Category: General

Today was, well, quite awesome. The feeling of being abandoned is slowly being morphed to a sort of free. (Imagine the puppet in that wireless laptop ad running around the lawn all unthetered.) I’m not happy happy. I just feel.. free. Not accountable.

I’m slowly regaining control over my own happiness. And I’m a surprisingly happy person. Who’d have known?

At least until next relapse, anywho.

I can safely say this was the best hair day (and if there is something such as a skin day, that too) I’ve ever had, ever. I’ve lost (or misplaced or had stolen or …) three hats over the past few weeks and I’ve been forced to gradually change to a continuous ponytail for about a week now. For the past few days I’ve been tying it rather effortlessly without a mirror. And today it happened, the epitome in quality of (my personal) hair styling.

Again, pretty much by definition. At the rate I’m losing hair, in a little while I won’t even have a hair day. Forget good, great, or best ever.

And I’ve been reconsidering working out. And by working out I mean slow jog or long walk. Because no matter what women tell me about being funny, you don’t see them trampling over Brad Pitt in a stampede to get to Gilbert Gottfried now, do you?

I was up late last night all alone fishing around with colour tables trying to come up with combinations for art someone else’d find cute, hash and rehash humour ideas and fun wordplay that I hoped would make someone else smile, go through this seemingly infinite play list (favouring those I could sing, well) in my head to come up with “an irresistible” subset to precisely articulate all that I needed said to someone else. (By “an irresistible”, I think I was hoping I’d be irresistible after the recipient heard it? I don’t really know.)

And then it happened, I snapped. I stopped seeing the purpose in what I was doing or what I hoped to achieve. I was literally screaming “Good god what am I doing with my life” internally. It think it hit me, hard, that some things aren’t designed to be fixed with effort.

I’ve now indefinitely shelved 3 or 4 attempts at “expression masked with fluff”. And, at the moment, I hope I don’t weaken and ever reopen them again unless I’m very sure it’s going to result in something tangible. Something more than me having to deal with the hurt of attempting to open myself, just to have it seem pale in comparison to other things I cannot always comprehend or match up to. It’s like, when you’re this drug addict (according to what I see and hear from the media anyway), you have to hit this extremely low point before you realize everything’s a horrid mess and needs to be revamped. Not revamped to become glorious. Just to be ok – to be on par with some generic measure of central tendency.

I think I reached that point last night. Not that it was terribly different or depressing or anything like that. It got to be that point by definition. It made me decide to force myself to attempt to make sure every day from that point on is going to be.. more. More fun, meaningful, productive, memorable, … or anything. Just be and mean a little more than what my days are currently amounting to. I’m going to take subtle (and not so subtle) yet concrete steps to turn this around. I’m going to work on me and aspects of my life until I’m out of this rut. I am going to keep telling myself something like this until I really see some progress. As a starter, not like I really used it, I removed the yellow stickey with her number (which for some reason seems like so much more than a bit of paper) from my wallet. See? subtle, yet concrete.

It’s so fishing ironic when you really think about it. When things are just.. there, you fail to comprehend how much they mean to you. You don’t necessarily want them all the time, or spend hours and days thinking about having them. Once they’re gone, you suddenly begin to miss them. Miss them very much. You suddenly realize all this want and need that hadn’t surfaced at a point when it probably would have made a world of difference. Which leads me to wonder, is any of this real? Or is it just the tantrum throwing child in you. You’re just screaming and wailing and trying your best to portray how much the doll or whatever means to you, because you’re quite sure you aren’t getting it. Least you can do is make everyone else around feel a little guilty in denying you.

I think internally I’ve always pitied people wasting their lives over things they can’t have and points they cannot reach. (Not necessarily great things or great points, just ones that will not materialize for them.) At some point I’ve morphed to that person.

Ok, something needs to be done.

I got back my check.

