Thursday.

I had another birth today, a slow-moving induction that started at 8 and finished around 7. I was back and forth between the hospital and my house all day, and since she had like 12 people there to support her, I wasn't much needed in that capacity. I made a couple of independent decisions that felt like a big deal but actually weren't, but okay, good practice, right? So when the nurse paged me and told me that there was a lot of molding and a few variables, I decided not to go in to the hospital, and when the heart rate was dropping with each contraction I told her to stop the pitocin.

It was a great hot day, and I made myself a brilliant lunch. A big salami sandwich and potato salad and chips and sweet tea...I didn't even need dinner.

When I got home from the birth I called this guy, Alfred, who is supposed to introduce me to a young adults group that meets a couple of times a week in town. A man at church gave me his number. It was brave of me.

Tomorrow afternoon I am going to clean my apartment. Don't try to talk me out of it. It's GOING to happen. Then tomorrow night I'm going to a good-bye dinner for Liz & Todd, which'll be cool. I'm excited---I'm off call all weekend long. But I'm on tonight and I have rounds in the morning so I have to sleep now. I've been getting loads of sleep, it's been nice. At work they are putting my diploma on the wall.

Shirley, the vampire.

Hi Ben H! I just read your blog. I didn't know you had one either. Welp, that's a conversation-stopper.

Yesterday morning at 5:30 I got called in for a birth. An hour and a half later I was back home getting ready. I ate a bowl of cereal, then I got in the shower and threw it all up and thought about not going to work. But I went in anyway, and it was okay. After work I went to the gym and did this "Total Body Conditioning" class that made me die. It was me and 3 other old people who were much more in shape than I, and we hopped and punched and kicked and jumped and looked worse than ridiculous. Let me tell you, doing something sixteen times in a row, really sucks, and so does weight-lifting. Afterwards I felt all melted, like a puddle. After I got home, a nurse from labor & delivery called and said there was a decreased fetal movement patient for me, so I went all sweaty and wearing "Soddy Daisy Wrestling" shorts...and handled the whole thing by myself! It was great. TCD (the doctor I work with) didn't need to come in at all. I felt like a success.

Today has been good too. I wore earrings and makeup and I did rounds on that patient from yesterday before going to the office, and then they ordered lunch for us so I didn't have to eat a gross frozen dinner. Wednesdays are usually the busiest days, and some women waited an hour to be seen. I didn't miss any of my blood draws...I'm getting better. Do you know, there's nurse in this town named Shirley or Shelby or something who is reknown for her blood-drawing skills. She works at the outpatient lab and that's where you send people who you can't stick on your own. After work I got a phone call from a friend who I haven't seen since high school, she told me all about her life now. It's a lot different from mine. She is married to a guy who is off working for 2 or 3 weeks at a time, and she spends all day taking care of her 1 year old. The town she lives in is so small, it doesn't even have a Wal-Mart.

At our Wal-Mart the other day I ran into divorced guy again. The first thing he said to me was, "I don't want you to think I'm following you or anything!" and then he told me a lot of stuff about why he was getting divorced, and his class that he's required to take. It was sort of inapproriate, I'm realizing now. Um, yeah.

I miss my friend Nicky. She needs to come home from stupid Washington already.

One of the books I started has a heroine named Nazneen. I think that's really going to be a struggle for me. Try to think of an uglier combination of letters...I can't.

chicken pot pie

Okay, so I got internet in my apartment today. Wireless and unsecured. I'm sure my neighbors love me. Brilliant.

The bigger news, though, is that as of yesterday afternoon, I got hospital privileges!!!
Since then, I've had 5 births...what the? 2 were vaginal births, that I actually delivered, and the others were sections where I was first assist. That means I stand across from TCD (my employer) and hold stuff. Right. Anyways I didn't try to pass out this time. It turns out that actually being involved in the surgery is less nauseating than standing on the side thinking about the chili I ate for dinner. Gross.

This is what I'm eating right now for dinner, because I am too lazy to go to the grocery or cook. These cost 40 cents, Peter told me about them, and they're kind of gross. All the sodium you can eat.

Okay I got lots of pictures.

This is from Dawn's wedding shower, which happened to be during my vacation in Oburg at the end of June. That is absolutely as good as my hair gets. :)

These are the cats. They are both boys. Sometimes I take them to the vet for shots, and I can't believe how much it costs, and I think I'm throwing my money away.But they run to meet me when I get home from work, and when I flop on the couch they join me. I like having something else alive in my very quiet apartment. I also have two peace lilies and a geranium. Sooo tied down.

