Happy Pi Day!

"It's like Pi... you can keep figuring it out and always be right and never be done." -- John Currin




I highly recommend Smitten Kitchen's adaptation of Nigel Slater's apple plum pie for your celebration.

Pwned.

"ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US." -- Zero Wing and its associated meme

I'm a geek, I work on a small research team filled with geeks, and we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to outdo each other with nerdspeak, SAT words, and pop culture references. Last week, I neatly hid the phrase "all their space are belong to us" under the fourth bullet point of our team meeting agenda.

I expected at least three of my colleagues to recognize the phrase and get a kick out of it.

I didn't expect to arrive at the meeting and find several surgeons, a couple of nurses from a different department, and some new research staff -- all of whom are woefully unfamiliar with my sense of humor and the shenanigans my teammates and I enjoy in our spare time -- sitting at the conference table.

My target audience of three individuals chuckled when we reached the fourth bullet point. Judging from the facial expressions of the newcomers, I surmised that none of them got the joke.

And judging from the fact that one of them muttered the words "subject-verb agreement" after the meeting adjourned, I knew I was right.

Pwned.

Scraps

"I was too big for this town. Can't believe that I was only seventeen, a Catholic punk who couldn't wait to scream... but come tomorrow, I'll be leaving this worn-out, worn-down place." -- Peter Cincotti

I'm moving, thus I'm packing, thus I'm paring my possessions down to the bare minimum. Tonight, I sorted through a Rubbermaid bin full of my college papers and notes. I recycled a lot, but of course, I found some interesting stuff -- some great memories, some painful memories, some hilarious exchanges, way too many notes passed during boring classes, and some things that were just plain strange. I ended my evening with a stack of clippings, and I decided to share the best of the best with all of you.

This was a poster from our Senior Fund advertising campaign, designed to appeal to everyone's inner dork. Its other stars included Brian Griffin, an xkcd stick figure, Dumbledore, Master Splinter, Doctor Who, Dark Helmet, Doc Brown, and Lambda Lambda Lambda, among many others.

This was a PowerPoint slide from a presentation I gave about scabies mites. It's the cleverest PowerPoint slide I've ever made and no PowerPoint slide I ever make in the future will ever live up to its awesomeness.

My 2007 Christmas card.

A fun afternoon in Engineering of Body Fluids lecture. I have no idea whose handwriting this is, but it was a pretty typical exchange for that class.

And two whole semesters of that class qualified its students to discuss exactly one scientific topic:

Some doodles that, after lots of hard work, many sleepless nights, and requisite refinements, won five of us an engineering design prize.

Some of our engineering design ideas were obviously better than others.

Another nonsensical design idea, though if Dan and I were actually able to get it off the ground, we could have retired to Hawaii within six months of graduation.

Kim and I thought this made perfect sense at the time, apparently.

My Lab III evaluation. Seems like senioritis had set in by that point, ya think?

My earliest foray into Lichtenstein pop art, doodled on the edge of my junior year schedule printout.

And last but not least, something that still holds true in my world.

The Geeks Were Right

"Egghead boys with thin white legs. They've got modified features and software brains, but that's what the girls like." -- The Faint

Today is Geek Pride Day, America's excuse to dork out with impunity from ridicule. According to Wikipedia's description of the holiday, it's celebrated on May 25th in commemoration of the premiere of Star Wars on that date in 1977.

Appropriate, then, that I just encountered a woman on First Avenue trying to rein in a squirmy child. "Get back over here, Anakin!" she shouted. "Don't wander off! Anakin!"

No words. But I salute her for celebrating her geekery so boldly.


- Posted from my iPod Touch

Fancy Pants and Flooring Inspectors

"You fight like a dairy farmer."
"How appropriate. You fight like a cow." -- Orson Scott Card*

The sun is shining, the birdies are chirping, the cherry trees are blooming, the new series of Doctor Who premiered last night, and the ovens in my house are filled with delicious Easter cooking. In other words, the world is reborn.

And yet, today, I'm going to forego turning over a new leaf by writing about a man I used to have a huge crush on. I've outgrown it by now, but he still means a lot to me. He was prideful and slightly mean and a bit of an asshole, but he was smart, selfless, and deliciously sarcastic... not to mention sexy in an awkward, gangly sort of way. If you want to be melodramatic about it, I guess you could call him my first love.

