Guess Who? Boo

One of the girls I shared the corporate housing in the Bay Area with told me how deathly afraid of the dark she is and how it scares her to be alone in the house specially at night and is unable to sleep by herself..I mean by herself in the house..not in the bed...or perhaps...hmmm...I am not sure. Anyway, so she wanted to know if I will be there every night so she can start sleeping in her own bed and not go to her friend's apartment. Instead of answering her query, which I found annoying (what am I your babysitter??), I asked her what exactly was she afraid of since we live in a secure gated complex, and we are poor, and don't exactly have sexy hot looks to entice the minds of serial rapists; although I am not sure what entices the minds of serial rapists, but nonetheless I didn't see anyone getting so desperate and breaking into the apartment and stealing the girl off of her *cough cough* youthful innocence, if you know what I mean. Also, I don't believe there is as yet an East Indian Chapter of the Klu Klux Klan operative in the Bay Area, who raid houses at midnight for some brown assed lynching. Perhaps because some East Indian are of Aryan descent or maybe because they are yet to notice the almost hostile take over of the region by the ethnic group, but that's not the point. I just wanted to know in the absence of these logical reasons for being fearful, why was the gal still so paranoid and paralyzed with fear (yes I exaggerate, but you should know that by now, that's just what I do).

In response to my questions she looked at me as if I was some creature who had just stepped out of a flying saucer and had greeted her with a "Hola Amiga" and then she said that there were other paranormal creatures out there (I distinctly felt a 'like you' in between those lines) who get attracted to empty dark houses, specially the ones inhabited by lonely young girls, whom they then start haunting. I blinked several times to see if there were any signs of her bursting out laughing and saying 'Just Kidding!'. But nope, nothing. Zilch, Nada. Not even half a smile. Ooookaayyy. Now it was my turn to give her one of my oh-you-are-one-of-those looks.

Suddenly I was even more annoyed than before when I had felt I was her babysitter. I am sorry but what a bunch of bull-shit. Listen girlie you are not really a damsel and distress, you are no longer 7 and it definitely is not cute that you still believe in the monsters under your bed. Give me a break. You decided you want to be a grown up and have a career and become a traveling nomadic consultant and then you expect to be with people 24/7. What is wrong with you? Attention whore much, are you huh?

Am I totally over-reacting? Am I being too harsh? Of course I am! All my life I have come across girls afraid of the ghosts and monsters and sleepwalking zombies and what not, but isn't there an age limit to that? Don't you eventually figure out that you can go to the bathroom without your bolder cousin standing guard at the door? Or that your cousin brother is still your brother even with his eyelids rolled inside out? And that if you are afraid of the dark you just keep a night light on? Helloooo? It annoyed me even when I was 7, even though my Nani Ma would tell me all sorts of ghost stories but I never felt haunted. Maybe because I always slept alone or maybe because I am an Army brat, or perhaps I was wise beyond my years. Hehehehe, okay the last one had me cracking, but that's just how it is. I get very very annoyed when a grown woman says oh I am so afraid of ghosts and monsters and chain-saw wielding zombies instead of saying oh I am so afraid of getting robbed and raped in broad daylight.

Yes of course its okay to be scared. When did I say it is not? Be afraid, be very afraid, but be afraid of things tangible and real not something which is an extension of your active imagination and disturbed childhood. Heck I am afraid of loads of things. In fact I am a regular chicken when it comes to things beyond my control like roller coasters and crazy rottweilers or just regular sickness and disability. For all i care, you can scream like a banshee when you see a lizard or a rat because you have to admit they are just gross but not a cockroach, that's where I draw a line, they are really harmless and you can kill one just by stepping on it, so not a roach but a rodent, yes...scream to your heart's content. But don't be all oh I saw the balcony door move by itself. Yes it moved, it is a balcony door and it is very windy. Please, logicalize your fears. And don't even get me started on the horror movies. If they scare you, don't watch them.

Anyway, I told the jumpy girl that I am never home at night since I mostly stay at my sister's, which pretty much guaranteed that I have the entire apartment to myself the rest of my stay. Well most of it anyway but then I had another roomie, who is not really afraid of anything at all.

Just a thought. Based on my track record, now that I have vented and ranted about all this, I am pretty sure Paranormal will suddenly become normal in my life and I will be spotted by some zombie or the other who will mark me as its soul reason of existence or whatever the hell they mark people for. Oh man, I had to open my stupid big mouth.

