ChaiTeaLatte

Quiet (MD)

Don't you love Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus on NR? It's not so much that I agree or disagree with any particular topic he may write about, it's the tone I like. Musing, gentle, skipping from anecdotes, to reader e-mails and letters, to descriptions of events like a visit to Davos, or making a political point. Gentleness in political discussion is welcome relief, isn't it?

Anyway, I've been watching a lot of movies lately - winter is finally here, although the bitter cold of the past few days has passed and now we have warmer temperatures. We've all been working long hours in the path department, but I've managed to see a movie or two on the Sundance channel. Can't be bothered with Netflix. Why, when I've got so many 'free' movie channels?

A day or so ago, I stumbled across Heights, a movie loosely based on a play by Amy Fox. According to the website, Ismail Merchant commissioned a screenplay based on the play. I'm not sure what got me to stop as I was flipping channels; I think it was Glenn Close, so startling and beautiful as a brunette, playing a dynamic and attention demanding actress in New York, with a photographer daughter who is about to be married. The tensions in the film (and how can a film not have tensions?) revolve around these three main characters. For a movie about New York, it sure is filled with hushed silences and quiet moments. It feels secret, not secretive, but secret. All three have secrets, in a way, and we the audience are carried along toward the truth by the end.

How can a movie about New York be so filled with quiet? It's a respite, that's what it is. There's that love of gentleness I have, again, and I was glad to see a little bit of it in evidence in that movie.

I bought a pocket-book, yesterday, made by vy & elle. It's made of recycled billboards, oddly enough, something I did not know when I bought the thing. I just liked the colors and wanted something new to go with the purse I bought this summer, shopping back home in Iowa with my sister-in-law. I often do that - price things in Boston, and if they have the same department store back in Iowa, buy it there. It ends up being cheaper. So, anyway, I now have this funny pink, red, white, blue, orange pocket-book (wallet). It's cute. I wonder what the bill-boards it is made out of used to say?

I have no idea what any of this rambling is supposed to mean, but I like words and I like to write and it feels calming, on a Sunday night, to quiet down with music and words, and get ready for the busy work week. Plus, there was no football on today, of course. A lot of Patriots fans are going to be rooting for the Bears, I think, and as a former sometime Chicagoan, I'll be right there cheering, too. Well, not right there. No tickets to Miami or anything.

*I'm going to see P.J. O'Rourke talk tommorrow night. I look forward to it.

Projections: Luminate (MD)

It's 8 o'clock or so and I'm in the office listening to a song, Luminate, by Projections. It's a new office, the fourth I've had in my four and half years at this hospital. The place has a faint musty odor which is actually quite new: It's mouse powder, laid down along with some mouse traps by service response, or whatever they are called. Well, it is an old hospital and it's the pathology department which is never a high priority anywhere, and there is a lot of construction going on around here. Buildings (tall, bold, rectangular sheets of glass reaching into the Boston sky) surround this hospital now. Plus, it's freezing outside, so maybe that explains the need for mouse powder. Anyway, I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until everything was spotless, right after I moved into this new office and it at least looks clean. I joked with one of the senior doctors that I should get a bonus for rehabbing old offices around the department.

One of my colleagues stopped by yesterday and complemented my office plants. It's a very crowded space which I try to keep minimalist (better to concentrate), but I do have a small bamboo sitting in a blue-green pot on the top of a bookshelf and a potted primrose whose yellow blooms are gently fading, in a friendly keep-me-company fashion, but whose leaves are a robust leafy green.

The number of cases I have to see (well, everyone has to see) has exploded recently. The hospital is pursuing a growth strategy, which is smart and exactly what I'd do if I was in charge, but the growing pains are hard, aren't they? I am going through my cases now (well, not at this exact moment) and organizing them in three 'piles' for tomorrow's work day. The first are cases awaiting additional studies, the second are fresh cases that are ready to review tomorrow, and the third are cases I've looked at already but need a second look. My paranoia cases, I call them, which makes the residents and fellows laugh. I'm pretty sure all pathologists do this. Wake up in the middle of the night, thinking, I should look at that case again before I release the report! Be patient, my dear patients. You may become impatient waiting for your results (and I sympathize completely and sorry for the silliness of the sentence), but at this particular point I am your advocate. You want me to look again, trust me. By the way, I stole the 'I am your advocate line' from a new colleague of mine and she is absolutely correct. That's the way to look at it, isn't it?

Sigh. It's the usual craziness and I'm not sure how much longer my path will intersect with the paths around here, but for the duration, I do my best. Okay, now it's Happy Mondays streaming through the computer (Dennis and Lois), so time to sign off and finish sorting. Take care, blog friends.

*Tatyana, out in cyberspace, I promise to provide some links to the songs when I get a chance. I remember you requested that, before.