i do... not

So I was thinking about getting married. Like, you know, all the plans and preps that will go into getting a big fat catholic wedding together. And then it hit me. The most basic thing of all is the one thing I have no answer to: Who will be my bridesmaid?


I mean, I don’t have a best girlfriend who I can call and vent to or cry with and laugh while stuffing our faces with food and ice cream. I don’t have anyone with whom I have sleepovers with or share my every intimate secret with. I don’t have one person who will be that first friend whom I tell the ‘good news’ to, whatever the news is: a new job, a good interview, a marriage proposal even.(FYI: I haven’t had any of the above-mentioned things happen at all, but this is not really about that)


So while I can think of 500 people who I would love to invite to my wedding, when and if I get married, I don’t have that one girlfriend who will hold my veil up as I walk down the aisle or hold my legs as I nervously try to escape away through a back window.


And modern sitcoms don’t help. Friends is well, about friends. How I met your mother, is about friends. And even the socially awkward Amy from Big Bang Theory has friends. And all the women in those sitcoms will always have the answer to the ‘who will be your bridesmaid’ question.


This depresses me greatly.

change

I wrote this for fun in 2009... I just looked at it again in 2012 and thought... wouldn't it be fun if I saw how much or how little has changed. Well, fun for me anyway...

1. I have an aversion to Math. Anything to do with numbers freaks me out a little.
(I still do... so this hasn't)

2. I want to live on my own but I’m afraid I’d be way too lonely. Same with travelling alone. (I've finally moved out, and I live alone and I am very very happy)

3. I despise people who promote their blog. It’s a PRIVATE forum… you want visitors write for a frikking paper! (hmmm... not so violently against this.. haha)

4. I love coffee. (stopped drinking coffee, unless absolutely necessary... like I need to stay awake for something important..)

5. Sleeping makes me very happy. (still does!)

6. I’m cynical to the point of self-loathing. (much less so, there's hope for me yet)

7. I’m easily bored and need to learn a new craft every month— currently on Quilling. (stopped learning crafts... but i have started to cook... and i love it!)

8. I’ve always wanted to be a lead in a band. Got offered once and didn’t take it up because I am chicken. (I am very proud to say that I am a lead in a 15-member band, singing all my favorite songs!)

9. I am chicken (still a little, i guess)

10. I cannot suck up to save my life. (this will never change!)

11. Every emotion I have shows on my face. Most of the time this is not good. (neither will this)

12. I like pink. (who can give up pink?)

13. I put nimboo in almost everything I eat. (love love nimboo)

14. I believe I should have been born in the 60’s (singing janis joplin at shows makes me feel like I am... so there)

15. I’m insecure. (no comment - working on this one, catch me 3 years from now...)

16. Relationships are all or nothing for me. There is no grey. (true true)

17. I cry at the drop of a hat. (working on this too... much less so than normal, I'm proud to say!)

18. I LOVE bags. (still do!)

19. Other things I love: Candles, jewellery and things that smell nice. (yea, but not sure why this made it to the top 25 things)

20. I’m a foodie and it shows on my ass :( (yea still a foodie, working on the ass :))

21. I got an 8 GB pen drive for Valentines Day and I loved it :) (I still use it)

22. I have a special ring tone for the people I love. (true still)

23. I was put up to this list thing by KI.. (this is a random truth)

24. I love lists so I’m not complaining at all. (Who doesn't love a good list... the very fact I am redoing it 3 years later proves that this point is true!)

25. I like Post-its (Sad to note that someone stole my box of post-its from my desk at the office. Not happy with post-it stealing at all..)

bucket list

Okay, so I’m not dying. But I am turning thirty in a couple of months and I am appalled that I have already reached my thirtieth year of life and I have hardly done anything worth writing about. Ergo, I have formed a mini bucket list of stuff to do before I turn thirty-five (I’ve taken the liberty of giving myself 5 years extra since I’m not likely to accomplish much in 2 months.)

I want to start by concentrating on writing my book. This has always been a vision I have had, and one of the big reasons I spent fifty grand on a laptop. Sadly, I have spent most of my time watching movies on the laptop, and hardly any writing. MS Word is the least opened software on my computer. This has also suddenly become a priority after I found out that my trainee has written a book, which is in the process of being published. (I could make excuses that I have worked for 7 years and have had no time to breath, while she is fresh out of summer vacations, but I’m not going to go there.)

