That's just sick...sick, sick, sick, sick.

I am definitely looking forward to seeing Sicko.

One thing I liked about Fahrenheit 9/11 was the way Michael Moore kept his personal on-screen presence to a minimum. In Bowling for Columbine (which I also enjoyed) we see so much of him, and while it's not offensive, it feels a touch narcissistic to me, and detracts from the issues he presents. I hear that Sicko is presented similarly to Fahrenheit, happily.

IMDB has this quote from one of the users (at once praising the film and warning that its contents may distress viewers): "...or Ron Paul could get elected president and as a former physician he might actually fix the system."

That made me giggle, because I immediately thought of this man. Not exactly what I'd call a former physician who would be willing to "fix the system" except in the case of high-profile coma patients. Yecch. Ron Paul, on the other hand, I know nothing about except that Technorati usually lists him on their Most Popular tags cloud.

Last night I ate some heavenly enchiladas de espinaca with no explosively ill results. Sometimes I think Ulcerative Colitis must be a judgment from a higher power, since I love all kinds of food. (This would really make the case against reincarnation because it's all happening here and now, unless I was a bigger jerk/foodie in a previous/future life.) But that thought flies out the window on good days and nights, when beer and beans mix and pass quietly. All part of the Ineffable Plan, I guess?

On the earthly plane, as I'm flush with meds, somewhat reliable health insurance and job security, I definitely fit this profile of "defending what I have." That's not good. But it's the best I can do at the moment, other than supporting Mister Moore by paying for his movie rather than downloading it online. Although he seems to be encouraging that, last I heard.

Speaking of food (and er, not speaking of rats), I also would like to see this.

But school is supposed to be easy!

On Sunday I did twelve hours writing a twenty-some page paper about something library-related. I'm not quite sure what it was about now, which I assume was NOT the goal of the instructor. But then, as I can't figure out what the hell she's writing about on a regular basis (it's a fully-online course), assuming anything could be dangerous.

I keep expecting a giant wake-up Hello! from the old colon, as A. and I are:

a) Packing and moving one carfull at a time until the giant truck load-up on Sunday.
b) In the midst of writing thesis proposals (A.) and pretending to do homework while really reading Jim Butcher (me)
c) Snapping out of satisfying-book glow and freaking out when homework continues, inexorably, to be due when it was supposed to be due (me).
d) Meeting new hippie neighbors - I won't say what they have named their child, but it rhymes with derby.
e) Pills from Ol' Reliable (Medco) not arriving
f) Supposed to be graduate students with superior intellects (at least compared to the other cockroaches)

But so far, nothing. My back pain has morphed into genuine lifting-boxes back pain as opposed to the sneaky-UC-colon-attack pain I thought it to be.

The new apartment is still beguiling, thankfully. It smells like new paint and old dust. The bedroom floor is so warped it's aspiring to be a skate course. The kitchen is unbelievably spacious. And our landlord replaced the toliet with a water-saver. I thought it was a trick until I sat down: it's more comfortable than the old one.

Overall, this week entails: work, preparatory article/book search for a literature review that I should've started last week, two reference interviews where I annoy/stump/titillate a librarian and then write a scathing account of the transaction, change addresses with fifty million different people, eat crap, drink beer, look for boxes, cry, punch A., kiss A., swear at LOST, swear at Firefly, swear at homework, and make teensy dents in the moving process by packing and unpacking boxes.

ETA: Medco just arrived in the work mail. If I can only put away the pleasure reading and the mood swings, this week might just work out.

Back from the grave

My ghost is posting, as I've died laughing.

Courtesy of Mr Angry at Angry 365 Days a Year, a special rant for you:

alli: Miracle diet pill with teeny-tiny side effect

Thanks to LJ's Curecrohns community for the link.

Pain, anyone?

Courtesy of my friend Sandy, here's a thought-provoking article from the New York Times Magazine about chronic pain and medications.

