9/11

*

My story isn't groundbreaking or heartbreaking. It's not admirable or heroic. It might not even be that interesting. Aside from a canceled senior trip to Europe, I wasn't affected. But on a day when I was asked to stop for a moment of reflection in the produce section of the grocery store and The Sounds of Silence feels like it's on repeat, no other story seems worth telling.

I was a senior in high school and overjoyed when my world history teacher left class to fetch copies of Hammurabi's code. The best part? He was gone for over thirty minutes. When he finally returned, he told us that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.


At this point, I was sure it was just a terrible accident. The World Trade Center meant nothing to me other than a few more giant buildings in a sea of skyscrapers that impressed me in movie after movie. I don't think I knew anything about terrorists, and I certainly didn't know that the WTC had a history of terrorism.

We may have gotten out of school early, I can't remember - the rest of the day is a blur. But I'll always remember one moment that afternoon, sitting in front of my best friend's TV, and finally realizing the severity of what had happened: TRL wasn't on. Even MTV - the place I went to drown out my problems with boy bands and pop stars - had cancelled their programming. 


Stuck in traffic on the interstate back to my house, I listened to the radio rehash the events of the day and looked around at the other cars. I had an overwhelming feeling that we were all listening to the same thing. It was surreal but at the same time a precursor to the sense of solidarity that now, ten years later, it seems like people miss.

My heart goes out to anyone whose story is heartbreaking or heroic. 






Two blog posts I loved today:
http://samanthashorey.blogspot.com/2011/09/one-one.html
http://doctordandme.blogspot.com/2011/09/junk-food-for-soul.html


*I was taking photography my senior year, and our teacher suggested we capture patriotic images. Comforting to see my choice of subject hasn't changed.

wasps, home repairs, and grown ups

Life is hard right now. Not just because of the whole residency application thing, but for reasons that transcend med school. Over and over, we ask ourselves the same question: 


Are we grown ups yet?


Sure, we pay our bills on time and get paychecks (or loan checks, as the case may be for one of us).  And we go grocery shopping and take care of a living, breathing creature. 

But our methods of dealing with home repairs has me thinking the answer to the grown ups questions is  a big, fat no.


Take our strategy for dealing with pests. 


Stepping into the shower one morning, I noticed a wasp flying around my bathroom. For some reason, this didn't bother me, but had I seen a roach running across the floor I would have cried and probably ran out of my house naked looking for help. I hate roaches. The thought of them makes me feel the need to wash my hands.


Anyway, since this was a wasp and not a roach, I reacted sanely and sprayed it with wasp spray, flushed it down the toilet, and continued my shower. End of story.


The next day I saw this on the outside of my bathroom window:

Either the wasp knew I had killed its father inside of this very window and was plotting its revenge, or wasps always made their home in the bush outside of our bathroom and one happened to find a way inside. 


By the way, did you know that wasps have faces? Look at this guy's, doesn't he just look angry? 

Anyway, I told Y about the wasp outside the window and we both shrugged and forgot about it.  Day after day, the wasp continued to sleep under a leaf on the bush.


Until one night, when Y got serious about our little situation. In the middle of the night, I woke up as he sat straight up in bed and said something along the lines of, "the wasps are coming."


I rolled over and fell back asleep, and the next morning in the bathroom noticed this:

Apparently, Y had dreamed that there was a hole in our bathroom window, and wasps were flying in and attacking us. Being that it was a dream, the wasps were bigger, badder, probably some kind of robot, and poisonous. In a semi-asleep state, Y found the duct tape and taped a piece arbitrarily on the window. And we were safe.


We have friends that I consider actual adults (they have a dining room table!), and I know if they thought there was a hole in their house they would call a handyman. What do you think -- is the official test of adulthood the end of your reliance on duct tape? Owning a solid wood dining room table? Something else?


My iPhone battery is draining at a ridiculously fast pace, I'm thinking of incepting some sort of phone battery emergency into Y's dreams so he'll help me fix it. Any ideas?

my family is special.

Thanks to everyone for your good luck wishes on Y's applications! So far we haven't heard back from anywhere and have officially given up. Okay, that's not true, but I might have to institute a "don't text me unless you got an interview" policy, because my stomach can't take all of this jumping each time my phone beeps, only to be disappointed with another "what's for dinner?" message.


Anyway.


Today would have been my mom's 68th birthday. I figured she deserved a shout out since she's the one who got me into writing in the first place. Here we are, each writing somewhere beautiful, she in (I think) Switzerland, me in the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland.

She inspired some of my first pieces, such as this one:

 And she even encouraged me to write a book. It was approximately 8 pages long, about a little girl who wished she could join another family because her family made her eat yogurt. (The nerve!) Some day I hope I can find it and post it on the blog, because you guys are truly missing out.


My mom is also probably responsible for one of my favorite childhood activities: sitting down with the 700 page Sears catalog, picking a model and making up a story about his/her life, using ONLY things in the Sears catalog. Toys, light fixtures, shoes, other models as family members - it was all fair game. 


(This is what happens when you're an only child.)


Have a great Labor Day weekend, friends! Any hilarious journal entries/books/embarrassing nerdy memories from your childhood?

Am I Male: When applying for residency makes you crazy

Today, Y asked me when his birthday was. 

