Poetry-Blasphemy

They call you LORD.
The way I see it is
You mock me mercilessly
Like a second-balcony heckler.

Too far away to understand
The garbled epithets you hurl
But close enough to hear
The audience's laughter.

So many people try to tell me
How great you are, how loving
But why create me impermeable
And so prone to blasphemy?

I try to be a good girl
And in all ways be worth your boon,
But in my way I'm born to sin
And in my descent gather following.

They call you God Almighty
And mighty your judgment falls.
But good or ill, I'm on my own
In discerning what fickle fate holds.

It would feel good to trust you
To just let go and let you.
But I have had a hard daughter's day
And don't need another father.

Why not "God the Lover"?
At least that I understand
For divine fingers hooking my heart
Might make me a believer.

And in the cushioned nightfall
When you've got me godly gravid,
Heavy-seeded, I could forgive
And call you my immortal beloved.

(c) Stacie Ferrante
11-10-08

Parenting: The Straight Poop

Normally I don't talk much about my parenting. For so many years (a decade plus), I had been actively longing for a child, so once I got one I figured I would just count my blessings and keep quiet. I had wanted to be a mother ever since I could remember. I did tons of babysitting as soon as I was old enough, and as a foster parent I even received dozens of hours of actual training about parenting. I had read about attachment theory. We baby-proofed our house. In short, I felt prepared.

Hah!

Once our (then 2 1/2 year old) bundle of joy moved in, I found out just how unprepared we were. Now, maybe some of that has to do with the fact that Little A is a foster child and came to us with certain special needs. But I have talked to friends and family with new babies and I am finding the experiences at least a little similar.

There are some things that have been unexpected and some suspicions I had about parenting that were confirmed. Since today marks the one year since we met Little A for the first time, I thought I would share a few. I'm still keeping A's details confidential, but this more about parenting in general.

• The Culture Shock: Even with lots of advance preparation, being suddenly responsible for the safety of a small person who would surely lick the light socket without your eagle eye on them at all times is jarring. It is something that drains you even when the little one is sleeping. Getting used to that is hard. So much harder than anyone ever told me.
  
• The "Mommy Club": And to a certain extent, the "daddy club". I always suspected that becoming a parent was a rite of passage, and that parents had a sort of clique that I was missing out on when I was not a parent. That part really is true. I find I bond pretty easily with and am accepted by other mothers very readily. It is trippy. Now that I am a parent, I can see how "clueless" some people without children can be. Not everyone, mind, but some people just say lame things, usually that begin with "Why don't you just...?". Those comments always make parents roll their eyes at each other behind your back.
• Feeling OLD: Maybe this one just is because I AM old. But I notice that my friends who are childless, or child-free by choice, seem so much younger in attitude to me. They still can run away for the weekend or off to the movies on the spur of the moment. I have to meticulously plan everything. That and even Little A, at 3 1/2, already talks to me sometimes like I am terminally uncool. That is a little hard on the ego.
• Everything takes so much longer: Oh my gosh, going anywhere becomes an exercise in "how much of a pain in the ass is this gonna be?" math. And babies and kids always have so much dang STUFF. Holy hell. And most of it lives in my handbag when she gets tired of carrying it. Nothing like going out to dinner for once with my husband only to find out that there is a squirmy, squishy rubber gecko in my purse.
• The bodily functions: Having kids is really messy business. There is nothing that shows a mother's love more than not freaking out when a kid barfs in your hair. You know you love them when all you care about is making them comfortable again. I wish I could tell you that it stops at barf. Every body fluid you can imagine and a few combinations you would rather not imagine WILL come out of your kid. On you, on your furniture, your carpet, and even on your pets. Buy a carpet cleaner now if you are even contemplating having a kid. And for god's sake, wash your hands like there is no tomorrow, all the time.
  
