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sonny
In high school, I had something of an obsession with J.D. Salinger, because...well, who didn't? We all went through this, didn't we? From writing short stories painfully derivative of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" to fantasizing how we would soothe Holden Caulfield's angst-filled soul if only he would deign to let us (and if he were, you know, non-fictional), we've all been there. Those slim, plain covered paperbacks reinforced with packing tape where the covers were fraying, they're as worn and familiar to me as my memories of adolescence itself.
As I got older, in college, I went a little further with this obsession, once planning an elaborate summer road trip to Cornish, New Hampshire, in the hopes of meeting the guy. (This was not quite as far off as it sounded--one of my friends from college actually lived near him, knew his address, and had offered to mail him a copy of one of the weekly columns I had written for the college paper, the topic of which escapes me now but may or may not have been related to how I wish Holden Caulfield was my boyfriend). Needless to say, that particular road trip never happened, for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that I did not have my driver's license (nor, as you all well know, would I get one for another ten years hence).
But one Salinger project that I did undertake, one that I actually saw through to completion, was collecting, in a stiff-backed leatherette portfolio, all of J.D. Salinger's uncollected short stories. I'm talking about all the short stories that didn't appear in his slim body of bound works: Catcher; Nine Stories; Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters; and of course Franny and Zooey. The internet then was not quite the endless information dump that it is today, so the stories certainly weren't available online to read, but it was easy enough to locate a list of these stories, along with references to the magazines that they originally appeared in.
It was a project that took most of the summer. What magazines they had at the Wellesley College library (as a science major, I was woefully unfamiliar with the layout of the non-science library, and had to feel my way around like a blind person until I found the periodical stacks) I unearthed and photocopied the Salinger stories out of, where they looked quaint and old-timey next to the period print ads with doctors promoting cigarettes for weight loss and various unguents to calm your troubled skin. What magazines weren't in the Wellesley stacks, I ordered copies of via inter-library loan, from other college libraries in the northeast. I remember this scavenger hunt as being very exciting--every time I got a copy of a new story in the mail, I would look through it, read it through once quickly, read it through once again more carefully, and then delicately put it away in my portfolio, as if it were the original print rather than a crooked photocopy hastily run off by the librarian's assistant. The task of assembling all these uncollected stories seemed worthy and noble in some way that I couldn't identify.
For the most part (and I say this with all humility and respect for the author's memory), it became apparent that Salinger's decision to leave these works uncollected (and in fact his stance to excoriate all those like me who set about unearthing them, as he felt the quality of these stories were uneven and humiliating) was a wise one. Because for the most part, these stories were not very good. There were some that were better than others, and some that were familiar ("I'm Crazy" from Colliers in 1945 was a scene straight out of Catcher in the Rye), and some that were downright inscrutable--the aforementioned "Hapworth," which, as far is I know, is the last thing J.D. Salinger ever wrote to see the light of day. By the end of the summer, I had all the stories together at last, arranged in chronological order in a thick, substantial pile. And it was satisfying and unsatisfying all at the same time.
What I remember most about this summer is not so much reading the stories, though that was interesting enough, particular for the small shards of Glass family memorabilia that wink out here and there. No, but what was most fun was the search, the digging, the finding, the adventure of it all. And what a Salinger-worthy metaphor that is: we look high and low looking for hidden treasures, and we find...what? The everyday. The ordinary. The expected. And isn't that one of the things that J.D. Salinger taught us, that the picture in your head doesn't always match the reality, and that what you idolize can disappoint you in the light of day with its banality?
But he taught me something else too, not just through his writing but, that summer, in my quest to collect it all--and that's that it may not be the end result, rather what happens along the way that counts. At the end of that summer, I had--what? A stack of photocopies? A tattered reference list? A pile of inter-library loan slips and the manila envelopes the came in? Yes, all that, and a binder of frankly forgettable short stories that history has largely ignored. And maybe that should have been a disappointment. But none of that takes away from the nobility of the struggle, or from the enjoyment of the journey. And maybe, in the end, it's the journey that's what really matters.
Goodbye, Sonny. Thanks for the stories.
In high school, I had something of an obsession with J.D. Salinger, because...well, who didn't? We all went through this, didn't we? From writing short stories painfully derivative of "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" to fantasizing how we would soothe Holden Caulfield's angst-filled soul if only he would deign to let us (and if he were, you know, non-fictional), we've all been there. Those slim, plain covered paperbacks reinforced with packing tape where the covers were fraying, they're as worn and familiar to me as my memories of adolescence itself.
