Open Letter to Dick Cheney

Dear Dick:

I just read you're over at GW Hospital getting a coronary angiogram. (You didn't tell me you were here in town - why didn't you call? Anyway...) Total bummer. Did the doctors have trouble finding your coronary arteries? I mean, on account of you not having a heart and all?

Haha. Just kidding. A little medical humor there (I couldn't resist).

Anyway, I'll make this short since you don't seem to have much time left. Here's the thing:

You should just stop already.

Seriously. You've given it a valiant fight, but time to hang it up. I think your many and endless years of ornery-ness, bile, lies and general asshol-iness have (finally) taken their toll and you should read the signs and just retire for good. While you still have some time.

I mean, c'mon - you showed up to Obama's Inauguration - your last day in office - in a fucking wheelchair for fuck sakes. You should have just gone quietly into the night back then.

But Christ on a bike, you rose back up (kinda reminds me of the old Friday the 13th/Jason motto - "Nothing this evil ever dies" - hahahah. Just kidding.) and started to do the whole Sunday morning talk show circuit. What was that all about, anyway? I mean, we didn't hear two peeps from you for that whole 8 years you were our fucking Veep. Then, when you're done supposedly co-leading our country, we can't get you to fucking shut the hell up. Shouldn't it have been the other way around or something?

Anyway, haven't you had 4 heart attacks already? I think somewhere around myocardial infarction #2 you should have been thinking, "Geez, maybe I should slow down or something." I'm still just a nurse in training and perhaps not really qualified to make the following assessment, but: As Roxette would say, "Listen to your heart, when (s)he's calling for you..." And just take a permanent break.

So in closing, I guess what I'm saying is: I think it is time to give it up. Retire -- for good this time. The country is really trying to move on from those 8 years you were around, and so should you.

Peace out.

24 Hours...

As of 1 pm today, I've been on campus for 24 hours straight. As in, I arrived on campus yesterday afternoon and haven't left yet. I studied at the library until about 2 am, headed over to Dahlgren and went to bed on a couch there.

I didn't really feel like cycling home in the cold over the snow and iced streets, only to turn back around and head back four hours later.

There's a first for everything, I suppose. On the plus side, I got an A in my exam this morning, but in general I am getting my ass handed to me in a soup bowl this semester.

Slow News Day, NYT?

It's midnight, and I'm at the library spending more time avoiding studying for my Healthcare of Women exam (in about 9 hours) than I am, well, studying.

Anyway, I open NYT.com and this is their (online) top story.

Really?

The Icing on the SnOwMG Cake...

The school has taken away our scheduled three-day holiday weekend. We no longer have President's Day off and are expected to come in tomorrow like it is a regular Monday.

If my spirit wasn't already broken from Noro-geddon, the subsequent quarantine, the snow, and Friday's soul-crushing Med-Surg exam, I'd prolly be quite upset. But no: at this point, I'm officially beaten into submission.

Waaah-waaah.

Maybe It Truly is the Snowpocalypse...

This afternoon around 3pm I was walking towards DuPont Circle. I get to the corner of Columbia Road and Connecticut Ave. NW - a very busy intersection. There's the Washington Hilton, and Churchill Hotel and a Courtyard Marriott; lots of people around, etc.; you can see for yourself here.

And I witness I guy in his car pull up to the red light, get out of his car, walk over to the curb, whip out his dick and take a piss right there on the sidewalk. In broad daylight, in public, with lots of people walking around.

Have we truly lost any sense of decorum or common decency because of this snowstorm? In what universe is it OK to expose your cock and urinate on the sidewalk, anywhere, at any time of day?

If this is what we've devolved to, fuck the cabin fever - I'm staying indoors until the snow melts and people regain some self-dignity. Which should be sometime in April.

Why Is This Even Up For Discussion?

Cabin Fever.... Need... to get... out of apartment....

Quarantined!

So due to SnOwMG, school has been canceled for the last two days. Which is good considering I've been sick and unable to study for Med-Surg or do any other kind of homework. But some of my professors seem to be going ape-shit because if this. Seems our semester is so tightly scheduled that to miss even one day (let alone 2 or 3 - - my prediction: no school for the entire week) throws everything off-kilter.

Regardless, I've been informed that due to the weekend's norovirus, I am to stay indoors through tomorrow. Quarantined to my man-cave apartment. At some point I need to get out for some supplies, maybe a little Chipotle action, maybe a salty-sweet cookie from Sticky Fingers (if they're open) but I need to be stealth about it and not breathe on anyone.

The thing is: I prolly would have stayed in and laid around anyway, but once you're told that you have to stay in, that's when I start to lose my shit.

