we remember

veteran's day

rut

so, i have been learning a lot about hunting. apparently in chillicothe everything revolves around hunting. we have several gentlemen who are resistant to having to miss out on (insert aspect of hunting here) due to pesky health care appointments. a few weeks ago it was explained to me by a man who only communicates by nodding and writing brief notes on a pad of paper he carries in his pocket that it was a severe inconvenience to schedule follow-up bloodwork. as an explanation, he offers this note: "it's rut". i look at him quizzically and tell him i don't know what that is. he starts to blush and kind of fumble around, and finally writes "makes deer run". suddenly, it clicks. all the male deer are out chasing after the ladies, which makes them easy pickings.

in a related story, we had to explain to one of our long term care dementia guys he can't ride through the halls in his wheelchair without any pants. it's offensive to other residents and visitors. he replied "i'm gonna get a tattoo on my ass that says 'property of dr. (name of attending)'".

gun season starts monday.

who's keeping score?

last night, i had a throwdown with a PA.

to summarize, i was staffing the inpatient pharmacy. the MOD (medical doctor on duty) entered a script for buprenorphine, or subutex (i couldn't find subutex.com, so here's suboxone, which contains buprenorphine). bottom line is only one MD in our hospital is allowed to prescribe it because special certification is required. guess what? the MOD was not that guy.

so after a frustrating discussion with the MOD, she hands the phone to some guy who starts berating me. i inquire, "i'm sorry, who is this?" to which the voice on the other end of the line replies, "i'm mr. ******, the PA in blah, blah, blah". voice continues to bully, saying how can i interrupt this patient's therapy, etc. etc. i say, "you don't need to get testy with me, we just need to figure out what we're going to do". after the telephone equivalent of a stare down, megalomaniac PA agrees to call MD who can prescribe the medication in question.

i must have really pissed him off when i told him not to get testy with me, cause what does PA do? calls the chief of pharmacy to tattle on me.

later i needed to confirm that PA really wanted to prescribe the same medication in 2 different forms to be given at the same time. when he returns my call, with an absolute lack of pleasantries, he just says "what do you want?" i explain, he says yes, he wants it as he wrote it. i confirm, and he says to just do what i want. what i wanted to do was walk down to the floor and punch him in the throat, but instead i paged the MOD and had the orders changed.

errgh.

choke

never choke if i'm around.

dr. heimlich would have been so disappointed in my skills at his manuever. today we had cpr certification and while i seem perfectly proficient at 100 compressions per minute, that tricky upward thrust to dislodge chokable niblets eludes me. the nurse teaching had to move the choking-hazard-on-a-string to the front of the dummy's mouth so i could satisfactorily pop it out with a well-placed, though very weak, thrust.

apparently one must have a degree of upper body strength i lack in order to execute the perfect heimlich manuever.

you've been warned.

i'm an expert!

i survived my first panel discussion as an "expert". it helped quell my rampaging butterflies that only about 10 people showed up. so i was effectively able to field the questions without sounding like too much of an idiot. at least i hope not.

i think it was because i accidentally wore my underwear inside out all day. i read a long time ago, when i was a kid, that if you serendipitously put an article of clothing on inside out, you will be graced with good luck the whole day through.

what i didn't want to do

i totally had no desire to make this blog about how i spend most of my time riddled with self-doubt and questioning my decision-making skills, both in life and pharmacy practice. i should have chosen a career my suitable to my anxiety issues, prehaps a trash collector or part of the division of abercrombie and fitch that distresses jeans for purchase by spoiled adolescents. it wouldn't matter if i messed up; destruction is part of the job process.

but, unfortunately, i had a particularly bad week two weeks ago and this coming week, i am expected to serve on an expert panel. the purpose of this expert panel is to do a q&a about suicide in celebration of suicide prevention week. i do not feel my knowledge of drugs and suicidality is adequate to qualify me as an "expert", so i have been spending the weekend cramming and making notes so i don't look like a total idiot. really i'm less concerned about looking like an idiot than providing bad information. one would expect those on an expert panel to have some inkling of what they are talking about, and it terrifies me to think i could say something that would in any way influence treatment decisions.

i guess in some respects my absolute lack of confidence is good. it compels me to always care about what i'm doing, to pay attention, and to keep learning.

my senior quote in high school was a few lines from a billy joel song, "shades of grey wherever i go/the more i find out, the less i know". i have always found this to be true.

