hellp

In addition to changing her blog template to use a color scheme that hurts my eyes, Dorotha has just posted a conversation with her psychiatrist/general-practitioner-posing-as-a-psychiatrist in which, in seeming violation of Wisconsin law, the doctor declined to tell her what the side effects were for a particular drug she was taking. The doctor did apparently seem to be jocular about it, however, so maybe there is an exculpatory clause in the relevant statute for that.

I have a friend who used to go to a psychiatrist who would, in addition to telling her the side effects of particular drugs, also be sure to point out which of the drugs she was taking could be readily used (in only a modest overdose!) to kill oneself. If we presume the doctor did not actually want patients to kill themselves, my best guess as to the philosophy here would be that the doctor wanted patients to know what drugs most definitely should not be deployed if one were to stage a cry-for-help/"fake" suicide attempt.

On the topic of drastic changes, my last post has drawn e-mails from fellow Indiana grads excited to read a mystery novel by one of our own, while I continue my hobby of devising plots for set-in-academia mystery novels that I do not actually write. As another career change idea, one person looked at the photo of my hand on NinaNet and said I could be a professional androgynous hand model, if only I didn't bite my nails. As still another alternative, somebody suggested that I could drop everything and become a touring speaker who taught remedial comedy to humorless business executives who wished they were funny,* as a certain Brad--former employee of one of the shops on Monroe Street?--did. "First, of course, you'd have to actually get funny yourself," the would-be-midlife-guidance-counselor immediately added.**

Speaking of which:
"Did you know [name] reads your blog?"
"No, really?"
"Yeah. She says you've been in a slump lately."
[slump]
"Maybe you could try being more interesting and funny." [Note: Actually, I'm not at all sure if the person said "more" here or if some primoridal-auditory-defense-mechanism kicked in to insert it.]

* BTW, the optical illusions on this site are pretty good.

** Or I could just steal some of this guy's material. Here, let me try: "What's that under my desk??? Ugh, it's CHEWING GUM! How disgusting! Oh, wait, it's Juicy Fruit." I could even steal the pictures of his family he has on his site, as it probably helps to have readily-presentable photos of family if you are doing the corporate comedy circuit. It'd be just like that movie Single White Motivational Speaker.