Re: There Is A God!

1

That takes Tussin.

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2

And many congratulations on the clean bill.

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3

Yay healthy organs! Especially since those ones are a bit hard to replace or do without.

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4

Ah. The French are finally explained.

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5

Well, if Labs's been riding his bike hard enough, he won't have felt it.

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6

riding his bike hard enough

*snicker*

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7

If you look at my lipids profile and organ tests, I would seem like a Greek God or something. If only he popular conflation of health and aesthetic merits was true...

Good luck with the AA thing, BTW.

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8

I was once described by a doctor as having basically the body of an athlete, but an athlete who had acquired a 28 pound cyst in the abdomen which was full of food.

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9

re: 7

Yeah, it seems the fat but otherwise pretty healthy thing is common.

I am around 30lbs overweight.

My doctor, who tends towards the sneery and judgemental, booked me in for a bunch of tests when I signed up with her practice. After she found out I drank and smoked she was warning me of dire results from the tests -- high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc.

However, as she was surprised to find out, my blood pressure, cholesterol levels, resting heart rate, blood insulin/blood sugar levels, etc are all in the marathon runner/Tibetan-sherpa range.

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10

I showed some liver damage some 30 years ago. I am always looking at myself in the mirror for signs of ascites, but no, just a pot belly and not enough curls and flies.

I do know when I go on one my Atkins periods my hair starts to lengthen. That worries me.

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11

Congratulations! Though I should think that your having avoided punishment for your wicked, wicked ways was more evidence for the non-existence of the Deity.

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12

yay. i hope you can use this as a reason for them to let you have access to all the espresso you want in that place...

(if they don't already...but somehow i am guessing they don't)

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13

Coffee is good, but watch out for Folgers.

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14

the coffee in here is pretty decent, but someone has to sign me out of the ward so I can go down to coffee bean and tea leaf. or I just get someone to being it up. aa is...pretty cool. moving stories are related, you get to meet other insane people who aren't drunk. and my two-day chip is printed on single-ply tissue paper, so that's a plus. one thing this stay in the hospital has reinforced for me is the crucial lesson of life: be really nice to the nurses. doctors don't count for shit in the hospital unless they are standing right over you with a scalpel; otherwise, it's all about the nurses. saying please and thank you and there's no rush, whenever you get a chance, and asking about their kids, etc. etc. I'm the darling of the ward (the cute kids help)--the nurses are always bringing me treats and letting me order stuff that's not on the menu. plus I never wander the halls screaming about korean people and how "we've already eaten enough fucking kim chee", like some people I could mention who had to be put in restraints last night. that probably endears me too them as well.

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15

Hey, I'll give you the same hospital management advice I gave Ogged: if it's possible, have family bring in food treats -- fruit basket, box of candy, whatever, and share with the staff. Most places, they're run off their feet and don't get enough chances to eat, so available snacks are greatly appreciated.

And congratulations on the functioning liver/other viscera.

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16

Woo! Yay for healthy organs!

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17

That's great news. Liver & lights & gall & all.

They have to have coffee. I think the sacramental drink of AA is coffee. Usually it's horrible coffee and I've seen plenty of people bring their own (better?) coffee to meetings. Splitters.

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18

but someone has to sign me out of the ward so I can go down to coffee bean and tea leaf

Ooooh. Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. How I miss that. I guess that means I know approx. where this rehab facility is located.

I'm so glad you're finding AA to be cool. For a while I used to attend Al-Anon meetings but never was able to shake the whole feeling out of place with the God stuff business. It's the same feeling I have whenever I attend church with a friend -- like an imposter. Like everyone there knows I don't belong.

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19

Though I should think that your having avoided punishment for your wicked, wicked ways was more evidence for the non-existence of the Deity.

I think Al meant obviously she is the diety in question.

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20

In college, I often hung out at a used-bookstore/cafe that was run by AA/NA folks, because it was one of the few places you could sit, read, and smoke indoors. And holy moses, could those AA/NA people consume the coffee and cigarettes. They were like machines, I tell you. Twitchy, smelly machines.

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21

Man, that ad linked in 13 is something else. Stay away from the brown folgers, man.

And I hope your kidneys are in good shape. Ogged may need one of 'em some day . . .

Also: Hurray for healthy organs and decent coffee!

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22

Coffee is proof there is a god, and that He loves us. Even PZ Myers.

(But not the Mormons! but we knew that.)

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23

Hey, HD, how's your dating life/decision to seek therapy or not/decision to embrace celibacy as a lifestyle/whatever, going? Was all the bogus and intrusive advice you got any use?

