I adore my friend Rita, but I think I was avoiding her for the past two weeks. She's a friend whom I met when I was attending the Tacoma Filmmakers meetings regularly. However, since I moved up to Anacortes, I rarely get to see her. At least, until the lockdown. Then a lot of my old writing groups went to Zoom. So I started attending them again. And, I started meeting up with Rita regularly again. I was writing prolifically when we met weekly.

But the last time we met, we lingered after discussing our writing. And we got onto the subject of why I am no longer in medicine.

She gave me a litany of reasons why she thinks I can open my own practice.

It's frustrating talking with non-physicians, because people assume a lot of things:

1. They assume all doctors are rich.

2. They assume we really don't do much.

I still remember the time my Uncle Danny came over to my parents' house for dinner, and my dad got a call from the E.R. in the middle of our meal. My uncle yelled from the dinner table, "Just order another MRI, Doc!" My dad was angry, but he only complained once my aunt and uncle had left the house. "What does he think I do all day? Just order MRIs?"

All my life, my dad has gotten phone calls in the middle of the night where he had to leave my mom and me. He would spend the night working in the hospital instead of being with us. My Uncle Danny at that time was unemployed and living off his wife's income as a nurse. I could see why my dad was angry. Doctors and nurse practitioners give up a lot of their family time to save other people's families. It's the "Cobber's kids have no shoes, phenomenon."

3. They assume all you have to do to make money is hang a sign on your door, and people will pay you.

This is where I almost got into an argument with Rita. She thinks I can just open up a clinic and have people come in. People don't understand the overhead costs of running a clinic. There's the medical license, which in Washington state costs $876 a year now. I know, because I just had to renew it. And there's malpractice insurance, which God only knows how much it costs, because the last two places I worked, the "company" carried the costs for me. As a hospital or group clinic, they get reduced rates. Self-employed, I don't. But they don't teach doctors this. I found it out the hard way. Because as a doctor, I wasn't trained in running a business. It's almost as if they willfully keep us ignorant about it.

When I was a doctor in a small town, I couldn't even afford health insurance for my husband. Self-employed people get to see their health insurance costs in a way that salaried people never do. So when the government demanded we all purchase health insurance, I was happy I had stopped being self-employed, because there was no way I could afford health insurance for both of us. It's ridiculous how much people pay for health insurance, with a deductible even. Health insurance is NOT the same thing as health CARE.

When I was self-employed but contracted, I was getting paid $35 per patient. AND I had to pay for my own health insurance, which was $10,000+ per year.

Yeah, so Rita saying I can just "hang out my shingle" as a doctor, is not practical. She acted like I had never thought about the idea in all my forty-eight years of life. Babe, I have thought and thought and thought about it FOREVER. I'm still thinking about it. And it's STILL not feasible. Not right now, anyway. I'd have to find a SECOND JOB to fund my own clinic. And that's what I'm currently doing.

4. They assume we don't know much.

Specifically here in Washington state, I've had more patients tell me I don't know anything than in the two other states I've practiced. Women and men say they know more about medicine from reading shit online than I do, with my four and half years of college at U.C. Berkeley where I studied biochemistry, chemistry, classical physics, quantum mechanics, linear algebra and differential equations, in addition to being forced to take humanities classes (English literature, drama, Asian music history, geology, and anthropology), two years of working with G. Steven Martin in signal transduction, almost a year of working with Nilabh Shastri in immunology, sequencing DNA, learning how to create monoclonal antibodies, cell culture, protein sequencing, and gel columns, six years as a graduate student in biochemistry harvesting and plating neurons and myotubes, working with Dr. David Shapiro on the estrogen receptor, Cheng Ming Chiang on transcription factors, getting paid as a teaching assistant in everything from undergraduate chemistry to biochemistry and molecular biology, and then finishing medical school (an American medical school, mind you, as I saw once a textbook for UK pediatricians, and I was a little shocked at how lacking it was compared to Nelson's Pediatrics), three years of pediatric residency, and practicing as a solo pediatrician for six years, in a physician-owned clinic for three years, and a government subsidied hospital-clinic system for three years.

