fourteen year-old boys will love this one





A ward in the hospital, not a command.

super-duper




I was very charmed by the "Superheroes" episode of This American Life that I just recently downloaded, and particularly liked the piece by John Hodgeman (trivia factoid: he is the PC in those "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" commercials) where he interviews people asking them which one superpower they would prefer to have: invisibility or the flight. So, some basic ground rules as detailed in the radio story. You could either become invisible at will, or fly without the aid of machinery. You could not be both. Neither superpowers could be couple with any other superpowers. No one else would have the superpowers that you have. Other that invisibility or flight, you could not do anything else that you couldn't do in real life, like lifting a bus into the air. When you are invisible, your clothes also become invisible, but anything that you're holding would not.

So, on the train back from the museum yesterday, I asked what he would choose.


JOE (Without hesitation)
Flying. Definitely flying.

MICHELLE
Yeah, but what would you do?

JOE
(As though to a stupid person)
Fly.

MICHELLE
Yeah, but how is that useful? Where would you fly?

JOE
Anywhere. Wait, could I fly and shoot fireballs from my hands?

MICHELLE
No, no other powers.

JOE
(Dismayed)
Oh.

MICHELLE
See, I would choose to be invisible.

JOE
For what purpose?

MICHELLE
Because then I could...sneak around. And listen to what other people are saying. And...rob banks.

JOE
Would you be invisible and be able to walk through walls?

MICHELLE
No, only invisible.

JOE
So how could you rob a bank?

MICHELLE
I could go in behind the guy who had the key before the door closed.

JOE
That's stupid.

MICHELLE
Invisibility is definitely the more craven of the two superpowers.

JOE
Anyway, you couldn't steal things. Even if you stole someone's wallet, the wallet doen't become invisible itself. Don't you think people would see their wallet just floating away? Unless you could make anything you touch invisible.

MICHELLE
Maybe if I put it under my shirt, the invisibility of my shirt would cloak the wallet.

JOE
I think you would have to be invisible and be able to pass through solid objects.

MICHELLE
Wait, I don't want to be invisible anymore. It makes me sound like a criminal. I would rather have telekinesis.

JOE
And shoot fireballs from your hands.

MICHELLE
That's you. See, the problem is, neither power is really very useful on its own.

JOE
See, I would have thought you would want to fly.

MICHELLE
Why?

JOE
Because then you wouldn't have to learn to drive.

MICHELLE
Shut up about the driving already.


So what about you? One power, invisibility or flight. Which one would you choose and why?

get stuffed

I think it's only natural (and I did in fact predict it) that there would be some backlash once I started talking about this whole book process, and that some people would inevitably start to think me (and this is in my own words, from last November) a self-aggrandizing asshole. It is difficult, I think, to figure out how much sharing of the process is interesting, and how much starts being construed as pure self-absorption. And while I completely support everyone's right to opine, I would also venture to say that the line between the two varies on who you ask. I'm not going to worry about it too much, though. Having been at this for the past almost eight years (dude, really? I am old) I'm just going to keep writing about stuff that's going on, be it the book or residency or Cal or whatever else comes up. That is to say, I will bring updates about the book process up once in a while, but it is not the only thing going on in my life, and most of the time there's nothing much to say other than the fact that I have this open Word file idling in the background of my desktop.

I also want to let people know that nine years of medical training has bestowed me with a healthy sense of self-deprecation and a relatively thick skin. I take neither negative comments or positive affirmations all too seriously (how seriously can I take them? I mean, I appreciate the the comments and your time, but do remember that most of you don't actually know me), so on both fronts, I just sort of shrug and carry on.

the best-laid plans of mice and men

I will tell you that I had big plans for my week on night float for the pain service. BIG PLANS. I figured that since I had to be at the hospital anyway, I would come in, stay up most of the night, do some writing, research my job contract, finish paperwork, maybe even rescue patients from the pernicious effects of nocturnal pain. Then, in the morning, I would go home, shower, and spend the entire day with Cal, going down for an hour or two during his afternoon nap, waking refreshed and ready to return to the hospital for another night in a place where the lights are always on. I would be so productive it would be sickening.

