SPIKE//
December 2010
53 posts
waiting room
Fugazi
Fugazi, “Waiting Room”
Some days feel more grad-schooly than others; it’s not the difficulty of the work as much as the spine-crushing density. Today was a full-to-bursting 12-hour school day type: two classes, clinics, a parent meeting and a failed attempt at running an experiment. I waited in the cold on the 40th parallel for the bus. To keep warm I paced and reminded myself that it’s probably colder in Madison, in New York, probably anywhere. By the time I unlocked my front door it was half past time for ramen and the remnants of that bottle of ruby port.
I suppose none of that has anything to do with this song. But this song sure is good. You’re welcome.
November 2010
34 posts
The Saint Valentine Cocktail
My sources tell me that the port cocktail will be making a resurgence this season. Sounds pretty good to me.
- 1 1/2 oz. light rum
- 1/2 oz. Grand Marnier
- 1/2 oz. ruby port
- 1 oz. fresh squeezed orange juice
- Orange wheel, for garnish
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker over ice. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with an orange wheel.
Recipe via David Wondrich
Feel free to stop by Columbus, OH. We do have good some good eats (and amazing ice cream). Seriously, though my place is cozy if you're stopping in Ohio.
I’m not sure how to interpret this perplexingly anonymous invitation.
A Taxonomy of Bruises
Bruises of the First Type: Domestic
- contusio inquisitione obscura: a bruise caused by searching for an object in the dark
- contusio halucinatione: a bruise resulting from daydreaming or slowness of the mind
- contusio bubla: a bruise caused by one’s livestock
- contusio avunculo: a bruise caused by the hand of one’s uncle, for being lazy
- contusio originis obliterate: a bruise for which one can no longer remember the cause
- contusio inscrutabilis: a bruise for which one never understood the cause
- contusio affecto malo: a bruise resulting from humor
- contusio sellae controversae: a bruise stemming from a dispute over the latrine
Bruises of the Second Type: Civic/Public
- contusio prolapsione ex arbore: a bruise inflicted by the ground after falling from a tree
- contusio salax: a bruise inflicted by a companion’s elbow, deployed to draw attention to the proximity of a comely stranger
- contusio abscondita: a bruise received from a kick beneath the dinner table
- contusio pulchritudinis tristitiae: a bruise which exaggerates a melancholy beauty
- contusio cygno irato: a bruise inflicted by an angry swan
- contusio crepusculo: a bruise inflicted at dusk
Bruises of the Third Type: Internal/Invisible
- contusio luctus: a bruise located beneath the ribcage stemming from grief
- contusio metus: a bruise located inside the throat from an unnameable fear
- contusio existentialis: a bruise created throughout the flesh by the daily pummeling of existence
Dedicated to raynor and elizabeth, respectively tumblr’s beloved resident taxonomist and bruiser at large.
Reblogged for wonderfulness.
If you wouldn't mind a quick stop at Nashville, I'd love to have you! There should be plenty of kitsch to keep you entertained for literally minutes on end.
Eush is officially on my roadtrip map. You can be, too, if you want a visitor come January. Interested parties can leave invitations and pertinent information here.
I’m really excited to see the middle of the country. The non-coastal areas of the US are largely unknown to me. I do know that when I was about five my dad went on a trip to Nashville and he came back with bolo ties and cowgirl boots for me and my sister. Man did I love those cowgirl boots to death. I wouldn’t take them off for anything, including gym class. This act of rebellion prompted Ms. Lafarge (an ancient spinster and vicious hag of a gym teacher) to send me home for being a stubborn little twerp who threatened to scuff up the laquered floor of the gym with my boots.
But no worries, Eush. My days of mutiny and anarchy are behind me. I promise to be a compliant and pleasant houseguest. And I’m super psyched to meet you!
Drinks on the Train - Taste Varies With Point of Departure - NYTimes.com →
nytimes.com
On Long Island (that hub of culture!) we can drink on the train. In practical terms, this means I can park my car at Port Washington, drink a beer and be tipsy by the time the first pitch is thrown at Citi Field. If this is not the pinnacle of convenience and class, I do not know what is.
Why don’t open container laws hold on the LIRR? I don’t know. You can’t drink openly on the NYC subway (I still do). But it’s perfectly ok to drink on the LIRR; they even sell alcohol on the track at Penn.
According to this article commuters on the Long Island Rail Road drink three times as much hard liquor as commuters headed upstate and to Connecticut. I’ll have to mull that over, over a whiskey ginger, as I head home on the train.
Who has two thumbs and an internship at the Aphasia Center of California?
THIS GIRL!
Inwhichidonthavetimeforthespacebar
SillonthisbusandNOWEREneartheairport.Imgoingtomissmyflight fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. Ihateeverythingaboutthisfuckingstateincludingitslac-a-fuckingdasiacaltakeonpublictransportation.getmeoutofthisbarrenlandlockedwasteland.
This Time Tomorrow
The Kinks
The Kinks, “This Time Tomorrow”
This time tomorrow I will be waking up on the East Coast (or anywhere that is not Colorado for that matter) for the first time in six months. I will get down on my hands and knees and kiss the banks of the Schuylkill River. There will not be a single mountain between me and where I want to go.
(via brerfly whose mornings I hope are getting better: via snuh)
Differential Diagnosis: sleep inertia, hangover
I woke up smack in the middle of a dream, which I maintain is the worst way possible to wake up. It leaves me groggier and stupider than on a typical morning. From the work I’ve done at the Integrative Physiology Sleep Lab, I’ve learned that the early-morning fog we experience has a name: sleep inertia. I like that word but I don’t like the feeling.
I don’t remember much of the dream I woke up from. I only caught the last bit, in which I was trying to differentially diagnose some mysterious disorder. My notes told me, “Rule out hangovers”.
SexDrugs & Rock & Roll
(via friendoftime)
Thesis hell, almost literally
Senior year at Olde Reed everyone wrote a thesis whether they wanted to or not. (My thesis was on lexical access of phonological neighbors in Spanish-English bilinguals during auditory comprehension. If you want to know more about it, you’re probably a nerd). Since the whole senior class goes through the thesis experience together, the year is collectively known to the cohort as “Thesis Hell”.
My Master’s thesis has been hellish, too, in its own special and unique ways. If it weren’t happening to me, I might be more appreciative of the myriad ways in which a project can spontaneously combust: renegade committee members; lethargic IRBs; massive hardware failures, etc.
Today, I added “the thermostat” to the list of scavengers gnawing on the mangled carcass of my thesis.
After a two month hiatus today was my first day running participants in my new and improved thesis. At 9 am I unlocked the lab door and was almost bowled over by a gust of hot air; I believe Jesse would refer to this flow as a gradient. The gradient swirled around me and mingled into the much cooler air of the hallway but my lab remained stifling. Inexplicably, the building’s heat system is blowing 90-degree air into my extensively insulated and heavily sound proof-padded speech lab. This is bearable for a few minutes, especially if you leave the door open, but it’s pretty much unacceptable for my participants who will be sitting for a hot hour and half.
I talked to the department secretary, the department head and my thesis advisor. There is nothing anyone can do; the heat is freaking out in several rooms of our ancient building. It seems that there is an especially fiery ring of thesis hell reserved for me and now my participants, too. Please don’t tell the IRB.
