"How did you two meet and how long have you known each other?"
"We met on a bench at the university in 2003. We've been hanging around each other since 2006. We had a mutual friend who was his neighbor. I was coming out of his house one day and Forrest called down from the window."
"Yeah. I wrote my name and number in her French book, but she never called. Between 2003 and 2006, we saw each other around town going in and out of the coffee shop."
"So, seven years? That's a long time. Well, we have something in couples therapy called irreversible disputes, which are problems that you two will just have to live with each other. Have you been living together?"
"Yes, we've pretty much been living together the entire seven years we've known each other."
"Her mother won't let her go live with her anymore. Not after last weekend."
"Well, it was the weekend before."
"Go ahead! You tell her what happened, Jenny."
"No. You tell her."
"Well she disappeared the Saturday after Boston was on lock down to go panhandle in Boston with her friend on her way to Mississippi. White people are on meth in Mississippi and black people are on crack there. They only made it as far as Connecticut. Worried the hell out of everybody. She quit a full time job to do it."
"I just had to get away from him. He was talking about how he would kill himself and he's always shouting at me."
"Yeah. I had a bad week that week with my emotional cycles. One time the police showed up on June 26, 2012 and like I told the cop when he asked if I was being boisterous, I said no, that I was being vociferous. He said 'well, there's no law against that!' They thought I was beating her up. I've been stopped thirty-two times in fifteen years. I was stopped for sitting in my Crazy Creek Chair waiting for my truck to be serviced. I was diagnosed schizophrenia and she was diagnosed bi-polar. I think it's profiling because I was advertised in the Casco Bay Jerkly back in 2000 as having schizophrenia."
"Schizophrenia? What is that like? You hear voices?"
"Ask me how I tolerate stupid questions ..."
"Well ... schizophrenia is a pretty major deal ... and, you're bi-polar?"
"Yes."
"And you are applying for social security because he told you to ...?"
"Yes ..."
"Well ... she has been through twenty to twenty-five jobs since I have known her ... Tell her a little about it, Jenny ..."
"Well ... I don't like waitressing jobs and those jobs are the only jobs I am qualified for."
"Like when I go to the coffee shop, it is one seventy-seven for me and three fifty-four for her. The first few years I knew her, it was five dollar coffees for her and mine cost a buck. I had more money then. I was working at the university then for eight years. The longest job she ever had was at the hospital pushing food carts for eight months and of course: the hospital doesn't feed her ... so ... she would come home hungry and I'd have to shill out twenty dollars a night for pizza when she came home."
"So ... it's about money ...?"
"Not all about money."
"And you are on disability?"
"Yes."
"When were you diagnosed 'schizophrenia?'"
"1996."
"How long have you been on disability?"
"Since 1996."
"So ... you're trying to live on disability and she has no income? Jenny: what do you want to do for a job?"
"Dietary Technician."
"Seems kind of odd you would quit the hospital job in food. Does that make sense?"
"Well ... it was pushing trays and I couldn't push those heavy carts. Dietary Technicians tell people what to eat."
"I see ..."
"I went to vocational rehab on Monday and I have an appointment on Friday."
"Well ... you know at the hospital they have something called tuition reimbursement ..."
"But, I don't work at the hospital anymore."
"Well ... there might be some time before the financial aspect is cleared up between you two if you are applying for disability. It could be a long wait."
"Hell! They approved me the next day ..."
"Well, they would you with your diagnosis ..."
"Well, I've had all the diagnoses in the book. I've been diagnosed bi-polar, schizophrenia, schizoaffective ..."
"Is your schizophrenia treated? Is it under control with meds?"
"I see doctor McGeachey downstairs. We both saved each others lives. First, she saved mine and then I saved hers."
"So, it is treated? ... How did she save your life, Forrest?"
"I hung myself. She got me cut down. I was angry about a few things and was on the phone to my mother when she said the inevitable as to what she always says that it is 'all in my head.' I am so sick of that. Everybody and my neighbor asks if I have had my meds adjusted or if my head is screwed on tight as soon as they hear that I have schizophrenia. I am me: not a label!"
