New Boy is so pretty. He really is. He has chiselled features, a pink-and-white complexion, a sweet smile. Oh, and straight hair that's a dream to run your fingers through. In fact, Dee took one look at him and said, "Never date a man prettier than you are".
That's not to say he's effeminate. Far from it. New Boy is very much a boy, as he proves consistently. He is younger than me, and looks younger than a lot of the men I've been with. But he acts older, wiser, more gentlemanly than a lot of the men I have been with also. And yet at times New Boy brings out all the nuturing instincts in me, because he will say something or do something that is so young that it twists my broody heart--which otherwise seems to be made of stone, these days.
I meet New Boy about a month ago, yes, at my usual watering hole. I am with Nitya and we meet one of my exes, Z. who introduces us to New Boy at my insistence. That night doesn't go so well, New Boy is rather shy around new people and while I keep up a steady stream of chatter, pretty soon I am left with nothing to say. I leave that night, thinking, "Oh he was cute, but so out of my league" and then think no more about it.
Then last Wednesday, I am in TC again, this time with Dee and Samir, an old friend of mine, when New Boy (although I am not aware he is going to be New Boy at the time) waltzes up and said hello. I barely remember him and he barely remembers me, but we have a conversation, jog our memories and at the end of the evening he asks for my number. (Score!)
What is weird is that New Boy calls me that night, very buzzed and we have a strange conversation. I don't even remember half of it, because I keep thinking how odd it was. But at the same time I am pleased, because he is so purty!
The next morning, emboldened by the previous night's conversation I sms him saying, "Hey there... hangover?" He calls, and this time we have a pretty sober conversation. And then he calls again. And again.
I am at a booklaunch later that week and New Boy and I have tentative plans for dinner. “Tentative” because I am sure it’s one of those things, where you say, “Oh we should meet up sometime,” and never get around to making concrete plans. But he surprises me by showing up at the hotel where the booklaunch is and then we go out for dinner. Later in the car, he reaches for my hand and I feel flutters in my stomach—flutters I haven’t felt in a while, in fact, flutters I haven’t felt since people skipped hand-holding altogether and moved in straight for the kiss.
We spend most of the weekend together, but now our “fling” is teetering in the grey area between a fling and dating. And I don’t know what to do. I reiterate, over and over again, both to myself and to him, “This is just a fling”. Labels will be my undoing, I fear, because as much as I resent bottling something up neatly and labelling it, I hate going with the flow anymore. “Relax and enjoy it,” says New Boy, smiling, and I look at him wondering, always wondering, what he’s thinking—am I just a game he’s playing, are we just hanging out because we’re sleeping together, is he only being nice to me because he wants some.
I’ll never be sure, I know, but so soon after having my heart broken, I’m not so sure I want to take the plunge and be open. I prefer it this way, with my shield up and my walls cemented around me. But he makes it so hard to follow my mantra of “don’t get too attached”, he’ll look at me and say “You’re incredible” or he’ll be listening avidly to a story about my past that my friends will tell him putting his hand over my mouth to shut me up when I protest weakly, “This story is so embarassing!”
Oh, New Boy, New Boy, please don’t feel bad if I run far away from you and go to a place where I’m still numb and unable to feel. Life's not good to a girl without armour.
| My latest book is The One Who Swam With The Fishes.
"A mesmerizing account of the well-known story of Matsyagandha ... and her transformation from fisherman’s daughter to Satyavati, Santanu’s royal consort and the Mother/Progenitor of the Kuru clan." - Hindustan Times "Themes of fate, morality and power overlay a subtle and essential feminism to make this lyrical book a must-read. If this is Madhavan’s first book in the Girls from the Mahabharata series, there is much to look forward to in the months to come." - Open Magazine "A gleeful dollop of Blytonian magic ... Reddy Madhavan is also able to tackle some fairly sensitive subjects such as identity, the love of and karmic ties with parents, adoption, the first sexual encounter, loneliness, and my favourite, feminist rage." - Scroll |
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28 November 2004
If Wishes Were Horses....
There are so many superstitions that still carry on for me, even though I know they're probably not true. Why risk it, is what I think, and so I carry on touching wood, crossing my fingers, not "speaking too soon" etc.
I was introduced to mail-van wishes by N's younger sisters--Shikha and Minnie. Basically, you cross your fingers as soon as you see a mail-van and then uncross them when you see a black car and make a wish. This was back in the day when there weren't that many black cars, now of course, I even drive one, so I can cross and uncross in a second. Shikha used to make quite a ritual out of it, there were days when every single finger on her small hands were intertwined and once she confessed to me, "My toes are crossed too!" What did she do with so many wishes, I used to wonder, but the cardinal law of all wishes is that if you tell them, they won't come true.
In boarding school, there was a new set of wishes. Now, if you were busy or doing something, you could pass on your crossed fingers to someone else while you finished up that game of hockey or carried in a pile of notebooks. Then when you were done, you took back your wishes and your crossed fingers and carried on.
Again in boarding school I was introduced to "touching gold" or your own head, if you couldn't touch wood. It seemed to work as an effective warder-off of evil eyes, especially since some girls had "black tongues". What's a black tongue? Basically, there were a few girls who, if by chance they did say something unlucky, like, say, "What if the dance is cancelled tomorrow?" the unlucky thing would come true. "I have no control over it," one girl said gravely, when I asked her to say something happy would happen, "whenever I think something I say it. I can't help it if I have a black tongue."
Black tongues actually weren't only confined to the environs of my boarding school. For centuries Indian women draw big black moles on their children or tie black threads around their wrists. The logic is since their babies are so perfect, making them imperfect will ensure that nazar na lag jaaye. (The evil eye won't get at them and make their babies sick and die). It usually seems to work and I believe Jewish women do this as well, but I could be wrong.
But what I most believe in are shooting star wishes. About four months before K and I got together, I lay on the beaches of Goa at night and desperately wished on every falling star for love. And then, recently, on my trip to Manali, when K and I were still together, I saw a shooting star and wished for a brilliant career. I had the love but it had to leave in order for me to get out of my comfort zone and start doing something, which I am now.
And not to forget the night my mother and I sat up on the terrace in my apartment and watched the meteor shower in Delhi. At the time I liked a boy called K (a different one) and wished for him. Only I didn't specify his last name, and here I am now, on K the seventh. (More about him later). If only I had wished for fame or money or power, imagine if it had come to me in spades, the way all these K's are.
Be careful what you wish for, my dears, because it might just come true.
I was introduced to mail-van wishes by N's younger sisters--Shikha and Minnie. Basically, you cross your fingers as soon as you see a mail-van and then uncross them when you see a black car and make a wish. This was back in the day when there weren't that many black cars, now of course, I even drive one, so I can cross and uncross in a second. Shikha used to make quite a ritual out of it, there were days when every single finger on her small hands were intertwined and once she confessed to me, "My toes are crossed too!" What did she do with so many wishes, I used to wonder, but the cardinal law of all wishes is that if you tell them, they won't come true.
In boarding school, there was a new set of wishes. Now, if you were busy or doing something, you could pass on your crossed fingers to someone else while you finished up that game of hockey or carried in a pile of notebooks. Then when you were done, you took back your wishes and your crossed fingers and carried on.
