tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18556458302768807552012-02-01T21:39:50.898-05:00A Blog of Flash Fiction, Micro-Memoir, Quirks, Quarks, Tiny Tales, One-Word Stories, Poems, Mental Illness Book Reviews, and an Abundance of Miscellaneous Complaints about Nuclear Power Plants, Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, OCD, Psychotherapy, Mothering, Health Care, Social Injustice and the Holocaust. Not to Mention Work.The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.comBlogger8331100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-51926494915512871332012-01-31T19:58:00.000-05:002012-02-01T08:53:32.011-05:00

I have always been a therapist who accepts insurance. This means I can't charge as much as providers who don't take insurance, who can charge two or three times as much as I do.  This is a choice providers make, whether or not to apply to be part of an insurance network and accept their low fees. I have mostly worked at salaried jobs in institutions that accept all insurances. But even when in

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-24234509425058444952012-01-29T09:01:00.001-05:002012-01-31T19:13:47.742-05:00

This does not bode well for my personality, my constant need to complain on my blog on the weekends after listening selflessly to patient complaints at work all week. I am trying to stop, to be more positive, but I think I'm addicted to the negative. I used to have a friend who was very nice. So nice that she remembered everyone's birthdays. I mean everyone's. I never remember birthdays, except

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-21443093164921236342012-01-28T12:07:00.000-05:002012-01-28T12:07:03.393-05:00

We raised Chucky from infancy, which seemed to tamp down his natural ground hog aggression. It had been the middle of an April night, and I awoke  to a commotion around the giant skylight above our bed. An entire ground hog family was watching us sleep. I thought I was dreaming. But in the morning I found Chucky curled up at the base of the house. He must have lost his footing and slid down the

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-24462917129444291642012-01-27T19:44:00.001-05:002012-01-27T20:11:31.761-05:00

Girls have never had any trouble being mean. Even back when they were all considered nice and sweet and polite, they could backstab each other under their breath with the most vituperative hurtful viciousness. Yet somehow, after the feminist movement, it became fashionable to encourage little girls to speak up, as if they had never before had anything to say.  In fact, girls have always had a

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-11083417090840616942012-01-25T16:35:00.001-05:002012-01-25T17:02:41.498-05:00

It has been brought to our attention that we have been publishing too many complaints. No one wants to hear complaints. That's why you have to pay a therapist hundreds of dollars to listen to your complaints. That's why therapists steal glimpses at the clock and suppress yawns. Complaints are negative. They are whiney and draining. They bore people and make them want to flee into another state.

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-14757027417291817142012-01-25T15:58:00.000-05:002012-01-25T15:59:19.744-05:00

http://youtu.be/SKVcQnyEIT8

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-11834365906633720892012-01-25T09:55:00.002-05:002012-01-25T10:59:53.087-05:00

Once upon a time I completed half of a low-residency MFA program which in reality more accurately resembled the Correspondence Writing Schools on the back of cereal packages. It was one of the best programs in the country. A lot of people liked it. It made me crazy, literally. The interpersonal dynamics among the staff was worse than any dysfunctional family I've treated in therapy. As if in

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-16072050623120015932012-01-23T13:01:00.002-05:002012-01-23T14:16:06.419-05:00

Ryder had been considering suicide for years, and now with Rachel and the kids gone, there really was no reason left to live. He resented Rachel, but he he didn't want to hurt the kids. Matt would take it the worst. A senior in high school, he was devastated by the divorce. Ryder felt evil, doing this to his children. He remembered when his father did it to him. Shot himself. But the worst part

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-50892290866578198752012-01-22T18:01:00.000-05:002012-01-22T21:41:22.003-05:00

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-68635388419078606662012-01-22T08:36:00.000-05:002012-01-22T21:39:52.057-05:00

The single most powerful prevention of suicide in my Catholic patients is their belief that if you kill yourself you go straight to Hell. No matter how bad their lives, they figure it's not as bad as hell. This applies to the most lapsed of Catholics. I ask the question I ask all day at work: "Do you ever think about suicide?" And the answer from this group is always, "I don't want to go to hell.

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-46667119105382861152012-01-21T16:04:00.000-05:002012-01-21T16:04:23.391-05:00

"Yeah, I know, I've been getting into some trouble in school and at home but one thing you should know about me is that I never lie. You'll get the whole truth from me, the whole story. Sometimes it's truth people don't want to hear like my father who is a way too strict hardass. Sometimes it's about how boring a class is and that makes the teachers mad. With girls, I only tell the good truths. I

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-66408847765150732762012-01-21T08:40:00.001-05:002012-01-21T13:58:10.984-05:00

It has come to our attention that employees have been downloading search engines other than Microsoft Explorer, leading to gremlin-like appearances of Google Chrome eating up our confidential hospital programs like pac-men and making them inaccessible. One employee reported downloading Chrome while using her blog which is also a forbidden activity at work. Her computer had to be shut down for

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-71694555339074040762012-01-21T08:33:00.001-05:002012-01-21T10:24:50.206-05:00

My father is dying of lung cancer. A non-smoker, they never found the source. It's touch and go. No sympathy comments please. I don't know if I care. I don't want to care. I want to hold onto my resentment towards him for disowning me when my children were little for marrying a non-Jew. I resented he stole grandparents from my children, that he doted on his other grandchildren and treated mine