It's just a little bit insulting to have some twenty-year-old mom with maybe not even a high school degree tell me she learned about PANDAS online and that I don't know how to diagnose all four of her kids with it.

Now that I'm past menopause, I realize, I really don't have to take their shit anymore.

It's a John Galt phenomenon, you know.

I went to college and trained for.... for.... I can't even count how long anymore. Since 1990, when I started college to 2004 when I finished pediatric residency.... however long that is.... to "help people." And to have people insult me and tell me that they're going to sue me if I don't get immunotherapy for a condition that they do not have. Immunotherapy that could kill her kids, by the way. Because, sister, I actually know what that immunotherapy is that you learned about on Google.

Even my friends are constantly telling me they found some "new" information about herbs or other things that help cure cancer, or diabetes, or God knows what else. I forgive them, because I know they mean well. As my husband told me, "Sometimes people talk about things they really know nothing about, because it's hard to suppress the urge to help out."

And this is where I get into the topic of my essay -- problem solvers. My friends and I are all "problem solvers."

The one thing that the people I like to hang out with -- my husband included -- have in common is we are problem solvers. People who like to figure out how to make things work.

That's why a lot of my friends identify with Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock wasn't all that different from his rival and arch enemy Moriarty. Both were problem solvers. Only difference is Sherlock chose to solve problems that serve justice. Moriarity chose to figure out ways to help only himself. Otherwise, the two men were the same.

Problem solvers are not happy unless they are using their brains to figure things out.

Sherlock Holmes liked a good puzzle. He liked to use his brain to find ways to make things work. He also liked to find out why things are they way they are. You would think this is an evolutionarily favorable trait, right? But not everyone has this trait.

I didn't know this. I assumed EVERYONE questioned things, and wanted to know the truth behind it. But no. Problem solvers are a rare type of person. I've learned that 90% of people go along in life and never ever question things. They're not curious how their stove works. They're not experimenting with their sourdough starter to see how to make their bread fluffier. They're not saying, "Hey! I can grind peanuts down into a paste, and sell it as 'peanut butter.'" (That's a Washington Carver reference.)

It's come to a point in medicine where the bean counters and administrators are not letting me solve problems. Figuring out diseases and finding ways to treat them. So I am not going back to medicine. Not at this point in time. No, these days, the way they are forcing us to practice medicine only creates problems. And then they silence us with HIPAA, so we cannot explain what is happening.

Silencing me makes it so that I cannot help to solve the problems that I see.

And, as I mentioned, when you stifle a problem-solver, she or he becomes extremely unhappy.

So when I listened to a student of the Northwest School of Boatbuilding say, "I'm a problem solver," and he described how his former job was becoming "death by Powerpoint," it resonated with me.

In 2019, hospital staff meetings were always some business school grad standing up there, pointing to a Powerpoint presentation, and spouting bullshit acronyms that have nothing to do with patient care. And then, after listing the new acronyms for the month, he would chastise us for not seeing enough patients and not putting the correct number on the bill so they could charge a patient $500 for dick all.

There is no reason a doctor's visit should cost more than $20. None.

All those secretaries up there at the front? Not needed. All those computers? Not needed. It's bullshit. But now, we are required to have EMR. That high school grad that shows patients to their room and tells them to "take your clothes off" and shit? Not needed. That's another $16/hour, folks. Sure, it creates jobs, but it simply is not needed. And wastes time. And it's stupid to have sick people linger in a clinic for longer than they have to.

Common sense.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. Problem solvers. Medicine these days in the United States leaves no room for problem solvers.

Marine electricians on the other hand. Diesel mechanics. Fleet captains. I found my home after I quit medicine, and began working on the water. Problem solving. They paid me to diagnose a problem and solve it. Wow, what a concept.

