On Sunday, after we watched the Bears get Tebowed, everyone headed to dinner to celebrate Sharon and my birthdays. We tried going to Sushi Para, but it was crowded and probably a little too pricey for a big group. Someone suggested a Thai place down the street, so we drove over. I had been there once before, a couple of months ago, and remembered it well. When we arrived, there was another big group of Asians waiting for a table, and while Myung thought it was fate, I'm still waiting for the gentle whisper.

Tonight I happened to run across a video of a blind 11-year-old Japanese girl who was the last finisher of the most recent Honolulu Marathon. I must be going through some hormonal changes as I get older because when I saw the little girl shuffle across the finish line towards her mother's voice and fall into her arms in tears, I lost it. I don't cry very often, and definitely not for some random story, but I don't care. I want to be that little girl at my finish line.

The singles mixer was a mixed bag. It wasn't really awkward at all, which isn't too surprising since the whole thing (big group, activity) was designed to avoid it. The guys all said they had a good time and the majority expressed some interest in getting to know the girls better. Unfortunately, most of the girls did not feel the same way. There were a couple of potential connections that were left for fate to work out, but the rest left with the same muted/casually hopeful/ultimately resigned feelings with which they initially came.

I met with Mike for dinner this week and he told me about these dreams that he was having. In them he was still with his ex-girlfriend and couldn't figure out why. He would wake up and the anxiety would slowly be washed away by reality.

I told him about the email that I sent a couple of weeks ago, and how she had responded so graciously, and how I felt so unburdened that Sunday as I led praise. I said that these things make a difference, that our relationships don't happen in a vacuum, and there are consequences to our hurtfulness. I said that we've all made mistakes in the past - I, most of all - and we may never be able to make up for it, but we can learn and we can grow and today can be merciful and tomorrow kind.

Or maybe not. Life is so messy.

When I saw John Choi at Ray's mom's funeral earlier this month, I asked how he was doing and he said things were difficult. I assumed that he was just talking about his commitments to various churches and organizations due to his inability to say no to anyone, but he explained that it was, in fact, his family. His mom had gone through treatment for liver cancer earlier this year, and he had just found out that his dad has metastatic prostate cancer. He looked weary.

My family had Thanksgiving at my sister's in-laws' place on Thursday. The original plan was to have it at my sister's house, but she called me last weekend and told me that plans had changed, that she'd just had a miscarriage. When I saw her on Thursday, I hugged her and told her that I was so sorry, and she said it was okay, but when she finally let go, she was crying and it wasn't okay.

Everyone did their best to be cheerful. During a conversation later that evening, my sister's mother-in-law was telling a (racist-in-a-Korean-way) story with interruptions by the brother-in-law and the father-in-law.

MIL: So she was talking about how it's so sad that black people get the worst of it. Some of their hair is so hard to manage, some of their skin is so dark, and some of them are so poor.

BIL: But they're so athletic.

FIL: Good dancers!

And the ridiculousness of his exuberance brought a smile to my sister's face and I was thankful for just that.

Since the holidays usually bring a sense of loneliness to the lonely - and at times, we're all a little lonely - I hope that we all at least get a smile for our troubles. And open endings can be second chances for the hopeless cases.

I could blame it on the fact that I was severely flu-ridden this past weekend and still possibly suffering from intermittent delirium, but I won't.

I had dinner with Parker yesterday and he had some tentatively good news about a girl that he met. He said things seemed to be going well, but it was still early, so he didn't want to get too far ahead of himself. I was happy for him, but it made me think.

I also had to send an email out to the Bethel men's group because, in anticipation of the singles mixer this weekend, all the joking had turned it into a big joke. I asked that we would be mature, honest about our intentions, expect honesty in return, and treat each other with kindness and respect. And that also made me think.

So I sent an email to the girl that I mentioned before, not asking for a second chance - we were a little beyond that - but with the hope that no one needed to feel diminished just because things didn't work out, and that we could part ways amicably, without bitterness or hurt. Maybe it was a bad idea and I should have just let it go, but I didn't. And it wasn't.

Good closure is good.

When Kayle recently told me that her church had a lot of single girls, I mentioned that my church had a lot of single guys. Not long after that I was writing an email to the Bethel men's group to gauge potential interest in a singles mixer. What follows are some quotes from the thirty-plus replies that came back this afternoon (edited for readability).

"If they're not looking for super successful, I am definitely qualified."

"I am a bit leery ... I wouldn't mind being someone's wingman, though."

"This event is on the condition that the woman will follow the man to his church, right?"

"You can't speak on this, married man! Let the single men enjoy the show."