It's been years, but lately... we've sort of reconnected. I've had the opportunity to spend some quality one-on-one time with him over the last few days, and though I'm older and wiser than I was when he first captured my heart, he's still a pretty amazing guy.

His name is Guybrush Threepwood and he's a pirate.

Hopefully a few of you will recognize his name from your own pasts. For those of you who do not, Guybrush Threepwood is the hero of the Monkey Island series of video games, where players can swashbuckle their way through various quests in a choose-your-own-adventure format. The first game in the series, The Secret of Monkey Island, was released by LucasArts on floppy disc in 1990. I met Guybrush in 1994, when I got my first computer.

Yes, 1994. Which implies 1994 gameplay and graphics. Which means that my first crush looked like this:

Suffice it to say, I didn't fall for Guybrush for his looks. I fell for him because he was a cool, confident smooth-talker who knew he was destined for greatness despite all evidence to the contrary. He could trade insults with masters and seamlessly toss pop culture references into normal conversations. He was clever and resourceful and could solve complicated puzzles with ease. He was still human, though -- bumbling and awkward and prone to making mistakes. And as if all of that wasn't enough reason to love the guy, he was noble enough to risk his life to rescue Governor Elaine Marley from zombie pirates. He was also secure enough in his own masculinity to fall in love with Elaine, even though she was smart, powerful, and never really needed rescuing in the first place.

After I sprayed the zombie pirate captain with root beer to win the game, I was rewarded with a glorious, pixelated, 256-color closeup of Guybrush Threepwood's face:

Yes, he's a hottie, but I was smitten long before I knew what he looked like. (And whether I subconsciously modeled my current hairdo on Elaine's is a blog entry for another day.)

I found an archaic CD-ROM version of The Secret of Monkey Island yesterday afternoon and played it yesterday night. It only took me a few hours to get through it, as opposed to the weeks I spent solving the puzzles when I was a child. It was just as funny, irreverent, and intellectually fulfilling as I remembered it, though, and the jokes and puns still sparkled with clarity and relevance twenty years after they were written.

Right after I vanquished the zombie pirate captain to unlock the portrait of Guybrush that used to make my nine year-old heart melt, I realized something astounding.

My sense of humor -- my wry, snarky, intellectual sense of humor that I adore and often use as a compatibility test -- is identical to Guybrush Threepwood's sense of humor. Both of us quip. Both of us make random remarks about inanimate objects. Both of us can switch from poetry to intellectual banter in a heartbeat. Both of us have a natural gift for rhyme. Both of us can insult someone so smoothly that they don't even realize they've been mocked. And, most notably, both of us enjoy peppering our conversations with quotes and images from old computer games, George Lucas films, and The Graduate.

My sense of humor is definitely on the quirky side of normal, but it's one of my favorite things about me. And since it came into being around the time I first met Guybrush Threepwood, I'm pretty sure he inspired it. Guess I just found another reason to love him.

* Yes, Orson Scott Card wrote all of the exchanges used in the famous "insult swordfighting" sequence of The Secret of Monkey Island.

Better Sound Through Research

"Oh honey, you turn me on. I'm a radio." -- Joni Mitchell

I had you once. I was so much younger back then, but the songs are old and I'd played them all before. I'd felt bass lines pound through me and I'd soared along with the treble, but I didn't realize how powerful and thrilling the experience could be until I unwrapped you and slipped you in for the very first time.

And god, I didn't know what I was missing. Suddenly, the whole world gained another set of dimensions. Highs climbed higher, lows dipped lower, rhythms resonated through every cell in my body and every crescendo seemed more powerful than the last. I knew our relationship couldn't last forever, that I'd have others in the future and even in the present, but I couldn't imagine ever enjoying an experience as perfect as the one I shared with you. I wanted to hold on to you for as long as I possibly could.

We made beautiful music together for close to two years. Then things began to fray. And split. And crack. I clung to you for as long as I could, desperately trying out every repair I could think of, but deep down I knew our time was coming to an end. You became detached, and after a while, I just couldn't hear a word coming out of you any more.

