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Thanksgiving 2004

2004-11-25 - 8:30 p.m.

Soundtrack: Yanni, "End of August"

I've spent many holidays alone. Centuries ago was a Christmas, a Thanksgiving, spent in the same wayward Chinese place out on the outskirts of Oberlin. It was me and a tea cup, delicately brown liquid breathing tongues into the air, that same 40 second loop of bad jazz murmuring in the background. Sesame chicken would come fashionably late, served by the slightly anti-social mexican manager. It was the most delicious guest, that molasses-smothered sweet-spicy sauce and roasted bird. Sometimes there would be chicken potstickers, sometimes not.

I always enjoyed that place so much. I can still see everything: the chinese characters painted along the walls, white and obviously shaky against the smudged burgundy and orange. Most of those ancient holidays saw only me sitting inside that restaurant, holding that off-white tea cup.

Simple, delicate, peaceful.

* * *

Soundtracks: Elliot Smith, "Between the Bars"; Cold, "Bleed"

Tonight I had shitty slices of pepperoni and sausage at some dive in downtown Insanity. I soaked 6 fold napkins by sopping the grease, feeling the bites slither down my throat in milk chunk bunches. King of the Hill was on, and a grad student and Ph.D. mentor were meeting for dinner in front of me. They were a part of the organization that'd constantly sent me e-mails about doing 50,000 different activities, for all the new minority students at Insanity. My mongrel Native ass didn't like the thought being required to attend all those functions, not when I didn't have the time to do anything but study.

I put a bullet in that mailing list and never looked back.

But right then I could add guilt on top of the empty feeling that'd been gnawing me from inside to out all day.

The streets are like the veins of a corpse: post-apocalyptic figures shamble by gravity along the wide, dead roads. The wind moans quietly as branches shake. The cold doesn't bite but hangs like heavy London gas along the concrete and streetlamps.

Such an empty place. Only the dive pizza joint and Blockbistro are open.

Today I slept in late, to 11am, and found an italian place serving food. I had pizza then too, only difference being it was 12 bucks and had basil and plum tomatoes.

I spent most of today at the psych building, reading up on the National Science Foundation fellowship and finding out that my whole mood disorders/immune system/metabolism deal would have to go. See, if you have ANYTHING that is "disease" or "mental disease" or "abnormality" related, you are not eligible. NSF figures that your monkey ass can apply to the National Institute of Health. Unfortunately that application is 20 pages and expects you to already have three years worth of experiments to do.

So I have to improvise. I'm thinking I'll just say that immune proteins called cytokines influence...mood..um...when we're sick..and not when we're sick...which could be...an emotional regulatory agent when our health or psychological well-being ain't all that well. It sucks because my research is ABOUT mood and anxiety disorders. I guess you can talk more generally about mood..but this shift in thinking is annoying.

Still, I've got some ideas about it. I also worked on my stats project, which was kinda comforting. It's a piece of cake, really. I'm using the design of my first year project..but made severely more simple.

So by the end of the weekend, I probably should have drafts of my NSF essays..and more progress on that stats project.

But for now..I'll enjoy the company of a few others online and huddle inside my down comforter. Oooo, and I just found some MP3's from the NBC version of The Lord of the Rings. Say what you will about it, but I liked the music.

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