goes to show you never can tell

Sooo, a weird thing happened today. Previously, I was on this kick to concoct reasons to bake every week, and it was usually for this or that meeting that I was supposed to be running. Well. Last week, a friend nudged me about a fundraiser she was going to hold, and wondered if I would be willing to contribute a thing or two.

Yeah, so I finished whining earlier about how busy and intense things are at the moment, but can I turn down an invitation to bake? Of course not. Still, I was a bit ambivalent. I don't like the idea of people paying for this stuff. Tinkering around with recipes in the kitchen is just something I enjoy doing, and I don't particularly benefit from the pressure of monetary association.

But it was for charity, and I was asked nicely. Must be a sucker for it. Sure enough, I went on a little bender and made cupcakes and cookies. I forgot to take pictures of the cupcakes, but here are the cookies:



In my typical folly, I decided to try a new recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Otherwise, making chocolate chip cookies has become so mundane a task. Also, there has been a lot of ranting and raving (in equal portions) about this new cookie recipe published recently in the NYT (if you click the photograph, there's a link to the recipe there). My curiosity won out, and I made the cookies. I have to say, they were not the miracle chocolate chip cookies that the NYT might lead you to believe they could be. But they were okay. Still, I was feeling a little remorseful that I had, typically, taken a risk when I should have gone with something trustworthy. Especially when I had already made a fiasco-level disaster out of an attempt to make strawberry frosting- but let's not even get into that right now.

Thing is, the cookies all sold out, and pretty quickly, from what I hear. So much so that I was asked to make more for tomorrow. And like an idiot, I agreed. Idiotic really, because I should be studying or sleeping. But instead, I spent the evening making two more batches of different types of cookies, this time old standards for time-saving purposes. I'm hoping there aren't any sales of this sort in the future any time soon. Otherwise, I'm going to flunk out of school.

now that we've grown up together

My parents can be a little overly dramatic at times, and it's often easy to tease them for it. They live in a safe, quiet area in suburban prepster land, but they watch a lot of those paranoia-inducing news programs, so you can guess what happens. I never much liked the idea of being afraid of nothing.

It's been so long since I lived in EBF that I can easily slip into thinking of it nostalgically. Looking at it now, it is just one more bland-looking suburb. But when I was a kid, it seemed more in the middle of nowhere, more beautiful. I remember that sometimes, for no reason at all, after school, I would just drive around. It would cheer me up. No matter how bad a day I might have had, or how boring life seemed to be, there was always something beautiful to see on those drives. My memories are tied up in that, in a long walk to school through the woods, in summers spent running around with neighborhood children, in holding hot chocolate at the top of ski slopes.

I conveniently forget everything else. Forget, because what's the point of remembering? But I was teasing my mother the last time I was visiting about something to do with the extra locks she had put on the doorway. And then she got fed up, and explained. My father had been away for business. She had opened the door and noticed something strange. There was blood all over the pane of the door. There were slabs of meat strewn at the door and around the walkway to the door. No one was there, and it was morning, but my mother was, understandably, freaked out.

When the police showed up, they took the information down but said this happened from time to time, neighborhood kids, just being kids. My mom wasn't even upset about this response, just kind of shrugged and had told me only so that I would stop arguing with her.

Now, nobody did this to my house while I was in high school. There were a few prank calls, but there was never so much as a TP of the house. But I don't know. I guess I'm kind of guilty of something. I can't really pick it apart, EBF and its people. I suppose that's why, after all these years, I get so neurotic about Facebook friend requests. I left EBF behind me, and I just somewhere along the way decided that I didn't really matter there, that I was a sort of ghost growing up, just a shadow really. I never really felt so much in place there, and so, when I disappeared, I just assumed no one would ever know existed.

I'm not totally wrong about that, either. I wrote about an anecdote from my adolescence here once and stupidly used real names (now removed to prevent future occurrences such as this), and a comment got dropped by someone who had been present for the whole thing. She remembered the entire story I was telling, except for me. She didn't know who I was. And that's sort of how I think of EBF, that I was just some alien observing a different species.

The latest person who Facebook friended me was someone who, in high school, would likely have never admitted that he was actually my friend. I don't hold that against him because 1) as teenagers, boys pretty much don't like to admit to that sort of thing, and 2) this was EBF and I always got the feeling you lost a little street cred by associating with me. But still. I took off for parts unknown, and we never kept in touch, never even made empty promises to keep in touch. So, why, now, try to friend me by Facebook?

It's so much safer, so much easier, the dilution of it all that things like Facebook and this online age provide. I am definitely a fossil, because when I was in high school, there was no email, no IM, not even cell phones. You wanted to talk to a girl? You had to man up, get on the phone, and even talk to her disapproving mom before you could get to the fumbling, stammering conversation with her. Want to keep in touch after high school? You had to make some serious effort, or it wasn't going to happen. I'm not blaming anyone, because I certainly made no effort.

And I like Facebook, you know. It's a good time-suck, and it's fun to sort of surf through and see what is going on with people without having to have long, drawn-out conversations. But, at the same time, for someone like me, it's confusing. I feel like, when you're younger, you don't do any accounting- you don't divide up people between real friends, good friends, nice enough acquaintances, Facebook friends. At most, you have some designated BFF-of-the-week, and everything else is just gravy. The rest are all just friends, and in some ways, it's a better way to live.

So, there you have it. Facebook neurosis. Blame it on EBF- it's so much easier that way.

time to make one last appeal for the life I lead

Promise, I really will complain about Facebook and the neuroses I have to do with Facebook friending and all that soon.

It occurs to me that it might be pure folly to try blogging right now. I just finished the second day of classes, and a part of me really wants to write that this is going to be the hardest, most intense stretch of courses I've taken in school yet. But the other part of me doesn't want to write that, because something about the tone sounds stressed and put-upon.

And I don't feel stressed or put-upon. I feel immersed and intense. Is it possible to feel that way, in a good way? I hope so. All it took, weirdly enough, was an attitude adjustment. Last semester/block/whatever was probably just as interesting subject-wise, but something had soured me about it for some reason (hmm, maybe it was the daily 110 degree thermometer readings, come to think of it). In some ways, that made studying so much harder. And then I got more petty about stupid sh*t that you can easily get pulled into in med school if you allow yourself to be.

All it took was just this inexplicable decision that I was going to find these classes more interesting, more engaging. They are probably 5 times harder than the last ones I took, no joke. But I kind of like that about it. And I like that I'm choosing to isolate myself a bit more at the moment. I'm in a little study cocoon. Today, I spent 20 minutes looking at ECGs, just musing at the way you start to process information that is thrown at you. There's all the science of it, of course, the physics, the anatomy, the physiology, sure. But ultimately, you sit there and stare until the patterns speak to you, until you develop your own, twisted, possibly illogical intuition about it.

The instructors show us these graphs that initially just look like a mess of nothingness, and then point at this and that and say, See? Do you see it? In some ways, it's so conformist, it's gross- you stare and stare until you see things in exactly the way they want you to. You hold your breath and listen and listen until you hear the sounds precisely the way they explain them. It's repetitive training. Dance, monkey, dance! But you sit and you stare, and who the hell am I kidding? When I see it, when I hear it, I feel an unexpected sense of satisfaction. For just that second, it feels like I'm getting somewhere.

many lives have come between

Even though a new semester/segment/whatever-my-wacky-school-wants-to-call-it started today, I'm determined to keep up with blog posting frequency now. I don't know why, because I think I have much less to say these days, but I suppose I need the outlet more than before, or something.

I'm trying yet another format for music, since muxtape may never return. So, for now, I will try to post songs here- not downloadable, but you should be able to listen. This week, I posted one of the new Cold War Kids songs that best describes my current state of health.

Do you ever get the sense that you're trying to throw people off the truth? I've noticed I do this. I am at two weird extremes. With certain people, I will describe what I am thinking to such excruciating, tedious detail that I think they'd like to gag me. For some reason, I am absolutely crazy to explain myself to these people. And then with others, I am indifferent, and as a result, say completely outrageous things. I make statements that, as soon as they've left my mouth, I know they're not really representative of who I am or even what I believe. It's some weird, reflexive blurting, and somehow, I'm so indifferent to their opinions that I do not even bother to correct myself. So I get to wondering if, on some level, I did it on purpose, made the ridiculous remark to purposefully obscure my true feelings.

Perhaps it doesn't matter.

Tomorrow, I think I'm going to rant at length about Facebook- not the new format, because I don't even know or understand what the big deal is about that. No, my complaint about Facebook is the out-of-the-woodworks weirdo friend requests I get from old classmates who I haven't spoken to for, oh, 15 or more years. Normal human beings take such things in stride, but me, I'm not one of those normal types. So, instead, I get all discombobulated wondering what brings all of this on.

deep inside I'm blue

Since I'm still viral, and all I have been able to do is sit around, stuffed up, watching television, I planned to remark on the season premiere of SNL. Only problem is that I was feeling so miserable by the evening that I passed out before it started. Lucky for me, they are playing some of the clips on-line, so I can make foolish remarks anyway:

• I know Obama declined appearing because of Hurricane Ike, but a part of me wonders if he didn't get an advanced look at the script for the evening. Obviously, I didn't see the whole thing, but given that most of the clips out there are supposed to represent the funniest parts of the show, um, not so much.
  
  
• The digital short was a big letdown.
  
