The good old days got you KILLED.

Solstice was lovely this year. L's best friend spent the night and it was bathed in sun which was nice - even if they were complete turkeys and declined to incorporate a sprinkler day into the sleepover events. Why u wasting perfectly good 70-degree days, Alaska kids? Because you'd rather play Minecraft and Little Kitty, Big City? Oh. Of course. As you were.

I think I was around 6 when I had my first sleepover. I mainly remember sleeping over at J's house, which was (almost) always a fun experience. She lived in Paris, TX while I lived about 20 minutes outside of town in Maxey (55-65 mph speed limit depending on the stretch of highway if that helps and if you're a math person). We bonded over both loving dance and classic movie musicals, both having unique names for the 90s and little brothers who were ~3 years younger. That's about where the similarities ended, although it was pretty thrilling when we discovered we were both Virgos. 

P, her mom, ran the music department at the local college and was a gifted and disciplined musician and director. I'm not sure I ever heard P raise her voice? At anyone? They were also one of the whitest families I have ever encountered. I remember my mind being blown that you can boil hotdogs to cook them? And then they just...explode? I don't know if my Almond Mom of a mom just never made hot dogs or if they were considered to be a Grill Thing like Brats (which, to be accurate, I never recall eating...because of the possibility of pork contaminating the Kosher Meat, maybe?). They also offered me cheese on toast as a breakfast option. The what?! Exotic to young me.

Today I'm catching up on paperwork (not worried about hours anymore! That resolved right up!) and laundry and hopefully going to the gym. That's it. That's the whole thing. 

S took N and my dad to a night market downtown last night and I stayed home with the girls. This was nice because they entertained each other and I got a lot of writing done. Tonight he's saying he wants to have dinner with his parents but the way he phrased it was odd; it sounded like maybe I wasn't invited? Or that, possibly, L wouldn't necessarily need to come? But maybe?

This week has been busy enough that I lost track of when I'd run out of medication and now I'm down to one tablet. Oops. So now I'm debating whether I should try to split the mg between tomorrow and Monday, but I will for sure need to get a refill on Monday morning around 7:30 AM which means an ungodly early morning for L. *sigh* I am. So tired. Of. My brain.

OH AND NOW WE HAVE STARTED WORLD WAR III. FUCKING FANTASTIC.

If I Don't Do It Someone Else For Sure Will. Right? RIGHT?

People like to say that "it's a bit of a desert up here!" for things like: lawyers, healthcare specialists, and mental health. There are reasons for that, I'm sure. And they range from extremely hard (some would say prohibitively so) requirements to get certified in the aforementioned to there just not being the fucking business hours in place. I'm trying to get my shit together to see a psych again, and while the neuropsych and I eventually got on the same page* I have yet to find a psychiatric counseling service that will see me outside of Normal Business Hours so like, if I'm working I...don't get to be mentally healthy, I guess? Look, I get that there is probably someone out there who has the availability I'm looking for, but it's a lot gate-keep-y. That's all I'm saying. No, wait, I'm also saying it's not really all that surprising that people turn to AI for therapy. Which I haven't done thus far, and probably won't, because maybe I can use the Omaha student counseling if I get up at, like, 5:00 AM my time. If they have availability. Jesuslambofgod****.

So a week ago standard earth time my Fieldwork Educator 2 (heretoafter to be referred to as FWE2) didn't do their sessions because they were getting married, so I drove to Palmer to shadow someone who is a PT and does pediatric pelvic floor-type things. "But wait, Clara," you might say, "Those things don't go together!" But they do, actually, because of things like toileting. There were lots of models of pelvic muscles and the main takeaway is that there are quite a few of those and one in particular is looped around other anatomical structures like a chump and can get all looped up and tight and in addition to that all of them can get tight and if there's constipation that can mean that the stool just can't get passed due to being too hard. Also: abdominal muscles and your serratus anterior play a big role in pushing fecal matter out so if there's some brain-body breakdown there or even just plain ol' weakness a kid might have a harder time pushing. You know, the good old valsalva maneuver. Anyway I learned that if a kid exhales and their ribcage doesn't pull down and in there's likely some upper abdominal weakness, so it might be good to work on that re: toileting. I also learned that they've changed the "I Love You" abdominal massage technique since last I checked, so here you go. The business starts at 1:24. You can also palpate the iliocecal sphincter and give that a gentle massage to get things going. Otherwise it is, yes, mostly fiber and water intake. And I learned that I am correct in being suspicious that internal rotators over-firing are somewhat related to toileting problems. And if your perineal muscles are always firing they have a hard time relaxing so you need to fatigue them by squeezing them until you have to relax them. Which is somewhat counterintuitive. But.

