Here today, gone today

I feel very worried and vexed lately and I blame it on love. Lately it has got me thinking, which if you've been in love, I don't need to tell you is a pretty rare occurrence.
I just think the emotion has become much too fashionable for me. Everyday I feel like it just gets that much more ephemeral, that much more conditional and that much easier to just snap.
I heard of a man who changed his mind overnight, about the woman he was to marry. 'Too screechy', he said and walked away unhurriedly.
Another one, the day he found a woman whose favourite book was his favourite book. "Her favourite book is my favourite book," he cried defensively, "you don't even read books!" And he too was gone.
The woman was certain she'd found the one. Very easy on the eye, loves her parakeet and made her autistic cousin smile. Then the sex happened. His saliva is too cold and he's not thorough, if you know what I mean.
I once decided I wasn't gung ho about a rather nice boy because his jokes were too obvious.
Like I said, love's gotten trendy. It has its own zip code and favourite brand of post-modern poetry and if you don't fit, you don't fit, sorry chappie, go get an upgrade.
D'you think it's the reason we don't hear of those terribly romantic woodcutter-weds-princess style stories anymore? I think we just threw up our hands at some point and let it all go to hell. Sameness is comforting, sameness doesn't need work and when you come home after a 9 hour day + 2 hours of fighting for standing space in the Thane Fast, and he wants to watch cricket and you want to watch Dexter, you're just through.

When I have time, I wonder

Too many times in the past week I've gone 'I know! Exactly!' while watching Dexter. Commiserating with a vigilante serial killer. For someone who is so dead against even capital punishment, this is brand new.

Sometimes I wonder if, as a generation, we're all pansies or getting there quickly. I think the people I know alone keep the hand sanitizer industry afloat and not attending close family funerals because you 'cannot deal with it'? When did it get okay to indulge your neuroses so much?

This has been a bad month for trust. Sometimes all you can hear is the empty clanking sounds of long cherished concepts as they fall about your feet. Is it still trust if you know you won't be surprised if the things you're most afraid will happen, do?

Writing is not therapeutic for me anymore, it's become this anxious, regimented farce. I feel terribly close to just letting it all go to hell.

I haven't touched a cigarette in nearly two weeks now. Now that I'm a non-smoker, I want my testimony to be heard: This sucks. It's more sanitary, sure, but more suffocating too. Giving up was the easy bit. Making your peace with now being on the side of The Righteous Twats is harder.

How much do the choices of the people close to us, reflect on us? Think about it. If your boyfriend's last love made Fatal Attraction seem adorable and one of your closest friends adores someone who calls everyone 'babes' - what does that say about you? Are you the antidote? Or more frighteningly, do you share something in common with those people? Ever think, how could he/she have loved them and me?

I'm hideous. Confirmed.

It has happened folks. I know what the worst haircut in the world looks like. I've been staring in the mirror for some time.

It all started with an innocent enough trim at noon today. Then came the words 'broad forehead' quickly followed by the words 'shorter in the front' and nodding from both me and the stylist. Then I choose that moment to look down at the phone in my lap and text someone and only stop short when I hear a metallic snip. Now picture the next bit in slow-mo except that was the actual speed I was moving at. I look up very very slowly, hoping with EVERYTHING I hold holy, that that snip wasn't as near as I thought it sounded.

I stare into the mirror so intently, it's like I'm seeing myself for the first time. And I am. Where there used to be a broad, but unoffensively so, forehead is now a broad forehead with a tuft of hair curling so maddeningly, it's making me teethe.

"That is... short."

"I'm not done yet."

"No?"

*Two minutes later*

"Now, I'm done."

He moves aside and I see the formerly unruly tuft has been tamed. Except now my hair is looking like the bastard child of The Kate Gosselin and Elaine Benes' hair from early Seinfeld. It is flattened in front and starts running amok as you follow it to the back of my head.



No, seriously.

You know how people always say 'It could've been worse'? THIS haircut is what they're referring to. This is like the worst case scenario of haircuts. It's like the Amy Winehouse of addicted musicians, it is like the Rakhi Sawant of reality TV whores, it is like the Josef Fritzl of bad parents.

I hopped into church on the way back from the parlour to collect my house keys from the mother. This is church right? Place of worship? Communion with Jesus? Solemnity guaranteed? She. Laughs. She looks at me, midway through the Hail Mary, and laughs.

I'm not meeting anyone till next year. And by next year, I mean tomorrow. And by tomorrow I mean drunk.

I'm bringin' appreciation back!

Call me a slut for encouragement (Today I asked a friend to transfer her appreciation for my blog from Gchat to here so I could have ‘comments’ [This is your mention Shwetters! *waves*]) or just freakishly addicted to American sitcoms, but I am really dismayed by just how rarely people high-five each other anymore.