"If they seek God, is Bethel not the place where you meet Him?"

"Men at Bethel really make women to seek God and Him only ... ask Sharon."

"If any of you guys are on the fence about participating in a mixer, just come out and recruit some of these chicks to Bethel. Is this wrong, Pastor Anson?"

"Maybe we can set up a 'practice' beforehand for those of you who are nervous."

"Please let's practice. That's gonna be awesome."

"This is hilarious. What's more amusing is the mental picture of a 'practice' for this thing."

At this point, I think there is more support for the practice than for the actual mixer. Leave it to the Bethel guys to turn a potentially awkward situation into a complete mockery. Well, at least until the actual mixer happens, and then we'll get back to the awkwardness.

Speaking of awkwardness, I downloaded some new songs. After listening to Lenka sing "The Show" on YouTube, I decided to add a new batch of music to my iPhone. And since my taste in music is - to put it generously - questionable, this list should come as no surprise.

Lenka - "The Show"
Lenka - "Heart Skips A Beat"
Florence + The Machine - "Shake It Out"
Justin Bieber - "Baby"
Secret - "Love is MOVE"
Girls' Generation - "The Boys"

But I don't see why I should apologize for the generally crappy music that I like. What does it matter to me if other people think that my music sucks? I'm the one who's listening to it. Music with meaning? Or soul? Or even just technical virtuosity? Sometimes, sure, but sometimes I don't mind something silly that can put a smile on my face.

I remember reading an excerpt from Moneyball years ago about Jeremy Brown and a well-hit ball. When I saw the movie yesterday it was slightly modified, but basically served the same purpose. And for a movie that was ostensibly about taking the romanticism out of baseball, it found plenty to be romantic about in life.

When I was talking to Eugene about the single life, he asked me what kind of girl I was looking for.

Me: A ... good girl.

He: There are no good girls anymore.

I agreed with him because I knew what he meant, but of course there are "good" girls around. Unfortunately my history says that I don't seem to fit well with them. And the ones that do like me aren't "good" as much as they are "crazy" or "emotional" or something else that sounds potentially tempting but just ends up being someone who thinks I can deal with her baggage. Maybe I can, but I don't particularly want to.

Apparently I haven't met anyone that I believe would make me happier than I am being alone.

One thing that I've thought about is the idea that if I do meet someone new, she won't really know about my life. I mean, I could give a quick rundown of the past dozen years post-college, but she wouldn't really understand. Is that normal? Would I pretty much close the door to all that and want to start a new life and make new memories with this person? Would I throw her to my old/current blog and tell her to get back to me when she's finished? But here I go, worrying about a problem that doesn't yet exist.

Or maybe ever? Not to be overly dramatic, but if there isn't going to be a future wife, what am I waiting for?

In the movie, the little girl sings a song for her dad and adds her own line, "You're such a loser, Dad." The original ending of the song is a little different.

I want my money back, I want my money back
I want my money back, just enjoy the show

You can keep the money, I think I'll just enjoy the show.

I was sitting in my hotel room in San Francisco Thursday night and the world shook. Apparently a 3.8 on the Richter scale equals a few seconds of gentle rocking. Then the Bay turned and went on its way.

I met up with Eugene for a quick lunch just before my flight back. It had been years since I saw him last, but it was good to reconnect a bit. He seems to be happy and fairly settled out there. He said he's been playing plenty of golf, traveling a lot for work. And he said - and I didn't bring it up - he said he hadn't been to church in a long time. He went into detail to explain how he had trouble reconciling the God of the Old Testament and the New. It all felt a little bit like a confession, but I had no absolution to offer. We said goodbye and he said he would let me know the next time he visited Chicago.

I flew back very late Sunday night and landed in Singleville. The girl that I had met has turned her interests elsewhere. Things are still again and there is nothing new under the sun.

I'm a lot like you, so please
Hello, I'm here, I'm waiting



It's been a few weeks and she seems slightly less nice, but more real. That's a good thing. Unfortunately because we are both rather introverted, the process of getting familiar with each other has been unhurried. So at the Weezer concert yesterday, I found out a few more things. At the double risk of both schmoopifying and jinxing this budding relationship, they are as follows:

1. Her fingers are a blur when she types text messages. She credits this to her piano playing.
2. She was some type of cheerleader at some point.
3. She is slightly claustrophobic.
4. She put up with three hours of crappy opening bands with nary a grumble.

By some divine act of coincidental comedy, Myung also met a girl recently and has been having his own adventures in like. They text each other constantly and Anson took him shopping so that he can wear something besides t-shirts from youth group retreats or Walmart.