• The cooties: When you send your kid to day care or school for the first time, prepare to be sick (yourself, your spouse, and your kid) for about six months. Oh, the humanity. I am talking "kill me now" levels of sick. Colds and flu and coughs and vomiting for endless months. I started thinking I would never, ever be well again. And parenting while ill is no picnic. Your patience goes right out the window.
• The Love: Ok, people did tell me that I would love Little A. But articulating the depth of feeling there is very difficult. It goes aginst reason, really. In a lot of ways, becoming a parent has matured me in good ways that involve a deeper compassion for all people. I'm a better person for having her in my life, no doubt.
  
• The Killing Urge: It is hard to explain how you can adore someone to the depth of your soul and still get frustrated with them to the point where you have to remove yourself from the room or you are sure something bad will happen. This is one of those things that parents understand that non-parents just don't get. Even if you are the most abiding, patient soul in the world, your kid will test your limits. It is kinda their job.
• Feeling like a failure: Because I am a foster parent, my parenting is actually supervised to a degree by a number of "specialists". I am gratified to hear from social workers and therapists that I am not just a good mom, but a great mom in their opinion. That's nice. I still feel like a total failure sometimes. The thing is is that every parent feels this way, and apparently we were all sworn to secrecy about it.
• The Uber-Parents: Or as I like to call them, Assholes. There are always driver-driver, overacheiving parents who read all the latest theories and buy all the funky developmental toys that will look at whatever you are doing and sneer. They are jerks. They were probably jerks before they became parents. You only know them now because they are parents like you are and it is all about the "Mommy Club". Whatever.
• Feeling like a genius: On the flipside of feeling like a failure is the feeling you get when your kid masters something they have been trying and trying so hard to learn. Parental pride is like heroin. It feels great when they do something that will prepare them to be productive adults one day. All because of you. Yay!
• Tiny kisses and that first real hug: Totally priceless. Having the love and trust of a child is a lot of responsibility, but the reward of having that little one say "I love you mom" just makes your heart jump out of your chest and dance for joy. It is pretty damn good stuff. Sorry if that sounds sappy, but it is true nonetheless.

So, have a kid if you want. Don't say I didn't warn you. :)

What's Up, Bill Clinton?

You might be wondering how this title and photo go together. If you have known me a long time,you already know. Back during Bill Clinton's first election run, I had a dream. This is nothing like the dream Dr. King had. This one was about tacos.

I dreamed that I had made some fish tacos, and Bill Clinton stopped by and we ate them. Only we were in a hurry to get somewhere, so we didn't have time to sit down to eat them. So we stood side by side over the kitchen sink and ate. It was a very friendly and comfortable situation. When I woke up, I knew he was going to win the white house, and he did.

Bill Clinton is going to be on my campus today. That means that I had to come to school early to get a damn parking spot. I did get one, but if I showed up 10 minutes later, I'll bet I wouldn't have.

The part that sucks is that he is going to be speaking right when I will be taking my nursing miderm, so I will miss it. If I am going to be inconvenienced by Bill Clinton, I should at least get the chance to meet him or something.

Tony asked me if I was going to get in the queue to ask him a question. I replied that I didn't really have anything to ask. He said "You could ask him if he likes fish tacos." *snicker* All these years later, that still sounds dirty.

Bill Clinton has been the only President of the United States that I have ever written a letter to. I got an official form letter response from the White House, too. Pretty cool, even if a copy of that letter is probably sitting in my FBI file or something.

What did I write to him about? Why my dream, of course. That and a few other items of political concern to me at the time. Probably reproductive freedom of choice, or something. But the fact remains that I once wrote a letter to the President about eating fish tacos over the sink.

Secrets and Other Confidential Things

Well.

The stories I could tell, just about today, if only I were permitted to.

I'm having an interesting life lately. It is just that most of the stuff that is happening to me is going on behind the scenes and I am either prohibited from sharing it due to privacy laws or out of a sense of my own shame.

This week the big life lesson is about controlling my temper in moments where it would be totally understandable to melt down.

