from here to eternity

Hi all! Sorry no posts for a few days (though I have been posting to my Tumblr mini-blog, if you haven't checked that out yet). The conference at the University of Iowa went really well. As an ISTJ I am an introvert by nature, which is not to say that I'm not friendly (I am!) or not a nice person (I am, I am!) or that I don't like to meet new people (I can say without reservation that finally meeting some of my blog readers at the conference was the highlight of the trip), only that all that plus the travel tends to makes me a little tired. So! Now it is Monday! And I woke up extra-super early to try and get some work done before going to actual work at the hospital. So let's get to it, shall we?

IOWA! I WAS INSIDE OF YOU!

Let me say first that I have never been as unprepared for a trip as I was for this one.  It went literally like this.  I packed half an hour before the cab came to pick me up.  I got into the cab, which took me to a train, which took me to another train, which took me to a plane, which took me to another plane.  Which I almost missed because after we landed in O'Hare (early, mind you) we were parked on the runway, unable to taxi into the gate for, like, half an hour.  Once we finally pulled in, I had nine minutes to get to my connecting flight, which was at the opposite end of another terminal, across the length of the entire airport.  Feets, don't fail me now!

Luckily there was a series of moving walkway connecting the two terminals, all lit up with crazy '80s roller derby neon, which you could probably see better above if I wasn't running all crazy holding two bags.  Action!

The good thing is I made it to the gate with exactly 30 seconds to spare.  The bad thing is the flight was then delayed for another hour and a half.  So...yay?

Anyway, I made it to Iowa City, took an $80 cab from the airport (YES, I KNOW, I should have called ahead for a cab with a flat fare instead of just letting the meter run, but at that point I was just like GET ME TO WHERE THE BED IS) and checked into the Hotel Vetro, which was recommended to me by blog reader Susan and which I now also highly recommend.  Because of its bed and its bed-affiliated paraphernalia, mainly.  Also: BED.  (I was tired.)

The next day I attended a book fair, gave a talk about work-life balance in medicine, did a short reading of my book at Prairie Lights, and then attended a meet-up at the very excellent Sanctuary Pub and Restaurant in downtown Iowa City.  It was a very busy day, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

See how I have lollipops set up at my book fair stall, like some kind of cartoon witch, to lure children into my shiny book trap?  Also, see to the left: BOOKMARKS.  (Aside to everyone who pre-ordered and gave me their addresses for the bookmarks: thank you!  There are, like, hundreds of you, so sorry that I can't e-mail you all back individually, but rest assured that I will be putting your bookmarks in the mail on Wednesday, May 11th.  The bookmark promotion is a limited-time offer just for pre-orders, of course, else I would bankrupt myself with postage, so if you want one, and you should, please pre-order and then e-mail me!  I don't need a receipt or anything, just don't be a lie-face.  Also, yes, if you pre-order more than one, I will send you multiples.  SO GET ON THAT.)

Like I said, meeting my blog readers was definitely the highlight of the trip.  Since I don't run this site like a business, I don't have a great sense of who is reading or how many people read, but meeting so many readers, in Iowa City no less (not to say that Iowa is, like, the North Pole, but it's a little far-flung for lots of people) was amazing.  Please especially note above my new Super-Friend Amy, who drove four hours just to hang out with us at Sanctuary.  Such nice people in the Midwest!

The reading at Prairie Lights was also a blast.  My first reading!  It would have been a bad time for me to reveal at this moment that I NEVER LEARNED TO READ, like Jordan Catalano, or Marlon Brando in "Viva Zapata!" but luckily, I can read a little bit.  This is also the first time I ever done anything remotely artsy like this, so I wasn't sure what to expect (perhaps an audience full of berets, macrame-ed vests and bongo drums incanting, "How now, brown bureaucrat."  Yes, a truly arcane Simpsons reference, how typical of me.)  But it went really well, I thought, and I think people were amused and piqued and all that.  Plus, now at least I have a crowd-tried excerpt to read for future events, speaking of which:

BOSTONIANS AND PERI-BOSTONIANS! You guys helped me make this book event happen!  Join me at the Harvard Coop on Monday, May 16th at 7:00pm.  I know it's not at Wellesley itself, but I do happen to know a certain shuttle bus that runs straight into Cambridge and will drop you off in front of the Coop basically the second that finals period ends.  What could be finer or more convenient?  NOTHING. As always, check the EVENTS page for more information and updates about after-event meet-ups.  Will there be more vaguely booze-laced events to make me feel slightly queasy the following morning?  ONLY TIME WILL TELL.  (But come on--it's Boston.  What else are we going to do?  Walk the Freedom Trail?)