So even with our combined history of futility, we should be optimistic, right? But besides the fact that Myung was complaining about his eye twitching yesterday, why does this come to mind?



No, Hobbes. Let's see how this goes.

I think I'd be good for you
And you'd be good for me

I met a girl on Saturday. We were introduced by a mutual friend, although "friend" is probably a bit strong. It was a very pleasant dinner, and we finished up our conversation with dessert and non-coffee coffee. And she seems to be one of the most genuinely nice people I have ever met. That is causing me no small amount of distress.

I finished The Picture of Dorian Gray, the third pleasure read of my research years. Is it vain to say that I identified with him? Is it sad?

Me: She's a really ... good person. And I am not.

I remember hearing somewhere about how we shouldn't focus so much on what we want our future spouses to be, but rather try to be what our future spouses would want. Or some such cute phrasing. But time seems to wear down every conviction, and even if I was that person at some point, I've long since marred my portrait.

She: Do you drink coffee?

Me: I used to never drink coffee, but in the past year or so I've started drinking it more often. Maybe once or twice a week. How about you?

She: Every single day.

Will you believe me when I tell you that there was more conviction in those three words than in anything I've said in forever? I don't even know how to relate to that.

Yet.

We were at Myung's condo for game night and people kept commenting on his small tube TV.

Helanne: You can have my TV.

Myung: Is it a tube TV?

She: Well, yeah, but it's bigger than what you have.

And we're all waiting for someone to offer us a 70" flatscreen.

*****

I played Risk for the first time ever and ended up winning. I got lucky by starting with most of Africa and half of South America, then took a big risk and went all in to take out Sam from the rest of South America. After Anson and Myung all but wiped each other out, I simply marched to victory.

During the game, Anson kept joking that the risks he likes to take are the ones that guarantee that he'll win.

*****

It's been almost three months since I started research. I've learned how to grow and test cell lines, isolate proteins using immunohistochemistry, operate on mice, cut and stain samples, and most importantly, enjoy weekends off. I've helped clean out Arturo's landfill of a backyard, enjoyed my first Bethel EM retreat in many years, and helped organize the residency picnic (i.e., show up with booze). But apparently I haven't been spending my time doing the one thing I'm supposed to be doing.

*****

There's a girl I've seen a handful of times on my shuttle bus. She's younger than most of the people that take the bus from Union Station. She's girl-next-door pretty and dresses in conservative tops and dark capris. I remember looking at her and thinking, if life took a few turns here and there, we could grow old together and we could tell our grandkids that it all started with a passing glance on a bus.

*****

My mom told me the name of a girl that she thinks I should meet. She said that she got the information from someone that she knows. The name sounded strangely familiar, so I texted Parker about it. He confirmed that he had gone out on a blind date with her a few months back and not again because she didn't seem to have much interest in God.

I have not contacted her.

*****

When Anson started preaching on the fruit of the Spirit two weeks ago, I immediately requested to lead praise for the week that he would speak on peace. On Sunday I want to tell everyone that peace does not arise from the absence of doubt, but from the presence of faith. I want them to hear it coming from me because then I can hear it too.

Hear me, full of doubt. The Lord is with me.

Myung asked me to run and keep track on an iPhone app to encourage him to run and keep him accountable. I told him that I would be willing to walk. So I started walking home from work. It's a long way, but it's pleasant as long as the weather is pleasant. During one of these walks I took some pictures and messed around with them on a photography app.

When Joey and Harry mentioned having an outing at the beach, I was not unreasonably skeptical. It sounded like just another one of Joey's the-lady-at-my-dry-cleaners-told-me-about-this-church-with-twelve-single-girls plans. Those usually turn into sixteen, then fifty, then a puff of smoke.

But they proved me wrong. Yesterday was a touch over eighty degrees, sunny with a slight cool breeze, the lake water warm from a summer of boiling, and altogether just absolutely perfect. We had bratwurst, spicy pork, buns, mustard, soda, water, a football, a frisbee, and the most relaxing and fun Bethel outing that I can remember.

If that wasn't enough, I had a chance to talk to Anson for a bit about how things were going for him. Initially I thought it might have been a bad idea because it was clear that it was still very painful for him. Of course, why wouldn't it be? But he was honest and open and soon enough the other guys had strolled over and we were joking around about various schemes to bring girls to church.

Near day's end I was standing at the water's edge watching a group of Bethel people splashing out in the deep. The waves lapped at my legs and I thought about my church family, each one flawed, fighting the current that pulls us back, weighed down by our mistakes, but leaning back, letting go, and floating out to where heaven meets earth.

