everything is vague once again. stay? mini-cooper? brownstone? east? work? building? west? go? sleep? it is time for applications. again. i will apply for a fellowship in pediatric hematology and oncology. it is so simple. now and later and mootin and lula in between. in the meantime, i try to celebrate the city with three course brunches…
course one…
course two…
course three…
…and the new york city opera…
…and crêpes.
okay, you got me. i miss the ocean.
i hate the bronx. i hate taking the train to the bronx. i hate the cross bronx expressway. i hate your fever. i hate that you do not speak english. i hate the urine-y wind. i hate your cell phone. i hate your gum on the floor. i hate your fatness. i hate you asking me for money. i hate your asthma. i hate your asthma. i hate your asthma. i hate your juice in a bottle. i hate your nails.
i am old and broken down and cannot believe that i am pining for porches and fog and wide open spaces. i do not know myself.
early saturday afternoon.
late saturday afternoon.
saturday night.
it is now sunday night and perhaps my stiff neck is due to the height of bathroom mirrors and placement of door peepholes and the level of window treatments and the settings of car headrests and i am sad to go back to the hospital tomorrow.
we are at the hotel fauchère this weekend. it is raining and the air is heaving with italian linens, butter, coriander soap, champagne, down feathers, and wooden beams. unperturbed and unmoving i watch lula sleeping and feel reprieve. the fellowship application season begins now. there are decisions and documents and potential disappointments and i don’t know what is going on and didn’t i just become a resident. there is a new phase of uncertainty and i am thirty-two years old and it is time to be in motion.
there is a secret. i do not know what i am doing. i do not know what is going on. both the minutiae and the sweeping…no idea…none. adacel versus boostrix? a train versus 1 train? pediatric oncologist versus beat boxer? beat boxer versus tennis champion? lactose fermenting versus non lactose fermenting? shia versus sunni? phillips screwdriver versus superintendent? i am lazy. i love my family, particularly lula. i am slowly but dependably gaining weight. i feel very, very sleepy.
*thank you, joanna.
i went to jury duty today. unruffled, train bursting, with tea, amongst suits in the bright sun, i felt like a civilian…instructions, lunch breaks, tear-off cards. tedious and dignified, with office supplies, convictions, and sick days, the employees arrive home to sleep at night. activities in the light of day. walking. routines are possible. there are weekends…every five days…every week… plans are trustworthy. my confusions will pass. i will, someday, have a tidy relationship with recreation. there will be territory and i will feel settled. momentary dealings with the non-jacobi world warn me of my lack of amenities. i crave elevators, outdoor spaces, leather seats, and agendas. the shadowy hospital with its nighttime spaces and dreamlike screens is all-embracing, and things will never be the same.
another month in the neonatal intensive care unit is over and there are things i cannot understand. how did i feel affection for this month? how did the night nurse raise her eyes and crack a smile? how was my misery minimized? and…most unanticipated and disconcerting, is this better than oncology? no…but leaving my jacobi habitat last month to go to columbia even for oncology was prickly and unfulfilling. there was gastroschisis and stat cesarean sections and teenage mothers and HIV infected fluids and meconium aspiration syndrome and cerebrospinal fluid and there were my fellow residents. i feel authenticated and proud and fake and disgusted that my contentment can only come from without…i am buoyed by the familiar, applause, friends…i feel pacified by small praise and will sink into it and wonder momentarily what this portends.
there is a new heft to my midsection and i am feeling confused. i am at columbia this month doing a month of pediatric oncology and am in a real tizz. the skinny residents with their tiny flats and elaborate pagers…the big doors…the sparkly nurses…the orange chemotherapy…i feel like a bad foreigner in a prosperous, toxic, flat screen, bloodthirsty land…and now what am i going to do? it is nearly time to apply for fellowship but i am uncertain and slothful and dense. oh the self hatred…and i am tired…and it is distasteful that i focus on fatigue…and as though this were significant to any person except for me…and even for me…something will happen and that is it.
in the meantime there is soft shell crab…
…and mochas…
…and singapore laksa.
i subscribed to martha stewart living magazine.
i do not cook or own a beach cottage or grocery shop or ride a horse or craft as a verb or garden so this publication is of no use to me. while scanning an article on how to buy blueberries i identified the purpose of my awkward, year long purchase…i am in a pastime vacuum…there are no hobbies or flowers or leisures or holiday themed parties or boats or home made soaps or beach novels or linen waters or stamps. there is only work and my fear of work and my whimsical ideas of what breakfast and lamps and outfits and cars might be like if work was just not this. i feel done and weary and somewhat angry…whine, moan, whimper, whatever. there are flashes of fun…
i chipped a tooth while eating blueberry pie in a rotating restaurant.
i would like to raise up a pack of chihuahuas.
i am on call on saturday. there are a lot of mice in new york city. my neck is stiff.* small children blow swine flu up my nose. i would like to eat mini cupcakes. i would like to go back to disney world. i am old and cranky and creaky and full of noxious stimuli. watch out!
*my neck is really very wow quite stiff.