Well, a couple of things got in the way of these plans, first of which is my apparently boundless ability to procrastinate. The first two days I was almost afraid to open up the Word document of my book manuscript, not so much because I had writer's block (I had a couple of ideas that I wanted to work on), but because I was so paralyzed by how many things I wanted to do that I couldn't do anything. Also, I was afraid (as I often am when I step away from writing the thing for a while) that upon re-reading with a clearer eye, that I would find that the thing reeked and that I was now many months closer to a deadline but with nothing to show for it but a garbage can full of crumpled paper. (That's metaphorical, by the way. Though there is something romantic about the idea of writing a book on an old typewriter, ripping out false starts with a zzzzp! and crumpling them into a ball before lofting them backwards into the trash. Also, there would be a bottle of scotch next to the typewriter.) Finally, I after two wasted nights at the beginning of the week, I just forced myself to open the file and read the damn thing, like jumping into a pool that you know is going to be bracingly cold but you know you have to get into. And you know, upon reading it through, I was actually pretty happy. Surprisingly happy. And this not-suckiness motivated me to get cracking again.

This may be overambitious, given, you know, everything else, but if I can finish my first draft by May 1st (a date that once seemed so distant but now is looming rather alarmingly--April is next week) that will give me two months to do some illustrations, let the manuscript sit for a little while, and give it a little polish before submitting it to my editor on July 1st. The May 1st self-imposed deadline is a little neurotic, I guess, but I wanted to give myself a margin of error, allow for a little extra time in case I needed it. This is the same reason, by the way, I show up for every flight three hours early and end up sitting there bored out of my mind for a flight that is inevitably delayed anyway. Thank god for trashy magazines.

So yes, there was procrasintation, but also, there is apparently this biological need for sleep. I have not had very good sleep these past few days--my sleep cycle is all screwed up from working nights, and even if I do sleep in the hospital, I get friction burns from the cardboard mattress and the paper pillowcase--but the need for sleep is enough to curtail any serious efforts at non-medical work past, say, 3:00am. So, there's that.

Finally, when you're a senior resident on night float for Pain (a service that historically isn't all that busy overnight--oh look, I just jinxed myself) you will end up getting pulled for cases in the OR. Monday I spent a couple of hours over at the Eye Institute (yes, there is an Eye Institute) helping with a ruptured globe in the OR (globe = eyeball)(you're welcome), and yesterday, I was pulled to the Peds OR to help with another case. I don't mind helping, of course--the Pain resident is a universal backup resident, and hey, I'm here anyway--but it did somewhat curtail my ability to do all the imaginary tasks that I fooled myself into thinking were possible.

Still, I got some stuff done. And I got to see Cal during the daylight every single day this week! How often does that happen? Today he told me, "Mama, you're so happy to see Cal." And I was.

wasted opportunity

One of the last minute food stands next to the gate at the airport in Atlanta.




I think they missed a real opportunity to call it "Snacks on a Plane."  And maybe show a poster-sized photo of Samuel L. Jackson bludgeoning a bag of Sun Chips. "I've had it with these motherfucking snacks on this motherfucking plane!"

hol-GA, hol-GA, hol-GA

I may be barking up the wrong tree here (or wrong tripod, whatever), but do any of you Out There have any experience using a Holga? Brief primer, all of which I basically learned surfing the internet last night after getting paged out of REM at 3:00am and (shockingly) was unable to resume a normal sleep pattern: a Holga is a brand name for a cheapy plastic film camera that has a cult following for the low-fidelity, distinctive photos it generates, full of lens defects and light leaks and oversaturated colors. It uses 120 film (as opposed to 35mm in your standard point and shoot), and there are multiple modifications or hacks that people use to enhance or customize their Holgas to get the effects that they want. Here is an example of a Holga-type photo (the classic Holga print is 6" x 6", with vignetting defects at the corners and a soft, dream-like focus):




So my question to you out there (and I gather that some of you have a peripheral interest in photography, as I do) is--have you used a Holga? Do you like it? Is it worth it? The camera itself, being a toy, basically, is relatively cheap--probably $25 or so. But it's a film camera, which means, duh, the expense of film, plus the cost of processing (probably more for 120 film than for your standard 35mm rolls, though I honestly have no idea how much) and miscellaneous expenses that accrue with any sort of print photography. Additionally--and I think this freaks me out more--is the lack of control. I know that some people love the unpredictability of the results obtained with a Holga, what with its no focus, no light meter, one shutter speed shooting from the hip aesthetic, of the "oh look, it was an accident, but look at how it turned out" vein, but honestly, I don't know if that's really my personality. After shooting with digital for so long, I love the ability to see right away that 1.) I shot a good photo, and 2.) be able to do all my own post-processing immediately. MUST BE IN CONTROL AT ALL TIMES, OF EVERYTHING. This must be why I got into anesthesia.

