Yes, yes I'm going back to study in a quick minute

But first. Seen on a chat window.

"You know what would be a fun Ponds ad?

Show one pond. Then zoom out and show two ponds.

And just blank screen to

Ponds.

Hahaha"

The 'Xam is Upon Me

Which means my brain is categorically refusing to have anything to do with any manner of reading/ studying/ absorbing/ learning. I am hoping that I still have some flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants left in me. Meanwhile my thoughts are pulling apart in many vague, irrelevant directions.

Please enlist them, Gyuri, we're so intrigued?

Well when you put it like that... here's some of them. (If I'm wasting precious minutes not studying, it's because of you.)


My mind is like an industrial strength sieve. Nothing sticks, my memory's developed leaks, details just elude me. It's why, though I'm decently read, you'll often hear me talking about 'that book' in which 'that guy, no no that other guy' did 'that thing'.

I really, really like how women look when they're playing the guitar. I think more than wanting to play the guitar for 'the music', it was wanting to look that way that made me get one. Then I found the strings really, really hurt the fingers, you know? I still harbour some ambition on this account, though.

I'm convinced my exam centre is a place of knowledge by day, and a urinal for weary truckers by night. Will I be carting unholy amounts of tissue along for my papers? You bet!

I don't think the world can afford to lose Terry Pratchett. Or Havelock Vetinari. Or Sargeant Nobbs, or Captain Vimes or Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler or Granny Weatherwax. The whole Discworld really. And it's going to.

Letting go of the past functions much like my Mum's Asthalin pump. One minute you're suffocating, next minute you're exhaling with relief. Your chest doesn't feel constricted anymore, you can hear better, and your eyesight clears right up.

Cheesy lines only irritate when they're being used on everyone but you.

I have not been out in longer than I care to remember. Mojitos, some retro music and good company is a cliche I could very much use right now.

The minute I get a sense that you're playing to the gallery, you've lost me. The minute I get a sense that you don't care what I think about you, you've got me.

I cannot wait to land another role in a play. Even if it's a minute long. Barring that, being backstage hand sounds pretty good too.

I've met a bunch of people who do not have Facebook accounts. They're alive, well and seem to be thriving socially nonetheless. With a very low propensity for breaking out into impromptu photo-sessions, I might add.

I say 'fuck' too much. People think it's very unbecoming. Let them think. Fuck.

Dlisted has been an endless repository of sadistic laughs. Michael K, you're going straight to hell. I hope you aren't gay as a pink unicorn there because we can do sexy times when I get up there myself.

I haven't been crazy mad in a long time. Irritable, yes. Cross, yes. Mad, no. I'm certain it's not because I'm a mature adult. I just don't think I care enough. Oh well. All's the better for me. I look ten kinds of ugly when I'm mad.

If I pass this exam, I'll feel bad for people who actually studied. If I don't, it will be right only.

Today I make my stage debut.

Wish me luck. This could go either way.

Rose tinted glasses don't suit me one bit

I am convinced that I have reached the very end of any possible innocence I had left post-puberty, porn and peroxide. Lately I seem to have trouble holding the cynic in me down. Alot less is cute, alot less is understandable, alot less is falls into the 'Oh, it's nothing' scheme of things.

It came to me today, on the train ride to Malad (which for local train-virgins is as far as it sounds, just like Vangaon and Titvala). I was standing at the door, eyes closed and enjoying the rhythm of the rail tracks when suddenly I hear annoying voices. Goes without saying, they belonged to two kids (The girl looked about 4, and the boy about 8-9), who belonged to a mother with an equally grating voice. Now here's the part that creeped me out.

The little girl was being tantrumy as little girls often tend to be. Nothing out of the ordinary there. The mother was fawning endlessly and semi-babytalking them which seemed inappropriate but still not anything to get worried over. But the boy, now the boy was being a bit strange. In my life experience, boys that age think it's emasculating to be seen being fawned over. Not this one. This one was all over his mother. And for some inexplicable reason, he kept, um, fondling her chest? I just don't know why. "Mummy yeh dekho," while holding her chest. "Mummy, next station kaunsa hai?" again, hands on her chest. Maybe I'm reaching here, but I could've sworn he was trying to find reasons to put his hands on her chest.
And I felt myself dislike him. A little boy!

