The Simpsons - Homer Evolution

did I post this already?

epic

So after a loooong time of feeling pretty good, which I'm grateful for, I'm having a little bit of a health epic.

After knocking my immune system down by trying to process more alcohol than my liver could handle, and then working out like a madwoman cause I was feeling good again, I got KO'ed by a common cold.  Unbelievable.  I felt it coming on Sunday, and figured that if I rested I could dodge it.  So much for that.  Now it's Thursday night and I'm still down for the count.  Which is a real disappointment, because I haven't had a productive week at work in quite some time, and I wanted to go to Bishop to hang out with some friend this weekend.

Ok, so I probably shouldn't go to Bishop...no big deal.  What's more concerning is that my hand is stiff and going numb again.  Should I go back on the steroids?  This is the first month that I haven't gone into the infusion center for an afternoon to get a dose of Solu-medrol.  Is that why my hand is stiff?  Or is it because, like my neurologist said, sometimes viruses can cause symptoms to flare up?  Or is it something else?  The fact that I was working out too much after not eating for a week?  I ate enough, right?  Will the steroids help if I go back on them?  Should I do 5 days in a row, or would one help?  Or should I try IVIG again?  Is it because I've been a little bit of a slacker with my interferon injections, skipping days here and there?  Is it going to get worse?  Am I going to lose function in my hand again?  Is resting and not going to Bishop helping, or if it's not going to make a difference, shouldn't I just say "fuck it" and do whatever I want?  Or maybe I've developed antibodies to the interferon...that happens in a certain percentage of users.  Ha! I'm a user.  I have boxes of used needles around the house.

At this point, I've rested for 5 (!) days...no biking, climbing, pilates, barely ANYTHING.  Normally I'd be stir crazy, but mostly I'm just tired and worried.  It's not a bad thing to have to stay here for the weekend...for the past few I've stuck around anyway.  I'm a little worried about getting depressed again though.  Because it's fucking depressing.

Right now I'm just waiting to see how I feel over the next few days.

If I stay in town, I KNOW I'll go to the gyms and try to bike...and it's difficult to hold back.

By the way, we should bug Shannon to blog about how she thought her mom was trying to poison her with Comet when Shannon was a little girl.

Tick Lists

I think I might be getting sick.  Lately I've been saying "I don't get sick", but maybe in fact, I do.  I'm a bit tired, my throat has that weird feeling, my skin is sensitive, and what is a bit more concerning: my right hand and right leg are feeling "weird" again.  This is the first month in 6 months that I have not gone to the infusion center.  I have a neuro appointment mid-March, so we can look at my brain and see how things are.  I wonder how much of the steroid infusion is "placebo" effect.  Plus I've been bad about my injections lately.  They suck.

So, long story short, I'm sitting here on the couch today instead of going to one of the bay area gyms to work out.  Beth and Justin are on their way to the new El Cerrito gym without me.  Lyn accosted me because "you said you wanted to boulder!!!".  But I must politely decline, and sit on the couch and watch a marathon of "No Reservations" on the Travel Channel.  Believe it or not, the day is still going by pretty quickly.  Already 3pm?!

Which gets me thinking about some upcoming trips, most notably INDIAN CREEK!!  I have a talk to give on March 18, and after that I'm bailing to the desert, and I CAN'T WAIT!!!  There is something about that place that makes my blood run a little hotter and a little faster.  It's sexy, gorgeous, tantalizing...in short, splitter.  SPLITTER!  

So here is a short list of the routes I'd like to climb in the Creek this spring

Any .10s that aren't splitter #3 size.

A bunch of .11s...

King Cat

Alley Cat (and not get gripped on the 10ft wide section 33 meters off the deck after all of the "hard" stuff)

Wild Cat

9 Lives

Poly grip, Dos Hermanos, Coyne Crack, Fingers in a Lightsocket

soul fire, sesh one cooking

heat searcher

some .12s

Swedin-Ringle

Slice and Dice (I TR-flashed this one and went back to redpoint, but fell at the top...didn't have to soul to try it again that day, or the time to go back before I left!!)

Digital Readout

Cat Burglar

broken tooth (though I'm turned off by the mandatory fist section to get over the tooth...)

