Behold the Power of Cheese

...and by cheese, I mean food. Seriously. What is it? Usually when I am in any kind of emotional turmoil (anxiety, nervousness, sad, upset, yada yada) I loose all appetite and don't eat for weeks at a time. But for some apparent reason (I'm gonna blame hormones, because that's what I blame everything unknown on) for the last three months I've been eating everything in sight. I get upset and cry then I make a pie so I can eat it. I ate a whole pie in three days. I went through an entire package of double stuff oreos (that I went on a 0200 emergency grocery store trip to buy) in 3 hours. With peanut butter on top. That's just the kind of last few months I've had. For some reason my body decided to go backwards from normal and I have become an emotional eater. My hips and my now slightly snug clothing realize this is a bad idea, and I realize that it's not the greatest coping mechanism, but it is what it is.

So for the last week I've put myself back on a diet. The thing is, excuse my french, I become a homicidal bitch if I haven't eaten all day. Seriously. I hate people (everyone) and my life and my job and ...well, everything. I realized this at work the other day when I was having a terrible day for no apparent reason. I wanted to stab people in the eyeballs (don't lie, we've all been there) and everything just irritated me! Luckily, my roommate took subconscious pity on my poor coworkers when she surprised me at work with real food. Moral of the story, it's not worth my mental health to starve myself. Running: great. Dieting: not so much. So I'll just have to strive harder to not make the key lime pie and eat the entire thing in three days time. No more midnight runs to get double stuff oreos that I can coat in delicious peanut butter and put myself in a food induced happy state. Just eating like normal and exercising. Sigh. But I might not kill anyone intentionally this way ;)

Filter Free

So, here's the thing about exhaustion. It zaps you of the energy that you have to lie. The energy that you have to fake it, to pretend, and to act. It forces you to be much more honest. When you're physically exhausted you don't have the ability to pretend like you are emotionally detatched. Or that you have any sentimentality at all over other things. Case in point: I have chosen to hang out with my friends and celebrate their achievements over the past couple days over sleeping. As a result I've slept about 5 hours of the last 48. So on the way to work today when I was completely physically exhausted, I found myself getting teary and worked up about a couple different things. Things that on a proper amount of sleep, I have the full capacity to shove down inside and 'deal with them rationally.' I also had lost the ability to appear as though I cared for people. Because the honest truth is, if you're not sick, I really don't give a tiny rats a*s whether you stay to see the doctor or not. In fact I'd rather you didn't. And let's remember, my definition of sick and your definition of sick are different. And emergencies don't wait. I also don't have the ability to act as though your 200lb obnoxious 10 year old is cute. I have no ability to pretend as though I had the patience to deal with your non sick child. I have no ability to act like the two babies that were delivered in the ER last night were sweet and special and happy and cute occurrences. They're not. Nor do I care to pretend that I didn't wish that a few of our staff would be so inspired by how 'cute' it all was that they would realize their true calling is labor and delivery. I did come to an interesting realization however. My hatred for all Boston athletic teams is outdone by my hatred for Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. Therefore I don't feel bad that I am cheering for the Celtics to win. I actually hope they slaughter the Lakers. Huh. Who would have thought :)

My Girls

Last night I was driving to work when Shania Twain's 'Any Man Of Mine' came on the radio. I literally laughed out loud. And of course I totally rocked out to the song. I had flashbacks to oh-so-many nursing school road trips with my best nursing school gals karaoke-ing away to Shania and Christina Aguillara and Billy Currington. Oh, Billy. So this is a quick shout out to my best nsg school friends (and still among my best of friends today). Together we survived the worst hell possible. We made it through all the wondering if we were ever going to actually get our heads above water, all the marathon study sessions in the library, the bachelor parties, the road trips, and a few bathroom incidents... ;) Love you girls! Together we learned how to be the amazing nurses that we are today ...6 years later. (Wow, we're getting old ;) ) (I couldn't find any pictures of us IN nsg school on my computer, so the first one is the year after we graduated... the second one was 5 years later -- last fall at Melissa's wedding)

Lucky Girl

So last night at work I had a room assignment with actual patients, as opposed to being the clinical resource nurse or triage nurse. A welcome change. My room assignment happened to be in the 'psych' patient area. Always an adventure. So over the course of an hour I had a patient who was crazy (not drunk, just crazy) tell me that as soon as he finished prosecuting his father who was the head of the KKK that he was going to save his money and come back to take me to dinner. As lead prosecutor and supreme court justice I figure he'll have his hands full for a while. He also said that he was going to remember my name so he could find my phone number. (moment of gratitude for only having first names on name tags). Then my patient who was crazy and drunk told me that I was a beautiful woman and that she would do what I said because I had a big d*ck. THEN my patient that was drunk (not crazy, just drunk) stopped mid "seizure" and says, "HOLD ON!!!" I stare at him with the same expression I had while waiting out his "seizure" ...blank boredom ...and he looks at me and says, "Do you have babies?" I said no, and he said, "Well why not?! You're too gorgeous to not have babies! I'll help if you want. You need to have girls. Probably two, but at least one. You should name her Sarah." I am a lucky lucky girl :)

Happiness

Things I love about Seattle today: Cute little corner coffee shops. Amazing people. Quaint old used book stores. This weekend I met my 'mentee' from work for coffee and cupcakes. By mentee, I mean newly graduated nurse that I'm assigned to 'mentor' --who I already consider a good friend. And now we have an extra excuse to hang out outside of work. So we went to Cupcake Royale --home of the greatest cupcakes in the world. I had the 'Dance Party' cupcake, along with a delicious non-fat chai latte. We ate and talked and laughed and then went for a walk on California Ave in West Seattle. It's the greatest cutest little hippie neighborhood, and I love it. Turns out, something I didn't know about my mentee was that she shares my love for books. She took me to a little used book store that was amazing and I found these:



Which I also love! Vintage nursing items. I figure from these books I'll learn how to be a good 50s housewife nurse who doesn't talk back, and instead I'll learn to say things like, "Yes, doctor" and, "Here you go sir." Lol! In all seriousness though, I found these four books which were all written in the 50's about nurses, and I couldn't not get them! Can't wait to delve in! So this weekend, corner coffee shops, good friends, used book stores, and vintage nursing memorabilia make me happy :) And if you're ever in the greater Seattle area, check out the link below!

Zen

I can only think of two ways I could possibly be more relaxed right now, and one of them involves a 2 1/2 hour heated shea butter massage. Mmmm... anyway ...I just finished my sixth shift in a row. Tuesday night was complete hell, and last night just flat out kicked my butt. It's been a while since I've been able to honestly say that I did not sit down -even to chart or pee- for ten hours. But, it's over now. And I'm in heaven thanks to a 35 minute shower where I kept the water so hot my skin was pink and shaving creamed and deep conditioned and exfoliated and lotioned and let all my stress and cares wash right down the shower drain with the shampoo suds. Ah, showers. I love them. I also love new clothes and shoes and days off and friend's birthday parties and cupcakes and bed. Always bed. Foremost bed. My lavender and chamomile oasis with 1,000 thread count sheet covered heavenly bed. And all of these things are in my immediate future. Life is good today :)