C.A. Gray's Blog, page 86

so much for your plans…

My goal is to write two blogs every Friday: one for my medical website, and one for this website. Originally this was really easy, because I didn’t see patients on Fridays… so I’d wake up late, go to Barnes and Noble, and write my medical article with plenty of time afterwards to do business accounting and that sort of thing. Then I started getting busier, so I began to see patients for half the day on Fridays, and write my medical article the second half of the day. Then I also started writing these kind of general “life” blogs on Fridays. Now I’m lucky if I get done before dinner, but I still always get it all done. I don’t think I’ve missed a weekly medical blog since January 2012. I’m dedicated, what can I say. 

Then last week happened. It went something like this. 

Last Monday I went straight from work to a funeral — my close friends’ son tragically died of a drug overdose. As I was leaving to go to the meal afterwards, I got a text message from my mom, saying that she was in so much pain she couldn’t stand up. This was especially alarming coming from her, because my mom isn’t a complainer (at all). When I arrived, I did a quick abdominal exam, suspected appendicitis, and took her to the emergency room. 

We were in the waiting room for FOUR HOURS. (What in the world?!) While we waited, I treated her for the pain homeopathically, and my wonderful boyfriend brought her a pack of ice and some blankets for some makeshift hydrotherapy. Between doses, I responded to emails until like midnight (many of which said things along the lines of “I NEED YOU TO RESPOND TO THIS RIGHT NOW, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! WHY HAVEN’T YOU WRITTEN ME BACK YET?!” Love emails like that.) 

Around 3 am, we finally got the CT scans we needed, confirming the need for an appendectomy, and I emailed my brother in Philly to let him know what was happening. A sweet nurse saw me trying to stretch out on two plastic chairs and felt sorry for me, so he brought me a recliner at around 4.

My mom went into surgery that morning. Once my office opened, I had my office manager clear my schedule for the day. My amazing brother made plans to fly out that evening into Phoenix around midnight and drive to Tucson the following morning. 

The next day, my brother went to the hospital and I went to work. After work, my friend from England (whom I haven’t seen in eight years) flew in to Tucson. We were supposed to drive to San Diego together the next morning. Only…  my mom just got out of surgery, and her AC system busted, and I was selling my car and needed to get a bunch of recalls done on it first… and oh yeah, I signed a lease for a new office, and I needed to coordinate all the construction and get the networking systems set up (phone, fax, computer, printer, internet, all that). My brother is a technological genius, so had to take advantage of the fact that he was in town for all of that. 

So there was my dear British friend in the midst of all of this, hanging out with us under a fan because there was no AC (or “air con,” as she called it), waiting around in Tucson for an extra day because I couldn’t go with her, and she otherwise wouldn’t have seen me at all. So instead of driving to San Diego, I hosted an impromptu taco night in which my brother, my British friend, my boyfriend, and my former college roommate discussed movies and watched ridiculous YouTube videos. Meanwhile, my poor mom recuperated in the back bedroom and periodically shuffled around the hallway. (She’s such a trooper.) 

All that to say… I didn’t write blogs last week. For the first time in almost three years. …Oh well. :) 

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Med School Flashbacks

Every year I have to get 30 CMEs (Continuing Medical Education Credits) in order to renew my license to practice medicine. Right now I’m at a conference in Phoenix put on by the AANP (American Association of Naturopathic Physicians). It’s been educational, in more ways than one. 

In general, med school did not generate a lot of happy memories for me. When I was a med student, I went from being pretty social and outgoing to more or less a hermit. Mine was a “get the degree and get out” kind of experience (to borrow an expression from a dear friend of mine). You might think most med students are this way, but no, not that I could tell. Naturopaths are a social bunch by nature. The other students all seemed to study together, celebrate together after exams, and party together on weekends. 

Not me. I either sat in class, did rotations, or studied 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, for four years straight. I was in a study group for the first year, but although I enjoyed it, the social drama started to affect my grades. So for the subsequent three years, I studied alone. 

I had more than a few of those quintessential “med student” experiences of being berated by attending physicians for my stupidity, in front of the entire shift. As a result, I developed some gut problems which, interestingly enough, lasted the exact duration of those particular rotations. 

