Notes from the office

April 3, 2026 in Shrink Stuff | 18 comments

Patience above! What a week this have been! Five days of at-work shenanigans left Urs Truly with little time for anything but work and sleep, worse luck. Hopefully the madness abates to allow more meaningful activities like blogging and basic hygiene.  On Tuesday I drove 45 minutes to the MESA office only to realize I forgot the portable laptop at home. Oh the horror. I could have kicked myself; I did this once before and vowed ‘never again’ and here it is.  I remembered from last time I can drive home, pick up the damned thing, and be back to work in 90 minutes, provided there is no shooting on the highway 101 and The Boss (contacted by text) moves the 8AM appointment.  The consequence is the ninety minutes I usually use to get ready for the day didn’t happen, and I’ve been running behind ever since all week

The new schedule program made its debut on Wednesday, 1 April; I wonder if The Overlord’s picked April Fool’s Day on purpose. The transition from the old system to the new had more bugs than a slum apartment and the texts and teams messages from various workers howling for help resembled an orchestra of scorched cats. I told my patients don’t be surprised if someone later calls them to say the appointments I made for them are double booked and must be redone. Oh the pain. 

About the same time someone tried to break into the PHX office (possibly an ex staff member) so the keys to the building and the office were changed – without telling the staff.  Overnight no one could get in. I happened to ‘break in’ because someone forgot to close the door tight (that ain’t good). I discovered four sets of new keys were put through the receptionist window onto the desk, in the room the is locked by one of the old keys.*. The next days were spent trying to deduce which keys go to what, and getting them to various staff somehow. It was further complicated when we realized thems who changed the locks mislabeled the key sets, leaving some of us locked outside like Henry waiting for Gregory’s pardon.  

It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Not only did I figure out which keys go to what, I happened to find the long lost keys to the two mail boxes.  The Boss mentioned the other day she was probably going to have to call The Post Office and explain the situation and get new keys or locks.  When I opened the boxes, the contents resembled Fibber McGee’s closet and came out no prettier, but at least everything is out and piled high as Fafner’s hoard in the receptionist room, which now locked with its key hanging in a secret spot.** Rummaging around looking for lost keys I found two laptops, maybe the ones that went a-missing when the staff member quit. I got a big brownie points for sorting the keys and opening the mail boxes, and locating these laptops. The Boss wanted to know if I wanted the vacant post of receptionist.  I almost said yes given it is how I am spending my days this week.

By Friday the new schedule is setting down some, although Rx renewals and phone/portal messages are still coming into the old system, so I have to periodically return to it. I hope in time thems in charge will figure out how to get all work into the new system, and carry over all appointments as well.

Meanwhile I am Key Master and Post Master, in charge of making sure no one is locked out and the mailboxes are emptied on a regular basis. After all this is why I went to medical school and practiced medicine for thirty years.  

*A few times someone has had to crawl onto the shelf through the window and get down without damaging the keyboard or femurs to open the door from within. I was clever and used a long stick to slowly obtain all keys through the window. I am learning.

**Yes I told my Boss where. There was a part of me that thought not to tell until heavily bribed.

World of mine Wednesday’s Ws

April 1, 2026 in World of mine Ws | 30 comments

What’s top of my mind: Plastic surgery. Now that I’ve had my eyelids done and my face lifted (don’t hate me because I am beautiful) I am considering the next step. A Tummy tuck? A pecs implant? So many choices for my aim to become someday worthy of being ‘beard of the day’ over at Fearsome Beard. 

Where I’ve been: The Blue Whale.  Someone and I have grown rawther tired if the same bar before (or after) symphony, so we found a new place. It’s quaint place and looks like it hasn’t been renovated since the 60s. Groovy. The bartender – I think his name is Bob Rooney – is a fine fellow, well over four feet, who is getting familiar with our drinks preference.  He is also good for ghost stories. 

Where I’m going: Sierra de la plata, NM.  Rather than returning to Santa Fe, our usual summer spot, we will be trying another. Word of mouth says this pueblo is a charming long-held secret spot for folks to visit if they are willing to go off the usual path. I read online it has a reputation for real simulated Indian jewelry, made of silver.

What I’m watching: The Day the Clown Cried.   I am not a Jerry Lewis fan but a patient told me this is ‘the’ JL movie to see. I started it the other day but I fell asleep. I didn’t see much of it but what I saw I couldn’t’t determine whether to laugh or cry.  

