Cry Baby

There is that feeling that I have my proverbial wires crossed. Look, people have died on me and all I've done is packed their belongings, swept the floor and called the rest of the family. So I'm not exactly the sort to go all to bits. UNLESS apparently I hit my head really hard on the railing of the bunk bed I'm occupying currently. Then everybody's scrambling for dry land.

The big stuff I can weather; the silly stuff, I'm hapless against. Falling down new-camera-lens-forward, having my knees jam into concrete in the presence of several pitying tourists, losing a sizeable chunk of my shoe fund because I forgot to ask 'what rate?' when changing basically ALL my cash, running out of M&Ms when I least expect it and finding that sometimes One-size-fits-alls don't exactly fit me.

Lots of soggy tissues in the wastepaper basket today, basically.

हजारों ख्वाहिशें ऐसी कि हर ख्वाहिश पे दम निकले

बहुत निकले मेरे अरमाँ, लेकिन फिर भी कम निकले

Things I Will Never Tire Of...

- Little old Japanese ladies wearing visors.
- Meat and potatoes. You know how you once looked at an obese person and thought 'geez how'd they let themselves get that way?'? I'm understanding slowly - I don't recognise the hanging gut and billowing thighs in the mirror at all. (I am very worried about this actually, but more on that later).
- Looking at candid pictures of celebrities
- Buying tonnes of eye make-up I'll never use.
- Watching (often shamelessly gawping at) people. The shapes of their silences, the way they shuffle their feet, the way their fingers grip a spoon and the way they arrange themselves around life's awkwardness in general.
- Wondering about my place in the scheme of the world. Actually, no, I don't enjoy this. It pummels at my brain endlessly, questioning questioning all the time. I've forgotten how to live in the moment. In fact, when I suspect I've met someone with a proclivity for living in the moment, I try to get as far from him/her as possible. I don't want this, but that wont do either.
- Stewed peaches. Finally I have an answer to at least one in the spectrum of 'What is your favourite _______?' questions. My favourite dessert is peach compote. This is progress.

And for (badly taken) picture of the day...

They stopped kissing when I walked by & he asked if I'd take a picture. He showed her  off and she was shy & mock embarrassed. <3

It's Been That Kind of Day

Not how I'm feeling at all right now. Nope, not me.

You know you're down on your luck when you have a sugar craving and all you can afford are cruddy digestive biscuits.

Have lost my blasted glasses yet again so yes, take it away, migraines!

I have always waxed eloquent about the balls of my feet - poetic things like sand grazing them and water tickling them like a shameless teenager with no reserve whatsoever. But I've only just met them, like really met them. They are not pleasant things, these, especially after they've been pounding pavements for 10 hours each day.

I think I'm quickly turning into what are usually known as 'humourless broads'. When I see people kissing in public and squeegeeing each others fun parts, I get all red in the face and squinty-eyed with judgement. Is that weird? I have to point out, in my defence, that this kind of kissing is less sweet, more alarming. Also, is EVERYONE in love or something? I'm glad I'm not part of the cliche. I'm single and grouchy and have recently relaxed into wearing granny chuddies most of the time. Me:1; Love: Thenga.

That's all folks. I shall now spend several minutes talking my butt out of this chair and back on the road. Viszlát! (I think)

This and That

The last few days have been a sensory overload. In a mostly good way. The excesses were many - too much beauty, food, melancholy, art, aches and pains, sleeplessness, satisfaction, gratitude and as always, enough confusion to make me feel like myself :-/.

Slumbering Woman by Johann Baptist Reiter

 

Cardinal and Nun by Egon Schiele

If love should mean rapture, then I have either been in love hundreds of times or never once.

Slumped Shoulders

I suspect I have what my mother calls a 'black tongue' when she's feeling particularly provincial. A black tongue, for the uninitiated and the minimally Mangalorian, is the 'mooh' in 'Tere mooh mein keedey, tere mooh mein dhool'. It is the harbinger of inauspicious, unfortunate circumstances and its proprietor is roundly decreed by all, a bloody nuisance. Folks, I have a sixth sense for the awful.

Thing is pessimism is my chief defence mechanism. I fetter my expectations to the bleakest eventuality and figure it can only be good news from thereon. I'm the Worst Case Scenario girl. The girl that, when everyone's chirruping about how we're going to have a big posy of an outcome, will go deathly quiet and nod weakly.

Grimacing and scorn... "What? What? Just say it."
Sheepishness and shame... "I don't know what you're talking about."
Irritation and exasperation... ". . ."
Hijacked and pleading... "WHAT IF IT'S AWFUL? WHAT IF IT SUCKS SO HARD WE'LL NEVER RECOVER? WHAT IF IT REDUCES US TO EMPTY SHELLS OF HUMAN BEINGS IRREVO-IRREVI...I-R-R-E-V-O-C-A-B-L-Y?"

Glaring and subtle gulping. Resumed chirruping but now a touch uncertainly. Setting down the plate extra hard when I ask for the bread to be passed.

Mercifully, I've been wrong every time it has come to other people's potential misfortunes and this led me, quite foolishly, to risk some optimism in my own affairs...
Last year, I lost seven phones in a span of 6 months, each within 2 to13 hours of thinking 'Hey, I've not lost this phone in a while."  Or "Wow I'm really growing up, I'm so responsi... WHERE THE HELL IS MY PASSPORT?! I'M GOING TO BE STRANDED IN THIS AWFUL COUNTRY I'VE BEEN PRETENDING TO LIKE." OR, and this happened twice, "I think this might be it, he's the one. Yep." Next day/ week, relationship kaput.

Now when I feel optimism or self-congratulation threatening to ruin things, I quickly distract myself until the feeling passes. I've been disaster-free for a couple of days now. It's quite dull, really.

The Way Forward

 I wish to be like the sea,

formidable without intention.

I shall come and I shall go

and with me I will bring happiness

so crackpot simple, it cannot be second-guessed.

So too abiding loss to drown the heart.

A thousand times I will promise intoxication

without as much as a word.

When I roar, I will be heard -

colossus without mercy, watery impasse.

And all the time,

I shall not have once thought about it. 

 Loveliest thing I've seen and heard in a while. Thanks KK.