1. You're not to be trusted.
2. I asked for a drink and he asked for my ID. I felt like a crescendoing Carrie Bradshaw right before some unexpected indignity brings me back to earth.
3. Car insurance premiums keep falling.
4. Your memory starts to go.
5. I used to joke that if I wasn't married by now, I'd go to Korea and find myself a wife. I never thought that I would actually be in this situation. I figured I'd be married for sure, with maybe a kid or two. Well, I'm still not going to Korea, but now I don't have a plan B.
6. I no longer feel compelled to stay in shape. Subsequently, I got a head start and have been cultivating a small gut for the past six months.
7. I still look a bit younger than I am. I don't know how long it's going to last or if I will ever transition to a dignified-older-man phase.
8. No shame when buying fiber products.
9. No shame in general. I'm not sure how that works since I come from a shame-based culture. Do I just lose all sense of culture? Like I'll be all naked and scrubbing, but without a bath house to call my own?
10. More hair. Everywhere.
11. I feel justified in using old man tactics when playing basketball. This includes grabbing, pushing, and confusing "cheating" with "wily veteran cageyness."
12. I am much more picky.
13. I am much less picky.
14. Looking at little kids running around and thinking, "I'm old enough that that could be my kid."
15. Also thinking, "I have shirts older than that kid."
16. May need to update wardrobe to reflect stage of life.
17. Mark Grace.
18. Your memory starts to go.
19. Seeing someone from college and hearing that he's now living in New York, married, and has 2 illegitimate kids, and not being sure where the truth ended and the joke started.
20. Not being sure whether to laugh or cry.
21. Skipping
22. The
23. Twenties
24. Because
25. I
26. Barely
27. Remember
28. Mine
29. And citing as justification my wily veteran cageyness.
30. It's the new 20.

I'm writing this on my phone from a hotel room in Baltimore. I don't really have anything to say. I just wanted to try and see if this would work.

This is a strange time for me. Medical school is winding down and the prospect of residency is looming with every free lunch and hospital tour (I always pay attention to 2 things: the cafeteria and the call rooms. (Food and sleep, or whatever bits of both that I can hope for. Of course.)) So far so ambivalent. I can barely tell the programs apart, and it doesn't seem like such a big deal where I might end up. Haha, we'll see if I feel the same way on Match day.

Let's see, highlights from adventures in interview-traveling:

Virginia: Rhea's roommates had a houseparty the night before my interview. Hollywood vs. Bollywood til 3AM.
Jacksonville: No shampoo in the hotel. Bar soap cleans everything, right?
LA: "Because Chicago is under a weather advisory, we may need to divert to Kansas City or Indianapolis and stay there overnight."
Baltimore: "I'm not saying that you shouldn't come here... [but don't come here]"

Don't worry. But it's kind of fun to visit all these places and wonder which one of these might work. Hopefully, in a month or so, I'll be sick and tired (or sicker and tireder) of interviewing and will be happy to stay in one place for the next five years. And by one place, I mean the hospital because I'm never leaving that place. It is surgery residency, after all, no matter where I go.

Interviews had: 2
Interviews to be had: 14

I'm already tired of it. But so that you may know that I am not completely without thanks...

I am thankful that I can get up, take my mat and go home.

Isn't that more difficult? Shouldn't I take heart?

It's just that home can be difficult. And sometimes my mom's fears and my sister's insecurities and my dad's helplessness can wear on me. Sometimes I don't wear it well.

I remember seeing youth group kids again over Labor Day - a one time thing, really - and they told me that I was getting old and needed to find a wife. "We have to find you a holy girl!" they said, because they think I'm holy. It took me a second to remember that that was a good thing. And no, I am not.

But when what's easier said than done is actually done, well, the thankfulness is there to be had.

A bit overdue, but some photographs from the end of my California stay:

I had known about ordering "Double-Double Animal Style" since my first visit, but it was during this stay that I learned that the french fries were also subject to being drowned in zoomorphic yum. They were drowned often.


The Crystal Cathedral parking lot was used by overflow employees of the UCI Medical Center. The Crystal Cathedral is a megachurch, broadcasting its services on television as The Hour of Power. From the outside, it is shiny and reflective, but from the inside, it is transparent, like most everything around Los Angeles.


The UCI Medical Center, one of two hospitals (along with Long Beach Memorial) where I spent my time. This was a typically gorgeous day as I waited for the shuttle.


In many hospitals, you can tell that you are in the pediatric unit simply by looking at the walls.


Baby Boy N was my first ex-lap as first assistant. He then developed an enterocutaneous fistula. He was doing much better the last I saw him in the PICU.


On my last full day in California, I decided to drive to the beach - any beach - and make my trip complete. Unfortunately, Long Beach was not a good choice for touristy things. However, I had a chance to take plenty of pictures unfettered by crowds.


I encountered mainly two groups: fishermen and birds. They were doing similar things, each in their own way.


I saw this gentleman cleaning his catch and asked him if I could take a picture. I felt like a real photographer for a moment.


There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins


And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind

My month in California is almost over. It was sunny and hot and a little gloomy and drizzly and finally windy and fiery. So basically it was pretty much how things always go.

I don't particularly want to go back to Chicaaago (the pronunciation of which is how the natives here welcome me), especially because the interview season will start almost as soon as I get back. On the other hand, it'll be good to sleep in my own bed again. A million potential reasons for missing Chicago, and the only compelling one that I can think of is that upon which I can lay my tired head. Not quite as stirring as last time, but that seems appropriate somehow.

I heard about a woman whose house was destroyed in New Orleans by Katrina. She moved to Texas and promptly had her new house destroyed by Rita. Now she lives in San Diego and watches the fire draw closer each day. If I was her, I think I would be tempted to throw some gasoline on the roof and light the match myself, just to try to assert some sense of control. And then, of course, stand defeated as the rain puts out the still-distant wildfire and the remaining embers of my home and hearth.

Why do I mention this? Because right now it's partly sunny and fairly warm, but you know how that goes. And I've been trying to prepare - not by stocking up on cans of gas, but by remembering that my time in California is short indeed.

Andy: Here, have some Red Vines.

Me: I wish we had some Mr. Pibb.

Andy: Because that would be crazy delicious.

Sometimes it's nice to float a line - a silly, old one, at that - into the ether and find some unexpected understanding. I guess that's how you make friends when you no longer have first days of school.

It gets lonely here sometimes. Right now, here is Anaheim, CA, and it would be understandable since I'm just visiting and hardly know anyone. But here seems to be wherever I go, and with it inevitably comes the loneliness.

I know two people in LA. Iris got engaged the week before I came, and Dave recently started dating a girl from work. Last week Rhea visited from DC to spend some time with her new boyfriend. I've mostly been sleeping when I get home from the hospital. But I've been asleep a lot longer.

When I wake up in the morning, it's still night. And the house is quiet as I get ready for work. When I open my bedroom door, the orange tabby looks up at me. We don't say a word to each other, but I make a silent offer: I will wake for you if you will wake for me.

I don't wait for an answer. She will be here tomorrow morning.

I decided to write again because I felt that a shout into the emptiness still meant something. I saw my days slipping by without thought, without focus, and it bothered me. And even if it only serves as a million messages in a million bottles, I'll set them adrift until they cover the sea.

Hello, out there!