Even If Things End Up A Bit Too Heavy

Last week, a man drove on the biggest bridge out of town and tried to drive off of it. The bridge was closed for four hours while police worked to resolve the situation, and traffic was crazy for several hours -- all in the middle of the evening rush hour. Those of us who were still in the lab when the news first came in stayed in the lab; some of my lab mate went to buy beer while I was finishing up on the microscope, and after everyone had finished with their work, we drank beer and laughed for hours. Students, junior faculty -- we sat on desks and on the floor, my face flashing up red from the tiny bit of booze I drank, our laughter getting louder with each passing minute. Everyone else in the city was in their cars, angry and gridlocked, and we were there laughing. Sometimes the world is amazing when you don't mind waiting.

***

I was sick or on antibiotics for almost all of January, so progress went pretty shitty with our goals. That being said, I did manage to get some good workouts in, and we formed a team to do a 12-person 200 mile relay race in April, so more good runs are on their way -- hopefully, that will be a good transition into training for a full marathon, so exercise is happening, at least. I am training with my Friday morning group, and we are laughing and cursing our way through each hour, sweating and tripping over shit and making fun of each other. Maybe the best thing that I have done in January is to get back in the habit of exercising with partners -- a Wednesday evening spin date, an "I'll meet you there at 6 AM," and a "So, you will be there every Thursday?"

I did read a new book: Cemetery Girl, which was kind of meh. And because I am the worst at keeping up with popular things, I have been listening to Sigh No More by Mumford and Sons, which I haven't really done until now. So, I am making progress toward those 12 for 2012, sickness and antibiotics be damned.

***

When I stopped being sick, I started being nostalgic, listening to old music on the turntable, missing old friends and getting lost inside my mind. In the past few days, I've been back on the scope, so I listen to Red Hot Chili Peppers and Radiohead while concentrating so hard in a cold cold room. I sometimes wish I could reach out to all of those people that I can only reach now in my head; I used to know how to find them, but it's getting harder now. Sometimes, it is so much harder to be not-crazy, to be here and present in my life. But then, I fall back out of my head, and things are ok. And I don't have the words, sometimes, to describe what is beautiful about the love I have here, to tell you about the things we do when we are in love. Joey patiently ironing for me while I sit cross-legged waiting for him to finish, giving the dog a bath and laughing when she shakes water all over the bathroom, mimosas in bed and putting up the groceries together as a team. The best and deepest parts of my memories, of all the lives that I have lived since I was 17, are the parts that have him smiling and happy with me.

Nostalgia Mixed with Pursuit of the Infinite

There's that thing they say, about being late and never doing something at all. It's already seven days into 2012, and I haven't said anything about 2011. Which I guess isn't too surprising, since I don't say too many things around here any more. There's the 9th anniversary post I should have done in October, the Now-I'm-No-Longer-A-Bright-Young-Thing post I should have done in May. When I get caught up in the supposed-toos, I end up in the nevers.

Sometimes a year ties itself up neatly in a bow. Sometimes, something begins in January. Last January, out of nowhere, my PhD project started working. This made my life alternately beautiful, frustrating, complicated and tear-inducing. I didn't sleep that much in January. Or October. And I still made it through. Maybe that was this year's lesson: you will probably survive whatever you are doing now. So, keep doing it. Even when it sucks and when it's hard. And even when it's absurdly easy, and you think you can do it with your eyes closed.

This was a fun year, most of it, but I think most of my years are. I like to orient myself around people who laugh often and loudly, and my days are certainly better because of it. I worked hard, but I had so much fun too.

So, what did I do in 2011?

I was completely unable to take myself seriously almost 100% of the time.

I got love notes in the lab.

I worked hard.

No, seriously, hard.

Really, really hard.

Prepared for a hurricane that never came.

Made some terrible terrible decisions.

Organized a completely successful Lab Olympics.

Celebrated the Royal Wedding.

Held back proud tears as I watched my friends take the Hippocratic Oath.

Continued my girl crush on my brother's girlfriend.

Bruised my ribs cutting off my alarm on Cinco de Mayo.

Got all dressed up for Halloween...

as my boss...

much to the delight of my boss.

Had fun with my family.

Became the shortest of my siblings, right before my sister became a teenager.

Made midnight cake with a wonderful old friend, talked shit while we did it.

Woke up early in the morning for my health.

Ran a 5K in a cape in a month that wasn't October. Also, made my own bad-ass Robin costume.

