Girl trauma

Tuffsy burst into my room. "OMG OMG I'm going to DIE!"
Sigh. "What happened?"
"You're not going to believe it. I'm going to DIE."

I was worried. Predisposed though she be towards the occasional histrionic meltdown, this was out of character for even Tuffsy.
"Sit down and tell me what happened."
"So you remember that guy I was dating, before everything fell apart last week?"
Sigh. So it was about a man. I should have figured. "Yeah....?"
"Well, and you know how we work in the same company, right?"
"Yeah, I can't possibly imagine anything more awkward than that."

But as usual, I had spoken too soon.

"Well, so I decided to spill my heart and write him a long note telling him how I felt and how he had hurt me."
I balked. "Not through company email I hope?" HR bod first, friend second.
"No, I wrote it in a real letter, handwritten, not an email."
"And?" I was sufficiently mortified by the situation already.
"And I put it in the internal company mail, because that was the fastest way to get it to him."
"The internal mail??! A love letter?!" I was horrified for Tuffsy.
"Wait, it gets worse," she looked miserable.

I couldn't really think of anything worse. I looked up apprehensively.

"So I addressed the letter to him and put it in the mail," Tuffsy continued, "and the post man mistakenly gave it to another guy with the same name."

There was a stunned silence.

Then I tried to add some clarity to my incomprehension. "So your love letter, declaring all your feelings for this guy, went to another colleague with the same name?" I tried tentatively.
She nodded miserably.
"So what happened then?!"
"When I finally tracked it down and got it back, the envelope was open. That means he read it! Ficali! A random stranger who works in the same company read my love letter full of woe and tragedy! As though it was addressed to him!"
I was silenced by the pathos of the situation.

"Do you think they'll fire me?" she whispered.
"Nah, but he might have scanned your letter and passed it around to friends sitting around him."
Her eyes widened in horror.
"OMG OMG OMG I'm going to die."
"Wait a minute, Tuffs. What if it was fate? I mean, what if the letter was meant to go to this guy, and may be he's the real one you're supposed to be with."
"Please! That's ridiculous!"
But isn't it funny how peopel can cling on to the tiniest hope.
"I'm dead serious," I told her. "I mean, how many times has your internal mail ever been mid-delivered before? Never, right? Doesn't that prove that this must be fate?"

Tuffsy wasn't prepared to believe this very easily. But isn't it funny how we can make ourselves believe anything if we want to believe it badly enough?
"You really think so?" she asked.
"Sure! It seems obvious to me. You should track this guy down and try and meet him. He seems like your man. And he already knows how sensitive and devoted you can be, after having read that letter."
She didn't say anything then. Not for a while, as she silently internalised this turn of events.

Then, she looked up with a smile. "I wonder what this new guy is like," she said, dreamily.

Where have my instincts gone?

The other day I was sitting with a friend having lunch in a cafe. We had the window seat, so I was naturally preoccupied gazing through the glass at passersby outside. Have you ever noticed how people-watching has the the same hypnotic effect as a TV? That was me, tuning out my friend, focusing on the strangers yonder.


A couple strolled by arm in arm, gazing into each other's eyes in (nauseatingly?) dreamy ecstasy. My eyes trailed them down the block, until at the other end they suddenly split apart and broke into vehement and bitter argument.

Then came a man, talking alound to himself, and gesturing agitatedly at the imaginary person in his head. I thought he was schizophrenic. So, apparently, did the woman passing by him, who nearly jumped out of her skin when he suddenly spun around and exclaimed something in her direction. Turned out he was talking to someone on a cellphone, using a bluetooth device. Yeesh, what is it with those clowns?!

This was followed by a young mother, pushing before her a young baby in a pram. Just as she passed the cafe where we were seated, she bumped into someone she knew, and paushed to chat in the sidewalk. Distractedly, she parked the pram to the side, so that the baby was directly facing me.

A big, golden, cherub of a baby, complete with twinkling eyes and dimpled knees. Gurgling away to itself in self-contentment. Through the window, I waved and smiled at it; less than a foot away from me (but on the other side of the glass), it let out a gleeful chuckle. I waved some more; I wiggled my fingers and scrunched my nose; the baby shrieked with delight. It's face glowed with a beatific (albeit toothless) smile.

I felt a trill of primeval, instinctual memory surge through my body. A stirring in my heart and stomach, and I thought - I have a real connection with this baby. This is my maternal instinct, finally kicking in!

I made another series of faces at the baby - some of which, I have to concede, had no dignity in them whatsoever. There was a lot of tongue, eye, ear and finger contortion I am now embarrassed to relate in any additional detail. My friend rolled his eyes in mockery. "You look ridiculous," he pointed out. But such comments didn't faze me, this was, after all, my moment of epiphany. Finally, a baby who liked me!

