shouldive, wouldive, couldive

I was reading about quarter-life crisis in the newspaper today.

Apparently, it’s a phenomenon, especially amongst young working women. It all goes back to the pressure of what “should” be happening in your life.

You should be working, you should have a great job, you should be putting one hundred percent into what you’re doing, you should have a great friend circle – no, not one or two friends, like a group of confidantes who you should have amazing after work hours with. You should have an active social life – parties, weekends away – if not with your friends then with your should-have significant other. And if all that wasn’t enough – you should have a great slender body and be fit and active – especially because you should be having an active sex life.

It’s true. The pressure is immense. Thinking about it I don’t qualify for a lot of the ‘should’s’ listed – but that should be alright, right?

I mean after a long work day, you can’t be expected to transform into a stiletto-wearing, pub-hopping woman of the night – we don’t all live on the sets of Sex and the City.

And outside of work, which is about nine hours a day for me, where is the time to catch up with a circle of friends – who also may have lives outside of you? No, unfortunately we do not live on the sets of Friends either. Everyone needs to get home, everyone has to travel, it isn’t realistic to assume that people can just meet and chat for an hour, unless you live five minutes away from them.

And the significant others. Considering we have no time outside our nine hour days, we rarely meet people outside of our immediate work place, or outside our profession. Which limits the possibilities a tad, doesn’t it? Are we all expected to hook up within the circle like some kind of inter-career marriage ritual? Besides, what if you meet a teacher, and his work ends at 5 in the evening, while yours goes on for another four hours, by which time he is already home and uninterested in moving, or has made other plans?

And the body bit. How are you expected to keep a fit body when you have to eat whatever your canteen offers because you have no time to dictate your diet? How do you make time, 2 hours a day to go to the gym?

Note - people with fabulous bodies make it their life’s mission to have fabulous bodies.
You think those damned Pussycat Dolls do anything but yoga, gym and pilates?

Real woman have bodies dammit!

I feel for working women going through all this pressure. And the sad part is it’s not going to stop just because you’ve identified it. Apparently you should make a list about what you want to achieve before a certain time – in order to be happy in your life.

I almost made a list.

Then I realised it was just another ‘should’ – which really should stop, shouldn’t they?

buffalos don’t have wings

Isn’t it amazing? I let an entire Valentine’s Day pass without ranting and raving about my crappy luck with love?

Surprisingly though, I had a very nice Valentine’s. No, I did not find the man of my dreams nor did the current man in my life turn into a knight in shining armor.

I have been working with my ex art partner on this website design and concept. We work really well together and it was kind of sad when we parted ways. Now that we are back in the same office, we try to do stuff together as much as we can. She and I have been going crazy figuring out how this website will work and how it will look. We spent days thinking of a concept – and eventually we fell in love with what we got.

So on the 14th we had to present it to my boss, who would approve it or not. And he loved it. Our hard work was appreciated and he was very liberal with the compliments – which trust me, is not usually. He even called some other people to check it out. And when she and I hugged, he joined it – to her surprise and my horror.

Post work I went for a drink with a couple of friends to a place called 'Brew Bar' (Note - Long Island Ice Tea is the bomb). I did have a fight with the waiter though. He tried to pass off Chicken lollypops as Buffalo wings. And when I insisted that what was on the plate was not Bufflao Wings, he looked at my half finished glass of Long Island Ice Tea and said patiently, “Madam, Buffalos don’t have wings.” How can you argue with that? I won't even get into the Fish Fingers thing.

Post that, some of us went dancing. I was happy. I didn’t miss anyone. I didn’t pine for love. I didn’t feel sad for that entire day. The next day I was at work bright and early – worked a little more on my website, my baby and went home.

For a change it feels good not to be all messed up because of some stupid commercial holiday that is only for losers and victims of filmy crap.

I think if I did receive a stuffed animal, a heart shaped box of saccharine sweet candy or a bunch of vegetation, I’d run screaming in the opposite direction - probably to the nearest bar to get me one of 'em Long Island Ice Teas.

certifiable

After going to town to meet a friend who was leaving for the States, I took a cab to my old school. My mom, who was a teacher there for almost thirty-two years, was invited to an alumni function. There were mails going around for the last two months about this big function, but I was totally uninterested in going.

Thinking I would just pop in to tell my mom I was outside waiting for her, I ventured in, dressed in old jeans and a ratty black tee and my big basket bag. I walked around aimlessly looking for my mom, and looking to see if I recognised anyone from school. Some guys did look familiar – you know, just older with facial hair, the girls were dressed up to the nines. I looked completely out of place.

