Agree to Agree for Once

The Co-chairs of Obama’s Deficit Commission, or the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, for those of you who aren’t into the whole brevity thing, recently announced a $3.8 trillion plan that would cut Social Security and Medicare, reduce income-tax rates, eliminate tax breaks including the mortgage-interest deduction and make many specific cuts to different discretionary budget items, including the Defense budget and the National Parks Service. More than likely you are happy about one or two of their proposals and ready to fight tooth and nail about one or two of the other. Indeed, the leftern lobe of the blogosphere has been lighting up my inbox with headlines like “They just declared war on Social Security”. And the gauntlets have also been flying from the rightermost regions, with oaths of “No new taxes!” and “No deals, Mr. ‘Bama.”

If you’re interested in reading a variety of reactions to the proposals, I recommend this article from the Times which I think helps puts some of the issues into perspective.

This is probably the third draft of this blog. The first, especially after reading the list of cuts and changes to the discretionary aspects of the budget, was fairly rah-rah. I said, hey, this is the first time in my political life that I have heard anyone make a set of serious and specific proposals to address our country’s deficit problem so we should get behind it. Then I moved on to an angry WTF-type-of-thing, especially after reading more about the proposed changes and cuts to the entitlements portion of the budget (Social Security, Medicare etc.). I was ready to decry the proposal as another right wing plot to leave the poor and disadvantaged in misery and give money to the wealthy in the hopes that it would some day trickle down. I wanted to remind everyone that in addition to the moral question of social justice, we needed to realize that spending money on people in one way (Social Security, health care, education) would mean avoiding paying even more money for them later when their sh*t really hit the fan.

But these are tough times, arguably extraordinarily tough ones even, and I think they demand some extraordinary measures. So this is third draft (third verse, different than the first). The deal is that there is no way to balance our budget and reduce the deficit through discretionary cuts alone. No way to tax or spend our way out of depression. Anyone offering a simple solution is selling snake oil. A serious solution to our problems will be difficult and complicated--two things that politicians and Americans don’t generally want to say or hear.

Every one of us is will be required to make some sacrifices and decide just what is important, not to us or to our personal interests, but for the future of our country. Not just for or our children and their children, but our neighbors’ children. So the first sacrifice that I’m asking of myself and you, is to let go of our anger and bitterness, our mistrust and ideology. Our next step is agreeing to agree, however disagreeable that may be. Let us agree that the solution to our budget deficit, even the future of our country, is going to entail change. Let us maintain a high index of suspicion for any proposal that makes it sounds like things are going to be fixed with a few small tweaks but that otherwise we will be able to keep on going in the same comfortable way we have become accustomed to. The heat is on and the windows are down, my friends, so let us agree that some serious changes will need to be made to taxes and discretionary budgets and entitlement programs if we are to survive our over 13 and a half trillion dollar debt ($13,736,876,145 right now to be exact). This is something like a debt of $125,000 per taxpayer (watch the national debt clock ticking here).

I don’t see our current legislature, or perhaps any group of people who want to get re-elected, being able to agree on something as difficult and by nature unpopular as balancing the budget and reducing our ridiculously large deficit. Unpopular, why? Okay maybe unpopular is not the right word. Indeed, the idea seems eminently popular. What people don’t seem to like is any of this stuff affecting them, right? And that’s the problem, as soon as we start discussing these proposals, anyone who is or might be affected by any of them are not going to be happy and will start calling their congresspeoples and local radio talk shows. And the result will be a humpty-dumpty collection of disputed and in the end muted proposals that the legislature will never be able to piece back together again into a comprehensive package. So here’s the silver lining, a 14-vote Commission majority on a deficit reduction plan would require Congress to vote on the package unchanged. Still not easy, but at least fathomable. So all we have to do is get this bipartisan commission to agree, just 14 people, not 100 senators and 435 congresspeoples.

It seems clear to me then, and I hope to you, that our best way out of this mess is to throw everything we’ve got, we the people, into making sure this Commission comes up with the best proposal it can be, however much wrangling it takes, and that at least 14 of the 18 members agree to it. Let’s agree that it’s going to be difficult and that nobody will be really happy with it (sound like health care reform yet?), but that we’ve just to got to do it. Maybe it won’t be exactly the right mix of cuts and changes, and more than likely we will have to make some more cuts or go back and change some things that turn out to suck, but now is the time to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in there. It’s going to be a Pyrrhic victory, so let’s put on our Greek gloves and take out some budgetary trash.

What I’m asking you to do is throw away your ideology, not your morality or intelligence or compassion, just your ideology. I won’t push this part, but if you can muster it, send out some New Agey, 100th Monkey-ey type positive vibrations that things are going to change for the better, that a compromise can and will be reached. Finally, and this is important, send the debt commission and your national representatives a message telling them exactly what your priorities are in terms of budget cuts and changes, starting with your number one priority, which is that some intelligent, compassionate and serious changes and cuts must be made. You can contact the commission by email (commission@fc.eop.gov) or visit their website. Here is a website Congress.org that allows you to email your representatives, and your local or national media (you have to register first, then look for the links under 'Advocacy 101' on the right side of the page).

Here is what I’m planning on sending:
Dear Deficit Commission,

I beg of you to work hard over these next few weeks to come up with a proposal that you can agree upon and that entails intelligent, compassionate and serious changes to our national budget. Business as usual is no longer an option with a $13.7 trillion deficit, economic depression and another energy crisis around the corner. Not to mention our crumbling infrastructure and lagging educational system. There is no choice but success.

I believe you should focus on cuts to those parts of the budget that are most contributing to our national debt: Defense, Medicare and Social Security.

I’ll start with the hardest job, cutting some little old lady’s retirement benefits. All I can say is that for some people, the difference between getting their Social Security check or not is the difference between having proper food and shelter, and if they can’t afford these most basic of necessities than we are going to have to pay for more food stamps and shelters for them anyway and no money will end up being saved. So please cut carefully. Maybe you can create one retirement age for the white collar who can more easily work at age 70 and another for blue collar workers who aren't likely to be able to lift those garbage cans or crates at that age.

Regarding Defense, we have the most expensive military in the world by a factor of several countries put together. Nothing wrong with having the best, but it should not cost what several other G8 countries put together are paying. Let's get lean and mean. Do we need nukes? Do we need as many subs? Do we need? Do we need? How many megaton bombs and super intercontinental missiles do we currently need or use? Or have we ever used? Cuts should be made based on defense items we actually use and those that we might use in the future (intelligence, so-called “smart” bombs and troops on the ground type stuff). Get in there and cut the rest. Look at how Southwest Airlines saved money: one multipurpose fleet of planes, needing only one set of parts and training. Do we really need F-15s, F-16s and F-35s? Indeed, I’m happy to see some of this addressed in your CoChair report. I urge you to go further.

Next up, the nukes. I think it should be called nuclear encouragement rather than deterrence, because that’s what it seem to be doing, encouraging other countries to build bombs. Have all our nuclear bombs stopped the terrorists from attacking us or anyone else? It would seem not. Do any of our military conflicts present or future look like they will be stopped by the threat of dropping the big one? I think not. So cut away.

Regarding Medicare, decisions need to be made about costly interventions like dialysis (the single biggest drain on the system), organ transplants, end-of-life ICU all out wars against dignity and reality, and expensive new prescription drugs. Any medical device, drug or intervention that has not been proven more effective, and not just marginally more so, in head to head controlled trials than a generic, traditional or lower cost alternative should not be covered by Medicare, or covered at a reduced percentage. And those that are more effective need much tighter protocols on when they are to be used.

Let’s not mess around with the little stuff like PBS and the National Parks. The reason our country is bankrupt has nothing to do with PBS or the parks, and if even it did, their budgets just aren’t big enough to make a dent in the deficits we are now facing.

