moules et frites

I can't help it, every time I manage to successfully place an IV in a preemie, I really want to run around the ward with my arms in the air shouting, "U.S.A! U.S.A!" But instead, I just slap an armboard on and cement that sucker down with a thousand Tegederms.

After being on call thrice already my first week in the NICU, the plus side is that I know all the patients pretty well going into week two. The minus is that I barely have enough energy to lift me wee head for week two, let alone weeks three and four. Now hear this: residency is tiring. Insights from the big house.

I met Coleen in the lobby of the hospital this morning--she picked a lovely weekend to visit from San Francisco, what with the RNC in town and me being to generally comatose to hold up my end of the conversation. But we managed to spend some quality time. Between her West Coast jet-lag and my being completely fucked up from Q2 weekend call, we were ready for lunch by around 10am. Too bad none of the restaurants in my neighborhood were. We waited around until around 11:15am, when the Banc Cafe finally opened for business, and sat in their outdoor dining section. I ordered the moules et frites. I wasn't planning on mollusk for lunch, but it was one of those things where the second I saw it on the menu, I could not entertain the possibility of eating anything else. We sat out there in the alternating sun and shade, chatted about this and that, and watched the people on the street go by. There was something very decadent about eating mussels in white wine sauce in the middle of the day.

Currently reading: Rereading "Persepolis" in anticipation (preparation?) for the sequel.

cleansing

So we hired a house cleaner to come to our place on Monday, but I didn't get to see the fruits of her labors until I got home post-call Tuesday morning. It was a huge job for one person, bless her for trying her best. Honestly, I don't think that there's any way that we could get our apartment to shine like the top of the Chrysler Building without a whole bevy of ragamuffin orphans cleaning the place with brushes strapped to their knees (tm "Annie"), but she did an admirable solo job of cleaning and triaging what to clean in her limited time with us. The bathrooms are clean, the kitchen is clean, and the dog-hair tumbleweeds have all been swept away. We'll probably have her come back in two weeks or so, by which time chaos will rule again.

As you may have surmised from the infrequent updating, the NICU is keeping me busy. I have my "power weekend" coming up, meaning that I'm on call this Friday and Sunday. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Currently watching: "Da Ali G Show: The Complete First Season." Thanks to Jack, Joe and I are completely obsessed with this show now. We bought the first season on DVD and have been incessantly watching and compulsively quoting from it. I love Borat.

fear

Allow me to define the word "fear." Fear is the feeling you get when you get called up to the delivery room in the middle of the night, handed a grey, limp baby with no respiratory effort and giant foreceps dents on either side of its head, knowing that you alone are responsible for the resucitation.

It's the NICU. Welcome back.

Currently reading: "The Neonatal Intensive Care Handbook." Time to brush up.

love, american style

We just got back from a whirlwind trip to Ohio to attend Joe's brother's wedding. Joe was the best man. Or at least the bridesmaids thought so, as they were in looooove with him. It was hectic but a lot of fun, and we got to see a lot of family. Besides, weddings are always kind of a hoot. There's food, there's dancing, there's lovey-dovey feelings atomized in the air, and there's family drama. What could be finer?

It was my first Catholic wedding--High Mass, I think it was called--thus adding to my catalogue of weddings attended. It was a nice ceremony, but by far the longest I've ever been to, what with all the singing and homilies and such. I kept myself occupied before it began by reading a Catholic Church response to The Da Vinci Code, entitled, "The Da Vinci Code: The Facts Behind the Fiction." So now I can say that I've been to a nature wedding (I don't know what else to call it, it was non-denominational and in a state park), a Jewish wedding, an Iranian-Irish wedding, and a Catholic wedding. Oh, and of course, our own wedding, which I would classify as the wedding I remember the least about.



The family. From left to right, there's Joe's sister and her brood, Joe's parents, Joe's brother Tony and his new wife (her name is Michelle too, confusingly/conveniently enough), and Joe and with his mail-order bride.



I like this picture because I look like I'm thinking, "Who the hell is this guy?"



Joe with his sister, grandmother, and niece. I will leave it to you to sort out which lady is which.