Before EMR software (Electronic Medical Records), I had to prep for patients at clinic instead of at my house, because HIPAA laws prohibit taking patient charts home. While I was doing this once, I remember overhearing nearby classmates chatting and laughing about their weekend adventures, and I felt so lonely. I knew I *could* have jumped in and chatted with them too, at least asking questions — but I had only these 30 minutes to prep, so it was between being social and showing up unprepared (thus getting publicly ridiculed for my stupidity again), or being antisocial, but responsible. Instead of doing either one, I spent that 30 minutes mentally berating myself for the fact that I was unable to “do it all.” I went to my car afterwards and cried. (And called my mom.)

All that to say, I don’t have a lot of positive associations with my med school experience. I’m not complaining — I grew a great deal as a person, I learned a HECK of a lot, and I absolutely love my profession now. I’ve been *super* blessed by the opportunity to do what I do. But being here at the AANP is like med school deja vu: sitting in lectures all day long with former classmates and professors and being blasted with massive amounts information, as if by firehose. Even though I’ve rediscovered my sociability in the years I’ve been out, in this environment I feel the old pull to hide and disengage, as if no time has gone by at all. They say adult children tend to revert back to their childhood “role” in the family when they go back home for a visit; it’s probably something like that.

Last night I had dinner with some (non-doctor) friends living in Phoenix. After I described this phenomenon, one of my friends commented to me, “But it’s always worthwhile to be friendly. You never know when networking might pay off down the line.” I think I glared at him a little… but he’s right. Years ago, I was working at Starbucks and expected to be there only a few months, so I thought, what’s the point in investing in my coworkers? I’m not going to be here long enough for it to generate lasting relationships anyway. So I showed up, did my job, and left. Then a few months in, I heard a sermon that really convicted me to “grow where I was planted.” From then on, I made a concerted effort to get to know every one of my coworkers, and I mean really know them. I learned their stories. I asked lots of questions. We talked about God and politics and philosophy. And you know what? Not only did Starbucks turn out to be one of my favorite jobs ever, but one of the friends I met there was later in my class in med school. Towards the very end of my program, when all kinds of bureaucratic awfulness went down (my last 6 months were by far the worst of the whole experience… looong story), that friend turned out to be the one who mobilized my entire class to fight the administration on my behalf, when I couldn’t fight anymore. He may very well have been the reason why that nasty experience turned into a victory in the end. 

So I’ve decided to be social and have a good time here… and to leave the past where it belongs. 

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Leaving the past in the past

Every year I have to get 30 CMEs (Continuing Medical Education Credits) in order to renew my license to practice medicine. Right now I’m at a conference in Phoenix put on by the AANP (American Association of Naturopathic Physicians). It’s been educational, in more ways than one. 

In general, med school did not generate a lot of happy memories for me. When I was a med student, I went from being pretty social and outgoing to more or less a hermit. Mine was a “get the degree and get out” kind of experience (to borrow an expression from a dear friend of mine). You might think most med students are this way, but no, not that I could tell. Naturopaths are a social bunch by nature. The other students all seemed to study together, celebrate together after exams, and party together on weekends. 

Not me. I either sat in class, did rotations, or studied 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, for four years straight. I was in a study group for the first year, but although I enjoyed it, the social drama started to affect my grades. So for the subsequent three years, I studied alone. 

I had more than a few of those quintessential “med student” experiences of being berated by attending physicians for my stupidity, in front of the entire shift. As a result, I developed some gut problems which, interestingly enough, lasted the exact duration of those particular rotations. 

Before EMR software (Electronic Medical Records), I had to prep for patients at clinic instead of at my house, because HIPAA laws prohibit taking patient charts home. While I was doing this once, I remember overhearing nearby classmates chatting and laughing about their weekend adventures, and I felt so lonely. I knew I *could* have jumped in and chatted with them too, at least asking questions — but I had only these 30 minutes to prep, so it was between being social and showing up unprepared (thus getting publicly ridiculed for my stupidity again), or being antisocial, but responsible. Instead of doing either one, I spent that 30 minutes mentally berating myself for the fact that I was unable to “do it all.” I went to my car afterwards and cried. (And called my mom.)