Despite the revels the night before, we had a nice turnout for our panel talk early Saturday morning, which was about blogging and medicine.  Above is Rob, aka Dr. Rob, holding the crowd in the palm of his hand, and the crowd not looking the least bit hung over.  (Full disclosure: I was a tiny bit hung over, but that's probably because I wasn't sure that the Iowa City tap water was potable.  Turns out it is!  Good to know for next time!)

And then it was time to go home.

Mainly, I needed to get home so I could hide sixteen frillion plastic eggs with Snickers in them in our yard the following morning, in order that my kids could find them and demand that I hide them again.  So we did that for a while, which was OK, because I missed them like stink when I was gone. Which begs the question: what is stink? And do we say in the OR that something "bleeds like stink"? I don't know, but such are the enduring mysteries of language, and at any rate, I missed my kids a lot.

Cal looks like he belongs in a "Twilight" movie in this next one, because for some reason the light that morning made our back yard look like the Pacific Northwest, and him vampiric:





As a wonderful capper to our weekend we had guests over for dinner, which brings me to my first brush with Internet Super Fame.



Holy shit, guys, KEVIN MD was at my house!  And he is the nicest!  And I, apparently, am very short!  The best part, though, is that Kevin brought his lovely wife and kids, who are the exact same age as Cal and Mack, and they all had so much fun together that when they had to go back to their hotel, Cal cried.  And then he pretended not to be crying, which is extra-adorable.  In fact, I'd say nothing is cuter than that, except maybe two bunnies sitting in a teacup together.  And also the bunnies are hugging.

Then everyone slept for many hours and now it's Monday.  Again.  Which is somewhat less cute.

Anyway, hope you had a good weekend too. and thanks again to everyone in Iowa for making me feel so welcome. You guys were the best, and I hope to see you again soon.

60 posts in 60 days, day 7: sensitive new age man




Sometimes I worry that Cal is just too sensitive for his own good. Not to hide behind the excuse of him being "too sensitive" to gloss over all flaws--I've certainly seen some parents describe their little Damien as "so sensitive" while meanwhile, Damien is beating the pulp out of some other kid and will undoubtedly grow up to be the kind of thug who pushes smaller bespectacled classmates into lockers--but really, Cal is sensitive. And I mean that he is too sensitive in the same way that I was probably too sensitive as a kid, and ended up crying every day at school for the first six months of first grade for reasons obvious only to me.

Like...OK, so I let Cal watch "WALL-E" a couple of nights ago. I'm not big on watching movies on school nights, but the fact of it was that we had finished bath early and Joe was working late again and I had to put Mack to bed, so hell, if "WALL-E" will keep Cal safely tethered to the living room for a while instead of exploring the gas range on the stove, I'm all for that. I had only watched "WALL-E" one other time myself a few months ago, but it seemed fine--cute and largely non-violent at the surface, with a level of melancholia and dystopic sentiment that was probably above the heads of most preschoolers anyway.

(On an unrelated note, part of me really, really wants to get the DVD of "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" for Cal, because there are parts of it that I think he'd really love--mostly the first 30 minutes of the movie, I guess. But I also think that sequence near the ends with the clown bicycle hospital would terrify him in into the next century, so I guess it will have to wait. "Is this something you can share with the rest of us, Amazing Larry?")

So anyway, I come back downstairs after Mack has fallen asleep, to find the TV off and Cal subdued.


MICHELLE
Did the movie finish, Cal?

CAL
Yeah.

MICHELLE
Did you like "WALL-E?"

