heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street

leaving is not enough; you must
stay gone. train your heart
like a dog. change the locks
even on the house he’s never
visited. you lucky, lucky girl.
you have an apartment
just your size. a bathtub
full of tea. a heart the size
of Arizona, but not nearly
so arid. don’t wish away
your cracked past, your
crooked toes, your problems
are papier mache puppets
you made or bought because the vendor
at the market was so compelling you just
had to have them. you had to have him.
and you did. and now you pull down
the bridge between your houses,
you make him call before
he visits, you take a lover
for granted, you take
a lover who looks at you
like maybe you are magic. make
the first bottle you consume
in this place a relic. place it
on whatever altar you fashion
with a knife and five cranberries.
don’t lose too much weight.
stupid girls are always trying
to disappear as revenge. and you
are not stupid. you loved a man
with more hands than a parade
of beggars, and here you stand. heart
like a four-poster bed. heart like a canvas.
heart leaking something so strong
they can smell it in the street.

"It will not be simple, it will not be long
It will take little time, it will take all your thought
It will take all your heart, it will take all your breath
It will be short, it will not be simple."

“I
The calendar is full but the future is blank.
The wires hum the folk-tune of some forgotten land.
Snow-fall on the lead-still sea. Shadows
scrabble on the pier.

II
In the middle of life, death comes
to take your measurements. The visit
is forgotten and life goes on. But the suit
is being sewn on the sly.

” 

 

tomas tranströmer, “black postcards”

From commissars of daylight
Love cannot make us free.
Nights of ungracious darkness
Hang over you and me.
We lie awake together
And hear the clocks strike three.

Our loving cannot exile
The felons but and if.
Yet, being undivided,
Some ways we can contrive
To hold off those besiegers
Who batter round our life:

The thieves of our completeness
Who steal us stone by stone,
The patronage that scowls upon
Our need to be alone,
And all the clever people
Who want us for their own.

The telephone is ringing
And planes and trains depart.
The cocktail party’s forming,
The cruise about to start.
To stay behind is fatal—
Act now, the time is short.

If we refuse the summons
And stand at last alone,
We walk, intact and certain,
As man and woman grown
In the deserted playground
When all the rest have gone.
” “the marriage portion,” by adrienne rich.

Drain water Murphy

Just as I’ve repeated to the point of tedium, my week has already reached the halfway mark despite my insistence that it started a mere couple of hours ago. I don’t know if this means I’m blessed or completely wretched. Yesterday was an evening of the sads. I returned to find my bathtub had two inches of water which wouldn’t go down the drain. Obviously I noticed this after the maintenance people had already been to my apartment to open up the fresh air duct, so a fresh service request will have to be made. Can I pour a bottle of draino into standing water and expect it to work?

The other, much more significant, event was the realization that my macbook pro’s warranty period expired on the 4th and foolishly, unbelievably, mind-numbingly stupidly sat on my ass for the whole year and did not extend my warranty period. For some ridiculous reason you can’t get the same done once your warranty’s expired. I’d understand if they charged you an amount for the amount of time that’s lapsed since it expired. But Apple’s insane fascist rules are apparently set in stone. Not that I won’t try and test them this weekend, when I go down to the service center and try and plead my case. There have to be some humans hiding behind the shiny gates of this particular Mt. Doom.

I hate that I’m not on top of my shit yet. This sort of thing would never happen to my mother, who is the most vigilant / responsible person on the planet. Who I aspire to be, despite of my obvious design limitations. Sitting in India. she reminded me my health insurance at work was about to run out in a month’s time. I clearly should have just told her to look out for my computer’s warranty as well :/

What’s up, you guys? What’s new? I need to make new playlists on my ipod. So as to not have to spend time at work making an on the go playlist that only has Leonard Cohen and then changing it up to a playlist with uptempo dancy songs that put me in a shallow, happy mood. ‘Quiet reflection on Leonard’s words’ and ‘Shallow happy dancy’ and ‘Bon jovi / REO Speed wagon / nostalgia’. The last is clearly mislabeled as nostalgia for me would be Pearl Jam and Def Leppard and Megadeth and a little bit of Whitesnake and lots and lots of Beatles.