Taxes, nobody likes to pay them, but the truth is some people can afford to pay more than others. I believe in a much simpler and progressive tax structure. I think it’s clear that budget cuts and freezes alone are not going to do it. If the Commission’s proposal is to have any chance of getting the 14 votes it needs to pass and without which there is little hope of it being approved by Congress in any form likely to do much good, it will have to be bipartisan, meaning more revenue AND less spending. However distasteful to the right or left, revenue will have to be raised. Please keep all taxes and revenue progressive. People or businesses making more money should pay more money as a percentage of their income than those making less. This does not preclude the value or necessity of incentives to our economy and the direction of our growth. Encouraging behaviors through complicated tax loopholes is a game that only those who can afford a CPA can play. Let’s keep it simple. A progressive tax structure with simple and easily applied incentives for behaviors we want to encourage (saving money, education, science, research, small business investment, whatever). When I lived in France I was able to fill out my taxes online in about an hour and still benefited from savings incentives, housing aid etc. The incentives don't have to involve arcane and Gordian knots and loopholes. Simple and progressive.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Kevin Lapin
A concerned and voting citizen

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"Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish"... aka Get Stuck in There!

Yesterday, to my complete surprise, I was taking care of 6 patients as a nurse on a medical-surgical floor. Even just a few weeks before, when this final clinical internship was beginning, I thought I would never, ever be able to do this job. Looking back, I see how the dots connect, from classes, to first fumbling attempts to take a blood pressure, to taking care of 1 patient, then 2, then 4...

That was yesterday. A little over a year before, I was applying to nurse practitioner programs with this idea that I loved theater, but wanted to do more (more challenging, more learning, more rewarding) with the rest of my time. So I took a few classes online and applied to Columbia (see "Poison Ivy League Here I Come").

Before applying, I did some volunteering in the hospital to be sure that the whole medical field thing was what I really wanted to do (and, to be honest, to make my application look better). In a weird circular connection of these little dots that make up the course of one's life, I remember watching two brand new Columbia students fumbling with their sphygmomanometer (blood pressure machine) in the hallway, encouraging each other that it would be okay and trying to build up the nerve to walk into a patient's room. And darned if a year later I wasn't standing on that very same unit, wearing the same navy blue scrubs, knees knocking, wondering if I was going to be able to get that BP reading.

Randomly, I remember another Columbia student that I ran into telling me that school was a lot of work and that there was really more reading than you could do, unless you were in your 30's and didn't have a life. And yes, I think she meant that 'and' in its full tautological or redundant sense, as in if you are in your 30's it's implied that you don't have a life so therefore you would have time to read it all.

Step back a few more years and now it's 2005. I've moved back to Paris, graduated from a bizarre little theater school known for physical theater and collaborative creations and am touring around France performing a two-person comedy about math, called "Mad Maths". Looking back another 10 years to 1995 and I'm graduating Dartmouth College with a degree in French literature and education. I'm thinking I'll take a few years then go back to school to become a professor. The connection to what actually happened is tenuous, especially considering the detour via Amazon.com and Slough, but it's there. Looking forward, the idea of leaving Paris for New York could be predicted, but who'd have imagined I would be a paper-thin diploma away from becoming an RN and another year or two down the road to becoming a nurse practitioner (it's definitely an uphill road)? Nothing can be as fantastical and unbelievable sometimes as life. If it were a play, we might reject it as a little too unrealistic. But then, here we be.

It's these little dots that we somehow blindly connect to make a life out of life. My dad always said that "hindsight is 20/20" and that "it's better to be lucky than good". So true. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, would often describe the process as "a sprint and a marathon". Correct again. He also, frustratingly, described the first several years of work as "Day 1". More to the point, he described his approach to life as "a regret minimization framework", which is to say he would try and make decisions in the now that would most probably reduce the chance of regretting things (done or not) later. Poker players and business types might add that you if you are not losing some hands and falling on your face once in a while then you are not taking enough risks. You've got to be in it to win it, right? An "old soul" friend of mine created a mantra once that helps temper this advice by explaining that there are, "So many ways to become number one. So many ways to become number one". My signature block says, "Appreciate beauty in all it's forms" and "Get stuck in there!" And aren't these all different ways of saying the same thing? It's all of a peace. It's all one. And if you are a religious, or scientific, type, you believe that it's not only all one, but that it's already been written. Maktub and Amen.

I want to end this moment of reflection, this graduation of thought, with a superlative address given at Stanford University in 2005. It was given at a time when, if you remember, I was blithely and blindly following my path with heart in France. When I was about two or three thousand miles from a medical-surgical floor of a hospital in New York and would never have guessed that each step would somehow lead me here (or is it there?) to today. The speech is from Steve Jobs, a college dropout whose path to the giving the keynote address at one of the most prestigious places of learning in the country seems equally as improbable and beautiful. Here is what he said:

"Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example.

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. "Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Thank you all, very much." --Quoted from Free Republic

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How the internet and a little ingenuity saved my life!

Okay it didn't save my life, but it did save a bundle of money and calories... On the heels of our recent magic bullet blow-up, juicer-gate, Kevin Trudeau's Ultra Mega Memory (or what is Super Mega Memory) tapes, and a closet full of exercise implements that would make the Marquis de Sade blush--all As Seen On TV, or more appropriately as seen on late night TV when your faculties of reason and discernment are half-asleep--I am happy to announce a small victory against this dastardly tide of gadgets. With a little ingenuity, and paradoxically the Internet, I managed to turn back the clock in our kitchen to cooking 1.0. And I saved us about $200 in the process. Johnny, I know you'll dig this part the most, but for the rest of you read on for a fabulous tip on how to clean your own super-mega magic thing...

Allow me to introduce, the blender. Yes, that modern yet retro, that sleek yet 70's item that you probably have stashed in a closet since your wedding or since you replaced it with some newer and much more expensive culinary gadget that promised it would do away with all the other gadgets that came before it and that was touted as what the French call "le must de la cuisine".

Well I'm happy to report that I just talked Debbie down from her Magic Bullet, Health Master, Vita-Mix infomercial buying mania with a simple, yet elegant steel and glass blender by Oster (imaged here) and the power of a little thing we call the scientific process. Here's how I did it:

1) Leave the product's flashy website and flash video demonstrations (though this is where I did get that cleaning tip I'll tell you about in a second) and go to a reputable resource like ConsumerReports.org or ConsumerSearch.com. Read a few reviews about the different products. Concentrate on the negatives.

2) Drop a carrot, an onion, a few stalks of broccoli and some water in the blender you have and see how good of a purée it makes. Add salt and pepper to taste and heat.*

3) Drop a banana, a couple clementines, a dollop of yogurt, a few ice cubes and some water in the blender and see how good of a smoothie it makes.

4) Review your recent bank statements and see whether spending $300-400 on a super blender makes sense.

5) Buy a $5 Good Housekeeping blender recipe book used from Amazon promising over 150 sensational recipes on soups, appetizers, smoothies, baby food and more.

6) Do a little victory dance as the ineluctable power of your demonstration sets in.**

* If you try this, you'll understand the need for #5.
** You may want to skip this for the sake of better relations.

I have to admit that I got a bit lucky because it just so happens that way back in the early 21st century when I bought my blender at Target I grabbed the stainless steal and glass pitcher one by Oster, more because I thought it looked good than, as it turns out, because it was recommended as one of the best. The point is, these blenders go for about $60. With depreciation, the recipe book and avoiding buying one of those other gizmos, I reckon we saved well over $200 with our little admittedly pseudo-scientific experiment.

So what's in it for you? Those of you who have already shilled out for some other gizmo? Those for whom it is too late to benefit from our experience and sage advice? Well, here is a great little tip to make cleaning your own personal blenderizer thingy "simple comme bonjour": after you blend, do a quick rinse then add warm water and dish soap and blend that for a few seconds. Can't you just see and feel the potentially lost years of your life just anti-oxidizing away?

By the way, no need to send me a thank you card as there is no address down here in Margaritaville where we will soon be wasting away... from all the calories and money we save of course!

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What I did for my Birthday...

