Orientation’s in two days now; every day seems a little stranger and stranger. Each morning that I wake up, today being no exception, I get this feeling that these days I’ve been spending here in Vermillion, acclimatizing myself to the more southern part of this fine state, are nothing but a delay, a postponement of that great challenge that lurks right behind those white coats presented on Friday.

I could not, however, be more excited. My textbooks have been sitting on my shelf, calling to me, beckoning me even to start on this path, to open both the books and soon the human being, in an unbelievably intimate and, if Kundera’s to be believed, blasphemous manner (late in The Unbearable Lightness of Being Tomas reflects upon his career as a surgeon, including the first time he ever performed surgery. What he saw, he claims, upon that first incision of the scalpel was greatest blasphemy- to see something that was never to be seen).

That being said, being in Vermillion has so far been quite enjoyable. It has a charm to it, the way most small towns do, that feels warm and welcoming, with bartenders who listen to the Hold Steady and have Velvet Underground/Andy Warhol tattoos to the motley bunch one can meet merely based upon a misidentification.

Transitions

This is the last time I'll sit in this house in Sioux Falls as an actual resident, and I marked the occasion by cleaning out cabinets in my dresser and my desk, finding a collection of old letters, letters that remind me of how I became who I am today, and while I kept many, there were some that clearly had to be sacrificed to new beginnings. Old love letters, surprisingly, do not keep well, nor do they get better with age. So it was with an unexpectedly large glass of whiskey that I re-read letters that had remained hidden for a great amount of time before tearing them and throwing them in the trash. It's funny, in a way, how those letters expose a completely different self than the one I feel I am now.

I'll never forget the past, and I'll certainly never forget those women, but some things need to pass on.

And... I'm back.

Surprisingly, this new Dawes album, which I highly recommend, plays at 45 rpm instead of the typical 33 1/3, but it sounds great nonetheless. So it's a Friday night, and my Friday nights are much different now than they were not even a month ago, and the change is... well, I'm not sure. Certainly I find it duller, but my body feels infinitely better on Saturday mornings.

I was thinking about the name of this blog, More News from Nowhere, which I stole completely from a song by Nick Cave, and I'm thinking that this could be in no way a more apt title; this truly seems like nowhere, suburban sprawl and pavement parks.

Anyway, the real reason I've decided to start writing again is because I thought it could be interesting to chronicle my time as medical school begins this fall, to give, in the weakest sense possible, a kind of first hand experience, a view behind the scenes, perhaps, of a doctor-in-training. Right now, though, just like the Colin Hay song, I'm waiting for my real life to begin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4tcRlHY-3Q). I read and occasionally I write, but mostly I try to fight off the boredom, the ennui to use a fun French word.

To close for a night, a poem first read to me by a friend and then recited in Hannah and Her Sisters:

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near  your slightest look will easily unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose  or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending; nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility:whose texture compels me with the color of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing  (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

It was one aesthetic experience after another tonight. The afternoon started with an old Ingmar Birgman film, Wild Strawberries. The film tells the tale of a doctor who, on his way to receive an honorary degree, reflects on his life and his loves. Later, though, the visual appeal continued as I watched Zulu, a delightful piece of imperialistic cinema championing the British colonialism throughout South Africa. After a tough battle, eventually, and historically inaccurately, the Zulu warriors cheer on teh conquering British troops as they slowly move north throughout the continent. Finally, though, the greatest experience of the day was also the simplest. I left the upper campus apartments, and there, silhouetted by the few street lights present along the Collegeville roads were some of the most beautiful snowflakes I've ever seen. They wrapped the brick buildings of old Saint John's in a winter shadow. What a night.

Fwump. Fwump, fwump, fwump, fwump. The sound of the resilient winter runners shoes plodding on the packed snow provided a nice soundtrack for this afternoon's surprisingly lonely walk home from the gym. Just over the rhythmic steps I could hear the sounds of Colin Meloy's vocals, yearning in desperation, crooning over fiddle and steel peddle in the closing bits of The King is Dead, the new album from the Decemberists.

The days are long now, and much is being packed into them. I never realized that I had time to actually do all that I am doing now until I become conscious of how I spent my time, reducing the bad television, with the obvious exception of the O.C., and the colossal and cataclysmic productivity pestilence, Facebook. One quick look at the home page, the statuses of certain friends, and maybe the occasional link- that's enough.