northern exposure

ok, so i know i have been a terrible blogger and my contributions to this page have been minimal. reason being, i use a computer all day and the absolute last thing i feel like doing is picking up my laptop when i get home.
anyway, life in chillicothe is humming along. i joined a gym and started taking zumba to counteract the fried food so prevalent here. it's pretty awesome. i am off psychiatry and on to internal medicine. as much as i love psych, i didn't really feel like divulging tales from the psych ward. frankly, the month was pretty uneventful. lots of substance abuse, which is 1)boring, and 2) frustrating. frustrating because it's such a revolving door. i had some guys last month that i had last year at this time who were back again to go through detox and treatment. plus, i don't want to write about people who spend $700/day on cocaine or live under a bridge and are accosted by children throwing rocks because they're drunk and homeless (the vet, not the children). that shit's depressing. i'd rather be able to talk about how someone came in and was depressed and we fixed him up and made him better through a combination of appropriate medications and psychosocial rehabilitation. unfortunately i just didn't experience that satisfaction.
anyway, what i have been doing in my spare time (besides zumba) is watching dvd box sets of northern exposure. i love that show. the moose walking down mainstreet? classic! i've come to realize that this show was my basis for my whole impression of small town life. quirky, colorful inhabitants who debate the finer points of philosophy and native wisdom while drinking beer and/or hunting in beautiful alaskan wilderness. i feel a sort of communion with the displaced dr. fleischman. now, i know southern ohio is definitely NOT alaska and i am not a jewish new yorker, but where are my quirky, colorful inhabitants? the pensive disc jockey who waxes metaphysically? the ex-astronaut who has christened the area "the riviera of ohio"? why am i stuck in a town that is populated by a large percentage of people who think shirts and shoes are optional, and not in an endearing way?

this is just another example of how the media has done me a disservice. for another instance, we can talk about what jane austen has done to shape my unrealistic expectations for love and romance. but another time.

my point is...i really have no point. in closing, i just want say what i will be missing out on by heading home to cincy this weekend: the easy rider biker rally. it's supposedly like mardi gras in black leather. sorry to miss out on the debauchery at the fairgrounds, but luckily chillicothe is much closer than alaska and i can retreat home.

dashboard confessional

the taste of chillicothe

this is my second year attending the taste of chillicothe. i was pleased to see this year there were a few more vendors and a lot more traffic. the price can't be beat - $5 got me half a sub sandwich, half a chocolate pie from mcdonald's, a slice of little caesar's and a bread stick, pulled pork flat bread from old canal smokehouse, some bourbon chicken and a brownie from golden corral, and a half tenderloin sandwich from the paint grill. plus live music. much better deal than the rip-off that is taste of cincinnati.

the taste takes place on what i like to refer to as the grassy knoll next to the majestic theater. i think the official name is the courtyard. apparently there used to be a building there but it burned down, as everything in chillicothe seems to do.

everyone kept amanda's pug-chihuahua, wilson, well fed. i think he may have had a touch of indigestion by the end, because he quit begging and started being antisocial.

fear

psychotic people do not frighten me. they can talk about angels and voices and other patients spiking the coffee pot with drugs and it doesn't bother me. hypersexuality doesn't intimidate me. never once has a patient made me feel unsafe.

until today.

we were meeting today with patients who are followed by the outpatient clinic. one of the patients was demanding a dose reduction of her haldol because it was too high and making her see things. she was hostile. she was unrelenting. and she picked me out of the room of people to fix with her murderous stare. she just kept boring into me, and i didn't know where to look. i tried to glance serenely around the room, pretending i wasn't aware of her gaze, but my stomach was flipping all around. i whispered to one of the nurses that she was freaking me out, and he said he would tell me about her after she left. finally the interview was finished and the dirty blond head with the brutal eyes disappeared from the room. apparently my new friend has a history of attacking females she perceives to be more attractive than her. she has leapt over nursing stations in the past to attack her prey. he finished by saying, "i have no doubt if you would have been sitting closer, she would have attacked you". not exactly comforting.

i think what was so disquieting was the fact she was focused solely on me. i hadn't even said anything during the whole interview, yet something about me had fixated her. it's just unnerving to be the object of such disdain without any provocation - just simply by being.

my preceptor, chris, commented, "well, this is the career you wanted".

psychiatry starts

as usual, liz and the westender are very wise. i made a concerted effort today to make a good dinner - salmon, rice, and carrots. and maybe a bit of chardonnay. much improves the outlook. makes me feel much less pathetic.

it's funny how easy it is to begin forgetting one can leave the house when one has no place to go. vicious cycle.

i also decided to stop titling the posts as if i was counting down a jail sentence.

i really do love what i'm doing. started in psychiatry today and it's fantastic. lots of young vets on the ward right now, freshly returned from iraq and afghanistan. i will refrain from political commentary. i am only here to help their recovery.

