The take home midterm for cell and molecular neuroscience has gone much better than I thought. I'd gotten through the first three questions by Sunday, which was about on target. Yesterday (being sunday) I had a pow-wow session with a few guys I met in the class, Keith and Donald. They're both 1st year neuro students. Good guys in all. Keith reminds me of Holden Caufield without the broken quality. Whereas I'd originally thought they be doing most of the steering and I'd follow along, I ended up offering a lot of insight they seemed to appreciate. We spent three hours on one question. It was a BEAR of a question. We got through a few more before calling it quits for dinner. All in all I think I can finish this AND do the reading for the neuroimaging class AND do the homework for that.

That would be double plus fabulous.

Halloween weekends in Madtown are colossal pornos that go wrong by varying degrees. I was privy to this last year when, after innocently trying to get to the taco bell on the main street amidst 30,000 drunken costumed assholes, I was caught in a riot asshole sandwich. The slices of bread were two dozen riot police on horses, with the cheese being riot police on foot. Word to the wise: you don't need to get peppered sprayed directly to get pepper sprayed.

So rather than go to Drew's party located smack in the middle of that potential FUBAR this year, I did the "anti-halloween" thing instead. This consisted of going with Xtian, Katie, Katie's b/f Dan, physics Brian, and several others to the olive garden. We ate italian. We drank wine. It was lovely. I heart breadsticks and cheap Shiraz.

After that I had four options:

1) Drew's. Anne mighta been there, but I didn't realize this at the time. Mostly off the table.

2) The local art/live band unveiling my local promoter yakked about. Eh.

3) Going to see The Prestige with Becky and Xtian. I was sorely tempted, but my mind kept dragging me back to...

4) The Inferno.

Oh you bet your ass they celebrate halloween. I figured it was going to be a panoply of giant black rubber cocks and entirely indecent body covering. Not clothing necessarily, for that is how some roll.

So I strapped on my new and very uncomfortable big black boots, cloth gothed myself out, and headed over. What I had on was not a costume, but I paid costume price. It's good to be a regular. Contrary to what I expected, most people were in fairly benign costumes. Almost everyone had something on. Jeff, myself, and a few other regulars were exceptions. Actually with Jeff/Dorian Gray, I jokingly said his shorts and t-shirt was his costume. He found this funny. Or he was already drunk. Either way he gave me a big hug when I saw him and that's all that matters. He also bought me some gin, so hey.

Dancing at the Inferno is dancing at the Inferno. I'd throw out my thigh by jogging 4 miles that night, so after awhile it began acting up. I didn't quite realize how much until I had to limp back to my car. Fucking body. Anyway, said dancing was interrupted for awhile as they had a costume contest. Post-Doc/Birdie and her husband had dressed up as naked ken and barbie dolls. Sadly they did not win 'most sexy.' Fun as usual to see them. Josh/Goth King was there as well, dressed as a nerd. Oh it was fantastic.

So yeah, I limped to my car, re-set my thigh with a few hard back kicks, went home, put on my old boots, and went grocery shopping for fruit juice and sushi.

This is what I do post-Inferno, what can I say.

Yeah, yeah I still need to write about the Ford conference last weekend. I'm getting there, I swear.

Still slowly getting over getting fucked over by T. Again. I've stopped trying to figure out the why of it all. You can try to align a rubix cube with missing colored stickers, or you can throw it into the big pile of 'That's Just Fucked Up Nonsense' and be done with it.

Squeaky wheel gets the kick. Ka-chink goes the pile while the population sign is readjusted.

It still makes me sad. Can't deny it.

I also abandoned the pursuit of Erin thing. I figured if I was always making the plans and just getting mixed signals for my trouble, where was the fun in that? Plus there's the whole hanging on some other guy deal, so double fuck that situation.

I insist that my occasional jumbo jet crashing into rush hour freeway parking extravaganza be, at least, obvious.

Oh come on, it's funny! I'm laughing at myself and it in general. Jesus.

People seem alright. People seem to tolerate that I've been busy. I like people for tolerating that I've been busy that are, coincidentally, alright.

Alright.

Several more shots to share, including a photograph/oil painting combination that I think some of you might like. The Washington, D.C. trip was good to me that way.

So my office is pretty near completely dark, my stomach is growling, and while I feel better than earlier today it's getting to be too much like Texas Jones in this place. Time to get on the bus, forget about life for a sweet 10 minutes, then make dinner and see what the Neuro Guys are doing in terms of finishing this midterm. Then eventually sleep sometime.

I.E. Walk, space out, work, mild transient coma.

previous - next