neurochic

Hello again, internets

2009-05-21T17:14:00.002-04:00

So. Been awhile.

Maybe using twitter constantly has rendered me unable to compose a thought greater than 140 characters in length?

More likely, since I now write for a living, I'm less inclined to write for funsies. Even to barf out my random-ass thoughts for the whole universe to ponder. Or rather, ignore.

Anyway. Still in Boston. Have job. Still with the JC. Still knitting.

All in all, my life is remarkably un-sucky right now. Contentedness is a strange new feeling for me. I'm afraid to get too used to it.

I Wrote a Poem on a Dog Biscuit

2008-07-20T19:33:00.004-04:00

This is way overdue, but I have pictures of the Fourth of July. Which comes four days after Canada Day, which in true Canadian style we celebrated with $8 pitchers of Molson. At an Irish bar, no less.

Okay, so the Charlestown Fourth. Not as crazy as the ones in Philadelphia but still taken pretty seriously.

We walked up to the monument, which is only a few blocks away:

There were lots of tourists. Boo tourists.

Across the street from the monument is the old Charlestown High school. I'm not sure what it is now but I'm betting its condos, like everything else.

There was reenacting going on. That guy totally fired his musket.

On the way home, we found a parish garden attached to a convent.

And this, which I found totally heartbreaking:

Then we went home and made yummy blender drinks. The whole way home I made jokes at the expense of the JC's heritage, as befits a dirty Loyalist pig. He's lucky he didn't get tarred and feathered in the spirit of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

New Englandy

2008-06-30T16:13:00.002-04:00

Well, since I've last posted, I've moved to Boston. Charlestown, more specifically. I've always had a soft spot for Massachusetts and now I live here!

Charlestown is all historic. It is, in fact, where the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought (though the actual battle wasn't on Bunker Hill at all, but rather Breed's Hill) and where the USS Constitution is Docked. Part of the Freedom Trail runs through it, about a block from our house, so every time we're downtown or in the North End, we joke that at least we can find our way home if we get really really drunk just by following the red line. And hordes of goddamn tourists.

Here are some pictures of things:
There are jellyfish in the Harbor - at first I couldn't believe it and thought they were all dead, but there are a zillion and they're actually alive, so I guess the harbor isn't as polluted as I always imagined it would be.

These are boats, taken from the ferry. I think it is way awesome that I could conceivably commute via ferry (if I were to have a job, that is).

Hopefully I will find some sort of enjoyable source of income by the end of the summer, though for now I'm really enjoying sitting on my ass and knitting and watching lots of cable. The JC insists on things like cable and having one's own internet connection and having a real bed and not some crap futon you've had since college. Which is nice. But it is very strange to be living like a grownup.

Frogging Makes Me Cry

2008-05-17T12:50:00.003-04:00

So I'd been working on a shawl (kiri) that I started last fall, worked on in CA, and then put down in November for reasons I no longer recall. I somehow decided that it would be a good project to work on on the bus from Philly to NY, where I was going to spend Passover with my mom's side of the family (because they're always SO MUCH FUN and NOT STRESS-INDUCING AT ALL, especially when all the rest of my life was dissolving into a flaming pile of sulfur). Anyway, I hadn't touched the shawl in nearly 6 months, but I had my trusty lifeline, so it would all be fine, right?

Well, somehow I managed to err in such a way that my stitch count stayed right despite messing up the pattern. Except I didn't know I'd made a mistake, and thought everything was fine (because the stitch count was okay) and yanked the lifeline. You can see where this is going.

The kiri shawl is supposed to have a row of eyelets straight up the center. You can see how they started doing just that on my shawl here:

However, upon closer inspection:

Sigh. I tried to save it, but I was not capable of picking up a row under the error properly. So I had the JC our me a glass of wine for fortification and I frogged the whole thing. It was traumatic. I can usually fudge my way through a mistake but "misaligned center row of eyelets" is the kind of glaring and unfixable mistake I can't make better.

So here's the yarn again:

It's not the yarn's fault, the yarn is lovely. The yarn is experiencing new life as the start of an Icarus.
I'm not sure if I'll try Kiri again - it's not a difficult pattern at all, I'm just an idiot.

Let this be a lesson: do not pick up a lace project after a six-month hiatus on the Greyhound to a family even that you are dreading when you're also stressed about everything else in your life and think you can take out the old lifelines. That's just asking for a tearful wine-laden frog event.

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Now playing: Great Lake Swimmers - Your Rocky Spine
via FoxyTunes

Two Things I Will Miss

2008-05-05T16:39:00.002-04:00

My neighborhood:

Outside Solomon:

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Now playing: The Smiths - Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before
via FoxyTunes

FO Fest

2008-03-07T17:45:00.002-05:00

I hereby present my backlog of finished projects that I have been too overwhelmed by grad school badness to post of late:

First off, I finished the Fetchings that were my emergency Thanksgiving project:

please pardon the craptacular lab lighting. Though it is apropos as they live in the always-freezing microscope room, wherein I spend altogether too much time.

Next up, my sister requested a hat for Hanukkah. Two days before the holiday ended. Ahem. She got it mid-January, which I find to be a perfectly acceptable time frame.

Pattern can be found here. Really easy and pretty fast to knit.

I also finished my first sweater. Which technically is my fourth sweater, but the first I actually managed to finish. Thanks to Gerald for taking the picture, that's the D floor conference room across the hall from lab and our closest source of actual natural light.

Having liked cabling my sister's hat so much, I made a cabled hat for me. Somehow all of the hats I had made in the past were not black. Astonishing! So I made one:

It's from SNBN and was really easy.

Finally, I also finished a pair of socks:

They're the Falling Leavessocks from Knitty awhile ago. The best part of having wee size 5 1/2 feet is that it only took one ball of Lorna's Laces to make actual socks!

Knitting makes me so much happier than lab. Obviously.

Tired

2008-02-25T20:40:00.004-05:00

So grad school has finally consumed all of my being. I supposed that's what "good" students allow it to do from the beginning. I'm too tired to expound upon it at the moment, except to say that it is very bad and that I am very unhappy and that very, very bad things start happening inside my head when I'm in the lab 75 hours a week. Swirly black abyss bad.

I've managed to keep up my knitting a bit, which I will exhibit in photographic form later.

I am still with the JC. He makes me very happy, plus he's been quite supportive these past two hell-tastic months. Mostly by feeding me and giving me wine.

Over winter break, I went up to Toronto, where I hadn't been since 2000, at which time the Canadian dollar was worth about 60 cents. I very nearly cried in TD when I got less in Canadian that I'd given them in American. I would have thought his family was less intense if he'd told me that he'd never officially brought a girl home to meet them beforehand, but whatever. They're nice. I like meeting people's family, it's like a game of Genetics in Action! I'd met his dad before, but moms are always harder.

They live downtown. Like, right downtown. Here is the view from their apartment:

yes, that's the CN tower in the corner. It was very grey.

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Now playing: The Cure - The Funeral Party
via FoxyTunes

In Which I Talk About Home and Hockey

2007-11-25T21:13:00.001-05:00

So I went home for Thanksgiving and I brought the JC with me. And while I'd warned him many times just how small the town is, I don't think he was quite prepared for the actual rural-ness of it. To the point that he compared it to cottage country in northern Ontario.

Anyway, I only brought one knitting project. Which was a bad idea as I got to the airport for my flight home and discovered that my size 0 circular needle that I was knitting my socks on had broken. Now, usually I use metal needles because they don't break but I'd specifically bought long narrow wooden circs because I've been doing so much damn flying lately (knitpicks fixed Harmony circs for those of you who are interested) as the skinny little addis are kinda threatening and quite visible on the airport Xray machines. And yes, I know the TSA allows knitting needles, but must screeners are twits and sometimes it's better just to play it safe. So I had NO knitting. And of course my flight home was delayed. Because I wasn't stressed enough already.

Ouch!

Of course, the small LYS at home didn't have a long size 0 circular needle and as it isn't solely a knitting store, the old lady who worked there looked at me like I was on crack when I asked, so I called the yarn store in Brocton, who also didn't have one but at least had someone working who knew what the hell I was talking about. Not being able to deal with my family and the return flight totally sans knitting, I actually went to the Brocton store and got the supplies for an emergency project, the much-knitted Fetchings.

I've already finished the left one. Anyway, I can't say enough nice things about the Brocton yarn store (Woolgathering) - they have a great selection, long hours, and the owner is really nice and apparently offers spinning lessons too. Having knitting made the flight back far more pleasant, a sentiment the JC agrees with.

Anyway, while home I gave the JC the grand tour of...not much. And I even dragged him to BJ's, where I only saw one person I knew from high school (and one I liked at that) so that was good, plus there were dollar pints! And I made a pie for Thanksgiving that turned out mostly okay, though it was HUGE:
So huge that the lattice didn't really work out. Anyway, it's the pomegranate-pear pie from the NYT last year and it's worth a shot...though don't use the pearl tapioca! It was weird having it with my mom because we've been going to dad's the past few years, but she threw such a fit that we sort of had to not go to dad's, which was too bad.

But we spent all Friday with dad - we went into Buffalo for the art museum and the hockey game. Which we spent in a luxury box, which was awesome. And Jim Kelly was in the box next to us! He's going quite bald. My phone crapped out so I took a very blurry pic of the back of his head with the JC's crackberry, but it's so bad it isn't even worth posting. In the box with me was another kid from high school, who despite having the same last name is not the Retropolitan's cousin. And we even won! While my dad's seats are great, the luxury box wins if only because it has a private bathroom. Stadium bathroom lines are so not okay. And that's one classmate at the bar and one at the game, which isn't bad. Though on a related note, I got the save the date card for my 10-year reunion. Ick.

The JC survived my family and my town, and they survived him. Which I suppose is good. I hadn't been back in nearly a year. It's so odd going back - so different from how I live now. With all my urban amenities, like mass transit and stores other than Wal-Mart and being able to drive for two miles without hitting a farm. Though you can buy beer in the grocery store at home, which is an amenity I sorely miss.

Anyway, I'm mostly glad to be back in Philly. With much knitting to choose from.

California (all the way)

2007-11-02T09:53:00.000-04:00

I leave for CA in a few hours, San Diego for SFN and then San Francisco...because why waste the trip across the continent? The last (and only other) time I was in SF was with OriginalMatt, now I'll be there with the JC. I imagine it will be a much swankier trip as the JC picked the hotel and has higher standards than mine (which are only that it have breakfast and a private bathroom). Plus, he makes the big postdoc bucks. Which aren't that big unless one is looking at them through the eyes of a grad student. I also think the reason the JC was so keen on going to SF is that he really wants to move there post-postdoc and is trying to get me to love it. And I do very much enjoy SF, but...it's so far away! Plus, I have a very East Coast personality. Which is a nice way of saying I'm anal and bitchy.

Anyway, the JC will be turning 30 while we're in CA, so if you see him be sure to make fun of him for being hopelessly old.

Gusset

2007-10-20T13:18:00.000-04:00

I may have a new preferred sock heel. After finally having mastered the short-row heel with a minimum of tiny holes, I decided to try the toe-up gusset heel. I'd avoided the gusset because I suck sweaty goat balls at picking up stitches, hence I avoid it, deepening the sweaty-goat-ball cycle. But this heel - no stitches to pick up! No wrapping and forgetting to pick up said wraps! This heel is so idiot-proof I didn't even have to keep track of what row I was on. Pattern here.

It's probably hard to see the detail because the yarn is so dark (who me? in black?) but believe me: it rocks.

In other news, I have no idea how I'm going to finish by June as I've been working my sweet ass off and still don't seem to be getting everything I want to done, all the while losing my grip on sanity. I require an awful lot of downtime in order to suppress my homicidal urges. I'm going to San Diego for SFN and then the JC and I are going up to San Francisco in a brief vacation that was planned before this crazy committee mess. And my dad came down, and they met. Then his dad came down and we met. Except that my dad had told me a few weeks in advance that he was coming and his dad called from an hour outside Philly without any warning. In my family, we'd refer to that as a "nervous breakdown" but apparently in theirs it is normal vacation behavior to just cross international boundaries on a whim. And I've been spending all my spare non-science non-bellydance time on Ravelry still. To the detriment of getting actual knitting accomplished. Mmm, yarn porn!

Woes

2007-09-28T16:27:00.000-04:00

I have woes. Big woes. Science woes. Grad school woes.

In a nutshell: my lab has no money (seriously - we're at "how are we going to buy rats?" at the moment) so my advisor can't pay me and I've run out of training grant eligibility. But I'm not done. My committee hates me and everything I do. They "offered" that I could leave with a master's (ha!). Hell, no - not after 5 years! I'm finishing if I have to beg, borrow, or steal to do it.

So the deal is: I do a different project than the one I was planning that meshes better with my almost-done project. I add more stuff to the almost-done project (so it isn't very almost-done anymore). I write a review (this I'm great with). I do all this by...June.

Funny, at my committee meeting last year they said December of 08 was a great time to graduate. Now they've decided to move it up 6 months and be asses about it. Because they're paying for me? Because I don't want to stay in science? Because they like making me cry?

So I'm basically going to have to go nuts for the next 8 months and hope I make them happy and that they don't randomly decide it would be fun to have me leave sans doctorate anyway. Because "we don't give degrees just because you tried a bunch of experiments, they have to be successful."

I hate them. I hate this school. I hate science. I hate my life. But I'm going to finish, if only out of spite.

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Now playing: The Weakerthans - Plea From A Cat Named Virtue
via FoxyTunes

Word of the Day

2007-09-07T10:37:00.001-04:00

Procrasterbation.

Gosh, I really don't feel like working on the talk for my committee meeting. Maybe I'll engage in a little procrasterbation. Surely then I'll be able to concentrate.

Procrasterbation.

Pass it on!

The NY Mets Are My Favorite Squadron

2007-09-04T16:19:00.000-04:00

So last week I did the unthinkable and went to a baseball game, something that the JC has been trying to get me to do for months now. We tailgated (it was a friend's birthday), sat in the cheap seats, and saw the Phillies beat the Mets. And a few fights, which just made me miss hockey.

This is a very tiny cameraphone pic of the field:

But I did not go unprepared. No, I brought knitting! The JC was quite upset by this and was rooting for the security guys to tell me I had to leave it outside but ha! They didn't even see it! According to the JC, "if you knit during baseball the terrorists win!" But he's Canadian, so he doesn't get to talk about terrorists. Only the awesomeness of socialized medicine.

Anyway, here are the socks I brought to work on:

I realized that I've never done a gusset heel and I decided it was time to figure it out, so I'm just making really plain socks and I'm going to go for the gusset. I hate picking up stitches, so I suck at it, so I avoid gusset heels, so I skip nifty patterns that have them. But no more! I am going to do this! Oh, and the paperclips tell me which part of which sock it is, which I sometimes find confusing with the magic loop thing. Big paper clip = instep of first sock, little paper clip = instep of second sock. Because I like to think as little as possible.

Not Dead, Still Knitting

2007-08-18T16:14:00.000-04:00

I have no good reason for not posting in eons, especially since I finally got a new laptop in May. Except for that bit where I spent two months using said laptop to play Civ 3, which I randomly found in my apartment having never played it before. Oops.

Still knitting, though. And I finally got my ravelry invite, so I'm really inspired to...knit more! And buy piles of yarn! It's great, and anyone with a ravelry account please friend me, it's neurochic over there. That site is like crack. Knitting crack.

And here is a lovely project I just finished:

Yes, my legs are that pasty even in August. They're the ever-popular Jaywalker socks, though I did them toe-up and with a short-row rather than gusset heel. And I am so in love with that colorway!

In other news, the JC and I are still together somehow, I hate science, the lab still has no money, and I'm beginning to get antsy about finishing. And I got an awesome internship doing editing and some editorial stuff at a scientific journal (the JCI, for those of you who are interested) and it's awesome! So I'm actually working on getting some sort of career together just on the off chance I ever finish this cursed Ph.D.

I promise to blog more. Really. If only for my own sanity.

Still Knitting

2007-04-04T17:43:00.000-04:00

I realized that I haven't posted anything crafty lately despite knitting a bunch. or at least feeling like I'm knitting a bunch.

So here is a lovely scarf I made:

It's supposed to be cherry leaves. I don't know if it looks like them, but it does sort of look like leaves and that's enough for me.

In other news, lab sucks, things with the JC are going surprisingly well, I hate Passover, and I have to pay my damn taxes. Adulthood is no fun.

Adventures Among the Overprivileged

2007-03-08T17:09:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the hiatus, my laptop is dead and I haven't gotten a new one yet. And may not for awhile.

So I'm teaching again this term, which I usually like. Except with the part where I have to actually deal with the damn Ivy-league undergrads. Case in point: it is spring break this week. As a lowly grad student, I do not, in fact, get a break. So I'm bitter. But my advisor and I scheduled an exam for the last day of class before Spring Break, which was Thursday. Thursday, and there were still classes Friday as well. But apparently 10 days isn't a long enough break for these charming kids as one of them asked if we could reschedule her exam because she was going to be "out of town" on Thursday. Yeah, she was taking two extra days and thought we should accommodate her ditching early to go drink and get herpes from some exotic frat boy from another school. My advisor, being far too nice, said she could take it when she gets back (giving her an extra 11 days to study, at least in theory). Girl says she can take it any time Monday so when I say great, she can do it in the morning, asks if actually she can take it in the afternoon. Um, no. Bitch is lucky I'm not making her take it at 8am. We both know she wants to put it off to the afternoon so she can study and I'm going to make her suffer. Why does she think she gets to take off sans consequences anyway? But the upshot is that my advisor said we'll give her a different test and make it extra hard by just adding a bunch of the questions we didn't use on the actual exam so the exam will be too long for her to finish. Ha!

Another kid hasn't shown up for class and currently has a zero as he signed up to do a group presentation but didn't bother to actually work with the group. Boy doesn't show up to the exam. Advisor goes and checks her email, in which is waiting a note from the boy that he wants an incomplete (despite the fact that he can still withdraw and that at this university it is actually possible to withdraw after you've taken the final) because...he's really overwhelmed with his duties as pledgemaster for his frat. Look, I'm sure hazing is quite time consuming. But to the point that you think you can get an incomplete? And the very notion of "incomplete" implies that you've at least done something, some little bit of work, that you just didn't finish. Not that you didn't show up all semester and didn't bother doing anything until the morning of your midterm.

But really, these kids are so different from (most) of the ones I went to the big giant state school with. For one, they have much nicer cars. And very, very few of them actually work. Even in the summer. They've been told their whole pathetic lives how smart and special and wonderful they are so now in college they expect to be treated accordingly. And they're really not. Not most of them, at least. But professors here are so scared of bad evaluations that they let the students get away with so much. Plus, giving Ds and Fs tends to draw negative attention from the department. So all these kids that really, truly, honestly deserve to fail skate with C-'s and never get their comeuppance. And it drives me nuts.

Yeah. Maybe I'm just mad because I have to be at lab at 6:30 in the morning and I gave my advisor the key for the exam to go over and check last week and she didn't bother to get it back to me until today yet I'm still expected to have all the exams done Tuesday in addition to a big spate of rat killing and despite the fact that I told her I had plans for the weekend. Because she gets to procrastinate and delay but I do not. That's tenure.

And then My Head Exploded

2007-02-08T14:38:00.000-05:00

Last week I had a migraine for four days. Yeah, four days. It refused to respond my medication so I was up all night, trying not to barf too much and actually considering going to the HUP ER when I wasn't thinking that maybe if I just took that Exacto knife to my temple, some of the pressure would release and I'd feel better. I went to Student Health instead of HUP (because even had I arrived at HUP at 3 am they wouldn't have seen me by 9:15 like the nice people at SHS did) where they basically gave me piles of drugs and said, "there's nothing else we can do." So I spent the next three days on various medications, all of which were severely incapacitating. Like vicodin and this stuff that is a mix of painkiller and muscle relaxant, all in one magic little pill. I did not get much done.

The JC thinks the migraine was his fault. I'm sort of inclined to agree.

Once I recovered, I went out with the JC Friday and most of Saturday which was basically actually very nice except for the frustrating talking about us parts that basically go:
JC: "I'm different! I want you back for serious! Yay, relationships and love and babies and weddings!"
Me: "Stop freaking me out! I don't trust you yet! I'm not ready to be serious about you!"
repeat ad nauseum.
Then I went to lab, dance rehearsal, and out with the NewBoy. Which was very much fun and reminded me that hey, I really like NewBoy and that this is really, really hard because I'm going to have to crush someone soon and I've never done that. Then Sunday they both invited me to the Super Bowl (and I had an invite to another party, that apparently Original Matt went to because my world isn't crazy enough) and I went with the JC because his house is closer and I thought it would be weird for me to be at a party with NewBoy and his friends given my current state of indecision.

The JC is now back in Toronto for his brother's wedding and is apparently bringing me back presents of a Canadian nature. And I'm guessing he'll be bringing back another massive existential crisis, but he seems angered by my insistence that his new found relationship resolve will crumble once he's reimmersed in that insular family-focused culture so I'm trying not to remind him too much that I'm totally waiting to see if he's serious until some post-wedding time has elapsed. But I am. Maybe it isn't fair of me, but I'm sort of expecting something to go wrong again and holding out because of it.

Anyway, my head is generally better and now I have lots of entertaining drugs and an appointment with a neurologist. Lab and teaching and dancing are taking up so much of my time I barely have time for one boy, let alone two. I'm exhausted. I think this dating two boys thing is going to make me break something.

I've Got My Life of Complication Here to Sort Out

2007-01-29T18:05:00.000-05:00

Things are nuts. I am nuts.

I mentioned that I'd started seeing someone, someone I like. I like like him. We went out again Friday and all was well. Happy yay fun dating super-cute time. Not remotely serious but still early. Let's face it, I don't usually like people. I find that people I want to sleep with and people I want to talk to are usually two distinct populations and I'm thrilled with my luck that I've met someone who fits into both categories and who I don't hate yet.

