Hellish Boy

HellBoy/AngelBaby is turning two soon. I know I complain about him a lot, so in honor of his birthday (and in case he ever learns to read and stumbles across this blog), here are:

10 (Relatively) Good Things About My Boy

1. While he's still doing ... that, he refers to nursing as "milk please," which is convenient when we're out someplace and I'm not in the mood to get into a discussion of the pros and cons of Extended Breastfeeding. I can just say cheerily, "Sure, you can have some milk when we get home!" (I've semi-deliberately refrained from teaching him any words for the equipment; his phrase for breast is "milk there." He'll also say "switch sides," which I think is rather polite.)
2. He has not gotten more hellish. I've noticed that some easygoing babies become rather less so when they become toddlers, and their parents are left flatfooted. HB hasn't gotten easier, but at least we're in shape now. And the more he can do and say, the happier he is. Which is awfully nice, since he used to spend so much of his time in a fury.
3. He's a good sleeper, provided he's not in his own bed.
4. His sentences are in pretty decent working order, and include the depressing "Mama pager answer it"; the informative "HellBoy make a mess"; and my personal favorite, "Dog penis touch it" (he did).
5. He can be bribed with candy, but he doesn't eat it. He will stay strapped in his carseat gazingly lovingly at a lollipop for long enough to get across town, then trade the lolly for a slice of tomato.
   
6. He loves to take medicine as long as he can drink it from a little cup, first rolling it between his palms like a lush about to take a shot.
7. Being so small, he wears out many of his clothes before growing out of them, which is economical. He also doesn't require large quantities of food.
8. He can spell his name. (He believes he can write it too, but unless you're a connoisseur of performance art/interpretive dance, it's not recognizable.)
9. He likes to pee in the potty sometimes. And only peed on me once tonight.
10. I had been worried about his tendency toward violence, but he's become quite gentle—with babies, animals, flowers, books, his mother. In fact, he appears to be becoming something of a pacifist.

Class Report

I went to an overpriced, overrated, and patriarchal university that was a spectacularly poor fit for me. (I happily got credit for AP tests and managed to get out in three years.) I knew only a tiny fraction of the people in my class, I remember even fewer, and I remain in touch with none. Yet when I recently received my class report, I was mesmerized. I am fascinated by what people choose to say to sum up their lives so far.

The really cool people never say anything about themselves, of course. I dutifully sent in the requested info: my address, job title, and the names of my husband and son. Since I enjoy reading this stuff, it seemed unfair to say nothing about myself.

Of the people who chose to write something, almost all wrote about only those three things: job, spouse, and children. Now, the form requested that information up front, so it makes sense that most people would assume that's what they're supposed to write about. But it seems terribly incomplete, especially after reading blogs. Of course there's a space issue, but I think that most of my favorite bloggers would be able to come up with a couple of paragraphs that could provide some insight into their souls. (I couldn't, but then who said I was one of my favorite bloggers?)

The descriptions of the children made them seem interchangeable. Most three-year olds mispronounce words in cute ways. Most six-year-old boys have an obsession with some category of toy. Most twelve-year-olds play soccer. All children "keep you young but make you old!" I was sobered, however, by the number of people who had sad stories to tell. One classmate has three children who all have autism. Another lost her second pregnancy to a fatal neurological disorder and her third to uterine rupture (followed by a diagnosis of metastatic cancer in her husband). Another had a two-year-old who died of a brain tumor. These latter stories made the breezy descriptions of the boringly normal children seem callous, though I know they weren't meant to be.

A surprising (to me) number of people married young and stayed married to their original spouses. Many had sweet things to say, but some of their comments distressed me. For example:

I'm still married. That's saying something, isn't it? After so many years, I observe that one must work hard at a marriage relationship, and one must be committed. I have found that love is a decision, not a feeling. Effort does seem to pay off.

I mean, what the fuck? I read this entry to TrophyHusband and said, "I'd kill you if you wrote this way about me." "You shouldn't care if I said that," he said. "You should be upset if I felt that way."

This reminded me of how several people pulled either my husband or me aside at our wedding to tell us, very soberly, something along the lines of "You should know that marriage isn't a party. Marriage is hard work."

The spectacularly poor timing of these pronouncements aside, we both found this to be a bizarre way to look at things. We have always "worked" at not taking each other for granted, saying please and thank you, and considering each other's feelings. But the reason we knew we wanted to be married was that none of this felt like work. So it became an inside joke for us—"I feel like having Indian food tonight." "I was thinking Chinese." "Work of marriage!"

Things were harder once we had a baby, but the work has been more to try and figure out how to spend time with each other while working full time (and that's a work in progress). I've had to work at remaining pleasant despite fatigue and stress (not always successfully), but that's in general. There have certainly been ... challenges, but they've always seemed to be about one thing at a time, not about the marriage as a whole.

Our suspicions about the reliability of the "work of marriage" advice have been borne out in that everyone who gave it is now divorced. This past weekend we celebrated our fifth anniversary, and we asked each other, "Does this feel like work?" And we both said no.

Are the folks who talk about the Work of Marriage just in bad marriages? Or am I misunderstanding the concept?

And if you had to, would you be able to sum up your life so far in a couple of paragraphs?

Listen Up, Maggots

I'm gonna make runners out of all you sorry recruits. (At the request of thumbscre.ws.)

