20 Things

My Instagram feed had a few 20 Things About Me 'grams and I liked them because I'm nosy. And now I'm passing it on because I'm also a bit of an exhibitionist, I suppose. I don't know what else writing about your life and posting it the lamppost of the Internet could be called.

1. I prefer to eat things out of mugs - ice cream, soup, small slices of pie, popcorn.

2. Litterers and vandals - despise them disproportionate to their infractions.

3. Only a few more days of making milk. Josie's given up on nursing and the boobs are packing it up despite my efforts to convince them otherwise. This makes me sad for a couple of reasons that are difficult to tease apart from the other insecurities and fears surrounding motherhood. The first is that breastfeeding is something that I'm going to do for just a very few weeks out of my entire life. And I might never do again - last times are hard to accept. But there is a last time for everything, and most of the time we never know which time will be the last - for anything. The second reason for disappointment in only a few weeks of breastfeeding - aside from the actual bodily failure that I can't do anything about - is that I'm not a very maternal person and this feels like just another failing in the mom biz. (The boobs are junk but the ovaries are spitting out absolute gems so I shouldn't complain, eh?)

4. I have SUCH a sweet tooth.

5. I was married once before but it was worse than bad - bad would have stories. It was completely unmemorable. Like a movie you think you saw but can't remember anything about it.

6. My mother-in-law and I were talking about callings and I was shaken to think that I don't have one... I love my job, but it's my job. It would be convenient if one's calling and one's job were the same thing. I'm reading some self-help books in this department - a genre I previously had nothing but disdain for... but I have to admit, this self needs some help.

7a. My dream is to be a perpetual student - a perpetual medical student roving the wards seeing all the good cases (but bearing none of the responsibility); undergraduate Shakespeare courses; taking pottery classes; yoga class everyday at 9 am at Southtown Yoga where the instructors have such good playlists; photography class once a week.

7b. I'd like to have a series of 6 month job experiences - working in a bakery, at America's Test Kitchen (food + science!!!), art museum docent, aesthetician, florist. [theme: no desk work]

8. Actually my dream is to write about medical topics for lay people. Today's Writer's Almanac entry on William Carlos Williams was timely:

He practiced medicine full time and wrote his poems during breaks, on scraps of paper, without time to revise. He was often asked how he had the time and energy to pursue two professions, but he loved them both, and he couldn't imagine writing without medicine. In his Autobiography of William Carlos Williams (1951), he said:

 "I have never felt that medicine interfered with me but rather that it was my very food and drink, the very thing which made it possible for me to write. Was I not interested in man? There the thing was, right in front of me. I could touch it, smell it. It was myself, naked, just as it was, without a lie telling itself to me in its own terms."

via @Whole30 instragram feed

9. My favorite color is red and least favorite is any pastel.

10. My dream home is a condo with huge windows and concrete floors. There is no clutter and almost no furniture. There is certainly not my backpack/gym bag strewn by the front door everyday because there isn't a better place to put them.

via

11. I cannot shake the insidious suspicion that everything about my life would be better if I were 25 pounds thinner. I know it's silly! I would be just as neurotic! In fact, it would be more neurosis/lb.

12. My handwriting is getting more and more difficult to read because I rarely write anymore. (Penmanship was terrible to begin with).

13. I'm so proud to be married to Luke. He's the coolest, most fun, most interesting man I've ever met. I just adore him.

14. For someone who doesn't read them I am very snobby about books.

15. I don't understand belief in the supernatural.

16. My hair texture is the worst possible - wavy and thin but kind of coarse?!

17. I am 95% as happy planning a vacation as I am on that vacation.

18. My mom and sisters and I can share a reference or joke with the slightest facial expression or monosyllable.

19. I think the most patriotic thing we can do right now is limit oil consumption as much as possible.

20. This blog is my (highly edited) diary, letter to home, and sounding board. I'm so glad I have a place to record (say it dramatically) the days of our lives... Thanks for peering into the medicine cabinet of my soul! Would love to hear your 20.