"Andrew, I understand your concern and I'm not trying to deny you your right to culture too, but do you understand at least on a conceptual level why my mother might have an issue with naming him 'William Wallace Yee' or 'Robert the Bruce Yee'?"

GEA Baby Girl Paca is finally here!






dam CFA Lilian Rose Rubright
sire KQA September's Freedom
time Saturday 27 December 2008, 09:32
weight 15 pounds 8 ounces

I hope they name her Eve.

There is a freight train going by on the R3 right now, headed toward Media. Its whistle is ridiculous. I can see its hopper cars silhouetted against Alice Paul.

Where is it going?

1. Fed a honeybee several drops of root beer beaded on my fingertip. It was glorious--they have, hands down, the coolest proboscides ever.

(I am making little abdomen-pulses with my hands now, even though you can't see it.)

2. Got punched by a doctor. This was seriously not my fault.

Young, Pretty, Obviously Inexperienced Doctor has gotten through the O (onset) the P (provocation) the Q (quality) and the R (radiation) that you do when you ask someone about pain. It is very predictable. Now she is moving on to S for severity.

YPOID
So can you describe the intensity of pain in this particular area?

mascodagama
Um, it's more just discomfort than it is pain. Seriously, a zero out of ten. I didn't tell the nurse anything other than that I noticed it. Seriously, it's not hurting.

YPOID
It can't be a zero out of ten and still exist enough for you to notice it. Describe it?

mascodagama
Look, it really doesn't hurt. It's uncomfortable, but there isn't a stab like 'OW PAIN'. [I know, ridiculously articulate of me.]

YPOID
Is it like anything you've ever felt before? Let's talk about it in terms of something else you've experienced. Like a headache, or like a stubbed toe or something?

mascodagama
It hurts about as much as this? (pinches arm) Not a big deal.

YPOID
Show me? (extends her arm)

Warily, mascodagama complies.

YPOID
OW OW HEY!!  (punches mascodagama in the leg, which is incidentally a part that does hurt, a lot)

mascodagama, rolling instinctively off the exam table
Primum non nocere! First do no harm, first do no harm!

3. Saved an old lady from really hurting herself on the bus... by giving her a bear hug as she toppled against me, then somehow bringing us both to the floor gently. I now have an earpiece-hickey from her glasses digging into my neck. She yelled at me instead of thanking me.

4. Cartwheels! Many of them! On my lawn! At home! O yay!

---

On a vaguely related note: Amy Vollmer's baseball references have catapulted her over Jocelyne in my biology department fourteen-year-old-girl-crushes. This is curious, and probably will not last very long. But that woman is hot.

Reading Hospital Doctors' Office Building, first floor corridor. mascodagama is pacing whilst waiting for a ride back from the lab. Both elbows have gauze affixed with blue self-adhering tape, because the day a phlebotomist finds a vein in me on the first try is a day I have to call the Pope to report the first sign of the apocalypse. Seriously, I have his number.

Through mascodagama's mind, the stream of consciousness has just had a blood-test-induced snowmelt: "i need a hat rack.
why the hell is my computer constantly running so many processes?
i detest air conditioning.
my eyebrows look terrible, but i don't feel like threading them.
bees and flexibility this week, mmm?
my bookshelf--it is too small.
There once was a man named McCain
Who had the whole White House to gain
But he was quite a hobbyist
Of boning his lobbyist
So much for his 08 campaign
rectifying debts ends up self-destructive for me, doesn't it?
singing at the top of your lungs along with edith piaf is strangely surreal, whether or not the neighbours are listening.
i hope i can do enough push-ups to placate my emt instructor's fears that i cannot lift things because i have more than one x chromosome."

A tug on her sleeve from below. A similarly-elbowed boy, rather small, is standing on the bench beside where she has been pacing.

Small Boy: Hi how are you my name is Kevin I'm four do you have any kidneys?

mascodagama: W...what?

Kevin: I'm Kevin how old are you do you have kidneys?

mascodagama: Um... two of them, actually.

Kevin: Oh I don't here's my scars want to see?

mascodagama: Those are pretty impressive. One day, girls will think you're daring. You'll have to tell them you were mauled by a lion or shot at by Moldovan freedom fighters.

Kevin: Ewww girls are you in middle school do you need the alysis too?

mascodagama: I'm in college, actually. I don't at the moment, but I know dialysis is boring, isn't it?

Kevin: Whats your name will you be my girlfriend do you like my shoes they light up!

mascodagama: Nice shoes. I wish they made those in my size.

Kevin, satisfied, trots off to his stroller-bearing mother.

Kevin: Hey mom hey mom hey look I have a girlfriend she's in college don't know her name but she thinks the alysis is boring too and she wants my shoes hey mom do you think she can come over?

Later, mascodagama receives a senior fare on the bus to Sinking Spring, where her mother was waiting at the bookstore, by naming the dates when the Korean War, Vietnam, and both world wars ended. APUSH was finally useful for something! Impressive.

The day's plan:
1400-1730: Tend the spawn of various Swarthmore alumni.
1730-1830: Tear up risers after the Mozart Requiem.
1831: Magically make the train to Philly.
Sometime after that: Get my industrial pierced. Locate lula_vampiro. Avoid melting.