Railroads

The smell of tar in the air takes me home, pulls me down the railroad tracks into the distance, into the past.

It's country to me. Summer. When heat softens the tar on the tracks and fills the air.

I remember walking the rails to Hannah's house. Putting pennies on the track to flatten when the train passed over. Waiting out a passing train in the creek underneath the tracks, the reverberations pounding in my ears.

The smell conjures music, battered guitars playing folk ballads and old harmonicas wailing out plaintive train whistles.

It reminds me of the loneliness of hobos walking the line, tagging the underbellies of cars and hopping aboard to traverse the country.

I was near the railroad last week, in an old, restored train station by the river. The view shimmered in the heat.

Twelve hundred miles away, and I'm still thinking of Kansas.

Reason #1 why the south is better than Chicago

We went to a baseball game tonight. It was raining when we arrived, so the crowd huddled under the awnings to wait it out. Tim pointed out a girl with particularly nice calves. By the time the rain cleared and we found our seats, we discovered she was sitting next to us. Tim offered her his shirt to dry off her seat and she said, "Thanks . . . hey! You're a Shakespeare actor! I just saw your show!" and she introduced him (and me) to her family, and for the rest of the game, they talked about the theatre and exercise (she was a new massage therapist for a spa/gym in town). Her name was Chrystal, as most girls in Alabama under the age of 24 are named. She was at the game because of one of Tim's co-stars, who called up the baseball stadium and offered her voice for the national anthem.

The stadium gave a shout-out to all the actors, and one of Tim's classmates won a customized baseball in a raffle. I caught a hotdog from the hotdog cannon. I kept looking around, expecting to see people I knew.

As fun as Wrigley Field is, nothing like this would ever happen there. I like this small town.

Tired

I have mentally checked out of my job. The unfortunate thing is that I still have three months to go. I know a lot of my burnout probably has to do with knowing I'm leaving soon, and being ready to move on. But I think a lot of it just is burnout; I'd be ready for something new even if I didn't already have something new to move onto.

Today I got so irritated with a client that I ended our session early. She's just waiting for her husband to get help so she can go back to him. I just don't want to deal with that kind of stuff anymore. I have very little patience for people who stay in bad relationships in general. I'm able to put that judgment on hold for abusive situations, though. I know that it's not a black-and-white situation, that there's so much complication, that the power dynamic keeps the woman from leaving, but I'm tired of it. I'm most tired of people who refuse to see truth in their lives. Who fail to understand what I think is the simplest of all concepts: you're the one who can change yourself, and other people change themselves. You can't do a damn thing about someone else if they don't want to change.

I'm also tired of people who excuse things by saying, "but he's such a good father!" If he was even a half-way decent father, he wouldn't hit his children's mom in front of them.

Family visit

So far my grandmother has done all the dishes, vacuumed the apartment, and dusted everything. It didn't occur to me to get annoyed that she didn't think my house was clean enough, because, really, it's not. And it did motivate me to mop the kitchen floor and clean my bathroom, both of which were fucking nasty.

And now my living room is spotless. So that's good.

Natural face

I found a recipe for facial scrub in last month's "Bust."

Two tablespoons each of oatmeal, corn meal, and wheat bran, and mix a medium-sized pinch of it with some water and massage into your face.

The corn meal is a little rough, so I might add some more oatmeal and bran to soften out the mix, but overall, my face felt amazing after using it. Considering how much I've spent in the past for scrubs and cleansers, I feel like a fanatical convert to this homemade mix.

Welcome to the world, little one

Tim was hoping there'd be a full-moon baby late last week, but it turned out that baby Milo Oliver Lee held on until Easter. He was born on Sunday evening. Seven pounds, several ounces. Your basic newborn-sized length.

I could barely sleep because I could feel the shift in the universe.

Suddenly this new human exists.

I've never really contemplated the gravity of it, because I've never been so close to birth before. Well, I've never been an aunt before. I'm so excited!

Indulgent weekend

The weekend was perfection. It started out with happy hour afterwork with Sally and Fran at an outdoor restaurant. They are always so busy that it was a real treat to get to hang out. The weather was perfect and so was the company. Afternoon bled into evening, then suddenly it was late and not a good idea to drive myself home.

Saturday I lounged around until the afternoon when Meghan could drive me back to my car. We went to a nearby cafe and had iced coffees and chatted. It was the first time I've ever felt completely comfortable hanging out just us (I usually think of her as Tim's friend first). Then we went next door to a boutique that also fosters cats and petted the friendly ones weaving in and out of the jewelry and antique displays. Then I drove home, stopping by Publix on the way. I sat in the car for a little while before shopping because there was a really good radio program about Johnny Cash on. Inside Publix, pesto-parmesan ham was on sale, an old dude commented on one of my tattooes and told me to get some of the free samples of Easter food, and I saw a very scary 7-foot-tall Easter bunny.

Once home, I had a long conversation with Hannah, who may be coming to visit! Yay! And dinner with Tim. After he went back to work, I lounged around more, watched embarrassing TV shows that I had out from NetFlix, and made carrot-ginger cupcakes from the most amazing cupcake blog I've ever read. (YUM.) After the show, we went to a party with his castmates. Riotous, late-night fun.