CAL
(Quietly)
Yeah.

MICHELLE
...

CAL
(Mumbling)
I don't really like "WALL-E."

MICHELLE
Really? Why don't you like it?

CAL
(Tearing up)
I don't like that "WALL-E" movie, Mom.


So I assume that something scary or sad must have happened in the movie to upset him, and I'm trying to figure out what in the movie may have set him off, made all the more difficult by the fact that I've only watched the movie once before myself. (In my memory, the entire movie consists of one robot shouting "WALL-E!" and another robot shouting, "EVE-A!" Repeat ad nauseum. Then, let the Oscar nominations roll in!) So I'm asking Cal, "Was it too sad when WALL-E got broken? Was that sad? Did that make you sad? Was something scary? Was it too scary? Was it scary when the spaceship was all tilted and the babies were spilling into space? Babies in outer space? Too scary for you?" Cal isn't saying much. Then, like, half an hour later, he finally spills it.


CAL(Almost inaudibly)
I don't like that trash.

MICHELLE
The...what?

CAL
The trash on the Earth. How come there was so much trash on the Earth?

MICHELLE
Oh. Oh! Because people didn't take good care of the Earth, and there was too much garbage, and so then they had to leave the Earth and live on the spaceship.

CAL
(Tearful)
I don't like the Earth full of trash.

MICHELLE
Well, that's just pretend, sweetie. And you know, if we keep taking good care of the Earth [blah blah blah insert moralistic environmentalist pinko babblings here, recycling, energy conservation etcetera] then that will never happen. You and and your friends at school are doing a good job already. Like turning off the lights and not wasting water and stuff.

CAL
(Darkly)
But not everyone takes care of the Earth.

MICHELLE
Really? Like who doesn't?

CAL
Like that time we went to Chuck E. Cheese and there was a man in front of us and he threw a can on the floor.
(More tears)


Damn you, cartoons with a social message, you're depressing my child. From now on, we're only watching movies with no morals at all. Or where the moral is: even if you let some fat rich kid steal your bike, at worst you will be launched into a cross-country journey, meet a number of colorful characters along the way, and end up with a bit role in the Hollywood treatment of your own story. And also, that there is no basement in the Alamo.

(Full bubble blowing picture set here.)

let no one say this has not been an eventful year

OK, OK, but before you get all piqued at me about not posting, quick pop quiz. Which of the following things happened in the four months since my last substantial post?

1.) Random stray gunfire came in through our window one night
2.) I took the Anesthesia written boards
3.) Joe was hospitalized for three days in the cardiac ICU
4.) We found a new rental in a less bullet-y neighborhood and are moving in five weeks

All of the above, my friends. All of the above.

First thing: I reposted those two entries I redacted a few months ago, here and here. There, now everyone knows what I was cryptically referring to in my penultimate post before that video with Cal and the driving dogs. We got a bullet through our window. No one was hurt, but really, a bullet through our window? That is excessive drama by any standards, and I am a decidedly undramatic person. Despite the sweeps season-like air that the incident lent this blog, I took down my posts about the bullet shortly after posting it because Joe didn't want his parents (read: Mom) to know about what happened until we were out of our current living situation (lest she worry unduly), and I found that since I couldn't talk about the bullet and I couldn't really talk too much about work and since I couldn't talk about XYZ other topics for a wide variety of reasons (ranging from general discretion to topics just too boring to write about), I realized I couldn't think of anything to blog about. One week became two, became a month, etcetera etcetera. The more you stay away, the more you stay away. Anyway, barring any further upheaval to cap off the year (perhaps alien abduction would be a fitting coup de grace), I will resolve to do better. Perhaps I will do what I did last year after I fell off the wagon for an overlong period of time. 30 posts in 30 days, that kind of thing. Anyway, we'll see.

Oh yes, Joe in the ICU. That was about two weeks ago. Short answer: viral myocarditis. Long answer: I will try and get a blog entry up about it sometime soon, both about the general experience and about the dual advantage/terror of being a healthcare professional hospitalized for a potentially serious condition. He's out now and doing better of course, or I wouldn't be talking about it at all. Call me superstitious, but I'm a firm believer that talking about bad things makes them come true.




