Stuff later.

Fluff: Meme-Tracking Meme This meme was created to track how quickly memes spread through LiveJournal. Just copy/paste this, with these instructions, into your own journal, fill in the answers, post that bad boy, and then leave a comment on the following post: http://www.livejournal.com/users/etoilepb/248028.html. Your LJ Username: # of people on your friends list: 125 First journal you saw this in:

Answering questions...

I'm in a test-taking mood, having just scored a Perfect on my EKG strip matching, and a 91% on the ACLS exam. Hence, I will now answer (1) my interview meme questions from and (2) the Friday Five :) 1: The Meme. Interviews go like this: If you want to be interviewed, leave a comment. I'll reply to the comment and give you five questions to answer. You update your LJ with the five questions, include this explanation, and ask others five questions. Etc, etc, etc. 1. Why did you choose to pursue medicine as a career? If you ask my mother, I've been doomed to be a doctor since I was very very young. As a child, I was the one who would splint or bandage broken dolls or ponies, hoping they would heal. All of my Barbie dolls from my youth have a matte finish, dating from the days when I poured red nail polish over them and played "accident scene". The acetone that cleaned them up also took off the shine. I thought I would be a veterinarian, at first. Becoming a doctor never entered my mind as a young girl. I wanted (this is the introvert in me) to work with animals, where I wouldn't have to spend so much time with people. I worked with a veterinarian in the area, shadowing him and following him even to the OR, and discovered that I wasn't so sure about veterinary medicine after that. The medical and scientific aspects, however, were fascinating to me and I set about making them my own. I suppose that's when I knew I wanted to become some kind of doctor. A fascination with novels and an aversion to patient contact sent me first in the direction of forensic pathology - a coroner with an M.D., essentially. And until my junior year of college, that's what I thought I would be. And then...(and then...and gentlemen, and then... [Now, Pippin, now!]) I went to France. And while I was in France, Doctors Without Borders won the Nobel Peace Prize. It was all over France. And I started thinking. And then I went to Nicaragua with Manchester. And I fell in love with seeing patients and their faces. And that was it. Since then, everything's just fallen into place. 2. Is there any particular moment of epiphany you recall, a point where at that moment you knew your life was clearly never going to be the same? I've had a number of mini-epiphanies in my life, moments when I realised what I was being guided toward and what I was to do. There was the night in Madrid when Angel proposed, and we went out on a walk through the city in the middle of the night, too excited to sleep. And I looked around me at the people whose language I didn't speak, whose customs and culture and food I had only the most superficial understanding of, and I knew it didn't matter to me, that at that moment I loved everyone in the whole world. And I don't think, since then, that I've ever really lost that feeling. That was an epiphany. And there was the darker, less enlightening epiphany of looking into the mirror at the hospital when I was in seventh grade, and seeing the bruise on my face where a random stranger had forced my cheek into the gravel, just before running away, leaving me so weak with relief that I hadn't been raped that I'd just laid there in the snow and the dirt before pulling myself together. That was an epiphany, too. I've survived, and moved on, and I deal with the things that have changed, but I've never been the same, since. I'm sure there are more. 3. What are the benefits, do you suppose, of being an astronaut? You're asking someone who's always wanted to go up in zero-G, to look out on the stars without any impeding clouds or planes or houses or trees, to see the world a marble beneath me. The simple chance to claim a vision of the grandiosity of existence, unbounded and unbarred by the changes we've imposed on the world... Plus, I want to play with floaty food. 4. What kind of influence has music had on your life? Music has been so core to my life that I don't know if I could quantify the kind of influence it has. I sing, I play clarinet, and used to play recorder. I have a hacky hand at the piano...I study to classical, I work out to everything, I live surrounded by lyrics and thoughts and pieces of song. My father sang to us to wake us up in the morning when I was young. My vice, of course, being the Broadway Moment; in which I will suddenly burst into song, having been reminded of a lyric or phrase. I listen to everything...even, sad to say, a bit of country and the occasional rap lyric. 5. When you dream of your future, what are the things you dream of? Beauty, Freedom, Truth, and Love, of course. I dream of making a difference in the world, in the lives of those I come into contact with, I dream of spending the rest of my life with my Angel, raising children who have the same desire to love and change the world, and having enough money to be sure my family is not in need. Preferably enough money to be able to make many helpful and charitable donations. 2. The Friday Five. Shorter answers, hence no LJ-cut. 1. Are you going to school this year? Yes. 2. If yes, where are you going (high school, college, etc.)? If no, when did you graduate? Medical school (third post-graduate year). 3. What are/were your favorite school subjects? I've always been interested in writing, reading, and 'rithmetic. Also all the sciences. Also band and choir. Also recess. Really anything but the answers to the next question. 4. What are/were your least favorite school subjects? Social Studies. Gym. Anything with a boring teacher. 5. Have you ever had a favorite teacher? Why was he/she a favorite? Dr. Shamanoff, my third grade teacher, who is a tiny woman with a bun and glasses. She never raised her voice. She never had to. I have never forgotten her gentle scolding when she caught me roughhousing, admonishing me to be more of a lady. I had dinner with her and Mom, not so long ago, and she told me I'd grown up into an admirable young lady. I'm still carrying that with me. I don't know why she was my favourite, except that the respect and understanding she showed me was far above and beyond what I had experienced with my other teachers. And she read us Shakespeare, and taught us long division, and never ever let me work an inch below my capabilities. All that with a smile and a soft voice. It has been determined that I have until 6 PM or so to kill, now. I think I'm going to go get some food and perhaps my mouse so I can play Alice all afternoon or something. Maybe I'll even study.

An addendum...

To mom, who reads my journal, and Daddy, who would if he weren't so busy: I was talking to someone earlier today, about my frustrations. And I had to add that at least I knew my parents believed in us. And it dawned on me just what that meant, and how much it meant. It means a lot to me to know that you're willing to listen, to discuss, and to offer your honest opinions. It means a lot to me that I can come to you and know that the advice you give or the concerns you raise are given to me in love and in trust. I know that I can call you when I'm troubled, and hear a friendly voice, and ask my questions and cry my tears. I see so many of my friends whose parents are unwilling or unable to accept them as adults with free will and free choice...and I look back at my life, and I wonder if there has ever been a time when you did not. I am blessed, so blessed, to have you as my parents. I hope in time that when I have children I will be able to raise them with as much trust and love as you have done for me. I love you both.

No stuff, just fluff.

what do they really think of you by purple
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your family think	you're sweet
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Created with quill18's MemeGen!

