Reaching for the Toilet

Today was one of those days where I’m staring at the bottle of Crown on my coffee table as an inspiration to get through this week. I knew this would come, at some point. An older student pointed out in medical school that her greatest fear was the day she would snap at a patient- and hoped to avoid this by remembering to be grateful. But is is hard to be grateful when you start adding up the hours, and the pounds, and the dollars, that you are sacrificing and someone has the nerve to be ungrateful that your life-saving intervention wasn’t good enough for them. I managed to avoid the snapping, but probably only my remembering said inspiration for getting me through this week. Still, tonight turned out not to be about ranting. but about a funny story that resulted from all the venting. The ranting therefore, which I would normally expound upon- I present in bullet point fashion for your reading ease.

Things that make me swing to the Right these days

1) being furreal broke and debating on turning republican because the next fool who tries to holler at me when my taxes are paying for the clothes/home/car he can’t afford may be going down

2) my skin looking like attack of the droids ( or whatever, I don’t really remember the names of the Star Wars movies)

3) being tired all the damn time

4) saying F-it to all of this ecetera still hanging around on my waistline and

5) having no time/inspiration to write

Rant over, my mother then has the nerve to ask me

“So have you been drinking enough water?”- I think this is in reference to my comment about my skin needing to take the Retin-A plunge but I don’t quite remember as a red haze obscured my vision and my rant went on…as follows

” Do you know how hard it is to drink water in the hospital?” I started, ” There are like- no bathrooms for doctors in the hospital. They have ones on each station for nurses but you have to first find them and then awkwardly use the bathroom because everyone looks at you funny when you try and use the restroom like we are supposedly too clean to ever have to pee. And then you can’t like, go into a patient’s room and excuse yourself from teaching rounds for a minute to use theirs because that’s just not professional. And so when you finally break down and go pee after having downed the entire county’s supply of coffee and forced some water in there so you won’t be the worst doctor/hypocrite ever you find yourself running down to the resident lounge to pee which is so far away from all the work you have to do. And if there is a resident alive who hasn’t answered their pager/ascom/phone to a nurse/patient/attending- while trying to balance the phone on their ear and pee and strategically use the mute button with their chin I am calling them a liar. Right now. Yes I said it. So to avoid all of that, and/or the use of Depends- I just drink less water.”

My mother responded

“Well they have moved my office to an old elementary school. And my office is where the classrooms used to be but they have not retrofitted the bathrooms.” At this point she paused for effect. Wait. Let the implications of that sink in women. “So there are still these bathroom stalls made for little girls despite the fact that now only big girls work there. And so you have to be really careful to aim properly and make sure you squat down deep enough despite your advancing years otherwise you will end up not only urinating on your clothes, but falling. And then you’re on the bathroom floor in an elementary school after having urinated on yourself and that’s just embarrassing.”

…and because I’m all sensitive and PC and can realize she is empathizing with my story like that, at this point I’m howling with laughter. She continued.

“Well I’m glad I could provide you with some amusement but it’s really not funny. You know I’m trying to do all of this with 1 and a half knees so I have to limp and twitch my way down the stairs before kicking my bad leg out and trying to balance on the one good one left. It’s really all about the timing. And I still drink my water. So remember that when you minimize my disability as not a real chronic illness, remember that when you justify not having to drink enough water. And remember that when you need some creative inspiration to write tonight.” My mother is a habitual line stepper…Gotta love it. Dad gave me the title for the post.

like I said- it’s all about remembering to be grateful.

Use as directed- on self waxing

So yesterday evening, after a long day and headed into an even longer weekend I came up with a set of plans for the current cray cray of my life. After the full blown break-down, and get back up again that was Thanksgiving I resolved to get back on the wagon. The trouble was re-arranging the baggage I carry in my wagon. Sort of like Oregon trail, some shyt is not surviving the forging of the river. Over the past month one of the things I kicked off…more for budgetting reasons than anything else would be…self care. I guess since I couldn’t get my hair done, or get waxed, and I was starting a new skin regimen so my face was looking like it did at 13, I just let myself go for the time being. Last night I decided to rectify some of that…by experimenting.

