AUGH

So, I was dinking around in the blog stats info and saw a weird referral link.

IT WAS FROM A PICTURE OF A WHALE AUUUGH.

For those not in the know: I'm horrendously cetaphobic. They're terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Give me sharks over whales, give me giant squids over whales. ANYTHING.

The stuff of nightmares? Whale songs. Lisa Frank. The former pediatric floor of the hospital (whale paintings EVERYWHERE).

I blame this terror on my probably too-young reading of Moby Dick. My pants-wetting fear was then actualized when I found out it's based on a true story. Monstro didn't help either.

THIS ISN'T EVEN ONE OF THE REALLY SCARY BITS.

The most crushing example of this fear came when I was in New York City for an awesome literature class. My classmates and I were at the Natural History Museum, enjoying the sights, when we entered the ocean room. The first thing that greets you upon entering this room is a life size model of a blue whale hanging from the ceiling, demonic eye posed to meet your own quavering ones when you set foot into the darkened cavern.

I freaked. I lost my goddamn marbles - luckily another classmate is stricken with a similar completely logical and fact-based fear and we gibbered in horror together. Also in the ocean room (fittingly crammed into a dark corner) is a diorama of a sperm whale attacking a giant squid.

Guess which part scared me more?

How is this not catapulting you into Lovecraftian madness?

I was forced to re-visit the horrors of that day when I was at the bar the other night. The Squid and the Whale was playing, and I foolishly did not connect the title to my repressed memory until the very end. Which resulted in me shrieking and flailing off my barstool.

Point is, whales are scary.

(also what monster is linking whale pictures to my blog I WILL END YOU)

Celebration

The match results were announced last Wednesday. I got my first choice residency, and it's pretty prestigious. I could not have gotten this without the support and help of my fantastic preceptors, professors, and mentors. I'm still in a state of shock about it - though I've signed the contract and am looking for apartments, I don't believe it's actually happening.

Then I realize that I've got less than a month left in Reno and I get depressed, because this has been the best year of my life. I've made some fantastic friends and had equally fantastic experiences. (Open heart surgery? Tahoe? March Fourth?)

Prime example: my friend took pity on me freaking out about the match results Tuesday night. He invited me over, plied me with booze, and then took my phone away so I couldn't hit refresh on my e-mail every five minutes. The result? I had a fairly enjoyable evening with only occasional outbursts of "You bastard, give me my phone back. I watched two episodes of Community without looking and now it's time to CHECK AGAIN."

(side note: Community is probably the best sitcom on television right now. It's endlessly clever and hilarious and you all need to go watch it)

The day after the results came out, I got to go with Buster Blue on tour to Treefort Music Festival in Boise. Best weekend ever. I'll put up a longer post about it in a bit, but for now here's a video where you should play spot the accordion player:

(HINT. IT'S ME.)

Come to the Sea

I am long overdue for an accordion video. I blame thirteen hour shifts that left me getting home at times inappropriate for some mad squeezeboxing. Now that I've FINISHED PHARMACY SCHOOL, I'll have much more time to play and record.

This is also in attempt to stave off madness while I wait for the results of the residency match to come out tomorrow. I have no idea what I want to happen, and am anticipating an evening of frantically hitting refresh and waiting for an e-mail to surface. I had hoped to tire myself out with a few hours of practice, but my nervous energy took a page from Gandalf the Grey's book and came back stronger.



I also want to record Yesterday's Here, from Tom Waits' Franks Wild Years, but I'm stumped. I can't sing. Cannot. Dying frogs in buckets can carry a tune better than me - but I feel this is one that really deserves the lyrics on top of my accordion ramblings. Until I can either find a vocal track or succor an unsuspecting lyrical friend into belting it for me, you shall be bereft.

Dinner Party!

I've spent the last six weeks flying back and forth across the country and working 13 hour shifts at CVS. It's been a while since I have been this exhausted and sick, but it's almost over. One seminar presentation and three more death-shifts left and I will be free.

In the meantime, I orchestrated another dinner party as stress relief! So this will be a picture heavy and content light post. I stumbled over to Buster Blue's house and we all started come cooking.