  
• If they had put the real Charles Barkley on their Charles Barkley skit, he would have been 10 times funnier than the skit managed to be. That's no joke- one should never try to spoof Barkley really, because you can't out-comedy someone who is an endless source of inappropriate, hilarious quotations. The spoofed version of Barkley made one slightly humorous remark about the 92 Olympics, and I have a feeling they probably stole it from the real Barkley anyway.
  
  
• Michael Phelps, and really all sports folks, should not host SNL. There are trained actors who do a crappy job on the show, but the sports people are always a disaster (except for Peyton Manning's United Way commercial, I must sadly admit). They should have sports people make cameos rather than host an entire show.
  
  
• They should have just had an entire episode of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler trading barbs as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton. Spot-on perfection. It almost made me wish the real Hillary would come out and give the media a piece of her mind in much the same way. Or lend them a pair.

Anyway. Today, I've decided I can't indulge myself in being completely sick all day. Last night, I made the grave mistake of trying to fool around with baking while being fogged up by a virus- the results were less than spectacular, to say the least. So I'm going to dose up on some DayQuil and try to get cracking.

I'm not sick but I'm not well

Well, here's something that is going to sound a little crazy, but given that probably 2 people are reading this, I figure I can proceed safely. I have to admit that I strangely like pushing myself to do things I don't think I'm capable of and getting sick. It's a weird combination, but then sometimes I operate in the extremes.

I like the pushing myself part, because it really puts you in awe. There are always all of these feelings of I can't running through my head about a variety of things. And don't get me wrong- I don't spend medical school pulling all-nighters or anything-- in fact, I still have a lifetime record of only one all-nighter, and that was, typically enough for me, not a school related all-nighter, go figure. But I like the pushing. I like thinking I can't and then finding that, oops, I can after all. There are plenty of times at my age that I think I'll never get the hang of something. But keep at it, and the brain and the body adapt. They absorb, they assimilate, and suddenly, si se puede, what do you know.

At the other extreme, of course, is getting sick. I'm, of course, not talking about serious illness, because there's nothing particularly enjoyable about that. But if pushing myself gives me confidence, getting sick knocks me off my block a bit and humbles me. The body just trumps all and says, sorry, closed for business, and all you can do is succumb. I suppose it's one of the few perks of being sick- it's a forced rest.

It sucks that the forced rest occurred while I am on a very brief vacation, and was planning to bake the entire day. But it's neat, because there's a war going on in there, I imagine. My immune system is fighting the good fight, clearing out the virus or the bacteria that thought it could colonize me. Me, I'm just an innocent bystander. This sore throat and enlarged lymph nodes, and stuffy sinuses, they're all a result of the battle inside. And for once, that internal conflict has nothing to do with feelings or thoughts, difficult decisions or melancholy ponderings. No, this war is a simple one, and all I have to do is rest and wait for my immune system to triumph.

Or maybe this is a sign that I have encephalitis, because I'm talking a little loco.

this is where I belong

Today's that day, though seven years later, a part of me feels even less inclined to write about it than ever before.

But I guess it applies, in a weird way, on this very microscopic level. It's been a rough couple of months- tides have shifted with some friends, and all of a sudden, those who used to be my support are AWOL or are leaning on me. Which is fine, at times, while tiring at others. I've been finding that I've grown more and more quiet, burying things deeper and deeper.

That includes things that make me happy though. I don't know. It's weird- the ground crumbles beneath your feet, and initially, you really think you'll never find your way again. It feels impossible. When it happens, there is this sudden, instant realization that nothing will ever be the same.

It's not overly dramatized sometimes. Sometimes, things do change in that sudden, solitary instant, irreversibly, and there is an immediate, palpable shift in your equilibrium.

But that's not the end. Sometimes I think people are not comfortable talking about it, the oddly beautiful things that come out of things that are undeniably tragic. Those things that are legitimately horrible, that shake you to your very core. But I don't know. I don't think it detracts from the gravity and sadness of a tragedy to recognize that it changed you in ways that were good.

In the moment, it's hard to see. When it first happens, there's nothing but the hollow feeling in your gut, and the unsteadiness that just persists. But later on, when you've had some time, you can look back and be grateful for what you learned, how you changed, what became of you. The only problem is that you have to experience it yourself to believe it. And you can only believe it after a sufficient amount of time has passed.

*

Yesterday, I made focaccia for the first time. I haven't tried making bread of any kind for several years. My mom bought me a breadmaker about a decade ago, for no good reason, but I was never very pleased with the results of that machine. After yesterday's adventure, I can see why. The fun of bread is the entire process from start to finish- fiddling with water to get it to the right temperature such that you will activate the yeast without killing it completely, kneading it so that all the ingredients are properly incorporated but without overworking it, letting the dough rise and rise again, and then the finish product. In this case, there were about 4 times during the process that I felt certain the whole thing was going to waste. The first time you make anything, it's always hard to get a feel of whether it's going well or not, after all. But in the end, I had rosemary focaccia, and I mean to tell you that it was edible, and it looked like bread! I know, high praise indeed, but I suppose I am with the Dodgeballers in keeping a strict motto of Aim Low! about such things.



Thing is, it made me happy. Maybe happier than it made me to get away from California oh-so-briefly. I keep a little list in my head, of small and quiet things like this. Some of them are recipes, some of them are songs, some of them are long walks in the fog. I keep a short but precious tally, save them up for when I need them. And when I need them, I don't view them as indulgences. And I don't know that I was like that eight years ago. Actually, I take that back. I know I wasn't like that back then.

so you might as well have a good time

I've recently realized that some of what is problematic over here lately is that I feel this pressure to write something meaningful about medical school or life, and I feel a pressure to police myself from whining like a little b, because that's just annoying. Or when I finally do get around to posting, I'm all fired up by some stupid political business, and I really suck at talking about politics in any kind of meaningful manner.

Maybe I ought to just be silly for a while, it occurs to me. Honestly, I'm more excited that the new television season is starting than I am about keeping track of political spinning and spitting. I'd rather talk about a song than about a day in medical school. And a pleasant movie is enough to make a horribly tedious flight pass on by.

I can't comment on Gossip Girl or 90210- despite some of my classmates' best efforts, I can't bring myself to watch anything like that regularly. But on the other hand, I gleefully watched Fringe when I returned to the West Coast, and I have absolutely no excuse for why I did that. It could win an award for most derivative show ever- it moshes together the basic plotlines of Season 1 of Alias, throws in the music and eccentric, cuckoo dudes from Lost, and throws in a helping of the X-files just in case that will help. The lead actress looks like she might be an elder sibling of a Gossip Girl, the lead actor was last seen smarming it up on Dawson's Creek. And yet, you know, I will probably continue to watch. Damn you, JJ Abrams.

On the flight to EBF, surprisingly, the film The Visitor was being shown. It is the definition of a small film, but my, is it lovely. It's made more lovely, of course, by the fact that Richard Jenkins was one of the best aspects of Six Feet Under, and he is given this whole film to just kind of inhabit and be, and change without seeming like one of those cheesy movies about change. I was surprised at how well it worked, especially considering I was watching it while babies were screaming and flight attendants were trying to shill out $3 packets of shortbread cookies.

Here's a guilty pleasure type of secret secret. Generally, I don't like watching anything on CBS. I really don't think that channel generally has anything I find vaguely compelling. Except when you throw the NPH into the mix, in which case all bets are off. So, it's sort of a guilty pleasure that I have been watching How I Met Your Mother for the past year, and am looking forward to the new season starting. The premise of the show is meh and it's not particularly earth-shatteringly innovative. But it is usually quite funny.

There's something about the show that resonates with the way that I communicate with a lot of friends. I suppose it's annoying, throwing in a billion pop culture references in conversation, but a lot of times it's completely unintentional. It's just become part of normal conversation. It's become commonplace to object to an argument by yelling "Erroneous! Erroneous on both counts!" There is nothing out of the ordinary about muttering "Blerg" defeatedly. Oh, and then there are the countless Princess Bride references.

I really wasn't much of a How I Met Your Mother fan, but then I saw an episode in which Jason Segel references Bad Idea Jeans. What can I say? I'm a sucker for these kinds of shout-outs.

Okay, I'm trying to make foccacia. I think it is going to turn out disastrous, but if I don't tend to it now, it may pass disastrous and turn into a fiasco of massive proportions.

when I woke up from that sleep, I was happier than I've ever been

So I suppose I ought to update, since cobwebs are starting to develop 'round here. Clearly, I was not in a good place. I say clearly, because only in dire circumstances would I view going home to EBF as a form of relaxation.

Actually, it's not EBF that's relaxing. It's that as soon as I stepped off the plane, as I stood by a conveyor belt waiting for my suitcase to appear, I turned to look out the window and the panes were being pelted by rain. The storm was a bad one by EBF standards, but I stood there feeling so comforted at that moment.

I was, it turns out, so entirely tired of the sunshine. I was tired of the unrelenting heat, and the forced cheeriness that endless sunshine engenders. I was tired of preparing a face to meet the faces that you meet. It really didn't matter where I went, I just needed to get out of the entire state of California, it turns out.

Running to San Francisco, my usual salve in such situations, is fraught with difficulty. Running there winds up making me wistful. It's not a relief these days, because I know I have to go back, back to the heat and the smoke and the wasteland. Weirdly, I have to get as far from San Francisco as possible to truly appreciate all that it did for me and meant for me. When I am there of late, the same, distracting thought keeps pummeling me: you don't live here anymore.

