Desert Lotus

Still here

2009-07-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

On Friday night I went to see Coldplay. It was an amazing concert, even if I was sitting way at the back. I especially loved the giant yellow balls that bounced everywhere during, "yellow" and the tons of butterfly confetti that was dropped at the finale. Thing is... it's weird going to a concert by yourself. I was ok with it for about an hour, but when all these lovely young couples on their blankets out on the lawn started making out and holding hands and singing together, I got all lonely. Bastards. Plus I accidently asked some 13 year old to watch my beer for me. I swear she looked 30, but when she was really excited to hold it I started to feel uneasy Of course, when I returned from the bathroom it was gone - as was she. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Is it so wrong to just want somebody to hold hands with at Coldplay?

Well, lesson learned. If you're going to a concert by yourself, make sure it's not some mellowdramatic love-song playing Indie band. Next time I should go to Metallica or something.

Otherwise life has been pretty good. I went to a BBQ with my fellow interns and we invented a new game called, "Rackysack" - it's where you try to toss around a hackysack using badminton rackets. One of the rules is you must always have a full beer in your hand.

I'm really excited because this week Ford and his buddy Ryan are coming to visit. We're going to go up to Seattle and then come back down to Portland to see the Decemberists (MY FAVES!!). I miss Ford tons, I hope he likes it here and wants to stay.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day of work. The clinic was fine last week except a nurse accused me of discriminating against gays because I wanted to have a chaperone during a pap smear on a gay female patient. Needless to say I was crushed. Discrimination?! Seriously? I was just covering my ass and now I'm accused of being a gay-hater. Ugh. I just don't understand sometimes. I hope this week is better. Although I'm dreading having to speak to the nurse. I'm not used to being a "boss" and I fear I'm no good at speaking diplomatically on the fly. Damn my occasionally hot Irish temper.

Ok, well - I'd best be off to bed. I'm re-reading Harry Potter 6 in anticipation of the movie release this week. It is, by far, my favorite Potter book anyway.

You all should check in with me. I miss you guys. Update me on your lives.

Cheers,
Me

To my homies

2009-06-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post. Started "actual" work on Monday and it was most tiring. I had several lab eff ups (cause apparently I don't know how to enter some things correctly in the computer) and some interesting patients. Today I was on sports medicine all day and I got to do a lot of poking and prodding of knees/ankles/elbows. Not my cup of tea but I'm learning and that's the important part.

Another Timbers soccer game tomorrow - this time we're playing Seattle (known lovingly round these parts as "Shittle") and it's gonna be a barn burner.

Kind of lonely around here. Good thing I work most of the day. Although I think I might soon be inheriting my grandmother's cat since she had to go into a nursing home. That will be interesting - considering the cat has never even seen the inside of a car and it lives in BFE Nevada.

Anyway, must be on my way. Bed time is now 10:30 for this poor sleepyhead.

"You've travelled very far... just to see if I'll come around"

2009-06-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

Ahhh my beast of a bicycle. I spent all day today making it into a "commuter hybrid" - although I didn't have enough parts to add the piece de resistance... my new baskets. Anyway I had to go to the bike shop 3 times - the first time I dropped $175 on new tires, tubes, fenders, and a basket. The next time I went back to exchange the tubes because the valve wouldn't fit through the hole in my wheel. Then the next time I went back to buy another tube because I punctured my new one with a screwdriver. It's really fucking hard to take the old tires off and put new ones on. I thought this would be a 1 hour job - I had other great plans to go for a drive to the Gorge today - but that's ok I had a good time working with my hands.

Anyway now I'm ready to be a commuter biker. New wider tires, anti-rain gear, and still speedy as ever. I love my bike. If I ride to work 30 times they'll pay me $50. Awesome!

My weekend was otherwise uneventful - I went to see "Up" in 3D yesterday, which was really good. Everybody else said it was sad but I found it refreshing. Last Friday I went to a Timbers soccer game, which was a riot! They have actual soccer hooligans here! Plus their mascot is this lumberjack (an ACTUAL lumberjack) who carries around a chainsaw and cuts a tree stump every time we score. The best part was singing our fight song (to the tune of "we're not gonna take it") = "We're the Timbers Army, Hey! The Green and White Army! We're the Timbers Army, who are yooooouuu?!" So fun. We won 5-1. Bring on the Sounders - Seattle is going down!

