Hey old friend

Surreal.

It all just felt so surreal.

There I sat, wingman-ing it up for my friend, as she flirted and made eyes at someone I myself had made eyes at six years ago.

Like I said, surreal.

I hadn't seen him in six years. Six years! Had no idea what he was up to, other than the periodic status updates he posted on Facebook. So since the last time I'd said hi, all I really knew was that he had pizza last Friday, moved to New York in 2008, and campaigned for Obama in 2006 and maybe again this past election. I had all these questions, but instead, I sat there and made polite conversation with his friend. How was work? What do you do again? Oh, tell me about that. Another device, eh? Congratulations, how exciting for you!

I said all the appropriate things, while trying to surreptitiously eavesdrop on the other conversation going on just across the table. After all, being a psychiatrist has trained me to become really good at listening while not really listening.

After an hour or so, my friend got up to enact her exit plan. I mean, we all know how awkward these kind of set-ups can be. And we had talked about it beforehand. She had concert tickets so, at any point, she could get up and say that she needed to go home to get dressed, or rattle off a 'oh my, look at that, the traffic in LA is terrible, I better leave three hours before doors open to make sure I get there in time' while desperately running for the exit.

She stayed well past the doors opening, and it was only when her friend - already at the concert - started hammer-texting her madly to see where she was, that she was guilted into leaving.

I patted myself on the back for a successful matchmaking venture.

But that whole surreal feeling was just beginning.

I thought that that was the end of it, that we would say our goodbyes, our wayward path crossing never to happen again, but instead he wanted to chat. Wanted advice. Wanted my expert psychiatrist opinion on his love life. On what he was doing with his love life.

I learned essentially everything about him in the next few hours. How he wasn't sure he'd ever been in love before, that he was worried he wasn't capable of feeling love, that there were maybe just three girls he liked in undergrad (and yes, he told me their names), and in the midst of all this, he asked me such pointed questions too, that it made me worry he'd come across this very blog and realized that he had played such a  role in my early 20s.

[Side note: I highly doubt he's read this. After all, reading someone's blog and realizing you're the subject matter would make anyone prone to awkwardness, and this boy, well, he takes the whole awkward cake. So the fact that he was even able to look me in the eye, pretty much rules out any possibility of him reading this.]

But I got my answers to those questions I had so many years ago. No, he never liked me. No, he was trying to keep from leading me on. No, he didn't realize I had schoolgirl crushed on him. No, I didn't intimidate him...maybe.

Amid all the candor, I smiled, realizing that heck, we might actually be friends now.

How ironic is that, eh? Six years ago, I was lamenting that we could have been friends - no, great friends - if only we had more time to get to know each other. If only we had known each other earlier in our undergraduate lives. Turns out I was a little bit right. We needed time, we got it, and look at where we are now.

Yes, it feels surreal.

Surreal, but nice.

More adventures in parent texting

My parents have become huge fans of texting. My mom still has no idea how to listen to her voicemail, but she's all over the texting.

And they're trying to get hip with the lingo. Almost every text they send me is littered with TTYL! or BRB! or LOL! (which in their mind, stands for 'lots of love,' not what middle schoolers traditionally use it for), every acronym inevitably capitalized and punctuated with exclamation marks.

Recently, my dad has become a purveyor of the word "dude." Hey dude! Blah blah blah, dude! Blah blah, you know what I mean, dude?

Except, he doesn't quite spell it right.

So instead of it turning into a casual conversation between friends, each time he texts me, I'm reminded of just how much of a dud he finds me.

I'm a little bit County, and you're a little bit rock 'n roll

I just started a rotation at the higher ranked, more academically minded institution across town, and I feel like a fish out of water.
---

PSYCH RESIDENT

Oh my god! I took care of the craziest patient today!! Listen to this, you won't believe it, but I swear it was true. She was covered in her own feces and was talking to her hallucinations as she threw pieces of paper at us! 

OTHER PSYCH RESIDENT

Holy cow! What did you do??

FIRST PSYCH RESIDENT

Well, we didn't know what to do, so we gave her a combo of Zyprexa and Ativan IM. Anything to calm her down quickly, you know.

ME

Wait! You gave those together??

BOTH RESIDENTS

[stare at me as though they suddenly realize that there is another person in the room as I blush to the high heavens for speaking when not spoken to]

...

FIRST PSYCH RESIDENT

Well, I think all that talk about respiratory depression is just anecdotal. Anyhow... [pointedly stares at his co-resident and obviously dismisses me]... I don't even know how she ended up at our hospital! How did she get through security?? Hahahaha!!

ME

[speechless]

---
It's gonna be a long month. Oy.

You probably shouldn't say this to a girl

ME

Man, look at these old pictures of me. I was so skinny! Look! I wasn't even trying to suck in my stomach!

