It's crazy time for me.
I'm back in grad school, Nick is on a college trip with his grandfather. He's going to visit Sewanee. One of my favorite people at church went to Sewanee. George Holleran. He's a retired history teacher. He has a daughter that looks and talks like Gracie Allen. He has a wife who is one of the most beautiful fat women I have ever seen in my life. She radiates purity and goodness. I don't know how else to put this. Her skin is translucent and she has short grey curly hair and when I see her I always feel like the world isn't so bad after all.
When I was putting myself through nursing school, I worked as math grader for standardized tests. George had fought a winning battle with terminal liver cancer (ha! they were wrong!), had quit his job as a history teacher at a local boarding school, and was grading tests with me. It was a great job. Everyone I worked with was really smart, but they were all screwy in some way. Some of them were leftist activists who were trying to support their ummm...activities, some were bored housewives, some were students, some were retired, some were zen monks, some were working on their novels...an eclectic, smart bunch. Multi-racial, multi-aged. Since there was no hope for promotion, there were no politics. We were all there only because we were all smart. When there are no politics, no one is careful about what they say, and the lunchtime discussions would get pretty heated and interesting. It was interesting! It was like being in my freshman dorm in college again. I brought a badminton set and set that up in the empty field behind the warehouse where we all worked, and we would play that, too, and yell at each other. That's where I heard all about Sewanee and decided it might do for Nick.
Maybe if we're all poverty stricken, our national conversations will get liberated. Maybe that's a good thing.
So he and my dad set off yesterday. I got a call at Lilly's tennis match (she won--don't ask me how. Lilly plays tennis like the ball has just appeared like a magical object in front of her--Poof! Look! A fairy! Boink!) My mom showed up and watched her. "She looks exactly like Jackie Kennedy in her tennis whites--that is until she starts to play. Then I don't know what the hell she looks like." Lilly joined the tennis team expressly for the dress, and, I hate to say this, but it really shows. "Why are you both giggling?" she asks us, midway through the match. "No reason."
So, off Nick goes. Raising kids is hard. We watched Elena last night, Jay and I. It was fun, but then we had to drop her off with Hali, who was sitting in the organic restaurant, looking beautiful. She ignored me, talked to Jay about the photographs on the wall, which are by some mutual friend of theirs from their couple days, quizzed him extensively about what Elena had eaten (christ) and then looked at me, "Hello, Haley, how are you doing?" like I'm the fucking nanny.
She's in the pretty mommy/nice little girl accessory phase of motherhood. Just wait. Maybe she'll never get out of it. Dangerous.
What do you raise children for? What is the purpose of education? You raise them to function in their society, to be productive and responsible in the most quotidian sense. They can't find happiness unless they can participate to some extent in the goals of the culture to which they are born, but you also raise them with an eye to the eternal. You also try to find that seed of soul, that part of the heart that is beyond parents and city blocks and homework assignments, and clear space for it and say--this is outside of it all. This will save you. I want my children to be carpenters with the soul and consolations of the artist. I want them to be able to lose all their money, step outside the bank, and still love the turning leaf on the tree. I want them to succeed at it all in some measure, but I want them to know that it is not really important if they do or don't.
I try to give them the tools to do this. I think a liberal arts education is key, and then, I don't care what they do after that. You grow the spirit, open the mind, then your labor is informed.
Money, money, money, money.
If only it didn't buy so god damn much.
What's that funny movie, Our Man Godfrey. "Money, money, money, money, money," Don't let it get you down. WAMU just folded. Of course, that's credit card I actually paid off. Why can't Chase collapse? Lose my debt....fantasies.
OK. This post was pretty random. Got to get back to my research proposal.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Doctors and Nurses
It's the most beautiful fall day.
School started three weeks ago. I went back to graduate school. I have discovered that the best way to be at peace about my messy house is simply not to be in it.
This works on 2 levels: 1)If you're not in it, you don't see the fuzz and cat hair on the rugs or smell the dogs. Since you're not in it, you can't do anything with your precious study time--like vacuum or do laundry. 2)If you're not in it, you also can't mess it up.