"I see. And, how did he save your life, Jenny?"
"I was having an episode and stole my mother's car and ran into a parked car. I left the scene of an accident and ran to his house. He took me back to the scene and told the cops not to arrest me that it was a mental issue. They let him take me home to my mother who waited for my uncle and they took me to the hospital."
"Well, so you both obviously want to spend time with each other even after seven years. What happens after seven years is a couple will have recurring disputes, going over the same old arguments. What are some of the problems that you have had with him, Jenny?"
"Uh ... mostly household chores. He won't clean up after himself. I do all the laundry, all the dishes, the sweeping, the mopping, the cooking ... he won't do anything. Recently, he has had a cleaning woman come in and help, but he won't do it. He'd rather pay someone to do it."
"Well ... it sounds like you need a job. Why doesn't he pay you to do it instead of the cleaning woman?"
"I did pay her and do pay her, but she doesn't want to do it anymore. Now, she just gets money from me without doing anything ..."
"I see ..."
"And then she comes up with these grandiose ideas like just this morning she says to me that she has a job idea, a new one. I say, 'oh boy!' and leave to go get in the truck. She comes down to the truck and I ask her what's this new job idea? She says MLS, Master of Library Science. The closest school is in Boston, she says. It's just not practical! It's not doable for her to do that. She might as well do engineering. I can name countless ideas that she has had over the years that just don't make any sense at all. I mean just the other day she was expressing her fears of going on disability and not having anything to do with her days. Well, I can understand that! Sucks not having anything to do. So, I am all for her going to the community college for the Dietary Technician. Give her something to do. But the ideas she gets are crazy ..."
"And what do you do Forrest?"
"Well, he writes all day. He likes to write. He spends his days on the computer."
"What do you write, Forrest?"
"Well, I have portlandmainepoliceblogspotcom. portlandmainecityhallblogspotcom. And, I used to have McgeacheyHallblogspotcom, but I changed the name to MentalMaineblogspotcom. I write in a Hemingway voice. It is what I have developed my writing voice to be. I studied Hemingway in community college. Do you know Hemingway's '49 Short Stories? ... How about 'Hills Like White Elephants?' Or, how about 'A Clean Well-Lit Place? Do you remember those stories? I write short stories like that."
"I read a lot, but I don't remember a lot of what I read. So, you just write all day? You have blogs?"
"He tries to make money off of them with ads."
"You try to make money off of them with ads? What are you selling?"
"He's not selling anything ..."
"It's Adsense, but nobody clicks the ads."
"So, you just give this stuff away for free on the Internet?"
"Yes. Pretty much."
"And, what are these stories about? What do you write about?"
"I write about things that happen to me."
"Like what? Give me an example."
"Well, she didn't read my chapbook, but I write about things that happen to me. Oh wait! You read the one story about the hospital patient, didn't you?"
Jenny nods.
"What was that story about? Tell me about it."
"Well, I get up at three sometimes and go out and one morning a few weeks ago I was at the seven eleven drinking coffee, listening to the news and a hospital patient from the hospital had just been released. He walked up to the seven eleven with a white hospital issue blanket and wearing a T-shirt on a cold morning when it was cold a few weeks ago. I knew he was a hospital patient from the white blanket. Well, I left and drove down to the smoke shop waiting for it to open in front when the patient whose name was Nicholas McCarley as it turns out comes down the block in his white blanket trying to stay warm and yells across the street at me in my truck. He asks me to take him to the hospital. I say hospital? why? He says he is cutting. I say what you mean cutting? He says he means he doesn't want to live anymore. So, I end up buying him a pack of smokes, a soda and giving him my coat with some change in it. I tell him he doesn't want to go to the hospital because just look at how he was treated there sending him out on a cold morning like that in a T-shirt. I write things that happen to me."
"I see. So you write about things that happen to you. And, that happened?"
