Time to check the batteries of the internal clock.

And not that scary "I only have x number of years to attempt fulfilling my own existence by reproduction" internal clock. Nope, this is just the usual one, the one that tells you "hey, it's time to eat," or, "uh, no, sleeping time is NOW."

I think I broke it.

Why would I suspect such a thing you ask? (Waits). Well, because as of the time of this posting, I have been awake for a solid thirty one hours. Yup. Thirty one. A day plus some. (obviously I can't do the math, I'm too tired!) For the life of me, I just couldn't feel sleepy.

Part of me wonders if it's my sudden cessation of that fabulous cold medicine that got me through the weekend -- I really hate that stuff once I start feeling better, because of how groggy I get. More likely it's because of how I spend my pre-nocturnal hours. (What?! ..I went and saw Transformers)

Either way, I'm up. And because Tuesdays are my long day, I have another... er... seven to ten hours to go.

Whee.

Read More...

Summary only...

Gold-Digging for Dummies

After being sick and sleeping for the better part of the weekend, it wasn't all that difficult to get up after SideShow shook me awake this morning around 5:30. AM. You know, that never talked about hour. I wandered around the house for a few minutes reconciling myself with consciousness, made a pit stop at DD on the way to work (mmm, coffee), and stumbled into the lab a little after six. Yet, something seemed off. My coffee was more bitter than normal, owing to the fact I've stopped letting them dump cream and sugar into it without any consideration to my arterial lining. I got a really good parking spot. My set-up (done yesterday for an experiment to do today) actually worked. And yet, there seemed to be some dark, ominous presence on the edge of the horizon, threatening all that is good in the world with its malevolent plot.

Evil, thy name is "Today" on MSNBC. I nearly spit my coffee out on the screen when I saw this article on my homepage: How to meet and marry a billionaire: Money magazine's field guide to the mating habits of the ultra rich

There's even video of a Meredith Viera interview. An excerpt, below:

Are you looking to fall for someone tall, dark — but most importantly — very wealthy? Marlys Harris, Money Magazine Senior Editor, explains what it takes to snag your very own Richie Rich:

Work hard, take risks, maybe build your own business. That's the traditional route to financial success. Of course, there's another highly traditional path to acquiring wealth that isn't talked about quite as much these days: Marry money. . . .

. . . But how realistic is it for you, an ordinary wage slave with no more ties to the jet set than a business trip to Cleveland last month, to even meet, much less marry, a billionaire?

As a matter of scientific inquiry, Money Magazine decided to find out. To that end we analyzed the mating habits of 50 of the mega-monied to learn how they met their spouses.

We scoured the how-to-marry-rich literature and talked to society watchers, upscale matchmakers and wealth experts. And we pored over divorce news to see how spouse No. 1 was supplanted by spouse No. 2 (or 3).

Unfortunately, those who had already made it to Fat City refused to say how they got there. "I am just not telling," said one billionaire's wife over her cellphone before hanging up.

Nonetheless, our findings were encouraging. Marrying a billionaire is not beyond your grasp, as long as you're willing to work hard toward your goal. (Yes, hard work - albeit of a different kind - is still a requisite for achieving wealth.)

Need I say more?

Read More...

Summary only...

Lately

I've been suffering from a problem: self-censorship. And the result has been silence.

Now, such a problem seems counterintuitive: the whole purpose of a blog, one reasons, is to spout out whatever topic appropriate (or not) thoughts happen to be bouncing around in said blogger's skull. However, there are some drawbacks to my situation, which may or may not be the average...

1. People I know person-to-person at least know of my blog, creating the slimmest chance they'll read it.
2. From time to time, what's mostly on my mind are issues with said people, or more likely, common friends/acquaintances I have with said people.
3. If they read what I thought, there's the slimmest chance they'd be offended.

Should I feel bad, that such a list is reality? No. It's a normal part of human relationships that people get frustrated or angry with others on every level of interaction. It's healthy. At least, I hope it is.

But I don't think it would be healthy or constructive for everyone I know to know precisely what I think about them at a given time. I sure as hell don't want to know everything they think about me. Only when it becomes important.

So it's been a few weeks, and things have probably changed. So on to blogging.

Read More...

Summary only...

Private - Keep Out

I have a confession to make, while I'm spinning down cells and lining up tubes for the day's experiments. I read your notebook. It was too tempting, sitting there on the counter the other night, watermarked and dog-eared as a testament to the places to which you'd toted it. I wasn't expecting it to be personal: the first few pages were crinkly scrawls of addresses.. Maine, Paris, Alabama. A recipe or two. And then the entries that made me think I shouldn't in fact be reading. Financial worries. Body image crises. To dos. Do you have any idea what you can discover about a person from the way they list and execute To Dos?

I felt guilty, but I kept reading. I didn't find out, in that disjointed progression of pages (dates unmarked) who financed your hiking rent, or if you moved to alleviate the pressure. Which diet worked? What are you on now? Why are you so driven by your health -- is it medical advice, or something else? Because you see, though your name was on the front.. I don't know you. I couldn't have picked you out of a crowd, and I wasn't going to be at work when you came to retrieve your lost book on Wednesday. So there was no harm, right?

