On Thursday I spilled a crystalline chemical all over the tissue culture lab bench and floor. It’s used in gram staining and as an indicator in a bacterial test I do. Crystal violet. I quickly wiped up what was on the counter into a biohazard bag, then dashed out of the lab to the phone (tracking size ten purple footprints as I went). The safety officer said it wasn’t a significant health hazard. Ditto from my study director, other lab techs.

So after work I set to cleaning it up with heavy duty chemicals. Methanol, Acetic Acid, Dispatch. I was scrubbing hard, sweating, breathing heavy, thinking of Cinderella while inhaling massive quantities of fumes. I did as well as I could but really just made a giant purple amorphous floor blob.

On the drive home I was woozy from the fumes. Online I checked the MSDS for crystal violet. Toxic. May cause cancer. Harmful through inhalation. Use self contained breathing apparatus for spills. Causes tumors in mice. Shaking and enraged. I was in terrible mood for the rest of the night. Irreversible damage may have been done to my young and supple body. It was a jolt out of my routine fog though. I daydreamed of getting cancer at 35. What I want to cram into ten years of life.

I’ve cooled down now. But I wish it wasn’t so. I want that fiery motivation back.

The evening isn’t a great time for self-expression. Tedium, obligations and social crushes have ground down my spirit.

Sonic fairies are gently healing with their lovely chiming though. If they could massage my shoulders too then I’d be in heaven.

Bleah

I want to update and check up on my subscriptions (ie, the only people who can read this) properly sometime soon.

I think that’s my new favorite album cover. Not only a Metallica homage but a duck riding lightning. heheheehe. Not much is going on. Living in Boston with Merle. Watched Tsotsi this week-end. Ate at House of Tibet and at a cheap place in Chinatown. Reading The Idiot by Dostoevsky. Listening to a ton of 70s music cause I downloaded Pitchfork’s top 100 greatest albums of the 70s. There’s all kinds of cool shit in there.

My job is tough but I enjoy learning from the fresh challenges and my fun and sexy coworkers. I got somesuper-tasty caramel cookies from Trader Joe’s this week-end too. Gonna eat some. Then turn that lightning duck into a lab coat name tag.

edit: It turned out so incredibly awesome.

I didn’t ingest any caffeine during the last 120 hours or so. It took a stomach flu to shove me into it. The week-end was hellish but now, now, NOW. I have some delicious aromatic dark java steaming in front of me. It’s half empty and my neurons are singing.

ooooo. Inside my stomach and intestines viral infection rages. It’s probably a stomach flu. The symptoms I looked up match. I feel so frail and weak. Poor bloated delicate stomach.

Been on the couch all day. Watched some Saturday morning cartoons. Then Fight Club. Then Fight Club with the actor commentary. Now it’s playing with the author, screenwriter commentary. I tried reading The Idiot but just got to Chapter four. All the blood is working on the stomach and the brain is deprived.

A****‘s such a hopeless infatuation. I feel she’s tied to her husband the way ******’s tied to me. On Friday afternoon I was starting to feel queasy and burned out. As a consequence I missed a fantastic opportunity to come up with a dazzling and suggestive answer to her question, “Do you ever dream of your coworkers?”. Instead, my deadpan reply was, “No. When I dream it’s total darkness. I go to bed then I wake up.” An uncalculated and exhausted honest reply. Such a blown chance. Plus I bet she had something good to share. I hate TV and being sick.

I need to check up on everyone soon. And I mean everyone. Xanga contacts, parents, sister, old neglected friendships. I live in such a shell.

At work, all the In Vitro lab technicians eat together in the cafeteria. There are nine techs in the department now. And they all like to squeeze together at a table meant for four. So ridiculous. And it seems like my level of boredom with the conversation grows as the number people swells. I can’t engage with that many in any meaningful way. If there’s four at the table when I come down, I sit with the quality assurance or chemistry people. Not them though. Cliquey sheep.

Today, out of protest I ignored them and started my own table.

A**** came and sat with me.

Just like I was hoping for.

I’m so sick of fighting with ******. I fought for some space and time today and now that I have it, I’m not enjoying it.

Because of all the new hires at work, I’m moving out of the main tech office and into the small one that only seats two. With A****.

I wish I was a better writer and more articulate. I wish I wasn’t such a personality chameleon, changing for whoever I meet. I wish I would love the work I do. I wish I didn’t feel so restless.

I’m going to go to the MIT library I think to do some research related to my job. Once there I’ll probably just fall asleep in a cubicle for a while then come home. I’m so sluggish. Addicted to coffee.

“Dude, why are you so pissed?”
“But everything’s Ok at home right?”
“What are you doing this week-end? Just relaxing? Good. you need it.”
“Oh no. There it is again, the angry face.”

So this week at work it seemed everyone was alluding to how tightly wound I was. Besides being a hard ass on the new guy I think it showed in everything I did. The way I stomped around the lab scowling. The nasty aggressive tone that crept into my voice. Staring at people like they were a piece of juicy red meat and I a hungry Duran Duran wolf.

The problem’s pretty simple. I don’t deal with celibacy well at all. It brings about a whole personality change. Everyone’s used to sexually satisfied me. Happy, smiling, joking, charming. Not the asshole horny me. I almost got into a fight in a parking lot. I assume if this state of agony continued over a longer period of time, all the tension and aggression would shrink. Just like my testicles. This is the last day I swear. If I don’t get anything from my ice queen tonight, during my morning shower tomorrow I’m going to explode. Repeatedly.

So A**** commented that I was being pretty hard on the new guy. Even that I had a cruel streak. Eeep. Ok. Yeah I was and maybe yes I do (but it’s small!). I don’t like to admit it but unfortunately I fit my astrological sign to a T. (I never understood that expression, does it mean like a T-shirt? cause those don’t always fit so well.) but yeah, I rode his ass hard and pushed him to the limit yesterday. But the thing is, first off, the study director personally requested that I challenge him to see what he could do. Number 2, on his first day, he seemed to take offense and get all huffy when I was instructing him in the more simple laboratory skills. He’s got this smarmy confidence that just rubs me the wrong way. It’s very frustrating to have a trainee with this attitude. I hate smarm. So yesterday I thought, “well if he think he can handle anything, then we’ll see.” (except the voice I thought it in was dripping with dark ominous malice)

I loaded his plate with a ton of time sensitive and challenging, complex work, but throughout the day was by his side guiding and helping him. (while leaving ample opportunities to excel on his own.) Turns out he made some large errors when I left him alone. He also wasn’t truthful and tried to cover up one of the major mistakes. But that didn’t work and after bickering with me about it, at his suggestion, we involved the study director to review the large error and that’s where he really got his confidence stomped on. At the end of the day, walking through the hallway with the study director and I, he held his head low, looked at the floor and mumbled like a broken man, “that’s what I get for trying to fly solo.” Sweet music to my sadistic ears. So if my goal was to totally crush his spirit and emasculate him in front of the whole lab then mission accomplished. Except it wasn’t. I was fair. I think.