I did get a break from both the rain and EBF today by going to Boston for the day. The weather was unusually perfect, and it was sort of a stunning experience. Things I once held dear had lost meaning, weird nowhere-seeming places smacked me squarely with bittersweet memories, and I was mostly entertained by all of it. It used to be jarring, seeing my memory's snapshots transformed and obliterated over time. But I guess that's the good thing about time- you get used to it. In some ways, you even take comfort of it, of the dynamic nature of cities, of how you can very nearly be sure that a city will never, ever be the same.

But in Boston, I can breathe a quiet sigh and think to myself: you don't live here anymore. And while I did not hate living in the city (quite the opposite in many ways), I can see how, just like the city itself, I'm not the girl I was when I lived here. It's neither sad nor inspiring. It's just sort of wondrous, the constant impermanence of it all.

I'm thinking of all of this more than usual because a friend of mine had his sense of reality shattered. And while I have been feeling horribly sad for him, I also realize that he had the luxury of having a very static notion of reality. He sort of created a reality for himself, checked it with those around him, got buy-in, and then just decided that was the deal for the rest of his life. In a particularly low mood the other day, he remarked, "Honestly I just want to take the blue pill and go back to what I used to believe." At first, I thought I was in no position to remark on that statement, as I'd never lived in The Matrix, didn't live with the belief that I was set or settled, didn't think I was on a constant trajectory or path. But then I realized all of this has happened and will happen again. I had done all of those things, had felt all of those things, but I had chosen to wake up and open my eyes, and be aware of the dreary, yet sometimes miraculously beautiful world of reality.

It's the only way, after all, to appreciate the rain.

there ain't gonna be any middle anymore

This session of Cram-athon 2008 is interrupted to bring you a few special news flashes. It's nice to see Federer playing like he means it, nicer still to see each of his opponents pushing him a little, hungry with the idea that they might just have a chance to take him down this year. It's equally nice to see Nadal playing strong- it would be really nice to see those two play in the finals again, assuming I am not drowning in a study vortex when the finals approach.

I am worried about Maitri and everyone else in New Orleans, who have been through enough without Gustav and db newscasters/pols/bloggers remarking on the irony of it all. It's not ironic. It's frightening and disturbing, and I just hope they get through it without serious damage to themselves, their spirits and their dwellings.

Also, everything I said in my last post, I am seriously tempted to take back. Everything I thought was positive and hopeful about the Obama campaign has been soured of late with the reaction some of his more 'fervent' supporters have had to McCain picking Palin as his VP running mate. Is it pandering? Sure, maybe. Is it insulting to try to woo HRC supporters by picking a woman who has completely opposing viewpoints to HRC on a lot of the issues? Perhaps a little.

But sweet sassy molassy, can people please stop the all-out assault on her? You can't have it both ways- you can't complain about how evil Rove's ways are, how dirty one side fights, and then make incessant remarks about a candidate of the ilk that have been floating around the internets the last few days.

Do I like Sarah Palin? Not one bit. I don't agree with her views, I don't think she's a particularly strong or able candidate. Does she make Obama any less of an attractive candidate to me? No. But, the thing is, who cares? I'm not who McCain is targeting. All those fervent Obama supporters that are currently sending me emails about Palin wearing fur and being an ex-beauty queen- those, too, are not the people McCain is targeting.

And let me tell you, it doesn't do the cause a whole lot of good to continually take a dump on Palin as a choice. I'm not even for McCain, and I find the bashing on her a little distasteful. Imagine what it would do for an actual supporter of McCain. Anyway, I wish people would just show a tiny bit of class. If you're really for change, you could start by not engaging in this sort of constant negativity.

Now back to my regularly scheduled program of hitting my head against the brick wall of degenerative diseases of the central nervous system.

must be a sucker for it

It occurs to me, rather all at once just now, that perhaps it's not about an individual. Perhaps it's too much to expect so much from any one person.

I've complained before that the Obama-mania turns me off a bit. Last week, I'd gotten a bit razor-tongued with some classmates about this, when they were going hyperbolic about Obama's revolutionary ways.

Here's what I realized today, when I finally started getting it together and watched all the speeches at the DNC- it's not really about Obama anymore. I should have seen it in all the frenzy amongst my very young classmates. Sure, they were over-the-top about it. But they were engaged. This 23-year old was chatting it up about this and that, and, granted, most of what he said was extremely biased and perhaps verbatim from some recent propaganda circulating around. However, these are people who would usually prefer discussing the merits of my fantasy football picks (I missed the draft, so dudes, my automatically selected picks are atrocious) than anything political.

And then, in reflecting just a tiny bit more, because it doesn't take much reflection when you're being bludgeoned square in the face with the obvious, I thought, well, maybe it just doesn't matter. Maybe it's irrelevant that Obama is probably not going to radically change the country. Maybe it is a sheltered and idealistic notion to believe any one leader can. Maybe the point is the palpable feeling you get listening to all of these speeches, watching the composition of the crowd, hearing the buzz afterwards.

Because ultimately, what probably matters the most is that people believe. Maybe if they believe, then Obama really will change things, maybe the country really will shift. Probably not, but I'm not even sure that matters. What impresses me, all sudden-like, is that people have the ability to hope and believe again. The last 8 years have been taxing, to say the least. The years before that had plenty of moments of disappointment too. So, it's either ignorance of the past (what I probably had believed previously) or just amazing resilience (which tonight I'm more inclined towards) that leads people to engage this much again, put a stake in this that much again.

I know the few people who are reading this are likely thinking NO DUH. Perhaps. Perhaps the Dems just finally got their sh*t seriously sorted out and figured out how to run a convention without any division, pandering, or major missteps. Perhaps I'm drinking the Kool Aid and someone deserves a raise for some well-crafted speeches. But for the first time in a long time, today I thought, well, maybe there is a reason to hope. But it's not Obama that's the reason. He just found a pulse, put his stethoscope on it, and then described it out loud- and the people listening to him said, well, that sounds like he's talking about my heart. Then they looked around and realized everyone felt the same inside. And in that recognition, there was suddenly a burst of energy that unified them all.

Sorry for the cheese. It's particularly weird coming from me, and may well be a sign of heatstroke. Today's high? 108.

something so easy in how you're sweet to me

There are a few things I ought to be doing right now, which include:

• studying
  
• going to the market
  
• keeping my crazy friend from becoming too estranged from me
  
• studying

Instead, I am blogging. Just as, instead of being productive this morning and studying, I made these:



I made a batch of these a few days ago, when I just needed a break and wanted to fool around a bit in the kitchen. In retrospect, it was a bit comical that I thought this would be the best thing to do with free time. I've just recently learned not to swear incessantly while rolling out dough. As you can see from the picture, I still didn't really master it, as the dough was a bit uneven, such that some of the edges got burnt.

Turns out it doesn't matter though. If anyone is interested, I'll post how I did this (and basically, how I did this involved a bit of web surfing at some trusted baking sites). All you really need to know is that, with a decent pie crust and some good, organic strawberry preserves, you too can make a faux Pop Tart. Even though it's certainly more effort than unwrapping a thin foil wrapper and sticking perfectly rectangular pastries into a toaster, I think it's worth the effort.

My vegan friends would disagree, I'm sure. The pie dough I used is all butter, after all. I remember a friend of mine going vegan over a decade ago, back when people were still trying to figure out if you could still eat fish and be called a vegetarian. I thought she'd gone vegan for health reasons, until she informed me that she'd taken to eating Pop Tarts every morning, because they were so filled with artificial flavors, preservatives and components, that you didn't have to worry about any part of them coming from some protected part of nature. Not that I have anything against vegans or Pop Tarts, but something about realizing that Pop Tarts are vegan cracked me up.

Anyway. I gave the foolish little tarts to a classmate, because it was his birthday, and it was just too early in the morning to be giving him a batch of cupcakes. He was happy with them. Really, there's not much to dislike about them- even the burnt edges don't really taste that bad. Perhaps in the future I will try to make versions that have frosting or something. For now, this has to be enough, especially since the summer is not yet over here, which means baking time remains limited.

Now I'm off to the market, which is slightly more responsible than blogging, but certainly less so than studying. But before I go, I must note that Nadal has quipped that he has to pull down his shorts so frequently when he plays because he has a bigger backside than most guys. And since I just thought I'd quickly take in a bit of early round play, I must say that I think he's right. Also, I love the Spaniard, despite the fact that some Spaniard sportsters have been giving Spaniards quite a bad name of late- but all the same, Fed, pull yourself together, man. I fully expect you to at least give Andy Roddick a proper trouncing. Despite what Roddick may say, this is your homecourt.

you don't need to emerge from nothing

Sometimes I think we have this competition to see which of us is crazier. Maybe it's more of a fight of crazy vs. crazy. Because in a battle between crazy and sane, crazy always wins.

The bro-seph and I are close, but not really. I have low expectations of him, which is a strange thing to say about family perhaps, but true nonetheless. And as a result, he seldom disappoints me. The other day, I was explaining this to SP, who was amazed at how cool I can be about my brother always spending time with his girlfriend or neglecting to call me or never getting me anything for my birthday. Somewhere, deep inside, I'm sure these things annoy me a little, but certainly not enough to throw a fit over.