Found myself referenced in , which was an obscurely pleasing event. And now on to non-fluff stuff. Today was ACLS training, day one. Today, I successfully completed my AED and CPR testing. From noticing a person down, to establishing responsiveness, to rescue breaths and chest compressions and using the AED within 90 seconds of receiving it. I got it all right. Although those mannequins have got to be easier to compress than real people. Because I've seen a code. Morning was...well, tedious. And overall, well, overwhelming. Too many drugs and doses, no way to learn them well. So we sat and listened and stared at him. I highlighted all of the drugs he talked about, like agood medical student. But I slept through a lot of it, due to extreme inability to stay awake. And there was a point in time where one of the lecturers was standing there, talking about using the AED, and right there on her chest, perfectly centred, is ''No Signal" and a countdown timer. For some reason , I found this to be terribly funny. Afternoon: First station was the CPR/AED station. Because everyone asked me, an AED is an Automatic External Defibrillator. It's a cute little box that's designed for absolutely anyone to be able to use. You take it out and turn it on, and a synthesized voice says "Attach pads to patient and connect to device." And you take the pads and peel them off their backing, and you stick them to the patient's bare chest where indicated (there's a little diagram on the back of the pads). And then you plug the other end into the machine. It only fits one way, and there's a little flashing light to direct you. And the voice says "Analyzing rhythm. Do not touch the patient." And everyone gets back, and the AED decides if a shock is required. And if it is, it charges to the right amount and tells you to make sure the patient is clear, then to press the "Shock" button. Bang. And so on, and so forth. The idea behind these little wonders, besides them being much lighter for paramedics to tote around, is that your Average Human Being can now become a lifesaver. Prior to the introduction of the AED, the survival rate for an out-of-hospital coronary event was around 5% or less. In areas where these are available to the public, the survival rate has increased to 50-80%, simply because the response time is so much faster. There are even some models that will walk you through performing CPR. 90 second limit, baybee. I had it out, on, and shocking in under a minute. Station two was on how to use a Real Defibrillator. "Who wants to try?" And everyone stood around for a bit, and I finally said "I'll do it." So we practised learning the voltages (100, 200, 300 and synchronised for V-Tach, unless it's pulseless, when you start at 200, and you might as well do it synced; 200, 300, 360 for V-Fib) and applying the paddles and shocking. And they had real current (just 20 joules or whatever) running through the mannequin, so it was all dramatically realistic. "Everyone clear?" Station three, just as much fun, was on intubation. We learned how to use the blades, both kinds, and why the straight blade (Miller) is good on a mannequin but the curved one (Mack?) is better on Real People (the curved one pulls the epiglottis back instead of going over it, something that works well in humans but not in rubber throats. And we learned something about the combi-tube, and intubating infants, and I only made my mannequin make funny noises (meaning that I would've broken teeth in a real patient) once or twice. And I only missed the trachea and intubated the stomach once. Not too bad, for a beginner. Station four was the Respiratory Arrest Case. And we all stood around the mannequin and she said "Who's going to be the code leader?" And nobody volunteered. So I finally said "I will." And so I got to stand at the head and tell everyone what we were doing. None of us knew. But with a little prompting, we got through the respiratory arrest, and I successfully intubated him after bagging him, and his labs came back with a K of 2 and a magnesium of 1, so gosh I wonder why he was having trouble. And we got him into ICU and corrected his 'lytes, and then it occurred to me: We have a COPD patient here with a relatively unknown medical history, because the EMT's only got his COPD status and not even his med list before he quit breathing and thus quit being able to answer questions, because they were apparently playing cards on the way to the hospital since he only went into respiratory arrest when he entered the ED. We should've gotten a bloody finger stick. I've seen a patient who was mistakenly intubated for respiratory arrest when her glucose was....oh, about 8. It's okay, though, we didn't get yelled at for it. And I got my signature, which is all that matters. and : We watched a video on acute stroke, and we all wondered something. The setup of the video was a bit cheesy: mother and daughter walking through the mall, mom says "Oh, oh my...my arm is weak...and my leg..." They sit down, girl says "Are you all right, do you want some water?" and mom says "No, call 911, I'm having a stroke, my doctor warned me..." and so on, and so forth. They call medics, medics arrive, and there in the middle of the mall, in front of Lazarus, the medics sit down with the woman and get her BP and do a Cincinnati Stroke Scale and chat up her daughter a bit. And then they load her on the cart, and put her in the ambulance. Is this the normal sequence of things? Or would you do the vitals and stroke scale in the truck? We thought they should've put her in the truck first. Came home, took a nap, had a shake for dinner (good Nykkit). Got a call from , his car was dead and could I come perform some kind of rescue? Be glad to. Especially since he'd been on his way up to FW. Which meant that I got to see Angel in Gas City where we split the hundred-mile drive. Even that little bit...as small as it was...helped. Plus, I took a half an hour of it to study for the exam tomorrow (we had a 33-question pretest. We'll have a 33 question posttest that is "very similar" to the pretest. Three guesses as to what the posttest is going to be like). The cards have all the answers I need, for drug dosing and such. I'm going to be fine. And then down to the aeroport to pick up Seron, and then home to the Gathering. And hopefully tomorrow Angel will work things out with Keith, so when we call Saturday afternoon it will be a simple matter of telling Quinby's parents what will happen. Today, O Best Beloved, I feel better than I did yesterday. And tomorrow I will feel better yet, because I will have my Angel by my side again. Plus, I get out of class at 12-ish. And I love being able to do anything but sit in class. I think I will take Shain with me, and sit in the student lounge, and kill some time before the aeroport. I forgot to bring a stuffed aminal. Is lonely. I don't even have my plushie stomach. Maybe that's why I had such bizarre dreams last night. It was a time-travelling romance novel plot, where the main characters were always in the wrong century to wind up with their correct partner. A strange dance.

De profundis clamativi ad te, Domine!

I will cast all my cares upon You. I will lay all of my burdens down at Your feet. And any time I don't know what to do, I will cast all my cares upon You. I must've sung it twenty times in the car, on the way to the office this morning. And it helped. Made me feel better. Reminded me, as do your words, O Best Beloved, that I am far from alone. And that God has never let me down. I just have to live the life I'm called to live, rather than the easy life, the safe life, the alone and uncaring life. In other news: Got an appointment this afternoon with the doctor's office to make sure this lingering stuffy nose, cough, and congestion isn't a case of bronchitis or sinusitis that I need to be treating. Since Dr. TD is a little concerned, it having been going on for nearly three weeks now. When I left the office, I was given a compliment that made me really glow inside. You're a very bright girl, Dr. TD says, and Dr. MD nods. You have a very solid grasp of what's going on. And then he got to the good part. My physical exam skills, I was told, are excellent for someone at my educational level. Both doctors were most impressed - especially, it seems, with my ability to pick up on subtle things. And my ear skills. And that was the thing that made me feel best: that they think I'm seeing and hearing and noticing the things that need to be seen and heard and noticed. That they think I'm doing - not just well, but superbly well. You look at ears better than a lot of the family practise residents do. Hallelu. Stories later. Doctor's appointment now. Pineapple-orange Slim-Fast Soy is really damn good. And I still love you, Quin, and I don't resent you, so stop thinking you're more trouble than you're worth.

Stop my mind, please. I want to get off.

Quinby's parents called last night. They wanted to talk to me. Did they ever want to talk to me. And I did my best to be patient and understanding and listening and reasonable, and it was all going quite well - if exhausting - right up until the topic of my absences to Indy came up. They're not comfortable or happy with the situation. And they're specifically not comfortable or happy with two things: 1) They're concerned because their understanding is that I'm the one who has the deep emotional relationship with her. And so I'm going to be gone, and with this, that, and the other...they're afraid she'll be alone when she needs me. This is no different than it would be if I were here. I'm going to be working long hours through the winter, and those long hours make things crazy. And I think...I think, for once, that their concerns are overamped. 2) The appearance of things. Angel, who's 23, home alone night after night with Quin, 20. And he's a youth director, and what will our youth's parents think? They're certain that their church would never allow it. They don't want her to spend her life thinking that these kinds of situations are all right. I understand the appearance issue. And at midnight, all I could say was "let me think on it and we'll see what we can do," because they have a valid point. And it's a valid concern. And I don't want Angel to get in shit for this, and I want Quin's parents to be able to accept and come to peace with it. And I don't know what the fuck I'm going to do. And this morning after the alarm went off I laid there and didn't sleep for half an hour, thinking. Trying to think. Trying to decide, to figure out what to say or do or be. My mind is stuck in circles, and I can't make it stop. And dear God: You've never let me down, never given me a problem that I couldn't find the solution to. And I believe - I really do - that what we're doing is what we're supposed to do. So I guess, now, it's up to you. Give us the inspiration to find a key to this problem and help us do things according to your will. Because it's never let me down this far. [Edit: I'm so bloody upset I forgot how old Angel was. How frickin' awful is that?]

Bad kitty. Lazy kitty.

