Rainy Monday afternoon

"Why do they stay/go back?" is the question that most people (family, friends, strangers) ask me after I tell them I work in a Domestic Violence shelter. I think that this is the best answer. It's important to not lay the blame on the victim, which is easy to do. The abuser has committed a crime. Less people understand that then you'd think.

And a lot don't understand that the definition of rape is a lack of consent. It doesn't matter if you're married. It doesn't matter how you were dressed. Investigators should not be asking my client-a teenage rape victim- why she shaves her pubic hair if she wasn't planning on having sex with her assailant. Shit like that needs to change.

Lately I've been thinking that instead of working as a counselor of DV/SA victims after I get my MSW, I'd like to do some work with prevention. You know, educating the community about DV/SA and what constitutes a crime. We live in a culture in which the line is blurred sometimes. Example. And there are positions like this in each of the three DV shelters I've volunteered, interned and worked at who all have their MSWs. I think I would be good at it.

Hobbies that I've picked up over the last month:

• Baking (usually something with meringue)
• Reading
• Writing in the journal Puhtay gave me for my birthday
• Geocaching
• Running. That's right, I typed running. Which is weird because I usually don't enjoy exercise. (Have I mentioned that I've lost 10 lbs since I graduated?)
  

Dreams I've had in the last week:

• I went on a SANE (sexual assault nurse examiner=collecting bodily forensic evidence after a sexual assault) call. I met the victim at a coffeehouse. It turned out to be my old neighbor who died this year. He gave me a huge hug. We ordered lattes and caught up.
  
• A mistake I made in real life lead to one of my client's murder by her assailant. I found out by reading it on the front page of the paper.
  
• My boss was testing me on aspects of my job. She was quizzing me with questions on flash cards. I did really well though.
  
• For some reason I had to watch movies on my night shift to screen for "appropriate content". I had to take notes. Which I thought was awesome until I accidently I fell asleep on the couch and slept through my shift.
  
• Somebody was geocaching in the shelter's parking lot in the middle of the night. I called the police and the poor people were arrested.
  

I've been making an effort to not worry about work when I'm off shift. I try to leave work stuff at work and not take it home with me. Apparently my mind has decided I need to process it sometime and takes the task upon itself when I'm sleeping. But really, my mind is probably just reflecting what I'm thinking during the day. I don't know. I kind of which they would stop.

Things I'm excited for:

• This summer.
• THE LAKE!
• Caitlin being home
  
• Adventures with GV friends
• High school friends coming home
• Helping Brandy and Matt fix up their new house
  

• This fall
• Living in and exploring downtown GR
  
• Living by most of my friends again and having a regular social life
  
• Living in an historical, charming appartment which my future roommate and I are bound to find somewhere in the Heritage Hill area
  
• Not working midnight shifts anymore. Although, I'm going to ask the shelter in GR if they want an on-call or float shelter worker.
  
• Being a student again. (I would be a student for the rest of my life if I could)

Books and adventures.

Books I've read in the last 2 months:

• Me Talk Pretty One Day-David Sedaris. My favorite Sedaris book so far because it made me laugh out loud the most.
• A Cook's Tour-Anthony Bourdian. Made my stomach growl constantly. I've decided that it's necessary for me to try clams.
• You Must Be This Happy to Enter-Elizabeth Crane. Wierd and hilarous.
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake-Sloane Crosley. I feel like she and I could be friends. She's funny, but not as much as Sedaris and Crane.
• This I Believe. Essays from the NPR radio show of the same name.
• The Enemy Between My Legs-Stephanie L. Jones. She's speaking at an event in a few weeks (Take Back the Night rally) that the shelter has organized. Her book is about child sexual abuse and is okay...until she makes the argument that child sexual abuse causes homosexuality. It pissed me off and makes me concerned about her upcoming speech and how AWARE will be represented.
• Live Through This: Essays in Creativity and Self-Destruction-edited by Sabrina Chapadjiev. A collection of pieces from poets, writers, artists, photographers, playwrights, dancers, activists etc. about their creative and self-destructive tendencies (i.e. cutting, eating disorders). Really good.

I have two books that I requested from the library and am still waiting on and today I bought two other books (that I couldn't find in the library's catalog). I LOVE reading for fun again!

