how can two little bits of roshomalai makes me throw up 6 times? there should a sense of proportion in things. and the next person who nudges a notun gurer shondesh my way will get a serving spoon jammed down their throat.
no presents today, smoking medium high, bullied people, million people to visit tomorrow and a million and one things waiting on monday. if i can't discard my life and get another one, then the least the world owes me is a spare clone kind of person to live parts of it for me.
i'd send the stupid clone to work and visit people and run errands and i'd stay at home, lazing in the sun on my favourite arm-chair and listen to old-fashioned acid rock. i'd read a fashion-magazine and eat grapes too, just to complete things, but i don't like the latter and the former would be too much like work.

this is unfrikkinbelievable. i sat up and made my calculations. i had an unbroken 22 day stint of getting presents every single day !!! and everything so far has been stuff i absolutely like, which is not a very usual occurrence when random people give you things. not that i'd ever concede that a normal existence is not traumatic, but this part of my life ... i'm lovvin' it.
today's booty: orange-pink cotton top, one asterix, rod stewart cd.

who do you give yourself to?
not in the virgin sacrifice kind of way, but really who do you give yourself to?
do you give yourself to you, keeping the rest of world at bay, keeping you safe and maybe lonely, a bit cold?
do you give yourself to a few, letting go in spurts, feeling warm in sporradic bursts of animosity?
do you give yourself to everything on the canvas - the causes you support, the vices you nurture, the friends you miss, the lovers you don't understand, the person at the other end of the wires, the person who's cut off all the wires, the dead and the living, the sunny mornings and warm water on your feet that try to balance on shifting sands, intense feelings, intense absence of feelings - and watch your anger when you can't pick up the strands of your life because the yarn has been woven into a tapestry you don't know how to unravel?
do you fight against detachment or do you fight for it?

i want a largish cardboard box or one half of a sewerage pipe where i can put up a blue plastic sheet and stay undisturbed and out of the world's way.

- god
-yeah?
- perform a miracle.
- fuck off.
- no, seriously.
- yeah, seriously, fuck off .
- like hell. you fuck off.
- oh ok. cool. seeya.

even prayer has lost its power these days.

colour code for the day: navy blue and blood red.
what the fuck is wrong with me?

bright, nice, sunny day; clear skies; black and green butterflies; feeling like a jellybean (waking up at six thirtyseven tsk); the easy-chair by the window nicely toasted by the morning sun.
i need to find a good reason why i have to go work today.
i also need to find a shirt, a pair of red socks, thirty bucks, my keys and somebody who'll give me something to eat.

meebo isn't working, the ym never did work on this piece of junk. whenever i type my id in, it is showing up as already logged in or invalid password. i can't even open my mail. it shows the same bloody thing.
and i have to go back to work tomorrow and i exhausted my week's quota of tantrums in one evening.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhhh. pox on your polly, fate.

coffee, music, lunch, nap, tantrum, pizza, beer, music, sleepover and a repeat of the sequence today. taking two days off is so blissful. taking two days off when everyone else is on leave too - heavenly.
i heart mew.

i missed my chance today.
at the park street signals one of the urchins came and demanded two rupees. he assured me that by giving the money i would ensure that i'd get married or at least make lots of money in near future. but despite having control of my destiny, i could do nothing about it since the lights changed and the moron of a taxiwallah sped to overtake a scorpio.
when i'm old, single and penniless, i'll remember to put a curse on the driver of taxi number 8235 and the cop that was manning the signals on park street at 7:45 on 11th november, 2006.
just you wait.

amader barite mistiri eshchhilo

i live in an orange and white house now, as opposed to the gritty-greyish-creamish-pinkish-can'tidentify and lightgreen-that-was-once-pink house. you see, the workmen came calling.
i didn't know that my dreams were portent of something. now after sharing bed, clothes, bathroom and every waking minute in the house with an extremely large number of members of the extended family, i feel that i should have known.i woke up one day to find three kids - two skinny and one fat - scraping the wall outside my room. as soon as i glared at them they stopped scraping and started putting a scaffold up. i stomped downstairs to find out that these were our latest houseguests.
the progenitor's brother is getting his house constructed. now junior is a conman par excellence and generally is the sort that gets things done. he got bored of the lack of excitement that his constructions were providing and decided to infuse some change in his routine. so the paint guys were given two-hours notice and told to pack for a week (don't forget toothbrushes and a sheet each) and were brought down from some 230 km away. my kakimoni came along as well - a saving grace - she's a cook worth dying for.
junior took them on an exploratory tour around the block and my mother and aunt cooked alurdom and luchi for "the boys". suitably fortified, "the boys" started on a demolition operation. i was held up at work that first day and when i got back home at 11, i saw three beady pairs of eyes in the living-room, peering from under a heap of sheets that looked extremely familiar. the rest of the house looked like it had been hit with a bomb. and then it all began.
every morning started with the scrape of a metallic sheet against plaster and a cloud of dust. as soon as they'd hear me moving around in the room, they'd stop the scraping and freeze till i went downstairs. there, the kitchen would be a veritable warzone with suggestions flying back and forth regarding what can be done for "the boys". breakfast, lunch and dinner had to offer enough variety - since they were not at home and must be missing their mums terribly - and junior and the progenitor would be sent to the market 13 times. the fish consumption in our house alone must have done something terrible to the ecological balance. each night i'd return home to find them happily watching my telly and i'd recieve frantic phone calls in the middle of interviews with strict instructions to get bengali blockbusters with improbable names. i had to rent 5 DVDs in three days and the local CDwallah gave me a look of disdain that i'll remember for a long time when i asked for abhimanyu. it' maybe a hit philim, but it's still infradig.
then they all decided that it wasn't enough fun as it were and so invitations were sent out. our happy family was joined by five more people, with the cheerful promise that the next team was on it's way. result: we got a lurid yellow bathroom with a pink plastic mirror; a confusion regarding what my great-grandfather's real name was; eleven house guests; three visits to extended family members everyone had forgotten existed; and a great big war over the choice of colours which revealed that my father can't climb trees (o' the shame of it) and that junior's choice of friends have always been inappropriate and that my aunt is extremely scared of monkeys and that my mother had been a closet-worshipper of santoshi-maa even though she knows it was a film and there's no actual deity. her reason - you never know.
anyway "the boys" scraped and cleaned and tried to paint the house a horrible yellow before being threatened with violence. after much heated debate and barbed exchanges regarding aesthetics and artistic sensibilities, the colour for the outer walls were chosen. in a rare moment of unanimity it was decided that we're not getting any more work done and all the paint work inside can be done some other time.
much suscpicious prodding and probing got the real story out. my mother and junior had promised the boys that they'd be sent back this weekend. reason being the local club that "the boys" belong to are hosting a play with cast that's being taken from calcutta and our boys have been assigned duty at the ladies' gate on monday. it would be unpardonable to make them miss that. and of course since it's their first visit to calcutta they'd have to be shown around. so, that thankfully ruled out any more of the paint work being done. this afternoon they were driven around the city by sulky and junior. "the boys" went plane-spotting via the rajarhat highway, they went and rode the metro, they went to victoria memorial and eden gardens and strand road and millenium park and made a round of both the howrah bridges and saw nicco park as well. they were fed coffee and chicken pakoras and dinner was chicken biriyani.
"the boys" are leaving early tomorrow morning.

i dreamt of snowflakes. stinging and burning on my tongue. i dreamt of vast open spaces, except it was just knowing that there was a space. all i remember of the dream is the feeling - nothing else. not much of a dream. yet waking up from it turned it all blue.
sometimes it feels like being rinsed with that purplish liquid - a faint blue patina over the normal colours. something you can't do much about.

Your Sloth Quotient: 59%

You're definitely lazier than the average person, but you're able to live a somewhat normal life. All your life needs is a little more effort and variety, and you might see that doing hard things is actually fun!

How Much Sloth Do You Have?

i need to concentrate more on not doing things. i wanna 99%.i just wanna be the supersloth.

a gruesome next day is truly appreciated when u are obsessive and insomniac.
sometimes i surprise myself with the profoundity of my thought process.

i found an idea i like very much. pigs fly when i'm not looking. what's to stop them? i like it. the possibility makes my life seem richer.

how can it be that after more than two decades, make it two point five decades, of education and constant hammering of concepts like self-worth, security and success, my only - one and only - ambition is not to do anything, ever? read books and raise dogs and sit and do nothing. yes, that's what i want my life to look like. and i can't even feel apologetic about it. how can it be?
i live for the day - that one day - when i'll stop and do nothing. and i don't want to be all old and washed out before i do that. i want my retirement now.

i am happy at the moment. ok, this has been one of my trademark drunk as a fish lines. but this time, i am sober and i mean it. the last few weeks haven't been too great.
work, toad, tempatation to walk away, restlessness, missing things and people and places i'm not supposed to miss, guilt, weariness...
R's father passed away a couple of weeks back. it was heartbreaking to watch her deal with it. it was even worse to watch her kid brother trying to be a "man" about it. none of us knew what to do, how to make things better (like that can be done) and felt like utter failures as human beings.
this evening was different, more relaxed and pleasant.
it seems like ages have passed since i had time enough for myself. which is sad, considering all major decsions i've made in the last two years have been geared to one goal - having more time.the other day, me and the southern wonder were mourning the fact that no-one recognises the fact that wanting contentment, wanting to be just happy - no more, no less - is a legitimate ambition.
time, people i care for, time for people i care for, and a good book or hundred when i get a bit tired of them - should be quite simple actually. except its not. there's some elusive ingredient that's always missing. but not tonight.

