Care.

I saw a matinee yesterday, and the teenage girl in the seat next to me was drunk. It was only four in the afternoon, but she was completely trashed. She was loud and obnoxious, and I was annoyed, but at the same time, I felt for her. I wanted to apologize for whatever it was that drove her to voluntarily lose control so early on a Wednesday afternoon, to buy her a Gatorade and some simple carbohydrates and drive her home so she could get some sleep.

It's a pull I can't resist, taking care of people too impaired to do it for themselves. When I think about my four years in high school, I am unable to count the times I've driven for intoxicated friends, talked them calmingly through late-night phone calls, bought them food, made them drink water, or kept them from embarrassing themselves in front of others who would not be so understanding. I don't know why it's so deeply embedded in my personality to look out for these people--when a person chooses to drink or do drugs, they elect to lose conscious control of their actions. It's a choice, and the consequences are more than clear. The concept is selfish on paper, opting out of conscious action so someone else has to make sure you're all right, and I guess I should view it that way, but I've never been able to see it differently. When a friend is impaired, I am taken from my usual social indifference into a warm rush of instant familiarity--I feel secure and capable because I've handled the same situation countless times. I don't have to worry about appearances, try to impress anyone, or be anything other than me--someone whose help is needed and appreciated, if only for the duration of the night. The next morning, all my friends are left with are blurred memory watercolors accompanied by brief flashes of emotion, and my help is lost in the faded, incomplete picture.

The sad thing is, I really don't mind.

Duality.

I'm a natural optimist tempered by the realism of the rationale I create and maintain.
Some incomprehensible part of me is always building things up in my mind, embellishing my world through impossible, glittering lenses until my other half finds an angle from which to shatter the fantasy: a single shot through the middle of the head with the detached efficiency of a military execution.
Will I ever learn?

I guess I have to figure out which one is more me, the pastel panoramic with the dopamine aftertaste or the minimalist xeriscape's majestic wrecking ball.

Mirror image.

I think it's time to diagram my new personality.
College is a chance for me to become the person I want to be without having to allow for existing stereotypes about myself. No one will know me, so I can carefully shape my public image. I can't wait.

I want to speak confidently and more slowly, so I can be someone people listen to. I want my vocabulary to reflect my personality. I want to be an intelligent conversationalist. I want to dress in a way that will make me seem professional, capable, serious and efficient--mildly unapproachable, but not overly intimidating. I want to genuinely smile and be happy and friendly, but not annoyingly outgoing or socially obsessed. I want to be a nice person, someone who sees a need and fills it before it is noticed. I want to work hard so I can be confident in my study skills and my academic knowledge, and I want to share my love of learning with my classes. I don't want to be arrogant, selfish or power-hungry, but I want people to know that I am very serious about what I am doing, and I want them to respect my love of honest competition. I want to be taken seriously. I don't want to be petty or gossip about other people. I want to be secure in who I am. I want my opinions to be true to each other and to my moral and social philosophies, and I want to be able to defend them adequately in arguments. I don't want other people to exert undue influence over my beliefs and judgements; I want to be okay with myself and not regret my choices.

Most of all, though, I want to be me, finally free from all controlling influences-- unadulterated and unique. I will not have to act like someone I am not to satisfy everyone else. I'll make some bad decisions and some brilliant ones; I'll make some friends and some enemies, but all of the making will be mine, and I will take the credit and the blame with not just responsibility, but pride.

I'm still grinning.

I have officially lived one full day as an legitimate eighteen-year-old.
Anticlimactic, eh?

I slept late, had sushi for lunch, watched Arrested Development, had dinner at Riverside, participated in a fire pit, and watched House. It was a good day, made hilarious by a prolonged interaction I didn't expect to have, in which I actually learned a lot (but mostly things I didn't ask to know).
Thanks to everyone involved for making me smile!

Sigh.

Hi.
I'm eighteen.

Heat.

They hit me in waves, or is it particles?
Innumerable, sightless specks surround me as I ride,
swirling and twisting in mass discontent.
Beating wild and breathless against my skin,
they goad their cousins in my blood into passionate rebellion,
overthrowing my hypothalamus in a violent coup d'etat and
forcing my vessels to relinquish control as my water molecules are stolen,
one by one.

Kinetic energy in air
is my enemy.


SUMMER NEEDS TO END.

Number theory.

My birthday's on Thursday, and yet I don't feel eighteen.
I never felt seventeen, either.

There's a dissociation between the numbers and me; I don't feel part of any of them anymore. It wasn't always this way; I remember the days before my early teenage birthdays, feeling a new number overtake me and gradually melt into my consciousness. I always knew my birthday was coming because I could feel the new number's warm breath on the back of my neck, inviting and yet strangely forceful, conveying the inevitability and the excitement of a brand new year. I absorbed it into my psyche, embracing it, feeling it slide perfectly into place against the contours of my spirit. I felt familiarity in my annual rebirth, because the number was already a part of me; it'd snuck up on me in the weeks before my birthday and carefully mimicked my mannerisms, my habits and preferences; the day it moved in for good, I was pleased to see it, but not surprised in the least.

Things are different now. I see eighteen, but I can't grasp it. It's somewhere else, somewhere I'm not, and though I know I'll take its name in four days, it will be in proxy, a simple formality. There is no excitement, no colorful blending of my soul with something new, and the loss is tangible. I wonder if it's part of growing up; will I be as detached the day before I turn twenty? Forty? I hope the numbers will rediscover me somewhere along the way. In the meantime, I'll watch them from my lonely distance, hoping that one day I will feel the breath behind my soul again and remember that I am changing.

