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Side B: current life in science, art, writing, dreams, personal

2006-07-19 - 8:27 p.m.

Nowadays

Soundtrack: Liz Phair: Wind and the Mountain

Life in general is good. My advisor has no complaints and hasn't heard any concerns for two months. Everyone who matters at the lab seems fine and well. The first phase of my project has been going smoothly, in part because my two undergrads do the daily peer behavior observations. Nothing has blown up on that count.

The 3rd draft of my 1st scientific publication is in to my advisor, so that's marinating. Over the last few days I've met with Post-Doc about the 1991 survey analysis (i.e. Birdie, i.e. person who introduced me to the Inferno). I finally finished all of my exploratory work using regular regression. Now I've moved on to using Hiearchical Linear Modelling to look and see if, for instance, people have more trouble accurately recalling colds, flus, or asthma attacks from later or earlier in the season--and if psychological factors affect recent or ancient illness more, about the same, or not at all.

I know, you're sticky or solid with fawning interest.

I spent about 3 hours today working with Post-Doc on that. She finds the questions interesting, I guess, or my advisor nudged her to get more involved. And good thing: some of this practical HLM stuff was never mentioned in the books I read. Yeah I learned this realm of stats in 3 weeks, but the specifics of applying it just don't get mentioned much alongside the theory.

What else besides work.

I'm seeing Erin again sometime this weekend. It'll either be woodsy-woodsy-strolly-strolly, cafe-cafe-drinky-photoshowy, or if we've graduated to half-day excursion different sex friends, some combo and sitty-sitty-media-overdrive. I'm also gonna see my favorite (and surprisingly, currently, only) bipolar friend Katie this sunday. She's taking a test due to the incomplete she had in the course I TAed for, then we're doing something. We usually go for the strolling bit. She's been kindof aloof lately, but that comes with the territory.

The artsy side of life is fantastic. I'm still working on that combined media photograph + painting piece. Coming along nicely. I'm also working on some other shots and will post those soon. And after some calculations and money I'm getting from my advisor, I think I MAY be able to get THE camera I've been wanting for 2 years.

Isn't it gorgeous? I want that functionality. I have never wanted a material object like I do this camera. The results will make my current work look quaint. Of course there's the little side issue of having no money to afford LENSES for the thing.

Now I only occasionally like being a whore, so, here's the deal:

I have a whole page just talking about contributions and prints. Only two caveats to it:

1) Print sizes vary depending on the photo.

2) If you want anything pre-2004, I can't at this time make a print of it. The original digitals are on a hard drive in California.

So if you're interested in helping me, send me an email at [email protected] . Your interest in helping my fetish would be greatly appreciated.

Writing and Dreams

An unexpected bit is that I've finally--FINALLY--gotten some inspiration on a short story I've been writing off-and-on for 3 years. I finally know how to get to the twist at the end. Through a double twist. It all came to me as I was walking to work today.

I suppose I was inspired because of the dream I had, which sparked a story idea itself. I remember these in fragments:

*Countryside, visiting various abandoned and spooky looking places. Southern feel. Someone or a voice telling me certain locations were "hauntings," where ghosts would assume you were either a low level specter or just a human to play with. There were many special names, all to convey how dangerous the apparitions were. A "tomb" was an area where you would be viciously attacked and shown no mercy. I was investigating these places, I think out of a malicious curiousity.

*Another scene. I was attempting to get a man's attention inside of a white house, out on a prairie in the middle of nowhere. I was trying to convince him to go somewhere. I was looking overeager and evil, I remember, so he wasn't keen on helping. It turns out, though, that was a lie on his part. He was associated with whom I guess was the main villain. She was a young woman, quiet, dark hair. I only ever saw her in the prairie sequences.

*Somehow moving away from the prairie house, being chased. Getting into my car (a charcoal black goth mobile), and somehow reversing slowly behind a bale of hay to outpace two black men on foot. I was then riding. I along the prairie I came into contact with two generic villain italain white guys. "Hey, the black dudes are back there!" I said. Somehow this was relevant.

*Final and most solid scene. A woman, no nonsense and brown-haired, was alongside me as I got to the front of a delapidated, eaten away white house. I kicked at the front door. She cautioned me about something. I kicked hard again and it gave way. Only, oddly, the lower half of it was made of this opaque glass material..and it's more like the door fell back and then that opened up for me to go through.

She followed me as I started dramatically up the stairs. She seemed concerned but I was hell-bent: I knew exactly what was wrong with everything, the source of evil, who the woman and her associate/my betrayer were. I charged up rickety stairs and burst through the attic and another opaque glass thing (green, I think). I heard a voice like toxic waste and ooze. The ghost had taken up residence in a "chamber pot," or something related to excretion. It was a square shaped box looking thing, though. Insects like pale human flesh were crawling on it. I took the box, insects twitching along my hands.

Next it gets odd. If you're familiar with the cyberpunk genre, hackers will access computer mainframes by sticking a datajack into their temple. Direct brain-machine interface. I slid a similar jack above my right eyesocket. I had a virus, a computer virus, that would allow me to eradicate the ghost. I jacked in, held the box, ran the virus, and the specter started screaming. Suddenly I saw a bird's eye view of the house, a sudden burst of light.

I'd eradicated it.

I'd been a physical conduit between a virus and a ghost, as if I translated the actions of the virus directly into another medium that destroyed the apparition.

I woke up. I liked the story and the conduit idea so much that I may write it. I suppose that activity carried over into this other story. Now I can finish one and begin another.

...

I've had a few dreams like that lately, maybe not as directly related to the undead, but with the same tone. Macabre, tense, hunting. Apocalyptic. More and more I seem to be having dreams of things ending and some great evil being brought against humanity.

When I was younger, often times, I had dreams and nightmares involving me being hunted, and fleeing or running away from whatever it was. I still get that in some dreams (see above), but things end where I end up destroying, vanquishing, or otherwise getting away from/rid of whatever.

But the apocalyptic tone bothers me. For the longest time when I was a child, my mother and many people she knew would tell me certain things. I was to help, in some way, re-organize or lead some people after some devastating global event happened. I was always skeptical, but somehow what they said felt right or fit (even if it was a very reluctant feeling).

It is New Age apocalypticism. Where entire sections of the US are thrown underwater, and the cities of old torn by economic instability and natural disasters. Where, as some like Lori Toye espouse (http://www.iamamerica.com/Pages/home.html?Main%20Menu=iamamericamap.html), there will be a great shift of this and that, and five new golden cities will be erected, and etc. Whatever your interpretation, I was raised on beliefs similar to this. While I don't believe in apocalyptic systems anymore...these dreams, recent political events, and peak oil do make a small part of me wonder, even if I know better.

I suppose the Book of Revelation and the Rapture derive their power on a "well what if?" basis. I suppose I have to continue fighting what I learned as a kid.

* * *

I'm not in the mood to go to the Inferno tonight. It's cool, calm, and I want to stay at my apartment.

Shots soon. Honest.

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