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My friend has an exercise called “conflict fantasies” in which she has an imaginary conflict with someone. It can be with someone you know, an imaginary person, or a real person you don’t know personally. My mom does this, too, she calls them “fantasy conversations” which broadens things a bit- they don’t have to be all about conflict, they can just be an imaginary conversation with someone.

Sometimes they just come up out of the blue. Usually they are about something in your life that inspires an emotional reaction and it is a way of working the conflict out in your head. Also they are inspired by real conversations you have with people about something or a real conflict and you want to continue the conflict or resolve it in some way- usually by coming up with the perfect argument, the perfect statement.

I do this a lot with my patients- I’ll review my day’s work and come up with all kinds of things I could have, should have, or wish I would have said.

Yesterday and the day before I did something called ATLS (Advanced Trauma Life Support). Two twelve-hour days where we learned about taking care of trauma patients. We hung out with all of these surgeons (who were wearing really nice SUITS which was weird) and practiced putting in chest tubes and central lines on these weird plastic dummies with these blood reservoirs so they bled. Turns out that two years ago these procedures were all practiced on anesthetized animals (pigs, goats, or dogs) who were then euthanized afterwards. THE HORROR!!!!!!

Anyways thankfully I didn’t have to deal with that- it was fun, exhausting, wacky, nerve-inducing and provoked a fair amount of existential anxiety. Spending the majority of my waking hours for two days straight contemplating the ways in which human bodies can be mangled and destroyed was unsettling.

I’ve got my card now, I am certified by the American College of Surgeons in Advanced Trauma Life Support. I’m ready to go to Enterprise, Oregon (population around 1600) and work in a 33 bed hospital staffed by three family practice doctors. Since its the only hospital in the county and there’s tons of agriculture, ranching etc. you end up seeing a fair amount of trauma- usually human vs cow or tractor.

During the day I started chatting with a family practice doc who works in an ER here in Oregon. Her town is consistently ranked the number one bike-friendliest in the country. I think that these rankings are neat and all but I don’t think there is any town in our country which does, in fact, really provide equality between cyclists and drivers. So- she starts up a friendly little conversation:

her: “I notice you carry panniers- do you bike everywhere?”

me: “Why, yes, I do.”

her: “Cool. You know, I noticed when I moved to Eugene that the cyclists there are pretty militant. They do that thing, you know- Critical something?”

me (wearing jacket with critical mass patch): Critical mass.

her: yeah, and they tend to ride pretty erratically- it can be hard when you drive a car sometimes. Sometimes they don’t even stop at stopsigns!

me: launching into a very familiar, defensive monologue about the car vs bike power dynamic and about how sometimes it isn’t safe for cyclists to obey car rules and how car rules are for cars and blah blah blah

her: something like well maybe “those cyclists” just are the exceptions and most cyclists are law-abiding and don’t get in the way.

then she exits for a bathroom break.

OHHHHHHHHH! By then my heartrate was up, my face was flushed and I was MAD MAD MAD.

I could spend my time here talking all about those issues and supplying you with informative links, etc. I’ll do that later. But today I’m talking about conflict fantasies and here’s how I would have liked that interaction to go (with loving props to my dear whippersnapper, husband).

Her: So, do you cycle everywhere?

Me: Yes.

Her: blah blah blah- militant cyclists, critical mass?

Me: Oh, so cyclists are militant in eugene? GOOD FOR THEM. When I’m driving in my car I am appreciative of cyclists who hold me accountable for the privilege of driving a humongous, dangerous, life-threatening, machine. Gosh, after these past two days of slides showing vehicular trauma, I think more people should be militant about reducing the dangerous consequences of car-culture.

Her: Excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.