I'd explained to SP that we didn't have that kind of relationship, the bro-seph and I. He's not the person I turn to when I'm really upset about something, or need to sort out a complex predicament. I'm not sure who I turn to in such situations anymore, but that's a story for another day. What I'd told SP, and I had really meant it, is that there is only one thing I ever really required of my brother- that he be around to listen when I need to talk about my parents.

About this, he is pretty good, and that's where he's needed. Even though he and I don't see eye to eye on my parents, he understands the situation better than anyone from the outside. There are stories that can be told, and people get a laugh out of it, but they fail to see the crazy, fail to see what was so troublesome about it.

I thought of this incident that occurred with my father years and years ago, when he was in full-on insanity mode, rather than his more baseline out-to-lunch state that he now inhabits rather well. We were all living on the East Coast at the time. The bro-seph had uncharacteristically fled the city for the weekend, and even more uncharacteristically had actually managed to really enjoy himself at my place. We'd planned to go hiking on Sunday, the perfect completion of a non-urban weekend. But that morning, at 6 a.m, my mother had called me. She'd simply said, "I thought you should know that your father is driving to your house right now."

They lived 5 hours away. My father had already offered to visit my brother that weekend, and my brother had declined. The bro-seph and I are united in one thing- we never find comfort from the doting of our parents, mostly because there is not much doting involved. As I tried to find out from my mother what had possessed my father, my brother drowsily arose and heard the ruckus. He wearily got on his cell phone and called my father, who cheerfully insisted he was coming to visit. My brother begged him not to come, reasoned that it wasn't too late for him to turn around, and that there was little for my father to do. But my father said he had to do it, had to see my brother for himself, make sure he was okay.

Four hours later, he had, indeed, showed up at my doorstep. We all regarded each other awkwardly. It was clear on my father's face. He could see, suddenly, how unnecessary it had been. He laughed nervously. My brother shook his head, all the relief he'd amassed over the previous day gone. And just like that, my father got back into his car, and drove the 5 hours back home.

Whenever my brother and I have tried to tell this story to any friend, the reaction is always the same- omg, your dad's, like, so sweet to come all that way just to see you. I understand why people think that. I even understand how that is partly true. But when you've gone through a lifetime of wtf, insanity-laced incidents, this sort of thing is just symptomatic. It's just like the clinical syndromes I'm studying right now- one symptom, by itself, seems innocuous, nothing to worry about, but combine it with a good history, and all of a sudden, you're talking major illness.

The bro-seph gets that, and he'd probably get it if I called him right now. One of my friends is a little bit teetering on the verge of nutso-land right now. The latest approach has been disguising death-clutching co-dependence as concern about me. But let's call a spade a spade- the concern about me stems from my lack of availability to be a crutch. Just as with my dad, I'm pretty sure that anyone else would have the predictable reaction of awww, how sweet, he's looking out for you or there would be the even more tragically misguided ohhhh, maybe he likes you likes you, you know?

The bro-seph would know, though. He'd know in a heartbeat, because he's seen this kind of crazy. My dad didn't drive 5 hours out of concern for my brother, or if he did, it was horribly bad judgment- my brother certainly didn't benefit from the incident. No, there's no getting around the fact that my dad was motivated by making himself feel better. And, granted, that's fair game, especially when family is involved.

But I was too busy or too lazy or too tired to explain it all to my brother. He'd have understood, but it's not really understanding I need- I just need a break from it. So I wound up fighting crazy with crazy. I turned off my phone and went walkabout for a little while. It wasn't a particularly winning strategy, and I really now have left the impression that I am losing my mind a little bit. Sometimes it's better to give someone that notion than to confront them with the wrongheadedness of their ways, especially when they are in an unstable state. Or maybe I really am just crazy myself.

when everything else is unclear, at least I know

This morning, I woke up early and made pie crust. Then I made a lunch of tofu and vegetables and salad. Then I went to class and paid attention and did not surf the web. Then I ate my lunch while stopping to talk to two administrators about various little projects that I have somehow entwined myself in. Then I went back to class, an interactive one, where a professor and I had a very good and useful conversation about meningiomas. Then I went to the library and caught up on some work while listening to a new mix that I can sadly not put on the mux at the moment because they seem to have run into some copyright issues (whoops, and boo). Then I walked home as the sun was setting. Then I ate my dinner. Then I went to Trader Joe's and bought blueberries for my once-weekly permissible baking extravagance. Then I allowed myself to watch a tiny bit of television while finishing up some more reading. And then I felt it was time to take a break.

Thanks for the support from yesterday's post, be it through comments, notes or just positive vibes. But the only way I know how to get through such times is what I did today- dive headlong in a series of trivialities. It's funny, if you take each thing separately, how insignificant it all is, because it felt otherwise like such a productive day.

At some point, do you call it hiding or do you call it living? I do these things as a kind of defense, a sort of shield. The shield of stuff-to-do. But I'm not sure it's that different from just getting on with the business of living. Pied Piper commented and emailed about something I'd written regarding how inexplicable it is, getting over things, moving on. And then I have a day like this and realize this is kind of how it happens.

It's just that one day, you wake up and decide you're not going to be down anymore, that things aren't going to continue to happen to you. And there's all that cheesy crap about being mindful that zen-masters talk about, but some aspect of it is true.

Obviously, I'm not doing a good job of explaining it at the moment. It's not the time to explain really, since I'm busy hiding or living or whatever you care to call it. Whatever you care. Because I don't really care what you call it. I just call it what needs to happen.

Because on a day like this, I realize, I can think back on the moment that I really first felt truly inconsolable. It was nothing so out of the ordinary really, nothing that would make a good novel, so typical, so run-of-the-mill. But that's the thing about being young- you don't realize how common your little heartbreak is. You imagine it's the only time anyone has ever felt that badly. You imagine you have some special capacity for feeling that makes you experience the pain more acutely than anyone else. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. Either way, doesn't really matter- the end is the same, you have to get on with living.

And I just remember that I don't know how it happened, or why. Nothing momentous, no intervention suddenly snapped me out of the black hole. I just remember that I woke up one morning and realized that I lived a block from the river. And then I went for a walk on that river and came to see that it was beautiful- everything was in bloom, the sun dropped glitter on the water, and on the bridge, the wind could make you breathless for a moment. It was like the world went from a black-and-white silent film to a technicolor musical. The rhythmic, synchronous rowing of the crew teams, the dedicated runners who made their way down the path with disciplined purpose, the roller-blader who seemed so fit but stopped midway to rest on a rock and light up a cigarette. The entire city was humming some off-tune symphony, seemed to be saying, Where have you been? We've been here all this time, and you never bothered to notice. And quite simply, it just seemed clear that, even though I was perhaps alone in some ways, I had this whole city silently offering me a cushion.

But it wasn't the first time I'd ever taken a walk on the Charles. It was just the first time I had been of the mind to see all that was happening around me. And similarly, I know I didn't do anything special today, and that I didn't accomplish anything really. I know I didn't cure myself of all my troubles, and that I still have a lot of I suck moments ahead of me. But I made a pie crust this morning, and it seemed that it just becomes a matter of getting into the habit of saving myself.

this town is crazy, nobody cares

Didn't mean for over a week to pass by without posting, but these days, a lot of things happen whether I mean them to or not.

I'd love to spend a post telling you how funny some parts of Tropic Thunder were, and my love for RDJ persists much like a rooster illusion might (although SP gifted me a Rolling Stone in which there is an interview of RDJ that is so over-the-top in its adulation that I have a feeling the 15-year old version of me might have written it). I'd also love to tell you about my first (and definitely only) outing to the State Fair and the great joys of eating artificially colored spun sugar. I'd even more love to tell you of Vicky Christina Barcelona, which was not a great movie, but did something I thought would never happen- made me cheer for Penelope Cruz in a movie. She was so good in it, I was thoroughly befuddled. This cannot have been the same person who appeared in a crapfest with Tom Cruise. Also, if Javier Bardem and RDJ appeared in a movie together, I think I would turn into a puddle of goo. And then watch the movie 5 times.

Anyway. But I can't tell you any of that really. Even though I just did. I'm writing at the moment because I just need to write something. I am frustrated. I am a tiny bit frustrated with school, but I am more frustrated with myself. I am frustrated with my inabilities, and those inabilities don't have much to do with school.

So there's this horrible thing that happened to my very good friend. And I took it very personally, almost as though it had happened to me. And then I took it more personally because it quickly became clear that my friend had virtually no one else to turn to. And then.

And then this is the part where I fall short. And I don't know what to do with myself, or with him. I know he needs help. I know he refuses to get help. I know that, instead of getting help, he is spinning his wheels by fixating on the wrong things. And most of all, I know, and I know because I am getting that panicky feeling, I know he is latching on to me for dear life.

I've used the analogy before, but it still applies. He's drowning. But he knows how to swim. I'm not that great a swimmer myself. I am tired too. I've been trying to tread water beside him, telling him that he knows how to swim, telling him to stay afloat. But now we're getting to the ugly part. The part, when you're too tired to keep on going, and you start to drown. The panic settles in and reflexive, gut instinct kicks in and you grab hold of the person who's been trying to help you. You think they're strong enough, that they are so much stronger than you that they can stay afloat while buoying you as well.

But I'm not that strong, not that much stronger. And now I'm drinking water. And then this is the part where I fall short, because I don't drown, don't go down with this ship. Gut kicks in and I am on the verge of breaking free.

