bits and pieces

Most people tend to have a stock supply of stories, the tales they tell when they invite you over to their house for dinner; the ones every person in your family knows because each of them have been told the story at least once, and some more.

People have begun to bore me. People I used to know; whose company gave me pleasure, or, at the very least, entertainment. I wonder exactly how snobbish I will grow to be, with this new-discovered disgust of repetitions. I will move out of the house because I cannot stand to be around my mothers complaints of the world at large (because I can quote them in my sleep) and I will stop talking to most of the engineers I know (because if you have heard one of them talk you have heard them all) and I will


I have always had a problem letting things (oh, and people) go.

I have been searching for people.
The old ones who would stop by and pretend to be interested in my witty recollections of mundane events. I beg your pardon, they probably did enjoy them - I know I did.

The T's life has been unusually full of adventure lately. She wishes she could stop and tell everyone, but she's been having trouble with her words of late.

However, in other news, she's feeling much better about other miseries of her tumultuous life. Part of this is because she is certain sombody else will come along who will understand who carroll and kent are, and

women's days

I have been working three weeks without a holiday, and yet I have found the time to visit India Gate at midnight and eat meetha paan while boys with accents played hotel California on out-of-tune acoustic guitars nearby and great shiny lights lit shiny construction sites; and I have found the time to take walks through the market during Tuesday haat with flatmates and drink bitter carrot juice at roadside stalls and be overcharged by fruitsellers; and I have found the time to be a Shoulder to people who told me and told me and then told me they felt better because they'd told me; and I have found the time to watch Slumdog Millionaire on somebody's laptop on a bed with people i had known for less than a week; and I have found the time to split a meal four ways with strangers when I ordered vegetarian and the others did not, and the time to complain to other strangers about it.

And today and tonight I met old and new geeks I would be a groupie for; and made hypocritical conversations on the bejewelled sofa of my landlady; and wandered the streets alone in the dark with clenched fists afraid that someone would step out of the shadows and I would be stuck in a strange city with nobody to turn to; and I called and called the one person whom I promised I would not, because I knew he would be the Shoulder I needed when I needed, and I needed him.

I am tired and sleep-deprived and overworked and underpaid and all I'm thinking is that I miss the one I love.
What does it mean to be a woman?

And I have to speculate that God himself
Did make us into corresponding shapes like
Puzzle pieces from the clay
True, it may seem like a stretch, but
Its thoughts like this that catch my troubled
Head when you're away when I am missing you to death

:) Ow.

something to look forward to

There is a letter expected. It will arrive in two weeks, yay! Yay!

There is also an email expected, but I'm not so sure about either the two weeks or the yay part. I do have a few other theories about it, though.

It will begin:
Dear (T's full name)
At this point I will get up and take a few turns about the room to try and calm myself. I will do this because my astute mind will have divined that all contents following such an unpropitious beginning will cause nothing but misery and extreme vexation (do I mean vexation?) of spirit.
The letter will then go on to say (and I paraphrase in advance):
You are young and foolish and wrong and I think you should just stay away from me for your own good etc. etc. and die. (well, it might as well say that.)
And then I will say, "Well! I knew it." and feel superior for about a minute before I indulge in a few bouts of stormy weeping and mope around for a few months on top of the months I've been moping and not feel better until perhaps I'm dating four or five gentlemen at a time and being, as the rabbit says, "promiscuous with my affections".

sigh.
I don't like my imagination much.

but still

Now, there seems to be a direct line of progress from me doing something nice for someone I care about to the person leaving my life in rude and unpleasant ways.

Forexample:
- Writing letters to people in foreign lands/ other cities/ down the street.
- Making mixed tapes with songs a person has mentioned in passing conversation
- Buying books based on ditto
- Anything else that involves time, effort, energy and some thought about what someone might like to receive

There is also some sort of universal law that appears to be that none of these people ever get me anything in return for these presents I bestow them out of the affection of my heart.
No, not even the affection of their hearts, I'm afraid.

Am I really that hard to like?

the wisdom that the old can't give away

Certain people think they know better than you do. They think they know what something means, or what is to be done to fix a problem. They're usually wrong, if only because they believe they are not. They are the ones who rub me up in all the wrong ways.
Still, it is true (or should be, or what's the point?) that experience gives some wisdom that the young cannot agree with until they have seen it for themselves.

