2010: Year in Review

Time for my third annual "Year in Review" Post. Get your popcorn and diet soda and settle in for some nostalgia...

For those who like swimming in summaries, here lie 2008's and 2009's reviews. 2010 was indeed a memorable year. I started out in indentured servitude and am ending it in a very different, much more enjoyable place. (Aside from three obvious photos, pictures here are from the eventful month of December.)

Now, on to the very serious business of my annual month by month review, divided into the tidy categories of Uppers and Downers.

January: Rotation: ER, and the usual burden of "back-up". Downers: Slave labor in it's truest form. Scheduled to the max 6-7 days a week with little time to breathe, sleep, eat, care for myself. Uppers: A freak flooding rainstorm in the Southwest led to a canceled flight, a glorious weekend off (the only one for approx 12 weeks) and an engagement! Three cheers for happily ever after!

February: Rotation was NICU with q4 call. A meh rotation with lots of time sitting fully scrubbed and waiting for babies to get sick. Not the best time. Downers: My one golden weekend was a required residency retreat where I ended up getting food poisoning. Uppers: After recovering from said food poisoning my class won the TFM Talent show performing a song I wrote about a lost pager - it was a huge hit and lots of fun! Also, I enjoyed a post-call stuporous Valentine's Day dance with my fiance.

March: Rotation: Cardiology. Supposedly a break from all the call. Supposedly a break from working so many weekends (by March, aside from the freak storm and the work-related retreat, I had worked every weekend in 2010. Yes, I'm still bitter). Downers: due to coverage for other residents, official back-up duty, and my own laboring patients, I was still sleep-deprived and dearly missing my sweetie in Seattle. Uppers: I got to perform the 1812 overture with RCB, complete with [electronic] cannon fire! I managed a short escape to present at the AMSA conference. Passover Seder family reunion in San Fransisco! The Countdown Clock continued...

April: That was my "No Happy Bunnies" post, as you may recall. Rotation was in-patient family medicine. Downers: We were short-staffed and thanks to work, Karin and I missed out on our first anniversary and Honkfest, and I missed out on just about everything that makes Seattle Spring superawesome. I was still horseless and barely able to find time to play my trumpet. However there were Uppers: I groggily made one post-call Renegayde gig for the Roller Derby, and the month eventually ended. But the best upper was that it was the last month like that. Ever! The thrill of my last call was dampened by the fact that I was called in to cover more calls, but at the time I thought it was my last and I celebrated in style: Rounding on roller skates (as above).

May was a breath of fresh air! I finally had less back up and could use that vacation time! Downers: Not much. Just the surprise black weekend call after my much needed vacation, more residents down for the count and more chaos at TFM. Uppers: Band Camp! Vacation in buttery Minnesota! Sleep! Tick tick tick on the countdown calendar...

June was the last month of residency. It flew by. Rotation: Bastyr elective in Seattle. Downers: everything happened at once which was seriously stressful. But, all those things were overall pretty good (moving, the visits from my family, finishing residency). Uppers: Did I mention I finished residency? Moving in with Karin, Pride, Summer solstice festival, family. Oh, yeah, and as of midnight on 6/30 I finished residency! Woot! Countdown clock zero'ed out (I had two countdown clocks, one online and one on my iPod - the zeroed out one from my iPod is pictured at left)!

July: First month without an associated rotation since the month I had off between medschool and residency! Holy moly! Call it my rebound month. Downers: Board exams - ick. Some drama around RCB. Merging two households was way more stressful than I anticipated. At the end of the month the biggest downer was the death of a close family friend, as well. Uppers: OMG I got to do laundry! OMG! I got to do dishes! OMG I got to sleep in! OMG! I got to watch TV! Traveled to Boston for for a week for a GLMA Board Meeting. Rocked some parades with RCB. OMG I finished residency last month!

August: Oy. The biggest Downer occurred Sunday, August 1st: ripped my left gastrocs in two pieces, rolling it up like a window shade and rendering me useless for a large portion of the month. Uppers: Seeing some Aussie pals, Lisa and her mother. Camping with Karin's Neice. Storm games. And BLUE HAIR! Plus, all those rippling upper body muscles from those crutches!

