"It's suicide for diverticulitis"

- overheard two seats in front of me at the 18:45 showing of Batman Begins at the Vista Theater, in reference to popcorn.

I feel a little TC-manic right now. But...
That movie.
Is fucking.
awesome. great.

He's all: "I'm not going to kill you, but I don't have to save you"

So pure, so good! (I don't trust myself when I start using exclamation points).
That is my kind of superhero. One who attempts to define himself by the most arduous of all human traits: the ability to keep an even keel.

And, not to brag, but I saw Nelly Furtado standing on the sidewalk outside of Malo on my walk home. So, I'm not sweating it either.
And I just read in Entertainment Weekly that Joseph Gordon-Levitt next project is a thriller wherein he - and I quote - "plays the shady pediatrician lover of ex-Parker's star Mo'Nique". Sigh.

Now, it's 21:25, so that means - that's right - I'm off to the gym.

Byrne in the Fire

Byrne dances with the fire
Originally uploaded by senorbunch.

Sunday I was bumming, kinda hard.
But then I went last minute to see David Byrne and the Arcade Fire at the Hollywood Bowl with olde friende Karen and my neurotransmitters perked back up again.
(Nota bene to T. Cruise, re: the reality of imbalance of chemicals in the human body...sounds like someone didnt finish tenth grade human biology what with the learning about the homeostasis...ahem, excuse me).

So for those who havent been to the Bowl, it is a little piece of the Lord in Los Angeles. A little bit of Over the Pond, back in the Pond. Some Spain in America. All by which I mean to say you can bring bottles of wine or 24 packs of Pabst Blue Ribbon and drink them openly, in public, beside your Trader Joe's picnic of hummous and rough bread and fancypants cheese of many varieties all while watching the people pass by you. Also, the hills that compose your view look a bit like the dry hills of Mallorca, hence the Spain reference.

The teenagers were going apeshit behind us, requesting Arcade Fire songs from a 1/2 mile away from the stage. Perhaps they are Latin students and have studied the physics of ampitheaters, I dont know, but I do know that they threw peanut M&Ms at me, or in my general direction anyway. What is it with the teenagers? Because I'm not so sure we were so rad. The girl in front of me practically threw down when David Byrne whipped out I Zimbra. Really.
There was a man dancing feverishly on the stairs, he, Mr. The Focus of All Comedic Attention and digital photography-taking.
As my mom says, no one moves like David Byrne.
He wore a pink suit, as you can see. He had the Tosca Strings with him as well as a one man drum section. Those amazing kids from Montreal came out for Naive Melody (This Must Be the Place) and somewhere in the stadium a nurse was beaming.

But the nurse did not beam so much as she did when the DB called out the Extra Action marching band, which is a full marching band complete with flag girls - only the flag girls are also burlesque dancers - and they paraded through the crowd (the 35 dollar seats) and onto the stage where they assembled. Henceforth the horns began to play the refrain from :

Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" and I think you can imagine how DB would sound singin Whoa-oh-uh-oh-uhohuhoh and it was amazing I'll never see anything like that agin.

I would highly recommend that you go sit in the corner and meditate upon that, and try to conjure that very image and sound.

Stop. Think. Tylenol, or Popsicle of Love

Which of the above will be your summer slogan?
I choose Popsicle of Love, though it's suggestiveness falls dead on my doorstep. (My neighbor is talk-yelling.)

The people at my gym read scripts, or audition sheets on the ellipticals and they talk on phones and some of them have been seen sipping Americanos in between reps. They don't so much actively read the scripts as have them lay about with highlighted lines on the machines. There is one old black man who wears one of those garbage-bag sweating-suits and he is on the bike for about an hour, making notes with a pencil and reading while cycling at a rep rate of about 5 a minute. I worry about him and hyperthermia and once I was looking down upon him from the elliptical behind (in between watching Britney and Kevin: Chaotic, subtitled as though for the hearing impaired) and saw he was writing down engineering stuff. Drawing figures and doing math. (My neighbor is yelling). Britney and Kevin is no shocker. It's vile but not as vile as MTV's "Prom Night" "docs" which nauseate me. Who (that wasnt this kind of person herself) ever asked to have a glimpse into the goings on of the richest, most tan and popular girl's life leading up to the prom? The show is filled with dimwitted adolescent females saying shit like "This is my night. He's not going to ruin my night. He's wearing the white tux" or "I love this spa, I think this is just so important..it's so relaxing because everything else is like, so stressful". Maybe we're supposed to harbor animosity here, because I sure wanted to.
Lately I've been toting my Pediatric Advanced Life Support textbook to the gym. Last week I went through a review on treating shock. Then the chapter on resuscitation drugs. Then the chapter on interpreting cardiac rhythms. I can reliably tell you what to do in case of certain rhythms now. Can be confident of the dose of the shock that is to be given and type of shock.

