Gullibility

The other day, I was having lunch with Milo at the Cafeteria, when he commented on how lucky we were that we never needed to wait to get seated, considering how busy the restaurant is.

"Knock on wood," I said, I couldn't see any wood around, so I rapped my knuckles on my head.
"You know, if you're a guy saying 'knock on wood' and you can't see any wood around to knock on, it's an acceptable option to scratch your balls instead."
I was taken mortified and appalled. "Ew, you're just being crass," I said, rolling my eyes in disbelief.
"It's true, ask anyone." he insisted.
"No way. I'm not that gullible. You can't just get away with genital-scratching everytime you say 'knock on wood'!"
Milo was non-plussed. "Sure you can. It's totally normal."
"Pah. You just want to make me look like a fool."

I changed the topic.

But later, as I was heading back to the office, I caught myself thinking -

really?

Support for Pride

The other day, Paula Zahn did a coverage special on transsexuality, homosexuality and transgender identities. Although I don't particularly like the Paula Zahn show, I do often times catch myself watching it, because really anything has to be preferable to American Idol and a fifth-time repeat of Everybody Loves Raymond.


In any case, the subject of transgender identities has been on my mind for some time now, since I'm currently reading Middlesex (Eugenides), which has me totally absorbed in the hermaphrodite character life of Calliope Stephanides.


Watching the CNN documentary, the main debate seemed to be centred around the nature vs. nurture argument: Are homosexuality and transgender identity "crises" the result of genetics or societal influence? As the show continued, Bobbis, Ilajna and I found ourselves getting instinctively drawn into the debate. Each of us had differing opinions and views on the subject. Each of our views contradicted the others', and none of us had too much by way of evidence to support our individual opinions.


I was passionate on the subject. I realised how strongly I felt about it (I mean, studies show that gay men tend to have hair whorls which swirl in the opposite direction from straight men - what is that, if not scientific evidence of genetic influence?!). But mostly, I was saddened by how ill-informed we all were on the subject. On something so fundamental and endemic to our human existence.


This is going to call for additional googling and research.


Ironically, when Milo and I caught up for lunch yesterday at the Cafeteria (which has, by the way, now become our regular rendez-vous locale), we bumped into one of the panel speakers on the Paula Zahn show that Bobbis, Ilajna and I had been discussing.


Yes, if I remembered correctly, the president of a major gay rights foundation in the city. I'd been truly impressed by this fellow, and I couldn't help myself, I felt absolutely compelled to express my support. So I waded through the crowded restaurant and interrupted the conversation he was having with his companion.
"Erm, excuse me, I'm so sorry to interrupt but I simply have to ask. Were you on a CNN interview last night?"

"Why yes!" he smiled at me, his face lighting up.
"Well, I just wanted to let you know the stuff you said was great. It was really good. Really good." Yes, that is exactly how eloquent I am under pressure.
"Thank you! That's nice to hear."
"Yes, it was just amazing." Who had let the idiot inside me out of its cage?
There was the awkward moment when we realised I had finished the one thing I had to say, and neither of us understood why I was still standing there.
"Well that's all. Just wanted to say it. Good bye!" I scooted off, towards the door.

Milo was waiting for me at the door, laughing.
"Well, I'm glad you got that off your chest," he said.
"Do I have anything between my teeth?" I asked, flashing him an alligator grin.
"All clear."


And we headed off, me trying to compile in my head the hundreds of different things I could have said to better express my support.

The world at night

I jolted awake in the middle of the night, from a particularly lucid nightmare. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my entire body was tensed for action. Although I was awake, parts of my being were still entangled in the dream with a vividity I just couldn't shake off. I swallowed. I blinked. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs. But the nightmare still had a grip over me which wasn't quite fading away. I glanced at the clock: 3:23am.

My heart still beating off-kilter, I decided to make a quick trip to the bathroom. I gazed at myself in the mirror. My eyes gazed back at me exhaustedly, the eyes of someone who hadn't had a restful night's sleep. As I stood there looking at my reflection, I suddenly had a horrific image of a raised arm attacking me from behind with a knife - and I hurriedly turned away from the mirror. I hate how movies plant these images in your mind, which your brain successfully suppresses until your most vulnerable of moments. I had a quick pee, not because I needed to (for a change), but because it at least gave me something distracting and mundane to do.

