Trawling through my comment spam and finding some old poems

still thinking back to those lonely nights
lying in bed by myself, staring at the shadows
listening to the still silence

Just when you thought it couldn’t get lonelier. Just when you thought it couldn’t possibly get any more difficult than it already is. There will be no resting on any laurels. The road ahead climbs up steeply, into the forbidding vault of the heavens.

My sister calls me, her voice quavering, asking me if I want them to wait for me before they euthanize our 13 year old dog Lucky. I am nonplussed, taken aback, but I guess I've been desensitized to death, I've known that this would come at some point eventually, and I tell her, do whatever you gotta do. Lucky has lived a full life, especially for a dog her size, and it would grieve me to know that she was in pain for her last days.

I love how medical school has made me a hopeless hypochondriac.

Am I a failure? You can’t fail if you don’t try. (As Homer Simpson once said, “Trying is the first step to failure.”)