My friends now are no longer doctors. They are sailors, filmmakers, writers, musicians, mechanics, delivery captains, and I could go on and on.

They are all problem solvers. Even Rita. So I will meet with her tonight for the first time in many weeks, because problem solvers are my tribe.

Author Notes

Oh, and thank you to all the people who've been helping me with reviews/critique. Because of your comments and suggestions, I won a contest (not Fanstory) and was offered a paid writing job. I appreciate all of you more than I can say.

I was not in many healthy relationships when I was in my twenties. One day I wrote out a list of all my ex-boyfriends, and beside each name I wrote down why it was good we broke up. Reading that list, I could make very good pitches for horror movies.

My problem with dating unsuitable men stems from my being too trusting, and also far too generous with my time and care. I've come to realize that my altruism is not a fault. It is a crucial component of love, and the only time it doesn't work is when you are with the wrong person.

A guy once said to me, "Love is when someone makes you happy." That idiot doesn't have any kids, and thank goodness he doesn't want any because kids will regularly make you unhappy, but most parents still love them anyway. I say "most parents" because from my experience seeing tragedies in hospital emergency rooms, some selfish parents only love themselves.

Then I met my husband, and I thought my relationship woes were over.

It took me twenty-seven years to learn that my trusting and generous behavior was the Achilles heel of my love life. However, it took me almost twenty years more to learn that it was also my downfall at work. But again, I do believe that just as my kind and generous nature didn't fit the men I had previously dated, I do believe that all this time, I've been working in the wrong places.

Today I found the journal that chronicled the move I made from Bremerton to Anacortes in 2016. I was miserable where I was working. And so was everyone else. Staff turnover was high, and finances were low. So I was already looking for a new job when the head physician of the clinic stopped by to talk to me.

"I really like you. We don't want you to leave," he said.

I wanted to say, "Oh yeah? I wouldn't know it from the way you treat me." But I simply asked, "Are you looking for a new physician?"

"We're not actively looking," he replied.

Liar. I saw his ad on the same website where I found my new job.

The ugly truth is the clinic partners were desperate for someone to buy them out. Managed care and reduced insurance reimbursements made it too costly for physician-owned practices to stay afloat, and just impossible for a solo practitioner. He had tried to cut a deal with me for buying into the practice for "$50,000" paid in installments taken out of my bi-monthly checks, presumably to pay for "new electronic medical record software." But I wasn't taking the bait. I had already found a job that paid far more than they were paying me, and with benefits.

On the day I left, the nurse manager came to me and said, "I really hope you'll stay another month." I had given in to my kind nature, and had already stayed two months longer to give them a chance to find someone to replace me. Sadly for them, there were no suckers but me, and I was done being nice to people who lie to me to my face.

"You'll never find a better place than this," he told me.

He's a lousy fortune teller.

I'm starting a new list of ex-employers. It will be a great list of pitches for horror movies.

Author Notes

I hate liars.

Chapter 10
MV Big Magic

By Aiona

Back in March, when I was living on the hard in Port Townsend, one of my friends sent out a group email asking for participation in a "90 Day Goals" group. As I was no longer in class (lockdown), or employed for that matter, I said, "Sure!" Over the next few weeks, my friend explained that he would pair people up, and we'd exchange telephone numbers. Then we'd call each other every day to ask each other questions. The questions had to be "yes or no" type questions, or they could be a question that one answers with a number. In short, the questions had to be quick and to-the-point.

One of my goals at the time was to finish two television pilots -- both for a fellowship application. It turned out that another person in the group wanted to set up a Zoom writing group. Being in Port Townsend, I was unable to attend Anacortes Community Theatre's writers meetings. Since I figured these Zoom meetings could be a decent substitute, I said, "I'm game!"

What's weird is that whole time in those weekly Zoom sessions, we never talked about our personal history, our family, or where we used to live, but by the end of the first thirty days of the 90 Day Goals group, I had written a TV pilot which, when I finally showed it to my writing partner, had a number of things in it that parallelled his life.

