tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79888361143303586092024-02-19T10:02:38.811-05:00Notes from the FieldCYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-85195574532113409182020-05-05T18:06:00.002-04:002020-05-06T02:04:13.481-04:00Notes from the surge: Love in the time of covid<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2 months in. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My buddy Matt texted our group when his team was still doing contact tracings at LAX as the first covid cases landed in US airports. I don't even remember when it was, and can't find the texts anymore because they're now buried in a million exchanges since then. I wanna say January. Matt's CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service. If there were such a thing as CDC black ops, he would be it. And he told us about this thing called "flattening the curve" months before it became the trendy internet meme it is today. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It feels like so long ago. Kealia was still in school, stores were still open, and I wasn't living in my parents' basement. A few weeks later they shut down flights and travel. My friend Carlos, who is an NCSP fellow at UCLA, couldn't fly to Rochester to see his wife Katrina, an ob/gyn chief resident at my former hospital, for their anniversary. "Love in the time of covid," he would say. It became kind of a catchphrase for my residency friends. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then all the work emails started coming. Surge preparation. Re-deploying hospital staff, restructuring workflow, new trainee and student roles, new unit structures. Supplies, and rationing PPE. The call for extra help, extra shifts. People immediately began losing their minds, questions and theories about covid19 pathophysiology began pouring out, and the system was flooded with so many emails that they had to ask us to dial it down. We still only had a few cases back then. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I remember the night the NBA shut down. Rudy Gobert had just contracted covid19 and also made an ass of himself on national television when he touched all of the locker room reporters' mics as a joke just before being diagnosed. It was mid-March. Kobe had just died less than 2 months prior. I had a fight with my wife the next day about my wearing scrubs home from work. I signed up for extra shifts, and then we fought about that too. We canceled our trip to Disney World as the shutdowns engulfed the country. Her aunt, who was staying with us to help with the baby, had her flight home canceled as well. A week later I was re-deployed to the covid unit. And that was pretty much the start of this whole thing for me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A former mentor in residency once had a couch talk with me about career advice. It was when I was figuring out whether to apply for pulmonary/critical care fellowship. I'll never forget one of the questions he asked--"So there's a house on fire. Do you run into it, or run to get help?" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"I'd run in," I said quickly, immediately feeling like an ass-hat after. Like one of those douchey doctor types that goes around wearing their white coat or ID badge in public.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> "I mean, I'm not trying to be a hero or show off or anything." He nodded in understanding. It was just my psychological illness, he said. Something along those lines. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was hard convincing Angie though. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>- They have plenty of other people. Just work the shifts you already have. Who cares about the extra pay. Your family needs you too. Stop telling me it's safe, you literally just said they have a PPE shortage. Why you. You're only a first-year hospitalist, they can just find someone else. What are you trying to prove. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>- I'm not trying to prove anything. Why're you being so difficult about this. I don't care what other people think, but it'd be nice if YOU were a little proud of me. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>- I <b>AM </b>proud of you, you idiot. I can't believe you would say that. </i></span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">And now you're making me the bad guy. </i><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">You are such an idiot. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, no surprise to anyone, I'm sure, but yes, I am an idiot--as it turns out, no one supports me more than my wife. I am an idiot that is still married though. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But I'm 2 months in now. I've been living in my parents' basement ever since. Not that we think it's completely necessary or anything, because not every doctor or nurse is doing this. But our apartment is too small to avoid a ton of contact with everything as I walk in the door. Her aunt is also from China, and doesn't have health insurance. So while she's stranded here, we can't risk getting her sick. It's also not just a few cases anymore. It's an almost-constant overwhelming surge that feels like it has no end in sight. They tell us the numbers are getting better. It sure as hell doesn't feel better. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We wheeled a guy in his 40s with covid19 to the ICU the other day when there was no space. They had to wheel a guy out who had just been extubated to make room, so our guy came in red hot with just barely enough time to be intubated. The floor unit has also been tight on staffing lately, so there was only one nurse available to transport him--I gowned up and went with her, one hand pulling the bed while the sterile hand held a clean ambu bag in case he went down in the hallways. All I could hear was my pulse bounding in my ears, and Jess behind me calling "Left! Right! Hit the button!" as she steered. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Earlier in the course, covid patients on hospice or other end-of-life care (meaning they were dying and nothing could be done, so we would only give meds to keep them comfortable, letting them pass away peacefully and naturally) would sometimes pass away without staff knowing right away. They'd be found after the fact, on the next routine nursing check. In normal circumstances, end-of-life patients can be checked in on frequently by nursing because you can simply walk into their room and assess them in less than a minute. Families could also sit with them until the end. In the era of covid, it's not that simple. Donning PPE properly takes time. Once you go in, you can't just walk back out then go back in, because you have to waste a set of PPE each trip in and out. You also can't go in every couple hours. You can't leave the door open to watch them from the hallway. And you can't have families come in and sit with them for hours. If they're not trained to use PPE properly, they touch their faces and their masks, rip their gowns accidentally, mess up their gloving and de-gloving technique. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So yes, some end up dying alone, but not of anyone's choosing. Quite simply, we don't have the means or the manpower to constantly look in on them. We've worked on solutions. Accommodations for last visitations by families, setting up video chats and phone calls in the rooms. Video monitors. Using rooms with windows. Last month we moved a couple patients to window rooms where family could see them while standing outside the hospital. There's always unforeseen problems though. I sent up the chain an idea to use cardiac monitoring on end-of-life patients. We normally don't do that, because we can just watch them physically instead of wasting a cardiac monitor on someone who doesn't need it. But in this case it helps alert us to when their heart rate slows, so we can gown up to sit with them in their final moments. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's worked relatively well so far, but on one case, we failed to get into the room on time. We saw her heart rate drop from 90 to 30s, and knew it was coming. I went upstairs to grab my PPE and print a handoff while her nurse went to grab a few other supplies, and by the time I was down, she was already in flatline. Her hand was still warm when we got into the room. We literally missed her by seconds. Fucking <i><b>seconds</b></i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Her granddaughter later asked me over the phone if anyone was with her when she died. I told her that we were. It's one lie even God would forgive, I think. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But the house is still burning, and people are getting pretty exhausted from running in. Even when you're off duty, it's tough to let go. The first day off is always the worst. I spend mine chart checking, texting people in the hospital, emailing neurotically. I pace circles in the basement. I scan headlines and read updates on clinical trials. I ask friends at work if they need help and they say thanks, but never actually ask for anything. I suppose I wouldn't either. I sleep less on my first day off than when I'm actually on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Angie told me again last night how proud of me she was. My parents texted me the same from upstairs earlier in the week. I don't know what to say. Matt and his wife Brooke are having a baby girl later this month. We sent them an infant dress a couple months ago. River turned 4 months old, he's teething now. My mom cut my hair last week. Angie cut bangs for Kealia. A couple friends in Houston got married with a Zoom reception last month. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Love in the time of covid. I don't know what to say. Life goes on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Strangers I've never met say thank you to me these days. Love in the time of covid. I don't know what to say. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Maybe "Amen." </span><br />
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CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-72754604450645393412018-09-05T22:35:00.001-04:002018-09-10T21:33:19.847-04:00On Piano Lessons and Cancer Patients<div>
When I was six, my mother and father saw me once playing with an electric keyboard at a friend’s house. While the adults ate a long dinner and chatted over countless pots of hot tea, I spent the entire night fascinated with its synth-like tones and all the instrument options available: harpsichord, flute, trumpet, even full orchestra. The family hosting dinner had a daughter about my age that was taking lessons, and so did a few others that were there that night. Sometime later that year, my parents bought a small upright piano for about $300 at a yard sale. It was janky and tarnished, but had 88 working keys and held tune reasonably well. Private lessons would’ve been a big deal for us back then, but since my father was still a PhD student, the university’s school of performing arts granted us a discount. Soon after, my Sunday mornings became occupied by Emma, a sweet but pushy Russian woman who was easily exasperated by lazy wrists and limp fingertips.</div>
