I’ve been kind of sidelined the past few days. Some people get migraines and things like that; I have a recurring pinched nerve in my neck that pops up once a year or so and nearly incapacitates me. It’s kind of ridiculous, but it makes it extremely difficult to concentrate or get anything done. I’ve spent the past two and a half days mostly just watching season four of the office and playing madden 08 on Nintendo DS. Which means that, all told, it’s not really all that bad.

But I think it’s starting to loosen up, and I’m feeling useless after half-assing my thousand-words-a-day project since Tuesday, so I’m going to see if I can maintain a train of thought long enough to, like, write some notes about something I want to write about when I’m feeling better. Oh yes, I push myself hard.

Anyway.

I’ve been struggling with the idea of how to write a thing about PPD for a while now. When I first started writing about it back in 1850, people responded well to it and I realized that there was definitely something there. I’ve been toying with the idea for a couple of years, but I’ve always had a hard time figuring out exactly how to write about it. Because I could try to write it as a first-person my interesting life memoir, sort of a David Sedaris thing where it’s funny and weird, but I’m not really a huge fan of that sort of writing. I had pretensions that I would write an in-depth piece of literary journalism exposing the pharmaceutical industry for… whatever it is, but I’m not the guy to write that book, and the lab rat angle isn’t the most effective approach to it anyway. But I do want to write about something, not just a re-telling of this weird subculture.

Have you ever read the celebrated jumping frog of calaveras county? It’s a Mark Twain story that’s published as short fiction but which is basically journalism, as it’s mostly true. It’s about these people in Missouri and their frog-jumping contests, and the focus is on a gambler who loads the greatest jumping frog in all of Calaveras County down with quail shot, so he can’t hop and thus wins him the bet. But while the focus is on the frog and the people who are so enthused by the contest, it’s really illuminating about the type of people who turn to a thing like, er, frog-jumping for amusement in their boredom and poverty.

That’s kind of my idea. The point of the piece- and right now I’m thinking a long article, 8-10,000 words, with the option to expand it into a book if the article gets much response- is to explore not just the weirdness of the drug trial subculture, or the kooky things that happen inside, but to really write about the larger point. The people who do these studies- myself included- don’t ever feel exploited (unless the paycheck is late). There’s not usually a bunch of what am i doing with my life guilt. In fact, the general attitude is that we’re getting one over on someone somehow. During a long study I did, I was joking with a guy whom I had become friends with- rare for me inside PPD- and I told him I was going to write a screenplay inside PPD and base a character around him (which was a lie, but do not expect me to be honest with my PPD friends). Another guy heard me and panicked. don’t do that, he said, the last thing i want is everybody in the world knowing about these things. i can’t handle the competition.

Because, you know, there’s a basic assumption that everybody in the world would want to do a study, if they knew about it.

And I think that’s what I really want to write about. I want to write about people who’ve given up so thoroughly on the idea of the modern idea of work that they see the opportunity to take experimental pharmaceuticals for money as getting one over on the man. Is it because they’re lazy, or because there’s less hope that they’ll get anything out of it besides a paycheck?

Most of the people who do studies aren’t, like, artists or entrepreneurs looking for a big score so they can invest in the things they believe in. Most of them would just rather play video games and eat bad food than get a job. I don’t fault them for it- it would be downright embarrassingly hypocritical- but I think that it’s interesting. Because if there’s less perceived nobility in working a regular job- and I think that there is- then the whole point is the paycheck. And if PPD pays better, then it’s the better gig.

But how did we get to that point?

So I think the article is really about the concept of work in the modern Western world. It’s about people who’ve given up on the hope that if they work hard, they’ll develop skills that make them more appealing to future employers, or that they’re going to find a wealth of opportunity. It’s about a culture of people who see that whole lifestyle as a dead-end, and so they’re going to choose the dead-end that causes the least hassle.

And a bunch of other things, I’m sure. I’m sure it’s about more than that, but I haven’t figured it out yet. This, at least, is a good starting point.