I found my mum surrounded by a group of big hulking men, all asking “Miss, do you recognise me? Class of ’89?”. My mother was in her element – it’s amazing how much she remembers. A man walked up to her and asked if she knew who he was – she looked at him and said – “Ali, Blue house, in the second grade, you looked up Mrs Wilma’s skirt and yelled out what fat thighs she had!”
Needless to say, Ali, now an airline captain and his wife were both amused and suitably embarrassed.

I told my mother I was going to wait outside for her, cause dad was coming too and we’d have dinner together. As I talked to my mom, I heard a table whisper my name, when I turned around I did not recognise any of them, “Juniors”, I thought, smugly.

As I was leaving, clutching my big bag, trying to look down and hoping against hope that no one would recognise me, being grossly under dressed and all, I looked up for a minute and was met with a big smile.

He used to be in the green house. Never tall. Always cute. I had a huge crush on him for a while. He was in my mother’s class when he was in the first grade. Now, twenty seven, dressed in a white shirt and grey trousers, he looked, well, smashing.

We talked for a while, he met my mother and we talked a little about what we were doing now. I sat for a while at his table, with all his batch mates. He then asks, “Remember when we were in the first and we had a full day of school, and you were in the nursery, and had only half a day? You used to come and hang out in our class with your mom... you were so cute”

I didn’t remember that detail. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. This guy was talking about me like I was a bitty baby in bloomers. I did wear bloomers at that time, cream and white chequered bloomers. I think he had that image in his head. The horror.

As we talked he asked me for my number. This was a good sign. It meant he was not thinking about the bloomer story anymore. Then he dropped another bomb. Turns out he knows the current guy in my life – although he doesn’t know about me and him.

He said we should all go out together. And I grunted a disillusioned ‘uh-huh’. But he took my number, So mixed feeling were running through my head– messed up about the new guy issue, and really giggly and gawky at the old guy.

Later, giggly and gawky prevailed. He said we should definitely catch up and go out sometime. I sputtered a “sure, that would be awesome”. He half hugged me and then left.

Damn he was cute.

I think I can definitely be classified as boy crazy.

Yup. Definitely boy crazy.

Ten things you need to know about pandemic influenza

Oh come on.

Like you actually thought this was going to be about pandemic influenza? This is about me.
It’s always about me. And anyone who comes here thinking – ‘why doesn’t she write about something less shallow than her life’ – Go away. Be gone. Get lost.

I’m not here to please you. You are here to humour me.
If you have no time for my ramblings, I am more than dandy with that.

It’s almost 3am and I am at work. Pretending to work on a pitch. No, not pretending, trying. Really trying. I’m nervous in this office. I can’t stop thinking about when I will get to go home. This is my first night here – I’m not sure where to sleep, or whether I should sleep at all.

I can’t believe this kind of trivial crap goes through my mind most of the time. It’s like it’s on over-drive but no one really cares.

I feel low.

I’m going through one of those recurrent quarter-life crises. Almost 26 years old, single, no life partner on the horizon, stuck in a full time job, getting paid chicken poop, living in the back of beyond, a victim of public transport, no social life, no time for hobbies, no time.

Weekends are longed for and when they begin, you cram them so full of things to do, that you end up being tired the rest of the week. Weekdays can’t be messed with because your new job demands you not to make plans and leave early enough to do something fun, before you head back to the village.

All men suck. The ones who don’t have girlfriends or wives or are gay or are pretending not to suck, until you fall into their trap and they divulge how hideously sucky they really are.

Money is being made everywhere you look. Smart individuals with zero talent are raking in the cash. Why? Because they have foresight and are bold enough to make the money that is there, waiting to be made. There is so much money in this city and none of it is in my bank account.

There are so many things I want to learn – pottery, salsa and capoeira. None of which I can do – don’t ask me why. And don’t tell me I could if I “really” wanted to.

Did I mention how much men suck? Especially the ones I happen to be so lucky to encounter. It’s almost as if this secret manual, a code on how to piss me off, is passed amongst them. Like a little all-mail underground cult with an evil agenda, dedicated to making me feel crappy. Maybe I’m giving myself way too much importance.

What am I doing? Am I happy with the direction my life is going? Where will I be in five years? Those are the deep questions that plague my mind now. You’ve got to admit they are deeper than - when will he call me? Who is he with? Why do I want to kill that stick-figured chick?

This makes me a tad pleased.

I’m older, and deeper, and wiser.

Ok maybe just the first two... Hey, two outta three ain’t bad.