The Arrogant Acupuncturist
I was standing in the cramped office, listening to the pleasant hum of the fax machine eating my paper when the clinical supervisor on duty asked me if my cohort Jon had written the formula I was faxing.
No, it was me, I replied.
"Oh," he replied smirking, "because Jon keeps nice charts that meet my minimal expectations."
So, here is the thing: Acupuncturists, despite their rather lowly position in the American healthcare system (somewhere between chiropractors and Santeria practitioners), still can be possessed of very large egos. Case in point, our faculty acu-alpha male. He cajoles. He talks down to women. He condescends. He has given me the clinical equivilent of an "F" on two seperate clinic days, and he was implying (with a smirk) that he was going to give me a third.
And do you suppose my fragile ego was hurt? Probably. The thought that passed through my mind was this:
I reckon I might have to kick this guy's ass.
Simple male with wounded pride stuff, really.
In other news, my National Novel Writing Month-- www.nanowrimo.org-- is coming along swimmingly. It's called "Third Eye" and is about a man who starts suffering from possibly meaningful hallucinations. I am monkeying out about two thousand words a day on the thing, and I am pleasantly suprised to notice that the characters are starting to behave on their own a little. It still feels a little stilted. Here is a segment from it, sans italics, paragraph indentations, and normal spacing:
8
Coping was harder than it sounded. The sleep deprivation that was an inconvenience in the hospital became downright dangerous when he was trying to bathe his son, or drive the car. At night, he would sit in a large reclining chair in his office, closing his eyes, but never slipping away. The closest Jack came to sleep was a strange, trance-like state he would gently pass in and out of. He would be sitting, feeling his body get heavy in the chair. His breathing would slow down, and then, the same visual would pop into his head: A long line of people, slowly getting their tickets checked at the airport. This droll, boring imagery, he thought, was the kind of neuronal firing a normal person would have right before they fell asleep. If he could just get on the plane, disappear into the crowd, he would be able to drift away.
But then awareness of the drift would inevitably snap him back to the present moment, and his eyes would pop open. He spent countless hours studying every corner of his office: The mudded beige walls that he had never had a chance to paint before Jack JR was born. The small wooden desk holding his Emac, a large white face staring at him, demanding to know why he wasn’t pounding his two thousand words a day out on the dirty, tea-stained keyboard. The maroon and pumpkin colored rug on an unfinished hardwood floor. His eyes would slowly scan over this space that was so familiar to him, until his body would get heavy in the chair, and his breath would become regular, and then, the polite, boring cattle call, US Airways Flight… and then the ghostly echo of airport sounds becoming white noise… boarding rows thirty-two through fifty, please have your tickets ready. And he tries to mill through the line, get on the plane, get to sleep, and his eyes snap open. Two thirty in the morning, then 4:00, …now boarding rows…
“Hon?” Sheila standing in the doorway. “It’s seven thirty. Can you take baby Jack for a while?” A slight look of distrust. I’m sure you won’t be out of earshot, Hon.
“Yeah, fine.”
Baby Jack wouldn’t go down. He was doing his little trick where he would cry in the bouncy chair, cry in the papazan, cry sitting in daddy’s lap. The only place that baby Jack wouldn’t cry was when his daddy walked him, one hand under his butt, one hand squeezing his tummy. For hours (or at least it seemed that way to Jack) they would pace across the house back and forth, and every time Jack chanced sitting down, he would hear that familiar squack of indignation from his son.
“Shh shh shh…” he shushed in a rhythmic manner, pacing the dining room with a bounce in his step. Jack JR began to calm down, then get heavy in his arms. He paced into the living room, some stupid show on TV with a giant, mouth breather type of guy that somehow landed a wife about ten thousand times hotter than he was. Bounce step, step, “Shh shh shh…” he kept rhythmically shushing and walking and rocking until he tripped on a bloody hooker lying on his dining room floor.
His eyes worked his way down her body, failing to comprehend the tangled mess in front of him. Her frizzy, permed blonde hair was caked with gobs of mucous and blood, leaving one green, brown and red dreadlock stuck to the side of her face. The eye that she had left was rolled back to reveal a bloodshot, milky blue lens. The other eye was a ragged, meaty hole with the orbital bone glinting underneath his chandelier’s gold hued light. Her cheek was unzipped in a perpetual sneer, revealing the jagged edges of shattered teeth that now more resembled fangs. Her neck had three purple rings around it, one of which revealed a slit of skin that opened all the way down to her windpipe.
He made it down to the sunken hollow that used to be her chest before his breath betrayed him, and he fell to his knees, clutching his baby to his own chest, gasping for air. Someone had stomped on her breastplate until it snapped and caved in, the jellied remains hinting at her spine below it.
Cute, huh? It isn't all horrible dead hookers and stuff, just some of it. I sincerely doubt I am going to make 50,000 words by the end of November, but I'll be goddamned if I don't finish this one.
