What I Actually Said to the PA Class of 2012

Last night was TW's hooding ceremony in honor of her college graduation. For some reason, I was given a chance to speak on behalf of spouses and families. WIthout further introduction, here is what I told the PA Class of 2012.

Me: Thank you very much, Chastity, it's an honor to speak here.

Her: Charity. My name's Charity.

Me: Right. Right. Charity. Not Chastity. Got it. For those of you that don't get that reference, most of the PAs here tonight can explain the joke. But the truth is, I am in fact terrible at remembering names. 

I come by that honestly, thanks to my Mother, who's here tonight … uh … uh … it's on the tip of my tongue.

Mom: Jackie. My name's Jackie.

Me: There we go. I should probably know that. But I am terrible with names and terrible with introductions. It occurs to me that I should introduce *myself*, since I only know about 20 people here tonight. I am the only person who has been on stage or will be on stage with only a bachelor's degree. It gets worse. It's from a liberal arts college.

I know nothing about medicine, or anything I would call, "doctrin'." My parents are from the South, you'll have to excuse me for that colloquialism.

I am a writer and journalist. My wife, whose name I can hopefully remember, is in the graduating class. I have a blog, mesofun.blogspot.com. About a year ago, I posted some advice to the graduating PA class of 2012. I jokingly stated that nobody had asked me to speak at graduation, but if they did, I had some words of wisdom for the future PAs of the world.

I guess sometimes it helps to dream big.

And now, for just a moment, I'd like to read an excerpt from that blog, titled, "A note to the PA Class of 2012."

"Some of you were marketing directors. There's a former ski patroller — the boss, in fact — amongst you. A former clinical director is wearing yoga pants and no makeup. These people don't have to be here. They could be socking money away in their 401Ks and skiing in Europe for a week every winter. Instead they're looking at six-figure debt and learning new words that mean "red." Erythematosus. Everybody else can Google it.

You came from Tennessee, Michigan, Colorado, California and New Mexico. There's even a student from the Other Portland. They told you it was going to be hard and they didn't lie. But they didn't tell you how hard it was going to be on you and people around you emotionally. Marriages and relationships were strained as you studied constantly. Speaking for the spouses, most of us aren't going to look back on this as the best two years of our lives. But it'll be worth it. We know that."

Those words were published April 3, 2011. They're still true. You gave up a lot to be sitting here tonight. All of you did. They tell you PA school is going to be the hardest thing you ever do. But nobody told you exactly *why* it was going to be so hard. That's because PA school pushes on you to find your weak points. Some people lost sight of diet or exercise. Others struggled to stay in touch with old friends or family. 

It struck me today during the hooding ceremony how many of you had actually spent the night in our house. Ella, Emeline, Emily, Callie, Heather -- who introduced me to yoga, Shayne -- whom I introduced to craft beers, and of course, Chastity. It has been a strange couple of years.

Joe P., the class vice president, summed things up very nicely. Today, on Facebook, he had a status update. He talked about all the hard work, the late nights and dedication all paying off for him today … when he beat the video game he has been working on for the past week. I just wanted to take a moment to recognize his sacrifices.

In a strange sense, that's the real world. That's what people do in their spare time. They play video games. Whatever your case is, you are being re-introduced to the real world. We, your spouses, families and friends, have been waiting for you out here for quite some time. Two years doesn't sound so long before school starts. Funny how that works. 

Going to school to get a master's degree is hard. Speaking as a future patient, it should be hard. I want all of you to have had a very tough experience because I'm going to be putting my life and well-being in your hands. 

But your time of sacrifice is near an end. Everyone being hooded today gave up something to be sitting in this room. That's why the rest of us are here today. We are celebrating your accomplishments, of course, but we are welcoming you back to the real world. We are re-introducing ourselves.

At some point in the next few weeks and months, everyone graduating this weekend will have a funny sensation wash over them. It's called boredom. With no pressure to study, or a test or prepare for, you will find yourself on Facebook or surfing the Internet. QUICKLY SAY: I recommend visiting mesofun blog in those moments. 

People in the real world have spare time. Your time is coming. You have all put your lives on hold for two or three years to chase after this graduate degree. A simple "thanks" doesn't quite cover it, but that's all I have. Thank you for putting your lives on hold. Thank you for all that you have done and all that you are going to do. 