The problem is, then, how the real good advice (the one-of-a-kind guaranteed stuff whose value we don't realize till we've paid heavy prices) is to be made palatable. Surely it is more agreeable to take advice from someone who dispenses it without giving you an overwhelming urge to go entirely against it as a side-helping?
Because how many of us have done something that was unwise and foolhardy only because someone gave advice that was as unpalatable as it was wise? When we are young. Young in parts, as I am. As are you. Don't deny it, you are.

Here is a thought I had. Classed in the same category as the sixteen-year-old nurse who tells her charge in a loud, strident tone not to touch something that the baby has no interest in until the instant the admonition is given, is, perhaps, the person who tells you that you could get over the feelings you have for them, if you only gave it time. Can't they see that being told that will only make one try the harder to prove them wrong? the last thing one needs is to feel an "I-told-you-so"-er sneering at one in hindsight.
Perhaps age doesn't bring much wisdom with its experience, at that.

I think I have been rather lucky in terms of the parents, at any rate. Lucky me. :)

incompleteds

Once in a while I have a thought that begs to be shared so pitifully that I force myself to sit in front of this here box and attempt to pull it bodily out of my brain. Alas, often my skill will not allow it to be done, and at other times it is my laziness at fault, and so I'm stuck with tens of drafts that I will never complete as long as they're sitting there unpublished.
Here they are, then. With dates attached. I think I might just keep adding to them as I go along.


My city has become a menagerie of shouting people.
3/14/07

wts txt spk? is dat whn u tlk lik dis? i cant do it 2 wel........its tuff to think of ways to shrtn the wrds apart 4m removing vowels dammit a relapse.
But that's text speak, and I want to talk about the postrophe. Lynn Truss wrote an entire book about it, but I don't care. How do perfectly intelligent, erudite, well-read persons end up confusing its and it's?

What's the likelihood that there'll be an entire book on text-speak soon? Very high, I'd say. People talk about it all the time. Mostly the ones talking are the ones bemoaning the loss of sensible spelling, and I've read at least four newspaper editorials on the subject.

I'm not doing

What I can't get around is the staggering amount of apostrophe abuse around. I don't think I'll be able to say it any better than Lynn Truss, so I shan't try. I will just choose one certain little annoying trend I've noticed in

I can't understand its and it's, though. Some of the smartest and best read people I know make that error. It's horrendous. Its horrendous.

I hate the way it pulls you up right in the middle of whatever you're reading. Inexcusable, in my opinion, especially when they spend their time poking fun at people with poor grammar and then turn around and say "whatever" when you point the error out to them yourself....

I mean, don't you read whatever you've just written before you post it???

Damn, some people are stubborn and stupid.

3/18/07 9:07 PM


Something that was brought home to me the other day was the fact that far too much depends on appearances. How much do we change by walking down the street proclaiming we can do as we want, wear what we want, say what we want? Perhaps not as much as we aim for.
The truth is that the way you walk says so much more about you than the clothes you wear. Unless, of course, you're wearing something designed to be so eye-catching that it detracts from everything else!

Is there a line that "decent" girls should not cross? Yes. There is. But it isn't the same line for everyone. My idea of clothes I will not step out of the house wearing are different from those of my sister, for example.
Just the other day, I watched a young man at a traffic signal pull out a comb and style his hair into something closely resembling a bush of some sort, but he seemed exrtremely pleased with the result. So that's my line. Wear something that makes you look good.
Something in colours that complement. A cut that accentuates. Be pretty.
3/29/07 7:04 AM

My boss thinks women should protect themselves from male eyes.
He asked me about Blank Noise. "Why do you think men do those things? It's because of the way women dress! Between a woman wearing a miniskirt and a woman wearing a sari, who do you think is more likely to be molested? If you don't respect yourself how can a man respect you?"
"Men and women are made to attract each other", he says. He thinks women can prevent harassment by covering themselves up. "If you wear a burkha", he says, "then you're completely protected."
There was something so entirely disturbing about the way he told me this; the manner in which he posed it as a self-evident truth shocked me so much; that I found myself unable to defend my position at all.

Is it a male conspiracy, this celebrating a woman's freedom to deck her body? I do not know. Perhaps men do go along with women's rights because they think that they will get a chance to see more skin. But then again, women should be able to show their skin even if they know men will look.

