate and persistent hunger. I’m not trying to fight. I’m not desperately waiting for permission to be an asshole. I’m loathe to accept the invitation.

If you’ve been to a concert in the last few years, you’ve no doubt read the words that go something like “no refunds under any circumstances.” Weather rains out the show? It also washes the organizers’ hands of responsibility. You get sick? Ha! Go fuck yourself on that one in particular. They move the date and time? At this point, you’re not even talking about having made a real purchase with any genuine intention nor can you take any real responsibility unless you think literally all money spending is akin to gambling.

When I reach out because a date has moved, relatively last minute, months later, and to a date I know I can’t make, you are obligated to refund that money. You are obligated to refund that money because it’s not a fucking complicated thought experiment or rumination on morality. You’re obligated to return that money because you offered a service, production, show, whatever descriptor you wish to apply, and then do not intend to deliver on it. You’re not performing in my backyard on my timeline. You’re obligating me to plan on meeting the conditions of your venue. When you don’t meet your own conditions, you’ve violated the contract.

When you respond to my outreach with “No refunds, I’m sorry. Policy. Yada yada bullshit.” You’re inviting a kind of retribution and drama that is unbelievably unnecessary but for how it speaks to how and whether we’re able to exist with each other altogether. I’m decently disagreeable and have a vengeful spirit. I didn’t earn them, I think I was born that way. When you want to pretend like I’m crazy or entitled in wanting my earned money back for a thing you can no longer provide, I want to destroy you. I want to sabotage your toilet. Steal your shit. Throw a baseball through the window…you get the picture.

What I fail to understand is your lack of imagination. Are we living in a world so devoid of consequences? I think the answer is yes, but I maintain, I don’t care how ridiculous and backwards we get, I will remain of consequence. I will maintain a standard of reason and fairness. If you can’t get on the same page of polite exchange, I’m going to give you precisely what you don’t want and take considerably more from you than what constitutes a loss from me. You must understand, I’m defending civil society at this point. I didn’t hunt you like some crazed ideologue. I was invited by you to enjoy a show, and then you shit in my face.

Hyperbolic language is fun sometimes. But the point I think is sane and salient. I spend my time often encouraging people to not prioritize vengeance or repeat the stories of the injustices they’ve experienced on a loop. They don’t often grasp the nature of what they’re suffering in staying stuck on certain narratives. I know precisely the nature of my struggle and why “small” things need big defenses or reactions. I don't let the slow-creep of what’s essentially social suicide go ignored.

In the meantime, I’ve disputed the charge with my credit card company, filed a Better Business Bureau complaint, negatively rated their facebook and Google pages, emailed, messaged on facebook and Instagram, and am fully prepared to aggressively knock on a window and demand a manager every day like my name is Karen. We cannot keep putting up with this bullshit people. You cannot keep feeling the license to conduct yourself in a way that justifies this behavior. The irony of how often I’ll need to scream that at myself when my retributive self turns cartoonish is not lost on me. No less, I refuse to be a martyr for ambivalent selfish exploitation. I bet I value fucking up your way of operating more than you do my money.

[1205] When I'm Gone

I have a unique ability to trust in who I am. I presume it’s unique. As a counselor, and often when I reflect on conversations with friends or coworkers, I don’t get the impression others are as convinced of themselves. That is, they’re often “fascinated” or “frustrated” about their own behavior or in hearing about how I conduct myself. The most dramatic contrast is with clients. A deep ambivalence and skepticism is the default when I insist on performing habits of taking responsibility or looking for solutions. It’s a though I’m operating with answers and am pursuing the matter-of-fact or step-by-step means of trying to achieve the given thing, but am encountering people who either haven’t asked or can’t be bothered to believe there’s a question altogether.

At bottom, my mind wants to obsess over something. Call it autism-y. Call it compulsive. Call it ADHD. I want my attention sunk deep down into TV or a videogame, a woodworking project, a rabbit hole debugging something, yard work, practicing an instrument. Any one of those things could be a relatively indefinite obsession. I reach natural stopping points. My fingers give out. I run out of money. I get tired. But I crave a degree of engagement and stimulation at my core.

I’m not addicted to it. I’m not at the mercy of it. It’s just how I’m built. Knowing this, I also know I can, in fact, achieve pretty much anything I genuinely wish to do. That’s, at least, the most common way to phrase the idea that provided I’m realistic, even at the outer bounds of what one might consider realistic, I know I have the intelligence, drive, creativity, persuasive capacity, and time. I know what I’m prepared to sacrifice. I know at least half of the ways I’ll likely fail and what would be needed to carry on anyway.

You might well consider this all an errant faith claim. Fair enough. Faith without works is dead. Hence we arrive at the floor of my “belief” in myself system. I work. I put the time in. I make the drives. I have the conversations. I write the blogs. I try, really hard, to make peace from moment to moment, and I try to keep track of what is or isn’t working. I state my values constantly and then work to put them into the world. I pick hard things to do, and then show myself I can do them. You do this often enough, you’re allowed to claim you know something about how to conduct life.

What I’ve gathered as I’ve gotten older is that in spite of my work, I’m embedded in a significantly impactful series of contexts that don’t really care how quickly I can fingerpick or competently assemble a shoe rack. I don’t live in a county, state, or country that appears to agree on pretty basic principles for someone like me. Whatever heights I, or anyone bothering to do work, might reach, they will inevitably be cut short because the air is poison. This has humbled me. This has stifled me. I’m reticent to obsess and immerse because “it” always tastes poisonous. I can’t maintain innocent “passion,” I’m disingenuously distracting myself from “things” that need more attention. That’s no way to live, and that feels like precisely the point of ensuring we must. Why nail a Sum 41 song when insurrectionists are getting pardoned?

Life’s not fair! The dismissive and condescending will decry. And they are correct, in the weakest way. The counselor in me would question the framing of my last question. What does enjoying music or drilling a solo have to do with federal corruption? They only happen to both exist as facets of my perception that appear to influence how or whether I direct my attention. Fair or unfair, I feel I owe “the mess” more brainspace than I do the story of what I can do with perfecting an already written song. My relationship to both things is its own story. Maybe I get called on stage one day at a reunion show and get the chance to show off! Maybe fascism continues to win in greater and greater ways. One feels considerably more likely, and not just because I’m not appreciating art enough.

I used to think I had “good reasons” for a lot of my behavior, and come to find out even more of it was out of spite than I was already claiming. “I” used to be an unyielding reactionary force. Reacting to people’s judgements. Reacting to the helplessness and fear instilled in me growing up. Reacting to off-comments about how I talked or looked. What did I want? Who could even say back then, but I can speculate. I wanted to hang out at my grandma’s. I wanted to play videogames. I wanted to fit in.

I think a lot of the chaos I see in the world, in clients, in colleagues, is the same kind of misstep I used to make riding my reactionary energy. Bari Weiss recently told Coleman Hughes that The Free Press started as a reactionary response to her experience at The New York Times. Now she’s tasked with evolving it to be a center of people’s news or media diet. She never considered herself an entrepreneur or business owner, she’s just corralling the fallout of attracting attention over what she was reacting to. The “good reasons” might have been one or a few, but the ongoing story of the collective reactionary effort will be painted as though there was a method and guiding principle all along.