Purist sentiment aside, what's the difference between getting a crappy camera to shoot photos valued for their imperfections, and shooting with a better (possibly digital) camera and crapping it up in post-processing? I like the idea of the Holga, but feel like there is a large chance it could just be a pain in the ass. And honestly, I don't really need a super time-consuming hobby these days. I could probably do well with cutting out a few hobbies, actually. Like sleeping.





Above: some random photos I took with my phone cam on my way to work today and lomo'ed up in post-processing. They are not the artsy square prints as valued in the medium format film world, but some judicious cropping is simple enough. You can use Photoshop, of course, or this new service I recently discovered called Picnik, which is like Photoshop for people who don't know how to use Photoshop, or would rather not deal with all those layers and masks and stuff. Check it out, it is rather pleasing, and free as well.

tea for one

I have discovered something during my latest trip to Atlanta that has changed my life forever. Well, perhaps to say that I "discovered" it is something of a stretch. That's like saying Columbus "discovered" the Americas, a land that indigenous peoples had been living on and enjoying for years. But let's leave the semantics to the semioticians and just sit back to enjoy a nice, tall, icy glass of sweet tea.




"But Michelle," you say, brow furrowed just so, "that's just iced tea. Don't tell me you haven't ever had iced tea before." Well, in a sense, yes, it is just cooled tea on ice, with sugar in it. But BETTER. First of all, you can't even compare it to the terrible Snapples and Nesteas of the world. Those beverages are more like SWEET!!! (tea), that is to say, far too much sugar and not enough tea taste. Nor is it the same as iced tea that you would order in a restaurant here up North. Here, if you order an iced tea, they will bring you a cup of tea, on ice, unsweetened. All self-inflicted efforts at sweetening leave you is with a grainy pile of sugar at the bottom of the glass, defying all efforts at dissolution in the icy bath, because of, you know, chemistry and whatnot. Sweet tea in the South is different. Sweet tea in the South is better. And best of all, sweet tea in the south is everywhere. At every restaurant, at every sandwich place, at every hole in the wall, there it is, a gigantic cauldron of freshly brewed sweet tea, each purporting to be derived from some special unique family recipe but all of them tasting similarly good.

I've read accounts (most recently "Beautiful Boy," though I was too embarrassed to buy it at Starbucks, for the same reason I rip all those little Oprah Book Club stickers off the books that happen to be on Oprah's Book Club) of drug users, who, after finally trying what would eventually become their drug of choice--crack cocaine, methamphetamines, what have you--say that though they didn't know it until that moment, this was what they had been missing their entire lives. This is how I feel about sweet tea. Such a light flavor! So delicately sweet! So good! So mildly caffeinated! I NEVER KNEW IT COULD BE THIS WAY. And I'm not going as far as to say that sweet tea = methamphetamines, but realizing that we are relocating to Atlanta, where I will basically be able to access sweet tea 24/7, well, it certainly takes the sting out of the move.

the return

Hello there. Back in New York. Sorry for the long silence, but there was no free wireless internet at any of the hotels we stayed at. Actually, one of the hotels only had dial-up internet connectivity, which I haven't used since, like, before college, back when we used to wear pelts and beat at the ground with clubs fashioned from animal bones. My laptop doesn't even have a dial-up modem anywhere in it. So, to recap: NO INTERNET.




I could go through the whole review of what we did while we were away, but you can just look at the pictures yourself here. (Specifically, Disneyworld here and Atlanta here--about which more later.) The conference was all good fun, but I won't bore you with the details, because unless you're some sort of anesthesia conference connoisseur I can just tell you that there were lectures and coffee and free drug pens, just like any other conference you've ever attended. (Of some interest: the tote bags were giveaways from a company that supplies some of our volatile anesthetics, and sported this slogan: "The Right Gas For The Right Reason." Niche market, there.)

After the conference, I took two days to take care of some professional business in Atlanta, and stayed in town through Sunday to attend my cousin's wedding. Cal was the ringbearer.

Yes.




The wedding itself was beautiful, and in terms of Cal's role in it, I would say he was marginally cooperative. He was supposed to walk down the aisle holding the flower girl's hand, but he didn't meet her until the day of, and kept shooting her these, "I don't know you, lady" looks, which did not bode well for her actually following her anywhere, in any direction. It didn't matter anyway, because she ditched him before the walk, scuttling down the aisle about five feet ahead, clutching her basket of petals as though being apprehended. I attempted to point him in the right direction on his own (a carrot on a stick may have helped--rather, substitute carrot with chocolate, or possibly a Wiggles DVDVDVD) but finally, fearing an overlong delay not built into the harpist's medly, I ended up walking down the aisle with him myself. At least I didn't have to carry him.