There seems to be a problem with writing Koreans. I just finished the second pleasure read of my research years, Super Sad True Love Story, which was not particularly super, I guess sad in a way (namely the parts that were true) and somewhat lurvely, but absolutely, positively not a porn star. I mean, a communist.

I mean, it was about a late-thirties Russian Jewish man looking for love from a physically and emotionally abused early-twenties Korean-American woman (at least about as much as The Great Gatsby was about a dirty nouveau-riche/pure old flame looking for love from a delicate fleur, only minus the unnecessary pseudo-French and written in Cerulean Satire crayon). Besides the annoying decision to narrate the story in alternating diary/e-mail/IM pattern without actually committing the effort to live by the limitations and idiosyncrasies of those formats, my main problem was that the female love interest was Korean-American. It's difficult to write Korean-American well. He does what he can, and it felt like it came from a combination of personal experience and Korean-American assistance (not really a good idea), which helped to at least make it sound authentic. The problem is that authentic Korean-American sounds like some horrific collaboration between a white (whiter?) Black Eyed Peas featuring Justin Timberlake and Michael W. Smith circa 1990 (or for Floridians, 2001), backmasking 2 Live Crew (How old am I? Why do you ask?). And, I guess Confucius. Personally, I think he should have gone with a South Asian love interest, but I suppose he should write what he knows.

Then there is the problem with writing Koreans. Here and there I've been reading Grantland, Bill Simmons and gang's sports/entertainment writing venture, and I've noticed at least one Korean-American among the mostly lackluster bunch (if I see one more post breaking down a YouTube clip or assigning a point system to the lowest common denominator without actual good writing in it, I swear). I don't like disparaging the work of a fellow brother, but I've found most of his writing to be fairly derivative, which, on that site, means that he's writing(/living) like a white man. American dream, you go. Except I'm not writing about any of them. So I looked him up. He is a Korean-American fiction writer who received an M.F.A. from Columbia, is currently living in San Francisco, made his name writing about his gambling addiction, and has written his first novel about a frustrated young writer with an M.F.A. who wanders through the plots of San Francisco. I'm not going to read this.

What I should do, especially now that I have more time, is put my six-figure debt where my mouth is and write something myself. I'm thinking maybe something about a black man studying architecture in Panama. It will give me the chance to write what I don't know, center the plot twist around a palindrome, and throw my writing at the mercy of the adoring public. My pseudonym, of course, will be Ben Caspian Dover.

I spent some quality time with this little guy today. He's giving me the stink eye because he knows I'm up to no good. Actually, it's a sleepy stink eye because he was pretty much knocked out at this point. I got to play the dual role of mouse anesthesiologist and surgeon, and, well, I have room for improvement. The good news for me is that I isolated the right femoral artery and the muscular side branch. The bad news for me is that I was unable to induce the wire to produce neointimal hyperplasia secondary to vessel injury. Everything was so small! The good news for him is that he was back running around with his mouse buddies by the end of the afternoon. The bad news for him is that he also has a left leg.

And apropos of nothing (but really, absolutely something), I think the one on the left is Pinky.

Before this past week, Adele was the British singer of the moment, with "Rolling in the Deep" being played on every station, (briefly) on my iPhone, and remixed into a bass/tub-thumping club beat at 3 in the morning (or so I heard). Personally, I found her a tad squeaky, but that's neither here nor there. Then Amy died.

I am not a music geek. I wouldn't even know how to begin to connois any melodic seurs. The little indie cred in my iTunes library came by way of Rhea's philanthropy half a decade ago. Still, even I could tell the broad could sing.

I don't know her story that well, partly things picked up here and there in the gossip rags, but mostly from what she told me. She had a problem with drugs and alcohol. No, that's not quite right. She had a difficult relationship with drugs and alcohol. And love.

Most of her live performances had stretches of looseness and/or disregard for cleanliness that was probably due to a combination of her demons and talents and a innate funk/funk. They make me wince, then not-quite-smile, and want to watch/listen to more. She died a hundred times, then she faded, as always, to black.

I overheard a conversation at church on Sunday. One fellow was talking to another about his job status.

Another: So, are you happy about your new job?

One: Oh, you know, it's just a job.

A: Yeah, I guess so.

O: Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be getting a paycheck. Ha, ha!

Me: You

He had been looking for a job for months, and we'd talked casually here and there during that time about how tough the job market was, and about interviews that just didn't pan out, and finally about this potential opportunity where the first interview went just great and they were going to bring him back for the second interview but they had to push it back a week which hopefully wasn't ominous as long as the first interviewer had said some good things about him and I said I hoped that it would work out. That God would be gracious.