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-17750684704877681272012-01-20T16:38:00.002-05:002012-01-20T22:53:10.413-05:00

It was early in my psychological training and I worked in the outpatient department of a children's hospital, but also worked part-time consulting to the medical units under the supervision of Jan. She was an overweight, pock-marked, greasy-haired, depressed-looking Texan who despised me. She looked very serious and concerned when I presented my cases, acting constantly alarmed at all the

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-68667048531167757662012-01-19T17:21:00.001-05:002012-01-19T18:58:02.046-05:00

For Poe Industries Health Care to provide the highest quality service to our patients, it is essential that each of us remain focused and mindful as we perform our daily responsibilities.  That is why several recent reports of innapropriate texting and cell phone use by surgeons during surgery are so concerning. Distractions such as these are unsafe, undermine the quality of our work, and send a

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-12058749290830992682012-01-17T02:53:00.000-05:002012-01-17T04:24:50.099-05:00

This is one of the most useful articles I have read explaining the reality of living with bipolar disorder and why the disorder is so extremely variable in different people. Typically, people think of bipolar disorder as manic depressive illness, with crazy highs and crashing lows. But our emotions are much more complex than that. For example, someone may have varying episodes of high energy,

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-381470121974774502012-01-17T00:35:00.001-05:002012-01-17T00:40:19.897-05:00

People think I'm joking when I say I write a letter to the president every day. I feel it is my duty and a fine exercise of my freedom of speech. It is also a pathetic waste of time as it is clear none of my letters get read. I think of escalating the issues to get attention, but then I worry, being bipolar, my judgement over what would be appropriate escalation could get me involved with the FBI

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-35208452988092403162012-01-16T17:14:00.001-05:002012-01-16T17:36:41.968-05:00

I wasn't always a rebel. In fact, perfect behavior was my goal for many years. Until things started to mess up my brain and I started to see hypocrisy everywhere and I decided it was all fake, all of it. The religion, the God, the delusion that God actually cared about the Jews he sent to concentration camps to suffer and die. What a joke! That's what you do to your favorite people on the planet

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-5140176328182811252012-01-15T09:58:00.000-05:002012-01-15T10:21:03.527-05:00

Today's New York Times has an article about the sexism in Israel among the Haredim Jews, those Ultra-Orthodox including Hassidim, who recently gave an award to a woman pediatrician for her research on Jewish genetic diseases, but made her husband accept the prize for her because, being female, she was contaminated. The Haredim Jews are increasingly monopolozing the Israeli government and way of

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-65442730802086451872012-01-13T14:41:00.001-05:002012-01-13T14:41:48.513-05:00

I've nothing to say. One by one I call people into my office and I ask them what they want from me. A flood of requests and troubles and wrongs that need to be righted and stories of miserable children burst forth like a broken dam. And I sit there, a quiet Buddha, playing with the stone necklace I made last night. I make one every night, often redoing the same one over and over. And I play with

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-6325327909007185132012-01-12T18:44:00.000-05:002012-01-12T18:44:18.171-05:00

The simplest, most direct book on OCD puts total emphasis on a self-help program that takes enormous motivation to comply with. Methods suggested include cognitive-behavioral self-talk regarding irrationality of obsessions, altering images that provoke distress, tackling feared consequences of not ritualizing by accepting that obsessions are irrational, and allowing oneself worry time twice a

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-65612791486086883502012-01-03T09:40:00.001-05:002012-01-12T16:39:08.951-05:00

I'm so lucky to have experienced so much psychopathology in my lifetime that it makes it that much easier to be a psychotherapist.  Though OCD is something I have lived with on a minor scale, it has been enough to know how to help those with much more serious versions of the disorder. Among family members, OCD is a way of life in the practices of fundamentalist Judaism that gave me the

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-37359878784087458092012-01-03T09:38:00.002-05:002012-01-03T12:15:48.998-05:00

Panic Disorder can be a problem by itself, or it can be one aspect of a broader disorder.  For me, it was part of the secondary post-traumatic stress disorder I inherited from my Holocaust Survivor parents.  My first attack occurred when I was about seven and went to the bathroom in Hebrew School. As soon as I entered, I felt strange and there was a strong chlorine smell. The bare light bulb

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-48135140405843691752012-01-03T09:31:00.000-05:002012-01-03T13:48:42.788-05:00

Don't Panic is the best book for people who suffer from panic attacks. In addition to a cognitive-behavioral approach, it addresses changing the biological aspects of a panic attack.  Apparently, the attacks are a physiological response to chronic hyperventilation, shallow, rapid breathing that leads to the fight or flight response. The author instructs the reader in how to change to deep

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-86330067192288971802012-01-02T23:55:00.000-05:002012-01-12T16:40:39.122-05:00

All behavioral programs for OCD are similar, with different emphases such as the emphasis on Foa's program on the inclusion of Imaginal Exposure, it being a well known fact of hypnotic preparation for a new behavior leading to far greater success at that behavior. Practicing a new coping skill in your imagination can be more powerful than practicing it in reality. Ritual monitoring raises your

