Last night mom and I drove along the soiled left thigh of Los Angeles--not so far from our tan little mid-drift of the woods, but arguably a hell of alot more dodgy, with Discountpriceland and other urban sprawl luminaries chortling like drunk bats in the darkness. We were in search of painting supplies and lavender plants.

We finally reached the home improvement store and impregnated ourselves into the off-white flourescent gut of the thing. First we searched for the paint section. We meandered past megolith racks of wood and plastic, like sad little island nation states, whoring acres of crap the likes of which made (most) men orgasm and (most) women contemplate.

Eventually we secured the paint section, slaughtered all the indigenous dust bunnies and went to town. My objective there was simple: find a brush that vaguely resembled the one I'd accidentally left to dry and die back at Dr. Zivago's lab. At the time I thought him finding out would have one of three outcomes:

1) Dr. Ziv goes full-tilt apeshit and reads me the (pat)riot act.

2) Dr. Ziv doesn't give a shit.

3) Dr. Ziv doesn't even notice.

At first I was planning for #1 to happen. Gradually, though, I figured just admitting to fucking up would be easier. I ended up snagging a different looking paintbrush and other stuff. Back at the house I had a lengthy discussion/plastic can scrying with mom and Scott. I was still worried about the Ziv brush so we tried to figure out what sort of paint thinner we could use to clean it. After reading the "extremely poisonous, DO NOT open indoors" skull-and-crossbones labels, I completely abandoned doing anything for the forsaken thing; that bastard was on its own; I'm just a volunteer, not a DOW chemical employee.

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Wouldn't you know it, though, it ended up being option #3 when I finally did get into the lab. I thought this turn-out was even more strange since all of the chairs throughout the lab had been parked inside the main experiment room. I guess he never stuck his head into the holding room. So to this day (being the same day) I have no idea what the hell the musical chair thing was for, but I'm glad I didn't have to deal with any grief.

Our latest batch of news is that we've got 10 more undergraduates coming into the greasy folds of the lab, which is just a teensy overkill. I saw three or four of them today, all approaching in that same tentative "I'm not disturbing you, am I? I mean if I am I can like come back and stuff, I mean is it ok to talk to you like y'know now?" way.

The hilarious/sad highlight was standing in Ziv's office while he spoke with one of the prospectives. Ziv spun the same speech I'd heard a half-dozen times: vast fields of "hot" research waiting to be excavated, excellent opportunities, how the best undergrads basically 'lived' at the lab and called it 'their home', how he got to the lab at 6am, etc. etc. The one change I did like was that he referred to me as the senior lab guy. I even looked the part since I had on bio-hazard garb at the time.

Dr. Ziv also wants to start up the lab meetings again, setting them for 8am--which'll have me getting re-acquainted with the sunrise. I don't mind that so much.

What I'm worried/puzzled about is how we're going to keep 14 undergraduates amused. The holding room painting job is coming along, but it's going to be another week before the walls and floor are finished. Add another week for getting the place inspected by a vet, making suggested corrections and getting re-examined and you've got 2 starting weeks of a whole lot of nothing. I'd assign the lot of them to paint the damn thing for me but we don't have the equipment.

I think Dr. Ziv's solution will be to start up the surgery mill again. This'd have me doing practice surgeries on rats every day that I come in, which is about 2 hours an animal. See, we need to have a competent team of people so that when the Second Coming happens, Hell does actually freeze over and the lab gets grant money, we'll be prepared.

I don't like this idea of doing shit besides painting. I've got a little under three weeks left to study for the general GRE, then another three weeks after that for the psych. one. I more or less have my routine figured out. Having to add more to my plate for the sake of the undergrads just doesn't gel. Not that I want them to be disinterested, but I'm fucking selfish and I need my study time. This is a volunteer position after all, right? He hasn't been at all pushy or demanding, though, so hopefully I won't have to pitch in another 12 hours a week.

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I've had a headache since I got off the volunteer gig. I figure it's the paint fumes (even though I got a filter mask) or just the stress. I can't wait until I've buried a hatchet into the skull of this test. There's still alot of stuff to cover, though, so I need to get on it.

Fortunately, though, I have plans with The Captain tomorrow to see 'Lost in Translation', the new wider release flick with Bill Murray. I need a comedy. I also need dinner.

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