What do we ask for, with the clothes we wear? Respect? Attention? Flattery?
Does it make a difference?
What we wear should reflect where we're going, what we're doing, what season it is. I think the question of poorly dressed does not arise as long as you are dressed to fit the occasion. Isn't it rude to attend a wedding in shorts, for example? It isn't about covering yourself, or being decent. It is about fitting the profile, about looking as though you belong. And as long as we are part of society, it is necessary to make sure we respect the boundaries that circumstances demand.
The only thing that's changing is the idea of everyday wear. What is it appropriate to wear, if you're not doing anything special? One wears shorts or jogging tracks to walk in the morning, to go to the gym, to play tennis. One wears a sari to a wedding, one wears formal clothes to interviews. One wears jeans to construction sites. We dress sensibly as long as we know the boundaries created by societal norms or dictated by comfort and common sense.
What happens with a regular outfit, though? What are you "allowed" to wear when you're out on the street on an ordinary day? Things that send the wrong message? Who decides that? I think each of us do. What I think every woman must do, in my opinion, is to look at herself once before she leaves the house. Stand in front of the mirror. Lift your arms, bend over. If your clothes stay where they're supposed to, and you don't expose any more skin, any fat, any hidden parts that were covered when you were standing still, then you're okay to go.
If you do expose those things, well, then, you're just not well dressed.
The women on the street I find badly dressed are the ones wearing things that don't suit their figures. Tight shirts showing tires of fat. Low pants that fit so poorly you can see underwear when they sit down. The beautiful thing about a salwar kameez is the fact that it suits anyone if cut properly, and the main reason we wear clothes is to be comfortable, isn't it?

I have rules about things I would not wear in public. I will not wear something that reveals my nipples, because of the fear of titillating the man on the street. I will not wear clothes that display cleavage, because of the same reason. I will not wear clothes that show my thighs above the knee, because I believe shorts or short skirts absolutely do not flatter my figure.

The mental thumb rule for me, then, is this: do not draw attention to any one part of your body as a part belonging to a woman. Not unless your objective is to do so. People attach to all outfits a purpose for wearing them. Why would you wear shorts? Or display cleavage? Why would you? If you have a reason, and one can see that reason, then i think no one can question or comment on your choice of dress.

This is just so much patriarchal rubbish. :( I'm a brainwash.
5/8/07

I once promised a friend I would write a post about the misuse of punctuation
5/9/07

I've been wondering lately about how limited all forms of expression are when compared to the real thing.
How do you describe in words the exact tilt of someone's head and the lilt in their voice and the way you feel when they smile to punctuate?
6/3/07 6:05 AM

My sister has a friend who used to call home and ask to speak to her.
She would say, "Hello, is MySister'sName there?"
My mother would later rail and rant over the loss of politeness in the young, and I? I would agree with her.
Lately, though, T has been wondering about boundaries and the way people follow rules in different places. T has been wondering this as she works in an office on the grounds of a traditional Muslim house. How true that it is only
6/11/07
Do we treat other people the way we hope, in our heart of hearts, to be treated? I submit that it is a more than distinct possibility in my own case. After all, do I not give every new and old friend the benefit of the doubt, and their space, and hugs whenever I feel like they need some? Butyes!
It's not really a solution to anything, though. If everyone went around treating everyone else the way they wished to be treated, no one would get treated the way they wanted to be treated.
7/26/07

There is a microphone in the house now.

I don't like it so much.
7/30/07

meta-letter
I think the real problem with writing with Squid Piss™ on Dead Trees™ is that
8/2/07

Brad Bird's The Incredibles has a line that might have struck me more if it hadn't been as oft-quoted as it was - "Everyone can be super. And when everyone's super, no one will be."
And again: "They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity, but if someone is genuinely exceptional..."

I have watched performances by people who are disabled or autistic or children, and I never until recently questioned that a chance had to be given to those less privileged. Do we really value quality so little that we celebrate effort more than achievement?
Does all achievement have to be weighted against opportunity and upbringing and situation? When put like that, of course, it sounds a stupid question: the very basis for academic equality in the best institutions is based on that weightage.

It strikes me, however, that it is only in the field of education that merit speaks for itself - the concrete proofs of your excellence are valued as they ought to be. It is in the fields of the performing arts that the distinction has become blurred - where the mediocre gets more recognition than the
8/15/07
I had an adventure today. It was only a small adventure; minuscule, really; but I've been stuck indoors so long that anything out of the ordinary excites me...
I went for a walk today. I wore my brand new pink reebok sneakers (I know, I know. Pink sneakers. But they're new.)
And I sat there on the stone wall and wrote a letter. With a little lizard in it.
10/10/07 6:16 PM (this is a special day.)

the so-strangest thought
i have had one of those, i have.