Joe's aunt, me, and Joe's mom. All night, people I had never met before were walking up to me and saying, "You must be Joe's wife!" (Some of them called him "Joey," which I found somewhat amusing.) I can't imagine how they figured it out. I guess I was a little conspicuous, like the one grain of yellow rice in a bowl of white rice. Or something.


The one thing I really learned at this wedding (besides the fact that once you tell people you're a doctor, they will never stop talking to you about their problems), is that people will line dance to anything. Seriously. I mean, sure, they line dance to the "Electric Slide" and "The Hustle." And there are organized moves to "The Hokey Pokey" and "The Chicken Dance," I concede that. But line dancing to "Billie Jean?" To "It's Raining Men?" That's just insanity, people. Get your freestyle moves on.

Tomorrow morning, I'm back in the NICU, for another month of pod babies. I'm on call three times in the first week. Painful. But at least that means I'll debulk the rest of my month.

Currently reading: The new issue of "U.S. News and World Report" that has a giant shark on the cover. I find that U.S. News has been having to get less newsy and more magazine-y to keep up with "Time" and "Newsweek." Though they will always have an audience with their stupid school ranking issues, for whatever they're worth.

jet-lagged

I feel like Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation," all dazed and off-cycle. "Mistah Hallis, please lip my stocking! Lip dem!" Two more nights, and then I'll be done with the night shift, and with the ER in general. It occurs to me that since I'm switching to Anesthesia in the Spring, this may be the last time I ever work in the Emergency Room. I mean, barring my getting pulled to cover someone else's shift on sick call or something similar. The notion makes me positively misty. However, I would feel much more nostalgic about saying goodbye to the ER if I wasn't at the end of working 11 shifts in a row.

Tomorrow morning, I have to pick up Joe's tux for the wedding on my way home from work, and then I have an appointment with a housecleaner that I found on Craig's List. We are living in squalor, and it must stop. There is a sense of failure about resorting to hiring a person to clean our house--you know, that we couldn't keep up with the rate of entropy and sweep up our own hairballs--but based on the testimonies of other residents who have also decided to hire household help, guilt gives way to relief rather quickly when you can come home to a clean bathroom and spend time with your spouse without applying subtle pressure to one another to take out the damn trash already. The real deal-breaker with this housekeeper is whether or not she's scared of dogs. She says she likes dogs, but there's a huge difference between a little teacup Maltese and Cooper. I'd say about 70 pounds.

Currently reading: Too tired to read at the present. I've been taking to napping on the subway, and somehow have been honing this sixth sense about when the train is approaching my stop. And it is a sixth sense, because half of the conductors don't announce the stops overhead, and the other half that do don't seem to have PA systems that work very well. "(Static) street, next stop is (static) pleasestanclearuddaclosindoors (feedback whine)"

full moon

It was like Degrassi Junior High in the ER last night, what with all the teens that we had pourng in the doors. That is, if Degrassi Junior High was set in a psychiatric institution. Behold, the patients that all came in within two hours of each other.

1.) Tylenol Girl. Suicide attempt by Tylenol and alcohol ingestion. Was in a wonderful mood when she came in, was hugging all of the police officers and kissing the nurses. Learned to love the taste of activated charcoal.

2.) Pseudoseizure Lass. Total body shaking at home, apparently postictal and borderline comatose upon arrival, staring blankly ahead and not responding to her name. I was getting worried, but then the second I walked away, she started laughing at her boyfriend's jokes and screaming at the nurse for putting in an IV and taking away her shoes.

3.) Anxiety Attack Chick. Hyperventilating because she was freaking that her roommate was making a lesbian pass at her.

4.) Drug-Seeking Lad. Chronic back pain seeking narcotics. After giving 4mg of Demerol, we switched to Toradol and he was very upset with us.

5.) Psychosis Dude. Just stepped off a bus from L.A., now at our hospital because he wants "a second opinion." On what? I ask. "The doctors in L.A. told me I have schizophrenia, but I don't think that I do." Obligingly, I called the poor, overworked Psych consult and he gave his second opinion, which was that the patient had bipolar disorder with psychotic features. So I guess the patient was right after all.

Thankfully, except for these pateints, the rest of the ER cleared out by about 3am. We wondered if the influx of crazy teens was because of the full moon. Well, it wasn't really a full moon last night. But that would be a good story, wouldn't it?

