So Tuesday was my birthday. I am now the ripe old age of 24. Hooray!

Tuesday was also my first day of classes. This calls for a new battle cry.

Anyway,here's what I got

From my parents: Tickets to Tori Amos' 8/10/03 show, which rocked except for Ben Folds and the excessive amplification of the pianos.

From my sister: Prague, a novel about expatriates living in Eastern Europe in the early 90s. It's a very cool book, containing phrases like "The river was the deep cerulean blue of caramel." I like it a lot.

From the CTA: A bus driver who was friendly, courteous, spoke English, understood how to operate the lift, and had a lift that worked. Every day should be my birthday!

From Carlean Gilbert, my Clinical Health Care prof: Advance warning that Malevolent Marta is coming to berate teach the class on 11/4. She also misspelled Marta's last name, and when correcting it, said "It's 'd' as in 'dummy'" and then backpedaled frantically to explain that she thought that Marta was an excellent clinician.

From Susan Grossman, my Research prof: A complete and utter inability to name any clinical theory besides Freud while laughing about the whole thing and declaring that the theories didn't matter anyway. She has also decided to run the class as a workshop, which means that we neither have to attend all classes nor do all of the readings. And she let us out 45 minutes early. I may be the Best Susie Ever, but she's a close second.

CP is apparently the "it" disability. There have been at least two articles in our local newspaper this past week about kids who have beaten the odds by doing things like getting door openers installed at the local high school and going to college. Yawn. I've done those things and more. I got parking signs installed and enforced at that same high school. Sure, this kid can get the door openers installed--that's easy. The real trick is getting people to remember to turn the suckers on.

And granted, I wasn't valedictorian of my class and I'm not a sophomore at Harvard. I am, however, a graduate of Beloit and a graduate student at Loyola. I got Beloit to spend $35 million to develop a plan to make itself more accessible. I think I did this by the end of my first year there. Has Mr. Harvard convinced his school to shape up? I don't think so. Where's my press corps? Where are my props? Instead, I'm stuck doing this stupid speech for this physical therapy place down in the city. They wanted top pay me, but they're my dad;s clients so he told them that I'd do it for free. I could use the money. I really could, and it would make me feel like I was worth something.

I don't mind that my boyfriend has a night out with the guys every so often. In fact, at the beginning of the relationship, I promised him that I would never make him choose between them and me because that's just not fair. What bugs me is that, becasuse his friends don't believe in fighting fair, they guilt him into spending time with them. And I'm left David-less.

Dsavid and I decided that we needed to get away, so we planned this trip to Galena, but decided not to go because my family is driving me crazy (my father thinks that we're having sex and has even called me a slut on occasion) and because he needs the weekend to work on the documentary.

So we thought that, since two nights away was a little extreme for my Perverted Papa, we'd try for one. We thought we'd stay downtown after the Tori Amos concert on the tenth. I talked to PP about it, and was promptly called a slut again. I told him that we were going to do it anyway because traffic was horrible and I needed to get away from this fucking house. He denied me use of the van, as expected, so I told him that if we took the train, we were definitely staying downtown, as there is no service after 10:00.

The bastard threatened to take my wheelchair away.

But I've still got to do his fucking speech for him. He amd Mommmie Dearest want me to do the speech on foot. I refuse. What is it with them and walking anyway?

I just wish that for once in my pathetic, worthless little life, people would treat me as if I were valuable. As if my time meant something. As if I had feelings.

"The director of the next Harry Potter movie, "Azkaban," not due until 2004, is already making statements bound to get the P.R. machine going. Alfonso Cuaron, best known for directing "Y Tu Mam? Tambi?n," says the evil wizard Voldemort reminds him of George W. Bush. "In combination with Saddam," he says, "they both have selfish interests and are very much in love with power. Also, a disregard for the environment. A love for manipulating people." He says the character of Fudge (the Minister of Magic) reminds him of Tony Blair."

I shouldn't watch TV.

I was watching The John Walsh Show. They were talking about abused and neglected children. Three guesses as to whom they were blaming. Not the parents who brought these children into the world without the means to care for them, not the families who took the children in and abused them, but--you guessed it--the social workers at the state child protective agencies.

