RBOC

· Golden Child gave a talk today. It was pretty good (for him). He still said “um” an obscene number of times. Duckling 2 stopped counting 15 minutes and 200 ums in. I’ve decided that at his next practice talk, it’s a drinking game. Every time he ums, I drink.

· I am developing a terrible headache, which I really do not appreciate.

· In the next two weeks I…

o Have to finish writing a grant, that is clearly not Crazy Man’s top priority. (That’s another rant for another time.)

o Have to write an abstract for a meeting that I really, really, really want to go to, but don’t have any good data for the project I’d like to present.

o Have to put together and give a 30 minute talk.

o Have to have a committee meeting (although I’m thinking of putting this off at least a week or two.

o Oh yeah…have to generate some data for said 30 minute talk.

o Do crazy stupid experiment for resubmission of GlamorMag Manuscript with our collaborators. It’s not going to address the reviewer’s comment, even though it’s the experiment the reviewer suggested. The question is valid, but there’s really no way to address it. And definitely not this way. But nobody listens to me. Damn engineers! (And Crazy Man)

o Revise and resubmit Ancient Manuscript.

And that’s all in addition to my regularly scheduled experiments. Which are not going well. At all.

· I’m beginning to wonder if Duckling 1 is unteachable.

· A new batch (or 3) of a critical reagent for Duckling 2’s project no longer works. No differences between the batches by mass spec…sigh.

· Crazy Man needs to learn to not talk to me about signaling first thing in the morning.

· My department chair, who is also on my committee, informed Crazy Man that we should all show up for a faculty candidates seminar. He said he didn’t care if we slept; he just wants bodies in chairs. I’m told there will be food.

· I feel like a cow. I think it’s time to seriously start working out again and paying better attention to portion control. Maybe I should set some specific goals.

· I still haven’t blocked Other FGS’s baby blanket. The little one is only 4 months old. And it’s been done for weeks.

· I’ve been sitting here contemplating something positive to close with. Options are limited. I ate a really good apple today. Is that positive? Oh wait...my last post was about depression. I'm still doing better! That's positive! Not 100% good yet, but definitely getting better. So there! :)

Depression

Over the past few weeks (months?) I’ve been slowly becoming depressed again. I was aware of it this time, which is progress I suppose. I didn’t really do anything to try to stop it, but I did recognize it this time. Too bad that won’t spontaneously generate data for the seminar I have to give in three weeks.

Today was far and away the worst I’ve been. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t even want to play mindless computer games, which is something I usually do a lot of when depressed. This attitude dragged on all day, but I did manage to get into lab for a few hours and actually accomplish some things. (I’m still working on a conversion factor for when Duckling 1 tells me how long something is going to take her. I think things take about 1.75x longer than she tells me. Which is about 15x longer than they would take me.)

After lab, TM had gone to the grocery store and I was sitting here grousing. I was eating some cheesecake in the hopes that would make me feel better, but even cheesecake wasn’t cutting it. I finally made up my mind that I was tired of this, and got up and worked out. Even though I may have yelled obscenities at the TV while I was working out, I do feel better. Not great yet, but better. And that has been enough of a spark to make me want to make an effort. The hopeless feeling has abated! And I’m going to Lush this week! Here’s hoping I’m on the upswing again.

RBO Crazy

Crazy Man sent me an email this morning:

1. Have you resubmitted your paper yet? (Um, no. Here’s the revisions…you said you wanted to see the final changes.)
2. Can you and Duckling 2 write a grant? Send it to me by Friday. (Wait…what??? Friday, as in the day after tomorrow Friday? As in I have to give a talk and be at a symposium all day on Thursday and you want me to write a grant and get it to you by Friday? Is there any wonder why I call him crazy man???)*
3. Duckling 1 said you’ve been helping her a lot with (technique she isn’t done with safety training for). Thanks for that. (Well WTF did you expect me to do? Even though she can’t close the refrigerator or find the chemicals on the alphabetized shelf…)**

* I do tend to binge-write much like I binge-read. I like to be thinking about things for a while and have a general outline and then just sit at home in my pajamas and write the whole thing in one fell swoop. Or maybe more like 3 days of that for an R01. I can handle an R21 or shorter private society grant in one day, which is what this one is. Last time I did this I condensed a 12-pager (that I wrote in one sitting) down to 5 pages and got it funded. J I’ve been thinking about this one a good bit, and honestly, I’m pretty excited about trying to crank it out and have it be really good just to freak out Crazy Man. I think he expected me to tell him he was crazy. I almost did. But I’d rather write a grant than practice the talk I’m giving tomorrow. I think I may be as crazy as he is.

** Duckling 1 is another story for another day.