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| Yesterday started with unchecked swelling of my tonsils and a fever following a 3 hour of sleep night-and I wasn't even on call. The worst part was saying goodbye but of course that's always the worst part. The best part was the feel of his hands on the small of my back as he pressed me further to him in a kiss, and for a moment the time crunch didn't matter, here in this moment, right where it's flowing... right here with me. I'm sure most people would look at me strangely if i said the small of my back was an erogenous zone, and that I'd take nice wide shoulders with a sweet smile over a playboy face every day. Pills, coffee, cold shower, stacked pillows and a text sent to my better half to beg out of the morning's rummage sale brigade and it was back to bed. By noon I was upright, had fixed my hair and was just compus mentus enough to brave the real world for groceries-a task that couldn't wait due to lack of cold friendly food. Well, I had cottage cheese and broccoli...Unfortunately this meant braving the high-noon tide of undergraduates crashing down drunkenly onto Mifflin Street Party 2011. This added an extra 25 minutes onto my 20 minute drive to the grocery store and was ironically not the reason I made a 911 call from the car (illegally) yesterday. There was a median on fire 2 miles from downtown. Yup. totally random, and as I called, flashing lights appeared; I was not the only one to have noticed and acted, probably in similar illegal cellphone car-on-motion fashion. Grocery shopping with a fever is a surreal experience and if it could be achieved without a fever, I would highly recommend it just for the oddity, something to add to the persistence of memory. A diet largely of coffee and ginger ale with wasabi almonds tossed in for protein fueled me through the necessary laundry, an other task that could not wait, as I needed a specific pair of underwear for under my dress that evening. The nice thing about laundry is the built in dead time. it's sort of perfect for napping though I usually try to use the time for something more productive, yesterday that wasn't an option with an impending class function followed by overnight on call. I fixed my hair again, donned my new dress, painstakingly applied 3-shade eye make up, sent another text to my better half to let her know i was attending, and spent 20 minutes agonizing about leggings or no. I finally decided on taking them, with a back up plan available in my jacket pocket-which turned out to be excellent foresight on my part. Memorial Union's great hall is ridiculously warm, even with all the windows open. The food was surprisingly good, the coffee bar even better-flavored syrups and fresh cream...I caught up with some friends, faculty, and a Knox Alumna... I split the award for "Most likely to ask the question you are thinking of but too afraid to ask. aka the brass balls award" with a great member of my class. I made the rounds for photos and goodbyes... Attempted a two-hour squeeze in visit at 10p but that backfired awkwardly and painfully. I set off home to sleep. Now if only I was patient...There was a 20 minute wait for the bus that would take me straight home, an aptly named SafeRide route. But no, I walked home in my semi-formal wear, again through the reverse onslaught of inebriated undergraduates. Number of times i was asked for directions: 2. Number of times I was asked for a kiss: 2. One of said requestees asked me to party with them for the rest of the night, and did not believe me that I was on call and had to get home to my pager-called me a liar about 4 times intermixed with flattery about how that was hot. His housemate came to his rescue by telling him he was violating his 5 steps off the porch rule...which was good, because I don't think the evening would have gone well if I'd decked him, which i was getting close to doing. Some undergrad girls thought they were rescuing me by pretending to know me-hilarious. Luckily it was a quiet night with my pager and I managed to sleep past 6 and go to bed again until 9, when I dragged myself out of bed, through the shower, and impromptu planned brunch with an ex-roomie for the last time. And foolishly, I hope that's the only last time thing I did this weekend...I am a stupid optimist after all. Out of our hands, over our headsout of our reach, under this real lifehidden in veils, covered in slik...dreaming of what might be. | | |
| Wow, I tell what what, wow. I made in back in under a year (ok so 20 days is not very impressively under a year). I was certain 4th yer would swallow me up in its entirety until after graduation. But here I am, 4th free weekend in a row and struggling to fill the time. I've started packing for my trip to CO in two weeks and I'm beginning to run out of places to put boxes that won't be in the way... I'm tired of reviewing the same old things that don't often help you answer the weird clinical questions that don't make any appearances in our notes, and I've read 3 vampire novels, and a Steig Larson book this week. In the briefest of re-caps, and as a rei-introduction I have survived nine months of my clinical year as a veterinary medical student, passed boards, and developed a growing distaste for the flippancy of *some* students: I didn't ask you how you were, why are you telling me you were pregnant? And why are wearing a logo-laden over-sized hooded sweatshirt underneath your lab coat in a business casual setting? ok, I've turned away from you and tried to have a conversation about a patient with the clinician and you are still talking about yourself...shut up shut up shut up). I have reach the point in the year where I am sorting, recycling and packing, because my stay here has an expiration date and I will not let it or myself linger. Packing has been educational. Most of my moves were so rushed -2 days after finals, or in the middle of the semester, that not a great deal of sorting went on with them, compounded by the overwhelming need to 'save every note' until I had