More faces. More giggling and clapping (from the baby, not me).
More faces. More giggling.
More faces.
But then the mum wheeled the baby away, and it was a heart-breaking farewell, between two long-lost soulmates.

When we had finished up lunch and as we exited the restaurant, I turned on the sidewalk for a last glance at where the baby had been. And suddenly I looked in horror. From outside, the window was mirrored. The baby had been smiling at itself, not me. It couldn't even see me!!

I was mortified. My friend smirked.

Sigh. Oh well, I guess there's still a ways to go before those maternal instincts kick in after all, eh.

Free Sleep

What with the 'rents in town and staying with Rohinton this past month, I've been doing a lot of to-and-fro shuffling between Hoboken and Manhattan on the PATH train. Relatively early on Sunday morning I got on to the train heading out to Jersey, and was just about to bury my nose in my book, when I noticed that everyone else around me in the carriage was asleep.

And I mean everyone.

There were people returning home from a big night out in the city. Workers returning home after a long night shift. Others who probably slept all night but still decided to continue their naps in the train. Maybe a narcoleptic or two. It was eerily bizarre.

So I decided to convert the subway ride into my own personal laboratory for observation of human sleep behaviours.

The guy next to me had sleep-induced-jello-neck. Each time the train swayed (and sometimes even without this), his head would swing wildly from side to side. Unfortunately, one side was my shoulder. Kind of weird, having a strange guy's head periodically bop on your shoulder. But having slept on many stranger's shoulders before in the past, I knew this was just my time to contribute back to the shoulder-support community.

Then there was the person opposite me, who was suffering from sleep-induced slackjaw. With lower mandible hanging to his chest and mouth agape invitingly to nearby hovering flies, he was releasing a continuum of resounding snores. I was intrigued by how one might be able to snore without any detectable movement of the buccal area. I have to confess, I've made many attempts since to do the same, just to see verify that it's humanly possible, but with no success.

And then there was a woman two seats down from me, who, and I promise this is true, whistled while she slept. When I was a young child, there was a boy called Conrad who sat next to me in one of my classes. One day, Conrad's dentist had drilled a hole in his front tooth, not up towards the root, but rather front-to-back like a tunnel into his mouth. It took a week, until his next dental appointment, before the hole was filled up again. During that week, Conrad's be-holed tooth betrayed him by making a whistling sound every time he breathed. Sitting next to him in class, I could hear him clear as day.
Breathe in, tweet (breathe out).
Breathe in, tweet (breathe out).
Breathe in, tweet (breathe out).
And me, caught in that in-between stage of life with an adolescent recognition of 'uncoolness' and a child's unforgiving sense of humour, had found the whole situation to be incredibly hilarious.

And that's what this woman was like, sleeping next to me. Socially victimised by her dentist into whistling while she breathed. Ha.

I thought about how embarrassing we all must be while we slept, and vowed never to let myself sleep in public again. And then I thought about it some more, and realised that sleep is probably the only time when we're entirely free with ourselves. There's something to be said for head-bopping, slack-jawing, snoring and breathe-whistling in public, with a sense of reckless abandon.

And the more I rolled the thought around in my mind, the more it appealed to me. So free, so undisturbed, so at peace with oneself. Now that I think about it, I can't wait for my next public sojourn with the land of Z's!

Luck

I hate to say it louder than a mere whisper, but I think I'm pretty lucky.

I've been a bit disgruntled since I discovered, two weeks ago, after my trip to Chicago, that I coudn't find my camera. I couldn't have possibly lost it again, I thought to myself, but indeed, the sad truth is it appeared I had. When it comes to cameras, I have a historical track record of retention failure. So I've been berating and chastising myself with regard to yet another loss.

So when I woke up yesterday, already in a grump, and discovered the pounding rain (which I had to trudge through to make it to work), I was decidedly unimpressed with my state of being. And, unsurprisingly, the situation showed no improvement when I realised my raincoat couldn't be found. So in a bit of a huff, I grabbed my umbrella and headed out the door.

And got instantly soaked.

I considered stopping on the way to procure myself a pair of wellies, but then remembered I didn't have a spare pair of socks (the ones I was wearing were soaked), so what was the point.

Ten minutes later, and here was Ficali: sans camera. Sans raincoat. Shoes bucketed with water. Umbrella inside out. Stomping. Soaking. Shivering. Fair to say, pretty miserable.

So I got in to work, and suddenly remembered there's a little bag under my desk where I keep a spare pair of sandals. You know, just for the occasion when I might need to change my shoes upon reaching work. Reached under my desk to pull out the bag, and what did I find?
- A pair of dry sandals
- A pair of socks (!!)
- A camera

Yes, that's right. A camera. In my sandals bag. And just at that moment, while I was sitting there thinking how I'd found a treasure, my phone rang. It was Delta.
"Hello?"
"Hey, you. You forgot your raincoat in my apartment, just thought I better let you know."

