eraserhead 2.0

Just a quick update:

I went to my local art supply store today and got this, the Pentel GraphGear 500 with 0.5mm lead. (I deliberately went to the architecture/drafting section, where they sell all the weird rulers, figuring there I would be among my people.) It's pretty nice. It made suffering through the rest of my Biostats problem set a relative pleasure. (I shouldn't overstate things. I finished the problem set. Period.) The pencil feels good (despite having a non-padded metal grip), the balance is satisfying, and the eraser and lead are of nice quality. I would have preferred a metal body (while the weight is overall substantial, only grip and tip are metal, while the body itself is made of plastic), we can't always have everything we want, at least not in this price range. Or, I guess I could spring for the Pentel GraphGear 1000, which has an aluminum body through and through, and must be nicer if for no other reason than 1000 is twice as much as 500, right? MATH.

If I'm willing to splurge beyond the Pentel GraphGear 1000--and I'm not sure that I'm totally willing to go here yet, since I do tend to lose things, and I also have clumsy kleptomaniac kids which is why I can't Have Nice Things--I might go this route:

The rOtring 600 Drafting Pencil. I was originally looking at the Uni Kuru Toga Roulette (by the way, if you ever feel like you're a little too fanatically ardent about your pen and pencil choices, go look at the literally THOUSANDS of reviews on JetPens and realize you're not alone) but after hearing a few opinions about how the rotating lead-handling mechanism felt "spongy" and "bouncy" I was like NO THANK YOU MA'AM and turned my gaze towards to rOtring. Again, it's a textured metal grip, which I'm not crazy about--I really don't write as much with pencil as I once did, but I still do want to guard against sore spots and grip fatigue, in case I devolve into pathologic graphomania somehow--but the reviews seem good, and from a purely superficial standpoint, it really does look like a handsome writing implement with a price point to match. Anyway, I'll keep it in mind. I turn 40 in a few weeks, and if I decide to treat myself, maybe I'll go for it.

(Yes, I did say that I would consider treating myself to a mechanical pencil on my 40th birthday. Carry on.)

As I mentioned in the comments section yesterday, we are taking a trip to Japan in July, so if there's some crazy Japanese Hotness Mechanical Pencil (or any kind of Japanese Hotness office supplies of any flavor) that I absolutely need to source while I'm in the country, please do let me know. I know it's a family vacation and we should be visiting temples and eating sushi and doing karaoke or some shit, but hey, let's keep an eye on what's important. How else am I going to source cutting edge retractable click eraser technology except in Tokyo, I ask you? It's not possible. In America, we just have to use those giant pink hard trapezoid erasers like a bunch of savages. I know, it's tragic.

eraserhead

I want to talk about mechanical pencils for a second. No, I don't have many friends, why do you ask?

So I'm in the market for a new mechanical pencil. I would like to use it for math-ish homework, but also for precision line drawing--not so much shading, so a firm fine-ish point would be better. The platonic ideal I have in mind is a pencil I used ages ago as my primary drawing tool, but I've moved literally 6 times in the past 12 years and I can't for the life of me find the one I used to use. (Yes, I've looked. Yes, I only had one.) But here's a description. It was a metal-bodied mechanical pencil, which likely held 0.5mm lead (my preferred note-taking lead in med school). It had a nice weight to it, and though it was a narrow barrel, it had a wider foam rubber grip that made it easier to hold. The grip was SOFT but NON-TEXTURED (I cannot emphasize this enough) so that it relieved grip fatigue but also did not produce any unpleasant pressure points. The hold of the barrel on the lead was firm, so it did not have any unsettling give to it like some tips do (are you familiar with mechanical pencils that have some "bounce" to them when you write? That's some bullshit) and because of this it delivered exquisite control over the line. The eraser was but a nubbin, but it was a dynamo at erasing fine lines, and if you used it judiciously for detail work, it would last for quite a while. I can't remember the brand of this pencil--I want to say it was either a Zebra or Pentel, but neither maker has anything on the market at present that looks quiiiiite like what I'm looking for.

Here are some other pencils I've used in the recent past.

The Bic disposable mechanical pencil. I've used these since college. They're...fine. I'd use it for taking notes that I didn't need to be particularly neat. It wouldn't break my heart to lose them, and so I did, often. But the barrel is a little small and hard, and my hand would get tired often if I used them for prolonged periods. Also, the eraser is shit.

This Pentel twist-erase situation. They're OK. The barrel is nicer (wider, and though the rubberized grip is ribbed, it's not ridged in an way that hurts your hand), and it sports nice long eraser refills. It clicks lead from the top, not like those pencils that have their clickers on the side, where the grip is, like some kind of LUNATIC PENCIL which doesn't understand that THAT'S WHERE YOU HOLD THE PENCIL WHEN YOU WRITE, WHY WOULD YOU PUT THE LEAD ADVANCEMENT BUTTON RIGHT WHERE YOU'RE HOLDING IT TO DO WORK? (Sorry. I have Many Pencil Opinions.) But the lead it comes with is garbage (yes, I know I can swap the lead out) and something with how the mechanism holds the lead it place feels not quite firm, like there's some wobble or give to it. Again, it's OK. I use it to do my stats homework. But I miss my old pencil.

These pencils are garbage, which is why I get them for my kids. (She said lovingly.) They cost $20 for a million of them and they come in that fat lead that is harder to break. I also keep a bunch of them in a jar on the piano, so that kids who come over for chamber music rehearsal can use them to mark up their music. If someone takes or loses these pencils, I could not give less of a shit, but I will not touch them to do my own work. They also have that illogical side lead advancement mechanism, because TRASH.

