Laura Michaeli, MD, FACEP

@michaelilaura.bsky.social

171 Followers 64 Following

graphicđŸ‘©đŸ»â€âš•ïž, musical🎭, homegrownđŸ„—, imaginary stay@🏡 mom; urgent care made me a better ED MD. Chaotic Good, turned FlowerMojiBot; she/her/hers www.DrXOmmy.com

From the book’s introduction, Professor Cohn’s cartoon of himself walking into a nearly empty lecture hall; I see this more favorably, anticipated as room for the author to draw us and an open triangle of space for his signature
Photo of my greying black dog sniffing the Professor’s latest & greatest publication
Photo of black ski jacket with an irregular patten of white polygons, filled with gray scale dots
 reminded me too much of Professor Sousanis’ pages connecting the history and current images of astronomy, Primo Levi’s Carbon chapter, and arm histology (the actual spread would take thousands of word to describe)
A primitive cartoon I sketched to communicate to patients that it is normal to be achy after exertion: Wonder Woman, with messy hair, tiara off to the side says, “I’m just all out of wonder today.” From the cozy Bat-bed, our masked hero says, “ Sorry Alfred, I just can’t.” In a corner, a spider says, “I just can’t Man-Up.” A fourth spent hero lays face-down on the bottom, mostly covered by a cape which reads, “I’m always Super, but sometimes I’m Super tired.”
Photo of sign in restaurant bathroom, “employees must wash hands,” also has the silhouette of 6 bubbles adjacent to an open hand. But the bubbles look like two eyes and a surprised mouth on either side of the hand, which makes me worry that if the employees washed their faces, they would disappear, like the Cheshire Cat
Photo of a tongue depressor, on which I’ve hand written (an a la carte menu of) non-medical things to do for a cold: Breath humid air Sip or swallow before cough Saline gargles Sinus rinses Spicy lunch Blow nostrils separately Tissue with lotion FLUIDS Stand slowly Sit if dizzy REST [& TIME!]
Photo of the book, with shapes like spirals, triangle, loop substituting for letters in the title
The light wood TV built into a cabinet has mid-century lines that remind me of the Jetsons, with its early visions of a space age. The tempered glass that was in front of the vacuum tube now has a hinge to access the now hollowed space which holds a cassette deck and apple play etc. Above, the LCD tv mounted to the wall wants no association with these old folks. It just wants to know, “what is a cassette?”
Tongue depressor (used as paper) with 5 medical recommendations for clearing sinuses: antihistamines, Sudafed (unless HTN), NSAID’s, Tylenol (not so helpful, just warning not to OD), and Ogden Nash’s poem, “Common Cold” (because laughter is the best medicine)
Tom Gauld cartoon of an ideal library: designed with a window but no exit door because
why leave?
New Yorker magazine comic of man offering advice before child goes into school, captioned, “Don’t make the same mistakes I did, son. Make the exact opposite ones. Then push your kid to do the same, and so it shall go, back and forth like some great, cosmic, over correcting yo-yo.”
Cartoon evoking Ancient Greece (pillars, togas) in which Doctor Zeus (but spelled with an extra s, like Doctor Seuss and holding a lightning bolt) holds out his hand & says, I don’t like Greek eggs and lamb, I don’t like them at all madame. Not with Hades, not with the ladies. Not as a treat on the island of Crete. I will not eat them, Persephone I will not eat them, let me be!
Photo of man selling watermelons, 1 for $3, 3 for $10 Caption: After he sells three but one at a time, says, “people are funny. Every time they buy 3 watermelons instead of 1, yet they keep trying to teach me how to do business”
(As if written in sand:) “Truth exists” (As if floating on waves trying to erase it:) “Only falsehood has to be invented.” -George Braque, from the day and the night
Tom Gauld’s brilliant 3 panel comic depicting Kierkegaard’s, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards” in 3 panels, with an old man (the sphinx’s cane user) walking right to left to read the first half and a dog (Gd backwards?) walking left to write (like usual English scanning) So we can read the quote as stated, but from ‘wise’ and ‘simple’ mouths
Photo of a denim skirt cut in strips, to be worn as part of a costume alluding to gene splicing
