ISleepInADrawer.com

Maiden No More

I woke up at around 2:00AM several days ago, and knew immediately that something was amiss. The act of waking up in the neighborhood of 2:00AM itself isn't out of the ordinary; I do so most nights, save for the rare night in which I, due to heavier alcohol consumption, spend most of the evening, log-like, in a deep and snore-laden slumber that is usually only broken around 5:30AM by Zach who, desperately desiring at least an hour of quality and snore-free sleep, firmly kicks me in the shin. Normally, in such cases, I'd have some sympathy for the poor guy; but, lately, I've gently reminded myself that no one's forcing him to date me. At least, not that I know of.

Usually, at around 2:00AM, the cat begins to listen intently for the sounds of my stirring. Before my feet even hit the floor, to visit the restroom and then return to bed, she's bolted into the bedroom, eagerly waiting to be either fed or let out to battle rabid raccoons. Failure to serve either need is usually met with a string of persistent "meows" that echo through the apartment and persist 'til dawn - she does, after all, run this household. Since her asthma-ridden body is continuously pumped with steroid pills, her appetite is savage and insatiable; we've been warned persistently by veterinarians that we must never overfeed her, as an overweight, diabetic, and asthmatic feline would most likely replace our current asthmatic mistress. Though the thought of having a pet that is both asthmatic AND diabetic is highly tempting, I always resist her nocturnal desires for food, and assume instead that the energy she burns off outside will keep her a few precious steps away from insulin issues. Thus, at 2:00AM, following my nighttime visits to the bathroom, I let the cat out... assuming she doesn't have an asthma attack as soon as she sees me.

Several nights ago, however, I opened my eyes and knew immediately that all was not right. My vision was cloudy. Stumbling toward the bathroom, my blurry eyes failed to notice an affectionate and food-or-outdoors-seeking cat in my path, and I tripped over her tabby hide. Ignoring her exasperated howls, I gazed into the mirror and saw red, moist, and crusted eyes staring back at me through the mirror. By dawn, the coniditioned had worsened; I found myself phoning my physician's office, reporting a possible case of conjunctivitis.

To my knowledge, I've never had pinkeye. In college, pinkeye was the illness most of my cool and hip fraternity and sorority peers would pass around, particularly during the stressful and fluid-swapping pledge periods. Rather than pinkeye, I'd be blessed with blepharitis, a humiliating infection of the eyelid. These episodes became even more humiliating when I began seeing my current physician, who is quite possibly the most gorgeous doctor on the face of the planet.

That morning, as I dressed and prepared to visit my hot physician and show him my pink, irritated eyes, my head swam with contradictory emotions. On the one hand, I was proud that I finally - finally - over three years after graduating college, got pinkeye. I also wouldn't have to stroll around Seattle reminding any passing nerds of a post-torture Colonel Tigh from Battlestar Galactica. But, upon informing my thesis advisor that I'd be in late due to possible pinkeye, she flat-out requested that I sequester myself at home, as our lab had recently passed too many illnesses between one another. Aside from eye irritation, I felt fine; thus, the idea of self-imposed quarantine with my overfed feline and a stack of scientific papers to read didn't exactly jive with my notion of primate productivity. I also worried that my ailment was too trivial in nature to bother the bulging cerebrum of my brilliant physician. For a man who delivers babies and treats complex diseases with his gorgeous form, can I really justify taking up his time with tales of "gooey" and pink eyes?

Unfortunately, that final question occurred to me only as I was being ushered into the exam room, a bit too late to sprint to the elevators. As I hoisted my frame up on the exam table to wait for my doctor to enter, I winced at the pain in my right ankle, and a light bulb lit up over my head. Of course! My ankle had, for several days, been bothering me. If I felt like the pinkeye examination and diagnosis was too trivial for his time, I could always ask him to examine my foot.

Ten minutes later, after pleasantries had been exchanged (he always asks about Zach, which I'm sure thrills Zach), eyes examined, and viral conjunctivitis had been diagnosed beyond a reasonable doubt, my brain attempted to calculate whether such a diagnosis was worthy of the doctor's time. Perhaps it was the diagnosis of viral pinkeye (which, obviously, meant that no prescription for antibiotics would be written), perhaps it was the fact that he'd delivered a baby on Christmas Day (which was not the answer I'd been expected when I asked what he did over the holiday), or perhaps it was the (heartbreaking) news that he and his wife were moving out of Seattle this approaching summer... whatever the reason, I felt that a simple case of viral conjunctivitis was insufficient to warrant a visit to this doctor's office.