Trained for and ran a half-marathon.

Found out that I totally do not look cute when I run.

We moved to a house, adopted a dog and rapidly fell in love with her.

And took the whole thing in stride, holding hands and laughing all the way.

***
I've given up on New Year's Resolutions, not because I don't believe in having direction but because I rarely feel very resolved. Defining them as resolutions gives you too much time to fail; you pile all of the pressure on the first part of the year. Doing that primes yourself for failure; the first few times you find yourself not acting how you have "resolved" to, you give up. So, instead, I have goals. Goals that I have a whole year to accomplish.

The sports store where I buy my running shoes have a good guideline for goals; their mnemonic is SMART and stands for specific, measurable, agreed, realistic and timed. For a few months, I've been thinking about these guidelines and what I want to accomplish this year, so I have decided on 12 specific goals for 2012.

Creative:

1) Take a basic sewing machine class

2) Take a letterpress class.

3) Write stories for each round of NPR's Three-Minute Fiction

Health:
4) Lose final 60 pounds. This is important, because I will hopefully going back on the wards next year, and I want to give myself the health advantage, because I know it can be difficult to keep up with once you are in the clinics.

5) Exercise at least 4 times a week.

6) Run at least one half-marathon.

7) Run a full marathon.

8) Eat at home at least five nights of the week.

Random:
9) Read one new book per month.

10) Listen to one new album per month.

11) Complete the 2000 piece puzzle I got for Christmas.

12) Publish a first-author science journal paper.

***

2012 got off to a crappy start; I got sick on January 2nd, and I've been tired since before Christmas, and it's a long time until Memorial Day, the first day of the year my lab counts as a holiday. Some people would give up then and there, take it as a sign that it's going to be a bad year. But I don't think it will be. I'm pretty sure.

These Streets Will Make You Feel Brand New

There's something about being on streets you don't know in a place where people couldn't possibly need anything for you to keep moving. A place where almost no one knows your name, where you can wander for hours or days without a familiar place. There's something about that.

The past month, maybe six weeks, maybe longer, has been crazy. I was getting ready to go to my first national conference, and there were so many things to do. Western blots that took forever to work (so long that my boss half-canceled my vacation, our 9-year-anniversary vacation). Countless PCRs, things that weren't where they were supposed to be. Work that I thought would be done in a certain amount of time, when it really turned into that-certain-amount-plus-two-weeks. It was so fucking frustrating.

And then the conference came. And then the conference went. And then I left the city where the conference was, hopped on a train for one hour, and got picked up by one of the best friends I have in one of the best cities in the world.

***

Things are best when there aren't any expectations, no plans. When people asked what I would be doing there, I just said that I would be seeing friends. That was it: me, some friends, beer or good food. Those were all the plans I had.

When I got in town, I was so keyed up. I'd had a loud verbal altercation on the conference shuttle bus that morning, an altercation with a douchebag that had plenty of "FUCKING"s and a few "GODDAMN"s, and I was in a fighting mood. For a month, six weeks, I'd been in a fighting mood: irritable, grumpy. Sleepless, over-caffeinated, tired of a whole gamut of bullshit.

Then a subway ride to Washington Heights in a warm coat and a hat; a walk up to the roof; the sparks of a dying lighter in a corner made of bricks to shield the flame from the wind; then the simultaneous rush of THC to the brain, the rush of the wind across the roof, and the boy's hand over my shoulder pointing out the Empire State Building. That moment when everything that has made you worry just falls away. I breathed in the cold air. Breathed out all the air I'd been holding in for six long weeks.

***

The last time I'd been there, I was with my mother. I was 12. We went to Broadway shows, museums, to see the Rockettes. That was all the memory, all of the pretense. That was the only thing I had.

Roberto had to work for 8 hours on Saturday, so I hopped on the subway by myself, took it to Columbus Circle and hopped back off. Hopped all day, 8 hours, down city streets. I punched my 1-Stupid-Tourist-Thing card with a reuben at Carnegie deli; the other people at the table looked sad for me, that I was alone, but I wasn't sad at all. I didn't have to say anything to anyone. Just, "No, this is the only thing I want." "Ticket for one adult." "A mocha, please." And that was it.

