Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn!

I first heard news of his engagement about 3 months ago. Not from him, though. From her. I don't know which felt like a greater betrayal-of love or of the last vestiges of friendship we had yet preserved.

Since then, I have been sitting down, bearing down, on a feeling of anger trying to ensure that no part of me betrays that truth; while I am fully aware that he will derive no true pleasure or satisfaction-I feel like allowing him that feeling of being "prized" is more than he deserves. Maybe I am being silly.

I guess I would, if I could, seek comfort in a friend regarding this but I am unsure if that is possible --a reflection of my friendships as equally as of my understanding of this completely hopeless situation.

For the record:

I do not wish to attend any associated ceremonies or celebrations.

I do not wish to congratulate either of them.

I do not wish to pretend to share with them a smidge of joy regarding this.

Hell, I do not even wish to ever use this word-joy-in any meaningful context.

So, that leads me to wonder... How does one reach the "frankly, my dear..." state of affairs? Ultimately, it appears, life is a series of events, staring you down, holding a placard that reads: "suck it up, bitch".

Summarising Goa Unkindly

Gold flakes. Light.
Passed around.
Brightly burnt.

You. Your arms holding.
Never me.
Me. My arms always holding.
Cold cold breezers. Or anything poured in glass.
Breakable. Often broken.

Alone in a crowd.
Friends. Family.
Just not mine.
Never mine.

The beach so sunny
So hot on the skin
now so dead.
Losing memories and creating realisations.
Me, always running. Away.

Truths I'd rather not see.
Never have seen.
Context, perspective.
A horizon too far to say.
--h.c

A little of Remembering and a lot of Forgetting

I try so hard to capture
everything I wish to forget,
     the feeling of your lips-closed and pressed-against mine
     the way your thumb traces circles inside my palm
     the little breath of a kiss in my hair under a hug
     the heavy weight of your head upon my chest.

I try so hard to remember
even as I'm already losing,
     the words of the arguments we've had
     the differences that seemed insurmountable
     the fact that you're stubborn enough to let my b'day pass unwished
     the hurtful things I have done to you and you have done to me

I'm becoming more and more uncertain,
of what I wish to remember and what I wish to forget,
Even as the passing time ensures 
A little of Remembering and a lot of Forgetting.
-h.c

In my own words, I don't think it captures quite the essence of loss I feel constantly. To make myself remember again and again, that we are not together, haven't been for so long, that it is more 'reasonable' and 'sensible' that we be apart. To remind myself that this failure does not confirm that I have lost too much, nor that I am irreparably broken; only that I have failed here and now. Just this once.

Once again, more than my own words, Buddy Wakefield does justice to the emotions in these words. 

There are Rules.

I have rules for everything. Everything. Running in public? Rules. Picking up calls? Rules. Eating alone? Rules. Somebody cancelled on you? Rules. Wearing socks with open toed shoes? Rules. Borrowing socks? Rules. Denim with denim? ahem. No. not unless you're in L.A. and its fashion week and you have a statement to make that people want to hear. Rules.
Everything.
I have these rules because I am slightly obsessive about why things happen, about the things I hate absolutely and will not allow to happen again and about what is good for me and my mental health and what isn't. Not surprisingly, a lot of 'life' isn't.

Image from here.

So here are a few of the rules, mostly related to calling:

1. If you have been a jerk to me at any point in my life, I will not pick up your calls-Ever. I will call you when I am nice and ready for a conversation with you. and on your birthday because I believe social codes exist for a reason and if you stop believing in them, floodgates etc.

2. I will not set you up with my friends. I am not a pimp and my friends are not mine so I can abuse the privilege. I may, on occasion, introduce you to a friend but I will never insist they go out with you if they don't want to. Sometimes, given both your mental states as I perceive them, I will not even introduce you when both of you wish to be introduced to each other.

3. If there are 3 occasions where I call you, and you fail to pick up my call or fail to call back thereafter, I will delete your number so that I never call you again lest I be further disappointed in you. And I will never call you again. except pursuant to Rule#1.

