heartwrenching

Currently on repeat:
"Hide and Seek," Imogen Heap

I am such a sucker for suspended harmonies; they tug at something visceral and just kill me. every. single. time. There's a little bubble of aching pressure in my chest and throat [NB: is it weird that "aching pressure" made me think of the patient I saw today with pancreatitis??] that only resolves when the suspension does. After about the 10th listen, I finally realized that the lyrics don't really make a lot of sense - some filter in my brain bypasses lyrics in favor of harmonic structure - but honestly who cares?

where are we?
what the hell is going on?
the dust has only just begun to form
crop circles in the carpet
sinking, feeling

spin me 'round again
and rub my eyes,
this can't be happening
when busy streets a mess with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
all those years
they were here first

tiny world

It really is a freaking small world. I was talking to the Pearl owners after our show Sunday night, and it turns out they are really good friends with Dr. W, who happens to be associate dean of UTSW as well as my own clinical medicine attending. Apparently he plays bass and is active on the live music circuit in Dallas. I was instructed by the bar owners to bring him to my next show. Riiiight, like he has nothing better to do than see what his dumb MS2s do outside of school.

A Princeton '04 alum came to my show Sunday night as well. Good night for coincidences, I guess. We didn't know each other there (for some reason, football players and musicians don't exactly run in the same circles...), but we have a ton of mutual friends and it's odd to think we had to move here to meet. I haven't seen any Princeton alumni in Texas since moving back, and I got a warm fuzzy homesick feeling. Plans are underway to find our fellow Princeton brethren in Dallas and get together occasionally to reminisce, Princeton style. That means with an excess of alcohol and elitism. Only kidding.

from grey's season premiere

Dr. Callie Torres (a.k.a. the one who looks like a drag queen):

It's the doctor thing. 4 years of high school, 4 years of college, 4 yrs of med school... by the time we graduate we're in our late twenties and all we know how to do is sit in a classroom and study science. Time stops. We're socially retarded. Meredith? She's 17 years old. I'm 17 years old. This is high school with scalpels.

Truer words have never been spoken. This really is high school. With the addition of:
1) being of legal drinking age
--> i.e. alcohol is a very necessary social crutch
2) living on our own
--> i.e. no authority figures to protect us from ourselves
3) much much more gossip
--> i.e. no time to meet anyone outside of med school, tensions build, and the intraclass drama web is prob larger than anyone lets on

Of all the things Grey's does unrealistically (hey I still love it), they really hit this nail on the head.

kind of an embarrassment

Yeah. That's me. Except replace "kind of" with "very much so." Mostly dumb things in class like having the pathology professor ask me specifically to stop talking (oops)... but sometimes dumb things in life too.

back to mundane

My current life is lived to the extremes. This could potentially sound cool, but at the moment it means life is extremely class- and studying-oriented. Like you didn't already know I'm a dork.

underwear party

Following much summer hype, it did indeed occur. After 200 Jello shots, cops at my door, and kicking people out at 4am, I am left with interesting stories, a lot of plastic cups, and a sticky kitchen. That is all.

life choices

Over the weekend I realized I was getting paid to have fun: hair modeling and playing live music. Going to class and constantly studying = not fun. Why am I in med school again?

On that note, back to studying.

craziest wkd ever

Wow. Craziest wkd of my life so far. Timewise and artistically. Never have I seen so many supertrendy tight designer jeans rocker tee snakeskin boot fashion and hair obsessed people in one place. Nor have I ever felt so rocker chic.

Fri night:
Attend model callbacks for hair show. Find out J, A, and I got selected(!!) Little did we know what we had gotten ourselves into.

Sat 8am:
Hair cut/color all day (literally all day... I did not think it was possible to do hair for an entire day but apparently it is) and runway show rehearsal. Finally finish by 8pm. I become mildly infatuated with the salon director who took 2 hrs to cut my hair. He's probably old enough to be my dad but is ridiculously in shape and way too effortlessly hot/cool for his own good. A couple of knowing winks and comments like "great bone structure" and "very pretty girl," and I was all giggly inside. Like a stupid schoolgirl. Apparently he is a god in the hair world as well (insert plug for Van Michael salons). Grab a quick bite, check out M's new apt for UT/OSU. Crash at midnight.

