Note to Self (and all the idealists like me)

Stop polluting your imagination with all of this goddamn reality.

The garbage gets heavy and tragic and you find yourself grounded before you can redirect.

The end. <3

Tolkien: a silly movie that may well have changed my life trajectory

Forewarning: this is a little heavier than my normal fare.

I watched a movie on a flight today. Groundbreaking stuff, I know. I was hesitant at first, really. I was curious because I have never really -gotten- fantasy novels, not really. I understood escapism, having wanted a departure from real life on so many occasions myself. Surrealism and space for interpretation have always been my literary jam, elements that world builders tend to be largely devoid of. If I am wrong, please leave examples in the comments. I love to be proven wrong.

Onto the point.

Throughout this three-hour flight, I watch. And watch. And watch. And watch. My hesitance turns into interest and then into a very deep personal connection. Thirty minutes in, I find myself trying my hardest not to be the crazy bitch in the seat adjacent, bawling because life hits back rull hard. 

In life some beautiful moment exists, series of moments if you’re truly lucky, in which a lovely racket is stirred inside of you. It is something wild and unafraid. Your chest fills up.

It isn’t air, though you feel you can finally breathe.
It isn’t your heart so much; in fact, it stops in its tracks.
This something shoves your shoulders back and draws you, undeniably, from the chest.

It exists as an unyielding need to simply -be- in whatever context it is that all of this started. Like hearing someone sing—REALLY belt it out– and understanding that such resonance doesn’t come from lungs or vocal chords, it fills a space with courage and vulnerability and strength and openness. So completely shared is this discourse because air inhaled in a breath to power the story/moment/insight into the world passes through the alveoli, washes everything within from head to toe and passes so forcefully back out into the world with strength of experience as a new entity in itself.

Have you tried? REALLY tried to sing something? Have you felt like your very heart could roll off your tongue because you’re belting out everything you have? It is as if there is not a thing between your heart and your output—cries of joy, love, sorrow, some mix thereof. It doesn’t matter what it is because you’re turning yourself inside out in front of the masses so they might…understand.

I have this unholy adoration for Bert McKracken –oh yeah. Screamo gold. The guy got so into the band’s music, the lyrics, the meaning, the moment, that he would vomit on stage every night. My weird brand of romantic idealism sees that as an expression of feeling and depth. How beautiful, my dudes! That, or I am actually still thirteen on the inside. Dunno.

Anyway. That is what this silly movie made me feel. It is a masterful thing. Little John Ronald seeing all of the beauty in the world around him. His mind creating a dance that teases fantasy as it whips and twirls around in reality. Presented is some genuine, heartfelt, quixotic appeal to commonplace beauty, emotion (the importance of feeling and expressing it) and comradery.

I am crying on a plane. I am crying because I had all of that as a kid. A huge group of very close friends: intelligent, artistic, expressive. I am crying because I understand that, at some point, this will end for Tolkien. I am crying because it kills. It feels bad—but it also literally kills. I can’t count the number of people who have taken their own lives because of deep feels like these, not to mention those who have tried and failed.

That’s the real tragedy of our age, isn’t it? The inevitable boot in one’s rib? The understanding that, when at the top of the world, we are always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

For Tolkien, it happens, in its own way. The movie brushes over sort of strangely and dismissively. The problem is acknowledged then changed. An entire pile of struggle and growth is flown over. Maybe that is meant to demonstrate how fleeting struggle can be if you make it that way. Perhaps it is an appeal to dreamers like me: “Please forget about this hard thing and know that there is an accomplishment on the other side of this.” I am still unsure what this means to me in the context of the original earth-shattering inspiration.

Words, Language and Lack There Of

Tolkien, the movie, talks about Roland’s love of language, and how he created four of his own unique tongues by his first year at Oxford.

The movie lays out the philosophy that language is everything. It demonstrates how language is not a word and language is not the syntax and semantics that build and chain one word to the next.

Language is both the object it refers to and the history, the entire breadth of experience, that belongs with it.

I have always been in love with language.

The great calamity of my past several years is feeling strongly that I have lost my words. I keep saying, “I have lost my words,” “I can’t talk.” Progressively I shut myself down, unable to recall or to communicate or, eventually, to operate genuinely even among some truly incredible friends. I have lost more than words.

The genesis of all of this had something to do with little romp in the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. I find him a fun intellectual exercise that, when I am very tired, often ends in some serious jamais vu: a personal favorite phenomena.

