will write for food

To the Moon and Back

2012-01-29T01:01:00.000-08:00

Some 8-odd years ago..
She was miserable and wallowing in self-pity. And that's when he called, to ask about something in class. Unsurprisingly, he was met full-on with a soggy blast of oh-woe-is-me. Surprisingly, he listened, instead of oh, say, bolting for dear life.

I'm sick of this, she said. I want to go to the moon.

Okay, he said.

What?

Get your cycle, and let's go.

What will you ride, she asked.

Oh, I'll manage.

And so they went to the moon. It was raining heavily, and they got lost a coupla times, but they finally got there. It was pretty unremarkable, all said and done. But the sunrise at the end? It was really something.

I'm feeling sleepy, she said.

I'll get you home, he said.

Happy Birthday, Bloody Fool.

Thank you for -

being a sounding board for panic attacks and roses and and coconut water supplies and backup if we were both still single at thirty or a joey room, as the case may be, and chocolates and for always checking up on me and not laughing at my ridiculousities and the daily phone calls and for last minute rescues and being a shoulder to cry on during the heartbreak and believing in me and the barbie doll and for always making me laugh and for remembering

- the moon.

Signs of Life, or, In Which I Prove That Hotch = Samurai Jack

2011-12-01T07:32:00.000-08:00

OMG yougaiz.
Samurai Jack and Agent Hotch are totally #sameguy!

Images courtesy Google Images

Yep, I'm scraping the barrel. Also, watching too much TV.

The 30 Day Drawing Challenge, Day 1

2011-12-01T06:23:00.000-08:00

This post is part of the 30 Day Drawing Challenge posted by PencilJam. If you're participating too, do leave a link to your page :)

Day 1: Draw Yourself

Me, circa 1992.

That's me, complete with my beloved Care Bears lunch box.

Me, circa now.

As you can tell, I've kept my good looks. Particularly the chin.

Details:
This was a quickie- both drawings took about an hour in all. Since I used an 'orrible HB pencil- I kid you not, the darn thing kept smudging- had to use PS for a little clean-up, post scan.

In which I try my hand at glass-painting.

2011-11-06T05:41:00.000-08:00

Gentle Reader, I glass painted!

I present to you, attempt 1: the Decorated Cloud Holder.

For that special god in your life.

Tips for the amateur glass painter: the fumes will choke up your respiratory system something awful, so make sure to work in a well-aerated place. Shading with glass paints is a tad tough; once it dries, adding another layer of colour spoils the evenness, so you'll have to use thinner, which is a messy, messy business. Also, for your first attempt at glass painting, using a curved surface is pretty much a Bad Idea, seeing as how the paint will drip off each time you try to move your workspace around. As is kinda evident above, it's also much harder to get even-ness of line. But in this department, Camel's black liner is awesomeness. As I found out in afterwards, you can scratch off mistakes with a dry cotton bud, which makes it pretty easy to try intricate-r patterns.
Being not too disappointed with the overall result, I decided to try something more ambitious- a suncatcher. Voilà!

Attempt Two: Framed suncatcher.

I simply love the name "sun-catcher":)

Technical details: Set of 6 Camel solvent-based glass paints.

On Narrativium

2011-10-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

You want to be the person the story is about.

You've known them from as long as you can remember, when the first story you ever heard was a dusty voice receding into the dark, as Morpheus took your hand. Once upon a time.. From the second a hot grubby little hand held yours and said do you know Asha told me that teacher eats children who answer back? From the day you learnt to read, when the pages couldn't turn fast enough for the pirates to miss Jim hiding in the apple barrel. From the first song you heard, when you thought everything you'd ever need to know about love you'd learn from Roxette. From the day the you looked up at the sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows and was told that there was more than this. Oh, for as long as you can remember, from the time you first looked up at the stars and realized that under that vast carpet of brilliance you were not alone in what you feel.

Of course you know the stories- everyone knows the stories. Narrativium, the essence of Story, permeates through every inch of your being. This is how it will be, because this is how it has always been, and you know this because the stories are in your very bones. You knew the stories before you even heard the stories, part of the ancient racial memory that arises from the pool of shared human experience, all the way from Adam.

There are so many stories, and you know all of them- the love stories, where the frozen princess finally finds the one who breaks the spell. The Big Crisis stories, where the greenhorn has to face down the twin demons of self-doubt and humiliation. The stories that start with endings, the end of a life, the end of trust, the end of a relationship, the end of an era. The stories that begin with the hero tied up, looking into the barrel of a gun, and you wonder how he's ever going to make it to Chapter 2. Some are about the bad times, the testings, but it all comes right in the end. Everything comes right in the end.

And so, because you know all the stories, you search for the pattern.

You search for the red herrings, the foreshadowing, the Deus Ex Machina. You search for meaning. Whatever doesn't fit is a red herring, of course. That betrayal by a friend isn't the end, because Act II always has strife- for dramatic tension, you understand- but of course the story calls for the Grand Declaration in the Moment Of Truth, when the truth is revealed- they were with you all the way! Here is the foreshadowing. This isn't heartbreak, this is just the moment before, as The One is edging ever closer, just around the corner, so you can have the Meet Cute as your eyes meet across a bookshelf. And the Deus Ex Machina- this isn't failure- this is the setup to the Big Showdown, where you will miraculously dazzle everyone with your brilliance and they will all, finally, love you. The stories that end before they start is simply because they haven't started yet, silly, this is the part where the hero will search within and learn the True meaning of It All, and get up- go on- kicking bad guy ass along the way.

You want to be the one in the story, and you search for the happy ending that you know is just around the corner. But then you suddenly remember- not all the endings are happy ones.

We are not Homo sapiens, the Wise Man. We are the third chimpanzee. We are Pan narrans, the storytelling ape.
~ Terry Pratchett,The Science of Discworld (II: 325)

The Girl Who Became Invisible

2011-09-05T13:05:00.000-07:00

Premise and title courtesy the wonderful Two-Headed Liar, who has very kindly consented to let me use his idea in a story of my own. Do be sure to read his whimsical tale here.

So there was this girl who was so socially awkward, she wished she would disappear.
She had been shy and awkward all her life, a hopeful social butterfly who had never emerged from the cocoon of her discomfort in her own skin. But you can only hide for so long, and adulthood brought with it a long line of do's and work and family gatherings and kitty parties and dates that keep intruding into her carefully maintained solitude. She could NOT get away from the daily line of obligations that obligate her to interact with people, so foolish and mundane and unimportant who PERSIST in dragging her into the unrelenting traps of their lives. If only she could escape!

If only she was invisible.

It seizes her like a rash, this idea; a mottled, raised rash on pale flesh that has not seen the sunlight for too long a while. An itch she can't stop scratching, although she knows that she should, because whoever heard of a person becoming invisible? It is ridiculous is what it is, but if only she could become invisible, then she could be free from all this, free from all this obligation that is tying her down like so much dead weight, fettering her to an existence she does not want, does not like, does not wish for. An encumberance of spirit. And so she scratches away; if only she WAS invisible, if only she was. She finds herself looking eagerly, no, hungrily, in the mirror, if only she was invisible, if only it were true!

And one day, she is astonished to find that it is true.

Impossible. Is her skin looking a little more translucent? Surely her eyes deceive her. But even those very eyes.. do those eyes, always pale in the sunlight, look a little paler, flecked with light that is brighter than it should be in the eyes of a living, breathing girl? Stuff and nonsense. She is imagining it, of course. But is she? It takes her with all the all-encompassing, all-pervading, single-minded obsession of a first lover, this idea, this fixation, this crazy possibility that maybe she is becoming invisible. Daily she examines her hands in the sunlight. The fingers are so frail as to be almost invisible. Were they always this bird-like, claw-like? Also, barely casting a shadow?

Every day the idea takes hold of her a little more. She needs to find out. If she was truly invisible, then people would not see her, yes? She ventures an opinion at the next party populated with pompous pudding-heads. No one notices. Emboldened, she tests her newfound freedom. She stands by the counter at the shop, clearing her throat. No one notices. She gazes into the eyes of the people who had always judged her, the cold unfeeling eyes that had always stripped away her feeble attempts at concealment, exposing her very soul. She watches in fascination as they now stare over her and through her.

To be free. Finally. It is intoxicating.

Free as the air which now filters through her being, and quite as safe. She can go where she pleases, do what she likes. For who can touch her now, who can hurt her now? Safety. At last. There is nothing to fear. No longer does she have to pander to the whims of an uncaring world. No need, in fact, to venture at all from the safety of her cocoon. Go to work. Shop. Do anything, in fact. I care for nobody, no, not I, and nobody cares for me. She is free from her fetters. It is the escape she has sought all her life.

Gradually, she begins keeping to her house, ranging upstairs and downstairs with her books, her only contact with a living creature being the cat, who just about tolerates an invisible owner. Upstairs and downstairs, to milady's chamber, she sings, as she carefully draws out the safety lines of her existence. But as the days go by, she wonders why she bothers coming downstairs. Everything she has and wishes for is in the upstairs suite. Why extend herself? Thus far, and no farther, is her safe place. And as the sun rises and sets and the days grow longer, she wonders why she leaves her room. Tabby lets herself in, she might as well stay here too, where its safe and warm and comforting. In fact, her bed is just the perfect place to be, away from the outside. And as she curls up in her coverlet, drawing her knees up to her chest, she notices that she cannot see her hands on the bedspread. Nor her knees. But this does not bother her any longer, as she slips into her darkness, or is it light that filters through the closed blinds? She can't tell anymore. You see, the problem with being invisible is.. not only can other people not see you, but you cannot see yourself either.

Author's notes:

This is rather choppy writing, seeing as how I dashed it off before my sudden spurt of feeling bloggish could wear off. Ha. Won this round. Take THAT, Procrastination!

In which I completely skip the Parliamentary debate, and decide to draw instead.

2011-08-27T04:16:00.000-07:00

Mmm. It strikes me now that her earring looks a bit like a boil of some sort.

Technical details: HB mechanical pencil, with contrast addition in Photoshop.

And as usual: guess the celebrity!
This one is a little hard; to begin with, the source image in itself looks very little like her. Add my dubious likeness-ing skills, and I must say she looks more like an Olsen twin than herself :)

[Update] Annd.. it's Zooey Deschanel, photographed by the wonderful Roger Ebert!

Painting in Search of a Title

2011-07-10T05:49:00.000-07:00

Was doodling around yesterday, and came up with this. Am pretty sure there's an idea for a story in here somewhere..

Technical details: watercolour pencil, with touch-ups in Photoshop.
Interestingly, I liked it better when it was in pencil- it's like adding colour has changed the mood of the piece somehow. Also, I suck at painting. I should just stick to my strengths.

~~I can't come up with a title. Suggestions welcome :)~~ Hereby christened "Breaking Away". Thanks, Sam! :)

Monsoon

2011-07-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

It was bitterly cold, and she stood by the window and shivered. Outside, it poured, the very force and fury of the monsoon terrible to see. The wind wept and the trees sighed and all the while, the sky kept shedding its tears. But its grief was nothing compared to hers!

Oh, Nature, cold, cruel and heartless, what do you know of grief? She stood there, a small, forlorn figure, her face slick with tears. Oh, what did they care? They didn't care a bit about her! They wouldn't care even if she died!

She stood there and cried into her sleeve, her sobs drowned in the shriek of the storm. Somewhere, a door banged in the wind, and immediately a host of echoes started in the empty house, only to be lost a second later in the howls of the night.
"No, you can't come. And that is final." The words kept going round and round in her head. No. No. No.
No! Why couldn't she go, too? She was old enough, wasn't she? She was almost nine years old! That was big enough for anything! Or almost anything. But not big enough for mummy and daddy. They never let her do anything! She banged her fist on her knee. It hurt.
It wasn't fair! She had been waiting and waiting for the party and now she wasn't allowed to go. Just because of the rain. As if it wouldn't hurt them!
I hate you, monsoon, she screamed. I hate you!
As if in intensified contempt for the desires of a small heart, the wind howled louder. The sound was deafening, as the rain hammered down on the roof.
"Stay at home and do your lessons." She wouldn't. She wouldn't study anything! On a sudden impulse, she seized the small book and flung it into the garden. It lay there, a dark shape, floating forlornly in a puddle.
She stared at it with a black hatred. She hated it. She hated them all!
Hah, mocked the wind and her face was stung by the rain. But suddenly it seemed to be wailing. Did it finally feel sorry for her?
No, the wailing was coming from inside the house. She shut the window- it took almost all her strength to force out the jeering rain- but she shut it.
And suddenly then there was silence.

