"Are you ever coming to bed?" "I still say I'm a vegetarian." "You can say that you're an astronaut, but that doesn't make it true." "A salmon is not a vegetable, Frankie." "Apparently, eight out of ten commenters agree with you." "Except for the part where you said, "I believe what I want to believe"." " That they found a little judgmental." " You blogged our argument?" "I asked you to quit talking about me." "I don't want a bunch of people that I don't know hearing stuff that's meant to be between me and you." "I write about my life." " And you're a big part of that." " I want to be a big part of your life." "But I don't want to be a big part of their lives." "Take it down, erase it, delete it." "Make it go away." "It's 2:00 in the morning." "The walls are made out of tissue paper." "I gotta be up in 3 hours to do a wiring job in Edison." "I'm sorry." "We'll try to hold it down." "Sorry." "Frankie, what happened?" "Something's wrong." "We need a police car at 152 Haverhill." "What are you two talking about?" "Oh, my God." " Are you all right?" " I think it's coming from my gums." " What are you doing tonight?" " Masturbating." "I'd invite you, but people are already talking." "It's pathetic." "You divide your nights between porn and the discovery channel." "Right." "Playing dance dance revolution is a much better choice." "That was a gift from a patient, and it happens to be great exercise." "I mean, who rents porn anymore?" "Can't you get these on the Internet?" "You can." "But you can't get disc two with the director's commentary." "Come out with me tonight." "I'm going speed dating." "You mean you're dating on meth?" "Count me in." "You need to meet somebody." "This way, you meet 20 somebodies." "Over a five-minute discussion of Proust?" "Speed dating's a meat market." "Yeah, dozens of women just waiting to be hit on." "Your odds of a happy ending are nearly as good as staying home, watching porn." "You plan on doing any work?" "I thought I might do a little light doctoring in the afternoon." "28-year-old female sudden unexplained coagulopathy." " Could be congenital thrombocytopenia." " Platelets look normal." "Patient makes money doing freelance photography." "Some photographic processes produce toxic gases." "She's a blogger." "I can't see her photos being anything but digital." "What does she blog?" "Politics?" "Dominatrix?" "Cooking?" " 'Cause I need recipes." " It's a personal journal." " I don't get putting your life online." " It's not that crazy." "Privacy's basically a modern invention." "Towns used to be too small for anybody to keep any secrets." "What if it's not the platelets, but the glue that holds 'em together?" "Thrombin and Von Willebrand factor are normal." "And knowing too much about each other is exactly why people leave small towns and move to the city." "And a lot of people choose to stay because, in return for zero privacy, you get community, connection." "Big red as for our tunics." "Connections are for airports." "For people, we have over 300 cable channels." "Her photos may be digital." "Doesn't mean she couldn't have been exposed to some other toxin." "We should search the apartment." "Eeny, meeny, miny, Thirteen and tiny." "This one's locked." "I'm surprised you took the pro-community position." "I have friends." "I like people." "You also like secrets." "You deny it, it sort of proves my point." "When we're left to our own devices, we make lousy choices." "Ignore it." "I can hear you in there." "Open the door, or I'm calling the cops." "We're 4 stories up, but there's a fire escape over there." "The ledge might be wide enough." "We're doctors." "We aren't stealing anything." "We're collecting samples." " Who are you?" " The neighbor." "Did they say that you could come in here and..." " What do you know about them?" " Not much." "The guy works a lot." "I see Frankie around." "We argue a few times a week, and then we go back about our business." " Why?" " Frankie's got some strong opinions." "Wants to recycle every molecule of trash." "You take the anti-recycling position?" "Trash piling up for composting's attracting the rats." "I had to put down poison." " It's her private drawer." " She said she doesn't have any secrets." "I'm taking her at her word." "Is there any chance Frankie touched the rat poison?" "She grabbed a chunk of it right out of the mouth of the schnauzer." "Now every time I put the stuff down, she picks it back up." " You brought a date?" " He seemed to think it was a good idea." " You need to dive back into the pool." " And he has to swim in ours?" "You go to a bar, you bring your ugly friends." "It's not a beauty pageant." "Life is a beauty pageant." "Little girls who kiss frogs expect them to turn into you." "Come on." " I'm not that good-looking." " Yeah, you are." "You kind of are." "So you attribute every relationship" "I've ever had to the height of