Bit of my novel.

I sniffed and sniffed. I couldn't believe how much I had missed this smell. The smell of blown out candles, fresh cut flowers, a hint of garlic, and the overwhelmingly strong smell of cheap perfume that my aunt had always worn, this was the smell of my childhood home. I couldn't believe that even after years and a move that spanned thousands of miles that my aunt could still evoke that smell.

It's still funny to me after all these years that I refer to Marie as my aunt when 1) Marie is in no way shape or form related to my mother or father and 2) Marie was, for all intents and purposes, my mother. My actual mother died not long after my eighth birthday from a long battle with breast cancer. I couldn't believe a person could lose someone so important to them as their mother at so young an age. I thought that it was all a bad dream and I would wake up to my mother soothingly sitting on the edge of my bed telling me everything would be alright.

It wasn't until Marie walked me to the ominous dark coffin that held the remains of my beloved mother that the truth really set in. At that point, I was inconsolable. My mother had been my best friend, the woman who helped create and cultivate the imaginary worlds I lived in. She was the high queen of the faeries, the captain of the pirate ship, the owner of our ludicrous hybrid dog washing/lemonade stand. How would I survive with out her?

Luckily I had Marie, my mothers oldest most trusted friend. She was the only one in the world that I could have ever imagined attempting to fill the hole that my mothers death left behind. She was one of many beloved "family" members that consisted of the people my mother decided were her family.

I had heard the rumors of my blood relatives from whispered conversations in back rooms with Marie, or in left behind letters that my mother tried to write but forgot to clean up. They seemed to be a group of rich over-privileged people who thought themselves better than everyone. That was how my mother portrayed them.

Frankly even at 8 I wanted nothing to do with a family who made half-ass attempts to meet me. I'm sure my mother was relentless about keeping me away from them, but still it never seemed like they tried that hard. I had a family who loved me, supported me, and then raised me after my mother died and that's all I will ever need in the entire world.

To explain my life growing up I would first have to explain what kind of people my mother and Marie were. Both of them were scatterbrained to a fault, that's probably why I like to take care of people, neither of them were really that reliable. At a young age I had to be the adult. I loved both of them and I didn't mind being responsible but looking back sometimes I missed out on just being a kid.



To be continued!

I heard this song on the radio and basically I love it, and for some reason it's really how I feel today. Who the crap knows why, but I love it........


Going Back to the corner where I first saw you
Gonna camp in my sleeping bag I'm not gonna move
Got some words on cardboard, got your picture in my hand
Saying, "If you see this girl can you tell her where I am?"

Some try to hand me money, they don't understand
I'm not broke I'm just a broken hearted man
I know it makes no sense but what else can I do
How can I move on when I'm still in love with you

'cause if one day you wake up and find that you're missing me
And your heart starts to wonder where on this earth I could be
Thinkin maybe you'll come back here to the place that we'd meet
And you'll see me waiting for you on our corner of the street
So I'm not moving, I'm not moving

Policeman says, "Son you can't stay here"
I said, "There's someone I'm waiting for if it's a day, a month, a year"
Gotta stand my ground even if it rains or snows
If she changes her mind this is the first place she will go

'cause If one day you wake up and find that you're missing me
And your heart starts to wonder where on this earth I could be
Thinking maybe you'll come back here to the place that we'd meet
And you'll see me waiting for you on our corner of the street
So I'm not moving, I'm not moving,
I'm not moving, I'm not moving

People talk about the guy that's waiting on a girl
There are no holes in his shoes but a big hole in his world

Maybe I'll get famous as the man who can't be moved
Maybe you wont mean to but you'll see me on the news
And you'll come running to the corner
'cause you'll know it's just for you
I'm the man who can't be moved

[Chorus 2x]

Going back to the corner where I first saw you
Gonna camp in my sleeping bag I'm not gonna move

My happy list

So I was reading on a random blog about a girl who likes to read people's happy list's
Here it be:

10 Things that make me happy

1. Anything vintage or funky.
2. Midnight spur of the moment ventures in to public with close friends
3. Being known as the "go to gal" among friends on medical matters.
4. Photographs, be it taking them or looking at them
5. Twirling mascara on my eyelashes
6. Singing Loudly (and poorly) in the shower
7. The feeling of being barefoot on soft grass
8. Riding the Train home from work
9. Folding fresh laundry
10. Painting my toenails

#24 DONE!

24. Have and artist draw/paint/photograph me

Granted it happened inadvertently, but it happened. My darling friend Manelle who is an AMAZING artist, drew a very pretty sketch of me the other day in church. I'm hoping at some point I can get a copy of it and put it up here for everyone to see. But heck yes! one down 23 to go!

24 Things

So I turned 23 Today...YAY!

Anyway I decided to make a list of 24 things I have to do before I'm 24.

1. Lose 50 Pounds
2. Sing With a Band
3. Learn A New Language
4. Skinny Dip
5. Run a Whole Mile without stopping
6. Write and Compose a Song
7. Dye my hair every natural color (black, brown, blonde, red) at least once
8. Learn to play "All Of Me" by John Schmidt
9. Learn all of the music from Dr. Horrible on piano
10. Make a kick-ass Halloween Costume
11. Have a slip-n-slide party
12. Beat The NES Batman game I got for my birthday today
13. Pass Anatomy
14. Re-Visit my ancestral home, Los Angeles
15. Learn to knit a beanie
16. Cut my hair into a pixie cut
17. Grab a couple of people and go for a one day road trip to somewhere I've never been in Utah
18. Visit a REAL haunted house/building
19. Play blackjack in the MGM Grand
20. Kiss someone at midnight on New Years
21. Own at least one bra from Victoria's secret
22. See Blink-182 on September 7th
23. Audition for a production
24. Have and artist draw/paint/photograph me.

