I am in the clear. I am in the clear. I am in the clear.

I went back to the church that E took me to, today. Some to hang out with her, some to hear the singing again and some to listen to what the priest had to say.

And it was hot. It was a million degrees inside. It got even hotter when everyone started singing. But that was okay, because the sermon today was given the lofty title of "The meaning of virtue."

It was basically about this scribe who runs up to the big man and asks what the greatest of all (Jewish) laws/commandments is. The big man responds that the Schema (Deuteronomy 6:4, for all you Goy Torah buffs) - "Hear, O Israel...love God with all your soul..." - is the greatest, and that if one truly understands and obeys the Schema, what will follow is that you will in turn be compelled to love life and everything on Earth.

It's a logic which claims that if you really ARE trying to seek this relationship with God, and you are successful, you will have nothing left but love for fellow man and protozoa. Love through action, not empty word. Which means that you can't be half-assing life and living to the fullest and still be loving. And that is the greatest commandment. No garbage about pre-marital sex, sex for enjoyment's sake, failing to prothestize, not contributing to the tithe, drinking soda, etc being wrong. Those are assumed human extentions of the "ultimate law" which is: live and love fully.

It almost sounds like you're getting off with a slap on the wrist. You can do anything you want and still be in the good books? No. It doesn't work like that. You don't get to lie to yourself, and you don't get to lie to God about living to the fullest. Expecting something in return is the great qualifier. You can't truly be pouring yourself into something with abandon if you expect something in return. You aren't being truly charitable if you're counting on the tax write-off. You aren't maximizing your gifts if you cruise through and get an A but really don't give a shit whether it could have been a B or a D. You're certainly not scoring points for the afterlife if you're having sex to keep somebody in your life. That isn't living fully, that's marginally better than existing. No cheating, because Big Man knows.

So if another psycho christian lectures me about living in sin, I'll know that what I do is the opposite of that for the most part. Some of those assumed human extentions don't really apply to me because I'm finally in the position where I do things and don't expect anything back from them - for now. Which is a nice way of saying that I'm fulfilled in my own way and that I'm in the clear (perhaps not in the good books) with the dudes upstairs.

Tiffany: 1 , PsychoChristianFreaksWhoTellMeI'mGoingToHell: 0

This is cheeseball week on my blog. I guess that's okay. I could post about how I am slowly taking over New York , about how apparently I am the most attractive person in my laundromat (a story for another day), but I won't. Instead, I got a text message from somebody today whom I haven't seen in over a year, but who I consider a very close friend.

You were my eyes when I coudln't see
Saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith because you believed

It's very safe to say that I am who I am because of this person more than anyone else; it was she who taught me how to be happy, how to recover from disappointments, how to let go of anger and pain, and how to hit a field hockey ball.

Say goodbye
To not knowing how to cry
You taught me that
And I'll remember the strength that you gave me
Now that I'm standing on my own
I'll remember the way that you saved me

I have a habit of lionizing our relationship. I think I have to, though; it's the only way my memory will let me see the past, the only way my entire history makes sense to me, and the only way I understand myself now. I can't be objective about any of my own past, but here are my thoughts, as I believe them.

I was a mess as a kid. I was a mess all the way up through junior year of high school, practically. I've never really suffered from self esteem problems, never had any issues with my sense of self, but I have harbored a roiling hate for the world and almost all things in it. I guess that was my "mess." A lot of things caused this anger, and I'm not going to go into them. I was fed a steady stream of accelerant throughout my time and I used it. It was my right to use it, of course, and I used it every chance I could. I burned through people, things, and toward the end of it all, myself.

It ultimately took someone I couldn't burn through - somebody stronger than I and equally experienced in destroying things - to stop my train from derailing. It was a laborious process. From enduring physical abuse to putting up with my heckling and attention-getting schemes to restraining my destructive intentions and cleaning up my destructive actions, she put up with it all and when I was finished burning, she picked up my destroyed and exhausted self and then led me out of the hole I'd dug myself into, always watching out of the corner of her eye to make sure I was still there, still following.

I was taught how to be happy. By a person who had finally found it herself, through much trial and error, feeling her way through the darkness. She stepped back into it four years later to find me in it and lead me out. And now, I'd like to think we're both out of it. We threw the shovels out of our lives and stopped digging. She started climbing and I'm still finding my footing.

