Woe Is Them

Advice, Whatnot Comments (14)

O me. Thou art such a neglectful bastard! In my defense, the brain is being ground into mush by a combination of firehose-style learnin’ and numbing boredom during the aforementioned administration of the firehose.

Worried about the prospect of not being able to match OSHA’s thunder during the first week, Biochemistry faculty spend the second and third weeks of orientation giving new graduate students a ‘survey’ of biochemical techniques they may need over the next rest of their lives. In the last three days, this has consisted of nearly 400 slides over 10 hours and will continue for the next 7 days at a similar clip in an effort to crush our collective will. Only two people have run out of the auditorium screaming, which appears to be low compared to previous years, so apparently we’re a very hardcore group.

The new students consist of varying disciplines ranging from Molecular Genetics to Pharmacology, but a common theme for all is that they’re required to take at least one semester of Biochemistry. To my surprise, this is proving daunting to a large number of these brilliant folks, a surprising number of whom have managed to have not only navigated their undergraduate majors without having ever taken such a class, but also to have been accepted into a top biomedical program without the distinction. So, irony has reared its ugly head a few times when they, upon learning that I’m entering the evil Biochemistry program itself, remark on their dread of the coming academic onslaught and inquire about my background in the hopes that I’ll be able to impart some sort of magical elixir of success. You’ve never seen faces droop or confusion reign supreme over given countenances like those of my inquisitors upon my answering, ‘I was a computer science major’. Once they finish asking the usual questions of, ‘Huh?’, and ‘What?’, and ‘WHY?’, or just simply backing away from me very slowly, I explain things, including my having taken biochemistry and biophysics and that, yes, they were difficult, but if I could do it, then surely they….and this is when they usually interrupt and start formulating reasons about how their failure is inevitable and blah blah blah.

Now, listen. I am not an academic decathalete by any stretch of the imagination and I know starting a PhD program is intimidating and must be significantly more so for people aged 22-25 than it evidently is for grizzled 35-year old professional cynics, but come ON. For a few, it seems as though disaster is a foregone conclusion. I can’t help but wonder where such smart kids who obviously excelled in their undergraduate education came up with such a flawed line of thinking. I remember having similar thoughts at 33 regarding graduate school, but, hell, I was 12 years separated from my last undergraduate chemistry class, 8 from academia, in general, and was still relearning how to study. Also, 33? One foot in the grave? The reaper following me around waiting for me to fall and break my hip? Hello?! Pressure, anyone?!?

I’m not narrow-minded enough to believe that everyone works as well on a dare as I appear to, but I’m also willing to consider that maybe some do. So, from now on whenever asked, I’ve decided to start answering people’s worry with something along the lines of, ‘Yep. Not easy.’ It seems to me that their self-doubt will only be remedied by their proving themselves wrong and that anyone else assuring them that everything will be fine may be doing as much to set them up for failure as they seem determined to do on their own. Also, WTF am I supposed to say?! Mammals are complicated!! FUCK!!!!

Also, nothing can make me go from ‘sympathetic’ to ‘annoyed’ in 4.8 seconds or less like relentless ‘poor me’-flavored self-pity, easily the most effective destroyer of potential and hope.

Sir @ August 13, 2008

Props in the Hizzouse!

Mad Props Yo, Whatnot Comments (10)

A slim week, really. Not much reading involved, though large amounts of listening. I spent the vast majority of my awake time being oriented to my new surroundings. The OSHA people, always fun and full of glee, extracted our child-like whimsy and crushed it as we all watched. Some highlights:

No kung fu fighting in the Radiation Department.
Adding water to chemical waste does not dilute said waste; it only generates more of it. So, don’t.
Spilling formaldehyde down elevator shafts is not encouraged.
Do not put darts in the centrifuge.
Acid hurts.
The playing of ‘Truth or Dare’ in any lab will result in a harsh beating and dismissal from your respective program.
Tomfoolery, hijinx, and general grabassery are prohibited everywhere.
Do not fill Super Soakers with liquefied e coli, then engage in Microbiological Death Match with other labs.
Doing shots of liquid nitrogen will not make you a ‘cold-blooded killah’. They will make you dead. Death is prohibited.