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Time 2 Rn

10pm and I'm still @ the hospital. This is s/p day 2 working w/ a nurse. Also approx. day 5 of juice fast b/c of prolonged ↑ dietary intake. Calculation approx. r/t friend in NYC last pm → a macrobiotic meal. Thankfully, all Pts remain stable through hand-off to night shift. Log entry: "Subject woke at 5:45am today. Reports feeling like he has been sprinting since."

In keeping with the MD lexicon, I will say that my preceptor is +++, though she is d/c'ing me for a week to go to Haiti. As if they need her help more than I do (kidding!). She started me right away caring for 3.0 patients, top to bottom and side-to-side. I feel a little scared/nervous and overwhelmed just about every second from when we take report at 8am to when we give report to the night shift at 8pm. Lunch lasted about 20', during which time I was not scared.

Something about the patients, the pace of work and frenetic action makes it almost impossible to feel hungry or tired, or sorry for yourself. In fact, working in health care generally makes you content with simple things like your health, a good meal, a good shower, a good hug, a bit of sunshine, and being able to pass a good BM in the peace and quiet of your own home (ideally with a book or magazine if you are a true Lapin).

Time management is key. Knowledge is helpful, particularly where it involves not making a mistake (or not catching someone else's) that will cause Pt. sequella. Unfortunately, the demands of documentation and Rx mean that there is almost 0 time for much of what traditionally might be considered nursing. The whole caring, advocating and helping people thing. The chronophagistic (chronophagal?) aspect also makes it hard sometimes to do things like go to the bathroom, look up new information, call your sweetheart etc. You know, that type of thing. Or to paraphrase Woody Allen's "Irish Genius" remember to rejoice, rejoice and call your mother once in a while.

My dad actually warned me about not letting medicine suck me in so far that I lose sight of the rest of life. Case in point, I'm here at 10:16pm, doing a Hx and Pe on a Pt and collecting info on him for a case presentation at school. As for real life, tomorrow is my birthday and I have big plans with Debbie. I am also desperately trying to fit a new play, PT, friends, NCLEX, a job hunt and maybe a trip to South Korea in as well. Oh my, time 2 Rn...!

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Stand Up, Speak Out!

It's shocking how obedient we are sometimes. Maybe it comes from our distant evolutionary past where it paid to stay with the herd, follow the alpha male, lest a mountain lion drop out of a tree and gobble you up. If you've had the occasion to observe a 'pack' of 7th graders roaming your local subway system or mall, then you might think it's not such a distant genetic influence I'm talking about.

Maybe we should blame our kindergarten teachers for doing such a good job of socializing us, imposing all those rules that we learned to obediently follow like sit up straight, don't fidget, don't talk out of turn and most of all the teacher is always right and you have to do what they say.

In John Holt's classic book How Children Fail, he observes elementary children and classrooms with piercing clarity, reminding us how scary school, not to be confused with education, was (or is) for most of us and how so much of what passes for teaching is really anathema to our natural curiosity and affinity for learning--especially as young children. In a telling example, Holt explains how he would talk to kids and ask them questions like what do you want to be when you grow up? Another question he would always ask was who thinks they have a good imagination? When he asked this question to a preschool or kindegarten class all the children would raise their hands and often yelp or bounce around to let him know, hey yes, over here, look at me, I've got one, I've got one! In first grade, he continues, maybe 3/4 or 1/2 the class would raise their hands. And by second grade, only a handful and timid few would raise their hands. School had either killed their curiosity and imagination or made them too self-conscious and scared to admit they had any.

And that's just it, either way the ship is sort of sunk. And things don't get much better when we grow up to be big strong adults either. We mostly still fear being different, changing going against the grain, against the herd. We're sheepish that society or the person sitting across from us on the subway will point to us and say, "that's baaaaaaaaaaaad."

It's shocking really how few people will stand up and say something in the face of racist, sexist, fascist, mean or just plain stupid words and deeds. We hope that we will be different when the time comes for true heroism, running into a burning tower, hiding a fugitive Anne Frank, but we mostly don't sweat the small stuff, right? And the problem is, to paraphrase the popular self-help book, at the end of the day, or a life, it has all ended up being small stuff. Minor affronts that slowly shred the fiber of our society through the death of a thousand cuts. Of course there will always be a brave or foolhardy few, but most of us will obediently press the button when we are told even when the results are cruelly and clearly splayed out in front of us.

I'm talking, of course, about a study that was somewhat unscrupulously carried out to study man (and woman's) violent and dangerous obedience to authority. It's called the Milgram Study. Basically, researchers told recruited volunteers that they were going to partake in a study of learning and memory. Each subject was told that they had to teach a student and to punish their errors by administering increasing levels of electric shocks. The "student" was a confederate of the researchers who pretended to be a poor learner and mimicked pain and even unconsciousness as the subjects increased the levels of electric shock. An incredible (or maybe not so incredible) 63% of the subjects went as far administering shocks marked as "lethal"; some even after the "student" claimed to have heart disease.

Now we may not be the most proactive of species, in terms of standing up and speaking out about oppression, injustice and the like, but we are a repentant lot. Apparently some of the test subjects experienced serious emotional crises after being "debriefed" from the study. Yes, we love our fallen angels who sob their apologies and weakness from the pulpit of their sins. It's an interesting evolutionary trait, actually. What evolutionary advantage does remorse confer on an individual?

I suppose nothing if we don't learn from our mistakes. And as John Holt so clearly explains, we don't learn well when we are scared. We tend to just shut up, play dumb, or just go along with the group hoping nobody notices us.

So here's a plug for standing up, speaking out, being noticed and not being afraid to speak our minds. Post your comments below, or better yet, click here and tell your congressional representative!

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This I believe: Be cool to the pizza dude!

"If I have one operating philosophy about life it is this: 'Be cool to the pizza delivery dude; it's good luck.' Four principles guide the pizza dude philosophy.

Principle 1: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in humility and forgiveness. I let him cut me off in traffic, let him safely hit the exit ramp from the left lane, let him forget to use his blinker without extending any of my digits out the window or towards my horn because there should be one moment in my harried life when a car may encroach or cut off or pass and I let it go. Sometimes when I have become so certain of my ownership of my lane, daring anyone to challenge me, the pizza dude speeds by me in his rusted Chevette. His pizza light atop his car glowing like a beacon reminds me to check myself as I flow through the world. After all, the dude is delivering pizza to young and old, families and singletons, gays and straights, blacks, whites and browns, rich and poor, vegetarians and meat lovers alike. As he journeys, I give safe passage, practice restraint, show courtesy, and contain my anger.

Principle 2: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in empathy. Let's face it: We've all taken jobs just to have a job because some money is better than none. I've held an assortment of these jobs and was grateful for the paycheck that meant I didn't have to share my Cheerios with my cats. In the big pizza wheel of life, sometimes you're the hot bubbly cheese and sometimes you're the burnt crust. It's good to remember the fickle spinning of that wheel.

Principle 3: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in honor and it reminds me to honor honest work. Let me tell you something about these dudes: They never took over a company and, as CEO, artificially inflated the value of the stock and cashed out their own shares, bringing the company to the brink of bankruptcy, resulting in 20,000 people losing their jobs while the CEO builds a home the size of a luxury hotel. Rather, the dudes sleep the sleep of the just.

Principle 4: Coolness to the pizza delivery dude is a practice in equality. My measurement as a human being, my worth, is the pride I take in performing my job -- any job -- and the respect with which I treat others. I am the equal of the world not because of the car I drive, the size of the TV I own, the weight I can bench press, or the calculus equations I can solve. I am the equal to all I meet because of the kindness in my heart. And it all starts here -- with the pizza delivery dude.

Tip him well, friends and brethren, for that which you bestow freely and willingly will bring you all the happy luck that a grateful universe knows how to return."
--This I Believe, by Sarah Adams

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Twittering away the hours

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You twitter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way...


[start message thread]
Jl: Nespee nespee nespee nespee

Kl: What's up random guy? No time?

Jl: I have new self imposed phone rules

Kl: But that don't include standards of quality?
--
Kl: About to jam with Nada Surf?