Wittgenstein poses that if all words mean so much more than text on a page---if they contain HISTORY and personal experience and bias and…and…and… there is no possible way that my understanding of “tree,” for example, has anything at all to do with your understanding of the same.

In that, I cannot communicate anything with any degree of certainty because our perspectives are, inherently, very different, you and I.

When you think about it for too long, as Wittgenstein definitely did (check out the introduction to Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus), you find that the only thing you can truly trust as undeniably real is yourself: solipsism at its finest.

There is a book that I was certain would BREAK me; Wittgenstein’s Mistress (by David Markson), a work of experimental fiction that reads as the diary of a woman slowly losing her mind after some time as the very last conscious living thing on earth. There exists some really fantastic writing about the fallibility of memory, identifying both on each side of the Madonna-whore dichotomy and as various famous women throughout history. The main (and only, really) character cites the stories of historic women as her own. It is not a thrilling book by any means. It is interesting. The reader is left to wonder if Kate is really all alone in the world, or her sanity has long been misplaced.

Wittgenstein's writings, or David Markson’s book didn’t break me. It was, however, the diving board that lead to a sharp descent into something desperate. The novel was a measure of how far I was from turning myself inside out for the sake of art and understanding, my life fuel.

It took what feels like forever to understand.

I was never much of a reader as a kid, but the idea of collecting and understanding cultures different than my own was really exciting. I had (and still have) a lot of ephemeral, romantic ideals: “Build a home on the horizon of the known and the unknown,” and, “rip the false bottom out from my small, comfortable world to find an infinite expanse and fall in love with all I was missing out on.”

I had an incredible group of friends, we were all kids then, really, who shared some lovely tie to art. Each of us experiencing so. Damn. Much. In our young lives and bleeding the expression of the impact of the trauma we experienced individually. It never had to be said explicitly, nor a story ever laid out. It was understood that we all felt deeply. We all thought deeply. That was lost—taken by time and distance and growth in all directions.

That’s the way of life, isn’t it? Without a defined “true north,” how are we to put the work necessary into maintaining all that we want to define us?

So, here I am, on my return flight, the same movie queuing up. With this knowledge, this compass, and the whole world in front of me, I am wondering if I should try my hand at…

• Russian first, so I can read Nabokov’s original, poetic, seamlessly surreal prose in Invitation to a Beheading?
• Or maybe French to see what I am missing about Camus?
• Perhaps I could jump back into Spanish and find new nuance in el Hombre de la Mancha.
• Some time ago I put some effort into Lojban, a constructed language developed in 1987 (a good year). Why not jump back into the world of limiting ambiguity?

Maybe I could visit all of these places. Maybe find a little divey bar and sit for hours with an old man whose stories turn him inside out and offer some truth I have yet to know.

Maybe, just maybe, I can live again.

Words werdz wuuuurdzzz.

I have some favorite words, friends:

Obstreperous (adj) : Noisy and difficult to control

• He was an obstreperous sub, yet she persevered. (heh)
• The feeling, all passionate and torrid, racketed about her chest like some glorious, obstreperous tennis ball, bouncing from side to side, top to bottom, and expanding her plural cavity until she could burst.

Vicissitude (n) : The change of circumstance from alternating between opposite or contrasting things

• The vicissitudes of napping and playtime were tall too much for Sampson, who plopped on the floor after only a few bats at some stringed feather.
• Anxious attachment rendered her catatonic among the natural vicissitudes of love and loneliness.

Facing the vicissitudes of defining worth by who she is -with- and not just who she -is- proved an obstreperous challenge over the space of several years. However, those times are ending and the luminosity returning. 

What are yours? :)

Rabbit Starvation, a Topical Review

A quick note: This is little more than my summary of what Wikipedia says +1(you know, formal education and stuff). My summaries are magical and will improve your science skill—nay, your science ability score. <you know, STR, DEX, CON, WIS, INT, CHA, SCI. That looks right? No?>

Alas! Today’s topic:

Rabbit Starvation

(please don’t starve ya bunnies. They cute.)

This phenomena is also known as protein poisoning and is caused by eating too much lean meat and neither fat nor carbohydrates. Couple this with stressers like cold or very dry climates and you have this lovely nightmare hotdish!

Lets consider some human biology for a couple of paragraphs.

