The Gospel of GossipGuy

The Ladies Who Lunch: Prelude

2011-12-21T06:33:00.002-06:00

"So, I've discovered that I cannot stand to listen to the super-trashy Bollywood songs that power my workout, outside of my workout!" I declaimed.

"That probably explains why you have them anyway..." my friend The Knight of Swords said pragmatically.

"It's more than that," I responded. "It's like, these women, they croon about swaying the hearts of men and things, and they do so using the worst and most diaphanous sort of innuendo, and it makes me run faster. As if, I want to be able to own that some day, y'know?"

The Knight of Swords shook his head with mock annoyance.

"No, I don't know!" The Queen of May blustered. "It's like you're trying to find poetry where there is none. Besides, aren't you afraid of people judging you if they go through your iPod?"

"I live in constant fear of this," I confessed, somewhat relieved that I wasn't alone in this paranoia.

"Are we being serious right now?" The Knight of Swords asked incredulously.

The Queen of May and I busied ourselves with our lattes. We were at Jitterz, a cafe we frequented after long days of being.

"You guys!" he cried.

"Think about it, good sir!" I said. "You're working out, and your earphones slip out of the jack, and the iPod jumps to speaker mode and everyone can hear what you're listening to."

"Or, you lose your iPod, and someone decides to go through it to figure out whose it is, and they discover that you're a closeted Gaga person." The Queen of May proposed.

"Okay, so we now know that GossipGuy has trashy, husky Bollywood sirens on his iPod to fuel his runs, and that Your Grace is secretly on The Edge of Glory..." The Knight of Swords began.

"I NEVER SAID THAT!" The Queen interrupted.

"Oh, please!" groaned I.

"Anyway," The Knight continued with a smile. "I have nothing to ashamed of, as far as my music goes."

I reached for his iPod, "Well, you wouldn't mind us going through it then!"

"Our worst fears are also our best schadenfreude," The Knight said grinning.

"THE DAVE MATTHEWS' BAND?!" exclaimed Her Grace. "You belong in both 'Stuff White People Like' and 'Sociopolitical Commentary for Stoners!"

"Seeing as I am both, I don't see why not!" The Knight rejoined.

"This whole Dave Matthews bit is as pretentious as you complaining about 'embarrassing' it was that you were on excellent terms with the bar-tenders around here." I said, laughing.

"Then it would follow that the call of the secret trashy Bollywood is why you're so strait-laced during the week, and really slut it up over the weekends..." was his riposte.

"What about the secret Gaga?" Her Grace asked.

"The fact that you'd bring it up shows an inherent need for attention," teased The Knight. "Or help."

"You awful people, why are you in my life?!" Her Grace wailed.

"Because nobody else can stand us?" I tried.

"Are you kidding? Everyone loves us!" The Knight cried.

"And we wouldn't have it any other way, would we?" I said quietly.

"Or can we not stand them?" Her Grace proposed yawning.

The Queen, The Knight and I decided that the time was nigh for more lattes. Calories be damned.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

Too Many Mornings

2011-08-28T21:57:00.000-05:00

There have been too many mornings when I wake up, not with a start or a with a spring in my step, but with a gradual opening of my eyes, my lids rising like curtains upon a stage, the slight hum in my hung-over head akin to the anticipation of an orchestra to fill in the silence with music. It's a pleasant, still place. The serenity of such mornings is a halcyon, memory-less place. It actually isn't so bad once the memories come rushing back. They may be somewhat agonising to confront, but at least they exist on a plane that is neither corporeal nor astral, but somewhere in the middle: this place that I like to call The Tip of the Pi Orbital. So, yes there may have been martini glasses, and the fact that someone may have launched into an initially mocking but ultimately naked (emotionally) rendition of 'Losing my Mind' while holding said martini; there may have been awkward confessions that seemed like sound ideas at the time but now have become the loss of yet another layer of your carefully plumed persona; there may have been merriment that has now become judgment; there may have been that long walk home where you and your friends reflected on the respective roads that you didn't (or, couldn't take); there may have been that ill-advised text that you shouldn't have answered; there may have been a long treatise on "shallow love" on a packed dance-floor that may have made you realise how empty your life truly is. None of that matters right now. None of that hurts as one lies curled up at The Tip of the Pi Orbital. At this point of time, you're not even reflecting: you're watching. You're watching yourself become a moment's ornament. You're watching yourself become someone's bon mot and someone else's rebuke. You're watching yourself go from effusive and witty to bitchy and broken. With every descending degree of the latter, you reveal more and more, slowly forgetting that sometimes, when all the wrappings fall, there's nothing underneath at all. When one wants to be in fashion while moulding oneself into what others expect, revealing too much is risky business. You promise yourself that the next time you'll be different: you'll be brittle, you'll be debonair, you'll only drink a little and then forswear. But yet, too many mornings...too many mornings...is this the cost of reinventing oneself? Have I been so vile for nothing?

I remain,

GossipGuy.

On Crazy, or, The Victor Belongs to the Spoils.

2011-07-10T21:06:00.002-05:00

"Don't do it! I know what you're doing! Stop!"

"I am peeing!"

"You're bent over the toilet!"

"Hey! I want to pee! Privacy would be nice!"

"You are not peeing! I know exactly what you're doing and you need to stop!"

"What am I doing? How do you know?!"

"Really, GG! Who goes to the toilet with a fork?! Now get out of there!"

That is my trainer talking me down from a ledge that exists on the edge of a commode. It's not chronic, no, it's something I indulge in once in a while. And it's exhausting. And messy. It's a good fit, frankly, with the anxiety, the insecurity, the affectations, the acrid regrets...On my nights on the town, I feel like Zelda Sayre, "dreaming how much better I would be than I am if I were somebody else, or even myself, and feeling that my estate has been unexploited to the fullest!" See, a handy quote! This is a very well put-together production of Crazy. That word is so gauche, really! It conjures up images of wildness and immaturity. This Crazy (distinguished by its Capital 'C') is Compelling, Complex stuff.

I am not Crazy because it's fashionable. I am fashionable because I can, with skinny ties and suspenders, also do Crazy. It's wonderful, really, to have an outward locus upon which to place my neuroses for a while. I cannot internalise them anymore. Gosh, I was so repressed when I was fourteen! I remember, Mother, Father, friends of the family and I, we took The Grand Tour when I was that age. It was in Paris that I, a Xanax sous'd carcass of a 1950's housewife, stuffed inside the awkward body of a fourteen-year-old boy, actively fought desire, fought back a sexual awakening. It was all too sordid, messy...and I had invested in a new wardrobe. Besides, it was Paris! I wanted languidness, elegance and grace that I was hard-pressed to find in that swathing body that I inhabited. I took to the Sex Shoppes one evening with my partner-in-crime and dear friend (who did not hold back, as far as his sexual awakening was concerned) by my side. I remember a lot of red. I remember pretending not to understand the French on the signs of certain, fairly intuitive devices. I remember going to these establishments just to stick my nose up to them. Mentally condemn those who came by to buy porn, cat o'nine tails...It was very satisfying, and I returned to the hotel bearing two seemingly innocent (yet enigmatically apropos) post-cards depicting The Mona Lisa. I think I knew that those patrons were freer than I ever would be. They didn't have to prove a thing to anyone, and neither did they have to derive sustenance by feeding upon someone else's alleged depravity.

Now. Now, I find myself walking the streets of my Spitsbergen: over the top and under the table; bitchy and sparkling; contentedly sad; inveterately single, measuring in shot glasses how much the heart can hold! A young thing with sad eyes...oh Crazy, Crazy! So Crazy! But not free. Never free. Always envying those who don't care, and never have. Always playing at Keeping Up Appearances. So interesting! But so fucking Crazy! But, just Crazy enough to be interesting!

What is this blog post about? I had initially decided that I would delineate Crazy, but I really have entirely too much to say about it and most of it is in stream-of-consciousness which, those of us in the know know, is so three seasons ago! I'd talk about my relationship with food and how it is as dysfunctional as my relationship with certain exes and members of my extended family. Lots of hoarding and trippy guilt-trips...but even my sort-of eating disorder is so...disorderly given the lack of commitment.

As I sit before Dick Diver V (yes, there have been five therapists! I feel like a slut of/in/under/atop analysis) and obsess about perfunctory comments that I have overanalysed to the point of implosion, forgotten pipettes, the immunology of my non-existent "sex" life, my inadequacies, my Crack-Ups, the weird mix of repulsion and concupiscence I felt when a stranger groped me outside a bar...I feel like Zelda Sayre-Fitzgerald. I feel like I am not really Crazy, but very, very spoilt! All of these symptoms that I have mentioned seem to cohere together into a recherché tableau that is, at its very core, a misprized tantrum. A tantrum that I have been throwing for the longest time that it has become a gradual performance; a tantrum that I have thrown about something that I no longer remember or even care about. It's just...fun to live in a world defined by camp, tears, metaphor...like Richard II, like Hamlet. But, no, those aren't fair comparisons. They were committed! They put their deaths where there mouths were!

Have I been so vile for nothing? I am not fishing for compliments, I am not looking for someone to hold my hand...I just want you to know that I know. It is hard to live with Knowing. It's hard to keep asking oneself: have I been so vile, so Crazy for nothing?

Indeed, it is with the loose ends that men hang themselves.

Excuse me, I am going to sedate myself now.

Until the next time,

GossipGuy.

On Beauty

2011-07-04T21:57:00.001-05:00

At some level I knew it all along that it was a falsehood, this idea that "inner beauty" is what actually counts and that no-one cares whether one is outwardly beautiful or not. I believed it because there was a plethora of quotes from eminent, respected people who claimed that beauty is this ineffable, untranslatable Light of some sort that dawns upon one and seizes one with a rapture that is ineffable, untranslatable...

Maybe that's why no one talks about in terms that are more concrete. I have never understood this idea of inner beauty, and I think that it is a pretty lie that has been propagated so that we may manage ourselves during times that are not so beautiful.

I have just finished reading a novel by Iginio Tarchetti called Fosca. This nineteenth-century, quasi-Gothic Italian novel became the subject of Stephen Sondheim's haunting chamber opera Passion. The novel tells of handsome Giorgio who is having an affair with the equally beautiful (and very married) Clara when he, at an army outpost, meets the desperately ill and desperately ugly Fosca. The novel is an examination of the peculiar powers that are found in both beauty and ugliness. Fosca is sickly, hideous and vile. She milks her ugliness to create this aura of pity and self-concern that is, in a sense, a twisted Black Mass version of how someone may milk their good looks to get their way. One gets the sense that beauty is power, and indeed it is. It is a drug. All these hallucinatory ideas of wanting to die for someone because s/he is so beautiful, of being half-in-love with death, life and nature because they are Sublime...to me, these are symptoms of addiction. You may either be addicted to the effects of beauty, Sublime as they are, or you may be addicted to being the agent of that Sublimity. You either want the drug or want to BE the drug. Fosca creates permutations in which she addicts the drug to its antagonistic agonist. That frightens me, because it tells you how powerful beauty is, even in its absence.

And how does this pertain to me? I feel this incredible sense of self-loathing every time I go to the gym, mainly because I know why I am doing it. For the shallowest of reasons: to be beautiful. Every time I go to the gym, I find what I once prized as my own exclusive and delicate sensibility to flow down my back as sweat. People go to the gym for various reasons: to be fit, to stay fit, to keep pathologies at bay, but I? I go there to punish myself for being shallow, while engendering a novel aesthetic of pretension! You see, I have begun to equate beauty with goodness, for good things happen to those who are beautiful. Hell, even if Bad things happen to the beautiful, they still appear Good because they feature such an agreeable cast of characters. The travails of the beautiful and the plain are the same: the former's are just so much more involving! I can't be Fosca, and believe me I have tried: she sickens me. She sickens me because she has very carefully crafted her "illness" her "deep melancholy" her "episodes". She reinforces the belief that ugly is as ugly does. One doesn't need to be that...cerebral when one is beautiful! For what is beauty if not happiness?! Aren't these interchangeable? I have begun to believe that they are.

IF:

I am beautiful, I shall be able to leave my Spitsbergen for an Eternal City somewhere.

The Eternal City will give me the Romance of opportunity and that of the heart.

I shall be poised, upright, aware, never fumbling and loved in that Eternal City, wherever it may be.

Life will be...so beautiful, and do you know why? Because I am. Or shall be beautiful!

It kills me to acknowledge that I, at some level, do truly believe this. I also know them to be libellous, ugly things but I cling to them anyway. I am respiring anaerobically again. I think it's because I am frightened. I think it's because I am foolish. Or, like Fosca, I am addicted to the trippier drug, man! The selfsame that makes one want to be that phantasm with the hooded-eyes who waits in the tower, one who is hooked on longing. Longing for something ineffable, untranslatable, beautiful. Aren't these such noble ideas? The patience, the waiting, the refined aesthetic of it all?

Am I being so vile for nothing? O God, God! Please let this mean something, let this amount to something in the end! Let me, in the end, finally see what is beautiful about all this!

Until the next time,

Gossip Guy.

The Debt One Owes The Living

2011-05-26T23:53:00.000-05:00

He did it. He left a post on his Facebook wall that proclaimed, "So long, sinners!" and then he did it. He took his own life. The text that brought me the news asked, "Did you know him?" I winced at the incorrect use of the past tense. In my own passive-aggressive way of correction I responded with, "I do, yes, " only to be told that the simple past had not been used in error. As a tense, the simple past is rather ironically named. Jejunely, if you will. It gives you a sense that whatever happened unfolded as empirically and simplistically as it could, the details are pared away and stuffed in the crevices that lie between the simple past and the present perfect.

"He did it." That was my opening sentence, wasn't it? What did it tell you? What did you see?

"He took his own life"- what did you see then? An image of a boy, in his early twenties, but not quite...alive.

It's a vile tense.

This is what I did that afternoon when I found out. I refused to deal with it. I cleaned my room and focussed on packing things away for my big move. It was the perfect task, all my faculties were busy being structuralist so there was no room to breathe and breakdown. My mouth tasted of lead.

I then began to wonder about him, as I lay in bed. He and I had much in common: both raised away from our ethnic homes, both "Born this Way" and occasionally wondering why, both in competitive programmes...whenever we spoke we spoke profoundly. He had an echinulate wit that both chided one and made one laugh at the situation and at oneself. He was good for me. He felt like home because he reminded me of it. We were similar, but he was better. I don't just say this for the sake of propriety. What use is propriety now? Propriety belongs to the living, to the dead one only owes truth, and this is it: he was better, ballsier, sassier, more alive, less concerned...more alive.

My comparison of us is an ugly exercise that reeks of self-concern. Yes, we came from similar places and had tasted of similar experiences, but the truth is that I know nothing about what brought him to the precipice from which he decided to fly into the deep.

Weeping, tearing at my hair and proclaiming the loss of my best friend would be propriety and for the living. To the dead one owes only truth, and this is what it is: I know the face you wore behind that mask of sass, style and wit. I didn't see your weariness but I felt it. I did not know how weary you were. I did not know.

I am benumbed and my sentences are choppy. He is gone and it hasn't completely registered yet. Perhaps when the snow will fall on this Spitsbergen, my soul shall swoon too. Just like Joyce's confused, benumbed leading man. Maybe then I shall see you, fleshed out in fire, and "the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

Bitch, Or 'Anaerobic Respiration: A Tragedy'

2011-05-22T19:08:00.001-05:00

At first, I used to do it for fun. Because I could. Because I could afford the $20 and up lexical range. And those little quips just had the tiniest of stings, just piquant enough to spice up the conversational palate of my Spitsbergen in a slight shock of sophistication. As I said, it was fun. Recreational. Not occupational. You can't be a Bitch for a living; that would be the bitch of living.

It was never meant to be an occupational sort of thing. I didn't believe that accessing the darkness would be enabling it.

It all started, like all intersections with the carnivalesque and the grotesque do, at a prom. The romance was ill-advised but well-timed. For one, it confirmed that I wouldn't be going to the prom alone. There was no way I could not attend; I was on the executive board of the organisation who formulated and set up the event. I will admit right now that, aside from the purely clerical e-mail shuffle, I wasn't too involved with the planning process. Boycotting the event because of I was destitute, unloved of both graduate programmes and my fellow man, would be tacky. In my mind, I had already decided that I would channel the delightful Miss Woodhouse and be a gracious host. Maybe, once the guests found their niches, I would even allow myself a dance. But then, the ill-advised-well-timed romance happened. I say well-timed because I was still waiting on a string, still indulging in a rueful ritual of calling up the programmes I hadn't heard anything from and hanging up quickly when the pert and professional voices answered, "XXXX University! Biomedical Sciences!" The ritual attained new baleful lows as I would then, to the melancholy tunes of Stephen Sondheim's ballads, fix myself a cup of coffee, text my incredibly patient Dr. Transposon with something inane and depressing in its chipper emoticon'd tonality, answer my e-mail, reschedule with my therapist yet again, justify not going to economics and devise new modes of penance at Vespers in the gym.

Amidst all of these came a voice that teasingly called me handsome. This voice took the form of one who was born for the summer in terms of carriage, speech and the sun that shone in that voice when it sang of taking it "one day at a time". It was...amusing, I suppose. I amended make more time to text my new paramour, I even started going to econ. so that I could experience that prohibited thrill of surreptitious in-class texting.

Soon we were sipping coffee.

Soon we were going to the prom together.

Soon we were not texting.

Soon we were going to the prom together. As friends.

As we showed up to the prom, with my newly acquired friend taking elaborate pains to ignore me to the point of inviting an alternate date who, like an understudy, showed up in white as well, I realised the malaise that had begun to crust upon my crust. It cracked like something alive that had begun rotting for a living. This was bullshit. Propriety dictated that I pine and refuse all dances and amusement. The only problem? I didn't want to pine, I'd had a fucking trimester of pining! And, let me tell you, it may be all achingly beautiful and chiffon-swathed in Great Literature but in real life, it fucking sucks! Your dorm room is not a set of apartments in James's freaking Gardencourt where one can love, but without hope! Or masochistically enjoy the parallelism between one's fate and coffee cup with a hairline crack.

Dressed, ironically, in white, a coronet upon my head and, inexplicably, glitter on my chest. I began to reclaim...something by dancing with everyone and teasingly flirting with them too. The attention was wonderful! I also took a vituperative moment to be verbally vicious to the understudy date. It turned out that he fit the role that my newly acquired friend had wanted to cast to the T. Evidently, no-one wants Ke$ha to play Ophelia.

As the evening began to wind down, and the slow dances began, I began to feel lamentable again. My friend and his date were inseparable, and I had no one to hold/be held by to the strains of a softly strummed guitar. As I entertained uncharitable thoughts, I searched around the room and grabbed a statuesque yet lonely being. We, without words, struck up a shallow bargain wherein we put up the "I can't believe I found you!" charade and I saved face.

Actually, I didn't. Janice knew exactly what was going on but she didn't say anything. I think, at some level, she understood what I was doing and why I was doing it, unpleasant as it was. Her silence was the equivalent of her holding my hair back as I voided my semi-digested frustrations. My newly acquired friend stiffly informed me that my behaviour was "unbecoming" and that I was "vain and shallow". There was nothing to justify, really. It had all worked out really well: I successfully managed to conceal "the face that [I] hid behind academic success" but my friend's eyes had been opened and none to soon! My vanity allows me to appreciate that, in a movie, the likes of me have been played by Rachel McAdams, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Reese Witherspoon.

Hamlet was concerned about how I took the end of that affair and a subsequent affair too. And not just romances, but everything. I would say exactly what I was thinking and gone was the delicious piquancy of those comments, these were downright pungent. The kinds that cause hushed silences and eyes to water. I supplied my daily vitamins (a charming bottle with the legend 'Stress Formula' emblazoned across it) with acrimonious little tablets of cynicism.

It has been like that ever since. For Instant Bitch: wake him up. For Bitch-on-Wheels: just add coffee. For Raging Bitch: make it decaf!

I haven't been particularly nice to be around for the past few months, and the whispers had started to reach my ears. "Vain and shallow" is a popular one. "Eating disorder/ Borderline anorexic" scared me because I actually took it as a compliment at first. "Troubled" troubled me too, and "messed up" offended me greatly! But it was "Bitch" that seemed to...fit. It was in that one creaturely word that I saw myself as a yeast cell forced into a aphotic, apoxic place impelled to respire anaerobically. Self-destructively ooze out lactic acid and alcohol so as to stay alive, stay afloat.

I can write this now because I am in an infinitely better place and am slowly regaining my sanity and happiness, and also because my therapist, Dick Diver V, upon the elucidation of my anaerobic respiration theory, trenchantly asked me this, "Did you really need the venom to survive or do you BELIEVE you do?"

"Have I been so vile all for nothing?"

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Tithonus in the Locker-Room: Prelude.

2011-04-07T02:34:00.001-05:00

I need to a blog-post about my newfound love-hate romance with the gym. But I can only think in poetry right now!

Today, I caught myself flexing.

It was most odd,

This slow flexing of fledgling muscle…

I flexed and I was Tithonus,

Not just because he’s Greek!

I flexed and I was Tithonus

Who, with the Mt. Locker-Room Gods, dare not speak.

Tithonus, granted immortal flexion because he generously paid,

Tithonus, immortal, ashenly half-beautiful, but also very staid.

Tithonus, who shied away from ambrosial sweat and pertly called it “Perspiration!”

Tithonus, who found himself denying his persuasion.

Tithonus, given immortality but not eternal youth,

Tithonus, who refused to reveal his imperfect, shirtless truth.

The Mt. Locker-Room Gods, they’ve never known spare flesh.

This Tithonus, mortal after all, is metal in earth enmeshed.

It’s this mortal coil’s self-deception

That leads from flexion to reflection.

Today, I caught myself flexing and hated myself.

Today, I caught myself flexing, so elevated myself

By over-analyzing it.

Of Doubt and Dialysis

2011-03-16T02:08:00.000-05:00

It is Spring Break and cogency reigns. I cannot help but chortle a little bit when I think on those lines mainly because Spring Break, for most people my age, is a break away from the ordered confines of school-work. This semester, I have discovered the Breaking Point of The System. I have elucidated how much one can effectively cram into The System until it implodes. What began, in January, as an extremely ordered and extremely busy experiment in juggling 28 credits and committee work along with teaching two and my job (and lest I forget, the imperious shadow of The Great Graduate School Search superimposed upon this already overproduced scheme) began to descend into utter pandemonium in about a month or so.

Chaucer was wrong: February is the cruellest month. At least, in my Spitsbergen it is. By February, I had done things I had never envisioned to be a part of my academic career (kindergarten up) and, perhaps a little snootily, attributed to a Certain Kind of Student. I had a dropped a class, and descended to the mellower, saner level of 25 credits. I had found myself in a professor's office making up an exam that I had skipped. I had asked for extensions on papers. The most macabre aspect of all of these was that I didn't care. And I still don't. And I know this. I am very aware that I do not care, and that I should, but I still don't. I remember how Hamlet sighed to me once, "I hate being so self-aware! Are we too self-aware?" Yes, indeed we are, and it's a bitch-and-a-half. I wished I was benighted, but I have been raised to give a shit and that was what was causing all the dissonance. So, indulge me and my dissonant places, constant reader! They help me cope.

My first explanation is that I am not there. Not receiving. Out of commission. Closed for Deconstruction. And I haven't been in: I've been visiting graduate programmes. I make it sound so glamorous, but it's actually quite pathetic. I did visit and interview at two (of eleven) places that I was invited to, and the rest I visited in dreams and visions. How can a brain so suffused with otherworldly musings be coaxed to ponder about trifles like inflation and the best ways to run electrophoresis gels? Preposterous! Why am I so in dreams? That is what The Great Graduate School Search does for and to one: as rejections pile up and pithy phrases like "not enough places in our programme..." and "not enough research experience" incorporate themselves into your daily ritual and rosary, one begins to feel lied to. All those people: parents, mentors, professors, friends who told you things like, "You're so clever!", "Any programme would be lucky to have you!" sound overwrought and platitudinous in the face of what admissions officials have to say. This fun train-of-thought calamitously clashes into this other cerebral locomotive that asks one why one prizes the opinions of those who've known one for ten minutes above the opinions of those who've known one for years. This, in turn, leads to agonising self-communion about perceptions, self-image and self-loathing. And you want me to do homework?! Ha!

My second line of reasoning, and I dwelt upon this one briefly, is that if I am not going to have a future why not give everything up now? If I am supposed to be working this hard for a cause that doesn't want me anyway, then why bother? It was after a week of thinking so that I realised that I was sounding like one of Those Teenagers, so I stopped. Of course I shall have a future! Right? Right. Yeah.

This journey hasn't been what I envisioned it to be. Poor, poor Miss Woodhouse in the big cities of Madison and New York: from botched interviews to amazing, connective ones; from social successes to gaffes of an intoxicated variety, it has all been surreal, like a kind of movie wherein you're watching the film and performing in it too. And yet, there is uncertainty. The uncertainty of agreements writ in water. What's a yes without the money? And you still want me to do homework?! I shan't!

Or so I thought. I actually did plod through homework and made decent grades on things that, by my standards, deserved to be substituted for toilet paper. 'Plod' is the perfect verb for this: I used to flit, pirouette and trippingly stamp out an elegant staccato of progress as I worked into the night. Now I lunge around drunkenly and half-ass things. Like that sentence where I just used "half-ass" as a verb. Melancholy at its most self-imposed is what I was going for, really. I fear this, truly I do, this transmogrifying into a monster of bitter self-concern, ugly pride and self-righteous "Pauvre moi!" tears. Of turning into a Fosca!

"No. You're coming home with me!"

What you've just read is the phrase that, to invoke a cliche, saved me from myself. A very angry Hamlet averred that I was: a) descending a spiral of self-destruction b) going to spend all of break obsessing about graduate programmes and make further progress down aforementioned spiral c) in need of home-cooking, home-loving, freedom from fighting the hours, and a chance to live them. I resisted: I could stay in the Spitsbergen, get some of my papers started (unlikely), get a head start on R.A. things (unlikelier) and pre-study for exams in two weeks (Ha!). Sound reasoning, but Hamlet was having none of it, and I am glad I listened to him. These days, I spend my days running around the Downtown of Hamlet's True City, skinny tie flying, latte in hand, trying to get to the theatre in time. I reconnect with old friends as we navigate around the skyway system that connects every building of relevance in the city and I do not think about graduate school. I do not think about who got in where whilst I am left waiting with uncertainties. I do not think about calling programmes who are "still reviewing" and asking them why they hate me.

I took in a charming production of 'The Winter's Tale' today, and I thought that the little boy who, with wisdom beyond his years, pipes up, "A sad tale's best for winter" surmised this situation perfectly, for winter brings with it uncertainty, so much so that we may begin to believe that we may never know spring again.

Until the flowers grow,
GossipGuy.

Di Cieli E Giardini

2010-12-30T20:56:00.002-06:00

The sky was a cocktail: a liquid purple intermixed with orange. The moon and stars waited patiently as the sun finished its torch-song and took its bows; the second act was to be theirs. Or was it to be a brand new play? Who's to say? And I? I was in my dorm room, getting ready for an evening out on the town. It was my first, my first evening as an adult, taking in the vespertine pleasures that were only afforded to those of une certain age and time to spare. I had dressed carefully to create a "Oh, this old thing?" kind of nonchalance. I hummed and half-sang of love, moons and first glances. It was a vain sort of a song, it painted me in a light of utter handsomeness. Hubris, some would say.

Giddy and laughing, I was with a very dear friend with whom I had only exchanged a total of two words before this, and that too in a microbial genetics symposium, so you can guess the level of that conversation! But that night, she was my best friend. We hugged, we laughed, we sang 'Only Girl' on top of our lungs and we flirted with bar-tenders. We haven't spoken since, but that is quite another story. My environs, at first, made me unhappy. It was semi-dark, crowded and people were boorish. But, my clothes were complimented and I met so many people I knew! Even strangers talked and talked and talked and flirted. I was warm and rubicund with the attention. Some of it was unwelcome, but, hey, it's a night on the town, right? Maybe that wasn't meant to be an ass-grab, maybe it was an accident, and accidents happen. Such thrilling ones are especially welcome! I have no qualms in admitting that I loved being one of the belles of the ball. It was heady and intoxicating, like so much else that evening.

