Perfect!

It will surely all end tomorrow, but today, my bracket is perfect. I'm sixteen for sixteen after day one!

I actually have two brackets. One of them is exactly President Obama's. And another is my own, a combination of probability and cat-strategy. My cat/probability bracket is 16/16. The President's? 11/16. Mr. Obama, it is official: I am better than you today.

Has the World Gone Mad?

I know I haven't posted in awhile. I have missed you all so much! Fortunately, you, my loyal readers, knew that although I have been caught up with work and life, I had every intention of returning!

There are a few out there, however, who have strayed. Some of my best friends have called me to say that they never check my blog anymore but instead have become rabid fans of GinSoaked Olive. One of these friends bragged about her new favorite blog (GSO) on my Facebook page. Another went so far as to send a baby gift to the GinSoaked girls. (The crime here is that the friend who gave the gift is the Indecisive Visionary herself. I saved her life and where's my thank you gift? It's over at GinSoaked Olive. Not that I wanted my own personal Pack-n-Play. Jake's outfit with the cargo pants, though? I would totally wear that. Yes, Katy and Tracy, I'm proud to dress like your eighteen-month-old son.)

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you ('you' being the IV or Michelle or other deserters) shouldn't read about (or send presents to) my peeps over there. Please do. They are good people. They have taken in this wayward traveler on more than one occasion (for example, last Saturday night). I'm just saying I never thought you, my friends, would be so impatient or fickle. Fortunately, I have my loyal readers. And what more could I want, really?

So what have I been up to, you might ask? Well, I had my fourth original scientific paper published in January. Also in January, I was interviewed by my company's paper in a get-to-know-our-new-doctor segment. A snippet from this goofy interview:

"Reporter: What was the biggest surprise of your life?

me, (thinking): Uh...the real answer is that I was shocked (although no one else was, notably. I'm always the last one to know.) to discover my lesbionic tendencies. I can't say that in an interview, though. This article is going to be seen by the CEO of this hospital. The first time I met him, I made an inappropriate joke about a disembodied penis. That was not my fault! I didn't know he was the CEO! But still, this answer has got to be something that isn't going to remind him of that debacle.

Me (talking): Uh....Well, the end of that movie The Sixth Sense really blew me away."

That's totally how it went down. Swear. It's in print with a picture of me next to it. I'll send you the link.

In other news, I got nailed with thirty pounds of beads (beads that were thrown at my head, in rapid succession, while still in packages or, in one case, attached to a wooden spear) at Mardi Gras in New Orleans in February. I should have blogged about it, but you'd need pictures to capture the scope of my booty. Let me clarify that statement: You'd need pictures to capture the scope of my Mardi Gras winnings.

And March? March is all about the madness.

I printed up my brackets today and as I was trying to spin gold, decided that I would investigate and post some of the lesser-known strategies for winning your pool.

Strategy #1. Making the Most of a Bad Situation

I have won a pool exactly once. This was when I was young, early in medical school, and had never paid to be in a bracket pool before. My girlfriend at the time had a lot of basketball knowledge but two fatal flaws: 1. To this day, she loves UNC. Every single year, she makes them the winner of her bracket. Every year, she gets wiped. 2. She's the bracket-unluckiest smart person I know. She knows what games might be upsets and picks a few and is always, always wrong. So my strategy? Take her first round upsets and middle rank picks and go the other way. Keep her later round picks with the exception of UNC. Even though the relationship was happily settled long ago, I still got her picks this year and am seriously considering this strategy even as I type. (God, I hope she isn't reading this, because up until this point, she and I have remained good friends. Now that I've revealed my leechy strategy AND bad-mouthed UNC, I'm sunk.)

Strategy #2. Follow the Leader

Barack Obama published his picks today. Apparently, he is as knowledgeable as some of the best sports commentators in America. I would go so far as to say that he is actually in a class above all other bracket-masters because in addition to his amazing basketball expertise, he (to the best of my knowledge) has refrained from saying "Sweet Sassy Molassy!" or "Boo-ya!" in public. I guess I'm saying that if we're willing to believe he knows what he's doing about the economy, then adopting his bracket isn't such a bad idea. There is one very significant problem with strategy #2: It is in direct conflict with Strategy #1. Yes, readers, President Obama picked UNC to win it all.

