I wanna Fly

So what follows a snow storm?? Well lots of things - Road blocks, traffic delays, icy roads, sub-degree temperatures, bad colds and of course flight delays.


So I am starting my holiday season by flying down to sunny California and I have made two mistakes. I chose the weekend before Christmas and I chose a weekend after a snow storm. Oh and there is another one, I chose to do this in Seattle.
Seattle maybe a great city but it does not know how to deal with a snow storm of any magnitude. We got about a foot of snow and the whole of Seattle greater area came to a slipping sliding halt. The place has been iced to perfection, literally. Reason being, historically the area has not been prone to snow storms until a few years ago and each passing year the city gets a bigger and whiter surprise than the last one. Hello global warming :)
Given the situation, its natural that the shuttle dropped me at the airport 5 hours before the flight and its also natural that the airline is sneakingly adding five more minutes to the scheduled flight time every 20 mins or so. It now stands at 11:00 pm, 2 1/2 hrs later than the original time. Poor M will have to drive in the middle of the night to pick me up at the airport.
So seeing that I am stuck here for a while I decided to write a blog on people that are sitting around me:

A fifty something white guy who has removed his shoes, obviously oblivious or perhaps uncaring of the weird smell and conspicuous brownness of his white socks.

A really friendly over weight Hispanic guy in a weird poop color shirt. Should I tell him that?

A guy looking over his shoulder from behind me, making me feel like he is reading this blog.

A man hogging the only electric outlet at Gate B10, pretending to not notice that I need to use it as well. Finders keepers I guess, discourteous but keepers.

A Marine officer and his wife, who have the tendency to talk to a person at the same time. They finish each other's sentences and sometimes they are talking about completely different things. Again to the same person.

A bitchy woman with extraordinarily sweet and well-behaved boys. Maybe they are making up for their mother's lack of courtesy, manners and friendliness. Maybe they are adopted. Maybe they are like their dad. Their dad sounds nice ;)

An Asian person whose sex I cannot guess. I think its a girl, no no its a boy, no a girl, no a boy. I sound schizophrenic.

A woman stuck in the 1960s and should really get her first haircut in 40 yrs. It is 2008 for God sake!!

A man who is able to sleep through so much noise and chaos. Oh how I envy him.

A person who finished 15 sudoku puzzles in the past 60 mins. Wow, I am impressed. If only he were cute as well.

A desi guy who likes to stare, for no apparent reason. And when I look at him he pretends he wasn't looking. How unusual and non-desi (lol)

Two cute little girls. The younger one is getting more attention from fellow passengers and the older is pulling all sorts of stunts just so she can share some of the limelight. Poor baby.

An unnamed, unfaced child displaying his vocal prowess by screaming in the 8th octave, consistently for the past 60 mins. Something tells me this is a desi child. Such talent, such persistence and such pig-headiness. Bravo!!!

A weird South Asian girl, who is observing people like...well like a South Asian person. She looks like she hasn't slept in ages and needs to shampoo her hair. She does have a super cute red laptop and brown boots though. Ah, wait a minute!! When did they put a mirror on that wall...

Latest on the snow and the car :)

I have always said this. Snow is the prettiest thing I have ever seen, specially when it falls down. It is my first real snow. Well first real snow in a place that I reside in. So I have to deal with the daily chores in snow and worry about things like my car and driving in the snow. After the below described car waxing experience, I decided to chill out and let snow take its course :) Here is my car in the mild snow storm that Sammamish Plateau (the small pretty lil town east of Seattle) had this morning. That meant no work :). (Hourly employees should get paid on snow day now, come on!!)

why do i even bother??

Various events in the last three decades have made me accept certain things about my life. Some of them being:
I should never make plans.I should not prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I should just do nothing.I will get really good things in life, but not before I have made an utter fool of myself and suffered long enough to almost give up hope. So no need to panic just enjoy the sunny days on beach.

God loves me. I am a good person, I take care of people, I am compassionate, I am righteous etc. etc. etc. But most of all because I can provide constant and pleasurable entertainment to his otherwise mundane and tedious days.I am a waiter. My life will be spent waiting, literally. I will not be satisfied with the present and I will wait for a better, brighter and fun-filled future.But sometimes accepting is not enough. I am genetically programmed to plan, prepare, expect and panic. I am extremely impatient and hate to wait and every time my life becomes a sitcom episode for God Almighty's entertainment, I get annoyed and frustrated. Its like I have no learning curve.

So I bought a new car :). I feel proud and happy, and am extremely careful. So imagine my concern when the weather man reported of an Arctic storm heading to the western Washington area. Snow, rain, winds. Oh no!!! So My genetic instinct told me I need to cover the car with a cover and make sure no snow gets to it. I have to be extra careful. So I go buy the cover and Friday night under the slushy rain, I covered my car and hoped it will be safe and sound.Come Sunday morning I wake up to a snow covered landscape. everything was white and beautiful and other than the below freezing temperature, it was all so perfect. I decided to go out for a walk and went outside. I could see my car cover was covered with a layer of snow. I felt so smart and happy for doing such a good job of protecting my car. See sometimes it helps to plan and prepare. As I was thinking this, I also thought about how well the cover fitted the car and all that wind had done nothing to disturb it. Odd??I pulled up the cover to make sure there were no scratches or damage of any kind. The cover did not budge. I pulled again and it gave in with a sound very much like the sound of someone waxing the legs. Oh yes...the cover was frozen to the surface of the car. "Oh nooooo!!' I wailed.

After carefully separating the cover from the car, all the while cursing, crying and praying, I stood back to see the damage. Gasp!! my beautiful car looked like a used wax strip. The lint from the car cover was frozen all over the shiny black surface. I was horrified. Panicking, I hurried inside and grabbed a wet towel to remove the lint. Of course the genius in me didn't factor the below freezing temperature and my towel turned into ice as soon as i stepped out. I tried to clean a part of the car to make sure no damage was done. The lint came off and there was no damage but the water instantly iced on the surface. It was like being stuck in a vicious cycle. So I stepped away from the car and screamed. "Stupid, Stupid, Stupid". I could see the neighbors watch on with concern. A mother even hurried her kids inside obviously nervous with the outburst. I decided to call it a day. At 11:00 am, I did just that.

This morning on my way to work, I stopped by to check on my beloved car. It gleamed under the sun. The ice had melted and the lint was nowhere to be found. I sighed as I got into my roommate's car avoiding her laughing eyes. Why do i even bother?Oh in case you are wondering, my new plan is to avoid the ice and potential car damage by carpooling with the roommate. I have no idea how this plan will end up.

Random Thoughts of An Idle Mind

My mind refuses to cough up a decent post. I guess it is the gloomy weather or its the gloomy me or its just the way world is right now, depressing.

Nonetheless, I need to exercise the brain , this blog has to serve its purpose and I cannot go back into a writing drought of 5 yrs. SO i decided to write whatever comes to my mind. Today's post is dedicated to the randomness of my thoughts.Today I called up my favourite cousin in Pakistan to wish him a happy eid. As we talked i realised being grown up really sucks. Whats to like? Your responsibilities increase each passing day, you parents grow older and older, you have to take care of yourself, you need to know answers to all your questions, manage your money and your relationships. On top of all this, you have to work. **I really don't like my papa Ami getting old :( **
Awareness/knowledge/ambitions inversely proportional to contentment. The more we know, the more we expect from ourselves and our lives and more discontent we become. My mother's mother didn't even think she could be anything but a mother and didn't think husbands are supposed to do anything but provide, result: fairly content life. My mother felt she could do a little more than just be a regular housewife and mother and also felt my father needed to more attentive, result: not so content life. I grew up believing I could do anything I want, I expect to be a mother, a wife and career woman and I want a husband who is a partner in marriage, result: a schizophrenic, sort of discontent life. Hence proven, ignorance can be bliss.
Why cant an hourly paid employee take a paid sick day off or get paid for public holidays. I can work on Christmas but I cant since the office is closed. I cant even switch Christmas day with Eid day if I wanted. I work on Eid day, I can work on Christmas day. But I cant since the office is closed, so how come they don't pay me. PAY ME NOWWWW
Seattle is rainy and green and has more company head offices than Id like to count. It is here that Tom Hanks was sleepless, and it is here that Frasier was listening and its where Dr. McDreamy found love again. It is a really gorgeous, dreamy place. Every time I sit in a warm coffee place with a fireplace and old Sinatra or Dean martin music, rain pouring softly against the window panes, I feel like I am part of a Black and White Hollywood movie and any minute a Gregory Peck look-alike will walk in through the door and sweep me off my feet. Hmmmmm maybe I should stop drinking coffee. *sigh*
When do I wash my car? It is new and it is black and it lives in Seattle. The day it rains you cant see if it is dirty, on the days it doesn't rain it looks like a black and Brown polka-dot car. But if I wash it , it will rain the next day and the cycle will continue. Sooo when is the rain going to stop? anyone?
So are we constantly trying to recreate the time when we were the happiest? The most unadulterated, unbroken happiness? The time when our spirits and our minds were fully integrated. No conflict, no sadness and no discontentment. When every dawn was brighter than the last, when anything was possible and when our laughter was as pure as it can be. No time measures up to it and no company measures up to the company we had then. At some sub-conscious level, perhaps we are. Is it fair, perhaps not.
When is too much hard work...too much? When do you know you should quit? When do you know it is OK to give up and that no matter how much you stretch out your resources you will not be able to accomplish what you are trying to achieve. And how can you give up without feeling like a failure?
I see too many people running on the treadmill single-minded as if running away from some unseen ghosts and demons. They are too thin already. They are too fit. What are they trying to proof? Hmmm wow this was such a deep thought. Maybe worth a post.
Why doesn't it rain the day I have my umbrella and am wearing my rain boots? Sunny days, I leave home in my nice coat, wearing my suede boots, and by afternoon its raining. Why is God having so much fun at my expense, or rather at the expense of my boots. I love my shoes :(
My mind works non-stop and the thoughts never seem to end. How will I ever end this post?
Diesel - my new roommate's two year old cat hates me. Animals have always loved me but he hates me. He is black with white paws and he likes to bite. A cat that bites, please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks this is weird.
My new roommate doesn't want me to say "Oh my God!!" when I am at home and she is around. All I say to that...OH MY GOD!!!!!!!
I am tired and its almost time to go home. I have a yoga class to go to and hopefully I have taken all my thoughts out here and now I can have a truly spiritual and mind/soul cleansing experience. Ommmmmmmmmm