This is all you need:

• Comfortable running shoes
• Supportive bra (if applicable)
• Half an hour every other day (NOT every day)

Here's the secret knowledge:

• Running is different than walking. Yes, walking can be good exercise, blah blah blah. The difference is that with running, there is that marvelous fraction of a second when you break free of the earth's gravity and are floating in air. Then you come crashing back down. You cannot cheat on this, unlike with walking, which easily becomes ambling for most folks.
• Everyone makes the same mistake when starting out: going too fast. When you start, you need to go SLOWLY. So slowly that you could probably walk faster. So slowly that you will feel humiliated if you see anyone you know.
• Do not worry about (or even calculate) your speed or distance. Measure yourself only by time.

That's it. Put on the shoes, go out the door, and start running as slowly as you can bear to go. In the beginning, you might only be able to run for ten minutes of your half hour. Don't push it. Walk the rest. Over time you can SLOWLY increase the amount of time you're actually running until you're doing it the whole thirty minutes. If you actually do see someone you know, pretend you're just finishing an epic twelve-mile run: fake that you're "shaking it out" and dramatically wipe the sweat from your brow.

(As for stretching, meh. It's never really been shown to do much. I do a few yoga-type stretches and some ITB stretches (especially #3) beforehand, but if I'm in a real rush, I skip them.)

You will need to figure out if you're a morning runner, an evening runner, or a fortunate bi. I have never been able to run in the early morning, which is too bad, because it means double showering on weekdays. My favorite time to run is about 4 pm. During the week I have to go at 6 pm or so, but as long as I have a snack beforehand, I manage.

The following are NOT good excuses for not running:

• I don't have time. Me neither. But I do it anyway.
• I'm not athletic. Why do you think you have to start slower than an arthritic sloth? In fact, former athletes probably can't use this program. They can't wrap their minds around the concept of no longer being competitive.
• My boobs are too big. Strap those puppies down. I admit I'm not the best qualified to comment on this, but some of my best friends are well-endowed runners, and they manage with industrial-strength bras. When I went running with a new and impressive lactation rack, I found the double-bra method effective.
• The baby cries in the running stroller. So does mine. Sometimes I bribe him with candy; sometimes I leave him home with his father; sometimes I let him cry. But I still run.
• I'm too fat. If you can walk, you can probably run. Not as fast or as far, but you're not measuring speed and distance anyway. And don't worry about what people might think (unless you live in L.A.). When I see someone of large proportions out running, I want to cheer them on.
• It's too hot/cold/rainy/snowy. Oh, suck it up. (Also suck on an inhaler if you have asthma like I do.)
  
• I can't afford the equipment. Really, the shoes and bra are all you need, and they don't have to cost a lot of money. You don't even need a jogging stroller; I used a regular stroller when I first started running again and just ran on smooth pavement. Babies like to be jostled anyway.
• I'm too depressed/headachy/chronically under the weather. Running will fix all that!
  
• Joggers are dorky. Oh, like you're so hip? I've seen you going to the store for Ben & Jerry's wearing those droopy pants and that stained t-shirt.
  

The following may or may not be good excuses for not running:

• I have a bad knee/hip/foot/back. As long as running does not actually make you hurt more, it should be fine to do it. I have found that as long as I only run every other day, I remain injury-free.
  
• I'm pregnant. Some people can keep running when they're with child. I was not one of them.
• My neighborhood is too dangerous. Can you drive somewhere? Can you get a running buddy?
• I hate running. If you give the above regimen a real try — say for two solid months — and you still hate it, ok. But if you just think you hate it, it's probably because you've always tried to run too hard and fast.

Let me know how it goes. Maggots.

(Update 2012: For more, here are all the running posts, or check the sidebar to the right for "Running FAQs/Maggot Files")

Tagged As A Weirdo (6 Things)

1. I like the smell of B.O. Both that of others and my own. Unfortunately I have never gone out with anyone who agrees with me on this matter, so I am forced to maintain personal hygiene. I do enjoy traveling in developing countries.
   
   
2. I have nonopposable thumbs. I can only flex the first joint of my thumbs about 15 degrees, so unless I also bend my pinky/hand, I cannot oppose them. I am less evolved than a chimpanzee.
   
   
3. But I do have outrageous facial muscle control. For instance, I can close each eyelid independently of the other. I don't mean winking—I mean closing each eye in an entirely relaxed fashion while keeping the other completely open. I can also wiggle my ears (in tandem and independently); raise my eyebrows alternately; wiggle my nose; and fold my tongue into the shape of a clover. I have not found a use for any of these talents beyond entertaining drunk people at parties.
   
   
4. I do not watch TV. Not for any moral or philosophical reasons—I just never get around to it. I've never seen Gray's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, any of the reality shows ... how do people have the time? I think I must be less efficient than everyone else.
   
   
5. I have never made out with anyone I did not also have sex with. I find tongue kissing more intimate than intercourse, so I could imagine having sex without kissing, but not the other way around.
   
