Today so far consisted of getting our Magic Happy Drug, Remifentanil, from the hardcore underground pharmacy known as "The Vault". It's called The Vault because it houses only controlled substances. Remifentanil, in particular, is a heavily regulated little love-bug. It's an opiate that is--I shit thee not--one thousand times stronger than heroin. It's usually used in operations on patients getting extensive surgery. Trouble is, alot of the anaesthesiologists get on up into all that. Some guys'll go so far as to inject a sub-standard dose into patients, then inject the rest straight into their gut.

So, there was me, waiting for the most heavily abused and regulated opiate on the planet, sporting a black trenchcoat, dark glasses, some brown slacks and a plain black shirt. The guy I'd yakked to over the phone wasn't there the first time around. I wandered the building some, came back, still no dice. After my usual by Sbarro and listening to some banter around the lab, though, I went back and nabbed the teeny tiny vial. Dr. Ziv was amused that I'd shoved it into my pocket. Hell, I could probably sell that 2 millilitre bottle for 20k USD on the black market..and I looked the part, but The Vault staff know me and my sweetly paranoid ways.

Next up was putting on some felt to the modified alligator clips I'd made. Right before he left, Dr. Z mentioned that I should glue the felt on. Trouble is--as with most things--that I couldn't find any of this glue material he mentioned. So I improvised: I decided to use tape. Of course, I'd have to actually cut the felt. This proved to be alot harder than I thought. Both of our pairs of scissors couldn't make a dent. Suddenly an idea struck me. I went into the surgery room, got the scalpel and slung some felt into one of those metal presses that hold stuff.

Even if I had all the materials, though, trying to measure felt around something as small as the tip of an alligator-clip isn't easy. I finally came up with a decent method of taping everything together to get soft cushy clips. The rats and their ears had no objections.

After all that it was just a quick mass mail to the entire swarm of us, then home. Traffic time for friday was about normal: hour and 30 minutes. Considering I left at 5:00pm, it's not half-bad.

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In general I think I'm worrying less. I got through almost all of my U. Penn. personal statement last night. I need to revise it and make it less clunky (with the help of The Captain and Selene), but it's coming together. The other essay will be mostly cutting and pasting, adding a different intro and maybe a different conclusion...and changing the school name, too.

At the moment I have a thick chunk of smooth glass in my hand, filled with Mike's hard lemonade, a little less than half delerious about what I should feed myself. I'm thinking about mexican. Sure, I'm going out tomorrow with The Captain to see The Last Samurai and inevitably have our usual completely platonic heterosexual male chilling dinner date...but regardless: I want mexican.

This sudden emphasis on Japan pleases me. First it was "Lost in Translation", "Kill Bill" and now a film set in one of my favorite Japanese time periods: right before (or maybe slightly after) the arrival of Commodore Perry and the forcing open of Japan's harbors for trade.

Now, don't get me wrong: I hate tentacle porn, pachinko, robotic dogs and crappy anime (as opposed to good anime) just as much as the next Yank. I do, however, have a bizarre obsession with ancient Japan or old Japanese aesthetics. One of my favorite books to this day is Kanadehon Chusingura, or "The Treasury of Loyal Retainers", a tale of samurai warriors who, having received news of their lord's death, seek out the man responsible and kill him before killing themselves to honor their master. I get off on Bushido and the autumn quality of ancient Japan.

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There is that part about having to go in tomorrow at the lab and do that ECT procedure, but that'll hopefully be over quickly.

There are the other things, but fortunately I'm in a more sane, less hurried state of mind.

It's nice when Dr. Ziv isn't a bastard. Makes my whole day.

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