I hate the word vomit. I really do.

More frustratingly so I hate the restrictions imposed by words. At first, when you are small, things like the sky, light, and trees are so wide, so liquid, so limitless, so new to you, so directly experienced, and then you learn the words sky or light or tree and click, just like that, the liquid is curdled and the word is forever what you know and there's a brand-new box around what you see. And then the box gets filled up with associations, and the thing becomes the word the way the memory becomes the photograph. Perhaps that explains my resistance to putting in words the nameless, shapeless confusion floating around inside me. Perhaps I’m making things worse by trying to quantify, trying to state in empirical terms what the problem is. Perhaps there is no problem.

The weather is playing games with all of us. The sun is out and it’s bright and sunny, but there’s a cold wind blowing and everyone’s suddenly wearing sweaters. I’m going to go get some coffee and feed the birds biscotti. It’s fantastic, they all fly down and chirp and chirp. And there are some incredibly beautiful birds here in Dubai. Things to do, people to see :)

Thoughts at work at 10:41 AM:

- I get to have a very stiff drink in precisely 8 hours. Oh no. I wish I hadn’t calculated that, it seems like an eternity now. I have a bottle of rum that I don’t know what to do with. Are there any people who drink rum for pleasure? Like wine drinkers and beer drinkers and breezer drinkers (oh the shame!), where are the dark rum drinkers?

- I’m going to start apartment hunting again. Apartment hunting requires dedication and commitment. You need to be in it to win it. It doesn’t help that I’m in two minds about whether I should move at all. I have a beautiful, furnished apartment that I’ve grown to love. Unfortunately, my office has moved and now it’s quite far from where I live. The weather’s been really nice so far, the move happened in the winter. So now, kind of like the dudes in the Game of Thrones, my only concern is the fact that summer’s coming. I won’t be able to walk to the metro station, even though it’s a mere ten minute walk. Trust me, I won’t be able to. Don’t call me soft, you don’t know what it’s like here. I don’t want to take a cab every day as that will work out to be quite expensive. I have the cats that I feed, who I have grown quite attached to (while working constantly at honing my detachment skillz). But most importantly, I want to live close to work, I don’t want to waste time commuting. BUT I love my apartment and don’t want to leave and live close to my friends! You see why apartment hunting in this frame of mind is going to be interesting. Unless I find something spectacularly close by, something as instantly lovable as my current apartment and something significantly cheaper (my current neighbourhood’s kinda pricey) I don’t think I’m going to move.

- I need to register for my exam in May. A lot will happen in the span of a few months. I’m going to maybe find and move to a new apartment. I’m going to maybe have to get all my utilities and internet etc. registered. I’m going to have to STUDY for said exam. I’m going to have to finish off a lot at work and I’m going to have to do this before the 19th of April, since I’m going back to my beloved Delhi for two weeks. Mostly to not turn 26 in a strange land. I haven’t spent a birthday away from my family and I hope I never have to. Our extended family’s traditions are slowly changing, which is fine. But on my birthday I have to make like a homing pigeon and fly home.

- The flame of my love for my kindle is momentarily flickering. I have reverted to reading all the Harry Potter books on it. It’s a scary thought, to have the same strange indifference set in towards the millions of books available that seems to have set in with the entire universe of music available for easy and immediate consumption. Just because I know they’re out there means I want them a little bit less? What kind of horrific twat am I? Don’t answer that.

- I have to go home and remember to use both Harpic and Draino. Sigh.

- a glance outside the window tells me a sandstorm is in progress. Every little bit of wind in the desert becomes a sandstorm. Though the sandstorms are better to the apocalyptic, windless persistent haze (that’s secretly made of sand) that lasts for days on end.

