Paging Doctor Freud.

I am taking a psychology class this semester. I'm just a few weeks into it and we're already learning about Freud. First we learned about research methods (to remind us that psychology is indeed a science) and then we moved on to biological psychology (to also remind us that psychology is indeed a science). Now we are learning about Freud and psychoanalysis. Unlike some intro psych classes that stick strictly to the textbook, we dive right in and read a primary source. Freud, probably for a variety of reasons, has a difficult style. Takes twelve words to say what could have been said in two. But I'm sloughing through, thanks to being able to read aloud to a seasoned student of psychology.

I am not taking this class because I plan to become a psychologist or a therapist or anything like that. I just thought that this would be a good way to kill off a pretty standard pre-requisite for a potential career change, if that were to ever interest me. Teaching, dental-hygiene, nursing, speech therapy, even counseling - all of these things appeal to me, and all of the additional schooling I would need in order to pursue these careers requires a psychology class. So. I'll have my bases covered.

In the meantime, it's fun to learn about the brain and about different theories of psychology. I'm learning that Freud was one whacked-out dude, but some of his overall themes I actually think are useful and relevant. Even the idea of the id, ego, and super-ego. The idea of the self, of me, trying to create and maintain a balance between the more basic, biological needs that are battling against the bloated conscience of the external world. I like that. Maybe this is why some days feel like a struggle.

Of course, now whenever I look at something I'm reminded of some kind of psychological ideal or theory that was briefly touched on in my class. I just went through the photos on my camera to dump those I wanted onto the computer and saw this one:

I immediately thought of Freud and the possibility of Tyrone unconsciously exhibiting repressed sexual tension towards my mother (one can see Freud in anything). And then I saw Sasha trying to bust into the bag of catnip that came with her new scratching post

and was reminded of those doctors, like good Doctor Freud, who experimented with the medical possibilities of cocaine, morphine, opium, heroin, and other narcotics, on themselves and wound up, in some cases, dope fiends.

So I'm enjoying this class. It's fun to learn again, to do homework assignments, to be forced to read things that I may not otherwise have read. But let's just see if I'm singing that same tune in a few weeks when I have my first mid-term exam in something like six years. I'll have to get my seasoned student of psychology to do some review sessions with me. It will be like UCONN all over again.

Postscript: A little more, a little less.

I owe my fair readers, my mother in particular, some additional, clarifying notes on my last completed post. I got an email from my mother when she read my post in which she stated, and I quote, "I can't figure out why you are always so unhappy in your jobs. You have had some very nice jobs. A lot of people would love your job." When I read that part of her email, I immediately wanted to call her up and exclaim, "I don't hate my job! I am not unhappy! No, no, no, you misunderstand!" But, in fact, is she misunderstanding? I believe I am at fault here. I believe I am putting out false impressions about my current mental state. And I believe that it deserves clarification.

Clarification: I do not hate my job. I repeat - I do not hate my job. I will even venture to go so far as to say that I like my job. Yes, that's right. I like my job. My job allows me to have a workable schedule. I like all the people with whom I work, even the ones who I feel have talents that are best suited to a different role and are maybe not appropriately matched to their position (that's my code for people who frustrate me and who I vent about (if I do actually vent, because I am doing that so, so much less now) when I come home to Doug). I feel less like a fish out of water in academia than I did in corporate finance, so I feel much more comfortable and confident when going to work each day. I am learning new things each day (different things than I learned in my research job, but still, my mind is being stimulated). I am not as sedentary in my new job. I can walk underground through a tunnel system directly into the stacks of one of the nation's most revered library collections and borrow whatever I want from it for a whole semester. I am lucky. I have a very good job. No job is perfect, but this job is closer to whatever professional perfection is for me than my last job. So please, yes, I do not hate my job. And I am not unhappy in my job.

I am beginning to think that I am just a perpetual "venter" (I hesitate to call myself a complainer, because I really don't feel like I am complaining when I talk about what I talk about. I am just getting my feelings and reactions to life out in the open.). Like I just said, I have a need to get my feelings and reactions to life out in the open and a forum for this is my blog. I am also opinionated, strangely enough, since if you have the pleasure of hanging out with me in person you may not really gather that. I tend to be more opinionated if I feel that the company I am keeping will be receptive to my opinions, and in the case of my blog, it is always receptive to my opinions. That's the great thing about a blog. So maybe that's why I tend to do a lot of venting here.

