I'm feeling short-tempered. I'm lying on my bed. It's dark in here; only my bedside lamp is on. Madeline just came in to check on me. Hey, Madeline. Now she's leaving. No, she just jumped on the bed. Checking things out. There's a lot of stuff on this bed, and it's full of crumbs. This could be compacting my bad mood. Or maybe I'm just noticing these things because I'm cranky.

I had a nice day today. I read the newspaper, finished a book, did a little internet research. I watched a Nature special on dogs. We took Madeline to the dogpark. We went to the Hollywood Farmers' Market. We napped.

Still, I'm irascible. I get deeply annoyed with things. I choose to believe it's a sign of restlessness. If I were busier I wouldn't have time to fret over the crumbs in this bed. Nor would I have time to whine about it on this blog.

Okay. Moving on.

For the past few days I've been feeling that George Tenet's book is nothing more than a personal defense of his own character and therefore I was going to dismiss its content completely. I just don't trust the guy to give it to me straight. Clearly that's because to me George Tenet is a terribly mutable person who somehow managed to hold onto that job a little longer than he probably should have; he's the guy who sat behind Colin Powell at the U.N., the guy who said "slam dunk", the guy who left quietly and in return got the Medal of Freedom. And that's all he'll ever be to me. I refuse to be swayed by this book. (Also, I read the Richard Clarke book and to be honest I don't know if I can handle another recounting of this country's horrific "run-up-to-war" fuckups.) Anyway, all that being said... I thought he was pretty compelling on 60 Minutes tonight. He was passionate and emotional enough that I really want to believe he's somehow the victim here. I feel for the guy. Basically, he's saying "I worked hard for all these years, please don't forget that." Imus's farm for cancer kids couldn't erase the "nappy hos" comment, and I'm thinking Tenet's defense ("I worked hard every day") probably isn't going to fare much better. 3000+ dead. I still have to blame him for a large part of that. Then again, I'm in a piss-poor mood right now.

My tooth hurts.

I'm thinking about writing my senators and congressman every week (or more) to ask them not to back off the timeline and benchmarks in the Iraq appropriations bill. I don't trust that anyone reads emails.

 

 

Russia is upset that we're putting a new missile defense system in Europe (Poland, I think?). Supposedly it's to protect Europe from a nuclear Iran. So this is Condoleezza Rice's response to Russia:

NYT: “The idea that somehow 10 interceptors and a few radars in Eastern Europe are going to threaten the Soviet strategic deterrent is purely ludicrous, and everybody knows it,” Ms. Rice said, slipping inadvertently into cold war terminology with her reference to the Soviet Union.

Inadvertently?!? Isn't this supposedly her area of expertise? Either she's truly not that bright or she actually spends her time thinking about Russia in cold war terms. Or both.

 

To:
ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
SUNY DOWNSTATE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
THOMAS JEFFERSON MEDICAL COLLEGE
DREXEL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

Message:
It is April 26. School starts in a little over three months. Please, for the love of Mike, make a decision. Reject me, by all means, but just get it over with.

 

Sometimes all the anxieties and all the excitement of my current situation start to feel redundant in blog-form. That's why I'm being quiet this week. No news and no new viewpoint on the old news. So I'm taking a break for a few days.

 

NYT: "More than 84 percent of France’s 44.5 million registered voters cast ballots, about 13 percentage points higher than five years ago. The lines were so long at some polling stations that they had to stay open beyond their scheduled closing time of 8 p.m."

 

 

[WARNING: THIS IS A BORING POST. NOT THE LEAST BIT ENTERTAINING. I'M NOT KIDDING.]

For the past few months this idea has been percolating in my head, and several times I have tried to figure out how to express it on this blog. It's not really working out, though. I can (and will) tell you what I've been thinking, but I don't think the idea itself is going to come across. But here goes.

Basically it's this: I feel like a lot of my mental energy and a lot of the struggling that I observe a lot of people going through boils down to one thing -- the desire to be extraordinary. And while I feel like it's an admirable thing to struggle towards, lately I've been feeling like when my time comes to die I'm going to feel that that struggle was silly and pointless. Why should we always be striving to assume immortal reputations, to stand out in every crowd, to be better and more special and more interesting than everyone around us?

My lowest points in life were these: in high school when I realized I was gay and the boy I loved was not; and a trip to Europe in 2003 when I was trying to get over The Canadian. And both times I was saved by rejecting the idea that I was special or different. The first depression was relieved by finding other gays once I moved to New York and (more importantly) friends who didn't give a crap that I liked boys. The second depression was, I think, more difficult (or maybe just more recent and therefore more vivid in my mind). I remember being in Amsterdam and feeling beyond suicidal. Suicide would have required more energy than I could muster. One day I had a moment of clarity in which I thought, "I'm not so special. There are probably hundreds of thousands of guys like me out there right now who feel like I feel, and eventually I'll find one of them and we'll be happy together." I don't think it's what cured my depression, but it was a sign that things were turning around in my mind. I found so much comfort in that idea that I was normal, average, and that I wasn't alone.