To be fair, there are some social workers who are lazy or burnt out or who just don't do their jobs. But the majority of us are good people who do the best we can with what we've got.

I know it's not good enough. Kids shouldn't have to suffer and die. But neither should old people. Neither should people with disabilities. Or homeless people, Or any other population that needs social support systems.

Epilepsy is a good agency. It's fairly small and really well-run. We have supervision and problem-solving sessions twice a week, so that everyone who could possibly have contact with the clients knows what everyone else is doing. We have modern methods of creating and tracking records. We are all highly trained professionals who have small caseloads. But we still can't help as many people as we'd like to.

There are two reasons for this problem: One is that there simply aren't enough hours in the day. For every hour that I spend with a client, I can spend anywhere from one to three hours creating a record. The situation is much worse in huge agencies like DCFS, who don't have the modern equipment or the moderate caseloads. Agencies don't require records to be as detailed as 1-3 hours' work would suggest, but most agencies--especially state-run ones like DCFS--survive on state funds, and the state isn't as free with money as it used to be. Most of the money that used to go to states to pay for social service agencies like Epilepsy and DCFS has been shifted to look for ficticious WMDs.

Social services have always been underfunded, but there's only so much that workers can do with so little. Whole programs have disappeared. We can't help people because there's nothing for us to do for them. I once spent a whole day looking for a place for a homeless man with epilepsy to stay. Because he was male and over the age of 18 but under the age of 65, there was no where for him to go . The shelters wouldn't take him because he had epilepsy and the shelter workers couldn't be responsible for him if he had a seizure.

Jag, April, and I have somehow managed to land ourselves in the midst of a real-life chick-flick.

April came to see me on Wednesday and was...upset? (not quite, but the closest I can come. She wasn't mean or ouutwardly jealous or anything else inappropriate. I didn't even know it bugged her until I read her dj entry)...by the fact that I have David. She says that we didn't do anything to offend her...she's just lonely, which is understandable.

Aside from the larger issue of loneliness, her dislike for the presence of couples will be a problem should she, Jag, and I decide to live together in May. So Jag and I, in typical 1:00-in-the-morning CrackMonkey fashion, hatched a plan.

We wrote her a personals ad, submitted it to her for approval, and attempted to post it to The Reader, Chicago's weekly alternative newspaper. Fifty measly words were not nearly enough to illuminate all of April's sterling qualities, let alone the qualities she seeks in a mate. So Jag decided to put up a website and we'll send the link to various newspapers' personal ads.

While we were discussing this plan, it occurred to us that this sounded an excellent plotline for a chick flick.

Early family therapists got most of their theories from studying families with one or more children with schizophrenia. They discovered that, more often than not, the parents were oberly involved in their children's lives, and furthermore, that they tended to create situations called "double binds". A double bind is a situation in which the child is given two completely unworkable and incompatible alternatives and must choose one. Leaving or creating a third alternative is not an option.

It has since been discovered thay schizophrenia has a biological component, possibly a genetic predisposition. Fortunately, I do not have the neccessary biology. I know this because, if I did, living with my father would most certainly give me schizophrenia.

This evening, I let it slip that David and I intend to live together. My father gave me his famous candystore speech (Aside from the general stupidity of this argument, if I owned a store, it wouldn't be a candystore. It would be a bakery with an ice cream shop. What kind of girl does he think I am, anyway?). Both of my parents refuse to even entertain the idea that I might be able to take care of myself, so they won't let me live alone. Then he told me that he didn't want me moving in with just anybody, so I can't use any of the roommate finder services. All of my coworkers at Epilepsy are in stable living environments with significant others, plus it's a lousy idea to move in with your boss. This means that, if I want to move out and retain a relationship with my father, I must marry David (My mother thinks that I should move in with him, but refuses to help me deal with Dad).

I have no problem marrying David. In fact, I'm sure I will someday. We've even agreed to it, and the thought of being married someday makes us both extremely happy. But the key word here is "someday". Not "next week", not "as soon as Susie graduates", someday. We could, quite possibly, be ready to marry by the beginning of May, but we don't know. As fond as Dad is of David, I don't think that he realizes that, by putting me in this situation, he may be sabotaging our relationship. I'm with David because we love each other. If I have to be married to him in order to move out of my parents' house, I become bound to him by needs other than love, which is awful for both of us.