I went to MOMA and saw everything, wandering quietly through the galleries for two hours at my own pace. I played a game with myself, guessing the artists from as far away as possible. I nailed a Francis Bacon triptych from a good distance, a Klimt from far away. On my way back to the Klimt, I realized that I had almost missed Les Demoiselles D'Avignon and The Starry Night. I saw a Magritte, several by Man Ray and Du Champ. Everything I wanted to see was there, and more. It was so amazing, so perfect.

I went back to Roberto's, feet sore from walking more than 40 blocks for a fantastic cup of coffee, burning time. I watched trashy tv with his roommates, and then stood up.

"Oh, do you have somewhere else to go?" one asked, then immediately apologized, "Oh, I'm so sorry, that's none of my business!" I smiled at the politeness. No one I know is ever that polite. It was so sweet, so refreshing. I laughed and put on my coat, walked out the door in the dark and back to the subway.

***

"I conquered the subway," I announce. "I took the C train to the 1, and it brought me right here."

"Oh, so you rode the 1 all the way here?" asked a new friend, a friend-of-a-friend who'd been laughing with me all night.

"Mmhmm," I say, proud, "Yep, all by myself. Figured it out."

Roberto leans in close to my ear, "He's making fun of you for not taking the express train." I wrinkle my nose and look back at this new boy. He cracks a smile. I laugh. We all laugh, two pints down and not at all done for the night. A table of champions, me and three gay boys. One from high school, one from college, one new. We don't stop laughing.

I get terribly tipsy, find my hands in someone else's warm hands, brushing someone's arm. There is the immediate comfort of being physically close to someone who would never want to fuck you. You sink in, knock back more drinks, keep getting warmer.

"Why don't you move here?" they whine, the sangria pleading through them. "I wish you lived here. Please don't leave!" I teach them about blow job eyes, we top off each other's glasses. We argue over who pays for what, step out of the restaurant. Leave with kisses on the cheek. Get back on the subway, fold my legs up under me and turn toward Roberto. Hold onto his arm as we go back home.

***

We stayed up late, blazing off of the vaporizer with his polite roommate, a pot philosopher. I sat back while the room spun around me and watched Roberto make faces. We were talking about college, about all kinds of things. Until I excused myself to the bathroom, laid down on the floor. I went back to the living room. "Here, let me tuck you in," said Roberto. Covers went over me, tucked under my feet, kiss on the forehead. "Goodnight," he whispered, and went to bed. After he was gone, I got back up, ran to the bathroom and puked my guts out.

Worth it. Worth every single second, every stupid choice, every ounce of alcohol and wisp of smoke.

***

On Sunday morning, I got coffee with one of my best friends from high school. We shared an omelet, good conversation. She walked me to the next friend, hailed a cab with an ease that made me feel a flash of jealousy. "This is her life," I thought, suddenly amazed.

My friend from medical school and I took a cab to the meatpacking district to eat brunch. They wouldn't serve us mimosas until noon, so we just ate instead, snagging bites of each other's meals, sharing. We shared stories and gossip, wished out loud that our least favorite person from medical school would keep a residency blog for us to make fun of. He told me to come back for New York Restaurant Week, that I always have a place to stay with him. That was what they all said, "Come back. You have a place to stay with me."

They all meant it.

***

When you're not there, you forget what the draw is. You tell yourself that it's not that special, just a collection of big buildings, a high density of people. You forget that it's built on the dreams of millions of people, and that those dreams are what makes the city so bold and beautiful. The dreams of my friends there are so bright, weaving in and out of rooftop weed smoke and drunken nights. That there's something so vibrant about the place that somehow infuses you while you are there too. That it's a special city because you can blend in with everybody else and still feel like you're important. That in a city filled with beautiful things, you start to feel a little bit beautiful too.

***

But in the end, I walked away. Roberto putting my bag in the cab, my lips on the sharp edge of his jaw, an "I love you" text exchanged as I was driven away. Then I boarded the plane and flew back to this much smaller city, where a long-suffering and amazing boy picked me up from the airport, drove me home and cuddled me to sleep.

I don't know if I could live there, but I don't know -- not anymore, not really -- that I couldn't live there. I saw the kids being raised to navigate the subways, to know which one is the express and how to get on it. Couples walking hand-in-hand into stores that don't exist within 500 miles of my city. And I could see me there, me and Joey, in an apartment somewhere deep in the city.

Either way, it was amazing. Perfect. Everything I needed and have been needing for so long now. A chance to disappear. A chance to not have to worry -- at least not for a few days -- about even trying to get it right.

