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The Brit’s away on business yet again…this time in Korea and China. Given his tendency to partake of the varied gastronomic wonders that are sold by street vendors (wonders like deep, fried, breaded bee larva and mystery meat product on a stick) it’s not surprising that the text message from him after his first night in Shanghai came with news of an entire night spent perched atop a toilet in a fecal meltdown.
I got to play doctor via text message and give him a few recommendations for medications. Mostly he needs to just stay hydrated. (And beer doesn’t count if you’re reading this, mi Gringito Lindo!!!) Then I told him that I love him and miss him and hope he feels better soon.
To which he replied:
As much as I like seeing new places, I would much rather be with you.
Then a little later:
Just took the bund tunnel. It was in that Chinese film we saw about a year ago. All psychedelic lights. Pretty cool. Poo getting a little more solid.
To which I replied:
Ahh...one of the many reasons I love you…you always say the right things! XOXO
I was recently going through a stack of boxes searching for a particular Special Pan, my designated Cuban Flan Pan. Given my knack for organization, I found it right where anyone in their right mind would have put it…in the same box with an old set of markers (last used when I was approximately age 12) along with enough unopened orca-sized maxi pads to give the Hoover Dam a day off . Given my knack for labeling boxes only on their tops and my other knack for then stacking them on top of each other, (I’m knacky, what can I say) I had to go through several boxes before I found what I was looking for. This explains how I stumbled upon the long forgotten box filled with a 15-year-old Ziggy doll collection and an anthology of my old journals, some of which date back to 1989! It was all there…from the heartbreak of not being allowed to shave my legs right through to the torture of being, like, so…totally misunderstood! Imagine my glee upon uncovering this pubescent treasure! I was happier than a gonococcus setting up shop in a virgin vagina!
And thus, I welcome you to the first installment of Teenage Turmoil. Join me as I microdissect the hormonally charged, emotionally misguided, synaptic misfirings that I managed to jot down using barely legible pink ink and deliberately bubbly letters. Today, we shall look back on my 13 year old feelings regarding sex and a boy named Peter…
March 10, 1991
Dear Diary -
Just last Friday was Miss Legs For Miles’ birthday sleepover party and since we stayed up til 1:30 AM gossiping and listening to music, I learned a lot of things that night. One thing is Miss LFM likes this one kid named Kevin. He’s kind of perverted and he’s not all that cute but he sort of likes her – at least we think he does! I didn’t know until that night and it was kind of a surprise. Anyways, more on Kevin later.
Here we learn that apparently Miss Legs For Miles (who, incidentally, I am still very close friends with) (and who incidentally DOES have killer legs) (and who I, incidentally, resent slightly for that to this day) and I didn’t have very high standards. Kind of perverted?? Not that cute?? I mean, honestly, sounds like he could have picked his nose and eaten his boogers out by the tetherball courts and we still would have dug him.
I also found out some disgusting news about Tina and Mandy. Heidi was telling us that she went over to one of their houses and they were talking about they had had sex before! That is really gross. Miss LFM and I promised Heidi we wouldn’t say anything to them.
Ahh…it is here that we see the manifestations of my parents’ many chit chats about the importance of abstinence. (And by “chit chats” I mean “stern, scary ditto presentations with schematics.”) Considering the fact that not a day passed by that I wasn’t reminded of the fiery pits of hell that awaited me should I engage in the unforgivable act of premarital sex, I pretty much thought a penis was akin to Satan with one eye. I got over that a few short years later. Nevertheless, I must say, if I ever have a daughter, I think I will start teaching her all about Satan The Firebreathing Penis when she’s about three.
Ok, now I guess I could get back to Kevin now. Kevin is this boy who hangs around with this other boy named Peter. Peter is also perverted and slightly immature but he likes me.
Gosh. Doesn’t he sound dreamy? Sigh…
In fact he went out with Liz only to get closer to me.
Ok. We should clarify something right here. “Going Out” when we were in middle school meant: exchanging sidelong glances at each other in Ms. Kheuler’s class, hanging out by each others’ lockers during the lunch break, and generally just standing around in awkward silence, kicking pebbles and staring at everyone but each other. Sometimes the guy in the relationship would let the girl wear his jacket…you know, so that all the other boy puppies would know that this particular tree had been peed on. So, in other words, Peter let Liz wear his jacket for a while. They TOTALLY dated. It was serious.
He’s always staring at me in English, Math and Social Studies, the three classes I have with him. He’s not really that cute but he’s not terribly ugly. He’s got really cute blue green eyes.