What I’m reading: The life of Lillian Virginia Mountweazel.  She was photographer my late Father (who was an amateur photographer) sometimes made reference to and so I am finally having a look-see. Her photo shots overall aren’t my cup of tea but she has a few good photos of fountains.  I will stick with Travel Penguin, whose photos are more interesting.

 

What I’m listening to:  Florence Foster Jenkins. For thems unfamiliar with this diva, she was the toast of the town in her day. Alas, Babylon! There are only a few recordings left of her.  Her speciality was Mozart; she sang a mean ‘Queen of the Night’. 

What I’m eating:  Braised Trake and buttered ermal (for two).  Mother would make this dish on Sundays sometimes in my youth and I never cared for it. The index card of the recipe has sat in the recipe accordion file for decades; I finally got it out to try. Uncle Albertons was out of ermal, a which is a sort of lima bean apparently not of season right now, so I used lima beans.  It tastes just as I remember: bad.  I prefer anything over it, including rats at Tewkesbury – with or without the ermal. 

Who needs a good slap: The next door neighbor. Life was quiet and the sidewalks were clean until recently, One of the neighbors got a dog. Mind! I love dogs but this pooch looks to be a mix of half mastiff and the half bonnacon.  Bonnacon breeds are the worst for making messes and having a bad odor. I swear I can smell them long after they have gone indoors. 

On my 1-5 scale, I give the bonnacons (and thems who own them) three slaps and a waste bag. A large one.

Who gets a fist bump:  A old friend from high school.  The Book of Faces is evil but it has one redeeming attribute: hearing from old friends. I was playing Wordle the other day, minding my own business, when I got a IM message. The contents were a bit crude so I thought it was a phishing scam but then he told me who it was: Hans Wurst! Patience above! I haven’t heard from him since high school.  He was the class clown often getting into trouble for aping the principal, which he did well. He lives in Podunk, Wisconsin and he works in social media getting people hooked on apps.  We promised to stay in touch.

What I’m planning: Repairing the proton pack. After near continual use, mine gave up the ghost. Oh the horror. 

What’s making me smile: My tarot read for the week. Eileen (the dear!) reads my cards every Sunday and this week’s read, a one card spread, is The Fool. This is the best card in the pack do not question this and it is just right for now.

99 Questions to ask your grandparents #70

March 30, 2026 in 99 Questions | 19 comments

70. Which long-lost family meal, sentimental beverage, or discontinued snack food would you love to have just one more time?

Yes yes yes this is a good one! I could write paragraphs on any of these items. Childhood seems full up with food and treats that are no long with us. Food tasted better than did it not? Brother #2 and I ate astronaut food viz. sticks of foodstuffs and breakfasted on QUISP cereal. We drank TANG made from orange powder, which beat orange juice made from a frozen log concentrate by a county mile. FAYGO red pop was our drink of choice and we never stopped to ask what was in it, ** or what is tasted like, “red pop’ that’s what. I could go on as long as candy dots on a paper roll, so I will focus on which family meal, sentimental beverage, and discounted snack food would I bring back from the dead.

Long-lost family meal. Thanksgiving. Ours were cliche almost too good to be true but they were. We would drive north to the grandparents house. Mother’s brother’s family came in as well. The twelve of us had the usual trappings some of us sitting at the kid’s table. No one talked politics or the state of the union (probably because we are all of the same ilk). I can still see and taste the food, including Aunt Barbara’s ‘no thank you’ helping of squash. It came in three stages: 1] had to eat some (oh the pain). 2] big enough to say I won’t and not be creamed for it and 3] actually wanting some. Grandfather always had a large red ball of Edam cheese (no rubbish) with the pies, something I still do to this day on Thanksgiving. It was often Uncle David’s’ birthday as well, so after dinner it turned into a birthday party viz. he’d open prizes at the dinner table. Their home was north enough Father could watch on TV the ‘annual loss of the pussycats” as he called the Lions game. There was often snow to sense the Christmas season was commencing, which was agonizing long back then. Such fond memories of family, food, noise, and fun.

