With the elements pitted against me

Recently, in an uncharacteristic burst of self-awareness, I've become conscious of a few new features about myself that aren't necessarily, well, impressive.

1. All these years, and despite all our progression into modernity, I have no faculty for recording my own voicemail mailbox message. My voice always sounds funny and nasal and far too high-pitched to be socially acceptable. When I think back to my first mailbox message I ever recorded (when I was 18 and got my first cellphone), I had to make 26 attempts before I could settle on something even remotely palatable. Yesterday, more than ten years since my first time, it still took me 17 attempts. I think you would agree, not the kind of progress that really moves civilizations forward.

2. When someone calls at work who I don't want to talk to, all of a sudden, my bladder has to pee. I mean, so bad, I just have to end the call. I'm dead serious. It doesn't involve any conniving or other sinister motive - it's just a natural instinctive defence mechanism my obstreperous bladder has developed of its own accord. And safe to say, probably a career hazard.

3. Whenever my wallet feels fat and bursting at its seems, and I pull it out of my pocket with a swoosh! of $anticipation$, it's always full of ones. Always just ones. Today at lunch, even the guy at Subway making my sandwich gave me a rather pitying look when I pulled out my fat wallet and spilled 11 ones onto his counter.

So it is with such thoughts weighing down on my soul that I trudge wearily through life. You see how the elements are pitted against me?

The cause of the downtrodden

When you're walking with strangers for several hours a day, as we did when we were hiking in Peru, you end up ruminating over a lot of inane topics. And one such topic of much discussion was undervalued punctuation.
"The poor semi-colon," one chap had said, "no one ever seems to use it. No one ever even seems to know how to use it. It's the unloved step-child of punctuation."

And since then, since I heard someone put it like that, I've harboured a secret soft spot for the semi-colon.

So the other day, when I was drafting a long newsletter email for the company, I insidiously inserted a smattering of semi-colons. I mean, what's an HR bod to do in life if not to protect the downtrodden puncts, right?

Three semi-colons, nestled snugly in the email. If Richie Rich notices, I hope he doesn't mind (too much).

In any case, I suppose they should just be happy I hadn't taken up the cause of the colon or the ellipses.

My lot in life

Two months ago, Delta and I bought a new bed from the DoorStore. Our current full-size bed, while quite snuggly and comfy, just wasn't enough for Delta, me and Queen Jaffa. Especially when QJ started dominating the space.
"Look at that!" Delta used to exclaim. "QJ has half the bed and you and I are squashed in the other half. Why are you letting her push you around?!"
"She does it when I'm asleep," I was forced to explain sheepishly. "She waits till I'm at my most vulnerable, and then keeps prodding me so I keep moving over in my sleep. I can't help it!"

And so, because of QJ's dominating ways, we were forced upgrade our bed.

And when I say we bought a new bed, I mean we went into the store and paid for it, only to be told it would be delivered in three weeks.
But three weeks came and went with no bed. When we called the store to find out, we were glibly informed, "oh it's been delayed by a week, you'll have it next week."
But the next week came and went with no sign of any sleep support system.

And the same the next week. And the same the week after.

My tether is only yay-long, and very quickly, I was at the end of it. So last week, I marched into the store in a bit of a harrumph.
"Oy, mister, you sold us a bed and you haven't delivered it." That's me and my tough talk. No beating around the bush. No time for games.
But the fella behind the desk was so nice, and so apologetic, and promised me it would come this weekend, and ... so I relented and accepted his word.
"It better come next weekend," I told him, insinuating that I wielded warnings and threats which I couldn't quite articulate.

So imagine my absolute irritation when I woke up this morning and there was still no call from the delivery guys about the bed. A whole week later, nothing. The more I thought about it, the more irritated I got. This guy had given me his word. Didn't that mean anything anymore?

And I mulled over it more and more until I'd worked myself into a tizzy of boiling blood. Finally, having waited till past noon, I decided to head over to the store myself and give the sales guy a serious talking to. That's it. I had had enough of this nonsense and I would give him a piece of my mind. I'd share my thoughts on how badly we'd been treated. I'd demand recompense. I'd -

And just as I was about to enter the store, all riled up, my phone rang.
"Hello. It's the doorstore delivery team, we're calling to schedule your bed delivery for tomorrow."
The timing was just typical. I would normally have been elated, except I'd worked myself up into such a huff that this quite took the wind out of my sails. Suddenly there I was, a deflated balloon.
I wasn't built to switch gear so quickly. My emotional radar didn't quite know how to jump from irate to ecstatic, so it ended up somewhere in between in a heap of emotional confusion.

Slunk back home, and there was QJ curled up on the couch, demure as ever. Emotional as I was at the moment, I couldn't help myself, I rushed over to her and smothered her little head with kisses.

