I am sitting in a Starbucks right now, ostensibly preparing for my next class, but in reality I am distracted by the wonderful, luring aroma of espresso. Its scent lingers on my clothes and I can almost taste it. It is my Siren calling for me, tempting me with promises of pleasure and joy.

I am drinking tea. And I’m clearly not that psyched about it.

Before I totally martyr myself, I should probably mention that I gave up espresso-based drinks for Lent and cut down on relgular coffee, but I didn’t give up caffeine altogether (that would be a kamikaze mission for me; I tried it once a few years ago and within two days, my boss politely wondered if I might think of something else to give up since my productivity had taken a noticeable nosedive and my headaches were blinding). But since I do waste a sizable amount of money on sugar-free, nonfat latte concoctions at least six days a week and haven’t attempted to teach a late class without an espresso infusion in three years, it is something.

I’ve already acknowledged the absolutely disgusting amount of caffeine I drink in previous posts—a pot of coffee on my own in the morning, and the life-saving latte in the afternoon, at least. At this point, I’m beginning to see it as more than just a conversation piece (you think that’s gross? Listen to how much coffee I drink!) and as some sort of personal failing—how in hell did I get to this point? And to top it all off, it doesn’t even help. I’m still brain-foggy and slow-tongued by late afternoon.

Combined with my other Lenten resolutions, I hope the caffeine-cutback makes me less disgusted with myself. I’ve also cut out eating in between meals (my equally night-owl husband and I have been known revert to college behavior and run out to 7-Eleven to buy frozen yogurt at midnight or throw a bag of popcorn in the microwave in time to watch the Daily Show, not really the best way to eat).

Over the past few years, though, I’ve started to see the merit in not just giving things up for Lent but in making changes/improvements and adding positive behaviors to my life. My theme for this Lent is balance, not just in terms of maintaining health conditions (that’s a given) but in terms of setting aside time to reflect and also in terms of clearing my mind of negative or hurtful things: not getting so buried in student papers and revisions on Sundays that I don’t make it to church; not backing out of weekend plans with friends or my husband because I’d rather use those five four hours for work; not getting bogged down by passive-aggressive anger when calm confrontation would cause much less pain, etc.

So that’s where I stand. As my good friend said yesterday, you can do things for Lent for faith-based reasons or because you like the personal challenge (I subscribe to both), but either way, it is a chance to let go of some of the obsessions, indulgences, and pettiness that we’re better off without.

So here’s to less caffeine, less workaholic tendencies, more introspection and reflection, and more mature ways of handling problems. (But I’m not going to lie, I’m already salivating for my Easter Sunday sugar-free, nonfat cinnamon dulce latte!)

The instruments were sub-par, the lighting wasn’t ideal, and the surgeon was plying his technical trade for the first time, but against all odds, the surgery was a rousing success.

In the grueling pre-operative moments, I went through many emotional states. There was disbelief: I can’t believe this is happening (again). There was sorrow: I can’t imagine what I will do if I have to suffer this loss. There was anger and denial: But I’ve done everything I can, I’ve taken all the precautions and safety measures, I’ve performed all the maintenance and follow-up. This can’t be happening to me.

In the end, though, an eyeglass repair kit hastily purchased at 7-Eleven and the two sturdy hands of my intrepid husband proved enough to perform a delicate operation on my sickly little Powerbook G4.

The bizarre DOS language that took over the screen, the incessant kernel panic message that froze and crashed the computer every 10 seconds, the horrible shrieking sound it omitted whenever I tried to run a disk repair, the terrifying hieroglyphics that appeared where a lovely Microsoft Word document had flourished only moments earlier—in the end, all these malignant forces were no match for the two of us, battle-weary and used to the wily ways of the shifting internal network card whose movement wreaked havoc for my hard drive.

We’d experienced cataclysmic moments with it before, we’d tasted fear and considered the worse-case scenario, so we thought we were veterans by now. Nothing could have prepared us for the full onslaught of last night’s carnage and disease, the symptoms of which first appeared at the corner coffee shop around 8pm and whose groans and machinations did not end until this morning. For the first time, I really thought all hope of salvaging my beloved little titanium wonder was gone.

But with a flick of his wrist, the turn of impossibly tiny screws, and the re-alignment of one pesky, wriggling network card, John brought my computer back to life. Since my G4 is almost an appendage at this point—I use it easily 14 hours a day during the week and only a little less on weekends, and practically twitch if it isn’t in my vicinity at all times—the prospect of losing it was inconceivable.

Luckily, my computer is again whirring and clicking away as it should, the picture of health…and life for me can go back to normal. You gotta love it when acute triage solves the problem.

Jury duty. Two words synonymous with logistical issues, scheduling conflicts, and all around grumbling, right? (Except for that one person in the jury pool who really, really wants to be impaneled…there’s always one).

I didn’t really want to be put on a jury. It was the first week of classes and not the best time to abandon my students, but I was the second person seated in the jury box. All I knew about criminal trials came from Law and Order (and sadly, this prosecutor was no match for the intrepid Sam Waterson), so at the beginning, none of this seemed real to me.

And then the trial began, the courtroom filled up with friends and family members of the young defendant who were staring at me, and I realized how very real this was to all of them. More than that, I realized that I was entrusted with the deciding this 20-year-old’s future (or, at the very least, the next several years), and it was a power I wasn’t sure I wanted. My only credentials were that I was a citizen, I believed in innocence until proven guilty, and unlike other jury pool members, my time conflicts were not so substantial that I was dismissed for them.

What really struck me was how vulnerable the defendant was. He had to trust the six of us to be fair, impartial, and reasonable, and he gave up all pretenses of privacy the moment he entered the courtroom. As I held his Miranda rights agreement form in my hand and looked at his signature (did he ever think when he signed that form that a total stranger would be scrutinizing it as evidence?) it hit me how personal a signature really was, how all the time we sign forms and waivers and disclosures without really thinking about it.

So what does this have to do with health care? A lot. Namely, that innate vulnerability that comes with signing away our bodies to various forms and consents and entrusting our fates in the hands of other people as a result.

When I was appointed jury foreperson, the weight of our collective responsibility seemed even heavier. We were tired, we were hungry, and we’d already logged some long days in the courtroom, but I emphasized that we couldn’t rush deliberations, that at the end of the day we needed to be able to look at this kid and his family and know we did our best to be thorough and fair.

In the back of my mind was a scene from this past summer, when the cardiac surgeon in charge of my father’s complicated procedures ducked into a conference room and quickly sketched all the blockages he’d found in my father’s heart and ran through the options he had for fixing them. He only had a few minutes to discuss things with us; there was a long line of patients he needed to get into the cardiac cath lab after my father.

He was experienced, smart, and a top-notch surgeon, but that didn’t comfort me in the moment. I wanted him to slow down, to really weigh the different options and potential outcomes and complications with us, to treat my father not as a case to get through so he could move onto other things but as an individual worth all the time and consideration his future required.

Wasn’t that the same fundamental role of the juror?

I’d spent enough time in waiting rooms to know that when the fate of the people you love most in the world rests in someone else’s hands, all you can do is hope and pray they proceed with caution and wisdom. I’d spent enough time resting my own fate and my own body in the hands of doctors and surgeons to know what it feels like to be vulnerable, to wait for a verdict or outcome that may not be what you were hoping to hear.

So maybe I brought something else besides basic citizenship to the deliberation room—after all, vulnerability is an equal-opportunity emotion.