I cast you aside and I moved on. I jumped from replacement to replacement, but they either hurt me or didn't satisfy me or failed me or flat-out didn't fit. As time passed, I realized that you were irreplaceable.

I resisted for a while -- after all, you could only be returned to me for a steep price -- but I couldn't resist forever. So I made a move and waited for you to arrive.

And all of a sudden, there you were. Your features were the same, but unlike the broken-down wreck I once wished goodbye, you were shiny and new and full of potential. I was afraid to touch you at first, afraid to handle something so perfect with any semblance of roughness, but you connected with the same ease as ever and I relaxed. Then you slipped into me as if you were made to mold to the shape of my body. You began to whisper things I hadn't heard since you left me, and it just felt right. Now that we're back together again, I'm never letting you go.

I wish I can share my happiness with you, readers, but I'm afraid that it's something you'll have to obtain for yourself. I encourage you to do so, and there's no time like the present -- the subject of this blog entry, Bose's unparalleled Triport in-ear headphones, are currently on sale for $89.00.

New New Year

"Stay with me! You can do it! Stay with me! Come on! You and me, one last time!" -- the Tenth Doctor

I've always loved science fiction, but in recent years, one corner of the genre owns my heart above all others: the BBC's Doctor Who. Unlike every other sci-fi franchise in existence, Doctor Who has never relied on sequels, prequels, rebooting the franchise, rewriting history, or changing the linearity of the plot to keep things going. Incredibly, the series has followed the adventures of one character (a 900 year-old time-traveling alien named "the Doctor") since its inception in 1963.

To accomplish this, the show's writers gave the Doctor the ability to change every cell in his body when mortally wounded -- and thus gave themselves the freedom to swap out actors every few years. This "regeneration" process has allowed eleven different men to play the role, and for sanity's sake, fans distinguish them using their number on the roll call rather than the ubiquitous character name.

Thanks to the miracle of YouTube, I'm familiar with all of the Doctors even though most predate my years. And, of course, I have a favorite. Though I feel like a bandwagon jumper and/or a squealing fangirl by admitting this, the Tenth Doctor -- played by the incomparable David Tennant -- is my preferred incarnation by a long shot. Ten is brilliant, geeky, witty, wounded, confident, insanely hot, selfless, sensitive, and a total asshole all at once, which pretty much makes him the perfect man in my estimation.

My one-sided love affair with Ten has gone on for five years. All of that changed at the end of today's episode of Doctor Who, though, when Ten regenerated into Eleven. The Doctor is now played by an actor who, though incredibly talented, is fresher, younger, and far less sexy than his predecessor. I might grow to love him, but I'm still in mourning.

I spent the first day of '10 observing the last day of Ten, so I decided to honor both with a Top Ten list.

Ten Things I've Learned from the Tenth Doctor

10. High-top Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars are proper attire for any outfit and any social situation.

9. Nothing feels better than bantering with someone whose mind is a perfect match for yours.

8. Keeping life in balance often involves a little sacrifice.

7, Don't offer too many second chances.

6. Dance.

5. You can save the universe if you have the right people standing next to you.

4. Too much scientific knowledge is never a bad thing.

3. Sometimes, it takes more courage to let go than to hold on.

2. You don't need to say "I love you" out loud to really mean it.

1. You can wear glasses and still look sexy.

Brainy Specs

"Aw, and out they come! The brainy specs! You don't even need them! You just think they make you look a bit clever!" -- The Tenth Doctor

I got my first pair of eyeglasses at the beginning of the sixth grade -- horrible round-ish lavender wire-framed atrocities -- and, consequently, I hated my life for the next year. I swapped those out for a sleeker pair with Flexon frames in the seventh grade, then swapped out those for even sleeker bronze no-wire frames in the eighth grade. Then I went to high school, got contacts, and only wore my glasses for the five minutes in the morning before I could pop my lenses in.

After three years of contact lens-wearing, my prescription had deteriorated to the point where I had to get the lenses on my glasses replaced. I opted for a new set of frames too -- and chose a Nine West style modeled in chunky black plastic. Now this was 2003, way before horn-rims came to epitomize geek-chic, but since I hated the way I looked in near-invisible frames, I figured I'd try the other extreme. I found that my new glasses fit my personality surprisingly well, and for the first time during my vision-impaired life, I didn't want to vomit when I looked at my glasses-wearing self in a mirror. I started to wear my contacts less frequently and ignored the countless critics moaning about how my frames looked too retro and hid half my face.

