happily holiday-ing

I opened presents on this, the first christmas I have spent away from my family, in the company of the Yule Log. A New York tradition, the Yule Log is broadcast with carols from 7-11 on christmas morning. If the picture looks a little funny, it's only partly because it's a photo of the television: the Yule Log, according to the indicia and warped colors, was taped in 1970. It's hypnotic to watch, though.



Afterward I headed to St. Parick's Cathedral for Christmas mass. Man, what an absolute ZOO that turned out to be. The cathedral holds around 2,500 people, and was packed full for both the 12 and 1 o'clock masses. I arrived about halfway trough the noon mass - hoping to avoid some of the crowds - and managed to get a seat for the 1 o'clock. The music was very moving, and the homily was surprisingly good. The cathedral is gorgeous, and I'd like to go back when there aren't so many people so that I could take a look around.



Through great effort, Athena convinced me to have christmas dinner with her big greek family. I was not too keen on being with a family that was not my own, but her family was very welcoming, very funny, and, in the words of her granmother, "very different" from what I was missing. The food was really good, and afterward I crashed at Athena's and we watched stupid movies on TV. This, somehow, turned into a 2-day event complete with a tour of her hometown, the ordering of pizza, and more movies. The view from her hometown is pictured here - that's NYC way off in the distance. All in all, this turned out to be one of the best times I have had since leaving Michigan. I am tremendously grateful to Athena and her family.

On the way to NJ for dinner, I passed this, which will become the first entry into my new book, Things That Should Not Have Their Own House.

Narnia and cupcakes

...it's late, I'm at work waiting for a reaction to finish, and I just watched this again for like the tenth time because I think it's hilarious.

Engaged! also: Otolaryngolojam!

Ain't no party like a scientist party...because they're always just so awkward. Athena and I attended my department's Holiday shindig the other day, and it was a pretty pleasant time in an otherwise foul week (thanks, strikers!). It took us about an hour to go twenty blocks in a cab after the party, but, whatever, the strike's over now and things can get back to normal.

OR CAN THEY? Um, no.

And I'll give you what are possibly the two most unrelated reasons:


1) My sister hilary got engaged!
The ring, designed by him just for her, is made of rose gold and other terms I don't understand. But what I do know is that she and her gentleman suitor are happy together and will continue that way and, therefore, so too am I happy. One sister married and another engaged? Weren't they just twelve and fighting with me over the front seat?


2) This bear poops prime numbers!

Tonight I'm going to see "A Christmas Story" at the Landmark Sunshine Theatre with Athena and her little sisters. I hope I don't shoot my eye out...

Yes, the strike remains on.

But the good news is the internet still works.

http://cuteoverload.com/

EDIT: what does anyone make of this? I think it's either a crazy hoax or rather frightening. And there's going to be a movie? Wha--? I loved Chappelle's show. I think it was, as Charlie Murphy once said, the Tu-Pac of television.

It hits the fan

It's about 3:45 a.m. I've been up for a while, tensely checking and re-checking the news since the passing of the 12 midnight deadline for the transit workers union's negotiations with the MTA.

And now I know - as of about half an hour ago the 37,000 workers of the MTA have gone on strike. Lord only knows how long or how bad this will get, but I am aware of a number of folks - middle and lower class workers from across the five boroughs - who will have to endure great hardship as a result of this strike. Many workers who cannot get into the city will risk losing their jobs, and heaven help parents who have to coordinate their kids' movement as well. I saw one hotel manager on the news who has said he expects his employees to reside temporarily at work. This city is all kinds of shutting down, at the cost, I'm told, of roughly 400 milion dollars a day (a figure which does not reflect the increased business that should accompany the week before christmas).

I'll be the first to concede that I know only what I have read about the cause of this strike. But when Toussaint says the workers in his union will strike and that "this is not about money, it's about respect," I don't find myself on his side. It's the week before Christmas, it's cold out, and this will be very hard on a lot of people who really don't deserve it. Is it any wonder that this strike is illegal? All I ask is that it end soon. This could get very ugly.

Official Christmas Fun

This past Saturday, Mango Pancakes, Athena, Zac, and I headed out to an unexplored area of Queens to a little factory late at night. Why?

For the FluxFactory fake office holiday party, of course! Everyone dressed for a debaucherous office party, and we were given fake name tags and, occasionally, letters of reprimand from our superiors while enjoying live music, dancing, and, of course, office-party-themed shennanigans. One of the highlights, besides the spectacular view of the city from the roof of the factory, was the video installation at the party that played those old christmas claymation specials - you'd never believe how well Mrs. Claus's song matches with one of Beyonce's. This was a great weird event. New York does it again.

So much has happened!

I've been terribly remiss in keeping up-to-date with this. There's been so much going on!



First of all, I had dinner with the fabulous Susie Schutt. I am so glad she's back stateside, because she makes me happy and we could use the help fixing the place up. Are those selfish reasons? Yes.

Second, Thanksgiving. I celebrated Thanksgiving eve with my classmate Julia at the balloon inflating for the Macy's parade. Surreal? Oh hell yes.





"The good news is, we caught Mr. Potatohead. The bad news is, the killings haven't stopped."

Thanksgiving was spent with the relatives in Connecticut. It was a very relaxing, very warm holiday celebration, and I was very glad to have been able to spend the day as I did.

In the next weeks I presented at work on homomeric vs. heterotypic gap junctions and two different models of transgenic inserts with inducible expression I had characterized. I also headed out on the town as much as possible, even visiting secretive bars on the lower East side such as this one with super-rockstar Athena. There's no sign outside, but it's a swingin' joint inside.



Then, my cousin heather came into town and we went out dancing with the Andrew and Jaina (pictured here in a ridiculous pose, for some reason looking like she has a black eye) until 4 in the morning at Plan B.

The next day, we strolled around the city and took in part of the Met - they have this Egyptian temple, the whole thing, on display. It is amazing and you must see it! - before settling in for a huge Italian dinner at Positano in Little Italy. We got back to Brooklyn at around midnight, and were too tired to do anything more than watch SNL and pass out. On Sunday, Heather had to leave early to make it back to Boston in time for a dance rehearsal, and I went to a surprisingly opulent brunch at the Medical Center. The afternoon was spent having pastries and walking around Riverside Park with the gorgeous Maria Politano, my friend from Italy, who said I could come and stay with her when she returns home this summer!

...and I think that brings me up to date. Oh, and I finished grad school. Again. Hopefully this time it'll stick.

p.s. three new Japan days are up! Check them out!

What do you mean, "update?" + update! (no, the irony is not lost on me)

Cah-razy busy right now. Work is pretty frustrating, and has been for the last while; I adduce my having to go in on Thanksgiving morning and every day that weekend to keep to a time table that is unreasonable while running experiments that are redundant. I further offer as evidence the fact - but keep this on the QT - that the other employees in the lab have all recently decided it is time to move on to other jobs because they tire of working here.

In the meantime, as I struggle to find the energy to update about having dinner with Susie and Thanksgiving dinner and the rest of my trip to Japan, I offer you the following exemplar of horrendous pseudo-science for your laughter and gnashing of teeth.

Behold: Hetracil!

Now do yourself a favor and go back to PandaCam.

EDIT: Super-awesome internet-ster Naomi found out the real deal on Hetracil, which makes the story not an awful one but rather really, really interesting. Check it out here.
Consider me fooled, and impressed!