I do love October

It's such a great month, that awesome combination of spookiness, good weather, fall, cooking stuff with pumpkin and cinnamon in it.  That's why I skipped blogging in September, you see, just because why?  It's not October, so I kept you on edge.  That, plus I'm lazy.  And was busy while work itself was not blog-interesting.

I'm making a pizza right now, because apparently that's something I can do now.  Mad props to my current roommate, my past two roommates, and the Smitten Kitchen for getting me beyond the scrambled eggs, steak, and ramen stage of my life.  So last effort with the pizza stone was this:

Not bad, eh?

What's awesome about both having a roommate and being an adult and no longer having all your stuff in a flaming pile is you start to accumulate kitchen stuff.  So today, making a pizza consists of throwing the ingredients together that I already have (including honey and white wine) rather than running out and spending more on ingredients than it would have cost to order a pizza.

This is also an awesome effect with the liquor cabinet.  As you gradually accumulate different kinds, you can start making impressive swanky cocktails and improvising new ones.  But it takes time to build without noticing, and once you get there, you feel awesome about it.

Or maybe I do.  I don't live places long.

Reminding me, since I mentioned the fire (when don't I), September brought about the last chapter in you or I ever having to hear about it again, and let me be the first to say "At fucking last" because good lord.

So here's that story.  Right after I returned from the conference (more on that in a bit), I'm back at work for like... three days, when I get a phone call that evening, a missed call from 3 PM that afternoon.  It was the victim's advocate saying the sentencing hearing that would be at 1:30 PM the next day (less than 24 hours notice), and oh, they wouldn't be seeking restitution because the "defense wouldn't go for it."

A long time ago on this blog, I described completely losing my shit and it was in Grenada at Air Jamaica on day 10 or something of aggressively denying me my bags when my loans simultaneously hadn't processed so I had no belongings and no money, so I finally just starting banging my fist on the ticket counter like Nikita frikking Khrushchev until they got tired enough of my yelling that I followed them back into security.  (Cautionary note: Do not do this at American airports for any reason.  You'll get tazed.)  So that's me flipping out.  It's pretty uncommon.  That may have been the last time it happened.  Now I've been overemotional and cried and self destructed and been bitchy, that's normal course.  But unleashing rage?  I hate confrontation.

So yeah, I flipped out.  Since it was after hours at the solicitor's office, I left a pretty choice voicemail, got home rage-addled and sent the advocate an email, cc'd to the solicitor (our DA), etc that was about two pages of my rights, and having to deal with this constantly, and make their case for them and I was tired of it.  That I have student loans and if I call their offices and say the "defense won't go for it", they won't just wipe my records clean and asked them why a convicted felon gets more rights than anyone with a car payment.  That sort of thing.  My big thing was that I haven't gotten anyone associated with the state or with this perp or his family appearing to give half a crap about any of this, and it's galling.

The solicitor responded with wanting to meet with me a half hour before, which kind of ignored my "short notice" point, but whatever.  I spent that morning with one of my seniors aggressively researching victims rights laws and trial stuff in South Carolina, which renewed my hatred of law which is both confusing and tedious.  I never understand "Doctor or lawyer?" versus "Doctor or biological scientist" since they're really different professions.

So I head to the hearing again with an armful of manilla folders full of printed stuff and a bad attitude, and so they spend a half hour talking me down.  Say they can't force the kid to work in prison, but they can make restitution a condition of his parole.  So essentially, once he's out, if he's not actively seeking (legal) work to help pay back his debts, it's a parole violation and he gets thrown back in jail.  And I'm like "Uh yeah, that's all I asked for."

So we wait for another hearing... the LAST hearing.  At first there's some like "Oh, they may postpone it again" which pissed me off again.  But then I overhear the family's attorney saying that they have the "nice judge".  I'm like "Not the nice judge!!  Give them the judge me that gave me the speeding ticket 2 weeks after the fire.  The mean judge."

We get in, same stuff... I have the opportunity to speak first, and choke/chicken, so the only other victim to show up goes first, thank goodness.  The girl that helped me research the law stuff kept saying "No crying, no cursing, no gesticulating", so I kept reciting in my head as the closest thing I get to a prayer.

