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II

So, lacking enough sleep, I stumbled into the waiting room and waited. This is the third location my doctor has had over the past 25 years, each successive location further and further out from the center of Raleigh, and bigger and bigger; this one is a thriving, frenzied megapractice, far from the calm, small-town-oasis charm of his previous location. This new location is north of the State Fairgrounds and the N.C. Museum of Art, a museum that brought me to Raleigh on occasion, when they'd show old European films. There wasn't much else out here once upon a time, IIRC; the Museum itself is relatively new, with this once rural-ish area of the city having only the fairgrounds, a veterinary school, and a juvenile prison as big landmarks, and a relocated hospital further up. Now there are shiny new and new-ish office buildings, housing developments, and shopping centers, and five lanes of roads where there were once only two or three, plus new intersections and stop lights. A lot of trees are gone, and the old church that sits in a fork in the road looks anachronistic now.

III