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The etudes, scales, sonatinas, tarantellas, preludes and Hungarian whatsits piled on, and I had no concept of how they were separated. They were all just songs, nevermind who wrote them or whether they were for practice or performance. Emma taught me for the next 4 years, holding my wrists up when they dangled and selecting pieces for me to showcase as seemingly endless recitals came and went. Before teaching each new piece, she played them for me almost effortlessly, hands sweeping and gliding over the keys in a way mine never did. She sat next to me and held me close before and after each recital, fervent and excited for each moment, and once, when I forgot the last stanza of a performance piece on stage and ran down, she wrapped her arms around my head with gentle shushes as I cried in embarrassment. Piano was both a daunting and safe space for me. It was hard, fierce, terrifying, but also lovely, warm, comforting.</div>
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When we moved from Syracuse, we sold the tarnished mini-upright and the lessons were put on hold for a few years, until, living in Seattle, I reached middle school and we decided to buy another piano—an upgrade, which I could pick out myself from a real piano store this time. I tested them all by playing big, fat 8-note chords with the sustain pedal depressed all the way. I settled on a full upright burgundy Kawai, the one that had the deepest and most haunting reverb I could find in the store. Then we settled on another Russian teacher, Tonya. Also peeved by languid wrists. Also played effortlessly and beautifully. And I learned again, this time less with boyish wonder and more with teenage apathy, but with no less of that opposing tension as before.</div>
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So the lessons and recitals continued, until we moved once again, and then they stopped once again, and beyond that, piano in my adult years became an infrequent indulgence for an audience of my mother and father, in the kitchen cooking on my arrivals back home for a visit. Then the audience expanded to include my girlfriend—now my wife—and now includes my daughter as well, who insists on running over to bang on the keys as I play, lest she be left out of any event not centered completely around her. </div>
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When I first moved to Rochester and started working at the hospital, among the first things I noticed was that there was a baby grand piano in the main lobby, sectioned off by queue dividers with thick blue felt ropes hanging between them. Another stood in the lobby of the cancer center. Both were electronically programmed to play mellow classics and were meant more for distraction than showcase. Both had signs positioned above them warning against playing or touching them.</div>
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Both pianos are polished black and pearl, usually never a smudge on them. The one in the lobby of the cancer center tower sits below large floor-to-ceiling glass panes and reflects the light of the day. In the winters, after fresh snow has fallen and crystallized on the ground, sunlight both reflects off the ground and pours from above, and the lobby is lit strikingly against the lonely piano that no one ever plays. At night I sometimes walk through the tower lobby and think that if there were a janitor or after-hours secretary getting on with the final moments of their day, I would break all rules and play for them.</div>
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More so than that, I think back to the patients and families I’ve met in the tower. As an intern, I would visit some of them after my shifts if I was worried they were scared. I sat with Lewis and his wife when I knew we were coming up on the end. Even when Lewis was walking the halls trying to get his second wind in the fight, working on getting strong enough for a round of palliative chemo, his eyes would still well up when I walked into his room at the end of the day. I smiled and made jokes, asked him to name his grandchildren for me so I’d know what to call them when they came. I visited Allison every day that she kept bleeding through the platelet transfusions. I held her hand when I told her we still didn’t have an answer for what she had, and sat down next to her mother to hear stories about Allison and her sister when they were growing up. They were spaces of both fear and warmth. I wished I could’ve played for them, just 6 floors below where we sat.</div>
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The cancer tower was atypical in that sense. You’re not usually granted time like that—only in situations where you stay on a service for a month at a time, and patients also don’t leave the hospital for a month at a time. Otherwise not all patients love you. Many don’t like you, some don’t even respect you. One of the misfortunes about the small slices of time you’re normally given to form relationships is that it’s rarely enough to explain yourself to people. There’s not much time for them to explain themselves to you either. They don’t have time to hear your revised personal statement about why you wanted to be a doctor, and you don’t have time to hear why their lives collapsed and that’s why they don’t bother to take care of themselves anymore. Most of it has to be developed out of scraps, from which we make between-the-line assumptions about each other. Trust sometimes comes down to the tone of your voice and how you place your hands over their heart while probing for sounds with your stethoscope. Other times trust is a lost cause regardless what you do.</div>
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I think we all carry around things we wish we had an audience for—things that could go lengths in explaining ourselves to others without us having to prove we are who we say we are. In college I spent weeks practicing and learning <i>Clair de Lune</i> after hearing a music student play it live in the courtyard. I learned a number of Mendelssohn’s <i>Songs Without Words</i>. I learned to play <i>Before the Throne of God Above </i>for a worship service at church once, and kept playing it long after. At this point, these are probably the only playable songs I have left in my memory (and shoddily at best), but I would’ve played them for Lewis and Allison regardless. Given adequate time, I wish I could play for all my patients. Patients want to be seen and understood, but if we’re being honest with ourselves, so do we. </div>
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My patients want me to know what their lives are like, what their suffering is like. When it’s clear I won’t continue to see them for long, they tell me up front all the frustrations they’ve been through, all the doctors that didn’t care in the past. They want me to know, because then, presumably, I’ll be on their side. I want time to read to them, sit with them, tell them stories, play music for them, because then, presumably, they’ll understand I was already on their side. But sometimes hostilities flare and neither party wants to do anything except move on. Chronic patients and chronic doctors become nihilistic—why seek to be understood if you only have a few minutes to explain yourself? If today you talk, but tomorrow someone new takes over? If today you have a treatment plan, but tomorrow the problem hasn’t changed? So me taking care of you is more of a business partnership now, and well, good, because we both like it better that way, right?</div>
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It reminds me of the pianos we’re not allowed to touch—tidy, but not actualized. Pianos were meant to be played. People were meant to relate. Sometimes you get that, sometimes you don’t—it’s a truth that’s just part of the job. But this year, I’m making it a goal to learn a new piece, and hopefully play it for someone before the year’s out. Maybe I’ll have a chance to talk about Emma, and the burgundy Kawai at my parents’ house. And maybe I’ll hear some good stories in return.</div>
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CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-40697531808628306822017-06-04T17:30:00.001-04:002017-06-04T18:14:19.553-04:00What we talk about when we talk about love<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> I’ve wasted a Saturday afternoon, but it won’t be the last. But now that the days are longer, there are some salvageable daylight hours that weren’t there in the winter months, and I’ve dragged myself to a café in the Neighborhood of the Arts where people sit outside, lounging, smoking cigarettes and having aimless discussions in the sun. There’s an illusion I have about productivity and what it really is, because on days I set out to read a chapter about heart failure or kidney disease, my ratio of time spent reading to time spent on social media is maybe something like 1 minute of studying for every 10 on Facebook/Youtube. Yet now, sitting here reading Jack Gilbert and having no intention of studying whatsoever, I can’t help but feel like I’m doing something good with my time. I consider all the things I’m behind on, all the paperwork and emails I could be catching up on, but do none of it. Instead, I’m content to sit, go through old books and old lines already familiar to me, and let my mind wander. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> It occurs to me that if my family were home today, I would’ve taken them to the park, and maybe we would have ended the day out here at the coffee shop regardless. I imagine Kealia scampering in and out underneath the tables and between chairs, picking up leaves and dropping them in flower pots while Angie claps and cheers. It’s an amazing thing, I think, witnessing a toddler learn in real-time about the world around her, and while thinking this, I’m hit with a sudden pang of regret as I realize I’ve missed almost two months of this already. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <b><i>Do I even know what I’m doing anymore? </i></b>In just a few short weeks, I become an upper level resident. A while ago, I was finishing a rotation in the MICU, and spent my final afternoon there doing three family meetings in a row—all of them delivering bad news. I capped it off by telling a man and his mother that their estranged brother/son would probably never recover from the brain injury he sustained due to his heart stopping multiple times in the emergency room. And although I had only met them one day prior, I sat alone with them in a small room and talked about their rocky family relationship with my patient over the years, how they eventually stopped reaching out but never actually gave up on him, then how he proceeded to use the last months of his life drinking himself to death, unbeknownst to anyone until he showed up at our doorstep in cardiac arrest. