I worked 13 hours today...a kid told me that he couldn't stop thinking about killing people, so I had to have him psychiatrically hospitalized. We left him, frightened and twitching, in a very nice hospital. It was a sad and grueling day. But this in not moppy blogging, oh no, because--

American Idol made it all better. Tonight's finale, no joke, no fucking way, was the greatest two hours of television I have ever seen. It's up there with A Farewell to Jim Henson. I am Lee Greenwood right now, it made me so proud to be an American. I thought that I would die when MARY J and Elliot sang U2's "One." It was perfect. If you looked closely at the background there was a unicorn bathing in a waterfall made of our hopes and dreams and Jesus waved shyly from behind Mary's smile.

And then there were those hot dancers and Prince came out and effectively slayed the entire audience, nay, the 200 million world wide viewers. I won't be able to sleep tonight. I will be thinking of ways to describe The Greatest Night of Television Ever to my grandchildren. They won't get it. They won't know who Dionne Warwick is, and what she did tonight. I don't think that I could have even dreamt Mary J and Elliot singing 'One' but when I saw it I realized that the producers of American Idol have somehow listened to my soul. Sister felt that way when Meatloaf and Katharine sang Celine Dion's "It's All Coming Back To Me." And then, after Prince, after he came out and I jumped up and screamed, the two finalists sang "Time of My Life" from Dirty Fucking Dancing.

The producers of that show have tapped into the American pop music psyche and possibly healed the world. If I can sleep tonight I fully expect to wake up to the news that George W. Bush has been deposed, the Iraq War is over, there wasn't a murder in Chitown, and the dodo bird has returned from extinction. Since God is the real American Idol, can I thank you, Lord, via the blogosphere? That was magic. Perfection. Thank you.

I have this postcard laminated in my office. Malcolm X and righteous love. I am looking at it right now. I may be looking at it forever, that is how long this day has been, long and useless.

It's like magic, my gift at wasting time. I should be suspended in a plexiglass cube over Daley Center where all sorts of hard-working, really driven folks could marvel at the time I waste. "She's Googling 'horchata'? Shouldn't she be writing one of 300 overdue reports, or learning to be a better therapist or something?" Pish. Posh. For the first time in months there is no looming child welfare crisis, which makes the normal pace of a day seem sluggish, and makes me lazy and lame.

There actually was a crisis but it is big and sad and ethically ambiguous, so I am ignoring it. For some reason people keep coming into my office and asking for a clinical opinion (?) about what is in the best interest of my client (?) and, after 30 minutes of constant blather and "on the other hand"s I have come up with the best, most efficient clinical intervention: time travel, back to the child's birth. Oh, wait, his mother's birth. Or wait: back before his mother's mother's father and father's father's mother were enslaved, tortured, whatnot. Before the rapes and drug addiction, before he was even with us, before he did the thing that he told me about that caused the crisis that results in this here question. I got so excited about the time travel idea that I spilled coffee on myself.

Apparently there are no funds for child abuse preventative time travel--total bullshit. We can run cars on corn juice but we can't erase human pain by warping the fabric of time? This current administration, I'm telling you, they have their priorities all messed up.

I exhort you to contact your local robot overlord or wizard and demand more research and funding into this untapped prevention measure.

And thanks.

Major haps on Kimball ave.

Mary made these little beasties. She was a real trouper. One little beastie did not make the journey; three little ones soldier on, despite the fact that Mary keeps picking them up, knawing on their heads, and burying them in her litter box. Oh, sweet motherhood.

They are pretty cute, but they could be cuter. I am waiting for four weeks old, when they are the kind of kitten cute that makes me angry, makes me want to stick them whole in my mouth. Perhaps Mary senses this, and that's why she wants them covered in gravel and poo. To save them from me.

Kimball Ave. is super happening. We couldn't park on our street Wednesday because they were shooting a movie. A bossy lady with a duffel full of makeup let me know that 'Grace is Gone', starring John Cusack, was filming in the church in the corner. This is the church that I wrote about a bit ago; seven elderly folks and a pastor that makes Hugo Chavez seem like an OC republican. Hopefully they were given mad money to whore out the house of God. They can use it.

I also found a roommate. Flight Attendant seems nice and clean, and that's really all that counts. She speaks fluent German, so combine that with my Armenian skills and it's like the UN up in here. Sister, by making herself repellant to me, is sweetly assisting in my transition. She has committed me to the hand-weaning of kittens I never wanted, called me at a restaurant while I am on a date to tell me some mundane shit, and is on the phone with the TV Star all the time acting like the sister I always wanted. You think this is sisterhood, pretty lady with all the money? Wait until she turns off the power to your room and then hacks down the door with a hammer. Or yells incessantly for you to come and watch her hamsters get it on. Erases Common's performance on Conan O'Brian but saves 6,000 episodes of '24'.

She's the best.

The weather here sucks and it makes me want to nap. Join me, Chicagoland, in a sweet midday nap and snuggle. Time to hunker down with gravel covered kittens and let the rainy day just melt away.

Si se puede!

Big protests today. The first one was protesting the diminished role of the Virgin in our lives, the second one was anti-genocide. I was all fired up, hell yeah, this is social work, this is May Day, but now I'm facing another night of anxiety and sleeplessness, haunted by children and poverty. Other people's children, my poverty. I am angry that prayer isn't calming me, that everything seems to be getting more difficult, that even as I think I'm closer to where I want to be I keep thinking, fuck, this is fucking hard. This is difficult and I can't sleep right and the dumb luck that's been following me has gotten lost somewhere. All the ideas: living simply, picking the nobler job, the job that pays less, being immersed in others pain and joy, doing the right thing, I don't think I can do it, I worry that I'm bleeding myself dry. I broke a girl's heart today. I want more joy. Instead I'll have some waffles.

Back to the parades, featuring: a big papier mache Lady Liberty! These are horrible pictures, taken with my cell phone. I say it again: I love a parade. Girls rocking the Latin Style completely destroy me and then today, in addition their tight jeans, big unlaced sneakers, pulled-back hair, and dark lip liner, they had on shirts that said We Are All Immigrants. We Are All Americans. That is what Bratz Dolls should look like.

At the rally to stop the genocide in Darfur, Rev. Dr. Michael L. Pfleger tore the roof off the Federal Center Plaza. Maybe you thought there was no roof? You thought, no, no roof, just that giant orange mantis sculpture? Wrong. The roof was hypocrisy, and he fucking destroyed it. "Where is the Christian Right?" he thundered. "Drinking Pepsi and using Proctor & Gamble products!" replied a coworker. "If the houses of worship are not working to protect God's people in Africa, they should shut their doors." Alleluia.

In other news: I really must stop going to classy restaurants. Eldest Sister and her Best Pal were in town for a Girl's Weekend of shopping and dining that had been recommended by Rachael Ray. Whatever. Hot Chocolate was ridiculous. The service sucked and the mac and cheese was so rich I threw up on the way home. Eldest Sister got plastered, though, slept in for two days in a row and bought herself a sensible handbag. These are rare pleasures for the Modern Mother and so I will not hunt down the jackass bartender and punch him right in his neck.

And now, dearest friends, perhaps I will go to the desert, pish-posh my creditors eat grubs and be clothed as the lilies of the valley. Or maybe I will take some Benadryl and try to sleep.