And so it begins:

The free-fall.
I have to sign up for the step 1 USMLE tomorrow. This is the firstpart of the medical licencing board exams. The exam is in June. My, how time flies.

photoeye

Bet ya Ho Chi Minh never saw this coming:

Weird.
I love Bush's lackluster response. I would be too.

pic from cnn

Food for thought

Ok, I'm been meaning to say this for a while now, so I'm just gonna go ahead and speak frankly:

Why are the dental students so damn hot?
Clearly their admissions criteria involved some sort of photographic screening process. Unfair, so unfair.

Reunions are not for kids

I love reunions. Nothing like seeing friends in a context of nostalgia, even if it means awkwardness with people you once knew but now, for one reason or another, don't really care to know again. I love it enough to pull an all nighter studying in order to make the 7:30 breakfast reunion at Leverett. It was very worth the sleepless night to confirm, once more, that on the surface nothing has changed very much. The place looks the same; the people, older, grayer, less coherent maybe, but still affable, while my friends are as witty as ever. But all are not as they seem. Early reunions like these allow us to glimpse each other zipping along into wildly divergent futures. The experience is invigourating, but largely frightening.

"[Looking around the dining hall] Everything is still the same, huh?"-me.
"Yep. That's good. Isn't it?"-Andrew.

Sure, it is disturbing when we see how much the House kids have grown, or how some tutors are now parents, their babies staring back at us. However, this change somehow feels less confrontational. We expect it, and have no problems integrating it into the fabric that is our memory of this place. We incorporate and obliterate these memories all at the same time, making them fit our notions of how things have always been, and will be. Paradoxically, we are willing to gloss over all this newness, but we are disturbed and intrigued by news of how our own friends are getting along, evolving.

I sense there is something truly comforting about the notion of constancy at Harvard, especially since this place is integral to our notion of self (for the majority, it would seem). To lose the vision of Harvard as unchanging, at this moment, is to lose control over a major part of ourselves, forcing us to confront how uncertainty dictates our current lives, and defines how much we too have been changing in order to adapt. We are in transit, indeterminate, if not physically, then mentally. I sense the farther we go, the more we will reach back. Leverett has not changed, we tell ourselves; Harvard has stayed the same. The dining hall still has the same food; Chief still takes random pictures. In this mental construction, only we have changed, but for now that's okay. We can always reach back and reclaim a bit of our old selves--the ones we knew well--be it via reunions, or spying ' ivy blogs', or constantly visiting [every freaking weekend...errm yeah].

For now, we can only tolerate this much truth. Memory is one of the few things we can still control.

Beacon Hill is beautiful--so are fantasies

Cobblestone streets, gas lamps (with electric bulbs, but a nice effect nonetheless)...human size architecture. It's lovely. Walking there saturday night with M to have dinner at a friend's appartment, I couldn't help but notice how deliciously the air smelled of crackling fires and aromatic roasts, how quiet and tastefully lit the houses were, squeezed together, glowing. There were wreaths on the door, and petite topiaries on the sidewalk. It was a cold night, so we didn't linger long outside, but it didn't take much for me to realize that it would be kinda sweet to be able to afford living here. Oh yeah, MGH is less than 5 minutes away. So let's see: a hospital job at MGH so I can walk to work at anytime, a compact fuel efficient car that can carry 4, a brownstone with enough space for M and kids, on Beacon hill. A dog. That would be wonderful.

Eventually, maybe a cabin on the Cape, or one of those timeshares in the West Indies.

Oh yeah, I don't care for picket fences. Wrought iron, please!

Ah well, I have M. That's one down on the checklist. 200,000 dollars worth of debt to go 'till I can even consider other stuff....