Other Battle Cries:

• Yea, verily: Who is that, prowling across the tundra! It is Whisper, hands clutching buzzsaw hand extensions! She howls apocalyptically: "I'm going to contort you until you can no longer smell pretty things!!!"
• Prowling along the candy store, swinging a jeweled meat hammer, cometh Vita! And she gives a mighty cry: "I'm going to hack into your brain, and type FORMAT C: !"
• Prowling through the wasteland, brandishing a piece of chainlink fence, cometh Nykki! And she gives a spectacular howl: "I'm going to exfoliate you to the bone!!"

which member of something positive are you? quiz created by heatherbat Was added as a friend by , which bewildered me no end. So I didn't add them back, because while I am arrogant and self-serving enough to think that everyone in the whole world should find me fascinating, even when I'm a lazy kitten and don't tell my stories for days on end (inpatient peds is next; may be interesting indeed)...I don't find the whole world fascinating just by virtue of them being there. So I waited. And I peeked at it today, and I saw how all the entries were made of sentences from other people's journals...and then I cheated and looked at the memories and it was revealed to me that is somebody. And he makes his entries by hand, not harvesting in an automated manner, and he reads them. Permanent accounts, because we represent a "core" of LJ somehow. Even, I suppose, people like me who are willing to pay just because my vanity demands I post an obscene amount... And I was enthralled. What a fascinating idea. What a way to drain my free time into oblivion, reading more journals. I'm such a voyeuristic addict. It's 12:40 and I haven't done anything on my list except read the Neonatal Bilious Vomiting case study (I want more of them!) and sitting on my ass. But I did get the case study done. You know what would be fun? Fun would be to do case studies in an LJ. Hmm. I suppose first on my list, thought, is to go out and (1) pay my library fines (2) get my oil changed (3) go job-hunting with Quinby (4) go to the IPFW bookstore with Quinby (5) get Mom her stuff she needs, like a 300W power supply instead of a 180W. Then see what time it is, and go from there. Will throw Curves clothes in the car. All right. It's 1:20. I'm going.

I HAVE A PLUSHIE STOMACH!!!!!

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Stalking out of the steppes, wielding a jeweled meat hammer, cometh Ayradyss! And she gives a low bellow: "You in some shit now, muhfuh! I shall fill the world with the stench of death!!!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

Today's highlight of the day was discovering the plushie stomach models that the Prevacid people had brought, and being told to take one home. "Take a couple. They're annoying." So I did. Plushie stomach! Also saw a list of things, which I am not going to enumerate now, as it is almost 1 AM and I have been playing DDR (and getting better!) and typing up that miserably long journal entry. There'll probably be an addendum to it, if we finish blue-booking in time for me to write one. Things to write about (bother me for these!) Name that rash, with Dr. MD. And today's follow-up: What the hell is that rash? Metatarsus Adductus, and the baby foot reflex. A point of congratulation. J, who has chronic sterile osteomyelitis and a $4,000 bill from the Mayo Clinic thanks to her insurance. (research note: Look up SAPHO syndrome). The poor kid with anismus. The little girl I saw the other day with bilateral colobomata who was, unusually, exceptionally bright. Tomorrow, I have the day off. Am considering drenching the bottoms of the couch with insect killer, so as to root out any spiders that might be lingering therein. They seem to follow the couch. Am also going to take Quinby to fill out job applications, go to Curves, and do my newborn sepsis paper, my neonatal bacteremia paper, and my pretest for ACLS. Oh, and work on the living/dining room. And buy my mom a power supply and a video card that isn't a Banshee. And catch up on my stories. I'm going to be busy on my day off. Wednesday, I go to Indianapolis. Thursday and Friday, I learn to Save Lives. This makes me more useful than when I could just Write Journal Entries and Diagnose Ear Infections. I like to be useful. And then the Gathering. Which, quite simply put, is a bunch of total strangers coming to our house to eat junk food, play games (LAN and console), and have a generally good time. I'm in a tizzy about this; I want the house to look clean and nice, and I know the guys won't care, and I know on Monday I have to leave for Indy for the winter. Inpatient Peds-Surgery-OB-Surgical Specialty. It's going to be long. I'm dreading it. I don't want to leave my Angel alone. It's late. It's very late. And if I want to Get Things Done on my Day Off, I had best Get Going. Sleep first. Sleep in, even, maybe.

For the morbidly interested...

