Suspending reality

So I've taken to watching movies on Netflix during my workouts. 30 minutes at a time, on my tiny iPhone screen, on the treadmill. But you'd be surprised how big that screen seems when you get into the movie. Anyhow, I only had 20 minutes left of the movie Up, so I just finished watching it.

I'm going to need to watch it again, not broken into 30 minute chunks.

So far I'm going with, cute. I really liked Kevin, the bird, and Doug, the dog. Really liked the dog. Kinda makes me wish Maggie had one of those collars. She's so quiet. I'd love to know what goes on in that furry little head.

Might have to Redbox it and take it to my parents'.

Next up in my queue is Outsourced, or maybe Kickass. Prior to Up I watched Easy A, which is a modern-day, high school take on The Scarlet Letter and which I also highly recommend (I was laughing, in public, on the treadmill, at my tiny iPhone screen).

As beyond believable as I found Up, this still sometimes seems preferable to the real world, where today in clinic I saw a high school student who already had three kids.

Sometimes reality is just as beyond belief.

Long. Ass. Day.

Today...was...you guessed it - long.

It started with my getting to work at the crack of early so I could let my 7am patient in. Of course, the front desk staff is no longer there at 7am, so, now, now it's just me. We had a decent session, and then I had four long, long intakes (not that I got all that long to do them, of course). I had supervision, and then my psychotic clinic, and one of my patients walked in that didn't have an appointment. I went to the gym and Gomer kicked my ass (I still think he's trying to kill me) and then I went to Peng and Chef's for dinner. They even let me shower off the nasty gym funk. And Matthew and V came over, too, and we had phenomenal braised pork shanks and asparagus and we watched Repo! The Genetic Opera, which was bizarre and awesome all at the same time (I'm going to have to watch it again. And I think there's literary allegory in there, I just can't put my finger on what...). There was good food and good wine and good company, and good irreverent entertainment. The night was definitely lovely.

But it was a long ass day.

I'm almost ashamed to admit this...

...but I'm watching this movie, Fireproof. It's got Kirk Cameron in it, which is not, in itself, that remarkable. The embarrassing part is that I'm taking it on the recommendation of the Duggars.

Last week, I was channel surfing, and wound up watching an episode of 18 and Still Counting. Which, I have to admit, I really rather enjoy. There's something very comforting and real about the Duggar family, as unconventional as they are. Anyhow, so they took the family tour bus and went to this big Christian film festival, and raved and raved and raved about this movie.

And....well....I kind of have to agree.

So, basically, Kirk Cameron is a fireman with a failing marriage. And his dad convinces him to try and save their marriage, and gives him this 40-day "dare," a plan of ways to change the way he thinks about his wife and his marriage, to be a better man and a better husband and a better Christian. With some Bible verses to go with it, of course.

It's not the best acted movie I've ever seen. And it's a little contrived (there's this whole "porn is the devil!!!" subplot that's a little like, oh, whatever...). But it's already made me cry like six times (which, I also concede, is not hard). And not as formulaic as you might think. It's definitely a Christian movie, in that there's a lot of talk about God, but there's something to be said about the kind of values it endorses, too. And I appreciate that it's not smack-you-over-the-head religious. And it's got this very...genuine quality to it.

I definitely recommend it. And it's safe to watch with your kids (or your parents, for that matter), which is kind of nice.

The one thing that still weirds me out, though...there's this very nice kiss at the end. And during the Duggar episode, Kirk Cameron revealed that he won't kiss any woman he's not married to, so they had his actual wife stand in for the actress who played his movie wife. Which, I guess that's nice. It just seems...I dunno. Fussy? Isn't that sort of the thing about about...you know...acting?

I did really like the salt and pepper on the cake at the end, though.

There's an interesting quote, though. At one point, his father says to him,

Don't just follow your heart, because your heart can be deceived. You've got to lead your heart.

I don't know if I agree with that. I think, maybe, you can not listen very well, you can let other things be louder than what's truly in your heart, but if you really listen, I don't think it'll ever lead you down a path that wasn't meant for you.

Who doesn't?

I think of this scene every single time I try to fax something at work....

I don't own emotion, I rent

Ah, if only that were true.

Feeling a little better, on all fronts. Actually a little bummed that I missed the conference at this point, but less guilty that I missed it because I couldn't move without thinking my head was about to explode than if I had just chickened out and not gone. Not that this migraine wasn't in large part caused by stress, anxiety and general battiness (plus, a little pollen, I think. The crazy doesn't get all the credit), but, seriously, the wandering around in the dark this morning saying "Nono, doggie, shhh, shhhhhhhhh!" whenever the pooch made a sound, it does sort of legitimize and validate things.

Monday. Monday's going to be the really bad day, I can already tell you.

I'm for some reason very sensitive to anniversaries (probably because I don't do anticipatory anxiety very well). But this year is by far the worst, for the obvious reasons. Next year, when I'm actually a second year, and I actually got through my intern year okay, it's going to be so much better.

After I slept through most of the day, I finally watched Rent, which had been on my DVR since September. I was a little disappointed. I mean, it doesn't help that I can recite the score of the musical pretty much from "December 24th, 9pm, Eastern Standard Time" straight through to the last "No day but today." And it also doesn't help that the first time I saw it on stage the cast was phenomenal. Oh, my gosh, they were so good. I think the movie did it justice, but, eh, they broke up a lot of songs that needed to be sort of all over the place, they left out one of my favorite songs (Happy New Year), and their Maureen was a little disappointing. Now, no one could be as good as the Angel I saw on stage, so it's probably not his fault that this one wasn't quite as charismatic and engaging. And they left out some really good lines. But I do think they cleaned up the second half well. It's always been a little...mmm...floppy and not quite as together as the first half. The movie did a much better job with the second half.

