-Birthday- 

Dr. M, I have not the resources to properly celebrate your birthday. Even if I did, there is not enough wealth in heaven, nor enough hallmark cards in hell, to do you justice. I am, as always, in your debt, and you are, as always, too graceful to mention it. 

Happy Birthday, M.

zzzZZZzzz..Sleep Study..zzzZZZzzz

One week of Sleep Deprivation, Radiotracers, and Wires on the Cranium.

-Monday Night/Tuesday Morning-

Time moved too fast when I left the sleep lab. Choosing to keep the IVs in, rather than puncturing anew later, was a mistake. I didn't want to sleep with those monstrosities, which catch on everything and send twinges of pain the length of the limb.

Predictably, I did not want to leave home once I got there, nor did I want to sleep. I only managed 45 minutes of the mandated one-hour nap before shuffling over to the computer lab for some correspondence. This took a suprisingly long time, and before I knew it, I was heading back to the building I now associate with torture and insanity. This study only began in earnest on Sunday, and I feel as if it has blotted out everything else. Again the urge to upend the equipment and refuse any further participation is almost irresistible.

Once I get there I wonder what I'm doing here so early. Bedtime at 11:30 PM, even with the twenty minutes or so it takes to plaster the wires to my cranium, 8:00 seems an excessively early call.

But there isn't much to do tonight. The cranium wiring I've gotten used to gives way to the IV hookup with the cold drip of the FDA unapproved Fluorodeoxyglucose, connected to the punctures I'd mentioned before. To calm the sensation of jostled plastic tubing, I lie on my side in bed, with Scientist J's February issue of Rolling Stone. Curiously, he underlined passages in the Howard Dean interview.

The first underlined section: "I'm very against the legalization of drugs."

Another:

"What's happened to us is, we're whipsawed between the desire for the best price and our desire for a strong community. And sometimes a strong community means paying a little more."

Before long, a tech is at my bedside, settling me in with two frigid drips and the prospect of a long night ahead. I wake up, blinking, at 12:30 AM - shocked to find I've been sleeping, purportedly deeply, what they call levels three and four. The senior citizens in the other study couldn't do this, they tell me. No, sir.

Tech C, who has warmed up considerably, - oh lovable, redeemable human species - is impressed with my descent. "It took you a while," she says, "we started to wonder.. and then you fell fast."

This explains my surprise when I do wake up after the swift crash. Does this make me some kind of narcoleptic? The question is never posed, and by quarter-to-one I'm being wheeled to the PET scanner for another round. Nurse Flo takes me; she is every bit as friendly as Maggie, but my conversation skills are at low ebb. I feel I must look churlish, and I only hope Flo will attribute my attitude to sleep deprivation, and forgive. Tech T. is still working the PET scanner, but Tech K. is not - probably off clubbing. No one offers the radio this time, with is fine. At this time of night my choices for news are limited. When the new "headgear" is maneuvered into place my nose is squashed and my throat is parched. Still, I have no choice but to hold the uncomfortable pose for a full hour. I nearly sob with relief upon my return to the sleep lab, where Nurse Flo removes the hated IVs and Tech C, the headwires. I am free, free to return to bed to capture another few hours of sleep. The wake me at 8:00 to wander out of the lab into a morning bustle of enviable intensity.

I think this is how fasting people feel; a great priority adjustment leaving everything seemingly new and wondrous.

-Remembering Punctuated Fireworks-

Voices over the public address system promised a fireworks display that would surpass those of yesteryear. My neighbor, the worldly cynic, kept up a running commentary about firework displays in neighboring townships, the quality of which he unconsciously linked to the tax-bracket.

When the large, multicolored explosives ignited, children of all races and creeds expressed their pleasure, sang off-key. They screamed words, or the un-translatable "whooo!" The latter expression was a favorite of the tanked, as well. We were close enough to smell all kinds of smoke.

I believe we heard five tinny songs, none but the national anthem in its entirety. At some point it became clear that planners were attempting to choreograph the fireworks to the music. For example, 'God Bless America' inspired the incendiary maestro to match colors with lyrics:

From the mountains, [Green and White]
To the prairies, [Yellow and Green]
To the ocean, [Blue]
white with foam, [White]
God [Shower of Gold Sparks] bless America, [Red] My home [Red] sweet [Red] home. [Red-Red-Red]

So, this firework theologian envisions god as a shower of gold. The ancient Greeks thought so, too, as far as it suited the myth of Zeus and Danae.

The 'whooo!' ejaculations continue, but I feel unmoved by the display. In fact, the fireworks seem to enunciate a generation gap; the young and the intoxicated enjoy it the most, the older generation and the stoned enjoy it quietly or not at all. I try to abandon myself to the bursts of light, but there's no turning back the clock once you've understood the effects of municipal waste. From now on, fireworks are something to be endured, and I'm pleased when the finale comes and goes.

My neighbor, the worldly cynic, is not. He timed the sequence as three minutes shorter than last year, and he raises his voice over the cheers of the young, the intoxicated, over the applause of the elders and the coughing fits of the stoners, to tell us how much that sucks.

-Partbroken-

Typical school. You give it the best months of your life, and it can't wait to shut you out of its labs.

The university has also revoked my space on the server. Now my images are living out of a zip disk, inaccessible to the majority. Until we can find another place to store them (I do have some leads) this stripped down version is all that is available.