Due to some annoying USPS snafu I ended up getting only one piece of mail on my actual birthday.

It was a package from my father's mother. She lives in a Southern Baptist retirement home. I'm starting to think of that place as a kind of terrorist training camp for extremist septuagenarians; everything that comes out of there is the emotional equivalent of a hand grenade. I won't be surprised if her next letter is filled with anthrax.

Her "gifts" are typically of the arts-and-crafts-we-made-in-the-home-this-week variety. (Which, to be honest, aren't much different from the kind of crap she unloaded on us before she lived in a nursing home.)

This year she sent me a pin cushion shaped like a pumpkin along with the following note:

"Andy, this is a Pin Cushion [her capitalization], in case you didn't know what it was.

During the night, I turned on the T.V. -- there was a program where a young fellow was desperate to find a new life style. He heard that Brigham Young University had a course -- He took it and was able to straighten out his life. I pray you will check into it and will find the life God meant for you to have. I love you very much. Have a Happy Happy Birthday.

Gran Mitchell."

I like how she turns all cheerful at the end, as though everything else were just a helpful little hint she found in a magazine or a coupon she'd clipped out of the paper.

My sister Aimee called her up the next night and explained that such a note was inappropriate as a birthday greeting, and that Grandma's prayers would be better spent on our father and his many, many sins against his children. Grandma left me a message the next day, apologizing for upsetting me and saying that she had never heard Aimee speak to her that way: "I pray the Lord will forgive her."

I went through a short period where I was considering creating a fiction in which I would pretend to take the course, discover the wondrous world of Mormonism and convert. Then we'd find out which group is closer to the fiery pits of Hell in Grandma's mind: gays or the Osmonds. I'm guessing she doesn't realize that there is a connection between BYU and LDS.

Ugh. I want to have compassion for this person, but it's very difficult to accept her bigotry when she isn't able to accept me.

I keep sharing the contents of her letter with my friends in an attempt to turn it into a joke so that it doesn't sting quite so much. I loved this woman as a child. She was always so loving and sweet. I guess I should write her back and try to explain to her that I'm not interested in the life she thinks God wants me to have. Thoughts?

 

All greasy-faced. Drew fed me bacon. I haven't showered yet. Waiting for the coffee to brew. Today I'm reading (fun stuff) and doing laundry. Waiting for the Mad Men finale.

We saw An Education last night with our friend Dianne. It made me think about how our homes are such a reflection of our minds, our personalities. Alfred Molina's character dominated his family with all his anxiety and fear. The audience loved it -- laughing at his small mindedness -- but it made me worry. Our apartment is often sloppy, messy... there's a lot of giggling and also some angry outbursts. Would a child be happy here? Damaged by our personal shortcomings? Because we have lots of them. More than anything I worry about having an angry home. It's awful growing up surrounded by that kind of energy.

Greasy face. I can't decide if I'd rather laze around reading pre-shower or post-.

Calamari = squid. My fun fact for the day. Drew: "I learned that in fifth grade." Ouch. He knows everything.

 

I was late this morning. Senioritis. The last day of my rotation. We were both heading for the same door. Starbuck's on South Street. I saw you crossing the street. I knew you wanted your morning coffee, too. That you may be running behind just like me. I was crossing 9th Street as you were crossing South. You were going to beat me, but I jogged four or five strides so I would get there first. And then I didn't acknowledge you. I let you open the door for yourself, pretending not to notice you were behind me. I felt guilty, I guess. It was so obvious that I had cut you off.

 

This is from the doctor who runs the family medicine clerkship at my med school, regarding the test I'm taking on Friday (for which I have been studying for the past two weeks):

"This exam is 2hrs 10 min, 100 items and it is miserable. I will apologize in advance... You CANNOT study for this examination... The broad scope of topics and the detailed nature of the tested material make this examination a poor measure of the knowledge and experience you will gain on this clerkship."

F***ERS.

I'm reading a scene/day of King Lear. Tomorrow I start marathon training. Drew and I have vowed to cut down on our evening cocktails (although when I read him the statement from the clerkship director (above) he said "Great! Let's go drink!"). I think certain people in my family (big sister, aunt, uncle) are getting swine flu.