Strategy #3: The Cat's (or Dog's) Where It's at

Feline owners (of which I am not one. Allergies.) can take comfort in the fact that they can always do a "cat-bracket." In other words, pick only teams that have feline mascots. Obviously, this isn't going to work for your whole bracket, but if you tried this strategy, you might just have the Memphis Tigers beating the Pitt Panthers in the final. You could do the same thing with dogs and might see the Connecticut Huskies beating the Duke Blue Devils (I'm not sure about this one, actually, but I think the Blue Devil's mascot is actually the Duke Dog. I mean, what the hell is a Blue Devil, anyway? Am I missing something?).

Strategy #4: Cheater's Paradise

There are websites that do your bracket for you. Bracket Brains will make your bracket professional-perfect for the low low price of $100. My pool is ten dollars to enter...so 110 dollars? Seems fair. I think I'll take this option. I'm getting out my credit card now.

Well, back to my bracket. I've got to put my picks in fast, because it's late and I am at high risk for getting all these different strategies confused and accidentally sending my 100 bracket-creation dollars to my ex's presidential-acting cat. (Which would be a total waste because he'll just blow the money on Fancy Feast.)

Golden Ticket? Comments, please.

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I think I was totally fascinated with the idea that Charlie could be one of five people in the whole world to find a golden ticket and get a tour of the chocolate factory. The theme was one of hope, and I took the book at its word. I was just waiting for the day when my golden ticket showed up.

Of course, I found out that life isn't really like that. Five golden tickets in the whole world means that nobody I know is going to find one. And although I'm in many ways a very lucky person, my luck does not apply when it comes to games of chance. I do not win lotteries or slot machines or even small-town-church raffles featuring baked goods as prizes. Hell, I can't successfully manipulate those "claws" where you try to pick up a stuffed animal.

Then, today, I opened up my email to find that the Obama campaign had sent me something. This is not new: I get something from them everyday. I feel badgered, honestly. But this was different: the email was linked to Ticketmaster and provided me with a reservation number for my ticket to the inauguration. My golden ticket is here.

It is unclear how this came about. I was on their health-care mailing list, but unless systematically deleting their emails counts for something, I was not what one might call a contributing member. As some of you may remember, I did get into a car accident and, instead of fixing the car, sent the deductible to the Obama campaign along with a nice letter. I never heard back, so I assumed that the letter was totally ignored (even if the check was not). But maybe it wasn't ignored after all.

Regardless, I now have a ticket to the inauguration. My heart tells me that I should be running down the street to get home and beg Grampa Joe to get out of bed, but as it turns out the whole thing isn't going to be very convenient for me. I am starting on the wards that Tuesday so I'd have to find to someone cover my service. I have a place to stay, but it's going to cost me 800 dollars to fly there. (And that's pretty cheap, considering).

My practical side always kind of wondered this about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I mean, probably most of the people who eat candy bars are trying to supplement calories because they missed their lunch or something. Aren't the chances pretty good that some uninformed or uninterested person would have just tossed the ticket? Or sold it? Or just been too busy to make it that day? Does having a golden ticket mean that one is just supposed to drop everything?

And we leave out the most important part of the inauguration issue: historic or not, would you want to be trapped on the mall, surrounded by literally 4 million people, without food, water, or other basic amenities? I just don't think it's worth it.

I might just be the world's biggest fuddy-duddy. But what you would do? I'd like to know.

I know what you crave. Hint: It's not the veggie plate.

Let me preface this story by saying that I apologize. I am not generally this rude, and the views expressed in this essay have nothing to do with my feelings about vegans as a group. Some of my best friends are vegan. Uh. Were vegan. Oops. Well, anyway, this blog post is clearly the last stop between my house and my doomed afterlife in the depths of tempeh hell. And I deserve every minute of it, I know:

She had short blond hair, multiple tattoos, was wearing a vintage Star Wars T-shirt with low-slung jeans, and was the cellist/bassist/frontwoman of the band. Still, picking up a musician in a bar is always a risky choice, and Jay was rightfully wary. I wouldn’t have encouraged him, either, but she was just so cute. And she clearly liked him, as evidenced by the fact that she came into the back room and appeared to play pinball next to our pool table. This ploy was all the more amusing because the pinball machine had been broken for at least three years.

