Paradoxical undressing occurs in 25 to 50 percent of hypothermia sufferers, who are often found partially undressed.
This may be caused by the hypothalamus, the temperature-regulation area of the brain, malfunctioning due to the cold. Hypothermia sufferers also tend to exhibit animal-like responses to cold in seeking small, enclosed spaces, similar to hibernation.
The word “polymath” teeters somewhere between Leonardo da Vinci and Stephen Fry. Embracing both one of history’s great intellects and a brainy actor, writer, director and TV personality, it is at once presumptuous and banal. Djerassi doesn’t want much to do with it. “Nowadays people that are called polymaths are dabblers—are dabblers in many different areas,” he says. “I aspire to be an intellectual polygamist. And I deliberately use that metaphor to provoke with its sexual allusion and to point out the real difference to me between polygamy and promiscuity.".
Its 2 am. despite being ultra mobile for the entire day, I don't feel sleepy. The last movement of the day saw me out, at 9pm, to Noida to catch up with the C, then heading back, at midnight, to the far end of Delhi to abode of the Y - where I now am - to make it by 0130am, totaling about 60k on the bike*, that too with a heavy backpack. Before that I was looking forward to a night of libations, which sadly didn't happen; so I just busied myself doing the dishes until bro returned. I had just been back from a ghoom at Chandni Chowk, in search of randomness - and needless to say I was suitably rewarded. Prior to that I was a part of the spirited lunch conversation and ideation about present and future prospects of travel with the A&A- which had a silver lining in the form of a (slim) commitment by all, for the Annapurna circuit next summer.
And to think that earlier I had been cursing myself at a late start to the morning, declaring dead all hopes for an eventful day. Just another 3 hours, and then tennis, followed by a long day in places with shady sounding names. The weekend's still young.
*bicycle
Tricked, by the S, who gave me a tumbler containing his freshly extracted and bloody bladder stones.
Treated, by the M, who gave me chocolates and promise for a lot more.
My cerebral tubes are probably choked with Manchurian, Chaap, and Shahi Paneer, in multiple servings to satiate this evening's foodie that had been eager to attend his first wedding of the season. Finally, after committing to two other weddings (as a guest), where the wedding couple itself broke off commitments prematurely, I get one to attend in all fanfare. Disclaimer, that being in my league means almost commenting from a cave - social events are rare, rarer still are the ones I do attend.
One thing for sure, is that being abandoned is no fun (aka being a guest on behalf of yourself, as against the earlier routine when it was the parents we used to tag with and everything used to be 'on behalf of' them). I am newly-abandoned, so I could be led to confuse my unethusiastic impulse for inexperience, and linger on in the hope that there is some silver lining. But really, the only silver lining, as I've come to find is just that palpitational feeling of rubbing shoulder with lardbags in suit.
There is the assurance of food, if nothing else, but trust me, I feel like going on a pilgrimage every time I return from a wedding - not to forget the paradoxical situation of my stomach the next few days, that will not let me leave home. The course of 6 meals accommodated over a single hour is brutal for anybody, regardless of whether they deny it.
This guy, has his eating quirks - still no different from 12yr olds who are ignorant of propriety, skipping main course to accommodate more space for ice cream... which nets me even more lubber than I think.
Of note:
- New fat deposits. They will be useful WTSHTF.
- Dysmorphic body structures.
- People growing into their parents. But I hold negligible appreciation for any parents (mine included) in the first place. So this adaptation is of little use.
- The era of silence, when silence dominates congregations, is still faraway.
It has been 18 hours that I've had anything to eat, and the same that I've locked myself in muteness. This is not my usual recluse in the Delhi apartment - I'm surrounded by the people called family, in my hometown of Lucknow, under assault by tastes that unlock some primal corner, and yet this is how my past 18 hours have been. My vision starts to feel blurred as a particular set of glands prove their existence, an emotion so alien that i make my way out to the open rooftop to tame this new level of emotion; my eyes hurt, and it's not the treatise on chronosynclastic infundibula to cause that, for a change.
