lizardinlaw's New Writeups

The Pursuit of Happiness (essay)

2009-11-23T17:30:55Z

Don't.

You aren't going to listen, are you? It is your RIGHT to pursue happiness. You have it all planned out. As soon as you finish your degree, get that job, can afford the house with the picket fence, can afford more drugs, get the big screen tv, have your hands on that new computer, get to be live in person at The Game, find your true love, are an astronaut landing on Mars, or (you fill in the blank), you will be entirely and utterly happy.

It is annoying and stupid to watch people fall for this.

My X would want something and would work on getting it. As soon as he'd get it, he'd say, "See, the new motorcycle has made me a better person." At least he was funny.

You continue to think that you can pursue happiness. Do you think you are going to…

Fuzzy Poet Doctor and the fates (idea)

2009-11-19T13:30:17Z

I am a family medicine physician well trained in Evidence Based Medicine. But sometimes I have a difficult case and my right brain takes over: TA DA! Fuzzy Poet Doctor, FPD, to the rescue. FPD is able to distract the logical left brain, knock it out and come to the patient's rescue.

This is currently my weirdest case and I have permission to write about it.

I was nearly done seeing Mrs. L and had my hand on the doorknob. Mrs L has diabetes and hypertension and heart failure and is a bit depressed and we were already over time. "Oh, by the way," she said.

I did not rip the door handle off. "Yes?" I said, hoping it wasn't chest pain. Chest pain would take another 30 minutes minimum.

"I have this friend in Arizona," she said. "She's dying. No one can figure out why. She is going to fly up here with her kids so that I can adopt them if she dies. Her ex-husband is abusive, and he can't have them."

"…

Dream Log: May 31, 2006 (dream)

2009-11-18T12:53:31Z

William Stafford's Thread

I dived in the sea
I dreamed of water
I dreamed of the ocean
stormy on the surface
untouched in the depths
with currents invisible from above
I dreamed I floated in a warm sea

Deep
It was sunny
I was not afraid
It was effortless
There was no land in sight

A rope was attached to my belly
To my center
It was thicker than my fist
A line that ties a ship to shore

I saw myself floating
The rope stretching loose and strong from me
to the bottom of the sea
Solid
Connected
Grounded

I hear of William Stafford's thread
And I remember the sun
The rope
And floating free
in the sea

Fuzzy Poet Doctor strikes again (idea)

2009-11-18T12:30:42Z

I returned to clinic after a day off.

My nurse said, "How did you know?"

"Um," I said, "About what?"

"Dr. C. wanted to know how you knew that kid had C. diff." Clostridium difficile is a bacteria that causes diarrhea and usually shows up after a course of antibiotics. You have to use a different antibiotic to get rid of it, thus proving that the universe has a sense of humor.

"Which kid?" I said, not remembering a thing.

"The 3 year old with diarrhea," said my nurse, rolling her eyes. Her expression said, if my doctor only had a brain. "Ok, when you…

Fuzzy Poet Doctor (idea)

2009-11-17T13:27:23Z

When I was a kid I assumed that everyone wanted to be a writer. Anyone who did any other job was only doing it to earn enough money to keep writing. Non-fiction was barely writing, fiction was really writing, and poetry was the highest calling.

Including nonsense poetry and "bad" poetry. Limericks, for example.

It turns out that both my grandfathers had nonsense poetry memorized and would quote it. Genetics is mysterious.

In my forties it has been forcibly borne upon me that this assumption was incorrect. Details elsewhere.

I became a doctor because I thought I had to have a career to support my writing, that is, poetry. In part because I wanted children and I am female and I knew that half of marriages ended in divorce. I figured I'd better have a damn career. Some poets have a…

November 16, 2009 (personal)

2009-11-16T12:38:27Z

I am mourning my mother.

She died nearly ten years ago.

I am thinking how difficult I must have been for her.

A month before I was born, she started coughing up blood. She was sure that she had cancer and was going to die. But it wasn't. It was active tuberculosis. I was lucky, lucky that she had hemoptysis before I was born so that they could protect me. TB is very infectious and airborne and kills new babies very nicely.

As it was, I was the first baby born in the Knoxville, Tennessee tuberculosis sanatorium in 20 years. My mother said that everyone was very excited. She was reading about the French Revolution. They drugged her to the gills for the delivery and she had nightmares about Robespierre and the guillotine and could never read about it again. She was afraid to kiss me when I was born because they had so impressed upon her that I would die if she breathed on me.

I went home with…