I am restless today. My mind is dancing on foreign shores somewhere. I want to go travelling. A friend who had come to stay left yesterday and there is a missing-ness in the air.

Greece
Rome
Banaras

I do not feel like going to New York anymore, I don't know why. 

Jumble

life is doing a 'moon river' right now. in a jumble: pancakes were given and eaten. with blueberries and strawberries and maple syrup as accompaniment. breakfast at tiffany's, and morning glory were watched. new lab manager is an adele lookalike and likes to bake for fun. she brought in a bundt cake two days ago, and her attempt at jaffa cakes with white chocolate and bitter chocolate and bits of orange jelly. boss (henceforth known as Dean) turns around to see my mouth smeared with chocolate and one grubby hand in the ziplock bag full of crumbs. he's too amused to be disapproving.

i had one of those discussions with Dean that you could label "deep". we talked about religion and god, and sentences like "because i know that god sees me, and i am loved" were said unironically. by a near 7 foot tall man who's known to reply to "i have a question" with "i have an answer". people surprise you. they continually surprise me, at least. i told him about getting inked soon, and he told me about his brother who's a chef and all tatted up. i was expecting judgement and condemnation. instead i got mild ribbing, and genuine respect. #whatthefuck.

i perform western blots and cry over them till hallelujah happens. only half a hallelujah though. i eat-drink lots of bread and soup, and fry salmon and eat it cold over the granite kitchen counter, standing up. first boston sleepover happens, homecoming minus the sex. sex does not happen- i'm sorry, vagina. i seem to have developed a penchant for the word "vagina". this could just be me acting out after having spent all of high school being repressed and thinking that "stupid" was a bad word.

or it could be my attempt to drive away my newfound admirers in dubai (yes, i see you and i have been told. what are you doing here, child? do you want to be corrupted?)

trip to rodney's secondhand bookstore happened. i had an almost-indie moment with a scruffy beanie wearer in a mustache. we smiled and talked about the book i wound up buying- the history of the blues which came before the pbr series. i walked away when he buried his nose in the musty smell of the film section.

there is this bizarre thing that happens and it is this: every time i have a spat with the boyfriend, one of his friends emails me. the two are completely unrelated, but it is a true.

anyway, i am sick of this last stretch of winter and i long for spring. tanki comes over in two days and i will basically be living on caffeine very soon. i am too tired to be excited anymore, so i am glad she's coming on a friday. 

in other news, passionfruit orange guava juice is the shit.  in case you were wondering what was with the incoherent mess of words, i'm falling asleep right now,and trying to put off taking a shower.  thank you for reading, goodnight.

Beginning

Maybe I can win your heart
With funny links
And texts
that make fun of my yahoo neighbours.

Maybe you will fall in love with me
And we will have an afternoon on a roof
sipping beer.

Maybe I won't have to wait
So long
For my phone to go
Beep.


This has been rescued from my drafts folder. It was dated 16th June, roughly 10 days after I met the hobo. It was an exercise in creative writing, (almost) nothing more. Obviously.

Life is full of "little-did-I-know"s.

Every little hair knows your name

So today I discovered that my relationship has been built on a foundation of deceit, theft, memory loss, weed and alcohol.

Well, you know what they say…. actually, I don’t think they’ve come up with a saying for this yet.

In other news from the week:

One of the grad students from work put up this Facebook status on Friday after laughing for something like 5 minutes straight:

Intern tells her version of Genesis today:

“Eve eats the poison apple of temptation, and then God gets angry, and they are naked, and God casts them out of paradise and they need to work. Oh, and then they have lots of babies or something.”(5 minutes later)

“Clearly I am a heathen!”

(After posting this) Intern: “This is so embarassing. Public shaming. Hang on. Isn’t that what they do to heathens? Public shaming or something?”

————————————————————————————————————-

Also, A mentioned in a thread : Yesterday, R was on Skype, and I told her I could see Facebook reflected in her spectacles. She said– ‘sums up a generation.’ Truer words were never spoken. Ki pathetic.