Imagine

I want to write a sweet song about hope, but I could never write poetry. God knows I tried. I could play with words in my native language Urdu, but composing lyrical perfection in English was something I could never achieve. So I gave up.

I want to write something deep and profound about the current hopeless and chaotic situation in South Asia. But my mind is too involved and my thoughts are too scattered. I don't want to make commentary on things that never change, the situation that remains as unresolved and absurd as it was 60 yrs ago. I don't want to talk about hatred. I don't want to talk about anger and terror and violence.

What I want to say what I want to write and what I would have tried to compose in my message of hope..is embodied in these beautiful words of John Lennon:

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

How I wish for Lennon's dream to come true. I guess we all need to be stoned to realize what the world is becoming and what we are transpiring through our ignorance, intolerance and unwillingness to feel, care, love and understand

I turn 8 tomorrow

Once in third grade we were given a composition assignment that asked us to write about our parents. That in itself was not much of a challenge since at that age my entire world revolved around them. But it did pose as a threat to my parents’ sanity as my normal count of 100 questions per day quadrupled in a matter of minutes to get the information I needed to complete the said assignment.
During my quest to learn everything there is to know about my beloved Papa and Ami, I discovered that Ami is 33 yrs old. She is my mother and so she is older than me, but I remember being in awe of this fact - the fact that my mother was sooo old. Compared to my single digit existence, the number seemed phenomenal and I wondered how I would feel when I got that old. The prospect was scary. I was abnormally aware if not fully mature in my thoughts and had an almost inane capacity to understand the complexity, certainty and seriousness of several life issues – aging and death included. I really did think 33 was that much older!
Time flew by and tomorrow after many years of good and very few of not so good fortune, I turn 33. I know perspectives change and I am no longer eight, but the number does not sound scary or old anymore, and in some ways it really seems great. Of course what choice do I have and of course now 33 has to seem young and hip, but truthfully I have realized over the years that you are as old as you feel.
When I really think about that little girl looking at her mother with awe, I realize how mature and grown-up she was for her age. How burdened she used to feel because thoughts beyond her years used to plague her and how she felt truly incapable of being a normal third grader, carefree and full of life. Going by what I have learned about being as old as you feel, I was actually 55 in the third grade. In fact, most of my childhood was actually near retirement age.

Somewhere during the course of these 33 years of existence I secretly grew to my actual permanent and spiritual age and birthdays became mere reason for celebration and the numerical age, just a number. I now realize that age truly translates into spiritual beauty, health and the presence of love and peace in your life. So no matter what my age, I won’t feel old as long as I have all these things.

Maybe this post will make no sense to some people, while others will know exactly what I mean. In any case, I am more a free spirit now, than I ever was as an eight year old. Happy 8th birthday to me !!

BFF

Stars in the eyes, head in the air. She is a friend, a sister, partner in crime and constant source of entertainment. She can be annoying and infuriating but she can be just as sweet and caring. She can be insightful but can be just as clueless. She makes me laugh till I have tears in my eyes and she can make me angry...till I have tears in my eyes.

A life that has given her lots of ups and downs has made her into a strong woman. Perhaps a woman of substance.

It is not easy to write about her. Its not that she is very complex or there isn't a whole lot to say about her. Its just that at this time I am talking to her on the phone (well mostly she is talking) She talks non-stop and I give her a hard time every now and then (I should add as always).

You know how people sit and think about different things, quietly, by themselves. Well M does it too...only with me as audience. I will either be sitting on her couch or will be at work reading her chat or will be on the other end of the phone, like right now.

Well now that I have hung up and I can think a bit more clearly, lets see if I can come up with more material. She will read this tomorrow, I am sure she will. I think she opens my blog every day secretly hoping that perhaps today I have mentioned her. Just kidding M. But you know you do...no no just kidding ;) (but you do, admit it lol)

She is smart (when she wants to be) , funny (read very funny), hyper (read extremely-bouncing off-the-walls-on-most-days-hyper), very caring , loving and sweet. I met her 2.5 years ago when my ex-friend/raakhee brother hooked her up with me as a roommate. We clicked instantly. She was all I wanted in a roommate plus I could boss her into cleaning and washing the dishes on time lol. I tell you it was meant to be.

We have had lots of ups and downs, some fights (mostly in New York), some distances (I am a nomad after all), some differences of opinion (I discuss/She thinks we are arguing ) and many endless nights of gossip, laughter and girl talk.

She has been a great friend, someone I can always be honest with, knowing full well she will not judge me. She tries to get me even when she has no idea what I am on about (lot of people feel that way, but she is a lot less vocal). She puts up with the drama in my world (and we all know there is plenty), and I try to help clean-up the messes in hers. She opens her house, her heart, her brand new car for those who give her unceasing love and support, and whom she loves unconditionally. I am lucky to be one of "those".

M, no matter how many times you will make me wanna beat you up and no matter how many times we fight (in and out of New York), and no matter how many times you have to step back to give me the space to change, I know that we will find our way back to each other, because friendships like ours can actually brave the test of time. You, me and Guru ji, truly make "threes, a company".

The crazy, great-hearted, totally clueless M. Love ya girl.

I am sorry aunties

I am over the hill (by Desi standards 28 is the hill) and I should be desperate to tie the knot. What is wrong with me? I always disappoint the aunties in my family. (they are just not cool like my mom)

They wanted the girl to be good and respectful who doesn't laugh loudly; most days Eskimos could hear me laugh all the way from the land of the pure. They wanted girls not to hang out with guys and play cricket on the road; I would bully the kids into letting me play even at the age of 21. They wanted the girls to learn how to cook; I am still living off of Maggie noodles. They thought it was not right for girls to play tennis um ever; I lived to be on the court every single day, rain or shine (even though I was just average). The aunties thought it wrong to marry out of choice; I was in love two months after I joined my university. They looked down at a girl and a guy being best friends; my best friend was a guy and his sister and his brother and his mom (they still are, him I don't know). They didn't think it was possible for girls to go out alone after dark; I was rampaging around the city of lights in a rickshaw (with my father's permission of course, i am not completely insolent). They believed marriage is the ultimate destination in a girl's life; Bull shit!!! They felt it was awful that I was abandoning my parents and being so selfish to go to US for further studies; I did not want to wait for a husband anymore (yes the love did not last, please don't pick at my wounds). They are too shocked to say, think or believe anything anymore; I live in the US and there are no aunties here. But secretly, they think I am over the hill and should be desperate enough to marry any Tom, Dick or Harry, or in this case any Imran, Farhan or Kamran; I am not.

I am sorry aunties, I disappoint you yet another time. I don't mean to. Trust me its not my sole aim in life to piss you all off, it is just an added advantage. I love you all so much, but your "haey beechaari" has taken its toll on me and I am avoiding you all like the plague. Oh you didn't think it was on purpose? I am also avoiding all those daughters of yours who have turned into an extension of you and want to preach me on how it is my duty to be a mom, as a true Muslim woman (huh??).

Admit it!! Married people cannot stand free, single people. You are a little envious aren't you? Surely at least a tad ? A free spirit that I am, aren't you dying to tie me up. You settled, you want me to compromise as well. No thanks.

