/lit/ - Literature

>>21964240
>Anthony had other preoccupations. He complained of nagging neck pain, the legacy of a high school rugby injury. “I think he just magnified it,” Anna said. “If it was so severe, he wouldn't be able to run, and he was running every day for miles and miles.” His hair loss remained a concern. Sometimes he stood on his head, a crackpot remedy for improving blood flow and stimulating hair growth. In a January email, he complimented my hair and asked how I made it look so good. I didn’t do anything to it, I wrote back, and my hairline was five years more, um, distinguished than his. If I had better understood his condition I wouldn’t have asked if he’d considered shaving it.

>The year in Bolivia still gnawed at him. In his original medical school class, he said, the radiology applicants were less competitive. If he hadn’t gone to Bolivia, he came to believe, he would have easily landed his first choice of residency. This was delusional; he was getting interviews at top hospitals.

>Before his year abroad Anthony had taken a prescription remedy for male pattern baldness that can cause sexual side effects and depression. He brought a supply of the drug to South America, but for reasons that remain unclear he stopped taking it. After returning home, he resumed the medication but the fellowship, to his mind, accelerated his hair loss as well.

>In a January email to Anna he displayed a measure of self-awareness, “peace and love and my endless thanks for bearing with me during my (hopefully) brief psychotic disorder.” She had sent him a list of psychiatrists and he said he would contact them. Nothing suggests that he did. My mother repeatedly asked him to reduce his pill intake. On the nights before his residency interviews, Anthony worked himself into sleepless fits. Before one interview in Manhattan he stayed at Anna’s apartment and insisted that she sleep on the couch so he could be more comfortable. Anna obliged him. In March, we reminded ourselves, he would match at a hospital and this unbearable period would be over.

>It was not all as hellish as it sounds. Anthony could still pull himself together. At my December birthday party, at a Lower East Side bar, he charmed my friends in Italian. One sophisticated woman he’d been chatting with said to me, “Your brother is handsome.” The next month, at another party, he told me he was taking antidepressants and feeling better. I asked him why he was living in New Rochelle. If he didn’t have to be in Philadelphia, why didn’t he rent a place in Manhattan or Brooklyn? He insisted it wasn’t an option, that he knew what he was doing. Anthony’s friend Aaron Paul was there and mentioned he’d been studying gynecology, prompting Anthony to reply that he didn’t know anything about the subject. I took this as an invitation for some fraternal ribbing. Anthony didn’t find that funny at all.

>>18633527
>Anthony had other preoccupations. He complained of nagging neck pain, the legacy of a high school rugby injury. “I think he just magnified it,” Anna said. “If it was so severe, he wouldn't be able to run, and he was running every day for miles and miles.” His hair loss remained a concern. Sometimes he stood on his head, a crackpot remedy for improving blood flow and stimulating hair growth. In a January email, he complimented my hair and asked how I made it look so good. I didn’t do anything to it, I wrote back, and my hairline was five years more, um, distinguished than his. If I had better understood his condition I wouldn’t have asked if he’d considered shaving it.

>The year in Bolivia still gnawed at him. In his original medical school class, he said, the radiology applicants were less competitive. If he hadn’t gone to Bolivia, he came to believe, he would have easily landed his first choice of residency. This was delusional; he was getting interviews at top hospitals.

>Before his year abroad Anthony had taken a prescription remedy for male pattern baldness that can cause sexual side effects and depression. He brought a supply of the drug to South America, but for reasons that remain unclear he stopped taking it. After returning home, he resumed the medication but the fellowship, to his mind, accelerated his hair loss as well.

>In a January email to Anna he displayed a measure of self-awareness, “peace and love and my endless thanks for bearing with me during my (hopefully) brief psychotic disorder.” She had sent him a list of psychiatrists and he said he would contact them. Nothing suggests that he did. My mother repeatedly asked him to reduce his pill intake. On the nights before his residency interviews, Anthony worked himself into sleepless fits. Before one interview in Manhattan he stayed at Anna’s apartment and insisted that she sleep on the couch so he could be more comfortable. Anna obliged him. In March, we reminded ourselves, he would match at a hospital and this unbearable period would be over.

>It was not all as hellish as it sounds. Anthony could still pull himself together. At my December birthday party, at a Lower East Side bar, he charmed my friends in Italian. One sophisticated woman he’d been chatting with said to me, “Your brother is handsome.” The next month, at another party, he told me he was taking antidepressants and feeling better. I asked him why he was living in New Rochelle. If he didn’t have to be in Philadelphia, why didn’t he rent a place in Manhattan or Brooklyn? He insisted it wasn’t an option, that he knew what he was doing. Anthony’s friend Aaron Paul was there and mentioned he’d been studying gynecology, prompting Anthony to reply that he didn’t know anything about the subject. I took this as an invitation for some fraternal ribbing. Anthony didn’t find that funny at all.

>Anthony had other preoccupations. He complained of nagging neck pain, the legacy of a high school rugby injury. “I think he just magnified it,” Anna said. “If it was so severe, he wouldn't be able to run, and he was running every day for miles and miles.” His hair loss remained a concern. Sometimes he stood on his head, a crackpot remedy for improving blood flow and stimulating hair growth. In a January email, he complimented my hair and asked how I made it look so good. I didn’t do anything to it, I wrote back, and my hairline was five years more, um, distinguished than his. If I had better understood his condition I wouldn’t have asked if he’d considered shaving it.

>The year in Bolivia still gnawed at him. In his original medical school class, he said, the radiology applicants were less competitive. If he hadn’t gone to Bolivia, he came to believe, he would have easily landed his first choice of residency. This was delusional; he was getting interviews at top hospitals.

>Before his year abroad Anthony had taken a prescription remedy for male pattern baldness that can cause sexual side effects and depression. He brought a supply of the drug to South America, but for reasons that remain unclear he stopped taking it. After returning home, he resumed the medication but the fellowship, to his mind, accelerated his hair loss as well.

>In a January email to Anna he displayed a measure of self-awareness, “peace and love and my endless thanks for bearing with me during my (hopefully) brief psychotic disorder.” She had sent him a list of psychiatrists and he said he would contact them. Nothing suggests that he did. My mother repeatedly asked him to reduce his pill intake. On the nights before his residency interviews, Anthony worked himself into sleepless fits. Before one interview in Manhattan he stayed at Anna’s apartment and insisted that she sleep on the couch so he could be more comfortable. Anna obliged him. In March, we reminded ourselves, he would match at a hospital and this unbearable period would be over.

>It was not all as hellish as it sounds. Anthony could still pull himself together. At my December birthday party, at a Lower East Side bar, he charmed my friends in Italian. One sophisticated woman he’d been chatting with said to me, “Your brother is handsome.” The next month, at another party, he told me he was taking antidepressants and feeling better. I asked him why he was living in New Rochelle. If he didn’t have to be in Philadelphia, why didn’t he rent a place in Manhattan or Brooklyn? He insisted it wasn’t an option, that he knew what he was doing. Anthony’s friend Aaron Paul was there and mentioned he’d been studying gynecology, prompting Anthony to reply that he didn’t know anything about the subject. I took this as an invitation for some fraternal ribbing. Anthony didn’t find that funny at all.