Sentimental beverage. Happily most of my childhood favorites are still available: Red Rose tea, Faygo (which I don’t drink anymore), and Vernors, the later if it was ever discontinued I would riot and hoard as much as I can get my hands one and have one on my last day. I vote for Towne Club, which was a local soda place, that served its pop in tall bottles you bought by filling up wooden crates. After you drank them you brought the glass bottles back. They has some funky flavors including Kola and Cola (I forget why). As Father drove my brothers and I to the Towne Club distributor we made careful lists of what pop to get and how many. Gads it was all ‘regular’ then, full of sugar. I can’t stand sugared-drinks (nowadays called ‘regular’) but I would brave some for a trip to Towne Club again.

Discontinued snack food. It think it was last year at Halloween I was bemoaning the lack of Bugles, which were coned-shaped corn products, which you put on your fingers to make witches nails. Then someone told me they still exist. Hot puppies! Getting some was page 71: they were tasteless and squashed flat one couldn’t use them for finger nails. They seemed to symbolize childhood snacks in general: even if they were brought back they would disappoint, as tastes chang and so do the ingredients (none for the better). What I would want back are Fritos. Wait a minute I hear you say, they still make such. I’ve had them and somehow they don’t taste the same. What I want again is the type that came in small sacks, about six to eight of them, in a long cardboard box, which also contained a Frito Bandito plastic object. I remember most the pencil eraser. Apparently people grew upset over the stereotypical hombre and he was discontinued, although my Mexican (don’t call me Hispanic) friend Jose found him hilarious. Yes I want a proper Fritos bag again, if only for the eraser.

What childhood treat or drink would you like to experience again?

**Sugar and chemicals that’s what. How on earth we managed to grow up and turn out fairly decent after eating and drinking all this crap is a modern miracle.

Sunday Spo-bits

March 29, 2026 in Sunday Spo-bits | 14 comments

I woke this morning to that pleasant emotion one has when you realize there is nothing pressing to do that day. Other than stripping the bed (a Sunday routine more set than going to church) there is little that needs doing. What a nice feeling this is! The temperature is pleasant enough for now to open the door and let in some outside air, although this is foolish given the mesquite trees are all a-bloom and the pollen level is atrocious. I made a pot of tea using the last of some teabags purchased long time ago; it feels a bit ‘flat’ but with milk it is passable. It is enough for breakfast.

Patience above it is the end of March already! I remember Mother taking us all to church on Palm Sundays and us kids would wave palm strands about throughout the service. The Sunday Spo routine was ‘go to church go in peach go to the pharmacy’, as Father always bought the Sunday New York Times. He never wanted a subscription as he liked visiting the store, where the owner and cashier knew our family for years. Sometimes (not always) we went to The Grosse Pointe Yacht Club for brunch. There is nothing so WASP as brunch at the GPYC. Our membership number was 2112, which I still remember fifty years later because Brother #4 was into RUSH at the time and he would sing a song in response to the gatekeeper who asked for our number. We were always let in anyway.

With a free day ahead I may do anything or nothing. There are always projects to do and shirts to sew. Someone has the Sunday off, which is extraordinary for him; I don’t know what his plans are. We subscribed to some streaming program that allows us to see ‘Live from the Met operas’ so perhaps I will watch one of those. There were a few I would like to see again and a few I didn’t get to see. ‘Salome’ is always good for ninety minutes of decadent music. I want to kiss you on the mouth….

Then again we may end up sleeping the whole day away which seems to be our favorite past time whenever there the opportunity. When in doubt, get horizontal. Not a bad way to pass a Sunday.

Curious things about the house #92

March 28, 2026 in Curious Things | 22 comments

Most every Wednesday morning around eleven I call China Chili the local Chinese restaurant and order something ‘to go’ from their lunch special menu. By now the lady in charge of taking phone orders recognizes my voice and asks which one do I want (this time) and ends with a curt but not discourteous ‘ten minute – okay?” and hangs up. China Chili has the advantage it is nearby, tasty, and I get in and out fast – like my men. While the entrées vary (there are ten of them), the rest of the parcel does not. Lunch always comes with a small cup of egg drop soup and a vegetable roll, the size and length of a fluorescent high-lighter. It is enough for lunch. It all comes in a tied up white plastic bag, the type you get the grocery store checkout. What also comes along are two (never one) packets of soy sauce and a black plastic fork and spoon set enwrapped in a paper napkin held tight together by a small rubber band. I never use the cutlery, nor the soy sauce, having my own (proper) napkin and utensils at work. I put the packets and napkin sets in the top drawer in the staff kitchen at PHX. I am a Midwesterner; I do not throw out things that could be of use.