After two hours of ridiculous glances across the bar, she finally came up to him and launched a totally lame line. He smiled. That was the beginning of years of suffering.

The moment the word “vegan” came out of her mouth, I froze. Actually, I would have walked out right then, blond hair and tattoos or not, but Jay’s tolerance was much higher than mine, and he failed to see the red flag. (The year before he lived in a stinky vegetarian co-op, where he was constantly surrounded by piles of dishes in the sink, year-old dust balls in the living room, and the benefit of a free ride to school in a VW bus, courtesy of his grungy roommates.) Immediately after meeting Punk Girl, he started finding “Why Vegan?” flyers scattered around his house. They featured a bloated, unhappy cow on the cover. Jay lasted only a month.

Our morning coffee quickly dissipated into soy lattes and cream cheese-less bagels. I even felt a little guilty about my constant carnivorous desires as I watched him lose fifteen pounds (and the guy is 6’4’’ and started at 180 lbs).

Punk Girl soon broke up with him, grew out her hair, quit the band, and moved to the suburbs of Kansas City. Despite this, Jay continued taking me to Buddhist restaurants and popping handfuls of daily vitamin supplements. For days after our vegan dinners, I suffered stomach cramps and night sweats. I just don’t think I was born to ingest highly processed wheat gluten.

When I moved to Philadelphia, I had already been trying to break him for five years. I frequently called him to describe delicious cheese and egg dishes and sometimes even tried to lure him in with stories of his favorite meaty items. Before his first visit to my new place, I found a restaurant in my neighborhood with a rotating menu that frequently featured bacon.

The chef was a very grumpy, very large woman whose kitchen opened directly into the dining room, meaning that the delicious smells of her cooking always filled the place. Best of all, the brunch was amazing. I sold him on promises of a delicious tofu scramble and spicy hash browns, knowing that the smell of bacon always filled the restaurant’s air. The report that jalapeño bacon was the special made my heard leap. I asked for two orders.

When it arrived, Jay eyed it suspiciously and then glanced back every few minutes. I sung its praises in a clearly over-the-top manner, and, after just a few minutes of this, turned to him and said, “You do know that this bacon is vegan, right?” He gave me a death look and went back to shuffling his tofu around. I shoved a plate across the table and left for the bathroom.

By the time I returned to the table, he had clearly undergone an identity crises and what he considered to be a moral lapse. All the bacon on the table, his and mine, was gone. I said nothing and paid the bill. We didn’t speak of it the entire day. A week after he returned home, he called me, furious.

“This is your fault, DrBB. I can’t stop. I’ve eaten bacon every day for a week. I had the urge to eat fish yesterday. I might consider a pork chop.”

I sighed, “Well, pork is the other white meat.”

“Ha.” He growled. “I hate you.”

I continued, “Listen, you’ve been pale and sickly-looking for five years. You can’t go to normal restaurants. You can’t eat my cooking. You won’t speak to people on the Atkins diet, despite the fact that your mother misses you terribly and wants to show you how much weight she’s lost! She won’t stop calling me. Please, return to the metaphorical land of the living! And when you call your mother, tell her that I love her but she should never call me again.”

Last month, Jay sent me pictures of the most recent party he attended. It was a bacon party. For Christmas last year, I gave him a bacon calendar, bacon-flavored gum, and a bacon clock. His Facebook page features a picture of him wearing a pig snout. He’s also got a new girlfriend. Her mother is a famous chocolatier who has been featured on both television and radio. Her specialty? Chocolate covered bacon. Could there be anything better?

(FYI: I also found a bacon blog)

Facebook Traitor.

Last night, as I spent two hours posting photos on Facebook and making ridiculous comments on my friends' pages (none of the comments, noticeably, are ever responded to), I had a concerning thought: Is my blog suffering as a result of Facebook?

My heart longs for me to say no. My brain is denying the possibility, my defense mechanisms are kicking in hard-core. Why, long before Facebook I occasionally went for many weeks (months?) without posting! And I'm also busy. I do, in fact, have some semblance of a life outside of the internet. Well...I used to have a roommate. Then my mom moved to Florida. Still, that's something.