Currently reading: "The New Yorker." Just finished "The Da Vinci Code" yesterday, which was quite a good read in the end. I would classify it as an excellent poolside book, because it's exciting, a brisk read, and is even a little bit educational. They must be making a movie of this book, it's so script-ready. Who would star? My first guess would be Harrison Ford as Langdon, but maybe that's too easy.

fade into darkness

Today begins my transition into working the night shift. They start me off gently, from 12 noon to 12 midnight. But by tomorrow I'll be working 8pm to 8am, and everything will become very topsy-turvy. It's like taking a one week trip to Japan.

Working in the wee hours of the morning as often as I do, I have become finely calibrated to the nuances of my personal circadian rhythm. There's the 10pm power surge, followed by the 1am first wave of fatigue. The 3am wave of uber-fatigue, coupled with the sudden drop in body temperature that sends me scrambling for your sweatshirt, or, barring good foresight to bring a sweatshirt, an extra patient gown. There's that paradoxical surge of energy around 6am, followed by the nausea and disorientation at 7am when everyone comes into work all fresh and (somewhat) rested, while I'm just about ready to hit the wall. And of course, that temporary 10am revitalization as I'm walking out of the hospital, just before I fall asleep on the subway and narrowly avoid missing my stop.

I never pulled all-nighters when I was in high school or college, because I never really felt that I was as productive without at least three hours of sleep. (Well, there was this one unfortunate night my first-year of college, with the unfortunate intersection of a philosophy paper due early the next morning and two tabs of Vivarin...but that was a true dark night of the soul, and we will never speak of that again. "Revive with Vivarin" my ass.) Now, of course, my whole job is to pull all nighters about every fourth night. Man, if I had known, I would have been practicing all along.

Currently reading: "The Da Vinci Code." But that's for the subway. My nightstand reading was "Scrapbook: Uncollected Work 1990-2004" by Adrian Tomine. It's not so much a comic book as an art book, but I would highly recommend it to all Tomine fans. It even has a catalogue of all his illustrations for the New Yorker, Esquire, and various other glossy publications. What a talented artist. Some of his pieces remind me of Edward Hopper's stuff, in the way that they exude this sense of isolation and loneliness.

goodbye, green couch

We returned home from work to find the dog wagging her tail in a big pile of synthetic stuffing and foam. Underneath the foam were the ragged remains of our living room couch. Around the dog were about four or five dog toys, completely untouched. I guess the couch was just a superior plaything. Does it make sense that the first thing I thought was to get a second dog to entertain and occupy the first? Or would they just band together to destroy our home at an exponentially faster rate?

Joe, being the alpha dog, was in charge of the discipline, which mainly consisted of giving Cooper the alpha dog staredown and saying "No!" rather loudly several times while holding her nose to the (destroyed) couch cushions. I know they say that dogs don't know what you're punishing them for unless you punish them at the moment the crime is committed, but I think she understood. The second you held up the fuzz and looked her in the eye, she got all evasive, looking away and sagging her ears and tails down in that unmistakable BAD DOG look, even before the "No!"-ing began.

The problem with dogs is that they do these incredibly cute things that make it impossible for you to stay mad at them. Coop did the thing where she rolled onto her back, paws in the air, exposing her tender underbelly--the ultimate submissive positioning. Goddamn you, Coop, I am trying to maintain an air of righteous anger!

(And thus ends my annoying dog owner story. Just be glad I don't have ten cats or something. "The cutest thing...Muffins was playing with a catnip toy when Snickers ran right into him and toppled him right over! And then I took a picture and mailed it into 'Cat Fancy' magazine!" )

OK, so I was trapped in a cafe in the rain earlier this afternoon (not as romantic as it sounds), and given that I had nothing else to do, I started reading "The Da Vinci Code." I did take off the dust cover, though. I don't know what that says about me, that I care whether or not people know that I'm reading a big fat commercial bestseller. Regardless, I'm only a little ways into it, but I can see why people get so excited about this book. It has a very quick-paced, forward-moving plot so far, even if I am a little turned off by the description of the main character. "His usually sharp blue eyes looked hazy and drawn tonight. A dark stubble was shrouding his strong jaw and dimpled chin. Around his temples, the gray highlights were advancing, making heir way deeper into the thicket of coarse black hair. Although his female colleagues insisted the gray only accentuated his bookish appeal, Langdon knew better." What the hell is this, a Harelquin romance? Well, whatever. I'm already into it, so I'll choose to overlook the Fabio overtones.