Again in boarding school I was introduced to "touching gold" or your own head, if you couldn't touch wood. It seemed to work as an effective warder-off of evil eyes, especially since some girls had "black tongues". What's a black tongue? Basically, there were a few girls who, if by chance they did say something unlucky, like, say, "What if the dance is cancelled tomorrow?" the unlucky thing would come true. "I have no control over it," one girl said gravely, when I asked her to say something happy would happen, "whenever I think something I say it. I can't help it if I have a black tongue."
Black tongues actually weren't only confined to the environs of my boarding school. For centuries Indian women draw big black moles on their children or tie black threads around their wrists. The logic is since their babies are so perfect, making them imperfect will ensure that nazar na lag jaaye. (The evil eye won't get at them and make their babies sick and die). It usually seems to work and I believe Jewish women do this as well, but I could be wrong.
But what I most believe in are shooting star wishes. About four months before K and I got together, I lay on the beaches of Goa at night and desperately wished on every falling star for love. And then, recently, on my trip to Manali, when K and I were still together, I saw a shooting star and wished for a brilliant career. I had the love but it had to leave in order for me to get out of my comfort zone and start doing something, which I am now.
And not to forget the night my mother and I sat up on the terrace in my apartment and watched the meteor shower in Delhi. At the time I liked a boy called K (a different one) and wished for him. Only I didn't specify his last name, and here I am now, on K the seventh. (More about him later). If only I had wished for fame or money or power, imagine if it had come to me in spades, the way all these K's are.
Be careful what you wish for, my dears, because it might just come true.
25 November 2004
The Younger Man-2
The Younger Man-1
So Abhinav called me that night and the next and the next. We were growing incredibly close, despite the two-year age gap, despite the fact that we had nothing in common. We didn’t meet all that often---once he took me for his school’s farewell party and introduced me to the guy who would be my first “real” boyfriend, a chap called Harsh.
Harsh always, from the beginning, liked me a lot more than I liked him. He was one of the rich-kid types, y’know the ones where their dads own a business, their mums go for kitty parties and he lived in a big, plush farmhouse with at least three cars at his disposal.
His room was the entire basement of his house, the only décor was sports equipment and mirrors lining the walls and stretching up to the ceiling. But he and Abhinav weren’t really friends, both got annoyed with the other and consequently called me.
As for my relationship with Abhinav, it grew. He had a string of girlfriends, each one more bizarre than the next. There was this one chick for instance, who, when he asked her out, screamed in the middle of an empty stadium, “This boy loves me! He’s my boyfriend!” while Abhi looked on, bemused. He once told me he had dreams about this girl, where she killed her mother and blamed it on him.
But the one girl Abhinav loved was Chhaya. She and I struck up a friendship. It was tentative at first, built mostly on the fact that Abhinav would call both of us on a conference call and then all three of us would chat. But thanks to the miracles of ICQ (again, can someone please tell me whatever happened to that programme? Did it die out once MSN came into the picture?) we got to chatting. Actually, she and I had a lot more in common than Abhinav and I did—we both read, had impressive vocabularies, liked the same music---so he wasn’t really our only common factor.
Chhaya and Abhinav kept breaking up and making up and meanwhile my relationship with Harsh got a little rocky. Try as I might, I just couldn’t see what I had ever seen in him before. He sensed this and upped his possesiveness, getting a little clingy. I was, on the other hand, falling hard and fast for Abhinav, who continued to regale me with stories about his love life. Finally Harsh and I broke up—and this is a little hard to admit---on the eve of his birthday. He didn’t take it very well and I felt like I had sprouted horns and signed a pact with the Evil One himself.
This is the part where the story gets a little bizarre. Chhaya and Harsh had started talking and a few months later, they started dating. I wasn’t very comfortable speaking to Chhaya after that, because I knew Harsh had been calling me a slut up and down the town.
Abhinav, in retaliation, started dating this other girl, who he claimed he was crazxy about and as for me I sat in my room alternating between crying and singing Save The Best For Last.
“All of those nights, you’d come to me,
When some silly girl had set you free,
You wondered how you’d make it through,
I wondered what was wrong with you,
Coz how could you give your love to someone else
And share your dreams with me
Sometimes the very thing, you’re looking for,
Is the one thing you can’t see”
Finally, I graduated from school and Abhinav broke up with his girlfriend. “Aha,” I thought, “now is my chance.” And so haltingly, hestitantly, I told him I was attracted to him, that I wanted us to be more than friends.
Poor Abhinav was rather befuddled by this confession. I suspect he never thought of me as a girl at all, just a comforting voice on the other end of the phone, someone to flirt with occasionally, get the dope on “what women want”. Someone who would be there forever, and the only female he shared a completely comfortable, non-sexual relationship with.
He was sweet about it, but he didn’t feel the same way. And I finished with school, en route to college decided to put my past behind me and start afresh. So I outgrew him gradually, though he still did call, I couldn’t identify with school and homework and all. I was a college girl now, independent, around people much more intellegent than I was. My world was no longer limited to the friends I had in school. Plus I had gone on an extended holiday to the States and when I returned I met David, the first person I thought I truly loved.
But more about him in the next story.
So Abhinav called me that night and the next and the next. We were growing incredibly close, despite the two-year age gap, despite the fact that we had nothing in common. We didn’t meet all that often---once he took me for his school’s farewell party and introduced me to the guy who would be my first “real” boyfriend, a chap called Harsh.
Harsh always, from the beginning, liked me a lot more than I liked him. He was one of the rich-kid types, y’know the ones where their dads own a business, their mums go for kitty parties and he lived in a big, plush farmhouse with at least three cars at his disposal.
His room was the entire basement of his house, the only décor was sports equipment and mirrors lining the walls and stretching up to the ceiling. But he and Abhinav weren’t really friends, both got annoyed with the other and consequently called me.
As for my relationship with Abhinav, it grew. He had a string of girlfriends, each one more bizarre than the next. There was this one chick for instance, who, when he asked her out, screamed in the middle of an empty stadium, “This boy loves me! He’s my boyfriend!” while Abhi looked on, bemused. He once told me he had dreams about this girl, where she killed her mother and blamed it on him.
But the one girl Abhinav loved was Chhaya. She and I struck up a friendship. It was tentative at first, built mostly on the fact that Abhinav would call both of us on a conference call and then all three of us would chat. But thanks to the miracles of ICQ (again, can someone please tell me whatever happened to that programme? Did it die out once MSN came into the picture?) we got to chatting. Actually, she and I had a lot more in common than Abhinav and I did—we both read, had impressive vocabularies, liked the same music---so he wasn’t really our only common factor.
Chhaya and Abhinav kept breaking up and making up and meanwhile my relationship with Harsh got a little rocky. Try as I might, I just couldn’t see what I had ever seen in him before. He sensed this and upped his possesiveness, getting a little clingy. I was, on the other hand, falling hard and fast for Abhinav, who continued to regale me with stories about his love life. Finally Harsh and I broke up—and this is a little hard to admit---on the eve of his birthday. He didn’t take it very well and I felt like I had sprouted horns and signed a pact with the Evil One himself.
This is the part where the story gets a little bizarre. Chhaya and Harsh had started talking and a few months later, they started dating. I wasn’t very comfortable speaking to Chhaya after that, because I knew Harsh had been calling me a slut up and down the town.
Abhinav, in retaliation, started dating this other girl, who he claimed he was crazxy about and as for me I sat in my room alternating between crying and singing Save The Best For Last.