It's a rainy July evening. I'm listening to Norah Jones.
These are my choices. I didn't get cable along with my internet, because I'm afraid of being like that guy I met in Nashville, who told me he was lonely until he got cable in his apartment. That one on the bottom is REALLY stupid, don't ever read it. Guys, thanks for the suggestions.
Hey, I know I am foolish and emotional but yesterday was my first birth in 6 months, and it didn't rock. I was expecting it to. I don't know. I guess I'm still growing into this job. That's what I told myself at 3 am on the way back to the hospital.

I finally joined the gym. I had to make an appointment, then go to an hour long orientation. I needed something else to do, and I need to meet more people. I liked it because I saw my pastor's wife there, and a woman that I work with at the pool, and a Covenant grad works at the front desk. I felt sort of connected. Maybe I'll actually go sometimes. I met a little guy there who told me all about his recent divorce, daughter, and hope for reconciliation. I know he was younger than me. Poor guy. I didn't know what to say, because I didn't know him, and he was all oozing. I just nodded and listened.

In the morning I am going to go to the hospital again and discharge three postpartum patients. It's not actually a big deal but I'm nervous anyway, because I've never done it myself before. I need to go pray now before my brain is done.

On page 444

So, I'm reading Vanity Fair by Thackeray. It's not what I'd call gripping. Before that I read Gone With the Wind, which was more interesting, but ended on such a depressing note!! I had no idea--but how lame, for Rhett's love to run out. I don't know why I was on Scarlett's side anyway, she was so horrible. Guys, I need some book recommendations. Peter gave me one idea, for a Michael Crichton book but I couldn't find it at the library.

I've been in Orangeburg all week, mostly alone. My mom and sisters are on a mission trip and Tico sleeps most of the day and Dad goes to work. It worked out that I had about a week and a half off from work, so I came here, and brought the kittens. I'll have to post some pictures of them--I got two. White and grey and white and orange.

Yesterday Tico and I played ping-pong and I won. Today we played Life and he won, but that's kind of a dumb game.
There have been these beetles around the pool that are enormous- like they belong somewhere more exotic than the USA. They are longer than my thumbs and fatter definitely.

slacker

Hi guys, that's what I am. Actually, I don't have the internet at my apartment yet, I'm writing this from work. But I do have an apartment....it's the one with the big kitchen. I live there alone, with minimal furniture.
Things have been going okay at work so far...there's a lot to take in. I haven't done any deliveries yet, I am still waiting for the hospital to give me privileges. My days are filled up with office work now: prenatal visits, ultrasounds, postpartum stuff, charting, labwork, blood draws, and waiting for the doctor. He calls me in to observe the births and round on his patients with him.

I REALLY need a haircut.

For my social life, I go back to Chattanooga. I still don't know anyone besides my coworkers here. I know what you're thinking: that girl needs a cat! I agree.

Yesterday for dinner I ate Chinese. It cost $3.20.
Because of the long weekend I checked on flights to San Diego, I was thinking I could go see Em and Ken. They are kind of expensive, so I won't be going.
Hey that's all for now.

To fill in the spaces

That's Tico, you know.

Right now I'm listening to "I've Got You Under My Skin" and thinking I should probably eat more than pop-tarts if I don't want to have a growly stomach in church. Last night I got dressed up and went to the Meeting Place with Nicky for Moriah's birthday. I didn't have a present. Nicky showed me some spiky grass growing in planters outside and told me it cost a thousand dollars to get that kind of banded grass.

Today is my last Sunday at St. Elmo Pres. It's annoying to keep thinking of things in lasts...I've only been here six months! But I always do that anyway.

I need to go pick out a skrit and cook some eggs.

Mud

Guys, it has been raining for 3 days and everything is muddy. Yesterday on my way to work in the pouring rain I thought about my old theory that it was my mother's fault that it rained, because every time we went to Ace Hardware that's what would happen.

If you like a girl, you should write her little notes. We like that.

Packing day

This is the street you turn on to get to my apartment. Mine is the one with the smallest windows.

Yesterday was a better day. I got all my blood draws and made sure to balance the centrifuge before I turned it on. And then I washed all the speculums. I had to wear special glasses. 2 different people came in to check on my scrubbing technique. First they soak, then we scrub them, then we put them in the dishwasher, then we put them in the autoclave. Autoclaves are much less important-looking than you would think.

Around 10 am there was a big storm, and the sky was so black that when I looked out the window I saw my own reflection. The flourescent lights were flickering in the hall.

We are on the 3rd floor of the building. Women still ask if people from the parking lot can see them while they are changing. They can't.

I ate lunch with 5 other women in the kitchen. We talked about Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt's romantic attachments. Every time the phone rang, it was like "yeah, we're at lunch" but they looked at the caller id anyways.

When I got home from work I painted my toenails again.

How it goes

Today when I was trying to get some blood out of this lady's arm, I couldn't. I stuck the needle in, connected the tube to the end, and NO red dribble. Tried to subtly reposition the needle, but no luck. So I undid the tourniquet, and tied it around the other arm. I found a vein and thought about the angle it was running at, got a new needle and stuck again. Nothing. Then I was frustrated so I let go for a second to reach some gauze and the needle went sideways! What?
I only give it two tries. So another nurse came and stuck the back of her hand.

