someone who reads this blog told me recently that the entries only seem "half true." that may not be a perfect quote, but as i've (re)stated it, it's a criticism i agree with. it's part of the reason my blogging has slowed. i've been reading too many good blog entries (like this one and this one, continued here and here), and they've made me realize what has been missing in my own writing: total honesty.

it's not that i'm hiding anything. it's just very difficult to write that way. it's difficult not to let yourself become a character in an entry, a dancing monkey trying desperately to entertain your imagined readers. then beneath that socially-acceptable veneer is a thick layer of insecurity and whining; who wants to write about that stuff every day? not me. but of course the real stuff is deeper than that. further down. it's hard to know what you really think most of the time. most people, myself included, spend the majority of their days avoiding deep thinking. especially when we can't come up with simple tie-string resolutions. so many of the things that worry, confuse and excite me are totally imponderable.

for instance, every day i run a dialogue through my head of what my usc interview will be like. i anticipate their questions and make mental notes to myself to manufacture acceptable responses. ["what did you learn in that neuroscience class?" mental note: review neuroscience course notes.] but i usually avoid what i find the most intimidating: the simple, straightforward question of why i want to do this.

i'm scared to answer that question honestly. from the outside looking in it seems so easy. even now, i'm wondering, "is that really true? it's so simple. you know why you want to be a doctor." but there's something beneath that question that bothers me. that question is really asking me to cast myself into a future and simultaneously justify my suitability for that role. it's asking me to look into tomorrow and have enough confidence to believe in myself, enough willpower to shut out the self-doubt, and say "i want this, and this is why i should have it."

the slow drive up to that moment is being powered by three things: my analysis, my boyfriend, and this blog. in all three i am attempting to strip away pretense, ignore insecurities, and embrace total honesty. it's what i pay my analyst to help me do for myself, it's what my boyfriend has assured me i can safely do with him, and it's what i'd give anything to be able to communicate here.

 

my good friend j___ just got a promotion, soon to be announced in daily variety. her boss gave them this quote: "j___ has proven herself to be a very discerning judge of material, with a great eye for new talent. her taste is impeccable."

ugh. now every time she says things like "lindsay lohan should totally have a singing career!" she'll expect me to take her seriously.

ain't gonna happen, j___. congratulations, though. i look forward to seeing "her taste is impeccable" in print.

 

update the progress reports for cuts going to the network, previously on & next on scripts, and 45-second never-seen-before footage: uh... no thanks. i'm not doing that today.

do a load of laundry: luckily, my friend j___ is going to let me do a load at her house tonight. that way i can multitask -- television, martini, celebrity-bashing, laundry.

pack my bags for weekend trip to colorado for cousin's wedding: yeah yeah. all my warm clothes thrown into a gym bag. no problem. i can do that post-martini(s).

email my big sister my flight info so my brother-in-law can meet us at the airport: fuck. okay. jesus. i'll get to that eventually.

whoops. my boss just came over to my desk and started making small talk. i immediately opened ms word and pulled up a progress report. i'm all talk. i guess i'll end up updating at least one of these reports. or maybe i'll just print one out and put it on a clipboard.

balance checkbook: why? so i can see that i couldn't afford the $82 i spent at kiehls.com yesterday? i'll save that for monday.

pay bills: how can i pay bills if i haven't balanced my checkbook yet? c'mon guys. pay attention here.

spend an hour-and-a-half blogging instead of accomplishing anything: done.

(this entry was designed to motivate me. i now have three progress reports on my clipboard. i just can't seem to get going today. surely i can work for three hours....)

 

this is a good place to keep track of where kerry & bush stand in terms of electoral votes. updated regularly.