- I’m worried about my spine. I have awful posture, especially while chilling, and need to watch that stretching video my brother sent me. In bed I can feel my back grumbling, and ignoring it because I don’t feel very responsible for all corporeal complaints is not a good idea. Love your body, you guys.

- Clearly, I’m still in the stage where only mindnumbingly inane small talk spews out of me. Word vomit. It’s not intentional, I swear. During a meeting yesterday afternoon I happened to notice a colleague wearing Ted Baker socks, and I’ve been chanting ‘tedbakertedbaker’ to myself since. Perhaps that’s the reason why all time seems to be going by so quickly, it’s because my brain’s fucked off and left its idiot cousin in charge. Samuel Beckett said ‘every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness’ and my brain’s idiot cousin concurs.

- Pleasantly tolerable. That’s good enough.

Beatifically smiling Murphy

I’m wearing headphones at work, with no music playing. The room is still completely silent, I just don’t want to have to speak to anyone just yet. It’s too early in the day and my weekend calm is still with me, albeit in a fragile state. A big part of that is the absence of my boss and my team member. Both of them remind me what it’s like to grow up in north India, where things like volume are only to be taken into consideration when they’re too low. The headphones encourage people not to talk to me, and for this I love them.
I’m trying to make certain healthy substitutions. Green tea instead of coffee. Once I’m done with my stock of sweet & low, I hope to switch back to sugar. Unfortunately, I remind myself that my soothing mint green tea only works its wonders in the quiet workplace, a phenomenon that is both rare and short lived. I had a very satisfying weekend, unusually. On Thursday night (which is the Friday night of the UAE) I accidentally fell asleep at 9:30 PM and woke up at 3 AM to a house with all the lights on. I sleepily wandered around the house making sure everything was in order and went right back to sleep. Woke up at 11 AM, which I was thrilled about as my weekday routine of waking at 6:30 AM seems to have ruined my ability to sleep in on holidays. Had a very relaxed morning and a long video chat with my mother. We try and do these regularly, but the best kind are when we’re both home alone in the afternoon and have our leisurely lunch together. This was followed by my first trip to Dubai’s outlet mall and excellent behaviour on my part. I only purchased a few adorable, heavily discounted pieces and felt very smug. My friend, who I went with, is getting married and has happily accepted a redundancy offer made to her by her firm. I marvel at the change in these women, a strange calm descends on them as they march with single-minded determination towards their goal. It’s pretty interesting to watch. Makes me feel like I did in junior school when I was significantly taller, rounder, had a crazy curly afro and was more obnoxious than everyone else. The little girls with their straight hair and fascinatingly bejeweled hair ties and their struggles to write essays and finish their math homework. I was never quite like them and I was never sure if I wanted to be like them. Digression! This shopping excursion was followed by a girl’s night in with my super fun 38 year old friend. Two bottles of white wine, two bags of microwave popcorn (butter and cheddar flavour) and fistfuls of jelly beans were consumed by the two of us. I love having these drunken rowdy nights at my house. When the night’s over, all I have to do is walk to the next room and collapse onto my bed and worry about the carnage only when I wake up. The next day was peaceful, with me slowly and intermittently swimming into consciousness to remedy my hangover. The first round of consciousness involved drinking lots of water and falling asleep. The second involved me hankering for something salty and thick, which resulted in me sleep-ordering a subway sandwich. The rest of the day went by in slow motion, and blessedly I wasn’t hyperaware that the next day was work. I took a bubble bath, I washed my hair, I had my apartment cleaned, I did no laundry. I fed the cats and realized I’ve accepted the fact that young male cats will tend to wander and not necessarily return just for food. I’m surprised I didn’t make the association with the scores of virile, young male cats who’ve casually walked out on us back home. I was in bed and asleep by 10.
This sort of weekend is currently the best kind I can have here. With the exception of not doing any laundry.

