Wave Goodbye

"Words get tangled on you tongue, and you stumble on your feet
When you miss somebody.
And everywhere you think you see them walking down the street
When you miss somebody.

When you miss somebody, you tell yourself a hundred thousand times,
"Nobody ever lives forever," so you give it one more try:
To wave goodbye
Wave goodbye

Yeah, when you miss somebody you tell yourself that everything will be alright.
You try to stand up strong and brave, but all you wanna do
Is lay down and die."
Chris Cornell, Wave Goodbye

This is the first year since she died that I've missed going to visit my mom's grave.
It feels weird.

Take Up Thy Stethescope and Walk

It's been a long time since I picked this thing up. I guess with Nevermore around I haven't felt the need so much to talk to myself.
Let's see, what's new... I finished Med School and my residency. I managed to pay off the remainder of my college debt early last year. Hal's money and my mom's money were put into high-yield savings accounts. Of all people, it was Nevermore who suggested that. Not really a people but I guess when some...thing... sticks around long enough it's kind of a habit to think of him as more than just an animal.
So, yeah. I've been getting investment tips from a bird. He's a mouthy son of a bitch, but he's my mouthy son of a bitch. In the past few years he's run off exactly two study buddies and five blind dates and I've given up on having a social life.
It turns out that was for the best, because I got a message from my dad telling me to get my ass to Vegas pronto. It's nice not having to explain shit when I need to disappear. So tonight I'm covering all of the furniture and putting a hold on my mail. I told work I need to go on a sabbatical, which wasn't news to them. They've been trying to get me to take a vacation for two years. Alan, my department supervisor, is afraid I'll burn out and they'll lose me.

Oh, semi-interesting developments. I eat and sleep way less than I used to, even when I first started med school. I got a lot stronger, and I kept up at target practice with Sibyl. I can't take her to a normal shooting range, but at least there are some quiet woods up in the hills.
Nevermore, who still won't tell me what his name is, actually lets me go into work alone now. Has for about a year. He does tend to follow me, but at least he waits outside the building.
I've been studying Greek, too. Figured I should know the language of my family. That stuff, knowing who my dad really is, hasn't gotten any less weird.

I Hate Snakes.

Spent some time with Dad today. He brought me sunflowers for my birthday, which was last week but no less sweet.
He also brought me a new copy of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," since my last copy met an... unfortunate end when Nevermore tried to watch it but couldn't get a grip and ended up breaking it. Then he chewed on it. On accident he said.
I don't know.

We watched it together, the new copy. Dad and I, I mean. Nevermore mostly peered down over the T.V. and got in the way. He acts weird when Dad's around. Doesn't talk as much, and more of the words he does say are actual conversation rather than vulgarities.
The part where Indy gets into the Well of Souls, with all the snakes, I actually saw Dad make a face.
"Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?"
I said something, and he told me the story of his fight against Python. The first real fight he ever had. Serpent hatred runs in the family.

O Tannenbaum

Saw Dad again. He helped me pick out, put up and decorate a Christmas tree with all of Mom's ornaments. Showed up in the front seat of my Impala as I was getting ready to head out.
I guess he bought several of those ornaments for her when they visited Morocco and Italy. They were together a year or so before Mom got pregnant with me and Dad had to go back to the Overworld.
Mom never talked about all of the places they visited, I guess it made her too sad.

Anyway, it was nice, having the company for a couple of hours. And it's not like Nevermore could have helped with the tree.

Take the Money and Run

May 15th, 2009
Happy Birthday, Laurel. Still no real change from the Universe. Work has been granting me a fantastic outlet for all of this energy I've had lately.

Well... that first wasn't entirely true. Nevermore, my fine feathered friend, has learned to use EBay. At first it was funny, he bought little stuff like a rubber snake for my birthday.
Then he bought himself a TV, a DVD player, and copies of Raging Bull, Scarface, Taxi, Goodfellas and the Godfather (parts 1-3).
Now he thinks he's Joe Pesci, except when he thinks he's Tony Montoya.

You know... I have no idea where he got the funds.
I should check my bank account.

Making the Oath

"I swear by Apollo the Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods, and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures that are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help."

So. I've made my promise. Do no harm.

Let it be.

