I forgot about the TV stuff

My title yesterday said I was going to talk about TV, and then I didn't. See, I'm a failure!

Anyway, I'm way behind on TV viewing for this year. S doesn't really watch TV -- he didn't grow up on it the way that I did, and doesn't really understand that it's my stress relief at the end of a long day. I can get him to sit and watch certain shows with me, like "House" and "SVU," but you can't start someone on "Fringe" 3 seasons in, and he'd never go for shows like "Grey's Anatomy" or "Desperate Housewives." On top of that, there were the Jewish Holidays and my boards that ate up a lot of my time, and my Masters classes that go til late 4 nights a week, and I'm always playing catch-up with my DVR. So I stopped taping the shows that were On-Demand -- namely the ones that are on NBC and CBS.

But then I never got around to watching them On Demand, and it turns out they only keep 2 episodes. And Hulu only keeps 5 -- and somehow I'm 10 episodes behind. Big problem for shows that I've loved for years -- "Chuck," "30 Rock," "The Office," and new favorites like "The Good Wife" and "Parenthood." I'm not sure how legal it is, but I subscribed to Graboid and watched 4 episodes of "Chuck" last week when I was sick for a day.

The only new show this season that I've watched is "The Event," which S and I have watched together because I thought it would be fun to have a show to watch together -- but we are about 5 weeks behind, mainly because neither of us are aching to watch it ever. We put it on out of boredom. Does anyone else watch that?

What I think is important here -- if you can read between the lines -- is that all my life, TV has been extremely important to me. Like, don't talk to me, I'm watching my shows. And since meeting S, it's seriously fallen to the wayside. I'd rather spend time with him than watching TV, and maybe it's because now I have a dining table, but we don't even usually eat in front of the TV. When I'm really tired, I'll tell him we are ordering in dinner and eating in front of the TV. And when I'm stressed out, I'll tell him I need a night of catching up and he can either watch my shows with me or leave me to it. But there's a reason that my DVR is 100% full all the time!

But here are my grades: "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice" have been far better this season than the past couple years. Loving them. "Glee" is amazing. I watch those shows each week and don't usually fall behind on them. "Desperate Housewives" is silly but I keep watching anyway. "House" is going to have to find a way to make Huddy interesting before I want to stop watching. "Fringe" is fascinating and she deserves an Emmy for playing both Olivias so well. "Bones" is as entertaining a ever. "SVU" never changes. "The Event" better be more interesting in the spring, if I can remember to come back to it after a 3 month hiatus. The 4 episodes of "Chuck" that I watched were great, and I am looking forward to catching up on the rest. What do y'all think? Am I missing any other great new shows?? I will say that I severely miss "Lost," and "24." Nothing comes close to replacing them.

Movie Reviews (and some TV)

It's been awhile since I've talked about movies, but since I've seen 3 in the past 10 days, I thought it was time to do a little reviewing. Let me know your thoughts.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Part 1: IMAX
Got to see this with my mom, sister, and S in the IMAX theater in B'ham (which is huge, and domed -- the latter kind of made the distortion a bit strange, however). The movie was incredible. I'm kinda glad they ended up making two movies, since they stuck to the book so closely -- would have been a shame to have cut out half the story to have kept it at one film, even though they are going to make oodles and oodles of money this way.

It's amazing to watch the actors grow up like we have, isn' t it? Go back and watch the first film (it'll be on TV a lot this month as part of ABC's "25 days of Xmas"). You really feel like they've matured -- just like Harry, Ron, and Hermione should have done. In this film, you really feel like they are finally THERE, finally ready to take on the true challenges facing them. The emotions were brutal, but honest.
S had never seen (or read) any of the HP movies before. I had him read the Sparknotes on the first 5 books, then we watched the 6th film on the way to B'ham before seeing this movie. Now he's hooked -- maybe I'll be able to get him to read the books, if I can tear him away from him law books. But certainly it won't be a problem to get him to see the last movie with me! I can't wait for it to come out. And in 3D! I'll probably have to see it both ways.
My grade: A- (the minus is only for making me wait 6 months for the next part, good thing I know how it ends)

Love and Other Drugs
The story of a pharmaceutical rep, and the girl with Parkinson's that he loves. Sounds kinda boring when you put it that way, doesn't it? Way more entertaining than that, but only because it's set in 1997/1998, right when Viagra came out, and said pharmaceutical rep was barely making it until he got to sell the magical blue pill. And that girl was anti-love until she fell in love with the guy who was just a player until he also fell in love.