So just like that, I found the coat too.

Really, I can't think of another explanation. I just must be lucky.

Cops and Cats

This morning on my walk to work I noticed a little bit of hubbub on the south side of Union Square, so nosey parker that I am, I headed over to check out what the haps was about. There was a huddle of NYPD cops about, and while I couldn't detect any criminal-looking characters, the cops themselves suddenly lent an air of danger and electricity to the atmosphere. These weren't like the British cops, who wield batons and seem kindly and fatherly. These were the Manhattan kind, with Lockheed Martin artillery and scowling visages.

I glanced around to try and detect any apparent reason for their presence, but there was no handcuffed lad in sight, or a mob shootout. Instead, right by the cops was a cage, with 5-6 tiny kittens in it. I was instantly entranced, and drawn towards the scene.

"I guess you guys caught the Manhattan Cat Robber, huh," I joked to one of the cops. Why do I think I am funny? I should just remember, my jokes usually tend to fall flat.

A blank look. Awkwardness.

"Erm, so you don't suppose I could go up close to see, do you?" He shrugged nonchalantly. So I guess the cats weren't critical evidence in a murder case then. As soon as I squatted by the cage, all the kittens came running towards me, tumbling over each other in their excitement. They'd just been hungry for human contact, I guess. Hungry for any contact at all, judging from the age of some of them, who must have been just days old.

I stuck my finger in the cage to touch the littlest one, which had barely just opened its eyes for the first time. Instantly it put and held its mouth around the tip of my finger with an instinctive sense of creature comfort. I thought it was amazingly cute for a moment, until I realised the kitten probably thought it was breast feeding, and that grossed me out somewhat, I pulled my finger out in a shot.

I wondered where in the world the cats had come from, but I was hardly about to ask the cop again, before he'd had his morning doughnut. Just then another of the cops approached me.

"You want one of them?" he asked me.

"I wish I could, but I can't," I said wistfully.

He nodded. "Their mum just had a litter," he explained, nodding towards the kittens. "We can't keep them all, so I'm off to drop these kids off at the shelter."

I must have looked puzzled about what they were doing at Union Square, so he proceeded to explain. "Can't go till this evening though, so for the moment, they're having a day with the boys."

I liked that. Pretty funny, the kittens having to spend a day out with the cops on duty. And judging from the looks of them, they seemed to be quite enjoying the adventure.

As I continued on to work, I wondered how excited they would be if they'd had to spend the day with an HR bod. Writing idiosyncratic emails.

The game of words

I've missed writing in this blog incredibly, during the past few weeks. It's the place where I can introspect and extrospect, and spill my beans in a forum so public it's actually oddly private. It's the place where I can freely embellish my daily foibles, shaping my own rose-tinted memories as I bumble my way through life. But it's hard to make the time to be the blythe chronicler when you're working twelve hour days within the confines of a four-walled office, in which the air conditioning vascillates eratically from tropical to polar. Seriously. The cardigan I leave at work has even developed shiny elbows from the amount of times I have to take it off and put it on each day.

Anyways, so I've missed writing, during this busy period at work. Instead of this inane bloga-banter, I've had to spend my literary energies on a long string of employee communiques, which I suppose no self-respecting HR bod should complain about. But I do, I do. There's nothing so mind-numbingly dull to draft (or read, I'm sure) as a public announcement from HR.

So pushed to the teetering edge of desperation, I decided to amuse myself with a personal challenge. In each pulic email I sent to a wide distribution, I would try to slip in a quadri-syllablic word with utmost subtlety. And corporate words, like "impediment" couldn't count. My first test was 'triumvirate'. The problem with this word, which I hadn't quite thought through when I chose it, is that not much at my office actually happens in groups of three. Finally, I managed to work it into a sentence, which went something like: "Such-and-such event would be subject to the approval of the triumvirate of X, Y and Z (three managers)." Pretty good, no?Hard though it be to slip a word like that into any sentence in modern english without causing a raised eyebrow or two, I figured not many people would read the email anyway. I mean, don't most people just auto-delete their HR emails?

Apparently not.

A moment later I got the response from Manager Z: "X is out of office, and since Y is busy, the diumvirate of Y and I have decided that I should just handle this alone in solumvirate manner." Yeesh. Cheeky chappies.

A somewhat tempered success, I'd call that.

Still, not to be deterred in my cause, I plod doggedly on. My next word is 'ornery'. I know it's not quadri-syllablic, but it's a fun one, with potentially exciting ramifications, so it qualifies anyway.

Hmm - it did occur to me - maybe it would be more beneficial for my long-term career growth if I spent less time working and more time writing in my blog.