Will we ever be that for each other again? No; we have other people now, other people who watch (over) us and keep the demons at bay. And the thought struck me that I'll never be able to repay the tremendous favor. That I was helped but I can't help in return. And I can't help anyone else, either. I don't have whatever strength is necessary to step back into the dark. Maybe that's why I'm still trying to find my footing.

http://news.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=25#respond

Okay, the stupidity of some of these commentators (if I can even credit them with that title) astounds me. My personal favorite is the moron "Ann," comment #43 who put a stop payment on a check after she had what admittedly sounds like a less than emergency situation root canal done. You fucking idiot put a stop payment on a check? of COURSE you're going to get dragged into court, and furthermore, you DESERVE to be dragged into court for such idiocy. One wonders why people like you are allowed to breed. At the very least you should not open your mouth about your act of extreme stupidity. Jesus.

And to respond with my own opinion on the subject. As you may all know, I spent the last 8 weeks of my summer suffering through clinical rotations (an eye opening experience in many respects, I'll concede) through a variety of areas of medicine and various types of practices (academic, private, clinic, etc.) and I feel sufficiently well educated on this topic to put in 4 cents instead of two.

Firstly: physicians are not mechanics. Surgeons are probably closer to mechanics but really, would you trust a mechanic to ressect your disseased kidney? I didn't think so. So shut the fuck up about physicians being mechanics; most of the ignorant fools who wrote their comments have no idea a) how long it takes to become a doctor b) the standard of knowledge that a freshly certified doctor is made to achieve and c) the behind-the-scenes process that accompanies a diagnosis. Every job has a level of craftsmanship and medicine is really no different; in fact, medicine requires a helluva lot MORE craftsmanship than the average asshole posting on the Times blog can appreciate.

Secondly: I acknowledge that a lot of doctors are influenced highly by financial incentives. The reimbursement system in medicine is procedurally based. Doctor does something, doctor gets check weeks later from insurance company/medicare/medicaid. So if the doctor just sees you but does not poke you, he or she cannot charge you for having poked you. That is illegal. However, according to this article, and yes, I know that it IS in fact true, a lot of doctors insist on poking you so they can charge you or your insurance company for poking you. That is unethical, but not illegal. The problem isn't isolated to Elyria, Ohio and it certainly isn't the best thing for anybody involved.

Thirdly: A significant part of why these doctors feel pressure to make "more" money is because of the overhead that an individual doctor in private practice has to undertake in order to be in business and deal with insurance companies. Insurance companies do NOT always pay (in fact, they often do not pay and try to get away with not paying as often as possible) and that means a doctor must hire, in addition to medical assistants, staff whose job it is primarily to phone jockey each insurance company and badger them for procedural reimbursement. And then there's the office rent. And then there's the malpractice insurance. Eesh. No wonder many doctors in Manhattan refuse to accept any kind of insurance; it's just a pain to deal with and it pushes costs up for everyone. Now this course of action is obviously not possible for all doctors, but it's a solution nonetheless.

So, with these three seemingly conflicting problems, what is to be done? Where do you find a decent doctor who a) isn't trying to rip you off/put your health in jeopardy for silly book-padding procedures, and b) who doesn't treat you like a piece of meat trying to shove you out the door as quickly as possible so that they can fit more billable "consultation" hours in?

A: The faculty practice doctors at academic institutions.

I witnessed firsthand that the doctors in the faculty practice at medical schools and their affiliated hospitals not only had time to spend with their patients, but they also did not attempt to foist useless procedures that cost insurance vast sums of money. Because they were a part of the faculty practice, (it was explicitly explained to me by several such doctors), they were given a salary, benefits which included malpractice insurance, office space and staff, and the opportunity to pursue research and keep abreast of new developments (in fact, they were required to do the latter). The bonus: only the better (dare I say even best) residents (pre-board certified MDs) get to become faculty at an academic institution (med school), so you've already gotten the self-selected better doctors out there.

Let's not forget that for every stellar doctor at the top of their class, there were 10 or 11 assholes who barely scraped by. Keep that in mind when shopping for a doctor, and don't hold doctors (or any other professionals) to ridiculous overblown standards. There are shitty mechanics and shitty lawyers all the same who are out to make a fast buck. Don't be offended by the fact that the law of averages holds true for doctors as well. Above all, don't be like asshole #43 who is so stupid, she doesn't even know what was wrong with what she did.

Alberto. You've really outdone yourself playing lackey to one of the more 'bold' administrations in recent times. Careful now lest you peg yourself to be one of those Attorney Generals that Rehnquist trashed in his book. Oh? What's this... You've already done that?

"[the President] has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution itself."

Say what? Care to repeat that? Shame! Your law school professors are wishing they'd never given you the gentleman's C in the first place. If they knew what haberdashery you were up to they would never haven given you a degree for fear you would reflect on their fine teaching. There are a lot of things "Congress shall make no law" for but here you're even saying that Congress doesn't need to make laws! Oh hell, let's do away with the constitution as well - I mean, North korea doesn't need one and it's done fine so far.

