Looks as though the family history of Alzheimer's disease and insulin resistance story is working out. So that'll just mean doing some brain analyses and writing a few papers. Trying to get people on board for that has been slightly easier than herding cats. Hopefully I'll make more progress on it tomorrow. At the least, doing gross volumetric brain MRI correlations with insulin resistance should be straight-forward. I wanted to do the microstructural scans first, but--well--see above.

Nearly done with revising the glucose regulation paper. Took for-bloody-ever after getting comments back from Roz. Good edits, but the thing needed a vast overhaul. Lowest Common Denominator treatment for scientists, basically.

The next two work-related sections involve Indian women with the same first and last initials. I dislike both them for entirely different reasons. There is AS with the American accent. I will call her Sassy Overprivileged Girl (SOG, Soggy, the mouthy one). Soggy got her degree from Duke. She thinks she's God's gift to academia and the world. She is frankly nothing special. She works on analyzing brain pathways. I'm allegedly her post-doc mentor, but she's outsourced to the other post-doc who tolerates her playful belittling and other insubordinate behavior. The other AS was an undergrad, got cancer, went back to India, graduated, and then for some reason came back. She's overly emotional and used to have a crush on me. We'll call her Ugly AS. I'm tempted to add another S. Did I mention I really don't like either of these people?

So. I basically have 6 undergrads doing shit for me (and soon to be more people, but more on that later). 4 of them, including Ugly AS, seem to be getting twitchy about the cortical thickness project.

Good: they're soft. They need few whip lashes for character building.

I know the lab is pretty laid back, but their current pace is unacceptable. Going over the same brain 5 or even 6 times doing edits for tiny improvements? Are you fucking kidding me? 3 times is too much. Jen O, my lieutenant in this endeavor, compromised with a few of them to 4 times. So I set down some written in stone criteria and made it very clear that we were (and we are) really behind. They're now stressed out that I'm stressed out and blah blah blah. Like I wrote, these upper middle class kids are soft and pampered. Ugly AS was basically talking shit about not being sure if she can work with me after hearing about the pace increase on Friday. That over-privileged foreigner needs to be punched in the mouth. This is the same bitch that had the hots for me and wouldn't stop with the uncomfortable comments about how cute I looked or this or that. If I ever hear her undermine my authority again, I'm going straight to Dr. Silver or threatening it. That'll shut her up and I'll never have to deal with her 'let's cultivate close relationships at work' social style. It's inefficient and makes my goddamn skin crawl. I will not have some uppity bitch who isn't even a grad student moaning and complaining and reducing the moral of people on my project.

This is how I get when anyone attempts to undermine or willfully impede my work. It is a clear lesson about me most people fail to get: I am not sweet and kind to everyone. I am not nice. I, on the contrary, relish the idea of figurative sadism against anyone who stands in my way.

So there's some drama and bullshit in my work life, but overall it's going fine. No, really.

*Social: I can't recall if I've mentioned it, but I've been spending a lot of time these last 7 weeks with Julia and her boyfriend Tom. Julia bought the scary burned out house photograph from my last show a few years ago. We'd had some convo and meant to stay in touch, but I was dating Emily at the time and it never happened. Fast-forward. I decided to Facebook her, she had some stuff her and Tom needed to move, I did, and ever since then we've done stuff roughly every other day. There was one week I saw her straight from Monday to Saturday.

It's been a steadfast, close-knit group of like-minded people who enjoy having fun. Tuesday typically consist of doing live band karaoke with the Gomers (Gomeroke) at the High Noon Saloon. I've practice a piece for awhile, but I keep getting side-tracked and not going. Wednesdays are Rifftrax, which is basically like Mystery Science Theatre 3000 but with usually modern movies. And there's the occasional 'come on over!' invite or hanging out at a bar to talk.

The situation is mildly complicated because Julia and I immediately clicked as close friends. There's some mutual attraction, but we're both old and emotionally mature enough not to let that get in the way. I may be meeting her tomorrow to talk more about the stuff we usually discuss, including past history, spiritual matters, and trying to suss out exactly what's going on.

