Goodbye, Sweet Friend

Sprout Wings and Fly

"'They tell me you're master of the old time fiddle'. I said, 'Now, mister, they ain't nobody mastered the fiddle. Ther's notes in that fiddle ain't nobody found.' I said, 'Ther's music in that thing that'll be there when Gabriel toots his horn.'"



You can watch Sprout Wings and Fly along with a documentary featuring Tommy Jarrell's sister entitled Julie: Old Time Tales of the Blue Ridge.
Here's a preview.

Mufinn Mann

While I was on the telephone with my mom, I received this note from The Kid.

Tat-B-Gone

Today's assignment: tattoo removal clinic. The process is not as magical as it sounds: it's not painless and it doesn't exactly "remove" the tattoo. In fact, immediately after treatment, the outline of the tattoo actually becomes edematous and is thus more prominent and reddened. The surrounding skin becomes inflamed, apparently with the sensation of having been burned. Eventually, after several treatments, the tattoo fades - sometimes completely. Other times, there is a shadow, scar, hypo or hyper pigmentation. One guy who was having treatment on six (6!) tats revealed where another of his tattoos had been, and there was no sign. So, it works, depending on a person's skin integrity, the quality of the tattoo (do-it-yourself = yikes!) and the immune system. The way it works is that a laser sends short impulses of light into the epidermis; the light is absorbed and breaks the pigment from the ink in the tattoo into smaller particles that can be removed by the immune system. Varying wavelengths are used in order to deliver the best possible ink removal.

Basically, it's a great service. It serves a lot of former gang members and a lot of guys who took penknives and fountain pens to themselves in juvie. The docs take off a lot of neck and face tattoos. (Ouch!) I should mention that I was even allowed to be zapped for three seconds, just to have the true anthropological participant-observer moment. I went "cold" (no lidocaine) and the laser was, of course, set much lower than for the tattoo removal. Also, not having the ink in my skin prevented the pain that ensues from the ink's dissipation into the skin and the macrophagic action. When I was zapped by the laser myself, it was like being burned by spattered, hot cooking oil. The difference for me than for those having their tattoos removed? I had no relationship to the freckle being removed from my arm, while these kids have a whole lifetime of experience related to the tattoos that they wear. Tattoos, traditionally a symbol of belonging and the renunciation of the self to the group, are symbolic to the wearers in more ways than I could possibly understand. The choice to have the tattoos removed demonstrates a degree of humility that is above and beyond my comprehension. Having a tattoo removed is more about loss than about renewal. It took some serious strength for those kids to be there.

Unnatural Childbirth

On my way out of the hospital on Friday I stepped into the elevator with a woman, maybe twenty-five years old, she was holding a manila envelope to her chest and weeping. She turned to me and said “It feels like tugging…” I asked, “What does?” She replied “That tugging here” and touched her breasts. “They feel heavy like they do when I feed her…my baby.” I said, “Yeah, that’s totally normal.” She sobbed and said, “No, you don’t understand. CPS took her away. They told me she’d be here today and I just got out and came for her, but they took her away already.” They lied.

I told her, “It will work out for you, and for her, in the end.”

I guess I lied, too.

and I will align myself with nothing...

I had been struggling with my clinical specialty until my community health clinical instructor who was been a L&D nurse for 10 years said to me, "I don't see the predicament. Sometimes, you can't tell the difference between a birth and a death. I've been at plenty of births where I was like 'was that a death?' and plenty of deaths where I was like 'was that a birth?'"

Drawing by Karlynn Jayne Holland.

...and I will enjoin my heart with no-one's
cause I was untried
when I was applied the light of birth.
- "Patience" Royal Stable Music 1997

I Keep My Horse At Stable Will's

After missing Bonnie Billy in Big Sur last weekend, we got a free shot today at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. We also ran up on him quite unexpectedly on our way out. Come to find out he's an artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts. This means a chance to recompense for the lost concert. Anyway, thanks to Will for fulfilling expectations and being something quite other than a typical musician/ performer. Thanks for walking a different line.

Red, White & Blue

After a sad beginning of the week, there is some kind of magic in knowing it is snowing on Mars.

Swamp Girl

"She is a legend. She is a myth. She is Swamp Girl. Growing up on the Okefenokee, abandoned by her parents, Swamp Girl was raised by a black man she calls Pa. Trouble reins for Swamp Girl when another girl who happens to be a psycho prison escapee and her boyfriend force Swamp Girl to be their local Swamp guide. Things get nasty when Swamp Girl battles Convict Girl in an all out catfight." That, a little Ferlin Husky crooning, and more bad ass snakes than you can shake a stick at, makes for fine Sunday night respite.