I never had the same goals as you or your daughters for that matter. You never let them grow to their full potential but my parents did. And even though I truly appreciate your worries and concerns over my spiritual and mental well-being, I resist your attempts to tame me and black mail me; inducing feelings of guilt and shame by citing my parents' grief over my impending spinsterhood. For God sake. I am single, not morally corrupt. There is a difference.

I am sure I will repeatedly defy your expectations in the years to come because I live by own expectations. My expectations, my identity - not my husband's, my own. Thanks, but no thanks.

The Change

I don't want to be political on my blog, but the new president-elect of the country I currently reside in, is worth at least a bit of a mention. Hence this post.


Elections in the US is like a circus. Its madness and I try not to engage in this madness. For instance the last presidential elections, I did not give a rat's ass about who comes into office because things were different. My country was not at the brink of disaster, the adopted country was not at the brink of disaster, I was not a taxpayer in the adopted country, none of the candidates were hot (I have always had a thing for articulate, tall, dark and handsome Sydney Poitier looks-alikes) and I did not think of this place as a home.


He has charisma, no question about it and that is one of the things that caught my interest and over the months I found him more and more appealing and suitable for the job in question (as compared to the rest? HELL yeah!!!). His suitability lies in the fact that he is different and he stands for change. The change is not just associated with the color of his skin or his background but also with his ideologies, his plans for the country, the way he conducted himself in the elections. He is just...different. Now whether these differentiating qualities make him a successful president...only time will tell. He has a major mess to clean up, that's for sure so it will take time.


The fact that he plans to bomb my native country (expressed in so many words) scared me a bit but then McCain's sweet response "you just don't say some things out loud" scared me even more and made me realise we are screwed either way so what the hell. Obama is the lesser of the two evil.


American people are intelligent (the majority). They are not as naive as we like to think. They may live a self-involved life but they understand when to take a stand and when to draw a line and this is what makes them better than some of the other nations. They accept responsibility for their mistakes. Not everyone will agree with me but if you turn the pages of history, you will find this to be true. Every nation has made horrible mistakes in the name of power, wealth and religion but very few have actually stood up to their own to rectify these mistakes. People focus on "They did it", not many see "what happened after they did it". Don't get me wrong, they do it only when they get affected by it, but nonetheless they stand up and perpetuate the change. At least they are alive enough to understand their rights and have the courage to voice out their opinions. The law still matters, the system, though flawed, can still be depended on.


At the risk of sounding like a traitor (some people will think so I am sure), I admire this adopted country and I want the system to keep working. I came in this country a mere immigrant but I am hardly ever made to feel like an outsider. I have the same rights and I have the same set of laws to follow. I pay the same taxes and I am given the opportunity to learn and progress just as the rest of the people. This place still gives people an opportunity to start over and advance from whatever standard of life they had been leading. It is no paradise and its not perfect, but it is a home away from home.


Some of the past governments have compromised its image and the philosophy it was built on but with the new wave of change which was effected by the people through this election just might do the trick again. I for one hope so.


Good Luck President Obama.

The free Spirit

What is with my need to be understood and accepted by my near and dear ones. I seek their understanding and their acceptance and approval for every aspect of my life. I have always wanted this and I still do. I want them to understand my point of view, I want them to approve of my choices and most of all I want them to believe in my dreams and ambitions and be OK with them and give me the support to fulfill them. I want them to accept my shortcomings, focus on my strengths and not ridicule and logicalize my fears, dismissing them as pure rubbish. I want them to understand me as a person and not look down at me because I fail to live up to their expectations. And most of all I want them to know I am not them and I may not be able to do the things they can do very easily. Understand me, understand my choices, understand my life, understand my fears, understand my shortcomings, understand me because I understand you.

We are all different, have our own experiences and our own stories. Our past shapes us into who we are and naturally we have different levels of comprehension and have our own limitations. We all have our own vices, strengths, fears and our own way of dealing with things. But then why do we want the people around us to behave the same as we do. We expect them to be an extension of us, just because we are connected to them, either through blood or through emotions.

Most of our lives' frustrations and disappointments are caused by our failed expectations. Expectations that we have from life, from those around us and from our own selves. So to say I have been disappointed because of my need to be understood will be the understatement of the century. It has not just disappointed me it has also never let me be free of their and my own expectations. I let it consume me. This in turn made me behave unfairly towards those I love, my family and my friends. My frustration caused by their lack of understanding combined with their expectations from me made be irritated and annoyed.

I get it now and so I accept it. I accept it all. Their limitations, their point of view and their lack of understanding. And if I think I do a better job of understanding and accepting them, then I also must remember those few in my life who have and still are doing an awesome job of understanding me . Why should we get everything that we want from each person we meet? After all everyone has a unique way of giving and it may not be what we want but it just might be something just as special. The wisdom is to accept what comes your way and give all you can without expecting anything in return.

All I want is to be free, in every sense of the word, whether its from my own expectations of others or theirs of me.

In God I believe

On days bright and sunny rare as they are, I venture into the city to enjoy the views of the Puget Sound and hustle bustle of the Pike Place market. It is fun even without any company. It is actually good to be by yourself.
But you know what pisses me off? The fact that when some people see a person alone all by themselves, they assume that he/she is either weird, depressed or worse: open for conversation. Just because a person is alone does not mean she is lonely or pathetic or pitiful. You don't have to look at her apologetically or step away from her because you are not sure what will happen if you are too close and you definitely don't need to try and have a conversation with her. Especially not when she is sipping her wonderful cappuccino enjoying the rare sunny day in Pacific NW. And definitely not about her religious beliefs. Excuse me!!!!
There are things that make you self conscious when you are alone. The fact that almost all homeless people will ask you for money and make eye contact with you, thinking you are only a step above them. After all first sign of poverty is that your friends and family abandon you. Having food by yourself in a restaurant, how sad is that right? You can barely taste what you are eating as you gulp down the food because you can see people feeling sorry for you and your waiter looking almost apologetic.
But all this I can take, I have braved all kinds of eyes and looks and am actually able to smile at homeless people without freaking out. I know of people who wont/cant do that.
But what I cannot understand is that why do religious zealots think it to be their responsibility to target people like me in their quest to spread the word of God. We are alone but not necessarily lost or depressed or in search of God. We are just people enjoying the city and the sun and coffee. The idea that just because I am by myself I am lost and I need to find God is ridiculous. I know God, and him and I are OK. Nevertheless, they approach me, all the time. Maybe I just have a face of a non-believer or perhaps I look lost and depressed. Damn these dark circles.
Anyway last weekend I had a funny encounter of this kind. I was sitting on a bench, watching people go by as I sat in the sun enjoying my cappuccino when a Mexican couple strolled by and started taking pics of the bay. I didn't pay much attention since I was totally focused on this adorable yellow Labrador. I felt the couple circling my bench a few times and I thought that was weird. I tried to ignore them but suddenly they appeared in front of me and sat down on the bench across from mine. This is the conversation that followed:
Jose (I call him Jose coz there is a 80% chance that his name is Jose)': Hi
Me:Hi
Jose:It is nice today, yaa? ( heavy accent)
Me: Sure, it is gorgeous.
Jose: You from here.
Me: Yes ( by now I am thinking up my escape route, I am in no mood for idle chit chat)
Jose:You go to church
I had no answer, just ridiculous smile (Maybe I am wrong but aren't Mexicans Catholics and Catholics don't preach right?)
Jose: You believe in God
Me: Sure ( I get up)
Jose: You no go to church (with his accent should he even be preaching)
Me: No, I have to go...
Jose (getting up and cutting me off) Do you not say God help me, take me, take care of my life, i am here. (He throws his arms in the air looking up at the sky)
It was very theatrical and I would have made my escape then had it not been so...well theatrical. I could see his small Latina wife was a little embarrassed.
Me: Right
Jose: U go church and God help you ( he said emphatically, gesturing in earnest towards the sky).
Me: ummmm, do you guys want me to take your picture
Jose looks at his wife and says something in Spanish. I almost said exactly.
So after getting inspected by both of them as I took their picture, I quickly rushed off hoping Jose wont start an interpretive dance about Jesus.
I am all for religious freedom and have nothing against preaching do whatever makes you happy. But next time, target the guy in the huge group with a big family. Because even though he has people around him, he maybe the one lost or unhappy or in search of God. Even if he is not brown. You are wasting your time on me. I am already taken care of.

Nomad or Too bad

2 countries, 22 homes (in 32 years), 9 schools (6 in first 10 yrs), 3 storage places and several rental cars later - I am moving again. Calling my lifestyle nomadic is probably the understatement of the year. The more I crave for some constant in life, the more it eludes me.
I am officially a homeless person and I can live in my car for all I care, only I don't have a car.