(You are the same guy who wrote in to Ask Tia, right?)

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24

11: I think it's more proof that Deity is not such a little bitch as had been heretofore thought. Though see LB's post above. (Also, Deity: Why you wanna invent jet lag and laptops that go poof for no reason?)

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24 -- Hey wow! Are you, then, in the antipodes?

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26

I yam.

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27

So, what keeps you from falling off?

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28

3: Actually, you can replace both of those just fine, and I am thinking to start an anti-coffee campaign before it drives me out of a job. Unfortunately, my reaction to caffeine withdrawal has involved uncontrollable vomiting on more than one occasion, so it may backfire.

On a more serious note, congrats on the clean bill of health, alameida. While I am not an old friend like many others here, I have lurked with interest and developed a certain amount of sympathy for your recent travails. You seem to be managing it with more grace (and humor) than anyone could reasonably expect.

And you are absolutely right about doctors - very unimportant in the day-to-day concerns of the patient. Even the most brilliant (me, for example) are pretty much helpless without good nurses, and have no ability at all to make the time spent in the hospital tolerable.

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29

(and, you know, if you need a liver at any point in the future, my understanding is that Doc gets a friends & family discount.)

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27: I think the approved answer is, "The powerful suction force of your mom."

Also, congrats to Alameida!

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31

Sorry, Dr. Oops, collateral damage.

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32

my reaction to caffeine withdrawal has involved uncontrollable vomiting

Daaamn. How much coffee do you drink?

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33

She drinks coffee only to the point of controllable vomiting.

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34

Yeah, no shit--when I periodically try to get off the bean, I get blinding headaches for about three days, and days three and four have me ready to killy anyone who looks at me cross-eyed, but vomiting? That's a whole new level.

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35

I just get mean-spirited and unpleasant.

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36

I had some bad stomach problems my junior year in college (not Ogged bad, but was in a lot of pain and pretty miserable) and went through a couple of weeks of the health center running all kinds of tests to see if I had an ulcer or some kind of infection. Finally at one of my appointments, I mentioned that I drank 2-3 pots of black coffee a day. The doctor just kind of looked at me like "dumbass, that's your problem". Ever since then, I've tried to do no more than 2 cups a day, with milk as a buffer.

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37

My father attributed my brother's not-qute-rightness to my mother's three-pot-a-day habit during my younger brother's gestation. Seems like as good a reason as any. So all of you pre-pregnant females may just want to keep that in mind.

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38

my mother's three-pot-a-day habit

You left out "-bowls-of-".

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39

37 - My mother had terrible hearburn when she was pregnant with both of my brothers. The only thing that helped make it go away was milk, so she drank about 2 gallons a day. Both of my brothers are allergic to cow's milk.

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40

s/b "heartburn"

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41

I just don't drink coffee.

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42

That surprises me. I could see you getting into the fetishistic rituals of making Good Coffee the Right Way.

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43

41: How do you stay awake all day long?

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44

I don't drink coffee either, except for sometimes.

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45

I don't drink coffee, but I drink a lot of caffeinated soft drinks. I have problems staying awake in the afternoonzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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46

I just came close to nodding off at my desk. I believe I'll get some coffee.

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47

I don't drink coffee either, and I've been awake since 4 am! Booyah!

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48

Weiner, you're in Australia. Go frolic.

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49

It's only 7 am. I'll frolic later.

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50

I've had five cups of coffee so far today. I can't decide whether I want another one, or just to get the fuck out of here and go home. This day sucks.

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51

Wait a second. You're a philosopher, visiting Australia.

Please tell me you're visiting an Australian philosophy department and they're referring to you as 'Bruce' to avoid confusion.

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52

I sometimes drink coffee, but only when I'm really groggy or trying to counteract alcohol. Otherwise I'll be up all night.

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53

Is it possible that caffeine doesn't affect some people? I drink 6-8 glasses (~12oz) of Diet Coke each day, and it neither wakes me up in the morning nor keeps me up at night. Plus, I've quit for weeks on many occasions, and didn't miss it.

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54

Nope. You're just wrong. What you describe is entirely impossible.

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55

I have a sneaking suspicion that if I start to sing any words that sound remotely like "Immanuel Kant," I'll get lynched.

Be it also recorded that I left my headphones in the office last night, so once I got up I had to come in in order to listen to CDs. And figured I'd get some work/procrastinating done while I'm here. Can't figure out whether that's lame.

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56

54: Actually, I would say it at least seems wrong.

