Research on the face of things is going both alright and disastrously. The actual doing research part is good: nothing has exploded, my study is on track, and no one has bitched about anything in months. The fates have been kind enough to make the only two long-term testing rooms I can use unavailable. This means I can do one day stress inductions, but the week long shit is probably postponed until the end of October.

Damn. That'll unfuck November and just make January mildly inconvenient for my vacationing ass.

There is the possibility we'll be doing PPI. However we need to meet with Dr. M's people and our people to discuss scheduling. This'll happen next week. If I have to do PPI first before neuroendophenotyping, hey, big woop. So I have to get up slightly earlier than usual on Tu or Th, get a monkey, have Craig do his thing in setting up the apparatus, wait an hour while the test goes on, and boom we're done. I'd bring popcorn and 3D shades if the former were allowed on the animal floors.

But how could things also be disastrous? Well, my advisor suddenly wanted something for our assay technician to do last week and this week. She's between projects. We decided to run our 2mo and 4mo plasma assessments to see if a proinflammatory protein was any higher in our treatment group than control. Not a damn thing. There's way too much individual difference; too much error; not enough subjects to help flesh out what vaguely looks like small effects. What's puzzling is that this protein, which causes withdrawal behavior when injected, correlates great with anxious behaviors at 2mo...but not at 4mo. And we get more anxious behavior at 2mo...but not at 4mo.

This is puzzling. This is also not going to convince my advisor to look at additional inflammatory proteins. My whole gig in research is studying how these things affect behavior. And right now, all I have to hang my hat on occurs at 2mo. but goes away at 4mo.

I can only hope some other aspects of the paradigm will flesh out. If not, I'm going to get depressed.

I'm still waiting for the latest (and hopefully last) set of revisions from my advisor about my paper. He's busy submitting a grant for renewal, the deadline of which I could swear passed but maybe I misheard the date.

I've gradually pulled myself out of the forlorn mood I'd been in the last few weeks. I'm hovering around ok to good, depending on circumstances. There are certain things I'm trying to be patient about which are getting easier.

I'm also glad that the weird aspects of my life have decidedly decided to step back into the shadows for the time being. I'm not as completely oblivious to everything but work the way I used to be. Call it having more free time, or realizing I couldn't be the machine I wanted to be, or just being as old as I am and still being a student. That makes it all the more puzzling why the visions and other things have ceased. If I bothered to concentrate or try I'm sure I'd pick up where I left off. But I'm glad for the break. Actually, I'm thrilled that all these years have gone by and I have been pulled in only the ever so slightly absolutely required to maintain my sanity amount.

Too much and things could get complicated.

It's enough protecting Brian from whatever the hell is in this house. He has night terrors and sees shit that I recognize. I've had words with the thing on a few occasions. It tried giving me the equivalent of lip, but I don't take shit when a true potential threat emerges. I was terrorized enough as a child. Perhaps as a consequence, I lack anything approaching a conscience for things or people that actively try to harm me.

About the only thing of semi-immediate concern is the cell and molecular neuro course I'm taking. I'm either keeping my head just above water or I'm drowning and I don't know it. Take today. I'd had insomnia again and got, at max, 4 or 5 hours after I took some sleeping pills. I was washed out even more than usual when it comes to sleep dep. The lecture made sense. I got the gist of all the points. But the specific mechanics of the H-H model and m gates and h gates and what's on or off at this and this point of the cell firing an action potential--it just didn't make clear sense. I wrote it all down correctly so that it WILL make sense when I re-read the notes...but it makes me wonder if I'm in the dark or if others feel this way.

Wouldn't know. I hate most neuro students. These are whitebread suburban kids who've studied so much, so intensely, for so long that they are equivalently mature to typical adolescents. They merrily twitter prior to class about other classes, asinine provocations as an indirect means of getting or providing attention, shit like that.

I sit in the same seat typically, for instance, and the son of a bitch in front of me will not stop smiling and doing that "I'm a clever smarmy nerd dick" routine with the chick who sits next to him. I want to smack the guy upside his head sometimes and say: "she is not going to fuck you. Ever. No one is going to fuck you. Ever. Be quiet, I want to read the lecture outline."

Or I'll just move seats.

Things with Brian are good. We planned out a chore board, which really doesn't have much in the way of chores. Basically if there's a mess somewhere we made, we clean it. I clean my dishes after I use them, so that basically covers wiping the side of the fridge when I make tacos with the soy stuff that freaks Brian out.

We got a couch and recliner on ebay for 77 bucks. They look good. They better. I'm technically the buyer, which is a good feeling. I finally own furniture that isn't office chairs or some bizarre triangular loveseat someone randomly left at my old apartment.

Brian plays--oh fuck it, I'll write about this later I'm tired.

Haven't done any photography lately. No impetus, just like relaxing when I can.

Haven't done any writing lately. No impetus, just like relaxing when I can. Can only write so many poems about the same theme. And that game project is currently going really slow, which is a damn shame considering I've written 80,000 words of narration and dialogue for it.

Ain't life a bitch. Ain't my using the same stylistic catches for lack of any desire to change a bitch. Ain't that a bitch itself.

Maybe.

With the colder weather, my feet are doing that 'we're ice cold blocks attached to your legs' thing. I have bad foot circulation. Been that way for years. My nose is almost the same, but it doesn't have that pulsing cold feeling my feet do. I have socks on the bitches and they're still freezing. I have 5 layers of blankets and comforters on my bed, one of which is dedicated to the bitches.

Like blocks of ice--UNTIL I go to sleep. Then I wake up and they're hot.

Fucking vascular system, trying to get up in my grill.

Brian just woke up suddenly with mild shaking and possibly words. I'm downstairs so I can't say. (I should do a photo tour of this place for you). He was alright. I said, "You ok?" I indicated to him, he pointed at me amusedly. He said back, "Yeah. You ok?" And I was like "yeah."

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