Not That Boy

These days have been quiet, and, God knows, after the chaos of the weeks past, the silence is welcome. Golden, and welcome. I have been a very poor correspondent these past few days, be it via e-mail, on Facebook or even on the blog. The truth of the matter is that I am absolutely absorbed in writing a new short story. I type feverishly into the night, and erase major, major chunks out of it the next morning. I am working on two sections of it simultaneously which, in itself, is oddly rewarding. I think I have reached the point now where my characters have a life of their own, and it is they who are directing my fingers: arguing with me passionately about their motives, unhappy about the way they have been portrayed in a certain sequence....It's nothing short of magical when that happens! In fact, it is with a slight wince that I recount the temerity of the lines that Dame Judi Dench utters in 'Nine':

Directing a movie is a very overrated job, we all know it. You just have to say yes or no. What else do you do? Nothing. "Maestro, should this be red?" Yes. "Green?" No. "More extras?" Yes. "More lipstick?" No. Yes. No. Yes. No. That's directing.

Will I place the story on the blog? I do not know. I think it's too explicit. I am almost afraid that I am turning into a peddler of smut. A rational part of me is questioning whether this work in-progress should progress at all, but I am slightly drunk on the possibilities this story evokes. Maybe I have overestimated myself, maybe this concept needs to be handled by more experienced, more deliberate hands...

In truth, I need this story. I need the obsession it inspires in me, because, devoid of this, I shall pay idle visits to dolorous thoughts holed up in their decadently tragic apartments. These thoughts, though of my own making, are exactly the kind of 'people' I cannot stand to be around. They depress me. So yes, I have been rejected in love. Was it even love? Who's to say? The problem lies in the fact that I am not that boy. Would it help if I were thinner? Not as preoccupied with books, clothes, and myself? Would it help if I launched myself into a plethora of extreme sports? I beg you, constant reader, do not advise me to "be myself", I shan't be able to stand it if you did! At this point of time the only definition of "myself" that comes to mind is "Not that boy".

Recently, a dear friend in blogging found her airways constricting, and the walls closing in on her; I shall heed that as a warning, and concentrate on trying to breathe. If it is my obsession with this story that shall prevent me from falling into that languorous ravine of self-pity, then so be it. I am not that boy, because I go a little crazy. I am not that boy, because I live a kind of dream. I am not that boy, because sometimes reality, to me, is hazy. It scares me how much I wish I was that boy instead.

As ever,
GossipGuy.

Kinase

In our bodies, the pathways that breakdown and synthesize glucose respectively are so closely linked, it's almost like you let one run through, and then press the rewind button to let the other one happen. So like a neurotic Gemini is the remote control in all this: a bi-functional protein which, on the pressing of one 'button' can rewind and forward. I love that bi-functional bastard, I imagine the other enzymes are jealous of him because he can multi-task, and that too with such important work. I don't care what you say Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase, you're still working with fat!

My bi-functional friend is hardly above reproach, though. He has to answer to the likes of Insulin and Glucagon,
submit to the humiliation of kinases. Oh kinases! All they do is transfer phosphoryl groups, and in the process halt the activity of enzymes. What a dick job! Stupid, grunt enzymes with no personality controlling the steps of other, more sophisticated people. Why? Because a hormone said so! I have reason to believe that a kinase isn't particularly sure as to what it is doing. As far the kinase is concerned, it's just a phosphorylation! What harm can it do? Ah, but the pain of being rendered neutral, anergized, hapless because a phosphoryl group decided to keep vigil over you is only known to those who have to deal with that ever-watchful compound group of good sense who just wants you to know that it must be cruel to be kind...

Like my bi-functional compadre, I too have spent a fortnight in painful phosphorylation, thanks to blissfully benighted kinases who have no idea what their actions trigger in me.

Onmyownase (OOMase) + Whatthefuckase-1 (WTFase-1).

