Valentine's Day

So most years for some vague conspiracy-theory reason, I'm always single on Valentine's Day. With the exception of a certain year when I was fourteen and on D-Day I picked up the phone and whispered my own version of sweet nothings to my beloved Sucky Jocky Boy.
SJB: Hey...so since yesterday I can't stop thinking about you
RGD: Oh. Um, well my mum found out about us soooo we have to break up now. Happy Valentine's daaay!
Ever since then it's been a slippery slope. Divine retribution? Oh well.
Last year I actually watched Valentine's Day on Valentine's day. Three hours later I was weeping to Piu about how pathetic my life was and how I'd always be alone, and maybe somewhere along the way get a dozen cats. Well, I have one now so the wheels have been set in motion.
Later in the day I was at a Toronto club being groped inappropriately by random mostly drunk men, who kept going up to SJB (who was valiantly trying to protect the izzat of Future Manipulative Girlfriend and I. Aww, in hindsight, poor SJB. Awkward.) Anyway so there he was balancing two girls on each arm and there they were, the men circling like sharks and occasionally surfacing to mutter things like "How's it fair ya got two?! Gimme a call when yuh done wid em!" So charming.
2009, I was "striking arrows through the heart of Would-be-knight" (this is verbatim) by confessing my inability to get over SJB despite his being a sucky jock boy doing typically sucky jock things and giving me mixed signals- sample the "Call me when you're sober episode".
2007and 2008, I was deliriously happy with SJB. A month later I was flying away-as they say- forever to India.
And before all this I was a bhalo bachha with secret cat-lady-fears and my parents were scolding me for rebelling by pulling stunts like not studying. Hahaha parents, haha.

So predictably, this year I'm single again. I had actually forgotten about it till Tony felt the need to remind of the upcoming pink day. Today I'm going out for sushi with a friend and on the actual day I have work to keep me busy. BUT it did make me want to do this for no good reason except that I felt like it:

LOVE

Hash and Anju

the wife, the spice and I

bhai

sleepovers

the only place where tess and lennon meet

baby love

grade 11and friends who made the world go round

teachers who were more

i feel the love, oh yes

summer afternoons

trisha's surprise birthday lunch- piu's cooking

an entire day spent doing nothing and quite spectacularly may i add

dubai dreams

when we were young

Reading- Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. It is quite strange and grotesque. Not sure whether I should finish it or not.
Watched- Nought, the short film. Full of weird foreboding and strange feelings. Had nightmares about Pansy molester guy and sharks and people being upset at me.
Watching- House after I discovered a box set just lying around, surprises abound in my new abode =)
Ate- Mangsho-bhaath (mutton curry and rice), daal, baingan bharta and chicken
Listening to- Salvation by Scanners, Three Wishes by the Pierces and Believe by The Bravery
Discovered- that cute Arts boy reads and quickly stole Faust and Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep from him
Writing- Application forms *sigh*
I love this header picture,by the way. It is one of my favourites that I have clicked. It belongs to that sweet summer period at the beginning of Jude. Summer '09 :)

No amount of coffee, no amount of crying, No amount of whisky, no amount of wine

It is the particular trademark of writers that they imbue the mundane, the everyday things with a quality of romance and state the unbelievable matter of factly.

It is in good writing and in the coloured thoughts of another that I seek solace again, and again. Amidst the pretty tinted lenses of  Bollywood talk shows, their banter lending colour to my pale complexion and some life to tired eyes, a sudden burst of laughter that had dried to a trickle at the corner of my mouth- I spring to life for a few moments. Not the recommended amount, but perhaps enough to clutch on to living for now. I refused to watched "I Hate Luv Storys" when it released, preferring to spend my time instead with a friend, her dog and my almost-friend-again in the cool afternoon languor of her house. Puppy love peppered with ciggarette breaks, unhurried conversation and Coraline. What I miss about Calcutta and India- both meaning the same thing in my head- is not the frenzied rush to meet up at Aqua Java or chilling with cup after cup of endless lebu cha at VP, one day blurring into another as the days sped on by. I miss the quality of absolute belonging, the certainty in my heart-and I say this with a straight face- of being at home. Homesickness, I've discovered is not something that lessens with time. It dullens and then strikes you all of a sudden, when you thought you'd left it far behind.
So it happened, that after finally watching "I Hate Luv Storys" last night, I found myself longing for my workplace last summer, of all things. "Bin Tere" was a song that Pri Di was very fond off and it blared on and off as I performed my mad scientist feats with tissue culture. I find myself marooned, having joined a program so sure, so certain of my ambitions and future that I never could have predicted that I was cutting myself off from any possiblity of returning home or that it would matter this much. For a child who has only spent at the most 1 and a half years of her life in India, I have an extraordinarily large reaction to being away from it.
I've been reading Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. The protagonist constantly veers between wondering desperately what the purpose of his life is and an inflated sense of self importance. Resemblance, much? Perhaps in another dimension, I'm an artsy hippie, who's finally learned to play the guitar and is attending the Doverlane music conference right now. Someday, I really really hope I'll know I got it right.