I'm introduced as "Ms. Sancho" so we're off to a super start, though the victim's advocate corrected and stood up and said "This is DOCTOR Sancho" and I'm like "That's right."  I usually don't play the D card, but this is the occasion.

So my voice shakes a little, but then I speak a bit, and I'm already charged up by the night's crap.  I talk about my stethoscope, my car, my pictures, the dog, the dead cat.  I talk about medical textbooks.  I say I've heard neither a "sorry" or a "guilty" but have to come back again and again to hear the mother wail about what a good boy he is, but that he's not.  That he's demonstrated no regret or remorse whatsoever through any of his actions, without a care for people's rights or property.

The whole time the judge is looking at me and nodding sympathetically, which helped.  It felt empowering.  She asked me if I thought our lives would have been in danger if we'd been home and I tell her absolutely yes.  That boy-roomie might have gotten out by being on the first floor but that the two girls were on the rooms off the porch and the porch caught first.  That I came back to Houston with nothing but my bags.

I think my statement made the kid's mom cry, and I can't lie; I'm kinda proud of that.  Needless to say, she didn't stand up to give the "my boy's a good boy" talk for the thousandth time.  The father stood up and said "First off, I'm sorry" to me.  Which he derailed after that about fighting for his son, and accidents and bad kids and being the fall guy, but I was like "first time anyone has apologized to me since all this started."  After this statement, the solicitor merely says that the reason the boy is "taking the fall" is because he was bragging about it all at school.  How he did it.  So much for "accident".

At that point the judge starts talking and she is not happy.  The VA leans over to me and says "The judge lives downtown".  Downtown Charleston, for what it's worth, is exquisitely flammable.  All the houses are made of heartwood pine and crammed together.  And a few years ago, there was a massive factory fire that killed a bunch of people.  So the "oops, didn't mean it" factor found *no* love.  She kept on about how lucky the defendant was that people weren't killed because he'd be tried as an adult and no one would even think about seeing him before he turned 40, and that the only reason people weren't killed was luck.  So max sentencing.  With restitution assigned on release.  No recommended camps for troubled boys or the like.

So that's it.  We won.  No more last minute hearings.  No more delays.  No more "re-victimization" as the solicitor was putting it as I kept saying I just wanted to get on with my life.  This kid got what he deserved and I even got a half assed apology out of someone related to it.

I've never felt so relieved.  I went back to work on a song, hypercharged with the conclusion of it all and went out to have oyster shooters (my first!) with some celebrants.  I cannot say how good it is, after NINE MONTHS to have this all behind me.

I'm even starting to work on a future apartment, maybe fellowship, by having handy roommate teach me how to redo furniture from craigslist and garage sales and such.  So that in the future, I can really build a home.  I also now have renters insurance along with my (now cheaper) car insurance.

Good times.

This is getting long.  And I haven't started on San Diego.  But no more fire drama right?  Hooray!!!

All right, the conference was awesome.  Naturally, we engaged in scholarly studies for the entire five days so didn't really do much outside of mingle.

 

Well, I mean you have to have some fun, right?  The conference itself was good.  I went to some awesome hematopathology lectures, schmoozed a bit with future fellowship programs, and though people weren't really much stopping for my poster, I felt like it looked really good and like we did a good job, so that was great.

The hotel was gorgeous.  The Grand Hyatt is the one that dominates a great deal of the classic San Diego skyline, and the rooms were jawdropping.  I split one with two other colleagues.

The day I got there, one of my other colleagues and my attending were already there, so we registered, grabbed lunch, and headed to a brewery on Coronado Island via ferry.  The brewery was just aiight but great view, great time.  Met up with the girls as they arrived and went barhopping through the gaslamp district.  The next day, there was a big resident mingling thing, but a friend from my school was in town, so we headed out to the beach and drank in a bunch of the Pacific.  That night our attending took a huge crowd of us (including med school friend) out to a fancy pants restaurant where I stuffed myself full of good wine and scallops because life is good.  We hit a rooftop soon after.