The wailing became clearer. Wasn't it Kamala?
"Hai Ram, how do we tell her? It will kill the child! Her poor mamma and papa-"
"Hush, you foolish woman! She'll hear you! It's not our place to tell her! She'll learn of the accident soon enough- do you want to hasten it?"
Kamala. Kamalakshi. Ferry. Accident. Mummy and Daddy.
It was suddenly quieter than before. Except for the pounding of her heart. She went back to the window and stared out into the garden as the rain relentlessly beat down on the little book in the puddle. And slowly it sank beneath the waters.
It continued to pour, just as if, just as if, it wasn't the end of the world.

Oh, Nature, cold, cruel and heartless, what do you know of grief?

Author’s Notes:
Written almost seven years ago, for a college story writing competition.
Yes, I was very prone to melodrama as a child.

The Silence Ends Now

2011-05-31T00:41:00.000-07:00

[Update: 6 Aug: This is a little late, but still... I have to say I'm completely overwhelmed by the response to this post. To those of you who've shared yours stories here, a heartfelt thank you. I know from my own experience how unbearably hard it must have been for you, but I thank you on behalf of every person who reads this and is convinced of the extent to which this horror plagues our society. And, to each one of you who has taken the time to reply/show your support by sharing, thank you again. - Anne]

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Note: this post deals with disturbing topics, and consequently, a lot of profanity is present.

So I remember one day at lunch, the topic came up about how an actress ended up slapping some guy who accidentally bumped into her at a temple. She apologized for the misunderstanding, but the verdict of my lunch table was unwavering: you women think all men are trying to get into your pants. Dude bumped into her, and she slapped him? Talk about overreacting.
I was the only woman at the table, and I was silent.
Well. The silence ends now.

So. Let's have a little story, shall we?
A long, long time ago, three kids went down to play in the lobby of their apartment building, after wringing permission from the respective adults who'd spawned them. They were allowed, on condition that they not go out of the lobby, not accept anything from strangers, and they come right back up before dark. So our three intrepid heroes cycled around in the lobby, squabbled over who'd be the Cap'n, and generally did stuff that kids do at play.

Enter the stranger. He called to the children. "Come here. I want to talk to you."

The oldest girl studied him curiously. Her little sister was afraid, and hung back. The boy, too, was uneasy. "We promised not to take anything from strangers." "That's take stuff, stupid. Nobody said anything about talkin'." She went a little closer, acting braver than she felt. "What do you want?" "I just want to show you something, little girl." And he caught her by the hand. "Come a little closer..."

Suddenly she was terrified. She pulled away from him. "Run!" And they all ran, away, as fast as they could, away from that dark corner, away from the stranger, towards the light and safety. The girl reached first. "Mummy! There was this scary man downstairs."

Sudden silence in the room. The comfortable murmur of conversation died as though it had never been. "What man?", asked her mother, trying not to betray the fear in her voice.

"This man downstairs. He touched me and I was scared and so we ran away."

Of one accord, the men rose, their curt questions to the boy- "What did that fellow look like? Which way did he go?" trailing into the distance, as they left the house. The women looked at each other, sick with realization.

Her mother shook the girl. "Don't you EVER talk to a stranger again, you hear me! How many TIMES have I told you! And don't EVER let anyone touch you! No matter what reasons they say!!"
The girl didn't understand what was going on, why everyone was so worked up, but she was old enough to recognize fear in her mother's voice when she heard it.
"Yes, Mummy."

I was seven at the time.

I'm explaining a few things.
Almost every woman I know has, had some experience of this kind as a child, some even at the hands of people known to the family.
Almost every woman I know has been flashed at some point in her life.
Almost every woman I know has had some motherfucker jerk off in front of her.
Every woman I know has been groped, by some other motherfucker who thinks that he has the RIGHT to touch a woman, just because she's a woman. In crowded buses. In theatres. In the street. In an airplane. By a doctor, for chrissakes.
Every woman I know.
Let's think about what that means, shall we? Somehow, out there is a significant segment of the male population that regard women as objects. As though the very point of her existence, her body's very raison d'être is for his fucking pleasure.

Molestation. Call it for what it is. It's not eve-teasing. It's fucking molestation. It's one step short of rape, in fact.

Some things you're resigned to, as a woman. Men checking you out as you walk by on the street, leering at you, muttering obscenities under their breath- and sometimes not under their breath.
The groping fingers that graze past you in crowded buses. The fondles. You spin around, helpless with rage and humiliation, and are met with a stony wall of denial. No one saw anything. No one did anything. You are a woman, what did you expect? You deserved it. You were dressed like a slut. You, a woman, had the ineffable nerve to wear jeans? It is my god-given right to grab your ass.

Years and years and years of this. To be on your guard before you even frikkin' hit puberty, because there is always some perv out there who will try to fondle your as-yet non existent breasts. Can you imagine the stress? You can't. Even the most sympathetic guy will NEVER understand what it's like. The stress of being constantly vigilant, never being able to let your guard down? The blind, paralyzing terror when you're walking down the street alone and someone is walking near you. Too close. And you begin spinning possibilities through in your head, who knows where I am? why the fuck did I wear these heels? what if I have to run?

The first time I actually understood the full meaning of helplessness and powerlessness that the word "impotent" was charged with? The day I started awake after having dozed off in my company bus, to find the hand of the bastard in the next seat on my breast. I was frozen in horror for that infinitely endless second, and then pulled away. He jumped off the bus. For months afterward, it ate at me. Why did you fall asleep? Why didn't you look at his id? Why didn't you look at his face better? Why didn't you scream? Why didn't you DO something? For months afterward, I was sick with the recollection of it when I got into the bus. Made it a point to sit only next to women. Made it a point NEVER to fall asleep.In my company bus. This is how you re-arrange your life, so that that will NEVER happen to you again. So that no asshole can take advantage of you like that again.

I stand 5' nothing in my socks, and weigh 50 kg. I have friends who beat the crap out of any asshole who tries to get fresh, but I admit it- I am terrified. I am terrified to make a scene, to confront the motherfucker, because.. suppose no one steps up to support me? Suppose they're all in it together? Easier to flee. To escape.To get out of the way, and go home and weep tears of humiliation and anger.

The slutwalk, is NOT, as some of you might imagine, an excuse women are making to air their Playboy dress-up clothes in daylight. The slutwalk has one point,and one point only: to TAKE BACK THE STREETS. To tell the world, and tell themselves, that it is NOT your fault that there are animals out there. Rape, molestation, sexual assault is NOT your fault. It is NOT because of how you dress. NOT because of how you acted. NOT because you were "asking for it".

Image credit Catherine

In one of the posts I have linked to here, there is a telling statement by @cgawker: ".. the slutwalk is as much about the right to dress like a slut as the salt march was about the right to eat salt." Word. I once happened upon a site where women have posted photographs of what they wearing when they were molested, and if I remember correctly, not a g-string among them. Will update the link once I find it.

There really isn't anything more to say. Please read through all the posts I've linked to here, where other women have shattered the silence. Every word counts.

I have no idea why I'm writing this. It was unbearably hard for me to write this, in fact, I've hardly spoken about this to anyone.. but well. It's catharsis of sorts, I guess. These are the things you don't talk about. But these are the things that every woman knows, carved into her consciousness almost from birth. These are the things that are unsaid, the weight of knowledge that is accepted with resignation. But it's time we spoke out. There's a line between armchair outraging, and breaking the silence. It's time we crossed it. If this post reaches out to to at least ONE woman, that'll do. Whoever you are, you are not alone.

But before I end.. to the guys who insist on "I've reached home" phone calls, who step in front of you in crowded places so that no asshole gets a chance to "bump" into you, who'll turn up at any hour of the night if you're stranded, who makes sure their female colleagues are dropped first, who tirelessly step up... Thank you. I can't make pretty speeches, but.. whoever you are, wherever you are, thank you.

Happy Birthday to the Blister!

2011-05-12T10:22:00.000-07:00

Today marks the 25th anniversary of an epoch in my life.

I was but two, and my life changed forever.

When I was six, and she was four, the Mater solemnly told me to always take care of her, no matter what.
When I was eight and she was six, I yelled at anyone, even scary seniors, who dared tease her on her first day in school.
When I was ten, and she was eight, she beat the crap out of me for calling her a baby. *wince*
When I was fourteen, and she was twelve, the nuns in church took to calling us the "sisters", a nickname which seems to follow us around even today :|
When I was eighteen, and she was sixteen, we didn't speak to each other for months over a stupid misunderstanding, which was resolved in an even stupider way.
When I was twenty, and she was eighteen, she asked for my opinion, got mad when I disapproved, but listened anyway.
When I was twenty-two, and she was twenty, I asked for her opinion, was surprised at the depth of her maturity, but didn't listen anyway :)

Today, she's:
My personal stylist.
My biggest fan.
My fellow pleader in court. ("pleaaaaaaase Mom?")
My gourmet cook.
My biggest competitor (for those hare brained teachers and nosy relatives who haven't yet managed to get it into their thick skulls that siblings hate- gasp! yes, really- comparision)
My staunchest defender.
My partner in crime.
My light in a dark world.

Dedicated to the idiot offspring of my parents, who refuses to read P. G. Wodehouse despite all my threats, cajoling, and blackmail, but is the sunshine in my life anyway :P

My baby sister. Hah!

Happy 25th Birthday, Blister! You make me prouder of you with every passing day. God bless you today and always.

Sweet Angst, or One Nation's Obsession With A Silly Sport.

2011-03-30T23:52:00.000-07:00

Heh. :)

The Dali Dialogues: the Prologue

2011-03-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

As with all the really good stories, this one begins the same way.

But when there are two people writing the story together, there are certain rules that are to be followed.

“Once upon a time…”

Bo-ring.

Ahem! Excuse me?! This is my story too, you know.
So, as I was saying, “Once upon a time…”

Yada yada yada. You just don’t have what it takes to write one on your own.
Me, I started the story! It was my idea! So.. “ONCE UPON A-”

Hah! Your idea? Now there’s a joke!

You call that an idea? Waitaminnit, I’m telling the story! “ONCE UPON A TIME…!”

Oh well, this was exactly how the story began.
Once upon a time, in a chat window far, far away...

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

(Scene: It is a dark and stormy night at Milliways. The place is deserted after the evening show, except for a lone cloaked customer, seated at the bar. The bartender, a tall evil looking specimen, is wiping shot glasses behind the counter, in a lazy, thoughtful kind of way. It is Pathos, who we last met entering the vortex with d'Argh, on their way to Milliways.)

Long day, eh?

Oh, same old, same old.

So you been a bartender long?

Ha. Actually, no. Funny story, that.

Oh?

Would you believe, Zaphod actually took me on me as the new act?

Is that so?

Yeah, but you know how it gets. The fame, the groupies, I got tired of it all. But I love this place, you know?
Decided to stay on as the bartender. Zaphod himself BEGGED me to stay on, in fact.

YOU LIE!!!

... What??

Uh, you could go on, you know.

Uh, actually I was waiting for the dramatic flash of lightning before I uncloak myself.

Oh. We don't get a lot of those around here. I could do you a dramatic smash of crockery, if ya like.

Oh, never mind.

(*big reveal: the cloaked person is none other than the diminutive d’Argh*)

YOU!

Yes me, you- you snake!

Me snake? You deserter!

Me! You dumped me!

I dumped YOU? YOU dumped ME! I reach Milliways and you were nowhere to be seen!
Zaphod cancelled on the gig cuz he’d signed up for the BOTH of us! I had to friggin’ WAIT tables to pay for our ride here!

You let go of my hand!

So? Death got us BOTH into the vortex!!

Yeah, but I.. accidentally touched the Pause/Break key.

You wha-? aHA!

BUT YOU NEVER LOOKED FOR ME ALL THESE YEARS! You were too busy doing the dirty with that chick from Eroticon VI!

Eccentrica has a name, and we're getting married! And SO WHAT? Evidently I didn't NEED to! Cuz you've certainly managed to turn up here, NOW, TEN YEARS TOO LATE! So very conveniently?

I’m from the future, you ignoramus!

Also, how DARE you imply- eh?

The d’Argh from your time is lost in a space-time vortex in the wormholes of hyperspatial probability.

…. Eh?

She’s lost in space.

But then how-

Yeah, they found me, unconscious in Magrathea, THIRTY years from when we entered the vortex. That's when I decided that I have to come back and get me. And you get to help. Yay.

Yay! How kind of you. And why should I?

Because it’s ALL your fault!

Read my lips: I. Don’t. Care.

I'm not going to ask you again.

Oooh, I'm shivering with FEAR.

(They circle each other.)

For the LAST time. Will you HELP ME FIND ME OR NOT?

No.

To battle, then.

Battle it is. Oooh, imma ENJOY this.

You’ll be sorry.