I have now discovered that boisterousness/revelry are in inverse proportionality to qualms/inhibitions. Of course, this has been well postulated and documented, but I was certain that it wouldn't apply to me. Why should it? Level-headed and sensible that I am! Laugh with me, please, I urge you! It was around the time that my boisterousness had reached its upper-limit (following that my qualms were only constitutively present) that I met Morris Townsend: handsome, urbane, vain and witty. Just like the Morris Townsend of the novel. He stilled the air, and I felt like a child. The conversation was lively and flirtatious, and I felt his vanity seep into me. I was the chosen one! The one who Morris lavished with all his attention. I felt his vanity seep into me, and I felt handsome, urbane, vain and witty. The lightest of touches, the act of leaning against one's shoulder, the ticklish whispers, I found my rapacious flesh hungering for more. Then, it seemed alright. Natural, even.

Having traded the smoky seductiveness for a short walk in the snow followed by a cavernous carnality of an apartment/office, there was just a slight ripple in the illusory joys that the evening had afforded. Morris Townsend had picked a Catherine Sloper after all, and suddenly, I was abandoned out in the snow with nowhere to go, and my mind yearning for sleep and warmth. I hurriedly called Hamlet who rescued me, and took me home. I don't what would have become of me if Hamlet were not around. I still think with the warmest gratitude of his mock-anger and his, "Fuck, no. You're staying here." when I insisted on returning to the dorm.

But return, I did. In the previous night's clothes. My residents, who saw me, knew exactly what may have chanc'd....

I hate this post. I hate it so much. It's so overdone, with its imagery and nod to Henry James. I always do this! I always intellectualize-dramatize something that doesn't deserve to be so. Poor Gossip Guy and his growing pains! This and worse happens to guys my age, and yet they don't compose jeremiads about it. I hate this post, but I am going to publish it because I have already written so much. God knows, I haven't been inspired to write about anything in the past month. Maybe it's break and the silence it brings that has allowed me to reflect on this. It has festered long enough, and aerial and silly as it was, it was also important to me, as all rites of passage are. How did I want this story to culminate? With grace. All I ask for is grace. The grace that comes with calling someone a cab, or waiting with them till their friend shows up. It seems facile to complain that I wasn't being treated, well, like a human being. Tragically, every time one of us makes that comment, we are, actually, being treated in the same way that people treat one another.

My two consciences: Hamlet and Verlaine will have very different takes on this. Hamlet has already stated and re-stated how unfair it was, and how I must be careful and not compromise my standards. Verlaine has told me to thicken my skin for the ingénue has a relatively low mortality in the world out there. My two consciences are right: I need to keep my eyes open and thicken my skin. In the meanwhile, I shall stay in. I am almost afraid to go out again. The incident, whatever it was, to me, has a damning beauty to it. It is not like the extended-release agony of Option B, it is a montage in black-and-white of a noire lust-story that ends in the snow. I am doing it again! But I need this! I need to elevate my joys and disappointments so that they may carry some worth to me when I look back. Futility, when swathed in voile and scented with a splash of jasmine and patchouli, has so much more grace.

Fatica d'amore, tristezza

Tu chiami una vita

Che dentro, profonda, ha nomi

Di cieli e giardini

E fosse mia carne

Che il dono di male transforma

Di cieli e giardini.

Until the next time,

GossipGuy.

Commedia

2010-12-14T04:02:00.000-06:00

"So, what is that strap about?"

"It's a Pride bracelet."

"Pride?"

"Gay Pride."

"Oh. So, not like Hubris or anything?" {laughter}

"No, more like Hamartia."

Everything is Illuminated

2010-10-09T21:08:00.000-05:00

I am going to take a moment to breathe in my blog. It has been much too long. The Muses sang a delightful yet meaningful version of 'Wake Me Up When September Ends' all of last month, which was just as well, really. The kind of mood that they and I were in, we would only have written posts of torpitude and turpitude: "Ah, woe is me! Here are my thoughts on casual sex and lush Bollywoodian romances." Fuck that, if you'll pardon my French which, really, isn't French after all. It's annoying to oneself when one realises that all he can write/talk about is the heart and the other multifarious appendages it pumps blood to. Have I ever told any of you about the research I am hoping to do this semester? Have I ever talked about my neverending love (And here we are again!) for the biological sciences and how I cheat on them (Stop!) with literary studies?

As you can probably tell, I cannot stray too far away from what has unwittingly become my dominion, so I shall speak again of romance, but a different one, an epistemological one. I have always been easy when it comes to tests. I never say, "No" and I always work hard to bring things to a successful culmination, sometimes I go on all night. The red 'A' that I usually receive for my trouble (Praise God) is one to be worn with pride, however, and not shame. I shall be the first on my list of detractors: I have little to no faith in my ability to do anything. I suppose this vitriol is a fuel for it makes sure that I bear down and make it seem effortless. As this vitriol is synthesised in the deep recesses of my brain, it gives off noxious by-products- most notably, the constant remonstrations of "flunking like a bitch"! Oh, good times! Imagine my utter surprise, then, as I show up to the biochemistry GRE utterly ill-prepared. The reasons for this are whingey and sound like excuses, though they are all very tangible and identifiable. But, justifications are for the weak. Also, I am fairly sure that, at some juncture in this post, I am going to contradict myself on that point.

Before we dive head-first into the drama, let me set-up the mis-en-scene. The testing centre was a different college: a compact campus with the sort of imposing architecture one would associate with a school of stature and tradition, or, perhaps a Midwestern version of 'Brideshead Revisited'. Dawn had just begun to break, but, if you didn't have a watch, you would be forgiven if you thought that it was dusking. The scenery was autumnal, as fragrant, variegated leaves with colours ranging from a pallid yellow to a wizened red flew about with delicacy. Amidst this stood I, clad in white, and looking down to Camelot! The bell in the bell-tower began to ring, and I knew it was time.

I was checked in by a kindly lady who found my pronouncements of doom and gloom most amusing; I think she would have laughed had I run around campus yelling, "Trojans! Fools! Listen! Can I persuade no-one of aught?!" Did I really want to? Oh, God yes! Such dramatic luxuries, however, are only afforded to one of one is taking the Literature-in-English GRE and not biochemistry. Ah, well. Now, where was I? Oh yes: having checked in, and assumed my seat in the hall, I broke the seal (this kind of drama, you don't create!) on my test and began reading. I wanted to burst into song. If there was ever a sunny Rodgers and Hammerstein moment in my life, it was this: I knew things. I hadn't prepared, but I knew things! The questions were all over the place: the expected (cell biology, classical biochemistry, molecular genetics), the unexpected (neuroscience, embryology), the elating (immunology, virology) and the seriously fucked up (molecular methods). That, however, is beside the point! I knew things, constant reader! No, I KNOW things! I am actually not a bad fit for my major. Why? Because I know things! And I know things because I know people who know things. That was crude, but what I am saying is that I owe all of this to that zany, eccentric, wicked clever, sagacious, quirky, erudite, devilish bunch known as my teachers! Do you know that vision you see when in a test you encounter a question and your mind's eye shows you that exact page in the textbook where the answer lies? Yeah, that didn't happen to me. What I saw was a harried Dr. O handing out Engaugements (clever to call them that, isn't she?) and charmingly elucidating the relationship between Arginine, the high-seas (look up the titration curve) and pirates; Dr. Transposon grinning puckishly as he disposed a nugget of viral (yep!) knowledge; IgTinaFey, pert and business-like, as she spoke of a scholarly article I may like and simply must check out; Dr. PowerBun mellisonantly guiding me along the trp operon; I heard a lilting Southern drawl sing to me rolling circle replications, a voice from high-school encouraging my explorations into embryology...God, God! I could feel a cry-fest bubble in my throat, but I ignored it in lieu of bubbling in answers.

The only snag was the questions about experimental methods in molecular biology, and, true to their nature, they helped prove something to me: I would have done the same thing had I studied like I usually do i.e. on hyperdrive, for this test. Those were ugly questions: some of the methods they asked about, I had only heard/read of in passing. Others made me exclaim, "This exists?!" I answered from my own basal level of knowledge and I took names, bitches. You guys! I know things! I actually, actually know things! Like most romances, it ended in tragedy, but that matters not at all. Of all my romances, dalliances, liaisons, this has probably been my most successful: my romance with a GossipGuy who knows things, and I think he's a keeper!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Toast. It Would Choke Me.

2010-08-30T19:16:00.000-05:00

It shall never cease to surprise me how quickly things unravel, how quickly the Helepolis finds a river it can be dunked into, how stupidly the bottom of the Trojan Horse collapses, and out comes a Greek smiling sheepishly while the ones inside execute an elegant facepalm. It also astounds me how people do not think twice before, even if it is in a jocose sort of way, attaching the epithet of 'whore' or 'slut' to someone's name. Ah, yes, it is all most amusing, but frightfully heedless as well.

Having chosen Option B, I found that I have chosen beneath me. Remember how I waxed eloquent about how 'restive and restful', how 'refreshingly casual' their world is? I was a fool. There is nothing refreshing about casual, especially not when it takes the rather casual, if circuitous, path of a casual inception to a casual proceeding to a casual denouement (as oxymoronic as that is), and finally, a casual finale.

I am laughing more this time around. I remember last time, I was lachrymose and all Eponinny, but this time I find it, ah, "how very amusing, but also inept." This should, on no account, take away from the fact that every time something like this happens, a sizeable chunk of my self-esteem is first fattened to a surfeit, and then served like foie gras, and to an undeserving palate, to boot. Bright, witty and scintillating on the surface does not necessarily translate as 'secure with self', and I am not. I never have been, and this is why every time something like this happens, I feel hideous.

As far as this melange is concerned, I had promised myself not to get too invested. But I did get invested, and almost unknowingly so: how slowly my defences were infiltrated, or perhaps it was MY flesh that was far too willing. What does one do when that knowledge, a conversation intime, of the dans la boudoir variety becomes public knowledge? Well, one takes a walk, and reflects on the lines of "how very amusing! But also inept."

My walking companion was the alter-ego of a dear friend, we shall call the alter ego Scarlet Woman. There we were: Scarlet Woman and the Dirty Mistress walking into the night, our conversation was acrid: we spoke of people who were quick to judge our choices, people who we thought understood what we were about. As one who has dealt in the currency and gambles of gossip and hearsay for as long as he can remember, I firmly believe that those who call out certain actions as "scandalous!" or "whoreish" do, on a very visceral level, wish that they'd had the courage to sin so beautifully. Scarlet Woman and I lay in the grass, and watched the stars; we wept as our laughter bubbled through because all of this was so "very amusing, but also inept", until finally my friend quipped: "I feel like toast. We should get toast. Why don't you come up to my room, and I'll make us toast?"
"You are sure about this?" I said saucily. "Another gentleman making his way to your room? Think of your reputation!"
"Think of yours!" she riposted as crisply as her promise of toast.

There is something to be said about a piece of toast slathered with butter (or rhubarb jam, as in her case). As far as comfort food goes, toast is not fuzzy and/or the harbinger of a saccharified coma. Toast is crisp, and the crispness refuses to allow complaisance. Toast needs to be held with poise, or else one gets their hands sticky, and so it demands that one remains in control. Toast is versatile, and deals with most common spreads, and so is not limited to a particular kind of conundrum. The crunch of toast will force you to get up and get going, be it breakfast or break-up. It was over toast that Scarlet Woman, and I whiled away a few good hours. It was over toast that we let our dominoes slip: the witty one wasn't required to sway passions with his prolixity, and the piquant, business-like one wasn't expected to magically have all the answers. Oh, toast.

I didn't cry too much this time, I laughed more. There are those who said that the embittered laughter was infinitely more frightening, but, really, after a while, it just becomes "so very amusing, but also inept". It is amusing because it is a burlesque, really, everyone saw it coming but the players involved. It is inept for the same reason. I have learnt that one should never seek love below one's station, the hurt that the loss of such potential inspires is quite debilitatingly uncalled for. Furthermore, one wouldn't want maggots to feast on such meet food as one's Dignity, would one? Time for toast, I reckon.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

Overtures at Twilight, Or, Push the Button! Don't Push the Button!

2010-08-20T15:02:00.000-05:00

Now that I am finally here, back in the Spitsbergen, I want to go home. By home, I mean The Eternal City. The sun would set in the Eternal City, there would be no web of intrigue and desire to disentangle, while ensuring that one's composure wouldn't unravel at the same time in the Eternal City. The only desire I felt there was for Ted Baker creations and macaroons...ah, well.I've barely been back a week, and my life is as tortuous as I had left it, albeit with a whole new cast of characters. As Hamlet and I discussed, if our First Season was an exposition, the second was a denouement, the third promises to change tracks almost entirely, and present itself as a bedroom farce. Mismatched couples, like fickle water molecules, form momentary interactions with one another, only break off and move to a different cluster, as the sun sits low.

There is a lot to be said about using one's personal charms, one's crust, if you will. If you are not classically handsome, then your persona needs to be potent enough to inspire a certain degree of, well, a je ne sais quois that may endear you to many. As a person who has skated by on slick wit for many months, I think my word can be taken on that point. So, imagine my surprise, and utter delight, when I found myself being courted. But as a Gemini, making choices hasn't been my strongest point. So now, I have to choose between Option A and Option B. One who courts, and one who smoulders in the distance. One who is all affection, and one who is dangerously vertiginous to be around. These cases shall be addressed separately, as follows:

Option B

Option B is someone whom I have known of, but not really known until this autumn, and there is an innocence about Option B that shatters my heart into a thousand sharp shards that poke me in inappropriate places to remind me that what I have on hand is someone who deserves to be cherished, and not used. Yet, what we have is a liaison: it is a good idea to keep things civilised, is it not? Even if one has entirely countermanded the tedious business of defining what exactly it is that one intends to hold so high in sophisticated high regard. But, as men of fashion, detached liaisons are, well, easy. As men of fashion, we are, well, easy. Do I want to pick Option B? Yes. Have I mapped out the attractions of Option B? D'accord! Option B is found in a group of twenty-somethings who have a roughened artlessness about them: they are restive and restful; they take each day as it comes, each hour, in fact. As a person who has always lived and loved amongst the high-strung, the charmingly neurotic, and the achievement-oriented, I find this insouciance most delicious. Could I ever adapt to this? Not a chance! I am much to set in my obsessive-compulsive ways to be able to. I could do it, if there were a process, but that does indeed defeat the purpose, does it not? Have I learnt anything about myself from Option B? Yes. When I revel, I REVEL and weep, and revel again. When my clavicle is nibbled upon, I gasp. Do I see a future? Perhaps. A future in which I pull a 'Brief Encounter' and almost throw my planned life away, but not really? Yes, I may reach that point. Next course of option? Who is to say...

Option A

Option A shouldn't even be an option, since we've barely even met. I was introduced to Option A by my dear friend Elinor Dashwood whose poise and equanimity I admire and envy. I never thought that one could swoon, but I found out that keeping one's feet on the ground when the only thing one wants to do is tip right over, sigh and lose consciousness, is a task of extreme Yogic proportions. I was terrified that the blush that had suffused its way up my neck would be visible to all, but my cappuccino colouring took care of that. I proceeded to make an absolute exhibition of myself, laughing gaily, and orienting myself in a way that can only be described as slatternly. But how can one resist the vellications of such a gaze? I remember hearing Elinor whisper "Remember, you're better off" to herself, and I very nearly winked at her. I walked home steeped in the mud of self-loathing...what was I thinking throwing myself at Option A's head in so brazen a manner. Oh, and weren't my affections otherwise engaged with Option B? Well, not exactly. Being enliased (neologism) does not equal being enfianced. You may think, constant reader, that I am morally reprehensible, and, yes, I concur. But even here, I am not in love, so to speak. I am never in love anymore, it is a nauseating business, and why deal with noisome things when more fragrant, vespertine pleasures are to be sampled? Do I want to pick Option A? Yes. Have I mapped out the attractions of Option A? Mais, oui! Option A is the very epitome of pulchritude and comeliness, and has a gaze that makes me deliquesce. What have I learnt about myself from Option A? That I speak in a Southern accent when I am, ah, "half agony and half hope". Do I see a future? Theoretically, yes. But even then, I have no illusions. If Option A were to work out, it would be a situation in which I would delight in the utter wretchedness of my existence: being with someone infinitely more beautiful than one only amplifies the self-doubt, and frankly, I may burn my nights away wondering why this happened, or how this happened, only and only if I get too invested. The key is not to get invested, certainly not in the fickle-minded, proper false. Next course of action? "A weekend in the country! Smelling jasmine! Watching little things grow..." Or perhaps even making them grow. The only trouble with such a weekend is that, after a while, the mosquito bites and the hickeys begin to look startlingly uniform...ah, well.

Concluding Thoughts

I had long believed in the the more entropic nature of love, and I have outgrown that now. I do not even believe that something as grandiloquent as Love (i.e. the marketed kind) even exists anymore. Perhaps, it has more to do with distillation and crystallisation of feelings rather than the sheer entropy of whatever is supposed to happen. This is not a perplexing thought for me at all, a saddening one, yes, but that too is fading. This is no different from the many classes I have taken: read extensively, and carry a big stick. I don't know which button I shall push: A or B, but the one thing I shan't allow is either one of them to push my buttons. I am young, but too disillusioned in my illusions to want to want anything more than a calculable means to a palpable end. The burlesques that are to play out under this perpetually purple sky are another matter. We shall see.

Until the next time,

GossipGuy.

Senescence, Or Something Like It

2010-08-01T09:45:00.000-05:00

I have found, of late, that I have a positive dearth of patience with the young. Or at least those who are younger than I am. Eighteen-year-olds are tolerable, I suppose, they have an idea of what is what. They don't realise it fully, but at least they have few illusions. I feel like I have superseded my illusions and I do not like it: this was one race I wasn't supposed to win.

I don't mean to sound old and embittered, God knows, I am not nearly aged enough to own that level of cantankerousness, but I recently had coffee with a friend who brought his protégé along. While my friend and I chattered away amicably, I think the protégé felt, oh, neglected perhaps. I lauded his valiant attempts at trying to join in the conversation, and smiled benignly at the "ten-dollar words", the contrivances whipped out in an attempt to hold his own. It was, as he would probably say, "Rather endearing"! How familiar this all seemed! 'I was such a little snot! Just like this one!' I recalled fondly. We played along, and it was adorable. Initially, at least.

Things began to go downhill when my friend had to excuse himself to take a phone-call, and his protégé and I were left alone. We talked perfunctorily for a few minutes, and finally he asked me where I went to school. I told him, and his face...changed. I'll admit, mine is a charming State school, and yes, I remember my face 'changing' too when I had filled out an application for this place. Oh, very well! It was my safety school, and, in the end, when it boiled down to pure economics, I realised that this was my best bet! I felt, for some unfathomable (t)reason to explain this to the protégé, and he smiled sweetly, indulgently: his face was my face from fifteen minutes ago.

"Perhaps, economics isn't the only criterion, hmm?" he questioned with a cowing politesse, that made me feel like a poor cousin.

"No, not the only criterion, certainly," I responded. "But a vitally important one, wouldn't you agree?"

"Oh, quite. But, you will agree, that reputations are important as well. Imagine, people of our breeding associated with commonplace schools!" he laughed.

"You cannot deny, however, that paying for a reputation and a reputation alone is the worst kind of snobbery!" I trilled.

"I wonder, then, sir, about the Dior label on your shirt!" he exclaimed affably.

"Your Lacoste amphibian inspires similar wonderings, monsieur!" I countered charmingly.

"The point I am trying to make is that, surely, you cannot be satisfied in a farming community?" he asked.

"You do assume, sir, that it is a farming community. Not so. Also, I shan't lie, I really thought that I had settled for something below my station, only to learn that things like station are superficial things that must be indulged in as superficially as possible." I explained, a bit passionately.

"How noble." he responded. He didn't look like he believed me, in fact he went as far as to hum a ditty from 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi' (A Match Made in Heaven)- a Hindi film about a young, vivacious woman who marries a staid, older man only to live in connubial bliss. It made me mad.

"And where are you applying?"

He proceeded to rattle off the names of elite academies in India, and of course, the Imperial Eight; the Indian schools were his "Plan B". I didn't have the heart to say anything polite, but I did have the spleen.

"I wish you luck."

"I will get in, I know I shall."

"Such confidence is admirable."

I wanted to ask him what recourse he had if he didn't make it in. A Plan B-01 perhaps? I wanted to tell him that he was being a fool, and that, when the chips were down, for an international student, economics was the sole criterion, that one was beatifically fortunate if one found a school that was intellectually sound and didn't cost a King's Ransom, even if one's father was a King or a noble, that scholarships shouldn't be scorned at as 'charity'.

Reading over that last section, I find that I do sound old and embittered. I hadn't failed, I had just chosen differently, followed an instinct, a call that influenced the tides in my blood vessels, and I had made good. I don't disapprove of the Imperial Eight, but of the questions of 'breeding' and 'station' that come with them. I have friends, dear friends, at these places, and they deserve to be there because they got in meritocratically, and not because of the fact that they were "raised a certain way". Perhaps, just perhaps, this is why I needed to placed in the Spitsbergen so that I could fully comprehend the nature of superficial things.

My friend had returned by then and sensed the tension in the air and managed to diffuse the tension by bringing up a compelling topic of conversation, it's a skill of his that I have long admired. If anything, they are probably very grateful and awe-struck by this skill of his at Princeton! The protégé and I parted cordially; we knew that our paths would probably cross only under the rarest of circumstances. Later, when my friend asked me what I thought of him, I gave him the usual platitudes, but my friend knew. His laugh at the end of my "perfectly delightful" told me that he knew that I hated that kid. Envy is what this is, and an envy that stems from an animated wistfulness that yearns to be that innocently reprehensible again, to be able to have those illusions, and water-tight plans that do not yield to any force. I miss it. I miss it so.

Until the next time,

GossipGuy!

King Lear

2010-07-06T18:41:00.000-05:00

Have you noticed, sage,
Our gilded cage, sage,
That often doubles as a stage?
We often talk stage-rot.

I'd smooth those wrinkles with mine youthful hand,
Kiss away the cancer, steer us to land.
Away from a sea of seething plot.

You do speak, sage,
In decrepit adage.
Brandishing words-spells much like a mage.
My part, for my part, is to appear overwrought.

My serpent's tooth, thanks, is rather blessed.
Why ever not? I've learnt from the best.
We play each other, (but never really play each other)
And a denouement is begot.

I love this, our play, king,
It has it all-everything.
More so with a flaggon of beer king:
passion, Passion and fear, king.
Fear of Us, as you leer king.
Leer after day after leer, king.
The spotlight's yours- spew your curses.
My mind will think of curtains and patron's purses.
Notice, as the smoke disperses,
That there is applause- a whole lot.

My monologue's here! I must be glad.
Pray God, let me not be mad!
I'll sputter, I'll manage
To have as little of the carnage
That falls, rightfully, in your lot.

I know there are those who want to see
Us play out this savaging comedy.
I shall play distraught- I promise,
For as long as you need me.

Stage Rot

2010-06-16T16:23:00.004-05:00

I fail to understand why "Drama Queen", "Drama Whore" and the like bear a negative connotation. Don't abominate theatricality; it takes a certain kind of person to pull it off well. There are those who do it vulgarly; they aren't serious about it. What they are is loud, cantankerous, and in it just for the money i.e. the attention. True theatrics are organic and meaningful, an interpretation of life, our lives.

Without invoking the rather bromidic, "All the world's a stage..." axiom, I shall state that while we are commissioned to play many parts as we make this production of ourselves, there are some parts that suit us better than most, and there are some parts that we play to absolute perfection. Yet, occasionally, when a play transfers to a different city, new cast members are added on. Sometimes, the signature actor does not play his signature role, instead he plays someone else. I went through a similar sensation, when I saw a particularly poignant, violent opera being staged again. This time, another young guy was playing this part that I had played a few months ago. It was a sweet, earnest performance, far less desperate (some would say lugubrious) as compared to mine, but...oh, it was a heart-rending. I had seen this play before. Why, I even knew the other actor, I knew how this would end. I wanted to rush up to this new actor, and tell him to pull out now, before the art imitated life to the extent that the lines between the two blurred, and a vile stage-rot set in. But, how could I? The script of this particular play doesn't feature a bail-out type of character. So, I watched it unfold, Hamlet at my side, "It's like watching the same tempest which washed away your home now circling another home whose owner is still ignorant of his unstable foundation. There's a point where you don't hate it, you just admire it's lure and destructive force." Said Hamlet with the foresight and wisdom I love him for. So no, I am not hating anyone now. Instead, what I am doing is far, far more disturbing.

The character that I have been cast to play is the one that no-one talks about, especially as far as this play is concerned. The director, the Man-in-the-Sky, seems to say, "Oh, you've played the ingénue once, now try your hand at a Brighella." I am playing a schemer, a spurned schemer who watches The Lovers' happiness from a distance, and yearns for the enterprise to fail. I have hated playing this character, because, I, as a rule, don't deal with unpleasantness. But I have come to realise that this Brighella is darker than most because he is not choleric. Instead, he smoulders slowly and smokelessly in the blue flame of his own dashed desires. I am not saying I still don't hate playing, I just have a better understanding of what I am doing on this stage now.

There is a reason why some of us turn to drama to make sense of the convoluted circumstances of our lives: drama gives everything context, it elevates even the most sordid circumstances to something palatable, worth delving into and potentially exorcising. I take a lot of flak for my histrionics, my prolixity, and there are those who believe that my accent is a pro-Imperialist statement of some sort. Well, I shan't change myself. I have been a production twenty years in the making, and I can finally say, with some conviction, that this is who I am, drama and all. I have had great reviews, I have had ovations, and while I have also been boo'd, I know for a fact that no-one can play my role the way I do. There is a great deal of thought that goes into giving this superficiality the depth it deserves.

Until the next time,

GossipGuy.

Mansfield Park: A Review

2010-06-15T22:28:00.005-05:00

Mansfield Park is a complicated novel, to put it succinctly. It is a Cinderella story stripped of all the sparkly affectations and magical sense of the fantastic, and dipped in the dark murkiness of topics like adultery, passivity, religion and morality. Here is a novel where Jane Austen steps outside her comfort zone of the bright and airy, and presents to us a Cinderella named Fanny Price who is moral yet passive, endearing yet not very likeable. Like Fanny’s female cousins in the novel, I didn’t have very much to say to her.

Impecunious Fanny leaves her home in Portsmouth to the palatial Mansfield Park, under the aegis of her rich uncle and aunt, Sir and Lady Bertram. It is an arrangement negotiated by her aunt Norris who is perhaps one of the nastiest literary creations ever, but is all the more astringent because she springs forth from the usually bright pen of Jane Austen. The Bertrams are not bad people, rather, they are rich people. Their attitude towards a young Fanny is one of, well, apathy would be too strong a word. Let it instead be said that Fanny fits into their world without disturbing a thing. Fanny Price, let the reader be aware, is no Elizabeth Bennett. She is, instead, possessed of a timorous disposition. As a child, she is quickly prone to tears, and as an adult, she is physically weak, though her initial timidity somewhat blossoms into an elegant taciturnity. Fanny’s cousins, Maria and Julia, do not play the conventional “ugly stepsisters”, rather, they ignore Fanny. This makes sense because Maria and Julia are vivacious, beautiful and poised for brilliant futures attained, of course, by marrying well. Though Fanny is indispensible to her enervated Aunt Bertram, she never really receives matronly affection from her. Her Aunt Norris, on the other hand, constantly reminds the girl of how inferior she is to her cousins, and how grateful she must be to them for their charity. In all of this, Fanny’s only true friend is her cousin Edmund who always takes up for her in instances where Fanny is wronged, or just plain ignored.

