Rest In Peace, Polo

Rocky South and I have decided to read The God Delusion as our summer common read. Has anyone read it?

I'm at the Howe, studying, while Ten's off buying fashionable organic (oxymoron?) clothes at the Farm-Way. I wish I could have gone with her so that I could purchase a new favorite teal-colored polo shirt.

Sniff. There it is.

My lab partner ruined said favorite shirt when she put bag balm all over my microscope locker and supply drawer handle. I leaned over the lab counter, pressed my belly into the drawer handle, and the rest is history. She promised me the stuff would come out of my clothes, but I may have misheard her since she was laughing so much.

Fortunately, Ten borrowed a f@rt machine from one of her co-workers, and I'm going to bring it to our next lab session. It's not that I think humiliating her one time will make up for the loss of my favorite shirt. But it's a fart. Start, I mean.

Little Cabin in the Woods

So, it turns out my mom's cabin was, like, russsstic. And by russsstic, I mean dirty and dark. The out house was so foul that she and her friends were opting for the woods. I opted for neither, which is to say, for a bladder infection. There was no running water, there was a "mouse box" for their food, and, to top it off, it was really cold. My mom was as unimpressed as the time I made chocolate chip cookies with dish washer detergent instead of sugar. (Long story.)

I'm sort of irritated because Ten made the accommodations for them for tonight: the very nice Shelburne Farms Inn, where they serve you tea and muffins every two hours and attack you with Kleenex every time your nose dribbles. I think she's going to win this one, and that makes me want to fall to my knees and wallow in a whimpery temper tantrum. In fact, hold on a second.

Okay, I feel better.

In other news, I have not studied in 6 days. Stay tuned for how I fail finals.

Give Us Bread But Give Us Raises

Things I learned at Reunion '08:
1) Bringing up the CAGE questions at a reunion party does not make one a popular guest.
2) If you wear Birkenstock clogs to a dance party, you will be unable to walk the next day.
3) If you dance to every dance at that dance party as though you are performing rigorous calisthenics, you will be unable to walk the next day or the day after that.
4) Nothing changes.
5) If you and your friends all wear your Laurel Parade whites to Northampton, Mass, passersby will ask you if you are in a cult. And you must answer the unfortunate truth: yes, in a way, I am.
6) It is relatively easy to say "viral" instead of "virile" when you've had too much vino. It's embarrassing.
7) Public Safety still doesn't let you hang out on the 2nd floor porches.
8) Route52 makes a terrible roommate. She takes up all of the closet space, sleeps past 6, and she even wore my shower shoes to the shower. (Just because I wore your white pants in the Laurel Parade, doesn't mean you get to strip me of my civil liberties, Roomie.)
9) There are some awesome people in my class that I never knew during college.
10) I need a business card.

At reunion I also learned that I have many more blog readers than I had imagined. The general consensus among them is that I should blog more about gastrointestinal issues, perhaps so that the title of this blog is a little less misleading. I only hope that my parents and Ten's parents, whom I also count among my readers, will understand.

Reunion was wonderful, in that it was SO MUCH FUN, and terrible, in that now I remember why I miss all of those people so much. (Today and yesterday I have actually felt physical pain when I think about how much I miss them. Explain that, Science!) Anyway, I've spent the entire day in a depressive funk on Ten's couch, reading my pathology notes in between naps (a grand total of 3 today).

But, my mother comes to town tomorrow!

Enough Ginger Candies

Dear Blog Readers,

I pope this host winds you fell.

The other day I was involved in a four-car accident. It was the second time I have been rear ended on Shelburne Road. I was second from the front, which was annoying, because the drivers behind me got all of the attention. T-babe's bumper received some damage, but fortunately my bumper stickers are okay.

My college reunion is this weekend. Mostly I'm excited about communal showers. The shower stalls at school are actually larger than the stall I have in my apartment.

Ten and I separately ordered ridiculous amounts of Ting Ting Jahe ginger candy last week, not knowing that the other party had done the same. I've been eating ginger candy like it's going to save the world, and in the process I've discovered a new disease: Ting Ting Bowel. I'm going to write to the illustrious makers of the Bristol Stool Chart and describe the TTJ bowel and its evil cousin, Ginger Sphincter.

