Oasis

'Morning xxxxx

I miss you right now. It's night, I'm lying in bed, flipping channels not really watching anything, thinking of everything going on. And I want to talk to you.
The sheets are clean and drawn up, the window open slightly, cold air blowing in bringing in sounds of the city.

I'm not thinking about anything in particular. So many distractions but I can't stop thinking.
Slide away - and give it all you've got
My today - fell in from the top

I'm imagining all these other lives I could have had, the one if I never left India, the one if I had never met her, another where I had never started writing a blog.
The phone rings. It's a friend wanting to catch up. Perhaps later...

I'd like to see what it's like, this one that I have chosen. I'd like to move back and see where things go with you, another job, another city, hells bells, another life, choosing one while letting go of another.
In the morning when you don't know what to do
Two of a kind
We'll find a way
To do what we've done

It would be interesting to wake up with you (notice I didn't use 'fine' best b'loved, as apparently in woman talk that means 'bad'....women!)
and do all the banal things but knowing I can tell you whatever runs through my head, stuff that I am glad you find interesting and at the very least willing to listen more, in a way perhaps the words 'wanting to' would be more fitting. And knowing that I want to know more of you.
The news reports on the upcoming election, Hillary Clinton's classmates speak about her, Obama raises money for his campaign...a woman and a black man standing for elections...ironic, Bush, a white Texan elected by the red states was what was needed to tilt opinion to positive for a woman and a black man to stand for elections.

Instead of having to save snippets of my day to email you, to actually see you in the evening, perhaps over dinner and tell you and hear about you day, the new story you are working on, the new people you met and have you teach me more on politics (!)
I dream of you - and all the things you say
I wonder where you are now?

Did you know....?
What about....?
So tell me, .....?
Questions saved for the rare leisurely times when I don't have to run back to work or you don't have to get ready.
Something real, something tangible...is what Id like that with you
'll find a way
Of chasing the sun
Let me be the one that shines with you
In the morning when you don't know what to do

I'd like you to meet my friends, BestBud who, you are right, is a bit nuts....Fat Man who is someone else I'm close to...Bobo, ToughCoookie, 11ses, Shah, Maxium (he's the one I warned, if you did to be good friends, would smack your gluteus), Garg, Tondy, SB, Gups... all of them.
Slide away, slide away, slide away, slide away
and I wanna try now, i wanna make you mine now

Fuck, I think we always pick our lives whether it being who we decide is our friend, what we want to become, what time we leave for work or deciding what's best. Most of the time we just do small things that perhaps have a bigger influence than we will ever know (or perhaps it's the influence of a tab open to Wikipedia's entry to Stranger Than Fiction that's making me think that) but on rare occasions we make conscious choices.
Hold me down, all the world's asleep
I need you now, you knock me off my feet,
I dream of you, and the thought of growing old

Haha, in cutting & pasting the song, I've began to think about it.
But inevitably comes back to you or wanting, this minute to tell you how much I love this song. Or making you listen to the others and felling really good about the fact that you like stuff like Snow by RHCP or Clap Hands by Tom Waits...reminds me, must send some Grace Potter & The Nochturnals to you.
Pity you aren't here, could have seen The Killers or Arcade Fire or The Kaiser Chiefs...
Oh, let me be the one
That shines with you, and we can slide away...

It would have been...again, interesting to be around Friday night, of course, I'm sure my presence wold have changed the night, at least with regards you being pulled by your Ex and the guy who has been in love with you...but still, would have been very nice to let you sort out your relationships, giving the odd bit of advice when asked
Okay, enough of this song...oo The Masterplan
Love the guitar opening, the main riff is acoustic guided by an electric, I'm sure I could learn to play this?




Or stand in a corner and let you do your own thing but be around to hug you or at least try and make you feel that things aren't all that bad.
But even without the soap opera drama, perhaps go one day and take your friends' dog for a walk...or watch you watch me go nuts over Gujju food and try and learn odd bits of Gujju-speak.
Will dance if they want to dance
Please brother take a chance
You know they're gonna go
Which way they wanna go
All we know is that we don't know
What is gonna be
...well the words certainly are ironic...

It's nice to write a slow email, nothing in particular to say, just talk with you. Again, feels incomplete, even when we do speak over the phone. The conversation is still missing you even though you are right there and all a conversation needs.
Meh, guess I can still call you The Omission, now however in a different context.
Made a meal and threw it up on Sunday I've
Gotta lot of things to learn
Said I would and I'll be leaving one day
Before my heart starts to burn

I'd like my folks to meet you. Even if my mum sounds like an ogre...which she isn't, really
But then I suppose I'd be intimidated by your Dad no matter what.


Stand by me, nobody knows the way it's gonna be
Stand by me, nobody knows
Yeah, nobody knows the way it's gonna be

Anyway kiddo...I can either keep missing you and feeling a bit low about it or I can go distract myself..until I speak with you again.

Whole New Meaning

The first attempts at lyrics, written by Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant next to an evening log fire at Headley Grange, were partly spontaneously improvised and Page claimed, "a huge percentage of the lyrics were written there and then".[5] Jimmy Page was strumming the chords and Robert Plant had a pencil and paper. Plant later said that suddenly, "my hand was writing out the words, 'There's a lady is sure [sic], all that glitters is gold, and she's buying a stairway to Heaven'. I just sat there and looked at them and almost leapt out of my seat." Plant's own explanation of the lyrics was that it "was some cynical aside about a woman getting everything she wanted all the time without giving back any thought or consideration. The first line begins with that cynical sweep of the hand ... and it softened up after that. I think it was the Moroccan dope!"

I think the second last line is so nice that it brings up a whole new meaning to this song for me. Geeky of me to read up on this song but its one of those I remember listening to as a 16 year old going nuts over the guitar solos and the drumming. Hells bells, Bonhom had a rabbits foot, Page had flying fingers and no one could wail like Plant.
And the reason I love music is because this piece will always me hearing it loud as a 16 year old in my room without realizing that everyone who loves this song, felt the same way I did back then. So even when I'm introducing this music to my kid one day, I'll still remember what it felt like then when I was 16 and learning music.


And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How everything still turns to gold
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll

Fucking Frustration

Am feeling rather frustrated right now. Last night went out to a friends place and got boomed (while making $3 in poker). But the thing was everyone wanted to go out party. And I don't. I think I'm on a break from this. It's the same thing. It's going out, getting drunk, barely being able to have an intelligible conversation, either because of the noise or the booze. Every body trying to get some, hang-ups jealousy, all that asme song and dance bullshit.
There has to be more to this. I mean fuck, I love going out with friends and having fun, but it's just that it's the same thing, over and over again, just at a different place.

And another thing, I don't know how much I like booming with too many people around. Either it's my own fucking head that sees through their front and can see rather easily all their insecurities. Fuck, I want insecurity I have mine man! Useless.
(Yeah, I see the selfishness in this statement but fuck this, my space, you don't want to read this go away then)

And another thing bugging me is that a tiny tiny part of me is a bit ruffled at Shortys ex visiting. I mean look, if something has to happen it will. She can tell me that there's nothing there and nothing will happen. And I know that, she has talked about him at length and I do believe her. And I decided not to let baggage from the ex carry over. But it's just that it's so familiar to hear those words, "nothing will happen"
But you kept saying nothing would happen. I'm not mad at you,just want to know why you strung me along saying nothing would happen if now you want to date him instead.
Because I was scared something would and I kept saying it more for myself so nothing would.

And I HATE this insecurity bullshit brought on by one person who at this point probably doesn't give a fuck so for me to be affected by someone now safely in the past just kills me, I fucking HATE it. I used to be the most secure son of a bitch, I was fine with the ex meeting every fucking schmuck under the freaking sun. Of course, I think thanks to her I did wonder if I was holding on to her like an octopus. I didn't think I needed to. Fuck, if you are with someone, there must be good reason and meeting new people shouldn't change that. And now in some warped way, I went is it me??

Fuck that, there are enough Dear John's that have the line it's not you, it's me.
Who the hell buys that shit?! Course it's you!

Ah bollocks. I fucking hate being threatened and I hate not being able to believe people close to me. And I hate most of all the fact that someone else may just be responsible for this in me.

FUCK!!!

(goddamnit, does this ever sound like the diary of a 16 year old high school girl. Fuck it, i'm melancholic and I don't give a damn right now)

----------
Okay, fuck it, I'm not done. I wish I weren't a little uncomfortable with her ex. And here's the thing, I can see why they are close. Fuck, 5 years is a long time, and if it was your first, then all the more reason. And you can be great friends with the person. And there's history, and common friends and all these firsts.
Arghhhhhhhhh, see I can see myself writing this out, thinking it and it making sense, in my head and on paper. And still there's this fucking niggling I can't seem to fucking expunge.

And of course, being me, I am completely repulsed even entertaining the thought I don't want you hanging out with such-and-such person. So that's not an option. Besides, I wouldn't want to be with someone who would listen to such ramblings.

