Wag more

I have a lot to talk about, a lot rattling in my brain. First, important thing in my life: I ostensibly switched gyms. Gold's has an on-going problem with the employee scheduled to open at 4:00 not being on time. Well, about 3 weeks ago, they opened an hour and 20 minutes late. I was fed up. The problem is that the nearest alternative is 15 minutes away and it's thru a very bad Austin intersection (the "Y" as we call it). But I decided to give it a try after all - they have a great pool system, and I miss being able to swim in a nice long lane. This new place cost a lot more - and they purport to be the Taj Mala of gyms. Turns out they were more focused on style over substance; the locker rooms were beautiful, plush with lovely dark wood. The kicker for me was the uneven quality of instruction in spin, yoga, and zumba. People complain about the robotics of Les Mills programming -- but I'm here to tell you, it's not always good when you allow individuals creative control. I made a list of the objective problems I observed (no, I didn't say the yoga instructor on Friday at 11:30 sucked, but she did) and sent an email to the manager -- things like the spin bikes are in poor repair (even the instructors complained), the glute machine rails are damaged and the mechanism sticks, there's only 2 neck pads for the squat bars, etc. He thanked me and then did nothing. So a week later, we cancelled. I'm back at Gold's. Occasionally I will have to turn around and come home to work out. I accept it.

 This obviously mentally-ill shooter in the Colorado theatre has me thinking about schizophrenia and how widely it presents. I worked last week and had two schizophrenic young men assigned to me who couldn't have been more different. One was the classic negative-symptomatic guy: very silent, very low energy, dirty and unkempt, made no eye contact. His roommate, on the other hand, had many positive symptoms and although this is rare, his auditory hallucinations were positive. He giggled and laughed to himself at odd moments all day. But he also attended group activities and came out of his room. I had a conversation with him and he was fully lucid and had some grasp on his problems and his prospects (insight, as we say). Some of my classmates and I had lunch yesterday with a woman who's a PMHNP (Psych Mental Health Nurse Practitioner) already in practice (she's actually the mother of a classmate, and she's a professor at the Nursing school in UT-Arlington). I asked her two things: what were some of the hardest things when you first started practice, and what extra stuff should we be doing/focusing on now? In answer to the first item, she said, working with schizophrenics. Guess I already knew that - based on what some of the psychiatrists have said at work.

I went to a musical with Cathy, we saw Chess at the Austin Playhouse and really enjoyed it. Yes, it's that play with the song "One Night in Bangkok" that was a late-80's hit. It was well done and in quite an unusual setting - a big tent. In July in Austin. It was hot at first, but they did an excellent job of coping. Apparently they are building a new site.

I'm still attending my Human Sexuality class. It's quite interesting usually. I have been pretty silent because I'm uptight about being seen in a motherly role to my classmates - I mean, nobody wants to talk about sex with your mom around - but I decided that was kind of silly and when we covered the chapter on adolescents, I did talk about having "the talk" with my teens about contraceptives and STI's and handing over the big box of condoms. There's definitely some folks in there who have a streak of exhibitionism though. When we covered the unit on sexual orientation, one young woman (with a really impressive shoulder tattoo, I sit behind her) felt compelled to tell us that her lesbian lover has a thing for gay male porn -- because she just wishes she had a penis so badly. Yep. Really. You should have seen my professor's reaction. It's fun, I think I'm finally relaxing and enjoying the class. The topic of abortion and gender-selecting the fetus came up and I found that I was the only one in the room that knew some of the laws around that, so it was nice to offer a little education (I'm sure my pro-choice bias showed, but so be it). One of the guys grew up in boarding school and mentions some of his experiences. Sounds like it was a good place to learn bad information (ha).

The DeMouys came to visit from Baton Rouge and we bowled Wednesday at Dart Bowl and then had a pool party the next day. It turns out Laura is going to honors college at LSU - which is great for them, she actually went all over the country checking out music schools (this is a young woman who was in all-state band). In Louisiana they have something called TOPS, it's a program that pays in-state tuition for the very best students in an effort to keep the smarties in Louisiana, so Laura gets a free ride. Guess a Hawaii vacation's in their future - ha.

I learned this really cool manicure technique off Jezebel - my favorite web site next to NYTimes - it's distressed, shabby chic nails. Very cool, you just need fabric paint and regular nail polish. And since I can do it myself, I save $35 a week.

Bumper sticker seen on the way home from the Animal Shelter: Wag More, Bark Less. Indeed.

Semen

Dani had a party. Here's some pictures. She invited mostly 16 to 18 y.o. girls and it was a pretty good time. Her NJ BFF Idil was here (that's them - the two little white-bread suburban princesses doing a gansta pose). Only one tiny hiccup -- one of the girls had an older brother come along - who showed up with 3 friends and proceeded to hide a 2-quart bottle of vodka behind the pool. Ken observed this and rectified things. Problem averted.

I bathed Morris, our old kitty. I had bathed a cat at the shelter with a blind woman (a fellow volunteer - she did most of the work) so I felt like I could handle this. He smells much better.

Summer school is half-way done. I've started the second session and it's not exactly what I expected. I'm in a class with a bunch of really young ones (all undergrads) and it's a little painful. This is the human sexuality class. Today we did an exercise on the scripts that we have for how sexual relationships progress and it was obvious that none of the volunteers for the exercise have ever been married -- or maybe that was my interpretation, it is possible they were presenting the "ideal" to the class. But seems like they had this fairy-tale expectation. Once you've lived through a few marriages (and especially had a few teenagers), you feel much more relaxed and nobody needs to follow a bunch of rules. I guess it rubbed me the wrong way. Judge for yourself -- here's what the group of class volunteers (about 10 students) produced.

Meet and agree to a date
Date 1 - kiss
Date 2 - fondle
Date 3 - fondle more and start conversation about sex, including contraception
Date 4 - oral sex
Date 5 - intercourse
After Date 5+ - say "I love you"
After Love - meet the parents
After Parents - get engaged
After Engaged - marriage

You know, when I look at that now, I think to myself, that can't be what these kids are actually doing. One of the guys had the energy to suggest that intercourse be moved to date 2 -- he was voted down. Hey, at least he's being honest about what he wants, right? But the outcome is so....predictable. I bet if it was a bunch of 50 y.o. women up there, we would've come up with a little different answer. I couldn't rubberstamp any specific timeline to be honest. People aren't like that - we rebel against that.

I've worked a few days. Friday I got to work with my favorite two guys - Curtis and Gilbert. We had a woman on the PICU that was very manic. You know, I'd never seen someone truly manic before I started working here. It takes some getting used to, you need to grow a thick skin for one thing, because they usually are saying a lot of things, and much of it isn't nice. I actually wrote down a sequence of what she said, just one interaction that I had with her. It was how we started the day together at about 7:30 am, I came out of the medication room and she was at the dutch door. Here's what she said. "I need a shirt and toothbrush. I came in last night and I can't find them. And don't try to give me that toothbrush you guys have - I need my special brush that I use with my organic toothpaste. Oh, but you can't give me that, can you (makes a face and slaps her hands down loudly). The class-action lawsuit that I've filed will take care of that, you will just see (voice is rising). You're looking at me like I'm dumb, but I'm not, my IQ is 1000 so we have a communication problem and it's on you, bitch! (I start to turn away at this point). Hey, when you come back, you need to wipe semen off me."

That's really what she said. About 10 minutes later, in the med room, Gilbert asks me, "Hey, did you get that semen wiped off yet?" And I did look into getting her a warmer shirt and her toothbrush. Just because she's manic doesn't mean that she doesn't have legitimate needs.