Quick, email me some energy

I have to go teach in 15 minutes, and I’m barely conscious. I’m chugging coffee, but it isn’t doing the trick, and I’m afraid I might fall asleep in my own lecture. I have a seminar after that, a lab this afternoon, and another seminar at 5, and it’s going to be tough getting through this day.

I hate Tuesdays. They’re worse than Mondays.

OK, I made it through the first class of the day — the magical lightning bolts from hither and yon helped a lot. Sorry, trolls, I know you think you’re zapping me with hatred, but it’s all fuel for the machine. I managed to do a lightning-quick summary of both mitosis and meiosis for the first year students — next I’ve got to give them a bunch of homework to make sure it sticks.

I have a short break before the senior seminar on NKX-2.5, homeobox proteins involved in cardiac devalopment always keep me awake. Before that, though, it’s time to tend to my spiders for a bit.

I made it through the whole day! Fortunately, the student seminars were both very good, and the lab was painless. I still need a nap.

Max von Sydow is dead

He’s gone. He had some impressive roles, he had some cheesy roles, but one thing he always had was presence.

One thing that always struck me about him is that he reminded me of my great grandfather: that slight accent, the pitch of his voice, and that he was tall and physically similar (I think my great grandfather was tall, but I was also very small when I knew him). I kind of hoped I’d grow old to be like Great-Grandpa Westad, or like Max von Sydow, but I think I got too many Myers genes.

I have a theory, which is mine, about getting older

Today is my birthday. Yeah, whoop-ti-doo, it’s a work day and I’m home alone and dinner is going to be rice and beans with no cake, so congratulations are not in order. Also, I’m 63, which led to my new insight.

I’m actually 3 vigorous, flighty, strong, bumbling 21 year olds trapped in one body. It explains why I’ve put on weight over the years, and they’re all kind of bummed out about being stuck in here, so they occasionally lash out, which is why my bones ache. It’s a satisfying theory which explains many phenomena.

So now I just need to figure out how to reconcile these three (who I’ve named Chad, Dexter, and Evil Dexter, by the way) to their existence as roommates in a co-op with really strict rules and no escape clause. Things might get better next year at this time when it’ll be three young men and a new one-year-old baby and we can start negotiating the sit-com rights, but until then I’ve got to keep these rambunctious wastrels occupied. Any suggestions?

If it helps, I spent my first 21st birthday in my dorm room, studying for a biochemistry final the next day. That’s what 21 year olds do, right?

Time to huddle alone in my man-cave

Now that COVID-19 cases have been reported in 28 states, I think we can say that efforts to confine it have failed. We have our first case here in Minnesota, a person returning from a trip on a cruise ship (Why do people do those cruises anymore, anyway? It’s like jumping into big bottle of culture medium and getting stirred around for a few weeks.) My university has sent out information to all faculty about what to do if cases arise — we’re referred to this Safe Campus website for updated info. Ironically, the email about this also says, “Our Emergency Management team—made up of individuals from across campus—is meeting weekly”. Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? If someone on the team is infected, the whole damn lot of them will go down.

My wife is off in Colorado, and as it turns out went through the Denver airport at the same as an infected but asymptomatic traveler from Italy was walking among the oblivious herd. She’s coming back in about two weeks through the same mob of disease-ridden cattle. We old, frail people have been advised to avoid all social contact, which sounds like a fine idea to me — I’m a denizen of the internet, that’s where I do all my socializing — but I have a job that involves talking with lots of people all the time. Fortunately, I don’t touch students…but I do get piles of papers handed to me. Maybe this will motivate me to adopt all electronic submissions.

We’re also advised that, instead of crude handshakes, we should adopt the Vulcan greeting. I can do that. I’m all for it.

“Live long and prosper”

However, this recommendation rarely comes with the necessary warning: do not, I repeat, DO NOT ever greet someone with a Vulcan mind-meld. This is right out, even if it would be a great teaching technique.

“Do you actually…understand…epistatic interactions in genetics?”

I was planning on going out for a nice walk in town today, but I think I’ve just talked myself into sitting at home alone.

Schocked!

I was surprised to learn that the most famous person from Morris, Minnesota was a disgraced Republican politician, known for using campaign funds illegally to decorate his office. It’s a strange thing to have attached to the place where you live.

Now he has cemented his position as the biggest name from Morris by coming out as gay. He worked for years against LGBT rights, so that’s a bit surprising (or is it?).

There’s more! Now I learn that his family was a member of the Apostolic Church of Morris (we actually have two churches for that sect here in town, the other is the North Apostolic Church). Uh-oh. I know that church: fervent, hard-working Biblical literalists who have a rather oppressive influence on the rest of us. That’s where he started!

My story starts in the rural Midwest, as part of a family centered in a faith and its particular traditions. At the Apostolic Christian Church where we belonged, we were enthusiastic regulars. My parents did their best to raise me and my siblings according to biblical tenets as they understood them.

I wonder if they are aware of how their beliefs boomeranged against them in this one case. They’d probably attribute it to the fact that his family moved to “one of the less rigid branches” in his youth.

Accounting. I hate accounting.

Well, we got an invoice from our lawyer. He recommends a monthly payment of $15,000.

I scraped up $500 from that lovely Patreon account. I don’t think he’s planning to sic bounty hunters on us, as long as we can keep up a steady stream of money heading his direction, even if that amount is economically impossible. Don’t forget our GoFundMe!

My creaky bones have reached peak agony after my fall the other day, so I can look forward to repair and relief soon. I hope. It sure would be nice to sleep through the night without sporadic spasms again.

In happier news, tomorrow is my research day, I’m planning to seal myself up in the lab and catch up with my spiders. Big feeding time! Lots of lab cleanup! Temperatures have drifted above freezing lately, the snow is receding, so I’m also eagerly anticipating the return of numerous arthropods to the external environment. Maybe it’s premature with thick layers of snow still on the ground, but I think I detect a faint glimmer of spring. Maybe.

Oy. $15K/month. That’ll take the wind out of your sails.

Now it’s getting personal

I just learned that a woman acquaintance I knew well in high school has lost her husband to COVID-19. It’s odd how the personal connection snaps it all into focus so clearly. I’ve got a lot of connections to people in the Pacific Northwest, where there seems to be a lot of activity by this virus, so I expect to get more sad news in the future.

Bones rattled, vote cast

Yes I voted.

Then I dragged myself to the doctor and got a CT scan. Nothing is broken or bleeding; the doctor even said my brain looks good, so I’m thinking I ought to get that testimonial tattooed on my body somewhere. Even as I was sitting in the waiting room, though, I could feel my back and neck starting to freeze up into painful rigidity, so I think I’m going to be feeling this for the next several days.

But not right now. I got a shot of the good drugs, I might just pass out for a while.