My morning walk to the metro station today might have just led to a revolutionary new Murphy. It was the dimwitted equivalent of me lifting my gigantic, rock filled head and slowly turning it in the right direction. Onward and forward!

I return to this entry many hours later, marveling at how it’s already 3:30 and it only feels like I’ve been here a few hours. That’s the scary bit about Dubai. Time seems to fly here – it feels like I’ve just woken up on Sunday morning and the next thing I know it’s Wednesday evening and there’s just one day left for the weekend. The kind of excruciating quality time took on back in Delhi at my consulting gig doesn’t seem to exist here. I remember dying a million deaths during the eternity that yawned between Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon. Everything about living here is so convenient, that I don’t seem to have struggled at all in the year that I’ve been here. Clearly I’m tempting the fates and soon the hair dryer of fuckedupness will sort of teeter at the edge of the bathtub of my wellbeing. Soon.

Lighting new cigarettes,
pouring more
drinks.

It has been a beautiful
fight.

Still
is.
"

— Charles Bukowski, You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

Last day of the week and I have so much work to finish internet. But it’s beautiful out, where the morning looks a little like dusk and there’s a cold wind blowing. I’m alone in this office, after many days of being surrounded by team-mates. I remember how in my consulting days I used to long for the time when I have my own desk and a job where I’m not constantly on the move. (for those of you who’re not down with the exciting and glamorous world of consulting – it essentially involves working from multiple different offices in a single day. Because that’s the expected norm your own office is full of hot desks and no one has a permanent seat, because that would just be a waste of space) Now that I have my own desk, I long for the day where I have my own room at work, so I can do whatever I need to by myself, in peace. These are my quiet aspirations, I’m one of those people who should be forcibly sterilized.

It’s a strange experience – working for one of the oldest banks in the world and expecting it to fold like a deck of cards at any moment. Especially, when the actual work seems to be never ending and my weeks whizz by in a productive blur. Again, in consulting there seemed to be a limitless need for more resources, as people were the grain thrown into the mill of client appeasement, and our lives were the grist tossed aside. Wow, this is really rambly, isn’t it? TO SUMMARISE even though I know the state of the global economy and understand the delicate position my current industry is in, it still feels very strange to be working at a job that might disappear any day.

I spent a lot of time videochatting with my father yesterday, and I find myself constantly overwhelmed at how great my family is. They are nice internet. They’re interesting people and are a lot of fun and are only concerned with my happiness. They give me a lot of hope for the universe.

I return to this strange post after a coffee run. While my family are people who give me hope for the universe, I’m currently sitting in a section of the office populated by people who’re causing a significant deal of concern. Three middle aged men, who spend their entire fucking day at work chatting chatting chatting. It’s like trying to work in the midst of a particularly boisterous kitty party. Who are these men who spend their days talking about their weight and calories and VLCC and workouts, the price of everything – spectacles, lenses, rice; the difference in prices between dubai and india, kinds of kebabs, filmstars and gadgets and tailors and fabric. As I’m typing this they’re sitting with their arms folded and their monitors locked after being in screensaver mode for 15 minutes and the word vomit is ceaselessly flowing. Come to think of it, if I owned this bank and had employees like this, I’d cut my losses and run too.

Today is the day of circular arguments.

I want to address the sudden and unfortunate demise of love in my life. It’s been a while since it happened. For a while it was a little crazy, but then a moment came when clarity suddenly dawned on me and it was done. What I find myself wondering about is my lack of an extreme reaction, how with age it seems to be getting easier to move on with minimal damage. Maybe my priorities are changing. Maybe I don’t see the point in any one spending any time being unhappy any more. Not when there are so many years of god knows what ahead of us. I realize that it’s going to be a lifelong quest to integrate the different parts of us, how to relate to other people using paltry, dusty things like words and grammar systems, remembering always that they have their own agendas and their own labyrinth ways to communicate back. How to filter the entire universe through five puny senses and one idiosyncratic brain. How to reconcile the centuries-old, culturally pervasive idea of the Platonic Love Object, the “other half,” with the simple reality that no one person can fill every single one of your emotional needs. How to balance the idea that you are the architect of your life with the mundane things like staying alive, and the requirements of things like a full-time job, that paradoxically give you the financial freedom to be creative and pursue leisure and stimulation while also robbing you of the time to be creative and pursue leisure and stimulation. Who can spend time being anything other than curious in the face of that?