Me: Piece of

I didn't say anything. I pretended not to hear and walked away.

All this to say, I finished Franny and Zooey, the first pleasure read of my research years.

Today was the first day of the next two years, and it was predictably anticlimactic. I got a tour of the lab and went through a number of online orientation modules. I'm sure it'll take some time before I get settled, but I'm in no hurry.

It always takes my breath away for a moment, stepping out of the walkway and into the bright sun, when the expanse of perfect green opens its arms and welcomes me home. The team, well, it's bad to the point of depressing the eternally optimistic/drunk, but the building, even with its uncomfortable seats, creaky scaffolds, and troughs for washrooms, is still charmed.

I've been spending this week doing exactly nothing and it has been lovely. No plans, no schedule, not giving the alarm clock even a cursory look - it's been good, just what I needed.

My sister is off to Italy for her one-year anniversary and it reminded me how hectic things were around this time last year. This year, I'm relaxing, slowly getting ready for the start of research, and visiting the loved ones to whom I never did get to say goodbye. The grass was just as lush, and the arms were just as open.

Many of the nurses at Weiss are young and nice and attractive, but my favorite was Cynthia, who was not particularly young nor spectacularly attractive. Cynthia was the first ICU nurse at Weiss that I got to know last year. She was quick with a laugh and a hearty, "Hello, young man!" and made me feel comfortable even when taking care of sick post-op CABG patients. She was the first one to welcome me back this year, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary for the first month or so. I hadn't seen her around for the last few weeks, even though we had had a couple of heart patients during that time, but I'd just assumed that she was on vacation or something.

After I came out of the last case today, Aisha told me that there was some pizza in the resident room. I asked her where she got it, and she told me that, Pat, one of the nurse practitioners, brought it to try to cheer everyone up after the news of Cynthia's passing.

"What?"

A few weeks ago, Cynthia was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. It progressed quickly and word came that she died today.

The patient population at Weiss is heavy with older nursing home types, so chronic illness, hospice, and death are fairly common issues, but this...

Cynthia, now who is going to take care of all the broken hearts you left?

Weiss is a strange place. It's a private hospital with private attendings and their quirks. Dr. T and Dr. D have dueling shirts down to their navels, gold chains, and a pheromonal cologne/pelvic walk. Dr. Z has a perpetual tan and no filter between his brain and mouth, and everyone loves him for it. Dr. C fixes hearts and lungs, but could probably sell ice to Eskimos. It's a different world. It's been interesting, but I won't mind finishing up the rotation this week and starting to get ready for research.

This rotation has been exhausting recently, and it's mostly due to being the senior resident on the service and having to deal with a rather emotionally volatile group of med students and junior residents. Managing the personalities has been much more difficult than managing, oh, I don't know, the patients. Anyway, things seem to have settled down a bit as the rotation draws to a close. Or perhaps I don't care as much anymore. Either one works for me.

Last week, after the night of debauchery that was our residency graduation dinner, I decided that I needed to get myself back together. And I am starting to slowly, and sometimes fitfully, reconstruct my character and my being. I think I've been here before, but better to risk falling again than never rising up.

Aisha, the second-year resident, is the same one who was on this rotation with me last year and nearly shamed me into becoming a better doctor. She is also doing research this coming year and she said that she is looking forward to having time off so that she can travel, relax, and work on different aspects of her life: intellectual, physical, spiritual, etc. So yet again, I'm almost inspired to do the same, but not quite.

Things of mine currently gathering dust: any and all books, guitar, soul.

Things of mine getting semi/regular use: computer, various exercise equipment, liver, id.

I've spent the last month working, going out with coworkers, meeting up with random people, and generally living without any focus. It bothers me, but only in a vaguely subconscious sort of way. I seem to remember something about a message in a bottle, and for some reason it makes me want to cry.

Because everyone likes pictures ...

Schooner or Later


A moveable Kogi feast


My new iPhone wallpaper


Angels at night


Circus Circus


Parker v. Food


Taking a picture of Goldie taking a picture


Chocolate Sunday: church, in a way


Manhattan Beach


Views


From


The


Flight


Home

She asked me if she was going to die. Normally I would have said that she was going to be just fine, but I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. All I could say was that we would do our best while I watched the pool of blood well up in her abdomen.

By a quirk of scheduling I'd put my vacation a week before the end of my Surgical Oncology rotation. And to make sure that I wasn't on call the night before my vacation started, they'd squeezed my calls together pretty tightly. So I was worn down from a stretch of Q3 and Q2 calls, but my vacation was coming soon and I just needed to get through Sunday call before I could take a break and relax.