Sunday was quite scholarly.  I had my poster in the mid morning-afternoon session so I hit a pretty solid peripheral blood smear conference in the morning.  There was a good bone marrow lecture on in the afternoon post-poster.  I was craving good Mexican food because I haven't had any in at least five years, so yelp helped me find a decent dive with amazing burritos so we hit it for lunch on Monday between conferences.  Tuesday, we hit a morning conference and a couple of us headed for the zoo, because come on, it's San Diego.  Apparently not only can you drink around the zoo, but they have microbrews because California is awesome.  Californian microbrews usually aren't awesome, but these weren't local.  Sorry Cali; your wine's still good.  At some point we ended up back on Coronado Island having strangely authentic NYC pizza despite looking like "Sbarros by the sea" but apparently they import their water.  Hooray snobbiness!

Wednesday was check out, so the entire trip was just a funly educational whirlwind, but what a great time.  Gotta do the conference thing more often.

What else?  I'm back on surgical pathology.  This may be where some of you recall my having a nervous breakdown last year and contemplating quitting everything because I felt unbelievably stupid.

I feel much more confident this time around, which is fortunate, because we've had a whole new software implemented to control everything and it is working *terribly*.  It's eliminating all of our paperwork, so now slides are going to the wrong people, slides are coming out super late, we're having to stalk specimens, and getting reports dropped.  So the last week has been hideous, busy, and stressful, but now that it's do to external sources than my own crushing insecurity, I feel okay with myself and my lot.  I'm getting interested in my specimens now that I understand more about them and feel like I might be a good pathologist.  Which is a great feeling.  We'll see if that dissolves into existential angst in the next couple of weeks.  Heh.

Well, welcome back readers.  Hope you're having an amazing October. :)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

I'm pilgrimming to Savannah tomorrow for what I'm told is an incredible celebration, and most importantly, I made these:

I got the recipe from here which is an adaptation off the Smitten Kitchen.

Pretty much it's an Irish car bomb shot that's been made into a cupcake. More significantly, *I* cooked. Which I can't generally, but I've been on phase 45 of trying to become a grown up at the tender age of 31 and eat something that hasn't come out of the hands of a delivery boy or out of a microwave or through my car's window.

And I get to see New York friends again! Which is super awesome.

Other news:

The fire: I replaced my fabulous alligator head purse which I loved so much and feel a little more complete.

I attended another hearing for the little shit that started all this and this time got to see him, look him in the eye, and tell him what he did. Heard his mother talk about his neighborhood and how he wasn't a bad child even though he's already committed a decent smattering of felonies and misdemeanors without being beaten to death. I love my mom, but somewhere between larceny and assault, I would have concerned myself with finding and recovering tooth fragments rather than progressing to arson. Not that she beat me, because I didn't give her a compelling enough reason to do so, because I knew better. Anyhoo, the next hearing was waved and next step is a trial, so I don't have to worry about it for a while and getting to say "This is what you did" in a court and have people listen to me for a change felt a lot like closure.

I feel comfortably settled into my new life. My roommate's dog is hating me me less. My car is awesome, shuttled me to and from Maryland last weekend without incident, and tempts me every time I shift into first gear to really rev the engines and let it run, but I'm trying to behave myself for the sake of my greatly inflated insurance rates.

Work: Pretty not bad. Autopsy is calming; I like the attendings, and I'm beginning to not feel like a complete idiot. The heart used to panic me since there's a whole process for it and it's usually what kills someone, and now I can teach it to med students so they can cut it shakingly while I watch. I can toss stuff off while I'm dissecting. Here's the conduction system; here's the substantia nigra; what's the significance of it? Why don't you see it in babies? This is a pulmonary embolism. This is a postmortem blood clot. This is how you can tell. Do you remember the liens of Zahn?

I still feel an odd sense of fascination about the snapshot of a person we get from their personal effects. Especially since the police usually take wallet and phone (and guns and such) so no picture, no identification, just.. cough drop wrappers. A crack pipe. A penny. A photo. Fifty dollars and a gap coupon. A handful of tree leaves and branches from where they died. When someone's tried to help, the sequella of events is extremely clear, the laryngeal edema from the endotracheal tube, bruises on the chest, the rib and sternal fractures, the punctures all over from rapid indelicate IV attempts. The battle scars of the good Samaritan.

