I'm in.

1930 hrs. Been here for two and a half hours. First chance to check in with the adoring public.

So I'm back in PPD. For newcomers to this journal, I will tell you of PPD. Oh, I will tell you.

I first checked into PPD in March. PPD is a pharmaceutical research hospital. The way it works is, you sign up for a study and they feed you an experimental drug and see what happens and at the end of it they give you a big check. The last one I did was a respiratory medication. I was in the facility from March 1 to March 9. I came home a couple thousand dollars richer for my efforts.

This time, I am here until August 12. They are going to give me another very large check and I am going to take pills that they will eventually give to people with type-2 diabetes. Unless the drug turns out to have horrendous side effects. If I grow a little Dan on my shoulder, then this is a bad drug and it will never reach the market.

Type-2 diabetes sufferers, you're welcome.

Yes, it's altruism. That's why I'm here.

Things are very different this time. I am wearing a light blue shirt. Last time I wore a black shirt. The last study I was in had four members; this one has thirty-six. I am no longer Black-5104. I am DJS-0013 now. I feel more like a DJS-0013 on the inside anyway.

I used that joke last time. This does not bode well for the readers of this journal.

But the last time, the drugs were radioactive. No shit. They took fucking gallons of blood, too. Yow. This time there are hardly any blood draws. I will not watch a documentary on the making of The Passion Of The Christ that combines with blood loss, radioactivity, Hunter S. Thompson books and sheer fucking boredom to create wild-eyed, messianic delusions in the mind of your humble narrator.

At least, I hope not.

Been here for two and a half hours. No familiar faces yet. The way this place works, most of the people in here are people who spend a lot of time in here. Ten studies a year. More. You can pull in a pretty decent salary if you do it regularly. There's a circuit of people who travel the country, staying in the facilities in Jersey and Philadelphia for more money before coming back to Austin for the steady gig. I met a handful of them in March but so far I haven't seen any faces I recognize. I think that's a good thing.

Checking into this place is odd. Essentially, you spend two and a half hours being poked and prodded and all the rest along with the people who you are going to see all day, every day, for the next nine days. Some people try to immediately make friends in the two and a half hours of check-in. Find a lunchroom buddy right off the bat, might make things go quicker. A kid in a Ramones t-shirt got attacked by one of them during check-in. All the kid wanted to do was listen to his headphones but every five minutes, homeboy was tapping on his shoulder. You've got the guy who needs attention, the guy who thinks he's more important than everyone else, the guy who wants to be funny right off the bat, the guy who wants to be left alone --

No reason to be hanging out, except what else are they going to do for the next nine days?

What else am I going to do for the next nine days?