Things get increasingly complicated once this cast of characters grows up. Maria finds herself betrothed to the wealthy, socially relevant, but very boring Mr. Rushworth. Edmund has resolved to become a clergyman, (the hereditary title of ‘Sir’ being destined for the elder, pleasure-seeking, Tom) Julia dreams of a success similar to Maria’s, while Fanny reads. The patriarch of the family, Sir Thomas Bertram, leaves to tend to his slave-run estate in Antigua, and, in his absence, enters the witty, worldly, brother-sister pair of Mary and Henry Crawford. Worldly, urban, well-spoken and fashionable, the Crawfords arrive as a whirlwind that places the young aristocrats of Mansfield Park on a “very serpentine course” lined with temptation, lies and ulterior motives. I enjoyed how Austen uses the theatre to reveal the true tensions between the characters, as they rehearse a play called Lover’s Vows that they put on for a lark, exclusively amongst friends. The enamoured pair of Henry Crawford and Maria excessively rehearses their parts, while Maria’s conflicted, jealous fiancée stumbles over his lines, and is constantly bitched about, mainly pertaining to what a poor actor he is. Edmund and Mary, cast as lovers, give voice to their true passion for one another, but realize that theirs is a love that can never work because of Mary’s finely etched vision of the kind of life she hopes to lead. Despite the fact that, at this point, the novel is heavy with activity and full of brilliant if controversial conversations about issues ranging from men, women and love to the role of the clergy in society, it is the well-intentioned silences of one Miss Fanny Price that evoke the most intrigue. Fanny finds the business of staging a play scandalous and immoral, she finds Henry Crawford deplorable for his lothario act with her betrothed cousin, but, almost on a penitential instinct, she never really allows herself the luxury of voicing these opinions. This moral priggishness can be very annoying, but it is also very real: one does have opinions on what is morally wrong or right, but this impulse To Be Good i.e. to avoid unpleasantness is so strong within one that one’s silence essentially becomes a straitlaced kind of hypocrisy that one never really recognizes in one’s character.

I also enjoyed the use of letters as a device to convey the presentiment and the aftermath of major scandals. I understand that many Austen loyalists were hoping for high, eloquent drama, as far as the scandals were concerned, and, no doubt, Austen would have crafted those exquisitely, but the epistolary route is a far more judicious one. As Austen herself says in the novel: “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.” Personally, as a product of an age where all I would have to do would be to glance at Maria Bertram’s status updates to map out her goings-on, I find that the letters, the perpetual anticipation between letters and reading between the lines and the biases of the writer, afforded me a rare, delicious pleasure.

All in all, Mansfield Park is complex, sophisticated, and morally effusive without being officious, but also problematic. I called it a Cinderella story because I got the sense that passivity is the ‘virtue’ being rewarded in this novel, that one is a better person for one’s privations in life. To me, Mansfield Park poses the following question: Is it morally right for one to sit by, holding one’s ethical convictions close to one’s heart, as the universe mold itself around you only to recompense you in the end, for Being Good?

Until the next time,

GossipGuy!

Fictional Vignette #1: Some Enchanted Evening

2010-05-26T11:06:00.002-05:00

First long-suffering vignette in a series of three-to-four half-realised billets doux. Hope you guys like it! Please leave a comment or four!

Some Enchanted Evening.

“You were sweet to think of the theatre for me,” he whispered over the blaring horns of the overture.

“Oh, of course!” Alexander responded fondly. “I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“Oh, I know! I have been insanely busy! But then again, so have you!” he said more to himself than to Alexander.

The buxom woman sitting next him shushed him discreetly, and he frowned. The overture was still playing; it wasn’t as if they were missing anything.

Alexander leaned in to him and whispered, “It had to end, didn’t it? All those deadlines, and accompanying drama!”

He smiled in response. “And here we are! Free, if only momentarily…”

“I am still open to running away to Thessaloniki, you know…” Alexander proposed, with a hint of a grin in his whisper.

This time it was his turn to do the shushing: “Alex! The performance!”

They turned their attention to the stage where their entrancingly beautiful friend sang in her clear voice of days and lovers gone by, and how she wished she had paid more attention to what was before her all along.

“She’s ravishing!” he whispered to Alexander, and his disapproving neighbor shuffled purposefully.

“Vanessa’s always been the master of the Shock and Awe,” Alexander noted with the air of a critic. “Look! She has even made you forget how much you hate this song!”

“Why would anyone waste their breath hitting high notes to whine about velleities?” he said stuffily.

“Snob.” Alexander surmised with inherent charm.

He elbowed Alexander in the shoulder, as he stifled his laughter.

He now began to concentrate on the performance. The play was a musical: a grand spectacle about the frivolities of egotistical people paired with the wrong partners, but too arrogant to admit their respective errors. It was only in their staged solitude that they allowed themselves the luxury of remorse and of regret and that too in song. He looked at Alexander who seemed to be above the elegant foolishness taking place on stage. At this point, he was humming along with one of the songs. It was a well-known number in which the singer, a distinguished gentleman, extolled the virtues of his rather juvenile child-wife to a sophisticated old flame whose face bore the grief of knowing too much of the world. He felt the same world-weariness and calculated confusion of that actress reach out to him in the form of a pearlescent vapour, and pour itself into his pores. His heart stirred, and he leaned back and touched Alexander’s shoulder. Alexander leaned forward, questioning concern on his face.

“Quit humming, I can barely hear the song!” he hissed, perhaps a little more vituperatively than he had planned.

An imperturbable ripple of hurt flashed across Alexander’s face, only visible to the very experienced.

“Sorry,” he said shortly, and his friend, slowly dissolving into guilt, nodded.

As the impending intermission began to coax the flighty proceedings to a more equilibrated phase, the two gentlemen decided to pay their friend Vanessa a back-stage visit.

“Do you have the back-stage pass?” he asked with an edge of panic in his voice.

“Yes, I do!” Alexander replied in an attempt to soothe his irrational anxiety. “Don’t worry, there will be no ugly scene involving security!”

He beamed, “You know me so well!”

“Always!” Alexander beamed back.

The bustle of back-stage was overwhelming with wigs and props that seemed to fly around, and people yelled for a myriad things at once.

“Has anyone seen the fake baby?!”

“Marissa is allergic to the green wig! Did you know this?”

“Coffee! Paul needs his coffee before his big aria, and don’t overdo the cognac like last time!”

“Oh my God! This show is a flop!”

It astounded him how people seemed to navigate around them fluidly, as if they knew that he and Alexander didn’t truly belong there.

“Text Vanessa, won’t you?” he said edgily.

But, before Alexander could pull out his phone, a squealing Vanessa managed to locate them.

“Oh my God, you guys, you made it!” she cried as a greeting.

She took one look at Alexander, launched herself into his arms, and kissed him full on the lips.

“What did you think, darling?” she asked him gingerly, throatily, privately.

“I am loving it.” He answered laconically, but his words held within them worlds of dormant desire.

He received a warm, but decidedly platonic hug, and was asked the same question, but sweetly.

He launched into a paean of excessive praise for her high-notes, and he could feel Alexander’s charmed, head-shaking derision pat him on the back, and similarly praise his performance.

After a few more minutes of phatic, all-inclusive chatter, she ushered them in the direction of their seats, and reminded them to keep their “ears peeled” for her high F in the second act.

“She is fantastic!” he said genuinely, for he truly was very fond of Alexander’s somewhat frivolous, but altogether delightful girlfriend.

“You know who else is fantastic?” he questioned rhetorically. “You are! Seriously, you are not allowed to leave my life! And we shall definitely do Thessaloniki! Just the two of us!”

They stood in the narrow gilt-edged corridor of the theatre, a rare two-some not holding cocktails.

“You mustn’t say such things, Alex,” he enunciated carefully, trying fully not to sound embittered or enraged. “I fear…”

“Fear what?” Alexander asked, confusion alighted on his handsome face.

“I fear…” he couldn’t suppress the bitterness now. “I fear that I may fall in love with you.”

Mangez!, or The Gourmand's Tale

2010-05-20T16:08:00.003-05:00

I have returned to my Eternal City, and I did it kicking and screaming. I really didn't want to, I wanted to work this summer- intern at a lab, and perhaps, be present when an anti-tumour vaccine was unsheathed. But Fate had other plans, and these, as I have now discovered, were meant for my betterment.

My last three weeks at university were excruciating: deadlines had to be met, finals had to be met (in combat), it was every-RA-on-deck as the residence halls made their last bustle before settling into canicular lassitude, and I was sick! This made a world of sense, as Hamlet said, since I was leading a eating/sleeping-optional type of lifestyle. The end result was that, while I met my paper deadlines alright, my exams were written hopped up on pain-killers and other drugs. I remember being very happy bubbling things into a scantron, thanks to the drugs, and that is all I do remember. For once, my grades have been a complete surprise, but a pleasant one, thankfully.

Battered, broken, and in need of home, I first went to Hamlet's. I love going to Hamlet's, and every time that I do, I wonder why I don't do so more often. It is such a welcoming, invigorating space! His charming parents, his clever, precocious sister, and Hamlet himself so serene! Plus, there's always the imperious Badi Begum! Oh, that was such an adventure! But that is yet a story for another time...Suffice it to say, my time at Hamlet's was needed to break me into vacation mode, and ease my transfer over to schedule-less days of luxurious, luxurious lounging.

My return to the Eternal City felt right the moment I stepped on to the airport, and was greeted by a dreamy looking Marion Cotillard doing her Lady Dior thing. Exuberant, exciting, decadent and delighting: I was home. My mother had a slight fit when she saw me: "Haven't you been eating?! You're so skinny!" I was somewhat heartbroken; I had expected my family to join me in my joy of finally having a waist again. But, not just them, a lot of people are of the opinion that I needed to "get healthy". This is a constant knell to my ears because I am paranoid. Being skinny has served me well, romantically speaking. God, God, I cannot go back to my fat-Elphaba days of yearning to wear certain things, and wondering why everyone wanted to be my friend and no-one wanted to fuck me. So far, I have been very politically correct about and around food: refusing things, or taking small portions, or sharing (rather generously) with my brother, much to his astonishment and my parents' disgruntlement.

My father, however, decided to reintroduce me to the aerial pleasures of fine dining. This was something I revelled in once, in what seems like an altogether different lifetime- an easy thing to do in a city that boasted of some of the finest restaurants in the world.

How I smiled and I glowed as my goblet was refilled- remember?

How I oohed, aahed over and debated the menu- remember?

How easily I was engaged in conversations with managers and chefs out on a visit- remember?

How I had nearly mastered the art of catching the waiter's eye- remember?

How coldly I'd send things back if they weren't done up to the perfection promised- remember?

Remember, I did, as we entered the restaurant done up in burnished sepia. The flutter of the napkin, the tinkling of the crystal, the dishes- aromatic, artful and arresting, daddy's booming laughter, my brother's insistence that a certain creation NEEDED to be ordered, the waiter extolling the virtues of tarragon and mango-powder...oh, it was as if I had been jolted back into place. My airs were back! To many, this would hardly seem celebratory, but I worry. I worry about how much I have changed, I worry about who I am becoming. As trite as this may seem, it is an important check-point that tells me that I can be two different people in what may as well be two different worlds. I checked myself as I found myself worrying about the prices, and then smiled inwardly: I never used to do this before! It was always, "Ah, let daddy handle it!", but this was something new!The food was magnificent, as was expected, and true to form, I found myself becoming the gourmand I was always was, and what does a gourmand do but gormandize?

As I sit before my computer now, typing out this blog-post, and finishing the sumptuous Haagen Dazs creation, I realise that I can do this. I can get used to nights that come alive at eleven rather than crooning a nocturne. I also realise that I shall recognise said nocturne's grey beauty when it plays for me again in three months' time. So, as I stand on the verge of embarking onto a Grand Romance of fire-opal evenings in the Eternal City, I thank my Spitsbergen for tempering me well.

Until the next time,

GossipGuy.

Coming Soon: Long-suffering fictional vignettes!

A Poem of Manners

2010-05-02T18:54:00.003-05:00

To the Boys who Behave.
You have to love these boys who behave,
Their engines run on Self-loathing and Guilt.
Their rooms are sparse, blasé little caves
Where prurience is held in gilt.

Tragedies are lapped up in tea-cups,
Or coffee-mugs, for those who are Good.
Runny scandals handled on plates
With modal sides of seasoned shoulds.

"How could you do it?
"I would never do that!"
(I am lying, I must!)
(I must appear a prat.)

It's pretty to see them held in thrall,
For their lives are infinitely tougher,
These new-age tenants of Wildfell Hall,
(With deadlines, and sedative withdrawls)
Their souls, their French-how bravely they suffer!

You'll see them in classes of comparitive lit.
Where pedantically shall they opine
That Wharton is wonderful, and Austen should quit,
For one's old bottle fits their new whine.

Their shirts are too matched, and their accents too trying,
Their verses are pithy, and quick to take wing.
As quick as they are to laughter and crying,
Yet, one feels, they hardly ever feel a thing.

You have to love these boys who behave,
They write themselves into such clever scripts,
Bitterly comic, but altogether grave,
And delivered in tones so haughtily clipped.

Such good boys! They can always be trusted,
Since their limits are rigidly set in stone.
But that structure can always be adjusted,
For there's always some way to atone.

You have to love these boys who behave,
Their breaths are blank, and their hickeys are hidden.
Their days are full, so hard do they slave!
Their nights are paeans to their forbidden.

Benefits

2010-04-22T21:13:00.004-05:00

As I tried to catch my breath between the many woes of Lily Bart and the excruciatingly tight heterochromatin that had wound itself around me, I found myself playing host to a rather perturbed Janice. A Janice who was wringing her hands, and pacing the floor of my room furiously. She'd open her mouth as if to say something, but then stop, and pace some more. After a while, I began to imagine the slender Janice as a sort of pendulum vacillating between a 'yes' and a 'no', and like an overeager 'Jeopardy' contestant, I wanted to know the question! After a while of pacing and fretting, and providing me only half-answers, Janice finally came up with the truth. When the answer given to you is, "Yes, um, NO! Um...yeah...", the question is usually, "Will you have sex with me?" That was what Janice was asked too, as was revealed through a series of 'tasteful' yet plain text messages, by a rather personable gentleman. It's odd, really, constant reader, how nonchalant that conversation was. There was no thunder, no lightning, no whimpering animals, no baleful moon signalling the portentous rape of Virtue! It was all very casual. As I pondered upon Janice's question, I made a rather startling discovery of my own: sex didn't frighten me anymore. I was surprisingly okay with it. I remember how severely I had judged myself at first, I had called myself a number of things from a Perverse Hedonist to a Whore, and then imagined myself as some sort of a failed Samuel Richardson character, someone whose Virtue had just not been Rewarded. Of course, rewards were to be reaped, but these were hardly the spiritual kind! Yet, we are hardly living in a conduct novel from the 1700s!
When I dove into it, I was basically looking for love in the gutter. I still am looking for love, not in the gutter though. I have a fairly good idea about what is sold there anyway! Yes, love would be wonderful! But a person needs to be 'taken care of' as well. Is that really so wrong? Personally, I do not condone casual sex i.e. the promiscuous kind, the kind when you become the human equivalent of a fondue pot. The moralistic issues that come with it are things I am not going to touch upon. Primarily, because morals are techy, touchy things, and you don't flash your morals in public: that is simply impolite! The only thing that concerns me about Fondue Variety Casual Sex is that one exposes oneself to so many risk factors of disease! Imagine yourself emerging from a fairly sheltered cocoon into an STD Clinic where you await results, and wonder what became of your life, and how far away you've strayed from the plan! It's debilitating!
What I am proposing, and it's not completely unheard of, is the presence of a friend. You can do homework together, and even 'take care of one another'. Gone is the furtive embarrassment of fumbling for a name in your head, as you finally achieve your culmination. There is no need of lying next to someone in the semi-darkness, gazing upon their supine form and trying to wonder what kind of a person they truly are and whether you things would have been different if the two of you would have done coffee and taken in a movie. Like a, you know, date? What about the hurried dressing, the shower of shame that follows when you return home, the emptiness of how meaningless it was, and, not to mention, the awkwardness of running into them in a public place, once again searching for a name in your head, and turning red in the face, out of embarrassment this time,not ecstasy? Gone! Having a 'solicitous' friend takes care of all these minor problems. The whole affair can be so civilised that it hurts! Class in the morning, and barely any in the evening!
The advice I finally gave Janice was a little jolting, even to me. I said, "Do whatever YOU want, as long as YOU want to do it. Don't do it because he wants to, and whatever you decide to do, I shan't judge you for it." We all judge, it's a fundamental fact, and I am not going to deny this. The inverted snobs have their own form of judgment called meta-judgment wherein they judge those who judge. Hell, I judge too, but there are people whose motives and actions I do not question, and Janice is one of them. She texted me last night, informing me of her decision. I wrote back telling her to let me know in case she needed anything else. I put my phone aside, shut the gargantuan biochemistry volume, poured myself a cup of milk, and walked over to my window. Outside, a milky night sky was spread taut against the canopy of The Great Beyond, and no stars twinkled. The roads were empty, desolate, while a few windows of the surrounding rooms still had their lights on. There, in the deep of the night, I tried to imagine what was going on in those rooms. Would me saying that one, at least one, of those rooms contained people who were entwined in each other, be such an unfair guess? To me, these moments when I walk over to the window and look outside are transcendental in that it's almost like taking a step back from a messy, insensate blur only to discover that what you are looking at is Pollock's No. 5. This time, as I stepped back, I looked at our lives, the likes of Janice and me and Hamlet. Our lives had subtle differences, but fundamental truths like high-octane majors, demanding work schedules, calendars with entries scribbled in in personalised, space-saving short-hand, and jobs that took a lot out of us despite it not seeming so, were all common threads. These are our lives, and to add the tedium of coquetry to this? By heaven! While I will always pray that Something Meaningful makes its presence known soon, the interim period, you will admit, is a disconsolate one. These are our lives; is it so wrong to just want to be held? Even if it is a simulacrum of love?

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

The Dreams of Bright Things

2010-04-17T22:39:00.003-05:00

Wisps of moonlight, strands of desire, a pinch of stardust, a sprig of laughter, a dash of conversation, a tear or two (depending on how strong you like it), must all be placed within the crucible of a perfect day and whipped until peaks are seen, garnish these peaks with hope (but not too much) and you have yourself a dream. They are difficult things to make, dreams. The recipe, like the product, is duplicitous. It's hardly a stir-and-serve type of affair! The crucible must be carefully chosen, some dreams disintegrate in the wrong day. One must add to and stir one's dream with a firm hand, evenly mixing in the ingredients. An extra tear will make your dream too runny, too much hope will poison you. But most of all, your dream must be protected from contamination. Dreams decay fast; and the stench of decaying dreams kills everything it wafts over.

Foolish Mortals.

We met by moonlight, the two of us, dreamers, fools. By moonlight did we meet, and come sunlight we parted. The crucible was perfect: slightly warm with clear skies by day, and little silver slipper of a moon by night. The meeting itself was precious: where one was delicate, the other was steely, where one blew hot, the other blew cold, where one had already decided, the other didn't know what was what. There was a dance that night, a high-school style prom for college students with bad memories. Sirens like Lady Gaga sang portentously of bad romances as we grinded lasciviously on the dance floor. It turns out that I have the boundaries of a whore on tequila. Minus the tequila. And then there was goofy, ever-smiling Janice. She went alone, the fifth wheel to two couples, and, personable as she is, fell into the a group of dancers. Finally her attentions scoped out a certain semi-attached someone, and as she managed to sever him away from his commitment, the word 'home-wrecker' was whispered with a malicious sibilance. No malice was meant, for the heart wants what the heart wants.
My dream was maturing, the dance led to the solitude of my room, and I...I couldn't do it. I tweaked out, because I wasn't ready. Big brown eyes full of everlasting affection, Holy God, if only I could vanish. It's so gut-wrenching, this business of breaking hearts! It doesn't help that I went into 'hyper-RA' mode to make sure that the damage wasn't too extensive. But I had to run away! I had to! I couldn't do it, and I didn't want to abandon a relationship in the middle of the road....
But what a beautiful night it was: dancing pairs, unknown things, and so much given to remember. It was all there: the passion, the desire, the laughter, the hope...what a beautiful dream it was! But I had to run away, because it was just like a dream! As the sun rose, the foul dust that flew from rumpled sheets stuck to our dream, and a rot set in. I had to run away, I couldn't do it. I am damned either way, however. I shall be demonized for what I did, not only externally, but internally too. Such is the price I shall pay for honesty. I blame no-one, I do not protest the outrage, because it is just. I was bad, very bad, in fact, so it makes sense that I be punished for it. Such is the way things are with decaying dreams, when bright things come to folly, so shall my name live in infamy. At least, for a while.

Pretty Farce/ No Caddy, not that Blackguard!

The past fortnight has delivered the following upon my hands: an unabashedly giggling Janice, revelling in and revealing the many sweet nothings and piquant somethings that her far-flung beloved whispers and texts, and the consequences of my own heart-break related actions. Janice astounds me! My friendship with Janice astounds me too. For here I am, recounting the most recent spate of the passive-aggressive viciousness that I exchange with a paramour of a dream deliquesced, and she! She will suddenly tremble with laughter, and reveal a juicy tidbit with the air of one hiding a lump of jaggery in the folds of her skirt. In her excitement, my problem disappears momentarily, and I partake of the sweetness she offers. Then, as Janice prepares to return, she gives me a hug that leaves behind an emollient coolness on my skin, and, for a while, I am calm.
The last conversation I had with my blameless friend whose world I trampled, was not as passive-aggressive. For one, frightening verbs like 'lie' were bandied about, and I took this as calmly as I could. Secondly, the name of a yesterday was thrown about rather casually as well, and this left me trembling. The first time that that name was said was a dagger in me, and every consequent time was that dagger being twisted. Gasping for air, I realised that I still held a piece of that poisonous decaying dream on hand: I still dreamed that the past would return. Oh what a fool to have fallen for the pretty farces of someone who never cared! Debasing myself in search of alarming answers...and I still held a low, intensely burning torch for a dead dream that can never be! Lord, what fools these mortals be! Messy and damaged, I tapped into a rather potent resource: my cousin Caddy. Over a long, tearful, trans-Atlantic phone call, I blabbed my story to her, and she rewarded me with a very similar story of her own! You'd think we synchronised it! If Janice and I are on opposite sides of a turning wheel, Caddy and I might just be sharing a position on the selfsame. We are to be each other's strength now : I will protect her from That Blackguard, and she will protect me from mine.
With the tides of time and consequence playing fast and loose with my own biochemistry, I ended up tanking a biochemistry exam. How salvageable this situation is , I do not know. I am still in shock and alexithymia, and haven't really thought of damage control yet. I did have a bit of an episode in the professor's office, humiliating is a word that comes to mind. God, I had promised myself that I would never be one of those kids whose emotional lives cast their umbra upon their professional lives, and an unpleasant eclipse of intellect transpires. The Uterus, I could work with, but this is suddenly getting way too much. I lost a promotion, I believe, because of this too. My paranoia is so bad, that I am convinced that the internships that I have lost have been because of the researchers peering through a telescope into the mayhem that is my life and selecting against me, in favour of someone more well-adjusted and capable of separating the two seemingly immiscible parts of his life. Even now, the far-away song of a promising text seems to liquefy the wax that is now my resolve.

What am I do with myself? What am I to do with all these dreams that I am distilling? Perhaps, I shall bottle them, seal them with Janice's laughing breath, and place them in a crisp winter sun so that they can age from Dream to Memory. Because there are dreams that disintegrate, and so cannot be. No matter how cogent our minds may be, the heart wants what the heart wants.

To the next time,
GossipGuy.

Pillar of Salt

2010-03-20T18:04:00.003-05:00

"Let us run away," Hamlet said wistfully.
"Hmmm," I agreed lazily.
"To Santorini." He continued.
I laughed, and then grimaced when I saw, in the little Skype screen before me, what laughing did to the contours of my face. But I allowed myself a few languorous moments to languish in Hamlet's fantasy of beatific, blue-roof'd Santorini, away from snow, stress and sordidness. What a life it would be, spent in the pursuit of beauty.

I can't do it.

Okay, maybe I could for a month or two.

There has been a lot of talk of running away recently. Not just me, but others too. And, for some reason, it's always on Skype! Charles and I were talking recently, and once I was done updating him on my Awakening a la Kate Chopin, he sang a dirge of his own:
"There was a time when I thought I was the city, but now, I know that I am just someone living in the city!"

I have reason to believe that T.S. Eliot felt the potency of mutability of city life, captured it in little vials, and distilled it to form his languid, loquacious, yet luxuriant city poems. There are many who say that cities, and the life they afford are uniform. Macroscopically speaking, this makes sense, for, macroscopically speaking, what do you see in a city but people accoutered in the clothes of their occupation rushing past one another, billboards of ostentation, vehicles of quality and kind? Yet, a microscopic glance (and just a glance, I promise you!) is necessary. For only microscopically will you see how the city is a state of mind. How the small-town student has his own way of seeing the city in the vibrant colours of freedom, how the executive sees all in a blur, his vision only fine-focusing on what is the order of the day, how, for the urban brat, the illumined picturesque has now become a grainy, repetitious picaresque. That is how I was in the Eternal City when I decided to seek my fortune elsewhere. The urgency to 'run away' is what I heard in Charles's voice. I heard the same rawness in Hamlet's drawn-out plea. Could it be, then, that the Spitsbergen, despite me snobbishly insisting otherwise, is actually a city?

I will begrudgingly answer in the affirmative, but a conditional affirmative. The Spitsbergen has a long way to go, trust me, in terms of infrastructure, but in terms of drama and attitudes, it is rather urban. Within reason, of course. Yet there is this constant theme these days: the theme of running away, an escape. Why? I have the fragments of an answer for me: my courses (with the exception of two) aren't doing anything for me this semester, I feel like I am just going through the motions. The drama, as defined by the frisson that accompanies romance(s) + my occupational drama (passive-aggressive fights and agreements to disagree with co-workers), is draining. At times such as these, Hamlet's whisper, Charles's unsaid supplication, they all become a heady siren song, serving up the idea of running away as tantalizingly as possible.

Last week, I threw a bit of a tantrum whilst speaking with daddy on the phone. I have decided to stay on in my foreign homestead over the summer and intern at a firm or a lab. My parents, judicious, prudent people as they are, are heartbroken but are saying the right things: "We are proud of you.", "We so want you to come home, but the benefits of this are so far-reaching.", "We wish you could come home, but we understand." My emotional entropy is a bit messy, so I ended blurting out a complicated sentence, the meaning of which my father distilled perfectly: "So you WANT to come home, but want US to say it? Beta, this isn't an approval thing, you can totally come home if you want to. We won't think any less of you." Oh dilemma! I did what I do best: "Daddy, I have to go..." Running away, again!

I feel like my time with the Spitsbergen is at an end. I cannot see myself for more than a year. There are those who seem to have gotten used to its two climatic seasons, and the bare seasons of the heart. I worry every time I feel something stirring in my heart, I fear falling headfirst into that ingenue's pattern of, "Do you know I am alive? Do you feel what I feel? Alas! You are gone, and I am ruined!" As Verlaine put it, "After all, we do not want another Eponine fiasco, do we?" No, we most certainly do not. This Eponine shall do what should have been done to begin with: leave the barricade, and get a PhD. Is that running away too? Is there really that much dynamism in stoicism? I can feel it throb beneath my skin, this beating of something wanderlust. I can feel it shuffling its feet impatiently during 09:00 am biochemistry, asking, in a very VERY out-of-character twist, what the point of it all is? It knows its own impermanence, it knows the perils of being sessile, and so it wants to move! For once, I feel like I am one with this Wanderlust Pulse, but all I want to do is go home. Just for a while, and have all the sordidness and drama fade into a faraway foreground. I do not want to answer these questions about me, and I do not want to stand witness to those of others; I just want to go home.

