Spoon full of Crazy, an Occupational Hazard

     There is no good way to gage just how sane you are. Our internal logic always makes sense to us. You need to ask someone else to be your yardstick if you really want an honest answer[1]. Still, going a little nuts is an occupational hazard if you work in the mental health industry for any significant length of time. The truth is crazy is contagious.

         Hang out at the Chicken Bone Saloon in Framingham on any given week night and you will see the seeds of crazy being planted. It’s where the staff of a certain well-known residential program goes to wash off the crazy with beer, whiskey, and blues after work. It is impossible to wash off all the crazy, even with top-shelf whiskey (which none of them can afford because they work in a residential program). Eavesdrop on a few of their conversations. This won’t be difficult as they all have learned to speak with voices that carry into the most reluctant ears. Chances are, if they just got off work, they have not drunk their voices back to normal yet.  You’ll hear something like this:

Veteran 1: “Did you see JP go off after lunch today?”

Veteran 2: “No, was it the Granny Nurses again?”

Veteran 1: “Yup, she ended up biting three people then she took a swan dive off the table, aiming for the silverware tray.”

Veteran 2: “ All because of the Granny Nurses? What did they do to piss her off this time?”

Veteran 1: “I think they missed her birthday again, all she could talk about was ‘How those old b**ches couldn’t get anything right’”

Veteran 2: “Well when you have a birthday every two weeks….”

Newby: “Umm, who are the Granny Nurses?”

Veteran 2: (laughing) “We are all Granny Nurses”

Newby: “Huh?”

Veteran 1: “Look, JP has a bunch of old ladies living in her head she calls the Granny Nurses, if she starts twirling her hair and rocking back and forth, take cover- she’s fighting with the Granny Nurses.”

Veteran 2: “That’s when we all become Granny Nurses”

Veteran 1: “The only person who can calm her down when she is mad at the Granny Nurses is the ‘Biggest Fattest Granny Nurse Ever’, BUT…… she but doesn’t work until ‘tomorrow’ ”

Newby: (after doing the mental math and coming up one fat lady short on the staff roster) “I’ll get the next round”

         You just can’t spend 40-60 hours a week cleaning up after the Granny Nurses without a stronger astringent than whiskey. By far, the best medicine for insanity is a spoon full of Crazy. No, they are NOT the same thing. After the novelty of drinking wears off, meaning last call at the Chicken Bone, someone inevitably will say, “anyone in the mood for a swim?”  Framingham is blessed with a reservoir that is dissected by a train-bridge. If you happen to be driving along Route 9, at say 2:15 a.m., look across the water and you will see the silhouette of naked bodies balanced precariously along the train tracks about 8 feet above the water. They will, allegedly[2], be jumping into the water at the mid-point of said bridge. Okay, that doesn’t sound soooo crazy, but remember most of these kids are rookies. Eventually jumping naked off a bridge into ice-cold water gets boring. That’s when crazy takes a road trip into the foothills of insanity. At this point you are going to need to seek out that reliable person who is your yardstick and ask them for an honest appraisal. Of course, you already know the answer because you had to ask.

         If the person you are asking works with you………have a nice trip, we will see you both when you get back.

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[1] I’m not sure any of us really want the honest answer, if you do- you’re crazy

[2] Allegedly, because it is not strictly speaking “legal” to do this.

He Started It

   There are some things one never outgrows. For my brothers and me that thing is adolescence. This was fully on display during our New Year’s Day Skype-call between me and my twin [1].  I don’t know who started it (well technically if Mom asks, it was totally his fault-he started it honest), but somehow we ended up comparing bellies. He was making the general point that he has more of a six-pack than I do, even though there are less than two pounds difference between us. Granted his weight is dedicated to muscle, where my weight is more of the blubbery kind. So there we are in front of the cameras with our shirts pulled up arguing about this. He is winning the argument, so I call for reinforcements:

         “Hey, J. come here a second!”

Enter my thirteen year old son, who is now traumatized by the sight of identical middle aged men sucking in their stomachs trying to talk without letting their guts spill over their jeans.

“Oh my God, you’re an ape!”

“Yeah, yeah, just tell us who has got the better abs”

“Please, please tell me I’m never going to be that hairy!!!”

"J. just tell Uncle Glenn that your Dad is cut like a rock!" 

(full disclosure time, I held out five fingers off camera, indicating  how much money such a declaration might earn him [2])

"MOOOOM , the're doing it again!"

