I figured it was only a matter of time. A young man who has been spending a lot of time at our house is coming to stay. His mother is working in Yellowknife and his grandfather is going hunting. I said, yes he could come stay with us. I'm not sure we really need another teenager of any description in this house, but oh well.

Tomorrow I'm going to a baby shower. While I was looking for a present this afternoon I started thinking about all those years of cleaning up... fluids... and other stuff that comes out of babies. My kids are all finally at the stage where if they need to barf they do it in the bathroom rather than all over the floor. For a while, having three kids in four years, I felt as if I would always be covered in kid guck. Not to mention the furniture.

There are other things, now. Like that Franz Ferdinand song and then some other one about 'you're so beautiful' that get played over and over again. And there's never any orange juice left and I don't know what they do with forks. Perhaps amassing a trousseau. And the stupid girl song, by Pink. I was told this afternoon that her name's Alicia something or other. I replied, "I never really thought her parents named her Pink."

I had a good week. Lots of projects, not too many intox callers. Just a few, and they were cheerful. Funny, even, we had some laughs. I should add that I laughed with them, not at them.

I've been thinking a lot about energy levels. I feel as if I'm in an energy-conserving cycle, as far as doing things outside home, right now. As in, I am very efficient and dynamic at work, and then I come home and lose all motivation. I think about how I used to work almost full time, go to school part time, do three different volunteer things (Crimestoppers and the prison workshops and Community Policing), and it just makes me want to go and have a nap. But on the other hand, after three years of doing that to try and get the education and experience to get a job in something related to criminology, I'm now working for the police and enjoying it immensely. So, really, what's my incentive to head out again when I get home from work? I don't want to go out in the evenings. I've been marginally involved in a volunteer project, that requires evening meetings, and I was surprised at the level of non-engagement I felt. I think the person who suggested I come along to the meetings was a little discouraged. Normally when I take on something volunteerish I am much more active and committed. Maybe the wanting to do that sort of thing will return, when I get more used to my new job.

However. One of the plusses is that I no longer have to explain why I feel compelled to do so much. Whenever someone found out how many things I did, they would often start to justify their own lives, and why they couldn't be involved. Except my friend Jane - she has always maintained that I was kept so busy because I was trying to hide from some truth about myself. Don't know if that's really the reason, but if so I think my truth will probably pop out and bite me sometime real soon.

So. I want to remember this, when I get back to my normal self and start doing things in the evenings again. Everything's just a phase. Energy comes and goes. Volunteer stuff gets on just fine without me. I am neither indispensable nor indefatigable.

Ian came second in the regional science fair... this means he gets to go to Quebec.

On the phone on Friday at work, a woman who gave me a large piece of her colourful vocabulary. Apparently her son was a ...guest... in our back wing (where the little rooms are with the doors that don't open unless we say so) and she felt that the guys were unfairly targeting her son. I had fielded a couple of calls from concerned citizens in his neighbourhood who felt that he shouldn't be engaging in his chosen behaviour, (driving an ATV) given his level of inebriation, but I told her that she would have to talk to the corporal who brought him in, that I couldn't tell her anything. During the barrage of abuse that followed this, I merely waited, I don't even think you could call it listening, and then cut in and told her again that she would have to talk to the corporal, but that I felt that if she told him exactly what she told me, the corporal probably wouldn't want to talk to her. She called again a few minutes later and I let the phone ring through to the mobile so that she could talk to him. We (one of the constables and I) sat and listened to her being very polite and deferential to the corporal.

While she was yelling, I was fine. Wasn't taking it personally, wasn't attempting to defend myself or the corporal. Managed not to let the call go on too long. Afterwards I realized that I was a little cold. I still can't help the physical responses sometimes. And yet, when I get the calls where someone's saying "He's hitting her" and there's screaming in the background, I can (as Ed says) be removed and calm. Be the voice. -- What's your name. Where are you. Who is hitting who. The police are on their way. Someone will be right there.

And I've been sworn at before, but mostly the swearing happens right at the end of the call, I tell the caller that their matter is not a police matter and they generally say "Thanks a whole fucking lot" or some such thing before they bang the phone down. But then I just laugh and tell whoever is sitting around with me "That didn't make him/her too happy." But, just like the clip Delia had linked on her blog, there are things that I know that if I go into the coffee room or the squad room and say to the guys, "Someone has stolen old Mr. So-and-so's bottle of vodka" they're going to say, "He probably drank it," and no-one will move.