Groundhogs and Desire

I took my Internal Med exam on the 21st, and after that I pretty much crumpled. I went home and zombied around my apartment. I had planned to do christmas shopping and clean up my place, but it just didn't happen. The last semester had been hellish in several ways and I just needed to stop and play Civilization for awhile. But that's in the past, and now I'm on a BREAK! YEEEEEE!

I used my first night of freedom to watch the movie Black Sheep with my friend Steve. If you haven't seen it yet, then I strongly encourage you to forget that this movie had ever been made. It was awful. Yes, I knew going in that it was about genetically-engineered flesh-eating sheep gone awry, and I had adjusted my (few) standards accordingly. But still. The sheep were the best actors by far. I'll just save you the trouble and tell you what happened at the end: after the obligatory blood-bath the sheep had lots of gas. Apparently this is a big problem if you've been feasting on human flesh. Anyway, after the sheep had eaten all the Japanese investors, they cornered our hero and the idiotic environmentalist girl. At this point I was convinced it was all over. Surely they would be eaten, too, or at least get turned into flesh-eating sheep themselves. But I was wrong. Our hero, thinking quickly, lit his zippo and threw it into their midst. Then the sheep blew up in a fiery fartstorm. The End.

The next morning I packed my things for the trip to my parents house, all the while fighting images from the night before. (Did they really need to show the sheep biting off the evil farmer's wiener?) Then I embarked on the five-hour drive to my mom's house. It was raining. Most of the drive looked like this:

But even more fuzzy because I still haven't replaced the glasses I lost two months ago.

Most people I know hate long drives by themselves, but I don't mind so much. I blare good music and I'm living in my fantasies, the world is whizzing by and I'm feeling all the possibilities of life ahead of me...and I love it. Sometimes I think it's when I'm happiest, when I'm in between places.

So I was feeling pretty good right before I realized I'd missed my exit like, half an hour ago. Dammit. Why do I always have to be such a space cadet?? I got off the next exit, re-routing and realizing that it would add another hour to my drive. The new-chosen road was irritatingly slow and winding with lots of stops and small towns.

And then, I saw The Sign. (It was at night and was freezing out and my fingers were getting numb so I didn't try to get a better picture. I know it looks funny, but it's real. Skeptical? Go ahead, mapquest it.):

Which way would you go?

So I stopped. I wondered why other drivers didn't stop to ponder this choice as well. Maybe to them it made perfect sense that paradise and primal human drives lie in one direction, while a weather-predicting groundhog lies in the other.

The only conclusion I could come to was this: don't get lost in Pennsylvania.

I headed toward the groundhog since that was closer to home, it was late and my mom was starting to get worried. I plan to come back and visit the other places later. I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do once I get there. Check out a diner? Eat an apple?

Anyone wanna come with me?

I am completely oblivious, and I waste heat

Today, I got home after my exam and found this stuck to my door:

This actually explains a lot. I mean, the fact that every day I’d come home and find my windows mysteriously shut. I’d just think, “heh, that’s weird..did I close them this morning??..did I do that in my sleep?...why is my fan on the floor? ” And then I'd stick my fan back in the window, feeling only somewhat creeped out. Then I would say to myself, “When you leave in the morning, remember that you left this window open! REMEMBER!” So that I could confirm my suspicions that I had an intruder. An intruder that likes stale, stinky air. But in the morning rush to get out of the house I would forget. Then I'd get home at the end of the day and the scenario would repeat.

Anyway, mystery solved. I don’t know what’s more disturbing: imagining my maintenance guy, Rick, being in my apartment, resentment growing with each window he had to slam down (and only now writing me a note threatening to kick me out of my apartment), or that fact that I hadn’t really noticed this whole time.

Go, Civic, GO!

Today I got my very first speeding ticket. I had no idea what a uniquely irritating experience this is until now.

My first reaction was to flee. Aaaack police! Hide! But just before my foot slammed on the gas and I went zooming off to Cortland, the good brains god gave me kicked in: Fool! You can’t hide in CORTLAND! Plus my gas tank was nearly empty. So I pulled over, wondering if there was a special way to do it that would make me seem extra-obedient.

I rolled down the window and flashed him my best good-citizen smile. Please be less than 95 ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseoh-

Officer: “You were going 86 in a 65.”

Phew!

Me: “Um, but-“

Officer: “You have something to say?”

I'm sorry, I was zoning out! I can't read the speed limit because I’m not wearing my glasses! I'm pregnant! I'm a doctor! I'm a pregnant doctor! Pleeeeeeease don’t give me a ticket!!!!

Me: “Oh, nothing. "

Officer, handing me ticket: “Here you go, you can handle this by mail.”

Me: “Thank you.” Fuck you.

