blogging off

it's clearly been a long while since i have posted here, and while there are many reasons as to why that's the case, i probably will not address that so much here. why you ask? well there are things that are deeply personal as well as reasons why. one of the main, and most important reasons is the fact that i have recently been contacted by a couple of my former patients, and in the interests of personal boundaries and confidentiality i have to make my blog private, or abandon it altogether. for those of you who still read here, you're welcome to email me and let me know that you would like to be invited to read my private blog, but i will probably desist posting unless there is some sort of groundswell of interest.
i will write a bit more in this space, but in order to protect my own interests, the post will probably be lacking in the details that some of you may wish to know--that's something that you're just going to have to deal with.
this past year has been a great journey for me. it has been a time of deep searching and self understanding as well as a time of heartache. it has been a time of realization and faith, as well as a time of unsurety and insecurity.
more than ever i find the value that relationships bring me, but i am ashamed to admit that i have not done the work it takes to maintain many of the relationships that i so desperately need and rely on. this saddens me in many ways, and the result of this is my feeling somewhat alone and isolated in life. this is both a blessing and a curse. the curse is obvious--i'm lonely. the blessings are a bit more subtle. in my isolation i get to spend a lot of time in solitude listening to my neuroses and compulsions as well as listening to God. (as difficult as this is, as fucking difficult as this is. wait no. it's one of the most impossible things i have ever done.) in this hard space, i have found a lot. i have found places within me that i have never gotten to know, places that frighten and enthrall me. places that make me long for the creativity and artistry that i have long abandoned and forgotten.
all for now.

wild roosters and waterfalls

(written in september)
the mrs. and i recently returned from our belated honeymoon to kaua'i, hawai'i, usa. i'm sure you're wondering how it was and what the place was like, but i probably won't say much more than it was pretty amazing and if you cannot relax and have fun in kaua'i you probably won't ever be able to relax or have fun. kaua'i is one of the less-developed islands in the chain and for me that's a good thing. i really have no interest in development civil or personal.
the rainiest place on earth is on the island as well--yeah i know it's kind of like visiting the world's largest rubberband ball or something, but it's still cool to know that a place on earth gets like 400+ inches of rain a year.
there are also a number of waterfalls on kaua'i. it's pretty mountainous and given the amount of rain in the mountains you're bound to get a waterfall or two. waterfalls are cool. i like looking at them. ebullience.
beaches are fun. i learned to surf (sort of). on and on.
but perhaps the quirkiest thing about kaua'i is the wild chicken population. i am not kidding you there are chickens everywhere. there are roosters with a brood of hens every couple of hundred yards. these are live animals. these are wild chickens! it amazes me that there are places where chickens are still wild. at first i was intrigued by them. "look at all the chickens", "that rooster is beautiful", etc. but after about two days i realized why chickens suck: roosters actually crow. every morning at about 6am a cacophony of cock-a-doodle-doos rose up from the bushes, trees, well..pretty much everywhere around our condo. at first i was thinking that this was really cool having never heard a rooster crow, but they don't just crow once, that shit lasts like an hour or more sometimes. i had to go to the store after the 2nd night and buy some ear plugs just so i didn't go postal on some roosters. i guess deep down that hunter-gatherer nature man is really just a city boy that can't handle nature naturing.

allergy attack pattern: optical meltdown

first things first, i'm not going to address my radio silence just yet, but here's a little post for any of you logists still out there.
today TLK and i went to magnuson park with the dog because there is a killer off-leash dog park there. we've been a few times and it's fun to see all of the other dogs and watch dottie play with her kind. but today was a little different. summer has been in slow bloom and today was really the first fully warm and sunny day her in seattle. anyway you can imagine all of the plants in full bloom people everywhere enjoying the weather. it was resplendent.
then suddenly my eye starts itching. i'm thinking it's just a minor speck of dust or something that got in there and is just irritating me. after about 10 minutes of rubbing my uncomfortable eye is when the sneezing began. this wasn't your average sneeze, but an onslaught of mucusy fury the likes of which man has never before witnessed. TLK suggested we go during a lull in the sneezefest and i was just about to refuse when tears started randomly streaming down my cheeks. so we left.
TLK being the nurse that she is promptly says, "if your throat starts to close up let me know, because that's serious". here i am having the most violent allergic reaction of my lifetime and she nonchalantly says this about my throat. so of course immediately i start having to clear my throat a lot and have difficulty breathing. at this point we're on our way to the emergency room, but made a quick stop for some benedryl. traffic. i look in the rear view mirror and not only see that my eye are almost swollen shut, but that there are huge welts/hives all over my forehead and i have noticed that my entire body is itching at this point. in my mind i'm thinking about the sweet revenge i want to have on whatever plant or insect did this to me, but on the outside i'm kind of panicky and telling tracy that she should carry an epi-pen with her at all times in case of this sort of thing happening.
long story short-the benedryl kicked in shortly after, and all breathing returned to normal. we went home and i scratched myself to sleep.
the picture was taken about 5.5 hours after the allergy invasion and as you can see my eyes are still pretty swollen and red. and yes, that is a tear in my eye. i have been crying ever since this thing happened. you'd think that i could run out of tears, but not true. fortunately i can see now, and the hives have disappeared.