I Stop Somewhere Waiting For You

Alternate title: "Another Irritating Spring Post" -- feel free to ignore should you be in the midst of snowdrifts or should you simply hate the hopeless optimism of a girl in the spring.

It's always this time of year that I start to fall in love with my city. Two weeks now, two weeks in October -- this city owns all of my heart. Even just now, listening to a back episode of This American Life, where Ira was talking about the Mediocrity Principle, the idea that no particular place is more special than any other. The idea that each city, each planet, each universe is equivalent -- I shook my head. This city, small and frustrating as it may be, has a piece of me tied up in its giant humid pocket. There's no time when it's more apparent than now, on the cusp of tourist season, right before it gets hot and busy. It's already so busy that we didn't want to wait for the unexpected line at our favorite dessert place, but not so busy that we couldn't cross the street to the ice cream shop, get blueberry cream pie milkshakes and walk the mile back to Rob's. There is a tenuous balance here that won't be around for much longer. We're about to hit the tipping point, and I'll start to fall back out of love...but until then, I'll sit smitten, smirking, ready to walk away at a moment's notice.

***

A list of things that I've professed my love for in recent days: the weather, french fries cooked in duck fat, attending step aerobics class with my favorite ladies for the first time in two months and nailing the combos, the weather, the incredible headbands that Anna made me several months ago, the Kindle the Fire In Your Chest mixtape, mixtapes in general and my brother's amazing girlfriend for sending them to me, Starbucks Cocoa Cappucino, Easter hymns, Eppendorf 10 uL pipets, the new Comedy Central show Workaholics, the pen I nicked from a colleague who got it at a conference, and the science of uncertainty.

***

Work has been hard, lately, in a really weird way. I'm getting to a point in my project where I'm really excited about the future, but I'm at a point where I get frustrated with the tedium of things, all the waiting that has to happen. And it's so gorgeous outside, and I'm trapped in a room with poor climate control, and I am distracted, limbs flailing and eyes darting around my computer screen. I have to slow myself down, breathe.

A few weeks ago, both of my bosses were out of the lab for the day, so the boys and I left the lab to get calzones and ended up drinking 10 pitchers of beer, leaving all of the things in the lab behind. At the end, I stood up from the table, toppled immediately backwards and hit my head on a chair. The next day, I had a bruise at the base of my skull and a vague memory of laughing on the floor of the pizza place. All day, I pieced together evidence of my drunkenness, text and Facebook messages I'd sent, pictures I'd taken. It was irresponsible. I'm not particularly proud of it. But I think it happened for a reason, this indescribable feeling we all had about that day, about this work.

I think it's all a symptom of this time of year, the perpetually-tripping-over-myself I described not that long ago. But I'm looking forward to the summer, to having long stretches of the day to do work without distractions when everything else -- classes, journal club, seminar -- in the department slows down, when it's too hot outside to want to be there anyway. I'm looking forward to that schedule, to buckling down on a marathon training schedule, to moving to a new place. Until then, limbs flailing, brain racing, I'll make do. Watch my bosses when they talk about science, with a true smile on their face that comes from making a discovery or going to a talk that they didn't think would be as good as it ended up being. Keep working until it works out. Open the door and run out into the gorgeous weather until I sweat bullets and can't think about anything. That's what I'll do. Just that.

***

Life gets weird, sometimes, like two weekends ago when I saw a friend I hadn't seen forever, on purpose. I felt like I was standing in a weird spot, like that place in a domed room where you can hear the whispers of someone across the way. I couldn't look her in the eye for the first fifteen minutes; there was a chasm between us, and that chasm was filled with the idea that she doesn't know any of the people I know now, that she doesn't know what I do on a day-to-day basis, that she doesn't know anything about the lab or my psychiatrist or step aerobics. I had a lot of feelings about that position -- some of them sad, and some of them mean, and some of them ok. And then at the end, some of them happy. I was glad I got to see her. It felt good in a way I almost hadn't expected.

And then I walked away, back into my life, leaving the tiniest crack in the door behind me.

***

I have 1 month and 6 days left of 25. I keep falling head over heels for the boy who makes me laugh. We are about to get our first set of produce from our CSA, and the farmer's market is back in full swing. Recently, the whole lab went to support our coworker who is in a fantasy rock band that dresses like wizards. Against all odds, our IMAX downtown didn't close. I still get to work out with my team from the fitness program, and we keep running up stairs and doing laps like it's our job. I get to see all of my siblings this weekend. The boy and I are working our way through The Wire while eating ice cream. My life is never dull, always kicks me right in the shins, begging me to chase after it. So I do.