As I got older, in college, I went a little further with this obsession, once planning an elaborate summer road trip to Cornish, New Hampshire, in the hopes of meeting the guy. (This was not quite as far off as it sounded--one of my friends from college actually lived near him, knew his address, and had offered to mail him a copy of one of the weekly columns I had written for the college paper, the topic of which escapes me now but may or may not have been related to how I wish Holden Caulfield was my boyfriend). Needless to say, that particular road trip never happened, for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that I did not have my driver's license (nor, as you all well know, would I get one for another ten years hence).
But one Salinger project that I did undertake, one that I actually saw through to completion, was collecting, in a stiff-backed leatherette portfolio, all of J.D. Salinger's uncollected short stories. I'm talking about all the short stories that didn't appear in his slim body of bound works: Catcher; Nine Stories; Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters; and of course Franny and Zooey. The internet then was not quite the endless information dump that it is today, so the stories certainly weren't available online to read, but it was easy enough to locate a list of these stories, along with references to the magazines that they originally appeared in.
It was a project that took most of the summer. What magazines they had at the Wellesley College library (as a science major, I was woefully unfamiliar with the layout of the non-science library, and had to feel my way around like a blind person until I found the periodical stacks) I unearthed and photocopied the Salinger stories out of, where they looked quaint and old-timey next to the period print ads with doctors promoting cigarettes for weight loss and various unguents to calm your troubled skin. What magazines weren't in the Wellesley stacks, I ordered copies of via inter-library loan, from other college libraries in the northeast. I remember this scavenger hunt as being very exciting--every time I got a copy of a new story in the mail, I would look through it, read it through once quickly, read it through once again more carefully, and then delicately put it away in my portfolio, as if it were the original print rather than a crooked photocopy hastily run off by the librarian's assistant. The task of assembling all these uncollected stories seemed worthy and noble in some way that I couldn't identify.
For the most part (and I say this with all humility and respect for the author's memory), it became apparent that Salinger's decision to leave these works uncollected (and in fact his stance to excoriate all those like me who set about unearthing them, as he felt the quality of these stories were uneven and humiliating) was a wise one. Because for the most part, these stories were not very good. There were some that were better than others, and some that were familiar ("I'm Crazy" from Colliers in 1945 was a scene straight out of Catcher in the Rye), and some that were downright inscrutable--the aforementioned "Hapworth," which, as far is I know, is the last thing J.D. Salinger ever wrote to see the light of day. By the end of the summer, I had all the stories together at last, arranged in chronological order in a thick, substantial pile. And it was satisfying and unsatisfying all at the same time.
What I remember most about this summer is not so much reading the stories, though that was interesting enough, particular for the small shards of Glass family memorabilia that wink out here and there. No, but what was most fun was the search, the digging, the finding, the adventure of it all. And what a Salinger-worthy metaphor that is: we look high and low looking for hidden treasures, and we find...what? The everyday. The ordinary. The expected. And isn't that one of the things that J.D. Salinger taught us, that the picture in your head doesn't always match the reality, and that what you idolize can disappoint you in the light of day with its banality?
But he taught me something else too, not just through his writing but, that summer, in my quest to collect it all--and that's that it may not be the end result, rather what happens along the way that counts. At the end of that summer, I had--what? A stack of photocopies? A tattered reference list? A pile of inter-library loan slips and the manila envelopes the came in? Yes, all that, and a binder of frankly forgettable short stories that history has largely ignored. And maybe that should have been a disappointment. But none of that takes away from the nobility of the struggle, or from the enjoyment of the journey. And maybe, in the end, it's the journey that's what really matters.
Goodbye, Sonny. Thanks for the stories.
we have a title!
Just about the point where I was going to give up and just call the book EAT, PRAY, LOVE GETTING PAGED, we finally came up with a title that everyone can live with.
THIS WON'T HURT A BIT
My Education in Medicine and Motherhood.
Thank god. I was starting to think that writing the title was harder than writing the actual book. Thanks to all the people who e-mailed and suggested titles in this vein, including (but not limited to--please e-mail me if I left you out):
Emily M.
Michael H.
Jennifer B.
Tim K.