   
6. I will not wear navy blue. It depresses me.

... And All I Got Was This Stupid Bag of Granola Bars

On the final leg of our epic journey home, I was forced to answer the dreaded call for A Doctor On The Plane. And I do mean forced, because TrophyHusband, being a much more generous soul than I, volunteered me. (He's a physician too, but since the problem wasn't related to his rather specialized field, I was offered up.) I was the appropriate person, since the patient was a little old Puerto Rican lady having an anxiety attack, nearly indistinguishable from dozens of my own patients. She had some cardiac risk factors, which made the situation a little more worrisome, but she refused aspirin and nitroglycerine anyway. She did allow me to take her blood pressure, reassure her, and administer a chill pill. And my payment for my noble effort? A bag full of all the leftover granola bars the attendants could find. (Well, that and a bag full of the leftover beer.) No free tickets.

It was very odd to try to be the doctor while wearing dirty slides that displayed my chipped and peeling pedicure, grubby drooping jeans, and a T-shirt with toddler smearings on the shoulders. Although I'm a fairly sloppy dresser in private life, I tend to dress rather formally when I see patients—starched white coat, nice shirt, etc. I feel a twinge of disapproval when I see doctors wearing jeans on weekends or students or residents not wearing ties. I realize that this is rather old-fashioned of me, and perhaps ridiculous, but I think that at least some of my patients expect their doctor to look the part, and it seems disrespectful to do otherwise. On the other hand, my white coat does present a barrier of sorts between me and the patient.

What does your doctor wear? Do you think it matters?

Speaking of attire or lack thereof, and not in support of any worthy cause (the way Orange's rack display was, for instance), here is a gratuitous cheesecake shot of me with AngelBaby in the swimming pool:




















It's the picture that I will look at in twenty years and think, you know, I wasn't too bad.

Remember Your Sunscreen!

1. If you were planning a vacation on honor of your own 60th birthday and taking along your extended family, including two toddlers, would you look for a destination:

a. close to home, minimizing travel but also minimizing the sense of getting away from it all
b. somewhat more distant, necessitating a few hours’ worth of travel but increasing the exotic factor
c. so remote that it requires thirteen hours of travel, including one long plane trip, one short plane trip, a boat ride, and a car ride

2. If you were deciding how long said vacation would be, would you choose:

a. a couple of days, since it’s so hard for everyone to get away
b. a whole week, since if we’re going to get away, we should really have enough time to enjoy ourselves
c. nine days, since otherwise you can’t use your frequent flier miles

3. If you were selecting a place to stay on said vacation, would you choose:

a. a family-oriented resort, with lots of opportunities for toddler recreation and babysitting though it might be less appealing for grownups
b. a house on the beach that could be babyproofed to some degree
c. a villa on a cliff, with a central courtyard containing a lovely “eternity” swimming pool as its centerpoint that cannot be blocked off from the rest of the house in any way, and with overhanging balconies without safety rails, and with beds that are three feet off the stone floor

4. If you were planning for how everyone would be fed on said vacation, would you choose

a. a place with all-inclusive meals
b. a place with a variety of restaurants around
c. a remote villa with a kitchen and directions to a supermarket an hour away

5. If on said vacation one of the 20 pieces of luggage was lost, do you think it would it be

a. The suitcase containing the snorkeling gear that could easily be rented at the destination anyway
b. The suitcase containing Daddy’s shorts and t-shirts
c. The suitcase containing the baby’s clothes and sun-protection suits, Mama’s clothes and bathing suit, and Mama’s soap, lotion, toothbrush, and tampons (said tampons being needed for the first time in two and half years)

6. Prior to said tropical vacation, do you think Nana was diagnosed with

a. a freckle
b. a mole
c. melanoma

The true answer to all of the above is, of course, c. Yes, my in-laws decided that they wanted to do Nana’s birthday up in style, and take everyone (me, TrophyHusband, and AngelBaby; my pregnant sister-in-law, her husband, and PerfectCousin; and my brother-in-law and his girlfriend) on a Big Trip. Which was very, very generous.

The biggest problem, of course, was #6 above. Nana had a little mole removed from her back a week ago, and two days before leaving, the diagnosis came back as melanoma. Which sounds terrifying, and it is; fortunately, it’s superficial spreading melanoma, which if you’ve got to have a melanoma, is the one to have, because the vast majority of people who get it do just fine. Of course, this diagnosis makes being in the tropics seem a little less appealing to everyone, and we’re all leaving the puddles of grease wherever we sit, we’re so slicked up with sunscreen. Nana is holding up wonderfully well – she’s one of those people who have an amazingly positive attitude at all times. I do tease about her, but she’s a wonderful person, and I love her dearly.

The missing bag has been located, and is supposed to be put on the boat to this island today. Until then I’m wearing my mother-in-law’s clothes and spare bathing suit. She’s a MILF, so it could be worse, but seeing me in her sexy bikini gave my husband a little frisson of utter wrongness. (Can’t borrow anything from sister-in-law, since she’s 17 weeks along now.)

AngelBaby was pretty great throughout the entire thirteen hour trip. PerfectCousin, on the other hand, actually cried on the plane, vomited in the airport, and trailed snot everywhere he went. I guess we’ll have to call him SlightlyImperfectCousin from now on. (He only vomited the one time, and sister in law thinks it was a Slurpee that didn’t agree with him, not a virus. I would be suspicious, but this kid does get stuffed like a goose for foie gras, so it may be true. No one else is looking green around the gills yet.)