The weather is gorgeous, and I'm in love.

The Sugary Smell of Springtime

We almost had winter this year.

It gets cold here, in the supposed-to-be winter. And we complain, pretend that our 30 degrees are so terrible we just can't stand it. "I didn't move here to be this cold," we say. You can barely see your breath. "It's cold as balls out there."

It usually starts in early January, winds through February, maybe into early March. Then, briefly, spring. Then six months of summer.

But this year was different. This year, there was even snow. Upstate, snow that kept kids out of school for weeks out of time. Here, a memorable vicious ice -- an ice that kept my boss out of work, but certainly didn't keep the rest of us from being there, worried he would show up to an empty lab. People here don't know how to handle snow, handle ice. We don't do cold.

***

Our spring preceded Groundhog Day, as luck would have it, a shiny reward for December cold. Spring used to be my favorite, before I moved here and realized how long I'd been undervaluing autumn. Here, it's a slippery slope from cool to warm to hot to HOT.

But this year, I think we'll actually have 100 days of Spring, which started in February and never quite let up. I've been wearing t-shirts for weeks now, some days with a cardigan that gets shed before I even get to the lab. We've been walking around in flip-flops, down streets in the evening. This weather is ambling weather. It makes it feel like everything is ok, like I can do anything.

***

Spring is such a mish-mash of feelings. Did I mention that on this day, the 16th, four years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I didn't really think about it until just now. I always thought it would stick out like a razor lodged in flesh, would always be oozing and bleeding. Again, I've underestimated the human capacity for forgetting. Once upon a time, I drove around in a parking lot, blind with tears and deaf with the word "BIPOLAR" echoing deep in my ear. But now that pain is much more dull. Bipolar disorder rolls out of my mouth -- an explanation, an assertion, never an apology.

Next week, it will be four years from the first time I ever took the pills. And then there is stillness. March 22nd is the end of a story. Seeking -- and receiving -- treatment was the end to a year of sad confusing stories. From the first time I ever fucked someone else to the day that I first put that 25 mg pill on top of my tongue -- one continuous narrative. There's not much time in the year that's empty, where I can't say: "2006 -- May. I was smoking up on the swing by the softball field and getting felt up, implored to go home with someone. 2006 -- August. I was getting engaged and trying to figure my life out, thinking I could just make myself be ok. 2006 -- November. Remember how it all fell apart?"

March 22nd - April 1st. Ten days of reprieve each year. Then, on April 2nd, it all starts again -- this year will be my 5th round through the Jenny B Magical Mental Illness Tour.

From Baby, a book that makes me think about this too: "Life is made up of circles."

***

"if you want freedom

dont mistake circles

for revolutions"

(da levy, from Tombstone As A Lonely Charm)

Every year, in spring, there's a distinct feeling of longing. My neurons ache to go off their rails. They sputter out their neurotransmitters in an impotent attempt to make me feel something like that again. They are hissing pitiful assholes, "But don't you remember how good you felt? Remember when you felt smart and brilliant, like you could do anything, be anyone? You remember, don't you?"

I pretend that I don't remember, but I do. I remember how it felt, what it looked like. I trace my fingers over words I wrote at those times, my handwriting all swinging and scrawling, nothing like the tight letters I write when I'm sane. My brain, wanting to run, was perpetually tripping over my fingers. I was my own limiting reagent. Then, that seemed terrible. Now, I know it was the only thing that let me hold anything together. We like to think that we have insight, that we are the glue. But really, at my most undone times, the only things keeping me in real life were gravity, the time-space continuum and connective tissue. If it weren't for those anchors...oh man, the things I could have done.

My mind gets caught in ruts, gets strung up in the circles. The circles are what generate the longing, the real physical ache in my limbs and stomach. I am standing still at a crosswalk, and suddenly I hear "Crash" by the Dave Matthews Band, and I am stunned for a few seconds. I lose feeling in my shoulders and jaw -- my arms and my lungs are just hanging in the air. The longing makes it hard to breathe.

The truth is -- I will never forget. This is the longing. These are the circles.