Roused from her sleep, she slowly roused her head. Looked me in the eye. And emitted a loud cat burp of emotional satisfaction.

Yes, folks, that's what I get for my effusive kisses. A catburp.

But one has to be appreciative of the hand life deals. And if my lot in life is a deflated balloon and a catburp, who am I to complain.

Monkey Brain

When I was young, if we ever did anything wrong, my granddad used to call us "monkey brains". Forgot to wash your hands before a meal?
"Ha, ha," he'd tease. "Monkey Brain! Go wash your hands."
Sadly, I don't have very many memories of my granddad. But I remember this.

Now, think of me as I am today. Think of all the silly wrongdoings I find myself in on a daily basis. Now multiply that exponentially, and you'll have an idea of what I was like as a kid. I was the quintessential Monkey Brain.

Anyways, the epithet left no undying scar in my mind. I haven't even thought about it in more than twenty years - well, until yesterday.

Greedy for an afternoon snack, I was trying to peel my banana in a hurry. Grabbed the stalk to break it off, and somehow, unbelievably, I broke the banana in half. I've never done that before.
Weird, I thought to myself, sounds like something a monkey would do.

Didn't really think much of it, just devoured the two halves of the banana as if it was normal. And then - and you're really not going to believe this - it happened again today.

Again, in trying to peel a banana, I actually broke it in half. It's as though I've forgotten how to peel a banana!

That's when I thought again of my granddad. He'd called it right when I was a mere nubbin.

Sigh. Once a Monkey Brain, always a Monkey Brain.

An awkward thirty seconds.

Waiting for the elevator the other day, my bored gaze fell on my umbrella handle. I looked at the stout, hook-shaped handle, and thought how easy it would be to trip someone in the street, if I wasn't careful.

Caught up in my mental image of the scene, I decided to play it out to see how it could work. Turning my umbrella around, I hooked the handle around my ankle.
See, just the right size to catch someone around the ankle, I thought to myself.

And then, for some reason unbeknownst to even myself, I yanked on the umbrella, and quite literally tripped myself. Yes. Yanked my own ankle up in the air, sending myself sprawling in the corridor.

Oh, the joys of being me.

And of course, at exactly that moment (because aren't these things written in fate?), the elevator arrived and the doors opened. The people inside gaped at me. Six saucer eyes and three saucer mouths.

There was naught to be done but to disentangle my limbs and gather myself into the elevator. And stare really hard at the spot on the floor, right by my feet. And listen to the thunderous silence, bursting with tension, of everyone else desperately trying to think of casual mutterings to mutter.

It had been a while since I'd felt that awkward anyway, I suppose.

Resolutions were never meant to be followed anyway

I have a little post-it stuck on my office closet, for me to see every day.

Resolutions:
- Eat healthier
- Swear less
- Be more sensible

These were my New Years resolutions from 2007, but I still keep them there (never too late to start working on them). Then, I noticed, the other day someone stuck a new post it on my office closet, just to confuse me.

Resolutions:
- Eat healthier
- Swear more
- Be more sensible

Ha, joker, I thought. But then I opened the closet door, and there were more post-its:
- Eat pizza and cake
- Drink heavily
- Spend money

Threw me in a fair share of confuddlement, I concede. For, in all fairness, I would willingly take on any of these as my resolutions for the year. But I refuse to be the office clown, dammit. Refuse.

Besides, it shows me that (a) people have too much time on their hands; (b) people have too many post-its; and (c) perhaps people don't quite view me with the level of gravitas I thought I portrayed.

But if people are going to insist on scrutinising and inputing into my resolutions, then at least let's give them something to sink their teeth into. So now I've put a new post-it on the closet door, jostling for space amongst the others:

Resolution:
Learn to type with toes

That'll give the technies here something to think about.

Emotional as dice

Flights are like purgatory. At the moment that you enter the plane, you're at a singular point in your life - however depressing or exhilarating that point may be. And then you sit in the metal tube for a few hours, belted into your seat, like a surreal version of Star Trek, until you reach the other end and step out into an entirely new part of your life. New place, new people, new time, new mood. It's the closest we have to a time travel machine.

Like a couple of dice, enclosed in a fist and rattled and shaken, only to be forcibly expelled into a whole new world. It's no wonder, then, that flights should leave you feeling somewhat vulnerable. Emotionally vulnerable, I mean.

In any case, that's my explanation, this emotional vulnerability, for why I don't normally cry for movies, even the sad ones, but if I watch the same movies on a plane, it's a time for pure emotional purging. Of their own accord, my eyes start weeping like leaking taps. You know - on the plane - about the only place where you particularly don't want to cry in public, because now the person strapped into the seat next to you thinks you're crazy. And they can't do anything about it or move somewhere else, because they're physically belted in next to you.