Yes yes yes, I whine, but I have good reason to whine. I am a person with no home, and its not a lifestyle I volunteered to have. My father made us move...a lot. Once he quit, my mom took over. After she decided it was time to settle down, I decided to switch continents. Now I have a job that makes me move. Fate? Misfortune? Luck? Genes? I believe all of the above. And now I am afraid when I do settle down by some stroke of luck I will find it so mundane and boring (poor guru ji). Maybe encompassed in my soul, is the soul of ibn-e-batuta or marco polo. I dont know!!

It is true that neither of my parents have called one place their home for more than 5 yrs. My father turns 70 this Dec. Hmmmm, if this is genetic it doesn't look too promising. You must be wondering, whats the big deal, so you move around a lot. How bad can it be right? Well its not bad at all. You get to meet new people, you get a new start at life (sort of) you explore a new place, get a new room, new neighbors, fresh new set of teachers/friends/co-workers etc. etc.
But there is a con side to it all and that is you get to meet new people, you get a new start at life (sort of) you explore a new place, get a new room, new neighbors, fresh new set of teachers/friends/co-workers etc. etc.

Think about it, you do get excited about change and all of the fun new things mentioned above. But the novelty of it all does disappear after the first few times as you realise:
Meeting new people is so overrated, people everywhere are annoying and judgemental, just because your environment changes you dont become a more interesting personit's no fun to make new friends when you are just as judgmental as others and no matter how many fresh starts you get at life, you will turn it into the same exact mess as before. The only thing one can really enjoy is exploring the new place, but once that is over you start missing the last place you really felt to be your home. Sad!!!! But you know what is more sad. The fact that now I am so used to having these changes and getting these new starts, I subconsciously deem it as my escape route and hope to get one when I get bored or stuck or just tired.
The fact is I get jealous, when people talk about the homes they lived in, their entire lives, or childhood friends they studied with throughout school or lived next door to all their lives. The way they refer to a city or town, or think about their neighborhoods. All the things I so wanted but never had. I was a shy quite child who had to go through the torture of starting at a new school every 2-3 yrs or leaving a house when I had finally found my true best friend next door.
But what I guess the bright side to it all is, I can live anywhere and I can relate to all sorts of people and I am more accommodating and perceptive than the people not exposed to different environments. This kind of understanding of people and cultures I will not exchange for any one school, town or house.

And while it is hard to adjust to a new home, new place, new people, new climate, new driving styles and I do still dream of having my own land and home in one place, I try and come to terms with the fact that perhaps my destiny and my life knows me better than I know myself, and that this one home, one place thing that I desire so much just might come back to bite me in the years to come or at least guru ji, definitely.

Wake-up you lazy bum

I am so lazy these days to write anything. Maybe its the NW Pacific fall (cold and wet), maybe its the lack of audience and zero responses on my past 5 posts, or maybe I am just so God damn bored.
Maybe that's just it - I am so bored. I need some fun and excitement, I need something to look forward to, a job that makes me wanna jump out of the bed every morning or at least makes me wanna go to work or perhaps I need to travel or get a dog, or finally tie the knot or maybe try something new like Mary Jane or tequila or bungy jumping, or join a cult or become a Rasta or a nun or a cop or a fireman. Maybe I can finally learn how to swim or how to Tango or maybe I can finally take up carpentry and start writing my book, or maybe train for a marathon or or or...
How mundane does life have to get before you stop dreaming about things and start doing them. Of course I never dream about joining a cult or becoming a nun but some of the things mentioned above have been in my mind for the longest of time. I mean I would not be caught dead bungy jumping (only after maybe) but man I do want to dance like Julianne Hough.

The following passage is quoted from this blog I frequently visit: ..

"Most of us spend our life thinking of doing many a thing, but never get around to doing it. We blame it on time, and our ever packed schedules and working at jobs which majority of us are not in love with. Remember life by what you did and not by what you wanted to do. The right moment to do what you always wanted to do, is NOW! And stop caring what the world thinks!"

Although I was sad to see the extremely fun blog getting terminated, but his final words of wisdom struck a chord with me.
There is so much I wanna learn and try and do and I am just waiting for things to settle and then find the resources and time to do all this, but that is not going to happen is it? There will always be something stopping me from fulfilling my dreams. I am constantly using one excuse or the other to overcome the laziness caused by my boredom, which in turn is caused by the mundane nature of my life. That sounds sooo SAD.
So what should I do? Make a resolution to live each day as my last in this world and try to pick each one of dreams one by one and fulfilling them? Darn right I should. I will do just that and stop playing this waiting game
So here is a list of what I really want to do:

Start Smoking Pot and become a Rasta - dreadlocks is so my lookJoin a cult - this world is so over-ratedBecome a fireman - after the sex change operation of courseGet married next week ( sorry Guru Ji my mind is made up) and steal my neighbor's dog on my way out of SeattleWork on building my time machine...OK fine, that is not the real list of things I want to do. Smoking makes me sick, no cult would wanna keep me (they will take me, but not keep me), I am extremely happy being a woman and I cant possibly leave Seattle or my Guru Ji (awww). I am making all this up.The truth is I don't have a list right now and maybe I don't want to keep a list. I just want to live in this moment and for now. But what I do wish to change is that if in this moment there is something I want to achieve/learn/do then I should go after it by all my means with all my heart and not worry about anything else.

RIP Butch Cassidy

I was 12 when I fell in love with him. It was Saturday and I was curled up in front of the TV waiting for the weekly Saturday night cinema movie to begin. Every Saturday the PTV showed old Hollywood movies and I wanted to watch every single one of them. It is through this medium that my initial love of movies started and it was here that I first saw acting legends like Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart and my absolute favorite Sydney Poitier. Actors of today great they may be but cannot compare to the likes of Gregory Peck and James Stewart and silicon goddesses of this era hold no light to the beauty and class of Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman.


I was truly charmed but that night I saw the one I would love the most, forever. The movie that night, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and the star - Paul Newman. OK to be fair, the movie was heavily edited (all that passion between Liz and Paul) and made the story a little too complex for me to follow. Nonetheless I was hooked. In the years that followed I watched the beautiful blue eyed face in cinematic masterpieces like Somebody up there likes me, The Hustler, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, Color of money and then later on a bottle of a Marinara Sauce. I truly loved and admired him. Everything about him was in contradiction with what Hollywood stands for and that makes him special. He came so close to the beautiful, make believe world of glitz and glamor and didn't get lost in it. He chose to live in a farm house in Connecticut close to his family. His business "Newman's Own" established a policy that all proceeds from the sale of products, after taxes, would be donated to charity. As of early 2006, the franchise has resulted in excess of $200 million in donations (I love their products). And unlike most celebrities, his good work and political activism was not bragged about and publicized. He loved car racing, owned a racing car league or whatever they call it, and raced himself. He was stylish and had great taste but was never excessive. He was married to his true soulmate for 50 years til death parted them last month Sep 26th 2008. A long life, most of which was spent for the good of the less fortunate ended due to a lost battle with cancer. His legacy will live on through Newman's own and his daughters. He is probably the only Hollywood star that I cried for when I heard of his passing. He was a man of great character with the most gorgeous eyes ever. RIP Bucth Cassidy, you will be missed.
Fav quote: When asked about infidelity, he quipped, "Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home?"
Once speculated his epitaph would read “here lies Paul Newman who died a failure because his eyes turned brown”

With Robert Redford.Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid

With wife Joanne woodward

Aged to Perfection

no más

Why is the suspense and uncertainty of life not as thrilling as a Matt Damon flick? Why can't you enjoy the unpredictable and have popcorns while you wait and expect the unexpected? But that's not how it is. Being the unbelievably impatient person that I am, I hate waiting and not knowing what next. I have always needed to know everything and I have needed to know it now (except exam results - I never cared much about them enough and could wait for them til eternity). So I loose the suspense, I am more of a drama person anyway.
Besides, I think the suspense is sooo over rated. Life should have just come with a manual, it surely would have made our parents' job that much easier. Think about it, we would have been like a new Honda accord, well I am more of a Lamborghini, but you get the point.
I am just bored with all the waiting... and I do think God has the best sense of humor of all. How else would you explain life and its thrilling idiocies. Hmm this is worth a post of its own.