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57

Sam? Did you just, mostly, agree with me when I told you that it was impossible that caffeine has little or no effect on you? Because that's weird.

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58

I never drink coffee with any regularity; after a rather short while it ceases to have much of an effect, and I need it to stay potent for emergency purposes (paper writing, driving at night, etc.)

I've resigned myself to being groggy and unproductive in the morning, though this gets me into a cycle of staying up later to get work done, which makes me even more tired in the morning, which makes me have to stay up later still, and so on. Haven't quite figured that one out yet, aside from occasionally saying "screw it" to the work and going to bed early to reset.

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59

Saying caffeine doesn't work for me seems like saying alcohol doesn't work for me. Sure, some have higher tolerances, but considering I have a relatively sensitive system, that seems wrong too. And in my experience, one can't build up a tolerance to caffeine, given the experience I have described.

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60

I totally read 59 as "Saving caffeine for work is like saving alcohol for work..."

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61

occasionally saying "screw it" to the work and going to bed early to reset

This is a good idea.

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62

Matt Weiner! For god's sake, you're on an exotic continent! Go bother a wallaby, can't you? We don't need to see flickr photos of you suntanning in front of a monitor!

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63

occasionally saying "screw it" to the work and going to bed early to reset

...the TiVo

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64

Go bother a wallaby, can't you?

I plan to say this to people all the time from now on. And blame the professional and personal problems it gives rise to on slol.

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65

I'm so proud of my contribution to the discourse.

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66

Ok, now that the sun is up I'll be off helping someone move, just as soon as I finish this e-mail to someone explaining how I think I've just refuted the thesis of the paper I'm supposed to give in two weeks. But as for suntanning, you do realize it's winter?

64: Won't that mean you accidentally pick up a lot of chicks in bars?

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67

You can suntan in front of a monitor in all weathers, Weiner.

Jet lag is going to bite you any minute now, you know.

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68

Jet lag is going to bite you any minute now, you know.

Note that my first post on this thread was made at 5:47 AM local time.

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69

By my lights it's not the up-early that hurts, it's the falling-asleep-mid-sentence.

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70

to 58: you should just drink coffee all the time and then take dexedrine when you really need to finish a paper! or provigil, but it's hard to get a prescription and it doesn't really get you high at all, it just makes you be able to be awake for a long time without ill effects, and where's the fun in that. oh, shit, wait, hang on. no, I just checked the "daily reflections" for today and that's definitely not in there. more about the freedom from fear. I think I still have to work on step .5, stop wanting to get wasted all the time. I'll get back to you on that. my dad was teasing me that our primate ancestors were the ones who liked to eat the fruit that had gone a bit bad, even if it had wasps in it. "make trog feel funny!" I then hypothesized that our primate ancestors were also the ones who, when a rock fell on them or a branch from a tree and briefly knocked them out, came to and then thought "trog no bother to get food for a while. trog wait here and see if rock fall again. trog head feel turning aroundy." it's a wonder we've survived this long, frankly, but I chalk it up to the "sex with crazy people is hott" thing.

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71

Provigil does sound pretty cool.

I don't drink coffee all that often. I have to say that I wonder whether all caffeine is the same. I don't know how much caffeine is in each kind of drink, but I do know that a 12 oz. can of coke has less than a cup of coffee and that a cup of brewed tea is also lower in caffeine than a cup of coffee.* I can drink a coupel of small pots of tea or 64 oz. of coke and not feel nearly as caffeinated as I might after a single cup of regular coffee.

I love diet coke. I sometimes think that its effect comes from the phenylalanine in the aspartame. I can't stand the taste of the caffeine-free version, so I'm not going to do a side-by-side comparison.

*Japanese tea ceremony tea which is basically suspended particles of finely ground up green tea is way more caffeinated than coffee. You know how they always say that tea has more caffeine than coffee? It's true, but an infusion of tea doesn't.have nearly as much. I don't know how eating whole coffee beans compares to downing tea-ceremony tea. Iain't never tried that shit.

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72

I had a bad experience with chocolate-covered coffee beans in law school -- I brought a bag into an exam, thinking of them as a sensible snack calculated to enhance alertness, and absentmindedly ate about a quarter pound of them in the first half of the exam. I realized this was a bad idea when my hands started trembling so badly that I couldn't write.

I had to take a bathroom break and sprint up and down the stairs three or four times before I could finish the exam. Got an A, though.

