Happy New Year

Is it that time again? Is it time to make resolutions? I’m trying to remember the last time I made resolutions that lasted more than a week, or really that I even took that seriously. I used to, or at least I certainly did at least once. So, what do I resolve? What do I promise myself that this year will be better? What do I insist on changing, or making better? Where do I fail my own measure?

#1: Fitness - I know, I know. It is everyone’s perennial resolution, but this year I mean it. Really. It’s not a weight thing. I’m heavier now than I’ve been in a bit, but more than that, I am less fit, less conditioned. Since returning to medical school, and a schedule that is not particularly flexible or under my control, my ability to motivate myself to get to the gym has dwindled. At this point I wake up too early to work out before I start my day, and when I get home in the evening, I have trouble mustering up the energy. What is the solution? A goal without a plan is futile. Do I wake up earlier in the morning in order to workout before the start of the day? How early will that be? 3:30? 3 am? Is that what it takes? Or is the better plan to wait until the end of the day and drudge through it then? The morning seems like a wiser plan, but can I honestly say that I’m going to wake up that early? Really?

Resolution #2 will wait until tomorrow, but for a quick, and somewhat ironic preview, I’ll say that it involves writing more.

And on an unrelated preview, let me say that I’m planning to try sous vide at home, using a crock pot and zip lock bags. Look out world.

It’s been a while…

Back in New York City. It’s hard to grapple with the decision of where to live. For most of my adolescence I was convinced that I would eventually move back to New York, after college, or after medical school, or after residency at the very latest. It’s always felt like home, and I’ve never really gotten away from that. Over time, though, I’ve adapted to Los Angeles, or rather I’ve gotten less used to New York. The density, for one thing. It’s hard to really fathom the density of Manhattan streets in comparison with any other American city. After walking around a couple of days after Christmas (the busiest time of year to be sure), I became convinced that the population of Manhattan must have at least doubled since our youth. I looked it up, and it hasn’t so much. Turns out the population of Manhattan has been about the same for a while (currently trending up). I still find it hard to believe. Maybe it’s just the parts of the city that I end up in have become more crowded, or perhaps there are a lot more tourists now than there used to be.

I guess my point is that I have grown unaccustomed to this place, and while I can certainly see myself living here as an adult, I don’t need to in the way that I always felt like I would. I grew up on the upper west side, and that will always be my hometown, but so much changes and turns over. I walked around Columbia last time I was in town, and most of the places I remember from childhood are gone, or have been so brutally and aggressively renovated that they’re hardly recognizable. It doesn’t feel like coming home would necessarily feel like home.

Which leaves the question totally open of where to live… San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles, D.C., Minneapolis,… New York (it’s never entirely off the table).

My body, my self

I’m fat. There, I said it. That’s got be step one of a twelve step program or something. I should be halfway, or one twelfth of the way, towards being skinny now. Isn’t that how it works? I remember a year ago, after training for a couple of marathons, after getting in decent shape, and after getting married, being told by some older friends that I would start gaining weight. They said that just by virtue of my marriage I would spend less time working out and more time eating. They said my body would change. I scoffed at the idea, but here I am, one year later, feeling more out of shape than at any time since high school.

Of course, I’m also reading about and studying psychiatry for medical school right now. Anyone who’s ever taken a psychology course knows what I’m talking about when I say that reading the description of any arbitrary body image disorder and I can convince myself that, yeah, I might have that. Then again, I’m also reading about diabetes, and with a pretty strong family history the only really protective factor for me not developing adult onset diabetes is losing enough weight that I consistently underweight. This is, of course, a fact that I have known since college and avoided for a number of reasons, owing mostly to the fact that I love to eat.

So, my solution/resolution of the moment: accounting. Maybe if I keep one of those inane food logs I can stay aware of all the unnecessary junk I’m stuffing down my gullet. Maybe I can un-normalize the concept of “lunch dessert” which has become less of a treat and more of a dietary staple as of late.

Bathroom scale: 198 lbs (who knows how accurate?)

The brighter side of anticipation

For my birthday, this past weekend, I received from my wife the St. Moritz Titan II watch. I say that with the same sort of glee with Ralphie would take in saying each part of “official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle.” The watch is beautiful and functional and manly and rugged and sophisticated and light, and everything I hoped it would be. So that’s good.

What surprises me about all of it, and by that I mean the whole process of receiving it, is how much joy it has brought me. Not since I was a child can I remember being this excited about a gift, and I think I know why. Because not since I was a child have I known exactly what I wanted, and then had to wait for it.

I’m not sure how old I was when my parents first started the “reasonable negotiation” method of gift giving. That’s where I would come to them with something I wanted, and we would discuss it, me explaining why it was a “good” purchase and something my parents should support, and them considering and then deciding that either yes, they would, or no they would not purchase the gift. And then it was done. There was no waiting, really. Gifts didn’t come like opportunities around birthday or holiday times. I sort of banked them, for a while, and then they came sporadically when the time was right. The whole thing was very enlightened and progressive, but took a lot of the thrill out of birthdays and holidays.

