Skip to main content

I feel like a cocaine addict

Michael: Sometimes I feel like a cocaine addict. I like to take 100 mg of caffeine in the afternoon, but my pills are 200 mg. That means I need to split them. I typically split a pill on the counter with my pocketknife. I put one half pill back in the bottle and swallow the other half with water. But there's a fine white powder left on the counter from the cutting procedure. I wipe it up with a finger and then lick the finger. Can't let any coke go to waste!

Katie: Coke and caffeine are certainly similar. :)

Michael: Maybe someday I'll upgrade from my pocketknife and the counter to a straight-edge razor blade and a pocket mirror and really freak people out.

Katie: Does anyone ever see you?

Michael: Not usually. I am known as "the pill guy" though, for my proliferation of Coenzyme Q10, fish oil, multivitamins, ibuprofen, and caffeine bottles.

Katie: People say "the pill guy"? Sad!

Michael: Every now and again someone will happen upon me downing some pills and say, "Oh, so you're the pill guy!"

Katie: When Libby and I were in Virginia, there was this older man with a big zip lock bag of pill bottles at breakfast at the B&B. We made fun of him. :)

Michael: Older people get a break, since they're often on lots of medications for heart, diabetes, etc.

Katie: Well, he got no break from us.

Michael: Sad.

Katie: I guess you probably don't mind being the pill guy.

Michael: I do not mind being the pill guy. I am hard to embarrass.


I actually have a friend (Ekrem) who once thought it would be fun to actually snort powdered pharmaceutical caffeine. He and his goofy high school friends ground up a bunch of caffeine pills and snorted them. I can't remember the hilarity that eventually ensued. It might have involved modifying the rules to a board game in some strange way. Perhaps he would be persuaded to enlighten us in the comments!

Comments

  1. Wigie5:46 PM

    > Katie: Coke and caffeine are certainly similar. :)

    Coke *is* my caffeine. Or rather my source thereof.

    AP and I still tell the Ekrem Vivarin story. Never fails to amuse and entertain at any social gathering.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous8:11 PM

    My recollection of the Ekrem/Vivarin story is that some sort of major high school project was involved (hence the desire to pull an all-nighter).

    My parents down bags of pills each day, too, but almost none are prescribed...so they're definitely "pill people."

    ReplyDelete
  3. J-W Maessen11:08 AM

    This was the same high school friend who got duct taped to the wall of the pit, right?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous7:48 PM

    It was actually a different friend from the one who got duct-taped to the wall.

    And I could be mistaken, but I don't think there was any late-night schoolwork involved, just late-night boredom and silliness. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Can You Cross Your Toes?

Katie and I had a heated discussion the night before last. We were sitting on the couch watching Jon Stewart when she noticed a large, apparently cancerous growth sticking out of the bottom of my foot. She asked what the big lump in my sock was. "That's my toe," I responded, nonplussed. I had crossed my first and second toes, causing a lump to protrude from the bottom of my sock. Katie was quite alarmed. "You can cross your toes?" "Sure, can't you? Everyone can cross their toes!" "Of course I can't cross my toes. Who can cross their toes?" And I confirmed that Katie could not, in fact, cross her toes. Even manipulating her toes with my fingers, I could not get her toes to stay crossed. She just has very short toes. That led, of course, into a discussion of who was the freak. Were my long, crossable toes abnormal, or were her stubby, uncrossable phalanges the outliers? In case you're confused, here are some pictures. First, of my v...
37 comments
Read more

Max the Model

Katie sometimes talks to Max about all the things he can grow up to be. "Will you grow up to be a scientist like Daddy, or a lawyer like Mommy?" she will query. In recent days, though, we think Max might aspire to be a model. He LOVES the camera. Point it in his direction, and he is mesmerized by the big lens, giving it a big smile. He will sit for long series of photographs, changing his expressions constantly so we'll be sure to get a good one. This is Katie's recent favorite series (mostly because she thinks he looks so cute in the outfit): This is my favorite series, based purely on the dynamic range of emotions that Max is capable of. I am especially fond of the last picture. So cute!
9 comments
Read more

A Little Night Music

I've been in Boston this week at a scientific conference. I've spent nearly all of my time at the conference, but was able to get away a couple of times to see friends. One night off I went out for pizza with Ekrem and Leanne (and their adorable kids). We went to Stone Hearth Pizza , whose head chef is the brother of Bob, one of my labmates in Minneapolis. (He wasn't at the restaurant the night we went, sadly.) Ekrem and Leanne are moving to their new house in a week, and I helped them out by consuming the remainder of a bottle of scotch that they keep at their house for me. I felt very proud of myself for accomplishing this noble task. Last night I went to see Andrea perform in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music , one of my favorite musicals. Beforehand, I had dinner with fraternity friends Jan, Jeannie, David, Emily, and Ian. Dinner conversation was wonderful in that MIT-nerdy way that I greatly miss sometimes. At the end of the meal, for example, my fortune coo...
3 comments
Read more