At which point, all I'll be is alone, treading water in a vast and endless sea.

turned you into someone new

Okay, first, some trivial matters:

I guess I am the only one, but sword of Zeus, I cannot get excited about the Olympics. I'm not really making an effort, but in addition, I might be actively avoiding it- I hate all the nationalistic Go America/Go India/Go Whatever Country, though I'm not really sure why, given that I cheered on Spain in the Eurocup without the slightest hesitation. Maybe once they start playing tennis, I will change my tune.

Still trivial, but a subject that will really test whether I have any readers left. People, I need your help. It all started yesterday, when I heard this new Keane song, Spiralling. Here was my stepwise reaction:

• WTFFFF?!?
  
• Was this recorded recently?!?
  
• Okay, calm down. Why so crazy? Keane pretty much always bite other bands' styles (cough*ColplayU2*cough), so it's not so radical for them to sound like the 80s. Just got tired of stealing from their contemporaries, maybe.
  
• There's something about this that reminds me of Naked Eyes' Promises Promises.
  
• Oh lord, spoken word interludes... always hilarious, and even moreso when said interlude is as dumb as this.
  
• Ooooh, RR called it, this is totally ripping off Human League's Fascination.
  
• Okay, now I feel gross because I am actually amused by this.

I know, it's a mess in my head. I even edited out all the thoughts about chocolate (yesterday, I told a friend I wasn't going to a party because, I quote verbatim here, "I have peppermint patties in the refrigerator and they aren't going to eat themselves!"). But that's not why I need your help. What I need is this: songs released in the past few years that sound like they were ripped from the 80s, or at least seem to be paying homage to the 80s. Help! I will clearly do anything to get a comment up in here.

Crap, I ran out of steam. I had some less trivial things brewing in my head, but I think maybe they deserve a separate, somewhat coherent post.

we're tumbling down, we're spiralling

Lately, whenever I am writing a post, I have a test looming over my head, or unanswered emails piling up in my inbox, or an ever-growing list of to-do's that always seems neglected. In short, lately, it just seems like I am not on top of my sh*t.

Despite all that, there's one thing I do not let slide. Stupid and wrongheaded as my priorities are, I do stand by them. I've devised a little strategem by which I am justified in baking something nearly every week. Sometimes, it is simple- stuff you've seen a zillion pictures of already, and I won't bore you with again. Other times, I am in the mood for experimentation. Last week, I forced a classmate to steal a gigantic zucchini from her grandmother's garden. I lived to regret it, as I wound up with two loaves of chocolate zucchini bread, and over a dozen zucchini muffins (pictures pending because the first loaf of bread got devoured at a party, and the second one, I sensibly froze).

It doesn't really even matter anymore. Whether I am in the mood for something practical, something I know everyone will eat, or something that will push the envelope. I just know that it has to be done. Every week, and if the week drags on and somehow it doesn't happen, I get a kind of twitch. I know something's off, that there's been some disturbance in the force.



These were greeted well by those who ate them while studying for a final a week back. Me, I'm not a big fan. I've played around with chocolate cookies, and I've come to this conclusion- you ought not dilute down chocolate. It performs best in its pure form. So chop it up (soon to make a repeat showing, a few weeks ago, I chopped up a Toblerone bar in cookies, and those were some good times), eat it straight, or at most make a cream or sauce out of it. Otherwise, chocolate things always fall short. I write that, but I've far from given up on it. It's just that it always misses the mark. My classmates didn't care though, because of the chips. Those are Guittard, cappuccino flavored. And let's just say med school is not in shortage of coffee fiends.

Me, I have never been a coffee drinker. I recently forced myself to start drinking chai lattes, but only while rolling my eyes about the whole thing. So, these cookies did very little for me, except provide me with a small measure of sanity in an often insanity-inducing world. For now, that's more than enough.

*

It also bums me out that Bernie Mac passed away this weekend. Bernie Mac always struck me as what a man should really be. He reminded me of all the qualities I loved about my uncles. You know- grumpy and begrudging about stuff, but fundamentally good. He is something of an ideal to me- flawed, had a temper, but you knew he wouldn't hurt a fly. Complaining all the way, but doing extraordinary things for his family. I loved that about him, because it was so real. And as someone who does this every once in a while often, I liked that he wasn't afraid to talk sh*t about his family. To me, those imperfections and mania of internal family squabbles and drama and idiosynchrasies are what make life worth relating. And no matter how crazy your family seems to be, when you tell a story about them, someone always seems to pick out some aspect of it that resonates with them. Bernie Mac seemed to do that better than anyone else at the game these days.

sometimes I wonder- will I ever be the same?

So, blog fodder of late has been pretty far from scintillating. And I've been crap at keeping in touch or holding conversations. I don't mean this as a complaint, but at the moment, my energy is divided up between two things and two things alone- school and a friend who is going through hell. And neither of those make for very entertaining blog subjects.

Instead, I'll hide behind my favorite topic. You know what I love most about getting older? The way I feel increasingly comfortable embracing whatever the crap song I want to and proclaiming that I have infinite fondness for it. Sometimes, it's not even shame that held me back previously, just a lack of awareness. Especially with old songs. So old that they're sort of in our fabric. You don't think of these songs as good or bad, just as you wouldn't think of the moon as being good or bad- it's been around forever, it's always there, it provides you with light and darkness.

Yesterday I was doing the drive that I sometimes do, the one that takes me through an hour of doldrums to get to the promised land. On such drives, and with such thoughts as I have recently had on my mind, having good songs to keep me company becomes paramount. But yesterday's trip was a bit impromptu and, therefore, I had not planned out good musical selections. So I had to rely on the radio. This usually means I wind up on some country station, listening to some truly gut-wrenching song and wondering how in the world such lyrics are always confined to country songs.

But instead of that, I was just coming down a long stretch of freeway, dipping down and then climbing up. Just as the descent began, Baby, I need your loving miraculously presented itself on the radio. I know that some people will read this and think The Four Tops, really? That's your miracle? Go figure, but people, revisit the song. There is something transcendental about it.

Maybe it had such an impact on me yesterday because it's a song about longing, about losing something and wanting it back. The song very nearly celebrates its predicament. It sees the beauty in the mess, in the tragedy, in the business of offering up a bruised and frightened heart to someone who might well stomp on it. For some reason, I needed to hear that yesterday.

Also- it's got that groove thang, which doesn't hurt either.

may you never

There is a lot of laughter. About fifteen years ago, I wrote a little something, an imagined story about me and a fellow conspirator, how we would mock the pretentious, how we could look at each other and see the joke coming. Today, that little string of sentences is a premonition. We walk around hushed, dimly lit rooms mercilessly taking the piss out of Chihuly. It is the sort of thing I'd normally only write of doing, but given circumstances, we are both emboldened.

It's happened to him, not to me. I keep reminding myself of that. But it doesn't feel like that, as we're standing on the observation deck, looking over the city. He fails to see the charm, and I don't have the heart to argue today. Instead, I look out and see the exact spot below where Q and I stopped, paused, and noted the frames of this building, just a skeleton still. It's happened to him, not to me, I tell myself, but then that memory of Q drifts in and it just makes it all the more evident how temporary and fleeting everything can be.

We have a good dinner, he keeps in good spirits. But then it's just the two of us in the car, and he gets quiet as he's done periodically through the day. He gets quiet and suddenly breathing is a conscious effort for him. He lets out a breath and turns to me, says, nearly pleads, "Tell me I'm going to be okay."

And I say it without hesitation. "You're going to be okay." And I mean it and he knows this. That I say it with such certainty, with so little hesitation, surprises even me. Is he really going to be okay? Am I really being sincere? But he is, and I am. I just don't know how. I do not know how it happens, never came up with a series of well-planned steps. I only know that it does happen, almost miraculously. The things people can survive are a lot.

It just doesn't always feel that way.

I'm never alone, I'm alone all the time

Really, it's shameful to title my post this way. True mark of a kindred spirit- early on in our friendship, RR and I spent the better part of a half-hour discussing the idiocy of Bush's Glycerine. Of course, what both of us smoothly glossed over, implicit in even having the little bash-a-thon, was that we both clearly knew the song well enough to quote the lyrics to each other.

It's shameful, and no way in all of the decreasingly green Earth would I give Rossdale credit for it, but I've put a lot of meaning into that one simple line. I extract it wholly, lift it from the song as if it can stand wholly on its own. The song, after all, has no meaning, I contend. You can try to convince me otherwise, but RR & I took a hard look at those lyrics and concluded Rossdale was just clumsily grasping for a rhyme or two. Still. I heard the line, completely out of context- I was starting to drive and the radio came on and there wafted Rossdale's voice crooning just that line- I'm never alone, I'm alone all the time.

And I don't know why, but for some reason, it meant something today. I guess that's the thing about music. Musicians are not exactly rocket scientists, but the way they express things, well, you just never know. You can hear a song a million times, and all of a sudden, on the right day, in the right moment, it can surprisingly mean something to you.

Today, when I heard it, I just, at that second, thought- I think this might encapsulate my entire life. Because that's really just about it. It's this weird oscillation, or maybe even a dichotomy. I'm never alone, I'm alone all the time. I don't even know what else to say. It's the great tragedy/comedy of life, that, so often, the people that are around you are no substitute for the people you miss. Or, perhaps more to the point, the people who want to be around you often do not overlap on a Venn diagram with the people you want to be around.