Bear with me. My theories are often based on little more than random burblings of my mind when tired or hungry or travelling or some such, but they are usually interesting theories and this one...has promise.
I feel as though I have been...putty. Malleable,
12/18/07 11:38 PM (this is when the heart broke)

P.S. It is very nice to have three adventures in two days and then stay awake until five a.m. reading. :)

all my pieces broken

However hard I try to convince myself that I am prepared, in every way, to face eventualities I tell myself I expect, the chances are that I will end up shocked anyway. Or jarred. Disconnected from myself and bereft of my moorings.
The truth is that as much as I hope (or despair) for something, I always put in that little catch, that clause that thinks it may not happen after all. However studiously I prepare myself to be let down by something (usually something I tell myself I shouldn't have trusted in the first place) there is a little part of me that will continue to cling to the hope that the fall will not, in fact, happen, that something will happen to turn things around:
perhaps i'm wrong; perhaps these vain hopes are not so vain; perhaps they are founded not on wishful thinking but on some signs my subconscious picked up that my waking brain didn't; perhaps things will work out in the end; it could happen.

Does it mean optimism or stupidity, that secret hope? Because it is a secret, or at the very least unacknowledged - something I will not admit to until the tears come to prove it was there.
And then I will sigh, and call myself stupid, and I will pretend that I learnt a lesson from the entire experience. Perhaps I do. I just don't seem to remember them later.

(and then i go, and do it all over again)

irony omigosh

I never get things done on time. When I do, it's rarely to my satisfaction. I have problems with time management. It is something I keep planning to wean out of my system, but I haven't figured out a fool-proof method yet. Guilt only gets me through the day before my deadlines.
Meanwhile, I have an unexpected extension and I've taken on a little more work than I had planned previously. Will it work out? Will I do what I'm supposed to?? WILL I KILL THAT FAT TOAD OF AN EVALUATOR????
Stay tuned to find out.

Here is a development - I know a person with no humility.
I don't know why I didn't see it before; I've spent enough time with him before. It was only tonight that I discovered what it was about him that rubbed me the wrong way entirely. And now I look to see all the people I like least - and they are all arrogant. Some of them with more right that others, of course
What strikes me as ironic (is it, Alanis?) is the fact that I might have turned out like that myself... Sometimes I try to remember incidents that might have changed the way I looked at myself and at the world, but I'm rarely successful. I do know that I was once more confident, and more oblivious to others' feelings, than I am now. But how does one weigh what might have been?
Have I gained in empathy what I lost in confidence?
Is it a fair trade?
Am I allowed to ask that question?

Tonight was a night of revelations. I've always known that I never let people in because I was afraid they will hurt me. Tonight I realized that wasn't entirely true: I don't let people in because I fear they will misunderstand me - and in my heart that is the bigger crime.
I don't believe people are capable of making an effort to understand someone who does not show what she needs seen.
I don't trust you to like me; any of you. I don't trust you to understand me.
Do I have so little belief in human intelligence?

Am I really that vain?

fool

I love stories. They are my escape from the world: from boredom and loneliness and panic. It is the simple story that I love the best - the one where everything works out in the end and everyone gets exactly what they deserve. I have always hated betrayals and misunderstandings - in books, in films, in television... Every story with a twist in its tale must end with the triumph of the worthy, the earnest, the good. I think, sometimes, that the kinds of stories I find myself most drawn to are the ones that end the way I wish my life would turn out - with justice for all. It shames me that I cannot, in my own life, judge people as they deserve to be judged.

It seems to me as though I choose, consistently, the wrong kind of person to place my confidence in. It is as though, even after twenty-three years on the planet, I still have no idea of how to choose a friend for all the reasons that I truly need a friend. Perhaps there is supposed to be a difference between the kind of people you admire and respect and the kind of people you love - it is just that my head cannot tell the difference.
In my head the people who are the most important to me are the ones who make me think, and wonder, and question - and so I become enamoured with them all: the smart people; the talented people; the people who are destined to make this world a brighter, bigger, more interesting place. They are the ones who make it worthwhile to wake up in the morning, the ones for whom it is sensible to give up your time, your energy, your heart. It is as though your life becomes better simply because it is lived in the outer circle of their influence.

It is hard - to find myself so often in this position, where I have misjudged and attributed to a person qualities of kindness and goodness that he or she does not have. To imagine affection and fondness where there is none. To expect attention and concern when I have no right to. To see a kindred spirit where none exists. If I am to be ruled so decisively by my emotions, what chance do I have to survive in the bold, bad world?
It has been eight years since my first introduction to the wonderful world of duplicity, and yet I continue to make the same mistakes again and again. I recognize the syptoms each time, even as the disease progresses; and each time I think this time will be different. There is no cure - I am doomed to eternal blind optimism - I will persist, until I die, in the delusion that all people are truly as wonderful as they appear to be.

