Category Archives: Thoughts

On Being Jewish in a Christian Country

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So tonight is the first night of Passover.  What does that mean to me, a Jew in a Christian country?

Not a hell of a lot, actually.  I haven’t been to a Seder in, gosh, about 5 years.  The last one I was at was with my mother in Florida at a friend’s house.

I am not an observant Jew.  I do not keep kosher.  I do not observe the Sabbath.  I do not go to Temple.

There is a small Jewish community here in Belfast.  I know one other Jew, a woman I used to work with.  Other than that?  My being Jewish doesn’t affect anything.

Okay, so that’s not entirely true.  When I got married, I insisted that my veil cover my hair as completely as possible during the ceremony.  That was important to me on that day.

Oh and I skew the stats for our Fair Employment Paperwork, since I am the only one in my office who does not check off either Catholic or Protestant, but Other, on the form.  (yes, in NI, those are the 3 choices.  They don’t care what colour your skin is, but your religion is paramount).

Most of my memories of events like Seders have nothing to do with the Seder itself.  I mostly remember the warmth of my mother’s kitchen the year we had a Seder for about 20 people as the women scurried about getting the meal on the table (and it was the women.  Something about it being a Seder makes the traditional roles come through) and then cleaning up afterwards.  I remember looking down the long table that year, with basically my entire family there, and feeling a part of something bigger than myself.  Knowing that all over the world Jewish families were doing the exact same thing at more or less (with the variances of time zones) the exact same time.

Even my most recent Seder, at my mother’s friends house, I don’t really remember the Seder.  I remember after the Seder, helping to clean up in the kitchen.  The hosts had hired a caterer and serving staff to help them, as there were about 25 people there, and they wanted to enjoy the Seder and not be stuck in the kitchen.  Even so, after dinner, the women were all in the kitchen, helping to put away the food and the dried dishes and such. The men? They were watching a sporting event on TV. 🙂

So being Jewish in a Christian country isn’t really that big of a deal to me.  But sometimes I think maybe it should be.

Depression and Guilt

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The biggest problem, for me, with my depression, is the guilt I start to feel as I start to come out of the black place.

Guilt that my flat is a mess. Guilt that my Admin Team at work has got to be covering for me. Guilt for lying to my parents and saying I was fine, when I was not.

That last one, lying to my parents guilt, is probably the least guilt laden. Not that I enjoy lying to my parents, I don’t, I never have. I have usually told them everything. But I get tired. I get tired of my dad saying ‘how are you really?’ Really? I’m pretty crappy thanks for asking. I also get tired of talking about how I feel. Are you down? Anxious? Happy? Sad? All of the above?

Its exhausting. I know they ask because they care, but it is still exhausting. I have to repeat myself over and over, first telling my mom, and then my dad, how I am really. They’re divorced, so its not like I can say “And now you tell Dad, Mom.” Cuz he isn’t standing there next to her. He’s about 600 miles away!

As for my Admin Team, I think that carries the most guilt. I know they are my friends and are mostly concerned for me, but I know how aggravated I get when one of them is out for a few days and I have to cover for them. I do it, of course, that’s part of being a team, but I bitch about it. I can’t imagine how much they are annoyed at me at the moment. But its probably a lot. And I don’t blame them.

Without me there, some one is covering the CEO. That can be a full time job, depending on what is going on at the moment. I manage to cover him and the DF&A and the DCRE&F when I am there, but its always a juggling act. The answer to the question ‘Robyn, are you busy?’ is ‘I’m always busy, what do you need?’

As for the messy flat?  Its actually not that messy.  Simon and I have a good system for splitting up chores and at least his are getting done!  Mine will get done over the next few days, including the last two book shelves put together and the books unpacked.

But I still feel guilty.

Depression and Having a Baby

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So I’ve been struggling again. Badly. I haven’t been to work since week before last.

I have mentioned previously that Simon and I are trying to have a baby. We made the decision last night to forget that in order for me to be on meds and living normally.

Then I saw my GP today. She disagrees with this. She thinks I can control the depression and have a baby. I am back on prozac (first med I ever took for this!) for at least the next month, so conception is on hold for at least that long, as prozac + baby = bad bad baby.

