First, a rant. There are areas in the city where the sidewalk is largely spanned by metal grates, with tiny solid paths between them. For some reason, probably psychological, people tend to move away from the grates and walk on the tiny solid paths instead. HOWEVER, when I am wearing fucking heels, I can't walk on the grates, since my heels will fall into the little openings and get stuck. And yet...people wearing sneakers and other non-heeled, broad-soled shoes, who obviously would not have these issues, walk on the tiny solid paths anyway, thus blocking my way. GET OUT OF MY WAY IF YOU ARE NOT WEARING HEELS. WALK ON THE GRATES...YOU WON'T FALL THROUGH THEM INTO THE SEWERS. Thank you.

It's amazing how easily annoyed I've become after living here. I've been muttering the phrase "stupid bint" under my breath constantly, whenever someone gets in my way as I'm trying to reach my destination in a timely fashion. I don't know how I'll deal with my imminent return to the South.

So, as always, I've been vacillating between medicine and not-medicine. I had pretty much decided on medicine until I went to an MFA reading at Columbia, to hear my father's college friend who recently finished her poetry degree there. And...it was just like the open-mike events I held, except that there was an abundance of people who actually wanted to be there. And the readers were such a diverse group who opened themselves up completely, whether to share bits of their poignant-but-somewhat-cliche memoirs, pedestrian fiction, charmingly simple poetry, or fantastic mind-games and artful literary constructions. There was one guy, a more classically handsome Jeff Tweedy-type with overgrown wayward tendrils of just-got-out-of-bed hair, well-worn jeans, lazy crackling-fire voice, and sleepy eyes...he read the most amazing anti-fairy tale about a parent who loathed his afflicted, limbless children and concocted all sorts of schemes to get rid of them. Although it was quite dark and nasty, it was also inventive and funny and beautiful and unexpected. I got warm prickles down my spine, and just felt ridiculously happy while hearing it. Of course, at this point, I immediately wanted to do an MFA in writing instead of returning to medicine. Not only because I love creative writing and want to improve my skills, and actually complete something of which I can be proud, but also to meet and hang out with people like him. Like a dork, I did end up writing him an excruciatingly self-conscious e-mail, telling him that I liked his story. He wrote back, but in typical me-fashion, I have yet to work up the nerve to read it.

But then today I finished Jonathan Kozol's Amazing Grace, and once again I feel like escaping into the world of art or academia would be very intellectually stimulating, and would certainly tap into my passions, but would also be utterly selfish. There's so much work to be done in order to improve the everyday conditions of people's lives, and medicine is a much more practical way to do this. I wish I were more interested in family practice, because of course that's the most logical way to reach the poor and underserved, but I got very little enjoyment out of my family medicine rotation...largely because it was too general, and most of the work was too unchallenging. Perhaps I should consider infectious diseases more strongly. While I disagree with my college PI take on oncology, which he called "the disease of the rich," it does not seem to be as immediately helpful for the health crisis of the poor...it would only involve a select few, rather than impact the bulk of the poor population. However, oncology also offers an opportunity to ostensibly heal people, or at least help them come to terms with death, and die with as many choices possible, in the most humane way possible. Weirdly enough, part of the job is like being a midwife to death. And for some reason, that kinda appeals to me. Maybe because it helps me come to terms with my own turbulent, complicated feelings about death.

Next book on my list is Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog in Iraq.

More interesting things I've seen and experienced around the city:

1) A guy jogging by himself in Central Park, wearing a tank top that said "Group Leader" in orange on the back. Maybe he used to be a group leader, but no longer is? Or maybe he is currently a group leader after all, but a really bad one? Or maybe he has a sense of humor about what he wears, and wanted to make the irony known?

2) A lost beaded bracelet on 5th avenue, forlorn without the wrist it used to encircle.

3) A group of Eastern European immigrants on the elevator, all dressed in head-to-toe black. The man had a massive white beard and a black hat, and the women wore dresses and black fabric over their hair. They were bickering loudly, and were so stereotypical that I wondered if they were actors.

4) The guy who outlandishly claimed I was a "supermodel" (yeah, okay, on what planet?). When I went to John Cameron Mitchell's birthday party, I put together an outfit which I hoped evoked a punk ballerina (sparkly lavender poofy ballerina-esque skirt, mandarin-collar sheer black shirt with metal hook ties, black fishnets, black ankle strap shoes, smokey eyes/pale lips), but ended up more Avril Lavigne. Bleh. Anyway, a homeless guy on the subway said that I looked "like a supermodel." I laughed and pointed out that I was about a foot too short. He then said that he wanted to escort me to wherever I was going. And then I got creeped out, smiled, and said I'd be fine.

5) The Christopher Brosius I Hate Perfume store in Brooklyn. Christopher Brosius founded the great fragrance line Demeter (known for its bizarre, curiously accurate, often humorous fragrances, such as Funeral Home, Sugar Cookie, Dirt, Mojito, and This is Not A Pipe), and also made Alan Cumming's eponymous fragrance. He transformed an old garage in Brooklyn into a perfumerie (called, curiously enough, "I hate perfume"), with loads of different single note scents grouped by category: water, wood, sweet, skin, foody, floral, fruity, etc. Some of the weirder scents included roast beef, skunk, Easter 1967, barber shop, thai curry, rubber cement, ink, and English novel. I spoke at length with the cute bearded Swedish sales assistant who wore flip-flops and well-worn jeans. When I asked him if I could try the daffodil fragrance, he admitted that he didn't know what daffodils were. He asked if they were Easter flowers, and quickly confused them with lilies. I attempted an explanation using the phrase "yellow frilly trumpets." I asked him what he was wearing, and he saucily said that it was Demeter ("Day-may-ter" in his accent) Riding Crop. I ended up purchasing a 15 mL vial of Mediterranean, which immediately brought me back to the rocky (non-sandy) beaches of Nice (oh, how I miss the south of France!), but I think I'll have to go back for Macadamian Coffee, Petal on Water, and Ginger Lily. And possibly Siberian fir and English novel.