Looking at the world from the bottom of a well

"Bye bye love
Bye bye happiness
Hello loneliness
I think I'm gonna cry
Bye bye love
Bye bye sweet caress
Hello emptiness
I feel like I could die
Bye bye my love, goodbye"

The song has nothing to do with the post, but it's playing in my mind. :)

So.

This is my last post on Livejournal. Due to certain annoying anonymous commenters whom I no longer wish to tolerate, I've taken the decision to migrate to Blogger - bag, baggage and all. All my old LJ entries, along with all my new stuff, can be found there. Will miss being able to put in my current music and things like that, but I'd rather not have to deal with cowardly anonymous assholes, and Blogger's Captcha and ID requirements will make my life easier.

Oh, and the new blog can be accessed at summertime hyphen bacchanalian dot blogspot dot com.

Peace.

My family is going on holiday together this weekend after over six years.

We're going to Pondicherry.

I'm skipping a day of class on Monday (assuming I have classes that day) because of it. I don't care about that. This is too big a thing for me to care about silly stuff like that.

I'm starting next trimester with new goals (health, happiness, and achievement), a new outlook (life is scary but beautiful), and a new agenda.

I feel good today. Beautiful, too. (And they are different things.) Let's not mistake that for upbeat, or positive, or happy, even. Just good.

I feel like dressing up and going out tonight - turning heads, causing distraction, and earning glares from women who just cannot be everything I am. I feel like setting the dance floor on fire.

Familial responsibilities dictate otherwise, though, so I'm going to spend the evening at home instead, making polite conversation with the guest we're having to dinner.

But I still feel sexy, and powerful, and awesome. I feel like I can take on the world.

Fuck, it feels good. Today really feels good.

My mind is on fire.
I want to run, laugh, scream, live
But not love.
I want to be me
Just
Me.

Visions make me gasp.
And they must bloom, burn, soar, speed
But not stay.
And they must be free
Just
Free.

Sleep's as far off as morn.
I waste not, want not;
Merely seeking
Inspiration,
I walk
Laugh
Cross my fingers
(for I will not pray).

Someone reacted to my last post with a concern that the bits talking about liking pain were a bit disturbing. Or at least worrying. Part of my response to that was: "And didn't you know about the pain thing? I don't mean actual bad pain - I mean good pain. The sort of hurting that feels good because you're glad you feel *something* and it reminds you that you're capable of feeling real honest emotion, and not some fucked up pseudo-cynical law-school give-a-shit response."

I think that's the beginning of something I often think about. Two things: We embrace pain on a number of occasions, out of necessity, the acceptance that the prize is worth it, and, yes, sometimes, mania. And, law school turns us into fucking automatons. (Hat tip to Surd for first noting and protesting against that, way back when.)

So, the first. Pain can be good. My best reason is that it reminds you that you're still alive. Happiness doesn't do the job nearly as well. The happiness high fades after a while, leaving you grasping at the last wisps of it in an exercise of futility. Take an example that women can relate to: waxing. The stinging (or burning, or many other varieties of pain) that cuts through layers of tissue when the woman at the parlour rips the strip off your body cannot not give you the certainty that you're alive, no matter what the other feelings and thoughts it gives you (my usual: argh why why why am I doing this, I hope all men die for this the bastards they're not even worth this, ah I wish I was dead help it huuuuuurts oooh wait cool ice oh lovely lovely ice I love you I want to marry you and have your babies ice ice baby hm *giggle*). You cannot but be aware that you're alive, that you hurt, and that you want to be doing other things in that moment, other things that hurt less and make you happier. Pain spurs you on. Why else would "no pain, no gain" make any sort of sense? (Hello gym, here I come. Ma won't let me hear the end of it if I don't.)

People also turn to pain for other reasons. One way of dealing with grief is to embrace the pain it's causing you. Closure tends to follow acceptance - eventually. And sometimes the pain is fucking worth whatever you're getting out of it. This is the root of compromise.

Now, the second. Having reached that part of my law school life when I can rarely feel true happiness for another's success (and don't really remember what it's like to feel truly happy at all) and when caring enough about people outside of my immediate circle of friends to do something for them is far beyond my capacity, I find myself both a little less and a little more human, but in widely differing ways. I believe now that Law School doesn''t, in fact, inspire you to do anything "different" - it just sets out paths to 'done things' and common achievements that you can add to that wonderful thing, your CV. You really aren't doing anything wonderful - you merely follow in the footsteps of others who did the exact same thing (and this can be traced all the way back to the first time the thing was done, which was the only time it was anything new, different or beautiful). You're taught to react to things in a particular way, told that, say, mooting is a good thing to do, a difficult thing, a great thing because look at all these Law School studs who're doing it! (and so on and so forth with debating, client counseling, MUN-ing, whatever. Oh, and committees. Let's not forget the mindless morass of the goddamned committees).