Jb: How did that end up happening?

Kl: Just lucky, I guess

Jb: Holy smokes you can say that again

Kl: Just lucky, I guess

Jb: I would expect nothing less
--
Kl: Let's stop by Hershe park on our way to Sasquatch.

Jl: Where is that?

Jb: What is Hershe park? A place or a band?

Kl: It's the sweetest place in the world.

Jb: Well who can say no to that?
--
Jb: Guess who gets to see Dr. Brian Greene lecture on the importance of science tomorrow?

Kl: Me?

Jb: Not unless you have plans to be at pierce college tomorrow. I do have an extra ticket if you decide to go though. :)

Kl: OMG, pierce through the fabric of the cosmos.

Jb: Word!
--
Dg: At your place - relaxing with a glass of wine. Have fund and don't rush or worry about me.

Kl: You always know just what to say.

[message forward]

Ko: Who's that?

Kl: My gf

Js: I'm so jealous!
--
Kl: Good times last night

Js: Indeed. Still jealous though

Ko: Haha, totally. Sorry for being the token lush.

Kl: You were token?

Ko: no.
--
Jl: Did u see the movie le haine?

Kl: Oui, La haine: ce n'est pas la chute qui compte, c'est l'atterrissage.

Jl: Arash ta mere

Kl: It's too late to lose the weight you use to need to throw around.

Jl: Sortie...
[end thread]

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say.

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Tales from the 'Terp

In a few weeks I will start nurse practitioner school which will put an end to my career as freelance interpreter. "Have dictionary and unassuming JC Penney slacks and shirt, will travel," that's us. I've already taken down my website and packed away my hush puppies (you have to have white ones for nursing school), so the only thing left will be to contact the agencies and file away my resume with those from my other random and short lived careers as Safeway bag-boy, Tanglewood Island boat driver and resort hand, Park City waiter-cum-busboy, Rassias method French language drill instructor, Lycée Lakanal English assistant, financial journalist covering the MATIF (French futures market for financial instruments), Amazon.com customer service representative, .co.uk away team member, trainer and auctions marketing specialist, and finally IPAC pharmaceutical translation agency assistant. Before adding my time as a 'terp to the "been there done that" file, I thought it would be interesting to share a few memories and thoughts of just what it is like to be a French interpreter in this beautifully broken city we call Brooklyn and the Big Apple.

I started by working for a translation and language service company that was listing on Craiglist. They specialize in voice over type recordings and medical interpreting. In fact, they have an exclusive contract with the New York Public Hospitals. So besides the people in Indiana waiting next to their phone, if there is medical interpreting to be done in the city, it's through them. Nobody at the agency spoke French, or at least to me, and besides the interview the only thing they had me do was take a test in English checking my knowledge of basic, and I mean basic, medical vocabulary. Scary, right? It kind of makes sense because most interpreters speak English as their second or third language so it's more important to test their English skills. Nevertheless, being able to pass a multiple choice test in your second language does not a good medical interpreter make.

Later on, the agency made all of us pay for and take this Bridging the Gap medical interpreting course. But to be honest, taking that remedial sort of repeat everything twice and underline the rest thrice type of class and meeting the other interpreters therein only made me question more whether I had truly found my calling. Were these my people? My colleagues? This, by the way, is about the same feeling of slight repulsion and intellectual/moral elitism that turned me off commercial auditions in acting.

My first medical interpreting job, well before having spent those invaluable interpreting course hours on a somnolent Saturday afternoon discussing the interpreter as cultural advocate etc., was at the Columbia Presbyterian Women's Clinic. A black, Muslim woman from West Africa had an appointment to be fitted with a stérilet or IUD. I remember being slightly nervous as this was my first real job, and it was so bizarre because here I was with someone who was of a different gender, religion, age and culture than me. Talk about bridging the gap!

So we are in the waiting room and I'm translating her sexual and medical history intake form. How many sexual partners have you had in your lifetime? What types of birth control do you practice? Have you ever had a sexually transmitted disease? Have you ever been sexually abused? You know, that type of thing. A little different from the French we used to analyze Proust in college or order a panini in Paris. I'm thinking to myself, this woman would surely be more comfortable if we had at least one thing in common, preferably gender. The next thing I know, I'm standing on the other side of a curtain telling her to relax, and how to identify the small string attached to the end of the IUD used for retrieval should the need arise.

It often happens that while I'm doing this thing, facilitating communication, cultural brokering, bridging the gap, IUD fitting, whatever you want to call it, the doctor or lawyer or whoever will be standing there telling me what a beautiful language French is and how much they loved their recent visit to the Versailles gardens. Oui, j'aime le stérilet. Donnez-moi le stérilet, s'il vous plaît. Que c'est beau!

The medical interpreting jobs are actually my favorite. In fact, those jobs combined with volunteering at the hospital and working as a standardized patient where you pretend to be sick and medical students practice giving you a history and physical, like on Seinfeld are what convinced me that I should apply to nursing school.

After a few months of the medical interpreting, some random voice over jobs and text translations (of which the most interesting was an extremely long and boring police report from the Hague for an international terrorist case), I got on with another agency that specialized in legal interpreting and had an exclusive contract with the Department of Education. Basically, they send me to schools and for EBTs or depositions, mostly for car accident type situations but sometimes for more exotic cases, like the French lighting designer who was being sued because a spotlight fell on someone during fashion week.

As far as schools jobs, there are discipline hearings, parent teacher conferences, PTA and board meetings, and finally, school closures. Attending a nice little private school in Tacoma, Washington does not prepare you for the New York public school system. People in suits from city hall (okay the DOE, but it's the same to most of these poor parents) swoop in to assure parents that their school isn't being closed, it's being phased out. Then they run over a few statistics and aphorisms and spend the rest of the time stonewalling the parents' real concerns, questions, fears and anger.

I'm in the corner with a headset doing simultaneous interpretation for anyone with earphones who needs French. Sometimes, if there are only a few people--and I've been to meetings where there are only four parents total--I will sit just behind or next to the French speakers and do what they call whispering. This has led to some funny situations where a parent turns to me and starts asking me questions or telling me how they just want their son or daughter to have a good education. At what point do you just steamroll ahead and continue interpreting, and at what point do you give up and start trying to listen to and talk to the parent? I usually gave up (if that is the correct perspective) pretty quickly and started trying to encourage them to talk to their teachers (in what language?) about how their children were doing and what they could do to help. How do you say "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" in French? Answer: les rouspéteurs obtiennent toujours satisfaction.

Maybe this was another sign that this wasn't the perfect career for me. The interpreter is supposed to be invisible, without opinion, behind the scenes (gulp!), a mere reflection of the interlocutors and their agendas.

I am called to interpret for several school closures. The craziest is a school right in the Upper West Side, so close to Central Park West and the swanky residences thereon that you would be surprised to find a 95% Black/Latino school, where 68% of the students come from Title 1 homes, 30% don't speak English and where only 33% of students graduate in four years and about half never graduate at all. This school has more security than an Israeli airport (I can't help this one off-topic rant: why is our airport security so reactionary, slow and ineffective? Someone tried to sneak a bomb in their shoes and we all take our shoes off. Someone tried to sneak explosives in liquid and we no longer are allowed to bring water bottles or toothpaste on the plane. If someone invents explosive underwear, we will all be flying naked. All we have to do is send someone from Homeland Security to Israel for a few weeks to see what real efficient and effective airport security looks like and the problem would be solved.) Anyway, back to this public school; I am not joking or exaggerating when I tell you that the school entrance has four metal detectors, two hand held detectors, two bag scanners and about twelve DOE security guards. I don't know about education (well actually I do, because the school is closing), but as far as security goes, no child is being left behind.

I've also interpreted for several standardized tests. We are talking about little 6th graders filling in ovals about science or reading comprehension. This is another situation where I have to remind myself of maintaining a professional code of conduct. The educator in me has a hard time sitting by while little Johnny is blindly copying out sentences from the reading passage and attaching them to phrases from the question. Why? That's what our teacher told us to do. Deontology gets left behind as I watch little Fatima start blindly adding and subtracting numbers from the word problem. Are you sure you don't want me to explain what the French word moyenne (average) means again?

