Order is restored to the universe

So about a month ago, maybe a little longer, I lost my watch, and I was upset. It's a cheap-o velcro sports watch, the kind you can get for $10 at any large discount department store, so it wasn't so much the absence of the watch itself that bothered me. It was that I had lost it in a seemingly impossible way.

Since moving here, I have not acquired a whole lot of stuff. I moved here with just one carload full, bought some furniture during the first couple of weeks, and that has mostly been it. The apartment is fairly sparse, and I don't have that much to keep track of. So when the watch went missing, I was confused. I use the watch to time my runs, and I had gone for a run on a Sunday morning, gone home, taken off the watch in the house, thought I remembered setting it on my desk, and then not thought about it until Tuesday when I wanted to go for a run again.

But it was gone. I scoured the apartment from top to bottom, my roommate looked everywhere, we were both disturbed because it seemed like it had vanished into thin air, and neither of us could think of a single place it could be. There were not that many places to look. We thought we were both going crazy, because really, how can you lose something in a nearly empty apartment, when by all reasonable accounts that thing had only ever been placed in two or three places (kitchen counter, my dresser, my desk)?

More than a month went by, and no sign of the thing. Then, yesterday, something miraculous happened. I was sitting on my bed, staring at my curtains while I talked to Jeff on the phone, and saw this:

Hard to see what I'm getting at? Take a closer look:

All is well.

Strings of words I have never said before

1. San Diego weather sucks.

We're in a freaking heat wave and my apartment is a heat trap. We were misled into believing this apartment had air conditioning (i.e., the previous tenant told us it did) but it most definitely does not (apparently he was trying to get out of his lease, and blatantly lied to us about a/c and parking). Even though it has cooled to a comfortable 88 degrees outside, it is still 92 and stagnant in my bedroom, despite the best efforts of my ceiling fan and "cyclone" floor fan. This is the hottest it's been so I don't really have too much right to complain, but I'm almost delirious from the heat. I think I might eat otter pops for dinner.

2. I am struggling with my willingness to accept acceptance.

More to the point: If I was your therapist, and I was supposedly using acceptance and commitment therapy (a.k.a. ACT) to target your emotional eating and obesity, you would probably continue to be obese for life. Because I have no idea what I'm doing. I am failing to see exactly how repeating the word "milk" over and over and over will do anything to help the clients in my obesity group lose weight. Once I have a better sense of what I'm doing I expect I will probably like ACT a bit more, but no one has actually trained me in how to do this therapy, and as far as I know, there are no plans for me to get any specific training other than by bumbling my way through it. My supervisor tells me that ACT is all about the struggle, so my struggle in learning it will actually be beneficial to my clients. And I say that sounds like a whole lot of rationalization.

3. I've joined a fantasy football league.

I know the names of exactly two football players (the dog-fighting one and the one who can't decide whether to retire) because they are the two players who have been mentioned on NPR recently (don't worry, there's no way either of those guys is going to be on *my* team). But two other interns started talking about an intern fantasy football league, and in a moment of whimsy I said "sign me up!" This is a no-stakes game, low commitment, and people say it will be fun, so I'm giving it a try!

walking

The other day I realized that I hardly ever walk anymore. When I first got here I was walking to the grocery store, but lately I've been more rushed, so I just make one trip a week and drive (it's too heavy to carry a week's worth of groceries). Also, I can't really walk to work, because it's about 2 miles away, I'd have to cross a freeway on-ramp or off-ramp with no crosswalk, and there is a massive hill (seriously massive-- I've never seen anyone make it all the way up on a bike without getting off to walk) through pretty heavy traffic. Plus I have to wear nice clothes to work now, and that means that even if I did want to walk (or bike), I'd somehow have to carry my work clothes and keep them from getting wrinkled, and change when I got there. So walking to work is just not a good option. I've been consistently going for jogs 3 times a week, but back home I used to do that plus walk to and from work every day, go for walks around the neighborhood, and have walking meetings every so often. Here, I don't really have anyone to go for walks with, and plus there are not that many hours in the day, to just go take leisurely walks. Although Jeff has made fun of me for saying this, I fear that my health may be in danger from lack of walking. One of my co-workers was similarly not concerned when I mentioned this today. But this lack of walking must be having some physical impact, don't you think???

Things even out

Although the first half of last week was sort of horrible, things improved dramatically and quickly. Last Thursday our intern seminar was moved from our usual stuffy conference room in the hospital, to (I kid you not) the beach. Instead of a lecture we had a beach party. Then on Friday my afternoon intake client showed up, but decided he actually didn't want services in our clinic and left, which meant that I was able to catch up on all my work, and leave by 4:30. And as I got home, Jeff was walking up the street, having just gotten off a bus from the airport. We had a lovely weekend of exploring town a bit, dinner out, snorkeling, and finally introducing Jeff to a few of the other interns I work with. It was good (for pictures, see Jeff's blog). The early part of this week was busy but manageable (I haven't stayed more than a half-hour late at work this week), and then yesterday when I expected to have another really long day, exactly zero clients showed up for my afternoon drop-in group. That was basically a gift of two hours yesterday, and meant leaving work right on time. So it turns out that karma works pretty fast here, and putting in some extra effort is rewarded with breaks. I hope things continue to work that way!

Today no one was scheduled for my intake slot, so I am taking the opportunity to write this blog post, which may mean getting slightly behind and having to play catch-up tomorrow. But I've been finding that when I get home I'm pretty exhausted, and I don't really feel like being on the computer much. Which is, incidentally, also why I haven't replied to any e-mails in the last month or so. I apologize for that, and promise I'll get back into the groove of things soon.

Last night I went to see "Julie and Julia" with a couple of other interns at a movie theater near work. It was a really fun movie! I would have liked more Julia and less Julie in the movie, to be honest, but there was enough Julia to make it worth watching :)

Longest Wednesday Ever

Today I was at work from 8:30 to 6:30, which felt like an eternity. Really, it wasn't *that* long compared with some of my grad school longest days, but somehow today felt ridiculous. Probably because when I left work my car was a lone island in a giant empty parking lot, and as far as I know I was the last person to leave the mental health wing of my clinic. Also probably because I was really working for almost every minute of that time, other than a couple of brief breaks to chat with co-workers while we sat at our desks working, and a very brief break to remove one of my contact lenses because my eye was getting all itchy and twitchy. I think having a contact lens in only one eye may actually be more hazardous than not wearing them at all, and for the second half of the day I think I was having depth perception problems, which probably didn't do anything to help my emerging headache. And maybe it seemed like a really long day because I had contact with a total of 18 different clients during those 10 hours, all of whom were either depressed, or had PTSD, or were suicidal, or had personality disorders, or all of the above, and none of whom seemed to be in a particularly good mood today. I have no idea whether I kept all those people straight, and I sure hope that I didn't make any huge mistakes, what with all the notes I had to write, and consults I had to send to other services for these folks. Oh, and did I mention that I usually have a co-therapist for the second half of the day, when I'm leading groups, and that today I was all on my own? Seriously, I feel like today was just a little too much. Anyone want to trade jobs for a while???