M
I jolt awake around 8:30am, a time I’ve considered “too early” all my life up until the last 6 months or so. I shuffle around and try to go back to sleep for 20 minutes, but my mind is already overflowing with thoughts about what I need to do today and random concerns related to my health OCD. My cat, June, is sleeping right next to my head like she usually does. June is both my mother, daughter, ancestor, and fetus. She purrs loudly, inviting me back to sleep. But I can’t sleep in anymore. I guess I’m getting too old for that. Before I fully emerge from bed, I remember I have to write a diary entry about my day today. I am reminded of one of my favorite Joan Didion quotes from her essay On Keeping a Notebook:
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise, they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.”
Thinking about this quote jolts me awake. It is about time I get back on track with my notebook keeping! Thank you to Molly for creating this project – I hope more people get inspired to keep a daily or weekly journal after engaging in this project.
Around 9am I move to my desk and review old notes for work. I am a brand-new baby therapist working at a group private practice and I do not understand submitting insurance claims. In undergrad, I studied journalism and decided not to pursue it because I am not about that freelancer life. Fast forward 3 years and I am joining the freelancer’s union as a therapist...hahaha! Did you know it is technically illegal to hire someone as a 1099 contractor if they have specialized training? Is a master’s degree specialized training? Who’s to say. Yes, a master’s degree is worth it! 50K for six more dollars with no benefits or PTO (:
Outside of insurance and being chronically underpaid, I do enjoy being a therapist and I do believe I am somewhat good at it for a newbie. Basically, you should always be learning, should never be satisfied, should always be seeking new information and new modalities, “here, take this course for 599.99, it will transform your career!” Sometimes I spiral about being good enough, but then I remember the TV show “Web Therapy” with Lisa Kudrow. Her character “invents” a new therapy modality where you only do therapy for 6 minutes via skype. This show was on before the telehealth take-off that arrived with Covid. I honestly would not be surprised if some hack actually did start a therapeutic modality consisting of 6-minute-long sessions. It reminds me of certain insurance plans that only cover 10-20 sessions of therapy – how is that any different or better?
Before my two back-to-back telehealth sessions, I shove my face out my window to look at the fountain next to me and to feel the sun on my eyelids. I put on some natural mascara that I really want to love but it’s not quite giving me the same length as my old chemical sticks. I settle for shorter lashes in exchange for clearer, itch-free eyeballs. In the last few minutes before I log on, I take some deep breaths and focus on the sound of the fountain while I look at my plants. After a few minutes I am of course still anxious, but now it is a teeny bit easier to accept and sit with it. This takes my practice, I tell myself. Which is also what I tell my clients. June sits above me on her cat shelf, looking on like a supervisor/gargoyle/witch/crow/judgmental entity.
We have named this June’s fountain because it attracts a lot of birds for her to watch. Unfortunately, it also attracts raccoons because they love to wash their creepy paws off in running water.
My sessions go surprisingly well and I leave my bedroom/office around 1pm, feeling energized and slightly more confident about using narrative therapy, my favorite therapeutic modality due to my past as a wannabe writer. I have specifically organized my bedroom/office to only look like an office on telehealth, with various plants in the background. My TV and bed are out of sight. It hurt my brain immensely to figure out how to set this shit up. I save all my posters (yes, I am 27 with posters!) for the walls that are not visible, keeping my own framed painting of Christina’s World in plain view. It is a bit of a weird layout, but it’s working for me so far.
I head to the café around the corner and get a turkey sandwich with pesto, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and spinach on an everything bagel sandwich. Usually I make my own breakfast (yay gut health!!) but I didn’t give myself enough time to eat before sessions and I’m too hungry to wait. I’m also out of the sourdough bread that I make whenever I want to cosplay as a tradwife. On my way out, I look at my bike in the courtyard and think about how I should bike soon even though it’s not so great for my back.
I got this bike on e-bay after my maroon/pink one got stolen. Losing that bike catapulted me into my joker era, hence the color scheme on this one.
I scarf down my sandwich between a stream of consciousness rant to my partner while he sits on my bed nodding compassionately (God bless him). Even though we live together, we have our own rooms, something we could not afford without a third roommate. We take turns sleeping in each other’s beds and sometimes I spend the night solo if I need to get some deep z’s. I believe two bedrooms is the secret to success in any relationship and I wish this was more accessible to people. I honestly think it should be legally required and funded by the government <3.
My other place of work (an inpatient psychiatric unit) calls to discuss an offer for a part time therapist position. The HR lady buries the lead by sharing that the hourly pay rate is based on a $54,000 a year salary. Eventually she says its $26/hr which is more than I was expecting (lol). I am only working 2-3 days a week, so I wish she didn’t bring up the salary because it is irrelevant to me. I accept, bumping my pay up by six dollars, which I am honestly excited for. However, it is also hilarious that I only get a $6 raise considering the job I had before only requires a high school diploma and includes plenty of downtime for goofing off on your phone. It was super hard and intense sometimes, but I also played a lot of mobile sims (it sucks) and mobile rollercoaster tycoon (also sucks). Mostly, I did a lot of grad school homework and read some books. Anyway, being a therapist at this place is a lot more responsibility than that job was, and this is both scary and exciting to me. Both can be true at the same time! (a classic therapist quote).
Working inpatient reminds me quite often that we cannot therapize our way out of oppression and capitalism. Our healthcare system is deeply broken, and I’m feeling all sorts of uncomfortable about entering it as a professional. Especially as our country funnels money to Israhell while they commit horrific genocide and provide free healthcare for their settlers with our tax dollars. I do know that working inpatient as a therapist will teach me as much as it enrages me. It will be interesting at times and can help pay my bills while I pursue licensure in private practice. I will try my best to rebel against the system and provide more opportunities for autonomy to my clients there.
