Dr. Sock's Strikes Again

This week is filled with a lot of Rant and not nearly enough ‘Ritas.

Tasty Tidbit #1:  Cut Off

            All right bitches, I’ve just about had it.  The last week, week and a half my life has been filled with people talking over, under, and through me.  Figure that out if you can.  I’ve had several conversations where people just plow in.  I’ve had people hang up on me, not out of anger they just seem to forget that we’re talking and hang up.  I’ve had people call me up to ask me a question and then talk right over me when I try to answer them.  It’s a thoroughly frustrating situation. 

            I used to be one of those people and once in awhile I slip back into the habit of talking over people.  Most of the time I’m just so excited and I want to share, but no matter how you justify it what you are saying is “what I have to say is more important, listen to me.”  These instances of people talking over me remind me that I need to watch myself in case I’m slipping back into that old habit.  As far as I can tell I have not, although I may get a barrage of Facebook comments to the contrary.  So what’s with the conversation killers?  I have no idea.  The only other idea I came up with is maybe this is an opportunity for me to practice using my voice.  Tell people to STFU, only I would probably say it nicer than that.  The part that frustrates me the most about the situation are the people that ask questions and then talk over you.  Why the hell did you call me then?  If you’re going to ask me something I am happy to listen and answer you to the best of my ability, but it would help if you would shut up long enough for me to do so.

Tasty Tidbit #2: Nibbling

            I like to ask questions.  The only problem with questions is that sometimes you get an answer.  You never know where the conversation is going to go with my friends, which are the best kind of conversations.  It just so happens that on this night we were talking about sex. Something relating to chocolate stampedes (or was it panties?) and I brought up the subject of candy panties.  Now, I personally have never purchased a pair.  It seems like an odd concept to me.  The thong, I’m assuming it’s a thong I don’t think they come in boy shorts, is made out of the same candy as those old candy necklaces.  It didn’t make much sense to me that you would want to be wearing these and having someone munch on them because I would imagine the pieces might break off and they might be sharp, which sounds like the opposite of a good time. I was about to ask what my friends thought the string was made out of when one of them piped up that she had purchased a pair for her husband.  That requires some clarification.  It wasn’t for her husband to wear, are you getting it?  At that point I had to stop and think, not easy when you’re on a roll, did I want to ask any further questions.  Speculation is one thing, knowing the actually answer is quite another. 

            Questions were not needed.  My friend proceeded to explain that they never used the panties, not in the traditional manner anyway.  She said that one night they sat down to watch a movie and, broke out the candy panties and sat on the couch, nibbling on them.  Fight Club and candy panties, it’s a party! (I don’t think they were actually watching Fight Club but for some reason that’s the movie that came to mind.  Please don’t ask me why.)

By the way in case you wanted to know, according to my friend the string is made from licorice. 

And now another episode of: Sara’s Just a Little Bit Nuts

Starring: Dr. Socks

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Hey!  I Can Reach My Calf From Here!

            I have to say that as much as I mock this guy, I think he really is helping.  Not in a direct way, it’s more that mind fucking way that shrinks do so well.  Most of the time what he says pisses me off, which I guess is a good thing somehow.  Not sure exactly how that works but I guess it does.  This time after walking the labyrinth and making it to his little dungeon of an office, I choose to sit on the sofa.  The orange chair experience was just too freaky to repeat.  But I’m jumping ahead.  To fully enjoy the flavor of this experience we need to begin at the beginning.  In this case, the waiting room.

            The thing I like about this waiting room, besides the gum machine, is that everyone here isn’t pretending to be normal.  It’s a room full of nuts, acting like we’re nuts.  There’s the young girl in the corner playing rap music on her cellphone, turned up full blast.  The redneck couple fighting about who’s going to buy cigarettes when they leave, but my favorite this time was a little boy and his family.  At first I thought that the young woman who sat on the sofa beside him was his sister.  He was sitting on the couch kicking her in the back, yelling at her to move.  The woman simply ignored him.  She was adding minutes to her cellphone the whole time he’s kicking her.  Another woman, probably about 45ish came and sat down opposite them.  In a thoroughly exhausted voice she said, “Joey stop.”  This was ignored and the older woman, let’s call her Martha, told the younger one, Suzy to move.  At this point I realized that Suzy was the mother.  The entire time we sat there, she never once batted an eye at this kid.  She completely ignored him.  She read out all the new games she had on her phone and how many minutes she had and that she had already received four text messages.  Martha never really looked at the kid either, and every few minutes would sigh and half tell Joey to stop.  Never mind that Joey was on the loose.  He was running around, screaming, and jumping on furniture.  Now, I understand that some kids have problems; this little boy probably did have a problem.  I think his biggest problem was his lazy ass mother.  I honestly thought, at first, that they were there for the mother.  Turns out they had an appointment for the kid.  The grandmother was saying something about upping his meds.  Maybe he needed them upped or maybe he just needed some attention and discipline.   I seriously wanted to punch both women in the face.  No doctor, I don’t feel any violent tendencies. 