none of our diyas survived beyond 10 minutes. of course this is all the progenitor's fault for he insisted on earthen diyas and made those wicks himself, claiming technical knowledge having watched someone do those eons ago. undaunted we took out chrismas decorations out of a blue reindeer-y box and set those up. it was hard to pick which one was more hideous - half-dying, spluttering diyas or erratic mini-berries in blue, green and yellow; that lit up in sporradic bouts. to complete the look, we added some dry-ish marigold strings too.
we tried to look suitably mournful to show solidarity with the man, but it was too frikkin' hilarious. we left him sulking. then psycho kid from the 'hood came calling to ask for help with her fireworks. told her to piss off since i'm too scared and as a result was dragged to the shop to go and get some, which R, S and psycho kid then let off with greatest glee. i sat on R's steps with her mum, my mum ( who abandoned her dreamy musings on how to make my father's life a greater misery for the rest of the evening), the other R and three cats.
we may not have had lights enough, but there was lots of laughter.after a long time.

i'm pissed. a) i'm calvin, which is unfair, considering i take my maturity and cultivate it with all seriousness, b) i pasted it like an idiot three times on the blog and now i can neither see it nor delete it, c) some idiot has been letting off crackers right below my window and it's already too dark to see who it is, d) i'm expected to light up ten thousand fucking diyas dressed in a scratchy orange silk kurta ( with blue squiggles and golden spirals in it) and be happy about it, e) someone's messed up my pc so bad that opera's about the only thing that works , so half my fun things are denied to me and f) i haven't had my cup of coffee nor my two o clock cigarette.
and if that's not enough, my mother insisits on blasting devotional kali puja songs on the tv and is laughing like a maniac not eight inches away from me.
i am getting progessively pisseder and pisseder.
i need something monumental to get in a better mood. i'll be back. i need to celebrate the return of my cyberlife with something pleasant.