And you try to suppress the tears, but it's as futile as trying to suppress hiccups, this only causes them to come out with reinforced exuberance. Suddenly the tears are just gushing, accompanied by a fair share of blubbering, snorting, sniffling and honking, while the person next to you continues to witness this spectacle through subtly averted eyes, keeping a watch on you in mounting horror and discomfort. And then they catch a glimpse of what you are watching, and realise it's a comedy, like Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

I mean, who would normally cry for a movie like that, right? The only explanation I can have for my behaviour, therefore, is the emotional vulnerability induced by a flight. Like dice, being rattled and shaken, and forcibly expelled at the other end.

A life with cooking (and cakes)

Back in highschool, we used to run a little bakery business. My roommates and I (for it was a boarding school), would take orders from students, and bake cakes specific to their requests. Each cake sold for Rs. 30 (or 35 if there were fancy nuts and stuff involved) - in either case, less than a dollar. This is the entire cake, mind you, not just a slice. So you can imagine the dirty glares I give the bakers here in New York, when a small piece of brownie or slice of cake burns a hole in the pocket.

Maybe it was the fact that in those rustic days, we used to bake our cakes in a toaster oven (there was no real oven). Or maybe it was the memory of how our the toaster oven tray had sloped, so all our cakes had turned out lopsided. Most likely, I think it was the fact that baking requires a precision of measurement which is just incompatible with my 'ballpark' approach to life.

In either case, I'm not sure when it was exactly, but somewhere during my transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, I transitioned from baking to cooking.

Cooking is salubrious. Cooking is fun. And most importantly, cooking doesn't have strict guidelines. A dash of herbs, a sprinkling of seasoning, and a spot of salt is plenty specific enough for me.

Don't I miss baking, you might ask? Mostly, I just miss the cakes. Or, more accurately, I would miss the cakes. It certainly helps that there's people out there in the world (like for example my cos Dr. Livingston), who enjoy the science of baking. And have real ovens. And make cakes which are not lop-sided. And always bring some over for us.

An un-challenging resolution

I'd just got home from the bitter cold, put the kettle on, and settled myself comfortably on the couch for an evening of telly. I was just trying to decide between Law and Order and House, when suddenly I remembered the mat.

Last week, in a sudden burst of healthful ambition, I had entered a sports store and procured myself a yoga mat. Classic purple mat designed for the occasional spot of yoga at home. Brought it home, immediately rolled it up into a neat tight log and tucked it away in the far corner of the coat closet where I wouldn't feel compelled to make immediate use of it. Just owning the mat brought such a ring of satisfaction, I didn't actually have to even use it.

So this evening, just before I settled my posterior into optimal telly-watching position, I decided to make a go of flopping around a little bit on the mat. So I sat myself down with legs outstretched, and tried to reach my arms out towards them. I could barely reach past my knees.

I , recoiled, mortified by my own inflexibility. I'd never been like this before. Who was this person who couldn't reach her toes?!

I've always taken health and fitness for granted. Effortlessly, without trying, without practicing, without having to work at it. And now, all of a sudden, here I was, held away from my toes as though by a glass wall. So I decided to take a different angle, and tried to split my legs apart to see how deep I could split. I barely got half way down, when I was stopped, grunting and mid-split, by my own body's limits.

It was at that moment, legs mid-split, grunting exertions, muttering expletives, that I decided: It has to get better than this.

Voila my new year's resolution. In 2005, my resolution was two-fold: eat healthier; swear less. It took my three years to actually be able to perform these, so there were no new resolutions till now. But this year, I'm going to make one again. Not because I've particularly mastered the art of eating healthier, or swearing less. Just because, if I haven't got those two down by now, let's face it I'm never going to.

But a bit of flopping around on a purple mat at home each evening - now that sounds like a resolution which doesn't pose too much of a challenge.

My shoe army

Over the past week, my shoe collection has taken on a life of it's own. Four times last week, it marched me (under duress) to the shoe stores and procured new members.

Honestly, I have no responsibility in this.

I woke up the other day and realised much to my chagrin that my shoe collection has now outgrown it's original hiding spot, under my bed. Members of my shoe army now align to every wall space available in my room, and stuff themselves under my bookshelf, and have even launched an invasion of my clothes closet.

As a matter of emergency control, I brought some of the overfill to my office, and have started storing them under my desk. (This has also had the unintended consequence of upgrading my general attire at work from sneakers to boots).

I was telling Delta yesterday about how I had been victimised by my burgeoning shoe collection. I hadn't been intending it, but he picked up on the plot right away.
"Well," he sighed, "I suppose you could store some in my apartment too."

