Cleaning!

I'm several months late in my spring cleaning. The good news though, is that once again I can see the floor in basically every part of my room, and that I am proud of my room again. In all honesty, aside from the terrible winter's chill, my room is pretty amazing. It's big enough to fit most of my things, and it's very open, with windows taking up about 2/3 of the wall space. I filled up quite a few garbage bags in the process and truly enjoyed the cleaning process. It was a catharsis, and it also allowed me to find a number of things that I've been missing.

After doing the main cleaning in my room, I worked with my roommate Shane to clean up the rest of the house. I did a lot of dusting, some dishes, some bathroom and kitchen scrubbing and some general organizing. Shane did a lot of organizing, some sweeping and some dusting as well. It's nice to have the house look a bit more presentable, and it still looks 'lived in'.

The reason we are doing all this cleaning is this; we have a potential new roommate coming to look at the apartment today, and more later in the week. It's exciting to think of a total stranger looking at our place and seeing with eyes unclouded by familiarity. I'm certainly excited.

Worthless, Petty, Condescending...

"Can you afford deodorant?" is not a respectful way to begin a conversation with another person. It reeks of assholitude far more than the small degree of completely natural and human B.O. that I put off on a hot and muggy day. It's hot and humid, and my job requires me to move around a lot. It doesn't surprise me then that I will occasionally have some B.O., in fact I've just come to accept it. I also don't feel the need to hide B.O. with applied chemical treatments like deodorant, as most of the time it isn't 'offensive' or strong.

A dental assistant on the 9th floor, an aging solidly built woman with cropped silver hair, glasses and a mean face, pulled me aside today while I was working in the 9th floor north clinic. She began a conversation with me that started with "Can I ask you a question?" which led into "Can you afford deodorant." Anything else she said after that is meaningless, any kind of apology goes unheard. She's now anathema, below human in my eyes. If she was offended by my smell, she could have either kept it to herself, or politely mentioned that it was strong. But, by opening the conversation with the audacious "Can you afford" line, it's like she's asking me if I can afford to be a part of human society.

Needless to say, since I have had problems with her in the past, this incident has nailed the lid in the coffin. I will no longer speak to her anymore than is absolutely necessary for my job duties, and I will avoid her in any situation that I can. This woman is not worth my time or any other thought.

Valium or Cake?

People never seem to be quite happy enough. Everyone complains everyday, and if one were to just listen to the chatter of most humans, you would get the impression that life, for the most part, sucks. It's not my point to argue whether or not life sucks, or to tell people that they shouldn't complain, as it's a sign of poor character. Obviously, people have to live life as they choose, which means dealing with their own problems as they see fit. That often does include complaining. But, it can also be done by way of self-medicating. Millions, well probably billions of people turn to various substances and addictions to make their lives easier.

Personally, I often turn to food, poorly argued internet polemics (just browse various news sites and look for their commentary section and you will see what I mean) and to a lesser extent, video games. When it comes to food, I like many others end up really going for sweets. Sweets are simply amazing. I can't get over how simply enjoyable sweets are. There is no complexity, no argument, no problem at all. This is why cakes and candy do so well, as they are simply agreeable and pleasant without question.

Illegal and semi-legal drugs taken for recreational purposes are another common way for people to refocus and make life more livable. Things like Valium calm people down, and various other drugs work their own magics on the brain. They work simply and do what they ought to for the most part, so in a way they are like sweets, a simple trick to produce the desired effect and make the person taking them happy.

Today I've been taking a big box of expired pharmaceuticals from a long-dead clinical project (think 1994, when I was 9 years old and finishing up third grade.) This is a very nasty little project, as it contains a number of highly controlled substances, specifically Valium, Adrenaline, etc. These things, even when expired require a certain degree of extra-effort and know-how to properly process, and are really a bit of a hassle. That said, it's been somewhat grueling work, due to the nature of the Haz-Mat room that I'm working in, it's cramped and I'm not using proper body mechanics.

In the box I've found more Valium than was reported on the manifest. The strange thing about it is that all of the bottles for Valium are not originally Valium bottles, but instead are originally from several other kinds of slightly less controlled substances, just with a Valium label slapped onto them. This concerns me, but I can't do anything about it until I bring it up with my health and safety officer, who is more or less my second boss at the Dental School.

