Confidential WIP
How can anyone work in this hole? Been workin all day on public procurement. Illustrated Man, a secret tender for an AVMC, audio visual mixing console.
Yeaah, yeaah, cold, dark, wet, dirty scenes. Aint so concerned about the facts tho, cause soon as they be warmin up, dryin out, lookin pretty gaudawful, propped up against the lite, i be sideways lookin past tissues. Human flesh, nothin to write on or see thru, mind you, wrinkles, fall, flat, quick, cold, dark and dirty as...
Haha, gotcha now, reckon she be doomed here, rising to bang, boom, howl hangin onto banknotes, bills and brooms, and scratch yer back if you scratch mine, frazzle and fray tenderly. Yer honor, ever forget compassion? The Sound and the Furry? Roaring lions.
Did I never tell ya once I had a niece, nice, did i?
Konfidentiell WIP (or Let Google do the Dirty Work)
Hur kan man arbeta i det här hålet? Jobbat hela dagen med en offentlig upphandling. En Illustrerad Man, ett hemligt anbud för en AVMC, audiovisuella mixerbord.
Yeaah, yeaah, kalla, mörka, blöta, smutsiga scener. Jag är inte så bekymrad över fakta eftersom så snart som de värms and torkas, ser de Gud så hemska ut, lutar sig mot ljuset, sidledes förbi vävnader. Mänskligt kött, ingenting att skriva om eller se igenom, märk väl, rynkor faller, platt, snabbt, kalla, mörka och smutsiga som ...
Haha, Gotcha nu, tror hon var dömd härmed till bang, boom, tar tag i sedlar, räkningar och kvastar, och löften om att skrapa din rygg om du kliar min tillbaka, slita och öma. Din Höghet, min ära, har du någonsin medlidit? Skrikit ut din ilska?
Berättade jag aldrig att jag hade en släkting, gjorde jag?
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Stinging bee
“I think most people are too young to choose a profession like medicine when they come straight out of high school. Look at Monique, a few years more might have changed her mind about going into the profession.”
Monique was a French woman who had joined their class in their final year. While she was a couple of years younger than most of them, she had already received her medical degree and done her internship in Paris before she came to the US. She seemed very unhappy at UC Med, and most of her classmates, figuring she was homesick and didn’t like having to retake a year of medical school and redo her internship, were sympathetic, in the beginning.
She soon became the kind of person whom a lot of people either instinctively avoided or simply disliked. No one could say why, just that she seemed to exude some sort of hazardous emission. For some reason, her very appearance had a tendency to bring out coffee klatsch filters. While no one had ever talked about it much before…that wouldn’t have been polite as long as she was around… they had all sensed it, in different ways.
“Somewhere beneath her heavy brows, she always seemed to stare vacantly at her listless hands, resting in a stack on her lap. And everyone else had to look at them too, however inadvertently, because they wondered what it was she was actually cooking up. Pot luck?”
“Once she showed me a photo of a goose in a silver locket she wore around her neck. Said the goose had been silly enough to think she was its mother. Blamed it on her father when that the goose ended up in a silver terrine on the family dinner table. So much for secret loves, and civilized family meals. Otherwise her lips stayed pursed as a roach clip.”
“Her hands were like broken wings, I suppose, and she knew it was best to keep them still. Hurts less that way, and probably heals faster.”
No one seemed to know what had become of her, only that she had married a wealthy businessman whom she had met in Paris, and gone to work at a public hospital as an anesthesiologist.
“I thought she seemed to breath in fresh air through the darkest pores along the wings of her nose, and breath out some innocuous gas that put her and everyone around her in a trance. A true anesthesiologist.”
“Now that sounds like something a real doctor would say, Barb. I thought she looked like she was always gazing through a screen of invisible bangs, or through the black veil on a pin hat. I remember she had a very distinct widow’s peak, long watery blond hair pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck. I often felt like trying to lift that veil, to stroke the loose strands of hair away from her forehead and describe what I saw, but Monique didn't offer much art, none of her own pictures, none of her own words.”
“That was the problem with Monique, no skills, no craft, and yet the few things she ever said or did made her seem crafty, sly, rather than shy.”
