It's so easy!

Who knew that becoming a therapist is the least challenging, least emotionally-draining, least time-consuming, least anxiety-provoking, least self-doubt-inducing, quickest-way-to-an-ideal-job thing you can possibly do? All you need is a bachelors degree! YOU CAN DO IT ALL ONLINE.

I wish you had told me this years ago, Facebook ad. I think I've been doing it wrong.

Adorable Dog That Helps Kids Read AKA MY ARCH NEMESIS

Meet my arch nemesis: the "read dog."

(Except picture it smaller, scragglier, blacker, on its back, and more breathy). I would not be unhappy were this dog to get struck by a car, or a bolt of lightening. And this is coming from someone who once cried for days after drowning an ant.

Let's back up. I hate Wednesdays. Which is possibly a result of the world trying to re-balance itself to make up for the irrational extent to which I used to love Wednesdays.

On Wednesdays I do therapy at an elementary school that has no room for me to do therapy. Not that any of my schools have room for me to do therapy. The best situation I have is my Monday/Thursday/Friday school, which gives me a very narrow storage closet that has bar-style seating up against a two-way mirror, which my clients like to press their noses and mouths against so that they can give me second-by-second updates on the kids in the room on the other side who are making faces back at them. You might think this problem could be solved by merely covering the length of the mirror/window with bulletin board paper, but you would be wrong. The kids just stand on top of the table (bar) to look over the paper. Confidentiality, anyone?

But that's my best case scenario. Back to Wednesdays. There are no empty rooms. There just aren't. Every Wednesday I feel kind of like a modern-day, more anger-proned Mary and Joseph trudging around warily, looking for an inn at which to birth the savior.

Whenever I can, I try to snag the front conference room at the office, even though its walls are just windows looking out into the office and that from inside I can hear everything that happens in the office and vise versa. Sometimes the guidance counselor interrupts these sessions just to eat from the M&M jar. "Do you ever just crave chocolate?" she asks as we take a break from exploring the horrific disappointments of life to listen to her chew. Confidentiality, anyone?

But lately I have been losing this room to the read dog. Its a dog that comes in once a week (Wednesdays...) so that kids who have trouble reading can read to this non-judgmental audience one-on-one while it lays on his back breathing loudly.

Everyone but me seems to be in agreement that reading to a dog is a situation deserving of a private setting, but that therapy can be easily moved out into the hallway. Confidentiality, anyone?

Four out of five mornings a week I wake up in an anxious sweat thinking that it's Wednesday.

I begged the principal to let me have a table and two chairs in the storage trailer out back (not a sentence I thought I'd have to use after earning a Masters degree), but it never came to fruition.

So I asked the custodian if he could just put a table and chairs in this random space between two doorways. I guess he interpreted "table" to mean tiny desk, but... tah dah! My new office:

"Where are we going?" my client asked today as I started walking with him toward my new office.

"Well," I said. "It's a new room. It's... cozy. It's... simple. Oh! It has a view of the outdoors! Its kind of like a garage. Do you like garages?"

When we stepped inside, the kid said, "Eww, this room makes me want to puke!"

Sometimes I worry that my clients have about the most non-therapeutic experience it is possible to have while still technically receiving therapy.

So I'm thinking about quitting therapy to become a read dog.

Advantages:

1. Confidential space
2. More respect for your craft
3. More helpful to children
4. Free food
5. No paperwork

Thoughts?

Big Grossey

I had a plan a week ago to write a post about Noemi's visit and our day trip to Dubuque, Iowa. The aquarium fish we nicknamed "Big Grossey," my short-lived love affair with Mark Twain, the downtown zombie apocalypse, our ride on the world's steepest railroad elevator (yeah, that's a thing), Noemi's unwanted triple shot of birthday tequila that we had to hide in my water glass, and the runaway arrest we witnessed.

But, alas. Three sets of weekend visitors in a row, a weekly caseload so out of control that I refer to my clients by the wrong names, the looming threat of unemployment, an attempted attack by a psychiatric patient, my bizarre obsession with Courtney from The Bachelor, my compulsive need to read and return all library books by their exact due date, and a diet consisting mainly of buffalo wings and Easter candy has been leaving me with all the excess energy of a... hmmm... something that spends all its time just kind of laying on a futon and moaning a lot.

What's my point? Oh yes. My parents alerted me last night that Noemi has already blogged about our epic weekend, so lucky me, I can just link you: here.

Looming Dark Cloud

When you sit on the toilet in the staff bathroom at one of the elementary schools where i work, you are staring directly at a sign that says, abrasively in all caps:

DETERMINATION: AT TIMES IT TAKES SHEER WILL TO OVERCOME ADVERSITY

I never know if this is meant to be about working with kids or pooping.


The funding source for my job (Medicaid) had a representative come into our staff meeting last month and announce that they will no longer reimburse for services provided in schools (which is all we do). Kind of the icing on the cake after a month of layoffs/debt panic/general unhappiness.

"Is there a date this will really start being enforced?" an employee asked after the representative left. "Or should we just think of it as a looming dark cloud?"

"Just think of it as a looming dark cloud," the director said.

Nice.

Whenever I'm in meetings, all I can think about anymore is a sinking ship. The image reoccurs in my mind whenever I hear the words "structure," "model," or "adjustments." A leaky, sinking ship going down, down...