Later I went to spin the tubes of blood and I didn't balance the centrifuge right so it jumped violently across the counter and people kept coming in to see what all the noise was about.

All day long people tell me details about how to do things, and I just think, "thanks for telling me, but I'm probably going to have to hear it again tomorrow" and feel kind of dumb. There are a lot of details. It seems to have very little to do with all the stuff I learned in school. Anyways I'm annoyed and tired right now.

I leased an apartment...I'll move in on the 29th. It has 2 bedrooms upstairs, and a fireplace downstairs. I'm going to live alone. It'll be brilliant. You're all invited for dinner in the carpet capital of the world.

wood bees

More apartments today. All the wood bees are out hanging in the air right now, I tried not to freak out. They make a perfect round hole, I guess they actually eat the wood. Zzzzz. Do you know, there are a lot of really ugly, dark places to live. I wonder if the people who live there stop noticing after awhile. I saw one apartment that was different. It had a big kitchen with a lot of counter space, and sunny bedrooms, and a fireplace, and a patio, and large closets, and Berber carpet. I hope it's for me.

This afternoon I shot a bb gun. I was fantastic. I hit everything I wanted to.

I hate it when I smell like my car. Car is better than latex gloves, though.

This time next week I'll be in scrubs again

So now I'm looking for a place to live. I'm thinking about roommates, boxes, w/d hook-ups, and wondering where in the world my immunization record went, because I need it again. Yesterday I went through my "files" and found stuff I didn't know what to do with, like my SAT & GRE scores, my high school transcript, grades from Oxford, and some resumes from the summer of 2002. There was this whole folder called, "Stuff to do if I never get into nursing school" that went in the trash.

Last night I was trying to fall asleep and I kept thinking about the apartments I'd seen. They were built in an old cotton mill, with high exposed ceilings, brick walls, wood floors, huge windows. Oddly shaped rooms, lots of open space, that kind of thing. The woman who was showing me the place talked on her cell phone the whole time, just unlock a door, turn on the lights and keep talking while I walked around. Some of the windows started at my chin. When we were done, she asked me what kind of work I did, and after I answered she looked at me with her mouth open and said something dramatic about "little babies." I said yep. And then she said something about me being 18 years old. So I left.

Up for the weekend

They were all here (except Mom) and so we walked for awhile. It was beautiful but we were cold. We made dinner together and then went to the $2 theatre for Syriana. I'll start work in 11 days, on April 10. I hate how this is making all the text stay at the top.

Lines

Here's a picture of my triangle nose, and my hair stripes.

Well...

We don't have a plunger. Actually, we do. But there's no handle on it, so that's just completely disgusting. I found a metal rod we could use as a handle, but it wouldn't attach very well, and after a brief argument about whether or not a plunger needs to trap air to work, I won and then used my naked, ungloved hand to guide it through the water into place. Rachel connected the rod and did the pumping part. Then she said good job and told me I was like a missionary girl.

I'm reading this new library book now, called "My First Crush." It's about this couple who buys a winery in Oregon and starts making Pinot Noir. At first they live in Iowa, and the wife's all sad about leaving and starting a new life, because she's like 50 and has lived there forever. It has these little fun fact boxes off to the side about special diseases that grapes can get, etc. Understand that I am a person who goes to the library, sees a book with "My First Crush" on it in swirly letters, and grabs it off the shelf.

So anyways, I think I found a job I could enjoy. Also, I think that for the next year, I am going to find it difficult to establish any sort of routine, and I'll learn to chill out, and I guess I'll just be out of control and unable to prepare and screwing up and that makes me REALLY NERVOUSY.
That was a great sentence. I think that should be the end.

Advice

Never try to vacuum up a ball of kitchen twine. It makes that smell come out of the vacuum. You know what I'm talking about.

Tampa

I went to Tampa last weekend for a beach wedding with Liz. It felt strange to have my toes curling in the sand while the bride walked down on her father's arm. They fed us really great lunch...different kinds of seafood and chicken and vegetables, and then we sat around and talked or went on the beach for a few hours. Besides the wedding, it seemed like all anyone wanted to talk about was their birth experiences. Of course I enjoy hearing about that but after the 3rd conversation began about epidurals, I was kind of done. So I went to flop on the sand and take a vacation from talking to people I didn't know. I listened to a brown solid grandma telling someone about her old sewing machine, and that was much more interesting.

Just kidding, actually it was boring, but I couldn't not listen because it was all I could hear really.
At the beach it doesn't matter if anything interesting is happening though, because my brain gets all melty in the sun. All I do is sweat and stare at people and drink out of a warm water bottle. This is very pleasant, and for some reason, exhausting.