 

         There is a reason that my son can’t be bribed. It all started about eight years ago while I was wrestling with J, who was about five years old at the time. Please note that as I tell this story it is very clear WHO STARTED IT (that would be Glenn, in case you miss the subtle nuances of this tale). Uncle Glenn called just as I was doing my best Andre the Giant attacks Super Speed Boy[3] routine. I put my son in a scissor lock so I could talk to my brother. After I explain the situation to Glenn, he asks if he could talk to J. for a second. I hand the phone down to my knee-caps. J. starts to giggle and eagerly agrees with his soon to be favorite Uncle. He hands the phone back to me.  I get as far as “Wh” before J. hits me in the groin.  Rolling over in agony I could hear in one ear my son triumphantly shouting, “I win, I win, it worked!” The other ear, pressed to the phone, heard a resounding belly laugh from my brother. Thus started an alliance, against me, that can withstand the temptations of a five dollar bribe.

         Hey, D., I know you are only five, but if you can read this ask your Dad if you can call Uncle Corey. I have a really fun job for you.

        

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[1] For those of you unfamiliar with Skype, it’s a free video conferencing tool.

[2] As long as we are being that honest, I should disclose that I am about 30 lbs. past a six-pack.
[3] Five year old boys generally stink at making up cool wrestling names.

Never get between a woman and her crazy

      “You’re doing it again!”

         “What?”

         “You’re getting between a woman and her crazy”

        

My wife and I just finished reading Men are Stupid, Women are Crazy, by Howard J. Morris and Jenny Lee.  While I didn’t love the book, pieces of it have seeped into our daily conversation. Especially their prudent advice, “Never get between a woman and her crazy.” It has taken the edge off a lot of very stupid arguments when she reminds me that this is just her crazy talking. At which point I back slowly out of the room and let her and her crazy go a couple of rounds with each other.

I’m smart enough not to air out any of my wife’s crazy in public. But….I might just be stupid enough to publicly take a look at my own crazy for your entertainment. The problem with my crazy, and perhaps male crazy in general, is that I can’t see my own crazy unless I’m right in it. My wife, on the other hand, can see her crazy quite clearly. She has even seemed to make friends with it and invites it over for a drink now and then. She is the master of her crazy. Me……..not so much.

In retrospect, I should have understood that men are blind to their own crazy for a perfectly good reason; we can’t handle our Crazy. Call it brave, call it stupid, I call it brave and stupid, but I asked my wife if she could tell me a little bit about my own “Crazy”.

Here it is in order of magnitude:

Crazy #1. I’m an approval junkie. 

         “What’s so bad about that?”

         “Well”, she said as she put on the kid gloves, “when someone asks you to pick them up at the New London Ferry, which is a four hour round trip, and your back is hurting, you take a bunch of Advil and spend the rest of the week crawling on all fours.”

         “But…”

         “and even if you get the approval you wanted, you resent needing it and it’s never really is enough, the approval lift you get for even the most outrageous acts of service you do has a shelf life of about twenty minutes!”

         “Umm, where did your kid gloves go?”

         “Honey, those WERE MY KID GLOVES!”

Crazy #2 The Clean Crazy

      “Okay, I get it. What else?”

         “I’m not sure where it comes from but every three months or so you notice the place is a mess and you go crazy”

         “What do you mean?”

         “I mean Industrial Strength Crazy”

         “But……”

         “It doesn’t really bother us, we just let you vent and have a good laugh at you afterwords, except for Tweedle One- it really gets too her”

         “Ouch”

         “The funny thing is, you don’t do it all the time. Most of the time you are as bad as the kids about leaving your stuff lying around…..but once every three months or so things go Boom and you need to yell and clean. I should probably piss you off more often, I’d have a pretty clean house”

         “You know what….let’s skip number 3”

         “Oh, but the next one is so cute, you know when  you…….”

Don’t be a Fish

      It’s good advice on a lot of levels. Fish stories have been popping up everywhere I turn these days. Rather, “don’t be a fish” stories. Not that any of us aspire to be fish.

         Until a few weeks ago, I wasn’t really worried too much about how much I might emulate a fish. Then two stories came to me within days of each other.

#1 Swimming in Circles

      Micheal Meade tells an old but poignant story in his workshop “The Soul of Change” about a woman who buys a goldfish. After a few weeks she notices that the fish bowl needs to be cleaned. She does not own another bowl so she fills her bathtub with clean water to keep her new pet happy while she washes the small fish-bowl. She puts the goldfish in the tub and goes off to wash the bowl. When she comes back she notices something extraordinary. The goldfish continues to swim in circles the same size as the bowl despite the new possibilities the large tub offers.  

#2 Don’t be a fish

      A few days before I heard Swimming in Circles I taught a lesson that I had developed for a 3^rd grade classroom. Note to self; never under estimate the wisdom of 3^rd graders!