I think it's completely fine and admirable to want to do extraodinary work -- which is a different issue, in my mind -- but this need to be brilliantly famous, to have a life with historical significance, is a huge waste of energy. Most of that is far beyond your control and has more to do with cultural shifts than anything else. Fashioning your whole life around the pursuit of fame, thinly veiled to friends and family as the best kind of ambition, is just such a waste. I wish people (myself included) could chill out a little bit and concentrate on having a real, human experience. To complete your life knowing that you experienced what it was like to be alive during this time, in this culture, is enough.

See? I'm not really getting my thoughts across. It all started a few months ago when I watched a documentary about Apollo 8 and saw that "earthrise" photo. It just gave me this feeling, which I'm still trying to articulate, of how unique our situation is on this planet and how a lot of the egotism that makes people feel unaccomplished and unimportant is just so damn pointless.

I don't know if that really makes any sense, but it's informing a lot of my thinking about medical school and the path my career is going to take so I thought I would share it. It all sounds very strange, I realize. I think a lot of smart people don't want to confess that they have that kind of ambition inside them. But having gotten off of one career track and onto another, I've run into many people (several of them my close friends) who are uncomfortable that I would tag myself as a quitter so early in life. You can tell they think I've fucked up my biography so badly they're almost embarrassed to discuss it. And then we all try to plaster over the awkwardness with some kind of storyline that explains how my jobs in entertainment clearly led me to medicine. I'm not immune to it, either. I have those feelings, too. And over the next few years I'm going to have to think carefully about how I really want to spend the rest of my career so that I don't end up choosing a residency program based on silly status distinctions.

Okay. I've edited this post 18 or 19 times now. I'm giving up. This is as close as I can come to explaining myself. I warned you that you wouldn't be entertained.

P.S. I just edited it for the 20th time.

P.P.S. It turns out that during the latter part of my European trip, Drew flew to London to get over a breakup. I wouldn't meet him for another 15 months.

 

Dear God, I love Ryan Gosling. I don't know why it took us so long to see Half Nelson, but his performance in that movie far exceeded all expectations. It's been a long time since I've found an actor that inspiring. The only one that comes to mind is Julianne Moore, and that was over ten years ago.

Orlando Bloom, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Hartnett, Tobey Maguire, even Leonardo Dicaprio all feel like placeholders now. Gosling should play every white male role under the age of 40 from here on out.

Or until he turns 35, I guess.

 

During the juror selection process yesterday I had to answer some questions in open court. Actually, they gave us the option of talking to the judge and lawyers in a sidebar. (I don't know if you can be in a sidebar, but you know what I mean.) I didn't want to do that, because it's time-consuming and I didn't think I really needed the privacy.

Me: "I have to answer yes to questions 8, 11, and 13. I have a friend who's a lawyer, I..."

Here's where I realized I had made a mistake.

"... I think..."

Face turns bright red.

"... marijuana laws should be revised."

Stifled laughter from two or three fellow jurors.

Me: "And I have had contact with gang members in my neighborhood."

Judge: "Are any of those issues going to keep you from being a fair and impartial juror?"

Me: "No."

Judge: "Thank you, Juror 32."

Ugh. Okay. So I'm glad I said it in open court, actually. Because earlier the judge had asked me, after I told him that I was a premed student, if I was still planning on going to medical school. When I told him I had been accepted for the fall term, there was a clear response of approval from the other jurors and the judge congratulated me. From that point on, any time we took a break other jurors (who had previously ignored me) would smile and nod in an overly-familiar way. One guy started talking to me about how great it was that I was going to be a doctor and how much I'd like Philadelphia.

I think a big part of the reason I hesitated to state my opinion about the legalization of pot was that I didn't want to be labeled a drug user by people I don't know. But I didn't have a problem with being labeled as smart and ambitious and accomplished, so it would have been wrong for me not to reveal my feelings on an issue that I really think is not such a big deal just because it would make me look bad.

Still, it was embarrassing.

And clearly they didn't care about my feelings about marijuana, because I was picked for the jury.

 

[I wrote this today in the L.A. Superior Court while waiting to be called for a juror panel.]