No, it was me, I replied.
"Oh," he replied smirking, "because Jon keeps nice charts that meet my minimal expectations."
So, here is the thing: Acupuncturists, despite their rather lowly position in the American healthcare system (somewhere between chiropractors and Santeria practitioners), still can be possessed of very large egos. Case in point, our faculty acu-alpha male. He cajoles. He talks down to women. He condescends. He has given me the clinical equivilent of an "F" on two seperate clinic days, and he was implying (with a smirk) that he was going to give me a third.
And do you suppose my fragile ego was hurt? Probably. The thought that passed through my mind was this:
I reckon I might have to kick this guy's ass.
Simple male with wounded pride stuff, really.
In other news, my National Novel Writing Month-- www.nanowrimo.org-- is coming along swimmingly. It's called "Third Eye" and is about a man who starts suffering from possibly meaningful hallucinations. I am monkeying out about two thousand words a day on the thing, and I am pleasantly suprised to notice that the characters are starting to behave on their own a little. It still feels a little stilted. Here is a segment from it, sans italics, paragraph indentations, and normal spacing:
8
Coping was harder than it sounded. The sleep deprivation that was an inconvenience in the hospital became downright dangerous when he was trying to bathe his son, or drive the car. At night, he would sit in a large reclining chair in his office, closing his eyes, but never slipping away. The closest Jack came to sleep was a strange, trance-like state he would gently pass in and out of. He would be sitting, feeling his body get heavy in the chair. His breathing would slow down, and then, the same visual would pop into his head: A long line of people, slowly getting their tickets checked at the airport. This droll, boring imagery, he thought, was the kind of neuronal firing a normal person would have right before they fell asleep. If he could just get on the plane, disappear into the crowd, he would be able to drift away.
But then awareness of the drift would inevitably snap him back to the present moment, and his eyes would pop open. He spent countless hours studying every corner of his office: The mudded beige walls that he had never had a chance to paint before Jack JR was born. The small wooden desk holding his Emac, a large white face staring at him, demanding to know why he wasn’t pounding his two thousand words a day out on the dirty, tea-stained keyboard. The maroon and pumpkin colored rug on an unfinished hardwood floor. His eyes would slowly scan over this space that was so familiar to him, until his body would get heavy in the chair, and his breath would become regular, and then, the polite, boring cattle call, US Airways Flight… and then the ghostly echo of airport sounds becoming white noise… boarding rows thirty-two through fifty, please have your tickets ready. And he tries to mill through the line, get on the plane, get to sleep, and his eyes snap open. Two thirty in the morning, then 4:00, …now boarding rows…
“Hon?” Sheila standing in the doorway. “It’s seven thirty. Can you take baby Jack for a while?” A slight look of distrust. I’m sure you won’t be out of earshot, Hon.
“Yeah, fine.”
Baby Jack wouldn’t go down. He was doing his little trick where he would cry in the bouncy chair, cry in the papazan, cry sitting in daddy’s lap. The only place that baby Jack wouldn’t cry was when his daddy walked him, one hand under his butt, one hand squeezing his tummy. For hours (or at least it seemed that way to Jack) they would pace across the house back and forth, and every time Jack chanced sitting down, he would hear that familiar squack of indignation from his son.
“Shh shh shh…” he shushed in a rhythmic manner, pacing the dining room with a bounce in his step. Jack JR began to calm down, then get heavy in his arms. He paced into the living room, some stupid show on TV with a giant, mouth breather type of guy that somehow landed a wife about ten thousand times hotter than he was. Bounce step, step, “Shh shh shh…” he kept rhythmically shushing and walking and rocking until he tripped on a bloody hooker lying on his dining room floor.
His eyes worked his way down her body, failing to comprehend the tangled mess in front of him. Her frizzy, permed blonde hair was caked with gobs of mucous and blood, leaving one green, brown and red dreadlock stuck to the side of her face. The eye that she had left was rolled back to reveal a bloodshot, milky blue lens. The other eye was a ragged, meaty hole with the orbital bone glinting underneath his chandelier’s gold hued light. Her cheek was unzipped in a perpetual sneer, revealing the jagged edges of shattered teeth that now more resembled fangs. Her neck had three purple rings around it, one of which revealed a slit of skin that opened all the way down to her windpipe.
He made it down to the sunken hollow that used to be her chest before his breath betrayed him, and he fell to his knees, clutching his baby to his own chest, gasping for air. Someone had stomped on her breastplate until it snapped and caved in, the jellied remains hinting at her spine below it.
Cute, huh? It isn't all horrible dead hookers and stuff, just some of it. I sincerely doubt I am going to make 50,000 words by the end of November, but I'll be goddamned if I don't finish this one.
posted by Dr. Sun Si Miao at 4:03 AM
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