So I was looking at this pencil (the Pentel Graph Gear 1000 Automatic Drafting Pencil in 0.5mm), because it looked like it might have some of the features I was looking for, but...I don't know. The eraser is spot on, and in fact makes me think that the pencil in my memory was a Pentel. But the nubbled grip and the textured metal looks...painful. The pocket clip looks kind of high profile, or prone to breakage. And the price tag. I can't remember how much my original Platonic Ideal mechanical cost (and in fact, I might not have purchased it at all in the first place--it's entirely possible I stole it from Joe and just kept it because MARRIAGE) but for upwards of $9, would I be too worried about losing it to use it? Probably I could find it cheaper off Amazon (Amazon does tend to charge a markup for teeny weeny cheaper items that cost more to ship than to buy), but...so lazy. I have also glanced at some of the pencils on JetPens, but some of the nicer ones cost, like, $20-$30 each, so if they're not going to make me breakfast in the morning, they're really going to have to be something special. (Which is not to say I am not open to being convinced--I have a gaping soft spot for office supplies.)

Tell me what pencil I should buy. Thank you for your pity.

office space

That face when you realize that instead of having one written assignment due for your Healthcare Management class on Thursday, you actually have three written assignments due.

Where do you find a place to do work? I've always had trouble really getting work done at home. Always. It's not a matter of not having enough space. I have space. Physical space, I mean. We even have a room designated as an "office," though in recent years there has been some creep as one kid or two have gradually taken over my desk to use my computer for this that or the other thing. But it doesn't even really matter--even with the separate room, and even with the door closed, and indeed, even when no one is home but me, I find it very distracting to work at home. There's just too much else to do. I could do my work, or I could put another load of laundry in. Or clean up the living room. Or start prepping dinner. Or let the dogs out. Or let the dogs in. And hmm, this keyboard seems awfully dusty. (Smash cut to a 30 minute quest to find that one compressed air blower thingy that I'm sure I saw coming out of a box when we first moved here more than three years ago.) And on and on. So it's not so much a matter of finding the space, you see. It's just a matter of finding the correct sensory deprivation tank.

My go-to for the past decade-plus has always been to go to a Starbucks. Starbuckseseseses are generic and neutral enough, and if you bring headphones, reasonably quiet. (Though I did memorize the entire Beck "Mutations" album in med school against my will because apparently that's all they ever played at that Starbucks on 103rd and Broadway while I was studying for Step 1 of the Boards. "It's nobody's fault, nobody's fault, but my oooooown.")

My only real problem with Starbucks is...well, there are two problems. One is that you kind of have to pay to be there. It's not a rule, of course, but what kind of ass parks themselves in a coffeeshop for hours without buying something? So that's four or five bucks right there. (Sometimes, when I would really stay there all damn day, as I did during med school to study, or in residency while writing my book, I would buy a drink in addition to the cheapest real food item possible, which was usually an egg salad sandwich. I...don't like egg salad sandwiches that much anymore.)

But the issue of rent is to be expected. My real problem was more of a sensory one. I have headphones, I stay in the corner, I don't lollygag at what other people are doing. But the smell. I don't know if they have a roaster on site, or if that's just the smell of coffee itself brewing, but if you sit in a Starbucks for a few hours, you're going to smell like you just walked out of a bonfire. Everything. Your hair, your clothes, your skin, the inside of your nose. You smell like an arsonist. You smell like you just finished smoking four packs of cigarettes.

Anyway, I know this is, like, the most obvious solution in the world, but today I tried something new.

The library. I know, duh. THE LIBRARY. This was a nice library! So quiet! Such beautiful natural light! Such a delicious old book smell when you walk in the door! So close to my house! So free!

I don't know why I'd ruled this option out in the past, but I've had several formative bad experiences trying to get real work done in a library. In med school, people would get weirdly territorial about their study spaces, and I would leave all their stuff by choice carrels or tables (and I mean STUFF--not just books, but changes of socks, full meals, honest to god desk lamps that they toted in from home) and their general gunnerishness turned me off. (Sorry, fellow med students. You're great, but recognize that there was a point in our career development where we were all borderline intolerable.) As for my regular neighborhood public library, this may have just been my area in New York, but our local branch library was more a place where pleasantly demented seniors would come read all the newspapers on Earth (licking their fingers before turning each page, which is something they somehow managed to do loudly), and where homeless dudes would come in out of the cold and wash up in the bathrooms. Which is fine, but maybe just not the ideal space to try to do some hard core memorization. Or even soft core memorization. Or barely legal memorization. Because I would get really interested in the side stories. Like: how many newspapers can you read in one day? Did you bring them into the library from home? What's the point of reading a two year-old newspaper cover to cover? I HAVE QUESTIONS.

Are you able to work at home? How do you do it? Do you have kids? Don't they always want to talk to you? How do you minimize distraction? How do you carve out the mental space for this work but not that work? These are things that I'm going to need to start to address more, once I start having to do more school work after hours, in the margins of my day. But when I'm able to use it, the library is going to be a nice option.

boy meets world

Cal started fourth grade about a month ago, which would usually be my cue to say, "Can you believe it?" but every time I say something like that I think about that Tig Notaro bit and feel a little bit stupid.

Anyway, fourth grade. It's going pretty well so far, at least academically, but I think we've entered the age where we really need to start watching his friends and keeping on top of their activities and interactions. And while this all would likely be true regardless of the existence of Minecraft, it sure doesn't help.

For those of you blissfully unaware (meaning you know no kids between the ages of, oh, say 5 and 21), Minecraft is a video game, and to call it a generational obsession would be understating things somewhat, like calling Pol Pot a pretty mean guy. I agreed to get the game for Cal because it seemed innocent enough--basically an open-world action adventure game, building things with blocks, resource management, that sort of thing--and more to the point I didn't want him to be some sort of out-of-the-loop freak if every single other kid in his class was playing this game and he wasn't. I know, I know, if all your friends jumped off a bridge, etcetera etcetera, but since he's a year or two younger than his classmates we try to be particularly sensitive about allowing him the social tools to be one of the gang more easily. Because if we didn't let him play Minecraft? He'd be, like, THE ONLY ONE. And I just hate to think about him being the pop culture equivalent of the kid whose parents don't let him eat sugar, and brings, like, unsweetened carob cakes in for his birthday, you know?