I pointed to my ankle and asked him to take a look at it. He smiled and nodded gently. As he instructed me to remove my shoe and sock, however, bile rose up in my throat and I swallowed hard on a sudden and horrific epiphany: my toenails were painted. He saw me hesistate, and I realized there was no going back.

"I... uh... I forgot. My toenails are painted."

He was momentarily bemused but, perhaps due to being my physician for over a year, I think rather unsurprised. Gently chuckling, he pressed me to proceed and, once examining my bare feet, felt obligated to compliment me on my choice of color: sky blue.

"Nice color."
"Oh... heh heh heh. Thanks!"

The diagnosis, an overextended tendon, was simple and straightforward. He asked me if there were any incidents in the past week where I might've hit or strained my ankle. Unfortunately, as he asked, my mind immediately resurrected an incident that was likely to blame for the pain: I, several days prior, had accidentally banged my ankle against a piece of hard and heavy luggage. Since I'd already proclaimed ignorance as to any reason why my ankle would be hurting, however, I again swallowed hard and shook my head. He again smiled and stated that the pain should lessen over a few days.

"If it doesn't. Come back and see me. Same with the eyes."

We wished each other a happy new year, and he shook my hand - the only physician I've ever had who will shake my hand - and left the room. Numbly, I socked and shoed my bare foot and, with pink eyes and blue toenails, left the clinic. At home, I stood in front of a full-lenght mirror with my blue toenails, and admitted that my ailments definitely were not a proper use of his intellectual talents. But, I reassured myself, the incident had some productive outcome: I'm sure he and his wife will now redouble their efforts to leave Seattle before my next appointment.

Goodwill

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas."
--President Calvin Coolidge

Goal Oriented

ISleepInADrawer9: Jimmy eat world!
dportsymphonyguy: That was a band.
ISleepInADrawer9: I know. But it's also my new goal in life.
dportsymphonyguy: Really?
dportsymphonyguy: Better get started.

Mortality

Several days ago, I learned that a classmate of mine from college had died suddenly and unexpectedly. I knew him... not incredibly well, but well enough to know he was a good soul. Friendly and kind, encouraging and candid, and blessedly mischievous. Last I heard, he was studying to become a veterinarian - and I've no doubt he would've been a damn fine one.

I've had this nagging thought in the back of my mind about his death the past few days. I feel awful for his family and friends. But, I can't shake the notion that this is so unfair. It's a tragic event, but also... so blatantly wrong. I can't help but feel that we've all been cheated - that someone as fit and energetic and bright as him cannot die... not yet. He barely had a chance to start to do all that he's meant to do. And now, we're left waiting, hanging - impactless - a bit diminished as a society and a bit less as a race, because we were unduly deprived of the rest of his life, and what was going to come of it.

You, the reader, likely find me a bit naïve for daring to single out a death, one person's death, and dare to shake my fists at the sky in protest. After all, we are warned, from even a young age, that life isn't always fair. The lessons come in small steps - mine were often born of such incidents as being chosen last for teams in gym class. As a result of such a relatively gentle tutelage, however, I've had very few experiences with this - the unjust jolt of our own mortality. This is only the second time in as many years that someone I've known was cut down before he could stand and deliver. And, now both times, I'm left numb and fuming, sputtering notions of "unfairness" and "injustice." How can this be right?

And, as I've been humbly reminded now twice, these are of course not isolated incidents. People die daily. That I encountered and knew (at least reasonably well) just two individuals struck down shockingly early, I'm sure, makes one point blindingly clear to us all: I will know more. More will die. Young and old, sick and healthy, for better or for worse.

I'm wondering, then, what I should do. My current policy of fuming and shaking my fists at the heavens, berating nameless and faceless entities for this cruel injustice... for daring to deprive humanity of potential... well, so far, my protests have yielded little.

So, I've decided instead to press on. You, the reader, are likely rolling your eyes at this point, thinking, "Of course he'll go on. Why wouldn't he? It's not like the untimely death of a classmate he knew years ago is going to make him stop in his tracks and give up all hope. Sheesh..." But, his untimely death did in fact make me stop in my tracks - a timely reminder of the fragility of my existence, your existence, our existence. I could meet such a fate today, tomorrow, or twenty years from now. But, though I've virtually no control over the amount of time I've been allotted, I can control how the time I've been allotted will unfold. That's the best batch of lemonade I know how to dole out: my choice to shape my life, my years, my hours... and to reach out and touch those around me and, in my own way, thank you for helping me make this life my life.