4. If we make a plan and you ditch me for a reason not-nearly-good-enough, I will cancel every plan we make for a considerable time in the near future or alternately, be really late for the plan we do make or alternately, be very vague about when I am free and avoid making plans with you. I know this is extremely childish and juvenile, but I do this because my time is extremely precious to me and to have wasted something that is so precious to me for a reason not-nearly-good-enough is an extremely thoughtless and inconsiderate thing to do. I will only forgive you for this if I really like you and you have paid your dues by being out-weighingly fun.

5. The three strikes rule. I will cease being a good friend after the third strike. I am the sole determiner of whether an event counts as a strike or not. You cannot justify a strike as a non-strike because you are not me. You cannot say that I am unfairly counting an event as a strike because you don't know the rules and to say that I would unfairly use the fair system of three-strikes is in itself a strike.

6. I will dislike you a little bit if you over play the privilege of calling.

I'm Still Dreaming

I've had an unusually busy morning and a fairly easy, lazy day.

I'm doing the Rickshaw Run in August, 2014.  Its all very exciting.
The Plan is to take the entire month off work and just travel a bit. A bit being all the way from Shillong to Cochin-3500kms approximately. Hopefully without any naxal encounters.
The Plan is to drive the autorickshaw myself.
The Plan is to see some beautiful things.
The Plan is to not think about all those disturbing things that we must think about each day. and even those things that we must not, but do.
The Plan is enticing.

You know what happens when you plan big?
Your wallet gets stolen, alongwith your relatively new Driving License.

Of course that happened!

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Anyway. I went to the Zonal Office today for a duplicate license. It'll come home in a week, supposedly.
That is what the cops said about my stuff too. A month ago.

But the Transport Department is a pinch better than the Police Department.
I hope.

I'm still dreaming.

What February felt like.

WE WERE EMERGENCIES

--Buddy Wakefield

A poet

can stick anything into the fog and make it look like a ghost.

But tonight let us not become tragedies.

We are not funeral homes

with propane tanks in our windows

lookin’ like cemeteries.

Cemeteries are just the Earth’s way of not letting go.

Let go.

Tonight, Poets, let’s turn our wrists so far backwards

the razor blades in our pencil tips

can’t get a good angle on all that beauty inside.

Step into this

with your airplane parts

and repeat after me with your heart:

I no longer need you to fuck me as hard as I hate myself.

Make love to me

like you know I am better than the worst thing I ever did.Go slow.

I’m new to this

but I have seen nearly every city from a rooftop without jumping.

I have realized the moon did not have to be full for us to love it.

We are not tragedies

stranded here beneath it.

If my heart really broke every time I fell from love

I’d be able to offer you confetti by now

but hearts don’t break, y’all,

they bruise and get better.

We were never tragedies.

We were emergencies.

You call 9 – 1 – 1.

Tell them I’m havin’ a fantastic time.

Novalis I say. Novalis.

New to me.

I was still blind, but twinkling stars did dance
throughout my beings limitless expanse,
Nothing had yet drawn close, only at distant stages
I found myself, a mere suggestion sensed in past & future ages.
--Novalis


It just feels so personal. So hopeful and so hopeless.
It feels like it should go on to reveal something ...cathartic.

On the cusp of a journey that begins tomorrow. I feel like I am ill prepared for facing certain consequences that must follow from certain acts which began about 3-3.5 years ago. I feel like I had conveniently moved past something which refuses to move into the past.

Here is to setting out on the journey to face the truths of the previous chapter of my life.
It feels appropriate to be reading Novalis right about now, as I enter this phase of 'clearing new land'!

Happy Journey.

Opening 2014

Lessons 2013: 

1. Realization is always a belated friend and when she arrives, it is safe to assume it is too late already.

2. Our fates are sometimes ascribed by our assumptions.

3. Sometimes how people react is not indicative of how they feel at all.

4. Some things we will never learn-like keeping your wits about you. and it is okay.

Resolutions 2014:
I maintain another blog, and a lot of the content here has already been posted there. For the last vestiges of anonymity, I will refrain from simply copy-pasting that list :) more so because this feels like so much more a personal journal entry than that entry which is...public. 