So anyway, we let him play Minecraft (which he's only allowed to play on the weekends--we still have rules and standards up in here after all), he plays it, he loves it, everyone is happy. And every time I pick him up from school all he wants to talk about is MINECRAFT and everyone's special strategies in MINECRAFT did you hear about the newest thing in MINECRAFT? And William? Told me that there's a mod? That you can put Star Wars skins on your MINECRAFT server? And also one time? Thomas was building a house and two creepers snuck up on him but then he used his leather armor and threw a sheep at them and then he fell into a trap in the nether? And it was SO FUNNY!

(I'd like to think the game makes more sense than this but suspect that it doesn't.)

Except one day I walked by when he was playing Minecraft and I noticed that there was this scrolling chat box open at the bottom of the screen, with these other randos talking to each other while they were all playing. (I'm no video game enthusiast, but I think there are similar things in most video games that you play cooperatively with people online, games like "Call of Duty" and of that ilk). Those of you familiar with such games probably won't be surprised to hear this, but the back and forth taking place in this chat box? Awful. Terrible. Slurs! Swearing! INCORRECT SPELLING.

"Cal," I spluttered, "what is all this going on at the bottom of the screen?"

"Huh?" He looked down. "Oh, I didn't see that. I'm not really sure. I think that's other people that are playing on this server. It's my friend Archibald's* server, he invited me to join when we were sitting together at lunch last week."

"OK, but who are these other people? Do you know them? And why are they saying all these terrible things?" For lack of any other better solution, I just covered the chat box with my hand.

"Oh, I don't know. I guess they're Archibald's friends. Or other people that joined his server anyway. I haven't really been looking at it. What are they saying?"

"NOTHING. They're saying NOTHING. But can you turn this screen off? Hide it in some way? Or better yet, why do you have to play on someone's server at all? Can't you just play by yourself? Play by yourself and do something peaceful, like build a diamond...zombie...hut...or something?"

So anyway, Cal turned the chat function off, and then we had a talk about not playing with people online unless he really really knows them personally and he's preferably in the same room as them. I also said he was never allowed to have the chat function on again, ever, because: INAPPROPRIATE.

He's still young and relatively naive, so I know this is just the beginning. And while I'm obviously not going to be a super-paranoic about the use of the internet and social media (see: this page you're reading right now, and the existence thereof) I am a little apprehensive, despite the fact that we have a pretty tight lid on his screen time and computer habits and who he spends his time with outside of school. Because what's it going to be next year? Or the next? Or even forget the computer--what are he and his friends talking about in person at recess? In carpool line? At their sleepover parties?

(Yes, you're right--they're probably talking about Minecraft. Because Hayden? Said one time? He got a pile of gold? But then a zombie came and fell into this lava moat that he made around his house? And then someone hacked into his server and stole his diamond armor! It was epic!)

Cal is eight years old now, which is the age that most kids start to form stronger and stronger ties with people outside of their families. So I have to let him do that, but it's hard not to worry, because even though we know his friends and know their parents, that act of sending your child out there into the world can feel like feeding a lamb to the wolves. Because we can't always be there, and we can't always filter, and can't always catch the chat box before they see it and cover it with our hand. We just can't. That's what raising a child is: getting them ready so that they will be OK without you.

In my mind Cal is kind of a low-maintenence child, in that's he's old enough now to fend for himself and his personality is generally allergic to trouble-making. (He's actually kind of a people-pleaser to an almost unfortunate degree, in that even the hint that he's transgressed in some way makes him start to get teary and apologize--at school, anyway.) But nonetheless, I'm glad that I'm going to have a little more time to spend with him now, not just in spite of the fact that he's older and becoming more independent, but because of it.

-----
* Not his real name, OBVIOUSLY. I actually have not ever met this kid before but I have encouraged Cal not to play on his server anymore because aside from the obvious reasons I detailed above, apparently he regularly stays up until midnight playing Minecraft on school nights and what parent lets their nine year-old kid do that? 

the chamber of secrets

Cal did two weeks of "Danger Camp" this summer (basically a summer day camp program based on this book) and came away with it not only with the requisite mosquito bites and tie-dye T-shirt, but also with an enduring passion for spying, ciphers, espionage, and general subterfuge. It's all highly contagious, and while Mack will deny this to his last breath he idolizes Cal beyond all measure so whatever interests Thing 1 has rapidly become the interests of Thing 2.

Separate and mostly unrelated: we currently live in a three bedroom house, which while by New York standards is an embarrassment of bedrooms (and square footage), means that under current occupancy patterns, we have neither a guest room nor a room for Nina to decamp.

THEREFORE (and this is where the two threads come together) we are working towards the goal of consolidating both boys into the same room. We already have a bunk bed in Cal's room so we're halfway there (it's even a twin over a full so that Mack will be, what, 50% less likely to end up on the floor?) but even so, it's a transition that is sure to be met with some resistance, at least initially. So we're selling the idea by billing these new shared quarters as the SUPER-DUPER BOYZ HANGOUT ROOM. Jazz hands! And one of the ways that we thought we could make the room cooler? By building a secret clubhouse inside of it.

Cal's room has three small closets, the middle closet of which has a lofted crawlspace, about two and a half feet wide, thirteen feet long, and maybe four feet high. We'd been using this space to keep a variety of larger items that we had nowhere else to store (as we have neither garage, basement nor attic space); things like our Christmas decorations, moving boxes, an old set of doors from the laundry room, what have you. We still have no place to store these things, and in fact, all these things are kind of sitting out in the family room now until we find a better place to put them. But lack of storage aside we figured screw it, let's just empty out the crawl space and turn it into a clubhouse. A SUPER SECRET RAD CLUBHOUSE FOR BOYS. No Homers allowed!