MARTIN

It's okay, now you're plump with life!

ME

...

MARTIN

...

ME

...

MARTIN

...I meant to say full of life.

ME

...

MARTIN

...

ME

[glares]

MARTIN
I mean,  I love you?

Flowers for Algernon

I was studying at Starbucks next to a few other girls, all of us with our headphones dutifully plugged in, to give off that extremely studious, please don't try soliciting anything from me, vibe. Then, I heard loud gasps all around me, and so I looked up to see a boy, tastefully but casually dressed in a dress shirt tucked into some trouser pants, holding out a bouquet of flowers for the girl sitting next to me.

[Here's where I confess that I don't actually listen to any music when I'm studying, but I wear my headphones so that when the homeless person comes in to ask for money, I can just shrug them off without having to actually listen to their sob story. Yes, I realize this makes me heartless, but hey, I have rent to pay and books to read.]

He held out the bouquet of flowers, and he launched into a spiel about how he's loved her ever since she first walked into their English literature class, ten minutes late, and through the wrong door. The other girls were listening and I could see Taylor-Swiftian hearts melting around me. But then I surreptitiously stole a look at the girl the speech was intended for, and all I could see was abject horror. Realizing that others were now watching and listening, she sputtered, "Those flowers aren't meant for me!" He paused in the middle of his grandiosity, shocked silent mid-speech, "..uh, but they are for you." "No no!" she shot back, "all this that you're doing? This is meant for someone else...you -- you will find someone else who this is meant for."

The flowers were now awkwardly between them, as he held them out, and she continued to obstinately refuse to take them. He tried to save face, saying that despite what her response was to his declaration, he had bought the flowers for her. But she just looked down, not willing to make any further eye contact.

By this time, everyone was busy trying not to make eye contact as well, as we all realized how amazingly awkward this all was. Everyone stared at their phones, their books, their coffee sleeves - at anything! - to avoid making eye contact, as the boy looked around at the scene of his complete and utter humiliation.

He turned around, put the flowers down on an unoccupied table next to the door, and then walked out the door.

The busy hum in the Starbucks resumed, and the flowers remained untouched, like a memorial to spurned teenage love.

That poor boy. I still have no clue how that girl was able to continue studying after all that awkwardness. (And this coming from the self-proclaimed queen of awkward!)

Love you more

I'm horrifyingly nostalgic tonight.

Maybe it was because Lisa sent out an email asking for everyone's addresses, and although I always knew it, somehow seeing all the different zip codes made me really grasp how far flung across the continent we are. Maybe it was seeing everyone's titles and positions in their email signatures. Maybe it was realizing that we were using proper email instead of AIM group messages full of improper capitalization and emoticons. Maybe it's because I just found and listened to my very first Lifehouse album that soundtracked our freshman year so perfectly.

My friends, we've grown up.

I miss that I'm not as close to anyone in residency as I was with them. I miss how I can't just wander into my neighbor's kitchen and plop down in my oversized dorm t-shirt, complete with a double entendre slogan, and just wallow in self-pity or group-pity or whatever it was that we did at 3am in the morning on far too many occasions. I miss the ten different viewpoints to our arguments, I miss laughing over our awkward encounters, I miss our group breakfasts and dollar-store mugs full of coffee, I miss everything.

I miss us. Because I can't help but feel like I'm never going to be able to recreate our crazy group chemistry.

I miss what we used to have.

I guess they were right. College really was the best years of my life.

In which I try to make the judge read between the lines

Today, I had a probable cause hearing in which I had to testify in front of my extremely sweet, but extremely psychotic and paranoid sixteen-year-old patient. The thing is, I'd been doing therapy with him for two weeks, and even though he was absolutely convinced that everyone else was out to get him, he had started to trust me and tell me things...like how everyone else was out to get him. So now I had to give my testimony  and use the right words so as to not set off my patient and keep our therapeutic relationship intact.

Sounds easy enough, but I found myself trying to wink my way through it, hoping that the judge would understand the hidden meanings behind my words.

JUDGE

All right Dr. Wu. So can you tell me why this child should stay in the hospital?

ME

Um, yes sir. Our patient has had a very troubled past and had terrible things happen to him, including things that no child should go through...[and here I fought the urge to actually physically wink at the judge]. He has very firm beliefs that others are conspiring against him and the other patients and feels it is necessary to protect them at all costs. 

JUDGE

Hm. I see. Well Sam, would you like to say anything?

SAM

Yes sir. I need to get out of here, because they're trying to kill me. I'm not the one who needs to be here sir. There's a man in the walls who's a shape-shifter and he's going to kill us all unless I get out of here. I'm begging you, Your Honor, you gotta let me go so that I can avenge all of our deaths!!!

So much for trying to side step around the issue.