look ma, so pretty

Friday, September 22, 2006 rain, rain, go to spain. my subconscious gets a little more bizarre each day. i dreamt i was a sports car. and when i woke up, i knew beyond doubt that i'd been a red one too. i wonder if, instead of a padded cell, they'll give me one of those nice sunny grounds with a pond and benches and pottery class. or at least my own tree to sit and read under. Tuesday, September 19, 2006 i smell lilies, i think of fall colours, i think of tomorrow, i can taste raindrops i caught outside my window, i feel tremendously blue. i wonder if i have synaesthesia. not likely. the only sensation that has any permanence is blue, everything else fades away. i need a green day tomorrow. i need more colours. Monday, September 18, 2006 i blog. therefore, i am. hah. Saturday, September 09, 2006 "i feel so horrible. i have to act grown-up now. the responsibilities that come with attaining a certain age is terrifying. i can't believe i won't be seventy-seven again." at this point, my mother stopped mid-way through singing happy birthday for him and clouted my father on the head. i wish i had more adults in my life, so i'd know how to be one. Monday, September 04, 2006 while there are designated office spaces at work, there is no rule that says you actually have to work where you keep your stash of dirty magazines and the menus from the takeaways. so at any random point in the day you may find people walking in and calmly staking out on a terminal, much in the same manner of people coming to spend a day on the beach.they sit and look around and smile at people, then keep their keychains, mobile and notes scribbled on dirty napkins on the table. if its a woman they take out a planner. if its a man they start scratching. sometimes you give them a look, sometimes you are given a look. sometimes they plead deadline, sometimes you yell page release. but it is understood by all parties that it is a day trip. a very fluid arrangement and nobody makes a habit of it. except the weirdo who fastidiously eats pineapple discs every afternoon. he comes in with a coffin-like black bag at the same time, occupies the same pc, pisses off the same people, surfs the same websites and eats pineapple discs every single day. and no-one knows what he works on, who he works with, no-one has ever seen him actually sitting in another office and most people don't know his name. i was naturally very shocked to find that weirdo actually knows my name. he called me by my name to give me my phonebook today. but before i could recover from it, he yawned so widely that i could see the little fleshy thing at the back of his throat. it was so gross that it was kind of fascinating. then i couldn't stop wondering why i couldn't see his tonsils. and that did me in. every ten minutes i kept looking at weirdo to see if he'd yawn so spectacularly again. i tried the furtive glancing, i tried the absent-minded gaze, i tried the focussed look. but nada, zilch, nothing. then the bugger went and got himself coffee and ten minutes later, walked out not to return. if he doesn't return ever, i'll be left for life wondering whether or not he has tonsils and if yes, whether or not they will be visible when he yawns wide. i find this not knowing disturbing. Sunday, September 03, 2006 look ma, so pretty my own two-bit venice. don't you love it? Friday, September 01, 2006 horrible, horrible, horrible day. i deserve a sunset on a beach; i deserve a remsen cooler; i deserve a foot massage; i deserve nothing short of pure bliss. anything less will not do. no. Thursday, August 31, 2006 i don't wanna go to work today. i wanna stay at home, watch the rest of the movie on HBO, order in chinese, read more didius falco's, take a nap whenever and just chill. i don't wanna go to work arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. and then, there's the inevitable, unavoidable, insufferable presence of the toad. mehfooz mehfooz. people on telly were discussing the connotations of the word and i thought it neatly captures my life at the moment. but then i see a young girl has walked out on life. everyone else's and her's. a stranger's death shouldn't matter. how much tired do you have to be? how much alone do you have to be? how much scared do you have to be? or maybe the question should be how much more. when do the existential blues cease to be just so? Sunday, August 27, 2006 the cat, the hat and the spider had to move to the kitchen garden. the gardener is getting a new lawn and rosebeds ready for spring. ofcourse the bat tagged along to see where they were going, but they pretended not to notice him. the spider being more used to sudden changes was the first one to settle in. but then again, he's always had that cool, sophisticated, spider-around-town confidence. just along the kitchen wall there is a nice lemon tree and the spider set up its home there. it put up its sixty-four cornered web, weaved in some magenta balsam petals to give it more colour and got some fireflies upside down in his web to complete the low-lighting arrangements. he also hooked up with the crickets in the basil bush to get a surround-chirping system. the cat and the hat were very impressed with the spider's creative genius. and they agreed that unlike some creative creatures who go on moaning and throwing orders and tantrums at the same time, the spider was quite efficiently creative. however, the hat thought that the magenta was a bit too loud and would disturb the spider's sleep cycle and that stark white would have given the web a modern minimalist look. the cat disagreed. but the cat always liked flamboyance so... they spent the first two days tearing around the garden, sun-bathing in the vegetable patch, making friends with the sparrows and the insomniac crow who lived on the window sill and who was fed cheese by the cook every night after dinner. and every evening they'd drop in at the lemon tree to admire the spider's new web and carry on talking there till even the insomniac crow fell asleep. on the third morning, they went back to their old place to find that it has all been dug up. the gardener looked a bit shame-faced but told them that it'd all be worth it when the lawn goes velvety and the roses start blooming. he also promised to put in some white and pink roses to please the hat. the cat was feeling a bit lost. so the hat decided that they needed to get their own tree in the kitchen garden and stay there till the gardener gives them the green signal. the cat knew they'd have to do that. but it was feeling a bit cross for not having thought of it earlier and it was also not used to moving about. so when the hat suggested the pomegranate tree, it told the hat not to be silly. the hat was a bit put out. see, the problem was that the hat knew the names of only three fruits - pomegranate, mango and lemon (just because the spider lived on it). since the lemon tree was already taken, and there were no mango trees in the garden, the hat didn't know what to suggest. so it punched the cat and asked it to find a tree since the cat was so clever. this last bit was sarcasm - which is when you say a thing and mean quite the opposite to irritate another person. but its not like saying white for black, that's just plain making things up. now the cat was not much better than the hat at knowing the names of its fruits. it didn't even know what a mango is (and in its defence, cats are mostly not required to know about mangoes), but it did know what a pear is. since there were no pear trees in the kitchen garden either, that was out of question. so it punched the hat back and swished its tail about in a superior manner. they fought a bit more, without knowing that the bat was watching them and eaves-dropping for all its worth. finally, they decided to stay on the tree in the middle of the kitchen garden - a shortish tree with lots of low branches, narrow new-moon like leaves and a nice spicy smell.and the tree had a nice platformish space midway up its trunk, right where the branches started growing out. however, after wrapping up the fight and a round of saying how sorry they were and that its alright, not to worry to each other, when the hat and the cat got to their tree, they found the bat there. the bat being the horrible creature it is, grinned at them and asked them if they liked his new home. the poor hat and the cat were so distressed that they could hardly speak, they asked the bat why he needed a new home, since its part of the garden was undisturbed. the bat grinned some more and said in sugary tones that it was missing them and when it heard them talking about their tree it thought it would move right in to keep them company. the hat was so angry that it wanted to kill the bat right on the tree, but the cat dragged it away to the vegetable patch and calmed it down. the cat also pointed out that since the bat had got their first, it had a claim to the tree, whether they liked it or not. the hat said something extremely rude about the bat and its claim and settled in for a nap. this time they needed to count till fifty-three to go to sleep and the cat messed up twice and had to start afresh - once after he'd gotten to eleven and lost it and then the second time after having reached all the way to nineteen. in the evening, they went over to the spider's as usual and the hat started telling him all about the bat even before reaching the foot of the lemon tree. the spider listened to it patiently and asked a few questions. it started frowning a lot and hummed a tune from one of those top of the chirp numbers that the hat didn't care much about. the spider also agreed with the cat that beating the bat to a pulp was certainly not a good idea. he told the hat that non-violence (which is when you don't beat up a person but make his life miserable anyway) is a better way of living life and gave it quite a bat-like grin. since the cat was still stuck on the idea of fairness, the spider drew the hat aside and the two of them had a long chat. the cat was horribly curious and was dying to know what they were talking about, but sat with its tail straight up and pretended to be above such things. then the two of them strolled over to the basil bush and when they came back they wouldn't tell the cat anything. the cat begged and pleaded and threatened and left the tree twice to return back from halfway, but still they would only tell it that they'd been talking about fair means. when the cat was almost on the verge of crying , the hat and the spider relented and took him along to the tree. they found the bat sitting there with a sick expression on its face and a new band of crickets who were experimenting with trance and metal rock practising for their next gig. when the bat saw the spider it grew even sicker. the bat had highly sensitive ears and the when the crickets hit a particular pitch , the bat felt its head buzzing and spinning. he was on the verge of throwing up on the crickets and was waiting for them to finish so he could pick up a fight. but when it saw the spider coming, he knew it was pointless anyway. without saying a word the bat flew away from the tree, though before he left he pulled a horribly rude face at the hat and swooshed down to tug the cat's tail. the crickets who'd stopped in the meanwhile, burst out laughing. but they were mostly laughing at the bat, so the cat didn't mind. they all went back to the kitchen steps for a small party, where the cook had put out milk and cheese bits. though the spider scoffed at the milk and said it was a confirmed dew drinker, it happily packed in the cheese morsels. later on, they went back to the lemon tree for a long discussion about decor and the crickets pitched in with a lot of suggestions because being in the entertainment biz they knew a lot about what's cool. Thursday, August 24, 2006 everything i want to say in this blog or to anyone else in the world right now can be summarised in one word - HOWL! n.b. not growl, but HOWL Wednesday, August 23, 2006 harassed by parents obsessed with the idea of support, harangued by neighbours in their car-pool-to-school santros, crowded out by young parents hogging the best tables at your favourite restaurants, looked upon by concern by acquaintances who are on the verge of popping out the progeny by the time they hit the next traffic signal, deemed as unsightly adult-acne like blemishes on the society by potential landlords and employers - life is hard indeed for the singletons. we need to stick together to survive the onslaught. yet it is those very people who undermnine the cause giving the the smug-marrieds their unfair advantage. shaadi.com and 8-minute dating services, times matrimonial and casual hook-ups, enduring abuse and living with neglect, ceasing to be meaningful to another person yet clinging on to the EMI-enabled shared life - just how much do people fear being alone? there is something very sad when a person begins to think that by himself or herself, they can't claim a complete life. not that they have to be resigned to being lonely for the rest of their lives, not that they have to forget how nice it is to get an unexpected daisy, not that they have to deny how nice it is to wake up to someone