intellectual desirability

Yesterday at school I had 5 people independently ask for my phone number.

... so we could study together. Yeah, I dunno why they want to study with me either. Man, I've got these people fooled... it's like they desire my intellect... or something...

But this is also a delightful context in which to play dumb and mess with people, and an opportunity which I took advantage of to make others squirm. For example:

Vicki: Because of the divorce I have the house completely to myself so it's nice and quiet; we can go there any time. Here, let me give you my number- what's yours?
Me: Oh... Vicki. I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to mislead you, but I actually prefer men...

Or there was this:

Carlos: Hey, what's your number?
Maggie: Umm... are you asking me out?! (sudden aloofness, mild disdain, and clipped words)
Carlos: *uncomfortable, startled glance*

Hehehe. So much fun.

Dear Mothers:

Now that I'm officially in school for nursing, I have more useful information knocking about inside me. For example:

I learned in my Anatomy and Physiology class that you're no longer supposed to give your child tylenol or what have you to bring down their fevers. Instead, you're to let the fever run its course. This is because chemical reactions occur more rapidly at higher temperatures, so your child's immune system can defeat whatever imposters are invading their body more efficiently when their temperature is slightly elevated. You get feverish for a reason.

That one's on the house.

$500

... and it hardly got me all my textbooks for this semester. Online. Used when possible.

Hardly means there's still one book I'm trying to "do without." We'll see how that works for me.

At least I have the $300 Anatomy & Physiology book that there was no way around buying new. That professor is quite literally a cross between Tinkerbell and Hitler. She's a hard ass. A real hardass. I'm really going to have to work to make the cut in this class. I'm pretty blown away by her, though. And fascinated. Seriously intrigued. It's pretty distracting but highly effective at the same time- if that makes any sense to you. I suspect she's a damn good educator, though it's too soon to tell. Maybe that's because she doesn't think of herself as an educator even though she's been teaching for over a decade. I've never seen anything like her personality-wise...

A bizarre little dilemma

Okay. So I have this little problem where I clench my right fist while I sleep. Fine. Kinda silly, but whatever, right? Wrong.

It's driving me crazy. I guess I clench it so hard while I'm asleep that it goes completely numb. Painfully numb. So much so that it wakes me up every night (hmm. day?) while I'm sleeping and I have to sit there trying to wake it up and get blood back into it. Very unpleasant in the middle of the night (I know. Day.) while you're trying to sleep- we're talking beyond mere pins and needles numb here. For the last couple weeks (yeah, this has been going on for a while) I've had to keep my fingernails real short so they don't break the skin. I've tried keeping something balled up in my hand so it won't clench so hard, tying things around it... it doesn't work, or stay that way. And now my wrist/forearm is chronically sore from it, and almost more concerning are the random stabs of pain during the day (when I'm awake). I'm getting pretty crabby about it. Suggestions? And does anyone else have weird "problems" like this??

The reason why I don't write love poems anymore:

My
dearest *BLEEP*,
Shall I compare
thee to a sundae? You are
sweatier (er, sweeter) and creamier by
far. Your grimy fingers are like pecans
with fudge coating its numerous cracks. No dollar dainty
are you, but rather a bounteous bowl brimming
with cool, creamy caramel
with fanciful figures
traced in fudge.
My darling *BLEEP*,
only a message from you could
be the cherry this delicacy dearly deserves.


I just stumbled upon this from long long ago. The original was sent via email and formatted in the shape of a sundae. And the words were colored to make it look like a sundae. And uhh... yeah. I guess none of that makes it make any more sense. What was I thinking?? You can laugh at me. I did. Once I finished my grimace.

Now you know why my girly letters lack poetry, Phil. Relieved?

The Gift That Never Stops Giving: LittleBlueCrackedCup

There's this LittleBlueCrackedCup in my mother's cupboard that's massively cracked and shattered, but still remains intact. When I say intact, I do not mean it doesn't leak. I mean that it leaks, but it still retains its general shape.

