Coffee, Cards, and a Goatee.

CCaaG has moved to a new website!! I know, this is a hard transition for all of us, but if you'll just bear with me and click here:

YIPPIE!!

It'll all be alright.

(Pre-post note: This is one out of maybe two times that I've posted twice in as many days. Cherish it.)

Sean Gold, world-renowned scholar of pop music, pizza-delivery schemes and calculator watches, consistantly surprises me by doing a fantastic job of holding up his end of ridiculous conversations. Sean may be the only person on earth I can have a semi-serious discussion with about the merits of Chuck Berry supposedly defecating into a stripper's mouth. Whereas a conversation with someone else would go as follows:

Me: So, Chuck Berry apparently laid a cleveland steamer in a stripper's pie hole. Comments?
Not-Sean-Man: I would prefer to never converse with you again.

A conversation with Sean on the same topic goes like this:

Me: Chuck Berry rolled-over a Beethoven of feces into a stripper's mouth. How does that change your views of Chuck?
Sean: He's still a guitar god. Also, you can't really be a musical star without some kind of insane story in your past that people can pass around as a rumor. You can be good at music, you can have the best songs in the world, but unless you do something akin to paying a female to eat your waste, you can't really be overly famous.

All shit jokes aside, this is probably my favorite thing about Mr. Gold.

So during one of our recent conversations, the topic of long hair came up. I'll spare you the details of how, but a brief outline goes like such:
Away messages -> Repetitive music -> Guitar solos -> Inane dancing -> Long hair
Fill in the blanks as you will.
But it got me thinking. One of these days, I need to radically re-do my image. Not a gradual thing, and not a false kind of thing. I'd want to stay true to my own interests, but also something that will get noticed. Chuck Klosterman talks about how he once went into a Gap, looked at the twelve mannicans on display, and bought the entire outfit of the one that caught his attention the most (mainly because he doesn't like the shopping process). The blue sweater with untucked dress shirt and jeans look that he wore to work the next day was a huge hit, and got him noticed by just about everyone. I think this is a fine idea. One of the ways this may happen is by growing my hair longer. Long hair just accentuates everything your head does; it makes your cranial movements far more dramatic. When you agree with someone, you dont just nod your head, you rear back your mane and launch a folicular attack of geniality. Dramaticism kicks ass.

But then again. Long hair can go very, very wrong on a male (and females too, but men especially). And I don't think I could particularly pull it off. I'm already known for my hairiness (see: title of blog), and having dramatic hair would only increase this problem. That, and I have a head that, under the same rules that expelled Pluto as a planet, introduced my noggin. In fact, here's a recent picture of myself, captioned by the photographer:


(Alright, so I stole that from Google images. But you get the point). Long, flowing hair would only accentuate this problem as well. See, when I think about having long hair, I assume that I'm going to look like this:


But guess what, I'm not. That is, unless I start severely working out and start focusing on proper stubble growth. I just dont have that kind of patience. But maybe I'll buy a sweater and a dress shirt. That could be a good start.

Maybe a messenger bag too?

Labels: feces, hair, Sean Gold

Life's been a lot more eventful the past few months. Normally I'd write a long winded, somewhat witty, and ultimatley unimportant post about it all (which I guess I'm doing anyway), but because I'm kind of tired and have been doing a lot of writing in the past few days, I'm going to break it down into bullets. These are by no means in any order -- I'm just writing them as they come to me. I will try to put downer things immediatley preceeding a happy, funny thing. This way, we all end up smiling. Aint that nice in a hippy sort of way?

Recent Events (and a sentence or two of thought on each)