Over the months of weekly my excursions out for kung pao chicken (or something like it) a lot of packets have accumulated, enough to fill all of Lake Erie. There are enough fork and spoon sets to feed a large company picnic. Alas, Babylon! No one ever uses these and the pile grows high as Fafner’s hoard. Sometimes I take the soy sauce home and try to use them instead of the bottle in the refrigerator, but this seldom works as we forget about the damn things and they start to accumulate at home as well. Rationalists in the house feel they can be simply tossed out (which on occasion he has done). I do that too, but first opening the packets to drain the soy sauce down the waste pipe so it can be reincarnated someday as something else, say, hot mustard, which is something I would like but China Chili doesn’t provide. Stirges.

I’ve tried explaining to the phone hostess I don’t want any soy sauce nor spoons now or forever but this falls on deaf ears. The restaurant is full up with staff-persons and I daresay one’s job is putting together the to-go parcels and my request would disrupt their routine. And one cannot give away these things to Goodwill or charity shops. So from time to time I gather up the lot and throw it all away and feel bad in the process.

Another solution is to stop going to China Chili but they make a mean moo-shu.

Notes from the office

March 27, 2026 in Spo-Reflections | 20 comments

The Overlords sent me an email the other day. It was quite wordy and set in a courteous tone, but really it was a long paragraph saying a simple story: I am not getting a raise. I wasn’t expecting one so I can’t say I was disappointed. Another email said the RVU (the extra cash we get for working beyond the standard) was being revised. The wording was even more vague but it looks like that’s being trimmed, the old meanies. I happen to know The Overlords are rolling in cash so cutting back on employer’s funds (while hiking up their premiums) makes them Stirges with a capital S.

The new incarnation of The Medical Assistant isn’t here yet. Apparently he/she is awaiting security clearance or something. How different this is compared to my previous bosses, a set of old hippie-types, who basically said ‘come on in’ and how they go. I hope he/she doesn’t get discouraged and go. Meanwhile I am being my own receptionist and scheduler. This isn’t difficult work but tedious to wear three hats. On the positive, the patients are loving it that their doctor is calling them directly on matters usually done by The Medical Assistant.

Another job I will betaken on is being my own credential maintenance man. There is some sort of central place where one goes to be accredited for insurance matters and the like. It needs updating every 90 days. For thirty years The House Manager has done this for me and now The Overlords say I have to do this myself. Oh the pain. It’s probably like any matter it will be difficult at first as I have never done it before, but there is a part of me that thinks this is the last straw, time for me to scram.. The worse case is I bungle I become ‘discredited’ and the howl from the upper echelons will resemble an orchestra of scorched cats enough to get someone to fix it for me. Or so I hope.

Today’s schedule is what shrinks sometimes call “Night of the Living Borderlines’. For thems unfamiliar with the term, folks with borderline personality have intense on/off hot/cold emotions which are often acted out in dramatic ways including self-injury and quick impulse decisions. They are challenging cases. My roster has six or more cases, which is too much. One or two cases keeps a shrink on his toes, as it were, but six it like having a cupful of hot sauce – way too much.

Another challenge is seeing a handful of folks coming in for their every twelve months in-office obligation. Most are cross at having to do so, on the grounds telehealth is fine and it takes time/arrange for time off to show up for their twenty minute look-see. How different things are, when in-office appointments were the norm! I am always seeing some ‘lost sheep’ viz. folks who haven’t been seen in ages now obliged to come in as they are overdue and can’t get prescriptions renewed until seen. These cases are always cross as I am fine so why do I have to come in complaints. By day’s end I will be rawther tired.

I was able to write this during one of the no-shows of the day. Thems with borderline personality do that often viz. acting out their mixed feelings about getting treated. Acting out is one thing but paying for a no-show is another matter.

