4/9/03

There is a model of clinical depression in rodents called "chronic mild stress." It is meant to mimic the human disorder by presenting rats or mice with a series of unpleasant situations over which they have no control. One day, the animal's cage might be tilted at an angle, the next it may be flooded with a centimeter of water, and then after that, the animal's daily food ration might be reduced, or it could be exposed to an annoying sound.

Even though I work in a lab that studies (in part) depression, I've never actually done this experiment. But I think the mice are getting their revenge on me anyway.

I haven't written for the past month or so, because I haven't particularly wanted to dwell on much of anything that has happened to me in this timeframe.

The first bad thing that happened to me was that I got dumped. And I know, you probably didn't even know I was seeing anyone, but I was and now I'm not, and it was really pretty awful. I spent most of the next week or so eschewing food and sleep in favor of drinking and crying on my friends' shoulders.

I went out for drinks with Jay, and told him "you were the last person to dump me before him, and it was for pretty much all the same reasons." "Well," he replied, "maybe that should tell you something, then." "Tell me what?" I asked, with some defensiveness. "I don't know," he shrugged, "I'm not too good at those 'life lesson' kinds of things. But it should probably tell you something." That's Jay for you...

Then, just a couple of weeks later, my project at work pretty much completely imploded. The thing I'd been working on almost exclusively for a year turned out to be based on incorrect information. Subsequently published data revealed that all my work was completely useless and that I would have to start from scratch.

So, those two have been the big bad events in the past couple of weeks, but there have also been a series of lesser annoyances. I have a blister on the bottom of my foot. It doesn't hurt, but it feels like I have a wad of chewing gum stuck on my foot all the time. Oh, and my stupid alcoholic neighbor broke my shower.

For those of you who haven't heard my saga of the Alcoholic Neighbor, you can read about him here. I knew that Alcoholic Neighbor was some sort of construction worker, and I knew that he sometimes did odd jobs for my landlord, but when my landlord told me that the tile in my shower would have to be replaced because of a leak in my upstairs neighbor's bathroom, I never expected to come home from work last Friday to find Alcoholic Neighbor tearing out the existing tile, reeking of alcohol and drinking a can of Bud. I wasn't sure whether he was aware of my campaign against him, so I decided the best strategy was to just be polite to him. And he was very nice and friendly.

He then told me that he'd be coming back the next day to put in the new tile, but that my shower would be usable in the meantime. So, I went running on Friday evening, and when I returned from my run and went to take my shower, I noticed a few things. First of all, although he had ostensibly cleaned up after himself my bathroom was a mess. There were weird black marks on the sink and toilet. And he'd left an open, but nearly full, can of Bud sitting on the shelf underneath my medicine cabinet.

Worst of all, though, was when I turned on the shower. He'd done something to the valve that switches the waterflow from the tap to the showerhead, and now, even when it was turned all the way, only about 10% of the waterflow actually came out of the showerhead. Which was not enough to take a proper shower. I had to grab a plastic bowl from the kitchen, fill it, and then dump it on my head in order to get clean.

Alcoholic Neighbor was slated to come back the next morning at 9 and retile the shower, and after that, I would have to wait 24 hours to use my shower again while the grout dried. So, I got up hellishly early on Saturday morning so that I could eat, then run, then "shower" all before 9 a.m. When Alcoholic Neighbor showed up, I told him about the valve problem, and he said he'd look into it. I then set out to make myself scarce for the rest of the day while the re-tiling was going on.

I got back just as he was leaving. "If that valve still doesn't work, tell the manager, OK?" he told me. And when I finally did try the shower again on Sunday morning, it was unchanged. Not to mention the fact that the new tile was crooked and he'd gotten grout everywhere, including on the outside door to my apartment. Apparently, that's what happens when you do construction work while drunk. I left a note for the landlord, but didn't hear anything back until someone showed up on Tuesday to re-paint the area around the shower. "Do you know anything about getting the shower fixed?" I asked him, with desperation in my voice (it had then been 4 days since I'd had a real shower). "Oh, I fixed that yesterday!" he told me. "Well, it still doesn't work," I told him, struggling to be calm and polite. I went to the lab while he looked at it, and when I got back, there was a note from the landlord saying that the valve would have to be replaced, that he had ordered a new one, and that my shower would be fixed as soon as it arrived. I wanted to cry. Anyway, I am still without my shower. If I start to feel really dirty, I can always go over to the gym at school and use the showers there, but that runs the risk of seeing one of my professors naked. See what I meant by "chronic mild stress?"

In fairness, though, the last few weeks haven't been all bad. I turned 31, and it was actually a pretty good birthday. Phil threw me a party this past weekend, and my co-workers took me out for Indian food. I did my last class with the kids, and it went really well. The lesson was about pH and the kids went crazy using the pH paper to test different samples. They find any kind of experiment that involves a color change to be fascinating. I'm going to miss the teaching thing, and especially the kids, but I'm also kind of relieved that it's over and that I'm not going to have to scramble every week making lesson plans and gathering materials.

So, life is not completely sucky, but still pretty sucky. Hopefully, I'll have something more cheerful to write about next time. Maybe even a functional shower...