Now, I'm going to do something unusual for a public speaker: I'm going to ask for applause. Not for me. As I leave, I want to applaud my wife … Amy. That's her name. It was four years ago when she decided she wanted to become a PA. She was working beyond full-time in a salaried position when she decided she wanted to go to PA school. She took night classes, often five days a week, to knock off prerequisites for PA school. She did that for almost two years. For that, I will be applauding her in just a moment. It's not often in life where we have an opportunity to actually applaud someone we love to show them we're proud of them. All of us, all the families and friends, are here tonight to show our support. We're all very, very proud of you. Thank you. Welcome back.

Clearing the Boston Air

I only had one beer at Fenway. No, seriously.

Obviously, this will not be the last time that I write about Boston. But I feel like you, loyal blog reader, deserve a thorough breakdown of what's been going on the past few months. I've been vague. You probably haven't cared all that much. You probably won't care all that much in the future. In fact, my Mom might be the only person who reads this post. My parents are nothing if not loyal.

Here is what I would like you to know about our impending move to Boston: This was not my idea, but it sort of was. There I go, being vague again.

Two years ago, TW chastised me when I raised the possibility that we might end up in Boston. That was too much to consider at the time. She didn't even know if she liked Boston. We were moving to Portland for her to go to PA school and because we love New England. I was already doing the math two years ago: There aren't that many jobs in Maine and there are a lot of medical jobs in Boston.

But I dropped it like it was hot because there was no point in fighting about where we might end up. And, frankly, I'm very tired of moving around. I have lived in six states: Maine, Utah, Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire and Florida. After we move to Boston, I will need to live in Rhode Island and Connecticut to complete the New England Cycle.

The thing is, Portland is just 100 miles north of Boston. TW had a rotation in Cambridge, just across the river from Boston and home to Harvard (and MIT). She fell in love with it. No car, walking to everything, riding the subway to the airport. All of it.

That was June. Then, in January, two years after a chilly reception to the idea of moving to Boston, it was time for TW to look for work. And our marriage had been stalled by TW being on the road for four of her fist five rotations. One thing we have always enjoyed doing as a couple is looking at real estate.

I set up a schedule of open houses for us to check out in Boston on a Sunday afternoon. We drove down and checked out condos in South Boston, West Roxbury, Jamaica Plain and Roslindale. After a few hours of careening around twisting Boston streets (ringed with unbelievably pretty urban parks), we were hungry.

When TW is hungry and on the road, that usually means nachos. I don't know much about Boston, but I know there are sports bars around Fenway Park. We plugged in Fenway as a destination and went to lunch at Boston Beer Works. Of course.

After lunch, driving through Kenmore Square, TW asked: "Can we live *here*?"

"Like, right here? Fenway?"

"Yeah, I mean, if you're going to live in Boston, live IN Boston," she said.

Then, TW did something incredible: She looked up Red Sox season ticket packages on her iPhone.

I mean, if you live in Boston, why not?

That's what got the wheels rolling. That and the fact that we are now the proud owners of six figures' worth of student loan debt. And I'm basically unemployed. TW needed a job. Boston had jobs.

This is where I got vague in previous blogs. I apologize (not that you cared). Here's what happened. TW applied for jobs all along the East Coast, as far south as New York City. She had a very interesting job offer in Brattleboro, Vermont.

I love Brattleboro. It's a hippy-dippy town, it's a beautiful area, it's rural but it's 45 miles from a Trader Joe's. I talked to the newspaper in Brattleboro about working there and they had work for me on their four-person news reporter staff. Great.

But it wasn't Boston. TW still had irons in the fire in Boston. She spent almost two months interviewing at one of the top cancer centers in America. We spent the night twice in Boston as she had daylong interviews.

We also drove down from Portland twice for interviews at Cambridge Health Alliance. That's where Amy ended up getting a job offer and that's why we're moving. The job is in primary care. CHA has clinics in the areas immediately north and west of downtown Boston. For Minnesotans reading this, Amy's new place of employment is about 3 miles from the skyscrapers of the Financial District of downtown Boston. It's also maybe 2 miles from MIT and 3 miles from Harvard.

Interesting sidenote: Though this will be my seventh state of residence, it will be the ninth state my dog, Daisy, has spent the night in. I'm vaguely sure that's the same number of states my brother has spent the night in.

She will be taking care of everybody from Brazilian immigrants who speak no English to Ivy League students, engineers and community members of Somerville. She is very eager to get her career started.

