18-Hour, My @$$

Most of my posts have been about events in my life, my thoughts, preferences, nothing too embarrasing, until now...

This morning, close to the end of my 12 1/2 hour shift at the hospital, I felt a weird poke in my side. It took a few seconds to figure out what it was. The underwire in my bra had broken. Now this has happened before as they wear out but usually after going through the wash, never while I was wearing it.

Like most things in life, it could have been worse. The wire could have broken through the fabric and really poked me, it could have happened at the beginning of the shift, I could have had on something other than a big baggy scrub top. And I have to say, it did help wake me up for the last few hours of the shift.

By The Time We Got To Wordstock, We Were Half A Million Strong

OK maybe not half a million, but this weekend Portland held the Wordstock Festival, a three day "Festival of the Book" with readings, workshops, and a book fair all to benefit Community of Writers, a non-profit that supports writing in the schools.

Last year I went and saw Caprial and John Pence on the cooking stage, Linda Sawaya, who wrote a Lebanese cookbook I bought years ago not knowing she lived in Portland (my great-grandfather is from Lebanon), a screenwriters' panel with Mike Rich and Whitney Otto, and Sarah Vowell and her quirky voice reading from her newest book.

This year I saw Eric Blehm, who wrote about Randy Morgenson, a 28 year veteran park ranger who disappeared, Paul LaRosa, a true crime author, Joyce Carol Oates, and Dave Eggers.

It amazes me that Portland can pull something like this together. It's not like they have one headliner...They had so many authors I wanted to see that it was almost impossible to choose only one each hour.

One of my favorite things this year were the images from the promotional material.






P.S. Dad, I just liked the image, I really like you more than Atticus Finch.

P.P.S. Ellen DeGeneres just mentioned Cash Cab on her show!

Big Yellow Taxi

My nerd status has been proven on many occasions, these posts about Jeopardy and nursing school, being a chemistry major my first year of college (once a chem nerd, always a chem nerd), and that I love Sudoku. But here's the most recent evidence. My newest favorite show is Cash Cab on The Discovery Channel. You can even pretend you're on the show and take a quiz if you go to the site. This show is great because not only is it about trivia and you can win money, the people are hilarious. They are much more relaxed than on a show with all the production value of Jeopardy. Sometimes it's just one person, sometimes families, sometimes lots of friends.

As much as I love this show, there is a disturbing trend I noticed recently. When it's a guy, he is usually confident in the answers he knows, even if only an educated guess. But when it's a girl, even when she has gotten the last several questions right and eventually gets the current question right too, she is all sorts of hesitant and unsure of her answers. It's so frustrating. I don't know if these girls just doubt themselves or if they think they have to seem kind of stupid. But then, who knows how I would act if I were ever lucky enough to be on one of these shows. It's so easy to guess the answers at home when money and remaining in the game aren't on the line.

Yyyyaaaawwwnnnnnnnn!

Just trying to wake up and remember what day it is. Yep, that timestamp is right - 3:34PM and I'm just waking up. Last night I worked my first night shift at the hospital. And when I say "worked" I really mean "worked for free" or even worse, I guess I actually paid to work since it's my clinical hours for nursing school and I paid for the class. But I survived it, got home at 8:30AM and when I woke up today I just hoped it was at least noon. Imagine my surprise and joy when I saw that it was 3:25PM.

I smiled knowing this meant I would be able to survive the shift again tonight.

While looking for an image for this post, I saw everything from books called "God Works the Night Shift" to manuals for new doctors and nurses called "Working the Night Shift: Preparation, Survival, and Recovery" to the book cover I picked, a Stephen King novel describing excursions into the horror of the Night Shift.

Any advice, support, stories of your own night shift experiences?

My New Imaginary Boyfriend

Imaginary Boyfriends - I have lots of them and last night I met a few more. These aren't imaginary people, they exist, they just don't exist as my boyfriends. See I'm not THAT crazy, just a little.

Last night I went to a show at the Doug Fir.

The 88 - Opening band. Very fun, recognized a few songs, one because of The OC soundtrack. Why do I make so many embarrassing admissions on my blog? Each member of the band was intriguing for their own reasons. Brandon, on guitar, had Sideshow Bob hair (Rich deserves credit for that reference) and the red lights shining on it only added to the effect. Carlos, on bass, was adorable in a way that reminded me of an ex-boyfriend. Adam, on piano, bounced way more than I would think possible if you want to play the correct notes. Keith, on lead vocals and guitar, had a bright red tie and was quite the dancer/entertainer, played to the crowd and I bought it, and his facial expressions were beyond explanation. And Anthony, on drums, one of my new imaginary boyfriends, well the drums sounded good, but I really noticed him because, CUTE!

Matt Costa - My other new imaginary boyfriend. He's cute, he plays a mean guitar, and his songs vary from sweet ballads to sunshiny peppy songs (one is actually called Sunshine) to twinges of southern rock, all sounds I like. But he also won me over with his laid back sing along style, his soulful brown eyes, and my boy plays harmonica! If you don't know him and want to hear some of the new hotness, you can either go to his site or 3 Hive, a music sharing blog started by some college friends, check it out for other music too.

Once In A Lifetime

If you are reading this, you are on the Internet which means you probably already know this, but today had a unique time/date surprise.

01:02 and 03 seconds on 04/05/06.

11 Weeks To Go

While we disagree on most issues, Donny and I have one thing in common... This is what my hand looked like by the end of the day.

My last term of school started today. I was so tired after the time change and not being able to fall asleep last night and having to get up at 6:30 after 2 weeks on spring break.

I think the muscles in my fingers had atrophied during the break and for the first hour of my 6 hours of classes today, I took barely legible notes far too slowly to keep up. But I quickly recovered and think I'll survive the next 11 weeks till graduation. And then?...