Of course you all know that in my secret heart of hearts I will always think of it as "SCUTMONKEY," but I am digging this new title and I think it's accessible and grabby and direct and will look sweet on the cover. And most of all, it's a relief to have it decided, once and for all, like when you name your baby and can finally stop calling him Cleatus the Fetus.
Now, onward and upward!
Just about the point where I was going to give up and just call the book EAT, PRAY, LOVE GETTING PAGED, we finally came up with a title that everyone can live with.
THIS WON'T HURT A BIT
My Education in Medicine and Motherhood.
Thank god. I was starting to think that writing the title was harder than writing the actual book. Thanks to all the people who e-mailed and suggested titles in this vein, including (but not limited to--please e-mail me if I left you out):
Emily M.
Michael H.
Jennifer B.
Tim K.
Of course you all know that in my secret heart of hearts I will always think of it as "SCUTMONKEY," but I am digging this new title and I think it's accessible and grabby and direct and will look sweet on the cover. And most of all, it's a relief to have it decided, once and for all, like when you name your baby and can finally stop calling him Cleatus the Fetus.
Now, onward and upward!
the rewards of delay
So at some point I guess I should start studying for the Oral Boards in April. I'm not terribly stressed about it (the thing about being an attending is that every day is the Oral Boards) but that's not to say that there aren't things that I should brush up on before I walk into the actual test. I got very lucky in that the Spring exam is being offered in Atlanta (usually people have to fly in for the exam, it's only offered at two somewhat random cities per year--San Antonio TX, anyone?) so that makes everything a little easier. The fact of having to fly into town for an exam and check into a hotel room the night before you get grilled by a panel of stone-faced examiners raises the stakes somewhat--however, there's only so much I can get worked up about a test that I can take 10 minutes away from my house.
I put off taking my Written Boards for a year because I was in the middle of finishing up the manuscript for my book, or the first version, anyway. Though there were times I did wish after the fact that I had just taken my Writtens on schedule (as it was, I only ended up studying for about a week this summer, so it's not like I was luxuriating in all this extra time) but being on the schedule that lands me taking the Oral Boards in the city where I live is a huge plus. See, kids, procrastination does pay off. (Note to any actual kids: Ignore the preceding sentence. And also, say no to drugs.)
P.S. Don't forget to check back later today for the first installment of this week's new comic, "Residency vs. Baby, a Critical Comparison."
So at some point I guess I should start studying for the Oral Boards in April. I'm not terribly stressed about it (the thing about being an attending is that every day is the Oral Boards) but that's not to say that there aren't things that I should brush up on before I walk into the actual test. I got very lucky in that the Spring exam is being offered in Atlanta (usually people have to fly in for the exam, it's only offered at two somewhat random cities per year--San Antonio TX, anyone?) so that makes everything a little easier. The fact of having to fly into town for an exam and check into a hotel room the night before you get grilled by a panel of stone-faced examiners raises the stakes somewhat--however, there's only so much I can get worked up about a test that I can take 10 minutes away from my house.
I put off taking my Written Boards for a year because I was in the middle of finishing up the manuscript for my book, or the first version, anyway. Though there were times I did wish after the fact that I had just taken my Writtens on schedule (as it was, I only ended up studying for about a week this summer, so it's not like I was luxuriating in all this extra time) but being on the schedule that lands me taking the Oral Boards in the city where I live is a huge plus. See, kids, procrastination does pay off. (Note to any actual kids: Ignore the preceding sentence. And also, say no to drugs.)
P.S. Don't forget to check back later today for the first installment of this week's new comic, "Residency vs. Baby, a Critical Comparison."
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entitled
So I think I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that the title on my book will not be my first choice, nor will it likely be my second or third or even fourth choice. I understand that there is such thing as people who are in charge of sales and marketing, and that it obviously behooves me (whether the choice is mine or not) to cede such decisions that have to do with sales and marketing to the experts. I also understand that the point of book publishing is to sell books, not just to write books in some hermetic bunker like J.D. Salinger is rumored to and stash the manuscripts (each increasingly more obscure and inscrutable than the last--did you read "Hapworth 16, 1924"?) in some safe deposit box somewhere in Cornish, New Hampshire. It is an honor and a priveledge to know that my book is going to be published soon--actually published, and distributed, like, in bookstores--and that regardless of what the title is, it doesn't change the words or story inside.
However, I will also say that knowing that someone else is going to be putting the title on your book feels not unlike letting someone else name your baby. "What do you mean you think he looks like a 'David'? He looks nothing like a 'David'! Where the hell did you come up with the name 'David' anyway? DON'T YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BABIES?"