The menu consisted of prosciutto and cheese turnovers:



Herbed crispy chicken strips with dill:

The egg was not looking forward to its batter-y fate.

Andy was, though.

Haricots verts with tomatoes and parsley:


Spinach and ricotta stuffed shells:



And chocolate orange cake with chocolate ganache:


We stuffed ourselves and then laid around watching TV. It was an awesome way to spend a stress free evening.

Except for the egg.

Of Monsters and Men

Or, I'm in a hotel in Rochester scrambling for a blog topic and Cody is great at finding music.

I don't know how he does it, but the lovely Cody, at least once a week, finds some new fabulous band. And then proceeds to linkspam me everything about them. A few months ago it was Of Monsters and Men. I just got around to really listening to the whole album recently, and it's fantastic. I'm hoping to find a way to work it into my nano soundtrack for next year.

They're an Icelandic indie/folk group with a pretty unique sound.



I really enjoy the percussion. I also feel like their accents add to the winsome tone of the singers. And the rest of their instrumentation - but really, I'm a sucker for delightful guitar with punchy brass and smatterings of accordion. They're touring through the US soon and Cody snapped himself up a ticket minutes after they went on sale. Good thing too, because they sold out in a few minutes and now I can sneak to Seattle, quietly incapacitate him, and steal it.

I've got to use all of this pharmacy knowledge for something, right?



Yes, I'm using my powers for evil. Shh.

Sleeves Can Suck It

I have finally finished another sweater!

This one:


As you can see, it has no sleeves. Because sleeves are of the devil. The pattern is Sparreholm, out of Noro Revisited by Corneli Hamilton.

This is the one, however, that tried to kill me by lying about the amount of yarn required. I would have finished it on Halloween and gone as a competent knitter if I hadn't run out of yarn and thrown a hissy fit. Instead, I was a sexy librarian. Sarah can attest to this.

Anyway, behold the finished sweater!

Yes, I'm wearing penguin pajama pants. Today was rough.

I'm still trying to be happy with the fact that Noro yarns aren't supposed to match up, even when you desperately try. Despite what every beautiful pattern picture shows. It's absolutely maddening to me that the stripes don't match. I'm not tearing this beast out, however.

Oh look, a hood! And more of the penguin pj pants.

This is the next sweater I'll be embarking on, as I have the yarn and it also lacks those cursed sleeves. My rebellion continues!

Alternate Basses

Or, why God hates accordion players. Me specifically.

I've hit the point in my accordion book with alternating basses and it is destroying me. I can do a waltz pattern just fine. I can even string together a decent polka beat. The second I try to add a melody in there the entire thing caves in on itself and it's like I've been trying to record something suitable to post that won't make everybody bleed from their ears, but I'm not there yet. I'm stuck on finding the sweet spot of paying just enough attention to my left hand that I keep the beat but not so much that I over think it and start hitting the wrong buttons.

Luckily (for her) my roommate is gone on a wonderful interview opportunity this weekend and won't have to hear the deranged and dying elephant that is my practice these days.

I'm also finding that, as I thought, I am awful at taking pictures. I had a fabulous idea to fulfill day three's requirement of 'hands' by taking some shots of Buster Blue's hands while they played at a concert last night. Turns out the camera is sensitive enough that when I used the flash everything was washed out and horrible. As a result, instead of human hands in some kind of cool musical display, you get dinosaur hands.



Today's subject is 'a stranger'. I feel like a stalker, but I'm dutifully going to haul the camera out to the streets of Reno and try to take a picture of someone without getting arrested for harassment.



Here's the best shot of hands I got - that's Bryan on the banjo and Rachael being a certified accordionista. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to manipulate camera settings and make it look better.

The Dream of Perpetual Motion

There was no post Monday because I was busy rocking an interview and didn't plan ahead . . . next week will be better, I promise.

I was going to continue shamelessly stealing from Sarah's idea of monthly book reviews, but I only read one last month worth talking about - The Dream of Perpetual Motion.


I cannot emphasize how much I loved this book. It's sheer lyrical poetry. I finished it and sat there on the plane, just trying to absorb exactly what it was about the book that spoke to me. This is a book that begs to be read aloud.