We do indeed have the double feature including Swamp Country (1966), which we've saved for a rainy day. Sadly, we missed out on the extra added attraction, Swamp Virgin (1947). What gives?

Sweet Can

Sweet Can is performing this weekend in Fremont. $25 for adults, $15 for kiddos. Totally worth it, even on a student budget. Tickets here. Check it out.

Community Health

So, one of the great things about MEPN is the community rotation. Today I learned that as a part of my placement I will not only be doing immunizations for the flu season, but also in-home prenatal Hep B screening, communicable disease education and screening, and we will all participate in a countywide bio-terrorism drill where we will perform "drive-by" immunizations of thousands of police officers and fire fighters. (And we have to be deputized to do this. Yes!) We also have the opportunity to volunteer for free tattoo removal and/or perinatal education for low-income families. As a part of our concurrent L&D rotation, we have 12 hours on the floor, and the option to volunteer in the NICU or at the Women's Option Center. That, and a pretty laid back academic quarter, makes us all happy.

Is That a Clown in Your Pocket...?

There was an article in the NYT last Thursday about Clown Conservatory founder, Jeff Raz. I love the clowns. But this article was one of the more absurd, placing clowning in cahoots with psychoanalysis by way of desocialization. And here is where I run screaming from the room... “Working on clown is in vogue right now," says Dody DiSanto, director of the Center for Movement Theater in Washington. Working on clown? Does that sound, um, dirty to anyone else? Here are some of the workshop names for those of you looking for a little clown action*:

DYNAMICS OF CLOWN PARTNERING
DISCOVERING THE CLOWN
ENSEMBLE ADVENTURES IN CLOWN
BOUFFON. THE ANTI-CLOWN

*AKA get your clown on, a phrase I am working on popularizing.

Festina Lente

Classes start up again tomorrow and rather than fight the pace of the program I have decided to just alter my approach and perspective: to make haste, slowly.

Hillbint on Destruction

Can I just offer that if the new GOP vice presidential candidate wants to be taken at all seriously, she's going to need some lessons in diction. That, or maybe I can make some money when I publish the Sarah Palin Diction-ary.




"wey" (i.e. All the wey up here in Wasilla.) = way
"dint" (i.e. Oh no he dint.) = didn't
"hill" (i.e. I know hill make a fine president.) = he'll or hell, see "bint"
"bint" (i.e. Hillbint) = bent
"impordend" (i.e. The Bush Doctrine is really impordend to me.) = important

Cigarettes & Mustache Wax

Yesterday morning on the ride to school, The Kid wanted me to feel his chin to see if he had suddenly begun to grow a beard.
"Nope," I said, "no beard yet... why do you want a beard?"
"I don't," said he, "I want a mustache so that I can make it look like this..." and he proceeded to draw swirls around the corners of his mouth.
The child wants mustache wax. And he often walks around smoking a fake cigarette that he got in a grab bag at the "Sing-a-Long Grease" at The Castro theater a couple of years ago. Very curious.

A.World A.Part

Sometimes, on a short holiday, it is nice to sit and listen to an old friend.

Psssst...Do Something!

Cloacal Disbelief

When my partner got into the car for the commute home last night, he and The Kid took up a little birding. This was all fun and games until it came out that many male birds don't have a penis.

All that was heard from the back seat was a long and whispered "....what...?" followed by a very long and contemplative silence.


Some do, by the way, as is evidenced by this Argentine Lake Duck.

Did You Feel That?

I hate that -- when my house shakes uncontrollably.
The next time you feel it, report it here.


A light earthquake occurred at 9:00:15 PM (PDT) on Friday, September 5, 2008. The magnitude 4.0 event occurred 3 km (2 miles) ENE of Alamo, CA. The hypocentral depth is 16 km (10 miles).

What a Pain

There seems to be something of an all-consuming concern on my floor (which I have just left for the next four months for my new clinical placement) but there still exists, in my absence I am sure, a somewhat obsessive concern with drug seeking. Granted, when I walk in the room, evaluate my patient, have a nice, friendly and coherent conversation with her -- VS normal, everything checks out -- ask her pain on a scale of 1-10 and have her reply "12", I have to think there's something a little fishy going on... especially when her PRN med is methadone.

It is a problem. But it is not as big a problem as some of the other nurses seem to imagine. For example, when my next patient has a hole in his body that is 4x4" and has reached the bone, and he reports to the docs, "I want you to change my demerol from every 6 to every 4 hours because my pain is a 7 all the time" I tend to roll with that. But this guy has had an incredibly hard time getting anyone to believe he is in any pain at all.

With that in mind, I've found some good advice in the event that you're ever in pain and in the hospital -- credit to Crass-Pollination, an ER Nurse who says:
"Attention: The pain scale stops at 10. If you say '12', we think you're FOS."