It was pointed out to me that "Stay With Me" by Sam Smith sounds like "I Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty and now I can't keep the two songs separate in my head.

I was listening to 30 Seconds to Mars "Kings and Queens" before I went to sleep last night, and the first thing that popped into my head was the Exile of the Noldor and the end of the First Age from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion

My dad relates this anecdote to me:

I keep thinking about the cruel arbitrariness of the back story—how a beautiful fairy shows up dressed as a hag, and the prince is disgusted and throws her out. OK, so judging people by their appearances is not a good thing, but to use it as a pretense for turning a guy into a hideous monster makes me want to kick the fairy's ass.

I know you. If I leave you to your own devices, you'll pick the path of least resistance. You'll stay in San Diego because it's the easy thing to do. Or you'll go to L.A. because your parents are there and you have a fool-proof backup plan. But I think it's time you took an active part in your fate and not just let chance decide where you go.

It's terrible, really. Times like these, when it's sunny and calm and blissful and quiet, is when I worry the most.

The Dragonfly Initiative suddenly took me back to those halcyon days of yore, when I could just sit for hours studying things that I find are of little-to-no clinical relevance. Chronic renal failure? Obsolete. It's Chronic Kidney Disease. Congestive Heart Failure? Obsolete. It's just Heart Failure, or Decompensated Heart Failure, now. There is no such thing as Non-Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus, either. It's either DM type I or type II. Beta-blockers are standard of care in Decompensated Heart Failure. Digoxin is almost useless, except as a way to achieve rate-control in atrial fibrillation. The difference between Q-wave Myocardial Infarctions and non-Q-wave Myocardial Infarctions are academic and don't make a difference in terms of treatment. What we care about are ST-elevations: STEMIs vs NSTEMIs/unstable angina. And it's all called Acute Coronary Syndrome now.

It’s 5 a.m. and I’m actually at work, where I am allowed to sleep. Unfortunately, I’m all keyed-up and can’t seem to sit still. Hurry up and wait, indeed.

The sequela of a random phone call.

A rationalization.

Like they say, there’s no problem so big that you can’t run away from it.