One Good Night

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”
-Neil Gaiman

So Jelly Bean (JB) just left. Through a series of fortunate events, she was able to spend about 27 hours with me here in New York. She arrived in the afternoon, we played some playstation Karaoke and drank tequila, had a very fancy dinner, saw a beautiful muppet musical, came back to the apartment and stayed up until dawn writing poetry and enjoying the company. The next day, we had lunch across from the museum of natural history and afterwards took my Vespa out for a tour of Manhattan. Just randomly meandering the city always reminds me how beautiful it is out here. Stopped for a coffee and a walk around Union Square. It rained off and on a little bit, but it was more than tolerable with JB on the scooter, keeping me warm, safe and impervious to rain. Then we came back, had some drinks, had a good talk, played some cards. And like that... as abruptly as she appeared, she was gone.

Since I was a kid, I've wondered about what it is that made people miss each other. I remember as a freshman in college, I once went home for the weekend. Upon coming back to campus a girl I knew asked me if I missed her while I was gone. I thought about it for a moment and then lied to her, saying, "Yes, of course." She was a little bit upset about the pause I think.

I never used to miss people. Maybe it was something to do with ego. I felt like I was the star of my own life with an interchangeable supporting cast. Definitely, there are people that I like. I enjoy spending time with my friends. I really do. But for the most part, even now; out of sight, out of mind. (if you're my friend, and you're reading this, i assure you; i don't mean you) Occasionally though, there are those in my life who when they are gone, I feel the ache of lacking their presence. I really couldn't tell you what it is about certain people that does this.

I miss JB.

Driving

Another thing that I realized in going back to Southern California was just how much I missed driving a car. And it's not for the convenience of having a car and being able to move people and stuff around. It's not even for the visceral thrill of throttle response and body roll from a high apex turn. It's more to say I miss the meditative experience of driving.

I got to do a little bit of road tripping while out and California and it made me realize how peaceful, introspective and thoughtful I become when in road trip mode. Something about the right proportion of conscious and subconscious activity that it takes to drive on wide open freeways that frees the rest of my mind to achieve true clarity of thought. The kind of mindset that allows me to truly process and prioritize the feelings and memories in my life.

I hear that there are those who practice meditation and can reach this state just with sitting and perhaps chanting or listening to some new-age type records. Too bad for me, it's only come with driving.

What I did on my summer vacation (part 1)

So New Yorkers typically don't really respect you if you're not from New York, the exception I've noticed is if you're from California. Which is where I'm from and it's where I went on my little one week off, last week. My usual trips home, I see my parents, I see my core group of friends, I usually try and get a game of spades going. However, on this particular trip back home I got to see Jelly Bean (JB), someone who until this past week I'd only seen twice in the past 7 years. And I was really looking forward to seeing her. I really loved JB. Well, still do actually. We met back in undergrad. I was an actor, she was an artist, we were tight. We had so many good times as brash young kids with fake IDs and access to way too many drugs. What I've learned about drugs is this. Everybody has their limit. I think she hit hers a little before I hit mine. And that's where I lost her. I would eventually hit mine in medical school (evidently my limit was quite high), but that's another story for another time. So I guess that's the ultra-abridged version of the first part of the story of JB and me, though volumes more could be written just on the 2 years we had back in undergrad.

Anyways, due to a rough couple of months for JB, including some scary emergency abdominal surgery, I got to go and visit her relatively recuperated but still school-less and job-less. Which made for an especially great time since most of my friends are understandably working stiffs and can't really hang out all-day, every-day. The first day I went to visit, we met up and had sushi for lunch. Ordered 2 rolls but couldn't even finish those as we instead proceeded to drink a couple of pitchers of japanese beer and a couple of bottles of sake on top of that. Then we went to the market and got a fifth of 1800 tequila and a handle of cuervo. I was just going to get the fifth at first but at that point during the day, a fifth just felt so insubstantial in my hand. We then play Wii bowling for shots and beers, took a nap, then went out for wine and pizza. It was a great day.