This is the last week of orientation - I have to take Pediatric Advanced Life Support and do a couple of faculty meetings and then I should be good to go... yeah, right.

Peace out,
Jeimeken

Nothing worth keeping comes easy

2009-06-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

I'm getting jacked around by my mortgage broker and it's really making me upset. I mean, I've been planning on buying this condo since the first week of March and still they can't give me a direct answer on whether my loan will go thru or not. I'm so damn frustrated! I mean, statistically, lending to a doctor is THE SAFEST loan a company could make, and yet nobody wants to give me money because of my student loan debt. It's so fucking annoying to work my ass off for so many years, delay my earning potential, and have to work 80 hours a week for the next 3 years yet they think I'm not trustworthy enough? Fuck them. If I have to move in the middle of my intern year I'm not going to be a very happy puppy.

Went to the pub with my fellow residents tonight, they're a really fun group. I'm also very pleased with all the single good looking men and the abundance of microbrews here. I could very well be in the best place I could be at this particular time of my life. I think I made a good decision coming here.

Today a cruise ship parked downtown on the Willamette river. It was pretty cool - I didn't know they could get this far downriver. It's a "residential" cruise ship, apparently you can live permanently on one of those things. AWESOME! I'd like to reiterate that if I wasn't a doctor, I would have been a cruise ship captain.

Well I'd best be off to bed. Tomorrow I'm taking a class on how to stick air hoses down newborns throats and stick catheters into their umbilical cords.

Ok, Fine

2009-06-07T21:00:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here at a coffee shop in Portland and I'm pretty much desperate for some news. I was sans internet for 3 days and it nearly killed me. I'm all by myself now, my Dad, stepmom, and brother left this afternoon. What a miserable time I had with my stepmother - she is so controlling! THIS IS MY HOUSE, MY TOWN, and the only reason I let you come along was because my father made me... yarg! Seriously. Plus, my brother wanted to stay a couple extra days with me since, you know, he's going on a mission and isn't allowed to talk to me for 2 years - but no, Susan says she wants to go home. Beeyatch!

So yeah. Here I am. You know how sometimes you can't really envision something coming to pass until you pretty much get smacked in the head by it? That's me. These last few weeks have been so surreal I almost feel like perhaps it didn't actually happen... yet I still wake up here in rainy P-town in a quiet little condo on a busy little street. Alone again. God I hate the first few months of moving to a completely new place.

I wish I had some pictures to share but I've just been so completely busy/overwhelmed with shit to get accomplished that quite frankly I don't think I'm even capable of opening the box with my camera in it.

Money is really starting to worry me. Am I going to be able to afford a house and a car and internet and cable and gas and electric and insurance and food and a new DVD player? It's a lot harder paying for it on your own with nobody to split it with. I haven't even gotten a paycheck yet, and won't until July 3rd!

If Ford were here I think things would be significantly better. I'm keeping my chin up and exploring and everything, but we sort of got "back together" for the last few weeks I was in Reno... and now it's over again. I think I really know how to twist a knife in my heart.

Alrighty boys and girls. I don't actually get in-home interwebs for at least 2 weeks, but I do promise pictures. I also promise updates. I didn't mean to threaten to take away my blog, I think I'm going to require it as a crutch still.

Peace out

That's Doctor Evil to you...

2009-05-19T10:10:00.000-07:00

Hee, I love that Dr. Evil quote, "I didn't go to six years of evil medical school to be called Mister, thank you."

Yeah, so it's official. I'm a doctor. Or as Ben says, I now have a prefix and a suffix (er something) Doctor and "medicine woman" - thanks Bengina.

Anyway, graduation weekend was a blast! Thanks to all who made it super special... particularly the crew that stayed out and had to get a room at the CalNeva with me. Even though Ryan had those tourettes fits, it was still fucking amazing.

I wish I had some better pictures - it was a week of too much ethanol, too little sleep, and too much fun.

I have 8 more days left in Reno. I've made amazing friends and done amazing things and it all comes to a close very shortly. I wish I knew what to feel about it. I'm basically stoic. Ford and I grew much closer again over the past few weeks but he does not want to move up to Portland for me and I can't say I blame him after the shit I pulled. All my friends are scattering to to ends of the earth for residency, my mom will be left here on her own in Reno with her oxygen and our amazing kitties, and I will be in Portland attempting to help mankind in the only way I know how. As hard as I try to keep up my independent lifestyle and persona, I will be lonely again, and I hate that.