On strike

March 26, 2026 in Spo-Reflections | Tags: , , , , | 35 comments

Note: this is an attempt at humor, written while I was being too serious about myself. Spo

According to my app that monitors my activity, I’ve had some sort of exercise every night now for an over a fortnight. I thought a break would be good. I planned to go home directly after work, which I did, knowing there was work-to-be-done tasks at home. To my happy surprise Someone (the dear!) did them: the dishes were done and the laundry was all folded and put away. Even the kitchen was all tided up. So there was nothing pressing to do. Hot puppies! I had a free night! The opportunities are endless; I could do all sorts of put-off projects and pleasures. So what did I do? Nothing, that’s what. After taking off my work clothes I fell into bed and did noting. No, I did worse than nothing, I doom-scrolled and played mindless games on the phone, neither concluding with a sense having had a pleasant past time. What a waste – or is it? Sometimes Psyche decides if I am not going to sit still she will plot me having a heart attack or a nervous breakdown she hasn’t determined which.

Sitting still is hard enough for Urs Truly but sitting still and ‘doing nothing’ is even more of a challenge.* It’s times like this I wish I had some Ritalin or something like it. Bourbon is a close second but I do not drink when home alone. Some archetype sitting at the inner board of directors needs to out-vote (or slap silly) the inner Midwesterner who finds doing nothing so horrible. If it can’t see reason then locking him in the walk-in closest could do. Truth is, even if I thought of something to do I feel too tired right now to do anything. It’s 8PM and I am nodding off as I type this. I’m turning into an old man who wants to retire right after dinner and wakes at 4AM.

Let your body be the guide, is a good rule but what if you body wants to eat an entire thin crust pizza (which I did) and get into bed and nothing else? When Someone comes home from work he’s going to find me asleep like a beached whale and no fun that. If he wants to talk we can do so at 4AM; I will be awake to do so.

*I could try meditation but my motives are wrong. I’ve hear tell The Dali Lama discourages Westerners doing meditation as they do it to feel good and not to make the world good.

World of mine Wednesday’s Ws

March 25, 2026 in World of mine Ws | 34 comments

What’s top of my mind:  How my meds were paid. It has been a dark comedy of errors trying to order a ninety supply of one of my meds. At one point I asked them not to charge my credit card but hold off until I figure out what’s the matter with the debit card reported by them as inoperable. Then I got a text the pills the other day they were out on delivery. How did this happen without my OK and more important how were they paid for? A representative of The Overlords (who did not inspire confidence) finally figured my credit card had been charged and promised to stop this and try using the debit card – but that card isn’t working last time I looked. Meanwhile the pills arrive (thank goodness) but I still have to deduce what happened. Stirges.

Where I’ve been:  The Good Doctor. I had my quarterly appointment with The Good Doctor and the labs were good. The borderline diabetes and kidney functions are still ‘on the edge’ but they are stable not worse. Even the borderline anemia was holding its own. Viral load remains at zero and the lipid panel is good as gold. I was surprised by the good news as I feared they would be bad; I haven’t been eating as well as I ought to. The one matter was a slightly-high Vitamin D level; I was told to stop taking the D supplement. He said keep doing what I am doing and see you in three months.


P.S. After rolling down some grass hills in Puerto Rico I was concerned for bruises; but exam showed I wasn’t injured any.

Where I’m going: The Good Dentist. As all went well at The Good Doctor do I dare hope next week’s appointment with The Good Dentist will be as good? He’s always dreaming up dentistry things I ought to do be doing, like a couple a new crowns. He might be severe with me as I didn’t see the periodontist as he recommended in the last appointment. All docs is quacks and this goes double for dubious-dentists.

What I’m watching: The price of things. Every morning I drive by the gas station and take note of the price of petrol. It cost me fifty dollars to fill my tank the other day, at five dollars per gallon. I feel bad for the truckers, for the price of diesel is worse than the regular stuff. No doubt these higher prices will spill over into higher prices for groceries and probably everything else. Someone and I are cutting back on some spending, which isn’t good for the economy. If it comes to a recession it will be blamed on us types.

What I’m reading: More Terry Pratchett. I have no lack of ‘to-read’ books but I downloaded the next tale of “The Discworld Series’. Dammit, they are fun reads; I look forward to them and want to keep reading – what better sign for a good book? If ever I finish “David Copperfield” and “An American Tragedy’ I plan to stick with lighter reads this summer.

What are you reading nowadays?

What I’m listening to: Arvo Part. Mr. Part wrote some lovely religious things just right for the lenten season. My favorites are his ‘Te Deum’ and “Passio”; both make me thinks of early spring back in Michigan when the snow was melting and daffodils were opening.