The first thing we had to do, after we emptied the closet out, was change the light fixture. Being a closet, all it had was a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling with a pull-chain cord, which was obviously hazardous, what with the risk of anyone walking into the burning bulb with their face. So we took out the light fixture, capped it off, and put in an outlet instead. (I say "we" but when I say "we" I really mean the electricians did it and I watched, encouraging them with the thumbs up sign and offering beverages for their troubles at annoyingly frequent intervals.) After the electrical work was done, we vacuumed and washed the floors (and I apologize for the lack of any really good "before" photos because you have to understand, it's basically a railroad car-shaped space, there's really no room to get a good shot) and got to work decorating.

One thing that Joe really wanted to put in there was a full-wall panel of dry-erase board. A dry erase board that size (about four feet by six feet) would easily cost more than a hundred bucks, but we did it on the cheap by going to Home Depot and getting a panel of fiberboard with one side of white shiny coating (not sure what the coating is but it is smooth and slick, like melamine) and getting it cut to 48 inches, which was the length of the wall on one side of the clubhouse door. The whole panel of fiberboard cost something like $12.99, and after getting it cut, we ended up with two fairly large pieces of whiteboard material--I still have to find a home for the second piece, because I guess I'm too much of a cheapskate to throw it away. The only drawback to this is that the dry-erase board isn't magnetic like some of the more expensive "real" whiteboard options, but in the big scheme of things and especially given the price differential, I don't think it's a big deal.

My big contribution was the lighting. Mainly the concern was safety. Joe had wanted to install one of those recessed can lights up in the ceiling, but I just kept having visions of the kids burning their heads or their hands on the bulbs, as the ceiling really is very low in there--Cal can't even stand up straight without his head grazing the ceiling. Another issue is that as a closet, the ventilation in the clubhouse space isn't very good. We already put a fan by the door to move some air in there and I have talked to the boys about leaving the outer closet door open, because as an anesthesiologist I am somewhat paranoid about CO2 rebreathing. (That scene from "Apollo 13" where the astronauts have to make that new CO2 filter out of, like, a sock and some duct tape? THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES.) Anyway, my point to the lights is that anything incandescent would heat up the space quickly. I originally thought about a string of low wattage Christmas lights, but then I found these:

Tape lights! (Not "tap lights". TAPE lights.) They're LED and energy efficient, bright, cool to the touch, and super-easy to affix, as they are literally backed with 3M tape so you can just stick them up wherever you want. And best of all?

They change color! They even have flashing and strobe effects, which is not my favorite setting (I kept waiting for someone to start seizing in there) but the kids certainly enjoyed pushing all the buttons. I mean, no kidding, right? THERE ARE BUTTONS? WE MUST PUSH THEM. Anyway, we got two sets of 16 feet each, which was enough to go around the entire clubhouse once with a few feet to spare. We actually like these lights so much we ordered another two sets to rim the bunkbed with, so the kids could use them as reading lights in bed. (See also: the awesome factor.)

We rounded out the room with a berber carpet remnant we had lying around from carpeting the bedrooms when we first moved in (coincidentally the one strip we had was almost exactly the dimensions of the clubhouse space--we just had to lop off a few inches in width to make it fit), two beanbags from Target, a few superhero posters, and a world map from National Geographic. Et voilà.

The name of the secret club, by the way, is SECRET CLUB MOM AND DAD NOT ALLOWED (S.C.M.D.N.A. for, uh, "short") and after surveying the finished product, Cal and Mack promptly kicked me out, which I consider a successful end-result.

Hope you're having a happy Labor Day weekend!

make your own baby video monitor

Hey all.  Forgive me if this is too "uh...duh" for some of you, but I promised I would share the execution of this idea with someone at work who was having her first grandchild (hi Maree!) and am actually quite pleased at how well this is working.

Like most people, we had a baby monitor.  Actually, we only had one for Mack--when we lived in New York, I think we were actually able to hear Cal in the next room because that's apartment living for you--but it was just an audio monitor, really nothing but a glorified one-way walkie-talkie.  But it worked OK and Mack is still alive, so...monitoring success, I guess.  We still have the audio monitor, I just kind of stopped using it when I got sick of it basically being a broadcast of the kids arguing with each other in the basement of our old house.  Just share the damn toys guys, dag.

With a fresh baby though, everyone gets a little more vigilant (read: paranoid), and though I like to think of myself as laid back, it crossed my mind that a video monitor might be nice for peace of mind, to be able to see the things that don't make any noise that a monitor can pick up (blanket over face, malevolent stuffed animals come to life, what have you).  The only thing is, I can be kind of a skinflint about certain things, and it just seemed to me to be an awful lot of money to spend for something with somewhat limited lifespan and utility.  And then I had an idea.

(Again, forgive me if this is too obvious, but I was proud of thinking of it, especially since it used equipment that I had already.)


What you will need:

- A transmitter (I used an old iPhone that I saved--I was on AT&T originally but reception was crap at my hospital and I was continually paranoid about missing calls, since that's that primary way we communicate between ORs and such.  Anyway, my point being that when the new iPhone came out I upgraded and switched to Verizon--therefore I have a phone-plan-less iPhone kind of lying around that still works on our home WiFi.  But really you can use anything with a wireless connection and a camera.)

- A receiver (you can use your phone, a 2nd or 3rd generation iPad, your desktop or laptop computer, whatever.  I've been using my iPad because it's light and easy to carry from room to room, but again, it can be pretty much anything, it just has to have wireless connectivity and a camera.)

- Two Skype accounts (I just use mine and Joe's--the accounts are free to sign up for, and at bare bones, calls made over WiFi are free and unlimited so far as I can ascertain)

- Optional but helpful, depending on what you're using for your transmitter: a tripod, some creative velcro strapping, etcetera.

OK, so here's what you do.

STEP 1: Get a baby that you want to stare at.

