Yay! Celebrate the win with Mr. S. May tomorrow be a good day as well.

Oh, that's welcome news about Mr. S. May that trend continue!

Sumi, wished elsewhere, but more good is never wasted, so more Happy Birthday wishes for you.

Laptop handoff called off. Because of software lisencing etc., the Geeks cannot clone laptop A to new laptop B, but they assure us we can do it ourselves at home, and so we shall endeavor to succeed. Wish us luck.

Oh wow Sumi, didn't realize you'd hit 60! Wow! Happy birthday!

I bought my new car! It is in my garage! (Barely...it is def bigger than my old car, and I def need to rearrange my garage a bit to ensure everything fits in there!) The only part I'm sad about is I thought I'd be able to keep my license plates but they claimed I couldn't. Booooooo. But I'm now officially Super Gay, as I own a Subaru. It's SO much fancier than my 20 year old car that I traded in.

Cash, hugs to Robin and Oliver--what an excellent pair of names!--and I'm in awe of you and your DH for so fiercely supporting them on their paths to their full true selves. And well done, Mr. S!

I am so weary right now--the last several weeks have been a constant slog at work, culminating in a blowup with one of the doctors yesterday because he doesn't see why asking for a last-minute conference presentation that creates a bunch of work for a bunch of other people (and also, in this case, ends up contributing to three kids getting bumped from the conference even though their doctors had their shit together early and requested them and followed up on everything with plenty of time to spare) is any kind of a problem and he thinks I'm being unrealistic when I expect doctors to read follow-up emails, and then today in a long-ass day at Children's Oakland trying to cat-herd a faculty candidate who is apparently a personal delight (everyone wanted to talk with her twice as long as they were scheduled) but a chaos agent (because of all the talking, the schedule for the day went entirely cattywampus) who will be a perpetual headache for everyone who tries to schedule basically anything for her.

The morning began when, after having confirmed with our chair's office (who did all the planning instead of us, the actual division these candidates want to work for, adding an extra layer of potential miscommunication) that I'd be picking her up from her hotel and driving her to Oakland, since I live just a short drive from the hotel and I know Oakland really well and I'd be driving there myself anyway, I drove to the hotel, texting her at every red light to let her know how close I was, spotted her instantly as I pulled up (Sophia, you can confirm that there's absolutely an academic-job-seeker uniform, right?), waved to her, and watched as she shook her head, got into a Lyft and drove away.

I forlornly texted to ask if she was possibly at a different hotel, and she said, "No, that one, and I'm in the car now." Then it dawned on her that it was possibly a little weird that she was having a text conversation with her driver when the driver was, well, driving and not texting, so she had the driver pull over while she re-read all the emails, and she realized that everything had in fact been totally planned exactly the way I was geebling about, and she had the driver drive her back to the hotel, from which I drove like a bat out of hell and got us there only three minutes late.

Once there, someone talked to her for too long and had to reschedule another interview, and then I had to drive her to Kaiser Oakland to meet with another someone who talked to her for too long and then drive her back to meet with three other people who turned into only two because one of them talked to her for too long, and then one of the people who'd been missed this morning called back and squeezed in another 40 minutes. The only good part of the day was that while waiting for her at Kaiser I drove aimlessly down the block looking for a way to kill time and saw a big neon sign shouting FRESH BEIGNETS. They were indeed fresh, and hot and quite delicious, but I wish I hadn't rage-eaten two because they were also not tiny.

Anyhow, the 10-hour workday is over but I'm feeling all jangly. Tomorrow I drive to Reno to help my mom with outpatient nasal surgery. I plan to thoroughly enjoy being a whole state away from all my doctors and spending a day in a hospital where I'm only responsible for one other person and nobody can tell me to schedule or cancel or draft or mail anything and then completely forget everything they just said.

Yum, fresh beignets, but the rest sounds obnoxious!!

Yum, fresh beignets, but the rest sounds obnoxious!!

Completely. Though she did at least seem very nice despite the chaos, and definitely everyone seemed to like her quite a bit. The other woman surgeon who came to interview also came across very well.

Then there was a guy whom to be totally honest I can barely remember, and the very first candidate worries me a little because he came across as an innovative, high energy, research-funding-generating rock star of whom even some of our own rock stars were in awe, but his incredibly boundless confidence and his majestic pleasure in talking about his projects and plans tipped the scale just a hair past "God, I wish I had his confidence" to "This is possibly just the tiniest bit much." It may come down to whether they want to go with a great team player or a great solo artist, which is a little concerning because even the solo artist is still going to have to be part of a team and we already have no shortage of prickly personalities that need to be managed.

JZ, you are a saint to deal with that much humanness. I know it takes a huge amount of hubris to cut open a living human in the name of medicine, so I can give surgeons some leeway in regards to their ego and the fact that some of them need to be cosseted and herded, but this search process would wipe out all of my faculties for coping with people.

But I'm now officially Super Gay

Yay! The people I know who have had Subarus have driven them lovingly forever. My sister put over 500,000 miles on hers!

Yum, fresh beignets, but the rest sounds obnoxious!!

And exhausting! I work with an abundance of doctors and am too familiar with the delicate balance of brilliance and overwhelming ego.

Today is a day for celebrating the birth of our most favorite goth and most fabulous Atropa. Happy birthday and sincere wishes for a wonderful year to come.

it takes a huge amount of hubris to cut open a living human in the name of medicine, so I can give surgeons some leeway in regards to their ego and the fact that some of them need to be cosseted and herded

My manager says that frequently when she's dealing with my boss her silent mantra is, "Remember, he saves little tiny babies. Little tiny babies. Lit-tle tiiiiiny babies."

Despite the chaos, it was super refreshing to hear yesterday's candidate say that she went back and re-read the email and realized that she'd misunderstood everything and she was sorry for the confusion. I don't think I have ever, EVER heard a male surgeon say that.