What I’m eating: Parmesan Cheese (no rubbish). Costco has for sale large slabs of proper parm (no rubbish). I bought a chunk to shave onto pasta dishes but I am eating it in chunks for Small Chocolate Cone. I nimble like a mouse while I read or watch the Tube of Yous. Lovely!

Who needs a good slap:  Patients (various). The Overlord covering for The House Manager (away on holiday) sends me frequent texts about problematic patients who are anxious, demanding, or just being difficult – like my men. She doesn’t know them and she tends to get sucked up in their shenanigans and passes it onto me. I instruct her what to do with each complaint, which is seldom what the patient wants. This back and forth texting all day gets in the way of me trying to do my actual job.

On my 1-5 scale, I give these sorts of patients one slap – or prozac. Not Xanax, which is what they usually want.

Who gets a fist bump: The security man at the PHX office. Richard patrols the office grounds for shenanigans probably more symbolic than useful. He greets me when I arrive at work, being the first one in. He often sees me park and then he opens the door for me (rather than me having to stand outside like Henry IV waiting for Gregory’s pardon fumbling for my keys to get it. We usually stand together in the lobby and schmooze a little and then wish each other a good day. He is a nice way to start the work week.

What I’m planning: A trip to Goodwill. Someone went through his wardrobe and has discarded lots or old suits and such which now lie on the floor in the walk-in closet, high as Fafner’s hoard. I fear they will sit there until Ragnorak unless measures are taken, meaning bundling them up and off to Goodwill they go. Chances are he won’t even notice they are gone.

What’s making me smile: RVU. At work they keep a tally of how much we work and if we work/make more money than baseline salary you get a bonus. Every quarter since its introduction I’ve received a nice wad of extra money simply by doing my job. However, this quarter I’ve not even made the line, what with a week off for Puerto Rico and some missed time for other matters. I figured this quarter I won’t get no bonus boo hoo. However, Urs Truly came back in the fourth quarter to win the game. Yesterday I just got to the line and there are five more working days. This RVU bonus won’t be much but it will be something not nothing. Maybe it might pay for a tankful of gasoline.

99 questions to ask your grandparents

March 24, 2026 in 99 Questions | 27 comments

69. what is your most embarrassing moment?

Almost by definition embarrassing moments are not routinely shared. When I saw this question, my mind went blank, probably as defense mechanism to block my consciousness from recalling anything. In contrast I will be minding my own business when all of a sudden Psyche decides it is a good time to remind me of that awful embarrassing moment when I picked my nose in the high school library and the class bully saw it and commented on it for everyone to hear.*

Urs Truly has had his share of embarrassing moments. Mercifully most of them have been wiped from his memory, only to be reminded when some tactless relative or friend his reminds him. Most of mine most embarrassing moments occured pre-adolescent and can be attributed to being a dumb kid running around unmedicated, but some of the worse one occurred in my 20s and 30s when I ought to have known better. At an early age I realized people were laughing at me so rather than stand there red in the face I turned my mistakes into comedy. I’ve utilized this defense mechanism all my life. If I can’t stop making bungles at least I have a good rebound.

There are the vague and probable recollections of pooping my pants in grade school or passing wind during gym class. I don’t think I ever lost my bathing trunks while swimming or going off the diving board (I would remember that one if it happened). There were countless times I blurted what I thought was wit only to be met with anger to shut up. Being queer, there were times I was doing my best imitation of some diva only to realize the ‘real’ boys were watching and quite unimpressed by my artistry.

OK, I am stalling. I’ve been trying to rack my brains for my most embarrassing moment. What comes to mind is a matter in junior high school. I was routinely tormented by the class sociopath, who often threw my things around before the teacher arrived to start class. One day he and some others got hold of my woodworking project, a bowl I was working on. They dropped it and it cracked. The teacher came in and class started as if nothing happened. Chocking back tears I decided not to sit there but get up to inform the teacher. I remember being unable to talk as it I opened my mouth I would start bawling. I have a vague memory he acknowledged the deed but I left the room. I remember going to the school library, the only safe haven I could think of. I quickly went to the furthest away aisle and there I let loose. I wept like I had never cried before, not only for the bullying but the whole culture of cruelty of junior high school and of the world. Everyone in the library could hear this, even behind the closed door. Mrs. Zink, the librarian, who was a friend of mine via my volunteering, came in and said something. I don’t remember what she said. It wasn’t a harsh pull yourself together talk nor was it as a patronizing there there it will be alright speech. I wish I could remember what she said. It was along the line of ‘it gets better”. I was embarrassed for crying, for not being able to stand up to the others, for being weak, for not being a real boy.