We’re on a remote island in the Virgin Islands, in a truly stunning, if toddler-unfriendly, villa. We discovered a wonderful product that made me far less frightened for the life of AngelBaby. We’ve put the bands on the toddlers’ ankles, so they look like convicts on house arrest. I’m watching AB napping right now; can’t leave him, since the fall from the bed to the floor is truly concussion-risking. (Can’t put the mattresses on the floor – lizards and giant cockroaches, you know.)

But tonight? Daquiris, pina coladas, Mai Tais, Panty Rippers … Spring Break! Woo-hoo! (Apologies to Feral Mom.)

(We’re also occasionally a Naked Family. I’ll leave you for now with that somewhat disturbing picture in your head.)

Smug Ugly

I would love to be able to take a drug that would prevent me from ever being smug. A Smug Drug. I loathe it when I catch myself feeling that way.

It happened just the other day. It was (finally) a lovely day, and I went for a run along the water near our house. I couldn't help but notice that there were an awful lot more folks out jogging than there had been all winter. I felt a little, yes, smug seeing all these fair-weather runners. Where were you in the sleet and snow and rain? I thought to myself. Then I came up behind a woman who looked exceedingly cute from behind. Cute little ponytail, cute matching shoes and shorts. Also, she was wearing a shirt from a fancy marathon. Hmph, I thought, you're going awfully slowly for someone in such a cute outfit!

Then I reached my turnaround point and went back. And passed the cute woman again, only from the front this time. Which is how I could see that she was HUGELY pregnant.

I felt so ashamed, I had an urge to stop and confess to her what I had been thinking. And it made me look around at all the other runners and think, who am I to pass judgment on them?

Smugness is never a good thing. Smugness implies a feeling that something good has happened to you because you did all the right things, and everyone else didn't. When people get smug, temperatures start to rise. I'm not bothered by fertile people, for instance, unless they're smug about it—you know, "Well, I've always taken care of my health, and I started early, so I figured I'd have no trouble getting pregnant!"

Tertia's post about red flags and hot buttons got me thinking about the issue too, because several posters mentioned the word "smug" in relation to folks who push their buttons—especially in regards to the mothers working vs. staying home issue. So, for the record, I'd like to say that I do not feel smug about working. Rather, I feel very grateful that I have a job that allows flexibility, a husband who pulls his full weight and maybe more, and an income that permits me to afford good childcare. And I'm not annoyed by, defensive about, or dismissive of women or men who stay home.

What I am annoyed by is the fact that our society still makes it hard for people to have children AND fulfilling careers. (Including the career of raising & educating children, which pays close to nothing.) I'm more "free" to quit my job than a lot of women, but I'd still have $140,000 of loans to pay off, my contributions to Social Security and my retirement fund would cease, and my health insurance would have to come from my husband's job. And if he died or left, I'd be in a tough spot. I would work even if all this were not true, but I can tell you, when I was pregnant I was really hoping that I wouldn't discover that I wanted to stay home after the baby came. Likewise, a woman who stays home because she can't swing doing all of the housework and all of the childcare AND a job with inflexible hours isn't really making a free choice; she may really want to do it, but like me, she's also reacting to some powerful outside forces, in this case to the inequality of societal norms. So I get annoyed when people insist that the fact that some woman can work or stay home means that the feminist ideal has been achieved, and don't question it. (Not to mention that the vast, vast majority of people in this country do not have the luxury of any kind of choice at all; for them, it's find cheap childcare and go to work, or get evicted.) I do wish that more women were willing to take on the battle of sexism in their families, workplaces and government. I remember marching for the ERA when I was a kid; what happened?

Be Especially Careful if They're Foaming at the Mouth

All is cool in the DM household, including AngelBaby. And even in the throes of fever, he was cool enough to insist on trying on his new sun-protection suit and sunglasses:



I keep hearing that Pink Floyd song in my head, Comfortably Numb – you know, “When I was a child, I had a fever / My hands felt just like two balloons.” (Not the Scissor Sisters version, though I like that one too.) I’m not sure if AB hallucinated, but from the looks of him I wouldn't be surprised.

My mom is the coolest one. She came last-minute, on her birthday, for crying out loud, to help out, and she was amazing. Some day I’ll have to blog about my mother.

So I heard a pretty good dumb patient story just today. One of my colleagues does travel medicine, meaning she sees people who are about to go abroad and counsels them on vaccinations, malaria prophylaxis, etc. Of course, one of her first questions is “where are you traveling?” Today she saw a guy who answered rather pompously, “Well, that’s confidential.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m involved in celebrity transport. I could be going anywhere. You’d better just give me everything.”

“I see.”

“Including smallpox.”

“Smallpox? Really? You’re traveling where there are outbreaks of smallpox?” she asked disingenuously.

“Oh yes,” he said. “In Russia, you know. And the Ukraine.”

So she told him that she actually couldn’t give him smallpox, but that if necessary, he should contact the CDC. He nodded importantly.

“And will you be traveling to Sub-Saharan Africa?” she asked.

“Definitely,” he said. “I’ll be accompanying [famous movie star] to South Africa.”

“Well, you’re right, technically that is below the Sahara,” she said, “but usually we classify it as Southern Africa, which is a bit different.”

“I know,” he said. “And really you don’t need to worry there anyway, because it’s a British colony.”

“Um, well …”

Finally he said, “Oh, also give me rabies.”

“Rabies?”

“Yes, because I’ll be traveling with [famous rock band].”

“And will they be biting you?” she asked.