The Constant

There is no constant in life other than change. Every day brings some new color to life and it transitions in some way or the other, ever so slowly. But what if one doesn't know how to cope with these changing seasons. She may welcome the change for its excitement and the freedom it gives her from the mundane motions of life, but once the dust settles, it makes her feel lost and sad as if a part of her is missing. With every new chapter of life she feels further away from her own true self, and while this maybe OK for some it remains a tragedy for her. She longs for things to go back to how they used to be. Perhaps, the past signifies to her as normal and happy and most of all known and predictable. The present may be fine but the past is somehow always better. Is it an illusion, an escape or just wishful thinking? Maybe a little of all.
Life is exciting and fun, full of suspense and totally unpredictable and it makes sense not to commit to any one chapter so completely that the preceding chapters only make you want to turn the pages and re-read it again. Maybe you stop reading and keep going back because you dont want to end the book. Interesting, but when has that ever stopped life from changing.
When I was young I used to read a book about a fairy land where whenever a traveler turned to look back he turned to stone. I could never understand what that meant, but now it is just so clear.
Life has no constants other than change. Makes sense to accept this as a constant and keep traveling

Meetings...blah!!! who needs them

I hate all kinds of work meetings: status meetings, company meetings, team meetings and last but not the least call-in meetings. Here is why:
Every meeting invites a person who loves to talk. This person loves to state the obvious and explain things that are painfully simple and common sense. In other words he is extremely self important and believes that all other employees are a bunch of idiots. Annoying to say the least.And while this self-adulatory dumb-ass is droning on and on about how we should email the project numbers to only the important managers for the thirteenth time, I am trying so hard to stay awake and not fall off the chair. I am a border-line insomniac and barely have 4 hour sleep each night and unless I am constantly doing something, I get phenomenally drowsy. In meetings, this problem seems to become even more pronounced, no thanks to the dumb-ass.To keep myself from falling of the chair, I habitually doodle, a lot. I have been doing this since 12th grade. Once, my project manager actually caught hold of my notepad and burst out laughing since it had my and my significant other's name scribbled all over the page encircled with daisies and triangles. Trust me I am never that in love, but my mind is empty and it has to doodle. Needless to say this incident was highly embarrassing and now during meetings along with the fight to stay awake I also need to focus on not doodling.I also doodle when deep in thought.Doodling and sleepiness can make people think I am not interested in the meeting. This may be true but they don't have to know this. So now I have to do the occasional nodding and note-taking. This problem leads to two more problems:Since I have been caught nodding at things I should not be nodding at quite a few times, I now have to actually make an effort to listen to the conversation. Ughhh how boring is that.
Note-taking is so over-rated in meetings so much so that managers seem to think that it helps them distinguish between the good and the bad employees. My problem is that although my ear/brain-registering combination is pretty good but add in the third loop of note-taking to the process and I fall apart. I retain so much more when just listening, but force me into taking notes and all meeting-related details get fuzzy. Nothing in brain, nothing on paper (minus doodles).This leads me to look bad as compared to employees who send meeting agendas pre-meeting and MOM 10 mins post-meeting. I hate show-offs.On top of this, during the meeting I constantly feel the pressure to participate and speak up . I know one should only say something which is worth for others to hear, but what if the whole meeting passes by and you have nothing intelligent to say. I don't want people (read my manager) to think I wasn't into the meeting. Should I , at this stage, take after the compulsive-self important-talker and start reiterating everything said in the meeting. Usually I resist the urge to just participate for the heck of, which is a struggle in itself. This urge to speak up triples during call-in meetings for obvious reasons. I don't want people to think that they were on mute while i was busy chatting or surfing the net.So by now, I am trying to stay awake, look interested, not doodle, stay on my chair, listen to the conversation, nod, take coherent notes and try to think of something intelligent to say while struggling to keep my mouth shut until I do. Sounds exhausting doesn't it? Well I am...exhausted that is. And I would not mind it one bit if I was never invited to a meeting again ever ( not at the expense of being jobless/homeless of course).

The End or The End??

Wowwww what a night. I remember walking in the room and switching on my computer to pay the electricity bill, but nothing after that. True it has been a long day and I couldn't get out of work until 7:00 (I am more of a 9 to 5 person, so this is extreme) but it was not so brutal as to instigate a blackout. That too a 12-hr blackout.
My cell phone rang several times, I got cold and hot intermittently (that's normal but I usually wake up), I passed the 24 hrs mark with no food ( I have been fasting), but I slept through it all. I did gain some semblance of consciousness when I answered a phone call and had a barely coherent conversation with a friend. It was then that I realised I still had my shoes on along with my work clothes and the sharp thing sticking in my side was my company ID card . I sleep-walked through the clothes changing and teeth -brushing and quickly slipped back into my coma-like condition. Hmmmmm.
I know plenty of people who regularly sleep long hours. People who love to sleep and consider it a hobby. My sister for instance would have won the gold in sleep Olympics, if they ever had one. She would spend the first one week post exams in a death-like state, only waking for natural needs. Of course all that has changed post kids, and now she reminisce about her long, peaceful sleep like an old passionate fling, with sighs and all :).
The point is a 12 hours blackout (without alcohol) maybe normal for a lot of people but for a border-line insomniac like me, it is cause for celebration or perhaps concern. Either my days of long wakeful nights are over or I just had a mental breakdown due to sleep-deprivation and exhaustion.
Well I do feel sleepy again so that is a good sign or maybe its a bad sign. Maybe its the end of insomnia or its the end of me. See!!! sleep does not agree with me. A person with 12 hrs of rest under his belt would be so alert and ummm I guess...rested.
I guess this incident was not that blog worthy, but I was just so excited about it what with this being the longest I have slept in months. Man I need a life. The most exciting thing in months...I slept for 12 hrs? Oh man!!! This is the end isn't it?

I wish...

It has never been about religion...it has always been about politics, wealth and control. Religion has always been used to manipulate the faithful, to control the weak and to gain power. This is why fear is instilled in people and people are brain washed to do heinous acts like this.
Religion is what has brought the most destruction in this world. The greatest of atrocities have been committed in the name of religion. Does that mean the religion itself is bad? Are the people following it, evil? Not at all!! Their only flaw: religion makes them emotional, and their blind faith makes them gullible.
Every religion talks about peace, love, tolerance and balance. All prophets were advanced souls who brought light to the people. The weak and the poor followed them to find peace in their hearts and reason in their suffering. The religion gave them hope, peace and freedom but it also gave the rich an opportunity to control them, in the name of God. This is the history of mankind. Greed has always marred faith.
Today someone is using the Muslims to do their dirty work for them (has been for close to 25 years). Why Muslims? Because they are frustrated, weak, emotional, poor and illiterate and they still believe in God and hence can be brainwashed. But why the brain wash? So they can look like the enemy. But why them? They are not united, their leaders are greedy and don't care about them and their land covers the most oil reserves of the world.
I wish we were an island in the south pacific. No one would care about us enough to bomb us. I wish we did not border Afghanistan, Iran and china. I wish we had no natural resources, I wish the Kings of the world had no vested interest in our land.
I wish God would come down and settle all this once and for all.

Disclaimer: This is exclusively my opinion. I am in no way trying to make a political or religious statement. If anything, it is the most non-political and non-religious I can be. I am sorry if my words attack the reader's religious or political beliefs.

The land of the...not so pure:(

Have we reached the lowest point in our history. Perhaps, not!! Every time we reach a new low we think that it can not get any worse than this, but soon things sink south some more. I feel violated for the land of the pure. It feels as if a prostitute is being married to a certified rapist. What is left to loot and plunder? I have mentally disassociated myself with the rest of the world, specially home, as if a part of my body was in constant pain and I numbed it with a nerve block. But some things just hurt so much that you have no choice but to take notice.
But who am I to complain. I feel I lost my right to comment on this issue the day I boarded that Cathay Pacific flight not too long ago.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

I can never understand how some people can be so loud... at work!! I mean seriously. Do they think they are the only ones working or do they think that the rest of the employees who are unfortunate enough to be sitting within close vicinity of their cubicles, have nothing better to do than to listen to what kind of new words baby Candice has learnt, or what time the maid is supposed to come and clean the house or where hubby Tony is taking them for their anniversary. Ughhh!!! Are you kidding me??

Of course there is a cause for this latest tirade: a miniature sized Blondie (she still shops for shoes in the Juniors department, I discovered one loud phone call later) with a voice that can bore holes in a wall, no exaggeration. I wonder each day, as she is yapping away into the phone, how can such a big voice come out of such a tiny person? To make matters worse, she works for Help Desk so she is on the phone a lot. But it is not her work related calls that bother me so much. It is when cousin Belinda, girl friend Linda or mother in law Iris call and she goes on and on about hubby and daughter and house remodeling and daughter and vacations and doctor's appointments and daughter and so on. It is all I can do to stop myself from crossing five cubicles, yanking the telephone and wrapping the wire around the tiny, destructive vocal chords.

And its not just the phone calls, she loves to talk to anyone who will listen or even those who momentarily pause at her desk. She takes this as her cue and pitches herself into the latest on darling Candice ( the prodigal daughter). Most of the time I am able to block it out with some form of music or the other, but if somehow I have left my headphones at home (yes my office has no headphones) I get back to back episodes of "all her children". In the past five months I have come to hear more about her and her darling daughter than my own thoughts. It seems like she is the only worker here and Candice is the only 18 months old girl in the world.

