Addendum.

At the second and last day of training:

1) When a sign of psychosis was said to be "odd thoughts", the trainer was like, "Though not like we want to discourage anyone from having odd thoughts," and at that someone from the audience piped up, "Why would we!?!?".

2) For an auditory hallucinations exercise, we broke into groups of 3.  Two people just had a conversation, and one person rolled up a piece of paper and spoke into someone's ear phrases like "You're no good", "Why is she talking to you?", and "Can you trust her? You can't trust anyone."

Then, we all talked together about what it was like to try to keep up a conversation while hearing voices (many found it stressful and distracting) or to talk to someone who was hearing voices (many found that the person's mind seemed to be elsewhere, and that they had to repeat things a lot).

3) Someone asked if voices in people's heads only ever said bad things, or if they said good things on occasion, and at that we joked that voices would say "You look great!", or "Everyone loves you!".

Then, the trainer told a story of how she worked in a homeless shelter in the city, and one woman preferred to be alone with the voices in her head.

"She had been terribly abused throughout the course of her entire life, and she knew the voices, the different characters, how they treated her," the trainer was like.  "They were the only people that she could depend on."

At that, the room was silent.

Then, she was like, "She thought they were angels."

After even a longer pause at which everyone stared in awe at the trainer and her story, one staffer murmured, "That's lovely."

4) After the eating episodes unit had just concluded, I mentioned the BBC show "Supersize vs Superskinny" to my group, and the head of the photography department made a note on her iPhone to watch it.

Mental Health Training.

The art school is starting to offer a 2 day / 12 hour certification program of “Mental Health First Aid’ training, in order that people who suspect that someone has a mental health problem learn how to productively interact with that person and get help for them, if needed.

I signed up right away, since it’s not only something that I’d like to know, but it’s an easy way to get to know more faculty and staff at the art school and an easy line too on my CV, and might even leap off the page at someone at some other school when I go apply for jobs later on (you never know how those things are).

Training was good – some photography faculty, some academic advisors, some admin and IT and facilities people (facilities people interact with students a lot, esp. in helping to set up and break down exhibitions).

Three highlights:

1) When at first generally discussing substance abuse, someone wanted to know how much was too much, and one (younger) (black) (female) IT person was like, “In moderation, it’s like fried chicken, you know, some is good sometime, but if it’s all you’re eating everyday, then you’re in trouble.”

2) When at the beginning of the depression unit we were asked what we thought about this Powerpoint photo of an older unkempt (white) woman with a blank stare looking out through a rain-covered window, one of the photography profs – this shorter transgender (white) male with a very forward personality – was like, “You mean as an image?”, and everyone laughed.

3) For a true-false exercise on self-mutilation, the presentation coordinator would read out a statement, and everyone would have to say whether they thought that statement was true or false. 

“Mutilation is always harm,” she was like.

“False!”, said the one photography prof sitting next to me – an (older) (white) woman in her 60s with shoulder-length curly white hair and a simple tribal tattoo encircling her left wrist.  “Body modification.” 

Then, she said that many students proposed self-mutilation as parts of their projects, and they almost always got shot down by the school review board.

“Good point,” someone was like.

Then, at the slight ensuing pause, I raised my hand a bit and was like, “BDSM,”  and at that everyone turned their heads to me, pursed their lips, and nodded approvingly, and then the presentation coordinator leapt in to say that that was all correct, and that on top of that mutilation like cutting could sometimes serve a useful function for the mutilator, in that it served like self-medication and could alleviate otherwise dangerous and disabling feelings like severe anxiety.

. . .

Dream of an Experimental Play.

Last month I dreamed that I went by myself to this experimental play that was in a huge theater like a Vatican II-ish church (maybe the playhouse regularly was a church?), where there was seating all around and lots of natural light but a small temporary raised stage in the center in the middle of chairs set up in semi-circular ascending rows on top of blue-gray industrial carpeting everywhere you looked.

I had sat down and was reading the program, and then got up to go to the restroom one more time before the play started, and as I passed the ticket table, who I do run in to but the one gregarious M.Div. from my program who I hang out with on occasion, who was a bit late and running in just under the wire before the play started.

After I had taken my piss, the play hadn’t started yet, so I went a few rows over to talk to her since she had come by herself too, and the audience was a bit restive and many people were talking with each other since the play hadn’t started yet, including several (younger) (white) men up in front who were leaning on the stage.

As we talk, the audience quiets down, but the (younger) (white) men leaning against the front of the stage continue talking and you can overhear the words a bit, and all of a sudden me and my one gregarious M.Div. friend realize that we’re being disruptive, that those guys talking are actually part of the play, and not only had we not noticed and not caught what they were saying, but we were preventing the people around us from listening too.

Public Transportation Re-route.