All that to say, I don’t have a lot of positive associations with my med school experience. I’m not complaining — I grew a great deal as a person, I learned a HECK of a lot, and I absolutely love my profession now. I’ve been *super* blessed by the opportunity to do what I do. But being here at the AANP is like med school deja vu: sitting in lectures all day long with former classmates and professors and being blasted with massive amounts information, as if by firehose. Even though I’ve rediscovered my sociability in the years I’ve been out, in this environment I feel the old pull to hide and disengage, as if no time has gone by at all. They say adult children tend to revert back to their childhood “role” in the family when they go back home for a visit; it’s probably something like that.

Last night I had dinner with some (non-doctor) friends living in Phoenix. After I described this phenomenon, one of my friends commented to me, “But it’s always worthwhile to be friendly. You never know when networking might pay off down the line.” I think I glared at him a little… but he’s right. Years ago, I was working at Starbucks and expected to be there only a few months, so I thought, what’s the point in investing in my coworkers? I’m not going to be here long enough for it to generate lasting relationships anyway. So I showed up, did my job, and left. Then a few months in, I heard a sermon that really convicted me to “grow where I was planted.” From then on, I made a concerted effort to get to know every one of my coworkers, and I mean really know them. I learned their stories. I asked lots of questions. We talked about God and politics and philosophy. And you know what? Not only did Starbucks turn out to be one of my favorite jobs ever, but one of the friends I met there was later in my class in med school. Towards the very end of my program, when all kinds of bureaucratic awfulness went down (my last 6 months were by far the worst of the whole experience… looong story), that friend turned out to be the one who mobilized my entire class to fight the administration on my behalf, when I couldn’t fight anymore. He may very well have been the reason why that nasty experience turned into a victory in the end. 

So I’ve decided to be social and have a good time here… and to leave the past where it belongs. 

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What’s so bad about being girly?

Growing up, I wanted to be a tomboy. I looked down upon the stereotype of the “girly” girl — you know, the overly emotional, irrational, shallow types who freaked out when they broke a nail and didn’t ever want to get dirty. Boys talked about these types of girls in a scoffing, superior tone, and I knew I didn’t want to be talked about that way. I wanted people to think of me as smart and self-possessed, and not overly concerned with my appearance. 

Sometimes this made me pretend to be someone I wasn’t. Often, actually. 

At summer camp, I remember a number of organized games like tug-of-war (in the mud), watermelon-eating contests, and other such dirty-some activities. I was a pretty allergic kid, so both of those things made me itch. But I gallantly feigned excitement, later hiding my hives so people wouldn’t judge me for being “high maintenance.”

I loved action-packed TV shows and movies, like “The Highlander,” or “The X-Files,” or anything with a superhero theme. I did enjoy the main plot lines very much… but secretly, I was always most intrigued by the romance. (Even now I feel a sort of guilty pleasure for reading YA novels that center on relationships, rather than on some sort of impending global disaster.) 

Once, a group of friends went sledding on Mount Lemmon, and I found a gentle little slope that I thought was fun. But the boys thought it was boring, and they went and found one with a 10 foot drop-off at the end. Determined to seem tough and adventurous, I braved the steeper run against my better judgment… and fractured my second lumbar vertebra. 

I used to think my calling was to be a missionary doctor in Latin America, but I didn’t speak Spanish yet. So I moved to Mexico for a summer, and went out to the very remotest of remote villages. Before I got on the plane, though, I had to get vaccinated against the local illnesses, and started taking malaria pills several days in advance. As a result, my rather fragile gut revolted against me before I even got on the plane, and I was sick for three months straight. I was so disappointed in myself for not being heartier. What am I, I thought in disgust, a spoiled little American princess?

When I was in college I used to pretend I hated the color pink, because I associated it with ditzy sorority girls. (About three years after I graduated, I finally admitted that hot pink was my favorite color. And I kind of regret not joining a sorority, I’m not gonna lie.)

So really… what’s so bad about being girly? 