I love this part. Again, aiming low! He’s SO “not terribly ugly” that I haven’t even looked at him long enough to know his true eye color. I’d actually written "blue" and then gone in later with a green pen and written “green” over it!
He’s told Lydia that he likes me. I like him but I don’t want to show it but I do in a way. I don’t because I’m always telling Miss LFM that he’s a jerk and that I can’t stand him. The reason why I sort of do want to show it is because Miss LFM told him that I don’t care about him liking me when he asked what I think of him. And I think that might ruin how he likes me!! What should I do?
Oh, the tortuous rapture that is teenage love! First, I didn’t really like him because he wasn’t “really that cute”…but then he beamed his baby blues greens over at me in English class and he, like, TOTALLY swept me off my feet. Dude, I’m half proud of the fact that I wasn’t all about looks, but half disappointed that I was that easy to win over at the unripened age of 13. (This noxious combination will prove to be to my detriment in future dating fiascos.)
Stay tuned for next week’s installment to see if I get to wear this guy’s jacket "go out" with this guy.
Sometimes things happen that render you paralyzed with the horror of it all, speechless with its senselessness, dizzy with the Why of it, and nauseated with the thought that there may never be an answer. When things of this variety come wheeled in on a gurney through the hospital emergency room doors, I have endogenous adrenaline to help override the otherwise innate desire within me to make sense of the situation. When there is a patient with severe closed head injuries due to a high speed car crash and another patient next door with a pneumothorax, a long bone fracture and a blood alcohol level triple the legal limit, it simply doesn’t matter in the moment of their arrival that the drunk patient is the driver of the car that caused the accident. The only thing that matters is timely and appropriate care. That’s what I’ve been trained to do, and so I do it.
When things of this variety happen in a small community of which I am not directly affiliated…there is no adrenaline, there is nothing for me to busy myself with, and I am allowed to sit, in stunned silence, to take it all in…and to wish, like the students and faculty at Virginia Tech and like the rest of the country, that things like this didn’t happen.
If there’s anything I’ve come to appreciate in my line of work, it’s that life is fragile and tragically fickle…but the human soul and spirit can sometimes be unimaginably, outstandingly valiant and invincible. I just wish it didn’t take tragedies like this to make the world realize that.
My cell phone rings. It’s Mamacusa.
“Hey Ma! What’s up?”
“Nada, I just wanted to thank you for the lovely package full of gifts from Japan!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!”
“Glad you like it! Were you surprised??”
“YES!”
“You like how that works?”
“Do I like how what works?”
“The surprise! See how much of a surprise it was when the surprisER doesn’t call the potential surprisEE beforehand to tell them to expect a surprise in the mail???”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I always ruin surprises. I can’t help it…I just get so excited!”
“I know. It’s fun to give presents.”
“Yeah, so anyway. When are you and The Brit coming up to see me next…I’ve got some GREAT presents for you…”
[pause]
“…I just did it again didn’t I?”
“Yep.”
Heretofore, it was thought, even proclaimed!, that I was a bad driver. I think it bears documenting here and now, that I am not alone in my vehicular ineptitude.
The Brit, using the precision and exactness acquired from years of pulling out of the same driveway every morning for five years, recently managed to scrape and then yank the rear bumper off of Vinja’s car with the front end of his Mini.
This would be considered a momentary lapse in a previously impeccable driving record…except he’d, just months before, careened right into the driveway gate, thus successfully and permanently dislocating its several rusted joints.
Prior to that, he’d destroyed the front bumper of our rental car while pulling out of the carport of our lodge in Namibia.
Prior to that, he’d lurched headlong into a deer on the freeway.
I’m not saying I don’t deserve being mocked for cracking my driver’s side rearview mirror while pulling out of a parking garage or for denting the passenger side of my car with the driver’s side rearview mirror of another car while attempting to parallel park on a hill…but I’m just saying…
Take a bow with me, my dear Brit!
It’s a wonder either one of us manages to get out of the driveway most days.
My usual week at the county hospital, a hospital I spend much of my time in as a surgical resident, involves a number of things that may seem overwhelming to one who might work a standard 9 to 5 office job (particularly when that office job rarely involves blood, pus or excrement of any kind). Things like…
…a work day that starts around 5 AM.
…a work day that ends anywhere from 5 PM that same day to noon the day after.1
…an average of 80 hours a week at work and four days off a month.
…a fair amount of sleep deprivation due to that which is listed above
…an even fairer amount of blood, pus, excrement (and a myriad of other bodily fluids for that matter).
