I have a problem

A few days ago I almost walked into a blind woman. Clearly, she was not looking where she was going. That may seem like a horrible place to slide in some humor, but... okay... no buts. I am sorry. Anyway, I almost walked into her because she was, at the moment, holding her cane upright, for whatever reason I am unsure. So as I walked, she sort of swayed over into my path, NOT tapping her cane, and I stopped short of walking into her. I was annoyed at this woman who was so carelessly swaying into my path that I turned up to glare at her with my evil eye so as to say, without words, "watch where you're going, bitch." It was at that moment that I noticed she was wearing very dark sunglasses - inside the mall - and holding a cane. I then proceeded to move out of her way, and to feel like a piece of shit for almost being vindictive in my own passive-aggressive way, to a blind woman. Why am I telling you this? Have patience, the point will become clearer.

I have a problem with hate. Not being the object of hate, although there is a lot about me people can hate, but being the hater. I am a big hater. A girl at Williams asked me why I was "drinking all of that hatorade" once. I hated her. This is because I am wont to hate people before I begin to like them. If we've interacted for a very short period of time, chances are I hate you. I most likely also hate your mother for having you, and your father for knocking up your mother and adding you to this population. I also hate your sister because she's a bitch, and your brother because he's ugly. I also probably never met them or saw pictures of them, but since I hate you so much, I know deep down inside that I hate them. See? I am a real hater. But chances are, after a while of forced interaction with you, I will begin to like you. I will begin to see all those little things about you that are unique; that only I have been able to unravel and to enjoy, and soon enough, I may begin to even love you. I may decide that your sister isn't actually that ugly after all. As a matter of fact, now that I love you, I may love her, because she is of course related to you by blood. And then I begin to feel badly about myself for hating you to begin with.

This cycle seems to repeat itself over and over. I never learn. What does this have to do with that blind woman? Well, that experience of almost-walking-into-the-blind-woman was in a way, a microcosmic (?) example of my larger problem. I judged that situation by my fixed-scale ruler of situation-judging: woman walks into my path because woman is not paying attention to where woman is going, therefore, glare at woman. As if, in some way, I were better than she. As if, even in the case that she could see, I had some RIGHT to walk along that specific path and she should dare not come between me and my God-given right. But my fixed scale hasn't any accomodation for the possibility that the woman is blind and that she does not have the luxury, as I do and as I take for granted every single day, of seeing that she is walking into my path. This is the same problem I have when I meet people and immediately hate them. I judge the situation immediately, based on parameters I have developed from other situations that probably have no bearing in that specific instance. And so then I hate. And I have never been able to quite get out of this.

So the good news is I have admitted I have a problem. The bad news is I don't know exactly how to solve it. Regardless, I am going to keep track of my anti-hating initiatives here for your education and if not, at least for your entertainment. Wish me luck...

A Walk in the Clouds

Okay, not really. It was a walk, yes. But in the clouds? No. The scene was Euclid Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri. The day, yesterday, June 17th. The time, 9:30am. The cross-streets, Laclede and Forest Park. There was a crazy man walking down the street calling out to people, "hello! Good morning, excuse me, excuse me. Please, when you are about to go to sleep tonight, raise your hands in prayer for me. Ask the Lord to protect me and save me. God bless." It is a fact that no city becomes great without first having a lot of crazy people asking you to pray for them (and for yourself). So New York City, watch out... the gateway city is moving up!