I know you're just trying to do your job (aren't we all?), so if you come up with some better arguments in favor of the eavesdropping program, maybe just maybe we'll let this big snafu slide. maybe.

"The truth is that Toronto isn’t exactly edgy. It is a city that feels as if it is peopled by lifelong scouts and girl guides. When you visit Toronto and yet another person insists on you taking a seat on a tram, you have to wonder how any place so polite can seriously be considered trendy?"

Take a hint, hippies.

I happened upon a picture of somebody today, someone I haven't seen in over two years. The memories flooded back and washed over me while I sat there. I rifled through the emails of distress I sent friends, read and reread the replies, now a full two and a half years old. I caught myself, an hour later, playing Gwen Stefani's "Cool" on loop, sitting passively in a chair, with eyes unfocused and breath shallow.

Look how all the kids have grown, oh
We have changed but we're still the same
After all that we've been through

It's all a ghostly memory now, a dream. I don't even think I have any special attachment anymore, just a knowledge that there was something and at one point in time it was important and even all encompassing. I keep thinking about loose phrases in Diane Ackerman's "An Alchemy of Mind," ones about how the human mind is so plastic and so selectively forgetful that it enables you to distill the sensation of certain moments while reinventing the sensations of others.

Do I really remember anything to do with him now? Is what I'm remembering actually accurate? It's impossible to answer any questions of this nature, I know. And so I've done a fantastic job of moving on, as I'm sure he also has.

But the fact of the matter remains that we have not spoken since that day in May, some years ago, and are unlikely to ever do so again. I imagine that if we see each other ever again, it will be like the Gwen Stefani "Cool" music video, where memories constantly strike and recoil, threatening to unravel the delicate cordial front that each of us would have to maintain. The magic was that every single bit of it was dramatic; it was the flash-in-a-pan whirlwind of sensory overload and when that was over, it was replaced by the deep, churning pull of of a maelstrom. It would have been fitting if it had shattered spectacularly in an instant - the rockstar dying in a car crash, but instead, it succumbed quite unspectacularly to nagging doubts and their erosive powers.

It fell "as a tree falls" - the description given by Antoine de St. Exupery of the death of the Little Prince seems most fitting here - it collapsed in all its majesty and the dust it kicked up took quite a while to settle. So settle it has, and gone it is. It was wonderful while it lasted, and it is perhaps more wonderful now that it's gone.

I didn't have time to post about this earlier and anyway, I was too tired most of today to think about anything like this, but now I have time to distill my thoughts into something lucid, cogent.

Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For the break that would make it okay
There's always some reason
To feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction,
oh beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight

So I went for a ride with a friend on Sunday, we'll call her E. E and I headed out along small winding roads out to Piermont, NJ, out on 505 and back on 9W, up a few less than pleasant climbs but otherwise a relatively easy workout. Having exhausted my water bottle before the longest climb (ass.) and having toasted my legs in both the climbs and schlepping Class Ring up and down the stairs on the north side of the GW bridge (about seven flights of stairs in total, people), I decided I needed water before heading back to my own apartment. E, of course, invited me into her place and I proceeded to kill her Brita while we talked about nothing and changed a few tubes and tires. We talked about all sorts of junk: music, living in tiny apartments, rotations and the like. Eventually we got on the topic of things that we had to do with the rest of the day. I had nothing in particular except to feed myself, and she had to dump off a massive pile of dirty scrubs and exchange them for new ones. She also had to go to church.

I think it was at that point that a lot of points of her personality clicked for me, that made me understand what kind of person she was and what motivated her to be the kind of person she was. Let me start by saying she is good at a whole lot of things. Maybe it's already too obvious who it is already, so I will not list all the things she is good at. The floodgates opened, kinda. I volunteered that I attempted spirituality in freshman year when i went with quite a bit of regularity (!) to the Episcopalian service at St. Paul's, mostly for the sermons and for the reverend. She countered by asking me what it was in particular I liked about those sermons. I didn't know what it was. I think it was probably some combination of being intelligent and presupposing intelligence of the listener. They reminded me of the sermons at MemChurch at Harvs. So she said that I would potentially be interested in going to church with her. She invited me to join her.

I rode home, bonking along the way and got in the door and shoved as many whole tomatoes in my mouth as I could. I didn't stop eating until my jaw was tired. Tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, chicken, ice cream, a popsicle. Finally, I was done and I thought about it more and more; what was it about being 'asked' to go to a church - a presbyterian one at that - that made me entertain the thought seriously?