(A surge of light flashes through the deserted bar.)

Uh, why are you dressed like that?

Oh, that’s the Law of The Universe.
Whenever a chick goes unto battle, whatever she is wearing immediately metamorphizes into a teeny-tiny mini and go-go boots.
You can call me Sailor Ai Kil Ya.

In fact, if it comes to that, why are YOU dressed like that?

Ninja cool. I’m Yu Kan Dy- San.

HAHAHAHAH.

*takes hands outta pockets, assumes Tai-Chi Stance.* Do NOT mess with me.

*goes into Matrix Trinity Stance.* You wouldn't want me to.

*complex whirling of arms and legs, culminating in a motion of extended left foot that says, "Bring it on!"*

Your "foot"?

Yeah... foot...
You know, with the sole...

Oh okay.
*sticks a finger in his solar plexus and watches him keel over* Ouch. That gotta hurt.

*sends her flying through walls with a roundhouse flying-kick*
Not as much as that, I suppose.

*spins around in mid air and kick boxes his face to pulp* Or that.

*blocks attempted kick with effortless hand motion that alters her trajectory and send her crashing through more walls*
Exactly what I was going to say.

What *is* it with you and walls? *parkours off said walls and resumes kick boxing*

(Her parkour turns on the Jukebox, which proceeds to start playing. The rest of the battle is set to the melancholic strains of Annette Henshaw's "Mean To Me".)

*catches hold of her flailing legs and flings her away into the stratosphere* See? No walls there.

*and zooms back in with the Fist of Death* There. Pummeled good and proper.

*steps outta the way and watches with interest as she flattens herself against the ground* Ah, it's you. Feeling a bit down to earth I suppose.

For that PJ you die. *vaporizes him with death blast from her eyes.*

*calmly puts on polarizing sunglasses, and look on coolly as the death blast is reflected upon the pitiful warrior wannabe, reducing her to a brave little pile of ashes* Pity.

*lazily deflects his attempt at backfire while laser beam vaporises the *rest* of him.*

*pours water on the pile of ashes and watches the flakes float away* Ash to ash, dust to dust.

That didn't happen!

*walks away, whistling, and congratulating self on a job well done*

*Reassembles from watery ashes, gathering her forces for a final assault*

Will you two just STOP it already?

(The two warriors pause, mid-throttle.)

Eh?

Who're YOU?

I'm d'Argh from the future.

Uh, no, actually, we're kinda full up on those.

Further up the future, idiots. I came here to stop you two bickering. Time is of the essence! The REAL d'Argh is lost out there! And you HAVE to find her!

Uh, why?

Yeah, I can beat this one up just as well.

You WISH.

Because w/o d'Argh, there is NO future. The Universe will collapse!

(Horrified silence)

Haha, I'm just messing with ya.

Man, you're GOOD.

Great, now there's TWO of 'em.
And there won't be ANY of 'em unless you two forget your differences and join forces!

And that's bad, how-owww! Alright, alright.
Good. Imma go now. Remember kids, friendship is all that counts! Friendship makes the world go round! Also, floss! OKay, OKAY, I'm going, I'm going.

So.. Truce?

Truce.
It's still your fault, tho'.

HA.

HA, yourself.

…and so on and so forth.
Oh, and this is the Moderator.

Yes, there is a moderator. There has to be a moderator.
And yes, this is a recurring theme.
In fact, I think this is how all the chapters end.

Author’s Notes for the Uninitiated:
1. The Dali Dialogues^TM- noun. Originating as a series of conversations on Microsoft Communicator 2005, the Dialogues are a unique form of collaborative writing meets Whose Line Is it Anyway by a pair of diseased minds who watch waaay too much TV, read too much Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett, and in general consider themselves Armchair Experts on Pop Culture. Do not try this at home.

2. Happy Birthday, Pitiful Gob of Junior Scum. May all your dreams come true, especially the surreal ones. Stay awesome, you.

3. Man, writing this was like pulling teeth. When you’re used to having awesome conversations with an actual human being, trying to do both sides of the said conversation is HARD. This is true for all awesome conversations, whoever they may be with.

Anyway You Want It, That's The Way You Need It

2011-03-21T01:30:00.000-07:00

I hade being shick.

Beshidesh dhe obvious disadvandagesh, id also almosd always reduces my nadurally ebulliend shelf do shomedhing radher more akin do a five year old shuffering shugar widrawal.
*blows nose noisily*

"Honk, honk," calls out the Blister cheerfully from the next room, as the stillness of the night is broken by a sound like an elephant in pain. Gah. If there's anything more undignified than having a bleddy cold, I'm yet to hear of it. (Oooh, wait. I forgot my other regular disease, food poisoning.)

So since I want to write, and almost every other topic is too exhausting after you've just spent two days coughing and sneezing like a TB patient, I'm just going to wuss out and write some random crap. Sucks to be you, Regular Reader Who Turned Up Here Expecting My Slightly Less Random Crap. Regular programming shall resume eventually.

Things I learnt this last week:

Shit happens. Game over, thank you for playing.
When one wishes to mutter impolite asides at the Deity of one’s choice, it is a bad idea to shake one’s fist in impotent rage at the sky while one walks down the road to one’s office. Because you risk looking down after this performance and catching the eye of a random colleague who is staring at you in open-mouthed astonishment. I have now been avoiding this chap for the past two days.
At the ripe old age of half past twenty-six, I find that I still have the hand-eye co-ordination of a drunken octopus. Last night, I managed to poke myself in the eye while COMBING MY HAIR. I am now the proud owner of one bloodshot eye. I also managed to scratch myself in such a way that I have a pretty purple bruise at the crown of my forehead, like some sort of sado-masochistical sindoor. No, I have no idea how I managed that. I should just nominate myself for a Darwin Award and kill myself now.
When you wake up on a Saturday with your soul tinged a delicate shade of blue, it is always a good idea to let a kid sister drag you shopping. My wallet is now, oh, TEN K lighter, and I am the proud possessor of TWO super cute dresses. Granted, they makes me look like the eighth bastard Von Trapp child, but what the hey. Ladies- guys, you’re on your own- I DEFY you to wear this,
and this,

and THIS,

and continue to feel blue. C’est impossible! I spent the whole of Sunday sashaying round town like a demented flamenco dancer. Yippee-yi-yo.
It is equally possible to screw up your career by remaining silent at the right time to the right people, as it is by opening your mouth at the wrong time to the wrong ones. Thankfully, it is also possible to undo said stupidity by screwing up your courage and bearding the Boss in its den. Thank the Heavens for indulgent Bossii.

In other news, God, whatever it is that I've done, can we assume for the purposes of arguement that I'm SORRY already? I'm done. Really. Hat thrown in ring, and all that jazz. Now PLEASE just cut me a break.
I'm not asking for anything fancy, you know. Amnesia would be fine. Or apathy. Yeah, apathy would do just as well. And if neither of those are options, I'm also accepting short-term comas. You can wake me up.. oh, when September ends. I'll just wait right here.

Death and All His Friends

2011-03-19T13:18:00.000-07:00

I remember this conversation from long long ago, where the Mater was letting me have it for my utter disinterest in family prayer.

".. kneeling there and daydreaming! Do you have any idea how important prayer is?"

"Meh, mumsie," said I. "You pray just because you're afraid of stuff. That's cuz you're old. I'm young and I don't have anything to worry about, or at least I think I don't. Don't worry, I'll pray when I get old too, just you see."

(Yes, I actually said that. Evidently, I'd started my career as a cynical little know-it-all at the ripe old age of 13 itself. Sometimes I have to wonder how I made it this far without being murdered by someone.)

The Mater stared at me, speechless with horror, and then stalked off to find the Pater and tell him how his daughter was clearly drifting into deep and dangerous waters, no doubt because of all that unhealthy reading I did all the time, aided and abetted by him, and it would certainly not be her fault if I grew up to be an utter heathen.

It is now many years since I had that conversation, and I find that my 13 year old self has been proved right with a vengeance.

Yes, prayer and I are still strange bed-fellows, other than in certain extentuating circumstances; at those times prayer is merely a string of breathless, hicuppping sobbing words stumbling over each other, meshing into each other oh god let her be okay let her be okay please i will do anything give anything promise anything let him be okay let them be okay let it be me not them please god not .. so that I no longer know what I'm saying, nails digging into forearms, hyperventilating in sheer, blinded, terror; as though the only thing standing between the people I love and the forces of darkness are my pitiful pleading; because... now I am old.

Last week, the Horsey glanced up from her desk out the window just in time to see a pregnant woman and her three year old son getting mowed down by a speeding car on the highway. The Mater told me later that she called up the B.i.L. screaming hysterically, and that she hasn't slept since. And somewhere in Abu Dhabi that day, a man rose a husband and father in the morning, and went to bed that night- if he went to bed at all- a devastated wreck.

The Blister had been in Carlton Towers half an hour before the blaze that claimed the lives of nine people occurred, and I hadn't even known until she told me that night. The client she had dropped in to see suffered permanent hearing damage and has since resigned.

Today, during the recruitment drive at my company, my colleague received a call from home. Since he was asking the questions then, he silenced the call, like we all done when inconvenient calls from home occur. I took over the interview, as he went out to return the call. His horrified scream penetrated the closed room of the conference room and brought me running to the door- "My mother.. she's dead."

What do you say? What CAN you say?

Do we ever really understand the unimaginable potential for loss that surrounds us every. single. instant. of the day? Of course we don't. If we did, we'd all be cowering under our desks until we just keeled over and died, praying for a quick end. Instead, we shut our minds to it, and get on with the business of living. Because that's what we do.

Terry Pratchett observed in A Hat Full Of Sky:

“Lucky humans, who can close your minds to the endless deeps of space! You have this thing you call... boredom? That is the rarest talent in the universe! We heard a song — it went "Twinkle twinkle little star...." What power! What wondrous power! You can take a billion trillion tons of flaming matter, a furnace of unimaginable strength, and turn it into a little song for children! You build little worlds, little stories, little shells around your minds, and that keeps infinity at bay and allows you to wake up in the morning without screaming!”

I'd like to meet that 13 year old girl now, and talk to her, because I don't understand how she could ever have been so naive, so blithely convinced that she had nothing to fear. That 13 year old girl used to mock her mother for insisting she call when she left her tuition class. For watching anxiously from the balcony everytime she crossed the road. "And what good, precisely, will that do? Will you throw a flower pot at someone if they run me over?" Wow, 13-year-old Anne. Were you ever really that blind? That self-obsessed? That young?

Her older self, however, fears everything. Every phone call. Every headline. Every forward, because this could be that critical piece of information which she would miss and somehow, in some sort of sick Final-Destination-esque chain of events, everything she loves would be taken away. The passing of the years has shot bloodred stains of fear through the soul of that child who declared calmly that she had nothing to worry about, stains that will never really go away. Because now, your "grown-up" mind will not allow you to keep infinity at bay.

Because from now on, you will wake up screaming.

Blog Excerpt: You Should Date An Illiterate Girl

2011-03-16T05:34:00.000-07:00

Excerpted from here.

“... Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much...

… Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness…

… The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied…”

Spotted on a Tee-shirt today

2011-03-12T05:38:00.000-08:00

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm PMSing or whether this is just my actual personality."

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH... gasps for breath..HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH X-D

On Awesome Cheese and Why I Hate It

2011-03-08T06:05:00.000-08:00

So when I was a lot younger, there used to be this ad that aired on TV for some brand of cheese, which we shall refer to in this post as Awesome Cheese.

The ad starts thusly: It's a bright, sunny, beautiful day. And this fresh-faced kid runs into the house, all hungry after a wonderful hour of play, and so he bounds up to the fridge, in which there is.. wait for it- Awesome Cheese.

His mother nods approvingly at him. He is wonderstruck at his luck. It is surely too good to be TRUE! He gets to eat cheese! And so he opens that wrapper, gently, lovingly, caressingly. Oh, how creamy and delicious and sexy is Awesome Cheese!

And he eats it. And there is this expression of pure bliss on his frank young face.

I don't remember how it ended, because right about now, I'd be running frantically into the kitchen and demanding Awesome Cheese. Ignoring the Mater's startled protests, I'd fling open the fridge, rip open the silver foil with my grubby little fingers, and wolf down its contents, wondering why in blazes I'd never thought of eating it all this while.

And as the first blast of Awesome Cheese would hit my yearning taste buds, I'd remember why.

It was because I FRIKKIN' HATE AWESOME CHEESE.

And the Mater would roll her eyes unsympathetically at me while i gagged and retched and frantically tried to claw it off my tongue.

"Why on earth do you keep doing that? You KNOW you hate it."

