uneasy sleep
I have been sleeping somewhat badly all week. I wake up after a few hours and take an hour or so to get back to sleep and then wake up early for whatever...it's not *awful*, per se, but I am operating on a kind of semi-benign sleep-debt that seems to be hovering. When will it land, when will it fall? Things on my mind:
I am meeting with the Resarch Director of a large victim's services agency on Thursday. They operate many programs for victims of violence in NYC, one of which is a Street Outreach program for homeless youth. I know about this program b/c one of my classmates in the PhD program, a brilliant but conflict-minded Marxist, has worked there for several years. I had set up this idea that for my Program Development class I would do a comparative case study of agencies who are implementing trauma-informed care programs, partly as a way of developing a sense of what agencies are around and which I might like to partner with to do research.
In conversation with Marxist in class, he talked about the trauma-informed program they'd instituted at his shelter. I asked if he could hook me up with somebody to talk about it at the agency, and he was like: "We were trying to get somebody to do an evaluation project on this, let me investigate."
I have been telling people that what I'd ideally like to research is how trauma-informed care is implemented with young people in a setting where the trauma isn't central. So if this turns out to be a good match Thursday, I may have built the relationship that my dissertation research will stem from. I would propose a pilot study and plan/IRB it this summer, Execute it over the next academic year, and then use it as my 2nd Exam, and build on it for Dissertation. So that has me excited/anxious. But it does potentially answer the semi-rhetorical question I've been asking for a while: "Who's gonna give me a bunch of vulnerable, traumatized young people to poke around with?"
I have also had two very vivid, brief, *specific* dreams. I had a dream where I met someone in the back of a big van that was parked on Madison Avenue by Central Park -- right next to the Hospital where I used to work. The person I met with was the transman who set the chain of events in motion at the Hospital 2 years ago. We did that "hey, we haven't talked in a while and this is awkward," conversation, and it was pleasant enough, and then I made a comment that directly referenced his role in the situation and he got angry in a "this will only work if we pretend that encounter didn't happen kind of way." I woke up, 'stirred' but not really upset. It was kind of like playing out the least 'dreamy' dream ever: other than the location, it was precisely how I imagine that conversation would go.
The other dream I was on some kind of trip at a very futuristic museum or amusement park type thing -- there was some kind of big 'event' space in the center and then the outside was a very large lobby, circular, with these dark glass windows in front of the tellers where you would ask for a ticket and then get it, and go inside to whatever (In the dream I think I knew, but now I forget what). In my dream, the ticket taker called me a faggot, as in, "Here's your two tickets, faggot." I was angry in the dream, and the ticket person (who I could not see because of the glass) clearly knew they had 'erred' and I made a big fuss about it and talked to a supervisor. And that was that.
The dreams couldn't be more mysterious. I have been having Sinai thoughts because a former employee emailed me to get my signature on something and did a strange dance of "I meant to email you but I misspelled your email and so thought you didn't respond" and only now (2 years later) is reaching out. She did some kind of BS thing in the past around "I think it's most professional for us not to speak," which -- well, maybe a topic for another time -- but clearly that stirred up those feelings. I think the recent debates about Gay Marriage and sort of the underlying deep entitlement and homophobia around "My right to not be confronted with the reality of people and identities that make me uncomfortable," has me almost *wishing* I could have an argument with somebody who would just offer up a slur.
More annoyingly, Radish has another UTI. We came home late close together on Thursday and unexpectedly Radish peed the bed (after I got home), and then later there was bloody pee around the litterbox, and so we had a long night of in-and-out of litterbox, plaintive mew, then droplets here and there. His protest pee (very unlike him) once we closed off the bedroom was on the couch -- I generally feel like he wants our 'support' in his discomfort or something. We did our vet Friday morning and miraculously, they expressed a ton of urine (normally Radish's tiny bladder is a no-go for this stuff), and gave him a shot of the antibiotic that worked for his UTI 2 years ago. But through the weekend he's been restive and if we leave the bedroom open he'll do a quick squirt on the bed, so there's that to keep me edgy.