It's the ultimate in being a malcontent, really, to complain about that. But I'd note, I'm not complaining really. It's sort of gone on for far too long to whine about it nowadays. Nowadays, all I can manage is a plaintive I'm never alone, I'm alone all the time.

I owe some people some comments and thoughtful responses, and they are coming. I just had to mark this down, because I am crawling the walls in study-mode, and needed a quick little outlet. Thank you, as always, for indulging me.

it's gonna be a glorious day

And now we come to that of which I often dare not speak. And that is this- you have to believe. Believe in whatever, it doesn't matter.

I'm supposed to be studying neuroanatomy right now, and my professor really loves talking about how the cerebellum would float around without a care in the world if it weren't for the cerebellar peduncles that hold it in place, connecting it to the rest of your brain. An oversimplification, to be certain. But something to believe in. The cerebellum, you need it for balance, to keep the steadiness in your gait. The steadiness, not the gait, you see.

That's the point. Believing doesn't cure all. It doesn't make the world dissolve away, doesn't immerse you in cotton candy clouds and lavender skies. But it lets you walk through the world without the crushing weight of what you see around you. If you look around, if you pay attention, it's not a far fall to despair. It's all around you, the proof, the facts. Things fall apart. Entropy always wins.

But if you took all that at face value, what would keep you waking up every morning? What would keep you from drinking three shots of scotch and calling it a night? What would keep you from feeling the whole world was entirely absurd? Not much. And I should know, because there have been plenty of times that I've let go of belief.

I'm not a religious person. I'm not a person with deep roots, not someone who has had a permanence that serves as a center. I believed in one person once, had the courage to put all my faith into science once as well. It's a thin line, faith and fanaticism. I came to think of that kind of belief as not necessarily healthy.

Now I'm not so sure. It's fundamental, this need to believe. It doesn't matter in what. Sometimes it's as intangible as a well-placed melody. Sometimes it's as simple as the feeling of fog on the tip of your nose. Sometimes it's as small a gesture as someone inviting you when you are otherwise feeling spurned. Sometimes it's bigger. I can see that now. The further you fall, the more let down by faith, the bigger, insurmountable your need to believe. And that's when you need it so badly that you fear you can't live without it, won't know how to put one foot in front of the other, not without the belief that it's not all for naught.

But it's not really true. It doesn't make you walk. It just keeps you from walking in circles, stumbling, tripping. You can do without it for a little while. As long as someone is around to watch out for you, keep you from falling for those moments you've lost your faith, you will live. And at times, that's the best we can hope for. At times, that's where I place my belief.

there's no happy ending, so they say

It took me back to the times I felt inconsolable. Comparatively, proportionally, he was doing well. I'd fallen apart at the seams for much less. I remember one of the worst moments, stranded in Southern California, young, naive, the sun cheerfully shining incongruously to the ruins my life felt to have become.

Before that, all month before that, I'd had this uneasy feeling. Drenched in sunlight, feeling the world so filled with possibilities, hearing everyone sound so sure that the pieces would fall into place for me, I had gone there with the kind of confidence and hope that I'd never previously exhibited. Inside, I found it strange, the shift. But I thought, well, after dark years, the world has turned around. I did not think I was on the verge of failure.

And so I was alone and the sunshine made things worse, I remember. I recall walking aimlessly down the street, arms limp, feeling that sun beating down on me oppressively. It wasn't too hot. But the sun surrounding me only served to make me feel more lonely. I longed for drenching rain that dripped from my hair. I longed for the cold night to bite at my cheeks, to give me a headache. Instead I walked about aimlessly like a zombie in broad daylight.

Tomorrow I will write about recovery, about the weirdness of recovery, how it does not have any prescribed process, how it often has no explanation or order, how it just miraculously happens. But right now, I keep wondering how people manage to put themselves at risk of falling apart, like I did that sunny afternoon.

see you break, break away into the light and to the day

So I have had a tugging at the back of my throat all afternoon. It's too much to bear, and it's not even mine to bear really. I don't want to write about it really, because it's not fair. It's not mine, it's his, that's why.

Something occurred to me though, even as I was sitting down to write this. Sometimes you have no idea what shifts have happened inside of you, no awareness of them whatsoever. It's not that you are ignoring them. They just come to flow rather seamlessly into your life, and there was no need to make an announcement, record the moment.

But then something happens and you have to take note. As I've been on the brink of tears this afternoon, it occurs to me. My oldest friend in the whole wide world is not speaking to me currently. I love him dearly, still, but he's always someone with whom I have had an oscillating relationship- he comes and goes, we have our highs and our lows, yet somehow I always viewed him as a constant. And somehow, regardless of whatever had come to pass between us, he was always the one person I unleashed upon. When I had a case of the mean reds, when I fell on black days, when I was in a downward spiral, I always felt he was the person I could tell. He always indulged me.

I didn't even notice it, never paid attention to the change in tide. I suppose I should have. When I felt like The Goal was unattainable and crushing me, RR was the one giving me pep talks, telling me to suck it up and make it happen. When Q popped back into my life and I started entertaining allowing myself to get pulled back into a truly unproductive situation, it was RR sitting me down and pointing out how obviously stupid and self-destructive my impulse was. We used to waste time at work bullsh*tting about pop culture, or about my problem, because one of RR's favorite pasttimes is figuring out why I'm single (which is sort of a compliment, kind of)- when he's hypothesizing, he always starts with "you know what your problem is?"

Opposite of me in so many ways. OCD to my slob. Gordon Gecko capitalist to my pinko liberal socialist. He's quick to call someone out for stupidity, I'm quick to note it for a future anecdote. He hates being alone, I can think of nothing better. The only guy I know who likes to talk about feelings, the only girl he knows who runs out of the room when the topic comes up. He teased me for over a year because I characterized us as work friends a long time back.

A really long time back it seems. Because somewhere along the way, he became my closest friend. I don't know how it happened. Maybe it was his ability to say just the right thing at just the right moment, his bottomless reservoir of humor, and the feeling that he always is on my side, always hoping I'll get what I want, even if it makes him jealous or takes me away from what is convenient for him.

It didn't really matter before. I don't like to talk about best friends- it seems like a term you use in 5th grade, when it means nothing and you have a new BFF every month or so. I probably try not to use the term for that reason. Best is superlative, it means something permanent to me, and I have a long-standing distrust of permanence, especially where relationships are concerned. We're constantly evolving and different people grow closer to us and others grow further apart. So I try not to dwell on it and just let it happen. My oldest friend has grown distant, and that is sad, but it happens. All you can hope with your closest friends is that they always stay in your life.

But RR is as close to a best friend as can be had. It didn't really matter before. He told me I was his once, but hilariously finished the sentence with a hurried "and I know that makes your skin crawl and you don't have to say that I'm yours". If it would not hurt him more to say it right now, I would tell him I realized today how much of a part of my life he is. I could tell because, as his world was falling apart, as he had gone weightless and found himself tumbling uncomfortably around, I could feel it too. I felt the sucker punch, the pinch in the chest, the impossibility of going forward, the wish to make it all go away and live in the dreams of the past. If only it were enough, if only it meant I was feeling it for him.

what would you give for your kid fears?

When I woke up, I had the feeling that I had not slept soundly. On the phone, there were 19 missed calls, all from one number. They had started at 3 o'clock in the morning. Were I younger, I would have concluded I was getting drunk-dialed. But I'm not younger, so instead, fear seized me, as I assumed something horrible had happened.

I thought it must be a death. A stillbirth, a complication. But as the fog of drowsiness cleared out of my head, I started to doubt myself. With death, there is tragedy and sadness, sometimes inconsolable sadness. But so little to discuss, in some ways. It is so final.

Opening my laptop, I found three emails, the first starting at 3 a.m, begging for a phone call. A wave of shame swept over me that I had slept through all these calls. It started to dawn on me that something irreversible had happened. I didn't even want to anymore, but I steeled myself to the news about to arrive and called.

He had two rules- don't say "I can't believe it" or "I would never have thought that this would happen to you." Fine, simple instructions.

I wanted to tell him to say it quickly, like pulling a bandage off the skin. Say it fast, it will hurt less. But I was wrong. Whatever the speed, the pace, nothing was going to change how horrible the news was. In my head, I was thinking I can't believe it and I would never have thought that this would happen to you. But I held my tongue. It wasn't a death, but wasn't it really? It was the death of everything he believed in and built his life around, everything that gave him his unswerving assuredness and ambition.

He was paralyzed. We talked for two hours, but in circles. Waves of realization kept crashing down on him, toppling him over. He, usually the first to sit me down and analyze a problem with precision and logic, could not even get his hands around the magnitude of what was facing him. What he wanted was for none of it to be true. Beyond that, he did not know what to want.

He did not know what to want anymore. He was left to choose between two equally distasteful paths and none of them led to a time where this ceased to be reality.

I know this did not happen to me. I know I didn't have much to say to him, didn't have a magical solution to transform his life back to the idyllic haven it had once been. A part of me thinks I was lying when I told him he would be okay. I am hardly okay and it did not happen to me. It occurs to me that I have watched some things fall apart in my lifetime, and every time, it shakes my foundations too. I believe in the people around me. I believe they have made better choices than I have. I look up to them, I suppose. So when something like this happens, it shakes my faith too. Things suddenly felt so dark when I put down the phone on such a sunny day. I can't imagine the sort of permanent midnight he is now inhabiting.

some days I think I'd feel better if I tried harder

I'd just recovered from the last time there was a black-out in hellville my neighborhood. Granted, it has been at least 6 months since the last time, but:

• that time, it lasted for over 4 days and ruined almost the entire contents of my refrigerator.
  