pic stolen from here

Wee small hours...continued

"She's pretty incredible, don't you think?" I ask her. A second goes by. "Yes. Yes she is." She replies, her gaze unchanged. "My name is P...Peter." I respond quickly, filling the void.
"Nice to meet you, Peter." She turns, sparkling, her complexion fairer than I'd had thought. "Call me...Ruth." She answers with a flash of teeth. "Would you like a seat? I have two to spare." I pull up a chair adjacent to her spot against the window edge. The rain is abating outside, and one can almost make out the shape of buildings. The lights of traffic below us reflect in those buildings, a moving mosaic of crimson and gold dashing about in rhythmic monotony. She orders another martini. "I've noticed you here before." I begin, hoping to move the conversation. "Tuesday, same table. I guess you like jazz."
"I see you like to watch people." She quips, laughing. "You are right, but for the wrong reason. I like to watch people too; music is the ambience that sets my mood."
"I come here for the jazz. People watching is secondary," I try being coy.
"Ah, well. Apologies then." She smiles again. " Do you want a drink?" She flicks her wrist, catching the gaze of a waitress standing patiently by the entrance. I decline, modestly, half standing up. "Oh no, thank you, I'm good for now. I just wanted to say hello, maybe find a fellow jazz lover."
"Oh no, don't go!" She sounds almost wistful.” Company is always welcome at my table." She insists. "Truth be told I came to hear her sing, she's not doing many shows in Boston, but I'm sure you know that already. Sit, sit!" I oblige, settling back into my seat. The houselights have returned, forcing the room's mystique into dark crevices above the hanging lights and into the night. The wind howls outside. Boston shimmers in the dark.

"Most men in my office don't have conversations with me. You're brave, I'll be honest." She flashes more teeth, except this time it is a full smile; her face stretches, not afraid to show the crowfeet peeking behind her eyes.
I laugh. "That's the first I've heard someone call me brave. Thank you!" I responded. "Is there a reason....?"
"A casual chat never hurts." She assures me. "I should say, my nephew looks about your age. You are very brave."
"I'm an...aspiring writer. " I offer her partial honesty. " I want to write about this night. You are intriguing. And like you said, a chat never hurts."
"Here, a cheer to conversations, Lord knows the world doesn't have enough of them." She offers up her martini, a pink, dainty thing, with rose petals floating about the glass. I offer her my glass.

We sip, a toast to conversations. The world sure doesn't have enough of them.

A bad...queer..?

We've all heard the expression: " I'm a bad Jew". A self-admonition (if you're Jewish), yes, useful for avoiding prolonged explanation of dietary choices/not going to synagogue/hilarity. But is there an equivalent for a bad...queer? The closest I've felt the need to use such a phrase came yesterday, when I was blind-sided by a phone call from the HRC. A nice voice on the other end, (male, probably young, very articulate, says he's from the Harvard GSD!) asked me if I could volunteer for November 8th election push, basically, hang out at voting stations with the HRC crew and try to convince voters to vote against the gay marriage amendment. It sounds innocent enough, and it's a righteous cause. They're apparently in desperate need for volunteers.

I haw and hemmed through the entire phone call, not wanting to hang up, fully knowing that this nice man's spiel will be wasted when I ultimately have to say no. November 8th is also the day of the BGLTQ panel that I'm organizing. Deep down though, I'm not the activist type, and I shy away from such in-your-face campaigning, even if it's a cause I hold dear. The nice guy on the phone even gave me his own telephone number to call back in case I changed my mind. And he apologized several times for disrupting my dinner, probably because of several instances where he probably heard me chewing--I had food inside my mouth when I picked up the phone--even though I tried really hard to hide it. The fact that he was so sweet on the phone--with delayed silences and appropriate inflections indicating emotional states (a professional?) made it agonizing to say no.

I'm sure they're all a bunch of swell folks, and I really should try to squeeze in some time to help out. In the meantime though, I can't help but feel that I'm a bad queer for turning down the HRC, but more specifically, the nice boy on the other end of the line, who sounded so darn nice. Bad queer, bad queer.

ICA opening!

Great news. The Boston Institute for Contemporary Art is set to open in December 2006. After so many delays, finally, finally! I'm curious to see the installations they've chosen to feature at the opening--maybe this will give more hints as to what they will choose to display in the future. The structure itself is ultra chic, with a cantilevered space appearing to hover over the harbor, encased in glass. My only reservation with the design so far has to be the potential for over-exposure of artwork to sunlight, given how much of the building is just glass, but I'm sure they've thought about it.

The collections to be featured here should be pretty interesting, and the new building itself is critical for a city like Boston that desperately needs to have more contemporary art spaces. I am very intrigued by what they will choose to feature in this space though; the kind of theme/movement museums highlight somehow always end up being legitimized by virtue of having been displayed, thus shaping the future of art development. Interestingly, the director of the MOMA was just at Harvard in a discussion about trends and the future of contemporary art. It's a pity I wasn't there, but I heard he defended the mission of museums to select and display not what's popular, but what is of merit and value to the development of art. Given how diverse and globalized the themes and origins of contemporary art that belong to no one particular past tradition or critical approach, museums are surely going to have a grand ol' time defining and defending 'merit' and 'value'.

Less esoterically, the glass building at night looks like it'll be a good romantic make-out spot. hmmm....