It's my choice. And it's a terrifying, glorious existence.

The Stranger

Me: "Hey, is it okay if I take this leftover Chex Mix I made for last weekend's party into lab today?"
Zach: "Sure."
Me: "I think they'll finish it off pretty quickly. And they all like it, of course."
Zach: "That's fine with me. I actually don't really like Chex Mix."
pause
Me: "I'm sorry... But what did you say?"
Zach: "Huh? Oh, I just said that I don't like Chex Mix."
Me: "You don't like Chex Mix?!?!"
Zach: "Yeah. I mean, no offense. It just isn't really my thing."
Me: "Not really your 'thing'?! It's Chex Mix... How could it NOT be your 'thing'?! It's everyone's thing! That's why the recipe's on the back of cereal boxes!"
Zach: "Oh, well - I guess I just don't care for it as much."
pause
Me: "It's like I don't even KNOW you now. Like you're some stranger in my kitchen."
Zach: "I think you're overreacting a bit."
Me: "No. You see, now we have to break up."
Zach: "But, I still like the cookies you baked yesterday!"
Me: "Oh! Then nevermind."

Reality

There are a number of factors to explain why I, in the many years of my public school education, have, at least a vast majority of the time, often felt socially awkward - almost a complete outsider. Sometimes, only the common experiences of calculus exams and music concerts would bind me to them. The fault - if fault must be pressed - likely lies with me. At the core, I'm shy and, as a result, socially awkward. There's also a significant nerdiness factor, of course... How many kids once aspired to be a cartographer or meteorologist, after all? The fact that I'm gay also comes into play. Back then, I was a bit more cautious. I feared the trouble that would come to me and my immediate family; I feared, in general, "stirring the sh*t."

I wasn't comfortable with myself. I didn't begin to be until the latter half of high school, and on into college.

But, tonight, I came upon the real reason: the real reason why I never "fit in" in school. Why I, up until my late teens, felt like I didn't understand my peers, and why they didn't understand me...

I did, do, and likely always will hate The Real World!

Hustle and Flow

My normal commute route would take me through here. Luckily, I didn't follow my normal route yesterday. Quite a storm!

The Smell of Fear

I wore my Emergency Clothes today.

I never seem to need them for emergencies, though they are intended for just that.

I first thought about keeping a set of Emergency Clothes in lab, whatever type of lab I worked in, during college. In an organic chemistry lab session, a friend of mine had to have a sleeve of a sweater she was wearing cut off, to prevent the corrosive chemical she'd spilled on that sleeve from eating its way through the sweater and coming into contact with her skin. It was the last lab before Christmas break - cold and dark, and it had snowed that morning. Organic chemistry lab session often ran over time, stretching well into the evening... a rite-of-passage for would-be biologists. She trekked across campus in the soft snow that evening, bundled in a coat, had, muffler, gloves, and a one-sleeved sweater. The lab proctor, sympathetic, warned, "That's why so many of you will keep an extra set of clothes in whatever labs or hospitals you end up working in. You never know what might happen..."

If I'm not mistaken, most government and institutional regulations mandate that labs and medical facilities provide their workers with a variety of equipment to help them remove harmful or potentially harmful chemicals and biological materials, in case of accidental exposure. Depending on the level of hazard involved, the "decontamination" equipment can, I suppose, approach (but not reach) a Hollywood-level of sophistication (think Outbreak). I can only guess because, as I've never worked with such potential high-level hazards, I've never been in a facility with such emergency equipment.

At heart, I'm really a soft, submissive creature. My history as a (hack) biologist shows it: HIV, ebola, and other such joys were never on my "to do" list. A tour in my research history is a journey of gentleness: colorful non-pathogenic bacteria spread on soft agar petri plates, swift-swimming protozoa so fragile that they barely survive in pure water, round and reliable budding yeast, simple and straightfoward mammalian tissue culture, and finally tiny fish that serve as a good source of calcium in some Japanese prefectures. Even my experience with radioactivity has been relatively mild, limited only to a phosphorus isotope with a short half-life.