Remember kids, the moral of the story is, no, not to check if you’ve pasted stamps before dropping mail into a mailbox. Now sshhh and listen. The moral of the story is that no good can come out of doing something a week before a deadline. Remember it well.

Unrelated, I was hanging out on this little hill outside my home, and I suddenly hear this person calling out a couple of names. I then realized she was calling out for her dogs that were running toward the brave one, me. One was average sized, but the other was rather large, and could have had its way with me if it wanted. And then it happened, I made a huge breakthrough with respect to my fear of creatures I can’t talk to. I didn’t scream like a 3 year old and run away, I stayed my ground while the things were sniffing me and slobbering over my leg. Sure, I was petrified, and I’m still a little shaky, but she assumed I was a dog person. That’s what counts, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what it is. I suddenly realized I’ll be leaving this home in a few months. I don’t want to. I think I’m scared because I’ve been through quite a few changes and I don’t seem particularly happy as a result. I don’t know.

I was planning to put something else down, but now all of it is a blur in my head. I don’t know what it was, and I don’t care. I’ve got goose bumps all over and all my hairs are standing straight up.

For the first time, I really listened to Urban Hymns. I’ve heard it many times before, but I hadn’t hit me. This is as close to the ultimate music album as it gets. There is an extreme level of emotional intensity that is maintained throughout the album I hadn’t experienced before. I just didn’t see how deep the lyrics went. I didn’t even know I particularly cared about the lyrics of songs.

It’s life, happiness, sadness, space, time,.. and everything else on a CD. I’m indescribably moved, peaceful, euphoric … so much. I am sure you’ll be affected too.. on a higher.. a sort of spiritual level if you actually listen to this album. Good god, I wonder what this means for The Masterplan. And I’m beginning to see the pattern, the songs I find truly glorious have beautiful orchestral backup.

Here’s a quick sampler of the kind of brilliance that is in store.

Happiness,
More or less
It’s just a change in me
Something in my liberty
Oh, my, my!
Happiness,
Coming and going
I watch you look at me
Watch my fever growing
I know, just where I am
But how many corners do I have to turn?
How many times do I have to learn?
All the love I have is in my mind!
Well, I’m a lucky man

Richard Ashcroft is a genius. Sigh (a peacefully happy one). I feel all feline now. Stretching, curling up, softly purring and of course, coughing up hair. Good god, I feel invincible. It’s just music? Maybe to you.

Maybe it’s time to make my ultimate mixed collection. No, not for you, you, you or you.

For me.

Of course, I noted on the Amazon page that people who bought this also bought (What’s the Story) Morning Glory. (Another glorious album by a most awesome band). Anyway, the point being I was furiously reading up on the history between these people. And guess what Noel had to say about “Cast no shadow.”

“Richard wasn’t very happy for a while so l wrote it for him and about three weeks later he quit his band (The Verve). It’s about songwriters in general who are desperately trying to say something. I’d like to be able to write really meaningful lyrics but I always end up talking about drugs or sex. But people like Richard and Paul Weller will look after me. This song is dedicated to the genius of Richard Ashcroft.”

The only time history’s fun is when it involves alt. brit. rock. I am heading off to bask in this glorious feeling. Night.

NP. The Verve – Urban Hymns
Yes, I got all teary on “Lucky Man” too.
And no, I have not been paid by the band to write this for them. Besides, the band doesn’t exist as a band anymore.

No prizes for guessing which little tree was ostracized by all other trees because he found flowers prettier than leaves.

And wasn’t afraid to show it.

For the first time ever in my life, I decided to do something waaay before the deadline. I have no idea what came over me. I saw this bill sitting on the table this morning, and fully realizing it wasn’t due till more than ten days later, I wrote out the check. I put it in its little pre-addressed envelope and dropped it off in the nearest post box.

Without stamps.

God damnit.

I spent all my day shopping, for other people. Bought a lot of little (and not so little) and cute (and not so cute) stuff. It felt awesome, for the most part. I wish I were a kid or had one. And there were somethings which I kept leaning over to pick up, but I had to step back when I realized I didn’t have anyone to give those sorts of things to anymore.