Day 30

i am almost 1 month in. i am now a fully functioning, licensed pharmacist. i don't have much to say today other than i am feeling particularly lonely tonight. i've already watched a movie (the great new wonderful, which was not great or wonderful) and read a journal article (melatonin for treatment of sundowning in elderly persons with dementia) for my research project and i even contemplated working out.

maybe i feel listless because i had triscuits and cream cheese for dinner. i feel a dissatisfied stomach can have repercussions.

Day 28

today's adventure: the library.

i finally asked some natives where the public library was located. the described bearings seemed in close proximity to my apartment, so i innocently inquired, "so, i can walk there?".

"NO! you cannot walk there!"

slightly taken aback, i sought more information. the explanations boiled down to one thing; the library is located in a bad neighborhood. shifty characters live around there. i could sit in my car and watch drug deals from the library parking lot.

sounded a bit like westwood. home. sniff.

so i came home today, fully prepared to change, hop back in my car and cruise four blocks to the public library. the more i thought about it, the less i could justify driving such a short distance when i am perfectly capable of walking it. i reasoned that if i started to feel unsafe, i would simply turn around and walk back.

so i set out through the streets of chillicothe, which are fairly desolate at 5:30 in the afternoon. i walk past the courthouse, city hall, and all these amazing "greek revival style" houses (example). i begin wondering when the neighborhood turns bad.

i see a guy wearing a wife beater. obviously the presence of a k-fed style wife beater indicates i am treading on dangerous, corrupt lands.

suddenly, i have arrived at the library. i go in, the super sweet librarian issues me a chillicothe-ross county library card. i check out three books and a dvd and i walk home. end of story. i saw no drug dealers. i was not offered the opportunity to use sex to buy heroin. there wasn't even a cop on duty in the library. at least we've got that in westwood.

isn't all that build up disappointing? i am really curious how chillicotheans would react to cincinnati. afterall, otr is the most dangerous neighborhood in the u.s.

Day 26

as there is a cat somewhere in the alley behind my apartment who is intensely vocal about her desire to mate, sleep is not an option. so i will take this opportunity to comment on the spider situation in chillicothe.

i believe the spiders in chillicothe are inherently more diabolical than their cincinnati cousins. it seems one cannot walk anywhere without sticky spiderwebs clinging to him. i have been monitoring their activities diligently and as far as i can decipher, their stratagem is to create one giant web and ensnare one of the unsuspecting tenants of this apartment building. i will have to remain vigilant. just tonight i dropped my guard and was blatantly attacked by a trip wire strung across the top of the stairs.

below are a few surveillance photos. note the attempt to appear nonchalant as they weave webs of death.

chillicothe landmark of the week!

the building that houses the majestic theater first opened in 1853 as a masonic lodge. it was enlarged and bedecked with finery in 1876 and was named one of the finest theaters in the state. in 1918, nearby camp sherman was terrorized by the spanish influenza, resulting in the deaths of 1100 soldiers and personnel. it is said that during this time, the majestic served as a morgue. bodies were drained of blood in the alley behind the theater, earning the street the nickname "blood alley".

today, the majestic is still a cultural center in chillicothe. it is also purported to be haunted and puts in an appearance on the annual ghost tours, which occur every september and october.

Day 24

a sex offender has moved in around the corner from me. the little notification card appeared in my mailbox. i will know him by the 69, wrapped in a heart, tattooed on his calf.

