So if I post about how I've been as useless and as happy as a puppy on crack lately, I'm going to come across as a tad bipolar. So I will say this instead:
What I want is a long lazy day with overcast skies and wide open windows. Good music perhaps. Banana bread that I made. Port wine is a possibility but not a necessity.We could watch a movie or two. I could relax. It would be so easy. Like breathing.

General Fuckery

so i wake up in the morning, and i'm immediately hit with a reminder of exactly why i felt the urge to get shitfaced these last two days. wake up, go to work, meet people, turn up, tune in, drop out. drop out, drop out, drop out. drop out of character, drop out of whatever person you're supposed to be working towards becoming, drop out of your inhibitions and just spew whatever you're thinking- no say Everything you're thinking to the point where you can't even remember what you said anymore, because you've been speaking Excessively. have didireallysaythat, didireallydothat, butidon'tremember moments over and over again. just stop thinking about it because every time you do, it makes you cringe. excessive cringing will definitely give you wrinkles and aggravate the knot of tension in the spot exactly equidistant from your shoulder blades.stop cringing. be unable to stop cringing. drink some more. do more stupid things. cringe more. stagger home, pass out. wake up with everything still spinning. start off the day and do it all over again.
trivialize everything. nothing important must EVER get out. feel unsure. feel unsure about everything. disconnect to such an extent, that you can't figure out how to switch on again. briefly feel like things have changed irrevocably, have #darkmomentsomanyfeelingsohthevoid and pass out. feel permanently zoned out, like your brain has evaporated somehow leaving you with a little dust and a propensity for hedonism.
ache. ache for things you're afraid to vocalize. ache to run away. ache for something Permanent. wish that you could take a great big stamp and go around labeling things just so you'd know they exist. crave security, crave rootlessness, crave reassurance, crave reciprocity. always, always, always crave cake.
listen kids, alcohol is not the way to deal with your problems. trust me, i should know.
feel impatient, feel insecure, feel betrayed, feel paranoid, feel unreal. go around checking off cliches one by one. regret things for only about a millisecond, cuz that's when you start doing more things and there's no time to think. maybe it's better this way. balance? what balance?
feel incredulous and laugh at yourself a little because a few days ago, you were so fucking happy, it wasn't even real. 

Rainy day weather. The whole house has become dark and no one is switching on the lights. It is brilliant in a gloomy atmospheric way, only I'm not gloomy- there's a little kid squeeing somewhere in my brain. She is also doing somersaults.
Perfect, perfect, perfect for sitting on the balcony in tattered shorts and tee with a book that I will start and finish by today. There is just something beautiful about the way a pair of tattered shorts and falling-to-pieces ganji can make you feel. Weirdly connected but disconnected to your body at the same time. Like my limbs aren't a part of me, but they're something I can appreciate the there-ness of. God bless whoever thought it would be a good idea to start ripping up pants.
There are two books I'm longing to sink my teeth into, and I can't decide which one to start first. Of Mice and Men, or Confederacy of Dunces? Who knows these things? By the end of today, I shall.
It is the time for breathing in deeply, listening to exclusively hindi music and reading. With a fruit to munch maybe. So I goes. Excuse the incoherence- I'm frequently incoherent, but when I'm being incoherent in this way, you know I'm happy.
These are my plans for the whole entire day till 5. Which is when there is a party. Did I mention I love Saturdays? I did? Now you know.
Thunder! *runs off*

My transcription angst has started to manifest itself in strange ways. I am beginning to vaguely resemble my Tamil teachers back in school. I have been wandering around the house, laptop in hand, big clunky headphones and thick black glasses adorning said head, with vaguely distracted mournful air. Anyone who even attempts to talk to me is immediately met with shushing, one-handed flapping and a glare only deserved by an axe-murderer or Lady Gaga. My hair is clasped back in an ancient clip that has lost all it's teeth on one side, so it is hanging loose in that vague style that all my South India teachers would adopt back in school- I am lacking the white flowers (jasmine?) though. Yes, I am stereotyping, but what to do? I really did have such teachers. I have begun to speak in a very reasonable sounding Tamil accent (makes owner of accent sound matter of fact, but you can tell she's a decent-nice type) and I keep saying "enduhtheday".
By the enduhtoday, this shall all be over and I shall stop writing too many inane blog posts.
The second file that I have Just started has one Tamil and one Bong accented person. This should be....interesting.
Enduhtheday.

