Psychic Ear Ringing

Hendrick's left ear was ringing, but he refused to pick up.  It had taken years of diligence to learn how to block out the feelings, and sometimes images, that accompanied the ringing, but he had managed.  Unfortunately, his left ear was also the ear upon which sat the headset's cushioned speaker, and his ear's own ringing muffled the client, who had just begun to describe a computer problem.

"I'm sorry," Hendrick interrupted, "but could you please repeat that?"

How do you feel about gay couples adopting babies?

Most people in the United States have no idea the numbers of children in foster care much less the even larger numbers of children currently freed for adoption.  Nor do people understand the child protective services, foster care and county adoption process.  Unless you are a part of the system, you simply have no clue.

I worked for the Department of Social Services in a unit called "Homefinding".  While I wasn't a caseworker for very long, it was enough for me to understand how much is hidden in plain sight, and how much is wrong with society that the average person doesn't understand.  For example, the prime goal of a children's services caseworker is to keep children with their families.  These people work very hard to assess situations and provide whatever support necessary to get those families the help they need so moms, dads, brothers and sisters can stay together.  The most tragic action you can take is to pull children from their mothers and fathers.  And yet.  And yet there were caseworkers who, upon visiting a home, had to take children without warning, bring those kids in their car back to the social services building, sit those crying/stunned/angry/terrified children in a waiting room and call Homefinding.

In Homefinding, we had a list of all the families in the area who could take in foster children.  It was updated minimally once a day.  There were pitifully few families on the list.  Most homes were already full, and many available couldn't take the kind of children who came so suddenly into care.  The crack-addicted baby with a heart condition, the fourteen year old boy, the family of ten brothers and sisters.  It just wasn't possible.

Halfway through my tenure in Homefinding, they gave me the one and only position in "Adoptive Homefinding".  It was here that I saw the even greater disconnect between reality and what is known.  We have a vague idea that there are children available for adoption.  Have you ever seen the Blue Books?  The Blue Books are thick three-ring binders filled with pictures and descriptions of children emancipated from their birth families, waiting for a new family who will raise them and love them and help them become adults.  Binder after binder after binder, each filled with page after page after page of children.

Here is the most terrifying disconnect:
Family wants to adopt a child.  A baby.  No crack babies, please.  Possible spina bifida?  No.  No disease.  No genetic problems.  Can you guarantee this baby is okay?  Twin toddlers?  So adorable!  But... was the mother a drinker?  Were these kids abused?  Are they damaged?  This child has bathroom problems.  This child poops in my closet.  This child hides food.  This child is damaged.  I need a promise this child will be like my own: perfect.

A child is put into foster care.  A child is only put into foster care when there has been abuse or neglect, meaning keeping the child with his or her family is too dangerous, no matter how hard the caseworker has tried.  This child is damaged.  This child is pulled away and put in a stranger's house.  Caseworkers work very hard to help the birth family become better.  Services are put into place.  Visits are made.  The foster family works with the birth family so the child can go home.  But... the birth family is too dangerous and it cannot be.  No other family member can take the child, so the child stays with strangers.  Perhaps for years.  Perhaps many strangers in different houses in different towns.  Perhaps in a group home.  This child was abused, neglected, torn from home, shuffled around, and, finally, "freed".  Free for adoption.

Is this child damaged?  Yes.
Can you guarantee this baby is okay?  No.
Can you promise this child will grow up and be okay?  No.

But...

But the damage can be mitigated.  These children are humans, and they learn and they live and they love.  There is no baby or child that comes with a guarantee--not even one born to you.  These children were freed from their birth families because it was too horrible to return.  Of course they need help; you would need help, too.

We need to know.  We need to understand.  We need to get a clue.  We are needed.

Pageant Question: If you caught someone stealing at work, how would you react?

Harry didn't like to eat in the break room because it was so dreary.  He preferred to take his lunch back to his cubicle and hang a homemade "Out to Lunch" sign across the opening to prevent anyone from making him work.  Brenda, Pam and Luce loved the break room, and they lorded over the round table like knights.  Or like The View.  Harry hated to walk past them and he hated even more having to warm his food in the microwave and wait near them because they sounded like chickens clucking.

Today, Claudia was bent over, her head in the refrigerator, and it was a glorious view.  Claudia was a new hire and Harry knew she wouldn't be here long.  "Promotion" was written all over her long legs and tight skirts and low-cut blouses.  Harry stopped near the door to wait for his turn in the fridge, and to admire the view.  Into the fridge, Claudia growled, "Where the hell is my lunch?"

Pageant Question 17: Sell us your favorite product.

"Here's to good friends," Tony said, raising his glass, "tonight is kinda special."  The work group from Consolidated Conglomerate approved of the sentiment and drank from their Glassworx glasses or mugs, available in many different sizes to suit their needs.

George was new, so before standing with his own toast, he asked John, "Canai?"