I knew in advance that this was going to be a stressful week. My school calendar tells me that this week and next are going to be challenging. What I didn't count on was the personal life stuff that apparently just can't wait.

This is my adding insult to injury week.

Insult because communication breakdowns are causing MAJOR misunderstandings. Mercury goes direct on the 15th after a period of retrograde. Mercury in retrograde is a good time to lay low and connect in non confrontational ways with people from the past. It is not the time to try and settle any new business. Usually I like to keep track of things like Mercury retrogrades, but this one snuck up on me and I think it is fair to say that it has been an unmitigated disaster. I have had some very difficult conversations this week, and today is only Tuesday.

I have gotten a new and not so flattering nickname from a fellow student at school. Apparently, I am "Band Camp Girl", because I talk too much about my employment experiences about the VA. Crap. My experience is that once a person has decided I talk "too much", there is no fixing that, even I were silent the rest of the year. It bothered me enough that I went to my professor and asked her directly if I participate too much in her lectures. She looked at me like I was a crazy person and said that if that ever happened, she would let me know. I think my query amused her, actually. That might have been a first for her.

Really, when people tell me that I talk too much, that just makes me feel like what I have to say is of no value to them. That hurts, but what are you gonna do?

Luckily for me, I am making some decent and lovely new friends out of the people who listen long enough to hear that there is a cogent point in there somewhere. I even meditated before the test with Christy. We were so happy to have been assigned to work together on the midterm that we fell into each other's arms with relief. She's a peach, and seems to get where I am coming from on a holistic level.

Injury because I had to hold it together after Little A pitched a major tantrum and ended up slapping me really hard in the face today.

Um, yeah. And this is directly after I had finished my skills lab midterm (dunno how I did yet). I was still reeling from a long and stressful day at school, and my kid had to sock me right in the gob. Nice. I had to give myself a time out to deal with that one. I didn't lose my temper with her, although I am not sure how. My mother has new found respect for me as a parent, because I told her what happened and she figures that if I had done something like that when I was a kid, she woulda just killed me.

Yes, Little A got discipline for that. She was in trouble for sure. But there is no spanking at our house. I don't think I could spank this child even if I were not prohibited by law. She's too sensitive. Today is just one of those days when I have to breathe a sigh of relief that my daughter is now sleeping. She always looks so angelic when she is sleeping.

I'm going to go curl up in a ball on the couch now. If you love me, please say so.

Rum Makes You Dumb

Yeah, man. Nothing like taking the wholesome blended juice you bought for your child and spiking it harder than the Nike womens' beach volleyball team. I need a drink.

Sorry for the psychotic mood I have been in for the last few days. I am in the process of snapping out of it. I think I need some Audrey time. Must go down to Sacto sometime after midterms and hook that Amazon Goddess up to a steady source of Captain Morgan until we get the girlie giggles. Just not enough for me to get melancholy like last time. *note to self: do NOT drink a whole bottle of champagne, Stacie*

I need to exorcise the demons of stress out of my noggin. All work and no play makes Stacie a dull hedonist. I am working so hard and I really am almost halfway through the semester, it ends mid December and I get 3-4 weeks off of school for winter break.

By December a few things will happen.

• I will have a birthday and can kiss my thirties goodbye and perhaps good riddance. Still hemming and hawing over party plans. I need to turn over the planning to a friend with some energy, because I lack verve for it. I keep having this vague idea that I want to start with fondue and cocktails at the chocolate bar and then find a spot to dance to some '80's music like the retro junkie that I am. If I can swing getting in the middle of another 2-man sandwich on the dance floor like last time, then I will call the evening a success. *fans self*
  
• We *might* know what the heck is going to happen with Little A's legal issues. Enough to plan for the future? Say it isn't so! We really want to take her to Disneyland. That kid is princess-obsessed!
  