I think what it really came down to, at least in my mind, was this association of girly-ness and irrationality. I was afraid that if I was high maintenance, I’d be seen as shallow, which would in turn make me seem frivolous, emotionally-driven, and incapable of deep or logical thought. 

Eventually I realized that line of thought is, itself, irrational.  

What enabled me to finally make peace with this issue was a book called “You Just Don’t Understand” by Deborah Tannen. She makes the point that each gender operates socially from different motives. Women, she argues, most desire connection and relationship in their interpersonal interactions, both with each other and with men. Men, meanwhile, inherently perceive a hierarchical social order, in which he is always one-up or one-down. Neither is right or wrong, but this fundamentally different worldview makes each gender equally opaque to the other. To women, stereotypical “male” behavior is just as mystifying as we can be to them. 

Also, both of these world views are fundamentally emotionally motivated. 

I’m in my early thirties now, and I’ve only just begun to accept that in most cases, I don’t particularly like getting dirty. (I still enjoy camping, but I think two days without a shower is my limit.) I *can* backpack across Scotland for a week with only what I can hold in my Jansport, using my dirty clothes from the day before as a towel… but I’d prefer to pack an entire suitcase for a weekend. 

So you know what? Maybe I am high maintenance. Also, I like pink. And I’m okay with that. 

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What makes a good story?

A long time ago I used to work at Starbucks. One of my favorite coworkers was this quintessential hipster girl who studied English at the university, and whose worldview was in many ways the compete opposite of mine. We amiably debated and discussed various different stories as we closed together, but nearly always disagreed. I still remember her looking at me in mild exasperation, saying, “Stories aren’t supposed to be happy! Stories are supposed to reflect life, and life isn’t all puppies and kittens and rainbows!” Or something like that. 

Now, disclaimer: I do agree with her that stories shouldn’t be all “puppies and kittens and rainbows.” I cringe at the Hallmark Special types of movies just as much as the next guy, but that isn’t because they are happy; it’s because they are sappy. And to me, sappy rings false. What matters to me most in a good story is:

That I get “sucked in” and lose myself. This means there must be at least enough consistency in the world of the story that I’m seldom jarred by the idiosyncracies;
That I enjoy it. This usually, not always, means I need to feel at least satisfied, if not happy, at the end of it; and
That it doesn’t put ideas into my mind that will influence me in a way that I consider to be negative after the fact.

On getting sucked in: 

I used to lose myself in stories so completely that I’d jump and gasp and cringe at every plot twist. When watching movies with me, friends would cast an amused glance at my rigid expression and whisper, “Calm down!” I don’t do this quite as much anymore, though, because of an unintended side effect of writing: I can’t help analyzing the construction of the story now. (Maybe this is a good thing, since I listen to a lot of audiobooks while I’m driving.) But I’ve never been one of those people who has a hard time stopping a movie or abandoning a book if it doesn’t hook me quickly. After all, there are SO many stories to devour, and so little time to do it in! I don’t want to waste time on stories I don’t love.

On enjoyment: 

When my Starbucks friend told me that stories weren’t supposed to be happy because life wasn’t always happy, my reply was, “That’s precisely why stories ought to be happy! We can be sad about real life; who wants to pay good money for it?”

I’m re-listening to “Little Women” in my car right now, because it was one of my favorites growing up. ***Spoiler alert***: I’m just getting to the part where Jo refuses to marry Laurie, and as soon as I get there I’m going to stop listening. (That way I can pretend she later goes back and accepts him like Anne of Green Gables later accepted Gilbert. It always upset me that Jo went for the stuffy old professor, while selfish Amy got Laurie.) 

Maybe things do sometimes end “all wrong” in real life, but why does that mean they have to do the same in entertainment? As long as I believe the ending, as long as it’s in character, I like happy when I can get it. 

There are exceptions to this, but only when sad endings are also somehow bittersweet or redemptive. I do love “Les Miserables” (the on-stage musical version is best, but the book was also terrific), and the title is pretty much a spoiler that it’s gonna be a tragedy. But it’s a hopeful tragedy. There’s sacrifice for the sake of love. There’s repentance. It’s not just miserable for misery’s sake. 