Pistol whipped (3 pitches!)

Sacred Cow

camping under the influence (I TR-flashed this one, but I think I remember being grateful that I wasn't leading!)

T-Bones tonight (fell at the top on the flash attempt)

.13s? meh...probably not fit enough...

Belly full of Bad Berries (I kid! I kid...)

Optimator?

Death of a Cowboy?

Tricks are For Kids?

Towers

Ancient Art

something on the Bridger Jacks...

6 shooters? 

Moonlight Buttress...let's see how I feel.

I pretty much refuse to project anything at first.  If something gets me excited, then maybe.  Flailing is for gumbies!  ok, kidding again...sort of.

Any other suggestions?

more musings...I'll never stop!

So I had an interesting and random experience with an acquaintance over the last week or two.  We hung out a little bit, sort of romantically, but maybe not really.  It was odd, and I wasn't sure what to make of it.  The thing is, it was definitely unexpected, but it was kind of nice.  Naturally however, it brought up a lot of thoughts about past experiences, hopes, expectations...you know, the regular tangled morass neuroses of what goes on in my mind.  

So as it turns out, "it" is not going to go anywhere.  Which leaves me with some mixed feelings.  Every time I get involved with someone new I go into a reflective-hyperdrive (if I were in the movie Spaceballs, I'd be GOING PLAID!!!).  Aren't you glad that you don't live inside of my head by the way?  I mean, how lucky are you?!  Not only is my brain diseased, but it's also bat-shit crazy!!

 

On to my mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I felt relieved during our conversation, because I had been holding back a lot...sort of waiting to see what was going to happen.  I don't like holding back one bit.  Nope, not one bit.  Which begs the question: why am I waiting for someone else's actions to determine how I feel?  But that's another subject for another time.  On the other hand, I'm a little bit disappointed...I can't deny that I was excited to do fun things with someone.  But I think this stems more from being a person who's excited to do things in general.  I mean, I'm generally game for just about anything.

One thing that I noticed...I can get sucked into other people's moods.  Sometimes I feel like I sense discomfort, unease, depression or sadness a little too much, and I'll alter my behavior to reflect what's happening in the person I'm interacting with.  It's almost like I'm making up the difference, or bridging some sort of gap...trying to make everything ok.  And I can't even help it.  It just happens.  It's almost like I'm afraid that if I stop talking and making everything ok, then the conversation will stop and awkward silence will ensue.  Or the world will end or something dramatic like that.  It's messed up and I don't like it.  Especially cause I'm like 99% sure the other person is NOT feeling like they have to make things ok for me.

But maybe it's not all me... certainly there are many people who I am deeply comfortable around.  These people tend to be very comfortable with themselves.  It's no surprise that when you are satisfied and content with yourself, you can absorb a lot of shit from the world.  When you're not...stuff hits you a lot harder.  

You have to be resilient, or life will take you down.  

At this point in my life (the tender age of 29), I feel like I've recovered from some unpleasant things.  Traci being sick for years and years and then dying in a car crash sucked pretty hard.  Getting MS...that sucks hard too.  Both of these experiences hit my soul in different ways. 

Traci dying: shit happens to the people you love suddenly and unexpectedly.  

Getting MS: shit happens to you suddenly and unexpectedly, and I might not be able to walk in 5 years.  Okay, dramatic and not likely, but how do I know that?  I just don't think about it.  And I don't think about it when someone tells me that they know someone with MS who woke up paralyzed on one side and blind in one eye on day.  That possibility is not in my worldview.  If it happens, I'll deal with it.

Anyway the downside of all of this is that despite this "it" being nothing to get too excited about, "it" does leave a bit of a gap.  This gap is something that I know we all feel...most people I know and am close to experience painful loneliness to one degree or another.  In yoga you're supposed to "sit" with your feelings.  But honestly, fuck that!  Being lonely SUCKS, and I'll avoid it at all costs.  I mean, really?  I'm supposed to feel pain and suffering?  No way!

This is why I'm going to learn how to brew beer tonight in Sacramento, why I had lunch with a friend, why I chat online way too much, why I don't enjoy climbing by myself.  I don't know that there is anything more important in my life than the people I share it with. 