“ She just didn’t look healthy at all to me, more like a glossy mirror that vibrates just before it’s going to shatter. Not exactly the kind of doctor you want to anesthetize you before you go into surgery. Who wants to end up on a stainless steel platter in a refrigerator room after a good meal?”
“But I can’t help wondering how I would have felt about her if she had been able to reach out?”
“She did stick out, her tongue. Stung. Yellow jacket, WASP. I saw her in a Mustang convertible with windblown hair, and a bouquet of sunflowers in her embrace, and I believe she almost looked happy.”
“I saw her that day too, though she looked sad to me. Hard to know what was cupped in the palms of her hands. A coin, heads or tails, make it or break it, safe bet? Money, honey, blew her away.”
“ Maybe she was just embarrassed because she had psoriasis or something. Cracked, red, dry, scabs. Not a hand people usually like to hold, exactly, though hardly contagious.”
“I actually saw her once in a bathing suit, low back with a floral pattern - huge pink petals, with lime green pistils and sticky yellow stamens. Gaudy awful, had to recoil when she turned her back on me. It wasn’t pretty, allergic reaction, lots of pimples and puss.”
Suddenly they all giggled. Sign of a successful bee in the bonnet of med students.
“Oh Jesus. Just keep an eye on where you put that needle, will you. This is a sewing bee, not a stinging bee. No need to prick your finger to check your own blood, sugar. Wake up, put on a thimble or you are going to have a lotta blood on your hands too. Bumblebee flies by the power of their own ignorance, and neither the queen nor the workers are likely to sting if we don’t disturb them.”
“Oh genius bombus, you are, but that cuckoo gal was different Maxine. Bad genes, I'd say. Just listen to that buzz. Without basic social skills or even an ability to collect pollen, she can get pretty invasive. I think we better keep an eye on her.”
Monique was a French woman who had joined their class in their final year. While she was a couple of years younger than most of them, she had already received her medical degree and done her internship in Paris before she came to the US. She seemed very unhappy at UC Med, and most of her classmates, figuring she was homesick and didn’t like having to retake a year of medical school and redo her internship, were sympathetic, in the beginning.
She soon became the kind of person whom a lot of people either instinctively avoided or simply disliked. No one could say why, just that she seemed to exude some sort of hazardous emission. For some reason, her very appearance had a tendency to bring out coffee klatsch filters. While no one had ever talked about it much before…that wouldn’t have been polite as long as she was around… they had all sensed it, in different ways.
“Somewhere beneath her heavy brows, she always seemed to stare vacantly at her listless hands, resting in a stack on her lap. And everyone else had to look at them too, however inadvertently, because they wondered what it was she was actually cooking up. Pot luck?”
“Once she showed me a photo of a goose in a silver locket she wore around her neck. Said the goose had been silly enough to think she was its mother. Blamed it on her father when that the goose ended up in a silver terrine on the family dinner table. So much for secret loves, and civilized family meals. Otherwise her lips stayed pursed as a roach clip.”
“Her hands were like broken wings, I suppose, and she knew it was best to keep them still. Hurts less that way, and probably heals faster.”
No one seemed to know what had become of her, only that she had married a wealthy businessman whom she had met in Paris, and gone to work at a public hospital as an anesthesiologist.
“I thought she seemed to breath in fresh air through the darkest pores along the wings of her nose, and breath out some innocuous gas that put her and everyone around her in a trance. A true anesthesiologist.”
“Now that sounds like something a real doctor would say, Barb. I thought she looked like she was always gazing through a screen of invisible bangs, or through the black veil on a pin hat. I remember she had a very distinct widow’s peak, long watery blond hair pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck. I often felt like trying to lift that veil, to stroke the loose strands of hair away from her forehead and describe what I saw, but Monique didn't offer much art, none of her own pictures, none of her own words.”
“That was the problem with Monique, no skills, no craft, and yet the few things she ever said or did made her seem crafty, sly, rather than shy.”
“ She just didn’t look healthy at all to me, more like a glossy mirror that vibrates just before it’s going to shatter. Not exactly the kind of doctor you want to anesthetize you before you go into surgery. Who wants to end up on a stainless steel platter in a refrigerator room after a good meal?”