On influences:

I think there’s a great deal of power in a good story, because unlike in an outright persuasive argument, the audience approaches it with his or her defenses down. This means the “morals,” if there are any, can creep in to the mind of the audience unawares. We can become desensitized to certain ideas we might prefer to remain vigilant about. I’m certainly not advocating external censorship, but personally, I do think it’s wise to pay attention to the messages of the movies I watch, the books I read, and the music I listen to, because I know those messages will eventually influence how I think. There are certain ideas I just don’t want in my head, if I can help it. 

So what do you think makes a good story? 

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Challenges, Mishaps, and Other Chaos

When I was little, I used to be afraid that I’d grow up and lead a boring life. I wonder if this fear subconsciously caused me to make choices which almost preclude routine, because people tell me now that my life is never dull. I’ve always got stories about challenges, mishaps, and other chaos. (Side note: wouldn’t that make a good band album title?)

For example:

Last week as I got ready for work, I got a call from a police officer, informing me that my clinic had been robbed. (My boyfriend works for the TPD and had mentioned to me before that my office wasn’t in the safest part of town. …Sweet.) It took a little while before I discovered that I could still see patients that day, because apparently they didn’t take the furniture or anything else critical for normal business operation. The robber just shattered the front door (which was glass) and stole all our cash. 

I mean, it wasn’t great, but not as bad as it could have been.

We had to secure the building before going home for the day. So a construction worker pounded on the makeshift wooden door just outside my office while I was in the middle of seeing a patient with a complex case. The only copies he had of his most recent labs were on his phone… and in Spanish. (I do speak some Spanish, but those were words I didn’t know.) So I was googling translations of the labs while I took his case… and then my EMR (Electronic Medical Records) software went down. I used Pages to type up the rest of his chart note, pasting it in to the EMR software once it started working again later.

Even though I tend to “complain” about episodes like these, the truth is that when my energy is high, I love the challenge they present. I think of them as an adventure (where here adventure = an out-of-the-ordinary circumstance requiring a creative solution), and the fact that I have “adventures” like this all the time is one of the reasons why I like my life so much. It’s only when I’m tired that I tend to crave routine. 

I don’t think I’m all that unusual on that last bit, either. Most of my (adult) patients complain of fatigue, but hardly any kids do, unless they’re acutely ill. So then I thought, maybe the reason kids think adults are boring is because adults are all so freaking tired!

Case in point: another patient this week initially came in with fatigue and a bunch of other symptoms beginning about 6 months into a really stressful corporate job (which she just left). She hasn’t gone back to work yet; instead she’s had both the luxury and the wisdom to finally listen to her body, sleep the extra hours she needs and even take a few hours’ nap in the middle of the day. When I saw her for her first follow up, she was practically bouncing with energy, sporting a hiking outfit and a camelback. I told her how much I admired her for doing what she knew her body needed, even though it runs counter to what our culture says is acceptable, and it certainly isn’t considered “exciting.” But resting now will enable her to do other more exciting things later.

All that to say: I wonder if we adults could recover our childhood taste for adventure (and challenges, mishaps, and other chaos!) if we just gave ourselves the chance to recover.

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Note to self: slow the heck down

So for the last few months, I’ve made a point of writing down one potential blog topic every day. As I read through the list, over and over this theme seems to appear (in my shorthand to myself):

Need. More. Sleep.
Need more of a margin in my life because literally every moment is scheduled
Feeling super overwhelmed and wanting to hide from people (Seriously?!)
Auditioning for a theater company that I have absolutely no time for… but overcommitment is what I do.

What makes this especially stupid is that I’m a naturopathic doctor. I tell people every day that they need to be more intentional with how much sleep they get, eliminate unnecessary stressors in their lives, learn to say no, identify and prioritize only what’s truly important, make a point to do things that refresh and recharge them on a regular basis, and all that good stuff.

But do I do it myself?

….

Okay, so here’s the thing. I *do* schedule time for meditation and prayer every day… at 5 am. Followed by a workout (the first of two). Which I love, but I mean, I guess that’s a little excessive.