Phew, thank gawd for boyfriends that get it.

A stand for independence

There was a brief period of frenzied panic. And when I say panic, I don't mean it lightly. I mean the breath-constricting, thought-disorienting, pulse-quickening state of agitation.

It started with Doobie surveying her room in dismay.
"I have less than 6 hours for my flight and I haven't even started packing yet!!" She wailed. I gingerely entered her room to survey the extent of crisis. And yes, the crisis was extensive.

There was a large pile in the centre of the room. It consisted of fresh clothes, laundry, socks and shoes, presents for friends and family, and about 20 pounds of chocolate, all balancing precariously on top of each other. Navigating oneself anywhere around the room required making a leap over the ever growing pile. In one corner of the room were two small suitcases, into which one ostensibly supposed that the entire pile was meant to somehow pack itself.

And so Doobie rolled up her sleeves and without further ado, started attacking the pile with renewed determination. As she continued to plug away at it, her progress was punctuated and accompanied by constant mutterings under her breath.

Rush rush rush, and soon enough (far too soon), it was time to go. So together we dragged the suitcases (each weighing about as much as ourselves) down to the road, and hailed a cab. Quickly I hugged her, packed her into the cab, and before I new it, she was off.

I breathed a sigh, feeling suddenly underwhelmed. The moment reminded me of having dropped Bobbis off in her cab, two weeks ago, as she headed off to Bombay. And having said goodbye to Ilajna three days ago, as she headed off to Toronto. And suddenly, as Doobs' cab disappeared around the corner, I realised I was alone tonight.

This is the second night I have ever spent an evening alone in my life. I know, I've counted. The other time was once in London about 4 years ago.

So naturally, when I got back to my apartment, I was somewhat out of sorts. I triple-locked the door, but it wasn't a concern about security, really. It was the odd silence that came from no one calling out 'helllo!!!' when I entered the apartment. And no one squabbling over what program to watch on the telly. Disconcerting, really.

"Are you scared?" Delta asked when he called.
"No, not really, it just feels weird." I couldn't pinpoint it exactly.
"Weird like as in scared weird?"
"No, not at the moment, but I promise if I see a roach or anything I'm going to come running over to yours even if it's the middle of the night." I knew I wouldn't see a roach or anything, but it was comforting to say that all the same.

Turns out, it wasn't so different from any other night after all. Watched a spot of telly, read a bit, checked my emails and scanned the web. When it got too quiet, I voiced my thoughts out loud, and the inanity of the situation cheered me up instantly.

And most importantly, I survived to tell the tale. Now I know, having done it twice before, that I can indeed survive a night or two by myself.

Resolutions, for what they're worth

I'm not quite sure why I make resolutions for myself each year, given my poor track record for success. Still, they fill me with hope, I suppose. Anyways, no harm done in lofty aspirations, right?

Last year, I made three resolutions, which I wrote on a large yellow post-it and stuck it on my office closet at work. I figured that way I would see it every morning, and hopefully it would automatically get absorbed into my everyday life through some form of behavioural osmosis. What I'd forgotten to take into account is how little I actually look at my closet (and therefore at the post it). I guess that's what to blame for my little failures this year - the wrong place I stuck the post it.

Resolutions for 2007:
- Be healthier: dubious success. I mean, I quit my gym right at the beginning of 2007, probably a week after making the resolution. But then again I started walking to work, and on those days that I'm not accosted by giraffes, I feel I do make my life infinitesimally healthier. Also started drinking coffee through a straw, which works to my social detriment, but in the long run Simmer has promised me it makes for whiter teeth.

- Swear less: moderate success. I've curbed my swearing from external expletives to a little angry woman shouting in my head, which might very well one day explode, but for the benefit of the rest of the world yonder, I'm calm as a cucumber. I say 'moderate success' because the other day I was in Richie Rich's office and I clean forgot he was in there with me. I received an email of some consternation, and immediately shouted, "shite shite shite shite shite!"

There was a moment of silence. Then, "wow that's the first time I've heard you swear," Richie Rich commented. Which is testament to my success, I suppose, in its own muted way.

- Be more sensible: abject failure. There is no evidence over the past year of increased sensibleness (grown-upness?) from my side, instead I've come to further embrace the joys of insensibilities, which means this objective is off the agenda and therefore no longer relevant. Look how that worked out, a win-win.

Now what in the world am I going to resolve to accomplish (or fail to) in 2008?! I'm tempted to say 'learn Spanish', but given my track record, it does appear that if I make this my resolution then I likely won't accomplish it, and I really do want to learn Spanish.

A catch 22. Sigh.