Day 23

is there live theater in chillicothe besides tecumseh? the answer is: yes. tonight i attended the chillicothe civic theatre's production of URINETOWN.

that is one messed-up musical. very clever, but disturbed.

there were some very talented singers in the cast. it was too bad opening night drew less than 100 people, most of whom seemed to be kin of the actors.

maybe it's the title of the show.

i end with a quotable quote from tonight's entertainment:
“did i send you to the most expensive university in the world to teach you how to feel conflicted, or to learn how to manipulate great masses of people?”
- caldwell b. cladwell; tycoon, villian, and basic asshole

Day 22

rainy days in chillicothe are quite pleasant. the precipitation masks the noxious fumes spewing from the mead plant, the odor of which approximates old, slimy asparagus. the rain gives one's nostrils a hiatus.

i would like to never experience addiction to a prescription medication. several people came to the pharmacy today requesting early refills of their various controlled substances, including one woman whose hands were trembling so badly she had to press them into the counter to halt the quivering.

also seen around the pharmacy today was a man with a homemade tattoo, possibly self-imposed on his forearm, proclaiming "lovestinks".

are tattoos protected health information?

my fun fact for today is that animals do not consume tattooed flesh. do not ask how i became privy to this knowledge. simply accept it and move on.

Day 20

lunchroom conversation today revolved around raising rabbits and pigs. it took me about 10 minutes to figure out what everyone was talking about. apparently there is a weigh-in coming up, i presume for some kind of fair, and everyone is eager for their respective porcine and rabbity endeavors to reach appropriate mass. one guy takes his down to the hardware store to be weighed.

it is currently 3am, and i am awake for 2 reasons. 1) my allergies are horrible. probably something to do with all the rabbit hair swirling around town. 2) i fell asleep on the couch at, oh, let's say 7:30pm and now i am wide awake.

and my psych patients think it's abnormal to be up in the middle of the night.

Day 10

grabbing and twisting certain parts of the male anatomy. breaking a pinkie finger. these are acceptable actions should i find i am unable to extract myself non-violently from assault by a patient. fixable things only. i must protect myself, but also must try to not harm the patient.

i hope i remember this should the need ever arise.

watching a room full of va employees half-heartedly practice breaking free of various holds and grabs is somewhat worrisome. because many are making jokes and stupid poses. and because it really might be necessary someday for me to use these techniques.

a bear has been sighted in and around chillicothe, disturbing trash cans and causing general ruckus. a radio warning reminded citizens to not try to approach or touch the bear.

Day 8

last night tried to study and fell completely asleep. also did not post this:which is a super nifty mural dating back to 1882. obviously this is just a small portion of a depiction that runs the length of a stained glass shop on paint street. it had been was uncovered sometime in the 80s or 90s under decades of paint, and students came out from the university (not sure which one; this is info from the shop owner) to carefully remove the layers and clean it. rumor has it that the entire shop is ringed by this mural, although only one wall is currently exposed.
it's difficult to see in the photo, but the whole surface is etched with cracks. with a dark forest and hilltop castle, it's just like a fairytale.

Day 6

snooze. today was general va training, so i learned i should not allow myself to get stuck with dirty needles and i should wash my hands 1000 times per day. additionally, i was gently "encouraged" to join the federal employees union.

the va police told us that sometimes patients climb into the back of your car and pop up to say hi when you get in to leave at the end of the day.

today i uncovered an important chillicothe landmark - the liquor store. i'm officially instituting margarita mondays.

liz and amanda were easily persuaded after a dose of blue margarita to help me haul a table and chair set up the back stairs. that was a spectacle.

Day 5

here are the random facts i have gleaned about chillicothe thusfar:
1) it has been the capital of ohio not once, but twice
2) apparently some of the best weed in the country comes from around these parts
3) they have the cameras on the redlights
4) don't go to the sack-and-save after dark.

obviously i am learning a lot about my new home.

it was difficult to come home after the long holiday weekend. my friends aren't far, but it felt like it tonight, driving through the dark to come here.

as i delve into the world of psychiatry, i have decided to back up and read some of the masters. starting with freud. one of my favorite books is the question of god, in which the worldviews of c.s. lewis and sigmund freud are put together in a head to head debate. rectifying the inconsistencies between science and religion has always been an area of interest for me. none of my grade school teachers were ever satisfactorily able to explain to me which came first, adam and eve or the dinosaurs. my sixth grade teacher actually went so far as to explain that the story of genesis was symbolic and not the literal story of creation. that is very...progressive...for a catholic school teacher. but i digress. i am starting with freud's the future of an illusion, mostly because on the back it says it's his "most emphatic psychoanalytic exploration of religion". promising. i have only gotten through the introduction. freud's fate, he felt, was to "agitate the sleep of mankind". i totally want that printed on a t-shirt; it's awesome.

i hope someday i can agitate the sleep of mankind.

