the underwear drawer

muy cansado

Thank you to everyone who has been sending me "Scutmonkey" story submissions! I have a pretty good list already of stories that I'm planning to use--now if only I had time to draw them. Well, as soon as this ER block ends and I get back from this wedding and I survive my first week back in the NICU, I'll just have loads of time for the funnies. Or at least a weekend off.

But for right now, I'm just tired. Really, really, really tired. I don't really feel like doing anything when I get home from work except crawling into bed with a book and subsequently (read: 10 minutes later) falling asleep with the book on my chest. I'm like an 80 year-old man here. At least I don't have a Barcalounger.

I think it's all mental exhaustion more than anything. Our ER isn't physically vast enough that I'm actually covering that many miles running from bed to bed, but your mind is just racing all day long. Sometime yesterday between the toddler happily growing gram negative rods out of her blood waiting over 36 hours in the ER for a bed on the wards, and the thirteen year-old girl having a miscarriage all over my shoes, I wanted very much to go to sleep for a very long time.

Yes, but speaking of shoes, I have an excellent recommendation for some good, cheap shoes for medical professionals. Do you know Merrells? Everyone loves them, right? So comfortable, slip them right on? Yes, but so pricy. If I'm paying $80 for shoes, I'm going to get a lot more upset when some leaks diarrhea all over them. But lo, here is a suitable proxy. Land's End All-Weather Mocs. Same shoe, half the price! And so many colors, you and your feet can get saucy. They are lovely and comfy and I've had my brown pair for a year and wear them almost every night on call with remarkably little visible wear. Order half a size up to accompany for end-of-call foot swelling, and you will be glad that you did.

Currently reading: Betwen books. My sister lent me "The Da Vinci Code" but I'm too embarassed to read it out in public. It makes me feel so...common. Like that Onion article where an commercial airplane crash site is littered with dozons of copies of "The DaVinci Code." Maybe I'll settle for the popularly interchangable "The Rule of Four," which my dad also lent me. The latter was apparently co-written by a guy who was a year ahead of me at my med school. Needless to say, that guy does not need to do a residency, now or ever.