Anyway, as you may have noticed my posts have grown fewer and far between. I'm busy, and will continue to be so, and I've realized now that this medium actually prevents me from a social life because it gives you all easy access to my life with no reciprocation.. SO that said, don't be surprised if one of these days soon, you can no longer view this blog. I'm giving it up for more traditional ways of communication.

Thanks to you all, I couldn't have done it without you. I love you.

Go Team Beefy Meatie!!

2009-05-10T11:10:00.000-07:00

The Run Amuck at the Reno River Festival was so much fun! What do you get when you make people run 2.5 miles thru mud, hurdles, crabwalking, squirt guns, and all of that whilst in costume! Serious entertainment. Then you go and drink beer and sit by the river listening to music for the rest of the afternoon.

I ran with this guy I know from high school, Cameron. We dressed up like business men with crowns on and called ourselves the beefy meaties. We did really well! I think we came in top 30 to 40 out of 300+ teams. Go-go gadget legs!

I look so tough in my beard!

The start of the race, it was a clusterfuck.

Me rounding the first corner

Me near the end of the race. That dude behind me is John, a classmate of mine. That's right, I kicked his ass!

All in all a good weekend, methinks. River festival, ACS benefit dinner, garage sales, and I just bought a recliner for my new condo, which I *hope* sign on tomorrow. WOOT!.

It's graduation week babies, time to twist, shout, paint the town and get your panties in a bundle. AWESOMENESS!!!

Shipwrecked

2009-05-04T23:45:00.000-07:00

Ugh. Today, for the 3rd time in 4 years, I had to replace the tires on my car. WTF?! They always tell me it's because I didn't get my tires aligned, but shouldn't they do that every time I get new tires anyway?! Yarg. So now I'm stuck at my house whilst my car sits at the tire shop. Now, don't get me wrong, I could ride my bike somewhere (which is how I got home) BUT the wind is 70mph outside. I shit you not. I found the garbage can halfway down the block. Try pedaling against that, you can't even make it an inch.

So yeah, bored now. All this money flowing out and nothing coming in. It makes me very nervous. I'm putting another offer in on a condo - so at least I have that going for me. 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath, 2 story, cute. Hope I get it.

Graduation in just 10 days. Scary!! Everything is happening so fast and I feel almost hypomanic. I mean I feel like I have so much to do and so much I could do and I feel like I'm on top of the world. Maybe I'm bipolar... or maybe everything's just really exciting. Try being super amped up like this and being stuck at your house in a windstorm. Again, yarg.

My mom is really going to miss me. Every day she tells me that. Breaks your heart, I tells ya. It's almost like making her be an empty-nester for the second time in her life. I hope she comes to visit me a lot, but I don't know if she can because of her oxygen-wearing issues.

Well, I can't think of much more to say, except maybe that I hope my house doesn't blow away.

Don't You Mess Around With Me

2009-04-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

It was a great concert. I hope when we play our grad party, it's even more awesome.

Still haven't found a place to live. I can't decide really. It's either a small place somewhere cool or a big place farther out... but will people still come visit me if I only have one bedroom?

This week will be spent doing more paperwork, getting a new drivers license, finding furniture for portland, and drinking. Pas mal, eh?

Talk of the Town

2009-04-19T18:49:00.000-07:00

Baseball has come to Reno! So much fun! The Tucson Sidewinders (AAA team of the Diamondbacks) moved to Reno this year, after we built them a beautiful new ballpark. They're now called the Reno Aces, and I got a hat with a cool aces logo. We went to the game this afternoon and it was really great. Too many people, but that will die down after fans realize that there's 70 home games. Plus, it's right downtown, so it's in the heart of all these casinos/pubs - and that makes for an awesome evening.

Of course, Reno gets cool just as I'm about to leave. Gah.

Last week was a BLUR! OMG! Got back from Portland on Tuesday night and just kept on running. Friday was our talent show where LIVOR MORTIS brought down the house. We were so awesome! 10x better than when we first started. I hope somebody got video of it.