Cal and Mack are both doing well. Cal started school a few weeks ago. He is in Pre-K this year--after some stunning-to-the-teachers (though not stunning to us) gains in the social arena during the Spring semester, his teachers decided not to pursue the issue of retention, and though he still is the youngest kid in his class this year, he's basically normalized himself amongst his peers and is just acting like a regular kid--talking and playing and laughing and running around, as opposed to sitting on the sidelines with the teachers chatting about numbers and scowling evilly about this kid or that kid breaking the rules. (Among other things little-old-manly, Cal loves pointing out and imposing rules on others, sometimes in less than adorable ways. My little mid-level manager.)

And Mack?




Mack is delicious.

So let's jump back into it, shall we? Or hell, I'll do you one better. Forget 30 posts in 30 days. It's 60 posts in 60 days this time around, baby. This is called "penance." And lord knows we have enough to catch up on.

day 31

The thing that the whole "30 posts in 30 days" has made me realize that, despite what seemed like an insurmountable amount of frictional resistance after a long hiatus, updating this page on a regular basis really isn't all that difficult. Especially now that I realize how easy it is to update via e-mail from my cell phone. THE FUTURE IS HERE. What's next, a car that folds up into a briefcase?

So anyway, I will keep trying to update often. Perhaps it won't continue to be every single day, but I will aim for most days. The more you write, the easier it is. And the lower the barrier preventing me from writing something completely stupid. Which is the kind of stuff people really like to read anyway, so win-win.

Currently planning: Our outdoor planters for the spring. I think we're going to head to the farmer's market tomorrow to check out what's available. Joe's mom wants to have an herb garden this year. (Not that kind of herb garden. That's our downstairs neighbor's domain. He's very mellow, if you know what I mean.)

30 posts in 30 days, day 30: munch

Joe's mom is in town, visiting for the weekend. A few weeks ago, before she arrived, she insisted that we get our TV fixed. (Remember, we were only getting Telemundo for some reason. Ai que que!) The reason that we had to get the TV fixed was because she has to watch her "program" every night, the program being "Law and Order." This was very important, she emphasized several times. She MUST watch her program. Or else she'll DIE. So my last post-call day, Cal and I stayed in all morning to wait for the cable repair guy to show up. "There's better be a freaking 'Law and Order' marathon on next weekend, to make this worth it," I told Joe. The real question is, if we didn't get the TV fixed, would she have come this weekend at all? And do I really want to know the answer to that question?

Out in the living room just now:


JOE'S MOM
(Pointing at the TV.)
See Cal, that man's the police captain. And that other guy's name is "Munch."

CAL
Munch.

MICHELLE
(In the computer room)
You're watching a show with a character named "Munch?"

JOE'S MOM
Yes. Detective John Munch.

CAL
Munch.

MICHELLE
Are you sure you're not watching the porno network?
We get a lot more channels now that we got our cable fixed.

30 posts in 30 days, day 29: bears swimming

I was wearing a t-shirt yesterday that read "BEARS SWIMMING" (I don't know, some sort random high school swimming team, I bought the shirt from a thrift shop in the mid 90's, when it was cool to pair such things with flannel and alienation) and holding Cal in my lap, facing me. He looked at my shirt, pointed at the R in BEARS, and said "aaaaarhh."

Oh, how cute, I thought to myself, it sounded like he said the letter "R." What a coincidence.

Then he pointed at the letter A and said, "aaaaaayyy." And at the letter E and said, "eeeeeee." And so on, until he had named almost every letter on the shirt. (The "W" gave him a little trouble.) Which begs the question, since when did Cal start knowing all these letters? The boy's been holding out on me! He's known the letter "O" for a few months now, but that one doesn't count, because it's easy. He's always been weirdly interested in letters and numbers (as in: there is a brightly colored picture with a caption, and he instantly attends to the boring little letters instead of the interesting picture of bunnies on dump trucks eating candy), pointing to the letters one by one until we named them. We always humored him, but were't drilling him by any means, and I had no sense that he was actually retaining anything that we were saying until now. Go figure. The boy may actually be half bright.