What do the people at your gyms do?

Bono's been laying down props to my people on this here tour. He gave a shout out in London last night, dedicating something to “the doctors, scientists and nurses who help to keep us alive… especially the nurses”. It's sad that it means so much for a public figure to make such a statement, considering how long my profession has been around and considering that RNs outnumber MDs by some number reminiscent of data from Roman times (slaves:slaveowners = rebellion). You'd think we were obscure or something considering our general lack of mention. But nurses don't do it for recognition, that's why we're nurses. But that has to change. We can't be invisibly going about our days and nights, our skill, our knowledge unseen by the public.
We have to be more concerned with power, more like MDs in that way. Not in a way that alters our aim, not to be greedy or focused on monetary gain, but any power/recognition we obtain will only serve the patient and community. I think nursing might be one of the only places where "trickle down" could work.

I need some laughing, etc.

Yer pal and token RN,
Sarah

mash-up vol. 1

I'm having problems with ideas this year. The problem is that I have a lot of them that I halfassedly initiate or at least ponder before falling asleep. Then when I have a day off, I go to the gym, shower, clean up a bit and then god knows where the rest of the day goes. I find myself attending to unnecessary organizational activities like restructuring my iPod, then my iTunes library, then moving my only bookshelf from one side of the room to the other. And if I'm scheduled to do some time at 826, you can just write off my entire night with the drive back from Venice. I must say however that traffic on the 10, when at its worst, offers me the ability to practice singing along to traditional ten-minute ballads. This has an awkward consequence though because from it another idea is born,: maybe one day I'll get a 4-track, or garageband, and record my version of said 10 minute ballad. In turn, this then reminds me of a previously abandoned idea wherein I started to outline a workshop I would teach at 826 wherein we would explore the format of the epic poem by writing a Rock Odyssey as a group. I abandoned this idea because I thought it was ultimately stupid and only curious to me.

This week I started to make poster boards for my unit on "Lab Values: a Review" and another one on "Systemic Lupus Erythematosus". I stopped because I didnt have vellum to make the boards aesthetically pleasing.

Oh and then there's that novel, or something like that. I feel nuts on occasion.
(End topic).

Oh my days off. It is enjoyed time but it is almost missing time, especially if season 5 of the Sopranos arrives in my mailbox, or when I watch the three original Star Wars like I did this week, borrowed from my lovely neighbors to the north.

I forgot about the scene in Empire where Han cuts open the guts of the Muk-Muk, or Hua-Hua or Yub-Yub, or whatever that Harryhausen-animatic beast is called, and puts Luke inside to warm him up. Those guts were foul. They really burst forth from the cavity, huh?

I have a new plant on my porch. It is plastic, I got it at Ikea. I think it looks classy but my mother is embarrassed from 2000 miles away.

The new Coldplay is lovely. Why do they get all the guff from people like us when Ryan Adams is equally soundalikey but also very good at it? Also, what is it like to channel the spirits of musicians in the studio when those musicians are still alive? Let's listen in:

[in final playback]
Chris: Johnny, I dont know, don't you think it sounds a bit too, you know, like Mr. The Edge, mate?
Johnny: Yeah, I s'pose. But I really like the harmonic there...
Chris: Well if we just up the wall of sound, maybe it won't be so obvious. I love the way the organ builds, and the jangly bits come in..it's all done out of adoration really, it isnt intentional.
Johnny: Fuck. Reminds me of Where The -
Chris: Homage, ok? Homage. "White Shadows" is like, a prayer to "Boy".
Johnny: Then what are we going to do about "Low"? The bass makes it sound like Eno was at the boards and Lanois has his headscarf on and we're up in the Castle, like it's 1984 and hey there's Bono with his fishmullet. It's just going to be so awkward at the G8 you know? They'll give us hugs but we both know what the subtext is, why they smile when they see us.
Chris: Come on, we're going to be the 34th best band in the world. Give the people yearning and they'll be happy. Listen, I've got to get be at dinner with Apps and Gwyns at Versace's in Portofino by sundown, so let's send it off to print. Fair trade, y'all.


[Ok, so that was shit. apologies].

A light in dark places when all other lights go out.

A crossbeam has come undone.
The house will still hold but it will shake a little more in the wind.

That is what I feel about the disappearance of Trajan Martin from this green earth.
I cannot claim to have known him for as long or in as much detail as others,
but I nevertheless am able to appreciate the great vacuum that trails behind him, that brushes up against us now.

Here is a glimpse, here you can look in through the window of that house, and just imagine.