Anyway, so I ignored him, because if I had time to waste asking Allah to protect random lunatics on the street, I'd probably also have been able to write this entry yesterday rather than today. So anyway, the mad man has moved on asking other people to pray for him and what not, and then this guy who was sitting outside a cafe having his breakfast, and who I thought I had left way behind, shows up next to me and starts talking. It was one of those, I-know-you-just-ran-to-catch-up-to-me moments, combined with an I-know-you're-trying-to-make-random-conversation-based-on-a-silly-occurrence-we-both-witnessed-thinking-we-have-somehow-bonded-when-in-reality-I-am-somewhat-afraid-of-you-but-would-have-been-flattered-had-you-only-been-cute ones. For what reason he did this, I am not sure. But when you're as gorgeous as I am, these things happen. I know, it's not easy being perfect, but don't cry for me. I have gotten used to it. So anyway, random guy starts talking and I have no idea what he's saying so I'm like, "what?" and he says something incoherent, and I answer, "yeah, I guess so." I was guessing that he was saying something about the crazy guy being crazy. Usually, "yeah, I guess so" works in most awkward contexts. We can explore that theory in another post. So where were we? Yes, random guy is talking incoherently. Next thing he starts adding, "yeah, he must be Christian." So I'm giving the awkward grin where you're trying to be completely neutral but not too rude. "All Christians are crazy", he continues. My grin remains. Difficult to keep up, but still there. Then he adds, "Christians and Muslims... all crazy." Except he pronounced "Muslims" as "MOZ-LEMZ" which I HATE. I mean, you might as well call me a ragheaded camel jockey if you're gonna call me a mozlem. Okay, maybe not, but I hate to hear the word so brutally and savagely destroyed, okay? By this time, I think my awkward grin vanished. I reply, "well not all of them," to which he says, "well, I think all. But not Hindus. Hindus are okay." Clearly this idiot had hedged his bets on the fact that I'm Hindu. Maybe in his little pea-sized mind, he thought we would bond further over the fact that I was able to run into a stranger who not only shared my hatred of Christians and Muslims, but loved my Hindu people. How awkward. And to make matters worse, he kept walking along beside me. I was wondering whether this was when I was supposed to say, "sorry, not interested. I am married." Then I began to wonder if this was a story that would later appear on the front page of the newspapers, "Wash U grad student attacked by Islamophobic assailant with knife." It made sense; maybe he was trying to determine that I'm Muslim so he could stab me. I was getting ready to scratch his eyes out, when he said, "okay, I am turning here. Bye." It was so awkward, but I was relieved. I hope I never see him again.

Multi-tasking

I am having a hard time at work. This is not a new development. However, I am currently experiencing an unusually difficult time because I have my qualifying exam approaching on July 10 and at the same time, I am somehow expected to train a new student who has had no prior experience in a lab. Summer Student (SS) is however the best case scenario for this, well, scenario. SS learns everything the first time he is taught. Sometimes SS needs reminders about small details, but in general, I trust SS. And given that I have major trust issues, well this is as good as it gets. But I do feel guilty telling SS, "SS, today I will be writing my grant, so we'll do work between around 2ish to about 3ish". I feel even worse knowing that this is basically going to happen over and over until July 10th. But whatever. SS doesn't seem to mind. SS also doesn't mind the fact that I routinely call him "Summer Student".

Apart from having trouble falling asleep because my mind is constantly thinking some sort of rubbish, I also have a hard time concentrating during the day because my mind is thinking some sort of rubbish. Now don't get me wrong; I love Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown as much as you do, but when they keep asking me to tell them how they're supposed to breathe with no air, over and over and over, when I am trying to figure out how many microliters of DNA I should be using for a transfection, it becomes a bit of a problem. And when it's not them, it's ABBA. I get it, I am a Supertrooper. No one else would put up with this day in and day out, so clearly, if anyone were to be a Supertrooper, it would me me. But do you REALLY have to keep telling me?

So the overall idea is that my brain is sort of like a radio stuck between a few stations, playing all at the same time, but none well enough to really discern what is going on on one station from what is happening on the other. I described this once to a doctor who said that she was so impressed by my ability to put such an abstract feeling into practical terms that she had to take a note of it. Unfortunately she hasn't returned the favor and impressed me by tuning my damn radio. So, I still have issues. But at least I'm still sleeping. Last night I actually fell asleep about 15 minutes after going to bed. And I slept all the way until my real alarm clock (not my internal one, or my bladder) went off! So maybe I am not becoming resistant to the latest sleeping drug after all! But the pharmaceutical industry has not been known to satisfy anyone forever, so we'll see how long this lasts.

Oh, and in case you were wondering what Massa meant by "1 savior + 3 nails = 4given" in the last post, that was the caption on a t-shirt worn by a teenage girl at Six Flags yesterday. This was of course overshadowed by the girl who had a swastika made of bones tattooed onto her NECK. Welcome to Missouri.

Six Flags

Today we went to Six Flags. Me, Massa, Cailz, Juliegreen, Chris and Megan. Note to self: I need to come up with me-names for Chris and Megan. Anyway, so all of us together makes 3 girls and 3 boys. However, Massa has accused me of acting "worse than a four year old girl" for not wanting to get on a ride that he later deemed "a terrible experience". Now, in his defense, he did not pull that accusation out of his white imperial ass, but rather literally meant it after a woman in line turned around upon hearing of my refusal to join the ride and said, "my daughter is going on this ride and she's six. She went on it two years ago, when she was four!" She then snorted two lines of low-grade cocaine off her six year old daughter's ass. Okay, so she didn't, but still, what was the point of telling me that useless information? I should have responded, "my Muzza spat three children out of her womb and 25 years later she is still not as fat as half your ass." Unfortuately, Six Flags does not allow profanity. So I had to suppress my creativity and smile.