Anyway. Full wedding picture set here, for those who like to look at pictures of other people getting married, or for more pictures of Cal freaking out in a tux. I can't believe they make tuxes for three year-olds. He looked like a tiny little 1950's stand up comedian after a late night set at the Ha Ha Factory.




I have been away for far too many days, and am working nights for the next week, so now I need to get out there (there meaning The World) and get some damn work done. But it's good to be back.

Postscript: I had missed this earlier, because (see above) NO INTERNET ACCESS, but apparently you have two more days to catch the tail end of the Threadless Spring Sale. There is a range to the price of the sale shirts--they're not all $10 like before, rather seem to range from $13 for some of the newer shirts to $9 for some of the older ones--but still, there are a good number of $9 shirts, and they have a lot more kid sizes now. Check it out, sale ends Wednesday.

alive, but in florida

Hey! Sorry about the radio silence, but we left New York with my parents Friday night after work for an anesthesia conference in Orlando, and between getting in at 1:00am Saturday morning (delays, Laguardia style) and dragging around with some sort of viral pestilence all day yesterday (though not, thankfully, of the excretory variety), I have not had a chance to update. You understand, of course.

Joe's parents are in Florida this month too, because they are retired now and visiting Florida during the winter months is The Law. So they came down to our hotel yesterday afternoon and visited us for a few hours. With all this doting grandparental attention, Cal's going to leave this place thinking that he can walk on water.




Anyway, consider this a sign hung on the barn door. Gone Fishin'. Have fun, be back soon.

they walked right into that one

Apparently, this new reality TV show "The Secret Life of a Soccer Mom" is raising some hackles. In short, it is a show wherein stay at home moms are offered the chance to try out their "dream careers" for a week, and at the end of that week, decide whether or not they want to pursue said career or continue to stay home with their kids. Dude, I could have told Bravo that this would instigate a shitstorm before the show even aired. Reads one infuriated commenter from the Bravo message boards: "Unless you're about to starve there is no reason for you to be at work. If you didn't want to raise your children, you should not have had them. It's child abandonment."

OK, so obviously people have strong feelings about this whole issue, and we've been through this before, so we don't need to rehash because you know which side of the fence I obviously fall on. But I can think of one possible other reason aside from starvation that I am at work.




Free coffee at the Pain Clinic.

in urine we trust

So I'm in the chronic pain clinic this week. An interesting experience, certainly a change of pace from being in the OR, but a good reminder of why I didn't want to go into a field that involves clinic of any kind. I mean, I like wearing a white coat and playing with a reflex hammer as much as the next person, but the whole delayed-gratification-what's-your-insurance-plan-do-you-have-a-referral runaround of clinic makes me break out in hives.

Also, I know that the pain clinic population is sort of a skewed sample, but of the past three patients I've seen, all three denied to me that they were doing any illicit drugs, and all three subsequently had urine that tested positive for cocaine. Huh. I guess this is why some doctors get all hard and eventually start to think that everyone is lying to them always, about everything. I hope I never become that way, but it is a little disheartening. I had an inkling about one or two of them, but still, they told me that they were clean, and I just sort of wanted to believe them.

Another possibility: they actually were drug-free when we were talking, but that I was such a ballbuster that I caused all of them to relapse between the examining room and the bathroom.

paper trail

Did you know how many pieces of paper are required to apply for Georgia State medical licensure? Between all the letters and transcripts and application forms and copies of my diplomas and assertions that I am not wanted for any felonies or back child support? ONE MILLION PIECES. Oh wait, there's also the $400 check. Make that one million and one.

They may call every street in Atlanta "Peachtree," but after printing out all these reams and reams of forms, I doubt there are any trees left anywhere in the universe.

51,154




I had writer's hours this morning, and in the process of finishing one chapter, broke the 50,000 word mark. Woo! Celebrate good times, come on! Of course, it's not really about word counts, the story will be done when the story is done. And yet...