Halfway through college, I swapped out my chunky black frames for an even chunkier pair. The same year, David Tennant replaced Chris Eccleston as the title character on Doctor Who and chose a pair of rectangular tortioseshell frames -- he called them "brainy specs" -- as part of his new costume. This blew my mind; I wore glasses like The Doctor's because they didn't make me completely hideous, while Tennant wore them because he wanted to. He was suave and confident while wearing his brainy specs, and for the first time in my life, I started to view my glasses as stylish... and even kinda hot.

I'm now on my third pair of brainy specs, and I love them so much that I only wear my contacts around once a week. I can slip them on with my Chucks and feel nerdy (in a good way). I can slip them on with a pencil skirt and pumps and feel professional. I can slip them on with an armful of unintelligible textbooks and feel smart. I can slip them on with tousled hair and an intense look and feel sexy. My glasses are a part of me, and I'm a total advocate of people like Tennant, Tina Fey, Diane Keaton, and Johnny Depp who try to redefine the public's notion of beauty by wearing their glasses to public events.

On Sunday night, I sat down to work on a graphics commission and turned on the Primetime Emmys for background noise. Andy Samberg was interviewed on the red carpet... wearing reddish glasses. Then Justin Timberlake presented in a pair of plastic tortioseshell frames. Then Simon Baker walked out wearing chunky horn-rims. Then Dana Delany slipped on a pair of brainy specs before reading a list of nominees. All of them looked absolutely gorgeous, too. I stopped caring about the winners and started watching for bespectacled audience members... and there were far more of them than I ever thought possible.

When I climbed into bed that night, I took a fond look at my brainy specs before setting them on my desk. It seems like the world has finally caught on, and the sixth-grader in me is jumping for joy.

Pens Envy

"It's a thousand pages, give or take a few. I'll be writing more in a week or two." -- Lennon/McCartney

I've always had some pretty weird habits when it comes to my pens. During high school, I'd take science notes in green ink, and if I didn't have a green pen handy, I'd take my notes in pencil and overwrite it in green when I got home. During college, I'd choose a differently colored uni-ball Vision elite every week in lieu of dating my notes. I sign consent forms at work using Pilot G2 gel rollers and I keep my journals using my Cool Ordinary Pen of the Moment (usually a TD Bank pen, a drug company pen, or a pen with my old high school's logo on it). I also like to hang onto the same pen until it's bone-dry and tend to panic when people borrow it for more than thirty seconds.

Last week, I bought a set of Sharpie pens and soon discovered that, though they look, feel, and behave like fine-tipped Sharpie markers, they don't bleed through paper. As a result, I fell in love, decided that they are the greatest invention ever, and packed one in my handbag for use at work.

The next morning, I arrived at work, clipped my Sharpie pen to my hip between my pager and my ID, and raved about it to anyone who would listen. Around three in the afternoon, I placed it on a countertop for a moment after using it to sign some forms. A guest then crossed behind me, said "Can I borrow a pen? Thanks," and snatched up my Sharpie before I could hand him a different one. He uncapped it and began writing. I could tell he was pressing entirely too hard.

He then snapped the tip clean off the pen. It scooted across the countertop, crossed in front of me, and landed on the floor a few feet away. I swear the whole thing happened in slow-motion.

"Sorry!" the man said, shrugging and tossing the remnants of my Sharpie in the nearest waste bin. All of my colleagues gasped, looked at me, and burst out laughing. I finished my signatures using one of the pens our storeroom stocks (ew), then I scoured the building for a suitable alternative to my poor defunct Sharpie pen. Luckily, I found a Pilot G2 near my PI's office.

The Pilot G2 served me well until earlier this week, when my boss borrowed it off my desk, took it to a meeting in a different building, and lost it. (If you're imagining a thinly-veiled expression of furiousness on my face and a neck twitch or two upon my discovery of this, you'd be absolutely correct.) I'm now down to my last half-dozen or so good pens, which suddenly don't seem like enough. I'm waking up extra-early tomorrow morning to go to Staples and will probably come home with entirely too many new pens... just in case.

