Introduction & Early Stages

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October 2002

Tuesday, October 08, 2002

In one weekend I met a man whose brother has three wives and a combined 18 kids, a cute but utterly unsophisticated 23 year old girl, a lady with arthritis named Thelma and a man who has spoken like Donald Duck for the last 15 years -- to annoy his wife. And who says Utah isn't interesting?

I flew out from Boston on Saturday morning, giving myself plenty of time to get in trouble since the Joe Namath Arthritis Huddle event wasn't until Monday morning. Saturday night when I got into town I threw my bags on the bed, washed my face and tackled Salt Lake City. As it turns out, there's a rule about alcohol being served in the city, which is why every bar is considered to be a "private club". Luckily for me the initiation wasn't terrible. This is how the officials regulate the way people lead their lives, including the night life. I also learned that Utah leads the nation in clinically depressed people per capita, a statistic that didn't surprise me one bit considering the drinking regulations.

But back to my adventure. All alone I wandered the streets, "looking for a good time". But a good time to a New Yorker isn't a good time to someone from Utah. Which finding out is part of what made it so much fun. I managed to meet some locals who took me under their wing, so to speak, introducing me to their friends and showing me how they have their fun. At one point that night I was upstairs in a studio apartment packed with a dozen people (mostly in their 20's), wondering what the hell I was doing there. I didn't speak, I listened. I watched. I observed. I was amazed. The tables were lined with scented candles. The walls were decorated with pictures of dogs. Either the girl had help decorating or she belongs in SoHo.

The lesson I learned, and the point to all of this is no matter where we live or no matter how we were raised, we all have certain things in common: a desire at some level to let our hair down and have fun. Sometimes it's a love for the Simpsons, or attention to detailed fashion; a total disregard for New Jersey, but always on some level it's about the hormones. I never imagined I'd be hanging out with people my age when I headed out here on Saturday all by my lonesome. And with such a change of pace, I had a blast.

The Arthritis Huddle event yesterday was a great success. I met close to 600 seniors with arthritis, we all talked about how we deal with our aches and pains, and of course we listened to the interesting stories of Joe Namath. I look forward to coming back in December for the A-Games.

Maybe I'll have a new friend pick me up from the airport...

Monday, October 14, 2002

Twenty one years old. Holy Moses. Some days I feel like I’m 40, some days I act like I’m 14. But as of Friday my ID says I’m really old enough to order that drink.

It has been a great weekend. I celebrated in grand fashion, bringing together all my close friends, or at least the ones who were around, and going out and having fun. No 21 shots, no puking up my brains. Just enjoying the fact that I no longer had to lie about my age.

And what better time to do it than Columbus Day weekend? No school today and a chance to recuperate from not getting enough sleep. No school tomorrow because I don’t have classes on Tuesday. More time to recuperate. I couldn’t have planned it better.

After a rainy, soggy weekend this week promises to be beautiful – full autumn complete with foliage, cool breezes and a slight taste of winter to come. I love this kind of weather because it’s cool enough to be comfortable but not cold enough to be stiff. Cool enough to be dry and not cold enough to be freezing.

Now that I’m officially "of-age" I can relate to those seniors one year better, and look back on my teenage years with faint memories of fun, pain, suffering, confusion and know that it’s all behind me. Yea right.

Sunday, October 27, 2002

It’s Friday night, 11:00. The lead singer of a 5-man band is singing the familiar chorus of Aerosmith’s "Sweet Emotion", heard out from the street. Everyone on the block is electrified by clearing skies, the rain having stopped minutes earlier. Welcome to Bourbon Street, New Orleans. Home to yet another Joe Namath Arthritis Huddle event and coincidentally, the annual American College of Rheumatology conference. The otherwise wild city is invaded by 10,000 doctors – all specializing in arthritis. Seth is in heaven.

To walk the streets of the Big Easy you are required to hold a frozen drink appropriately titled a "hurricane". The contents are still unknown, but the results are universal: disaster. So when in Rome…I obliged and had the ceremonial cocktail, only to learn that the taste of fruit punch can be wildly deceiving. I believe I was not the only one to learn this lesson that night.

Everyone in sight has a frozen drink in hand. The eclectic mix of doctor-college student at a 1:1 ratio is comical. I take notice of the overwhelming number of bow-ties and beards staring in shock at girls dancing on bars and earning their "beads". At one point I wondered if my doctor was going to be spotted doing a body-shot off of a cocktail waitress. I was relieved not to find him anywhere in sight (that night). I wondered what it would be like to see the wilder side of your otherwise conservative rheumatologist. These are no orthopedic surgeons, they’re not entitled to have fun like this.

Quite the treat to be a newly-minted 21-year-old, alone in New Orleans for an arthritis event of all things. It wasn’t all play, however. I did manage to take a 3-hour tour of the city’s historical sites – something I never thought I would voluntarily do. Without a teacher or parent or guardian, I joined a group of 15 seniors on this very interesting tour of the courtyards and above-ground cemeteries. I felt a little out of place, though, since I was the only one not wearing Keds and holding a 10 pound handbag. But it was fun nonetheless and I got a great scope of the city, its history, and so much of it is as screwed up as it is. Oh, and I got to check out the famous Mississippi. (The mighty Miss. The Old Man.)

Needless to say the event was a success, the doctors were actually fun and there were things I saw and did that I will never ever write down.