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-9969999862647780472012-01-02T17:51:00.001-05:002012-01-03T09:35:18.940-05:00

Highlights: Self-Monitoring: Ritual Impulses and time spent focusing on fear of causing harm. Continue to list time spent on rituals. Increase distress experience as decrease time on, say, hand washing rituals meant to decrease anxiety. List of Obsessive situations and SUDS level of discomfort. Start by eliminating SUDS behavioral discomfort at 4-6. Start exposures and response prevention

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-48334929569534854222012-01-01T11:58:00.001-05:002012-01-02T00:32:54.440-05:00

After writing several nasty and true posts about my relationship with my sister, I decided it was time to make up with her even if I never see her again (which is possible).  I have always had a mean streak towards people who hurt me and make me angry. I can get quite vicious.  But I tend to also be very forgiving. It just takes awhile. I think I've been focused on all the mean things done to me

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-76017831785600180592011-12-31T19:17:00.001-05:002011-12-31T19:23:53.049-05:00

We're just starting to use the potty, aren't we? We know it's a little late, but we're getting the hang of it, only a few accidents, and we are very, very proud of ourselves. We're wearing Big Boy underpants during the day and pull-ups at night, since we aren't night-trained yet. That's the next step. It's taken this long because we are just a little bit stubborn, like our dad. We still throw

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-9756866488150311982011-12-25T13:55:00.003-05:002011-12-31T04:31:11.146-05:00

Subject: Oral Report on Being Albert Einstein in grade school. My son was obsessed with being Einstein that year.  The year before he was obsessed with being Darwin. ALBERT EINSTEIN BIOGRAPHY I was born in 1879 in Germany. I was glad to come home from school each day to the one person who actually understood me, my uncle Jakob. He taught me physics and mathematics which were

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-83579850157666105392011-12-24T11:19:00.000-05:002011-12-24T11:38:22.728-05:00

It turns out that I've been very sick, my Lithium levels at toxic highs and damaging to kidneys, as a result of medication mixtures of Ibuprophen and dehydration. I've taken some time off from work and my boss and work place have been extremely supportive.  I'm hoping to go back to work the end of next week. I want to try to keep working. I'm afraid of not working. I don't know what I would do

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-15453260244498981882011-12-15T23:25:00.000-05:002011-12-18T16:02:22.050-05:00

I'm sick of working and especially working in a health care system that is only getting worse, where nepotism reigns and the ones there long enough get the best benefits, the most time off. I am completey exhausted. The ones there the longest are conceited about their longevity. I am taking more and  more time of as I get wearier and wearier. I want to do more with my life than psychotherapy

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-76806017289745744412011-12-14T16:37:00.000-05:002011-12-22T13:29:12.261-05:00

This has been a very bad week. My husband has been in Paris and I'm happy for him so I didn't let on the difficulties I was having just functioning in an inane hospital system that is doing everything it can to make employees want to quit. I keep telling my husband to figure out if I can afford to quit. The energy sink at work is miserable. It's not necessary. There is an element of sadism to the

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-2243344356725449372011-12-14T11:54:00.001-05:002011-12-20T08:41:02.529-05:00

One of my favorite horror-reality shows is "Hoarders." The whole subject was first introduced to me by a hoarding patient. Only gradually did she reveal the extent of her hoarding: the fact that her bed was too full in computers for anything else. She slept on the floor. All her clothes were in piles. Her refrigerator was dead and full of bugs. She had the universal problem of hoarders, the

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-13440538979712852832011-12-14T02:17:00.001-05:002012-01-02T00:32:36.101-05:00

Marsha LinehanDBT: In an Emergency to Tolerate Distress 1. DO THE OPPOSITE BEHAVIOR. Engage in an opposite activity. Do the opposite of what you feel like doing. If you feel like screaming at the kids, take a bath or walk the dog. Road rage? Pull over. So depressed you want to stay in bed? Stick your feet in sneakers and walk around the block looking like crap. An urge to compulsively shop?

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-63745887331292663102011-12-13T14:26:00.002-05:002011-12-14T02:03:37.314-05:00

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy ( CBT) emphasizes how changing our thoughts can change our emotions, how changing our behaviors can change our thoughts or how changing our emotions can change behaviors. For example, thinking more rationally or moderately in response to extreme thoughts can calm one down. Feeling depressed in bed can change depression by forcing oneself to go for a walk or the gym.

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-59954734438533273382011-12-13T14:24:00.000-05:002012-01-03T13:49:20.350-05:00

Connecting with the Breath by Jack Kornfield (The first of six meditations on the Beginner's Meditation CD) Find a way to sit that is comfortable, stable, and grounded, still to quiet the mind. All your back should be straight and breath open and easy. First universal exercise is with the breath. Allow your eyes to close gently close. Allow your awareness to come to the present, sensations,

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-68283149314142382962011-12-13T14:13:00.000-05:002011-12-14T19:32:40.899-05:00

In 1955 psychologist Albert Ellis developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy the first type of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that made a leap from the psychodynamics of Freud and Jung. It led to two other major therapies: Exposure and Response Prevention involving Systematic Desensitization for eliminating the Phobias and Rituals of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Edna Foa and Gail Steketee,  as