Proper Tee of the Half-Blood Prince

"Who blacked your eye, Granger? I want to send them flowers." -- Draco Malfoy

Two years ago this month, my friends and I waited on line for our copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows dressed in outfits specially chosen for the occasion. One of my companions wore a cloak, Gryffindor scarf, and prefect badge while another sported an "I Heart Ron" t-shirt. My style has always been a bit more understated, though, so in honor of my favorite character, I fastened my hair back with a Slytherin necktie and wore a simple grey t-shirt with the words "Property of the Half-Blood Prince" calligraphed in scrollwork across the front.

In preparation for this week's release of the film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I decided to dig up my old t-shirt. Problem was, I couldn't find it. Anywhere. That turned out to be an easily rectifiable problem, though.

First, I dug this old, faded, $7 H&M tank top out of my closet...












Then I attacked it with a black Sharpie...





Then I drenched it in a pot of black fabric dye.








Here's the end result:






























See you in the theaters this weekend.

Ensign Ricky

"Nothing you have said is revelation. Take my blues as read! My consolation: finding out that I'm my one true obligation." -- Tim Rice

I don't work on Fridays, and since I'm lucky enough to have a few friends who share the same fortunate employment situation, we were able to spend the entire day lazing around midtown. After stalking an actor friend at his place of business having lunch at Ruby Tuesday's, discussing the men in our lives, and planning a camping trip or three, we caught a showing of Star Trek in IMAX.

The film is new, it's different, it screws canon to high heaven, it completely rewrites Star Trek history... and I loved every minute of it. The new cast kicked ass, the new Enterprise is stunning, Eric Bana made the sexiest villain since Khan, and the writers were able to include Leonard Nimoy in the film without campiness or contrivances. (Not to mention that I finally see why Rutila has loved Zachary Quinto for so long... he's talented, he's insanely hot, and his scenes with Zoe Saldana were way more intriguing than I thought they would be.)

We took a long walk after the film, went shopping for sheet music, and ended up meeting my coworkers at Butterfield 8. I had a few glasses of whiskey and a few laughs, scared off a few cocky bankers with the phrase "biomedical engineering," and handed my phone number to a couple of un-cocky scientists who didn't frighten so easily. I argued with a man who claimed that my straight hair and oversized sunglasses made me look exactly like Megan Fox. I watched the Yankees game, cheered and yelled and booed appropriately. I stood chest-to-chest with one of my colleagues -- a Twins fan -- as we screamed in each other's faces about whether or not Mariano Rivera has played his whole career for the Bombers. (I was right, of course; Mo is indeed homegrown.) Five of us went to Taj after that, then we went to a dive bar across the street after we were thrown out of Taj for wearing sandals, then we went to another dive bar half a mile away to sing bad karaoke. I hailed a cab on Park Avenue South a little after one in the morning, and while stuck in traffic, I watched a man throw a lit cigarette into a trashcan. He panicked as the contents caught fire and ran away as half a block's worth of garbage began to blaze. I could hear the sirens in the distance as my cab approached the Queensborough Bridge.

On my ride home, I thought about my incredibly full day and night -- the people, the moments, and, of course, Star Trek. And despite everything that happened over the course of the day, only two things really stuck out in my head: my lunchtime conversation and my in-your-face Mariano Rivera argument. The rest of the events and the individuals were interesting in their own right, but they were mentally expendable. To use a Star Trek analogy, they were my Redshirts -- or to borrow the term popularized by Family Guy, they were my Ensign Rickies.



For those unfamiliar with Trek lore, it's a fact of life that, on every away mission, the random dude in the red shirt always bites the dust first... and no one ever seems to care. It happened in the original series, it happens in the sequels, it happens in the old movies, and it happens in the new movie. And more and more nowadays, I'm starting to recognize Ensign Rickies in my own life -- people who serve a purpose at the moment, but if they were to encounter Nomad, the vampire cloud, or the orbital platform and vanish, I wouldn't be too devastated.