Faeday, 17 Entropy. I don't even fucking know where to start. Start with getting back to campus after having to fend off Plax's attacks, his magic gone completely wrong? Start with that bedamned link between myself and Typheous being the thing that let us search the library at Tybil even while fighting Plax? Start with the debriefing, or the snow, or Vance being a total asshole even now that he has a second chance? Or him saying Alex and Mer were fucking, or me finding Mer and how she's changed? I'm fucking overwhelmed, confused, exhausted. And then there's the real issue that's clouding my mind...what happened tonight. I didn't need more things happening. I needed to come back to campus and look at my classmates living their normal, petty, uninterrupted lives - remember what I'm fighting for, why I'm doing this, what I'm bothering to try to save. Not pay Typheous back on his walk and wind up with just more questions... I should be above this, better than this. I shouldn't be acting like one of these godsdamned simpering girls who follow him fucking everywhere. Not giggling and blushing and kissing - I kissed him, or let him kiss me - twice. No, three times, if you count the first time when I almost jumped off the bed in shock...And the worst part is that after that first time, I think I enjoyed it. Just like I'm starting to enjoy his company. I don't want all of this shit. It's the weather. And my crazy fucked-up mood. And coming back to campus and finding things so strange in some ways, and the same in others. It has to be - I'm just so off-balance I'm not acting right. We came out of the debriefing (looks like we'll be going back out with Lady Del'zenivras to try and stave off the end of the world. The end of the world isn't going to fucking well happen until I'm old enough to fucking do something about it. End of sentence.) and right smack into a snowball fight. And there was Vance, telling me that Alex and Mer were fucking... Took off to find her, and I did, in Barliman's room, cuddling, maybe more. And I wondered then what'd changed, and then I talked to her, and I started to get worried. She looks different...better. Still plain, still ungainly, still Mer - but cleaner, more confident. And talking to her....Typh told me Alex said she went out looking for me after we disappeared, outside Wyzdin, and came back after a few days, changed somehow. She stopped taking shit from people - and started taking revenge. Seems she got scary about it, scary enough that Karlos took it into his head to "de-shrewify" her. And I guess she led him on, cock-teased him, and then when he pushed the issue she kneed him and then took him apart with a pair of sewing scissors. A fucking pair of scissors. Fucking killed him. What a fucking waste. And she told me the story, and looks at me and says she's sorry she wasted the time she could've spent making him suffer in killing him. Gods...I couldn't even say anything, I was so shocked. I don't understand how anyone can want to torture someone like that, how she can actually desire to make him suffer. I...gods, it twists me up so badly I don't even have the words to express it...makes me feel like I'm going to vomit with disgust. This isn't Mer. I don't - I can't - imagine what's changed her so much, but I don't like it. Something's wrong, terribly wrong, for her to be so casual about the suffering she's willing to inflict. I never thought I might wind up wanting - needing - to clean up after her, but she's flippantly talking about dropping Barliman. How she "just hates" to break his heart, how he's "so fragile"...I need to talk to him, much as we've never gotten along, find out what his side of the story is. He was worried about her, I felt it. He knows something - something more. I need to know what it is. I can't put this together without knowing more. And then...then after telling me all of that like it's some kind of happy sleepover-secret, she tells me I was right, she's never been happier than since she started standing up for herself. And then she says goodnight. And leaves. Leaves me standing there, wondering if I'm going to be able to walk without vomiting. She got this from me. Somehow, she thinks this is what I taught her. How? Calm down , Psyche. Breathe. You can start trying to mend that tomorrow...after the rest of this is somehow figured out. After all, Mer isn't the immediate problem, is it? It's the boy sitting behind me on my bed...the one I can sense even though I'm blocking, the one whose position, whose health, whose fucking thoughts I always know. The one who completely turned me inside-out tonight. I can feel him worrying, even though he's trying to block just as hard as I am, and I'm touched and frustrated and annoyed and...fuck. I had to talk to someone...I had to do something besides go back to my room and cry or chase her down and strangle sense into her. It's strange...the more things happen to me, the harder it is to be alone. It's the fucking hormones, I swear it is. And Typh didn't go out with Alex on a pub crawl like he was threatening. Said Alex was acting quiet...withdrawn. Not really interested in going out. Which meant that he was more than willing to take me up on that walk. Except that it was too fucking cold out, and it wasn't like he wanted to kick Alex out to talk in his room. We have enough fucking rumours that're going to spawn because we disappeared together. So we went to my room. I have a single. That was the first fucking bad idea. He...he backlashed, and was seeing nothing but redcaps, and every fucking time someone is unhappy, I have to fucking feel sorry for them. And then we started talking, really talking. Not trading arguments about how to run the world, or spitting insults at each other, just...talking. Trying to figure out what was going on, why it seems like things are so different with us now that we're back. When we came through into Wyzdin from the monastery, there were a few minutes when he was on one side of the pocket dimension and I was on the other. A few moments when I got what I'd been asking for for so long - he was out of my head. And I felt so fucking empty. So fucking...it was like part of me had gone missing. I don't understand it, but I can't argue with facts, and the fact is I missed his presence. Enough that when Lady Del'zenivras sounded like she wanted someone to go back out with her I couldn't even consider it if he didn't go too. Somehow, the facts are starting to line up: I'm stuck with him. For the rest of my motherfucking life. I could live with that if he hadn't said something else very true...something I didn't want to and still don't want to admit. I like him. I've gotten so used to having him around that I didn't even notice that I wanted to have him around. And admitting that... It's not so much that I don't ever want to like anyone. It's not that at all. It's that this is...different. Too different - so much so as to be alien to me. And while I was so off-balance, trying to figure out what that meant he meant and where he fit into my world, that's when he kissed me. And I almost jumped off the bed, there was such a shock, him touching me. And he was sorry...he even asked me if slapping him would help, said he should leave...and then I couldn't kick him out, didn't want to. And he kept talking, and what he said made sense. It was something we hadn't tried yet, since fighting seems to be harder and harder to really mean, and running away is too cowardly. I'm more than running away would make me. And...and it was a little embarrassing to react like he'd bitten me...when I know he didn't mean to. And what choice was there but to try again, when I was expecting it? I don't know how he doesn't feel the shock when he touches me. It's the strangest feeling, something that twists my stomach and more than my stomach. Something in my bones, in my soul. It...I can't explain it. All I know is that it never goes away. Even when we were holding hands, I could feel it the whole time, something different about me. And that fucking well scares me. A lot. I have a purpose, a job. I have a purpose that requires me to be able to weigh the facts and make a decision that is at once correct and defensible. It's not going to be easy, and the last godsdamnedfucking thing I need is to get my emotions involved in anything. All they do is muddle my judgment, make me vulnerable, susceptible. Fallible. (there is a smudge of ink here, something now illegible, obviously water-damaged and blotted.) And they make me fucking cry on my journal. And now I'm fucking...godsdamnit, this is almost as bad as walking with him. I can't think. I can't fucking think straight. Why can't I think? What's fucking wrong with me? And a good cry later, I'm still stuck. We went on a walk to clear our heads - both of us were, are confused, how could we not be? This is anathema to what we've always both headed for. And somehow he took my hand, and we walked out to the park holding hands, and I didn't mind. It felt...right. For no fucking reason. And then it struck me how badly I wanted to hear what he really thought, and how as far as his eye could see he was talking to a redcap. And you can't be sure when you're seeing an illusion. Which is how his hand wound up on my cheek, so he could at least feel my face. And that's when I kissed him. And it was...I wish I could fucking give myself a little lie, say it was nothing, okay even. But it wasn't. It felt good, felt right, and it blew all of the bits of fragmented thought I had started to put together into little tiny pieces. And...I panicked. Just like I did a minute ago. That's what happened. I'm panicking, just like I did in Ironridge. Every single time I get my well-ordered framework of a world shaken up, I panic. And I run away, go hide in misery and self-doubt and shame. Why didn't I see it before? Am I so arrogant, so blind, as to think that the world is going to just fall into place because I think I know what's best for it? I have to learn to keep my footing when things turn chaotic, or I'm never going to get anywhere. I'm never going to be able to understand what's going on if I fall apart every time my equilibrium's shaken. So what does that leave me with? It leaves me with a funny feeling around Typheous, something that doesn't maybe fit into a nice neat box. And something that I can't quite think about in a logical way. But most people don't think logically. How can I work to change things if I don't know how things are? Better question: if I panic when things don't work just right, doesn't that leave me at a disadvantage? So maybe this is a chance to figure out how not to panic. Maybe I should look at it like that, and quit trying to figure out what's so wrong with me. Maybe there's nothing wrong. And maybe it's okay to turn around and talk to him. He's not drawing any more, I can feel it. He's just waiting for me to finish. This is so fucking weird.

Or I could spend the whole weekend sleeping.

Friday night RP went well, I think. We started late, but everyone seemed to have fun. Quotes will be posted under separate cover. Party is about ten minutes from being assaulted by the Home Guard, which will probably eventually result in their capture. Although, they're currently engaged in getting ready to hold out again. Will eventually arrive at Herring's place. Eventually. Schedule came out for inpatient peds. I am the only person on Pediatrics/Newborn at my hospital. I am responsible for three night calls (4-10 PM), which I may schedule at my leisure. How much better does it get? They say we either have saturday or sunday off. Hopefully I can work this out to my advantage. Hopefully I can find my ACLS pretest, my schedule, and all the information that tells me where to be and what to do so that I'm prepared for ACLS on Thursday and Friday. My BLS certification expires in September anyway, so I was going to have to take a refresher. Went out yesterday and bought DDR-Disney Remix. Today, bought DDRMax. Have been using both pads as Angel, Quinby and I trade off. We all suck. My great achievement is being able to make a D rating on a three-foot song. But what a workout. Much fun was had. The living room is starting to be emptier. Putting out a call for tables. Does anyone have a few long tables we could borrow? However, not as much was accomplished this weekend as potentially possible, due to the reassumption of the Mage campaign. I have missed playing Psyche. A lot. I've missed the interaction between her and Typheous, missed having a character who's in a setting where she can really grow and change. Furthermore, I've missed playing under , who will always be my model GM, someone whose skill I only hope I can eventually live up to. Plans for the Gathering next weekend (roleplayers, there is NO campaign next weekend) are going well. I think I'll dig out my B-movie collection and find some pre-genned characters. I can run a one-night B-movie campaign for the Gathering, and amuse the hell out of everyone. Yis. There was more this weekend, but I don't really remember what. I'll figure it out eventually. But for now, I'm going to settle back to roleplay and enjoying the rest of the evening before I go in for my last three days of outpatient peds. My last three weekdays in a row in FW until who knows when. I have vacations hither and yon, and a month of ambulatory medicine if I get my request. I hope I get my request. But this winter, O Best Beloved, is going to suck. A lot.

I make a liar of myself...

