ray liotta

finally got 8 hrs of sleep! before medschool, the experience was so hyped up beforehand... and in the end it was not so bad. so i've kinda underestimated the steep-ass learning curve here, struggling with logistics: which work to prioritize (calling for consults, writing notes, checking labs, looking at the chart... and then maybe finally actually omigodican'tbelieveit talking to patients), how to make sure i can eat/sleep/exercise/meditate/readthepaper, how to make sure i actually stay conscious of my experience. so, with the evening before my day off over, i could do nothing more than come home and eat and sit in silence, trying to remember why the day seemed so disorganized and unfulfilling. i try to embrace the assumption that, with 3.5days of actual inpatient work under-mah-belt, each day has gone more smoothly (or less bumpyrough-like-a-mountain-road-in-himachal-pradesh) than the previous. keeping a wide perspective is so hard when there is so much detailed newness that catches my eye... i've never felt so overstimulated. i find i get lost so much" in the hospital trying to find the radiology room, on the streets of my neighborhood, missing the left i was supposed to take walking home, in the grocery store, in my thoughts, on the train, forgetting who i am, lostlost looking at so much newnewnewness, mostly of people. that's when i remember jesuschrist i can't believe i've been maintaining the same motions of my beloved neworleans for so long, never venturing anywhere unknown, never ever. its amazing! i feel like a child, or maybe more like a highschool graduate, finally free, confused afraid excited hopeful, pushing myself off of a past that was not enough, pulling myself towards dreams that won't be realized but will bring me somewhere fresh, make me someone fresh. of course i bask in this experience, even when uncomfortable, because of course this is what its all about of course. but i reserve the right to react naturally, and say "goddamnit" when i think She should.

but with my mind clearing up with cleaner living and some sort of routine developing (as in, i have some furniture, i have a gym membership, i have food in the fridge, and i have an alarm clock that tells me when to go somewhere), and with 8 hrs of sleep, i actually remember a dream!!! when i was in middle school, stuck in destrehan, i used to love dreaming, with no better memory of dreams than i can do now... i just remember thinking that my consciousness was so much more limitless than the predetermined existence aof whiteprepschool, brownhome, and the suburban isolation of a second generation immigrant teen.

so, without further babbling, without any meaningful meaning: as i woke this morning i was biking near where orleans turns into basin, but everything was wide wide, and quiet. and i wanted a haircut, which i had been on my mind before i went to bed. and i ran into amy near where to old winndixie would be, on her bike, i guess because in the real world she had asked me via text if i had cut my hair. so she pointed me to a place to get a haircut, where the cop station would be. and i walk in and it's sort of like a brunch/daybar, with pooltables and such, and maybe a few people getting haircuts. and daniel and erica are there, erica happy to see me and daniel happy to tell me about some local political fundraising or something. so i sit on a couch next to him, and then ray liotta comes in looking to buy a pooltable i think. i realize its him as he overhears some funny conversation between daniel and me, like he's about to participate. that's when i'm like "this is a dream" and i wake up in the bronx.