The complication lies in separating the truly expendable from the diamonds in the rough -- after all, Scotty wears a red shirt too. Thus, on Friday night, I made a conscious effort to fight the urge to only focus on the Spocks and McCoys of my day and take notice of the anonymous ensigns too, regardless of how little interest I initially showed in them. I thought things through, followed-up... and was pleasantly surprised. Twice.

The Scout Method

"She can build a boat and she can make it float. She can play my guitar note by note. She likes to stick her tongue right down my throat. She's my baby." -- Bob Dylan, via the Traveling Wilburys

After only a few months at my current position, I've fallen into my coworkers' habit of judging clinic days as "good" or "bad" based on the availability of free food in our building. And with the Jewish holidays in full swing, start-up meetings up the wazoo, and three birthday parties, yesterday was definitely a good day. I had coffee, juice, fruit, sandwiches, half a muffin, a lovely arugula salad, three different types of cookies, honey-infused candy, birthday cake, and part of an Edible Arrangements bouquet, and I didn't have to pay for any of it.

I didn't have to pay monetarily, that is. Around mid-morning, I bit into a luscious strawberry and the juice ran down my chin -- and onto my white shirt -- before I could lap it up. My coworkers gasped at the horrifying red streak that trailed down my chest as if painted there in Sharpie. Did I panic along with them? Nope. Instead, I opened my bag and pulled out my trusty Tide To Go pen. I then stripped off my shirt -- I was wearing a camisole underneath, don't worry -- and worked out the stain. Once my shirt was virginal white once more, I tacked it to our bulletin board to dry, slipped into a white coat borrowed from one of the MDs, and returned to my patients.

One of my coworkers stared at me, transfixed, the entire time. When I asked him what was on his mind, he looked at me, looked at my trusty Longchamp handbag, looked at me again. "You're like a boyscout!" he spluttered after a while, and though the comment made me laugh, I'm seriously flattered by it. He and my other coworkers are endlessly fascinated with my bag and the amount of seemingly useless crap I haul everywhere with me, but I feel naked if I leave my house for more than a few hours without it.

I've always thought of myself as a packrat -- college friends referred to my Longchamp as The Mary Poppins Bag because I could fit almost anything in it and pull almost anything out of it on any given day -- but thinking of myself as a boyscout is sort of growing on me. I love the idea of being an urban scout, navigating the forests of New York City with only my wits, a pair of comfortable heels, and the pack on my back to sustain me.

What is this urban scout carting around with her at the moment? In addition to the essentials (phone, music, tampons, keys, lip gloss), I have Krazy Glue, a Leatherman, a Mag-Lite, a tape measure with built-in level and Post-It pad, rubber gloves, Band-Aids, rubbing alcohol, three different chargers, an umbrella, a small calculator, a fold-up shopping bag, a spare pair of socks, a half-rusted cigar cutter, a Moleskine, my knitting, Purell, a stapler, a flash drive, a copy of the NCI CTCAE criteria, and about two feet of insulated copper wire.

And my trusty Tide Pen, of course.

Made For Walkin'

"New York City is the place where they said, 'Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side...'" -- Lou Reed

I love walking, which is a good thing because it's a major part of my daily commute. And thanks to a coworker who introduced me to Gmaps Pedometer, a nifty Google Maps hack that calculates the length of any plotted route to the thousandth of a mile, I can now report EXACTLY how much walking I do.

On an average day, I walk...

0.7572 miles from home to the subway
0.4203 miles from the subway to work
0.8152 miles from work to the subway (because the 6 is too crowded)
+ 0.7572 miles from the subway to home
---------
2.7499 miles, total


This really amuses me, since it means that my most ridiculous method of walking distance estimation is far more accurate than I ever thought possible. I've always described my black pumps with the built-in Nike sneaker technology as having "a two-mile limit" before they start to make my feet hurt. Sure enough, those shoes inevitably start to kill me when I start my final walk home at the end of the day, and if I can't catch a ride on any leg of the journey, I have to pack a pair of flats.

I'm having a lot of fun playing with the Gmaps application -- calculating the distances across random cornfields in Kansas, along my old Riverside Park jogging route, around the entire island of Manhattan -- but, like the true geek I am, I'm thinking scientifically about the possibilities it offers. It may take a few weeks to test-drive my entire collection, but I now possess the technology to put a mileage limit on every pair of high heels I own!

