No finer example of this comes to mind than my morning behavior since saturday and the last grad school test. For my off days I've been going to bed at 1am and waking up at 10. I sit in my bathrobe for a few hours, checking over forum messages for the U9R project, my usual webcomics, and email at least 2-3 times in a 20 minute span. Concentration doesn't come to mind. I have no really clear purpose; it's as if part of me has gone on vacation.

Even so, the idea that I have my whole day ahead of me is strange. There are grad school applications things to take care of...but besides that I have free time, lots and lots of free time...

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I'd realized all this back on tuesday when decided to shift back into photography mode. See, I'd been getting reacquainted with Ivey and a few other people, just sitting around and relaxing. Then it suddenly occured to me that I'd already charged up my lithium batteries earlier. It'd been 2 months since my last photoshoot. I thought: 'hey, what the hell, let's go out to Redondo Beach again!'

10:30pm rolled around. I bid mom goodbye and she wished me well. The pier and everything else looked about the same. I could swear the same group of Lost Boys wannabes were hanging out by the stone lifeguard tower down the beach. Instead of going straight for the pier, though, I stopped off at a park area just up the hill from it. I'd wanted to get more shots of the giant tree there. About 10 minutes into it a few burly looking guys passed about 15 feet away. It began to immensely bother me when it seemed like they'd stopped out of view. It was just me and them, separated by a big hedge. What the fuck were those assholes doing there? Did they want to jump me for my shit?

I gathered my resources and focused on getting a wide-angle moon shot through the canopy of the giant tree. The moon was at the noon sun level, so I had to midgitify my tripod and do guess-work on what the shots would look like.

Eventually I meandered away and found a smooth concrete stage, like a rectangle cut in half. I photographed myself sitting in a bunch of different positions, hoping to make a sitting buddha collage for later on. Mostly I just wandered through the pier and along the outskirts. I didn't see anything particularly inspiring--but it was a nice walk nonetheless.

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Dr. Zivago hasn't been in the lab this week, which is fantastic on one hand and annoying on the other.

I chose to cancel our usual monday meeting since, I think, a mass email does the trick. I went in on Monday mostly to set up some rats for practice surgery on tuesday (since Midget and Santa Barbara Girl wanted to do some). Midget asked me if I was coming tomorrow to be all head supervisorly. I told her I was previously engaged. Being that it would be Veterans' Day, that probably sounded alot better than "I couldn't give a good damn in hell to come here any more than I have to, let alone to watch a surgery."

Wednesday was about as run-of-the-mill. There were the usual errands I should have run but didn't get around to, since it's all stuff that can be done later. I spent most of my time doing a practice surgery on one rat. Only Hideyoshi showed up. He's good like that: a new undergraduate in the lab that seems like he's been there for years; incredibly damn competent too.

He had to leave after awhile, though, so it was just me and the rat. Having only done a full surgery about 3 years ago, I think it went off pretty well. The only forseeable problem I had was that there were 4 other rats chilling out in our illegal, does-not-exist holding room...so I had to sacrifice the guy. Didn't bother me so much since he was already unconscious. Then again, he was still alive when I last saw him. Maybe the drug just didn't take hold--stranger things have happened.

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Chat is still down more often than not. I'm starting to miss the community there. I was an off-and-on regular. It doesn't surprise me much since Andrew has been letting the site go to pot. Regardless, I'm missing those people and the camraderie.

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Photography:

Rise and Fall

Comment: I've gotta do collage work more often.

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