holding them. but to think for a moment that you are not good enough for you is a great injustice to life. and no, most people are not likely to end up dead on the durry with red ants eating their left eye. i wish i could make things better for the superwomen and men (not supermen, there was only one superman and he wore his undies on the outside, so less said about that, the better) in my life.yes, i have quite a few of them and i rely on them to make my existence as a mere mortal better. do i thank them for it? hell, no. it's their job to take care of me. they are intelligent, sensitive, articulate, creative and mostly people that are very nice to know. not for them is the bland cover-all phrase - great personality - they are super-fucking-awesome people.they are vibrant, interesting and as warm as melted marsh-mallows on cocoa. they know how to balance ambitions with dreams. and they are a reservoir of knowledge on pop trivia and coolest club wear, they can dance a mean salsa and can make sense of george orwell, not to say anything about steamed pomfret maach, tax returns, mutual funds and equities. yet, sometimes they get handed a raw deal in life. happens. but what bothers me is that these women and men have a complete inability to look beyond themselves when it comes to figuring out what went wrong. why they can't stop apologising for mistakes other fuckwits make, why they can't stop feeling inadequate because of the lack of perception of some pea-brained moron, why they can't recognise the fact that they do not HAVE to put up with shit - is completely beyond me. i wish for once someone would have it in them to say it oud and clear "look, it's not me, it's you. that's what the problem is. you are just not good enough and i know it." people should never be apologetic about being nice. god knows and they know, there's not enough niceness around. Saturday, August 19, 2006 i saw a stranger smile to himself; the auto-wallah bought jasmines at the traffic signal. there's something incongruous about noticing the smell of rain on earth after it's been raining steadily through the day. there's something incredible about smelling the faint fragrance of lilies in full bloom through the rain. there's something inevitable about life. there's something ineveitable about how fulfilling life can be, for no good reason. i don't want no respect There are women who age gracefully and there are women who spend their lives trying to look ten year’s younger and end up in the opposite direction. Well I thought I didn’t have to think about which group I fall in, at least not yet. I try not to gouge out the eyes of the odd person who calls me baby or baba. And people certainly do not score points with me for telling me I look some odd years younger than what they think would be a flattering figure for my age. I’m happy enough being me. Occasionally I regress a bit, but that’s allowed. However I admit my parents got a bit shortchanged when it came to the intellectual capacity of their youngest offspring. My mental growth is a bit stunted. What to do? I am like that only. OK, so the brother was here and I reveled in my younger sibling role, got a lifetime's supply of fantasy volumes, stole a plastic glow-in-the-dark sword from a child's birthday booty and was feeling what the Cow would say "securely ensconced" in my peter pan complex. Then, THEN, on my way to work the taxi driver called me auntie. Bruised and battered in spirit, I smoked my last YSL menthol from the secret stash, had a cup of extra strong coffee and dragged myself upstairs to key in a short, pithy email describing my trauma to people who should rightfully care about me. Its only fair - if I care about you, you care about me. Except life doesn't follow such simple rules. The buggers started a laughathon and my plea for psychological support was met with helpful and kind responses in the line of "Aunty Aunty... as in tht Hair Dye ad...." "you have now officially become part of the generation that doesn't understand people like you" "The minute I read that the taxiwallah called Rhea aunty, I laughed out so loud one of my colleagues had to apologise to someone he was talking to on the phone. Ooof...Rhea Aunty" I preferred to make a dignified retort. So I asked them to piss off. Needless to say, this also fell on deaf ears. I was also told that it’s been a long time since I was last insulted, not counting the beggar, and it was high time I had another one coming. Well thank you very much. More hilarity and what certain people think is a dazzling display of wits followed. AND THEY STARTED PICKING ON MY NEW HAIRSTYLE!!! "Your haircut made respect emanate out of the taxi driver, which is why he called you aunty. You're still a goddess to us in mind and spirit, irrespective of haircuts" "Yes, Rhea, you are my favorite goddess Aunty. In mind, spirit and haircut, you are the auntiest of all aunties. The epitome of aunty-hood is found in you, and your haircut. When I think of women in ill-fighting nighties, cooking mangsho and bhaat for Laltu (Shona) and Bulu (AKA bablu), I see you." I decided that maybe I wasn’t being able to put across how traumatised I was. Still expecting the better of people (I AM dumb. I said so!) I laid bare my tortured soul. ( I also told them they are not going to be invited for my bablu’s onnoprashon). I conveyed to the best of my abilities that I was now being reduced to a quivering bundle of nerves now and how I can't stop looking at mirrors. What next? anondobajar alliance, digha for honeymoon, sea-bathing in salwars, and of course the ill-fitting nightie with a dupatta across if someone comes to the house, standing guard in front of nursery schools and tutorials, pujor bajar at hatibagan, a little flirting with pintu the cablewallah, dokkhineshwar every now and then and city centre for a special treat... it’s all flashing in front of my eyes. I was told i'm funny. Funny? Man, I’m bleeding here. I was also told not to forget to include in my vision of future "getting the parar women together for pujo celebration and group meals, taking overt interest in the young women in the neighborhood ("Sonali, Tor ar amar boyesh beshi difference nei. Tuir amar kotha shon, Raju toke bhalo bashe na. tor mon ekhon poda-sona e thaka uchit"), getting all excited about watching a hindi cinema in the theater ("oof, Abhishek Bacchan ki acting korlo. Bablu, tor babar hairstyle ek-dom Abhishek-er moto, na?")" Ogo amar ki hobe go? Wednesday, August 16, 2006 i saw a lot of broken things today - broken people, broken dreams, broken promises to a broken child. there was nothing i could do except feel helpless. the unfairness of life and the baser side of human nature always win. and it seems so futile to try and repair the damage, because you know, more than anyone else, you know some things can't be mended. no matter how much you try. yet, you still have to go through the motions, you still have to pretend that you hope things can be better, sometimes you even fall for your own pretenses. but i stopped short at feeling angry. even before i could realise the futility of it, i was asking myself how many people and promises will i walk away from, when its my turn. Monday, August 14, 2006 can i have a rerun of my favourite tuesday? can i get a nice second hand gondola? can i get my own river? will my river take me to the middle of the deap seas? will it tell me tales of pirates and noblemen and dragons with a butterfly hoard? Sunday, August 13, 2006 i didn't realise how long i've been out of my usual groove of things. every unread e-mail, every unanswered text, every unreturned call kept piling up. i never felt the tomorrow bit of "i'll do it tomorrow" passing me by. and then when i got back to my usual pace, i find i've been causing some alarm. but before i could be properly apologetic about it, i felt a teeny bit happy that i AM actually missed. not that i am reluctant to take my friends for granted or vice versa, not that i don't know where i stand with them , but once in a while it feels nice to know. like an unexpected present. and while i'm on that topic, i read a blog. i'd ask the blogger to check her facts twice. the blogee (i.e. the object of the blog) matches nowhere near that description. i'm embarassed, concerned and overwhelmed. and doll?????? puhleez. i wanna be a ninja. Saturday, August 12, 2006 what's happening to me? managed to salvage a part of my life by walking away from work early and felt horribly guilty. what's happening to me? anyway, went and had a haircut. just when i was getting used to the compliments, certain people with a saturday off and an afternoon of shoe-shopping out of the way told me that i look like a kid with a 70's rajesh khanna hairstyle. and instead of blow-torching them as i should rightfully have done, i was so pathetically glad to see my friends that i couldn't stop grinning the whole afternoon. what's happening to me? couldn't take more than ten minutes in the pub, came to barista to have a cup of coffee and beat it - felt all the better for it. what's happening to me? and after i came home, i looked in every mirror in the house trying to see if i look like a baby-faced imbecile. it bothers me. what's happening to me? Tuesday, August 08, 2006 i can't believe i have been this time-starved. i feel like hanging me head low in shame and whisper softly - from thee i have been absent in the spring or something in the same vein to put across how miserable i feel being a stranger to my own blog. but a) there are too many people - real, live, non-virtual people - who i need to tell the same thing (less dramatically) and so i can't let a blog take precedence; b) it is not spring and c) for the past few days i've been living a botic existence. so for the time being i remain unapologetic. i will instead record for posterity how much interesting it is to take a day off from work and get to have your senses tuned at a superhuman level. ever noticed how a fever accentuates all sensations - colour of the leaves, sightof a first orange rose-bud, long-ignored sounds of the resident sparrows, geometric patterns of damp spots on the ceiling, feelings of sadness during a long evening with no-one to smile at? i have. Monday, July 24, 2006 there was a cat and a bat and a hat. the hat and the cat were good friends, but the bat was just a bat. nobody liked the bat. there was also a witch. ofcourse it was a wicked one - the witch hoarded pencils and scented erasers and shiny ball-point pens. it was mean to small children too.but then again, i know for a fact that some small children deserve meanness and their knuckles rapped. but, this is not a story about small children.nor one about witches. the cat and the hat were catty and hatty and orange and green. i mean the cat was orange and the hat was green, having a green cat would be very silly indeed. and to make things easy, when they were awake the cat would put the hat on. just like the paperboy puts on a plastic bag on his head some mornings. but when they tried sleeping, the trouble began. the cat and the hat would find a nice shady corner in the garden and lie down for a nap. now, everyone knows that a nap makes you a nicer person and much more clever too.they'd snuggle together and shut their eyes and count till twenty-three. this was a small problem to begin with. they didn't know their numbers beyond twentythree. if they didn't fall asleep by then, then they'd have to count till twentythree again and this would make them very tired and cross. the cat would try sitting up and counting , but the hat hated it. see, the hat couldn't take a nap when somebody was sitting up straight with tail in the air, loudly counting seventeen, eighteen... and so on. and the cat was rather loud, it believed that talking really loudly helps things happen faster. the poor hat would keep quiet most days, but sometimes it would ask the cat to stop counting, but the cat would get confused, mix up his eleven with thirteen and scold the hat. then the hat would get cross. and on days they managed to fall asleep by twenty-one, the bat would come and wake them up. the bat loved picking on the poor cat. it would come and sit on the cat's tail, or brush its wings across the cat's face and on some days it would even tug at the cat's moustache.the cat couldn't do anything. see, the bat was so much smaller that the cat couldn't hit it. and the cat was also scared of waking the hat up if he tried to tell the bat off. one day the bat even put a feather up the cat's nose. the cat tried to sneeze quietly. but then its sneezes made the cat feel like its brain would explode. so the cat started sneezing loudly and the hat woke up. the cat was very sorry, but the hat told him not to be silly. then the hat went to the bat and told him to leave the cat alone. the bat was a very naughty bat. it just stuck its tongue out at the hat. the hat got very angry. the hat then went to the spider that lived in the alamanda tree. they wouldn't let the cat hear what they were talking about. the cat got a little sad, but just a little. then the hat came back and told the cat to go back to napping. the hat also promised to count this time, though honestly speaking the hat was quite horrible at counting and went straight to eleven from eight. the cat fell asleep and slept and slept and slept till it was time for the gardener to come and turn the sprinklers on. when the cat woke up it saw the bat was hanging from the alamanda tree, tied up with spider web. the hat was waiting for the cat. together they went up to the tree. the hat told the bat that they would ask the spider to let it go if it promised not to bother the cat again. the bat didn't want to say that, but it was getting dark and there was lemon tart for tea at home. so it promised not to bother the cat. the hat wanted the bat to say it was sorry too. but the cat was slightly scared ( it didn't like fighting with anyone except the hat, but that was alright). the cat was also a bit sorry for the bat. so the spider and the hat had to let the bat go. but from then on, the bat never woke them up. and later on, when the summer evenings became longer, the spider also taught the cat and the hat to count. it had eight legs and made sixty-four corners with his web. so he was very good at counting. and they became quite good friends after that. Monday, July 10, 2006 get me a king size four-poster, a winter day, a light down comforter and six pillows. that's all i want out of life. preponing monday morning blues to sunday night doesn't help anyone any. one still has to get in an auto where the plastic sheets screen off the rain to let the co-passengers sweat profusely into one's left side, one still has to go to work, one still has to listen to the soccer post-mortem from the old bald guy who has a lingerie designer girlfriend despite being weird and mild, one still has to humour morons predicting mumbai-like monsoon disaster with every droplet of rain, one still has to balance umbrella, mobile, loose change and soggy cigarette with much acrobatic effort to get three seconds' worth respite. Sunday, July 09, 2006 we went lounge lizarding and enjoyed it immensely. but it brought home the realisation how old i am. sitting in a corner with friends listening to music (though of hideously pathetic quality - the attraction of the evening being jungle life, remember tarzaan?) is one thing. actually a very pleasant thing. the mojito was perfect, the old people were tucked away into a corner and the bartender was an awesome kid. the mjusic made us feel like we were back on those long ago summer afternoons with musical bandbox on the radio. but then we went club-hopping to notch up our cool quotient. and THAT was an eye-opener. crawling into a floor packed with thirty thousand seventeen year olds with ear splitting bollywood music and a non-waning affection for himesh is something i do NOT want in my life. The Southern Wonder and Cow salsaed some, half heartedly - but it still was a very pretty sight. Attempts to teach me the moves failed somewhat, though i slithered and twirled with some grace ( i thought) before tripping over my right foot. watched the last bit of the game perched besides PDA aficionados who were trying to trace patterns on each others tonsils. anyway, feeling tired, disgusted, claustrophobic and paying for it just made no sense. crawling back home at ungodly hours saw to it that my sunday was spent in a daze and there's only so many hours left to blue bloody monday. if there's any justice there should be a mandatory five day week in India , and a chip installed in my brain that shuts down my physical processes when i attempt to do whatever would have been a "cool" thing to have done ten years back. i have grown up and the realisation makes me smug, but what is left is for me is to catch up with myself. Thursday, July 06, 2006 childzilla I staying up for soccer or anything else is all fine when you are not woken up at six in the bloody morning by an insistent four-year old with natural talent for pestilence. but if you are, then mindless violence seems to hold an enormous appeal. it magnifies by the second when the childzilla demands an orange icecandyand tea too. i need to barf out my whole rant right now. wonder if it would sufficiently recreate the mid-week horror if i use a minimalistic style of writing. like saying this week began on a monday. strange people and ideas took up tuesday. then on wednesday, childzilla happened. shrewd customer that she is, she fell back on her i-am-a-cute-little-baby-with-a-cuter-lisp till she got her presents. and then she morphed to her usual i'm-four-going-on-thirty-four self. she told her mother that she wanted a waxing, at which my absent-minded father responded by saying "i'll buy you candles", she also ticked off my brother for taking pictures when she was not looking cute enough and for getting her a skipping rope which she felt she is too young for, she smashed my play-dough lizard and told me i need to wear yellow dresses with flowers on them, stuck out her tongue at a visiting child next-door, picked up three more four-letter words from untraced sources, conned my mother AND father into giving her three ice-creams, and recounted innumerable tales of how she gets slashed with knives at school.the fluency with which that child lies left us all feeling dazed, though in our weaker moments we tried to convince the each other that she is imaginative. thankfully i left for work, which was another kettle of fish altogether. i thought wednesday couldn't turn any worser than it already was at one in the afternoon, but like in everything else i was wrong in this too. anyway after i crawled back home, my work wardrobe was carefully scrutinised, every item in my tote strewn around ( and to give her credit packed back after intensely examined), i was subject to a half-hearted tantrum on the subject of jiggly-wigglies, and made to mockfight vampires till midnight, with proper karate-like moves and sound-effect. apparently three rounds of solid thrashing when the doting grand-parents were not looking hadn't been as effective as my sister would have wished it to be. she just confessed very unhappily that these days she can't summon up wits enough to win the much-advocated power-game with childzilla who leaves her two steps behind, at which my brother helpfully pointed out that she has never been very bright and was given the flick across the ear. both of them would like to believe they are poster children for efficacy of corporal punishment, and when i explained to them that looking at either of them now would leave people to conclude just the opposite, they fell back to bullying. BUT there is some sort of cosmic justice and France won, so that evens things out. we are expecting childzillaII in january. Tuesday, July 04, 2006 why should anyone take offence when asked how to distinguish between straight man hitting on someone and gay guy making friendly overtures? it is a very legitimate question and there should be clear stated rules on this. appearances are often deceptive. Sunday, July 02, 2006 tamam shud. the phrase with which khaiyam ended rubaiyat. a rough translation would mean the final dispensation of all debts. a fitting end, when you owe nothing. i live for a sunday evening when i can close my eyes and say tamam shud, no longer owing my time to the days , the weeks ahead. Saturday, July 01, 2006 i am exhausted from being nice, missing the most important game of the week, talking to gay-ish men with embroidered AND sequinned butterflies on their shirt and generally its-saturday-morning-i'll-have-to-go- to-work kind of exhausted as well. the best part of last evening was listening to the Bloodsucking Leech. the Leech went to mauritius and was immensely impressed with arrival lounge, general beauty, scantily clad women with nice figures and his first limousine ride - till the chauffeur put on the music and with what nick hornby would say "a cavalier disregard for cliches" played aashiq banaya aapne. the best part of this evening looks like the sibling's anticipated arrival hopefully with all the specified liquor. but that is still a solid fifteen hours away. and then i have to bring the said sibling home and see all hell break loose. and this time god help the man who tries humming leaving on a jet plane in the arrival lounge. you do not do that. you do not do that in arrival lounges. more importantly, you do not do that at dumdum when 99% chance is u'll take a shuttle back to nager bajar or deshapriya park or beleghata or mominpur. a) its very irritating, b) the song takes a very long time to get out of the head, c) its traumatising to find the meshomoshai crooning in a whisper three inches from one's left ear. with all my residual niceness flushed out of my system last evening, i will do something very drastic indeed. Thursday, June 29, 2006 shoe therapy i bought new mojris - white, just the right kind of toes, with sequins and embroidery. byoooooooooootiful. to divert attention from the fact that i bought yet another pair of shoes i got my dad a nice spray, which he immediately pounced on and then asked "isn't there anything else?"i pointed out that he was being an avaricous and materialistic old man, he took offence at my usage of the word 'old'. to my mother, housekeeper, I, R, niece, the goat farm man, the man my mother met and bebrothered three years back when she went on a research trip, his daughter and said daughter's classmate, and our next door neighbour's man friday Khogen, I had to justify my purchase ( which seems an entirely normal thing to do - why not, the world can have its opinion on the micro aspects of my life) by stating categorically that i had no footwear to complement the stuff i would be required to wear for S's anniversary. a volley of questions followed on the general theme of why is S celebrating his anniversary (because that's what people do when they have been married for a year and he still likes his wife),will i dress up in normal people clothes (like i wear rags or dress like a goth, but i'd have to dress up because thats what is required of still tanaciously befriended friends of one's husband) and did i get them anything ( no, i saw the perfect gift after a week and a half of deliberations and i forgot to buy them when i saw my mojris) actually my new shoes are a kind of crutch. S has been a friend for ever - probably twenty years now. i like his wife a lot, and were one of the few people who could see that this one was THE one and probably the only one who knows the daily chronicles of how things went on from sharing the same shuttle to work to sharing the same toothbrush holder in that blue chipped basin. and i was the only reason why that wedding was postponed and held in the middle of searing summer, so i could be there. that is one thing that i can never get over. its my special feel good thing when i'm feeling low. but i digress. the whole thing is that while the relationship progressed, i was away. i was not part of the coffee and movies and eating out and sunday morning things. the rest of them and their new ( to me) partners were. i still don't have that same comfort level and though there is enough mutual liking, i am still scared of doing things wrong. its a complicated balance of letting my own friendship survive, letting a new one grow, taking care that i don't misstep boundaries - real or imagined and a lot of cleaning up my act around someone i'd ideally like to be just myself with. people assume that dating is a complicated game. no, it bloody well is not. it is something that you throw your whole self into - a 'take it or leave it, this is me' kind of thing ( i refuse to entertain any insight on the charades performed at the altar of a quick one). but friendship is turning out to be even more complicated. possibly because they are very important and the ones that you love totally. but then again extending that train of arguement, love could be as complicated, but whatever. now i'm confusing myself. the whole thing is that i'm scared that tomorrow i'd say or do something wrong, i'd be the one to give the wrong thing, i'd be the one to dress up all wrong, laugh at the wrong timings and all the other women will eye me up when i laugh too much, make other people laugh too much and crack an insider joke and then suck at explaining. dressing nice and killer shoes should give me some added boost of confidence (if cosmo is to be believed). because right now, thinking about tomorrow night is making me very nervous. i feel like a beetle - not the car, the shiny black insect. and if i do things the wrong way, i will probably be treated like one too. Tuesday, June 27, 2006 kaka is so cute, but i wanted ghana to win. sniff. Monday, June 26, 2006 give me some sand. i'll bury my head in it and never get out, except to finish up the rest of the macaroons, the 3 remaining ysl slims and the unread 7/10th of birds without wings. Saturday, June 24, 2006 rakhi sawant was being interviewed by pooja bedi, who adopted a very patronising and hostile tone. i resented that. people, and rakhi sawant, should not be shut out without any effort to hear them. but i've had a bad day which started obscenely early and trailed off at ten without a clear closure. i also had to buy flowers for other people. so my judgement is not at its best. i will go see a movie as soon as i wake up tomorrow and if there are stinky