Passages like this:

"This is the time of night just before sunrise, that time that no one owns, and if you have found yourself awake and alone during this time, out in the city, outside the safety of the walls you call your own, then you know me, and you have felt what I felt. This is the hour of the night it's best to sleep through, for if it catches you awake then it will force you to face what is true. This is when you look into the half-dead eyes of those who are either wishing for sleep or shaking off its final remnants, and you see the signs of the twilight in which your own mind is suspended.
At any other time it's better. You can do the things you feel you should; you're an expert at going through the motions. Your handshakes with strangers are firm and your gaze never wavers; you think of steel and diamonds when you stare. In a monotone you repeat the legendary words of long-dead lovers to those you claim to love; you take them into bed with you, and you mimic the rhythmic motions you've read of in manuals. When protocol demands it you dutifully drop to your knees and pray to a god who no longer exists. But in this hour you must admit to yourself that this is not enough, that you are not good enough. And when you knock your fist against your chest and you hear a hollow ringing echo, and all your thoughts are accompanied by the ticks of clockwork spinning behind your eyes, and everything you eat and drink has the aftertaste of rust."

Anyone who has unwillingly been awake at this hour, who walks at night, alone, knows this feeling.

The book is a scrambled steampunk world of imperfect machinery, with a smattering of themes from the Tempest. Everyone and everything is flawed, and the protagonist probably shouldn't even have the term anti-hero applied. This is not a character driven novel, but more a meditation on the world they inhabit and the consequences of unbridled technology existing just because it can.

Here's another of my favorite sentences, largely because I love this description of something I look at daily.

"They are made from materials engineered by Prospero, invented substances with names made of nothing but rootless suffixes and prefixes, that designate long molecules that bite their own tails and wind around each other like the links of a chain."

I've seen some reviews criticizing the book for being 'deeply misogynistic', but I disagree. The sections pointed out in those reviews depict misogynistic ideas taken to complete extremes, and it, to me, serves as a way to lampoon those ideas. Some are made absurd, some horrifying, but I did not come away feeling as though Dexter Palmer wrote this book to hate on women. Prospero's obsession with Miranda feels off from the start and it's very clearly shown to be a negative thing with negative consequences.

A quick perusal of the author bio reveals that his dissertation was on Joyce, Pynchon, and Gaddis. It shows, in the best possible way.

And here's my first photo of the photo a day challenge! Today was "your view today". This is the view from my apartment balcony (okay, this is the view from leaning way out over the balcony and almost falling into the bushes two stories below). The tall building on the left is one of the wings of the hospital I've been rotating in! The one on the right is a casino . . .

Photo A Day

I have the great fortune of having a preceptor who went through the terror that is trying to find a residency. As my first interview is on Monday, he let me leave early today.

I made great use of my extra time by, er, taking a nap and then dinking around on the internet. All in the name of reaching that zen-like state of not being nervous on the interview! And in attempt to stave off the cold I can feel starting.

In my internet meanderings, I found this:


I've heard of photo a days before, but never managed to get the timing right. This seems auspicious. I'm going to give it a shot, I think. I'm a pretty awful photographer, but I've got to learn something if I have to take a picture every day, right?

Small Plates and Small Parties

Why dinner parties are awesome and not at all stuffy and lame.

When I moved from dorms to an actual apartment, I discovered that I quite like cooking. I gathered old, rejected cookbooks that belonged to my mother and started my process of learning how to really cook - mostly by opening the book to a random page and making whatever I landed on. Through this process I discovered a few things.

First, lemon is my nemesis. Second, I should not be allowed to use a broiler. Third, cooking is made even more enjoyable by doing it for other people. I'd create chocolate souffles, and strawberry cheesecakes, oreos, and all manner of delightful snacks and pawn them off to the people at work.

I then moved on to food themed parties. Pi Day was my most successful, followed closely by an evening of Mexican Food and Sherlock Holmes. Why Mexican? British food is kind of nasty. Call me biased, but mistaking blood pudding for chocolate pudding (served at breakfast, no less) when I was in England tainted my opinion forever. Getting a mouthful of congealed blood when my tastebuds were expecting the heaven that is chocolate pudding ranks near the top of my worst food moments list.

