The End.

Well, after flying in and getting my flight physical and waiting two months to be scheduled, NASA has proven itself to just be too slow to get started. With a heavy heart, I had to pull out of the study and I have recently acquired a well-payin' grownup job.

Spacehamster is alas, no more.

Re: Shower Request.

I have been asked to explain the horizontal shower.

The normal spectrum of shower-to-bathtub includes varying degrees of verticality. Even the recline of the most luxurious tub would require my head to be above my feet. For NASA's study, this will not do, since I must be horizontal at all times {ZOMG, LOL, etc}.

Instead, I will have a large metallic tube that is reminiscent of a stainless steel Sub-Zero® fridge, or coffin built for a horse. In said coffin there are many spouts. I'm told that they will roll me into the contraption to lather and bathe, and then roll me out when I'm finished.

No, it is not capable of holding more than one person. And, no, sandwiches are not allowed inside.

Prolegomena (b): Gettin' Ready

The question arises: can I do it? Although I am a man of considerable laziness, lying on one's back for sixty days is a venture. Will I fugue into crazytown? Probably not, but I will be rather uncomfortable at times {bed pan, horizontal showers, etc}.

What is needed? Practice. How? The Alpha Female and I will be moving to California and I will be doing the Driving of Items while she flies. Mr. Google tells me that the drive will be 2K miles. Awesome. And so, in preparation for the NASA study, I will try to stay in the car, eating and sleeping and occasionally driving, for the entire duration of the drive. Only for excretion and intake of urine and gasoline (¿respectively?) will I venture from the automobile. This should be considerably uncomfortable and, with enough coffee, I might fugue.

I have about two weeks before the jaunt. If an update is not posted within three weeks, it probably means I am dead.

Request: once dead, please inter me boxless underneath the sapling of some kind of fruit tree from which one can make pie {apple, cherry, peach, etc}. Once said tree fruits {a few years down the line}, distribute fruit to relations to make pie. Watch them finish eating said pie, inform them they are eating the transformed gristle of their dead kin. Laughter ensues.

"No, seriously, he's buried underneath the tree."

Cue awkward silence and vague nausea.

Prolegomena (a): Blood Tests

Before they wanted anything else, they wanted blood. The idea being that if I had AIDS or blood flukes, they could sniff it out before I subject myself to their doodads and chemicals, garner unfortunate complications, and sue the US government for turning my liver into another spleen.

So they had me drive out to a shopping center in that part of Fredericksburg comprised primarily of crab shacks and strip malls. The blood testing center was this little unassuming building nuzzled between a Dunkin Donuts and an IHOP, which is not a good location for a clientele that is undoubtedly diabetic by a healthy plurality. Inside, I am the only one there: I fill out papers and explain that NASA sent me and would fax instructions. Initially, this did not go over well. Pro-tip: before explaining to anyone that NASA sent you, bathe before the encounter and wear something with sleeves.


Eventually, someone had the epiphany to look through the fax log and, yes, Johnson Space Center had indeed faxed instructions. Fabulous. Only one hour later (with still no one else arriving), they led me into the back room where I was given an option: do you first urinate into a cup or have blood drawn? Living dangerously, I chose to pee. There is something beautiful about peeing into a cup. It’s almost like a dance between you and the cup; a dance so intricate that one false move could send data all over the wall. I truly have no idea how the ladies do it. Do they give you a special chair? Or at least a funnel? {UPDATE: No, they do not. They are just good at everything and that area is a thing of cosmic beauty, gateway of life, etc.}

And now the blood. When I came back, the lady (without gloves) took the cup from me and placed it on the table, remarking that it was as warm as good coffee. How Nice. Now I am at ease. Thankfully, she did put on gloves before she put a tourniquet on me and placed a strange green contraption in the nook of my elbow. The device looked like a spigot with a needle on one end. Then she proceeded to clip a vial to the spigot, fill it with blood, then she would CLICK, unscrew and repeat, seven or eight times. They must have pulled half a pint out of me, giving me my own row on the blood spice-rack she kept on the desk. I asked what kind of tests needed so much of me.

“Blood tests,” she replied.



And they sent me on my way.

Later I asked Mr. Google to inquire about the Blood Center. Turns out all of the labwork actually takes place in India. This felt a little strange, knowing that a decent volume of my flotsam was bobbing around in another continent. Think if you saw your dead mother’s finger on German ebay—it’s kind of like that.

So. My heart-gravy is in a biohazard bag on the Indian subcontinent, my DNA is owned by the government, and I’ve officially been given the DOES NOT HAVE AIDS Uncle Sam, seal of approval. This course of events pleases me, especially the latter, because I have heard AIDS is inconvenient even at the best of times. My wife, especially, gave a sigh of relief. Because, man, does she ever know about the escapades.

FIRST POST.

And so the voyage begins.

I am still at home base, getting ready.

So... in the interim:

Do you know? Here's what you don't know: