rats and neuroscience

i had a dream that mac was a rat-sized rat. i was on a bicycle and he was on leash. he was running along with me, keeping up effortlessly. i could hear the clack of his toenails on the ground. i reached down and held him up by the back to see if he would stop running, but he still reached down to the ground and kept running along. i think this dream is stimulated by the conversations i’ve had with people about using rats in experiments. i have a picture of one of kj’s rats on my wall. i don’t think i’d get a rat for myself, but i am fond of them. there’s something i need to do in the near future that would probably make more sense to do with a rat, but i might use multiple mice instead.

i’m at the last day of the society for neuroscience conference. it’s been a great conference, as was the one i attended immediately before it. both were in san diego. i can’t wait to get home and be alone with my dog. so much time with other people profoundly wears me out.

i’m about to transcribe my notes into the computer in an effort to consolidate my memories of the talks. no, of course this isn’t procrastination. i don’t know why you’d say that.

i'm so irritable that i am feeling murderous toward the guy sharing the table with me who bounces the table as he types. i took my laptop off the table and left my notebook that i'm transcribing from on it. now my paper notebook is bouncing around as he types. wow, i really need to spend time alone.

roberta got me the most fantastic birthday present: tickets to see dolly parton. now, no one i know (besides roberta) is a dolly fan, so i'll have to take someone basically against their will. but i love dolly parton! it's a brilliant present, because i would be unlikely to buy tickets for myself. thank you roberta!

what happens when you play a country song backward?

You get your girl back, you get your car back, you get your job back, you get your dog back...

For anyone who has doubts that I've gone into a serious profession, just take a look through the 2004 Ig Nobel awards which were announced last night. The award for medicine was for an article that found that "the greater the airtime devoted to country music, the greater the white suicide rate." Other award gems were for patenting the comb-over, examination of the scientific validity of the 5 second rule about eating food that's fallen on the floor, a physics investigation into the dynamics of hula hooping, and the vatican for outsourcing prayers to india. The prize in biology was awarded for work on herrings communicating by farting. Which brings me back to the original topic of potty humor. Now that I've enriched your day, I'll be getting going.

potty humor

From a patient information leaflet:

YOU MAY NOTICE THE TABLET SHELL in your stool. This is harmless. This is only an empty shell. Your body has already absorbed the medicine.

This slayed me. Especially the caps.

In other news, I'm back from my trip. I hired someone to paint the guest bedroom and he did a great job, prepping 4 peeling doorways and repainting them as well as the entire bathroom. Mac was extraordinarily well cared for by all involved. I cleaned the apartment last night in a flurry before a roommate interviewee came over. She seems promising. It's nice to have the place clean. I feel so much better when I do things. I'm not sure it doesn't work the other way though: when I feel better, I can do things. In any case, I did something last night and I felt good about it. It's nice to be in a clean place. Now if only my bedroom were as clean and organized.

I listened to almost the entire presidential debate last night, a first for me. I typically get impatient listening to politicians and stop listening. It seems like they're rarely saying what they mean. I thought last night's debate was pretty good.

Ok, time to go to work.