A word of advice though, which I reserve for myself a lot. It's never as bad as you think it is. Tomorrow will always be better when you've had time to process it. The idea that you're going to "show someone" you're fighting with and teach them a lesson either leads to you hurting someone who cares about you or killing yourself over someone who doesn't. Just sleep on it. The bridge or the gun or the chainsaw or the pills will always be there tomorrow, so why be hasty about it? No one will ever find you? Of course they will. And it won't be as bones or a memory. It'll be bloated and stinking and that's the legacy you'll leave to a room full of people that refer to you by a number. So therapy and some perspective guys; just saying.

More than you wanted to know about autopsies

Hola amigos. Autopsy's been pretty crazy this last week. There's an interesting split in pathology because there's more than one type of autopsy. There are baby autopsies, forensic autopsies, and medical autopsies. The babies tend to involve perinatal circumstances so more to find out why something went down either before birth but after 20 weeks gestation, or right after birth, and hopefully find something to give the parents some idea of how likely it is to happen again.

Forensic autopsies are what everyone things pathologists exclusively do, and also, people think they encompass way less than they do. Essentially, if you don't die in the hospital, you get a forensic autopsy. Homicides, the famous one, but suicides, car accidents, bike accidents, pedestrian accidents, old people found at home, boaters found in rivers, etc. Full spectrum. When you're not the lead on these cases, they're actually less of a pain in the butt then people would expect since mail off labs are the ones that have to do the extremely slow version of all that CSI stuff.

Medical autopsies are the ones that are most important to the residents, and constitute the most paperwork. They give you a benefit over forensic autopsies because you have all the hospital paperwork at your disposal. Unlike most forensic autopsies though, this complicates the course because people in hospitals don't tend to die of really straightforward things. So... what killed this person? Cardiac arrhythmias are a particular headache. If it's not caught on a monitor, we can't demonstrate it happened. An MI will leave evidence (sometimes) but the arrhythmia it triggers? Not so much. We were given a handout describing death not as a loss of structure, but of function, and since we get them after the cease of function, it can be something of a mystery.

An added aspect to medicals is unlike with forensics, unless the forensic has a really medical-ly component to it, is we have to explain it to their clinicians AND families in a write up. This is difficult. Laymen understand why getting crushed by a truck causes death. They do not generally know what an amniotic fluid embolism is, why their mortality rate is so high, why doctors couldn't really do anything about it, and what the mechanism of death is, all without using words like "disseminated intravascular coagulopathy", and I have to explain it without being callous. And cite references.

But it's all good, and ultimately, way less stressful than surgical pathology. My attendings are super cool, and one of them caused me to discover an autopsy scully doll that I didn't know existed, and sparked my long dormant desire (coupled with Slappy mailing me a Scully action figure to replace the one burned by a fire, and yes I am a complete dork) to collect X-Files things. I'm trying to temper it with a more normal grown up habit like buying nice shoes or purses, but damn that stuff is expensive. I feel like a yuppie tool every time I pay 80 bucks for running shoes (worth it) but I saw a pair of Gucci boots that I liked decently online and they were 1100 dollars. Noooooo.

What else... Oh! People have been sending me pictures! See???

My nudibranch from Monterey!

Grenada hash!

The Alps!!!

Soooo awesome. Great to have memories back.

Jean Grey is reborn as...

This is Phoenix. She's my new ride.

This is Dexter. He was my old ride. As you know.

Truth be told, though it kind of feels like I'm cheating on Dexter, I think I like Phoenix better. I thought I'd be fine with an automatic transmission, considering how absolutely adamant I was about not learning to drive a manual until I was in my 20s, but manuals are SO much fun to drive. Additionally, my go to car for a very long time was a 2001 Hyundai Accent that survived until my third year of medical school, though I didn't use it for any of my med school time. And it was a manual, and Phoenix is also a Hyundai Accent, albeit a 2010 model with more features, but the response is exactly like my old car only a little punchier. Also, lights and trunk latches and such.

But Dexter was my first. First new car ever, first financing ever, first total loss/gap insurance payoff.

Let me tell you, if you ever finance a car, get frigging gap insurance. I would have been paying a thousand extra dollars on a car I no longer own because a hoodrat burned it down.

Right, the fire... so... new update. Yes, it was in fact arson. Said arson was committed by a 14 year old boy who was attempting to fight the squatters next door for some giant I-don't-give-a-f*** reason, and when they didn't emerge (because they weren't there), he set their house on fire very deliberately, which subsequently spread to everything else.