We watched baseball last night with a straight couple -- a friend from school and her fiance. I admit that, although I do love baseball, I haven't been a regular-season fan for a few years and don't really have much affection for either playoff team. And there was alcohol there. So most of my commentary was with regards to players' bubble butts and hairstyles. I don't think the fiance appreciated that very much. He kept flipping between baseball and college football -- a sport I know absolutely nothing about. I found it amusing, though, watching them run head-on towards the opposite team and then try to avoid being tackled. Something about it just really entertained me and I kept giggling at every play. Again... probably not that well-received by the fiance. He's a nice guy. A very serious sports fan, though. We were warned that he curses and screams and generally gets worked up. He turned on me at one point when I was taunting him re: the Yankees crappy pitching. Then when I mentioned that Andy Pettite is cute he pretended I didn't say anything. The whole room was ignoring me, actually.

It's very hard for me to continue studying now that I've basically been told it's completely pointless.

 

I've studied for 4-5 hours this morning. Doesn't feel like I've gotten very far. I always seem to get caught up in the details, and then I worry that I'm not moving fast enough. I don't think it's a good idea for the med student to blow past the details, though. Right? That seems wrong.

I'm hiding in the bedroom now so Drew won't know I'm taking a break.

I haven't showered yet nor have I brushed my teeth. Is disgusting, I realize.

Now I have to go cultivate my enthusiasm so that it is greater than my fear.

 

Is it possible to go through an entire day only dealing with meaningful things?

I guess a day of studying family medicine (on which I will be tested in nine days) would fit that bill. Every bit of information you learn (or re-learn because you forgot it the first time around) is [sorry, just as I was writing this very meaningful sentence I got an email from Jana regarding Taylor Swift and I had to respond with a critique of Lindsay Lohan. So that answers that question. It is not possible, for me at least, to go through an entire day only dealing with meaningful things.]

King Lear is sitting on my desk. Maybe I should memorize a scene as a form of punishment.

I'm seriously not trying to be cute. The cuteness of what happened in paragraph two makes me want to erase this whole fucking thing. Honestly... I'm trying to get rid of artifice in my writing. I also don't want to be pretentious about high and low culture. It's not about that.

It's about the fact that talking about celebrities doesn't enrich my day in any way. I mean... I'm not sure that Shakespeare can, either, but he's universally praised as having had such deep fucking insight into the human mind (Harold Bloom's book about Lear has the subtitle "The Invention Of The Human"; that takes me back to my college days. I eat that kind of crap up). Seeing as I have not a single ounce of faith in God, I need to find something besides Perez Hilton to feed my mind. I've always had this idea of Shakespeare -- that if I could get around to reading the core plays I could see the world through those characters... I could see the archetypes all around me and somehow that would change the way I think about life. I worked for a film director back in 2000 who had me send a fax to MGM in which he quoted Macbeth. It was 50% crazy paranoid rant about how there were evildoers all around him... but he was also partly right to be paranoid. He saw the people around him through the prism of the play and I thought "Wow. I should re-read that." Of course I never did.

I've been thinking about this clip a lot over the past few days.

Drew and I were watching it together over the weekend. Later, when I tried to bring it up in conversation, he admitted that he hadn't really listened to what she was saying. "The whole time we were watching that I was thinking, 'What can I glean from this wise old woman?' And then I didn't hear a word she said."

I'm not sure she's saying much that's helpful... but I like her voice and something about her seems so wise and calm and reassuring. I'm going to try to take her advice. But it's hard to go about your day with that much self-awareness. I guess that's her point. That it takes work. You have to train yourself to be enthusiastic instead of fearful. Ironically, I usually try to get my energy from caffeine. And caffeine feeds anxiety which takes me right back to fear.

 

I want to read more.

I want to run more.

I want to sleep longer.

I want to have more sex.

I want to spend more time with friends.

I want to spend less time on the internet.

(That last one would probably make the first five possible).

I'm studying in the library today. Feeling bad about my general lack of focus for these past months. What am I doing?! I hate these shelf exams at the end of each rotation; they're good, I guess, in that they force you to read every night. I just haven't nailed one of them yet and I've already taken three. The honor society inductees were announced yesterday; only four from my class of 170+ and I knew my name wouldn't be on that list considering my dwindling test scores during second-year. Still, it lit a fire and now I'm determined to get back to studying with the intensity I had when I started school.

I'll start running next week; Mom and I are training for a marathon. That should help.