Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Archives for March 2009

That was an easy decision

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I went out with a friend last night to celebrate her birthday. Her birthday is actually March 17—one year we went to the big CB Hannegan’s St. Patrick’s Day bash, but in general March 17 is a day you want to avoid going out, if possible. (The technical term, in the original Gaelic, is “Amateur Hour.”)

Generally I have two or three drinks a week—on date night, and Saturday night. I have cocktails (I’m particularly fond of the French martini), because a year or so ago I decided, “You know what? I don’t like dry red wine, even if I don’t have the allergic reaction. I don’t even want to drink dry white wines. Sweet whites are all right, but if I’m at sweet whites, I might as well head on over to cocktails.” I had my drinks at Alexander’s Steakhouse the other night—

(Apropos of nothing: if you go to Alexander’s, don’t bother with the steak. Seriously. Their fish and seafood dishes, all of them small plates, are so much better than any of the straightforward steak things that getting anything other than that is pointless. FYI.)

—then last night I had two margaritas with my friend (who drank considerably more). I drank at least 4 times as much water as I did margaritas, and I was still a little buzzed at the end of the evening. Then I had trouble getting to sleep (as I usually do after drinking), and I woke up early (as I often do). I went running, and while the run went well, I felt logy and dehydrated doing it.

I’m supposed to be training for a marathon. I can’t do a lot of running feeling logy and dehydrated. I’m currently exercising six to seven days a week, I’m always doing something, I can’t spend too much time like this.

So today, as I was chugging yet another pint of water, I thought: “That’s it then: No more alcohol. No more drinking until the marathon.”

Doing this marathon is clearly that important to me. It was kind of a surprise when it hit me. I like having a cocktail once in a while, but I can’t afford it any more.

When I give up chocolate, you’ll know I’m really hardcore.

Diane needs

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I got tagged for the Google needs meme, and since I post so rarely, this will just have to do:

1) Diane needs a pigfoot and a bottle of beer, some reefer and some gin
(Well, isn’t THIS the truth.)

2) Diane needs to reconcile both sides of herself — to love herself

3) diane needs a fucking shower
(My God, this is like visiting a psychic)

4) Hmmm Diane needs a good affair.
(Okay, maybe not so much)

5) Diane needs our thoughts and prayers

6) Diane needs a ride for 1 to San Ramon
(I’m beginning to see story possibilities, linking all these sentences)

7) DIANE NEEDS TO STOP HUMPING ME!
(…)

8) Diane needs to get out of my boyfriend’s life
(I…I…there are no words.)

9) Diane needs each and everyone of you to take stock
(and see if you’re driving to San Ramon)

10) Diane Needs A Loan From Her Father

11) Diane needs to get some sleep or perhaps this is her glass ceiling
(from someone else’s “Diane needs” page, heh)

12) Diane Needs Financing

13) Diane needs a website made
(I have a couple, though they are in dire need of redesign/revamping)

14) Diane needs to be fair
(Hasn’t stopped me up until this point in my life)

15) Diane needs to be beatin with a rubber hose
(Um. No.)

16) Diane needs a new way to maximize the attention of her banking customers
(I’ve gotten some awesome ideas on how to do that in previous entries)

17) Diane needs ur phone #
(Esp. if she’s having an affair with you, going to San Ramon, or doing your banking)

18) Diane needs more $5 qualifying contributions

19) Diane needs your 7 year projections
(Who doesn’t, frankly?)

20) Diane needs only moist, well-drained, organic soil in sun or light shade
(And then she grows like a weed!)

21) Diane needs to stand and move around the room
(But then she’d get organic soil everywhere!)

22) Diane needs to be more sexy and more out there
(Trust me, she has that covered.)

23) Diane needs a cheeseburger
(Errr… no. Yuck.)

24) Diane needs to see these paintings
(Art!)

25) what Diane needs: a little discipline and a little training
(That will certainly come in handy in San Ramon!)

And…if you’ve bothered to read this far, consider yourself tagged! It’s actually hilarious, finding what comes up.

Beat the Reaper: the review

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Along with all of this other weird stuff that’s been happening to me over the past 6 or so months—losing weight being the most obvious and least significant—I stopped reading. That’s not exactly correct; I stopped reading novels. I still read the web obsessively (although I haven’t read most of my writing/agent blogs in a million years, and since the election I’ve cut way back on the political ones too), but of the last 20 times Darin and I went into a Borders or Barnes and Noble, I walked out empty-handed 19 times. I picked up books and said, I’ve read this already. Or, What’s interesting here? Nothing interested me.

I did keep hearing about this book Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell, though. I can’t remember why or where. But I kept running across references to this book here and there, and I thought, Well, I’ll get it from the library.

Holy God, I wish I’d bought it; this book was that entertaining.

Peter Brown is an intern at Manhattan Catholic, the worst hospital in New York. He is also a former hitman for the Mob, currently in the witness protection program. This works because he spends all of his time at the hospital, and no one with any options (like mob guys) would go near ManCat on a dare, so he never runs into his former associates. Until, of course, he does.

This book is hilarious, violent, vulgar, moving, and one of the most fabulous reads I’ve run across in a long time. Peter Brown is actually a doctor, despite his past, and despite the snark and exhaustion you can see he’s actually getting something out of his new chosen profession. He also explains in detail what he got out of his last job too—how he got into it, why he got out of it. It’s filled with footnotes of information about medical processes and random asides that are interesting and hilarious unto their own right and all of which are…let’s just say, read the damn footnotes, okay? Details you think are just random bits of color keep coming back in strange and unexpected ways.

The book opens with Brown getting mugged on his way to work. It doesn’t stop until the last page. Along the way, you get interchanges like this:

I sit back down. Wipe my nose with my left hand to cover the slow movement of my right hand toward my beeper. “Guy’s got some right buttock and subclavicular pain OUO despite PCA*,” I say. “Looks like a fever, too.”

* Like you care what this means.

This novel also has one of the more, uh, memorable climaxes I’ve ever run across. In fact, I had to skim that part because it was so graphic and deeply disturbing. What’s more disturbing: that’s not even the violent part. The violent part of the climax gets skimmed over in the text, because it’s completely beside the point by the time it actually happens.

Seriously. This book is a total ride.