No matter how much I protest, I know must eventually admit the truth: deep down, I know that a lot of my (brilliant) thoughts are getting said on Facebook instead of being pondered here.

So, my blog fans, I will try not to let this betrayal go on! After all, you are my first loves, and a commitment is to be honored.

Back to Nothing! And we're not talking about Pele.

So. Amazing. November 4th was a landmark day for the United States of America for so many reasons. It's possibly the beginning of the end of these years of darkness and, more importantly, we got to enjoy an election night that didn't end with tears, teeth gnashing, or conversations that weighed the evils of George W. Bush against the horror of a life of Canadian cuisine (I mean, Canadian food is the perfect storm of bland and bizarre. They eat french fries with gravy there. Seriously.).

Perfect! Now what? I have spent several months hanging on every last word of television talking heads and fake-news news anchors. I have neglected work, ignored my personal life, bitten my nails to the quick, and lost countless hours of sleep. Now I'm like an alcoholic emerging from a bender, reflecting on my downfall and wondering how to structure my new life. The upside of my situation? No more late-night binges and hopefully no more painful post-news hangovers. The downside? I secretly am going to miss the temporary euphoria of a long night of watching liberal punditry.

And really, what to write about? My brain is suddenly a clean slate. And then, today, I realized: I finally get to go back to writing, expounding, ruminating, elaborating...about Nothing. Yes, I can finally admit it. I'm the blog version of Seinfeld. And then, while getting my eyebrows waxed (cleaned up, not shaped, mind you), I was told by my aesthetician that I should consider getting a Brazilian wax job. And there you have it. I had a Nothing to write about.

I had a Nothing to write about because it turns out that she was not talking about a person from South America detailing my car. No, she was talking about a different land down under. And I was horrified.

Let me emphasize that I'm not afraid of body parts or anatomy. I'm all for owning what you've got, and I'm also not absolute about preserving every bit of my hair. I shave my legs. (Well, sometimes not in the winter, unless I have a Compelling Reason.) and I wax those eyebrows (cleaned up, not shaped).

I am also proud of the fact that I'm an internist who is comfortable doing pap smears. I'm pretty nonchalant about the whole thing and I do a good job putting my patients at ease, reminding them how briefly unpleasant but totally routine the whole thing is. I never thought once about judging a patient. As I look back cumulatively on all those pap smears, though, I realize that almost every woman I ever took care of was hairless. And I don't really get it. How could the whole word have gone (painfully) bald? Isn't ripping hair out by the root one of the ways they interrogate enemy combatants and terrorize men on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?"

I could go on analyzing this, but I am going to steer clear of the 'hot potato' question about who the procedure actually benefits. One thing is for sure: much to the chagrin of my likely hairless aesthetician, I won't be making an appointment for a Brazilian anytime soon. Unless she's cute and teaching a dance class.

The tell-tale stapler.

There's an administrator in my office who is just plain nasty to me. She isn't rude, exactly. She is just icy. She's not horrible to everyone. She is very deferential and friendly to the older men in the office who wear suits. (I don't know their names or their jobs, but they look legit). They make a joke with her and she laughs. I make a joke and she stares angrily.

Unfortunately, I need her help on some office-y things. Things like using the copier, ordering me a stapler, and obtaining a trash can. She hates me for all of it.

I have really tried to get her to warm up to me. I smile. I talk to her. I have asked her about her family. Today, I asked her about the debate. "Did you hear the last question?" I asked. '"What do you not know and how would you learn it?' Hilarious!" I was smiling and did not endorse either candidate. I was merely trying to make conversation and the debate was the topic most commonly discussed in the office today.

She pursed her lips and tried to pierce my soul with her slit-like eyes. "I did not watch the debate because I hate Barack Obama. If I hear his voice, I want to be sick." It's pretty rare to hear this sort of thing around here. This is liberalville, USA. I was shocked (I almost asked "because he's black?" but stopped myself because I feared I would end up doing time in diversity training). And in that moment, I knew why she hates me so much.

I am a liberal, feminist, Indian, lesbian doctor who wants her to order me a stapler. And she has to do it. And that makes her more sick than Barack Obama's voice.