usually so monotonous, but

Its a weird week. Samantha left for New York. That in and of itself is enough to qualify this as a weird week. I skipped class Tuesday which is never done, never. And next week is my last of the semester...finals galore. Then I will be home for five, count them, five days before leaving for the beach for a week with my precious family. I am looking forward to it. Mostly because I get to have the 4th floor all to myself, it is a small room, with a bed, and its own porch and hammock, overlooking the sea. Imma be so happy up there and the cell phone signal is sure to be solid.

It is a different thing writing a blog and sending it out into the great www when it is just you, and you know it will be read by people you love and people you don't, people who cannot identify in any way with your sorry state and many who do. When you have the cushion of a spouse or boyfriend or children or home around you...you say what you want, and you don't really care. I did anyhow. When you don't have any of those cushions you feel more vulnerable i guess, and less confident in opening yourself up to criticism, even criticism that you would never hear, hurling itself across states and countries, over oceans through the air.

I took a funny test this morning. My written final exam in Physical Diagnosis. When you hear a medium intensity, high pitched crescendo-decrescendo late diastolic murmur at the apex of the heart...what is it? Mitral stenosis? If so why is it high-pitched? If a mother brings in a baby with a honey-colored crusted rash with vesicles in the perioral area...IMPETIGO. Right? If a patient has severe otalgia, erythmatous external ear canals with tenderness and no granulation, a normal pearl-gray tympanic membrane and greenish yellow discharge, what is it? Otitis externa? Otitis media? Both?  Serous otitis externa? Mastoiditis? If so where THE HELL IS THE DISCHARGE COMING FROM?? These are the questions I have asked myself today. Those and about 97 other ones. Holy shit it was awful. I hope I passed...Lord i hope i did.

--break to check grades again and see if up--

Not up yet.
So anyhow. I feel kind of starved for the things that make life worthwhile. I don't know why. I get lots of them on the weekends. I shouldn't feel starved. Maybe its my hormones. Probably.

Also there are so many more things going on that are making me sad and feel crazy, and I know I need to just pray and let God tell me how to feel about them, and let Him tell me when I should be feeling saner because things aren't bad in His opinion, and not worry about everyone else... but sometimes you forget to pray and then you get in the habit of letting the people in your life act as a sounding board, you let them tell you by their emotions and words, whether or not things are okay and whether or not you are crazy. Fuc that dude. Imma pray. And fast if I have to. I think I feel starved cause i miss God.

Anyhow hopefully see some of you this weekend, when I come home, to my temporary home.

I'm sure there will be other worse pains

Someone breaking your heart, for whatever reason, is the worst pain i know of in my 29.4 years. Worse than dislocating your knee, worse than fighting with your dad, worse than people lying about you. Worse than surgery, vomiting, isolation, failure. If, reader, you think there is chance you may be in jeopardy of this offense toward a significant other, do the world a favor and shoot yourself before you get the chance. I am sure you will be treated kindly in purgatory for your magnanimous action. 

stress eating, apparently

So weird...sitting her, trying to study. And all I can think about is that i want to eat! I consider my stomach and....I am certainly not hungry. But i want to eat! and eat! And everything sounds good! Chips! Carrots! Whatever! I just want to eat something. And its like this pretty much all the time. Pretty annoying if you ask me. And weird. And kind of funny too.

Country music.

If you are ever tempted to go on an invigorating run/walk through the downtown of a small mining town, listening to the mournful "Neko Case" PANDORA station through your earphones, whilst run/walking by the closed and shuttered restaurants, coffee shops, flower stores, billiard club, piano store, pizza salon, grocery market, FOR RENT signs in every window and the open 4 pawn shops and single lawyers office....

just don't do it. its sad as hell these small towns, and nobody's got any money but the owners of those pawn shops and Sam Walton, I guess...

oh and the lawyer. 

Week five.

Studying for test tomorrow. Sample for friends to see:

A worker doing repetitive lifting develops an inflammation in the tendon of origin of the extensor carpi radialis brevis muscle, commonly called "tennis elbow". The focal point of pain would most likely be near which palpable bony landmark? 
 Coronoid process of ulna
 Lateral epicondyle of humerus
 Lateral supracondylar ridge of humerus
 Medial epicondyle of humerus
 Medial supracondylar ridge of humerus
 Olecranon
 Posterior (subcutaneous) border of ulna

I wake in the night saying these words out loud. 

Kentucky/Tennessee

Things I see often:

Coal-mining bumper stickers (i.e. the little peeing boy, with a coalminer's hat, peeing on obama)
Women driving really big trucks
Really big trucks
ATVs. On the main roads, at Wendy's, everywhere
Overweight children
Overweight children riding bikes
Forest rangers giving people speeding tickets
A huge crowd at Wal-Mart
A huge crowd at the brick building in my neighborhood that says "BINGO" on it
A huge crowd at the DQ
My anatomy book
Mountains

I find the sunshine offensive. And I am not hungover.

Should I go see a movie by myself?
THAT is a question for the ages, if ever there was one.

Or I could memorize the insertions and functions of all the arm, forearm, and intrinsic hand muscles...the only things I have left to memorize on this test. I already did everything else, and everything else is a LOT...probly enough to pass the test. Passing means a 70 or above mind.

These are the dilemmas that occupy my mind. What to eat. What to do. What to study. That's about it.



I wish I had the where-with-all to go exercise, to call a (new) friend and see if they want to see a movie or eat or hell, go to the cadaver lab even. Or to sit on the porch with a beer and a smoke and play the guitar. Or write a letter, or paint. Or walk down to the coffee shop and read something crazy, like Hemingway. I don't.