Why, indeed.

there's a little black spot on the sun today

2011-02-21T17:45:00.000-08:00

Crying in the shower is cathartic.

This thought occurs to you, as you stand there, fully clothed, eyes closed, as the blessed water washes over your head, rushes in your mouth, your eyes, your ears, and you can bloody well wail and nobody can hear you.

And you can't hear you, which is more to the point.

And you lean your head against the shower wall, and cry, and cry.

At least you had the foresight to take your shoes off before you fled into the bathroom, face crumpling, mouth hurting in that way it does when you know you're going to cry, now, and must hide, NOW. Which is why you are standing there, barefoot, wringing out your clothes, which weigh about a ton at this point, sticky and clammy, and painfully raw against your skin, wringing them out and crying for the moon.

Crying for what you want so badly it hurts, but can't have.

Crying for realizations that blindside you at 3 am in the morning.

Crying for consequences.

And so you take them off. One by one. Still bawling, tearing at your swollen face, you strip off your sopping clothes, peel them off, wincing as the cloth sticks to your skin, refusing to come away that easily.

You're aware of the strange dichotomy of your position.

One part of you is there, that person, who is holding on to the wall and wailing like a maniac, as the relentless streams of water washes away what seems to be an endless supply of tears, snot and spittle, the byproducts of a crying session that is just getting into its groove.

One part of you is standing a little far away, observing this pathetic sad sack of shit dispassionately, and wondering what kind of godawful concatenation of circumstances would drive someone to their knees like this. Would make for rather good copy, though.

And a little while later, you, the watcher, go up to that wailing, sobbing thing curled up under the shower, and slowly, gently pick her up.

Because it is time to be a big girl now. And big girls don't cry.

How do you call your loverboy? :D

2011-02-14T12:02:00.000-08:00

Man, I love this song :D It's simply one of the cutest sequences in what is otherwise, a rather meh film.

Happy Valentine's Day, folks. Have a good one :)

MICKEY:
Silvia...

SILVIA:
Yes, Mickey?

MICKEY:
How do you call your loverboy?

SILVIA:
Come 'ere, loverboy!!

MICKEY:
And if he doesnt answer?

SILVIA:
Ohh, loverboy?

MICKEY:
And if he STILL doesnt answer?

SILVIA:
I simply say
Baby,
Oohh baby
My sweet baby
You're the one

TOGETHER:
Baby,
Oohh baby
My sweet baby
You're the one!

Wardobe Malfunctions and the Single Lady

2011-02-09T08:39:00.000-08:00

So the Grinch and I were talking the other day, and the topic of wardrobe malfunctions came up. He, poor deluded fellow, kept insisting that guys have it worse- you know, the whole fly business- while I tried to reason it out with him. C'mon, some female wardrobe malfunctions can't even be mentioned in polite mixed company! On top of all that, we can suffer from the open fly syndrome too. Humph, such foolishness.

But forget about him. Let me tell you about my day.

Today being "Leave From Office Early Day" and all, and it actually having come to pass by a weird twist of fate, that I was actually jobless, I determined to leave at 5. As I was leaving, I noticed that I was stepping on my white salwar as I walked. Well, I had just spent the weekend scrubbing its hems spotless, so I had no intention of undoing all that hard work. "Gimme a sec, I'll meet ya in the lobby", I told the colleague who was with me, and I repaired to the ladies', to haul up my slacks. Literally.

Gentle Reader, you are familiar with this process, yes? To haul up your salwar, you untie the drawstring, adjust height as desired, and just before tying, you seize one end of the drawstring, and PULL. And it was during this process, as I was pulling sincerely, that the drawstring ripped in two and came off in my hand. And I was left staring dumbly as my salwar, with a soft sigh, decided to part ways from the rest of me.

This happened at 5 pm, mind you. Just before I had to walk around 500m, cross two main roads, catch a bus, or possibly two, cross another two main roads, and walk another 100 m. Oh, and all in broad daylight.

In hindsight, this probably wasn't the best of days to wear my short baby pink kurta with the waist high slits.

Take a moment now, Gentle Reader, to dwell on my situation. What would YOU have done?

Yep, I reached the same conclusion.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I desperately tried to yank out the broken end of the drawstring, but uh-uh. No go. I scrabbled in my handbag for a pin, the one I usually keep pinned to the strap in case of emergencies like this, and then realized I'd given it to a friend last week. And all the women I knew had already left office. Of course, I coulda accosted one of the guys and borrowed a belt from 'em, but there was the little matter of me preferring to be torn apart by wild horses first. No gym clothes in the cube, either.

This is one of the moments that define a person. It had already been 10 minutes, and my colleague was bound to be wondering whether I'd been afflicted with a sudden case of diarrhoea. It was time to risk everything. I gathered my baggy salwar around my waist, and knotted it into a ball, mundu style. Then tied it with the broken piece of drawstring. And then stuck my stomach out. Yes, for the first time in my life, I wished I had a paunch. Thankfully, my handbag is the kind that lies at the waist. So I could, under pretence of clutching my handbag, also hold on to a handful of salwar too. Win!

I edged my way out of the restroom as gingerly as I could, to find Jim quite impatient. You took forever in there, he said, as he leaped through the access-controlled doors and dashed in to a lift that was just closing, like something out of Mi:2.

Me? I floated elegantly like a butterfly. For all the times the Mater had despaired of me ever learning to walk like a lady, instead of say, a drunken monkey, I did her proud today. She shoulda been there; I frikkin' glid my way out of those doors.

I have no idea how I managed to walk the 500 odd metres to the bus stop. The colleague was prattling gaily on about something, I have no idea what, because I was concentrating on keeping my pants up by sheer force of willpower.

Somehow I reached the bus, and dashed into the first empty one I saw, with some vague idea of getting in and surreptiously checking on the health of my knot. And wouldn't you know it, I got the seat in the volvo that faces the ENTIRE bus. Yep, twenty odd faces, grinning at me. I groaned internally and put my laptop bag on my lap.

Fifteen minutes hadn't passed, when another thought occurred to me.

"Hey," I said, to the lady next to me. "Does this bus go to B-?"

She considered. "I'm not sure, but I don't think so. I remember the board showed S-."

Of course it would.

So, I would have to get down in the middle of the road, clamber over 2 dividers and walk until I get another bus. Possibly, even walk all the way across the junction to the next bus stop.

That was the final straw. I had had enough; I'd just get someone to pick me up. Yes, that was it! One of the bike-blessed was sure to be around- Ah, but infiniteascent was in the oosa. Of all the times he picked to do a bleddy MS. Spiderdude, at home. Him and his transfer.. The Bloody Fool!

I called him up.

"Where are you?"

"Just leaving office. Why?"

"Uh. Can you pick me up from S- at 6?"

The Bloody Fool, true to form, didn't miss a beat. "6 will be tight. 6:30?"

"Done. Get here ASAP!"

Unfortunately for me, the 5 pm traffic, usually so dependable, was non-existent today, and thus I was unceremoniously dumped at S- at 5:45.

5:50 pm. Feeling like an idiot. Every Tom, Dick and Harry walking by is staring at the girl who is clutching her abdomen like she's in the throes of appendicitis.
6:00 pm. The Bloody Fool has not even reached halfway. And he has to go all the way home and then get his bike.
6:05 pm. This is why I should have gotten married aeons ago. A hubby would have HAD a car and been travelling in said car.
6:10 pm. Asked an auto wallah. No, he said. Get on to the main road and try. Yeah, right, and leap over those drains in my condition? No flipping way.
6:20 pm. Even a boyfriend with a bike would have done, really. Remarkable lack of foresight on my part.
6:30 pm. Or an Activa.
6:40 pm. The stares are getting more protracted. One a**hole blows a kiss at me. I hope he trips and falls into the sewage. I'm now hysterically considering calling up every he-creature I know who has a bike and pleading that they get here before gravity seizes the day.
6:50 pm. He's heeere! Oh, blessed boy.

Only after I get on the bike, and we're on our way, did he finally ask. "What happened?"

I told him.
He guffawed all the way to my place. Bloody fool.

This almost, but not quite, replaces the high point of horror in my memory as the day when I had to go home without a salwar.

That's right, salwar-less. Bare legged. Well, not really bare-legged, if you count my socks and shoes. Shoes, socks, uniform kurta, v-folded dupatta pinned neatly in place, and no salwar.

So, 7th grade. My school used to have the shift system: girls in the morning from 7 am to 3 pm, and boys; in the afternoon from 8 am to 4 pm. We girls had swimming classes for an hour after school, and we could go home in the boys' buses. So what happens when you put some thirty-odd kids in a common changing room? Yep, bags get mixed up, uniforms get exchanged, socks get lost, the usual. If you're a normal person, that is. If you're like yours truly, who has a special department at Murphy's Law dedicated to manipulating her luck alone, well, you're not that lucky. After lazing around in the pool long after everyone else had left, I finally emerged to find the changing room deserted, and my bag in one corner.

Socks and shoes? Check.

Kurta? Check.

Dupatta? Check.

Salwar? Oh, dearie dearie me.

As I stood there, rooted to the spot in horror, my teacher came in. "Hurry up! Your bus driver is out there making a fuss since you're late!" She takes in the equivocal nature of my position. "Uh, I think he's going to be there a while?"

We searched the entire premises. Nuffink. She checked out the cupboards to see if there was any old dress, something, anything; which could be used to wrap my lower limbs in. Nope. Murphy was quite thorough.

There was nothing for it. With my head held high, I stepped out on to the campus as though I'd been practicing walking pantsless all my life; to be confronted by my irate driver.

"Where the HELL have you been? You think you can take your own sweet-"

Double take.

"AND WHY AREN'T YOU WEARING A SALWAR?"

I tried to gather the shreds of my lost dignity around me. "I appear to have misplaced them."

"Oh, dear Lord. You do remember that the bus is full of the senior boys?"

I said nothing. What was there to say? What do you say when you're a girl travelling in a bus with 17 year old boys who you generally snark spectacularly with all the sass of thirteen, and you've just realized that you're going to give them an opportunity to pulverize you to smithereens for all of time?

Bless that man. He rose to the occasion magnificently. "Okay, you hold your schoolbag in front and your swimming kit behind, and I'll bring the van to the front. And you sit in the front seat before the boys come. They won't notice."

Sure, the boys would have gotten an eyeful as I got out of the bus, but either my dear old Driver uncle musta put the fear of God into them or they were being chivalrous to a damsel who was CLEARLY in distress, because there wasn't so much as a chuckle from the lot of them. And thus I was able to reach home and shock the Mater into speechlessness as she beheld her second-born march into the house literally half-dressed. "How do these things happen only to you??"

But I digress. So what was I talking about again? Oh yeah, how guys have it sooo very bad in the wardrobe malfunction department. Open flies, my left eyeball. X-(

memorare

2011-02-07T03:59:00.000-08:00

You were 23.

One year younger than my kid sister.

You were going to Thrissur.

Like my roomie, who came home this morning.

You were working and staying away from home.

Like all my girl friends who're living the dream of independence.

You were going home to meet a prospective alliance.

Like I have, so many weekends.

You were traveling in the Ladies' Compartment.

Like every anxious parent insists.

You were carrying a cell phone.

Like we all do, so that our family and friends can always know we're safe.

You were 23, and that animal brutalized you.

For some petty cash and a phone.

And yesterday, you died.

And you became reduced to a column of newsprint. A scrolling line on a TV channel. A sound-byte for people with agendas.

I want to cry.

I want to smash something.

I want to spit out the bile rising in my throat, when I hear talk of "compensation to the family" and "writing a letter of protest to the Railways Minister".

And I don't even know your name.

I don't know the family whose world was shattered by a phone call last Tuesday.

You were 23, and you died, and I don't even know your name, my sister, my friend.

R.I.P.

[Update, 11/11/11 : A Thrissur fast track court finds the accused guilty & awards the death penalty.]

Engage Self Destruct Mode

2011-02-02T12:09:00.000-08:00

Anne, you little idiot, what the FUCK are you thinking. Oh, that's right.. you're not thinking at ALL, are you.

"What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate."

~ Romans 7:15

Murphy's Law of Software Development - 1

2011-01-28T08:08:00.000-08:00

The second you airily tell your PM of course you can finish your task in the stipulated time, you will fall prey to an illness whose turnaround period efficiently robs you of two-thirds of said stipulated time.

Then, when you immediately fall over yourself to add that you will work from home and make up for said lost time, the internet connectivity at your house will decide to play hide and seek, reducing the extra stipulated time graciously granted earlier, by fifty percent.

I've now sworn to come in early on Monday and kill that bug dead.

Gee, what could possibly go wrong?

The Break-up Dance Party Playlist!

