One of the things they don’t tell you when you start dating a med student is that, shortly into third year, chronic hypochondria sets in. Not for the student, though. It’s always the significant other that gets hit hardest. For me, it started with a case of smallpox on my upper thigh last summer. Then in October I was 100 percent convinced I’d come down with Type 2 diabetes. It got so bad that I underwent a day-long battery of glucose tolerance testing, during which a caffeinated nurse extracted blood every hour, on the hour, and I came away with a bunch of heroin-addict like bruises (a constellation where Nurse Ratchet had hastily stuck me, like an uncooperative Voodoo doll).

The most recent self-diagnosis, two days ago, was for cancer of the tongue. A tickle in the back of my throat was the give-away, and after trying to scratch it, unsuccessfully, with both a bottle cap and toothbrush, it seemed necessary for further inspection. I bummed one of the many tongue depressors that have, of late, colonized our coffee table drawers. When I pressed down, there was nothing there. So I pressed harder and, Whala!, little white bumps appeared. “Ana!” I screamed. “I’m not imaging things. There’s definitely something here. You need to look again!”

She walked into the bathroom with an icy, Kevorkian-like skepticism. “Give it here,” she said, extending her hand for the saliva-coated depressor. As she looked in, I held a Mini Maglite to help illuminate the tumors in question. “Farther back,” I mumbled, “farther back.” Eventually she found what I was directing her for and suddenly her attitude changed. “Oh, honey. Oh, no. This doesn’t look good,” she said. “You’ve got circumvallate papillae.”

“What?” I yelped. “What’s that?” She explained that they were hideous white growths–growths that function as taste buds. “Cancerous taste buds?” I asked. Nope, she explained, just your run of the mill, factory installed taste buds. “Taste buds?” I said. “Come on. No way. Are you looking at the right thing?” She assured me that she was, and then, to officially debunk my self-diagnosis, she showed me her own circumvallate papillae (aka vallate papillae). A quick Google search revealed that, indeed, everyone has these cancerous looking taste buds at the back of their tongue. Who knew?

Okay, enough time devoted to this silly story. I’ve got a dermatitis on my leg that’s really in need of my full attention right now. From what I’ve heard, it looks an awful lot like cirrhosis.

Time for a serious poll (for a change). Over the weekend I finally rectified the abortion that was my first wedding band. It turns out that for a little over $100, you can get a ring that doesn’t look like a Home Depot plumbing supply or Cracker Jack toy. Now alls I need to do is figure out how to engrave it. Of course, it wouldn’t be a true wedding-related decision if I weren’t indecisive, or agitated, or procrastinating—actually, dawdling, and second-guessing. What I’m trying to sputter out is that I could use some help picking from the options below.

I know there should be honor in McGreevey’s announcement that he’s a homosexual, and dignity in stepping down from office, and no need to poke fun. But some of the headlines I’ve seen are too damn good to avoid posting.

At last, TurkeyMonkey has a theme song, “I am the Monkey.” Thanks to Andy Diller for finding this.

Ma, ma, ma, ma, monkey. Ma, ma, ma, ma, monkey …

From an article by Ken Hughes, a retired businessman, on Useless-Knowledge.com:

Our local Park is always a place to find interesting people. I approached two elderly gentlemen. I put the question of whom they would vote come November. The first said he was voting for Kerry/Edwards. You need men with hair, you take a man with hair and he’s intelligent. The other man spoke up. He said, “Harry you got hair and your dumb as a post.” Now you take a bald man, he has nothing to worry about, people accept them as they are, warts and all. They aren’t pretty, they’re smart. The first man spoke up, how would you know Tom, you’re not very smart or pretty. I decided not to bother counting these two. I left them as I found them arguing over much to do about nothing.