I got something in the mail today. From a friend. And I was sitting there so blissfully happy looking at it..and all the sudden i just started crying, really crying. I realized the crying was feeling so good...why? I didn't realize, till now, that since I have been here, almost 4 weeks now, I have been holding my breath emotionally, being brave. Holding my breath being brave. And dammit if being so alone and cognizant of hard things for one second didn't just feel pretty damn good! Its been a lot, right? Super lame relationship times, plus leaving my home, plus missing everybody, plus being around strangers EVERY DAY, plus being super alone in a house far away, plus starting a really difficult and intense school program. I think I just figured the best way to deal with it was to just not deal with it. At all. Ha. I am just like a child sometimes...just like. "Charlotte!"

I got here and well.

Right, so.

I am sitting on a nice yellow couch, across from a fireplace with 4 glass votive holders. Samantha's collage of little square skies hangs on the wall, and the late afternoon sun is streaming in several windows. This house is just full of windows. Its a really nice house, in my opinion. It sits high...you have to walk up the porch steps to get to the front door/porch, and inside the house there is this nice feeling that you are just kind of up high...not too high, just right. I can see trees and the roofs of houses out the window. I got out of class early today. I'm not sure if it was good or bad, as we took a practice lab exam, called a "practical," and everybody was so stressed out afterwards that i'm sure being off early just gave them more time to stress. It sorta did me...i came home so as to be calm, and laid on the couch, tried to nap, and ended up having nightmaresque waking dreams about nerves and arteries and dermatomes and muscles. I tried to study to assuage my need and got sleepy again. Oh tHE FUCK WELL. Is my current position.

I come home early from school sometimes. Then I try to make up reasons to go to the walmart. Yes, the walmart. I feel weird just saying walmart. I am trying to learn the ways of the people. I went recently just for a watch battery, but ended up finding some vitamins, a box of new latex gloves, and a bathroom rug the BEST shade of green. Its a good way to spend time...wandering around walmart. Then i come home and make tea, or sit on the porch, or read a book, or study, or watch a movie, or do the cutest little house-y things like wash a dish or fold some laundry. (Who folds laundry anymore?)

I kinda felt bad about supporting walmart when i first got here. I don't anymore. When in the farthest far-flung corners of modern civilization, one can only do, what one can do. And here, one goes to the walmart.

I have a big big big test on thursday. I made a 72 on the practice test today. We have to make a 70 to pass. I've been studying my small brains out. Oh well. Again.

Its INCREDIBLE how much i know, right now, about the lower limb, the back, and neck. Okay? Incredible. Let it be said.

Talked to an old friend on the phone today...one that is having a hard time. I could feel myself wanting to not care, b/c hurting friends make me hurt. But i did care. I went ahead and cared. I did it because 1) it was the right thing to do and 2) I am not going to peace out these 27 months that it takes me to get through school.

Femoral artery, its a big one. 

If you keep trying to be brave

on and on forever do you eventually build it up like a muscle? or do you wear down
like an old and tired person
like a stone getting smoother but still stone, worn away, worn away, until there is
nothing left to fear because you are too tired and there is not much left of you
anyhow?


Absence

I have scarcely left you
when you go in me, crystalline,
or trembling,
or uneasy, wounded by me
or overwhelmed with love, as when your eyes
close upon the gift of life
that without cease I give you.

My love,
we have found each other
thirsty and we have
drunk up all the water and the blood,
we found each other
hungry
and we bit each other
as fire bites,
leaving wounds in us.

But wait for me,
keep for me your sweetness.
I will give you too
a rose.


P. Neruda

V-day, right?

February 14th, 2012. Today is Kathryn, my roommate's, birthday. And for this I am truly thankful. I have never been really pissed at Valentines day, have not let my feathers get too ruffled...but it honestly has always been a little bit of a sting. A small barb from the dark powers that be, to make glaringly obvious my many and varied failures in the field of Relationships. And....I hope Jon is okay today. I hope he gets his sweet little girlfriend something sweet and is sweet to her. I for one am going to celebrate Kathryn's life this evening and be thankful. Thankfulness is the cure for what ails ye, I believe. Hell I'll make a thankfulness list just for the HELL of it! That's how positive I am being today!

Thank-Ful-Ness List:
1. Masala Chai tea, currently drinking, brought to me by one of our clients.
2. My first organic chem test has been pushed back to this coming Monday. Glory Be.
3. My eye stopped twitching the moment #2, see above, became reality yesterday in class. It has been twitching for four (4) days so that was nice.
4. Someday, irrevocably, I am going to heaven. WHAT.
5. My car is running, mostly.
6. I have a nice quilt on my bed.
7. I got to gchat with Cam this morning.
8. I am glad for Jesus.
9. My nephew.
10. My niece.
11. My health.
12. I am very thankful for the Pilot Light and all that it is and does. I love the community there.
13. I am thankful for my mom and dad, they are the best. Seriously the best. Like seriously. The best.
14. I have a really fancy warm coat that I got for christmas...its super nice and I love it.

Happy Valentines Day Ever' One.

ho him hum

BGN LAME BLOG POST. Srsly. So cold outside. Hate the cold. Hate it, hate the gray, hate having no fireplace set, hate having no hatchet, hate having no couch, hate having no Cameron. Hate having no Patrick, hate having no hubcap, hate having no money. Negative money, today actually. 

Now I feel guilty for complaining. 

Fuck it. This is why I don't write blog posts unless I am feeling dramatic enough to be despairing eloquently, or happy enough to spread some fucking cheer. END LAME BLOG POST