I have yet to be on time to the pediatrician's office. I always beat the doctors in. Yesterday morning, Dr. TD was at the hospital dealing with a patient in breathing difficulties. Dr. MD disappeared after talking to the intern for a bit. And for the next hour I just sat around looking confused, until T called over to me, telling me that Dr. TD had called from the hospital with something for me to learn about. So I looked it up. And then I waited, and finally Dr. TD came in and then we had to rush through the exams. So (gasp, choke) I just got to go in with him and look at the kids while he was talking to the parents instead of doing the whole thing and presenting the patients. But I still got to see them first, and if I talked fast I could present my findings to him before he did a physical. At lunch, he took me aside and apologised to me for not letting me do enough. I wasn't offended. I completely understood. This has been one of the best clerkship experiences ever. A quick survey of what I've seen recently: An infant with a facial hemangiomata in the opthalmic region of the trigeminal nerve division. : what disorder are they concerned about? They don't know yet whether she's got it; the current concern is the bilirubin of 14. She's got a bili-blanket, which I want to see. What do they look like? A little girl who has Osler-Weber-Rendu syndrome, an incidentally finding as she was being evaluated for a two-month history of fatigue and malaise. Apparently, her previous doctor just kept giving her antibiotics. Her mom is understandably miffed. Dr. MD thinks she has mono. Her blood tests show a malnutrition-based anaemia. I suggested parasitic infection. Possibly. I also asked, based on the rest of her history, whether she might have immunodeficiency. That's a good thought. He wrote: "Consider immune deficiency" on her chart. Lots and lots of little kid ears. And noses and throats. Did you know that 25% of visits to paediatricians are for routine physicals? I've found several unsuspected ear infections, including the event today where I went in to do a followup visit on a little girl. "I think she has fluid behind her eardrum, which is normal following an ear infection, but it looks good to me. I'll have the doctor check." And then I went out and told Dr. TD that I thought she had fluid behind her eardrum, but that it looked good. And then I got pulled in to play "name that rash" with Dr. MD. More on that in a moment. When I came out, he was in the room. I popped my head in, and got a very wide grin from the normally ebullient Dr. TD. Good eye. She's got a resolving otitis media with effusion. A lot of people don't ever learn to pick that out. More on "name that rash" tomorrow (later today?). I want to post, so I can sleep, so I can go to the BMV and get my licence address changed; get a new cell phone and better plan; spend more money. Wheefun. Plans for the Gathering are beginning to progress. Also wheefun. Glad that Quinby is going to go with James to the housewarming; Aura and LC are so great. And now, to bed.

No, Mom, I don't have diabetes...

Update on my doctory-stuff is coming; it's sitting at home. Going out to eat last night took precedence over typing. So, on a more personal note: Called the doctor's office back; they'd left a message to call on Angel's phone. My lab results are in. Fasting blood sugar: 81. Well within normal ranges. Notably not hypoglycaemic either. Lipid profile: Total cholesterol, 219 (should be <200). Triglycerides, 211 (should be <150). HDL (good cholesterol), 46 (should be >60, especially with elevated other lipids, even though the official guideline is >40). LDL (bad cholesterol), 139 (should be <100 optimally, <129 for above optimal but not too high). Which makes my ratio something like 4.6, which is unpleasantly close to the out-of-whack value of 5, and too far above the optimal value of 3.5. As the nurse put it: I'm too young for that. Nothing good can come of having elevated cholesterol at 24. So orders are diet and exercise; low-fat, low-cholesterol, oatmeal (yes, Angel, I have to get up for breakfast), switching my Country Crock for Benechol, and increased exercise. Repeat lipid profile in 4-6 months. In random thoughts: Studies have tentatively shown that a Mediterranean diet not only reduces cholesterol but reduces the risk of heart disease disproportionately to its cholesterol reduction. And olive oil is good for you, as is fish oil. I like fish. Also, 4-5 ounces of wine a night may raise HDL levels. Furthermore, losing weight is now a health mandate, as I have no intention of allowing myself to be medicated for something I shouldn't need to be medicated for at my age. And at 5'7.5 and just over 220, I have a significant amount of weight I don't need to be carrying, no matter how good some people think I look. I'm sort of amused by the whole thing, in a morbid way. After all, I ought to know better, have known better. I'm a freakin' medical student. So it's my own bloody fault. Bad nykkit. But all the same, this is just about par for the course. It's always got to be something else that motivates me. Someone kick me a couple of times, or I'm going to do nothing at all over the winter while I'm in rotations. Plus, I forgot to put my rings back on last night after dying Quinby's hair (something that took the rest of my updating time) and now my hand is naked. I only have my cross ring. And now I'm waiting for the doctors to get here - I have yet to arrive on time, and yet I beat the doctors D&D here every morning. Perhaps I'll give up on this keyboard with its partly-broken T and go do something else. Such a strange world. Wish me well, O Best Beloved.

Jen: The story so far.

< b_lover> everyones going to be there tonight, jeno.  too bad your such a mommys girl.  were going to be out after 10.
< jenouflex> fuck my mom, i do what i want.  tell me where and when.  ill see u there.
< leathermartini> good girl, jeno.  mabe i should bring u a pacifier and a blankie for nighttime?
< b_lover> catacombs at 11.  wear something hot.
< jenouflex> if thats all u got for me to suck on, leather, mebbe u should.
< jenouflex> something hot? u sure u can handle it?
< leathermartini> o, think your a woman now, jeno?  
< leathermartini> little girl’s shouldnt make promises they cant keep.
< b_lover> i can handle anything u got jeno.
< jenouflex> well see tonite b wont we?
< jenoufles> o shit, g2g.  see u tonite.
* jenouflex (jenouflex@a-woman-scorned.is.yourhell.net) Quit (Connection reset by peer)

Jen powered off the computer without bothering to shut it down, inwardly wincing at the abruptly-terminated hum of the processor fan as she grabbed a random book from her bag and flipped it open in front of her, dropping onto her bed. So much for cracking that bank database. I’m going to have to start over. “No, Mom, I’m not on the friggin’ computer again.” Stupid piece of shit, hardly worth having a processor fan on it. What the fuck age does she think we live in? “I’m doing my homework.” “Don’t swear, Jennifer,” came her grandmother’s sweet, perfectly modulated voice in response. “It’s not becoming of a lady.” "I'm not swearing, Grandma!" There was a mumble from downstairs, probably her mother responding, and then the sharper sound of her grandmother’s unintelligible answer. Well, fuck. If she wasn’t going to come upstairs and check, I could’ve— Her thoughts were cut short as her mother did indeed poke her head in through the door. “Jenny, your grandmother’s only going to be here for a few days. Won’t you at least come downstairs and do your homework? Be social, dear. Humour her.” “Humour her? Mom, she’s a fu-” Jen broke off. “She’s a freakin’ relic! What does she think this is, eighteen-hundred?” The protest, more for the sake of appearances than anything, was made as she gathered up her bag and her books. “All she’s going to do is lecture me on how I look and how I should take my earrings out and wear dresses and talk like some sort of—” “—of decent human being, instead of whining like a spoiled girl?” Her mother shook her head, the wooden beads at the ends of her braids clicking together, sounding disturbingly like a snakes’ rattle. “I wish you would take your piercings out; it’s not good for your chi to have metal stuck every which way in your body. No wonder you’re unstable.” One beringed hand waved Jen toward the stairs. I’m not fucking unstable. You are, you pothead freak. How come I wound up at the bottom of the reject mother bin? “I’m not unstable. I’m moody. I’m a freakin’ teenager.” Jen descended the stairs at a noisy clunk, making sure each fall of her combat boots hit the squeakiest part of the boards. She could hear her grandmother’s lecture begin even before she made it to the front room. The sitting room. “Madeline, I don’t know where I went wrong with you, but it’s clear I failed to teach you even the most basic responsibilities of motherhood. Letting poor Jennifer run around like a hoyden, dressed in such a scandalous fashion. And those metal things all over her body…” “They’re called studs, Grandma.” Jen cut in. Amalthea shuddered. “Such a tasteless word. They use that for breeding horses, you know, not for things that a young lady should be wearing. And where did you find those shoes? Didn’t your mother teach you anything?” Jen flopped into the couch, dropped her booted feet on the armrest, and pulled her math book out of her bookbag. She taught me how to smoke pot and drop acid, neither of which has ever done me any good. I don’t see why she thinks her mind is so fucking liberated. “I like my boots, Grandma. They’re comfortable and functional.” And that said, she opened a notebook and began doing her homework in earnest, blocking out the sound of her grandmother’s continuing soliloquy with the soothing regularity of calculus. Eleven. Do the trains run that late? Mom’ll be sure to wake up if I take the car. Fuck, how do I get from Greenwich village to Catacombs? And what am I going to wear?

I'm such a slacker.

I mean to write more. I've just been busy shopping and working on backstory for my newest character; soon to be chronicled in . I have doctor stories to tell, O Best Beloved. And I'll tell them tomorrow, when I get home. Promise. Really, I will. For now, I'm going to sleep, content in my new end-table, my pretty cubes, and my giant box of notebooks. Yay! : Fat pad sign is when the posterior fat pad is visible on radiograph. It means there's fluid (usually blood) building up in the joint, often indicating an occult fracture. A good example can be seen here. Nice job, girl :)

Just for you:

I meant it, Lily bright. No matter what, without question or hesitation, always. You can hold on to that.