My big fat mouth

Me: "...these are really nice knives!"
Steve: "Umm...thank you!"
Me: "So do you eat out often or..?"
Steve: "No, no I cook...nothing much, but..."
Me: "Oh, really! I was under the impression that you don't cook..."
Steve:"Really? Who told you that?"
Me:"Well this other time Ben was telling me that your roommate cooked for the dinner party you had...and he sort of gave me the impression that you don't cook very much at all..."
Steve: "Well...!No I do cook. Why whould he say that? Well that time my roommate helped out...but I do cook!"

......(2 hours later)

Ben: "Oh hey, listen, Phil, Steve and I want to invite you and Mike over for dinner sometime. When's good for you?"
Me:" Oh, um...I don't know yet, email me. Will you guys... Steve? yeah? Ok, Steve, need us to bring anything/help out?"
Ben: Oh no. It won't be much...nothing fancy....yeah [chuckle, knowing look, smirk]."
Steve [by the door]: "Oh...Ben what did you mean by that?"
Ben: "Uhh what?"
Steve: "Did you tell Phil that I can't cook? No...yes.. you did...you told him at some point that I can't cook."
Ben: "I....don't recall that....at all."
Me: "Oh um...shit...um...no, well no Ben didn't say that, I just understood it...."
Ben/Steve (simultaneously): "No/yes/ no I didn't say that/yes you did/ what's wrong with my cooking/I don't recall/what/hold on....."
Ben [chuckling, to me] :"Ayyy...ya, No I don't recall....[phil] you rat....Ok bye guys! See you later!"
[door shuts]

.....in the corridor [overheard]: Steve: [mumble mumble...]"I do cook."

Wee Small Hours

She sits one table away from me, against the edge. The band is anxious. It's a typical weeknight, Tuesday, mix crowds but few tourists. A lady, as I'd imagine my grandmother, only twenty years younger, sits one table away from me, her back to the endless sea of lights beyond, oblivious. She seems to be here alone, alone in a sea of others, nursing her martini. It starts to rain, a gentle tap against the windowpanes. Boston melts into a shimmering horizon. Another Tuesday evening at Top of the Hub, and the band is starting again.

The sax takes the lead; percussion starts, the low rumble of bass follows. Fly Me to the Moon somehow manages to sound fresh tonight. I see her ears perk up, her head slightly turning, straining to hear above the din. Off goes the band; tap tap tap, the drum solo wins a few claps. The lady smiles. She orders another martini. Her eyes sweep the room with a longing look, not quite a search for anyone in particular, just an acknowledgment of self. She re-adjusts her briefcase underneath the seat. The second martini comes--a pink, dainty thing, with rose petals. She greets it with a generous smile. Suddenly, the lights dim, and the space is transformed. We are awashed in the golden glow of candlelights. She looks like my grandmother, only twenty years younger in the glow of candlelights. Hushed silence fills the space: the evening's main attraction is about to begin.

A tall, slender figure in black approaches the stage. The band strikes a chord. With a delicate breath, she begins to sing. In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning somehow manages to sound fresh tonight. She sits one table away from me, against the edge. I can see her eyes glistening in candlelights, her hands nursing a pink martini. Teardrops roll down her cheeks. One. Two. Tap. Tap. Tap. The city melts. Another Tuesday evening. Mix crowds, with few tourists.

It's wonderful

I'm awake. Will be attending class. Somebody give me a trophy.

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I'll follow you into the dark

"You're not going to get cancer, are you?" M. would ask me, often. "You better not." He'd warn me. He's serious about it.

I know, it may seems strange, or morbid, that we talk about things like this in a relationship when we're so young, the chance of one of us leaving the other, not out of choice, but out of inevitability. But it comes up, periodically, largely because of my current preoccupation with diseases. But that aside, it has been discussions about the end of life that has marked the deeper moments of our relationship. Our first serious conversation, the moment I knew that I'd found him, was about dying and the world beyond: no hell and no heaven, just love. Because, as M. puts it, there can be no real heaven, no real happiness, if heaven means being separated for eternity from those that you love who are, for some reason, not there at the end of days. Such a god would be a cruel God.

I have always assumed that he'd survive me. Something about him and his ability to always lead me through, to make things easier necessitates his perennial life. I think it's mainly me that fear the thought of loosing him, of having to bear it--it fuels my irrationality. He fears it too, but rather than assume my immortality, he's very practical. He'd rather I avoid cancer, or heart disease, or car accidents--anything to have control over that inevitability. It's sweet of him.