The Wanderlust Pulse tells me to forge ahead, however. It tells me to think of Lot's Wife who was sinful enough to look back, and became a part of the landscape. Forge ahead! Let the past burn, let it provide us some warmth, for what else is it good? Think. Of. Lot's. Wife. I am, actually. And I don't think that she was full of sin; I think she just missed her home, no matter how debauch a place it was.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

My Loins, The Bitch, and An Overpriced Wardrobe

2010-03-07T23:27:00.003-06:00

Sex is scary. The kind of scary that induces stream-of-consciousness in one's pen, or fingers. The last time that happened to me was during an immunology exam when I found that I had 15 minutes to write a 25-mark essay. It turns out that while the theory of sex is all biology (my turf), the practicum tests all your knowledge of biology, physics and chemistry (my turf, hell no, and a friend I hang out with sometimes). The challenge that the practicum presents entails that one strike a balance between the three. But what if the coupling of your textbook-based knowledge of biology, and the few random assortments of statics-dynamics equations that you know, lead to a few sloppy errors in your coupling? A few slips, over-lubrication, the Skinny Jeans Impediment, the sheer ergonomics...easily remedied, but not really desirable. You would think that one can gloss over this with some well-timed chemistry, but what if the test has more questions about physical chemistry than organic chemistry? What if you're diving headfirst into the practicum on the basis of superficial attraction? The Hydrogen-bond type? The kind that water molecules use as they flit from partner to partner? You've studied hard, and you've studied the hard, my friend, but somehow the test didn't get you. So you find yourself half-answering some questions, bull-shitting your way on others, and leaving the frightening blank spaces for yet others. So yes, sex is scary, and the instruction manual is a haphazardly compiled check-list that ensures a decent culmination to the practicum. What most alumni fail to mention is the milieu: the testing centre is as important as the test itself! Don't take the test at a trashy, community college-esque testing centre. Seriously. You'll end up feeling like a whore.

I want to high-five the Man in the Sky (to the strains of indie-music, no less!) for the script that he has written, the script where cliché serves as an anchors to a kind of meta-theatricality that is, quite literally, out of this world, his world. As a sampler:

Cliché #1: Boy meets Commitophobe-in-Disguise.

Cliché #2: Boy loses Commitophobe-in-Disguise.

Cliché #3: Boy fills out Exit Survey, and finds dark, repressed things about self.

Cliché #4: Boy makes bad decisions, and does the whole Fantine bit.

Cliché #5: Boy becomes venomous bitch.

Cliché #6: Boy-turned-Fornicator has to deal with religion. Totally out of the blue.

Cliché #7: Boy, Interrupted: remains freakishly calm, files things away in "I'll Deal With It Tomorrow" box, saves neuroticism for therapist and self.

Cliché #8: Boy nearly becomes one of those people who cry at therapy sessions.

Well written, Man in the Sky, I, for one, laud your theatrical devices. Two thumbs up! The musical score, however, is a little overdone, but I am sure you're trying to make a point. Something on the lines Man-is-as-subtle-as-a-sledgehammer? Maybe.

These past two weeks have wrung me dry: of imagination, of emotion, and of conversation. As I glided from crisis to crisis, from coffee-shop to restaurant to dorm-room, to a gathering, to a truck, I found myself wishing I had someone to hold my hand through all of this. When did this become so important? I used to be fairly self-sufficient. Hamlet and I have rallied around each other through dire times. Namely, the dissolution of both our romances. His altruism kept me sane through mine, and I hope I was of some help at least. Now imagine this, Hamlet and I, sitting at a fairly plush eatery by the name of 'The Drunken Noodle', there is a light drizzle outside, the sky is at a point where it is trying to decide between the rising of the sun and the moon, and steaming plates of Asian cuisine sit before us. We talked about various things: the tear-tempered cup of coffee I had with Mary Wollstonecraft (his ex) as I attempted to thaw the gelid bridge that had formed between us, we talked about fools, we talked about Kings, we talked about the fools of Kings...so you would think that I had someone to go to when drama turned against me. But Hamlet is not the jigsaw piece I am looking for, he fills a different void, an important one, for I may as well be dead were he not around, but this pretty little picture needs something else before it can be called complete. My sagacious friend agrees. Upon my return to my hall of residence, Butters gave me some of the worst news of my life. News that confirmed to me that changes, large changes were at hand. But, I can't deal with this now. This wound is too fresh. I think I shall file this away for now.

The only bright spots include a journey (to Hornbacher's!) with the incisive trio comprising of The Hipster, The Skater and the 4Chaner! That was the best taste of aerial fun I have had in a long time! I also did coffee with the ever-delighting Novel-Duchess, we updated one another on our respective drama, judged people's sartorial choices, and came to realise that we our friendship has the potential of becoming something more permanent. Christine de Pizan gave me conversation, albeit of a more literary bend, but this was also food that I had been starved of for so long that I had even forgotten the taste of it. The interim periods of vituperative bitchiness were uncalled for, but necessary. There is something very satisfying about biting someone's head off, as much as I blush to admit it!

I have come to realise that the Intelligent Metrosexual is really not all that intelligent after all. He mixes his lessons up, like some foppish, pedantic amateur. As far as the love practicum goes, [Strangers-at-Night= Dreamers-at-Night], yet that is not always the case with the Sex Practicum. He is exactly the kind of fool who knows what he has bargained for, but slowly hums "Deux anges qui se décrouvent, n'ont rien à expliquer" because he has seen a portent in the moon that tells him that this may be something else. Being a bitch is not fun, not in the long run. Not to someone who is only trying to make you comfortable, who understands that your nervousness is making you snappish, and especially not after that heady venom has worn off, and the guilt begins to set in. Being a whore unleashes the Absolute Alcohol of Guilt into one's bloodstream. When each passing day bears the promise of 'Tragedy Tomorrow, Comedy Tonight!', perhaps the only constant thing you have is an overpriced wardrobe. Because, really, if you're not pure, at least your shirts are! They're such beautiful shirts! They make me sad!

So much has happened, and so quickly, that, in my own way, when I turn to God-on-high, my Man in the Sky, I beseech him to bring me home. This town is too small, it is too tinged with the iridescent trail of my mistakes. Maybe that is the only saving I need. My Eternal City! Let there be no talk of loins (mine or anyone else's!), the bitch I shall be shall be more satire than sulphur, and the luxury of that overpriced wardrobe shall make the flowers grow.

If and when tomorrow comes,
GossipGuy.

To Tomorrow

2010-02-18T18:05:00.007-06:00

I think it is safe for me to write now. The past week has been absolutely draining, emotionally speaking. I am not in 'a thing' anymore i.e. no more romance exists in my world now. For now. It ended, but how I wish it wouldn't have, or at least, would have ended well. God knows, the Spitsbergen, with its bare, frost-encrusted trees, pristine foreground, gentle, dusky breezes, and long empty stretches of road, provides the perfect back-drop for a parting of ways. No, instead the elaborate evisceration of my self-esteem was done in the sterile confines of radio-waves: via text-message.
I was truly happy, for once. For once, my mind, which is a busy hub of trilingual contradictory thoughts, was at peace. I had someone who exemplified perfection, and God, had I fallen hard! We were very textually active, but we used protection: no texting during class hours! I mean, I had received the stink-eye from a few of my professors over this, and that never happens! Never to Hermione! And there were the evenings spent in coffee, banter and a flirtatiousness that had an Old World Charm about it. And how could it not, really? One of my favourite memories involves us walking down the city's quaint Downtown, huddled under an umbrella which shielded us from the icy showers brought down from an unusually mauve sky. I now wonder if I made it all up: the romance, the...everything? It has to be a confabulation if my dream was that fragile. Whatever did I do to sour things so much that suddenly my texts and Facebook messages are being ignored? The one thing that made sure that my inadequacies and I were not left alone for too long, now, in a sick reversal of fortune, only serves to amplify those insecurities. I have debased myself so much by sending more texts, and more messages in supplication. It does not behoove me to do this: I, who was once all about an inexorable sense of self-respect, am now a whore. But, I miss what we had, I miss what could have been. I miss this person who brought such a lightness of being to my being. Now, the onerous load has descended upon me once again, and I...
I know I have been insufferable for the past few days. But I live in a Purgatory, where the sky itself may be lined with bars, stained with a crime that is probably not mine. Or is it? God, God, I have placed this series of incidents under every analytical scope that my mind can muster! And just like to the texts and messages that I send, there is no answer. I see no fault of mine, but I know that it is there. I know that I did something incredibly, abysmally stupid for things to get so bad. And, as God is my witness, I will find it! So base have I become that I yearn for some means by which all of this turns out to be a huge misunderstanding, and that we could go back to where we were.
I lived the first few days in a stultifying silence, in imitation of the one who forsook me so quickly and so ungraciously. In classes, at my meetings, I stayed quiet, urgently waiting for the gloam to descend so that I could recede into my imagination, and embrace that phantasmic happiness. I knew all too well that, come daylight, it would disappear, but at least I'd have my few hours...My Facebook page is a chronicle of adolescent tragedy complete with an 'Eponine' profile picture. But people have been understanding: Hamlet has been checking up on me because where he ends, I begin. I find it hard to imagine a time when he wasn't in my life. Verlaine, practical as always, would rather have me move on, but he knows that I cannot do that too easily. We grew up together, after all! God, I miss him. Mercutio very patiently pried the chrysalis open and said things that were just like him, but such a comfort to my ailing heart. Stranded's solicitously profound message was the crutch that got me through Wednesday. There have been many kind offers: The Novel Duchess wanted to take me shopping, while so many people have offered to set aside evenings for coffee and venting. I am fortunate, perhaps I was a saint in my past life that I have such a magnificent support system. Maybe what my boss said is true, maybe I am a good person, and that none of this is my fault. Yet...
In a way, this episode showed me a lot of things that needed to be shown. I had some very earnest conversations with Butters, Bebe and my boss. Nothing changed between us as a result, and I am glad for it. I didn't really know what would change, but I like the status quo that I have with these people. Also, I don't think I have it in me to sustain another loss. Most importantly, I sat myself down, and we talked. We talked about the drama, we talked about dignity, we talked about the future. I am pleased with the results: they aren't ideal, they most certainly were not part of The Plan, but they are my conclusions, and I will find a place for them; The Plan will have to yield.
I have grieved enough, I think. The arid landscape of my eyes doesn't have any more tears to squeeze out over someone who clearly does not care. Probably never did. Tomorrow will be different: tomorrow, I will cast aside the blacks and greys of mourning and wear some colour. Tomorrow, I will pray that another tomorrow sees me back at home where I can sit on my familiar slab in the kitchen, and talk to my mother about the books that we are currently reading. Tomorrow, my eyes shall be bright and not blood-shot. Tomorrow, I shall be witty and lively. Tomorrow, I shall live the day, and not wait for the night. Tomorrow, I know that there will still be a part of me that will fervently pray for yesterday, and I shan't begrudge these supplications: one, because the object of these entreaties is deserving of these, but mostly because I know that such dreams are deliquescent.

I miss you. Terribly.

I wish things were like they were.

But, tomorrow I shall cast away the sombre blacks and greys of mourning, and wear some colour. Yes, tomorrow.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

Uterus

2010-02-09T09:55:00.003-06:00

I have stayed away from my keyboard for a while, and the reason for this is bizarre at best. You see, I have grown a uterus. It isn't a tangible, reach-in-and-squish type of uterus, and I am not the only one who suffers from this unique condition. The Male Uterus (mine has been christened 'Squishy' by the ever vivacious Madhubala!) is a transient entity that shows up once in a while and wreaks havoc. A stern-eyed friend of mine told me that my uterus was sexist, but she really had no qualms about pointing out that I was PMS-ing. Heavily. Go figure! This still doesn't explain why I haven't written: for one, I have been busy. Insanely so. Tragically, there is a faction who believes that my industriousness is a pretence. I am letting them keep their judgment, for I cannot spare them my sanity, precious little of it as I have left. It is indeed a recession, O constant reader! A recession into the wilderness! Why do I keep dancing around the uterus? (Haha! That's what she said!). This is exactly why I didn't want to write: nothing vitiates the cogency of prose like a uterus and the meandering sentences it evokes! Meandering sentences, as you can infer, are directly related to meandering emotions. Yes, I have the emotional equilibrium of a pulsed pendulum these days, and it took me, oh, two-hundred-ish words to tell you that!

You see, I've met someone. Sort of. I don't know. It was at coffee, and I flew away from that scene like a lovesick Cosette. Now I spend my days and my nights texting furtively, obsessively checking Facebook, and inventing excuses to post, to text, to write. I burst into song at random, (much to the consternation of my residents) with the same alacrity with which I burst into tears, which, in turn, applies equally for when I burst into gales of inexplicable laughter. Hamlet has been a Godsend throughout this uterine crisis: dealing with meltdowns over Skype, and handling me with kid-gloves (or surgical ones) as I call him with fresh analyses at two in the morning. Janice and T-Tweek, on the other hand, have made it their life's goal to laugh at me (such overbearing tragedy! I hate me!), and, in the process, have enabled me to laugh at some of the "crazy shit [I] do". Charles Ryder has coddled and mothered me over MSN, while Bebe has promised me coffee and advice. Verlaine has been the fine focus knob on the microscopicity of my thoughts: "You are obsessing; calm down." Oh, my friends! I feel another cry coming on...

I don't do this: the laughing-singing-crying-my-life-is-an-ornate-musical deal. At least not openly. I don't glide down hallways; I sternly march down them to the smart clip-clopping of my Aldos. In class, I am Hermione-effing-Granger, and Hermione doesn't miss out on reading assignments, and neither does she day-dream and doodle. My life, as I knew it, has come to a stop. The worst of it is that I am enjoying it! And then, I am racked with guilt for enjoying it! Holy God, if it weren't for the proper false! It appears that my heart is wax, just like everyone else! Do you see me? Do you? Do you see that one moment I am reaching for paradise, while in the next I am cradling a stab wound? Holy God, is there no mercy? Where are the answers, and why must I wait? I cannot! I will not! Does this mean that a change is about? Oh! Le Chatlier's Principle! Oh! You silly, silly uterus!

Excuse me, I have to go make a Valentine, and I am not proficient with scissors.

With the promise of coherence,
Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

Segueways of Desire

2010-01-19T20:13:00.006-06:00

All of last week, I found myself thinking about desire. Clearly, I was not alone in this as Charles wandered down a path not often taken (but when taken...hooh boy!), and another dear kindred spirit penned a blockbuster of a post about matters of the heart. What is about desire that makes even the puniest creature move mountains, and make even the most convivial heart weep bitter tears of regret? My own room these days resembles a makeshift shrine to Aphrodite: the mood lighting is always on, there is artwork by Mucha on the walls, and beribboned boxes of half-eaten chocolate languish ignored as I sigh and question the alleged iniquity of it all! It must have become evident to you by now, faithful, constant reader, that with this post I am breaking my promise about the silence I had decided to maintain pertaining to love (and other animals!). What's a host to do, really, when a guest tends to show up brazenly and uninvited to what is an intimate soirée?

Speaking of intimate soirées, I find myself spending a lot of time in Janice's plush salon. Primarily because mine is not fit for visitors as of now! No, seriously, I really enjoy whiling the hours away with Janice. There is something luminously child-like about her, after having extricated herself out of that particularly difficult situation of playing the prize to two battling swains, Janice found herself in the best company: her own. No one to answer to, no furtive texts announcing the outcomes of fortuitous battles, no weeping into the night...just a sense of tranquility. Yesterday, however, when I called on Janice, I found her to be a charged, giggly bundle of silliness. Nauseating phrase, isn't it? But it was just so cute! Oh Janice! Apparently there is another flirtation around the corner. I know the gentleman, and he is indeed a gentleman, but whatever happened to Janice's solitude? Am I overly cynical, or is this just a case of sour grapes in that I see Janice's love-life progressing smoothly, while mine seems to be a vinyl record stuck on the '...but only on my own' part of the song that I am living these days? But I could not help but get caught up in Janice's euphoria: it wasn't the repugnant girlie routine that one hears of these days: there was no creeping on his Facebook page, and no impromptu Taylor Swift musicales. We talked, instead, of possibility. It was rejuvenating to use conditionals and the hopeful sentences in the simple future tense, in a life whose grammar seems to written wholly in modalities. Yes, Janice is a solace. In her own way, she helps alleviate the topological stress that my mind creates by entangling itself into conundrums it created for its own pleasure, like a mathematician who founds an identity that seems simple at first, but then this very identity develops applications its creator never foresaw. What now, then? It helps if someone were to tell the mathematician that his work is done: that creating such an identity is achievement enough, and that he is not expected to save the world, his world, with this identity. Janice is the friend who has introduced me to Friendly Chaos: the kind of chaos that makes sure you enjoy the ride as things hurtle out of your control. And this is bad? I don't know any more.

Speaking of chaos, I found myself confronting a trembling T-Tweak: his eyes, crazed as if triggered by the beating of a tell-tale heart...which was what had happened in a way. Without giving too much away, I can only say that that night led to a lot of revelations, and not just about specific events or people, but about ourselves. I may have spent the longest two hours of my life in T-Tweak's room that night, as texts and people flew back and forth, and fates were sealed behind closed doors. God, I wish I could say more! There's so much more that can be said...

In the end it all boils down to desire. If you choose to see it this way: then what is love but the desire to be desired? To play the rôle of forbidden fruit to what was once forbidden to you? Is that all really? Are the Naturalists right? Are we all doomed never to rise above this...this need to be needed? Not only that, when in T-Tweak's room, I had this overwhelming desire to unburden my conscience and absolve myself. On the surface it may seem like a positive step, a step taken towards gaining the commemorative badge of Doing The Right Thing, but I felt filthy and selfish that I would want to place the weight of what I knew onto someone's already heavin shoulders. Oh desire! How you drive us mad! What shall become of us in the end? I find myself walking alone at night writing and scratching out endings about what would happen if my story were told. I know that Janice does the same. However, I also know that Janice's story will have a clear-cut ending, mine? Not so.

Speaking of clear-cut endings, I need to give this post one too. My concluding thoughts on desire? At this point, desire is equal to two-for-one milkshakes at an old-fashioned '50s style diner. At this point, I only desire to be amongst friends, and not on my own.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

Éponine

2010-01-14T22:54:00.003-06:00

If I were any kind of man, I'd attack a punching bag and sweat my frustrations away. Me being me, I shall, instead, compose a poem.

Éponine

I don't quite know for sure,
If I want you
To be part of my world anymore
than you want to.

My story has not grown.
Pathetic as it is,
It is yet my own.

I don't suppose I ever did try
For myself before,
Deafening is that deadening cry
Of "One day more."

Waiting, like a fool,
Waiting, on my own,
For a crust to be thrown,
Waiting, as before
For one day more.

Look at me,
I'm not a blur,
I did not want
Your money, sir,
Just for you,
For once to see,
What I can be,
What I can be...

Today, I shall live for me.
I shan't see signs in star or tree.

Today, I shall live for me.
Living for you is quite the chore.
One day more.
Oh, one day more...

No more shall I
hover phantom o'er the Seine,
No more singing verses,
At least none of stinging pain.

I love you
But what becomes of this monster?
This 'me' who has never wanted more...
I know that there is no real answer,
Everything will stay as it did before.

I love you,
But I have to believe in tomorrow,
A tomorrow where I can live for me,
Tomorrow,
Yes, tomorrow you shall see,
I'll live
For me,
For me, evermore.

Today, though.
Today I shall wait,
Just today
For one day more.

Spring Cleaning

2010-01-10T13:22:00.004-06:00

This winter break past has been very good to me. It wasn't a lackadaisical episode characterised by a quasi-hibernation of sorts which involved getting out of bed for indulging in food items that oozed cheese/chocolate. This is the only meal I'd have in the day, and so there were no weight conundrums to figure out. I find that I turn into a gelatinous (because of all the cheese!) slob over winter break. The residence halls are empty, there are no classes to attend to, and there's really nothing to look forward to. This break was different, and refreshingly so. There were a lot of things that needed airing out, and I don't just mean linen. In fact, I really should have got on that...But yes, I did make some important decisions/resolutions. God knows, I had time!

The Future.

While R.A.-ing over break, and patrolling the buildings I was responsible for, I couldn't help but notice some of door decorations that the residents had put up. There were white-boards with countdowns to Christmas, declarations of eternal love and friendship, inspirational ditties urging people to be true to themselves, the spiky-haired Alltel guy...I was enamoured of the innocence of it all. They were so young (though not a year or two younger than I) and so full of hope, the kind of hope that assures one that the only pain they would ever have to deal with would be simple, and dispelled by a mere change in weather. My door is a tapestry of door decorations, it represents the Gilded Age of R.A. doors, in my opinion! To me, these decorations are symbolic of accolades that I am yet to achieve. My door is what got me thinking of the future, and the empire that I am to build for myself. So, I begged an audience from The Archduchess of Burgundy, jointress of the small but powerful immunology department at the university. I rather liked the conversation we had. It managed to clear away the heavy mist that had descended in front of certain alcoves, turns and avenues of the road paved before me. I had feared treacherous cross-roads urging decisions to go this way or that, turns with a one-way sign standing in warning, and yes, these were right where I had thought they would be. The only difference now is that I had a map!

Relationships.

There are things that I shall try to keep out of this blog, and out of my life hereafter. My neuroticism, for one. Charles Ryder, the make-peace that he is, had disarmed the term by calling it [our] 'quirks', but quirks are charming, neuroticism is debilitating. I live in the constant fear that I shall lose the life-giving connections I have made during my time here. These are all unexpected friendships: Hamlet and I were introduced in the strangest of circumstances, and now, I thank God each day for him. In fact, he had stored some of his stuff in my room over break, and as I looked over his books, his bass, his architectural odds and ends, I knew that I would have probably limped my way through this place without realising it, if he and I hadn't met that one fortunate evening. I was also looking after Bebe's fish and her plant over break, and the flighty, fiery fish reminded me of the quick-witted, astute Bebe herself. Yes, I am lucky to have found her as well. And then there is Butters. I honestly didn't think I would have more than four 'to-the-point' conversations with him all year, and that too because we were on the same staff. I have been known to enjoy bitter, almost acrid coffee to kick-start the day, but I also enjoy a soothing cup of jasmine tea. The time I spend with Butters is of that flavour. The reason I worry is because I didn't plan these! In high school, I knew exactly who was going to be my friend, and exactly who was going to be 'let go'. But this, I had no control over. I worry, Holy God, I worry! I worry that I may lose this all, and then what shall I be? Bestial! I had dreamed that life would be like this, with friends, impromptu fun and a hint of scandal. But I fear that something will kill this dream. I fear it may be me...

Oh, and I am setting the drama out to dry too. Yeah, no more of that. It's seriously not pleasant. This is a lesson I learned from Janice, a sweet girl introduced to me by T-Tweek. Janice is that enviable position where two gentlemen are fighting for her affections. That position is not enviable at all, by the way. It isn't easy knowing that one is the source if so much strife, yet Janice is engaging, funny and...normal. She doesn't have a sense of tragedy about her, when asked why, she said, "What is the point?" Yes, what is the point indeed? I shall be like that clever creature from that one musical about the best of all possible worlds:
"Enough, enough!" I say, "Of being basely tearful. I shall show my noble stuff by being bright and cheerful!" That, and I do have a pet now to listen to my woes, my Lysander (named after the Spartan war hero, and not the whingey bitch-boy from 'Midsummer..') is a betta fish in royal purple, and is excellent company. Butters and Bebe are the God-parents!

Love.

I am never talking of this issue ever again. I am done. Seriously. Janice, the seer that she is, said "What is the point?" That inelegant yet profound epithet fits this situation like soulmate jeans. Each day is another day of this person not caring, each night has been spent in dreaming of words that shall never be said. It seems like a colossal waste of time, does it not? And so it has been. I shall no longer think of what may have been in a vastly far-out type of alternate reality. I shan't look for reciprocation that shall never come, because, subtracting me from this person's world will barely make a dent in the way things are set up for them. No. Instead, I shall remember the truth that once was spoken: to love another person is to see the face of God.

My unchaperoned promenades down the serpentine, misty (some even say, risky) streets of thought this break have made this much clear to me: I am afraid that I am inadequate. Socially, academically and in all and any other possible ways. I shan't hunger for reassurances anymore, constant reader, how needy must you think me! Instead, I won't be afraid. I know exactly what I have to do.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Not That Boy

2009-12-24T19:20:00.002-06:00

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

2009-12-16T19:30:00.005-06:00

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

2009-12-05T22:26:00.009-06:00

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!

Classify, Classify, Classify

2009-11-29T18:20:00.005-06:00

Charlie Brown claimed (and with an infuriating self-righteousness) that nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. You would think, constant reader, that this would affect me not at all, for I deplore peanut butter. It has the texture of an adhesive, and the alleged flavour is, quite frankly, overrated.

Ah, but I am not dealing with unrequited love, no. In all honesty, if The Peanut Butter Test is the only way I have to find out, then I care not to know! I don't need The Peanut Butter Test, I am perfectly able to make an accurate prognosis. What I am suffering from, and this happens to all scientists, is a classification problem. What I have found is an exotic species of emotion that I know not quite how to classify, which taxonomic box to place in. If only this were unrequited love! How I wish it were! Or unabated lust! Or just a case of The Admiration (easily cured with a Tincture of Idle Gossip)! If it were any of these, I'd dissect it, draw up a diagram, give it a binomial name, pickle it in formalin, place it in a jar, and show it off to pasty school-children, telling them exactly what to expect from late-middle-school to college. You can hardly expect me to hold up my dessicated worm of conscience and say some along the lines of, "Here children, we don't quite know what this is, but feel free to poke around..." Heaven forfend!

The truth is, between the excessive laundry, wardrobe rearrangements, aimless walks, and attacking the secret chocolate store, I don't quite know what I am doing. Or feeling. I am wringing my hands in frustration, the rubicund tint on my cappuccino-coloured flesh is testimony to the hours I have spent doing this, just this, as classical music played in the back-ground and the 'fleurs du mal' of my ever-questioning psyche bloomed under the mood-lighting and caffeinated soil, to release their lingering scent of scruples. What am I doing? Since when did I become the kid who takes to uncharted woods and bites into succulent-looking, unknown mushrooms, and just hopes for the best? This is foolishness! But I want to go on, run an assay, and finally classify this THING that is tumourating amongst my affectations: classify it and put it in a box that shall never be opened again. Why am I even thinking of someone whose affections shall never be mine? But I do not want their affections! No! I...don't know what I want. O God, O God...

What shall I do with this secret? Perhaps, I shall let it fester within. Sepsis? It could happen. I should have known better than to entangle myself with Plantagenets; it's not like they won the war. And I stand to lose so much more than my head. My reputation, for one.

I remain,
GossipGuy.

"So Goodbye, Sweet Appetite..."

2009-11-21T18:01:00.005-06:00

I do believe it was a Tuesday when I found an album in a forgotten micro-SD card that recorded Hamlet's visit to my Eternal City. The pictures in that album etched a dreamy, dreamy smile on my face as I thought back to his sojourn.

French Sundays.

How effulgently my summer had bloomed at the Eternal City, even more so with Hamlet coming to visit. One of the most piquant flavours that my City offers up-and it's a seasonal one, mind-is when it becomes Wharton's New York, sometimes in very uncanny ways. Though in my mind I had planned meals and sorties and all sorts of epicurean delights for my exalted guest, I suddenly found that, my friends, The Aristocracy were absent! Charles Ryder was vacationing in the Land of Plenty, doing his philanthropic bit by visiting orphanages, courting movie stars by majestic waterfalls...it was all idyllic fun with a Lacoste tag! My dear Verlaine's schedule was a difficult thing to balance and the same went for Helena. Where one was dealing with a packed salon, the other could not tear herself from the demands of work. The lovely Hermia (who I haven't mentioned before) did not grace us that summer with her delightful person and even Sir Benedick, who had become a sort of fixture in my life, forsook the glitz of the city for more tropical shores. What was a Van der Luyden to do?! At my wit's end, I called in a favour from Mercutio. Mercutio and I go way back to a high school French class when I was a dumpy male version of Hermione Granger who could translate passages with a kind of alacrity that was unbecoming of a class so morbid, so uninterestedly taught! And that, constant reader, is how Mercutio and I became friends: over a dull passage about bored French children who go ghost hunting in a coal-mine!