Another interesting job is doing an IME or Independent Medical Examination. This is when you have an injury compensation claim and the government or insurance company wants to be sure that you are really injured or not before they give you money or before they cut you off. The examiner is a doctor who is not allowed to treat you, only examine you and fill out the necessary paperwork verifying that, yes, indeed you are or are not broken. After waiting for over an hour and a half with a very nice Haitian man, our IME lasts about 3 minutes. The doctor, who does nothing but IMEs all day long, ushers us in, asks two questions, tries to get my guy to touch his toes and then vaguely swings a reflex hammer at his leg (the patient hasn't even taken his jacket off, let alone his pants), all with one hand in his pocket. Nice.

Like many aspects of welfare and social support networks, I'm sure there is a certain amount of cheating and freeloading with injury claims. No system is perfect, right? But I can tell you that the vast majority of the people in that waiting room were poor, tired, huddled masses of lower income, marginalized, powerless members of society. To add to these crimes, they have literally broken their backs at their low paying jobs and now have to fight to prove it in order to receive medical treatment and support. I really would love the people who go off on the bleeding hearts and socialists to spend a few hours in an IME or foodstamp waiting room and then decide if scrapping for a couple hundred bucks of Wellfare is really such a cushy, free-ride for lazy people. It certainly doesn't encourage dignity or independence, but that has nothing to do with the pittance people are being given. Did you know that basic SSI in New York for an individual living alone is $761 and you get less if you live with someone or make any income. Could you live on that? This is not a free ride, it's a rundown, bumpy, unsanitary slide into depression.

That's it for the fun tales of moral 'terpitude; though I have to share one more story which seems to fit with this theme of big city life. As part of preparing to go back to school, I have to renew my CPR certification. The last time I took CPR was in high-school, so I was looking forward to a professional AHA certified experience, and this one would be specifically for medical professionals. True to form, the class is a little Hobroken. Okay, that's maybe more of Jersey thing than Brooklyn, but I think it works. Although we have the dummies to practice on, we spend most of the class fast forwarding through the DVD. Periodically the instructor hits pause to make a joke about how everyone in the video seems to cardiac arrest in or near or a hospital, share a story from back in his EMT days or emphasize that we really should remember this point because it's like the first question on the test and a lot of people seem to get it wrong. A couple of times he tells us not to bother getting down out of our chairs to practice the technique on the dummies because he doesn't want to tire us out. One kid arrives late, something like half way through the class. When he asks if he can still jump in, the instructor tells him no problem. As long as he passes the test. Now my memory of the CPR class I took in high-school was that we had to take a written test as well as perform CPR on the Ressucit-Annie in front of the instructor who is holding a pump behind his back to control the doll's pulse and everything. My two-year health care provider certification is achieved after watching a 30-minute video, practicing compressions for about two minutes and then filling out a multiple choice test, for which we have been well, well warned and prepped for.

Kind of like that first test I took to become a professional medical interpreter in the New York Public Hospitals... And so la boucle est bouclée, as the French say. We've come full circle or loop de loop, in other words. From the perspective of a soon to be former freelance French interpreter in New York, 'loopy' seems like the right word to describe it all. Le mot juste, quoi.

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What happens in Vegas...

What happens in Vegas... really should stay in Vegas. I recently went back for a second annual east-coast-west-coast reunion weekend. We had a ball, and you can see the highlight video in my blog's video box or on youtube. Drinking and gambling and stuffing your face with steaks and riding ATVs in the middle of the desert and the lights and the fake décors and breasts is fun, don't get me wrong, but there is no getting around the fact that Vegas is a crazy place and that being there as a sentient being you are sort of morally obliged to vacillate between states of extreme titillation and nausea, energy and exhaustion, winning and losing, control and addiction.

Vegas runs a Carnival atmosphere year-round, a Carnival that never leads to Lent. Or rather it's a very private form of Lent as you board your plane home and sink into a small row of seats to pray for redemption and better luck next time and a decent night's sleep in the next eight high altitude hours. Carnival has always been a reversal of rules, an important time when the poor can don masks and parade as the royal and powerful and the wealthy can do the reverse. And then everyone copulates in the streets, without regard to race, creed, color or blood alcohol level. It has traditionally, and perhaps in more spiritual and respectful forms, played an important escape valve function for many societies. It can be such a relief to blow off a little steam and not be yourself, in your skin, for a little while that we are happy to return to our problems and start daily life fresh again... even if that means being a servant to the fat guy on the hill with all the beans.

And so it is that after four days in Vegas (which is equivalent to like six days anywhere else if you count waking hours), I return home tired and happy to have gotten out alive. Yes, let me shove into a crowded subway car where everyone ignores each other and hides behind newspapers and ipods--at least they're not white-trash, wearing ridiculous clothes, staggering around and yelling things like "Who's the man? Who is the man!?!"

There is definitely something to be learned from poker. Sure some of the games are pure chance like roulette or slot machines, but playing them can be a lesson in the ups and downs, the cycles of life. Poker, particularly Hold'em, is a real interesting study in risk analysis. You can analyze the possibilities (how many cards or hands can beat mine), the people, the odds, the position on the table. People say that playing poker is all about bluffing, but that is so wrong. It's about playing the cards you are dealt, in the position you are in, with the people at your table, with the amount of money you have to the best of your ability. And that, without stretching it too much, is life. Whether you are getting a job, a house, or a date, you are going to have to do some risk taking, or at least risk assessment. Playing poker gives you some practice in assessing and taking risks. You learn not to put all your eggs in one basket, to play a strategy over time. May be you win some, may be you lose some, but hey get used to it, that's life. The one thing you can control is making the right moves that are right for you over the long haul, and you want to be in it for the long haul. It's great to splash the pot now and again for a little excitement and Shamwow! fun, but you want to be able to martial your resources so that you can stay at the table for as long as possible. It's another case of walking down the hill and... seeing some flops, my friends. So let's get stuck in there!

But I digress. Let's just say that I think you can really learn some valuable life lessons from playing some poker.

You definitely see a lot of different types of people in Vegas, but especially people who like free alcohol, bad entertainment, and the chance to win big. Maybe because of it's geographical location, there are a higher percentage of people from the midwest and maybe because they have the time and can afford to spend a little of their nest eggs, you see a fair number of older couples. Unfortunately, you don't find a lot of people displaying good taste, sensitivity, compassion or culture. This is definitely the downside of Vegas and the part that can get you a little depressed about this great land and people of ours.

The thing that really grosses me out is the excess. There is definitely this trend towards the cattle-ization or chattel-ization of people. First there are the omnipresent electric walkers, which reminds me of the movie Wall-E where everyone is overfed and overstimulated and confined to perambulating barka-loungers. Then there are the strap-on containers of alcohol. You actually see people stumbling around drunk out of their gourds, their eyes as large and glazed as any bovine with large containers of Margarita strapped and dangling from their necks like feeding troughs (I am modeling one at the top of the page--they also come in 3' Eiffel Towers!). Finally, there are the people who tether themselves to slot machines (see photo above). You get these cards on a bungee cord around your neck which automatically tally up your winnings and losings from the machines, and which cut out that whole annoying step of adding more money to the machine. To paraphrase Dean Wormer addressing the Delta house: "Tetanized, drunk and tethered to a slot machine is no way to go through life, son."

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Eat, Love, Pray!

I've just updated my facebook status to read, "Kevin is eating, loving and praying!" because that is that exactly what I have been doing recently along with reading the Elizabeth Gilbert book by almost the same name.

The joy I am feeling to be eating, loving and praying with this new awareness is well captured by the exclamation point that I generously append to my new electronic face--it's nothing less than my typographical being, the 'i' in me, doing a handstand!

Gilbert writes that "when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt--this is not selfishness, but obligation."