I want to write more about all the things I thought about during that trip but I think this is a good enough intro. Basically the first thing that happened is that I pretty much spent 3 days straight, drinking all day, everyday. And on the 4th day I felt a clarity of mind that I had not felt in some time. I'm not saying that doing what I did would be a good idea for everybody. But it worked pretty well for me.

Another reason I hate my job

So I had this patient. Nice guy, Spanish speaking only, didn't laugh at my Spanish like the Puerto Rican patients I have. I learned my Spanish from Mexicans so the accent I have may be a little bit not what the Puerto Ricans are used to. Anyways, that's not really the point of this story. The point of my story is that, when I'm trying to be a good person and a caring doctor, that seems to be the time that I often get shit for going out of my way to help another human being as a fellow human being.

So this patient had a stroke, left side paralyzed. He had a bedside commode but a nurse across the hall stole it for one of her patients. And my patient really had to drop #2. So the nurse in the stroke unit is trying to tell me to let it slide, that she'll clean it up. And I don't get this, but for some reason, only myself and the patient seem to grasp that it's not a good thing to poo yourself if you can at all avoid it. I ask the nurse to try and help me get the patient to the bathroom but she won't have it saying that I never put in an order for that level of activity.

So what else could I do, I picked up the patient myself and carried him to the shitter. The nurse of course gets pissed off at me about liability issues or some such crap. The patient is really thankful, except that I have to hang out with him while he drops off the kids at the pool. I mean, I really do want to the guy to be safe, but still I have to take all this flak from the nurse about how I could hurt myself and the patient doing what I did and how inappropriate it is to carry a guy to the john.

I don't know. Maybe it was wrong. But it's what I would want if I was a patient. Just a little bit of compassion. Anyways, in the end I got the patient back to bed and later on I brought the nurse some pie to cool everything out. Nurses love pie.

And I didn't tell anyone but the nurse was right, my back hurt like hell for the next couple of days because I did that. The guy was not a small guy. Whatever. Like I'm going to hold someone liable for my own idiocy.

I'm just trying to do a good job. And in the end I get so little respect.

Idol of the Day: Birdman

So Chris Andersen. They call him Birdman. Mother gave up custody of him when he was a kid. Father was an artist who left him to tour with his art. Spent part of his childhood in an orphanage. Played some junior college ball after high school, then left to go pro... in China. Then bounced around every development league known to man before he made the NBA. Then his girl left him, a hurricaine took out his house and the NBA suspended him for 2 years for being high (it's been said it was tweak but who knows). Served his time and just came back stronger. Birdman.

:There used to be an ESPN Birdman video here that's since been taken down. Oh well.:

Three Rings

The Train Story

So another one of my very good friends and for a while my housemate during medical school was someone I'll call VM for Vikey McStoner. VM and I first really got to know each other going snowboarding. We quickly founded a friendship that started on a common ground of big mountain snowboarding, painkillers and a lot of weed.

The train story starts with a girl. This girl we'll call FG because well, she's a girl from France. I like FG, nice lady, nice looking, used to wear these boots with flowers painted on them that I really enjoyed. Now she's working as a doctor in an Emergency Room somewhere, but whatever. So DT went out with FG on a couple of, sort of, dates. I still give him shit because his experience with her sort of belies his complete lack of game. I remember he came back once after going out with FG and told this story about going back to her place, not making his move in the proper manner and somehow ending up hiding in her bushes from some combination of shame and regret.

Maybe I should start telling nicer stories about DT though. Because regardless of what I've written on this blog about him, I swear he's a good guy. It's just that I happen to know a lot of his secrets.

Anyways, that's a brief synopsis of DT's story with FG. Some time later, it was VM's turn to try and plow FG. They just finished a nice dinner and were taking a moonlit stroll when VM attempted to turn on his charm, full blast. At what should have been an otherwise lovely moment, the train rolled by blaring it's horn. VM couldn't quite hear what FG was trying to say, and so she had to repeat herself. In trying to raise her voice about the din of the train, the horn stopped blaring and FG could be heard by the entire city to yell, "I DON'T DATE!"

We still don't know what that story means. But between VM and myself, we've told it a lot. And at occasional embarassing moments in our lives, that's why we are prone to yell those words. To honor that horribly, horribly soul-crushing moment in VM's life.