And yeah, maybe most of my day (until I get to the hanging out with people part at the end) is scheduled down to the minute, but I *do* spend time relaxing at the end of every day, so that’s something, right?

And okay, maybe I haven’t consistently gotten enough sleep since I started med school… but… there’s just so much to do!

I’ve always been in danger of this: becoming a human doing instead of a human being. Once when I was living in England, my friend was walking to campus with me, trying rather unsuccessfully to keep up. (Walking slow annoys me. Slow people also annoy me.) She said to me (in a “What Would Jesus Do” sort of way), “You know, Jesus would stop and smell the roses once in awhile!”

It’s really easy for me to go into tunnel-vision mode, and get so focused on the task at hand that I miss the stuff that really matters. So a few years back I incorporated yet another habit into my morning routine: I write down things I’m grateful for and keep them in the gratitude box by my bed. Then every year on the 31st of December, I reread the little slips of paper in the box. It helps me to notice and appreciate all those little things that are really the big things.

Things like cooking a marinated tamarind steak recipe I found on Pinterest with my mom… except I couldn’t find tamarind paste, so I used orange and lime juice, which isn’t the same thing. At all.

Things like watching old black and white movies with my boyfriend under the stars in La Placita every week, and splitting Rocky Road ice cream at intermission (which is always only about 10 minutes into the movie).

Things like watching my 2-year old nephew and my brother bust open water balloons on the roof of our porch, “making it rain.”

Things like taking a break from writing to watch the preening hummingbirds on my porch. (Cutest. Thing. Ever. I can’t stop grinning and giggling every time I see them.)

Things like my every-other-week dinners in downtown Tucson with my old college roommate.

And also, things like sleeping in.

Mid-year resolution: I’m going to sleep more.

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I still want to be a ballerina when I grow up…

So I’m taking ballet. I’m not especially coordinated, mind you, nor does it really seem as if there’s much point, considering you pretty much have to start as a child in order to get in the 10,000 hours necessary to achieve proficiency (so says Malcolm Gladwell in “The Tipping Point,”) but I’m ignoring all of these practical considerations and doing it anyway, because I can. When I was in college I tried to minor in dance, and it lasted about two semesters until this unfortunate episode involving snow and an inner tube up on Mt. Lemmon… I fractured my second lumbar vertebra, and subsequently had to walk around like I had a book on my head for two weeks because it took me that long to get an appointment with the orthopedist. Thus ended my would-be career as a ballerina.

Anyway, it’s an unusual learning environment for me, for two reasons: 1) I’m kind of like Hermione from Harry Potter in terms of learning style, but kinesthetic movement (sadly) can’t really be learned from a book, and 2) I usually arrive at ballet straight from work, and I’m generally kind of fried and not in any mood to think too hard. I catch myself zoning out a lot. So it makes a big difference who the teacher is. 

One girl is European, and she has these beautiful dancer legs with calves the size of her head. I gather that because ballet is so intuitive for her, she just assumes that if she shows us adult beginners a sequence once, we’ve got it memorized. When it becomes apparent that this is not, in fact, the case, she goes for the encouragement strategy (i.e. “Come on, don’t think about it so hard, just let yourself feel the movement!”), as if the problem is that we’re all just too shy to demonstrate our true proficiency… when in reality we’re all looking around the room to see if anybody knows whether a soussus or a tendu or a port-de-bras comes next. 

Then I went to a class taught by a very cheerful substitute instead (she hugged me after class, not sure why.) She did not look nearly so much the part of a ballerina, but she explained everything in words, rather than trusting that we would see a sequence and automatically understand the pattern behind it. I was amazed at how much better I was in her class! It isn’t that the regular teacher isn’t good — on the contrary, she’s obviously an excellent dancer… but I wonder if that hinders her ability to instruct those less naturally gifted than herself. When I first started teaching chemistry, for instance, I was totally unqualified, and I’m not sure why they hired me, to be honest — I had to reteach myself each topic just before I lectured on it. But because I had to break down every principle into patterns and words for myself, I then did the same for my class. It turned out that that approach worked much better than just solving several similar problems for them, hoping they would intuitively grasp the underlying principles. 