I was heading back to my room when I noticed a faint light glowing in the far corner of the apartment. Although every self-protective instinct in my body screamed at me to leave it alone and just return to bed, I was drawn as though hypnotically towards the light. Adrenaline and heart were collaboratively pumping maniacally as I inched towards the living room.

Step.
Step.
Step.
I entered the living room, my heart hammering in my ears.

Nothing. Empty room, everything looked normal.

One of my roommates had forgotten to turn off a living room light, that was all. I reached over and turned it off, and suddenly the entire apartment was plunged into an intense darkness which caught me off guard. No street light or moonlight lilted its way through the blinds, casting a dim silver sheen around the room. Just darkness. And a heavy, deafening silence.

Arms extended, I started groping my way back to my room. I felt disconcerted, at odds with myself, like a stranger to my own apartment. I had just about reached my room again when I heared another alien sound, which caused another skipped heartbeat.

A long, eerie beep. I froze, hand on the doorframe, standing stock still. Not even a hair on my arm dared move.
I waited, maybe a minute or two. Then another beep. Cutting through the silence of the night.

Slowly, tentatively, I inched my way back towards the kitchen/living room area. Every step, I felt that something was going to leap out of the darkness and devour me. Images from my dream flashed before my eyes in a lucid slideshow of horror. My heart had forgotten how to maintain a regular rhythm. I paused by the kitchen doorway, unable to muster the courage to enter, unable to tear myself away.

Beeeeeep.

I glanced up, it was the microwave, someone had forgotten to close the door properly.

I was irritated. Irritated with the apartment for having all these peculiarities, on this particular night when my mind suddenly found itself believing in monsters below the bed. Irritated with myself, for so entirely losing my grip on reality in such an infantile manner.

Nevertheless, my annoyance didn't stop me from scurrying back to my room, slamming the door shut, and diving under my covers. Once safely ensconced in bed, I peered out over the covers at the room around. Yep, everything was still normal, still safe.

Geez, I thought to myself. Next year, I'm planning to buy an apartment, which will entail living on my own for the first time in my life. How am I ever going to make it?!

A social weekend

I've had a rather impressively active last few days. Doobs and I surprised even ourselves by rising and shining to meet the Vish for breakfast in the a.m. hours of Saturday. Mostly, we'd intended to assault him with a barrage of questions on his new belle, but turned out he was disappointingly unforthcoming with the level of detail we had been looking for. I don't understand why he couldn't just give in to the urge of a good ol' heart to heart gossip sesh, the lout. We tried every convoluted route possible to lure him into revealing a snippet or two, but either he could see through our wily ways, or he genuinely had no recollection of his romantic life. For the sake of our collective sanity, I prefer to conjecture the first.

After breakfast, the quantity of which had resulted in an abdominal turgidity that I hope to never experience again, the Vish and I set off on a bike ride around the city. We followed the normal route - cross town to central park, the loop around the park (inc. near-death on Heart Attack Hill), due west to catch the bike path on the western edge of Manhattan, and all the way round the island on the bike path till it brought us home on the East side again. An estimated 15 miles would be my guess, which might sound a sizeable amount to some, but if I'm going to seriously participate in the 60 mile bike ride in October, it's going to take more than that kind of putzing around.

Later that afternoon, once I had sufficiently recovered, Doobs and I decided to walk down to Soho to meet Queen Noor. We got typically side-tracked on the way, of course, which resulted in the serendipitous find of a small East Village Moroccan restaurant with a court yard to die for. It was more than an hour, and considerable ingestion/imbibation later, when we finally made it to Queen Noor's. There we each curled up on the couch in varied postures of feline coyness, and updated on the haps in the weeks gone by. Queen Noor had just come from Paris, I had just returned from Montana, so there was a fair share of catch-up-ing to be done. Somehow over the course of that afternoon, the location transmogrified into the back courtyard of a champagne bar. Not quite sure how that happened, but it's safe to assume I was much the happy partaker in the activity.