We're going to play at the graduation party too, but that will be our last concert until, like, 8 years from now, if ever. It has been the best stress outlet I've ever had, and it's coming to an end. Tragic.

Anyway, just put in my first offer on a condo this evening. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Peace out.

Yes We're Ready for a party, party

2009-04-15T23:14:00.000-07:00

Eesh, sorry it's been a while. I've been somehow extremely busy even though I only have to work 2 hours a day. It took me like 3 days to put together all my grad invites, and do tons of paperwork for OHSU. Then I've been practicing for the talent show on top of that, usually every night each week. THEN I've been partying like a rockstar, staying up too late Saturday night and nearly missing Easter Brunch and my flight to Portland on Sunday. YUP! That's right, I went to Portland. I picked out 2-3 condos that I liked, and we're going to start putting an offer in on one of them on Friday. CRAZY! Although I have to somehow come up with $10,000 to put down, which I don't have and my family seems to think they can't help. Should I be a prostitute for a few days?

Anyway, I got back to Reno on Tuesday night and immediately proceeded to go to pub trivia. Wednesday was spent doing paperwork and band practice again, and tomorrow will be spent doing more of the same... along with going to the DMV to renew my drivers license, which expires on my birthday.

I'm almost feeling too upbeat these days. I mean I went from dark black depression to bright pink aloofness in a matter of weeks. Maybe I'm bipolar or something. I think there's just so much excitement going on in my life that I can't help but be chipper. I'm starting a whole new gig and it's going to be great, but I just worry about what happens when the initial shock wears off.

Well, anywho, off to bed. Gotta get up early and go for a birthday run. 27 years old. Where do the years go? It seems like just yesterday I turned 21 and had a giant scorpion to drink at Contiki and ate half a krispy kreme doughnut and fell asleep. Now here I am, a month away from being an actual independent adult with a job and a mortgage and an extreme amount of responsibility. I might be prepared but it's sure as hell going to take a lot of getting used to.

"All I can say is that my life is pretty plain, I like watching the puddles gather rain"

2009-04-05T21:13:00.000-07:00

Back home in Reno and up to my eyeballs in paperwork. Seriously, getting my medical license and this job up in Portland is not an easy process. This week I have to find a notary public and a passport photo taking shop that will publish the date on the front of the photo. They want me to send in all this paperwork, but they didn't give me any stamps... WTF?

Whilst I was gone my mom decided to put in hardwood floors. I came home and it was all echo-ey and there's these big french doors leading into my room (with large windows). So much for privacy. Good thing I don't bring boys home or that could lead to some embarassing moments. The best thing about having hardwood floors is watching the cats play. They try to run but they slip and wind up falling on their faces... or even better they can't stop running and slide into walls/furniture. Never a dull moment around here.

My band has been practicing away for our talent show. Mark your calendars - april 17 in the evening up at the med school. We're trying to pack the auditorium so it basically turns into our own little rock show.

Still feeling weird about everything. I mean, I'm moving soon and should start planning ahead, but all I want to do is enjoy Reno and my last few months of freedom. I want to go play golf and go pub hopping and kick ass at pub trivia. I want to go up to the lake and I want to sleep in every day until 11am. I want to make amends with some peeps and start a fight with a few others. I want to run a marathon, bike 100 miles, and eat a big ole piece of joseph's cake for my birthday. I don't want to have to start a new life and I don't want all my amazing friends to go away... but at the same time I'm ready for a new adventure and a new outlook. I guess I'm just afraid of losing my support network.

I will try to get some video of the cats running on the new floors. It's seriously amusing. Maybe it's the next you-tube phenomenon.

"I still owe you for the hole in the floor, and the ghost in the hall"

2009-03-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

My Dad had to put my grandma in a nursing home yesterday. He's taken care of her every need for the past 2 years and now it's come to the point where he can't be there for her 24/7. She can't walk, she's got delirium, and she's ornery. She does guilt too... "I'm just going to sit here and die." She started a hunger strike and refuses to eat cafeteria food. I feel really bad for my Dad, he just doesn't know what to do anymore. Plus, this nursing home looks like it's straight out of a 1970's horror movie. Someday that could be me, checking my mom into a nursing home whilst she begs for me not to leave her. We've just lost our family units, our family values. Grandma no longer stays home with her kids and has people take care of her till she dies. Children move away from home and start their own families and never look back. There are so many old people in that nursing home with absolutely no family to visit them that it makes me depressed to even go in the place. What a nightmare.