I’m still spiting circumstances more than living for things. I’m living to go to shows and hang out with my friends and dad. I’m living for the last few hours I spent inventing a multi-situational phone holder, playing with my tools and drowning in sawdust. I’m living in service to the, still pretty vague, story of what happens when I’m back out of debt, too comfortable with my job and regained my free time. I’m situated in a future hopeful the broadest institutional and spiritual failures don’t crash my plane on the way to Vegas for When We Were Young. Perhaps my industry goes bankrupt because “charity” and “grants” are needed to construct the Thunderdome approach to healthcare.

I just heard it, but forgot who said it, when they said the best thing they ever heard about how to know if you were rich. You’re rich if, had you even more money, you’d still be doing exactly what you’re doing. I’d still be building, just bigger and more efficiently. I’d still be going to shows, but in more exotic locations and with better seats. I’d be trying to hang out with more people, but likely from the crop who have the money to have the time. I’d probably spend more time catching up on the history of games I haven’t played knowing I don’t have to be anywhere else. I might get a personal trainer and cook or nutritionist.

This presumes a world you can basically trust. Overwhelmingly, I’d be doing what I’m doing, just taking errands out of the equation and building a team I can’t achieve organically. If I could create the adult version of my college party house atmosphere, I think that’d be swell. But, that wasn’t about what “I” could do as it was all of the players involved. If we’ve come full circle, it appears every potential player I meet is stuck asking questions they don’t feel obligated to answer.

I think I don’t want to wait until things get dramatically broken that we simply must react. I don’t want to wait until the next divorce or depressive episode to be relevant to a “friend’s” lived experience. I don’t want to be more bald and grey before it dawns on us that time’s almost up and the answers are already there, but they aren’t being acted on. I don’t want to think I’ll “luck out” and get brief stints of my “ideals” provided I treat most time as something to suffer the wait through and incidental to some vague fairytale about tomorrow.

I got really good at guitar and I love to play, but not in a way that started a band. I enjoy creating things and having the tools, but rarely invest the money and time to make things particularly pretty or consistently. I can get lost in plenty of stories, but I’ve already given myself to dozens of narratives in the past, and whatever I was missing that compulsively drove the play, I think I found. I’m not waiting for permission. I’m not confused. I’m not helpless or ashamed. I’m not even as alone as I’ve normally been. But I am still pretty singular in my perspective about how all of “it” works. I’ll continue to dream about the damage we could inflict as a group of like-minded individuals.

[1204] Just Chillin

Getting back into my role as an addiction counselor and case manager has me thinking more frequently about the themes I belabor in class.

One of them is “work.” I firmly believe that if you don’t feel like you’re working, you’re probably not doing your recovery correctly. That doesn’t mean you need to be manically occupying every moment so you don’t give yourself a chance to feel. (be it a craving or simple pleasures). It does mean when we’re exploring new boundaries, who is or isn’t supportive and why, or what it feels like to practice something new be it writing, conscious breathing, or exercise, if it was “easy” and you’re “killing time” or professing a cliche like “I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do,” you’re lying to yourself.

Trust me, this position is often considered contentious or unreasonable. Surely, all that needs to happen is you being physically present, mostly, within the constructs of a recovery environment and in the presence of counselors, therapists, and peer supports, and when enough time goes by, poof! sober. Sober in such a robust and persistent way it’ll grant a new license to be pretentious and judgmental about those who haven’t done it like you.

When I moved to cousin-fuckistan, I routinely underestimated the amount of work it would take to reach a minimum level of comfort. Some people like the outdoors and can handle all sorts of weather. I need that AC. When you go to build something, the right tool makes a world of difference. An extra hand makes several worlds of difference. It started to sink in the resolve, planning, money, time, and disposition I would need to have in order to get the next thing. I started eating before I started, packing water, bringing “extra” tools, listening to my body when I started to get tired so I didn’t crush or cut myself out of fatigue and frustration.

I think it was a lot easier for humanity to find solidarity around things when we were all forced to work to survive. The argument from a conservative is that the negative consequences of welfare trickle down into how we conceive of ourselves as responsible conscious agents. They’re not totally wrong. They severely underestimate the degree to which the game is rigged and exploitation reigns. The liberal argument also rings true to me. But I’ve been around for, let’s say 20 “adult” years, and I’ve found 5 or 6 people willing to bet and work in bids to transcend the game, and the vast majority accepting or more or less making peace with their level of first-world poverty. Financial, "spiritual," interpersonal poverty or otherwise.

We’re working, somewhat, in service to basics. It has us believing that the effort we’ve put in thus far should suffice to get what we deserve. It has us shifting our concept of what we deserve to precisely what we’re getting. Our adaptability is a double-edged and dangerous tool like that.

What kind of work would it take to get to some form of globalized consensus? I mean the kind of world that bakes into the cake of “global understanding” that there will always be a forever-percentage of the most trolly/insane/just-asking-questions types that we can remain persistently confident might never again seize power regardless of their “platform?” How uncomfortable would we have to get trying, trusting, and investing in ways of being? And is it even possible to be intentional about it? I’m not so sure.

When I think about my “politics,” it feels weird to characterize it as some kind of “independent” position. It’s almost never I explain myself to someone, nor listen to where they are coming from, and there isn’t some kind of objective story to be told. I don’t meet people intimately familiar nor interested in learning the stats and science behind abortion before they offer their “strong” opinion about the sanctity of human life. I don’t meet people particularly concerned with “logic” or “existential assumptions” as they tout the dictates of their sky daddies and mysticisms. I think you get to maintain a certain wonder and deference to the myriad means of describing “power” that shapes or controls you without taking the extra step over the cliff and drawing conclusions about fate, ironic metaphysical constructs, or context-independent morality.

I think, for example, if you’re a death cult like Hamas, I want an extremely strong border with you and want to do just about everything within my power to eradicate someone who is willing to carry out the violence insisted upon. That can mean bombs, indoctrination, or painfully slow attempts at integration with the Western world. It probably means all 3 and more. It feels objectively true that debating tactics and timelines all need to be predicated on a fairly straight-forward idea about groups who kill concert goers. You’re also allowed to mourn the innocent civilians they embed with and regularly brag about utilizing in their sympathy campaigns. You can also ask yourself if they’re shielding themselves with someone who’s “soft” sympathies with their position is what got them voted into power in the first place.

But that paragraph alone takes a level of responsibility it’s hard or impossible to do if your identity rests in not grappling with it. I suspect there’s such a stigma around addicts because they’re simply a visceral example of our own posture as it relates to token issues. Who isn’t extremely dogmatic and intractable about any number of unhealthy relationships? Bill Maher recently said we need to move the narrative about personal responsibility and continue to take allegations seriously and hold men accountable through the efforts of metoo, but the women need to leave. The women need to be expected to, in one of his examples, take their private jets back to their loving rich families and stop talking about how toxic Shia LeBeouf is like they’re chained to the radiator.

Whatever it is we think we’re getting from tying our hands to various narratives isn’t as true as we think it is. That’s the work of articulating and reiterating where the lines are, why they exist, and what deciding what hills are worth dying on. I’m as confident as one can be that the next thing I profess to want will take time, effort, doing it wrong a bunch, and meaningfully engaging with the reasons why. The self-righteous are never wrong. The convinced are never patient. The noble and proud warrior can’t pronounce humility. These are defensive positions created by an ego that doesn’t wish to be threatened. It’s saying something objectively concerning about you if you consider new or more information a threat or something to fear.

