City of New Orleans

Went to see District 9. It was really good. At least I think it's good. It held my attention from the first frame. And I liked that the creatures were made to be so repulsive, so that there was a real emotional journey the audience had to make in order to find them sympathetic. Much the same thing happens with my patients. At first they're overwhelmingly horrific, but then I get to know them, and their humanity pokes through--or rather, mine does. I seem to lack a heart. What I mean by this, is that my empathy does not kick in automatically. I am almost always repulsed initially. I have to talk to myself, to make my patients into stories. I describe them to myself as if I were reading about them in a book..."He lay there--the ET tube had twisted and was pulling at his mouth which was covered in herpetic blisters brought on by the stress of his condition" and then I think--"Jesus, I'd better fix the ET tube." This is a constant practice. I "write" every inch of my patients to myself this way--and then I nurse them. But I don't do it automatically, which shames me. Wiz does it automatically. The great nurses do. I have to break it down...I want to be nice, but I'm not nice. I always have to think, "what would a nice person do in this situation?" And then I do it. But I'd mostly rather be reading a book. Lilly and Nick have both told me they feel this way, too. Does everybody, I wonder? I think maybe a lot of people do. Religious practice is exactly that--practice. Church services held once a week, mass every morning. We need to be reminded. We need to renew our vows to each other, every day.

I dropped Nick off at Loyola a week and a half ago. New Orleans. A strangely empty city. But it feels like she's growing. She doesn't feel dead. Loyola is in the Garden District, and I liked its noble, underdog feel. Its gingerbread peeling red brick ramparts next to solid, rich old grey Tulane. The Jesuit ideals of Social Justice embedded in the paving stones outside the library...the flowering trees, Audubon park with its shady live oaks (I guess?) and ibis. Girls in blue plaid skirts and long straight gleaming hair. And the streetcars! I really loved the streetcars. Walked around, thought about my old lost friend Barry Gifford. He was right, it felt a lot like the Grove. I sent him a letter before we went, but it was returned "unable to forward" Probably for the best. Nick and I took the train--the City of New Orleans. Coach. From Carbondale, Il. We sat in a bar waiting for 1:30am, watching two men in french cuffs and a very drunk, plump, red haired girl in an expensive black dress.
"Never trust anyone in french cuffs." I told Nick. "There is no need for any normal American male to ever, ever wear them unless they are planning to take advantage of you." The bar-owner, a man named Tip, dressed entirely in a carhart jumpsuit, first distrusted us (we were carrying all our things, including pillows, in a cart,like homeless people), then liked us (I ordered Bauchant), even walking us down the tracks to the Amtrak station once the bar closed--we knew where it was, but, as my grandmother always said, it is wise to let people be kind to you when they want to. Never know when you'll have to hang out in Carbondale.

Home, I discovered that I suddenly wanted every thing clean. With a toothbrush.

Saturday, Wiz calls me over. He was clerking. We are short staffed, and doing more with less. So the nurses are clerking. Dangerous.

"Sit."
I sat.
He looks at me with his blue-yellow lizard eyes. "Patton, you need to find a way to deal with your children growing up that does not involve disinfectant, a toothbrush, and a green scrubby. You're taking the wax off the floors. Look."
The floor is polka-dotted with white spots. Hundreds. Where I've cleaned, I've left the floor cleaner than the surrounding tiles. And I cleaned the chairs, and the rubber areas around the sink. And the venetian blinds in the patient's rooms. And the computers. And I took care of my patients--exquisitely, I might add.
"No one trusts medical care in a hospital with dirty floors."
"True."
We're silent.
"Ahh, the deafening silence of reality." He says.
"It's not about Nick. I just want every thing clean."
"Passages by Gail Sheehy. That would be a good book for you." He muses.
"Don't go all soft on me."
"I am nothing like you think I am." He tells me.
"Neither am I." I reply.
That's my 1/2 hour.