The highlight was when one OSHA dude showed a picture of someone wearing crocs and said, ‘You can’t wear crocs in the lab. Or ever, preferably. I saw a picture of Tim Tebo wearing crocs yesterday and it confirmed my hatred of him.’ Me, too, OSHA guy. Me, too.

This week’s ultimate prop: Achewood.

Seriously, people. If you want to give yourself the gift of laughter, start reading through Achewood’s archives.

And, finally, a poem from a Seattle bus, where great swaths of worthy prose sit awaiting discovery. Thanks, again, to Sarah.

From the Hospital Bed by Eve Psalti

I’m here
I’m ready
I’m home

Sir @ August 8, 2008

This and That

Whatnot Comments (14)

This.

That.

You’re welcome.

Sir @ August 6, 2008

Immovable

Confessions, The Deep, Whatnot Comments (14)

Fate is fickle. The other night, I was walking back to the car and observed that Fate had crept up at some point during dinner and emptied the air from my back left tire. I did an about-face, caught my fellow dinner-eaters, told them about Fate’s being a dick, and watched as they wallowed in my misfortune (‘Oh, you poor bastard, here, have some pity, etc., etc.’). The mocking having subsided, the wifely half of one of the couples commented on my lack of concern about the car and the tire (I was leaving it in the parking lot because I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow something like that to alter well-made plans involving ice cream and cocktails). My response was that there are greater tragedies in life than a flat tire, to which she replied, ‘Yes, but you never seem to get worked up about anything. Nothing phases you. I envy you that.’ This was when I heard the hamsters manning the wheels in my head mutter a collective, ‘Oh, shit’, because it’s little off-handed comments like these that fire the starting gun.

She’s right, of course. I’ve grown immune to perturbation over the years. I freely admit that there are perks to not being put out by inconveniences, great and small, and that such a characteristic transfers nicely into feelings about work, home-improvement, self-improvement, pet care, clogged drains, hair loss (knock on wood), falling satellites, and volcano-based danger. For instance, last year just prior to Memorial Day, I stood at the back of my house with a cup of coffee looking at an overgrown area adjacent to a guest room and the kitchen. The word ‘Deck’ fluttered through my noggin once and four days later it was finished, including a door installed in a nicely-made hole at the side of the kitchen to give easier access. People thought this was amazing and ridiculous and generally looked at me like I was holding a kitten hostage (‘Who are you and why are you doing this?’).

It was her statement regarding envy that gave the hamsters reason to curse their station at the wheels. There’s more to having a Teflon-based existence than meets the eye, and the decision to be envious is a dangerous one; there are pipers that have to be paid for the acquisition of such characteristics. It starts with being placed in positions you feel are beyond your ability. I started with childhood, in general, followed by basic training as a snot-nosed punk at 18 (seriously, I arrived with a cold), followed it with my entry into VMI (the admissions officer told me that traditionally only ~57% of people finish all four years, which, y’know, thanks for that), then rounded things out nicely with a war, burnout, a brief, but epic wrestling match with addiction and depression, then momentary academic destruction ultimately resulting in success. These things don’t need to vie for the top spot on any list of significance, but I will say this:

There was a friend whose wife had recently had their first baby. He was flying as a co-pilot on one of the first infiltration missions into Northern Iraq when the aircraft took extremely heavy ground fire. They were somehow able to limp back to a friendly airfield and land, after which he looked out his window and saw fuel, having miraculously not been ignited by shrapnel, pouring from the wing (this was, of course, on my mind as I boarded a similar aircraft following a similar route a couple weeks later). Yet another friend, a med-evac pilot, somehow managed to walk away from being shot down and surrounded by unsavory characters of the highest caliber. Other friends and colleagues weren’t so lucky. Some live, some die, and Fate is fickle in the choosing.