In all cases, the labs I've worked in have all provided the same "decontamination" safeguards: a generously-stocked first aid kit, an eyewash station, and a safety shower. From what I can tell, these are the bare minimums... for those of us working with the lowest-risk materials. The eyewash station and first aid kit would usually be affixed into the wall, the former resembling a sideways sink missing its basin. But, the real star of the show is always the safety shower: for use in the case of whole-body contamination with some nasty substance. Jutting unceremoniously from the ceiling, a wide, crude, metallic showerhead with accompanying handle advertized its purpose: if burning, corroding, dying (or other equivalent condition) due to exposure to high levels of harsh chemical/pathogen, simply stand under the showerhead and pull the handle. Only the simple drain placed just below the showerhead provided a final clue of its purpose. I've never seen anyone use a safety shower before, save for the 1970s-era chemical safety videos they'd show us in college during the first chemistry lab each year... some slightly asocially-awkward post-teen, gangly and pimple-faced, would feign pain due to some off-camera disaster, pull the handle, and step beneath the deluge, unabashedly stripping off his clothes in the process. Yes, the only rule for safety shower fun is this - you get naked. In front of your classmates, labmates, boss... simply because if you're using the safety shower, your life likely depends on it.

Here's where the theory of Emergency Clothing comes in handy. Once the shower deed is done (or, in the case of my peer in college, once the sleeve is cut off, narrowly averting the shower deed), what to wear? In the former case, your clothes (or what few of them survived the chemical or biological hazard exposure) are in a sopping, sad pile next to you on the floor. In the latter, you at least need a replacement sweater or sweatshirt, since looking so counterbalanced as to lack a right sleeve is, in my book, simply out of the question. A set of Emergency Clothes would provide the truly bashful (including yours truly) with adequate covering. But, there's an alternative... the Paper Suit.

The name speaks for itself. It's literally a thin, pulp-processed garment. I first heard about it while attending my first lab safety class when I wanted to work as a lab assitant in college. Each lab had a paper suit, usually folded into a compact ball and stuffed in the aforementioned first aid kit. In the absence of Emergency Clothing, the Paper Suit becomes the only barrier between your birthday suit and the rest of existence. Actually, "barrier" might be a term too generous for this covering. Since the safety shower doesn't come with plush towels, the suit would, in theory, be put on over wet skin and, since it is a Paper Suit, would become transparent and slowly degrade. In such cases of catastrophic exposure, I'm sure I wouldn't care too much that my friends and co-workers saw my flabby torso and pale skin: I'd most likely focus on the approaching paramedics, and silently pray that they'd be blind lesbians. But, in any case where the safety shower eliminated the threat. the Paper Suit would be a humbling experience, to say the least.

Following my peer's de-sleeving incident in college, I entered the lab I worked in at the time and unfolded the Paper Suit. Following that brief glimpse, I could only conclude that the true purpose of the Paper Suit was simply a tool of ridicule. Like the act of being picked last to be on a team in gym class, the Paper Suit was meant to promote shame for anyone unfortunate enough to require the use of the safety shower (and disrobing involved), yet not require an immediate trip to the nearest hospital (and the relatively generous covering of a hospital gown). In those cases, after all, the plateau of urgentless time in between the panic of the showering process and the later visit to a doctor's office or charitable taxi ride home would be spent, wet and cold, in a white, dissolving Paper Suit. Some might say it's a small price to pay for spilling a jug of glacial acetic acid on oneself, but, standing there holding the "one-size-fits-all" whole-body Paper Suit (which, even with my short legs, would've barely qualified as capri pants) to see the Paper Suit as a public shaming... for foolishly attempting to lift a jug of glacial acetic acid in the first place.

At that moment, there in college, as I attempted the complext origami folds necessary to pack the Paper Suit back into the cuboidal form necessary to fit back into the first aid kit, I resolved never to wear that Paper Suit. I was going to either keep a set of Emergency Clothes in lab, or make sure I'd never do anything damn foolish enough to necessitate public stripping beneath the safety shower. While the former precaution (Emergency Clothing) seemed most prudent, this Paper Suit revelation unfortunately fell at the beginning of the period in college where I drank the most, leading to frequent lapses in memory and judgment. Thus, the Emergency Clothing idea, apparently sequestered to a population of brain cells tragically lost, Titanic-like, in such youthful indiscretions, was quickly forgotten.