Plus, I feel like I'm a sheep or a cow or something. My parents are so shocked that I've managed to attract someone as wonderful as David that they want to sell me to him before he realizes his mistake. "You want that one, son? OK, but she's the runt of the litter. You take good care of her, now." I don't have any choice in the matter.

This is a site that tells you about your personality based on what colors you pick and the order in which you pick them. Here are my results.
Your Existing Situation

Volatile and outgoing. Needs to feel that events are developing along desired lines, otherwise irritation can lead to changeability or superficial activities.

Your Stress Sources

Feels that life has far more to offer and that there are still important things to be achieved--that life must be experienced to the fullest. As a result, she pursues her objectives with a fierce intensity that will not let go of things. Becomes deeply involved and runs the risk of being unable to view things with sufficient objectivity, or calmly enough; is therefore in danger of becoming agitated and of exhausting her nervous energy. Cannot leave things alone and feels she can only be at peace when she has finally reached her goal.

Your Restrained Characteristics

Egocentric and therefore quick to take offense. Sensitive and sentimental, but conceals this from all except those very close to her.

Circumstances force her to compromise and to forgo some pleasures for the time being. Capable of achieving physical satisfaction from sexual activity.

Your Desired Objective

Needs a peaceful environment. Wants release from stress, and freedom from conflicts or disagreement. Takes pains to control the situation and its problems by proceeding cautiously. Has sensitivity of feeling and a fine eye for detail.

Your Actual Problem

Needs to achieve a stable and peaceful condition, enabling her to free herself of the worry that she may be prevented from achieving all the things she wants.

While I agree with cruelestmonth that people shouldn't bash JKR for being successful and good at what she does, and also that getting...well, let's just say many many lots of people to read an 800-ish page book is cause for celebration, I feel that I should offer some sort of defense for those of us who choose not to continue reading Harry Potter

I was considering throwing in the proverbial Potter towel because I tend to get rather attached to certain characters over the course of series and do not want to read about their demises. Since I have read other people's journals and figured out that the person who is going to die is not one of my favorites, I will continue reading.

My refusal to read about the deaths of characters who I love is not specific to Harry Potter. Those of you who know me know that I am a major fan of Neil Gaiman, yet I could not bring myself to finish The Sandman because I don't want to see Morpheus die.

I realize that Morpheus and other characters who die in novels are fictional, but that doesn't mean that I can't care about them. I also know that, by refusing to read series to their completion for whatever reason, I am robbing myself of the opportunity to see the writers' full visions in all their complexity and beauty. But I read stories more for their characters than for any other reason; therefore,if the characters I care about are going to die, what's the point in continuing?

The best example I can think of for this is Mel Gibson's movie The Patriot. It was the one after Braveheart, "The Americans vs. the Dirty British Bastards" and itwas as similar in scope as it was in story, with one crucial difference. I couldn't bring myself to give a damn about old Mel, and halfway through the movie, everyone else who I'd come to care for was dead. I was bored out of my skull and I couldn't wait for the movie to be over. If the powers that be had killed off one or two of the people I cared about, that would have been pathos. As it was, the movie was just pathetic.

For some reason, I wandered around on LJ looking for old Beloiters. I found angrybunnyman and fedora_hat.

I'm not quite sure why I'm interested in what's going on with these people's lives, though they were good gaming buddies at Beloit. I can't even keep in contact with the ex-Beloiters who are trying to get in touch with me.

This is my fault. I haven't heard from Brady in ages. I've been reading Vickie's emails, but frankly, I'm so out of touch with her that I have no idea what's going on in her life. I can't find Jag or April. Hyler's been trying to get in touch with me for weeks now, and I sent her an email explaining that, for some reason, a lot of people got sick and/or died in the past two or three weeks and so I haven't been able to get in touch with her.

David and I went to see The Matrix Reloaded with his friends and future roommates, Clayton and Jeremy. I'm pretty sure that everybody who reads this has seen it, but if you haven't and Don't Want to Know, you should stop reading...now.