It has been a really tough couple of days. Tears, personal recriminations, guilt, etc etc etc. Simon has been, as always, a rock. Saying over and over again, “I want you to be well. It is the most important thing.”

And I know, intellectually, that he is right.  That is the most important thing.  But I so badly want a baby.  And to be healthy.

I hope I can truly have both.

Why?

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I often ask myself why? Not ‘why is the sky blue’ or ‘why is the ocean salty’ as these have scientific answers.

No, I ask myself, why is talking about sex with your children embarrassing? Why is it ‘those’ parts of the body that are ‘private’? Why do some people hate other people just because of their skin/beliefs/way of life?

I once read a short story, the name of which escapes…hang on, internet, google…let me go look…don’t go away…never mind, can’t find it…anyway, in the short story sex, any sex, was open and public. Thoughts and ideas, however, were private. The story is set in a classroom, during what I guess could be called Thought Ed (like SexEd, get it?) and there is a girl expounding on the idea that perhaps in a parallel world, sex is private and thoughts are public. The teacher kisses her to get her to be quiet.

So what skews our world, our part of the multiverse (tm RAH), to sex being private and thoughts being public? You can’t just say, ‘The Bible’, and be done with it, since The Bible, meaning the Old and New Testaments, isn’t used every where in our world. But you certainly won’t find a teacher kissing a student to shut them up in our world…or if you know of a place, send me the address, k?

So that leads to my third ‘why’ above. Why be mean/hate/kill someone if they believe different from you? What does that prove? That you’re right and they’re wrong? That you have a bigger gun?

Getting back to RAH…oh, sorry, Robert A Heinlein, for the non-sci fi geeks in the audience…there is a scene in Stranger in a Strange Land  (and read the unedited version if you haven’t yet) where Mike, the Man from Mars, is trying to understand how every religion on earth can honestly believe that their god is the true god and all of the rest are false.  This is not possible, to his logical, Martian raised mind.  On Mars, according to Mike (and RAH, obviously) there is one religion.  The tenet?  Thou Art God.  You, Me, Him, Her.  All.  Apparently it works out much neater if you can say it in Martian.  Really need to find time to learn Martian.

Anyway, while I don’t think everyone can be god, cuz, by definition, aren’t gods omnipotent and omniscient?  And, ya know, human here, but I do think that all gods are true gods.  If you believe, then your god is true.

And who does it hurt if people believe this? Is my god so weak that your god makes him weaker?

So…why?

This Post Will Probably Piss Some People Off

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But I am going to write it anyway.

On the bus yesterday there was a child, about 6 – 8 years old, who kept saying “Daddy, daddy, look daddy, look at that daddy, what’s that daddy” over and over and over again, as loud as possible. Based on the way he was talking, he was certainly old enough to be told to use his inside voice. His daddy just let him be loud.

I have posted about this child over on Modern Etiquette and Manners, the Etiquette forum I help moderate, and have gotten 2 responses that chaff my hide (heh, I think I’ve been reading Confessions of a Pioneer Woman too much!). One response was, how do you know the child isn’t impaired. The other one was perhaps he was younger then he appeared.

Let’s take these one at a time; even impaired children need to learn how to act in public. Yelling in public is not acceptable (unless it is a yelling place, such as a sports venue) by anyone. It disturbs others. It hurts people’s ears. It is rude. Even an impaired child needs to learn this if he (note: I am using he as it is easier than he/she) is ever going to get along in society. And if he can’t learn this? Perhaps he shouldn’t be in society. A good friend of mine has 1 child with aspergers and two others with at least ADD (they are too young to test further at the moment) and yet all three of them know what is appropriate behavior in public. And they are impaired.

Let’s not also forget that, technically, I am impaired. I have a real, diagnosed mental illness that makes me freak a bit in public at times. But do I let my freaking effect those around me? I do not. Why not? Because I have been taught how to act in public by my parents.

As to looking older than he is; if he can speak as well as this child was speaking, there was no way he was much younger than he appeared. And even if he is, I think any child over the age of about 2 can be told to use their inside voice. I know my nieces have been being told that for at least that long. And they did learn to do so. How? Repetition. Telling them over and over, when they yelled, to use their inside voice. It can be done with a young child. I’ve seen it first hand.

