And it's only Tuesday...

I'm...so....crabby.......

Sage advice

So my trainer tells me this morning that what I really need to do to lose weight is decrease my stress. He tells me there was a big article on hormones and weight gain in The Journal Of Really Fit People or one of those fancy publications he reads.

Yep, Buddy. True that.

What he didn't tell me, however, was how exactly I'm supposed to accomplish that. Especially with my life. 

Thoughts? Short of magically generating siblings, marrying rich, or being a bad shrink, of course...

Now I have no excuse

(PS - Happy birthday, Robin! And a belated happy birthday to Brad.)

I fell asleep last night, way too early.

I have to start sleeping better, because sleeping more isn't helping. I still suck as a sleeper...

So we had a ice storm last night. I got up this morning and my entire apartment complex was coated with a sheet of glass. The driving was miserable getting out of my neighborhood, and I spent most of the drive wishing I had a job where I could call out. But I made it. Peng made it. Our intern made it. Our attending even made it (although he was two hours late).

My clinic this afternoon was fun - only one of my four patients showed up. She was one of two that came to the entire child clinic. And she was pretty entertaining (in a good way, not in that holy-wow-is-this-one-crazy kind of way).

It never ceases to amaze me down here - every year I've lived here there's been snow and ice. And yet we have no idea how to deal with snow and ice. It's a perpetual catastrophe. We have no equipment for it. Every year, people! Get a clue!!

Grump, grump, grump...

Friday whining

Today sucked.

I hate my life.

That is all. 

Squawk!

I had this incredibly ridiculous, headless chicken kind of day. Early therapy patient, then breakfast with the applicants, rounds, team, family meeting, applicant interview, resident support lunch, family meeting, supervision, therapy...filling the occasional spare minutes with phone calls, notes, emails, and one sticky bun that took me four hours to finish.

All on an inexplicable four hours of sleep.

I don't care if it's 8pm. I'm goin' to bed.....

You know those days....

...when, no matter what you do, you feel like you absolutely, positively, totally, and completely CANNOT do anything right?

Yep. Been one of those.

BEEP! BEEP!! BEEEEEEP!

It's the most irritating part of my job.

That noise my pager makes. During hours I'm not supposed to be working.

I'm wishing right now that I'd gone into one of those specialties that boasts a "pager-free lifestyle" (although I don't think any of them ever really do, especially not as a resident).

That's alls I'm going to say about it. Except this: I REALLY AM NOT INCOMPETENT! And this is not an emergency!! And I really don't want to talk to Patient Relations at 8:30pm.

I should really start leaving the damn thing in my car. Except I'm too hypervigilant about my patients...

At least I have Maxine to keep things in perspective....

There's clearly something wrong with me...

I'm wrapping bagels to put them in the freezer (I brought home two dozen, which I distributed between friends and family and my tummy, except for the last eight) (and no, that's not what's wrong with me, be patient) and I'm humming to myself, and suddenly I bust out with this song:



From Sophomore Madrigals. Sixteen years ago. And I don't remember it being in German. But I'm sure we sounded just as good.

Still, it's pleasant, and I thought I'd share. 

It was a long ass, 12-hour day today. Which was supposed to be longer, because I was supposed to meet Gomer at 7. But I told him I had a meeting. I barely slept last night and my knee hurt and I couldn't handle the gym tonight. So we try again next week.

Oy. What a day. I'm so not ready to be back at work.

Today...

...not so good.

I'm not really sure why, to be honest. It was just...difficult.

I think it's still part of my Crisis of Something. But wow am I in one of those awash in your emotions, stuck all up in your head, mulling over life kind of funks.

And I have a 7am patient tomorrow. So I'm going to bed on old lady time.

Monday

Back to work. Back to therapy. Back to the weekly grind. But back to reality?

Not just yet.

Meanwhile, my throat feels like I gargled with acid. I blame Jen (the index patient in our Village, who are all sick or recovering at this point). Or maybe I still blame Peng (although she seems to be feeling better these days).

I need more weekend.

Another week down

Yeah, so, I didn't get too much done today.

Mags went with me to coffee this morning. Her boyfriend Eddie came along, too.

It does bother me a little that my dog has a steady and I...have a dog....

But nonetheless. Eddie - whose full name is Eddie the Neurotic Wonderdawg, if that tells you anything - was SUCH a good boy, and it was his first time at the coffee shop. They had fun together. The humans enjoyed it, too.

We got some lunch, I went to the gym....and then I'm not sure where the rest of the day went.

I had a really restless workout. Ten minutes on the elliptical, ten on the bike, ten on the treadmill, five on the rower, twenty on the other treadmill. Fuss, fuss, fuss. I came home, putzed around, finally got around to showering, did some laundry, did some dishes...I don't know why I'm so uneasy today...

I also missed the fact that it was the 19th, not the 18th, which is what I'd been thinking. Which means I also missed yesterday - as of yesterday, I've had Maggie for SEVEN YEARS! That's crazy!!! Also awesome. And lucky, I think, for both of us. She's the greatest dog ever. Even if she does have a better love life than I do...