Then Saturday afternoon when I got back from NewBoy's house there was a text from the JC about some drama in his lab. I love lab gossip, so I called and got the story. All is still well at this point. Until he calls me back and says he wants to talk to me. In person. And because he's the JC I freak out, but I agree to meet him because we're still friends or something and to be honest I still ahve feelings for him. Feelings that were stronger before I met NewBoy but still big feelings.

Guess who has missed me since August? Who made a mistake? Who wants me back, not just to date but as a girlfriend? Who knows what was wrong before and wants to work on it and said everything I've been wanting to hear from him since the day he last left my apartment? Who seems really really earnest about this? Who said if I was seeing someone else and happy he'd understand but that he had to tell me?

At one point I actually banged my head on the table. Why couldn't he have said these things three weeks ago?

This is the JC. This is the only boy ever in my life I've dated and actually thought we could have a real future, as partners or even (eek) married. BUT this is the boy who hurt me like no other boy has ever hurt me, who crushed me, who made me feel horrible and like I would never, ever be whole again. Finally saying everything I've wanted him to say. Now.

I don't know what I'm going to do. I like NewBoy but I certainly don't love him and I'm not sure I can see a future with him, what with his not "getting" Judaism said in a way that made me cringe but that may be understandable as he's a rather bitter lapsed Catholic. But I like him and he's shiny and new and nice to me and he's certainly cooler than the JC and I think we have a shot at something. But the JC is the JC and I'd regret it if I didn't at least give him a chance. But I'd really regret it if he hurt me again, particularly if I stopped seeing NewBoy. Who I like.

I'm not deciding yet. I need time. Time in which I'm not going to stop seeing NewBoy but may start seeing the JC again on a very probationary basis. In public places. I just hope that time will actually help me figure this out and not make me even more confused.

And I haven't been sleeping right since the accident. It's clouding my mind. The insomnia plus this mess is not good for my always-tenuous stability. I cried in Student Health this morning - they raised the price of my birth control from $8 to $35 without so much as a warning or a phone call when I called it in. I can't afford that. But I can't switch and there's no generic and I finally, finally found a method that doesn't exacerbate my headaches and make me nuts and that I don't have to take at the same time every day and that I really, really love and I can't mess with switching methods again, not now, not with the craziness. So I cried but I gave the cashier $35. I'm not sure what I'll do next month. It isn't covered by insurance at all. Of course.

I wish I could sleep.

Timwatch 1/21 and General Updates

2007-01-22T18:04:00.000-05:00

So yesterday's MTP was billed as John McCain and Ted Kennedy. Only the way the described it in the email, I thought they were going to be right across the table from each other engaging in a barrage of brilliant pro-and anti-"surge" rhetoric ending with Ted accusing McCain of becoming Bush's lapdog since 2000. But alas, it was McCain first (via satellite, which is never as much fun since you can't see the guest's coffee mug) then Ted. Ted, at least, had the courtesy to actually show up at the studio and thus there were no annoying satellite delays. What happened to John McCain? Whither his joie de vive? I almost felt bad for him as he looked so sad and tired. Almost.

My thoughts on the previous week's MTP were as follows:
-I hate Stephen Hadley. Tool.
-I hate Joe Lieberman
-Why is Chris Dodd running for President? Who does he think he is, Joe Biden?
-Have I mentioned that I hate Joe Lieberman?
-I hate Chuck Hagel less than I hate Joe Lieberman. Yikes.
-Shut up, Joe Lieberman! You're an embarrassment to the faith! There, I said it!

In life news, I've been getting physical therapy for my hip and shoulder since the accident. The hip still hurts but I think the shoulder is getting better. I have to do all these exercises with big colored rubber bands and I'm hoping I'll be all awesomely buff by the end. I don't think I'll be getting another car, at least not in the near future. I also haven't slept through the night in a few weeks, which is starting to have a detrimental effect on my thought processes as well as my typing skills. I'm TA-ing again but I'm only in it for the money. I broke my laptop. I had a successful 3rd date with a boy that I may actually like. He has thus far managed not to say positive things about Hitler, nor has he disclosed a long history of being on experimental psychiatric medications, nor does he say inappropriate things to those at the neighboring table in the bar. Plus, he likes the Smiths. I am currently in suspense as to what, exactly, is wrong with him as there must be something. I've gone back to my four dance rehearsals a week but I can't dance very much and look stupid when I do as I can't do any arm stuff. I need to finish some knitting stuff so I can put pictures on the internet and beg for compliments. There is a new food truck on campus (Jamaican!) that is awesome.

That is all.

Timwatch 1/7

2007-01-11T19:58:00.000-05:00

Due to complex life adventures of late, I hadn't even been watching Tim. He missed me, though. I can tell.

As everyone already knows, Joe Biden announced his candidate for Presidency on MTP. Except he basically announced his candidacy before Kerry's political corpse was cold, so I fail to see why the media even covered it. Anyway, Joe, you know I love you and respect you and think you're swell, but seriously? No chance. Nobody outside of the Philadelphia area has even heard of you, and we only know who you are because you represent Delaware and apparently Delaware just gets a few minutes now and then on the Philly news as it is but a wee state without much happening. We all know you're really running for Secretary of State there, Joe.

The other guest was Lindsey Graham of SC. Who is not running for president but maybe should (yeah, I know I shouldn't give hints to the enemy but whatever). I'd never vote for him. But he has a great bio (lost both blue-collar parents and adopted his little sister, Air Forge, JAG) and seems capable of reason. Of course, he can't really run for the nomination. Because he's single and has never been married and Googling "Lindsey Graham gay" gets an awful lot of hits. Which is too bad, because I'd vote for a gay president but not one who supported an amendment banning gay marriage while closeted. Not that he's actually gay. Just, you know, some things don't fly in the Republican primaries.

Lucky

2007-01-02T12:01:00.000-05:00

I'm mostly okay. A few cuts, some soreness, and I think my left hip and shoulder are going to take awhile to be better but that's it. I've been washing glass out of my hair and shaking it out of my things.

I mostly remember screaming and glass and panicking that I couldn't get out of the car. They took me to the hospital in Scranton in an ambulance on a backboard. Before the ambulance came, some very nice people wrapped me in blankets and got my purse and my phone out of the car and called my mom, who proceeded to start driving.

I don't think I've ever actually thought I was going to die before. It is not a good feeling.

Bad things happen when your car is under a semi.

2007 can only improve.

Holiday Party Bounty

2006-12-21T21:36:00.000-05:00

I had three lab-related holiday parties and a conference with a full open bar this past week. Four days of free food and free booze! And I'm going to a Hanukkah party tomorrow night and then home Saturday. The Hanukkah party is at the home of the only other Jewish girl from my high school, who, in weirdness, now lives five blocks from me.

Anyway, I did some cooking for the last holiday party, which was a potlock for the three labs on the D floor.

Peppermint bark: easy! And minty!

Derby pie: bourbony! And I make a bitchin' pie crust!

I made faux-rugelach with the leftover crust: they sort of fell apart but it was my first time and all.

My least favorite part of living alone is not having someone to cook for. Or clean up after my culinary adventures.

More Knitting, and a Little Tim

2006-12-11T20:04:00.000-05:00

I think I'm on a purple kick lately. To wit, my newest hat:

and the awesome top view:

I need to stop making hats. But there are still more hat patterns I'd like to do. And alas, we're having a freakishly warm year. Damn global warming. The lack of cold almost makes me want to go home more. At least there, it still snows in October. As it should.

Speaking of home, my dad was hospitalized again as the drugs to control his heart weren't working. So they tried to shock his heart back into a normal rhythm a few times. That hasn't worked either, so they released him with more drugs and the promise of future heart-shockings. Of course, the longer his heart stays broken, bad things are more likely to happen.

And finally, I caught Tim this weekend. It is very nice to no longer have to swab rat vaingas every day! Alas, Tim was boring. I am really sick of hearing about the Iraq Study Group and if I never have to see James Baker's jowly face again, that's fine with me. And Tim's hair was not in a good state. For that, I could've gone in and done rat vaginas. Well, maybe.

Familial Badness

2006-11-27T17:58:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the lack of posts of late, but things have been massively crazy. Far too massively crazy to recount in one post, so I'm going to stick to the big unpleasantries for the moment.

One thing I didn't mention in my SFN recap was the panicked phone call I got from my sister one evening about the ongoing parental thermonuclear war (the one in which my parents' court date was supposed to be on my birthday, but got postponed twice). Turns out that when our mother said "don't worry, this isn't about the two of you, you won't be put in the middle" what she really meant was "not only am I going to put you in the middle by incessantly talking about how I'm suing your father, I'm going to literally put you in the middle by trying to guilt one of you into coming to the actual hearing and taking the stand!" So, my poor sister got asked to go home (actually, not home - Olean, since my father's position precludes him having this sort of legal proceeding in our county) and just "answer a few questions about who paid for what when you were in college." You know, without being subpoenaed and with opening herself up to what would inevitably be a very unpleasant cross-examination by my father's attorney. Now, I was never really big on this whole lawsuit, but my sister was always far more vehemently opposed than I was. AND my sister was seeing my father that week - on his birthday - but my mom wanted her to keep the whole testifying thing from him so he'd be surprised, ignoring that her lawyer would have to give notice to my father's lawyer about any additions to the witness list. And yet she was supposed to take off work, drive across the entire state, go to court, face down my father in a courtroom and then drive back. Whee!

Well, my sister was obviously upset. As was my mom when I confronted her about it. Apparently my sister and I aren't supportive enough. Because kids are supposed to cheerlead these things? And she wound up informing my sister - via text message, no less - that she didn't have to come testify. After my sister had taken off work, of course.

Well, according to my mom's interpretation, court did not go so well and my father and his lawyer said horrible, nasty, possibly perjurous things about how awful my mother is. And my mother exercised restraint by not entering into the record how horrible my father was. Which, frankly, he was in a lot of ways. And she then tells me how "betrayed" she feels by my sister because my sister had talked to my dad about the court thing (he knew when he saw her due to his lawyer) and that my sister had called my father to say that she wasn't coming after all. Apparently my mom's plan was to say my sister was going to testify but not actually have her do it just to fuck with my dad and try to gain the upper hand in court. So I got bombarded with how horrible my sister and I are for not being supportive and how she doesn't like us, especially my sister, and how she really didn't care if we came home for Thanksgiving. Which would have been nice to know before I bought the damn plane ticket.

So the backdrop for going home for Thanksgiving was established. Though my mom got nicer (to me, at least) after that unpleasant conversation. Then two days before I was to go home, my father informed me that he was sick. Really sick. Went to the hospital with uncontrollable heart palpitations and a resting pulse of 190 sick. And that he was going to have to go to the hospital in Erie and have some tests and wasn't sure when he'd be out or what he'd be up to but he at least wanted to do Thanksgiving in a restaurant and that he had hockey tickets for the day after Thanksgiving that we should go to but he didn't know if he'd be up to it. Now, as a neuroscientist I don't really know much about the heart. But I do know that a heart rate of 190 is bad news and that the fact that a test had revealed his heart was freaking out because it couldn't synchronize to beat properly and was thus just getting faster and faster while not actually pumping enough blood is really, really bad. So when I talked to my mom later that day about what my plans were for the time I'd be home and I mentioned not knowing about the hockey game, she got all cold and pissed and snarky and said if I needed money I should just ask my father to help pay for my flight if I was going to see him twice when I was home anyway. And when I angrily responded that the reason I didn't know was because dad was going to the hospital to try and stop his heart from fucking exploding, she paused and replied:

"Well, you know, it's his own damn fault for being so unhealthy. I'm just not that sympathetic. Sorry."

She tried to backtrack, but it didn't work. So when I took off Tuesday afternoon, my father was still in the hospital despite thinking he'd get out the day before and my mom knew but didn't care. When my flight landed, I had a message from my dad that I'd have to pick him up from the hospital Wednesday and in the drive back from the airport my mom tried to make things better by saying that for the sake of my sister and I, she hoped my father would be okay but for herself, she still didn't feel any sympathy but that I should do what I felt I had to do for him and not worry about her. Gee, thanks.

When my mom and I got to the house, the lawsuit judgement was in the mail. She won. A lot of money, though I didn't ask the exact amount because I don't want to know. Considering that she's getting money for things I paid for - like my rent for the summers I stayed in Pittsburgh and worked in the lab - I imagine I'll finally get some reimbursed. Apparently she feels vindicated. And I think rather unseemingly gleeful at the prospect of my father returning home from the hospital to find out about the judgement against him.

So I picked my dad up from Hamot Wednesday morning. Hospitals tend to give me panic attacks - I think it was all that time volunteering as a candy striper in high school. They got his heart rate down but they can't figure out what is causing it to beat so crazily. They did a cardiac catheterization and didn't find any structural problems, so there must be something electrical wrong. He's on a bunch of meds and has to go back in a month, or sooner if he starts retaining water so he doesn't get CHF. I don't know if he opened the lawsuit letter and I didn't ask because the timing is just so astonishingly awful.

I know he owes my mom and didn't pay everything he was supposed to when my sister and I were in college. I know he wasn't a very good father. Hell, he disowned me for a few years there. But my mom's behavior was so out of line! I'm not used to him ever being the good parent. Ever. I hate being mad at and disappointed in my mom because I know she was always the better parent. This parental role reversal thing is just strange. And it makes for very awkward homecomings.

Have I Mentioned I'm Reading a Book About the Pilgrims? SFN 2006

2006-10-24T18:05:00.000-04:00

So I've returned from Atlanta, site of the big giant annual neuroscience convention. The above quote is from my advisor, who managed to drop some new little fact about the Pilgrims into every single conversation she had at the convention. Even the ones about science. Apparently, the lady was shocked to hear that the Pilgrims weren't quite as Puritan as we were led to believe. But that's because she didn't have AP History with Mr. Woolson, who taught us all about the sordid underbelly of our glorious nation. Duty sheep* included.

First off, I suppose my real introduction to the south came on the plane when the woman sitting next to me asked how I'd be getting to my hotel from the airport. I mentioned that I was thinking of the train at 10:30 that evening and she shot me a look of horror. "You know, the train stations get awful dark at night" she said in her accent. Then her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper as she added, "and I don't mean the lights. It is full of the blacks." I did take a shuttle, but that had more to do with fear of getting lost. Because we don't have black people in Philly. Yep.

The hotel we all stayed at was in Buckhead, where they put all the student hotels. It is miles from downtown (and the convention center) and while we;d heard that Buckhead was a cool neighborhood with bars and food and shopping and such...not so much. There were bars, but they were frat boy-laden, and the restaurants were way spendy, and all the shopping was contained in strip malls. Swanky strip malls, sure, but as far as I'm concerned real cities don't have strip malls.

As for the actual meeting stuff, my poster went over well enough. I didn't learn too much interesting new science. I got two casual postdoc offers, but there's no way in hell I'm going to do a postdoc because I am tired of doing science. So I made a few contacts in the science writing arena. And I may have a possible part-time editing gig with a journal, if Elsevier comes through with some money (ha!). At least I have a Get Out Of Academic Science Tentative Game Plan now. There was also a meeting with the heads of a bunch of the NIH institutes, wherein they pretended that the funding situation isn't abysmal and then got politely contradicted by the assembled scientists who happen to know that, in fact, the funding situation sucks. About the only productive advice given by an NIH institute person was to vote...I think there may have been three Republicans at the entire conference. Something about immersing oneself in logic and experiments makes it difficult to believe in voodoo economics, I suppose.

I also got to spend some time with Rachel, poor thing is still in South Carolina and subject to the whims of a certain selfish bubble-dwelling PI. I didn't actually do to much drinking in Atlanta as I got sick. Boo airplane germs! But I did get free lab dinner and drinks with my advisor, who can handle about a glass and a half of wine before the dirt starts coming out.

But when I got back, I had a lovely skein of sock yarn I ordered from Alison's new store and a copy of Bend Over Boyfriend to review (um, did I neglect to mention that I've been reviewing allegedly woman-friendly p*rn lately?). Happy return home to me! Now I spend my mornings monitoring the estrous cycle of my rats. Every morning. It involves taking samples of vaginal cells and may actually be less fun for me than it is to them. See, science isn't all posters and meetings! It is rat vaginas too! See why I want out of the field yet?

*For those of you who did not experience the joy of AP with Mr. Woolson, we read a lot of primary documents from the colonial era, many of which made alarmingly casual mention of the, um, sexual use of the young male indentured servants brought here. They were referred to as "duty boys" and then he pointed out a casual mention of the use of sheep for, um, release by certain lonely settlers. Hence duty sheep. And why I love America.

More Socks and a Brilliant Idea

2006-10-08T17:16:00.000-04:00

I finished another pair of socks, though I don't like the feel of how these ones knit up. Must be the yarn. Anyway, they have purple, grey, and blue stripes but for some reason my camera doesn't seem to be capable of accurately photographing purple. Boo!

I will never make another fully ribbed leg again. It was boring, yet a little slow going (I'm just not a fast purler, I guess) and just no fun eventually. Though I learned a new stretchy cast-off method, so that was good.

I found an old videotape of stuff taped off TV from the CFEx era (the label was in his handwriting) that included, among other things, the Barenaked Ladies episode of Behind the Music. It is from that late era of Behind the Music, when they'd already covered all the bands with really big problems (like, say, waking up on the floor with the needle still hanging out of one's arm) and were left with "well, they were big in Canada but Americans just weren't into it!" And then someone got leukemia, which was sad, but he lived, so whatever. Anyway, there was a lot of old footage of them with their cute little Canadian accents and from their old shows. In which, among other antics, they performed many early-to-mid-nineties dances. Like the running man and the one where you hold your foot and sort of jerk your knee backwards and the one where you jump through the loop you create by holding onto your leg. And I got a brilliant idea: with the current resurgence of very bad 80s fashion (stirrup pants are seriously back, people!) the early nineties is obviously the Next Big Thing. And while fashion-wise it may be grunge that comes back, I think we may have a full-on early nineties trend. In preparation for that era, I think I should make a workout tape (or DVD, I suppose) of all the early nineties spastic-looking dances. Because the running man is a workout, people! And then you could take your newfound/recently discovered moves to the clubs in your baby doll dress and combat boots and you could be the awesomest person there! And I'd be rich!

Who wants to be on the early list for my background dancers?

Timwatch 10/1

2006-10-03T17:41:00.000-04:00

So over the weekend Tim had Pervez Musharraf, which I didn't pay that much attention to (seriously, dude is being interviewed everywhere and I'm bored with him). Then was the Senate debate series, this time Ohio, with Mike Dewine and Sherrod Brown. I wanted to pay attention but I was distracted by Dewine's face. He has that frog-face quality that seems common in certain Republican politicians (see Al D'Amato for the best example). And I was distracted because his particular facial froggishness was reminding me of someone that I just couldn't put my finger on.

Senator Dewine:

After a lot of Google Image-ing, I figured it out:

For those of you who don't know, that is Doc from Buffy. Not only is he a demon, he has a tail. Yeah, he's a little older than Dewine but I think we all know that's exactly what Dewine will look like in about ten years.

So you heard it here first, kids: Senator Mike Dewine is, in fact, a demon. And he has eight kids, who may or may not also have tails. Who needs to pay attention to his actual wrong-headed policy notions when he is obviously evil? Though if you really need a good reason to vote for Brown over Dewine, Brown voted against the PATRIOT act. And he does not seem to be a demon follower of Glorificus.

Why yes, the Buffy DVDs are in my netflix queue because I've been wanting a Buffy refresher. That has nothing to do with anything!

A Lesson in Combining Alcohol and Handknits

2006-10-01T13:01:00.000-04:00

I've been on a hat kick lately - I think I really, really want winter to come.

The first hat I ever made myself was a black one with cat ears from the first SnB book. I got a lot of compliments. Then I wore it out to Sex Dwarf, where I (of course) got obnoxiously drunk and somehow lost it. So let that be a lesson to all of you: if you are going to be drinking so much that your friends will have to literally carry you up to bed, perhaps you shouldn't wear anything you made. Or at least anything you made that you actually like. Because you may lose it in the cab. Or you may barf on it (which hasn't happened to me yet but may, at some point). I made other hats in the interim - like the Nautilus hat - but I really liked my old ear one. It was cute, plus it had earflaps! SO I made myself another one, and it looks way better than my old one did:

Please ignore my unmade bed. Well, futon. I'm totally in love with that yarn - the Malabrigo worsted weight. In fact, I went back and bought more because I have plans for mittens and maybe a scarf. It is really, really soft, which is good because I made the original kitty hat out of Cascade 220 and thought it was a little itchy. The color in the picture is bluer than it is in person - it is really more purple and black.

I will not be wearing this hat to Sex Dwarf, Immediate, Beatles and Stones, or any of those other places where I tend to drink far too much, dance around, and wind up cabbing home. Only to places where I don't drink too much or where I drink too much but get to keep my coat and such on my person and can walk home. Really.

ExFest 06

2006-09-29T10:51:00.000-04:00

So in one week I managed to see three exes. And I did it without excessive drinking or antidepressants!

First off, I saw the CFEx when I was in Chicago. You may remember that after I saw him in Pittsburgh in June, I realized I was finally totally cured of about five years of residual feelings for him. So seeing him in Chicago was going to be an interesting test: did I just feel over him in June because I was with the JC, or was I really truly done forever? Happily enough, despite not being with the JC anymore I can say that I'm cured of the notion that the CFEx and I will ever have anything more than a friendship ever. Which is good, because we make good friends and we're both too crazy to work well together as a couple. Anyway, I am also happy to report that he had no bad facial hair though he is converting to hipster-ness. Even sans beard. And he is apparently planning to sleep his way through the female hipster population of Chicago, so watch out if you're in that city. I guess that's just what happens to MFA students, right?

