can I fool all the people all the time?... ah, I suppose you oughta know by now that the whining just disguises the giggles cuz giggles don't fit in as well as whining and fitting in is ever so important, right?... I mean, life's such a burden (it sucks and then you die, you know), after all... or is that a small world?...

sarcasm?...

where?...

well, you can read it any way you want, ultimately, and come to your own conclusions... and when we sit talking and looking into each other's eyes you can ask about whatever you decided I am doing here in my rambles... a little bit of everything leaves it wide open for any interpretation... I'll just toss in a cautionary tale or word now and then suggesting that the Talmud may have been right when it said (and I paraphrase), "we do not see things as they are as much as we see things as we are" (so whatever you decide, you decide what is cool with you)...

meanwhile, nose to the grindstone... this place really ought to be on television (yes, yet another night using words to set myself apart from the status quo here at work... maybe this is the whining entry part two, we shall see)... think of a cross between M*A*S*H without the OR trauma (substitute emotional and behavioral trauma), Kingdom Hospital (for it's odd characters), and maybe Scrubs (which I've never seen, actually, but that all the more makes my point) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest... then again, Catch-22 might be more like it... the blind leading the blind... I have to look at it as if it was a TV sit-com cuz the only way to survive with an intact psyche is to find the humor in each situation...

yes, here we are back at work... two more nights after tonight and I'll be in an office on the day shift... I'll miss the daily interactions with the kids, but then, I will not miss the tension and poor social skills that some staff bring to the units... while caring for others is a primary motivator for entering this field, neediness is another... needing to be needed... needing to be thanked and praised and reassured a lot... needing a whole lot of interaction with people... some people go into a field where one big part of their job is to hold someone's hand because they need their hand held...

this place has a much higher ratio of needy people than most places I've worked...

maybe humans in general are so insecure and needy everywhere... but at least here, this exacerbates the burn out rate as the neediness of the kids (patients) are just part of the energy drain... when too many of the care-givers are too needy and become care-needers (a few literally shout out in their conversations for attention {forgetting where they are}, which is way too much neediness for the night shift), there is an energy feeding frenzy and the few care-givers who are strong, giving more positive energy out than needing reassurance or feedback, the strong do not stay strong for long...

so I shall slide into an office and recharge my batteries by getting busier on the computer which allows me to have an acceptable reason for portioning out the care-giving to the staff who, left unchecked, will bleed me and each other dry... hopefully I'll find a staff or few on the day shift who are not care-needers... the reality is rather sad when staff need more time-outs than the kids do, but then, the reality of war and hospitals is sad in general, which is why I come to work with a TV sit-com perspective...

actually, it would need a few more colorful characters to be interesting television...

so meanwhile, on the home front, I shifted a gear this week and hit the breaks, changed directions, and a few other driving metaphors all meaning I changed the direction of my habits (which had been heading toward the dead end that most Americans, including my roommates, seem to call home)... I've not had junk food, fast food, restaurant food, processed food, or animal meat for several days now (with a 48 hour fast that started with a salad and ended with soy patties tossed in for good measure)... and I've been to the gym a couple of times, so that random decision to drop some weight and change my unhealthy habits that I made in the past week or few seems to have finally found some actualization...

the challenge is doing it when everyone around me (closest to me) at work and at home are hard core fast food, snack, and soda junkies who seem to consider standing up, no less walking to the kitchen to put empty bottles or anything in trash can, no less actually doing some work at work, more exercise than they care to do... hopefully the person with whom I'll be sharing an office has a streak of healthy in her... I definitely could use some balance around me in that department...

but work is work and as much as I can imagine (and write on and on and on about) the insecurity and helplessness I see all around me, I don't feel it inside so I don't take it home (I just write too much of the time I am here at work lately so I've run out of wisdom or witticisms and have resorted to pathetic complaining and whining... hey, it amuses me and keeps me awake, ok?)... but life in general is at a frustrating time and place at the moment in this life as I am considered, by our cultural standards, too old chronologically to hang with those who have the energy and outlook and idealism (and hopes and dreams and fun) that I am all about and I know I'm not ready for the senior citizen lifestyle so many people seem to slide into before they get a gray hair and in some cases, before they are even out on their own...

so the life goes in cycles... I slow down and vegetate (and sigh) a lot when I want to fit in more and find more social life and I go my own way when I tire of not being me... cuz they say you're supposed to stop bouncing somewhere along the way, probably before puberty... but I say you're never too old to bounce (you've just got to take more care about not breaking bones as the years go by) and so I'll go it alone if that's how it must be... you know the song?... what else can I be but what I am...

well, I could be Don Quixote, I suppose... or desperation's child

so you see how I do it yet? (the method to my madness, that is... clicking on the links to the rhymes would help... there've been five in recent entries... the rhymes take the world around me and expand and exaggerate and create something more {artistic?} feeling than the prose... sometimes... the rhymes are like a pendulum that extends the reality into the fantasy, if that makes any sense to you... am I giving away more secrets like used to?... oh, that would be telling... shhhh)...

yeah, if you've got the time... of course for the right person we all simply make the time, change everything, rearrange our life, give up everything and build a new life around him or her... the scary thing about that is what if it's not mutual, what if someone wants to do that for me and I don't want to or vice versa... rejection... and oh, the inconvenience (and sarcasm)... but seriously, the losses could devastating if the rebuilding never starts...

but if we do it and don't tell the person we risk something worse, fantasy and expectation and disappointment... could even be the beginning of a secret stalking habit for the paranoid among us...

so maybe the insecurity is the only answer many have to this conundrum... instead of standing alone and taking the leap and the risk, just crumble and sit around lurking harmlessly in the quiet darkness... hello out there... or, for the disgruntled, just sit around complaining about everything because that passes the time and helps avoid confronting the conundrum... misery loves company, complainers, like haters, feel bonded and with purpose when they come together...

it just seems like such a waste to me... for no matter how many times I might fall, life is about the leap and the flight, the exploration, the growth, the learning, the attempt to feel it all... and if we can for even one moment, then we might begin to understand what it means to be alive...

I hope you do...

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)