One of the domains of my rather variegated mindset is known as Onmyownase, named after the sublimely heart-breaking 'On my Own' from Les Miserables. If you haven't heard it, I strongly recommend you do; you may weep, I know I did. OOMase is coupled to WTFase-1, which basically deals with emotional WTF reactions (as opposed to the more panic-derived WTFase-2 or, quite frankly, the rather collegiate WTFase-3). I've been mooning over this weird love thing I mentioned before, still unclassified, still infuriating, still messy. Suddenly, I feel as if my analysis has worked out, and I have a a found a box for these feelings! Oh, this is OOMase at it's optimum! But then the object of my affectations saunters by, casually gives me a hug, and this stabs me deeply in the gut with a phosphoryl group, and OOMase is deactivated. WTFase-1 comes into play, and I find myself confused. OOMase is a whore: it catalyses a futile cycle of a false sense of security. It makes me think that I have my feelings figured out. But every time I come face to face with this person, every time we spend time together, I get phosphorylated into more and more confusion. The bewilderment and loneliness-products of WTFase both- accumulate, and I am more lost than I ever was. Just like in 'On my Own' when she says that after the love of her life leaves, she starts seeing the world as a wasteland, I do too. I don't feel lonely; I become loneliness, a phantasma trapped in the ugly brown curtains of my room. Funny what a phosphorylation can do to one. What were the kinases that triggered this? An embrace, a kind gesture, laughter...ICK!

Finalsweek Stressferase Complex. (FS Complex).

The Finalsweek Stressferase Complex consists of a series of enzymes, all functionally activated by another. There's ChrisKnightase (CKase) named after Chris Knight from 'Real Genius', and the only role in which I ever will appreciate Val Kilmer, Hyperventilase, Megabitchase and WTFase-2. The enzymes of these complex indulge in a rather elitist trick known as frustrate tunnelling, wherein increasing levels of frustration and stress are passed on from enzyme to enzyme until the end is reached. What regulates this? Kinases, of course! It was a finals week-derived kinase that shut off my negativity pertaining to the mega-immunology final. With 'Defying Gravity' from 'Wicked' clinging delicately from my lips, I went on to do just that: defy gravity. I wasn't all that confident about biochemistry (surprise, surprise!) though. Despite a happy ending, I did manage to shuttle my inadequacies through the FS-Complex.

It's odd how a potentially nice enzyme like ChrisKnightase is linked to the other tormented ones in this complex, because it was ChrisKnightase that opened my eyes to the symphonic beauty of the immune system and my feelings of Blys(!) related to the immunology final. Frankly, it was the object of my obsession who gave me a "You can do it!" type of kinase that phosphorylated my negativity, activated ChrisKnightase, and I was walking on the clouds. Happiness, like Lactate, can't sustain you forever: after my ChrisKnightase catalysed euphoria died. Or rather, my ChrisKnightase was phosphorylated by a kinase derived from a friend who was worrying about the biochemistry exam, that Hyperventilase was activated, and I was convinced that I was going to, how did I put it?, "Flunk like a bitch". Spouting negativity from every pore, I found myself under the spell of Megabitchase which had be biting the heads off of anyone who dared cross me. God, I was a syphilitic penis! It's depressing when your friends sort-of tip-toe around you because they don't want to fuel the inner harpy whom you've unleashed. What's even more degrading is when you welcome that sort of coddling. But thanks to WTFase-2 and Megabitchase, I was imagining the biochemistry final ending with a chandelier crashing to the ground, and a rabble of peasants storming the pharmacy building (Don't ask!).

It also wasn't helping that WTFase-1 was still trying to figure things out romantically. Two very fluxed up pathways, these! Yet I managed to get some studying done. You would think, constant reader, that my WTFase-2 would go crazy upon looking at the exam, but it was phosphorylated just in time! The kinase? The questions asked! Suddenly, what was activated is the enzyme equivalent of a summer rain: OthankGodase (OTGase). OthankGodase I wasn't going to "flunk like a bitch." OthankGodase a million times!

