Admit Defeat

Tuesday:

I should be studying for the board exams but The Brain is not having it. Instead, I lay in bed watching quilting videos on youtube. Watching videos of women sewing through two pieces of fabric is about as exciting as watching golf or fishing or bowling events on television, but there is also something very calming about it, too. My style of quilting is not precise at all, not remotely traditional, but I still enjoy watching people put together precise, traditional quilt blocks.

We've reached the monsoon season here, but there hasn't been enough rain.

Wednesday happened. I've been having trouble sleeping, so in the early morning, I did a bit of studying for board exams. In the late morning and early afternoon, I napped..

I've been having crazy dreams recently. When I got up from my nap, I had been dreaming that I had cancer. My doctor was incompetent and somehow menacing. In the dream, I let my anger get the best of me and that woke me up.

After I got up, I took a shower and then did some cleaning and reorganizing in the casita. I gathered my scrubs together and put them aside to donate to future students. I was the recipient of another student's donated scrubs (we only get two sets of scrubs as part of our program tuition and have to buy them for the ridiculous price of $26 per piece if we want more), so I'll donate mine in turn. I threw out two pairs of white Crocs, the ugly but comfortable shoes I wore to clinicals. I have two pairs left and maybe they'll be outdoor/garden shoes until they wear out.

In the early evening, Dave and I went out to dinner, had tofu noodle bowls at the bahn mi place, then went by Whole Foods where we loaded up on fruit (cherries, peaches, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, some kind of plum-cherry hybrid) and a few other things.

I came home and finished sewing a skirt out of white t-shirts that I bought online, on sale, to wear under my scrubs but didn't end up liking (they were too thick and the necks too restrictive). I cut them apart and started sewing the skirt by hand, but I didn't have the right kind of hand sewing needles for mid-weight jersey, so I just finished up by machine. I never, ever wear white (except for the last 18 months, when I wore white scrubs almost every day, I guess), and I never wear skirts, except as a kind of pajama bottom, the way some people wear sweats or loose fitting shorts to bed, so that's how I'll use this skirt, too.  It has an elasticized waist, but I made it really loose-fitting. Maybe I'll turn it into harem pants and wear those instead. If I do that, I'll dye it or paint it so it's not white and diaper-y looking.

So I guess, despite feeling like I've been doing nothing, I've actually been doing stuff.

Today is Thursday. I got up early--like 1:00 a.m. early. I could not go back to sleep. At 6:45, I got up and made coffee. At 8:00 or so, I drove to the medical bookstore and picked up my cap and gown, in case I decide to participate in the graduation ceremony tomorrow. My friend Hannah asked me specifically to do so, but I've been feeling a little (more than a little) agoraphobic recently. This is, by the way, not the little community college graduation ceremony, but the larger university ceremony. I won't know anyone there except for the 15 or so people in my cohort (out of the hundred-plus students) who are attending. The gowns are burgundy, 100% polyester ("Do not wash or dry clean") and arrive carefully crumpled (so as to add as many wrinkles as possible) in a plastic bag. If I ironed it, it would melt. As it is, I'm afraid to go outside in it if the temperature gets much above 90 degrees.

Anyway, I've never been to a graduation ceremony in my life--not my own, not for any degree I've gotten up to now. I went to my brother's high school graduation and to Dave's mother's graduation ceremony. That's it, I think. They seem long and boring, largely pointless, and I don't much stand on ceremony.

It's 10:30 a.m. already and I have to decide whether to nap or to get up and try, with my exhausted self, to be productive. Or more productive, since I've already been out of the house and across town once today.

What would be on my to-do list if I decided to have a to-do list? I suppose if I'm going to the graduation ceremony, I need to have something decent to wear under my robe. I mean, I've been wearing scrubs for the last nearly two years and when I'm not wearing scrubs, I'm wearing pajamas or ratty summer clothes, jeans and t-shirt. I have a few things put away, but with the extra pounds I packed on during school, they barely fit if they fit at all. So that's one thing. I've been meaning to sew up a new messenger bag to replace the last one I sewed up. (Which was just after I got my sewing machine and didn't really know what I was doing.) I also have to recharge my school computer and download the texts for the Kaplan course I'm compelled to take next week. I have to sign up for a more professional g-mail account and start the process of registering to take the board exams (which will require me to be fingerprinted for the third time since I started this program, because of course you know how often fingerprints change). I have to study for the exam. I have to continue my cleaning and reorganizing of the casita...

Or I can just admit defeat and go back to bed.