August 13, 2001
Pete Abrams is going through a hard spell right now, according to the news over at Sluggy Freelance. This makes me sad.Sluggy is probably my favorite serial strip, and poor Pete has been struggling with his family's health and who knows what else for a while now. I wish I could do something to help him out, but I can't. Apparently it's gotten bad enough recently that he's not updating the strip until further notice. As a Sluggy fan I want to see the strip continue indefinitely. As a cartoonist I want to see Pete able to do what he loves to do. As a human being I hope Pete and his family are okay, and pull through this.
I'd email him and say so, but he's swamped on his email. *sigh*
In happier news, I had a great weekend hanging out with my sibs and their families at my sister's in-laws cabin above Bear Lake. What a view... but by the time you read this my weekend is over, and I'm back at work viewing what promises to be a frantic week's worth of fire-drills, mad scrambles, heated arguments, and long, engaging debates. In other words, business as usual. I love my job.
In still better news, my doctor gave me a laxative whose single ingredient is granular polyethylene glycol. Most laxatives are drugs that tell your body to send everything down the chute ASAP. This one is a water-soluble plastic (methinks) that pollutes the water you mix it with. Then your gut says "hey, this water's gone bad" and pushes it through the system without absorbing it.
Polyethylene glycol... any chemists out there want to tell me more about this molecule? I'll post notes here, and even credit you if you'd like credit.
It tastes awful, but I took it once a day for a week and my gut feels much happier. Clean, even. Scoured out by dirty water. The best part, though, is that the stuff he gave me was packaged as a sample for physicians, and it had clinical test results (summarized, mind you) right on the bottle. I think ALL drugs should have that information on their packages. That way you can see exactly what you're getting yourself in to. Or exactly what's getting into you. And when you can expect it to work its way back out.