Kind of a cliched love-story, but done very well. Anne Hathaway is fabulous in it, and Jake Gyllenhaal looks great naked (well, mostly naked). I personally thought the stuff with the Big Pharma was pretty funny, but only b/c in recent years it's all changed and they aren't allowed to just give out free pens/umbrellas/lunches/trips to Hawaii anymore, so it was fun to watch them teaching the reps the ways to the doctors' hearts by doing all those things.
My grade: B+

How Do You Know
We got to see a screening of this new movie (with Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, and Jack Nicholson) last night. It's the one where she's a softball player who loses her spot on the USA team, he's some kind of financial person who's being indicted by the justice system, and Owen Wilson plays the baseball player boyfriend she shouldn't be dating. (They do screenings for the press, and then try to fill up the seats so that people are laughing and booing at the right times, so it was free, yay!)

You can probably guess the storyline. Which is the worst part. The other bad parts are that they never really explain the indictment stuff (what he did wrong, or didn't do wrong; I think they don't want you to get bogged down in the details but the vagueness of it was driving me crazy). They also keep hinting at this idea that she's supposed to be depressed for losing her position on the team, but never show you that she's trying to do something else or that she's actually depressed in any way. So that was also extremely vague.

However, the relationships b/w Reese's character and both Paul's and Owen's characters were fabulous, funny and cute and likeable. Overall, it was a cute movie, and if you are looking for a fun romantic comedy then I'd recommend it.
My grade: B-

I'm a failure at blogging

But a success at so many other things! Well, maybe not right now. Right now, I'm also a failure at keeping up with many of my TV shows (I've managed to make it to November on my DVR, but only because I stopped recording shows I thought would be available On Demand. Except that it turns out that CBS and NBC only keep 2 episodes On Demand, and only 5 most recent episodes on Hulu, and I'm about 10 episodes behind on 5 or 6 important shows. Damn it!). And pretty much a failure at being a research fellow, b/c it's December and I haven't really done any research. Or even gotten trained for the IRB yet. By the end of next week I have to turn in a full protocol for my project -- a model, with methods, etc. Gross. But I did manage to complete my courses, although I have one more online-final to take, and my grades aren't back yet. And still waiting on my score for my Pediatrics boards.....

However, I am a very successful girlfriend! Things with S are going very well. I guess my blog has just become very boring, and for that I'm very sorry! He came home to Alabama for Thanksgiving and had such a great time, he didn't want to leave. He's ready to move there (but I'm not. Not even close. So don't get any ideas). He loves my family, all of them. Even the crazy ones. The only not great part happened when I got upset after we missed our connection and they had rebooked me on the next flight but not him (they had booked him on two more connections) -- he didn't like that I was upset instead of just "going with the flow," the way he is. When I finally explained WHY I had gotten upset -- that the guy on the phone had been rude to me, and that I felt like I should have called originally when I knew our flight from NYC was delayed, and was stupid for not listening to my Mom when she told me to call and didn't want her to say "told you so" -- he was understanding, and we had a good conversation about our different personalities when things like that happen. In the end, I gave up my seat on the flight I had been rebooked on in order to be fly with him on his TWO more flights -- and then we were another 2 hours delayed from Atlanta, so we traveled for 14 hours instead of 6. I must really truly like this guy!!

Next week I'm doing something I've never done before -- going on a vacation with my boyfriend. I've traveled with boyfriends before -- to see family, or with family. But never ONLY with a boyfriend. We are going on a cruise to the Caribbean -- it was an amazingly cheap deal, and we are both so excited (he's never been on a cruise before!). We are also going to meet the rest of the parents on either end, since we are going out of Ft. Lauderdale/Miami. We are doing some pretty active excursions (a waterfall hike, snuba, and another hike/snorkel trip), but I've warned him that the days at sea may require some down-time by the pool, and that we don't have to spend every minute with each other -- if he wants to go do something else (since there are so many activities on this ship!), he can. We'll see what happens, I'm guessing he just comes and sits next to me at the pool until I agree to go do something with him. Either way, it's going to be so much fun!!

Family Matters

A few weeks ago, S met my first family members -- my uncle J and aunt G, who had come into town and invited me out to dinner (several months ago!). We had a fabulous time, S LOVED them and they apparently really liked them too b/c they called my Mom right away to tell her how great he was! But that was only the warm-up, because tonight he is going to meet my Mom. He told me last night that he wasn't nervous about it, but I'm not sure if that's true or not. Should he be? (One of my friends said that he's nervous FOR S, which I think is super cute.) But then he is coming home to Birmingham with me in a couple weeks for Thanksgiving and is going to meet the whole Mishpachah -- my sister, my grandparents, the cousins.

Meanwhile, I met one of his brothers, and uncle/aunt, and some cousins a couple weeks ago. I still haven't met his Dad yet (and both his Mom and my father live in South Florida, but we are hopefully going to plan a trip there soon together). I had fun with his family, and they all gave me the seal of approval. But it's very different -- I'm super close to my family. Sample conversation with my Mom: "We haven't talked in 3 days." "No, we talked on Friday." "Right, today's Sunday. So Friday, Saturday, Sunday, that's 3 days! Are you ignoring your Mother?" He isn't close with anyone in his family -- in fact, he talks to his Mom once every couple weeks, and although he's one of 6 siblings, he doesn't talk to any of them on a regular basis (I talk to my sister several times a week). But I get the feeling that he's jealous of my family, and eager to be a part of it. Rather than turned off and scared by it, which is a super plus!!