Then again, he did try to eat the dog's tail yesterday, so maybe not that bright.

30 posts in 30 days, day 28: multivariable calculus




I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I don't know if I should do a fellowship or get a job. I don't know what kind of fellowship I would want to do if, theoretically, I were to do one at all. I don't know if it would even be feasible for me to do a fellowship immediately after graduation, as I may need to be earning a bigger salary if Joe ends up working for little or nothing that year. However, I don't know what kind of job I would get, what kind of jobs are out there, or even how to look for one. Worse yet, I don't even know where we're going to be in a year, so I can't even start to figure out what options are available. Joe is in a holding pattern, trying to figure out a variety of things and following leads going off every which way. It's like being in a three-legged race tethered to someone who is trying to run in five different directions at once.

I'm pretty good at figuring stuff out, but once I get beyond three or four variables, I'm lost. If we could just figure out where we're going to be living and what Joe is going to be doing starting July 2008, I could maybe start to sort my own life out. But until then, I'm sort of in a holding pattern myself. You know, while tied to another plane.

30 posts in 30 days, day 27: bad idea



A foolproof way to ensure that at some point, your wedding rings will end up in the toilet.

30 posts in 30 days, day 26: refresher




I got an e-mail from the education office a few weeks ago alerting me that my BLS and ACLS certification was set to expire in June. So tomorrow I have to take a refresher class from 4pm-10pm to keep my paperwork current.

I've heard that the recert class is relatively painless (for example, lasting only 6 hours as opposed to 3 full day courses for the original certification--can someone please explain to me why BLS training should require a full day? Though actually, now that I think back on it, we had to take a BLS class in high school, and that course lasted a whole semester) and I know that it's the law that I get recertified every two years...but still, I resent having to go at all. Because I would rather be home. In my house. Where I live.

Also, there's something ridiculous about spending all day intubating and giving life support to humans, only to spend the entire afternoon and evening "learning" how to intubate and resuscitate a plastic dummy with no legs.

Currently reading: "Different Seasons." Did you realize that of the four short stories in this book, three have been made into movies, two of which were actually very good? Unfortunately, the movie version of "Apt Pupil" starred David Schwimmer (WITH A MOUSTACHE!), which almost precludes the possibility that it could be watchable.

30 posts in 30 days, day 25: sensitive new age guys




Afterwards they wrote some poetry and talked about their feelings.

30 posts in 30 days, day 24: anniversary


JOE
Happy four year wedding anniversary, honey!

MICHELLE
Yay! Happy anniversary!

JOE
I love you.

MICHELLE
I love you too. Four more years! Four more years!

JOE
(Silence)

MICHELLE
Well, not only four more years.

30 posts in 30 days, day 23: plan b


The worst thing about getting the match results yesterday--well, one of the worst things--was that I was overnight call last night. So Joe and I won't even get to see each other until this evening. There was a quick text-page and phone exchange of information at around 12:20pm, after which we both had to get back to our respective patients (mine on the table, his at the clinic), and another 10 minute phone call touching base right before he headed home in the evening. After work, Joe went out for a beer with his oculoplastics mentor, who in all my dealings with him has been a really great guy (if a bit of a workaholic, not that those things are mutually exclusive) and who was also really surprised about how the match played out. However, he made an important point that of the 60+ applications the New York program got this year, they only interviewed 10 residents, the best of the best. And of those 10 candidates, five of them, like Joe, didn't end up matching this year either. I suppose when you have a dozen spots and more than 60 candidates, you're looking at 50-something people who don't match at all. And so it goes.

At this point, after all the stress and anticipation and whatnot, I think Joe just needs to take a break from thinking about this altogether and chill out for a few days. After all, nothing immediate is changing. Our plans for next year are still the same, me finishing my last year of residency, he precepting and doing a variety of attending-y things at several hospitals around the city. It's going to be a good year for both of us. The thing that we eventually have to figure out, however, is our Plan B for the year after that.

Honestly, we never really got around to thinking about a Plan B.