I love drinking from it. Every fluid-induction ceremony becomes a race to the finish. What's that, LittleBlueCrackedCup? You think you can drink this faster than me? Aww, hell no. It's ON. Let's DO this thing.

Pour pour pour. SLAM.

Yeah. That's right. What's up now, LittleBlueCrackedCup?

This is by far my favorite way to hydrate myself.

rest in peace

In the room, about to help Walter to the toilet. In walks the new girl. Never worked here before. From House Pool. I've been training her on the other wing. She got Rosa up in her wheelchair and took her to the toilet. Rosa doesn't use the toilet at night. Too much effort and strain. Diapers. Rosa fell asleep in her chair? Can't get her back into bed? Okay. I'll come take care of it when I'm finished here. Rosa and I understand each other. We really get along.

Walter's taking his time. Lonely. He asks about my boyfriend in the army. Walter's a WWII veteran. You heard from that boyfriend of yers? That's good, I guess. Do they get supplies? Me? Oh, we always got supplies. We were with Patten. What was it like? Well, we'd sit around in a circle counting. COUNTING, I said COUNTING. Yeah. We'd get past a thousand, and they just wouldn't know what to do. We'd sit there and one of us would start "thousand..." and then one of them would jump in, "...five!" and we'd all be so excited. It was a big deal. You can't blame them y'know. No one taught them consecutive numbers, y'see. Later it'd be... "thousand....... six!!" and then that's where it'd stop. At first it was okay, sittin in the circle. counting. but after a while you just got plain bored and you had no patience left for counting. you didnt want to count anymore. And then you'd start callin them dirty names. goddamn arabs. it wasnt their fault, goddamn arabs, nobody taught them to count consecutive numbers like that, but you just didn't have anymore patience. What? What's that? Yeah, Patten. Yeah, that's the very same one. He was one queer duck. But he was a damn good leader. They all feared him cuz he could count thousand-SEVEN. And that's why he was a damn good leader. They all feared him. Action? Oh, boy did we see action. Did we ever see action. Killed those goddamn bastards by the dozens. They could hardly count past thousand-TWO. Oh. Okay. Goodnight.

Walking briskly down the hall to Rosa's room. Already been a good 10 minutes. The light's off. Flip the switch, cooing "Ros-." Stop silent. No need for language. One glance reveals the vacancy. Stillness. Sallow, yellow-green beneath her tan, cuban skin. Slumped ever so slightly. Icy stillness. Maybe it's a mistake. A false alarm. An overreaction. Creep closer and slide fingers across her smooth, cool wrists. Impossibly still. Hand moves to her chest. Still warm there. Is that her moving ever so slightly? or the illusion created by the pounding in my breast. Nothing. Her lungs are deflated, just like her shoulders. CPR? Thought dismissed immediately. She's DNR. Everyone on this wing is DNR. Not that it would have made a difference at this point.

Inform the new girl on your way down the hall to the phones. Her theatrical "NO! Really??" Makes your stomach turn. She already knew. Maybe she couldn't accept it either. She's not dealing with it well, though for very different reasons. Poor girl. What must that have been like. First day, first time she set eyes on this woman, she dies on her watch. She was only unconscious when she left, though... not sleeping... not vacated... Rosa slipped away to the Lord alone in her chair in the dead of the night. There was no blame in her passing. Maybe that's the hardest thing to accept.

Post-mortem care is not as horrifying as I had expected. Unreal would be a better word for it. It's too easy. Caring for someone can only be difficult if the person is there. Rosa was not there. Only something nearly 300 lbs. Deadweight. Dead deadweight. A nurse gives a terse laugh at her own joke. Stare blankly. Six people needed to transfer her from her wheelchair to the bed before she stiffens, and so she can be prepared for her family to come pay their respects. So I can prepare her. Six people. Urgent voice, "NO skin tears, ladies! Caaaareful of the shoulder, there!! NO BROKEN BONES!" Realizing with shock how insanely fragile the human body is when its muscles aren't being used to counteract force applied to it. How excruciatingly fragile is the human body. Gown slipping. Flesh exposed. What is flesh? Her diaper is soiled. Nurse says it's common for the strain of having a BM to kill the elderly. Rosa was already compromised. She didn't have a BM on the toilet, though. She had it after she'd passed. "This is the cacapoopoo that killed her." I thought as I wiped her clean. Strange thought at a time like this... but that's how she always referred to her BM's to me every morning. "Bring extra paper... I made a cacapoopoo!" she'd call from the bathroom as I made her bed. Part of me felt like I ought to save that soiled diaper for her family. Immediately embarrassed by the impulse. It wouldn't have any significance to them.