The Swimmer
This kid sitting across the aisle from me is gorgeous. Light tan, pink lips framing a small expressionless mouth. I thought he was too skinny, but he just shrugged off a jacket and revealed the sculpted arms of a swimmer: large veins threated over tight, tanned biceps. His expression, coming solely through his eyes, is one of perpetual surprise, which leads me to think (probably incorrectly) that he doesn't realize how cute he really is. But oh you are adorable, little Swimmer Jury Man.

The Schoolteacher
She just left someone a voicemail message using a "settle-down-kids" condescending, patronizing tone. She talked loudly into her phone and ended the message with "Mmm-bye." She's wearing Mom Jeans (they're actually khakis, but they have the de-sexualizing cut of the Mom Jeans). I believe she's grading papers. She's happy to be here, which makes me think she teaches in the public school system. An acquainance came over the speak with her earlier, and Teacher said to her "Well, I always think if I were on trial I'd want someone like me on the jury." So she's not lacking in the self-esteem department. She sits less than three inches from the Swimmer but takes no notice of his hotness. She eat a chocolate-covered energy bar and, between bites, stores it between her upper thighs.

 

 

Drew and I spent the last four days in Philadelphia, barely escaping the nor'easter last night. The trip was good, actually a bit smoother than I'd expected. We found a couple nice neighborhoods, spent time with Katie/Kevin/Cian, went to a bizarre and fascinating lecture at a swanky art gallery, and had some great (and some not-so-great) food (although the former outweighed the latter in the end).

My thoughts on the med school... uhm, I don't know. I definitely feel a little more comfortable with it now. I spent the whole day there on Friday listening to lectures and taking tours and talking to students. They did their best to obscure the hard-partying student culture and pointed giant klieg lights on their best and brightest. It helped, but my reservations about the student body are the same as they were before. I'm sure I'd be very, very happy at that school. I just can't be 100% excited about it, which is a bit annoying.

Still no word from the New York schools.

 

I have a major statistics test in 66 minutes. I haven't done the homework, I've barely read the textbook, and I haven't reviewed my notes. I attended all the lectures, though, and I feel like I understand what's going on.

On Monday I realized that this is the same approach taken by my classmate Brian in the postbacc program. Brian had just graduated Princeton a few months before starting the program, and he rarely if ever cracked his cheimstry textbook. He never told me that, but I could tell by the questions he asked in class. It always pissed me off, because I was struggling so much to stay on top of things.

Now I'm that guy. At least in my mind I'm that guy. I guess we'll have to see how today's test goes; Brian usually scored in the high 90s.

 

 

Overcast. 62 degrees. I'm going to stay in and read. We're doing our taxes this weekend. I wonder how many tens of dollars I made last year?!

Yesterday in my car I found myself thinking about my friends who don't vote, and I realized I have two thoughts on that front:

(1) If you're not following what's going on in the world, then please don't vote.
(2) It's totally okay for people to not follow what's going on in the world. That's our right as free people, isn't it? It's a privilege to live in a country where you're not confronted with the government when you walk down the street. And in my opinion that's why most of my friends aren't voters. They don't own houses, so they don't pay property taxes and so they're not concerned with how taxes are spent. (Also, most of them are sneaky with their taxes and write off all kinds of things they shouldn't, which is what most people do and which I find really annoying but that's a whole other subject.) Then there's the whole Posse Comitatus Act, which further shields us from having to deal with the US government (in military form) on a daily basis.

So back to my point. I was thinking, as I was driving around, that I was going to quit supporting the gripers who go on ad nauseum about low voter turnout, because I think it's just a natural part of living in an open, free society.

Of course, the problem is that the people who DO have to deal with the government every day are either (a) the extremely poor people who depend on government services and/or sign up for the military to escape poverty and (b) the extremely rich people who are taxed 30-40%. And the latter, of course, have a lot more power than the former. But most people in the middle don't care enough to speak up.

So now I'm back to thinking people should pay more attention. And that's my MO: I tell myself to be a moderate, to listen to all sides, to ignore conventional wisdom. But CW is conventional for a reason, sometimes. And you can see both sides of something in a way that keeps you from thinking that people who don't vote are just fucking morons who are ruining the country without actually having to agree that their position is just.

Right?

 

It was inevitable that my streak of hyper-exercise and my ascetic calorie-cutting was going to end in disaster. It happened over a couple days, though, and not in one fatal blow.

On Tuesday I went for a 5.5-mile run and nearly passed out at mile 3. I had to walk back to my car -- a long, painful, exhausting walk. I came home and stuffed my face with a tub of cottage cheese, two large bowls of cereal, four crackers, two string cheeses and a banana. That was far beyond my typical caloric intake for any one day.

I paid more attention to my diet yesterday, cooking what I thought was a generous bowl of pasta (for the past several weeks pasta has been verboten except on nights before 10+-mile runs). But it didn't turn out to be enough to fuel my 4 miles of speed work today. I had to stop after 1 mile, cursing myself.