Sunday, we made waffles with mangos and strawberry yogurt, and watched some "Battlestar Galactica," which really bugs the crap out of me. In the afternoon, I shopped for dinner, then played a scorching game of tennis with some of Tim's classmates. Dinner was grilled chicken, jasmine rice salad, and a new, intriguing salad containing dried apricots, figs, capers, feta, mint, kalamata olives, toasted pine nuts, and jalepenos, with a vinegrette. Dessert was leftover cupcakes. Afterwards, we laid around on the floor, reading trashy magazines, and talking.

The whole weekend felt like an indulgent escape. I suppose I never have that much to do on the weekends here anyway, but this one felt so free and lazy. The only thing that would have made it more perfect would have been if our pool was already open so I could have done some lounging poolside.

It totally recharged me.

Crosses on the road

I saw this all the time in rural Kansas. A small cross on the side of the road, embellished with a bouquet of waterproofed flowers and other ornaments. It seemed like another part of the scenery, so sometimes I forget exactly what they represent.

When I see them in urban areas, I'm surprised into remembering. I saw one on the median of the highway I take to tennis tonight.

They make death real for me. I don't know why. I think about who put it there, and why, and the ornaments make me think about a real person who took her last breath on that very spot.

It's morbid. But I love the memorials. I like knowing people still remember the ones they loved, and keep a piece of them alive for others to know. I like the ritual and thought that goes into the little altars.

Congrats

To the smartest, prettiest girl in the world, aka my favorite person ever, for passing her oral comps today!



Now nothing stands in her way from being a real-live Speech Language Pathologist!

Home is where the heart is

Or the Tim, I guess.

I was thinking about living here recently. Maybe it was running into Sally in the grocery store, which made things feel small-town and homey.

I watched the news last night, which reported this new development in a cool section of town. The city razed a rundown block and is planning to build restaurants, outdoor cafes, boutiques, etc, in its place. And a downtown alley near the baseball stadium is being considered as a touristy spot for fountains, trees, and cafes and bars. I got excited--then I realized I wouldn't be here to see it.

They broadcast the opening game of baseball on NBC Thursday, and I watched some of it, to see if I recognized anyone in the stands.

When did this become home? I'm going to miss it. I had no idea I'd fall so hard for a small city (and one so filled with suburban nightmares like strip malls).

This makes me think, maybe I can live anywhere, as long as I have Tim. He makes things bearable, but it occurs to me that what I have here, I created myself. I wake up next to him, and he makes me breakfast, but when I go out in the world, I'm doing it by myself.

In the theatre, I'm his wife. But everywhere else, I'm just me. And it's dawning on me just how much I'm capable of.

Grad school

It really feels like the closer I get to grad school, the less I know what I want out of it. I recently turned in my field placement questionnaire, which asked my interests so that my advisor could assist me in finding an internship for my first year. Pinning down one agency for an entire year . . . and the only thing I know for sure is that I want to work with women, and I'm ready to experience something besides domestic violence.

I'm stressed out. Part of me wants my advisor to say "Here. This is it. This is the place you will work," but then I hear myself piping up, "but what about the addictions field? What about working with adolescent girls? What about the LGBT community?"

I've been corresponding with a second-year student in the past few months who is a month away from graduation and feels similarly adrift looking for an area to pursue post-graduation. He told me he discussed this with a professor who said, "the paradox of social work grad school is that by leaving more confused/unsure of what direction to go now, you can be assured that you are being educated in social work."

I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I'll keep reminding myself of it as I try to grasp firmly for a concrete idea of my future.

Lately, I've been thinking more about therapy. I have always thought that's the direction I'd end up, but I have been doing so well with case management that I considered seeking out more opportunities for that. It keeps me busy. It sooths my problem solving brain. I like hearing someone state a problem and being able to figure out how to "fix" it. The idea of wading through a nebulous conversation about feelings terrifies me slightly. Check that. A lot.

I don't know why. I'm no stranger to therapy myself. I suppose the idea that I wouldn't be able to offer neat, tidy answers to people's questions (Unemployed? Have children? Apply for Public Assistance!) sets me on edge.

But lately, I've also been paying closer attention to the kinds of interactions I enjoy more with my clients. Some breeze into my office and say "yes, no, maybe" when I ask what they've accomplished in the past week, and I give them assignments for our next meeting. Others spend time going over issues or paperwork I can assist with. And still others sit down to just talk about emotions and feelings they have.

And it's the talky ones I enjoy the most. I feel more connected to them, involved in their situations, and less bored with my job. I think I should explore therapy more.

Soul sucker

I went to Wal-Mart today because I heard they have the cheapest contacts, and as soon as I walked in the door, I wanted to kill myself. I think it must be built upon the Hell Mouth. The contacts were more than I wanted to pay, and the whole store was bathed in this gross florescent green lighting. I freaked out and had to leave quickly.

There really is some bad energy in that store. I used to be a nonbeliever in that kind of thing, but there's no getting around it. There's something about the place that physically and emotionally affects me.