please don’t talk to me—but yes, neil diamond rules

You know, the mudphudder is not a mean guy. I think I’m pretty nice. My friends think I’m pretty nice. Maybe. But I really don’t like traveling for work and I definitely do not like traveling for residency interviews while I am on clinical rotations and have active research projects going on. So in next few months when I’m on a plane or a train, going to an interview, missing work and trying to make it up, please don’t try to carry on a conversation with me about your friend’s birthday party or the trilogy of novels that you are writing or about your time as a roadie on the current Neil Diamond tour. Again, I’m not trying to be a mean guy—really I’m not! You see, I have four manuscripts that I am working on and I am on a clerkship (a core medical school clinical rotation) that I have to study for. On top of that, I am spending a lot of time flying around the country going on residency interviews so I need every minute I have to get some work or studying done. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to hear all about Neil Diamond (in all seriousness, Neil Diamond is the bomb: “Sweeeet Car-o-line, bom bom bom…” Don’t even pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about it) but I don’t think that all of my work is going to get finished all by itself. If I was Neil Diamond and had his magical abilities, perhaps it would. But, I am not Neil Diamond.

Good, I’m glad I’ve made that clear. Or maybe not—why do you continue to talk to me despite the fact that I now have my headphones on? Okay, that’s it. I’ll make a deal with you, if you do the analysis on two of these manuscripts while I work on the other two manuscripts, then we can spend the remaining 1.5 hours of this flight debating the virtues of Playstation 3 in comparison to the X-box 360. Actually, that’s what one of these manuscripts is about.

So please, the next time your see the mudphudder—that would be the crotchety guy in the aisle seat of the emergency exit row with his laptop on—leave him ALONE. Unless you have information on how to score front-row Neil Diamond tickets.

And I’d better not get any comments asking me who is Neil Diamond.