So I might not be learning a ton of ballet, but I’m intrigued at what I’m learning about teaching strategies. 

Also, I have not yet bought another pair of ballet shoes, because I’m not yet sure if I want to invest in them. So I dance in my socks and my yoga pants. Don’t judge me. 

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Car Batteries and Optimism

So I was headed to work one morning and my car battery started to sound sickly as my engine turned over. Unfortunately I wasn’t headed straight to work, I went to the gym first… and by the time I got back to my car, the battery was completely dead. (I guess that happens in Arizona in the summertime.) 

I called AAA, and found out my membership had expired. So I had to renew it before they would send a tow truck. They told me it might be an hour wait. I called my office manager after that, and asked him to cancel my first hour and a half of patients, apologize to them profusely, and try to reschedule them. He texted me back a few minutes later and told me that he’d had to offer a pretty substantial discount to one of the new patients, because she was upset that she would have to wait so long to get in for an appointment. 

I was not in a super awesome mood at this point. 

When the tow truck driver arrived, he didn’t see me at first and called my cell phone. The first thing he told me on the phone was that if he hadn’t found me and had driven out there for nothing, he’d already decided he was going to have a good day anyway. (Odd, I thought, but it did make me smile.) 

When he finally found me, I was immediately struck by his resemblance to Zig Ziglar (whose book I was reading at the time — “See You At The Top,” which I highly recommend, by the way.) He wore a big smile, and told me within the first five minutes that driving a tow truck was his favorite thing to do, and he was so blessed to get to do it. He found out I was a doctor, and as he poured water into my car battery (Batteries drink water? I thought,) he told me that he liked cars for the same reason I like people (note that I did not say I liked people, he assumed this): because he got to diagnose problems using deductive reasoning. 

His deductive reasoning, in this case, led him to conclude that my battery was fried. 

So he drove behind me to the shop to buy a new one, and installed it for me afterwards. He took his sweet time doing it too, which would have annoyed me under normal circumstances, but I just couldn’t get frustrated with this guy. As he worked, he told me how much he loved his wife, and how he credited her (and Jesus, of course) with saving his life—and then he proceeded to tell me how he used to be an alcoholic and turned his life around. Now he’s in his early 60s, takes no medication, eats right, exercises often, prays hard, loves his family and continues to give thanks for blessings that happened to him 20 years ago, even sharing them with a total stranger.

Before I drove away, I shook his hand and thanked him for his attitude, because I’d really needed it. 

I want to be more like that guy! 

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Character inspiration from real life…

Last week I met a man who will almost certainly inspire a character in my upcoming dystopian trilogy. He’ll probably be one of the underlings of the evil dictator.

Picture this: 60-something, short (probably about 5’3”, slightly shorter than I am) with a pudgy middle, slicked back gray hair, shirt opened low enough to reveal thick gold chains, fingers bedecked with rings. Slick talker (he’s in a commission-based business, so he has to be, I guess). Wastes no time telling me that “I’m not worth his time,” and the amount he’d make on commission from a sale to me would not even pay for an hour’s rent in the fancy-schmancy room in which he met with me. 

Then he finds out I’ve already met with one of his competitors, and he says, “Whoa — whoa! Hold up! You’ve met with others?” He then proceeds to give me an ultimatum, five minutes into our meeting: either I promise to call these other agents and inform them that he will be representing me exclusively, or he has nothing more to say to me… because I’m “really not worth his time as it is,” you understand. (He told me this at least three times in the span of half an hour.)

I wish I could tell you that I stood up right then and told the guy where he and his representation could go, but alas… I am a wuss. (I wrote the character of Lily Portman in the Piercing the Veil series more as the character I wish I was than the one I actually am.) I grudgingly conceded to his demands, too intimidated to do anything else, and he continued with his schpiel as I grew silent, feeling increasingly manipulated. 

When we concluded our meeting, he shook my hand. I wiped the grease on the leg of my trousers after I left. 

Every now and then I meet someone in real life and think, “Seriously? People like you exist?!” Because they’re such stereotypes, you know? I mean, God loves them and all that. …But they’re still really great character studies.

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