Years later, following graduation, I moved to Seattle and worked full-time as a technician in a research lab boasting a rarity in this world: a room dedicated solely to microscopy, that was, due to some meterological mystery, consistently 8°F cooler than room temperature. For most of my two years in the lab, it was a mere inconvenience. I'd puff my chest and, filled with the pride of one who walked to and from school countless times in frigid Midwestern winters, tough it out in short-sleeved shirts and sandals. But, one lab mate, raised in the American South, could not stand the temperature differential, and would bring sweaters or sweatshirts with her on days when she would spend several hours using one of the microscope. One summer day, however, she forgot a sweater, and I overheard the following conversation.

Labmate #1: "Darn it! I left my sweater at home!"
Labmate #2: "Doing a lot of microscopy today?"
Labmate #1: "Yeah. Do you have a sweatshirt I could borrow?"
Labmate #2: "Sure. Help yourself. You know where my Emergency Clothes are kept anyway."

Emergency Clothes! Long-dead neurons, unceremoniously poisoned form alcohol consumption, sprang back to life, Frankenstein-style. Electrical impulses cascaded across my cerebral cortex, reminding me of forgotten lessons of the Paper Suit. My eyes darted nervously over to the safety shower, positioned ominously over a small, sad drain. I shuddered at the mental image of my shaking body, drenched and drowned, pathetically covered in a dissovling paper suit. I attempted to return to my work, when I remembered that, the next day, I was slated to make several diluted solutions from our big jug of glacial acetic acid.

That night, I stood in front of my doorless closet and chose Emergency Clothing. Initially, I thought it would be a simple task: simply pick the most pathetic shreds of my wardrobe, place them in a sack, and keep them under my desk in lab. Unfortunately, my wardrobe was, and still is, a realm of pathetic mistakes.

As many of my friends know, I lack any reputable sense of fashion. I have often made gruesome mistakes when purchasing clothing, mistakes made all the more tragic since it would usually take months or years of wearing a particular item before the sheer folly of the choice would become blindingly obvious. This ignorance was further compounded by my easy access to cheap clothing, as a part time job I held through most of college put me behind the lead cash register of a discout clothing store. Though that job did have one quite positive result (that's how I met Zach), it also provided me with ample opportunity (and an employee's discount) to make many tragic errors in clothing choice. Most of these choices, months or years later, would be passed on to Goodwill, or reclassified as "yardwork" or "housepainting" clothes (a system which quickly broke down, since I do neither yardwork nor housepainting). In one case, I purposefully discarded a particularly hated pair of pants at a college boyfriend's house, a discovery which he did not make until, many months post-break-up, he was moving to Chicago, and I was on the West Coast for a summer internship. Hopefully, the pants found a good home on a scarecrow somewhere between his house and the outer suburbs of the Windy City.

But, that night, choosing Emergency Clothing, one truth became clear: I had retained many clothing mistakes from college, and dragged them with me from northwestern Illinois to Seattle. At the time, Zach and I had only been dating for several months. He sat on my bed reading a magazine as I closed my eyes and, in a display of abnormality from which he had thus far been spared, chose items at random from the "shameful" section of my closet. The results were stark. The choice of t-shirt was threadbare and a size too large for me in the shoulders, and boasted the crooked logo from the musical Rent. The pants were laughable: crisp, bright, babyblue jeans. For a sweatshirt, I chose a hasty purchase from the University of Iowa bookstore: a cheap zip-up hoodie with the University of Iowa logo barely perceptible among unravelling threads and cheap seams. For underwear and socks, I dug deep into my dresser drawers and chose the white variety. In my senior year of college, I'd fallen deeply into what can only be described as my mid-midlife crisis. At the age of twenty-three, I'd resolved to spice things up below the waist (since I was already past my sexual prime, and had spent too many years being a shy, mumbling basketcase in the local gay bars): from then on, I was going to buy only colored underwear and socks. As a result, today, the bulk of my underwear fleet is a rainbow of fruit-of-the-loom flavors, and the same can be said of my sock drawer. I did, however, retain a few pairs of white boredom for the hopefully-rare occasion where white pants are called for. Thus, a pair of white boxer-briefs and white socks were thrown into the bag of Emergency Clothing as well, along with a pair of noisy flip-flops stolen from a one-armed lesbian friend following my first (and so far only) foray into spelunking. Thus, my Emergency Clothes were assembled and brought into lab.

Along with a sense of dread, that bag of Emergency Clothes has been my constant companion ever since in my journey as a (hack) scientist. It's move with me to my lab adventures in graduate school, from one rotation to the next, and finally to my current thesis lab. But, I've never used them.