Currently reading: Uh, "The Da Vinci Code." Dur. But I also just finished "When I Am Old: And Other Stories." It wasn't a very long book, so I finished it on the subway on the way to work.

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.

long day's journey into night

This is how they like to work it with the ER shifts at my hospital: Monday through Friday, 8am to 6pm. So far so good. Saturday, noon to midnight. Sunday, overnight 8pm to 8am. Getting pretty tired by now. Then, the coup de grace, the 11pm to 8am overnight shift all the following week. To top it all off, at the end of my work bonanza, 11 straight days in the ER without a break, we'll be headed off for a family wedding in Ohio, which may actually be the most tiring part of it all. I hope there's no conga line at the reception, though I know in my heart of hearts that there will be, and I will be unwillingly roped in and perhaps given a maraca or two to shake.

I was looking up some lab results for one of my patients in the ER earlier today when I caught the edge of a conversation between three attendings. I wasn't evesdropping, I just happened to be using the computer, and they happened to be talking loudly right next to me. Rather, one was talking loudly, and the other two were nodding. But some monologues are better conducted at lower decibel range.





First of all, lady, I can hear you. I'm right here.

Second of all, (this is the ruminative part) it's just so funny how medicine is. Of course everyone is working hard, and of course there are people who feel to some degree that they fact that they're working so hard means that other people must not be working hard enough. But enough already with the "Back in my day, residents had to walk uphill both ways to work without shoes in the snow to and place all their own IVs" shtick. Seriously, just give it a rest. The reason that we don't take 48 hour call anymore and single-handedly take care of 50 post-op NICU babies simultaneously and draw all our own bloods on 30 Onc patients' central lines each and every morning by ourselves is because these things sucked. There's nothing romantic about all that, though there is the rosy survivor's afterglow. It sucked and it was cruel and most of all, it was unsafe for the patients. And the fact is that we know better now, because we have more technology and more delegation of scut and more understanding of what is important for patient care and physician education. The Old Way is not necessarily the Right Way.

Do we work fewer hours than the residents of yesteryear? Due to new laws, yes. That's why the laws were made, and why they are enforced by government visits and hefty fines. But are we lazier, stupider, and worse doctors for it? Does it make us care about our patients any less just because we're not there by their bedside for 72 hours straight? Does it mean that residents still don't work their asses off every day of the week, that we don't eat, sleep, and breathe medicine? I doubt it, sister. So cram it with walnuts.

Currently reading: "Beg the Question." It's hard to read comics on the train, people are always peeking over your shoulder. Luckily, this one is somewhat disguised in hardcover.

scutmonkey submission: "the great escape"



(Click on the image for the full-sized version that you can actually, you know, read.) Thus debuting the first ever story submission to "Scutmonkey." See if you can guess who sent it in.

Thanks to those who have already submitted! Keep e-mailing me your Scutmonkey stories and maybe you too can appear on these pages as a sweaty, harrased looking cartoon character. (Submission information and guidelines can be found here.)

Currently reading: "Beg The Question." An accidental find as I was browsing at Borders.

candy thief

When I was working the night shifts last week, I noticed a strange thing. My candy stash was disappearing. Fueled by the unabashed candy worship of "Candy Freak," I had started to amass my own modest candy collection, consisting of a few bars of Milky Way Midnight (the dark chocolate version of the original), a king-sized Whachamacallit, and several large packs of Peanut Chews. I'm very impressionable that way. I would go the the convenience store and buy the candy during the day, stack it neatly in the pantry, and then go off to work at night. When I came home, the candy stash was either diminished or completely gone. The work of a candy thief.

I thought about leaving a little note in the pantry, a sort of "I KNOW YOU'RE STEALING MY CANDY, SO GET YOUR PAWS OFF!" warning, but tempered by a matrimonial sense of "my candy is your candy," I didn't say anything. I just kept buying more candy during the day and Joe kept eating it at night. By the end of the week, I was getting fed up. So when I came home from work last night (rather, early this morning, at 3am), I apprehended the suspect.



