Matter, Energy, and Life of Michaela A. Castello.

Category: Life

Short (and long) reads extracted from my personal life.

  • Two More Weeks

    In an altogether unsurprising-yet-maddening turn of events, our landlord informed us that the condo repairs remain unfinished, necessitating a stay elsewhere for an additional two weeks. Dave, our Airbnb host, had graciously been allowing us to add additional weeks onto the end of our stay, but we finally ran up against another booking. With this…

  • La Lancha

    Since being unceremoniously required to leave our residence, we’ve been living in an Airbnb dubbed “La Lancha” by its owners, Dave and Bonnie. They built an entire two-story guest house in their backyard with amenities not available in our actual condo, namely, a washer and dryer (also, AC that consistently works, but that’s another issue).…

  • Eat the Rich

    This video is a medium length but engaging illustration of exactly how stark the wealth inequality in the United States has become. Such disparity is why I have no problem repeating “eat the rich.”

  • A Spoonful of Sugar

    A toddler admitted for poor feeding sits cross-legged on the hospital bed, clutching a takeout soup container in their feet. My first thought is that the periorbital edema has significantly improved after diuresis, but my attention is soon drawn to the large stainless steel serving spoon clutched in their hand. I noted some fine motor…

  • Fighter Sighting

    Nearly twenty years ago (good grief, that hurts to say) I completed a pastel painting of a World War II-era fighter plane. I gave it to Mark, who displayed it in his aircraft-themed bedroom for years. After we moved, it found a place in my mom’s house, where I believe it will remain unless he…

  • Mistyped URLs

    After the incredible success of my Deviant Art Post Reclamation Effort, I continued onward through time. I finally committed to merging the incredible mistypedURL with this site, which necessitated going through and fixing tags, categories, and formatting. There was also the unfortunate period where I uploaded everything via the erstwhile Posterous; with some internet sleuthing…

  • All Over Again

    Ten years ago I arrived in Loma Linda, California and attempted to meet the three other naïve souls in my MD/PhD program, only to discover every last one of them was cool enough to have homes outside of the United States. Today, the final member of our tetrad crossed the stage to receive her second…

  • Nights for Days

    Night shifts generate strong opinions: are they desirable or miserable, easier or more difficult? Regardless, residency has a fair number of them, and unlike our colleagues we don’t get paid any extra. Personally I don’t mind them, although to be fair, I don’t currently have difficulty sleeping during the day or catching naps during slow…