I will always tell people just exactly what they mean to me, and they will always care not one whit.
Why is desperation so utterly despicable?

let's make it out, baby

I have occasionally made the mistake of reading certain authors whether or not my brain was ready to receive them - either because I was expected to (or expected not to) or because other people were (or weren't) reading them.

It is only when I read them again - older, and hopefully wiser - that I see much of what I missed the first time around. Certain opinions change - the degree to which I agreed with Rand, for instance. Other authors - Austen, Dickens, James - only improve with age. Perhaps it is the maturity one acquires with time that allows one to appreciate such authors' reading of the human spirit.

I know people who have consumed entire libraries by the time they left high school, but -
Surely sooner is not always better?

covert operations

Perhaps a week ago, I read in a newspaper an article that advised its readers to find new ways to make friends. The suggestion was that the readers go out and strike up conversations with people they met on their city's public transport. Accompanying this charming article (that included such tips as "try smiling pleasantly" and "comment on the book the person is reading") was a tiny picture of some commuters on a shiny metal subway train.
Now, I do realize that the people who put together the Lifestyle sections of daily newspapers often do not have enough celebrity gossip to go around, but I do wish Indian tabloids would stop printing such articles lifted directly from the non-Indian papers where they were originally featured without even checking that the content is relevant.

Not that I have a problem with making new friends, mind you. I'm all for it; I do it all the time. The problem with this charming suggestion, however, is that the writers have conveniently forgotten to actually imagine the type of public transport that their average reader might take.

It is not very hard to think of the problems that might accompany an attempt to chat up the person nearest to you on an average BMTC vehicle. The very first obstacle to finding a person to develop a lifelong friendship with is the fact that it is very unusual to actually find someone who speaks the same language you do, let alone speaks it well enough to carry on an entire conversation. The other obstacle lies in the way uninvited overtures of friendship are viewed by most people: the women think you want their money, and the men think you want their goods.
(haha, I made teh jokes)

The best way to travel, therefore; and in such a manner that you avoid stares from greasy men and fat old ladies alike; is to pretend you have absolutely no interest whatsoever in your fellow human beings. If you can cultivate a great interest in something no one else can see, so much the better. Develop a laugh you can use: be amused at your surroundings; intrigue everybody!
It is, after all, preferable to be stared at in curiosity and envy than in disapproval and lust lechery.

Edit: This is not a suggestion on how to make friends. This a suggestion that will help you get through your evening without unpleasant incident.

In my opinion, anyway.
:)

eventually phone calls

I have always been one of those people (I assume there are such people) whose lives seem to be spent more in their own company than in anyone else's. I do not remember that it was a voluntary decision; all I know is that I woke up one day and realised that it was so.

The tendency to sit in dark corners and construct imaginary conversations is, however, relatively new (though still of long standing - probably dating back to my discovery of myself as a real person, some time in the eighth standard). It was the time I first realized I wanted friends and thought I hadn't any, and was dimly aware that I was neither prepared nor able to put in the effort needed to be part of a 'gang'.
I resorted, then, to rewriting my life in my head, because of course the reason I was unhappy was not because I was timid and shy and naïve and choosy in the matter of the company I kept, but rather because I was somewhere surrounded by people who could never understand or appreciate me as I deserved. And so I dreamed day-dreams to remove the sour taste of loneliness from my mind. The place I usually chose for my ruminations was my bed; and not necessarily at bed-time - I retreated to my room whenever bruised in spirit and ego, and pretended my life was entirely other than it was. (and perhaps this is the reason I love Montgomery's Anne so much, because she knew how to step out of her own life into her own head)
In these day-dreams I was always smarter and wiser and altogether more noble than I felt my real life persona to be. In these day-dreams I braved plane crashes and earthquakes and all manner of other disasters and always won the love of the most handsome and dashing male of the piece by being a down-to-earth earnest honest-to-goodness heroine.