We'll see how this works. I don't know. I've been getting up early in the morning and running while the kids are getting ready for school. Lilly is making peanut butter and yogurt and fruit smoothies (these are a lot better than they sound) for breakfast. Then, if we're running early, we take the bus into town and Lilly goes to school and I go to the library. All day. If there's a yoga class in the middle of the day, I hit that, but pretty much I'm just parking myself there for 8-9 hours. So far, I'm not behind on anything...but I don't really feel on top of anything either. After school, I belong to the family and the schoolwork can just go hang itself. Except for Tuesday. Tuesday, my instructor has scheduled some god damn mandatory class chat, which is a huge fucking pain in the ass. There was also no help from the school in finding preceptors, so I've spent a lot of precious study time cold calling--something I thought I left behind when I went from PR/sales to nursing.
Don't tell me we're all salespeople. Sales culture sucks. It's so desperate and grinning and anti-intellectual. Sales culture has ruined this country. It's dulled our senses and veiled our hearts. There's a place for the market--sure--but the market shouldn't be in your heart or psyche.
I finally found two preceptors. One is my doctor. She's from Belize. Her name is Dr. Pitney. The other is Elizabeth Crane, a nurse practitioner. You can't imagine two more different women...doing basically the same tasks.
Dr. Pitney is small, black, with a British accent, and a little bit of a lisp. (Thywoid for thyroid, for example). She is absolutely correct, all the time. Correct in the social sense--she doesn't always have to be right. The limits of our relationship are very clearly delineated. I arrive in her waiting room and she comes and gets me when she's ready. When she has paperwork, that is my tacit signal to go someplace out of the way and study. I can only come during the morning one day a week. If a medical student needs her, they will have priority. She doesn't talk very much to me, and she seems unsure of my training. For example, she taught me about bowel sounds today. I felt like laughing. I mean, I'm a trauma nurse. I assess patients all the time. That's okay. She was kind enough to give me clinical hours. She never talks about the patients outside the room to either her staff or to me unless it's to discuss their clinical picture. That's it. No judgement. Bad or good. She's also imperturbable. While she was assessing a two year-old today, his four year-old brother kept hitting her leg with his coloring book. She utterly ignored it. She listens impassively, stays clinically focused. Lets the patient talk. Doesn't interrupt. Dresses conservatively, but with a little "african" touch--she always has something--today she wore a black and white skirt with a tribal print. Last week she had hair extension dreds. A cowrie shell necklass with a St. John suit. It's interesting--it's her only sort of personal touch. I like it. No make-up. Why don't female doctors wear make-up?
Elizabeth Crane, on the other hand, is a whole different story. She's my age, maybe a year older, and she's pretty but she's really let the sun do a number on her skin. She looks like Kim Basinger, only 40 pounds heavier and with bad feet. She's a little stooped (because, Christ, she's been laboring as a nurse all these years) and she has short frosted hair--frosted the way we all frosted our hair in 1983. She wears scrubs--the pants and the jacket--not the tunic top--generally over a grey ribbed tank top that shows her slightly leathered, but still generous and attractive cleavage. Like most nurses (like me) she's got a saint's medal resting there. Her mascara's a little clotted and she talks and moves non-stop. Fast. She tells me every part of her reasoning process, pulling things out from patient's charts at a dizzying speed--("See? back in July, she had another UTI--and there was blood in the urine, but it was her period--so big whoop--oh christ. Delbert's out in the waiting room? Tell him he needs to make an appointment like everybody else--so now she's back UTI blood in the pee--way bigger deal--find a lot of bladder tumors that way--No, Claire! I'm not coming out! Jesus Christ....) Dr. Pitney saw 8 patients. Elizabeth saw 15. Elizabeth let me eat lunch--called me ahead of time and told me not to bother bringing it ("pharmaceutical reps bring us lunch almost every day") There was lunch at Dr. Pitney's office, but I was very firmly dismissed to my own reconnaissance.
Interesting.
Well, that's my 1/2 hour.
School started three weeks ago. I went back to graduate school. I have discovered that the best way to be at peace about my messy house is simply not to be in it.