I’m surrounded by people who are almost all younger than me, sometimes by as much as a decade, and all of whom seem to have a very fluid view of the meaning behind the word ‘sacrifice’. Their amazement at my ho-hummery is sometimes good for a chuckle, but yes, there truly are worse things in life than inconvenience and failure. Worse, even, than death, and therein lies the turning of the wheels: I’m unmoved by nearly everything these days. I can sit now with a cup of coffee on my spiffy little deck listening to birds chirp and watching the world go by, but devoid of passion or much of a willingness to find it. I can go climb a rock and enjoy the view at the top, but it doesn’t really move me, not like it used to. I’m afraid that indifference may be setting in where focus and perspective used to reign, and now in everything that happens, the remainder is always zero. Never too happy or sad; neither hot nor cold. So, envy at your own peril, O wife of that dude with the funky accent.

I really wish people would be more careful what they say around me.

Sir @ August 4, 2008

Props in the Time of Cholera

Mad Props Yo, Whatnot Comments (10)

The elephant in the room (this post) is a duck. The duck-shaped elephant seen above sitting atop some well-chosen books and looking happy and eager to be on the verge of sucking down a martini showed up in my mailbox along with Gobstoppers and Whoppers (the malted candy, not the greasy flanks of flame-broiled cow). It was an award bestowed by the lovely folks over here for finally having started an effing blog. If you’ve never received a gift of candy and a pink rubber duck in the mail, then your life has been a cold and empty wasteland of disappointment and woe and I feel sorry for you. Mine was, but is no longer. You may covet my duck.

Then yesterday, I was blindsided by yet another award. This one spelled ‘brilliant’ like ‘Brilliante’, I assume harking back to olde Englande when ‘E’s were cheap and thrown at the end of words, willy nilly. My love for the Isles is no secret, which makes this brilliante award even brillianter in my estimation. Truly, my cup runneth over.

Having been thusly validated, my desire to extend props elsewhere is nearly choking me, for I am nothing if not a capable deflector of praise. Let’s begin with a short story.

I am a trivia ninja and Thursday nights here in my little hamlet there’s a certain brewery that serves beer while asking people questions. Now, for me this is like a chocolate-&-peanut-butter type of combination, because after a beer or two I turn into a fucking trivia pirate (I will not rehash this timeless debate, but highly encourage you to hash at your leisure here and O SWEET BASTARD, I’M BUYING AN XBOX360.). Last night, however, my concentration was lacking due to a song on repeat in my noggin. This would normally annoy me to no end, but in this case I enjoyed every minute because not only was the arrival of this song easily the most random thing ever, it was also terminally awesome.

Is it ever possible to have too much Schoolhouse Rock? No. No, it’s not. On with the props, then.

The lovely and talented Sarah Brown posted a picture of a business card belonging to a man who seems worth knowing.

Two things about this post. The first is that the picture reminds of how I discovered this dude. A variation of the picture was posted atop an excellent interview conducted by Leah Peah and I was impressed with how he answered the following question: ‘How would your wife describe you?’ His answer: ‘My wife would say I’m a great solution when the only answer is cock.’ And second, everything he writes is prop-worthy. Period.

He also indirectly pointed me in her direction, after which I ended up reading this post and thought, ‘Damn, yo. That there’s some writin’.’

***Late Addition (Edition? Whatever.)***
If you aren’t a regular reader of Achewood, you should run to a mirror, scowl at yourself, then slowly shake your head in disappointment. Today’s made it in under my radar, but is really worth pointing out.

Finally, a little something by Affonso Romano de Sant’ Anna. The world seems to encourage the belief that we’re always missing something or living unfulfilled lives without doing this, owning that, being with someone else, etc. This is, of course, hogwash of the funkiest stench. Life is what it is and we roll with the punches and the love-taps alike, doing our best to find peace and contentment wherever and however we can. Given this, there’s something comforting about this poem.