It has been perhaps two years since I last saw my imaginary hero, and it is not because I have come to my senses and realized that living in dream worlds does not really make for real-life successes. It is, I think, because I found I liked my life and myself better than I had previously realized.
So now I restrict myself to sitting in the dark or out on my little balcony staring at stars making conversation with people who are actually in my real live life at the moment. And sometimes they are imaginary conversations that I create; and the people aren't really real people at all - merely constructs of humans made up in my head around the ideas of people I know.
I smile and cry over these as much as I ever did over all my burning buildings and sinking submarines and alien invasions.
I'm to assume this is an improvement.

cat lady

I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to unravel the mystery that I believe my mind is. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that I spend a lot less time on the more important things in life, i.e. studying, working hard, making a name for myself in life, planning my future. ( :( )
On the other hand, the upshot of all this deep thinking has led me to make some rather stunning discoveries as far as humankind are concerned. (They all seem to be discoveries that people have already made generation after generation through time, but when has that ever stopped someone from trying to find something out for their own dear self?)
Here is the latest I've wrapped my head around: my elders aren't really all wiser than me. Sure, I always knew they were probably less equipped to deal with the emergencies of life e.g. how to create a PowerPoint presentation with pictures of grandchildren, but I'd always assumed they were wiser than me, see? Because that's what I was told. It is what I was brought up to believe. Teachers, parents, grandparents - they all know better than us because they have (oh holy whisper) experience. They have seen life. Their advice is to be carefully considered before you make any decisions in life at all.
And now I spend more and more time around elders in the family and out of it, and I listen to all the things they say to see if anything makes sense, and I find that the wisdom of our elders is a myth that I believed in only because I was far too naïve to do otherwise.
Alas, the sad truth is that adults are often just older, uglier, more wrinkled versions of their misguided childhood selves. And it is galling to have to bow and scrape before them in mockery of respect merely because they are older than I am. And yet I will, and I do, because anarchy solves nothing.
I'm just going to make damn sure I'm a wise old woman and not a prattling idiot, is all.

ladies and gentlemen

Some day I will wake up in the morning and treat the day as mundane and ordinary and not worthy of wild, passionate interest. Some day I will walk through my life on tiptoe, without ripples and without messes. Some day I will grow old and grow up and grow smart. Some day I will believe, as Manu says, that life is a "spiral of despair, and your only hope is piling one distraction on top of another, and hoping that your massive heap of delusion doesn't collapse before you die."
Just not any time soon.

Perhaps maturity lies in recognizing the everyday as ordinary, perhaps it does. Perhaps it is the greatest sign of my immaturity, this tendency to revel in incident and accident and coincidence. Perhaps it is true that a twenty-something female in a big city cannot afford to go through her life with eyes open and heart open, inviting everyone she meets into it.

There is a part of my brain that recognizes this, that sends me the customary warning signals every time I do something abysmally, shockingly stupid and reckless. There is a part of my brain wired with every ounce of cynicism culled from my wise mother (don't talk to strangers, avoid eye contact, don't reveal any personal information!!!). There is permanent commentary that dogs my every move, that stares in horrified fascination as I agree to lunches with people I have never seen, and strike up conversations with strangers, and stare at a man on a bus in an attempt to shame him into giving up the seat he is in (fun fact from T's oh-coincidental universe: actually had a pleasant conversation with aforementioned, and ended up on the same bus as him the day immediately after. this is irony.)
There is a part of me that knows in chilling detail all that could go wrong, that imagines scenarios where strangers follow me home, to work, into dark alleyways. There is a part of me that has imagined, in technicolour blurs, all the things strange men can do to unprotected females. There is a part of me that realizes I could be robbed raped killed every time I leave myself vulnerable, open, accessible.
And yet.
And yet.

Trying to convince the rest of my brain to follow any of these wise instructions feels to me like kicking a small and confiding puppy. It is as though I'm trying my utmost to retain that part of me that persists in believing that good things will happen. I have so much trust in the world that it seems unbearably cruel to break it when it remains so resilient to all that it faces.
Oh, I am aware. Aware that one day I will realize the hard way that the world is not a nice place. Some day I will learn through bitter experience that it is probably not a good idea to stare at a gentleman on the bus until he relinquishes his seat to me. Some day I will discover that strangers do not, in general, turn out to be pleasant people at the end of a long day. Some day I will stop marvelling at the wonder of other people. Some day I will stop remembering the kindness of strangers. Someday I will stop hoping and agree in entirety with that part of me that expects only pain and misery and heartbreak.
Just... not yet, please not yet.

I want to know. In the end, if I die hoping, against all evidence and in spite of always expecting the worst, that the world is a wonderful, beautiful, hopeful place, is that so very bad?

grown ups

The question is not whether I am right, but rather whether it is right to try and find answers from others. Is it not strange that someone who does not believe in the power of a holy man to tell her how to live her life will happily take advice from ordinary people?
The mistake I make, perhaps, is in thinking that others are wiser than me. The mistake I make is in assuming that something is true only because lots of people say it is.
Does that not make sense?