As much as I malign facebook, it does serve its purpose. It's the face you decide to share with your not-so-virtual friends. So today I've decided to put on a happy, dirt caked face. It's not selfishness or an obligation to share this light of joy, and we are not diminished by the giving of it. On the contrary, the light bulb does not decide where or on whom to shine, it just shines in every direction. So here is my ray of the day:

Today I open wide the doors
rejoicing the sun in flight
singing A bas les abat-jours !
bowing as day to night
praying hey-hey, ho-ho,
these bulbs of joy have got to grow.

Yes this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it...

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Expand This...

If you like my new expandable posts...
What expandable posts you say?

Capiche?C'est la bombe de balle, c'est chanmé!, as my friend Olivier might say in his dark and mysteriously French way.

Anyway, if you like the effect and want it for your very own, then check it out here at hackosphere.blogspot.com.

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A Good Year in Wine

A glass of wine a day keeps the doctor and blues away...

This corkboard represents the result of my year in Province... and Italy, the Rioja region of Spain, several right-banks of Bordeaux and even a few reasonably priced places in Chile. It actually would have taken me several years to save-up enough corks to make this corkboard, but my girlfriend grew up in Rome and really accelerates the collection process--as well as making it a lot more fun!

The corkboard, which I made as a gift, will soon be adorning the wall's of Debbie's office at Legal Aid. I told her that she didn't have to tell her clients how much time it took her to collect the corks.

This reminds me of a joke that I used to know in France which went something like, What do you call 365 Michelin condoms? A Goodyear! I told it one time to my Spanish friend Roberto , a guy who liked to party so much and had so much energy that he used to fidget even in his sleep. Really, one of his feet would be tapping away as if he was dreaming about drinking wine and dancing at the discothèque--which he liked to do.

A month or two after I told Roberto the joke, I overheard him telling it to someone else, except that he couldn't quite remember the number in it. So he ended up saying something like, What do you call 675 Michelin condoms...? And then it struck me that it was a culturally biased jokes, because why not, once a day might seem like just an average year or even a slow year to some people.

Well for me, 2008 was a GoodYear--at least for drinking wine.

Cheers and chin-chin!

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I love it when a plan comes together

When I first moved into my co-op I had big plans to redo the kitchen and bathroom, build a platform in the office so my desk would sit up at window height, put a stained glass window in the wall between the office and bedroom and I don't know what else.

At first I was going to have all the work done before I moved in or right after I moved in while I was in China, figuring that it would be good to get it done quickly, but was working on my impulsiveness in 2008, so I decided to just move in and wait. Plus my mom, who has a lot of experience in home construction and remodeling jobs, told me to.

I'm not sure whether it was the chaos of moving in or my first mortgage bill that did it, but I decided that she was right and that I would just settle in to my new home for a while before making any big decisions.

I moved in at the end of June and by the 4th of July was happily sipping a glass chardonnay on my roof, chez moi, watching fireworks light up the Brooklyn skyline. I loved my new home. Even today, I often wake up each thinking that I'm on vacation and that I'm going to have to leave soon or something. Then I realize that I'm home and that I don't have to leave. It's so wonderful!

One funny thing about going from a renter to a homeowner is how it suddenly makes you really feel old and responsible, like an adult or something. It does, it changes you. One of the first few times I had the boys over to hang out and jam, I found myself worrying if we were making too much noise for the neighbors on a weeknight. I had always been a respectful renter, paid my rent on time, kept things clean and maintained. In fact, I think that is part of why I felt I had the right to have people over and make some noise from time to time, even on a weeknight.

And now here I was, an owner, worrying about whether we were being too loud. What's great is that it should have been the exact opposite, right? It's not like I can lose my lease if someone makes a noise complaint. I can understand wanting to take better care of the place, and I do, but this. I felt betrayed by my own feelings of guilt and responsibility. Finally, I suggested we keep the playing down to a mature mezzo piano...

Regarding my big plans to redo the kitchen and get rid of the crazy orange counters from the 70's and modernize the bathroom to bring in more light and better fixtures (though it does have a bath already), I finally decided if ain't broke don't fix it. The one idea I followed through with was to open up the wall between the office and bedroom. It took me a while, but some friends of mine recommended that I check out this store called Olde Good Things in Chelsea which recovers things like stained glass windows from churches or old mansions, and doors, and fixtures and tables and, well, old good things...

After a few visits, I found a piece I liked. Then I waited a few weeks for winter and the economic crises to really start setting in and I made my move. Finding and booking a carpenter was actually a bit more complicated. When you ask and call around, you quickly realize that carpenters, plumbers and electricians, at least ones that are being recommended, all have more work than they can handle and are doing small jobs on weekends and evenings. The one I found said he could probably install the stained glass window in two or three days but wouldn't be available until early next year. It reminds me of the joke about the cardiologist whose plumbing backs up. When the plumber gives him the bill he can't believe how expensive it is. He tells the plumber, "This bill is unbelievable. I'm a doctor and even I don't make this much money!" And the plumber responds, "Neither did I when I was a doctor."

Well, it's early next year and we, as in the royal 'we', we've just finished installing the window. The carpenter was great, he even came in exactly on estimate (feel free to contact me for his number). I did sort of a timelapse slideshow of the installation process which you can see in the video box to the right (if it's not visible, you can select 'stained glass' with the pull down menu bar button or watch it in high definitions directly on YouTube.

Hope you enjoy. If you are in the neighborhood of Prospect Heights, stop by for a tour and a cup of coffee, I make the best esspresso in the tri-state, but that's for another blog...

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Personal Statement

(for application to the Columbia ETP program)

I believe everyone should have access to a good education and good healthcare. Our happiness, as individuals and as communities, depends on being healthy, both physically, mentally and spiritually. Indeed, one of the reasons I want to become a nurse practitioner is because of its holistic approach to patient care; it combines the excitement and challenge of diagnosing and curing illness with the reward and contentment of educating and caring for patients as unique individuals. Attending Columbia represents the perfect step in achieving this goal of being able to care for the wellbeing of others as well as teach them to care for themselves, as the ETP program combines an intensive hands-on approach with the highest standards of education.

Although I didn’t always want to be an NP when I grew up, when I look back now it seems a natural decision. My dad, one of my greatest role models, always said that aside from his family, being a cardiologist has been the most rewarding experience of his life. I have also experienced first hand how medicine can change someone’s life, for when I was 12 years old I was diagnosed and treated for a pituitary tumor. I feel lucky and grateful to have benefited from the highest quality of health care, which ultimately helped me avoid brain surgery, avoid going blind and, most significantly at the time, break the 5’ barrier before the 10th grade. And all of that thanks to an extremely kind and understanding team of doctors and nurses.

In college, I majored in French and Education with the idea that I might become a teacher. After graduating, I lived in France on a post-graduate exchange scholarship and then to study translation and interpreting. Later, while working at Amazon.com and living in Seattle, I started doing plays and taking acting classes which led me back to Paris for graduate school in theater. It was then that I got a job working for a small medical translation agency and realized that I was interested in health care and medicine.

When I moved to New York, I began working as a medical interpreter which tied together my desire to help people with my background in French. The more I found myself working with patients, the more I wished I could offer them health care directly. I also work as a Standardized Patient, and this has showed me how interesting and challenging being able to interact with a person and take their history is, and how this is such an important diagnostic tool in the primary care physician’s arsenal. I always tell students I work with that patients are looking not just for someone who has the scientific knowledge to fix them, but that they are also looking for someone they can trust and who will care for them. Indeed, without trust, patients may not offer that clinically vital piece of information that will help make the diagnosis. I look forward myself to the wide range of individuals and issues that I will deal with as a family care NP.

Before making the decision to go back to school, I felt it was important to spend more time in the hospital and with patients—to see if nursing was truly the right path for me. So for the past few months I have been volunteering on a step-down and neurology ward at Beth Israel and in the ED and cardiac units at Columbia Presbyterian. What I have learned is that RNs work really hard and play a very important role in the quality of a patient’s stay in the hospital and that I like working in the hospital. I’ve also learned that I want more than hard work; I want the responsibility that comes with being an NP, that is to say, taking part in the diagnostic, prescriptive and educational aspects of care.