The human animal is none of the things I talk about. It’s not what our biggest dreamers, creatives, thought-leaders, or scientists discover. The human animal is just waiting for the context, the excuse, to react in familiar and gratifying ways. The human animal wants to fit never asking where. The human animal wants to wink and nudge its way through a seemingly endless game of exploitation and distraction. The human animal won’t do the work. So where does that leave the humans? To my mind, at the mercy of the savagery and inevitable death that drives unbound nature. The appeal of the familiar religious fantasies will clench and suffocate as they do. The sins will pile up, and we’ll call the next, boring, compelled reaction a “revolution” and continue to pretend we’re ever going to take the requisite responsibility.

A client of mine wrote down that she was feeling lost and hopeless. She then said something about her ex and his behavior and, “if it gets to the point…” I stopped her. What? If it gets to the point, what? You’ll then have your excuse? You’re already at the point where you’re feeling what you wrote. There is no “point.” We’ve had several conversations on the best way to address her concerns which she’s provided thanks and expressed relief for in the past. Her job is to ask what her responsibility is to the feelings right now. Not after she constructs a false if-then scenario about him. Her responsibility is to bring the broader context into the catastrophized thought. Her responsibility is to respond to the feeling with things she can do to incorporate it, and barring that, steer away from the worst consequences of it.

I have interactions like that a dozen times a day. Someone might talk brilliantly, intimately, of the right and intellectual way to go about something, but it’s rarely acted upon or not felt. It’s not felt in their bones. It doesn’t serve as a quiet confidence built on example after example. So often it’s the ones contributing the most who feel like they’re not saying anything or “it’s probably of topic” or “I’m talking too much” as though there’s some neat and perfect answer I’m fishing for regarding their feelings and sense of being in the world. I remind them, it’s not just “addicts” that struggle to articulate and own what we’re talking about. It’s everyone. It’s the animals we all are that we’re up against.

The values need practiced and defended at all times. It’s work. There is no amount of shit you will eat that will absolve you of the choice to do so nor transform the flavor.

[1203] Same Page

It’s 3 AM and I’m home from day 2 of the Limestone Comedy Festival in Bloomington, Indiana. Earlier today, I was at St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in Schererville where I was a pallbearer for my 45 year old cousin’s funeral. It was close to 3 AM that I arrived to the area driving up the night before, and after a viewing, church service, burial, and lunch, I made the drive back, finding myself exhausted and briefly/uncontrollably drifting lanes just before the Lafayette exit I was looking to pull over on to take a nap.

 

For what my decision to buy a VVIIPP badge for the 3-day event might’ve suggested would be a flatly “fun” weekend packed with “comedy,” my cousin’s death being the most obvious wrench in my expectations is not even what’s mostly on my mind. I learned more about him from his obituary and eulogy than I had ever heard/remembered family talking about. As a basic human, it’s sad when people die and I’m not coldly dismissive of what my aunt is going through or anyone else in my family. Especially because I’ve gotten older, I just don’t play along anymore than I have to.

 

I suppose, again, we arrive at the notion of “playing along.” To be sure, I will never “forgive” nor “forget” the horrible things my family have done to both my dad and step-mom, grandmother, or myself. These are thieves. These are liars. These are greedy, insecure, and angry children who, as recently testified to in my cousin’s death, are willing to let those in their orbit suffer for their lack of accountability. My dad is 1 of 4. They all got the same parents, and he managed to be the only one who didn’t find a way to mock the examples my grandparents were trying to set.

 

At the same time, as I can already sense this is sounding incredibly judgmental or callous, I don’t pretend that anyone is anything less than an animal first. I had this moment as they were lowering the lid to my cousin’s coffin where I just looked around the room and felt this lightness about the terrible and inhumane or exploitative shit the people in my family have done. There was a useful narrowing of focus and forced perspective as the sickly mouse-like face of my cousin descended into his coffin and I looked at the congregates hold back tears or stare just past where he laid.

 

There’s a certain poetry to the idea that I go straight from comedy festival to burial and then right back to festival. There’s a certain highlight that I, in spite of my best effort, would find myself flirting with death on the highway. You really do want to believe something about the bigger picture. I couldn’t escape the thought that the reason we have this whole lengthy procession is to distract us from the responsibility that is begged in thinking death is the end. What if my aunt simply failed her son? What if she’s continuing to fail her remaining one who is struggling deeply with alcoholism? Now now, fuck all that noise, we’re gonna hang out soon in heaven!

 

The comedy festival is feeling feeble. There’s plenty of funny people, but I’ve never felt more like an afterthought in buying the highest-tier badge for something. Maybe the System of a Down “VIP” tickets once, but this is right there for considerably less money. You don’t feel the energy. You don’t get the sense the ones who have been doing it for…12 years…have figured out the rhythm. Did you know I get reserved seats right up front for shows that haven’t sold 1/5th of the room? If 30 or 40 people got invited to it, why am I seeing the same hosts and features multiple times? It’s very first or second year energy. They told me my badge would look the "coolest." It’s the exact same badge as the VIP.

 

I’m exhausted by what feels like perpetual unreality. My family isn’t real. The competence and “love” of comedy by whomever organized Limestone isn’t either. It’s so many people playing along with some idea of what they think the thing “should” be. At lunch, my surviving alcoholic cousin and I get along in a weird way. His energy and my fluid acceptance of it did not match the pleasantries vibe at the table. He shakes. You thought he was going to drop each bowl of food as it was passed around. I recognized how important it was to him that he wasn’t babied as he still managed to serve himself without spilling or breaking anything. He’s dealing with real shit, including recently diagnosed cirrhosis of the liver. I gather he clocks me as someone willing to meet him where he’s at.

 

The comedy festival is interesting if only because it’s a majority female comics, and younger people than me. It’s like this weird little microchasm into the broader fucked up world of lonely fascist men steering us to Handmaid’s Tale-opia. Tonight was karaoke, and by 1:30AM, when the songs were done, it was 30 girls in mom jeans and 90s dad sneakers talking too-enthusiastically to each other as people like me I assume felt reasonable in not even thinking about hitting on any of them. Tomorrow, we can get brunch with the comics. From what I’ve gathered, they’re mostly comfortable talking/working within their fellow comic cohort and marketing themselves or playing friendly with the locals wasn’t quite explicated in their contracts. I don’t blame them.

 

When I first started writing this I felt this desire to get on the same page. I was going to just list the things I “individually” felt and thought “everyone” could kind of support or understand. Instead, I’ll take one thing, like sneezing and saying bless you, to illustrate my frustration. I think we need to be saying “bless you.” I don’t think it has anything to do with religion. I don’t think you’re remotely sane if you find it offensive. At least half the times I sneeze, I don’t get a bless you. Every time I hear a sneeze, I say bless you. We need things like that to save us from the individualized algorithms. We need social norms back. 30 funny creative women should not be meandering about a bar in a college town during a festival because they can’t trust any man because “toxic” is all they’ve known and men are no longer being properly socialized.

 

The ideals live and die with each of us. My grandparents set examples. They died with 3 out of 4 of their children. To me, that says you need to work 4 times as hard as you might assume initially to maintain whatever it is someone was showing you is worth maintaining. You think you worship Carlin, Pryor, Williams, and Chappelle? Create something, in 12 fucking years, someone like them would want to play at. Stop “doing comedy business” and seek and celebrate those with the message. If you want family, don’t perform and pretend like mine, hold the line of standards and respect for yourself and what you contribute to the pot of wellbeing.

 

I think there’s like 5 separate blogs in here, but I had to say something. I have to say something because, whether it’s 40 comedians or 3 days or acquaintances who only see each other at deaths, no one else is saying what needs to be said or what I need to hear to suggest we’ll ever find each other again.