I am alone, and I feel like it, for a rare time, in a very intense way. The vision of my world is just that, mine, and I panic. I know you won't be there.
"I can't help it," I said. "My soul knows my meat is doing bad things, and is embarrassed. But my meat just keeps right on doing bad, dumb things."
"You and your what?" he said.
"My soul and my meat," I said.
"They're separate?" he said.
"I sure hope they are," I said. I laughed. "I would hate to be responsible for what my meat does."
Look at that. Abstract art. Right in my kitchen, on the ceiling.
Alternate title: Pressure cookers gone wild!
Surrounded by all these worldly pursuits - a cat staring at me from the cover of the book I'm (presently) reading, a dual screen glowering at me demanding code and clicks, a pair of Nikes sneaking up to my bedside asking me out on a date to the forest trails nearby, a Jane Birkin eluding me - ooh mon amour - into throes of passionate love, a couple of bananas desperately flagging me against that Snickers bar, blowing kisses to get then picked up instead, - and yet I stay sedentarily distracted for most of the day in cognizance of none of that and deliberate on the virgin wonders of the world, the unchartered frontiers that lie for me, bound in a half dream.
Born free, ain't got any money; ain't getting out - that's been the story this far. Will it go any further? Any faster? When you fall, you gain velocity, but when you climb, deceleration is the benchmark. Am I falling?
So far, so good. So far, SO GOOD...
"Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth." — Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
For greatness, I need depression. Looking at the state of things, I deserve depression. Somehow I don't find myself there - fighting some overwhelming feeling of failure, listening to NIN's Hurt, holding sharp objects while contemplating, calling up friends and weeping over the phone... clearly something's horribly wrong. Depression feels like my prerogative at this moment, and yet here I am, satisfied; maybe even... that H word... Happy.
To make amends, I got hold of a friend - M - recently diagnosed with thyroid complications, for which the prescribed medicine warned (for me, advertised) of certain side effects, one among those being - TADA! - depression. I was very excited to call up, and find M in a state of depression as a result of the meds - which confirmed the efficacy of those pills, - to get out of which I recommended we met up, Friday itself. Alongside, I asked M for some of the medicine too. God bless Thyroid. I had a weekend of depression to look ahead to. FUN!
We met, went out to Pizza Hut, where we talked, and sampled from their ongoing Italian carnival. All was fine till the point that I paid the bill in courtesy, only to find M having taken the medication thing lightly, and having none at hand. All I got was a "LOL, really?" expression. So, there, my plans were squashed. That made me feel so sad, that I almost went into depression. But I didn't, so, fail, again.
One archaic concept still dominant in our present (Indian subcontinent) society is that of keeping one's virginity intact. Humour me here - so a girl could talk dirty, watch porn, flirt, go out, exchange saliva (and a variety of other fluids), let you annihilate their breasts, give and get blowjobs, let you finger her, even let you take her anally, and still call herself that - virgin? I know a lot through shared experience to register this rant - thanks, friends (and smaller subsets). It's just too hard for us guys to comprehend what a girl means when she claims being that. I guess is equally hard (or harder) the other way round, when a guy makes such claims.
It's quite like asking for vegetarian food, then being served a plate piled with dog meat, bull testicles, roast cockroach, and snake viscera, and then foolishly asking "you sure there's no chicken in it?" How can someone imagine us to believe in the concept of "virgin" anymore, and why are these people keen on passing this futile notion to their offspring?
Doug H is the geekiest person I can claim to have come across in my quest for learning and emoting. His process is amusing, baffling. Amusing for all the minutiae involved, obviously, which makes him t3h geek. But it is also baffling to see how easily he lays out his personal domestic life, that would mirror the same for any other guy sans the geekery; that I see as coming from fixed stable definition of a society and of what is expected of him. It comes as so straightforward that he needs not have any opinion or bent mandates on it, a geek who stays fixed to his skill than in social moral mores ethics. Marriage, kids, education - they are just meant to be that way. I admire and envy him, as I begin with his intro to Eugene Onegin.