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Then came the moment when I couldn’t delay the bad news any longer, and had to tell them that we weren’t expecting him to ever recover from this, that all of our tests were showing poor brain activity, and that he would likely die if we took him off the breathing machine. I watched the mother turn to her other, still-breathing son with a look of terror, and utter a few breathless, fragmented sentences—</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i>“But, he—well, what kind of tests did they—I mean, what does he mean by—oh my God—”</i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">—before breaking down in her son’s arms, filling our small room with her desperate sobs. I remember watching them across the table, and for the first time this year, I felt myself begin to unravel inside—this was the 3rd family I had destroyed that day. I took a breath, wiped a hand across my face, blinked several times to clear up my completely blurred vision, and held the mother’s hand for the next several minutes while we slowly talked about what we could do next. Then I led them out of the cramped conference room back to the dying son’s bedside, and quickly signed out, thinking I would not do another goddamned family meeting for the rest of the year. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> In retrospect, I should’ve let someone else do at least one meeting. Other people did in fact offer to help, but I declined, partly out of a feeling of responsibility to my patients, and partly out of not realizing that I had reached my limit. I suppose it’s easy to think that a strong sense of obligation makes you a better doctor, but the problem is the toll that obligation can take on you. At the beginning of the road to becoming a doctor, I think we’re all driven to some extent by a feeling of wonder about what the job entails, hoping and believing that the job is more privilege than it is burden. After certain struggles, we ask how we win back that sense of wonder and privilege about what we do. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i>I don’t know. </i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> But about a week ago, Alice and Hai-Long sent pictures from Hawaii, standing on Kealia beach and pointing to the lifeguard tower about half a mile up from where we were almost pulled away to our deaths four years ago. I think back to that terrifying Christmas morning, then to the day almost exactly two years later when Kealia was born, and can’t help thinking that there’s a certain element of destiny in our lives. Not destiny in a sense where we’re saying we have some ultimate fate that we can’t escape, but in a sense that there’s a real purpose in how life unfolds. Not that God (if you believe in a God) is the seer and decider of your future, but that God helps you find the <i>possibility </i>in your future. That seeing the death of a tragic alcoholic, and the devastating love of a mother for her estranged son, perhaps heightens the possibility for us who witnessed it to be better to each other in the future. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> My mother used to tell me that love carries an element of destiny too. “If it’s meant to be, then it’s meant to be forever,” she would say. I thought it was just her corny way of consoling me through bad break-ups, but now I wonder if this kind of belief is something I’ll be teaching my daughter one day. Faith being not just how we endure the world, but how we continue to find wonder in it. Maybe when she’s older and we take her back to the beach of her namesake, and tell her again how we were meant to live, how I was meant to be her father, how Angie was meant to be her mother, and how one way or another, whether a doctor in th</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">e MICU someday or just a young girl looking off into the sea, she was meant to love, and be loved. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">16 days and counting. Come home soon, loves. </span></div>
CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-21487080812178608632015-03-10T07:03:00.002-04:002017-06-04T16:07:23.127-04:00Today<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><u>How I love you in
this house today</u><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In this world there are many ways<br />
in which I could say this. One might be the way<br />
I adjust the blinds of the kitchen window, below which <br />
sits the supple veins of aloe we potted yesterday. <br />
Or, it’s the way the lithe pothos vines might cascade <br />
along the white trellis we’ve talked about <br />
building for weeks now. It might be the red cactus <br />
flower, blooming like a finned, downy mouth <br />
on the cocked rail of the balcony. This life is all <br />
I can think about these days. This soil and water. <br />
Every slight wing of rain. It’s true, we have no money.<br />
But look—watch the tillandsia today, the flickering<br />
breeze through their tender stalks, peering over<br />
the mouths of mason jars in blue daylight. Imagine <br />
a world in which this could go on forever. Sowing and<br />
reaping in green and blue infinity, letting the earth seep <br />
into the golden oil of your palm. Imagine a world <br />
in which I love you like this multitude of water <br />
flowing over the dappled pebbles that cull it,<br />
which is happening, here, in this house today, and<br />
in this house, today which is happening, which is love.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
So I'm falling back into old habits, like waking up at 4 in the morning and thinking, "Now would be a good time to write," instead of turning over and going back to sleep. It's been a struggle to keep writing this year, but in comparison, I've actually done far more this year than I have in all my years of med school combined.<br />
<br />
But it nags at me. Makes me use up my precious sleep time on the first morning I go back to the hospital for clinical <i>anything</i> since last summer.<br />
<br />
Angie stirs and I almost talk myself out of getting up. There's a fold in her waist, where her hip tilts up and angles into her side and back--I place my hand in it and count the lines of orange light cast down from the blinds. I remember in high school, I thought romance was things like film noir, smoke, mystery, black-and-white stills of Rita Hayworth or Ingrid Bergman under venetian blinds. Now I'm thinking this scene in my own bedroom could be that if the colors were just grayed out. But that's all less about substance and more about flare. There's much more to know in these silhouettes and the fold of my wife's waist than I would've imagined as a teenager.<br />
<br />
A friend of mine once wrote, "All I want to do is love and write, in that exact order." He joined the coast guard about a decade ago to pay for college, and now they've also more or less paid for law school and two kids. As a recruit, he was once made to stand at attention and recite poetry for his ranking officers--<br />
<br />
<i>"What did you do before you came here, you useless turd?!"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"Sir! I was a poet, sir!"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>"You were a <b><u>what</u></b>???"</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
He ultimately hung his hat up on writing for a while though. He gave some reasons, but I think it was just life catching up. You know how life tends to do that. On a recent phone call, we talked about Christmas cards, his son's diet ("What's that he's eating? No, I definitely see him chewing something."), and the Lego movie.<br />
<br />
Sometimes, I also think what he used to. <i>Love and write, in that order</i>. Other times, I think maybe it's just enough to love. <i>Just love</i>, I think. But then I think, <i>just write, too.</i> Maybe they're the same for some people.<br />
<br />
Anyway, good morning. It's a miraculous world that's happening today. HIV Team 6 starts in one hour.<br />
<br />
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<br />CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-38981715259050289582014-10-23T02:21:00.001-04:002017-06-04T16:22:41.917-04:00Que lastima, pero adios!So I've been going to this writer's workshop downtown at Gemini Ink. Every Wednesday morning, I pick up my friend Susan, who is probably a good 40-50 years older than I am, and we make the drive down I-10 to 513 S Presa. We're a motley crew, the 6-7 of us that come every week. Loren's a graphic designer from Seattle. Wilburn is a whimsical old crackpot with rampant ADHD. Terry's a local haunt of the San Antonio poetry workshops, crossed the border with her family as a little girl and made a life here. Casey is tall, always in sandals, seems to have aversion to wearing bras, and likes political topics. And Susan, the sweet elderly lady with bad arthritis, is a retired lawyer, lives alone, her late husband a pathologist and missionary in China in a former life. Finally there's me, the med student who spends his Wednesday mornings writing fiction and poetry.<br />
<br />
Terry shared some of her inspiration last week, a poem called "Adios, Fresno" by Tim Hernandez, a writer and performance artist of the west coast and southwest. She explained the idea of using it as a prompt--writing about a city she'd left and the reasons she did so. Then I got to thinking about doing the same.<br />
<br />
(Hear "Adios, Fresno" here: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/latinousa/tim-hernandez-reading-dear">Tim Hernandez Poems</a>)<br />
<br />
So I wrote about Seattle--40 lines about what I hated, what I loved, and why I needed to leave. I guess I didn't write about why I went back after. But suffice to say, it's always been love/hate with me and Seattle. The city, the rain, the floating bridges, the trees, the mountains over the Pacific, then the black hole of loneliness, the depression, the things I never talked about growing up. I read it in the workshop today thinking it was overly affective and splashy, and was relieved to hear that nobody thought that was the case.<br />
<br />
Then tonight I went to TA my med lit class, the topic of which was soldiers and war, and the comparison to doctors and medicine. One thing that got me a bit was when we got to the subject of how we share our traumatic experiences with the people we love, and that ever-sweet notion that yes, love is enough to tear down that wall of isolation. But the understated nuance of reality is that no, love is sometimes not enough, that sometimes healing those wounds takes more, which Dr. Winakur made a point of saying. I chimed in with my agreement, offering up my own examples of how difficult it is to talk with Angie about bad days in the hospital, and really, it's true of any bad history. It's why I write so much, I said.<br />
<br />
Finally, I get home, and here I am at 1:23 AM, serially recalling Seattle and every other city I've left. What's funny is that each time I've left a place, I've always promised to come back and visit often, which has been far from the reality of things. Call it irony, my fixation on the past belying my physical avoidance of it.<br />
<br />