• I can resolve right now to make no resolutions for next year, as per my usual custom. Check one thing off the list for 2009!
  

But for right this second now, it is about having a drink. I need a little umbrella for this. I think that the deeper I get into this glass, the less sense this post will make. And it will STILL be more pleasant and less cringe-inducing for my friends and family to read than the last few things I have had to say in this space.

Pretty sad that I only made it, what, 7 weeks into the semester or something before getting all twitchy? I am just built so much more for Bacchanalia than for endless work. Believe it or not, I am one of the more level headed ones in my class. I am not bursting into tears over my tests, YET!!! All that exercise and clean living must be good for something. I'm proud of myself, but I am also tired as fuck-all.

Still, I would rather be lounging and drinking inky Syrah and having my toes sucked and staring up at starry skies and composing impromptu poetry, and giggling, and perhaps sighing, and stroking skin with skin, and making time disintegrate.

Soon, my lovelies. Soon I will take off this lab coat and put on the thing with the plunging neckline and dare you not to stare. Soon I will lubricate my limbs with upturned martini glasses and show you why I am High Priestess of the "Whooo!" people.

Yeah. Like that.

Why does this get to be true?

I have a love/hate relationship with my own subconscious mind. Sometimes it presents really random things for me to contemplate when my alarm goes off in the morning.

The topic du jour is an incident that happened to me at 6th grade camp (this was the one I went to up in the North Bay). I just diagnosed a serious illness that I got there, and it disturbs me more than I care to admit, but I feel compelled to write it down.

We were doing the "trust exercise" pictured above, and the camp people had the person falling stand up on the edge of a picnic table, and about 6-8 students on the ground were supposed to catch them.

When it came to be my turn, I wasn't too confident. The adult told me to to just trust and fall back. So I did. I can't even describe the sickening lurch as I realized mid-fall that the people who were supposed to catch me had stepped back and folded their arms. I hit the ground full force, striking my head and my back on the ground. The kids laughed. I couldn't even breathe; the wind was knocked out of me. I remember crying, out of pain but also out of incomprehension. Why did they do that? Why to me?

Later that night, I started vomiting. A lot. I don't think they called my mom, or she would have come to get me. For years I assumed that I had gotten food poisoning. But this morning it dawned on me that the vomiting was a classic sign that I actually had a concussion or had bruised my spinal cord.

Not only had the kids given me a reason to have a lifelong mistrust of other people, but the adults, in what was doubtless an attempt to hide their liability, had covered it up and let me down, too.

That certainly isn't the only reason I have trouble trusting others, but boy it sure sticks out. Recalling that this morning was a very visceral experience. I was still half asleep, and thought about the faces of the kids who were laughing at me for trying to trust them. One of them grew up to be a somewhat famous professional volleyball player, I recall. Ostensibly a team player, right?

Thinking about that, all these years later, hurts deeply. It surprises me how fresh and accessible that feeling is. I'm on the verge of crying just thinking about it right now. I have been carrying that inside me all this time, and I can see how it has affected my ability to trust other people to catch me. I generally don't. I rely on myself, taking on the weight of the world without asking for much help. I can't unload my burdens on other people because I don't trust them. I don't even give the people close to me enough credit in that regard.

Why does that get to be true? It was a shitty thing that happened to me. But it doesn't have to be who I am now. I have grown up and hopefully learned to tell which people are worthy of my trust. But I can see that even the people I want to trust pose a challenge for me. Being vulnerable is extremely difficult for me. It makes me feel like I am about to fall backward and nobody is going to reach out and catch me.

For a long time, I thought my mom didn't come for me when I got sick. I realized just this morning that they hid my injury from her. She didn't know. I really need to reframe my thinking about that incident. I was abused by strangers, not neglected by my mother. That is a big difference.

I'm going to try. I'm going to try to trust someone today. The world is full of people worth trusting. I can be safe. There are arms that want to catch me if I let them. I wonder what that would be like?