From what I can tell I would make a good nurse practitioner. I love working with people and health care connects with something in me. I have a lot of patience, energy, compassion and intelligence to offer patients. I even know what it’s like to be hospitalized in a foreign country. This type of cultural understanding as well as my language skills in French and Spanish should come in handy, as immigrant patients so often make up the underserved populations that I hope to care for.

Ten to 15 years from now, I hope to have gained enough experience and confidence to be an important member of a clinic or practice, while still spending time in a hospital setting (to stay connected). I’m also interested in teaching, and could foresee pursuing a doctoral program towards that end—as well as to gain more training and knowledge. I think that teaching is one of the best ways to really find out if you have learned or know something; as the saying goes, ‘learn one, do one, teach one.’

My rabbi, another role model in my life, once told me something when we were studying together for my bar-mitzvah. He said to me, “Kevin, you’re a smart boy, but that’s not what makes you special. You’ve got a lot of energy and a good sense of humor, but these are also not what make you special. You have a big heart, that’s what makes you special.” I’ve never forgotten that. And I believe that it’s true that the only way you can lead people is by walking the path with them, and that the only paths worth walking in life are paths with heart. These are the paths that I hope to walk as a nurse practitioner.

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Best Man Speech for Jesse and Rebekah's Wedding

On behalf of everyone here I’d like to thank Jesse and Rebekah for bringing us together to celebrate with them on this beautiful occasion.

Now I was told that I had to keep this to under 45 minutes, so I’m going to get right to the point.

Rebekah, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who feels this way, but do you realize that you have just legally agreed and bound yourself to put up with Jesse and his shennanigans in a long term and committed way, till death do you part. No, really, Rebekah, I hope you know what you are doing. We don’t all necessarily understand why, but “Thank you!”

I’ve known Jesse just about all my life, almost as long as I can remember, and several times I would prefer to forget, so I know what I’m talking about when I say, Rebekah, I hope you know what you are doing.

Now unfortunately, the problem is that most of the embarrassing stories I’d like to tell you about Jesse, incriminate me just as much as him, so I can only hope that you know what you are doing.

What I can tell you about Jesse is that he rolls through life collecting friends and adventures like dirty laundry collects around his room--laundry that doesn't always belong to him (when we lived together in Fremont, he used to slip his dirty laundry into my basket hoping I’d wash it for him. Now that’s what I call a free-loader). And even though Jesse was known throughout high-school as the mooch, he is one of the most generous people I know. Jesse is a rogue and a lover with touches of genius.

He is one of the last great explorer spirits. He has a great sense of direction, adventure and luck. He is mythically optimistic, to the point of bending the truth. And he’s a good tipper.

Jesse's the kind of friend that you never leave, not even when you're a thousand miles away. You can not hear from him for six months. Then he'll show up on your door step out of the blue, give you some of the best advice of your life over a beer then suggest opening a store based on bulk peanut butter or smoked salmon flavored deodorant.

And it's like you never were apart.

When I asked Jesse how he felt about marrying Rebekah, Jesse said, “It's like going all-in pre-flop with a good hand. Who knows what could happen on the turn or the river, but you're happy now and you know it's going to be an exciting ride so you're ready to get stuck in there. What could be better than that?”

Jesse is a great teacher and guide to man, child and dog. In fact, you can pretty well understand who Jesse is when you know that for a long time he had a book in his bathroom called, “There Are No Bad Dogs.”

I guess that about sums Jesse up.

Rebekah, I hope you know what you are doing, because even if you don’t, I do, you’re choosing to spend your life with the best friend any man, woman or dog could ever ask for.

So knowing all that I know about Jesse (and quite a bit of stuff I wish I didn’t), I can say that I have absolutely no reservations in raising a glass, and inviting you to do the same to toast Jesse Haggar Long and Rebekah Lynn Long:

As Jack Erskin used to say, “May the road rise up to meet you, and may the wind be always at your back”. L’chaim, take care and get stuck in there!!!

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Rough Cut

Stonefence

What I remember most about working on my college’s literary magazine The Stonefence Review is warmth and laughter. In the late spring and summer, a certain easy, languid light would stream in and warm us from the outside; the rest of the year, steam heat and tea would warm us from the inside. Monday afternoons, we would meet in Sanborn library, surrounded by shelves of old books and sitting in big comfy chairs, to read and discuss the latest batch of poems and stories that had been submitted to us. This cozy atmosphere created a literary and critical mood that made us more prone to jocularity than to passionate debate, or any other emotions you might associate with working on a literary magazine.

After we had read and discussed a piece we would vote on whether to hold it over or not. Since every piece, which remained anonymous until publication, would be reviewed and voted on a second time before making it into an issue of the Stonefence, the whole thing remained a pretty easy-going affair. The focus and discussion was always on the text at hand, never on the author or on The Stonefence Review as a magazine. And the discussion, though critical, was usually pretty good-natured.

I think we were all a little wary of becoming some sort of pretentious literary clique; the result being that we probably often fell short of hypocrisy, landing instead on the fartsy side of artsy-fartsy. For example, it never failed to get a giggle from us when Giano Cromley would finish reading another of the 'you broke my heart and left me love rants' and announce, "a poem, by Chris Ferry" or insert one of the other editor's names who happened to be present.

We weren't (overly) unkind, and we weren’t elitist about our 'art'; although that was something of the reputation that the Stonefence had inherited, and this despite the fact that the submissions and weekly meetings had always been open to anyone in the community and that everyone attending could vote. Quite the opposite, if some of the laughter was directed at, rather than with, the poems we were considering for publication, it is not that we were being snobbish, we had all written and would probably write several hundred kilobytes more of similar "angst" ridden love poems ourselves, so it was wise to have a sense of humor about it.

Everyone knows that one of the Ten Commandments of writing is "write what you know", and, frankly, what else did we know about life at that point. I mean we were all sitting there in the safe and warm comfy chairs of an Ivy League library working on a literary magazine 'fer goddsakes', right?

I shouldn't give the impression that the poems and stories were all terrible or that we were really that jaded. We took the Stonefence Review seriously; we just didn’t take ourselves too seriously. And most of the submissions had at least a glimmer of quality. If they lacked the same polish and perspective that we as writers and college students lacked, what could you expect?

The whole process of selecting pieces and publishing them was a little like going to skip rocks at the beach. There was never a shortage of rocks (submissions) from which to choose, but no matter how hard you looked, you could never quite find the perfect one. Like most rocks you find at the beach, the majority of submissions were rough or uncut, and generally unsuitable for skipping, or publishing. The really raw and uncut poems, intensely felt and written during a late night burst of creative inspiration, tended to fall short of the mark the morning after, making a dull, failing impression (kerplop!) when they were read aloud (perhaps for the first time) at one of our Stonefence meetings.

Many poems, or some, had different aspects of a good skipping rock: a phrase here, an image there, but most, as I said before, just hadn't been refined enough to go the distance (…across the great and timeless seas of literature and art…). The end result, though, after a bit of enjoyable searching and digging, was a handful of rocks of varying qualities that taken as a whole made for a good hour of skipping--or in our case, reading.

Basically, we were a group of people who got together once a week who truly enjoyed reading, listening to, discussing and finally publishing a journal of poetry and prose. Perhaps that warm light that in my memory (I'm trying to forget the longs weeks of waiting for winter to pass and spring to break) was always streaming in the windows mellowed our moods a little and helped us to take the Stonefence Review with pleasure and a certain healthy lightness. In the end, I think I got more from those meetings in the way of learning to enjoy and to appreciate language and literature than I got from any 'lit' class I took in college.

Stonewall
So except for one notable exception, I remember Stonefence meetings as being a good time and worth a guffaw or two.