my cheekbones?" "Just the beginning." " The rest is your hair." " This is ridiculous." "Women aren't as distracted by appearances as we are." "They look deeper." "You wanna bet?" "You can't tell anyone you're a doctor." "You're unemployed." "You're also a little slow, misunderstanding everything they say." "And lose the accent." "A hundred bucks says you still walk out of here with a dozen names." "Ladies and gentlemen, the fun is about to start." "When I strike this gong, each man should sit at the table you've been assigned." "When I strike it again, date's over, move on." "I'm an oncologist." "My aunt and my grandma, they both died from breast cancer." "Do you wanna talk about it?" "I'm a diagnostician." "I find out what's wrong with people, and I fix it." "Don't all doctors do that?" "Yeah, but they can't dance like I can." " I play video games." " Professionally?" "I wish, bro." "After six months of chemo, we thought he was out of the woods." " I don't want kids." " Check." "I'm thinking about going from a "C" to a "D"." "Quadruple check." "And I'm on fire for the lord." " I'm a chocolatier." " I could tell by your hips." "Yeah, I guess I could afford to lose a few pounds." "I don't think I know anybody who died of cancer." "Thank God." "For you, I mean." "Obviously." "Except my cat." "She died a few months ago." " I hate these things." " What, are you here at gunpoint?" "You need me to call 911?" "Friend dragged me." "She keeps trying to fix my life." "Which, admittedly, could use it, but... still annoying." "You like puzzles." "I hoped my job would let me play with puzzles all day long, but it didn't work out that way." "Police detective." "Turns out criminals are idiots." "If they're not gonna bother to challenge you, what's the point?" "Is there a fire alarm we could pull?" "Maybe get out of here." "Except... maybe you're just too "swoft"." " Beg your pardon." " Swoft." "It's one of your crossword answers." "I believe it means lying manipulator who tells men anything they want to hear." "You brought a prop as a conversation starter." "Folded the paper to make it look read, filled in some answers, you couldn't be bothered to work at it, so you just put in random letters." "You have some natural talent as a liar, but not enough brains to see it through." "I'm gonna assume you're not a cop." "Are the five minutes up?" "These women would welcome a call from you." "And these women would welcome a call from you." "My." "It's nice to have visitors." " I'm updating my blog." " And I'm reading it." "You realize you're in the same room?" "Sorry." "I've been thinking." "And I'm sure I washed my hands after I threw out the rat poison." "Apparently you did it multiple times over a course of days." " Can't be too certain." " You must be Dr. Foreman." "Got to get back to work." "Take it easy." "What?" "She reads my blog." "I don't think you're condescending at all." "That's not what I wrote." "When you were taking my history, I told you I went whitewater rafting, and you said, "it was unlikely to be related"." "I was just giving information." "Let's face it." "You got a little snarky." " You can't convey a tone in writing." " I just put what you said." "If you don't want people to think that, maybe you shouldn't say condescending things." "Can this wait a second?" "'Cause I have to pee." "I think people behave badly because there are no records of what we say or do." "And nobody believes anymore that god's watching." "God's not, but I am." "Everything is on the record, including everything I do." "I don't think my pee is supposed to be mud-colored." "We were wrong about the rat poison." "Coagulopathy plus kidney equals what?" "Hemolytic uremic syndrome." " Normal creatinine levels." " She has elevated cholesterol." "Can't find my pornos." " Have you tried offering a reward?" " Gaucher's disease." "It would affect her ability to synthesize vitamin K." "She's on a semi-vegetarian diet." "She gets plenty of vitamin K." "Sjogren's is more likely." "You moved them while you were dusting." "I checked the drawers, windowsill, dvd player in your room." "The quiet ones are always deeply repressed." "I returned them to the store." "She had a fish dinner." "Could be haff disease causing rhabdo." "What?" "Why did you return them to the store?" "It's no trouble." "I had to stop next-door for my dry cleaning anyway." "Sjogren's wouldn't inhibit the clotting enzymes," " infiltrate the kidneys..." " So does haff disease." "I'm not thanking you." "I'm asking you why." "Because if I did happen to bring a woman home last night," "I wanted it to be a porn-free zone." "You do realize things don't have to be socks to go into a sock drawer." "I'm sorry." "Horribly, horribly sorry." "I thought you'd... watched them all." "You completely ruined my morning." "I had to pull out your old family photos." "Your mom was pretty hot." "Haff disease