bullets bullets

- Interwebz, meri jaan. It’s a good day, it’s a windy day, it’s a day where I’m sort of slacking off and not feeling bad about it also. Do I say that too often now? Yesterday, I opened my first bottle of wine by myself. All it took was one youtube video and I was uncorking like a boss. Only to realize that there’s no way I can consume that much wine within three days and I have to somehow save it from the evil forces of oxidization. Then the internet told me to stick the bottle in the fridge (which seemed very wrong for red wine, but hey, what do I know?) I also happily discovered that I ought to be able to finish the bottle within a respectable period of time and enjoy its vast array of health benefits. Which I spent this morning googling.

- I have a new method of commuting. After my brief romance with driving and my slightly serious relationship with taxis and carpooling, I’ve moved on to the metro. The weather is perfect for long (by a crippled pygmy’s standards) walks and the accompanying mindlessness. The actual train ride makes me feel like a towering giant in a train-car full of tiny fillipino women. In a sea of perfectly straight haired women, the top of whose heads reach my breasts, I am a frizzy haired behemoth. I almost never get a seat but this doesn’t stop me from managing to read on my Kindle (which I love).

- I’m currently experiencing an acutely antisocial phase. Which I’m also enjoying substantially. I had plans with a friend who was supposed to come over yesterday and chill and get a drink (from my overflowing alcohol cabinet). While making these plans I knew there was a 90% chance I’d cancel, which I eventually did. It’s a similar story when it comes to my updating this blog. I don’t feel the need, not when I’m so perfectly content reading blogs instead. Part of me feels inarticulate and unable to string a coherent sentence together. I can’t remember if ramble-on-confusing-sentences-with-no-point-and-structure were always my style. Part of the charm and comfort of my Kindle is that I now spend time actually paying attention to sentence structure. Bullet points are still my crutch, but hey, at least I’m trying.

- Since you guys haven’t actually read all my abortive unposted entries, you probably don’t know the full extent of my whining about my inability to write anymore. But what the fuck is the deal? How the hell does it matter if I don’t, since most of my whining seems to be about the fact that I’m perfectly content not writing. Constant moaning and bitching aside, I seem to harbour some sort of strange fear that if I don’t document document document, my edges will become less defined, I’ll start losing molecules, I’ll curl up like a leaf. I have the world’s worst memory, where my actual memories seem to bear no relation to a sense of time. If you ask me when I think a certain thing happened I will not be able to give you an answer. I can’t seem to get a grip on time as a modular concept and years sure as hell don’t have defined boundaries in the old hat-rack.

- It’s so windy today! Yesterday, my bowls full of cat food and heated up milk (carried downstairs very slowly, carefully and lovingly) respectively were literally knocked over by a particularly vicious, extra strong gust of wind. My cats are almost all grown up. One’s recovering beautifully from what seemed to be two broken front legs, one’s gone all rapey, one’s taken to turning up less frequently and going off and doing her own thing. There are naturally new kittens, and my cycle of warping the feline ecological system of wherever I go continues. I feel like I shouldn’t be attached, or as attached, given the fact that I might be leaving them for a smaller, cheaper apartment located next to my new office. I’m mortally afraid of being the girl who continues to live in the expensive far away apartment because of the cats she feeds. I reason that I will find animals who need me wherever I go. It doesn’t help that I left for two weeks and returned to a cat with two broken front legs. Which improved dramatically (knock on wood) post regular feeding. I think eventually it all comes down to the feeling of having some one looking out for you. Kisses and someone to come find you when you disappear.

