02_06_27

wigstock

It's the day before the Boards, and I'm not really sure what more I can or should do at this point. I've been doing a lot of practice questions, and I still have a good number of practice questions to go, but I don't exactly want to burn myself out by doing hundreds and hundreds of questions the day before a nine-hour long test, the same way that you don't really run a full 26 miles when training to run a marathon. I could study more, but by now, I've accepted that I know what I know and I'm going to have to punt on what I don't, because there's no way that I can fill up all the remaining gaps in my education in the next 7 hours. (I've designated tonight after 8:00pm a no-study-zone, again to prevent burnout.) I could just chuck it all and go to the park to catch some rays, but my personality is a little too neurotic to just chalk up the entire rest of the day to frivolity. So instead, I sit here, surrounded by unopened Board review books, reading about Martha Stewart's inside trading scandal on Newsweek.com. Maybe I should carbo load.

Nothing much else is new. Joe is still being a freak. Two nights ago, he went to Barnes and Noble to study for the Boards, and when he wasn't home by 2:00am (Barnes and Noble closes at 11:00pm), I got worried and called him on his cell phone, just to see if everything was OK. He didn't pick up, so I left a message. Not an insane message, not a frantic message. Just, "It's getting late, I just wanted to see if everything is OK, I'm going to bed, but give me a call when you get in."

Last night, he told me that my having called him made him feel "crowded." The way he puts it, you'd think I implanted some radio monitor in his scalp in order to keep tabs on him, or that I call and page him incessantly throughout the day to monitor his movements throughout the city. It's not like I would ever forbid him from going out with his friends or engaging in activities without me. It's not like he wouldn't have called me (pre-summer funk festival) if I wasn't home by 2:00am under similar circumstances. But that's the point: this is not even about me. This is about how he's living in the House of Buggin', and how everything I say or do now is being interpreted through that filter. So maybe the best thing to do is just leave him alone for a while.

To put it plainly, the man is wigging out on me.

You know how they say that, when interviewing a psychotic patient, you should never stand between them and the doorway, because they might perceive you as blocking their one means of escape, and go completely ballistic on you? Well, that's kind of what I feel like right now, like the doctor of a psychotic. So I'll just continue to stand here, quietly and calmly in the corner of the room next to the window, and wait for some orderly to appear and quickly administer an IM dose of Haldol.

Michelle

Countdown to the Boards: 1 day