OK I may sound tad too bitchy, but come on people, do we really need to know about her citizenship proceedings (originally canadian), OBGYN appointments, anniversary trip to Vegas, her perfect hubby/daughter/car/life ( once she went on and on about this with her girlfriend on the phone). The fact that she is mostly surrounded by 20 something young male interns who do not seem interested in her ramblings, does not seem to faze her at all. Wow!!!

And now guess what?? She is expecting perfect baby number two. Help me dear God!! Last whole week was all about her morning sickness (or lack thereof, come one she is diminutive) her trimesters, her showiness (or lack thereof), how big she got her first time ( can't be that much, I can bet on it) her food habits, her sleeping habits blah blah blah.

We don't talk, we are not acquainted( I like it that way, indirect conversations are more than enough thank you very much) and I can never bring myself to tell anyone when he/she is disturbing the office peace and quiet (oh I am such a drama queen) and that is why I am venting here. And I am not the only one complaining, other employees are upset as well (they may not have blogged about it but what can I say, I am just more creative that way hehehe).

And BTW, whatever happened to privacy and space? Don't people care about keeping their personal phone calls private anymore. Or is it that sub-consciously people want to flaunt their happiness in front of others. Maybe!

I have nothing personal against the tiny thunderstorm (other than her annoying loud voice) but I do hope she goes on maternity leave soon, or when we move to the new building (coming up soon yayyy), I'm among the lucky few who are sitting far away from her (and others like her).

The Fall Premiere

Fall is coming...and I couldn't be more excited. It is not that fall is my favorite season or I love the Halloween or pumpkins or anything of the sort ( I don't have my TV so the new fall season has nothing to do with it either). It is just the idea of finally seeing some variety of seasons other than summer and winter that has me going around inspecting all non-evergreen trees closely. Having spent most of my life in a coastal town, I hardly ever saw any real change in season and usually just felt it based on the level of humidity. Summer was extremely humid, monsoon: humid and winter: less humid. After switching continents several years ago, I have yet to experience a real fall. Actually until a couple of years ago, I still had not seen snow, but a week in Boston took care of that.


Few days back as I walked out of work, I looked up at the mountains to soak up the sun ( yes in the NW we try to take in as much Vitamin D as we can, when we can) and saw hues of bright orange, yellow and red peeking through the bright evergreens. The air was crisp, fresh and a little cool. I couldn't help but smile. My very first fall!!!

Thanks to my nomadic life and my latest trek to the pacific NW, I will finally experience my first real autumn. People at work think I am crazy because I keep bugging them about foliage. How orange will it get, does it rain here in fall ( they say no, but they also said that rain will end in may and it continued well into late June so I don't know) where can I go to see the real colors, will the weather remain this crisp and fresh (its been amazing here but I don't think they feel it huh!!)

Anyway, I got excited enough to write about it. I have made plans to visit the places with maximum foliage and even try some pumpkin pie. Happy fall to those who read this :)

Breakup story - The Perpetrator

Oh yes...the much awaited (ya rite) part two of the Breakup Story - The Ditched.

Note: For sake of simplicity, I will refer to the perpetrator (perp - for short) as a he. This in no way implies that the perpetrator cannot be a female and I am some women rights activist who deems all women as victims in a man's world. Hmm actually in some instances that may be true but...hey wait a minute this is turning from a note into a post. You get the point. Lets continue with the breakup story Part II.

People who have received the bad news may not realise it but the person who breaks up does not have it easy either. He has to deal with a lot of drama at his end as well, not to mention the strategizing and planning it takes to go through with the actual breakup.

The feelings of discontentment take root within the perp long before the actual breakup. He knows he is unhappy, he knows this isn't what he wants or he realises this is not working for him, but he denies it. Of course this only happens to the perps who were actually involved in the relationship and had once been in love, as opposed to the ones who are just out to have a good time - our modern day Casanovas and Jezebels. (I have no experience of being either so lets not focus on them)

The state of denial lasts for sometime as he tries to work things out, but either of these two things happen to end this self-destructive behavior. The perp falls for someone else or the perp's partner confronts him with a "talk". The "talk" almost always involves references to future plans, wedding or just simply taking the next step, whatever that may be. The perp suddenly panics and tries to stall sometimes successfully while at others not so much. Unsuccessful stalling usually results in him accepting whatever is being proposed.

Either event forces the perp to think and reevaluate his feelings, thoughts and ultimately his priorities. In other words, he freaks out and tries to reason with himself as best as he can. This is where generalizing perpetrators gets the hardest. While some perps can reason and logicalize the situation and are able to see and do the right thing, others can reason, logicalize and realise but are too scared to do anything about it. In other words we can distinguish between them as chickens and non-chickens. Both the perps do break up but the circumstances are quite different.

A non-chicken perp will go and fess up like a man (or a woman) hoping he will be able to handle whatever ensues post breakup. A chicken perp on the other hand, not the one for directness, sends out signals and indirect messages to get his feelings across. He avoids phone calls, emails and meetings and becomes unreasonable, moody and very hard to be around. In other words he does a good job of humiliating his partner. Eventually the partner picks it up and confronts him. And that's when hesitatingly he fesses up. Some really big chickens actually survive several confrontations before admitting to anything.

Soon after the breakup the perp feels this sense of achievement and goodness ( read Godliness) within him. He believes he has done something good and noble by saving somebody from a life of misery and deceit. He tells anyone who will listen, how he did what he did for the other person and how the person deserved much better than him. He may have some lingering feelings of guilt here and there, but the greater sense of good puts those to rest.

Despite his best intentions the poor perp cannot spare himself from his ex's drama - the anger, the guilt trips, the threats, the questions. He tries his best to be kind and supportive but cannot help get a bit annoyed. At the same time he feels liberated and wants to enjoy his new found freedom. So he starts his own share of partying and having fun, all the while ensuring that his ex gets the message that he is happy and moving on.

Time passes and both parties get on with their lives. But every now and then they think about each other. The ditched with distaste and the perp with wonder. The perp no matter how satisfied he is with his current life will always wonder whether he did the right thing. And while he may still believe that he did, he seeks some consolation, some acknowledgment of the good. Little does he know that it is his deep-buried feelings of guilt that are causing the restlessness and that this restlessness will only be satisfied if he can get the acknowledgement and forgiveness from the ditched. These feelings sneak up on him ever so quietly catching him completely off-guard. He knows the ditched has been through hell and back, he gets the news from mutual friends and acquaintances and eventually he doesn't feel as noble as he did earlier . It may take years or months, but the guilt does hit the perp and it hits when least expected.

Overcome and consumed with guilt, the perp may reach out to the ditched. What happens after that depends on a number of factors. What kind of person is the ditched? How far along she(or he) is in her quest to get over the broken relationship? Has she moved on? What kind of lives both parties are leading? etc. etc. Some perps get forgiveness, some banishment and some get neither.

Its a tough job being the perpetrator, but is it always the evil one? Is the ditched always the victim? Is breakup ever the right thing to do? Is it all even worth it? All these questions have many contrary answers and they may vary based on perspectives and experiences. Perhaps, the questions are even worthy of a separate blog. Maybe, lets see.

The angel

klutz? You talking to me???

We all have problems with our own selves. Over the years I too have had many issues with myself, some big some small. Some of these issues have been resolved while others are still being dealt with. And then there is this one problem that has not only outlived all others but it has also been growing with the passage of time, sort of becoming an epidemic. It is annoying and its effects numerous and damaging.

Those who know me, (yes that's all of my three readers) may have very well seen what repercussions this issue has had on me and my life, sometimes even their lives. I am so tired of it and am yet to discover the root cause of the problem. Perhaps genes...hmmm...I don't know. It is hard for me to think about it, but even harder to ignore it. Specially when in middle of the store this "problem" makes me unconsciously swat at a sky high pile of paper towels. Before I know it, some twenty cylinders of white paper are rolling away in all different directions leaving me paralyzed with horror and mortification. People stare, kids snicker, store employees curse and I just apologize, profusely.

Yes, my biggest issue with myself...why the hell am I so God damn clumsy and accident-prone??

I have no idea how things automatically get in my way, how toes find their way under my feet, how my arms get tangled up with objects (or people) that are seemingly far away. How come other people don't zip their hair between the zipper of the jacket every single time or trip over their own toes or burn themselves almost every time they come in contact with an iron or a hot pan. Life falls apart for me ever so often as containers of food fall out of my hand leaving a huge mess or my fingers poke myself in the eye trying to tie my hair in a pony tail. The klutz syndrome gets worse as soon as I enter the kitchen or handle any food related item. I have lost count of the carpets and sofas I have spilled coffee and tea on, while gesturing with my hands (of course at the time I was still holding the cup).