There's this old Julieta Venegas song - "Me Voy," that we used to drink and sing to all the time in Brownsville. I have it on loop, and listening to it, I feel as if it could be my anthem for all the cities I've left growing up. Mostly because of this one line: Me voy. Que lastima, pero adios! "I'm leaving. What a shame, but goodbye!" I know it's really more of a breakup song, but I'd rather sing this for the cities of my past than the women of my past. I hear this song and I want to get drunk, go back to the house on Guadalajara St. for one more dance, find my friends who've all dispersed and shout for one more song, stand shoulder to shoulder with the men and women I've loved and forgive myself for the general stupidity of my youth. Julieta goes on and on in the background--"Porque no supiste entender a mi corazon." Good Lord. I'll probably be singing this when I leave Texas eventually.<br />
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<br />CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-11496061369957544492012-03-28T04:56:00.001-04:002017-06-04T18:43:30.865-04:00Poems from Lago Enriquillo<b>Holding clinic in Sabana Real </b><br />
<br />
The road to Sabana Real is cut from rock<br />
and soil by secondhand motorcycles and the many feet<br />
of many women carrying clay-colored vegetables.<br />
We take in the mountain and its people like manna<br />
from God, sustenance firmed in secret before sun<br />
or water. The caravan stops twenty miles in,<br />
a crowd of men and women, children and chickens<br />
gather around a cinder block hut.<br />
<br />
A man with swollen hands comes<br />
from a far off sugarcane field for vitamins.<br />
A woman finds she is pregnant with her fourth<br />
child. We have bags of lollipops for the children,<br />
but no shade for the elderly. A frail man coughs<br />
weakly as we put on masks, fearing the worst.<br />
Someone’s toe is infected. Someone’s knee<br />
is crooked. Someone’s baby is starving.<br />
Someone is waiting, someone is watching,<br />
someone is saying “The American doctors<br />
are here with free pills.”<br />
<br />
And the boys' feet are caked in mud and their guts<br />
are filled with worms. But they laugh too,<br />
and play, and terrorize the windows<br />
with little furious hands and fingers—boys<br />
who have appetites for lollipops but not soap.<br />
And the girls squeal in delight under the squeeze<br />
of a blood pressure cuff, run out with our butterfly<br />
stickers on their eyelids. Perhaps the world<br />
is not such a mystery.<br />
<br />
Or is it? In the airport, I look for postcards<br />
for my mother and father. The plastic rack<br />
has pictures of palm trees and phrases<br />
like "Carribean Paradise." No pictures<br />
of the Haitian woman to whom I gave<br />
a sack of granola bars, the girl in her arms,<br />
or the one clutching her hemline.<br />
Nor the tree canopy from the side of the mountain<br />
road to Sabana Real, the children chasing down<br />
our swaying truck of students and supplies.<br />
<br />
I seal up these images in a place<br />
that’s not home. And then, on the back, what<br />
would I write? Maybe something bittersweet,<br />
like "Having a great time, wish you were here."<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Above La Descubierta </b><br />
<br />
<br />
Back home, I would have dreamt <br />
of these stars, the secret <br />
wonder of being one body, sleeping <br />
beneath them; the leveled rock path <br />
leading up the mountain<br />
and these unfamiliar constellations, <br />
pouring out nameless loves and other <br />
mysteries in droves as we go up. <br />
Back home we were less deliberate. <br />
Back home, no one got up before <br />
daylight to climb into the coming <br />
sun. It's that notion of how <br />
provoking the new world can be, <br />
because it's still new, and <br />
because we might well be too. <br />
It comes with a different craving <br />
in the bellies of our hands, <br />
our feet, a hunger for exhaustion <br />
and the feeling of having earned <br />
the windswept path we walk on. <br />
It's not something we would have done. <br />
Yet here we are, sweat-matted<br />
hair in clumps, copper scours on<br />
rubbed skin, bleating goats<br />
muffled in the sound of our<br />
breathing and nothing else: living<br />
proof of ourselves, proof that we want <br />
more of ourselves than we thought.CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-62516704127601390942011-08-30T04:03:00.003-04:002017-06-04T18:46:34.262-04:00"Medium coffee, please"There was a period in my life not long ago when I regularly spent 12 hours on the road each week. 6 hours from the valley to Houston, 6 hours back. My meals were taken in the parking lot of a Valero somewhere off highway 77, my car was covered in dust and dead bugs, my jeans smelled like cigarettes and B.O., and my best friends were John Mayer, Jimi Hendrix, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.<br />
<br />
I drove 6 hours in the dead of night to get to Houston, then 6 hours at the crack of dawn to get back 2 days later. A lot of people thought I was crazy, my mother most of all. My father thought I had a secret girlfriend in Houston. My boss thought I was a freeloading slacker. My friends thought I was searching for something, which I suppose was as good a way to look at it as any. Things at that time seemed like an amorphous sea of shit, and I was looking for an anchor. Friday afternoon, I'd sit down in lab meeting, grind my teeth for a couple hours, and roll out without a second look back at the office. Throw some clothes into a bag, throw the bag into the car, and pull out of Sugar Tree Lane, saying "Hey I'll see you in a couple days" to my roommates, not knowing whether I'd hold true to that. So I drove the hell out of my car, which earned my respect and gratitude as the most reliable thing I'd ever owned in my 25-year lifetime.<br />
<br />
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And what did I find? What did I learn? Well gas ain't cheap, for one thing. Cops trying to make quota at the end of the month don't let you off with a warning, for another. Spend enough time alone and eventually you'll either start talking to yourself or to God. Having a destination motivates you to keep going, even if trivial. The return trip always feels longer than the departing trip.<br />
<br />
Finally, unlit, grassy shoulders are the best place to see stars on the road at night. My favorite ritual during night drives was buying a coffee from Valero, heading down the road a ways and pulling into a truck stop. Turning off the car, stepping outside, lighting a cigarette and promising myself I'd never be too good to drink shitty, leftover gas station coffee. Looking back on that time, I still can't decide if I was searching for a way out or a way in.<br />
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Anyway, went to Valero and bought a coffee tonight, and that's what brought all this about. So I'm drinking to that and whatever stars I can see from the balcony in my new digs.<br />
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Cheers.CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-51017107202741724342011-08-24T02:25:00.000-04:002017-06-04T18:48:44.290-04:00Med Lit 5038I signed up for this elective in hopes of keeping my literary side alive. And maybe in hopes of starting a project or collaboration somewhere. Anyway, first assignment of the year, done:<br />
<br />
<i>Post an essay on Blackboard about a medical encounter, in which you tell about the same events from two different points of view. For example, Patient/doctor, patient/family member, medical student/family member, etc. You may structure the essay into two parts if you like. </i><br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Me:</u></b><br />
<br />
St. Patrick’s Day, 11 PM. Anthony, my roommate, was next door pre-gaming with our buddies for an all-out St. Patty’s bash downtown. I was waking up and getting dressed for my rotation at St. David’s ER—the first rotation of my EMT clinical training. A required part of my uniform was a black fanny pack, which I wasn’t allowed to take off at any point during the rotation. I felt a bit self-conscious strapping it on before leaving the apartment.<br />
<br />
The charge nurse on duty that night introduced himself as I came in and reported to the nurses’ station. Mike was a large man in his mid-30s, who had a vise-like handshake and sported various Celtic tattoos winding up and down his forearms. I saw his eyes shift to my fanny pack as he greeted me, and a faint smirk formed in the corner of his mouth. “You’re with Colleen tonight,” he said. “You can find her with her patient in room 30B.” <br />
<br />
The woman in 30B was a narcotics addict. It was apparently not the first time she had been brought in for an overdose. Colleen waved me over as I came in. “You can help us hold her down while we get an IV in place,” she said. It was easier said than done—the woman was easily over 200 pounds and would not stay still long enough for anyone to place the needle in, not to mention the fact that her arms were already covered with needle tracks. Mike came barreling in after five minutes and began giving orders. Among them was an order for me to strap down the woman’s arm and hold it still with everything I had. I knew from the moment he came in that everything he said would be non-negotiable. With that in mind, I choked out any and all thinking and put my weight on the patient’s arm. After what seemed like an eternity of cursing and needle caps being thrown about the room, the IV was placed. The ER attending finally came in to give orders for oxygen and fluids, while everyone else funneled out. <br />
<br />
Our next patient was an old man brought in for a heart attack, already intubated and stabilized by the paramedics. Colleen joined in with the other nurses as they wired him up with the usual mess of tubes—IV, Foley catheter, heart monitor, oxygen mask. Colleen handed me the ventilator bag and told me to hold on to it for a minute while she filled out some paperwork for the attending. <br />
<br />
The night went on like that, patients coming in, getting tubes attached and then handed off to someone else. There wasn’t much time to ask questions or feel guilty about my detachment. I was a 6-foot, 180-pound pair of hands with a fanny pack and the word “dumbass” stamped across my forehead. Finally, at 6:30 AM, half an hour before my rotation ended, a technician found us and asked me to help with a patient. I followed her into the room, where a teary-eyed young woman was lying naked from the waist down on a bed, looking like she had been through a hellish night. A resident physician came in and explained the situation to us—the woman had a painful abscess in her lower groin region which needed to be drained and bandaged. Our job was to keep her calm during the procedure, and to make sure she didn’t move too much. She cried through the whole procedure as we clasped her hands in ours and told her it would be over soon.<br />
<br />