I also saw Original Matt (guess I can't even refer to him as ExMatt anymore!) and I went to Korean barbecue. I'd never been and it was like my food fantasy had come to life: they give you a big plate of raw meat and there is an open flame in the middle of the table. Except they gave us squid and shrimp too, and I don't eat sea bugs. But Original Matt has a massive appetite (his Indian buffet prowess is legendary) so he just ate all that. It was weird to actually technically cook our own dinner, but I think that handing me a giant platter of raw meat is probably the fastest way to make me happy after handing me a giant bottle of Stoli and some cashmere yarn. Original Matt is doing okay and you will be happy to know that he did not have a dorky haircut.

And I saw the JC. This did not go so well. He wanted to meet up to talk to me because I was furious with him (he basically ignored me on the street - though he insists he didn't see me, he was with his father at the time so I don't know whether I believe him) and he wanted to clear things up. Basically, he is still confused and doesn't know what he wants. However, I had a deadline (six weeks from when we first broke up) and it has passed and I said so. I gave him the opportunity to really, finally end things and he refused. I said that I didn't want to be with someone who didn't know if he wanted to be with me and that I thought that not knowing was really knowing but he didn't agree. He asked if that was it, I'd never have him back no matter what and while I sort of wanted to say yes I didn't because that would have made things too easy and enabled him to just stop thinking about it and put all the responsibility on me, which I refuse to allow him to do.

I was not in good shape for a few days, but now I actually feel good. I feel fresh and clean and new somehow. I think I'd been clinging a little to hard to the hope that he'd come back and that it was awful when I basically lost that hope. I'm having to re-frame my thinking to exclude him, but it is working. I'm even forgetting what I liked about him. So far I have:
-never ever gave me beard burn
-smells really, really good. Better than any other boy I have ever met.
But those don't really seem like much to base a relationship on.

Now I just have to do a crazy amount of work before I leave for the big annual neuroscience convention in two weeks. I really don't want to go at all, except that I'll get to see Rachel. So science, boo; drinking with Rachel, yay!

Adventures in Central Time

2006-09-19T18:32:00.000-04:00

I went to Chicago this weekend. Somehow I'd managed never to visit before. It was a really awesome city and it is now on my list of "places I might possibly be able to tolerate living in." While there I got to see my uncle, who is fun and showed me around his neighborhood, and the CFEx, who took me to a bar filled with hipsters. The CFEx is not currently sporting any outlandish facial hair, though he was wearing skinny jeans and Vans slip-ons. But he has to, he's an MFA student now. I also got to go to the Renegade Craft show which wasn't quite as fun as I was expecting (too many ironic screenprinted T-shirts, not enough wacky knitting goodies) and see a bunch of crafty people, some of whom I'd met before and others I hadn't.

In Chicago, they have dirty dirty street signs:

I also got to (try to) teach people to knit:

Because while I may be Jewish, I will spread the gospel of the goodness of the knitting wherever I may go.

It would've been nice had BOTH my flights not been delayed, but I did get an awful lot of airport terminal knitting done. In fact, I now just have 8 rounds left on a really neat hat that I only had about two inches done on when I left. Thankfully, the TSA didn't confiscate my needles. But then, size 8 bamboo DPNs are really only maybe deadly to vampires. Plus, I'm one of those anal people who prints and highlights the section of the TSA site where they explicitly state that knitting needles are permitted. From my cold dead hands!

Rock my Socks

2006-09-14T18:35:00.000-04:00

I finished a pair of socks. These socks are special for three reasons:
- I did them from the toe up, which means they actually fit my stumpy little feet because I could try them on as I went and adjust the instep length to my foot far easier than with top-down socks
- I did them both at once, so not only did I not experience the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome, I know they're exactly the same size
- I did them both at once on the Magic Loop, a totally new knitting experience for me

Plus, it was my first time making a picot edge as well. Go me!

I really like how they turned out:

I'm already up to the heel on another pair!

And yes, I'm pretty much that pale, even in summer.

Bucky Update

2006-09-11T18:00:00.000-04:00

Well, they caught him. I'm sort of sad at the whole thing, it was sort of a letdown of an ending at least in dramatic terms. I guess I'm glad he was caught and I'm glad he's not dead, but I hate the gloating done by the troopers, especially Superintendent Bennett, spokesmodel for trooper arrogance. My next question is: can he get a fair trial anywhere in WNY?

I was talking to my mom yesterday and she pointed out that now my hometown is known for Bucky and that whole Nushawn Williams mess. Doesn't seem like the nicest place to live, does it? Though I suppose small towns don't make the national papers for good news. I don't know if we're really that different from any other small rural town anywhere in the country but it is certainly a mindset totally unlike what I've seen in cities. Or even actual suburbs.

In MTP news, Tim had that wretched hunched-over neck-less hobgoblin of doom, Dick Cheney, on this weekend. Tim was relatively good in his questioning this time, he didn't seem to defer to Cheney like he's done in the past. I don't think I need to sum up any more than the NYT. The transcript is here. There was a point in the interview that I thought fully summed up the attitude of the administration - "I don't buy the terms of the question, Tim" - though according to the transcript what he actually said was "I don't buy the premature question" which can still work if you figure that all questioning of this administration is considered by them to be premature, in the sense that they don't feel they should ever be questioned at all. But I like what I heard better, anyway.

Beware of Bucky!

2006-09-06T10:41:00.000-04:00

So I have been totally remiss in my duties as a Western NY expat blogger by not posting about Bucky until now, though those close to me will already know the details because I keep emailing them the NYT articles.

Ralph "Bucky" Phillips escaped from prison in April. The NYS police (the State Troopers) have been looking for him ever since. Three troopers have been shot (allegedly) by Bucky and one has died. In their manhunt, the troopers shot and killed a 25-year-old ATVer in murky circumstances. This isn't the first time he's escapted from prison, either. Back when I was in fifth grade, he escaped. We thought it was a joke and we wrote the number for the police on our hands along with "beware of Bucky!" It was funny until I got home and got yelled at by my parents for making light of the situation, especially since my dad had prosecuted him for something back in the day and they were a wee bit concerned that Bucky could be cranky about that. But they caught him...that time.

In the process of looking for Bucky, the troopers have disrupted everyone's lives and somehow managed to give the locals an even lower opinion of the state police than we already had. I never once had a positive interaction with a trooper. Even my father, who by virtue of both his jobs (EMT and attorney) has had a lot of dealings with them, admits that they're arrogant jerks. And they didn't help the PR much with the Friday am news conference (held in my old high school auditorium!) in which the superintendent of the troopers basically said "fuck you" to all the locals whose lives have been totally disrupted by the search. Technically, he was answering a question posed about the local community's growing resentment over the roadblocks, searches, helicopters, and other search-related annoyances but his response - that the community should just deal with it and that it was our fault that the troopers couldn't catch him anyway - basically sums up everything wrong with the NYS police and their attitude.

It is obviously very very bad that three troopers have been shot and that one is dead. And I don't think the excuse some are giving (that the cops got what's coming to them becasue in an effort to pressure Bucky, CPS took his grandkids away from their mother becasue she'd allowed the kids to be around him and he was armed. Ignoring the fact that if the standard is "don't have your kids around people with guns" there are about seven fit parents in the whole county.) is justification. But what reason (other than the $250,000 reward, I suppose) do people have to cooperate with the troopers, who so obviously have no regard for the actual residents of the community they're so intent on turning upside down?

The gross part is that this is all making me weirdly homesick. People that know me can't seem to belive that I'm from somewhere so small. Last I checked, my town had about 10,000 residents. There are about 160,000 in the entire county. All the back roads they're blocking are the places I used to go in a certain boy's 1984 Ford Tempo in search of abandoned grape roads that we could go park on. For the love of God, my high school mascot was the hillbilly. What people don't realize and what I've tried desperately to forget is that Chautauqua County is technically part of Appalachia. We may be in New York, but we're hicks, okay? I may have escaped but most people don't. All the interviews with the locals and the Bucky merchandise and his whole folk-hero status thing isn't really helping our image but bringing in hundreds of troopers from other parts of the state who obviously don't care to integrate into the community they're supposed to be serving. Add that to the fact that all these troopers can't even find the guy and no wonder people aren't being more helpful.

As the JC said while telling me about all the coverage we were getting on CNN, "wow. You really are from nowhere." Hail hail Fredonia, indeed.

Tim Promo and Stuff

2006-08-31T15:42:00.000-04:00

This Sunday, Tim will be hosting the kickoff to the start of the MTP Senate debate series with none other than Senator Man-on-Dog himself and his challenger Bob Casey, who sucks but is less evil and has, to my knowledge, never brought home a dead baby for his kids to kiss. Damn, I'm glad I still vote in NY and don't have to choose between those losers.

Why yes, I did get the email from the MTP people with the entire fall debate schedule lineup and I'm planning my life accordingly. Why do you ask?

Last Saturday I went out dancing, which was fun. But it was in Fishtown, which is really far away. Why aren't there any hipster dance nights in my neighborhood? Also, this beard thing must end. About half the boys there had beards - in August! Now, I can sort of see how it may be beneficial to have a beard in, say, January because of the cold and all. But Philadelphia summers are nasty, oppressive, brutish affairs and I cannot see how having a big furry layer on your face could be at all comfortable. Plus, I hate beards. Hate hate hate them. And chances are I won't be giving you my number if you have a beard. Maybe I'm shallow, but if I can wax I think the least a boy can do is take razor to his face once in awhile. It doesn't take long and having a chin is attractive. Trust me.

More Crafty Goodness!

2006-08-22T11:21:00.000-04:00

I have been crafting like a machine lately. I think it is the combination of insomnia and singledom.

Anyway, this is a shawl I finished last month. I bought the pattern at an LYS and it uses one skein of Schafer Yarns' Anne, which is this lovely hand-dyed wool/mohair/nylon that I'm now in love with. I need to figure out more projects to use it for because I stumbled across this stormy grey colorway and I'm not allowing myself to buy it until I think of a worthy project.

Half-Pi shawl being blocked:

Stitch and color detail:

Isn't it pretty? I'm totally ignoring the fact that I've never worn a shawl in my life and don't quite know how to pull off wearing one because I really like how it turned out.

Embroidery is Cool, Really

2006-08-21T16:39:00.000-04:00

This weekend I went to Art Star for a book signing and gallery opening with the lovely Jenny Hart, embroiderer extraordinaire and founder of Sublime Stitching, which sells fun embroidery stuff. Having been buying her patterns for years and stalking her via the internet craft mafia, it was very nice to get to meet her. She is very tall in person and lovely to talk to. So go buy her stuff and see her show, people!

Aren't we cute?

And for good measure, here are some of her patterns that I stitched up awhile ago. I need to find something to do with them. I already have a bunch of stuff I've embroidered on my walls, I think I need some new way to show them off.

I spend most of my craft time knitting, but I was an embroiderer first and it is still really fun to go back to. And it is a cheap and easy craft to pick up if you're looking for something less intimidating than knitting or arc welding or whatever.

Oh yeah, and I got an advance copy of Jenny's new book. Nyah nyah!

Limbo

2006-08-21T16:33:00.000-04:00

A brief update:

I talked to the JC last night for a very long time. And I think I'm more confused. I feel better and worse all at once. But I'd like to say hi to him (ha, can't stop reading can you?) and to his little bloggy informers (hello!). The good news is, my books are safe and shall at some point be returned, pages intact.

This is the Last One, I Swear

2006-08-17T17:13:00.000-04:00

So I've designated Saturday as my official Over Him day, after which point I will no longer mope, cry, or sulk, and at which point I will go out and start trying to meet shiny new boys regardless of whether I'm ready for such things. However, there are some things I need to get off my chest in the interest of a fresh start. So here goes the venomous bile spewing! Woo!

The worst part, aside from the crushing loneliness and recurrent fears that no one will ever love me, is that everything feels tainted now. The whole relationship feels like one big lie. Even happy memories feel dirty, like it couldn't actually have been happy because now I'm so miserable and apparently he was miserable at the time (even if allegedly not miserable about me). Every tiny meaningless conversation is suddenly being replayed in my head and I'm analyzing every little word, wondering what he really meant, what he was actually thinking, whether he knew we'd never last even as he was implying we had some sort of future.

Like before he went to Toronto when he said I could meet his family sometime. Or when he said that he just didn't mix up bits of his life and that was why I never met any of his friends, co-workers, or family members. It seems so transparent now, like he was planning on doing this all along so of course he never even tried to include me in his life at all, because he never thought I was important or he was ashamed of me or something. Because telling people you're no longer with someone sucks, but if they never knew you were dating someone you get to avoid that whole scene. Or every single time he told me he cared about me. Obviously those were all massive lies. Or two nights before he left me, when we talked about me switching birth control. Why didn't he just tell me not to bother, not to call the gyno to set up a consult, because he was leaving anyway and contrary to what he said, wouldn't actually be going with me or supporting me or caring? Why lead me on like that? Maybe he lied about the girl he kissed, too. Maybe he did get her number, maybe he's with her right now and this whole existential crisis/needing time thing was a clever ruse to get me to have sympathy for him even though he was dumping me.

I can't walk around the city, every block there's somewhere we ate or drank or walked by or talked about. Every time I turn a corner I bump into a memory. But I can't stay at my apartment either, his ghost is there, on the couch and in the kitchen, in the bedroom untucking the blankets. I remember the afternoon I spent nauseous from EC when he brought me ginger ale and stayed with me, napping on the couch while I lay in his lap focusing on not barfing and how once I felt better we grilled hot dogs, Hebrew National of course. Or the time right when he got back from Toronto when he asked why I never wear jeans and volunteered to take me shopping if I wanted and how later that week, my advisor gave me a pair of jeans - apparently we're the same size - she bought but didn't like and it was this weird coincidence. And how then I was at a consignment shop and tried on a pair of jeans on a lark and they fit perfectly and I bought them even though I haven't owned jeans in years and was going to wear them to surprise him but never got the chance. Even my closet is trying to remind me, I can't get dressed without feeling betrayed.

The more I look back, the more I see our problems. Like not meeting his friends ever over eight months of dating. Like barely seeing him once a week. Like how he invariably chose lab over me. Like how I always felt vulnerable and acutely aware of the fact that I wanted to be with him more than he wanted to be with me. Like how I was never I felt I was a priority, I was nothing, I was just some girl to see and screw on a Saturday because what else was he going to do that night anyway? All the times he told me he cared about me sound so hollow when I replay them now.

But more than anything, I want him to call, to say he's sorry, that he made a terrible mistake, that I am important and I was the best thing he had in his life and he blew it and pleasepleaseplease forgive him. And then I feel sad and pathetic that I could let myself think that way, even for a moment. I should have my feminist card revoked for letting some stupid fucking boy bother me this much. But I miss him and I feel so hollow and empty and helpless. I hate myself and I hate him for doing this to me and then I hate myself more for letting him and I'm just dissolving into this messy puddle of loathing until there is nothing of myself left.

Distractions

2006-08-11T16:15:00.000-04:00

I still feel horrible. It has been a week, shouldn't I be cured by now? But no, it is like I'm haunted by memories. Nowhere is safe.

But look at the pretty scarf I made my mom back in the spring! Look how pink and lacy!

Yeah, it doesn't make me feel better either. But it sure is pretty!

Puzzles

2006-08-08T15:53:00.000-04:00

How could someone that could buy me a Meet the Press coffee mug for my birthday do this to me?

Speaking of, there hasn't been any Timwatch of late as all the news has been too depressing and now that I've gotten used to watching MTP with someone again watching it alone makes me sad.

Twisting the Knife

2006-08-05T12:41:00.000-04:00

"Calling just to hear my voice" is just cruel. Saying you're sorry doesn't help.

I wish the ground would swallow me up.

Dying Alone, Take 37

2006-08-05T11:07:00.000-04:00

So the JC broke up with me yesterday. He never wanted to be written about, and I respected that while we were together (half the reason I've been updating so infrequently). I figure now, all bets are off.

Things had been okay except for my usual complaints - we didn't spend enough time together and he didn't integrate me into his life - until he started having an angsty existential crisis, prompted by a visit home to Toronto for his brother's engagement party. Now, I get existential crises, I've basically been in the midst of one since I was thirteen. I know how to deal with them and that if you don't, they get worse and then you can't get out without a good counselor. But the JC didn't listen because apparently he made it this far without ever having an existential crisis. Freak.

When you're in crisis, especially one that blooms into full-on depression, you can't push people away because you're going to need them. Yet he just got more and more distant. And even though I was understanding and supportive because I've been through angst and depression and such (and he admits as much) he just kept pushing. Until yesterday, when he decided he was so upset with his life he couldn't see me anymore. Not that he was upset with me, mind you - he actually said that I was one of the only good things in his life - but that he was miserable about everything else and the misery was just seeping into everything. Allegedly he saw that he was hurting me and he didn't want to keep doing so, which is a massive steaming load of shit. If you know you're hurting someone, you stop the behavior that is hurting them. If you don't actually want to hurt someone, you sure as fuck don't decide to leave them because that isn't really how you make someone feel better, now is it? After an hour and a half of dithering and saying he knew he was making a mistake and he was going to regret it and he didn't actually want to walk out the door because he knew he'd miss me, he left. Which begs the question: if you know you're making a mistake as you make it, why keep going?

It doesn't feel real. I keep thinking he's going to call. I'm sure he will at some point - they've all tried to come back, plus he has two of my books that I'm not willing to part with forever - and part of me wants to continue to be understanding. But part of me really, really wants to hurt him. I'm so angry that he tried to make me feel bad for him even though this was his idea and I'm angry that I almost fell for it. I don't know when/if he'll call, but the longer it is the angrier and less understanding/willing to try again I'll be.

The thing is, I loved him. Really. I thought we actually had some sort of future together. Even living with ExMatt I never thought of him as life-partner type material, and not just because he isn't Jewish. I know it is stupid to love someone, to think you have a future with someone, after only eight months together. But that didn't stop me from feeling it. And now I feel so lost. I feel like someone has taken sandpaper to my soul. I can't breathe and I can't stop crying. I'm not just mourning the loss of a boyfriend and a relationship, I'm mourning the loss of the future I wanted us to have. I can't even see myself dating someone else, and my usual breakup response is to find a new crush, a new makeout as soon as possible. But I'm so exhausted, I don't want to do that again. I just want him to not have done this to me.

Things and Stuff

2006-06-30T18:49:00.000-04:00

So, many many things have happened.

First, I went to my sister's graduation. As befits Albany, it was 50 degrees and raining, yet the ceremony was held outdoors at ten am. Go SUNY system! My parents had arranged to stay in the same hotel pre-thermonuclear war, so when I went to check in the desk guy gave me a sympathetic look as he handed me the key and the note from my dad and the key and the note from my mom. Since they'd both checked in the night before, he had some idea of what the situation was like and was most sympathetic. My mom wasn't in, so I went to my dad's room. When my mom and sister came back from the mall, she was dispatched off to dad and I went to see my mom. See how it works? Two kids, two parents, maximum avoidance? Except that we all (including my sister's boyfriend, who I actually wound up liking) had to go to the ceremonies together. And my sister had to be up on stage, which left me actually serving as human wall between my parents. Who both got drunk at dinner, which made things even more awkward. I should mention that there was pre-dinner, during-dinner, and brunch drinking that weekend.

My parents' court date was supposed to be on my birthday (June 22, so all of you who missed it owe me double presents) but it was postponed so the war will continue into the future.

I had two back-to-back conferences in Pittsburgh, SBN and ICN. SBN was fun, but less fun than last year because it was all downtown and downtown Pittsburgh doesn't have much by way of nightlife. Plus there wasn't as much free booze this year. Though I did get to meet with the CFEx (more thoughts on that whole thing to be posted at a later date) and the lovely Cindy. The ICN part of the conference was less fun, but I was also all conferenced out. And my flight back (on my bday) was delayed and then all turbulent and surrounded by lightning.

Our old lab tech left and we have a new lab tech. We also are officially out of money and our new R01 isn't being reviewed until August, so even if we get it we still won't have money for awhile. It is very hard to do science without money. It is also very depressing and I'm blaming the lack of funding on the silly idea that tax cuts + war = good economy.

Rachel is leaving, her advisor (and I will refrain from juvenile name-calling here even though I really really want to) is moving the whole lab to South Carolina. Which would have been fine had he told his underlings about the possibility of a move ahead of time, when he was still thinking about it, so they could get their lives together and decide whether to go, and so that new people he hired weren't totally screwed by moving to Philly to begin with. Instead, he told them three months before and was apparently shocked that not everyone is thrilled to follow His Excellency. I hear he's got a great million-dollar house, though! And there's lots of sailing!

Yeah, so on my front it is no lab money + ongoing parental warfare + loss of close friend + start of horrific Philadelphia oppressive summer = life sucks. You know, in a nutshell.

My Middle Name is Actually "Irony", not "Faith"

2006-05-18T17:41:00.000-04:00

This story is especially meant for Jessy, especially in light of this list. Which if she was being honest would also include "owns a coffeepot." And "doesn't wear sandals" but we've already discussed that one.

So. I am not exactly a morning person. It is basically impossible for me to get anywhere before ten, which was really bad news for all those nasty early science classes my life has been full of. To that end, I am a coffee drinker. Every morning for the last decade or so I've started my day with two cups of coffee for breakfast. I've rationalized that the coffee IS breakfast, really, because I've put cream and sugar in and thus added nutrients. No, I don't consume have any actual food in the mornings. Did I not mention the cream and sugar?

However, the previously mentioned JC didn't have a coffeepot. This isn't one of those good signs for the future of any relationship I'm in. Though in his defense he did go out every morning and bring me coffee. And the NY Times. But still, I'm a big fan of being able to get coffee without having to put on shoes. Or underwear. So two weeks ago in one of those only-half-joking semi-fights I am the master of, I brought up his lack of coffeepot. And a few other things. To which he replied: "Fine, I'll go online RIGHT NOW and get a goddamned coffeepot!" Which he did. And a grinder. We won't discuss the panicked phone call I got about half an hour later about the significance of getting a coffeepot and how I reassuringly said "if you're not okay with this, you can still cancel the order!" but he bravely soldiered on and even bought coffee beans. Mmm, spite coffee!

