But seriously, folks

No, really. There are few things funnier than a group of drunken psychiatrists. Unless those things would be, a, a group of drunken psychiatrists square dancing, or, b, barely legal very drunk white dudes trying to crash the drunken psychiatrist square dancing party.

But we'll get to that.

So I am, of course, still in Asheville. The conference is winding down and we're having a hell of a good time.

Yesterday I whored myself out to the drug reps for some funny accoutrements. Sadly, I think the tables have all gone down and they will not let me pilfer in the morning. So I'll have to be satisfied with my current mind-warping booty.

Yes, that's a big orange clothespin. It's for the office. I don't know what we're going to do with it, but I thought we needed one. I already threw out the Risperdal highlighter set, it was crappy (it's good for them I already like their drug, because, if I were to be easily swayed by drug company trinkets...). Incidentally, for those of you worried that I'm being unduly influenced, I actually don't remember what psych drugs Lilly makes, I find Invega useless, I'm so not a fan of Seroquel, and I don't actually know who Ridgeville and QTCM are.

Yesterday morning had a couple of really good lectures, and one very boring lawyer who was not very informative. I spent most of that hour texting Peng and Claudia. And then I came back to my hotel and took a nap. Last night there was a nice little reception, and then, THEN we went on the Ghost Trolley Tour. I went with Ed and his wife Georgia, whom I had not previously met but now totally adore.

I love ghost tours, btw. Have I mentioned that? It's such a great way to get a flavor for the real history of a city. Last night's did not disappoint for spooky moments and awesome stories. And it had beer.


Our tour guide, who is actually an engineering student at UNC-A. Yes, yes, that is a Ghostbusters costume he's wearing.

We saw a lot of cool sites and heard a lot of good stories, including several about the Biltmore (apparently George Vanderbilt thinks he's very funny) and the Grove Park Inn, about destitute bankers who plummeted to their deaths on Black Tuesday and now walk around and give investment advice, and how two of the local high schools were built on mass paupers' graves. We had a slightly spooky moment at this place called Helen's Bridge, where this woman apparently hung herself after her young daughter died in a fire. Apparently, if you park under the bridge after dark and say "Helen, come forth" three times, Biggie Smalls will appear and bust a cap in your ass. Oh, no, wait, that was South Park. Here, she will either appear to you, stall out your car, or leave handprints on your car. Last night she did none of the above (can you blame her? A busload of shrinks?). But even the most stoic skeptic among us had to admit it ended up feeling a little spooky.

My very favorite spot on the tour, though, was one relevant to us:


This is the Insane Asylum (I don't know what it is these days) where F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda, spent the last ten years of her life, until she died in a fire. First of all, is this not just a beautiful building for an asylum? Anyhow, apparently back in those days they used to chain the patients to their beds at night. One night, a fire broke out, and she and eight other women were immolated because they couldn't leave. Awful, what they used to do to the crazies.

I also learned that Big Blue still has a parapsychology program. It's one of two left in the country. Matthew, Veronica, how could you have not shared this with me?? We often joke about our patients needing exorcisms instead of drugs, but, I wonder if they'd actually do that. Can you call them for a consult?

We definitely saw some awesome places. Asheville is a gorgeous town. Sadly, though, because I was shooting at night without the flash on a bumpy trolley, most of my pictures came out looking a lot like this...


On the way home, though, I did manage to get a picture of the neon monstrosity of a hotel down the street:


On the other side or the marquis it says "With a touch of modern." I don't know what that means. Maybe it's the wireless.

That sign is just large and gaudy and amused me. But I have to wonder, what is he supposed to be doing in this little rendition in electrified vapor?


Fishing. I'm going to tell myself it's fishing.

Today was also very nice. The morning talks were decent, although the one I'd been so looking forward to, the talk I actually came to the conference for in the first place (on complex PTSD, which, well, it's what I want to do with my life), was quite disappointing. Oh well. We also had a talk on so-called "cosmetic psychopharmacology", however, discussing things related to prescribing for people who don't actually have an illness, i.e., ritalin to make you better in school if you don't have ADHD. It degenerated a little into a discussion of drug marketing in the Q&A, which also incurred a lot of self-righteous pontificating, but, nonetheless, the talk was good.

This afternoon was our resident-specific stuff, which was mostly only attended by the Baby Blue contingent and a couple of ECU fellows. It was awesome, though (of course, because Ed arranged it). Probably the most helpful thing all weekend.

We also went out for lunch today with Eva's 91 year old grandfather, who is a retired Child and Adolescent psychiatrist. I liked him. We had a very nice lunch at this little bistro place downtown, and Eva bought me lunch (a wicked good burger, although I must confess that I was a little jealous of Papa's fried peanut butter and banana sammich. I loved that it was even on the menu, and I totally loved that he ordered it). He came to the resident programming with us, too. He joked that the panel discussion was so helpful for career advice, he wished he'd seen it 65 years earlier.

Tonight was the awards presentation and dinner. We were all going to ditch it, but somehow got guilted into staying and so we sat in the back and heckled (quietly). And then we skipped out to the lobby because they were about to start the bluegrass music. Where we sat and laughed loudly and were obnoxious and generally had a good time cracking jokes and telling stories (best line of the evening - Tina, who's black, and her husband, also black, were discussing Ed and my lineage: Ed's Armenian and things, I'm Greek (and things). It's a long story how we got to that, but then Tina told us that her grandfather was Greek. And her husband turns to her and says, "Wait...we're Greek??!"), until these three, very drunk, probably-of-age hicks come by from a wedding reception down the hall and start telling us how they crashed the party in the ballroom and tried to square dance with a bunch of crazy psychiatrists. Apparently the one was very sad that they wouldn't let him cut in. So he asked one of the guys, "If I lie down on the couch in the lobby, will you tell me what's wrong with me?" And whomever he was talking to told him that he couldn't afford their rates.

We laughed about that whole episode for a good ten minutes after they'd stumbled upstairs. And then we snuck back over to see our square-dancin' colleagues in action.

Wow, y'all. I....really.....shit, if I'd ever doubted that I was in the South....let's just say I don't see that happening at the Illinois Psychiatric Association meetings...

Good times.

So now I'm back at the hotel, and I have to pack and get to bed so I don't oversleep for the bright-and-early lecture on insomnia. The conference ends about 12:30, and then I'm going to try and go to the LYS that's about 6 minutes away (according to the TomTom). And then I have a four hour drive back, and then I'm meeting Crazy Friend Rachel for dinner, because she's moving on Monday, and because she had to have Mazel euthanized this week. Poor old boy had lymphoma, no one even suspected. Poor baby kept up a good front (yes, I know he's the dog that bit both me AND Maggie, but still, he was, at heart, a good boy). Shalom, sweet boy.