Mike and Colleen smiled and waved to me from inside the double doors I walked out of the ER. I felt I could take some pride in Mike’s last words to me—“You’re going to do fine here.”—although I wasn’t sure how I had earned that. I left St. David’s just as the sun was coming up. Cars were beginning to line up for the freeway entrance, and coffee shops lining the streets were opening for business. It suddenly seemed strange that so many things could exist and function outside of the hospital. <br />
<br />
Anthony was already up and making coffee by the time I walked in. I walked straight through the living room and threw off the fanny pack before stepping out onto the balcony and lighting a cigarette. Anthony came out with two cups of coffee, and we smoked and drank. “So how was it?” he asked. “Did you get to do anything cool?”<br />
<br />
I thought back to my night, all the incoherent patients I met that I barely spoke a word to, people I strapped tubes and wires to, people I held down so nurses could start IV lines on, and finally the young woman whose hands I held as a doctor tore open a hole above her vagina. “No,” I said. “I didn’t do a damn thing.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b><u>Mike:</u></b><br />
<br />
Nobody ever wants the graveyard shift for St. Patty’s day—it’s usually just a shit-show. Most of our patients are always drunk, crazy, or incoherent in some other manner. I guess it was just my turn to bite the bullet this year. <br />
<br />
The night starts out like any other. I get my coffee, look at the rotation list to see who’s on for the shift, and then look through the patient charts. An hour into my shift, Colleen tells me that there’s an EMT trainee coming in later for a rotation. “Alright,” I tell her. “You mind looking after him?” She gives me the ok, and not long after, I see him walk in through the double doors, wearing a buttoned uniform, complete with what looks like a fanny pack hanging off his waist. I can't help laughing to myself a bit. The kid looks eager but clueless. With his gangly frame and remnant traces of acne, he can hardly be over 19. He comes around to the nurses’ station and I let him know where to go. Colleen’s already with one of our regulars—a heroin addict that likes to steal meds from vet clinics and overdose from time to time. The kid shuffles on over while looking back at me, like he’s half uncertain whether Colleen’s actually in the room or if he’s about to walk in on some elaborate prank. <br />
<br />
After about 10 minutes, I get buzzed to help out with our dope addict—no one can get a line started on her. I crack my knuckles and walk into the room to get things organized. First off, I need to get her to lay still and stop moving her arm. I give everyone a job and tell the kid to hold her arm down for me. I can tell he wants to say something, but he forgoes it, instead snapping on some gloves and jumping in. I get the line started and Dr. Ramirez arrives to take over. We can tell right away he’s in a bad mood, so nobody stays to chitchat that isn’t needed.<br />
<br />
The rest of the night goes about how I expected. Drunk old men, some homeless schizophrenics, one or two heart attacks. Colleen and the kid seem to be seeing a lot of action—they barely get a moment to sit still for the next 8 hours. The kid’s expressions seem to sway between confused and frustrated, but he keeps doing what he’s told. No job seems too dirty or trivial for him to complain about, and I like that about him. The ER isn’t really the type of place where you can take a lot of time to process things in your head; people come through, we plug up their holes and make sure they’re breathing ok, then send them off to whoever is next in line to treat them. It’s a completely new experience for the kid, but he’s trying hard to get acclimated.<br />
<br />
I give him a pat on the arm as Colleen finishes signing his paperwork at the end of the night. “Good job tonight,” I tell him. “You’re going to do fine here.”<br />
<br />
We wave at him as he walks out, and then get back to our charts as the double doors close. An announcement blares again on the intercom: another ambulance arriving soon with a Tylenol overdose patient.CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-25552043790449679842011-08-11T04:23:00.000-04:002012-02-29T02:01:36.098-05:00OBD, Ethics, and Ray CarverThe Author of Her Misfortune<br />
<div>
-Ray Carver</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm not the man she claims. But</div>
<div>
this much is true: the past is</div>
<div>
distant, a receding coastline,</div>
<div>
and we're all in the same boat,</div>
<div>
a scrim of rain over the sea-lanes.</div>
<div>
Still, I wish she wouldn't keep on</div>
<div>
saying those things about me!</div>
<div>
Over the long course</div>
<div>
everything but hope lets you go, then</div>
<div>
even that loosens its grip.</div>
<div>
There isn't enough of anything </div>
<div>
as long as we live. But at intervals</div>
<div>
a sweetness appears and, given a chance,</div>
<div>
prevails. It's true I'm happy now.</div>
<div>
And it'd be nice if she </div>
<div>
could hold her tongue. Stop</div>
<div>
hating me for being happy.</div>
<div>
Blaming me for her life. I'm afraid</div>
<div>
I'm mixed up in her mind</div>
<div>
with someone else. A young man</div>
<div>
of no character, living on dreams, </div>
<div>
who swore he'd love her forever.</div>
<div>
One who gave her a ring, and a bracelet.</div>
<div>
Who said, <i>Come with me. You can trust me.</i></div>
<div>
Things to that effect. I'm not that man.</div>
<div>
She has me confused, as I said,</div>
<div>
with someone else.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Week 2. OBD, or "On Becoming a Doctor," lectures are spaced in-between our hard sciences. They're a varied mixture of ethics discussions, clinical skills and applications, and introductory psych material. Today, for our ethics discussion groups, we read a short story published by a former faculty alum: Abraham Verghese, an infectious disease specialist who found his niche during the peak years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the early 90s. His patient in the story was Ed Maupin, an American working class homosexual brought in for a severe respiratory infection after developing AIDS. I read the story at 3 AM last night and tried to picture myself in Abraham Verghese's shoes for a moment, speaking to Ed's family of construction workers and his lover outside the hospital. Ambulances pulling up to make drop-offs, paramedics, agitated working class stiffs smoking in huddles on the curb, and one lone gay pariah sobbing amongst a gang of red-blooded Americans. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We're not treating immortals, after all, he writes. And <i>that</i>, I think to myself...<i>that's</i> why I signed up for this whole thing in the first place. I'm here, finally, after 3 years of waiting and fixating, and this concept of mortality in the dregs of the world still seems tragic to me. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I started reading Raymond Carver again. Poet voice of the working class American drunk, died of lung cancer the year I was born. What strikes me over and over again about his work is how his staple theme of losing hope shows you this immensely vulnerable yet somehow redemptive existence that he's navigated for a lifetime. You read it a couple times over and after you get past the initial feeling of wanting to drink yourself into a stupor and then maybe contemplate slitting your wrists, you can't help but feel like he's got a real heartfelt longing to be a better man. And so, ladies and gentlemen--I give you blue-collar America at its finest: the tragic yet self-redeeming men and women I've dreamed of serving since my college days. Or really, blue-collar anywhere. Mortals and filter-feeding scum of the earth, I'll be honored to treat you one day.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
"For the world is the world</div>
<div>
And it writes no histories that end in love."</div>
<div>
-Stephen Spender</div>
<div>
(Tagline to Carver's poem)</div>CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-38984312452317145012011-07-01T05:08:00.002-04:002017-06-04T18:52:16.587-04:00The derivative of thursday with respect to drank is J Dilla and a G. Rap albumPeople aren't supposed to live like this. I watch Netflix until the crack of dawn, nap, wake up, nap again, write, nap, and teach some calculus to a kid 7 years younger and with twice as much potential as I ever had.<br />
<br />
Thursday, I'm awake for once before noon, feeling my way down the freeway to Sugar Land. Enter my dented Honda Accord blaring Bone Thugs and Notorious BIG into the 'burbs, complete with automated gate and manicured lawns. It's like driving back into my adolescence.<br />
<br />
So 20 minutes into explaining derivatives to Zach, I realize I'm basically winging the lesson of the day and grasping at straws when I try to prove the product rule of derivatives on a blank sheet of wide rule. Thankfully, FBISD still uses the same textbooks as they did 7 years ago--Appendix A saves the day. Bingo, twelve o'clock comes and I'm up another 50 bucks as I head to Yangtze with Matt for the $3.50 lunch special.<br />
<br />
Matt and I hound the soup bucket for three rounds, then relocate to the organic tea house to work on summer projects and get a pint (of tea, mind you). A couple hours in, Matt's got sound effects lined up for his game production and I'm half-assing a track for some cut scenes, Peter calls up and mentions that it's "Ho Thursday" (our little joke about Cafe 101 happy hour). ("Yeah, it IS Ho Thursday.") One Ho Thursday later, we're in the car rolling around Hong Kong City Mall, honking (literally) through all the parking lots and looking for sushi.<br />
<br />
When we finally make it home, I pass out for a bit and when I wake up, it's 1:44 AM. It occurs to me then that this, this was my day. Somewhere in the back of my mind, there's a voice saying stuff like "Don't y'all got anything better to do? Don't you have jobs?" But it's all drowned out by another voice doing a 2Pac impression, throwing up fake gang signs and yelling "THUG LYYYFE!!!"<br />
<br />
So it's 3:45 AM, the world's asleep, I'm running J Dilla and G. Rap on my playlist, wondering about my next calculus lesson plan for Zach, and watching some video clips from my 25th birthday. I have to laugh as I watch Peter hobbling around the video in his crutches, Andy rocking out on my guitar singing Third-Eye Blind, my pneumonia meds sprawling across the coffee table. My thoughts stray back to New Orleans, and the future career doctor in me is incredulous at these memories. There's an overwhelming sense of guilty pleasure involved in all of this.<br />
<br />