September: It was full of so much adventure that I posted my entry late. Downers: what are those? Oh, right, I was still pretty injured but getting around a lot better and Uppers: No more cane! Seattle Storm Mania. GLMA Conference in San Diego. Another great Lullaby Moon gig.

October: The real recuperation month. As I reflect back, it wasn't until the end of October that I really felt I was starting to heal. I had more energy and dug into life. I looked for horses, barns where I could ride. I did some serious wedding planning and I went through a lot of old boxes and papers and finally finished unpacking. My blog posts were full of nostalgia about medical school and rotations. I was starting to get ready to get back into the workforce. Downers: More band drama. Karin took the Pysch GRE's (ick for her). Uppers: Huge headway made on wedding planning! Plus all the aforementioned healing! Freedom feels so good!

November was eventful. Downers: Snow put Seattle on hold Uppers: Snow put Seattle on hold just before Thanksgiving (making for a loooong weekend!) and Karin and I hosted a Little Gay Thanksgiving at our house. I made some headway on the job and horse search!

Bringing us to this month, December, HanuBirtMas time! Downers: After 34 years I still get bitter that my birthday is lumped with Jesus'. Is that selfish? Uppers: RCB Christmas concert! Birthday sushi (yum at left) with friends and family and ice skating. And, of course, the much anticipated Trip to Minnesota.

In the Tundra of Middle River, MN, among other things, I helped make a traditional Norwegian flatbread called lefse and drove a snowmobile. Ah the snowmobile lesson... it went something like this, "Here's the throttle, here's the brake, here's the emergency shut-off. Follow me." And with snowsuit, helmet and an 11 year old sitting in the seat behind me, I took off in the dark winter night, following faint tail lights and a cloud of snow. That first ride I can't say with total honesty that I had a lot of fun. Terrifying would be more accurate. But the following day was another story. Off we went, in the blazing sunshine across field and dale, through woods and trails. Glorious adventures were had. I smiled so hard my face hurt. And while I missed my family and my usual family traditions, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the in-laws and actually look forward to another snowy Christmas in northern rural Minnesota - snowsuit and all (see photo above near February's summary)!

So, dear readers, 2010 was great, but I trust 2011 will be even better! It will be a big year - a real job, a wedding, and a horse! Yes, a horse. I know I keep promising more word on the topic... s0 stay tuned for more word on work and horses...

Happy New Year!

So long Tacoma, smell ya later!

The month of June was rather eventful.

It has totally exhausted me and have as much brain power as a cardboard box right now so bear with the less flowery language herein (the literary part of my brain is resting and waiting for its big binge after my board exams!)

So... June: Let's start from the beginning and try to break it into bite size pieces...

TFM Day
June rushed in with the dreaded "TFM Day" - a full 8 hours of residents (and other notable speakers, but mostly residents) giving dry presentations on evidence-based topics that are on their way to publication via the FPIN Network. I won't bore you with too much detail about the event. Just know that the whole process involves at least a year's worth of work, research and stress. My topic? Anal pap smears. I had hoped to perform a evidence review on transgender primary care but that wasn't approved. So even though I didn't quite get my topic of choice, in the last few years at TFM I have had the opportunity to present transgender medicine topics on my own accord. My TFM Day butt-talk (as I fondly call it) went very well and was actually a pleasure to give. The paper for publication is another story for another time.

Cle Elum
To celebrate the end of TFM Day, and the nearing end of residency, my class head off to Cle Elum, a quaint little rural Washington town, home of yummy Pioneer Coffee, and spectacular views! We recovered a little, bonded a little more, ate a TON (including an awesome Indian dinner made by our Indian classmate). We were there two nights and one full day and at the crack of dawn on Sunday Karin and I head back for our first uniformed marching band gig, a picnic in the park just blocks from her house. Afterward, we waiting in line, in uniform, for nearly 2 hours to get our $1 BBQ fixings (veggie burger included).