STEP 2: Figure out where you want the monitor to be.  You're somewhat limited by the fact that streaming a video call over Skype used a lot of juice, so I would choose a place near an outlet, but more importantly, find a place where you can fixate your transmitter, be it over a crib rail or on a nightstand or what have you.  I apologize for the noise in these photos, but I was under low-light conditions for what I assume are obvious reasons.

(Here you see I have my old hobbled iPhone on a tripod and then Velcro-ed the tripod to the corner of the crib.  I don't think you absolutely need a tripod, but I had one from a lens kit that I got for iPhone photography that I rarely use and it's pretty handy in general--it also allows you to put the transmitter on a flat surface instead if that's your preference.  Just make modifications as you see fit--for example, if your baby is old enough to pull up and grab things, you probably don't want to have that phone just dangling there on the edge of the crib rail, but in that case, you know, put a table next to the crib out of reach or put the camera on a shelf, whatever.)

STEP 3: Make sure you have Skype downloaded on both transmitter and receiver devices.  There's a free Skype app for iPhone/iPad/iPod on iTunes (iKnow, this is starting to seem like I work for Apple but I swear I don't, it's just what iHave in my house.)  Log in with one account on the transmitter and the other account on the receiver.  (I use Joe's account as the receiver, and my account is the transmitter.)

STEP 4: Use one end to call the other end.  Doesn't matter which one initiates the call, just make sure you're placing a video call because that's the whole point.  Accept the call on the other end.

STEP 5: If you're using something like an iPhone for your transmitter that has two cameras, make sure that you change the preferences such that you're using the "back facing camera" or whatever they call it--that's the higher quality camera anyway, it'll probably give you a better image, and that way you're not shining that screen in the baby's face.  

STEP 6: And there's your call on the other end.  Now continue to silently and creepily spy on your offspring.

checkmate, mister trampoline

So...this happened.

Cal joined the chess club this semester.  It's just one of the after-school extracurricular activities at school--they have sports ones and academic ones and even an "etiquette" class (which struck me as charmingly Southern, something like training for a cotillion, but which after some time I am also seriously considering because STOP MUMBLING AND LOOK PEOPLE IN THE EYE WHEN YOU SHAKE THEIR HANDS, SON).  Cal's done the karate class and the science class, but nothing, nothing has been like him taking this chess class.  He is obsessed.  He loves chess.  All he wants to do is play chess.  All he wants to do is talk about chess, which is fairly boring to say the least.  He sees cars parallel parked on the street with a space in between and he compares it various chess board setups.  So: basically me and Tetris in the 6th grade.

Yesterday the chess club held its trophy ceremony for the end of semester, and before you get too excited, just know that every kid gets a trophy.  It's a feel-good thing, like that "King of the Hill" where Bobby wants to play soccer and when it's a tie game the coach shouts, EVERYBODY'S A WINNER!  So yes, everybody's a winner.  But the kids are fairly quick to notice that the size of your trophy is dictated by the number of points you've accrued over the season and the number of games you've won, and while I wasn't expecting too much (Cal just learned to play chess a few months ago, and he's just a first-grader--chess club has kids from kindergarden through fifth grade so obviously the older kids and the veteran players are generally going to be better) he actually did respectably.  And Lo, we were proud.  But more importantly, Cal was proud.  He was very, very proud.

While at the trophy ceremony, I tried to be subtle about the fact that I was eyeing all the second graders in the class, mentally assessing how large they were and how readily they could beat up my own kid--and somewhat relieved to note that these kids, at least the boys in chess club--which, GRANTED, may be a skewed subset--were not that much bigger than Cal.  In fact, I don't think I could have readily distinguished the rising third graders from the rising second graders, which made me feel better.  It made me feel better because...

...we actually decided, in concert with the administrators at the school and the guidance of Cal's first grade teacher, to go ahead and let him skip a grade.  (Remember, we talked about this a few months ago, though we hadn't quite made up our minds at that time what precisely we were going to do.)  In many ways it was a difficult decision, but in other ways it was also an easy decision because his teacher felt so strongly that it was the right move for him, and the administration was inclined to agree.  Joe and I went to a series of meetings and talked about it, and after reading some of the evaluations and testing results, and making sure that this would be the best decision with adequate administrative support and oversight, we decided that we should go ahead and just let him do it.

So, he'll be in the third grade next year.  I don't think it's actually a very big deal--either way, he'd be in a new classroom with a new teacher, and the school is so big and they shuffle the students each year so that he'd be in a group of mostly new classmates anyway--so the grade number posted outside the classroom door actually doesn't matter all that much.  We'll have to do a little catching up over the summer, mostly on the concrete curriculum items that they cover in second grade--U.S. History or Geography or Weather Patterns or whatever they hell they learn about in the second grade--but I don't think that should be too hard.  And luckily it seems that I'm going to be on maternity leave this summer so I think I can probably help with a lot of that.

I also realize that there's probably going to be a range of reactions to me talking about this, running the gamut from, "Well, good for Cal!" to "Oh SHUT UP bragging about your stupid kid" to, "This was a very poor choice, he's going to be socially maladjusted for the rest of his sad, anemic, chess-playing life," but...look.  We just viewed this as a parenting decision like any other.  It's not a prize, it's not an indictment, it was just a decision we had to make, and in the end, after a lot of consideration, we made the decision that we thought would be best.  And that's all we can really ever do, right?  If it was a good or bad decision, we'll find out eventually, though I doubt, like with most things, that it will ever be as black and white as that.  But we think it's the best choice right now.  Anyway, I mentioned it on the blog before, so I just wanted to give you some follow up, now at the end of the school year, on how it all shook out.

We didn't want to mention to Cal that we were considering the grade advancement until it was fairly set, but we eventually told him this Friday, not quite sure how he'd react.  We emphasized that even if he was going into second grade, he'd have a new teacher anyway and a new classroom anyway and he would likely be with all new kids anyway, and you can still have playdates with your old friends so...it wasn't a real big deal to be going to the third grade instead.