2:30pm: Work is now done! Except it’s not, because it is never done (: After finishing one note and having a little cry about not being able to focus, I decide to push my notes back to nighttime because they are not due yet and I am technically my own boss and I can do what I want!!!!! My partner and I go on a walk and I commit to enjoying the walk even though I secretly want to go down a health OCD rabbit hole where I google various neurological issues and cancers that could be related to my chronic headaches. I commit to enjoying my walk and celebrating the fact that I don’t have a headache after having one headache a day for almost two weeks straight.
It wouldn’t be Philly without a macaroni tree!
I love living in walking distance to Fairmount Park. When I’m in the woods I pretend the noice from the cars speeding on Kelly Drive is just the sound of ocean waves <3
Eastern State Penitentiary Gardens. You can get in for cheap with an EBT card! You can do this with most museums here.
Giant flower and bird poop! This is near the Barnes Museum.
The walk reminds me why I’ve never left Philly even though I hate Mayor Parker, the plans for a sixer’s stadium, and what Temple is doing with my undergraduate tuition. Even though I hate how they displaced the encampment in Kensington and I hate what they are doing to FDR park and I hate car culture and I hate how they are letting the subway decay. Walks in the summer here remind me of what I love about this city. It also helps to remember that while I can’t fix or prevent all these problems on my own, leaving won’t fix it either. “Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.” – bell hooks!
4:30pm: When we get back it is time for early dinner, weed, and my latest TV obsession: Desperate Housewives. When it comes to TV, my taste in genre knows no bounds. I have fractured memories of watching Desperate Housewives with my mom when I was a preteen, so watching now as an adult is like injecting a weird type of nostalgia into my veins. I was struck by how similar the first season is to twin peaks – both reminiscent of soap operas with the music, drama, and suspense. Both focus on a group of friends coming together to understand why their friend died a mysterious death. I became convinced this was not a coincidence and took to googling about this. It turns out Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer) was supposed to play the woman who dies in Desperate Housewives and becomes the narrator. Apparently, Sheryl’s voice was too ethereal” for this basic ass show. The producer of Desperate Housewives also said the show was partially inspired by twin peaks. I feel incredibly validated by all of this. Feel free to DM me on Instagram if you’d like to hear about who is the Bob and who is the James Hurley of Desperate Housewives, as well as other ramblings about television and pop culture.
If only this were real…
They ended up casting Kyle MacLachlan (Agent Cooper) in Desperate Housewives. Kyle’s character subtly references twin peaks as well as his role in The Doors biopic, a movie so bad that it’s good. Kyle’s character is also named is also Orson Hodge, which sounds like the name of a black lodge entity. Orson is a kleptomaniac ex-dentist who is married to Bree, the redhead character. Bree has OCD and I deeply relate to her, even though my OCD does not involve organizing silverware or cooking deeply complicated roasts. In this particular episode, Orson says to his wife “You know, I’m feeling a bit randy! What do you say we make love tonight?” My partner and I burst out laughing and I rewind to record the clip using my phone, like I’m at a concert. We finish the night with some local ice cream called Milk Jawn, which we can now buy at Stones beer supply a few blocks away. This is dangerous for us.
I get pretty sleepy and decide to postpone my notes for tomorrow morning, because again, I am technically my own boss and if I wasn’t, they’d give me health insurance <3. I think about how I need to feed my sourdough starter, but decide to put that off too. I think about how I don’t have a fun name for my starter to include in this diary entry. To be honest I hate when people name their starters. I’m not sure why but it is cringe to me. Instead, I will share that my partner has named the racoon that lives in our courtyard “Toenail.”
Toenail eating a can of cat food that they stole (with their paws!) from a stray cat I was trying to feed.
I shake off the guilt of not doing my notes by taking some deep breaths. I do my “skincare routine” which is remarkably simple because I’m on a “non-toxic journey” inspired by chronic headaches and hormonal imbalances. Did you know that on average, women expose themselves to 168 chemicals a day and blah blah blah. I support anyone using anything they want on their body, but I do enjoy telling people that most stuff is full of shit like “fragrance” and cancer-causing endocrine disrupters. Yes, I am in my less is more era as well as my plastic-free era. Sometimes I get so mad about how fucked the environment is that I give myself a headache. Lately, it has been helpful to get stoned and try to appreciate the fact that somehow humans invented plastic and then figured out how to do all this crazy shit with it. I wish they never figured it out, but it is impressive!
I read Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh before bed. It has taken me 12 hundred billion years to read this book because grad school sucks the life out of your reading muscles. June is next to my head again. As I fall asleep, I think about what it would be like if June and I were like Fiona and Cake from adventure time. We would have a lot of fun; I can tell you that much.
I leave you with a Sylvia Plath quote I came across before falling asleep. I think about parts of myself and past versions of myself quite often. Unfortunately, the artist of this drawing wasn’t credited because no one on twitter has any integrity!
M (she/her) is a therapist, former wannabe writer/poet, and lover of all animals living in Francisville (birth place of Lil Uzi). You can find M riding her joker-colored bike all around Philly or on walks with her partner in Fairmount Park. Fun fact? M doesn't have an appendix and is proud of it. Follow M @hamandcheese_444 for pics of cats, therapy memes, angry posts about injustice/oppression, funny posts about TV/movies, pics of odd finds in Philly, and the occasional post of mediocre poetry.
