temporary hot seat

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one
-Leo J Burke

Courtney and I had another sleep accident last night. It used to happen pretty frequently before we had a couch but has since become pretty rare. After coming home last night from dinner at Banana Leaf, we decided to take a little cat nap to energize ourselves before heading out. Next thing I remember is waking up, sweating and fully clothed at 1:30am. I think Courtney would've probably slept all the way through if I wasn't so noisy, stumbling around the apartment in my sleepy stupor.

I'm a fairly decent sleeper but my skillz are nothing compared to Courtney. She's a machine. Once when we were talking with one of her friends who had a new baby, Courtney was worried about her own breastfeeding future because she thought it would be physically impossible to rouse herself in the night. We decided that we would have to design a harness system for her so when the baby woke up and wanted to be fed, I would get up, attach sleeping Courtney to her feeding harness, the hungry baby to the boob, and supervise. I hope for everyone's sake that this won't be necessary.

preschool climbing genius

We woke up today
And I thought I was yesterday
-A L'oree Des Bois, Plants and Animals

It's summer and it's weird to have life continue as is. I've had summer jobs and taken spring courses in the past of course, but none of them have been particularly grueling. Actually- strike that. Taking organic chemistry in the spring after my 1st year definitely falls into the gruel category. Regardless, at the end of the year, I've always had some time off....until now. I'm not sure if everyone has this sensation when they first leave school, but it's not a pleasant one. Every morning, in that period between sleep and waking, my brain starts congratulating itself on a good year and gets ready to shut off for the rest of the day, when it is rudely interrupted by the realization that I am, in fact, required to go do something useful. I'm not sure if it is this phenomenon that is causing me the cognitive dissonance I'm feeling these days or my brain is just syncing with some of the patients on the ward. Who knows. It kind of helps to remember that most people work year round with inadequate holidays, and although it apparently feels like working in a salt-mine to some people (I assume that feels hard..... and salty), my gig is a pretty good one.

Psychiatry can be crazy-making and depressing, but there are glimmers of hope. And more often, moments of entertainment. For example.

Me: And can your fiance use telepathy as well?
Patient: Yes, but he prefers to use the telephone.

Me: What do you think of the time you spent here?
Patient: Well, it was great, met a lot of good friends for life. People you will never want to see again but people you would really like to meet up with in the future, you know?
Me: Not really

Patient: ...and we used to have a painting company, look, here's our business card! (pulls tattered card out of wallet). Do you know what it's missing?
Me: Ummm....not sure
Patient: A SEAGULL!
Me: Ahhhhh....yeah. That would be good.

One more week of Psychiatry.

getting prn'd

To the surprise of many people, this barbaric brain-damaging and memory destroying treatment not only exists, but is expanding.... It's main targets are women and the elderly, particularly elderly women.

-Notes on Psychiatric Fascism by Don Weitz

I've had a cold for the past couple of days and it sucks. I'm really not that sick, which is good I guess but it kind of back fires, cause then you still have to go to the hospital, where, in general, people aren't that sympathetic towards people with mild cold symptoms for some reason. On thursday I was having a particularly difficult morning. Courtney had left her keys at her parent's house by accident so we had to devise a pretty complex system to make it possible for both of us just to leave our over-secured condominium complex (which didn't work). It was raining, the garbage exploded on me and I couldn't find my biking gear. I wanted to show up to the psychiatric ward where I worked and tell them I live in a maximum security prison, I've been infected with an alien virus and my girlfriend is conspiring against me. This is how you get attention on a psychiatric ward, and I was feeling like a shot of Ativan and some time in the Quiet Room might be nice. Alas, I thought better of getting myself certified and just sipped on my chamomile tea, feeling decidedly less delusional by the end of the day.

So to compensate I've been feeling extra sorry for myself, which has been working out pretty well.

pink pedal baptism

It was horrible... I started yelling at him,
'What are you doing?'
and I was in complete shock.
Like, something like that doesn't happen every day
-Excerpt from Globe and Mail article "B.C. man guilty of microwaving cat"

Often, nothing really happens, which is actually a nice thing I think. Sometimes, however, this worries me, I mean, think of how bored young people get nowadays when old people try and tell stories. And old people have had pretty eventful lives. Great Wars, Great Depressions, Great Immmigrations. These things make for Great Stories. What do we have to talk about? Real Estate Markets? Stephen Harper? Poor Grammar/Inappropriate Capitalization? I actually think I've written about this before, which just goes to show precisely how many interesting stories I have. I wonder what I will tell my grandkids. Nice stories about how everything went well generally don't make it into print. Although global warming is shaping up to be a real happening. Or peak oil. Alien invaders? Something.

This may sound like I'm wishing something horrible on myself or society in general, which of course I'm not and have easily prevented while knocking on my desk while typing this (does IKEA furniture count as wood?)

Anyhow, so here is what I do when I don't have any stories of my own.

Katelyn just got back from a 3 week trip to Cuba. It's part of a Queen's spring course- FINP 310 "Financial Discussions with Parents". Seriously, it is part of a real spring course, but I don't know the course code and the parental discussions are more of a spinoff from the course rather than the main objective.

Tory still lives in Edmonton as far as I can tell, although I'm fairly certain this applies only during the week. On the weekend she prefers to live in Toronto, Vancouver or New York.

My parent's dog Mackenzie has microcytic anemia and hypothyroidism. On the way home from the cabin we heard a news story on the CBC about a veterinary clinic in Seattle that is offering bone marrow transplants for dogs (for about $15 ooo-20 000 USD). In related news, 1/3 of the world's population lives on less than $1 a day.

My dear friends Aaron & Jieppe, their baby boy Peter and Nintendo Wii are moving to Louisville, Kentucky. Apparently normal people can buy a house there. Luckily their Honda Civic will not be joining them in the home of the Slugger, the first human hand transplant and "The most exciting two minutes in sports". It instead will be joining a fleet of similar mid-sized, late-model imported cars in level P3 of The Vine (temporarily, until they sell it).

Courtney is working night shifts at VGH ER these days, so we are back to the two ships routine, although not nearly as extreme as it was in the fall. I just heard her alarm clock go off which means it's time for me to go to bed.