There is less than a month of this school year. Glory Glory. I'll be living in Charlotte with Ten. Ten said that she's worried that when she comes home from work this summer I'm going to expect her to immediately be "on" and want her to "play games" with me. I had to shake my head in disbelief. And then I had to tell her that I was shaking my head in disbelief, because we were talking on the phone at that moment. But I knew I had her.

"The summer's only seven weeks, Ten. Sometimes I leave my lap top 'on' for that long. Should I live at my lap top's house instead?" " Then I sat back smugly. But, again, I had to tell her that I was sitting back smugly.

WB! LYLAS! TTYL! LOL!

EFC

Half and Half Not

Yesterday was my half birthday. Can you believe that I actually had to remind Ten about it? That she didn't just remember? And that, even after I told her once, I had to keep periodically reminding her throughout the day? Some people must think the world just revolves around them.

As an aside, my half birthday also marks One Year since I ran over my landlord's mailbox.

I'm beginning to recover from my lousy trip to New Orleans. Not academically. But emotionally. And gastrointestinally.

My mom and her girlfriends are coming up to Vermont/NH in a couple of weeks. I've gotten them a nine-person cabin in the woods for two nights. This is going to be hilarious. They'll have to use an outhouse and boil their water before using it. They'll also spend a night at the Shelburne Inn, which is owned and run by Shelburne Farms, which is where Ten works. She got them a lovely discount. You'd think it was their half birthday or something.

Dude! Teronomy!

Sweet Jesus, I love my parents. I hope that wherever my little-fish-big-sea life leads me, it's within 4 miles of their retirement community. Although, I have to say, it's good to be back in Norwich. It's an uneasy feeling being in others' homes, not being able to touch all four of your walls at once.

Oh, yeah, and the conference stunk. There were a whopping total of 3 other medical students there, and there were some pretty heavy Christian undertones to much of the workshops, talks, etc. Not that Christianity is bad, it's just that I used this approach at the conference, and it didn't work so well for me:

"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby." - Deuteronomy

Let's just say I had some awkward moments.

Tomorrow is a big day because we don't have class until 10:15! Yippee! I don't know how I should spend the extra two hours and fifteen minutes of my morning. Perhaps catching up on the fifteen hours and two minutes of lecture I missed during this trip.

A Fig In The City

Tomorrow I leave for the Rural Health conference in New Orleans. It's Tuesday morning, and I'm still in Burlington, which means I will officially have gone to three classes this week. Sweet! I will be traveling to New Orleans with Dotsonian, a fellow classmate. The first two nights we'll stay at my grandparents' vacated apartment; the second two nights we'll stay with my parents.

I'm a little anxious about introducing an unsuspecting classmate into the murky secrets of my home life. (For example, my dad recently bought pink Teen Spirit deodorant when he went shopping without his glasses. Now he smells like Spring Shower Powder Fresh.)

Furthermore, Ten tells me that jeans may not be appropriate clothing for this conference, a casual remark which threw my whole world into reverse rotation.

In other news, on Friday night I managed to steal a T-shirt from the house of my pathology/bacteriology lab partner. I plan to wear it to class today to surprise her. I don't know what will surprise her more: the fact that I'm attending class wearing her shirt, or the fact that I'm attending class.

The Postess with the Mostess

Recently, one of my friends was stupid enough to leave her ATM card in the ATM machine. Ha! I mean, who does that? Then she was 1/3 of the way to Burlington when her bank called her and told her she had only 24 hours to pick it up, so she had to turn around and head back to Norwich. What a dweebus!

Tonight was the anatomy memorial service, where we lit a candle for each individual who had donated his or her (mostly her) body to our medical school. We wound up with several more candles than there were dissection groups, which had us all scratching our heads a little bit. It was a very pretty ceremony with lots of my classmates singing and playing instruments very well. It made me angry for a while that my parents had never encouraged me to learn a musical instrument.

Then I remembered that for years they had paid for piano lessons (and a piano) and I had just never practiced. So now I’m on the lookout for something else to resent them for. I’ve already milked Santa Claus like a Holstein.

In other news, tomorrow night I have a prospective DMS student from Mount Holyoke staying with me. I must try not to convince her to forget all about medical school and try teaching, or law school, or meter-maidening, or waitressing, or selling insurance, or being the person who sits in the ATM and steals my bank card from me when I'm not looking.