2011-01-22T03:54:00.000-08:00

Have YOU just broken up with someone?
Can YOU just not carry off the goth look with panache?
Are YOU tired of listening to the same old emo weepy ballads while stuffing your face with comfort food?
Is listening to all the angst in Evanescence making you wish there were mirrors and bathtubs you could stand in dramatically tragic poses next to?

If the answer to any of the above questions is YES, never fear!
We at willwriteforfood recognize the very real gap in the market, the crying need for cheerful breakup music, and we are here to help you, in seven easy steps!

Step 1: Realization, or: "Oh, crap."
Ah, the nineties. Good stuff.

"Cuz it hurts me so just to see you go,
Around with someone new,
And if I know you you're doin' that thing,
Every day just doin' that thing,
I can't take you doing that thing you do!"
~ The Wonders, That Thing You Do

Step 2: Denial, or: "Come baaaack!"

Q: What do you call a video starring, at various times: a giantess, an elephant, the Pope, and a ballet chorus, among others?
A: Best. Break-up. Video. Ever.

“I'll get over you.. I know I will
I'll pretend my ship's not sinking
And I'll tell myself I'm over you
Cuz I'm the king of wishful thinking.”
~ Go West, King of Wishful Thinking

Stupid folks've disallowed embedding on this epic, EPIC video; but do take a dekko here.

Step 3: Dazed Acceptance, or "It starts to sink in."

Suitably censored for our younger readers.

“She .. hates me!

Trust, she ... hates me- la la la love.

I tried too hard,

And she tore my feelings like I had none!”
~ Puddle of Mudd, She Hates Me

Step 4: Rationalizing, or: "Yeah, he only wants her money".

Couldn't find a bowdlerized version of this one, so enjoy Glee's super-awesome cover instead. Gwyneth Paltrow! 'Nuff said.

“I see you driving 'round town
With the guy I love and I'm like,
Forget you!
I guess the change in my pocket
Wasn't enough, I'm like,
Forget you!
And forget him too!”
~ CeeLo Green, F**k You

Step 5: Hating their guts, or: "I hope you rot in hell."

Nice and subtle, now.

“When you see my face-
I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell!
When you walk my way-
I hope it gives you hell, I hope it gives you hell!”
~ All American Rejects, Gives You Hell

Step 6: Gloating, or: "Ha ha ha! Sucks to be you!"

This one's a bit of a stretch, but what the hey. A song with "na, na, na, na" as its chorus gets on this list by default.

“He's tearin' you apart
Oh every every day
He's tearin' you apart
Oh girl, what can you say?
Cus he's lovin', he's touchin' another
Now it's your turn, girl, to cry
Na, na, na, na, na, na!”
~ Journey, Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezing’

Step 7: Happy Ever After, or: "I've met someone else."

Irresistible song which just makes you want to do the dappan kuthu. Mad love.

“The dog days are over,
The dog days are done,
Can you hear the horses?
Cuz heeeere they coooome!”
~ Florence + The Machine, The Dog Days Are Over

That's right, now you TOO, can go through all the stages of a break-up, dancing. Invite your friends over! Order Pizza! Do the cha-cha! No more whining over that moron, no more yearning behind that bimbo: dance your way to a brighter day!

cuz it's a bittersweet symphony, that's life

2011-01-19T10:55:00.000-08:00

i'm so scared, scared, scared.
numb scared
can't sleep scared
deer unblinking in the headlights scared.
tell me it'll be okay
that everything'll be alright.
hold me tight, so that I can't breathe
so that the blood pounds in my head
hold me and lie to me, because i am scared.

The Heartcry of a Hygienically OCD-ed Soul

2011-01-17T08:29:00.000-08:00

Why, oh why, do women make calls in the loo?
('Course, I wouldn't know if men do too.
Although for them, by its very definition,
Peeing oughta preclude such ghastly intentions.)
Tell me, does it signal deep affection?
Or merely mental retardation,
Taking calls this way?
Why don't they ever just say,
"Excuse me, I'll get back to you. I'm on another call."
Or better yet, don't answer that phone at all.
Like other, normal people do.
It's just so eww, ewww, ewwwwwwwwwww!

The Theory of Deferred Flirting

2011-01-15T10:50:00.000-08:00

"If a guy casually hits on a girl once, he's just testing the waters for the bigger splash he's going to make later on, regardless of how cold the water is anyway."

~ the Gospel according to Phoenix

:D :D

To Straighten, or Not to Straighten

2011-01-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

"To straighten, or not to straighten– that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The bad-hair days and plain-cussedness of outrageous curls,
Or to take chemicals against a head of hair
And, by opposing, flatten them? To straighten, to yank
No more – and by yank to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural indignities
That my hair is heir to – 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To half-pony, to plait
To perm, perchance to coif. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that straightening of death what hairfall may come,
When we have shuffled off this stinky chemical,
Must give us pause."

(With apologies to Hamlet.)

I hail from a long line of curly-haired people; my grandfather tells me fondly that back in the day when he still had hair, he was able to break combs with a single strand. (So, by the way, have I. True story.)

Ah, curly hair. It sticks up in weird angles, makes you look perpetually frumpy, and the sum total of feasible styles available to you are Ponytail, Bun, and Electrocuted. No, don't get me wrong. Deep down, bitch as I may, I actually heart my curly big hair with its perimeter begin enough to merit its own no fly zone, you know- the whole arty girl, tousled bedhead look. Of course, the minor problem with the arty-girl, bedhead look in that it looks cute for only for about the 3 minutes after you get out of bed. After which, you basically look like someone stuck your head in a windtunnel.

And if you look really closely, you can see the Beautiful Nose.

Yep, that's me. Back when I had this curtain of keratin down to my waist, the Blister fondly called me the Lioness-In-Waiting until I went for a trim. Anyhoo, I finally succumbed around in July ’09, and marched down to Jawed Habib's for.... the Treatment. It set me back a cool 16k- I treated the Blister too- but, oh sweet Lady Gaga, did I lou!!

Oh, just look at that muchness.

For the first time in years, I could actually wake up in the morning and not have to spend half an hour to pick out strange objects that got mysteriously entangled in the beartrap of my hair. Yes, I loathed the sudden limpness of my hair, I missed my big curls; but oh, the manageability! No more last minute shrieks while I wrangled with the hair iron before a party. No more desperate conditioning in an attempt to tame the tangle. True, my parents and relatives loathed it, but the gang lovedeth. (With a few notable exceptions, you know who you are :))

So why the uncertainty? Cuz it ruins my hair. Sigh. :( Curly hair is pretty much indestructible- no split ends, no hairfall, as low-maintenance as you can go, really, but even it can't stand up to the rebonding process. I'm shedding hair left and right here.

But oh, manageable haaaaair! :'(

Decisions, decisions!

In other news, HalfPreciousPoison has finished her first trimester, and everything is fine, thank the Lord. And the Schnappi is counting the days to hers. :) *happy, happy, happy*

Six Injured in Savage Strike by Were-Cat

2011-01-02T00:00:00.001-08:00

AP - A quiet New Year’s party became the stage for something out of a bad horror movie last night, when one of the guests tragically turned into a werecat.

It appears that the macabre metamorphism occurred when the perpetrator- Patricia Gardiner, 26- was quizzed on her marital status. According to eyewitness accounts, a ghastly shriek was then heard, as the diminutive Gardiner terrifyingly transformed into a gigantic beast. Pandemonium ensued in the small dining room, as guests tried to flee. After around 10 minutes of visiting havoc on the furniture, Gardiner fled hissing into the night. The wounded were taken to Seattle Grace Hospital, where it was declared that apart from a few skin wounds and sore limbs, none of the guests were seriously hurt.

Police are still trying to sift through the conflicting accounts of what really happened that fateful night.

“I don’t understand”, sobbed a tearful Dahlia Travers, 54. “I just told her that she should marry the first boy that would have her, because she really shouldn’t risk her chances, being a girl and all. And then she clutched her hair and shrieked and sprouted FUR!”

"Teeth too! Long pointed teeth!" adds Madeleine Basset, 22, with a shudder. "So very unbecoming in a young lady."

Lord Emsworth, 72, is still dazed with uncomprehension. “I was telling her that it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t like the boy; that affection will come after marriage.. And she bit me! In the leg!”

This reporter located the boy in question, Augustus "Gussie" Fink-Nottle, 30, as he scrubbed his face desperately with antiseptic. “She hissed and spat at me!”, he repeats in disbelief. “After I told her we should get hitched because she seemed an acceptable bride! Of course, I had no idea that she had this side to her. No-one can possibly expect me to go through with this NOW. This changes everything.”

For some of the victims, however, shock has given way to fury. Agatha Worplesdon, 38, cried, “Fur! I ask you, fur! What was she thinking? Everyone knows it's really hard to obtain suitable alliances for werecats! Now what are we to do?”

The werecat was unavailable for comment.

In other news, police are investigating reports of a fearsome black panther terrorizing bookstores in downtown Bangalore. No employees have been injured, but it was reported that their entire stock of Twilight was mauled to shreds.

New Year. New-ish Resolutions.

2011-01-01T02:28:00.000-08:00

Yep, it's that time of the year again, and everyone's doing it.

So what do I resolve to do this year?

1. Write¹. I’d forgotten how much I love it. And I still do- forget, I mean, I had to fight raging procrastination even to get to write this post. But, oh, words, I've missed you so! I used to be rather good at this, once upon a time... Time to see if I've still am.

2. Draw. Three years ago, I lost my old sketch book, and so the work of TEN years was lost forever. Some of my best work, not to mention some of the only watercolours I’d ever done, stuff that I can never, ever draw again. Nah, I was no Picasso, but I had entertained dreams of showing it to my as-yet hypothetical grandchildren, you know? It broke my heart, and I laid my pencil down in grief, until a coupla years ago, when I had to figure out a birthday gift for a new friend. And I thought, hey, why not? Haven't looked back since. This year I resolve to get back to colour. Yay!

3. Work out. I can't throw out my Lee jeans, I just can't :( Whoami kidding, my roomies are reading this over my shoulder and guffawing as I type. No! I WILL LOSE THOSE FIVE KILOS OR BUST, goshdarnit!

4. Volunteer. There is so much crap happening in the world, and it is high time I get off my fat ass and do something about it. I AM GOING TO VOLUNTEER for something once a month. I the knows English, pidgin Malayalam, awful Hindi, and pretty much nothing else; but I am awesome with kids and I never, ever complain about the weather. Surely there has to be some place which can use this epic list of talents- gentle Readers who are based in B’lore, any suggestions? The place I work now has a pretty awesome volunteering program, like once every 6 months, and in that regard I will attending my first volunteer program next week. Watch this space for updates!

5. Watch more movies². I’ll start with the imdb top 250 and after that, I’ll work my way through Roger Ebert’s Great Movies list. I've practically become next door to a perfect savage; it's high time to dial up the culture, Anne.

6. Eat out once a month. Yeah, I do realize this one is rather at odds with no: 3, but yeesh. The most common thing I heard all last year was, “You’ve been in Bangalore for FOUR years? And you haven’t been to *insert_name_of_super_awesome_place_that_even_the_cows_have_been?* Mortifying, I tell you. Suggestions welcome- which is the most awesome place you HAVE to have been in Bangalore, not having been relegating to you to dark looks and shudders from the general populace?

And that's about it. Short, and simple, and hopefully achievable :) Wish me luck!

¹Apologies to the Cheshire Cat. I swear any similarities between this and your post is completely superficial AND accidental. :|

²Yes, shamelessly flicked from the Beanpole, but what the hey. Good ideas are always worth stealing. :P

I thought of you and where you'd gone, and the world spins madly on

2010-12-30T08:05:00.000-08:00

"And I'll follow you wherever,
When you lead me by my nose,
On another big adventure, I suppose?

And you lay me down in clover, with their petals on my back
And it blows my mind when you do things like that..."

~ Sister Hazel, "Beautiful Thing"

I had loved you then, and I know that now.

Do you know when I first suspected it? We were standing there by the window that sunny afternoon so very long ago, and you were teasing me about my introvertedness, you who knew everyone and everybody, and I retorted that people who went traipsing over the place just to meet random strangers were the crazy ones. And as we stood there, bantering in the summer sunshine, the realization blindsided me, just like that- I looked at you in that instant and I just knew, which terrified me because you were not even my type, how could I, the unsentimental, have fallen for you?

Was it crazy of me to fall in love with you because you were the kindest man I knew? Was it insane to fall in love with someone simply for being a good person; for being the standard I found myself comparing everyone else in my life to?

Yeah, probably.