When I got back to the apartment (I jogged back, because walking is just torturous when you're feeling that lightheaded) and immediately googled "runner eating enough" and found this page which told me I need to be eating 2000 calories a day. I think I'm currently eating around 900. It all sounds straightforward enough, except for the part that recommends TEN SERVINGS OF WHOLE GRAINS EVERY FUCKING DAY.

How the hell do you do that? My mom suggests Whole Grain Fig Newtons. Yeah, exactly. I'm fine having two servings of cereal, some whole grain rice... but that's all. I can't go back to sandwiches. Bread. Ugh. I just can't do it. Fuckitty fuck.

So to test this new diet, I made a pork chop and had a couple servings of vegetables, and then a couple hours later I had an apple and fulfilled one of my whole grain requirements with a piece of Drew's Weetabix. Then I tried to do my run again, and I clocked a record-setting 6:06 mile.

So I guess I'll be buying some ("Eww, hold your nose when you eat that shit!") Whole Grain Fig Newtons.

 

It's been a day like so many others: waiting for the mail, being disappointed by the mail.

This morning I went to buy a coffee at a neighborhood restaurant. I knew the girl working at the register and when she asked what I was up to I said "Waiting for medical school to start." It felt pretty good to say that, and it made everything feel more decided and settled in my mind.

She asked where I was going, and I said Philadelphia. Her eyes lit up and she did a little bounce clap and said "That's so exciting! I love Philadelphia!" Which was nice to hear.

I should be more thankful that I'm getting to go to medical school, and less anxious about the whole NY vs. Philly thing. I should be thankful that I've never, not once in the three years since I made this decision to go back to school, regretted my choice. I'm getting the chance to do something really great with my life, and it's something I feel I'm ready for.

I'd still like to get another acceptance, though.

 

 

Progress is being made on the whole Leaving Los Angeles Situation. We have our tickets to fly to Philadelphia in two weeks. Drew's working on his portfolio. In 30 minutes we're driving downtown to look at fabrics for the portfolio's cover. But I'm still waiting to hear from the NY school I visited at the end of February, so things aren't quite as settled as I'd like.

I've been reading a lot. Lots of New York Times. It's been years since I was this informed on this many subjects: the firing of the top judge in Pakistan; the status of Saudi Arabia after the summit in Riyadh; the issue of Palestinians and the right of return; the plight of the diamond miners in Sierra Leone; why cheerleading has gotten so pyramidal and cheerleader throw-y (because most schools got rid of gymastics in the 80s 'cause it's too dangerous, FYI). It's quite a commitment, but it's used up a lot of time that I would normally spend watching Barefoot Contessa reruns on Food Network. So I guess it's time better spent (since I rarely make any of Ina Garten's recipes. I mostly just salivate when she lathers icing onto baked things.)

But what, exactly, are you supposed to do with so much information? Other than showing off on your blog, I mean. I don't really have anyone in my daily life who wants to talk about world affairs in that much depth. And even if I did, what would be the point of debating with a friend? It doesn't really change anything. It's so fucking difficult to commit to being an activist, though, because you can never know enough to be truly comfortable with any one position. I guess that's why intellectuals are frowned upon by some policymakers. I have friends like that, who just argue against every position anyone takes without ever actually taking a firm stand on anything themselves. The more you learn about the daily happenings around the world the more you see how blissful ignorance can be so appealing. I already feel like I vote the right way for my own beliefs, so what else can I do? I think, honestly, you're supposed to engage the opposition in serious discussions. But... ugh. I do not like the opposition. And it's so rare that you actually find two people with different viewpoints who are willing to hash things out. You usually run into some wall of propriety and people just choose to agree to disagree.

If I could seriously keep it up for the next five years -- reading every story on the front page of the NYT to completion, regardless of whether or not I was interested in the subject -- I bet I'd learn more than I learned in college. So I guess that's the reason to do it. It's kind of turning into an obsession, though. It probably goes hand in hand with all my crazy dieting and exercise. I don't know that I'll be able to keep it up come fall. I mean, I'm not the fastest reader, so I don't know if I can invest 45 minutes a day reading the paper + an hour of exercise + med school. But I figure it's good to make it a habitual thing now and see how long I can stick with it.

I rather enjoy it, I must say. If you really read the whole story, regardless of your interest in the subject, you'll always learn something. But you have to get to paragraph six or seven before they'll give you background (like today, when I couldn't remember the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah). Otherwise it can just be a huge waste of time.

Kind of like you reading this entry. Huge waste of your time. I honestly don't know why you do it. Thanks, though!