The Devil Is In the Details

AngelBaby reached a new record last night: 106 degrees. We were expecting seizures or something, but he just sat quietly and ate tomatoes. Today he's much better, though TrophyHusband is now ailing. I'm importing my mother on a frequent flyer ticket tonight to take over from the saintly in-laws. I am spoiled, I know.

So: patient stories. The trouble with stupid patients is that they make me sad. You can't laugh with them, so if I'm laughing, I'm laughing at them.

Wacky patients are another story. I'll tell you about one of my favorite wackos, the Pirate. We call him that because he wears an big gold earring in one ear and has wild woolly hair, a fanciful mustache, and a dramatic limp. He can't read or write because he spent most of his childhood in juvenile detention. He's in his sixties, and his main health problem is diabetes.

A couple of months ago the Pirate showed up for his regular visit looking rather different. The earring was gone, the hair was tamed into a sort of pompadour, and his mustache was trimmed. I commented on his new look, and he said rather shyly, "I had to clean up, because I joined the church."

"The church!" I said. "What made you do that?"

"Well, my sister's been on me about it," he said. "And I know that if I don't repent before I die, I won't go to heaven. So I figured I might as well do it now."

I was a little disappointed to see the Pirate civilized, but he seemed happy.

A week ago he returned for his follow-up visit, still looking relatively spiffy. His blood sugar, on the other hand, was much too high.

"It must have been all the soda I drank today," he said.

"Must have been," I said. "How are things going at church, anyway?"

"Oh, it's going good," he said. "You know, at my church they talk in tongues."

"Really!"

"Yes, when you're feeling the Spirit, you start speaking in a language that only Jesus can understand. And I've been getting there. Yesterday I felt moved, and I went down on my knees, and pretty soon I started doing it -- I opened my mouth and all these sounds came out. But then I stopped. Afterward the preacher asked me if I stopped because my leg was hurting, and I said no, that wasn't it. And the preacher said, 'It was the Devil that made you stop. You were listening to the Devil.' And you know, he was right."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Well, I was jib-jabbering away, feeling the presence of Jesus, when my mind just started to wander," he said. "It started to wander, and I fell silent, and all of a sudden I was thinking about ... soda!"

"That WAS the Devil!" I said.

Doctor's Holiday

I had my shoulder injected today, to treat biceps tendonitis brought on by hauling around the World’s Clingiest Toddler. I was a little nervous, but it didn’t even hurt, and afterward I felt like the Tin Man coming back to life.

I like to be a patient from time to time just to see what it’s like on the Other Side. Of course I don’t get to see things from a true patient perspective; I’m treated somewhat differently when people know I’m a doctor. You might be surprised to know, however, that the treatment is usually worse.

Not intentionally so, of course. See, when treating a fellow health care worker, everyone gets very kid-glovey and hyperconscious of everything they’re doing. So some slightly unpleasant things might not get done – rectal exams, say, or questions about substance use – and some unnecessary things – extra tests that do more harm than good – do. In addition, people tend to assume you know more than you really do. For instance, when I was doing the infertility thing, I missed some important instructions up front because everyone assumed I must know all about this stuff.

Whenever possible I hide the fact that I’m a physician. I got away with this for two days after I had my baby. The second afternoon, one of the aides came in looking a little odd, and finally said shyly, “We didn’t know you were a doctor – you’re so nice.” (Which made me feel good about myself but lousy about my profession.) But because I’d kept it secret, the nurses had felt free to give me very helpful instructions on how to care for my stitches and my baby, information that I might otherwise have missed out on.

Does this happen in other professions?

4

4 Jobs I've Had

I've had so many jobs in my life that I can think of twenty while hardly trying. I guess I'll list

4 Jobs for Which I Was the Least Prepared

1. Au pair in Switzerland. This was the summer I turned sixteen. I was reasonably good with kids; the main problem was, I didn't speak Swiss. Now, German, I spoke—and this was the motivation for doing the whole thing in the first place, to buff my German (that sounds kinky, doesn't it?). But Swiss is to German sort of what the heaviest Jamaican is to English. You know the movie The Harder They Come, how they're supposedly speaking in English but there are English subtitles? Swiss is kind of like that if you speak German. I think the kids thought I was a little slow. I ended up learning a lot of Swiss babytalk (also sounds vaguely kinky).
2. Cocktail waitress. I was bad at this not simply because of my dearth of physical assets, but because you don't make good tips from drunk people when you have a look on your face that says "Not only do you disgust me on a personal level, I find your choice of beverage risible."
3. Kaplan MCAT teacher. On paper, it looked like I should be good at this—I had made excellent use of the Kaplan materials and scored very well on my MCATs. In reality, I was hopeless. While I had used the written materials, I had never found the classes to be helpful, and I didn't see how they could help someone else much. Sitting in a classroom a couple of hours once a week was not going to change anyone's score. I was supposed to go through questions with the students, but I would typically read a question and say, "The answer is B, because ... because ... well, it's just obvious it's B, isn't it?" And they would stare at me, thinking, "Bitch." Mostly the students made me sad. They came to class carrying bottles of "Brain Power Amino Acids" and chewed their fingernails and asked me too many questions about their chances of admission to medical school.
4. Grand Rounds organizer. This is a duty that I managed to unload recently, thank god. It involved lining up speakers for our weekly educational conferences. It's a job for a schmoozer, which I am not.