“All of those nights, you’d come to me,
When some silly girl had set you free,
You wondered how you’d make it through,
I wondered what was wrong with you,
Coz how could you give your love to someone else
And share your dreams with me
Sometimes the very thing, you’re looking for,
Is the one thing you can’t see”
Finally, I graduated from school and Abhinav broke up with his girlfriend. “Aha,” I thought, “now is my chance.” And so haltingly, hestitantly, I told him I was attracted to him, that I wanted us to be more than friends.
Poor Abhinav was rather befuddled by this confession. I suspect he never thought of me as a girl at all, just a comforting voice on the other end of the phone, someone to flirt with occasionally, get the dope on “what women want”. Someone who would be there forever, and the only female he shared a completely comfortable, non-sexual relationship with.
He was sweet about it, but he didn’t feel the same way. And I finished with school, en route to college decided to put my past behind me and start afresh. So I outgrew him gradually, though he still did call, I couldn’t identify with school and homework and all. I was a college girl now, independent, around people much more intellegent than I was. My world was no longer limited to the friends I had in school. Plus I had gone on an extended holiday to the States and when I returned I met David, the first person I thought I truly loved.
But more about him in the next story.
24 November 2004
About two weeks ago...
...my friends and I were sitting around drinking Smirnoff's lovely raspberry vodka with coke and playing the True Confessions game. The question: what's the worst thing you've ever done?
(First, back story: a while ago in Delhi, there was the huge urban legend going around. Basically there were supposedly a group of sadists who operated in crowded areas with needles infected with the AIDS virus. And then they jabbed you with it, but of course, since you were in a crowded area you couldn't feel it. But when you got home you found a small sticker on your body saying: Welcome To The World Of AIDS. The story had many variations. In one, there was a man who crawled around under movie theatre seats jabbing legs. In another, two girls took a ride with a strange man and the needles were placed strategically under the seat or something. When they got out, the man chucked two t-shirts at them and sped away. And, yes, the t-shirts said "Welcome to the world of AIDS". We all half-believed this story and you have to realise, it was like a mania around this time, because everyone was talking about it.)
So it was Nitin's turn. He took a pull at the joint he was holding and said, "Well you remember that whole "Welcome to the world of AIDS" thing?" We nodded. "So, Gautam and I decided to print up a whole bunch of stickers on his computer," he shot a sly look at Gautam who blushed.
"Go on," I said, passing Gautam the vodka.
"Anyway, so a whole bunch of us were going to this amusement park and we decided to put the stickers on this guy. And he freaked," Nitin started laughing and I gave him a stern look.
"Then what happened?" asked Iggy.
"So he just went and sat all day on a video game and he kept playing and playing and not talking to any of us. That's what he spent all his money on that day," Nitin's voice grew more sombre, "And he wouldn't talk to any of us."
We all sat silently for a bit.
"Finally, we told him it was a joke and all. But it was wierd, y'know?"
I wonder what he was thinking playing that game.
(First, back story: a while ago in Delhi, there was the huge urban legend going around. Basically there were supposedly a group of sadists who operated in crowded areas with needles infected with the AIDS virus. And then they jabbed you with it, but of course, since you were in a crowded area you couldn't feel it. But when you got home you found a small sticker on your body saying: Welcome To The World Of AIDS. The story had many variations. In one, there was a man who crawled around under movie theatre seats jabbing legs. In another, two girls took a ride with a strange man and the needles were placed strategically under the seat or something. When they got out, the man chucked two t-shirts at them and sped away. And, yes, the t-shirts said "Welcome to the world of AIDS". We all half-believed this story and you have to realise, it was like a mania around this time, because everyone was talking about it.)
So it was Nitin's turn. He took a pull at the joint he was holding and said, "Well you remember that whole "Welcome to the world of AIDS" thing?" We nodded. "So, Gautam and I decided to print up a whole bunch of stickers on his computer," he shot a sly look at Gautam who blushed.
"Go on," I said, passing Gautam the vodka.
"Anyway, so a whole bunch of us were going to this amusement park and we decided to put the stickers on this guy. And he freaked," Nitin started laughing and I gave him a stern look.
"Then what happened?" asked Iggy.
"So he just went and sat all day on a video game and he kept playing and playing and not talking to any of us. That's what he spent all his money on that day," Nitin's voice grew more sombre, "And he wouldn't talk to any of us."
We all sat silently for a bit.
"Finally, we told him it was a joke and all. But it was wierd, y'know?"
I wonder what he was thinking playing that game.
22 November 2004
The Younger Man
I was very close---from the time I was 17 to about 19---to a boy two years younger than me, called Abhinav. I met him online, but it turned out after we started chatting a bit on ICQ (I miss ICQ! Does anyone even use it anymore?) that we had some common friends. Not so surprising, because the Delhi social circles are so small and so incestous that forget six degrees of separation, you probably know someone who dated someone else who everyone knows. It's nice because everyone knows everyone and it sucks because everyone knows everyone.
Anyway, so Abhi and I graduated from chatting online to chatting on the phone, till we struck up a really good phone friendship. It got so that the minute I got home from school the phone would ring and it would be him. At night, right before I went to bed, he'd call. Sometimes even after I went to bed, but bleary-eyed I'd still talk to him. There was so much to say, I'd tease him for being two years younger and I'd ask him what he looked like (coz we still hadn't met) and he'd say, "Yeah, I'm kinda overweight and I like wearing huge gold chains." He said this so often that I half-believed it was true and saw him as he described himself--a foppish, wealthy young man.
Finally, because it had to happen sooner or later, we arranged to meet up, an event I was dreading. You see, Abhinav was my fantasy boy, what if he turned out to be really ugly or fat and I knew things would never be the same again. Plus, what kind of people actually met with other people they met online? Discounting me, of course. I was really cool.
Next to my school was this place we caleld the Mink, for reasons no-one knew. It had been passed down from generation to generation and it was where all the cool students hung out, ordering Coke and Cheetos, or the more daring amongst them, lighting up. After-school fights happened there and we went, as a matter of course, to find out gossip because you could tell who was dating whom just by seeing who hung out at the Mink.
I had asked Abhinav to meet me there and spent a feverish hour in the Girl's Room (bunking my class, which happened to be Sociology) fixing my hair, smearing glittery lipgloss over my mouth and adding some forbidden eye pencil. I hiked up my skirt (rolling it up and untucking my blouse slightly so it hid the fold) and wished it was the winter so I could've been in my much chic-er winter uniform--grey skirt, white blouse, green pullover and green tie. But it was summer and white skirts and blouses were the code, even though when it rained it was like a wet t-shirt contest. Oh well. I contented myself by rolling down my socks and slathering moisturiser all over my legs. At least I was wearing sneakers and not those horrible "prescribed" school shoes.
And he drove up, or rather was chaffeur driven, in this big fancy car and he was waiting for me and he was hot. No, I mean, really, truly, feel-like-someones-punched-you-in-the-stomach-hot. And at that moment, though I only realise it now, I knew that this relationship was going to be trouble.
Instantly all my prepared-ness leaked out of me. I was tongue tied and awkward and he was evidently enjoying it, because his mouth (and oh my god, what a mouth it was) kept curling up at the corners as he watched me fidget and look around desperately. Nope, it wasn't the best first meeting in the history of first meetings, but some chord must have been struck because when he left he said, "I'll call you" and did. Honestly, no fooling.
