"What are your suggestions for note color coding systems? I hate neon and am more at peace with earth tones."

In a fit of biannual med school spirit I volunteered to give tours to the potential incoming first years at their revisit weekend.

In return I was permitted to attend their first night feast of catered free-ness. They even let me bring Irreverand Boyfriend for the complimentary beer, wine and limitless chicken drowned in sketchy sauce.

We showed up a few minutes late and were unable to find an open table with bright eyed incomers so we settled for a table with a slew of current first years.

I actually didn't realize they were ALL first years. As a fourth year I'm pretty distant from the pre-clinical (first and second year) students. They don't know me, I don't know them.

It was precisely this fact that Irreverand Boyfriend capitalized upon in an effort to distract me from my horrid realization that OH MY GOD. I REMEMBER WHEN I WAS THEM. NOW I'M GOING TO BE A DOCTOR. Angst, angst, angst.

He leaned over to the first year sitting next to him and asked, "So, how do you like it here?"

She was taken aback and said, "Oh! Are you a prospective? I'm sorry, I thought you were an upper classman... well, I like it here a lot!"

Irreverand Boyfriend went on through this charade through three separate groups of first years.

He told people he knew me through a childhood friend of mine who he met at Hypochondriacs Anonymous. He truthfully said he graduated from college in 2007, but stated not so truthfully that he spent the years since soul searching in Nepal. He found this a necessary escape after he was the victim of a brutal attack in Grand Central Station wherein a homeless man held him in a head lock for three minutes and beat him over the head with a bottle, forcing him to reevaluate his perspectives on humanity.

In Nepal he was exposed to local remedies for colorectal ailments including burning a certain herb native to the region in order to waft the smoke into the ailing areas.

When I asked if that meant he had to lean over the fire and spread his bare cheeks, he didn't miss a beat. "Well, yes, if you want to be crass about it, but I prefer to maintain a degree of respect for the practice, Pants."

In an effort to try and break him I asked about his modern dance habit I had been told of and he promptly replied that though he spent two summers at an Alvin Ailey dance camp he just wasn't committed to the field.

I thought we'd reached the final straw when he asked how many students exotic danced in the city to stave off the burden of loans, but no. Grey's Anatomy has desensitized this generation of future doctors from the incredulousness of taking off one's clothes as a means to fund professional school.

No, the final straw came when he asked about the options for urban hunting.

"Urban Hunting?" A particularly gullible first year asked.

"Yeah, you know, like picking off squirrels and vermin in Central Park. That doesn't happen? Stealth Street Pigeon Stakeouts? No?"

"I don't know. I mean, my interests are diametrically opposed. I saved turtles for a summer in undergrad."

"Oh, like, the meat?"

"What?"

"You mean you saved the meat? You know, for later?"

"No, I saved them. Like, tagged them and rehab-ed them for the wild."

The funny thing is until that moment not a soul doubted his stories, questions and seeming social ineptitude. So for those of you who wonder what it's like to go to med school, that is it, right there.

Thank you, sweet loveface, for distracting me from the fact that I've been there, done that, and am on my way to the next step.

This is literally all I have to show for my day.

I can't even tell you how I got to this point, but I decided it'd be a good idea to google various hairstyles and see if I could find some idiot proof instructions. I guess I was half thinking I could learn how to do something fancy for my graduation or at least develop some back pocket proficiency so in case I was called to a State Dinner at the last minute I could look instantly fabulous.

At any rate, I ended up watching people do their hair on youtube for way too long.

I decided it would be crucial to learn about Victory Rolls. You know, in case I wanted to go as a Forties Housewife for Halloween:




Orrrrr a small woodland animal with perky ears.

I learned how to do Bettie Page bangs:



AKA world's most perplexing, as in Why on EARTH is that alluring, pin-up do.

And, perhaps more practically, I went for an Audrey-esque French twist:



I think I'll stick with a rumpled morning after a shower ponytail.

But in case you don't want to:

Victory Rolls
Victory Rolls AND Bettie Page Bangs
French Twist
Brigitte Bardot Updo which I didn't attempt for fear of creating a luxury option for nesting robins

One Little Activist

One of the nice things about visiting the home I grew up in is the sense of security and comfort that's just innate. I walk in the door and feel comfortable running around in an oversized t-shirt and watching 14 hours of television. No one will judge me.

Another perk is the little somethings I find left on my dresser.

My parents are in a continual state of trying to clean the house and weed out all the absurd amounts of rickrack we've accumulated over the years. Often I find old photos of friends, old pairs of heinously large glasses I wore or pictures I drew of my former imaginary dinosaur waiting for me next to all the junk mail I receive. (Former imaginary dinosaur as in the dinosaur I no longer imagine, not that he used to be pretend and now is real.)

What awaited me today was a small suggestion of how I turned out the way I did (i.e. a sarcastic liberal minded pseudo bleeding heart raised in the bleached belt of Bible beating conservatism).