February 2nd, 2006
I'm starting to get used to not having Hal around anymore. I'm all settled in to his... well, my house, now. The decor is a little weird. Hal was a herpetologist before he got sick, so there are snakes everywhere. I can't bring myself to redecorate yet, though. Staring at his research, his pictures, sitting in his car (and oh my god, it's a beautiful car), it feels like I'm still able to talk to him sometimes.
I feel a bit at a loss for what I'm supposed to do now. Keep calm and carry on? I've got this big lump in my throat and I worry that I'm going to take it out on my patients. I know that not everyone is going to live, that's just how life is. But now it's like I'm afraid to get too close to any of them, because when they go it will be just like getting the wind knocked out of me again.
I can't help it, though. I like helping people too much, even if that means just easing the pain until they move on to the next... thing.
The bird, in all his infinite wisdom, is telling me to take this time to sort out my own head. "First and fucking foremost," he said in his most eloquent way, "stop bringing idiots home." In short, he has promised that until I bring someone home with "a real fucking brain," that I will never have a social life. He has yet to clarify what constitutes a real brain. But maybe he - whom I've taken to calling Nevermore - has a point. I've got some things to work out before anyone else hops on this crazy train.
Mom would know what to do.

Merry Christmas

December 25th, 2005
Apollo was right.
It has been hard not to kill the bird.

But he brought me... something for Christmas. I think it used to be a mouse.
He's always trying to follow me to work, which gets a little awkward.

Oh, speaking of work. I lost the internship and I'm back to working at Alta Bates. I was going to tell the academic supervisor that I quit, but she beat me to the punch saying it was terribly irresponsible of me not even to bother showing up.

You Get What You Need

October 6th, 2005
Ok. We've reached an understanding.
I deleted most of the bird's blogs on here. He scratched my keyboard up.

Yes, there was a bird blogging on my computer. A raven. He won't tell me his name. He just broke my sculpture of the Disney Castle and kept saying "Nevermore." So I've decided to call him Nevermore. I think he got confused about that old poem, thinking the bird lands on a palace instead of a bust of Pallas. But Hal didn't have any busts of Athena, so there went that reenactment. I ultimately don't care why he broke my figure, I'm just pissed.
I tried locking him outside, once. I put a "return to sender" sticker on his head while he was sleeping and set him on the patio. I had to let him back in because he was threatening to wake up the neighbors. Sometimes he sounds like that bird from Aladdin.

Anyway, I can't send him away. He says he was sent here by my dad. The dead one. Well, the dead one I tried to cut open. He had a little note stuck on his leg.
"Laurel,
Don't try to kill him. That might be harder than it sounds, sometimes. Like I said, he's mouthy and he'll be in your face all the time. I have a feeling that, over time, this will come to be a good thing.
The gun is for you, too. It is very difficult to damage. It will not jam, and you need never reload it. Insight and ammunition are two things Sibyl will never lack. You're a clever girl, and I know you've had some experience with weapons. I'd be surprised if you hadn't noticed it looks nothing like normal guns. It is not metal. It was constructed from one of the columns of the Oracle at Delphi. Take care of it, and the bird. They will take care of you."

No, "love, Dad." No explanation of what use I would have for either. Just that I would eventually be glad I had them both.
And not to kill the bird.

19th Nervous Breakdown (the tales dead men tell)

October 5th, 2005
I am, apparently, quite skilled now in the art of "flipping right the fuck out" when faced with something weird.
But that raven sitting on Hal's... My dining room table is assuring me that I am quite sane.

This doesn't make sense yet, but I'm hoping that by writing it all down it will start to solidify and sort itself out in my head.

I went to my internship, I had my tape recorder and my own scalpel. My supervisor said I was doing well, and that I could handle this one on my own. He'd review my notes later (which was the purpose of the tape recorder) and was going to get the smell of formaldehyde and dead people out of his nose. He made the job seem so glamorous.

I'd arranged all of the tools I expected I'd need. I was to conduct an autopsy on the patient, Phil Palostoya, to determine cause of death. Supposedly something wasn't right in his head, there could have been a tumor or a hemorrhage. I was supposed to figure it out.
I'd laid him out on the table. I kept feeling like I should recognize him.
I'd marked his forehead where I was about to cut, plugged in the bonesaw, took a deep breath. I pulled my mask over my face, turned the saw on and then Mr. Palostoya SAT THE FUCK UP.
I tried to push the bonesaw down on him because, seriously, fuck dead people who move. Then he moved his arms. He grabbed my wrists, and I screamed bloody murder. Not much good over the sound of a saw. Which, by the way, I dropped into his lap the second he touched me.
Or I would have, if he hadn't let me go and grabbed it. Then he turned it off, and looked at me very calmly and said, "You can stop screaming."
I kept screaming, because, seriously, fuck dead people who talk.