I returned to my friends after he left, heart still thumping, palms still sweaty and was gratified to note their jaws scraping the floor.
"Wow, he was really cute," said Devyani at last.
"Ya," I said laconically.
What happens next? Stay tuned... (I'm sorry, but I have TONS of work. Plus I liked the last sentence. Didn't you?)
Anyway, so Abhi and I graduated from chatting online to chatting on the phone, till we struck up a really good phone friendship. It got so that the minute I got home from school the phone would ring and it would be him. At night, right before I went to bed, he'd call. Sometimes even after I went to bed, but bleary-eyed I'd still talk to him. There was so much to say, I'd tease him for being two years younger and I'd ask him what he looked like (coz we still hadn't met) and he'd say, "Yeah, I'm kinda overweight and I like wearing huge gold chains." He said this so often that I half-believed it was true and saw him as he described himself--a foppish, wealthy young man.
Finally, because it had to happen sooner or later, we arranged to meet up, an event I was dreading. You see, Abhinav was my fantasy boy, what if he turned out to be really ugly or fat and I knew things would never be the same again. Plus, what kind of people actually met with other people they met online? Discounting me, of course. I was really cool.
Next to my school was this place we caleld the Mink, for reasons no-one knew. It had been passed down from generation to generation and it was where all the cool students hung out, ordering Coke and Cheetos, or the more daring amongst them, lighting up. After-school fights happened there and we went, as a matter of course, to find out gossip because you could tell who was dating whom just by seeing who hung out at the Mink.
I had asked Abhinav to meet me there and spent a feverish hour in the Girl's Room (bunking my class, which happened to be Sociology) fixing my hair, smearing glittery lipgloss over my mouth and adding some forbidden eye pencil. I hiked up my skirt (rolling it up and untucking my blouse slightly so it hid the fold) and wished it was the winter so I could've been in my much chic-er winter uniform--grey skirt, white blouse, green pullover and green tie. But it was summer and white skirts and blouses were the code, even though when it rained it was like a wet t-shirt contest. Oh well. I contented myself by rolling down my socks and slathering moisturiser all over my legs. At least I was wearing sneakers and not those horrible "prescribed" school shoes.
And he drove up, or rather was chaffeur driven, in this big fancy car and he was waiting for me and he was hot. No, I mean, really, truly, feel-like-someones-punched-you-in-the-stomach-hot. And at that moment, though I only realise it now, I knew that this relationship was going to be trouble.
Instantly all my prepared-ness leaked out of me. I was tongue tied and awkward and he was evidently enjoying it, because his mouth (and oh my god, what a mouth it was) kept curling up at the corners as he watched me fidget and look around desperately. Nope, it wasn't the best first meeting in the history of first meetings, but some chord must have been struck because when he left he said, "I'll call you" and did. Honestly, no fooling.
I returned to my friends after he left, heart still thumping, palms still sweaty and was gratified to note their jaws scraping the floor.
"Wow, he was really cute," said Devyani at last.
"Ya," I said laconically.
What happens next? Stay tuned... (I'm sorry, but I have TONS of work. Plus I liked the last sentence. Didn't you?)
17 November 2004
Hey sister, go sister, soul sister
Wow, what a whirl of socialising I've been doing! I haven't been home for dinner in... oh, a week...I crawl into bed at around 11.30 or 12 every night, wake up at 7.30 and rush-rush through brekker and coffee, brave the jams, get into work, do a couple of assignments, meet my buddies and rinse, repeat.
Why? Well, because, because Pieces has been in town and because I was feeling a little down and needed to be out, because there's nothing that makes you feel better about yourself than the fact that your friends are laughing at a joke you cracked, are listening to your bad day stories with sympathy on their faces, are making bitchy comments about your ex-boyfriend and (that equivalent to locker room talk) are swapping sex stories which make you laugh till you have tears in your eyes.
Remember I said exciting things were happening? Well, if all goes well, I might just be switching jobs, to a bigger national newspaper. The pay will be good, the work will be about the same as what I'm doing here and I felt it was time for a change. Keep your fingers crossed!
Still no men on the horizon. It seems as if all of Delhi's single male population has gone into hibernation or is the creepy fat guy sitting at the table next to us last night.
"Excuse me, could I have a cigarette?"
Kirti, P's pal, passes him one of our precious smokes. Precious coz none of us have the energy to walk out into the market and get some more.
"Thanks"
Two seconds later: "And a light?"
Kirti passes him a light, but it seems as if the light is the right of a man bumming ciggies off women young enough to be his daughters and probably earning a lot less so he doesn't say thank you.
He then wipes the lighter off with a napkin and uses it, all of which I relate to my buddies in a scandalous whisper. When he passes it back to Kirti, just for revenge, she swipes at it with her sweatshirt sleeve and we all fall apart laughing.
Okay, so you had to be there.
Anyway, so these are the men in Delhi. No intellectual men who carry around copies of The Bell Jar and who murmur 'Tiger, tiger burning bright' to you when you're making out. No men who are not "handsome" in the technical sense but have moments of beauty that bring tears to your eyes. No men who say, "You know, that song by John Mayer about how your body is a wonderland always reminds me of you."
And worst of all, no men to give me a back massage. :(
Why? Well, because, because Pieces has been in town and because I was feeling a little down and needed to be out, because there's nothing that makes you feel better about yourself than the fact that your friends are laughing at a joke you cracked, are listening to your bad day stories with sympathy on their faces, are making bitchy comments about your ex-boyfriend and (that equivalent to locker room talk) are swapping sex stories which make you laugh till you have tears in your eyes.
Remember I said exciting things were happening? Well, if all goes well, I might just be switching jobs, to a bigger national newspaper. The pay will be good, the work will be about the same as what I'm doing here and I felt it was time for a change. Keep your fingers crossed!
Still no men on the horizon. It seems as if all of Delhi's single male population has gone into hibernation or is the creepy fat guy sitting at the table next to us last night.
"Excuse me, could I have a cigarette?"
Kirti, P's pal, passes him one of our precious smokes. Precious coz none of us have the energy to walk out into the market and get some more.
"Thanks"
Two seconds later: "And a light?"
Kirti passes him a light, but it seems as if the light is the right of a man bumming ciggies off women young enough to be his daughters and probably earning a lot less so he doesn't say thank you.
He then wipes the lighter off with a napkin and uses it, all of which I relate to my buddies in a scandalous whisper. When he passes it back to Kirti, just for revenge, she swipes at it with her sweatshirt sleeve and we all fall apart laughing.
Okay, so you had to be there.
Anyway, so these are the men in Delhi. No intellectual men who carry around copies of The Bell Jar and who murmur 'Tiger, tiger burning bright' to you when you're making out. No men who are not "handsome" in the technical sense but have moments of beauty that bring tears to your eyes. No men who say, "You know, that song by John Mayer about how your body is a wonderland always reminds me of you."
And worst of all, no men to give me a back massage. :(
12 November 2004
The Festival Of Lights... and me
Happy Diwali, peeps!
It's Friday, lazy Friday here in Delhi, through the windows I hear the occasional sound of firecrackers going off. "Bombs" that people love so much, because the only way to show you're having a good time is by making a lot of noise. Later in the evening, streams of coloured sparks will be going off everywhere, unlike me, not everyone believes in the environmentally-unfriendliness of firecrackers, not to mention that they have little children making them and inhaling their toxic fumes just so some people can make a lot of noise.
