To catch up---after meeting up with Luke at the pigeonhole bar, we went to North Beach for so quality Italian food. Dinner was also the site of Luke’s much anticipated “experiment.” Basically, with Luke’s M.D., treating it more like a P.h.D, he initiated a quasi-experimental study using a series of questions aimed at getting the gist of my psyche prior to the commencement of this trip, to be followed up with similar questions at the halfway and endpoint of the trip. I have labeled it “wine science” as that is what it took a lot of to keep a straight face during his line of questioning. Regardless, it will be pretty funny to reflect back on my answers a year or more from now (it was recorded). After dinner, went to a pretty eclectic jazz bar in the Mission area. The night ended with me crashing on the couch and eventually Luke’s un-informed-of-my-stay roommate coming home and wondering who and the hell was sleeping on her couch. Like the respectable couch crasher that I have become, I faked asleep to avoid any confrontation. On to the next day….
Wasted Day! Woke up at noon—mostly because every time I got up prior, it was pouring rain, which was going to make me a prisoner inside anyway. Finally, I got up and made the unavoidable introduction to Luke’s roommate (whose expression I believe I accurately read as “get the f*&% out of my house”). Not having the enthusiasm nor desire to charm her, the animosity remained. Later, seeing no end to the rain, I decided to brave it and go buy some lunch material to make some grub for when Luke stopped home on his lunch break. I went out the back door of the house and was alarmed when I shut the door to find it self-locking. Nevertheless, Luke was due back soon so I went to the store and returned not long later, rain-soaked and locked-out (author’s note: Luke’s roommate was home at the time, however, judging from our first encounter, I would rather hang outside in the rain than to have to have her let me in the house—which would be seen as a victory for her). But, as the lucky rabbit’s foot has blessed me with fortune on the trip thus far, it struck again and I found a cooler in the backyard, a remnant of a past party (hopefully within a month’s time ago), that was filled with a couple of luke-warm beers to help pass my rainy lock-out. Eventually Luke did come home, but to add insult to injury, the power was out due to a bad storm hitting the SF area. So, while Luke was back at work, I read a book by candlelight and contemplated my recent bout of misfortune—rabbit’s foot be damned. Later, after several hours of dark solitude, Luke returned and we plotted our strategy for the night…
The plan: my unparalleled access into the happenings of an emergency room trauma center. The setting: an unnamed hospital in the Bay Area. How: using the access tools of a duplicate hospital badge, hospital scrubs, and under the auspices of being a medical student, I shadowed Dr. Luke to get a feel how he interacts in his element (check out the pic of us using the on-call pagers). Having been told by Luke that the night could possibly end up with me stitching a few people up or applying pressure to a sucking wound, I was a bit reserved about where the night was heading. Having shown up at the hospital around 10pm, we sat around earnestly praying for serious trauma to be inflicted on someone so we could take part it the repairing process. To humanity’s benefit and to our misfortune, no one got drunk and stabbed each other that night (probably due to the rain), but we did get to see some legitimate ER action.
Later, as we reflected upon the fact that I have spent the last 5 nights crashing on 5 different couches in as many different locations, we decided that a good goal of the trip would be snap a picture of all my different sleeping locations while on the road. And so, henceforth I will try to do just that.
Wasted Day! Woke up at noon—mostly because every time I got up prior, it was pouring rain, which was going to make me a prisoner inside anyway. Finally, I got up and made the unavoidable introduction to Luke’s roommate (whose expression I believe I accurately read as “get the f*&% out of my house”). Not having the enthusiasm nor desire to charm her, the animosity remained. Later, seeing no end to the rain, I decided to brave it and go buy some lunch material to make some grub for when Luke stopped home on his lunch break. I went out the back door of the house and was alarmed when I shut the door to find it self-locking. Nevertheless, Luke was due back soon so I went to the store and returned not long later, rain-soaked and locked-out (author’s note: Luke’s roommate was home at the time, however, judging from our first encounter, I would rather hang outside in the rain than to have to have her let me in the house—which would be seen as a victory for her). But, as the lucky rabbit’s foot has blessed me with fortune on the trip thus far, it struck again and I found a cooler in the backyard, a remnant of a past party (hopefully within a month’s time ago), that was filled with a couple of luke-warm beers to help pass my rainy lock-out. Eventually Luke did come home, but to add insult to injury, the power was out due to a bad storm hitting the SF area. So, while Luke was back at work, I read a book by candlelight and contemplated my recent bout of misfortune—rabbit’s foot be damned. Later, after several hours of dark solitude, Luke returned and we plotted our strategy for the night…
The plan: my unparalleled access into the happenings of an emergency room trauma center. The setting: an unnamed hospital in the Bay Area. How: using the access tools of a duplicate hospital badge, hospital scrubs, and under the auspices of being a medical student, I shadowed Dr. Luke to get a feel how he interacts in his element (check out the pic of us using the on-call pagers). Having been told by Luke that the night could possibly end up with me stitching a few people up or applying pressure to a sucking wound, I was a bit reserved about where the night was heading. Having shown up at the hospital around 10pm, we sat around earnestly praying for serious trauma to be inflicted on someone so we could take part it the repairing process. To humanity’s benefit and to our misfortune, no one got drunk and stabbed each other that night (probably due to the rain), but we did get to see some legitimate ER action.
Later, as we reflected upon the fact that I have spent the last 5 nights crashing on 5 different couches in as many different locations, we decided that a good goal of the trip would be snap a picture of all my different sleeping locations while on the road. And so, henceforth I will try to do just that.
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