silent morning

There's a fog in the trees outside my windows. It makes everything look quite sinister. It also makes me not want to go to work, or bestir myself to do much today. In theory it should burn off and the temperature will climb so we have a sunny weekend. Hmm. The leaves are coming in on the trees, and I always forget how close they are to the building and how crowded the woods are.

I'm quite heartily ready for the weird dreams to stop. It seems like every night this week.

Last night it was really sort of fascinating to watch the baba soak up all the sugar/rum syrup. (God there was a lot of rum in that recipe, it was sort of terrifying.) I need to get some skewers for future use, but I found something to make little holes in the cake. I also bought a wire rack yesterday, because I've been baking for years without one and damn it, they are so handy. I want to make lots of little tea cakes now, and cover them in colored glaze. I think that would be very spring-like.

I keep forgetting it is SXSW time. It sort of snuck up on me. Probably also because I am living somewhere that the hipsters, music and film people aren't congregating. Also because since the smoking ban my time spent in bars has gone to almost nothing.

Yesterday I saw a giant billboard at one of the busiest freeway intersections that just read "We can be afraid. Or we can be ready." Such an advertising gem was brought to you by Homeland Security. Ready.gov reads like something from a Twilight Zone episode.

(no subject)

I think this photographer lives in my neighborhood, out in the hills. Gods above, I love my city for being such a strange hodgepodge of green and glass.

all you can hear is the sound of my voice

All of the goodbyes
All of the goodnights
All of the nice tries
left you in the cold
- "The Investigation" by Sugarcult

Social work is a weird thing. People love you and hate you. They want you to fix it right now, to validate their emotional response to a situation, and to put up with their very bad behavior. Everyone around me is screaming today. Despite having a low volume of intakes, the calls we are getting are frustrating and terrible. I'm googling pictures of kittens to stay sane. Kirby gave me a cookie AND a bunch of clothes. That was a big plus.

For a person who grew up terribly shy and who doesn't especially like phones, it is sort of weird to have a job that requires so much talking on the damnable phone. It is hard, because you have to listen so hard for cues in their speech and you lose any sort of guage of body language and intent. But it is for the best, because if I was face to face with some of these people I don't think I could control my facial expressions. As it is, I spend a lot of time flipping off my monitor and gripping the edge of my desk so as to keep my voice steady and calm. I'm becoming a master of this telephone voice thing.

I just had a nurse on the phone who was incredibly condescending, and I frequently get that from medical professionals. (Your student loan bills and time in med school don't make you a better person, for the record.) To be fair, I've talked to some very nice medical professionals who are caring and concerned and with it. It raises my hackles though when they are outright rude. When I ask for a listing of the client's medical conditions, the correct response is whatever conditions you know. Telling me "Oh there are so many, you couldn't possibly get them all" is not an appropriate response.

My second call this morning was one of the most awful things I've ever had to do. It was an elderly woman who talked my ear off for close to an hour. Normally I'm pretty adept at directing people to the information I need from them and escaping. But I didn't have the heart to interrupt her, or to stop her from telling me these things she wants someone to know. She was so lonely, and miserable. You could hear how scared she was, even as she laughed about the doctor telling her she was going to die and there was no point in even treating her condition. Sometimes I couldn't tell if she was laughing or starting to cry. When we were finally disconnecting she told me to take care of my heart, "because I thought I was healthy honey and now I'm dying."

Her speech and cadences were standard for many of the elderly clients I work with. She rambled from subject to subject, sometimes forgetting why she was talking about something. Her accent was pure north Texas, from the flat scrubby plains in the country. This woman lives alone, and her only family is a disabled, mentally ill daughter that she tries to support. She talked to me about she was probably going to die home, and how she hoped it would be in her sleep. All she wants right now is to make sure her home is cleaned up before she dies, and to make sure it all goes to her daughter. She was indignant talking about her former husband's second wife, who threatened to throw away all her things when she was gone. "I worked hard all my life to have something for my daughter," she told me. I kept trying to picture the little house in a small town, the kind of furniture she must have, the dogs who keep her company, the clutter of her mother's belongings piled up all around, the way she does her hair.

It makes you feel so helpless. I've thought about doing APS fieldwork, but I don't think I could stand the dying. We're all dying, little by little, but I don't deal with its immediate presence so well. I could feel it in the back of my throat while she was talking, and the impending sense of panic that slips into my mind when I know the inevitable end of things. I kept typing, and I held onto the edge of my desk while I kept my voice even and sympathetic as she told me about her last conversations with her dying mother.

"I just wish I could start over but I've already lived my life," she told me.

when the cat's away

I really don't know how I managed to live without the internet, the usefulness of Google and Wikipedia especially. The name has long since rubbed off the movie ticket stubb from 1997. (I have movie ticket stubs going back to 1994.) But all I wanted was to watch one of the most joyful French films I've ever seen, Chacun cherche son chat. I love this movie. Sadly, I can't seem to find a DVD copy and without a VCR, I can't justify buying a tape off ebay.

I really just want to go home and watch French comedies until my brain feels better.