Thank you, Wachowski brothers, for not making Neo a Christ figure! Not that there's anything wrong with a good Christ figure here and there, but they're awfully archetypal. I don't think that the addition of neat costumes and cool special effects would have made a significant contribution to the body of Christ-stories. (Star Wars, anyone?) The Matrix was much better for not having a Christ figure.

There was, however, a superficial relationship to one of my favorite stories. Neo has the Marquis de Carabas' coat! OK, so it's not his exact coat; Neo's is missing the lining and has frog closures, but it's still the same idea. Besides, I like the idea of the Marquis being the One.

But the best part of the evening was when we got back to the car and ( David gave me yet another reason to love him )

Afterwards, we met Clayton and Jeremy at a brewery for dinner. Despite my having nothing more alcoholic than a glass of water, we got stopped as we were walking back to the car. Some guy wanted to make sure that I was OK. This, my friends, is why I don't drink.

I'm amused that this thing thinks I've "done the nasty." I blame Spider.

I'm still awake because it's raining like hell out there and my very sleepy David had to go pick up his brother from somewhere where the person giving him directions didn't speak English very well (not his brother; his brother, like most non-drivers, had no fucking clue where he was.). I blame his brother. And David's David-ness. He's just that GOOD. Aimee would have told me to take a cab or to sleep on the floor, which would have been a perfectly reasonable response, given the awful weather and the lateness of the hour. But not David. He goes to pick his brother up in this mess.

Still no placement for next year. The geniuses at Loyola wanted me to go to the VA psych unit, which, besides being a repository for crazy, unmedicated vets, also happens to be in a scary section of town. The thought of me going there made both Gramps and Laura twitch. So I told Loyola to try again. They're really pushing this nursing home which is about two hours' drive each way from my parents' house. This is a problem for 2 reasons:

1) I went to the library yesterday. It is maybe 10 minutes from the house. I had to take my wheelchair out of the car and put it back. This little jaunt completely exhausted me, though I did find some books to read for fun. Hooray for fun reading! Anyway, I'm not sure what I'd do with a 2 hour drive in heavy traffic, plus getting Princess out of the van, a full day's work, and then putting her away again to drive another two hours in traffic. Especially because:

2) As an active member of the Disability Rights Movement, I am formally against nursing homes as warehouses. Some people need them, like them and want to be there, but other people are put there against their wills, simply because no one feels like doing the work that would be required to set up a system that would allow them to live independently. I would be bound by my own code of ethics, as well as the much touted (though rarely followed) social work code of ethics, to help the people who don't want to be there find less restrictive places to live. I don't think the administration would like that too much.

So I was talking to Laura, and she said that she would be my supervisor for next year if I wanted to do advocacy. She promised to keep me really busy because she felt bad about all of the nothing I had done this year. I told her that's what I thought social work was supposed to be instead of all of this psychodynamic intrapsychic gobbledygook. She said she'd talk to Phil and Jim about it.

Then I made the mistake of calling Dad. Somehow, Dad got the idea that it was OK to call Phil on my behalf, and the two of them decided that I would work with Laura next year, doing advocacy stuff as well as participate in EFGC's outreach program, where the workers go to area epilepsy centers in search of potential clients. Laura is moving back to Philadelphia in December of 2004, so when I get out of school, if EFGC and I still like each other, they will hire me to continue training to take her place.

This sounds like a great deal if Loyola will accept it. I only wish my father hadn't interfered. Sigh.

But there remain other things to celebrate!

current mood: indescribable

And I'm beginning to hate social workers. Not the sane, sensible ones like Laura, Chenise, Jessica and Gramps at Epilepsy, but social work students. Particularly ones who get involved in group projects and don't do any fucking work! Let's run down the cast of characters, shall we?

