the underwear drawer

blah blah work blah blah

Three calls in six days. Guh. I'm not going to talk about work anymore.

OK, maybe a little. Tell me, is there anything more frustrating than trying to put an IV into a fat baby? I mean, not just fat in the way that all babies are kind of fat, I mean a FAT baby, like a tiny little Jabba the Hut, a baby with full on rolls and dimpling not just near his joints and who are phyically unable to fully extend his legs because his thighs are so freaking huge. I know there's some weird, primal satisfaction as a mom to see your baby eat (and eat and eat and EAT), but come on, people. A 7 week-old baby should not weigh seventeen pounds. This baby from last night could barely even move. It looked like a giant, overstuffed haggis.

I was having a conversation with one of my interns the other day, and the point that I was trying to make at the time is that not all babies are cute. She protested, saying that all babies are cute at least in some way. But I disagree. Some babies are definitely not cute. Some of them are smushed-looking. Not just when they're born and are generally mashed and slimy and placenta-y. But some of them just look smushed normally. Some of them look too much like their parents, which can be oddly disconcerting, to see a thirty year-old face on an infant. And some of them are just freaky-looking. I'm not talking about babies with syndromes and stuff, I'm talking about normal, regular babies who just look weird. There was this one baby I saw in the Well-Baby Nursery that I was all jazzed to do genetic testing on, because to me, she looked dysmorphic and odd. But then when I saw her parents, I realized that maybe the baby wasn't syndromic, maybe she was just ugly.

It's OK, I can say it. I'm in Pediatrics. It's scientific!

So aside from bashing the poor ugly babies (may you all turn into beautiful swans someday), I've been just generally trying to recuperate in between my ward calls and keep up with the rest of my life somehow. I got an e-mail from Joe's mom today asking me what Joe wanted for Christmas. I honestly couldn't say right now. A winning lottery ticket, maybe? I've been doing a little preliminary Christmas gift-planning myself, but all that ends up happening is that I just end up looking for stuff that I want. Like this, I want, but am embarassed about. In case you can't be bothered with links, I'm talking about the Britney's Spear's Greatest Hits CD. Mostly, I want to get it so that I can play it loudly when no one else is home and dance around like a spaz. But also, I have a strange fascination with Britney Spears now. It's like this one time I saw a woman eating a wig on the subway. (You heard me. She was eating. A wig.) You're fascinated and horrified and embarassed and pitying and yet a little bit entertained. And that's my relationship with Britney Spears at this point. Also, I find the cover of her new album disturbingly airbrushed and trashy. Ain't no way Britney's been that tiny in years.

At least I have the rest of the weekend off after my call on Thanksgiving Day. Not sure what I'm going to do with those two and a half days off. Maybe just lie in bed reading magazines and let my brain sloooowly atrophy. Sounds like fun.

Currently reading: "The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004" and "Geisha, A Life" which is like the real-life version of "Memoirs of a Geisha." The best part about Japanese writing is when they talk about the food they eat. Unfortunately, she hasn't really gone into it in great detail in this geisha memoir--they're too busy prattling on about kimono and such. Read some Banana Yoshimoto if you want to get hungry.