At least, not for an emergency.

Today was the second time I used my Emergency Clothes. The first came several months ago, when, caught in an unseasonable deluge just after my birthday, I became soaked-through-to-the-underwear while walking to work, and had to don the entire shameful outfit in a locker room. Unfortunately, I've apparently still set the fashion bar so low that it took five hours before any of my labmates or associates noticed; and, unfortunately, they were only first tipped off by the wet clothes draped over my desk.

Following that particularly humbling exercise, I vowed never to wear my Emercency Clothes again, unless I had first either cut a sleeve off of my shirt or gone through the rigors of a public striptease beneath the harsh flow of a safety shower. Unfortunately, when I made such a solemn vow, I did not take into account my fear of smelling bad.

It sounds like such a juvenile fear - smelling bad. I suppose it sounds so juvenile because its roots reach back into my juvenile years. I don't recall the age at which I first began to wear deodorant, but I do know that I only started following a suggestion from my parents. When it came to the pain of childhood and teenage social interactions, my parents subscribed to the School of Gentle Prodding. For the most part, they only spoke up when it became pathetically obvious that I was not going to figure some obvious truth out on my own. In the case of deodorant, they had to buy me my first stick, along with some gentle prodding: "Here. Use this." A few years later, they repeated this exercise with a small selection of cologne brands. The implications were appalling: I smelled bad. Beyond the truth of the moment, however, I had to admit the obvious: to reach the point where intervention from my parents became necessary, I obviously had been smelling bad for quite some time.

Since then, I've gone above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to my smell. As Zach can attest, I apply deodorant with abandon daily. As anyone who's sat close to me in a public setting (bus, concert hall, etc.) can attest, I also often overdose on cologne as well. I fear offending and disappointing others with my soiled, or even natural, scent, and I find bathing daily insufficient. Zach once asked me why I don't hold the rest of humanity to the same standard. I would've answered, but I was too busy smelling a once-worn pair of jeans to see if they smelled to bad to wear a second day.

Today, I hastily dressed, as I'd overslept. My pants of choice were a beloved pair of jeans, worn for a half day over the weekend, and again on Tuesday. My shirt, hoodie (standard uniform for the past two years), blue underpants, and blue socks were fresh from the dryer.

Two hours later, I was standing in lab between two labmates. One of them, A, turned to me with a curious look on her face.

A: "James, do you smell something?"
Me: "Huh? Like what?"
A: "Well... I don't really know... it's... it's something musky and dank... pretty awful, actually."
pause
Me: "Oh, God! No! Noooo! I'll be right back."

I bolted to my desk, grabbed the bag of Emergency Clothes, and within thirty seconds, I'd stripped down to my underpants in the stall of the Mens Restroom. I cringed as I slipped one leg, and then the other, into the painfully bright blue jeans. I raised the thrice-worn pair of jeans I'd put on that morning up to my nose. "Surely," I thought to myself, "These must be the cause... the cause of such discomfort to my friends and colleages... they probably noticed it as soon as I walked in this morning, and have spent hours trying to find a way to tell me that my clothes stink, and they hate me..." It was the sum of all fears. I'd failed to smell good. I smelled my pants and shirt, and came to the conclusion that my allergies were dampening my sense of olfaction: I found no offensive smell.

Yet, several minutes later, when I walked back into lab, clad in Emergency Clothing, A announced that the scent had vanished. I held up the bag, which held the smelly clothes I'd worn that morning.

Me: "That's because these are the source of the smell."
A: "What?"
Me: "My clothes. They stink."
A: "Really?"
Me: "Well, I know it's not me. I smelled myself in the bathroom - I'm all deodorant and cologne. So, it must be these."
A: "I'm not sure, James."
Me: "Well, the smell is gone, right?"
A: "I suppose... what do your clothes smell like?"
Me: "I can't let you smell them."

I dumped the clothes in my backpack, and suffered through two seminars, one meeting, and a day of experiments clad in an unravelling University of Iowa hoodie, a threadbare Rent t-shirt, and babyblue jeans. Seven hours later, A and I stood next to each other once again, in the same spot.

A: "Hey, do you smell that?!"
Me: "What?"
A: "What I smelled this morning! I smell it again!"
Me: "Oh, God... not again!! It's me again, isn't it!!!"