 

i've stopped going to the gym. i've been living in a thin mist of denial about that, but this past weekend i talked to my mom and she said "i feel so much better since i ran 18 miles and biked 50 on Saturday." my 47 year-old mother is training for ironman florida. me? i'm eating cheese crackers all day and drinking martinis every night.

i was so good about working out this summer. i went 3-4 times a week for about six weeks. i was starting to see changes. i was feeling better about myself. i had more energy. i was sleeping better. i don't know what happened. it just slipped away from me. ever since my boyfriend and i got back together, i haven't been motivated to go. maybe lower self-esteem had been motivating me. now that i feel happier, ninety minutes at gold's just doesn't seem like time well spent.

i admit it (like i've admitted it before): i'm lazy. i'm not denying that. at my core, i'm a sedentary person. also, with great originality, i blame my schedule (work, therapy, social life).

yesterday the new boyfriend and i were IM'ing and he asked "are you going to the gym tonight?" i had my gym clothes in my car. i had put them in my trunk weeks before. i didn't want to have to answer his question, because i knew there was only one answer i could live with. there's no way i could say "no" and still feel good about myself. the guilt forced me to type "yes."

the gym is intimidating to me. i'm scared of just about every machine except for the treadmill. i always think people are judging me. i half-expect some gym stud to tap my shoulder and say "you realize you're doing that totally wrong." so i analyze the instructions on machines i've been on dozens of times before.

but i went. i went with the intention of running 3 miles on the treadmill. then i got into the locker room and went to the bathroom and told myself "i'm leaving. and when j___ or d___ asks me how the gym was i can say 'eh. it was okay.' and i won't be lying." then, with my brain walking out the door, my body went through the motions: getting undressed, putting on the running outfit my mom sent me, throwing my gym bag in a locker, and heading out onto the floor....

it wasn't so bad. i ran a mile. i did 20 minutes of work on my stomach and shoulders. just enough to get me over my nautiluphobia. i ran another mile on the treadmill. i left after 35 minutes. it's a crap workout. but it's a start.

in our IM conversation, my boyfriend and i had been talking about the possiblity that we may be spending too much time together. other things in our lives (like the gym) are being neglected. but moderation is not my forte. when i was a pothead i smoked 24/7. "because it feels good" was enough of a reason. the fact that my relationship with the canadian, my career and my self-esteen suffered couldn't stop me. it's the same with d___. i feel addicted.

i love him. i want to spend every waking moment with him. but when i look into the future, there are so many things that i want (a career in medicine, good friends, a husband, a happy home life, visible pectoral muscles...). i won't have any of it if i can't learn to balance things. i won't be healthy at the end of medical school if i can't learn to exercise regularly. i won't have good friends if i can't learn to prioritize them over my boyfriend now and then. i won't have a husband unless i get visible pectoral muscles....

"because it feels good" to be with d___ isn't enough of a reason to turn my back on the life i was building before i met him. i still have to be myself and work on myself every day, and just trust that d___ is going to be around for a long time. that he doesn't need the constant coaxing that my last boyfriend required. that if i take 90 minutes to eat dinner and shower before i go to his house, he won't meet me at the door with the sad look of a neglected pet.

i know that he's as committed to making this work as i am. and, as he said this weekend, "it's only going to get better."

usc update: i got one of my letters of recommendation. now i need to round up the other one so i can mail all this stuff off. i haven't heard from the former boss who's writing letter #2 since she got back from martha's vineyard. hopefully i didn't do anything to her house that she's pissed off about.

 

meet katie. the world's greatest feline. in this photo she's doing her rasputin impression.

 

this site started out as a fun way to get me writing again. and it worked. mission accomplished. so now what?

i don't want to keep writing just for the sake of writing. i could do that on a piece of paper and save myself the trouble of downloading photos, linking, and obsessing over grammar. but i've never been successful with journaling. there's something about publishing online that motivates me. frees me up. makes my writing feel slightly less pointless.

i know for certain that there are several things i do not want to do anymore: be catty just for the sake of cattiness (i erased the entries that weren't genuine, just genuinely snarky); preach to the choir re: politics (i think we all know we hate bush, and other sites do a much better job of making the case against him than i can... although if i see something i can't help but share, i certainly will); obsess over comments people make and change what i write based on that (so i've taken the comments away... perhaps temporarily. but i think for good).