Fuck it. I think right now am just frustrated trying to find someone around who I can vent to and someone who can say what I need to hear...for the simple reason I can't seem to find the words myself.

Everything Under the Sun

So now I am learning to read music while I play the guitar. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to learn how to read it, given the notation looks like a completely different language. It's like looking at arabic or hebrew and then actually being able to articulate it and make sense out of it.
It's the headiest feeling I have in a very long time. To let your eyes go over the notes, realize that it's telling how to translate it into music, how something intangible has been thought over by someone and now it's translated perfectly so that you can understand and play it the way it was meant to be played.

Another thing it reminded me of was, and this is a thread going off in another direction. But I will never know what the english language will sound like. For instance, when someone speaks another language fluently, you can feel how it sounds, German is rough & angular, French has too many round sounds, Italian has its own drawl, Latin American languages come at you in bursts. I wonder what English sounds like.

------------------------

So some time ago, Shorty sent me "Walking in the Rain" by Oran "Juice" Jones (not Orange Juice Jones Little One). And every time I hear it, it reminds me walking to work from my place in London. I remember the big gate at the narrow alley way, pushing it open, very Lemony Snicketts when the door opens and you have this quaint English street, the late night Diner opposite, the trucks cleaning the street, construction workers on their way to work, going past the bar with live music, much quieter now, almost tired from a long night on the town. I remember seeing my leather shoes over the cobblestones opposite the theater the night before SpanALot debuted. There's walking to Leicester Square where so many people had been parting the night over, the buildings tired but happy. I go past another wonderfully named pub, watching the delivery trucks unload food to serve people who will be back there in the evening, new people meeting friends, regulars, couples.
Every time i hear the song, I get the mental imagery of this tall guy in a white suit, more fitting given he is black (whats the PC term then? African American? British African??) , very very 80's with a black fedora with red trimming. Or a scene out of an 80's movie when he talks and references like

You know my first impulse was to run up on you
And do a Rambo

or

That's right, Silly rabbit, tricks are made for kids, don't you know
that. You without me is like corn flakes without the milk! This is my
world. You're just a squirrel trying to get a nut! Now get on outta
here. Scat!


But yeah, it reminds me of her and the music she sent me, putting in my iPod and listening to it, trying to figure her out.



-----------

Ride 'em Cowboy!

"Life's a voyage that's homeward bound."
-- Herman Melville

Right, so if that’s the case, instead of reaching there in one piece, I’d rather walk in with a slightly goofy befuddled expression, a glass of bourbon & coke in one hand and a cigarette in the other going, “Dang! Now that was a ride!!”

Right.

So I has kidding around making a bet with a colleague as to who could shed 20 pounds in three months, the LadyBoss walks in and asks what the bet is...
Is it that Z will make it in before 8, 8:30am...or that he won't take another sick day?

Of course, fuck the fact that the latest I have walked in is 7:45am instead of 7:30am and that I have taken 3 in the year, one of which was when I was sent home, by her, for having the flu...time to take care of this.

It just annoys me face time counts more than the shit I do. And fuck that, I get results goddamnit. Nevermind the fact that if you go to ask a question, you get snapped at for interrupting and if you dont give it in on time, you get snapped at or you get snapped at for not coming and clarifying, what. the. fuck

Anyway, will roll with the freaking punches. Don't have a choice, am the youngest then again.

Oh My

Subject: Fuck

What if we do start dating and I say something completely inappropriate and you think you should be with someone older and more 'compatible'?
What if I don't notice that you got your eyebrows done and you think I don't notice the small things you do?
Or what if I forget the 7th month anniversary thingy?
Or what if I forget you are allergic something, or buy something that's the wrong size or fall asleep and don't call or become grouchy and incommunicative?
What if I show you all the chinks and you decide you can't handle them? What if I feel that perhaps it's better not to show the chinks that will make you head for the hills?
Or what if you talk about something you love and I just can't talk about it because I know next to nothing about the matter?



Fuck.

Slideshow Time Kiddies!

Girls Will be Girls

My 18 year old sisters Google chat line: like, whatevaaa
my 25 year old friends line: like, totally

:o)

The Reason For The (Now Thankfully Dying) Need To 'Fit In'

Remembering the racist hell hole i paid $35k to attend...more the feeling
(its odd. most memories i remember like pictures with the feelings coming second. This is one of the few things i remember where the memories come back more than the images. But then again, on the outside, the pictures were nothing out of the ordinary, just another elite university on the Eastern Coast)

I remember becoming disjointed from a part of me. Visualize a split. I would wake up, go to class, the library and back to bed. I could go three days without saying a word.
And it's not like I didn't try. I am sociable (last night was a good example where i went out with 9 people, sat with the four i didn't know and had a blast)). But the novelty (of being brown around white flesh (ironic how that word comes effortlessly, reducing people to nothingness)) wore off and I saw the dirtier side of things.

It's. odd. It's being. Unfeeling. Neither up nor down, neither bad nor good, days of functioning if you will. Feeling nothing. Its self awareness knocking around in an empty head, rattling away looking for something, any sign of feeling. It's going through the motions. Black and white, soundless.
And at first you wonder why and try and understand and feel something. But when you do figure out its nothing that can be changed, you accept it. But it has its impact nonetheless.
So you do bizarre things. And then in an attempt to feel anything, even pain, you end up hurting yourself. And even then, its a dull thudding, instead of feeling pain at hurting yourself, again, nothing.

So it becomes a vicious cycle and a release of emotion. Good thing I forced myself to go to a shrink. Else would have taken the other road that involved dependence on other people for any kind of affection, no matter how self-destructive it may be.

I guess my ability to fit in is over-senstized and more fluid thanks to that. So when someone says it's easy to talk to me, well, I'm glad it turned out like that. But wish I had had an easier time becoming that person.

It's odd but my references to the many 'me's' started there. In an effort to rationalize, I did split. Now there's lots of little me's running around inside my head. But some how they all get along.


Bah, all this seems so over the top and dramaticized but then again, none of this is written for an audience. it's for me and reading all this, i remember it. I remember it all.

I'm....Happy

Why I'm Glad I Bought The Matches Online

Patel to Sangakkara, FOUR, Fab shot. That was smoked. Half-volley outside off and Sangakkara goes on a bent knee and proposes. Er ... disposes it through the covers. Eye-catching stroke. Sri Lanka need him to score today.


This is what I would have to follow on Cricinfo

Wow.

"Fuck, I Don't Care How Much Of A Woman I Sound Like...

So you put on the heavy music, everything is pumping inside your head.
You think of everything bad. You keep your head bent over watching the lights changing over and over, never faster, never slower.
You think of everything shitty.
Fuck, you visualize someone lighting a fire under your ass.

650 cals, 40 minutes. I pushed my self and I feel great. I do feel light headed but I'm hoping that's the endorphins rather than the lack of blood to my brain.


...But You Know What, I Feel Great!!"

55 'Fiction'

-- To the past--

The two of them sat at the steps of the photo shop waiting for one of their mothers' to come out.
He took a deep breath, “I have a crush on her”
“Oh, I know”, said his best friend, grinning
He had never been nonplussed. But then again, he had never fallen for someone before.

They go back in the metro, his arm around her, chin on her head, watching his reflection in the glass as the world blurs by.
It’s a dull throb he knows will get worse. It hasn’t sunk in.
Six years is a long time
“I’m sorry but I can’t do this” echoing in his head.

I’m sorry, I love you and I want to be with you!
How can I ever trust you again?! You broke my heart! And I loved you!
Please forgive me, I made a mistake, tears streaming down her cheeks, voice trembling
‘I’m sorry’ she said. Once, twice…
The third time around, he didn’t come back.



--To the ugly--

He stared down the hallway with its treated concrete bricks and the clinical lights remembering him an asylum, Jack Nicholson from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
They had gone for a dorm dinner. He looked around for the remaining faces and saw one black and one ‘yellow’.
But then again, he *was* brown

It didn’t hurt. But then again, he felt he hadn’t felt anything in a while. Flatline he called it.
Well, if he didn’t feel anything any more, may be this would help. Reaching over, he saw Made in Germany, written on the dull blade.
It didn’t hurt, so he did it again. And then some.


-- To the dream --

He had worked hard for this moment
(xxx),
It was a pleasure having you visit us in New York.
Our firm has completed a good bit of our undergraduate recruiting process and I am pleased to write you that we'd like to discuss next steps with you.
Please call me at your earliest convenience
regards,



-- To the new--

“No holding hands when we get there, not then and not now”, she said under her breath
He winced and removed his hand wondering what had changed in the few hours since they had kissed
But he forgot the next day as they watched a movie, as she slipped her arm in his and smiled


(Her): why? do relationships often bring out the worst in people?
Me: because often they overreact
you expect the person you are with to be more understanding than the average joe
so when they are not
its not only irritation and anger
but tinged with disappointment
goddamn im articulate for someone who hasn’t had coffee


Laughing, he said, “Goddamnit woman! I’m the man! I wear the pants in this…thing we have!”
(They weren’t quite sure if they could date until he moved back home.)
He heard her giggle and speak and hoped that in the moments he would be an insecure, frustrated idiot, the voice of reason would be hers


He lay in bed, hearing the traffic, the sirens, the people, water from the melting snow.
His arm stretched out to empty side of the bed, reaching for another cushion.
He could remember her giggle and her words and even though he missed her terribly, he buried his face in the pillow with a smile.