I don’t like tearing up this often.

(I wonder why a scarily informative program on intersexuals I saw last night keeps popping up in my head. Arggh.)

Bittersweet symphony is life.

Remind me the next time. Just because there’s a channel with a South Park marathon running all night doesn’t mean I have to watch it.

*Groggily stumbles away*

Update: Orkut annoys me with its predictive capabilities every time that I login – “You will be fortunate in everything.”

Yeah, riiight.

There are a bunch of books on people’s experiences with autistic children in my aunt’s home. I’ve been reading one by this mother of an autistic child who handles advanced calculus classes at M.I.T, but at the same time cannot tie his shoe laces or speak a sentence. It was called, hmm, “From a mother’s heart” or something like that. I got into it almost wanting to be deeply moved and end up bawling.

No such thing. I know this woman has been through a lot, but she didn’t seem very nice and made it more about her than I expected it to be. Not.. motherly enough. Speaking of which, there is another woman I have a problem with. The one who gave up her baby on 20/20 yesterday. I will detail my issues with that scheme of events some other time.

And unrelated, I’ve been going through recent pictures to pick (yet another) one for my orkut profile. Social networking things are rather eventless (at least for relatively asocial people like myself), and this is the only sort of thing I really do on them. Anyway, I had this policy against posting (easy to access, not heavily filtered) full facial photos here. You know, for weird privacy concerns. But I figured I’ve put them up in places like orkut anyway, how much more damage could I be doing?

Here’s one of them that didn’t make the cut for the dumbest reason. Anyway, I’ve got this soft focus thing down to a fishing science.

Yes, I think this was taken around the time I took this, too.

This is a blast from the relative past. I have this system where I pile up things I need said in various buffers, notepads in real life, compartments in my brain, and text buffers on the computer. Now they’re all overflowing with “externally unsaid stuff” and need to be purged, for sanity retention. There will hence be periodic random bursts like this. This was me screaming into a bag a while ago. I don’t necessarily feel any of this now, plus stuff’s changed. I just need to get it out of here as I see it every time I come to this file to jot something down, and it’s bothering me.

I thought I was pretty much through this last evening before I went to bed. I seemed peaceful enough, but I ended up tossing and turning instead when a bunch of loose ends kept popping up. I woke, often, with some odd thought relating to her tone, or something she’d said.

I thought I had decided I wouldn’t let it bother me. Damn it, I want to stop being affected. I want to be happy.

– Who cares how he would feel when/if told about the nature of our relationship? Is she ashamed of us? Of me?
   – Didn’t she ever need anything I tried to do?
– Why do men who come into her life now (or even earlier, come to think of it) get different treatment? Why was I told all the details in all their glory? Wouldn’t things be different if she hid them from me too? They aren’t told the details, so they can’t automatically assume my role, so will always be “different” in her eyes. Does this mean,
   – She didn’t ever want me at all, so was willing to use me as this sort of sacrificial lamb?
     – Is that why I feel so used? That I feel she knew all of this, and put me through it because I can take it?
   – She told me, and saw where it led to, so she’s avoiding it with them?
   – She isn’t and won’t be as comfortable and totally honest with other people, even if it is to avoid complications?
– Can you ever know too much about someone? How could you possibly know so much about someone being their friend becomes weird. Where is this “magic point” where it enters the “domain of love” when you just can’t be comfortable with a friend of the opposite (or same, if your preferences are different from mine) sex.
– Do I, what we’ve been through, mean so little to her that she can just forget it ever happened and go on to live happily ever after?
   – If yes, why can’t I begin to feel that way? Why am I so stuck and feeling all dumped?
   – Would she be so positive about things if he didn’t exist in the picture? Am I right in assuming this unified (60-40% split?) decision to wean off each other is easier on her because she’s been drawn to someone else for some time now?
– Who is she to keep doing this and affecting me like this anymore?
   – Don’t you give up that right after you dump someone? Why do I let her control so much, when she’s taken away so much?
– How “raw” can your connection be to someone, when you’ve not been entirely forthcoming about facts that form an important facet of your life?