Currently watching: "The Bourne Supremacy." Well, not right now, but after the BBQ. Do you know how many people go up to Joe and tell him, "You look like Matt Damon"? A lot.

biohazardous material

I was in the ER last night when EMS brought in a woman who had miscarried a second-trimester fetus. This might seem strange to you, as I'm working in the Pediatric Emergency room, but by the rules of the hospital, anyone under 21 goes straight to the Peds ER regardless (irregardless?) of the medical problem. The patient had delivered the fetus in the ambulance and EMS had saved the products of conception in a red biohazard bag and stuck it in the lab. One of my attendings took me to the back to see. He wanted me to guess how many weeks the fetus was.

He opened up the bag. Trying to sound for all the world like the calmest, been-around-the-block senior resident in the ER, I said (testing my voice for shakiness) somewhere between 16 and 18 weeks. He concurred. I nodded sagely. But inside, I was losing my shit.

I had seen one miscarried fetus in the past, a 20 weeker during my Ob/Gyn rotation in med school with multiple congenital anomalies and fetal hydrops. It was clearly a malformed fetus, like something you might see on those tasteless websites that display pictures of unusual medical conditions for gross-out value. You know, those baby-in-a-jar pictures. It was disturbing. But this fetus last night was worse.

The attending went into a little mini-embryology lecture, detailing the fully formed anatomy, proportions, growth. But I wasn't really listening. To tell you the truth, I felt more than a little bit scared. It was like watching a horror movie and forcing yourself to watch the climactic scene with your eyes wide open. I don't know why I felt so spooked. But the fetus looked just like my patients in the NICU. Sure, it was smaller, more translucent, and had a couple of weeks to go before even approaching viability, but otherwise looked for all the world like the fully-formed premature infants in the little plastic pods upstairs. Only instead of a pod, it was lying in a red biohazard bag in a plastic emesis basin in the back room of the Emergency Department.

It wasn't a matter of personal beliefs or reproductive rights. It was a matter of seeing something close up and in that harsh flourescent lighting that you feel you shouldn't be seeing, ever. That feeling of internal discord you get when you see something private and harsh and real, like the intractable pain of a cancer patient, or the grief of a parent given the diagnosis of their child's terminal medical condition. It's hard to look in the face, and you just don't want to be there.

The attending was holding the fetus in one hand, and when he moved his fingers distractedly, making a point, it looked like the fetus was flexing its legs. I almost jumped. It looked like such a natural movement, and the tissue still so pink and fresh, as though still being perfused. It looked like it was alive, though I knew it was not. And then it was over, we were walking out of the lab and going back to tending to our ER full of sick and hurt children. The teenager who got jumped on his way home from school. The little boy with allergic wheals all over his body. The baby with a fever to 104. Only the fetus was still there, in the back room. And I kept thinking about it for the rest of the night, those perfectly formed hands and feet, that tiny face.

Currently reading: "The New Yorker" article about Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy. I like it when they have medical articles sometimes.

i think i had a spouse once

I couldn't figure out why three thousand people all decided yesterday to suddenly revisit the old Scutmonkey strip about my Psych rotation, until I realized that the link had been featured on Metafilter. Aha. Thanks for the link and the compliments, Metafilter! Apparently, though, some people got very huffy about the strip and how "fake" it was, and how generally jerky and insensitive I am. Ah, it's just like working in the hospital. Someone's always upset in the end.

With respect to the veracity of the story, all I can say is that, with a few personal patient details changed, everything happened as depicted. This goes for all my strips. Trust me, I was there. You can't make that stuff up, and it wouldn't be funny if you did. And as for the issue of my jerkitude, to each their own opinion, but I'll just say that maybe you have to have worked in a hospital to fully understand the "Scutmonkey" oeuvre. Or at least understand that despite the gravity of their jobs and responsiblities, doctors are allowed to have a sense of humor.