There was no peace until everyone else had cleared out. I said a rosary with her at her bedside while we waited for her daughter to arrive. She would have liked that. She was Catholic and very religious in an earthy sort of way. She was in the habit of talking to the Lord as I got her ready for the day each morning in spanish. It was endearing.

I was blind sided by Rosa's death. When you walk into as many people's rooms while they're sleeping as often as I do, you come to take for granted that they'll be alive. None of the people I care for are in good health. But I wouldn't have thought that most of them were that close to death, least of all Rosa. Rosa was probably the most together, at least mentally and in some ways physically, of my residents. Now it dawns on me the reality of the situation: I am walking amongst people with one foot already through that door. Funny how you can know these things without KNOWING them.

Rosa's death was a blessing. I can honestly say that praying at her bedside I found true joy at her passing. He life was like a job well done. And now she can rest. Looking at her lying peacefully still in bed, her sheets pulled smooth and tidy, her seemingly translucent skin by the soft light of the bedside lamp, I saw I think for the first time ever that death is not just natural... it's beautiful. Perhaps you need more personal separation from the one who has left in order to be able to appreciate that.

Even so, there is now a subtle urgency behind every kind word, every gentle touch. Nagging in the back of my head is the knowledge that I may very likely be the last human interaction that any of these people come into contact with. It has to count. It's like hanging out with the wrong crowd... while no one can make you sin, they can certainly lead you to it. I am capable of being an occasion for grace to each of these people before their death. I can choose to have positive interactions with them, those productive of joy and hope and goodness. Or I can be short tempered and impatient and brusque, and lead them to despair and contempt and hatred. And that might be the context in which they die. The spiritual state in which they face their Judgment. That is the true burden of my job.

Walking out to the car the even greater burden hits me... the same is true of EVERYONE whose life is in any way intertwined with my own. Nothing can be taken for granted. No one. And in the words of Father Zossimo in the Brothers Karamazov, "We are each responsible for all."

Correction

Yeah, I was wrong about the whole Monday thing. Turns out school doesn't start until next Tuesday, the 22nd. Oops.

Monday

Monday I will be starting school again. 5 classes, 2 labs, plus full time 3rd shift employment.

I'm not ready for this.

Anyone who writes a post entitled, "Boring boring boring"...

... and then criticizes me for not having posted at all in the comments section of said post?

Well. That person should really have a good sit down and reasses their values. I think we'd all benefit from that.

Oral care= brushing teeth, flossing, denture care, mouth swabbing, etc.

Today at work I had to go in for this "training" session. But it was really more like a 5 hour quiz. With occasional little "informative" video clips showing you what an acceptable attitude is interspersed.

There was a manikin set up for us to go through and demonstrate cares complete with a removable wig to reveal old-Ken hair, removable male genitalia to reveal female privates, holes for a colostomy bag, needles, catheters, etc. It's all pretty basic stuff, nothing that any of us should have hesitated on because we've all already been trained on what is and is not acceptable. Just a little refresher course so people don't get in the habit of doing shortcuts and compromising the quality of care our residents recieve. Today they left the manikin as a woman because someone misplaced the man parts.

So at one point she wanted someone to demonstrate the proper procedure for performing oral care on an unconscious resident. And some girl (I won't voice my judgments about her based on her attire) chimes in uncertainly, "Ummm.. you mean on a woman...? Or a man."

Everyone turns to stare vacantly at her, just blinking. A few look at the floor and turn away a bit.