So, I survived finals week. I am braving my "romantic" condundra with a little help from my multimeric states of mind. I apologise for this heavily molecular biology themed post, but we all have our ways of metabolizing our feelings! And now you sort-of know what I do! My dear Charles Ryder is going through something similar , but I am just happy to have us back amongst us: he'd gone missing for a while, and I was a bit frightened! Charles, whether he knows it or not, provides me with a rather hedonistic brand of comfort. I really should mention Butters and Bebe as well: just seeing them makes me feel worlds better! Butters and I hung out today, and it was serene. No enzymes. No pathways. Just equilibrium. The salubrious kind, not the dead kind. Even T-Tweak, being his effervescent self, has been absolutely fantastic. In fact, he and I did have a very scrumptious, piquant conversation recently...ah, but that's a story for another time! Oh, and Hamlet! Hamlet and I swap tales, tantrums and troubles and tricks of the tongue, and once again, a more frothy kind of equilibrium prevails!

Today has been okay. My sleep-deprived brain hasn't the energy to phosphorylate and de-phosphorylate. But I managed to get my desk entropy all sorted out. Like Charles, I shall include a "before" picture:




I've been down this route before, but I am a scientist, and I need to classify. I need to compartmentalize my feelings, so that I can be at peace! Don't you dare accuse me of flogging a dead horse, because neither is it dead, and nor am I sure whether or not it IS a horse! So there! Once again, what do I do? Nothing much to do, I guess, but wait, watch and analyse. Oh kinases! Why do you do this? Why do you show up and start things that you know I cannot finish? Why do you stick a phosphate in it and make me go, "Sugar, we're goin' down!"? Oh look! A glycolysis joke!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Straitlaced, or The Ballad of My Butt

It snowed yesterday, and I, swathed in black cashmere sat at my window holding a steaming mug of hot chocolate, singing along to 'On my Own' from Les Miserables. It's a good song, an appropriate song minus the gender confusion. Ah, torment. Ah, unrequited, unlabelled love. I was looking at another weekend of melancholy obsessiveness, more sweeping of the floor, more laundry that could have waited another day. But Butters, Bebe, T-Tweak, Princess RbB (Rubber-band Ball- long story!) and Fate had slightly different plans...

When I was younger, I rather enjoyed dancing. This wasn't your polite shuffling around a little bit with a partner, it was a no-holds-barred, all-bets-off kind of deal: my feet would create a whirlpool on the floor, as people would step back to allow me and my pick for the evening (usually my gorgeous Hermia) dance our way to that peak from whereon the only thing one can look forward to is soaking one's feet in warm water, slightly scented with citrus. As radically revelrous this sounds, it was hardly instantaneous. It took me a while to get primed, certain factors (which I shan't mention here) needed to be figured in, then, and only then would it begin, and how!

As the years began to add to the rather mirthful set of digits my boisterousness held so dear, I daintily placed my flailing feet into the fairly tight dress-shoes of stillness, my vigourously pulsating torso was ensconced in a veritable chain mail of respectability, the jerking of my neck was arrested by the rather smart necktie of "what would people think?". Oh the connotations of adulthood: eighteen at last! Let's stop the party, take on more courses than others, and whinge unendingly about how hateful everything is...all the way to college! Ick. Like my man Richard II, I took to the part so well, I ended up becoming one of those barren creatures baying away at the moon for love, life and liberty. As a role, it offers an actor quite a challenge. As a lifestyle, now how do I put this? Oh, yeah! It sucks ass.

Last night, the girls, that is, the ever-inventive Bebe and the cool Princess RbB decided to take it upon themselves to give Butters and T-Tweak new hairstyles. The snob that I am, I had excused myself a while ago since I could not bring myself to watch the movie that was on. Now, I love T-Tweak to death, but his taste in films makes me want to purge. I imagine he feels the same way about my rhapsodizing over 'Revolutionary Road'...and I wonder why people don't like me sometimes!

