Meat and Medical

Ah, Meatopia. What part of that word does not sound fantastic. A whole day devoted to the glorious wonders of meat. My day at Governors Island yesterday was filled with the wonderful smells and tastes of this heart clogging wonderfullness. After taking the ferry over, I met up with Geoff and Kirsten for a whole day of...waiting in line for a taste. Despite the long lines, the end result was great. We had pulled pork sandwiches, whole hog with bean and corn salsa, smoked duck tacos, pit smoked beef brisket and a MLT (mutton, lettuce and tomato). Andrew D’Ambrosi from Top Chef (yes just as ADD as on TV), Jonathan Waxman were just some of the celebrity foodies that were in attendance. Great day, great people, great food. This capped my birthday weekend wonderfully!

I have received my medical and dental forms for Peace Corps. Now is the difficult part. Setting up appointments and getting all of the forms filled out (correctly!). Of course my pessimistic (prepare for the worst, imagine complete disaster and hope for the best!) nature assumes that there will be some snag on this process. Well I already hit one. Not a major one, just a kind of humorous one. Well in grad school I saw a therapist. Partly due to stress and partly because we got extra credit for seeing one. Well my honesty made me admit this on my Peace Corps application, so now I have to prove that I am mentally stable enough to serve. This means I have to see another therapist to ensure Peace Corps that I am not crazy. Apparently my professional opinion is a little skewed, as I think I am perfectly fine, despite having diagnosed myself with every disorder in the DSM-IV TR. (I challenge anyone to read the DSM and not see that they fit a lot of criteria for every diagnosis. Apparently I did not listen to my professor when he told us not to read into the book too much as we would end up self-diagnosing ourselves with ever disorder)

So I made a call to a psychiatry office near my job. They set me up with an appointment with a doctor. The problem is this doctor is also one of my client's psychiatrist. When I declined him, I was asked why. I can only imagine what the receptionist was thinking when I said "Conflict of interest." So now I am on a search for a therapist that I have not worked with in a professional way. This leads to a whole mess of insecurities and worries. What if I have some mental disorder? What if the therapist does not think I will be able to mentally cope with the service? What if I am mentally unstable (well, in a bad way)? Again, my worry wart thinking tends to imagine the worst. But now I have an excuse to see a therapist! Now I can be the annoying client!

I will try to feel out the consulting psychiatrist I work with on these issues with extreme sneakiness and subtlety to determine if he thinks I can do this. I will probably butter him up with coffee talk.

I want to be honest with this blog and with my progress towards becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer, so I will write about any issues I have. I will also apologize in advance if I use any curse words, coarse language and touchy themes.

Next: Dental appointment. Hello cavities, good-bye wisdom teeth!