So not only are we in this insanely competitive, punishing, repetitive and sapping matrix of madness - we're also conditioned to react in a particular way to certain things. Such and such is slime, so and so is shady, this and that is awesome, or stunning, or just plain cool. I'm positive that I lost a lot of my individuality directly after first year. That's as long as it takes. We all become seasoned Law School veterans after that - and are misguided and beguiled enough to think that that is a good thing!

This is not a post railing and raving against Law School - the kind that ends with a resounding "I fucking hate this place!". No, it really isn't. Truth be told, I don't hate the place. In fact, I'm indifferent; would rather not have an opinion about it; couldn't be bothered to exert my brain that much. It's not an important question. It's irrelevant. I've used it. It's used me. I'm what it wants me to be. I'm giving the standard cynical responses. Automated responses. And that is the real tragedy.

Which is why I embrace pain the way I do, when I feel it. That, or any other real, honest emotion. I embrace genius. I embrace the life coursing through my veins. For I don't feel it very often, and I treasure the times when I'm aroused from the waking illusion that is law school. Because the one thing that I am unequivocally sure about is this: I love my life. I love being alive. I love the experience of life. I love living. And I'll do everything I can to keep feeling these things.

So there's this band, Low Level Flight, and they've sung a song that's running through my head in bursts right now. It's beautiful. I don't know what the words really mean - I don't know (or care) what they're really singing about. But... you know how it feels when a song just jumps out at you, the words blurring and sharpening in a flash against a wall, painted there in sharp relief, stunning you to silence? I'm there. Right there, right now.

So these words... "Would you change for me, as I close my eyes? All alone I see... why did you change sides?" They mean nothing in the ordinary sense (heck, they make no sense if you just read them out aloud). But there's a tone, the tone, in which they're sung - and the way the guitar hurts you as it bursts out in the last part of the song - that just gets under my skin in the most wonderful way. I like the pain it gives me. I forgot that I like pain, sometimes. 

I realized a couple of days ago (it might have been a week, I don't recall) that something I honestly never thought possible has finally happened. It's a simple thing, maybe (or maybe it's complicated - I don't know. It seems like a simple enough thing, if I were to say it out loud, but I know it's huge, it's got to be fucking ginormous, or else, and all that), and it struck me in the most ordinary of ways. Not as a big realization would, you know. Just in the most unassuming way.

Enough with the preamble. I realized after weeks of thinking about it, and then weeks of not thinking about it at all, that I don't love him any more. Not one bit. I don't even retain that fondness that caused me to write soppy posts such as this one (and it was soppy).

I'm free. Hahaha.

And I was blissfully unaware of it for the longest time. That, I think, is the best part.

Oh, more words jumping out at me:
"I caught you in mid-lick
With nowhere to hide
So why're you denying
What I saw with my own eyes?"

Stunning.

Now, I get it. What the words mean, that is. The song is...beautiful. "change for me" - what beautiful, fitting words! Cynical, cutting, biting into me. Makes me feel alive.

And that's even better than being free.

I'm alive. <grins>

I don't need anybody to do that. <grins again>

I'm fucking alive. Take that.

So much to say, so much to say.

After the rather disastrous effect of my last post, which shall go down in my personal blog history as an epic fail moment, I've been a bit wary of blogging here. As a result, my awesome anonymous blog has three drafts currently awaiting completion (one is an awesome, embellished tale of one my more daring exploits -  I originally intended to write about it here as a semi-fictionalised account, but realised that the truth/versions of the truth, more honestly and earthily(?) told, would fit way better in with my anon blog), and this poor thing was lying unattended and ignored. Meh.

So anyhow. Week's stories:

Had a good long weekend at home; returned to insane amounts of work to be done; procrastinated and avoided work; missed deadlines; made excuses; had deadlines postponed; freaked out repeatedly and most enthusiastically about my job interview; ran around like a headless chicken looking for clothes suitable for said interview; practised and prepared for said interview; gave said interview; was a criminal waste of time, space and atoms thereafter over the weekend; learnt how to play teen patti; most enthusiastically wrecked my sleep cycle; started sleeping in the evenings; tried to pull all-nighters; gambled most successfully on probabilities, hence giving a good PIL viva; began to feel the effects of sleep deprivation kicking in; found out that I didn't get the job; tried, unsuccessfully, to get past not getting the job; gorged on chocolate to get rid of the feeling of absolute uselessness thereafter; went to more meetings about jobs; felt happy for a friend who's finally seeing someone after a long, unhappy empty period; consoled myself with other people's crappier lives from FMyLife; made myself cold coffee; wrote awesome nearly-finished story for anon blog; considered dropping out of law school to become a full-time writer; realised that I don't have class on Wednesday, which means that that's the day I find salvation, see the light at the end of the tunnel, etc. (i.e. get to sleep); stalked people across FB, blogs and Twitter; decided to post here.