4 Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

Hmm. I can't really watch any movie over and over. Here are some movies I've definitely watched from beginning to end twice:

1. Office Space
2. This Is Spinal Tap
3. The Matrix
4. 12 Monkeys

4 Places I've Lived

1. The hospital. I've never had my mail forwarded there, but sleeping someplace every third or fourth night for years adds up to some serious time.
2. With four different men. (No, serially, not all at once!) No one ever lived with me, because when I had my own places, they were aggressively mine—no room, no shelf space, no special chair for anyone else. After the third guy, I swore I'd never do it again; I loved my own space too much. Then I met my now-husband and weakened. I'm glad I did.
3. In a state of despair. Added up over the years, I'd say I've spent about ten to twenty percent of my life there. I do not plan to ever go back.
4. In a quasi-group house, when I was little. I say quasi because the house had more than one apartment, so it wasn't really communal living, except for the hangers-on and boyfriends my mom would occasionally collect. I loved it. I wish I could live that way now.

4 Places I've Been on Vacation

A long time ago I found a list in a travel magazine of The World's Top Ten Islands. I'm crazy for islands, so I saved it, and I plan to visit them all one day. (The list gets revised every year, but I'm committed to the one I saw first.) So far, I've managed to get to:

1. Kauai
2. Hawaii
3. Santorini
4. Puerto Rico (ok, not on the Top Ten list, but I think it should be)

It seems like a "four" meme should only have four categories. So I'll give in to my OCD impulses and stop here.

My Marathon, Part 3

Lesson 6: Remember to Read the Fine Print

The night before the marathon, I finally sat down with the information that had been mailed to me weeks before along with the number to pin on my shirt. I hadn't bothered to read it when it came because my friend was handling all the details. I hadn't bothered to read it when she dropped out because I didn't think I'd go. I hadn't bothered to read it when I decided again to go because—I don't know why. I was busy, ok? I was an intern on a call month, which meant that every fourth day I went to work in the morning and didn't come home again until I staggered out of the hospital in a sleep-deprived altered state the next evening. I had scheduled my day off to coincide with the day of the marathon, but that meant I was working right up until the night before.

When I did finally read the information, I found it rather confusing. Remember, I had never been in any kind of race before, and I didn't know any of the lingo, any of the routine. This was a smallish marathon, run by a charitable organization, and the logistics were clearly being handled by enthusiastic volunteers. There were pages and pages of information. Stuff about how to train, what to wear, what to eat. There was something in there about where to go if you wanted to catch the bus to the starting line, where to leave your bag of clothes, what time the race started, what time to meet the bus ... it made my fatigued head spin. So I tried to focus on the bottom line: where do I have to be, and at what time? I finally located that information. Then I went to bed.

The race didn't start at an absurdly early time, so the fact that it was an hour and a half drive wasn't too bad. I turned the radio on loud and sang along with Sarah Maclachlan and drank my coffee and cheered myself on. I arrived at the start with time to spare. It was a cool spring day. I pinned my number on my shirt, tied my car key to my shoe, tucked a couple of granola bars and a banana in the pocket of my jacket, and lined up with everyone else.

And we were off. People screamed and cheered. I felt happy and excited and proud, and not lonely at all.

My goal was simply to finish the marathon, and I knew that the best strategy for finishing was to run a negative split—that is, run the second half faster than the first half—and to do that, I needed to rein myself in for the beginning of the race, force myself to go as slowly as I could possibly stand. There were timer at each mile marker, and to begin I kept myself to a geriatric pace of 12 minute miles.

The first couple of miles went smoothly. I chatted with the folks running near me. I enjoyed the scenery—the race started in a remote area, and it was lovely.

Until. Until I started to notice an awful lot of cars going by with people leaning out of the windows and cheering people by name. Where were they going, I wondered? I trotted on for another mile or so, and it finally dawned on me. One of the things that the information packet had said was that this was a "point-to-point" race. I had thought that this was an odd thing to mention; unless they had figured out a way around the time-space continuum, of course the race was from one point to another. Weren't all races? But now it came clear to me that they meant point-to-point as opposed to a circle. That we would be starting and finishing in two different places. Two places that were, oh, 26.2 miles apart from each other. And that when I was done, I would be at Point B, and my car would be waiting for me waaay back at Point A.

That's what they'd meant by the taking of buses to the start thing. You could park at the finish and take a bus to the start if you didn't have someone to drive you. If you'd been abandoned, say, by a friend with a broken hip.

For the next mile I felt a little sick. How on earth was I going to get back to my car? It wasn't like this was a place you could cab to. This spot was probably marked on a map as Off the Beaten Path. And I'd already run five or six miles away from it.

Then I decided, fuck it. I'm here, and I am running this race, and I'm going to worry about getting back to my car when I've finished, and not until then. I ate a granola bar and kept on.

Lesson 7: Stick to Your Plan

The miles floated by. Eight, nine, ten. People stood at crossroads and clapped. I stuck to my plan. Running this slowly meant I had plenty of time for bathroom breaks (I took three) and food. I managed to clear my mind of everything and just sail on. Almost before I knew it, I had reached the halfway point, and I felt great. So I started to speed up. Each mile I went a little bit faster—11 minutes, 10 minutes, 9 minutes, 8 minutes. I passed one guy at about the 25 mile marker who muttered peevishly, "Where's the fire?" I wanted to say, "On my feets!"