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-15244101672719320142011-12-12T18:31:00.000-05:002012-01-03T13:50:11.060-05:00

The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (1886) (translated from Russian by Aylmer Maude) Somewhere on the Internet, I read a reviewer suggesting that all his friends read The Death of Ivan Ilych at least once every year, to help keep life’s priorities in proper perspective. It is certainly a sobering portrayal of a dying man who realizes he has wasted his life while achieving professional

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-59685019495945415262011-12-11T11:48:00.001-05:002011-12-14T02:12:46.260-05:00

This is a very basic outline list of the DBT skills for convenient reference. For a complete list see later. Learning to be mindful, to focus, to breathe in various ways will help make the application of the modules be more effective. It is paramount to your success in reducing stress and coping. Remember: Sometimes the skills will not work. This is when you need to quickly go to the

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-80612370328039162832011-12-10T13:49:00.001-05:002012-01-25T15:48:27.429-05:00

THINKING ERRORS Overgeneralizing: You interpret an isolated current situation in terms of always and never Mind reading: You automatically assume others are reacting negatively to you with no evidence. Catastrophizing: You automatically assume the worst possible outcome. Magnification: You blow out of proportion problems and your shortcomings. Should and must: You assume things

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-21002335100892127172011-12-10T11:21:00.001-05:002011-12-11T19:11:14.122-05:00

ASSERTIVENESS FOR THE MEEK AND MIGHTY: PERFECT YOUR BALANCE OF SELF-EXPRESSION AND CONNECTION If there is one thing someone with a mental illness needs, it's loyal friends and a loving support system. More often, mental illness can alienate people and isolate them from others. But in trying to keep friendships going, this doesn't mean you have to do every favor that is asked of you. It's

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-86097731655983238682011-12-10T11:11:00.001-05:002011-12-10T21:09:40.938-05:00

What You and Your Family Need to Know (Second Edition) by David J. Miklowitz Educating an individual about her mental illness is an essential first empowering step in treatment. Getting the correct diagnosis is the hardest part. It has taken many people decades, especially since, in the past, only the most extreme cycling between mania and depressions was considered bipolar. Now

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-36007009052124312462011-12-06T08:37:00.001-05:002011-12-09T02:23:18.533-05:00

Mitt Romney is worth about a quarter of a billion dollars mainly earned on Wall Street according to the Boston Globe. His plans for reducing the deficit are vague and involve inflicting certain misery on the poor and the middle class, the man from Belmont MA. who saved on his own landscaping expenses by hiring illegal aliens for all to see as we passed our Governor's Mansion driving our kids to

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-4810182550125403162011-11-30T17:21:00.001-05:002011-11-30T23:13:03.806-05:00

I was just minding my own business food shopping and see a little four-year-old tooling around stuffing plastic bags into a plastic food container, giving names to his various groceries. He was mesmerizing, so involved in his work like a miniature store clerk. Suddenly, it's like there is no one else in the crowded store but the two of us and he looks up at me and asks "So WHO are YOU?" like I'm

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-43411805091384152712011-11-30T02:48:00.001-05:002011-11-30T08:24:29.750-05:00

The SUDS scale is a subjective measuring device developed to communicate specific levels of distress in a variety of areas to a therapist from a patient.  Prior to coming up with this simple tool, therapists were often stuck getting answers like "OK" and "completely miserable" to questions about moods with no way of comparing moods from session to session. In helping patients with OCD develop a

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-80514042570437381932011-11-28T21:41:00.001-05:002011-11-30T01:18:05.314-05:00

Let's tell it like it is: Obama is milking his constinuency of private not-rich, non-corporate citizens for 5$ to 25$ each week that his campaign quarters send me their  cheery newsy emails putting financial pressure on me to get the chance to vote for a candidate I respect which I should be able to do FOR FREE. Obama is far from the perfect candidate. When it comes to nuclear energy policy he is

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-21391206339738753792011-11-28T06:21:00.001-05:002011-11-30T01:19:16.530-05:00

The problem with it is that you get all your bad out, but you are left with a tremendous sense of vulnerability and shame, which is why we normally shut up about our hateful feelings and keep them to ourselves. So out goes the sigh of relief and in comes the misery of too much self-revelation. I expect this to be a very, very quiet week blogwise. I have about fifty charts I must do. And I'm going

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-31541140258178584082011-11-25T21:49:00.001-05:002011-12-02T08:55:23.201-05:00

I carry within me a deep hatred that I attribute to the Holocaust. I remember as a young child spending days alone wandering our farm feeling this intense hatred that was so deeply physical yet so immensely abstract towards all of the people who had taken away my parents' families and made them so sad. I remember as an adolescent getting into tiffs with my girlfriends with the same intensity of

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-84182054482144034932011-11-25T17:16:00.001-05:002011-11-30T01:29:12.173-05:00

Obama has combined his concern for jobs and the environment by offering subsidies to Toyota to design a fuel-efficient minivan by 2016 depending solely on nuclear power. "It really made sense given the proximity of Toyota headquarters to a ready-made fuel source, the core meltdown at Fukushima," said the president. Toyota Motor Corporation is a multi-national automaker headquartered in Aichi,

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-63963019327136933032011-11-24T18:48:00.001-05:002011-11-25T20:49:56.478-05:00