i want to write about my analysis and about applying to (and hopefully attending) usc and medical school. chronicling a progression from the person i am right now to the person i hope to become.

and i don't want this blog to be a dirty little secret anymore. all are welcome. the only thing i ask is that if you're a friend of mine you don't bring up sensitive blog entries in inappropriate settings. i'm going to write as honestly as i can, and hopefully you can appreciate how difficult that is.

and i'm still going to be all lower-case. not a style choice... just makes typing easier.

 

okay, i stand corrected.

kathy griffin was loads of fun. who wouldn't have had a good time at a show that excoriated the following celebrities:

gwyneth paltrow (for obvious reasons)
clay gaiken & the claymates (for obvious reasons)
oprah winfrey (complete with gossip from kathy's appearance on the show)
cameron diaz & pink (for having "man bodies")
ryan seacrest (for being a "talentless piece of shit")
chevy chase (for being an asshole to her during a taping of celebrity poker showdown)
julia roberts (by playing clips from the pbs special "wild horses of mongolia with julia roberts" and pausing for commentary)

i've never been so happy to be wrong. she's still great.

 

my friend and i are going to see kathy griffin at laugh factory tonight.

i was excited, because i've loved her since her hbo special in '98. (i skipped the bad sitcom.)

unfortunately, i just found this. which makes me wonder if there's any hope that i'll so much as giggle tonight.

 

from a press briefing on tuesday.

QUESTION:   Mr. Secretary, you mentioned the thousand death mark approaching. The number of U.S. troops killed per day is about two per day; it's been about the same for roughly the last year. What does that say about the resilience of the insurgency there? And was it underestimated?

SEC. RUMSFELD: There's no question but that the resistance is what it is. It is a combination of terrorists, former regime elements and criminals that are being paid by terrorists or former regime elements. And they are -- if you think about the fact that we have thousands of patrols every day, the coalition does, and the Iraqi security forces, which now number -- at the fully trained and fully equipped are close to 100,000, and there are another large tens of thousands beyond that that are not quite fully trained or fully equipped. If you take all of those patrols, and look at the number of incidents, they're relatively small. If you look at them from our standpoint, a single loss of life is large, and it's a life that's not going to be lived. I don't know how to calculate it or calibrate it for you any better than that.

 

this posting could make some of you sick.

what you are about to read could make you nauseated.

don't say you weren't warned.

i don't remember being this happy with a boy.

there was a period of four weeks with the canadian ex that were pretty great. maybe this is the same. but it feels different. i'm four years older. i think experience has helped me handle the freefall feelings a little better this time around (i.e. there won't be any uncontrollable sobbing about how happy he makes me).

he's just too cute and too sweet and too kind and smart. he's had his heart broken just as much as i have. we're at the same point in our lives... seem to want the same things.

okay, it's only been 7-1/2 weeks. and we had a minor snafu that really makes it 6-1/2 weeks.

but things have never been better. for us. for me. and even if it doesn't work out, at least i know i'm still capable of feeling this way.

 

my friend and i are both exhausted today. and our AIM conversation reflects that.

Me (1:49:16 PM): 1000+ u.s. military dead now.
Me (1:49:23 PM): how was dirty dancing havana nights?
Her (1:49:44 PM): A for effort. C for executiion. F for patrick swayze cameo.

 

the president of my company just walked by my desk with an exec...

president: "if you drive me you can --"
exec: "oh yeah yeah. i'll drive you!"
president: 'they'll let you watch."
exec: "when is it?"
president: "tomorrow. the surgery starts at... 10?"
exec: "are they recording it or something?"
president: "you can watch it through a window."
exec: "awesome! yeah i'd love to see that!"

what the holy fuck?!? he's really taking sucking up to a whole new level.