This works on 2 levels: 1)If you're not in it, you don't see the fuzz and cat hair on the rugs or smell the dogs. Since you're not in it, you can't do anything with your precious study time--like vacuum or do laundry. 2)If you're not in it, you also can't mess it up.
We'll see how this works. I don't know. I've been getting up early in the morning and running while the kids are getting ready for school. Lilly is making peanut butter and yogurt and fruit smoothies (these are a lot better than they sound) for breakfast. Then, if we're running early, we take the bus into town and Lilly goes to school and I go to the library. All day. If there's a yoga class in the middle of the day, I hit that, but pretty much I'm just parking myself there for 8-9 hours. So far, I'm not behind on anything...but I don't really feel on top of anything either. After school, I belong to the family and the schoolwork can just go hang itself. Except for Tuesday. Tuesday, my instructor has scheduled some god damn mandatory class chat, which is a huge fucking pain in the ass. There was also no help from the school in finding preceptors, so I've spent a lot of precious study time cold calling--something I thought I left behind when I went from PR/sales to nursing.
Don't tell me we're all salespeople. Sales culture sucks. It's so desperate and grinning and anti-intellectual. Sales culture has ruined this country. It's dulled our senses and veiled our hearts. There's a place for the market--sure--but the market shouldn't be in your heart or psyche.
I finally found two preceptors. One is my doctor. She's from Belize. Her name is Dr. Pitney. The other is Elizabeth Crane, a nurse practitioner. You can't imagine two more different women...doing basically the same tasks.
Dr. Pitney is small, black, with a British accent, and a little bit of a lisp. (Thywoid for thyroid, for example). She is absolutely correct, all the time. Correct in the social sense--she doesn't always have to be right. The limits of our relationship are very clearly delineated. I arrive in her waiting room and she comes and gets me when she's ready. When she has paperwork, that is my tacit signal to go someplace out of the way and study. I can only come during the morning one day a week. If a medical student needs her, they will have priority. She doesn't talk very much to me, and she seems unsure of my training. For example, she taught me about bowel sounds today. I felt like laughing. I mean, I'm a trauma nurse. I assess patients all the time. That's okay. She was kind enough to give me clinical hours. She never talks about the patients outside the room to either her staff or to me unless it's to discuss their clinical picture. That's it. No judgement. Bad or good. She's also imperturbable. While she was assessing a two year-old today, his four year-old brother kept hitting her leg with his coloring book. She utterly ignored it. She listens impassively, stays clinically focused. Lets the patient talk. Doesn't interrupt. Dresses conservatively, but with a little "african" touch--she always has something--today she wore a black and white skirt with a tribal print. Last week she had hair extension dreds. A cowrie shell necklass with a St. John suit. It's interesting--it's her only sort of personal touch. I like it. No make-up. Why don't female doctors wear make-up?
Elizabeth Crane, on the other hand, is a whole different story. She's my age, maybe a year older, and she's pretty but she's really let the sun do a number on her skin. She looks like Kim Basinger, only 40 pounds heavier and with bad feet. She's a little stooped (because, Christ, she's been laboring as a nurse all these years) and she has short frosted hair--frosted the way we all frosted our hair in 1983. She wears scrubs--the pants and the jacket--not the tunic top--generally over a grey ribbed tank top that shows her slightly leathered, but still generous and attractive cleavage. Like most nurses (like me) she's got a saint's medal resting there. Her mascara's a little clotted and she talks and moves non-stop. Fast. She tells me every part of her reasoning process, pulling things out from patient's charts at a dizzying speed--("See? back in July, she had another UTI--and there was blood in the urine, but it was her period--so big whoop--oh christ. Delbert's out in the waiting room? Tell him he needs to make an appointment like everybody else--so now she's back UTI blood in the pee--way bigger deal--find a lot of bladder tumors that way--No, Claire! I'm not coming out! Jesus Christ....) Dr. Pitney saw 8 patients. Elizabeth saw 15. Elizabeth let me eat lunch--called me ahead of time and told me not to bother bringing it ("pharmaceutical reps bring us lunch almost every day") There was lunch at Dr. Pitney's office, but I was very firmly dismissed to my own reconnaissance.
Interesting.
Well, that's my 1/2 hour.
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