As a doctor, I feel like I should understand environmental pressures, along with conduct disorder and other things that create this sort of... child. I know the inevitable progression to Antisocial Personality Disorder in adulthood and all sorts of organic biological nonsense. I get it.

Problem being? I don't care. I lack empathy for the unempathetic. Does that make sense? If you are schizophrenic, and the voices tell you that the girl on the subway is the devil threatening humanity and you murder her to save humanity, you certainly need to be locked up and heavily medicated, but to some extent, I understand that you meant well and you have a demonstrable chemical imbalance that is both putting crazy things into your head WHILE giving you a bonus lack of insight into your own condition. It isn't who you are, and before the disease took you in your teens or twenties, you had a whole other person you were before your dopamine levels went tits up. Got it. And I sympathize. I don't want to be on the subway with you, but I sympathize.

The axis II stuff, the personality disorders, it's harder. The person's bastardry is a part of who they are. When you take the schizophrenia away from a schizophrenic, they're a normal person. When you take the antisocial personality disorder away from a person, you're removing a key part of who they are, which is a jerk. When I did my psych rotation, I could deal with crackheads, gang members, and bipolarity but the antisocial personality disorder people were just GARGGGHHH. And the attempts to manipulate into their own worldview, double GARGGGHHH. I can't take it, and for some reason, the same function that allows me to forgive other behavior just doesn't extend to people who are incapable of being able to have a basic sense of empathy.

So I became a pathologist instead of a psychiatrist, because it's very difficult to treat your patients if you hate them.

The hearing was today. My colleagues, who have already been wonderful, made sure I was covered so I could go. I got a call on Friday from first the fire chief, and then the SC equivalent to the DA that started with "We have you listed as the owner of one of the cars that was damaged?" And I was like "Um... that's kind of an understatement", so I told her our side, and she emphasized that she wanted to see us at the hearing, and I forwarded her all the pictures I took of our home and Dexter, which seemed to make her happy. I thought it was just going to be my roommates and I but there were at least 15 victims of this nonsense, including our landlord, who at the end of all this was like "Oh, I owe you guys your security deposits", which was nice.

We can't name names, obviously. A juvenile hearing is a bit like a bail hearing, except no money in kiddie cases, so it's whether he can be under "house arrest" with his parents (no) or stay in juvie (yes). The fact that this was a possibility made me choke on my coffee, but turns out I should have had a little more faith in the state, because even his lawyer didn't put up any kind of a fight to get him out. I never saw him though; he waived his right to be at his hearing, but his parents were there, and refused to look at any of us. He's likely going to be locked up until the trial, and I'm guessing he's not going anywhere after that. The prosecution passed some of my pictures up to the judge.

I feel an odd sense of closure. I'm not sure whether I should blame general perceptions of the government on the media with the idea that if you're under 18, you can torch half a block and go home to your xbox, but I was actually impressed and feel like justice will be served and all without my having to put on Christian Bale's growly voice and patrol the streets. Which is good, because I can't fight for crap.

Friday was a really bad day for me. It started waking up from a nightmare, as many of the nights this last week have, and then I got lost on my new way to work, causing me to be 15 minutes late to lecture despite leaving well in time, had a bunch of stuff go down on complicated cases at work, and then my insurance company called to say my settlement would be minus a thousand dollars and my rental car was up on Wednesday. This was also the day I learned that the fire was arson. Honestly, before that I felt strangely fine. Nightmare ridden and dyspeptic, since doctors are the kings and queens of somatization, but fine. Friday, the combination of the end of the comfort zone of driving around in a rented Chevy Impala and the new information that this was a motivated attack gave me a full dose of rage-a-hol, which was hard to try to keep under wraps, especially with everyone at the hospital being so wonderful.