She never arrived at work. A note was found in the form of colorful alphabet magnets on the refrigerator spelling "Enough." A basket of dirty laundry sat on the dryer, the washer half-filled with sports socks, a bottle of bleach tipped over on the edge and leaking. Twelve bags of groceries sat in the middle of the kitchen floor, unemptied, frozen food melting. The dog sat in the corner,

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-37579379938484865932011-11-24T14:57:00.001-05:002011-11-30T02:27:08.400-05:00

I listen to patients complain about their lives all day. Bitterly, hopelessly. I listen for little openings that offer possibilities for changing perspective and feeling weller. But my five minutes between each session, whether it includes a bathroom or coffee break, well, that time is for me, not to obsess over whether I did or didn't say the right, most helpful, most profound thing. No, I think

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-35246949614962584322011-11-24T05:29:00.001-05:002011-11-26T05:58:48.183-05:00

Important Message from the National Flash Fiction Association Madeleine T. Harrington is President of the State Chapter of the National Flash Fiction Association in New Jersey, which, because of its diminutive size, is like a flea sale of flash fiction. Her job is to uphold the standards of the profession and ensure that unscrupulous practitioners are publicly sanctioned

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-74821651763421435302011-11-23T16:34:00.001-05:002011-11-23T19:35:09.290-05:00

I am the only child on the swing early on a Shabbos morning, while my little siblings and parents still sleep, my face looking up to the sun and bright clouds, reaching my feet high above the trees that border what we call our backyard, separating it from the vegetable gardens and berry patches, the field of tall tick-filled grass that I walk through to get to Bonnie's house, the dirt road up to

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-11141571351004190272011-11-23T15:43:00.001-05:002011-11-30T01:44:23.051-05:00

I am Grace, age nine, standing with my left hand on the green gate to the yard of the farmhouse that I will always consider Home, the same way that my parents always refer to their homes in Hungary and Poland as Home, a home faraway from and inaccessible to me. This Home, my farm home, is their accidental post-war placement, a place disconnected from their hearts. But to me, this is where my

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-52784007320019300382011-11-21T10:46:00.001-05:002011-11-30T01:45:21.890-05:00

            Ash covered everything in the concentration camp.  At night, sparks flew up from the chimneys of the crematoria filling the universe with more stars. But there were also sparks that circled like fire flies until they each found a lucky prisoner and hid deep in her ear as a speck of ash. This ash would eventually become a part of the prisoner’s first-born child. I was one of those

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-36324270392572920052011-11-20T02:52:00.001-05:002011-11-25T21:20:52.240-05:00

Today marks a major step forward in the Obama administration’s efforts to save American families money at the pump, reduce our country’s dependence on oil, and boost domestic manufacturing. Obama's Let's-Not-Pretend-it's-Real-Death-March, borrowed from ENERGY.GOV The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Transportation (DOT)  and the Office of Nuclear Energy (ONE) (three

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-21284638850457101092011-11-19T14:24:00.001-05:002011-11-20T20:13:48.257-05:00

Here’s What Happens to Writers Without MFA’s: Their Blog Posts sell dog food via one of those content prison camps like Helium that not reading the dotted line can leave you in word-debtors prison for eternity. Their novel manuscripts are rejected with these letters: Dear Wanna-be-author: It was astonishing to read such a fine novel reminiscent of Dostoevsky, Kafka, Hemingway and Faulkner,

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-32293905174212323492011-11-18T20:49:00.001-05:002011-11-20T20:09:35.132-05:00

Luckily, I only work half time, so I missed much of the Much-Ado-Over-Nothing this week that I read about in over fifty e-mails to the whole staff written in panicked capital letters reminding us to do the most mundane things we do every day like be sure to document that you asked each patient if they were suicidal at every session and whether they owned guns to removing all botulism-containing

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-84577420057841195952011-11-18T18:16:00.001-05:002011-12-05T08:02:58.495-05:00

As a daughter of concentration camp survivors growing up in the l950's and 60's, all references related to the horrors "over there" were couched in terms like "back home," "the Gestapo," and "Hitler," as if he personally oversaw the destruction of my parents' families. Hitler and God were the two competing power figures in my family's iconography, my mother's gassed mother and baby siblings

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-51175458485525063632011-11-18T15:18:00.001-05:002011-11-20T20:15:05.815-05:00

"Write about me," she said. "I would be flattered. I could never write about myself, and my story, it's so interesting and complicated." "It's fascinating," I said. "But I can't ever write about you. You are my patient. Your story belongs to you and only you." "But maybe someone would learn something from it. I would be giving something. I want to be in your book." "There is no book for your

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-51142299102466631562011-11-18T15:07:00.001-05:002011-11-20T17:29:46.881-05:00

I think I've been blogging for about five years. I trashed my old blogs, mostly, though I saved the stories I liked that I might try to get published. I'm in the process, now, of putting everything together in one blog, this one, and so if stories coming up sound familiar to anyone it will be because they are familiar: they are stories I posted in previous blogs. My writing is all over the place

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-74024750512585259872011-11-17T21:35:00.001-05:002011-11-22T10:42:00.072-05:00