fits the timing best." "Start her on saline and mannitol." "You reading your patient's blog?" "You should." "Could be some clues." "Too many." "Be like doing a whole body scan." "Send us up eight blind alleys." "Chase is doing it." "She mentions you." "She's never met me." "You're an unseen presence," " Like the wizard of Oz." " He was a fraud." "She couldn't have gone with Keyser Soze?" "Speaking of movies that don't make any sense," "I stopped at the rental store to get those pornos back." "I told the guy I was so grateful that you'd returned them." "Guess what." "You only returned two." "You lost the third." "Decent of you to pay for it, not let them put it on my bill." "You know..." " I can explain what happened." " I'm sure you could." "But rather than listen to your lies, I thought it'd be more fun to drive all over town and get another copy." "You have it here?" "Oh, God!" "Okay, first, that's not me." "It's not..." "Mostly not..." "I was in college." "My roommate was minoring in film." "Are you hyperventilating?" "Remember that covering your mouth and one nostril can help." "He had to get this in for some grade, and he was desperate." "The only reason I did it was because no one'd ever see it." "Who knew he'd become an actual director?" "He's not a director." "He's an artist." "The way he plays with light and darkness and..." "Boobs." "Look!" "That's not me." "What are you?" "Where are you taking me?" "Be not afraid." "The forest nymphs have taught me how to please a woman." "That's not me!" "I mean, you can see it's not me." "He added extra scenes so he could release it as a porno." "Be not afraid, Wilson." "You took risks for your art." "No one..." "Look at me." "No one can know about this." "From this moment on, my lips are sealed." " Sorry." " It's okay." "Be not afraid." "Find anything?" "Relevant?" "No." "Interesting." "I guess." "There's nothing she doesn't share." ""Angry sex is overrated." ""How can he expect me to be aroused when I'm so pissed at him?"" "That might earn her a new kidney." "An hour after she blogged about her kidney failure, the hospital got a call from Singapore." "One reader asking how hard it would be to donate." "How good-looking am I?" "I'm not asking if you're attracted to me." "I'm looking for an objective answer." "Then it's an appropriate question." "Last night, I acted like a complete tosser to prove to House women don't go out with me for my looks" "Cost me a hundred bucks and my definition of myself." " And women." " Date men." "They're not shallow at all." " Everything's physical." " We are physical beings." "Some more than others." "Please don't define my entire gender based on one night." "What if the patient's problem is physical, not emotional?" "What if her lack of arousal had nothing to do with their fight?" "Sjogren's would inhibit her normal secretions." "Sorry for keeping you up." "I thought it better not to wait till morning." "No problem." "I'm a night owl." "So you think I might have this Sjogren's 'cause of my lack of discharge?" "It's lucky you wrote about that." "A little crazy, you're thinking, to share that much?" "Not crazy." "Unusual to be so intimate with people you don't know." "But I do know them." "They read my blog, I comment on theirs." "Cause you haven't met someone physically doesn't mean you don't know them." "Are you in a relationship?" " It recently ended." " I'm sorry." "Lie flat on your back all the way." "You saw each other every day, right?" "Did you tell her about what you were thinking?" "Or did you just talk about where you were going to dinner and who needed to do the laundry?" "Is that what your relationship with Taylor is like?" "Maybe a little." "You know, he's great, but sometimes it's easier to open up to people who aren't looking at you." "Lie flat for the X-ray." "I'm not comfortable on my back." " Can't we do it this way?" " Did you strain a muscle?" "What's wrong?" "I've booked her in for heart surgery." "I was doing a sialogram and she didn't wanna lie on her back." "That's a complaint you hear from people with heart valve issues, it fits." "Sjogren's damaged her heart, causing clotting and kidney problems." "You based all that on the fact that she didn't want to lie down?" "That, and the cardiac echo I performed after she didn't want to lie down." "Her mitral valve is nearly gone." "Which means she's nearly gone." "God, you're pretty." "We can replace the mitral valve with a pig valve or with a plastic one." "From an actual pig?" "It's the better choice if you want to have children someday." "A plastic valve requires you to be on anticoagulants, which cause birth defects." "On the other hand, the pig valve wears out quickly, so you'd need another heart surgery in ten years." "I know you're on the fence about having kids, but Taylor really wants them." "It's in the blog." "You will need to agree on that decision