As much as I enjoy Mercutio and his charming girlfriend, I hadn't met any others of his circle. In my Wharton-esque mood, I ended up christening them 'People who Wrote'. These Bohemians have rites that are vastly different from ours: there is little scheduling, the meals are quick and the entertainment is the kind that one secretly enjoys. I asked Mercutio if Hamlet and I could join him and his friends for this one afternoon, after which, I found the clear blue skies of my mind clouding over with apprehension: I had never socialised with People who Wrote before! What would I do? What would I say? O God, I did not want to come across as a snob! Having posed these questions to Mercutio, the reply I got was similar to what Mrs. Struthers said to Newland Archer in the novel that seems to mirror Hamlet's time in my City: "Come and be amused, and you will find a number of your friends." He was right. He was so right. A flurry of cards, impromptu musicales...such delightful people! I don't know how I score with them, but Hamlet was a hit! As he was wont to be! Hamlet being Hamlet charmed everyone from The People Who Wrote to discerning Verlaine. Oh, the aerial pleasures of a French Sunday!

Metropolitan Gloam.

Yes, I do believe it was a Tuesday when I was walking back from one of my professor's (the inimitable IgTinaFey) office, after having perpetrated ugly drama over a grade, so potent that Tennessee Williams would have been proud, when this strange, recondite dreamscape flashed upon the horizon of my muggy, sleep-deprived, caffeine spiked mind:

It was summer and the Eternal City had eased away the residual frost-bite from my skin with its warm fingers- it was a love different from the one I received at my Spitsbergen, where I was expected to help out, and be humble. The Eternal City is like an indulgent parent, or a besotted patron who lets one wax exactly as decadent as one pleases. It was summer and Hamlet was over, my luxuriant lassitude now had a purpose! I remember that afternoon when Hamlet and I went to The Biggest Mall in the World. We drank overpriced lattes served by stiff Armani-clad waiters, and paid court to some of the most magical shops in the world. Hyperbolic, much? Well, I am in love!

While these thoughts were a balm to my inflamed psyche, one incident sat at the core of it all. It played in my mind, in elegant black and white, as I walked back...to what?

In any case, Hamlet and I were at Gucci when an elegant coat in indigo caught my eye. It seemed to have been fashioned out of the metropolitan gloam of an after-work Friday evening. I wanted to possess it. I wanted to don it, and don the persona of the slightly harried, ashenly handsome executive who jet-sets between financial capitals and amuses himself with almost-romances at snooty airport bars. I asked the attendant for the price, and soon we were talking fashion.
"Are you a student?" he asked.
I responded in the affirmative, but before I could tell him that my fate was tied to a land far, far away he blurted out the following:
"You should consider working here. We could use people who are knowledgeable about fashion. It would be good experience for you."
For a minute, I stepped beyond the veil into an alternate reality. In this reality, I was a communications major in the Eternal City who was paying his way through college by working at Gucci. I had it all: a cherry-red second-hand car, a job I enjoyed, a job that REQUIRED me to wear Gucci and spout witticisms seasoned with nods to Frida Giannini, surreptitious 'forbidden love'-esque visits to the Tom Ford store, slowly rising in the ranks, an MBA, the metropolitan gloam...I wanted it all so badly.

In the then present, I felt worthless as I walked back from the ugly drama at my professor's and a panic attack at the library. As I looked up into the more cosmopolitan gloam of the Spitsbergen, I felt that familiar need gnawing at the valves of my heart. I wanted it so badly. But could I give up the pristine labs, the elaborate procedures? Could I trade in the vitriolic arrogance of a scientist for that of Gucci? Could I give up Hamlet, Punjaban, Santiago, Masakalli? If I had made that choice and stayed, I would have missed out on meeting Lord Kengleson, Butters, Wendy, Bebe, Tenorman and so many others...I could have stayed. But could I have forgiven myself for excluding these people from my life without really realising that I had done so? What they don't tell you about the metropolitan gloam is that it can often be a lonely place, but...

I seem to be going around in circles. Was I right in thinking that I know exactly how things like those began, and there can be no stopping such thoughts and the dreams of decadence that they inspire, and so they should be dashed before they take flight? I shall desist. I shall be good. Good, because no good can come of this.

As I write this, my wily iPod plays up Suzanne Vega's 'Caramel'. What could be more fitting, really, as I wrestle with treasonous thoughts about unrequited love....

It won't do
to dream of caramel,
to think of cinnamon
and long for you.

It won't do
to stir a deep desire,
to fan a hidden fire
that can never burn true.

I know your name,
I know your skin,
I know the way
these things begin;

But I don't know
how I would live with myself,
what I'd forgive of myself
if you don't go.

So goodbye,
sweet appetite,
no single bite
could satisfy...

I know your name,
I know your skin,
I know the way
these things begin;

But I don't know
what I would give of myself,
how I would live with myself
if you don't go.

I am a fool. Such a silly little fool.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

Splenic Vignettes

2009-11-10T23:36:00.004-06:00

I have been a bit heavy on the drama this past week. It is what Charles Ryder, in his eloquence, dubbed "[my] Phooey!" I have explored the length and breadth of my Phooey, and seen how I can be Blanche, Septimus, Richard, Quentin, and so many others in a matter of seconds. I hate this. I hate me.

"I am a scientist!"

I would like to take a moment and make this clear: I am a scientist. Do not treat me as though I were an idiot. I mean, "Hooker, please!" So, there is this gentleman in one of my labs, and he rather enjoys snapping at me, and teaching me how to hold a pipette. I am sorry, I wasn't aware that to be taken seriously as a scientist, I had to speak in the infamous dialect of pointing at reagents and grunting, and dressing in sombre argyle sweaters paired with Dad jeans. Of course you do your lab work exquisitely! You're a grad student, it would be astounding if you didn't! So all I have to say to you, my noble lord, is go and play with someone your own size. By which I mean yourself. There may be a lot of my self-esteem to go around, but I am very discriminating as to who I allow to bite a chunk out of it.

"I shall do no such thing!"

Seriously, ladies, we are not in the other ND anymore: I have striven long and hard to exorcise those memories, and I beseech you not to resurrect them and have them dance around me in a farcically twisted re-enactment of 'Thriller'. By heaven, I had a year to learn your choreography: didn't happen then, and won't happen now. Next time, I suggest you try not to cut the line, and hope that I shall save your slothful asses. I didn't this time: if anything, I had to create ma-h-jor drama, and put myself first. I am not asserting that I am superior to you in anyway, all I am saying is: I am done.

"I am sorry."

I am in the process if ruining a perfectly good new friendship by being cold to a genuinely genial person. I am doing this because I do not want to scare him off. It's a frightening realisation for many when they see that the 'dark and twisted, scary and damaged' is all too real, and not a quirky idiosyncrasy of this guy who thinks in multiple languages. Hamlet stayed. Hamlet stayed when he found out. Hamlet stayed when I would have yelled, "Fuck this!" and ran in the opposite direction, only to meet me in as phatic a sense as possible. I miss Hamlet. We don't see each other as much as we used to. I won't even be doing Thanksgiving with him. The practicalities of both our worlds have caught us in a stranglehold so enticing in its agony. And as far as my new friend is concerned, I shan't be able to stand it if I scare him off! The reason? I shall only have myself to blame...

"No! There is much more to be written! NO!"

They had to physically wrest me away from my immunology exam; I broke my bracelet in the process. It was ugly: I was sleep-deprived, overdressed, and just plain nasty to everything that so much as took a breath in my direction. Publicface was a task that day. A Herculean one.

The truth, constant reader, is that I am tired. I am tired of subsisting on the crust of reassurance. Or rather, this currency of reassurance, that is worse than charity thrown in my direction. I shall end with a few lines from my beloved Baudelaire, partly because I these lines are beautiful in their decay, and also in an attempt to add credibility to this post that has teemed forth from my spleen.

"She weeps, mad girl, because her life began;
Because she lives. One thing she does deplore
So much that she kneels trembling in the dust-
That she must live tomorrow, evermore,
Tomorrow and tomorrow- as we must."
-The Mask, Charles Baudelaire.

Live

2009-10-31T22:13:00.003-05:00

"Are we moving in the right direction? What is fate if faith's emerged a shame...?"

So crooned Bitter:Sweet from my PC as I slowly rubbed Burberry's 'The Beat' into the hollow of my neck....

Under regular circumstances, I'd take you down a long paragraph, relating my insecurities and apprehensions about the evening to follow, but I really don't want to do that. Not tonight. Not when I feel as vivified as I do. So let's cut to a scene that I really like:

Let your ears drink in Red Hot Chili Pepper's infectious (to the point of being insidious!) opening guitar from their 'Can't Stop':

"Can't stop addicted to the shin dig Cop top he says I'm gonna win big Choose not a life of imitation Distant cousin to the reservation..."

It is this to these strains that Butters, Bebe and I emerged from Bebe's car into the mauve, evening sky at our concert venue. You see, it was All Hallow's Eve, the Witching Hour was upon us, and Anberlin and Taking Back Sunday were in town. I am known to have a fertile imagination, but, at that moment, I could not imagine anything better than this. Even now, I cannot...

As usual, I was overdressed: skinny jeans, a white dress shirt (with the sleeves rolled way, way up!) coupled with an obscene red vest. Butters, as becomes him, had dressed sensibly: jeans, and a rather becoming dichromatic, long sleeved T-shirt which, he insisted, made him look about 12 years old! But, Bebe, clad in a sleeveless peasant top with a white shirt underneath, a spider ring on her finger (how festive!) was the one to be seen, and to be seen with! The People-watching that we indulged in, as we waited in line, was delightfully bitchy. But don't blame us please! What would you say to a rather corpulent French maid? Or a lasciviously dressed Raggedy Ann? She wouldn't be called raggedy, if she dressed like that! Or how about one flouting a thousand tenets of political correctness as she tried, by the means of glistening bronze make-up, to pass for Pocahantas? So yeah, we had really good material to work with!

I knew I wasn't going to regret this- a telling sign was that I didn't feel as violated as I usually do after being frisk-searched. Ah, but the night was yet young, violations would happen, and I would emerge with a big,
dopey smile upon my face, slightly worse for wear...but I am getting ahead of myself!

Once inside, we were welcomed by a comforting darkness. As the hour of performance began to approach, this darkness was gently cleaved open with beams of green, blue, purple, red and yellow, and a spacious stage was revealed. A spacious stage with musical instruments and judiciously positioned microphones. My knees began to knock together, as a steady stream of adrenaline began to seep into my blood-stream : O God! I was here! My first rock concert! I was with fond, convivial people, and I looked fantastic!
"It would be great if 'Motion City Soundtrack' were playing too," Butters said.
"Jizz. In. My Pants." I responded in elation.
He laughed, "Not when I am standing so close to you!"
"Very well, then: Mind = blown!" I amended. "You will admit, cerebrospinal fluid is better than semen!"

It was around this time that I met The Red Queen and Alice in Wonderland. As Alice walked past me, despite myself, I couldn't help but be drawn to her somewhat campy appeal.
"You look bewitching..." I said rather lingeringly, and hating myself for it.
"What? Bewitching?" she pronounced.
She and her friend The Red Queen caught each others' eye, then mine, and we laughed.
"Thanks," said she, after having decided that 'bewitching' fell in the 'compliment' category. Way above 'hot', or below it; depending on how your lists are arranged!
While the Red Queen did nothing for me, I couldn't stray far from Alice's sickly,sweet kitsch. Bebe smiled knowingly, as I exchanged smiles tinged with nasty, with Alice. It all fell apart when Alice decided to have an extended conversation with me.
First, she wanted to know if I was faking an accent: that chafed. But I put her doubts to rest, assuring her that my accent was indeed mine own, and we couldn't all be 'Appu', try as we might.
"Oh-ma-God, he isn't BS-ing me or whatever, right?" she phrased, looking pointedly at Butters and Bebe.
"Naw, he's legit." said Bebe, smiling brightly.
Second, ever-curious Alice wanted to know if I was dressed as Michael Jackson from 'Thriller'. Oh that was a deal-breaker right there. You. Do. Not. Fuck. With. My. Sartorial. Choices.
Ah yes...the bands were starting up, and, by then, I had lavished enough of my attention on Alice. It was time for the night to begin in earnest...

The opening bands were...interesting: the very first band, with a ninja/zombie theme and just as strange a sound, made me sad. These were grown men, for the love of heaven! Now, 'Fun' were a much-needed change of pace with their gospel-esque sound, and innuendo laden lyrics! Their rather androgynous lead-singer was dressed as the equally androgynous (or, as he phrased it, 'sexually ambiguous') Jaime Lee Curtis. I swayed slightly as he sang of "All the Pretty Girls on a Saturday Night", and, for a fleeting instant, went back to the Eternal City...
My hand, at this point, brushed against this girl's derriere. Not my fault, really, we were all so closely packed. Mortified, I apologised.
"It's okay, and I enjoyed it anyway!" she responded coquettishly. I couldn't help but gallantly bow in response!

Anberlin's descent on the stage finally breathed life into the pulsating seed of dormant ardour that was trembling in my soul. As the first guitar string was strummed, it created an orb of kinetic energy that buried itself into the stage, made its way into the ground, crept up my person through my feet, and hit me with a force of such enlivening dynamism that, it was as if, I could see colours now...My God....
It was then that the shoving began! People wanted to get ahead, but I had a great vantage point (thanks to Bebe's astute placement), and I wasn't going to give it up. Rhett Butler was neatly packed away for the evening, as I shoved right back.
"GET THE FUCK BACK!" roared a voice near-by, I looked up to see Butters regaining his famed equanimity. If I could have, somehow, freed my arms from the thousands (it seemed) that were packed so closely to me, I would've given him an ovation.

Oh Anberlin! How well they primed the crowd with their well-chosen play-list! And they were so immaculately dressed too! Arms flailing, sweat dripping down my back, an inflamed larynx...I was existing in the Astral Plane of Extreme Rockitude! (Yes, you may hate me for that.). The music...it was a live, pulsating charge that just enlivened everything it touched. I could spin you a metaphor about the crowd being a thick, enmeshed unit so like cardiac muscle, and the music being the electricity that spreads through this network of cells, and the entire muscle fibre throbs itself to life. But tonight is not a night for reprehensibly nerdy, "work-related" things! I felt a sob catch in my throat, as I,veritably, blossomed under the aegis of unadulterated adrenaline. I wish Anberlin had played longer...

The lead singer of Taking Back Sunday is a rather astute gentleman: he made the observation that a lot of superheroes had peopled the audience that evening. This was true indeed. But with your generic Superman, Batman, Spiderman et al, there were also unsung others. The two that we experienced were: Perspireman and Clobbergirl. Perspireman is a rather corpulent and, as his name suggests, his one superpower would be perspire. Profusely. Both Bebe and I were victims of his grubby claws, as he shoved and grabbed and jumped and, well, perspired all over our respective persons. Perspireman stood behind me during the Anberlin set, and decided that it would be okay by me (and it most certainly wasn't!) if he grabbed onto my shoulder as he jumped to make his enthusiasm known. By the time the Anberlin sweat...erm...set was over, I knew him as intimately as one knows a lover. It was traumatising, to say the least. Perspireman was rather magnanimous with bedside manner too: he stubbed my toe very badly as he moved on to his next victim (poor Bebe!).
"Sir!" I cried, with my affectations returning. "Do you mind?!"
He smiled dimly. Obviously, he isn't the kind who believes in calling back...
With Bebe, a repeat performance of The Wet Adventures of Perspireman ensued, much to the consternation of Butters who made his displeasure known with a few well-timed barbs: oh, this is why I keep these people around, they give me hope!

Clobbergirl was my own cross to bear. True to her name, Clobbergirl pushed and shoved and elbowed, just to get in front. No, I had no intention to yield. So I leaned in and whispered, "Madam, I am going to have to taze you..."
Poor Clobbergirl! Her powers vanished right there, as she urgently searched for the perpetrator of this rather 'When a Stranger Calls' type of prank. But I was busy rocking away to Taking Back Sunday....

They played 'Make Damn Sure', if you must know! I love that song, and at that time, my veins were rather tangled close! Taking Back Sunday's verve knocked me right out of my being, and it was good. It felt right to levitate slightly, despite being surrounded my multitudes. My ears are still ringing, and I can say for a fact that they shall for some time to come.

I am so grateful for Butters and Bebe: the catalysts of my branching out. I could not have asked for better friends.

I finally feel caught up with my youth, and all I can say, in conclusion is:

"Burning down bridges now (scatter the ashes) Godspeed to all you're after Is this a life left just to remember Tell them who you are who you really were (hey hey) Kill yourself slowly over time fashion statement suicide She's still asleep in a Chelsea hotel Bad turns to worse and the worst turns into hell Fall asleep Don't fall asleep Don't fall asleep (God save the eyes that dim tonight) They lied when they said the good died young They lied when they said the good died young Stay with me stay with me tonight.
-'Godspeed' by Anberlin.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

The Intelligent Metrosexual's Guide to Friends and the General Crunkitude of Impromptu Evenings In.

2009-10-17T02:17:00.009-05:00

A slow, expectant smile alighted upon Butters' usually composed features, as he revealed it to me. Oh, he took his time with it, but, as if out of the blue, it was staring at me right in the face.

"Go on.." he said.

"What? What?" I questioned in my usual befuddled manner.

"Go on...put your hand to it." he encouraged.

"What? NO!" I refused vehemently. "I wouldn't know the first thing to do with it!"

"Just, you know, slap it around a little bit..." he said huskily.

In the background, Wendy tittered brightly.
"Yeah," she chimed in. "Go on! It's all warm and sweaty..."

"What? You too pretty for this?" Scott Tenorman demanded of me. "Just slap it! Slap it good!"

I sighed deeply, and looked down in consternation, only to see that Butters was still holding it out.

Oh whatever would I do with a volleyball?! I was never sportive in school. I have always been The Kid with The Note!

Oh whatever could I do with a volleyball?! A lot, actually, as I soon discovered. Off came the cashmere and floated wide, the tie (skinny!) was thrown onto the side! I popped a button on my shirt, and got my game on.

Yes, I did just type that.

The volleyball flew across the room, and I propelled it forth. I slapped it, slapped it good. Laughter came thick and potent, but on the inside I was conflicted! My 'propah' self was losing it! This wasn't right! I didn't do this. Ever. My propah-self needed to chill, so I gave him the night off. I went down to my room, put on 'Sureshot' by Yellowcard and got ready. You see, in my world, there is a perfect outfit for everything, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this one right here. In about 5 minutes, I returned to Tenorman's room, clad in a punk-rock-esque T-shirt, a pair of baggy Adidas sweat-pant thingies, that I had bought in case an 'in-case-of-emergency-slip-on-baggy-sweat-pant-thingies' situation ever arose, and my trusty Skechers. Butters, Wendy and Tenorman were delighted, and I was too. You will not believe how difficult it is to manoeuvre oneself in skinny jeans! My propah self was not on-call anymore, instead I was Lane. Lane, of the disheveled hair. Lane, who exclaimed, "Dude!" everytime the ball came awfully close to hitting him, and he deftly deflected it with a well-timed SLAP! I rather like Lane, he's not a snob. Or a prude. Or overly self-conscious, 'overly' being the operative word...

What we went on to play was 'Room Pepper'- a variant of true volleyball adapted to the constraints of limited space. As the ball flew from one avenue to another, something in me just...broke. And I dove headfirst into the game, laughing (rather than effetely gasping) whenever the ball struck me, laughing at the persiflage, the jokes, the many, many times that Butters and Tenorman yelled out, "Cha'mone!" and sweetly chastised me for "being ignorant"! As the game (where I, allegedly, dominated) began to die down, the volume of the Southpark episodes that played in the background, rose up. (Yes, Tenorman with his 'slight' OCD liked it when people changed their Room Pepper positions in the interval between episodes-he's a man after my own heart!). The cries of 'Cha'mone' and 'Get the beat down now!' and the zany anecdotes that punctuated every burst led into a dance-off. Yes, a dance-off involving a darkened room, four twentysomethings, a joyous speaker-set that made its pleasure known with a fluorescent paroxysm of lights everytime the right beat was hit on the song that played, and Rihanna. Choreographed beautifully by Tenorman, we rocked our socks off to 'Disturbia'. (HEE-HEE!). I felt that twitch in my pelvis, the very same that signals an unfettering of my pretensions. Oh yes, it was all very dum-dum-de-dum-dum-dum-de-dum-dum...At one point in the proceedings Tenorman became Aladin and Butters Princess Jasmine, and they sang to us of 'A Whole New World'- I gave them a standing ovation, for sheer testicular gumption.

There is something from that night that shall stay with me for a long time, perhaps forever: as we got our groove thang on to Rihanna, I piped up, "I feel silly."
A shimmying Butters said: "It's okay to be silly around friends."
It is strange how touching something like that can be, despite the fact that I never was unpopular or lacking for friends at any stage in life. Except for that one time in the 8th grade...but we never speak of that. No! I am grateful: grateful for mellow, unpretentious Butters AND unhinged Butters who can do a mean falsetto that would make Disney purists see a whole new world, for obsessive, fiery Tenorman who, like his name, can look at you with a fierce intensity and urge you not to 'dare close your eyes', for effervescent Wendy who will chalk you up on the Awkward Board as someone whose exploits would make the marker run dry, and for charming Bebe (Butters' significant other) who will listen as you weep over your self-pity sundae at Cold Stone. I had had a terrible evening before this: I was missing the festive season back home, and my paycheque hadn't arrived. I was basically a Joad in Dior, Dior bought by swiping the Daddy Card! But that was before I took a step down the rabbit hole...

Without further ado, then:

The Intelligent Metrosexual's Guide to Friends and the General Crunkitude of Impromptu Evenings In.

1) It is perfectly okay to have friends. You can get very annoying to yourself, though you may be too polite to mention this. To yourself.

2) So you had a good time...good for you! Stop trying to be all Kate Chopin about it, and writing the blog equivalent of 'The Awakening'...oh wait! Never mind.

3) Your pretensions are obsessively assiduous. They are basically Ted Baker clad Oompa-Loompas who strive very, very hard to get you through the day. Give them a weekend off, once in a while. They may need to be pushed out of the door, but you (and they) will be better for it.

4) Stepping outside yourself is as salubrious as a brisk, early morning walk. You will find yourself being relatively sportive, laughing with your mouth gaping, (as opposed to low chuckles that show 'good breeding'), and not questioning the political correctness of a 'Cha'mone!'.

5) Peppering your verbiage with a 'dude' or two is perfectly acceptable, as long as you do it organically and not gasp and cover your mouth as your brain rattles off a strange amalgam of a 'Hail, Mary' and 'The Lord's Prayer'. Please don't do that. Don't be THAT guy.

6) You will not blush if someone asks you, uh, "Blow [them]" in a different language. Instead, give them the finger.

7) Stop apologising. Ho!

8) It is okay to be silly around friends.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Perfume

2009-10-13T23:52:00.006-05:00

It has been a fortnight clogged with work, deadlines, networking and so much more: but a very fragrant fortnight nonetheless. When I think back to all that has chanc'd this fortnight, no concrete images come to mind, but my olfactory receptors are overwhelmed: yes, it has been a rather fragrant fortnight...

Coffee.

That slightly charred, wholly comforting aroma that attacks my nostrils each morning, as a machine decrees that I simply must have a cuppa before I start the day...and I listen, because I am a good student, and a reasonable man who knows a salubrious habit when he sees one. Know that the scent of coffee in the air does not only signal my physically getting out of bed, but it almost always signals an awakening. I remember how with Charles Ryder, that familiar scent would have a hint of a dark chocolate to it: much like the dark places our conversations would sometimes take us, or how with Verlaine the scent would take on the nuances of dark red cherries softly crushed to let the juice run, and add a pungent sweetness to the whole affair, and I always enjoy it when the coffee soused air is charged with cinnamon whenever Punjaban, Masakalli and I get together and trash someone away to Kingdom Come! But I was a fool to think that I know the entire repetoire of my favourite beverage, for I met quite a few new flavours this fortnight: there were fumes of black cardamom in the air as I sang of betrayal: first of Hamlet's and then mine, the pinching awareness that only ginger can bring as Mary Wollstonecraft and I faced off each other in an elaborate comedy of manners, and finally the chicory that subtly infused itself around the battlefield in an attempt to vie against the toxicity of the days past. Thusly, here we are: clutching a fragile peace, as if it were the only thing that mattered.

Violet Leaf.

Last week, as I was rearranging a section of my wardrobe, I found a tiny bottle of Burberry Touch, and it was like being revisited by an old lover and, once I wore it on my skin, I realised that the spark was still there! The summery, slightly floral, but mostly spicy aroma of Burberry Touch, mingled with whatever it is that my skin offers it, makes the perfume even more intoxicating to me, mainly because it owns me so completely. That day, as I set out to do battle with the hours again, I wore my old favourite and it took me back to my days as a teenager in the Eternal City: it took me back to the drama, the fights, the quick, furtive crushes, the mini freak-outs, major episodes and a rollicking uncertainty of what the next day might bring. That night, I dreamt in art deco: it was black-and-white, with imposing, voluptuous structures and imposing, voluptuous women who cried black, tarry fury, and all of it bore the unmistakable signature of violet leaf, white pepper, and vetiver: the ingredients that make up the heady brew that still stubbornly clung to my skin even on the next day. The scent amalgamated itself into the maelstrom of memories that that gorgeous fever dream had stirred up, and out came a pantoum:

"As I begin to etch this quatrain,
I hum the oldest song of all,
A pretty young thing and her dashing swain,
Oh the drunken heroics of it all.

I hum the oldest song of all,
The garish dolor, infinitesimal pain,
Oh the drunken heroics of it all,
Of all that mattered, for life was plain.

The garish dolor, infinitesimal pain,
You who loved like an eternal fall
of all that mattered, for life was plain,
Such a cauchemar! But our own to call.

You who loved like an eternal fall,
Your eyes claret, your smirk vain,
Such a cauchemar! But our own to call.
I can think of things we can all feign.

Your eyes claret, your smirk vain,
A pretty young thing and her dashing swain,
I can think of things we can all feign,
As I begin to etch this quatrain."

Sodium Hypochlorite.

The antiseptic miasma of Sodium Hypochlorite is what haunted R.A. duty over the weekend. The very same Sodium Hypochlorite that is called out of bodily fluid clean-up kits when the need arises. You see where I am going with this? My co-RA Lawrence Selden and I slapped on pairs of latex gloves played at Forensics Lab when we found, well, puke smeared pillow and T-shirt unceremoniously dumped in a sink. They waited with a kind of expectancy that comes when has been filthy or odourous far too long, and knows that release is on its way. As the clear, clear streams of Sodium Hypochlorite made their way through the crusty crevices of decay, the soiled accoutrements knew that they were rescued. Carefully, I gathered up the nastiness and delicately placed it in an angrily diffident biohazard bag.

The antisepsis of Sodium Hypochlorite bears a harsh smell, but it is a smell of clean slates, a smell that tells you that it had to struggle to make its presence felt, that it had to get rid of all the others so as to make room for itself. I can only wish I had something like that when I lost it in immunology lab last week: when my house of cards came tumbling down and, crouched in a cubicle in a gent's bathroom, I choked back sobs and placated my brain as it yelled, "What the fuck am I doing here? I am not a scientist! I am an amateur! And I hate this pretentious accent!"
Oh if only hypochlorite happiness could seep in and make everything okay, if only just for a while.

Ash.

The acrid odour of a burning carcass viciously attacked my nose when I heard the following,
"Hey look guys! It's a fag fest!"

One of the R.A.'s in the hall has decided upon setting up a programme for the GLBTQIA community in the hall, and the response has been violent, to say the least. I get that these gentlemen are yet green, and have much of the world to see, but how can they, in their naivete, be so vicious? I am a straight ally, I have seen the struggle first hand, and I will always regret playing Edith Wharton when I knew exactly what was going on. Seeing this side of things, the side that does not entail inter-corridor high-fives and laughter, but the side that collectively forms the satanic hand that reached forth and blazed away good intentions, leaving only black smoke in its wake, was a disturbing,debilitating experience. My sensibilities are still careening in disbelief, trying so hard to shake out that smell of smoke from the curtains.