• Started the Fall '06 semester. Classes include Cognitive Psych, American Fictions of Death, Clinical Psychology Seminar, Intro to Astronomy (snicker), and Lab In Learning. That last one has been a source of conflict -- while the others are all generally good, the lab requires me to work with a rat that Heather and I have affectionatley dubbed "Madison" (I'm really starting to love that lever-pressing rodent), and with another rat who takes the form of an overweight and excessivley hairy girl who wears nothing but belly shirts (or perhaps they were supposed to be mumu's that just got eaten by her dough-like gut) and likes to ask me ridiculously stupid questions. Questions such as, "Do you know what this Operant Conditioning thing is?" Non-psych majors may think that to be a legitimate question, but its akin to one carpenter asking another, "Hey, I've been at this for a few years now, but I'm not sure what these little pointy metal things do...nails, I think they're called?"
• Living In A New Place. I'm living in a two bedroom apartment in Johnson City with a Mr. Brian Juba. The location is thirty seconds from Wegman's and the Oakdale Mall, and it has central A/C. I'm loving it. Life in this apartment is understandably less exciting than it was last year...but at least I have an actual room now. In fact, the only bad thing about it is it's distance from the bars, but that doesn't matter because of the next point...
• Broke My Driver's License. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to write this in a public forum, but I am not of legal age to drink alcohol. I know, I know. I'm only a mere 20 years of age. So to aid in my quest for intoxication, I normally employed the use of a chalked ID. Now, I'm the first to admit the futility of the chalked ID. You might as well go up to the bouncer with a note that says "Please. I'm desperate." But it was the best I had. My usual artist is in med school now, so I thought it couldn't be too hard to do myself. Long story short, I tried so many times that I wore the surface so smooth, the pencil could no longer apply. In an attempt to re-rough it, I bore a hole straight through the ID. I know, I can't believe it either. But I did. I actually attempted to show a picture of this, but I dont have Photoshop and couldn't black out the personal info that I dont want some 45 year old using to come touch me tomorrow night.
• Grandmother. I'll keep this brief. I dont mean to bring everyone down, but this blog's about me, right? And well, this is something major going on in my life. So, my grandmother had this new operation that was supposed to fix all the problems she's been having (I can't remember if I've posted before about these issues, but if I haven't and you'd like me to, leave a comment about it and we can all cry together). The operation was a total hip replacement, but it was more complicated because of the removal of the old hardware that was already in there, etc. The incision ran from the top of her hip to the middle of her knee. Nasty stuff. But it was a great surgeon and it went fine. Things were finally looking up, until my grandmother hit a 1 in 8000 chance: she developed an arterial blod clot in the calf of the same leg. Quick bio lesson: Veins carry blood to the heart, arteries carry it away from the heart to the muscles. Therefore, no blood was getting to her foot, ankle, etc. No blood = no oxygen = necrosis (death o' cells). VERY long story short, her leg needed to be amputated. TWICE. First time, then to check and make sure they got all of the dead tissue off (any remaining would become severely infected and cause lots of problems), then a second time to cut a little more and close it up. So, after ALL OF THIS FUCKING 8 MONTHS OF BULLSHIT, the leg had to come off anyway. The worst part? Yesterday she told my mom she had to go to the bathroom, and when my mom went to call the nurse, my grandmother (who's been having some cognitive problems) said "Oh no, don't bother them, I'll just get up and walk there". Hear that? That's the sound of a heart breaking.
• The Goddamn Nav Bar Is Back. You may notice a strip of black across the top of the screen. That's the blogger nav bar. It used to not be there, because it's annoying and I found a little sneaky way of removing it. But guess what? Blogger released a new version of itself (Blogger Beta), and I stupidly complied in joining. "New Features!" they said. "More customizable!" they said. "Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!" they said. Wrong, wrong, and really wrong. It's the same its always been. But now, the nav bar is not removable. Goddamn you Blogger. I shall have my revenge. I will not rest til the streets run red with your....uh...machine code!!!
• Looked Into Post-Bac Programs. And then hid in the corner and cried.
• Might Be Volunteering At A Psychiatric Center. With my clinical psych professor, Dr. Krantweiss. Great teacher, maybe great opportunity. Chance to see schizophrenics in their natural environment, which I guess to them might be Narnia or something similar. More on this as it develops.
• BU Podcast? It seems the podcast idea has started its approach down the runway and will soon be taking off. Apparently a lot of paper work has to go into this first, but if it works out, you'll be the first to know. I'm getting tired of writing again, so I'm not going to go into the details of the project right now, but again, if you want me to write a summary of the idea, leave a comment. I loves me some comments.

Labels: apartment, blogger, fall, grandmother, ID, podcast, post-bac, psychology, school

Oh, and Blogger is being some special kind of asshole, and wont let me fix that rather large font near the end of the last post. I've been trying for an hour, its impossible, I'm sick, and I'm going to sleep.

Still, sit on it.

The tomatoes have ripened, the cat has moved to Riverdale, Ed barely moves at all, and I'm posting again. Now you're all caught up on stuff from last time. No apologies for my lateness this time. I'm sick (physically and, some would argue, mentally), and I'm stressed, and I dont need that kind of pressure from you anonymous folks out there.

The reason I'm stressed, and probably the reason I'm sick, is because I'm working for this man: Raj Ratan. In his lab, located at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, I work with a wonderful woman named Ambreena on little tiny cells, attempting to extend their lifespan when undergoing oxidative stress by using drugs.

For those of you that are unhealthfully interested in biology, we work with prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors. Specifically, we work with DFO, which is an iron chelator, and DHB, which is a 2-oxogluterase inhibitor, both of which de-regulate prolyl hydroxylases, which in turn, upregulate HIF-1 alpha, starting off a series of genetic processes that provide a larger window of time before the cell goes through apoptosis. We use the homocysteaic acid model, as published by Raj, to induce oxidative stress. Currently, I'm attempting to find what the link is between the cell proliferation that inhibition of the prolyl hydroxylases causes, and the CREB cycle, which our lab accidentally found a correlation between.