That said, thank you so much to everyone for supporting "Scutmonkey"! The feedback and interest have been incredible, and I think we may be looking at a second print run for Issue #1 fairly soon. I'm thrilled and honored at the response the comics have generated. To all the e-mailers, readers, and well-wishers, thank you thank you thank you!

day/night reversal

The unspoken truth about working nights is that you simply don't get as much sleep as you would if you were working days, irregardless of time off between shifts. It's just harder to sleep for a long stretch during the daylight hours. I got home at around 4am last night (the 5 to 2 shift should more accurately be described as the 5 to "2" shift) and could only really manage to sleep until around 9:30am. That's five and a half hours. By then, it was full daylight, the dog was whining for attention, there was construction going on downstairs, and then there's that whole circadian rhythm thing underlying it all. So I got up. Now I'm tired. Five and a half hours is a hefty nap, but as a night's sleep, doesn't quite satisfy.

Since I was up, I made another post office run to unleash another steaming batch of "Scutmonkey" orders into the hands of the U.S. Postal Service. Unfortunately, my wallet and I think we may have to increase the price of international orders by a dollar from now on, just to pay for the shipping fees. Sorry, international orderers! Who new it would cost so much to ship to London? (If you already placed an order from overseas before the price hike, don't worry about it, the extra postage is on me--I just can't afford to keep paying that much for airmail.) I'm shipping it the cheapest rate possible, but still, the postage itself costs more than the production costs of the whole book. As it is, I'm not making a profit, having priced the comic book at just about the level I need to break even. But losing money on the venture probably isn't the best idea either. Good thing I have that crazy day job.

Currently reading: "Candy Freak." After the chapter about Goldberg's Peanut Chews, I had to go to the grocery store and buy a pack for myself. I never tried them before (they looked too much like an old man candy) but they are indeed very tasty. And such cute little nuggets too, like the neat uniform little poos of a dog with OCD.

sleazy t-shirt woe

I went to Old Navy this weekend to score some cheap t-shirts to wear to work. It's like the opposite of "Casual Friday" in the ER. Every day is t-shirts and sneakers. Come in wearing a skirt and some heels and everyone immediately assumes that you're interviewing for a grant of some sort. So anyway, Old Navy. I'm not a huge graphic t-shirt person, especially t-shirts with saucy writing on them, but I did find a cute navy blue t-shirt on sale that said "GYMNASTICS" across the chest in faded white writing. Kinda like a retro team shirt or something. I figured hey, the price is right, the size is right, what the hell. Not until I got home and unfolded the damn thing do I see that there's writing on the back of the t-shirt too. What does the writing say? "PERFECT 10." Oh lord. Now I can never wear it out of the house. Who goes around with a t-shirt advertising that they're a "PERFECT 10?" It's like those scary little preteens that walk around with skimpy little belly tees with the words "PORN STAR" emblazoned across the front in glue-gunned rhinestones. So the moral of the story is: always unfold the t-shirt before you buy it. But that doesn't just go for t-shirts. I once bought these super-sale boxer shorts from the Gap right after Christmas. I thought they were just plain blue--long story short, I unfolded the boxers at home and the words "STOCKING STUFFER" were written across the ass in giant white writing. Stocking stuffer? What does that even mean?

Currently reading: "Candy Freak." I thought this would be similar to "Fast Food Nation" and its ilk, but it's actually much less journalistic and more like the work of a memorist. Funny stuff, and I can totally relate, being a total candy freak myself. This book has inspired me to go out and buy a big bag of Red Vines. I think I prefer them to Twizzlers, there's something about that artificial, vaguely medicinal cherry flavor that appeals to me.

the 5 to 2

I had a pretty normal day job last week, working the 8am to 6pm shift in the ER. This week, I'm on the 5pm to 2am shift, which is a little painful only in that it's the busiest shift in the ER, but not so horrible in that it's only nine hours long and you get your morning and early afternoon off. It's a huge difference to have off-shift time during a portion of the day when you're actually awake, I find. It makes my day much more useful, as opposed to the getting-home-at-8pm-and-passing-out model that I usually follow.

It's so remarkable to actually not be at work during normal business hours. There are so many things that are really difficult for me to do during the course of my regular working week, because nothing is open before I go to work, and everything closes down before I get out. This is where the 5pm-2am ER shift comes in handy. This morning, I finally got my medical license application notarized and shipped it Fedex to Albany. I bought stamps at the post office and mailed the first batch of "Scutmonkey" orders. I went to the bank. I put away laundry. (OK, the mound of laundry buildup is not a function of inconvenient business hours, rather of my own sloth. But still.) I had a very productive morning. I would have taken the dog to the park too, but it's inconceivably hot and humid outside, and all she wants to do is sleep on the couch. Oh yes, I'd hate to disturb you MY QUEEN.