And there it was: the finish line. I smiled for the photographer as I went under the banner. It had taken me four and a half hours, which meant that I averaged about 9 minute miles for the second half of the race. And I really, truly felt good. Heck, I felt like I could keep running.

Which was a good thing, because my day was far from over. There was still the little matter of my car waiting forlornly back at the starting line.

Lesson 8: Sometimes You Have to Ask for Help

I received my medal and t-shirt, and then asked the race volunteer who gave them to me, "So, is there by any chance a bus going back to the starting line?"

She stared at me as if I had just said "Is there by any chance a monkey climbing out of my ass?"

"A what?"

"A bus ... going back to the starting line ..." at this point I started to get very embarrassed, because clearly I was the only person in the history of running who had ever misunderstood directions. "My friend was supposed to drive me back, but she got hurt ..." I didn't lie, but I sort implied that my friend had dropped out that day, after the race started.

"Oh my god," the girl said. "No, there's no bus. Wow. You need to get back to the starting line?" You could see her tracing the 26.2 miles in her head. "Stay here," she said. "I'll see what I can do."

So I sat and waited. And waited. And got stiff. And got cold. And realized why people left bags of warm clothes at the finish.

Finally a woman appeared. "You need a ride back to the start?" she said. I repeated my pathetic half-truth.

"Well, I live sort of near there ... I can drop you off. But you'll have to wait until the end of the race."

Which is how I came to see all of the lame, halt, and old come over that finish line, as I sat and shivered, my knees tucked under my race T-shirt. Finally, finally the last person staggered across, the banners were rolled up, and I climbed into a rattly, rusty Datsun that smelled strongly of dog and drove forty-five minutes trying to make small talk with a saintly stranger who took me 15 miles out of her way. The sight of my little car sitting all alone in the vast parking lot made me shrink in embarrassment, but it was a welcome sight indeed.

At first my legs felt almost too stiff to work the clutch, but I cranked the heat and started to thaw a bit. At the main highway I found a McDonald's, where I got a cup of coffee and a fish sandwich. I ate while driving, and as I warmed up, the proud and happy realization came over me:

I had done it.

My Marathon, Part 2

Lesson 3: It’s Not a Great Idea to Run on a Belly Full of Cheese Fries, but It’s Not Impossible

Despite my misgivings, training for the marathon was really not too hard. We gradually increased our weekend runs until the final training run, which was supposed to be 20 miles but ended up being 24 because we didn’t check the distance carefully enough. Fortunately, there was a diner at the 12 mile mark. Unfortunately, I lost all control and scarfed down cheese fries and a chocolate milk shake. I came to regret this on the slow trot home because I had to taste them the whole time as I belched away, but I managed. We walked the last few miles, but I really felt pretty good.

My training partner, on the other hand, did not.

Lesson 4: Don’t Overdo It

On the last training run, my partner came up lame. At first she tried to hide it, but pretty soon she was swaying like a peg-legged sailor, and I said, “Er, don’t you think you should see a doctor about that?” She finally agreed. We still had a couple of weeks until the marathon.

You see, my running partner had started running relatively recently. Although she was running about as much as I when we started, she had only been doing it a few months. She didn’t have a deep base upon which to train.

Which is how she developed a STRESS FRACTURE of her frickin’ HIP. And was ordered to put no weight on her leg for three MONTHS.

I felt really bad for her, but I have to confess, I felt a little annoyed, too. This whole thing had been her idea; she had researched it, and she knew that she was pushing it. Also, it was her friends and family who were supposed to drive us to the race, which was an hour an a half away. Once she dropped out, she wasn't interested in even going, and they weren’t interested in driving me. Which I guess is understandable, but it made me feel a bit abandoned. I’m still not sure if I should have felt that way, but I think that if I were in their shoes, I would have at least offered. I asked around, but not surprisingly, I couldn't find anyone who was a) free that day and b) willing to spend the whole day at a marathon for me.

So, I decided I wouldn’t go.

Lesson 5: Don’t Be Such A Wuss

After a week or so of feeling sorry for myself (and a little guilty about feeling sorry for myself when my friend had a BROKEN HIP), I realized that I shouldn’t waste all the training. I knew I’d regret it every time someone asked yet again, “You run? Did you ever do a marathon?”

So, I decided I would go by myself.

To be concluded.

My Marathon, Part 1

I managed to reach my twelfth year of running without every entering so much as a local road race. This was partly due to the fact that I don’t enjoy running in crowds, but mainly because I hate to run in the morning, and just about every race takes place at an ungodly early hour. But whenever people find out that you’re a runner, the most common next question is, “Have you run a marathon?” This gets tiresome after awhile if in fact you have not. So when an acquaintance started bugging me to train for a marathon with her during my internship year, I eventually agreed.

Internship year of residency is not thought to be an ideal time to be doing something so time-consuming as training for a marathon; the job itself sucks up most of your free time. But I was already running a fair amount. I found it to be an ideal stress-reliever, and something I could do almost no matter how late I got home. I also used it to explore my new city. (Which worked well, except that I would then drastically underestimate how long it might take to walk someplace, resulting in a few annoyed acquaintances who just wanted to go out for a beer, dammit, not walk all the hell over Creation.) It didn’t seem like such a stretch to put a longer run in on my one day off a week. So I agreed, although secretly at first even I wondered if I would really follow through.