Maybe I'm looking too much into this and maybe that makes me the creep here, but does anyone else find that quite as disturbing as I did? Does this fall within the normal boundary of parent-child behaviour? It's similar to when I see older teenage or early twenty-something guys get physically affectionate with babies, especially girl babies. It just makes me uncomfortable. And a bit sad that I've come to be so skittish about these things.

A special thanks to the Josef Fritzls of the world. I blame you.

Project Get Shit Together (TM) begins today

It's been a long time coming. And I think it's finally here. I've left much too much upto whimsy so far - today onwards my life gets a shot of purpose in the arm. I'm told this won't hurt at all by the mater but then she also told me castor oil 'doesn't taste so bad', so I'm not dwelling too much on her opinion here.

That said, I think I know myself well enough to know I embrace change best when I don't know it's happened. So baby steps. I thought I'd set a few ballpark rules to give the project some form, though.

They are:

- Don't say 'yes' if you mean 'let's see'. Most of my unfinished business started that way.
- Go one way or the other. Make a choice. Stick with it.
- Get 8 hours of sleep, no compromise.
- Do it right then. Not after one (or ten) episodes of F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
- MTV Roadies is where useful minutes of life go to be buggered and die.

Yerp. That about does it. I will add to the list along the way.

This blog is where I'll be charting my daily progress.

"All the best, Gyurkovics"? "Sure you'll smash it, Gyurkovics"?

No?

Okay.

When cheese makes er, sense?

Watched Dan In Real Life the other day. Again. All the usual adjectives, yeah - formulaic but nice, conversational, Steve Carrel is awesome times infinity, etc. I don't get Juliette Binoche yet but I'm willing to give it time.

Anyhoo, the point I'm coming to is the line in the movie that goes "I'll forgive you your past, if you forgive me mine." I experienced something approaching the dry heaves when I heard that - anymore in that vein and I'd hate the movie, so kudos to the writers for reining in the emos - but it did make me think for a second.

Look.
I am a creature of habit or have been for most part of my life. When I place myself in an equation, I have to know every last bit there is to know or atleast a substantial amount before I decide to invest. (It's why I make wagers only when I know I'm right :D).

Which brings me to relationships and how forgiving someone's past (assuming there is something that needs forgiving) comes so naturally to some people. It doesn't to me. In my opinion and a fair bit of experience as well now, if you did it once, you'll do it again. I've heard the "it happened long ago, how does it matter?" or the "I wasn't thinking straight" and they don't bode well with me. And who really, really forgives and forgets? The first instant that the situation develops cracks, aren't the person's past misdemeanours going to be the first thing that cross your mind? Noone forgives and forgets. It's just postponed till something crappy happens.

I think more than being so nauseatingly virtuous, it's just about having the gonads to knowingly make a bad decision, hope like hell the chance you're taking pays off and have noone but yourself to blame if it doesn't.

Take a baseball bat to the crap-stuffed painata, I says. Do it.

Ho Hum

My life could best be described as organised chaos right now. I've obviously bitten off more than I can chew, juggling three very different um, balls? Forgive me, I'm very prone to mixing my analogies.

From spending every waking hour near-comatose in front of the TV/ Comp, I find I can barely manage to sit down anymore. There's always somewhere to head. something to do. My couch-potato self of a few weeks ago would be mortified - this would be her worst nightmare. I'm feeling pretty good though.

I've spent the better part of the last two weeks on trains, trying desperately to understand how on earth Grammar got so mathematical while corpulent women try to shove their sweaty boobs/ abdomens/ kids in my book and face. I've made two eunuch acquaintances - we smile our acknowledgement everytime we see one another.

On the personal front, I'm finding myself surprised. There's a big 'what, really?' and some little ones hanging over me head. I don't know, the plan for now is just to wait and see. Also, this cool 'Single in the City' thing I imagined I'd do is going decidedly left of centre. I do not, for the life of me, know how to react when I hear a line. I start sweating profusely, fumbling and desperately searching for something to do with my hands (Awful, awful time to quit smoking!). I'm sure I look quite attractive doing that too. Yeesh. Like the succinct Parge says "Dude you're a dick."

The hair is doing better as far as staying on my head and not the shower drain goes. Expect it to behave itself, and I'm expecting too much. And it's been attracting odd attention.

Today in the train, the woman to my right nudges me and points to her right. That woman points to her right. The third woman looks at me sheepishly and says "Madam, is your hair real?"
I just smiled, it felt too strange to venture an actual answer.
I wonder if her Mister will hear of the girl in the train with the ridiculous curly-haired wig.