my sisty

My boss has this kind of saying/story that he tells patients whenever they think they aren't making any progress post operatively. He says, "you see this every day, I only see this every four to six weeks. It's like watching your brothers kids grow up. You go to their kindergarten graduation, and then all of a sudden they are driving cars and going on dates" Point of the thing is that when you see something every day, you don't think it changes that much, but when you don't pay attention, all of a sudden it's like wowzer...how did this happen??





This is my baby sister. I saw this picture today and it made me blink back a couple. I'm gonna be super girly and cheesy right now, but I remember the day she was born. I remember my daddy rocking her to sleep. He would sing "swing low, sweet chariot" to her every night for years. She would wake me up by jumping around in her crib so that I would set her free. She was freakishly obsessed with the little mermaid. She had this headband that she would never take off. . . my brother and I STILL make fun of her for it. I remember feeding her skittles and cutting up her hot dogs. Now all of a sudden she's all growed up and she's a freaking knockout.

humility

A virtue by which a man knowing himself as he truly is...

I was reminded last night that there was a time in my life in which I was a big JACK ASS. It was bad. Really bad. I guess one of the best things about getting older is that you can look back and laugh at yourself while wincing.

I hope you read this. I hope you realize that I am so grateful for your presence in my life and that I promise that I will do whatever it takes to erase that sting that still makes you say ouch. Please know that you are so precious to me. And next time I get a paper cut, I'll let you squirt lemon juice in it.

YIKES!!

Oh work. I hate you so much.

I have a patient whom we shall call Melvin. We drew the lucky card on Melvin one cold night in April as he had fallen outside of a bar and broken his shoulder. Yes, he was wasted. So in flies the super boss, fixes his shoulder and leaves ole Melvin in the hospital to walk it off. Well Melvins's nurse calls me the day after surgery and tells me that Mr. Melvin repeatedly walks down to the nurses station and asks for vodka tonics, and then when the nurses say no, he asks them why they don't take visa. He is also "lewdly flirting" (is there any other kind??) with the nurses.

WHHHHAAAAAAAA???

Fine we'll order the psych consult that the hospital is wanting on the guy. Whatever. He's obviously off his rocker. Well we didn't hear from Melvin again until recently when he received his big fat bill from the hospital stating that he owed in excess of fifteen thousand dollars for his "stay". Four was for the surgery he had, three for the nights he spent in the hospital and eight and some change for the psych consult and treatment (for DT's of course). Melvin is PISSED at me. Because it says very clearly on his chart notes from the hospital that Rachel at Dr. Wonderful's office ordered this psych visit. I simply told the man that Dr. Wonderful wanted him to see the shrinks and that if he had a problem he could take it up with my boss. Also I gave Melvin Dr. Wonderful's address and told him the tales of the liquor cabinents in that house. Just kidding, but that would've been hilarious.

P.S. All that ridiculous crap I learned in college did not prepare me for having to deal with situations such as these. I'm going home to have a vodka tonic, cause that sounds delish. Thanks Melvin.

BIRTH CONTROL

I'm getting old-er. I wouldn't say that my "clock is ticking" because I think it's so so freaky weird when people say that, but kids haven't been totally written outta my equation. . .yet. I still think about it sometimes. OKAY. SO. I stay with the boss man's kids when he and the "wife" go outta town. Which is usally not a bad gig. Big house, brand new Caddy. . . I was just released from duty yesterday and I think this TDY might have cast the final vote in the children: to have or have not issue.

1. SIXTH grade homework that includes an essay (500 words) on the difference between magma and lava. I can B.S. with the best of them. I have a piece of paper hanging on my wall that says so. A.K.A. college diploma. However, when it all boils down to magma is under ground, lava is above ground. . . there is not a lot of gray area to covered there. It was rough. That essay was followed up with the laws of motion and the different types of simple levers. ICK.

2. A five year old who insists at seven forty five a.m. that a tall mocha frappuccino is the only way he can make it through his day and then proceeds to ask me when I'm gonna get a boyfriend. That doll baby is lucky I didn't leave him in aftercare permanently.