My dorky life

I just wanted to share a brief correspondence I had with a fellow desert fish enthusiast.  He's writing an updated version of California's fish species of concern, and he has to decide what is "distinct" enough to be listed (which often involves interpreting genetic data, hence why he's consulting me).  I think he's a closet geneticist.  Check it out:

Hi XXXX -

I should go back through the literature and see if anyone has done AFLP or usat analysis of these two morphs.  I'm pretty sure that a phylogenetic analysis based on sequence data did not reveal substantial differentiation.

I'm a little on the fence.  Is there a way to describe "morphs" as distinct without having to invoke subspecific or specific status?

-Mandi

It a hot a topic. check out the Schlueter paper and I will send along simberloff's dense ass review of character displacement too

total hot button ecology topic to sex up your phd funding quests

check these papers out briefly, see what you think and then I will pitch you the tui chub argument thats taking shape in my mind

cheers,

XXXX

Always ready to bolt for the door

Stuff has been interesting lately.  New people, the liver-destruction diet (it totally works by the way).  Other things...

Other than not getting jack done last week because I felt like crap, things are going pretty well.  I'm feeling a lot better, I have been biking (indoors, ok, but whatever - I'm into it!), and climbing (also indoors...this is CA in Winter).  Nevertheless, it's been kind of rad.  

I find this blog a wonderful thing (for me), but at the same time I know that more and more people that I know are reading it...and it's making me self-edit.  I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, I don't want to reveal information that people don't want out in the open.

The point is that I'm a little confused about a new situation and want to write about it, but don't particularly want to face the consequences of discussing it in the public sphere.

So instead I'll dance around the subject, using little anecdotes that are not quite but sort of true.  It's annoying.  

You'd think that I've been through enough crap to know how to be around people who are going through shitty things.  I don't.  Everyone deals with crap differently, and there are ba-jillions of different kinds of crap to deal with.  Some serious, some not-so-serious.  Life experiences have a lot to do with how crap-tastic you might feel a crappy situation is, but more and more I'm thinking that people are born with particular ways of dealing with the turds that inevitably find their way on to one's road of life...so to speak.  I mean if it wasn't one turd pile, would it just be another?

Lately I've been spending time with a lot of really positive people, and I think that this is why I've been feeling really good lately.  The other part of this equation is letting go of people who aren't putting in the energy that I am willing to put in, and letting go of people who find it difficult to be happy, or if not happy, then at least genuinely appreciative, and largely content.

I don't want to judge people on how they cope with the good and the bad in life, but maybe there are better ways than others to take on new burdens.  However, maybe we are hard-wired to move forward in our own ways, and assigning some sort of qualitative judgement to it is pointless.  So what I am left with (and probably what really matters) is how I feel- something I tend to ignore when I sense that a person who is close to me is upset.  All I know is that, for me, some people require a lot of my energy...I'm always worried about either pissing them off, or saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, if they are happy, etc.  As it turns out, I'm pretty sensitive.  I'd rather write people off and head for the door than wait around for a "real" rejection.  Personality failing.  But hell, at least it's efficient right?  I don't want to be that guy who's deluded.

So if anyone knows what the hell I'm talking about in this post...good for you!

On to more pedestrian things: Went to spin class and then the climbing gym Saturday. Climbing after spin class is really hard.  Climbing after spin class after not eating for 4 days is damn near impossible.  Oh well, I got to hang out with Rick and that was nice.  Then I went home and collapsed into my oh-so-cosy bed for a few hours and watched The Wire.  V-day night I had a "date" with a friend, where we ate tamales and talked about life.  The tamales kind of sucked...I think they needed salt or something.

Sunday I putzed around in the morning, thinking about the things that I should be doing for work...and then not doing them.  Chatted online with Alex for an hour or so (well, mostly I listened to him rant about Weidner).  He's headed to El Salto, and I would be jealous except being there with them right now would mean being at the mercy of Chris's schedule.  Blah.  In the afternoon I met up with Drew at the Oakland gym and had a good session...after I was properly cooked, I went upstairs to the woody to see how the real rock climbers do it.  In case you are wondering, they do it on a woody.  And then they do it on the rings after that.