>is everything public...impersonal? is that why a secretive relationship is so appealing? is it that my gold loses luster when your eyes witness it? is it also true of all intellectual property?<

So then, here are the core resolutions of the year:

1. Take offense as you would take salt. a pinch at most, and then to flavour and not as an ingredient.

2. Discipline & Health

3. Footloose in Old Delhi.

4. Pay attention to yourself. Dress with care. You are worth your time.

5. Every Quarter-do something adventurous/exceptional/out-of-the-ordinary/unusual/that makes you smile.

6. Travel. If you can/ when you can/ however you can. Now. When you're young. before you're married. before you have unarguably good excuses.

7. Gratitude. Once in a while, a Big Thank You.

This list is neither adventurous nor too ambitious. It is simply, a To-Do list for this year with reasonable requests of myself.

Closing 2013

The purpose of writing down resolutions is to witness for oneself how many/how few one fulfills. I forgot to write down the resolutions of 2013, but I dedicated the year to fulfilling a lot of the resolves of 2012. Here is how:

1. Less Alcohol, more Adventure. --It turns out that 2013 was the year of : plays, discovering new music, d-i-y activities, beginning the guitar (perhaps the end of that adventure as well!), trips to Gokarna &  Bangalore & Bombay & Dharamsala, paragliding, Triund trek, strangers as friends.

2. Lesser hang ups, more experiments. -- talking to strangers, not thinking or researching about the trips-just saying yes, LD, jogging in a public park, wearing dresses/shorts.

3. More talking, lesser messaging. --I've always been a more 'written' person than a 'spoken' person, but I made it a point to pick up calls every once in a while (Berl), LD again, and of course, I stayed in touch with a lot of people from college despite my own expectations of losing touch :)

4. Being the bitch, if that’s what makes you happy even though the world would hate you. --I lost touch with certain people (P-Lo) and did not contact her despite knowing fully well that she was annoyed (suppressed a major people-pleasing tendency here), fought with a colleague about staying late at work because i wanted to and she dint! a petty issue simply because it made me happier, cut L off.

5. Footloose in Old Delhi -- http://wikitravel.org/en/Footloose_in_Old_Delhi#b --DID NOT DO, added this to Resolutions 2014 :)

6. Make a complete fool of yourself, otherwise you will never know. --Ahem, Bangalore was a complete fool-making experience. With this image as my wallpaper, and still not having a clue.

However, I guess I was right to think "otherwise you will never know", because I do know now. and it is just as well. I might have exposed myself (oh God, I hate how literal and figurative this is!) too much and to too much, but at least, now I know where the future does not lie.

It's wonderful knowing that I have a full brand new year ahead of me, knowing with more-or-less certainty where I will be this year, knowing what I really need to accomplish.

Of course, there also remains the tingling suspense of 'Will-I-Won't-I!', its just lovely to vaguely dream about a whole year...the possibilities.

Here's bringing the new one in!

PS: and learning to schedule publication ;) (okay, not learning to schedule publication.)

Strange Love

"I know the last page so well I cant read the first." --Nada Surf, Inside of Love.

"And but for the sky, there are no fences facing." --Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man.

Re-affirmation by a stranger.

I was told by an absoltute stranger that I was "absolutely cute" :) which made me very very happy. And made me think of Skand. My first Metro Guy :D I wish I see him again some day and that I remember his face.


Eldie makes me very very happy too. I have been grinning at strangers and smiling myself silly these last 2 weeks. Because I am meeting her today. She is so harmless that when she says something to hurt me, which she does too often now, I cant help but smile. and believe that if I could be as happy as I am when I am only just fighting with her...life could be very very beautiful. :D


So long as your favourite singers are still singing, its not too late.

Wide Eyed & Mortified.

Sometimes, amidst all the staring off into space, I wonder if the people I'm staring at are the Bloggers that I so dedicate-edly follow and slobber to the tunes of.

Sometimes, when I'm talking to people (who may, or may not, be the aforementioned Bloggers) I speak very loudly. Excitement. Never did develop that voice-modulation-filter that adults aged 8+ seem to have.

