the ridiculous age

There is something about going back to the things you wrote when writing was the thing you did. By "something", of course, I mean "something embarrassing". It isn't only that you see the starry-eyed optimism of youth from the cynical-eyed viewpoint of your old age, but it is that you can no longer relate to it. And you can no longer write with the same ease and disregard for typographical errors that you once did.

I used to write emails to strangers on the internet. There are chances I have said this before; I don't think I will bother to check. Why can I not repeat myself on the internet? It isn't as though someone is going to come up to me and say, "Hey, lady, you've been telling that same story for decades and it's getting old." Actually, that would be kind of awesome, because it would mean someone's actually following my blog. This is even more unlikely, because of the number of times I've:

a. changed the name of the blog

b. deleted the blog

c. changed the address of the blog

d. written somewhere else entirely.

So I will return, thoughtlessly, planlessly, grammarlessly - because I'm uncool like that.

decisions!

I have just been over at Allie's and I have realised some very important facts:

1. I was never as funny as I thought I was

2. The first-and-only-boyfriend-who-is-now-ex kept me away from the internet and my blog and that was a bad thing for me to have allowed anyone to do

3. I have forgotten all the html that I once knew

4. Allie is awesome! And inspirational! Also there are real people who still care about language! (I don't know if you still check links, Allie. Chances are that you do because you have comment moderation, so if you are here... Welcome! I was not always as incoherent as my latest posts might make me appear to be. Once upon a time I was prolific, if not very interestingly so. Also you are awesome.)

I have also made some resolutions, viz:

1. No more zynga games

2. A return to the blog! That means the first blog and no making new ones just because I want to re-invent myself. That is not allowed.

3. Re-learn html and make the blog look like I've actually put some effort into it, for God's sake.

4. No whining about lack of blog-friends. They may never come, but whining will help nobody.

5. No more falling for jerks and making them the centre of my life! I AM SERIOUS T YOU HEAR ME.

These are my resolutions.

I had better stick to them, or else, etc.

hello!

The odd thing is that it takes a very large irritant (for example, in the shape of my sister) to actually get me blogging again.

Things have been relatively good in my life lately - I have a new job (which I enjoy and I'm good at), I have supplementary sources of income (which I also enjoy and am good at), the boyfriend and I are on a "break", but I'm pretty sure I'm breaking up with him in the end unless something drastic happens to change my mind.

What is getting slightly closer to unbearable is the situation at home. The fact that so many people who know me in real life read this blog should be a deterrent to my outpourings, but "frankly my dear," and the rest of it.

"Even now I'm bearing with your short temper."

It seems to be harder to live with a twenty-year-old than to live with a teenager. Why is this? Because there's virtually no difference between her two weeks ago and her now except for what she'll be filling in the "age" column of paperwork, is why.

The question of privacy rears its head again so I'm going to stop now.

g'day.

I will write again when I want to.

some search

The matrimonial express is gaining speed but still hasn't found either its bearings or its destination. I'm stuck in the middle reading pathetic profiles and comparing people to someone else.

I'm not certain I'm ready to settle down, and I'm sure that none of these people are the ones I'd choose if I were.

The whole business is just making me sick to my stomach.

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

after who knows

I tend towards the meta in all my talk posts; it's part of the reason I call them that - it is a remnant of the days when I thought I could be clever.

I am reaching a point in my life where most things tend to do a lot of looming over my head: my age, my lack of a job, my inability to make something great of myself, my refusal to be married. This is the first time I can remember, however, when mild-panicky reactions and feelings of inadequacy haven't sent me scurrying to words. Well, it is now, but it hasn't been for a while. I am afraid to look at the dates for fear that realizing exactly how long it has been might actually cause irreparable brain damage.

I went by The Cat's home today, the virtual one where I first met him. I miss the way conversations with that person made me feel, as though there were secrets that I was privy to by virtue of things I had done inadvertently; as though I was smarter, and funnier, and wittier than so many others because someone seemed to see me that way.

The odd thing is that there is someone in my life now who loves me very much, but in whose company I never feel anything extraordinary about myself except for the fact that I am very loved.

I realized today that I have grasped very few opportunities to talk about him, my mystery boyfriend: this person with whom I have so much in common and so little; about whom I am asked every day and about whom I return noncommittal platitude-phrases (potter indian michigan kannada jewish 28 5'8" ) because I haven't given myself a chance to talk about him with myself yet.

There isn't much I can say about him without feeling as though I am violating spaces; I have not yet found a way to talk of someone without imagining them in the audience as well.