As soon as I walked into the hospital Sunday morning, I got a text from Cristina, who was on call Saturday night, about an emergent thoracotomy that was about to start. I went down to the OR and scrubbed in just as the case was starting. We scooped out a couple of liters of blood that had collected in his right lung space and stopped the area of bleeding. While we were waiting to take the patient back to the ICU, I heard about an appendicitis waiting in the ER. And so it went for the rest of the day. Things had settled down a bit until a nurse came to me at 2 AM and told me that Mrs. R was bleeding from her wound.

Mrs. R had gotten a liver transplant a year and half ago, and hadn't stopped having complications since. Most significantly, she infarcted most of her bowel sometime after her original surgery and was made a candidate for a small bowel transplant. We don't do many of them, and they almost never seem to do well. Mrs. R was no exception. Since receiving her new small bowel two months ago, she'd been taken back to the OR a dozen times. Finally, it had seemed like she was slowly making her way back.

As soon as I walked into her room, I could see that the dressing covering her abdominal wound was soaked with blood. I took one look underneath and told the nurses to start giving her IV fluids and blood transfusions, whatever they had, as fast as they could give it. A rushed call was made to the Transplant fellow and attending, while Mrs. R's blood pressure sank down to the 50s. She was bleeding to death.

We got her down to the OR and did everything we could to save her life. We sacrificed the transplanted bowel, surtured a hole in her aorta, then placed a stent across it, all the while the anesthesia team was desperately trying to keep up with the hypotension from the massive blood loss. She was brought back up to the ICU in critical condition and that marked the end of my call night.

Later that day, I got a text from one of my coworkers saying that Mrs. R had died that afternoon. All for naught.

Now I'm on vacation, sleeping in, eating out, keeping my mind off of work, of life, and of death. I can't always wait on the sick and dying, but I know they'll be waiting for me.

A few weeks ago I hung out with Parker and had one of our usual sprawling conversations about life as a single thirty-something. The biggest chunk of it, of course, was about finding a girl. And if it wasn't difficult enough on its own, as professing Christians, we were looking for a Christian girl. Well, maybe. I think we had both gotten to the point where we were starting to ask whether even being a non-Christian was a deal-breaker.

Me: So I guess I could ask a non-Christian girl out. But what if it goes well? Then what?

He: I don't know.

I told him that I knew a strong Christian couple that had broken up because the girl had lost her faith. And he told me that he knew other couples that went through the same sort of thing. Initially I had seen that as a reminder of how important it is to find a strong Christian girl... But all these people were strong Christians at one point, and that didn't seem to help them. So does it make a difference?

A few weeks before that, Myung kept pushing me to ask out the cute barista at his Barnes. I was thisclose. Kind of random, considering I'd said maybe two words to her ever, and knew nothing about her, but he was pretty persistent ("She's nice. She works really hard, too."). So I was all ready to ask her out, but she'd finished her shift and left. But what if I had, and what if she'd said yes, and what if it went great, and what if I found out she wasn't a Christian? Then what? Keep going out? Try to convert her? Keep our religious beliefs separate? Be unable to connect with her about the one thing that moves my heart more than anything else in the world?

I don't know.

It seems like whenever I have a life question that I can't answer, I take a trip and things seem to clear up. Well, Parker said he could get a long weekend off at the same time as my vacation next month, and, at his insistence, LA, you'll be seeing me once again. I hope you have some answers, but I'll settle for good food.

The University of Illinois Fighting Illini basketball team has had a rough season. Picked by some as Big Ten championship contenders, they started the season ranked in the top 25 teams in the country. After lots of inconsistent play, they ended up in the middle of the Big Ten pack and got seeded in the lower half of the bracket for the NCAA tournament. Their first game pit them against UNLV, coached by Lon Kruger, U of I coach from 1996-2000.

Kruger was a good coach, ran a clean program, and left at the time for the NBA, hardly an unforgivable sin. Some Illini fans would still love to have him back, if only for the fact that he isn't Bruce Weber.

Weber is the current Illinois coach, who began his tenure auspiciously with a trip to the championship game in 2005, his second season. Since then his teams have been mired in mediocrity, only making the NCAA tournament twice the past four years, and not getting out of the first round.

But not this year. Illinois played about as well as it has played all year and beat UNLV by 11. It was a good win and took away some of the bitter taste from a disappointing season. Of course, a win in the next game would be the potential season-maker. The next opponent was Kansas, seeded first in the region and coached by Bill Self, the Illini head coach from 2000-2003.