[1202] Ring My Bell

I’m dancing around writing because I’ve gotten home particularly late and wish to be done with the day. No less, my brain is buzzing, and pretending I’m focusing on TV and my delicious New Belgium Trippel isn’t going to serve me as well as just getting in the weeds.

I’ve gone full steam ahead with my new job after functionally begging The Y to fire me. I’m now back to my regular casework and IOP counseling space. There’s approximately 70 people living in 8 or 9 houses owned by the company I work for. I do 4 groups a week, and have made it my mission to assess the needs of all 70 over the last few weeks in an effort to standardize how we carry out casework or “life skills.”

This program is only 4 months. What I noticed immediately is how many people were discharging without any idea where they were going next. This is IOP. Some have transferred from other similar programs, some straight out of prison, some from homelessness, or inpatient detox. All very early recovery circumstances. It appeared like the owners had a blind spot in the expectations they had of the people in their care, and it was leading to this being a messy pass-through spot more than a place to really practice the necessary skills.

As I’m inclined to do, I started asking about what the whole picture/process was, and started brainstorming how to do it better. People don’t know where they’re going? Do we have any information we provide them to get a place lined up? No? Okay, let me do that. I spent 10 hours building a resource packet so, day 1, if you’re so inclined, you can call about what the availability might be at 6 different locations. I’m going to presume innocent enough oversight as to why this wasn’t standard issue already, but in modeling what I’m counseling, I asked what I could contribute more than bitch about, and then did the thing.

This gets into what get so exhausting about these environments. You can be the living active embodiment of the values you’re talking about, how you arrived at those values, and have a direct causal impact on the people you need to affect, and the overwhelming majority will still look at you like you’re high and full of shit. They’ll cling that much harder to what they know* and if you don’t relay “your” message in a way they care to hear it, be prepared for their emotional fallout.

I’m experienced and distanced enough to not take things personally. I don’t let verbal disagreements or awkward moments linger for some prolonged period of time. But when they happen, like they did today, it highlights the frustrating parts of work like this. I need to meet with 70 people a week, at least once, so I can get us all on the same page and hopefully empower some practical direct next steps. You’d think the relatively captive audience who are lucky enough to be in this program would be mostly receptive to what I have to give. Or, you’d be wiser to what it means to be an animal who is exhausted and learned to cope with addictive substances.

At least half of any house I visited is often asleep. Doesn’t matter if I’m there at 1, 3, or 6, or if I saw them awake earlier in the day for IOP. Almost none have a job, but say they want/need one. Almost none have resumes, but claim they can create one. Almost none know where they’re going to go, how to get their personal documentation, or find the nearest open food pantry. But, they’re asleep! Like there’s nothing to do, learn, or figure out. And to be sure, I’m not begrudging anyone their developmental capacity or if they struggle to read or write. I’m talking people who are perfectly capable who, somehow, find so much time to sleep, and fill their waking hours with criticisms about how the program isn’t working for them.

When I show up with a resource packet, I have people waking up just long enough to say “Okay, I’ll come in the kitchen” and go back to sleep. I have people taking “important phone calls” and “gonna smoke real quick” ducking sitting down for even 10 minutes. I have people who manifest migrains so they don’t have to leave their room, but they were healthy enough to engage in trafficking teenagers the night before. Or, you get people who, it’s as if they can’t really listen, so if you deliberately and explicitly say you’re in a rush, they’ll turn yes or no questions into 5-minute meanders. And, dare you choose to assert your boundary and respect for time and blow up your rapport, you can redirect them back to the task with a now checked-out child whose feelings you hurt.

In an environment where you’d think you’d want every possible means of not staying stuck in self-destructive cycles, you will get the most unironically judgmental attitudes you have to dodge instinctively or they’ll wear you down. In a place where people will loudly proclaim their goals and values and you’ll spend hours breaking down how to demonstrate and celebrate them step by step, literally in the next breath you’ll think you’ve entered a parallel universe because the automatic and familiar reaction dictates the scene. You don’t talk yourself into new behaviors. You literally have to practice the new thing you want, or you’ll only get what you’ve always done. This is one more time that I practiced patience, self-forgiveness (for hurting that client’s feelings), redirecting the anger/exhaustion of my perception of the entitlement and laziness.

I don’t judge people as some kind of specific good or bad thing. I’m not even feeling anything in particular about “them” as “individuals.” I’m exhausted by the human animal and it’s typical, predictable, boring as fuck cliche nature. I first reached that place with regard to myself and my own behavior, and now it allows me the distance and license to recognize and diagnose yours. It’s taken my 21 years and 1,2001 blogs and counting to just barely pull my own head out of my ass. I don’t take you seriously when you defy the idea that you should fill out a worksheet or make a phone call. I don’t respect you as a serious and moral thinker when you tell me “I’m good at pretty much everything I do” and “I don’t have triggers” when we’re having this conversation in your structured rule-bound grant-funded sober-living environment.

You’re lying. I know it’s coming from feeling vulnerable. But what makes it worse is where I locate the truest and deepest lie. You think you’re more vulnerable than anyone else. You think your pain is unique. You think your anger, dread, fear, and sense of hopelessness is special. That feels downright insulting. That feels like a dare. This, of course, my personal silliness that needs to be accounted for and dealt with directly. Eventually, though, when you’re just lied to so profoundly and with such conviction thousands and thousands of times, it changes you. And it’s not always clear if that change is a certain kind of wisdom, or deadening.

Some people do get it. They contribute, and work, and write a ton down, and ask questions, and share what they’ve been reading about or watching. They help each other. They thank you for investing in them and taking the time and creating things like a resource packet that anticipated some of their worst fears. Each person is a universe unto themselves, and with that in mind, the adage I used to ridicule about “If I can only help one person, then it’ll be worth it!” rings differently. Those handful can often account for the worst behaving actors that day. They help me bother to keep playing this kind of game and maintain my perspective about the nature of “help.” I show up for singular people in my life all the time.

I do genuinely believe that the more of us who find the same kind of exhaustion and perspective about tired and cliche human shit, “things” get “better.” I don’t think it’s a “belief” that we’re all connected, and the less poisonous any given node is in that network, the better. I will almost certainly never know the extent to which it’s better, but it certainly isn’t worse, which is the second best way to confirm why you should bother with a course of action. (If I’m barely understanding a Mindscape podcast episode that was way over my head.)

Tomorrow I need to input some 40 notes and chase down 10-15 people. Over the weekend I need to create several weeks worth of curriculum packets. I’m still trying to nail down how my effort will land me somewhere close to the 100K/year mark. In context, I can deal with as many sleepy, defiant, and defensive clients as I must if the money’s right.

[xx-28] An Email Exchange That Will Get You Fired From The YMCA

Mom:

I am reaching out to follow up on the recent behavior incident and write up that occurred yesterday, 5/13/25. I understand that T inappropriately physically engaged with a staff member, Mrs Anna, and was unable to be redirected. I do believe that a write up is an appropriate response to this behavior. 

My concern that I would like to address is that when I picked T up I was told, "I can't find the other write up but I know there is a fourth one" so T will be suspended. This feels unprofessional and biased. In fact, the last time that T was written up, the third offense, Mr Nick ripped up the document and did not submit it. That is why it is not in the notebook. Because it was thrown away. Yesterday's write up was the third time I have signed documentation of inappropriate behavior, not the fourth. Additionally, there was a threat of expulsion for the rest of the year should T have a behavioral issue again. Being T's mom, and not new to this process, I know that there is, in fact a process, and that it is not one suspension - expulsion.