I leave the clinic 5/15, and though there are a few leads, I don't have any actual clients lined up! What an adventure. That has me antsy too. But I do know that there is a 'good' antsy, the unease of possibility. So I'm keeping my eye on that.
I am meeting with the Resarch Director of a large victim's services agency on Thursday. They operate many programs for victims of violence in NYC, one of which is a Street Outreach program for homeless youth. I know about this program b/c one of my classmates in the PhD program, a brilliant but conflict-minded Marxist, has worked there for several years. I had set up this idea that for my Program Development class I would do a comparative case study of agencies who are implementing trauma-informed care programs, partly as a way of developing a sense of what agencies are around and which I might like to partner with to do research.
In conversation with Marxist in class, he talked about the trauma-informed program they'd instituted at his shelter. I asked if he could hook me up with somebody to talk about it at the agency, and he was like: "We were trying to get somebody to do an evaluation project on this, let me investigate."
I have been telling people that what I'd ideally like to research is how trauma-informed care is implemented with young people in a setting where the trauma isn't central. So if this turns out to be a good match Thursday, I may have built the relationship that my dissertation research will stem from. I would propose a pilot study and plan/IRB it this summer, Execute it over the next academic year, and then use it as my 2nd Exam, and build on it for Dissertation. So that has me excited/anxious. But it does potentially answer the semi-rhetorical question I've been asking for a while: "Who's gonna give me a bunch of vulnerable, traumatized young people to poke around with?"
I have also had two very vivid, brief, *specific* dreams. I had a dream where I met someone in the back of a big van that was parked on Madison Avenue by Central Park -- right next to the Hospital where I used to work. The person I met with was the transman who set the chain of events in motion at the Hospital 2 years ago. We did that "hey, we haven't talked in a while and this is awkward," conversation, and it was pleasant enough, and then I made a comment that directly referenced his role in the situation and he got angry in a "this will only work if we pretend that encounter didn't happen kind of way." I woke up, 'stirred' but not really upset. It was kind of like playing out the least 'dreamy' dream ever: other than the location, it was precisely how I imagine that conversation would go.
The other dream I was on some kind of trip at a very futuristic museum or amusement park type thing -- there was some kind of big 'event' space in the center and then the outside was a very large lobby, circular, with these dark glass windows in front of the tellers where you would ask for a ticket and then get it, and go inside to whatever (In the dream I think I knew, but now I forget what). In my dream, the ticket taker called me a faggot, as in, "Here's your two tickets, faggot." I was angry in the dream, and the ticket person (who I could not see because of the glass) clearly knew they had 'erred' and I made a big fuss about it and talked to a supervisor. And that was that.
The dreams couldn't be more mysterious. I have been having Sinai thoughts because a former employee emailed me to get my signature on something and did a strange dance of "I meant to email you but I misspelled your email and so thought you didn't respond" and only now (2 years later) is reaching out. She did some kind of BS thing in the past around "I think it's most professional for us not to speak," which -- well, maybe a topic for another time -- but clearly that stirred up those feelings. I think the recent debates about Gay Marriage and sort of the underlying deep entitlement and homophobia around "My right to not be confronted with the reality of people and identities that make me uncomfortable," has me almost *wishing* I could have an argument with somebody who would just offer up a slur.
More annoyingly, Radish has another UTI. We came home late close together on Thursday and unexpectedly Radish peed the bed (after I got home), and then later there was bloody pee around the litterbox, and so we had a long night of in-and-out of litterbox, plaintive mew, then droplets here and there. His protest pee (very unlike him) once we closed off the bedroom was on the couch -- I generally feel like he wants our 'support' in his discomfort or something. We did our vet Friday morning and miraculously, they expressed a ton of urine (normally Radish's tiny bladder is a no-go for this stuff), and gave him a shot of the antibiotic that worked for his UTI 2 years ago. But through the weekend he's been restive and if we leave the bedroom open he'll do a quick squirt on the bed, so there's that to keep me edgy.
I leave the clinic 5/15, and though there are a few leads, I don't have any actual clients lined up! What an adventure. That has me antsy too. But I do know that there is a 'good' antsy, the unease of possibility. So I'm keeping my eye on that.