Wouldn't change that aspect of my life for anything. I've been looking for hyper-extraverted people like her for years.

I've also been going to the Inferno almost every Saturday despite some bad experiences. I've gotten to know a few of the regulars better, like Catherine the bouncy-feisty-dance-everywhere Jewish girl (who has completely disappeared for the last few weeks), Emory the Capoiera dancing guy, and a few others. Absinth night is coming up next, and the DJ's don't suck, so that'll be a treat.

Ah but I said I went almost every Saturday. It ends up being that the 2nd of the month is "Platinum Chrome", which has nothing to do with Goth-Industrial music and explodes with the maudlin discharge of a thousand raging assholes. I don't know what Apollo is thinking bringing on some of these new DJ's. Most of them SUCK BALLS. GIGANTIC. UNDULATING. BALLS. And so a few months ago, I told myself I'd take the opportunity to visit Chicago, see Marty and Mari, hang out, and go to Club Neo there.

Well I've done that for a few months now. They convinced me to start gaming again with about 40 other people live. I was a teenager the last time I did anything like that. On the one hand, it's fun pretending to be someone else. On the other hand, I know geek culture and geeks very well. A lot of the people that attend these things are awkward or socially inept. Most of them are very smart, but I'm well aware of the loser-like qualities of some. I know I used to be shy once upon a time, but now I'm pretty successful by the standards of my industry and everything is going for me.

Neo itself is a pain in the ass to get to and the scene isn't as good as the Inferno, but there is something about it. So far, based on my limited experience, the crowd half consists of people who dress and dance the part, and the other half are these bumbling fools: the drunk bourgeoise-y couple; the guys who dress like shit and can't dance for shit; the people who stand in the middle of the dance floor and kinda jiggle sometimes with the music; and my favorite, these preppy types who go in purely for the irony of their being there. Still, Neo consistently spins some good shit, and when the beat is on it's great. I just wish it weren't in downtown Chicago.

So both it and Mari and Marty's thing are a monthly stop now.

Dating: I met someone at the last Leather and Lace. I'd danced with Jessica the month prior, but it'd been her birthday and she was really trashed. An explanation for the odd behavior, I guess. This time around we danced the same as before--I suspect because she just didn't remember last time--but I kept myself restrained. It was on the upraised part of the dance floor near the DJ section. She had what seemed like a regular cadre of friends there: the older dude in his 50's that offered protection for the ladies I'm guessing, a few women that came and went, and her good (and married with child) friend Lisa.

Lisa and I ended up getting to know each other quite well. We first attempted to rescue Jessica from a dude that was majorly up in her business. She was reciprocally up in his, however, which was complicating. I mean, as she later said to me herself, we had great symmetry going and that was a good start. But then dude who was all pawing was on the scene. I didn't understand it unless she just wanted sex without any strings. It sucked, but I wasn't about to get all touchy and make myself out to be like one of those guys. The concept of a one night stand repulses me, from an STD and emotional standpoint.

Still, I liked her, and I had a feeling. I decided to stick around, talk to Lisa, and just dance until closing time. I approached her, asked how she was, and we got to talking. She has these light gray eyes that are captivating. I said I wanted to get to know her better and asked for her number. Thing is, earlier in the night, I'd done the same thing and she hesitated, said to 'see how things went', which is a throw-away line. But now she was all smiles as she programmed my information into her phone right there. Got hers too. Somehow her and Lisa and I ended up getting to talking outside, where everyone else was congregated post-club. Talks of an after party sprung up as I talked about the shoegaze music movement. I said I was kind of a dork about knowledge stuff like that. They both proudly indicated that they, too, were dorks.

Jessica got to talking with a dude in scale mail that came up. I was having fun talking to Lisa and figured it'd net me a good recommendation (it did).

Jessica and I went out on a date the other night. I'll detail that later. In essence, it went really well and I'm excited. I'll see how that develops.

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