earlier than planned." "It's your call." "Can you pass me my laptop?" " Seriously?" " I want some feedback." "You really think that asking strangers for some off-the-top-of-their-head response is gonna be helpful here?" "A lot of your readers are into animal rights." "They've got you 2/3 of the way to vegan." "What are they gonna say about you buying your life with thatof a pig?" "Whatever they say, I don't have to do it." "It won't work out that way, And we're gonna have to live with this." "Please, Frankie." "Don't tell them." "If I start picking and choosing, I'm being dishonest." "I'm sorry." "Though I should thank whoever taught you how to please a woman." "Maybe it was the forest nymphs." "Get my Vertigo poster back." "Be not afraid, it's exact change." "I'm looking to get something on House." "Couldn't you just ask the love nymphs for the secret?" "Don't!" "My mission is to find something" "House would not like to see made public and make it public." "In." "You know him better than anyone, why do you need me?" "He'd leave nothing secret around the condo." "You've worked in the same office." "On and off, for years." "Think back." "Any odd phone calls or visitors from the past?" "He brings prostitutes into the hospital, and he gambles with bookies 'cause he's too lazy to go to the OTB." "And you're asking for..." "He's reading The Golden Bowl." "By Henry Kames?" "He's not really reading it." "I don't understand." "That book's at least 400 pages long." "What he's reading is half that thick." "Maybe he's reading a version with a smaller font." "He's not using his glasses." "Good point." "He took the cover off and put it onto this other book so no one'd know what he was reading." "Whatever it is, he's ashamed of it." "I'm going with plastic." "It just makes more sense." "I don't want another operation later." "That's not why you're doing this." "When you were first telling me about why you love the Internet, you said that no one has to be alone again." "Whoever you are, whatever you love, you can connect with someone." "If you want to recreate the Boston tea party while dressed as imperial storm troopers, you can find ten people in the world that have always wanted to do that." "That hasn't changed." "But you have." "This thing that you do, it's not about connection anymore." "It's about an audience." "It's a performance, and you've got one eye on the number of hits." "You've turned our lives into their entertainment." "You're smart, you're fun to read, it's okay." "But don't give them this." "Or if you do, don't..." "Expect me to be here." "It's a good cover choice, it's not like anyone would pick it up." "It's Cameron's favorite book." " I don't even know what it's about." " Don't do that to yourself." "What the hell?" "Giving him a computer is like giving plutonium to Dr. No." "Got it." "Step by step:" "Sermons for everyday life?" "These are literal sermons, written by a minister." "Loving thy neighbor even when hisstereo is keeping you up at night." " Why would he read this?" " Why would he hide it?" "He reads the Bible, he reads the Koran, he says he likes to know what mistakes people are making." "You think he's sincere?" "That he's getting something out of this?" "I don't know." "What a hypocrite." "How can we use this in a cruel yet funny way?" "You know what?" "Don't mention this to anyone." "What was the point?" "Are you gonna be here when I wake up?" "I hate that you don't have a blog." "I hate that I don't know what you're thinking." "Let's not get into it right now." "We need to get you through surgery." "I don't wanna go in there knowing that you'll stick with me 'cause that's what good guys do," " But once I'm better, you'll be gone." " Let's not get into it now." "It hurts." " Is it her heart?" " No, it's here." "Get her inside." "Your appendix burst, we had to remove it." "And the biopsy confirms it was full of abnormal cells consistent with lymphoma." "I have cancer?" "We've postponed putting in the new valve." "I guess we do chemo and all that stuff?" "Apparently you've had this for some time." "When your appendix burst, it was like a dam giving way." "The cells went streaming throughout your body." "So you'll treat, but you don't expect it to work." "That's why no valve." "It's pointless." "Our dean of medicine has approved an experimental treatment." "We use your unique cancer cell signature to create a targeted lymphoma vaccine." "Okay, so that'll cure me?" "Well, we're not actually sure what it'll do, but the intention is to train your immune system to recognize and kill cells bearing the same malignant signature while leaving healthy cells alone." "But, as Dr. Foreman says, it's experimental." "I see." "Without it, what time are we talking about?" " An exact prognosis is impossible." " How about a guess?" "Something, please." "Based on people in situations like yours..." "Maybe a