My dream trips/Adventures I want to have:

• Visit Sindre and the gang in Norway
• Visit Chelsea in Japan
• Visit Carrie in Uganda. Volunteer there for a few weeks.
• Visit Ryan in France
• Manchu Picchu
• Backpack Europe
• Thailand (honeymoon?)
• Back to Hungry Mother Park in VA with some of the AB Trails gang. (This might happen this summer!)
• White-water raft again (maybe this can happen in VA!)
• Take Dad somewhere for his retirement (Ireland?)
• NYC with Mom and Caitlin
• Australia's the only continent other than Antarctica that I don't have on this list...so I'm going to have to add it.

Many the Miles- Sara Bareilles

There's too many things I haven't done yet

There's too many sunsets I haven't seen

La Chureca and gender

Dead on.

Directions from GV

All I do these days is work at night and sleep during the day, so when Rachel and Markus offered to pick me up on Friday, spend the night in Rachel's hometown and spend Saturday at Splash Village in Frankenmuth, I asked a co-worker to switch me hours right away. I'm excited- I really need a bit of fun. These are the directions that I gave them:

134 mi – about 2 hours 25 mins

Fun fact: You're going to cross Grand River a ton of times. It follows me almost all the way home. Road trip game: Count the number of times you cross it.

1. Head northeast on Campus Dr 0.1 mi
2. Turn right at S Campus Dr 0.8 mi
3. Turn right at Lake Michigan Dr/M-45 9.4 mi
4. Merge onto I-196 E via the ramp to Lansing 5.9 mi
5. Merge onto I-96 E 68.7 mi. I highly recommend stopping in Portland, exit 77 Grand River Ave. for any bathroom needs. Very clean bathrooms. This is the longest leg of the trip. Road trip game: Should Megan cut her hair chin length again, or grow it out? Discuss.
6. Take exit 106A to merge onto US-127 S toward Jackson 29.4 mi. A little more than an hour left!
7. Take the exit onto I-94 E toward Detroit 3.6 mi. You'll go under a bridge and the exit is just yards past it. I think this ramp is annoying. It feels too short.
8. Take exit 142 to merge onto US-127 S toward Hudson 11.3 mi Art Moehn Chevorlet is on the left a little before this exit. That's where my dad worked for about 6 months my freshman year. ...Isn't this tour fun?
9. Turn left at Jefferson Rd 2.6 mi. It's a stoplight. Gas station on the corner. Jefferson road is where I hit a deer last year on Thanksgiving weekend. Please don't hit a deer. It isn't fun.
10. Turn right at Hayes Rd 1.8 mi. St. Rita's church will be on the corner. That's where my sister and I went to catechism class. You'll pass through Clark Lake golf course where my sister had golf practice in high school. She was MVP of the varsity team her freshman year. She and
Dad really enjoy the sport. Mom and I don't have the patience for it and get bored. Isn't this entertaining to learn? There will be a quiz.
11. Turn left at Somerset Dr 0.6 mi. A yellow house with green shutters will be on on the corner. I know that it sounds pretty, but it definitely isn't.
12. Turn left at Archwood Ln 472 ft. It's a dirt road. If you don't find it right away keep going. People always call me thinking they must have already gone the 0.6 miles but they have not. The street sign is usually blocked by a pine tree.
13. Turn left at Archwood Circle. The road is a literal circle and we're directly on the other side so if you want to turn right that's ok too. I enjoy switching it up.

140 Archwood Cir Brooklyn, MI 49230
Left of a shared driveway, tall gray house.

Elaboration

My sister was really surprised that I put that "11. The thought of being tied down to a husband and family doesn't sound appealing to me at all" on my last post and ever since then it feels like that's all I've been thinking about. I didn't write that I don't want a husband someday. Because I do. And I didn't write that I don't want kids. Because I do. It's just...I've got so much shit to do and places to see first. In the past month I have learned of so many of my friends' pregnancies and engagements and each time all I keep thinking is that I don't see myself wanting to settle down in any reasonable amount of time.

I finished reading "You Must Be This Happy to Enter" by Elizabeth Crane, which is full of fictional, bizarre and hilarious short stories. For example, one is about Betty the zombie, who goes on a Lifetime reality show to live with other women with "issues" (such as overeating, overspending etc.) so they can tackle their problems together. (I was laughing out loud when Betty shares her sexual experiences and how she feels hurt that her husband doesn't want her as often since she became a zombie. She suspects it this might be caused by a culmination of "little" things like her rotting flesh and sudden desire to eat humans.)

Anyway, I was really surprised by the last story of the book called "Promise", in which the narrator lists all the things she promises to do as a parent for her adoptive child. The review on Amazon says that the narrator lists how she is going to be a perfect parent, but I think this is incredibly inaccurate as the narrator lists both positive and negative results of her parenting. I'm convinced that it isn't fictional at all.