Woo!

on the subject of carpetbaggers

I have decided (though clearly more in a pique of frustration more than anything else) that I am not going to try and sleep while taking Team Captain call anymore. It's just too painful. Now, it's one thing to be on call and up all night. That's expected. But sometimes late at night, when the ORs wind down and the PACU is tucked in and all your juniors are sleeping, it seems reasonable to think that you can lie down for a little while. But what usually happens (or maybe it just feels this way) is that the second you start to drift off to sleep, you get paged. The very second. I would rather just stay up all night pacing the halls than be repeatedly woken up every time I start to fall asleep. I'm pretty sure that that's some sort of spirit-breaking method employed to torture prisoners of war.

So Joe and I are starting to plot and plan about how we are going to furnish and decorate our new home in Atlanta, and one of our plans is to get a couple of area rugs for the ground floor. I am generally anti-rug (I feel like it's somehow unhygienic, all that absorptive surface area), but we are renting and we don't want to scratch up the hardwood too much.

We are thinking of getting Flor tiles, which basically consists of roughly 20" x 20" rug building blocks that you can assemble to cover the desired area. The benefit being that they are easy to clean and if irrevocably stained, can at least be swapped out in favor of replacement tiles. Also, they look kind of cool, though they are a tad pricey, so I have to think about what the best plan would be for covering the select areas of floor we need to protect without breaking the bank.



The cool think about Flor is that they will send you 6" x 6" sample squares to play with, to mix and match as you will, build little carpet towers, step on with bare feet, assessing for softness or what have you. I think they send you 6 sample squares for $5.00, which, after evaluated and scrutinized, make fine stepping stones for games of "Don't Step In The Lava."

(Oh, I realize I never gave the answer to that Name the O.R. Equipment question from a few days ago. Most people were right--it is a heating/cooling blanket. Well, not the blanket itself, but the actual temperature control mechanism. For certain types of surgery, particularly those where blood flow to the brain may be compromised for some period of time, we will cool the patients for "cerebral protection." In this case, I was doing anesthesia for the clipping of a cerebral aneurysm.)

roundtable discussion




Due to some concerns about CHILD PORNOGRAPHY, I have removed the picture of Cal from yesterday's post. (For those of you who didn't get to see it, it was a picture of him sitting on the potty before bathtime, holding a guitar in his lap, covering up his bits.) I don't think it was really a big deal, but since I don't think it was a big deal, I don't think it was a big deal to remove it either if some people felt strongly about it. Who am I to say? I have become completely inured to the site of my child naked, just as I have become inured to the sight of urine in a jar or poop in my mouth.

(Completely different topic now. Cue sound effect of needle being dragged off the record. Bzoop!)

I am going to so regret bringing this up, as some people seem to get very upset when I talk about politics even in the most roundabout way, but I have been thinking this topic over for a few days now I just have to get into it. So, first, full disclosure. I am a registered Democrat. I have felt ever since the field was narrowed down to two that I would be more than happy to vote for either of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, whoever it should be that gets the nomination. They are both fine and strong candidates in their own right, and I think that few could disagree that their current platforms are very similar on most issues. But ever since Super Tuesday, and in the flurry of media leading up to Super Tuesday, I have wondered this. Why is it that people hate Hillary Clinton so much?




People, of course, have a right to prefer one candidate over another. People have a right (indeed, a duty) to have strong feelings about politics, and it is exciting to see people getting so excited about a general election, especially after the past eight years. But I feel like the reaction that Hillary Clinton evokes in people goes beyond the type of reaction that people usually have for politicians whose policies or approaches they disagree with. I feel like the type of reaction that people have towards Hillary Clinton are much deeper, much more visceral, almost reflexive. You hear people say things like, "I hate her," "She's a bitch," "She's a liar," "She's evil" and the degree of hatred they have for her, seems to outstrip any degree of rationality or logic with which these same people can discuss the reasons behind their feelings. Which, you know, is nothing new--I worried about this before Hillary Clinton even announced that she was running for president, concerned that this polarizing effect on the general public might translate into a negative for her electability.




I also have to say that I think Barack Obama has gotten a pretty sweet ride so far. Who doesn't want to like this guy? He's young, he's charismatic, he's a good speaker, he's a dreamboat. All over the country, people have fallen for him, and hey, why not, he's easy to love. He champions Democratic ideals (again, I must state, many of which are virtually identical to those on Hillary Clinton's platform), and no one can argue that it's a bad thing to finally have someone so new and exciting that young Americans are finally getting interested in the Democratic (and I mean this in the "democracy" sense, not in the bipartisan sense) process. I think Barack Obama is a fine candidate, and I think that if elected, he would make a good leader. I do think that Barack Obama is the "trendier" of the two candidates--I would describe him as the shiny new Prius of candidates, while Hillary Clinton is more like a sturdy family minivan that gets the job done--and that as with any good trend, he has his share of bandwagon jumpers. Which, you know, is fine. I want to see a Democrat in the White House, if it turns out to be Barack Obama, then great.