Note: when experimenting with self care products- one should follow the instructions. You should not, as I have- texturize your hair with your bare hands- your fingers will require cetaphil for the next month. You should not allow any of your hair dye to remain on any surface for longer than it does on your hair because it will look like you murdered someone in your bathroom for the next 4 sets of Mr. Clean required to scrub red dye off your floors. You should not attempt self-waxing your bikini line by heating the wax on top of your heater. You should not- and this one is from a friend- have your boyfriend wax you when neither of you have done so much as watch a youtube video of the process. While I hear there was much…bonding…after the disaster of that latter experience She still tells it as a harrowing tale to warn off unsuspecting 20year olds from self waxing kits.

So since I was not about to drop 75$ for a brazilian, mostly because I need all the back-up I can get in this attempt at celibacy, I decided that NAIR might be a good option for at least some maintainance. I do NOT recommend shaving to anyone but especially Black people because, as a woman, and as a doctor- ingrown hairs happen…but they are not sexy, and holding a hot compress to your hooha 3 times a day is rarely practical for anyone with a job. So onto Nair I commenced. Alas- I did not read the directions. I assumed it would be one of those- ok to use for bikini lines but not so much the brazilian effect because whatever the hell can make hair disintegrate and wipe off in under three minutes is probably something you DO NOT want to put over more, shall we say, sensitive areas. So with that in mind I Naired myself up, turned the shower on, and started to brush my teeth for the requisite 3 minutes of waiting time. Belatedly, I realized that perhaps I should extend my Nair application further “around the corner” in an attempt to reach “hard to reach areas”- like it says Nair is good for on all the commercials. Having said that- somehow between basic anatomy and my whole you know, doctorate in medicine, I forgot that said “hard to reach areas” are covered with mucosal  epithelial surfaces rather than keratinized epithelia. Which is to say- there is a difference between the skin in your mouth and the skin on your face. And why, shortly thereafter said application of Nair I was doing this odd sort of squat bowlegged waddle but in fast forward real time to the cabinet for hand towels to WIPE THAT ISH OFF!!! My butt hole was on fire. The Kardashians are crazy for butt bleaching and after this I will never attempt that stuff myself. I hoped that getting into the shower would help but I had to use soap to get the remnants of that horrible stuff…which smells by the way, off. And then like slathered on baby oil like I had diaper rash at 27 and laid down, spread eagle- to laugh at myself. Like seriously- I had no plans for anyone to be seeing the results of my misbegotten efforts but when I say I needed some motivation to keep my legs closed I did not mean Jesus, for you to set them on FIRE.

The next morning, this cray story ended, as all my crazy stories end- in a dramatic re-telling to my little sister: who whooped and hollered and told me to share with you all. This is me, and humility Prostrate…literally, before you.

I am thankful today for laughter- hope you got some just now. P.S. my nether regions have recovered and would like to send a shout out to baby oil and shea butter.

Backwards and Upside down

Took me a full half an hour to come up with that title…I was going for provocative…but not like that!. I realize that half the time my posts have been about a wide range of vjazzling to trashy romance novels reviews and this title may give the reader some false hopes for my subject material. I was referring to ZIP LINING! … and that still doesn’t seem to side step the innuendo so..suffice it to say- there was no naked yoga involved in this past weekend. And by naked yoga I mean just that! I have a friend who’s all about it! no innuendo again I swear! Well since I’m done digging this hole I’ve gotten myself into- let’s just get to the point:

I recently returned from a bonding trip with my fellow family medicine residents. We started off the weekend as only Doctors do: by taking the in-training exam. We then headed to a seminar about our strengths, weaknesses, and stuff we plan to do to fix it all, and finally finished with eating, drinking and being merry- all topped off with an early morning zipline course through the Mountains north of LA. This retreat called to memory so many other forced bonding events I have had in the past. There was “Fallout” – in high school every year: which was always accompanied by ropes courses, trust exercises and a general cliched clique-y-ness that no amount of camping, rafting, or kayaking seemed to cure. Curious how high school students do not seem to get along all the better after you expose their fears and weaknesses to their peers. Then there was the ‘before college retreat’ for my scholarship group- which actually served given that there is no other way I would find myself so enamored of anyone ever sporting the ghastly colors of Carolina Blue. And now this…13 years later, three degrees and 30lbs later I find myself once again flying through the air, backwards and upside down…

