most of what i know.

Most of what I know, I can't believe. -Richard Swift.

It's been awhile since I've blogged. I've been saying that a lot, because I've been working a lot, and lately that tends to mean a lot sleep on my days off.

Plus, I inherited a cold from D, which has us both sycophantically hacking up a lung all night long.

Swell.

Any way, I find lately, along with a strange suspicion that God is mocking me from on high not only with Seattle's crap weather (am I really still wearing my down jacket in the mornings in June? Why yes, Virginia, I am!) but also with a somewhat nagging suspicion that my metaphoric brains have leaked out of my ears almost entirely.

I seem to be caught in a middling storm of mediocrity, in which I can still manage to chuckle mirthlessly at Marx's criticism of what he calls Hegel's "logical mysticism."

(Try explaining to those in the nearby vicinity why you're laughing while reading Marx's Critique of Hegel's Doctrine of State sometime, and you'll find yourself feeling even more ridiculous than usual, I promise. )

In any case, coming up at the fifth month mark of what is beginning to be a strangely interminable orientation (not that I'm complaining) I seem to be feeling a sense of accomplishment on the one hand for having managed to survive the front end of an exhausting introduction to the world of critical care, and a sense of dull, glazed-eye fear at the thought of being finally kicked out of the nest on the other.

I'd say I'm in an awkward holding-pattern of an ICU nurse's professional adolescence--a bad combination of knowing just enough to be dangerous and yet still tell-tale klutzy and overly green in ways I can now recognize in those with even less experience than myself. When, oh when, do I get to grow up and become one of those cool, sophisticated paragons of ICU nursing--those nurses for whom even the scariest of bad scenarios is handled with swift, skilled professional aplomb?

I get the feeling it's going to be awhile before I shake off not only my underwhelming sense of confidence in my skill set, but also that nagging sense that everyone else in the vicinity is not secretly sneering into the sleeve of their white lab coat and thinking, "Amateur!"

I'm also faced with the bald, inelegantly trite fact that there's no way through this mess except directly through it and have resigned myself, if somewhat sadly, to this fate.

My world as of late feels achingly lower middle class and I can't shake the feeling that I'm slowly physically going to seed. Two colds in the span of two months? This is a record,for one who typically succumbs to GI Infestation of the Month, but not the common cold.

Feel pasty and soft, although I've tried to start a half-hearted walking/jog regimen on the streets of oh-so-safe (not) Rainier Valley. Annoyed my attempts at getting in shape have been thwarted by lame-ass cold, which is of the half-assed variety, but will probably hang on in tenacious fashion until mid-June. (Tune in next time for Pointless Predictions of Pestilence with Peevish Patty!)

I think, however, the simple solution to all this mealy-morass would be a steady infusion of sunshine.

Seattle Weather Gods, what say you?