Today:

I ate-

• 1 plate of papayas and guavas with cold coffee and almonds for breakfast
• 2 grilled chicken cheese sandwiches at Blue Sky Cafe for lunch
• 2 chicken momos, half of a chicken cutlet and a glass of mango milkshake with sugar in the evening
• 2 gulab jamuns from Dhaka Mishtanna Bhandar just because.
• Biryani and oily chicken bharta from Aminiya. Cucumber raita for dinner

Clearly, I'm going to regret this later. Have not been running or working out in 3 days because of my stupid left foot. Such a completely pointless injury- I don't even get to be cool like House and pop Vicodin like a pro. In fact, I don't even think you get Vicodin in India.

I bought-

• 1 extremely sexy blue dress which just fits. It is probably the sexiest thing I have ever bought, and it's not even that skimpy, it's just how it looks. The back, and the cut and- And also T coerced, threatened, bullied me into buying it. 
• 1 hippie looking Indian top/kaftan thing which looks nothing special but fits like a dream.

I am now mildly terrified to wear these in public.

I let- 

• 3 metro trains pass me by since they were non a.c, while hoping, praying and making dramatic gestures at Fate and the Kolkata Metro Service. T gave me company till she got too tired to wait any more, so we got on a stuffy metal box and clanked our way home. She got off, put both palms against the glass and made more dramatic clutching gestures while everyone stared and I looked as heartbroken as Preity Zinta when Aamir Khan left on the subway in DCH.
• An ex vent to me about his ex. And then proceed to give me elementary lessons about the act (no, not like that you pervert).

I listened to

• Jefferson Airplane's 'Somebody to Love' on loop, over and over again. 
• The endless rambling of the muttering Tamilians on my bleeding transcription files
• Ajeeb Dastaan played on the cellphone loudspeaker of some middle aged creep at the metro who kept not so discreetly staring at my shorts clad legs. Oh well. T and I danced to it, and it helped us  pass the time while the trains kept marching on.
• My brother make yet another excuse about how the cycle thing just isn't happening

I missed

• someone in a different country, someone in the same city but light years away, and someone who has run off to another city 

I still have to

• do 2 and a half files of transcription which are due at this time tomorrow
• brush up on biochemical identification of bacteria
• write my report on UPEC characterization
• finish up PD3's assignnment. 

Fuck it. I'm going to have another gulab jamun.

Edited to add: New words made official in their existence

• Lanywayose: lose it all anyway
• Demiboyfriend: one tenth of a boyfriend
• Afkliethrn: when you feel so zoned out/ high that only a new word can describe your level of zoned-out-ness

Summertime and the livin' is whiskey doused

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain. I'm in my verandah. A lovely breeze plays with my hair and floats around my ankles. The occasional cawing of crows and the continuous calm shhh that only the rain can make as a shower winds to an end. There is a hum of people talking and the para boys playing football in the park but it seem to be coming from far away and it's all white noise. In the midst of this absolute marvel, I have brought out my laptop to type something, anything- and then it starts. Loud Bangla announcements from speakers hidden insidiously throughout the government quarters. I don't want to let it affect my happy, but but the stupid man won't shut up. And now the bangla's gotten so rapid that I can't even understand what he's saying anymore.
Sigh.
I discovered new music yesterday- all this blues stuff that I knew existed, but had been too lazy to download individually owing to my bad luck with computers and deprivation of utorrent. BB King, Hooker, Clapton and Tom Waits. I met a little girl yesterday, who told me that she wanted to grow up to become the Prime Minister of India so she could make it more clean. She's just moved to Calcutta from Bhutan, doesn't have any friends and hates it here. Very outspoken and extremely sure of herself (Giving birth is dirty, swearing is unladylike, you can't take off your shirt if you're a girl). Are all children like that? So secure in their conviction of something as being undeniably true - "my mother told me, Teacher said"- or was it just her? I don't remember being like this. I hate to think of my memories and personality from my younger years just slipping away from the crevices of my brain - blowing away like sand from the dunes. Its strange how much we change, and how much we remain the same. But if the very idea of who I used to be starts to elude me, how am I supposed to compare?
The stupid man has finally stopped. Poor man, maybe he's not stupid, just earnest or saying something terribly important, and me an old crankypants grumbling to the wind. My shoulders feel strange, my head feels woozy and everything is slooooow. I don't know if after-effects can last this long or if its just my body, gently reminding me that my recent behaviour has been incongruent with the person I thought I was. Everyday, everything changes just the tiniest little bit, edging it closer to becoming something that will never be the same again.
June has been a month of excesses. May was anticipation. Let July be balance. I have been pissing my folks off royally, not listening, not even pretending to. I'm not even close to the bhodro Banglai meye they wish I was- and I really don't want to be. I used to think neither did they, but I'm beginning to realize that they would probably be relieved at having a daughter who comes straight home after work, likes to potter around the kitchen and is superdedicated to porashuno, family and gaan-bajna.  I love my family, I enjoy spending time with the gramps, but in a scrambled sort of way. Family resents the fact that I try to squish and smush everything I can into one day- it's us or nothing, they say. But why won't you understand, my time is so limited and I'm going away. That's the point though. I shall make them happy this week and stay mostly at home. Cycling shikhbo, boi porbo, report likhbo, transcription korbo. I'm glad today is a Sunday. Don't want to go out. Want to reeeelax.
I shall go for a walk at some point later today. I have been walking around the city so much, that my poor feet have started to resemble a labourer's- scuffed and dirty and the skin's come off the top and started bleeding, so I can wear nothing except hawai chappals. I think I like it this way. I feel like Rusty or a Ruskin Bond character and it's making me strangely satisfied, if not happy.
I haven't been running in three days. Terrible, terrible. Must be rectified tomorrow. Also must stop reading 10 books at a time.
On the agenda for this week:
Monday- Visiting the original college and a book swap- 'Confederacy of Dunces' in exchange for 'The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian'. Daab ice cream.
Tuesday- Breakfast-in-the-evening with new friend. Waffles with belgian chocolate sauce. Possibly crepes. Or even pancakes.
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday- Return home early, spend time with the gramps, work on report and transcription.
Everyday: Go for morning run, exercise, learn cycling, read. At some point draw something. At some point, meet the best friends.
Right now, I have three best friends. Exactly three. It's been that way for a while, and I don't think it's about to change. This summer so far, has been interesting. Can't complain. It has potential, yessir.