A leaned it to smell me, and denied that the foul scent was emanating from my person. We looked around us. Next to us sat the lab's incubator, reserved from growing bacteria (though we're a fish lab, bacteria remain a powerful tool for molecular biology and genetics). A labmate, the same labmate who stood next to us seven hours prior when A first smell the horrid scent, had the incubator door wide open, and was retrieving petri plates from its vast interior.

A: "Hey James! It's the incubator! That's what I was smelling this morning. Something horrid was growing in the incubator."

I frowned and glanced down at my hideous wardrobe. For a moment - just a moment - stripping beneath the running safety shower seemed a more fashionable alternative to how I'd spent the past seven hours.

By that revelation, the day was through. Seattle was being pounded by a horrific storm blowing in off the Pacific. The radio had already announced road closures within the city due to flash flooding, mudslides, horrific accidents, and landslides. The rain fell in sheets. I hung my head low, still glancing down at my hideous wardrobe, as I walked toward home. Two minutes after leaving lab, I was soaked through. Several minutes later, I passed a restaurant. A woman sat outside, poorly sheltered by a torn awning, smoking a cigarette. She glanced up at me.

"Hon, you're soaked through to the bone! This shower ain't safe!"

I patted the clothes I'd put in my backpack earlier, looked up, and smiled.

"It's okay. These are just my Emergency Clothes!"

Reputation

I was told last week that I've developed a reputation... an announcement that was far from a revelation. We all, after all, have reputations: known or unknown, intended or inadvertent.

For a variety of reasons, I enjoy hearing some of the reputations I've accumulated in my short life. They're all local in scope - shared by only a handful of folks... transient, superficial, and largely specious. I obviously have not made enough of an impact on this good Earth to carve out any lasting reputation, for better or worse.

Some of my more shameful reputations pop up continuously: perceptions of an "utter lack of confidence" or a "flighty and flaky temperment" have followed me around, particularly in my adult life. I'm sure my persistent difficulties with rather simple aspects of modern life (paying income taxes, replacing windscreen wipers) are to blame.

I've managed to shed some reputations, though. In junior high and high school, a continuous undercurrent of "faggot," derogatory and degrading, followed me around which. Following the blessings of my high school diploma, I heard it significantly less in college. When I moved to Seattle, it disappeared altogether. Since my behavior, personality, and mannerisms haven't changed significantly since my teenage years, I can only assume that reputation clung deep to the cultural roots of my former home. By mid-college, I'd also managed to shed another cursed label: "dumb." No doubt fueled by my inability to change the oil in my car (among other cerebral deficiencies), it was the generalization that cut deepest. After all, I'm no great athlete, nor a man of any remarkable talent; I decided early on that I could only rely on skull-encased grey matter to get me anywhere in this world. I worked hard, but with a desperation one gets when there's no safety net to rely on. Thus, jabs at my numerous intellectual deficiencies would (and, to an extent, still) strip me down in a raw and savage manner. It's a primeval psychology - built up and broken down entirely in the depths of my brain. But, rather than confront the enemy within, I've instead somehow managed to shed the reputation that I'm generally "dumb."

These past few years, I've been both surprised and humbled by some of the small, local reputations I've inadvertently accumulated. Some seem understandable, particularly considering my quirky conversation style: "humble" and "long-winded" particularly come to mind. I was surprised when I realized others have perceived me in this way... not because I don't see myself in these ways, but because I very much do. It was five years ago this summer that someone first described me as "unduly humble," and I was floored... As I began to mumble a retort ("I am not 'unduly humble'!"), some spark in my grey matter forced me to face reality: "Oh... uh... I guess I am... kinda... maybe..." If you know me well, then alarms should sound: "kinda... maybe..." is classic James-admits-it's-true-though-he-doesn't-want-to.

Since that cold revelation, I've relished in several other truthful reputations (collector-of-trivia, persistent worrier, selectively shy) and scratched my head at others (flaky/flighty, asocial). But, last week, I waited patiently for an acquaintance to tell me the "reputation" I've apparently acquired. As she told me, my mind (perhaps due to my alleged aforementioned "flighty" nature) began to wander, and another node of long-neglected grey matter twitched: why do I care?

If I don't already, I suppose I should work toward forming a reputation for caring how others percieve me. It has been, in my short life, perhaps my most crippling shortcoming. I persistently try to anticipate how my actions may be perceived by others, to the point of obsession. It often holds me back - going leagues beyond the necessary restraints or behavioral checks that, in a primate social structure, are usually necessary to prevent the most destructive consequences of unbridled hedonism and disregard for others.