Sabrina: She used to go to Beloit but transferred out because she didn't feel like she fit in there. It's no wonder. For all of Beloit's craziness, its students generally had to think for ourselves most of the time. This girl not only lacks any capacity to think for herself, she also cannot follow simple instructions, such as "Jeanne wants research on how JDate works and theories of attachment and attraction. You can find the theories in our books. Write something up and give it to me by the 19th." She couldn't come up with this on her own. I had to tell her. She forgot, so I sent her an email, which she claims she didn't understand. How she got into grad school is beyond me

Sydney: She has documented learning disabilities, including but not limited to ADD. This means that she can't take notes. Fine. But she decided last week in class that she was bored with the MSW program and pissed because they wouldn't let her switch to the school social work track. They won't do this because school placements run on a different schedule than the other tracks, and you need to be certified to work in schools. If she wanted to, she could finish the program next year, and then take three more courses to get the certification. But she decided that she wants to be a special education teacher. Not my choice of profession, but also fine. What is not fine is that, because she is bored with the MSW program, she has decided to quit working on the project. She is at home in Cincinnati this weekend attending a Bar Mitzvah. The project is due on Wednesday, and she is all but unreachable.

Amy:Also known as MIAmy, we had no clue where she was last Wednesday. Since then, she has allegedly contacted Sabrina, and was supposed to call or email me. She hasn't.

The three of them have an obsession with this overpriced Kosher-style deli that is about an hour from my house and about 15 minutes from Sabrina's. Despite their incessant bitching about how broke they are, they want me to meet them there tomorrow so the three of us can talk about this stupid project. I don't have time for this, so I invited them over here, citing my lack of a ride (sometimes it's good to be a novice driver). I told this to Sabrina, who whined about the distance from her house to mine, and promised to call MIAmy. The problem is that she left MIAmy's number at her parents' house in the suburbs.

I have done way too much for this project already, and I'm going to have to do more, since these idiots don't know that you need page or paragraph numbers if you are going to cite a direct quote. Last night, I had to do ( statistics ) Yes, I had to do math for his thing.

G-d delivered me from having to hear Marta talk about gays, lesbians, and people with disabilities. (What do these three groups have in common, you ask? I'm not sure, but I'm willing to bet that it's something sex-related.)

Unfortunately, all of G-d's Might could not rescue me from the Wrath of Dad. He came home and started yelling at me about David and me cuddling on my bed. He said that it was disrespectful and asked me what in the world made me think that it was OK to do such a thing. I said that the couch hurt my back, so we didn't think that it was any big deal to cuddle on my bed. Dad said that there were things that you could do lying down that you can't due on a couch. I told him that we weren't doing any of those things. He was still pissed.

Fine. Cut to Seder, where we spend a good 15 minutes discussing the value of not sleeping with a man before you're married. Apparently, if you have sex before marriage, he has no incentive to marry you because there is nothing to look forward to, but after you marry, it's all good because you magically Love Each Other for Who You Are.

Now I have no problem with my Dad wanting me to wait until marriage. He's a Dad. It's his job to be worried about these things. But to contend that sex is the only reason that people get married and then to insist that there's more to their relationship once they have a marriage certificate? That's just inane! And setting things up for hasty, ill-considered marriages to boot!

But, whatever. So we make it through that mess and Grandma decides that she has to use the restroom. Mom decides that it's too much trouble to get Grandma her wheelchair and that she should walk to Mom and Dad's room to use the restroom. The problem is that Grandma cannot walk at all. She needed Mom and Agnes on either side of her to schlep her along. I suggested to Dad that Grandma use my desk chair, which has wheels on it and higher arms for better support. He vetoed it, saying that it might scratch the floor. When all three of them came out of the bathroom, I asked Mom, Grandma and Agnes what they thought, and Dad yelled at me for being disrespectful "once again."

This theme continued throughout the night, culminating in a post-Seder listing of all of my faults, one of which was my inability to sit with them after the Seder and enjoy the holiday. I'm supposed to do this while being yelled at.

On the other hand, I got to hear Jag use the phrase "wall-banging, shrill-screaming monkey sex" as a description for what would really be disrespectful to my parents. And they thought cuddling was bad...

Jag and I also promised each other that, if we lived together, we would confine the monkey sex to times when our roomate was not around. Wheee!

I really blew it this time.

Last night, my new pain medication failed to take effect, so David stayed with me until things calmed down enough so that I could sleep.