socks, i will hunt them out, kick them around and make them eat their own toejam, thinly spread over stale and dry creamcracker biscuits. i will be a proactive person. Tuesday, June 20, 2006 no coffee, no cigarettes, no time, gin fizz tasted like toothpaste and the screwdriver watery, cryptic ims, brother disappeared without a trace, self treated like a fifteen year old boy, no-one updates blogs except clublife, one more invitation to orkut, no-one appreciates new red skirt, also saw edible thongs for work (not that kind of work and its too long an explanation for now), and they're all made with pepperminty candy things which taste like chalk, four more days to waddle through, and horribly distasteful people coming for lunch on sunday. but it turned cloudy and the ham salad was good. the day wasn't a total loss. ambivalence describes my attitude towards tomorrow. Monday, June 19, 2006 i want to climb into a big box and stay on top of the wardrobe forever. Sunday, June 18, 2006 did two things i wanted to do with all my heart. one was to watch MI3 and the other was to bake a devil's food cake. tom cruise is superawesome. yes, he IS indeed the male answer to jolie and wins hands down anyday. scientology and leaping on the couch notwithstanding, he is the ultimate pin-up material. though typing this sentence makes me feel a wee bit disloyal towards george clooney (why, i always wanted to fit in). i had to wake up obscenely early, go without my coffee and was in a horrible mood. called a not-so-deserving friend a bloody stupid fuck for no good reason and boiled in the heat, getting elbowed by half of calcutta who were gleaming, dazzling and tinkling in loud attires that had no business being out of the wardrobe on a sunday morning at 9:30 with the humidity upto the 90's. but the movie made up for most of it. also, being misinformed by well-meaning souls, i kept expecting to see tom cruise die in the first half. so things were super tense for me, while friends who did not have that insider knowledge were relatively chilled, except when they spotted their mobile phone on the screen and had to be restrained by force and later disowned for the emotional outbursts that occurred more than once. later, i also managed to handle two consecutive lunches, get a ninety minute nap with my mouth open - 3 inches i'm told, and baked a cake from scratch in 25 minutes flat. knowing that i can still bake makes me feel smug Saturday, June 17, 2006 gaaaaahhhhhhhhh. that's all. thank you very much. Friday, June 16, 2006 perfect friday. came home early, had dinner, ondaatje in the basket, not too tired and its raining. life's blissful. braindead freaks and unimaginative morons with goatee, ponytail AND celluloid framed specs may have ruined my day and will possibly pull a repeat performace tomorrow, but right now i am winning. Thursday, June 15, 2006 i have stopped being a cigarette slut. i just can't smoke other brands of cigarettes - no matter how good. makes me slightly sad thinking of all the fun i may be missing out on. and this streak of commitment shows itself at a time when i no longer smoke more than two cigarettes a day. some days its down to one. going downstairs for a smoke at two in the afternoon is downright hazardous. walking across to the other side of the road felt like i was swimming through fire. watching fat marwari ladies in magenta and lime green saris made me feel like someone was putting hot skewers through my eyeballs. they reciprocated the feeling with heartfelt enthusiasm. someday i'll quit smoking entirely and use cigarettes solely for sticking the lit ends into people. when i'm done with them, i'll make them eat the filters. Wednesday, June 14, 2006 a day for you its one of those grey afternoons. the sky seems too low and every noise very sharp against a backdrop of stark silence. not that there is much noise to start with, even the birds have gone quiet. there is a small park in the square, off a little chapel. some people go inside. somehow the dark silence within is not too welcoming. the park has old fashioned carved wooden benches. on top of a small hillock in the park there is a tiny enclosed look-out point that offers a view of the lake. very still this morning. suddenly the sky seems to come and kiss the ground. it starts snowing. powdery droplets turn into feathery flakes and then the wind turns harsher and the snow gritty. it feels like a sharp point of pain against the skin, but the cold numbs it out fast. the flower barrow packs up. in its hurry it leaves a few carnations strewn in the ground. the bright flowers lying uncared for and half covered in snow look tragically brave. there is an ancient italian cafe across the street. instead of a deli it comes with a bookstore. the interiors are darkwood and not well-lit, there is a strange flickering glow inside, but not much light to be see. the wooden door with brass knockers seem austere but inviting. there is actually a log-fire roaring inside. but the armchairs by the baywindow overlooking the street are too far from it. the coffeetables are set heavy with browser's selections . the cafe is cold enough - the fire seeems to create a visual imagery , but not much savage warmth. but the respite from the lashing wind is more than enough. the christmasy smell of freshly roasted coffee beans, cinnamon and nutmeg waft in. the promise of comfort and an unclaimed afternoon knows how to work its charm. the grey gradually turns to a deep purple twilight before giving in to inky darkness. the snowing has stopped, but the cobbled stones paving the street are completely covered in white. the biting cold is turning it into ice, beautifully translucent, but dangerous. stray lights and people are now to be seen, voices and music drift in. turning the corner there is a a group of people , wonderfully alive, playing on an odd assortment of instruments. not so young anymore, but not old enough to fade into the background. they sell music, two minutes of unmeasured conversation, and mulled wine over an open fire. they strike a jarring note against the bleak night. the wind has died down and it has stopped snowing. the cold is ruthless now. it is an unhurried, passive chill that reaches to the core. but that sharpness also has a cleansing quality. with each breath that burns itself down the throat, the system gets rinsed. with a startling clarity of vision, a tomorrow is seen - one that takes away a bit farther and then quite some way far. seems the only way to go. Monday, June 12, 2006 i don't want the week to start. can't find money, phone or shantaram. howl howl howl. Sunday, June 11, 2006 this week has been unusually long and the weekend - though i tried my best to start it on wednesday (unsuccessfully) - unaccountably short. we went out every night of the week with religious fervour, but by general consensus sleeping it in is the best option. three sleepovers in the week has made a new convert out of me. it felt almost as good as THE vacation. started off withR coming to town, picked momentum with the soccer world cup kickoff, reached climax with a rerun sleepover needed to check that it works in every location and without occasion. though i dodge the odd aam and fish that come my way, i'm still bengali enough to get a new tv for phootball. the occasion called for technologically not-as-retarded people coming over with chinese food, dvd's ( no mycotoxin, we did not get to watch kung-fu hustle either, everyone opted for roman holiday and i am in love with gregory peck, but more on that later). but we made the earth shattering discovery that we are now old - so old that we diss dancing in favour of playing uno (for players upto12 years, and i still didn't understand the instructions) till three in the morning. everyone in torn t-shirts and crumpled pj's, some shared clothes giving rise to severe gender confusion to certain people who had to be convinced that their masculity was not compromised by cross-dressing (outright lie, looked like a little girl), squabbling for space, battle over remote rights, pillow talk on the profound topic of merits of a chocolate sundae, waking up to a lazy morning with friends - just what life should be like. as was pointed out by pragmatic people, if only we had an invisible cash flow. but returning to the topic of greg peck - ooooooooooooooooooooooooooof. i'm totally besotted with him. if only men now knew how to carry a suit with such easy elegance and still be cool and be as dishy and have that dry but kind style under a veneer of confidence bordering on arrogance and, and, and ... Sunday, June 04, 2006 taiwanese scientists created green, glow in the dark pigs. people of little faith refuse to believe me. why do most people fail to get how important it is to believe impossible things? not quite six, just two or three would suffice. and they don't really have to do it all before breakfast either. Thursday, June 01, 2006 83% of my energy went in having to directly deal with pin-headed morons throughout the day, the rest of it went away on its own after listening to hours of overheard(involuntarily) conversation about bappi lahiri, "boyjone" and "clibhayj". now bappi may have manboobs that require a training bra for plus sizes, but surely he does not have a clibhayj? only good part of the day, no himesh so far. Tuesday, May 30, 2006 creativity possibly demands a certain degree of detachment of the self from the creative identity. the person and the artist are two different entities. the latter almost always makes its mark on the former, but the other way round probably takes away from the art. considering the fact that art in any form is created for an object outside the self, for a receptive audience however small, it is perhaps natural that art by definition is not something entirely personal. if it is, it seldom attains that level of excellence. the exception to the rule are autobiographies; i don't know if there are parallels in other art forms. then again very few of those are great pieces of literature. and some don't fit neatly into any box. for instance garcia marquez - reading his book, it seems that the person GM writes about the writer GM. the obsession with fudging the borders of the personal and public space is peculiarly post-modern, or maybe even post-postmodern in its origins. it is still a long wait to see if this makes a mark in the art of our times, but there is a definite trend. blog-turned-books are the most apparent ones for obvious reasons, but there are other things too. reality tv, talk shows on tv and radio constructed around bits of ones self that is put on a very public space, interactive multi media experience, people, instead of events and incidents, hogging more than their fair share of newsprint. a question to ask here is then what part of the self is left uninvaded, unexposed, belonging solely in the personal space. by choice or by compulsion, the compartmentalization seems to be less relevant for people. incidentally, it is not art in isolation, academia seems to be affected, albeit slowly and one hopes reluctantly. the new genre in qualitative sociology and anthropology is no longer cyber ethnography. auto ethnographies are creeping in - academic exploration of a society using the individual as the unit of observation, and getting the insider view because the individual studies herself in her social context. it seems like a perverted form of self-obsession, but there are actually some arguements in favour of the methological relevance of such studies. i wonder how many more boundaries shall i see dismantled in my lifetime. it looks like its going to be long list. Monday, May 29, 2006 monday strikes again. my imaginary drink of choice this evening is a basic mudslide. equal parts kahlua, bailey's and vodka, double that of chocolate milk. ice and shavings of dark chocolate. Sunday, May 28, 2006 it must be so wonderful to have faith. to know you have something you can always take to be true, to know there is something for which you will always be true. to have a part of you untainted by cynicism, unassailed by doubts. a part yet to be jaded and violated, a part where you always find safety instead of having to logically construct it; a sense of peace, a sense of grace lying around like a pair of old emerald earrings covered by a thin film of dust. a sudden drop of sunlight brings out a green fire and you stop to touch it. on a different topic, the price for my soul at the moment is a jiggly-wiggly. Friday, May 26, 2006 ugly baby new born babies are really, really (how do i put it in an appropriate and sensitive manner?) not always very pretty. well, some of them are, but some are DEFINITELY not. women at work were gushing over one ugly little customer on someone's desktop. i've never seen such a vision before. ok, i've seen something fairly close when my niece was born, but not quite to this extent. wrinkled skin, weird hair, peach fuzz all over, a distinct six-o clock shadow, malevolent expression and eyes that look like they've seen the world ninety-six times and none of those have been a pleasant experience. i can put a disclaimer and say they probably grow up to win beauty contests or something, but i can't be bothered. some babies