"Oh."  He shrugged.  "OK.  Whatever, that sounds good."

I think we're going to be fine.

update, texas-sized edition

You know, it was one of those things after I got back from vacation where three days back into it, I felt like I'd never been on vacation at all.  Anyway, things have been busy at work (and is it really necessary at this point to say yes, I work BOTH IN AND OUT OF THE HOME--but when I talk about being "busy at work," mainly I mean busy at that place that I go to outside of my house for my job where I take care of people to whom I'm not related and for which I earn a salary; and I think most people, including my children, understand that distinction). But let's jump right back into it, shall we?

I flew into San Antionio Monday morning for one of my not-hectic-at-all-minimization-of-dereliction-from-parenting-duties speaking engagements (usually I fly in and out in 24 hours--sometimes I even avoid staying the night if I can but there were actually no available late evening flights available between San Antonio and ATL).  This time I was speaking at the annual meeting for American Academy of Anesthesiology Assistants in San Antonio, a city I'd never been to in a state I'd never visited, except through the window of "Friday Night Lights" and various cryptic tweets I'd read about SXSW.  Like I said, I was only there for 24 hours, and the only reason I even got a chance to walk around was because my flight wasn't until 12:00pm, but here's one thing I learned--the Alamo is actually really small.

I didn't want to pay to go inside because I am CHEAP, but I am told by reputable sources that Pedro and Inez do not actually live inside, making tortillas and fashioning clay pots in the adobe manner, so what's the point?  (If you don't know what I'm talking about, please watch "Pee Wee's Big Adventure."  Then watch it again.  Once you get up to, oh, say, five viewings, then we will be friends.)

Speaking of which, really, the only reason I wanted to go to the Alamo was to see if there was any Pee Wee themed merchandise for sale (t-shirts with a bike on them, maybe those cowhide chaps Pee Wee wore during the rodeo scene, what have you) and yes, I knew they make a shirt like that at Threadless but they are SOLD OUT at the moment.  And anyway, that's cheating.

So basically, most of my sightseeing entailed walking between my hotel and Alamo Plaza three blocks away, but that was fine.  San Antonio, you are sunny and sell a lot of creepy Dia De Los Muertos stuff.  Thanks to you and to the Quad A for being such good hosts, it was a fun time, if fleeting.

Anyway, when I found out about Thing 3 I stopped taking future speaking engagements, but I'd already committed to a few almost a year in advance and as a result I just have one more at the end of this week.  Saturday I'm flying into Myrtle Beach (for 21 hours) to be the keynote speaker at the annual meeting for the South Carolina Medical Association.  And then I'm done with non-Category 1 CME extracurricular business travel. DONE.  It's been really fun and I've met so many interesting people (also as a classic introvert I see it as a good part of my social conditioning to be forced into these kinds of situations--schmooze fests, speaking in front of large groups and the like) but I'm in my third trimester now and I'm going to have three kids and I've used at least three weeks of my own personal vacation time over the last year in order to be able to do these speaking gigs, not to mention the many, many hours at home on the weekends or post-call to work on the slides and the talks themselves.  So like I said, it's been fun, but one's time and energy resources are finite and I need to start taking time from Pool A and start pouring it into Pool B, you know?  (Pool B = the birthing tub.  No, just kidding, I'm not using a birthing tub.  I think they're fine and all, but having seen a number of deliveries not my own, I just have to think--just how, uh, turbid does the water look like in one of those birthing tubs, and how long do you have to sit marinating in it?  OK, sorry, resume your meals.)

(I'm not a prude, I swear.)

(THERE'S POOPING THOUGH.)

SEGUE AHOY!

One of the ways that I will surely spend all my luxurious free time is playing "Draw Something."  I know, I know, I'm behind on this one, but seriously guys, it's super fun.  And this is coming from me, a person who really doesn't play online games at all.  I don't play "Words With Friends."  I tried it out briefly but then lost interest with "Plants vs. Zombies,"  I don't even play "Angry Birds," you guys.  ANGRY BIRDS, the most merchandised, cross-marketed app in the whole universe!  But "Draw Something" is really fun.  It's just Pictionary, basically, but easier, because they tell you how many letters the word has and gives you a pool of possible letters to choose from.  I didn't think it would be very extremely obsessive-making only yes, it is very extremely obsessive-making, and though I don't really draw well, I like to pretend that I draw marginally better than the average person so it's making me OMG#$%^% SUPER COMPETITIVE in ways that are perhaps ultimately unflattering.  I even got these specifically so that I could play "Draw Something" better.

(They're styluses for drawing on capacitive screens, non-nerds.  Only perhaps I have out-nerded even the nerdiest nerd becuase because I keep accidentally calling them "stylets," like HI, THINK ABOUT ANESTHESIA MUCH?)

Anyway, "Draw Something."  It's fun!  We should play!  (And no, this is not sponsored, no one is making me say this--besides, there's a free version too.)  Now someone please tell me how I can get more colors for drawing because how am I supposed to draw anything without green or brown, I ask you?  (I'm pretty sure the answer is to get 50 squijillion more coins, but I can't even figure out where to find the extra colors in the app.)  OK!  Thanks!

And now for this thing:

27 weeks:

28 weeks:

I had my glucose tolerance test yesterday which hopefully goes well (they don't give you the results immediately but they said they'd call if it came back with glucose crystals in it).  You'll remember I failed the initial screening last time with Mack, but that was because they said that I only had to fast for 4 hours and my test wasn't until the afternoon. And since I was at work I was starving and since, again, they said I could eat something that morning I did. And maybe that "thing" was a bagel with cream cheese.