And it's gotta be confusing to them.
Day 1: Hey colleague! Funny story, my house burned down, still need a roommate?
Day 2: Thanks for the pick up from the airport! Red wine and Incredible Hulk? Hooray! Look at this awesome bed!
Day 3: Wow, coworkers, this support is amazing! How am I doing? Fine. Nope, haven't seen the house.
Day 4: Yup, saw the house. Nah, figured from the pictures nothing was left anyway. I got a computer and can watch Dexter again!
Day 5-6: Springing Dexter from the junkyard! Wow, look how damaged he is!
Day 7-9: Doop doop, surge path, hmm, not so bad! I'm having fun! I feel like I'm getting it this time around!
Day 10: (*&(*&)(*&@(*&(*!! ******* BURNED MY HOUSE DOWN RAWRRRRRRRR

Friday night, I saw female former-roommate for the first time since the fire, and we drank margaritas and her boyfriend gave me the third season of Arrested Development, because he's awesome at gift-giving and likes to demonstrate it. Seeing them helped a lot. Saturday, I decided to turn my misanthropic bend to the positive of using it to intimidate car dealers since the Wednesday of rental car expiration is not a good day to car shop, nor is it ever a good idea to do your shopping on a day that you're desperate.

So I went to a few dealerships, and test drove a few cars. The dealership where I bought Phoenix had a 2009 Nissan Versa with a hatchback and a stick shift, which was kind of my final opportunity to revitalize Dexter and remake him in an image I actually initially wanted, but were too expensive and not available, respectively. It was even black. But the response was a little sluggish and no features, including no auxillary jack, which is a dumb thing that is critically important to me since five minutes without my iphone causes me to cry uncontrollably and chew my elbows.

I had finally settled on Phoenix as "a car I like and I'm tired of dealerships", which had a price on the window that was hilarious, particularly since someone mentioned in front of me having trouble moving it off the lot because no one wants manual transmission anymore. Dealer fail 101. States he "might be able to come down a little on it".

I'm usually a people pleaser. I don't to offend people or have them be mad at me, which to people selling anything, puts me in a sort of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo position (how's that for graphic imagery?). Fortunately, Friday left me in a state of pissed-offery and the fire taught me to spurn strong attachments to any material item, PLUS I hate shopping and was being forced to do this again, so I rode into Saturday with a rampaging chip on my shoulder. Which is a plus if you're buying a car. Which seemed to carry across, such that he was like "So, you're not from Charleston?" since Charleston is billed as a polite city. I pulled the Brooklyn card, neglecting to mention that I lived in high-gentrification Brooklyn for two years and moved there when I was 29 so it gives me absolutely no objective excuse to be an asshole. I can even fake the accent. I can also fake a Caribbean accent, but it's harder to sell people on. And it's not like my home state of California is known for having manners.

I also don't think I was a lot of fun for them. They kept doing that "Excited about getting a new car???" thing, and I was like "Not really."

I also fortunately have the Kelley Blue Book application on my phone. So I'm idly tapping away on it while he's talking (HIGHLY RUDE) about the car's features. Because I'm entering them one by one. So he finishes, and I turn the phone around and slide it over to him because its "excellent" condition for the same car with the same mileage is 1500 dollars less.

I frigging love technology.

We don't need no water... wait, yes we do

F*** indeed, neighbor.

Went to the scene today and chatted with some of the neighbors, including, I believe, the one that took this video, so we have some record of stuff.

Long story short, absolutely nothing left. I was captivated by the sound of the broken glass and tinder crunching under my new boots. My closet, I was told, fell outward, which sparked a brief hope of finding my bedbug costume, and one of my displaced neighbors, Superman, as we all call him, started climbing through the collapsed stuff to pick through the things that looked like clothes. Half of a pair of jeans, I think.

Lots of people were driving by to loiter, and I didn't really mind that, because it's probably what I would do. I gawked at the house on Rutledge that burned earlier this year. I took some pictures of my place just for the hell of it, not because I think I really need to document anything. But one of the landlords from across the street saw me and the neighbor and were like "do you live nearby?" and I'm like "I'm the third roommate". "Ohh... Was yours the red car? It was a trooper." "No, mine was the black nissan." "Oh... It exploded." "I know." "Do you have a place to go?" "Yup."

I went to the hospital today, one, because one of my attendings kept insisting that I do so, and two, because in an amazing show of foresight, I kept some of my insurance paperwork there, and the degree of support and concern was amazing and humbling. I've only been at my residency for six months but everyone rallied. I got hugs and offers and even though I immediately called a friend needing a roommate as soon as I heard, people were all "Where is she staying" and eager to make sure I wasn't sleeping in a Red Cross shelter. Despite everything, I feel really lucky.