Ooh, enough of me being a wet-blanket, eh? Happier things, the fact that this marks the Hindu New Year, that every person in North India (and some parts of the South) are celebrating, buying new clothes, praying to the Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi that some monetary things may come their way. (Okay, Lakshmi, I've been good, send me some cash flow too, please?)
I am, if you haven't already guessed, not too big on this whole religion thing. I'm an agnostic, that word for people who sit on the fence and refuse to join any camp. Neither with the god-fearing (all things that happen are the way of God) or with the god-disbelievers (Who is this God person anyway?) A chicken-shit way to be, I admit. But I've always been like that. When I play flash, I'm the one who never bets on just a high card. I fold on anything less three cards of the same suit. I don't gamble, I don't take risks, and I guess this makes me a very boring person.But I'm safe, no? I'm in control this way.
This colleague of mine was asking me the other day, "Why do you create set visions and set goals for yourself? You should be flexible, know that anything can happen"But this way, I told her, even if events don't pan out the way I want them to, at least for that brief moment, I'm in charge, I'm the remote-wielder. The ball's in my court and I savour that, roll it around on my palate, before I spit it out and hand it to someone else.
Diwali at my house has never been the big deal thing you see happening in Hindi cinema. In boarding school, if you were in class 10 or class 12, you got to wear a sari on Diwali. That was the ultimate, something that set us apart, as the girls from all the other classes flitted around in salwar-kameezes, we got to glide in a sari. Occasionally tripping over the folds, of course, but still glide and have the guys in your batch regard you as women for the first time, not playmates and classmates whom you teased and flirted, but people to be set apart and just looked at. The braver boys hung out with us, but Diwali, when I was in class 10, was about the girls, and comparing saris and jewellery and getting your housemistress or the more domesticate dof your classmates to help you pin up the folds and wrap the nine yard length around you.
But today, there are a couple of family-less people coming over to my nuclear family hosuehold, the only one I know of with no "old people" to visit or make sweets or do a puja. We're going to watch a movie, eat biryani, possibly I will escape to my room at 9, watch the movie special on Star Movies and go to sleep wishing it was a normal Friday night so I could numb some brain cells and go to a club or something.
Oh, remember I posted about Little P coming back in December? A day after I posted that she came into town to surprise us all. But I might as well have not seen her now, because the problem with living out of town is that (if you're popular like P) you have millions of people to meet and say hello to and you get barely any bonding done. She didn't even know the whole K story, what transpired in the next three months, who I am right now... but we're going to talk, I told her. Girl's night out probably happens tomorrow if all goes well.
I have some more exciting news, but until I'm sure about it, I'm not going to say anything and jinx it all!
The blessings of Lakshmi go with you.
It's Friday, lazy Friday here in Delhi, through the windows I hear the occasional sound of firecrackers going off. "Bombs" that people love so much, because the only way to show you're having a good time is by making a lot of noise. Later in the evening, streams of coloured sparks will be going off everywhere, unlike me, not everyone believes in the environmentally-unfriendliness of firecrackers, not to mention that they have little children making them and inhaling their toxic fumes just so some people can make a lot of noise.
Ooh, enough of me being a wet-blanket, eh? Happier things, the fact that this marks the Hindu New Year, that every person in North India (and some parts of the South) are celebrating, buying new clothes, praying to the Goddess of Wealth, Lakshmi that some monetary things may come their way. (Okay, Lakshmi, I've been good, send me some cash flow too, please?)
I am, if you haven't already guessed, not too big on this whole religion thing. I'm an agnostic, that word for people who sit on the fence and refuse to join any camp. Neither with the god-fearing (all things that happen are the way of God) or with the god-disbelievers (Who is this God person anyway?) A chicken-shit way to be, I admit. But I've always been like that. When I play flash, I'm the one who never bets on just a high card. I fold on anything less three cards of the same suit. I don't gamble, I don't take risks, and I guess this makes me a very boring person.But I'm safe, no? I'm in control this way.
This colleague of mine was asking me the other day, "Why do you create set visions and set goals for yourself? You should be flexible, know that anything can happen"But this way, I told her, even if events don't pan out the way I want them to, at least for that brief moment, I'm in charge, I'm the remote-wielder. The ball's in my court and I savour that, roll it around on my palate, before I spit it out and hand it to someone else.
Diwali at my house has never been the big deal thing you see happening in Hindi cinema. In boarding school, if you were in class 10 or class 12, you got to wear a sari on Diwali. That was the ultimate, something that set us apart, as the girls from all the other classes flitted around in salwar-kameezes, we got to glide in a sari. Occasionally tripping over the folds, of course, but still glide and have the guys in your batch regard you as women for the first time, not playmates and classmates whom you teased and flirted, but people to be set apart and just looked at. The braver boys hung out with us, but Diwali, when I was in class 10, was about the girls, and comparing saris and jewellery and getting your housemistress or the more domesticate dof your classmates to help you pin up the folds and wrap the nine yard length around you.
But today, there are a couple of family-less people coming over to my nuclear family hosuehold, the only one I know of with no "old people" to visit or make sweets or do a puja. We're going to watch a movie, eat biryani, possibly I will escape to my room at 9, watch the movie special on Star Movies and go to sleep wishing it was a normal Friday night so I could numb some brain cells and go to a club or something.
Oh, remember I posted about Little P coming back in December? A day after I posted that she came into town to surprise us all. But I might as well have not seen her now, because the problem with living out of town is that (if you're popular like P) you have millions of people to meet and say hello to and you get barely any bonding done. She didn't even know the whole K story, what transpired in the next three months, who I am right now... but we're going to talk, I told her. Girl's night out probably happens tomorrow if all goes well.
I have some more exciting news, but until I'm sure about it, I'm not going to say anything and jinx it all!
The blessings of Lakshmi go with you.
8 November 2004
Assorted Memories From The Grab Bag
Well, Manav finally mailed a couple of days ago. And what a pleasant surprise---here I was expecting, based on his text messages, that his emails would be the same, y'know full of "ppl" and "howz it goings", but not only did he avoid that, he also used capital letters at the beginning of each sentence. Ooh and apostrophes!
He didn't break the mail into paragraphs though, which was sad, but he more than atoned for that by using a bracket properly. Older readers of mine will know how fond I am of the parentheses (A Parentheses Post- August 18) and I do love a guy who knows where to put his brackets! (Mmm... there are so many things you can read into that!)
But besides the incredibly romantic statement: "Maybe we'll spend next Halloween together" (insert sarcasm here), he didn't say anything unusual. Oh, but he might return in a couple of months but to paraphrase my friend Meg, "A couple of months is a long time".
So, let's see, a couple of months would be---January? Aargh. Still no knight in shining armour in sight, though the only thing I need rescuing from is myself.
My good friend Little P (or Peices, or Sweet P or Pen) returns to Delhi next month, just in time for Iggy and my birthday (on December 13---ring your calendar now!) While I am looking forward to seeing her, every time I do it's a reminder of how much things have changed. We are so different now--Iggy and Peices and I---so different from the snapshot I have of us outside college.
