No, I did not fall off of the face of the earth

It's been a long time since I posted. I spent most of my summer working in the lab. My labor yielded not fruit. I am taking a week off from the lab to study for an examination in neuro-anatomy. I also took a week off in August and went to Vero Beach for a little R&R, ended up coming back to New York with a tatoo. I dated for a little while also . . . until it got scary. I dated a corrections officer that in all respects seemed "normal." The relationship was actually progressing pretty well until she turned into a "wife-beating alcoholic." Needless to say, that was the end of that. I was also thrown out of a cab for being gay not too long ago. I went out for a drink with a friend. Needless to say, my friend became intoxicated and I offered to get a cab and escort her home. In an attempt not to blow chunks in the cab, she put her head into my lap. The cabbie took one look in the rear view mirror and was all like "What the hell is going on back there?" (oh, and by the by, my drunk friend also happenes to be straight) PUHLEEZE! Are people really that egocentric? If I were going to be doing something like, um, having sex, I would do it in the comfort of my own home, not the back of some dirty, stank little cab. There were lots of firsts this summer, my first tatoo, my first taste of domestic violence, and the first time I was directly and openly discriminated against for being a lesbian. All in all, not to bad..

Duty Has no Sweet-Hearts

I am still here in the lab, setting up an experiment for tomorrow. I think that my mentor should bring in an honorary cot. Then I would never have to leave, I could bathe under the emergency showers and nap in between working. Seriously though, I am trying to crank out as much data as possible. I was invited to give a seminar of my research to some of the undergraduates at my alma matter. Pretty exciting, or boring if you're an antsy college kid that still doesn't have enough common sense to care about anything except when the next party is. Besides that, the most exciting part of my day was figuring out how to put up a comments section to my blog.

I went out to Waterworks pub on Sunday night to celebrate quitting my job. I don't think I have quit at anything in my life before this, and I have never been so happy to quit in my life. If I have learned anything from this job, I have learned that I would sooner put a gun to my head than enter the hospital for an extended period of time. The health care industry is constantly in a position of being understaffed, overworked, and underpaid. The nurses aren't making a hell of alot of money, and neither are the nurses aides, yet these are the people that are doing the bulk of patient care. Doctors aren't always making a ton of cash either. You've got to be a tough cookie to work as a nurse or something like that . . . otherwise the job will suck the life right out of you. One of the higher up nursing supervisors committed suicide in her office.

Anyway, that's all. I am looking to enjoying all of the free time I will have this weekend.

Traffic

I ride a bicycle everywhere. I have no car. I have no lisence. I do not desire either of those things. My bike is red. His name is Clifford. I can not tell you how much I despise cars. Cars with impatient souls, riding my ass and rudely honking. How much faster do they think I am going to go? I am pedaling for Pete's sake. Albany's a great place for biking . . . if you can avoid the drunken college kids and the yuppie professors with 3 kids screaming in the back seat that teach the drunken college kids.

Politics

Here I am in lab. I had some time to kill so I thought that I would make a post. I've been in my thesis lab for 3 weeks now. I sort of ended up here by default. The two other students in my class and I all wanted to go into the same laboratory. One student beat us all to the punch. When it came tume for me to pick a lab I was told that there wasn't room for me. Now I find out that the third student was offered a spot in the same lab too. Don't get me wrong, I like what I am doing.. I am happy where I am. Why can't people be honest? Why are people so worried about hurting my feelings? Just tell me the darn truth. I hate that . . . lying to spare someone's feelings. All this guy had to say was that I don't think this lab is the right place for you, or this is not a project I want a student working on. (The third student was doing different work that this guy needs done.)

Silence is Golden?

My friends have come and gone. I love them dearly, Little Green and R. You know what kind of friends I am talking about, right? Not people you just hang out with, not drinking buddies either. These are the kinds of friends that only come along once in a life time. I am talking about people that can look you square in the eyes and see into the bottom of your soul. I am talking about friends that can put their arm around you, rest their head on your shoulder, and a whole conversation has just taken place, without an exchanging words. I would take a bullet for them. I miss them. The house is too quiet.

The Grass is Always Greener . . .

As you all know if you read my introduction, I live in Albany. I have some friends coming up from Manhattan to spend the 4th of July weekend with me. One of my fellow graduate students commented, "The traffic will be terrible, everyone will be trying to get out of the city for the weekend." It just reeks of irony. Just about everyone I know from Albany and the surrounding portions of the middle of no where are going to the city for their holiday. When I lived in the city I used to complain about how crowded it was, and how all the pollution was terrible for my allergies and athsma. There weren't really any good places to go bike riding either. I moved up to Albany. There's no more pollution, now there's lots of pollen to irritate my lungs. The mountain biking is really good. Everything is spread out and far away. I miss public transportation and good take out at 3 am. Joni Mitchel said it best, "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got 'till it's gone?"

Another Quasi Unproductive Day

I actually made it into lab early this morning. Twice a week I've got a three hour doctor appointment while I sit and receive I.V. poison. So usually my mornings are shot right there and then I feel sluggish and tired the rest of the day from the chemo therapy. I made it in at 8:30 am. I was pretty excited, anticipating how much I could accomplish. The day was a total bust. I spent four hours trying to perform intracellular recording (patch clamp). Four hours and I couldn't even break into one cell. I ended up busting out of there around 3 in the afternoon only to come home and melt. It was so hot my ferret didn't even want to play. I broke down and gave him the only fan in the house. I managed to scrape myself off the floor and clean house. I've got some friends coming for the weekend . . . don't want the place to be a total sty. Afterwards I spent three hours food shopping for about 10$ worth of food (the supermarket was air conditioned).