But with a belly full of Gary's, a body well-worked through back extensions and bicep curls and ab rippers, that too-common, human, all-to-human tired begins to descend, lowering eye lids, slowing fingers, stopping...

Some of the stories I tell on this blog are true, but most involve some embellishment, added if only for the sake of the story. Most of the posts, though, are hardly stories at all; rather, they’re just the rants and ravings of one young, upper-middle class, white, Midwestern Liberal (cover that with mayonnaise and I’m pretty sure you’re well on your way to some sort of Minnesotan hotdish).

This one, this story, as abbreviated and anticlimactic as it is, is completely true. I’ve been thinking a lot lately as I grow my beard of contentment and supposed wisdom about my life, which of course has led me not slowly to the women who have been present, and my thoughts turn to her. She, who will remain in the third person for anonymity’s sake, was, wait, is something special, and, as much as I fear to say it, she’ll always be my big question, my what if, my “the-one-that-got-away.”

The first time we met, I was instantly enamored, reeling from a terrible breakup which exploded worse than any college sophomore could possibly imagine, but still enamored. She strutted stunningly into that Perkins like something out of a Springsteen song. Lighting and waving a cigarette, we talked music, she pushed her bangs out of her face, her glasses up higher on her head. Unfortunately, the present company included one of the most negative, overly pretentious people I’ve ever met, but alas, I wasn’t there for her. I was there for Her. So we sat, at eleven at night, sipping the endless coffee provided by the spiked-hair waiter, eagerly demanding our departure and his measly tip. We left, and that was the last I thought I’d see of her.

While I said this story is anticlimactic, it can’t be that bad. It wasn’t the last time we were to meet. In the months that followed, we met here and there throughout the coffee shops of Sioux Falls, talking Finn and Faith, literature and love. Everything. I was flattened by her, this girl who moved from her home to be with her friend, who had experienced spirituality in ways I skeptically had laughed off. We went to the worst movie I have ever seen, but on my way there I bought her Nutty Bars, which she had off-handedly disclosed as being her favorite snack when she was a young, albeit slightly cultish-another story-girl.

Then my chance came. They, She and the pretentious prioress, were going to Chicago, and at the last minute, an extra ticket, i.e. fate!, came beckoning. The cost of gas, split amongst the three of us, would easily be doable, but…

I didn’t. I punted. I chickened out. I climbed down the ladder of life’s great high dive, hiding my head in shameful late night phone calls and one, two, too many with a few friends celebrating the culmination of my summer’s worth of work.

And still, now, this very night, I play Van Morrison and think of her gypsy soul.

What if…

What Remains

Creation is truly the most amazing human act, whether it be the creation of an artwork, a building or a human life, something is brought forth (notice the Heidegger, my philosophical fellows) from nothing into Being. And shockingly, what's brought forth from nothingness lasts. The lamp on my desk has been present for years, and the desk for years more. The music I'm listening to, Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, The Innocent, and the E-Street Shuffle, was made in the seventies, first produced by pressing small canyons into a round piece of vinyl, which can still be found, but even the music- the lyrics, the keys, the guitar parts, and the occasional sax solo by the big man- was made to last, not to simply fade away. The other day I was thinking about what's present in our lives as far as creation, and things that are brought forth, that are created, just seem to truly lack any sort of staying power, any sort of presence. We will not-dear god I hope-remember "We R Who We R" years from now (aside-don't watch the video; you will want to murder Ke$ha, and that is $till puni$hable by law, even now). We won't remember most of the movies that are made, the art we see, the buildings we enter. In part, this is of course due simply to human faculties; we are fascinated by the novel, moving immediately from one to the next the newest, but even more than that, we don't create things that last any more, aside from a few things regarded as modern instant classics, e.g. American Beauty, Rushmore, Do the Right Thing, and it has to be more than we simply desire novelty. Nothing is made to be long-lasting anymore. Creation is meant to be created, consumed, and disregarded, be it artistic or useful. One used to be able to buy an appliance and could expect it to last for years, but now, not even a car can be expected to get more than a hundred thousand miles. All this leaves me with this question: when people look at our times, the 90's, 00's, 10's etc., what's going to be remembered, what stands out as the highlights of this decade?