This week I observed a session in fancy house in a somewhat fancy part of town. The lady of the house had been volunteering at VBS earlier in the day and I thought was maybe a glass in on something? I don't know why I thought that. But it just...seemed like it? Immaculate house. A skillion Amazon packages coming to the door. VBS. Wine (?)

Okay. *sigh* Nothing is really wrong - it's even sunny again today! But I am having a hard time with Friday night, and nothing is really right. Hope the weather is not being a butt today!

*Yes, I am trying to schedule. No, I understand you can't schedule because you don't have the schedule out now and you will contact me when you are ready, it's just that I need to tell you the windows I have just in case it's interesting or necessary in the future when you are ready to schedule and it's sunny and I have motivation now and I would like to tell you before I lose motivation which is extremely likely to have happened by the time you call me back to schedule and we're playing answering machine** tag lol. So: December. It's December. Wewt w00t***.

**Dating myself. Not like that! I don't buy myself flowers. Flowers: ew.

***I am the cringe, children!

****Update: nope! I don't get to use it unless I live in Nebraska or Arizona. Mother. Fucker. ...okay. As you were.

Christ Alive It's Only June *Thousand-Yard Stare*

All my nostalgia-tinted childhood stories are finally coming in handy for OT sessions. One OT I'm shadowing uses the Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence (ABC) model, but calls it the Action-Behavior-Consequence mode in large part because I think it's easier for kids to comprehend it. Although...action is something I think of as something you do not something that happens to you but I'm not fixing to yuck your yum. So far I've used The One Where My Brother Shot an Arrow at Me (Like, a Real One With a Real Bow)* and the adult story where a puppy showed up at our door. Ones I'm considering using in future are:

- The One Where We Rode Our Bikes Toward Town From the Country and Freaked Our Parents Out
- The One Where I Wouldn't Fucking Stop Riding Goats and That's How I Broke My Arm
- The One Where a Kid We Knew Fell In the Pond and Couldn't Swim and I Ran Clear Across the Pasture .25 Miles to Get the Parents
- The One Where I Punched My Brother In the Nose Because My Godfather Told Me To

I'm sure others will come to me as we go. Most of them don't apply to the specific situations - but the above do. I think.

Every so often I'll be minding my business, driving my car, doing the dishes, folding laundry and thinking of nothing in particular (dangerous!) when - BAM: the chorus of "Good Lives" by Eve 6 will blindside me. Ugh.

I'm starting to see the t-rex arm and autism eyes everywhere I go, most of all in myself.  ...but I wonder if the questionnaire could include more "Did you force your childhood friends to reenact the same scene from Star Trek several times in which nothing exciting was going on at all? Or are you neurotypical?" In retrospect, my great-grandmother was for sure autistic. Her strategy when I knew her was to clutch a crumpled tissue in her non-dominant hand at all times to disguise the t-rex arm.

Every time I drive toward Eagle River (there are eagles; there is a river), I pass by an Arby's that has had the same sign up for over two years now: NT management needed. I always autocorrect that to "neurotypical". Neurotypical management needed! Get out of here with your neurodiverse selves! We don't like your type 'round here.

I would like to compare and contrast the two versions of Annie I currently have access to and watch waaaaaaaaay often because L loves her some spunky orphans:

• Annie (2014): It's fine. Not great, but fine. Everybody does a fairly good job and I do like the fake-out in the beginning when you think there's going to be one Annie but lol no you're wrong! Jamie Foxx doesn't do it for me as Daddy Warbucks; he doesn't really commit to the role in the sense that he doesn't shave his head. There's a nod to this later in the movie, but just...c'mon man. Shave your head or give the role to Samuel L. Jackson. Now that I want to see! Cameron Diaz does a decent job, but I never wanted to hear "Little Girls" reimagined as an early 2000s pop song and now, having heard it, I still don't. Also, it seems like she wanted to pay tribute to Carol Burnett but the producers failed to tell her that this wouldn't really make sense with the way the role is reimagined. Oh. Rose Byrne plays Grace and there has been the role of a random sleazy campaign manager added to the movie for no reason. Except! Perhaps the reason is that irl the actor is married to Rose Byrne and she talked the movie people into casting him so they could have a nice vacation in New York after shooting. Quvenzhane does a good job and carries the film if I'm honest. Hm. What else. They cut several songs and completely did away with the conceit of the fake parents being related to Ms. Hannigan which...I liked that! I never wanted her to be a decent human! Redemption? Ew. No thank you!
• Annie (1982): The one where L has historically said, "If I'm moving around and dancing, it's because this Annie makes me feel like dancing and I can't help it!" The best I've seen so far? But it's also, like, kind of a Specific Thing. Like, if you don't appreciate a 20s aesthetic you probably aren't going to appreciate this. Everyone knocks it out of the park in the sense that you can tell pretty much everyone who was cast cut their teeth on Broadway (or The West End, in Tim Curry's case ig?) and Carol Burnett is a national treasure so she can do whatever she likes. I remember watching it when I was 11 and wondering why the Grace character was so badass (the dance! The voice! The stage presence!) and then moving on with my life. It turns out she was so badass because she was played by fucking Ann Reinking, Bob Fosse's muse of stage and screen. So. That's why. I enjoy how they cast Tim Curry and Bernadette Peters as Ms. Hannigan's brother and (his) love interest. The only part I'm "meh" about is where they insert an excerpt of Camille to illustrate...something? Unclear. The pacing is reminiscent of a zany 1920s/30s screwball comedy which I'm always here for, and there are multiple references to The Depression and the weird dichotomy where Daddy Warbucks is as capitalist as they come while FDR is trying to get his New Deal stuff going. It would almost make sense to reimagine the concept during the time frame in which the 2014 version was set if they'd just pushed the recession aspect a little bit more? But idk. I can have some rigid thinking around film and casting (see my teen obsession with making Wheel of Time cast lists and being outraged that Andrea Parker was not cast in that one remake of The Avengers. Uma who?). But I also think that there should/could be a stage version set in Alaska (or Your Town USA! The trauma of colonialism is everywhere, baybee!) at the turn of the 19th/20th century in a boarding school. Some parts/songs rewritten, cast appropriately, but the broad strokes being the same. I think it could be an interesting concept and illustrate the point of oppressor/oppressed in a novel way. But! There is the question of why the fuck did someone decide Little Orphan Annie was a good idea in the first place? Was it the fantasy that is you're Good Enough, someone In Power will eventually See It and Fix Your Life For You? It doesn't appear that Annie started her journey in the Depression. 1924 is smack in the middle of the roaring 20s, which gels more with the inherent optimism of "Tomorrow". But I'm going to put this rabbit-hole down for reason of needing to do other things.

On drives to-and-from Eagle River, Chugiak, and Palmer a part of my brain has decided that it's time I learn all the words to "Dance Ten; Looks Three" from A Chorus Line to eventually probably perform at a burlesque show. It's a good time. And a compulsion!

Speaking of compulsions, there's this compulsion to fit as much outdoorsy nonsense into Alaska Summer weekends as possible. It's rainy and gross here, but it's supposed to shape up by the weekend so...camping? Last weekend was also rainy and gross, but that didn't stop us from hiking Thunderbird Falls again! 

Rose Bud Thorn

So there's this mental health (?) exercise I'd never heard of before today called "Rose, Bud, Thorn". The idea is that the thorn is something that fucks you up a little, the rose something positive, and the bud something that you're looking forward to. It's a nice exercise, and Ima stick it in my back pocket, for sure. But bestie, I had a hard time coming up with something for any of it.

The Children on my soon-to-be-caseload have talked about the Titanic at least three times these past two weeks. What does it portend? Watch out for icebergs! ...I guess!

It's S's 90 days celebration today, so we're going to go over after the meeting to do a firepit with friends. I will have to skate around 8:30 because I got shit to do tomorrow, etc. but I'm sure it will be nice.

My parents have started getting a little feistier than usual this week; I don't think my mom really wants to be in charge of pickup/dropoff for summer school. She was asking who does the cooking at my house recently. Idk, P. Nobody? She asked "Whatever happened to family dinner?" and that's a fair question (it was something I was complaining about at one point), but it just...doesn't matter right now.

If it's between making a family dinner generating extra dishes thus adding another coordination element, and everyone being fed as well as completing homework with L and my own homework...I just don't know. The choice seems obvious. Besides, if S is going to meetings at night it doesn't make all that much sense to coordinate a different dinner time for several different nights of the week. I don't know. I just don't want to, I guess? Maybe that's all that matters.

I got coffee with K this past weekend at the close-by coffee shop which was nice...except for that she seemingly summoned her estranged mother to the coffee shop by the mere mention of her in the coordination texts. Woof was that awkward. What is the playbook for that? I wish I'd kept my copy of Emily Post. I'm pretty sure she would know exactly what to do. And...what? Carry it around with me just in case? Why - yes! We retreated to her house to finish the visit. It was good to catch up and that's all I do, honestly. Just catch up. Like this:

Except - I never do. I really really want a tattoo of this someday.

Okay, time to document some more (it's the only way I generate hours, quite frankly) then to Raising Cane and a fire-pit.

May all your midsummers be bright!