Letter to the Dead (2000) –Translated from the Portuguese

We sing congratulations at parties,
argue football on street corners,
die in senseless disasters,
and from time to time
one of us looks at the star-filled sky
with the same amazement we had
when we looked at caves.
And each generation, full of itself,
continues to think
that it lives at the summit of history.

Sir @ August 1, 2008

Run

The Deep Comments (18)

I turned 30 when I was 6 years old. It happened as I watched the people who had provided me the only stability I had ever known move far, far away. In the following four years, I would come to realize that I was more or less the responsible one in the house; sometimes, it seemed, the voice of reason, as well. For people with 10-year olds or who know 10-year olds, the thought of this may buckle knees or induce fits of weeping or laughter. Well. It’s pretty much the same for most 10-year olds. It’s an excellent way to learn the meaning of the word ‘stoic’. Choice was not an option. Such was the daily paradox. These lessons stick.

I never carved lines in my bedroom wall, counting the days until I turned 18 and could finally trade responsibility for what I saw as the comparative comfort of military life. I guess you could say that those lines ended up carved into my psyche. Day and night, year in and out, I would think about that day when I could finally leave and start running as far and as fast as my ability would take me. When the day finally came, I walked away slowly at first in order to lessen my mother’s pain (it was never her fault, anyhow), but gradually developed a faster pace leading to a steady stride that barely even required effort. It was as though I’d been training for this marathon my entire life.

I spent the ensuing years exhorting myself to run away from a past that was already ancient history, couldn’t be changed, was and then wasn’t. Success became like mile markers, as I thought that the more successful I was in whatever I found myself doing, the smaller the past would shrink in my rear-view mirror until eventually disappearing *poof*. The problem was that I never set a distance. I never stopped to ask whether I was running in the right direction. I was going where I thought I needed to go as fast as I possibly could, but without ever having defined the ‘where’ variable. Subsequently, wherever I found myself never seemed far enough away.

And the distance and direction weren’t the only issues. Occasionally, I’d meet someone worth slowing down for. Eventually, inevitably, I’d start to convince myself that the past was catching up and I’d unconsciously find ways to separate myself and start heading off again, unencumbered. It was in these painful, but brief, moments of clarity that self-awareness would arrive and I’d see that instead of brushing people aside for the sake of ambition, I was really whispering to them the same thing that I’d always been yelling at myself: ‘Run. Save yourself.’ It seemed selfless, in a way; saving them from sharing a burden that was mine to carry.

What finally stopped my little jog into oblivion was something well beyond my control. It hurt about as bad as something can, I suppose, but the pain fades (if you let it) and the scars heal (if you let them), leaving the kind of peace that never could have existed without them. I walk everywhere now. The scenery’s better.

A favor has been called in and I dare not refuse. I could deny them, of course. It’d be the easy way out and against everything I know and whoever it is I am and hope to yet become, but the real issue is that the world has too many mirrors. Where could I go? I’d have to blind myself in order to go on living. The favor involves discussing a variation on the above theme with a medium-sized number of young people wearing the same uniform that I last wore ~10 years ago and all of them of the mindset that their individual invincibility trumps all. It’s a tall order to attempt to convince such people that more often than not, they are their own worst enemies, that thinking something could never happen practically makes its occurrence inevitable, and that the world cares little about their expectations. ‘You are the heaviest burden you’ll ever have to bear,’ I can hear myself tell them. ‘Your fears, your worries, your preconceived notions, the past, the future. The world doesn’t need your help in weighing you down. So, stop.’ I know very well, however, that some lessons have to be learned the hard way. I, too, was invincible once.

’Run,’ I whispered to myself yesterday on receipt of the offer to speak. ‘Save yourself.’

Sir @ July 29, 2008