Where to begin...

Business first: Welcome who apparently discovered that I'd randomly added him via the wonderful magic of clicking on the lj-user tag and added me back. Hope it suits your standards. :) Spam next: Saturday morning, Quinby and company arrived around 9 AM. Welcomes were exchanged. Quin called her parents as agreed, which could have gone better but also could have gone worse. Then, naps were taken by some. I couldn't sleep; my cough was too bad for me to do much of anything. So I gathered up a few people and we went to Sam's Club. Then we came home with meat and good stuff. Then we got everyone together to go to Wal-Mart and then to see Pirates of the Caribbean, either the 4:10 or the 7:20 showing. Mom called while we were making plans to do this. She said she and Tom might want to go along; but would we like to come over for dinner? Mom, there are eight or nine of us. We'll have sloppy joes! Well, who are we to turn down a meal? So we went to Wal-Mart and realised we were never going to make the matinee showing, so we called to tell her we'd be over before the 7:20 movie to have dinner. I love my mom. We walked in the door, and she handed us jobs to do to help her get ready for school. Labelling popsicle sticks, sharpening pencils, loving the cat...it was a good time for all. And then we went over to Jefferson Pointe at about 6:45. The line for the theatre was all the freakin' way down the stairs and back to the Red Star. There was no way we were going to make the ticket counter before 7:20, let alone get into the movie. So we had a brilliant idea, and called home to Dad. Can you order our tickets online for us? He tried, but Pirates was sold out. *pout*. We random-mobbed over to the Verizon store and Barnes and Noble's, bummed around for a while, and Lily was fiending for Blockbuster so we went there after going home. They watched movies, I played Alice (yay for Sam's Club $10 games), and Angel and Quin and I went to bed around midnight, while everyone else watched Equilibrium. Got up in the morning and took Quin to church. The youth played choirchimes for the offertory, my directing, and I was so incredibly proud of them. They sounded great. Put the adult chimers to shame, that's for certain. I need to get them cards for congratulations. Came home, woke everyone up, made sandwiches and took a handful of us to the mall, where we spent far too much money buying new anime and Disney DVD's. Far too much money. Ah, well. We have it to spend, briefly. And that feels good. We've finally paid off the debt accumulated when we were saving up to buy the house - when we needed as much cash on hand as humanly possible. We bought our tickets in advance, online, this time, and went out to see Pirates matinee at 4:10 on Sunday. Much enjoyment was had, much enthrallment over Johnny Depp's swishiness. It was sold out again. Good thing we advanced. The ticket machine ran out of tickets halfway through spitting them out, and the guy behind the counter had to refill it. That was sort of cool. Then we came home. The Chicago group left for Chicago. Quin and I went shopping for stroganoff supplies. We came home and made stroganoff with steamed vegetables. Well, sort of. The steamed carrots came out very nice. The steamed green beans...well...I have a basket steamer. It goes in a pot, you put water in the bottom of the pot, and you steam. I did quite well with the putting the basket in the pot and putting the beans (Quinby learned to snap beans) in the basket. It was the putting enough water in the pot bit that I sort of failed on. So they sort of burned. But not enough that they weren't repaired by the addition of a little salt and butter. We watched The Last Unicorn, some really bad quasi-medieval porn, and a lot of anime music videos. We had a chance to talk, some people and I, a little. And it was good. Went to bed around one or two, something like that, made it up in time to go to work this morning. My new paediatrics clerkship: As far as the doctor's office went today, Drs D&D are positively marvellous. I had a wonderful time, with mini-lectures between every patient it seemed. I learned about neonatal jaundice, about well child checks, about occult fractures of the elbow (quick quiz, : what is a fat pad sign?), and about the importance of reading charts (oh, you mean he was previously suspected of GERD but not medicated?). I saw a six-year-old gymnast do one-handed cartwheels without taking her other thumb out of her mouth. I played with six-day-old twins who were now only yellow down to about the chest, did yearly physicals and poked at a four-year-old whose only words were "thank you" after she got the grape-flavoured tongue depressor. She was interesting. I talked to a boy who's entering sixth grade but looks like fourth, who said very little and was most certainly unnervingly withdrawn. That might be because he was the second-oldest of seven children. It might be because of a complicated family situation. It was most interesting, however, to watch his twin sisters demand that I examine them as well. Three pairs of ears, three mouths and throats, three hearts, three sets of lungs, three scoliosis checks. It was most intriguing. Got home, picked Quinby up, and went to Curves. It was weigh-day. And every measurement she took she made good noises. Since last month, I've lost four pounds and two point five inches. The inches - those can be attributed to any number of things. But the pounds...that's halfway back to what I weighed when I started. I can do that; I can keep doing that. One pound a week. Not so bad. And the personal: Got a page, and a call tonight. It's her story to tell and I'll let her tell it when it's time, but needs your prayers and your good thoughts. I finished watching Patch Adams now, finally, because I've been told too many times to count that I should watch it. The most recently being tonight, after I told my Chavaling that "Part of being a doctor is treating all of the patient, not just the disease present." Apparently, as I learned not too long after that, it's almost a direct quote from the movie. There's a spoiler here in my thoughts; I'll maybe go into it more later. It's late now, and I want to let Patch Adams percolate for a while. I'm not that unorthodox; I neither need to be nor have the temperament to be. But it hit close to home...very close. This is a long post, perilously close to rambling at this point. Perilously close, because it's late and my mind is full of a jumble of things. I'm reminded of something I wrote a while ago, something I keep thinking I should send in to the MS-JAMA for their creative writing, and I think I'll close with that. It's behind the second cut, O Best Beloved, an old piece of poetry because I have yet to find words in my heart that better express my thoughts than those I wrote not long after my first anatomy lab:

There is a press and pace of words,
     ebb and flow.
         We close our eyes to see.
Hands that pass hesitant and slow
  hold scalpels poised,
     flesh like any other
           until now.

What mystic power does the mind possess?
   Clad in white, solemn, young
         and ready to learn.
  We poise our pens and scalpels
                  and seek out healing
in the still equilibria
       of death.

   There is a press
  and pace of words
            and mortal minds
      that strive to see.
We are flesh, fallible,
          like any other,
       even now.
     NsB 04-09-2001
          "white coat"

And the really personal: I hear once in a while, O Best Beloved, that what I say touches you. I hope it does. I hope so fervently that it does. Because if I didn't mean it to touch you, make you laugh and cry and feel a little bit of what I feel, I wouldn't leave these entries public. I wouldn't stop during the day and look at a patient and think to myself "you have something to teach people, more than just me," and make a little note in my notebook. Sometimes, it's just an initial, and a symptom or a quote. Sometimes it's a sentence or two. But it makes everything so much more real, to know that I'm not the only one experiencing it. So thank you for listening, for putting up with my long-winded soliloquies, and for being part of me and what I'm learning and what I'm doing. Because we really are all doctors, in a way, and all patients. And that really does mean something great.

Oky, she's here :)

For everyone who was concerned: Quinby and company just arrived.

That said, I'm going to bed.

What a tangled web we weave...