• the building I occupy is so dilapidated and poorly wired that the place spontaneously blows a fuse if I have the A/C going for more than an hour. This led to a few hair-raising moments of returning home after a brief sojourn out and about this summer to find my refrigerator without power again.
  
• I just went grocery shopping yesterday and I have those two batches of gelati mentioned in my last post sitting in my freezer. Sadness. Furthermore, there is some cookie dough in there as well- also, no fair.

Last time this happened, I had some serious anger management issues I had to wrestle. I was generally unhappy about various things and the electricity shorting out for almost a week was kind of the rancid whipped cream on a cup of lukewarm hot chocolate actually made of carobs. This time, it wasn't so bad- I am generally more content at the moment, and also a bit more aware of my utter helplessness in such a situation.

As it happened, it was an extremely quick black-out- fixed within an hour. But remaining so calm disturbed me too. Count on me, never satisfied. But I mean, is this what has become of my life? I've just become accepting of flat-out power shortages, the inevitable rotting of my freezer contents, the very hot condition of my apartment without any fans running? I feel like I did during vacations visiting my paternal grandmother in a small village in Gujarat, although, truth be told, I suspect if I went back there now, the little bungalow would have better electrical wiring than my current crack-shack.

I used to accuse my friend AL of being too content with life. I thought it was holding him back from making changes that would really make him happier. After all, if you make your life too comfortable, what will ever fuel you to strive for more? He eventually did make those changes, and was all the better for it. I sometimes think if you merged our two life philosophies, you would have a well-balanced human who actually did things on a proper timeline.

I try to tell myself I'll just appreciate it all the more when I live in a presentable place that is fully-functioning. But you know, I tell myself a lot of things, and very few of them are true. Isn't that always the way?

Speaking of fantasies, I hope you all have watched Dr. Horrible's Singalong. Only the NPH can add the phrases "Whatever!" and "Balls" to a musical without missing a beat.

fascinating new thing

I experimented with gelato instead of studying for a midterm. I now have 5 hours to study for it, but I have a feeling I am going to fall asleep instead of being sufficiently scared to give it my all.

Anyway. The gelato. Pictures to follow, because I am supposed to be studying right now. Initially, I went all desi ish-tyle, and, used this recipe to make pistachio gelato. The recipe was spot on and a great excuse to use both a bag of pistachios and some agave syrup I had bought for no apparent purpose some time back. At first, I thought perhaps it had come out a bit bland, and that maybe it called for too much sugar or that my pistachios were not of the right caliber. However, after it churned in the ice cream maker, was treated with some limoncello (mmmm, limoncello), and, oddly enough, was allowed to rest for a day in the freezer, the pistachio flavor really came through distinctly. Now, it didn't have that pistachio-flavor that you get when you order a cup of pistachio flavored ice cream at any old place-- you know, that oddly foreign flavor that people associate with pistachios even though real pistachios do not taste like that at all. This gelato tastes of pistachios. So, if you like pistachios, it would meet with your approval. If, on the other hand, you are nostalgic for the ice cream of your youth, this would be a disappointment.

I wasn't satisfied to stop there though. I like pistachios, sure, but I like almonds about 150 times moreso. I know, more reasons to kick me out of desi-ville (I don't really like mangoes either, so feel free to start the petition to have me voted out). And though I'd never really heard tell of it, I mean they're both nuts, so why not- why couldn't there be such a thing as almond gelato?

Now that I've made it, I have a feeling that I am not the first to do it. It's pretty simple and straightforward, and it's worth the effort because the taste is yum. Instead of limoncello, this time, the frozen mixture got a tiny bit of vanilla and a little helping of amaretto (mmmm, amaretto, and no, I am not an alkie). You might wonder why I keep saucing up these gelati-- well, I actually have an excuse: alcohol of this kind tends to keep homemade ice cream/gelato from getting too solidified, which can be a real problem. No one likes trying to scoop out homemade ice cream when it's become the consistency of a brick after sitting in the freezer for a day or two.

And here's where things get ridiculous. So now I have made two batches of gelato, but there's something I have to remind everyone. I can't really indulge in all of this stuff. I am fairly lactose intolerant, which means that I pretty much get a tiny teaspoon of these treats, and that's about it. Complicating matters further, let's just say that my current peers are not exactly the most adventurous folks on earth- while I can bring them cookies and even pound cakes that disguise the presence of olive oil, they are unlikely to give these gelati a chance.

But I've thought of a way around this too- I made chocolate sauce a few weeks ago. I'm pretty sure you can solve all of life's problems with a little chocolate sauce. Scared of pistachio gelato? Here, put a dollop of chocolate sauce on top of it. There, better now, right?

Okay, I have officially slacked off beyond reason now. I will just note that I hope you have all heard She & Him's Why do you let me stay here?-- as if I wasn't already a big enough fan of Zooey Deschanel, her work with M. Ward is so twee, it makes me gleeful.

caught up in the action

Remember how I was complaining of the heat previously? I'm not even going to bother complaining about it anymore, because it has actually grown hotter and more intolerable over the past few weeks. Previously, I had to wait until early morning or late night to turn my oven on- now I might as well have the gas shut down in my apartment, because it's been stiflingly hot all the way until the late, late night.

I've taken to hiding in air-conditioned places, studying or playing at studying (never underestimate the power of medical students when it comes to procrastination). But I got tired of walking home late at night, the unwelcome blanket of heat and smoke still enveloping me. Instead, tonight, I went home early and read.

Well, at least, I intended to read. I did read, in fact. It was actually a really productive day. But, and maybe it's just because I've been reading about abnormal neurological findings, I think the heat may have caused a lesion of some kind in my brain. Because that is the only explanation I have for reading about nerve conduction studies while watching... Tashan. Yep.

You guys, the last time I watched a Bollywood movie was at some party that Indian uncle forced me to attend, at which I mercilessly mocked the silliness of the movie in question, while also being offended when non-desi's made the same jokes (more brain lesions to blame for that logic, I'm sure). The last time I actively sought one out on my own was... um, never.

It must be the heat, too, because I found an even stranger thing happening- I thought Tashan was funny. And not funny in that oh that goofy Bollywood way. Granted, it's still a typically stupid action movie, but really only slightly more stupid than your standard Hollywood action movies (and maybe less stupid than the 4th Indiana Jones fiasco). The movie wasn't even subtitled, and my Hindi is horrible, but that fit right in with this fill-um.

Of course, you should take this all with a nano-sized grain of salt, considering the next movie I am dying to see in the theaters is not, in fact, the Batman sequel- it's Tropic Thunder. And this cracks me up. So let's just say it's a good thing I'm studying neurology at the moment.

you're a vegetable

So I hesitate to even post this, but I can't stop myself. In my opinion, one of these guys is a buffoon:



I leave it to you to guess which one, but it shouldn't be too hard to tell. First of all, how do you judge the greatness of a match, by the personalities of the players? I will grant that I've never been a fan of Sampras (sorry V) because I found him to be less than exciting to watch on the court. But that was more because of his style of play, not the fact that he didn't crack his racket into pieces and curse at referees.

Still, there's no denying it is fun to watch a lot of emotion on court. It's fun to watch Goran cracking a racket, or McEnroe dressing down a referee, or even Connors making smart aleck remarks. Still, still, still. To be so dismissive of Sunday's Wimbledon final as being possibly the best of all time can only be called ignorant.

Nadal and Federer have personality, they have a presence on the court. But you have to appreciate the game to see it. Here's Federer hitting forehand after forehand, running Nadal around. There's Nadal hustling for every point, like an eager, hungry younger brother. Nadal wins two points, showing real threat of breaking Federer's serve. So what does Federer do? Two aces in a row, just like that.

Or here's Nadal breaking Federer's serve in the 4th set tie break, the match in his hands for the next two serves. He double faults the first, flubs the second, and the expression on his face says it all. You can't give away two points this critical to Federer and get away with it. Or can you? Any other player would have probably been slaughtered by Federer at this point. Nadal, on the other hand, shook it off like it was nothing- big deal, I lost two points that could have made me a champion, I'll get another chance. And he did.

Sure, there was no hamming it up for the camera, no goofing around, no arguing with the referees or with Hawkeye. And yes, off the court, Federer and Nadal are the picture of two gentlemen, complimenting each other as if they had signed an agreement ahead of time to keep up a good front. So, I guess from Skippy whoever's perspective, this makes it less than the best championship in the history of Wimbledon. I don't know. For me, that's why this match was so amazing. All the drama of this game was on the court, and in the tennis. I'm paraphrasing, but one of the folks covering the game on Sunday said that these two do not just bring the best out in each other, they bring out the superhuman in each other. That's what I felt I was watching on Sunday.

*

In completely unrelated news, I updated my muxtape instead of starting to post songs on a weekly basis- check it if you like. For the timebeing, this seems to work better. And it's timely, because we are in the dog days of summer over here. Today, I took the thermometer out of my oven and put it in my living room, because I am convinced it is over 130 degrees in my apartment because of its magical heat-retaining properties. If it's anywhere near there, I'm going to start leaving cake batter out in my living room in the morning- that way, when I get home, I'll still melt, but I'll have a treat waiting for me.

