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AUG

09

2002

over the beacon street bridge across the somerville/cambridge line are a stretch of 11 houses all looking alike, differing only in their window treatments, paint jobs, and other little details. it's similar to my place, my home is a part of a set of clone houses as well. i'm curious to see how my clone neighbors have furnished the inside of their homes.



this morning i had a date at the mass general hospital with a needle filled with anesthesia and the shaving of my nevus, my little unwanted friend who's growing on my right temple. after a wait of nearly an hour and a half, i was finally called into the doctor's office. on the table was a little fluid filled cup which i'm assuming is for the soon-to-be-removed nevus, so they can run some pathology on it to make sure it's not cancerous. there was also the friendly needle, and a tray filled with various knives and swabs and measuring devices. i was a little nervous. after the nurse told me to "have a seat the doctor will be with you shortly," my dermatologist came in with a guest who i assume was a shadowing med student. the doctor looked at my chart and then looked at me, angrily asking, "what're are you doing here?" i don't want to name any names, but the dermatologist i was referred to at mgh is a real asshole with zero bedside manners, and i'm just sorry for all the really sick people with serious problems like skin cancer who get him as their dermatologist, because he's a horrible doctor. i told him i was here to get my wart removed, and he looked at me incredulously and replied, "i didn't tell you to come here, i told you to go to a plastic surgeon. i can do this, but it's going to leave a scar. do you want that?" first of all, he never said anything about a plastic surgeon. from my last visit, he said he was able to take care of it easily, just schedule another appointment. and do i want a scar? is that a rhetorical question? yes please doctor, the more scars the better, i love them! so he scribbled something on my records and set me back out on my way, this time with a referral to a cosmetic surgeon's office next door. 2 hours of my morning wasted, 3 hours if you count the time it took me to commute into mgh from belmont. so i went next door and got my appointment, but it won't be until october. and because i am but just a humble speck in the healthcare bureaucracy, i had to go back upstairs to my general practitioner and get an insurance referral. i took the opportunity to make an appointment to get a doctor to take a look at my right leg, my hamstring still hurts from the last time i went running.

i got back to cambridge around noon, the window guys (three of them) already finished installing most of the windows except for the basement. i was expecting them to take a little bit longer, like it'd be a two day job, but apparently window installation is pretty fast and routine, pull out the old windows, pop in the new ones. i at least got to see them do the living room, it was kind of thrilling seeing them remove the old windows from the frames, leaving behind these big gaping rectangular holes in the walls. it's scary, but soon afterwards they put in the new windows, and it's like stepping into a brand new house. no more crack panes of glass, no more sashes covered over with a century's worth of paint, no more powdery black mildew stains between the panes. new windows give a dramatic improvement to the house. the basement seemed the most improved. previously, the basement windows couldn't even be opened, and they were so gross you almost couldn't see through them, plastic wrap taped on over the windows to keep the draft out. now i got horizontally pivoting windows and sliding windows, i can see through them, and the basement has proper ventilation now. did i also mention the frosted windows in the bathroom? never thought i'd get excited about windows but i am!

around 2pm my father and i went across the street to grab some chinese from zoe's, nothing beats the $5 lunch special (i got a hot and sour soup, chicken wing, and the orange flavored chicken with rice). after they were done putting in the windows, they hammered in strips of sash frames (i think that's what they're called) and then caulked around them. the guys were done close to 5pm, their boss was figuring out the final cost (incredibly cheap, as if they didn't even charge for labor, just for material alone), one of them was taking a smoking break, i was talking to the third guy. they were admiring their handiwork as much as i was admiring it. nothing like replacement windows to make an old house look new again. after the workers were gone, i went around the house popping the windows open and pushing them back in.