Today I went and visited some patients in their homes, which was also depressing. These people out here have NO money to speak of. They live in these dismal little houses that the mines bought for them back in the 50's and 60's that are now tattered and look like shacks. They're dirty and fragile and should be bulldozed to the ground. The patients don't fare any better either. I saw a gentleman today who was taking care of his debilitated wife every waking moment of the day and they lived in such a shit hole and he spent all his money on a nice bed and equipment for his wife that they barely have enough to even eat. I mean, it amazes me that in a country like the United States honest hard working people end up like that. In ruins in a ghost town in the desert. Here Bill Gates is losing a gozillion dollars in the stock market and this poor couple just wants bread and peanut butter. Disgusting.

This whole buying a house thing is getting overbearing already. I don't think I have the balls to go through with it because they keep tacking on little extra things here and there and I don't even get my first pay check until July. I mean, how the hell am I supposed to come up with a down payment? There are NO JOBS, and apparently I have no skills. All I am is a $150,000 in-the-red over-educated naive white girl who still thinks the American dream is achievable and won't accept that the world is coming to an end anyway.

Geez I'm being a real downer tonight. I apologize. Like I've said previously, this blog thing is a way for me to vent. I'm not even sure if people still read it.

I need to go back to Reno. I need my cell phone to work, I need my bills and my mail, I need my kitties to cuddle with and I need my friends to cheer me up. God knows there's no cheerfulness in this dead town.

If I Ever Leave This World Alive...

2009-03-29T21:37:00.000-07:00

Quite a week last week stress wise. I got my info packet from OHSU - they wanted me to decide on a schedule, put down my preference of clinic and sign all these waivers,etc. My first day is June 10th - then I do orientation for 3 weeks, and then my first day in the hospital is June 28th. It's honestly hard to fathom that in 2 months I'll no longer be in school. I'll be working for a living. 18 years spent in school and now there's no more quizzes, papers, etc. There are still tests though. And lots of reading.

My week last week was strange because I kept questioning my doc's decisions on patient care. I guess that's how you know you actually have learned your shit, when you start telling the attending physician the latest in health care techniques.

My brother came to McGill for the weekend and hung out with my dad n me. It's his 19th birthday. He drives this brand new hummer around that his mom bought him and looks at himself in every reflective surface he can find. But he's still a good guy. The whole mormon thing gets to me sometimes, but maybe when he goes on his mission this summer it will give him a new outlook on things.

The week was also difficult because I'm just not able to shake this empty feeling I have. I need someone to hold me and talk to me and check up on me and make me feel loved. All week I dwelled upon Ford, and upon other men who have come and gone in my life. I'm just straight up lonely and it eats at me every day. My single friends keep dropping like flies in the sense that they've found themselves in serious committed relationships and now I have no one to discuss my misfortune with. I don't understand why I can't find a date to save my life and I can't keep the men who I love. I wish I could just say "oh well there's other fish in the sea" but I can't. It's not in my nature. I hate the fact that I'm so fucking calculated and every little setback feels like a minor tragedy.

Pics of me, Morgan, Dad:

2009-03-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

Today my attending brought the Charlies Angels Soundtrack to work, specifically to play "Baby Got Back" to the employees. I don't think she'd ever heard it before last week.

Also today I was given the option for lunch of a meatball sandwich or a bellpepper stuffed with meatballs. THEN for dinner my dad made me deep fried steak and tater tots. I think I'm going to have a heart attack.

Man it's lonely out here. Dad stays with grandma every night and I'm here by myself in this tiny bachelor pad in the middle of the desert. The hot water heater starts up and it scares me cause it sounds like somebody opening the front door. It would be better if I wasn't so close to the state prison.

I've been thinking about buying a house and it makes me really nervous. I mean, it's the 'right time to buy' with interest rates so low, but what if some day I can't make the payments? Eesh. I don't like all this responsibility. I want to move to a tiny village in Fiji and give medical advice and live in a hand made bungalow on the beach and trounce around nude wearing seashells and dance to drums and eat lots of omega 3 and have many well built and amorous boyfriends.

