Surprise 3-day weekend

Parental Encouragment

Because my still-unidentified-probably-autoimmune arthritis (doctor's plan: "let's see if it gets worse" My plan: new doctor) rules out land-based exercise for the forseeable future, I have been exercising in the pool.  I haven't spent regular time in the pool since I was a kid, so re-acclimation is a slow process.

My father is supportive.

me

9:17 PM

Hi da

you'll be happy to know I didn't drown in the pool yesterday

and that I can swim a 100 m freestyle in 4 minutes

which is only...3 minutes and 15 seconds off of michael phelps pace

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Dave 

9:17 PM

Well, that's pretty much drifting with the current, but it's a good start

Haiku

Kerita and I have both been working on a grant that is due soon, and we have found ourselves...frustrated. More me than her, I think

5:17 PM me: I am just having a complete mental block

 Keri: maybe you should write a haiku

5:18 PM me: Please please fund my grant       I want a real job so bad       fuck you i'm awesome

  there

  did it

 Keri: did it help?

 me: well

  I think it is a pretty nice haiku

5:19 PM Keri: ha me too

  too bad they don't accept appendices

PS: I've had lots of gchat snippets lately. I try to write posts more frequently, but then I get perfectionist and ADD and type A about how much my writing sucks and how boring I am. Which is something I battle with pretty much constantly about my more academic writing. So I post chats when people  are funny. I am at  my maximum level of hilariousness in short bits, anyways.

Books-2012

In 2011, I read sixty books, seventy counting the annual harry potter and hunger games re-reads.  My goal for 2012 was seventy, not counting rereads. I failed miserably! In my defense, I wrote a grant, taught three continuing ed classes, and had a bustling social life, so it isn't like this is a tragedy. Anyways, here is what I read-I put stars by my top ten of the year.

1.  Tomorrow when the war began John Marsden
2.  The Snow Child Eowyn Ivey  
3. The Flame Alphabet Ben Marcus  
4. The Devil All the Time Donald Ray Pollack  Really dark and twisted, but good!
5. *The Marriage Plot Jeffrey Eugenides wonderful! characters are not particularly sympathetic,  but it's a great book nonetheless
6.  Monsters of Men Patrick Ness
7.  The Illumination Kevin Brockmeier
8.  The Fault in our Stars John Green This is a book about teenagers with cancer, so obviously right up my alley.  But despite the sadness of the topic, it is really sweet and well written-I think would be enjoyable even for those who don't like YA fiction
9.  *The Dovekeepers Alice Hoffman Probably my favorite of the year. just beautifully written and told.  Reminds me a little of The Red Tent.
10. The Flight of Gemma Hardy Margot Livesy  This is a retelling of Jane Eyre, set in the 1950s-  a pleasant enough read, but I would rather just re-read Jane Eyre
11. The Great Big Book Horrible Things: A definitive chronicle of the world's 100 greatest atrocities Matthew White  My non-fiction of the year. Surprisingly funny!
12.  Cinder Marissa Mayer
13. Under the Never Sky Vanessa Rossi
14. Song of Achilles Madeline Miller
15. Gods of Gotham Lyndsey Faye Great historical fiction in old Manhattan
16. Lamb Christopher Moore A reread for sister book club.  Still really good!
17. The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood  Another re-read of one of my all-time favorites
18. *Claire DeWitt and The City of the Dead Sara Grann Murder myster in post-Katrina New Orleans. Claire DeWitt is a great detective heroine, the mystery is sufficiently twisty without being ludicrous, the story is poignant without being cloying.
19. *Shadow and Bone Leigh Bardugo  This is a teenage fantasy/dystopian novel, of course.  The story is pretty typical, but the setting and the world the author built are completely fantastic. I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel.
20. The Chemistry of Tears Peter Carey
21. Out of Oz Gregory Maguire 
22. A Secret Kept Tatiana de Rosnay
23. *The Orphan Master's Son Adam Johnson. This one is set in North Korea. Interesting story and oddly funny.  You hear the story from the protagonist, the torturer interrogating him, and the official news version
24. *Bring Up the Bodies Hilary Mantel The Sequel to Wolf Hall,  a sympathetic (ish) portrait of Thomas Cromwell
25. Insurgent Veronica Roth
26. The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
27. The Virgin Cure Ami McKay
28. Into the darkest corner Elizabeth Haynes. 
29. *Tell the Wolves I'm home Carol Rifka Brunt  simple and lovely.
30. The last policeman Ben Winters  A new series-mysteries set in an apocolyptic future! Sort of slow paced, but I am looking forward to reading the next installment
31. Age of Miracles Karen Thompson Walker
32. Hell or High Water Joyce Castro
33. Broken Harbor Tana French
34. What Dies in Summer Tom Wright
35. Talking with the Dead Harry Bingham
36. *Sandcastle Girls Chris Bohjalian Really, really good-very dark and , as it is about the Armenian Genocide. Engrossing throughout.
37. City of Women David Gilham
38. Gone Girl Gillian Flynn  Everyone and their daddy and all their cousins read this book. It was an engaging enough story, but I wasn't terribly impressed
39. *The Diviners Libba Bray  This is, technically, a book for teenagers. It is silly, a supernatural mystery in Jazz Age New York. The antagonist is largely ripped off from Dr. H.H. Holmes, except with more magic. Still, it was one of my favorites of the year.  I tore through it in a few days, slowed down only by the fact that it creeped me out too much to read late into the night. The writing is beautiful, way, way more poetic than you would expect in a silly book for teenagers
40. Illuminations Mary Sharrat
41. The wonder show Hannah Barnaby
42. Live through this Mindi Scott
43.  Life Among Giants Bill Roorbach
44. Grave Mercy Robin LeFevers 
45. Lazarus is dead Richard Beard This book is totally bizarre.  It is a fictionalized biographyof Lazarus (of raised-from-the-dead Biblical fame), written in a serious, scholarly tone but drawing from sources like artwork, history, and other works of fiction.  Really weird. Honestly, I probably only read past the first chapter because I was delayed forever on the second leg of my trip home for christmas.  But I am glad I persevered, because as much as the first half was a struggle to figure out what was going on the second half flew as it drew towards a touching end.