This Is Why I Hate Being Single II (Or: Noro-Geddon)

I'm gonna spare everyone most of the details, but while the rest of DC was out playing in the snow Friday night and Saturday, I found myself spending that time alternately doubled over the toilet vomiting and shitting my innards out, or curled into the fetal position, shivering and sweating, praying to God for a quick and merciful death.

I caught a Norovirus (see image above) from working at the hospital Thursday, and I was its little bitch for about 24 hours this weekend. At first I thought it was food poisoning, but after some emails and phone calls I discovered on Saturday that it was a nasty acquired virus.

The worst part: by about 2 am Saturday morning, after a few hours of dry-heaves and delirium, I began to feel like I was going to die. Alone. Even my landlords, who were in Colorado on vacation, were not around to rescue me if I needed them. I began thinking that I was somehow going to die in my bed that night, and it would be a week - at least - until anyone found my dead, dehydrated carcass.

It was enough to make a guy start to weep. Which I'm fairly certain I did. Although I can't be 100% confident since I also seem to recall having a deep and insightful conversation with my ceiling fan and barking like a dog before finally succumbing to fever-induced sleep sometime around 3 am.

Moral of the story: Find a boyfriend or girlfriend. That way, if you contract a norovirus someone will know if you die from it.

This Is Why I Hate Being Single (Pt. 1)

So the Snowcapalypse 2 - Electric Boogaloo has hit. More like Snow-My-God-People-Are- Already-Pissing-Me-Off-And-It's-Just-Started.

The snow began falling this morning around 11 am. I could see it through the window in Med-Surg class. Not that I wasn't paying 100% of my attention to Med-Surg.

But anyway: Last night after class I had to go to Giant to get some dinner. I really wished I didn't have to go, because I knew it would be filled with idiots and desperation - people who think that 18 inches of snow is going to destroy their lives, so we'd better stock up on Eggo Waffles and roasted chicken. Even at 10:30 at night, when I arrived, it was pretty ridic - the place was packed with people freaking the fuck out. Nevermind that the woman with her cart filled with Totinos Pizza Rolls hasn't realized that she's fucked if the power goes out in her apartment, which it often will during a snowstorm. These people are amateurs.

But anyway: I get my bread, turkey, tomatoes and cheese and get into the 12 items or less express lane. And this line is fucking looooong. Fine, this is what I get. Immediately in front of me is a young couple, who get in line together and I notice they got nothing in their hands. Then the guy leaves his girlfriend there and returns about 10 minutes later with some stuff. Then they tag team: he's now staying behind while she goes and gets more stuff. Like they're playing fucking Supermarket Sweep or something. God, that kills me.

You can't do a preemptive line placeholder at the supermarket! You can't get in line until after you collect your purchases! This is bullshit!

So once they have their items, I say loud enough so they can hear me: "Jeez, it sucks being single." Which is, at least in this instance, true. It isn't so much that I'm pissed at them. It's more like I'm jealous. Crafty bastards.

It's February and I Haven't Blogged in a Month...

... let me get you up to speed:

• School is already turned into one nasty little bitch. Last semester I'd heard rumors that 2nd semester was supposed to be easy, or at least easier than first semester. This is turning out to be entirely untrue.
• Despite this, I've been hitting the gym on a very regular basis, which has been good. Not only am I doing this in order to keep sane, but also because a few weeks ago I volunteered to participate in my swim team's fundraising bachelor auction to be held in about a week. What the fuck was I thinking? Apparently the idea of humiliating myself on a stage in public is something I'm open to.
• In theory I'm no longer celibate. That ban officially lifted on Saturday, Dec. 19th, 2009. And yet here we are, 6 weeks later, and I'm just as horny and un-laid as I was then. At least from August through late December I had an excuse. But now: well, this is just kinda pathetic. So I think I'm going to employ a new strategy: tell people I'm still celibate, then drop the act the minute someone even remotely attractive shows the least bit of interest. Either that, or slip a mickey in someone's drink.*
• While riding my bike home from school one night this week, I got doored by some asshole who: 1) obviously didn't look into his mirror before opening his door, and; 2) tried to say it the whole thing was my fault, and; 3) threatened to call the cops once we got into a shouting match and when I said, "Please DO call the cops because I think they'll see things my way!" totally backed down and eventually apologized. Which is all I wanted in the first place. I know it was an accident and I know that when you bike in this city you need to accept that things like this are going to happen. But when he said that I need to be more careful and the whole thing was my fault, well, that's when I lose my shit.
  

* This is a joke, people. As someone who was once on the receiving end of a roofie, I know that shit just ain't cool.