That evening, we all headed over to visit other friends in the city. They live in one of those new tall high-rises on Wall street, where we could just sit on the rooftop and bathe in a breathtakingly splendid view of the city. "Look at the Empire State Building right next to us!!" Doobs squealed, pointing over the edge. It's looking stunning!"
"It's definitely beautiful," I mused, "but, erm, that's not the Empire State Building, is it? I mean, we're on Wall Street, it wouldn't be next to us."
"Oh, right," said Doobs, turning beet red, "well it's beautiful anyway."

The following morning, I met Rohinton and Jeet for brunch in a little French cafe on Park Ave for which I've developed quite a fondness. As we ploughed through our scrambled eggs ("Thank gawd they gave American portions, not French ones," Rohinton commented), I questionned them on the details of their little vacation in Canada.
"We saw whales!" Rohinton exclaimed.
"And puffins!" Jeet added. "Lots of puffins!"

After brunch, I jumped onto my little blue bike (ye faithful steed) and pedalled furiously in a cloud of dust to the tennis courts where Delta and I were due to engage in a bit of ol' friendly tete a tete. It was a gloriously golden summer day, and all we had planned for the day was a spot of amateur tennis (we could barely get our serves in, but Delta still felt obliged nevertheless to jump over the net when the match was done), and a dinnertime rendez-vous with Shan-K. So after tennis we lounged about in the apartment for a while, and then headed down to the East village to meet Shan-K. There we sat with the sun to our backs, sipping wine and munching on village-esque organic-tofu-spinach-low-fat-no-cream-extra-salsa burritos.

And as the sun started to set, casting slanting shafts of vermillion across the sky, Delta and I, replete with food, wine, conversation and good cheer, held hands and set off on the meandering route home.

Bozeman, the rest

On the last day, we decided to go horseriding. There were beautiful, lush, horse trails through the mountains, and we weren't about to miss out on the experience, so we reserved ourselves in a local riding school.

There was inevitably much comaraderie and jibing before hand, about who would get the stubborn horse, or the lazy one, or the flatulent one. In the end, turned out that all the stereotypes were true, and each of us got one of the caricatures above.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I remembered from my horseriding days of youth. Not quite enough to control my horse when it stopped, on whim and fancy, to have a tasted of surrounding shrubbery. But definitely enough keep my balance, rise to the trot, and avoid a pained posterior. Or so I thought, anyway. That is, until I got off the horse.

Pete, Delta and I, who had been the equestrian adventurers, all stared at each others bow-legged waddling and tried to smother our giggles. As it turned out, it stayed with me, that posterial soreness, well into my return.

Yellowstone

Day 3:

We woke up early, this was our day in Yellowstone. Pete and Michelle, being the model hosts that they are, had planned a day full of suggested activities and sights. The kids were as excited as we were, so getting everyone ready in a hurry was no challenge. Yellowstone national park, if you haven't been there, is a miraculous gem of topographical diversity. Mountains, plains, canyons, cliffs, rivers, springs, geysers, waterfalls, deer, bison, bears, elk, all intermingling in a symbiotic melange.

First, we played in 'the Boiling River'. At this particular spot, the freezing-gushing-rushing Yellowstone River is joined by a boiling hot spring, which results in a point of temperature perfectly created for human enjoyment. The challenge and enjoyment is in finding the spot, and hanging on to it. One step to the left, you freeze. One step to the right, you scald. And there we stood, teetering on that precipice between ecstasy and suffering, soaking in the morning sun.

Soon after, Pete and Michelle headed off, and Delta and I were left to our own elements. Laughingly referring to ourselves as Lewis and Clark, we decided to head off the beaten road, along one of the wooded trails. Pete had given us his can of bearspray, to protect us from the grizzlies. I find it somewhat odd that even my can of mosquito repellent at home is larger and more fierce looking than this bear spray - but oh well, who am I to judge. We had already been walking for some time, when I suddenly stopped in my tracks. "Where's that can of bear spray?!"

"Don't worry, I have it with me," Delta assured me, indicating his bagpack.

"Erm, do you think we should be keeping it in some place more handy than the bottom of your bagpack, hidden under all the nutrigrain bars?"

And that's how we were, urban hillbillies misplaced in the woods.

