Homos 2: Mus 1

Two weeks ago, I mentioned an experience to hell and back. This week, I went back for a second visit. And then some.

Trip 1: After living in my studio for 18 months, I finally figure out what the funny whirring sound in the sink comes from each time I flick the switch. This only happened when it made sounds less reminiscent of a raging truck than a mad trucker. As it turns out, there is a Waste King underneath. Grinders turn everything that goes down into pulp. Vegetable scraps, bones (yes), diamond earrings, etc. One thing the king of wastes cannot handle? Plastic freezie wrappers left by previous tenant's !&%# kids. The only solution on a tuesday night when there's nothing good on the tube was to get hands on with the King. Upon probing the backside of this thing, I experience what second year surgery residents feel when assigned manual disempaction by a rightly senior. Except while few manage to resist for more than a few weeks before MD is prescribed, the King carries a rich, rich past.

Trip 2: Few are persistent enough to withstand constant abuse from broom, hockey stick, tennis racquet, and the occasional flare from the gas stove. Yet mighty mouse simply would not relent and continued to torment me by tithing a genteel load each week. To add insult to injury, he ate 10% of a 500 g bag of Doritos used as bait by somehow avoiding all the mousetraps laid along the way. Having put many a mouse to their demise through grad school, it was pure agony to be outwitted in my own kitchen. Until last night that is. Trust the Mexicans to come up with glue so sticky that I actually had to wrench the pad off its wrapper just to place a jumbo piece of chilly cheddar nacho in the center. For effect, I lined up all the previously failed snap traps next door to develop a sense of false confidence in the victim. At exactly 6:00 this morning, I could hear the crisp snap of nacho. Then the silence of feet and snout permanently fused to some yellow resin. Sweet victory within sight. Broom, hockey stick, and gas stove at my disposal. I pondered on my last strike. I finally settled on a good OD of alcohol and advil. Ahhhh. The glow of satisfaction.

Bigger is still small

Salary. If there's one thing I'm prone to bitch about, this would be it. In a society built upon the pretense of fair wages, I am often left wondering why I am situated near the bottom of the pyramid. More importantly, precious minutes are sapped away thinking how to climb a little closer to the top. In accordance to the nature of geometry, some must be at the bottom for others to be on top. And like any pyramid, only an infinitely small proportion can be at the top. In fact, the ratio itself defines exclusivity as the one individual occupying this position precludes any other. It is as infinitissimally small as possible by both imagination and calculation.

On three occasions in the past week here in the big apple of the north, this predicament has played itself out as conversation. While wolfing down dimsum which makes Philly Chinatown fare seem like a Dickinsonian gruel, the issue arose. Though we could easily afford our lunch, with much to spare, we were not in a situation to take similar lunches each day. The Pantages bar, where we now know the (entire = 1) service crew, provided the backdrop to scene 2. As we munched the ice to chocolate mint martinis already sipped, the frustration of it all surfaced. With the exception of the bottom, existing at any given height on the pyramid is not so unacceptable in itself.

Essential and involuntary

Two weeks ago, nights were spent wondering how to piece together a curious story about proteins with the potential to change the way major brain diseases progress. Ten days later, mission has been completed (albeit imperfectly). Instead, my nights are spent wondering not how proteins can alter disease, but what recourse we have when our fate seems destined.

Like any relationship, there are aspects which draw you to it and those that do the reverse. Mine with hospitals has been a very even one. I marvel at the work that goes on there, admire at the immense knowledge put to work there, and respect the dedication and perseverance of those looking after ones who cannot look after themselves. On the flip side, I have rarely entered a hospital where the context would be a good ending. Walking through the pillars of medicine, I already know that the prognosis is predestined. And the answer is the only alternative to the one I'd prefer.

Perhaps it's that I only visit people when they are in grave circumstances. That I take to the terminal rather than the newborn. I frequent the palliative wards, not maternity. Copy of Harper's in one hand while I sit along depressingly-lit corridors. Whatever the reason, I am sure that the relationship will resolve into affection. A painful rendition of love, perhaps. It will be fruitful, noble, but never sweet. With that, it's now finally clear why I don't belong here.