Life should not be this obnoxious.CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-38198335645756541682011-05-02T04:59:00.003-04:002017-06-04T18:55:16.847-04:00Remember where you were when....?It's 11 PM, I'm at a bar on Richmond with a pitcher of beer between my buddies, and Barack Obama is on the radio addressing the nation about Osama Bin Laden's death. Drunk customers are around us cheering and shouting slogans, and in the spirit of the moment, we drink to America at each refill.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I try to keep my mind away from the place it's headed, the place I know it'll end up when I finally make it home and there's no one but me and a bottle of scotch in my room. The night grinds on, Anthony and I talk about liver cancer, share a pack of smokes and shoot pool. In-between drinks, I sign on to facebook and check all the status messages blowing up across my friend list, "Osama is dead," "GW is karate kicking the air and shotgunning beers," "Thank you to our soldiers." Then I see your picture pop up in my news feed, E, and I have to wonder about the utter strangeness of the world.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Back home finally at 3 AM, I'm reading the New York Times, and the front page pictures slide across my screen in a bitter commemorative roll. Firefighters sitting in a row in Times Square, a midnight parade in DC, and then pictures of Bin Laden smiling and looking perfectly at peace with his lot. I'm wondering now about who he was as a boy, what his mother and father were like, whether there was an alternate and more simple life for him that didn't involve these last 10 years, and somehow I've wandered into what feels like sympathy. Hate leads us in circles, somehow vengeance doesn't feel just but neither does the alternative of inaction. How should we instead celebrate the moment?<br />
<br />
Maybe I just need to go to bed. </div>
CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-33821747205248001112011-04-18T02:18:00.001-04:002011-08-11T04:26:00.887-04:00Microsoft Word, welcome to story time.<div class="MsoNormal">She was 19 when we met. I had just turned 28. Back in those days, I played a lot of Scrabble and listened to NPR every morning on the way to the work. Obama had won the election, and I was listening closely because I had a personal stake in healthcare reform—namely my insurance options. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This was it, I thought, one Monday morning. I had arrived to some vague plateau of achievement, and I had this to look forward to for the next couple of years. The feel of sliding into pressed khakis after my morning shower, the reliable sound of the NPR jingle at 7:45 on the dot in traffic, the smell of coffee as I walked into the office and greeted Pam and Brian. This was my time, I thought. Maybe not so much my time to bask or gloat over anything—I had never been a very smug person anyway—but it was an opportunity to enjoy comfort in my life. Yes. Comfort, I thought. That was when I almost ran her over.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The initial shock came and went as normally as it should have in an almost-accident type of situation. What lingered was my sense of infuriation—three cars stopped dead in the middle of the street to avoid hitting her, and she stood there looking more confused than apologetic. You ran out into the road during rush hour without looking for cars, idiot girl. What did you think would happen?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Her books had dropped out of her arm, and after finally realizing her situation, she quickly scooped them up and rushed off of the street. One book remained on the asphalt, however—Dancing in Odessa, by Ilya Kaminsky. It was slightly worn, but I recognized it right away. My friend Patrick had given it to me on my 22<sup>nd</sup> birthday, right before he left for army boot camp. Ignoring the honks and revving engine sounds, I stepped out of my car to retrieve it. Her name was on the cover: Rose Madox.</div>CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-30600186765924755002011-03-29T23:38:00.002-04:002011-03-29T23:47:16.170-04:00I read it somewhere onceAn article I read once that talked about writing, especially via internet mediums like blogs, said that the trick to selling yourself is to write about your obsessions, and to write about them in a compelling manner. So I wondered if I applied that to myself as of late, what my obsessions would be, in terms of the things that I'm constantly thinking about (though not necessarily always engaged in). Here's what I came up with, in no particular order: time, identity, responsibility, faith, women, alcohol, self-improvement, music, school. Going back and reading some of my old blog entries, I think I've spent a lot of my obsession quota on time and identity. So maybe I'll write about school tonight. The rest will come later. I think alcohol, women, faith and responsibility might come as a package deal in a big ranting post one night when I can't hold back the dam anymore.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>My culminating exam is tomorrow. I swapped my thesis option with this so I wouldn't have to write up and present a research project in one semester. The capstone exam covers the five basic disciplines of public health and is basically the last hurdle before graduation. After 2 years of research and 1.5 years of coursework in public health, this is what it boils down to. I spent 2008-2011 completely immersed in public health (obsession: time, check.), for better or for worse. Now I'm a month from the finish line, and I barely care about school. If I pass my exam and graduate, that'll be good enough for me. Seems like the degrees you earn feel much less important by the time you earn them. What do you say after the fact? I am biology. I am public health. (obsession: identity, check.) But so what?</div><div><br />
</div><div>I should add that I'm not disillusioned/jaded/cynical/other synonym, i.e. I still believe in the benefits of public health, I still believe in the benefits of research, I still believe in academia. The difference is that I just care less and like sleep more than I used to. Given the option to turn in a stellar paper versus getting 3 extra hours of sleep and turning in something unimpressive...I'll take the sleep. Hell, I'll even take 1 hour. Why? Well because I'm tired, dammit. It's the reason I'm doing this right now instead of studying. Lately, I've kind of just been wishing my monday-thursday nights could be in front of the TV with an unhealthy snack, guilt free.</div><div><br />
</div><div>I've got about a month and a half of free time this summer before my life basically ends. I'm kind of thinking about just using my time to get fat. I've got the rest of my life to get in shape, right?</div>CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-27054381078317653532011-02-17T06:15:00.001-05:002011-02-17T06:18:59.134-05:00There was this one time in college.........I wrote a 12-page anthropology paper about black people and ebonics. Actually, to be more specific, it was about mixed white-black people and whether they used ebonics or not. For my "ethnographic research," I talked to mixed white-black college kids about football, Tupac, and how to make bongs. For my efforts, I got a 100 on the paper.<br />
<div><br />
</div><div>Last semester, I turned in my final Manual of Operating Procedures for my field epidemiology class with a joke in the budget section about my salary justification for being an MD/MPH/Ninja/Treasure Hunter/Exotic Chef/World Class Cowbell Musician/Flamenco Dancer. For my efforts, I got a reprimand and a dirty look from the professor for being unprofessional. I guess nobody thinks it's cute to be a clown in grad school. But if only...</div><div><br />
</div><div>When I first fell in love with the idea of being a doctor, I had my own idea of what it could potentially look like. It was somewhere between Patch Adams and MacGyver. There's still a part of me that wants to realize that crazy-ass and inappropriate, albeit completely genuine, vision I had. When it's 4 AM on a Wednesday night, that's when some part of my brain looks for a creative outlet and plugs in unabashedly, starts dreaming up wild nonsense that I want to latch onto and become completely serious about. </div><div><br />
</div><div>You know what I could actually see happening? Someday using my kids as creative canvas. Trying to turn my son(s) into a Ninja/Treasure Hunter. Sure, creativity and outlandishness don't pay the bills, but they're fun as hell at a young age. I'll take him camping and make forts with him. Then when he's old enough, I'll drink with him and talk with him about women. Funny thing is, I didn't have any serious conversations about women with my own father until I had already graduated college. And the first talk, loosely translated, went something like this:</div><div><br />
</div><div>"Son, I know you're just screwing around right now. Just don't make it a habit. ....and don't tell your mom I said that."</div><div><br />
</div><div>That's my dad for you, I guess. Not exactly the deepest conversationalist, but always simple and straightforward. Complete opposite of who I am.<br />
<br />
If I have a daughter, I'm screwed. If I have multiple daughters, I'm buying lots of guns when they turn 14. Maybe a battle axe or something too, hang it on the wall facing the doorway for any boys willing to lose their balls to take my girls on a date. But all that aside, they'll learn a thing or two about artsy crap. Music. Books.<br />
<br />
And somewhere else along the way, all my kids will learn about strength and its variations. As much strength as I can give them. Strength so they can grow, outrageous passion so they can dream. </div>CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-4843265127795580352011-01-12T23:59:00.000-05:002011-01-12T23:59:06.473-05:00Re:solutions1. Know you can change.<br />
2. Have faith in change.<br />
3. Change.CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-78508814067307413412011-01-07T02:44:00.001-05:002011-01-07T06:32:51.181-05:00http://www.postsecret.com/Apparently they host events at schools if you email them? So I'm writing up an email and saving it in my drafts folder for the next 6 months. Sending it out once school starts in the fall. Maybe it'll work.CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-60847010575153430952011-01-06T22:50:00.000-05:002011-01-06T22:50:36.643-05:00Biological Clocks<div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><div><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">A</span>: </span><a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/There-are-times-when-I-want-a-baby-so-bad/182273308464489" style="color: #114170;" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/<wbr></wbr>pages/There-are-times-when-I-<wbr></wbr>want-a-baby-so-bad/<wbr></wbr>182273308464489</a></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>hahahahah</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: HAHAHA</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><b>A</b>: hahahahahaha wtf</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>hahahha</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>"one person likes this"</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: ahahahhahaa</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">A</span>: hahahahaha</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: omg i can't stop laughing</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><b>A</b>: hahaha</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: </span>what's funny is</span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>what the hell were you searching for, that this turned up?</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><b>A</b>: hahahaha</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>stfu</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">me</span>: hahaha like seriously</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>did you type "i want a baby" into the fb search prompt?</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span><b>A</b>: ...</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>just curious </span>to see what else was out there</span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span></div><div><span style="color: #888888; display: block; float: left;"> </span><span style="display: block; padding-left: 6em;"><span>STFU</span></span></div></span></div></div>CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-52039166821340067842011-01-04T02:17:00.001-05:002017-06-04T19:00:35.758-04:00McDonald's, Side-of-the-freeway'ville, MAAm I an out-of-towner pretending to be a townie or a townie pretending to be an out-of-towner? In this place and this situation, even I can't tell. I'll play whichever card feels more convenient.<br />