Everyday it's a-gettin' closer

I'm happy.
It's strange I know, but there it is.
Sorry dear readers, which essentially means you, Karishma- for such a prolonged disappearing trick. Last semester left me completely drained. It was soul sucking in every sense of the term. Someone I'd known since the 7th grade, and grown up being compared to as a staid, sensible alternative to my own wilder tendencies died. She also happened to be my room-mate for the past year. I can't say I liked her, but it was a shock, and even today when I think about her- or her lack of existence rather, it's like I'm transported to that evening all over again - I'm holding this useless plate of daal in one hand while my room-mate tells me in a low measured voice that, "Rit passed away", and I stare at her in incomprehension. It doesn't make sense. Someday when I'm able to, I will write about it. For now, I'm just happy to be alive.
So last sem was a hard one for various reasons. I dreamed a huge wonderful dream and several terrible things happened that blew it up. Grand explosion that left me a sodden miserable wreck for the rest of the term. And then, and then I came home to Cal.
Coming home is..strange. It fits like your most comfortable old torn ganji that you just can't throw away. Yeah it's kind of completely batshit insane, but I'm used to the dysfunction by now. Which is another way of saying living according to rules after Canada is driving me crazy, but there's nothing I can do about it- or at least nothing that I would choose to do in good conscience.
Then there are friends. There are some awkward silences but they flee at being met with laughter and maximum ridiculosity. There is good food after sososo long (Die Pizza, I scoff at your name). There is the hard sun. Sometimes if we're lucky enough there are impromptu rain showers. One evening it transforms this really nice laid back get-together into an insane party- one of the best nights in Cal this time around. Of course all this is helped along by high spirits and clouds of smoke. There are things to look forward to. There is music and incessant giggling and strange videos with 4 Daler Mehendis and a windmill who might also be a Daler Mehendi. There is much dancing and cross-your-heart secret telling. There is laughter. There is also fighting. But then in the mornings, there is waking up early because I want to- I have been going running these days before I catch the rush hour metro to the stuffy hospital institution that is dying a slow death. There are lots of great books to read- I keep picking one up and starting another one halfway and alternating because there are just so many of them, and this is such a great feeling that I want to cry or laugh or do the hoolah but I DON'T because I'm too busy gulping the books down.
I'm beginning to feel attractive again. How do I even begin to explain what an awesome feeling that is? Suffice it to say it feels quite nice. There are boys-men, I guess. God, I keep forgetting that we're all grown ups now. There are certain interesting people who make me laugh and feel all happy and stupid but it's nice and harmless, I swear.
So what I'm saying is, I'm not floating right now- never been much of a floater. But I'm running- not away this time- I'm running through- and to quote the Beatles, I feel fine. :)