Inspired by the Wiseling! Thanks!

...

Sometimes its the hardest thing to let go of the past. Its the fear of forgetting. But then slowly, you differentiate between the pain and the memories. And as you step at the doorway, take a look around, and hope you are leaving it better than you found it.
But going through one door means entering through to another. And that's when you smile and wonder if its home.

------------------

Here's to being happy. And letting go of the fear that it may disappear one day.

Things That Make Me Want To Hammer My Head

Study Finds One-Third in D.C. Illiterate
Washington(AP) - About one-third of the people living in the national's capital are functionally illiterate, compared with about one-fifth nationally, according to a report on the District of Columbia.
Adults are considered functionally illiterate if they have trouble doing such things as comprehending bus schedules, reading maps and filling out job applications.
The study by the State Education Agency, a quasi-governmental office created by the U.S. Department of Education to distribute federal funds for literacy services, was ordered by Mayor Anthony A. Williams in 2003 as part of his four-year, $4 million adult literacy initiative.
The growing number of Hispanic and Ethiopian immigrants who aren't proficient in English contributed to the city's high functional illiteracy level, which translated to 170,000 people, said Connie Spinner, director of the State Education Agency. The report says the district's functional illiteracy rate is 36 percent and the nation's 21 percent.
Adults age 65 and older had the lowest literacy score of any group, the report found.
The District of Columbia Chamber of Commerce, which contributed to the report, said the city lost up to $107 million in taxes annually between 2000 and 2005 because of a lack of qualified job applicants.


And the second is this:
http://searchwithkevin.prodege.com/
Yes, he has his own search page. Wow

22 Random Things About Me!

Oh fine ya, since I have been tagged again and its a Sunday morning and I'm too lazy to get out of bed, will given in. 20 random things hun?

1. I don't mind taking the subway or any other form of public transport. I am not snooty like that. I abhor bad pronunciation and am an elitist that way.

2. I have eye lashes like a fucking camels, I can't wear glasses all the way up. I also have fish lips keeping in line with animal analogies

3. If I am thinking, I hate sudden interruptions and snap at the other person. So if you see me with a frown for no reason, means I am thinking and don't interrupt this very minute please.

4. Last time I got uh, touchy feely with someone, there were 6-7 people passed out in the room. (grin) sorry!

5. I have large feet. I can also flip my tongue over 180 degrees.

6. I make bad jokes as a defense mechanism. It's easier to see someone laugh than turn down a request, especially to be let in.

7. I like M*A*S*H* so sue me.

8. I can eat anything with bananas. Pie, subzee, milkshake, fried, steamed, on wuffles, in a hat, in a boat, from here to Seuss, I like bananas.

9. Apparently one of my most redeeming qualities is that anyone can talk to me. Thanks for telling me that Bobo, nice to know and I don't have an ego big enough to say that about myself!

10. As a three year old, I stuck a fork in a power outlet, was stuck to it and then thrown across the bathroom. I guess this would explain something.

11. When I'm serious, I mean what I say and I say what I mean. I love the english language and odds are there is a good reason for how I said what I said.

12. I will pay more attention to a woman's rear end than her top. Why you would want to know this is beyond me. But still.

13. Am terrified of being burnt alive or buried alive. I'd rather it be quick and painless and am most afraid of being a vegetable unable to move but be completely aware.

14. I never ever want to be close minded or intolerant of any one elses opinions. Seems like a waste to be like that.

15. What drives me nuts in a bad way: a woman who seems like I could walk all over her. What also drives me nuts is watching a woman stretch. What can be done to me to shut the fuck up and have my jaw drop: the whole she put my finger between her lips thing. I could be hit by a brick and not notice it.

16. The one thing odds are you won't ever see me doing but I do anyway, lips the words to the intro for "Scrubs" and do a dance with it.

17. If a woman is wearing something with a low back or backless, it warrants a second look. No questions asked.

18. I was a complete geek in school. I still am a geek but hope am a bit cooler now.

19. I like cooking. I also have this sappy notion of cooking with a girl and somehow that leading to something something in the kitchen. I don't know why this is but some how cooking makes me happy and well, so does the something something. Oh screw it, I can't explain.

20. Polka dots confuse me.

21. I like dancing. I can't do it in a group any more. Give me a girl and hells, I'll be out there all night long.

22. I say 'hells yeah' and 'y'all'. Sorry.

This Gets Me So Fucking Pumped

I Am Bored

1. EVER BEEN GIVEN AN ENGAGEMENT RING?
Nope…and for all my sappy notions, hope I’m the one giving!

2. LONGEST RELATIONSHIP?
6 years on and off

3. LAST GIFT YOU RECEIVED?
Eternity from cK

4. EVER DROPPED A CELL PHONE?
Would you call me a freak if I said no?

5. WHEN'S THE LAST TIME YOU WORKED OUT?
2 days ago

6. THING(S) YOU SPEND A LOT OF MONEY ON?
Clothes and toys (like TV not GI Joe)

7. LAST FOOD YOU ATE?
An apple (don’t let fool you, it was after three pizza slices)

8. FIRST THINGS YOU NOTICE ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX?
Smell, hands, hair, lips. Not in that orderPersonality wise, how much of a wiseass she is

9. ONE FAVORITE SONG?
One?? You give me one?! Okay, what about the genres?! I mean alternative, rock, classic rock, punk rock, old school…yeah you pick a genre, I give you one

10. WHERE DO YOU LIVE?
London, Delhi, New York,…Bombay oh who knows.
But another answer would be in my head for far too long

11. HIGH SCHOOL YOU ATTENDED:
The Factory

12. CELL PHONE SERVICE PROVIDER:
Cingular (rather discombobulated by this question)

13. FAVORITE MALL STORE:
Ye gads! Malls….arghhhhhh!

14. LONGEST JOB YOU HAD:
My current job

15. DO YOU OWN A PAIR OF DICE?
Yeah…and a pair of boxers that my friend’s mother bought me with Spike from Tom & Jerry and the words ‘Street Bully’ on them (she only saw the t-shirt and didn’t know the boxers came with it)…and a pair of trick cards and a sheesha

16. DO YOU PRANK CALL PEOPLE?
No. They do it for me. A friend had free calling since hiss dad worked in the government. He would call two random numbers and conference them it
(slow smile)
Hello?
Hello?
Hello!
Hello??
Aapnay phone kiya jee, aap boliye!
Arrey aap kya baat kar rahein hai?!

17. LAST WEDDING YOU ATTENDED:
in December 2005.. cousin

18. FIRST FRIEND YOU'D CALL IF YOU WON THE LOTTERY:
My best friend just to hear him squawk!

19. LAST TIME YOU SAW YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Oh dear, I don’t remember…

20. FAVORITE FAST FOOD RESTAURANT
Haldiraam’s anything

21. BIGGEST LIE YOU HAVE EVER HEARD:

I just noticed that it goes from 21 to 23…Wiseling, did you delete a question?

23. WHERE'S YOUR FAVORITE PLACE TO EAT WITH FRIENDS?
Way too many to list, im in freaking NY!

24. CAN YOU COOK?
Yes

25. WHAT CAR DO YOU DRIVE?:
Don’t have a car here, back home, toss up between the Lancer and the Santro

26. BEST KISSER?
Well, I have a fair idea but I need to find out more so will get back on that

27. LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
None of your beeswax

28. MOST DISLIKED FOODS:
Papaya…mangoes… yeah okay, you can snap that jaw shut

29. THING YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT YOURSELF:
The fact that I think

30. THING YOU DISLIKE MOST ABOUT YOURSELF:
I can’t control some thoughts, they just run around my head to annoy me

32. LONGEST SHIFT YOU HAVE WORKED AT A JOB?
24 odd hours…22?

33. FAVORITE MOVIE?Yeah, no.

34. CAN YOU SING?
Nope

35. LAST CONCERT ATTENDED?
Iron Maiden for purely sentimental reasons…next one is the Killers baby!

36. LAST KISS?
January to be precise…yes you, go think about it

37. LAST MOVIE RENTED:
I forget

38. THINGS YOU NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT?
in fact, will do ne better, will even voice out how exactly I go through it (I know you don’t care)
Chaabee, sutta, cell, wallet, iPod

39. FAVORITE VACATION SPOT:
Never the same place twice

43. LAPTOP OR DESKTOP COMPUTER?
My sexy Mac NoteBook Pro 17” eat that!!

44. FAVORITE COMEDIAN?:
Am smitten by Sarah Silverman right now

45. DO YOU SMOKE?
no comment

46. SLEEP WITH OR WITHOUT CLOTHES?
Without at times I feel like it

47. WHO SLEEPS WITH YOU EVERY NIGHT?
Right now, unfortunately no one

48. DO LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS WORK?:
I don’t know

49. HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU BEEN PULLED OVER BY THE POLICE?
a few…though none of them was my fault

50. PANCAKES OR FRENCH TOAST?
Wuffles. Wuffles and more wuffles

51. DO YOU LIKE COFFEE?:
Oui!! Wheeeee! Coffeee
So, yes.

52 HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS?
Every which way.

53. DO YOU BELIEVE IN ASTROLOGY?:
Ummmmm, let me check Google pages…it says yes to a small degree but i shouldn't tell anyone that.

54. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?:
My best friend who had to call and bitch out The English team in the World Cup

55. LAST PERSON ON YOUR MISSED CALL LIST?:
RS

56. WHAT WAS THE LAST TEXT MESSAGE YOU RECEIVED?:
My best friend again on cricket

58. NUMBER OF PILLOWS?:
2 pillows, three cushions and don’t look at me like that you need to feel them to see how goooood they feeeeeel….um…hm so there!!

59. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING RIGHT NOW?:
Suit

60. PICK A LYRIC, ANY LYRIC:
Salutations to the maker of my finest hour.

61. WHAT KIND OF JELLY DO YOU LIKE ON YOUR PB & J?:
Grape

62. CAN YOU PLAY POOL?:
Yup. Well is another matter.

63. CAN YOU SWIM?
Like a FISH! Started at three an never stopped since

64. FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Caramel

65. DO YOU LIKE MAPS?
Su’ure….unless they have sharp edges and give me paper cuts which makes me throw them out the window and get me lost

66. TELL ME A RANDOM FACT ABOUT YOURSELF:
I have to sleep facing the inside of the bed. If I can’t see the monsters, they cant get me.
I can wiggle my ears and turn my tongue over 180 degrees

68. EVER ATTEND A THEME PARTY?:
Hells yeah!

69. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON?
Stormy season
God I sound like a blond…fall.

70. LAST TIME YOU LAUGHED AT SOMETHING STUPID?
About an hour ago

71. WHAT TIME DID YOU WAKE UP THIS MORNING ?
6:20am

72. BEST THING ABOUT WINTER?
Sliding under the cover, preferably up to a woman’s leg

73. LAST TIME A COP GAVE YOU A TICKET?:
Nev’ver!

75. NAME OF YOUR FIRST PET?:
Chengez…yeah don’t ask

76. DO YOU THINK PIRATES ARE COOL OR OVERRATED?:
Johnny Depp. Role model. Pirate. Swashbuckler.

77. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS WEEKEND??
Meeting friends new dog, watching the Namesake, having dinnerr with another friend and watching cricket and a few illegal things which I wont go into

78. BIRTHDATE?:
Yes please

79. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE:
I dunno, whaddoyou wanna be?.

85. ARE YOU ON A LAPTOP?:
No, am on a chair.

87. ARE YOU SMILING?:
Yes well now I am!

89. DO YOU MISS SOMEONE RIGHT NOW:
yes.

90. IF YOU COULD GO ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD WHERE WOULD YOU GO?
Bombay

92. ARE YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL?:
No

93. DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH?:
Don’t think I get crushes any more...

94. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NAME?
Aaliya…and Ayesha

95. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR SWIMMING SUIT?
Multicolored trunks

96. DOES YOUR SCHOOL START IN AUGUST?:

97. DID YOU GO ON VACATION LAST MONTH?:
Hah! Vacation? Pour moi?!

98. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN ON A CRUISE?:
Nope

99. DO YOU HAVE A SISTER?
You mean that Spawn of Stan 6 years my junior..yeah sure, its shorter than “you spawn of satan”

100. ARE YOU UPSTAIRS?:On the 26th floor

101. ARE YOU IN LOVE?:
“What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me…no more!”
I’m sure some shrink out there would love to make me his case study

102. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN THE HOSPITAL?
Oui

103. DO YOU WISH YOU COULD SEE ANYONE PARTICULAR RIGHT NOW?
yes.

104. WHO IS IT?
Eff off

105. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO AFTER THIS?
Go home, faff around, head out to a friends place…or perhaps boom and cook…we’ll see

Sounds

Sounds.

So was speaking with The Short One (notice how I said talking with instead of me talking you listening…I listen!!!!)

So yeah okay fine for a minute got lost because I had an overwhelming rememberance of London and its own sounds. The laptop was right next to me as it was every night I slept there, playing Virgin Radio, street sounds outside, I remember the candles on the sill flickering (it was just after Divali), the window frame shifting in the light.

I heard cars on the street, water from potholes going splish-splash and I remembered the house I lived in when I was twelve or thirteen. I remember the room so clearly, the bed which had a thin mattress and wooden planks, a throw-away from my dad’s ancestral home. I remember the rough feel of the bed side table made using scrap wood by carpenters who had finished work on my parents bedroom, painted a white by me under the watchful eye of my grandfather. I remember the ‘stick’em stones’ which had just come out, blurry colors seen through ‘weak’ eyes, trying to sleep.

I’m thirteen and I hear cars splashing through the water in October in Delhi, watching the headlights streak across the wall, never stopping until that one car when my parents got home. Watching it grow bigger, displacing shadows, the clanking of the gate as my mother opened it for my father to park the car, the dogs whining and barking impatiently, waiting for my Mother to come up stairs.

I hear the rather loud air conditioned in my parents room from when I was much younger and used to sleep in their room since we had a small house, the pug coming nonchalantly, heaving up on his back pawn to turn the vents down and plonking himself next to me, his wheezing. I heard my dad scrabbling for the stick, reaching out to turn the vents back up.

I go farther back. I’m in Jaipur, in cream colored shorts, waiting inside the gate at my grandparents home where I lived for two years, I hear the auto that used to take me to school, kids piled in the drivers voice bellowing ‘bhaiiya!’.

I hear the songs I heard when I was madly in love, when I was heartbroken and when I grit my teeth deciding that enough is enough. I hear songs that I listen to on rainy days, Miles Davis, Nerina Pallot, BJ Thomas, Bob Seger.

Live, A3, Fall Out Boy, Nickleback screaming in my ears and the only other sound I can hear in me catching my breath at the gym

I listen to the children in the playground later in the evening than warrants them being out there, smiling and remembering Saudi Arabia and growing up there.

I hear the TV in my room, some random person, another random opinion which dissolves into nothingness and silence as I fall back into my own head.

I turn out the lights and hear myself breathing, sometimes louder than it should be.

I hear the phone rind and an involuntary smile at the slightly grumpy, just-woken-up voice at the other end:
“Hi…”

And I forgot all the other sounds in my memory and slip into something else altogether, something new and something yet unheard and unremembered.

You Spin Me Round Round...

So SB washes dishes, Guppy makes PostIts and puts them on her wall, I work out and try to play the guitar.
We all try in our own small ways to feel better, to take control and hope that things aren't spinning out of control. The more conscious we are of how much *really* is out of our control, the more scared we become. Of course, the only solutions is either to remove all muckiness and go for the safe route.
Yes Mom, find me a girl
Fuck that. The other option, in my opinions, and feel free to give me Option C, is acceptance of that fact and knowing you can deal with whatever shit comes your way.

There are two points to this. One is that with the Ex, I tried so hard to to get everything else in order, my job, career etc that I forgot about the 'us'.
The second, that is consequent to the first, is while I thought things were more in control than ever before, the unexpected happened. This led to a spiral that led me to question everything and wonder how much I could 'make it happen'.
Zilch, zippo, nothing.
Of course, instead of acceptance came hesitation and self doubt which led me to all these well, not insecurities but second guessings and being scared of my shadow.

With time has come acceptance (Master of Yoda-speak I am...and a geek on re-reading that). But of course, that doesn't mean I sit back on the couch, pull up a bag of Lays (I hated that name) and see what comes my away apart from the national US epidemic (yes, obesity...what kind of place has obesity as an epi-fucking-demic??)

My point is, it's taken time and I think today, more than ever I have accepted that while I can change a few things, a lot will just happen.
For better or for worse, they will. Bobo, ya hear?!

So...time to busy myself in everything I can control and deal with shit like its a sparring partner, i.e. duck and weave and when its the right time, BLAMO! POW! ZONK! (Holy Saying Actions Batman!)

So...with this, am off to Lala Land where I hope I don't dream of giant bats and my mum falling off the fire escape.
Oh yeah, two nights ago, nightmare...involved a ginormous bat that I found (think three feet) hanging upside down on the towel rack inside my bathroom next to my purple towel, black waxy eyelids covering what could only be red eyes.
And the only other part is watching my mum walk down the grill steps leading from the balcony to the terrace, just her legs in her salwar kameeze, the steps giving way and her plunging.

The only interpretation that makes sense is that I am meant to be Batman. Hence the lingo, practice you see.