Classic Stacie Move

Oh my gosh. I accidentally flushed my cell phone down the toilet today. It was in the pocket of my jeans and fell out. Whoosh. GONE.

Why me? I am more like a cartoon than a person.

Just more proof that those jeans are too loose and I need new ones. Hard to afford that when you have to shell out for a new phone.

Tony wasn't too happy with me. Whoops. Sorry, Mister.

Nurses Eat Their Young!

Let's face it. People are cannibals, and nurses are the worst. You would think that taking care of the sick would require a gentle disposition. You would be wrong. You have to be part sadist to want to learn how to start a foley catheter on a man.

I have long heard it said that Nurses eat their young, meaning that as new nurses come up through the academic system, they are placed in the care of more experienced nurses for training. Often, the abuse sets in right there, with the older nurses behaving spitefully towards the new ones. The book in this photo is a real book that Kathleen Bartholomew wrote about it. Nurses joke about it all the time.

What gives? Is it because nursing is a traditionally female profession, and women are just bitches? I have met a lot of nurses over the years who are absolute pit vipers. One of the nurses I work with is so damn mean, we have to warn all the new people about her. She also smokes like a coal factory. Gross.

When I think about this, it makes me a little ill. I have one of those personalities that seems to make me a magnet for hostility. I wonder how much of that crap I am going to have to swallow. I am notoriously snappish if I get picked on, and backing me into a corner makes me come out fighting like a rabid wolverine. I run with scissors, dammit. Don't mess. But that doesn't do wonders for my career. I'm trying to better myself here. Sometimes I think I was better off as a chef, where people just expected me to be tempestuous and cranky.

I mentioned a while back that I have a great interest in Anthropology, and that I was considering a degree in that if the Nursing program I have been killing myself to get into doesn't work out.

Then Minya told me that the UNR Anthropology has more snakes in it than the Well of the Souls. That the atmosphere is very catty, and that the professors gang up on students they don't like. Fucking great luck for me. Now I really don't know what to do. That bothers me. I thought that was a good Plan B. I may still look into it and try my luck with the Anthropology cannibals.

In either case, it appears that I should get out my recipes for "long pork".

The VA makes Going Postal Obsolete!

I have long suspected this, but a recent survey confirmed it. Veteran's Health Administration employees undergo TWICE AS MUCH verbal abuse and risk of workplace violence than the employees of the Postal Service.

In the six years I have been working for the VA, I have personally experienced or witnessed the following:

1. A male staff member threatening to cut off the ponytail of a female staff member with a giant knife that was brandished in front of more than 20 patients.

2. A patient assault the clinic director with his quad cane.

3. I was backed against an elevator and forcibly told to "get right with Jesus".

4. A patient threatened a physician with a knife in an attempt to get narcotics prescribed to him.

5. The patient in #5 made innapropriate sexual comments about my breasts that same day.

6. I was threatened by a patient who told me he would murder me if I didn't get his doctor to write a precription for morphine for him.

7. A co-worker bragged about his skills as a practioner of black magic that allowed him to get revenge on anyone who crossed him. He also noted how many guns he has, and that people who mess with him always pay.

8. A co-worker beat up his wife in the parking lot by slamming her head against the hood of the car.

9. I have be screamed at, harrassed, gossiped about, and directly threatened by both patients and co-workers.

10. We all deal with hostility from the patients on a daily basis.

None of these patients have been banned from getting care here, although some have been reprimanded.

None of the staff mentioned has ever been fired.

In your face, Post Office.

Why on earth do I stick around? Three words: NURSING SCHOOL SCHOLARSHIP

If I don't get accepted to the Nursing program, I am so outta here. Life is just too short.

Oh Noes!

What happens when your toddler has a poopy pull-up diaper, and your husband leaves it someplace where your Labrador retriever can spend the whole day eating it?


SCROLL DOWN FOR THE ANSWER







I'm gonna find out! :(