are born extremely ugly. period. Wednesday, May 24, 2006 tired Tuesday, May 23, 2006 someone up there loves me i got my drink, my evening, a wicked conversation and the blue side (and subsequently the green side) done on my rubic's cube in no time at all. a weekday evening out is so much more fun. in hindsight, i think there was some truth when they said jesus loves me! Monday, May 22, 2006 monday ended thought of the day, i want to be wizard bartender- the fifties hollywood kind who seemed to know what drink would suit your mood and gently place the works in front of you with all formality. when drinking was a pleasure and mixing an art. tonight i'd give me the following and rename it something totally ridiculous like Languid manipulation or Streetcar satire. a little bit of sugar, equal parts fizzy water, soda and dry white wine; some ice, and a nice twisty peel of tangy and glistening lemon. no silly umbrellas on the top.i'd also give me an entire evening, a breezy sunset,a cool night and city lights in the distance. why can't i frikkin sleep like a normal person? and i've been up for ever and i feel horribly cranky and i hate tomorrow. and i'm not particularly chuffed about now either. so there. Sunday, May 21, 2006 hearbreak sunday my heart gets regularly broken on sundays. this time it was Bdada's little four year old son. they'd come down from boston for a couple of weeks and he loves being here. in a single sentence he conveyed what i've tried screaming, weeping, signing, writing and thinking about. bostone gaadi, gaadi, gaadi, ekhane lok, lok, lok and burst into a delighted laughter. he said if he didn't love his mommy so much, he'd consider living with me. and gave me a butterfly kiss. i watched the sky change colour just before dawn today. everything seemed darker than usual when i opened my eyes. i could see the outline of the tree through the window. impercetibly, the outline started filling in and i could make out the leaves - not green - but standing out as something darker greyish and gleaming against a backdrop of velvet black. and then the darkness changed itself. it became less heavy and assumed a misty character. my tree was now outlined against a purplish haze. and the faint beginnings of a green started showing. i turned my head towards the other window just in time to see a star beginning to fade. i watched and watched and the purple turned to a dirty white and suddenly an unknown shade of pink. i could not find my star anymore. Saturday, May 20, 2006 a beggar woman stopped her husband from taking money from me. the reason - i was smoking. meyechhele bidi khay, or kaachh theke poysha nibini. one of my colleagues burst out laughing. most unfair, considering the fact that she is a woman who had stubbed out her cigarette thirty seconds back and therefore qualified for alms giving. my other colleague grew philosophical and commented on the bizarre bloom of idealism in unexpected places. as usual, i'm clueless and still searching for an appropriate reaction. Thursday, May 18, 2006 first human contact of the day - geriatrics in lurvvv, having completed 36 years of marriage. they even smile and look at each other. god help me. Wednesday, May 17, 2006 just a reaction, not a real blog there is a surfeit of opinions on the reservation issue. sadly though, a lot of them can't be categorised under informed opinion. but like most opinions in a hot debate, they come with an emotional baggage. with unfailing regularity, irrespective of standpoint, they ask the same thing - what about the injustices done? injustices that are real, or imagined, of the past or in the present or even, the future? it is shameful that an entire generation has forgotten to ask the question what about privileges that we take for granted. what about privileges that attach to us at birth? have we come so far away from our own reality that we assume that our cosy urban middle class life is the entire reality, rather than being just a fragment of it? don't sell me the 'i pulled myself up by my bootstraps' story. you have a bloody boot to begin with, which was bought for you by other people. this is not about people like me. i'm here because i was born with a set of privileges that i have to concentrate hard to recognise as privileges. i was born to parents in a city, who had a rad attitude towards how girls should be raised, a reading habit, intelligence, multilingual abilities, and enough disposable income. it helped that they had an average life and an average name. i had no difficulty in pursuing an average dream. if i am not the person who automatically got an admission into a premier institute because of the way her name spells, despite driving her own lancer; i am also not the person who is denied education because of the same, i am not the person who is denied healthcare because of the same, i am not the person who is treated like a pariah, i am not the person who has to look at her parents and calculate will they sell me off or will they commit suicide if the crops fail this year, i am not the person who is denied the right to work. because i carry that legacy of invisible privileges, my kids will not be made to stay away from the village school, my kids will not be refused a checkup by the anganwadi worker when they are running a temperature, my kids will not be made to work for wages at the age of seven because there must be labour provided by people of my caste to keep things in order, my kids will not be told that there are things that they are not allowed to do because they are not good enough, as their surname indicates. but some kids will be. negligible if you convert to percentages maybe. but thinking of the sheer number that statistic translates to sends a shiver down my spine. until those kids get their due, i can only come up with ideas to make the system work better, failing which i should shut the fuck up and thank my lucky stars that i am privileged. but what i can't do is close my eyes , distance myself and wish the reality away. yes, it is personal. it is all about the kind of person you are. i'm sorry i put my private or not so private musings on board, though i get my paranoid moments of anxiety about infringements on my privacy. there are atleast three people who must never ever read this blog. if they do, i'll spontaneously combust with shame and there will be eternal peace on earth. but it never occured to me that while i continue to control the extent of intrusion when it comes to my own life, i may have compromised the same for others. it is a belated realisation that i inadvertantly put other people in the same glass bowl where i'm happily swimming, when i should not have done that ( not swimming, the other part; i can swim solo). Tuesday, May 16, 2006 i needed extra special strength to get through the day and it shows no sign of ending. falling back on every bit of pop-psychology ever sprouted at/ by me doesn't help. tomorrow's going to be just as bad, the day after... same story. not only can i smell trees from a non-holiday from a not happening future, i can also smell the sea from a gone-holiday in the fast fading past. why wasn't i born paris hilton? i DO have a better taste in dogs. Monday, May 15, 2006 its just monday, i'm dog tired and ready to curl up and die. my big fat obnoxious fiance ( the series, duh) can't cheer me up. no vacation in the next 6 months, realistically , for a year now. i don't have a three month summer break coming up. i am definitely not adjusting to that idea well. bloody brother gets to go to japan and can't stop crowing, bloodier friend gets to go to bangalore and can't stop talking , bloodiest friend gets to go to the hills and can't stop planning. do they deserve the break? what do i care? when has the world been about justice? Sunday, May 14, 2006 R came over for fifteen minutes and i'm happy once more. one more reason to hate me i don't read enough, i haven't watched any movie that other people can't get over and i have extremely distressing taste in music , which i don't listen to often i hate me yes, i've confirmed my worst fears. i'm a codependent personality, except i tend to depend on more than one person to help me get through my pathetic life. i love the idea of me-time, i need generous doeses of it, i can hold hour-long fanatic conversations about 'space' that leave the listener dazed and nauseous, but today i throw everything out of the window. the day went beautifully slow and relaxed, too relaxed, so i thought it would be a great idea to go out, except there's no-one to hang out with. people have a) work, b) unexpected guests dropping in, c) expected guests dropping in, d) parents, e) siblings, f) spouses ( each one has one, so far no-one i know flaunts multiple spouses, so don't get confused), g) girlfriends, h) boyfriends, i) a disturbing resistance towards spontaneity i ymed, msned, got bored , wandered off , logged back in, wandered off second time, turned towards the tv, couldn't find remote, took blogthings ( i am a chocolate martini), logged back a third time in, logged out again, went and took a shower, changed bed-linen, loaded a washer and it all took fifteen minutes! what happened to the good old days when moving out of a chair could occupy ten happy minutes and some more? someone DO something to change my life drastically. i can't take me anymore. Saturday, May 13, 2006 i'm an imbecile You Are 15 Years Old Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax. What Age Do You Act? Friday, May 12, 2006 thank god, the day's over the day lived up to its expectation. the mildest conversation i had today is as follows to me : " aren't you ashamed? you have more shoes than days in a week, two weeks really". from me: " i did not make the gregorian calendar." and i have more footwear stashed than what can be seen strewn all over the stairs. after ten days, i finally had time to finish my book. didn't realise what kind of an animal existence i lead, till actually typing this last sentence out. the palace of dream peeks out from the basket* in an extremely tantalising fashion, but i am saving it for sunday. the question now is, do i or do i not start with nick hornby at the moment?non-demanding, yet satisfying , quite a perfect one-night stand of a book. as for as sunday, i will not get out of the bed until i'm ready, i won't step out of the house and i'll just read the sunday comics and prop myself up on seven pillows and read. i may go for a walk in the evening, or i may not. i'll take three naps through the day and have an early dinner and go to bed at a time that allows me to have a ten-hour sleep. * yes, i have a plain jhuri where i keep books, phones, t-shirts, glasses, unidentifiable electronic remnants, an old paper bag filled with stuff i am yet to discover and a plastic wind-up dinosaur in lurid green. i keep my humongous suitcase balanced on my bedside table, which someone has considerately covered with my second-best silk dupatta aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. and the day is not going to get any better. Tuesday, May 09, 2006 new market i went to new market today, it felt like being in a time warp. i remember going there, sitting on dad's shoulders, feeling very tall. it was probably a pre-chrismas evening. i remember lights, chrismas trees ( i didn't know what those were then), decorations and the smell of new things. it felt magical - that too green synthetic green, shiny baubles, a lit up market teeming with dressed-up beautiful people, making turns and taking steps, reaching nahoum to pick up goodies, the warm smell of fresh bakes and a forbidding lady. i was too stunned to want anything. i remember someone's birthday. my mother came back mid-morning to announce that new market had burned down. the cake came from flury's. i remember mid-school days, being taken to a shop called queeny's for my first proper pair of jeans. baggy was , unfortunately, still in. we stopped to get bed linen and cotton socks, shirts from the old parsee ladies and just before i burst with excitement, we turned a corner from the cannon to get to the shop where everyone else had got their denims from. no, the fashionable ones suri uncle sent from delhi just didn't matter. i remember the first time i was allowed to go there with friends. with money enough for a coke, a movie at new empire, two way fare for S- 23 and ten rupees extra, just in case. i remember many more times i went into that dilapidated old building. the feeling has always been the same. a pleasant sense of well-being. and just in case you were wondering, yes, i am now the proud owner of three pairs of earrings, two pairs of slippers (one with pink sequins), a hakoba top and a pair of capris. i woke up to a nice, cool, cloudy morning. the only problem - backstreet's back was playing in my mind in an endless loop. realised belatedly it was a result of reading M's mail last thing before going to bed. why do other people get pleasant dreams while i get stuck with a soundtrack from my own nightmare, a song that should be banned across at least thirty countries and three generations? but i should not complain. i'm part of the generation that made the following people/things famous - aqua, michael learns to