"Yes. Pretty much. I am kind of an Internet troll and unemployable."
"What does an Internet troll do? Do you take a political stance?"
"No. I take no stance. A true troll takes no issue with anything on the Internet or any kind of position."
"I see. So, you take no political stance ...?"
"No. I write about things that happen to me. I can find anything on the Internet. I sent an email to Charles Polk. I found his email on the hospital Web site. They since erased all emails off the site when that happened. I was pissed about something with him when I sent that email."
"Oh. You did? Well, drop him a line for me, won't you?"
"OK. I will. I'll tell him you told me to email him."
"Alright. You do that! ... Wait! Who do you mean!? You mean my boss: Charles Polk!?"
"Yes. Your boss ..."
"No. Don't email him about me!"
"No. I'm going to email him about you ... tell him you told me to email him ..."
"No. Don't do that. I thought you were talking about the Marx Brothers ... I bet you were wondering what I was talking about ...!?"
"Well, yes. I was wondering."
"Hmmm ... OK."
"I'm really not as crazy as I am made out to be ... there is method to my madness."
"Uh-huh. Do you see a counselor, Jenny?"
"Yes. I have been seeing a counselor."
"And you Forrest?"
"No, not currently, but I have seen a counselor before. I saw Bill White next door, I believe a number of years ago for a time."
"Oh. Bill White retired."
"Oh. Really? Much more walking time on the Eastern Prom for him."
"Oh? You see him there?"
"Yes. Sometimes. At 6am."
"I see. And, you smoke?"
"Yes, I smoke a lot."
"Do you smoke, Jenny?"
"Yes, but not as much as him. I smoke about a pack a day and he smokes one hundred cigarettes a day. I want to quit."
"Wow! Really!? Hmmm ... Well, you know you might not be able to get him to quit. He might smoke for the rest of his life and never quit. Do you drink, Forrest?"
"I drink, but I try to keep it to just beer."
"He's an alcoholic."
"Yes. I'm an alcoholic. I've been diagnosed alcoholic."
"How does that affect you, Jenny? Do you mind it?"
"Well, he goes back and forth. He spends time sober and drunk. He does AA for a time and drinks at other times."
"Yeah. I go back and forth. Just today I was thinking I'd do seventeen days without drinking or smoking."
"We're getting married at the end of this month."
"You are!?"
"Yes."
"Well, the thing about couples counseling and working things out for the long term is what's called the five to one rule, which is scientifically proven. It's where you stress five positive things about each other to every one negative thing. The psychologist who came up with it worked out of the University of Washington on a study with many couples and charted that it takes five positive things to every one negative thing for a successful couple. I am going to give you two some reading material to go home with as a little homework. What do you like about Jenny, Forrest?"
"I like that she always comes back. All my other girlfriends ran away. I yearn for Jenny. Like when she went out this morning and said she was going to the dollar store, she was gone two hours. I wanted her to come back. I was looking for her. She went to Goodwill. When she comes home, I always go yay and the dog starts barking hysterically. I like her because she always comes back. It's a Forrest Gump life."
"I see. And Jenny? How do feel about Forrest?"
"I feel the same. I think he is my soul mate. He's always there for me."
"Yeah. I've got the ring on now. It doesn't come off. Look see. I'm not taking it off either. If she goes, she can always come back."
"So, you like him because he is steady?"
Jenny nods.
"Alright. Here is the paper work for your homework. This is just a chapter out of a book. This one has some questions on it to ask each other about to see how well you know each other. Go ahead, Forrest. Ask a question."
"Uh. OK. Let's see. 'What is my favorite song?'"
"Oh. I don't know. You have many favorite songs."
"Call Jenny! 867-5309 ..."
"Oh yeah! That!"
"Alright. You two. When do we make the next appointment? Two weeks? One week?"
"How about three weeks?"
"No. Not three weeks."
"OK. Two weeks?"
"Yes. OK. Two weeks."
"OK. Two weeks it is. Just take this to reception and make your next appointment."
"OK. Thank you."