I didn't take any pictures while I was there. But everyone knows what Florida looks like, right? There's nothing subtle about it. There aren't any muted colors. Everything is loud and bright and oily.

Turn left here

Susan's been here all weekend. She likes this guy. The 3 of us spent the afternoon together yesterday, then they left to go ride a motocycle, and I washed our lunch dishes and went to see James.

At the Lewins, Steve was watching this Japanese animated movie in English with French subtitles set in Sicily. I know, all you guys are going, "I love that movie!" But actually it didn't seem that interesting. So I flopped on the floor in the nursery and Nicky told me stories while James orally inspected a bottle of foot cream. Then I tried to sing a French song about a donkey with a very bad headache to James, and Steve looked at me, and Nicky laughed.

Then I went to a community meeting at the old Fire Hall. It was slightly excruciating. It felt like a lot of talking about talking about doing something. Everyone thought his story was the most important one, the most vulnerable to being disregarded, and we made larger and larger circles around the point, until somebody would pop the balloon and we would come back to earth for a second.
Then the secretary doing the minutes turned to me and asked, "do you know how to type?" All of a sudden it was my job to write down what was happening during that meeting. It was unbelievably difficult for me, so this woman whispered in my ear what to write, and they kept telling her to be quiet, so then she would whisper so quietly I couldn't hear her, and I wrote lots of things like, "that other man Says, their are still trying to plant trees and what kind are left crepe myrtlesshe asked him?"

Luckily, it ended. When I got home my roommates were having a "see who can jump higher" contest. I made Scooby Doo macaroni and cheese and ate all of it except for what was stolen away while I got myself a napkin.

Cold stomach

Once I went for a walk with a friend.
We were in Oxford, so it was a grey afternoon.
I didn't know how to get there, and he did, so I was following him.
We were walking single file through all these strong dry weeds, and the conversation was "what?" and "watch out for that thing" and my usual comments about fast walking and sports injuries, etc.
After awhile, we came to an open pasture, so wide that I couldn't see where it ended.
He pointed and we started across.
In that field, there was wind like I have never felt before.
I think at first we were just sort of leaning into it and laughing about getting tossed around, but the more we walked, the worse it got.
It blew so violently that it became difficult for me to stay upright or even exhale, and I remember trying to talk to him, but every time I got close enough for him to hear me, my hair would slap at his face.
In the end we went the only way we could, which was kind of sideways and around the edges.

Hours later, full of meat and wine and sitting all warm in the restaurant, I ordered chocolate profiteroles for dessert.

Fat Tuesday

Don't forget the pancakes.

Or the pizza.

Or the tanning bed.

Dear Mom

Shari Lewis was the voice behind Lambchop, of Lambchop's Play-Along...startlingly bright hair, catchy songs.

Anyways you have to pick. You can't just say neither. Otherwise you get the booby prize choice by default, which REALLY sucks.

Hold on, I'm still trying to think of it.

Okay...here it is.

Every new chapter has to begin with an entire line from the song, "My Humps" by the Black-Eyed Peas.

Newsflash

This is my favorite baby. He's scared of my face when it's upside down.

These are some green beans that I'm growing.
They are a lot bigger now, I've already transplanted them to pots on our windowsill.

Right now April is talking on the phone and I'm eating leftover lasagna for lunch and trying not to listen. Yeah.

I watched another Paul Newman movie. It was called "On the Terrace" or something like that. I watched the whole thing, even when it got gross/boring, because I didn't want to repeat the mistake I made with Cool Hand Luke. It didn't turn out to be very interesting.

Last night for roommate night we went to the gym and played basketball, tall girls against short girls. We schooled them--obviously. Then we tried to go in the hot tub, but I couldn't actually breathe in there with all the high bubbly water and low ceiling, so I went in the sauna until I started feeling light-headed and everyone thought I was really hard core. Then I drank a lot of water and put my necklace back on. I enjoyed it, especially when we walked back out into the rain that had been coming down all day...I felt like I was getting away with something.

Once we got back home, a boy called April and said "come see the new puppy" so she and I went with stringy curlyish chlorine hair. That was interesting. I saw an old friend there.

Anyways...as far as the job search goes...I had a 2nd or 3rd-ish interview with one practice. I also went to a meeting of all the area midwives and tried to be professional and grown up and let them know that I'd probably be a good person to hire. It went well. The food was brilliant. I had the salmon.

I'm working on getting my licenses to practice in GA and TN right now. It is confusing enough that I have to work on it little by little. I hate doing stuff like that. Maybe everyone does. I would make a terrible orthodontist. I like sitting down and knowing that when I get up, the project will be finished.

So if you wrote a book today, would you rather have your big face on the cover, or have Shari Lewis write your foreword?