"If you are a girl and you kiss a boy in first grade, I will refer you to your father. If you kiss a boy your senior year of high school and it sucks, I will tell you it gets better later. If you are a boy and you kiss a girl ever, I will first tell you how not to become a jerk down the line and it might be obvious that I've had some issues and then I will refer you to your father. If you are a boy and you want to kiss boys or if you are a girl and you kiss a girl in tenth grade and it rocks your world, I will say Right on, even though you will tell me that people have stopped using that phrase. I will tell you about the birds and the bees with plenty of advanced notice, but I will not involve any birds and bees in this story.

...I will try to stay out of your love life, but I will urge you to practice the safe sex I do not want to hear details about, ever. And if your girlfriend calls you names or your boyfriend hits you, I will kick their fucking asses down the stairs and out the door."

That piece and the fact that I've been folding and organizing donated baby's clothes whenever I get a chance to escape to the attic at the shelter have made it easy for me to brainstorm and daydream about how I would treat my own children.

My kids will be so super-styley. I'll probably dress my children in little sweaters and congratulate myself on my amazing sense of taste even though it's almost impossible to dress toddlers badly since they will look cute no matter what. I will take my kids and their older cousins to the library at least once a month. All of them will probably have brown hair and eyes because that's what all Bomholt kids look like no matter what the in-law's appearance. Yelling indoors will not be tolerated but they will be encouraged to laugh loudly and often. I will answer every question they ask and tell them they should never be embarrassed to ask questions because it's the best way to learn. When they're 11 and they want to know what "blow-job" means they will hopefully feel comfortable enough to ask me about it like I did with my mom. We will spend whole afternoons together carving pumpkins or coloring or dying eggs or making valentines. We will bake and drive around to deliver the goodies to our friends and the local domestic violence shelter. My kids will travel. They will volunteer. They will understand that we're damn lucky to have a roof over our heads and food in our pantry. They will understand concepts like "social equality" from an earlier age than most. Their mom won't do all the stereotypical "women's chores" and their dad won't do all of the stereotypical "man's chores".

Man, I would be a kick-ass mom.

Courage

I like my job so far. However, I really dislike my hours. Three shifts of midnight to 8 am. UGH. I don't think that I would mind the hours as much except that it really sucks to have zero human interaction (Except for on the crisis line, which I don't want to ring because that means somebody is at least in enough crisis that they feel they need to speak to someone in the middle of the night) while the residents are sleeping.

"Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, I will try again tomorrow." - quote in the office at the shelter that I've come to really like.

18 of my 25 facebook things: (Stored here until I finish it. Which might not happen.)

1. I have curved pinkies. (so do Mom and Caitlin)

2. I get nervous when I'm about to talk to strangers on the phone. I have no problem talking to them face-to-face.

3. I don't believe in karma or that "everything happens for a reason." The world is way too fucked up for that to be true and bad shit happens to good people.

4. I'm happiest when I'm traveling or experiencing something new.

5. I have a habit of un-doing my belt before I even make it into the bathroom. I have to consciously remind myself not to do this in public.

6. I bite my lip and the inside of my cheeks.

7. I feel like I fall down more than the average person.

8. When I was little I used called Caitlin "Cay-in" because I couldn't pronounce the "T".

9. Mom took me to a speech therapist when I was 3 because I hardly spoke. He concluded that I could speak just fine and that I just decided not to.

10. I had a terrible freshman year of college. I had an amazing junior and senior year.

11. The thought of being tied down to a husband and family doesn't sound appealing to me at all.

12. AB was the best thing I did in college. No contest.

13. Marching band and being drum major were the funnest things I did in high school.

14. My feet are flat and almost always sore. My left arch is so much higher than my left that there is a half-size difference between their shoe sizes. This makes shoe shopping annoying.

15. I love coffee and chocolate. And somehow they taste the best when I have both.

16. I've come to really love hiking over the past few years.

17. I love school and being a student and would do it for the rest of my life if I could.

18. My sister and I each have such a great relationship with our mom that it's sort of wierd.

Up.

I'm trying to stay awake for a while so that I can actually sleep in tomorrow and feel less nervous about being able to stay awake during my midnight to 8 am shift tomorrow night.