I skipped the woody sesh, but was intrigued by the rings (partly because you walk behind a curtain in the back of the gym and all of these rings are everywhere.  It is vaguely bondage-ish, which is nice...).  Anyway, it was cool and fun and I'd like to do it again, but I woke up this morning and could barely turn my head.  Dammit.  It kind of feels like I have whiplash!  Whatever.

Good food for dinner, interesting company, and then back to Davis to attempt to work on a computer lab I'm teaching about Genepop on the Web and GDA software.  Which sucks because I think that data analysis and interpretation is likely the biggest hole in my skill set right now.

And I'm editing a coauthor's draft of his portion of the Tuolumne River book and HOLY CATS IS HE VERBOSE!  Editing basically consists of taking out gi-normous portions of text and getting rid of pointlessly big words.  Whatever.  I like cleaning stuff up and getting rid of excess.  

Barack Obama On Science And Charles Darwin

Hallelujah. This is the best Darwin/Valentine's Day gift EVER!

beautiful

This photo is beautiful.  So lovely.  It came from here.  

I'm not as tough as I think I am

So I get hangovers.  Really really really bad hangovers - but only within the last year.  The only reason I can think of for why I've been getting horrible hangovers is the interferon for MS.  I did a google search and found some information about how alcohol can increase the side effects of interferon (which are usually flu-like symptoms), but I didn't find anything about interferon making you wish you were dead after having 4 glasses of wine.  So who knows.  Maybe I'm just getting old.

I guess I need to accept that I can't drink very much.  Within the last few months I've had a hangover the day after Thanksgiving, one when I shared a bottle of champagne with a labmate, another when I had a beer and a half after the TBS comp, and one after having 4 glasses of wine last night.  It's FUCKED.  Not to mention embarrassing.  It's about 8pm and I'm finally able to eat something.  My housemate (who has a cold) went and bought me some chicken soup.  This is not normal - it HAS to be the drugs.  Apparently I need to accept some limitations.  I'm not that psyched about it.  But hopefully the desire not to SUFFER for 18 hours will prompt me to make more responsible decisions.

pics from recent stuff

A nerdy invertebrate video

enjoy!

New study on regulating gene expression to prevent breakdown of myelin

Here is a little blurb from Science Daily (my new favorite website) about new MS research.

A new study by University of California scientists examines the role of a structural protein, called lamin, in maintaining myelin. They found that, while lamin is necessary in the initial stages of myelin formation, too much lamin promotes myelin breakdown. Further investigation led the researchers to the discovery of a signal that fine-tunes lamin expression. This signal, a microRNA called miR-23, can turn down lamin gene expression, and thereby prevent demyelination due to lamin overexpression.

This new work reported in Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM), adds another piece to the puzzle that is understanding myelin formation and maintenance. Additionally, the identification of miR-23 as a myelin regulator introduces a new potential drug target in developing treatments for demyelinating illness.

A Rocknasium Rant

okay, sorry Justin, but I'm a little peeved right now after attempting to climb at the Rocknasium Friday night comp.  

It was SO FREAKIN' CROWDED!!!!  Seriously.  

Partly it's me...I just don't like big sweaty crowds (I never moshed in the '90s)...but it was kind of insane.  There weren't enough problems, in my opinion, or enough topropes.  Granted, this is a small space, and I'm sure that they try to make the best of it...but it felt even smaller tonight.  After I did 2 boulder problems and waited about 20 minutes to try 2 routes, I decided not to waste my energy and go to one of the Touchstone gyms tomorrow instead.  Disappointing.  On the other hand, all I really want to do is get a good workout.  So it makes sense that I would be better served going somewhere else.

I feel kind of bad that I couldn't muster up the psyche and get over my negative attitude, but I couldn't.  It's frustrating being psyched to climb and not being able to due to crowds.  I guess next time I'll know better.

I think that I've also been spoiled by climbing at Pipeworks.  I'm sure that if I climbed at Rocknasium, I'd learn to enjoy it...but maybe not.  I'm not a huge fan of the route-setting, and the holds are SLICK!!!  Hopefully they can put my 15$ "donation" (I consider it a donation because I left without beer and before the pizza arrived) towards some new holds.  It would be a worthy investment for them.