It was a letter I wrote to a local columnist nearly 15 years ago. I actually typed it up, but it's on the kind of printer paper that has to have the dotted edges ripped off (reproduced verbatim):

October 23, 1995

Dear Ms. Columnist,

I have a question about one of your articles in the issue of tonight's paper, in your article "Scalping Chief Wahoo Won't Solve Native Americans Woes" . In my opinion you should not be mocking the native americans, they have feelings too. For instance, not every single native american in this country is protesting the " Cheif Wahoo". I think it is very wrong of you to sarcastically say:oops, you were protesting to loud to hear what I said, or something of that nature.If the Cleveland Indians were in HONOR of that indian chief why did they make his face red? You don't see a native american walking down the street with a red face, do you? And even if they do have a tint of reddish color in thier face it's not cherry red.I happen to know a native american and thier face isn't bright red!I'm sorry to take up your time. Thank you for hearing me out.

Pants Tailored McSlacks

Oh, silly eleven year old me.

Anyone can see now that Chief Wahoo is red-faced because he's embarrassed to be associated with such a pitiable ball club. Sorry, Cleveland Indians. You're terrible. Thank you for hearing me out.

P.S. I love kitties

I took my last required exam for medical school on Friday. It was the gateway to my last spring break ever. Rather than dwell on that designation and try to make this a "Spring Break Woohoo" spring break, you know, one worthy of the "last ever" moniker, I spent Saturday watching movie after movie. On a couch.

I can't express to you how much the lack of personal couch over the past eight years has affected my quality of life. I LOVE couches. Leather, canvas, patterened, un-patterned, they're right up there with pizza: doesn't matter the variety, I am more likely than not to love it with my whole heart.

At any rate, I came across P.S. I Love You On Demand. I had heard that it was a sappy romantic comedy-esque feature and as such knew that I should probably go ahead and watch it on my own instead of using up a credit with Irreverand Boyfriend (I think I'm actually at a deficit having dragged him to Valentine's Day.)(But he doesn't need to be reminded.)(Kisses!).

Thus, I watched.

And holy shit man it is sad.

I rarely cry at movies, Deep Impact notwithstanding (I was loathe to think that Elijah Wood would marry anyone but me, even fictitiously. I bawled my way through the ending and even let it carry over into public over frozen yogurt. Ah, twelve year old me...), but goodNESS this one smacked my tear ducts every fifteen minutes.

Just when you think it's safe to accept the plot line and begin to make your peace, BAM, something else happens that ignites the blubbering.

Afterward I was so distraught I interrupted Irreverand Boyfriend's paper writing in the other room and demanded to sit on his lap just so I knew his lap was still there and not taken away from me by a brain tumor.

In an effort to bring me back to the world of even keeled emotions he let me search for videos of Baby Kitties on youtube. Nothing warms my heart more than the delicate, unbelievably high pitched mewl of baby kitties (Whatever. Quit judging.). We went through about five different videos which likely corresponded to five new echelons of crazy Irrev Boy had to realize he signed up for..

Then we came across this:



It pushed me back into happiness like nothing else could.

P.S. I think you should've put more paper down.

Thinning Out My Closet

Everyone is familiar with the concept of Fat Jeans... or, well, everyone that I can associate with because those girls who just lose 15lbs without trying tend to get lifted up up and clean away by the gale forces my eye rolling creates.

But Fat Jeans, yes? The reserve pair you keep in the drawer for the morning after you have six bowls of free bar cheese curls and an equally questionable number of beers? Exactly.

They're the pair you need the week before your period or the weeks so far after your period you think you might need to accommodate a burgeoning uterus. Fat Jeans. Everyone's got 'em.

But what about skinny jeans?

Not the emo cum Audrey Hepburn style Gap foisted upon us a few years ago that is flattering on no one save goth teenagers staging a hunger strike until somebody understands them. No, skinny jeans as in the opposite of fat jeans. The jeans on reserve in case the stars align and you have an explosive case of diarrhea, a heinous break-up, and a craving for celery and only celery, all at the same time.

Are skinny jeans ever in rotation? Are they just depressing reminders of what will no longer be? I mean... let's face it. We never actually lose fat cells, the existing ones just get smaller.

I lost a lot of weight last year in the throes of a vicious break-up and a determination to find a beach worthy bod. So much so my clothes didn't fit well. Thus, I went shopping. And lo, I bought items to fit my thinner self.

Well now I'm a lot happier and healthier and apparently I carry some of that good will around my midsection. This makes all the new things from last spring and summer laughably impossible.

But. Do I keep a pair of pants from that era? Just in case? I mean... again, the stars could align. I might still yet require skinny pants.

Blah. I think I just need to get over the fact that I will never again have my 16 year old metabolism. Okay. Skinny pants will go.

Let the purging for the impending move begin!

Edited to add: Wherein purging is not a Freudian-ly placed metaphor... I really need to throw stuff out. As in, not food from my body. But rather all the crap that accrues after eight years of moving the same effing stuff. Don't fret my pets.