Wow I guess I'm just rambling on. I guess I'll go watch "The Recruit" and drink Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Bringing out my Inner Nevadan

2009-03-22T22:51:00.000-07:00

Whoa what a weekend I had. Match Day was a blast, the day after was a bust, and Saturday was spent getting some errands done. Then the 6 hour drive back to McGill, where I sit in my dad's mobile home watching one of the 3 TV stations he gets (from Salt Lake City, UT). Fun!

So here's some pictures I took a week ago, when my Dad took me out shooting and then to the local bar in McGill. It was pretty fun, actually. I like the slowed down pace out here, where you look forward to doing your laundry and going to the grocery store because really there's nothing else to do. Plus I like spending time with my Dad. Quite honestly we don't know each other very well at all, and it's nice to talk to him like an adult (though he's ALWAYS right). I feel bad for him because he's spent the last 2 years out here, away from his family in Reno, taking care of my Grandma who has Parkinsons. She's taken a turn for the worst in the last few weeks and I think I've got him talked in to putting her into a senior care center - because she can't ever be left alone anymore and she can no longer walk. I'm proud of Dad for keeping her at her home (that she's lived in her entire life) but there comes a time when one person can't care for someone like that by themselves, and that day has come.

I hope this week goes quickly and there aren't any surprises. Last week I admitted several patients by myself, made me feel like a real intern, but scared the bejeebus out of me at the same time. Plus we got our Graduation Invitations this week and there, in nice script, are the letters M.D. after my name. Made my heart race just thinking of the responsibility.

I'm thinking about starting a new blog again - preferably one not linked to my primary email account... so I'll let you guys know when that's up and running.

Bittersweet Symphony

2009-03-20T00:59:00.000-07:00

Match day. I'm pretty drunk. Just wanted you all to know I matched at OHSU in Portland. I had an amazing day but it was bittersweet because I always thought it was a day Ford and I would share together and I went and fucked all that up.

Pictures, etc to come by Monday.

Je t'aime and peace out,

Me

2009-03-12T23:11:00.000-07:00

Is all by herself but for the first time in a long time, she isn't lonely. Inner peace? Probably not. Overmedication? Indeed.

But seriously, besides how incredibly conservative redneck these people are, they're super nice. If I wasn't so damn antsy all the time, I could get used to a place like this.

More rural fun

2009-03-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

Today I met 3 families who live without electricity.

In the line at the grocery store, everybody was buying a box of doughnuts and steak. I was buying oatmeal, yogurt, and apples. I think they're on to me.

Lastly, my grandmother called the cops today on her cat, who apparently was trying to kill her. She kept telling the cat that if it didn't stop, she would inform the authorities... and so she did.

Know when to walk away, know when to run

2009-03-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

So yeah, here I am in McGill Nevada. It's about 11 miles north of Ely, which is about 350 miles directly East of Reno. 500 people live in McGill. 9,000 people live in Ely. I have internet, which is nice... but hardly any solace. I will post pictures soon and then you will see what I have gotten myself into.

So I've decided to post funny things that happen each day. Today was particularly eye-opening because it's my first day here.

#1
Me: "Hey, um, I was just wondering if there was a gym around here?"
Nurse: "Oh well, not much. You can go and collect garnets out by Ruth, but really were a copper mining town."

Uh, what? OOOOhhh. She thought I had said "gem" instead of "gym". Obviously she's never been to a gym nor is there any hope of finding one around these parts.

#2 My grandma is delusional. She's held this persistent belief that she's growing kitten 'embryos' in a can near the window, and that every so often another kitten hatches. She counted five new kittens last night. And two poodles.

#3 I went for a jog thru the desert (and a blizzard) today. I was all by myself on this long dirt road and I passed this coyote tail with vertebrae still attached to it. And I thought to myself... "self, what kind of an animal is big enough to rip apart a coyote?" and I ran twice as fast.

Pie in the Sky

2009-03-04T21:08:00.000-08:00

I got what was coming to me, I suppose. But so much for my heart, which over the past year has been ripped out of my chest, lit on fire, stomped on to put out the fire, put thru a paper shredder, pieced meticulously back together again with scotch tape, and sewn haphazardly back under my sternum. I don't think it will ever beat right again.

And to think that I did this to myself. What else do I have in store for me? It's not as if I wasn't already messed up enough, I had to go and add fuel to the fire.