The phone rang this evening as I was putting the lasagna, Angel's surprise dinner, together. Quin's parents called. First-off, I didn't know it was her parents calling and they called from a caller-ID blocked number. I gave them the run-around about neither myself nor Angel being here, thinking that it was an unusually persistent solicitor calling, until her father said "this is long distance, and it's very important that I speak to them." I passed the phone to Angel. He was on it for the next hour and twenty minutes. Must be sparing with our cell phone minutes for the rest of the month; those weren't nights and weekends minutes. He talked some but listened more. Anyone who knows Angel knows that it's almost impossible to dislike him. There's something about him that inspires trust and confidence. And wonder of wonders, it seemed eventually to work on Quin's parents. We're going to be all right. RP went pretty well; everyone seemed to be part of a plot tonight to get tipsy to drunk. Me, I had two small glasses of cherry brandy and decided that water and sudafed were better for my cough. And then threw monsters at them until we were all tired of battle. It was entertaining, happily so. Especially once they figured out they could take them. Now sitting up, killing the time until sometime between 6 and 7 AM when Zia and company are planning to arrive. Lily's not feeling well, there's the usual banter to see if anyone'll wind up naked. Me, for once, I'm wielding my self-promoted self-control and mostly staying out of it. Mostly because I have a vested interest in staying out of it: my self-respect. And that's enough about me for now; it's very late and I've been up for a very long time. I'm sober, yes. Quite sober, which is what keeps me from devolving into introspective ramblings that reveal far too much about the complicated situation I find myself in. Drinking water like a fiend to maintain my ability to breathe. Seeking out a therapeutic dose of sudafed. Watching Wing Commander and Lily eating crackers. I think, maybe, I need to take a nap.

Tonight's quotes: 15 August 2003

• Me: I leave you to begin your stalking toward the ruins. Phloxin and Angel: We stalk. Stalk stalk stalk.
• Angel: We're stalking. We stalk in style.
• Ryken: No fish porn.
• Angel: Whereas my god just tells me to suck it up... Me: No, actually, Selanie's the one sucking it up. Lily: A lot.
• Phloxin: I pick it. Angel: I choose you... Phloxin: I choose you, pickatchu!
• Ryken: Why bother with finding the key when you can just unhinge the door?
• Phloxin (studying her character sheet): Where's my Search? Angel: I don't know. Are they alphabetical? Phloxin: Yes. Shut up.
• Lily (mournfully): Ohhh, I'm somebody's bitch!
• Phloxin: I Ghost Sound some porn music!
• Me: It sounds like it might be the wizard. Angel (a la "Existential Blues"): The Wizard? Phloxin (singing): We're off to slay the wizard...
• Ryken: What's on the other side of the door? Angel (indicating Lily): Her character, getting dominated, I think. Ryken: I hope she's wearing leather.
• Me: Any time you put your penis in someone's mouth, I think you're relinquishing control to them.
• Angel (upon bursting in on the sorceror getting a blowjob): Do we get a surprise round? Ryken: Hell yeah!
• James: I only did one point of damage. Phloxin: You bruised a pubic hair!
• Me: Everyone take note: Cure moderate wounds smells like banana cream pie.
• Angel (to Selanie, currently naked): Are you cold? Ryken: You could probably tell.
• Ryken: Apparently, also the mute paladin.
• Me: When did this become porno night? Ryken: You started it.
• Ryken (on having the party described to him): So it's a wacked-out wet dream. Angel: Yeah, you have twins, a midget, and the hot chick. James: Where does the midget fit in? Ryken: I said wacked-out.
• Phloxin: We're human. Of course our boobs are bigger.
• Me: Those aren't squirrels. Those are mobile genital warts.
• Phloxin: I make my brother scream all the time.
• Angel: It's that whole gangpile thing. Me: Dog pile. Gang bang.
• Me: There's a puppy-dog range and there's a lesbian range. Lily: Yeah, somewhere in between there. Angel: So she's not grabbing my ass... Phloxin: But she's not sniffing it, either.
• Angel: Is there a convenient campsite that we can avoid?
• Me: Is anybody undead?
• Ryken: Does anything look threatening? The fork skittering across the floor...? Me: Floating in midair, actually. Ryken: Threateningly? Me: Prongs first.
• Ryken: Normally you don't fight these, they're neutral. Me: Yes, but now it's neutral cranky.
• Ryken: You know, I'd care but this isn't my campaign.
• Me: There's a branch off to the left. Lily: Is there a door? Me: No. Lily: Yay!
• Angel: Four hit points? Phloxin: Four. Angel (making the ghetto sign): She's about to step in front of you. And represent.
• Ryken: I am not an XP bonus!
• Angel: Okay, from now on we don't turn left.
• Me: The ghoul attacking Phloxin... Phloxin: I thought I dropped that one. Me: Oh, yeah. Lies there dead.
• Me: You may horf if you choose. Phloxin: I do not choose.
• Lily: You know what? If you jump into the fireball, you die. So don't do it.
• Ryken: I was like...what's this hard object under my hand? Jefe: Randomly beat...fondle...ehh, whatever.
• Ryken: Actually, Sailor Moon wrapped in chains might be cool.
• Ryken: All right, I need a hose and a golf ball.

Chop-chop!

Got up about 10 or 10:30. Went to work. The study has now been rearranged to make room for the boxes extracted from the closet in the guestroom that will now be Quinby's. I feel accomplished. Got hold of James. There is now a futon in the guestroom that will be Quinby's, rather than an inflatable air mattress. She has most of the closet, two plastic drawer thingers, a stereo, a futon, and a lamp. I think that'll do. Went shopping. Bought food. Can now feed people, including roleplayers tonight, as am making special surprise dinner. I think it's probably time to get the basics done for that, so I can put it together quickly. I've also got a long list of things to populate my dungeon with, although I have yet to populate it. That comes next. Am looking forward to this weekend, with the house full of people, despite having quite a bit of undone housework. That would mean it's time to stop playing on LJ and get back to work.

Stream-of-consciousness

Plans changed for this afternoon. Apparently my Lily was going to go down and pick up Ryk before hitting the mall with me or something. I'm not quite sure how things were going to go - I only knew she was going to go get him when I paged him asking if he'd seen her, at 1:30, and he said she was going to go take a shower and get him. Discussion ensued. Much discussion. Plans shifted - I was going to go with her to get him, and we'd go to the mall after. At a little before 3, she paged me to tell me she had to talk to Jeff a bit and finish getting ready, that it might be a little bit, but she'd be over to rescue me from the interminable boredom in which I'd spent the day, since I didn't want to go anywhere - hoping that she'd be over before the 2 or 3 at which I said we'd meet for the mall. It's now 5 PM. My original plans had been to be done shopping and heading home sometime in the next hour, and then to make dinner. My revised plans had us heading to the mall sometime in the next hour, so as not to be going at 8 PM again. Nobody's heard from her since a little before 3. Ryk says he called and left a message; I've been avoiding it, because I feel all stalker-ly leaving repeated messages on the machine. Half of me is frustrated and annoyed because all the plans I'd made for the day got switched around and changed, because if I hadn't asked Asmo she would've just gone down to get him and been an hour or more late for our shopping date. The other half of me is worried sick about her, and I'm not far from getting my car and going down to her and Jeff's apartment to make sure she's still there talking to him, and not lying bleeding in the road somewhere. I keep telling myself I should be used to her constant lateness by now, that it's nothing personal that she always seems to be late or cancel or just outright miss plans with me. I keep telling myself that there's not much I could have done today besides run a few errands, that it's not like I'm terribly inconvenienced. But the fact remains that I've been waiting on her pleasure for the last three hours, and I don't know how much longer I'm going to continue to wait without any word at all from her, and I'm frustrated and worried.

A chance to clear my mind...

1:30 PM. Haven't seen my Lily online all day to find out when she's planning on meeting up. On a whim, I page Asmo, ask if he knows where she is. She took a shower, to get ready to come get me, he says. Oh. Wouldn't that've been nice to know? It takes a few long - very long - moments to fight down the turbulent emotions that run through me. Betrayal, jealousy, frustration... You're not being careful, Lily bright. At least not as far as I can tell. You're not being careful, and you're going to get hurt, and it's going to break my heart when you do, because you're not the only one who's going to get hurt. I would've gone with you to get him, but it seems like you're playing it like I do with you, like I know I shouldn't, like I'm trying so hard not to. Taking chances you shouldn't. I would've liked to know that you were going down, at the very least. It would've been nice. I've been dying for a chance to see you, talk to you, since you won't talk unless it's face to face. I want to know what's going on from something better than secondhand for once, feel like half the friend you tell me I am. Seems like every time we make plans, something else comes up. And sometimes I even find out about it before it comes up. I can deal with being second or third or last; I just have to stop expecting any more. And I'm writing this in the heat of the moment, so I'm prone to hyperbole, and I don't think I'll even post this so you can read it.