So i went. I ran out the door at 6:30, worried I'd be late. I wated 15 minutes for a train and cursed, arriving just on time and probably stressing my "host," E, out somewhat. I met some people. And then bam, into the church.

The singing was incredible. Of course I sat there mutely humming along, but everyone around me was full out singing. Let me tell you, even I was moved. These people had enough of a relationship with their God to impact me. Then the sermon came. There was talk of model homes, and how "we" had to be model homes for the type of life that we already knew we were supposed to live. Specifically things like sex and being preoccupied in material goods and other such characteristics that we weren't supposed to be exhibiting. Oops. I guess that makes me bad. I am, as it were, living "as if the afterlife did not exist."

So I thought about it. I thought about where I was relative to what this God - presumably my "official" God- wanted and demanded of me and I compared it to that of E. Now I know that I'd fallen off the bandwagon quite a while back. I was certifiably a "bad" person because (and I freely acknowledge this) I choose to do things that according to this God, are wrong. I choose to have sex (I'm not married) with the man I love, I choose to be an asshole to the starving and underserved, I choose to diregard almost all canonical dogma. Most days I feel I'm better off for it. Maybe Sunday I started having doubts.

I looked at E, who is significantly less of an asshole than I am (she even puts up with them and tolerates dating them), who has developed all of her gifts and is a remarkable person, and realize perhaps that following all the rules isn't so bad. Of course, there are disaster examples of those who follow all the rules. There are people who I don't envy who I'm so glad I'm completely unlike. But there are outstanding people I know who have all their ducks in a row, who have by and large followed the rules (okay, so breaking a few is excusable, i'm told, so long as you're sorry) and I am wondering if the acceptance of these rules in some sort of Faustian gamble is what I need to push me to a higher level of understanding within myself and a higher level of achievement and personal satisfaction.

I know God doesn't work like that. I know that God is ultimately displeased with the mere idea of a value-added exchange but I can't wrap my head around that. It's more than a leap of faith that I'd have to take, and it's more than just allowing this Catholic guilt to pressure me into accepting something. It's like Camus' "The Fall" (which, btw, was referred to in the sermon) - this may be the beginning of my own fall perhaps only to be remedied with the promise of an "eternal life" and ultimately in being hardballed into all of the rules that a "good" individual accepts.

But my reasons for having sex and indulging in material hedonistic pleasures are my own. They don't involve any guilt, there is no heady ideology which motivates them and I participate knowing full well they aren't everyone's cup of tea. I'm responsible when I screw around and I'm responsible when I'm an asshole; I am still a bad person. Reconciling this with the potential for being "bad" because my reasons are not divinely inspired is obviously the issue at hand.

Marriage can't be the golden yardstick for sexual contact; the definition of marriage over centuries has been constantly in flux - for a while, marriage didn't even constitute a relationship with someone you loved. Charity can't be the golden yardstick for renouncing material goods; non-profits have existed for only so long and even the most efficient charity gives only a percentage of its "earnings." So what are these rules based in? Intent? Can I intend to marry someone and because of societal restrictions as of yet be unable to and get away with sex? Can I intend that all of my money go to a worthy cause without taking responsibility for whether it does or not? Does that mean I've followed enough rules to make myself privy to the "riches" that one who follows these religous rules is entitled to?

I live well. I eat well, I have never slept on anything but down pillows with a down duvet. I love my man very much. I also screw him, and it means a lot to me, every time. I am generally considerate of other people's feelings and I give to charity sometimes but more often not. Still, I am guilty.

Finally, it's over.
I had my last rotation today, an Office Based Practice rotation with "Manhattan's best Ear Nose Throat (otorhinolaryngology)doctor." It was pretty cool, as far as rotations go. I met two New York executives and...looked up their goddamned noses. One guy has been sniffing so much coke that the cartilage that made up the wall between his nostrils (the septum) was completely chewed away and the bone supporting the bridge of his nose was slowly but surely becoming the consistency of chunky chicken soup. It was rough, to say the least.
But as much as I "enjoyed" this experience, or at least as much as I'd like to say I was glad to have it, I'm glad to say that it's over. I've solidified that it would take some catastrophic, adverse conditions which would force me to actually go to through with this whole "plan" and even moreso, it's now practically out of sight, out of mind. I gave this whole thing an honest shot and now I can walk away from it happy and knowing that this is not the pot of gold for me. It is now trickling out of sight.
Right now, though, an exhaustion is creeping over me, begging me to bring my mind and body into the next universe.

Don't call me in the morning, I have the rest of the week off.