Day 1

it's clear i have become a government employee. today, 4 of us (2 pharmacy residents, 2 optometry) were handed a stack of paperwork and left to our own devices for about half an hour before anyone explained what each sheet was. then we given cryptic instructions for the rest of our scavenger hunt for various government offices, each located in a different building and each fulfilling a different minute task. it was a lot for 4 doctorates to decipher.

maybe we were a case of being book smart with a lack of common sense.

this statement is further supported by the fact i got lost on my return trip from the grocery today.

i also already had to do the one thing in chilli i really was trying to avoid: go to walmart. i hate walmart. i truly believe it is evil. a wolf in sheep's clothing; the degradation and destruction of small town america cloaked in cheap prices and smiley faces. but, i needed a shower curtain liner and the nearest target is in grove city.

it is amazing how human nature makes us want what we can't have. i have only been in chilli for a day and already i "miss" all these things i take for granted at home. target, for one. skyline. indian food. thai. watching my twilight blue ray. going to the bookstore (a big one, at least). now, if i was in cincinnati i would not be thinking about any of these things. but something about the air in chillicothe makes me crave saag paneer and barnes and noble.

T-1

tomorrow is the big day. i'm all snuggled up right now in my new apartment in the closest approximation to my big purple couch that i could easily move - my big purple chair.

i am blogging to avoid further unpacking.

how did i spend my first evening in chilli, aside from hauling laundry baskets and target bags up a really long flight of stairs? met up with some of the social workers and the outgoing pharmacy resident for some beers and bluegrass music at the dock, a local watering hole on water street (where the canal used to be). jon and kate plus eight must be really popular around here cause i saw about 5 women with versions of kate's haircut.

my anxiety about tomorrow has evaporated now that i am actually here.

wish i had remembered my camera because as i was driving into town, i saw this on the sign outside an autobody shop: "karen linzy. come back and get your bad check." they called her ass out.

so now i get to decide if i want to spend the rest of the night watching chocolat or harry potter and the order of the phoenix. i have no cable and i ran out of boxes before i could pack all the dvds i had set out. these two were on top. actually i should unpack. or study for my upcoming boards. decisions, decisions.

i miss my pugs.

T-2

moved all the heavy stuff up to chilli yesterday. my new apartment is on the second floor. brian seemed very likely to push me down the stairs shortly after he and kevin had carried my treadmill up them.

exercise is essential. there's a lot of fried food in chillicothe and i don't want to become another heart attack in waiting.

the only thing that could improve my new digs is hardwood floors. i feel that they are there, lurking under the short pile industrial carpet, but i keep telling myself, it's only a year. i have ample windows in the front room that overlook the street, built-in bookshelves, and a fireplace. almost just like home.

i can't believe i am 30 years old and for the first time living somewhere other than cincinnati. hell, i've spent 25 of those years in the same zip code. in college i dreamed about moving to arizona or new mexico so i could hideout in the desert and climb the mountains and be all zen, like georgia o'keefe or d.h. lawrence. obviously didn't happen. most people move someplace like new york, chicago, san francisco. i'm downsizing. and i'm alright with that. while big cities are fabulous to visit, i don't know that i would be happy living in one. too impersonal, despite all the great food and art and activities.

T-8

last night i started having the naked-at-school-without-my-homework dreams about the start of my residency. only in these dreams i am dressed, but i can't organize my desk and people start asking extremely complex, nonsensical therapeutic riddles.

how is a raven like a writing desk? how is vancomycin pharmacodynamically similar to chocolate syrup in a 65kg redhead?

like alice, i stumbled through the hospital, checkered floors interminable before me and the walls twisting.

when i was nine, i was starting 4th grade at a new school. for the whole month before, i wandered the halls of my house all night long. sleep was elusive. some things don't change.

i spend a lot of time now wondering if i made the right decision. it would be so much...safer...to stay at kroger and wear my nametag and stand behind a counter. it is the practice environment i know, where i am comfortable and confident. the iv room at the hospital alone terrifies me.

only time will tell. i was worried when i decided to go to pharmacy school, and it was the best decision i have ever made. it was one of the few decisions i made in my life that was solely mine, and not me simply being carried along by someone else's influence. and i loved it. hopefully i will feel the same about residency when i'm done.