During the last two weeks, I've also had nasty painful stomacheaches every day. Just pain, no nausea or icky GI symptoms. So I finally went to the doctor and apparently doctors do not like hearing that their patients have spent the last decade consuming nothing but two cups of coffee each morning. Something about "eating away at your stomach" I guess.

Do we see where this is going?

Yeah. The same day this lovely beautiful shiny Cuisinart coffeepot arrives at said JC's apartment, the doctor tells me that I have "gastritis" and need to quit coffee and take weird purple pills and hopefully that will stop me from getting an ulcer.

I think I'm going to cry. I cannot live an uncaffeinated life! I've cut down to one cup and started eating breakfast but my stomach still hurts. Though I think really, the meds are making it hurt more because surely my beloved hot bitter dark brown friend would never, ever hurt me.

It is a really sexy coffeepot, kids.

Each Household Appliance is Like a New Science in My Town

2006-05-05T08:57:00.000-04:00

So I went home last weekend, mostly because apparently one cannot get a NYS inspection in PA. So I drove there Friday and back Monday, which makes almost 900 miles of driving in very little time.

Aside from the car inspection, I also went home to do a little recon before my sister's graduation (in 2 weeks!). I figured I needed to see firsthand what the dynamics of the current Parental Thermonuclear War were like before we added my sister and her major life event to the mix. My mom keeps talking about it and my dad knows now, but he doesn't really talk about it. He makes oblique references to it as if I don't know what he's talking about. Examples: "I'd give you some more cash for the drive back, but my finances are tied up. I had to put a retainer on a lawyer." Even more fun: "I was thinking about buying a house, but you can't get a mortgage approved when you're involved in ongoing litigation." Does he think I don't know that he's using getting sued by his ex-wife as an excuse? Didn't he wonder why I didn't ask "gee dad, who is suing you?"

Yeah, graduation will be fun. Especially since they got rooms in the same hotel. And at dinner, there won't be Jessy's family to distract me, just my sister's boyfriend. Not even his family, which might induce them to behave.

And lab really, really sucks. Because everything has to go to hell at once.

Identity Politics

2006-04-20T08:28:00.000-04:00

So Tim this weekend (as in Easter Sunday) had a priest, a rabbi, a nun, some megachurch reverend dude, a Muslim, and...some guy from Newsweek. The nun was pretty awesome, to the point that the boy (who needs a blog nickname...I'm going between the JC and CurrentMatt so if you have a preference let me know) is thinking about buying her book. And let me tell you, sitting there eating matzo we felt totally integrated into the theme, which was apparently Faith in America. Insert joke about my middle name here. Apparently inquiring about Faith in America involves asking representatives of the major monotheistic religions how they feel about abortion and gay marriage. Apart from the nun, who was totally getting intellectually belittled by the priest, it was boring. And the megachurch guy was totally used car salesman. Creepy, waxy, permanent smile...people trust that guy with their souls? Yikes.

In other religion news, I had a seder for 14 people. Luckily it wasn't at my house, I just did a bunch of the cooking and led it. It was actually pretty fun, what with the mandatory four glasses of wine and the fact that I'm super Reform so there was less religion than "people are oppressed...more wine!" We even busted into the emergency brisket. And I make a damn good brisket. Even the boy (who did not go to my seder because he sucks) said so and he is an actual Jewish person, not a mixed-up half-Jew like me.

Yesterday was the annual INS retreat that I didn't go to. Why would I miss an even with free food and free booze? Because they scheduled the thing during Passover and didn't have any food that one observing it could eat. Trust me, I asked. It is so weird - this is Penn, not Mississippi or some crap where excluding the Jews would be less surprising.

Luckily, tonight is the last night. So I'm making beer and pancakes in celebration of all things yeasty, grainy, leavened, and good. Bread of affliction whatever - the lack of beer is what really makes me cranky. I think that's from the WASP/alcoholic side.

Fishing for Complements

2006-04-15T10:19:00.000-04:00

First, my father has returned from Mexico, where he spent the entire time drunk. How that is different from his life in Fredonia I don't know. In other familial news, apparently my mother is suing my father, for real this time after years of saying she would and never actually doing so. So he'll either be really, really nice to me or stop talking to me altogether. Again. Or both in sequence. You'd think that after being apart nearly a decade, my parents would have finally managed to work things out and I, at 25, would no longer be put between them. But you'd be wrong.

I finished this hat months ago. I really like it, it is from a free pattern (google Nautilus hat and you should find it) and I made it from really fantastic wool/alpaca.

the top makes a nifty spiral pattern

Commence speaking of my awesomeness!

Mexico: A Lovely Place to Off Yourself

2006-03-31T21:43:00.000-05:00

I realize I don't post about my family and its infinite unhealthiness that often, but today I got an email from my father that I will reproduce here, removing the identifying information:

From: [my father]
To: [my sister and I]
Subject: My Itinerary
Date: Fri 03/31/06 04:51 PM

Girls:

I am leaving tomorrow from [airport] on Aero Mexico # [removed] to Cancun
returning Sat, April 8 to [airport] on Are Mexico # [removed] arriving at [removed]

I am staying at the ...

I will have my cell phone but it probably won't work

In the event of a problem,

My accounts are at [local bank].
[local] Employee's Credit Union
Smith Barney in [place]
And I have a 401K through [something I've never heard of]
I have an Account for Grandma's Estate (checking) at [a different bank]
I have a NYS life ins policy and a [county] life ins policy

I have to re do my will but it is in my will drawer. If there is an issue get Mr. [a local lawyer]. No wake or funeral If I can't donate my remains to UB med school (haven't done the ppr work yet) arrange for a cremation and have [his friend] do a elegy at a memorial.

Enough of that.

I will see you soon and bring you both ugly T shirts If you want something else let me know. I'll be home after 8 tonight.

Love you both

Dad

Also, my father has spontaneously given both of us money for car repairs, something I can't recall ever happening before. I did get some money once but it was only after a lot of asking and whining and general demeaning behavior. He asked for our SS#s within the past week so he could "take care of some stuff." I should point out that my father and I have had a rather rocky relationship and I guess his and my sister's relationship isn't the healthiest either. But he's never once discussed things like money with us. And when we tried to get him to tell us what he'd want done with him should he pass on (he's overweight and drinks way too much and doesn't take care of himself, and he hasn't remarried so all those things would be left to my sister and I) he didn't really have much to say though he did think we were trying to get him killed or something.

This is seriously the oddest email I have ever gotten and it is really weirding me out. I rather like morbid things and will admit to having discussed what I'd like done with me in the even of my untimely death but this is so out of character for him. Coming right on the heels of a sudden (positive!) change in his behavior to my sister and I, I can't help but be a little worried and confused.

But you know, at least now there's a plan and I won't have to deal with his crazy, Jerry-Fallwell's-college-educated brother going on about Jesus at the funeral. Because say what you want about him, my father is not down with the Jesus stuff. Good thing too since he married a nice Jewish girl from Long Island. And then got divorced, leaving my sister and I to get strange fatalistic emails.

Gerrrrrrmmmmmssss

2006-03-23T14:17:00.000-05:00

I'm siii-iiick. Really I just have a cold but I did spike a fever Tuesday and as fevers always make me hallucinatorily loopy, I left lab and went home and slept for, oh, four hours. Now I'm just stuffy and have the phone-sex voice. Which I don't think is sexy because for me it means "ow it hurts to talk" but I'm never one to say no to a complement on sounding good.

Also, the rats keep making me sneeze on top of the cold.

News: last Simpsons trivia we tied for third. We would have tied for second had Steve believed in me but no. Don't worry, he'll never ever live that down. Saw a ballet. Avoided St. Pat's. Had a dance show at Bryn Mawr, which always makes me think of the Spell-lympics episode and Lisa's dream about the Seven Sisters. Their campus is small but impressive, with lots of castle-y stone buildings. If only the damn girl who organized the thing had seen fit to actually give us legitimate directions and we hadn't gotten all lost in the burbs and therefore been late, it probably would have been fun.

I'm thinking it might be time to start a game of Match the Boy to the Ridiculous Tattoo. And I discovered that there is a sequel to The Rules, conveniently titled The Rules 2, which means more The Rules Drinking Game fun! For those of you who didn't live with Jessy and I, the The Rules drinking game consists of opening to a random page in the book (don't pay full price, they are cheap and plentiful at Goodwill) and drinking for every rule you've broken. Easy, fun, and it makes you feel both dirty and headed for spinsterhood! If you're keeping track, I think the only ones I haven't broken are "Don't date a married man" and "Don't go to a college just to be near him." As for the ones I've broken, well, you'll just have to play the game and figure it out.

Timwatch Returns

2006-03-07T17:32:00.000-05:00

They totally messed with the MTP times during the Stupid Olympics in Which They Never Bothered to Show a Goddamn Hockey Game, Only Stupid Boring Ski Shit. Ahem. So Sunday it was back to normal, which is to say boring. I mean Tim had Jack Kemp on yet didn't make a single Buffalo comment? I'm so disappointed. And how could he not mention that South Dakota (unconstitutionally) banned abortions? I mean, that's some fucking news-analysis-worthy shit. At least when Schwartzenegger was on during the random-MTP-time phase I got to amuse myself by thinking of McBain references. Speaking of, less then a week until the next Simpsons Trivia...Team Spankological Protocol is going to kick some ass!

Otherwise, things are the same only slightly less depressing, probably because it has been sunny and light longer. And because despite my remaining conviction that my experiments aren't getting anywhere, the advisor seems to think they are and is relentless with her insistence that I just need a few more animals and...poof! Paper! Which is a lot nicer than when she agrees that I suck. And would work if our normal rat supplier wasn't out of rats, or if the rats we got from the other supplier weren't psychotic auto-cannibals. Personal-life-wise, I'd classify myself as tentatively happy/cautiously optimistic/waiting for the inevitable horrible revelation because I can't ever manage to just go with shit and be happy. And knitting a lot, which I will show with photos soon.

The Best Random Moment in a Very Long Time

2006-02-22T17:44:00.000-05:00

So last week on Unofficial D Floor KoJa Day (the day when we all get KoJa for lunch, usually a Wednesday), Lex, David, and I were coming back to lab, Korean truck food in tow, when the most marvelous thing happened.

Coming out of a ratty-looking half-van half-truck, partially primered used-to-be-red vehicle of some sort driven by a generic 20something guy stopped at the light at 38th and Walnut at very loud volume was...the opening notes to the best driving song ever, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." We looked at each other and said very loudly and in unison, voices filled with wonder, "oh my god - is that seriously 'Don't Stop Believing?'" Now, I want to make it clear that we were not about to ridicule. No, we were all totally gearing up to sing along, and so were the two random generic Penn girls a step behind us who had also recognized the glorious opening notes. However, the driver of the magical Journey-mobile looked over at us, embarrassed, and...changed the station. It was awful. We were stricken. He drove off, and the three of us, as well as the two random Penn girls were left bereft of our opportunity to belt out Journey along with a random car stereo on the sidewalk in front of that damn hideous Wharton building.

We were crushed. Totally obliterated. The random Penn girls tried to make up for our disappointment by singing it themselves, but it just wasn't the same.

I just want to say: if that random guy had left the Journey blaring for us, if he'd let us sing, if he'd maybe joined in himself, I totally would have married him. So random dude, if you're reading this (and past allegedly random dudes have found me, so I'm not just grasping at straws here), you should know: you totally lost out. Big time.

Here's to Romance

2006-02-13T18:03:00.000-05:00

In the true spirit of Valentine's Day, I have decided to celebrate by...having a thesis committee meeting! Woo! See, it is like traditional VDay celebrations in that I'll be dressed up, stressed out, and have high expectations that wind up crushed and broken. Except this time, there will be no exotic waxing involved. And I'm sure there will still be crying, if only to keep with tradition.

Really, I don't have much cause to be down on the whole VDay thing. I've only had one on which I was single since I was 13 and that year I did the Vagina Monologues so I got to yell "CUNT!" at the top of my lungs in a very large auditorium, which was pretty fun. But yeah, the whole mess sucks. So I've decided to pre-empt the usual VDay suckage by having a committee meeting and a dance rehearsal and thus avoiding any of the horrible awkwardness that would somehow be involved otherwise. Because I like avoiding things.

Apparently, snow is cause to pre-empt Tim in this pathetic excuse for a northeastern city. Poo. I have windows, I don't need TV to tell me it is snowing. I do not, however, have the members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees at my apartment so I do need TV to learn their thoughts on warrantless domestic eavesdropping. Though if I did have them in my apartment, I bet I'd do naughty things to them. Like make them give up the franking system.

For the record: calling me a name that rhymes with my name is not actually calling me my name. There are only four letters, it isn't that hard.

Timwatch 1/29 and stuff

2006-02-02T14:20:00.000-05:00

Tim had Bill Frist this past weekend, who is really really fidgety on camera. No wonder he hardly goes on this show - he is really awkward. I forgot that when I watch these things not alone I have to pretend that I'm trying to carry on an actual conversation rather than just yelling back at the TV. Life is really hard sometimes. Also, I must be becoming a better political masochist as I actually made it through the SOTU speech until about 9:20. Sometimes I think about leaving since I can't stand Smuggy McSmugface but since those damn Canadians have elected a Tory (to a minority, but still) where would I go? So I drown my troubles in Stoli, which seems to make the nights go faster.

So in a moment of silliness I joined the belly dancing troupe and we have a show coming up (and no, I'm NOT telling where/when it is). Most of the people are undergrads, which means they are really really young as I determine youth by "are you younger than my little sister?" Most of them can't drink legally. I feel old. But my abs are fantastic since I've had four practices a week. And I get to try and warn them away from graduate school, though I'm sure none of them will listen. I sure didn't listen to my wise elders when they told me how much grad school would suck.

Oh, Manchester, So Much to Answer For

2006-01-26T13:00:00.000-05:00

Why I almost puked up my lunch today:

Manchester Passion

Thought number one: I really hope Moz and Johnny and Ian's estate didn't consent to this.

Thought number two: Can't Christians write their own damn music?

Thought number three: Wow, the Happy Mondays must be in one hell of a bad financial state.

Thought number four: If this was dreamt up by the Manchester tourism board, it is actually brilliant.

Timwatch 1/22

2006-01-24T15:34:00.000-05:00

Tim had Barack Obama over the weekend. Via satellite, but I'll take what I can get. And James Carville has a book, but he's becoming a sportscaster. Mary Matalin really, really needs to lay off the Botox. Her forehead is smoother than mine and I'm less than half her age. Why is that shiny pulled unmoving forehead look supposed to be attractive, anyway? Um, so I'd say there were no revelations from anyone Sunday morning. Apparently politicians need to raise money to get elected! And partisan vitriol makes people say mean and nasty things! And the Democrats lost the 2004 election and are still dwelling on it!

Really, why do I even bother to wake up Sunday mornings? Oh, right. That pesky Tim-stalking thing. And I still like Obama. Plus, he's way more photogenic than Chuck Schumer, who totally reminds me of the Joker. And I even like him!

The South Street Bridge, aka that bridge over the damn Schuylkill that I walk/drive/bike across at least once per day, aka the bridge that sometimes like to drop chunks onto I-76 below, got another hole in it. A big one. And in the driving part, not the sidewalk this time. I mean, I'm totally used to looking down at the river through the holes in the sidewalk but I imagine people in cars aren't so used to that.

It is much scarier at a different angle, the hole was wide and pretty far across. How did they fix it? Why, they just put a big ol' piece of sheet metal over the hole! Problem solved!

The bridge is the main reason I don't bike to lab much. It is narrow, there are no bike lanes, part of it is a metal grid that is bumpy and really scary when wet, and you have people entering/exiting 76 without regard to, say, traffic laws. People apparently have to get back to Jersey so fast they can't be bothered to check to the side and notice that they're turning directly into a person on a bike. Maybe it is because left turns are an exotic new experience to them, they're so busy watching the left lane while turning right they forget that the right lane is where bikes go.

Of course, if they actually close the bridge to fix it I'll be screwed as the Walnut Street bridge is really, really out of my way. I am so not walking the extra five blocks to get to lab. Those are really long blocks. Really. Also, I hate lab and simply cannot expend any more precious energy to get there unless I can get some sort of guarantee that my experiments will actually work.

M-E-H. Meh.

2006-01-19T15:38:00.000-05:00

So I listened to the Alito hearings. Face it, we're fucked. The NSA is already listening to my phone calls. Luckily they're mostly about sex and coffee but really, isn't that what eavesdropping is for?

Science sucks. Specifically, doing lots of science but not getting pretty statistically significant differences between your groups no matter how you try and manipulate your data is no fun. The thought of a committee meeting makes me have panic attacks and want to kill myself and puke all at once. Since they're just going to tell me to give up and try something else. And I'm never going to finish graduate school.

My obsessive nature is causing me to...obsess about nothing. Well, not nothing. More like everything.

Things that are good:
Belly dancing is fun but I swear my hip flexors are sore now.

New perfume is fun too. I smell really good, whenever I catch a whiff of myself I totally want to make out with me.

Burmese food can be good.

New standard for proving your devotion to me: hire a coffee cart to follow me around. I promise, I'll love you forever.

Smelling and Clapping

2006-01-06T15:59:00.000-05:00

Random Philadelphia odors of late:
-Every time I'm driving on 76W right before the South Street exit, I notice it smells like a bakery. Like donuts, really. But all there is is the river, 30th St Station, and the big post office. Where is the smell coming from? Seriously, I smell it every time. And unlike most other Philadelphia odors it is really really good and always makes me hungry.
-All week on my walk home there is this one spot on the bridge where I smell Windex. Huh?

I'm low on perfume and I went to get more but they've discontinued it. Ack! I tried another one that I like but I don't know...I need an impartial person to smell me every day and tell me what works. This is when not having a roommate really sucks. Plus I like really girly sweet perfumes and I've noticed they sometimes smell great in the bottle and then turn all grandma on me. So I'm kind of annoyed about the discontinuing thing because it means a lot of trips to Douglas trying stuff out.

Maybe I'm getting all poppy in my old age, but lately I'm a total sucker for any song with handclaps. Why is it that clapping makes songs better? Like, would "Boy With the Arab Strap" be so much fun to bop around to without the clapping? The handclaps just make me want to toss my hair and bounce around which is embarrassing as somehow that's always when someone comes into my office.

So Are We Gonna, Like, Spoon or Something?

2006-01-03T14:40:00.000-05:00

I survived a week at home, mostly by staying at my mom's and rediscovering the joy of having cable. Christmas was profitable: Not only did I get Mastering the Art of French Cooking, I got a shiny new Le Creuset skillet to go with it. And a whole bunch of other stuff. And I had Hanukkah too, though we're very bad Jews who don't manage to light the candles every night. I mean, no wonder I love bacon: we can't even take five minutes to light the menorah for a few days each year.

My sister brought her boyfriend's cat back with her as apparently he hasn't told his parents he got a kitten. Now, I hid (and still hide) all sorts of things from my parents but in the grand scheme of things "Mom and Dad, I got a cat" seems pretty innocuous. But what do I know - maybe he is from one of those cat-eating families on Long Island. Anyway, the cat is maybe four pounds and is very cute but has that habit that cats have of totally disregarding such human commands as "get off the counter!" and "for fuck's sake, the plant is not a litterbox!" But I like her because she totally rules over the dog, who I've never liked. Anyway, as proof of both cuteness and misbehavior I offer this photo of the kitten in the fridge, happily residing in a nearly-empty 12-pack of Molson:

Conversation with my sister while she was introducing me to the crack-like mind-numbing phenomenon that is Laguna Beach:
"They, like, totally go on really nice dates all the time on this show."
"Yeah? Like what?"
"Like, you know, dinner and stuff."
At which point we both start laughing since apparently neither us goes to dinner, at least not with boys that are, you know, actually taking us out to dinner.

I spent New Year's Eve at Kathy's NYE/going-away party and got drunk on no less than four different types of alcohol. Not a bad way to start the year, I guess. On my drive home the next morning, I saw a horse in a yard by her house and then ran into the Mummers parade and despite living here a few years I still don't get Mummers at all. The horse, the freaks, and the raging hangover made it a rather surreal morning. Here's to more randomness.

To Alcohol!

2005-12-20T17:06:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the joyousness of the Holiday Season, I've been drinking a lot more. And getting free food. And doing even less science than usual. Turns out, slacking off and drinking to excess is what makes me happy. That and spending recovery days knitting and watching Six Feet Under.

I had my annual Hanukkah party over the weekend, turns out I really really need to buy more chairs. And how is it that having people over somehow totally makes one's floors filthy? Ugh. Anyway, it was fun, there were more people than in previous years, and I even got kitchen help from Rachel and Juan Ramon. All three previous parties I made ExMatt peel stuff and I always had him grate the onions, luckily I had the foresight not to wear liquid eyeliner and I made it through the onions myself. Pictures can be found on flickr, as always. I wore a pretty dress as it was my damn party and I have all sorts of fun clothes and shoes and rarely occasion to wear them.

In other news, Tim had Condi over the weekend. Really, the more I am exposed to that woman the more I dislike her. Apparently it is totally Constitutional to wiretap US citizens without a warrant...just don't make them point to the specific statutory language that authorizes it. Gwen Iffil was on the roundtable and while she isn't my much-missed BBC chick, she still rocks. This Sunday is apparently Christmas, so there is a Holiday Edition of MTP that includes footage of Robert Frost. Which I suppose may be more interesting than more admin shills/officials talking about how Iraq is totally not as bad as it looks to be on my TV.