Photos of books: “Writing down the bones” (and a deck of cards) by Natalie Goldberg Stephen King, “on writing,” “Handling the truth; on the writing of memoir” by Beth Kephart, “The writer’s home companion” (anthology), and “Several short sentences about writing,” by Verlyn Klinkenborg
Instagram post of the sea & sky viewed through a chain link fence, which is a bilaterally symmetric but not equilateral hexagon, fading to seagulls above
Photo of first part of NYT article: The early universe may have gone bananas 
 tentative conclusion that newborn galaxies are banana-shaped. BTW, the book I reference has the characters make the reader say, “bananas” & no one can stop laughing.
Screen shot of time to find the referenced book on Libby recording
Escher’s black & white sketch of fish with a dark background under birds with a white background, in which the middle section is white fish with black bird background
 or black birds with a white fish background
4 panel cartoon: Defense attorney tells judge, “Your honor, weren’t we all taught never to judge a book by its cover?” In the witness stand: book with cover that says, “Guilty; I Stole the Kittens” Panel 3: lawyer and judge look at the book Panel 4: lawyer asks, “What do we do now?” and judge answers, “Dunno. The punchline was in the second panel” As a treat, the apparently simple visual timeline is twisted on itself by the dialogue
Positive assays for flu A, flu B, and strep, accompanied by med cups with 3x200 mg ibuprofen, 2x500 mg acetaminophen
 This was actually a pre-Covid photo
Accordion books: “Keeping Daddy Awake on the Way Home from the Beach” and “My sister says nothing ever happens when we go sailing ,” by Harriet Ziefert. The illustrator, Seymour Chwast, creates 6’ long scenes that are followed as the story moves. I suppose the child could hold a finger or toy car/boat in place of the De Luca protagonist.
2 panel Tom Gauld cartoon: parent-teacher conference night is a disappointment but the girl grows up to be an awesome astronomer. In both cases she is told, “This is for spending all your time staring into space.” In scene one, she got an “F” but in scene 2, she gets a medal. My favorite part is that her parents are always behind her.
Screenshot of my step count, exceptionally high when preparing and serving snacks then 4 pm feast - anyone else have a non-lunch, non-supper dinner?
Photo: About a hundred green mostly cherry tomatoes from my garden now on & under towels to ripen indoors rather than freeze outside. Caption: pre-winter harvest
Comic XKCD, Gd is pleased with Tower of Babel, grants a wish - alas, to a linguist wishing for more words
Doonsebury cartoon: ordering from supermarket anything “salt free, fat free, 
 humane
 and reasonably priced” will be eating pot holders for dinner
Photo of my socks. One has cartoony flasks, beakers, ball & stick molecules, atomic orbits, diagram of hexose and the other is more medical images, with the phrase “I call the shots”
Spy versus spy comics featured crows, one dressed in white and one in black, which took turns destroying each other. In this image, they face opposite directions, one holding lit dynamite and the other a lit bomb, plotting how to destroy the enemy who is just like them, but for the clothes. Now think about a white and black bird both perched on a dumpster for mixed recyclables. Now picture a peaceful world.
Photo of tonight’s dinner: pizza with stuffed crust folded over like a rustic French tart. The sauce/cheese/wheel are not so different from his Rorschach
Timeline of mineral evolution: Appealing spiral display of mineral samples that portray their order of appearance on Earth 
 making ancient rock classification intriguing
Therapist: They are NOT antidepressants Me: All I’m saying is I’ve never been less than happy while holding a taco Therapist: For the last time, I can’t get your insurance to cover tacos!!!! Me: Don’t yell at me. You need a taco
This is a highly detailed page, small when printed on 8.5x11” paper Will it be ‘landscape’ orientation with the fold between black top & white bottom backgrounds?
Photo of sweatshirt at store, Royal blue with block letters in high contrast yellow saying, “OOF” Interestingly, they also have a hat which says, “boss”
7 plum tomatoes and over 50 cherry and grape tomatoes, arranged on a dishtowel to spell, “Fall harvest”
Close-up of my ankles covered by socks inspired by famous paintings one of the (whelmed) Scream and one of the (placid) Mona Lisa