11.26.2008

A Final-y Post

My Anatomy final is in twenty minutes.

And so this may seem like a strange moment for a post to a blog that has been sparse for many months. But I am feeling a bit zen. Or may it's "in the zone." Upon reviewing my note cards from early in the class, I discovered that I no longer have any trouble keeping the cephalic and basilic veins straight. I am always certain which is the zygomatic and which is the sphenoid. Also that the scaphoid is in your hand and sphenoid in your head.

And of course, last week on the phone with my mother, I used about fifteen words that I have never ever used before. Thusly, I believe that I have officially become conversational (that's the one before fluent) in medicalese. The kinds of sentences that flew out of the mouths of so many in my parents' social circles as I kid that I reacted to rather disdainfully are now wandering from my own mouth.

I knew it would happen. They tell you that medical school changes you. They urge us with worried eyes to hold onto our ideals. Be humble, they say. And we try! But then, here we are, talking in this high falutin' language. Arm will never again be arm, and leg no more leg. How appalling to discover that it isn't actually called a "hamstring."

11.23.2008

Wedding Dresses

Yes, this is a post about wedding dresses.

On the prosected-cadaver viewing sandwich that was my yesterday, watching Lion try on wedding dresses was the bread. My anatomy final is on Wednesday, and so she used the excuse of my cadaver-viewing to schelp into Boston for some over-the-top dress exploring.

Yes, she's planning to wear a wedding dress. Like a white one. This is because she is a virgin and wants the world to know that true love waits. OW! Ok, that's not why. Actually, despite the ridiculous patriarchy juice flavor of many traditions that swirl around marriage we're swallowing, even wanting some of them, and it's been hard to know why. The dress was something I sort of resigned myself to, not wanting one myself but knowing it was part of her vision I figured, "why not, she'll look real pretty?" Now I get it. I even get why it is that even people like us sometimes spend more on wedding dresses than I did on my lovely used Subaru.

We had said that the schmancy schmance Boston shops (one of which was Vera Wang) were just for fun, you know, so that she could get a good idea of cuts and colors and lines and whatever it is that makes for a wedding dress. I expected to be vaguely bored but appreciative of watching my honey try on pretty dresses. But then, four dresses or so in, she walked out of the dressing room and suddenly I was almost crying. This is a way that I have felt occasionally in museums and at plays. When I read poetry. Things like that. It's art. It's for your body. And it is beautiful and damn classy. And suddenly I'm wondering if it's stupid to sell my car to buy clothes for Lion to wear for six hours.

Vera Wang came after I spent a couple of hours in the anatomy lab studying. I think the helpful dress wrangler person smelled the formaldehyde on me because she seemed to keep a distance. Lion floated in and out of the dressing room, and I looked on with a visiting friend from college. We nodded and smiled mostly, but with one or two dresses our breath caught and we found ourselves "oohing" against our will. Beneath the layers of meaning and the unwieldy traditions there is this glowing in-love person ensconced in art.

We ended the day at David's Bridal, hoping to talk ourselves down from the illogical afternoon couture. And really, she tried on some gorgeous dresses there. I'm sure she could fashion a mumu out of duct tape and I'd appreciate it. And she really did look beautiful, even under the harsh lights of the Wal-Mart of weddings. But, I had to admit a sense of resignation when she looked down from her little block in front of the mirror and said, "you're not crying, though."

All sorts of ideas about consumerism and values and how we value what and where we put our money are filling me in a whole new and interesting way. Is it definitely better to spend $600 on a pretty ivory-colored dress than it is to spend $6000 on a piece of stunning well-crafted art you can wear? When it comes to the sad state of overspending on this tradition and widespread pressure to go over the top on everything, which is worse? In the scheme of things, this wedding shin-dig we're having is very much on the cheap. My grum's backyard, mostly doing the food ourselves, etc. And my outfit costs like $60. Buying cheap badly-made things because they are cheap is part of the problem, right? And obsessively cutting costs can be a kind of greediness that I don't find palatable either.

The reality is that we live off of student loans and a TA stipend. Yes our parents are helping pay for the day, but the economy sucks and we don't equate special, personal, important landmark with spending a buttload of cash. If you had asked me Friday how much we'd spend on Lion's dress, I probably would have said $300, tops, and even that would feel like a lot. But then I saw her in that blush Badgley Mischka. And it changed my world.