The Odd Couple

"You're not at all the funny, awkward little girl I knew. Oh no! I was mad not to have seen the change in you. When did your sparkle turn to fire and your warmth become desire?" -- Alan Jay Lerner

As you all know, I'm a trained geek working as a geek. And though I've always recognized different breeds of geekery in society, it took a comment on this blog for me to recognize different brands of geekery within myself. A few days ago, Red remarked that my posts tend to show off my dorkiest colors. I always have been -- and still am -- a dork, but lately, I seem to have morphed into a new breed of dork.

There's a part of me who lives to get her hands dirty and loves to experiment -- let's call her The Mad Scientist. She thrives is tank tops and Chuck Taylors and thinks best at three in the morning. She's not afraid to use trypan blue as a plaster dye, mix concrete and wood hardener to invent a new type of sealant, pop the lock off of someone else's milling machine to do some impromptu woodcarving, or explode a capacitor or three trying to perfect a wave-generating circuit. She's always the first to pull out a Leatherman, always the fastest to dream up an alternate solution, always the last to settle for something that doesn't look quite right. The Mad Scientist is a little scatterbrained, but she treads that fine line between genius and insanity with practiced precision.

Lately, though, another geek personality is starting to dominate: The Researcher. As the Keeper of the Protocol (or seven), she has no time for imagination. She plays by the rules -- and Lord help you if you don't. She strolls around in a suit and stilettos on most days, calmly handling the affairs of patients and physicians and firmly handling the FDA and the networks. She's perfectly kind and perfectly patient, but she's efficient and super-knowledgeable and isn't afraid to show it. The Researcher commands respect. She double-checks every move she makes and triple-checks every move her colleagues make because, in her world, one mistake can put someone in his coffin.

The Researcher thrives whenever I find myself on the upper east side, but sometimes, The Mad Scientist comes out to play. She emerges whenever the copy machine breaks, whenever an odd piece of code is needed for something, whenever someone needs to know which test tubes contain clotting factors or what metals are MRI-compatible. And though The Researcher is a good person to be in this world, I was The Mad Scientist for so long that I can't help but miss her.

The Mad Scientist was the woman who knew entirely too much about Materials Science in the elevator earlier in the week, and for one beautiful moment, she made everyone forget that she was a mere intruder on The Researcher's workday.

Elevator Crystallography

"Livin' it up while I'm goin' down." -- Aerosmith

After an hour of reading scans in the fifth-floor CT suite of the outpatient pavilion, I wait entirely too long for the elevator. When the doors finally open, there's room for one and I gladly occupy it. The car descends one floor, the doors open, and the people on the other side turn away disappointed. It descends another floor and the doors open to reveal a man who looks like a cross between Howdy Doody and an excitable puppy, grinning madly and bouncing on the balls of his feet. Of course, he tries to wedge his way in.

"Come on, people! We're all in this together!" he half-shouts as we all jostle to give him room. "This is a New York elevator! Things can get more dense! It's a matter of engineering!"

This piques my interest, so I shift my bag to buy him a few more inches. He squishes in front of me and the doors close. "Yeah!" he says. "That's it! We've achieved optimal atomic packing!"

"With no vacancies on the lattice," I respond with a smirk.

The man stops bouncing for a moment, tilts his head. "Though it would work better if we were all hexagons," he ventures, his voice tinged with curiosity.

"Or face-centered cubes," I offer.

"Ohhh!" says my sparring partner. "She knows how to play, doesn't she?"

The doors open on the first floor, he spots someone familiar in the lobby, and he bounds off to offer a greeting and a hug. I walk out to 53rd Street to wait for my transport back to clinic.

To Diode For

"Electric circuitry is an extension of the central nervous system." -- Marshall McLuhan

Because I have nothing better to do with my time, I made a necklace.



And because I'm a total dork who gets a little too excited over the prospect of playing with electronics, the necklace is made entirely of rectangular light emitting diodes.



It's a little prickly at the moment, but a little lead-free silver solder should fix all the sharp parts easily enough. Keeping my hands steady enough to solder may be a challenge, though, since I'm sure I'll be giggling the whole time.