<br />
I've got a couple library books with me. Yehuda Amichai, <i>Even a Fist was Once an Open Palm With Fingers</i>; Charles Baudelaire,<i> Flowers of Evil</i>. A McDonald's in the middle of nowhere with my laptop and a stack of poets. This is indulgent. I'm indulgent. (And along that vein, <i>Bridges of Madison</i> was actually pretty bad. Robert Kincaid started it out interesting...and that was it.)<br />
<br />
Truth is, I was hungry on my way home, and after driving up and down the freeway for 10-15 miles, this was the only place I could find that was still open. All this effort because I didn't want to drive the 20 miles to IHOP in Cambridge. Everything closes early here, except for me. I'm open for business into all hours of the night, but never in the mornings before 10:00 AM. And I just spent 20 bucks on fast food--I am one of maybe 3 people I know that would do something like that. A stranger who once kept a blog wrote that his hobby was eating alone at McDonald's and hating himself for it. Am I coming into that? I hope not.<br />
<br />
The Mexican women running the joint are pulling dresses for their nieces out of plastic bags and conversing in Spanish about the colors and how they'll fit. One of them has ended her shift, she bids the others good night and walks out, the cleaning lady moves along with her mop, Billy Davis, Jr. is playing over the speakers, strangers walk in with cold, walk out with coffee, the night grinds on. I'm digging up poets and reading their wisdom, ecstasy and nonsense again. It's a vicious cycle. A month from now I'll be creating problems that don't exist and brooding in some corner of my world about a version of me or a version of "her" that doesn't exist. This is indulgent. I pray over my double-quarter-pounder-with-cheese and dig in. End inner monologue.CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-87614336666928653722010-12-30T01:36:00.002-05:002017-06-04T19:05:42.211-04:00Home for the HolidaysIt's nearing the end of the holidays, I'm sitting at my folks' kitchen table listening to Rob Dougan while fixing my dad's broken laptop. I picked up The Bridges of Madison County from the Cary Memorial Library about a week ago (go ahead, laugh) for some light reading, and in my head, I'm imagining I'm Robert Kincaid on the open road with a carton of Camels and a guitar from my ex-wife, and this broken laptop is actually a collection of cameras from 1965. It's written in a very overblown fashion, but that's no different from the way I imagine myself. A screw falls into a crevice between the monitor and keyboard, and my phillips head isn't small enough to dig it out. Expletives. There's a box of Ritz crackers and a 10 minute break in the pantry with my name on them.<br />
<br />
My mom sits in the living room watching a Chinese melodrama about med students in the 1950s ("<i>so-and-so loves this girl, but she married another man, and everyone is too Chinese to resolve anything, and, oh gosh, it's just so engaging and reminds us all of what it was like back then</i>"). She sees me munching on the crackers and decides she wants to have an opinion about it:<br />
<br />
Ma: Those crackers are full of salt. And you say you want to be a doctor. Throw me that bag of almonds over there.<br />
<br />
Me: *munch munch munch* Hm. Do you think white people get offended when you call them crackers? Crackers are things you eat...not really an offensive term.<br />
<br />
Ma: They are unhealthy!<br />
<br />
Me: What, crackers or white people?<br />
<br />
Ma: (Glowers)<br />
<br />
Me: Anyway, I thought almonds had a lot of fat?<br />
<br />
Ma: Well, we have plenty of fruits! Have a banana or a pear! Wash one of those pears and slice it for us!<br />
<br />
Me: Nah, I'm good with these crackers. But here, have some almonds. =)<br />
<br />
Home, home, home. In the mix between my grandparents calling in to ask if I've got a wife yet, and the visible and increasing crotchetiness of my folks, I dash off letters, emails and phone calls to friends and marvel at how much has happened. Friends would be good placeholders if it weren't for the fact that they change too. So I guess instead, they become crude-variety mirrors for referencing change, distance covered, growth and affirmation. Only what's lasted has been good--I'm thankful for that in my family too. My dad standing in his underwear yelling down the hallway about where his pants are, my mom muttering under her breath about the men in the family being a pain in the ass, hot pot, salmon steaks, Chinese dinner parties and kids being compared (polished pianos sitting in dens), Aiyah this, Aiyah that, and plants on the windowsill that incite cantankerous complaining when someone forgets to water them--this is the life we worked for, fought for, broke kitchen appliances for, kicked over furniture and screamed bloody murder for. We earned it; we earned the hell out of it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Some favorites of the season so far:<br />
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CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-77249187795755887102010-10-06T06:14:00.003-04:002010-12-09T00:00:32.370-05:00Windows<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Benaroya Symphony Hall had a simple but grand layout. The floor had three large rectangular seating sections separated by wide aisles and two lanes flanking their sides. Above these were three levels of seats sloping down the walls in terrace-style boxes. It was in the second level’s leftmost terrace that Blue and Elly were sitting. Blue, however, was shifting out of his seat to leave, as the choir continued with a chorus of “Messiah” in synchrony. Despite Elly’s pleas, Blue could not sit through any more Handel. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">He stood now, leaning against a bicycle rail outside of the concert hall, smoking a cigarette and waiting for the intermission. Now and then the bum at the street corner reeking of gin and feces came along to heckle passerby strangers for a dollar or a spare smoke. Lighted wreaths were fitted onto the streetlights, and a sharp coldness was in the air. Last minute shoppers were hurrying out of stores with colorfully wrapped parcels in their arms, and store owners were locking up for the night.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">It was Christmas Eve. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Inside the glass doors and large window panes enclosing the concert hall, a large pine tree adorned with white lights and gold and silver orbs sparkled like a crystal monster. To the left, a fully stocked bar with various wines and champagnes was being fussed over by a smart-looking bartender wearing a silk vest and a golden name pin—Dominic, it read. He was picking up champagne flutes and polishing them with a white cloth. Now and then he lifted his head and said something to the ushers keeping the auditorium doorway, perhaps something about Christmas plans with the wife, or package deals on airfare, or perhaps about Handel, or about wine. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Whatever they were talking about, Blue knew it couldn’t have been meaningful. He looked over to the street corner and noticed the bum was watching the men inside as well, studying them with a strange look in his eyes. Behind the bum’s dull gaze, there seemed to be a hint of longing. Blue watched him thoughtfully, imagining the bum projecting himself into Dominic’s place, picturing his life take on a dignified color from behind a glass barrier—a man on the street watching an unrealized version of himself stand erect with his hands neatly folded behind his back, making small talk about his children with the usher, whom he would see at the New Year’s party. He watches himself smile, and make jokes, and it doesn’t occur to him that he should consider for a moment how he has a job, and a silk vest with a golden name pin, and neat posture and proper diction. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Blue watched the bum sway, and then grasp a parking meter to steady himself. The bum reached into his jacket, pulled out his remaining gin, and guzzled it down. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Blue took a final drag on his cigarette before flicking the butt into the gutter and checking his watch—8:25. Inside the glass panes, the ushers opened the auditorium doors and audience members poured out to stretch their legs, drink wine and chitchat during the intermission. The waiting room was quickly filled with longtime symphony patrons from families with old money, young yuppie couples in elegant suits and evening dresses, and a few assorted clusters of university students. Dominic and the ushers faded into the background, and were all but forgotten by the mostly affluent crowd. And then there was Elly, in her navy blue dress and black stockings, looking left and right for her hopeless brother. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">She spotted him finally, outside looking in, with a disturbed look on his face, as if he had never seen her or the concert hall before. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">9 Lowborn men are but a breath, the highborn are but a lie; if weighed on a balance, they are nothing; together they are only a breath.