The body has limits. The stomach for example, typically tops out at about 1 liter. Some can extend much more, but a living person’s stomach cannot typically contain more than 4 liters in the absolute worst case you can think of. That is, before having to remove that “living” condition from character sheets. Think of the poor bulimic girl who passed away, having consumed something like 10 liters of food/drink in a sitting. This is largely internet lore, credibility on this statement is….lacking.

As it relates to protein, the body can metabolize around 350 grams per day. That is a substantial quantity of protein, consider our good friend and gym rat, Jeff, eating from his protein powder drum with a ladle, looking all coked out. Else, there are about 350 grams of protein in the following:

       THREE pounds of 85% lean ground beef
       One entire pound of seitan (wheat meat)
       FOURTEEN 3oz cans of tuna
       Fifty-eight large eggs
       NINE cups of black beans (uuughh the gas)

All of the above also have piles of other nutrients that cost less to metabolize and have fewer adverse effects.

Now, we must consider that each gram of protein produces 4 kCal of energy, the most one person can metabolize in a day is ~1400 calories. If Jeff here is not working hard (doing things like walking and shivering) he can function alright-ish on so few calories. That sounds livable, right?

Right?

WRONG!

Our good friend Urea disagrees. You see, Urea : CO(NH₂)₂ is a product of protein metabolism. Usually she is pretty benign in the body and doesn’t react much: the lovely weekend warrior who expresses her enthusiasm and fights the patriarchy in a chorus of, "WOOOOO!" followed by shots or sugarbooze. She is typically taken out of the body efficiently by the kidneys.

Kidneys have limits too, though!

Consider a hoard of basic b-- zombie woo girls overwhelming your favorite little hovel with the high-pitched call to arms, a deafening cacophony.

Living on a diet of very lean protein [rabbits] Urea builds a following in the body. She collects friends very quickly, in just a few days Urea can overwhelm the kidneys. She recruits so many of her lovely, audibly excitable friends, in fact, that the direction of the following reaction begins to favor( the energetically unfavorable) decomposition of urea into ammonia and carbon dioxide.

H2O + CO(NH₂)₂ à 2 NH₃ + CO₂

In this case, carbon dioxide is exhaled <Breathing and shizz: Why haven't you already read this?> but the ammonia remains in the bloodstream. This increases the pH and the blood becomes slightly basic (heh). Ammonia, due to her lone pair of electrons is a fantastic nucleophile. She is a good deal like Hydroxie, but the ride or die sort. She will attack carbon atoms and change structures in ways one cannot imagine and all for her ladybros.

AS pH increases, electrochemistry, a critical part of cellular homeostasis, changes. Enzymes and other proteins begin to denature and fail to do their normal jobs. Critical and complex structures drop cofactors (like hemes and metal ions) and coenzymes (other proteins). Consider the riotous collapse of the stock market (or a loss from sportsball team and their enthusiastic fans going all kinds of crazy—also applies). I imagine them melting right out of the membrane. It is a fun image for me; it looks a good deal like Nickelodeon in the ‘90s ifyaknowwhatImean.

The takeaway:

The body becomes so full of piss and vinegar (light on the vinegar) that it dies.

Like any infomercial worth its NaCl, THERE IS SO MUCH MORE!

 If you hang in there with me, I will drag you along into the metabolic wonderland in subsequent posts. The minutia of metabolism is THRILLING! I PROMISE!

Fun With Words

Alpha always

Begets the best,
Credulous curiosities.
Deliver me to delirium.
Entrench me in an enveloping enigma.

For, futility is a fawn, that
Gregarious gallant, a
Hopeless herald. He is
Incapable of the inescapable indignation.

Jungian justifications.
Kindly kissing--while
Lingering and lamenting
My own misfortune, am I, manipulated by

Nymphs, nobodies
Of omnipresence. O! Ophelia,
Please pardon my
Quiescent but quarantined quandaries.

Reprove my redundant
Studies, surreptitiously
Tempting this termagant
Ubiquity. Uncouth and uncertain, but

Vividly variegated. A
Wanton wonder,
Xhosa with Xeraphim.
You, the youthful yardmaster of all

Zephyrs! My Zenith!

There. Fixed it. Ya happy?