Tony was surprised the new guy wanted to speak to the group already, but there was no reason why not.  "Yes you can."

George stood, clearing his throat.  "There's something special in the air," he began, and everyone began nodding, feeling it.  "We're doing what we do best and we try harder.  We think different.  Manly, yes, but women like it, too."  The others in Meyers' Clothiers Suits and Work-Wear laughed. When the laughter started to die down, George asked, "Can you hear me now?"  When they were silent and attentive, he continued, "With imagination at work, oh, the possibilities!  We bring out the best, and anything less would be uncivilized.  Thank you for your support."

During the rousing round of applause for the new guy, Tony stood and shook George's hand, "I love you, man."

Pageant Question 14: If you could be someone else, who would you be, and why?

I was twenty-seven years old when I realized how close thirty was.  I had told myself since I turned twenty that thirty was my new mile marker.  It had been twenty, but the dreams of my teen years were pretty lame and clearly weren't working out.  I had wanted to be a famous drummer, but I never set aside enough time to practice on the secondhand Ludwig set in my room.  It wasn't all my fault; I couldn't play when anyone was home, but many opportunities I did have I lost to video games.  If I had been more determined to achieve my dream rather than simply being attached to the idea of it, I would have found a way.  My other teen dream was to get laid by Megan Huggs, and that didn't work out, either.

At twenty-seven, I had my own apartment, and I still had my drum set, though it was filthy with dust.  I had nearly gotten an associate's degree in Criminal Justice, but it turned out that while I enjoyed watching television crime shows, I despised learning about actually doing it.  I worked as "Collections and Recovery Specialist" for a bank, which means I called people on the phone asking for money they owed.  It was sucking the life right out of me.  I wasn't even good at it because on a great many calls, despite management's training intervention, I would still just apologize profusely and hang up on them.  I was not motivated.  I was not a team player.  I did not have a positive and friendly attitude.  I was not a self-starter.  I was not even detail-oriented.

One morning, when my alarm went off as six for my bleary-eyed shower and cereal breakfast, I turned it off.  Not snooze.  Off.  I didn't go back to sleep, either.  What I did was ponder that in three years, I would be thirty.  I also pondered that if I didn't formulate a new plan for my life, I would find myself at thirty-seven looking at forty.  Then forty-seven looking at fifty.  Then... well, what?  Would I be looking back on my life instead of forward and wondering what I ever did?  I pondered in bed for an hour as the sun rose without any answer then I must have fallen back to sleep because I dreamed.

First I dreamed I was a woman.  Now get this straight: I'm not transsexual and I don't cross-dress.  It was just a dream.  I had just come home from shopping and I was taking off my heels and my husband and kids came to greet me.  The house was spectacular, and I knew we had a maid.  I was looking forward to our upcoming vacation to the Virgin Islands and the new bikini I bought.  This dream was hyper-realistic, unlike my normal, bleary dreams, and it switched me smoothly into someone else.  A man this time, with a beard, which I have never had because my facial hair is the sad, patchy hair of a seventeen year old.  I was sitting on the porch of my cabin smoking a pipe and all was well with the world.  I had a feeling of contentment I had never had in real life.  My dream switched me one last time into a kid.  I'm not sure if I was a boy or a girl, but, man, I had talent.  I played piano and I was giving a concert in what I knew was Carnegie Hall, though I'm sure it didn't look quite like the real thing.  When I finally woke it was nine and with utmost certainty I knew what my dream meant.  It was a dramatic representation of change.  I needed to become someone else to be happy.

315

Her face was hot and her eyes were dry and stung a little.  It was late, but Julia still had so much work to do.  What did it matter, she thought.  None of this matters.  The cleaning crew's vacuum had long since faded away, but here she was, still, pushing papers over her desk.  Copy.  Internal mail.  File.  Repeat.  Collate.  Staple.  File.  Repeat.  Julia's hands were dry and she was sore from sitting, forgetting even her own body as she went through the motions of work, work, work.  In her mind, she shoved all the papers off her desk in one swing of the arm, kicked the file drawer shut so hard the cabinet fell against the next, and yanked the phone from the jack, whipping it across the room.  In reality, she wrote dates, signed papers, filed, repeated.

298

Though the aisles were wide enough for the forklift, the metal and wood shelves loaded with merchandise still loomed overhead.  Long corridors of high-priced kitchen accessories filled the warehouse.  The cement floors were smooth and cold.

Orders came from fancy catalogs and, of course, from SkyMall.  People who flew on business trips or, perhaps, to exotic places, and just couldn't wait to land before shopping ordered $80 cutting boards and $250 toaster ovens.  Warehouse pickers took list after list of purchases and plucked them from the mighty shelves to pile onto conveyor belts that rolled to the packers who boxed up the hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise for a far away customer who had already forgotten what he ordered the last time he flew back from Tokyo.