Because of a big subway expansion/repair project that the city is undertaking, part of the subway line that I take to change to a bus to get to school is shut down through fall, and is instead re-routed through tracks of another line that lie on the other side of a huge city park from campus.

(That stop is closer to school, but it’s not worth the time to change subway lines to get off at that stop, since that would be 2 transfers – subway to subway to bus – instead of just 1 transfer – subway to bus – even though that bus stop with the 1 transfer is located a bit farther away; it’s just quicker to hop on the bus there and sit through the extra blocks, than risk getting delayed in multiple transfers in order to get to a bus stop a bit closer to campus.)

Because that stop on the other side of the park from campus has been turned into a huge temporary transportation center, there’s always lots of cops and traffic controllers around at all times of day, and people from campus have taken to walking across the park to use that stop, even though it’s right where a poorer (black) neighborhood starts and sometimes groups of (black) bums hang out near a liquor store.

The other afternoon when I was walking across the park to campus, I was chit-chatting with a (black) nurse from the university hospital system about how nice it is to walk to that stop instead of waiting for a bus to take you across the park.

“They should have that many cops out all the time, to make it safe to walk there normally,” I was like.

She agreed, and said it was good to get the exercise, plus the free entrance at that one stop terminal (a concession the city transportation system made, since it messed up so many people’s normal routes).

I agreed to that too, and then was like, “This really is a beautiful park, and it’s all a safe walk, except for that last stretch.”

“Umm-hmmm,” she was like, “Though it is good if you need loose cigarettes!”, and then she laughed a loud happy laugh.

Guys at the Gym.

My one hippie-ish/backwoodsman-ish colleague from school was saying that when he was changing at the university gym the other day, the guy down the bench from him had these *gigantic* testicles the size of plums that were pendulously hanging a little bit down his legs, they were weighing down his ballsack that much.

“After I got done changing and turned around,” he was like, “The guy was putting this big brown robe on!  The dude was a monk!”

Then, he was like, “I wonder if his balls are that big since he can’t jack and they’re full of jizz.  Really, they were totally like the size of plums, his balls were that huge.”

Then, he added again, “I wonder if all monks’s balls are like that.”

. . .

(It seems that a few of the Franciscans from the local community in the university neighborhood must use the university gym...)

Two (Three?) Outdoor Classical Music Festival People:

1) The one usher lady who I know from previous years (“Conchita”) told me that she’ll sneak me into seats farther forward, if a new seating policy goes into effect and more seats are reserved for season ticket holders.

2) (and 3]?) This slouched over, bald (white) older gentleman in handicapped seating in the row in front of me who was using a walker and wearing this cute little black suit had this gigantic program with the name of the first piece on it, which I thought was nice for the festival to provide him with, since he must have been visually impaired but wanting to read the program. 

Then, between the 1^st and 2^nd pieces, the wife of the (white) (hippy) couple next to me (who had said she loves to people watch) whispered, “Did you see that old man with the score?  I wonder who he is.”

As it turns out, the gigantic program the elderly gentleman had wasn’t a festival program for the visually impaired, but a score that he was following along with as the orchestra played.

He did that for each piece attentively, except for the last cantata, where he set down the score for the last few pages so he could listen to the “big finish”, then he jumped to his feet and clapped.

Church Festival -> Dip in the Lake.

The other week I was talking with my one neighbor in my apartment building who always sits outside and stoops during the summer, and he was saying he always wanted to try out this Greek festival at a local orthodox church.

So, since the next day was his day off and I could meet him for a late lunch, we met up there a little after 2pm, and paid like $10 each for a homemade dinner – him, a hunk of roast pig, and me, 2 sticks of pork souvlaki, each with rice and chunks of cucumber, tomato, and feta cheese.

I wolfed mine down, and since he couldn’t finish his, I picked fatty pig meat off the joint bone and then ate his remaining rice and salad as well.

Later that day I was meeting my one hippy friend from Michigan for a beach day, so I suntanned and did word puzzles till she got off of work, then hung out with her and talked till finally I got so hot, I had to jump in the lake, which was megacold.

After getting in and then right back out, I started to feel a bit of a queasy feeling in my stomach, as I made my way back to where she was sitting.  I tried to ignore it at first, but then I realized that I really, really had to go to the bathroom, so I took off at a quick pace to this beautiful nearby park building where weddings go on, but there’s also public bathrooms at one side. 

I ran the last 5 yards, ducked into the bathroom past some wedding guests, ran into a stall, and as soon as my ass touched the toilet seat I let go and just shit this huge liquidy brown load, which was thick and juicy and undifferentiated and sat even with the toiletwater surface in this big glob in the middle of the toilet bowl, all while a couple groomsmen were taking a piss at the nearby urinal.

There is no way they could not have heard that gush of ass liquid hitting the toiletwater.

I think it was the fatty souvlaki and pigmeat from earlier in the day, then the cold water giving me a shock to my system.