Again, clarification: I am not unhappy. I think that I may be bored, and I may have room in my life for more (more activity, more interesting-ness, more satisfaction), but I also may just have learned coping and protective habits during my development that cause my mind to run away with its thoughts. I'm overly-analytical. I think too much. And that causes a somewhat gray and swirling cloud to form above my head, not unlike that that trails Pigpen, that can be mistaken for unhappiness. I think that I have mistaken that cloud for unhappiness at times. At a lot of times. Like, fourteen years of my life. But it's not unhappiness. I enjoy my life. I like my house. I like my cats (depending on the day). I like to do my crafty hobbies, I like to read, I like to watch the movies and TV shows that I choose to watch, I like all of that. Of course there are things that I don't like, and of course there are things that I would like to change, but they are small. They are small and somewhat inconsequential, and they hardly constitute an unhappy life.

Let's just say that I am continually searching. I'm continually thinking and searching, trying to always live up to the standards that I have set for myself (and hoping that others will live up to the standards I have set for them). My mind is often tired from this, and many, many, many times I have wished that I could just have a quiet mind. That the thinking and searching could end. But it can't. I am who I am, really, and I can't change that. I can just learn how to cope with it. I suppose what you witness, either by reading this blog or my tweets or my emails or by talking with me and hanging out with me, what you witness is my learning process. Aren't you lucky?

Okay. Because I made you read through that long diatribe, let's show some more stimulating visual content. Stimulating visual content that show some of the things that make me happy.

Last Sunday I went to work at 2pm and I left work at 8am Monday morning. (Please note: I am not complaining, or even venting. Simply stating the facts). Before Doug went to bed he sent me this photo of him and Sherman to provide me with some distraction on my very long night.



I laughed out loud when I opened this photo. It made my night. Doug was so thoughtful to send me that.

And just today I opened up my email and found a series of photos from Uncle Jimmy that are documenting the progress on his house in New Hampshire. He is having some major construction done to it, including fixing up the porch and creating a second floor in the attic space. Here's a shot of the work so far:



I can't wait to see more photos!

A little more, a little less.

What's in my backpack?

I look at job ads all the time because I am still trying to figure out what one can do with a library degree. There are all kinds of jobs out there and they are all over the place. Berkeley, Middletown, CT, Maryland, everywhere. I just saw a posting the other day that made me say, "Cool!" Associate Archivist at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. Of course, the job may not really be cool when you discover what it actually involves, but if I read the posting with my Antiques Roadshow goggles and think about being in Asheville, then I become very excited and I wish I had stayed in the archives program at Simmons so that I could have had a job like this. Wishes and regrets about my professional life I have plenty.

The job, you'll note, is in NC, which is not within commuting distance of my current home in Dedham, MA. The vast majority of the jobs that I see posted that make me go, "Hmmm...." are not within commuting distance of Dedham. This is a bit of a problem, since we own a home in Dedham and the market right now is pretty poor for house-selling. And, as I have said time and time again on this blog, we really like our house and we've grown used to Dedham. But this doesn't change the fact that our house ties us down. Weighs us down and keeps us in one place. Makes our backpacks very heavy.

What do we do about that? Not quite sure. We go back and forth on this topic each day. Sell or not to sell. Move or not to move. It's the same old, same old. Blah, blah. But Doug and I are in the process of lightening the load in our backpacks in other ways. Like going through our bookshelves and pulling books that we won't read or don't have any attachment to.



Doug's going through all of his pedals and is selling some. I have started a bag for clothes and shoes give-away. We are donating two chairs to Uncle Jimmy's house in New Hampshire for when the construction on his addition is completed. We have started a tag sale pile and have several things in it already, including some pots and pans that we haven't used once since we moved into this house. Things like that.