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66 -- so will you deliver the refutation along with the paper? Eliminate the middleman! Get double the philosophy for your money! Come on down to Crazy Uncle Weiner's, where we're going crazy with savings! This slightly used categorical imperative, normally priced at $85, now 49% off! That's right 49% off! 49%! How can we do it? Because we're crazy! The ideas are flying off the shelves at Crazy Uncle Weiner's so come on down before they're all gone!

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74

...the TiVo

This is true; after a while the TiVo begins to feel neglected.

70: That's what the adderall's for; even has dexedrine in it, if I'm not mistaken. It's pretty new to me, I'm still getting used to it all--my old coffee calculations are out the window at this point. An unexpected side effect is that I don't get tired during the day even with 3 or 4 hours of sleep, and thus don't get that physiological reminder to go to bed early. This all catches up with me on the weekends, when I don't take it. Gotta work on that. But yes, it's sweet stuff. It's also surprisingly hassle-free to get the doc to bump up the dose--this must be the easiest thing to fake ever.

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75

When my sister was in high school she once had to stay up to work on a project or something so she ate spoonful after spoonful of instant coffee. Her caffeine tolerance these days is really a wonder.

I, on the other hand, rarely drink coffee; my tolerance is so low that one cup makes me jittery. I mostly drink it when I need to do something like drive several hundred miles.

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Oh, do I know people who swear by their Adderall. They get crazy amounts of work done when they bump the dose.

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77

When I was 14 and stupid, I ground up a Vivarin and snorted it because I was 14 and stupid. Hurts like hell and you spend the next 30 minutes blowing banana yellow goo out of your nose. I very much do not recommend the experience.

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78

My college papers were usually three pagers, and it took me all night to write them. Probably more because of terrible typing than anything. I would revise as I typed, but I can remember being done writing by about 2 then trying to type until dawn. I self-taught during those years, using manuals, and got better, but still. My parents were partial to freeze-dried coffee. And on more than one occasion, living and working at home, I ingested spoonfuls of that. Usually I had the wit to boil a kettle and make a cup. The stuff would fizz when water was added. The papers I wrote this way actually made me an outstanding student, or so I was told. This seems crazy to me. I can remember jitters while sleepless during the next day that felt just like I had a fever.

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jitters while sleepless during the next day that felt just like I had a fever

Sounds like the final paper I wrote for a poli-sci class a year ago. As of 2 a.m. the day it was due, I didn't even have a topic--over the next 13 hours I took an adderall (for the first time), 5 caffeine pills, 3 Red Bulls, and 4 cups of coffee. I was literally shaking as I walked down the path to class with the finished paper, and turned around and left as soon as I had turned it in. When I tried to lie down and rest, not only could I not get to sleep, I couldn't even close my eyes. I just lay there shaking and staring at the ceiling for a few hours.

But I got an A! All worth it.

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80

I had a bad experience with chocolate-covered coffee beans in law school

Those things'll sneak up on you. I knew someone who once ate a bag of those at a play. Halfway through he was out in the lobby shouting about his incipient heart attack.

I was going to post links to MP3s I thought would make a great silver-footed Alameida Rehab Mix, but YSI is taking hours to upload a file now instead of minutes. So, no music unless I find another filesharing service or burn a CD (which I'd be delighted to do).

Too bad. The first song was going to be "I'm Not Wearing Any Underwear."

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81

paul, but I was wearing underwear! then. granted, not right now.

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82

51: Please tell me you're visiting an Australian philosophy department and they're referring to you as 'Bruce' to avoid confusion.

Wow, I'm sure glad I'm not a philosopher. Somehow I can imagine that getting a little old. Right up there with "Wow! You're Australian? Let me try this - GDOI MOIT".

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83

The first official of the Australian government I came into contact with (the immigrations person) said "That's no worries."

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84

They are obliged by law to say that.

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85

you can sleep when you are dead!

God I hope this is true.

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86

Well since God is dead, Michael, why don't you ask Him if He gets any sleep?

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87

I wouldn't recommend the dexedrine for writing papers, not at all. It makes you hyper-attentive to every single word, such that you unwrite far more than you write. I've taken it for, let's see, about 15 years now, and I can tell you that it's a fine research tool. I read more and retain more than most, but when I take it before I write, I get absolutely nothing done. I follow every idea to its logical conclusion and then some, then double-back, undo what I've written, and follow something else to its logical conclusion, &c.

(I should note that I've been on the same dose of dexedrine for 15 yrs. because, like, I have a chemical deficiency you know, so I don't build up a resistance to it the way people who are prescribed it in lieu of parenting do.)

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