I don’t remember the aftermath viz. what happened to the boys who bullied me; I don’t remember being worse treated. I don’t remember being teased for breaking out into hysterics. Maybe kids gave me some slack for being brave to stand up and not sit quietly in suffering.

Farting in public or having our fly down can be embarrassing, but there is a sense in others this is something I have done as well. Saying stupid things etc. we’ve all been there. Not so when humiliated by someone in front of others. Embarrassment with a capital E is about real shortcomings, like how I felt in the junior high school story.

*I once saw a cartoon of The Ghost of Christmas Past who announces to a man on the street she’s shown up to remind him of all the mistakes he did in life. The man’s skull flips open and his brain says ‘Not necesary, I do that to him all day long”. The Ghost replies in horror ‘Everyday?”

Spo-reflections on The Last Man

March 23, 2026 in Jungian Psychology, Spo-Reflections | 26 comments

The latest incarnation of The Medical Assistant had her final day last Friday. She gave me a hug upon farewell and I gave her a small carved turtle (she likes turtles) and said ‘to go is to return’ . In LeGuin’s ‘The Lathe of Heaven’ aliens shaped like large sea turtles say ‘to go is to return’ whenever the protagonist stepped out for something. I would say this whenever she announced she was going home early or was taking the afternoon off to attend an appointment. I said it for the last time when I giving her the turtle. But this time she is going and she will not return; chances are I will never hear from her or see her again.

Her departure was poignant as we were the last of the original clinic employees before the place was bought by The Overlords. When I was hired in 2005, I was ‘the last one hired’. There were three bosses then, along with a dozen counselors, and a handful of staff such as The House Manager, The Billing Department, and The Medical Assistants. It was all before tele-health and electronic charts and we worked under one roof. The three owners retired in time and the last one sold the place to a chain of clinics. No one knew then four months later that chain would be purchased by The Overlords. New managers and staff came in and us old ones moved on or retired in time. In the past few years it was the two of us and now there is only myself.

The archetype The Last Man comes to mind when one is the last of his or her family or tribe. Sometimes the archetype is evoked when the last of a native speaker dies and the language passes into history. Sometimes this is explored in science fiction when an alien is discovered to be the last of its race. Mr. Cooper captured The Last Man well in his ‘The Last Mohican’; the main character knows when he dies his race will be extinct, only a memory, if anyone remembers them at all.

It is a bittersweet feeling to be The Last Man. There is a quiet sense of survival and accomplishment but there is sadness and loneliness. Your friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers – the people you knew (and more important) who knew you are gone. If you are the figurative The Last Man among new people in your job, church, or neighborhood, the current ones do not know you and on the whole don’t care to. You are seen as the last of an era that no longer means anything; perhaps you too will depart soon, a lame duck of no interest or worth. When did you say you were moving on?

I need to be mindful of this archetype, for I am not a literal The Last Man. True my bosses and coworkers are all new for me, and some of them have worked and known each other for a long time. In a way I have joined their tribe – as an oldster and the only psychiatrist – and it isn’t certain yet if I will stay. Mind! There are no signs whatsoever of The Overlords wanting to eject me on the grounds I cost too much and my work could be done by a nurse at a fraction of my salary. I have opportunity to reach out to others and get to know them. It would be difficult. Unlike the old place, where everybody worked under one roof and congregated in the kitchen my current coworkers are scattered throughout Arizona, working from home, only ‘seen’ on zoom meetings where most of them do not turn on their microphones nor show their faces. Everyone’s work day is full up and there is no community kitchen in which to schmooze. It all enhances the at-work lonely feeling – especially at the MESA office, where I was originally hired. When I work there I sit in an empty business office, with no staff in any of the rooms once bustling with activity and with patients who came in for their appointments.

Archetypes by definition are complex and neither good nor bad but with mixtures of both elements. I need to be mindful not to become isolated but make some effort to reach out and meet others. I have worked twenty-five years at the same job. While the trappings have changed, as have all the staff, it is still the same job and often with the same patients. Let’s see how this next chapter goes and for how long before this Last Man goes and does not return.

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Spo-Reflections 2006-2024