What I've been doing:

1. Working. For pay. FOR PAY. In the government of Canada. Okay, so it's in the Agriculture and Food research sector, but the pay's not too shabby, the work is new and interesting and the boss is...well that brings me to
2. Having innapropriate thoughts about my supervisor. Attractive. Around 20 years older, complete with wife, shiny gold band on ring finger and 2 chubby babies who own pink fluffy princess outfits as evidenced by the pictures plastered in his office. GOD, I feel creepy.
3. Moving on from supervisor to younger but still non-single would be friend/firang . Let's just say all creatures from the basement are not icky.
4. Listening to massive amounts of David Gray. *Jumping Jesus, holy cow/ What's the difference anyhow/ Baby till your heart belongs to me/ Be mine, be mine*
5. Fighting and patching up with Piu and Trisha. For a while there I was contemplating the fb status change.
6. Reading. A lot. Indiscriminately. Here, I must beg you- if you're a woman- to pick up a copy of Backwards in High Heels and BUY it. Smart, touching, witty, funny- all in all, a wonderful wonderful book.
7. Taking care of  Benji/Toby the cat. His name is actually Toby and he came with my new house. When I moved in initially and the other 5 students hadn't turned up yet, Toby was there, mewing and purring and twining around my legs affectionately. Starved of affection, lonely, attention-whore massive fighter cat that he was, I had to call him Something! My mum just kept going, "Beral! Aaai beral!" but I came up with Ben, which evolved to to Benji and when I'm feeling stern, Benjamin.
8. Worrying about the future. Confusion, crazy demands. Maybe I'll be a bag-lady.
9. Having raging headaches and perpetually tired eyes.
10. Polishing off entire CANS of babaganoush at a time.
11. Fighting with Ma-
12.- because she drives me nuts and makes me do unreasonable things like grocery shopping and fruit eating and tandoori chicken making. Also she seems to be bristling at the new realization that my declarations of never entering wedlock are entirely real. As a consequence of which she is proposing things like taking shombondho to the parents of a past boyfriend (the only one she liked and the one i dumped for chotolok). HAH! Good luck with that, Mum.
=)

Something different

“So”, said Cujo, glowering at the terrified hobbit standing beside him, “I’m going to Australia maite. There ain’t no good sheep meat here”. The hobbit scurried off and returned with an odd bucket type of vessel- shaped like a turnip, and for no good reason at all, painted yellow. “Canary yellow!”, thought Cujo incredulously. They would do anything to make you cheerful here, terrified as they were of bad tempers and saying the wrong thing. Just yesterday he’d had a hard time shaking off the battalion of pointy nosed, bespectaled “Feel-gooders” that kept following him around the city suggesting things like a ‘nice cup of tea’, or an “inappropriately clothed nurse-with-questionable-morals fantasy”. When Cujo finally lost it and yelled at them to “Clear the frack off and leave him the hell alone!”, he thought they would weep. Grown men, at that! Now he stared at the bucket wondering what he was expected to do. Beside him the hobbit beamed. So Cujo glowered at him some more till the hobbit realized that Cujo wasn’t overjoyed or even rmotely elated. “Praxis!” , the hobbit squeaked as if this would make all things clear. “Your mother’s bloomers!”, growled an exasperated Cujo. “What IS it?” “This, sir- THIS is the QUASIHELIUMETTE.” Despite himself, Cujo was a little impressed. Finally, a unique invention, he thought. Laughing gas..maybe? “Well, what does it do?”, he finally asked as the hobbit continued to beam. “It’s a yellow turnip shaped bucket sir! It makes you laugh.” “How?” “Because it’s funny. A TURNIP shaped YELLOW bucket!Hahahaheehee” Pardon me sir, but I find it hard to control my laughter when I see it. Oh turnip! Haheehee!” “I would like”, Cujo said very slowly, “to go to bed.”

The next morning dawned bright and early, as mornings in general are wont to do. The sunbeams crept out of the sun’s nose and out of his every other orifice making their way into Cujo’s bed through the slit in his drawn curtains. Cujo was still dreaming when this happened. He was dreaming of his favourite things. For the most part this included the smell of freshly brewed coffee, his mother’s Mince Pot Pie, money turning up in unexpected places and Glen Harrison crying while his face turned interesting shades of purple and blue. Buried deep in the recesses of his mind was the burning desire to Do something- something spectacular. At the moment hwoever, this desire was masked by something even more urgent. “Godammit, I Need to pee!” Cursing his bladder for robbing him of a few extra minutes of slumber, Cujo woke up.

For an ex rockstar Cujo was an embarrassingly definite morning person. In the golden glow of the early morning sun, Cujo became almost…chirpy. Now having performed his bodily functions and groggily brushed his teeth, he was feeling the effects of his minty fresh breath and the cool crisp air. Then he realised that he shouldn’t be feeling any cool crisp air since he was inside the room. Cujo looked up and discovered a gaping hole in the ceiling. Though this partcular fissure could hardly be called a hole. It was a very neatly cut out square which was definitely not there when he went to sleep last night. Now Cujo stared up at the square not-a-hole and it gaped cheekily back at him as if to say, “Here I am! In all my glory! Hahahaheehee” As his mind filled up with “Hahahaheehee”s, Cujo’s temples filled up with a familiar sensation. It was one he had been facing ever since he’d arrived in this strange place filled with hobbits and not-a-holes. Cujo had a headache.

Happy new year, y'all. Here's to one more shot to get it right, one more chance to turn it all around and one more year that falls under the category of interesting times.

2011, here we come. :)

I live, I laugh. I turn into other people; mostly I stay me. Sometimes I absolutely refuse to turn into anything. I lie, I eat, I stuff my face with 2-bite brownies, I turn into a size 2. I have never been a size 2 in my life, I have never felt so asexual tape-wormish in my life. What is happening to my world? I let my books gather dust, I drag them around and dog-ear them, I rough-house but not once do I dig in. Organic is an ugly word. Your FACE is an ugly word. I run into memories. I turn this blog into whatever I want it to be. Of late, it seems to be going the same way 'Glee' is going- Downhill.