When I was back in Idaho for that fabulous research rotation, I discovered that my mother had found these two books.



They're freaking fantastic, and I order you to all go out and purchase them immediately. You can do so here and here.

Armed with these, I have embarked on a dinner party frenzy. The book Small Parties has meal plans for themed parties. Small Plates is a collection of individual dishes I pick and choose from to form the greatest menus imaginable. Every recipe I've made out of these books has been unbelievably delicious.

Chicken Piccata Brochettes, Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes, Prosciutto and Cheese Turnovers - the list is endless. And, now that I have a group of friends in Reno, I've got a ready made set of people to dinner party it up with.

It's fantastic.

I unfortunately have a tendency to not consider taking pictures of my culinary masterpieces until they've already been devoured, and the few I managed to snap during the last dinner party (which was mostly desserts) didn't save to my camera. So I don't have photographic proof of the wonders of dinner parties.

I am, however, planning another one to take place very soon. Expect a blog of nothing but pictures.

Residency!

I may have put this blogpost off until, oh, 11:15, because I was scrambling for a topic that wouldn't totally embarrass me. So I won't be detailing here exactly what happened when I played Fatal Frame alone in the dark a few nights ago.

Instead, I'm going to give you guys the rundown on applying for residencies! Or, what I'm planning on doing for the next two years in attempt to get a better background for the time when I'm solely responsible for people's lives.

I want to be an infectious disease pharmacist. To do this, I have to do two additional years of training after I graduate. One year of an intensive pharmacy practice residency - basically a more advanced version of this last year of rotations; one year of intensive infectious disease work.

I'm working on applying to a bunch of places across the country right now, and it's been simultaneously the most demoralizing and exciting experience I've yet had. You see, when applying to pharmacy school, I had one option (due to an ill-fated run in with a poisoned chicken salad sandwich the night before I took the PCATS). I didn't have the anxiety of having to choose between programs, or the fear of not getting in. Or the soul-crushing experience of rejection letters.

Now, I've applied to nine places. One of my top choices turned me down before I even got to interview. Another one did the same (in a hilarious two-sentence form e-mail that didn't even include my name). Four places have given me interviews so far, and I'm waiting to hear back from three more. The fact that there's no way I'll be living in Seattle next year is pretty well countered by the awesome point that the first interview I scheduled was my top choice. I may have spent an hour running around the apartment yelling when I got the e-mail, before calling everybody I know and generally freaking out.

These interviews typically take hours. I'll have to impress the current residents, the residency director, a host of pharmacists and preceptors with my ability to answer questions and whatever clinical stuff they want to throw at me. I'll have to give presentations, analyze journal articles, and solve case reports.

I go on my first interview in less than a week. It's in Ohio. Weather permitting, I'll get there on time (at this point my biggest concern) and then I'll proceed to destroy all of my jitters by blowing the interview out of the water.

Remember Jaws? It'll be like that.

Except maybe with less raining of sharky bits.

Defeat

In which I am downtrodden, overly dramatic, and am probably going to die old, alone, and a retail pharmacist. Yes, it's directly related to my inability to make a sweater that fits.

It's taken me a few months to come to terms with the horrible, horrible drama that enfolded after I finished the doom sweater. This doom sweater.


After months and months of moss stitch hell, I discovered that though I had checked my gauge time and time again and measured each piece as carefully as possible, the sweater was still big enough to be an overcoat instead of a lovely fitted jacket.


I desperately turned to more experienced knitters, hoping there was some way to beat this damned sweater.


I got two answers.


"Well, you could probably surge this and try to make it fit, but every time I've done that the whole thing warped and was pretty much ruined."


Or, the much, much worse:


"I'd put it in a closet until you gain enough weight to wear it the way you want. Because as soon as you hit 30, you will."


As true as that second statement may yet prove to be, I didn't spent close to two years on this monster to hide it in a closet until it fits. Against the advice of pretty much every knitter I know, I ripped the bastard out.