Then, I remember this life. This life is held together by so much more than physics and physiology. I sneak in at night after he's already asleep and I'm putting things down on the bed stand, I wake him accidentally and he wraps his warm arms around my legs. My life is held together by hard work, by brunch negotiations and Netflix Instant Play of Parks and Recreations, by inside jokes and apologies. My life now is held together by the give and take of a beautiful relationship, by many good hearty solid friendships, by the fact that i'm trying hard to get somewhere and appreciating the struggle. There's not much time, these days, for longing. This is a revolution.

***

My team is made up of people who are older than me, much older -- 50s, 60s even. I love spending time with them because I realized that I don't have that in my life -- older people who aren't in charge of me. Older people who can be friends. Older people who just let their hands float away after a fist bump, telling me that their fist bumps don't blow up, they amble.

Today, the two older males on the team were telling jokes before group workout.

"So, there's a first grade teacher," starts Bob, our constant joker, a man with arthritis in his hips who pushes himself to run around the track and go 6 times up and down the stairs.

"This first grade teacher is reading the story of the Three Little Pigs. And she says to the kids, 'The first pig went to the farmer and asked for some straw. And what did the farmer say back to the pig?'" There's a gleam in his eye now, it's coming....

"And a kid in the back of the room yelled out, 'SONOFABITCH, It's a talking pig!'"

We are all doubled over laughing, warming up for an hour of hard work. It was one of those things I didn't realize I was missing -- people to connect with in this way. It was missing, and now it's here. It's spring time, and there is laughter in my life, and there isn't much room for longing anymore.

SONOFABITCH, not much room at all.

Me, Elsewhere

Hey, remember that time I said I'd like to write here once a week! Surprise, I'm failing at that -- as well as many of my other resolutions.

But--

I did remember that I never linked my second ( and third) Tumblr here, and it's probably a good time to remind this space about my first.

1) Another Chance To Get It Right

This is where I post videos and interesting links and pictures and songs. I find that I mostly talk about Ben Gibbard and Maurice Sendak. I also sometimes post gratuitous pictures of what I wear to the lab on the weekend.

I like to think it's interesting, but maybe it's not. Either way, it's there.

2) How About Today?

These are really just mini-blogs where I write blurbs about what happens in my day. They tend to be short -- anywhere from a sentence or two to a few paragraphs. They often involve shit talking about my boss. The ones recently have been about exercising, because that's what I've been doing.

3) dear ____, i found this for you. love ____.

Once upon a time, my brother fell in love with a girl. Soon after, I fell in love with her too (albeit in a very different way than my brother did). We have many shared interests, so we found ourselves spamming our own (and each others) Tumblrs and Facebook wall with links we thought the other would enjoy. Finally, we just sucked it up and got a shared Tumblr. Which is really fun and (allegedly, according to my boyfriend) really dorky.

A Movie Script Middle

The other night, we went to dinner with two other couples, friends of mine from medical school. We sat tucked in the back of a brick-oven pizza restaurant, ordering almost everything from the menu and pushing things back and forth over the table. "Here," you'd shout, "dip this in that!" Someone else, in reply, "Who's still hungry? What else should we order?" And another, "This round's on me!"

We were cute, good-looking in chunky sweaters, button up shirts, scarves. We laughed, loud, for hours. There was almost always someone else's hand in front of you -- handing you something, taking something away. The waiter always had a perfect response: "What's speck?" "What was the name of Dan Ackroyd's character in The Ghostbusters?" "Show us your best gang sign!"

At the end of the night, we leaned into each other and hugged, even the newest of friends. And then, echoes of laughter and extended invitations trailing behind us, we turned and walked out into the night, emboldened by the connection. The day felt magical.

***

Even at my most bitter (and I promise, it gets bitter up in here), I can't help but love life. I can't help but love my life. It suckerpunches me all the time, right in the gut. I wake up, and I look around -- this is mine. A messy house, a something else boyfriend with stylishly messy facial hair who always smells good, a messy desk, a messy life. It's so messy -- full of late nights in the lab, too few showers, a lot of good runs and some not-so-good runs. It's messy with morning sex and Sunday brunches and clothes that are tattering at the sames, cluttered with brilliant friendships and hope. It's absolutely cluttered with hope.

I don't know if there's ever been a year so littered with possibilities. I say that, and it feels strange. "What possibilities, douchebag?" my cynical self says. "You're locked in, here -- MD/PhD almost-half-through, the same boyfriend since 2002, the same pills since '07. Nothing is new here, not really."