What I am almost certain will end up happening is that Joe is going to reapply. He wants to do a fellowship for certain, and the ophthalmology fellowship that he wants to pursue is oculoplastics. So there's that. The thing with these plastics fellowships, though, is that they are two years long, and each program takes a fellow only every other year. There are programs (the ones that we applied to this time) that take applications for the even-numbered years (in this case, to start July 2008), and there are the other half of the programs, roughly the same number, that take applications for the odd-numbered years. If we reapplied next year, we'd be reapplying for a totally different pool of programs in totally different places. And as usual, they are all pretty far-flung, which means more traveling, more weeks away from home and time away from Cal, more call schedule shuffling for me, more expenses, less vacation time. But you do what you have to do, right? I mean, if he still wants to go through with it all. Just the thought of running that race again is exhausting, especially when it is toward an uncertain end.

The second thing to think about now is this. Even if he matches with the next round of applications, that will be to start fellowship July 2009. Which means I'll have an extra year to kill before we relocate. (If we match for July 2009, there is no question about the relocation issue, as New York is an even-year program.) So what to do with that extra year? Get a job? Apply for a one-year fellowship myself? Stay in New York? Move elsewhere, with the possibility of moving again in a year? Joe's mentor has offered to try and hook Joe up with some big names in oculoplastics for a year of study, but we almost certainly will not be able to spend a year in London or Vancouver. Last I checked my handy dandy map, those places aren't even in America. Maybe if Joe were single, or if we didn't have Cal or Cooper, or if we were these crazy free-spirited nomadic-type people. But I can't even imagine what would be entailed in just picking up and spending a year abroad like that, especially in terms of negotiating the mountain of paperwork that would be involved in being able to practice medicine outside of the United States. That's just too overwhelming to even contemplate for just a one year stint.

So one way to look at things is that the future is more unsettled than ever. Another way to look at things is that we have a wide open field with unlimited possibilities. The world is our oyster! Though if I actually said those exact words unironically, my head might crack open and rainbows and singing butterflies would come shooting out.

Currently eating: Organic Oreos from Whole Foods. My sister told me about them and I was like, jigga-what? Organic Oreos? Go back to your yurt in Berkeley, you hippie! But then I tried them and they were actually better tasting than regular Oreos. The cookie part is crunchier and the cream filling is more flavorful. But don't worry, I'm sure they're still plenty unhealthy for you.

30 posts in 30 days, day 22: sometimes you get the elevator, other times you get the shaft

With only a dozen or so spots around the country, it might have been overly cavalier for me to assume that Joe would get one of his top two choices in the fellowship match. I figured at worst, we would at least match in one of the top five programs on our match list. "But it won't come to that," I told Joe as recently as this weekend. "You'll match high on your list. We'll be in New York or Columbus."

What I wasn't expecting was that we wouldn't match at all.

In retrospect, maybe it's not so surprising. A highly competitive fellowship within an already highly competitive field. Only about a dozen spots available each year, spread out around the country (see the sadly deficient though colorful map from yesterday's entry--"West Virgina" indeed). An insular culture in which personal connections or hidden agendas count as much as anything on your CV. All these factors should make today's match outcome perhaps slightly less shocking. And yet, I AM FLOORED.

I mean, OK, I know that the odds are stacked against anyone hoping against hope to land a plastics fellowship. An online ophthalmology forum that I happened across described such a feat as the equivalent of "catching a Hail Mary," which I'm not even what that means (football? maybe?) but was reassuring and depressing all at once. The match is like that sometimes. Sometimes the black box spits out something good, and sometimes it spits out something bad, but either way, you don't exactly know why.

But what really gets me is, if Joe didn't match, WHO DID? He's chief resident at a big-name hospital, topped out on all his tests, published papers, and been mentored by one of the big names in oculoplastics, who has proclaimed him the best resident he's seen in 15 years. He got interviews almost everywhere he applied, and got great feedback through the attending grapevine. Joe says I was overly confident, but I will maintain until my dying day that my level of confidence in his candidacy was appropriate. He is a good-ass doctor, and a bad-ass surgeon.

