Rug Day

So I woke up this morning and looked on Craig's list for stuff. I've been looking for a rug for my dining room table for months. I found a much smaller rug that would fit nicely in my hallway. So I called the guy to inquire, and ended up driving out to Bellevue to one of those brand-new cookie-cutter subdivisions.

Turns out the guy imports rugs from Iran and uses craig's list to drum up business. One thing led to another, and I ended up with a 10 X 13 rug from Kashmar. Huge. Takes up pretty much the whole living room.

The rug guy, Shawn, is from Iran, and has a bachelor's degree and two master's degrees, and was an engineer until he figured out that he could make more money basically selling rugs out of his house. The rugs come to New York on a container ship, and then get shipped via DHL to his house, where he sells them to rug stores in town and to people like me on the side.

Update: The thing was just too large. So I had the brilliant idea of giving it to my dad for his birthday (Oct. 1). Turns out it fits brilliantly in the living room, and he loved the thing. My mom and I both took credit.

Party night

So tonight was supposed to be party night. We were going to play Risk or watch a movie. It's two weeks before exams, though. I should have realized that, because nobody showed up. Well, to be exact, three people canceled on me, because of legitimate family problems, and I had to tell the rest not to come (all 2 of them) because no one else was coming. Fuck. So I spent Saturday night, by myself, watching USC play Washington.

Natchez Trace

Last Saturday I rode 75 miles on my bike, mostly hills on the Natchez Trace parkway - perhaps the most beautiful road in the world. When you get on it, it feels like you're in the middle of nowhere. The road curves and winds through the countryside until it ends up in Tupelo, Mississippi. On my way, I went across a bridge that was as narrow as a 2 lane road, but suspended several hundred feet in the air. As I rode close to the edge, it actually felt like I was flying.

On the way back home, I went through a Starbuck's drive through, where they were quite surprised to hear me ask them to fill up my water bottle with an iced latte. I must say that after guzzling all that sugar, caffeine, and fat, I felt like a million bucks.

Mullet Festival

I toured the Jack Daniel's distillery a few weeks ago. It was pretty amazing. The people on the tour were even more amazing. I managed to snap this photo of one man on the tour, complete with his "29th annual Mullet Festival" tee-shirt.

Neurology

So this evening I studied a bit of neurology on the balcony. A kid's soccer practice at my high school was going on across the street. It looked like they were in the fifth grade or so. You can see my new Birkenstocks in the picture, as well as the beautiful pilsner glass that I later knocked over as I repositioned the chair.

The church, again

This is what the church looked like this evening.

Williams College

Watching the end of the Red Sox vs. Yankees game tonight brought back a flood of memories for some reason.

The announcer mentioned a crisp autumn night in Massachusetts with a low in the 40's, and I remember exactly how that felt. I miss college. I miss Williamstown.


Looking at the colors change from my room in the Greylock Quad. Warming my hands with my breath while rowing on lake Onota. Running up Mount Greylock for another year. Snuggling underneath my down comforter while watching a movie. Riding my bike to Vermont and back.

Candle light

Tonight I decided to study by candle light. So I lit every candle I own, and read. I took a few pictures to capture the scene, and here they are. Click on the pictures for a better view.

Today in Psychiatry, we interviewed our first psychotic patient. She was a middle-aged woman who claimed that she had walked to Memphis while picking up trash to make the world a better place. When we asked her where she slept at night, she said she went back home to Nashville. Every night. She said she was picking up government papers and putting them in a trash bin. She didn't say why.

After that, the psychiatrist told us about catatonia - a state where the patient is like a statue for prolonged periods. He told us that he saw a woman who would lie on her back with all four limbs in the air, perfectly still for hours. You could go up to her and position her limbs any way you wanted, and they would remain in that exact position for hours. And every once in a while, she would snap out of her state, and in a burst of activity, run down the hall for about 5 seconds, only to freeze into another statue-like form. This continued for two days. The cool thing is that the doctor gave her some drug, and after one minute, she sat on her bed and told him what the past two days were like for her.

The most amazing thing of the day is that a good third of my class still does not believe that schizophrenia is a brain disorder.

I spent an hour on my balcony this evening, just sipping a beer, watching the traffic go by, and admiring the lighting on the church down the street. It rained all morning. But when I came out of the medical center at 5 or so, it was perfect outside. The air was cool and had that post-rain smell, and the sky was a bight blue with thin wispy clouds.

So the balcony it was. There were lots of people running by on the sidewalks. More than usual. Sometimes it seems like half of Nashville runs by.

Then the firetruck left from the station, sirens blaring. Soon after, five emergency vehicles went by, in what can only be described as a flying-V formation, with three police cars forming the V, an ambulance in the protected position, and a fire SUV bringing up the rear. Must have been a big accident somewhere down the road.

Technical difficulties

Today I woke up early (6:30), did my usual morning routine, and then left the condo. Just as the door closed behind me, I had a feeling of "oh fuck." I reached into my pocket, and realized that my keys were sitting on the kitchen island. I was locked out. I went down to the lobby and opened my neurology notes and started studying, with several residents giving me quizzical looks as they went to their cars. The maintenance guy would show up soon, and he could let me in.
An hour and a half passed. I called him. Apparently he was having "technical difficulties with his car" which is entirely understandable because it's a Dodge truck older than I am. He gave me directions on how to break into his office (with a hidden key) and open his key box.
Now, all the keys in his "key box" have a letter code, only decipherable with his computer, which I also had to start. But he screwed up the code somehow, so I simply took all 60 keys with me and tried them until one finally worked. And I had to explain the whole story to the lady across the hall when she came out to find a giant pile of keys on the floor, me trying one after the other.

Then I drove to the dentist, where my favorite dental hygienist scraped on my teeth for an hour. You know that feeling when somebody plays with your hair? I like that too, but I get the same feeling when somebody scrapes plaque from my teeth. I just close my eyes and relish every moment. Ahhhhhhh...

measure twice...

Yesterday as a study break I decided to put some speakers in the living room's ceiling. I got them on Ebay for cheap, and they came a few days ago. I measured the diameter of the speaker, putting one end of the tape measure on 1 inch, and reading the other. It's more accurate that way. The plan was to subtract that one inch. That was the plan at least. Now I have a BIG hole in the ceiling. A 12.5 inch hole to be exact. For some cool photographs, visit http://www.jamesbrittin.com

Birkenstocks

My birkenstocks were looking pretty dirty today, so I washed them in the kitchen sink. Since they are basically the only shoes I wear, I wanted the dried quickly, so I put them in the oven at 190 degrees (not that hot, right?) Well, the soles shrank to half their original size, and came off the rest of the sandal. Fuck.