That's always been my favourite picture of all of us, minus Puja. I think I've spoken of it before, the one where our eyes are shining, the sunlight dances off hair ranging from shades of brown to jet black. That was when our biggest problems were attendance and getting away with doing none of our required social service hours. Once Iggy snuck vodka into college in a hip flask and giddily we bought coke from the cafe and drank it behind the basketball court. It couldn't have been very much vodka, but I'll always remember her face, gleefull like some goblin on acid and me sputtering laughs all over my jacket.
I had become very heavily into the college dramatic society--after figuring out acting wasn't for me, I started writing scripts for them, which they used. So, one day when Little P idly remarked that she's like to try her hand at acting, I told her to go for it, even writing a "character part" in my latest play for her. She did audition, and was so good that before long she went from being known as my friend to me being known as hers. She even became the president of the college dramatic society, while I thumped myself and her vigorously on the back, saying proudly, "If it weren't for me, you'd never be an actress."
Now P is in Mumbai, home of the stars, being an actress. She wants very much to be a "good actress" but with an industry that's based so much on looks I fear it will be a while before her talents are recognised. She's very pretty in a petite kind of way, definitely not the "in your face" kinds that Bollywood directors prefer. *cough..Mallika Sherawat..cough*
Last time P was here she did something totally unexpected. She was sitting in my flat (the one I shared with Dee) and drinking and she looked at me and said, "You know Myn, I'll never forget how strong you were when Puji died. You didn't cry but you let me cry and you weren't falling apart like everyone else. I'll always remember that." Peices and Puja were best friends for 10 years, a whole decade of growing up with each other and sometimes hating and mostly loving. The kind of bonding that makes you so much more than friends---best friends doesn't even begin to cover it. But she rarely talks about Puja, reserving that for some locked-away part of her inner being. That night she talked, telling me how angry she was at Puja and how no day passed when she didn't feel the incredible hurt of being without someone she so needed.
And just as soon as she started, she stopped. The moment was over. As is this one.
He didn't break the mail into paragraphs though, which was sad, but he more than atoned for that by using a bracket properly. Older readers of mine will know how fond I am of the parentheses (A Parentheses Post- August 18) and I do love a guy who knows where to put his brackets! (Mmm... there are so many things you can read into that!)
But besides the incredibly romantic statement: "Maybe we'll spend next Halloween together" (insert sarcasm here), he didn't say anything unusual. Oh, but he might return in a couple of months but to paraphrase my friend Meg, "A couple of months is a long time".
So, let's see, a couple of months would be---January? Aargh. Still no knight in shining armour in sight, though the only thing I need rescuing from is myself.
My good friend Little P (or Peices, or Sweet P or Pen) returns to Delhi next month, just in time for Iggy and my birthday (on December 13---ring your calendar now!) While I am looking forward to seeing her, every time I do it's a reminder of how much things have changed. We are so different now--Iggy and Peices and I---so different from the snapshot I have of us outside college.
That's always been my favourite picture of all of us, minus Puja. I think I've spoken of it before, the one where our eyes are shining, the sunlight dances off hair ranging from shades of brown to jet black. That was when our biggest problems were attendance and getting away with doing none of our required social service hours. Once Iggy snuck vodka into college in a hip flask and giddily we bought coke from the cafe and drank it behind the basketball court. It couldn't have been very much vodka, but I'll always remember her face, gleefull like some goblin on acid and me sputtering laughs all over my jacket.
I had become very heavily into the college dramatic society--after figuring out acting wasn't for me, I started writing scripts for them, which they used. So, one day when Little P idly remarked that she's like to try her hand at acting, I told her to go for it, even writing a "character part" in my latest play for her. She did audition, and was so good that before long she went from being known as my friend to me being known as hers. She even became the president of the college dramatic society, while I thumped myself and her vigorously on the back, saying proudly, "If it weren't for me, you'd never be an actress."
Now P is in Mumbai, home of the stars, being an actress. She wants very much to be a "good actress" but with an industry that's based so much on looks I fear it will be a while before her talents are recognised. She's very pretty in a petite kind of way, definitely not the "in your face" kinds that Bollywood directors prefer. *cough..Mallika Sherawat..cough*
Last time P was here she did something totally unexpected. She was sitting in my flat (the one I shared with Dee) and drinking and she looked at me and said, "You know Myn, I'll never forget how strong you were when Puji died. You didn't cry but you let me cry and you weren't falling apart like everyone else. I'll always remember that." Peices and Puja were best friends for 10 years, a whole decade of growing up with each other and sometimes hating and mostly loving. The kind of bonding that makes you so much more than friends---best friends doesn't even begin to cover it. But she rarely talks about Puja, reserving that for some locked-away part of her inner being. That night she talked, telling me how angry she was at Puja and how no day passed when she didn't feel the incredible hurt of being without someone she so needed.
And just as soon as she started, she stopped. The moment was over. As is this one.
4 November 2004
The Single Girl's Alphabet
Aaah is for the Aah-may-zing you say about yummy young men
Beee is for be right back when you sashay away to the ladies room
Cee is for cee you around sometime when you have no intention of calling them
Dee is for former-roommate/soul sister/person to whom you confess things you don't even MENTION in your blog
Eeeee is for the sound you make when you discover you're promoted
Efff is for fuckwittage, the gentle art all men know so well
Gee is for gal pals, the only sane things in an insane world
Aitch is for Hold me, which shows through in your eyes
I is for me, and for this blog
Jay is for Jason, the utterly-butterly delicious dance instructor with an ass and abs to die for, but who unfortunately only sees you when you're hot and sweaty and make-up less and not in a sexy way either
K is for K, the destructor of all possible future relationships because his ghost is always around
Elll is for lurveeeeeeee, the word you're always going to be too scared to say
eM is for Moneeeeeeeee, which you want more, need more or should carry around on dates
En is for envy, whenever you spot someone who looks happy and peaceful (or has straigh hair, take your pick)
Oh is for Ohs, which I'm really not going into detail about!
Pee is for pee which usually has to happen right in the middle of drinking and flirting making you have to start all over again from the very beginning.
Q is for questions like why hasn't he emailed/called/texted? or will he think I'm easy if I kiss him before he kisses me?
Arrr is for aargh, which is what my neutral mood is set at these days
Ess is for sex, the most complicated word in the English language
Tee is for t-shirts--the tighter, the shorter, the better
U is for YOU but you should never use this abbreviation in sms's or emails. I mean for Christ's sakes, is it so hard to type in y.o.u.? Say it with me: Y.O.U.
V is a wierd way of saying we as in "We would be happy if you came with us" and "We're planning to get married" so it technically shouldn't be in the Single Girl's Alphabet
X is for exes, the worst species on the planet. Best avoided if sighted
Y is for why. Eg: Why are men such bastards? Why is the sky blue? Y is also for yummy
Zed is for nothing really, even if you pronounce it zee
Now I know my abc, won't you sing along with me?
I had fun writing this :)
Beee is for be right back when you sashay away to the ladies room
Cee is for cee you around sometime when you have no intention of calling them
Dee is for former-roommate/soul sister/person to whom you confess things you don't even MENTION in your blog
Eeeee is for the sound you make when you discover you're promoted
Efff is for fuckwittage, the gentle art all men know so well
Gee is for gal pals, the only sane things in an insane world
Aitch is for Hold me, which shows through in your eyes
I is for me, and for this blog
Jay is for Jason, the utterly-butterly delicious dance instructor with an ass and abs to die for, but who unfortunately only sees you when you're hot and sweaty and make-up less and not in a sexy way either
K is for K, the destructor of all possible future relationships because his ghost is always around
Elll is for lurveeeeeeee, the word you're always going to be too scared to say
eM is for Moneeeeeeeee, which you want more, need more or should carry around on dates
En is for envy, whenever you spot someone who looks happy and peaceful (or has straigh hair, take your pick)
Oh is for Ohs, which I'm really not going into detail about!