“But I can’t help wondering how I would have felt about her if she had been able to reach out?”
“She did stick out, her tongue. Stung. Yellow jacket, WASP. I saw her in a Mustang convertible with windblown hair, and a bouquet of sunflowers in her embrace, and I believe she almost looked happy.”
“I saw her that day too, though she looked sad to me. Hard to know what was cupped in the palms of her hands. A coin, heads or tails, make it or break it, safe bet? Money, honey, blew her away.”
“ Maybe she was just embarrassed because she had psoriasis or something. Cracked, red, dry, scabs. Not a hand people usually like to hold, exactly, though hardly contagious.”
“I actually saw her once in a bathing suit, low back with a floral pattern - huge pink petals, with lime green pistils and sticky yellow stamens. Gaudy awful, had to recoil when she turned her back on me. It wasn’t pretty, allergic reaction, lots of pimples and puss.”
Suddenly they all giggled. Sign of a successful bee in the bonnet of med students.
“Oh Jesus. Just keep an eye on where you put that needle, will you. This is a sewing bee, not a stinging bee. No need to prick your finger to check your own blood, sugar. Wake up, put on a thimble or you are going to have a lotta blood on your hands too. Bumblebee flies by the power of their own ignorance, and neither the queen nor the workers are likely to sting if we don’t disturb them.”
“Oh genius bombus, you are, but that cuckoo gal was different Maxine. Bad genes, I'd say. Just listen to that buzz. Without basic social skills or even an ability to collect pollen, she can get pretty invasive. I think we better keep an eye on her.”
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Sewing bee
“Some natural historian you’ve turned out to be, Maxine. Your invitation was really fitting.” She'd been charmed by the insect collection on the cover of the card that Maxine had sent out, inviting them, a group of old classmates to a potluck sewing bee. “Quite a source of inspiration for visionaries like us. So neat and tidy, and what a chorus line with so many fine legs in perfect alignment, not to mention those fuzzy coats, fragile wings and compound eyes.”
Maxine widens her big black tea, flying saucer eyes as she helps Sara off with her yellow jacket, wrapping it neatly on a hanger. Taking Sara’s hands into her own, she pecks her lightly on both cheeks.
“I like it when it’s obvious that you’ve been doing some serious scientific thinking about us, replete with family names and collection dates. I could identify right away with pinup number 20 of the bombus family. Has it really been 10 years since we first met? Jeeessus how time flies.”
“You know, after her death they put Frida’s diary in a plexiglass box too, and someone kept turning the pages every day for the whole world to see: heavy brows, drawn together into one bird, and tiny wings attached to dismembered feet, a piedestal at the bottom of the page with the caption: Pies para que los quiero si tengo alas pa' volar! Why do I want feet when I have wings?"
“They all fit right into that plexiglass box, all those specimens. Tupperware may be good for a lot, but just isn’t transparent, nor rigid enough. Remember nothing we say is to leave this room, must remain behind our ironing curtain.”
“We’re not spring chicks any more are we?”
“No, but a little metamorphosis has done wonders for you Max. I like your antennae. Suits you, those hat pins, though the pinheads somehow dwarf your collection.”
“St Mary’s intensive care has its benefits, but they force the interns to work long hours. Before the day is over you actually need those perks.”
Before either of them has a chance to say more, the doorbell rings again, and again, and again. “OK I’m no longer an intern on call now, but accepting regular duty.”
“Remember how Monique always recommended that we tell patients with a loose screw to go back wherever they came from. Maybe that was her appeal, to us? Maybe it’s better late than never to take her advice, huh Maxine?”
“I didn’t hear that Sara.”
When all the girls had arrived, a warm buzz filled Maxine’s bright yellow pad on the 17 floor, with a bay view.
“I can’t imagine a better housewarming cohort, so make yourselves at home,” Maxine announces. “Bees have to travel 50,000 miles, more than twice around the earth, for every pound of honey. Of course, no single honeybee ever made a pound of honey by herself. We need each other, working women with potluck.”
They all have so much to talk about, cosmos, nasturtiums, pistils and stamens, sweet blue peas, red currants, black forests, yellow trees, rivers, lakes and mushrooms.
Then Liz happens to mention Monique again…
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