The Last Rotation
My last rotation of residency was an elective. I chose to rotate at Bastyr Center for Natural Health, a comprehensive naturopathic, acupuncture and homeopathic clinic in Seattle. In order to do this, however, I had to battle my nemesis, I-5. During the rotation I drove 300-500 miles a week, commuting from clinic to clinic. My previous efforts to coordinate my TFM clinics into full days (freeing me to learn at Bastyr for more than a few hours at a time) was massively unsuccessful - so back and forth and back and forth I went. But the elective was fruitful and I even felt, with my own index fingers on the pulse of a 90 year old woman, the actual palpable changes acupuncture creates in a person. Pretty amazing.

Chaos
Then, the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan and I started hurtling toward graduation at breakneck speed. Moving, packing, vet appointments, address changes, insurance coverage changes, forms to complete, etc etc... And, for extra fun my Mom and step-dad flew into town. We celebrated her birthday at Ray's Cafe, and over the weekend enjoyed in the festivities of the Fremont Solstice Fair and Parade! (us at right - Karin is on the end with the bass drum and I am playing trumpet behind her.) They stayed at my place, on the pullout couch, while I was packing and working, and then, for extra fun, my Dad and step-mom came into town and we had graduation.

Graduation
Graduation was a nice event - good food, good company, ample beverages to soothe savage beasts. However, it was four and a half hours long. For just eight residents. I was the very last to be graduated and by the time it came around for me to say my piece everyone was exhausted and surely sick of being there so I just said a few words of thanks and that was that. Kind of anticlimactic, I think. It didn't help that after all those hours of graduation hoopla I had clinic the following Monday. The best part of graduation for me was giving gifts to my advisor and getting to share with everyone the movie I had been working on for the better part of 4 months! I would love to post it here but am not sure people would appreciate their images up here for the world to see, dancing around and such. I rewrote all the words to Hotel California to reflect life as a resident at TFM and TG and filmed various folks singing and dancing along to the words. It was such a kick to make and I spent way more time on it than I did my FPIN!

Pride
Then came pride, or, "the gay Christmas", as Karin and I call it. With both sets of parents in town, my move a matter of days away, residency finishing, and all my duties with the band I was spread pretty thin. But I managed to enjoy marching in the parade, partaking in some of the street fairs and the festivities at the Seattle Center after the parade was over. One of the highlights of Pride this year was the huge rainbow flag the Seattle Center put on the Space Needle! A historic day! Now if only we can get equal rights like marriage, or at least equal taxation for domestic partners!

Then back to work for me after Pride. It wasn't easy but I managed to work a hellish, soul-sucking clinic on Monday, finish packing, and move my whole life to Seattle on Tuesday. Tuesday night Karin came back to Tacoma with me to finish cleaning the apartment. Wednesday I went to work and closed my charts, tied up loose ends, returned my parking pass, all the usual last day stuff. Hilariously, I got in trouble my last day for not having my badge. Figures some safety big shot would be touring the clinic on June 30th. He was understanding after I told him it was my last day and I had just returned it!

Life as a free woman
Now, here I am, among piles and piles of boxes. Overwhelmed with how much stuff I have to fit into Karin's apartment. We are working hard to make it our place (not just me squeezed in to her place) and it's not going to be easy (33 years of accumulated stuff is a lot!) but we are doing it! The pets have been without incident, Sive lives in the loft with a gate separating the beasts for the time being. I am so happy to be done with residency and ready to start the rest of my life, with my fiance, my family. Karin, me, Sive, Lucy and a houseful of boxes. I couldn't have imagined a happier ending to this story.

Next step? Studying for boards, unpacking, nesting, and continuing my advocacy here in Seattle and through GLMA... now only if I can find where all my advocacy stuff is... and maybe, soon, the feeling of being done with my indentured servitude will hit me.

2009 in Review

Now for the traditional Year in Review Post!
2009 was really a year of changes for me.