1. Do you like blue cheese? I don't think I've ever tried it actually.
2. Have you ever smoked heroin? Right. No.
3. Do you own a gun? Oh sure, you know me.
4. What flavor do you add to your drink at Starbucks? I don't get a 'flavor' and I get a different drink each time.
5. Do you get nervous before doctor appointments? No, unless there's a rational reason for me to be nervous, like a few summers ago when I had an ultra-sound thingy to check what my boobie-lump was. I mean, I knew I was young and the chances of it being malignant was very slim but before the test results came back I freaked out a little inside. Oh! I do have a hard time relaxing during gyno appointments...but that's more of a 'during' thing than 'before'. And probably TMI.
6. What do you think of hot dogs? I am pro-hot dogs. I just try to block out the mental image I have of the pureed meat...
7. Favorite Christmas movie? Um...Elf? I'm not really a fan of X-mas movies I suppose.
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Coffee. Two splenda.
9. Can you do push ups? Yes.
10. What's your favorite piece of jewelry? My silver ring I wear on my right middle finger almost everyday. It says "Be the change you wish to see in the world". (Gandhi) I was so excited when I found it because it's quite possibly my favorite quote ever.
11. Favorite hobby? Reading. I am open to new ideas though. Now that I'm back in Brooklyn my social life has decreased more than significantly and I need something else to keep me busy. I found a piano keyboard that was really cheap on Craigslist though, so I might give pecking around again a shot.
12. Do you have A.D.D? No.
13. What's one trait you hate about yourself? This is a hard question and it's too late.
14. Middle name? Sue.
15. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment: My eyes are droopy. My bed will be nice and warm tonight now that the electric blanket is plugged in properly. I like this song...it's catchy!
16. Name 3 things you bought yesterday? Chinese food with Carrie, brown flats and dressy denim trousers for work. Those are the first things I've bought in a loooong time. Hoorah for getting paid today!
17. Name 3 things you drink daily: Water, lemonade, and coffee.
18. Current worry? Tomorrow's midnight shift. Grad school expenses.
19. Current hate? Assailants of domestic ans sexual violence victims.
20. How did you bring in the New Year? I spent it with Puhtay, Sarah, Steve and Bill. We played boardgames, drank champagne and toasted at midnight. It was the first New Year's midnight I had that I wasn't feeling furious in 3 years.
21. Where would you like to go? EVERYWHERE. Please, let's go.
22. Name three people who will complete this? Nobody.
23. Do you own slippers? Caitlin got me cute purple ones for Christmas. I love them actually.
24. What shirt are you wearing? My green AB site leader hoodie. It's the most worn-in and therefore most comfortable thing I own.
25. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? I don't know. Sounds nice though.
26. Favorite color? Blue.
27. Could you be a pirate? I think I made a pretty good one at AB site leader retreat this year...I mean, I can dance like I have a peg leg and spell "ARR" by laying on the beach with other SLs, which are obviously essential pirating skills.
28. What songs do you sing in the shower? I don't sing in the shower that often. I ALWAYS sing in the car though.
29. Favorite food? Chocolate. Ice cream. Sweets in general.
30. What's in your pocket right now? Nothing.
31. Last thing that made you laugh? Something on Chelsea Lately
32. Favorite sheets? The ones I have. I don't think I've ever thought about my sheets as much as I have during this survey.
33. Worst injury you have ever had? Only a stress fracture on my leg because my feet are flat- I was on crutches for 2 weeks my freshman year of high school. Lame. Does that even count?
34. Do you love where you live? I love my parents and I love this house. I miss my friends at GV though.
35. How many TVs do you have in your house? Oh my god. I was thinking about this the other day and how it's completely absurd...6. We only have 3 people living here!
36. Who is your loudest friend? Haha, Kong or Olivia.
37. How many dogs do you have? I've never had a dog. I always thought it would be cool to though.
38. Does someone have a crush on you? This question makes me realize how silly it was to waste this much time on this survey.
39. What is your favorite book(s) or author(s)? I've got a list on facebook. Right now I'm reading You Must Be This Happy to Enter by Elizabeth Crane.
40. What is your favorite candy? Zero. I think it's an almondy/carmel nugget covered in white chocolate. They're so good! Especially when they're frozen.
41. Favorite Sports Team? I generally don't enjoy watching sports.
42. What songs do you want sung at your funeral? Hahahaha, Another One Bites the Dust would be funny.
43. What were you doing 12 AM last night? Driving home from work.
44. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? WHY is work calling me at 7 am?!
45. Favorite place to be? Anywhere new, Home, GV