Anyway, this time I got an early appointment and I didn't eat anything, so hopefully I can avoid the time vortex that was the three-hour extended glucose tolerance test.  (I did pass that one with Mack, by the way, at which point the phlebotomist told me that even though they say that you only have to fast for four hours, everyone who has an afternoon lab draw and eats in the morning fails, so...the more you know.  NBC rainbow shooting star graphic, tinkly music.)  Anyway, on the ultrasound yesterday Thing 3 was measuring exactly average for growth (50th percentile) so my concerns about the Diabeetus are minimized versus my first two monster children.  Although...I can't deny that as an Asian parent my first thought when he told me was, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S JUST 'AVERAGE'?!  99th PERCENTILE OR BUST!"

OK, I gotta go work on my slides for this last talk on Saturday.  Stay out of trouble, kids.

break Joe's website

So as you all know, Joe recently switched jobs, so for the past week or so I've been trying to help him build a professional website (professional meaning for work, not as in designed by a professional) because how else are patients ever going to find him and know how awesome he is?  My proposal went like this.

MICHELLE

You need a professional website.

JOE

I do?

MICHELLE

It has to have your credentials on it, and all the information about the surgeries you do,
with, like, "Before" and "After" photos and contact information and post-op instructions
and such, because blah blah blah online presence marketing Internet searches social media blah.

JOE

What is an "Internet"?

MICHELLE

Let me...just do it for you.

So we made this:

I designed and built the site, while Joe provided the content.  It's still a work in progress, but I think it's starting to look...pretty decent.  I personally have a bias when it comes to doctors' work sites--many many of the plastic surgeon websites I've seen I think come off a little too glitzy (and I realize that this is somewhat dictated by the nature of the work and clientele, but there comes a point where patients may have a hard time telling if they're researching a doctor or reading US Weekly).  For Joe's site, though, I wanted a simple, clean interface with all the medical information and professional credentials easily available. Joe does such good surgery and his professional pedigree speaks for itself, I thought it would only be distracting at best and cheapening at worst to gild the lily with, like, animated lens flare effects and an Enya soundtrack.

But anyway, do me a favor and look at the site. Look around on all the pages and see if they read well, click on the links to make sure they all work. I know some of this is a matter of personal taste, but does the website flow well for you?  Is there anything not on the page that, as a patient, you would want to see? Click around a lot, roll around, try to break it, think of it as a couch at Ikea that you're trying to decide to buy for your family room, then e-mail me or leave a comment to let me know what needs to be fixed.  Remember, this is still a work in progress (in particular, I have an "FAQ" section and a "Patient Testimonial" section that we're still working on) but in general, how does it look?

As for the subject of trying to build a website with your spouse looking over your shoulder, I will add this conversation from this morning.

MICHELLE

(Painstakingly editing HTML to adjust photo alignment and spacing, because the Blogger 

"compose" interface is a piece of doo and has already taken years off my life.)

JOE

Hey, you should try to use HTML!  Or something!  For the website!

MICHELLE

(Pause)

Have you ever seen that site, "Clients from Hell"?

JOE

Yeah, you showed me that once.  Hey...why are you bringing that up now?

MICHELLE

No reason.

Thanks guys!

(By the way, I've test-driven the site on Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox and it renders decently on all of them so far as I can tell--however, if you're using some kind of antiquated browser, NO PROMISES.)

shelf exam

I've only ever watched, like, two episodes of "Hoarders," but it's enough to make me feel 

1.) Vaguely reassured, that, despite my packrat tendencies, I'm not that bad (did you see the one with the lady that had two dried up dead cats under her rubble heap of trash?  Like cat jerky they were, good lord).  Also

2.) Slightly uneasy about my own clutter, to the point that, after I watched the last episode, I just started throwing things away to make myself feel better.

One thing that I've never been able to get rid of--even though we've moved five times (yes) since I started med school--is my books.  I am unnaturally attached to the books.  I have purged many of our other possessions, some of which would seem to have more sentimental value (Cal and Mack's old baby clothes went to Goodwill with the last move, for example--they were adorable and teeming with cuddly memories, but there's only so many outgrown onesies flopping around in boxes that I can abide) thought when it comes to my books, I have repeatedly put my foot down against giving any away.  Because you can tell a lot about people by their books.

We used to have them somewhat categorized on separate shelves (all our medical books were clustered together in our workspace, for example), but at this point the fact of unpacking them seemed like feat enough, so everything is all jumbled together in a hodgepodge.  Highbrow, lowbrow, and everything in between. 

Evidence that I don't just recommend books willy-nilly.  My own copy of Michael Ruhlman's "Walk on Water" has damn near been read to tatters, obviously.  (I used to have the unfortunate habit of reading in the bathtub, which no doubt accelerated the process.)  So you can see why I basically had to resuscitate myself when I heard he wrote a blurb for my book.

I went through I period in college where I read a lot of plays.  I also went through a period in college where I got used texts from the college bookstore for classes that I wasn't taking because I thought it would broaden my horizons or whatever.  (Nerd.)

And then when I was in med school I got a book of pictures of 1000 olde timey tattoos, just the right size to keep in the bathroom on top of the toilet.  Highbrow, lowbrow.

Ophthalmologists have the best words for Scrabble.

These EC comics were a Christmas gift from my parents.  Somewhere, possibly still in a box, is a complete box set of "Crime Suspense Stories," "Weird Science," and "Weird Science Fantasy."  A healthy proportion of the books on my bookshelf are actually comics or graphic novels, a fact that perplexes my mother-in-law a great deal.

I still have a handful of author copies for my own book lying around.  It seems weird to have them out but I literally don't have anywhere else good to put them.  But they're on a very low shelf, at least, so less visible, thereby making me a little bit less like Richard Dreyfus in "What About Bob?".





(I said a little bit.)

pecking order, level 2

So I joined my anesthesia group three years ago, which makes me the most junior member of my practice.  And as such, I have had the Junior Person Desk.