'There is an inordinate capacity in institutions, whether governments, universities, publishers, or studios, to turn pretty good wine, vintage or not, into distilled water that they hope everyone will want to drink. You have to hold out for the wine, even blood, nights that are actually dark, bears that aren't teddy, gritty women like you actually know, children who die contorted into question marks, the sun on people who never bought lotion, the human voice not reduced to prattle, animals who have never been watched, the man who cuts all the ropes so he won't hang himself.'

it's been too long, internet. my brother keeps (lovingly) hounding me to write, but i don't think he means this blog. i'm watching 5 swarthy but v sweet south indian men clean my apartment, following which i will leap into the shower and go buy me a kindle. i'm not sure which mall i'm supposed to be going to and i've already racked up a history of going a very long way in the wrong direction for simple things (a tagline for my life if there ever was one). so yes, i'm going to write. eventually. but first i'm going to try and read and see if my ADD hasn't got so pronounced that i haven't been permanently reduced to someone who constantly watches old tv shows and perpetually refreshes all of two web pages. i'm going to get my kindle and see if i can try a disconnected life for a bit. it sounds both sweet and scary.

it's all been building up for far too long. who am i to hold back?

Playful Mouse Murphy

It is a shame that I return to you like this. It has been a long long time and I’ve had a lot of free time on my hands. I don’t know if you’d call it ‘free’ since this quantum of time merely represents time not spent at work. There’s a lot of shit to do when you live alone, coupled with hours of self loathing for not doing any of it.

And now I’m going home in eight days and I’ve slipped completely and inexorably into my holiday mood. This is a light and happy time, as I’m preoccupied by things like thoughts of packing and gift buying. For the record, I’m not required to buy presents. I just feel like since it’s my first time going home after having moved I should take something for my family. Something exotic and middle easty like dates / a baby camel / shoes full of sand / an Aston Martin abandoned on the side of the road. Instead, I’ve bought shit like body butter (moringa, which is this really nice smelling flower), body wash (watermelon + eucalyptus, fig + rosemary, apricot + basil). I’m basically taking my family things that remind people of salad.

I think I was afraid of this happening and it has happened. I like living in Dubai. I don’t like it as much as home, naturally, but I like it. It’s peaceful, I’m settling into a routine, I have cats here who need me (or so I like to believe), I have a nice job that is not too stressful, with easy hours and a ridiculous salary. I like my bedroom, where I get to sit on my bed, next to my giant window which fills up the room with light. I like how its getting cold and I have to necessarily open the windows and the balcony door so I don’t have to live with my skin all goosebumpy. I like that I can wear anything and that I have to shop and feed myself. I really like my flat.

How is it supposed to work when you have someone reporting to you who is v sweet and sincere but who pisses you off endlessly? The constant puppy –eyes, the quiet yet very in your face ‘I’m working hard + being proactive’. It all makes me want to barf. Seriously, universe. Don’t hire me. I should go down on my tubby knees and thank the stars that I never had a boss like me. Do I get points for the fact that I don’t professionally don’t hold it against him? He just had a v good PD session. It’s just me who wants to smack him.

Now that I consider what I’ve written in light of the fact that I’m updating my blog only because my boss isn’t here and I’m frolicking in my holiday mode, I am filled with shame + regret. But I’ve implemented a no delete policy here on Step.Down. which will clearly come to be my undoing.

I have returned to this abortive entry hours later, full of soy milk macchiatos. I can practically hear the sloshing inside of me when I walk. My mind is mulch and my hair fabulous. I smoke too much (something I say now in every single entry) but Saul Bellow said ‘I think more die of heartbreak than radiation,’ which is something to think about. I seem to suffer from pointless, needless heartbreak, even when there appears to be none in my life. Give me time, I’ll also start churning out bitter, angry rambly poetry in my free time. And then we’ll all *REALLY* appreciate the no delete policy.