Anyhow.

I'm on call tomorrow, so I should get to bed. So much for vacation.

"It's the recipes you create yourself that are the best"

It's what Catherine Zeta-Jones' therapist says to her in the movie I watched last night, No Resevations. She's a chef - a chef in therapy - and she's just said to him that it's a shame there are no recipies for life.

It's a really good point. It's a really good metaphor. And it's one of the sweetest movies I've seen in a long time.

Seriously. Rent this movie. Or Netflix it. Or it's OnDemand right now. Whatever. Really, it's just so good. It's not complicated, it's not overly technical nor does it lose itself in the "accuracy" of its setting (you know how that happens sometimes - dance movies throw a lot of lingo at you make sure you see the dancers working so hard and cooking movies try to show the real grit of the restaurant life, etc). The leads have amazing ensemble chemistry. And CZJ does a wonderful job of letting you see her character bloom. It's a little predicatable, but it's got a genuineness about it.

And, it's got a smart therapist.

Anyway, my first day on Crisis was...um...a little overwhelming. I still just kinda don't...get it. Like, what I'm supposed to be doing there. As in, what my role is. My patients are...well, three of them are really complex. Well, okay, two of them are. One of them is just difficult (and not in the good way), and one of them I think is just a dumbass. Or he could be really dangerous. I'm not really sure what to do with him, honestly. Which is why there are people in charge of me, still.

What's also nice about that is that if this kid goes all Cho Seung Hui in six months, it won't be me everyone starts hounding. I don't think he will. I think he's just a dumbass. But, still.

Some days this job really makes my head hurt.

Rainy Sunday

It's a rainy, rainy Sunday afternoon here in NC. Little Miss Delicate Puppy Dog is not pleased, neither by the giant puddle that is our back patio nor by the thunder that's rumbling around. I think maybe she's forgotten about her dislike for snow, though.

I'm feeling better. I'm not willing to go to "great" yet, still a little dizzy and nauseated but I'm significantly less achy and slept a little better last night. And my temp is down. I think the staying home yesterday was good for me (regardless of the fact that I would've been useless at the hospital). I even managed to go run some errands this morning. I was going to run to the Super Target, where, in theory, I could get everything I needed. But, of course, I totally forgot something that I didn't remember until after I'd left, which is my habit with Target. So I stopped at the Whole Foods to pick up milk. Which was better, anyway, because they always have local goods, and I'm always much happier to buy local. And while I was in the dairy section, I bought this:
Partly because I was running low on feta cheese (it's a staple around here). Partly because it cracked me up. Apparently this spelling is because the Greek government is cracking down on their proprietary right to call only cheese made in Greece "feta".

Pheta...

And as long as we're taking pictures of ridiculous things in my fridge, I also happen to think this is really funny. I have this package of polenta, right? And in the preparation instructions, is this:

Nine sixteenths? Really? They couldn't have just said half an inch?

Anyway. As I was saying.

Maggie and I spent pretty much the whole day hanging outdoing nothing yesterday (which, incidentally, is also my plan for this afternoon). Pretty much any time I got up, Mags stole my place on the couch.

We spent most of the time that we were awake watching movies on Lifetime. I got sucked in to the end of this really, really awful one called Criminal Intent. Wow, holy cow was it terrible. The acting was terrible. The plot was ludicrous. I'd watched about ten minutes of it and turned on something else, but then decided to turn it back on to catch the last fifteen minutes. Wow, it was so bad.


But by then I was sucked into the Lifetime vortex, and I ended up watching this movie about some Mormon woman in one of those extremist polygamist sects that escaped with her kids. It was formulaic, but entertaining. And then there was this movie called "Girl, posi+ive" with Kelly from 90210 (why can't I think of her name? Oh, Jennie Garth) about a girl that got HIV in high school. That one was actually fairly creative. And then I watched "The Waitress" on On Demand. I'd kind of wanted to see it back when it was in the little art film theaters, but never got around to it, and then yesterday they were advertising it and I discovered that it had Nathan Fillion in it, and well, I was sold (I adore him, even if he does have that weird hypertelorism thing going on). It was decent. Not as good as I was expecting after all the hype, and I didn't really like the relationship between Fillion's character and Keri Russell's (I think it's because I'm a doctor. There was a whole, medical ethics, makes-me-feel-kind-of-icky-inside thing to it that I probably wouldn't have responded to if I was, say, an accountant). But on the whole, worth the cheap rental.

So this afternoon I'm planning to do some knitting (I'm thisclose to having my sock finished. You know, the one I started in June) and nap through a marathon of Law and Order: SVU, which is one of my new favorite shows. Not because of the show itself all that much. I mean, it's well acted in general. The plotlines are usually fairly well written (although I occasionally find myself rolling my eyes when they blow right past the obvious solution and thinking, don't you people ever watch CSI??). And who doesn't love the irony of "Body Count" Ice-T as a cop? But really, what I love most is their liberal use of forensic psychiatrists, particularly the later episodes with B.D. Wong. That? Is the job I want. Right there. Profiling. Consulting to law enforcement. Doing actual criminology and forensics work, not prison psychiatry. Except maybe for the FBI. Really, I want to be Gordon Gordon.

Shut up, Katie, I do not watch too much TV.....