What?!...Me Worry....

I want to write. So I will.

So, had a heart to heart with the folks this past weekend. Some shit went down but basically, I see them making the same mistake with my sister as they did with me.
Growing up, it went like this:
Mum: So Z, who are you dating now?
Me: ….
Dad: No no, nonono, he shouldn’t date anyone right now, this is no time to get serious about anyone
Me: (thinking oh dear, so I can’t tell them about Ex…crap…
…I do want to tell them because I really don’t think theirs is anything wrong with it and I do like her and it would be nice if I could get her over and everything be hunky dory.

Anyway, no use harping on that, point is my sister has been dating this guy for a year now and the moment she found out my parents knew, she called up (1am, my time, Wednesday night, perfect) saying mum & dad would kill her.
So the deal is, I always held it against them that they were too quick to label something as bad. Now, it …I knew they were wrong. It was one of those moments that make you grow up – realizing your folks are wrong and while they may have the best interests out for you, there are some things you just have to do.

My mother did surprise me, “Well, see Z, if I had told you then that I knew you and Ex wouldn’t work out”
Me: “I know mum, and if you had said that then, I wouldn’t have believed you. But it was something I had to go through. You can try and hope I won’t get hurt and make mistakes, but without them, I wouldn’t be me. So yeah, it had to happen”

Anyway, in the past few months I have made a conscious effort to open up to them.

My Dad lived in a joint family, went to Scindia School and has an old school approach to life, right and wrong, values and the rest of the gambit. Of course, there seem to be a lot more grey areas than what he let on when I was growing up. Another thing was that I left home at 17 so all that growing up between now and than was done away form them. Which is why it’s hard to go to them for a talk. But my sister is at home and I hope it doesn’t end up the case that she grown up and my parents have no idea of who she really is (okay fine, they are parents, they will always know who she is but still, I mean the capacity for them to have an easy and open dialogue”

Of course, my father made me feel old:
“You see, your sister and you are different. You matured early, perhaps too early. I knew you wouldn’t make big mistakes and that’s why I ignored the smaller ones…like the times I found those cigarettes in your bag in um, when was it, class VIII or IX”
“No Dad, it was 2nd year college”
But that wasn’t the point…it’s nice my parents felt I was mature enough to deal with crap but some of the stuff, I don’t think I was ready.

In any case, they asked me in all seriousness if they wanted me to look for a girl…I’m like, what, for? I mean, look for a girl for me to do what?
Get married of course.

Meh?? Meeeee? But I’m still only 17….oh wait.

Crap, when the hell did I grow up?

And looking around, I suddenly see spurts of growed-up-ness in all my friends. Ash who is meeting guys through her mum, courier service. SB who for the first time of ever knowing her, said she was confused and needed to focus on her personal life and said she had tears in her eyes…Jeezuz H. Christ, what’s going on….

I need to go to the gym.
(see! As soon as I said gym, the Homer Simpsons clip came into my head:
Homer: Guy’m? What’s a guy’m?
(he looks over and sees people working out)
Homer: Oh!! A guy’m!!
Come on, really? Aren’t I too much of a delinquent moron to ever get married?
Oh fudge

(Fuck! I say things like oh fudge, grown ups don’t do that!)

Balls

And you know what, talk to me a while from now, odds are, i would have reconciled my immature tendencies with being grown up and will go dancing to domesticity. Go figure
But still, I feel badly for the poor girl I convince I am mature enough to get hitched too…coz a part of me will always be a bit nuts

I Love You, But No

Yeah so I do like women. In all shapes and sizes (no offence Kiddo!) But it’s well, to give an example:

Scene: I come back from work (London), go straight to my room coz I’ve had a hard day’s work. I look at these two inflated, oval shaped bags, each a loose handful. I give a tentative squeeze.
I see the light
Me: Bobo!! Why are your fake boobs on my pillow!
Bobo: Because, I don’t need them and they came with my new bra.

Scene: Me and Bobo on couch
I hear an expulsion of the flatulent kind
I turn my head and Bobo has a beatific smile while staring at the TV
Right

Scene: Me talking all fuzzy to the Short One
ShortOne: Okay, I need to take a shit now
Me: (double take at her French)

Scene:
Talking on Skype to a friend: Dude, my vulva hurts
(Me: blink blink)
Yeah, I just had a Brazilian wax
(Me: still quiet, imagining someone approaching the General with hot, molten wax, ready to grab the curlies and yank them off)
And it ..
(me: having zoned out with the mental image of jumping off the table, grabbing a towel and barely covering myself running to find my happy place while Bertha, the large Scandinavian is chasing after me with a bowl of hot, not-the-fun-kind wax)

And now Bobo sends me this


Brazilian Waxing - Click here for another funny movie.


Now before any Feminazis throw their hands up in the air, you have no right to because
1. you use more lotions and potions than a guy can imagine and I can’t believe that often, my recommended daily intake of fruits and vegetables may be squished into a tube and then used by you as a super exfoliarizing face packing mud bath product thing
2. Don’t come and tell me it’s all for men. Please. Women look at women more critically than guys do and listen, you got a cute butt wiggle, a guy’s head will turn. You decide to use a peach extract body lotion instead of cocoa butter (I have a lot of women friends, cut me some slack), then it won’t make a difference to me (but just don’t use Cool Waters please…I’m sick of it!)
3. I don’t burp, fart or rearrange the General in your presence. If I am commando, I make sure you don’t see the good (unless you want to in which case just ask!) but I do open doors for you, buy you flowers and will tell you you look good when you do. So please, don’t do certain things in front of me and don’t educate me either!

Thank you

Come See My City Won't You Please?

Hey Kid

I don’t know how you quite do it but you made me feel better. I can run around like a headless chicken and go through the equivalent of mental flagellations I can pretend to be all growed up and try and figure things out. But it takes a couple of lines from you and well, I realize that maybe it is okay for me to tell you when I feel like crap and perhaps listen to you to find some help.

So I guess I just wanted to thank you

I do hope you come visit. I want to sit in the Oval in the summer on the bench, watch the grey haired guys play chess on the chess top tables, watch people laze around and read a book.

I want to take you to Magnolia Bakery with the best cupcakes (and I don’t like cupcakes)

Or perhaps to Pianos, one of the last speakeasies in the city, dressed up

Come walk through the Met with me or go to Mo Pitkins House of Satisfaction or the Backfence and throw peanuts on the ground.

No, this isn’t written in a sappy vein. It’s just nice to want to share your world with someone, and I think everyone has their own take on this planet, on the City and I’d like to share it with you

You Gotta Be Kidding Me

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are quite expressive and thoughtful. You see the world in a way that others are blind to. You are a very grounded, responsible, and realistic person. People may not want to hear the truth from you, but they're going to get it. You see yourself with pretty objective eyes. How you view yourself is almost exactly how other people view you. Your near future is still unknown, and a little scary. You'll get through wild times - and you'll textually enjoy it. For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

Oh Drunken Moments

Guppy calls and by this time I am already gone, oblivious. It's been a long week and I didn't mind staying home, getting a little boomed.
Her on and off guy, SS is in town and while I was supposed to go hang out her place

Gup: (having broken up three weeks ago) so come over tonight
Me: Ok
--think--
Me: Is SS staying with you?
Gup: Yeah
Me: In that case, no.

I decided not to.

She calls at 12:30am. I'm drifting slowly, sinking into the bed feeling the sides rise up as walls.

She doesn't sound too happy. She asks me to come over and get some maal. I talk to SS and and I feel as though part of him wants me to not come but he can't quite admit it to himself (in hindsight, this will perhaps be a no-duh! but I am still quite spaced out). But I talk to her again and does seem to want me there. Honestly, I get this feeling that doesn't accrete until later, something I can feel at the back of my neck but can't quite articulate, it's there but not quite.

I go over and Gup and I boom but I can see SS isn't too happy. Don't get me wrong, SS and I were friends way before he and Gups happened but there was a bit of friction since at times he felt she was closer to me and came to me when she was upset with him.
I guess I don't blame him and that's the reason why we still are so close, SS and I.
She and I boom. But I can feel the barbs between them already.

SS: I need some trace
Gup: I don't know if I have any (getting up to check which is a big deal considering it is her and she is possessive about her music taste)
Gup: (puts one a fairly decent trance track if you are into it)
SS: Yeah, of the three she has
Gup: Actually, it's Madonna
SS: Ah yes, of course
Gup (to me): SS once said I remind him of Madonna, she's a bit bitchy just like me.

(I can hear in her voice why she wants me there but I can't quite articulate it but I feel bad for her because I guess I see her trying in ways that he seems to smash out of the park)

Snippets like this help me articulate it, two people who want to be with each other, hating the fact they hurt but unable to hate the other person who they feel is responsible, two people who just won't seem to work but still love each other, perhaps me being around stopping them from getting angry and yelling at each other, me being the only thing keeping the barbs, barbs instead of an all out hurt fest.
Even tho I am quite gone at this point, they still seem to follow, to the bar, outside for a smoke.