Timwatch 12/11 and I Really Wish Jasper Johns Hadn't Stolen my Boat

2005-12-14T12:44:00.000-05:00

Tim had Madeline Albright and Sen. Lindsey Graham, who looked rather orange. Clearly, MTP needs a better makeup artist with more varied shades of "generic white politician" in the makeup box. Anyway. Graham is one of a few Republicans who, while I totally disagree with the overwhelming majority of his politics, I can actually respect. This is because Graham, unlike the leaders of his party, doesn't seem to think torturing prisoners is okay. And while it is really, really sad that something as obvious as "torturing people isn't cool" is enough to get me to not totally loathe a Republican politician these days, I'll take what I can get. He really stood up to Rumsfeld back in the Abu Gharib hearings and is always pointing out that he's a JAG, which despite my general disdain for the military I always thought would be an interesting profession. And Madeline Albright...well sure she was fine as Secretary of State and all but what I really like her for is this. So the actual issues/discussion? Apparently things aren't going well in Iraq and oops, mistakes have been made. I watch this show (aside from the Tim obsession part) because I want actual analysis and actual interesting questioning that I'm not already getting from my mass consumption of NPR and the NYT. And I have to say, I haven't been feeling it lately. Maybe because the focus has been mostly on Iraq for awhile and I've always been way more interested in domestic than international policy, but I'm getting sick of the same thing every week said by different people. And the roundtable had David Brooks, who also needs a better makeup artist as he looked sort of greyish, which considering I already don't like him isn't getting him up in my esteem. The only thing really different about this week's MTP in contrast to last week's was the tribute to Sen. Eugene McCarthy.

In other news, I had a totally flat tire. And I don't actually know how to change a tire so I tried to get Kathy's bf John to do it, except this was last night when it was freezing and we'd been to Drinking Liberally and were a little beer-y. And I don't actually have the manual for my car so we didn't have instructions. But when I moved the car away from the curb a bit, I discovered the reason for said flat tire:

That's right, somebody threw a knife into the street right in front of my apartment and I drove over it while parking. So now I have the knife and I'm wondering what to do with it. There don't seem to be any bloodstains, but I didn't look all that closely either. Is this the sort of thing one turns over to the cops? I;d do that but I think the Philly police will laugh at me. They're not very nice. Plus, now my prints are on it. Anyway, I called AAA this morning to have them put the donut on so I could at least take the stupid car to the tire place, and it took them three and a half hours to arrive. This is in marked contrast to the time I called them from Bryn Mawr and they came in 20 minutes. Hmmm, what's the difference between my neighborhood and the Main Line? Not that I'd ever insinuate that AAA services nice white upper-class suburbs faster than they do my, um, transitional neighborhood. Nope, I totally don't believe in stirring up class issues.

I also played Simpsons Trivia Monday. We didn't win (sigh) but we did pretty well. It was really, really fun. And hard. But guess who totally got the Jasper Johns question? Awww yeah.

I Smell Winter

2005-12-08T12:12:00.000-05:00

Yeah, Juan makes fun of me for liking the Housemartins, but what does he know? Anyway, it is all cold here and has snowed twice, though not much either time. Of course, one inch is enough to send stupid Philly drivers skidding into all sorts of things, so there have already been fatalities. Don't they know you have to practice spinning out?

I went to a baby shower in the burbs Saturday...it was very domestic and traditional. No boys and I only had one glass of wine as it seemed inappropriate to get drunk at this baby shower. I made two baby hats and Kate made two blankets that coordinated. Alas, no pictures of the hats and blankets together, but here are the hats:

Got Pakistani food last night with ExMatt and finally saw his place. It is in a really, really not gentrifying neighborhood. The good part was I got to see the kitty again, I think he's even bigger than when I moved out. I think he might remember me as he came over to me and didn't even claw my face off when I picked him up.

Tim over the weekend: John McCain. And while Tim obviously likes him (journalists do), he didn't go too soft with the questions like he sometimes does. And McCain was actually doing crazy shit like admitting to mistakes. And saying we should be in Darfur. I could never vote for McCain - first off, he's super antichoice - but I can respect him. More than the rest of his party, at least. Which isn't saying much. Then, the two heads of the 9/11 commission were on. Apparently we haven't been doing anything they said to do. Like giving antiterrorism funds to the actual places that are at risk (cities on the coasts that are really, really Democratic - no coincidence that they're not being funded, right? Shit, I get more cynical every day) and instead giving money to fucking Wyoming. And my home county - it has gotten loads of cash, to protect what? Welch's? This won't change at all, as the fundamental nature of the Senate is totally antidemocratic and the Republicans that control the House and the purse strings don't represent NYC and DC (fuck, that poor rep can't even vote) and Chicago and SF...you know, the fun places.

Though I have zero fear of a terrorist attack here. Come on, foreigners don't know we exist - despite our being the 5th-largest city in the nation. Plus, what are they going to bomb? Thanks to the William Penn thing there aren't a lot of major skyscrapers, and the ones we do have are hideous and not very landmark-y. They could, I suppose, bomb City Hall, but aside from the loss of Billy it wouldn't be that grand a scale of devastation. Even in Center City, the population just isn't as dense as it is in, say, Manhattan. The two other symbolic targets are, of course, the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall. But those aren't very internationally famous. Plus, again we have the issue of not being densely populated. And any attack there would only take out those damn Midwestern tourists: nobody who lives here goes to those places unless they're entertaining out-of-towners. What's left? Liberty Place? The damn hideous Wharton building on campus? Yeah, didn't think so.

See, kids? Nothing to worry about. Unless you live in NYC. Then you're screwed, but you knew that.

Belated Timwatch for 11/27

2005-12-01T15:07:00.000-05:00

In the mayhem of the past month or so, I missed Tim over and over. Luckily, I caught him Sunday, woo! But more importantly, when I was home my father and I wound up going to a Sabres game. On the way there (we took a rather roundabout way as we had to pick up the tickets in a weird part of Hamburg) we went all the way up Rt 62 and drove by...Tim Russert's Children's Garden! Alas, I hadn't brought my camera and it was snowing pretty hard so my father probably wouldn't have stopped and let me out to take a picture, but still. I had no idea it even existed.

Anyway, Tim had John Warner, who totally creeps me out, and Joe Biden. Who is, in fact, trying to run for President. I like him and all, and he is really entertaining, but the man has some serious delusions about his (lack of) electability. But Biden came super-prepared, with pages of quotes both from himself and from others, and was really going right after Tim and his whole "I'll trap you with your own words" schtick. Warner totally reminds me of Death. He's very corpse-like. Anyway, Biden and Warner got into a brief pissing contest about who supported the troops more based on how many times/how recently they'd actually been to Iraq, which proves absolutely nothing about one's patriotism but whatever. The journalistic roundtable sucked. They need to bring back Nina Totenberg and that fun BBC chick and put David Broder out of his misery. He can go pretend to be Death with Sen Warner.

In campus news, there is a major scandal because some kid took pictures of two people having sex up against their Highrise window, emailed them to people and posted them online, and is now facing really big disciplinary trouble for sexual harassment(!). Of course, no action is being taken against the morons/exhibitionists who had what amounts to public sex and subjected the campus to their bare-assed frolicking. So the DP, in its ever-brilliant journalism, posts one of the pictures on the front page. See for yourself. Personally, I think if you don't want to be naked on the internet, you should close your blinds. And not do bondage porn, like a certain non-Jessy ex roommate of mine. But then, as far as I know I'm not naked on the internet. Yet.

Enough With the Chicken Already!

2005-11-28T13:59:00.000-05:00

So I've returned from my odyssey of Long Island funereal badness and from my week being home for Thanksgiving and am back in my usual life, sleeping in my own bed (that is, crappy futon that I really need to replace), hating lab and all its science-y life-stealing tentacles, and general pointless existence.

Let me just say that I hate New Jersey. I managed to get totally and completely lost somehow on the way to LI and wound up in total nothingness in the Garden State for over two hours. Two hours was just the "lost" part, that isn't counting the other two hours where I pretty much was on the right track in that damn state. Dear NJ: your highway system sucks ass, please label things like "exits" and "roads" better in the future. Anyway, that meant that despite my leaving DC and then Philly on time for once, I was still really late getting to suburban hell and my waiting family. Which was bad because apparently I was supposed to be at a private viewing at 5 and I didn't make it until after 7.

But wait, you say. Jews don't have viewings! Not having to be in the same room as a corpse is one of the few benefits of the faith, one that might almost make up for the lack of porkaliciousness! Yeah, that's what I thought. I just thought I'd show up and go to dinner but my mom decided that we should, you know, see him. Which I totally was not interested in doing, and I said as much to her during one of the panicked "I'm totally lost in fucking New Jersey" phone calls, and both my sister and my uncle told my mom that they knew me and knew I had no desire to look at my grandfather all dead and in a coffin, but did she listen to any of that? So I finally show up at the Jewish funeral home (I didn't know we had those, what with my apparently errant "Jews don't hang out with corpses" belief) and she's all crying, which was to be expected, but then she was like, "you mean you don't want to see him? Then why didn't we just go to dinner?" and it was then that the headache really started. Oh, and my charming grandmother's lovely comment, "I hear you said goodbye to your father's mother at her funeral" to which I managed to reply only "Well, that side of the family is Protestant, that's how things work" and not the "how are you, evil shrew-woman from hell, my only living grandparent? HOW THE FUCK IS THAT FUCKING FAIR?!" which is what I really wanted to say. And why did everyone send chicken? I know sending food to the house during shivah is traditional and I sort of like the idea, but damn did I get sick of chicken.

Anyway. My family is nuts, my grandmother is evil, and apparently I have a burial plot somewhere out on Long Island. Which prompted me to start a somewhat panicked and probably highly inappropriate given the timing (while hiding upstairs from the shivah callers on Tuesday) conversation with my mom, sister, and uncle that consisted of me near hysterics yelling "Don't you fucking dare bury me on Long Island I fucking hate this place and everything it stands for please, please, don't bury me here! I swear, I'll write it down, I'll get it notarized just don't make me stay here after I'm dead!" and my mom giving me that look that she gets when I freak out and doing the calm, rational mom voice "okay, sweetheart. Where would you rather be buried?" And then my sister said that she didn't want to be buried in Long Island either, but then she upset my mom by being all "I don't want to be buried in a Jewish cemetery at all, I'm agnostic, and I don't want any mention of religion at my funeral either" which my mom was none too pleased to hear. But really, isn't 25 a bit young to have a plot already? What are they expecting from me?

On my brief stop in Philly between LI and home, I went to Sex Dwarf at Fluid which was awesome. Go new wave dance party! Except there were $2 drinks until midnight and let's just say I overindulged, passed out at Rachel's, and woke up with a raging hangover and that moment of "where the fuck am I?" panic. Luckily I was fully clothed and it was just Rachel next to me, and the club was basically filled with cute gay boys anyway so there wasn't any danger of anything untoward occurring, but still...moment of panic. But really, really fun and I'm totally going back only I think I'll have fewer than eight drinks next time. Ouch.

Bad to Worse

2005-11-12T11:20:00.000-05:00

Well, I survived three solid days of stereology. It was tortorous. But I grudgingly admit that I learned a lot.

And I made it into DC last night. This city confuses me: Letters! States! Numbers! I have no clue where anything is with their street system. But my hotel is right next to the Treasury and the White House. I think a drunken flicking off of Bush may be in order.

So I finally make it to the "fun" part of the last month - after the frantic image analysis and data collection and poster design and stereology crap, SFN really is fun - and I go out last night. Of course I do, it is Friday night and I'm in DC! Woo!

When of course I start getting phone calls from my mom that I don't hear. I finally pick up when it is my dad since I'm outside the bar at that point. I am not very nice. Apparently my grandfather (on my mom's side) has died. This is not unexpected, he was in a nursing home and pretty much lacking in cognition and not eating or anything. But for fuck's sake, Friday night at SFN? How do people expect me to react to that sort of news in that circumstance?

So I'm fucked. I have to leave the conference, but I'm not leaving DC until tomorrow morning, when I'll drive to Philly, switch out my accumulated dirty underwear for clean, pick up a black suit (I have three) and drive right out to the hell on earth that is Long Island. LI with my psycho-under-the-best-of circumstances relatives made worse by death. And my grandmother, who I never get along with and who has lung cancer and who is unbearable no matter what. It isn't the "family" so much as her. And I know I'm not a very good granddaughter or niece or anything like that. I know there are reciprocal feelings. But this is a family who has gotten into actual fistfights at diners post-funeral (yes, diners: Long Island Reform Jews here). The funeral is Monday, shivah will go through Friday but I don't think I'll stay that long.

I hate this. I suck at dealing with these things. To me, it was like he was dead ages ago, when I realized his higher function was basically gone. I don't know if that is a bias from being a neuroscientist for too long or what, but I define life by thinking and so tome he's been dead a long time. But to everyone else, it is fresh and awful. And I hate emotions and that is all funerals are: a chance for the living to have this orgy of feelings and be reinforced. It isn't about the dead person at all. I don't want to be around people and be consoled and hugged and asked how I'm doing. I want to be left alone. I don't want to cry or wail or break glasses or throw a fit and I am wholly incapable of dealing with those who do. I am totally useless at interacting with my fellow human beings under these situations and I've never been sure why. It is like things that usually bring people together drive me farther away from them and into my own head. I wonder if I was born without something that everyone else has. Like a soul. Because normal people aren't like this.

In lighter news, I've posted my Halloween pictures (finally!) at flickr. Yeah, I was a pre-Feminine Mystique housewife and that pill bottle is labeled "Mother's little Helper". I don't have too many pictures. I suck.

If I'd Gone to Law School, I'd Be a Lawyer By Now

2005-11-02T20:12:00.000-05:00

Far, far too many 13-hour days in the lab in the last two weeks. Really, one is too many but ugh. I don't know the last time I made it home before nine from this fluorescently lit windowless hell. Last night I got home just before midnight - yay science! Because nothing seems to want to work for me lately. First we didn't get the image analysis software we ordered, then I tried to get NIH Image to work and it refused to open any of my images, then I downloaded its PC eqivalent onto my laptop to see if it was a weird Mac issue but that didn't work either. Then I figured out what the problem was (it involved recapturing all my images off the microscope directly - believe me, I tried just renaming and resaving them) and then I started to analyze them on my computer, went home for the night (at 11) and came back the next day to find that my power cord had basically melted and all the fun stuff on my laptop is totally locked in there all inaccessable until I get the replacement that I rush-ordered for $100. So I'm back stuck with NIH image on the damn G4, analyzing and analyzing and not getting any nice patterns to make into pretty bar graphs and put on my SFN poster. That I have to make Monday and still don't know what it will look like, whether there will be any actual conculsions I can draw. And I have to leave for that stereology workshop Tuesday and I haven't read the books for it at all. And my grandfather has taken another turn for the worse, so I might be dashing off to the hell of Long Island at some point during SFN or the workshop.

Um, why did I think grad school was a good idea again? Anyone?

I'm so beyond stressed I'm oddly calm. And exhausted and cold and hungry, but that's all from the sleep deprivation.

I have a lot to say and Halloween pictures to show (assuming I can get my computer to work sometime soon) and comments to make about the Court and Tim and Scooter Libby but I can't formulate anything remotely coherent now.

Though one little thing: flirty myspace messages are sort of okay, provided they have proper grammar and are witty and you're neither from New Jersey nor into metal. You'll never see me naked because I have that little rule ("people I meet on the internet do not get to see me naked" - seems like a good rule). Suddenly going from that to describing sexual positions and me visiting you to try them out is quite surely not okay. I don't care if we went to highschool together, it gets me all sorts of weirded out. Especially if we went to highschool together, since that means I can't even hide in the rural nothingness of WNY where most people will never, ever go. Not funny anymore.

Who wants to trade lives with me? Please? You'll get to go to a stereology conference!

Presents! And Timwatch 10/23

2005-10-25T21:11:00.000-04:00

I love getting mail. And candy. Last week was quite profitable in those respects:

My candy smuggled back from Canada:

A package from Lesley in the New Brunswick: is me hanging a Canadian flag too much?

And my dollar-store swap package from Lili:

yay for stuff!

Anyway, on Tim this weekend I learned that apparently Republicans don't think perjury and obstruction of justice are very serious crimes anymore. Which is awesome, because I totally plan on lying to a grand jury at some point in my future and it is just nice to know that Sen. Hutchinson thinks that would be peachy. Martha Stewart peachy. I also learned that Sen. Allen creeps me out because he looks sort of like a Ken doll only more plastic AND he's super hard-core conservative. I expected more from the roundtable as it had Frank Rich and before the fucking NYT got all elitist about reading their columnists I used to like his column sometimes. But yeah. Here's hoping there's a big fat indictment soon and that my favorite little hobgoblin of doom, Dick Cheney, is named in it.

Life-wise: went to see (International) Noise Conspiracy, who were fantastic. They're a Swedish Marxist garage band! And they're skinny adorable little acrobatic boys in matching outfits spouting socialist ideals! I really wanted to take them home with me. The main band (the Bravery) was okay too, their vocalist was cute and wearing black and probably some eyeliner but they used way too many super-bright strobe lights without the courtesy of an epilepsy warning. The singer reminded me of this guy I know at Lehigh despite not actually looking like him. Went to a neuroscience party that I just wasn't feeling despite the presence of both cupcakes and beer. And went to Grace to catch up with Ariell. And out to dinner (Laotian - wasn't actually all that good) with ExMatt whose attractiveness is wholly dependent on the state of his hair. Without me around to make sure he keeps it all floppy he tends to get it cut a bit too short, which makes me laugh since I don't have to care anymore. When will my exes learn: they need me, if only to make sure bad things don't happen to their hair. Hear me, CFEx? "Ironic facial hair" is NOT okay.

Timwatch 10/17

2005-10-18T18:25:00.000-04:00

Oh, boring. Iraq had an election and Condi is all about "yay, democracy in action" but really, is there anyone left in this country that actually cares? Because if I'm bored and I'm a total obsessive about politics and current events I can't imagine anyone else out there is paying attention. Oh, and she doesn't want to run for President so back off. And Louis Freeh still hates Clinton. Yawn. Though I always love when Tim plugs the Bills on the show, which he did. Plus they actually won so Tim must have some sort of power.

I carved a pumpkin for the first time since middle school. I suck but the roasted seeds were good and the mulled cider with rum made me not care about my pumpkin's craptacular-ness. I then learned that sipping straight whiskey isn't fun and that it is totally okay to go to McGlinchey's two nights in a row, it just means you're a poor alcoholic.

I am totally lacking in motivation. Not just motivation to do science, either. I find even paying bills and cleaning up to be way too hard lately. I just want to sit around and stare off into space and obsess because I don't know what I want at all. At least, I don't want the same thing for more than two days at a time. All this oscillation is really exhausting.

Bad Jew! No brisket!

2005-10-15T15:34:00.000-04:00

Reason #348 why I am a Very Bad Jew:
On Yom Kippur Eve I had not one but two naughty dreams. And neither of them involved a nice Jewish boy. Even a not-nice Jewish boy. So much for fasting causing me to think above corporeal matters.

Reason #361: Technically I broke fast with ice cream, but my first actual meal involved both mixing milk and meat and prosciutto, which is way not kosher. But it was very yummy.

In other news...the New Pornographers show was really good. They had excellent stage banter. And then McGlinchey's after...because where else can one get $1.85 Lager in this city? And the shots were somehow less than $3. Sometimes I really love Philadelphia.

psst Canadian: how do I obtain said candy from you?

Timwatch 10/9 and Other Things

2005-10-11T22:36:00.000-04:00

I've managed to catch Tim two weeks in a row. Take that, alcoholism! Anyway, the big topic was the Miers nomination, obviously. Apparently, the Right was hoping for someone with a long, clear record of being antichoice, antigay, antisecularism...you know, basically the un-me. Anyway, the first segment had Buchanan and Richard Land (who is head Southern Baptist...ooh, scary). Let me just say that it really gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside to see the various right-wing crackpots go after each other, as it means for once they're not trying to poke (or not poke) my uterus. A number of really interesting points have been raised by the behavior of the pro- and anti-Miers forces within the Right, clearly exposing their insane, all-consuming hypocrisy which I've been yelling about for years. They criticize the "secular educated Northeasten liberal elite" yet turn around and yell about how Miers is really not intellectually qualified to sit on the Court (something I agree with, but then I take pride in being part of the whole Northeastern liberal elite scene as we have better booze than the evangelicals). Secondly, they said it was wholly inappropriate for Dems to question Roberts about how his hardcore Catholicism would influence his judicial decisions and his interpretation of the Constitution, yet the mere fact that Miers belongs to a far-right antichoice fundamentalist Evangelical congregation is supposed to mean that she is automatically going to rule "properly" on the next incarnation of Roe. Almost makes your head spin, doesn't it? Good thing I wasn't all hung over or I would've barfed from the dizziness.

The panel this week was blah, and I think David Broder may be getting too old. I feel a bit bad for David Souter: all of the Right keeps saying how Miers is/isn't another Souter. Now, I like Souter, especially since he survived an attack while jogging at his age. pssst: "Oh no! Not Souter!" Anyway, if I were Souter I'd be getting annoyed that was so apparently Satan to (his own) Republican party. I mean, I say mean things about Scalia all the time, like about how much I hate his hair, but I'm not exactly a well-funded and organized collection of organizations. So David Souter, if you're reading this: I don't think you suck. You can come over and we can talk about how cool it is that you bring your lunch (apples and yogurt: may I suggest the addition of walnuts?) and how just because you never get married doesn't mean you're gay and we totally won't go jogging. Seriously, come hang out. I bet you have a hot New Hampshire accent. Are you, perchance, a lapsed Presbyterian or Conregationalist? I mean, just wondering is all.

Life-wise, not too much...mod/soul/garage was way too crowded but the music was great. I just really don't like getting covered in other people's sweat, even if some of them are greasy hipsters. Maybe especially then. Plus, there just wasn't enough dance floor room. Grrr.

I've been trying to do this thing whereby I actually behave like a grownup and talk to people instead of secretly obsessing and freaking out. Know what? It really does work better. Obsessing is just really distracting and time-consuming and totally makes me feel like I'm in 8th grade again, and as that year basically sucked I'd rather not repeat those feelings. Not to say I'm not obsessing a bit, just way less than usual and not over anything serious. Whee!