I think that's one of the keys in a residency program too. Not "Who will hug me if my house and car burn down" because that is an oddly specific question to ask at the pre-interview dinner, but just how close knit a program is makes a huge difference in overall happiness. Our department has happy hours, parties, and an open door policy that nurtures an environment where someone could come home from vacation with nothing and find everything she could hope for, to get back on her feet, within her program's walls.

Family has also been absolutely amazing. Getting the news was surreal, and occurred around the small cousins, and it's difficult to know how to react in any appropriate fashion since presumably singing four letter words in the major and minor scales is not recommended for the TV-Y crew. I was helped out, taken shopping, given clothes, and perhaps really importantly, distracted so I couldn't dwell on it.

I'm safe and sound tonight back in Charleston. Things are moving along; I'm trying to release my car to the insurance company and get a lease agreement moving along. Good times.

Eulogy for Dexter

I realized I didn't post a picture of Dex in his prime of life, so here's one of his death. He's behind the mini cooper, who is also totaled.

He was a nice car. He delivered me to Maryland without murdering me and synced my ipod really well. He died in a blaze of glory that was dripped from my house, which was undergoing its own blaze of glory. RIP Dexter. Flights of angels, and the like.

A funny thing happened while I was in Houston...

My house burned down. And the car out front.

As ya do. As they say.

I'm not entirely sure what the proper response is. I'm trying for the dark humor. The "fire sale". The "blackened fish tacos". Everything I own is gone. My new car is gone. The roommate's dog, whom I love, is safe. No one is hurt. But there is decent coverage on all of Charleston's news outlets, that show my home, and everything I own, save the suitcases I have in Houston, up in flames. My neighbors talking about how hard it is on them, because the firefighters evacuated them before saving *their* homes. Not mine. There's only so much they can do. By the news report, I'm the "fifth person", after the Red Cross helped four, who is "out of town", as the news reporter says, "thank goodness". As do I.

I have family. I have friends. I have a general worthlessness to the things I owned. A Wii my mom got me. A regifted futon. An Ikea dresser I got in New York. A computer that was already on the fritz. A brand new car that was engulfed in the front. But I have friends, I have family. I have a job and a place to stay. I have a roommate's big sloppy dog that's not dead. I have... I don't know... a fresh start? It's not a fresh start. It's a charred start that hurts when I think of the emotional losses. The med school diploma. The pictures from Prague. The episodes of hell, Dexter, the show that named my car, who's dripping melted plastic in a parking garage downtown. My external hard drive. I had a flashing minute, before I left for Houston, where I thought "I should put that in my file drawer at the hospital" before I thought "nahhhh, what could happen". The blackmail photos of my roommate and my friends in New York. It's done.

I'm in Houston. I'm not sure what the response is. I'm not sure how I should feel about the arsonist speculation (which I don't really believe) and they claims to my insurance company. I'm moving in with someone I really like. But I feel odd; I feel disconnected. I feel like never going back to pick through the condemned wreckage to see if I can find the necklace I bought in Venezuela, the luck dragon my boyfriend and I got in Chinatown when I was hammered, that I used as a puppet to order tickets to a midnight showing of the Dark Crystal, the few bills of Costa Rican money, my checks that couldn't spell "Union Street" correctly.

Is stuff important? I don't know. I've moved so many times. I frequently joke that every time I move, I want to pile up everything I own and light it on fire, and now that job's been done for me. When I talked to the claims guy for my car, he says "Is your address still on Nunan Street?" and I say "Not anymore" because it's not. The CAT-AT in our living room, the life sized Anakin Skywalker that scared the shit out of the roommate. The fridge with the door that would never close. I'm moved with a suitcase to a nice apartment in West Ashley with a new, different dog and a new roommate and a new life in the same city.

I packed a bunch of my clothes to Houston because I had to check a bottle of port for Christmas. More than I would normally. Dress clothes. An electric blanket.

I don't have scrubs. Those stupid throwaway pieces of cloth the hospital provides us, but we have to return them to the machine to get them back and mine are burned.

But stay tuned for us on the news. We're top billing. They don't know our names or the dog's name, or if the cat I never liked is alive. But they know about the smoke that actually changed the city skyline for a while, the neighbors that were so horrified by our loss, the possibility of the Arsonist At Large, or if you're me, more probably, the Squatters That Were Cooking.

Can I just stay in Houston?