“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing"

I can't claim to never yawn, but I otherwise agree with Kerouac completely - life is meant to be explored thoroughly and lived passionately. I'm fond of whiskey-fueled explorations of Manhattan and Brooklyn and espresso-fueled late night, soul-baring conversations about what makes people tick. I love live music and dead painters; I like blue politics and red wine.

I was born in Dallas but fell in love with the mountains at an early age and moved to Colorado for undergrad and med school. I'm now a resident physician at Columbia in Internal Medicine and absolutely love what I do. I can swap medical stories (ask me about my time in the ER in particular) or chat about my obsession with cardiac physiology forever, but most of the time I would rather talk about the best oyster bar happy hour in town, or the most intriguing album I've heard lately, or your favorite author.

Resident physician at Columbia-Presbyterian by day (and sometimes by night), going into cardiology in the long run. Translation: hours of exhaustion punctuated by moments of terror.

Outside of work? Making my time at work sound more exciting by jargonizing my day. Wearing out black sharpies while circling upcoming shows and events in Time Out. Slowly exploring more of Central Park.

By night? Trying to find those elusive dive bars that are quiet enough to hear your companions but loud enough to be lively, or back at an apartment slinging cocktails with too many ingredients. Recuperating on a couch and getting in the aforementioned yawning time; sometimes with friends, often with Netflix.

-Using my guitar to acoustically accompany other peoples' stories
-Snowboarding
-Reading (seriously, I'm already reading at a 5th or even 6th grade level)
-Cooking (I miss having a larger kitchen, but I still rock the occasional creme brulee or cast iron seared steak)
-Auscultation and percussion

My dry sense of humor
My occasionally fluorescent hoodies

Books
Infinite Jest, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, Consider the Lobster, really anything by David Foster Wallace; If On A Winter's Night A Traveler; Lolita, Palefire (consistently blown away by Nabokov's aesthetic fluidity); Mountains Beyond Mountains, The Emperor of All Maladies; The Pillowman

Movies
Mulholland Drive, Drive, Trainspotting, The Artist, Manhattan, The Intouchables

Shows
Arrested Development, Mad Men, Parks and Recreation, The Wire, Breaking Bad, Downton Abbey, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Homeland, Game of Thrones, 30 Rock, Louie

Music
The Decemberists, Iron & Wine, Emily Haines (+ Metric / Broken Social Scene), Damien Rice, The Magnetic Fields, Vampire Weekend, Fun, Daft Punk, still exploring vocal trance / dubstep / EDM, Elliott Smith, Massive Attack, MGMT, Bon Iver, Jeff Buckley. Most recently Explosions in the Sky.

Really too many to list... I could talk music forever.

Food
Anything with spice to it - Indian, Thai, and Vietnamese (especially pho). Korean BBQ.
The terrible bagels the hospital has catered for us.

1. Uptodate
2. A steady stream of uniball-signo 207 blue ink pens (and moleskin notebooks)
3. My espresso machine
4. A city or a mountain to explore
5. Awkward silences
6. ...

-Possibility and potential; peoples' narratives and how lives can be changed so quickly and by such random events, both major and minor
-Witty replies and/or honest advice
-Hearts (physiologically, not the card game. Seriously, the cascade of events that's happening in you every heartbeat, 50-100 times a minute, is endlessly fascinating)
-How I would be a better person if I stopped watching TV (immediately followed by thinking about how good this episode is and how I can't wait to find out what happens next...)

Either:
-Deep in conversation with good friends over drinks of one sort or another
-Watching a movie, either via Netflix or in a theater
-Trapped in the hospital
-Out and about, preferably trying someplace I haven't been before in the Village or Brooklyn

As much as I like to approach life vigorously, I do need introspective downtime to rejuvenate afterwards - preferably with black coffee, mimosas, warm sunlight, and large sunglasses.

There, I said it, I have a brunch problem.

-You want to get lost in conversation and argue about David Foster Wallace over pretentious cocktails or unpretentious beer.
-You're passionate about something - you don't have to love your work, but you have to love something enough that you get excited when you talk about it.
-There's a show or exhibit you want to catch, or you want to go rock climbing or do something active.

But most importantly:
-You can challenge me. I strive to surround myself with people that can push me to be more artistic and creative, more social, more thoughtful, more kind, more dynamic, and more me.
-You're one of the mad ones.