They'll fix you. They fix everything.

I watched Robocop last night, and the excessive violence and Ronny Cox managed to jam my digestion somewhere around the descending colon. A. tried to rub my back, and I did some stretches, but to no avail. This is really one of those interesting things about ulcerative colitis, and I believe it can show up with other digestive disorders, namely, the back pain. The last time I had major back pain, it was a herald for the ER flare. I did not get it, then. I didn't understand that the best thing to ride out a flare with is loads of water, sleep, light-light-light food and absolutely no stress. Ha.
It took me three days of struggling through work, coming home to loll on the couch with a heating pad, and spilling broth A. made me before I drove my ass down there, parked illegally and got a gallon of morphine.

Man, I'm as badass as Murphy. Or Lewis. They're both pretty tough.

Call me moronic, but I love that movie. Even better is (was?) the edited for television cut, with such FCC-appropriate gems as:

"You just finked with the wrong guy!"
and
"Ladies, leave." (original line: Bitches, leave. Why, Clarence! You've grown gentlemanly!)
and
"You're outta your freauhking mind!"

I wish you could buy edited-for-TV movies, just for the sheer hilarity.

But I do love that movie, even more so after being diagnosed, because though there might not be much comparison between a robotic cop and a library science student with ulcerative colitis, the idea of trading some of my organs for plastic or metal parts because I just won't survive or work right without them, well, we are somewhat alike. And that's my poor analogy for the day.

Plus, the fake news and commercials! Hilarious!

As for the back pain, that may be attributed to the pile of cherry slices candy I ate last night while watching the show. But you never know. I'll be watching this back pain closely, this time.

The Wrong Poster, or, gate-crashers in the Halls of Scientific Academe

Oh, what a day it was. Oh, what times we had.

I got to the lounge early and stood in line for one of the presenter lanyards spread out on a folding table. The lanyard girl smiled at me. "Name?"

"Peppery," I said.

She frowned. "Peppery? Um. Okay." She pecked around under the table, then scanned the tabletop. "I don't seem to have your name."

"Really? I'm doing a poster. How about Em? She's my co-presenter."

"Nope." The girl conferred with the symposium coordinator, who materialized at the first sound of minor aggravation. "I can't find anyone's name, Danny, why is no one on the list?"

To get my little blue lanyard, I eventually had to produce an email confirmation from Em's and my absent co-presenter T-Dog, who is spending the summer home with his folks.

"Oh, T-Dog," Danny sighed when I showed him the email. "Of course. Just write your name on that sticker and sign the sheet. You're fine. It's fine."

Lesson One for All Future Symposium Presenters:
if it looks like it's going south before it starts, it probably is. Get out immediately.

While waiting for Em to arrive with the poster, I fanned myself with a handful of our project pamphlets and found a symposium program. The cover was blase enough: pictures of trees, some dreck about national science and academic excellence. I flipped through the list of presenters, and felt a tiny, uneasy lump begin to formulate in my throat. The official List of Abstracts included phrases like "Estimated Wake Velocity," "prokaryotic assemblages using protein," and "exocyclic enol ethers," all of them doing the funky with things like coagulants and glandularizations and meiotic silencing.

The lump hardened into a golf ball as I flipped toward the Poster section. There we were, with our innocuous, bouncy title: Does GX Corporation's Book Projects Undermine Public Libraries? It was sandwiched between two other paragraph-long titles that mentioned genes and calcium and enhancing spatial data points from things with Latin names. I broke out in a cold sweat.

"Hey there," Em said, coming up behind me. She lugged a huge plastic bag. "Here's the poster. Where should we set up?"

"In the corner," I croaked. "Behind that plant."

She consulted her program. "Oh. Wow."

"Yeah. Why didn't they say something when we submitted our abstract? Isn't this supposed to be about technology, too? We should ask T-Dog."

