What I do When I'm Drunk

Had clinicals in the city at Farmer Sinai, the big megalith hospital complex there. Got up at 4am. For once I had everything laid out correctly. The only thing I forgot was a second sweater for Wednesday. Drove like a bat out of hell across the rolling farmland as the sun broke over the winter fields. I like driving. I do math problems to keep my mind going, and I pretend I'm racing every car I see. Since I got back from Florida, I haven't turned the radio on. It makes me feel more engaged with what I'm doing, the silence. Like I'm back in the kayak.

I really miss the kayak.

Farmer is like my hospital, only on steroids. 15,000 employees. They're kind of high on themselves, with good reason. And they really have a place for and understand the role of advanced practice nursing--something we're behind here at the University.

But, as I get more immersed there, I find myself becoming really proud of my unit. We really function like a well-oiled little machine--and we do it with less money and less administrative support. For example, our pressure ulcer rates are far, far below Farmer's trauma unit, and our skin care team is made of volunteers. Their patients are as acute, but for different reasons--but someone who's had a tractor roll over them is pretty similar to someone who's had a Lexus roll over them. They had a map on the wall showing the area they covered for Trauma, and I felt like taking out my magic marker and correcting it--because it covered ours--and that's not true. But there are some ideas I'm stealing and bringing back to my people. I like that the nurses don't have to wear a uniform at Farmer--they just wear scrub pants--the ones that look like cargo pants--and tee shirts. Some of them wear hoodies. They all look like me at work--messy and skinny. They also are paid better and don't have to work every weekend and they belong to a union.

Jay picked me up after clinicals. He had some editing to do at the studio he uses in the City. We went to his cameraman's, Bloom, house for drinks. That's when the drinking started. Bloom's apartment was beautiful--shiny, clean--like a grown-up's apartment! Overlooked the cathedral. Bloom's put $65,000 into redoing it. It's very small, but every detail is thought out. He's married to a woman named Tina. She's his third wife. 6 months ago, they were getting divorced. She wants a baby, but Bloom's snipped. Like Jay. Then she lost her job. She used to be sort of zaftig and peppy and inane--bad dye job, smoker, too much eye makeup. She kind of drove me crazy. Now she seems flattened. She's dyed her hair brown (always a bad sign) and was wearing sweats. As I walked into the living room, she hid a Janet Evanovich novel with a kleenex as a bookmark (a habit of my mother's) deep into the cushions of the couch so I wouldn't see. I felt bad. Do I make her feel ashamed of reading trashy mystery novels? A friend of mine at work once told me I had a way of making people feel stupid.

When my mom flunked out of law school, she cloistered herself in the house and read detective novels. One a day. She never changed out of her nightgown, and didn't wash her hair very much. She experimented with bangs. Lots of weird hairstyles. My dad didn't really know what to do. I didn't really understand what was going on. The dishes went unwashed for weeks and months. At one point, when we started having a maggot problem, my mother simply put them all in garbage sacks and threw them away. My father locked himself in the basement and worked on his thesis. No one could come over. Kids in the neighborhood would come over to get me to play, and my mother would speak to them through the chain in the door. I mean, all she did was read. Endlessly.

So, the hidden Evanovich worried me. I stood at the window, looking at the cathedral and thought about Tina in this little place day after day, wanting a baby.

"The place is lovely. I love the eggplant color in this little alcove you used. I never would have thought of that color." I offered.

"Nothing in here is mine." Tina said. "Bloom was in the middle of redoing it when we got married. It's all the decorator. I was like, 'sure, whatever.' I don't have any taste." She said. I know how she feels. I don't either.

The Fifth Element was on the plasma screen in the living room. Jay and Bloom talked shop a little bit. Then there would be a gaping silence and we would fill it with wine. Every once in awhile, as I got progressively tipsy, I would speak along with the movie, which was muted. I almost have The Fifth Element memorized.

"multi-pass." This kept Tina entertained. I bet she doesn't hide the trashy novel the next time I come over. If she's still there.

That's my 1/2 hour.