Gups dad's company came out with this CD with the best old hindi songs (not the weepy kind I wouldn't hex on someones funeral) and she got me a copy.
Me: Oh damn, I forgot the CD at your place again
Gup: Will remember tomorrow...(to SS) did I get you the CD?
\Me: (still spaced and mumbling) ....'twas good music, must send...a copy to dad
SS: Oh so forgetting me now (with a smile)
Ugh, I feel like a kid in a bad precustody hearing night dinner

I take a cab and think about something Fish commented on...that that is what Kundera may have meant in Unbearable Lightness of Being...perhaps in the end, it really doesn't matter...our choices don't and the importance we give each one is foolish. But the way I see it, our choices are the ones that shape us and give us some (illusiory perhaps?) degree of control.
But now you can see the reason behind the name of the blog -- Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, Book of Luaghter & Forgetting in irony that this seems to be a city where everything moves to look over the grey shades and slide the pain and bitterness down with the old underground veins (the original levels still exist, the current level of the Subway has been built over the old ones...no use spending time redoing the old ones, as the City grows taller, just build over it...won't they give way at some point though? We will see)
And as for Forgetting, I don't think any other city has afforded me so much time in this little space I seem to occupy behind my eyes.

I go into Grey's Papaya. The 40's African American guy really is African American, a neatly trimmed moustache and his baseball cap facing the right way. Even though it is 3:30am, he takes it seriously, wonder what his story is, working the late night shift Saturday night when everyone my age would be out getting drunk or what ever their drug of choice may be. Does he have a family. His accent belies his recently shifted roots.
The younger black guy, the one with a chipped tooth and a gold chain can't even seem to comprehend the difference in their lives:
Him: That will be $4.19
Me: (give him the money) I have 4cents as well (I hate pennies and have way too many, besides, nickels I can use for laundry)
Him: (unable to figure out the change)

Wasn't it a function of circumstance that they are different? But then doesn't that once again indicate that perhaps we attach too much weight to our choices?
Somehow I can't quite reconcile that and make the argument that some where along there were choices to be made and well, who made the right or the wrong ones is to be seen.

I walk back to my place, a bit unsteady. I look down to see the outlines of the concrete slabs paving the sidewalk and I wonder, how come there aren't straight lines to follow in life, one's that seem to lead home?

------------------------

Zaphod feels special:

Gup: so I told my mum you crashed girls night out

Me: oh hm well (thinking: I didn’t mean to…just wanted to be around friends)

Gup: She said that not many guys can do that

Me: Oh

:o)

------------------
3am, Sunday morning

How much of the grey grit do you want to see? How many times do you want drunken fingers stumbling across the keyboard, wondering what, like an ouija board, they spurt out?
How many homeless do you want tugging at the $200 coat before you wonder how much everything matters
You see the rich-20something-blackberry-toting bunch with broken hearts and hardened faced to deal with, no wait you give me this much of a commitment for a duration of so many years...

Shorty, do miss you..... It's, amongst other things, finding someone who understands the why behind the eyes

Its this tongue, thickened by alcohol, confusion and then some...wondering where this confusion came from, finding happiness, that which matters most, alcohols burning the insides…

"It's The Time of the Season"

I have come to a conclusion that everything in life is brief spurts. I have said that growing up consists of a series of small pinpointable events that make you grow up, first heartbreak, first time you realize your folks are wrong, first mistake you can blame no one for but yourself.

I think with me, I can pinpoint the singularities where walls were put up. For instance, the first time my mother said she was disappointed, the first time the Ex cheated on me...this brings me to the moment where the last wall was put up.

Ex: M likes me
Me: So should I be worried
Ex: No, nothing will happen
--it did--
(and this was the second time she cheated on me)

Ex: B likes me
Ex: and no, before you can ask, nothing will happen
We break up and 3 mos later she is dating him

Me: Why did you say nothing would happen. I had to trust you to be with you and the fact that I l**** you made me force down all my walls a lot sooner than what would have been normal.
Ex: It was my way of saying it to myself so that nothing would
Me: Then why string me along?
It was then I realized that no matter how much you trust someone, they may turn around you and get you with your back turned to them.
It also made me realize that if something has to happen, it will. Nothing you can ever do will stop it

"It's The Time of the Season"

I have come to a conclusion that everything in life is brief spurts. I have said that growing up consists of a series of small pinpointable events that make you grow up, first heartbreak, first time you realize your folks are wrong, first mistake you can blame no one for but yourself.

I think with me, I can pinpoint the singularities where walls were put up. For instance, the first time my mother said she was disappointed, the first time the Ex cheated on me...this brings me to the moment where the last wall was put up.

Ex: M likes me
Me: So should I be worried
Ex: No, nothing will happen
--it did--
(and this was the second time she cheated on me)

Ex: B likes me
Ex: and no, before you can ask, nothing will happen
We break up and 3 mos later she is dating him

Me: Why did you say nothing would happen. I had to trust you to be with you and the fact that I l**** you made me force down all my walls a lot sooner than what would have been normal.
Ex: It was my way of saying it to myself so that nothing would
Me: Then why string me along?
It was then I realized that no matter how much you trust someone, they may turn around you and get you with your back turned to them.
It also made me realize that if something has to happen, it will. Nothing you can ever do will stop it

Something To Thank

I think I figured out why I am agnostic instead of an atheist. I can't quite say c'est la vie.
There has to be a reason. Each disappointment beyond my control, everything gone awry through no action or inaction on my part, that equilizer to the questions doubting myself, those needed an explanation.
So in cases like that, I would like to throw my hands up in the air to the universe and say I give up, well, I can't live with myself if i say that but I can certainly say so be it, you win this one.
But yeah, instead of wondering about short comings in me, and usually there haven't been significant contributions from my own faults, I would like to think things turn out for the better, and well, hopefully, when things don't quite go as I hoped, I would like to think of someone, the Universe watching out for me and throwing me a bone.
And it's for those I am so thankful and even in those cases, the stroke of luck, the chance meeting, I would like to have something to thank.

So, while I can't surrender to 'chance', I will personify the Universe and give it a nudge and say thanks for the smaller things, I did notice.

A Question of Faith?

Even if they did prove that Jesus had a kid …oh hang on, James Cameron announced he found the tomb of Christ and there were inscriptions showing ‘Jesus’, ‘Son of Jesus’ and Mary something or the other, Magdalene’s original name… anyway, the show is on the 4th of March on the Discovery Channel
Even if they did prove he had a kid, I don’t think it will make any sort of difference. I guess religion really is a leap of faith and well, some people just accept it. So if it were prove that that was Jesus, I am sure there will be some sort of rationalization (and I use this loosely since we are talking about religion after all), those who want to believe, still will. Acceptance seems to come easy.

Which is loosely tied in with this thread I have had for a few days now. I go about espousing the fact that there is only so much you can do when it comes to other people. I mean really now. For instance, if person A likes person B, then all that persona A is hope that person B likes them back. But beyond that? You can try and imagine all sorts of outcomes when you go ahead and say something like that but would that really help? Can you be anything or anyone other than who you are? Can you get someone to like you back? I think the problem comes in the fact that you can’t really get anyone to do anything while giving them freedom.
Any how, so if you accept this piece of logic, the natural next step is fine, you accept things the way they are and hope for the best. Now hoping for the best and having faith that things will turn out well requires non-rational thought.
Wait that seems flawed.

Actually not, if in the bigger picture, you hope everything turns out fine, you seem to be putting faith into that thought, making a jump of sorts. So how do you go about accepting? Is there any thought path you can follow to accept?

Hmm, oh well

Yeah, No Thanks

Find yourself a girl, and settle down
Live a simple life in a quiet town

Steady as she goes
Steady as she goes
So steady as she goes

Your friends have shown a kink in the single life
You've had too much to think, now you need a wife

Steady as she goes
So steady as she goes
Well here we go again, you've found yourself a friend, that knows you well
But no matter what you do, you'll always feel as though you tripped and fell

So steady as she goes

When you have completed what you thought you had to do
And your blood's depleted to the point of stable glue

Then you'll get along
Then you'll get along

Steady as she goes (steady as she goes)
So steady as she goes (steady as she goes)
Well here we go again, you've found yourself a friend that knows you well
But no matter what you do, it always feels as though you tripped and fell
So steady as she goes
Steady as she goes

Settle for a world neither up or down
Sell it to the crowd that's gathered round
Settle for a girl neither up or down
Sell it to the crowd that's gathered round

So steady as she goes (steady as she goes)
Steady as she goes (steady as she goes)
Steady as she goes (steady as she goes)
Steady as she goes (steady as she goes)
So steady as she goes (steady as she goes)

Steady as she goes
Are you steady now?

Yeah....no thanks

How the HELL do my thoughts jump around like kernels being popped?

