Vitamin I.

I was thinking the same thing of a mightmare.

I just had a nightmare, though--am shocked to find I only fell asleep 90 minutes ago, I already had a few dreams! But one of them, the chicken I was preparing for dinner turned into a songbird and came back to zombie-like life by singing and freaked me out. I think it was a combo of reading about ortolan (? Which sounds freaky btw) and the a/c on this hotel room, which I didn't realize was making a whistling noise, until I woke up! Slightly more fun, the other characters in the dreams, who were either my family (or some strange dream-facsimile thereof) and some of the friends I made this weekend (albeit acting like weird dream people instead of regular ones--one of them was a bartender in my dream, and gave me fabulous advice. If only I could remember it?)

I think the definitive statement of growing older is "Ibuprofen is my drug of choice."

I feel like Tim and I are the Sid and Nancy of ibuprofen.

I get to work and did they swap out my computer?

No.

All I can remember from my dream this morning was that I was involved in industrial espionage involving a scientist who was making a fusion reactor out of LEGOs.

I had a dream the other day where my friend was talking to someone named Malala, and insisted it was Malala Yousafzai, and I was like, "Are you nuts? Of course it's a different Malala!"

So I took some ibu an hour+ ago, and my foot still hurts! Bummer.

Jesse, try plain old aspirin. It's the red-headed stepchild of painkillers, but for some things it's hard to beat.

I woke up from a dream about being in an unheated house in winter to find myself sweating under my duvet.

Work (and stress) is eating me, starting from the bottom. Gah.

Academic publishing makes no sense to me sometimes. I just got an email from an author that said "I know I am listed as the corresponding author, but you need to list my co-author's email address rather than mine, so that he can reply to questions and requests for reprints." Mind you, she meant we should still list HER as the corresponding author, but send all *correspondence* to her co-author for him to handle.

I don't know if there's a whole prestige thing, in terms of beefing up one's CV, to being listed as the corresponding author on a paper, but if she's not actually the one receiving the correspondence or replying to it, then -- and I may be talking out my ass here -- then that makes her NOT the corresponding author. Authors' egos are HILARIOUS. In that tear-my-hair-out way.

Steph, I've gotten requests like that before. As in, "I'm handling the correspondence with you for the proofing of the paper, but any correspondence from other engineers regarding the content should go through this co-author." Sounds reasonable. I just give them what they want; it keeps my blood pressure down.

Jesse, I love Salonpas patches for pain relief, although that might be difficult to use on a toe. Anywhere the pain is in a specific place, like my back or my shoulder, nothing helps more than those stick-on patches. I'm allergic to the adhesive; it gives me itchy dermatitis, but it's totally worth it. The medicine is menthol and salicilate (aspirin), basically.

I'm so pissed about this one stupid work thing, I can barely form coherent sentences. I'm just gritting my teeth and plowing through it.