Well, anyway. The lessons of life, learned during medical training through widely generalizable, as as follows. Forget your ego. Play ball. What will be, will be. To do be able to do this kind of work is an honor. So there you are.
I am glad everyone is liking the new comics, by the way. I will keep running a panel a day, with the complete, six-panel version of this week's comic, How to Annoy a Resident, to be posted on Sunday.
So I think I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that the title on my book will not be my first choice, nor will it likely be my second or third or even fourth choice. I understand that there is such thing as people who are in charge of sales and marketing, and that it obviously behooves me (whether the choice is mine or not) to cede such decisions that have to do with sales and marketing to the experts. I also understand that the point of book publishing is to sell books, not just to write books in some hermetic bunker like J.D. Salinger is rumored to and stash the manuscripts (each increasingly more obscure and inscrutable than the last--did you read "Hapworth 16, 1924"?) in some safe deposit box somewhere in Cornish, New Hampshire. It is an honor and a priveledge to know that my book is going to be published soon--actually published, and distributed, like, in bookstores--and that regardless of what the title is, it doesn't change the words or story inside.
However, I will also say that knowing that someone else is going to be putting the title on your book feels not unlike letting someone else name your baby. "What do you mean you think he looks like a 'David'? He looks nothing like a 'David'! Where the hell did you come up with the name 'David' anyway? DON'T YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BABIES?"
Well, anyway. The lessons of life, learned during medical training through widely generalizable, as as follows. Forget your ego. Play ball. What will be, will be. To do be able to do this kind of work is an honor. So there you are.
I am glad everyone is liking the new comics, by the way. I will keep running a panel a day, with the complete, six-panel version of this week's comic, How to Annoy a Resident, to be posted on Sunday.
just a quick update while i'm overhauling...
...to say that I don't love the new picture that I have up on the sidebar, because it kind of looks like I'm smirking down at you disdainfully from my high horse. The real reason, though, is that I don't have much of a photo smile, and the photographer who took my picture is less than four feet tall. So there you go.
28 days
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So, since I have this cache of one-page "Scutmonkey" comics, four of which have never seen the light of day (or screen) and which will not likely be included in the book, I'm going to start posting them here next week. Each comic has six panels, so starting this Monday, I will start posting one panel a day, with that week's complete comic to be posted on Sunday, suitable for reading or printing or incinerating or what have you.
I will try to update the blog in addition to the comics if I can, but at least there will something new posted here every day for the next four weeks. Starting Monday, "How to Annoy a Resident." I'm sure you smart people can think of a couple of good strategies already. (Like posting a comic strip in installments instead of all at once, woman, damn.)
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So, since I have this cache of one-page "Scutmonkey" comics, four of which have never seen the light of day (or screen) and which will not likely be included in the book, I'm going to start posting them here next week. Each comic has six panels, so starting this Monday, I will start posting one panel a day, with that week's complete comic to be posted on Sunday, suitable for reading or printing or incinerating or what have you.
I will try to update the blog in addition to the comics if I can, but at least there will something new posted here every day for the next four weeks. Starting Monday, "How to Annoy a Resident." I'm sure you smart people can think of a couple of good strategies already. (Like posting a comic strip in installments instead of all at once, woman, damn.)
in which i prattle on until the clock runs out
You guys are clever. Thanks for all the e-mails. Though the overwhelming consensus was that the original title ("SCUTMONKEY") was the crowd favorite, I think I have reached Kubler-Ross' fifth stage in accepting that this in all likelihood will never pass muster as a marketable title to the masses, no matter how much I want it to. Which, you know, I guess I can understand, even though I feel like I've been immersed in the culture of medicine so long that there are certain things that I really can't believe aren't part of the layman's vernacular. (I encountered this a lot when I was editing the manuscript, may parts where my editor circled one thing and underlined another as being too "jargon-y," and I was like, "What do you mean? Doesn't everyone know what it means when I say we 'ordered a set of coags'? People say that in real life, right? RIGHT?" Ah, what a learning experience this has been.)