Oh constant reader, forgive me for how vague this post is! True to form, I am smiling with the knowledge of things that only I can know. And as much as I'd like to, I can't give you the details! The details would be damaging to all involved...

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

Dirty Magazine

2009-09-26T00:24:00.005-05:00

I must say, I am rather pleased with the status quo these days! On the surface everything seems bright and clean and scented with crisp early autumn sunshine and freshly baked goods, but it is in the deep down where things are a bit more, shall we say, interesting!

House of Ill-Repute.

In a desperate attempt to save my friendship with Hamlet, I found myself at the town's adult book-store. Right. I'm not going to remove that, typed as it was in naivete! In truth, he's frightfully busy with architecture, and I am up to my eyes in work both academic and otherwise, we barely see each other these days! Thusly, (thusly?) we decided to meet each other at this charmingly cavernous espresso bar downtown. I felt positively debauch: here I had stolen a few hours from my day to meet my friend, as if in secret, and my judgmental Physics homework would never know! I still giggle at the memory.

As far as the adult book-store is concerned, I found myself standing before a rather affable gentleman asking for directions to the venue where I was supposed to meet Hamlet. The gentleman was the proprietor of the shop: clad in black, smile on his face, he greeted me with a cheery, "What can I do you for?"
In a puerile moment, I did think on the lines of, 'Do me for? Are you for real?' But that moment passed, thankfully.
I phrased my inquiry rather oddly:
"You probably don't get this a lot..."
There was an imperceptible change to his friendly features: he suddenly had his work-face on, a work-face that said, 'Oh here's a new challenge: there isn't much I haven't heard of friend...'
I was almost tempted to pipe up, "Do you have 'Dirtpipe Milkshakes Vol. 12'?" just to see the extent to which I could faze him. But I was afraid that he might actually have what was just asked for in jest, then I'd have to buy it so as to avoid looking like a doofus, and however would I explain the presence of enema porn at the residence hall without appearing like someone with a bagful of issues?!
But I digress...
So I asked him for directions to the coffee place, and he more than obliged, he actually called the coffee place to get rather detailed instructions, cheekily telling them to expect a "well-dressed young guy" soon. I would have blushed if I wasn't doing so already. The whole place had that midwestern friendliness to its depravity: the magazines were less, "You know you want to..." and more, "It would be nice if you did!"
As I walked past one of the aisles, I received such a genial smile from a patron, you would think we were both
buying groceries at Target! A cheery wave and a "Do come again!" from the proprietor marked my exit and I emerged dazed onto the street, but with a fairly good idea of where I was going.

Hickey.

Hamlet has acquired a girlfriend. Yes, he really hit it off with Mary Wollstonecraft- a kindred spirit who was of great solace to me during 'My Year Abroad: Part Une' (Yeah, we don't talk about that.). I am happy for him, for them. It's charming to see them engage each other at an intellectual level so suited to one another: her fire is his smile, his intensity reflects itself in her winsome visage: it's all very sweet, to the point where I want to throw them some odd variant of the Engagement Breakfast, and invite all my friends to fawn at the couple. Ah, but as becomes a good friend, I have been keeping a healthy aesthetic distance: power may be in threes, menage a trois's may be fun, but no-one likes a third wheel!

One evening, after my meetings were done with, and I was adding the final flourishes to an immunology lab report, trying to gloss over a rather tragic murine demise, my whore of a phone vibrated in that delicious way it does when it has something undeniably juicy to tell me, and I found out that Hamlet had been spotted sporting a rather monstrous hickey! As becomes my title, I posted a rather bitchy-revealing-but-not-too-revealing status message on Facebook. Oh we enjoyed that immensely! In a conversation with Hamlet (one with a very post-mortem-esque air) I threw in a few barbs on the lines of, "I think a hickey is a great accessory, now, *I* never could wear one!" Ah, but he's an astute one, my friend is! He caught me right out: I do believe he called me a "horrible jelly-fish serving bitch". Good times! Good times!

Oh, but constant reader, the truth is deeper than all these shallow fables: I am alone. Barring a few instances of unspeakable nastiness, I have nothing to show for my (alleged) youth. But boldly do I lock my skeletons in their walk-in residence, and judge away to glory. Oh of course I am happy! I shop, I befriend, I laugh, and I judge. They like me, and I like myself for a while! My own version of Cunegonde's ditty would go:

"And yet of course these trinkets are endearing, HA-HA!
I know for a fact my Gucci is a star, HA-A-HA!
If not myself, I do love what I'm wearing, HA-HA!
If I'm not pure, at least my shirts are!"

Wanton.

A few nights ago, I found myself swaggering (and I swear this is true!) through the halls of our neighbouring all-woman's residence hall striking up conversations, and generally being a whore. The R.A.'s at that hall had put together a programme in which they allowed unaccompanied males to stroll through their halls just to see how many of their residents would be willing to call them out on the escort policy. I dressed the part: baggy shorts, overpowering perfume, a neck-piece of sophomoric cool, a V-necked T-shirt layered with a plaid shirt, hair rising up in quills: I looked like the stereotypical freshman. I seriously considered the exposed boxer bit, but I lost my nerve at the last minute. Some lines should never be crossed.
To my pleasant surprise, I was hit on. Constantly. I came very close to collecting a few phone numbers, but didn't because I was on a mission: a mission that entailed me playing the part of a wanton, unescorted boy(!) with loose morals. I have never felt so objectified before, and I liked it.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Mirth

2009-09-20T16:17:00.003-05:00

So there I stood, a pile of brightly coloured envelopes in hand. All of these were in my mailbox. All of these were addressed to me.

"How very odd." I enunciated carefully as Hamlet looked on.

Hamlet had that look about him, that look that told him that he knew that I was standing en pointe on that line between Public Sanity and the neurotic/cathartic breakdown.

"Well!" I continued with a frightening sense of cheer in my voice. "Let's go back to my room! Yes! Let's do that."

Hamlet nodded: this was familiar, the strange propriety, the rambling...

My room seemed larger for some unfathomable reason. There was something magnanimous in the air. As I breathed it in, it burnt and was caught in my throat.

"Why..." I pronounced, my words gelatinous.
As Hamlet proceeded to calm me down, I begged him to leave. To leave, because I thought I was going to cry...O God! I couldn't possibly cry here! I never have! Not even when I moved away from the Eternal City! But that THING that was caught in my throat was debilitating me! I had to do it, I had to...cry.

Hamlet (bless him) is a gem, and so he left me to exorcise my insecurities.

I was alone. In my big room. The Thing in my throat squeezed tighter, and I gasped loudly. The rains came then, the dessicated fields of my eyes were a-flood, and it. felt. so. good. I was trembling tremulously, the kind of trembling that accompanies an object on the verge of explosion. I gripped the side of my desk, and I made out the colourful envelopes through the teary haze that obscured my vision. The pleasant shower amped itself up to a tempest, and by God, it was the most alive I have felt in a long, long, long time.

If you imagine things the way I do, then imagine this: a foreign kid of average build, weeping piteously as 'Never say Never' by The Fray plays in the background...It was very 'Grey's Anatomy'!

As beautifully tempestuous as that was, it was now time to compose myself: I washed my face, applied cooled Earl Grey tea-bags to my eyes, moisturised, refreshed my perfume, readjusted my scarf, made myself some coffee, grabbed a few Lindt bonbons and sat down to read my mail.

There is an infectious mirth about those cards: almost the entire RA staff wrote how much they valued me, how much they enjoyed having me amidst them. I laughed at their witticisms, in my mind I hugged every single one who had taken the time and the trouble to write to me. Such kindness, so much more than I deserve...

That very afternoon, my therapist, Dick Diver II, had asked me if I had ever been truly, truly happy. I said that I had come close, but every time a foreboding sense of 'oh-this-is-going-to-end-soon' spoilt it for me. But this was different: for once in my overly analytical, worryingly neurotic existence, I was truly, truly happy: it was an invincible happiness, and for that one moment, the world was mine.

One of my R.A. friends, also a part of the project, told me that my gracious Lord Kengleson had facilitated the whole thing. I struggled with myself: I wanted to go thank him, but I was afraid I'd break down again. Who needs that kind of drama? I went up to his door three times in an hour, and each time I came back trembling, on the verge of fresh tears. Finally, I did make it up there and gave him the warmest, tightest hug I could muster. He kept saying that it was no big deal, he kept reducing the fact that he had gone around campus to the different buildings to collect the mail to a mere trifle, but he shall always have my everlasting gratitude. You see, it gets very cold here in this Spitsbergen, and Lord Kengleson has given me my own private sun...

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Contradiction Triangle

2009-09-13T21:08:00.000-05:00

I am just so fucking pissed at this point! Oh! OH!

Friday was the day of Three Contradictions. Sounds like one of those horrible 'let's-have-99c-sundaes-on-Sunday' things, does it not? I hate the fact that I get to sit, as pretty as you please, in the midst of the triangle that the Three Contradictions so fluidly form around me. Let's make our visit, shall we?

1) "You really need to work harder. Or not so hard. Or maybe, just channel the hard-work in the right direction: the direction of the stuff that is actually going to be on the test."

This is what my Biochemistry test told me this morning. It's hateful to stay up till ungodly hours going over such a frighteningly large amount of material, and then just...blank out the next morning. Of course, it came to me. The furtive 'going over' from the night before did manage to seep in through the crevices of this brain. But that moment of absolute silence between the arrival of the test on my desk and the seeping in, left me chilled. By the time the slow seeping had hastened to a steady flow, the test was done with, and I was in Physics, trying to speak Newton. In three dimensions.

This semester is officially my semester of exotic, foreign languages.

First, there's Biochemistry: my spoken Amino Acid is stilted, and has a learned quality to it. My written Amino Acid is conscientious and full of scratched out functional groups. Hell, there should be a course named 'Translating Amino Acid- The Language of Protein Architecture'. Oh I just made such a vilely geeky joke there, that I just want to douse myself with cheap beer so as to mask the self-righteous stink of Eau De Pseudo-Nerd.

Second, there's Immunology with its abbreviations: TNF, PRR, PECAM, C3b-Bb-Bb, C2aC4b: Gaaah! These make sense to me individually, but when they are all thrown at me with the vigour that only IgTinaFey (my professor) has, I feel like a destitute non-sportive, ex-fatty trying to catch a whole swarm of angry, abbreviated volleyballs. I'm pressed against a wall, and they crash right at me. Bruised, but smiling: Ah, it hurts so good...

As far as Physics is concerned, I have never spoken Newton. Never will. That's that. So there! Ah-ha! And other platitudes of over-enthusiastic affirmation, that I shall use to mask my disappointment into myself.

I am turning into a Freshman: I am disorganised, and my diet includes a lot of soda and cereal. I had this down to a science last year: bustling and harried? Yes. Messy and disorganised? Not so. O God, O God! I can only wish that things look up...

2) "You really need to stop being so hard on yourself."

My therapist, Dick Diver II, is a charming lady. She's supportive, she listens, and, so far, has no intention to start mind-fucking me. I find that I am happiest when in therapy, because when not in therapy, I dream dreams that have me in a French maid costume, bent over Sigmund Freud's left knee, talking about my issues as he spanks me with a feather duster. After a talk with Hamlet, it turns out that Freud now says, "Why are you having this dream?" within the dream. It's all very artsy with "No-you-won't-get-it" yearnings. And let's face it, constant reader, non-pretentious neuroses are hardly neuroses at all! You don't go to therapy for those, you seek hugs or food or something.

At any rate, Dick Diver II, told me what Dick Diver I told me too: "Stop being so hard on yourself." You see how this is a contradiction? If you don't, I suggest you read #1 again. Hard on myself? Oh! OH! I should be fucking horsewhipped!

3) "Of course, you can get into Georgetown!"

Dr. Transposon, my academic advisor, is an all-round great guy. He's a brick, he's the cat's meow, the bee's knees, and I really think that the dated slang is getting a little demeaning. But you get it right? Given the day I had had, the last thing I wanted to talk about was grad school, because my chances of getting into one of those recondite places seemed very, very unlikely. As Dr. Transposon and I talked of grad school, a few fancy names (much like the one above) were thrown around, and I disdainfully went "Yeah right!" and even "As if!" I don't know if I actually used the latter. It's very unlike me. But hey, I was conflicted, so it could have happened. Even though I hope to God it didn't! But Dr. Transposon rejoined with a very pragmatic, "Why not?" And that's all it took, really, for the sun to emerge defiantly onto the livid mindscape of my contradictory day.

"I don't know" is something that I say a lot these days.

I don't know if I will ever fluently speak those avant garde Sciencey tongues.
I don't know if I will ever be truly, truly happy with me.
I don't know if I will get into Georgetown.
All I know is what the little boy in 'I Am David' knew and held so dear: I am me. That is all.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

Cinéplex

2009-09-06T16:01:00.000-05:00

So it has been 2 weeks, I think, since I posted last. It seems as if more time would have elapsed. Or rather, more time should have elapsed. It's not fair! The dawning of each day is like start of a movie. Yes, that is how it has been, of late: a fine amalgam of some rather fine films.

American Graffiti.

"Oh, no, not me. The night is young and I'm not hittin' the rack till I get a little action."

What started as a frisson built itself up into a wild, vivifying rush of ebullience, and fired up the blood in my veins as it skipped nimbly between one synapse and another. The result? A whoop, a gale of inexplicable laughter...it was an ungodly hour and I was in a convertible with the ever-agreeable Rosalind and the convivial Gabriel Oak: co-R.A.'s and dear, dear friends. The wind weaved its way delicately through my hair leaving them tousled, disheveled, but trendily so. Every cell in my body pulsated to the electro-pop ministrations emanating from the car's music system. Almost organically did I join the two in shouting out lyrics to the night:

And if I notice you I know it's you. Choose you don't wanna lose you're on my radar (on my radar) on my radar (on my radar)

It was all us- one with the night, teetering on the edge of ecstasy, madness...Oh to be there again! Laughter, such laughter, as the Taco Bell attendant looked at me uncomprehendingly as I asked her for a vegetarian gordita. Oh! Oh! The banter was crisp, the persiflage was pungent, and oh...the laughter! Never mind the revelations that would come to pass as time strolled right along, never mind the mis-communication, the heart-break...Right then, there was no night but that one. None at all.

Mean Girls."You're wearing sweatpants. That's against the rules! You can't sit with us."

The Residence Dining Centre, these days, is oddly reminiscent of my idea of Valhalla, and the primary reason for that would be The R.A. Table: a long table, by the picture windows, with high stools and R.A. Royalty. Each day, I'd sashay into the Dining Centre, orange juice in hand, stopping at practically every table to exchange frothy, phatic nothings, until I'd finally weave my way to The R.A. Table. And there, amongst the other Anointed Ones, there would be laughter, stories, clever one-liners and-oh! A wonderful, wonderful time! Don't look at me like that! Being a voluptuary is hard work, I'll have you know!

But, in all seriousness, this particular episode left me a little shaken: am I really this shallow a person? Imagine my surprise when, one afternoon, I get back to my room, having barely survived the First Installment of Wrathful Wednesday, log into my Facebook and notice that Hamlet has posted the following:

"Hamlet wishes that he had an army of R.A. friends the way some other people do."
Seeing as I have an admiration for all things bitchy, even if they are directed towards me, I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit. Oh, it was priceless! It was so acerbically bitchy, I had to hand it to him! Despite my rather exultant first reaction, I found that this little barb prickled me all day long as I went about facing the Second Installment of Wrathful Wednesday.

Now, imagine my surprise as I go back on to Facebook and find that Hamlet has vented his spleen to Helena! Oh! It killed me! There was such anguish there! Had I really forsaken the one guy who had given me the most tender bromance ever for the glitz of The R.A. Table?! Oh no no no! This had to be remedied at once! I called him over and a reconciliation was had. It was a quiet affair, there were hugs and borderline tearing-up. Oh what a cauchemar life would be without my friends....

The Others

There are things your mother doesn't want to hear. She only believes in what she was taught. But don't worry. Sooner or later... she'll see them. And everything will be different.

I was on my rounds a few days a go and I couldn't help but wonder this: why am I not carrying a lantern? Why am I not wearing a permanently paranoid expression and clothes that belong to the '40's? No, really! As an R.A., all I do is hear things. I hear whoops and yells, the clink of glass and an aluminium baritone, I hear giggles, I hear the whooshing of wheels in hallways...But when I emerge, I find...nothing. Oh, I've caught the odd miscreant, but really, otherwise, I only hear my residents and they only hear me. Maybe the noises are like a seance that carry out to confirm my presence. Oh no you don't! I'm not dead! This is my house! Of course it was foolish to think that they'd take to me instantly. Yet, the disappointment I have in myself doesn't seem to ebb...

Yet, constant reader, things are looking up. I have started aligning names to faces and phatic conversation is, well, a start at least. My fellow R.A.'s, fellow phantoms, if you will, have been very encouraging as well. Perhaps it is all in my mind. Because I see them now, without wondering if they really see me, and yes, things are different. In the best way possible.

Brief Encounter.

It's awfully easy to lie when you know that you're trusted implicitly. So very easy, and so very degrading.

I...can't talk about this. I thought writing about it might be easier, but it's not. Every time I even think about it I get that horrible lingering pregnant feeling in my nose, the kind that signals a sneeze or sobs. O God, O God! Such a foolish harlequin, variegate with regret and an undefinable somethingelse.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

Niceties.

2009-08-23T11:34:00.000-05:00

There was a time when I simply could not talk to men who were better looking than I was at the time. Let's just say that I was conceitedly humble or humbly conceited, whatever floats your boat! This has changed, now that I inject a healthy vial of Snobbery right into my blood-stream every morning. Snobbery, Caffeine, a dab of Davidoff's Adventure and I am invincible! There were those who told me I wasn't doing right by myself, because, if pop-psychology, hermeneutics and semiotics are to be believed, then I am, on the inside, a big, fuzzy dog looking for love and acceptance, a big, fuzzy dog who is also a comma splicer, seriously. At any rate, these well-wishers of mine requested me, rather sweetly I might add, to be nicer, to be more approachable and thus win friends. But, honestly, tell me, who, with an accent that is indelibly tinged with the taint of British public school affectations is, ever nice? What is this 'nice' anyway? Mrs. Manson-Mingott hated the word 'nice', she would rather go for 'affable', or even 'fuzzy'! At least these adjectives tell you what to expect! I am never nice, thank you. Never completely nice, anyway. As for the comma splicing, I picked that up in my adoptive Spitsbergen.

Move Along.

Once training ended and I graduated to being an R.A. in earnest, I found myself waiting for move-in day with breath that was bated. And when the occasion finally arrived, I went out there in my assigned polo, with a dress shirt and slim tie underneath, Snobbery, Caffeine and 'Adventure' in check and I began to help incoming freshmen check-in. At first, it was good. Drunk with power (and possibly hopped up on, well, caffeine), I issued fluid instructions, perorating every spiel with a crisp 'Move along'- my fellow R.A.'s smiled indulgently while the incoming residents just looked shell-shocked. Half-way through the process, my energy began to flag. Horribly. The rooms were filling up: I had residents now! Oh. My. God. I was on the cusp of hyperventilation when my rational self (thank you, Betty!) led my other self back to my room where I could have a moment to myself and stay the incoming crisis.

I adjusted my tie, refreshed my perfume, straightened my name-tag and went at it again. But it just wasn't quite there: the 'move along' felt soggy and I just wanted to curl up in bed and die. Or at least sleep for a while! I tried to remember faces, names and align the two, but, after a while, all of them blurred into one tall, lanky, Aeropostale wearing boy with a look of absolute beffudlement on his face. I tried to banter with some and that was, as they would gleefully decree, a FAIL. An epic one, even. Maybe they didn't get my jokes, or my accent, or the fact that what I was saying was actually a joke and that no-one was really going to be put in a strait-jacket. In retrospect, I think, the 'Sweeney Todd' references were also a product of bad judgment. Yes, gentlemen, these ARE indeed your files and not the worst pies in London.

I also tried socialising. Oh yes! But that blew up in my face as well. You see, I should have waited for mummy and daddy to have left, because, when they're around only mummy and daddy do the talking, their wards just look on like people who went out to the park for a stroll, witnessed a particularly elaborate brouhaha and are sure to tell all their friends about it. Despite my chagrin, I found the whole mise-en-scene to be rather endearing: falsely chirpy mummy and daddy, trying so hard to alleviate the grief that is going to come crashing down upon them on the ride back home, gawky looking residents who I just wanted to hug, reassure and feed cake to (thanks, S!)...why, I was there! I was right where they all are now, but it seems to have been a long, long, long, long, long time ago...

"Move along!"

"Move along!"

"Move along!"

And so it continued. The metal of my name tag coalesced with the fabric of my staff polo and became a load as onerous as a breast-plate. It seemed like a perfect day for banana-fish. Dear heaven! I was drained. I felt so inadequate. I did not deserve this garb, this role: my R.A. apprehensions came rushing back in a wave: Titus, Mrs. Danvers....all of them! Back in my room, 'The Hours' sat smugly in a Netflix envelope and seemed to mock me cruelly. Oh it was a perfect day for banana-fish, alright! Wearily, I turned my computer on and Pandora started up:

'When all you got to keep is strong,
Move along, move along like I know you do.
And even when your hope is gone,
Move along, move along
Just to make it through.'

How I love to hate that obnoxious band! But they sure as hell brought me back from a precipice that I am sure to teeter at many, many times as the year goes on by. What is the answer, after all? Does it lie in the fuzziness of the niceties we've all been to asked to inculcate and cultivate? Or do you just make your own personal blend work? But what if they hate me? Ah but I shan't think of that now. I'll go crazy if I do. I'll think of that tomorrow. Now, I shall go dancing. There is release to be had on the dance-floor.

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

The Intelligent Metrosexual's Guide to the Great Outdoors

2009-08-14T20:14:00.000-05:00

I know it has been a long time since I have written, but a lot of crazy shit has been going down! I can't believe I just typed that! I could erase it but, it seems bizzarely commemorative...ANYWAY, this week I found myself receding into the wilderness. A camping trip was planned as a part of R.A. training and I ended up learning a lot about myself. Yes, I feel very Zen right now! The following is an attempt at self-satirization. I had fun writing it and laughing at myself, with myself! I hope you do too!

The Intelligent Metrosexual is no outdoorsman. This makes sense, since only a particularly foolish metrosexual would put himself at the mercy of the outdoors without knowing what to expect. The Intelligent Metrosexual does his research before hand, maybe takes a few notes as well. A few notes that are memorised and burnt before anyone else can find them. Why? Because Alphas do not take notes, and, while no-one really expects you to turn in a brauvura performance to the extent that you may find yourself made an honourary Alpha (dream on!), you will be expected to pass for someone who might, on the eighth day of any random week, develop that potential.

The following is a list of rookie mistakes that are easily avoided. If you are an Intelligent Metrosexual, of course!

1) Packing, if I may say so plainly, is going to be a bitch. For starters, you are to carry ugly clothes. As inconceivable as that may sound, it is entirely possible. Any mulling over that you do about which of your clothes you think pass for ugly must be done in private. You may find, at some point, that you have reached an impasse i.e. you may find only a single set of clothes that is 'ugly enough' for the trip, and if you are valiant enough to take only that one set with you, you will find that, at the end of your trip, you will loathe that one particular set more than you ever thought possible. Even after washing those clothes thoroughly, will you detect find a faint whiff of perspiration everytime you approach said set of clothes.

2) You will not perspire; you will sweat. Alphas sweat. They do not perspire.

3) Do not even attempt to plan an 'outdoors look' for yourself. Who do you think you are? Ralph Lauren? Oh and, if I may just add, (rather ruggedly so!) I pity the fool who goes through a Ralph Lauren Polo catalogue to get ideas: this is not a production of 'Brideshead Revisited'. It may prove to be just as traumatic at times, but seriously, THIS IS NOT A PRODUCTION OF 'BRIDESHEAD REVISITED'.

4) It is a good idea to pack sparingly. You know, like the Alphas: just bare essentials. But just like you're not supposed to over-do the aforementioned, over-doing this bit is also abysmally stupid. If you go over-board on economy, you will find yourself without a tooth-brush, showering essentials and most of your bedding. Never mind the fact that you want to douse yourself in Purell as a result of what you think is something that will help stretch your limits and challenge your resourcefulness-such negligence is a sign that you're trying too hard to ingratiate yourself with the Alphas and that, good sir, is just silly! You are not Grizzly Adams.

5) Oh and do not carry hand sanitizer with you. Ever. Especially if you obsessively sanitize your hands. Let's face it, it IS the outdoors, and no amount of hand-santizer is going to make you feel good about yourself.

6) Avoid sleeping aids at all costs. You will get loopy and word-vomit will result. Do you really want to talk about your feelings when you have other things to worry about? Like bugs? At any rate, why would you want to talk about your feelings anyway? Do you really have any? Hmmm, I thought not.

7) The buzz-word is PMA (Positive Mental Attitude), not PMS.

8) Self-satirising your situation is very, very therapeutic. Deadpan wittily and everyone will think you're a riot and you will not want to bust out the shortbread.

9) Do things you wouldn't normally do: yes, I speak of physical activity. The Alphas will be more than happy to help you out. Minimise the drama, please. Keep a stiff upper-lip throughout. Remember, YOU ARE FINE. Anyone who tells you any different, even if it is yourself, is a whiny little bitch. You will be better for the experience if you finally allow your testicles to descend.

10) Seriously, stop whinging about how hard this is for you. We get it. You've never done this before. So do it now! Remember Bernice from Fitzgerald's 'Bernice Bobs her Hair'? Erm, never mind that example, it is probably not the best one... The point, however, is that you are not special. Yes, say that to yourself a few times. You are not special: the grime sticks on you just the same as it sticks on others, the mosquitoes relish your war just as greedily as they relish that of others. Sure, you may be unsightly at the end of it all, but think of the possibilities! Somewhere there is probably a picture of you, getting prettier by the minute!

11) Do not high-five anyone. Seriously. You'll give the whole game away.

12) The Alphas are probably in better shape than you ever will be. Saying that you have been 'working out a bit', or 'really should start working out' is a piss-poor defence mechanism. Everyone knows that you do not, have not and will not work out. They are just too polite to say so.

This above all: to thine ownself be true...

Actually...never mind!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Sound, Fury, Now, Memory

2009-07-15T08:31:00.000-05:00

As a Lover of the Eternal City, my mind is constantly seething, and why should it not, really? There are enough espresso tinged antique fables, enough branded fairy toys to take me on so many separate trips that will, at some point, converge. There is also the fact that the Spitsbergen beckons, as I am suddenly inundated with news from friends back there. What fun it is to throb between two such wondrously different lives: one as decadent as rich chocolate and the other bearing the familiar comfort (and snowy whiteness!) of vanilla. And thus, is too much inspiration a bad, bad thing. So much has been going on, I really don't know what to talk about and what to leave out! Seriously, I may have written a dozen drafts before this one and each of them could not do justice to the week I have had! Let's hope that this one hits the mark.

Peek-A-Boo!

Mall-hopping can be quite a trip! I mean that in the acid/meth sense! I can never really bring myself to leave and when I do, I spend several restless days craving just one more hit and, thus, I inevitably find myself throwing a tantrum at Cartier or trying on shoes upon shoes at Aldo: oh, and I am as happy as a clam! The stores, the ambiance: it's a heady, nourishing miasma! The fumes, though invisible, are potent, invigorating, intoxicating and basically the stuff that causes many writers to launch into paroxysms of purple prose. Not me, though. Never me!-I'd totally throw in a 'LOL' at this point, if the stick up my ass wasn't all that far up.

