You've got to be effing kidding me.

In "downtown" Bethesda, a DC suburb with a collective yuppie stick up its ass (and home to one of my favorite restaurants, Sasso), the purchase price of a "downtown" condo is LITERALLY ON PAR WITH MANHATTAN PRICES. So is the dearth of parking in that area.

Holy crap, people.

Be-thbthtbhtbhtbhtbhtb-esda does not equal Manhattan no matter how you rearrange the equation. Would you rather live in chain store yuppie central, where life stops promptly at 8 PM on weeknights and by 11 on weekends, where a ticket to the opera is $40 for the cheap seats, or in the middle of life itself, where you can get a good slice of pizza at 4 AM and the cheap seats to the opera w/ live orchestra are $17 (they are; check the family circle at the Metropolitan Opera)?

Dear readers, I take Manhattan! To drink and live in.

Bethesda: http://www.thechaseatbethesda.com/pricing.asp

Manhattan: http://realestate.nytimes.com/sales/detail/185-1711871/new-york-ny-usa/1-beds/200000-700000-price/PRICE-HIGH-sort/40-p/44-1408440--1501-0003EM--44-1529694--297-0016308--46-1044429--185-1711871--185-1629716--185-1698583--88-350990--46-1035272-ls/2535-t

I'm not looking to buy, especially not something at that price; I'm simply illustrating a point. Very vividly, I think...

The cold harsh reality...

The cold harsh reality of the Population Council phone call wasn't as cold and harsh as I anticipated.  It wasn't as rosy and wonderful as I hoped, either.  Instead, it was Reality, which tends to exist somewhere in the middle.  I was informed that my idea is indeed interesting, and if contraceptive biology is a field I'm really interested in, I should keep in touch and call them when I'm ready to graduate!  

Which is certainly positive!  The guy I spoke to was very impressed with my blind emailing at the very least.  Being a persistent-borderline-annoying individual pays off, people!  

Then I went to Macy's and got a really long nice sweater for $20.00.  Speaking of Macy's, I tried on some DKNY.... who is able to wear DKNY?  Does anyone who reads this wear that?  Because I want to know what kind of body you have.  Donna Karan always looks great on the hanger and then when I try it on, I'm left thinking "w....t.....f....."  I'm sure it looks fabulous on someone, and I want to know who, exactly.  

After that, I went to fencing, and I thoroughly enjoyed my lesson.  A good unproductively productive day.  :)  

I am a rattling mess of crazy.

So, I have this idea for an alternative form of birth control.  No, seriously.  It's nonhormonal, nonsurgical, reversible, and relatively long term.  And... it targets the male.  Hahahah.  Actually, I stumbled across some papers my first year of graduate school from some old research done in the 70's and it all looks so cool, easy, and side-effect free.  I'm completely aware that last point may be moot after a few years of research, but thus far, it appears to be non-teratogenic (meaning it doesn't induce mutations in DNA) and serum levels of testosterone appear to remain normal.  

Serum testosterone levels remaining normal is a huge stumbling block with other male-target contraceptives.  Knock the serum testosterone too low for sperm production, and all of a sudden men experience a huge drop in sex drive, they gain weight, sprout manboobs, they get tired, and the clinical trial is dropped.  

But my thing seems to avoid this!  

Hence I bullshitted and talked my way into the Population Council, part of Rockefeller University (which is the be-all end-all place for biomedical research; I'd rather be there than Harvard any day of the year) via blind emails and telephone calls.  They were my one yes in an infinite sea of snubs, outright no's, and people ignoring me.  

Everyone is interested, but no one has the money.  Everyone, from professors to tech startup people at my university says this has great potential and I should start working on it NOW, but no one has the dough.  Typical.  

So I sat quietly for a year, and then I met the head of the NSF (National Science Foundation) who is the big shot of all the big shots for science research money.  I walked up to her, asked her outright "What should I do?", she waved her magic wand, and fairies wearing lab coats and goggles appeared, and handed me a slip of paper with an email, which as it turned out, went right back to the Population Council.  They whispered in my ear to drop her name.  Two more people later, and I got an email this morning from someone offering their cell phone number and saying I should call them!

My first reaction:  FUCK.

Second reaction:  FUUUUUCK.  Maybe if I don't call this will all disappear.  Oh shit.  A person.

Third reaction:  WHY THE HELL DO I WANT THIS TO DISAPPEAR?!?!!  I WORKED MY ASS OFF FOR THIS PHONE NUMBER!  Oh no.  I'm turning into a scienstist.  Hells no.  I'm calling.

Fourth reaction: Fuck fuck fuck.  Where are ALL MY PAPERS?!!?!?!?!    Fuck!

Then I ransacked my drawers and muttered fuck to myself some more.  When I found all my papers and copies of patents, a brief triumphant lightening bolt pierced the panic and excitement because HAH, never throwing anything away JUST PAID OFF.  Then I spread everything out on the kitchen table, promptly knocked Danny's apparently full cup of cold revolting espresso from this morning all over the chair, said fuck a few more times for good measure, and took a few deep breaths.  My phone call went to VOICEMAIL.  

The harsh cold reality will probably be more deflections and turning me away to go work somewhere else.  If I realize this, then I can still hope that when the dude calls me back, he'll be like "Here's a job for you.  We love you, we love your ideas, and let us pay you tons of money to work on what you love while living where you love," and "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by The Darkness plays in the background because cheesy power guitar riffs would rock at a moment like that.  

Argh.  The suspense is killing me.  I have to go out or else I'm going to explode in a million pieces, and that'll be an even bigger mess than the espresso.  I really, really, really want a position at the Population Council after I graduate.  They are right on the water in the 60's on the east side of Manhattan, and I really, REALLY want to do this project, especially if it takes me there.