Outpatient clinic

Just finished three days of that... well, not today, more like Friday.

In psych, we do 6 weeks total, and the vast majority of that is at Manhattan Psych, which is an inpatient facility. Three days of the rotation; however, is at the outpatient clinic in Harlem, aka, right down the street from the Apollo, which is cool. Should have gone over there, but ended up wandering into H&M instead, and spent the evening at Arlene's Grocery over in the Lower East Side, the LES being "where I spend most of my time when I'm not at the hospital". My roommate's love of LES got me hooked and the music kept me going. So far it's delivered two fantastic live music venues, a 'burlesque' show that... uhhh... well, has a serious case of Glen or Glenda, a hookah bar, good food that isn't hideously overpriced, and so on.

Today, I caught a ride to and from Jersey to a wedding party, which was fantastic. I got to see the "Garden State" part of Jersey with winding green pastures going up through increasingly dense forests to arrive at a sprawling beautiful property with a salt water pool... and an open bar... and bbq. The bride is one of my sister Tori Amos fans and presented me with both the cd I'd lent her, and a jacket from Scarlet's Walk, which means if we're the same blood type, she's owed a kidney. I think I already owe someone else my other kidney, so if both collect at the same time, I'm going to be in some serious trouble.

But, going back to psych, because what continuity? Uhhh... outpatient clinic was interesting, but not interesting in the same sense as the acute psych ward is, which was not unexpected, which is why I spent part of Tuesday sulking that I had to spend the rest of the week doing outpatient. Then I remembered that since the outpatient clinic is in Harlem, that means not having to take the Ward Island bus, which means I got to avoid things like people that stare fixedly at you for forty minutes saying "Your skirt's chocolate brown. You like chocolate brown? Melts in your mouth, not in your hand... chocolate brown... yeah.." Fantastic.

Why are there weirder people on the buses than on the subways? Well, usually.

Being at the outpatient clinic also means we spent quite a bit of time between patients no-showing and such reading charts... which sounds uninteresting until the backstory on some of the patients is revealed, which is kind of like watching true crime shows. Even saw two charts for a serious case of folie a deux, which sadly, I know about because of the X-Files. This dorkitron knowledge bank did not start with House, nor will it likely end there.