I have no complaints about being backwards or upside down ( no innuendo again!)…given the general trajectory of my journey through life as it were (humor har). But the bigger goals of the retreat- before that squealing down the mountainside, before that trusting this rope and these people you don’t know, before making fun of your classmates for peeing their pants as we go along, seemed to be lost. We spoke, in the beginning, of ourselves. We started talking about how you become “one of us”, the truths we hold to be self evident, our “rites of passage”, the ways we fight, who our elders were, all the ways we are a village. The truths spilled out on multicolored neon sticky notes throughout the room “taking call”- for rites of passage, “gossip”- for how we fight, “Senior residents”- a defined hierarchy- for our elders. And being the grown up adult independent doctors that we are, you would think we would have sat around and rebuked this hierarchy- we would have balked. We would all come together and kumbayad our way to non-gossip land. But we didn’t. There seems to be a certain level of comfort I still hold, at this point anyway- in being told what to do. And no amount of drinking and merrymaking seemed to change all of that. What it did change however, was my perspective on the above…flying backwards and upside down has a way of doing that.

We are more than a village, we are a family. My first co-intern and I call each-other Nemesis. We all have our nicknames and will soon have shirts accordingly. We still gossip…and continued to gossip all week long. I made the paltry attempt, while gossipping around the kitchen table- to at least say that this gossip remains between the 6 of us. We are exclusive. The interns drove together, slept together, and rallied at all the seniors trying to get us to break up and mingle. We were the kids wearing double strap back packs long before it was cool because we had actual shyt to do at school. A full 1/4th of all Doctors probably played the violin. We have obsessive compulsive personality disorder…and we like it (say it Sand Lot style–that loser kid who was the captain of the rich team who lost). No one wants a doctor who is laisse le bon temps rouler about their health. We are the ones who bragged in college about who had more homework and the longer paper and the more tests in a row. We are stubborn, and strong willed, and used to being the smartest/ and the ‘least knowledgeable” one in the room.  Having said all of that, the one thing we all agree upon- despite our sneaky, sometimes humorous, some times ill-advised attempts to one up one another’s cool new pen/stethescope/knowledge base- is that there are defined outsiders of the family- and we attack accordingly. That was the last sticky note we all had to describe; since there are defined insiders, who is outside? And the answer was simple- anyone who does not, without question, have our backs first. If you are lazy- you create more work for us and you are outside. If you call others over our heads- you are outside. If you are stupid…and dont work to rectify that stupidity- you are outside. And like all families, while we may gossip, we may laugh at, we may even hurt our own, we will come together and attack all those outside of the family.

I love this family. I love our divas, our wayward cousins, our silent but deadly little sisters. I love that already we have cried together, laughed together. We plan one another’s pregnancies, and weddings, and abortions…in whatever order they may come. And perhaps this journey, residency, forces that bonding: we are pushing through hell praying we come out better, and stronger, and smarter for it…without having killed anyone (including ourselves) on the way. And this requires holding on to one another.

This family, the grown-up doctors tell us, will change. Some people will become outsiders, some new ones will come in…the gossip part doesn’t seem to go away. But I write this to say that 1) for all those kiddos rocking double strapped backpacks- you will get here, and we will be waiting- there may still be sniggering behind your back, you will undoubtedly not have it all figured out yet, but the luxury of family is that we will meet you where you are- keep pushing. And secondly, going through a journey upside down and backwards is ok; a bit scary, and you have no idea where you are going or how long you have to go to get there but it’s actually kind of exciting, as long as you are surrounded by family.