year." "Baby, whatever we have to do, we'll do." "I can take care of you." "I can work from home." "Sounds good." "Thank you for letting me know." "We'll start with the treatment whenever it's ready." "Is she being a good soldier, or is she in denial?" "Denial's not unusual for a first reaction." "Or it could be a symptom." "Some lymphomas affect cognition." "If it is denial, she needs time to process." "If it's a symptom, hopefully treatment with the vaccine will help." "Can I borrow your car?" "She gave me the keys." "You're a doctor." "She was doing you a favor." "She barely knows me." "I've been deluding myself that I'm actually connecting with people." "The first person I fell in love with turned out to be a total tool." "I mean, he came across all funny and charming and thoughtful, but it was an act." "He saw something he wanted, and he knew he had to behave a way to get it." "In retrospect, the fact that I was 17 and he was 30 should have been a clue." "Figuring out who people are takes time." "It takes twice as much time if they're trying to impress you." "Now I could take from this that anyone who loans me their car has an ulterior motive, or..." "I can accept that it's just a nice thing to do and take people as they come." "You wanna do the first injection?" "Why are you reading a book by a unitarian minister?" "Book club." " Oprah was going on..." " I'm serious." "This..." "This is messed up." "Patient wrote it." "You've never treated a patient with this name." "I looked it up." "It's an assignment from my therapist." "No, it wasn't." "No one you respect would give you this and expect it to be helpful." " It's a book!" " Of sermons." "For anyone else, spiritually enlightening." "For you, it's practically a psychotic break." "I know that you have trouble sometimes with the pain without the vicodin." "Is that it?" "Are you so out of options, you're looking for answers in what you consider irrationality?" "I'm all right." "Trust me." "Are you all right because you're back on vicodin?" "I said, "trust me"." "I know this means something." "Do you mind?" "I haven't finished it yet." "Thanks for the gift." "Obviously differs from my own personal beliefs, but if these stories have helped you through some spiritual turmoil..." "Read chapter six, entitled "shut the hell up"." "I appreciated the inscription about the benefits of prayer before medical treatments." "I think it's great you've been called to witness by the Lord." "Chapter two, "bite me"." "Thirteen's giving our patient her third vaccine injection." " She's responding well so far." " Where'd you get all these copies?" " It's out of print." " I called the author." "He's got cartons of the thing in his basement." "You called him?" "What'd you say?" "That I knew some people who could benefit spiritually from the book." "Did you mention me?" "Fever's at 104." "The antibodies tripped her autoimmune response." "The vaccine is killing her." "Well, clearly it's not working." "You have to stop the vaccine." "Sure." "Give up." "Let her die on schedule." "It's better than speeding up the schedule." "How quickly did this come on?" "She was all right when I woke her this afternoon for the second injection." "Of the stimulating agent, which, added to the first injection, switched her immune reaction into overdrive." "Why was she sleeping?" "Who can sleep in a hospital during the daytime?" "I'm not surprised." "She's tired." "She's always been a night owl." "Just by treating her, we've disrupted her schedule." "Is that what her blog says?" " She's a night owl?" " No, she told me." "In what tense?" "Is?" "Was?" "Will have been?" "I'm not sure." "What are you onto?" "Look at the time stamp on this post." "2:30 a.m. Here's one at 4:00 a.m." "Whatever he's onto doesn't change the fact that she has lymphoma and we gave her a dangerous vaccine." " We need to..." " Six months ago, she's posting in the daytime." "Two years ago, daytime." " That's her natural rhythm." " Day-night reversal." " Sign of liver disease?" " Which doesn't fit lymphoma." "But we know she has lymphoma." "We know she has the cell atypia that indicates lymphoma." "Biopsy her liver." "That was pretty cool what I did, right?" "You wanna make out?" "You don't have lymphoma." "But my appendix was full of cancer cells." "Your appendix was full of cells that showed a lymphocytic atypia." "We now think they were a granulomatous buildup from some unknown cause." "So..." "I'm not dying?" "You're actually dying more quickly than we thought." "Unless we figure out what's causing your liver failure..." "You have three or four days." "What the hell do you mean I have three or four days?" "Well, we're past denial." "Maybe we didn't cause the fever." "We gave her the vaccine, and her fever spiked." " Seems to me..." " But it persisted after we took her off the vaccine." "What if it's a new symptom?" "So we add fever