(It was something that made it easy with the others I spoke of and wrote of, the fact that I thought I knew the way they read things... Of course sometimes I was wrong in the readings of those readings, and that was when I was visited by my dear friends confusion, embarrassment, and shame (good times, good times) and after that it was just splendid fun for all concerned, of course.)

I ramble. I think I can vaguely remember a time when my posts had points, and beginnings and ends and a couple of clever sentences somewhere along the way, but for now I am willing to wait and see what getting back to writing feels like.

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.

a domestic mind

I have begun neglecting the T - not in an I don't have time for you now why don't you go play there's a good child sort of way but rather in blanks and absences - the way one is supposed to let go of imaginary friends. I am forgetting what I used to think she was.
I suppose this is good in a small twisted way, because most of the things she thought and felt I find I let myself feel without proxy.

I am I.
It is a new way for me to be: to be me.
Me to be me.

I think perhaps I have always been myself, only - selectively and in bits and pieces; and that is not bad, not bad precisely, just less than healthy. To split myself up into seven blogs speaks not so much of a desire for order and control (which it is, you know, mostly it is. the question is not "why do i categorize", but "how do i choose to categorize", and the answer to that tells much) as of a need to feel all I feel in parts; in manageable doses.
(worlds collide. i know half a dozen people i love who will know what that means. isn't a sally shared a splendid thing?)

I am happy again. Happy in that painful-feeling-in-the-chest feeling-like-floating sort of way. Not all the time, and not as much as I have felt before, but the recognition acknowledges it, and it is what it is.
And this time I am happy because I made myself happy.
There! What an admission, to be sure. :)

working in nightclothes!

Dear Ones!
And of course by "Ones", i mean "People who no longer read my blog".
I have returned!
No, really.

The T has spent the better part of this year in a moping haze brought on by THE SAD TRAGEDIES OF LOVE, where there is pain for unnecessary reasons which is something I learned from Heyer and when one is the villain both coming and going, but NO MORE! The time has come to realize that loving someone does not make them a better person and jerks are jerks even when they're not really jerks, OR RATHER IN OTHER WORDS a person may be perfectly wonderful in generic terms but a person who treats you like crap deserves to be thought a jerk SPECIFICALLY even if you are the kind of person who tends to think more in generic terms than not. In other words, I love him <3 , but he's a jerk and doesn't deserve me, so there. Meanwhile, I have been sucked into that hideous no-man's land of feeling sorry for myself, and neglecting the poor T sadly until she could no longer remember who she was or where she came from or even to smile for more than a second at the spectacle of being beckoned from one bus to another which was so splendid, my dears.

Have people heard of what happened with the Gmail archiver? Horrors! The T's beginning to almost maybe come around to MJ's paranoid view of Google, and regrets it mightily. She was such a fan! If anyone knows of safer alternatives that are as well-organised, be sure to let T know. Outlook is an unholy mess and not in the same league at all, pah.

Anyway, there is work to be done, but many things remain to be said, so the evening looks like it might be spent trolling blogland telling people I'm alive while SIMULTANEOUSLY postig posts that are proof of the same e.g what happened at the hospital yesterday and about the teapot and the fireplace with the iron grill etc.

:)

truth-telling, secret-keeping

For the longest time, the T has been an endless reservoir of things I could not tell the neighbours. She keeps secrets better than most people we know, except perhaps the dead, and those in the profession of keeping secrets. The T is my way out of madness. The T and all my friends.
Or has been.

I will make my first-ever appointment with a psychologist some time today.
Friends I've told have asked if I'm sure of this decision, and I wonder about it myself. I feel as one might feel who can no longer say, "I never stole.", "I never lied.", "I never cheated.". I feel as someone might who has by a single action crossed an invisible line into being a lesser person. I feel as though I've let myself down; I don't like that feeling. Part of me is afraid of being judged, I think: as though the admission that there are things that bother me that are beyond my control makes me less worthy than I was the instant before I admitted to it. And that is odd, because I have never had a problem with admitting to anything before...

I wonder what the difference is between someone who talks to friends about their issues and someone who pays to talk to a stranger about it. I wonder now, but I won't wonder for very much longer. In all my little life not one of the million events that put me into bed crying ever made me seriously consider therapy as a solution. Not one.
But now I do.
This amuses and terrifies me.

I could talk to friends again. I could call my friends and say, I need you. Please help me. and they would come. I did it, and they came. I couldn't do that now, though. I can't do that again. This is too big, and too painful, and has been festering for far too long for a single two-hour crying-jag over coffee to fix, as much as I wish it could.
Isn't it odd how one single solitary situation has affected everything else about my life?