Which is true.

I've shrugged more this year, said more maybes. "Maybe 2 and a half, if I'm lucky," I said. "2015, I hope." "April 30th, I'm thinking." I've stopped being sure of anything.

This year, I looked around and started to feel like I was growing up. A consensus happened, it seemed, between those of us who turned 25. Instead of a quarter-life crisis, it was like we just stood up and took stock. "So this is what it feels like," we said to each other. "The end of a beginning."

Was I the only one who thought that being young was original to me? Sat around and thought, "I am young. This is what I am. This is who I am. You? Surely you were never young. It was only me. I invented it." Sitting around this year, I had the first intimations of what it must actually feel like to get older. Not to simply age, but to have your whole identity shift. "Once I was young, but now I am not-so-much. Here are the traits that I still have -- here are the things that are me."

I think there are the possibilities. The idea that someday I will be not-this. I don't know what parts of me will survive into the not-this-ness, but I am curious to find out.

***

Of course, we're not completely through growing up in these parts, only just started. This year, I wondered (with all of the natural curiosity of a scientist) if I would have grown up enough to not vomit on New Year's Eve. Seriously, it was a mystery to me. Up until the very moment that I jumped out of bed, ran to the guest bathroom, bent over and blllarrrragghghghggghhh, I had no idea.

The first surprise of 2011: Not that grown-up yet, asshole! Better luck next year!

***

So, 2011 started like 2010 (this year's poison: six glasses of beer, one of champagne): new year, empty stomach. Not to go all thinspirational on you (duh...), but there's something kind of pure in my head about starting the year with a clean gastronomical slate. I slept like death through the morning, then filled the void with Indian buffet. It was deeply satisfying. I had no regrets. About that.

I echo myself from one year ago, in that I still think most of your adult years are average on the good/bad scale. This year had a lion's share of frustration, guilt, even the occasional regret. I hate that I sometimes had to miss things for the lab -- this is probably the first year ever that I had a good glimpse at the future challenges I will have with striking work/home balance. This is the first year I ever seriously missed sleep for reasons related to work (and not just because I was dicking around during the regular hours of the day when I was supposed to be working). For Pete's sake, I'm writing this entry from the goddamn lab!

But this is also a year that I saw clearly that I am not struggling in futility. I stand around the lab and I think about all of the things that I have accomplished here. I think about the people who need me here -- I've never felt that about a work environment. It feels good. And, a blessedly unexpected side effect of this place -- I have grown a tougher skin, which I didn't think was possible. I've cried a lot less about work this year. I've learned how to roll with failure, how to look someone in the face and tell them I've fucked something up. This is one of the best things that came out of 2010.

This year was all about laughter -- gut-busting, accidentally-peeing-a-little-in-your-pants-inducing. Laughter at home, at work. Laughter everywhere.

This year was all about love -- about getting to know people and loving them. Inspiring them to send pointless text messages. Getting them to do stupid stuff with me. Eating, drinking, singing, dancing. Living together. That was what this year was about too. If my goal last year was to live fiercely and laugh fiercely, then strike a big red mark through it. Accomplished.

***

This year, there are more specific goals. Since last year's health goals went well, I've added to them this year:

(+) Run my first half-marathon

(+) Run my first marathon

(+) Fit into a pair of cargo pants and a formal dress I haven't fit into since I was a freshman

Since some of last year's work related goals didn't go at all, I'll repeat them this year:

(+) Get to work earlier

(+) Read more scientific literature.

And some others:

(+) Keep up the good fight -- this year, the mental health has slipped once or twice. My meds have been upped, but it's always the right time to remember to hold on, because I have so many things to hold on to.

(+) Cook at home more. God, my wallet and my marathon running depend on it.

(+) To find Joey's memory card that has all of his pictures from Europe on it. Fast.

(+) To write more. Writing is something I love to do, and it fell by the wayside this year in the face of an extremely increased workload and my newfound love for physically punishing myself in the gym or on running trails. Still, I'd love to continue to write more fiction (a few months ago, I got myself a few FieldNotes, and this had been helpful), and I'd like to write here at least once a week. Here's hoping.

(+) Read the ten books I got for Christmas (and hopefully more!) before reaching next Christmas.

(+) To make more days magical. Even if it's just holding-hands-for-two-minutes-before-we-sleep magical. Especially if it's just holding-hands-for-two-minutes-before-we-sleep magical.