How I lost two-and-a-half pounds this week, gained it all back without trying, and ended up with a potscrubber on my head.

I knew when I started this internship that ICU would be an educational experience.

What I didn't know was how educational it would be, and in how many diverse ways.

So I finished helping Brenda bag-n-tag her dead patient, checked on my dude who no longer has a larynx, a neck to speak of, or a right chest muscle, and levelled the ventriculostomy on my woman with the bleed, and wandered back out to the desk, chart in hand.

The girls were discussing interesting euphemisms for bizarre sex acts. I wasn't really listening, so I didn't notice when the conversation veered sharply toward hair and eyeliner. Hair and eyeliner don't interest me any more than euphemisms do; I normally let both my hair and my eye makeup do whatever they're going to do for the day, as I don't drag up well. I was charting, not listening.

Next thing I know, Katie's fingers are in my hair. Brenda and Dawn and all the girls are gathered around in back of me, and Katie is taking my hair down from its barrette and combing through it with her fingers.

I should point out here for any latecomers that my hair is crazy, crazy curly. Katie had been demonstrating a hairstyle with her own long, straight, naturally golden-blonde hair when somebody asked her if the same style would work with curly hair. Katie, not being a fool, did not grab Dawn or Brenda, both of whom have hair at least as curly as mine, as she thinks they're more intimidating than I am.

Or maybe they were both just less involved in something else. At any rate, here I was at the station desk, charting away, with somebody doing... ... ... something to my hair.

Katie is the MacGyver of hair.

I was in trouble.

Next thing I know, I've got a *thing* on top of my head. I guess you'd call it a high bun, and it's really pretty, don't get me wrong: it looks like somebody's interwoven a hundred tiny strands of crazy-curly hair into a complex and lovely rose shape, with little curly tendrils hanging down from the back. If I lean waaaay back in the chair I'm in now, I can just see it in the mirror. Lauren pulled out little tendrils from either side, and Chris poufed the front up very nicely.

It's a gorgeous hairdo. It just looked, for the last two hours of the shift, like I was going to the prom in scrubs. It's hard to have a serious conversation with a doc when he's known you for seven years with your hair scraped pack into a no-nonsense ponytail, and all he can look at is the springy curly tendrils escaping ever-so-casually at your temples. And the back of your neck. And a couple falling carelessly over your left eyebrow.

She did it all with one rubber band, in under five minutes. The woman is a genius.

I am in trouble. Next thing you know, I'll be learning how to put on eye makeup correctly. That seems to be almost as important as levelling an arterial line on this unit.

Oh, and the 2.5 lbs? I lost them because I am no longer working with people who bring Big Food to work three days out of five. I gained them all back today because the respiratory guys had a big lunch hoo-hah, complete with brisket.

I brought home a styrofoam coffee cup full of brisket. (It was the only empty container I could find; I covered it with paper towels and hid it in my lunch bag after ditching the fat-free yogurt and the low-fat cheese stick.) I ate at least a pound of brisket for lunch, and then went back for thirds.

Basically, I was a prom-bound, cow-filled, ventriculostomy-managing fool today. All I need now is the eyeliner, and I'm in like Flynn.