3. And the hum-dinger of the weekend. LICE. Now I don't mind gross stuff. I love medicine, I think it's incredibly fascinating. But parasites eating human scalp just rates right up there on the heebie jeebie meter. At eleven thirty on a Thursday night, I should be brushing my teeth and watching Horatio Caine take his sunglasses off in a horribly over dramatic way, or sitting in a corner drinking my dirty goose while making snide remarks about the sleezy girls that come out for ladies night. I should not be at the Utica Square Med-X with a five year old in his supeman p.j.'s "flying" up and down the isles, and a poor ten year old who has just learned the meaning of lice and why they are bad. P.S. If you ever have to explain lice to a child, DO NOT reference fleas and dogs. BIG mistake. If you don't believe in the power of suggestion or pyschosomatic illness, sit next to someone who has lice. You will think that your brain itches in no time at all.

I had to go to the pediatrician's office and have my head combed. Good News. My PARASITE FREE record remains untarnished.

I'm blowing my childcare earnings from this weekend. Screw the horrible economy and getting outta debt. So far with my lice loot i've purchased a nice shiraz/viognier and a knee length patent raspberry rain coat. Also on the to be purchased list is a big trip to sephora. Nothing will make my psychosomatic lice go away like NARS, Benefit, and possibly some Philosophy. Ugh.

Goodnight Mr. Mayer

My new favorite days are the days when I realize something negative about myself. I think I spend so much time trying to be positive, I happen to overlook the honestly dark spots. Realizing the bad spots helps me remember that as important as "I think I can, I think I can" mantra, that there are much needed "you suck" moments. So today on the trusty XM I accidentally stumble onto O.A.R's new song "Shattered". I turned it up, raced home, immediately letssingit.com'd the lyrics, opened a bottle of cab, and was all set to pull the trigger on my favorite episode of "Rachel laments into a glass of dark red". And then I had an epiphany (lightning has just struck my brain. . . for you sisty) CONGRATULATIONS. YOU are pathetic and cliche. These lyrics are for the other million trillion people who miss someone and always thinking about going back. Way to go the extra mile to be just like everyone else.

I have a serious problem that is summed up in the oh so sweet words of Lauren Conrad "My type is someone I've already dated". I live in the glory days. I don't necessarily miss people, I miss moments. I miss an awful movie and a drunken cinnamon kiss that smelled like curve. I miss my first "relationship" when it was permissable (but not OKAY by any hygenic standards) to use the other person's toothbrush. I miss sayings, glances, gestures, hand squeezes with a morse code-ish meanings. I miss a beach in California that I swear is still a dream. I miss the bottle of white merlot, a bag of fritos, and all the reprocussions that ensued. I miss the slow dance to #41 and the messages written in my winshield in the morning.

Those moments and people served a purpose for a stage and a phase in my life. Time to stop looking for reasons and to be sad and nostalgic. Time to switch it up. SO I've decided that I am going to memory lane rehab.

1. I'm going to find a healthy habit or a hobby (other than trying out all the new EXTRA fruit sensations gum, but strawberry banana is the best one so far) such as dragging out the classics and reading them again. Starting with Jane Eyre.

2. I will refrain from speaking to ANY of the aformentioned memories in any form. No emails, No texts, No friendly waves from across the questionable establishments in which we might run into each other.

3. I will not listen to any John Mayer, Coldplay, Frou Frou, DMB, Mat Kearney, Lifehouse, etc. I will listen to Jill Sobule, Hole, and Poe until I throw up.

I feel better. Sort of. I'm still drinking that cab. I mean. . . it's already open and stuff.

ADDENDUM:

Cinnamon Curve Kiss is amazing. I stand corrected. Sorry.

wowzer

Today I am reminded that my dearest friends are for lack of a better term "AWESOME". I love them so much, I feel disgusted with myself for not telling them more often how key their presence is to my 'joie de vivre'.

I have a sister who amazes me everyday with her strength. Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer. ~Louise Glück. Don't ever stop dancing. Your strength carries me on days that I don't know.