One more thing. I'm going to go ahead and say it, and there is NO ARGUMENT THAT CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE:  THE  ROUTE GRADES AT THE ROCKNASIUM ARE RETARDED!!  What the fuck?!

Gym climbing has become a problem for me.  I find it so difficult to even see the lines...I miss holds, can't read the beta, mix up thin orange tape with thick orange tape...are the features on?  Why is this sloper so slick?!

On the (small) positive side, it was good to see folks like Renee, Vicken and Sarah.  In addition, I have been reminded of why the Touchstone gyms - Pipeworks in particular - are so rad.  It must be hard being a small business in Davis and trying to compete with the Touchstone gyms.  I'd like to support a local Davis gym, but I have more fun with the corporate giant.  I am a bad, bad person...

time to update

Okay it's time to update.  Of course, the busier I am the less likely I am to write...probably because I have a lot less time to fester, which is good!

Last weekend was awesome - I went to Gold Wall Friday and Sunday, and spent Saturday at Stanford presenting a tui chub proposal at the Bay Area Conservation Biology Symposium.  Friday was mellow, it was only my party (Drew and Beth) and one other party.  The left side was pretty wet, so we stuck to the middle.  I sent President's Day, which is an awesome route.  It's long - tons of different kinds of moves, jugs, crimps...and the crux is not a one move wonder.  It's thin and pumpy and long!  I was kind of sad to finish it. 

On Sunday I tried Luther, and was a little concerned about the big moves until I saw Lyn CRUSH them.  I really like climbing with smaller women, because often when I am climbing with taller people, and I come up against a big move, I'll just give up.  Seeing smaller people do the bigger moves is really motivating.  Not to mention the fact that I think I'm going to start bouldering more - Lyn pretty much ONLY boulders, and still crushes routes.  Maybe if I start bouldering more, the crux moves won't seem as hard on routes.

Other fitness stuff: 30 mile ride on Monday, bouldering at PW on Tues, Pilates class (my first) in Sac on Wed...jack shit yesterday, and I'm planning on doing the Rocknasium comp with Sarah and Renee tonight.  Last year I won 200 bucks!!  Definitely incentive to return, especially with the weekend forecast looking a bit grim.  Next week I'd like to spend 4-5 days in Bishop with Nunley.  I hope that Siemay and Noah will be there - I haven't seen them in ages!

Mostly work has been consuming me lately.  I was hoping to get this manuscript (Joint estimation of admixture and effective population size in a hybrid trout population...otherwise known as "the trout paper") fleshed out a bit more, but I didnt' reckon on how busy I'd be with other "thought stuff" this quarter.  I feel like grad school is divided into "thought stuff" and "do stuff".  Lab work, which I haven't done in over a year, is "do stuff".  You can feel pretty accomplished when you are doing lab work.  And it seems as if I can spend more time doing than thinking.  Thinking/writing/reading/data analysis takes up a lot more energy, you aren't moving around, and it requires real concentration.  I can't seem to do as much thinking stuff as doing stuff in any given day.

Anyway, I have a lot of thinking stuff to do these days.  I'm teaching a section on population genetics software on Feb 19.  I'm working the fishes of the Tuolumne River book (which is taking a LOT of time).  Plus the trout paper, plus getting together an abstract (and a coherent talk) for the Western Division American Fisheries Society meeting in May, plus potentially participating in another course next quarter on the Tuolumne River.

I wonder how much I should be doing work that is not related to my actual research...if I was not participating in the TR course, I could probably be getting a lot more done that moves me towards publications/graduating.  On the other hand, participating in these other projects allows networking, it's fun, and you learn a lot of cool stuff.  

Another problem I have is with absorbing and organizing information I glean from primary literature.  I can't tell you how many times I've picked up a paper that I haven't read before, made it to page 2 or 3, only to see that I've written a bunch of notes in the margin. WTF?  How do you a) remember the shit that you read and b) somehow organize the papers so that you know WHICH paper to go back to if you remember something that you read?  Spreading them out all over my living room floor is NOT working.  I have an Endnote system, and files in a file cabinet in my cubicle, but I think that the perfect (or even better) system is still out there.

Balance.  It's hard.