I took that picture my first day of work.  (See on the chair my old OR sneakers, which have since disintegrated from overuse/dry gangrene--I have a new pair of the same sneakers now, but in fuschia.  OR sneakers should always be a color on which blood will not be visible.  My brief stint with khaki sneakers lasted all of two days for that very reason.)  Anyway, it's a perfectly fine desk, but the shortfalls of its location reflecting my status in the pecking order became readily apparent the first time I sat down.

It's right next to the door of the break room.  Hell, my desk practically was the door of the break room.  And it seems like a small deal (because obviously, in the global sense, it is), but...it's a really high-traffic area.  Also, usually that door is closed.  So every time I sat at my desk, people would open the door, and it would slam right up into my chair.  Or people would forget the combination to get in and out of the break room, and I'd hear them beep-beep-boop-BZZT entering the wrong code and then struggling to puzzle out why the door wouldn't open, so eventually I'd just stand up and open it for them.  Or occasionally folks would forget pieces of debris on my desk, just because...I don't know, the garbage can was too far away.  Oh, a half-eaten bagel and a chewed coffee stirrer, a present for me?  THANKS GUYS!

A number of people in my department have rotated through that particular desk location over the years, and the universal agreement is that, given the option, one should decamp as soon as possible.  The good thing is that, as an anesthesiologist, I rarely have reason to be sitting at a desk anyway, but sometimes I do have to sit and write something, or return a call, or, you know, fluff my paperclip collection.  And in those moments, I hated having The Junior Desk.

We have a new anesthesiologist joining us next week.  Everyone is very excited.  We're excited to get our new colleague, but I in particular am excited because, in order to make room for our new colleague, two of our part-time physicians are now sharing a desk space, thereby freeing up physical room for an extra person in our department.  And a few weeks ago, I got a note that said that, if I wanted, I could get first dibs on the free desk, moving on up in the desk lineup and clearing off my Junior Desk for the new guy.  I made my move today.

Welcome to the practice, Dr. K!  And, all kidding aside, I hope the desk will be as good to you as it has been to me.  I'm not one to ascribe talismanic properties to things randomly, but it's been a very lucky three years for me, and I'm open to the fact that it might be because of the desk as much as anything else.

(I'm still moving to the new desk, though.)

tumbling

Hi everyone! Hope you're having a nice weekend! My weekend has been...less nice. I'm on call nights (7:00pm-7:00am) this whole weekend, Friday Saturday and Sunday, and the first two nights I basically stayed up the whole time. Let's hope (ANTI-JINX MANEUVER) that my luck gets better, because I think a third night in a row of not sleeping would probably kill me. I know I did it during residency when I did those two weeks in a row of working the night shift in the ER, but I'm elderly now. I'm not like one of these mutants, I need sleep. (By the way, I cannot tell you how much I envy people who can run on a full tank of gas after getting only four or five hours of sleep a night? I mean, can you imagine? Four extra hours in your day? I'd be so productive! And then I'd lord it over everyone insufferably!)

Anyway, I know I seemingly haven't updated for a few days, but...hey, look at this! I have a mobile mini-blog for you to look at!

It's on Tumblr, don't you know. Which, hey, is a really nice platform! Why did I not know more about Tumblr before? I BLAME YOU, THE READERS. I've been on Blogger for the past, uh, eight years, so it's not so much that I love Blogger so much as the fact that I have intertia and more years of back archives both of my kids' ages combined. I've just got too much old material to move platforms without putting in some significant time and effort into the thing; I'm like the blogging equivalent of a hoarder. (Don't even look at the hideousness that is my Homestead archives, which basically encompasses my entire med school career--you can't unsee that kind of horror. Look, yellow text on a royal blue background seemed like a good idea at the time.  It was the year 2000!  Give me a break, we barely had electricity back then.)

Anyway, if you follow my Twitter stream you know that I tend to post a lot of pictures, and I began to wish I had a better mobile blogging platform that would act as a better clearinghouse for the photos, as well as give me a little more freedom than Twitter would allow.  I also know that I'm going to be doing a bit of traveling in the next few weeks, so I wanted a way to do blog updates even if I didn't have time to sit down and write a whole long thing.  Hence, Tumblr.  I modified one of their themes very slightly to suit my needs, and I also put a badge to the mobile mini-blog on the sidebar of this page (look over to the right--it shows that ten most recent entries) so you can click through from here.

Nerd alert!  It was actually very difficult to find a Tumblr badge for Blogger that worked, but I did find a bit of code from this guy over here (thanks Rob!) and modified it to fit into my sidebar.  My HTML knowledge is entirely rudimentary--for the most part, I can just change colors and sizes of things, though when it comes to actual design I am hopeless--but I thought if it might be helpful to anyone else, I'd post the code that I had here.    Right now I just have it that clicking on the badge will take you through to the Tumblr page itself--however, if anyone would know how to make it that I could click through each individual entry, that would be stellar.

The Tumblr feed code is on Rob's page, and here's the modification that I used to make it fit onto my sidebar.  It's basically the same as Rob's but I just changed the colors and the photo border thickness a little bit.  Anyway, don't ever say I didn't do nerd stuff for you.

.tumblr_photo
{
width: 125px;
height: auto;
float: right;
margin: 3px;
padding: 0px;
border: 1px #444444 solid;
}
.tumblr_posts
{
float: left;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
margin-left: -10px;
}
.tumblr_post
{
font-size: x-small;
list-style-type: none;
width: 230px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
margin-top: 3px;
margin-bottom: 3px;
max-height:210px;
overflow: hidden;
border: thin white outset;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
old-background-color:#78a;
}
.tumblr_caption
{
padding: 2px;
margin: 2px;
}


So! Tumblr! Check it out! This does not mean I'm abandoning this page at all, by the way--I'm not. I'm still going to update here at the mothership like usual, but now I have a place for all the little bits and pictures and links that don't quite make up a full blog entry. Like that junk drawer that's in everyone kitchen with all the extra twist ties, half-dead batteries, orphaned Lego pieces, and sweaty handfuls of linty change.

Internets! I has them!