For you normal people out there, here's what you need to know:
Stroke -> Drugs -> Yay!

Anyway, the work is really stressful. I get paid a measly salary, but I'm also considered a "summer student". So not only is the work I'm doing reviewed by world reknowned scientists and doctors, but I'm also responsible for studying and knowing all the crap I'm doing. Considerng I haven't taken a biology or chemistry class since high school, and that I've only been at it for 2 months...I think I'm doing a pretty damn good job. Hopefully, Raj agrees, and we'll find out on Thursday when I have to sit down with him and discuss just that.

So what you ask? What does it matter if Raj thinks I'm a dunce? So what if that's the first time anyone has written "dunce" since 1548? Well, it doesn't matter really. I mean, its just a summer job. Oh, except for one little detail:

Raj is the executive director of Cornell Medical School, and is interested in accepting me to their program based on my work in the lab.

Other than that, I feel very little pressure. I'm just peachy keen otherwise. I mean, I haven't slept in 3 weeks, I do nothing but work, and I've developed a lovely respiratory virus, but I've been very lucky otherwise.

Here's my one saving grace. Even if the whole thing falls through, even if the "sure-fire" recommendations I should have never come through, even if Raj fires me and makes sure I'm never accepted to med school anywhere, even if I accidentally burn the lab and all of Burke down, I still have this...

I feel and look damn cool in a lab coat.
Don't believe me? Follow the simple equation:

Me:

Plus this:



Equals this:

Heyyyy, sit on it.

Once again, my titles reflect my intentions for the post. I've got lots of pictures to show you, none of which have ever been seen before. This is an all-exclusive event (if you happen to be one of the billions of people with internet access). So first, a little background story to our first set of pictures:

A long time ago in a land far far away (a semester or two ago in Binghamton), I rescued a neighbor of mine from a very evil window (True, and would be a good post for some time). She eventually recovered, and in time, became friendly with the members of our house. Now this girl, whose name escapes me, also had a bit of a hobby in rescuing kittens. Tom, who used to live with me, had a bit of a hobby in wanting a kitten. The two of them quickly struck a deal, wherein Tom got a free kitten in exchange for giving it a good home. Tom chose the runt of the litter, and named her Mona. Now, in the background of these pictures you may see much litter and dirty clothes strewn about, those are mine. This was a low point in my long standing rivalry with cleanliness. However, the kitten front and center should distract you enough. I don't really have to say anything about her...she speaks for herself:







Jesus H. Christ, that's a damn cute kitten. She was very playful too, and utterly adorable. I only wish I had more pictures of her sleeping on people or sleeping inside of water bottle boxes.

Now, when I started uploading pictures of Mona, I felt bad for Ed. For those of you who don't know Ed, he's my slightly deformed German Shepherd. You might be able to see in the following pictures that one of his legs bends the wrong way, due to a particularly nasty automobile accident before we ever got him. He doesn't know the difference, though it does seem to ache him sometimes. He's also incredibly sweet and scared of more things than you can think of, despite his enormous size. I took one full body shot of him to show what I mean.





I've got three more pictures for ya, so hold on tight. Now, these next three aren't as cute, but they are going to start (maybe) a trend on this here blog. See, when I was a kid, I used to grow tomato plants, because the nice lady who owned the plant store used to give me them for free. I haven't done it in a long long time. But it's back baby!!






I realize the unwavering dorkiness of this, but for some reason its got me excited. And its my mother-effing blog, so you are all going to watch this thing grow. I'm going to take pictures of it, you're going to look at them, and you will leave comments about how gorgeous and delicious my tomatoes look. Ok, maybe not that last part, but definatley the first two! That last picture of the four little yellow flowers is the beginning of a tomato. Each one of those flowers will, with any luck, start to develop a little green ball inside of them, which will grow and grow until it turns the shade of red you'd normally expect. When they fall off to the touch, they're ready for eating. I'm no tomato connisseur or great lover of said vine-ripened vegetable, but they're easy to grow and extremely rewarding.

And there you have it. In a single post you've witnessed adorable felines, the paradox of a 115 lb. German Shepherd who could tear your arm off but prefers to lick it, a nature lesson about the origins of an vegetation, and pretty pictures of it all to boot. Now that's a goddamned post.

As you may have guessed, this is a public, open, quick apology:

In my last post, I insinuated that Heather was exceedingly mean, by misquoting her feelings about this here blog. In fact, Heather is nothing but supportive of my little musings here, and encourages me to post regularly. She also reads every single one of these things...and, well...some of them are kind of boring. You can read the comment she left regarding this issue. That girl really knows how to make a guy swallow his words.

So in short, I'm sorry for the way that last post made her sound. She's really a wonderful person, and a loyal, loving reader of this little space of internet.

As a sidenote, how kick ass is this new look? And now that I've figured out some of the html intricacies, I'll be able to change that striking background picture whenever and however much I'd like.