A curious scheme...

I'm sure you've all heard about the MSBlaster worm by now. I'm sure you've all heard people complaining because the patch has been out for almost a month and people should've applied it by now. Did you hear that Microsoft never released a patch for NT 4.0, because they no longer support it? Anyone out there running NT 4.0, while vulnerable, has no recourse but to upgrade or find a different system. I wonder if that's a very large population...or whether that population's DoS against windowsupdate.com will affect Microsoft. Curious. In case you need the info on how to remove MSBlaster: You can find it at Symantec's webpage. Think I'm done spamming now.

Rowr.

Kenshin Himura, the deep eyed wanderer from Ruroni Kenshin is your ideal man. He is very sensitive and very kind. A fierce sense of protectiveness and honor defines him, but at times his past comes back to haunt him. Sadly our favorite swordsman's eligibility is being threatened by Karou, the assistant master of the Kame Kashjin style of swordplay. Aaah! Kawaii! Who is your ideal anime guy? brought to you by Quizilla Welcome to , who complimented my flame and warranted a reading of her journal, which I then found to be enlightening and interesting and not a bit annoying; and to , who suckered me in with the auld "friends-only" trick. I've decided to go shopping with my Lily this afternoon, assuming she doesn't sleep in, plead another headache, or get distracted and show up so late as to make going shopping a pointless endeavour. I need more khakis, preferably ones that won't wrinkle, and maybe another couple pairs of not-all-cotton pants. I also need some time with her, time to talk and time to listen. Why not use my unexpected boon of days off to maybe connect with a friend or two, instead of hearing everything secondhand from my husband? I'm a little envious of his gifts sometimes, more than a little. I wish I felt like I could do half as much good as he does. It's never enough for me to be able to mend the physical; I want to heal the mental too. Showered, cleaned the bathroom counters, and went through all my memories and history, digging the poems out of them. There aren't as many as I'd like, and none for such a very long time now. I comfort myself by knowing that there's plenty of prose generated in that time, and that despite my overwhelming bitchiness in the last two years, I did come up with some stuff. Am closing Inchworm as of the beginning of this school year, trying to decide what to call the next volume of poetry. Which means, eventually, that I'll turn over bound copies of it to the people who want them. (And if you want one, tell me. I'll send you one.) Got a call back from the good doctors D&D. I'll come in on Monday, as I begged illness to get tomorrow off. Casual dress, no white coat, see you at nine. Sounds good. And for now, I think I'll put some clothes on, get some food, and wait for my Lily to appear again. Maybe sleep some more. I still feel tired.

Inspiration and perspiration: Paper moon

Angel woke me from a dream when he left this morning. This is all I can remember of it. I killed someone today, Mama. I didn't mean to, but I did, and she died. I'd been carrying her since the days in the hospital, since the last time I got to see you, before Jake and Laura took me away to live in this trailer-park nowhere in the middle of the desert, before I had to tell people that I was living with my stepdad and his girlfriend. I made her up, made up an aunt who wanted me and loved me, who wouldn't beat me or scream at me. I made her up and wrote her down, everything about her, on an imaginary street in an imaginary city, in the grand old state of California, because I remember I used to love it when we lived there. And I killed her today, Mama. I lost my grip on her when Jake grabbed my arm and smacked my face for talking to a boy, and I ran off to hide until I knew he wouldn't kill me. I was sitting in a tree, looking at the paper, and I lost her. She blew out of my hands and into the river, and she drowned. The ink melted off of her name, and her address, and the paper swirled around and soaked through and went under, before I could do anything at all. And I don't remember any more, Mama. I don't remember who she was or where she lived, and all I can see when I think of her is that muddy river pulling her under, taking her apart. She was the only friend I had, Mama. Jake says I'm too good for the other kids here, so he won't let me talk to them, but they dress me up like all of them, so the good girls, the real girls, the ones with a future like I used to have, they don't talk to me either. And now I killed my friend. What am I going to do, Mama? Why didn't you take me with you when you died? Now I think I'm going to get a little more sleep.

You Are: THE PERFECT PENIS

If You Were A Penis, What Kind Would You Be?
brought to you by Quizilla Hurrah. This probably says something I don't want to consider.

Random, extremely random.

Random LJ surf got me this article. I just stared at it in total shock. I didn't know what else to do.Tell me it's not real. And I know it is.

F A M E by spazyspag
Name:
Youre famous for:	Having every girl in the world worship you
You get famous:	January 26, 2075
You make $$ per/year:	$757,419,350,722,333
Do people like you?	You're okay.
Dead/Alive:	Alive, but not for long
Created with quill18's MemeGen!

I can almost tell you what certain persons are going to say about that... Took Angel to the doctor for his headaches. Now he has Zomig, and nasal sprays, and a migraine diagnosis. And he's feeling better. I should get my diagnosis sometime. Or I could just wait until the Benadryl-Aleve combination stops working. So far, it's been pretty effective. Am currently moderately annoyed with the poster of this sterling piece. If one intends to correct misconceptions, one should check one's facts. My response can be found here. Please note, Atkins dieters: This isn't about whether cutting out carbs and eating a high-protein, high-fat diet will help you lose weight. That's a topic for another day, and for some people it works. There is sound reasoning behind many of the conjectures the Atkins diet is based on. There are also some metabolic questions that are called to mind, most notably by nephrologists. This is just about making statements that are out-and-out incorrect. Annoys the hell out of me.

Well.

You are yaoi! Avoided by approximately 50% of Japan and adored by the rest, you represent cultural irony at its greatest. You tend to have people you're not interested in fall in love with you. Which bizarre Japanese phenomena are you? brought to you by Quizilla I suppose, since yuri wasn't an option... Woke up at 11 or so this morning, to find that the Student Loan Fairy had come in the night. Quickly disbursed funds to my creditors, reducing our total debt by a significant amount. I need to fill out and return my St. Francis application, hoping that they still have room in their Family Practise Externship. It'd be just a little extra money, a couple hundred a month to spend on entertainment, gas, and toys, and the stuff I'd learn would be invaluable! Have not eaten today; need to get blood drawn for lipid profile and fasting glucose. I suppose I should do that. Will return later, to pass the day in rest - since the good doctors D&D haven't called me back yet. I needed at least one day off anyway. Starting to feel a little better.

A new meme.

Closest 50 non-Friends for ayradyss:

1: elevennoone, 2: pennyarcaderss, 3: babysis, 4: wrath_of_isis, 5: bioclaire, 6: avidly, 7: boredamazon, 8: kinggremlin, 9: brawi, 10: minsies, 11: sapphire44, 12: shroudedhope, 13: igz00, 14: vasago00, 15: cyrstiall, 16: arcticangel, 17: autarkys, 18: dievalkyrie, 19: kynwal, 20: realitydefiler, 21: opticsdoug, 22: unicorni03, 23: sluggy_feed, 24: ibrad, 25: nigel_fairchild, 26: nilli, 27: chubbyartchicks, 28: denorae, 29: madonnajunkie, 30: themann00, 31: tala42, 32: karlean7, 33: ladypimpernel, 34: ikickass, 35: lunaesia, 36: thescarletwoman, 37: chia_rhino, 38: eddiepotato, 39: ilyeana, 40: peloria, 41: ruben_shay, 42: apod, 43: garfield_comic, 44: 3borg, 45: bad_driving, 46: angeloftheblack, 47: grammar_whores, 48: kymster, 49: tormentula, 50: ladydiana Courtesy of a walk through random LJ's, the meme can be found here. A few of these LJ's were intriguing, so I added them. A fair handful refused to load. Maybe I'll try again later. Angel came home. made Velveeta and elbow noodles, gave me some more meds. Am starting to feel a little better, O Best Beloved. This is a Good Thing. I even had second helpings. And some peppermint tea.