She was the Queen of First Graders, and I wasn't invited to her birthday party. "It must be a mistake," she said, tossing her blonde curls out of her eyes. "My mother must have forgotten to send you an invitation." "Her mother is Polish. They are all anti-Semites. Ask your father," declared my mother when I got home. I never questioned the anti-Semitism radar of either of my parents,

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-67309077545183440662011-11-17T21:31:00.001-05:002011-11-20T17:34:05.000-05:00

No one else at the table liked fortune cookies so Sara opened all three. They all began with "You will go on a journey." She hadn't traveled in ten years. She was agoraphobic. This was the first time her friends had been able to get her out to a restaurant in the year, and it was only down the block. For her, a journey would be, maybe, to the next town? Besides, she couldn't afford to travel

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-44629243262457332972011-11-16T10:14:00.001-05:002011-11-20T20:18:43.955-05:00

My father dug up Jewish gravestones for two years, escaped and hid in a hayloft for two others. He dug up the gravestones of Polish Jews who watched him from the sky, crying at his labors, watery soup, bones scraping, never imagining such a thing could happen to their sons and daughters, begging to a deaf God to intercede. (Oh, what a joke on those who pray!) His father was lost, a brother

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-63907244296409575592011-11-15T11:37:00.001-05:002011-11-30T01:56:36.185-05:00

You asked if I was visiting dad, I wrote to my sister. My very difficult sister. He is dying of cancer and lives a three hour car ride away, a ride never taken to me by any of my New Jersey relatives, even when my sister spent summers on the Cape. Even when we were both on the Cape at the same time. That is how excluded she has ensured I become from the family. I wrote back to her: Just

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-13852739592273619782011-11-14T17:32:00.001-05:002011-11-14T17:38:25.811-05:00

This is necessary for the purpose of personal reflection about what I do and want to write about, on keeping my writing kind where warranted and critical where not and understanding the difference,  and on accepting that everything I write about is in the flux of change that is far beyond my control.

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-22524322150821129622011-11-14T09:28:00.001-05:002011-11-30T02:31:54.317-05:00

Bizarre how the stories of Hitler have become the Legacies of survivor families, held onto as precious as jewels, the tortures and losses and torments, the years at hard labor and starvations, each of these a precious jewel, a ruby, a photo clasp, a charm of a ballet dancer. Every memory caught in words on the page is like the jewelery stolen from the Jews and passed by the rich Poles and Germans

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-30411223061720720152011-11-14T05:22:00.001-05:002011-11-30T02:35:06.128-05:00

Only the stories are precious. And, as with the nature of stories, they change with each telling. And if each telling is written down and dispersed to family members, those family members hold onto their version as the truth, and though it was not written by them, but by the family scribe, they hold hold it as if they are the scribe and it were written by them and it is the family truth. My

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-56026371331809910102011-11-13T16:04:00.001-05:002011-11-13T16:15:36.383-05:00

I forgot again. Strange how it comes and goes. I'm completely mute. I grew up with a narrative, very particular and secretive. I keep trying to write it out, and each time, it comes out wrong. Each time, a particular family member will snatch it as hers, as the real narrative, and I say, no your favorite parts are the fictitious parts and how dare you give that out to all your children and your

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-6841667604787219112011-11-09T18:28:00.001-05:002011-11-30T02:27:59.764-05:00

No one wants to be around a depressed person. God, even a depressed person can't stand being with him or herself. That's why they try to escape into mindlessness until it passes, which it always does but always feels like this time it really won't, this will be the unbearable time when one can just no longer wait it out.  There is no worse depression dynamic than that between a depressed

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-52463523016152543222011-11-09T09:41:00.001-05:002011-11-20T20:17:46.774-05:00

Thank you Thomma Lynn for bringing this remarkable website to my attention. Listening to the free meditations is so powerful and moving and there are 65 of them just by Jack Kornfield and much more by other Buddhist teachers. Jack Kornfield is so down to earth and wise. I beaded while I listened, as in the long tradition of prayer beads. And the kindness, love and humor he conveys, the variety of

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-26089474393216653852011-11-08T07:45:00.001-05:002011-11-08T10:15:08.918-05:00

This was probably the meanest thing ever said to me during a hypomanic episode, the person who said it knowing I was hypomanic and having read my explanations of how hypomania is always followed by a deep depression. I was producing an inordinate number of posts, just a few weeks ago, but to her credit, she apologized and we haven't had any contact since. The problem with hypomania is that it

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-19542124038526667702011-11-07T09:06:00.001-05:002011-11-08T09:11:16.547-05:00

Ask Oprah! Ask Deepak Chopra! Ask Marilyn Monroe! Oh, right, she's dead. For a reason. Like either the Mafia killed her or she was deeply suicidally depressed. This phrase has enraged me since I was a little girl and was told my parents' stories of their survival of Nazi concentration camps while family members were gassed and shot to death. "It happened for a reason, so that the State of

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-34419839100510436422011-11-07T08:28:00.002-05:002011-11-09T09:43:18.904-05:00

Mindfulness meditation is now officially a practice taught to some degree in psychotherapy. It's not surprising. If you think about it, Freud's Free Association Method was the first Western healers' approach to mindfulness meditation, turning your attention inward towards extreme awareness of the thoughts, feelings and sensations experienced by your mind. Mindfulness or "insight" meditation

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-5446265327356808092011-11-06T16:19:00.000-05:002011-11-06T17:05:10.835-05:00

I'm not exactly a beginner, having spent two years living in an apartment next door to an ashram in New York City where I took Hatha Yoga classes at least once every day. It was way before I discovered I had a psychiatric diagnosis and way before medication. Yoga was my medication. It slowed me down, evened my pace, allowed me to sleep, to be kinder to my driven self. But that was decades ago.