The person in both instances was me, of course. For some reason everyone at work knew it was me because in their words- no one else would use the word ‘heathen’. The second I only bring up here to convince you that I am not actually a blithering idiot.

In less useless news, I have discovered Jens Lekman, a Swediesh indie pop artist. Your arms around me may just be the best thing I’ve listened to this side of alternate since The Stray Birds. His voice reminds me a little of Morrissey from The Smiths.

"kehta hain dil, rasta mushkil,  maaloom nahi hain kahaan manzil"

Because it's that kind of day. Because it's that kind of life.

Watch out, the world's behind you

It's the strangest thing. I was going to write about separating the essential from the inessential. And disconnecting. Then I read something which made me rethink and shape my ideas with more honesty and clarity.

What I have been doing: 

Separating the essential from the inessential.

Since the beginning of this year, I have turned (mostly) vegetarian, developed an easy camaraderie with people at work, stepped out of my comfort zone, and entertained the possibility that I'm alright.  

What I have realized: I turn older, I run out of patience. I have no patience with people who are inconsistent, and who take more than they will ever give. I really love few people, and I love them fiercely. My time is limited, but I will give it without reservation to them. The rest I have no time for. I am not one for social niceties. I thought I was, but I'm not, and I'm strangely happy with this decision. I will not waste my time with people I don't really want to any longer. It is my time after all.

I am a possessive little brat. Who tries very hard to be pretend to be a grownup. I'm not really sure what to do about this, but I do know that I need reciprocity when it comes to being essential. To be really free is to remove oneself from the need for anything, or anyone save the few biological requirements. You are then the sole master of your heart, your moods, your life. I do not want this freedom. Another kind of freedom lies in trusting someone else with the capacity to hurt you. In making someone an essential when they do not have to be. This is the one I instinctively choose, and prefer for myself, after having given it some thought. 

Which brings me to: Sometimes taking a step back is necessary. A slight shift of the frame brings back the perspective that was hard-won and then discarded- slowly, and then all at once.  I have realized that you do not really need anyone. Not really, you don't. Allowing yourself to is terrifying, but it also brings with itself the second kind of freedom, that can make life immeasurably richer if you let it.

I have realized that I do not want to be a doctor. And that I want to teach and get my hands dirty with the children. That I am not a cynic, and I never want to be. That it s important to differentiate between what you really want and what you think you should want.

I have realized that I have a choice now between viewing my life as a straight trajectory of what I could do, and what would suit my career best, or letting it become slightly unpredictable and geared towards experiences I would like to have. Not having a straight career path is borderline terrifying, and such a choice would be something that I would admire in someone else. Using myself as an experiment, is both something I long to do, and something I'm incredibly nervous about.

I'm a clingy monkey, lazy and irresponsible. I want to be the opposite.

The old motto of the lab I'm at used to be "Do something". I think I shall try very hard to adopt it as my own. Do something.

I partied away the last two days, and felt really old. Today I woke up without a hangover to a phone call from the mater, and listening to my thamma's quavery voice over the phone. She is not amused with the vegetarianism. I skyped with Upi and had a brief glimpse of Mishtu and shared virtual hugs with Shalmus. I also devoured the majority of a pumpkin pie.

What I want to do moving forward:

gain some perspective. take a step back.

get the ball rolling on life after undergrad

take greater care of my hair and my body (time to read that damn yellow book again). i'm thinking it's time to get a haircut that always brings a change.

unpack my life, and set up house properly.

stop feeling obligated to do things and meet people and spend my time on things because it seems like I should.

be productive and a step ahead at work. do something. 

For an arbit day

For Mishtu, S, Squg, Piu, Trisha, Tiyan. Also for newfound love, Tanki. "Friend" does not even begin to describe it. For being there in my darkest hours, for listening to me with infinite patience and compassion while I repeated myself, for being part of the lunacy and the digressions, for genuinely celebrating the good times, and picking up the pieces and taping them back together when I had given up. For being fascinating, beautiful, crazy intelligent, and kind women. You guys have my eternal gratitude, and my promise to do the same, with possibly a little more lunacy thrown in for good measure.

Happy Valentine's Day.