What really started to worry me was this: when I heard Democrats saying that if Hillary Clinton ended up at the top of the heap--that is to say, if Barack Obama did not end up winning the nomination--that they would either vote for John McCain, or that they would vote for no one at all, thereby basically giving the election away. Essentially, that they would cede the White House to a person whose platform they fundamentally disagree with, just because they hate Hillary Clinton so much. And I'm sorry, but to me, that just defies reason.

Now, it is not my point here to tell you who to vote for. Vote for whoever you want, that's the point. My question is, why do people hate Hillary Clinton so much? Moreover, do people even know why they hate Hillary Clinton so much? There is the verbalizable, logical answer (Whitewater, carpetbagger, Washington slickster, "fake" crying, mudslinger, etcetera), but I also think there is the murky, less understood, subconscious answer. Maybe she reminds people of someone they don't like. Maybe it's latent sexism, as many have suggested. Maybe it's not because she's a woman, but because she's Hillary Clinton, a role so tied up with baggage that people are turned off before they even get a chance to give her a close look. I don't know. But I do feel that the vitriol she inspires far outstrips the reasons that people can give for their hatred. It's kind of strange, honestly. If I were Hillary Clinton, I would have a hard time getting up every morning. But I guess that's why I shouldn't run for president.

I don't necessarily think that a vote for Hillary Clinton is the easy "better" choice, and I might not even get the chance to vote for her in a general election--though if she made it that far, I would, and gladly. Which, honestly, may be better for the party, given the kind of aisle-crossing ipecac syrup-esque response that the very mention of her name inspires. But still, just as a general observer, barely biased from one Democratic candidate to the other, I am still puzzled. It really makes me wonder. Why do people hate Hillary Clinton so much?

(This can be a good discussion, because I really want to hear what everyone thinks. But keep it civil. We are a good group about this in general, I think, but I know talking about politics turns up the heat.)

name that o.r. equipment, part the third

This one's a little challenging.




OK, one big hint. See that red digital display? At the beginning of the case, it was set to "10.0". By the middleish-end of the case, I changed it to read "42.0". I could tell you the units, but that would really give the whole thing away.

Plus, do not be fooled by the brand name.




You may have heard of "gaydar," but let me assure you that the aforementioned refers more to a sense of intuition, not an actual physical machine.

wiggly wiggly world




Have I explained to you about The Wiggles? As a public service, I feel I must.

Cal likes watching The Wiggles. We have a handful of Wiggles DVDs lying around. Or, as Call calls them, "Wiggles DVDVDVDVDVDs." At first, I only tolerated them, because, you know, the things we do for our children. However, the emotions I feel for the Wiggles have evolved over time. I started initially watching them with a mixture of embarrassment and pity. Grown men dancing about singing about the glories of fruit salad? How unseemly. But then, somehow, they started to endear themselves to me with their unselfconscious capering, and now I love them. I love The Wiggles. But not like that. I am still one step away from becoming these ladies. But just one step.

Much like the Beatles, there are four Wiggles. Unlike the Beatles, however, The Wiggles are color-coded so that you can tell them apart. Also as with any good boy band, each Wiggle has his schtick. Jeff (the purple Wiggle) always falls asleep. Anthony (the blue Wiggle) eats a lot. Murray (the red Wiggle) plays the guitar. And Greg (the yellow Wiggle) sings. He sings about dancing with your mates and tying your kangaroo down, sport. Oh, and I should mention that the Wiggles are Australian. Those accents! Most of the songs and humor translate reasonably well for American kid sensibilities, though there occasionally is the need for dubbed over footnotes. For example, the explanation that "barbie" means barbecue, not "Barbie."

The reason this is coming up is because I just bought a couple of new ("fresh") Wiggles DVDVDVDVDs off of half.com to entertain Cal during our trip to Florida in a few weeks. Three brand new DVDs for less than $12. Dude, I am sold. (Though Joe has pointed out that really someone should make a website called quarter.com. Now there's an idea. Also, Seven Minute Abs.) So I was looking through The Wiggles selection, and saw one that looked good, only upon closer inspection this DVDVDVDVD featured Sam, the new yellow Wiggle. (Greg retired from The Wiggles about a year ago due to health reasons.) And I was like, "Ugh, no! Not Sam! Greg 4 evah! Woo!"