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-42975344776252879682011-11-06T10:45:00.001-05:002011-11-06T17:11:44.528-05:00

One of the reasons for my misery in high school was that while all the other girls seemed perfectly comfortable flirting or just casually talking to the boys, and in some cases engaging in extremes of sexual conduct, I could never think of what to say to any of them. I saw myself at a certain intellectual level at the top of the class, and was very judgmental in viewing all the less intelligent

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-54874788381185655452011-11-05T20:14:00.000-04:002011-11-06T10:05:20.829-05:00

"Coping Skills" is the all-the-rage buzz-phrase in psychotherapy these days. It used to be, in Freud's day, that all you had to do was have your patient lie down on a couch and ramble on interminably "free associating" while you sat behind her back with your notebook resting on your crossed knees, hardly writing anything, coughing now and then, and making other various inscrutable noises or

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-82968201326721916692011-11-02T16:09:00.000-04:002011-11-02T16:13:06.376-04:00

I am getting very suspicious of Obama's Jobs Bill.  As some of you may know, I have collected data over the last few months on my Nothing to do at Work Series, and it has become quite clear to me that just because you have a job doesn't mean you have anything to do at that job. That is a terrifying prospect, because every moment at that job you are waiting to be discovered as the fraudulent

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-5977772409775827382011-11-02T13:10:00.000-04:002011-11-02T13:10:06.266-04:00

As many of you bloggers may know, today is the second day of Nanowrimo and I've already missed two days of writing 1667 pages of my "novel," and have a ton of charts to dictate today, two intense work days tomorrow and God only knows when I'll catch up. But I felt this post took priority because it addresses the hugest possible waste of human resources next to total unemployment: those who

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-56748216497840162482011-10-31T22:06:00.001-04:002011-10-31T22:12:00.170-04:00

24. Rivalry of Superior and Inferior Elements: the Superior Rival; the Inferior Rival; the Object  Feminism complicated love immensely, especially if you remained a devoted heterosexual.  Suddenly, there were not only the usual issues to hash out, but who was superior in a variety of realms opened up. Things that went unquestioned before were now on the table, like who was the superior

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-14832751305883750932011-10-31T12:13:00.003-04:002011-11-08T09:05:08.260-05:00

George Polti's Plot No. 23. Necessity of Sacrificing Loved Ones  Elements: the Hero; the Beloved Victim; the Necessity for the Sacrifice We were headed for another planet. Finally. I was so very sick of this one, with it's 7 billion people consuming everything in sight and those fat bellies of young women still procreating constantly. You would think, hope really, that by now they would all be

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-38686535208890323102011-10-31T10:54:00.000-04:002011-10-31T21:27:43.434-04:00

It's been ages since I've had any trouble with trolls or spam on my blog, but lately, I've been getting very flattering comments on a post I wrote called Outsourcing My Blog (you can Search). The comments come in all languages that I happen to have some knowledge of, including Hebrew. (I thought at first maybe one of my Ultra-Religious Israeli cousins found my blog.  I always delete these

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-35841774523040001672011-10-30T10:16:00.001-04:002011-10-30T14:42:55.024-04:00

George Polti 22. All Sacrificed for Passion Elements: the Lover, the Object of the Fatal Passion; the Person or Thing Sacrificed  I've decided to try to finish up my abandoned George Polti Plot-lines project on this last day before the beginning of Nanowrimo.  I had never felt as safe as I felt with him. Not in childhood secret hiding places, not with other men who I always felt were judging

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-39377199543138305482011-10-30T08:27:00.000-04:002011-11-21T10:33:24.692-05:00

The CIA total fertility rate makes it clear: small Asian and Eastern European countries average 2-3 children per family. Start accruing information from Aftrica, and the numbers skyrocket to 6-7 children per family.  One father speaks of his hopes that his new baby will get educated and help support the rest of the family, but the problem is he really doesn't have money to education all, if any,

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-36340280959435474052011-10-29T22:40:00.000-04:002011-10-29T22:45:57.520-04:00

This has to be written before I die, she thought. I always knew it had to be written and as a great procrastinator, I put it off twenty, forty, sixty years.  My back is against the wall now. I've noticed that I can't lose the weight I put on recently though I eat absolutely nothing, I'm suddenly on a statin medication for high cholesterol that's not working and sometimes, when I've had a lot of

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-36994788817783588632011-10-29T21:24:00.000-04:002011-10-29T21:25:35.127-04:00

This is the number of words you must write each day to complete a 50,000 page "novel" in 30 days. As numbers go, it sounds pretty awful. In miles, that's like me driving back and forth to see my relatives in New Jersey in three round-trips a day.  I find even one of those trips agonizing. Connecticut via Hartford has got to be the most boring stretch of road on the planet.  I looked back at some