My new favorite, suggested by my agent, is PRACTICE. See, because of the double meaning, the practice of medicine as well as the dress rehearsal aspect of so much of medical training. Also, PRACTICE is pithy, which I like. There will be a secondary title under it, which we are also still hashing out (something like, "PRACTICE, Or: How I Went to Med School, Had a Baby, and Grew Up to Become a Real Doctor") but we will see what we come up with in the end. I want to make sure that it conveys some sense of levity, you know? There are enough serious as all hell medical memoirs out there, I want it to be clear that this is not one of them. But hey, what the hell do I know. Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a...[insert whatever you call someone who is in charge of marketing].
I know his hair is too long, because the plumber that came by yesterday to fix out broken garbage disposal waved at him and said, "Hello, little girl!" But I am loathe to cut it, mostly because I know that I'm going to mess it up like that time I tried to cut Cal's hair when he was a baby and he ended up looking like The Littlest Stooge.)
What was I saying? Oh yes, post-call day enables me to spend time with the baby, and I even got to drop by Cal's school to have lunch one day (there is an open lunch invitation for all parents, but in a year and a half I've only been able to do this one other time. The guilt was compounded by the fact that Cal was so excited to see me at school "just like all the other parents" that he basically ate lunch with only one hand, with the other hand a vise around my knee in case I decided to run away mid-sandwich). But I don't get to see Joe that much. So that's bad. However, the weekend is upon us, and while I am on call nights, I at least have the days free to do whatever manner of family-bonding activity we can muster. Which, honestly, will probably involve chasing the kids around while firing little Morse code missives to each other in between calamities. Ah, marriage with children. It can be difficult, as Al Bundy would attest.
Anyway, have to go get ready for work now. Round three...fight!
You guys are clever. Thanks for all the e-mails. Though the overwhelming consensus was that the original title ("SCUTMONKEY") was the crowd favorite, I think I have reached Kubler-Ross' fifth stage in accepting that this in all likelihood will never pass muster as a marketable title to the masses, no matter how much I want it to. Which, you know, I guess I can understand, even though I feel like I've been immersed in the culture of medicine so long that there are certain things that I really can't believe aren't part of the layman's vernacular. (I encountered this a lot when I was editing the manuscript, may parts where my editor circled one thing and underlined another as being too "jargon-y," and I was like, "What do you mean? Doesn't everyone know what it means when I say we 'ordered a set of coags'? People say that in real life, right? RIGHT?" Ah, what a learning experience this has been.)
My new favorite, suggested by my agent, is PRACTICE. See, because of the double meaning, the practice of medicine as well as the dress rehearsal aspect of so much of medical training. Also, PRACTICE is pithy, which I like. There will be a secondary title under it, which we are also still hashing out (something like, "PRACTICE, Or: How I Went to Med School, Had a Baby, and Grew Up to Become a Real Doctor") but we will see what we come up with in the end. I want to make sure that it conveys some sense of levity, you know? There are enough serious as all hell medical memoirs out there, I want it to be clear that this is not one of them. But hey, what the hell do I know. Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a...[insert whatever you call someone who is in charge of marketing].
(Pretend I did not just make a Star Trek reference right there.)
Moving on from this...
So due to some glitch in scheduling (I call it a glitch for lack of a better word, but really, the fact of it is that someone needed to trade a few calls with me and I said yes) I am on night call five out of the seven days this week. Monday, Wednesday, FridaySaturdaySunday. You're welcome. One of my older partners seemed scandalized that I was working so many nights (he thought it was inhumane), but then he asked me how old I was. I told him that I was thirty-one. "You can do it then," he nodded sagely. "You're still strong." I thought that was kind of funny.
Anyway, round two was Wednesday night, and it was fine. One other thing that I missed about taking night call (hark ye, residents, the upside of working nights! Take it from someone who has not taken call for a year and a half--there is an upside) is that the pace of the hospital in the evenings and overnight is much different. Working in the ORs during the day is like...OK, imagine that you're a decathlete, only instead of doing the events one at a time, you're doing all ten events simultaneously. Picture, if you will, doing the pole vault while flinging a shot putt and winging a javelin all while jumping hurdles. That's what it's like during the day. At night, at least after, oh, say, 7:00pm, at least you get to space out your events, or at least only do them two or three at a time. So that's better.
The down side, of course, is that I don't get to see anyone. Post-call days off enable me to spend time with the baby (who, incidentally, not so much a baby anymore--Mack just turned one last week, oh hell, here's an obligatory picture to break things up:
Moving on from this...