As she unfolded a thirty-second detail of my apparently new and quirky reputation, I flashed painfully through the numerous incidents in my past where my natural shyness combined with this weighted overanalysis of how others percieve me, and as a result passed up opportunities for connections, experiences, and relationships that have left my life quite altered from what it could have been. Of course, I'm quite pleased with my life as it is now; but, no doubt living up to my overly introspective reputation, I always seek possible improvements.

Thus, since that very one-sided conversation last week (I can't even recall my latest reputation), I've been conducting a very unscientific experiment: I've tried to care less, even if just a little, about what others may think of me.

It's been remarkably difficult, mostly because there are still situations where I feel it is both prudent and necessary to care (even just a little) how I'm perceived. My twist so far has been to put a check on just how much energy I invest into caring. After about a week, it's still too soon to tell whether this small change will produce any lasting effect (positive or otherwise) on my outlook. It might, I would hope, at least make Zach's existence a little more tolerable, since he's often been the poor soul who's had to hear my obsessive ramblings in the past. But, only time will tell.

I am still very much a flawed creature, and I still care. But, if it doesn't offend you too much, I'm going to try not to care too much about whether you care.

Actually, even if such a move offends you too much, tough sh*t.

Deforestation

I was hoping the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was joking with this one; but, alas, since the Seattle Times has it as well, I must hold my head in my hands and mumble a humble prayer...

"Forgive us... we know not what we do..."

Before you, the reader, scratch your head or send off an angry e-mail tirade accusing me of religious bigotry and insensitivity about the "holiday" season, know this:

More often than not, I tend to get a little depressed around these holidays. The days are short; it's cold and dark and (in Seattle) wet. I see people wrestle one another in shops for thoughtless gifts in a naked and shameless display of materialism. Children throw tantrums in Santa's lap or, worse yet, next to me on the bus (at least Santa gets paid for it). We wear ugly sweaters and drink eggnog, which is quite possibly the Devil's brew. Christmas displays are put up before Halloween now; when I was a cashier in college, we'd start to hear the most painful and ear-splitting renditions of Christmas and holiday songs starting mid-October. I weep on Black Friday, seeing shopper trample one another in order to spend money-they-don't-have on stuff-the-don't-want. It's not necessarily a pretty time. It's not us at our best.

In my adult life, however, I've cautiously discovered a niche in which I can settle during December - a holiday perspective that makes Christmas a more tender time than it once was. A perspective that, unfortunately, seems to be lacking in the above stories... For example, you might get a Christmas card from me that says "May you find the blessings Christmas," but I chose the card entirely for the intricate design on the front depicting one of the three wise men on his dromedary (my favorite four-syllable word). I can also guarantee that the enclosed (cheap) present will be wrapped in my favorite "stars and dreidls" design wrapping paper. I haven't put up a tree the past few years for lack of room in my apartment, but I joyously put up the Hanukkah-themed lights Zach received as a gift last year when he began his new job. I occasionally play Christmas music in lab. My cat is so far the only recipient of a Christmas (or any holiday) card this year. Zach migh bring Moroccan stew to a holiday party next weekend. I'm hoping that, for Christmas, we'll eat something fried. I've fished out my copy of Holidays on Ice for its annual bedtime reading.

I suppose these are small ways I drag some assemblage of spirit out of the bloodbath. Less "For unto us a child is born" -- more hopping off the bus humming my one-man version of "Little Drummer Boy." Less It's a Wonderful Life -- more white elephant gift exchange.

It's my time of year to look around, smile, and take stock - to come out of my shell for a moment and say, "You're important to me." To squeeze your hand, and enjoy the moment.

An annual celebration of community that this type of auto da fé corrupts.

Perspectives

Technically, I'm still alive. Though, it never appears so at the end of an academic quarter. I'll hopefully resurface over the weekend.

Seattle, fog, and the Olympic Range. I'm somewhere in the grey area.

The Cold

In retrospect, maybe I should've just stayed at home. But, instead, I chose to show up for my class presentation this morning and begin with the following disclaimer:

"Listen, guys. If I start swaying to one side or another, could someone let me know? I think I took way too much cough syrup this morning."

A friend later described the presentation as "a bit meandering." I don't think he was referring to the topic.