Pee is for pee which usually has to happen right in the middle of drinking and flirting making you have to start all over again from the very beginning.
Q is for questions like why hasn't he emailed/called/texted? or will he think I'm easy if I kiss him before he kisses me?
Arrr is for aargh, which is what my neutral mood is set at these days
Ess is for sex, the most complicated word in the English language
Tee is for t-shirts--the tighter, the shorter, the better
U is for YOU but you should never use this abbreviation in sms's or emails. I mean for Christ's sakes, is it so hard to type in y.o.u.? Say it with me: Y.O.U.
V is a wierd way of saying we as in "We would be happy if you came with us" and "We're planning to get married" so it technically shouldn't be in the Single Girl's Alphabet
X is for exes, the worst species on the planet. Best avoided if sighted
Y is for why. Eg: Why are men such bastards? Why is the sky blue? Y is also for yummy
Zed is for nothing really, even if you pronounce it zee
Now I know my abc, won't you sing along with me?
I had fun writing this :)
2 November 2004
Tick Tock Tick Tock
Pwah.
So, I wake up in the morning full to the brim with "healthy" thoughts, after yesterday's philosophical post. It's a bright, sunshiny day, and I'm still thinking I'm good and okay and a reincarnation of Gloria Steinem.
Then, toodle-oo, I toddle over to my computer and switch it on, because I really do want my new Dashboard Confessional stuff to finish downloading and I'm planning to burn a cd.
Of course, since I have a cable internet connection, it's not a crime that my MSN window pops up. And because it's there and all, I check it.
And promptly all my healthiness leaks like a water balloon with a hole in it, because Manav (despite leaving for Atlanta on Saturday) has still not added me.
But then, because maybe he's just not had a chance to use MSN. Maybe, like me, he doesn't have access to Messenger at work.
So then I check my gmail account.
Okay, so maybe he's just tired. Jet lag and all. Plus, what must the time be in the US? -11 hours if I'm not mistaken, so it's hmmm... 10 pm.
So I get into work, meanwhile playing out little fantasies in my head. What if he's lost my email address? How is he going to get it again? When will it be okay for me to mail him? Why am I such a loser?
Then I check my mail every 13 minutes: first gmail, which stays blank except for the Daily Romantic Horoscope and Yahoo for Blogger comments. (Here is your single's love horoscopefor Wednesday, November 3: Take a positive outlook and run with it, particularly in the realm of romance. Your ability to see the best in a given situation (without being saccharine about it) can serve up something sweet.)
Then I read other people's blogs; try to up my stats by submitting to TWR (space full, wait for a vacancy); find this guy's blog and fall in love with it and spend the rest of the day reading his archives.
All the while, pressing Alt+Tab and then Refresh on my mail windows.
Then obsess for a while about telling Shiva yesterday that I was "taking a sabbatical from men" and wonder whether I will regret that. And spend a long time backspacing this line, because I know he will read it and then decide to go for it nonetheless.
Then wonder whether I have a crush on Manav, and realise I don't and I'm obsessing needlessly.
Stop obessesing.
Dee and I have a fun evening planned-- just the gals. Hanging and wathing a movie at my house. We've had a rough patch lately because of my free time and her lack of it and so I'm hoping this will help to make it all okay.
I solemnly swear I will not check my mail again today... more than once.
So, I wake up in the morning full to the brim with "healthy" thoughts, after yesterday's philosophical post. It's a bright, sunshiny day, and I'm still thinking I'm good and okay and a reincarnation of Gloria Steinem.
Then, toodle-oo, I toddle over to my computer and switch it on, because I really do want my new Dashboard Confessional stuff to finish downloading and I'm planning to burn a cd.
Of course, since I have a cable internet connection, it's not a crime that my MSN window pops up. And because it's there and all, I check it.
And promptly all my healthiness leaks like a water balloon with a hole in it, because Manav (despite leaving for Atlanta on Saturday) has still not added me.
But then, because maybe he's just not had a chance to use MSN. Maybe, like me, he doesn't have access to Messenger at work.
So then I check my gmail account.
Okay, so maybe he's just tired. Jet lag and all. Plus, what must the time be in the US? -11 hours if I'm not mistaken, so it's hmmm... 10 pm.
So I get into work, meanwhile playing out little fantasies in my head. What if he's lost my email address? How is he going to get it again? When will it be okay for me to mail him? Why am I such a loser?
Then I check my mail every 13 minutes: first gmail, which stays blank except for the Daily Romantic Horoscope and Yahoo for Blogger comments. (Here is your single's love horoscopefor Wednesday, November 3: Take a positive outlook and run with it, particularly in the realm of romance. Your ability to see the best in a given situation (without being saccharine about it) can serve up something sweet.)
Then I read other people's blogs; try to up my stats by submitting to TWR (space full, wait for a vacancy); find this guy's blog and fall in love with it and spend the rest of the day reading his archives.
All the while, pressing Alt+Tab and then Refresh on my mail windows.
Then obsess for a while about telling Shiva yesterday that I was "taking a sabbatical from men" and wonder whether I will regret that. And spend a long time backspacing this line, because I know he will read it and then decide to go for it nonetheless.
Then wonder whether I have a crush on Manav, and realise I don't and I'm obsessing needlessly.
Stop obessesing.
Dee and I have a fun evening planned-- just the gals. Hanging and wathing a movie at my house. We've had a rough patch lately because of my free time and her lack of it and so I'm hoping this will help to make it all okay.
I solemnly swear I will not check my mail again today... more than once.
1 November 2004
Lyrically Speaking
I started to update my Hyderabad story today and then realised the story was over. Really, there was nothing left to say, so why screw it up? Sorry, if you were expecting a sequel though.. I promise a REALLY long serial story next time, I already have one brewing.
Oh and while I'm apologising, I know I'm being lazy by not replying to your comments, but know that I appreciate them all and I have seen the error of my ways. :) Please don't stop commenting!
Just some general witterings today about the state of my life. I have the severest writer's block that always happens when I'm busy. See, when I'm filing stories for work, I can do it automatically and this shuts off creativity. So when I blog unimaginatively like this time, you know I'm working quite hard!
> I've been listening over and over again to some songs, which totally define who I am at this present moment. Here they are, for your enlightenment:
She says it's all gonna end and it might as well be my fault
And she only sleeps when it's raining
And she screams and her voice is straining
She says baby
It's 3 am I must be lonely
When she says baby
Well I can't help but be scared of it all sometimes
Says the rain's gonna wash away I believe it
She's got a little bit of something,
God it's better than nothing
And in her color portrait world she believes that she's got it all
She swears the moon don't hang quite as high as it used to
---- From 3 AM by Matchbox 20
So kiss me hard
'Cause this will be the last time that I let you
You will be back someday
And this awkward kiss that tells of other people's lips
Will be of service to giving you away
----- From The Best Deceptions by Dashboard Confessional
She's addicted to nicotine patches
She's addicted to nicotine patches
She's afraid of the light in the dark
6:58 are you sure where my spark is (here here here)
she's convinced she could hold back a glacier
but she could'nt keep baby alive
doubting if there's a woman in there somewhere (here here here)
you say you don't want it again and again
but you don't... don't really mean it
---- From Spark by Tori Amos
There's only so much I can take
And I just got to let it go
And who knows I might feel better
If I don't try and I don't hope
No more waiting,
No more aching
No more fighting,
No more trying
Maybe there's nothing more to say
And in a funny way I'm calm
Because the power is not mine
I'm just gonna let it fly
---- From What Can I Do by The Corrs
(and finally... the surprise entry!)