Love is realizing that you're helpless, like realizing you have somehow, by some completely insane chain of events which had nothing to do with you, been bound hand and foot and flung over the Niagra. You're falling, falling, falling fast, your stomach shrieking under the sickening pull of gravity, the spray in your face knocking you sensless, and the ground getting closer-
Oh, so very different from being loved, which might make you feel overwhelmed, happy, confused, scared, oh all of these, and maybe none of these, but loving someone is like swimming underwater; everything is slower, and silent-er, and there is a certain inevitability to what must follow.

And in that timeless instant I knew I would go anywhere, do anything, be anyone, if it was you who was doing the asking. I knew then that I belonged to you with a completeness that overpowered me, that I could never deny you anything, simply because it was you.

And many, many years later you would ask me to marry you, and I would say no.

And then you would tell me that you would wait for me. And you would.

And then you would tell me you couldn't wait any longer, and that you had to move on, for both our sakes. And you would.

And now, here, today, on the other side of forever, I know I was wrong then. Oh, it doesn't matter any more why I made that decision, or why it was wrong. Someone once told me, if you made a past decision that was right at the time, knowing only what you knew then, regret is aimless. The pain of hindsight is always crystal clear in its clarity, but I do not regret. If I had to go back and do it all over again, I wouldn't choose any differently.

And yet. What if I had? It used to keep haunting me, that question. What if I had?

I don't think of you sadly, or lovingly, or remorsefully; in fact I hardly think of you at all. I've moved on, too, as completely as we both might wish. We don't keep in touch anymore, except for the regular-as-clockwork birthday and christmas wishes, the general how-are-you-doing-still-alive-I-see calls are short, brusque and to the point; concessions to a time when we were so much more than friends, though only one of us had the sense to know it at the time.

And yet, when I see it's your number on the phone, I smile. Like I smiled the other day as I was putting on my 3-inch high heels to go for a wedding, thinking back to another pair of shoes and another wedding; a madcap race with me all the while shrieking that we would be killed, that I would trip on those heels and break my neck, and yet not being afraid because you had got me. I smile when the memories come blowing in unbidden, and I admit now what I hadn't dared admit then to you or to myself; oh, yes, I had loved you, and I was wrong.

And I've made my peace with that. I've stopped unconsciously comparing every man I meet with you. I've stopped wondering, what if?

I'm honoured to have loved and been loved by you, but I'm letting your memory go; wrapping up it up in lavender, as I would something incredibly precious and beautiful, and casting it to the winds. I'm setting myself free.

Won't you sing to me your poetry,

Won't you take me to your home?

Won't you be for me forever, so I'll never be alone?

Just one thing, if you're my king

Then it's a beautiful thing...

Book Excerpt: Jane Eyre

2010-12-18T17:27:00.000-08:00

A wild look raised his brows—crossed his features: he rose; but he forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I shook, I feared—but I resolved.

“One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left? What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for a companion and for some hope?”

“Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet again there.”

“Then you will not yield?”
“No.”

“Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?” His voice rose.

“I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil.”

“Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on lust for a passion—vice for an occupation?”

“Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and endure—you as well as I: do so. You will forget me before I forget you.”

“You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I declared I could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change soon. And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in your ideas, is proved by your conduct! Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me?”

This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. “Oh, comply!” it said. “Think of his misery; think of his danger—look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair—soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?”

Still indomitable was the reply—“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth—so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”

I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so.

….

That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as soon as I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the scenes of childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that the night was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The light that long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of the obscured ceiling. I lifted up my head to look: the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever. I watched her come - watched with the strangest anticipation; as though some word of doom were to be written on her disk. She broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first penetrated the sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a white human form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my heart -

"My daughter, flee temptation."

"Mother, I will."

~ Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

(Read the full text here.)

Who the HECK are you, and why are you adding me as a friend?

2010-12-18T10:21:00.000-08:00

I, for those of you who don't know me in person, am a remarkably un-photogenic person. In pictures, I tend to look like a cross between a constipated lizard and an Egyptian Mummy who has definitely seen better days; and we're talking professionally taken studio photos here. About the amateur ones, the less said the better: my best friends, on seeing my photos without warning, have been known to wince and step back in horror. Remember Chandler in TOW the Engagement Photo?

This bears an uncanny resemblance to my graduation day photo.

But there is cause to rejoice, folks! Yes, at last somebody finds my photos attractive!

Might I present to you... The Facebook Stalker.

$e*Y $|(\)(\)eR wants to add you as a friend.

Mutual friends = 0.

Friends = 8.

Yes, this genial soul was so enamoured of my grimacing glamour that he hurried to friend me, a complete stranger, before he friended anyone else in his social network. Furthermore, he knows that women cannot be won over by mere good looks, and thus he must needs leave proof of his devastating charm:

"wow, i lyk ur pretty eyez."

Which totally did not make me think of this.

"hi, u hv a beautiful nose. wanna be frndz"

rendering my roomies hysterical, and christening me Miss Beautiful Nose for weeks.

And the all-time perennial favourite:

"Hai. Will you do fraandship with me???"

This particular one has also been received by almost all my girlfriends, give or take a few "?"s. My theory? Either it's one of the Secret Rites of Initiation to Douchehood, or somewhere out there is a dude who has made it his life mission to send this message to every girl on the planet.

But wait, I must not be unjust: the lady FBers can be equally friendly. (Friendly, I said. :P)

"Hai."

She was totally unfamiliar, with zero mutual friends, so figuring she must be an acquaintance from my ISC days, I messaged her back.

"Hey! I'm sorry, I can't place you?"

Her reply?

"No u dnt know me, i'm a doctor- thot u were one too... u look like a doctor"

Oh, well, that explains everything. My pictures are both hot AND smart. Whoohoo.

Let us not forget the odd friend-of-your-actual-friend, actual friend being random acquaintance you barely know and added out of politeness. Lo and behold; his friend friends YOU, the minor detail that you don't know him from a sack of fries not getting in the way. Preface my "friend" request with a "Hey, I'm X, friend of Y"? Lawd, no. She should add me on the strength of our mutual friends alone!

I just don't get it. The lamest person in the world wouldn't just march upto someone else and try to hang out without at least some preamble, right? What is it about cyber space that makes people skip the basic courtesies; zooming past Introduction Lounge directly into the Stalker Zone?
Perhaps I'm just a hopelessly outdated Miss Manners. I'm such an raving introvert that I still find it hard to strike up conversation with a person I've not been formally introduced to, so maybe I'm not the best judge. :|

Courtesy the good folks at CollegeHumor

If you leave me now, you take away the very heart of me

2010-12-17T04:17:00.000-08:00

"Oh, she thought, how horrible it is that people have to grow up-and marry-and change!"

~ L.M. Montgomery (Anne of the Island)

Today I said goodbye to the Lady S.
Neither of us are the mewling kind, so there were no tears, but.. when we hugged goodbye, the effort of trying to appear nonchalant did render our frozen smiles slightly maniacal around the edges. The next time I see her, she’ll be a “we”, a wife, a part of something that now excludes me- someone who was part of her life for the past four years.

Oh, I hate this. I was looking over the archives of my previous blog, and there are way too many posts tagged “goodbye”- over the past few years, I seem to have bid farewell to far too many people, and let in far too few. Rainbow, the Lady R, HalfPreciousPoison, Chair, Joey, the Beanpole, infiniteascent, Spiderman, Superwoman… one by one, they’ve all gone their ways, leaving me behind, “abandoned as a summer cat”.

Sigh.

Well, I’m done with this.

The rest of you who are still here, I absolutely FORBID you from going anywhere. That means no marriages, no making babies, no higher studies, no moving, no new jobs, nothing, nada. You stay here!

Stay here, with me.

Just because I’ll miss you horribly when you leave. :(

Image copyright Bill Watterson

Down an unknown road, to embrace my fate / though the road may wander, it will lead me to you

2010-12-11T12:54:00.000-08:00

[ For those of you who've been pointed here from infiniteascent's post; hello and welcome! I hope you find our little debate series as interesting as we do, infinitesascent and I have been disagreeing with each other for years, I kid you not, via conversations and mails, chats and IMs, and so we finally decided to blog it out!

Ground rules:
1. This is NOT an evangelizing session. This is where I list out what I believe, and why. I don't know what you believe, and I'm certainly not asking you to agree with me. Feel free to disagree.
2. Also feel free to be polite. Like Voltaire said, "I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I don't care whose side you're on, you want to be nasty, take it elsewhere. Rude/trolling comments will be deleted summarily. ]

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

"Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods."
~ C.S. Lewis¹

I was born into a Roman Catholic²family to good, simple people who walked in the light of their faith. My sisters and I were brought up accordingly; I attended Sunday School for ten years, served as an altar girl and sang in the church choir for five, and, when I was older, participated in the weekly services as a reader.

When your life is as interwined with something as this, it naturally reflects in everything that you do. I was incredibly devout as a child. Not crazy-devout, no, but I believed with all my heart in God, and the Catholic Church, and the rest of it. I read up about the saints after whom I am named, heck, I even wanted to become a nun when I grew up. The priests and nuns I knew, good folks all of them, inspired me. The Catholic Church has real beauty in its traditions; the ancient hymns and prayers are pretty much poetry, and as regards the rites- one of my most beloved memories of my time as an altar girl is watching the pefumed fumes from the thurible drift up in the stained sunlight during the early morning service.

Image courtesy sxc

When I was about 14, a couple of things happened.

The first of the pedophilia scandals- to my knowledge, at least- that was to rock the Catholic Church broke. And the Church, to my horror and shame, refused to even acknowledge it as an issue, to accept it as the betrayal of the faithful that it was.
A person very close to me joined a sect of Christianity that was, for lack of a better word, insane. And I watched her change into someone I couldn't even recognize.

I began to read more– about the Inquisition, the Catholic Church teachings on homosexuality, abortion, and the use of contraceptives, about other Christian denominations in general. And this is what I realized from my reading:

Contrary to what I'd been taught, the Pope is not infallible in matters of theology and faith. There have been documented instances of the Pope having failed in his duty as a religious leader.
Every Catholic in the world is culpable, for the horror and pain that the families and the victims of abuse have undergone at the hands of a Church that it more worried about damage control than it is with the lives of its flock.
I cannot consider the Bible as the “inspired” word of God; that it is infallible, and that it is perfect. It is a record of the times in which it was written, and has the same authenticity and veracity as any other historical document, period. Folks who disagree, have you read bits of it?
I cannot agree with people who say that faith is everything. That’s all very well, but a question for the discerning believer: when you’re blazing up in the fire of faith against common sense, how do you tell if you’re being Abraham or this unfortunate woman?
I despise people who become one of those proselytizing pain-in-the-nether-regions, who wander behind folks telling them they’re going to hell because of ‘insert-sin-here’, or that some misfortune they're undergoing is because their uncle's cousin twice removed must have sneezed in church someday. If you think eating jam on Tuesdays is a sin, well, more power to you, but allow me to live my life according to my rules. I'm willing to take my chances with the Last Judgement.
I can’t stand people who leave their brains behind when they get caught up in their religion. You have a brain- or at least, some of you do, use it! I’m especially looking at YOU, creationists.

It was.. heartbreaking. Also, nauseating. I couldn't believe that this is what I had been inspired by, this... this ridiculous, hypocritical, steaming pile of crap. And I washed my hands of it all. Oh, I still went to church- else I risked my folks dying of horror, but I was going through the motions. The ecstasy, the surety, that feeling of a higher calling- it was all gone.

Image courtesy www.freedigitalphotos.net

That was around ten years ago. In the intervening time, I've made close friends on both sides of the fence- devout believers, and folks who're agnostic/atheists.
My believer friends believe I’m a soulless atheist, and shake their heads in sorrow.

My atheist friends believe I’m an idiot believer, and shake their heads in sorrow.

But here's the thing. Somewhere along the line, while I was refuting the nonsensical religious mania that seems to be spreading like a skin rash over the world today.... I discovered I'm NOT an atheist, any more than Christopher Hitchens is a little green man. Yes, organized religion (as espoused by the Catholic Church³, and much more by certain other Christian sects) still makes me want to kick something, but..

“I seem to remember only centuries of heroic war, in which you were always heroes—epic on epic, iliad on iliad, and you always brothers in arms. Whether it was but recently (for time is nothing), or at the beginning of the world, I sent you out to war. I sat in the darkness, where there is not any created thing, and to you I was only a voice commanding valour and an unnatural virtue. You heard the voice in the dark, and you never heard it again. The sun in heaven denied it, the earth and sky denied it, all human wisdom denied it. And when I met you in the daylight I denied it myself. But you were men. You did not forget your secret honour, though the whole cosmos turned an engine of torture to tear it out of you.”
~ G. K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday

See... I’ve heard the voice in the dark, and I never heard it again.

