from the desk of stinkpot

i’ve been working like a dog on ritalin lately: hours upon hours of programming, non-stop.

actual quote from my advisor today: “you know, all these projects you keep taking on – i’m amazed you get them done about as quickly as i assign them to you.”  i give him the “it’s because i’m so smart/talented” grin, since it’s much more macho and much less pathetic than admitting, “it’s because i eat about 2.25 of my 3.00 meals a day here in the lab and have seriously considered laying an air mattress under my desk.”  (although having just written that down, i will admit that also felt macho in a perverse and disturbing way.)

luckily, my labmate + neighbor jesse (who thanks to my work + harvard’s night pre-med classes, i see more than my live-in girlfriend), talked the two of us to going to a pub quiz on wednesday night.  the three of us aren’t exactly trivia giants: we’re more like little speed-bumps that usually get rolled over by more knowledgeable (read: uglier) quiz buffs whenever we play.  nevertheless, i’d been thinking a lot lately about trying to balance work + play in grad school  – it’s occurred to me that i probably don’t want to remember this time of my life for all of the really great experiments i ran; it’ll be a lot more fun to tell my kids about the time i got so drunk in grad school that i tried to joust a moving car while on my bike in a mcdonald’s parking lot … <– true story.  then of course, i am trying to setup a career in science now, so i really ought to publish …

luckily, i was slightly less indecisive that night and decided to stop and smell the roses; we went to the quiz night.  lo and behold, we actually placed second!  had we not confused buck rogers, the space cowboy, and roy rogers, the fried chicken cowboy, we’d have scored $50 smackaroos.  our first loser prize instead: tickets to a burlesque show, hosted by “boink” magazine.  classy.

[life lesson learned: take a break from work == get rewarded with boobs.]

christina and i attended the show tonight, which was surprisingly tame.  the girls didn’t even have tassels on their nipple stickers!  i’d have even been contented with little american flags.  no bother though – the mc: a 6’4″ hulking transvestite who kept screaming “applaud her – applaud now!” like an oversexed and over-pierced tourette’s patient more than satisfied my craving for indecency.  especially when she dragged a frat boy on stage, who proceeded to collapse prostrate; she dry-humped the hell out of his ass.  when the drag queen paused to adjust her cleavage, the frat boy used all of his ninja skills to slide off the stage, thereby setting up the highlight of the evening: the world’s nastiest magician pulled the kid’s cell phone and wallet out of her industrial-strength mini-mini-skirt.

[heh, when i promise less tawdry postings, fate hands me free tickets to a burlesque show.  maybe i should avow writing only more impoverished posts, or only stories about how i'm not the eastern seaboard's most accurate super-soaker-shooter.]

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