rock, backstreet boys, spice girls, so on and so forth ad nauseum. i deserve my little psychological hell. once upon a time, depressingly long long ago, i even tried calling the fm phoneline to get to jimmy tangree and request never mind what. i excorcised the ghastly tune , to be taken over by ashiq banaya aapne playing in the shuttle, in the auto and in the ringtones of virulent chhipkali who occupies cubicle 3. Friday, May 05, 2006 silly bitch i was taking my keys out of the drawer this morning and an old photograph fell out. me with P. she had pink shirt on. i don't remember her wearing that colour often. it was probably taken at my birthday, two years back or maybe to celebrate end of semester. i suddenly recalled with absurd clarity an early winter morning. crisp, sharp, the first snowflakes crunching under my foot, looking up to see a lone leaf, still with it fall colours, slowly fluttering to the ground. the cathedral outlined against the grey city sky and smelling the cinnamon in my latte. i can't stop feeling sad. i don't know why. its probably the heat. if only i could have a morning just to myself. i don't know. i wish i knew. it seems so silly to cry when you don't know what you're crying for. Thursday, May 04, 2006 i've been told i'm a cranky person. i beg to differ. i always thought i had a sunny disposition. then i thought a bit more. this could be true. i have a strategy. i pick two or three random things to be pissed off about. not heavy-weight stuff, just things to bitch about, like my recent schtik with gym and the heat. that frees me up to be happy about most other things. isn't it horrible? speaking of the first one, i went in pretty early this morning thanks to a hideously cheerful SW and his blessed phone. it wasn't actually that bad. i feel better if i work out. the second one is something that is sapping the life-blood out of me. three minutes in the sun is enough to make me feel like i'm burning alive. i'm seriously considering quitting smoking. stepping out of the office is an ordeal. i also feel like killing my progenitor. he sneakily plants himself in the guest room before i can and turns the ac on full blast. then he has the gall to tell me i can sleep on the cot in the corner if i don't bother him too much. then, he falls asleep in three seconds and snores, sometimes even louder than M. then after a couple of hrs, he feels too cold and goes back to his room, considerately banging the door on his way out. in between there is heavy tossing and turning, muttering inaudible things and randomly waking up to ask me questions about a long forgotten pierre nora. when will i die? death clock gives me a different answer every time i ask. the cosmos conspires against me. i now have a full arm of heat rashes on my right arm as well, rashes are bigger, redder, splotchier and much more closely spaced. hope this makes you happy mycotoxin. Wednesday, May 03, 2006 i am tired, hot ( not in a babe kind of a way, i'm just sweating three times my body weight out), got itchy heat rashes all over my left arm, i feel cranky and sleepy, but i don't want to go to sleep now because it means waking up early and then i have to go to the fucking gym. not a single place around offers squash lessons or anything remotely interesting. and apparently, getting bored of the gym is not permissible. says who? the same people who plant the idea in your head and then keep harping on the fact everyday and insist on having a cheery conversation at the crack of dawn. i also hurt my big toe and nobody thinks my blue sunglasses are cool. how can they not see that kitsch is uber-cool? Sunday, April 30, 2006 i was very tired at five today. i had a fever, it was a stressful day at work and my one only friend in the new office hadn't come in. at five, i had my first break for a smoke. i came downstairs, took my usual position behind the potted plants, and had that weary drag evading the steady glare from the sardarji auto-part shop owner across the street. it seems, he doesn't mind other women smoking. but i get the full blast of his disapproving glare. or maybe, he just plain doesn't like me. anyway, tired, irritated and feeling decidedly run-down, i happened to look up from the busy street, shop fronts and chaos. i saw a banyan tree. not a particularly impressive one, but its leaves were shiny green. how i don't know. it hadn't rained any in the past few days. then i looked at it closely, there were little clusters of red fruits. also gleaming, to the extent fruits in a banyan tree can gleam. i remembered a story from a long ago childhood favourite. the usual ingredients of a wicked step-mother and a little goat-herd boy and some pathos were obviously present in it. but the star of the story was a banyan tree. it had befriended the boy. when the step mother couldn't kill the boy, she turned her wrath towards his friend. she made all its fruits bitter. but in the stories , the noble and the virtuous always win. the tree managed to save its friend and because it was so noble, its other friends- the birds refused to leave it. and that's why till this day, banyan trees are the first place where birds nest and people seek refuge. i felt so much better afterwards. Friday, April 28, 2006 usual rant i did not have time to eat lunch, almost didn't salvage dinner from a remarkably hungry and self-centred family, my "i love you" lighter has stopped working, ALL thanks to the people who first laugh at it and THEN go on to play with it for forty minutes. my smoking habit is becoming hazardous for my knees, in the midst of this unbearable heat i'm running a bleeding temperature and feel like a beetle. i need new clothes, new shoes, new accessories , yes, yes i DO need a new apple notebook - never mind what i use it for, its none of your business, and i need to find a new gym. the first thing that hits me when i walk in is a stench. industrial strength BO in a closed air-conditioned environment simply does NOT work for me. thank you very much. and wipe off that expression from your face, it has nothing to do with my natural laziness and reluctance to do anything remotely requiring effort. Thursday, April 27, 2006 i'll buy malibu when i patent this we found the elixir of happiness yesterday and in our worship of words and ourselves, proceeded to lose it pronto. what i vaguely remember is like this - you have to pick things you care about and shake off the rest. finding the appropriate things to be passionate about is the key to a lifetime of happiness. yes, we are not precluding unhappiness from this - whatever gives you intense happiness also has the potential to give you much unhappiness too. but then its always worth it, to go for it. to define hapiness is ofcourse beyond me - but we agreed to agree that its not the mere absence of unhappiness.it is like one of those things taught in stat01, somethings can't be measured. there are just indicators for them. just, what works for different people - not the same things , at all. but rule of thumb - a good book, at least one good friend, some flowers, a smile for no explainable reason, a long look at the sky and feeling good about it, maybe liril soap and pink bathtowels, being able to sit quietly by yourself for a stretch of time and not minding, finding comfort in silence,finding comfort in conversation, a mindscape of your own, a dreamscape that should ideally change as you go through days, weeks or years, finding something you care about enough, willingness to let it go no matter how bad it hurts,dancing on your own with joy, love - requited/unrequited/vanquished/forgotten/forbidden/ past/present/future, cat naps, junk food, junk jewellery, cheap shiny bobbles like a "i love you" mini-lighter, smiling dogs, random kids walking up to kiss your knees, ability to appreciate glitter gel pens and glow in the dark toys and yes, maybe some degree of success ( ONLY by your own definition of it) - are usually things that work as reliable indicators. by no means is this list an orderly or a complete one. but it sure works. ps - the "i love you" lighter is bright red and pink and costs only Rs7. Subscribe to: Posts (Atom) About Me oxyacetelyne fat boring woman with small life, large feet and many footwear.has ability to put aforementioned foot in her mouth with clockwork regularity View my complete profile Links Google News Blog Archive ►  2012 (1) ►  June (1) ►  2010 (8) ►  November (1) ►  October (1) ►  August (3) ►  March (1) ►  January (2) ►  2009 (62) ►  December (7) ►  November (7) ►  October (7) ►  September (14) ►  August (6) ►  July (4) ►  May (6) ►  April (6) ►  March (2) ►  February (1) ►  January (2) ►  2008 (52) ►  December (3) ►  November (8) ►  October (10) ►  September (7) ►  August (6) ►  May (3) ►  April (3) ►  March (4) ►  February (6) ►  January (2) ►  2007 (56) ►  December (2) ►  November (3) ►  October (2) ►  July (4) ►  June (6) ►  May (4) ►  April (8) ►  March (18) ►  February (6) ►  January (3) ▼  2006 (122) ▼  December (3) how can two little bits of roshomalai makes me thr... this is unfrikkinbelievable. i sat up and made my ... who do you give yourself to?not in the virgin sacr... ►  November (9) i want a largish cardboard box or one half of a se... - god-yeah?- perform a miracle.- fuck off.- no, se... colour code for the day: navy blue and blood red.w... bright, nice, sunny day; clear skies; black and gr... meebo isn't working, the ym never did work on this... coffee, music, lunch, nap, tantrum, pizza, beer, m... i missed my chance today.at the park street signal... amader barite mistiri eshchhilo i dreamt of snowflakes. stinging and burning on my... ►  October (10) Your Sloth Quotient: 59%You're definitely lazier t... a gruesome next day is truly appreciated when u ar... i found an idea i like very much. pigs fly when i'... how can it be that after more than two decades, ma... i am happy at the moment. ok, this has been one of... none of our diyas survived beyond 10 minutes. of c... i'm pissed. a) i'm calvin, which is unfair, consid... No title No title No title ►  September (8) ... my subconscious gets a little more bizarre each da... i smell lilies, i think of fall colours, i think o... i blog. therefore, i am. hah. "i feel so horrible. i have to act grown-up now. t... while there are designated office spaces at work, ... look ma, so pretty horrible, horrible, horrible day. i deserve a suns... ►  August (13) i don't wanna go to work today. i wanna stay at ho... mehfooz the cat, the hat and the spider had to move to the... everything i want to say in this blog or to anyone... harassed by parents obsessed with the idea of supp... i wish i could make things better for the superwom... i saw a stranger smile to himself; the auto-wallah... i don't want no respect i saw a lot of broken things today - broken people... can i have a rerun of my favourite tuesday? can i ... i didn't realise how long i've been out of my usua... what's happening to me? i can't believe i have been this time-starved. i ... ►  July (8) there was a cat and a bat and a hat. the hat and t... get me a king size four-poster, a winter day, a li... preponing monday morning blues to sunday night doe... we went lounge lizarding and enjoyed it immensely.... childzilla I why should anyone take offence when asked how to d... tamam shud. the phrase with which khaiyam ended ru... i am exhausted from being nice, missing the most i... ►  June (15) shoe therapy kaka is so cute, but i wanted ghana to win. sniff. give me some sand. i'll bury my head in it and nev... rakhi sawant was being interviewed by pooja bedi, ... no coffee, no cigarettes, no time, gin fizz taste... i want to climb into a big box and stay on top of ... did two things i wanted to do with all my heart. o... gaaaaahhhhhhhhh. that's all. thank you very much. perfect friday. came home early, had dinner, ondaa... i have stopped being a cigarette slut. i just can'... a day for you i don't want the week to start. can't find money, ... this week has been unusually long and the weekend ... taiwanese scientists created green, glow in the da... 83% of my energy went in having to directly deal w... ►  May (27) creativity possibly demands a certain degree of de... monday strikes again. my imaginary drink of choic... it must be so wonderful to have faith. to know you... ugly baby tired someone up there loves me monday ended why can't i frikkin sleep like a normal person? an... hearbreak sunday i watched the sky change colour just before dawn t... a beggar woman stopped her husband from taking mon... first human contact of the day - geriatrics in lur... just a reaction, not a real blog i'm sorry i needed extra special strength to get through the... its just monday, i'm dog tired and ready to curl u... R came over for fifteen minutes and i'm happy once... one more reason to hate me i hate me i'm an imbecile thank god, the day's over aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa... new market i woke up to a nice, cool, cloudy morning. the onl... silly bitch i've been told i'm a cranky person. i beg to diffe... i am tired, hot ( not in a babe kind of a way, i'm... ►  April (13) i was very tired at five today. i had a fever, it ... usual rant i'll buy malibu when i patent this ►  March (16)