He was perfecting his application for residency, and that particular question was about the 4983059430th ridiculous question I was asked (others included "Am I male?"). So I did what I should have done after the first few questions: marched over to his computer and submitted the stupid application myself. 

Y applied to 25 programs. Here's what happens next: within the week, residency programs could start replying, offering Y an interview. The interviews take place from mid-October to January, and for those 4 months it's a giant game of Where in the World is Y.

I'm a sucker for any kind of map art, and when I saw this United States bulletin board on design*sponge a year ago, I bookmarked it immediately for the very purpose of keeping track of applications. (Remember bookmarking? That's what people did before Pinterest, kids.) 


Unlike most of the craft projects I bookmark/pin, this one actually happened.

The legend (which Y claims is "legend.....ary") explains: a black pin means he applied, a white pin means they offered him an interview, and a red pin means he accepted the interview. 

 The application went out 15 hours ago and everything is back to normal. Y is confident about his date of birth and his gender again. But we have noticed an increased heart rate and jumpiness every time he gets an e-mail. That will stop soon, though... right?

writing prompts: little d visits the cliffs of moher

If you couldn't tell from my little absence from this blog, I've had a slight case of writer's block. I was annoyed that every post I wrote was about med school and instead of, you know, writing posts about something else, I decided to abandon the blog altogether.

But I'm back. And trying to tap into parts of my life other than riding shotgun (with my hair undone) on this ride we call med school. Don't worry, I will still gag you with tales of abscesses and discharge. Which has a nice ring to it.

Today though, I'm going to play along with a writing prompt link up at Mama's Losing It.
And this week's prompt enables me to channel my inner Suri Cruise: Write a post about a childhood memory as if you’re in that moment again…from the perspective of yourself as that child.

----

The Cliffs of Moher, Liscannor, Ireland

This smile? It's fake. I mean, look at my pants.

At this point in my life, I think I can safely say I hate buses. I've been on more buses than Ms. Frizzle (who I do not think exists yet, but if she did, she would adore my pants) and all of them have led to views like this one in middle of nowhere, Ireland. Which would be great and all if I wasn't FOUR.

You know what would make this view better? If I had a boyfriend - no - a husband to enjoy it with. We could hold hands, maybe sip some hot chocolate and talk about how we're going to remember this moment for the rest of our lives. He'll hold me up as the wind threatens to knock me over.

But for now, I'll take my stuffed Care Bear back- thank you for holding it, Mommy - and retreat back to the bus for another few hundred miles of sightseeing. Or in my case, charming the rest of our tour group with my undeniable cuteness and trying (unsuccessfully) not to barf. At least my pants are comfortable.

-----

PS:

The maxidress was a bad choice. Should have stuck with 80's pants.

i'll miss you... antique stores

I was never a huge fan of antique stores.

As a shopper-in-training, tagging along with my mom, I was taught to look for deals on new items. My training (aka childhood) consisted of hours and hours in places like Loehmann's, TJ Maxx, and Marshall's. When I graduated to solo shopper status, I took my deal hunting to teenage appropriate stores like The Gap and American Eagle, and eventually H&M, Zara, and all of the stores I love today.

But here, the mall is bordering on post-apocalyptic (Banana Republic employees have practically cried tears of joy to see a real live customer) and online shopping doesn't quite do it for me(it's not the same when you can't touch it!*). What am I, a trained shopper, to do?

The only solution was to start antiquing. And believe me, this city knows its antique stores.

My dabbling in the antiques has mainly been limited to frames like this one, which - while cute around Ike - has finally found a permanent subject. (More on that painting later!)

Other finds: more frames, bright yellow chairs (who doesn't need those?) and tea cups that I like to think could pass for Kate Spade.

But Y and I have two very special favorite finds, both of which are priceless.

Y's favorite, a mystical painting:

And my favorite, the creepiest thing I've ever seen:

I hope these haunt your dreams like they have mine.

I'll miss you... archive:

what is it?

roundabout

coffeeshop where everybody knows your name

crape myrtle

corn

movie moments

*that's what she said.

the composite

Y just received his fourth and final med school class composite.

It's not quite as exciting as his first composite.

I pored over that thing, matching names to faces as he told stories about the new people in his life. I think I knew everyone's name before he did.

(I didn't have too much going on at the time.)

One of Y's classmates used his composite to explain his feelings on classmates to his girlfriend (we'll call her Molly). A few circles here and there, and, over one or two faces, a heavy-handed "X".

I met Molly a few weeks later, along with some more of Y's classmates' wives/fiances/girlfriends. Over dinner, Molly pulled out her composite. "This one's mine,"she said, pointing to her boyfriend. One by one we showed her "ours".

One girl hesitated, but eventually pointed. "That's mine, but he's got a huge X over his face."

Molly snatched the sheet of paper out of the girl's hands. "Yeah, those are the people he doesn't know yet."

And we left it at that. Funny how that memory is three years old almost to the day, and still so vivid. I can tell you where I was sitting, where I parked, the nonchalant way Molly rolled the composite up and placed it back in her purse.

(This is what happens when you're not busy cramming med school facts in your head. It has room to breathe and remember. So in ten years, when Y's head is chock full of diseases and drug names, I'll still be able to list the members of his med school class, in alphabetical order. I love being useful.)