I feel that Nick is annoyed with T on most days and would prefer to have a before and after school program free of any children with exceptional needs, creating a bias, either blatant or implicit, that has sought to remove all children from the program that have exceptional needs and problematic behaviors.

 When I have asked about the behavior plan that was created specifically for the YMCA I am met with perceived annoyance, and an attitude that communicates that it's too much to have to provide extra care. This leads me to believe that it is not being followed or enforced by Nick. I am curious to know how it was followed in response to the incident that happened yesterday? What specific tenets of the behavior plan were implemented prior to contacting classroom teachers as an intervention? 

Please communicate, in writing, how to move forward for the remainder of the school year in an equitable manner that provides T with what he needs to be successful at the YMCA Before and After Care at MC and how his behavior plan will be followed with fidelity. It is my intention that T will return on Monday and will complete the school year in your program. 

On my end, T has received an appropriate consequence at home and I have contacted his medical staff to try another medication adjustment -- he was allergic to the last medicine and we've been recovering from that waiting to try something new to assist in managing behavior.

 ----------------

 Me:

Thank you for your email. I appreciate detailed explanations of perspectives, and am happy to share mine as well.

I certainly forgot about ripping up the 4th (3rd) write-up. The suspensions happen after the 3rd one, so I apologize for any clunky phrasing there or confusion. It's not meant to be a "threat" by informing of the 4th write-up consequences, and certainly apologize if it was perceived that way. That's Y rules, and Katie asked me to relay that in event of physical inappropriateness.

When it comes to addressing the needs of children with elevated needs, I can only speak from my experience in the room, after taking feedback from staff, and the conversations over months I've had with colleagues and leadership. I know the Y, myself included, strives to be an inclusive environment. To the extent we have the staff, training, and capacity to accommodate, we certainly do, often even in direct threat to the other children in the room. Recall, T wasn't just pulling on Anna's shoulders, but pulled another participant's hair.

My concern is for the safety and stability of every single child in the room. When staff are in fear, monopolized, or expressing exhaustion and frustration that they aren't doing enough in spite of the above-and-beyond efforts they engage in, we come up hard against our limits and difficult conversations need to occur. Any perception of my being "annoyed" is often with the inability to discuss honestly the consequences of being unable to meaningfully engage the children or find an effective persistent resolution when the behaviors become acute.

Anna attempted to redirect T and clearly communicate at what point we were in the day. There's a point in an exchange with any child who is acting out where, plan or not, it's not working, so I think it wise to seek out the professionals who often have some intervention throughout the day that worked in a way the plan might not. None of the Y staff are trained to do anything beyond basic levels of intervention and accommodation. When those fail, what more would you ask than deferring to those who can do better?

As you've clearly communicated to us several times during medication shifts or tests for new things, there are days where it's not a Y staff member's failing patience or competence that's going to meaningfully inform the effectiveness of any intervention. If this was again one of those times, usually we are given a head's up and attempt to plan accordingly.

I gathered that the staff I reached out to were particularly annoyed in this instance, and I've forwarded my concerns and asks for how/whether we're actually going to be partners in meaningfully accounting for needs or how/when we should relay concerns to Ms. Nichols. The last few days, every single day, one of his teachers has asked me how T is doing in the program. I took that to mean they would be appreciative that I was timely in roping them in when the story was less than ideal.

One last note on my personal experience of bias or annoyance. There are a great many things related to the Y that I could explicate my feelings about, but doing something actionable and reasonable to ensure the children can enjoy the program are not it. Every child that has been expelled or suspended from the program has been physically aggressive or hurt other children, with enough regularity that even in grading on extreme curves and doing things like ripping up write-ups, they still manage to remain unresolvable. I don't have a good answer as to why it's The Y's, any individual staff member's, or any given child's responsibility to navigate physical aggression from another participant. My answer is, they shouldn't have to.

-------------

 Mom:

Additionally. I do not have the expectation that anyone should tolerate T being physically aggressive. I am not upset about him having a consequence for this, being written up, or even being suspended.

My concern is the perception that Nick lacks the patience, empathy, and wherewithal to manage multiple levels of needs and is being intentional to remove all problems to have the program that he "wants". 

Several times I have observed facial expressions of annoyance, irritation, and displeasure towards T. T in turn picks up on this energy and it further complicates an already complicated situation.

His teachers are asking how he's doing because they are also under the impression that T is not wanted in this program and there is a target to run him out. His behavior therapist who is there Wednesday and Friday has also picked up on this and commented to me about this. It is just not my perception.

This is why I'm bringing these concerns. Honestly, I feel like Nick has just been waiting for this to happen and is eagerly anticipating being able to expel him.

That feels unfair, unprofessional, and inappropriate.

-----------

Me:

Again, I deeply appreciate candid feedback and an opportunity to speak to where you're honestly coming from.

What I cannot do is argue/debate perception. I have no control over how I'm perceived, but have lived long enough to know people are often very comfortable speaking about me more than to me, and diagnosing my thoughts or feelings. I don't take it personally, but I also don't think it lends itself to constructive means for navigating scenarios like this.

If you truly do not think anyone should tolerate T being physical with people, how do you account for him not being expelled months ago? He's been physical at least a dozen times to varying degrees. The not-quite-implied response I often got from Y leadership was lines about inclusivity and accommodation. I've literally ripped up a write-up. I don't know how that reality squares with the idea that I have a particular agenda against T or have some nefarious plot to exclude him. In fact, I've deliberately stayed out of his altercations until, inevitably, one of the women on my staff have called me over because their redirect attempts and plan-indicated steps weren't working. I've said since day 1 that it's absurd that I should ever have to occupy the space of implied power (as in strength) to trigger something in him to stop what he's doing. I have zero inclination or desire to physically intimidate children, and yet I've been invited to, too often, from women looking to be "saved."

I "want" the kind of program that at least operates at a basic level of common sense and decency. I've written maybe 20 write-ups for kids who've acted out aggressively. Not a single one has come back with notes about how I should work overtime to justify their behavior and let it go. I also don't make decisions in a vacuum, hence my regular discussions with school staff, my supervisor, colleagues, and you to try and come up with a means of not having my staff feel under threat. It's a Kafka trap. I either have to be the "bad guy" holding people accountable and then painted as targeting, or I let it all go crazy, and sheepishly explain to my staff and parents how safe and coherent we are as some magnificent gaslighting effort.

It's not about being "not wanted." I don't have feelings about any child one way or another. I'm not wired that way. I want a safe space where we can conduct activities and teach skills in a consistent and accountable way. By definition, through no fault of his own, if T has a level of need that high-school students, para-professionals, and otherwise regular explicitly not trained but merely encouraged staff cannot meet, the program might not be a good fit. If The Y was willing to hire someone certified to occupy him and allow the rest of staff to stay in ratio and attend to the other obligations of the space, there wouldn't be an issue. The Y seems unwilling to do that. I don't know why, I suspect they have money.

I've got a thousand deeper concerns in my life before I conjure some soured spirit to wish ill and expulsion of a child. Like, points for being that dark and cold before ever finding the curiosity behind my thought processes or experience in navigating Y policy, plans, and directives. Even entertaining this lurid desire I could have, why did I wait until the end of the year to carry out the plan? Why didn't I push every incident just as obviously unacceptable as the latest from the past? I consider myself decently intelligent. Surely, I could have orchestrated something without routinely asking for help and leaving email paper trails with every other adult in his life.