I repeat, sanity retention.

And oh, the test, well if only life were comparably piece of cakey.

All together now, awwwww.

I’ve got this final exam test tomorrow. And since I’m this self proclaimed bastion of knowledge, (and because I’ve apparently got many more important things piled up) I treated it like I treat anything else of this sort, a minor inconvenience. And expectedly, I’ve goofed off until now. (Well, not now now, now as in after the Friends episode in about half an hour from now. So technically, I will goof off until then.) It doesn’t help that I’ve aced the class so far, and with all the leeway granted to you by the joys of “continuous evaluation”, you’re really not all that pressured into doing things for fear of, say, getting a bad grade.

Another problem here is it’s not particularly interesting. It starts of all fun and new, but gets quite boringly repetitive in a bit. And I wanted to read (yes, you can read math) for it like I’m reading a book (if I do read one I mean), but I just received this email saying I’ve got to go through some details in specific questions before taking the test.

Which means it’s going to be a long night.
And I’m cranky.

Where did you not want to go today?^TM

I saw High Fidelity again yesterday. I was sobbing like a little baby.

So this is how it works, though I wonder why. For a while you’ll be all normal, dousing yourself in the mundaneness of everyday life. You lock yourself up (metaphorically) in this little room and put in the many many hours of studying (or working or singing or … ) a day. You attempt to get on with whatever it is that you do, and keep yourself … I guess the word I’m looking for is .. occupied. It’s a life. You start .. attempting to suck .. happiness from the smallest of sources. I mean? What’s this all about? It’s a survival mechanism. While I’m.. admiring this pretty flower while avoiding that nasty looking bee, I’m not hurting myself with want clouded memories.

Not particularly happening, but it works.

But not well enough. Then there’s this one small thing, (actually it’s many small and/or big things, since just about anything you see/do/hear/smell.. can trigger these emotions) and you’re back to exactly where you didn’t want to be. You’re suddenly pining away, this rush of memories and wants and hopes and all that hit you. They trigger emotions you’d kept (you thought) quite well leashed. You suddenly feel all lost and alone.

It doesn’t serve too much of a purpose. It’s almost like you enjoy arbitrarily torturing yourself.

You’d think rational people’d go, hmm, so it doesn’t serve a purpose, let’s kill the feeling. But it’s not as easy as that, obviously. Then there’s the constriction of communication channels. You can’t rush out and say things the way you once could, because now you’re not really sure what’s out of bounds. I mean, with changes come new boundaries, and you’re always worried about screwing up some more.

It’s like, you’re probably thinking along the lines of, “If I had the chance to hang out with the coolest people in the world, or be with this <insert insanely desirable quality here> person, or stay at home and be beaten at scrabble (while I was attempting to cheat none the less) by you, I’d still definitely pick you.” I mean, sure this sort of thing might work in a movie or some such, but what if circumstances are so that you can’t say it like that. Or that you can, but it won’t make a difference. However, come to think of it, I doubt however it’s said it will make any difference. It’s just, for whatever reason there’s this need to dream up ways of saying something like this without actually saying saying anything.

Meet a few hours of toiling away’s worth of an image.

Of course, the colours chosen are significant. And she has this fascination for rings. And I can be, well, a stone emotionally. So there you have it. The deal being, the stone is close enough to her to pull off that reflection. Meaning, where this stone wants to be. Close. Even if just as some cold inanimate presence.

There are a bunch of subtleties I won’t bore you with. But the deal is to say as much as you can with actually saying as little as possible. That way you don’t go out of bounds, and if understood, great. If not, it’s just some picture which ends up in some folder, or worse.