(I remember when we used to have a couch, by the way. Now it's just some gigantic smelly dog bed. I came home the other night and Joe was sitting on the hardwood floor watching TV, because the couch is too gross to sit on anymore. That's just sad.)

Anyway, I have to start getting ready for work. But one more thing before I go--inspired by the ladies over at "Pathetic Geek Stories," I'm starting to accept your personal story submissions for Scutmonkey. I'll still be writing and drawing my own stories, of course, but the more scut to share, the merrier. Check below or at the revamped sidebar for details.

Currently reading: "My New York Diary." Interesting how many cartoonists actually went to art school and hated it. Does art school actually teach you anything? Or is it as Woody Allen put it about writing classes--that those who can write well can already do so when the start the class, but those who are untalented will never learn?

OPEN CALL FOR SCUTMONKEY STORIES! Have you ever dreamed of being a cartoon? Yeah, me neither. What, do I look like a total loser? (Crickets.) Nonetheless, here's your chance for dubious distinction! Submit your own real-life scutmonkey stories and let me illustrate them for you! You and your pathetic stories of medical servitude can too turn cartoony, not unlike that "Aha" video for "Take on Me."

Submission Guidelines: Think of a good story of use and abuse from med school, residency or beyond and e-mail it to me. You can take out or leave in as many identifying details as you like by specific descriptions and dialogue will help with the drawing. As always, please be HIPAA compliant, and know that no racist, sexist, or otherwise insensitive tales will be included (though I do expect and appreciate a certain sense of black humor.) If I decide to use your story for an upcoming issue of "Scutmonkey," I will e-mail you to let you know. Also, you will get a free copy of the issue in which your story appears. As if the sudden fame, fortune, and adulation of your peers wasn't enough.

scutmonkey issue #1, on sale now

First, the big news. The first issue of the scutmonkey mini-comic is on sale now! Putting together this mini-comic was not so easy as I had originally presumed it would be. I figured the hard part would be just drawing the damn thing, and assembling the booklet would just be a matter of some self-serve photocopying at Kinko's and some staple-wizardry. I guess I'm not so handy as I thought. Well, in my defense, the stapler at the copy place was pitifully inadequate for heavy-duty stapling, and there was a glitch in the top feeder of the Xerox machine at the place. 2 hours, half a ream of paper, and three boxes of mangled staples later, I just decided to take the job to the full-service desk and let them do it for me. And here you have it.




There's the cover, in all it's 80-pound cardstock glory. I think the weight of the cover may have been what killed all those staples. It may be hard to tell from the photo, but it's actually a lovely persimmon color.



Lo, two-toned cardstock. Do you know how long I spent at the paper store choosing just the right cover for this project? Actually, forget it, you don't really want to know.



Inside, 48 pages of comical goodness.



Enjoyed by medical professionals. Especially in totally staged photographs.


So, there's that. I'm selling the mini-comics for $5.00 each, which, in the end, probably just defrays the cost of printing the damn things. Now you may be asking yourselves, why the hell would I pay $5.00 to buy the comic book when I can read all the comics online for free? Well, how about this?

• Pride of ownership.

• Great cheap gifts for everyone! Classmates, co-workers, non-medical friends, parents. Well, not if your parents or friends are FREAKS and don't like the sound of HUMAN LAUGHTER, but for all the normal people in your life, this gift is tops!

• A fun bathroom read (though those with cable modem hookups in their bathrooms may have been enjoying this already).

• Uh...valuable collectors item?

So anyway, take a look. It'll be something interesting for your coffee table anyway, and at only $5.00, why the hell not? This is my first time using PayPal to sell online, though, so if you run into any problems with the buttons and whatnot, let me know.

Currently reading: "Candy Freak." The job wasn't ready at Kinko's when I went to go pick it up, so I killed some time at Barnes and Noble and walked away with this book, as well as "The Time Traveler's Wife" (I think one of your guys recommend it to me) and "My New York Diary," a graphic novel by Julie Doucet.

Issue #1 of Scutmonkey on sale now at The Scutmonkey Store!