It's always pipe dreams with me.

A Day In The Life - The Snookensen Wedding

2009-03-01T22:47:00.000-08:00

Cheryl Mortensen and Tyler Snook... the Snookensens :-)

Whirlwind trip to Denver went well, it was pretty much as I expected. Flew in Friday nite, drove thru the suburbs of Denver to "Aurora" and made my way to the rehearsal dinner. Drank too much at the hotel bar because there was a football coaches convention and there were an abundance of men to buy us free booze. My friend Kristin really knows how to work it too - it was quite impressive. Woke up the day of the wedding super hungover and also with sore aching muscles... yes that's right I came down with that damn nasty virus that everybody else has caught except me until now. So Saturday day was spent curled up in bed and also getting a pedicure. I was ready to go for the wedding nite though, and we danced our asses off until the DJs little fingers were bleeding. The wedding was a blast, I'm just sad I didn't do anything Colorado-ey, like ski or hike or whatever. Someday I will though.

Funny thing about weddings though, things just never seem to go as expected. Like how they didn't tell Cheryl that in addition to her wedding, they were also hosting a huge football convention full of meathead men. Or how they forgot that her Dad paid for an open bar and so they charged the wedding guests for about an hour until her Dad came in and realized what was going on... all those little things add up. What a project. Eesh.

So I'm off for a week before I head out to Ely, NV. I'm not sure what to do with myself really. I started cleaning my room tonight only to dwell on the fact that soon I will have to pick up and move everything again. So freaking tired of moving.

But for now I'll climb into my soft warm bed and listen to the rain against my window and drift off to sleep surrounded by furry little kitties.

I See You Baby, Shakin That Ass

2009-02-23T21:18:00.000-08:00

A lot of things have happened in the past 96 hours. On Friday I worked all day, ran to my friends house to make guacamole, dressed up like a Mexican and went to another friend's 30th birthday party. It was a ping-pong tournament and every team had to be from a different country... so my friend Alex and I picked Mexico and wore sombreros and soccer shorts. We made it to the 3rd round, but my partner sucked and I basically carried the team, and we eventually lost to Uzbekistan, who went on to beat Norway (which had an actual Norwegian on it) in the championship. Twas fun. The next morning at 7am I had to be at a scheduled c-section, and then I worked a 24 hour shift at the labor and delivery ward. Then I went and had breakfast with Ford, and fell asleep for 4 hours. Then band practice, then watching a basketball game, then a tremendously draining and emotionally torturous conversation with Ford regarding our feelings towards each other, and then another 5 hours of sleep. Then I worked all day today, thru the lunch hour, and finally made it home into my bed right now. I plan on going straight to sleep and not waking up until 745 tomorrow morning.

To Denver this weekend for Cherylton's wedding. Bought a hot little dress, dark purple covered by black lace. SIZE 6 BITCHES! YEAH!!!! I'm back to my pre-Europe weight but even more muscular. I love what working out does for my body but I hate how much of a dent it puts into my personal time. I can't wait to dance my ass off and shake my newly remodeled booty.

Exhaustion

2009-02-22T02:41:00.000-08:00

Seriously, I do not look good at 3am after not having slept much the day before and being on a 24 hour Labor and Delivery shift. The bags under my eyes could scare away a raccoon. I kind of like how crazy my hair looks though. It's got that sort of "don't fuck with this bitch" attitude. Anyway gotta go back to work. These babies aren't going to deliver themselves... oh wait yeah they are. I just catch them. I'm like a center fielder.

R-town

2009-02-18T00:14:00.000-08:00

Snowflakes tumbled through the sky like miniature paper airplanes. The sound of the river played upon my tympanic membrane but was dampened by the white sheet tucked neatly upon the chilled ground. I was one with her, the place of my birth. And she knew me, my efforts, my faults, my timeless plight. The city and I would grow old together, though one would far outlast the other. And I knew there was a chance I would never see her again. I knew that those summers spent at the source, those endless nights spent in sheer bliss, those agonizing days locked away in my study would never resurface. I understood that the utter simplicity of snow falling upon pines might never again be uttered in my presence. And now I go into the night alone and cold and without fear, for I have existed only in this time and in this beloved place. Even if I do not return, I am always here.