So needed to get some maal. I go out, unshaven, threw on whatever and wait on the curb. This SUV pulls over and there are two guys
"Get in"
Zaphod has a flash of being an anonymous face on the inside page of the paper
"Sorry?"
"Get in"
Zaphod obliges lest he be an anonymous face on the inside page.
They start to drive. A hand slides back
"Pick one. $50"
Zaphod picks one, slides the money, gets dropped off and goes home.

Bobo's brother comes over and we proceed to go where them thar kites be and watch "Jaaney Bhi Do Yaaron"
-- Why is whenever they have to cast a woman in a negative role, back in the day, the women had Christian names like Rita or Tina? It's interesting that the female proponents, paragons of virtue had the most Indian name. Now with a more open approach to women's sexuality, they have Indian names, the item girl, the vamp.

-- Men average 7 second of thought to it, fine. But that's an average. For instance, most of the time they are fine and seem to swing between protective feelings for the fairer sex and as soon as there a mild flirtation, jump whole hog and wonder if they can get in her pants.
Whether this is true or not, let me draw on the film when Shobhaji wants Naseruddin Shah's character to take on the assignment. She plays coy and damsel in distress and he wants to help her. But as soon as she goes over the top, he gets this glint as though he can get more out of her. She switches back to damsel in distress and he becomes a knight in shining armor. Again, the smallest sexual innuendo and he becomes the cad trying to get an upskirt peek

-- Sexuality in that movie is kinda obvious. Shah's character slips and falls and she picks him up with patent sandel clad feet. Or when she says she knows what it means to be tired and fight injustice and says something to the effect of "mein bhi bhokee hoon, koi meree bhook ko samjhney'vala nahin hai kya?"
Oh please woman, you know what you are saying, *he* knows what you are saying and you know he knows what you are saying. If the plot line were irrelevant, you would see frames cut to a tree and a thunderstorm, y'know, do a little dance, get down tonight

-- Is it just me or is it the universe having a laugh that on newyork.citysearch.com, 'Delivery' category is right after the 'Date spot' category under 'Restaurants'?

-- The soundtrack from Forrest Gump isn't half bad

So, this is Zaphod's ADD brain under the influence. Next time, am just watching the movie!

Blind Eyes Wide Open

It’s odd this feeling. It’s new. I don’t like it.

I don’t know where I am headed. No, I really don’t. Look, it was school, then college, then job. Okay, I danced to the numbers on the floor. Don’t get me wrong, that was the plan and I was fortunate to have that instead of 11^th/12^th medicine, med school, become doctor or any variation thereof.

It was school (albeit, do well), college (whatever you want but do well), job (want to do well). But now what?

For all my dissecting, peeling away and general running around in this head of mine, what of it? I still don’t know what I ultimately want. So how do you move toward something you can’t see? Do you do the song and dance, the motions until it comes to you?

It’s like sucking on an empty bottle. And it’s the same desperation.

I met AB this past weekend. It was great catching up with her and we were up until 6 in the morning, me wine addled and her just talking about a lot of things I don’t quite want to get into right now. But the point where she started crying was when I told her it was okay to be selfish and do what she had to to be happy. Of course, for her the tears were at the thought of hurting someone else.

But…what if you don’t know what you want. What of the options you have, what weight do they hold?

Am I a freak or is this something normal?

I know I can get what I want, anything (okay not when it comes to people because you don’t get people, they let you)…but my point is, now where to?

Phooey

--------------------

Hahhahahahaha, okay 90 minutes later, I reread that and couldn't help feel angry and then realized something.

I was angry because I realized how pathetic and whiny that sounded. Realized I grew up. Doggone it. Fine, some things are hard no matter what, it's just a question of how you deal with them. All I had to do was change the song and walking the wet streets made me realize that fuck it, I know what I want. I just gotta grow a pair and do it. Looking back at what I have done and what I have been through, I can deal with this and worse.

I'm done being wishy-washy, overtly sensitive and bottled up. And I like being me. I wouldn't change a thing in my life and it's all okay.

Hmm, while I have a Peter Pan complex, there might be something to this growing up afterall.

This Song Does It To Me...

Zaphod Likes His Talkies

Wie ghets?!

So I am on my first ever Hitchcock trip. Yes, I know late in life and wag your finger at me all you like but I finished watching ‘The 39 Steps’ yesterday and before you can ask, I have seen the mandatory ‘Psycho’ and thanks to Mummy dearest saw it as a pre-teen leaving me rather worried about the fact that it was his mummy he kept around.

Right so there were a few things I noticed about the film. Remember the silent films, well in them everything was over the top from facial expressions to actions to compensate for a lack of sound. Then you ‘The 39 Steps’ where it isn’t quite like that but the dramatic element is kind of artistic but also obvious in its dramaticism. For instance, the woman tells the lead to look out the window. He walks up and you see the slats of the blinds across his face, he sidles up to the window and you see a frame showing his eyes looking out through the slats. Then you see two guys at the far end of the street in trench-coats with the streetlight dropping a near perfect circle of light on them. And that’s it, you can’t see anything else on the street, no other lights, no one else, no cars nothing.

Another thing I noticed about the movie is the lack of music except in the credits and the end of the movie (in a lot of old movies best b’loved, you would see the credits at the start of the film). Again, music was used in silent movies (okay not quite in them but you had a lackey off to the side either playing a record or hamming it up on the piano/organ) and in a lot of modern films as the score but its not there in this movie…at least I don’t recall there being any.

And another thing (!) modern movies, you kind of feel the suspense building up to the point. In this movie, it just is, turn your head and you missed it. Does it make for better viewing? Well, its ketchup (Koi mujhe please bata de maggie hot & sweet tomato chilli sauce mein different kya hai? It’s different…sorry a throw back from commercials as a kid). But yeah, it just is and I like it.

So now, am getting ‘North By Northwest’, ‘Rear Window’, ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’, ‘To Catch a Thief’…am also downloading ‘Epic Movie’ but you wouldn’t hold that against Zaphod now would you?

(after inserting all the hyperlinks)
yeah so I just saw the entry for Epic Movie...Zaphod is no longer downloading it, I repeat, Zaphod is no longer downloading it

How Many Times Can You Loop A Song?

Fuzzy Machine

Welcome to the Machine

Days Go By

(Click on that little thumbnail thing and crank it up!)

Its been a 14 hour day. I spent 13 hours entering numbers in to a spreadsheet. I can't be bored, it drives me insane. Which is why I can't be cooped in for too long. Which is why I like having people around to deconstruct. So asking me to do something like that drives me insane. And I can't even be mechanical because it has to be perfect.

And then you step in to the cold, the unfamiliar cold freezing your hands until you cant feel them and the hand brushing your face doesn't feel familiar. And the song comes on. And for a flash there you feel part of a cliched but apt video - standing at an avenue while everything speeds up, the sun rises and sets, the people milling about hurried up until you feel as old and as still as the trees.

You wonder where time and life are going while you are still standing. This life is getting stale and it is time to rock the boat, no, jump ship and fall in to the wanderlust, the time to step out and find out what makes you happy and say fuck and reach out in to the unknown. Feel the incredibly liberating feeling of falling and knowing that come what may, you have learned to fly before hitting the ground so many times before that you know what, it doesn't scare you any more. So what's to stop you?
The most terrifying feeling right now is having every option to be any where I want to be and do anything I want to. Now it's a question of picking what I want. And I want home. I want the social environment I miss so much here. I want the noise and option of dropping by or meeting up for a drink. Fuck it, it scares the living day lights, but each day, I want it more and more to the point that I know exactly what to tell my folks and I know that if someone asked me why I was looking for a job in India, what exactly to say, every reason well thought out and if I have spent several months thinking about it, it just gets clearer and clearer.
I've flown and fallen a stranger in a strange land. How much worse can anything ever get? I've had loved ones sick, I've been broken hearted, I've been miserably sick, I've been broke. And I know I will never quit no matter how mucky it gets...always have and always will...bounce right back



So don't sit back and watch the days go by
Are you ever gonna live before you die
And when things fall apart
The world has come undone
Leave it all behind

PS: I dont know what the video is, fuck I haven't even seen it myself, it's as always, the song that counts but click on it!

Steppenwolf

Oh to walk the night of the First Ages
I had that line echoing in my head from a quick nap I took. Sometimes it's the best defense there is, the best way to flatline again, the best way to escape the Steppenwolf.

The Man goes through the motions, logical in every step, fatalistic about the probable outcomes, treating life as a sparring partner, ducking, weaving the low blows, blocking the high ones.
But once in a while the Wolf part wants, demands to be let loose, to feel every muscle tense up and threaten to burst out the seam, find something real and physical to press against, to push back and win. It makes you want to bare your teeth and growl at the moon and roar at it, sink its teeth in to something. It makes you want to swing wildly and let out this pent up energy.
I think I am just light headed from the gym and pushing my body.
But the Wolf is the seat of wild-eyed ambition, of bitterness and satisfaction from standing alone, the creative side, the one that walks the street, looking at shadows, the other side of being. It's the defense mechanism, the anger that steps from hurt. It's the schadenfreude. Its the one that preserves its own life and creates a hard shell and snaps and bites until its prodded no more and flat lines.
But the Man keeps that Wolf in check. The Man needs company of others, and wants others like him around. He keeps the Wolf in check because he exists and he can not if the Wolf side takes over.
The Wolf side needs the Man side to exist else he would be all Wolf.
Its the Wolf in the Man that brings that air of isolation and of bewilderment at manipulation and grief caused for no obvious purpose and wonderment at the lack of defense in Man and its the Man in the Wolf that keeps him from baring his teeth, confused by the air of isolation.

