[I started this entry before I moved, but now that I've gained some time and distance, I'm feeling a tiny bit less volatile. Maybe it's the fresh air and evergreen trees, or the fact that I've scrubbed the dirt off of everything I own in the unpacking process. Also currently brainstorming a new name for the blog... Endless Summer no longer applies]
How do you know it's time to ramble on?
When the clutch of your car drops out in the middle of a frenzied 6+ lane boulevard.
When you have thoughts like "if I die in a flaming wreck tonight, that'll show them".
When the ghosts outnumber the busters.
When apps replace friends.
When it actually rains in Los Angeles.
When you never sleep. Only dream in nightmares.
When all your plans involve escaping the city.
On Living
My apartment was on a street filled with blow bars, tiny apothecary style perfumeries, high end boutiques that never seemed to sell a single piece of clothing [except the one pseudo vintage shop that sold me every time], a pop-up skate shop that did NOT sell rollerskates, and various eateries and bars of which I tried less than a handful. It was pretty and dirty, and full of both pretty and dirty people.
There were not one, but three homeless men living in the alley behind the row of apartments/houses on my street. Many more flocked to the spaces in front of shops after they closed on West 3rd street or Beverly Blvd. Once I saw an entire cardboard box fort created overnight, only to vanish before the throng of tourists returned the next morning. To say the homeless epidemic in Los Angeles is a problem is a massive understatement. I never felt my safety was particularly threatened, but it was painful to know so many people were living outside the system, struggling to find a new shady spot each day.
The streets were rough in many ways. Twice the pipes spontaneously burst: water rising from the cracks, pouring into an underperforming drainage system, wasting what felt like precious drought reserves, mandating an emergency call to the water department [I take my drought civic responsibility very seriously. Dry Shampoo].
Parking. Who wants to talk about parking? It blows. Wall to wall cars, shifted for weekly street cleaning, obscuring the character-filled doll houses in my neighborhood. Architecture styles including: Modern Box, Toy Castle, Witch's Cottage, Bourgeois Villa and of course, Mosque Lite. But most of the time you never saw them because you were looking for parking. Or ubering to avoid a valet fee. I accidentally parked in a short-time lot and lingered perhaps 20 minutes past the free first hour: $20. WTF people. [Side note during said parking misadventure I purchased my first official pre-Pacific Northwest flannel... worth it?]. On multiple occasions while attempting to park at one hospital, after bitter rejection from the valet at patient parking, I simply considered giving up and driving off into the sunset never to return. Patients have it the worst. Nothing is ever validated [like the time I had to go into a bank and beg in my white coat when I hadn't brought cash or my debit card on a misadventure visiting another doctor's office]. Everything is expensive.
The rain was dirt. Dust blew in open windows. A black film covered the sills and crept inside to infiltrate. It got under your fingernails if you didn't manicure. It got in your nose and lungs when you breathed, as evidenced by dirty black tissues.
On Dying
This summer pushed me over the edge. Everything was broken. I really was tormented with nightmares, my subconscious telling me to run.
Work stopped being rewarding, all attempts to build my practice felt futile. One too many times I assisted [or was a glorified cheerleader] on a case that I had specifically been recruited to do. A perpetual second fiddle, an unsung apprentice. Or had a doctor or patient go elsewhere for superficial reasons [age, ethnicity, sex] that have nothing to do with surgical skill. The ego in me couldn't keep doing it. I can't say the new job will be perfect, but I have high hopes.
My heart was slowly dying in other ways too. From a tight-knit group of like-minded surgery peeps to an empty space. I met a lot of quality people, but with far-flung distances [both time and space], mismatching schedules and friendship needs, it was hard to reach that critical mass. I appreciated every friend who dragged me out of my seclusion. Not looking forward to starting over again.
Obviously dating didn't work for me either. The only people showing interest were older and/or divorced anesthesiologists [which made tiptoeing the line of friendliness and professionalism while avoiding outright rejection even more stressful]. Outside of work there was always something missing. The few I got excited about never thought I was special enough to stop looking. Maybe the Washington scene will work better for me. One of my old bosses jokingly hoped I like lumberjacks because that's all I will find. I retorted that I do in fact like lumberjacks. Especially if they are Scottish.
On Leaving
Two days and 1000+ miles in a car with two cats and a minor headcold was definitely not the same kind of carefree roadtrip as Big Sur. But I was proud of myself for having moved for the first time completely by myself sans major cat-astrophe [if you recall Bowie's hijinks last move: an escape, a trip to urgent care, and an unwitting hotel mattress]. Yes I got movers for all the big furniture, but I had to do minor assembly/disassembly with my own little toolbox. One step closer to being a fully actualized adult.
First impressions are that people here are very nice. A neighbor gave me a coffee table. The cable guy waited an extra 30 minutes for the landlord to come help us find the distribution box rather than reschedule. The friend that suggested me for the job not only saved me from my ramen life the first night I got in, but invited me to a hospital charity gala the second night [and lent me the gala-worthy clothes to wear that I obviously had not packed in my tiny moving suitcase]. Dog-walkers say hello on running paths. People [dudes] strike up conversations in coffeeshops and dumpling houses [yes, dumplings... though more Pierogi than Shanghai Soup].
But mostly its the trees. Gargantuan conifers, lofty and majestic. Perpetual Christmas. Had I not moved in December I would have felt that same twinge of excitement. I cannot wait to get out and get lost [and I will].
How do you know it's time to ramble on?
When the clutch of your car drops out in the middle of a frenzied 6+ lane boulevard.
When you have thoughts like "if I die in a flaming wreck tonight, that'll show them".
When the ghosts outnumber the busters.
When apps replace friends.
When it actually rains in Los Angeles.
When you never sleep. Only dream in nightmares.
When all your plans involve escaping the city.
On Living
My apartment was on a street filled with blow bars, tiny apothecary style perfumeries, high end boutiques that never seemed to sell a single piece of clothing [except the one pseudo vintage shop that sold me every time], a pop-up skate shop that did NOT sell rollerskates, and various eateries and bars of which I tried less than a handful. It was pretty and dirty, and full of both pretty and dirty people.
There were not one, but three homeless men living in the alley behind the row of apartments/houses on my street. Many more flocked to the spaces in front of shops after they closed on West 3rd street or Beverly Blvd. Once I saw an entire cardboard box fort created overnight, only to vanish before the throng of tourists returned the next morning. To say the homeless epidemic in Los Angeles is a problem is a massive understatement. I never felt my safety was particularly threatened, but it was painful to know so many people were living outside the system, struggling to find a new shady spot each day.
The streets were rough in many ways. Twice the pipes spontaneously burst: water rising from the cracks, pouring into an underperforming drainage system, wasting what felt like precious drought reserves, mandating an emergency call to the water department [I take my drought civic responsibility very seriously. Dry Shampoo].
Parking. Who wants to talk about parking? It blows. Wall to wall cars, shifted for weekly street cleaning, obscuring the character-filled doll houses in my neighborhood. Architecture styles including: Modern Box, Toy Castle, Witch's Cottage, Bourgeois Villa and of course, Mosque Lite. But most of the time you never saw them because you were looking for parking. Or ubering to avoid a valet fee. I accidentally parked in a short-time lot and lingered perhaps 20 minutes past the free first hour: $20. WTF people. [Side note during said parking misadventure I purchased my first official pre-Pacific Northwest flannel... worth it?]. On multiple occasions while attempting to park at one hospital, after bitter rejection from the valet at patient parking, I simply considered giving up and driving off into the sunset never to return. Patients have it the worst. Nothing is ever validated [like the time I had to go into a bank and beg in my white coat when I hadn't brought cash or my debit card on a misadventure visiting another doctor's office]. Everything is expensive.
The rain was dirt. Dust blew in open windows. A black film covered the sills and crept inside to infiltrate. It got under your fingernails if you didn't manicure. It got in your nose and lungs when you breathed, as evidenced by dirty black tissues.
On Dying
This summer pushed me over the edge. Everything was broken. I really was tormented with nightmares, my subconscious telling me to run.
Work stopped being rewarding, all attempts to build my practice felt futile. One too many times I assisted [or was a glorified cheerleader] on a case that I had specifically been recruited to do. A perpetual second fiddle, an unsung apprentice. Or had a doctor or patient go elsewhere for superficial reasons [age, ethnicity, sex] that have nothing to do with surgical skill. The ego in me couldn't keep doing it. I can't say the new job will be perfect, but I have high hopes.
My heart was slowly dying in other ways too. From a tight-knit group of like-minded surgery peeps to an empty space. I met a lot of quality people, but with far-flung distances [both time and space], mismatching schedules and friendship needs, it was hard to reach that critical mass. I appreciated every friend who dragged me out of my seclusion. Not looking forward to starting over again.
Obviously dating didn't work for me either. The only people showing interest were older and/or divorced anesthesiologists [which made tiptoeing the line of friendliness and professionalism while avoiding outright rejection even more stressful]. Outside of work there was always something missing. The few I got excited about never thought I was special enough to stop looking. Maybe the Washington scene will work better for me. One of my old bosses jokingly hoped I like lumberjacks because that's all I will find. I retorted that I do in fact like lumberjacks. Especially if they are Scottish.
On Leaving
Two days and 1000+ miles in a car with two cats and a minor headcold was definitely not the same kind of carefree roadtrip as Big Sur. But I was proud of myself for having moved for the first time completely by myself sans major cat-astrophe [if you recall Bowie's hijinks last move: an escape, a trip to urgent care, and an unwitting hotel mattress]. Yes I got movers for all the big furniture, but I had to do minor assembly/disassembly with my own little toolbox. One step closer to being a fully actualized adult.
First impressions are that people here are very nice. A neighbor gave me a coffee table. The cable guy waited an extra 30 minutes for the landlord to come help us find the distribution box rather than reschedule. The friend that suggested me for the job not only saved me from my ramen life the first night I got in, but invited me to a hospital charity gala the second night [and lent me the gala-worthy clothes to wear that I obviously had not packed in my tiny moving suitcase]. Dog-walkers say hello on running paths. People [dudes] strike up conversations in coffeeshops and dumpling houses [yes, dumplings... though more Pierogi than Shanghai Soup].
But mostly its the trees. Gargantuan conifers, lofty and majestic. Perpetual Christmas. Had I not moved in December I would have felt that same twinge of excitement. I cannot wait to get out and get lost [and I will].
I love your blogs so real. Washington sounds really good to me. ☺
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