I'm not bitter, because hey, any excuse to put off getting my driver's license is a good excuse, but my god, what do you have to do to land this fellowship? Shoot laser beams out of your eyes? Fly around the world backwards so fast that you actually reverse the Earth's rotation on its axis and turn back time? Thereby saving Lois and Jimmy from the earthquake caused by the bomb that Lex Luthor hijacked? IS THAT WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO?

I don't know what else to say. I am shocked. I feel bad for Joe, who is certainly taking things pretty well, considering, but you don't spend a year working towards something, with all the applications and interviews and travelling and the money, dear god the amount of money we've spent on this process--and not just feel totally beat down when in the end you have nothing to show for it. I don't know what we're going to do next, be it scrambling for another fellowship spot or applying again next year or just to say the hell with fellowship altogether, I'm going to become an attending and swim in my pile of gold coins. We're just going to let the matter rest for a few days and regroup, and maybe by next week we'll be ready to talk about What Comes Next.

I just still can't believe it.

30 posts in 30 days, day 21: waiting



So Joe's match day is tomorrow. We are nervous and excited. Rather, Joe is nervous, I am excited. To review, these are our top four programs (in alphabetical, not rank order):

Representing the Midwest: Columbus, OH
Representing the Rectangular States: Denver, CO
Representing the Southeast: Miami, FL
Representing the Northeast: New York, NY

We will find out around noonish tomorrow, per Joe. I think he has to check the match results on a website or something. What, no phone call? Who knows. The process is inscrutable. We will tell our families first, of course, and then I will post our results here.

Eek.

30 posts in 30 days, day 20: compartmentalization

I wish my need to organize and make things neat generalized to my own home.

30 posts in 30 days, day 19: perfectionist


Above, a picture of Joe watching a videotape of a cataract surgery that he did recently. He watches those things like boxers watch tapes of their old fights, analyzing technique and looking for mistakes. And then he goes outside and Mick makes him chase a chicken.

30 posts in 30 days, day 18: the son of the cooper report

Hi! Look at me! Hi! Hi!

I'm Cooper! I'm standing here!

Now I'm standing over here!

Hi! Helloooooo! COOPER! Here!

Hey, are you going to eat that?

Oh, you are? Hey, no problem. That's cool. You go ahead and eat. Enjoy yourself. I'll just be hanging out right here, next to you. Riiiiiiight here. No no, don't mind me. You just keep eating. Looks good. Is it tasty? It must be. I can tell by the way you're chewing it. There you are, with the food. Eating. And me, not eating. Just watching.



Hey, so I haven't checked in in a long time! Not since right before THE CAL came to live with us. Why, there's THE CAL now, clomping around in Joe's boots and screeching. THE CAL is everywhere. THE CAL is loud. To be honest, when he first came home, I really didn't care much for THE CAL.

First of all, he was pointless. He just LAY there being inedible and did NOTHING. Therefore, POINTLESS. Second of all, after he got home everyone kept telling me to BE QUIET and CALM DOWN when people, I WAS ALREADY BEING QUIET AND CALM. So calm! And quiet! VERY VERY CALM AND QUIET! Anyway, it was THE CAL that was making all the noise, I don't know why they kept making it out like I was barking all the time. Yes, sometimes I bark, but only when I have a VERY GOOD REASON to. Like when I hear people talking by the elevators. Or when I see other dogs walking down the sidewalk. Or sometimes when I breathe air that has a barky smell.

So yes, anyway, THE CAL came to live with us and took up a lot of space with his pointless being and his useless clutter and untouchable toys. It was boring and it was a waste and frankly, I was a tiny bit jealous. I mean, come on, a BABY? What's the last time you saw a baby do something AWESOME like kill a cockroach and then toss it up in the air with his jaws and then roll around in the roach's partially chewed carcass? Babies are so overrated.

But then about a year ago THE CAL started to become slightly less pathetic. He started standing up and doing stuff. He started thinking that I was very, very funny, perhaps the funniest thing he's ever seen. Most importantly, he started eating food. Suddenly THE CAL became very, very interesting to me.