passed boards. Let me tell you, I did not open an anatomy book once while studying for boards, and I passed. I'm not sure if that's scary, or fundamentally illustrates that clinical anatomy is just plain different from textbook anatomy. I found a letter from a friends I have severely fallen out of touch with. I was both laughing at the hilarity of her writing and crying at the sadness of loosing her. True, stress, moving, her traveling the world, and vetschool communication issues were not the only obstacle between us. Sadly, she is the greatest of friends with my... well lets call him by best ex. A part of me, and I'm not going to quantify how much, often wonders if I'd moved to Seattle, delayed a year and had residency with a 4 hour commute instead of 4,000 miles, if we'd have made it. It's disheartening to say, several partners later, but he's probably sexually and intellectually the best I ever had. Does anonymity really give us the right to be honest when it would be otherwise cruel?. Emotionally is a separate issue, not that he was abusive, we just weren't really good for eachother's emotional stability. Either of us. Unfortunately he lives in one of my favorite cities in the nation... Which I suppose wouldn't feel like it mattered if I was having any luck finding a job at home and hadn't idly looked at pacific northwest locations. Today i had to branch out and applied for a position in Albuquerque (which required learning how to spell that correctly). If left like betrayal. Its not really what I want, not by... a few hundred miles. But I'm getting increasingly nervous. Its not a good time to be unemployed, either as a DVM with almost a quarter of a million in student deb (yeah out of state is expensive don't whine about your pet's bills) or as a single income household with a mortgage with. I'm starting to think I am that houses' last chance to stay in the family. I have after all claimed it to be my permanent residence for the past 8 years on tax returns, shouldn't I financially support that? Lets tell the future, lets see it's been done. By number, by mirrors, by water. By dots made at random. Actually, as I was admitting to a friend who inadvertently discovered in no uncertain terms just how detached my relationship has become (not the first time that's happened-damned honesty), 4 years ago I could not have predicted almost anything about where I am today except in vetschool, and if you went back another year further than that, I'd have predicted graduate school. This is of course in stark contract to his vantage point and of most people by whom I am surrounded. That's ok, I never wanted to be a pre-vet clone, but the lack of predictability of anything besides school, and my ever constant village over the past 4 years is a little disconcerting. Makes me wonder if I know what i'm doing in the real world, or even if I know who I am becoming. I'm a satalite heart, lost in the dark. I've spun out so far. In some ways, having spent the last 23 years in academics, it should feel like my reality, but in fact it seems like an endless in between and I just have to wait it out. | | |
| Since the weather is nice, I can now walk to work in the evenings without concentrating on keeping as much of my face out of the wind as possible, and am free to let my mind wander as people on bikes, or foot pass me in both directions. Today, having seen one too many hairy-legged overweight old (by physical appearance) men, and several 20+lb overweight women, I find myself wondering about the human psyche and fitness determination. I am presently relieved that the bizzare binge-like effects of stress and medroxyprogesterone have not put me past 22% body weight, when I would by far prefer to be hanging out at 18 as usual, though i'd not so secretly like to drop down to 15. But I see this a lot: grossly out of shape people at the gym. Which really is the best place for them of course, but it makes me wonder if out of shape people who are trying to get into shape (ie seen working out) are perceived as more attractive than when seen at rest.
The next question is, does that matter? Well in the long run of evolution, it might. to my life, no. But still interesting. I probably had this on the brain because the speaker for professional skills today mentioned losing herself in her internship, not working out, and gaining 20 lbs. I can't imagine 20lbs. I don't have to, I worked at PetFit so I know exactly what 20 extra lbs feels like (when only distributed to your chest). But I worry for my future. I do not wish to become my mother, who was skinny, fit, and biked everywhere until she had children. Now she can't keep up with her husband or her children, even though one with the pelvic tilt and unequal legs and more locations of lower body tendonitis than you can think of (me). This is of course all compounded by the fact that I am going into a health profession. But I firmly believe that you cannot tell people how to stay healthy themselves, or keep their pets healthy if you are 10+lbs overweight.
Sigh, in that regard i would like to run my own practice, I would only hire people who were in or appeared to be in good shape (and no smoking on grounds or in uniform). Perception is reality when you're in business...and when you're looking in the mirror...
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| I've known what I wanted to do with my career long enough that i've started to wonder why there is not the same great push and training for people to figure out what they want out of a partner. It doesn't have to be a check list, a rigidly defined area of uncertainty, but a general sense, enough to keep my from stumbling about in the dark, in the grain, with only outlines as guides. Problem with that paradigm is that I'm not afraid of the dark, I utilize night vision quite well and the application of mental maps. But you can't build a mental map of a person without it being inherently flawed by your assumptions-sometimes in ways you can predict, more disastrously in the ways you cannot even fathom...