Breathing in greater depth than you ever cared to know

What you may know

Breathing is controlled by pH and the following reaction

Also, hemoglobin (Hb) is the oxygen transporting protein carried by red blood cells (RBCs).
Fun fact: RBCs eject their nucleus as part of their normal life cycle and become little more than sacks of Hb. :D

Onto what you likely don't know:

Hemoglobin

is made of four protein chains, two alpha and two beta chains. Each chain holds one heme, giving each Hb a total of four hemes.

What is a heme, you ask? A heme is a large, planar, geometric molecule that stabilizes one iron(II) atom. This is where oxygen binds to Hb.

Histidine is an amino acid that plays a HUGE role in the way Hb is able to bind oxygen. The histidine in Hb alpha or beta is associated with the iron(II) atom in a heme due to an ionic intermolecular force using the highlighted hydrogen projecting from HIS' sexy, sexy face.

When oxygen is not bound to the iron(II), the atom hangs below the plane of the heme. This is called the relaxed (R) form.

When oxygen binds to the iron(II) it pulls the atom up and into the plane of the heme. This tugs on the histidine and changes the shape of the entire chain (subunit). We call this the taut (T) form of a chain. If one chain (alpha or beta) is in the T conformation it also tugs on the adjacent chains, making it slightly easier for the next iron(II) to bind with another oxygen molecule.

Super cool, right? This is called cooperation. Go figure.

 

Haldane Effect

When the concentration of carbon dioxide in the blood is high (in venous blood) it is easier for the carbon dioxide to bind to its own binding site on the Hb subunit. When carbon dioxide binds to Hb it causes an opposing structural change that helps to release oxygen!

When the concentration of carbon dioxide is low, like in the lung capillaries, oxygen binds again and causes a structural change that releases carbon dioxide. Neat, right?

Wait! There is more!

 

At high altitudes

Hb must bind oxygen especially well because tehr eis less of it available. One of the ways that the bodies of people who are acclimated to the altitude ope with how "grabby" the Hb is with oxygen is to increase levels of a chemical called 2, 3 bisphosphoglycerate (2, 3-BPG). This is anotehr allosteric ligand, similar to the way carbon dioxide works. In venous blood, 2, 3-BPG will "muscle" into the very center of tan Hb protein, among the four subunits and release the oxygen! When it reaches the lungs it dissociates from the Hb and allows oxygen to bind again!

 

 

Fetal Hb

binds oxygen more tightly so that it can take oxygen from the mother's blood and transport it to the fetus.

 

Myoglobin

Is a singular subunit (one alpha, one beta) that is used to store, but not transport oxygen. It doesn't form sites for allosteric binding to release the oxygen. It is found most in muscle tissue!

 

Bringin' it together

When carbonic anhydrase (best dive around) catalyzes the reaction laid out at the beginning of this section, blood pH increases and stimulates chemoreceptors in the carotid and aortic blood vessels as well as receptors in the medulla oblongata. This stimulates the phrenic and thoracic nerves and contracts the diaphragm.

 

 

SUPER COOL! YEAH! :D

The Tale of Carbonic Anhydrase

The Tale of Carbonic Anhydrase

In a divey bar(spelling says it all) where we set out scene, we find Sodium working the corner. For Sodium is the gigolo of the cations and is forever going in and out of random cells.

Carbon Dioxide is a well renowned uni-cyclist, I am sure all are aware.

Now, H2O and CO2 walk into a bar. Heh...heh...heh...

H2O is getting jealous because she has crazy eyes for CO2's bad boy uni-cycle skilzzzzzz. Histidine (sigh), the bouncer, is relegated to restraining H2O to keep the peace.

H2O is, however, a whiley little lass. With little effort on her own part, she escapes! In the struggle Histidine accidentally broke off one of H2O's proton pigtails. OH NO!

Poor Histidine has no idea what to do with the casualty of H2O's war of love.

Most people do not know this bit of adventure I am about to share with you. Even weird chemists are unaware. When H2O loses a proton pigtail, bitch gets scrappy. It is kind of like going Super Saiyan but with less hair product.

H2O becomes so scrappy, in fact, that she gets a whole new moniker:

Hydroxide (A.K.A Hyd-Roxie)!

If we are being honest, and what else would be be, Hyd-Roxie is trashy, too. She will make out with anything positive. If nothing positive is around, she will make something!

Like so:

In the carnage, CO2 loses a leg and is stuck to crazy, scrappy Hyd-Roxie! Poor guy!

Histidine, still left with the proton pigtail finds a happy home for the appendage by wedging it into the wheel of the once great uni-cyclist, CO2.