The lab rat

I went to the UC Davis Center for the Mind and Brain this afternoon to be a subject in an experiment designed, the ad said, to assess short-term memory. All subjects had to be older than 60 (I qualify). Turned out, the long-term objective of the study has to do with short-term memory in schizophrenics (age not specified); my cohort is the "control" group.

So I sat in a soundproof room in front of a computer monitor, wearing a set of headphones (through which came the sound of the ocean) and holding a gameboy-type control. My task on the first go-round was to spot the horizontal red oval amongst the varying patterns of vertical red and blue ovals; if the oval was unbroken, I pushed the left button on the console, if it was a broken oval, I pushed the right button. The second go-round switched the colors on me and I had to find the blue horizontal oval and indicate broken or un-. Kinda boring but not difficult, and the pattern stayed on the screen until I made a selection.

Then came the second part of the experiment. Either three or four small squares, each a different color, was flashed on the screen for maybe a hundredth of a second. This would be followed by a second set of colored squares that would remain on the screen until I decided whether the second squares were the same or different than the first ones. Sometimes, the first flash of squares would be followed immediately by multicolored squares, then I'd see the second set. Another part of this section was selecting which square had changed color. This was really, really hard; the trick (if there was one) was not to "look" at anything but instead focus on the little focal point in the center of the screen. I got marginally—only marginally—better at it when I got into a kind of trancelike, nonthinking state, which makes me think that perhaps the real nature of the experiment is to induce schizophrenia . . .

I'll get $15 for this 90 minutes of button-pushing, and when they asked me if I'd be willing to be in their database of potential volunteers for other studies, I said sure; $15 is $15.

The thrill of Bill

Bill Clinton came to UC Davis this evening to campaign for Hillary. The announcement in the paper said he'd be speaking at 9 p.m. in the Pavilion (aka the old Rec Hall) and that there'd be seating for 1,800 to 2,000 people. Susan, Bill and I wanted to hear him, so we headed over to campus about 7 o'clock. A lot—a LOT—of other people had the same idea; when we got there, the line was already literally around the block, several people deep all along its length. But we figured what the heck, we were there, and we might get in, so we found the end of the line and took our places in the queue. The north wind had begun blowing earlier in the day, and it picked up and got colder as we waited. And waited. But the crowd was good natured, lots of joking and speculating on whether any of us all the way back where we were would make it into the hall (one woman said, "If I don't get in, I'm voting for Obama!").

I saw some university staff people and other non-student-looking types in the crowd, but most were students, and I felt encouraged and heartened by their evident interest. But my nominee for the most inspiring person there was the young man right behind us in line. His name was Nick, and he's in the fifth grade in Orangevale, about 35 miles east of here. He wanted to come hear Bill Clinton, and so he and his mom drove over and got in line. Nick said he's interested in the election, and he and his classmates talk about it sometimes. Right now, he says, about half of his class is for Hillary, and the other half is for Obama. He himself hasn't yet made up his mind.

We didn't get in. We ended up watching some of Clinton's remarks on the TV monitor in the Fox 40 truck; the guy at the controls saw a bunch of us standing outside peering in his windows, and he opened the side doors so we could see better, and he turned up he sound so we could hear. Nice of him to do that, and in future I will think more kindly (well, a little more kindly) about the Fox 40 organization.

I was disappointed not to get to see Bill up close and personal, but I've seen him in person twice before. What I was really hoping for, and what made me feel the most disappointed, was that Nick didn't get in, either. If I'd had the chance, I'd have given him my spot.

Relativity

Johnny Podres died Sunday. I remember seeing him pitch for the Dodgers after they moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in the late 1950s, and though at the time I doubt I knew his age, I guess I always thought of him (and other ball players) as much older than I. But he wasn't, as I discovered in reading his obituary: he turned 75 this past October. That's only 11 years and some months older than I am today.

How can that be? I felt so much younger than he when I watched him play ball, and now I feel such surprise that he was so young. Time and age are relative, I guess, and they compress with age . . . leastways, my age . . .

Temping

I answered an ad for help taking inventory at the Avid Reader bookstore, and so today, from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., I read out prices from books while my inventory partner made hash marks on price sheets. I must have handled a thousand books, maybe more. It's all a blur.

The sections I inventoried were Philosophy (religion, astrology, etc.), Science/Nature (the funnest and most frustrating section because there's so much there I want to read but no time to browse today), Reference (a giagantic category encompassing foreign language instruction, dictionaries, study guides, etc.), Business (lots of Nolo Press titles in that one), Parenting (overall impression: parents are terrified of their children and need many, many books to help them deal with the little tyrants), and the Remainders (how did most of these get published in the first place?)

I can tell you that the most popular price for a paperback book is $14. 95. I saw many titles that I would have loved to linger over, but titles weren't what we were supposed to be paying attention to. One title, however, did stick in my mind: Madame Bovary's Ovaries. I intend to take a closer look at that one the next time I'm at the bookstore.