The song "I'll Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie (thanks Kate) reminds me of our conversations. It is sentimental, at times too innocent and unsure of its own implications (how does one 'be close behind' a partner who's recently died to be hand in hand at the pearly gates, unless it's a decidedly mutual embarkation?). But I still like it, and I can only hope that, as the singer alleges, M. and I too will get to see everything there is to see. And maybe it's not necessarily death, but any great unknown can lie ahead in the dark. Regardless, it's nothing to cry about. I'll follow him into the dark.

One gram...

"One gram of tetanus, botulinum, or shiga toxin can kill about 10 million people...1 pound could theoretically kill all humankind."

-from my Infectious Disease book: Schaechter 's Mechanism of Microbial Disease

Compasionate Conservatism

I decided that I was a conservative after taking the Harvard Social Analysis 66 course : Race & Politics in America. It surprised me, because one would think that Harvard tend to create liberals in the modern sense, but that was one of the few classes that I managed to find the time to read all the assigned readings, considered all the viewpoints, and came out in agreement with a governing and social philosophy very close to a classically liberal viewpoint, which at some point in time had morphed into the conservatism of Barry Goldwater and became elements of libertarianism today.

Modern 'Compasionate conservatism' can once traced its roots to the old conservatism, but what passes for conservative philosophy these days is so far flung from what conservatism used to mean: measured change based on pragmatism, small government, and a willingness to engage in civil arguments, to accept uncertainty and the possibility of error. While it's been said many times over, it doesn't hurt to reiterate: the Republican party of today is manipulative, hypocritical, and truly souless. Those from the inside can describe it best. David Kuo, who once worked for the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives from 01-03, released the following statements describing the inner workings of this administration: (from Andrew Sullivan)

"[Kuo] says some of the nation's most prominent evangelical leaders were known in the office of presidential political strategist Karl Rove as 'the nuts.'

"National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy,'" Kuo writes.

"More seriously, Kuo alleges that then-White House political affairs director Ken Mehlman knowingly participated in a scheme to use the office, and taxpayer funds, to mount ostensibly 'nonpartisan' events that were, in reality, designed with the intent of mobilizing religious voters in 20 targeted races."

The current Republican party is no longer the party of McCain, or Lincoln, or Goldwater. Its willingness to sacrifice one group of Americans for the vote and money of another group is blatant, and by now, not that surprising. I once considered voting Republican. Doing so today would be signing my own death warrant.

Thomas Allen

I find this image sublime. Very cool. Reminds me of a painting I'd seen at the MFA (cannot remember the name) of men on a raft after their boat had been hit. The endless gray that darkens at a horizon line here seems a mirror of the other painting with its icy blue-green translucent strokes of paint, evocative of the salty Atlantic, full of dark, forboding barrels of cloud with barely a shimmer of light.

I stumbled onto this artist after visiting a blog (thanks, Queerty). Together with an old paperback, an X-acto knife, and his camera, Thomas Allen makes images that are, as he says, all about creating 'false realities'. In many of his works, the false realities he stumbles on is one of outmoded but still desirable masculinity that were as much a part of these vintage stories as they are historical elements of americana. I admit the men on these old books are pretty hot, even if (or maybe because) they're stylized distillations of unattainable manliness.
But I digress. This is about art. Really. Visit here to see moreThomas Allen works.

Body World

I don't know how I feel about it.

Yes, it's kinda neat, and having dissected cadavers, I do have an appreciation for the techniques required and such. But there's something about the way the bodies are posed that's very disturbing, the juxtaposition of death and art that's very Damien Hirst in a way, but more directly confrontational. Although not novel, the exhibit is fresh (pardon the pun) in its 3-D exploration of the human condition, a stripped, biological indictment of life and its varying effects on the body. Controversies about consent aside, the very idea of a biological display of human curiosities is very carnivalesque, and I suppose that's one of the reason for my inherent uneasiness about the whole thing. To be fair, I've seen old anatomy textbooks with illustrations of Man holding his own skin, or a 'thinker' stripped of his skin to reveal muscles in motion. Still, an illustration of motion is different from actual human remains posed in motion (I'll get back to the posing later). Medical uses of cadavers, although illustrative, are different. The teaching there is less about wonderment about the body, and much more so about practical principles of anatomy and organization (although again, wonderment comes with the territory of having your hands on someone's once beating heart). Secondly, part of the experience has to do with allowing the bodies to eventually decompose, to return to their families. The human condition is realized in this case, whereas plasticized samples of human corpses seem denied of this finality (and the emotional/cultural norms that comes with it), and it's the viewer that's doing the denial.