And he sat there. And waited. He crossed his dead-guy arms, and moved his dead-guy foot like he was trying to tap it on the floor. Then he stood up and the autopsy sheet fell away and I was faced with a dead, naked guy. This is how a lot of horror movies start, I think.
I asked him to sit back down so I could finish my autopsy. Seriously.
He laughed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "Laurel, think about how funny that sounds."
It did sound a little weird. I cracked a smile, then did a little snort, then started laughing hysterically. "Ok, yeah. So, no autopsy for you. Um... What do you want?"
"Firstly," my dead guy said, "I want some pants. Then I want to talk to you."
And I realized that this talking dead guy was naked. It really clicked, and became a little uncomfortable.
"Uh, here," I clambered over to the scrubs drawer and held some out without looking at him.
"Alright. Better. So... How's life? It's been tough not telling you how good you look, how proud I've been of you."
"Whuuuh..." I lost all of my verbal skills. Like, they fell into a pit a million miles away from me and decided just to take a nap.

I'll skip the play by play of the conversation, it just makes me look like an idiot. A crazy idiot.
The long and short of it is that that dead guy claimed he was Apollo. No, not Lee Adama. THE Apollo. The sun and fire and music and horses guy. The God. The... guy who knocked my mom up and then ran off to "die" in the Balkans. Turns out he got called back to his hilltop. Makes no difference to my childhood where the hell he was. He wasn't there.
So I'm the daughter of a god, destined for great things and gifted with great talents and he couldn't tell me more about that part but someone would come along soon to tell me more. He did give me a necklace, I don't know and don't wanna know where he'd been carrying it.
It's a pendant made out of carnelian. I called it a harp. He corrected me. "Lyre, sweetie." He said it will help in the strange days to come.
"Of those, there will be plenty," he assured me. "Just trust your eyes. You're not crazy."
He turned, getting ready to just walk out of a coroner's lab, and hesitated. "In a couple of days, you're going to get a visitor. He talks a lot, and most of it will be vulgarities. He's got personality issues but he's really one of the best gifts I could leave you with. He will take every opportunity to be a smartass. He's abrasive, invasive and will have no respect for your personal space. But he will protect you."
"Um... ok... what's his name?"
"You know, I never asked."
And then my dead dad walked out of the lab.

The night after, I was sitting at Hal's house -
Well. I guess it's my house now. 21 and I already have two houses. Hm.
Anyways. I was sitting around, I'd just cooked dinner. The windows were open, letting the smell of the night and the trees in. The sun was still in the process of setting, and I could still smell the smell of the sun-warmed leaves wafting in on the breeze.
I parked my ass at the table, set my plate in front of me and started looking over the textbooks I'd brought over. Practicums were looming in the future, to test my technique as well as my bedside manner. I guess they're trying to weed out the assholes early.

I kept hearing this flapping. And fluttering.
And grunting.

And this bird the size of a fucking ocelot came screaming in through the window by the table. He dropped a gun on the floor, which cracked the tile. The bird itself flies straight into the fridge and knocks himself out cold. I ignored the firearm and picked up the bird. He wasn't too much heavier than a housecat.
Reminded me of the crows I used to beg my mom to let me take care of when I was younger. I made it a little bed in a box I'd used to move some of my books over here, with a soft blanket and a dish of water for when the poor guy woke up.
Then it woke up and started talking. Well, before it started talking it started squawking, did some weird flip thing and was promptly wearing all the water I'd gotten for it.

I think that was when I started hyperventilating and passed out. Really, can you blame me? My best friend (nevermind that he was my only friend) died like, a week ago. My first autopsy ended in the corpse walking out on me. And now there was a bird screaming at me.

Encyclopediae Can Be Wrong, Right?

September 30th, 2005
So, it turns out ravens can live up to 40 years.
Dammit.

boss didnt say she was a screamer. head is ringing. gun was fing heavy,k took forever to get here.
who would make one out of marble?Z
damn question marks are hard no more of those.

all she does is yell and cry. must not have much else to do. hasnt left house. no phone calls. maybe no friends.

maybe i should offer to wait outside.

September 27th, 2005
I tried to put a bonesaw through my dad's head two days ago.

I didn't call Dr. Thrace. She would lock me up.
And there's a bird staring at me.
At least he's not talking anymore.

Fuck.

September 25th, 2005
Fuck autopsies. Oh my god.

I should call Dr. Thrace. I don't think I'm OK anymore.

"Love is watching someone die." - Ben Gibbard

Hal's memorial service is tomorrow.