And now it waits, lurking in the depths of my cedar chest until I have the courage to face its horrors again. I'm half convinced that every time I open it I'll get sucked through a portal to a hellish alternate dimension, filled with black cotton yarn and moss stitch. Trapped in a nightmare of never-ending sleeves. I'm well aware that it wasn't the fault of the sleeves that the sweater didn't fit,  but they're the part that broke my needle and my soul.


After this life-ruining event, I swore a pact against sleeves. Fie on sweaters with sleeves, I thought, as I gleefully ran my fingers over my balls of Noro for two tunic sweaters. I'll defeat the goddamn things by never knitting one again!

This plan proved no more effective. The first sweater I worked on stabbed me in the back just as I was finishing it. The pattern lied. Brutally - I was three balls of yarn short, and had to go on a horrific internet hunt for the right dye lot.

Of course, the yarn color had been discontinued for years. I ended up on the seedy underbelly of the online knitting community, clandestine trench-coated meetings in dark alleyways and all. I'm honestly shocked I don't have hepatitis. And still have both kidneys.


I ended up getting the yarn, and am nearly done with the hood. I've been waylaid, however, by the need for armwarmers now that Reno's temperature has finally dropped into a reasonable level of cold for winter. I made a pair three years ago and somehow in my many apartment changes have misplaced one. I was nambying about, avoiding making another to match, when I saw these.

Adorable, no? As I don't have $39 and know how to knit, I'm going to try making them myself. Probably before I tackle any more soul-sucking sweater nonsense.


Don't you dare point out that armwarmers are a lot like sleeves, because I will have to end you.

The Most Surreal Night Ever

In which I scramble to find a ride to an unexpectedly unusual concert, and then an astonishing turn of events takes place.

Friday night was another Buster Blue show. I've mentioned them before, and I'll take the time again to speak to what fantastically nice people they are, and how great their music is. They are, and it is. Go buy some.


I went to their show and afterward they mentioned they'd be in Tahoe on Sunday, performing after Diego's Umbrella and March Fourth. I promptly forgot about it until a few hours before the show was to start on Sunday. I thought I'd check out what the two bands were all about, and if you go to the websites I've handily linked up there, you'll see why I absolutely had to find a way to Tahoe.


As you may recall, my last drive to Tahoe was an unmitigated disaster.


I called a friend who had mentioned she wanted to go.


Nope.


Called another friend who had said he would go. Bribed him with pitas and cookies and all manner of delicious foodstuffs.


Nada.


At this point I strongly considered taking my car and throwing caution to the wind. The vision of my father murdering me through the phone in the eventuality of the car dying again gave me enough pause to consider begging a classmate to take me.


Nothing.


Finally, I wheedled the phone number of another friend, Nick, out of the second ride refusal, and called him.

"Oh, it's in Tahoe? Nah, I don't want to drive that far."


Even the aforementioned pitas and cookies would not sway him. Despair, and the conviction to attempt taking the car rose again. Five minutes later, I received a phone call from Nick.


"Y'know what? Fuck it, let's go!"


I literally jumped for joy.


The concert was ridiculously amazing. Diego's Umbrella was, as promised, gypsy pirate polka. March Fourth was probably the most insane thing I've ever seen - half of the band on stilts, all manner of circus-inspired marching garb, music that was a fantastic combination of jazz, funk, and punchy brass.


Oh yeah, and there was a crowd surfing stilt walker.


The next night I got a call from Bryan inviting Benvolio and me over to their house to play . . . with some of the guys from March Fourth.





In case you were curious, the expression on my face during all of that is supposed to convey a sense of concentration coupled with "Holy shit, is this really happening?"


Maybe more than a hint of "Billy, I don't know what you want me to do on camera."


And here's a hastily thrown together and oddly out of tune version of what I was playing.





It sounds wimpy here mostly because I'm trying to play quietly - don't want to annoy the roommate too much.

Gratitude

I've been thinking a lot lately about gratitude, and expressing it. I'm on my critical care rotation, and I'm getting accustomed to watching patients die. That doesn't bother me as you'd expect - I'm learning that to a point there's only so much we can do for a person, and past the best we can do is a realm where they either live or they don't. It's not up to us.