There are things I must realize on my own, and decisions I must make. Hoping that someone else will show me the way to do that is foolish. There are always things we can learn from other people, always. The things we learn, though, are not the things they tell us.
(I learn more from words not said. Do not you? I feel as though words are just so much illusion - they give you nothing but new confusions and new ways to say things that mean the same and not. They are tools we use to hide what we really feel. How is obscurity worth more than clarity?)

I am the age I am. I have been alive for twenty two years. that makes me an adult, you say? Why does it? My being any age does not mean I will behave (or think, or feel, or speak) the way you (or you or you or you) think I should; purely because of the fact of how long I've inhabited this space in and around my body. It does not even mean I should.
The things people forgive each other may be what makes them wise. There is nothing but stupidity in prejudice and arrogance and bigotry, so how can tolerance not be wisdom? And if someone cannot not forgive me a moment of selfishness or doubt or fear, it reflects not my immaturity, but theirs.

Doesn't being your self mean you decide what that actually means? How else am I wise one moment and not wise another? Or patient one day and impatient another?
Being mere words (mature, responsible, selfish, cruel) that other people will find easier to understand makes you less than you are.
Is what I think, anyway.
:)

talking analogies

If I were to imagine it, it would begin with the balance. The scales. The accounting.
(backlog, bank balance, accumulation)
Karma.
And if I were to imagine it, I would have a plan written out for me; my fate, my destiny.
I see it as... plans. Perhaps - of a house.
But then, I think, it seems more. More than a plan - a concept. A hint of a house, a wish of a house - basic spatial arrangements - a requirement, an instruction, a brief. Flexible.
And when I imagine it, the purpose of life is to get this house built. And keep it built.
So I will find people who will help me with the blueprints. And the materials. And the curtains, furniture, windows, carpets, paint, wallpaper... And the plumbing.
And when I imagine it, I find someone somewhere with whom plans overlap so that we can build our houses over and beside and inside and outside and through each other's.

Hmm. Analogies are really very unwieldy things. Because now I'm thinking neighbours, and countries and walls and fences and apple trees in the garden; and I'm thinking maintenance and home loans and who will mow the lawn after the house is built; and frankly, frankly - this analogy can be carried a long way. Pretty boring way, too.
I just thought it up because I could. Isn't that the best reason?
Life as a House. Somebody already even made the movie.

shame

It isn't for myself that I feel it. I can take everything as a lesson now. I have done lessons for a long time; turned guilt and shame and embarrassment into something to talk about.
And now, again, again, again. I stand here where I stood twice before, and I think about my mother. I want to tell her there's nothing she could have done. I want to tell her I make my own mistakes. I want to tell her this means nothing, nothing. I want to tell her these things because I fear she will tell me the reason I failed is because I didn't listen to her. I fear she will be disappointed and hurt and, oh horror, ashamed.
Oh, it's the truth. But what was the reason I didn't listen to her?

Perhaps it was shame, the fact that I could not show my work to anyone until I had tried to solve every last detail, as clumsily and ham-handedly as I usually do anything. Perhaps design as a process does not work for me because I do not want to let people inside my thought processes before they are unravelled to my satisfaction. Perhaps design as a process does not work for me because I have no skill, no patience and no creativity.
Perhaps I waited so long because I was afraid of dismissal and ridicule and disappointing somebody. Other people's high expectations of yourself are hard to comprehend when you have none for yourself.

Perhaps I am never ashamed because I expect nothing from me.
If you were ashamed of me, would you say?

illusion

I told someone the other day - I cannot write fiction.
I have tried, sure. I have tried, but not very hard. I have tried, but there has never been that spark of imagination in me that makes for the truly wonderful stories. I cannot see them in entirety, the stories; the stories like complete bubbles, free to coalesce with others outside and inside and beside. I can think of nothing new, nothing, and it is not just in the writing.
(what is anything worth if you have nothing new of your own to offer?)
I do tell stories well, though. I can tell you stories I know. Stories I imbibe and refashion to make them, in my head, lighter or snappier or more interesting.
I can make things read well.

I just cannot write them.