I drove away disheartened. "Vroom. Vroom-vroom." Then I gave it up. It's no fun to pretend you're in NASCAR when you're only going 60.

Later on, my friend Andy scolded me:
“Why didn’t you just flash him your BOOBS?!”

Oh, yeah. Dammit.

You came!!!

You came!!!!

And, as promised, I will show you a couple of things that I’ve been hiding from you. Not that you were really missing much. But I'd still like to explain:

Writing has been different now. It’s harder. For various reasons, I’ve been having problems writing consistently. For one, 3rd year med school is remarkably demanding on my time. And I can’t drink as much as I used to. I mean, I can’t just go waltzing into a patient’s room and yell at them to lose some goddamn weight for chrissake. Not while I reek of vodka and cigs. It wouldn’t be right.

Not that thought and creativity were all in the bottle, but it sure helped. Plus, now that I’m all sober and responsible, life's a bit more boring.

Old Self:
“Wheeee! Fun!”

New Self:
I AM A ROBOT OF RESPONSIBILITY. PARDON ME, I MUST IRON THIS SHIRT, READ 2 CHAPTERS, PROGRAM MY COFFEE-MAKER TO BREW AT 4AM, AND BORE MYSELF TO SLEEP BEFORE 9PM. REEE! REEE! (those are robot noises)

And then there's the whole honesty thing. Not that I've been lying...but, the stuff that I needed to write was at a level of honesty that would have made me ridiculously vulnerable. It made me squeamish to share it with myself, in fact. But it was time. Time to open the closet (not the gay one, necessarily) and watch the skeletons parade out. And then stuff some choice ones back in.

The other problem with honesty is that it tends to hurt other people. Too bad, because the deep-down truth is actually pretty entertaining. A direct result from it being horribly offensive?

Plus, I was getting long-winded. So long-winded that I had trouble editing my own stuff, since it took so long to read. Yes, I'm aware that I should probably be on Ritalin, and right now I'm trying to see if I can get some shipped from Mexico or craigslist or something.

So there. Those are my excuses. And now, on to the excerpts, as I promised:

A conversation from my pediatrics rotation:

"Do you and the baby live her father?" I asked the baby's mother.
"He's a piece of shit."
"Uh. Okay..I'll just write down...uh... 'father uninvolved'"
"How about, 'father is an uninvolved piece of shit?"

From the first death on my OB/GYN rotation:

I followed the attending out of the room. As soon as we got out of the door, I
broke into a full run, out of labor and delivery, past the nursery, and into the
locker room. I was sobbing. Fuck.

I hunched over and said a prayer for the baby, the young mother. My mind turned to Eve and the Apple. Strange that men are considered the stronger sex, when it's the women that bear these bloody horrors. Alone.

I forced myself to snap out of it, attempting to make myself look like I hadn’t been crying. This is an impossible task. After I cry I get so red and puffy that I look like a giant hive with a face. When I came out, my attending gave me a pitying look and patted me on the back:

"Eetz good zat you should learn zis. Eetz not all happy-jollies, you know."

No. Eetz not.

And the first birth:

I stepped away from the table covered in blood and some other stuff that was probably baby-poop. I pulled off my gown carefully, and noticed the new father standing there. I asked him if it was a surprise. I was referring to the baby’s sex.

“Nah. I knew she was pregnant when I started dating her. The father’s a shithead. He abandoned her. But I’ve been there with her, I’ve stuck with her through this whole pregnancy. This is my daughter. ” And he stomped proudly out of the OR doors, a king exiting the throne-room.

Well, there are pieces of shit, and then there are some amazing boyfriends out there. A little confused about my question, but amazing nonetheless.

From The Boyfriend Box & the Pathophysiology of Love:

Final verse: we were living together. I found the letter to another girl. I kept it for myself, and bound it with a rubber band to the letters he'd written me, putting it right on top so it was the first thing I'd see. Chorus: anytime I was tempted to go back to him I'd look at all the letters again, cheating one first. The first 100 times the pain ripped through me like it was fresh, but I forced myself to look at it over and over again until I was sure I'd become numb. Maybe I overdid it. It took years before I stopped equating strength with being unfeeling.

I know. You've lived some version of this, too. Haven't we all?

....

Anyway, one new thing in the boyfriend box, one fresh ex to the list. It hit me that I have waaay more exes than I've had boyfriends. Guess it's just semantics, but it irritates me. Why should I be so stingy about the boyfriend title and not the ex? The ratio is off. Where's the pathology?

...

So I set out to draw the "pathophys" of love the way I'd been taught in class. Drawn partly from experience and partly from baffled observation. Honestly I'm kind of disappointed in it. Well, not totally. I AM proud of my Cycle of Neediness and Despair. It just irritates me that the only sure way to exit all this is by death.

....

Well, not necessarily a "best of" show here, but that's what I got. For now.