I don't feel guilt for those lives because I know we've done everything we can. I'm sad, and I regret that they die, but I understand that it was not because of something we did or didn't do. On my first day my preceptor told me that I would have to get used to watching patients die, and that I would have to be able to handle it. I'm glad he gave me that warning, and I think I've been handling it well so far.


I've watched an organ harvest, and absorbed the fact that five people minimum will lead new lives because a 22 year old died (admittedly, there was a lot of crying and some alcohol involved in coming to terms with this). I've watched patients die, surrounded by family members who had the chance to say goodbye. I've watched patients die without lasting long enough for family to reach them to say their farewells. I've watched patients everyone was sure were done for recover, and leave the ICU. This has been the most intense, fast-paced experience I've yet had.

It's been an especially hard rotation emotionally for me. I'm learning a great deal and I'm grateful every day for the opportunities I've been given. I'm able to see critically ill patients and I'm able to help them get better. But I'm also encountering situations where nothing we can do will help. It's been difficult to come to terms with this, but I'm learning.

All I can feel at this point is an overwhelming gratitude for everything I have. For parents willing to sacrifice enough to give me the opportunity to get out of school debt free. For the fantastic friends I have, and the friends I've made here in Reno. For the chance to become friends with musicians I admire and respect, and for the chance to be helped through a vulnerable place by these same friends.

I'm grateful for the opportunities I've gotten for coming here for this last year of school, and for the fact that I'm happier now than I have been in three years. It's been a real struggle up to this point, because of the overwhelming pressure and depression I've been pushing through for the last three years. I feel like this is where I'm supposed to be at this point in my life and I'm truly, honestly, happy.

I'm grateful for the help and guidance of my professors and mentors, who spent countless hours helping me prepare for my residency applications - and for the burgeoning results of those applications. I have a decent shot at my dream job next year, and it's thanks to the efforts of those who support me.

I know this isn't a fun or funny post, but I've had this on my mind for a while, and wanted to get it out there. More accordion madness will be forthcoming.

Benvolio Returns!

Earlier this year my delightful accordion Benvolio tried to kill himself. I was able to get him repaired thanks to the magical musicare man in Idaho Falls, and got to bring Benvolio home when I returned to Reno after Christmas.

Then Cassidy and I discovered that the two teen boys who live below us are incredibly loud. Yelling loud. Wrestling loud. Screaming obscenities at 11 p.m. when we're trying to study loud. Usually we keep quiet and put up with it, even when their music throbs so hard the flowers on the table shake.

Until today.

Today, those little bastards got a taste of what the next few months will be like.




Oh yes, there will actually be accordion videos on this accordion themed blog. Pretend the last one I posted wasn't two years ago.

I spent a good hour and a half practicing Benvolio (after half an hour of squeaky clarinet) and had to replay that a good fifteen times.

Then I decided to attempt recording Spanish Ladies - motivated by the fact that whenever I pull out the accordion my father demands that I play it. I have this book of sea chanteys, and while it is wonderful and full of interesting information, there are no chords. Therefore it takes me far longer to figure out what chords to use than how to play the melodies.








I must have played this, and nothing but this, for twenty minutes.


Those two are not prepared for the accordion-ing.



Yes, I know I made a bunch of mistakes and it doesn't sound very good, but this is a PROCESS.

Cathulhu

In which I indulge Sarah and make a post about the delightful Cathulhu.


This is Cathulhu:

Disgustingly adorable, right?

It's an amiguri, or crocheted doll. Sarah made him for me as a birthday present, and I do believe it's one of the more fabulous things I own. I mean, really - it's a kitty and an Elder One, what possible better combination could there be?

Going on an adventure with the dino lamp.

Sarah was awesome enough to come up with a newish combined pattern for him modeled after another, complete with wings. And a collar. She also makes a lot of other exciting things which you can see here or here. Oh my god, that post on her teaching me to crochet was from October.

Is that craftsmanship, or what?

 
I'm rather hopeless. One needle is way more confusing than two, and I end up doing the stitches all wrong. I have a pattern for zodiac creatures, and ideally I'd have something to show for the *ahem* few months I've been working on a dragon but . . . nothing.


Don't judge me, I've been busy.



Sort of.