I'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill "three kids and a dog" type things. He had been in a heterosexual marriage, and had just divorced his wife with whom he is still very good friends, and was in a serious relationship with a new love - a man. There were a number of other similarities that were just weirdly coincidental. When I told my other writing partner about what happened, she goes, "Oh! You should read Big Magic. That's what happened between you and Josh."

So I read the book she recommended. If anyone else is interested, its full title is Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. However, I'll summarize it here. The book basically says ideas are like living beings, and their whole goal in "life" is to become physically manifest -- whether that be as an invention, a book, a movie, a song, a painting, or any other creative endeavor. It also talks about how a muse or idea will sit with someone for a while, but if that person has decided they do not want to manifest that idea, the idea will float along to the next possible person who might make it manifest. On Josh's web log, he discusses how he wants to focus his writing on other aspects of his life besides his highly publicized straight marriage, despite his being gay. Did an idea float around him, and when he made that declaration, decide to go elsewhere? I don't know if I am committed to the idea that ideas float around of their own device and find actuators for themselves. However, it is kind of a neat thought.

And that's where the name for Big Magic came from.

Big Magic belonged to someone who passed away recently. When I put out a Craigslist ad for a project boat, his widow answered that call. We made an appointment for me to come look at the boat and see if it was a project I wanted to take on.

When I stepped onto the boat, the first thing I saw was a tree. Yes, it was a small tree, but it was a tree in the cockpit. That's how much dirt had accumulated inside. According to his widow, the previous owner had let it sit in his front yard since 2014 (that's six years ago, people). I could tell it wasn't completely neglected though, since inside the cockpit were a bunch of Craftsman tools. Unfortunately they were also sitting in puddles of water, which meant they had corroded to the point that they no longer worked as they should.

Big Magic was an idea. However it was an idea abandoned first in a boatyard in La Conner, and then moved to a man's front yard to continue the abandonment for another six years. Finally, the idea said, "Fuck this shit." So when it saw my Craigslist ad, it inspired the man's widow to email me and ask if I was willing to make it manifest.

And I said, "Sure!"

Chapter 11
Article Published

By Aiona

I just wanted to thank all the people who helped me with my "Electroshock Drowning" article. Waggoner's Cruising Guide published it this week. It's funny that the picture I chose to accompany the article was a FanArt photographer who is also a physician. Coincidence? I dunno.

I plan to revise it again, to make it suitable for Pediatrics medical journal.

I'm also working on the two scripts "Adulting with Arizona" and "Nanny Reid" for the Disney fellowship whose deadline is tomorrow. And, again, thank you for all your notes. They've helped me immensely. I apologize for not reading you all's stuff lately!

In addition to writing, I also was studying for my ABYC marine electrical exam for the past 2-3 days. I passed. 92% score. 83% was passing.

So now I'm officially certified to both shock people to save them as well as wire boats to NOT shock them, so they don't die.

What a crazy world.

After I finish this fellowship application, I promised another boat-friend I'd make two masks for him -- one for him and one for his girlfriend who live on a boat. They can't go grocery shopping without them, as Washington state instigated mandatory masks in grocery stores last week.

AFTER all that, I will try to catch up on reading everyone's stuff!

Stay safe, and happy writing!

Author Notes

My completed article can be found here: https://waggonerguide.com/the-invisible-marina-killer. Thanks again, everyone.

Chapter 12
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

By Aiona

WARNING: SPOILERS

I really liked Adam Driver's acting performance as Kylo Ren in Star Wars' latest movie -- "The Rise of Skywalker" -- which I only recently (last month) got to see on Xfinity. So when I saw he was also an actor in "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" on Netflix, I watched this movie also. It was horrible.

I've read Cervantes' Don Quixote and seen other interpretations of the classic book (ex. Man of La Mancha, brown-bag interpretations, etc.), and this movie pays homage to the original, certainly. It has a nod to the futility of every creative in that most of us are tilting windmills. It certainly feels like Terry Gilliam was tilting windmills to get this thing done to his vision. Just like Don Quixote, he fails miserably. Poor guy.