I could validate this decision. I could break it down into constituent reasons and discover it makes perfect sense.
The simple truth is this, though. I have talked to everybody, and nobody made the pain go away. I tried very hard to will it, push it, pretend it away - to talk, pray, cry, meditate, exercise, work it away - and I failed. And it didn't go away. Well, a person who doesn't know her limitations is a fool.
At some point to solve a problem one must call in a professional.
Preferably before the house falls down.

not a love song

Oh, I do like my job. :)

It's hard and confusing and tiring and sometimes means I have to put off or cancel non-work-related-happy-events, but once in a while I wake up and realize that most people would pay to get this sort of exposure.

I've actually reached that stage in my professional life when I can't really stop talking about work once I get properly started. It's exciting, you see. It's been nearly four months, and I've already worked on close to ten separate projects, each of them almost completely different from the other.
But first! Perhaps a little background.

The T^[1] works for a firm that specializes in Landscape, Conservation and Research. (In fact, the boss has a Bachelors degree in Physical Planning, a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture and an M.A in Conservation Studies.) We are thus qualified to undertake a very wide range of projects,which we do.
At present, for example, we are

• the landscape architects for one nos. apartment building, one nos. residential layout, one nos. commercial warehouse and one nos. school campus in the city
  
• the landscape designers for the restoration project at the Mughal gardens at Pinjore
  
• the empaneled landscape consultants for the State Bank of India
  
• the Indian landscape consultants for the Delhi Airport project
• responsible for the publication of the World Heritage Site Management Manual for UNESCO
• responsible for the publication of Bangalore Lalbagh heritage maps
  

I have had varied level of involvement with all these, and the foreseen involvement is of a rather high order, and I'm rather excited. I might even be in Delhi for a few months to make the most of the opportunity to work on a project of a scale as large as an International Airport. Whee! :)
Besides this, the other partner at the firm specializes in interior design, and I've been working on her projects, too. The only thing getting to me was the fact that this was an office consisting of two bosses and a single worker bee, but I think the T needs some laziness kicked out of her before it's too late.

Our office is on the ground floor, and adjoining it is a little garden where I have my lunch. We have various visitors, including but not limited to the following:

A bird that you can see if you squint really hard and tilt your head a little and stare just exactly at the centre of the photograph.

A year-and-a-half-old visitor who wanders in and out at will and says "mamma" and "hi" a lot. A dedicated post on this visitor is in the pipeline. Perhaps with photos, if permission is so obtained.

Life is kind. :) Kind of.
One must add the disclaimer on account of things that are (still! still!) making the T mope around for all of her free time, but SHE CAN'T COMPLAIN.
Well, she had better not, at any rate.

1. Apparently I can't begin to recite facts except in third person. Whatever.

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?

with a vengeance

I missed the cat-fight at the office yesterday. Perhaps there will be a repeat performance if we set out a single cup of milk the next time they're seen together.
It is a sign of the times, I think, that I am positively gleeful at the complete absence of metaphor (woo.) in that last paragraph.

Meanwhile, as it indicates, the T is once more part of the working masses, spending her weeks at a Landscape firm, designing interiors. Today she wore a sari to work just because. The T's a beautiful woman in a sari. She is, really. These are the things she does to break monotony.
Not that it is very monotonous - T seems to have a knack of ending up in offices with plenty of sunshine, complete freedom (or as near as makes no difference) of musical expression, and much greenery around. No air-conditioned hellholes for this alter ego!!!

* * *

I wish I could talk about all the adventures I've been having. I've had loads - weekend meetings at parks and analysis of poems and Mensa MHKs and new people and old people with the average coincidence thrown in once in a while, the usual getting lost in unknown places and dropping in uninvited and people who love me because I amuse them.
Regular life-o'-mine, in fact. Only so much more so that I cannot quite summon up the energy to be witty and sparkling about it. So unfair!

I've been feeling a great weight lately. Almost as if I'm moving from day to day waiting for something - something huge and overwhelming and life-changing.
I cannot wait to see what it is. ^_^ I amine-smile at the thought.
Here's to awaiting developments of unknown film, ladies and gentlemen. And the triumphant return of metaphor.

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)

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?

lowering reflections

It is a huge blow to the ego and self-esteem to find out you resemble, in all the ways that matter, a sixteen-year-old in your teenage sister's class for whom she feels nothing but contempt...


High school is very cruel, isn't it?