To my Fam med crew, my babies still pushing it out ( Juls, Staley, Jams, the Rev.Dr, AnnieO, Mari, JiJi), my to gangsta bunny and stalker boba…Top Flight security of the world Craig signing out.

…I got my nickname ( the Top flight…) because I absolutely HATE when the frikin suburban parks in the compact spot. I’m like…out to take down all poorly parking members of society…with a whistle and a flashlight.

On “Decorative Pillows”…vs. a quality Mattress

At the beginning of this year I said, I wrote, and I knew that this year would be a period of growth. I knew that it would be hard, I knew that it would hurt- and I was NOT looking forward to it. And somehow, somewhere in the middle of moving and surgery and graduating, and running in circles I have apparently gotten right back to that same point. I can see the period of growth ahead, and I know it’s going to hurt- but this time I am sincerely looking forward to it- or at least looking forward to how I will feel at the end. As anyone who knows me will attest, I am not a fan of the journey. But as I have been forced to learn for these past few months- when there is a trial waiting for you, a test you have to go through- you can try and “sit out this round” but once you try and get up that hurdle will still be standing in front of you until you pull a Lolo Jones and jump. Or in my case, keep frikin working out and pressing towards some prayer and fasting and stretching until you manage to climb over the hurdle in a year or so. I am not a fan of jumping over things that stand above my waistline. I am a huge fan of preparation. But I think this time I was mostly just procrastinating rather than preparing and learning never works that way. See lessons are like that: Rinse and repeat until the damn stain comes out.

But knowing that intellectually and putting it into practice are two different things, and doesn’t make the bleaching process of the stains any less harsh. That’s why I have to keep on blogging and journalling and writing post-it stickers everywhere to remind me to slow down and inhale it all and live in the present. I am always, have always, lived like 5 years in advance. But this time I knew that to get to where I wanted to be was going to require some pain- and I have no idea how, but I figured out how to put off, avoid, procrastinate the pain…until about a month ago.

I think the trouble with praying, in earnest, for God to remove people from your life he doesn’t want there is that somehow you forget that the process will leave you with fewer friends. Or more accurately, fewer people around you, fewer people to call when you have nothing else to do, fewer small talk conversations, fewer on and off again flirts, fewer Plan Bs. Its like taking all the decorative pillows away and seeing if you really like the mattress underneath. But my mother told me the one piece of furniture not to skimp on is your mattress. There is NOTHING like having a good night’s sleep to clear your mind, to revive you, to help you see things more clearly. And there are few things…though given my current life story I can think of just about all of them, that are more disappointing than a poor night’s sleep. This mattress analogy is becoming more and more apparent during this intern year. Not only because I have begun to prize sleep over all types of things given its precious and rare form when actually in a bed and outside of the hospital, but also because I am being stripped of all my decorative pillows. Because I have so little energy, so little time, so little motivation to give to anything not absolutely necessary in my life, the decorative pillows have got to go.

But me being me- it took prayer and some serious hurt and and act of God to drag the pillows out of my house and on to the Goodwill- where I honestly pray they will be picked up and treasured by someone else. All this 5year planning you see, leave me the kind of person who always has a plan B, C and D before even starting on Plan A. But with this one life, this one body, this one heart, this one soul- there is only one plan that will work. There is only the Mattress- and you had better invest in it, take care of it, put time into looking for it before purchasing or you will be poorly disappointed…and sleep deprived. I am learning how much I am willing to pay for a good mattress.

Which leads me to my long-drawn out point. In the Bible, Saul fell flat on his butt and went blind on that road to Damascus. It was NOT pretty. It was not easy. It was not Clean. And I bet walking in some slippers on a dusty road Blind too quite a frikin while- and required all types of helping hands on the way. And I am sure Saul/Paul felt at some point- really Lord, all that? did I have to go frikin Blind to learn that lesson? There really wasn’t any other way? I’m sure that as a newly Blind man he was scared as heck of where, or how to even take that first step on his Journey. But the last time I lost weight, got over a boy, started writing a book, became a doctor it started with a first step. I have been blessed to be surrounded by Good friends, and a Great God along the way but that very first step has been to start with me. Seeing as how God is kicking out all of my Plan Bs, my decorative pillows, my comfortable complacency: there is only Plan A. Which sounds a lot like-seek ye first the kingdom…