So due to some glitch in scheduling (I call it a glitch for lack of a better word, but really, the fact of it is that someone needed to trade a few calls with me and I said yes) I am on night call five out of the seven days this week. Monday, Wednesday, FridaySaturdaySunday. You're welcome. One of my older partners seemed scandalized that I was working so many nights (he thought it was inhumane), but then he asked me how old I was. I told him that I was thirty-one. "You can do it then," he nodded sagely. "You're still strong." I thought that was kind of funny.
Anyway, round two was Wednesday night, and it was fine. One other thing that I missed about taking night call (hark ye, residents, the upside of working nights! Take it from someone who has not taken call for a year and a half--there is an upside) is that the pace of the hospital in the evenings and overnight is much different. Working in the ORs during the day is like...OK, imagine that you're a decathlete, only instead of doing the events one at a time, you're doing all ten events simultaneously. Picture, if you will, doing the pole vault while flinging a shot putt and winging a javelin all while jumping hurdles. That's what it's like during the day. At night, at least after, oh, say, 7:00pm, at least you get to space out your events, or at least only do them two or three at a time. So that's better.
The down side, of course, is that I don't get to see anyone. Post-call days off enable me to spend time with the baby (who, incidentally, not so much a baby anymore--Mack just turned one last week, oh hell, here's an obligatory picture to break things up:
I know his hair is too long, because the plumber that came by yesterday to fix out broken garbage disposal waved at him and said, "Hello, little girl!" But I am loathe to cut it, mostly because I know that I'm going to mess it up like that time I tried to cut Cal's hair when he was a baby and he ended up looking like The Littlest Stooge.)
What was I saying? Oh yes, post-call day enables me to spend time with the baby, and I even got to drop by Cal's school to have lunch one day (there is an open lunch invitation for all parents, but in a year and a half I've only been able to do this one other time. The guilt was compounded by the fact that Cal was so excited to see me at school "just like all the other parents" that he basically ate lunch with only one hand, with the other hand a vise around my knee in case I decided to run away mid-sandwich). But I don't get to see Joe that much. So that's bad. However, the weekend is upon us, and while I am on call nights, I at least have the days free to do whatever manner of family-bonding activity we can muster. Which, honestly, will probably involve chasing the kids around while firing little Morse code missives to each other in between calamities. Ah, marriage with children. It can be difficult, as Al Bundy would attest.
Anyway, have to go get ready for work now. Round three...fight!
first i don't update, then i start asking for favors
I started taking night call again, did I mention that? Well, I did. Since I started my job when we moved down here to Atlanta, I had been working what I thought was an ideal family job--namely one that was five days a week, Monday through Friday, no night call, no weekends, no holidays. And you know, it was OK. Certainly not having to work any weekends was sweet. And not having to negotiate night call, what with Joe on call all night, every night, seven days a week, 365 days a year (yes, it is true, I do not exaggerate--he is the only fellow in his division and as such he is always the last man standing at the end of the night) made things easier.
What I didn't anticipate, what any resident can't anticipate upon graduating from an intense training experience and taking a no-call job is that...call is actually good. I missed taking call. I kind of liked taking call. And I really liked having post-call days off. Without call, you never get that break in your schedule. That means no days to go to the doctor. No days you can run to the post office. No days you can go pop by and visit your kid's school, volunteer for a field trip, bake cookies to bring to the bake sale in the old church basement. Not that we go to church and not that I can bake, but, you know, the possibility exists. Anyway, working all day every single week day to most people just sounds like your run-of-the-mill normal job, but in medicine, having no days to break up the relentless march of days (as well as having a maternity leave early in the year consume most of your vacation time) can be...grueling. Or, as I have referred to it from the bottom of some of my more histrionic moments, "a pitiless and unceasing trudge to the grave."
Yes, well then. Anyway, I started taking night call again. Joe is pretty close to being done with his fellowship now (six months left, but who's counting? Me, for one. Joe, for another.) so we are actually able to swing it now that if I am on call, he is absolved of pager duty, thus being free to corral our children in the evening without fear that at any moment he will have to desert them because some patient just ran into a piece of hollow metal while walking his dog and now has a length of pipe sticking out of his eye socket. (Oh, I only wish I were kidding.) And I, I am able to work nights. It's win...win?
Last night was my first night on call since I started with the group, and it went OK. And since I was on call until 7:00am this morning, I am now free to do with this entire next day what I will, which basically entailed sleeping in until the late hour of 7:30am. I would, of course, have liked to sleep in later, but Mack had other plans involving his head, my head, and a high-velocity collision of the two accompanied by the sound of two coconuts bonking, all the while giggling maliciously like a Chuckie Doll. (He, not I.) Was the Chuckie Doll supposed to sound like a bad Jack Nicholson impression? Same question applies, by the way, for Christian Slater. Just something I have always wondered.