Click here for last year's entry, if you are feeling extra nostalgic.

Most photos are from my recent trip to Detroit for Christmas.

January: Rotation was Night Float and Geriatrics, emphasis on the Night Float. Uppers: The fabulous inauguration of the new President Obama. Marching in his parade. The world-wide sigh of relief at the end the "W" years. Downer: The start of the Dental Saga of 2009. Inauguration and a wedding not included, I had all of 2 days actually off the entire month, yet somehow managed to cram in 4 dentist appointments and a two-part root canal.

February: Night float and geriatrics continue. Upper: Vegas, baby! Downer: That night float crap was getting really old, the dentist crap even older. My only weekend off was spent at an all-TFM retreat. I was so dizzy and sleep deprived I think I may have hallucinated once or twice.

March: My "Away" Rotation with Puyallup Tribal Health. Uppers: Shilo turned 20, Sive turned 10. I ran a 5K, started in on Honk Fest excitement and spent a ton of time on horseback. I got back in shape, I took care of myself, and finally wrapped up the Dental Insanity. I also completed my USMLE Board Exams. Downer: My friend's wife died. My community, Rainbow City Band filled an entire section of the funeral home. So, the silver lining: It made me realize how lucky I am to be a part of a community like RCB.

April: Ah April, the best and worst of times. Rotation: Inpatient Pediatrics. Downer: Peds just about killed me. The hours were insane, the patients sick as hell, and the attendings, ruthless. But the uppers! The Uppers! I played at HonkFest West which magically fell on my one weekend off that month! And, most amazingly (include all superlatives here), I fell in love. And while residency tried its damnedest to crush me with my peds rotation, I was like one of those trick candles and sparkled despite it all!

May: More blasted Peds and the start of clinical GYN. Upper: Swing Fever with RCB. Vacation in Boston (the only thing I managed to blog about). Downer: Yeah, peds was still killer, and just when I thought it was over I was back rounding on the service my first weekend after vacation, covering for another resident. But despite the peds interjections, GYN heralded my last rotation of R2 year. And any free time I had was spent with my girlfriend, Shilo, and my band. In that order.

June: GYN continued. Upper: Realized I was almost done with R2 year! Woo! Started my Countdown Calendar. I played some awesome gigs including ones for the Majestics, Solstice Parade and Pride. It was a very RCB-heavy month for me. Downer: Getting the swine flu sucked.

July: Internal Medicine. Uppers: Played for the Rat City Rollergirls, Mom came to visit, got to see my friends Suhani and Rachel even if it was just for a few hours. Downers (this wasn't my best month): q4 call, new interns, and most insane month for the hospital ever. My one weekend off that month spent over-caffeineated, sleep-deprived at a board meeting in Chicago. Missing playing in the Seafair parade. And did I mention getting totally and mercilessly spanked by Tacoma General Hospital. How much left on that countdown? I was so brutalized that month by work I didn't even have time for one little blog entry! I did highlight a bit of the month in my first of two August entries under the subtitle: Red, white, blue and burned out.

August: First two weeks the flogging continued as Night Float. But, at least this time I didn't have a dozen dentist appointments keeping me up during the day while I should have been sleeping. Instead I had elevator construction and a record-breaking heat wave! Uppers: Dad and Julie visit from Michigan. Mount Rainier! Downers: Said goodbye to Shilo, the horse that kept me sane and human. One of the hardest things I've ever done. Here it is almost 5 months later and I still feel heartbroken. And to add to it all, my dear, sweet dog, Kiki, passed on. It was indeed a month of loss.

September: Rotation? Keep reading. Summed some of the month here. Upper: LGBA in New Orleans - very, very awesome. GLMA in DC, also pretty fabulous. Lullaby Moon - surreal. A good month for recovery from the losses of the month prior. Downer: I spent so much time working in the hospital as back-up I completely have forgotten was rotation I was on. Had to look it up. It was ophthalmology, urology and ENT (OUE). Go figure.

