In the dark when the lights go out in the room with big open windows letting the breeze in, the sticker stars shine bright neon all around, all around. I'm up listening to Elliott Smith and remembering that night, we heard, and that tiny deathtrap room I lived in - which at least had a window - and lying on that twin bed clutching each other in the ( Read more... )

I'm thinking of how good I have it, how lucky I have been. I'm in the kitchen of my parents' house, and it is quiet except for the clock ticking at regular intervals, reminding me to keep typing.

Yesterday I presented the second stage of a hypothetical project reducing STI rates among adolescents in Bogota, Colombia. We're using peer condom ( Read more... )

Things I Remember From that Wedding: the small child running headfirst into the table with the autograph book - like the kind at museums - and opening her mouth to scream real loud & the mother pressing firmly over the gaping hole of the child's mouth to choke the scream, the soft soil threatening to consume my heels, the way seeing photos being ( Read more... )

The writing that happens right after, or during, is filled with orange plastic chairs that are weeks and watercolor views and dark hard pits of fruit; the later writing is always/mostly the pit between the sternum creating ffff-sounds, ssss-sounds, slowly deteriorating ( Read more... )

I spend more time around doctors and in ERs than any other medically-averse person I know. It's not intentional, this foray into enemy territory, the anthropological observations of how the other side lives. Yet I always end up finding myself at the ER or clinic, breathing the same air as the white jackets, sometimes standing on their side instead ( Read more... )

I cried in the shower tonight. That hasn't happened in a while. It used to be the place to go where there was water anyway, so what's adding a little more? That and swimming pools, especially at the bottom where your ears start to hurt ( Read more... )

Last night a group of us went to see the premiere of  Orgasm Inc. at the Quad Cinema. There's still a chance to attend a screening if you're near Boston, Chicago, LA, etc. Not a synopsis, but some quick thoughts:

Are facial features more honest than language?: During interviews, whenever a speaker quoted the party line but internally disagreed with ( Read more... )

Weeks are beginning to fly by, each Friday surprising me with the weekend sprawling before me, ready to be filled with readings and assignments to complete. This week has been full of late nights, finishing calculations and graphs and demography modules. I wonder when I will have time to actually DO, apply, create, act.

This week has been filled ( Read more... )

Given that today has been filled with some of my favorite things, I've committed to showing my gratitude by continuing the productive streak. Since starting public health school in August, I've wondered how to keep track of what I'm learning, how to share it with others, and how to synthesize what I know from the Real World with what I'm ( ( Read more... )

My family dog is dying, slowly. She has been limping softly, knocking into furniture, careening drunkenly about the kitchen. That is the only place in the house that she is allowed to go. Several years ago, when I was home alone and spooked, I brought her upstairs - where she is normally forbidden - and let her sleep at the foot of my bed. By ( Read more... )