This is all train of thought, you know that, right? Take what you can, people, I have been very bad about updating this blog these past few months, and I am rusty.
So, the book. People have been e-mailing me (and Twitter messaging me--what do you call that, is there a name? I am like your mom now. "What is this Twitter, are you Tweeting me? Are you a Twit? What's a Twat?") asking me about the status of the book, and I think I can tell you now that yes, people, there will be a book, and all indications are that it will be coming out in March. Which is good, because, you know, March is soon. The gist of the book (and I will talk more about this as we get closer to the actual date, because you know, that will be exciting) is a non-fiction account of medical education and training, as well as the balance between a medical career and motherhood. It will be fun, I promise, and well worth your time and eyes and not to mention dollars. But here now, I need your help.
The original working title of the manuscript was "Scutmonkey," because--well, you know. I've been writing that "Scutmonkey" comic for years, and hell, I thought it was a good catchy name. But apparently it is not a good catchy name. Apparently "Scut" sounds like "Smut" and what the hell does "monkey" have to do with anything, and enough with your crazy medical slang already, speak English, we live in America. So...we need a new title for the book. And here's the part where you have great ideas and e-mail them to me. Good lord, if I knew how to get the comments section back up and running, I would, but apparently the service was beyond cure and had to be euthanized, so e-mail it is. (I guess you could Twitter me too, at @scutmonkey. Twit me. Twat me. What have you.) Here are my requirements for the title of the book.
Here are some titles that we (meaning me, my agent, and me) have brainstormed so far, just to give you a sense:
DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE
I'M HERE TO HELP
SEE ONE, DO ONE, TEACH ONE
CLINICAL PRACTICE (because see, practice, it has a double meaning! Aha! Ah...hmmm.)
I started taking night call again, did I mention that? Well, I did. Since I started my job when we moved down here to Atlanta, I had been working what I thought was an ideal family job--namely one that was five days a week, Monday through Friday, no night call, no weekends, no holidays. And you know, it was OK. Certainly not having to work any weekends was sweet. And not having to negotiate night call, what with Joe on call all night, every night, seven days a week, 365 days a year (yes, it is true, I do not exaggerate--he is the only fellow in his division and as such he is always the last man standing at the end of the night) made things easier.
What I didn't anticipate, what any resident can't anticipate upon graduating from an intense training experience and taking a no-call job is that...call is actually good. I missed taking call. I kind of liked taking call. And I really liked having post-call days off. Without call, you never get that break in your schedule. That means no days to go to the doctor. No days you can run to the post office. No days you can go pop by and visit your kid's school, volunteer for a field trip, bake cookies to bring to the bake sale in the old church basement. Not that we go to church and not that I can bake, but, you know, the possibility exists. Anyway, working all day every single week day to most people just sounds like your run-of-the-mill normal job, but in medicine, having no days to break up the relentless march of days (as well as having a maternity leave early in the year consume most of your vacation time) can be...grueling. Or, as I have referred to it from the bottom of some of my more histrionic moments, "a pitiless and unceasing trudge to the grave."
Yes, well then. Anyway, I started taking night call again. Joe is pretty close to being done with his fellowship now (six months left, but who's counting? Me, for one. Joe, for another.) so we are actually able to swing it now that if I am on call, he is absolved of pager duty, thus being free to corral our children in the evening without fear that at any moment he will have to desert them because some patient just ran into a piece of hollow metal while walking his dog and now has a length of pipe sticking out of his eye socket. (Oh, I only wish I were kidding.) And I, I am able to work nights. It's win...win?
Last night was my first night on call since I started with the group, and it went OK. And since I was on call until 7:00am this morning, I am now free to do with this entire next day what I will, which basically entailed sleeping in until the late hour of 7:30am. I would, of course, have liked to sleep in later, but Mack had other plans involving his head, my head, and a high-velocity collision of the two accompanied by the sound of two coconuts bonking, all the while giggling maliciously like a Chuckie Doll. (He, not I.) Was the Chuckie Doll supposed to sound like a bad Jack Nicholson impression? Same question applies, by the way, for Christian Slater. Just something I have always wondered.