October: Away rotation on the East Coast, LGBT Medicine. Adventures aplenty. Uppers: I completed my GLMA conference. My talks were huge hits. I loved, loved Mazzoni Center. My RCB "TV Land" Concert was sold out and fantabulous. I only wish I had video of our awesomeness to share! Our pep band played at Macy's in a mall which was a really fun experience. I celebrated Karin's birthday for about 2 weeks straight! I dressed up as Daddy Warbucks this Halloween and had tons of fun with my friends in Seattle. Downers: The month had to end. And I missed the long-time coming, awesome, big, gay Connecticut wedding of my old friends Stevie and Jill.

November: Rotation was HIV Medicine. Uppers: A low key Thanksgiving on the Oregon Coast. The rotation rocked. Educating my program about transgender health and making TFM officially a trans-friendly place for patients! Downer: My 99 year old grandpa died. Half my program was struck down with the flu and, as above, I had to struggle for my balance.

December: And here we are. Rotation: Pediatric ER and sports medicine. Upper: my first week vacation since R2 year! Christmas with family and Karin and Lucy. Christmas caroling with Renegayde. Adventures in Detroit. Another sold out concert with RCB (left). Downer: Good-bye weekends, I'll see you in March.

June's post - just under the wire

Last day of June. Tomorrow I officially start my last year of residency.

June was a pleasant month overall. The only really bad part would have to be the terrible bronchitis I had for four weeks. In all, I had several weekends off. It was filled with many wonderful band gigs. Renegayde played for the Seattle Majestics (the women's full tackle football league). We played for Bat n' Rouge, the fundraiser for the LGBT Alano Group (12-steppers) which was a blast. One of my favorite Renegayde favorite pieces is our rendition of the hip-hop song, Low, by Flo Rida - we toss in little dances, and shout out a "hey!" or two and the piccolo's rock. We'll be playing it again, surely, at our Rat City Roller Girls gig next month.

The marching group marched in Solstice and for Pride the last two weekends. I missed a few other parades and will be missing a few more but feel lucky to at least make those two events since they are freaking awesome! and being a part of them was filled with unspeakable amazingness (so cool, I make up words!). The best part easily was when the band would put down our horns for the the Thriller dance in, obviously, Thriller, by the recently departed Michael Jackson. The roar over the crowd (even before his departure) was so deafening it gave me chills and kicked my adrenal medulla into high gear! I have a video of it a band-aide got for us that I'll try to post later. Some random folks have posted pics up us doing the dance on the web so if you google Rainbow City Band and Thriller you may get a few hits like this one!

The rotation I've been on is GYN/FPO. Which basically means a hodgepodge of gynecology stuffs and touchy-feely stuffs the residency makes us do so they can make sure at the tender age of 32, and after 6 years of back-breaking medical training, we still know how to write an essay about feelings. No, really, it's potentially a very good opportunity for making sure we stay in touch with understanding our patients and, probably most importantly, coming to terms with things we can't understand. Since, as doc's, admitting we "don't know" sometimes feels comparable to showing up to work without any pants on.

I feel I've gotten the most out of the gynecology component, however. I do really enjoy working at Planned Parenthood and I particularly enjoyed learning to do colposcopy and treating cervical cancers with excision techniques. I feel pretty good about my colposcopic skills and wonder if I'll want to do them in practice. I also put in enough IUD's this month to put the Mirena manufacturer's kids (and their kids' kids) through college, I'm sure.

Next up: 4 weeks of in-patient Medicine (q4 call of course, first call tomorrow), followed by 2 weeks of the back-breaking Nightfloat. I have to reluctantly admit that I'm kinda sorta maybe looking forward to the next four weeks of in-patient. Don't get me wrong, I am NOT excited about the hours, the lack of time off, the sleep deprivation, the lack of time to see my girlfriend, or any of those terrible things. But I am looking forward to a routine - in the mornings at least, because as a 3rd year resident my afternoons will be spent in the unpredictable no-man's land known as clinic as opposed to the more structured wards. Additionally, I will be the senior to a fresh out of medical school intern in his first week of work as an MD! It's a little exciting to help him be a part of that. It's especially great because it's too soon for them to be bitter or burned out, maybe I can soak up some of that fresh perspective and get to see my job through new eyes again! Remember my first month of internship?