I acknowledge that it highlights some important issues:
1. The sad fate of some actors and small towns after a movie production breezes nonchalantly in and out of town.
2. Mental illness
3. How a creative person who is so talented can end up so far from where he/she started. In that respect, Terry Gilliam's passion-project movie, thirty years in the making, is a perfect metaphor.

Here are my problems with this movie:
1. Racist stereotypes - Yeah, okay, so it was filmed in Portugal. Are there no black people in Portugal? The only black people in this film are the maybe five or so black male actors wearing only loin cloths and beating on drums. They don't even have speaking parts.
2. Women stereotypes - The main female lead is a wimpy woman who lets a rich man degrade her -- lick a mess off his shoes -- and also physically beat her for money. Yes, there are lots of women who do this. Cough-Rihanna-Cough. Terry probably had women-rejection issues. I wish he'd make a movie called "Nice Guys Don't Get Laid" off Marcus P. Meleton's book instead.

I looked up the casting directors, and they are mostly female. How could they agree to cast this mess? Were they that desperate for money? They must have identified with the main female in the movie.

There were some other good points:
1. The acting was excellent with the (horrible) script they were given.
2. The production quality -- cinematography/lighting/special effects -- was also really good. It's sad that so much money went into making the sorry script though. There are so many indy filmmakers around the world who would LOVE to have that funding, and also have far better scripts. I would love to see what this team would have done with a different movie.

My last criticism of the movie is the ending -- very deus ex machina. I like happy endings. In fact I prefer happy endings. So a happy ending would have been preferable over the actual ending of Cervantes' novel. But, this happy ending is just... odd. I guess it's a metaphor for how Terry thinks someone else will carry the Crazy-Torch after he's gone. Yeah. Maybe that's it.

My kudos is reserved mostly for the actors and production crew. They did an awesome job with what they were given. The production values are what made the movie watchable. However, the screenwriters who worked on this? I wouldn't hire them.

Author Notes

Producers are scared to take chances on unknowns. I still remember they were scared of streaming back in 2015, to their detriment. No one wants to pay $15 for a movie where you can't "pause" and go pee or get a drink or change a diaper or answer the door for the repairman who could only come on Monday at 2 o'clock. Streaming is where it's at now. Get on board, or the train will leave you behind. Thank you to teri.olvera1 for letting FanStory authors use the photograph "Rusty Windmill."

Chapter 13
Chocolate Subterfuge

By Aiona

I get flyers in the mail from Washington state Department of Public Health. They remind me that my kids should always eat so-and-so many servings of vegetables a day.

I know the state of Washington has the best intentions. However, I don't know who to inform that it's just a waste of paper unless they give procedural instructions on how to get your kids to eat that many servings of vegetables.

Short of force-feeding pureed carrots to her with a turkey baster -- a method which I'm sure Washington's Department of Public Health would not approve -- there seemed to be no way in Hades to get my daughter to eat them.

My oldest child is able to talk; so at least we can negotiate.

"You will not get any burritos until you eat your carrots."

"I don't want a burrito."

"You will not play Minecraft until you eat your carrots."

Gobbling ensues.

However, this tactic doesn't work with my youngest child, since she doesn't understand verbal threats. So I decided to resort to subterfuge.

Although the Washington state Department of Public Health is completely unhelpful with this area of child-rearing, a parent's Google-fu can save the day. Who would have thought a search for "carrots" and "cupcakes" would reveal such a startling number of results?

I quickly copied a recipe with "4.8 stars," and then dusted off the food processor. Not long after, I produced forty-eight chocolate-carrot cupcakes. I was amazed that the cocoa powder hid them so well. If I were handed one of these cupcakes at a party, I would not have guessed that four cups of grated carrots went into their making. They also tasted wonderfully chocolate-y, but maybe that's because the batter required a full cup of cocoa powder, and I also followed some of the reviewers' comments to put twice as many chocolate chips into it. Mmmmmm!