But first comes graduation. That's next Friday and Saturday, if you're counting. Hoooooooo boy. It has been a long road to get to this point, and if I think about it, I get a little emotional. The last two years have worked out both better than we could have hoped for and worse than we ever imagined. At the end of the road, 100 miles down the road, is Boston. It's almost too much to comprehend. That's how excited we are.

And so we need a new blog name. I've considered "Daily Mass" and "Mass Effect." Your ideas are welcome. Because, after all, this will not be the last time I write about Boston.

What They Don't Tell You About College

I knew people in college who
acted like Belushi's college
student. They are now engineers.
God help our infrastructure.

My cousins and I are unusually tight. Part of the reason for that is I was a live-in nanny and babysitter for them when they were toddlers. Now, when they need some guidance, they give me a call. I'm honored and shocked that they would want to talk to a 34-year-old about anything. But they do.

The one common theme among these teenage crises is college. Three of my five cousins are of college age (I don't know how that happened). All three cousins have called me for advice. All three have cried about going to college. It kills me because I can relate to all three of them.

The details have been different for each of them, but it boils down to this: People lie to you about college. They don't mean to do it. They just say things that you hear over and over again. And that's why our phone calls spend a great deal of time debunking popular college theories.

1. It's the most important decision you'll ever make.
This isn't untrue, it's simply an incomplete thought. Choosing a college is the most important decision you'll ever make ... but you can't possibly anticipate what makes it so important. You can look at various criteria, evaluate the quality of the education, but you'll never exactly know exactly why it's important. The teachers you meet, the friends you'll make, the things that will happen at your college are more important than anything they can put in a US World Report rankings system.

You can't possibly know what's going to happen. While choosing a college, don't add additional stress to your decision by trying to figure out which one leads to the best job prospects unless you're choosing between Harvard and Salt Lake Community College, a choice I'm confident nobody has ever had to make.

2. It's the best four years of your life.
Hogwash. Baloney.

Let's be honest about our college years. You're going to be living in squalor. When you're in the dorms, your fellow classmates are pigs. You couldn't pay me to shower in a dorm shower. It's disgusting. Then you move out of the dorms and into a slum. Slumlords still exist; they run college housing.

I shared a house with five friends for a year in Dinkytown, a student-housing neighborhood next to the University of Minnesota. My room on the second floor didn't get any heat. All my friends' rooms had heat, but not mine. I called the landlord out. We looked at the problem. Then he declined to do anything about it. The temperature in my room dropped into the 40s on multiple occasions.

Glamorous, right? Just like they show in the movies!

3. Rankings matter.
We love ranking things. I did it professionally, ranking NFL teams from week to week in The Salt Lake Tribune.

TW and I both were hiring managers. If you went to Columbia, we might be more inclined to give you a job interview, but I couldn't tell you the difference between Ole Miss, Michigan and Maine, nor would I elevate one school's education above the other. It simply doesn't really matter how good a school claims to be, in terms of getting job interviews. True, you might get a better education at a better-ranked school, but there's no guarantees.

4. It's the best four years of your life, Pt. II.
Undoubtably there are people who strongly enjoy their college years. It seems to be the ones who are more into the social scene. My friends who went to small colleges, like Luther College in Iowa (!), seemed to enjoy college. Members of the Greek system also seemed to have more fun in college than I did.

But does that really get you ready for real life? A few months after graduation, I was on the phone with someone I graduated from college with. She was a sorority girl and asked me, "Don't you think life is kind of boring now that we're out of school? It just seems so boring."

Uh, no. I worked a minimum of 30 hours a week while I was in college. I painted soccer fields. I covered games for the school paper. I worked as an intern for a baseball team. And I graduated in four years.

When I graduated, real life was a relief. My God, I have time to do laundry. My God, I don't have to drink Busch Lite. I lost 10 pounds simply because I stopped ordering $5 pizzas and had time to go for bike rides.

Obviously, TW and I got to make a college decision a second time. We knew it was going to suck, but we also knew what to do: Find a school that's someplace you love. That's what really matters. Love where you are. It's not about having the best time of your life; it's about making the best out of a bad situation.

All Daisy, All the Time

Wakin' up is hard to dooooo.

That is all.

The Poop-pocalypse

We enjoy cleaning our living room at 3 a.m.