An Open Letter to My Life

Could you cut me a break? Just for a little bit? Please? 'Cause I'm really, really tired.

Much obliged.


K

Or, you know, one of those dwarves.

I'm having such a grumpy day.

I don't know that there's really a reason to be grumpy.

Then again....maybe there are, like, forty reasons.

Maybe I'll just go to bed.....

Wicked cool

Today was another cranky day. Good crew at coffee today ("a flurry of friends," was one description) AND I got my second baby hat finished. But I kept looking at my watch and swearing...

I had a difficult consult this morning (well, the psychiatry wasn't so difficult, but it was rather emotionally wrenching...). I discharged two of my favorite patients from my clinic today. And then I stopped at the PetSmart on the way home and promptly locked my keys in the car. Which turned a 15-minute errand into a 90-minute ordeal in 92-degree heat. Frickin' awesome.

But.

I did have a nice lunch with two of my friends who just graduated. And I came back from lunch, and there was a homemade donut on my desk, courtesy of the same medical student who brought me roving a couple of weeks ago. It's such a shame that we can't convince him to go into psychiatry. That was one tasty donut.

Also in good news today - check this out. Our clinic ROCKS.

Cranky

I'm suddenly really cranky. I don't know why, either. Today was a nice day.

We had a great crew for coffee this am. robin joined us (yay!! Hi, robin!), which was hilarious when she walked up to the coffee shop carrying a can of Mountain Dew. Work was pretty laid-back for me today. And I had a nice chat with Robin this evening, even if Skype was acting stupid and we had to convert to old-fashioned cell phones.

Come to think of it, there was a flock of Robins in my day today. That's nice.

And, and! Olga talked me in to finally using these gift cards I had on a nook. Which, if you're not aware, is one of those electronic readers, like a Kindle. It's like a book, but it's electronic, and you can download like over a million books to it. So you can carry a whole library around with you! And it's flat, so one could, say, read it on the treadmill or the stationary bike without having to figure out how to keep it from closing up and falling off the little shelf. And I sprung for the cute pink case. Plus it has internet access! Anywhere! Who could possibly not love that?

....so where's the crabby coming from?

You can't fix stupid

So I'm in Starbucks yesterday.

And there's this guy.

Who, incidentally, appears to be the LOUDEST PERSON ON EARTH.

And he's talking to the barista, who is a fairly recent immigrant, but works at Starbucks, so has good health care (they have GREAT benefits). And the LPOE is going on and on about what crap it is that the government wants to take ALL OF OUR HARD EARNED MONEY and give it to people who refuse to work. I roll my eyes a little...and he of course keeps going. Damn those Democrats. All they want to do is take money from working people and give people health care. He's totally against this, as someone who works. And, you know, health care is just fine.

I so wished I'd brought my iPod and could turn it up right then.

Listen, people. Health care is fine for many. Health care is NOT fine for the people that ACTUALLY need it. Medicare and Medicaid are disastrous. Private third-party payers are exploitative. Nobody gives a damn about the people that can't afford their medications or can't get the care they need because they're not people who matter anyway - you know, like old people, poor people, sick people, actual disabled people, etc.

And let me tell you, people don't even want to talk about the mentally ill.

Really, some people in this country would be just so much happier if the above demographics would simply go away. But they won't. These are the people that need support. These are the people that suck the money out of our system, yes - because we set it up in such a wasteful way, not because they themselves set out to do so. These are the people that no one wants to consider until it's a member of their own families - or worse, they themselves - who become part of that demographic. Then, then they're outraged. And suddenly find themselves shouting at the bottom of a deep, dark well.

And then they get why those of us in the trenches are constantly looking worn down, haggard, and jaded.

Health care reform isn't an option. The system must change, it will change, and we'd damn well better step it up to figure out how to change it into something that works before it implodes.

Over the past year or two, I've been completely bewildered by the "controversy" about health care reform. Really? Is this a question? What the hell is wrong with Capitol Hill?

And then, today, I read this.

And became a little more outraged, and a little more jaded...

Continuing the profane streak of the past few days...

(....and then we're back to our baseline level of profanity, I promise...)

This is my sentiment for the day:

No, no, I don't have cancer (that I'm aware of). And I did not make this hat. But I'm rather thinking of making one for someone who does, except I really can't decide if she'd actually wear it...

Need a little Christmas...

I'm so ready for a vacation. In case you've missed that.

I'm a little bit packed.

I have way too much to do at work tomorrow.

My dog is snoring.

One of these things cracks me the hell up.

Alls I can say tonight is this:

My. Effing. Head. Hurts.

Ow.

Funky

Dudes. I'm in a funk.

I'm not sure what it is. And I'm not even sure I really noticed until this evening, when Mikaela looked at me and was like, "what's wrong?"

Who knows, really. It might be hormones, frankly. It might be the lack of sunlight. It might be a number of other variables. But whatever it is, it's funky. I kind of noticed yesterday that I was sort of flat. Today I noticed I was a little more irritable than usual. I snapped at Ruthie a couple of times today.

There's a lot going on. And, simultaneously, not really that much.

I'm just going to chalk it up to an extended case of the Mondays....