spreadsheets

Elizabeth 

9:12 PM

i have new years resolution writer's block.

it's an odd feeling.

---

me

9:12 PM

um

---

Elizabeth 

9:13 PM

not, like, I can't think of resolutions. I CAN.

I just can't organize the spreadsheet, due to laziness.

---

me

9:14 PM

so

a couple things

1) you are making a spreadsheet of new year's resolutions?

---

Elizabeth 

9:14 PM

yes.

---

me

9:15 PM

2) you are having trouble with a spreadsheet?

you LOVE spreadsheets

---

Elizabeth 

9:15 PM

I know.

I love resolution spreadsheets, especially.

with color codes!

but. I just don't know where to put things.

---

me

9:16 PM

...

...

---

Elizabeth 

9:17 PM

I don't understand.

your ellipses are full of judging.

but are they full of meaning?

no.

probably, they are full of jealousy.

---

me

9:18 PM

sure

jealousy

Hunger Games for congress

A Wednesday morning conversation...

me

9:12 AM

I sort of think that the house republican conferences are going to turn into the Hunger Games.

and I can't say I'm sad?

---

Katie 

9:13 AM

I was actually thinking about that yesterday!

Only mine was "Can we execute a congressperson from each party every 2 hours until they solve this?"

"Like the Hunger Games, for Congress."

---

me

9:13 AM

hahahaha

I like yours better

Hannukah Miracles abound...

1)our paper, which I am second author on and has been in review/revision/review FOREVER was accepted by Neuron yesterday. This is the paper we went to Philly to do insanely hard experiments for (I think 8 days of recording, 4 cells from 30 animals!).  

2) My hands, after two weeks of unexplained stiffness and distracting levels of pain, a doctor's visit where they took approximately half my blood for testing, and a lot of hyperventilating while googling bone cancer and lupus, have spontaneously healed. Ok, so I know they are not healed and whatever is wrong is unlikely to just disappear, but today I can move them and the pain is minimal and I am making cookies

cook ALL the things

SO my grant is turned in to the office of sponsored projects, hooray! That means that I am continually getting emails telling me my references are formatted incorrectly or my facilities page also needs to include  information about the institutional environment, but different information than what goes on the institutional environment page. Annoying, but I guess I am glad that someone is checking this stuff.  But for the most part, this horrible thing is done.   I'm pretty happy with what I turned in, and really excited about the project I proposed. I was ready to quit science forever on monday after my fifth night in a row with less than four hours of sleep, but I have been assured that the whole process gets easier.
Anyways, the past three months have been completely insane and I am ready for a break.  This weekend, in addition to doing a lot of laundry and cleaning, I am going to cook all sorts of things:

Veggie Stock!

Butternut Squash and Cider Soup

Tangy Chickpea salad

pumpkin-risotto

Pumpkin bread

ROAR, part II

Two and a half weeks to go on the grant, and I have bronchitis. Progressed from sore throat to strained rib muscles in four days.  This is not surprising, as I have never had any sort of major academic or professional hurdle without being deathly ill- I was sick (several times with bronchitis, so this is a familiar feeling!) or on crutches for every single exam period in college. ALL EIGHT OF THEM.  I missed an Organic chemisry midterm because I was in the hospital with  kidney infection.  I had the flu for my qualifying exam.   I think my thesis defense was the only time I have ever been healthy for a test.  I thought that was a sign I was over this particular quirk, but alas, just a fluke.

ROAR

Here is a great time for your home internet to go out, possibly because your terrible asshole neighbors have been stealing internet from you for a year, and no, Verizon can't come out sooner than next tuesday:  A week  before you have to send a draft of a grant to your boss before you leave for five poorly timed days in California!
Now I get to not only spend 95% of my waking time writing, but I get to do it in the lab! Yay!