So, while I was looking through the big box of controlled substances, I came upon a bottle of "Cake Mate." Cake Mate is a sort of prepackaged icing for cakes, meant to make decoration easier, and comes in small, several ounce tubes that look like travel sized toothpaste tubes. This little bottle, not hazardous at all, is still completely wasted, rendered as useless as the 13 year old Valium by the ravages of time. So, I guess in this situation, I don't even get to make the choice between Valium or Cake. The choice has already been ruined for me.

Life in hell

Lifting things is never really the best. Sometimes it feels like a good bit of accomplishment, which I guess it did today, but it also seems to lead to shame and pain.

Today, I lifted a table and ripped open my pants, crotch to knee. I fixed the main part with judicious application of staples, but the duct tape I've been using to hold my crotch together is failing, and I fear I need to descend into a bathroom to try and fix it.

I'm aware that it won't work.

I should just go home, but I'd have to explain why, which would be even worse.

Death and Crap

Tim Russert just died. Kind of strange and unexpected, but everyone knows that it's possible for any one of us to die at any second. Shocking celebrity death has become increasingly common as of late though, and I don't have the slightest idea why. I made no comment on the Death of Heath Ledger at the time, but it came as quite a shock to me as well. Don't get me wrong, I feel no sympathy for these people, no emotional trauma, just surprise at the death of modern gods. I know that the rate of "famous" death probably isn't any higher lately than the background level, but in general it seems as if people are dropping all over the place.

I understand that statistically, with more people in the world, more will be dying at any moment. But, famous "big death" news events have been coming at us with a strange intensity in the past 6 months. In fact, the past few years in general have been pretty gory due to mostly natural disaster, accident and war. Probably though, nature has taken the most lives of all. I think climate change is partially to blame for this upswing.

What does it mean to live in a world so saturated with constant death. Personally I don't see anyone dying in my vicinity, but I'm aware that it's happening every day. The intense degree of mass death on the news in far-off and sometimes not so far-off places must really affect us somehow, I just don't quite understand how.

Remarkable, pulsating creature

I really enjoy artificial life. Simulcra, robots, golems, androids, AI, etc., they are all pretty amazing to me. The more of a decent simulation of life, the better.

At work this week I got to see a pretty amazing life-faker. I was underground, pushing a cart of delicate equipment from one sun-forsaken godless place to another, when I ran into Dennis. He needed help with a dental chair, so I accompanied him to the basement level of the Phillips Wangensteen building. We took an elevator further down than I've ever had to professionally and then got out, walking a short distance to an unassuming door with a buzzer.

We waited for what seemed like a long time before being let into a very sterile and quiet clinical research area, with a long hallway adjoined with a big and comfortable waiting room. We were led in by a tall and lanky woman with something of a patrician's demeanor. She led us a short distance down the hall, to the first of some 8 identical operating theatres. The first thing that struck me as odd about the room was it's enormous size, with tons of extra room, not like any surgical suite I've seen.

The second, and most interesting thing was this remarkable, pulsating creature laying on an operating table wearing human clothing. It was breathing, and it appeared to have a heartbeat, blood-pressure, and all the other "vitals" of a regular human being. In fact, it was attached to machines that gave constant readouts of it's "vitals." The breathing was a steady, comforting noise, and definitely made me think of a real living thing, or kind of a Darth Vaderish breathing apparatus at least.

The creature had skin made of a dark beige or dark khaki rubber. It had no discernible eyes, simply light recessions in it's mask of rubber. It's mouth opened and closed slightly with it's regular breathing. The clothing it wore looked like a patient's gown to me, and it's vital monitors were attached in all of the right places. The researcher instructed us on where to place the Dental Chair, which we set down efficiently, right next to this remarkable simulcra.

On our way out of this ultra-modern world, I noticed that on either side of the operating theater were big bay mirrors. They were clearly one-way mirrors, the sort that people watch through secretively. Dennis told me about a show he saw on the Discovery Channel regarding the simulations using these things, and I have to admit I was in awe of the whole process and the whole world. I'm amazed by human ingenuity.

Song of the Day: "FTW"-Xiu Xiu