"Thanks."
"We met on a bench at the university in 2003. We've been hanging around each other since 2006. We had a mutual friend who was his neighbor. I was coming out of his house one day and Forrest called down from the window."
"Yeah. I wrote my name and number in her French book, but she never called. Between 2003 and 2006, we saw each other around town going in and out of the coffee shop."
"So, seven years? That's a long time. Well, we have something in couples therapy called irreversible disputes, which are problems that you two will just have to live with each other. Have you been living together?"
"Yes, we've pretty much been living together the entire seven years we've known each other."
"Her mother won't let her go live with her anymore. Not after last weekend."
"Well, it was the weekend before."
"Go ahead! You tell her what happened, Jenny."
"No. You tell her."
"Well she disappeared the Saturday after Boston was on lock down to go panhandle in Boston with her friend on her way to Mississippi. White people are on meth in Mississippi and black people are on crack there. They only made it as far as Connecticut. Worried the hell out of everybody. She quit a full time job to do it."
"I just had to get away from him. He was talking about how he would kill himself and he's always shouting at me."
"Yeah. I had a bad week that week with my emotional cycles. One time the police showed up on June 26, 2012 and like I told the cop when he asked if I was being boisterous, I said no, that I was being vociferous. He said 'well, there's no law against that!' They thought I was beating her up. I've been stopped thirty-two times in fifteen years. I was stopped for sitting in my Crazy Creek Chair waiting for my truck to be serviced. I was diagnosed schizophrenia and she was diagnosed bi-polar. I think it's profiling because I was advertised in the Casco Bay Jerkly back in 2000 as having schizophrenia."
"Schizophrenia? What is that like? You hear voices?"
"Ask me how I tolerate stupid questions ..."
"Well ... schizophrenia is a pretty major deal ... and, you're bi-polar?"
"Yes."
"And you are applying for social security because he told you to ...?"
"Yes ..."
"Well ... she has been through twenty to twenty-five jobs since I have known her ... Tell her a little about it, Jenny ..."
"Well ... I don't like waitressing jobs and those jobs are the only jobs I am qualified for."
"Like when I go to the coffee shop, it is one seventy-seven for me and three fifty-four for her. The first few years I knew her, it was five dollar coffees for her and mine cost a buck. I had more money then. I was working at the university then for eight years. The longest job she ever had was at the hospital pushing food carts for eight months and of course: the hospital doesn't feed her ... so ... she would come home hungry and I'd have to shill out twenty dollars a night for pizza when she came home."
"So ... it's about money ...?"
"Not all about money."
"And you are on disability?"
"Yes."
"When were you diagnosed 'schizophrenia?'"
"1996."
"How long have you been on disability?"
"Since 1996."
"So ... you're trying to live on disability and she has no income? Jenny: what do you want to do for a job?"
"Dietary Technician."
"Seems kind of odd you would quit the hospital job in food. Does that make sense?"
"Well ... it was pushing trays and I couldn't push those heavy carts. Dietary Technicians tell people what to eat."
"I see ..."
"I went to vocational rehab on Monday and I have an appointment on Friday."
"Well ... you know at the hospital they have something called tuition reimbursement ..."
"But, I don't work at the hospital anymore."
"Well ... there might be some time before the financial aspect is cleared up between you two if you are applying for disability. It could be a long wait."
"Hell! They approved me the next day ..."
"Well, they would you with your diagnosis ..."
"Well, I've had all the diagnoses in the book. I've been diagnosed bi-polar, schizophrenia, schizoaffective ..."
"Is your schizophrenia treated? Is it under control with meds?"
"I see doctor McGeachey downstairs. We both saved each others lives. First, she saved mine and then I saved hers."
"So, it is treated? ... How did she save your life, Forrest?"
"I hung myself. She got me cut down. I was angry about a few things and was on the phone to my mother when she said the inevitable as to what she always says that it is 'all in my head.' I am so sick of that. Everybody and my neighbor asks if I have had my meds adjusted or if my head is screwed on tight as soon as they hear that I have schizophrenia. I am me: not a label!"