So as I basked in the sparse and temporary feel of my room, reconsidering my self-exile, my whore-phone came alive with it's texting tone sounding rather ebullient: it was Bebe asking to me come on by and "see the boys' hair." The scene that unfolded before me, as the door opened, involved a rather pleased looking T-Tweak sitting on a chair with big, BIG 80's hair, as Princess RbB worked more mousse into his mane. Butters, who was hiding behind the door, took me by complete surprise. At first, his hair was trendily mussed-up, and he looked very chic, despite the slightly perplexed, crooked grin on his face...Bebe and Princess RbB lovingly teased those spikes to a staid 'Mad Men'-esque style which, coupled with a pair of Roberto Cavalli spectacles, made Butters look like a Gucci model. Clearly, I didn't want to be left behind, and the Princess, in all her creativity, gave me Liberty Spikes, or at least two, and I was Hellboy! We shot an ad-campaign then: very A&F inspired, with a few lifted shirts, and a few exposed necks...

The déjà vu I experienced was startlingly similar to my last trip down the rabbit hole, because events just happened to flow into one another. One moment we were upon a couch posing trashily, and in the next there was music playing, and Bebe and T-Tweak were dancing. That's when I felt it! O God, it was so potent! I felt that little rush that began in my feet, and slowly began to work its way up. Like a blue vine of electricity, the frisson began to wrap itself around my legs, my pelvis, my waist, my torso...initiating an unshackling of sorts. I used to do this! I used to burst into a song-and-dance routine at random before. O God, it seemed as if an aeon had passed since I had gotten filthy on the dance floor, with no regard for Reputation.

As I expressed my wish to join in the festivities, it was as if this whole array had arranged itself before me: Princess RbB was full of instructions, Bebe would have me train my back against a wall, Butters snaked his fist against my spine imitating exactly what needed to be done, T-Tweak was full of demonstrations...it was, in a word, breathtaking!

As I began to follow along, the air around me seemed to whisper this whiplash,

(Closer)

My back arched...

(Closer...)

My waist moved...

(Closer...)

My hips swung...

(Closer...)

My torso undulated...

(Closer...)

And then something broke, as cathartic as cathartic can be: MY BUTT POPPED.

(And I just can't pull myself away, under a spell I can't break, I just can't stop, I just can't stop...)

T-Tweak looked at me with a kind of parental pride, which shattered the moment he gave me a congratulatory high-five, and joined me in creating the Cyclone I was so hell-bent determined on single-hippedly starting!

I remember how once, when I was visiting Hamlet, I had had an extended conversation with a fellow over-achiever whom I shall christen The Archduchess. This vibrant, beautiful, and quick-witted creature belongs to a rather illustrious seat of learning, and when I asked her about stress and how she deals with it (clearly, The Archduchess is not as morose a being as I am), her response came to me in The Native Tongue: "Arrey yaar, dance pe chance maar le!" (Dude, give dance a chance!). I loved it! I never tried it, but I loved it. And now, under the funky auspices of T-Tweak, I gave dance the chance it so greatly deserves, and I feel sentient again. So what if my brain can work its way through the circuitous pathways of the immune system? I can pop my butt! And I don't have to choose one or the other. Yes, constant reader, there is a lesson here: whenever you find yourself receding into the bewilderness, shut the door to your room, and give dance a chance. Heck, my room is the most exclusive club this town has ever seen...

Times like these make me wonder if my abstruse codex of pretensions and elaborate formalities (which, I imagine, oftentimes, border on the farcical) is really a requirement. Butters has it down: that fine balance between the Proper and the Fun. I thirst for it, that feeling of being complete, adequate and completely adequate.

Ah but the philosophizing is getting on my nerves by just a tinge, so I shall stop. The POINT is that I like my butt again, now that it has popped forth from the stays of facade, and I have T-Tweak to thank for allowing me to rediscover the joy that that fantastic contour on my being can bring. He's one sexy Gemini, that guy is! And he has brought it to my attention, that I, with all my drama and affectations, am, inherently, one too!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!