Some random thoughts about EMD practice and more pending work have also fluttered through my head. Fuck 'em.

First off, am quite buzzed. Excuse all that comes after this.
So there are these boys. I like them a lot. I want to dance with them and do other things, too. I just don't have the guts to - it's actually very sad. I spend the evening dancing alone and then they went off with other women.
F my life. Someone help me.

I've been missing Delhi intensely lately. The need to go back to the city has been growing stronger of late. I miss walks in CP, late-night drives around India Gate with Raman, pani puri, Khan Market excesses, visits to Sarojini, momos in the colony markets in winter, dealing with stupid lecherous men, remembering how to speak unbroken Hindi, paying less for transport, navigating the Metro like a pro, exploring monuments and ruins with Archana, meeting lawschoolites, avoiding lawschoolites, and actually meeting all my otherwise-only-online Delhi friends. Sigh. (And yes, I admitted to missing stupid lecherous Delhi men. Sometimes, you need these things to remind you of who you are.) Oh, and if I were in Delhi, I could sneer at everyone living in Gurgaon again. The bliss.

Been rediscovering good music and books again, after a long time. I'd gotten so wrapped up in floating along in law school that these things had faded, lost meaning, and gathered dust in a corner. I'll admit this grudgingly, but - maybe these hols have been good for me, after all. I've no doubts that I'm going to go stir-crazy the moment I get back to campus, as responsibilities rush back to fill the unexpected void created by the forced shutting down of college, but I think I'll be just a little saner than I was when I left.

Oh, all right. I'll be a lot saner. I was a wreck the last day I was on campus.

Led Zepp is just beautiful. I'm at a loss for words to describe just how much I'm enjoying the music right now. I love guitars. *grins* I'm so glad they exist.

But then again, having gone back to my music, I'm reminded that I need to buy a new set of headphones. Good ones. That will, however, cost money. *shudders* It will be worth it, I know, but I wish I didn't have to work so hard and so much to get nowhere - to have to spend my hard-earned money on these things. :-( I want to go to Turkey! And that will cost a lot more than I've managed to put together so far! It's a fucking tragedy, it is. *shakes head*

Sometimes, I feel like a firang, not knowing enough of any language other than English to get much done. Yeah, I can speak Hindi - enough to get along, and understand about 80-85% of the things people around me are saying, but not enough to join in and carry a lively (and this is important) conversation forward. I hate being the (silent) spectator. I also find it it frustrating when I can grasp what people mean when speaking in a language I don't know the first thing about, but have no way of communicating with them. I suppose that what I'm getting at is that I really really want to learn more languages. My best experience was with Gujarati when I was in Bombay - I was staying with family on the Parsi side, and when I got there, I couldn't understand a word they were saying. By the time I left, I was muttering "su karech" and "kemcho" under my breath without realising it, and could follow a conversation with only minor difficulty. It was heartening.

On to other urges: I want to go somewhere where it's easy to fall into a trance, lose a little bit of your identity, and just be a girl someone wants to spend the evening with. Companionship calls to me. There's... there's nothing wrong with wanting someone to take a walk with in the evenings, is there? I'm still my own person. I've...made sure of that.

And... sigh. I want the cold back. Lovely cold coldness. Wrapping up, layer after layer. Snuggling up under blankets, enjoying cocoons of warmth.  The best bit about that is that good company suddenly becomes a lot better in the winter - a lot cosier. :-) I'm a lot more inclined to share stimulating conversation over a cup of hot chocolate. Oooh, spiced hot chocolate at Chokola. Mmmm.

So. Delhi. Reminds me of all these things. Music (memory: Cafe Morrison, dancing and taking silly pictures), Hindi (memory: beating autowallahs down to less-than-meter rates - and actually getting them to take me by meter. It worked over half the time.), Companionship (memory: ruminating about life and love while lounging against the car, parked on Rajpath, facing India Gate, on my last night in Delhi),and the Cold (memory: manoeuvering to make sure I was sent to court the next day so that I could wear layers of warm woollens and still look good, sneaking out of office to grab hot momos with ingredients of questionable origin even as bird flu spread).