I have so many stories, so many embarrassing moments; they can actually make a slapstick sitcom based on them. It will actually be at par with "Some Mothers Do Have Em"(ironically, Papa has always paralleled me to this guy all my life). After all how many people have tried to make a smoothie without covering the blender or placed a hand on the iron directly to see if it is hot enough or poured steaming hot oil from a pan into a cup, while holding the cup ( yes I had blisters for days). Its like every now and then a part of my brain goes off in sleep mode for no rhyme or reason. I'm otherwise seemingly coordinated and smart. I can drive well, talk well, write well even dance well. But put me in a kitchen or a grocery store...hello total retard!!!

I guess it was cute, funny and adorable when I was 20 and weighed 30 lbs less. At 32 its plain embarrassing! I am a walking time bomb that can blow any minute and I have no clue when or how. And of course the disease is progressing with age - Red Alert!!

Hell I want to be a part time carpenter one day since I love to fix and build things but my friends had a field day with this notion - images of houses falling down while I am glued to a dry wall were described in great details. Sighhh!!! I have become the butt of jokes and entertainment for those around me. I at times take offense and try to deny it but what can I do when my actions speak so much more louder than my words.

Cursed for Life

Life never changed for me did it? I am still being pushed and pulled from all different directions and in all different directions. But in the midst of it all, cant help but think how much of being in this situation is my own fault? Once I start mulling over this and in turn sharing it with my all-perfect, all-knowing Guru Ji - LG, it did not take long for me to come face to face with the truth. It is entirely my fault. ughhhh!!!!!Sighhhh...I hate being wrong and even more than that, I hate when he is right (which is quite often hummmph).

I have known for quite sometime that I am a really nice person. Generally, people have confidence about their skills and talents or their intelligence. I on the other hand am self-assured about being a very nice, good-hearted human being. In fact, I am probably one of the nicest human beings I have ever met in my life. I know to some I may sound conceited, narcissistic and as lacking humility, but I know this for a fact that I am oh soooo nice. You may ask, what makes me so sure about it? Well the answer is quite simple. I was born to amazingly nice people who are world-renowned for being the nicest people ever (almost - yes i exaggerate a bit, but just a bit), and all my life I was taught to be nice to people and all my life I worked towards becoming the nicest person ever. Of course, doing that I never realised I am screwing myself for life.

Now when I say I am nice I mean I am nice all the time inspite of myself, even when I am trying so hard to be otherwise. Please be clear that I am not putting up an act to be liked or I wanna be known as a Miss goody two shoes and praised all over for being a model human being. Anything but that. Perhaps I started of as that but the first time I got screwed over by a fellow human being after being nice to him/her, I knew this behavior is highly dangerous. I need to watch out for it. And boy was I right!! I have been screwed over so many times since then, because I can never say no, because I cannot be instinctively mean, because I still deep down believe in the goodness of people and last but not the least because I expect people to be caring and understanding towards those around them.

I keep running into people who are unknowingly selfish and self-involved yet every time I am surprised. People have repeatedly taken advantage of me (knowingly or unknowingly I have yet to decide) and I am almost always taken aback. People say mean things (in anger or in jest) and I am so shocked I become speechless and only think of the right thing to say after 20 mins of utter disbelief.

Over the years I have programmed myself to come across as an unfriendly, rude and highly aggressive person ( i crack the meanest jokes everybody). Of course being 5ft 7 and slightly ( ahem ahem) over weight helps matters tremendously ( I can seem scary :)). This helps me keep people at arms length so that I can observe them cautiously before letting them into my life. Of course it does not help my cause at all if the person in question is desolate, in need, alone, broken hearted or just lost. For some reason people with any of these problems become a personal responsibility of mine. I cannot leave them on their own, and i feel the need to fix them up. No, not fix them up with someone, just fix them up, renovate them.

The protection mechanism devised solely by some demented part of my sub-conscious has perhaps spared me from more situations of screwdom, but I still don't know how to retort back to rude behavior on cue, still cannot resist helping out whoever I can and of course I still haven't the slightest clue how to say no and If i manage to say no then how not to feel guilty about it. Oh guilt!!! Oh yes along with the nice nature I am blessed with a hyper-active conscience that feels it needs to keep prodding me to do the right thing - ALL THE TIME!!!!! (Do you know how tiring that is). Also I need to live up to everyone's needs and expectations. Otherwise I can get no sleep and have to eat bucketful of ice cream just to avoid the guilt.

I'm sure if you have read thus far, you probably hate me for either being a bitch or for portraying myself to be a saint. To all of you it surely seems that I am just tooting my own horn so I come across as a reincarnation of Mother Teresa. Oh how I wish all this was true and I was some egotistical, self-adulatory, wannabe saint of a human. I wish this because that would free me to be happy because then I will not be aware of others' unhappiness. It would free me from all the guilty feelings stirred by others who feel I am letting them down, even though I go to all lengths to be there for them. Free to say no so that I wont have to bend over backwards to fulfill a commitment while neglecting things that really matter.

But noooooooo....I am none of these things coz I am just plain old nice. Yes I am cursed for life.

Touched By An Angel

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fearfrom our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love's lightwe dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

Breakup story - The Ditched

People do weird things after a breakup. Some may think that the enormity of the post breakup reaction is directly proportional to the duration of the relationship. Perhaps, but some behaviors are common to all break ups. I may be wrong since I am no shrink but this is strictly based on my observation and experience ( yes I have had my own heart broken few times due to various kinds of love ranging from one sided crush to puppy love, forbidden love, love lasting 5 yrs and last but not the least love which i had no idea existed). Since I am currently in love (not mentioned above) and have completely recovered from my personal episodes of breakup drama ( or so it seems until I come face to face with some more emotional baggage that I have yet to discover), I deem myself qualified to throw some light on the sequence of events that usually follow a breakup. I hope that people currently going through breakups(so that they feel normal) or about to undergo one ( set your expectations rights and also expect the unexpected) can benefit from this post. The first few hours of the breakup are highly liberating and make you feel free and enlightened. This feeling gives u a false sense of security that you will be alright. This feeling is probably similar to the quiet relief you feel after a hurricane has passed and you think it is over, right before you step out of the house and realise what has really happened and witness the real damage. Usually the breakup follows a period of immense drama and sadness filled with arguments, accusations or total withdrawal from one or both parties. Hence, the relief at the end of it. But like most highs, this one is followed by an ultimate low and one gets engulfed by feelings of desolation, despair and immense sadness. This is when one would reach out for ice cream, songs of heartbreak and misfortune and of course the box that contains all the tokens of love that once was. You re-read all the cards and emails, go over the pictures, watch videos, all the while crying and making yourself believe you will never be as happy as you once were with this one person. Everything seems meaningless and hopeless as you travel to new depths of self-pity and misery. This continues for sometime (lasting anywhere between a day or a month) until one day the feelings of desolation are replaced by immense anger rooted in the sense of rejection or humiliation or both. This transition and self-awareness is usually incited by some news or communication with the heart breaker's world. The form and type of communication and news can be different but the underlying message is almost always the same. The heart breaker has already moved on, feels no remorse over what he/she did, wishes you would heal (this really happened) has someone new (this after swearing the reason for the breakup is not another person). In other words the message is the real stimulus for you to transition from a blithering fool to a wannabe assassin. Armed with the new found fury and sense of vengeance, you go about destroying, hiding, removing every last item that even remotely reminds you of the person. You curse the person's very existence and make secret plans( or with friends...oh ya right about now your friends come back into the pic - PS if you have no friends...God bless your soul!!!) to destroy your ex. Of course, some people actually go through with them but this is not entirely advisable. Not long after, you start displaying few or several out of character tendencies. These can range from attending/throwing parties, to speeding, obnoxious laughing and joking, un-drunken brawls(its true you will feel so angry all the time and will get ticked off at the slightest of things and I can personally vouch it applies to females as well - sigh i will leave this out for a later post), unlady-like behaviour ( for girls/gays) too much manliness (only for guys/some girls straight or otherwise), sudden display of anger or sadness. Loved ones (of course I mean parents) cringe, moan and lament the gradual regress of your soul as you loose {or gain :( } weight, sacrifice work and other duties while neglecting health and in some cases hygiene(not autobiographical i swear). This stage lasts much longer (much to my parents despair), than the first one but not as long as stage number three. I have yet to understand what transpires the onset of stage three but one day you wake up and just don't feel like leaving the bed and face the world. To be precise Stage three is a combination of stage 1 and 2. But along with despair and anger you also have to deal with feelings of self-doubt, some degree of self loathe while trying to keep your self-esteem up. During this time the breakup suddenly becomes very serious and you start wondering if you will ever be normal again. The sinking feeling in your stomach, the heavy heart, the lack of hope, energy or desire to do anything, will these feelings ever go away? You start going through the motions of normal life in hopes of becoming just that - normal. You laugh, cry, work, eat all the while feeling sad, lonely and entirely hopeless. It seems never-ending as you bounce between self-doubt, anger, sadness and light headiness for a very long time - or so it seems. Eventually given the time, you do come out of this, hopefully stronger, better and wiser. But life as you knew it will never be the same because you change so much during this drama. The pain has given birth to virulent cynicism that may become your lifelong friend(now this is definitely directly proportional to the duration and quality of the relationship and nature of its ultimate demise, definitely autobiographical). You are skeptical and slightly disillusioned. Normal is no longer normal. It is just as distorted as you are. But the good news - you live. And you survive in the best possible way, by rediscovering yourself and by fortifying your strengths, your beliefs and your faith. Its a struggle and ultimately you prevail. Oh and the upside the cynicism makes you very funny and you learn to laugh at yourself...Makes you a bigger person I think... Coming up Breakup story - The Perpetrator

The emerald city

Day one - Seattle makes you want to cuddle in front of the fireplace with a loved one, coffee mug in hand.
Day 2 - Seattle makes you want to put on your hiking boots and explore the magnificent mountains surrounding the pretty little fairyland.
Day 3 - Seattle will make you want to put on your swim suit and head to the nearest lake and swim or go for a ferry ride.
Beautiful, Mystical and completely unpredictable. I like it here!!!!!
P.S. It is wet most of the year

Say what??