However, the real test was about to begin. Would my dearest daughter fall for this fully-baked ruse?

I carefully laid my bait on a platter at the edge of the kitchen counter. That's what you're supposed to do with bait, right? It has to be visible. Then, I stepped away to wait -- in other words, I did the dishes. Pretty soon, my victim approached the trap.

"No cupcakes until after dinner!" I screamed.

Just like that, a cupcake disappeared. Then another. Then another!

THREE CUPCAKES WERE DEVOURED BEFORE DINNER. That's. . . (doing quick math, here). . . a quarter of a cup of carrots. That's more than I'd ever gotten her to eat before! In one sitting! Before dinner, even!

Maybe I'll send the recipe to the Washington state Department of Public Health.

If you're interested, here's the recipe:

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/239265/chocolate-carrot-cupcakes/

I doubled the recipe because I had seven cups of carrots in my fridge, but three cups of them had gone squishy. In retrospect, I was fortunate almost half of the carrots had turned, because eighty-four cupcakes would decimate our stores of toilet paper.

Author Notes

This was written for the "True Story" contest.

Chapter 14
Not for Hire

By Aiona

I am horrible to work with because...

Reason Number One: I am a morning person. My best creative thoughts come to me when I wake up with a song. For example, this morning it was Sigrid's "High Five." That song becomes my anthem for the day. And as I said, I'm a horrible person to work with because I have a theme song every morning, and...

Reason Number Two: People tell me I sing badly. And I do sing. A lot. Loudly. I'm singing right now. Can you hear me?

Reason Number Three: I love revising. I used to hate it, but there's a certain masochism in people who become writers. You either learn to love revising, or you never do, and you decide to become an oyster farmer instead. Here's my dirty secret: I hate oyster farming. Don't tell my old boss that, though. He's a good guy. I don't want his feelings to get hurt. Maro-ishi Oysters from Marrowstone Island off the Olympic Peninsula. They're really really good!

Author Notes

Now you see why you don't wanna work with me?

Chapter 15
Salish Sea - Part 1

By Aiona

Biography: Aiona Hartley used to live in Illinois (and, no, she doesn't know your friend in Chicago) where the University of Illinois Sailing Club sailed in flooded cornfields and nuclear power plant reservoirs. Sometimes she still glows in the dark. Now, she lives Anacortes with her husband and three other smaller crew members.


When I visited Washington in April 2013 for a job interview, my colleague-to-be took us to a park in Poulsbo. It was just off Hostmark, and I could see the tops of the sailboats through the trees, because the yacht club is right next to the park. Maybe you know the park of which I speak, because it's one of the few in the world that still has those "dangerous" merry-go-rounds. It started sprinkling rain, and I was thinking, "Well, so much for that." I got ready to pack the kids back into the van and head back to our hotel. My colleague said, "Oh, no, don't worry. I've got extra raincoats." She went to her car and pulled out slickers, and the kids kept on playing in the rain.

Coming from West Texas, where sometimes rain in the middle of a dust storm means mud plopping out of the sky, and sometimes lightning, hail, and tornadoes, I wasn't accustomed to letting my kids play in the rain. However, western Washington's clime is different, and my kids enjoyed playing in the drizzle.

That was my introduction to Washington - WATER.

I wasn't new to boating though. My dad bought a little outboard motorboat (a Mark Twain) when we lived in Arkansas, and I learned to drive so that my mom could waterski around the water moccasins. It was a lake that formed as an offshoot of the Mississippi River, so the water was browner than a caramel macchiato. We sold that boat when we moved to California, and it wasn't until I was attending U.C. Berkeley, that my ex-boyfriend convinced me to join the Cal Sailing Club, ostensibly to sail. It's funny how I never saw that man set foot on a sailboat. I did however sail with his best friend. Shortly after, the Commodore at that time invited me to crew for a trip up to Richmond. It was a spur of the moment thing. So I had no foulies, but I helped with foredeck. I don't know how many hours that trip took, but by the time I got back, I was soaked and extremely happy. I was also incredibly impressed by the Commodore's ability to come into the Richmond marina and dock while completely under sail. I don't think we motored at all for that entire trip.