Our "Lightening the Load," our "Great Leap Forward," was side-tracked a bit while we were dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. A microburst went through our neighborhood and several extremely large and old trees met their maker because of it. Also because of it we spent four days with very limited power. No power to the main parts of our house meant that I spent a lot of time crafting. I finally made my new curtain for the kitchen:



Matching placemats:



A stupid sock creature:



What's ironic is that all of these things add weight to my backpack and so counteract what I am actually trying to do by getting rid of stuff. Because all of this is just more stuff. Now I have a spare set of curtains in storage, more placemats to store for use when the company I never invite over comes over, and a stuffed sock with button eyes that sits on the dining room table and collects cat hair. But all of it was fun to make, and I think the window looks much better with the new curtain. So maybe it's worth it to add to my backpack? Or maybe it's a balance. I can add to my backpack as long as I take more out than I am adding to it. Isn't that what life is about? Balancing the good with the bad? Yes, I think it is. And so the trial for me continues.

And the boss of the year award goes to...

So, picture this. I'm on the couch, head slumped down on my chest, hair hanging across my face, while The New World is blaring in front of me. The movie is two hours and fifteen minutes long and I manage to sleep through about two-thirds of it. I wake for the last few minutes. Doug, seeing that I am conscious, comes over to the couch and tries to settle in for a late night of watching the latest episode of Ghost Hunters International. In my just-awakened state, which often finds me in a wretched mood, I want no part of it and go upstairs to put myself properly to bed. As Sasha is hovering over the water faucet trying to drink and I am putting the toothpaste onto my toothbrush, it hits me - I'm supposed to have gotten a cake for one of my staff's birthday tomorrow! I stand there in the mirror staring at myself with toothbrush halfway to my mouth. What do I do? It's 10:55pm. Said staff-person wants yellow cake with chocolate frosting; she told me this last week so I have no excuse not to have remembered to get her this cake. I am on the train at 6:45 each morning, so there's no time in the morning to go to the store (stores don't open around here until 7). I have no choice but to make her a cake from scratch! I run downstairs to find a recipe, and all recipes I find call for ingredients that I don't have. Milk, butter, cake flour... how come I don't have these things on hand? Gah!

After Doug determines that all grocery stores near us are closed, most of which closed at 11pm but some earlier (earlier?), I determine that I have no choice but to get in my car and drive around, trying to find a late-night 7-Eleven or something like that. The local Tedeschi is closed. I know of no other convenience store in the immediate area. Do I have to drive to Boston? On my way to the highway, I pass a CVS. Lights still on. I pull into the parking lot and see a person entering the building. Score! CVS must have cake mix and frosting, right? Forget this cake from scratch. Tonight calls for a box cake.

Yes, CVS does have cake mix, and even frosting. Yes, this CVS had yellow cake mix and chocolate frosting. I don't need milk or cake flour or butter for this. I make my purchase. Cake is now in the oven. Once the cake is baked and cooled I can sleep for a few hours before getting up extra early to frost it. And then the attempt to bring it to work with me (on the train) without any mishap. If this all works out, I hope she is happy, my staff-person. I hope she appreciates the cake. And I hope to god she really said that it's yellow cake with chocolate frosting that she wanted.

The positive in this situation is that I now have time to catch up on my blogging. So let's post photos of our annual trip to the Mystic Outdoor Art Festival. Every year for the past five years we have gone to this show, and every year we have come home with some kind of art. This year we came home with two things.



Doug's choice was the yellow painting on the top, which is of the Maine coast, which compliments the pink painting on the bottom of a street scene in Providence. Both are by the same artist, from Rhode Island, who has such great use of colors like yellow and pink that other artists, at least other artists that we see at the Mystic Art Show, do not use enough of (or well enough). My choice was a little more conventional:



But still a local scene. The artist is from Orleans, MA, and much of his inspiration comes from Cape Cod. This is a scene of a marsh in Provincetown. Again, the yellow struck me, as did the tactile nature of the paint. The artist uses some kind of knife technique to apply the paint, meaning that most of it comes out in big globs. I like that. I like art that you can touch.