Perhaps. More interesting, I thought, was the guilt I felt for reading this complete stranger's journal. True, she left it at the pool. True, I'll never know who she is.. I can't even recall her last name -- Ms. S-something. -- sitting here this morning. True, she knew it was there, and if it was a diary.. something intense and deeply personal.. she could have made arrangements to pick it up so it wasn't sitting at the desk that evening. But still, I felt guilt.

People blog every day about matters from esoteric to deeply personal. Reading them, I discover more about people's lives than I would probably in a week of face-to-face conversation. It's far easier to type some things out than to verbally admit them, especially the hard stuff, and for some reason, truth becomes secondary. It doesn't matter to me if the sex-blogger is actually a call girl with a steady boyfriend, relying on her trade to pay her way through college/help with medical bills for her sick grandmother/satisfy her personal needs, or if she's a woman at a desk pouring her own imagination into the web with relatively artful writing. I don't care if the drama that exploded in a study group was a big deal, I enjoy reading rants or reflections about work, school, life. I enjoy the way each writer uses his or her own gifts to convey the mundane or unusual into clever prose.

There was nothing particularly clever about this notebook. It was nothing more than I'd read in a stranger's blog. The handwriting changed from time to time: the same script, I imagined, but in some places long and relaxed, in others cramped and hurried. And maybe it was that. A personal touch, the sense of someone else taking the time to shape each letter, carry the thing around with her to write thoughts as they occurred. When I blog, I publish my posts.. when she was done, she closed the book cover. No expectation of sharing.

Sorry Ms. S.

Read More...

Summary only...

The Great Chesapeake Bay Challenge

A few months ago, I began a specialty blog that was doomed to failure: a training blog for an open water swimming event. Why was this doomed, as I say? For several reasons:

1. It's a special interest blog. Prospective audience becomes much thinner.
2. If my friends are my readers.... it's even thinner than that.
3. How interesting is it to type workout after workout?
4. And of course.. I'm lazy, so regular workouts are really a thing of myth.
   

In any case, my whole purpose was to train for a one mile, open-water swim called The Great Chesapeake Bay Challenge. The Teach did it a few years ago, fresh out of college swimming, and described it as a good (if difficult) experience. But open water swimming has never really appealed to me. I used to swim as a kid when we went to the beach, but the current always made me feel like a weaker swimmer than I was, and I was nervous in the cloudy water. Even in the Caribbean, I couldn't really relax (except during SNUBA but that was just cool, even though I knew I'd be fine. Which I regret, actually. I have no good reason for being uncomfortable.

So I decided I would do the swim, push myself through my fear. Pool training dropped off, however, as I got into the spring, and I got out of shape, but I wasn't going to bag the race. I got a wetsuit (kinda) from a friend: it was a little big, and had short sleeves, stopped at mid-thigh, and was mostly foam. But the water was in the low seventies, so I didn't really need it for warmth. The worst thing I worried about was not finishing: I didn't want to be one of those people who has to stop at a rescue boat and be brought in. And there were people who had to do that (one guy only made it fifty yards, according to spectator HalfDozen).

As part of the first wave (a group of one hundred people, the first of four), I ducked under the green mesh fence with the rest of the group, padded my way barefoot across grass, then sand, then some slippery blue plastic they'd laid down over the start/finish pad. As each person crossed the line, the microchipped ankle-bracelet caused the machine to record their passing with a resounding, nasal whoop, reminiscent of the start of a police siren. We stood in the murky water (ew, that was trash) for a good ten minutes while they waited to start, officials trying to reign in people not willing to forego warmup (a disqualifying effort, they announced in the pre-race meeting).

Finally, it was time to go. I let myself hang back, not wanting to be in the front (where I knew people would just swim over me) or in the middle (think of what happens when that many people, all standing together, suddenly dive into the horizontal: I didn't want to get kicked in the face either) and the start was ok. After about three hundred yards, though, I was too tired to sight the bouys: I had to resort to sighting fellow swimmers, and throwing in a few breaststrokes every so often. I'm not sure if mixing my strokes helped me or hurt me: it was slower, but more comfortable with the gentle waves that were rocking the bay that morning. After that, it was just comfortable: I didn't panic, I wasn't dying (I wasn't swimming fast, either) and I wasn't afraid. Just.. swim around one buoy. Swim around the next. Kick the bottom a few times. (Whoops, shallow there) Swim the last. Drag myself up the beach.

I was tired. The Teach passed me and was waiting, so she was the recipient of my first "I never want to do that again." But I didn't really mean it. It was ok. Even the occasional mouthful of diesel (clean up the bay, assholes) could have been worse. And I did something I didn't think I'd be able to do: I finished. And in the top half.

It was a good day. And I had a good night's sleep later. Next year, now that I know what to expect.. there'll be more training.

Read More...

Summary only...