We chose The Plaza, because the day I pay anything above 4 bucks for ale is the day I take martini enemas and gargle ether.

I came in before her, so she didn't have to wear her 'I have a very bright pink fuzzy hat' hat for long. She chose bud light. I chose something black and bitter. While at the bar, we yakked about Oberlin (where she lived, where I lived, stupid shit that happened there, etc.). I think there was also some life information swapping.

Pretty soon, though, we decided to move to a booth and talk there. After my second round I felt jussssst fine. As it naturally does with me and most other people, the topic of relationships and gender norms in western society came up. I can go on about that shit for hours. And we did for at least one. Mostly it revolved around if there could be true equality among the sexes. Again, a favored topic of mine to rant about.

By the end, we'd both had four drinks. Now 4 glasses of bud light is..well...4 glasses of american beer. I, on the other hand, had downed 4 20 ounce steins of 7.2% ABV ale. In english, I had drunk too much. Being that I'm a mid-twentysomething, I should know better--and I do, about liquor. Ale is a different beast I was to learn.

I think it's written somewhere that everyone who gets drunk in this city goes to the Parthenon for food. I've never been in there sober. I got a chicken thing, sat down with her, ate some, and suddenly had a realization. When you're really drunk, you know exactly what that realization is. So I excused myself and quietly took care of it.

I came back, we finished food, and walked out. Jessie already knew I was quite a bit more drunk than she was, so I think she rubbed my shoulder and asked if I was ok. I said I could make it home fine. We said goodbye stuff, hugged, and then I walked off to my apartment. The world continued to go sproingy sproingy with every step.

Hill had been texting me through part of the time. She's pretty adamant about her not liking me drunk. This could be because when I get too drunk I tend to feel pretty vulnerable, and need an anchor of some kind. While she was direct and non-sugary about her feelings on the matter (and I can get pathetic when I'm really drunk), she did text something about 'luving' the sober me, and other stuff like that.

I ended up passing out on my bed after finishing a text to her. I must've accidentally rolled onto my back.

I woke up at 8:30. My entire neck was held in a metal vice-grip. My shoulders were like rocks. Everything was an ache or something sore. I couldn't go back to sleep because my mouth kept becoming completely dry. I guess I'd become a plant temporarily. I'd only had 2 hangovers previously, and those were ultra-light compared to this. I vowed to myself never to overdrink on ale again.

Saturday was partly taken up by a team meeting with the Redemption crew. Florian finally dug himself out of his work pit, and he seems eager to work on the main plot again. He'd tried going solo for awhile, but it burnt him out. So we're collaborating again.

I need to revise this first section, about the first 5 hours of in-game play. There are a few additions I'm not thrilled about, mostly because I have to go back and re-write large chunks of dialogue. Allegedly this is the last revision, though.

Most of the rest of saturday was reading stats to get down this new method I need to master.

And sunday and monday. Well. So I've partly been pretty productive. I:

*Cleaned up the 1991 survey data, streamlined it, and got it ready for export into some delightfully free stats software. The government doesn't pay me enough to respect copyright laws.

*Worked with honors students to get in their proposals. Just finished editing one now. His proposal is great, and related to my stuff (so I'm biased). Unfortunately he has to go to an MD/Ph.D. interview on wednesday. And honors submission is friday. The conflict only occurred to him recently. But we all make mistakes, so I'm gonna strong arm Ben a little so that this guy doesn't get screwed. It'd be a damn shame.

*Updated Dr. C on stuff. He thinks I should take more stats classes because that partly seems to be my calling. I think it's a good idea because I could get a shitload of authorships on publications just for crunching stats. After all, when his postdoc leaves, I'll basically be the most stats savvy person there. And I can smell the publication opportunities...

(and just so I don't seem over-obssessed: the more publications you have, the more likely you are to, y'know, get a job with a big fancy Ph.D. I'd kinda like a job instead of moving back in with mom)

*I played around with my data for 9 hours total. Trying to isolate two effects. These are ones that basically make or break my whole hypotheses. I can publish in the same place, but the way I wrote my article would have to be changed. And after 14 pages of writing, single-spaced, well, fuck that. I think I've finally isolated the best case scenario scatterplots. True, some of them are kinda..er...spurious looking correlations, but hopefully a few are convincing enough. The one looking at baseline inflammation and acute behavior withdrawl was the toughest, in terms of bringing together two experiments that weren't really meant to be put together. But I did, and it kinda sorta bore fruit.

Kinda.

Sorta.

Hopefully I can convince Dr. C. Knowing reviewers and bio psychologist people, they wouldn't even ask about these correlations twice. But he brought up a valid point and I need to address it.

*I get to see Hill for dinner. Haven't seen her in a week or two. I miss hanging out every week, but work is work and I've been in that way too busy position (still kinda there, just more flexible).

*I'm not sure what to do with spring break. Nicholas' situation sounds in flux. I also would need to shell out car repair, gas, and food money. I recently put down 450 as a security deposit and a decent chunk for (badly fucking needed) clothes, so I'm hurting for cash. I'm not about to ask my family again after just 2 months, that's completely out of the question.

So it looks like I may stay in Madison. The added benefits of that would be:

1) Hanging out with Hill (yes, #1. Yes, I miss her company more than I want to get ahead in work. Yes, I guess I've changed).

2) Studying with PNI seminar chick. She and I have occasionally talked and flirted during class. She offered that we study together for an upcoming exam. It's not a super serious exam, but it's a good idea. And to my mind, it gives me an opportunity for sussing out the situation. She seems like one of my types, so...

3) Getting ahead in work. Because, you know, finishing a talk for a month from now is important. Actually there's a lot of little things to work on:

*The new summer grant for minority students. The applicant pool: 6. My chances: decent, since several people on the committee know me.

*Working on my manuscript with Dr. C

*Working on this new data analysis of the 1991 survey

*Other stuff way ahead in the future, because I kinda like this whole 'working a lot but not all the time' schtick and I'd like to keep it.

Sleep, then monkey work.

True I don't really need to be there, but if it makes my supervisors happy, what the hell.

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