T-20

well, it's happened. i am officially a lessee of an apartment in downtown chillicothe, right in the heart of the bustling metropolis.

my new landlord seems super nice, which is very fortunate. in fact, everyone in chillicothe that i have met has been amazingly sweet. the shop owners i talked to during the apartment hunt were very welcoming.

i only foresee one problem in my new town, you know, besides having to live away from my husband and all. my i-pod wasn't working (piece of crap), so i perused the airwaves to find a new favorite radio station. people, it's bleak. not that cincy has a really great station (r.i.p. the sound), but wow. so i'm a little concerned about it. well, that and the fact that as i was leaving town today there was a disturbance at the dq that warranted 3 police cruisers.

T-22

i finally got my official residency start date - july 1.

i think i also finally found an apartment. after all that searching and stress, i will probably end up taking the apartment that the current resident has. that of course means i cannot bring the pugs with me unless i disguise them as very ugly children.

two things i learned about apartment hunting:
1) ask the waitress at a local restaurant. they are a wealth of information about where to live and where not to live, as well as potential slumlords.
2) if you call about an apartment, and the rent sounds too good to be true, it probably is. i called a place in downtown chilli. the rent was $375. fantastic! however, when asked what was included, the landlord said, "water and sewage. there's a stove and a refrigerator, but if they go out, they go out. that's on you". what the hell? i have never encountered a similar comment from a landlord. ever. does that mean if i have to buy a new stove i get to take it with me when i leave the apartment?

T-28

it didn't take long. only 2 nights alone and i'm already sleeping in the middle of the bed. like a goldfish, i've expanded to fill the available space.

last week, we had our cat, hemlock, put down because he was suffering from renal failure. his weight was down from 11 pounds to 4.8. he was so pathetic. i buried him in the backyard. our other cat, eliot, seems to be taking it well, except he has suddenly become the most annoying pain in the ass while i'm trying to sleep. he kneads my stomach, he licks my elbows, he play-bites my knuckles. he does this all night. what the hell?

today i had to defend myself against a monstrous crawly thing on the basement wall. one of those critters with about a million legs that look like hair blowing in the wind when it scuttles across the wall. i realized how dependent i have become in the last 4 years on brian's bug killing abilities. i have not had to face such a task in the time we've been married. brown yuck gushed out of it when i smashed it with my flip flop and it continued to twitch its million legs, stuck to the shoe bottom. a paper towel took care of the carnage. i just thank god it wasn't a spider. i couldn't have done it. it's the eyes. i can't stand the thought of the eight glossy eyes sizing me up. why do you think they never show charlotte from charlotte's web with all those eyes? cause it's fucking creepy. instead of being a joyous celebration of life and pigs, it would be likened to something directed by rob zombie.

T-29

today i ate all brian's orange and red sour patch kids because he wasn't here to protect them.

i've been creating ridiculous to-do lists just so i can cross things off and feel like i've accomplished things. it's very gratifying. i've even been adding things i already did, just to cross them off. somehow it helps relieve the anxiety i feel that things are spiraling and i have no control over them. i can control a to-do list. it is a tiny corner of the universe that i can completely manipulate. something for me to cling to.

the time i have not spent crossing menial tasks off a fabricated to-do list i have spent stopping francie from "dominating" crosley. she's a bossy little thing and likes to assert her authority as frequently as possible.

maybe i should add "buy more sour patch kids" to my list. and perhaps "watch dog whisperer".

the countdown begins

one month from today i start my pharmacy residency at the va in chillicothe, ohio. i don't like to think about it too much because it kind of makes me want to throw up.

i have been trying to find an apartment and terrible luck has been finding me. i was put in contact with one slumlord who offered 3 apartments for rent. in any of the 3 of them i would fear for my safety. they were located in areas with an abundance of upholstered furniture on porches and a severe lack of shirts on the residents.

i would think, usually, when searching for an apartment in a new city, one could peruse listings on apartments.com or similar convenience sites. not such much good old chilli. a search yields no results.

my problems are compounded by the fact i have two adorable pugs that need room in my home, too. landlords in chilli do not care for dogs evidently.

tonight is the first night brian is in louisville. he left me a little note on my pillow that reads "love you. see you friday." this is sad because i know it will be the same note i will have on my pillow every monday for a year. and that's the best case scenario. really, we will probably only see each other back at our house in cincinnati every other weekend. brian has to work some weekends.

i have it better right now, though. at least i'm at home with our dogs. brian is by himself in a hotel.