Hide me.

I spent all day in the hospital with my baby sister, who is inching out of the critical numbers and back into the "high intermediate risk" zone. My mom hasn't slept for more than an hour at a time in a day in a half and hovers over the baby's little crib night and day, adjusting the phototherapy lights and making sure everything is perfect for her baby, whom she can't even hold for more than half an hour after every session. The baby has to wear a special hat and eye covers when she's under the lights, so she looks like a pathetic little Martian in there, and you just want to pick her up, snuggle her in a blanket and run away from everything, but you know it's impossible, so you just sit next to her and stroke the glass on the window, feeling horribly inadequate. I don't feel prepared for college, and I don't have anything I need for my room or my classes, so I'm stressed out about that, and to make matters worse, my eighteenth birthday is on Thursday. I don't know if I'm sadder that it's going to be passed over in the midst of all this baby drama or that it's going to be another source of stress for my parents, who like to make things special, and I know they're feeling bad about not having time to plan a celebration or shop for presents. My little brothers (ages 9 and 12) can't seem to stop fighting and screaming at each other about pointless, trivial crap, so I'm in a perpetual state of annoyance whenever I have to be around them, and my little sister (age 5), who is used to being the center of attention, is acting up because she feels neglected in the wake of this new baby and all our family stress.

Through all this, I've felt emotionally subdued and totally helpless; at the beginning, I was affected, but now, it's like my capacity to feel has been shot up with transcutaneous Lidocaine. I don't seem to have an attention span anymore; it's easier to keep my mind on the trivial things I don't have to remember. I read no more than a few sentences from books, watch idiotic television shows, and just sit there and stare off into space. Maybe I should see a psychotherapist or something--with college starting in just a few weeks, I desperately need to regain the ability to focus.

Critical care.

So, um, the baby's back in the hospital.

My family's kinda stressed out, because her numbers went way up today. My mom was crying this morning as we packed up all the pretty baby things we had organized so carefully, and my dad canceled all his patients so he could drive them to the hospital. We had to call my aunts and uncles who were driving down from Salt Lake to see her and tell them not to come.

When I look at Baby's tiny face, I want to do everything I can to protect her. She's so innocent and beautiful, and there is no way she can know what is going on. It's especially hard because no amount of love and attention can bring those numbers down, so we have no choice but to put her back on the pediatrics floor under industrial strength phototherapy lights to try and stop her RBCs from destroying themselves and flooding her liver with their byproducts.

Religious or not, pray for her.

Perfection incarnate.

Ahem.
I'd like to introduce the newest member of my family...Sandra Grace!
Yeah, we named her Sandra in honor of my grandmother (weird, I know). Don't hate (I'm finally getting used to it). Regardless of whether you like her name, I can promise that you'll just melt when you see her little face! She is incredibly cute--five pounds, ten ounces and seventeen inches long--small and sweet, with dark eyes and tiny tufts of dark hair. Needless to say, I love her already.

I held her for the first time yesterday, all wrapped up like a baby burrito, with a cushy little hat on her head and a hospital blanket scrunched around her teensy body. She opened her mouth in the shape of an O and opened her eyes, looking up at me for one perfect second before settling back into her quiet sleep. She is warm, soft, and light, like a little living cloud, and I just want to hold her forever, to make her part of me and never give her back.

It's odd to me that she was created; nine months ago, the soft, trusting little person I hold in my arms was no more than two separate sets of chromosomes. Just looking at her amazes me; I run my finger lightly along her ear, which feels paper thin and can't be any bigger than a coin, and wonder at its immaculate formation. I slide my finger in the pattern on her foot I know will elicit the reflex response inherent in all babies, marveling every time it occurs just like I know it will.
She is perfect, she is beautiful, and now she is ours to keep.
I can't think of a better birthday gift (mine's next week).

Transition.

My mom's in labor...

While we await the baby, I'll provide you, my loving readers, with something funny. In the ample time I spend at work, unable to leave my desk or my laptop, I cruise around on the Internet, bookmarking interesting medical blogs and cool YouTube videos. Here's a post from a physician that really made me laugh:"I Saved a Horse (and I liked it)."

The phrase "cyanotic palomino" is enough to start me giggling again, not to mention the spotty capitalization.

I LOVE the things random people feel inclined to write about! Blogs are the most entertaining Internet time-wasters I've ever encountered (and that's saying something). There's nothing more fascinating than eavesdropping on the thoughts of Someone Else--it's kind of like mind reading, in a way. The author could be anyone, which really gives me an appreciation for other people in general.
After all, everyone is Someone Else to someone else.

Idol worship.

Take a little time out of your busy day to meet my idol!

NAME
Dr. Atul A. Gawande

PROFESSION
General surgery with endocrinology and gastrointestinal concentrations (esp. cancer)
Associate professor of surgery, Harvard Medical School
Associate professor of health policy/management, Harvard School of Public Health
Associate director, BWH Center for Surgery and Public Health
Director, World Health Organization (WHO) Global Challenge for Safer Surgical Care
Staffwriter, New Yorker magazine

EDUCATION
Undergrad: Stanford
Masters': Oxford (Rhodes scholarship)
MD: Harvard Medical School
MPH (Masters' of Public Health): Harvard School of Public Health
(Academic degrees in philosophy, politics and economics)

BOOKS
Complications (2002); Better (2007)

My life would be complete if I could accomplish 1/100 of what this guy has.
Read his books and articles (try "The Itch," published by the New Yorker (and available through my link), as your first sample)...they're nothing less than FASCIA-NATING (hehe...medical joke).