Couch 202: The Grande Unicorn Frappuccino couch.

Solution: GROUP WORK. Let them read each other's work and vote the best syllabus.

Now, you know better than that.
Or - you try it with your freshmen first. Then I will see how first year law students do

I would never actually do it. But assigning group work is a way to make my job easier.

How come you can see the blinky things well enough to edit them out?

I agree about the group work

I sent a very brief email to my T (like 1, admittedly very long, sentence) sharing what I'd been feeling since session. His reply was quite caring. I'll be seeing him again tomorrow.

SD's spirit dog is on the pet thread.

IF only I could get the cats to give me some credit.

Holy carp! A transformer just blew out here! It was like daylight for 3 seconds, and very loud. Our power was unaffected tho. Kinda scary tho. Out in the direction of the railroad tracks, so you never know. But a big big boom.

@Lemoncake, the Couch misses you. I hope you feel up to coming back soon. We're here to support you.

For my fall workshop at the university writing center, I’m trying to write a story about an unpleasant man that makes him both repulsive and sympathetic.

I may not be a good enough writer (yet) to pull this off.

A charming psychopath perhaps?

The uneasiness and overwhelming feeling I've had all day is unbearable. I need to calm down. If I could get one minute of alone time in this house it would help.
I'm meeting with a psychiatrist for the first time tomorrow morning then trying IOP for the first time in the afternoon. I know the unknown and new things tomorrow is mainly the cause of my anxiety tonight.

More like a regular guy who’s been unlucky in life but has also caused his own bad luck, can’t change or self-analyze, and finally snaps.

I’m starting to realize there’s a theme in my stories of people lying to and deceiving themselves.

Regular people, then.

I’m not saying they’re not regular people, they are. It’s that I would have expected my favorite theme to be the baseness of human nature, but it’s not. Kind of surprising.

What is the nature of his repulsiveness? Physical? Behavior?

Both, over the course of the story. A bit physical but mostly behavior.

But a lot of it is caused by his life just not going like it was supposed to.

I am trying to steer clear of any suggestion of mental illness, too.

Have you seen Rigoletto?

No—will it help? Is that the clown?

I keep projecting all over your hypothetical story, but I keep envisioning a person who suffered abuse and then abuses someone else.

Pagliacci is the clown.

And when I read your description I immediately thought of Rigoletto.

a guy who yells at everyone because his family all yelled at everyone but secretly he is scared and doesnt know how to deal with every day things. It's a lot of the customers I deal with lol

I have a tendency to get mad at T when she goes away. It's as though being mad prevents me from missing her. This last time I avoided the temptation to start a fight (although she never engages) and explained it. I dont think there is anyway it is healed but the way it was patched might lead to healing one day.

It's good that it is bringing up lots of stuff and I'm sure all connected somehow. One day maybe the patches can be enough? It's hard not to redirect your focus and patch the little things rather than deal with the hard things, good for you for trying and for leading T there with you..

Yeah, but Rigoletto isn't repulsive. He didn't want his daughter to be killed. The Duke is repulsive, but also has no apparent redeeming qualities.

No - he is repulsive and sympathetic. He is depicted as a hunchback and he encouraged and aided the duke in taking someone else's wife and is rather nasty in general except where his daughter is concerned. He is not a pleasant man but he loves her (in a bit of an obsessive way) and he is mocked, demeaned, and ultimately she is taken from him.