I want to travel to an exotic country, with or without a companion. Maybe Greece. I’ve always wanted to go to Greece. My fear of travelling alone, dying in a gutter with no passport and identity and then being an unclaimed Jane Doe in some foreign land, should soon be overcome, because I am determined.

I want to work somewhere other than this city. I want to experience what an advertising agency is outside of this ass-licking place. It’s probably more ass-licking: different asses, same frenzied licking.

I want to learn how to perfect the art of everyday makeup. I don’t wear makeup and most days I look like a dead person. Pale lips, dark circles around my eyes and an overall pallid tone. I want to look stunning (like I did for an hour at a shoot when a makeup artist took pity on me and made me beautiful in his spare time)

I want to be proposed to. Okay, so this I cannot control or plan. But I’d really like to know that someone out there wants to spend his life with me. No one has ever popped the question. I may or may not say yes, but it’s the thought that counts, doesn’t it?

I want to have a 'go-to' group of friends. The people who are there when I am down, or have a crisis or anything else. I want to have a really good friend who is not high-maintainance and who wants to share/solve/cry about life's big issues.

I want to do up a house. Pick the curtains, shop for groceries; be worried about what to cook for dinner, stress about the prices of potatoes. This may sound strange, but I have never lived alone. And I don’t want to never ever live alone. I want to experience what that is like.

I think that’s enough for now. Don’t want to over do the list and be disappointed when I’m not done, sounds reasonable, right? It’s true, I’m older and wiser…

high potential...

rut-ted out

I’m having a terrible time at work. I do not like the attitude of most people around me. I have zero help (I am literally the only writer in the team). I have not done a single piece of good work for the last 10 months. And what’s bothering me most of all, I am not getting any money.

I’m fed up. And I want to quit.

But I don’t want to join another advertising agency. I want to really do something I love. I want to maybe start a little restaurant or own a fun store with fun things in it. Maybe paint and sell my paintings and have an art show.

Here in lies the rub.

For all these dreams you need to have mounds of the green.
For which you have to work.

Damn you vicious circle.

*@%$#^$&

 

I asked four random men one very random question:

If you were given 2 dresses: One dress is a size 4 and the other is a size 12. And you were told choose one dress and thou shall get a woman to fill it instantly…
Which dress would you choose?

All four men picked the size 4.

Not surprising but I thought I had male friends who were less shallow.

Apparently not.

it's normal

I woke up this morning feeling alright.

Then my aunt asked me what my ex ex boyfriends last name was, and I told her.
She showed me a picture of in the newspaper.
It was a marriage announcement.

I know everyone my age is getting married, so it’s not that I am shocked.

I’m just sad, even though it has been almost 8 years.

And it’s normal.
I'm sure it is...

shock

I’m not one for grapevine gossip. I don’t like it and I think most of it is just made up rubbish.

But when you hear something over and over again, about a few people you know, and it’s all within the advertising fraternity…one tends to have no choice but believe.
I’m hearing more and more stories of people in advertising who are cheating on their wives/husbands. Most of the time I dismiss it, but then it comes back stronger and with more details.

I don’t know if it is this industry or is it the people? Does this happen in every line of work, and so blatantly and rampantly? I could blame it on the industry, with its long office hours and days spent away from home on shoots and researches and meetings. But come on, just because you have work away or a late night doesn’t make you a cheater.

In the past week I have heard of a couple, both in advertising, who are now getting a divorce because he has realized that he is not compatible with her. I have also heard of a married man sleeping with anyone who is willing in his office. While his wife, also in advertising is oblivious to it. It’s disgusting.

I may be sounding like a pious soul who has not a wrong-doing to my name. But I guess I am one of those people who believe in the sanctity of marriage.

So sue me.

plummet

I was talking with one of the guys in my office when a senior walked by. He continued to talk as she passed, but he kind of got lost and mumbled some rubbish. I snapped him out of it and said, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

He looked at me and said, “Oh sorry, I was staring at her ass”

“You find her hot?” I said, mildly surprised. She is a rather attractive woman.
“Smokin’” was his eloquent reply.