It's my understanding that Sanders made a point of targeting T. I'm not Sanders. Your son has physically intimidated and scared staff. He's pushed, pulled, and grabbed at them, as well as other children. He's done it A LOT. He's done it for reasons I don't blame him for, but need to be real about the effect they've had. You've stated explicitly he has the kind of condition that makes it a struggle to control impulses. You've explained the regular complications that affect his mood when there are medication shifts or a lack of sleep. I've watched school staff get this hardened pride and face about how "we don't' put up with that" as they lament what I assume is their increasingly frustrated perception of our leniency when I asked them for help.

If you're concerned about T picking up on my "energy," I've deliberately kept out of being the one to intervene with any/all of the children that have required plans to be followed or special attention paid. I'm aware of my competencies and weaknesses. I have zero desire to make something worse. If you're upset, it's because the people like Anna who are the most forgiving, most patient, and who, almost every day, ritually whip themselves asking "What more could I have done?!" while I have to reassure them that they followed the plan and sometimes things don't work. It's not me barreling into his life picking a fight or losing my patience.

It felt unfair, unprofessional, and inappropriate to have to downplay how the program operated before I got there. I'm the 4th or 5th person to take the roll in the last year or two? Because accommodation graduated to negligence. I'm literally formerly DCS. I have a thing about what constitutes safety and security. I'm comfortable saying the quiet parts out loud.

[1201] Between You And Me

 

Almost certainly, this will be terrible. I have no guiding light. I’m not continuing a specific strife with grounded examples you’ll be able to neatly follow. All I know is I’ve wanted to talk, but I’m alone. I’ve brushed against themes or basic ideas. None could, in and of themselves, land. So here we are!

I am truly thankful I had that mom call me out. You clocked that I’m frustrated or annoyed? Bitch, that’s my standing disposition. It has nothing to do with your kid lol. Your kid just happens to be one that gets physical with staff and other kids. I wish I didn’t have to debate accommodating that, but such is the nature of greedy negligence.

 

Every day I think I hate religion more. It’s the fundamental shifting of responsibility more than any sense about something “higher” or “all powerful.” You know why the Jesus tale is so compelling? You’re off the hook. That’s it. It’s no longer about how you felt, thought, or acted. You get a Jesus to wipe up with. I think that propensity, the celebration and habit will be what kills us all.

 

As a former business owner, I’m kinda relieved to see that other small-business owners are just as messy, if not even moreso. It’s truly enlightening to see that, you’re not even trying to do something wrong, but it’s damn near impossible to get the hundred things you need to get right, right often enough. You need the good will, the hustle, and a decent brain, but damn, shit is gonna stay messy for a really long time.

If I end up out of debt in about 2 months, and free myself up to having 3 or 4 days off a week, I don’t know precisely how I will handle that. My worst “fears” will be confirmed, in that life kinda changes on a dime, and I’ve always been capable, but just needed the right circumstance. I don’t want to believe it because it’s too much the exact opposite of everything I’ve ever known, but it doesn’t feel naive and impossible. That alone leaves me feeling confused. We’ll see, I guess.

 

My cousin died the other day. We weren’t close and he had some pretty severe mental health issues that put the writing on the wall. I don’t know when the funeral will be, but I’m already trying to prepare for the “act” of being like “in the family.” It’s not quite an “insidious” thing, but it just feels very silly. If we cared about each other, we’d hang. We’d reach out and support. We’d relate in honest ways. I have a whole pool of bloodline that I swim in out of circumstance. I’m to mourn a cousin who in 36 years I don’t know if I’ve spent a full week’s worth of time with?

 

Mother’s Day just passed to. My step-mom is cool. I didn’t wish her a happy mother’s day. The one year I did, it meant a lot to her. That worried me. I don’t want that kind of emotional effect on people. Welcome to the nature of my trauma? lol Who knows what to make of that. I don’t think she’s naive, but I’m hesitant with anyone who can’t accept that I’m just kinda “there” when it comes to emotional stuff. I don’t want to mislead. A distant or cold yet cordial and often enthusiastic dynamic feels more honest than, “I’m trying to make you feel good with something I say!”

 

My dad said I should reach out to my aunt in that same vein. I said, “Hey aunt Janet, I’m so sorry to hear about Mikey. I know there's nothing that can be said or done that can take away the grief, but I know how much you love your family and I’m sure he felt that.” She does love her family. She’s done a lot of things I’d never do to the people or family I might claim to love. Her son dying isn’t the occasion to bring those things up. She’s never done anything particularly bad to me. I like her. I’ve seen her considerably more often than I have my cousin. I said what I think is the right thing because I learned how as an addiction counselor. Does it matter what I feel…or explicitly don’t?

 

If I get out of debt in a couple months, I’d keep the money train going so I could try to reach a more even financial plain with my two closest friends. They’re fine, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t play the role of needy very well. It’s nothing about them I’m worried about, just my own capacity to account for the holes I’ve dug myself and bets I’ve taken on my ideas.

 

As I’ve gotten older, money has felt “looser” to me. It used to be this more concrete concept I sought out for its own sake. I didn’t think I could carry the psychological weight of debt or owing anybody anything. Eventually, you kinda realize that’s the nature of all things, and just because there’s a dollar amount attached to it doesn’t mean something “more” about your character, capacity, or intentions. Hold on a second, I need another beer.

 

I’ve been a big believer for a long time that it’s “little” things that make a ton of difference in the world. When you shift just a bit and you persist in that shift, you end up with something often radically different than you conclude in advance of that shift. I think about it in the context of how I spend my time. I used to spend an inordinate amount of time at my “best friend’s” house watching his fledgling relationship with the kid he pretended to adopt, GTA game play, and drum corps videos as smoke billowed from whatever they were smoking.

 

Now? I spend time going to concerts, eating and drinking at new places, and talking about academic and travel things. All I had to do was shift my focus to a friend who was more on the let’s grow and do things path versus the let’s talk in circles and make excuses one. Very little about my day to day had to change but for my attention. I get to have a friend where I worry about being able to bring more to the table instead of try to justify how I’m getting taken advantage of. It’s the place to be, I recommend shifting if you’ve been in the same spot.

 

I’ve been getting my house in order with things to throw away and burn. Every time I look at the more open space I just feel good. I’ve got 4 new woodworking tools. Almost certainly soon I’ll be buying a bass and the missing pieces of a drum set. I’ve been in my shed-house/fort for like 8 years? I can’t think of a better decision I’ve made that’s influenced so much of my life. I’ve been to almost 350 comedy/music shows in the last 3.5 years, traveled to Canada, Florida, Arizona, and California for funsees. I have every intention of finding a way in which I can routinely take long weekends all over the place, particularly if I can get in the rhythm with my job. All of it purely because I don’t have rent or a mortgage.

 

I think one of my favorite things about me is that I’m unwilling to let myself get comfortable. I’m not the kind of Steve Jobs energy that will belligerently railroad through my ideas at the expense of all decency or tact. But what I worry most about fixing my core underlying issue is how wide the world will then feel. What will I be obligated to build that has lingered for a decade? What fresh hell will I need to fight because, if not the increasingly rich in time and cash guy, who? It’s a space I’ve felt entitled to my whole life, but have practically never been able to occupy the space for every long.

