one of those days

Sometimes I reach a point when the ‘creative’ people in my agency make me want to rip out my throbbing eye and shove it up their ass only so I can actually ‘see’ where their ideas come from.

don’t you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?

I have never once denied that I was the jealous type. Sometimes, (practically all the time,) this insane (and mostly unwarranted) jealousy gets the better of me.

Today my boyfriend is going on a lunch date with some girl he met online, a month or so before he met me. Initially, I kind of freaked out a bit (quite a bit—more like a drama queen) but then I told him that I am perfectly ok with it and in a surprisingly mature way, said that he is free to do whatever he wants. Little did I know that he was already on his way to this lunch rendezvous with this mystery chick.

Talking to a close guy friend at work, I asked him (a guy’s perspective) if her name was a ‘hot’ name. He told me that he’s only met one other girl with her name and she was very hot. And so the drama began again.
I went online and Goggled her. I found a semi-informative interview she apparently gave, but I wasn’t sure it was her. So I went on Orkut and snooped into his friend list. I found her, but no information and an illustration where a photograph should be.

Right about then, I started to panic (oh yes, everything before this was normal behaviour, I kid you not.) I tried another social networking site and finally found some useful information—a guy from my office was listed as a mutual friend. Yay.

Casually I asked him if he knows her and he says yes. Then he points to the colleague I have been confiding in, and reveals that he has met her too. Turns out, she is ’the’ one other girl with the same name he has met (annoyingly small world isn’t it?).

Now that it was all in the open, I began to prod him for details. Things like ‘is she prettier than me?’, ‘what does she do?’, ‘what kind of hair does she have?’ He began to tell me what an amazing person she is, so multi-faceted. She listens to metal music, a rare woman indeed. A couple of his friends (her acquaintances too by default) joined in—she paints and DJ’s on the side. She oozes attitude, and that’s so sexy.

The more they spoke of how wonderful she is the more my lunch started to surface. The more I envisioned them having a wonderful time at an intimate café. The more I pictured her hair glistening in the sun (stupid lunch date!). I pictured him smiling, enjoying himself a little too much for my liking.

I found myself consciously trying to not be sick. And seeing as how it’s only 2:45pm, and the lunch date is still on... I’m still working on it.

I am not crazy

As part of my birthday celebrations I have called all my friends to a club. Having a not so great salary, I also decided it would be a buy-your-own-booze thing—which also made it a completely optional thing. So, if the person I called did not want to come and spend their own money, then they didn’t have to because I had my set of good friends who were definitely going to make it a success.

Now, to be very honest I don’t have a whole lot of very good friends. And the handful of them who I really wanted to be there were all I really needed. Except I got a mail from one of the girls saying she was not willing to come because Thursday “wasn’t good” for her. Obviously I was very upset and tried calling her several times to get some clarity on the situation.

She finally called back and said that she couldn’t make it because she was broke, and she didn’t have a present for me— I’ve known her for almost 10 years and that was the excuse she was throwing at me. I choked up; I sputtered an “Ok, fine, if that’s what you think I want you there for.” And I was about to put the phone down when she began to laugh and say she was kidding.

Then she said I was crazy. She said I was overly obsessed and asked if I thought she really wouldn’t come. She said I sounded like a crazy paranoid chick, who was worried about people not coming to her ‘party’ when she was not even paying for people. She said I should stop calling it MY party, because it’s really a bunch of people going out drinking, it just happens to be on my birthday. She said I was stupid to think she wouldn’t come. That she thought I would take as a joke and it was a joke, but it wasn’t my party and I should get that clear in my head, before getting upset about people backing out.

I said I would only be upset if she backed out.

And I cried some more.

I'm not crazy.

twenty-frikkin-seven

I was telling a friend of mine how incredibly depressed I was to be turning 27 this Thursday. What I didn’t realise was that I was also talking to him five years ago, a couple of days before I turned 23—and I was ‘incredibly depressed’ then too.

Don’t get me wrong, I love birthdays. And I love my birthday even more. I want gifts, I want hugs and I want all the people who love me to be around me and celebrate the day I was born.

So that got me thinking: Is it ageing that I am depressed about? Is it the depression that comes before being insanely happy as the centre of attention at my own party? Is it depression for the sake of depression—maybe just another reason to feel inconsolably low, and wallow in my own little private pool of self pity?
Honestly, I have no idea (I said it got me thinking, I never said I came to any concrete conclusion).

This year’s pre-birthday depression phase has been more acute. I think it’s the combination of slowly crossing the youthful hill of the twenties and heading towards the weary mountain of the thirty’s (ok I realise this hill metaphor is no fun at all for you, but I’m trying to make my life a little more interesting to read about, so sue me.)

When I was nine, I’m sure I didn’t think of my life as it is when I reached this ripe old age. My nine year old self probably imagined me with a car, maybe an apartment. I probably believed I’d be someone’s boss, doing what I loved and being fabulous everyday. I probably dreamed I’d be all professional—wearing heels, business suits and doing my hair. Heck, I probably thought I’d even have a wedding by now.

The big 2-7 is upon us and in two years—BAM—I will be thirty. Needless to say, I haven’t achieved any of the above, not even close.
I’m a twenty-seven year old, who travels by public transport, lives with her parents, has an odious senior, lives in jeans and t-shirts, hasn’t seen the inside of a parlous in months and yup, no sign of a wedding happening any time soon.

Shame on me.

And apologies to my nine-year-old self.

true story

“Do you want to be sad?” he asked, looking at her more intently than usual.

“Please! Why would I want to be sad?” she said, avoiding his eyes.