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">-Psalm 62:9<o:p></o:p></i></div></div>CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-70255414450571780762010-10-05T01:58:00.000-04:002010-10-05T01:58:56.664-04:00Secrets to success<div chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"><span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2jw">i'm not mature enough to keep up in real life with my academic personality</span></div></div><div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">T: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2jx">haha</span></div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2jy" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">man</div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2k7" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">everytime i get into this kinda situation</div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2l2" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">where im up past midnight cramming my brains out</div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2k8" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">i vow that once i catch up i'm gonna start studying on a regular basis</div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2k8" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;"><span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2k2">so i never have to put myself through this experience again</span></div></div><div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2l3" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">somehow that doesnt stick</div></div><div chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2l4">no, i think it's a problem of building up the expectations</span></div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2l7" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">once people expect more out of you, you're screwed</div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2l8" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">i should've kept the expectations low to begin with</div></div><div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">T: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2l9">haha</span></div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2la" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">thats what austin said the other day</div></div><div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">T: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2l5">he got great evals on his medicine rotation</span></div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2k9" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">bc he acted like a dumbass the first week</div></div><div chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2k5">hahaha</span></div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2iz" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">man..</div></div><div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">T: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2k3">then his attending was surprised when he turned out to not be a dumbass</span></div></div><div chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> </div></div><div chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2in">yeah, i should've come off as a dumbass</span></div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2io" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">when people know you're not a dumbass yet you still turn in crappy work....well, then the secret's out about your laziness</div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2ip" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">/lack of discipline</div></div><div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">T: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2i7">yea going the "most improved" route also makes your prof feel better about themselves</span></div></div><div chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2i6">man, sooo true.</span></div></div><div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">T: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":10i">its a win win</span></div><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"><span dir="ltr" id=":10i"><div chat-dir="t" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2j7" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">haha</div><div class="kl" dir="ltr" id=":2j6" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em; text-align: left;">the secret to sucess!!</div></div><div chat-dir="f" class="km" role="chatMessage" style="margin-left: 1em;"><div class="kk" style="margin-bottom: 0.2em;"> <span class="kn" dir="ltr" style="font-weight: bold; margin-left: -1em; zoom: 1;">me: </span> <span dir="ltr" id=":2j5">sigh.</span></div></div></span></div></div>CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-49478861004188062392010-09-27T03:46:00.000-04:002017-06-04T19:12:15.440-04:00ProverbsThe heart of the righteous weighs it answers.<br />
<i>Don't say stupid stuff before you think about it. </i><br />
<br />
The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life.<br />
<i>Be nice to people man. </i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<br />
Houston, 2010 nightstand:<br />
<br />
Mary Shelley - Frankenstein<br />
Dickson Despommier - Parasitic Diseases, 5th Ed.<br />
Adami, Hunter & Trichopoulos - Textbook of Cancer Epidemiology<br />
Holy BibleCYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-23952038072550505222010-09-26T03:28:00.000-04:002010-09-26T03:28:43.548-04:00Rain<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>He stepped under the awning and set down his umbrella. In a few deft movements, he unlocked his door, threw his backpack inward and stepped inside. He sometimes hated having to come home to such a large and empty house every day. His mother was rarely home, which meant he spent most of his time on his own. Most of all, he hated how silent it was in the house. Every small shuffle seemed to thunder throughout the colossal rooms. He cast a look at his backpack and knew right away that his homework was soaked through. It was a small umbrella, after all.</div><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">It was November—the rain season was in full swing. Blue headed up to his room without turning on any lights. A new family with a son his age had moved into his neighborhood. For the past week, Blue had become accustomed to seeing him pass by under his window after he walked home from school each day—Blue always seemed to get home right before the other boy did. Today was no different.</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">Curiosity getting the better of him today, Blue flung open the window as the boy passed by underneath and called down to him. “Hey—hey!” The boy stopped suddenly and looked up, his face slightly obscured by inky black hair.</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">“Hey…” Blue hadn’t thought about what he would say. “…well, I’m Blue… Santiago. You just moved into 2302 right? What’s your name?”</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">The boy stared at Blue expressionlessly, and finally answered, “Black Chang. Pleasure to meet you.” An uncomfortable silence passed as the two eyed each other uncertainly.</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">“Does it always rain this much?” asked Black finally.</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">Blue laughed, slightly taken aback by the abrupt question. “It stops eventually.”</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">2 Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">3 The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down.<o:p></o:p></i></div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">-Genesis 8:2-3<o:p></o:p></i></div>CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-17128271475345484332010-09-03T01:23:00.002-04:002010-09-03T01:23:22.116-04:00Fried chicken...is really one of my biggest weaknesses. But now I feel so much better.CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7988836114330358609.post-85840608304137336442010-08-20T18:04:00.011-04:002010-08-27T02:59:20.011-04:00High School PapersI was looking over some old essays from high school today, and I was actually kind of surprised by how my writing wasn't as bad as I imagined it would be. I came across the old files and braced myself for a barrage of childish vocabulary/grammar and poorly constructed ideas. To my surprise (and relief), it wasn't as bad as I imagined. At the very least, I was comfortable enough with it to say, <i>yeah, that was my stuff from when I was 16.</i><br />
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It strikes me as interesting that when we think back on the people we used to be, we sometimes view them as entirely different people from our current selves. Growth and change, yes, are an inevitable part of the human experience, but maybe we forget that, however drastically we think we might have changed, we always come back to home base--who we are, and maybe (if you believe in it), who we were born to be. Maybe we don't appreciate that enough? Or maybe that's just me.<br />
<br />
So I imagined myself as I am now meeting myself from seven or eight years ago and hanging out. He's having a sprite, I'm having coffee, black. He's talking about wanting to do something truly original with his life, and I'm telling him he needs to get his head in the game if he wants to have medical insurance after college. He's telling me that when he meets the right girl, any problems will be easy to fix because they'll love each other enough to make it work. I sip my coffee and ask him if he even knows what problems he's talking about. And then I ask him what he would look for in a woman, and he goes off to describe someone who doesn't exist. I shake my head, thinking that someone should warn him before he goes off and tries to pin that description on the first girl he falls in love with.<br />
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<i>How many girlfriends have you had?</i> He asks. So I give him a number. <i>Huh. </i>he says, unsure of what to make of the information. Then he's curious as to how I got so much bigger, because he's been trying to gain weight, but it seems impossible for him right now, no matter how much he eats. He shrugs when we get to the topic of school, because it's all still just silly and meaningless to him. He doesn't believe me when I tell him Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming won't bring Houston anywhere near a championship. Finally his phone rings; it's his mother calling him home for dinner. He hesitates because he still wants to hang out, but I tell him to go home--his mother's a damn good cook. Before he leaves, he asks one more favor--he pulls out some folded up papers from his pocket and hands them over. I skim the first couple paragraphs and raise an eyebrow. It's not bad. <i>You've got potential, kid,</i> I say. He smiles and stands up, making ready to leave, and then scans me briefly, taking in all of the differences. The extra two inches, the extra 30 pounds, the white hairs and coffee-stained teeth. He tells me he likes to write, likes to daydream in the back of class, but above all, he cares about people. There are some he wants to protect, some he wants to help, and some he just wants to understand. One day, he tells me, he'll do it all. <i>Does that change too?</i> He asks.<br />
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And I think, despite the frustrations, the disappointments, and all the times I've just been flat out pissed off, my answer would've been, no, it doesn't change. So I suppose if I actually could talk to myself from seven years ago, I wouldn't really have that much to tell him. Except maybe not to miss the Spring 2007 drop deadline at UT.CYhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18177814761257101876noreply@blogger.com0