Additionally this month, I travel to Chicago for 30 hours or so (on my Golden weekend, getting there by plane, train and automobile). Which hopefully will be productive for myself and GLMA. My mother also visits which should be fun and we have that Roller Derby gig I'm thrilled about! On a sad note, Shilo will be leaving. For the next year at least, so there's a possiblity that this may be the last month I will get to spend time with her. I try not to think about it however and have been out to see her as much as possible in the month of June. That horse saved me when residency was about to break me. I owe her a lot (and of course her owner, who recognized a horseless rider when she saw one).

(photo credits: Michael Clark for the first, official Bat n' Rouge photographer for the second, and me for the third!)

2008 Year in review (complete with links)

This year has been up and down. I made it through intern year by the skin of my teeth. I won’t lie, I battled both burnout and cat pee. The spring brought me some great surprises. I stumbled forward and ended up right here.

Since those yearly letter summaries have been so popular from my friends and fam this year I thought I'd spit out one of my own. So, here it is, my year in review. (Photos from my wintry vacation in Michigan: Kiki, Christmas cake, punch, Hanukkah cake, latkes.)

Jan: My second month of OB as an intern. Upper: Hawaii. Downer: my first whiff of burnout.

Feb: My away rotation in San Diego. Upper: pretty much the entire month. Downer: shortest month of the year

March: Surgery rotation. Upper: National Physician’s Alliance conference – reconnecting with my fellow activist doctors. Downer: surgery

April: Orthopedic surgery. Uppers: Daffodil parade, carrot soup, sun comes back to the PacNW!

May: In-patient pediatrics most the month. Upper: Vacation the first week! Meeting my friends’ twin baby boys! Meeting Shilo’s mom. Downer: q4 call and gastroenteritis.

June: Still in-patient peds. Uppers: Last month of intern year! Q4 but squeeze in… Solstice parade, Pride parade, horse time. Downer: Violating work hours this month and that stink of burnout creeps back. It’s not the Tacoma aroma, either. Only month without a posting.

July: No longer an intern. But, launched into 9 weeks of OB and continued q4 call (solo! Ack!) thus wasn’t feeling very celebratory. Uppers: Learned a ton. X-Files movie with an old friend. Downers: that not sleeping every fourth night thing.

August: Still OB. Uppers: Mom visits. Shilo time when I can. Downer: Became grumpy and not particularly pleasant to be around most the time. Are you sure I’m not still an intern?

September: Life smacks me with a big wet kiss! Rotations: In-patient family practice and behavioral pediatrics. Uppers: Vaycay in Colorado. Join the Rainbow City band! Become officially a board member of GLMA. Downer: Sive won’t pee in her litterbox – might smell worse than burnout.

October: Surgery. Again. Uppers: Dad visits (escape to Whidbey!), GLMA national (gay docs take over Seattle!), My first RCB concert! Downer: New computer system hell in the hospital.

November: In-patient medicine followed by ER. Uppers: Election. Thanksgiving with a million cousins. Caroling in Seattle. Downers: My health: Gastroenteritis (again). URI. Chemical pneumonitis.

December: Here we are. ER rotation. Uppers: Three amazing concerts. Get into the inauguration parade with LGBA! My program is supportive! I realize, I heart Seattle and I, gosh durn it, I kinda heart TFM. Christmas with family in Michigan. Snow in Seattle. Start riding at a jumper barn. Sive starts peeing in her litterbox again! Downers? What are those?

Internship Over

Wow. I can't believe it's been a month since my last entry. I'm staring at my computer screen through slitted eyes, I'm so tired. I have finished my 7 weeks of Pediatrics and tomorrow start 9 weeks of OB. OB has a routine, it's hard as hell but at least I get to sleep post-call and I know, essentially, what I'm in for each day.