“Because it’s easier”

under my skin and on my nerves

As you probably already know, I’ve been seeing someone for over a year now. (Yes, yes, that explains the infrequent whiny, complaining blogs that you all used to relish so much *giggle*). Anyway, he makes me feel wonderfully happy and dizzyingly in love, except on those rare occasions when we fight. Tonight was one such occasion.

I was having a relatively ‘blah’ day, waiting for my boyfriend to come to my office so we could have a nice dinner with my dear friend from college. Looking forward to a nice evening with loved ones, my mood lifted a notch.

I arrive at the location to find my friend with another girl who was a friend of her friend. They had run into each other at this place and this new girl just wouldn’t leave. In the first five minutes of me meeting her, I despised her.

My evening was eclipsed by this loud, pretentious, stuck-up little twit of a witch. She talked on and on about herself until I could stand it no longer. In the agonizing half hour we were with her she announced that she had ‘a nagging for French fries’, a wonderful blog we all should check out, an ex-job, unemployed now, recently seeing someone, traveling a lot, she corrected my English, flirted with my boyfriend, pretended to bond with my girl friend, she told us she worked for an NGO, where she lived, why she was fed up of Bandra, how she loves to drink and smoke—BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.

By nine, my friend had to run off somewhere and left us with this woman. She even made us wait with her while her friend arrived. The annoying bit was that every time I tried to make an excuse to leave, she’d make more inane conversation about herself and her fabulous life. My boyfriend was being genuine and listening, even though I tried to make eyes at him to leave. Eyes that told him ‘this woman is horrible, let’s leave now and never return’—but he read the look as ‘This Subway sandwich is yum, we should come here more often’ and didn’t budge.

Yes, I do judge people easily. And I either instantly like you, or instantly despise you and the decision is rarely ever reconsidered. This particular woman annoyed the hell out of me so much so she ruined my evening. (The other half of my evening was spent fighting with my lovely boyfriend because he was trying to be nice to this conceited *badwordhere*.)

I’m home now. All made up with the boyfriend. I’m still mad at the waste of a perfectly good evening, and I’m fighting the urge to leave a nasty anonymous comment on her blog page.

polished apples and cabbages

I'm doing a campaign about Teaching and the importance of teachers which kind of inspired me to write about one of my own past teachers...

She always wore a sari. Always in dark greys or browns, that complimented her greying-brown hair. The sari was always made of khadi, a hand spun Indian cotton, that was more of a statement that a cloth and had a long history of revolution and revolt weaved into the very fabric.

She never wore a bra. She used to walk into class smelling of smoke and adjusting her sari blouse. She never greeted the class, but instead just picked up the book of verse and read. And when she read everything seemed to melt away, and we’d hang on every word, every full stop and every pause.

Once in the middle of class she got a coughing fit (probably from smoking in the teachers lounge) and could not read the poem completely. When she asked the class for water everyone fumbled to give her their water bottle—like an offering, a polished apple if you will. The lucky student would be privileged to get a ‘Thank you Darling” from her.(She called us ‘cabbages’ when she was upset with us and ‘darlings when she wasn’t upset with us – but she was never ever ‘happy’ with us.)

Her name was Eunice and she was my English Literature professor in college. She retired before we reached our final year, so batch only had her for our first year of Literature. She hardly ever smiled and I would always see her in the teachers lounge, lighting up another cigarette and turning a page of yet another book she read. I heard that she never married, had many lovers and lived with only a parrot as her companion.

I, like most of the others who took Literature as their Major, was completely and totally in awe of this woman. She made me want to do better in my tests, she made me want to participate in class, she made me want to carry a water bottle to college only so she would sip it and call me ‘darling’ and then I would look at the ‘cabbages’ with a certain air about me.

When she yelled at us for not experiencing the work, I used to go home and cry. So much so my sister made me a little card that said ‘you are not a cabbage’ only so I would feel better.

I never would have thought she knew my name. I was one of those students who sat in the back seat – not because I was naughty, but because I didn’t want to be noticed and questioned, I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
The week before she left I made her a ‘Thank You’ card that I carried around with me in my file, waiting for the right opportunity to present it to her. Finally, one afternoon I met her alone on the corridor between classes and I mumbled an ‘Excuse me, Ma’am’ and handed her the card.

That was when I had my definitive moment of glory. She looked at me and said ‘Thank you, Simone, darling’.

My year was made.

little things i do for me

When work stresses me out – I go dancing – and it only works if you dance like you’re the only one in the club.

When my boyfriend stresses me out – I go to the gym.

When my parents stress me out – I go and have a sleep-over with my girls.

When my girls stress me out – I get a pedicure.

When life stresses me out – I put my ipod to almost maximum volume and I listen to music.

When my boss stresses me out I log on to a free game website and play Zuma or Mini Golf or Copter.

When I want to feel organised - I make 'LISTS' (I love lists!)

When I need to calm down – I put candles in my bathroom and I wash my hair. To get charged up, I make a strong cup of frothy coffee (the frothier the better).

When I want to forget about the day – I go to sleep, I’ve slept for a whole day like that.

When I want to remember days gone by – I dig through old albums with my mother.

If I needed to be peaceful or pensive I’d choose to go to a place by the sea. If I needed to rejuvenate I’d go to the hills.

When I don’t want to write ads I write a blog. When I don’t want to write at all I take pictures, draw or paint.

When I want to feel pretty I straighten my hair, do a home face-mask and paint my toe-nails. Or I go shopping for pink things (my most recent purchase being a plastic hot pink water bottle.)

When I want to feel content I make a sandwich.

And for a little more contentedness – I add cheese.

:D