I don't think I've ever started a blog with a warning, but here it is: Today's entry is not for the squeamish because it deals with poop. I will use the "S" word several times. Quick. Click here. The use of a swear word is in part to accurately report what was said last night, in part because there is simply no other word to describe what happened as anything other than a shitstorm.

You were warned.

But don't worry, there will be no more photos. Obviously, I like chronological story forms, so we'll start last night at around 9 p.m. Daisy went in her crate with her usual half cup of food. It was a typical rainy day. She got a little beef rawhide treat and chewed on her bone. Nothing to report.

Her crate door didn't quite click right when I put her in for the night. But I grabbed the door and pulled on it several times. It didn't budge. Good enough for me. I went to bed and passed out.

Around 2 a.m., I was having my usual middle of the night semi-consciousness when the door to our room swung open.

Ghost!

No, dog. Daisy came running in and snuggled up to Amy. Thank heavens for small favors. For me.

I got off the bed and walked into the hall. Daisy was being weird. She wouldn't come into the hallway. Dogs know shame. There were a few droplets of poop at the top of the stairs. I was confused and half awake. Then the smell hit me.

Oh my God.

It's the kind of smell that is unmistakeable. The dog has diarrhea.

TW smelled it, too, but for a different reason. Daisy was a mess and had gotten poop on the sheets around Amy when she came up for a little cuddle. I went back in the bedroom to get some different, I-don't-care-if-they-get-dirty clothes. As I put on the pants next to the bed, Daisy started to gag and heave. I pulled the comforter out of the way just as her vomit hit the spot on the floor where it used to sit.

It was 2:01 a.m.

The smell, my God, the smell. It was coming from downstairs, the main floor of our house where the kitchen, dining room and living room are. It was thick and smelled like wine.

The poop, unfortunately, was generally not thick. There was a small, solid pile just in front of the front door, but it devolved from there. She had vomited on the living room rug. There was a dripping pile of brown poop on our beloved, been-to-hell-and-back couch. There were droplets all around the living room and a soft pool near the back door.

It was like she was trying to escape. If only she had.

TW let Daisy out back to take care of any unfinished business. I walked to the Cumbie (Cumberland Farms) gas station that's around the corner. There's something to be said for city living. I bought three rolls of recycled paper towels (that's the only kind they carry) and returned home.

While I was gone, TW brought bed sheets downstairs and let Daisy back inside. That turned out to be a mistake. While Amy was loading the washing machine Daisy fired off another poop salvo, letting out a giant pool in the basement.

Three floors of our house, poop on every floor. It was 2:10 a.m.

This should be my couch, floating out to sea.

I didn't know where to start. Neither did TW. All you can do is put your head down and start picking up piles of poop. I started at the front of the house. We did the floors in the living room. But it was the couch that you need to hear about.

We started muttering, "shit" and "Oh my God" over and over when we saw the couch. She had hit TW's favorite blanket. TW rinsed the blanket in the bathtub before putting it in the washing machine. But the couch was still disgusting.

Cleaning the surface was easy enough. We had to pull the couch out because it had been dripping through the cracks. Then we had to pry the cracks open so Amy could reach inside and wipe the cloth surfaces inside. If we had any income, any income whatsoever, we would get rid of this couch and get something else. Anything else. A pile of rags would do. We used all our rags last night, though. The couch took half an hour. It was 2:45 a.m.

The rest of the cleaning went pretty smoothly. On the last pile, in the basement, TW was gagging. I sent her upstairs to give the dog a bath. Then I broke out the bleach to take care of the cement floor in the basement. Bleach has never smelled so amazingly good.

When I came back up, I couldn't smell anything. My olfactory nerves had been overworked. We debated what to do with the dog and decided the crate was probably the right place. It was 3:15 a.m.

TW suffered from PTSD and didn't get back to sleep until at least 4:30 a.m. When she finally rolled out of bed, cutting it close to get to work, she let Daisy out back and fed her a half cup of food.

Daisy, apologetic and sweet as ever, did her usual morning routine except she didn't have any urine or feces to produce. Weird.

Daisy then charged up the stairs like usual and jumped on the bed like usual. What was abnormal was what happened next. Often, the puppy stares at me for hours, waiting for any sign of life because that means we're going to go play or do something fun. Today, she just plopped her body down on Amy's pillow and laid her head next to my head on my pillow.

Then she moaned and sighed at the same time. It was a long night for everybody.