"I see. And, how did he save your life, Jenny?"
"I was having an episode and stole my mother's car and ran into a parked car. I left the scene of an accident and ran to his house. He took me back to the scene and told the cops not to arrest me that it was a mental issue. They let him take me home to my mother who waited for my uncle and they took me to the hospital."
"Well, so you both obviously want to spend time with each other even after seven years. What happens after seven years is a couple will have recurring disputes, going over the same old arguments. What are some of the problems that you have had with him, Jenny?"
"Uh ... mostly household chores. He won't clean up after himself. I do all the laundry, all the dishes, the sweeping, the mopping, the cooking ... he won't do anything. Recently, he has had a cleaning woman come in and help, but he won't do it. He'd rather pay someone to do it."
"Well ... it sounds like you need a job. Why doesn't he pay you to do it instead of the cleaning woman?"
"I did pay her and do pay her, but she doesn't want to do it anymore. Now, she just gets money from me without doing anything ..."
"I see ..."
"And then she comes up with these grandiose ideas like just this morning she says to me that she has a job idea, a new one. I say, 'oh boy!' and leave to go get in the truck. She comes down to the truck and I ask her what's this new job idea? She says MLS, Master of Library Science. The closest school is in Boston, she says. It's just not practical! It's not doable for her to do that. She might as well do engineering. I can name countless ideas that she has had over the years that just don't make any sense at all. I mean just the other day she was expressing her fears of going on disability and not having anything to do with her days. Well, I can understand that! Sucks not having anything to do. So, I am all for her going to the community college for the Dietary Technician. Give her something to do. But the ideas she gets are crazy ..."
"And what do you do Forrest?"
"Well, he writes all day. He likes to write. He spends his days on the computer."
"What do you write, Forrest?"
"Well, I have portlandmainepoliceblogspotcom. portlandmainecityhallblogspotcom. And, I used to have McgeacheyHallblogspotcom, but I changed the name to MentalMaineblogspotcom. I write in a Hemingway voice. It is what I have developed my writing voice to be. I studied Hemingway in community college. Do you know Hemingway's '49 Short Stories? ... How about 'Hills Like White Elephants?' Or, how about 'A Clean Well-Lit Place? Do you remember those stories? I write short stories like that."
"I read a lot, but I don't remember a lot of what I read. So, you just write all day? You have blogs?"
"He tries to make money off of them with ads."
"You try to make money off of them with ads? What are you selling?"
"He's not selling anything ..."
"It's Adsense, but nobody clicks the ads."
"So, you just give this stuff away for free on the Internet?"
"Yes. Pretty much."
"And, what are these stories about? What do you write about?"
"I write about things that happen to me."
"Like what? Give me an example."
"Well, she didn't read my chapbook, but I write about things that happen to me. Oh wait! You read the one story about the hospital patient, didn't you?"
Jenny nods.
"What was that story about? Tell me about it."
"Well, I get up at three sometimes and go out and one morning a few weeks ago I was at the seven eleven drinking coffee, listening to the news and a hospital patient from the hospital had just been released. He walked up to the seven eleven with a white hospital issue blanket and wearing a T-shirt on a cold morning when it was cold a few weeks ago. I knew he was a hospital patient from the white blanket. Well, I left and drove down to the smoke shop waiting for it to open in front when the patient whose name was Nicholas McCarley as it turns out comes down the block in his white blanket trying to stay warm and yells across the street at me in my truck. He asks me to take him to the hospital. I say hospital? why? He says he is cutting. I say what you mean cutting? He says he means he doesn't want to live anymore. So, I end up buying him a pack of smokes, a soda and giving him my coat with some change in it. I tell him he doesn't want to go to the hospital because just look at how he was treated there sending him out on a cold morning like that in a T-shirt. I write things that happen to me."
"I see. So you write about things that happen to you. And, that happened?"
"Yes. Pretty much. I am kind of an Internet troll and unemployable."