I am in a rush. I need to finish my chores for the day so I can take off at noon. I get paid by the hour which means the more i work the more i get paid. So yes I try to work as much as I can. But once in a while and I mean only once in a while do I get the opportunity to have the apartment all to myself and catch up on lost sleep, which of course is a lot considering I'm border insomniac. It also means I can watch TLC to my heart's content and maybe also work on the marketing paper due this week. So I am in a rush to get things done The door opens and I look up at the intruder. He is an unkempt teenager with a glassy look in his eyes. He seems disoriented and soon he starts this very interesting conversation:

Glassy-eyed teenage intruder (GETI): Is this the economics Department

Me: Yes GETI: Umm and where is the macro economics department

Me: aaa...here

GETI: oh OK...

Me: As well as the micro economics department

GETI: that's kool He shuffles his feet scanning his class schedule. I look at him closely and become aware that my GETI may not be all there. Perhaps he is best friends with Mary Jane just like 90% of the student body.

GETI: i was like thinking maybe you know i can like change my minor or maybe like my major

Me: which is it major or minor?

GETI: I don't know ( at this point he is looking at me but it seems he is looking through me not really focusing)

Me: Hmmm

GETI: Is this where you change it?

Me: Yes it is since it is the department office

Suddenly I see his glassy eyes become even more dreamy and he slowly turns around and exits the office. For a second I just stand there looking after him. what the hell??? After a few minutes the door reopens and the GETI returns

GETI: I cant like find this room 375. Is it around here?

Me: Well it is 375 so it must be on the third floor (common knowledge I think)

GETI: Oh OK, is this Gibbons Hall?

Me ( by now completely frustrated): Yes sweetheart it is

I consider shaking him or at least swatting his head, hoping it will wake him up, but resist the temptation.

GETI: aaa OK...umm thank you

And he is gone. I wonder if the Mary Jane is accompanying him rite this minute or he just had breakfast with her. I decide to ask him if comes back. Ten minutes later he re-enters the room. Me: Seriously?

GETI: I cant figure it out

Me: What?

GETI: So like how do you go up to the third floor? Do you have stairs or something?

Saira

When I was young i dreamed of being a writer. A widely published, world-renowned, best-selling writer. It was a dream i secretly harbored for years as I spend endless nights blackening piles and piles of papers of what I hoped one day would be a masterpiece of my generation. But until I was ready I did not want to share any of it. Naturally shy I could not bear to be humiliated by my evil siblings (They eventually grew up) or ridiculed by my parents with some below-par story telling so I practiced day and night, getting little sleep or rest. To avoid being caught breaking the 8 o' clock lights out curfew I would hide in my bath tub reading and writing, away from the scrutiny of the world. It was my special time. I would slip away into my special world of imagination and fantasy and create characters, baptizing them, living their lives, feeling their love and pain and giving them a lifetime of happiness. I was the happiest during those nights cocooned in the cold hard ceramic confines of that bath tub. I was just a lonely kid and the pen was my best friend i.e. until saira came in my life. I was twelve and at the peak of my literary glory when we moved to Quetta, a small city near the western border of Pakistan. In the house next door lived a Persian speaking hazara family with a daughter perhaps a year younger than me. She was everything I was not. Confident, friendly and extremely direct. One evening she came over and declared herself to be my best-friend. Irritated though I was, but I couldn't bear to break her heart and tell her otherwise. That would have been extremely rude, right? what I didn't know at the time was that my good manners will reward me with a lifelong relentless, unwavering and extraordinary friendship. To cut a long story short, she and I were inseparable soon thereafter. She would come over every afternoon and leave only when her parents send their servant for her. We would spend hours talking, playing and dreaming. One such afternoon she discovered my valuable box of manuscripts. How? well that is material for another post, a rather funny story. Anyway, she looked at the box and then at a rather stunned me. without saying a word she picked up the papers and started reading. I sat down quietly watching her skim through page after page. Suddenly, my heart sank as she started to shake her head. I was too afraid to move or talk or ask her anything. She looked up from the paper she was holding and said, " You should buy a typewriter, your handwriting sucks". With that she handed me the box and demanded I read to her. That day onwards I had a reader, well a listener anyway, and a fan. She would actually come over just to see if I had written the next chapter and wanted to know what happened. Soon, I would write and she would read at parallel. To say the least, I was ecstatic to finally have someone appreciate my work. But, like all great things, this arrangement came to an abrupt halt when one day ami(my mother) raided my room!!!!!!!! Well technically it was my fault since the room was a mess and my mom came to clean while I was at school. That afternoon, I came home to find my room spotlessly clean except three garbage cans filled with what once had been my master piece, but now was mere confetti. My heart dropped at my feet. I felt somebody had snatched my dream and crushed it under her feet. I was pretty sure these feet belonged to a woman, knowing my father hardly ever entered my room. Never the challenging kind i just sat down on my bed staring at the pieces of paper wondering if I could ever salvage any of it. Suddenly the door opened and my mom came in. I looked up at her with eyes filled with tears. She was not impressed. She demanded to know who had written this filth. OK in my defence my stories were strictly PG 13 and can in no way be classified as filth. At the same time the material was definitely more advanced than what an average 12 yr old brain would usually produce. What can I say I had been exposed to literature at a young age and I also had a very active imagination. I was smart. She should have been happy. But happy she was not. She blamed the writing to be the cause of everything wrong on the face of the earth, my average grades, my moodiness, my dark circles ( actually all these were true), my lack of social skills, my perverted mind (i resented that), my lack of need to be friends with my siblings ( excuse me?? my sister was a nerd and my brother was a teenager, THEY hated ME) and last but not the least, the cause of me ultimately ending up in HELL ( I didn't buy that for a minute - after all I was such a sweet kid and oh soooo smart). Anyway, after this ugly incident i was under constant supervision and could no longer write at my discretion. They even monitored my secret writing place, the bath tub. I guess it wasn't such a secret after all. I was broken hearted and felt so sad and lost. I was such an inhibited soul those days that I could not even muster up the courage to challenge them or tell them about my secret dream. I forgot to mention during this time of crisis, Saira was visiting her relatives. I cant remember where but she was gone for a few days. upon her return she demanded to read(listen) the next chapter of the book and so I told her what had happened. I showed her the pieces of paper with tear-filled eyes. As always she said nothing. But we did spend the next 5 hours trying to match all the pieces of paper and sticking together some three hundred pages ( God awful huge handwriting) of my valuable story book. Afterwards she took my manuscripts and hid them at her house. Few nights later while we were playing meaningless game of rummy she looked at me and said, "you are really good, you should not stop. Auntie will eventually realise she is wrong". For a second i thought she was referring to the game. But since I had lost every single game of rummy i had ever played, I realised she was referring to my writing. I just nodded at her and we continued to play. I don't remember if I was any good since I mostly wrote to escape and mostly cause it came so naturally and of course it is hard to take the word of a 10 yr old kid whose reference point was Enid Blyton's "Mr. Twiddle goes to the park". It was not these words or any other she ever spoke to me over the years. It was her confidence in me, her never-ending faith that slowly pushed me on the path to becoming who I am today. Over the years we helped each other out so many times always unknowingly it seems. We saw our lives and worlds change so many times and always found each other when the times were the hardest without ever calling out for the other. Today, our friendship turned 20. We haven't seen each other in 5 yrs and haven't talked in 2. Our lives are poles apart, our world separated by seas and continents. But I know that the next time my world is hit by a meteoroid, I will find her standing right behind me, not saying anything but slowly taking the pain away. I miss you Saira, you were my sister when i had not found mine. I never said this to you ever but thank you for always knowing my pain.