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-69066415474198686882011-10-29T20:53:00.000-04:002011-11-20T20:26:51.956-05:00

My sons and I both shared a love of Kurt Vonnegut as adolescents. For me, I read his work as he was first writing it, first Cat's Cradle published in 1963, when I was twelve, then I read his earlier Player Piano written in l952. He was my first exposure, outside of The Diary of Anne Frank, to someone outside my family and claustrophobic Jewish community who had actually experienced World

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-9133486935414778912011-10-29T13:43:00.002-04:002011-10-29T14:26:04.813-04:00

I've forgotten how to write short. All my posts for the last few months have been long and tedious, dissecting my life experiences like my patients do in my therapy office. It's gotten addictive, but it is also always accompanied by a sense of guilt, of secrets imparted that would be better left hidden. I've decided to do Nanowrimo this year. I plan to base it on a cross between memoir and

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-22004325401408524612011-10-28T17:11:00.000-04:002011-10-29T16:06:37.517-04:00

Apparently, according to the New York Times, college applicants are freaking out because the Common Application for colleges this spring has reinstituted a 250-500 word limit on the Personal Essays. One student said the only way she could shorten her essay was by blending characters and turning the whole thing into fiction. Flash Fiction as the new college essay! How perfect! One student advisor

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-7139328980445452472011-10-26T18:50:00.001-04:002011-11-30T03:11:32.329-05:00

Back in the seventies, it was My Body, My Self, but please, what really matters in the life of a suburban mother is the vehicle she uses to schlep her children from place to place, while transporting herself to and from work in between, an extension of her body, always in record time, except on the days of inexplicably paralyzed traffic. My children spent many years going to private schools a

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-38288190204924846222011-10-26T10:34:00.000-04:002011-11-20T20:23:20.751-05:00

You can't be a daughter of two Holocaust survivors without swimming in guilt your whole life, trying not to drown. My parents are elderly, at the end of their long lives, and I have grown far apart from them. My father is heroically facing chemotherapy at 89 to buy himself a few more years. And my mother, who has a history of a quadruple bypass and melanoma of the eye, as well as some cognitive

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-40861168271245664532011-10-25T07:40:00.001-04:002011-10-25T07:40:30.940-04:00

I was surprised to see this large number of posts today and decided to post the number instead of a sad, miserable post I had already written that I've decided to table until I'm in a better mood and can be more objective. At least half of these posts are flash fiction, and I feel like it's a crime against myself not to work harder to get them published.

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-83293625437371956072011-10-24T20:07:00.002-04:002011-10-24T21:30:25.935-04:00

The Charles River alongside Harvard University.

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-3938869998617477792011-10-24T15:50:00.000-04:002011-10-24T20:14:03.006-04:00

It's weird, having started a new blog about mental illness book reviews using my real name but not revealing that I, too, am a sufferer of a mental illness. It's definitely written in the voice I've developed writing this blog, which is exciting, because if I hadn't written this blog, the new blog would definitely be written in the boring structured manner of excruciatingly tedious professional

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-8936372859436115742011-10-23T04:31:00.003-04:002011-10-23T04:31:57.067-04:00

I have been wrangling with WordPress, which does not agree with me at all, and have put into place two new blogs so far. One is reviewing books on mental illness self-help, workbooks and memoirs for my patients using a completely different name and e-mail so it is never connected to this, my secret blog. The other is the beginning of my Autobiographical Fiction Novel blog for NaNoWriMo which I

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-27235868486363375192011-10-19T14:41:00.001-04:002011-10-20T07:19:24.487-04:00

Sad story. Blog Rebooting Procedures long overdue...

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-64568491667761176992011-10-19T13:42:00.001-04:002011-12-14T21:25:40.755-05:00

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-70528767924516466032011-10-19T12:11:00.003-04:002011-11-27T08:59:44.305-05:00

It's one thing to have an Axis I Diagnosis, like I have -- Bipolar Disorder. I recognize the symptoms as "ego-dystonic," not quite me, and I am quick to assume there is something wrong with my thinking when my mood gets too high or too low. I take medications that usually decrease the negative symptoms, but not reliably and it is an ongoing struggle. But it is quite another thing to have an Axis

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-71032595842711393212011-10-17T17:23:00.002-04:002011-10-17T22:13:48.869-04:00

Dear Dr. Angelo: I am writing you now because I think I am getting too hyped up and obsessed about the state this country is in and logically, I believe I really can't do anything at all to fix any aspect of the situation. Empowerment in any form seems simply delusional.  Getting increasingly obsessed, I am finding myself unable -- actually quite unwilling to sleep. I have all kinds of

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1855645830276880755.post-32520306275429504212011-10-17T14:36:00.000-04:002011-10-17T22:13:31.247-04:00

"Rich people march on Washington every day." I.F. Stone (1907-1989), independent leftist journalist and intellectual. See post here. Mother Jones provided a great service with eleven different ways of looking at inequality in the US through different types of charts. This was my favorite. Which is yours? (Combined net worth of these ten Congressmen is 2.8 Billion Dollars) Rep. Darrell

The Querulous Squirrelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11708026581220562733noreply@blogger.com16