Thanks For the Beer, Now Go Away

2005-10-08T12:06:00.000-04:00

We all know that I love free booze. I've been known to organize my life around its pursuit. However, I have now realized that I need to stop accepting drinks from guys at bars because a free beer is so not worth talking to some of these people. If only one could accept the free booze and not have to actually engage the guy in conversation. Also, when there are two girls out and you buy them both a drink, it sort of comes off like you're hedging your bets (and maybe you are) but still, that's sketchy. And if a girl makes a bunch of excuses as to why she can't do whatever you're inviting her to, perhaps you should realize that she's trying to nicely refuse without saying "You're hairy and I don't want to be seen in public with you" which is what she's actually thinking. And that if you finally do wear her down enough to exasperatedly agree to dinner, you're still never going to get her number. She's going to show up, have a free dinner, and hope she never runs into you again. You know, hypothetically.

I'm going through one of those phases where I hate everyone. My peers, friends, colleagues, labmates, family, total strangers, random passers-by...everyone. It makes me even snarkier than usual. And probably very unpleasant to be around. I hope this passes soon.

Random bits:
Boys, weirdness, confusion.
I need a new crush. Life is dull without one.
I like to not learn from my mistakes.
Dancing is fun.
My grandmother has lung cancer, she had surgery and will probably be okay.
Long Island is the root of all evil.
It is way too hot for October.
Happy Jewlidays.

I Can't Figure Out if You're a Detective or a Pervert (And Timwatch)

2005-10-03T23:15:00.000-04:00

I'd like to thank my CFEx for calling AND emailing me to say that David Lynch was speaking at Penn last week. That boy, he is still useful and I really really hope he's gotten over the ironic facial hair thing he said he had going on in August. Anyway, the lovely Mr. Lynch was speaking for free as part of a panel on the mind and creativity. Turns out, not only does David Lynch practice transcendental meditation, he's pretty evangelical about it and is on a tour with a string theory guy who pissed me off, a supposed neuroscientist who also pissed me off, and an actual neuroscientist who didn't piss me off as much. But we won't talk about how not into TM I am and how creeped out I am about evangelical anything.

Anyway, when he wasn't talking about seeking universal bliss via TM, he answered some questions about his work. It was sort of a Lynchian trivia pissing contest (no, I did not participate despite my dominance of trivia contests aback in the Twin Peaks Club days) and my vote for winner goes to the boy who brought up "World's Angriest Dog" though someone else had brought an actual old Lynch painting to be signed or something, which was more "creepy" than "Lynchian trivia master" to me. I wish he'd addressed more the issue of how someone so supposedly into seeking universal spiritual bliss was making movies with so much twisted violence (and Straight Story doesn't count!) but he sort of glossed over that. His hair was fantastic and he was wearing a black tie, white shirt, and black suit and I just could not keep from thinking "Woo! Gordon Cole!" in my head whenever he said anything but that's because I'm a freak.

And I caught Tim this weekend, a little hung over but functional. I have to say it wasn't a particularly impressive week. I will say that I actually shrieked for joy upon hearing of the DeLay indictment, but the people he had on to discuss it were pretty weak. And Gen. Abizaid on more Iraq, it still sucks apparently. We've just been distracted from the sucking by hurricanes and the Supreme Court. And Tim? Two people does not a "roundtable" make. I must say, the WSJ guy they always have on is quite telegenic, way more so than the WaPo guy. But I really miss the chick that does BBC stuff from Washington - she so obviously thinks American politics are nuts and is really fun on TV.

I'm just excited that I get to see/hear lots of Nina Totenberg with the next Court nominee. She's totally my favorite public radio personality. If only she and Tim were married...sigh.

My Liver Hurts

2005-09-26T18:13:00.000-04:00

So I promised I'd update my life-type doings of the past two weeks or so.

In order:
-Salsa dancing. I pretty much suck. Somehow looking cute drunkenly frolicking to 80s and Britpop does not translate into actual formal ballroom dancing ability.
-Free beer and lots of it, cute drunken Rachel, talking to a Canadian for hours. I am no Canadiana dilettante, I am the real thing. Damn straight.
-Goodbye dinner with a friend who has sadly relocated to Orlando.
-Party at which I learned a very valuable life lesson that I would like to share with all of you: if you are at a party and you've already been drinking (a drink, three beers, and two jello shots, not that you're counting) and you decide to play drinking games and the only beer left is Coors Light or Golden Monkey and it is already late and everyone else is having the Coors Light and Circle of Death (which apparently the rest of the world knows as Kings) is on the agenda, please for the love of God go for the Coors Light! And extra super please don't get another Golden Monkey to continue the game with after you finish the first one! Because that sort of thing ends in unconsciousness. Not sleep, total deadness. To be followed by the Raging Infernal Hangover of Doom. Yeah. Now you can all learn from my mistake.
-Dinner at Susanna Foo's for Restaurant Week
-Another party, mostly comprised of people who are not scientists. In spite of this, I was in a totally antisocial mood and regretfully didn't really meet any of the said nonscientists.
-Beatles and Stones, with pre- and post-ness at my apartment. I need to bake my upstairs neighbor some cookies by way of an "I'm sorry we were loud crazy drunken idiots continuing a dance party at three am and woke you up" thing. Nothing too bad, just me drinking a little much and being wacky and then bemoaning the sad state of singledom with Arielle, who is engaged and thus out of the loop.

And I've missed Tim two weeks in a row now. Oops. Maybe I really do have a drinking problem.

My mom also suckered me into booking a flight home for Thanksgiving. Somehow it was $100 less to leave on the Sunday before, so I'll pretty much be taking a full week at Thanksgiving. Fuck it, I haven't taken any time off since April and that was less than a week. Now I just have to try and get money for it from my father, which will be really difficult but as it was still $300 I can't really pay for it myself. Also, can somebody explain to me why it is $200 less to fly into Erie than Buffalo? I didn't even know Erie had an actual commercial airport until last year as it is a really pathetic excuse for a city. And can someone also explain why USAir is the only damn airline to have nonstop flights between Philadelphia and Erie or Buffalo? I am SO NOT flying all the way to Detroit first to save $50 on a flight, Airline People. Though considering I'm now going to be there about a week, I probably should have just driven. Damn mom and her evil mom-ness of being all "Oh, just book the flight now, why wait and actually use logic on this?" I haven't really been home in awhile, I'm sure it will suck. It always involves me hiding from pretty much everyone I went to highschool with, mostly by not going to the grocery store, Wal-Mart (actually really hard to avoid as it is basically the only store in town, damn evil bastards), and BJs, where I did much underage drinking. Despite my periodic bouts of creepy Western NY nostalgia, whenever I'm actually there I just sort of retreat and hide at my mom's house, broken by scamming food and booze off my dad and maybe going to the yarn store. I think deep down, I'm just a hermit.

Roberts Wrap-up

2005-09-23T12:51:00.000-04:00

I was going to title this "Russ Feingold, Will You Marry Me?" but then he voted to send Roberts to the full Senate. Sigh. And his performance in the hearings made me so happy, too. Why yes, I did sit and listen to the questioning for two days straight. Just ask my labmates, they'll tell you AND roll their eyes! Lex thought it was funny though, since he hadn't seen me that excited (he refers to it as "enthusiastic Cara") since we got a free lunch at La Terrasse. So Enthusiastic Cara only comes out for free swanky food and Supreme Court hearings. Now you know.

I don't really have that much to say. Roberts totally answered fewer questions than Ginsburg and he looks sort of psychotic (though that could be because most of the pictures I saw of him were on NYT). I love Ted, especially since he hasn't lost his accent and I think Boston accents are really hot. The hearings also reinforced my loathing of Southern accents, particularly the one of Alabama's Jeff Sessions. It didn't help that he's a really evil heartless cruel Republican. Enunciate, dammit! English has consonants! The way his syllables ran together made it seem as if he were drunk. Which I would've been okay with. Seriously, to my ears Southern accents just make people sound dumb even if they aren't.

I really like the term "super-duper precedent" and am glad I didn't play the hearing drinking game (drink every time the phrase "stare decisis" is used) because I would have been falling out of my chair by about 10:30. We need some more terms for that. One pet peeve about something Roberts actually answered: he expressed contempt for ever referring to international law in actual decisions. However, many other extraconstitutional sources are cited all the time - the Bible, historical documents, the Federalist Papers, even Robert Frost - and that hasn't been quarreled with (at least not by the Right). Why should we, an ostensibly secular nation, give any credence to the Bible in Court decisions, then? You could apply Roberts's argument that you can basically justify anything you want by citing the codes of some country to the Bible: you can justify anything you want with some obscure passage or other. Or some faith's interpretation of a passage. I really really wish I could've asked about that. Burger's concurrence in Bowers actually cited "Judeao-Christian moral and ethical standards" as a reason for upholding antisodomy laws. But what does that have to do with the Constitutionality of said laws? Is the Bible somehow more relevant to current US Constitutional interpretation than the standards and practices of other contemporary Western democracies? If so, why? And if not, well, I bet that would have changed how some of the Republicans voted.

Bleah.

I'll post an update on my life soon, really. I've just been having an actual life and doing stuff outside of both the lab and my apartment.

Timwatch 9/11 and Life Effluvia

2005-09-12T22:33:00.000-04:00

First: who the fuck is Natalia? Seriously, I have no clue who this girl is so if someone could enlighten me...thanks.

Tim: First off was NO mayor Nagin, much calmer than he was on that fantastic radio interview. And he's actually admitted that he's do things differently is he could have, and I'm always pleased when a politician admits mistakes. And he kept up the criticism of Bush, FEMA, and Blanco. I wonder if he has a future in higher office? He's gotten a lot of national exposure from this, which could go either way. Then were a hurricane science guy (woo, science!) and someone who wrote a book on the 1927 flood. Rebuilding will be super expensive and will expose even further the class/race/ideological divisions. Yup. Constant coverage of any one event bores me. I know I'm a horrible person and all, but I just can't keep paying attention to just the one story for two weeks. Sorry. Luckily, we now have the Roberts nomination!

So on Roberts, PA's own Senator Arlen Spector! I wouldn't have voted for him, especially since I met Hoeffel in the Melrose Diner one day and really liked him, but I will begrudgingly praise Spector as "less evil than 95% of his Republican peers" which isn't too bad coming from me. Anyway, he looks so frail and old and egg-like because of the cancer and its treatment. I respect him a lot for sticking to his guns, bucking the will of his party's leaders, and actually questioning (or promising to question) Roberts even though his party wants him to shoot fluffy cupcake questions. Maybe the cancer has made him not care, since I remember back when they were threatening to rescind his chairmanship of Judiciary he was a lot more conciliatory that he's been lately. Anyway, Spector expressed his disagreement with some recent 5-4 federalism cases, like the one that overturned the Violence Against Women act and parts of the ADA and reaffirmed his support for Roe/privacy. Of course, Spector and everyone else can question Roberts all they want, they can't actually make him answer. I cling to optimism on this one, after all Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren and look how that worked out! Plus, writing memos in the DOJ really doesn't mean that's what you actually think about issues, I've played devil's advocate lots of times just because I love to argue (who, me? Argue for fun?). And even though I totally and completely fundamentally disagree with basically everything he's ever written or said, he's got a sharp little legal mind in there. So here's hoping he puts on the robes and his brain doesn't get infected by a Scalia earwig and that he turns all Warren-y, since he'd basically have to be exposed as a child rapist to NOT get confirmed at this point. Strict constructionism and Constitution-in-Exile views are totally legislating from the bench and judicial activism, let's hope someone calls Roberts on that.

Um, so, life:
Someone other than me had the idea to go to Goth night at Shampoo Wednesday and somehow I've managed to live here for three years without going, so I was all over that. And I dressed up, of course. Though my dancing-in-six-inch-heel-vinyl-boots stamina is not quite what it used to be, I still did well. And most of my peers at least wore black, so it worked. Yay dancing! Seriously, I cannot believe my peers went to Goth night. I really wish I had pictures, especially of Lex. Because he wore eyeliner AND the cat ears and was drunk. Friday was a psych party so after that Lex, Kathy, Alexis and myself went to...700, of course. I would like to state for the record that I didn't get super drunk. For once. Seriously, I started drinking at 4:30, kept drinking, went there, and yet I remember the entire evening. Either I'm finally learning or my tolerance is insane. Anyway, I was just drunk enough to dance and flirt and be social but not so drunk that I was in pain on Saturday. So I danced with some guy who was 6'4" and that was fun. Kathy and Alexis were super trashed, I split a cab with Alexis so she could crash on my couch but she got us kicked out of the cab. Ostensibly for swearing but really because the driver was totally taking the long way and she called him on it. But hey, we didn't pay for it, we just got another cab the rest of the way. And the cabbie was a super ass, we're not tourists and I know the way to my own goddamn apartment and I wasn't drunk enough to not notice he was going a really roundabout way, so I'm not upset. And I saw The Aristocrats. So lots of dancing and social productivity of late. And lots and lots of free food and booze, woohoo!

This week should be fun too. And next week. If only I didn't have to go to lab, my life would rock.

Timwatch 9/4

2005-09-06T17:59:00.000-04:00

First few minutes on the death of Rehnquist. And let me just state for the record that I totally predicted that Roberts would be up for chief, confirmed (come on, there really isn't any way that's not going to happen), and that O'Connor would stay longer until she can be replaced. Look, I'm rading the admin's mind!

Then, of course, hurricane coverage. I haven't seen Tim that outraged in awhile, I'm really glad it was him this weekend interviewing Chertoff, who just looks really Grinchy. This "we have to wait until later to analyze how/why we TOTALLY FUCKED UP" attitude that the admin always takes after a tragedy has to end. Because then something else happens, we never go back, nobody gets punished/fired, and we don't learn from our mistakes. Oh, wait, maybe that's the point. Tim also brought up the class issues of the evacuation, much to Chertoff's discomfort:
"MR. RUSSERT: But that's the point. Those who got out were people with SUVs and automobiles and air fares who could get out. Those who could not get out were the poor who rely on public buses to get out. Your Web site says that your department assumes primary responsibility for a national disaster. If you knew a hurricane 3 storm was coming, why weren't buses, trains, planes, cruise ships, trucks provided on Friday, Saturday, Sunday to evacuate people before the storm?"
I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Jeb isn't the governor.

But the real part that blew me away was Tim's interview with the president of Jefferson Parish. You should really just watch it, under the free video section of the MTP site, here.

Philly is taking about 1000 families via Project Brotherly Love and the Red Cross. So if you want to donate locally, here is some info. Or try the Etsy store for Crafters United, whereby you get stuff AND feel good, etsy.

Anyway, rest of weekend: housewarming at Caroline's. Her house is really, really nice though unfortunately located out in Manayunk. Then to Anderson's annual barbecue, with its weird mix of the Mexican community and econ people (via Juan Ramon), med students, and neuroscientists. There was more dance party, mostly to the Spanish pop, that I didn't participate in as I was still feeling the previous evening and was just way too tired/sore/not drunk enough/cranky to partake. So Rachel and I left a bit early and had a little sleepover at my house. Next time we'll French braid each other's hair. And talk about boys more, and lament how we never seem to meet boys outside of science but not think of any plans to, like, remedy that.

The new students are here, and all the little frosh are everywhere, roaming Locust Walk in packs. Slow-moving packs. The truck lines are insane! And they look really, really young. I feel dirty whenever I think one is cute: they're children! Arrgh! perv perv pervy perv perv!

And What She Was Stirring Was Up Trouble

2005-09-03T11:28:00.000-04:00

First off, I have a raging hangover as I type this, so please excuse any grammatical and spelling errors. My brain hurts and my hands are still shaking.

So last night we went out for Rachel's birthday, which was fun except we wound up at SoMa which only seems to play rap stuff and as I am the whitest girl ever I can't actually dance to it. Not well, at least. I'm so white I was once approached in Ghetto Eagle by some guy with the line "Damn! You the whitest girl I ever seen! Where you from, Scandinavia?"

And after the bars closed I, in my infinite wisdom, decided it was a good idea to have afterhours at my place. And everyone but Ingrid came. I'm beginning to think that maybe the bars close at two for a reason: because when you keep drinking after that weird shit happens. So yeah, people came here and I drank more but so did they. And we wound up having a dance party, which was good since I was totally unsatisfied by the dancing at SoMa. Plus, my house = my music so while a lot of what we played is lost to my booze haze, I distinctly remember that we were dancing to Blur and the Smiths at some point. Yay! And I learned that Cristin is a Future Bible Heroes fan, which is not something I was expecting. And then, and I believe this was Lex's idea, we played spin the bottle. Yeah, we're all in our mid-twenties but for some reason it seemed like a good idea. I have to say it was a rather chaste version, nobody got any tongue or anything, but I'm still trying to figure out just how that one happened.

And then we were sitting around talking when Ethan, for reasons I simply cannot fathom, decided to bring up the topic of...this very blog. Which I didn't know he knew about and he insists he hasn't read (Ethan, I so do not believe you). Apparently it is the "talk of the program" which is sad on so many levels. First off, my peers aren't leaving comments to make me look popular. Second, I'm pretty sure I know who started telling people and if I'm right it is someone with a weird drive to make drama everywhere. Third, it isn't like I keep a lot of secrets from the people in my program. What are they really going to learn about me from this that they don't already know? It is pretty well-established that I drink far too much, flirt WAY too much (especially while drunk) and with absolutely anyone, just for sport, and that I make exceptionally bad decisions when it comes to boys. At all levels, from flirting to crushing to the naked. Who out there didn't already know that I totally go through crushes like it is my job? Or that (gasp!) sometimes I find this whole grad school thing to be really unsatisfying? Really, the only thing my peers might learn about me from this is my totally out-of-control Meet the Press Habit. And I will defend my love of Tim until my very last breath, dammit! I don't use anyone's names if things are incriminating, not that stuff can't be figured out but anyone who wants to sit around and put together all the clues needs a fucking life.

So what's the talk of the program now, bitches?

Sidebar to Tiff and Jessy: If I marry Brian (ha!), you both totally get to be my bridesmaids and I promise the dresses will rock. And you know I'd have a fantastic open bar.

Weekends Just Drag on Forever

2005-08-30T18:06:00.000-04:00

Yeah, much weekend mayhem.

Friday I went to 700 with Kathy, and some program people were there. Hi, separate universes colliding that shouldn't and all. I believe I even said to one, "What are you doing here?! You'd better not fuck with my game!" Since my game is, um, nonexistent. I was fine, a bit drunk but still coherent, and I talked to people and met and danced with and got the number of a boy who reminded me of Richard. And then...all of a sudden I was totally gone. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I couldn't stand and Kathy put me in a cab with Ed and I barfed out the window (the cab driver was so very not pleased). Much of my evening is shrouded in blackness, which is totally not okay. It took most of Saturday to recover, and by the time I'd stopped barfing and I'd washed the vomit out of my hair (yum!) it was time to go to Steve's barbecue. Which was also fun, and I made a valiant effort at flip cup but chugging keg PBR was not going over well with my insides, so I watched other people get drunk. Which I enjoy.

Then the party migrated to Julia's, which was exceptionally well-stocked with fancy-pants booze. She made me a bunch of white Russians and I managed to get a bit off, but stayed far behind everyone else. I talked to said past indiscretion boy a bit, he was, of course, drunk. So he was affectionate. This thing with all of us being reasonably attractive, painfully single, and really affectionate while drunk is the source of so very many problems. He did make a point of talking to me a little, I think his way of trying to see if everything was okay between us. Which it isn't, but I'm not super-mad and I'm sure as hell not going to make a public scene. Eventually, there was a couch lovefest, which can be seen here. At one point, I was talking to the friend I kissed in the cab and we talked about that, and about last week's possible boob-fondling and all is well. It was just so awesome to get that stuff out, even though none of it is major. The evening wound up with four of us arranged on the couch. Being drunk scientists, we were all cuddling. And group dynamics are odd things.

And I slept through the first half of Tim Sunday. I just missed more Iraq stuff. The second half was a bunch of generals discussing...Iraq. BUT, Tim is back and that was the only thing that kept me watching. Dear Tim: please don't ever go away again. Love, Cara.

And I have this raging insomnia thing happening - last night I couldn't fall asleep until 5am, so I didn't even go to lab until the afternoon. The insomnia has been creeping back, and I'm always freaked out by it since I associate it with The Very Crazy Period, which was a horrible dark place I'd rather not go back to, ever. But worrying that you're falling back into the darkness isn't really conducive to sleep either, so I got a bunch of knitting done and I cleaned my floors. Boy, are they shiny now! I may be going nuts, but my floors are clean and that makes up for it, right?

Sidebar to Tiff: does that mean Brian is a lapsed Congregationalist too? Just asking...

Gameteogenesis

2005-08-26T00:11:00.000-04:00

I am quite poor. Grad-student poor. Last year, when I was also poor, I came across an ad in the Daily Pennsylvanian soliciting egg donors. Jewish egg donors with a "proven record of academic achievement" no less. Compensation up to $60,000. That's right, I emailed the firm. And although I'm quite short, I'm also a nice Jewish girl with blue eyes and fantastic standardized test scores, not to mention musical ability. Apparently I'm an excellent candidate. And since I don't think I want kids of my own, it isn't like my ova are really doing anything in there, they might as well be useful, right? And frankly, I could use the cash. Hell, I'd probably settle for $20,000.

Yes, I know the idea of having my genetic material floating out there and growing up is creepy. And the badness of massive superovulation-inducing daily hormone injections. And let's not talk to much about the egg harvesting procedure, which involves the words "needle" and "intravaginal." These are all very good reasons egg donation gave me pause, despite the zeroes. Oh, and the whole buying designer babies thing - the class issues of assisted reproduction weird me out a bit.