I can here the critics now ‘but you have no children Robyn, how the hell would you know?’ I don’t have to have children to be able to tell when a child is not being parented. All I have to do is go out into the world and observe behavior that would have gotten me hauled home, my mother to embarrassed to continue to do what she is doing.

And I don’t need to be a parent to know that screaming at the top of your lungs on the bus is not appropriate behavior. Ever.

Going to Derry for the Weekend

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to visit Simon’s parents for Easter.

Derry (official name Londonderry) is an interesting place, a walled city, where all the violence started 40 years ago, give or take.

If you ever go, let me know and I’ll hook you up with my father in law, who is an expert in the conflict and will take you to the wall and point out to you the exact spot it all erupted. Okay, well maybe I won’t do that, because I might not actually know you in real life and I’d hate to inflict strangers on him!

Anyway, the real ongoing conflict of the city is what to call it. Londonderry or Derry. London implies, of course, English rule. This pisses some people off. Officially it is Londonderry, but some people are so opposed to the name that one of them actually stopped at all of the signs along the main road to the city and spray painted out the ‘London’. I kid you not.

I don’t really get the random acts of violence decision. I mean, okay if I kill everyone who disagrees with me, eventually everyone will agree with me. It just sounds exhausting to me, to hate other people that much. Why not have a pint and you live your life and I’ll live mine.

Obviously that is very simplified. The causes and consequences of war, any war, even the war on terrorism, are many and varied and intricate.

But why do they have to be?

How to Piss Off Your PA

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As I’ve mentioned before I am the Personal Assistant to the Senior Management Team of my company.  I am also the Office Manager for the whole office.  And the Official Office Geek.  I have many roles.

At the moment our regular accounts manager is on maternity leave and we have a temp in.  He’s an ass.  A total unmitigated ass.  He wouldn’t know how to be polite if you hit him with a polite stick.  And, trust me on this, the last thing you want to do is piss off the PA/Office Manager of any office.

Do you know what happens when you do?  You get no coffee.  Or biscuits.  You might not even get paid.  You certainly won’t get the office supplies you think you so desperately need.

So many people think that Admin work is low brow or easy.  It is neither.  A good PA, and, to toot my own horn, I am a very very very good PA, can make the difference between an office that runs well and one that runs like crap.  My office runs well.  Very very very well.  Because, as I just said (still tooting own horn over here) I am very very very good at my job.

I keep the SMT’s diaries in order.  I keep the kitchen supplied with good coffee and tea.  I keep the supply cupboards full.  I keep the phones answered, the computers working, the filing done.  I don’t do any of this alone, I work with a good team.  I have an excellent receptionist, an excellent projects assistant and, usually, an excellent accounts manager.  Us girls (as we are all women, whereas the SMT is all male) kick ass on a regular basis to keep a science park where 1200 people work ticking over.

We keep the lights on and the hot water coming.  We pride ourselves, when we are asked for a file, to be able to put our hands on it without thinking about it.  We are the Admin Team.  Don’t mess with us.  You won’t like what happens if you do.

So, if you have a PA or an AA or a Secretary, thank them.  Thank them for putting up with the shit work you make them do (filing sucks, okay?).  Thank them for the coffee they make and the phones they answer.  A Please and a Thank You goes a long way.  A happy Admin Team is a happy office.  Always.

Happy St Patrick’s Day!

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No, I’ve not had any green beer. Or any beer. I had a lovely glass of wine last night, though.

Spent the morning cleaning the flat. Going to spend the afternoon putting together our new piece of furniture and putting things away. Maybe we’ll be unpacked by the time we have to decide if we’re moving again. That’ll be next January.

In other news, I see my psychiatrist tomorrow. I haven’t seen him in about 3 years. I think it was just after Simon and I got married that he released me back to my GP for meds monitoring.So very different here than in the US. In the US I would have seen him non-stop. And probably a psychologist also. I think I had one psychology session ages ago here in the UK.

I think about finding a private therapist, but its very expensive in order to just go and talk to someone. NHS won’t cover it. At least, not long term.