Sorrow drips into your heart through a pin hole,
like a faucet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound
while you debate half empty or half full
it slowly rises your love is gonna drown
Interestingly, I am not sad over the events of last Saturday, just, truly tired and a little more jaded than the week before. But laughing about it. I worry though, about wading in my sorrows, getting pruney and distorted in and by them....
What I really want is what I had years ago, a close friend, and a sexual partner. But of so often it seems that the later precludes development of the former. I haven't known anyone long enough currently to have that sort of friendship in any context that could also support a sexual relationship-or where I would want one. I miss the longevity and depth of knowing that I associate with Knoxians. Of course that is complicated by the severe reduction over average of wasted potential among knoxians.
A friend told me today that my life was envious. I stared open mouthed at the computer-because so many of my conversations occur there- wondering why i couldn't wrap my head around that. I mean, I spent 18 hrs watching a cat to see if it would puke this past weekend, which was not actually my scripted academic/medical role regarding the cat. I did however save the cat from the eventuality of a caudal incisional hernia... Actually I thought I would hate both surgery and anesthesia but I really liked both, anesthesia went more smoothly than surgery, but I have more practice at it so that is not surprising. But who envies 5am-12pm days? No one in their right mind.
There were so many blurs in my brain through out the day, and they have flown by, and left. Out of grasp, out of mind... | | |
| After little over 48hrs home it was time to leave again. I had the distinct advantage of having been up that early 5 out of every 7 days so our 6:15 departure was not so disturbing. This also gave me the upper hand in the entertinaing morning commute game, though I did have 7 weeks of practice from last summer under my belt as well. No one was bored on the drive up that's for sure.
One of the most interesting points of the vacation was the waiter in the resturuant at DIA. Francois, though alternately called "frahnk". Francois made a point of telling me i looked very young, making me guess the age of the woman the next table over, calling me his german genius, and asking what dad's profession was because he had so much penache. You cannot plan or buy that sort of experience. And that was just the start...
As per usual, I slept both flights, rudely interrupted by the inconvenience of an airport that did not sell gatorade, vitamin water, or snapple. My brother's bags arrived in Colorado Springs as we arrived in San Francisco, thank you DETLA. We arrived, got a comedian of a taxi driver, and checked into a surprisingly nice hotel room two blocks from Fisherman's Warf. We strolled down the Wharf until we found a strange spot for lunch, where we started the precedence of eating the mussels. Sea lions, statues, and the on wharf aquarium later and it was nap time. We went to hooters for dinner, an odd, but extremely convenient choice where were seated next to one of a few sports banners, and the ONLY Denver Broncos item in the entire restaurant. The irony continued as some random guy walked up to us and began discussing Barry Bonds as if we were all obviously fans. Still can't buy that sort of thing.
The Golden Gate Bridge is not, as its name would suggest, located in Golden Gate Park, it is in the Presidio (which also houses the Exploratorium and Fort Point). As with several other things in San Franscisco, there is a problem of scale; you look at the bridge and it just doesn't look that big. Well its almost a mile between the two towers, and almost a mile to each one. Having walked it doesn't make your mind/eyes comprehend it any better than before hand...If you can fit the whole thing into view, you are too far away to gauge its mass.
We went directly from the bridge to the Exploratorium where we encountered another problem in scale. We kept thiking, it should be right here, its huge why can't we see it? Well we were too close and it was huge and that close, its just a wall on one side. We toured the outside, walking the same path as in Vertigo-accidentally. Noted that all the figures holding onto the colums face into the their respective columns, except in the center... We purchased our tickets as children maquerading as adults and spent an hour or so playing with the physics for kids interactive demonstrations inside the Exploratorium...
Lombard Street became a map point, seen from Coit tower and we must have crossed it half a dozen times, knowing each time that Scottie's appartment was just at the bottom of the crookedest street in the world, at the botton of the 900 block. We crossed most closely to that land mark in the cable car. Dad and Cameron rode standing-wich really amounts to hanging half off the cable car. The cables going in opposite direcitons run very close to one another, so when we passed another car on a hill, Dad stuck his hand out and got 3 high fives from the oncoming car.
We ate in the irish pub full of itallian good old boys, and at the italian resturaunt that seasons its garlic with food. Dad and I both bought belts in the 5 story shopping mall in the Yerba Buena Center, and the 3 most sentimental of us cried walking under the MLK water fall memorial. Everything we did was punctuated by episodes of spasmodic, non breathing laughter, mostly exhibited by yours truly....I realized that Jesse never saw me laugh that hard, that few people in Madison have. Take steps to change that.
All too soon it was time to go home. So much we didn't do, so much we did I haven't touched on. Though if we'd gone at that breakneck speed much longer we would have been pressing the limits of fun. We came, we saw, we at the mussles...As it should be.
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