I have a mother who knows that a skinny hazelnut latte and a new lip gloss makes every care in my world fade away. I don't even have to speak. She tells me that I was her first miracle. It knocks me over when she says that.

I have a BFF who is everything and anything other than textbook. When this life finally makes sense to the both of us, we will sit down, laugh ridiculously, and have an extra dirty goose. Or ten. I am blessed beyond measure.

I have one amazing friend who remembers the first car that I drove, that I hate going to bed without the T.V. on, that I secretly love old school ghetto rap, he personally knows all my old boyfriends, knows that I can't even stand the smell of orange gatorade, and that I love ALL ridiculous crime scene shows. If I ever wrote a book about my life, I would ask him to intro it.

I have a college roomate who can make me laugh so hard I cry. Everytime. No one else thinks it's funny, but it is. We have memories that are five plus years old and they still make us die. She was the best partner in crime anyone could ask for (mostly because she always drove the get-a-way blue beater) and she's just an all around sparkly soul.

I have a friend who knows everything about me. Every last one of the scary skeletons in my closet (we've nicknamed them all) and I know hers. We contemplate the pursuit of life, love and happiness, and we solve world problems from a porch. I can tell her everything. Nothing phases her. Seriously. NOTHING.

I can't imagine existing without these people. They color my picture beautiful.

i need clear waters. ASAP.

At first I thought it was great when my boss didn't do his work. Read: if he doesn't do his job, I can't do mine so I play poker online, read books, and wait for the phone to ring. Anyhow, it's getting a little ridiculous. I'm running out of books to read, and I suck at poker. So my cubicle mate and I have tried to find a happy place everyday to cheer us up from our doom and gloom. I'm sharing mine today because it's so great.




This is a hammock that is in tahiti/tortola/fiji/etc. that has been waiting for me for some time now. It neeeeds me. I guess I'm gonna to have to settle for a mai tai in a smoke infested bar. Oh well. Someday. . .

p.s. If anyone is looking to work for a somewhat slightly off balance orthopedic surgeon and thinks they can handle all life crisis including but not limited to. . . emergency child care, lost car keys, credit cards, wedding rings, etc. fautly house alarms, and bat (of a live nocturnal nature) infested basements, PLEASE let me know. Applicant should also have an expertise in watering sod and mind reading.

a windchime?

I'm so stressed I think my eyes might start bleeding from the pressure in my head. I want to tattoo on my forehead "I DO NOT KNOW" I have this many answers: 0. Move along. thankyouverymuch.



I happened upon a feng shui article online today which I took the time to read, as I am always looking for a reason NOT to work, and more importantly I am moving very soon (this week) and thought maybe some feng shui practices in my new dwelling space would be great. Until I read this:



"A toilet in the southwest corner can be very negative on your love life. Hang a five rod windchime above the toilet."



I have just one question, what about the other corners of the house? What if the toilet if not so much in a corner? What if it's in a southern room facing west? At any rate, the small credibility I had in feng shui is now destroyed. . . but when you see a windchime hanging above my toilet in my new house, don't you judge me.

i love medicine, i love my job. . . repeat

I've decided that medicine is the most interesting, and possibly the most valuable profession to mankind. That's open to interpretation and discussion of course, and I did hesitate mildly at writing the bold statement as I was thinking of the baristas at Starbucks who make the best triple venti skinny vanilla latte. . . every time. Anyhow. Someone suggested that I pen my travels in medicine for the simple fact that they are so odd. I am apart of a bone and joint group (yes, I HAVE heard all of the jokes) and here at the body repair shop we see it all. Literally. People feel like they can share any and every part of their personal lives and past medical history when they are in a doctors office.

THINGS I DO NOT NEED TO KNOW:

1. Your daddy's cousin Marvin was once struck by lightning three times. That sentence doesn't even make sense. And unless Electric Marvin tore your ACL with his 10,000,000 watts of awesome-ness. . . I don't care. Not pertinent family medical history buddy.

