I have practically spent the whole of the last fortnight bristling-to the extent that I may just appear a blur! Oh God, God...what a week it has been! Since this post is going to be all about me, I shall dispense with what is going on with the others first:
Marcia. Marcia? Marcia!
The lovely Marcia Brady has retreated to the far side of the moon, the side unlit by the blonde, hair-gel based rays of the sun that Flash Thompson. Both Lyra and I looked eagerly on, hoping that Santiago would make his move and, y'know...But I fear that nothing to that effect is going to happen. The romance has been sucked so fully out of this situation and so surprisingly too! It's akin to a nightly ritual where one pulls out the Cool-whip Can from under one's bed and proceeds to slather his mouth full of whipped cream. This goes on for several saccharine nights until, suddenly, one night the fluffy goodness just doesn't issue forth! No-one saw that coming! Oh my God! Ridiculous and oddly sexual similes aside, Santiago is looking forward to a summer sailing the seven seas. "Good deal!", as they say in this Super-nice state. And 'good deal' indeed! Anyone with half a brain would take the swift sailing the seven seas offer as opposed to the stagnant murkiness of a relationship!
Not-So-Gentle Pilgrim Profanes:
The fact that they called Neo 'The One' in the Matrix films has never resonated this strongly with me before. Congratulations meri Punjaban!
Me:
Item #1: Titus Apprehensions.
Have I mentioned that I hate Pre-finals week? Have I mentioned that I hate finals week too? Have I mentioned that even as I type I am planning a hugely overdone suicide? Now this is a problem, I haven't thought on those lines since I was 13 and, God knows, if I could I'd go back and slap my 13-year-old self and tell him to get over himself! Oh, my 13-year-old life was like Titus Andronicus: lots of bad, over-the-top poetry, unwarranted theatrics and people being baked into pies. Metaphorically. God, I used to be so young...
A thought that isn't going to desert me anytime soon, rather it is going to amplify and tumerate as I return to this Spitsbergen to start another year as an RA. How my mind misgives when I think about being an RA...What shall it be like? What shall I be like? Unctuous? Pithy? Warm? Awkward? Clearly an open mind is required! I was chosen for a reason: they saw something in me that made them think that I could do this. Then why do I not see it in myself? I have this weird image of myself with my right hand lopped off, dripping blood all over the floor, as I yell, "I AM THE SEA!" while nasty looking cherubs pelt me with confetti...
WOW.
Item #2: Lady Anne and Kind Cruelty.
Moving right along, I did coffee with the ever-so-resplendent Lady Anne. Lady Anne shall also join me in the RA Guard next year, but then again, we've known each other through this speed-dating thing: a long story that I'm not telling anyway! At any rate, as Lady Anne and I talked about the various, serious issues of the world, like which one of us was gaining weight and which one was losing it, who had a worse time at high school and how sometimes we need to be kind to be cruel to people who pretty much do the same thing themselves! Oh nasty, nasty at a church run coffee house too! But there are interesting rumours to be unearthed here: Lady Anne is both feared, admired and despised and given that I was seen with her prompted a certain boor to yell out from the roof-tops (truly, the actual roof-top of that particular building) that we were...ahem...known to each other. In the Biblical sense. Of course Lady Anne yelled back an expletive but I had to deal with a certain degree of persiflage all evening long. Clearly, news, especially the 'Spotted:' kind, travels fast!
Item # 3: Homecoming
I type this on a 15 hour flight between the Old South and my Eternal City. I actually travelled from Spitsbergen to my Bellomont with Hamlet where I spent quality time with his wonderful, wonderful parents and his delightfully precocious sister. The spice in all of this was a particularly fun, moonlight illumined visit to Badi Begum's sanctum. I cannot believe I haven't mentioned Badi Begum before! She is caustic, funny, witty, queenly and maddeningly arrogant. We spent a lot of the night talking about relationships, cute nurses and history teachers who seem to flirt right back but not quite...And as Hamlet and Badi Begum made plans for the next day, I realised that I wouldn't be there! Why, I was going home! HOME! My Eternal City! Oh joy! Oh grief! Oh...mess! I couldn't believe that I was getting sentimental about Spitsbergen and the university! Oh I am getting a little teary eyed right now! Oh I must stop this at once!
My flight from Bellomont to the Old South was uneventful, I purposefully hid behind my face-concealing, Do-Not-Look-At-Me-I-Am-A-Celebrity Cavallis. God knows, I did not want conversation at that point, but seldom have I had control over my jabbering and so I began talking to Wisconsin Boy. To be fair, all I did was offer him a mint because I felt guilty eating one all by myself! But anyway, as I spoke with Wisconsin Boy, I came to realise that I had longed to have an extended conversation with one like him nearly all my life! Wisconsin Boy was all that he sounds like: the tousled hair: unwittingly stylish, the unbelievable height, the college T-shirt, history on the foot-ball team, phliantropic trips to Europe (making me feel horribly guilty about my debauch ones!) and very good grades. He was fun to talk to, oh yes, and then he wondered aloud, "Man, I don't know why a lot of these international students keep to themselves? Are they intimidated or what?" I would have done a double take if the seats would have enabled me! My God, I was one of them before I offered him the mint! I was of the 'Thank You Come Again' (TYCA, hereafter) variety to him before the Offering of the Mint. Quoting Shakespeare Furiously, was my first approach, but to what effect? To show that I was clearly above the TYCA lot? Which, let's face it, I am! But I would never see Wisconsin Boy again! So why the showmanship? Instead, I did something worse, but right up my alley: I talked about me! I wanted to die! Ever have that feeling that you're bleeding all over the floor you're so desperately trying to wipe clean? Yeah, that was me until Wisconsin Boy told me that he had fun talking with me. My 'Kill me, kill me now!' was replaced with a 'Why would he say that? I was being hateful!' I ruminated over all of this until one of the stewardesses on the flight bound out of the Old South into my Eternal City called me " Darlin' "! I nearly came!
So, this 15 hour flight is showing no signs of coming to an end! Perhaps, I shall watch 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' in a while. I love that movie! But for now, I shall divide time between my book, leching on that succulent Georgia peach of a stewardess and intermittently shooting dirty looks to that Econ. professor sitting across from me grading papers. In flight. You do not do that! Ah, but my mind! My mind shall resonate with Charles Ryder's infectious, whsipered couplet: "GossipGuy make haste, the Eternal City awaits..."
Oh until the next time (and I promise it shall be sooner),
GossipGuy!