Self was the prototypical new-era college coach: relatively young, handsome, energetic, charismatic, recruiting-savvy, on the verge of building a new sustained excellence. Illinois fans were smitten. Then he left - for a bigger name, better tradition, more money, maybe a less clingy fanbase. And while he's gone on to win a national championship and moved on in general, jilted Illinois fans have always wondered what could have been.

Weber has taken the brunt of the pent-up frustration, partly because he's the anti-Self, not producing on the court and not smooth enough off the court to make up for it. This could be his chance at a small but concentrated dose of redemption.

Some people have talked about this game as one that could make up for all the bad losses and poor play of the season. It's not surprising in the results-oriented arena of major college sports to think that a good run in the season-ending tournament can make up for a year of marginal effort, locker room infighting, and countless remote controls thrown across the room. But that's the way we sometimes think - where we end up is more important than the journey along the way.

Work permitting, I'll be watching the game. And it will mean something, but not everything, because I've been watching all along.

On Friday I got off work early and decided that I would check out the building workout room for the third time ever. The first time was when they showed me the building prior to moving in here, and the second time was during a fit of motivation around the beginning of last year. This time I'd been slowly working my way up to semi-fitness using a pair of dumbbells in the safety of my own living room. I decided that the time was right (or long overdue, whichever) to revisit the workout room.

I walked in and noticed that the place wasn't quite as nice as I'd remembered. There were three treadmills, a couple of ellipticals, an exercise bike, a handful of weight machines, and a rack of free weights in the corner - all in decent shape, but not without a tinge of dingy. I was the only one there and wandered around a bit, touching this and that, even squeezing out a few reps. I flipped through one of the magazines that they had in a rack and drank a cup of water from the cooler.

Then I stepped on a treadmill and pressed the start button. The machine groaned and the ground beneath my feet began falling back. Muscles that had long been dormant woke from their slumber and pushed me onward.

Daily, daily, to walk and run, and to push ever forward, even if sometimes it's only just to keep from falling back, to feel pain and - dare I say - suffering, and gaining strength in the midst of a weary race, daily, daily, one step closer, daily, to Thee.

Transplant won't let me go without one last run through the ringer. Sunday was supposed to be my first day off since the snow day. I went to church, bought some gifts for Payton's first birthday, and was heading over to Myung's place to see his latest impulse purchase, a Bowflex-vs-coat-hanger (we'll see). Then I got called in for a liver transplant. Before I drove back down to the city, though, I made sure to stop by Paul/Seung's kid's party and inhale some food. The transplant took all night and, of course, I didn't get home until today because I was already scheduled to be on call yesterday. Transplant ends tomorrow. One more day for the rest of my life.

While we were driving around yesterday, Sharon talked about how she was bothered by the fact that the Christian life that Anson urges us toward in his sermons doesn't even begin to resemble our day-to-day. I remember thinking a few weeks ago that today's congregation, at least at Bethel, is made up of certain types of people. We are mostly single, some career-oriented (although maybe not by choice), usually with a fairly long history of being involved in the Church, some combination of wanting to be earnest and comfortable being jaded, perhaps settling into living as "mature Christians," which probably doesn't mean what we think it means. And I thought about how difficult it is to try to reach a group like that - and I mean really reach, to the point of significant and sustaining life change. Did we grow out of passion? Was holiness a phase? When God calls, can we drop everything and go? I know it's humanly possible because that's what I've been doing for work for the last two months, but is it spiritually possible when the only one who won't let go is not me?

The thing is, that's really the only way it's spiritually possible. I want to be put through the ringer, if only that I would live that life for the rest of my days.

In terms of difficult patients, the worst offenders are probably Transplant, Colorectal, and Trauma, in some order. They each have their reasons. Transplant patients are on immunosuppressants, so even the slightest sniffle gets them a hospital admission and a comprehensive workup. Do that often enough and they start building up a sense of entitlement. Colorectal patients turn crazy because, for various reasons, most of them can't take a normal dump. I mean, who can live like that? And Trauma patients are young guys who get shot and after taking care of them for a few days you can kind of see why. Anyway, I'm generalizing, but all this to say, I've had just about enough of Transplant. I'll be switching to Surgical Oncology in a week, and it'll be back to a relatively normal resident life. Thank goodness.