There are these moments when I’m made aware of my staggering lack of substance. I suppose it’s not fair to expect other people to share all sorts of meaningful insight given the situation. Speaking of lack of substance, are you guys watching Boardwalk Empire? Is the reason that men like the show so much because it’s so oedipal in nature? The commodore is the father Jimmy hates, but whose approval he so desperately needs. Nucky is the father Jimmy had and hates and wants to ‘vanquish.’ His mean dad is the father Nucky wants to prove his worth to. Nucky is the father the SUPER super cute new Irishman whose name I don’t remember wants to prove himself to and whose wife (therefore, his ‘mother’) he wants to eventually do. Nucky is the father Eli hates and wants to prove himself to. ALL THE GANGSTERS ARE THE FATHERS EVERYONE HATES AND WANTS TO PROVE THEMSELVES TO. The only cool fellow is Chalky White, who I suspect will get lynched :( Terrible poetry and CBSE brand armchair psychology is what the new policy gets you. I’m going to India and on my list of things I must return with are my warmer jackets, Chunky Chat Masala, channa masala, maggi masala and bags of Uncle Chips. As you can see, a lack of spice is one of the main problems of the middle east. Nasi goreng flavoured maggi is wrong and let your children eat chips in flavours other than salt, ridged + salt, salt + cheese and the godawful honey barbeque.

I weep for your children.

I weep for how bad the title of this post is :(

"It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them. And every new dog who comes into my life gifts me with a piece of their heart. If I live long enough, all the components of my heart will be dog, and I will become as generous and loving as they are."
--Unknown

I am fresh out of things to say. I am deeply uninspired. Every day I check for tumours, because I can sense one lurking right below my skin. I am twenty five and weighed down by hidden tumours and visible malignancies. I exist only between books and cigarettes and half filled bottles of water.

I am slowly disappearing.

sometimes all i see is my horn in the way

i'm on my third piece of chewing gum since morning. cutting back on cigarettes blows.

never fuck a gift horse in the mouth

The internet isn’t a sentient being, so I should probably stop starting every post by greeting the internet. But then neither is the universe and the universe and I talk all the time. INTERNET, HELLO.

This is my first Ramadan experience, despite coming from a country with one of the largest Muslim populations in the world. When I’m not marveling at my cultural ignorance, I’m in awe of the hardcore fasting people are capable of. Other than the standard no food / drink fast there are people who also don’t swallow for the entire period, with the basic idea being that nothing should go down your throat. Thirteen hours of nothing going down your throat. And the whole experience is meant to remind you of how insignificant you are, a lesson in humility and the awesomeness of the god you believe in.

I now live in Dubai (have I mentioned that here earlier?) and it’s illegal to eat / drink in a public place during this month. There’s a room somewhere in my office where non fasting employees can convene to eat / drink. I personally find the thought of going to some secret room, with the door closed and stuffing your face while a significant percentage of your fellow employees are fasting in remarkably poor taste. So I also end up not eating / drinking till I get home (reduced working hours means home at 4) and even though today’s only day 4, the whole thing has been a shocking realization of what a toxic sewer my insides are. It’s not that I’m hungry by the time I get home (which I am, but is manageable). It’s the nicotine, caffeine and aspartame cravings that give me migraines and reduce my brain to mulch, that are alarming. Apparently, I can NOT go hours without any of the three. Which makes me wonder how would I live on a deserted island / in a small city / on a farm. It’s a charmed solipsistic life I tells ya.

Can I revoke my invitation to my manfriend to visit me? The women here are too pretty, it’s a horrible mistake. I know I say that a lot (the thing about the pretty women), pretty much every time I travel. But seriously! Dubai is numero uno when it comes to the babeliness of its women. Other than the hordes of beautiful expats who’re flitting about the place looking fresh and lovely, the effect local women have on all who lay their eyes on the only visible bit of skin, their dignified, demure face surrounded by meters of black fabric, is pretty fucking damaging.