I won every inter-house creative writing competition in my school. Perhaps it was because of my flair for words.
(I do have one, don't I? I do, don't I? Oh, someone please say yes.)
My stories weren't ever original. They were, almost all of them, stories about mysterious and malignant dark forces à la every trashy horror story I'd ever read or watched. I always used themes from things I'd read, or seen, or heard. People say all art is imitation, but I couldn't write without themes. I couldn't write a story unless I had a boundary within which to fit it - a first line, a last line, a title. I needed hints, or I didn't know where I was going.
I want to believe this does not make me any less of a person, I do; but I can't. What is the use of anything if you can't imagine? What is the use? People who cannot write can think of stories that have so much potential that I burn with jealousy and futility and impotence.
All I have ever imagined has already been in here. So tell me.
Why bother wonder at all?

later letter

Darling,
If I had my way this would be in paper and pen and pencil, because that's what I've been thinking of all day - paper and pen and pencil; and molecules of myself that go spinning out into the great unknown never to return to me unless you will it so. Did I not send them to you, molecules of me in paper and pencil and ink?

I wrote to people in the last week without a thought for what I was writing beyond the fact that I was writing to them and today I cannot remember a word not a word except that I think I told someone I loved him.
Perhaps it is better this way, when the words I write out of my pain and joy escape from me forever and ever and not a word remains to mock me with memories of my own stupidity. Perhaps the letters that will mean the most to us will be the ones we remember in spite of ourselves; without any records or copies or memorandums - the ones that we will remember, perhaps remember all wrong, except for that one perfect sentence we slaved over for two minutes.
Then again, perhaps we will not remember them at all.

See, I've been thinking. Is a relationship that is entirely electronic better than ones you have in real life because of all the ways you can remember it; and all the ways you will never never need to? For I cannot remember when I first wrote you, or when you first said hello, or when you first asked to get in my pants. I cannot remember, but I can find out. I can find out when, and what, and quote; and I can calculate the number of times you said any of the numerous stupid things you said and draw pretty graphs of proportion if I wanted to.

Do we say the things we say to each other because no one will never know unless we tell? Because passwords protect but letters can be found by anybody? Is that why the blog is like an alternative - a public private personal letter that any random person can find; one of those interrupted stories that people stumble across in old apartments - overlapping edges of lives that remind you of things in your own? Is that why it tugs at the heartstrings so to read of someone else, someone like you, doing the things you did or the things you want to do, falling in love and falling out of love and doubting and believing and winning and losing and living?
Perhaps it is. I like to think so. I like to think of all the stories I've read here in this place; the ones I've loved; as windows into lives of people not very different from me - people who could have been my friends, or my sisters, or my soul mates. We all look for soul mates, after all. I've just found some for myself, see, all accidental-like.
Lucky, lucky me.

better letter later

Being stuck in the house all the time does not make for much adventure at all.
It might if I were in Misselthwaite Manor and wandering along lonely passages and finding semi-orphaned relatives on moonlit nights; but it turns out I am in a cast and hence reduced to hopping around the house with a cane à la House. Sure, one could make valid arguments for reading all the books cluttering up the bookshelves that I haven't even taken close second looks at, but let's face it - I no longer read as much as I used to. I have become addicted to real life. And sitcoms. But those are real life, no?
One day last week I wrote a Person™ a Letter. One of those Dead Tree with Squid Piss Thingys™. And then, when I asked my father for stamps, he accidentally unearthed a sheaf of something surprising - twelve blue Inland Letter Cards, bought back in the day when Inland Letter Cards cost only 75 paise.

Sending an Inland Letter Card today costs Rs. 2.50.
I know because I sent some. In fact, I sent four.
I'd have sent more, only there weren't any stamps of denomination below Rs 5 when my sister went to the post office, so I steamed the stamps off postcards instead and wrote as many letters as the stamps could afford. It was a fun project.
So was, in fact, the actual letter writing itself. Sitting at the dining table after midnight with the injured leg propped up and the trusty cane close at hand; with sheets of actual honest-to-goodness postal stationery waiting to be mutilated by hand-wielded writing instruments... Perhaps the excitement of actually writing a letter (an inland letter! on blue stationery!) overshadowed the joy of communication, but not for long. The first letter was all about the letter writing and about the inlandletter and perhaps it used the word "blue" rather often, but by the time the fourth letter was written I was hitting my stride.
I have grown too used to emails, and the instant gratification they afford; the perfect spelling and unambiguous legibility. I have forgotten the wonder of scribbling and scratching and trying to get the words just right without aid of copy and paste and delete.
And I really really enjoyed sending letters with all those little doodles in the margin.

So if you received a letter from me, today, or tomorrow, or yesterday; well, then - write me back, huh? I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. And I promise the post title if you do. :)