"What does an Internet troll do? Do you take a political stance?"
"No. I take no stance. A true troll takes no issue with anything on the Internet or any kind of position."
"I see. So, you take no political stance ...?"
"No. I write about things that happen to me. I can find anything on the Internet. I sent an email to Charles Polk. I found his email on the hospital Web site. They since erased all emails off the site when that happened. I was pissed about something with him when I sent that email."
"Oh. You did? Well, drop him a line for me, won't you?"
"OK. I will. I'll tell him you told me to email him."
"Alright. You do that! ... Wait! Who do you mean!? You mean my boss: Charles Polk!?"
"Yes. Your boss ..."
"No. Don't email him about me!"
"No. I'm going to email him about you ... tell him you told me to email him ..."
"No. Don't do that. I thought you were talking about the Marx Brothers ... I bet you were wondering what I was talking about ...!?"
"Well, yes. I was wondering."
"Hmmm ... OK."
"I'm really not as crazy as I am made out to be ... there is method to my madness."
"Uh-huh. Do you see a counselor, Jenny?"
"Yes. I have been seeing a counselor."
"And you Forrest?"
"No, not currently, but I have seen a counselor before. I saw Bill White next door, I believe a number of years ago for a time."
"Oh. Bill White retired."
"Oh. Really? Much more walking time on the Eastern Prom for him."
"Oh? You see him there?"
"Yes. Sometimes. At 6am."
"I see. And, you smoke?"
"Yes, I smoke a lot."
"Do you smoke, Jenny?"
"Yes, but not as much as him. I smoke about a pack a day and he smokes one hundred cigarettes a day. I want to quit."
"Wow! Really!? Hmmm ... Well, you know you might not be able to get him to quit. He might smoke for the rest of his life and never quit. Do you drink, Forrest?"
"I drink, but I try to keep it to just beer."
"He's an alcoholic."
"Yes. I'm an alcoholic. I've been diagnosed alcoholic."
"How does that affect you, Jenny? Do you mind it?"
"Well, he goes back and forth. He spends time sober and drunk. He does AA for a time and drinks at other times."
"Yeah. I go back and forth. Just today I was thinking I'd do seventeen days without drinking or smoking."
"We're getting married at the end of this month."
"You are!?"
"Yes."
"Well, the thing about couples counseling and working things out for the long term is what's called the five to one rule, which is scientifically proven. It's where you stress five positive things about each other to every one negative thing. The psychologist who came up with it worked out of the University of Washington on a study with many couples and charted that it takes five positive things to every one negative thing for a successful couple. I am going to give you two some reading material to go home with as a little homework. What do you like about Jenny, Forrest?"
"I like that she always comes back. All my other girlfriends ran away. I yearn for Jenny. Like when she went out this morning and said she was going to the dollar store, she was gone two hours. I wanted her to come back. I was looking for her. She went to Goodwill. When she comes home, I always go yay and the dog starts barking hysterically. I like her because she always comes back. It's a Forrest Gump life."
"I see. And Jenny? How do feel about Forrest?"
"I feel the same. I think he is my soul mate. He's always there for me."
"Yeah. I've got the ring on now. It doesn't come off. Look see. I'm not taking it off either. If she goes, she can always come back."
"So, you like him because he is steady?"
Jenny nods.
"Alright. Here is the paper work for your homework. This is just a chapter out of a book. This one has some questions on it to ask each other about to see how well you know each other. Go ahead, Forrest. Ask a question."
"Uh. OK. Let's see. 'What is my favorite song?'"
"Oh. I don't know. You have many favorite songs."
"Call Jenny! 867-5309 ..."
"Oh yeah! That!"
"Alright. You two. When do we make the next appointment? Two weeks? One week?"
"How about three weeks?"
"No. Not three weeks."
"OK. Two weeks?"
"Yes. OK. Two weeks."
"OK. Two weeks it is. Just take this to reception and make your next appointment."
"OK. Thank you."
"Thanks."
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