At any rate, this potent, potent headiness that I speak of is also found in the depths of the limpid eyes of, what I like to call, the Peek-a-Boo Girls. My first encounter with the species occurred at The Biggest Mall in the World. There I was, with a group of friends, wrestling with my guilty conscience at Marc Jacobs when I felt a pair of eyes burn into my Marc-ensconced back. That particular expression isn't a cliche for nothing- it really does hold true, I did feel the burn! And it hurt so good...I turned to face a pair of greyish-green eyes illumined with mischief and experience. I smiled, as the Spitsbergen taught me to, the smile was returned! A warbling giggle and a rustle of fabric later, she was nowhere to be seen! O God! O God! What was this? None of my companions seemed to have noticed the exchange but I had to tell someone! I pulled Charles Ryder aside and told him about The Green Goddess (as she was clad in this silky green thing that left just enough to imagination...). Charles nodded knowingly and said, "The City is all about sex, dear boy, but with a twist! It's all about eye-fucking these days: only lookey, no touchey!" Eye fucking?! Intriguing. Very intriguing. I wanted to see more of her! Go again, if you will. But the mall was a vast, vast terrain and having lost her...Oh I wanted to cry and laugh and dance and...I was losing it!

After a major detour that involved Orange Julius and another friend who fell unabatedly in lust with a frat boy's (he sure as hell looked like one!) shanks and followed him around River Island as the rest of us detachedly looked on, I found myself at Ted Baker where I ran into the Green Goddess again: Full beautiful- a faery's child! Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild. My God! We caught each other's eye several times, (Kiss me. Kiss me where your eye won't meet me.), she looked approvingly at the coat I had picked (Oh you know you know you know I love...) and I valiantly tried to look smoulderingly at the dress she caressed (I mean I'd love to get to know you.). With a lingering smile that bespoke a million velleities, she disappeared into the trial rooms, leaving me destitute...on a cold hill's side. Mon Dieu! I'd just been eye-fucked and I'd liked it. Oh God, yes! But now? She was gone! What would become of me?! (No you girls never know, Oh know you girls'll never know, how you make a boy feel.). Apparently, another gentleman in the store had noticed the exchange, a true Tiresias, he gave me an understanding look which seemed to say, "La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!" And when The Green Goddess emerged from Ted Baker, bags in hand, my newfound friend-Mall Tiresias- looked at her with prurience, his hands creating a riot in the pockets of his jeans until he finally whipped out his...cell phone and pushed play: 'Hauli nach, hauli nach kendey mundey tainu, lak tutju pataliye naare!' (All the boys ask you to dance slowly because the sway of your hips drives them wild!). Suddenly, I was Mall-Tiresias! My glitzed up version of 'A Man and a Woman' had suddenly acquired the sordidness of 'Backdoor Sluts IX'. Ew. I decided to join my friends at Cold Stone. If there was ever a time for a smoothie, it was now.

Supah-Dupah!

I love Sichuan cuisine, and having expressed the wish to spice up my palate with some, my parents took me to my favourite Sichuan restaurant in the City: Dynasty. I am fond of Dynasty for various reasons: they don't create a fuss over reservations, the food is lovingly prepared by someone who obviously cares for the cuisine and is just delectable- the understated and unpretentious elegance of the place draws me to it over and over again. Dynasty evenings always sizzle, be it the chilly flakes in the food or the crackling conversation--everyone's a bit drunk so...
At any rate, this evening was slightly different, and the cause? Memory. This time I was more than content to stare at the shadow puppets awnings and think back to a time so very, very different from this one. Back at the Spitsbergen, my room-mate Santiago and I would frequent this rambunctious, pungent (in many ways) establishment called 'Super Buffet'. He had discovered it while we were returning from a grocery excursion. Not a Sichuan place, per se. It was more of a Mongolian grill, but, I could guile them into making me some Mapo Tofu! Loud evenings- such a respite from strait-laced schoolwork and hall government duties- would ensue: a mixture of quips and fuck-yous, political humour and some toilet humour too. Laughter, as thick and heavily spiced as the sauce the tofu luxuriated in. Oh how I missed it all! The performance I'd put on so that the owner would let me carry some of the tofu home, and Santiago would get that look upon the charade with his laughing eyes... This, at Dynasty, was just elegant and where's the fun in that! I missed the 'rave-tastic' music Santiago played in his car on the way back (Are we human? Or are we dancer?), so different from the lilting thumries (a form of classical music) that were played in my father's car. The shadow puppets before me mimed battle, but, on the inside, I was battling my own confusion. What was going on here? Was I <gasp> missing the Spitsbergen? Oh no no no, it was so much simpler than that. It was Santiago who had made those evenings what they were. So no, it wasn't the Spitsbergen, it was my friend who, if he were there, would have even made 'Dynasty' a supah-dupah affair.

"So intimate, this Chopin..."

All this talk of Mapo Tofu proved inspiring enough for me to actually whip some up for a luncheon I had scheduled with Charles Ryder. So I unleashed my inner '50's housewife and set about the task of making onion soup, egg-fried rice with asparagus, mapo tofu, and avocado smoothies. It was exhilarating to 'create' a meal all by myself and, judging by how much Charles enjoyed it, I think I didn't do too bad a job! There was a Wharton-esque feel to the evening: suddenly my high-rise became a New York brownstone at the dawn of the 20th Century and we were two gentlemen, enjoying a meal and wittily talking about the many vicissitudes of life and everything else like it. I have experienced espressos with Charles Ryder many times in the past and the conversation that we've had has flowed as smoothly as the coffee concoctions that easily slipped down our talk-eroded throats. Conversations with Charles are always charged, informative affairs that run the gamut from popular culture to intimate confessions. The theme, that evening, was variation. Remember the diary I mentioned in the previous post? Well, I read out a few sections from it to Charles and all he could say at the end of the recital was, "Who were you?" Who was I indeed! That poisonous, bunch-backed toad of a diary belied the perky (Charles's word) in-control persona I projected at school. Yet, in an inscrutable way, Charles and I used pretty much the same defence mechanisms to keep at bay the chaos that threatened to take over our lives. The only difference was that Charles's battles were infinitely harder than mine....
The realm of memory is a welcoming yet shady place that may somehow show you that what you thought true then had not even an iota of exactitude in it. That is why it is always a good idea to have someone like Charles along when you visit with memory; doing it alone may just dement.

Snow Candy!

My early mornings, though rare, are rather organized albeit cozy affairs: Propped up in bed I nibble on Walker's fantastic shortbread biscuits between alternates sips from a steaming cup of light roast (thanks Charles!), while attending to my correspondences and Facebook things. It was on one such morning that my MSN buzzed and a bright "Hey A!" flashed up on my screen. It was Punjaban! She and I spent a good hour-and-a-half chatting about ourselves, our significant others (mine being the Eternal City!) and just things in general. It was a heartening, almost salubrious exercise for the banter, the persiflage, the memory of snow and eternal cold balanced out by sticky lattes and the warm glow of camaraderie put me in a fantastic mood for the rest of the day. I even smiled at the treadmill rather than glare at it with the usual contempt for five minutes before mounting it. It pleased me to no end that she and Neo were getting along fabulously. They truly deserve each other! Yet Punjaban found herself doing that thing again, that thing when she wonders why Neo chose the beguiling night of her dark tresses over the many sun-kissed blonde ones that were available to him. This never fails to astound both Hamlet and me. Here's Punjaban: funny, sexy, smart and solicitous and Neo is obviously enamoured. Then why question so good a thing? Oh how I miss them all! But Hamlet will be visiting the City soon. More on that another time...

Punjaban, if you're reading this: I LOVE YOU!

R.A. Apprehensions Part II: Rah Rah R.A.!

I cannot wait to be an R.A. Seriously. I am really, really looking forward to it. But I am afraid too: a new building, new people and me. O God, o God...it took a Santiago and a Lyra to get me to emerge from my self-constructed chrysalis and become sociable again. I really don't want to be stiffly formal again! I do it well but I don't necessarily enjoy it. Of course, I've corresponded with many of my co-RA's and my affable hall director, but the apprehensions persist! Last night I had a dream, and promise you won't think me weird, and in it, I was back at my old dorm and there was this Mrs. Danvers-esque person who kept steering me towards the windows and asking me to 'listen to the sea'. Creepy, yes. But a definite improvement over the 'Titus Andronicus' fantasy!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Signs

2009-07-05T13:46:00.000-05:00

'Coming Home' is, quite frankly, an over-rated concept. The cinnamon-spiced warm milk of a feeling is something that is the product of bad books and really bad movies! All in all, homecomings are bizarre! Take mine, for instance: my friends have completely different agendas now, some work, some study while they work, others can't return and yet others don't want to... I came home to a brother who is now taller than I am and is a quintessential sixteen year old, read: blithe, apathetic and a wee bit self-centred. Actually, more than a wee bit: a whole lot! The only constants in this world of wildly changing variables are my parents. This isn't really helping, though, because I have changed too! What I once considered charming, even (and I hate this expression) sweet, now seems cloying and fetter-like! Change and its many signs, that was the theme that this sine curve of a week subscribed to.

Diary.

While inventorying my wardrobe and organising my beloved books, I came across an old diary that I had maintained. It was dated back to that transition year between 17 and 18. There amongst a mess of Stephen King paperbacks (reject pile) and Beloved Classics That Improve The Mind (flaunt pile), I began to peruse a life left behind...
Amusedly, I read the first entry: 'Dear Diary, Oh how I abhor that appelation! But really, what else can I go by? Dear Kitty? Oh please!' As I ventured into deeper water, my amusement began to turn rancourous. I most certainly could not have been this...this...creature! He was a hateful snob who had something mean to say about everyone! It embarrasses me to say that I had written some pretty dreadful things about people I was now on excellent terms with! O God, O God! The number of times the term 'fugly bitch' appeared in the text is inveterately frightening! The text was also cringe inducingly loquacious. Sample this: 'I cannot help but abominate that abomination!' Heavens above!
There is no easier way to say this: My old diary is clearly the Burn Book from 'Mean Girls'. I don't even want delve into what that makes me...Strangely enough, in true sine curve fashion, my amusement that had became rancourous now gave way to an odd sense of tranquility. I had turned out alright! That document was proof of that fact! The acrimony and spite had dulled away, or, maybe, had been exhausted in My Year Abroad-Part Une (no, we never talk about that!). Despite this realisation, the diary still haunts me! It sits in my bed-side drawer and I can hear its pages rustle and shift, like the tell-tale heart. And, God knows, this is, in a sense, my tell-tale heart! A part of me wants to dispose of it-murder it ritualistically, sacrifice it to the flames and another part of me wants to hold onto it as a memento of residual angst, a ticket stub from a stomach-turning roller-coaster ride, a reminder that I will never be THAT again. I know not what to do....Advice would be welcome.

Afternoon Tea.
Another day, and I forget which one, I had lunch with an old child-hood friend. I do not use the term 'old' loosely! Her family had relocated to another country when she was seven and I was 10. See what I mean? She was here on that bewildering crusade we all know and love: The Great College Hunt. As I sat across from her, me sipping my jasmine tea and she a macchiato, this line from Henry James' 'The Portrait of a Lady' popped into my head: Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. I cannot come up with a better sentence to describe the perfection of the moment. In the spirit of the sinuous nature of the week, the moment was that joyous point of inflection that followed the minimum point the initial awkwardness and led to the maximum point of an unconstrained tete-a-tete. For a moment I envied her fresh-faced, wide-eyed demeanour. At one point, I think, I was seeing an anime version of the girl who was gasping and laughing at the stories of my foreign homestead. I suddenly felt more avuncular and less friend-like! My brother and his companions, 16-year-old boys all, have done a great job of making me feel ancient and wise. Intelligent, I may be; wise, I most certainly am not! I'd rather not speak of the 'ancient' bit! This avuncular thought synapsed with my old diary that pulsated with my teen angst which, in turn, led me to wonder about how much she had changed! It was indeed like gazing upon the portrait of a lady! This girl, who used to glide through the corridors of her old house like one possessed, singing Bollywood numbers in a piercing falsetto, had bloomed into a marvellous young woman who had an air of quiet maturity about her. She obviously did not sweat the small stuff and her in-control manner probably made every contretemps shrink back. She was ready for the world, and I, sage as I am, can only wish her all the luck in the world!

Luncheon.

Charles Ryder astounds me. I did lunch with him this very day and it was exactly the kind of thing my somnambulatory existence required. Conversation was slick, creamy but had bite, much like the roux he deftly prepared: wildly different topics flowed into each other with ease akin to the delectable apéritifs that made their way down our parched throats, quirks like the caffeine of the man's mean cappuccino...oh, it was a delight! Ah, but this week is a circuitous bastard and within the swirls of a fudge-covered Baskin Robbins creation lay a dark, dark core. I have compared Charles Ryder to glamourous Gaveston, and as true as this is now, it wasn't always so. We spoke, this evening, of high-school where Ryder was a poorly understood outcast (and understandably so: Gucci and biochemistry seldom go hand in hand, but that's Charles for you!) and Mrs. Manson Mingott who had taken it upon herself to make a project out of him: it was a very public secret, sadly. But Mrs. Manson Mingott, like her namesake, wielded enormous power and influence over our microcosm. I love her! But I also love the way Charles Ryder held his own against her well-meaning yet unwarranted involvement.
"I didn't want to be pitied! I cannot imagine anything worse!" quoth he, as reminisced about those malingering conversations held in the class-room where Mrs. Manson Mingott held court. A tale of woe, repression and yearning studded with facetious jabs of humour (often self-deprecating) made for a sobering experience; thoughts of those tempestuous years when the line between appearance and reality had condensed and all but disappeared, took me back to that spiteful diary which, now, appears as a chronicle of what lay beyond that ornate mask of perfection and a smothering, cannibalistic quietude.

It appears to me now that coming home is not a return to the fold. No. It has more to do with touching base and taking stock. While I inventoried my wardrobe and organised my books, I also sifted through the baggage left behind by those particularly violent years and made note of what had changed, what had disappeared and what had appeared in place...

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Evensong

2009-06-24T14:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday: late afternoon, late June. The summer being at its blistering best, vicissitudinal music and a lilting tune...

From behind a grey-blue year long curtain of rain, my best friend had emerged: Verlaine. It pains me deeply that he hasn't found a mention on this blog yet. Verlaine and I, we have been inseparable since infancy and circumstance. Ah circumstance! How many times have I traced your peaks and troughs with my fingers, your very variability, your precisions and divisions... A dull acceptance have I learned off of your quirks.

Yesterday: late afternoon, late June. It was just a day, dull and laden with vacationable ennui. Yet anxiety niggled away at the base of my brain, playing the trapeze artist with my brain stem. I always get all hot and bothered before meeting Verlaine, our lives have drifted apart so much that I wonder if we have anything left to say to one another. Each time have I been proven wrong resoundingly, yet each time I am still a little bewildered.

The evening was stretched out against the sky, and I dressed in a worrisome way: why was I so worried?! It's ridiculous! I have known him all my life! Nothing has changed! The dynamic still exists...Dear God!

I stepped into the mall where our fashionable cup of coffee was supposed to take place and, in time, I saw him. Resplendent in red, he greeted me warmly and my fears vapourised. Of course, I have a penchant for botching things up...I gave him an awkward hand-shake! He took it in his stride and we made our way to La Gaufrette. Conversation was easy, quirky, dark, hilarious and, frankly, unchanged. What I find best about my conversations with Verlaine is that we slip right back into the scheme of things very, very easily. Suddenly, that one whole year compressed itself into an errant comma that places itself in a conversation because, just for a minute, something else had to be attended to, and now we're back and talking as if we'd never stopped talking.

There was time for laughter. We laughed a lot. That is what I remember most: full-throated laughter, very unlike the politically correct chuckles that befit our age. Laughter, slicing its way through a thick mist of disillusionment; meticulously scripted deceptions; love, bitter as chocolate; sex, sweet as nectar, the irony of therapy: a monumental rhapsody, set to the strains of laughter. And then there was time for Earl Grey and Mocha with sides of quirk, caprice, mousse and carrot cake:"This mousse. It isn't very good." said Verlaine at one point-

And so the conversation slips Among velleities and carefully caught regrets Through attenuated tones of violins Mingled with remote cornets And begins.

I had missed him. The full weight of how much I had came crashing down on me as the evening drew to a close. We hugged this time, as we probably would have when we met if I hadn't done that ridiculous hand-shake! The evening, it was still stretched out against the sky. A tedious dinner event (that, after this therapeutic rekindling, appeared to me an empty, soul-sucking monster of empty, soul-sucking conversation) waited for my attention. God O God! I wanted to go home and luxuriate in this feeling of overwhelming peace that came from knowing that I still retained that part of my soul which would resurrect itself in Verlaine's presence. Mollified by the sheer decadence of our talk and laughter, I wanted to go home and think of the world, having talked about it for the past 3 hours:

We, that do chisel words like chalices,
And moving verses shape with unmoved mind,
Whom wandering in groups by evening seas,
In musical converse ye scarce shall find,—


Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Skinny

2009-06-12T22:40:00.000-05:00

Having lived the dorm-life for the past year, I lost a lot of my inhibitions and a lot of weight. God knows, I was carrying at least 15 kgs in excess, of which I managed to drop 10. At this point, I am really tempted to lie and say that I found a work-out buddy and we did fun gymmy-buddy things pine fresh in the early morn, followed by a sumptuous (yet healthy) breakfast with an accompaniment of dark, judgmental looks that were cast upon those upon who opted for the delicious 'scone-and-a-latte' option. Now, all I need to do is throw in a clever and ironic Falstaff quote as seasoning and it shall taste just as a perfect, aspartame flavoured weight-loss success story is supposed to.

Of course, I am not going to do this. It's wrong! Not that that has ever stopped me, but, let us face it, the people who know me shall chortle at this Falstaffian approach, and Old Jack does have his pride, though he may be somewhat confounded by what is deemed morally questionable.

The truth is a bit more distasteful than the fanciful (yet false) picture painted above. Oh no no no! There was no frenching the tooth-brush! By distasteful, I mean bland, not puke-escent (totally coined that!). Allow me to eluciadate this by prevaricating the lie:

Item 1: "I found a work-out buddy": Untrue and, in no sane world, could ever hold true, I am a bit too cynical to appreciate the salubriousness of a work-out buddy. Or even a work-out.

Item 2: "Pine fresh in the early morn": I am snorting with sarcastic laughter here! The only times I'd, and pardon my French, drag my slothful ass out of bed "in the early morn", would be in order to make it in time for an 8 a.m. class. I honestly don't know which is the bigger joke here, "early morn" or "pine fresh" because I am not really a happy-"Good morning to you!"-awakening sort of a person. I am bitter and crabby and full of hate until I get that caffeine flowing.

Item 3: "dark, judgmental looks that were cast upon those upon who opted for the delicious 'scone-and-a-latte' option.": This dispels the "healthy, sumptuous breakfast' bit as well because I was the King of SconeandaLattenia (amongst other minor duchys of habit and mind). So yeah, self-hatred can only extend so far!

I find that I cannot run from this anymore: the sad, bland truth is that I basically neglected my meals. Sometimes, I'd eat once a day and that meal may or may not consist of a single (albeit fairly well-sized) bowl of cereal. I am a stress-junkie: caffeine and workahol are the fuels this engine runs on! *slaps rump* Under optimal work-load, I don't need food! This is, of course, a far cry from my 'O' and 'A' Level years as well as my York days when I was eating emotionally. Maybe there is something about college that makes us want to look svelte as we throb between assignments and exams, to bloom during paper season...I shall never understand it!

I cannot help but reminisce about the many weighty conversations that I had with my friends. For three guys and two girls, that is a whole lot of baggage to cart around! Santiago, who, it seemed, subsisted only on beef jerky and copious amounts of soda, would good-naturedly sneer at my crisply placed order of "Diet Coke please." everytime we went out to eat. He would also ruminate over his 'gut'- a gut that, I have firm reason to believe, was only in his mind. I never saw it and I was his room-mate! Punjaban would woefully remonstrate over how much she had bloated in the past few months while I would rush in with quick assurances that she was being ridiculous. This was true, of course, with sensible fashion choices Punjaban always looked unfailingly fresh and stylish. Now, Masakalli, who was by no means fat, a different matter all together! Everytime a lithe young Freshman thing would walk by, Masakalli would launch into a King Lear-esque rant, calling hell-fire, sulphur and brimstone on the aforementioned's perfectly toned ass. This would invariably be followed by a need to work-out and now! Sometimes she'd blame Punjaban for her (that is, Masakalli's) missed work-outs. I, on yet another hand, was petulant and dark about how fat I was: I'd talk about all my nice clothes (an understatement) and how it was unfair to them that they got to adorn such an unflattering frame (an understatement). After venting our respective spleens, we'd all take a moment to hate Baingan, (a mutual friend who looks like anything but an egg-plant) who would work-out each day come rain, shine, sleet, hail or all at the same time (and yes, this has happened!). Hamlet, with his swimmer's build, was the very pattern of patience, he said nothing.

The one factor that makes the aforementioned jeremiad sound like 'The Three Sillies' is that none of us were as disgustingly obese as we thought ourselves to be. Now, that I am back home, I find that I fit perfectly into jeans that I last wore when I was 14. Not that this has humbled me in any way, I guiltlessly shop at stores that I used to avoid because the very mannequins made me want to cut myself, I still stick to 'Diet Coke please' and mournfully order skinny lattes at Starbucks, but perhaps the most annoying habit of all is starting sentences with "Now that I am skinny..." or the lovably humble substitute, "When I was a fatty..." How quickly have I forgotten those days of sucked in stomachs and hurling my mobile phone at the help because she dared to agree with me when I said that I looked fat... I didn't work for this weight-loss, it just happened to me! Oh God, those phrases reek of hubris! I am such a fool! Weight tends to creep back! What must the skinny king do now? Must he purge? The king can't do it! Instead, he shall skip lunch!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Deep, Silent, Complete.

2009-06-01T15:18:00.001-05:00

Today is my birthday. Today I cease to be a teenager. My heart is rent, O kind keepers of my decaying age, as this decade tumbles to a close. Perhaps this is a luxury I can ill afford: nostalgia is an accoutrement purchasable only by those who have a few more scores of years in the purses of their minds and bodies. But this decade has been so tumultous, in its variance, how like man! In its hesitance, how like a fallen angel! The story of my teenage years is a story that spans three glorious cities, one vast ocean and packs within it multitudes of dreams and characters who had their entrances and their exits: some who I wished would never leave and others whose backs I was only too glad to see! Dream! How like a dream it does seem!

From a drama-ridden gremlin of 13, quick to tears and suicide threats, I have been moulded into a man. But what man? The sense of drama has not been lost, if anything, it has become more subtle- a far cry from the 'bleeding stump' wailings of a 13 year old voice of unstable pitch and loudness. The dress, the bearings, the carriage, the accent, the speech- all the marks of a man, a grown man who understands his place in the world. But do I, really? The magic has now begun to fade...Read on as I talk of love, regret and solace.

I found love twice in this decade. My First Great Love, my lovely Isobel Ingoldsethorpe, was the Zaara to my Veer. Sure, we may have been of opposed nations, but that didn't stop a life-long friendship to blossom into love. I was never more happy than when I was with her, yet, I was a mere 15 and, when things began to get serious, I withdrew as ungallantly as anyone ever did. Lady Isobel and I could have had a future together, as the years would have passed, our love would have only intensified. I forsook that virtuous diamond! I left that rubicund Rose of Lancaster to wither, as she eventually retreated into Lancastrian folds. [I am not going to phrase this in terms of world affairs as they stand now. It somehow seems appropriate to fashion this as a tale of courtly romance]. I was a fool not to see it, the fact that I could have been happy, despite what anyone would have said! Of course, popular support turned against me and My erstwhile Lady's friends' displeasure manifested itself in several, excruciatingly vocal ways. I will not soon forget the cold animosity that existed between Maraguerite D'Anjou (a close friend of My Lady) and me- animosity that made my 'A' Level year quite hellish at times.

My 18th year saw me return to my Yorkist homeland, where I was as miserable as an exile. Yet, in a moment of play-acting and patriotism did I pass this sentence upon myself. I was too much of a stranger to those lands: they wanted none to do with me nor I with them. Yet, a lot of good came from this migration: I met my spritely Punjaban and I could carve myself a path into the Newe Worlde and potential peace. It was during this time of upheaval whence I struck up a dalliance with the lovely, yet desperately lonely, Katharine of Aragon. While I languished in my Yorkist prison of spring, My Lady lived in a rain-drenched city of her own. Yes, A Long Distance Relationship fraught with frustration and drama, and drenched with tears. Suffice it to say, it ended badly. I was at fault again. We are friends, though, my goodly Katharine and I, but we all know what that means...

Now, at 20, I have many joys to behold: Santiago, the best room-mate in the realm; Hamlet, my soul-brother; Lyra and Prince Stepan, who I love dearly despite not knowing them long; Punjaban and Masakalli who are the sun and the moon to this piece of earth that is my body; Charles Ryder, who enchants and delights with his quick wit and clever quirks; Verlaine, my Official Best Friend who carries a piece of my soul with him; Signior Benedict, who is in possession of another bit of my soul, for he built me up when I was down...There are many others who I have not mentioned, but love just as fondly. My relationship with Prince Hal, my real brother, has lost its acrimony and has become one of mutual respect. I am a good son.

But, today, I shall finally come up and embrace the facts that I will never be a doctor or a man of letters. Given that I lacked the courage to make such major changes in my seemingly perfect life, I had always hoped for an omen or a portent that would compel me to. None came, and 'tis just as well. Mayhap, I shall never be good boyfriend material: my humours are too mutable, too unstable. I shall relinquish my idylls of Courtly Romance to the jaded generation after me that needs these more than ever. Now, at 20, I shall finally step through the mirror into the Real World and embrace as if it were my own. Evading it seems stupid now, at this age, the sparkles are dull in their twinkles- a sure sign to me that they were only of my imagining: no-one will give up these honours and start from scratch. No-one shall be whisked away by love. No magic. And, as I burn away the ambrosia of these fairy toys, these antique fables, I shall, in the words of the King I fashion myself after, 'forget what I have been, Or not remember what I must be now!' Nay, not the latter, it sounds too fantastical, too much of a conjuring humour. After all, At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;
But at a score it is too late a week:

Until the next time,
GossipGuy.

The Return a.k.a The Stress Induced Surrealism of My Brain

2009-05-04T10:28:00.001-05:00

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!

Dish!

2009-04-21T14:34:00.000-05:00

I am back and ever so ashamed! I haven't written in so long! For starters, I truly am back, the primary reason I wasn't writing was mainly because I wasn't myself for the last few days and whenever I'd sit down to write, I'd find myself writing in crazy stream-of-consciousness replete with cosmological and kingly imagery! Creepy, I know.

But all that is behind us (me) now and I have some things to share, some dirt to dish and some incidents to reflect upon.
"Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!"
GossipGuy secretly channels his inner Jan everytime the lovely Marcia Brady comes to visit, for she chose the flashy Flash Thompson over Santiago. I could be bitchier about this but I won't because I fervently believe that Ms. Brady had no idea that Santiago was vying for her affections anyway! And Santiago? True to his alias, he is stoic and uncaring. On the outside. Oh but I know that a part of him still bears a torch for Marcia! Oh Marcia: 'How easy is it for the proper-false
In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!'

The Travails of Prince Stepan.
Lyra and Prince Stepan are doing that dance! The very one involving secret intrigues and Lyra throwing a series of fits that cause everyone to virtually sigh out Tolstoy's 'Un-Happy Families Hypothesis'. It is as a mutual friend very wisely said, "Prince Stepan is the kind of guy you can figure out in no more than 2 meetings." And rightly said so too! Should I go on? Perhaps not! Far be it from me to take sides on this one!

Duke Orsino 'Plays On...'
My poor Masakalli! She recently traipsed in upon an intrigue that her beloved Orsino was carrying on in a land far off from this one. Needless to say, there was more sighing and more Tosltoy reiterating followed by a rather plainly worded "Fuck you" that Masakalli sent forth to her erstwhile lord. She insists on remaining detached and unmoved and this frightens me. Surely grieving is a part of moving on?