No, not literally. But I can no more forget it, than I can rip out the capillaries out of my hand. Conditioning? Maybe. I don't know. But my life, my soul, my very existence is twisted and tied and knotted up with this- this preposterous crazy notion that maybe, just maybe, there is a God. The formative years of my existence were immersed in this hope, everything I know about truth, beauty and justice I have learnt from my faith; it courses through my veins, it pulses with my every heart beat; it has made me who I am. God knows I've always agreed with the atheist notion that even if there was a Creator, surely he'd have better things to do than act as a sort of babysitter-Santa Claus-Fairy Godmother composite to every single human who bleats to Him, and that makes perfect sense, except that, well, it doesn't, because I've had miracles in my life. Yes, the thorny question of the Problem of Evil begs itself- why won't God do something about the crap that's happening out there today, if he's all good and omnipotent and all that jazz? Presumably he was too busy attending to my fervent plea to PLEASE let the train be late by 5 minutes, pleasepleasepleasePLEASE.

So, no, I don't know there's somebody up there- in fact, to be honest, most of the time, I'm pretty sure there isn't. Typically, my faith in a Being generally goes off the charts round about the time when I'm completely screwed and I desperately need divine intervention.

Image copyright Bill Watterson

Here's what I do know, what is verifiable from fact.
There certainly lived a man named Jesus.
He was crucified for saying something so preposterous, so utterly crazy, that well, either he was crazy delusional, or he was speaking the truth.
Going by the rest of the stuff he did, he didn't seem crazy.
So maybe he was... right?

And that sums up the totality of my faith. An outrageous, incredulous hope. Apart from that, I don't know anything at all. And so, like the rest of us, I live life for the moment. And do the best I can.

Notes:

This (rather long) post may change over time, as I wrangle out what I believe in. I always find clarity of thought when I write things out, and so this piece is a manifesto, a record of what I believe TODAY. If you disagree with me on anything (hi, infiniteascent! :P), please do write back. If I'm wrong, I need to know. I hate to be politely left to my delusions. :)
I’d originally planned to not specify my faith by name here, you know, refer to it as Pastafarianism or summat, but then I realized the rest of the post wouldn’t make much sense without it.
[Edit 12/12/2010] I just re-read this post, and I realized I haven't given the Catholic Church enough credit. For one thing, they certainly are not guilty of the willful stupidity of some of their brethren in certain other sects- they leave science to the scientists, and stick to their turf, which is morality, if somewhat tortuous. (I suppose the retraction of Galileo still burns ;)) As part of my research for the post, I discovered that the Church had stuck up for the Jews during the Holocaust, which I hadn't known before, it was one of the things that stuck in my craw- how could they have seen what was happening, and done nothing? Well, they did do a lot. Maybe not enough, but they did.
The Church condemns homosexuality as a sin against God, and doesn't allow gay marriages, but they accept the LG community as members of the Catholic community in every thing else. Impressively progressive for a religion that once drove the Inquisition. Theoretically, they're against contraceptives, but, well, you'd be hard put to find a priest to actually say that in the mandatory pre-marriage counselling sessions :) The fact about the Church is that, it really is just a large corporate in some ways, and is therefore afflicted with all the woes that large corporates have- corruption, power mad people, scandals et al. The worst crime of the Church is that it is horribly afraid of losing its flock; which is the main reason for its frantic cover ups of the sex-abuse scandals. Well, it's DEAD wrong there, but here's the thing about the Church: it's like a lumbering dinosaur who takes forever for an idea to penetrate its tiny little brain, but when it does, it certainly does get moving.

Is it okay for a girl to ask a guy out?

2010-12-08T02:23:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: Before those of you who know me begin to bombard me with questions, the answer is: NO ONE. This question is purely academic. :P

So there I was, stuck in a book stall the other day, you know, the type that has only gossip rags and self help books for sale. And that is how, in the depths of my desperation, I came to pick up the source book of that heinous movie: "He's Just Not That Into You."

(Yeah, I know. Don't judge me too harshly. I was really bored.)

And thus I learnt, in almost a gazillion detailed chapters, complete with testimonials of women who’d seen the light, that if a guy does "insert-almost-anything-here", it means he’s just not that into you.

Interestingly enough, we of the car pool had a similar discussion in our popular series- Profound Topic of the Day To Be Wrangled While We Hit Warp Speed on the Flyover.

So, is it a good idea for a girl to ask a guy out? The car pool hath spoken:

Spiderman: “Why not? If you like a guy, ask him out! Why should the dudes have to do all the hard work?”
Superwoman: “Na-uh. From what I’ve seen, that never ends well. For one thing, he might end up taking her for granted. You know- ‘she asked me out, so she must really dig me, et cetera.’”
Me: “I’m with Spiderdude here. Come ON, if she likes him and is reasonably sure he likes her, why should a girl have to sit around like a shrinking violet waiting for a guy to get to it?”
Silver: “Nope. Nada. It’s waay better for a guy to have to work for it. Else you run the risk of turning a perfectly normal dude into a smug a$$hole. Take it from me, if a chick asked ME out, I’d totally be preening around the place.”

That was pretty much it, considering it took us all of 7 minutes to zoom through to office, but it raises some intriguing questions.

Now, I’m no feminist. (Okay, not a very militant one, at least. :)) All I ask is, if someone tells me I can’t do something, they’d better come up with a better reason than “because you’re a girl”, else I rip ‘em to shreds. Having said that, though, in this case I've noticed the ladies generally tend to side with the prosecution, interestingly enough- and not because it's “unladylike” or somesuch. Rainbow, a BFF who is a militant feminist, observes, that “every time a girl chooses a guy for herself, she ALWAYS picks losers.” OliveOil adds, “it’s not like it’s hard to let a guy know you’re interested, it’s just that it’s ALWAYS better to let him make the first move.”

Hmm.

The floor is now open to you, blog junta.

Ladies, would you ask a guy out?

Laddies, if a girl asked you out, would you:

a) Faint. That’s MY line!

b) Preen. Yeahhhh. Everybody wants a piece of me, heheh.

c) Consider it, like a normal human being.

Whatever your answer, what is the why of that?

Case File: The Deadly Maruti 800 Assasination Squad

2010-12-06T10:14:00.000-08:00

::CONFIDENTIAL::

Suspect CodeName: Superwoman

The ultimate chameleon; she does everything, she fits everywhere. She sings! She tennises! She PS2s! She guitars!

Preferred mode of attack:

Her PJs are deadly and precise, and guaranteed to ensure the victim is immobilized in disbelieving horror, before dying an excruciating death.

Suspect CodeName: Silver

He hits on anything that moves; with just the infinitesimally small prior pause required to confirm that it is, indeed, female. This, coupled with a success rate that is waaay off the charts, has succeeded in convincing the rest of the squad that God is, in fact, male.

Preferred mode of attack:

The Weapon of Ultimate Destruction, he is capable of causing serious brain damage within seconds of initiating his innuendo-laden contact.

Suspect CodeName: SpiderMan

Plonk him down in the Kalahari, and in two minutes he'd meet a camel who went to school with the sister of his uncle-twice-removed's neighbour. You need a contact in the KGB? He's the Man you want. Red from Shawshank ain't got nothing on him.

Preferred mode of attack:

He bellows his victims into submission. The resulting hearing loss is invaluable in incapacitating the victim in the beginning of an attack by the squad.

Suspect CodeName: the Lemming

Prone to scream "Fat cow!" when provoked. Normally lost in daydreams, she emerges only to correct the wrong- ie., everyone but her- and to preserve the peace by squawking regularly at perceived slights.

Preferred mode of attack:

Also known as the Grammar Nazi, she cuts lesser mortals to pieces at the first misspelt or ungrammatical sign of weakness.

Suspect CodeName: Doodh Baron

A squished member of this elite group, opinion is divided on whether it was the Lemming's Renjini-esque malayalam, or Silver's undending inanities that spurred him on in his quest for escape.

Preferred mode of attack:

Has undergone intensive training with Superwoman. The suspect shows a marked talent for similarly murderous PJs. He must be watched.

Possible Weaknesses

The tension between Silver and the female members of the squad bears watching. It is possible that they might beat him to death themselves. Likewise, the need for speed of SpiderMan is another possible angle to be exploited...

The Tale of the Princess who made a Fool Of Herself

2010-12-04T09:28:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, in a galaxy, far, far away...

The Princess Amalthea was wandering aimlessly down the streets of Maruti Nagar, cooing, as princesses do, to passing cows, when a vision appeared to her: her dear friend, the Lord Eb, was celebrating the anniversary of a trip around the sun that day.

Of course he must be greeted on such an important day, but oh no! Catastrophe! It cannot be! She did not have the Hero's secret call signal! And the call signal of the Good Witch, who would know it, had been eaten by the Princess’ new E72.

What was she to do?

The First Big Mistake
And thus she called on the Cheshire Cat. Now, this being, while relatively harmless, is notorious in that he never replies to messages. So she, wishing to wish the Lord Eb on his actual birthday, figured it would be easier and quicker to call up the Cat in person and ask of him her boon.
"Good Cat," sayeth she, "Have you the numbers of the Lord Eb?"
"Oh, yah." sayeth he.

But alas- she knew not, that the Cat was grievously inebriated.

Hush... do you feel the forces of darkness closing in?
And thus she made the magic signal. But alas! There was no answer. And so she decided to get cute.

The Second Big Mistake

Adept of finger, she quickly tapped out a message.
"Chatho?"
"Depends. Who’z this?"
"Your ex-wife. How quickly men forget!”
“Well, I got this number from another guy, whoz dead now. So my condolences to you..”

!!!

Evidently, something was very, very wrong.

Something was very, very wrong

Mentally kicking herself for trusting the Cheshire Cat, she decided to ask the Good Witch of the East. To that end, she went home, and beat the crap out her E72 until it succumbed to her will. The Good Witch was always to be counted on, and the magic signal was duly received.

32 minutes to midnight!

And she tried to make the signal.

Phone switched off.

$#@%$#%^*&^*&!!

No, a princess never curses.

Giving it up as just not her day, the Princess sent off another round of curses the Cat’s way, just to relieve her feelings. Having got that off her chest, she settled in for a night’s repose.

Little did she know what horrors the morrow held.

The Horrors of the Morrow

The next day, on her E72, was a message from the blasted Cheshire Cat.

“What? What number is that? Is that his Pune number?”

Wondering when Lord Eb had moved domiciles to Pune, when she was quite sure he presided in Hyderabad, she tapped out a reply:

“How should I know? I could just make out it DEFINITELY wasn’t Eb!”

The reply from the Cat, made her drop her phone from her nerveless fingers.

“Oh, you wanted EBY? I sent you EDDIE’S number! My bad :D”

The realization sinks in, that she has sent a pretty inappropriate message to a gentleman she hardly knows.

Aiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

With visions of CougarTown in her head, her ensuing shriek of horror echoed over the city rooftops- 90%, hopefully into the spine of the Idiot Cheshire Cat- whose fault this mostly was, and the remaining 10% to the Idiot Lord Eb, who had the gall, the interminable idiocy, the mind-numbing lack of foresight to be born on a day, when twenty-eight years later, the Idiot Cheshire Cat would be getting wasted.

Epilogue
Her current ambition in life, is to somehow leave Bangalore without ever meeting the Mistaken Hero EVER again. She is pasting on the fake moustache as we speak.

The End

Wanted: Getaway Car

2010-12-03T08:18:00.000-08:00

.. preferably with driver.

"Hold on, before it's too late,
We'll run till we leave this behind..."

2010-12-01T10:51:00.000-08:00

I'm heart-glad for you, honey. Can't hardly wait! :)
Would you mind very much if I added that I'm ever-so-slightly jealous too?
But it's hardly a speck.

I can't hardly wait! :) :)

It's just, a little crush; not like I faint, everytime we touch

2010-11-27T02:59:00.000-08:00

So I was moving house last month, bringing eight years of homelessness to an end. Yay!

(An explanatory aside: I spent most of my childhood outside India, so when the inevitable time came for college, I had to pretty much up and pack all my bags and move to a completely different world. In many ways, leaving your home to study (and subsequently, work) is kinda awesome, what with all the self realization and actuation and all that jazz, but.. it does introduce a certain element of homelessness into the mix. You see, with my folks living outside India and all, it made no sense to keep a house in India which would be shut up for months on end, so poor Anne spent the lion’s share of the last 8 years living out of suitcases in dingy hostels, or mooching off various sundry relatives. Yep, el suxor. And now I’m finally headquartered, yay! My cup of joy runneth over.)

But I digress. So I was moving house, and so was sorting through the inevitable boxes of sentimental keepsake-y junk that I now had a place to legally hoard, when I came across this folded, crumpled piece of note paper.