            That was how my experience started this time and I wasn’t pleased.  To add to this Dr. Socks was late.  Strike two.  When we got into the office and I was seated on the couch, Dr. Socks took the orange chair of fetal position death that I had sat in last time.  I immediately saw two things.  One I saw what I must have looked like sitting in that chair last time, and it wasn’t pretty.  Two, I had a very clear visual on his socks again.  He leaned all the way back in the chair and put his left leg up with the ankle basically resting on his right knee.  That left me staring at a solid four inches of sock. 

            We went through more questions and I found myself surprised that he actually remembered or had reviewed my file.  At one point he asked me about school and what I wanted to do, blah, blah, and I said writer.  Then he asked what I was doing to work towards that, did I have a blog?  Well by golly gosh I sure do.  I failed to mention that he’s currently the main character, but he didn’t ask either.  About halfway through the session he must have had an itch because he started reaching for his ankle, either that or he was just trying to hang on, that damn chair needs a seatbelt.  His hand would rest for a moment on his ankle and then it began to make its ascent.  The guy hand his hand halfway up his pants gripping his calf.  At least he was skilled enough in his calf grabbing that he wasn’t showing off any skin.  Just yards and yards of sock.

Feeling Sneaky

For those of you who might peek on here just to see if I posted something, here you go.  I plan to stick to my every other week schedule, but there were some things I just needed to get out.  A little ranting can go a long way. 

Tasty Tidbit #1:  There is No “H”

            Spell my name right, please.  There is no H at the end of my name.  In a society that uses things like “u” for you, “r” for are, the dreaded “k” for okay, and the ultra hated “kk” for I’m really okay or to end a conversation, I find it strange that people want to add letters.  Is it really that hard?  S-A-R-A.  Look, no H.  You want to insult my creative talents, fine.  You want to crush any hope I had of becoming a poet, spiffy.  You want to try to analyze me and judge me when you don’t even know me, fantastic.  But spell my goddamn name right when you do it.  I can understand if you ask me, is there an H on the end?  I’ll tell you no.  But if you ask me, or if you have my name in PRINT and then STILL spell my name wrong, you just suck.  To me it’s careless inattention to detail.  Don’t ask me for something, don’t have my name spelled out in front of you and then ignore it, it makes you look like a waste of organic material.  I’m just saying.

Tasty Tidbit #2:  Two Dead Caterpillars

            I saw something both beautiful and tragically sad on my walk the other day.  I bet you can’t guess what it was.  The whole caterpillar butterfly metamorphosis thing has been quite prevalent in my life lately, so seeing these two dead little guys made me feel a little crushed.  I found the first one during the first quarter mile of the trail.  He was bright green and his insides had been squashed to the outside.  It looked like he had been trampled by a running, poor maybe one of those baby strollers that I see people running with.  That has to be one hell of a ride for the kid.  Anyway, I stopped and looked at his crushed little body all his insides exposed in a gooey mess.  I wondered if he knew he was dead, if he felt the spark of life leave him when the shoe came down.  I don’t think caterpillars have brains, at least not in the way that we think of a brain.  More an instinctual relay center.  Further up the trail I saw a black and orange caterpillar curled into a horseshoe shape on the side of the trail.  He looked like he had been either frightened or frozen to death.  He was fuzzy with a bright orange blotch his back, probably some survival mechanism to keep predators away.  Maybe the orange is a warning, “don’t eat me I’m poisonous,” type of thing.  I wondered if these caterpillars knew that their lives had been cut short, but what made me feel the worst was thinking that these two would never become butterflies or even moths.  They would never undertake the journey of metamorphosis.  When a caterpillar changes into a butterfly it’s DNA changes completely, there is nothing left of the caterpillar DNA at all.  I once asked the question when a caterpillar changes into butterfly did it remember being a caterpillar.  If I remember correctly the consensus was no, it would not remember, but I hope that they do.  Such a powerful journey to undertake, whether through instinct or courage and though it may be painful to go through how much more would we savor it if we could say here I am all wings and light, it wasn’t bad being a caterpillar.  I was courageous to take the journey. I want to remember those feelings of taking those first steps toward total evolution. 