If The Wiggles ever appeared on TRL, I would totally be standing outside the studio holding a sign.

gas work

So yes, I got a job. I am very, very excited. But let me back up a second.

You recall, surely, that as a fellow, Joe will be on call 24/7 for the duration of the two year fellowship. It is home call, meaning he does not have to be physically in the hospital if he is not needed, but he covers traumas and a bunch of different hospitals, so there is the potential to be called in at any time, and certainly there are going to be nights or weeks that are worse on that front than others. I realized early on that probably the best situation for us would therefore be for me to find a job that did not entail any significant amount of overnight work.

However, that said, not all jobs are created equal. I would say that most jobs out there are the standard, full-time jobs in busy practices, where part of the motivation in hiring someone would be for that new person to at least split the call with the existing members of the groups. Overall, from what I've seen, overnight call in some of these practices (depending on the size of their group) can range anywhere from once a week to once every three days. Then, alternatively, there are certain positions in anesthesia that mostly do "day" work--these being positions at surgicenters or endoscopy centers, but there are downsides to jobs like this, too. From what I hear, some of these types of jobs have sort of a "factory" feel, and with certain types of repetitive, low-acuity cases (endoscopy, eye surgery, etcetera), there is the worry, especially for a young anesthesiologist fresh out of residency, to lose her skills. I didn't want to be in that situation, but I figured that it would be either one situation or the other--stress at home, juggling me and Joe's call schedules, versus possibly finding a job with a more manageable schedule but overall less challenging or fulfilling.

About a week after getting back to New York, I got a call from [Big Academic Hospital] that they would like to offer me a position. Of course, I was ecstatic. They wanted to give me a job! They didn't think I was an idiot! Plus, they even wanted to pay me! In American dollars! It was intoxicating. Then, of course, there was the wording.


IN-CHARGE GUY
We would like to offer you a faculty position.

MICHELLE
Hee hee hee!

IN-CHARGE GUY
What?

MICHELLE
Um, I mean...he will be very pleased. My, uh, dad, I mean.


The academic job is a good job. It's the closest to what I'm used to, and it's obviously a great hospital with great resources. But it is a full call position, which, while I never ruled out, presented some challenges with respect to childcare. We may have had to hire a live-in nanny to be on backup every night I was on call in case Joe got called in as well, and then there's still always be the worry. Joe and I talked about it, and figured that, with some elaborate planning, we could get by, even if I did have to take call. But first, I e-mailed the other places at which I had interviewed to apprise them of the situation. There was a great rustling in the bushes.

Soon after that, I got offered a job at another hospital in the area. It is a private practice job at a very big hospital which does lots of acute care--actually, the first hospital I interviewed. It would be a good job at a very academically structured practice (though not literally academic--I would not be working with residents, for instance), and it would provide the opportunity for a lot of on-the job learning of skills that I would love to refine. The practice is very friendly and very fair, and the hospital itself is top notch and extremely busy. (Particular point of excitement--I have never worked in a hospital with a helipad. This hospital has a helipad.) Finally, and this was the key point--they seemed very responsive to my concerns about juggling my family life with my work life, and though they had not ever had a position like this in the past (so I am told--they usually hire people for the partnership track, which is full call), they offered me a job which is basically Monday through Friday, no nights, no weekends, no holidays. Which would effectively remove almost all the stress related to overnight childcare that Joe and I have been dealing with ever since Cal was born my first year of anesthesia residency.

And I do not need to explain to you that when I saw that our house and the hospital were on the same MARTA line, I could not accept this job fast enough.

So now its settled. I just called [Big Academic Hospital] today to tell them about my decision, and of course they were as nice as anything about it (being from THE SOUTH), but I felt a little guilty. I felt like I was being rude or something. Guess I should take a page out of the book of Michael Corleone. It's business, not personal.

So anyway, that's the big news. This honestly worked out even better than we thought it might--the prospect of having a job where I can do this caliber of anesthesia while actually working hours almost like a normal person was absolutely beyond what I had dared to hope. We are super psyched. And maybe now we can afford to buy some new furniture. Maybe some wicker furniture upon which I can sit, drinking my mint julep.

high impact

My mom came by around lunch to watch Cal for a couple of hours while Joe and I went to Starbucks to try and get some work done.  We were successful to a degree, but then we started getting really distracted because the guy who was sharing a table with us was typing on his laptop like a deranged person.  When he sat down and opened up his laptop, I marveled to myself how worn down and shiny the keys on his keyboard were, but when he started working, I understood why.  He was pounding on that thing.  The table was literally vibrating.  Now, to be fair, I know we don't really have any right to complain (unless you're working in your own personal cubicle in a library somewhere, you're going to be subjected to the work distractions of other people), but I couldn't imagine what he was typing that would take such force. I speculated it may have been some sort of manifesto. "First I'm going to kill you, and then I'll kill you," that kind of thing.