something different

(written february 2008, experiment failed)
so i am going to try an experiment. and most likely it will fail, but i'm going to go for it anyway. i enjoy writing, correction--i enjoy good writing. i love to write, but i really haven't developed the art. so i have decided to attempt that here. feel free to criticize or compliment, but don't feel obligated. most of this will probably be narcissistic dribble, but you got to start somewhere. basically i just want to try to develop detail and story with hopes that it will not only make me a better writer, but help me to think about the small things and illustrate them. i will attempt to write a couple of times a week. today it'll be pretty short, but prepare thyselves for tomes of articulation.

today was a day of discord. everything joyous seemed to be complimented by something unpalatable. i woke to the frosty seattle fog, so thick that you could only see about a quarter mile. the city was quiet and somber with it's morning veil

back to school, back to cool

tomorrow is the first day of school for the spring semester here at mhgs. i'm always surprised at the sense of anticipation over starting school again after a break. it's like when you're a kid and you go and have all new classes and classmates and bring your new pens and pencils and what not. not much changes in grad school. well, at least not for me.
while the reasons for my anticipation may not be the same as they were 20 years ago, there is still a buzz of excitement in the air for me. i'm learning tons of stuff and i can't wait to apply what i have already learned into papers and projects, as well as learn a whole semester's worth of new stuff. that's the exciting part.
of course along with that comes massive amounts of reading, writing, and many hours of class. i'm sure the excitement will wane fairly quickly, but for now i'm happy for it.
for those of you who care i'm taking 4 classes: group therapy, psychopathology 2, theology 2, and therapy 1. here are my estimated rankings of the 4 classes: group therapy--7 out of 10, path 2--6/10, theology 2--2/10, therapy 1--5/10. i'll keep everyone posted on the results.

only in seattle

seattle is a pretty cool place to live. i am definitely enjoying my time here. everyday is an adventure, you see people all the time wearing strange things, doing strange things, etc. a lot of times it has to do with the environment--seattlites are very green thinking people. you can actually get a ticket here for not recycling, which i initially hated but now realize how great an idea it is because TLY and i generally recycle about 3 times more than we throw in the garbage. take that pollution!
so it follows naturally that many seattlites use bicycles, buses, and other forms of non-car transportation (there have been a few segway sitings). but when i came across this i was speechless... it's not the greatest picture in the world (i took it with my phone) but i'll explain it. this is a man riding one of those weird pedals-in-the-front bikes with what can only be described as a mylar condom covering he and his bicycle. i drove next to this guy for about 7 blocks trying to figure answer the nagging question in my head, "what the fuck is this guy thinking?". i still don't know. but i can tell you that as far as i can tell the only way to get in or out of the mylar prophylactic is to somehow squeeze your body between the thing and the bike and pop your head through the head hole. pun intended. i can't even begin to imagine how you get your leg over the bar. seems like a big effort to keep your body dry while your face gets pummeled with rain falling from the sky and coming off of the mylar. furthermore, the shape of the thing resembles a banana. so now you are a big wet banana riding down the street. it's difficult to determine what's more important; saving the environment or not looking like this guy. there's got to be something in-between.

tao

i just finished reading the tao of pooh which is a book about taoism from the perspective of the characters in the winnie-the-pooh books by a.a. milne. i found it pretty interesting, which surprised me, and as a result i have picked up a copy of the tao te ching to read a bit further. i'm glad that i read the tao of pooh first. had i not i would have probably written the whole philosophy of the tao off as some feel-good-hippie-nonsense, but instead i found something that is quite interesting, and at least initially is very relevant to christianity.
this sort of exploration into worlds and 'religions' unknown is pretty unusual for me, but sense something within my body resonates with some of this stuff and i have this 'unusual interest', i have decided to run with it.
i hope to be able to post some detailed observations of taoism in the near future, but for now i will attempt to pique your interest and allay your fears by telling you that so far it sounds a lot like moltmann's theology of hope, as well as a very therapeutic perspective from which to relate to each other and the world.