 

I almost started a blog a few days ago with “I suffer my idealism.” I’m a dreamer. I legit believe I am capable of a fuuuuuuuuck ton, and think “we” are also capable of considerably more than we demonstrate for ourselves each day. I think this because I work with people and I see change happen in real time for those who take things seriously. I think this because I, when given the opportunity, immediately begin working and creating the things I need to, still in theory, get precisely what I want and need. I didn’t wait to create the packet of materials for the 70+ people I would be seizing their “casework” management. I sat down for 7 hours, got 90% done, and am ready to go. I put in 70 notes, do 4 IOP groups, wah-lah, $2,100. That could literally be 5 days away. You think I give a fuck about a weekend for that kind of money/opportunity?

 

I’ve always wanted to be the guy that was like “boom, here’s the money.” Not because it would necessarily say anything important about me, but because that’s literally “all” it takes. You get what you invest in. The money is there, it’s just in the rich people’s pockets. The struggle is illusory, but we’re not fighting for the right things, which is each other. I shouldn’t have to aspire to being the one who could “magically” fix the issues of those in my orbit. I should exist in a context that’s overtly concerned with eliminating basic concerns altogether. But, I so rarely see that happening. It’s why I’m the way I am. If I don’t believe in it and make it real, that shit don’t exist.

 

I could have gone to Chicago this weekend. Seen 3 different shows every day and driven back with plenty of time to get to work. Having not done so, this like freedom to just kinda sleep in or dick around is feeling invigorating. I’ve spent many months/years in this exact state, but rarely after 6 months of at least one job, let alone 2, where I’m not home for 15 hours a day. I’ll catch Larkin Poe, IAmDynamite, and Drew Dunn eventually I bet.

 

Was that enough of a bizarre and disjointed ride? I think I’m gonna pee and go play with my new tools. It’s 3AM. I slept in until 4 PM today. If I wake up at the same time tomorrow, I can still make it to Indy for Between the Buried and Me. I also need to add a few things to my casework packet.

[1200] Quite The Day

Today has all the makings of “a day.”

First, I get an emailing denying a 4-hour punch-card request to make up for 4 hours I did not record last week. The reason it’s denied? It’s our responsibility to manage our punch-ins, and my supervisor has been reminding me several times all week to go in and do so. Superficially, fair enough. But it’s deeper than that.

 

One of the first things I relayed to my supervisor when I got hired was how I’m terrible at the punching in and out. It’s not at a box you have to pass physically, it’s just signing into your phone. Well, my phone, even when I set alerts, even when I program the calendar, likes to pause, silence, or ignore my settings. So, when my A.D.D. self is particularly tired or distracted or has literally anything trying for my attention, I’m gonna miss a punch, which happens a lot.

 

For months, this has been alleviated just fine, either by her in the old system, or by me in the new. Well, 6 months later, I finally miss a day to correct, and my paycheck is 4 hours short. I already get paid terribly, and when you’re missing a tank of gas or two when you commute an hour each way to work, it stings. It stings more when you accidentally miss a MANDATORY meeting because you’re at your second job, you know, because one isn’t enough, and instead of just not getting paid for the 1.5 hours they did things like hand out “employee appreciation” totes (in lieu of money or courtesy), she insists you use 1.5 of your personal time or vacation time hours because, again, that meeting was MANDATORY. A meeting so mandatory, one of the three supervisors that’s supposed to be there has blown off twice.

 

I’m surrounded by a lot of people pretending to be adults, pretending to care, pretending there’s any sense or order about the rules and expectations, and pretending they’re exercising their power with any tact or wisdom. My job bleeds staff every few months. My job gets sued regularly for negligent behavior at its different sites. My job worked aggressively to excuse the violent behavior of children in its care for as long as it could, pinning it on us and the idea that we weren’t being “inclusive” and “accommodating” enough to kids that would feature in an episode of interventionist TV. My high-school kid employee, religious para-professional otherwise housewife, and spouse of someone recently swept up by ICE are expected to dutifully handle getting hit or pulled on and demanded of every day. They’re supposed to 1-on-1 deal with “behaviors” for 3 hours, whilst presumably ignoring every other child in the program as they pretend to be educated or certified in that level of attention and care. Cool.

 

The YMCA is a global brand. They have money. They still raise more off the backs of their poorest families. They refuse to pay employees enough to retain them or train them to do things like keep the kids clean if they shit themselves. They refused to hire the kind of help it would take to monopolize a child’s attention so the room could otherwise function. The latest kid to cause a notable disruption I was castigated for including his teachers in attempting to redirect and calm him down because it was after school. God forbid I include the alleged professionals when our ridiculous unworkable YMCA “plan,” which includes a license to hit other participants, somehow, doesn’t appear to be working.

 

My supervisor, also underpaid and overworked, I feel defaults to this kind of robot or brick-wall just mouthing words she knows doesn’t make sense and doesn’t believe in. She’s younger, looks perpetually overwhelmed, and has shown herself unable to even just generally lead or communicate, let alone engage in an adult human level with her other adult, and often more experienced, leaders. Today is just one of dozens of emails I’ve gotten that tout, so disingenuously, some “letter of the law” kind of sentiment where some common sense and grace would do. I finally broke, and pulled into a parking lot to write her a digression about how much I struggle with what feels like being completely abandoned by her. How every time I need something from her, it’s the hard way or some stupid tit-for-tat fight or pedantic debate. I could quit tomorrow with what I anticipate her response will be.

 

Bear in mind, I have her behavior and responses I can compare directly against another sometimes supervisor, also young, also with her own frustrating blind-spots and peculiarities, who has been demonstrably better. I can also compare her to my newest supervisor who has shown a level of understanding and support I’ve almost never found save for one or two people at DCS, and then way back in the day at Showplace. So while I have her needling in the background, something else comes in.

 

A parent emails her and me about how she thinks I’m “annoyed” by her special needs child and have made it my goal to remove kids from the program who have elevated needs. She alleges we’re not following or enforcing the right plans for ensuring her son can continue to participate. This is a child who is weirdly strong, and been forceful with my tiny staff who relayed their fear in the past. This is a kid who has held up items about to swing on me with them. This is a kid who has left the room to run outside. This is a kid who, his mother has stated plainly, has a condition that severely impedes his ability to control impulses. I’ve ripped up a write-up he absolutely deserved at one point, months ago, in an effort to accommodate and be patient and incorporate information mom was then willing to share. Someone, that write-up rip up guy is also targeting her kid. Her kid was targeted by the last site director, so naturally I am too, and I waited until 3 weeks before school was out to turn the screws.

 

Do I have any faith my supervisor will back me up? Doubtful. I suspect from mom’s response to mine that she at least played it neutral, but this is a girl I had to fight for 3 months about a child who, every single day, would have total meltdowns, screaming for 20 to 30 minutes stints, kicking and hitting tables, tearing things off the walls, and throwing things at other kids in response to staff asking him to sit down or line up for the bathroom. When I explained my plight in front of her boss, a complete 180 and now it’s, “You know I supported you!” No, I articulated your negligence to someone who, ultimately, doesn’t even really care to be bothered.

 

There’s much I can assume my supervisor doesn’t give a shit about regarding my life or what contributes to my ability to meet their professed aims. During my interview, it was a running joke all of the second and third jobs the rest of the site director’s had because, “You know, the job doesn’t pay much. Seriously, you get that right? Ha ha! We all work so much! We just believe in these kids and the mission!” That’s all fun and games until the practical reality and small asks I make to be accommodated come to fruition. Then, “You’re expected to be X Y Z, as we discussed during your interview.” Yeah, bitch, along with 100 other things you conveniently forget when it suits you.