Most of my toys in modern days have been self purchased, or the product of some negotiation, so there was never the wondering. If I wanted something, I bought it. In this case, though, there was the waiting, the anticipation, the desire, the fulmination of the need (real or imagined) and then the satisfaction. And the result? It is more thrilling to satisfy a need than a whim. That should be obvious, and of course it is, but in this age of consumer frenzy, I had forgotten that joy of waiting.

On taking tests

In a few weeks, I will be taking a written test for the first time in six years. I suppose it’s slightly less if you count the written test at the DMV for getting a motorcycle license, but that hardly seems comparable. It’s a strange state to return to. For so long my life was punctuated by regular and significant testing and it was something I was good at. In fact, it could be said that it was what I was best at. Both in high school and college my work in a class was acceptable, but my ability to sit down with a test, particularly a standardized test, and see through it was really what distinguished me academically. In college, with midterms and finals, tests came regularly and rigorously. With the first couple of years of medical school, that pace quickened. But now… I took a handful of classes at the start of graduate school, all with take home exams or final papers, and aside from oral exams haven’t been tested, haven’t been stood up and measured in any focussed or critical way.

It’s scary. It’s scary to go back now to testing and to that sense of urgency and inevitability and anxiety. And yet, it’s also somewhat comforting to know that I will be measured again, and not arbitrarily, that I will be on a track of finite length, and that the end will always be in sight.

Things I Want: All-Clad 12-inch Stainless Steel Fry Pan

Gee golly, that’s a nice pan. The All-Clad 12-inch Stainless Steel Fry Pan has been on my mind. My thriftiness has always been at odds with my snobbishness when it comes to pans. A couple of years ago I bought some new pans on a particularly good deal, and went a little overboard. I bought more pots and pans than I needed, and while they are all serviceable, they are not exceptional. I guess I’d just rather have a couple of exceptional pans than a dozen serviceable ones.

Quick dinner: Frittata with radicchio, onions, and mozzarella

Quick dinner: Frittata with radicchio, onions, and mozzarella

6 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup grated mozzarella
1/2 medium onion
1/2 head of radicchoi
1 large slice of good crusty bread cut into 1 inch cubes
a handful of grated Parmesan

Preheat the broiler, and on the range heat up a 10-inch nonstick fry pan with a little bit of olive oil. Slice the onion thin and the radicchio into 1 inch strips and throw in with the oil to soften up. While they’re cooking covered over medium-low heat for about 3 minutes, take a large bowl and beat together the eggs and milk. Add some salt and pepper to taste and then throw in the grated cheese and the bread. When the onions and radicchio are done, throw them into the bowl as well, stir it up, and pour that back into the pan.

Using a wooden spoon (or something that won’t scratch your nonstick), gently stir the egg mixture while it cooks, constantly scraping the bottom gently to allow the runnier parts of the egg mixture to contact the pan. When the consistency reaches something like pudding (still a bit looser than runny scrambled eggs) take it off the heat and scatter the handful of Parmesan across the top.

Now put the pan under the broiler until the Parmesan browns. Depending on your oven and your broiler this could take just couple of minutes, or a while longer. Just keep checking it until you get nice scattered browning of the cheese. Take it out of the broiler and let it sit on the stove for a couple of minutes to let it set. Then slide it out of the pan and onto your cutting board, cut into wedges and serve.

Never Again #1: Alhambra Beauty College

It was the winter of 1998, and I was but a wee lad living in Pasadena, and humbly eking out an existence from the rough terrain of medical education, when one of my classmates mentioned to me that she had just had her haircut and she had paid only two dollars. Two dollars? Two dollars? Who ever heard of such a thing. Well, the Alhambra Beauty College lets students cut your hair, as part of the learning process, and for this service you pay only a pittance. As a student whose education relies upon the patience of others, and more particularly their willingness to submit themselves to my inexperienced practice, I immediately liked the idea. Not only am I getting a haircut, I am providing a service, giving back if you will, doing my part to train the hairstylists of tomorrow.

So I went, and it wasn’t the best haircut I had ever received, but it also wasn’t the worst. I grew having my mom cut my hair, and generally maintaining a shaggy mop that covered my eyes at least as much as I could get away with. Even after I graduated from mom-salon, it was always the $9 mall haircut for me, or the barber in college. On and off, over the years since then, I have returned to the Alhambra Beauty College, never with high expectations, but also not with an impending sense of dread. In the last few months I have visited twice, and that is enough for me.