We'd almost reached the end of the trail when we decided to sit down for a while, and just enjoy the view. It was a soothing scene, high up there in the mountains, with the expansive lake glinting azur far below us. Just as we realised it was getting late and we ought to head back, we suddenly heard a deep growl, just a few feet away.

We froze.

An unmistakable, distinctive, bear-growl.

And yet I asked Delta, with naive hopefullness, "Did you hear anything? Was it the wind?"

Both of us were wide-eyed in terror. Delta whipped out his bear spray and held it before us. Tentatively, we took a further step along the trail.

Another growl, this time louder, more threatening. Almost a roar. We couldn't see the animal through the woods, but there was no mistaking the sound.

The only thing we really knew about avoiding bears was to talk loudly, so that they heard you coming and you didn't surprise them. Bit too late to apply in this situation, and yet it was all we could resort to. "Should we head back home, then?" Delta asked me loundly.

"Yep, definitely, and let's keep talking about it," I hollered back, for the bear's benefit. Let me tell you, when you're scared witless it's really difficult to think of things to say. Even for yackamouth me.

Another growl.

The only option was to head back down the trail. Initially, in the direction of the bear, until we passed it and continued onwards on the trail. We continued talking. We continued taking tentative steps. It continued growling. Delta continued waving the can of bearspray before him. My heart continued pounding in my ears. One step after the next. After the next. Talking over the growls, trying to stay calm.

And suddenly we entered a clearing, and the growls got fainter, and then stopped altogether. We had apparently passed the area which the bear considered it's threatened territory. We stood there in the clearing, trembling in fright and relief. My knees had lost all motor control, and knocked against each other wobblingly. Then quietly, quickly, we started a speedy return towards the car.

We saw other scenes after that, which would have normally clean knocked the socks off me. Canyons and geysers of unimaginable splendour. And yet, the rest of the day seemed to skim by in a blur.

Bozeman, the intro

How do you capture, in a few brief paragraphs, one of the best vacations of your lifetime?

Day 1: Let's just get there!

I learnt the trials and tribulations of travelling as a standby flyer. It went something like this: wake up at 4.30am, rush to the airport for a 7am flight, spend an hour staring nail-bitingly at the 'Standby/Cleared List' on the screen. Find out the flight is full, spend an hour having overbrewed coffee and airport-scrambled eggs. Find another flight, actually in the opposite direction, but with a connection to where we ultimately want to go. The route adds 4 hrs to the journey, but at least it gives hope of ultimately getting there. Just barely squeeze through from the standby list to an assigned seat, scoot onto the plane, find out we're in First class. Heave a sigh of relief, sink exhaustedly into the seat, and when the flight attendant comes around for a drink order, realise that for the first time in our lives, we are quite ready for a glass of wine at 8am.

After an exhausting day of flying, finally arrive at Bozeman, MT, pick up our rental car, make a few wrong turns (due to the navigational dysfunctionalism of yours truly, I concede), finally find the dirt road that winds up the mountain to Pete and Michelle's cabin. Step out onto the deck, give them fond hugs, take in the view, and realise that it was all worth it.

Day 2: The Mountain and Fairy Lake

Off to a relatively energetic start the next morning, we set off with Pete, Michelle and their boys on the five minute hike up to the top of the mountain. Essentially their back yard. As we were heading out the door, Pete grabbed a small spray can and attached it to his belt. "In case we're attacked by a bear," he explained, having caught me eyeing the can dubiously. It did nothing to assuage my nerves that all we had to defend ourselves against the bears was a can of mace.

As it luckily turned out, we didn't run into bears. Well, not that time anyway.

The kids raced up the mountain excitedly. I, in comic contrast, lumbered behind Delta pantingly. "It's the altitude!" I gasped, wondering what excuse I'd have to think up when back in NYC the next week. But suddenly we burst through the thicket, and there we were.

Once we could finally tear ourselves away from the majestic mountaintop scene, we packed ourselves tenfold into the minivan and shuttled off to Fairy Lake. It was a long and winding road, which made my tummy predictably queasy. However, I'm proud to report she's hardened herself since those highschool days of mountainous terrain, and there wasn't a moment of reverse peristalsis.

