I just finished reading pamie's new book "Why Girls Are Strange" and I am so inspired. Inspired in a strange way.

I haven't been writing much and what I write doesn't really match up with my standards. This is discouraging. I think there is this part of me that wishes I had the kind of celebrity that pamie has. Then I read her book and it was all about this person who lies a lot to make her diary exciting. I read this and I had all these lightbulbs go off in my head, because I never thought that I should LIE in my journal. After all, I'm just writing this for myself, right? Why would I make up stories about my life if I was just writing for myself?

The other thing is that pamie is just so darn funny! ha ha funny. I was reading her book last night and I was just laughing and laughing out loud until sweets demanded he read what was so funny. He didn't laugh as hard, but it was still a nice little moment.

I also haven't been writing because I've been busy orienting at my new job. Orientation is finally done and I am a real employee. I'm a hospice nurse, right? well, I've worked there for two months now, and I still have yet to have a patient die on me. Can you believe it? I go home every night thinking, gee, I suppose that patient has died by now and when I get to work that bed is empty and I miss out on another death.

Some of the nurses don't say "die." they say "expired." which is kind of silly. people are NOT library books, after all. (right, greschya?)

So today's almost dead but not quite dead was a lovely gentleman who has AIDS but was dying of throat cancer. He was doing the classic almost dead breathing where there is a steady rhythm and then the patient just stops breathing for awhile. His pauses were sometimes longer than 10 seconds. talk about disconcerting. He was/is this nice guy with a "friend" who appears to really be his partner caring for him. He was sequestered off into a private room because they thought he might have TB. That sucked because I had to put on a mask every time I went into the room, which made him even more isolated because he couldn't see me smiling. He was a classic AIDS patient: a well groomed gay man who had wasted away to almost nothing. AIDS patients like him are like these little birds, all skeleton and face and no meat. Long legs and no cheeks and just eyes. Mottled skin because he was dying. mouth open, gasping for breath. A baby bird- delicate and fragile. I wanted him to fly away, to be free of the hospice and the bed.

The kicker was that he was begging me for a cigarette the whole time. The same drug that may very well have been contributing to his throat cancer, he was on his last gasps and he kept bringing his fingers to his lips to show me he wanted to smoke. I couldn't let him, because he would have required several volunteers to negotiate getting his bed downstairs. I didn't want to saddle the volunteers with the responsibility of having a dying man on their hands, possibly dying while outside smoking. I know that these were his last wishes, but I just couldn't push his last wishes on an innocent batch of volunteers. So he went without his smoke.

Anyway, I will be very suprised if he is still there tomorrow. And if he is, then perhaps he will be my first death.

i live a very strange life. is it no suprise I love 6 Feet Under?