striated muscle

I am currently sitting in a cafe close to school with thirty minutes to spare before another day of orientation. I am starting medical school, but right now I am being a creep, listening to people's ostensibly fascinating conversations, watching people through the window, looking at reflections in the hipster marble framed mirrors around me, and looking for artsy, subtle ways to waste time without actually wasting time

see I am being an artist. an accidental artist, creative with minimal effort, creative just by chance.

Oh who am I kidding, I am being a creep. There are two PIs getting coffee two tables away from me, a lady with wet curly hair in a rose-colored floral top arguing with a slightly balding guy about whether or not he should take some other guy as a co-investigator on this new project. You shouldn't be giving away your ideas like this, she says. You are supposed to be sharing ideas, but no you're practically writing papers, placing it on his desk and asking him to be a co-lead. It's not fair to us. We don't need them, they need us.

It's not easy to get this money, she says. 

He seems visibly uncomfortable, vulnerable even. Confused, scared.

What should he do? Will he listen to Rose's advice and stand up for himself? His own scientific genius? The product of his long nights, of his nightlong mental computations, of his struggles, his slowly smoldering scholarly activity.

I am going to be a scholar soon, that's what they tell me. I won't be able to waste my mornings in cafes like this, creeping on people around me, talking about heart muscle now and beta actin and whether or not that Western blot makes sense.

I'm going to be a scholar soon and maybe the next time I come back here it'll be to escape my historic apartment building with a USMLE prep book, and not all the time on my hands.

Perhaps I'll be arguing with Rose or Violet or Cassidy about alpha actin and heart specific alpha actin and whether or not I should decide on John Doe as a co-mentor.

"Hilarious, I think we've been using the wrong actin this whole time," she says staring at a picture of a blot on her phone. There is no hint of laughter in her voice though.

I'm going to b-actin soon. They tell me I'm supposed to act like a scholar.