To 'Have Shuffle off this Moral(!) Coil...'
"I'm a terrible person!" is Hamlet's 'Mea Culpa' these days, which in itself is ironic given that the prince's 'errors' are mere expressions of the most human of traits. Lust and jealousy may add an unexpected piquancy to the rather bland meal that is a woefully persevering mind, but the need to incite those very emotions in another bears with it a zing so zesty that it cannot be resisted! And so my prince comes to folly! And then there's Winona...

Love's Labour's Recycled.
Punjaban and Neo are just so fantastic together! Their conversation is a melodic amalgam of Hindi, English and Spanish! Now my love-life, on the other hand, is rather strange. The Biologist and I are still flirting. Or at least I am, she laughs at all the right points so I guess...No! I shall not go down that road again! In fact, I like this. I like the banter, the laughter and the song sequences at the dining centre (For the love of God, do not ask!). It's aerial, but it's heady, and I like it!

To 'Train my intellect to vain delight!'
I am still bearing a masochistic torch for my Academician! It is a situation that finds its equivalent in someone holding on to a cigarette for a friend and periodically burning himself with it. Deliberately.

'Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?'

My poor and saintly Charles Ryder, Astride bare-back upon the tiger that is love, Oh but where o where can one get off?

Lascivious innuendos and Cold War references: Charles would love me for it, or so I would hope! But alas! Our good friend has found himself in love and his meticulously arranged world has gone to pieces in the best way possible! Organised chaos is so Charles's cup of expertly poured green tea! Fortune smiles upon him rather beautifically because Charles's love does not go unreciprocated! Elton John croons and my friend deliquesces some more as he wonders whether or not he should give in to this t respass sweetly urged! I can hardly wait till I make my return to that wondrous city and see all for myself!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy

Base Court

2009-04-10T03:35:00.000-05:00

The unruliness that comes with adding 'regality' and 'kingliness' to one's list of apparent virtues is exactly the kind of thing a man must do in order to depose himself.

"What must a king do now?" Oh how the words that make up this sentence rearrange themselves to form a drill that proceeds to make holes in my cranium. Perhaps, it is a good thing to have holes in one's cranium, it gives one's brain the option to up and leave. Oh how have I imagined my brain flying off into the sunset, flapping its brain-stem with rapidity, like a rare prehistoric bird. And I? I, desensate wave at it, wishing it good weather and a safe flight. And then I lay me down to sleep- never perchance to dream, thank God!

"What
Must
A
King
Do
Now?"

What fucking 'king'? Oh what a fool! To fashion kingliness out of a slightly higher acumen and a dress-shirt! Wait, what? Higher acumen? No! This is hubris! The Gods shall strike you down for even thinking that!

but i must somehow be contended. my hubris is my hamartia.

God, how I hate your lower-case 'I', but it's good you know your place! And please don't do the whole 'hubris-hamartia' nonsense, you don't know what you are talking about!

YOU CAN'T FUCKING SAY THAT! YOU ARE A PART OF ME!

Typing in upper case? How jarring that looks!

'Jarring that looks?' I do believe that 'jarring' is used to describe sound!

I was being ironic!

You were being ignorant!

Why must you wear that sweater? You look fat!

Oh God! You're doing the Faulkner thing again! This is bad, emo-esque stream-of-consciousness excreta that no-one is going to publish! You're not Quentin!

My skull is like a colosseum packed with angry, toga'd men who are all yelling. Yelling something or the other. I don't hear anyone completely. I can't. Everyone has something to say, and everyone is equally important. These are strange senators, these men, they are not old, but yet they are. Their voices belie their wisdom, for I am sure they are sagacious! Why else would the heavens deploy an entire capitol's worth of senators to help this fragile mind? Yet everyone has a suit! A suit that must be heard! NOW! Am I not a king then? Am I not managing this court? Am I not trying to please them and yet they bring me down! Down? DOWN! Into the base court! Base court? Base court at the base of my brain where I grow base! I answer to traitorous calls and do them grace! I am treason itself.

I! Me! Look at me! Look. Upon. The. Glorious. Drama. That. Is . This. Life. Ay me!

So, really, what the fuck must the king do now? Must he be deposed? Go the fuck ahead! Must he lose the name of king?

Yet we are King. We are king to this revolting land redolent with the vile stench of civil strife.

We are King and this much we know:
the name of king is a God's name.
A God's name. A God's name? Let it go.

Let it go.

And no matter how much we shall have to take of this shit,
We shall always end with a rhyming couplet.

Decay

2009-04-03T01:16:00.000-05:00

I start this post on a sombre note: Hamlet and I had one of our rare fights. Like all things associated with Hamlet, there was nothing even remotely conventional about this skirmish. In fact, the only reason I am calling it a 'fight' is because I have no other word to describe it! And you know me well enough, reader, if the word exists, I will find it!

It all started in a fairly silly way: a grammar joke (an abysmally bad one) was made, the stink of my compromised dream caught up with me and a whole lot of unpleasantness followed. Yet, no accusations were hurled, and not because of the 'saintliness' of my heart or the true saintliness of his, but merely because there was no accusation to be made! It was just uncomfortable! I mean, God knows, I can be very, very acrimonious but not to Hamlet! Never! Oh and I didn't have a reason! You see how confusing this is? Nothing happened and yet the stench, that rancourous stench was there! Take it from someone who knows, dear reader, never let the acid odour of decaying desires overpower the fragrance of something that is actually good for you.

The flood waters have seeped into everything and that malodourous smell permeates through my friendships, my mood, my cavernous room, my lonesome bed...Like in the Tennyson poem, from here can I feel 'the broad stream in its banks complaining'. Oh decay, decay! There is nothing here! Nothing! I have no stories, I have no revels! Like Charles Ryder, who fashions himself a Gaveston surrounded by 'wanton poets and pleasant wits...music and poetry is his delight, [he] shall have Italian Masques by night.' Ah me! Fear hangs about my neck, fear that my city shall say this to me: '"Go whither thou wilt, seeing I have Gaveston!"' Oh how jealous and base have I become! The glint of the moon roils my blood and drives me mad! Mad! Punjaban's love, Hamlet's fortitude, Charles Ryder's sprightliness are all bright, bright lights that accentuate what I lack. What of my fortitude? 'Tis a jest! A fortitude made up of sighs and theatricality! "Go to!" the city shall cry! "Go to! We want none of you!"
I do not want to go home anymore! I don't think I can! It won't be the same! Like unhappy Edward of yore shall I beg the Eternal City:

'Know that I am a king: oh, at that name
I feel a hell of grief! Where is my crown?
Gone, gone, and do I remain alive?'

GossipGuy.

The Grammar of Lassitude

2009-03-31T15:08:00.000-05:00

This past week has been so difficult to parse, and not just for me: the usually immaculate Charles Ryder suddenly finds himself sweating under his delightfully starched collar too. Why? Not my dirt to dish! What can I say? The state of things has been rather pluperfect...

I have always prided myself on knowing how to use the future perfect and the future perfect continuous tenses, but, God knows, I hate a tense that talks about the past in the future. It is nought but a tense of regrets! And that brings us to Punjaban and Neo's tepid (for lack of a better word) 'romance'. Oh even Donna Reed and James Stewart had more fun with theirs, I don't even know to which era this THING belongs to. For the past few days, Punjaban and Neo have been doing a strange mating ritual over a pack of UNO cards and this game normally ends with an awkward hug or a shy kiss. It's quite stultifyingly future perfect: 'He will have kissed her before the clock strikes twelve and the game of UNO is over.' Sadly, I will have tired of this by the time I end this sentence. Don't get me wrong, Punjaban is a lovely girl, but does she really have to debase Hamlet and me before Neo? You're not into either of us and we certainly aren't into you. He gets it, woman! Some dignity would be much appreciated! Masakalli, Hamlet and I are all of the opinion that this romance needs to be speeded up and now! I will have punched a hole in a wall by the time Punjaban makes the millionth ponderance about how her cappuccino measures up to his steamer of a complexion. I really should stop, God knows, this act of 'My Fair Desi' always puts me in the imperative mood!

Recently, I had a crazy idea! It is an important adverb clause in time, really, since I am normally trapped in the ironically perfect present, sandwiched between the not-so-simple past and the 'hurtling-towards-me-in-all-its-simplicity' future. But here, I had a self-centred tense all to myself as I wondered about a certain beguiling biologist and the feelings she might have for me...
Oh it is but a crazy idea! Cunegonde is a thing of the past, ours was a fairly superficial attraction and the only genuine part of it was the rejection, but this! This comes with a modal verb of probability! Maybe I am being too hard on myself by saying that she 'might' have feelings for me, I feel the magical reverbrations of a 'may' in the surreptitious touches, the inflection in the voice when she speaks to/of me, the hugs...All of which tell me that she is in the indicative mood! Ah, but it is a crazy idea! Yet the moon seems to be hanging lower in the climes these days, or am I just making an intransitive fool of myself?

I really don't want to talk about the flood; God knows, everybody else is! It's so frustrating and it brings with it so many forbidden possibilities! Possibilities that steep me in guilt everytime I think on those lines. But then, as Hamlet said yesterday, "Why so subjunctive?"

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Deluge

2009-03-25T15:01:00.000-05:00

These days, I sit at my window, Edith Wharton volume in hand and thoughts of doom in my head. Clearly, this city is a dumping ground for the elements. First, there was heavy rain and I was pleased. Spring showers have a magical quality about them, they tend to activate those thoughts of romance left dormant and, God, how I wish I could just lounge about and pine about romances waiting to happen, but sadly, some jarring news caused me to tumble out most unceremoniously from these imaginings: there is to be a flood. And at the rate things are progressing, it may as well be The Flood of Adam: The Sequel and this time, we aren't taking the rabbits!

The good people of this city (town) took it upon themselves to construct a dike made entirely of sandbags! How exquisite! Scoff, if you must, but all this is so new for me! Of course, the very thought of going outside in the pouring rain and hauling sand-bags seemed repugnant at first. Hamlet, who had just returned from a mini-break, was quickly reminded how vitriolic I could be as I said, "I am thinking of others, I'd love for them to sand-bag!" in response to one of his comments about looking to the greater good. How is it my fault really? I spent most of my youth suspended in a sort of 'Lost Generation' ennui in the most decadent of all cities... It turns out that people actually care about things like natural disasters! Hamlet, bless him, knows exactly what makes me tick so he promised me week-long bitching/moaning rights, a Gone With the Wind moment and just a truck-load of guilt.

The mis-en-scene suddenly involved a river swelling with the promise of disaster, an overcast sky, people passing sand-bags to one another with the automatic regularity of an assembly line. You know the astounding part of it all? I was a part of that chain. Hamlet, Me, his (and now mine) delightful friends S and J, full of wisecracks and good humour, passing sand-bag after sand-bag. No matter that I was dirty, no matter that tomorrow every bone in my body would sing the Habanera, I was just so happy! I mean there I was, all smeared in mud, trepidation on my face crying out, "As God is my witness, as God is my witness they're not going to lick me. I'm going to live through this and when it's all over, I'll never be hungry again. No, nor any of my folk. If I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!"
Few people got it, but those who did were rather appreciative! In fact, I am almost glad that I was filthy and wearing, to put it nicely, 'home clothes'...it enhanced the 'Gone With the Wind' effect! Oh and you know what is truly the most astounding part? I didn't use my bitching/moaning licence at all! I was helping out, and God knows, I have never done that before! I connected with S and J and I love them! But most importantly, and I am sure that even Hamlet doesn't realise this, the experience showed me that I am not quite as shallow as I give myself credit for being. Oh there is hope for me yet!

So here I am, sitting at my window, Wharton volume in hand as the ever so clever Santiago blasts Bob Dylan and 'New Orleans is Sinking'. I chortle but there I cannot supress that tinge of horror as the snow begins to fall...

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Signalling

2009-03-18T16:36:00.000-05:00

There is something very disturbing about signals, non-signals and the interpretation of those...things.

Take Charles Ryder for example, a friend-ish recently gave him the 'come-on'? Or was it a 'come-on'? Clearly someone's lips nuzzling your neck is hardly difficult to interpret, but what if, the very next day, the Nuzzler pretends like it never happened? Ah my poor Mr. Ryder, being ridden every way but the one that's fun, here's to the lemon squares of perplexion...

Punjaban and Neo are still in Switzerland: the neutral land of chocolatey politeness, butterfly kisses and never-ending games of Tag (Heuer). So while 'The Chosen One' suns himself over spring break, Punjaban and I inhabit this veritable Spitsbergen: our dark hued jackets mirroring our very moods as we sip sticky lattes and examine and re-examine everything that happened in the past to the point where the lines between fantasy and reality, between the platonic, the Platonic and the planktonic begin to blur! We search for signals that Neo gave out, signals that Punjaban returned-were they received? Interpreted? How? Is cleavage a variable or a constant? It's like signal transduction! So Punjaban and I make corny biology jokes, sue us for being scientists! Sue us for caring, you inglorious bastards!

Signals, sadly, do not exist only between couples. Or at least between romantically linked ones. It is this other variety that has the potential of getting particularly nasty. The vibes between Dick Diver (who is more of a Virginia Woolf, now that I think with a coherent mind) and me are perfect examples. Throughout our sessions, I always catch myself wondering(!) down the following path, 'Does she like me?'---->'Oooh, she's trying to be politically correct!'---->'She despises me!'----> 'She likes me!' It doesn't take a genius to understand that these signals are accompanied with a lot of channel noise. Oh Dick Diver/Virginia Woolf, what do you really think of me? The fact that I like to think of myself as a Quentin Compson figure, does it not make you wonder if I have created a fetish out of snobbery? The fact that otherworldly things fashion me into a Richard II/Hamlet/Macbeth hybrid, what does that say about my state of mind? Give me a signal that can clear away the channel noise...

The nature of love, they say, is mutable. But that, I think, applies to the nature of human interaction as a whole. It's these crazy, crazy signals! Like those I receive from a certain academician to whom my heart I have lost. Signals that are inhibitory, at best. It is a doomed thing, is it not, to love an academician? And what love that too? A love so scarcely understood? A love based on this:
"You are forbidden to me and that is why I want you. Everyone fawns over me and my alleged precociousness but you read it as pretension. Did I mention how much that turns me on?"
Ah but if my prayers could such affection move...

Of course, I would be a bad friend if I didn't at least mention the Luna-Hamlet mess in this tangle of signals! It's like the myth of the Fisher King, really, with the ripe, fertile green Thanksgiving followed by a white, icy winter and no sign of a Grail Knight! Not that the spring is going to do us any good since all the Grail Knights are probably indulging in all that nastiness at Cancun.

Tut, I am upset now, I simply must do laundry and ponder about Negativity while snorting these lines of Sardonicism I have set forth...

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Blah

2009-03-14T22:07:00.000-05:00

I pray that a week like this never comes upon me, or anyone. Despite the happy ending (which included a wide array of take-out, a test well-done and about 16 hours of sleep), I never, never, never want to suffer through another On-call Week (as I like to think of them). God, I must be aging! I used to be able to do this when I was 16...strange how 3 years can change one. But I digress...

There are things that make me happy:

-Santiago and Marcia: Whenever I see the two bantering and flirting, Sinatra's 'Things' automatically plays in my head! And I find myself revisiting the times I was in love and happy...'Things like a lover's vow/Things that we don't do now/You got me thinkin' 'bout the things we used to do...'

-Punjaban and Masakalli: Now Masakalli's significant other Orsino was in town recently. He's a cheshire cat, that one is! We were cruising down gray, snow-ridden American roads as he blasted infectious 'bhangra' beats in his car. As Punjaban surrendered herself to the vocal ministrations of a singer who claimed ever so earnestly that everytime she'd sway, the whole club would sway with her, I couldn't help but wonder about the place I was in...I, Tiresias, throbbing between two identities and, for once, it was good.
Punjaban and her Neo are just so smitten, one has to carry a certain amount of insulin if one wants to hang with them and diabetics need just stay away! Of course, now that Neo has gone to sun himself with other Hollisterboys this spring break, it is my duty to keep my Punjaban happy! Yes, we shall go down-town and people-watch...

And then there are things that leave me reeling:

-Hamlet: As the date of his departure neared close, Hamlet started sinking into the abyss of unrequited love. Since I was 'On-call' throughout the week, I couldn't do my 'there, there' cup of coffee with him. So, when the weekend descended upon me with its promises of freedom, I had a wrecked Hamlet upon my hands: a wrecked Hamlet who wished over and over again that his 'too too sullied flesh would melt'. I wasn't a very good friend to Hamlet last night, I wasn't. My all too solid flesh had already resolved itself...and I had to get to bed. Pity, really. I mean, he had hauled my revelerous Richard II ass up to the dorm last week...

-Therapist or The Rapist? Dick Diver, my therapist (and a woman, despite the name), is challenging me these days and I know her reasons for doing so: she's supposed to help me. And it's helping! Is hating one's therapist healthy? No, I don't hate her! But I have not made a fetish out of snobbery! Or have I? As I said: reeling!

I also had a conversation with Luna today. There were so many times when I wanted to burst out and tell her to set Hamlet straight! But what can she do? Not much of anything, sadly...(sigh) Luna Love-good, Luna Love-bad and then the worst of all: Luna Love-not-at-all!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy

Lust Bunnies and Unrequited Love

2009-03-02T20:17:00.000-06:00

I am just so flabbergasted, I could spit! Hamlet and I had one of those mind-numbingly delightful conversations that flirted with the fringes of philosophy. It was all very Platonic: yes, indeed! It had to do with Plato and his concept of the transcendental absolute. The philosophy bases itself on perfect, eternal realities that are free from the mutability of the physical world as we perceive it. So, basically, imagine a dress-shirt: imagine the most perfect dress-shirt ever! Now, can you make improvements to it? Is it possible to make it more perfect? It is, isn't it? You, my friend, are on the path to searching for the Platonic dress-shirt: the ultimately perfect dress-shirt! And no, the Dior argument does not apply. Plato trumps Dior. There I said it! And never shall I again!

I'm afraid that I may be guilty of giving you the wrong impression of how things stand between me and Hamlet: it isn't all metaphysical masturbation. In fact, he's called me a whore so many times today that isn't even funny. Actually, it's uproariously funny! This evening saw me sweating bullets as I studied Organic reactions while fastidiously avoiding Don Quixote! Having done nearly enough, I decided to 'run into' Hamlet and Punjaban. As Punjaban wondered for the millionth time if she was pretty enough for her paramour, Neo, and Hamlet did that thing that he has been doing for a while now: whenever someone would talk about something couple-centric, Hamlet would start PTSD-ing and talking about the many iniquities that the lovely Luna subjected him too. He always flashes the joke light, but frankly, I am getting quite worried. And there's me: my strange romance is like a rehash of 'The Reader', but that's a story for another day.
Frankly if it weren't for our lust-bunnies, we would be so destroyed! Our lust-bunnies are a projection of our sexual frustrations onto an outward, aesthetically pleasing locus. Clearly, Masakalli and Punjaban are never going to proposition their Hollisterboys, neither is Hamlet ever going to act upon his one (and probably only) lecherous impulse- a mutual friend who makes him flash scarlet everytime she glides by! Most religions, including our respective faiths, tell us that lust is sinful. But is it really so long to tease/muse as we wait for love? That the moon will never descend in Hamlet's back-yard is a given, Masakalli and her significant other need the bickering in order to keep the sparks flying, Punjaban would be lying if she says that she doesn't enjoy the longing even a little bit and I, oft-disappointed in love, find lust more malleable. Oh love will happen! I hold my faith in Soulmate Principle fortified! Perhaps I shall meet her in New York and it shall be autumn! Or maybe on a rain-drenched New Delhi street...who's to say?

Punjaban, Masakalli, Hamlet, Santiago and I are all in the same, static boat and while we wait for the Platonic to emerge, it wouldn't hurt to celebrate the platonic with a couple of skinny lattes!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Shit Happens

2009-03-01T02:14:00.000-06:00

Rumours, rumours and more rumours abound! Tongues are awag (and yes, that is my neologism) about GossipGuy and those close to him. You know you're doing something right when people talk about you:

1) Ms.Saigon, a dear friend who I know from Microbiology, told me that I was the subject of great slander amongst a group of yuppies who complained cantankerously whenever I asked a question. Ms.Saigon was very apologetic, poor child, but I rather enjoyed it! Really, I did! There's something fantastic about being a Hermione Granger-it's such a great high! I always smile a little brighter whenever I run into those people now...

2) Apparently Punjaban and I are porking! Yep! There's a faction convinced that Punjaban and I are having a steamy, steamy affair. I mean, we're always seen together and something always happens that can be construed as inappropriate-to the untrained eye, of course! Punjaban found it rather funny, actually and, God knows, I did too!

3) Don Quixote is a source of unending agony to this writer! For the past two days, he has been whining and whimpering about how badly I treat him! Demonize me, if you must, but everyone including Hamlet [who is known for his rather charitable (he claims, humanist) views on the human condition] who has seen Don Quixote fawn and truckle claims that he his behaviour is very, very strange. Just a few days ago, he offered me money! Again! I am starting to feel cheap! Of course, his other claims that I am unapproachable and an 'angry person' are absolute bull-shit!

Brushing the rumours and rejoinders aside, Hamlet and I paid a visit to this town's charming 'down-town' replete with boutiques, swanky coffee shops and an old-fashioned ice-cream parlour. Hamlet had found me a men's store that carried all my classic European labels-he's the best! Punjaban and her effulgent room-mate Masakalli joined us for lunch at a rather well-liked Chinese buffet. Of course, as a vegetarian, there wasn't much I could feast upon, but the real meat lay in our flighty, acerbic, multi-lingual conversation! Punjaban giggled in her demure, flirtatious manner, Hamlet pouted, Masakalli ribbed and jostled while I threw in occasional witty barbs! So much for unapproachable, I say! Maybe life isn't all that complicated after all!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Frailty

2009-02-26T22:13:00.000-06:00

Today has been...okay!

Actually no, today has been an unmitigated disaster packed with the worst and most dangerous kind of drama: the kind I have no control over.

It's strange how seemingly wonderful days can turn into such bleak, depressing ones without warning. I started the catching up with Charles Ryder and conversation with him was as delightful as the biscotti I was devouring. Yes, that is what I do for breakfast: a small special blend and an almond biscotti! Today was a rare luxury, though, I was doing breakfast in my room while chatting with a friend as opposed to power walking through the snow (yes, it has been done) to Organic Chemistry at an ungodly hour! I can almost never supress the slight tinge of envy that colours my words when I speak with Charles Ryder for he gets to keep the city and I, quite simply, don't! Charles Ryder and I spoke of Proenza Schouler, hubris, and our begrudging admiration for William Rast. I was just so happy...I was just so happy as I walked to Genetics, yes I actually walked instead of the crazy half-run-half-walk thing I normally do!

The first sign that things were going to go downhill was the rather lacklustre Shakespeare class I attended. Not that it's a hoot anyway (and that is yet another story) but today was just...ugh! Then, as it happens in bad movies and classic plays, the lights went out everywhere on campus! Fool that I am, I didn't heed the portents! Like a tragic hero, I began to hurtle towards my ruin!

Now, Don Quixote has been unusually nice to me for the past few days. Frighteningly nice, but that niceness is rather sickly sweet. It's the kind of niceness that has an oily quality capable of transforming friendliness into condescension: invitations with everything paid for...to the point where he began to offer me money for trivial things like lending him a book. He began to make me feel indigent and indebted and GossipGuy is a classy individual who lacks for nothing! The fact that someone could view me as a charity case is disconcerting! Today, Don Quixote piled largesse upon largesse to the point where I just snapped! There I was, a ball of stress bristling and crackling as Hamlet and Don Quixote watched in concern and odd amusement, I think. Oh who knows!

I returned to my dorm and decided to speak to the RA about my predicament. By this time, I had leaped over my psychological threshold like a hare in a hurry and my alter-ego (NeuroticBoy) jumped through the looking glass. Passive observer that I am, I saw as NeuroticBoy, torn between the desire to spew our story to RA and calm down to coherence begged Hamlet to accompany him to the RA's room. NeuroticBoy's logic flowed like this: "I need to calm down and then I can tell the RA what happened! But I can't calm down until I tell the RA"

There we were, Hamlet and I in the RA's room as I sputtered and urged Hamlet to fill in the blanks for me!
"Tell him!" urged I, arms flailing wildly!
The story was told and who told it, I don't remember. But when I returned to my room, Hamlet, who always has some insight or the other into the nature of man, piped up, "You really must speak up for yourself."

When have I not? GossipGuy is all about the blah blah blah! Condescencion and a blow to my conifidence! Ah me! The evening has become unbearable: I met my darling Punjaban for coffee but her girlish quirks and giggles prove to be jarring. I feigned a head-ache and returned to my room. I must make things right with Hamlet...But no, I shan't think of that now! I'll go crazy if I do! I shall think of it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is a new day...

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Rites of Spring

2009-02-25T21:25:00.000-06:00

It is charming, downright charming to see the courtship that exists between Santiago and the ever-delightful Marcia Brady. How many afternoons do they while away with him sprawled across his lofted bed as she sits below typing away on his computer, searching for dreamy apartments she might share with Lyra....*sniff* I smell a sit-com!

Santiago has claimed that it is not a romance! He goes onto to call it the 'Reverse Cave-man'! As exotic and innuendo-laden as that may sound, it merely refers to the inter-convertible dynamic between the two. There are times when he upbraids her rather, uh, PINK taste in animated, oriental cat-like creatures (Hello Kitty!). But there are also times when she snaps back! A witty retort, normally punctuated with peals of Lyra's laughter, are a source of great warmth to this heart. Santiago and Marcia! The quick glint of her nose-stud is a flash I sometimes see in his blue eyes as he tries to work his way through the mess of mixed messages he has to contend with. And he says that it is not a romance! Silly rabbit!

My philandering mind did decide to pay court to Marcia myself, merely to create a 'Two Gentlemen of the Smiley-Midwest' type of situation- a harmless catalyst to, how do you say, speed up the lady's decision, but Santiago declined. Drama is a an acquired taste I suppose and yes, that is something I am finding out the hard way, thanks to Hamlet! Oh how the moon
creates tides in his blood! Like a mood-ring from the days of yore, he waxes moody, acerbic, witty, demure, vicious, analytical and just so overdone! God knows, I'd be destitute without Hamlet but seriously! Since the it is the sublime Luna who causes this, I turn to the moon itself to bloom and bring peace...

But no, I shan't think of it now, I shall think of that later. Right now, this writer wants to do something! Anything really, to make things happen between Marcia and Santiago!

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!

Commence

2009-02-25T20:19:00.000-06:00

'It is a heretic that makes the fire,
Not she who burns in 't.'

Yes indeed.

Many a fire burns in this quaint university town and I have been known to have something to do with the best ones: some I help ignite, others I warm my hands in and yet others I burn in. This may not be anything like that show: real life isn't quite that, shall we say, contrived? But the things do happen in this quaint university town that comfortably snuggles with eternal winter.

Here are the many players that make up this tragi-comedy of manners:

1) GossipGuy: And who am I? That's one secret...ah fuck it!

2) Hamlet: Brooding, intellectual and love-lorn. He's wonderful to know but can be a handful at times...

3) Luna: The quirky object of Hamlet's desire. Not of this fair, wintry land but she is almost always there in spirit.

4) Santiago: Now he just stepped out of 'The Boy's Guide to Hunting and Fishing': masculine in every sense of the word, but hilarious and irreverent in just the right degree.

5) Marcia Brady: Santiago has such a great thing with the lovely Marcia! It's a cavemannish courtship but with so much potential!

6) Cunegonde: The temptress who has GossipGuy's heart...

7) Lyra: Friend, soulmate and silver-toung'd fiancee(!) How would GossipGuy function without his Lyra!

8) Don Quixote: My gregarious, talkative neighbour with a penchant for...oh I don't know, it changes rather quickly!

9) Prince Stepan: Lyra's significant other: he has the kindest of hearts but there is a lot of him to go around!

10) Caddie: My person...

11) Charles Ryder: A fashionista who is living the life in a great, far-off city. Ah but the doubts that breed in the wake of dreams...

12) Punjaban: Hai! All that coffee with secrets stirred in....

You'll meet the others as the days pass us by....

Until the next time,
GossipGuy!