I wrote this way back when I was 18, and had a MAJOR crush on a friend; sometime around my 1st year of college. We’re talking biblical proportions-blush-maniacally-when-he-addresses-me major, here.

Crush

The problem with crushes, is that, right out of the blue,

When you’re walking along just fine- WHAM! It hits you.

And then you’re floating along, on a little cloud no: 9,

Oh, you’ve got it baaad, you’ve got all the signs.

Nothing serious, really, just when a certain someone walks by,

Your legs turn to jelly, and your heart starts to fly.

Voila! Then roses are red, and violets are blue,

And NOTHING is quite as sickeningly mushy as you.

And it’s like you’re high on a coupla pills,

Until you see your Crushee talking to someone ELSE.

Then- tragedy! Disaster! Catastrophe!

And elephant has sat on your little cloud of glee.

But look! Ye gods! It couldn’t possibly be true!

The dude is coming over- to talk to- you?

But hey- you’re cool. There’s nothing to fear.

Except, of course, for temporary amnesia.

Now your tongue’s getting tied, your brain’s getting fried,

“Hi!,” says the Crushee. “Do you have the time?”

Phew, a simple question. You were expecting the worst!

You smile coolly, charmingly, and say, “Twenty-first.”

Gak! Gah! What the HECK have you said?

Your someone is grinning and shaking their head.

You turn ash, and then white, peach and then pink,

A few more seconds, and you’ll turn purple, you think.

“Thanks,” says the Crushee, as though nothing happened at all.

And you turn and start beating your head on the wall.

No, of course this didn’t really happen- I took poetic license with the horror stories of a coupla friends. :)

(Though for sheer humiliation, the original takes the cake: girlfriend was peacefully eating an ice cream cone and daydreaming about the Crushee, when he decides to come up for a chat. At the sudden materialization of her Prince Charming out of her daydreams, and into her air space, she shrieked in his face, dropped the cone on him, and RAN. True story. Ah, young love. :) Couldn't poe that one, though, so..)

And I’m not telling you how I eventually did make a fool of myself, but to cut to the soft-focus montage: we became chums, I completely got over him, he got a girlfriend, we lost touch... you know, the usual. Somewhere during the course of which, I discovered he’d crushed on me too- about the same time I was bleating about him in bad poetry.

Ah, of such stories, are undying romances made. If only he had spoken. If only I had spoken! Our mutual, unspoken- blyeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaarggggggggggggghhhhh.

There is a reason why real life is better than the movies. Today, ex-Crushee is with someone who’s perfect for him, and yours truly...?

“But she is dead, and in her grave,

And oh!- The difference to me.”

To borrow a line from Wordsworth, I’d forgotten all about it until I dug up this old moth-eaten bit of poetry. :)

Man. I began writing this post with the sole intention of putting up that old poem. And now, somehow, I’ve gotten sidetracked into soul-searching.
One of my Sunday School teachers once posited- to a classroom full of bored teenagers, no less, that the being in Heaven might feel a little like having a crush. (I’ll admit I snorted rather loudly in her face at that.) But in a way, it kinda makes sense. Love is no picnic- it’s full of angst and second-guessing and jealousy and regret and other indigestible emotions, but a crush?
The part when you meet someone, and it’s all heavenly and trembly and flirty and exciting and your days are charged with electric possibility- that bit? Delightful, thrilling, heavenly.

Alas, if the duration of my crushes are anything to go by, I’m an incredibly fickle-minded person. Which is why the idea of marriage freaks me out. Like a blogger friend asks, what if you just get bored? It's not like there's a return-to-store policy for spouses.
Let's check out my current track record. I’m a sucker for:

Guys with dimples. Dammit!
Guys who can code circles around me. Or are otherwise smarter than me.
Nice guys.

Not necessarily in that order. And if a dude is cute and smart and nice all in one? Thanks, Fate. Like I needed any more complications right now.

Oooh, Anne, you’re in soo much trouble. :|

Epiphany

2010-11-24T10:30:00.000-08:00

“Susan was sensible. It was, she knew, a major character flaw. It did not make you popular, or cheerful, and–this seemed to her to be the most unfair bit–it didn’t even make you right.”

~Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

I used to mock the faint of heart,
Despise their wavering will.
Playacting at virtue does not
The demands of virtue fulfill.

For their “virtue” was of the kind,
That thrived in the summer sun
Thrived and grew, and flowered too,
But when the summer was done?

Ah, when the summer was done!
Virtue fades away unseen
Oh, come the first kiss of winter
And their virtue has never been.

Virtue is not for summer days,
When the sun- it warms your skin,
But for the dark hard days of winter,
When the coldness seeps within.

Oh, how I scorned their.. frailty!
Abhorred their inability to fight,
To take a blow; a little pain,
To do what they knew to be right.

Deserving of my scorn were they,
The irresolute of will and mind.
Who sold their integrity for an easy way out,
I justly despised their kind.

What price honour? So easy to give in.
What price a principle? So easy to fold.
What price a battle? It feels good this way.
What price virtue? Going, gone, sold!

Oh, “in life’s morning march,
When my bosom was young.”
I’d loathed them so, the faint of heart
And I, to my convictions, clung.

But now I am old. And I never realized,
When I’d judge and condemn,
That maybe they were weak, because
They had the fight beaten out of them.

How NOT to Make Small Talk

2010-11-17T05:33:00.000-08:00

"Talking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean. He was the most boring child I ever met."
~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Have you ever found yourself having to conduct a conversation with someone and feeling like the Pink Floyd guy who observed, if you recall, that the dude on the other end was receding into the distance like something in a bad dream?
Someday, historians will discover that ALL human endeavour- art, science, music, literature- stemmed from humanity's collective realization that one has to make small talk about SOMETHING. When I was younger, it was easy enough to duck behind a book and leave all the dirty work to the grown-ups, but now, as a card-carrying member of Adults, Inc.- there is simply no way out. You gotta talk, and different people deal with this very real problem in different ways.

I mean, I pride myself on being able to make small talk in almost any situation- we're talking about people as diverse as the milkman, the parish priest, the mother of my best friend's husband, the office douchebag, et al. (Hey, I never said it was *good* small talk. Just- talk.) And yet there are days when I find myself at a loss for words.
Sometimes it's because the person on the other end has ZERO interests, about anything at all. Yep, they do exist, and they walk among us. Sometimes it's because the subject keeps rambling on and on, in vivid technicolor, about their bowel movements. And sometimes, it's because of a tiny little disease called foot-in-mouth syndrome.
In another forum, I've already mentioned my love for those genial souls, usually random acquaintances who you haven't met in ages, who bound up to you at and go all, "Oh, honey, it's been SO long! Oh no, you've put on SO much weight." Usually in a voice that penetrates upto a 5-km radius.

Dude, just talk about the weather, already.

But I'm glad to announce we have a new winner in the Worst-Conversation-Starters-Ever Sweepstakes. So I was making the obligatory relative-visit the other day.

Rather-Sweet-Relative to Pain-In-The-Beep-relative: "You haven't seen Anne since she was a baby, have you?"
PIBPR: "Ah. I used to know your mother when we were children."
Me: *obligatory polite noises*
PIBPR: *peering intently at me* "She was reckoned to be quite the beauty in her day, you know. You don't look much like her, evidently."

!!!!!

Lord, give me strength.

Le Masque d’Amore

2010-11-08T00:08:00.000-08:00

Oh, good, you’re here. Follow the music, that way- yes. See the lights glittering under the door? That’s the place. Hark- the gentle murmur of conversation and muted laughter would seem to indicate that the party has started already. Shall we stand, here, behind this pillar? Ah yes. This will do nicely.

And we are just in time- the dance is on!

Watch them as they twirl, and whirl, and spin, and pirouette! Not a step out of place, not a beat missed. Aren’t the masks superb? But of course it is a masked ball. Do not be foolish, this dance is not for the unmasked. The moonlight glints off the smiling faces of the men and reddened lips of the women, and as they move from the shadows to the light, black turns to white, smiles turn to leers, and the fantastic visages seem commonplace, merely details. Masks on masks. Pretty fancy trick of the lighting, I think.

See that couple?
Quite a charming two-step, there. How they spin by and around and away, with a brush of shoulders and a whiff of perfume, the butterfly touch of fingers on arms. Ah, but you’ve noticed that they are not each other’s partners! Well done. Is it by accident that they never look at each other’s way the same time? She turns, as he looks at her. We, who are watching for it, see how the stern eagle mask hides her downcast eyes. But he, oh, he only sees her turn away coldly. She turns as he grazes his fingers through her hair, a gossamer touch she cannot feel. But she only sees the mask, its frozen equine smile unchanging as he pulls his hand away, the gesture of aversion unmistakable. Or so it would seem. But they are not partners, no. And they will never dance together.

Oh, I like this dance. Don’t you?

Do you see that couple over there, by the cherry blossom vase? Rehearsed, perfect movements, seemingly with years of practice behind them. There is no improvisation here- they seem a trifle stiff and unbending, don’t they? But, oh, how they trip the light fantastic as gaily as anyone else here. Round and round they go, every step is within their lengthening shadow. Funny thing about that shadow. It almost seems too deep to be cast by just two people, as though, the shadows of a thousand beings are wrapped within- Oh, but see! As the dance wears on, it would seem that the staid waltz is becoming a samba. Are they getting into their groove, or what!

But not this couple, over here. They're still in the shadow. With little fits and starts, they jive on, mechanically keeping time to the music. See her, with her smiling cat’s face, as she widens the circle she makes with the pig-faced one. Wider and wider, and farther and farther she spins, until-

- there, she breaks away. I saw that coming, you know.
Away she steals, into other dances, and who can resist this tune? Who can resist indeed, for the night is young, and the beckoning dancers, masked though they may be, are as beautiful as the day.

Round and round, they go. The dancers dance like they are possessed, and the orchestra screams out- crescendo to decrescendo!

And now, the hush.

This is where we come in, my friend. Lights out.
And darkness descends.

Ooh, what delicious confusion reigns. The dancing has stopped, and off come the masks.
In the faint moonlight, they all look like ghosts. Like pale imitations of reality, an opium-eater’s nightmare, not quite sure about the reason for its existence.

See here, the man in love with someone’s wife.
See here, the couple trapped in a loveless marriage, of mutual indifference that is more damning than hatred.
See here, the girl who yearns silently for a stranger.
See here, the casual acquaintances who like each other, but will never dare to admit it. Even to themselves.

This is the mating game, and it’s as old as the hills.

We’ve had enough fun with them, I believe. Turn on the lights.

The music resumes, the confused babble subsides into the soothing stream of sleepy conversation. The masks are back on.
The dance resumes. Into the familiar rhythms, the defined patterns.
The masks help.

This is the Masque d’Amore.

This is the mating game, and it never ends.

Shall we go now?

running through the field where all my tracks will be concealed, and there's nowhere to go

2010-11-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

There's electricity in the night air. Mayflies are buzzing around every street light; spinning, spiralling, dying, all around me. The pavement I walk on is strewn with twisting corpses and gossamer wings.

Many years ago, someone told me that when the mayflies die, it means a storm is coming.

What if I was wrong?
About you? About everything?

Oh fuck, what if I was wrong.

The Idiosyncrasies of Identity

2010-10-25T01:23:00.000-07:00

So I was watching reruns of The Simpsons the other day.

[Killer show, btw. I really have to find time to watch all the seasons, if only for the super-awesome Treehouse of Horror specials. If you, Gentle Reader, can assist, lemme know.]

So in this one episode, Krusty the Clown- who is Jewish by birth- has just discovered, to his chagrin, that since he has not yet had his Bar Mitzvah, he cannot be considered a Jew. Cue the following dialogue (paraphrased):

"All this time I thought I was a self-hating Jew, and now I find I'm just a regular old anti-Semite."

I laughed and I laughed and I laughed.

And then I laughed some more. I’m still grinning maniacally as I type this post out.

Krusty, old boy, I feel you. I really do.

We seek him here, we seek him there, those Frenchmen seek him everywhere

2010-10-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

Have you wondered who is the driving force behind this here spectacular, awesome, completely rocking blog-that-isn't?
Have you spent sleepless nights wondering, "Who IS that masked blogger?"

Have you been frustrated in your best attempts to group..ie(?) by my insistent cloak of secrecy?

Wonder no more. 'Smee's agents of evil have done their work well. My secret is out.

And so I bow to the inevitable. I must unmask myself.

Wherever there is laughter, friends, books and a reasonable chance of getting chocolate, there shall I be. And if there is also badly written english present, I shall be accompanied with a chainsaw.

I.. am Will Write For Food.

~wwf

PS. Teeeheeeheheheheh. :)