Carolina Girl

Its amazing how monumental momenst in my life can go comepletely unrecognized by others. And that this ability- ours ability to be present in our lives, is what allows for it to happen. No judgement, this is not negative- this is just how life is. Im walking out of this hospital forever today. I’ve lived and loved here. I’ve laughed and cried here. I have pushed myself to and past all notions of the limits I have here. And I m walking away. Not quitting mind you, but moving on. Because this phase is finished. Medical school- is over. And no one seems to notice. There is no pomp and circumstance, no trumpets sound as I leave everything I have known for the past four years.

Odd, as i was so excited to be heading onwards and upwards…or sideways- that I would feel nostalgia now. That I would look at these trees shading me as I run and belabor the vast, unending yellowness that is Los Angeles. That I would miss the clear starlit nights on patios of cheap bars in target sundresses rather than envy the purple haze of the LA skyline- made beautiful by all that is unnatural.

I will miss the ease of listening to gospel music on the radio. Of All my friends reminding me to go to church, of easter sunday dress shopping as the norm- rather than the absurd in your late 20s.

I will miss north carolina barbecue. Which makes me chuckle because the first time I saw it I told the international students I was hanging out with that I thought it was chicken salad gone bad due to being outside in this heat.

I will miss the heat, the warm summer nights where everything seems to be stuck together. where we laugh at the clearly out of place yankees wearing allthe colors that make your sweaty arms, back, neck stand out. I’ll miss that moment where you walk into target, or the mall, and are staggered by the relief air conditioning brings.

I wrote this when I knew I would miss…shudders…my carolina Girls. Born and bred California- but Sweet Caroline, oh oh oh.

Alize, Pedestals, And Phalluses

So…as the unfortunately, and misguidedly conservative one of the group, I am just now realizing a factoid about myself that will no longer remain a factoid at the end of this paragraph. I believe, much like the 14year old boys…that I have somehow put phallic symbols into a position of power in my life. Despite the recriminating lectures and evidence pointed out by the Penis Power lecture my girls and I laughed to in Undergrad- I reached the tender age of 26 with far too little experience, and a far too vivid imagination to avoid the missteps of my 14year old inner boy self. In the words of my momma: I have got my people mixed up.

And all of this came out in rather dramatic fashion last week and today. With Jerry Springer drama in half of my besties’ lives – and sage advice from the audience members…the other half: I realized that I had placed far too much importance on the very real necessity of vitamin D. I had forgotten that I usually prescribe that shyt out as a once week dosing, and only for a few weeks at a time. I had forgotten that by itself, it doesn’t do a damn thing. That it needs Calcium and sunlight and nourishment to actually make you feel better…and it still is not evidenced-based medicine. For those of you who are not getting the analogy…read on.

My gurl Chanel put it too me bluntly: girl remember how drinking used to be the shyt? And I was forced to realize that in undergrad Malibu was the shyt before we discovered Parrot Bay, that Patron was the shyt before we discovered…literally anything else, that it took enough of my taste buds actually dying before I could learn to love red wine..that I- horrors- got drunk as all hell to …wait for it ” Raspberry absolut, Red Alize (because I dont know what flavor that is) and raspberry Bacardi silver” when I fond out my first boyfriend had cheated n me…And that me and my girls thought that drink combination was clever- and classy. And much like that first love, and first drink- eventually you move on to the next one. The beat, truly, does go on.

And so I am putting my vitamin D on the shelf, next to the mango Alize…not to hide, or even push to the side…but to at least get it out of my damn face, and off this pedestal- where truly, only one “P” belongs. 🙂

Meh

I’m somewhere between reading Skinny Bitches and my Kiddie Bible. Somewhere between June Jordan and Lora Leigh. Somewhere in between him and you ( and not in a fun alternative lifestyle kinda way). Somewhere in between wearing red lipstick and dying my hair and actually acting like it. Between losing the weight and buying the new clothes to fit it. Between knowing myself and telling you about yourself. Somewhere in between. meh growth.