We’re dedicated to keeping internet dialects of English alive and kicking, in spoken conversation, no less! We haven’t gotten sick of uploading heavily photoshopped pictures of every last mundane activity of our lives (and nature) to Facebook. Some of us *wretches slightly* are still giving the middle finger whenever faced with a camera lens. Excruciatingly cool.

So then what happened to high-fiving?

What caused the death of this sublime culture of expressing encouragement and appreciation via well-coordinated claps of the hands at a slightly higher altitude? Is there any way that is less pre-meditated and quite so spontaneous as The High-Five? Are we afraid it makes us look stupid? People are still actively wearing Crocs, so that can’t be it. Why will we 'Like this' the crap out of people's Facebook status messages but are unwilling to lift an appreciative palm to let someone know they did good? Is it somehow too juvenile for us now? I don't know about you, but I still laugh at names like ‘Wang’ and videos of kittens head-butting each other endlessly. I’m a fully paid up member of Juvenileville. So what happened then?

I thought I’d leave space to accommodate that deafening silence.

Fine. Nevermind why. I’ve decided to be part of the solution. From now on I’m bringing back high-fiving. Every time I hear a good punch line henceforth, I’m high-fiving! Every time a friend of mine fits perfectly into an outfit, I’m high-fiving! Every time less that a friend of mine (you know who you are) says ‘Lol’, I’M HIGH-FIVING.

High-five me back ok? Don't leave me hanging now!

Idiot's Box!

I've watched more TV than should be lawfully allowed anywhere. I think it's my addiction this year. I develop one every year.

I don't drink much, I don't smoke much (anymore) and food too, I've been pretty restrained lately. The coffee and tea eating(don't ask)/ drinking stopped a long time ago too. But the damn telly! I can't seem to tear myself away from it.

So far has this gone that I have now formed a heirarchy of TV show types.

The ones I watch because I'm genuinely interested:

Sex and the City - I've never watched the show before and I want to see why it was so iconic. Some days I get it, other days I just don't.

Big Love - Because I love that it doesn't come across as overly contirved even though it obviously is. I think all the characters have amazing chemistry.

Heavy Petting - An animal show for you who're thinking 'too much information!'

ANTM - That Jade is a bitch!

The occasional cool movies on either HBO, Star or the hindi ones.

The ones I watch on auto pilot:

FRIENDS (hurrah! I resisted compulsive need to put full stops in between each letter) I like them still.

Seinfeld - They're still so funny.

All Reese Witherspoon movies. Formulaic. Cue joke. Laugh. Get warm fuzzy feeling.

The ones I watch because the only other option is doing actual work.

FRIENDS - Even though I've watched all episodes more than thrice. Could I be anymore lame?

The Wonder Years - There's nostalgia mixed with sadness because I'm too old to relate to Kevin anymore.

The Jimmy Kimmel Show - he just doesn't do it for me. He's good for a few underwhelming chuckles but he's no Conan O'Brien.

I suddenly feel very tired. More later...

It's been a bloody easy day's night

It's been a semi-fruitlful day mostly. This work-from-home business is easier than it sounds. Too easy actually. And when you have someone like me, who's prone to procrastination, like a freebie whore is prone to freebies, it's a task getting anything constructive done.
I have got to, got to, GOT TO start managing my time better. I'm begun taking baby steps. I've cut down on the mind-numbing hours I usually spend sprawled in front of the TV. I've convinced myself finally that I do not absolutely have to know if I remember every FRIENDS dialogue verbatim or whether Imraan Khan likes his mojitos virgin or potent. It's not that this stuff excites me. Okay maybe it does. But the main reason is that I'm trying to avoid something big. I know I must eventually do it and that I'll end up a miserable old woman if I don't. But right now, i'm just not able to gather the confidence to sit down and just do it. I'm afraid I'll find that I'm not very good at it and I don't think I could take it. I've pinned a lot of hope on this one.
And yes, I know that technically this counts as an excuse and it is. But it's very true too, go figure.
In better news, I cooked today, if you could call an underdone-on-one-side-and-overdone-on-the-other omelette cooking. I made tea too.
And in even better news, I didn't snack in between meals and actually got some official work done. So huzzah for the miniscule victories!
Now for the best news: Things are better with the fellow. We talked about stuff, figured we've got issues. And given how neither of us is big on the emotional sharing, a talk was good progress. We did a very nice dinner at the GoodEarth Cafe the other day. We laughed, talked and made inappropriate jokes - just like the normal happy times. I usually tend to avoid using phrases that would encourage what we used to refer to as 'non veg jokes', back when my mind wasn't a gutter, but. It warmed the cockles of my heart.

A Perfect Date