(Actually, I peeked at his computer as I was returning from the bathroom--turns out he was writing code. That explains why he was banging his return key every five seconds. Poor little return key.)

busting it out

(Yes, I did not get a chance to update yesterday, because I was at work very late, and anyway, it was February 29th and I have a policy about only doing posts on days that exist on that calender every single year. A policy that I made up...just now! So capricious!)

So I still cannot talk about The Thing because while I have signed papers for The Thing and have faxed documents for The Thing, I have not told other offerers of The Other Things that I will not be doing their Things, rather have accepted an offer for alternate and somewhat better (for our family) Thing. So!

While I am feeling great happiness because with respect to the move, two of the three Big Factors have fallen into place (we are still waiting to hear from Cal's school--the one we liked the most won't send out letters until the first week of April, a whole MONTH from now), there is always more stress to be had, isn't there? Primary of which is that I really have to get my ass back into gear writing this book. Everyone that I interviewed with in Atlanta was very interested about the book (I did put it on my CV, but just sort of at the end, in the "publications" section--I don't really do any research, so that section is rather short) and everytime they asked about it, I was like, "Ha ha ha, well, let me just FINISH WRITING IT FIRST and then you can have a copy! Ha ha ha! Now give me a job!"

See, the problem is (well, let's not call it a PROBLEM, that sounds so dire--the reality is) that there are very specific times that I can spend writing. Work days are out, and I cannot work in the evenings after work, because I have to give Cal attention before he grows up and writes his own book, "Foundling: The Story of A Little Boy Lost." Post call, I have the day off, but it is a day off after being awake all night, and usually I am too guilty to take the day for myself anyway, having spent the night away from home. Weekends are usually OK, but of course, I occasionally have to work on weekends, and now Joe and I are competing somewhat for weekend hours, as Joe has to take the ophthalmology written boards in a few weeks, and since we have been away in Atlanta for a week and are scheduled to go to an academic conference (in Florida! Near Disneyworld!) a few weeks from now, we are all feeling a little bit strapped for time.

Of course I feel that Joe has far more off days than I (he is off every weekend, and he has a good amount of flexible non-hospital time on Tuesdays and Thursdays), so, rather bossily, I feel entitled to a couple of hours on the weekends when I don't actually have to be at work to abscond with my laptop and try to do some writing. However, to be fair, Joe does do a lot of household errands during those Tuesdays and Thursdays when he doesn't have to be in at work (taking care of our sad little finances and whatnot), and anyway, it is a big deal to take boards, so maybe he should get the lion's share of the free daylight hours to go hole up with index cards and pictures of retinas or whatever it is that ophtho people study. (Aside! Joe has this textbook--it is very old skool--called "The Fine Art of Prescribing Glasses Without Making A Spectacle of Yourself" which is amazing not just for the fact that there is a pun in the title, but because it is 500 pages long. Who knew there was so much to it? Drs. Midler and Rubin, apparently.)

So anyway, the book, THE BOOK. I have to write this thing. I know it will get done, it's not a question of that, but I just get nervous when I am away from it for a long time, because there is a lot left to do and aside from actually finishing the damn thing, I don't want it to suck. Step one, finishing. Step two, proofread for suckiness. Additionally, I have a couple of new comics in my head that are percolating as headers for a couple of the chapters, but that takes some time to do too, and it is not always the easiest thing to write and draw when there is a two year-old climbing you like a tree--that is, unless you are drawing a comic strip in which footprints figure prominently. (Which may exist. Maybe some of those religious comic strips, with that, "My son, in times of difficulty, it was I who was carrying you" kind of thing.) But I want to get a little closer to finishing before I start working on the comic strip, because drawing the comics is sort of my little reward for finishing the writing. Not that the writing is so painful or anything, but, you know, there's a lot of it that I still have to do, so I have to have something to look forward to, even if it is more work.

Anyway, no big revelations here. Just wanted to tell you that I'm doing some work today. On THE BOOK. Getting there. Very slowly getting there. When I break 50,000 words, maybe I will have a little party.