In the last month I have worked A LOT. So much so that my priorities list had been shuffled multiple times. For example, sometimes I have to prioritize something elective like emailing in regards to something crucial like sleeping. This last long rotation I had to prioritize the crucials, less sleep to eat, or less eating to get my work done. With the exception of the week containing my golden weekend I was between 80 and 90 hrs every week.

The other day I was making a joke about residency but I realize now there's some truth to it: residency has made me soft on the outside and hard on the inside. Looking back on my intern year I would be lying if I said I didn't have fun now and again, but... if you gave me the choice between having teeth pulled without anesthetic and repeating intern year, I'd lose the teeth.

Hey! And speaking of fun.... my golden weekend was during Solstice. I got to go to the Solstice parade in Freemont (it's a particularly leftist part of Seattle). The parade started, as is tradition, with naked bicyclers (one at left - click on it to see "details"). They had body paint designed to look like feathers, clothes, in hand prints, etc. It was really neat. After the naked bike riders came the actual parade, a celebration of summer, solstice, the sun, etc. There are no corporate sponsors of the Freemont parade. The floats are all man-powered, not motorized and if there was music it was thanks to live bands, not stereos. There was hula hooping, a flying spaghetti monster, pirates, unicorns, zombies, belly dancers, dragons, robots, free hugs, a giant joint, hula hoops, storks, stilts, a funeral for the statue of liberty, George Dubbya, chickens, chile pepper-people and "the last virgin" riding a pink, sheep-skin pony. I wish I could post all the pictures here. I took so many. I attended the parade with my cousins and their kids and sat with some friends of theirs who brought bubbles, hula hoops of their own, and pogo sticks. It was fabulous.

Then this weekend I had Sunday off. I went to Pride in Seattle which also had its own awesome parade. The night before I went to see the Seattle Men's Chorus, which was quite possibly the gay-est thing I have ever seen. Ever. And that's saying a lot! The next day was the parade which also featured pirates and the spaghetti monster. I also came to a revelation about the utilikilt. It's made in Seattle and I have seen it everywhere. I never made the connection but it's exceedingly popular in the gay community out here (for men, women and gender non-specific folks). They were everywhere. I have never seem them out of the NW (as far as I can remember). Learn more about them here.

This parade, unlike the Freemont one, did have corporate sponsorship, and being in the NW, Microsoft, Starbucks, Alaska Airlines and WaMu were very well represented (and very, very gay). The Obama love was everywhere. And, my favorite, Dykes on Bikes, was exciting! I can't help but blame my Detroit roots and the Woodward Dream Cruise conditioning to make my heart go pitter-patter with a rev of an engine. Some of the folks at the parade with me felt otherwise, but I couldn't help but find that as possibly my favorite part of the whole parade.

I have soooo many picture from these parades. It was impossible to pick the best ones for the blog. I may have to just post them periodically throughout the year... the pirates, the utilikilt peeps, the drag queens, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, The roller derby girls, the leather fetishists, the rugby folks, WNFL players, the half-naked pregnant goth chicks (above), PFLAG's awesome signs, people dressed as fruits, people dressed as recyclables, more naked bikers and rollerbladers, and more! I'll try to see if I can email a few folks the photo album when I can get it uploaded but if you're interested and haven't received it, feel free to email me for the full photo fun! The photos I've included were picked at random. The one at left only partially shows the scope of the post-parade party that happened at the Seattle Center. Apparently there were 250,000 people there last year. I wonder what the count was this year?

And, as an aside (just to show where my priorities are on this blog), we had graduation for the R3's. It was a festive bitter-sweet event. I got to reunite with Molly, my fellow from my first month of fellowship who has been practicing for the last year in Port Townsend. I also got a fancy certificate saying I finished intern year. The graduating class each had a moment in the spotlight razzed or praised or even serenaded by their advisors. There were lots of speeches, some more relevant than others, mediocre-tasting, but fancy-looking food and a stupendous view (left)!