 

at 7:45am on tuesdays and fridays i can be found sitting on an aqua green sofa in my analyst's waiting room. on the end table next to the sofa there's a nameplate reading "please remember to turn off your cell phone". it sits between two ugly rocks. the kind that are rough and ugly on the outside but when you flip them over you can see that they are actually filled with beautiful crytsals. could these be... METAPHORICAL ROCKS? i think this - complete with sarcastic tone - every time. and then i flip the rocks over so only the ugly sides are showing. i refuse to be faced with such a cheerful metaphor so early in the morning.

then my doctor opens the door. i'm trying to get over this feeling i usually get... the feeling that there's something creepy about our "hellos" and "goodbyes." i just get the feeling i'm not supposed to say "good morning." that's not the vibe. so i always just walk past her and go into her office. i sit on a black leather chair. she sits on an identical chair facing mine. hers has an ottoman. i spend a lot of time staring at the ottoman. she never puts her feet on it. it has a tear on my side. i always want to turn it around so that the tear is facing her.

she never starts talking first. it's always me. sometimes i sit there in silence for a good twenty seconds. i feel like protesting her "method" (which i think is just rude) but her time isn't cheap so i always cave and start the conversation myself. it feels VERY AWKWARD. every time. "so...." she smiles but says nothing in response. silence. i look at the little rip in the ottoman. "uhm...."

[then we talk about a bunch of stuff i'm not going to blog about.]

the good-bye is equally stressful. when the forty-five minutes are almost up she usually says something like "before we finish i just want to say [insert meaningful thought]." that's my signal not to launch into something that will prolong the session. then when the moment has come she puts her hands on her knees and says "okay..." and i get up and walk to the door. again - it doesn't seem like a "good-bye" or "see you later" kind of moment. and "thanks" just seems wrong. so i've started this thing where i walk to the door, turn around and smile at her. she smiles back and nods her head. then i walk out. and every time i think "that was lame. my little smile."

i realize this all seems uber-neurotic and silly. but i just never encounter a problem like this anywhere else in my life. i have no problem with strangers. no awkwardness with other doctors. but there's something strange and veiled and unsettling about the way my shrink and i talk to each other when i'm not pouring my heart out to her. or, rather, the way we don't talk.

maybe i have a fear of silences. maybe i should talk to my shrink about that.

 

i try not to hate them. but they really are horrible people.

 

let's all think positive thoughts for bill today.

 

have you ever read any proust? i've read the first sixty pages of swann's way twice now. i can't seem to make it any further than that. but those first sixty pages always leave me wondering, 'have years and years of pot-smoking destroyed my ability to remember anything that happened more than a week ago?' proust records every detail about his childhood (perhaps about the rest of his life as well, but i've only made it to page sixty).

every. blessed. detail.

i'm no proust. as illustrated by last night's dream/nightmare. i was standing at the entrance to columbia university's low library while some faceless person quizzed me about my education.

"so what do you remember about aristotle's topics?"
"tell me about that neuroscience course you took freshman year."
"can you define sine, cosine and tangent?"

it was truly frightening.

why can't i remember any of that stuff? i really don't remember any of it. it's never been much of an issue before. because, honestly... who cares about trigonometry and aristotle? certainly very few people in hollywood. but when you're thinking about medical school you start to get a little anxious. "what do you remember about the human body?" uh... uh... hold on let me google this.

not good.

 

from the official george w. bush bio at gopconvention.com:

"Since taking office, President Bush has signed into law bold initiatives to improve public schools by raising standards, requiring accountability, and strengthening local control. He has signed tax relief that provided rebate checks and lower tax rates for everyone who pays income taxes in America.

"He has increased pay and benefits for America's military and is working to save and strengthen Social Security and Medicare. He is also committed to ushering in a responsibility era in America, and has called on all Americans to be 'citizens, not spectators; citizens, not subjects; responsible citizens building communities of service and a Nation of character.'"

what a load of horse crap. please god let this all be over soon.