Tasty Tidbit #3: Exposure

            I’ve had a couple of requests to post some of my class tortured poetry on this blog.  I thought about it for a long time before deciding that I’m not ready yet.  It’s not that I think anyone will make fun of it or anything like that, I just don’t feel like it’s time for those poems to come out into the daylight again, at least not yet.  Each time we create we put a little bit of ourselves into that creation.  If the creation is well accepted it tends to thrive.  If instead the creation is treated with disdain, disrespect and some other D word of negative connotation, the creations tend to shrivel.  To me, my writings are like children.  I give birth to each one. I tend to it, care for it, watch it grow and evolve.  When people smack my children around they need time to heal and so do I.  Right now my poetry children are huddled up under a blanket, frightened that if they show themselves they will get beaten again.  My job is to heal both them and myself.  I must be gentle.  I must realize that sometimes there is bad writing and love those creative children for who they are and what I can learn from them.  When the time is right I will post some of my poems on this blog, but not right now.  We’re still healing.

I'm Pretty Sure He Irons His Socks

I thought it might be informative and fun (at least for me), to write this week’s blog and possible some future blogs focusing on my shrink appointments and my road back to me.

I’m Pretty Sure He Irons His Socks

            I’m talking about my shrink of course.  On the phone he sounded all country, which made me a little afraid.  Why do the office buildings for these guys always look like old torture chambers, or at minimum like old moldy high schools?  I love the waiting rooms.  Ten crazy people all trying not to look crazy as we flip through Woman’s Day, or Newsweek.  I try not to look around too much when I’m sitting there although and this is going to sound so horrible, it is nice to know you aren’t the craziest person in the room.  When they call my name to finish up my insurance paperwork, they just yell out, Sara, because nobody wants to even try to pronounce my last name.  And I’m not exaggerating here, the lady yells my name.  Because that’s a good idea in a room full of nuts.  In Screaming Sally’s office I sit down and she takes off with my military id card.  Naturally I have a look around, and what do I see?  A diploma from Bible Thumper University.  Now I have no problem with the Bible, but I am an open minded individual who considers herself spiritual not thumping.  I even said, uh-oh, under my breath.  After paperwork, in which I signed two documents without seeing either of them, it was back out to the waiting room.  They have a gum machine out there, one of those kind with the chicklet’s in it.  I love those damn things.  I munch my gum and I’m digging for another quarter when this high speed city slicker voice calls my name.  I don’t know how you can sound totally country on the phone and like a New Yorker in person, it was a strange transformation. 

            And there he was, Dr. Shrink.  He led me through a maze of hallways that made me think of the labyrinth and just when I was starting to wonder where the Minotaur was, we came to a tiny room with two chairs, a desk, and a sofa crammed into it.  He told me to have a seat wherever so I took a comfortable looking orange chair.  Mistake.  It was so old that it creaked every time I breathed.  It also rocked so I looked like I was trying to do the fetal position through the whole session.  He had a nice yellow notepad and shot questions at me filling three pages with I have no idea what.  Problem- he’s a pill pusher.  This is what he said, “If there was a pill that could make you feel happy, that could make you feel better, that had no side effects, why wouldn’t you take it?”  I smiled and tried not to be a bitch.  I replied that the idea of a pill with no side effects was great but that nasal spray can kill you now-a-days and that I have a sensitive system when it comes to pills.  I explained that pills were an absolute last ditch, save my life, no alternative; Janis, Peggy, and Leah all tell me I need them, solution.  He tried to tell me that pills these days only have mild side effects.  Yeah, because the pill that screws with my brain is going to be less lethal than nasal spray, really? 

            After he reminded me to keep an open mind, yeah right, he continued with his questions.  I was distracted which probably made me look unfocused or more nuts, but I couldn’t stop staring at his socks.  He’s a skinny guy, and he had on a nice stripped button down shirt, iron grey pants that looked like they had been ironed ten or twelve times the crease was so perfect, these nice shoes, which were worn on the bottom, and then these socks.  They are the prissy pull up fancy socks that office guys wear.  They’re the kind of socks that if I was undressing a guy and took off his pants and he had those socks on I would laugh his ass out of the room.  I know they are dress socks, but come on.  These were black with diamond patterns on them and all I could do was stare.  I was wondering how far up his leg they went and then I thought I didn’t want to know the answer to that question.  For some reason those socks captivated me, and not in a good way. 

            The session ended on two sour notes for me.  The first was that Dr. Socks told me that I had to give my step-dad, Randy credit for stopping his drinking.  My first thought was, no I don’t.  My second was, don’t tell me what I’m supposed to think sock-boy.  The other thing that left me wondering if I made a poor choice in head doctor’s (by the way, I choose him by pulling his name out of a hat, literally, no joke and no I didn’t tell him that) was that after he finished his third page of writing he set his notebook down, and asked me if we had anything else to talk about.  You’re the shrink, you tell me.  When I got to the car I realized we had ended almost twenty minutes early.  I’m betting he billed Tri-Care for the full fifty-five minute session.  I have another appointment with him tomorrow.  I’m just wondering what kind of socks he’ll be wearing.  Like a good friend said to me when I told her about this mis-adventure, at least I’ll have something to blog about.