And, with that, I need to crash. This was a long entry. I feel obligated to reminiscence about the last year. Maybe later. For now sleep is trumping nostalgia. Until later...

Tacoma Pride/Narrows Bridge

So the weekend of July 14th (Happy belated Bastille day everyone) was my first golden weekend of residency. It was a beautiful weekend overall, hot, summery, sunny at just the right times.

Saturday was Tacoma's 10th annual Out in the Park - their Pride festival. I had heard it wasn't much to see, but I had heard wrong. The event was actually very well attended and had lots of good entertainment and a great variety of vendors. I think it probably matched what Motor City Pride was a few years ago - before they got their climbing wall and bigger musical acts. It paled in comparison to Boston pride. But it was nicely tucked in Wright's park and was totally doable solo (while Boston pride is a behemoth city-wide event that may swallow you whole without reinforcements).

The highlights, of course, were the drag queens. There were some great numbers, hip hop, R&B, Tina Turner with huge hair and big moves. The live musical acts were so-so. The Art Festival definitely had better music, but, admittedly, I was only there for a couple hours of the 6-hour event so may have missed some better acts. I could hear everything from my windows all day, though it was difficult to tease out what was live and what was pre-recorded for the drag shows. The had bottled water that was encased in rainbow bottles which was tons of fun. They also had a very comprehensive HIV/AIDS multimedia display, chronicling the history of HIV/AIDS via mostly photo and print. There was also a group of LGBT car collectors and aficionados who brought a few vehicles to show off their wheels.

I met a woman who is starting up a community clinic for LGBT patients. She is an N.D. (naturopathic doctor) and very cool about allopathic medicine working with naturopathic medicine. She's not anti-vaccine, or anti prescription and was really interested in having some help with her clinic. It's only been officially open a almost a month and she's still struggling. It appears she's in need for an MD to do various procedures, paps, colposcopy, and other things. If this clinic gets off the ground (and I can get approval from my program or when I get my license) I might be able to arrange some volunteering (or moonlighting) later on.

Saturday night, after pride was over, almost precisely when the music stopped, my medschool classmate, Jackie came over. We had dinner at one of the restaurants along Ruston Way and crashed to get some shut eye before the Bridge Run the next day.

The Bridge Run was to benefit the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Mary Bridge (the peds hospital at Tacoma General - where I work and where the premature and sick babies I deliver go right now). The run/walk was across the new Tacoma Narrows bridge.

Most everyone has heard of the Tacoma narrows bridge at one point or another. You've probably seen footage of the old bridge's collapse in physics class. The old bridge - nicknamed Galloping Gertie - would ripple and sway in the wind and ultimately fell into the 200 ft deep narrows below. A new bridge was built nearly 50 years ago and now a second bridge has just been finished. This is the one we ran. It's a spectacular suspension bridge. The event was HUGE deal drawing tens of tousands of registered run/walkers and about 60,000 people overall. Click here for a short article talking about the bridge. And click here for an awesome picture gallery that includes some great aerial shots! It appears from those pics that Darth Vader was there and I totally missed him. Ah well.

Some highlights from "The Span" were bagpipers that did the walk - all 5K, playing as far as I could tell. People in fun outfits - dressed as fairies or wearing homemade "Narrows Bridge" hats (see left). There was one old dude who was power-walking, listening to his walkman, and belting out the parts of the tunes he knew. Great fun! The race finished with a few sign-holders asking us to repent, an interesting and totally unexpected surprise. I took a lot of pictures and will upload them to snapfish and share it with many of you.

After the bridge walk Jackie and I treated ourselves to a yummy breakfast at the Old Milwaulkie Cafe (small joint, checkered table cloths, friendly wait staff, hot maple syrup, divine scrambles).

Then Jackie head back to Seattle and I crashed on my couch. All in all it was a great weekend. I hope all my golden weekends are as fun-filled!

For footage of the old bridge's collapse (and to refresh your memory because you know you've seen it) click here! Or, for a less dramatic footage but more dramatic telling, see this old 1940's newsreel - but it doesn't do the oscillations justice - click here!