Also, a commenter asked me about what I am interested in specializing in when this whole medical school thing goes to its next logical step-- there's probably a post necessary to answer that one. For the timebeing, I'll just say I don't know with 100% certainty, and that is kind of part of the fun at the moment.

you just take it or you leave it where it was

Breakfast at Wimbledon was fun when I was living on the East Coast. You made a lazy Sunday of it, and it could be a communal thing, the family getting together to watch McEnroe or Becker or Agassi or Sampras (snorrrre) or Ivanisevic (mmmm, Ivanisevic) claim their victories, lots of arguing over which player was better, why the other one was losing, and who wanted some batata powa.

On the West Coast, it's by necessity solo. I really do not know anyone willing to get together at 7:30 in the morning to watch, and besides which, I'm not sure I would drag myself out of the house at that hour. Instead, with a bowl of cereal in my lap, I sit down and watch on my own. Usually this is just fine. When you're watching Federer trounce his latest victim, gathering in groups is not so important- most of the time, the group mentality starts pushing away from the favored player, and honestly, I love Federer too much to hear people talk crap about him. I do not mind that he is so good- to watch someone play tennis as well as he does is a beautiful thing to watch, and I get the goosebumps knowing I'll be talking about him some decades later the way that people a generation before me talk about Bjorn Bjorg.

And yet, today, I sort of miss the East Coast. Watching the Fed play flawless tennis and skip lightly to a Championship is one thing. Watching him and Rafael Nadal unglue each other is quite another. This is the kind of game you want to watch with a legion of tennis die-hards- not Rafa fans or Fed fans, but people who love tennis. Only when these two play each other could one player go up two sets, and you still have no idea how the match is going to turn out.

As fans, we win either way. The Fed wins, we get to see a man getting closer to smashing record books and writing a new history. Rafa wins, that's a moment for history too- to win the French & Wimbledon in one year is no small feat.

Of course, since this historic battle is in the UK, we have to deal with the rain as well. Looks like it's going to be a lazy Sunday after all.

through the light projected

It was cool this morning, finally. It takes the night to cool down the apartment enough, such that I go to sleep feeling like I am going to melt, and wake up in the morning clutching the covers. This, it should be noted, is not a complaint. I love cool mornings. I like cool nights too, but my apartment does not seem to want to accept them into its company until well past the time I have closed my eyes.

So it is that usually the apartment is simply too warm in the evenings to turn the oven on without feeling like an idiot. But in the morning, if efficient enough, the oven can be turned on justifiably, or at least tolerably. Even though baking in the summer is borderline insane where I live, I cannot seem to resist the temptation. Last night, I had been thinking of Spain for some reason- I think perhaps because we were talking about what I now call my temperature training trial in Granada prior to moving here- and I suddenly remembered the way Spaniards put their own touch on baking. Sure, there were the regular pleasantries of pastries and the like, the butter-filled wonders. But, and perhaps this is true of most of Europe, but at a lot of restaurants, Spanish desserts turned to what they had on hand locally. No imported butters, no reserve wines from France. The wine may not have been wonderful, but it was local, and that's all you had to choose from, and there is a certain comfort in that simplicity.

The desserts, on the other hand, were wonderful. In Barcelona, especially, I was more adventurous than I sometimes tend to be. I turned down straightforward chocolate (do not be alarmed, it was a temporary thing!) for a fascinating cake made of ground almonds and a kind of cheese somewhat akin to ricotta, but in its own special Spanish class. And I allowed something else that I normally think just plain wrong: olive oil in dessert.

My distaste for olive oil in dessert started, hilariously enough, with Anna. At a blogger-birthday-fest in her honor, in a restaurant in DC, somehow we wound up with olive oil ice cream at our table. I think it was Anna herself that first tasted it, turned up her nose in disgust and then urged me to taste. I had the same reaction, this reaction of GROSS, followed by try it!

After that, I had concluded that olive oil and sweetness are simply not a good match. Olive oil and garlic? Yes, please, any time. Olive oil and chocolate? WTTTTTT...?!? But after 3 weeks of taking train rides through expanses of olive trees, and breakfasts of bread, olive oil, and tomato, the olives just got the best of me. And so, in Barcelona, on a beautiful and warm summer evening, placed before me were two little mounds of chocolate mousse drizzled scantly with olive oil and topped with a sprinkling of sea salt. And I am here to tell you that it was delicious, and olive oil once again suggested sweetness.

To further encourage this romance with olive oil, one of our instructors spent an entire lecture last year extolling the virtues of olive oil, and how one ought to replace butter with olive oil wherever possible. So this morning, I settled on giving it a shot for myself, the madness that is combining olive oil and sugar:



Half of this cake came to school with me this morning, where it was promptly consumed by my classmates at lunch time. I warned one of my classmates that it might taste 'oily', and he looked at me strangely after eating it, and said, "Umm, I think it tastes... yummy. In fact, can I have more?" I know, it's not exactly clearing a high bar to get a male classmate to compliment you on providing him with free food. Still, I tasted it myself, and I found it to be okay. The key here is that lemon and olive oil go well together- without the lemon, the olive oil flavor might have overwhelmed the cake and we might have had another olive oil ice cream incident.

This was very much a spur-of-the-moment concoction, based on what I had languishing in my refrigerator, but yaz very sweetly asked for directions based on the photograph. It's bastardized from another recipe here, but below is my version, with a wink to yasmine:

Morning Sunshine Cake

First things first- Preheat the oven to 350; grease and lightly flour a loaf pan.

Now whisk together the following dry ingredients in a bowl:
1 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp finely ground sea salt

In a larger bowl, combine:
1 cup lemon yogurt (I used Trader Joe's nonfat, an entire 8 oz container)
1/2 cup olive oil (Don't overdo it- in fact, consider going a little easy on this.)
3 large eggs (I didn't say this was a healthy recipe.)
1 cup of sugar (See?!?)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon organic lemon extract (optional)

Stir together the bowl with wet ingredients until smooth. Now add in the dry ingredients and combine until well incorporated and no major lumps apparent. Pour into the loaf pan. Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick placed in the center comes out clean (or until you start freaking out that you are going to miss class if you don't get the cake out of the oven). Let cool on a rack for ~15 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan. Let cool completely.

Extremely precise and scientific icing recipe: In a small cup/bowl, place several tablespoons of powdered sugar. Add a few drops of lemon juice, a few drops of milk, and 1-2 drops of lemon extract. Mix together with a butter knife. Add more milk and/or lemon juice until a spreadable consistency is reached. Drizzle or spread over the cake.

Sorry to bore you to tears with such repetitive tales of baking and Spain. I am nothing if not predictable. I'll try to throw some music into the mix during the long weekend so that I can at least add another worn out aspect to my repertoire.

they always said that you knew best, but

I ought to be in bed, but it seems like I'm regressing to that adolescent stage of wanting to do whatever it is I ought not to be doing. As in everything, I like neither extreme. I've realized I cannot deal with the absence of structure. I need some form, some outline, some excuse to get up every morning and look presentable. In other words, I could not be engaged in an effort that amounted to: 'here is some lab space, party on, and let me know when you're ready to present your thesis.' On the other hand, and of course with me there is always an other hand, I also cannot deal with too much structure. I need some wiggle room, some ability to draw outside the lines.

This is somewhat incompatible with medical school, but not completely. A friend I've previously mentioned who is rather antagonistic about my decision to go to med school brings rather true criticisms of it-- it's mindless, in the sense that, once you're in, you are set on a path, and you can proceed through it like one of the zombies on Shaun of the Dead (and yes, I'm choosing the spoof movie-zombies, because you seriously can't take med students seriously enough to be afraid of them in the 28 Days Later vein). You don't have to figure out how to become a dermatologist. For the low low price of a bajillion dollars in loans, an advisor will tell you that you need to get XXX Step 1 scores, have published in a scientific journal of merit, have taken on a major extracurricular activity, and perhaps gone on a medical mission in Guatemala.

So all of this is true, and if you wanted to, really, you could sleepwalk your way through an entirety of medical education, training and specialization. However, my dislike for following the straight and narrow, well-trodden path in some ways gets me off the hook from all that. I may not know exactly what I want to do with my future, but I know that whatever it is will not require that I do a number of things simply as a jumping-through-hoops exercise to demonstrate that I fit some perfect mold. If anyone is looking for the perfect little medical student that can be shaped into their image, then they are obviously not looking for me anyway.

What is nice about this is that I can appreciate the format of school- it is a good way to keep me going, to get me to amass the information I want into my head. But I can also appreciate that I don't have to follow every piece of advice, that I don't have to join the rat race. At clinic today, two 'perfect little students' were anxiously writing their note into the file, fretting over every last word, asking for a hand to hold through the whole thing. I stood beside them and just wrote, just wrote what I felt was appropriate and what seemed like common sense. When our notes were reviewed, they all got a fairly similar response: 'Good job, try X next time.'

And it just demonstrated what I already had felt when I was last taken to task for engaging in this pursuit. I get the structure that I want, the structure that is beneficial to learning what I want, but I have enough sense to know that I have choices within that structure. There are so many choices, so much room in these tracks that have been set down- it's just that not everyone can see them.