2. Your next door neighbor had some knee pain just like this one time and he had to have his leg cut off. UGH.

3. Your shoulder hurts especially bad when trying to hold on to the headboard while having sex. "My shoulder hurts when I try to comb my hair or hang up my jacket" works just as well. Thanks for the unwanted mental image though.

THINGS I DO NEED TO KNOW:

1. ALL medicines you are currently taking, whether they were prescribed to you or not.


I have a STRONG suspicion with a current dynamic duo that we picked up in the ER (motorcycle wreck)that they are passing the pain pills around the dinner table with some Jack and Wild Turkey. The son and daughter-in-law call me CONSTANTLY, insisting that "Mom and Dad are just hurtin' bad" Hmmmm. Really? Maybe that's because you and your friends are chopping up Mom and Dads percocets and snorting them up your nose? Well okay, in all fairness, Mom and Dad had a couple of fractures that needed to be pinned. . . but neither one of these surgeries requires the artillery of narcotics that they have been requesting. So today, I cut them off. . . Not completely. But I gave them meds that will cut the minimal pain they are having at this point. AND, I didn't fax in the request back in until right before I leave the office, which would be now. So they can't call and bitch me out for the 32146849641321th time. HA!! I win.

Can't wait for that voicemail on Monday. . . It's gonna be great.

shakin rachel syndrome

today is day ten. . . i didn't think i'd make it this far, and be this happy. and maybe i'm kidding myself, but if that is the tragic fortuity. i think i'm okay with that too. i spoke with a dear friend last night whom always seems to rip the rose colored glasses from my face with a grace and wit that is all her own, and we decided that engaging in the ordinary, common, natural, orthodox, typical, routine, COMPOS MENTIS. . . is just simply frightening. it's an alcoholic attempting temperance. so i sit. drumming my fingers, my legs shaking, the beads of sweat forming on my forehead threatening to tell all of my secrets. so scared that he will notice. . . frightened even more that he won't. maybe he doesn't understand that i need a glass of melodramatic agony followed by a couple of shots of wicked hurt. . . and i'll sit at this table with you as long as you want darlin'. i think more than that. . . in his own unknown way, he understood that i needed a hand up. i hope someday he will fully know the impression left on my soul from the happenstance of our collision.

i'm so glad i have friends that help me remember. what's that well-worn saying about friends? they are angels that help you to remember to fly when you have forgotten?? something of that sort. thankfully, my friends help me remember nose touches, swimming (swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming), and being scared is good because it means that you are still alive. who would have ever thought that we would never be younger than we are today. . .

the waiting place

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win? And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind. You can get so confused that you’ll start in to racedown long wiggled roads at a break-necking paceand grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place……for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.


I wish i had answers. . . or just a hint. A small TEENY TINY one would be just fine with me. I hate this place. I think I've been here for five years or maybe longer. . . I just remember the last five years of being here, sitting on the same damn bench watching people come and go. Ugh.

me and the fray

i have obsessive affairs with certain singers and bands. today its the fray. forgive the urgency but hurry up and wait. . . my heart has started to separate.



i stumbled across a slap in the face yesterday. i ran across something that i once treasured and cherised as meant only for me was plastered all over something else for someone else. ouch ouch ouch. i hadn't thought about particularly this person or that piece of our relationship for quite sometime. but i guess i should be honored. my memory lives on in some sort of twisty tied way. hope she enjoys it. and him.



"it's a paradox of such epic proportions i may never understand why anyone would ever bother to endeavor to make justified the columns of the right now and what's left forever underneath the layers of a heart that's partly me and partly you. i am partly you."



i'm not really one to lament over lost loves, but i think everyone misses SOMEONE. it's undoubtably over and everyone has moved on from that which ceases to exist. but the ghosts still haunt. mine come in forms of designer cologne.

damnit.

bull shit

There are a few things in life that are just shitty. Not necessarily right or wrong, just shit. One of my oldest friends and roommate in college was in a relationship for six years that ended almost exactly one year ago this month. . . and today she finds out that he is engaged. I have very voyeurism-istic qualities and am not afraid to search out information on someone via the internet. I mean seriously, isn't that what it is for anyways? So I get on the www and I find the d-bag and his fiance's wedding registries. Now at this point, I know you are saying, this is stupid. . . but it pisses me off. My dear friend Ry spent six years in a relationship with this jackass and six months after they break up, he's engaged. Bull shit. Most marriages don't last six years. So back to the wedding registries I am looking through the wine glasses, linens, shower curtains and kitchen utensils and I find this.