That exception came about while we were working on putting together our summer issue. We were all sophomores (perhaps in more ways than one) on the editorial board at the time, and someone had submitted to us a short story that by all accounts was, well, rock solid. If most of what we read wasn't perfect, or far from it, this story certainly came the closest in my book. It had all the elements of great art: it was entertaining, beautiful and thought provoking.

It was the story of a college guy just like you or me (or James Joyce) out walking on Friday night, checking out the 'frat scene'. The whole story was basically a recreation or retextualization of a chapter of Joyce's "Ulysses". It was written in perfect Joycean style and in a setting that all of our readers were sure to recognize. In fact, if you had been to almost any college campus or fraternity row in America, you could have read and enjoyed this story.

I was told later, after we had read the story and voted to hold it over for publication in the forthcoming issue, that the author had submitted the story as a paper in an English class on Joyce and had been given a rare and coveted citation for it. So for what it was worth, a literature professor and Joyce scholar had apparently thought the story was pretty good too.

During a meeting of just the managing editors, I learned that not everyone shared this rosy opinion of the story. I can't remember exactly how it was brought up, but a couple of the editors questioned whether we, The Stonefence Review, should publish such a story?

This took me by surprise, as I saw no reason why we would even be discussing such a question. First, it would probably be the strongest piece of writing in the whole issue and I was proud of it. Second, the story had already been voted on and accepted during the regular review process. Third, we had made a clear editorial policy that the Stonefence would be a magazine that was open to all types of content and styles, and that we would publish submissions based solely on aesthetic and qualitative considerations, not political or other.

The story was at its core a satire of the college fraternity and social scene. Although the account was fictional and no real names were used, it had clearly been based on the writer's experiences and observations at Dartmouth. The geographic layout of the fictionalized 'frat row' was recognizably Dartmouth’s, and apparently the description of one of the fraternal songs overheard by the protagonist could be identified as belonging to one specific fraternity. Dare I even now mention which one?

As it turned out, the two most vocal proponents for not publishing the story were brothers of that same fraternity. Surprise?!? That being said, all the members of the editorial board, including myself, belonged to one fraternity or another.

The two editors in question felt the story was unfair and was a personal attack against them, or at least their fraternity. They even suggested that the story could be considered slander or libel and that we could be opening ourselves to a lot of trouble by publishing it. I believed the story, to its credit, exceeded the particular details of which ‘house’ it may have been based on and was at once describing and being critical of the fraternity system in general, and from there the college social scene as a whole.

I did some research and found that for something to be legally defined as libel or slander it had to be knowingly untrue and created with the express purpose to harm the reputation of a specific person or organization. I showed this to the editorial board and argued that the story failed to pass the test on both accounts, and that given our editorial policy we had no right to stop a story from being published that had already been properly and democratically voted on and accepted. This lead to some long discussions about whether a fictional story could be considered libelous and whether we would be effectively taking a political stance by allowing the story to be published.

The two opponents of the story made some good arguments about needing to be responsible for the content of our magazine and any harm that it could cause. What if it was a fascist oriented tract, or had been critical of Jews on campus? They also made some arguments that were not as good, like threatening to quit working on the magazine if we published the story.

I felt that the story was good and moreover that the criticisms leveled against the fraternity system or college social life were accurate. Although I was sort of the de facto editor-in-chief of the issue for having been doing most of the work on it, the decision was clearly going to be decided by the group, and the other three members of the editorial board were sort of divided or unclear about what they wanted. It seemed, as the meeting carried on, that the majority was swaying towards the path of least resistance, which would be not to publish the story.

The situation was made more difficult by the fact that I had known all of the other editors since our freshman (first) year, one since elementary school, even. I didn't want to disagree or be disagreeable and found it hard being the only one arguing in the story's favor. Even if I had had the ability or authority to just make the decision, I'm not sure it would have been the right way of dealing with the situation. Mostly, I guess, I wanted the other editors to like me and didn’t want to appear to be an asshole. I was trying to be reasonable.

We went back and forth for a couple of hours and finally left without coming to a resolution. I was confused and nervous. I couldn't believe that it would even be a question of whether we should publish the story in the first place, but now I didn't know what to do or what would happen. I was angry that I hadn't been able to convince the others that we should publish the story and felt I would be doing something wrong if I let the story be censored.

It was a true moral dilemma for me: I felt that I had to choose between hurting and possibly losing friends and doing what I thought was right. And all of this heavy stuff, over a short story that someone had submitted to our funny little campus literary magazine. Ha!

Back in my dorm room I started crying as I tried to explain the situation to my roommate, Blake. Blake was one of the all around smartest and coolest guys I knew, and I felt stupid to be crying in front of him. I wondered what he would think of me, but he listened carefully and didn't try to tell me what he thought was right or what he thought I should do. What he said was simply, "Kevin, I think you know what's right and what you have to do."

It was so simple, and it was exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. It was empowerment. When I thought about it, or perhaps more accurately, when I felt about it, I realized he was right, I did know what I had to do, I was just scared to do it.

I regret that I cannot do the story or the situation justice in my describing it here. I also regret that I was not able to give the story the full justice that I felt it deserved at the time, because although I took Blake's advice and did what I felt I had to do, which was face the editors again and fight for the story to be published, I did compromise in the end, agreeing to ask the author to change the passages describing the location of the fraternity house and the words to the ritual song to make them less recognizable.

When I explained the situation, the author willingly made the changes (it wasn't a big deal to him) and the story was published without further ado, except that the two editors who had been most opposed to the story's publication slowly stopped coming to meetings.

Looking back, I think we found the best possible compromise to our problem, but I was and am still not completely happy when I think about it. I had always thought that compromise was desirable and ideal only in the world of politics, not in principles. Until then, however, I had never been forced to test my principles in the 'real world' where every decision has consequences and even something as seemingly harmless as working on a literary magazine can force you to choose between friendships and moral integrity.

Between A Broken Wall & Fallen Curtain -- A Post Script
I wrote this piece in November of 2000 while I was traveling with longtime friend and (rogue) photographer Jesse Long. I had received a forwarded email about the possibility of submitting something for an upcoming anniversary issue of the Stonefence. Apparently, they were inviting past editors and contributors to send something as part of a big issue they were trying to put together.

We were in Egypt at the time and were about to move on to Kenya where we were going to work a school and then take a week or so off to do some safari-ing. So I banged off a rough draft and sent it to the co-editors with a note explaining to them that I was traveling abroad and would be not be in radio contact for about a week, but would definitely send them a final draft when I got back into Nairobi.

Well, the next time I checked my email there was a message waiting for me from them saying that they were under deadline and had gone ahead and edited my story because they were trying to get the issue out before Christmas break. I was not happy to hear this. I felt my rough draft was just that, rough, and, what's more, I didn't like the way that they had edited it either. Hadn't I made it clear that I was going to send them a final draft? I had it right there, ready to go. I mean, had they even read my submission, couldn't they see the deontological irony in it all?

Anyway, I wrote them a very curt (maybe even nasty) email saying that I would rather have the whole thing pulled if they could not print my final edited draft. I had learned my lesson: "Once shame on you. Twice shame on me", right? This time I was making a stand for what I thought was right, no compromises.

As it turned out, they had some other printing or editing delays (blame it on the bluelines) and were able to make the changes for me, although I think a couple of errata still crept into the final version. The issue ended up coming out during the winter of 2001.<>

The Great Wall And Beyond – A Post, Post Script
This story took another bizarre (and perhaps final) twist this past summer when I was recounting it to my roommate at the Green Gulch Zen Center one day while we were seeding trays for the nursery. It turns out that this guy had been friends since high school with the author who had originally submitted the story to us in the first place. In fact, he had just gone on a road trip with him to a wedding in Arizona or something, and he was studying to become a rabbi. My roommate called and asked him about the story, but he also didn't remember thinking it was that big of a deal at the time.

It's funny how all these paths have diverged, submerged and then reconverged. And like the seminally misunderstood poem about the two roads that diverged in a wood, by Dartmouth's adopted great woods poet Robert Frost, this whole story may be more of a lesson about the way memory works then which path I took and why.

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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