Another lanyard-decorated student set up his sleek glossy poster with sticky-tac on foam board behind Em. It looked like Powerpoint Presentation slides printed out in rows, with lots of symbols, numbers and elemental equations.

"Well," Em examined the schedule, "at least we get free lunch. And coffee, and - hey, dinner! Nice!"

Lesson Two for AFSP:
Need we reiterate that there has never been a free lunch, coffee or dinner in the history of edibles? Refer to Lesson Number One.

We proceeded to watch three oral presentations describe their research and thesis works, most of which involved DNA and something about soil. The presenters were nervous with their ums and too-long ties and erratic laser pointers, the last which served to distract more than emphasize. One woman's slides seemed Frankenstein-influenced, with strange inexplicable animations vibrating the photographs of wetland bacteria. A Cowellesque judge reduced a theory to molecular shreds, while the presenter stood, shrugging and smiling.

Finally, it was time for poster session judging. Em and I stood in front of Does GX Corporation's Book Projects Undermine Public Libraries, our hands full of pamphlets.

"It'll be fine," Em soothed. "We'll just give our spiel and eat dinner. Free dinner. That's worth it, right?"

"Right," I said. "They may have science, but we have charm, charisma and style. Oh, and presentational speaking skills."

"Maybe they have a Most-Out-Of-Place prize category? We may still have a chance."

Lesson Three for AFSP:
Fake as hard as possible. For examples, see any of these.

We spoke to several students and faculty, and had some nice discussions, until the first judge stepped up. She looked at our poster.

"Interesting. What program are you in?"

"Library and Information Science," we chirruped.

"Talk about your topic."

We did.

She smiled coldly. Her pen tapped her clipboard.

"So. Ahem. Whyever did you decide to enter this symposium?"

Lesson Four for symposium gate-crashers:
sell remaining poster supplies for plastic bottles of whiskey. Search said bottle for ethanol components, molecular structure, or anything remotely resembling scientific research.

Lesson Four-B:
Read up on the goddamn symposium next time. Repeat Lesson Four.

A break from the grind

I've taken to doing my homework with beer. But only this kind. My folks are in town and they want to eat every crazy food imaginable while buying me every bland thing on the menu to counteract my pre-poster-presentation stress. Love those guys, though they're too loose with their pocketbook; they need to be thinking about the motorcycle ride back to Minnesota.

The main problem with doing homework and presenting bland student-friendly topics pasted on an Elmer's board is the feeling, the constant gnawing, that I am not good enough, or smart enough to be a graduate student. I know it's not true. The beer tells me it's not true. But the feeling is there. The competition is enough (and the competition consists merely of how many posts you have on the online discussion boards) to raise my gorge.

Also, Medco has decided to be a bastard about my pills, including the beloved Ortho-Lo. That could be the beer talking. Either way, it's a story for a longer blog session.


My hero, Dewey Decimator.

Check out FIST-A-CUFFS for some serious comic smackdown! If, you know, you like that sort of thing.

Coming up on Jiggery-pokery's soup of the day after the exorcism of the poster demons: Oracle and the Calling of Peppery, or, Batman's Fatal Flaw!

Posting from Hiatusland

Folic Acid Supplements Don't Reduce High-Risk Colon Cancers.

This is an interesting article. My gastro has me taking a milligram of folic acid daily, just on the "off-chance" that I get knocked up. What are the complications of folic acid and ulcerative colitis, if any? (He blithely informed me when I asked, "None. Absolutely none.") If ulcerative colitis primes someone for a higher rate of cancer possibility, would folic acid up those numbers?

Is folic acid the new formula, wheat bran, omega-three?

Am I taking valuable library science time to type crap? Well, YEAH.

Science in Libraries: respected relationship or calamitous collision? Discuss.

I'm taking a few days off because the science is beating the library out of me.

Shouldn't take too long for me to gather up the shreds of my intelligence and really kick some ass, though. Of course, that will require some extreme crap candy.