We’ll see what he says tomorrow. I think I do need to be back on meds, just not sure what kind. Too many ‘bad’ days lately. Better living through chemistry, indeed.

I finished Folly

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Laurie R King is my god.

The book is incredibly good. Kept me guessing all the way through.

And the greatest mystery? Will Rae find her way? Is very satisfactorily resolved.

Most mysteries, even ones that aren’t, quite, I can figure out by the end. This one? Not so much. I had no idea what was actually going to happen until it happened. Which is true of all of Ms King’s work.

Read this book.

On Mental Illness and Reading About Mental Illness

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I am currently reading Folly by Laurie R King. It is about a mentally ill woman going to live on a private island, all by herself, to rebuild the house her great-uncle built years before.

I should note here the I adore Ms King’s writing.  I am a rabid fan of both her Beekeeper’s Apprentice series (a pastiche of Sherlock Holmes where he has retired to Sussex to raise bees and meets a young woman, Mary Russell, who becomes his apprentice) and her Kate Martinelli series (a series about a lesbian cop in San Francisco).  I have actually read the opening bits of Folly several times, as there have been excerpts of it at the end of other’s of Ms King’s work.  I have always avoided it, however.  I wasn’t ready to read about a mentally ill woman.  I guess now I was.  Also, I received $150 in Amazon.com vouchers between Christmas and my Birthday, and Ms King is hard to find here, as she is an American author, so I had a bit of a Laurie R King and Rita Mae Browne orgy with my vouchers!

Now, for the record, Rae, the protagonist, and I do not have exactly the same mental illness. She has hallucinations, which I never have had, and she’s tried to kill herself several times, which I have never done. But there are some similarities that make this a bit of a hard read for me.

Ms King’s descriptions of the way Rae feels, and thinks, could have been written by me. Descriptions of fog on the brain, of blackness surrounding everything.

There are two scenes so far, and I am about half way through the book, that hit me so hard I had to walk away from the book and read something stupid instead.

The first was when Rae was found, after her most recent mental break, curled up against a wall, shivering. Her daughter and grand-daughter walk into this, while Rae is surrounded by police officers. Rae sees her grand-daughter and starts whispering “I’m sorry.” over and over again.

I will never forget, and probably neither will Simon, the time I called him at oh so early in the morning Belfast time (I was still in California when this happened) and all I could say was “I’m sorry.” Over and over again. Sorry for waking you. Sorry that you have to hear/see this. Sorry that I’m sick. Sorry that I can’t be the way I am ‘suppose’ to be. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Even right now, it brings tears to my eyes. Even now, on occasion, that mantra goes through my head. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

The other scene that Ms King gets right on the money is one where Rae heads to the nearest populated island to do some shopping, make some phone calls and such.  Rae’s voyage from the dock to the newspaper office, where she is looking up the history of her little island and the fire that destroyed her great-uncle’s house, is so very realistic.  She stops in one shop for a bit, then literally forces herself out into the street, making it about half a street more before tucking herself into a coffee shop, near the back, against the wall, buying a sandwich and coffee she doesn’t want so she can stay where she feels safe for the moment.  Her feeling of inner triumph when she goes the rest of the way to the newspaper’s offices without pause after that is so very real.

I do that, when I’m shopping alone.  Stop into shops I have no interest in, if I see they aren’t crowded, to anchor myself for the next bit of crowd.  I also feel a bit of triumph when I make it without doing that.

I do not know if Ms King herself has a mental illness, but she writes it so well, I wouldn’t be surprised.  The book is, of course, about more than Rae’s illness.  It is actually a mystery and an intriguing one a that.  What really happened to her great-uncle?  And the even greater mystery of will Rae make it through without trying to kill herself again, out there on her island where it is a week between visits, so the likelihood of 59th minute of the 11th hour rescue is very slim.

As I said above I haven’t yet finished the book.  Bits of it are very hard going for me.  But I decided to write and post this before the end.  I’ll let you know if I make it through it and if there are any other parts that make me shudder with recognition of myself.

And do read any of Ms King’s work if you can find it.  She’s bloody brilliant.