…working on being concise apparently

Yoga and the King James

The King James, much like Hot yoga, is intimidating. There was a time when my spirit and my body were all aligned and I could handle that shyt but 2012 has been a bit more about the journey to find balance than the actual success of accomplishing that goal. I am beginning to see the value in approaching those black leather-bound pages of the grown-up bible much in the way I do my yoga handstands now: with fear and trembling. All of this has come up more recently because I have found myself at a bit of a crossroads: I know where I need to go, and I know who I need to get there- but the damn ( forgive me Jesus) treadmill/public yoga classes/ leather bound bibles have got me all running for cover and sticking to the solo version of all of the above…which allows me the freedom to jog a little bit more slowly, to stay in child’s pose for a few more breaths, to go to sleep a little mid-meditation…essentially to fail, or quit, in the privacy of my own home. However, I accepted defeat…or the need to push past defeat when I recorded this full fledged 4minute rant to myself. Be forewarned…I am cursing up a storm while writing about the Bible :

Hey now…I was in a bad space

So, as usual, I am setting up for my point here: I have reverted back, with much gusto and comfort and silly teen giggles- to my True Love Waits Bible.

My parents had given me the sex talk years before and My grandparents then sent me this bible when I was in my early teens in their own attempt at preventative medicine. And while that ship has surely sailed, as it turns out- I still need the color coded devotional “break times” in my reading. My spirituality doesnt seem to be allowing me to move on to the grown up stuff without having a firm grasp on the basics. I can recall running back to this bible to cloak myself in the full armor before rallying past a hangover to get to church, or gearing up for yet another Organic Chemistry test waaay too many times than seems appropriate in undergrad. i feel like we were only supposed to like sin seven times or something right? Anyway…seems like those lessons I highlighted in colored milky pens still havent quite sunken in- so I am taking it back…way back…to the beginning.

Even now, I am taking a break from my devotional for this; another type of devotional- and learning not to feel too bad about that. The time it is taking me to feed, and nourish my soul just looks a little different: I am sitting in front of my macbook pro since I dont want to have to rewrite this all from my journal. I just finished a whole cantaloupe…in my house…by myself. And I plan to dust off a well worn in romance novel unashamedly as soon as I make it through my workout. And the only bit about any of this that I’m truly proud of at the moment is that I successfully ignored my text messages for the last 15 minutes to be present in this moment.

I’m still not about to do yoga in the park- I am not up to the mud run anytime until the spring, and I cannot claim the self assuredness to walk around outdoors clad in my current lack of apparel. But it seems like babies are completely content to take baby steps, and fall down, and baby walk it out out again…sounds like I still have a lot to learn from the kiddos…and the kiddo bible.

Advice from my Chief Resident

While there have been many memorable and edifying pieces of advice I have heard during these first weeks as a doctor – only one of them thus far has inspired me to write, and then tocarry out that desire to actual, real life, fruition. Sitting down for drinks with my fellow residents 2 and a half hours late and long after happy hour had passed one of my chiefs turns to look at me and states, while rubbing my back in sympathy ” Oh you’re still in your 20s. Learn how to masturbate. Trust me”

Now I’m unclear at this point whether a) she is making a commentary on my life currently or just looking into the crystal ball of intern year and-with the eye to preventative medicine a family physician always keeps in mind- is making an effort to stem the tide of foolishness sleep deprivation and California can bring. I mean, if not for the quickly following rant about the rampant stupidity present in those laden with testosterone, I could have been offended right? O she could have been interested in a more self-serving goal considering last year’s graduating class was three seniors down secondary to poor communication and left a bit more work for the other residents to do than they had been planning for.