I say this fully knowing about the canopic jars filled with dead babies floating in formaldehyde in the anatomy lab at the school. Something about that unnerves me too, but the necessity there is about education, and I think the argument can certainly be made here as well. The public does get an educational experience from all of this, and so what if the exhibit people want to pose the bodies so as to get more variety into their 'show'. Maybe it's the posing that disturbs me more; the false life bestowed upon the lifeless seems incongruous with how we think dead people should be:eyes closed, lying flat, and in general, non-confrontational. So is this art? Is it spectacle? Is the 'education' worth the spectacle?

I'm conflicted about it.

pic stolen from here

Something in the water? Maybe?

Sometimes all it takes is five minutes to tell the difference between a good lecturer and a bad one. Even less to tell who is speaking out of his ass. It came as a pleasant surprise to me the other day to hear a series of lectures delivered with clarity, insight and energy come from lecturers at this medical school. I was struck by how eloquent the information was presented, how organized and clear the lecturers made their slides, despite cramming tons of primary literature into the process. It reminded me a lot of lectures at Harvard, especially those from the hummanities and social sciences. One of the lecture at the medschool recently was about smoking and smoking cessation. Yeah, we've all heard plenty on the topic, so I was gearing myself for yet another boring hour with lots of repetitive rhetoric and probably obscure, poorly explained facts. Instead, the lecturer was funny and precise, and she gave plenty of interesting facts:

1) there's very little convincing evidence that nicotine causes cancer (other components of smoke cause cancer)
2) smoking increases wrinkles, infertility (both sexes), early menopause, blindness, hearing loss...etc
3) never too late to quit (even after the age of 65, incremental reversal of pulmonary (heart related) damage happens very quickly, and can add years to life)
4) clinical trials for several new drugs are quite promising at helping people to quit
5) an exciting clinical trial that's going on right now for a nicotine vaccine, with the theory that if we combine nicotine with a hapten and trigger an immune reaction, the nicotine-antibody complex is too large to cross the blood brain barrier, and people who smoke (after receiving the vaccine) would never get addicted to cigarettes...wow! (or it could help addicts lessen dependency on nicotine).

She isn't the only lecturer that's been so engaging in recent months. Infact, it would seem there's an influx of exciting lecturers and professors who know what they're talking about, and can really teach. Where are they all coming from? yep. Harvard.

point of interest...hmm

10:00 am. monday. class is as boring as ever, and we're about to start another lecture. I'm sitting in the 4th row from the front, along side Ron and Tim. Ron wispered to me:

" Pss, phil, look over there!" He points to the 1st row, on the left side of the auditorium.
"Who? oh, yes. he's cute...very cute." I concurred.
"No, not him! the other one!"
"Oh okay, yeah, but that doctor is definitely cute." Tall, dark hair, medium complexion with a chiseled jawline you can probably grate cheese with--this was one hot doctor.
I noticed his perfectly fitted suit beneath the white coat, impecable shoes, and neatly trimmed hair. "He's a neurosurgeon!" I exclaimed to Ron.
"And he's also married," Tim chimed, "Notice the ring?"
"Lucky wife. Damn!" I sighed.
"No, no, not necessarily." Ron adamantly protested. "First of all, it's Massachusetts, so it may not be a wife. And second of all, plenty of gay guys wear wedding rings."
"You mean because they're in the closet?" I asked.
"Not exactly, they wear it so people won't question their private lives. " Ron patiently explained to me," This single gay guy I know from my gym says he wears a wedding ring because he works at a school, and he doesn't want people to ask questions."

"Really! That just makes it even more confusing! You know there was a Dean at Harvard who dressed impecably like the doctor over there, and it took me 2 years to figure out that he was gay." I exclaimed.

"Was it because he wore a ring?" Ron asked.
"No. Well, he had shirtless pictures of himself in his office though...very sporty, and he wore really nice shoes." I responded.
Ron sighed, and responded: "And it took you 2 years? In that case, Phil, your gaydar needs a tune up."

tipping point

It is simply not fair for parents to use their childrens' love as a bargaining chip in order to get what they want. In my case, they're saying: "If you love us, then don't live your life." Fucking great. I think it's time for another brutal re-coming out party to remind them of their denial. I'll beat this issue to a bloody pulp if I have to. I don't think they know how cruel I can be, but they're forcing my hands.