Sun 530am:
Hair styling/extensions. Makeup. Costumes. Runway show. The show was actually really cool - hot model types (guys and girls), really avant garde hair styles/colors/cuts. I felt very non-modelly and short... well, even shorter than usual. Finally finish by 3pm. Get paid (woohoo!) Also now have hair that looks like this and won't have time to get it evened out at least till after Friday's exam:




Sun 7pm:
Show at Pearl with new crazy hair. The photographers who did our shoot after the runway show actually came and loved the music. We had just been chatting during the photoshoot and I mentioned that the hair was perfect for my show tonight. They asked me for the time/place but I didn't think they'd actually come. One was this mid-20s, blond, all-American type of rugged cute and lives in Commerce, TX... hmm. Heh only kidding. No stupid ideas here. But I'm glad (and secretly flattered) that they had fun. After the show this one lawyer guy would not leave me alone. I'd guess around 30, Jewish or Mediterranean. Very Seinfeld-esque in personality/affect. Random conversation revealed that he was clearly very intelligent, hell even attractive, but just came on waaaay too strong. At first we were just talking (I'm friendly with all the bar patrons after our shows... hey we live on tips.) He asks me about the quartet, the music, our background, our stories etc. He finds out I'm in med school and says:

Lawyer guy
So how do you find the time to be a medical student AND do freelance music work at this level? Let me guess, you MUST be single.

Jo
Well... yes I suppose I am.

inside Jo's head
What does that have to do with anything?

Lawyer guy
Please let me buy you a drink.

Jo
Oh, um, thanks for the offer, but I have to drive home.

inside Jo's head
Bullshit, you drive after more than one drink all the time.

Lawyer guy
*makes wounded motion towards his heart* Wow well okay. Thanks for being polite, but basically you've just shot me down cold. Ouch that's embarrassing. Man you just got right to the point there. Wow heartbreak. *he is half-joking but serious enough to make me very uncomfortable*

Jo
Ha ha ha... heh. Well, great, hope you liked the show, I gotta pack up my instruments.

Lawyer guy
So how about sushi? Do you like sushi? I know a bunch of great sushi places around here [downtown]. Maybe you will let me take you out for sushi sometime. But seeing as how you wouldn't even accept a drink... well now you'll have to say yes out of pity. Do you guys play here every Sunday?

inside Jo's head
Oh God. This is awkward.

Jo
No, every other Sunday. *conveniently sidesteps other question*

Lawyer guy
Great. I'll definitely be back. Let me know about the sushi. Can I get your number?

Jo
Um actually you know what? I really have to go, but it will be great to see you back here in a couple wks. We'll talk then. Hope you enjoyed the show! *runs away*

Okay so besides effectively prolonging the situation and probably setting myself up for an identical one in 2 wks... here's my take on it. Our shows last for a few hours, and we're talking/joking/working the crowd the whole time. We introduce ourselves, our backgrounds, who we are, what we do in life between songs. Basically the audience knows a shitload about us, as well as watches our facial expressions during the music for a few hours. There is WAY too much informational asymmetry, and by the end of the show they think they know us whereas we know shit about them. This is my theory as to why guys stick around after our shows so much and try to buy me drinks.

This information-asymmetry personality-projection thing happened after the runway hair show today too. FINE so I winked when I looked back over my shoulder after turning at the end of the catwalk. FINE so I did a little playful booty shaking. (All mandated by the choreographer. Okay the wink was me.) About 5 of aforementioned supertrendy badass hairstylists came up afterwards saying stuff like "You're a little firecracker aren't you?" or "You're trouble, you know that?" with a dirty wink. Worse, I actually replied back instinctively with "Oh I know" and winked back. I really must be trouble. =(

Wow this post was guy-oriented. I'm allowed one every once in a while. Sleazy guys and stupid Jo reactions notwithstanding... doing both the hair show and a Pearl gig in the same wkd was much much fun!

stalking

I am hating the new facebook. There are just some things you don't want everyone to know. Actually there are a LOT of things you don't want everyone to know, but moving on...

I guess it's hypocritical, but as much as mini-feed facilitates stalking, it also facilitates finding out who's stalking you. I am realizing the scary extent to which some people have taken interest in unrelated friends/groups/interests of mine, where I am the only possible link. If facebook adds any more elaborate too-much-information features, I am deactivating my account.