Meanwhile, I just got back from a trip to Ft. Lauderdale, where I got to spend time with my TWO sisters -- my older (and much wiser) sister, and my 2 year-old half-sister. Yup, you read that correctly. My dad has a 2 year-old, and recently married the baby's mother, so my older sister and I went down for the weekend to spend time with them. The baby is incredibly adorable, and smart (she clearly has our genes), and it was a fun weekend. Although when we took her trick-or-treating in the mall, and I was walking around with her, the kiosk people we went up to for candy thought that I was her Mom and not her sister (but oh well, wouldn't you assume the 30 year-old was the 2 year-old's Mom, too?).

So anyway, all of this is very exciting -- I think it signals how we are moving along in our relationship. My dad got to hear a lot about him while I was in Florida over the weekend and seems eager to meet him as well (and warned me that S will probably fall in love with B'ham, which does seem to be a possibility). I'm looking forward to this weekend with my Mom, I think they will get along, but looking forward to Thanksgiving even more. And then we are actually planning a vacation together in December!! So fun. :-D

Rebounding?

I had someone tell me recently that "it's not fair" that I was single for only a short time before finding S. Well, life isn't fair. Sorry. I got up, and moved on, and started dating again. And I went out on a bunch of first dates (and one weird group event), and then met S, and so far, things are happily ever after. So yeah, life sucks for people who are still single and I'm not. But you're right, it's not even been 7 months since J6 and I broke up, and I'm planning my future with someone else. I'm lucky.

I had someone else ask me if S was just a rebound guy. The answer is not at all. I think that J6 was actually my rebound guy. J5 broke my heart, and it took me a few months before I was ready to start dating again (in all honesty, I probably should have waited a little while longer, but I was ready to not be alone anymore). So I met J6, and he seemed nice, and he was willing to offer me companionship. And I settled for a lot of things that I shouldn't have settled for, in retrospect. Well hindsight is 20/20 -- and all my friends and family members apparently could see what I couldn't all along -- but he wasn't very nice or respectful to me all the time. He also didn't appreciate my career, or my family, or my political or religious views. He wanted me to choose to live where and how he wanted to live. He wanted me to put up with his crazy mom (who hated me, and thought I was the worst kind of spoiled JAP -- which I'm really not). And a lot of other things. And I put up with all of this for over 2 years. The actual decision to break-up was his, officially, b/c I had picked a deadline for a commitment that he wasn't ready to make. But within a couple days, I was fully accepting of the break-up and ready to move on. And when he showed up, begging for me to take him back, I was flabbergasted -- and the tables were turned. While standing in my apartment, asking for me back, he started telling me all the things that I should do better and differently. THAT'S how you win someone back?! I asked him what he expected, and he said he was expecting me to welcome him back with open arms. Funny, since while he was realizing how incredible I was and how stupid he was to leave, I had been realizing how incredible I was and how stupid I was to have stayed with him all that time. So I told him off, and that I didn't even want to stay friends. THAT was my rebound guy, I just wish I hadn't rebounded for 2+ years.

I couldn't have been in a healthier place when I met S. Not just for a relationship, I don't think, although it certainly helps to be fully healed from all prior relationships. I had finished my residency -- and while the board-studying was hard, it was nowhere near what residency hours were like. And I had chosen a fellowship that should, hopefully, be pointing me in the direction of a career path that I'm going to love -- and so far, I love most of what I'm doing in the fellowship itself. In addition, in the few months since J6, I had also expanded my horizons and made a lot of new friends in my community. I finally had a social life, I was going out and doing things with people other than the 6 friends I knew when I moved to NYC and the people I spent 80 hours a week with in the hospital. (People kept asking if I had just moved to the UWS, and I sometimes would answer "yes," since I basically didn't exist in this community for the 3 previous years I had lived here.) I had moved to a fabulous new apartment, and it makes a difference to come home to a place where you can turn around without bumping into yourself, and see the sky and the skyline and the trees. And I physically felt good -- headaches that I didn't know had been bothering me for some time until they went away, had gone away, and I had lost some weight that I'd gained during residency and just felt good about myself.

So S isn't, by any means, a rebound guy. He's just the right guy. :-D

Back to Real Life

The good news is that my boards are over. The bad news is that the test totally sucked, and instead of covering the material I knew really well, seemed to cover a LOT of the material I didn't know as well (endocrine, renal, electrolytes) and really stupid stuff (reducing medical errors, cultural differences, whether or not a 4 year old should be allowed to leave out PJ's for his imaginary friend!). And now I have to wait a few months for the results. But at least I don't have to study any more, and with any luck I'll never have to study for it again!!