No, what it came down to was that I had this image of a little me being raised by a nice Jewish family in Westchester or Merrick or some hellish upper-middle-class suburb and just being the most wretchedly disappointing creature ever. Since despite my actual religious observance (and I most certainly do practice) by most surface measures I am a spectacularly bad Jew. There's the tattoo, for starters. And the unholy love of bacon. And the fact that I've never actually dated someone Jewish, since most of the Jewish guys I meet are far too nebbishy and I am just so not sleeping with that. I seem to fall for WASPs, specifically lapsed Presbyterians, though I've got my sights on a Congregationalist at the moment. I mean, I thought Presbyterian was as WASPy as one could get until I met someone whose distant ancestor basically founded Congregationalism back when Massachusetts was still a colony. I mean, that is like the apex of fabulous New England WASPism, is it not? Yum.

So I can foresee this poor hypothetical child from my egg being about 16, her parents trying to get her to date nice Jewish boys and avoid pork products crying and freaking out because she just doesn't understand why all her fantasies involve bacon and tall skinny WASPs. She won't be able to stop fantasizing about whipping Presbyterians with slabs of bacon, and one day she'll just jump off a bridge and it will have been my fault.

And I just couldn't do that to an innocent child. One person in this world fantasizing about WASPy boys and bacon is more than enough.

Mayhem! And Timwatch 8/21

2005-08-22T15:41:00.000-04:00

So Friday there was much madness. It started when I went to happy hour with other Solomon people, because 22oz of tequila-based frozen fruity goodness somehow always seems like a good idea Friday afternoons. I went home, sobered up (slowly), and fully intended to go to bed at a reasonable hour and be all "productive" with my Saturday when Rachel called and said that I must go to Ludwig's as everyone was there. So I did. And I wasn't all that drunk when we left Ludwig's as the tequila was still working its way out of my system and was none too pleased to see the giant things of weird German beer that were there to replace it. Ingrid decided to host an after-party, at which more beer was consumed and then there were shots. Oh yes, the sober phase of my evening was certainly over. Most people had the good sense to leave by four, except for four of us (plus the two who lived there), who seemed to think it was a good idea to keep drinking. Until six. At which point there was major highschool-ish drama about the sleeping arrangements as Ingrid was whining amusingly about wanting someone to hold her (methinks this may have been prompted by her bridesmaid dress fashion show) and it was just weird, four boys and two girls and two beds plus a pullout. The dynamics of trying to go to bed (for sleeping) with a bunch of other very drunk, mostly single peers, all of whom are in their mid- to late-twenties shouldn't be so hard, right? Except it was, and Steve and I started to sleep on the pullout but that left Rachel alone as both John and Alice were with Ingrid and her holding needs and she didn't want to sleep on the pullout with us (duh, she has a lovely bed but we didn't want all the setting up of the couch to go to waste) so we went up there with her. She gave us pajama pants, it was a lovely gesture. Except then I couldn't stop laughing which would make Steve start and at this point we'd regressed to about seventh grade. And I'm pretty sure I got felt up but I chose to ignore that as who could tell if it was intentional or caused by some booze/half-sleep combo? Plus my breasts, they are hard to resist. Or something.

Ingrid woke us at about 10:30 and I was mostly okay except for a headache but she was still drunk and the rest were way hung over. So we went to brunch, except for Steve who had stuff to do and Rachel, who got sick. We are far far too old for this, so why do we keep doing it? Saturday I just met Arielle for a beer at Grace, it was far more subdued and my liver was relieved. And she's engaged, so she likes to ask me about singlehood and at least with weirdness like that I have much to amuse her with.

As for Tim on Sunday, again it was Tim-less. The host was the guy who is NBC's White House correspondent and he is no Tim. Russ Feingold was first, I really like him. Except I think he must be lonely since Wellstone died since that makes him just about the only true Progressive left in the Senate. And the whole running for President thing was brought up (can we seriously call a moratorium on that until after the 2006 election is over? Pretty please?) which he hedged on. And of course I'd vote for him, but he has the same problem as Rendell and Spitzer and Schumer which is: he's Jewish. And sorry, but I really really don't think we'll have a Jewish president, at least not in the near future. I wish it wasn't the case, but I really feel like anti-Semitic feelings are swelling in this country, in the Christian communities and in certain segments of the Left. Anyway, then was Trent Lott, who has a book out. I just don't like him. Maybe it is the accent, maybe the racism, maybe the other forms of bigotry, maybe it is because I think we could really do better without the state of Mississippi. Though I do like that he apparently rips on Frist in his book and hedged on whether Frist would have his support in 2008. It was mean while still being rather politic and diplomatic, which was fun to see. Since it was directed at another Southern Senator I'd love to see gone. Anyway, let's hope Tim is back soon, his replacements suck and they don't push the guests hard enough. And because I miss him.

Return of the Torsos!

2005-08-17T22:23:00.000-04:00

The torsos, they have returned. Sort of.

The sidewalk outside Frankiln Field was torso-free for about two weeks, when suddenly...torsos again! Except this time, the torsos were being undressed and deflated. The clothes and the sad, flattened torsos were being packed onto big pallets and wrapped in plastic. I noticed that the torsos all had straps on them, probably to stop them from flying off and being escaped torso balloons.

I realized: people were getting paid to inflate dress, undress, deflate, and stack torsos. Probably a bunch of 22-year-old PAs. So why am I in graduate school?! I could be a professional torso wrangler! Seriously, I bet I am totally overqualified for this. I would be the bestest little torso wrangler ever, I swear.

Fun fact about Philly: the tree streets are named in order of descending hardness from north (Chestnut) to south (Pine). This also makes me feel better, since I was totally convinced that there was such a thing as a Sansom tree and I just didn't know because I'm not horticulturally inclined. Screw you, William Penn! Also, in reference to the damn NYT Sunday Styles piece, Philadelphia has never, ever, on pain of no longer ripping on Jersey referred to itself as "the sixth borough." NEVER. The only assclowns who might possibly utter such a phrase have obviously not spent more than a week in this city (or they're Jessica Pressler). Philadelphia is NOT the new Brooklyn, for fuck's sake don't try to make it the new Brooklyn! Yes, rent is eons cheaper than NYC (though you can't get an $800 1br on the Square itself, those are mostly highrise condos) but good luck getting a decent job. SEPTA sucks, the schools are a mess, and the public library is in Dewey. I really like Philadelphia. Really. But if fucking Brooklyn people (many of whom aren't really Brooklyn people, they're from everywhere else in the country and couldn't afford to move to Manhattan) move here and drive up prices even more, bad things will happen to them. Keep your $5 beer and overpriced studios in NYC and leave me with my $700 1br (with yard!) and my $1.75 bottles of Lager.

But Jersey sucks, right? I mean, we've got that in common.

Timwatch 8/14

2005-08-15T21:51:00.000-04:00

Meet the Press without Tim just isn't the same. In fact, it sucks ass. His sub was some woman (Andrea Mitchell) who had that awful Barbara Walters-type inflection. Ugh. The first guest was our ambassador to Iraq being optimistic (no, really - the insurgents are losing!) and then was Joe Biden. Now, we all know I like Joe Biden. But he's already said he's running in 2008 and while there is no doubt I'd vote for him I actually think the man has a smaller chance of getting elected than Hillary. I mean, he's from Delaware. I'd forget it was a state if it wasn't 20 minutes away with cheap booze outlets and I'm guessing most Americans, not being the beneficiaries of said booze, have no clue where it is. Second, the whole plagiarism thing. Third, he's had two aneuyurisms. Ouch. But hey, he's always great on Meet the Press! After Biden was the lamest roundtable ever, there were only two guests and one was this asshat Byron York of the National Review, who is like Tucker Carlson without the charm. Or the bowtie. The man's face just makes me want to spit, even before he opens his mouth.

So all in all a pretty craptacular Meet the Press. The one good thing I learned? Meet the Press Podcast! Now, it won't be as much fun as the show since you can't critique Tim's tie via podcast but it seems like a good deal for those times I sleep through it. Damn alcohol. Anyway, you can get it on the Meet the Press page here.

In life news, my life is lame. I went to a dinner party Thursday night where six of us drank 4 or 5 bottles of wine and had very very excellent food (salmon in puff pastry) made by Kathy's bf since they got back together. Again. And he decided to get off to a good start by making dinner for a bunch of science girls. I was impressed not only by the food but by the fact that he actually has dorkier tattoos than I do. I mean, a DNA armband pales in comparison to getting your name done in binary on the scale of dorktastic commitment. And I went to another West Philly party this weekend, but it was too hot to dance and I wasn't really drunk enough and there weren't really any boys of note. Though the scientist-to-normal-people ratio was refreshingly low.

The advisor is away again, which means two-hour lunches, Happy Hour, coming late, leaving early, and yet somehow managing to get far more done than I normally do. Sometimes I think that is she was away more I'd be a lot closer to finishing this damn degree. The program average has climbed to 6.5 years, which sounds like a really long time until you realize that many people had to take 7 or 8 to push the average that high. The thought of eight years of this is what wakes me up in the middle of the night shaking.

Timwatch 8/7

2005-08-08T21:31:00.000-04:00

Maybe it was fact that I was so hungover I couldn't stomach any coffee yet, but Sunday's Tim really pissed me off.

First off was the whole Roberts/Catholic/scary issue. Though my lovely Mario Cuomo was on (sweetie, I love you, but those are some very very big eyebags) giving a very polite verbal beat-down to some conservative Catholic from Pepperdine, my head really wanted to leak out my ears so all I could do was notice that Mr. Pepperdine wasn't making very many apt points. If the Church wasn't so up on threatening to excommunicate people for disagreeing with them, this wouldn't be such an issue. Plus, it is mean: excommunication just seems really awful. And hypocritical, since I haven't seen them threatening to excommunicate Catholic Congressmen who voted to invade Iraq or who support the death penalty or have (GASP!) used birth control. I think asking a Court nominee what he would do if upholding the Constitution will get him denied communion or excommunicated is a legit query. And the whole debacle reinforces my love of Judiasm in all its nonevangelical glory. My pledge: if one day I am elected or appointed to public office, I will not try to push the tenets of my faith on all the citizens of the nation. That is to say: don't worry, your pork chops are safe.

Then the real badness started when Tim had on two people to "debate" whether vaccines cause autism. Slow news week, anyone? It just brought up every reason I hatehatehate coverage of science in the lay press. I don't know if the general public is really or lazy or what but any actual read of the evidence shows that thimerosal did not cause the rise in autism, okay? Repeat after me: a temporal correlation is not causation. A temporal correlation is not causation. Better? Aside from the fact that none of the epidemiological studies have shown a link between vaccination and autism, the whole idea is a bit off. Yes, mercury is very bad and poison-y and such. But the big scary mercury, the one that keeps pregnant women away from fish, is methylmercury. Thimerosal is ethylmercury, which is not the same thing. An analogy: your friendly neighborhood vodka is ethyl alcohol. The bottle of alcohol that will blind you and possibly kill you is methyl alcohol. Now while ethanol may not be all that great for you, saying that because methanol causes hard core damage ethanol does too is just crap. Get it? Of course, we all know that the vaccine/autism link is being suppressed by the Big Evil Scientist Conspiracy. Those nasty educated scientists thinking that with their statistics and their studies and their logic and their peer-review process they can prove me wrong! Ha!

Sorry, but shit like this just infuriates me. Have I mentioned that there is no global warming and that the universe's complexity is evidence that it had to be Designed lately?

Off the soapbox, I need to not talk to people when I'm drunk as I do things like admit to having had a crush on Formerly Primary Science Crushboy to said boy. In my defense, he started the conversation. Though I'm not sure how it metamorphosed to my little confession, but whatever. The funniest part was right after the phrase "you had your chance" escaped my lips, he looked at me, and I looked away and said "I am not drunk enough to have this conversation with you." Um, yeah. Who knew that two-dollar Lionshead was actually truth serum?

New Philadelphia Tourism Slogan

2005-08-05T16:11:00.000-04:00

So last week I was walking to lab when I saw the following outside Franklin Field:

That is, a big pile of head and torso only inflatable mannequins in various states of inflation, and people putting clothes on them. I knew there was a reason I started carrying my camera: random shit happens all the time here.

Anyway, turns out that the torsos are to be used in a crowd scene for an upcoming movie with Mark Whalberg, who will forever remain Marky Mark in my heart. That's right kids: Marky Mark himself is in Philly and he's going to be doing some of that "acting" stuff on this very campus. Interestingly, Donnie Whalberg (better known as "Bad New Kid") was also filming something here last year. He stayed by the convention center and apparently ate at Chili's almost every night, where he ordered the same stupid chicken thing that wasn't actually on the menu (I know because our current lab tech served him). There are TONS of great restaurants here, why anyone would choose Chili's is beyond me.

Now, if you're keeping track, that is two whole Whalbergs. I think the current Philly tourism slogan - "the city that loves you back - just really, really sucks. Though not as much as the gay tourism slogan (yes, Philadelphia is specifically trying to get gay tourists. Seems to me that not re-electing Santorum would be a better message than some lame ad campaign, but whatever), which is "Get your history straight and your nightlife gay." My slogan? "Philly. Good enough for Whalbergs." It works, right?

Lawyer's Daughter

2005-08-02T17:24:00.000-04:00

So Saturday night Rachel, Ingrid, Cassia, and I went to a chichi dinner and then to a bar that I will not name since rumor had it there was a dollar-drink happy hour until ten. Except there wasn't, the bar was insanely bad (in the New Jersey way) and there were two bachelorette parties going on. Not exactly my people. So we went next door to another bar that I also shall not name, as I am embarrassed that my pointy-toed shoes ever crossed the threshold. In fairness, none of us had been to said bar, we just knew that there was a good shot of getting cheap booze until ten, that it was next door, and that there would be a dance floor. Having somehow weasled out of the six-dollar cover, we went in, had cheap booze, and made fun of people. I should say that at this point I could tolerate the music as it was all 80s pop, though more top 40 pop than I'd like. The people, though...all former frat boys and their female counterparts, totally bridge-and-tunnel drinkers. Then two guys that worked there started pulling girls up onto these ledges and pouring booze down their throats. Right out of the bottle. I should point out that the four of us were not doing a good job of hiding as we got sent up too and I must admit that I had some strange guy tilt my head back and pour faux Midori straight down the back of my throat. To the tune of "Humping Around" at that. I stayed out of the line of fire after that, though Ingrid and Cassia also got up for an unidentified red bottle.

My first thought after I got down from the booze ledge? "There has to be some sort of liability issue there." Seriously, how have they not gotten sued after a car wreck or sexual assault or something? Especially since most of their patrons will be driving over the Delaware to re-enter Jersey?

Anyway, I stayed for a bit but once the damn new R&B/MTV crap started playing, Rachel and I left and went to 700 Club. Of course. And since I was drunk and thus prone to stupidity, I told her about last weekend's events and while I made her swear on pain of facial mutilation not to tell anyone, I still think that telling was a bad idea. Eventually Cassia and Ingrid came to 700 too, Cassia and I danced and talked to boys that weren't from New Jersey and all was good in the world again.

Tim was boring this weekend, mostly talk of NASA. Why do journalists feel the need to keep asking astronauts about whether they believe there is other intelligent life out there, anyway? Can't they come up with any legitimate astrophysics questions? Like whether Pluto should really be classified as planet? Grrr. But good news in the political world: Santorum has said he won't run in 2008 and since I've convinced myself he's losing his upcoming re-election (though I won't vote for Casey as he is antichoice and I still vote in NY anyway), that might just bring us into a Santorum-free age. And Pataki isn't running for governor again since everyone knows Spitzer was totally going to kick his ass. So, two good things in politics in one week: haven't seen that in awhile. Though I'm still boning up on my Gordon Lightfoot, just in case.

Grad Student Insurance Needs to Cover Valium

2005-07-29T18:07:00.000-04:00

(Science ahead)
So on Tuesday I gave my advisor a draft of my revised grant application. She had told me to add more stuff about estrogen and axonal sprouting, since I was proposing something like that, so I did. Except THEN she told me to take out all the hormone parts (i.e. half the damn experiments) and just propose to look at sex differences. Oh, and ditch the oxytocin aim and propose a retrograde study as aim 2. And propose some neonatal stuff too (since one to tell whether a sex difference observed in adults is organizational you expose neonatal female to testosterone and she's masculinized forever so you can see if her brain "looks" male or female), which I've never done before and would involve digesting massive amounts of previous studies enough to write about them. And she's going away next week, so this had to be done in three days.

Well, I gave it a shot. And then Wednesday one of my rec writers said he couldn't do my rec after all as he was going out of town. And I was hopelessly lost on my rewrite. So I did what any normal grad student would do: I wound up laying on the floor of the conference room in the fetal position crying silently as my labmates looked at each other and debated calling my advisor. Not my proudest academic moment, I admit. My advisor appeared in search of tea, spotted me, asked if I was okay (yeah, since I totally do this all.the.time) and asked if we needed a chat. The upshot is I'm now holding off until the December deadline for my NRSA, by which point I will actually understand what it is she wants me to propose. Except that I won't because she'll change her mind again.

And I get to go to a three-day stereology course, ending the day before the Neuroscience convention. Now, a convention with 30,000 scientists at which you present your date and spend five days attending talks, posters, and drinking your ass off with your fellow grad students is exhausting. I'm not sure how I'll hold up after spending the previous three days immersed in the finer points of mathematically counting cellular objects. And I hate stereology and the transportation logistics are a nightmare. But at least I'll be forced to finish my SFN poster a bit ahead of time, so no backlog for the poster printer!

Still no phone call. I've realized the main drawback of sleeping with friends: if they act jerky afterwards by, say, not calling, you're friends with a jerk who doesn't call. And while it may be that many of my male friends are this way, I don't usually have to know about it. I mean, I don't really want to be friends with jerks! I know some will say it is more general boy weirdness than jerkiness but I happen to think that boy weirdness IS jerkiness. So there. Though I suppose it is helping my "we shall never speak of this again" plan. Except I never wanted to stop speaking entirely, I just cringe at the thought of speaking about the events of last Saturday night/Sunday morning between the hours of 2 and 4:30 am. I've never quite mastered the whole "communication" thing, especially when it is the boy/relationship/I've seen you naked sort of thing.

Sixteen Again

2005-07-26T16:20:00.000-04:00

First off, guess who hasn't called yet? Yeah, nothing like brooding to make a girl really regret something.

I've been thinking about high school. I blame him. And I've felt sort of like a teenager again lately - all boy-crazy but confused, weirdly oscillatory moods, listening to the Cure. I don't really think I've changed that much since high school. Misha's cousin Carrie always used to say the reason their family liked me so much then (age 14-16) was because I was bitter and sarcastic, which meshed well with that clan. I'm still bitter and sarcastic, maybe even more so. I'm still the smart girl, the weird sort of crazy smart girl at that.

The thing is, I don't think I had one of those awful soul-scarring high school experiences that so many people seem to have had. I had friends, a boyfriend, some side boyfriends, and I was never really targeted for the sort of torture and ridicule that others were subjected to. I wasn't one of the super-popular girls, either. Yeah, I have some good stories of various people being mean to me or whatever, but they demonstrate how much many of my peers sucked more than anything about me - like the infamous Lesbian Drinking Fountain Incident. I'd bet that people said horrible things about me behind my back, but I wasn't aware of too much of it.

I was at a graduation party on University where all of us were drinking and Liz had just gotten back from Thailand and later we'd make out and look up to find many of the boys we'd just graduated with peering at us from inside the house, overwhelmed. And I asked Matt Ball, who I'd known as a kid but only "rediscovered" that year since we had a crazy psych class together in 3-1-3, to honestly tell me what my reputation had been. He was in more of the jockish caste so I figured he knew. Without hesitation, he said, "druggie nymphomaniac, but smart." I'm guessing that was the consensus. Since I did indeed have a lot of sex and I took a lot of drugs (though less than I did in college) and most people I hung out with were older and I dated college boys from age 15 on and I just never really played the stupid high school popularity games.

But I also hung out with people who were total nerds. I mean, those were the kids in my classes and in Quiz Club and all. And they were fantastic and just as warped and twisted as everyone else - I mean, duty sheep! And gross misadventures of Mr. Polchetti! Despite my unofficial extracurriculars, I was still the girl that got straight A's. Except I took advantage of my academic position to get away with stuff like cutting class and having sex in the darkroom and trying to get Student Council to let same-sex couples get a couple's ticket to the winter ball. What were they going to do to me? I was great on paper, all A's and volunteering, and me leaving that school would have dropped their average test scores. Plus, FHS never admitted to having any problems. I recall three pregnant girls from my year who just...vanished.

I'm wondering if who I remember being in high school is who I really was. And whether my present is more colored by what I think of as my high school era or how it really was. I feel like I was really out of place in my high school, but that was my own choosing. And not out of place like ostracized, more just separate from most of the little everyday dramas. By my senior year, I was taking more classes at the college than I was at the high school and a lot of my life had adjusted accordingly. Plus, Misha left and Liz was overseas and Jason's family moved to Florida and everything was just different. My parents were finally splitting up and I was partying and dating a 27-year-old for a bit and staying out until 4am and working at the college bookstore. So I was even more separate from the FHS scene that I'd ever been, which is why I think I have such different recollections of how things were there.

There are a lot of people I wonder about. And a few that I'd like to find. But I probably won't look, because I'm always figuring that someone will find me if they want to. Which they won't.

Timwatch 7/24

2005-07-24T11:59:00.000-04:00

As expected, Tim this morning was all about the Roberts nomination to the Court. First up was former senator Thompson, who is apparently filtering the info about Roberts to help him get confirmed. Anyway, I can't separate him from Law and Order. Maybe the administration thinks that his TV persona will help or something, but I find it very distracting. Especially since I never liked his character. Then Senator Durbin, who I've never really paid attention to. So I didn't really learn anything: there is going to be a fight, Democrats will ask questions, Roberts will try to dodge. Yawn.

The highlight was Tim's shoutout to Cansius. Woo, Western NY! That and actually seeing Nina Totenberg - I love her reports on NPR and I'm always really curious as to what radio people look like. So, she looks younger than I pictured. And you can tell she's usually on radio because her outfit was awful. Yikes.