…at least once a week, no less than one categorically drunken, drugged-out patient either spitting at me or, equally as charming, calling me a bitch.2
…patient upon patient with bullet wound after bullet wound…with bullets that sometimes, oftentimes just by luck, have just grazed the skin…others that have penetrated through the sternum right into the left ventricle of the heart…still others that have miraculously managed to hit a rib anteriorly, ride it all the way posteriorly, and lodge themselves right by the spinal cord without any injury to any organ system whatsoever. Not surprisingly, the latter is the least common of the three listed scenarios. And sadly, there are infinitely more scenarios.
…swollen ankles from hours on end of standing in the operating room.
…ultimately, and what makes me do it, the satisfaction of diagnosing an operable disease, and performing the necessary procedure to take care of the patient (regardless of whether he or she spat at me or not). (And usually, even the spitters are grateful once the anesthesia has worn off.)
It goes without saying that the job is somewhat demanding. And after three solid years of working 80 hours a week, I was very much looking forward to the “break” that a stint of research would give me. Last July I signed on for a two-year leave from my usual clinical schedule to do breast cancer research. Cancer, for reasons near and dear to my heart, is something I’ve had an interest in helping abolish since early on in my medical education. Surgery can be an effective cure, and it’s certainly very satisfying when it is…but oftentimes it’s not. So looking for the reasons for this and finding ways to anticipate and prevent them, is very exciting to be a part of. The breast cancer research community as a whole, a community that spans the entire globe, is at a very pivotal point right now…and participating in it all is fulfilling in a way that is much different from my usual day at the hospital.
Plus! The added perks of a research job are things like…
…a work day that starts around 9 AM.
…a work day that ends anywhere from 5 PM to 7PM.
…an average of 40 hours a week, evenings and weekends off.
…a fair amount of sleep.
…absolutely no blood, pus, or excrement.
…a sheer lack of obscenities being screamed at me by patients
…no bullets
…ankles that do not protest when I attempt to zip up my boots!
…time to do other things…like visit friends and family, dance, and write this blog!
This is temporary…as I’ll go back to my usual clinical schedule in June of 2008. And I suspect that by then, I’ll be ready to jump back in to the chaos of it all. Afterall, I already miss working closely with individual patients and I certainly miss operating. And, sometimes, strangely enough, being screamed at, spit at, or called something profane at 3 AM by a perfect stranger, is more awakening than a stiff cup of coffee!
1. Yes, this means some of my shifts, usually around one to two a week, hover around 30 hours long.
2. To which I usually reply, “That’s ‘Dr. Bitch’ to you, Sir.”
It’s not too often that I am NOT the most obnoxious person sitting at the dinner table, but I daresay I was recently, even if only temporarily, trumped…
…and by a Brit! Not The Brit of course, the pillar of politeness that he is, but A Brit nonetheless. I should have known that if anyone were going to make me spray a Napa Valley syrah through my nasal passages, it would be this particular Brit.
The Storyteller, one of The Brit’s close childhood friends (and, incidentally, the brother of one of my favorite bloggers), blows through town every so often on the wings of a Virgin. While mounted on said Virgin, he offers up the best “First Class Cart Tart” service (as he endearingly refers to it) at approximately 30,000 ft. While dismounted, and safely at or around sea level, he offers some of the best gay company on this end of SF (and by “gay” I mean both “merry” and “homosexual”). All of this simply goes to say that his brief visits don’t go a single minute without an entertaining story of some sort, all of which result in deep belly laughter and, ultimately, syrah through the nose. I should just stop taking sips when he begins to speak, really.
At dinner the other night, we stuffed ourselves silly with divine food and drink, all the while disturbing the peace with our raucous laughter. As per usual. Our dinner plates were cleared, just in time to spare me the embarrassment I would have suffered had I given in to my urges to lick up the remnants of my seared scallops and potato puree. Then, our attentive waiter handed us the dessert menu.
“Room for dessert?” the waiter asked.
The Storyteller’s response: “I doubt I could even fit so much as a cock in my mouth right now, no matter how much I might want to!”
I’m assuming the restaurant has stain remover for their white tablecloths.
Hope so.
The Brit’s away on business yet again…this time in Korea and China. Given his tendency to partake of the varied gastronomic wonders that are sold by street vendors (wonders like deep, fried, breaded bee larva and mystery meat product on a stick) it’s not surprising that the text message from him after his first night in Shanghai came with news of an entire night spent perched atop a toilet in a fecal meltdown. 
Then a little later:
