sketches & ghosts

Vague hodgepodge collection. I am nothing if not terrible at updating, but I also enjoy talking into a void so to speak. I did make a new Tumblr account because I have a lot of friends who are only there, but Tumblr is a very scary void. I have an Imzy acount, which I'm loving, but it doesn't seem like the best place for this kind of stuff? I would love recommendations to good Imzy comms, though, if anyone has one! I made /publichealth with my more-comfortable-shared-with-RL pseud (because that's going to get shared with offline people, I'm sure) but so far it is just me spewing news links whenever I see 'em. Totally open to non-PH professionals, though!

Anyway, the rest of my generally-unrelated things:
– School officially started on the 25th, but my first on-campus class is the 29th. I work from 8-4, which requires leaving my house at 6:30, and then have to be on campus by 5. Which means walking over and taking the 3 train, which usually takes about half an hour, and hoping I have time to change out of my scrubs and am not late for my first class of the program ever.

– Hanging out in the hospice, where there's one specific tension-y thing going on but is otherwise okay. My mom just suddenly got the flu (?! though we've seen a couple of cases at work, I guess it's just early this year) so I'm here instead of working. Dad has been unresponsive for about a week, I think. I can't remember the last conversation we had, and I'm actually glad of that because I don't want to focus on it. His blood pressure right now is 79/47. His birthday is tomorrow, so we're hoping he dies tomorrow, because we're horrid people who like symmetry (also he's turning 66) and we also want him to stop hurting.

– I didn't have the flu, but I did have pleurisy and a sinus infection. Now I have this really horrid, disgusting remnant cough but am not actually sick anymore. No symptoms and I feel completely fine ... except that I'm always coughing in front of patients and having to apologize to them and explain I'm not sick.

– Sideline of speaking-of-dad, this happened. We're completely floored. So many people are coming together, and now that is definitely happening.

– Painted my nails for my co-worker's birthday party tonight (also, I have co-workers who invite me to birthday parties? it's a chef's table, very fancy sort of deal, and I'm missing my best eyeshadow brush) and one of my fingernails just broke right off. Like, the entire thing. It's broken past the quick. Poor ugly pinky.

– ... and this post was abruptly interrupted because someone came in the room and brought in a box! And inside the box was a gift from my dad's two closest co-workers, containing a flower arrangement that looks just like the banana creme birthday cake with raspberry frosting they gave him a few years ago. Complete with real rose to mimic the icing rose!

I have been reading. I have been too overwhelmed by life to comment or to post. I need to amend that vaguely. Here are some things:


1. I got that job, I started that job, I finished training. I now spend most of my life in a busy urgent care clinic in Hell's Kitchen. Overworked and underpaid, but it's really nice to be doing something, even if I am nervous about how beginning grad school will screw with my schedule/availability and hope they won't fire me! (I really need the health insurance, too. Even if it will eat half of my paycheck.)

2. Dad is on hospice now; we have been given the vague prognosis of "maybe weeks or months," but he has multiple organ failure and no intake. We'll see. He's actually feeling somewhat better, which surprises no one, I think.

3. The housing market terrifies me. Spouse and I do not make enough between us to afford a studio. Once we have to stop living in mom's house, we're in huge trouble. I cannot do roommates. Not will not, but actually cannot. I would never, ever sleep. I don't trust people. I couldn't even have roommates when I was in the dorms in undergrad, and had to prove my OCD was bad enough I needed to be given a single. The fact that that worked at an overcrowded state university just tells you a lot about how much I can't cope with roommates.