Can I speak for a moment about the tattoo situation in Missouri? Believe me when I tell you it is out. of. control. About 40% of the population at Six Flags today was tattooed (?) And I'm not just talking about a little crucifix with Jesus being tortured to death plastered on a bikini line. I am talking mega whopping life size crucifixes with Jesus being tortured to death from the back of the neck down to the promised land itself! About 3% of the tattoos I saw today had any artistic value whatsoever. Please people, stop it.

As a faithful reader of this blog since, well, since yesterday, you probably would like to be updated about my sleeping situation. Well, to make a long story short, the vicious cycle of - take drug that makes you sleep until you stop responding to drug then switch to new drug that makes you sleep until you stop responding and then switch to new... - continues. The first time I took my current sleeping pill, it made me sleepy for 24 hours. I would fall asleep anywhere, anytime. You are unaware of this because my job requires moving around minute amounts of materials from one vessel to another. If I were a construction worker operating a crane, well, you'd know of my sleeping med problems for sure. Anyway, I've reached the stage where the drug no longer allows me to fall asleep easily. I have to REALLY want to. Much to my annoyance, the built-in alarm clock seems to have begun working also. I wake at 7:30. This is becoming a problem. I think I need to go back to my doc...

Now for my final advice for today, re: Six Flags St. Louis: Don't go on any rollercoasters. I went on the Batman so you would not have to. It was horrifying and all I gained from this was a feeling of closeness to the Almighty for about 60 seconds. I think this is why all those Christian groups have so many Six Flags days. Also, the rest of my group went on that old wooden piece of shit with the fat lady and her six year old and came off looking like they'd walked in on Dick and Lynne Cheney sharing an intimate moment.

Sorry, I just vomited.

Okay, cleaned.

But now my sleeping med is taking over, so sorry to make this so awkward, but, uhm, bye!

I'm Back!/Sleeping Woes

Hello World! I am back. I decided to start fresh with my bloggie, so I deleted all my old posts, which dealt a great deal with political topics. However, I found one that I had not completed. It must have been at least 5 months old, sitting there, incomplete. So, as my first "new" post, I am putting it in below. I will then update you all about my progress since then, since I am sure everyone will take time out of their very busy lives to read about me. Here it is:

For the life of me, I cannot fall asleep. Well, to be fair, I can fall asleep, just not at the right times. I can fall asleep during lab meetings, where other lab members have been hedging bets as to whether I will be able to stay awake or not. I can fall sleep during any science talk where data is discussed. I can fall asleep on the train, during a 13 minute ride to the mall. I can fall asleep after lunch, when I should be working. But when most normal people pack up their lives and say goodnight to the moon, I am awake. I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, the bedpost, the wall, the door. All sorts of thoughts come to me. "Perhaps, if I learned to sew, I could be a fashion designer." "Perhaps, if I learned to walk, I could be a supermodel." "It would be nice to fly first class on British Airways to Cairo." "Gosh, I want honeycomb, with the beeswax."

Many things come to me as I lay in my bed, but sleep comes last. And then I dream. I dream terrible, terrible things. Muzza dying. Being mugged. Things about me, like looking in the mirror and seeing saggy flipfloppy man boobies staring back at me, love handles, a happy trail gone seriously sad... the list goes on. I feel like the character in the Edgar Allan Poe story, The Tell-Tale Heart. But it isn't a heart I hear beating; it's my own brain screaming.

My frustration can hardly be put into words. But my thoughts will not stop flowing at these hours. About a dozen simultaneously cloud my poor head each and every time I lay to rest. So when I wake in the morning, I have slept a maximum of 5 hours each night. And so my body grabs back every minute of sleep it can: in lab meeting, at lectures, at journal presentations, on the train...

I cannot focus on anything. What you can do in 1 hour, I can only dream of doing in two. I am so completely out of it that even to carry on a conversation with some people is difficult. If I am not interested in what you're saying, then I more or less zone out. And every now and then, I come back, feel bad about my ignoring you, and pretend to be interested.

This has made for some awkward situations, of course. Someone might be talking about their brother, perhaps.

Person: "So my brother broke his leg... (I begin zoning out).... and he had to go to the hospital... they put a cast on 6 weeks ago... luckily he's gotten it taken off just before soccer practice starts back up... so now he can run again (I zone back in and feel bad)..."

Me: "Well, I'm glad nothing is broken"


Okay, this is where it ended. More later.