This is all train of thought, you know that, right? Take what you can, people, I have been very bad about updating this blog these past few months, and I am rusty.
So, the book. People have been e-mailing me (and Twitter messaging me--what do you call that, is there a name? I am like your mom now. "What is this Twitter, are you Tweeting me? Are you a Twit? What's a Twat?") asking me about the status of the book, and I think I can tell you now that yes, people, there will be a book, and all indications are that it will be coming out in March. Which is good, because, you know, March is soon. The gist of the book (and I will talk more about this as we get closer to the actual date, because you know, that will be exciting) is a non-fiction account of medical education and training, as well as the balance between a medical career and motherhood. It will be fun, I promise, and well worth your time and eyes and not to mention dollars. But here now, I need your help.
The original working title of the manuscript was "Scutmonkey," because--well, you know. I've been writing that "Scutmonkey" comic for years, and hell, I thought it was a good catchy name. But apparently it is not a good catchy name. Apparently "Scut" sounds like "Smut" and what the hell does "monkey" have to do with anything, and enough with your crazy medical slang already, speak English, we live in America. So...we need a new title for the book. And here's the part where you have great ideas and e-mail them to me. Good lord, if I knew how to get the comments section back up and running, I would, but apparently the service was beyond cure and had to be euthanized, so e-mail it is. (I guess you could Twitter me too, at @scutmonkey. Twit me. Twat me. What have you.) Here are my requirements for the title of the book.
- Should at least in some way convey what the book is about. (Medical training, juggling working with motherhood, growing up and becoming a real doctor, etcetera.)
- Please, for the love of God, not cutesy. ("MOMMY DOC!")
- Not self-aggrandizing, like, "YOU'RE IN THE HANDS OF GOD, AND BY GOD, I MEAN ME" because...barf.
- If you have a good idea that you pass on to me, that I would be allowed to use it, and that you won't sue me for it later like some kind of jerk. No, seriously, if you are inclined to sue me, just don't e-mail me, really. I have enough patients suing me already. (Just kidding! No patients suing me! Yet! They love me! For my caring clinical persona and judgement as well as my warm hands and clean smell.)
Here are some titles that we (meaning me, my agent, and me) have brainstormed so far, just to give you a sense:
DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE
I'M HERE TO HELP
SEE ONE, DO ONE, TEACH ONE
CLINICAL PRACTICE (because see, practice, it has a double meaning! Aha! Ah...hmmm.)
So as you can see, between the three of us, we basically have nothing.
But...you guys are smart, right? Highest IQ readers in the blogosphere? I know it's hard to do this, because you haven't read the actual manuscript, but you probably have read at least some of this blog, so I think you have at least some sense of what this book is going to be about. (Not that the book is recycled blog entries, but what I mean is, you get the general flavor of the thing.) I knew I could count on you.
Additional evidence that I am just calling in favors left and right: photo credit for the picture I sent in for the book jacket? (c) 2009 Cal Walrath. But hey, he did a pretty good job, considering his lack of formal training, and the fact that he can't actually spell the word "camera."
Oh, and one more thing. I had written a bunch of new "Scutmonkey" comics for the book, which we ultimately decided not to include in the finished manuscript, because something something messed up the flow the the narrative etcetera. But since we're not going to include them with the book, I can do with them what I please. Therefore, I will start posting them here on the blog as we get closer to the publication date, and once configure the images to be a little smaller and low-resolution, so they don't take all freaking day to load on the page, damn.
But...you guys are smart, right? Highest IQ readers in the blogosphere? I know it's hard to do this, because you haven't read the actual manuscript, but you probably have read at least some of this blog, so I think you have at least some sense of what this book is going to be about. (Not that the book is recycled blog entries, but what I mean is, you get the general flavor of the thing.) I knew I could count on you.
Additional evidence that I am just calling in favors left and right: photo credit for the picture I sent in for the book jacket? (c) 2009 Cal Walrath. But hey, he did a pretty good job, considering his lack of formal training, and the fact that he can't actually spell the word "camera."
Oh, and one more thing. I had written a bunch of new "Scutmonkey" comics for the book, which we ultimately decided not to include in the finished manuscript, because something something messed up the flow the the narrative etcetera. But since we're not going to include them with the book, I can do with them what I please. Therefore, I will start posting them here on the blog as we get closer to the publication date, and once configure the images to be a little smaller and low-resolution, so they don't take all freaking day to load on the page, damn.
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