So I say, "HI!!!" like I haven't seen a human being in the past two years which I seem to have spent on Cast Away Island.

I want to sound sophisticated. Atleast like a 13 year old. so much.

                     Image Courtesy: Mario Bros. & the Lovely Magic Mushrooms.

Forgetron. Erase This Memory.

I remember this day, vaguely but with a familiarity of the emotions that causes my stomach to turn and my eyes to tear up.

I was in 1st Standard. Mrs. Robinson, with her Joker-from-Batman lips all moulin rouge-ed up, was checking our copies (notebooks). I was standing in line. Ms. Poo was standing in front of me in line.

It was just the two of us in line.

And then Mrs. Robinson curled those lips in the nastiest grimace and curled up her nose like a pug. I felt a strange wetness on my cavas-shoe-ed foot.  Strange. Very Strange.

The smell of shit pervaded our senses. 

Ms. Poo Shat on my Shoe.

Can you believe this?

I'd repressed this memory under a ton of bricks and then some. I told Ms. Rosa (a gummy bear that walks and talks like a Laid-A) about this incident when I was in 10th Standard. I told her I was unsure of the veracity of the story -- maybe it was just a nightmare, maybe it was a lie I'd made up [it sounded like a lie I would make up].

Ms. Rosa asked Ms. Poo if this was true. 

Ms. Poo blushed.

She blushed.

Blushed.

The Blush on Ms. Poo's face is evidence enough for me. 

I wonder how this story sounds, coming from Ms. Poo. A whole lot more amusing I'm sure.

She does not (neither do you.) understand the level of shitty that is accomplished in washing somebody else's shit off your shoe. Off your Canvas Shoes.

She had the audacity to say "I didn't do it. She must have."

Makes my mind crack and my butt boggle.

I missed recess and games, standing in the sun, waiting for my shoe to dry.

Image Courtesy: Me and the World without Forgetron.

In the Darkness

In the Darkness.
Awake--heart-thumping, brain-racing, blood freezing
Afraid, Terrified.

I wonder when it will stop.
The cheating, the lying,
the loving and hating.
The hands-searching in the night,
always knowing, always expecting,
A response. Committed or Not-always waiting.

Just a touch away from being
stupid, rash, insensitive.

In the Darkness.
A heat, a magnet. A heart breaking tug.
Hands & legs. Tangled thoughts and confused hearts.

In the Darkness.
Shadows cast-unknowing and unknowable.
Imperceptible.

Confessions of no-love.
It breaks my heart-
to be that person in the Darkness-
hurtful, hurt.
--h.c

"Here's looking at you, Kid."

And here, is realization, looking at me.
I have to confess. I Love You. And not the easy to ignore-somewhere in the back of my mind-sure someday-kinda love. I mean the kind that you need to capitalize each word in the sentence for-kind of love. I love You. I Love you. sigh.

I wish I never have to see your face, never have to see you smile. never have to see you not. never have to hear another joke about your love. I wish I never have to sense it or feel it. and I would die to be able to avoid that. I hate that I love you much more than I love you.

Its giving me a sense of morbidity and a derivative peace to keep repeating the phrase.

"Rick: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

Ilsa: But what about us?

Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have it before...we'd...we'd lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.

Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you...

Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now. Here's looking at you, kid."

Films & I

I could fool myself for a long long time really. I could go on believing we could be friends and the practical earthy side of me would just be ok.
That romance was not something I felt at all, just something intellectual that I thought about but never ever touched.

But THAT isn't true. There is a lot of hot drama brewing inside. Steaming me up. I wish I could kick you. Fists against your flimsy chest and cry in a pathetic filmy voice. All the while screaming...aisa kyun kara aisa kyun kara and nahi nahi.

But then practical earthy me would start laughing at pathetic filmy me. and that would be how the scene ends. Curtains.

say.

Yesterday.

You said

I will call you

And we would talk about

The past,

The Future,

The world as it slept,

Friends and family,

Your past,

Those other things,

The world as it awoke.

But.