 

I’ve been actively making peace with the shit all adults have to eat about their broad cliche levels of negligence, laziness, incoherence, and waste of most work environments. I was finding my pace and routine and setting up to just kinda ride. But then I get these emails. Then I find myself needing to negotiate time or a space. And it’s like a triggering event that just spikes my sense of absurdity, angst, and exhaustion. I’m already eating shit, just like you, why are you making me dance? Why do I need to be punished on top of the struggle?

 

The answer, always, of course, is because I am an unyielding puncture through the artifice of their farce. When you learn how to behave, play along, and survive by unshakeable allegiance to The Party, any remote criticism or ask to be “human” is an invitation to the whole world behind it of taking larger chunks of responsibility. We don't have a basically functional culture that can pronounce words like “responsibility” or “accountability.” Why would some helpless 27-year old who’s had exactly one job, pretending to be a leader at the Y, find the inclination for a robust longstanding and reasonable human professional partnership? She got an even shittier education than you, was encultured by the shameless and insecure, and is now terrified of literally everything I say to her. That doesn’t feel “winnable” or like a real problem to be solved.

 

Therefore, I take it day by day. My power remains in my ability to explore the entire world of possibilities I’m otherwise ignoring by staying plugged into this system. I’ve got my head to barely above water when it comes to bill-paying. I have the 2nd job I can always up my hours with, or I can situate around some other pursuit. I can’t escape the thought that maybe life does, indeed, have to* be this way for some mysterious reason the further you pan out. Maybe each new little ridiculous or hellish scene is just driving me to an inevitable destiny. A destiny it’s impossible to see as I contemplate the guilt of a mother who wishes she’d aborted her special needs child. A fate I won’t find beating up on the lost skinny white girls with all of my questions and criticisms of their intransigence and naivety.

 

As I contemplate this, I learn my cousin is about to die. I’m considering telling my job it’s my brother and taking bereavement time. I’m sure they’ll ask for a death certificate.

[1199] Pending

I’m thankful that time appears to have returned to it’s “normal” pace for me this week. That said, I’ve still yet to find a new flow. I’ve been the kind of tired I hear people my age and older routinely complain about, so yesterday I went straight to bed after getting home around 7:30. I woke up a few hours later and went straight back to sleep. I’ve still been yawning all day and staving off a headache.

I’ve felt like I’ve been trying to “check out” until enough time goes by that I’m not thinking too hard about my obligations. I don’t really like my jobs, or at least how they operate, so the less I have to ruminate on details the better. My coworkers at The Y like to complain about the same set of injustices, poor communication, and exploitation pieces. I was at the “shit or get off the pot (unionize)” or don’t page day 1. The IOP program I work for is either in serious denial about its lack of organization, or is due for an upswing because every day feels like a roll of the dice.

I got my taxes done, late, and am due a small chunk of money that would comfortably buy my missing woodworking equipment with plenty of room to spare. I’m hesitant to do so because I’m otherwise feeling so busy and out of time. Even my weekends filled with fun things are plagued with the thoughts of what’s to come. Every show in Chicago is 4 hours back home or a 6:30 wake up for a 2 hours drive to get to work on time. Say I get my tools, I’m fitting in projects, maybe, at the end of long days or after I wake up on weekends?

At the same time, I have a sincere desire to get out of debt. I could pop that money straight into the arms of the debt consolidation company. Then what? I give myself that much less to look forward to? I handicap the individual creative means I’m still exploring to escape the grind? That feels pointless.

I’ve been using my second job as leverage to be sassy and annoying at The Y. I was given a task to record on a printed-out calendar every time me, or someone on my team, interacts with the staff at our school. Mind you, half of my staff work at the school, and literally every day we talk to the front desk ladies, the custodians, the teachers who walk the kids over, and I text the principal with some regularity. What does my supervisor do when I tell her this? She insists on the calendar. Honestly, here’s the email exchange, because it’s just too exactly how fucking dumb people are.

“Hello! I have not received your touchpoints calendar for April. Please send me this by end of the day today. If you misplaced the calendar, please send me at least 5-10 dates that you communicated with your school staff! Thanks”

“Me or Anna literally talked to school staff in some capacity every day.”

“You still need to provide what I am asking in the email above. ”

“I'm confused, you want me to email you 5 calendar dates?”

“I want you to email me the touch point calendar that you were given last site director meeting. Or 5 confirmed dates that you did speak with them.”

“Someone decided to remove that calendar from the sign in clipboard, so I thought I was confirming in my response that we speak with school staff every day. If you need each day written out, I suppose I can do that, but my confusion remains. It's there a distinction between "confirmed" and what I responded with I'm missing?”

“Do you have any documented instances (email, text/call) that you are able to provide? I just want to make sure that dates aren't just being thrown out there that we may or may not have spoken with them. Does that make sense?”

“Beyond me telling you that we speak to them, what was written on the calendar that's disappeared is the only, formerly, documented evidence beyond a handful of texts between me and the principle which don't know if they add up to 5 (I'm driving) . It was my understanding that there wasn't a requirement to have physical evidence or time stamped incidents for each communication. Has the standard changed? There's dates on the attached pictures of texts with the principal. I don't know how else to confirm my relationship to the janitors, food bank and special needs teachers, or Anna's to the front desk people.”

“It has not changed, however, due to the loss of the paper you are supposed to turn in monthly on your end, I am asking for more clarification & documentation than just the basic 'we talk everyday to school personnel'.”

“Right, but I'm not lying? I don't know what would constitute "more clarity" than being expected to document in a picture or recording way. They set an expectation that's rooted in faithful accounting of communication. The faith is either there or not, no? If they think I'm lying about talking to school staff, why wouldn't they think I'm lying about filling out a calendar? It's no more evidence we're doing what we say than saying so.”

“I am no longer going to continue this conversation as I have been clear with what is expected. I have attached the calendar to this email so that you can fill it out like the original expectation & turn it in. ”

“That's fine, but know I don't appreciate any more than you the expectation to engage in conversations that don't make sense or go anywhere. I think we both know that whomever asked for the calendar is playing at leadership and pretending to care or trust us to conduct our roles. You can choose to acknowledge that and speak with me in real and human ways, doing practical things like extrapolating dates from the reality of mine and my staff's relationship to the school, or we can be annoyed corporate bots going through motions and getting aggravated with each other. I'd prefer to not have to play along anymore than is necessary, and I'm inviting you to a better dynamic we might maintain if we stop pretending things that don't make sense do. ”

Does this need further exploration? Of course not. Yet this kind of exchange feels infinitely more exhausting after you’re decompressing from conducting an IOP group or when you’re resigned to doing the bare minimum, but functionally antagonized to dress it up.

I try, desperately, to not bring work home with me. I have to get notes done before I go to bed tonight. I’m further behind than I’ve ever been. And, we’re talking, 30 minutes if I don’t use a mouse and get up 10 times to pee or chase a bug. I’m bringing work home because I’m unable to square what I’m being told about how I can use my time at work. I do concurrent notes, unless I can’t access the system, which I’m told I can access, but when “I’ll look at it” doesn’t turn into either seeing the problem or showing me what I’m missing. I get to carry that task out the door.

My muscles are tight. I’m full of bad food. I’m looking around the room at all the chores that would eat up my weekend. I’m not entirely sure how I intend to sustain current work levels or time investment. I haven’t felt the full impact of the two paychecks yet. I spend the vast majority of my day talking in work talk, moving between work things, spending too much money on food, and thinking to myself how tired I am. I’m about to go into summer “camp” with 8-hour break-less days and then an hour or 2 of the second job, only get home around 8 or 9 every day for 2 months all summer?