First of all, the price has gone up to four dollars (2 more if you want your hair washed). I know, I know, 6 dollars is still an unparalleled bargain. Or is it? The Vidal Sassoon Academy in Santa Monica also offers student haircuts, and if you have a student ID the cost is only $10. For your $10, you actually get a very good haircut. The instructors manage (some might say micro-manage) the students, and though the experience can drag on for up to three hours, it is a pleasant experience all around, and you walk away looking good. The same cannot be said for the Alhambra Beauty School.

For the $4 you get to hold on to, you give up any sense of well being you feel during the process, and any chance of being able to communicate with your hair-cutter in English. I’m not talking about holding a conversation here. I’m not one of the people who likes to chat while their getting a haircut, quite the opposite. But, I do expect to able to say words like “longer” and “shorter” without having to charade their meanings. It seems to me that if someone were to start cutting hair, those might be the first English words they learn. Apparently this is not always the case.

What I will say, in defense of the Alhambra Beauty school, is that they give a wonderful hair washing. The process usually lasts 15 to 20 minutes and includes a thorough scalp massage. Well worth the $2 fee. The haircut, and the whole haircutting experience may be a mark overpriced at $4. It’s a schlep to get out to Santa Monica to Vidal Sassoon, and using their services may mean I go longer between haircuts, but mark my words: I WILL NEVER GO TO THE ALHAMBRA BEAUTY COLLEGE AGAIN.

Jesse’s Mitvah Bar

I’m in New York for the weekend, celebrating the 31st birthday of my dear friend Jesse Oxfeld. For his birthday this year Jesse decided to throw a Bar Mitzvah themed birthday party (at 13 he had a Bar Mitzvah, at 31 he had a Mitzvah Bar). It was, of course, not a religious event but a cultural one, echoing the social traditions of upwardly mobile jewish suburban culture. Maybe I’m overstating it. It was a birthday party, in a bar in Manhattan (I think the neighborhood is called Tribecca, but I’ve grown New York-ignorant over the years) laced with the accoutrement of our culturally bereft adolescence.

At the door was a sign-in board, a large poster board decorated with a picture of the birthday boy. At bar mitzvah’s it’s usually a baby picture, in this case it was Jesse’s bar mitzvah portrait. Attached to the board are usually some silver paint markers for guests to leave their messages, ideally, or deface the honorees image if things get a little punchy. I think, traditionally, the parents frame the thing afterwards and hang it up in the kid’s room, or maybe the basement rec room to oversee inevitable experimentations with alcohol, drugs, and awkward sexual stumbling.

The other key tradition was the lighting of the candles on the cake. Customarily, the bar mitzvah boy invites up groups of friends and family members to light each candle. Jesse did this in snarky, rhyming verse, as he had 18 years earlier, and we had prepared musical cues to accompany each group: for his parents, We are Family, for his partying brethren, I Love the Nightlife, for his former coworkers, Get A Job, for his gay buddies, It’s Raining Men. Compiling the music for the event was my job, including a smashing playlist of bar mitzvah classics, circa 1990. For anyone interested, here was the playlist.

Ladies and gentlemen, the bar mitzvah boy, Jesse Oxfeld:

This trip marks my last respite from studying for the next few months for sure, but likely for much longer.

The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?

In my current screening of plays for a potential spring production I recently re-read Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? What a fantastic play. Having always been a fan of Albee, I never cease to be amazed at his particular tone, clarity, and uncompromising perspective.

In general, I am a sucker for fiction that takes extraordinary situations and deals with them very realistically and rationally. This is one of the reasons I so appreciated the move Unbreakable. To take the notion of superhero-hood and couch it in such ordinary characters was a sort of fantastical drama that appealed to me. In the same way, Edward Albee’s play addresses the peculiar situation of a very prominent and respected man, who happens to fall in love with a goat. The events of the play concern his sharing this information with a friend, and how the unfolding of it unravels his family.

Now, with such am absurd premise, there is great temptation to devolve into baser comedy, but of course, Albee wouldn’t deign to cheapen his characters with gag humor. While the script is very funny, it is not base. It is the tense humor of very serious and rational people trying to comprehend and process their very irrational situation.

It is not that Martin (the protagonist; or perhaps his wife is the protagonist, it’s hard to be sure) is lustily engaging in rampant bestiality. Instead, he feels he has found a kindred soul in the goat, and what draws him in isn’t lust, but pure and unadulterated love, the same sort of love he feels for his wife. The issue that the play seeks to grapple with, quite explicitly in some of the later conversations, is the difference between sexual and non-sexual love, or perhaps the lack of difference. Albee almost seems to suggest that love, at its truest, is regardless of form, and it is the circumstances of our experience that circumscribe the limits of our relationships. Martin, in a moment of bucolic bliss, finds himself forgetting those circumstances and the play concerns the unfolding aftermath of society types who have stepped outside of the bounds of polite society.