Which means I can come back to my real life -- and back to blogging, which I've missed. Eh, real life -- I have a biostats midterm (a make-up, since the test was the same day as the boards), and a bioethics paper, both due this Monday -- and I'm call for the UES practice I cover once a month all weekend -- so I haven't really had time to recover yet. But you know what I mean. And my DVR is still hanging out around 95% full, plus I've deleted all the shows that are on-demand, which means I keep having to remind myself that I need to go watch those shows too. Sigh.

But about the boy....things are pretty amazing. Even with all the stress from my studying. It's been 2 1/2 months and I don't really know how things could be any better. He came pretty close to using the "L" word a couple weeks ago but got embarrassed, so didn't -- although when I asked him if he thought he was falling in love with me a few days later, he said "yes." He booked a flight to come home with me for Thanksgiving (and he's flying on my connecting flights instead of the direct flights he'd prefer, for the "fun and experience" of traveling with me). He got to meet some very important people in my life a few weeks ago when a close family friend got engaged and we went out to Brooklyn for the engagement party, and they loved him. And tonight he's meeting the first family members -- my aunt and uncle are in town and taking us out for dinner. This is after all my friends have judged him favorably, of course. And in 3 weeks, my Mom will be in town! This weekend I'll be meeting some of his family, also -- a family BBQ, and he's been putting his friends off until after my Boards, so that should also be around the corner.

We talk about everything. I know all his "secrets," including some not so great and wonderful things about his past that he isn't proud of, but he's working through in an honorable way. He knows all mine, including something that I never told J6 in 2+ years (it's not a bad thing, just something I never told him) -- and something else that when I told J6, he hated. S, meanwhile, couldn't have cared less about that -- he said it happened so long ago, when I was young and stupid, so who cared? We talk about our future (in a hypothetical sense), as in where we would want to live and raise children -- and how to raise children (like what kinds of schools -- public vs private -- etc), what kind of house we would want, our careers, etc. And while I was stressed and studying all the time, he was just there -- happy to order in or cook me dinner, also okay if I told him I couldn't see him b/c I needed to be alone and study, or that he could come over but I was going to sit on my couch and watch TV that night. Incredibly supportive and amazing.

So here's my question now -- when do I tell him about this blog? He's heard all the stories on it already, so that's not an issue, but he doesn't know that I've been talking about him all this time. Any thoughts??

What sorts of details?

My friend, LMG, told me she wanted more details about how good things with S are, other than me just stating that I'm in a great relationship. What kinds of details? Last week was the holiday of Succot. We both stayed in the city for the holiday, although none of our other friends did (I was on call over the weekend so needed to be here as of Friday night, and the holiday started Wednesday night and ran right into Shabbat).

So Wednesday night we ate a pre-paid dinner at a restaurant near my apartment, which was lovely and kind-of romantic. Thursday I got up and studied and then we both left early afternoon when I went to meet my board study group on the East Side, and then he met me over there that evening and we went to a dinner at a restaurant there hosted by the Chabad on the UES (where strangely I met the guy who taught me Hebrew in 3rd grade at the Jewish Day School in Alabama! But otherwise the event was full of people we wouldn't otherwise socialize with. However, a lovely walk home from York and E. 84th to Columbus and W. 97th). Friday he slept while I studied, then left after lunch but came back for Shabbos dinner. Saturday morning he left when I had to leave for the hospital (I had babies to go round on) -- and I specifically told him NOT to come over on Saturday night, since I had work to do, and TV to catch up on. Sunday morning I went to round on babies again, and had a patient to see in the office, and came home to do my biostatistics homework. We had planned to go out around 1pm, but I was still working on my homework. He came over around 2:30pm but I was still working, so he watched a football game until I was done -- and then we went down to Little Italy, where there was a street festival going on. It was so fun -- ate a chocolate covered cannoli, yum! And a great dinner, and then there was a concert of some Rat Pack impersonators. But huge points b/c it was something he had researched, and it got me out of the house even when I was tired, and it was different.

And do you see what happened here? We spent 4 out of 5 nights together -- with no other people around -- and it was so fun, and easy, and relaxed, and enjoyable. There was no TV on (except for that football game on Sunday), nothing else we were doing other than being with each other. Sometimes we were talking (or families, our pasts, our dreams, our goals, whatever -- anything and everything) -- or just chatting idly. And lots of laughing. But we are just so happy together -- never bored with each other. And then again, he came over Monday night -- but he knows that on Monday nights, we order in food and watch TV b/c I have super long days on Mondays and I'm too tired to do anything else. And he gets that. Which is pretty amazing.