He continued, “All the guys think so…and they think the same of (cannot-be-revealed name here) too!”

“What? Wow… Do they think I’m hot?” I asked coyly.

He hesitates, “Er… yea, of course you are.” Comes his fake but over enthusiastic reply. I stare at him, hoping to penetrate his brain with my Truth Eyes.

“You have a GREAT personality! And amazing eyes… and a sense of humour…”

Hmmm, he lost me at Great Personality.
I plummet into the depths of depression…

anti-body

For the first time in my life, or perhaps after the longest time, I am having a huge complex about my body.

I past a Mad Over Donut shop the other day, and I had a mini craving. I walked in and I looked at all the delicious chocolate filled donuts and I had a vision of myself as an obese woman stuffing my face with donuts. It was not pretty. And I walked out immediately.

I am beginning to despise my shape. And that’s not all, I have begun to obsess about other women’s bodies in comparison to my less-than-perfect one (and that’s a first)
Everyone around me seems to be whizzing past me to the ‘Slim Side’, leaving their chubby-ness behind. And the aforementioned chubby-ness is losing grip of them, slapping on to me and clinging desperately on for dear life. Okay, not literally, but I was having one of those Ally McBeal moments.

Speaking of chubby friends moving to the ‘Slim Side’: My cousin, who has always been a large girl has suddenly rapidly lost tons of weight. So much so she is being complimented all the time by people around us. When I asked her how she was doing it, she merely said she washes her clothes everyday and that’s how the weight is staying off. That’s bollocks. And I am jealous.

My colleague has lost an amazing amount of weight too. She is being complimented every single day too. She only eats sprouts though, or rather, that’s all I have seen her eat. I say you can’t live on sprouts for the rest of your life right? Right? But I am jealous.

Another friend is losing weight every minute, or so it seems. She is doing yoga and walking. So what is she doing that I am not? I walk too. And run sometimes. But she is looking so good and I am still a ball. Yup, jealous.

And then there are those friends who are just lucky and shaped wonderfully by default. My friend has a gorgeous body. Of course she is younger than me, and has age on her side (ahem, ahem) But, having said that, she’s one of those bodies who don’t seem to put on weight. Ever.

Jealous.

And then I think, “You’re a horrible person, she is your friend, I should be ashamed of myself”

It’s not like I am obsessed with being thin. Nor do I think I am extremely fat. I just do not like my shape the way I used to.

In fact, another friend, an older woman, (who I am also extremely jealous off, by the way) has three children and what I consider to be an amazing body. She is well-endowed on top and not so petite on her bottom, and man, she is hot. I wouldn’t mind having a body like that too.

I don’t want to be a size 0: I just want to have a shape I like for God’s sake.

oh so savvy

I am blogging from my phone. I'm excited. Of course this will not be permanent at all since everything is tiny. Unless I want to go blind

am i?

I have this friend who I consider to be a very close friend. Or at least I did until something very bizarre happened.

I was invited to a party, I was one of the few non-family members that were invited. I thought I was being a good friend when I tried to help her serve the appetizers etc.

I was wrong.

The next day, when I called to tell her how fabulous everything was, the food, the drinks… the whole party, she said something very strange.
She said, I’m saying this because I love you, but I will never invite you to a party again. You annoyed me. You kept coming into my kitchen and you were always in my way. I hated it, and I couldn’t handle it at all.

I was so hurt. Then I became angry. Then just plain sad…

I haven’t called her. And neither has she called me…
I’m not sure who is wrong anymore.

It lead me to remember a quote…

“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy?”
~ Albert Einstien

Am I?

old joy

I taught an advertising class for a communication college a week ago, and I was faced with a bunch of 21 year-old wannabes.

I remembered how I used to sit in the back of my class, writing chits, making fun of my Anthropology professor, as she struggled to speak about some random tidbit of irrelevant information. And now, here I stand before a class of fifty students, all looking at me up and down, all wondering if I am good enough to even teach them.

But I tried to be cool. I tried to talk in a casual tone.