But sadly, this sucks on one more (selfish) level too. Which I fear is the most detrimental. The moment someone else out there indicates the slightest interest in talking to me, (which we sneakily construe as interest in me), I can kill it in an instant, like now, with this sort of behaviour. Your head’s all, ok, be all cool and understated, it’s going to be fine.

And then BAM!, this is the sort of thing you do anyway.

Man it’s hard not being suave.

:) (Yes, an honest to goodness smiley. A rare commodity that.)

The most amazing thing happened yesterday. Someone actually dedicated something to me. Yes, you read it right. I inspired someone else, and they put up an apt picture dedicated to yours truly.

(I was waiting for it to get off the front page, so I could link to its permalink, but I got impatient and linked to the home page. Will tweak this page when she updates hers.)

I’m so excited I could, I could.. do a cartwheel… coupled with back flip!
*Falls over clumsily*
Well, maybe not.

So check out this insanely talented (cleverly disguising herself as a paper-pusher) woman’s showcase. I’ve plugged her before, but with good reason. Her work is very pretty. (No, I don’t know any bigger words than pretty, you vocabulary god(dess) you. You have to get what I am trying to say.) And it makes me smile internally. (No, I don’t plan to explain what that means either.)

(I know her usage policy now reads I shouldn’t steal her images without asking, but I was devious. This image was sneakily stolen before that was up. I’ve been meaning to do this plug for a long time now, just never got around to doing it. I doubt she’d mind, but if things go awry, this picture won’t be up tomorow.)

Now, the following is an obligatory plug. Because I’m shameless and you can’t stop me. I’ve been working on the art pages, and a couple are beginning to take shape. Sure, there is no real new content, but it’s the backend I like working on. Once that’s done, things should be (relatively) oft updated, like the new photo pages.

Art :: Screen shots
Art :: Text effects

I’ve tried really hard to avoid writing about this, but I’m apparently not the king of self control I make myself out to be. Obviously, standard stupidity disclaimers apply, IAJAG^*.

I spent some time in the mall today, and with the amazing pastel and floral spring line up for little girls, I just stood there staring wishing I was ten again. And female.

(That’s more than you needed to know. Moving along with what I really wanted to talk about.)

I’m scared. Well, I’ve been angry for a chunk of my life, but now that’s morphed to cold fear. I regard being handed a Y-chromosome (or whatever else it is, biologically) and consequently being born a human male as one of the greatest injustices in the history of the universe. Somewhere in the league of… people having the ability to kill each other arbitrarily. Yes, this is a huge deal.

I could branch of into this, “how much cooler it is to be a female” sermon, but I will reserve that for a weaker moment. For now, I will take a small detour into male suckiness, and get to the point. Guys are, to put it mildly, not very bright. We serve little purpose, and don’t contribute a great deal toward the overall progress of anything. We usually aren’t clean, organized, thoughtful or sensitive. We can be mean, rude, and our humour can be very, very crude. So crude you need to be told it was a joke and that we were offended you didn’t even giggle.

By now you’ve all heard all the jokes everywhere. “Now all women need is a device to open pickle jars, we’re doomed”. Or, “Now all they need is a spider crushing device, we’re doomed”.

And me? I wasn’t ever strong enough to be asked to open a jar. When there was a mouse or some such around, I’d be the first to jump up and scream like a three year old (you know, when she gets to see Justin Timberlake? or whoever else the youngins worship these days) on the coffee table. I wasn’t of too much use in any of those departments, unless my screams scared the little mouse away.

However, I could always take solace in the little things I assumed couldn’t change. I mean, she had to have me around for some stuff. She just had to. Me and my kind couldn’t be discarded while life as a whole goes on happier than it’s ever been. Or could it?

We now have the genius scientists coming up with baby mice with two mommies. No, not one dad and the woman realising she’s lesbian and running of with another hot woman style two mothers. Just the two mothers, and the wonders (or horror, if you’re looking at it from where I am) of parthenogenesis.

Which reminds me, imminent redundancy.