When we are at the art show, which seems to consist of most of the same artists year after year, we always try to balance cost with appeal. Do we like a piece enough to pay that much for it? Much of what we see is very expensive, and it's not like I can really judge how much a piece of artwork should cost. I'm no artist, but I know that the labor going into some of these pieces is intense - and so much of it! Could an oil painting (oils always being more expensive than acrylics or watercolors or photographs it seems) really be worth $3500? Maybe. But those are the paintings we have to leave behind. We set a budget and don't go over that. We've amassed a nice collection of art in this house. People tend to outgrow houses because they have children. For us, we may outgrow this house because of our art.

There could be worse things, though. Worse things like brain-eating amoeba killing you after a nice swim in some nice warm water. I'm always telling Doug that if the water were warmer at the beach I'd go in and swim. But now maybe not. Can you believe that there is such a thing as brain-eating amoeba? Of course, there's flesh-eating bacteria, for real, so why not brain-eating amoeba. It's when I read things like this that I am convinced that the only way that I am going to survive this life, getting through all the anxiety of living - the risks and the dangers - is by some kind of Valium patch that delivers and maintains a constant dose of drug into my bloodstream. Some days I just can't handle all the uncertainties.

My cakes are done. Now for them to cool. This week has seemed endless. I'm definitely ready for this one to end.

Catching up.

The problem with writing a blog post once every week or more is that the posts I do write seem to be marathon posts. I will try not to make this a marathon post, being mindful that my faithful readers have other, much more interesting things to do with their lives.

In reverse chronological order:

Cat Update:

The cats were at Grandma's house while Doug and I were in Maine. Two cats love it there; one does not. I'll give you one guess for the cat who doesn't love it there. That's right - Sasha! The one who at the moment doesn't love anything but catnip and sucking on Doug's armpit. We retrieved Meg from East Hartford this weekend, completing the feline triumvirate in Dedham, and Sasha, who for a week was getting used to being the only cat in the bedroom at night, now had to deal with her sister again. This threw her into all kinds of disarray. Doug threw her out of the bedroom on Saturday night because she was being nasty to even him, and locked her in the office. In the morning when I went to let her out I discovered that she doesn't like being in jail and told me by letting me discover the wonderful gifts she left me overnight. Yes, she decided to use the office as her litter box. And someone else decided to use the bathroom rug as his/her litter box, too. So Sunday morning was all kinds of wonderful with me threatening Doug to drive one of the cats - I didn't care which one - to the shelter because if there is one thing - the one thing! - that I will not tolerate it is pee and poop outside the litter box. I then fled the disaster zone to go to the gym to blow off steam, only to see this as I was backing out of the driveway:


No one went to the shelter, and Sasha seemed to be making progress by the end of the day (maybe that's because her attempt to run away from her miserable existence, which got her stuck on the roof and caused Doug to do his fireman impression and rescue her via ladder, was a complete failure and left her knowing once and for all that she is the kind of cat who requires food and shelter and clean cotton t-shirts to suck on). We are giving them two weeks. If there are no more accidents outside the box and if I hear less screeching coming from the smallest one, then they can all stay with us.

Maine Update:

There's no update, really, about Maine, other than we miss Maine and those we know who live in that state. It seems like forever ago that we were there, gazing at the Belfast shore



kayaking while the sun was setting over the lake



watching this cutie-pie explore new foods and fall in love with questionable tag-sale cast-aways



and challenging our taste buds with foods like these from the Maine Lobster Festival.



More Moody's trips with Ruby and her two gay dads!



More hiking in the Camden Hills!



And more biking in Acadia.




Please? Don't know if we can wait for another year to pass before we feel that kind of contentment again. Anyone up for a week at the lake for some ice-fishing?

The next step.

We're back from our annual trip to Maine. If you want a review of our fabulous trip, please see the wonderfully concise post from Summer Sweater, or the introspective post from Cotton. I'll blog about the trip soon, but I have other things on my mind (doesn't take long for my mind to start to work (or overwork) again, let me tell you).

Other Thing on My Mind #1: The house.

The house is now painted! Yay! Remember when I asked you to vote for your preferred color? Well, I received no votes, which is just as well, since Doug and I picked out our preferred color and would have gone with that one regardless. We went with the light greenish/gray color, called Roycroft Mist Gray, with Roycroft Bottle Green for the accents and Creamy for the trim.



Doug and I really like it and can't wait to get a new, dark green awning to really show off the green accent color. I also can't wait to plant flowers in my window boxes, which thankfully I did not have to paint myself.