In other news (big news): ohmygod I totally slept with a friend last night. Not the friend from the cab last week either. That's what happens when party-hopping leads you to a party with a Casio-based band in the basement flashing you right back to being an undergrad, overconsumption from the kegs of Lager included. I think that was a very, very bad idea. I crush on friends all the time - I mean, they're boys and they're around, right? - but that's usually where it ends. Unless you count LP in high school, but he was a former raging crush and not really a friend and that was more about proving something to myself. And him and my former best friend. Really twisted in retrospect. So now I'm all discombobulated. Such a violation of my "never see another scientist naked" policy can't be ignored but I really, really don't want to talk about it either. This is very much not good. And it isn't something I can talk about with a lot of my friends, since obviously they're all friends with him too. (Jessy: you totally almost got a phone call at 7 this morning when he left. Luckily I realized that normal people are sleeping.)

Yeah. And I'm working on my NRSA resubmission and trying to get through all this histology from all the rats I was dealing with the last two weeks and trying not to totally have a big freakout. My brain hurts. I don't know what I want at all.

I'm Proposing a New Hankie Code

2005-07-19T17:59:00.000-04:00

Poor Suzanne, got all interested in someone she was dating, only to have him turn out to be a Republican. Who not only voted for Bush (twice!) but is one of those active Bush supporters, volunteering and shit. And he lives in the gayborhood! Poor dear Suzanne was so upset when he told her, she kicked him out of her apartment. A move that required a lot of strength considering it meant no super fun frolicking activities. And since my infamous Republican from back in May as well as another one I found who is tall and fun and can quote Young Frankenstein (the bastard) I've decided that for the good of all of us, the Republicans need to be marked somehow so future Suzannes do not have to suffer.

Enter the Republican Hankie Code. Only it isn't going to be cute little pocket bandanas, there are too many skinny hipsters sporting those. No, I've decided that the symbol for Republicans should be bunny ears. Because bunny ears are hilarious, totally not macho, and elephant ears would be way too obvious. They'd be color-coded, of course - I'm thinking camo for the military-type (or chickenhawk, as it were) Republicans, pink for the hard-core Christian activist "I hate gays and know what you should be doing with your uterus" types, purple for the libertarian-ish, blue for the business ones...you get the picture. So that way if I met someone in a bar I'd know right away that he was a Republican-leaning libertarian and could ascertain just where he stood on things and who he'd voted for before even giving him my number. Because I am sick of wasting my time and my fabulous hotness on people who think what America really needs is even more capital gains tax cuts.

In other news...far too busy in lab, weird random rat deaths, frustration. Weekend: drinking, more drinking, dancing, kissing of very good friend in cab, extreme hangover, barbecue, new Harry Potter. With much hyper-analysis of the friend/cab/lips incident, which said friend and I have not discussed despite sharing one of those post-indulgence "we're far too hungover to move so let's just hang out" days. I thought I knew what I wanted: a boy I could call a few times a week who wouldn't stay over and who would be separate from my social circle to avoid that whole mess. And while I still don't want a boyfriend in general, would I make an exception for someone who was already a friend? Really, what I'm sure will happen is that we won't talk about it at all, we'll get drunk again, and we'll repeat the cycle. Which I'm actually not opposed to.

At least I know for sure he isn't a Republican.

Timwatch 7/10 and More Lab Fun

2005-07-11T16:57:00.000-04:00

Much-varied Meet the Press yesterday, much about post-London mass transit scary terrorist stuff. And the Supreme Court. Chuck Schumer doesn't look good on TV. Though Chertoff looked like hell too. Maybe there wasn't a makeup artist for the guests yesterday or something, because everyone's skin was sort of sallow and greyish. I'm a political junkie, and am especially into Constitutional stuff, but I'm already getting bored of the O'Connor replacement speculation. I'm sick of people talking about the coming fight, just let the knock-down drag-out start already and let me organize my "get your ass to Canada" paperwork.

Otherwise, I did lots and lots of rat brain surgery. And have been trying to avoid most of my labmates, since they've really been getting on my nerves. People! I DO NOT want to talk to you in the morning, especially if you're always perky and constantly asking stupid questions! It takes a good two hours for all my coffee to penetrate my cells and render me able to engage in human interactions, trying to engage me before that point will only result in me clawing your face off. And stop making nasty loud eating noises, that's why I keep not eating lunch with all of you. Ew.

Much as I like Philadelphia, the summer stench is starting to get to me. Probably because of how magnified the odor gets at 97 degrees. Like river sludge and trash and decomposing things all wafting up together. I fear the day I'll be dragging myself in all hungover and wind up puking off the bridge from the stench, thus adding to the general misery of the city. Perhaps I should look into mass transit for those days. Though when it is this hot, the human odor can get rather rank as well. Dear South Philly: using even more aftershave in July is not a subsitute for deodorant. Sorry.

I Think I've Become Magnetic

2005-07-05T17:47:00.000-04:00

Everything I touch lately breaks. My computer is still dead, though I finally sent it off to Sony last week to see if they can resurrect it. Watch me get back some lame zombie-like computer, tryung to eat my brains when I'm not paying attention. My car...I fixed the tire and got the hood latch replaced so my hood actually closes now, which is good safety-wise. But the A/C is way broken, they want over a thousand dollars to fix it, plus I still don't really have a rear suspension system. And to add insult to injury, my iPod broke and I've had to send it off to Apple. I think my mere touch must be rearranging circuits.

We still haven't gotten the R01 in. So more lab, forever and ever world without end. I hid in the microscope all morning because I couldn't stand the thought of talking to my labmates. Not a good sign when you think about it.

A boy from my hometown a bit younger than my sister immolated himself. My father told me about that part but was all caught up in the fire aspects of it. My mom mentioned that he'd committed suicide but didn't know how. I'd been assuming that he lived and was just going to have a nightmarish recovery since dad neglected to tell me the "and he's dead" part of the story. I've always thought that being burned would be the worst way to die. The boy's family used to own the local department store, it is a Big Lots now. Which sucks, since I used to play at the makeup counter when I was a kid and my mom went to buy boring adult clothes. I'm not sure there are any locally-owned stores left at home. Not big ones, anyway. Wal-Mart or nothing.

"Its like trying to make an ice sculpture out of water" : Recap of SBN

2005-06-27T10:28:00.000-04:00

So I safely returned from Texas and days just jam-packed with discussion of the rat love. And the lizard, fish, naked mole rat, bird, and hamster love. One hell of a society, SBN. Anyway, it is really small - there are only a few hundred members - but they're a pretty diverse group of people. Lots of science was discussed and presented in poster form and I don't feel like getting into that. My poster did indeed get finished and actually didn't look nearly as craptacular as I was anticipating. Most people went right by but the people that stopped to talk about it were super-interested, which is good. I guess even at SBN hardcore anatomy is a niche market.

Austin is way way way too hot but the beer is damn cheap. Ummm...I met for lunch with Laura, which shows the benefits of being part of the international craft mafia: you'll know people everywhere. And I got very very drunk with some postdocs and met a whole lot of Canadians. Except some of them are really Americans in Canada and others are Canadians in America, you can only tell by making them say "sorry" a few times. So, the first night I went out with postdocs and the second out for dinner with the advisor, who left the meeting early and didn't really hang out at all. Seriously, people kept asking me where she was and why she hadn't alked to them. Since I, as her grad student, can totally know where she is, what she is up to, and her motivations for whatever the first two are at all times. I really wish she was more social since networking is so important in this field and it would be a big help to my future if she'd actually, you know, introduce me to people. So for all practical purposes I was the only person from Penn there and totally didn't know anybody. Yes, I met people and that was great but I could've used the leg up at the beginning, you know?

Right, the fun parts. So Friday night there was a meeting about political-ish stuff but it was more public policy and education and what/how we as a society should address things. And how to get people to know we exist. This was where I met all the Lehigh people, since they had beer and invited me to drink it with them. One good thing about Texas: you can buy all sorts of booze, not just beer, at CVS. Fun fun fun, though a bit obsessed with ass/poop jokes. I've found many scientists to be obsessed with juvenalia (myself included), probably because we spend so much time doing advanced logic-y thinking we need a break. Ha ha, I said poop. Saturday night was the banquet, open bar for two hours, cash after that. But...there was also a cash bar at the poster sessions and I was totally painfully obsessed with the one bartender. I honestly have never come across someone so man-pretty in my life. Then he was bartending at the banquet, so not only did I get to talk with him, I got free drinks even after I wasn't supposed to. And we were supposed to go out, but didn't since he didn't get to call until after two am at which point I'd already come back from the bars and was just staying up until the cab came to take me and the Lehigh people to our abscenely early (6 am!) flights. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So, dreamy bartender and more mayhem with Lehigh people, plus a Canadian transplanted to Georgia, all drinking and a little dancing and general embarassment. But everyone, even the grownup important sciencey people were drunkety so really it was okay. Dreamy bartender was a philosophy major and is applying to law school in the hopes of doing immigration law and is very nice but I'm sure I'll never see him again. Sigh. Aren't there any immigration law programs in the Northeast?

So I went to the bars post-banquet - like 1 am - with Jeannie from Lehigh and Aras from Georgia state (who is actually a professor and former Canadian) to some dive, the Jeannie and I stayed up and found all the other Lehigh people and cabbed it to the airport before 4am. Because nothing says "fun" like flying drunk, then hungover. No! Sleep! 'Til Cleveland! (btw, no direct flights between Philly and Austin...grrr.) Upon my return, I discovered that my car has one tire that is totally flat but as I've never changed one before it is still sitting there, sad and deflated outside my apartment. While I wasn't hung over anymore, I did feel like shit and totally haven't unpacked yet. Sleep is for the weak! As is unpacking!

Yes. In conclusion, the meeting didn't suck nearly as much as I feared. Now we'll see if we can get our big R01 out by Friday, without which we won't be funded to do things like go to fun meetings. Or any of that "science" stuff we're supposed to be doing.

More Timwatch and Badness

2005-06-20T18:52:00.000-04:00

Tim yesterday was all John McCain. Is it just me, or does he seem kind of down? Like he's been so relentlessly trampled by the dogmatic hardcore Republicans that he just really, really needs a nap? Also, did he get a too-short haircut or has his jaw always looked that weirdly swollen? Seriously, my face looked like that after I got all of my (impacted) wisdom teeth out. Except with sexy greenish-yellow bruises along the jawline. I think Tim is widening, too. Can you get beef on weck in DC?

Still not done putting together my poster for the SBN meeting. It doesn't help that a bunch of stuff I really need is on my dead, sad, blown-up computer and NO I don't back it up regularly (as in, since November) and YES I really should do that but for fuck's sake regret really isn't moving this poster forward so shut up! More NIH Image analysis, yet no more data. But I did go to Indian buffet with the ex last night after I got out of lab at 8:30. He really is a great guy, we should have broken up eons before we actually did since I do enjoy hanging out with him, just not in the relationship way. Plus, the boy is an Indian buffet machine and it is really entertaining to watch.

I bought this thing with which to hack at the massive mutant weeds in my yard and pots and dirt and seeds in the hopes of breaking my streak of killing every plant that has the misfortune of being in my care. Of course, the landlord still hasn't taken the old broken fridge out of the yard. Maybe I'll plant things in it or something. I still need a table, and something flat to put the table on. I really really want to have a party for Canada Day/my belated birthday/apartment warming but with this stupid meeting I have to go to I'm not sure I'll be able to pull it together in time. Really, I just want an excuse to drink lots of Molson and have more cute maple leaf bottle caps to make magnets out of.

Fork-in-the-Eye Bad

2005-06-16T10:14:00.000-04:00

I spent 11 and a half hours in the lab yesterday and today doesn't look like it is going to be any better. First the electron microscope wasn't cooperating and by the time it was working again my day had officially been delayed by about three hours. Then there wasn't anything good on my grids anyway. My rats refused to go to sleep and I'm not one for doing perfusions with rats that are even the tiniest bit awake, so...more lost time. And then to crown my day, hours and hours of image analysis with NIH Image just to realize that I still have no data. I hate NIH Image, it doesn't even work on PCs so I have to use one of the lab macs and I really hate them, they crash all the damn time.

Of course, my computer won't turn on so it isn't like I could use it anyway. Fun fact: my abstract for the SBN meeting (which is in six days) is on that computer and apparently noplace else. This meeting hasn't published an abstract guide so I have no idea what it even said and I have no way to find out. Sort of makes putting together the poster tricky. Of course, as I have no data to put in the poster...you see where I'm going with this. I'm supposed to present at lab meeting in 40 minutes. I have nothing to say and am considering just breaking down in tears. I actually considered shoving those plastic forks from ABP into my eyes yesterday in the midst of the image analysis hell, but I realized that they probably weren't sterile and my advisor would come up with some way for me to do imaging with forks in my eyes anyway. Just adjust the microscope so the forks don't get in the way!

This will be the worst summer ever: the meeting next week, my advisor's RO1 deadline July 1, my advisor's NSF deadline July 10, my NRSA resubmission deadline August 5 and sometime in there I have to have a thesis committee meeting, except it is impossible to get all of us in the same room at the same time. I'm not sure when I'm supposed to do actual science with all the writing and editing I'm going to have to do for all of those grants, but of course my actual science is needed to give us a shot at actually being funded. Whoring yourself out for federal dollars is really a pain in the ass.

I should've gone to law school.

Return of Timwatch

2005-06-13T17:33:00.000-04:00

So I bought an antenna for my TV and I now get nine whole channels! Including NBC, so I can get my Tim fix. Awwwww yeaahhh. Except it was really boring yesterday...things in Iraq suck, basically. Though Joe Biden was on and I like him, at least most of the time.

My laptop is dead. Very very dead, won't even turn on dead and I spent an hour on the phone with various asshats from Sony this morning trying to convince them that yes, I did have the extended warranty so pleeease fix it for me. Except I have to send it off to CA to get fixed, and find proof of the warranty. Since I'm guessing it is either the internal power source or the motherboard, and those are Very Expensive To Fix and as my car already has a hood that won't shut, no rear suspension, and dead AC and I have to pay for all that furniture I was forced to buy...yeah it better be covered. This broke thing is really no fun.

In good news...Sloan was awesome on Saturday. The opening band was okay, their best feature was that the lead singer was wonderfully man-pretty. Conor Oberst-type pretty, only he had some lame preppie blonde girl dragging him around after their set. But I talked to two Sloan people this time, as always impressing the Canadians with my knowledge of the NDP. Oh, and snagged a set list (take that, Certain Filmmaking Ex!). Anderson was impressed not only by my enthusiasm (I'm not sure he's seen me be that exuberant, at least not while sober) but with my ability to get to talk to the band. Really, I'm a cute girl with a unique tattoo, it isn't rocket science. However, I did not accomplish my goal of marrying a Canadian and moving up North and getting myself some of that tasty socialized medicine. Sigh.

I Hate Global Warming

2005-06-07T18:30:00.000-04:00

Ninety degrees in early June is not okay. It is eyeliner-meltingly hot and I prefer my eyeliner to be on my eyes, not running down my cheeks. So I'm cranky and really missing Buffalo. Say what you want about the massive piles of snow we have at least six months of the year, the summers are very lovely.

I'm melting and my AC keeps blowing the fuse in the bedroom. Stupid old rowhouse wiring. I've been biking since I'll be just as sweaty if I walk and I can't bear to be moving outdoors very long anyway. Nothing says "ready for lab" like coming in dripping with sweat and bike chain grease.

Brilliant thunderstorm last night, though. It was fun to watch from the 14th floor of BRB (where the post-lame SIB retreat dinner was), at least until the rain started coming in the roof. Good thing my lab is here in this impenetrable Cold War-era fortress. I may not have windows but I don't get rained on either. Especially fun was the four glasses of wine, free! And then the quizzo and $6 pitchers. Because neuroscientists aren't afraid to get trashed on a Monday and then do rat brain surgery the next day. Shaky hangover hands just increase the degree of difficulty.

Full Disclosure

2005-06-01T13:19:00.000-04:00

Some things I think should be disclosed pre-nudity:
-That you have a girlfriend
-That you're a Republican
-That not only did you vote for Bush (twice!) you also voted for Perot
-That you've been to jail...for tagging
-That you have, in fact, smoked crack

Something I never, ever want to hear in bed:
"I'm really really into anal"
"Giving or receiving?"
"Receiving?! I'm not gay!"

I've taken to screening my calls. Obviously.

Random Bits From Philadelphia

2005-05-24T15:50:00.000-04:00

Are all cities blessed with as much weird random stuff as Philly? Some fun recent examples:

Yesterday on my walk home across the south Street Bridge (you know, the one with the giant holes that allow you to look down and see the yummy yummy Schuylkill beneath you) I saw a middle-aged German-looking man had pulled his bike over into one of the sort of lookout recesses on the bridge and was drinking a can of Beast. Just hangin' out. As he didn't seem to be carrying any beer, I have no idea where the can of beast came from.

Sunday evening, driving back from ghetto Pathmark. I was driving down Carpenter and stopped at a stop sign when three guys on HORSES turn from 24th to carpenter and gallop down the street. Not cops either - just random dudes on horseback in the middle of the city. I should mention that this is not my first weird Philly equine sighting: in the fall, I was walking home across the bridge when I saw some middle-aged black guy riding a horse across towards Penn. Not a cop or anything, just some dude on a horse. I don't get it.

A guy carrying a huge stepladder while riding his bike. I was really impressed with that one.

My block was closed most of Saturday afternoon so some kid could have a birthday party, with SpongeBob and a clown and a party jumper (didn't know those things were still in style). Except, they didn't actually shut the street down, not in any official and city-sanctioned way. They just tied used car lot-like streamer things across both ends of the street so nobody could get in or out. Apparently this happens all the time, and without any warning to neighbors who might have to, say, go to Ikea.

A very into drugs/drinking/fun boy that sort of resembles Peter Murphy and has lived here for 15 years and DJs and tags and such telling you he's a Republican. What is up with me and the Republicans lately?

And I have to be in the burbs again tomorrow. Except this time, at nine in the morning so we can carpool to fucking Baltimore for an informal conference. I am so not excited. Watch, I'll find more Republicans.

I'm Not Ready For This

2005-05-23T18:02:00.000-04:00

Saturday night went to my friend's wife's nursing school graduation party with Juan and Anderson. It was in the suburbs. We weren't warned that there were going to be actual grownups there. And children. Like, people's parents/in-laws and little mini humans toddling about and adult conversations about things like knocking out walls to build a deck. Huh? I don't even get to paint where I live, let alone make capital improvements. So the three of us are there, in the corner like good little isolationist antisocial neuroscience pod people occasionally realizing we're talking about inappropriate things, like drinking and sex and how much Bush sucks (I think it may have been the only time in my tenure at Penn at an event with Penn people that Republicans may have been the majority...burbs I guess) and stopping since we were getting sidelong glances. Yeah.

As we walked out, stunned, we were just...how did that happen? How are people ready for that sort of life now? We're thinking about starting a pool on when they have their first kid...I'm betting less than two years. Since they're already stable and married and in the burbs and voting Republican. I need to go be irresponsible some more to get this dirty feeling off my skin.

In other news, no Timwatch in the foreseeable future since NBC is not one of the channels I get. Jesus and Univision yes, but no NBC. I'm already in withrawal and pretty pissed, since I hear Dean was on yesterday getting all verbally abusive on Tom DeLay's fat Texas ass. I did, however, get furniture and I've started to put it together. Though I'll need help doing the armoire I think. Since it has a good foot on me and all. And I have a couch! And the landlord promised that I'd have an actual working fridge today, so I can go replace the ice cream that first made me cry and then melted without even getting all eaten by me. My life is so hard.

Worst Grad Student Ever

2005-05-20T18:02:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my prelim and I still haven't had my thesis committee meeting. Oops. At least I've gotten people to agree to be on it, I just can't be bothered to try and get us all into the same room. Plus, I have no data. I am still doing work, it just never goes anywhere. Some data would be really, really nice considering the SBN meeting is in a month and my n is still two. That does not exactly make for a convincing poster. I keep trying to do actual work and nothing seems to go well. I am so sick of science right now, but I don't want to do anything else either. Inertia.

In other news...getting fed up with crushboy. I saw him yesterday at a bar (I was there with other people) and we didn't really talk. I should mention that I drunken texted him last Friday about going out, and when he begged off to do work I sent him a pissy text" screw you dance floor" and then made out with some guy there. Oops. So I met another boy out last night after crushboy left. Except I might have yet another science crush. This is exhausting. And I really need a couch.

But Ice Cream is Supposed to Make You Stop Crying

2005-05-18T15:04:00.000-04:00

I've moved, except for a few little things left at the old place. I feel like poo physically despite having actually hired movers. I think it is all the dust and cat hair that had been lurking under the furniture for eons getting all up in my lungs. Ow.

Part of me thinks I really rushed into the new place thing, since I've noticed that it is sorely lacking both counter space and electrical outlets, two things that are integral to my lifestyle. And general places to store my piles of crap. But the floors are really, really nice and there are high ceilings and the yard is huge (if scarily overgrown and jungle-like). So I'll get some damn furniture and see what happens.

Except now that I'm all moved, the whole reality of the breakup thing has (finally) hit me. I mean, I really am alone, and catless. I went to the ghetto Pathmark yesterday since I had no food and there was buy one get one ice cream. And then I realized: I can pick my own ice cream flavors without regard to a certain someone's perverse enjoyment of ice cream with peanut butter in it. Which should have made me happy, but instead it ended with me crying in the ice cream section. Pathmark employees do not know what to do with a girl crying in frozen foods. Just the feeling that I'd messed up another relationship (even if it was mutual and all), the sudden crushing feeling that I'd be alone forever. Some very cruel voice saying, "No one will ever love you again." I guess I didn't really get over this yet, what with us still living together post-breakup and all. So, wham...right there in Pathmark.