Inspiration

So Frank Warren (one of my hero's, you can find more information here) spoke at a college commencement the other day and reprinted his very inspirational speech. He asked the graduating class to each give a one or two line thought on graduation.

I cried while I read it. I've been having a very emotional week with my new work schedule and my lack of sleep to frustrations with my family and friends and an overall de-awesome-ification of my sense of self. I needed this, because after he reprinted the speech he set his blog to show comments that people have put up, and they are the most beautiful nuggets of pump you up be awesome knowlege i've read in a really long time.

For anyone too lazy to pop over to his blog, or who read this after this week is over and it's no longer on his blog I will reprint some of the things people submitted:

Be wise enough not to be reckless, but brave enough to take great risks.

It’s okay to fail – learn from it and you will succeed.

It’s better to be pissed-off than pissed-on

With the increased prevalence of multi-drug resistant bacteria and the increasingly epidemic worldwide outbreak of swine flu, WASH YOUR HANDS . . . RELIGIOUSLY.

In the real world, you must wear shoes.

I know some of us are going to walk off this stage today with no idea about what comes next – embrace it, find something that makes you happy, and follow it wherever it leads.

It got me thinking about my own nuggets of wizdom I could pass on.....they are corny but some of them are the only thing that gets me through the day. Some of them are my own thoughts, some of them are the thoughts of others and considering how late it is right now, I don't feel like looking it up

-There is no such thing as a missed opportunity, someone else always takes it if you don't
-Find out who you are, and try to not be afraid of it
-Be as kind as possible to everyone you meet, you have no idea what kind of day they are having
-Faint heart never won fair lady
-The door may swing open for you, but you've got to grab the door handle yourself and shove your foot in before it closes
-Happiness is a decision
-Don't ever think that someone or something will make you happy. We are all responsible for our own happiness.
-Suffering in silence is never a good idea, but suffering in stereo sound system isn't good either
-Never be afraid to tell someone you love them, what the worst they can say? Thank you?
-Sometimes you are gonna be angry, sometimes you are gonna be hurt, and sometimes you are going to want to eat a whole tub of ice cream. You know what? Sometimes that's okay.
-Before you embark on the journey of revenge, dig two graves
-It has been said that time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but it is never gone
-Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that. Fairy tales tell children that dragons can be killed
-Superman is, after all, an alien life form. He's simply the acceptable face of invading realities
-We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered

And my favorite right now:

Nothing is permanent in this wicked world. Not even our troubles
-Charlie Chaplain

My grumble for the day

Working in a hospital brings a lot of interesting social conundrums. For instance, the higher your degree, it seems, the less you have to care about people. Granted, this is a sweeping generalization, but for the most part it is true. Doctors could give a crap about people who keep this hospital clean and sanitized and safe from bacteria. I'm grateful every day for the people who clean up the blood off the floor, wash the laundry, dispose of the bio-hazard waste, and disinfect the surfaces of our 6 floor hospital (do you realize how many freaking surfaces there onn on just ONE floor?). Most of the time these people have little schooling, some of them have mental/physical problems, some are living just above the poverty level and get paid for literally cleaning up after all the shit that goes down in a hospital.

I try and at least take the time to say hello to them as I pass by them. When I worked at a smaller hospital, I would have daily conversations with them, they were fantastic people who always tried to brighten up someones day regardless of how tired, how sore, or how frustrating their life was going. I really have a lot of respect and high regard for them.

I'm starting to really have a problem with doctors. Since joining the medical field nearly 4 years ago I really quickly started to lose respect and faith for doctors. Again this is a SWEEPING generality. There are some AMAZING doctors out there, for instance the doctors who lend their expertise and knowledge to countries and people much less fortunate that us here in the U. S. of A. And the doctors who dedicate their lives to research to cure diseases or take care of our wounded soldiers.

I'm talking about regular old doctors, specifically doctors who work solely in a hospital. I can't make any assumptions about how it works in clinics because I've never worked in one. I'm not sure how many people realize how little doctors do in a hospital setting. The usually run through the patients they are in charge of like Paris Hilton runs through underwear.

From what I have observed, this is what a doctor does when it comes to one patient.
1. Glance through their chart for maybe 10 minutes
2. Rush in an out of a patients room literally as fast as they can (usually about 5 minutes, unless the patient is relentless)
3. Answer as little questions as possible both for the family and the patient or speak in medical jargon that a regular person would have no way of translating
4. Write a really long list of sometimes really retarded orders in a handwriting that channels a serial killer
5. Read their dictations into a phone so they don't have to type them in themselves for the computer charts
6. Boss around the nurses/cna's/anyone on the floor without a degree as high/higher than thiers
7. Then spend 30-40 minutes chatting it up with their other pedestal dwellers about nothing more important than their newest toy bought with their disturbingly large salary they earn simply because they went to school forever not because they actually do anything of substance
8. Coffee
9. Smoke break (the most ironic of ironic)

The sad thing is, they charge you OODLES for all of that when actually the only contact you had with the doctor is the 5 minutes he spent trying to get out of your room.

Now I have to take surgeons out of the mix, there is no way that they can pass off a surgery onto someone without as much schooling as they have. This is mostly directed at general doctors who get paid to do absolutely NOTHING! You might have also noticed that I keep using the pronoun He, as much as it pains me to say it due to the equal rights thing, female doctors (with a few exceptions, of course) generally aren't this cavalier with your health. (Most) women are naturally compassionate and healers.

Anyway I don't like doctors, especially when their personal photographers order me to get out of the way so they can be photographed talking on the phone and looking professional for some infinitely stupid reason.

It brings me back to a saying I once heard concerning the medical field "All doctors are healers, but not all healers are doctors"