          How to begin? Let’s start with Stop,Think and Act. Our school has a prescription when it comes to dealing with conflicts that children get into. It’s a three-step procedure for when someone cuts you in line or calls you a name (NOT APPLICABLE to insults involving Mamas). Imagine “stop-drop-and roll” for dealing with the Cooties[1].  We coach kids to STOP-THINK-and ACT. I started the lesson with a discussion about the “THINK”  part.

         What does it mean to think? What are you supposed to do when “THINKING”? 3^rd graders are a very literal group, so you have to explain these kinds of things. We decided that “THINKING” is the stuff you say to yourself, an internal dialogue that we called “self-talk”. We began to make up and practice some things to say to ourselves that might help during those moments of inevitable discord. We posted index cards with sayings and drawings of “self-talk” on the front board. Most were very practical, if not original. Then there was C’s card. I read it aloud to the class: “Don’t be a stupid fish”. I love this kid, he is completely sincere in everything he does.

ME- This sounds interesting, could you tell us more about your self-talk?

C- Well, my big brother is always teasing me. He never stops!!!  I get sooooo mad at him. Then I get in trouble because I lose my temper. My mom says I’m just taking the bait…

ME- I see, don’t be a fish means don’t take the bait.

C- Don’t be a STUPID fish, it’s okay to be a smart fish, they don’t take the bait.        

There you have it. The very best career advice I have received this month:

1.     Stop swimming in circles

2.   Don’t take the bait

In short “Don’t be a STUPID fish”.

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[1] The Cooties have mutated into the “Cheese Touch” and has gone viral in our school thanks to Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

For Grandma

      My niece made the mistake of friending[1] me on Facebook. It’s a funny story. About two years ago I tried to friend her, but she told me that she had a strict policy of not friending relatives. I respected that until I received a friend request from a distant relative whom I had never met in person. After confirming this middle aged Jewish man living somewhere in Florida was actually a cousin, I checked who was on his friend list before accepting his invitation. Sure enough, there was my sixteen-year-old niece. Hmmmm……..So that’s what time it is! I gave her a good ribbing, but let it go.

         Fortunately a year later she tried to friend me, to which of course I answered that I have a strict policy of not accepting friendship invitations from self-absorbed teenage nieces. Okay, I wasn’t that mean but I did consider reporting her as a stalker. It was payback time after all. But accepting her friendship was the gift that kept on giving. She keeps on posting teen-angsty comments, practically begging for snarky comments. Take yesterday for example:

Niece’s Status: “There is a thing, formless yet complete”

My comment: “Yeah I think I drank a 5th of that last night - it was yummy”

I’m faced with a dilemma, she posted the following status today: “Treat everything you perceive as a dream”.

Must……not…….make………fun………of………niece……….ARRGGGGGG

Please, I’m open to suggestions.        

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[1] I don’t know when this became a bona fide verb, but it is so I’m using it. For you grammatical purest (yes Dad that means you) considered yourself “poned”.

Selling Yellow Snow

      My father and I used to have a phrase that let each other know that our bullshit detectors were working quite well, thank you very much. Actually, it was his phrase and, like all challenging children, I used his words against him at every opportunity.  For a few short years choruses of “Steinman, you’re selling yellow snow” signaled to both of us that one of us had started to believe our own press releases. I’m not sure who was more dogmatic, but there was certainly a lot of yellow snow selling cheap on both sides of the hydrant.

         It turns out that we were not the only ones in the business.

         Today I tried to find out if there were others like me blogging their way through a manufactured crisis. I thought a quick internet search would lead me to my tribe. How hard could it be to find a bunch of disillusioned 40 somethings self-indulgent enough to bare their souls in public?

         I typed “Life after teaching Blogs” into my search engine and came up with 20 odd come-ons for at home businesses. The gist of this seemed to be that one could get rich by convincing others that they could get rich by convincing others……. Yellow snow, with a side of desperation.  At least I wasn’t redirected to a porn site.

         After slogging through the swamp of get rich schemes, I arrived at the ghetto of irritatingly peppy life-coaches. I’m sure these well-intentioned folks have helped some people, but I couldn’t stomach the fluff and what felt like frivolous and artificial encouragements.  I came across marketing schemes that struck me as over zealous such as “Wish Craft” and the more seductive “Passion Catalyst”[1].  I’m not making this up- this is a real training package to get your career going, although I don’t recommend typing this into your search engine while your wife and three daughters are in the room.

         Can anyone out there point to a good resource, with practical information on what options teachers have beyond the classroom?

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[1] With apologies to Barbara Sher and Curt Rosengren, whom I’m sure are wonderful and creative people- who have undoubtedly helped their clientele.