No I don't mean to be strange.... No, that came out wrong, I do mean to be strange, but I'm really not this strange in real life. I really think I'm a normal kind of guy, at least until you get me talking a little (even without any sort of intoxicating substance). But I think I can front normalcy for the most part. I haven't been deemed mentally incompetent yet.

Why the prelude? Well, the following is a raw dump of my brain at this current time. I can't make any sense of it really. I just need to get it out on the screen first, I suppose.

A recurrent image: so there's this dude with a sword and a black cape, and he's always clutching his right side (right upper quadrant, since I am in med school and might as well use the terminology) He has this permanent bleeding wound (penetrating trauma with underlying liver laceration maybe). Anyway. I am thinking of the Fisher King, King Amfortas. I am thinking of Christ on the Cross with a lance in his side. The Wound that Does Not Heal.

So that's a little taste of the mindset I'm in currently.

Oh, and I did not mention this: I went to the Sigur Ros concert last week on a whim after the announcement caught my eye in the Chicago Reader (and everything else, as minor as it might be, seemed to go wrong that day.) It was almost a spiritual experience. I love their new album.

But the reason I mention it is that I was post-call that day and just a teeny bit sleep deprived, and Sigur Ros is seriously mellow music, and I would drift off into sleep as I stood there, and patches of imagery would pop into my head:

There were people dressed in white robes taking sickles--except they weren't sickles, they were enormous needles for suturing, and maybe you know the legend of the Wasteland associated with the Fisher King (and from which T.S. Eliot's work is based on)--in any case, they were taking these sickles/suture needles and sowing up the ground.

I also kept imagining those enormous high voltage towers that they have all over the hills in California, with the sun setting behind them. And sitting quietly with my dog Lucky just watching the sky turn fiery orange and purple. But this is neither here nor there.

Despite the rough day I had had last Sunday (There is more to it than I am alluding to, of course, but I'm not going to say anymore) there's was something very soothing and healing about Sigur Ros' music. By the end of the night, tears had welled up in my eyes, and I felt really good.

But the wound is still bleeding, I suppose, and without faith in myself, it's difficult to win through the pain, and I suppose all I really need are moments like this when I can just sit down and spew my thoughts out, and let it go at that.