You never called

And I find myself awaiting,

A call that doesn’t ring

A letter that never arrives

A message in a bottle

A whisper in the night

Mornings have dawned

And I haven’t slept a wink

And I’m barely alive

And I’m dying with every blink.

The weather’s getting colder.

The Fog is getting thicker.

Life is getting harder

And dreams are long dead.

The whispering night wind

Brings me no peace

The flying papers

Bring me no news

I feel utterly alone--

The train as it weeps in the distance—

And tomorrow will find me

Cheerful and chatty

Drowning out the quiet of

A call that doesn't ring

A letter that never arrives

A message in a bottle

A whisper in the night

And the weeping train and the whispering night winds and the rustling papers

They bring me no rest.

--h.c

Untitled.

Slow deliberate writing. Explaining itself. Taking its time, apologetic.

I am disappointed. Good writing is rare.

A Picture of Dorian Gray is the funniest book I have read in the longest time. The kind of joy and silly realization that you cant hold in despite the self conscious embarrassment of looking like an “affected” person.

Good writing inspires good writing. The trick to writing well, is reading great. 

I fancy myself as Lord Henry. A good narrator will always make you feel like its your thoughts being voiced, you view established and published.

One   Another one of my loves has found a woman I believe. And though he probably doesn't know my name, I am heart broken.

wait. Regardless of what he knows or doesn't, what I know is painful. dramatically so.

Mimic

I realized some while back that I was completely incapable of hating people. Regardless.
Today, I realized the sad sad corollary...I can't love people.

Lukewarm, Lukewarm. I am too complacent.

Like a fanny fart. neither here nor there.

_____________________________________________________

Because I realized today that Ms. Sunshine is not the love of my life because:

Because there's so much water under the bridge that the bridge is floating on it...and at risk of going under

  Because i think i love him today but i may change my mind tomorrow

00:29 Because life is too complicated n my few friends are too precious to throw at the whim of love n its intricacies

  Because im super scared that he will b hung up on her n i cant have him preoccupied about someone else

00:30 Because he will always belong to a million people n never just to me

00:31 Because i dont do sharing well n im afraid to venture into the area of hpw much i may love him...or how little

00:32 Million n one reasons but the top most being that at this stage weve both fucked around n mucked up so much that 'simply us' wont be simple or us for him or for.me...

  There are too many ppl involved n i love all of them

19 minutes

00:52 N i like that i have such precious people in my life...people ive held.on to for so long that the thought of not having them is unfathomable n horrible as far as fathomable

00:53 N i like his woman

  Like...ive come to genuinely like her...n as an outsider i like their relationdhip n wouldn want to do them any harm

  Im stepping back :) n thats that


____________________________________________________________________________
and then i felt...so grownup. 

Thoughts in Abstraction

Like sitting in a room and watching a giant Dog curl, oblivious to you.

A Dog because of the familiarity and the homeyness they inspire.

A giant because it makes you feel so small. delicate. fragile. not entirely real.

Abstracted abstract thoughts.

Even with you, such a vast space of thoughts in between. A gap where your thoughts lie. in wait. I can never reach across this to you...

Are you there?

Just a Narrative

The Doctor came by today.
I have decided to follow her advice: Think in narrative, dont stress the fools.

So basically, not thinking about the actions of sunshine while sunshine plays around and brightens someone else's day. It is quiet the effort.

The Doctor, after approximately 3 years, opened her heart to me...poured it right out. She says she realizes, after all this time, that she is not the victim. Mr. Lonely is. Mr. Lonely is to be left alone and the doctor, not stressing the fool that is Mr. Lonely is to proceed to not think about it and well, think only in factual narrative.

The Doctor is working harder than ever ignoring the stressors.
I will too. Work is the greatest distraction so I will now return to the Moroccan Labour Code.

The Narrative:
Wakes up in the afternoon. Heart to heart with the Doctor. Proceed to waste the entire day. Proceed to invite 2 friends over. Sunshine breaks my heart. Proceed to not stress the fool. Proceed to hugging them goodbye. Proceed to waste some more time on the computer. Proceed to being ignored by Lil Miss. Proceed to lick wounds. Proceed to Sleep.
Gnyt!