I remembered again how my communication class used to make fun of this fuddy-duddy advertising woman who would take our class. She had no real knowledge of the profession and her entire personality annoyed me. And then again, there I was whining on about the importance of knowing what you are selling to a bunch of blank-faced children.

I tried to make it as interesting as possible; I tried to sound less like a “teacher”.

I remembered how my frustrated Math professor would yell and scream for me to ‘get up and get out’ of his class, only because I was a backbencher who made a lot of people laugh. And then there I was, watching a young boy in a green scarf surf on his laptop, while all his friends giggled around him.

It took all I had to ignore him. But after about an twenty minutes of his nonsense I pointed at him and said, “You, guy in the green scarf, if you are not interested in this class, please leave because I am not interested in having you here either…”

And with that one sentence, everything I was trying not to be, I became. I became ‘Ma’am’. I became the woman they asked ‘can I go to toilet?’

I became a fuddy-duddy, advertising professional. I became old.

But for the first time, I was very, very okay with it.

poor poor you...

There is truly nothing more pathetic than a desperate creative person...
Truly nothing...

rimmer

Dear Rimmer,
It must be awfully tiring to be such a sugar-coated, ass-licking suck up!

intelligence?

I read in the newspaper a couple of days ago, that our 'intelligence agencies' have 'lost track' of two terrorists who were residing in Lal Baug.

'Lost track'? Are you kidding me? Do they mean to tell the thousands of people who pass by Lal baug every single day, 'Sorry about this, but you may get attacked anytime now... our bad!'

I am appalled. Just appalled.

real life is a sitcom

I just walked up to my account management guy and asked what he was doing.

Without looking up from his computer he said, "i'm finishing a PPT".

Then as I was leaving he said, "You know, someone told me that PPT (peepeeti) in Konkani means a woman's private area..."

So, i said, "Eww, i didn't know that..."

And he said, "Neither did I, but my boss just came and asked me to quickly clean up her PPT"

:P

this is what sitcoms are made of..

on a completely unrelated note...

So on a completely unrelated note: Allow me to update you about my man friend. He is funny, sweet and extremely cute. So cute in fact that I have to slap myself sometimes because I daydream about how cute he is.

And what’s more, he looks so good in a suit. So good in fact, that sometimes I day dream about him in a suit, looking cute and walking down the aisle. Which is when I have to slap myself again because if he ever found out he would run away. After all, it’s only been nine months.

But nine super months. So super, that sometimes I daydream that we have already walked down the aisle and I have already seen his cute-self looking so good in a suit and it is now one year later and we have two babies and I have picked names for them also… a boy and a girl...But I cannot tell him this either, because then he will definitely run away, if he did not already.

And speaking of running, he has a very nice butt.

Which I also day-dream about…

But only sometimes…

not so happy to me

I turned 29 about two months ago. One step closer to thirty and eight years farther away from my twenties. Days prior to the birthday, I prepped myself—I have always had a tremendous amount of fun on my birthday, and I have always been surrounded by close friends who love me and vice-versa, so why should I be irritable?

So I accepted the day. I woke up happy, I stayed happy, I was happy on the phone, happy in ‘Thank You’ texts to friends who wished me… and even apologised to those who tried to wish me at midnight, because I was fast asleep, like old people are at midnight.

The evening came, and I was still happy. I dressed and was up and ready to leave. I reached the club with two of my closest friends and I waited. And I waited some more. And then some more. Almost one and a half hour past and no one came.

Hurt, depressed and feeling extremely old, we left the club. Feeling like a piece of old poop, I snapped at one of the friends who was there. And she left too. So it was me and one other person who stuck around. And then I cried. And I cried some more.
Finally an hour later, a friend called and said he was waiting outside the club. Then I got another call and some more people said the same thing. So in about an hour I was back in the club pretending to smile and have fun all over again. Pretending that the last two hours did not happen.

About seven people showed up eventually. Not a bad turn out really, I guess I should not have expected all 20 that I invited.

So I vow that when I turn thirty there will be no big party. There will be no expectations. And there will only be a handful of friends who really matter to me around me. If they care enough, they will be there. And if they are not there, then when I turn 31, I will have an even smaller group.

And that’s the bottom line.

Theory: The older you get the smaller your circle of friends become

who says love never killed anyone...

Who says indeed...