This, my good friends is a fish bowl night light. Yep. My thoughts exactly. Not really relative to the rant, other than it just pisses me off that someone has the right to register for stupid stuff. Just like it pisses me off that people can treat other people in whatever way they deem necessary, and move right on with their life as if six years of their life was non existent.

Sometimes the bigger picture sucks. I know we all try to be positive and forward in thinking, but when things like this happen. . . well it's just not right. There is no doubt in my mind that Ry got the better end of the deal. Starting with the fact that she will not get up in the middle of the night and see this piece of made in taiwan crap in her bathroom. However, it doesn't make it any easier to swallow the pill that the love of her life (up until this point) didn't think she was good enough. I've had a very small taste of that medicine and it's soul crushing. I know life is so much more than broken relationships. We have other things to concern ourselves with, but when the basics aren't so basic, nothing makes sense.

To my friend Ryann who reached for the stars and grasped one. . . you walked into my life a bright and shiny college student from nowhere Missouri. . . we've come such a long way. You have left your fingerprints on my heart by always believing in yourself, even when the easy thing to do would be to quit. Congratulations on making your dreams come true. Best of luck to you in your next adventure. Don't forget. . . when you get out of school. FIJI. I'm counting on you. *wink*

foreclosure?

What an odd, odd word. Foreclosure. I thought you had to be a home owner to be a participant in a foreclosure. Apparently not, apparently you just have to be an occupant. My landlord owns several (as in probably a hundred or so) properties in the area, and I'm starting to wonder if I'm the only one affected by this ridiculous-ness. So what exactly has my landlord been doing with my rent since November? No idea. My best guess is that he's been wiping his ass with it, or putting it into a fat savings account in which he is probably going to retire on a beach somewhere soon. This would be topping the list of things that I consider just damn frustrating.

So now, I have to decide pretty quickly what I am going to do. Move home? That sounds PAIN-FUL. However, it would save me tons of money, but ughhhhh. My mother is a saint, but I do not need to tell her where I'm going everytime I leave the house. Piper is insistent on moving home so she can be with grammy all the time, but I'm still not sold on the idea. Secondly, I could just pack it up and move to who knows where. Fly by the seat. Live on the edge. That doesn't really sound like fun either. Hmmm. Life suuuuucks.

the natural progression of life is. . . odd

I guess I don't take enough time to stop and look, so when I do. . . I'm shocked. My brother graduated from college, my sister is old enough to get into a bar, and my high school boyfriend is getting married for the second time next weekend. Life is literally an hourglass glued to a table. So here I stand, pondering the lackluster multi pronged fork in the road. . . and I have to just laugh. There's no "right" decision, because all roads lead to something, but not really any "somethings" that will make it easier for me to get up in the morning. Trying to procrastinate life is a lot harder as you get older, and it has kind of landed me flat on my ass where I am right now. Stuck.

If I had to do it over, not all over but definitely the greater part of ten years, I would move to Napa or Oregon and be a wine junkie. Or maybe join the peace corps and live in a third world country. Or more realistically, go to nursing school. I wish I could punch the eighteen year old girl that decided she wanted to major in Sports Medicine. Maybe I will still go to nursing school. Unfortunately, the government doesn't think that you should have any more money for a second undergrad if you already have one undergrad degree. Ha.

In the meantime I'm going do the logical thing and start playing the lottery. And drink a tecate cause tomorrow is cinco de mayo. Nothing like celebrating another nations day of drinking. America: we just like your country's holidays better than our own, plus if our holidays were celebrated internationally, you would all have to drink budweiser. ew. Maybe I'll get another excellent fake tattoo.