Avoiding a scene

I wish I could say a lot of this to your face, but I won’t. I’m tired just thinking about the drama I’d have to endure.

Every time you go off on one of your rants reminding me how cold I am for not displaying my affection toward you in public, I shut up and hug you to placate you. But the entire time, I’m thinking of only one thing: How I really wish you didn’t have to remind me—how I’d be all over you if only you were smaller, younger and cuter.

I wish you hadn’t lived such a hard life, and didn’t have any of the scars to show for it. Sometimes, I want more than just someone who’s very good to me. Sometimes, I want someone whose physical allure makes it impossible for me not to jump them.

I’ve fantasised and fantasised and fantasised about how my life ought to be, and how much I’d yearn to caress and cuddle the woman I love (yes, even in public, since this is such a big deal to you), but I just can’t seem to make myself behave that way all the time around you. It’s different when I wake up needy in the morn or when I feel vulnerable and alone, but sometimes when we’re out together, I am almost embarrassed to be with you. As wonderful a person as you are and as loving as you are toward me, you’re not what I thought my life’s catch would be. Part of me is always left bitter and unsatiated, leaving me feeling I could do better.

I need you but I don’t want you.

Is it so hard to see now why I have such difficulty expressing my affection for you freely in public? It’d be tantamount to announcing to the world how desperate I am not to be alone.

That, and I don’t want to ever dissuade that cute woman glancing in our direction from talking to me.

What sustained you

now makes you weary.

I’m disappointed to report that the group funding my Cambridge gig has decided to pull their support, leaving me a “freshly”-minted doctor without a job. (Is there any other kind?) It’s not so much the science I am going to miss, as I am the opportunities to travel and meet new people.

As I’d expected, even prior to the arrival of this news, my mom had noticed my generally mopey behaviour and talked to me about it; repeatedly. After arguing about it for a while, I eventually said something along the lines of “I’ll start moping less when happier things transpire around me.”

Thankfully, my cheerless demeanour has little to fear from this incident.

This should be a thrill

But it feels like a drill.

It’s curious how easily a habit so carefully inculcated over so many years can be broken. It’s not been very long since I last wrote wrote, you know, really expressed what’s running through my evil brain, but I’m finding it exceedingly hard to set things in motion again. Nevertheless, today’s entry aims to be a step toward a glorious return; however forced it turns out.

As you’ve undoubtedly gathered, my life has been tremendously hectic over these past weeks. The mental image that the word ‘hectic’ usually conjures up, at least in my mind, is one of a harrowed mom hurriedly flitting about town from one annoying chore to the next. In stark contrast, my experience has transpired almost entirely within the confines of a circle barely few feet in radius. My bedroom floor, covered from end to end in a systematised mess of articles, scribbled pieces of paper and books, constituted the only library I needed. My lumpy, uncomfortable bed served as good a place to lounge and write as it did to rest when I couldn’t. My unwholesome diet, comprising of little more than concentrated doses of sugar and caffeine, kept me awake and mentally alert for the many hours—and sometimes days—that my frantic schedule so desperately called for.

Nothing about environment was ideal, but every aspect served its purpose.

From dawn through dusk, as if I was even keeping track of which was which any more, my routine involved little more than opening my tired eyes and turning over until I was facing my computer screen; my hands simultaneously working their way onto the keyboard. I’d lie there and stare gracelessly, until the words began to flow.

The writing process itself impacted me rather significantly in varying ways—both positive and negative. For one, it forced me to carefully examine what I’ve been doing all along. I must admit that this greatly clarified concepts in my own mind and carried with it a sense of accomplishment. I’m now beginning to recognise fibres that I’ve threaded into the intricate tapestry of this miniscule branch of knowledge.

But it’s not all about intellectual gratification. In fact, my words so far don’t even begin to portray the whole picture.

The single most manifest aspect of this experience, at least from my point of view, was how isolating it was; even for someone with a lifestyle such as mine. Having to sit alone in a corner concentrating on serious matters for hours upon hours over many days and weeks has taken a toll on me that I didn’t know could be taken. I honestly believed that if there was one sort of stress test I could ace, it would involve being cordoned off. I wish I weren’t so wrong about these kinds of things.

Has the effort paid off? I am not sure yet; I guess, yes, barely.

I have only one bit of advice to those of you out there who’re on the fence about higher education. Ask yourself, honestly, is this what you really want to be doing with your life? Or, in the case of the scrawny, lonely geeks, is the outside world really giving you that much grief?

If you answered ‘no’ to either of these questions, go out, enjoy.