I think every person has both sides but one dominates over the other. There is inequality in everything, every relationship. But what happens when each side is at odds and is equally heard. Can both be indulged from time to time? A third version seems to emerge that is the vulnerable of the two and then subsequently a fourth that is the protective shell of the two.

Relationships seem to go in waves, following the Man/Wolf pattern too. Both seem to be attracted to the other. One seems flatline while the other seems passionate. Then things settle in. But then the Man speaks in one and wants something more. If the other is still flatline and interested but comfortable, then you have issues. But then again, perhaps I am one of those lousy morons who deliberately shakes the boat to wake up one side.

In any event, both Sides find the alienation from friends odd at times and confused.

I'm just light headed from going to the gym. Perhaps in a few days, everything I have written will read as pure bullshit. I don't know. This post was just written and the keys are still warm.

Epiphany

Wow so Bobo calls me up while at dinner with Vodka and apart from asking for advice gives the me crux which is dating Vodka and knowing every day what he is up to but not knowing him
The Ex and I had the same argument once.
With someone else right now, I am definitely avoiding doing the so what's been up in your day and making a genuine attempt to open up and let someone in.

I think just in general, its harder for guys to do that. Perhaps, if they see potential in something then they open up naturally. Of course, the more jaded they are, the harder it is. Or if they are completely in love with the person regardless of the outcome.

I don't understand it tho. I mean for some reason, i need to trust the person to some degree to not judge and also that they can perhaps to some degree relate. That naturally makes me want to open up. That and of course, feeling that the person cares. I wouldn't want to open up to someone who couldn't give a rats ass.

So here's what I am thinking. With the girl, i have to open up for the simple reason that apart from a natural compulsion (because I like to), she wants to get to know me. Great.
But there are times I think that we aren't anything. So why would she care? There are times I need to see she cares to some small degree because I feel like an idiot for opening up to someone who couldn't give a rats. I know this is extreme but I never want to be the forced guest just as much as I don't want to be the sap who opens up to someone who doesn't really give two hoots. While I know this isn't the case, I still would like to know that it makes a difference. Yes, I can be very demanding, especially emotionally but I think after opening up to a few people just to find out they couldn't be bothered, you can either close your self up or if you must open up, then know the other person likes what they see or care enough to make sure you keep opening up.

I think over the past week or more, I felt that perhaps I was being stupid in opening up and needed to know it still made a difference if I opened up or not and failing to get that, went looking for the reassurance that yes, I wasn't being paranoid or making an ass of myself. So, I did get clingy (feel so gross about that) but I am glad I had an epiphany and was able to vocalize it. Of course, it may be too little too late but at least I understand ...

Meeting the Cobblestones

"i dont want to do this
im sorry"

Been here, done that

I think i suddenly found myself in a familiar role and that broke the camels back. Well...tough.

I think I made one significant demand i.e. time when she was busy and I think that's something only a better half can do, so somehow I ended up in a role I shouldnt have been in.


Anyway, it's at times like this I'm glad for the fatalist.

I guess I did demand time to talk because it's the only way to get to know someone. Of course, conversations are best carried out at a leisurely place. But then again, the refrain 'I don't know you' coupled with perhaps an implicit time line forced me to react. It seems all a bit unnatural or at the very least unfamiliar. So, I guess between hearing how well her Ex and her best friend know her (but then its been 6 years) and how little she knows me, I wanted to talk to get her to know and understand me. But on the hand, that leads to inevitable (?) over crowding so I guess friction was avoidable.

Well we'll see.

Goodbye
XXX

24 eh?

(deep breath)
Right. Been a bit eh? No, I don’t mean time wise, just going on’s wise. I don’t like the idea of linear time. It isn’t…appropriate, it’s disproportionate. I mean at 21 I felt a lot older than well, 21. And anyway, Zaphod turned 24 on the 1st. And I remember as a kid of 17, I decided that’s the age I grow up. No more one liners that make the Squirt roll her eyes so to speak or drinking binges or stupidity.
Fuck that eh? I’m going to be an idiot for the rest of my life and still be full of witty one liners at 40 (yes, yes I can think of a few eye brows arcing at my liberal use of the word ‘witty’ but I was voted Mr. Witty in class 9 and got a certificate to prove it)

But um, yeah so, (look around, kick a can on the ground) 24. Don’t feel different. (think) nope, no brilliant flashes of inspiration. So what’s this growing up deal about?
Yeah, problems do change, at 17 what to buy the Ex, at 24, what makes me happy and time to act on it.
It’s not linear time that makes you older and wiser. The wiser you get, the older you get. The more you let yourself get knocked around, voluntarily or involuntarily, the more you grow up. The more you put it on the line, the more you know. The more you throw yourself into different experiences, the more you touch, see, smell, feel and feel so much, the more lines get drawn. Wouldn’t want to be a blank page at the end of my life.
Da Vinci used to draw furiously on the same page over and over until it became one black lead lines mess where well, you couldn’t see anything. But because he made the lines, he saw his final work in them. I like that. You can either play it safe and keep another mark off the paper, but then again, that mark could be the defining line. And in the end you want to look at the sheet and smile and see so many things in it. A beautiful mess no? There are so many people I know who have such sheltered lives. They don’t leave any place because it’s all they know. Fuck traveling, just thinking and taking chances. Its safe, its warm, its boring. Its like drawing with a stencil.
But yes, I think while I see what the drawing is, I would like someone who lets me show them what I see, someone who can see part the superfluous lines to the work that it is shaping up to be.
Fuck, I sound like a DIY project. But then again, it is my life.

I tend to go a step further. Not only do I let the line be drawn but have to figure out why it is the way it is, how it changes everything and nothing at all and would the final piece be what it is without that line?

You drink too much bourbon and coke. The next day between jackhammers in your head and cotton mouth, you still smell it in the coke. But it does go. I have had that awful smell lingering for many months now but I think it’s gone. Sorry, was mulling over the fact that the Ex didn’t wish me. Oh but the Squirt sent me a delightful card which I would like to link to if she says its okay. Incidentally, it’s her birthday tomorrow.
Got the little girl the latest Post Secret book, the DVD for yes, judge all you want but Audrey Hepburn got me, ‘Roman Holiday’ and ‘Amores Perros’, my old webcam, and two MP3 CD’s. But they were the songs I really liked and about 10% of my collection. But I did want to write to her about each song, why I liked it and the memory associated with each one. Course, I ran out of time but still. Figured the book was good because it was one of the first things I noticed on her blog. Roman Holiday is my pick and her’s Amores Perros. Music because I do love her taste and am glad for it since music is a big deal to me and the Ex was never really into it. And it’s important to me. Very
Oh oh oh!! Zaphod going to see the Killers at Madison Square Garden baby!!

Anyway, I’ve been very hermetic the past few weekends and tonight well, going to Paradou. Lets see how it is

Hmm, so much I want to write but the moment passes given I have been busting my hump. More this weekend when I finally don’t have to work!!

I Got Bored

You Are A Martini

You are the kind of drinker who appreciates a nice hard drink. And for you, only quality alcohol. You don't waste your time on the cheap stuff. Obviously, you're usually found with a martini in your hand. But sometimes you mix it up with a gin and tonic. And you'd never, ever consider one of those flavored martinis. They're hardly a drink!

What Alcoholic Drink Are You?

You Are Somewhat Machiavellian

You're not going to mow over everyone to get ahead... But you're also powerful enough to make things happen for yourself. You understand how the world works, even when it's an ugly place. You just don't get ugly yourself - unless you have to!

How Machiavellian Are You?

Your Love Life Secrets Are

Looking back on your life, you will have a few true loves. Although you may have been hurt before, you tend to bring very little scars into new relationships. It's important to you that your lover is very attractive. You like to have someone to show off. In fights, you love to debate and defend yourself. You logic prevails - or at least you'd like to think so. A break-up usually comes as a shock to you. You always think things are going well.

Your Love Life Secrets, Revealed

Your SAT Score of xxxx Means:

You Scored Higher Than Howard Stern You Scored Higher Than George W. Bush You Scored Higher Than Al Gore You Scored Higher Than David Duchovny You Scored Higher Than Natalie Portman You Scored Lower Than Bill Gates Your IQ is most likely in the 140-150 range Equivalent ACT score: 34 Schools that Fit Your SAT Score: California Institute of Technology Stanford University Princeton University Yale University Harvard University

What Does Your SAT Score Mean?