However, I, obviously, was immediately interested in how one could possibly make it to their 20s without having learned to masturbate. I mean, mutual masturbation is one of my favorite things to talk to students about when I am teaching sexual education courses. Hello you cannot get pregnant, and you cannot get the HERP! The trick however, is the self discipline it takes to stay your side of the bed/couch/carseat. I am sad to say, given the population of women I am delivering here in Los Angeles, that most seem to have not yet mastered the aforementioned strategy. Perhaps my senior resident was merely trying to help me avoid the ever awkward conversation with my attending physicians of “can you prescribe me that pill, one more time, just like last month”. Preventative medicine right? maybe they say this in orientation to all the kids.

Which brings me to my point- The whole idea of preventative medicine is to give/teach someone something before they come into harms way. To train your children to play and eat well so they don’t develop type II Diabetes for example. Or in this case, to stomp around your house when your children are in their teens just as much for your girls’ sake as I plan to for my boys. It seems, that while it is culturally acceptable and well known that boys begin masturbation in elementary school- that we still feel the need to tell girls it is ok well past the age most of them have become sexually active…with other people.

And so along with hoping that flinstones chewables come out with a vitamin rich in progesterone I can give to the little ones- I am now debating diversifying my portfolio with stocks in duracell… to pay for that In-vitro fertilization I’ll be needing in a few more years. Girls if you’re in your 20s learning how to masturbate, you will be in your 30s, investing in a turkey baster…and a good Obstetrician.

Sex and Slide Rules…and my Auntie

There are only so many women who can make sex jokes about slide rules.

For those of you who don’t know what a slide rule is, it’s a complicated ruler looking thing that helped you get through calculus back when the subject was invented…which is apparently like 1965 according to my father. I hear tell that you had to have a feel for the answer before using the contraption…which sounds a bit redundant to me. After having voiced my opinion however I was immediately silenced by guffaws and shocked gasps of sacrilege. Any engineer from back in t he day must have had wet dreams about the day technology moved passed the abacus and blessed them with the slide rule. Which is why, after handing my father her late husband’s old slide rule my Aunt Mabel commented to my mother- “You might not get some for a while”.

Now if you were blessed with any deductive reasoning at all you might guess that this woman has to be at least in her late 60s, and having just buried her husband, whom she must have had a clearly..uh lively? relationship with. We should all be so fortunate.

I have had mixed thoughts about writing this piece, partly because it acknowledges the ongoing sex life (hopefully?) of my geriatric patients, and parents, and in part in deference to another author. This woman, this Mabel, has got the right to tell her story first. But given that I’m hinting left and right to type of woman she is I will give you one of my own stories about her.

Tonight she invited me to come to one of her grandchildren’s dance recitals. I quickly agreed- anything for the kids…and to keep a healthy relationship with the woman who would be decorating my home. We got there and, as I should apparently get used to in LA, sat directly next to the woman who wrote many of Earth, Wind and Fire’s songs: Allee Willis. She was sitting next to the comedian Luenelle  who apparently has a daughter in the dance company as well. After taking our seats to a hushed audience, we let childhood, and music, and dance, take us away.

After a while, as I furiously wrote down song titles and imagined myself dancing if only I was about 100lbs lighter and about 3bra cup sizes smaller I looked to my left to see my companion, crying. She was silent, and she was observing, but as Mary J Blidge sang Found My Everything single tears slid down her pale, smooth face. I nudged close as I could, feeling young and all of 26 and not having any wisdom, or words, or anything to offer considering I am still more on the end of looking for the everything rather than having had it.

Still, as we left stage 52 humming to ourselves and praying over the blessings of one of their members, who will be attending the Alvin Ailey intensive this year, she stopped to apologize for excusing herself during Whitney Houston’s I’ll Always Love You. But to have someone to have laughed with, to attend your grandchildren’s recitals with, to tuck away old tools (slide rules) that havent been relevant since computers stopped taking up a whole room for, that is something we should all be so lucky to cry ourselves ugly over. I can only hope to still be telling stories of how we met, to be making sex jokes about texting to those two generations below me, and to be humming back to my car in green leopard print pants at 65.

I can’t wait to go shopping with my Auntie Mabel tomorrow. I mean come on, there are only so many people who make sex jokes about slide rules.