But I've got to think twice
Before I give my heart away
And I know all the games you play
Because I play them too
Oh but I
Need some time off from that emotion
Time to pick my heart up off the floor
And when that love comes down
Without devotion
Well it takes a strong man baby
But I'm showing you the door
----From Faith by George Michael
Any thoughts on what they mean? Your inputs are badly needed.
(Later)
My dance show is coming up at the end of the month and I still suck. This is not exagerrated, I actually do suck. I should have gone for something easier like white water rafting or some such instead of subjecting myself to public humiliation. But, on the bright side, it will make for a good post! :)
And to end with some good news. I toldja I write a column for my paper right? Well, in this newspaper, all columns go with the columnist's picture on top. I've been asking for mine to be included for a while, but got all sorts of excuses, from "You're too junior" to "Do such-and-such story and we'll see". Finally, they've agreed and ta-dah! Tomorrow on my column will be a picture of moi, yellow kurti, long earrings et all. I'm looking pensive in the picture, which goes with being a literary columnist I suppose. All I needed were spectacles and a long cigarette holder. Or a nearly-stubbed cigarrette, I forget which image we're going with. Wow, imagine little ol' me with my picture in the paper. So much more of a big deal than just your byline.
(Much later; 11.45 pm my time)
Re-reading, it dawns on me. I need to be by myself. I need to stop using my friends and flings as K substitutes. I need time to heal, and I need that time alone. It's been almost three months, it's time I exorcised the ghost of K for once and for all from my life. It's not going to happen with being with other men, because then I'm just relivign the past, pretending that everything's okay just because I have warm arms around me and mouths to smile and kiss.
I don't know at this point in my life whether I want a fling, a relationship or just random sex. But a commitment has to be made. A commitment to me that I will always be there, that I exist, that I am. I think at 22 years and 11 months, it's about time I got to know me. (eM meet eM: a nice person if a little clingy when insecure, a person who likes the colour purple and hates rejections, both her own and of other peoples. A person who can't stand confrontation but also can't stand not addressing an issue. A person who thinks in typewriter font on a white screen, rather than images. A person who feels with meaningful words and in whose deepest soul lyrics resonate. A person who can be very lazy, bitchy when trying to impress and stand-offish when shy.) And that's all I've got.
Of course, it's going to be hard. Learning processes are never easy (and I learnt that the hard way!). But Dee for instance, so in love with her new boyfriend and me all resentful---not healthy.
So how am I going to achieve all this?
Frankly my dear, I don't have a fucking clue.
Oh and while I'm apologising, I know I'm being lazy by not replying to your comments, but know that I appreciate them all and I have seen the error of my ways. :) Please don't stop commenting!
Just some general witterings today about the state of my life. I have the severest writer's block that always happens when I'm busy. See, when I'm filing stories for work, I can do it automatically and this shuts off creativity. So when I blog unimaginatively like this time, you know I'm working quite hard!
> I've been listening over and over again to some songs, which totally define who I am at this present moment. Here they are, for your enlightenment:
She says it's all gonna end and it might as well be my fault
And she only sleeps when it's raining
And she screams and her voice is straining
She says baby
It's 3 am I must be lonely
When she says baby
Well I can't help but be scared of it all sometimes
Says the rain's gonna wash away I believe it
She's got a little bit of something,
God it's better than nothing
And in her color portrait world she believes that she's got it all
She swears the moon don't hang quite as high as it used to
---- From 3 AM by Matchbox 20
So kiss me hard
'Cause this will be the last time that I let you
You will be back someday
And this awkward kiss that tells of other people's lips
Will be of service to giving you away
----- From The Best Deceptions by Dashboard Confessional
She's addicted to nicotine patches
She's addicted to nicotine patches
She's afraid of the light in the dark
6:58 are you sure where my spark is (here here here)
she's convinced she could hold back a glacier
but she could'nt keep baby alive
doubting if there's a woman in there somewhere (here here here)
you say you don't want it again and again
but you don't... don't really mean it
---- From Spark by Tori Amos
There's only so much I can take
And I just got to let it go
And who knows I might feel better
If I don't try and I don't hope
No more waiting,
No more aching
No more fighting,
No more trying
Maybe there's nothing more to say
And in a funny way I'm calm
Because the power is not mine
I'm just gonna let it fly
---- From What Can I Do by The Corrs
(and finally... the surprise entry!)
But I've got to think twice
Before I give my heart away
And I know all the games you play
Because I play them too
Oh but I
Need some time off from that emotion
Time to pick my heart up off the floor
And when that love comes down
Without devotion
Well it takes a strong man baby
But I'm showing you the door
----From Faith by George Michael
Any thoughts on what they mean? Your inputs are badly needed.
(Later)
My dance show is coming up at the end of the month and I still suck. This is not exagerrated, I actually do suck. I should have gone for something easier like white water rafting or some such instead of subjecting myself to public humiliation. But, on the bright side, it will make for a good post! :)
And to end with some good news. I toldja I write a column for my paper right? Well, in this newspaper, all columns go with the columnist's picture on top. I've been asking for mine to be included for a while, but got all sorts of excuses, from "You're too junior" to "Do such-and-such story and we'll see". Finally, they've agreed and ta-dah! Tomorrow on my column will be a picture of moi, yellow kurti, long earrings et all. I'm looking pensive in the picture, which goes with being a literary columnist I suppose. All I needed were spectacles and a long cigarette holder. Or a nearly-stubbed cigarrette, I forget which image we're going with. Wow, imagine little ol' me with my picture in the paper. So much more of a big deal than just your byline.
(Much later; 11.45 pm my time)
Re-reading, it dawns on me. I need to be by myself. I need to stop using my friends and flings as K substitutes. I need time to heal, and I need that time alone. It's been almost three months, it's time I exorcised the ghost of K for once and for all from my life. It's not going to happen with being with other men, because then I'm just relivign the past, pretending that everything's okay just because I have warm arms around me and mouths to smile and kiss.
I don't know at this point in my life whether I want a fling, a relationship or just random sex. But a commitment has to be made. A commitment to me that I will always be there, that I exist, that I am. I think at 22 years and 11 months, it's about time I got to know me. (eM meet eM: a nice person if a little clingy when insecure, a person who likes the colour purple and hates rejections, both her own and of other peoples. A person who can't stand confrontation but also can't stand not addressing an issue. A person who thinks in typewriter font on a white screen, rather than images. A person who feels with meaningful words and in whose deepest soul lyrics resonate. A person who can be very lazy, bitchy when trying to impress and stand-offish when shy.) And that's all I've got.
Of course, it's going to be hard. Learning processes are never easy (and I learnt that the hard way!). But Dee for instance, so in love with her new boyfriend and me all resentful---not healthy.
So how am I going to achieve all this?
Frankly my dear, I don't have a fucking clue.
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