One of the kittens I feed has finally finally FINALLY decided that she can trust me and now every day at feeding time I get rubbed against in a manner that if not adorable would be downright perverted. I know I can’t take them home, because a) I’m not home much b) I don’t how long I am in Dubai, but it’s a thought that’s begun gnawing at my heart. Its easier when I put a ‘doing what’s best for them’ spin on it as I figure they’d be pretty miserable being locked into an empty flat for most of the day.

And to continue with the inane domestic roundub (I’m a diarist, not a blogger SEE) I got my lockjaw insurance claim from the evil insurance company. Considering this has been my first ever experience with any sort of insurance company and they coughed up as per process without any harassment (real or assumed) at all I should probably think a little more favourably of them. I’ve however been conditioned to think of insurance companies as the epitome of corporate evil (ho ho ho I work at one of the oldest MFing banks in the world) and was fully prepared to hand over my claim documents and stab the insurance rep in the scrotum.

In what I could consider to be supremely ironic, my brother has moved to the village (while I have moved out of the country). However, since he is my favourite human being I’m also super happy that he gets to enjoy beautiful weather and kickass coffee and very narrow roads and the sexism of the landlord community. Better there than in hotter parts of the country I say. And it’s too early but I’m already excited about my two week long trip back home in October. I can’t wait to get bitten and ignored by my own babies. I. Can. Not. Wait

I’m looking forward to the manfriend’s impending visit on so many levels. In the top three is the fact that I intend to constantly get wasted with him. Dipsomania aside, this visit is also very worrying and I want to keep you posted with daily updates of ‘god, how do I get him out of the house without seeming insane, considering the bitchfit I threw to get him to visit in the first place’ and ‘why must he snore all the time!’ and ‘is it okay if I start staying late at work to avoid him?’ but I can’t since he knows the link to my blog :(

xx

Murphy's a h8r

For the record everything about Coke Studio irritates me. I'm not really sure why, and my irrational response probably shows that I'm a douche. This weekend I was hanging out at a friend's place. This friend and her boyfriend happen to be from Pakistan, and are very into douchey music like the doors. Besides this they listen to a lot of Pakistani music and had a whole bunch of Coke Studio on (I think it was Coke Studio at least, typically vaguely classical instruments, acoustic guitars and warbling). So I got to hear this song called saari raat (literal translation: all night) about this dude who's up all night wishing the worst for some person. There's a verse in there which actually says:

jab teri aankhein so jaye
aur teri yaadein kho jaye
tere tan main tere man main
tere ghar ko aag lag jaye
aur tujhe jaag na aaye

vague translation:

when your eyes fall asleep
and your memories are lost
in your body in your mind
your house should burn down
and you don't wake up

:O

Whoa, Coke Studio! What's with the intensely hate-filled songs? Needless to say, in my douchy tradition I've started listening to this ode to ill will and started vicariously enjoying the hate.

In other news tomorrow I'm attempting to drive to the hospital for my appointment. This will be my first time driving somewhere which isn't work or the mall, as mentioned earlier. I've got my GPS ready, though, GPS lady, I don't see how announcing 'in 750 meters get on the highway' is a useful instruction. The roads of Dubai are horrible where if you miss one turn you're halfway to Sharjah before you can turn around and fix it. So I really hope she's a little more useful tomorrow. And it also doesn't help that I had thai food for dinner, where my bravado made me ask for 'thai spicy' level of spicy and now I have a potentially upset stomach. The egg fried rice was rice, egg and red chillies. Red chillies EVERYWHERE. In a 5:1 ratio to all other ingeredients. God, I hate the GPS lady and the thai so much.

my yoga place is shut because it's friday, i want to get drunk but then my brother won't let me drive to the mall at night to pick up thai food.

this weekend is fraught with conflict and choices.