For some reason I've been thinking about a girl from a few years back. We were both med students at the same hospital, though from different schools and on different rotations. I met her through one of the other students, and had a chance to talk to her a couple of times. She seemed nice, and she happened to mention that she was a Christian, so I figured I might as well try asking her out. She said ok (actually, it was more like, "Uh...ok.") and we had dinner. I thought it went not horribly, but it was hard to play phone tag because of different call schedules or whatever, and I didn't see her again after that. Looking back, I don't know, maybe I should have made more of an effort, maybe I was being my usual relationship-sabotaging self, maybe, maybe, maybe. I hope I've matured a bit since then. I'm (almost) afraid to find out.

Last weekend, Myung and one of his roommates had a house party/poker night. He invited me with the promise that "there will be booze and girls." I drove up after my post-call nap, attempted to play something resembling poker, and met some new people. Alas, I did not get any booze or girls, but I'm trying to make an effort. It's not easy to stop being difficult.

With all the things going on in Anson's life, I'd been wondering how he was handling it all. I finally got a chance to stop by church this past Sunday (granted, after service was already finished) and just managed to catch everyone as they were going out to eat lunch.

I didn't get to talk to him at lunch, and I didn't really get to talk to him after lunch when we went to Red Mango for froyo, either.

Myung sees him much more often than I do, and when I asked him about it a while back, he just said, "He has good days and bad days." It's a strange combination of sort of being single again and yet still having parental responsibilities. On certain days, he'll play basketball in the middle of the night, and on other days, he'll need to go pick up the kids, like he's always done. And I'm not even mentioning the emotional ups-and-downs. But it should get better, I hope. Time heals all wounds, right?

After Red Mango, we randomly decided to go to a karaoke place in the middle of the afternoon. We convinced Anson to go even though he said the only pop songs he knew were the ones that Kara liked. And as I sat and listened to him sing like Bieber and rap like Ludacris, I couldn't help but think, how bittersweet.

Baby, baby, baby, oh, I thought you'd always be mine...

Snowmaggedon 2011 beat me up and stole my lunch money. I spent 15 minutes foolishly driving into the unplowed street outside my garage this morning and made it about 10 feet. I then spent the next 30 minutes shoveling the snow around me so I could go back into the garage. Chest pain, shortness of breath, profuse sweating - thank you, Snowtorious BIG. I called the fellow and said I would try to make it in later in the day at some point if they decide to plow my street. And it's still snowing.

Now that the ABSITE is over, I'm back into non-learning mode. I've been coming home and watching college/NBA basketball or Dream High. (The only other person I know who watches Dream High? Catherine, youngest member of BYG, age 12.) It's been nice.

Yesterday, one of the anesthesia residents offered to set me up with her friends.

She: I have so many vultures that I could set you up with.

Me: Vultures?

She: They're over 30 and they're looking hard.

Me: You're not selling this very well.

Well, if I make the mistake of trying to go out into snOMG again today, I guess my frozen remains will thaw out sometime in the spring. At that point, ladies, have at it!

Last Wednesday I presented two mortalities and my clinical correlations case at conference, then ran out to the side of the hospital to catch the procurement car before it left. We drove down to Springfield to get ourselves a liver and drove straight from there to Central DuPage for another donor liver. By the time we got back it was 2 in the morning. The livers finished by around sunrise, then we had two scheduled kidney transplants. And I was on call that night, trying to make sure that nothing crazy happened. On Friday morning I stuck around long enough to ligate an AV fistula, then somehow made my way back home, some fifty-four hours after I'd last walked out.

On Saturday I attended Sarah Lee's wedding. I still can't believe one of my old youth group kids is married now. And I - well, I am no closer to getting married than I ever was.

I have been getting a few offers from random people at work to be set up with their friends. I reflexively turn them down, in no small part because I don't trust that they know what I'm looking for. Especially since I don't know what I'm looking for. But the offers seem to keep trickling in. I guess the scent of desperation isn't hard to pick up on.

I'm writing this early in the morning after another long call day/night. I had an appendectomy, a liver and kidney transplant, a second appendectomy, and of course, no sleep. Hopefully I can get home at a reasonable time and get some ABSITE cramming in today.

Yeah, so maybe I'm a bit married after all. Ol'-ball-and-chain, thy name is surgery.

Last Sunday Bum was visiting Bethel and we got a chance to talk briefly.

He: Hey, how are you?

Me: I'm ok.

He: It seems like I see your sister more often than I see you. She said you're doing great.

Me: Really? Great?

Really? I don't think "great" would be in the top ten things I would say if someone were to ask me how I was doing at any given time. Still, I guess I am doing, um, okay. Haha, I can't even get myself to write it. Well, maybe this will be a great year. Maybe last year was a great year. Maybe I should be more optimistic. Maybe I just need to be more thankful.

It all sounds pretty great to me.