When we reached the lake, it was a stunning scene which clean took our breaths away. All of us gazed in collective awe at the emerald lake glistening before us. "I know it looks tempting," Michelle warned, "but don't jump in, the water comes from melting snowfall and is freezing."

I can certify she's right, having greedily stuck my arm in despite warnings to the contrary.

Off to Montana

Jeet: So why are you guys going to Montana?

Delta: We want to see Yellowstone. Apparently its about to blow up.

Rohinton [panicking]: really? Really? Should I be worrying about this?

Ficali: Well, we watched this documentary on Discovery which said Yellowstone is overdue. It's a supervolcano, you know. When it blows up, the entire world will likely be destroyed.

Rohinton: Really? I didn't know that. I should be factoring that into my plan, it's another thing to take into account and be worried of.

Jeet: Tsk tsk.

Delta: Well, they did say +/- twenty thousand years when they mentioned it was due... I'd worry more about being hit by a yellow cab if I were you.

Rohinton [sigh of relief]: oh, okay.

The deposit war

House rental agencies can be such swindlers. We moved out of our previous apartment at the end of November 2006. We waited patiently for them to return our security deposit (we had invested a good couple of hours dusting the apartment back into a presentable state, and I'd be darned if we were going to lose our deposit over that).

Erm, we waited some more.

Then a month later, we called. Went straight to voicemail, we left a message.
No response.

Called again, left another message.
No response.

Called and left a third message.
No response.

And the pattern continued like this for a couple of months, with no conceivable result. Finally, three months after we'd moved out of our previous apartment, I lost patience and stomped over to the agency office. I was placed in front of a snivelling finance clerk, who mumbled excuses about inefficient filing systems and incomplete administrative processes, and how he would be sending out the check the next day. "Why can't you give me the check right now?!" I demanded, with a dramatic (and effective, I thought) show of foot-stomping. But apparently the powers that be were not in the office at that moment, and the young chap did not have the authority to do more than give me muttered platitudes.
Fine, but we wanted the check next week.

Waited a week, left a voicemail.
No response.

Left another message.
No response.

Summer came along and in our excitement, we forgot about the whole check affair.

Now wasn't that exactly their intention?!

Doobs suddenly asked me the other day out of the blue. "Hey, did we ever get our security deposit back?!"
Instantly my blood was boiling again, and all the forgotten fury pulsed through my body. "He never mailed us that check, the @#$#$%!!@." And I would have gone on in that vein, had not Doobs stepped in with a more constructive suggestion.
"Let me call and give that fellow a talking-to," she said calmly.

And she called and gave that poor fellow a yelling-to. I tremble in my shoes when I even try to imagine the situation. And she gave the owner of the entire enterprise a yelling-to. And rightfully so, too. Because today, bright and shiny, our checks arrived in the mail.

All of the deposit, along with the interest. I was so impressed. That Doobs can work some magic.

Now all I have to figure out is what to spend this windfall $800 on for the summer!

Crisis ahoy

With MetroHom:

"Have you ever been filled with this general sense of malaise?" MetroHom asked me over lunch the other day.
"How do you mean?"
"You know - when you can't really pinpoint it, and you're not really unhappy about anything in particular, but at the same time, you realise you're not really happy about things either."
"That's awful, MetroHom," I said sadly.
"Can we go bet a brownie? I think that'll make me feel better."

With Delta:

"MetroHom said he has this continuous feeling of malaise," I reported to Delta that evening.
"How do you mean?"
"You know - he can't really pinpoint it, not particularly unhappy, but not particularly happy either, that kind of thing."
"Sounds like a mid-life crisis, that."
"Hmm, you might be right. He has been thinking about buying a new apartment after all.

With Doobs:

"So MetroHom is going through a midlife crisis," I told Doobs as we sat in a cafe, gazing at the rain outside.
"How do you know?"
"He told me over lunch the other day. And then we had to go get a brownie."
"But how do you know it's a crisis?"
"He's looking to buy an apartment."

Back with MetroHom:

"So that feeling of malaise you were telling me about the other day - I think that's a mid-life crisis," I explained, putting on my best didactic air.
"You think so?"
"Sure, the symptoms are typical."
"Ooh, now that it has a label, that's got me feeling better already. I'm all cheery again now."