to cell atypia, coagulopathy, kidney, heart, liver..." " It has to be an infection." " Which one?" "No one she knows is sick." "She hasn't traveled anywhere." "There's nothing in the history." "Nothing in her blog." "There has to be something unique to this infection." "Something about its transmission and the way it manifests." "There has to be something she's not telling us." "There isn't." "She's told us, and everyone else, everything." "Start her on broad-spectrum antibiotics." "Since we know everything, we might as well treat for everything." "I picked up a copy of the book that Chase left in the lounge." "If you're gonna be this way," "I'm not gonna invite you to my baptism." "First time I'd seen the real dust jacket." "The inside back flap, there was a picture of the author." "Imagine how surprised I was when I recognized him." "Your biological father is a minister?" "Natural selection is not an infallible force." "I don't get it." "Okay, he was a friend of the family." "You'd only known him when you were a kid." "But if you wanted to meet him now, get an idea of what he's like, why not just go talk to him?" ""Hi, it's Greg." "You slept with my mother."" "You're capable of it." "I was mildly curious." "Enough to read a book, not make a phone call." "Please." "You didn't read this." "You studied it." "Why?" "All your life, you've thought this was crap." "You can't suddenly turn around and build a whole new worldview based on crap." "Crap." "You better not be faking this just to get out of a tough conversation." "Do you poop?" "Come on." "Everybody poops." "I read the book in medical school." " Sinkers or floaters?" " This is the wizard." "Greasy and soft or hard and pellet-like?" "Floaters and... the first one." "You just had to be so swoft." "You're a hypocrite." "No lies, no secrets, but everything stops at your colon." "4,000 pages, not one word about bms." " I bet yours don't smell at all." " Nobody wants to hear about that stuff." "People who don't really care about you don't." "But doctors might." "The icky stuff changed, right, a few months ago?" "I became a vegetarian." "A lot of people misunderstand how a vegetarian diet works." "You take in less unusable material, and your waste gets more efficient." "Harder and rounder." "Just look at the feces of rabbits." " I think I might have some." " Malabsorption." "Her system's not retaining the necessary nutrients." "A G.I. infection causes malabsorption, granulomatous buildup of cells." "It's not contagious since no one around her got sick..." "Whipple's disease." "Let's split the credit." "Start her on co-trimoxazole." "We all need some secrets." "As long as they don't kill us, they keep us safe and warm." "I'm..." "I'm gonna be okay?" "You'll still need a new heart valve, and you'll be on meds for a few years, but, basically, yeah." "Your odds are good." "Thank God." "I think I wanna go with the pig valve." "I know you'll go crazy if you don't tell people." "Thank god you're an enabler." "Do you think people can actually know each other better on the internet than face-to-face?" "Faces can be distracting, but there's nothing better than looking into someone's eyes, and... everything that goes with that." "I don't know." "People meet, they like something superficial, and then they fill in the blanks with whatever they want to believe." "Why are you so hung up on this?" "I refuse to believe it's all because you just noticed you have a nice face." "You just came off a relationship." "You know things go deeper than..." "Is that what this is about?" "You and Cameron?" "I was the one that pursued her." "Maybe I was just filling in the blanks." "Maybe... the first reaction was right." "We were just two people who were in proximity and found each other attractive, and I never..." "Paranoia." "You felt something real." "So did she." "Don't try to take it back now." "Can I borrow your car?" "Why would it make more sense for you to read your father's book" " than to go talk with him?" " Can you write a book?" "So I can stop talking to you?" "You weren't looking for some big catharsis." "You didn't want to hug the guy." "You wanted to know how his head works." "How he thinks." "'Cause I'm fascinated with how ministers think." "Because you're not ordinary." "You're way out there on the fringe somewhere." "I'm your best friend, and half the time, I don't understand you." "You're alone." "Been alone your whole life." "When you read that book, you were hoping that somewhere, underneath all that talk of god, there would be a way of thinking, a mind that you could recognize." "You wanted what we all want." "The power to transform into any water-based object?" "To look across the gulf and know there's someone else like you." "At least tell me this... did you find something there?" "Underneath the God stuff..." "More God stuff." "Get maintenance to take that down."