The Mother of all Comebacks

And I am Back!!!

So after a sabbatical of over 3 months, I am back at work in Sunny San Diego, CA. Quite a contrast from the gray skies of Seattle. From one end of the western coast to the other. Am I excited? Well, considering how wonderful San Diego is and how much I wanted to stay in California and how little choice I had in the matter, I think its safe to say...Hell Yeah!!!!!

Work is how it usually is during the 1st week, slow and extremely sleep inducing. Lot of administrative mambo jumbo, which I hate. The office lacks a cafeteria, but the private office with a door and four walls more than makes up for it. You read it right a DOOR and WALLS. Not a cubicle, an actual office. Of course when I stretch I can almost touch the walls, but its an office nonetheless. Besides we have to keep in mind that I am a fairly tall person with fairly long arms, so the size of the office becomes completely relative. My manager is a seemingly nice lady with an extremely pronounced valley-girl accent, but I am somewhat wary of her, mostly because I have never actually had a female manager before and from what I have heard and observed, they can be quite the bitches. They way she talks is funny, reminds me of this SNL character that Kristen Wiig plays, Penelope.

Anyway the good thing is I am back at work, which is always hard but welcome after such a long break. Especially a long and stressful break. It's like your brain had been frozen yet somehow became covered with mold while living in a 2000 year old mummy coffin and then suddenly it needs to be used again and it actually requires the force of your entire being to kick-start it without being discovered passed out at your desk by your new Boss and coworkers. What a dilemma, yet somehow I am able to type this with my eyes closed.

Not a lot happened while I was away, other than the coming true of the worst fears and nightmares of most educated, conscientious Pakistanis. Destruction has finally come knocking at our doors, heck what am I saying, its not knocking at our doors, it has actually blasted past the doors and is already playing havoc with the lives and minds of the entire nation right in the middle of our living room. Its mind-numbing what is happening, and that's exactly how I feel...numb. And that's precisely how I need to feel to operate as a normal human being, but it is hard, especially when every day there is some news story about a new devastating incident comes circulating towards me, mainly through my Aapi. I just pray to God that some miracle spares the lives and homes of many many innocent, faithful and harmless people, who don't even know the first thing about terrorism or why it has made itself so comfortable in our home. They are not wayward, the are not Americans, they are not evil non-believers. True they have lived a submissive life, they have been puppets in the hands of a few feudal landlords, corrupt politicians and judiciary, they haven't held themselves accountable morally, legally or socially for a lot of problems that the country faces. True they didn't educate themselves, or instigated a revolution against the few corrupt elites, true they didn't fight hard enough to reform the country's political or social setup. True they got frustrated but never took action against the people actually responsible for their suffering and instead turned to abusing the weakest amongst them. But does this make them bad? Does this make them evil? Is it okay that they suffer for the actions of the so-called kings of this world? Who is doing what and how are they justifying it to their consciences, it is just beyond the mental and moral understanding of this blogger. All I know is that it never is how it appears to be.

This was enough of the real world for me and now I will escape to my American wonderland, that my superficial life has become. Of course, these days even to enter an amusement park you have to pay a very very high and heavy price, so it ain't no picnic on this side of the spectrum either. To dream is not to escape anymore, which I guess is the part and parcel of growing up or should I say growing older. Older and wiser. I read somewhere that as women grow older they feel more and more self-empowered yet at the same time, more and more insecure. How true is that? As we grow older we get a lot of understanding of who we are and what we need and what we can or cannot control in this world. Yet at the same time, since so much importance is put into a woman's looks and age that it makes us feel very very vulnerable and unsafe. It took centuries for us to become this brainwashed into thinking that because we are older we have something to be ashamed of. We are made fun of, skin-care products and plastic surgery is made to be our best buds, while younger women are pit against us as our arch Nemesis. We constantly compete with one another, until we get more wrinkled and stressed out and then our biologies turn against us and we are forever doomed to an existence plagued by incessant mood swings and intermittent states of extreme hot or cold. And men...they just loose their hair and some not even that. Life...so fair and wonderful...NOT.

Hmmm, where was I? Oh yeah San Diego! Its 73 degrees outside...awesome sunshine...perfect perfect day...and it is my lunch hour so what am I doing still typing? I shall go now but I shall write more frequently, now that I am back at work ;) See ya...Oh and a very happy new year to everyone.

Here is to a new chapter of my life...to La Jolla...cheers