Coming back to our newly painted house was very satisfying. We pulled up to the little place and I was glad to be there. I was reflecting on all of the work that we have put into the place - the painting on the inside, the landscaping, and now the repainting on the outside. While in Maine, Doug and I were dreaming of living there, in some kind of old farmhouse not too far from the rocky coast. But when I came home to our little house with its fresh coat of paint, those dreams fade a little. (A little.)

Other Things on My Mind #2: Career Change.

This next topic will thrill my mother, who I fear is convinced that I am wandering aimlessly and unhappily through life (which is not true, really not true at all). Vacation always gets me to thinking about how I am living my life when I am not on vacation (if you have read Cotton's post mentioned above, you'll get a glimpse of why), and now that I'm back from it and we are basically back to our old routine (though not fully, since we are down one cat (still at Grandma's Meg is) and I'm still allowing myself to eat as many sweets as I want) I'm dreaming of ways to prolong those vacation feelings. Those feelings of freedom, of light-heartedness, of possibility and excitement. I do believe that finding the right career path is key to having that kind of satisfying vacation-feeling even when I'm not on vacation.

Let's just face it - I'm not a librarian at heart. I love books. Love, love, love books. Love their covers, their smell, their contents. There's not much about them that I do not like, and even confess to loving electronic books and their electronic devices. But that doesn't mean that I love librarianship, or am meant to be a librarian. The minute details of librarianship I find trying. What difference does it make if I stamp the due-date in the back of the book before I de-sensitize it? Why does everyone have to do these tasks in a particular order, and why do we have to have meetings to discuss what the best order is? To quote myself when I was talking to Doug today, I'm just not jazzed about librarianship. I know some very good, very passionate librarians and I am so glad, so glad, that they exist. But I don't consider myself one of them and I may very well never be. I thought things would be different when I left corporate librarianship for academic librarianship, and believe me, they are, but I still haven't found my "thing."

For me, more than moving to a new location or finding a new hobby, I need to start down that journey of changing my career. I need to start doing that thing that I can feel better about, or at least more interested in, each morning when I wake up. I've narrowed it down to a few options, and now I just have to take that plunge. I feel a lot of pressure to make the right choice. I feel that the time is now, and that the spotlight is on this decision. I feel like I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself, but I also am encouraged by the possibilities and the bright light of the future. These are good things, and I thank vacation for this.

I also thank vacation for another week of my life spend with three of my favorite people. Ruby is such a little delight, and her parents are just about the best people to go on vacation with. Ever. Doug and I are always so relaxed and comfortable on our trips to Liberty. We thank you, C, C, and R, for your hands in that!

You be the judge.

Doug and I are having the house painted in a couple of weeks. We are going to change the color of the house. Today we put on the house the two color choices that we narrowed all of our seemingly infinite color choices down to. Which one do you vote for?


We have a favorite, and it may not be the one that you think it is. You'll have to wait until the house is painted that color to know which one it is, though - I'm not giving up our secret just yet.

When I was uploading the photos of the color choices to the computer, I discovered that I hadn't uploaded the photos of our most recent beach trip. Last Saturday we were at Ogunquit and had a wonderful day there. We wish we had gotten to see Summer Sweater and her family, but maybe next time. This trip we just lay on the beach reading, Doug splashed about in the water a lot (and with my phone, which meant that I had to get a new phone because salt water and electronics do not mix), and then we took a long walk once the tide went out. Ogunquit at low tide late in the afternoon is a wonderful place to be. Most of the day-trippers and families with millions of little kids are gone and only those people who want to enjoy the tranquility of the beach are left. You get to see great scenes like this at that time of day:


Of course, if you look closely you can see that the guy flying the kites is doing so in what looks like his underwear. He was with two other guys, both also in what looked like their underwear, and our neighbors on the blanket next to us were calling them "The Underwear Guys." I wonder if this guy below was given a cool nickname by fellow beachgoers:


Me, I just call him "Hotstuff." Not very original, I realize, but totally accurate. It's the sandals that do it for me, and also the amazingly, almost alabaster-white skin. I don't know how he does it, but I feel lucky to know that it's all mine.