I was hooked. But also busy. As a biochemistry major and working in G. Steve Martin's lab on signal transduction proteins, I had no time to do more three-hour tours to Richmond. So it wasn't until I was in Illinois that I picked up sailing again.

Chapter 16
Why I Write

By Aiona

As a doctor, you get tired of people coming in with lists of herbs and the latest devices (Copper bracelets? Really?!) and telling you they're the cure-all for everything. There are some things that only modern medicine can treat (Type 1 diabetes, anyone?). But the truth is, medicine cannot heal EVERYTHING. For those things, like heartache, grief, loss, and sometimes just anxiety, there is NO better cure than laughter. For this reason, in my old age, I've come to realize I should subspecialize in this area of medicine -- comedy. There is no residency in medical school that teaches you this. Hence I'm applying to the Nickelodeon Writing Program so I can learn how to open my own practice in this underappreciated medical field. Call me a pioneer.

Author Notes

have to write a blurb about myself..... If you're interested in applying to the Nickelodeon Writing Program too, it's FREE to apply. Deadline is August 1st, 2021. Here's the link to their website: https://www.nickanimation.com/writing-program

Chapter 17
Think the Worst, Think the Best

By Aiona

Several years ago, I talked with a producer from Maple Valley, Washington. He's now in Los Angeles, but when I told him I was living in Bremerton, Washington, he laughed and said, "Buttcrack Bremerton."

Bremerton is not my hometown, but I was just a little bit offended.

Bremerton was actually a pretty nice place to live, at least when we were there. By the time we moved away, Seattle-ites were moving into the area in droves. I could no longer turn left on Wheaton Way because the traffic was so bad. I had to turn right and go south a ways, and turn onto a side street by the McDonald's. Then make another right turn just to go north.

Real estate prices were rising steadily as well.

The last time we drove past Silverdale, a whole hillside north of the hospital had been shaved clear of trees, and they were building tract homes all over it. Same thing in Poulsbo.

Bremerton. It's not the same.

We moved away in 2016, and I remember that was the year of the election. After the election, several of my filmmaking acquaintances posted on Facebook that there were swastikas spray painted all over Bremerton.

I commented, "There are? Because I haven't seen them."

One of the guys, whom I later learned is manic depressive, said, "You aren't there. So how would you know?"

"I live here," I said. Made no difference. He wanted to believe there were swastikas spray-painted all over Bremerton. Buttcrack Bremerton. So that's what he believed.

Just that very day, one of my patients had told me they really liked my colleague, and thought she was the best doctor in town. My colleague's Muslim, by the way. Gee, how racist.

Honestly, I don't think people understand what true racism is. It's not calling someone a "nigger." It's not joking that Asians are bad drivers. Racism is denying someone life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Everything else is just words.

Oh, but words can hurt you, right? Only if you let them.

So, yeah, I let that guy's comment about "Buttcrack Bremerton" hurt me. I didn't have to. Bremerton is not my hometown. Heck, we only lived there for three years, even!

But, I guess what really hurt more is how many people are willing to believe that other people are fundamentally bad. People they haven't even met. I met the nicest and coolest people while living in Bremerton. And no, I never saw any spray-painted swastikas.

It's the same thing I see going on right now. People divided. Like, all this "anti-Asian hate" spiel. Does anyone actually know anyone who's been targeted by anti-Asian hate? I haven't. And I know a lot of Asians. I've been the target of hate, but it's mostly been when I tell people that I'm not being hated on, ironically. Oh well!

It makes me realize that it's true what Miranda says in her hated YouTube show.

"haterz gonna hate"

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