We have a whole system worked out and everything. Want to know it? OK, here it is. THE CAL is in his high chair for lunch. I hang out by the base of the high chair, but casually, very casually, like I don't have a care in the world. Food? What food? I don't care about the food being passed around two feet above my head. THIS IS PART OF THE SUBTERFUGE.



Then near the end of the meal, when defenses are low, THE CAL will casually take a piece of food in his hand and caaaaaasually hang it over the side of the high chair. I continue to pretend like I don't care, because food is for mortals and therefore beneath me. But really, I do care. I use a Method Acting technique. Usually I try to think about something to which I am utterly indifferent. Like, oh, say, obedience training. There. I have achieved the correct degree of bored detachment on my face. It's magical.

We wait for the right moment. Then, when the adult figure is suitably distracted (ants on tabletop, phone ringing, ubiquitous Britney Spears analysis in tabloid magazine), THE CAL will let the food fall, and I will be all over it in a flash of teeth and fur. Sometimes I catch it in midair. Sometimes I do a flip. It's a well-oiled machine, people. What a team.

So Cooper, you may be asking, you get the food, but what does Cal get? Well, invisible internet persons, let me tell you. I am a fair dog. I do what's right. If THE CAL shares his food with me, it's only right that I share mine with him. And he appreciates it, I can tell. You should just see the look on his face when he's trying to chew up my kibble with his pathetically small teeth. But just make sure Michelle doesn't catch him doing it, because for some reason she gets all bent out of shape at the mere thought of her kid eating processed farm animal offal and fillers, and then I just have to say, NOW WHO NEEDS TO BE QUIET AND CALM DOWN?

Currently thinking: I need to shed 30% of my body weight in fur for the Spring. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. Right after Michelle finishes sweeping the floor.

30 posts in 30 days, day 17: rear window

Cal and Coop each engaged in their respective favorite activities. Cal playing with his cars, Cooper looking out the window, barking at invisible ghost dogs.

30 posts in 30 days, day 16: eskimo

Even though I did embark on this "30 posts in 30 days" thing partially (as one reader noted) as a way of doing penance, I have to say that it really is great for breaking down any barriers one might have about posting regularly. Now I realize that what I put up there doesn't have to be profound, or long, or even good. It just has to be there. Though there are some limits to that, I imagine. I probably shouldn't continue my stream (as it were) of urine-themed posts, for example.

The first thing my patients usually remark upon when we bring them into the OR is how cold it is in there. And it is. Very, very cold. I used to wear one of those warm-up jackets, but stopped, because it wasn't possible for me to wash it every day and I figured it was just a giant fomite, soaking up urine and blood and remnants of Code Brown. Disgusting.

The reason the ORs are so cold is for benefit of the people scrubbed, who are basically wearing the equivalent of blue plastic garbage bags under hot lights for hours at a time. However, for the rest of us ungowned, patient included, it is torture. I've seen circulators under a full mound of blankets with only their faces poking out, lips blue. Med students sometimes light small fires in the corner and huddle together for warmth. If I am at a comfortable temperature, I can guarantee that my scrub tech and surgeons are sweating. So we keep it cold.

But the thermostat is right next to my anesthesia cart. This to me is like a particularly sadistic form of torture. Look, but don't touch! It's like Tantalus.

30 posts in 30 days, day 15: spongebob wetpants



Cal and I went to the indoor playground yesterday when I was post-call. This is a very ritzy indoor playground--the playground itself is nice, but they also have schmancy things like a boutique (not a store, a BOUTIQUE) and mother/baby yoga classes and ORGANIC CAFE as well as other other high-end offerings that make me wonder if I am really spending enough time with Cal going through his Latin word root flash cards.

Anyway, at one point Cal ran over and sat on my lap with a dreamy expression on his face. And why not? I thought, the boy LOVES HIS MOTHER. And why does my lap feel so warm? Well friends, suffice it to say that this is the last time that I will be taking Cal out without a change of pants in his diaper bag. So I had to buy him a new pair of pants at the BOUTIQUE. And they were expensive. However, stripey, so that's a plus.