I’m a sucker for birth stories – funny, overdue, traumatic, last-minute – yet I don’t think my own is particularly interesting or enlightening.* But I do feel like I learned a lot from my marathon.

Lesson 1: I Accept that I Am Powerless Over Candy

I have had a bad candy habit since childhood. Not candy as in chocolate (which I consider food, not candy); candy as in as close to straight sugar as possible. I had to have it available at all times. It got me through many stressful periods in my life – like, say, internship. I didn't feel safe unless I had a stash in my pocket, like some starving beggar child from Dickens. I never hit the stuff before lunch, but from then on out was happy hour. I ruined my teeth. I didn’t get fat, but that was because I substituted candy for real food.

After about a month or so of training, I realized that I needed to improve my diet if I was really going to do a marathon. When I forced myself to think about it, probably half of my calories were in the form of refined sugar. But I knew I couldn’t cut down. I’d tried that before. No, I’d have to go cold turkey.

I set a quit date, finished the stuff I had lying around, and steeled myself.

It was baaaad. In the beginning, I thought about candy near-constantly. I was twitchy as a gerbil with Tourette’s. I had to take a circuitous route through the hospital to avoid the gift shop, where I often used to get a fix. I couldn’t go to drugstores either, which was inconvenient when I ran out of antiperspirant. But I did find that I suddenly had an appetite for real food again. And gradually, as the weeks went by, I thought about it less and less, and then hardly ever. It felt so freeing, not to have the shame anymore. And as a bonus, I became much more sympathetic toward people who had a hard time quitting smoking.

Lesson 2: I Can Make Friends When Forced To

The person who invited me to train with her was a resident in a different specialty. My initial impression of her had been slightly negative – she seemed a little, I don’t know, rigid? Unforgiving of faults in others? But running with someone is like taking a long car trip; it’s enforced togetherness, and conversation eventually happens. So it was that I learned that we had a great deal in common. Similar off-kilter type of upbringing; similar circuitous route to medical school; similar interest in the arts. She was even born the same week of the same year that I was. Soon we were hanging out all the time, talking on the phone, shopping. It was like the pictures I used to pore over in Seventeen magazine when I was thirteen and just wanted to be normal.

To be continued.

*It can be told pretty well in a single paragraph:
Water breaks at midnight. Husband freaks out despite being a doctor. Hospital, pitocin, epidural, blah blah blah. Weather channel on TV. Phone calls to wrap up loose ends at work. Sneaking a cappucino. Getting bored. Finally pushing and PUSHING and pushing and PUSHING. Baby’s heart rate dipping. Vacuum forceps, aka Baby Head Plunger, after 21 hours. Baby fine; unutterable relief. Embarrassed re: unable to birth 5 lb 14 oz baby without assistance (his head was big, I swear). Many many many stitches. The End.

Letting It Go

A little while ago I made a promise that I'm going to break.

I am not going back to the fertility clinic. No more tests.

I'm done.

Not necessarily done as in no second child ever, but done as in no needles in my ass again ever.

And it feels like a great weight off my shoulders.

I've been circling around this realization for a long time, without being able to see it clearly. If I'd really wanted to go the ART route again, I should have been back at the clinic a year ago, and I knew that. But something kept me from saying aloud that I didn't want to.

Partly it's that saying I didn't want to go through it all again feels like saying that my son wasn't worth it, which is of course not true — I would certainly do it all again, knowing I'd have him at the end. But doing it all again not knowing how it will end — and it could easily end in heartbreak — is something quite different. And doing it all again with him here is also different. I have realized that the question of what to do next is interfering with my enjoyment of the baby I have. When he's being adorable, I'm thinking in the back of my mind, this will be hard to enjoy when I'm distracted by treatments, or even when I'm distracted with a newborn. And when he's being hellacious, I'm thinking, how can I possibly manage treatment and him, or even two like him? It makes the good times feel watered down and the hard times more difficult.

It's also hard for me to admit that I can't handle much more than I have on my plate right now. It's not like my life is so tough — my job could be a lot harder, I could have a husband who doesn't split the home stuff fifty-fifty, we're all healthy — yet I'm not sure I could cope gracefully with much more. I've always had a problem admitting anything is too hard — I've got pride issues. And it seems somehow wrong to say that it's too hard to try for another baby; in an ideal world, I would like another, so if I can't do whatever it takes to have one, I must be weak.

As long as I'm admitting hard truths, I have to say that I don't find caring for a baby to be especially fulfilling. I adore my son, and somewhat to my surprise I love sleeping with him and breastfeeding him and singing to him and carrying him around. But I love when he heads off to daycare and I head to work, too. I don't daydream about staying at home with several kids — for me that would be more of a nightmare. When I am sleep-deprived and bored and isolated, I get depressed, and I don't mean down, I mean clinically depressed. Of course I wouldn't have to stay home if we had another baby, but I would certainly be more home-bound. I know this would be temporary, and it's hard to weigh a temporary bad thing against a possible permanent good thing. But then again, now is all I've got. I always tell my students, you have to decide what you want to do based on what you like doing every day. You won't find your joy by being miserable every day, even if you're working toward a goal you think will probably be wonderful.

Life is pretty wonderful right now as it is, and it's time to let all this go and just be here.

Feels good.