By morning, things had stiffened up enough so that I couldn't really move, but I hauled my sorry ass out of bed in time for Mom to take me to the train station. We got there just in time to see the last train pull away.

So Mom decided to drive me downtown. She and Dad are pissed, and they're blaming David and me rather than my stupid back. To make matters worse, Mom informed me that she and Dad don't feel comfortable with David and me in my room with the door closed. Yet, somehow, being in the third bedroom with the door closed is OK? Even though the couch hurts my fucking back?

I'm not going to argue... I don't want to lose what little "privileges" I have left in that house, but G-d Almighty, I am so sick of all their fucking rules. Not to mention the fact that they change on a daily basis. I am so sick of making other people happy at my own expense.

"No, you can't just take any job that's offered, you have to go to graduate school."
"We're paying for it, so we don't want to hear about how much you hate it or how unhappy you are."
"Be grateful! I had to pay my own way through."

I would pay my own fucking way if Dad would let me. I'd move out and everything. But no, Daddy has to pay for his little girl!

I'm so sick of everything. I'm sick of showing up to Epilepsy to make three, count 'em, three, phone calls. (and today was a busy day!) I'm sick of Loyola. I'm sick of these stupid, fucking, useless papers. I'm sick of my parents, holding everything they do for me over my head like they're doing me some huge fucking favor, completely forgetting that this is all for their own benefit! They moved into the new house because they wanted to, not because I asked for a ranch. I'm going to graduate school because they won't let me do anything else. I'm living with them because I can't afford to live elsewhere. I'm sick of feeling like a needy cripple who's not good enough for anything or anybody.

I'm home today. I just couldn't face spending another day at the end of the hall in Epilepsy, doing nothing except writing stupid papers. I don't need to schlep downtown to do my homework; I can do it right here.

I feel so awful. People are dying left and right, the world's a mess and what am I doing about it? Nothing. I'm sitting on my ass writing papers, just like I've always done. I can't do anything else because there is no time for anything else. All there are are papers and commuting.

I realize that, by not showing up at Epilepsy today, I am not making a very good case for not making me sit on my ass all day long, but I just couldn't do it. I can't take this anymore...all of this pointless schooling. It's so exhausting.

It was a dark and stormy night...

And I was snuggled quite cozily in my bed with my favorite David. It was about 1:30 in the morning, and we were enjoying a last few moments of togetherness before he had to go home to avoid the Neighbors Thinking about us.

And then my cell phone rang. My cell phone does not ring quietly. It does this annoying dinnging noise and a computerized female voice shouts "YOU HAVE AN INCOMING CALL." I don't particularly like it, but I keep my phone in my coat pocket, where all of the subtler rings get muffled. So there we were, David and me, startled from a rather pleasant doze by my cell phone. David jumped out of bed and grabbed the phone before it could wake my parents, who were asleep next door. He succeeded in not waking my parents, but, by the time he'd brought me the phone, the caller had hung up. I used my handy-dandy "missed calls" function to call this person back and discovered that it was none other than Sara Hyler. I left a bleary "what the fuck are you doing calling me at 1:30 in the morning?!" message and went back to cuddling. I was worried.

I had good reason to be. The next day, I received an email from Sara. It turns out that, while protesting the war effort on March 20, she and 122 other people in Pittsburgh were arrested. The email was a form letter, asking people to send some documents of support to Pittsburgh in order that the protesters might win their case.

This did nothing to ease my worry, so I called her back that night, preparing for the worst. She said that she had been held for about 30 hours without bail and that, when her stomach began to act up in such a way that she began to lose blood, she was denied medical treatment. She is fine now, but is becoming involved in a suit against the city on behalf of the protesters.

My panic was quickly replaced by a profound sense of exhaustion, and then I remembered that there was a time, about a year ago, when I found Sara's life and the similarly chaotic lives of my college friends exhilarating. I'd thought about getting involved in the initial protests in Chicago, but they were happening after a long day of work or school, and it was cold out. Besides, if they hadn't listened to the millions of Americans who were against the war before the bloody thing started, why should they listen to a few hundred people gathered in Daley Plaza in Chicago after the fact? Above all that, all I really wanted to do was go home, get a hot meal, and snuggle with David.