Man-crush, you say? Probably. Envy? Probably that, too.
Historic day. I missed my first train. Not only does 2012 mark first tie I shooed any journey, but also one where I missed my first train. Both these incidents, however, were separate, and potently I'm combining my journey and shall be in kgm tomorrow morning as planned. I chose bus journey for an alternate, managed to get on the last train bound for av and managed to find a seat on the last bus to haldwani. It's been a dirty end to the day. But I have better things to look forward to, so can ignore this blemish on my travel record.
This year has been a string of narrow escapes, do this feels like a progression. But rest assured, I'm never mission another one. Tonight I travel in this rickety buys with front row view, and considering three pleasant weather I might enjoy the rude. Only hope that roads have improved, as on all past travels on this highway we've been stuck one place our other to reach few hours late, which translates to extra hours of discomfort. Out now.
(possibly too drunk, ca June)
This is epic. After a round of kingfisher beer, and stalking some social sciences chick named Cunningham, we're going to have 'aloo ke gutuk', the connect to our pahariness and away from our desi-ness.
Guy #2 is out already, and Guy #1 is going crazy in demand for a quick escape - to him I can only wish some gal who could escape the propriety and come straight to the benefits instead...
But my evenings rarely stay out - out on the rooftop - this way. They usually go: dead, phone call, dead. I might be dead soon.
I'm leaving for the office, happy. The happiness has nothing to do with the office, however, for I'm leaving home as less an employee and more a traveller. Once the day's mask of profession is done, I won't be returning home - and head out for the station instead, where commences a train journey which would have me at the Shivalik foothills by tomorrow morning. I delayed my exit thrice, cleaned my apartment twice, had a modest yet heavy breakfast, packed and repacked for the journey (I'm breaking the one bag tradition this time, though laptops demand an exception from this rule), and had the ritual weekly cleansing after which I am gonna stay ignorant to various terms of contemporary hygiene for about a week. Strict abstinence from food until tomorrow when I get access to a toothbrush (note: my toothbrush).
It has been a while that I snuck outside this urban bog and found myself breathing in the fresh air of you-know-where - it feels like an year since, albeit records confirm I was in zones of elevation a month back (Mukteshwar/G.). Experientially, a full 4 week/ends of detachment is enough to cause severe psychosomatic symptoms ("the psychosomatic nature of man" - Herbert Ratner), so I have a lot of repair to do.
After a lotta deliberation, it was decided to keep both the nifty Tab and the bulky laptop. Earlier, I'd convinced myself of completely shirking work for this week, but now I think I might want to pull off an idea or two in my seclusion (outside the hours I'm being transformed into a khaate-peete-ghar-ka-ladka by mom, who'd be there, too, as would be the company of my entire extended family... so now one gets why productivity might be a futile expectation). One thing I really want to work right this time is the Tab - on previous occasions it has misbehaved on roaming for reasons I don't get); ultimately I wanna see it (the Tab) as my one gadget on future trips, so I can publish/store/share my meanderings as they happen, assisted by the power of the Swype keyboard, at my lazy comfort.
I miss u :( :*
At times my heart sinks.! :(
I really really really miss u.!
Really really a lot :’(
I love u like crazy <3
Oh, you don't know how much I miss you TODAY. I need you, more than ever. My day sucked. My life probably sucks, too, in your void. You were right - that life's too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes. I do not hate people, but I hate people who - twice or thrice my age - fuck up (i.e. make these perfectly horrible mistakes), and drag others into it. I had a day with this certain somebody, and it didn't end with me keeping my cool.
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Thinking about you, and thanking you, I compulsively ended up getting this. I hope we're meeting around the weekend - but Friday seems to far :’( I miss u like crazy.!!!
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