Sigh. Some of my coworkers really suck.

Warning: Do not call an Oompa-Loompa a "midget."

Remember this post of Phil's? Yeah, well apparently you should choose your midget or dwarf partner wisely, cuz they get all crazy-like once you add Tequila. See for yourself.

What I don't get is how he can dress himself up like an Oompa-Loompa and then get gets pissed off when someone calls him a midget? He was exploiting his shortness and then freaked out when people called it what it is! I would have thought Midget was a far more PC term than some of the alternatives that come to mind for me. Interesting. Then again, Tequila messes with your mind. I mean, Hello, "Signature Margaritas"? Those had the pacifists in my family throwing punches...

Speaking of Toilet Paper...

This gave me a good chuckle. How kind of her to clue us all in so we weren't overcharged during the holiday season. I know speak for many when I say that all that holiday wiping nearly broke us financially. That's the kind of Christmas spirit I like to see! One for all, and all for one. No more unjust toilet paper tax!!

But really, who knew it was tax exempt?

And more importantly, WHY IS IT?

Bounty Hunting

So I was just watching the news and heard a little ad about the $25 million bounty the U.S. is offering for Osama Bin Laden- dead or alive.

I wonder which would be easier for someone like me: assassinating bin Laden or winning the lottery.

I have a plan, though.

First, I'm going to obtain a kick-ass firearm. A really mean fighting-machine firearm... but one without too much kick back. Cuz that freaks me out.

Second, I'm going to learn how to use it. I'll also probably read up on "Gun Facts," as cited in the links on the right-hand column. It's good to be informed on these issues, after all, especially as the owner of a firearm.

Third, I'm going to learn how to say "Hey there. You boys seen Osama lately?" and "Where is the bathroom?" in arabic. You know, essentials.

Fourth, I'm getting me a plane ticket to Iran or somewhere like that. Or maybe a ticket for "Destination: Ultra Secret Hiding Place Probably in the Middle East."

Fifth, I'm gonna find that bad man.

Sixth? Deactivation:

Not-So-Nifty Gadgets

Lately since I started working at the nursing home and going to school for nursing, I've been getting increasingly paranoid about germs and hygeine and what have you. I was at the grocery store and I had to pick up a bottled of hand sanitizer because I kept thinking about the handles of the grocery cart and my imagination was going CRAZY thinking of all the grodiness the hands that had been touching it before mine might have been exposed to. It's driving me nuts.

Then I stumbled across this little gadget and my mind nearly exploded. WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO KNOW? Ohhhh my goodness. Too much. That is just too much. It's not as though the heat impression is going to last as long as the germs are alive (they can live a long time, guys), so it's not like you have any new handy information. It's not as though it's any more "safe" when it's not showing a thermal imprint of their bum. And personally, I don't like my toilet seat preheated for me. Not one bit. So basically it just screams out this glowing flourescent reminder of someone else's ass. And that is out of control...

I have to quit with these freakin' quizzes

They're ridiculous. They're rarely accurate. They're a poor estimation or comparison of what a person is absolutely like. EVERY TIME I TAKE ONE I find myself scoffing. Yet I still do it because I'm curious and like to stroke my ego.

Or not. As in this case:

What type of person do you attract? Your Result: You attract unstable people! Congrats, you are an 'insane' magnet, and you probably have no idea why. Something about your mix of styles, how you walk not just 'one' lifestyle, but appear to have a foot in them all. To the insane, you appear to be a beacon of hope and they will flock to you, like it or not. But, they ARE insane. Lucky for you, the insane tend to be the best sexual lovers, just the rest of the package deal may not be for you.
You attract artsy people!
You attract geeks!
You attract rednecks!
You attract Yuppies!
You attract models!
What type of person do you attract? Quizzes for MySpace

Yeah. This one doesn't just make ridiculous judgements about me, it makes them about my people. And that means I've gone too far. Mark my words, this is my last little online quiz. I'm not going to take any more, and I'm not going to comment on anyone else who does.

It's about time for this phase to end.