Good memories.

The urge has grown stronger. Sigh. I must go to Delhi. Soon.

Music that has caught my ear recently. Inspired by the awesomeness of the first song, I decided to make this quick list. :)

- Current New "Old" Favourite: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Free Bird. This is one awesome piece of work. The guitar work on this track is phenomenal. It makes me want to be at SF, up in the law school enclosure, going wild, out-of-my-mind happy crazy fulfilled listening to three days of live rock, funk and metal. That's when I feel like I have a place in the world. And I can't get over how fucking brilliant this song is. I first heard it during one of the most poignant scenes of the TV show Californication (irreverent, lots of nude scenes, powerful yet awesome in a you-just-gotta-hand-it-to-these-motherfuckers kinda way; watch it) and it fit like a glove there. I was hooked. Can't seem to get myself unhooked. Don't care.

- Current New "New Discovery" Favourite: White Lies, E.S.T. This one's classic Brit rock. I love the haunting background beat, which dominates the first thirty seconds of the song and really sets the tone for the rest of it. The track has a lovely haunting quality to it, and I doubt any American band would have managed to sing it in a manner that resonates with me so. First heard during a bittersweet moment on the TV show Gossip Girl (which has quite the excellent soundtrack).

- Current New "Bling/WTF Was I Thinking" Favourite: The Black Eyed Peas, I Gotta Feeling. It's mindlessly repetitive, has banal lyrics, and adds nothing to the quality of my life, but I can't help but have this song play over and over in my head. It has David Guetta written all over it (and he even features in the video, it seems!), but is still chirpy enough to make the cut. I blame Star Movies for using this in their promos - it crept into my brain without realising it! Must admit though, Fergie's got a damn fine ass. (Watch the video!)

- Current New "New-age Rock Anthem" Favourite: Green Day, 21 Guns. First heard on OST Transformers 2. Better than the Linkin Park song that the movie seemed to have to have. Strangely, brings to mind young love, naivete and hope. I like how the song grows on you - it's very 'polite' while building up. I like that.

- Current "I Want To Do This A Cappella But My Group Will Kill Me If I Suggest It" Favourite: Green Day, Before the Lobotomy. It's beautiful, harsh, and swings wildly from note to note without any concern for propriety. It's a saga, and one of the tracks on 21st Century Breakdown that really affirms the rock operatic nature of the album. True-blue Green Day.

- Current "omfg Sheer Brilliance" Favourite: Green Day, Peacemaker. Irreverent, cheeky, careless, and sinister. It sets a frenzied pace, breaks once in the middle, and is very smoothly executed. My favourite part, however, comes right at the end, when Billy Joe draws out the word "serenade", softening the first half and then executing the last syllable in an almost-snarl. Perfect. Genius.

More, later.

My grandfather died of Alzheimer’s when I was in the tenth. I don’t remember much of the time, partly because I don’t have the best memory of personal events, and partly because I think I actively strove to forget, in the days that followed. But these things I do remember.

The slow deterioration of his quality of life. How he would get disoriented. How he always wanted my dad, his son, in the room with him. How his stubbornness remained through the various stages of his illness, making things even more difficult to deal with than usual. How, one evening, my parents had to go out somewhere and left me to take care of him along with the nurse, and how he would not stop calling for my father. I remember, oh-so-painfully-clearly, how I scolded him and yelled at him as my father had told me that I must in order to make him understand that he wasn’t at home and that he would be back in some time. I also remember going back to watching TV after that. I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven myself for that little episode. Even if I didn’t do something terrible. It was bad enough.

I loved my grandfather. He was strict, but kind, and loving, and he was the one who started giving me pocket money while I was in school. It started off with Rs. 2 a day – this was a reward for packing my bag the previous night. :) I remember petitioning to my mother and grandfather to increase it to Rs. 5 a day when I started listening to more music and wanted to buy tapes. I was SO kicked when they agreed and my pocket money jumped from Rs. 60 to Rs. 150 a month. I’d find a crisp five-rupee note tucked into the cover of the book topmost on my pile of school books each morning after that. I also remember the day I asked that the money be given to me in weekly rather than daily instalments. He was  a little upset, because then my mother took over the allowance-giving, and his role in it gradually faded.

Now, earlier memories come back to me. Him driving me to school in our Maruti Van as a little girl. (A really little girl). He did it for the longest time, while he still could. My parents were working themselves to death at the time, my dad working at four different hospitals and my mum working insane hours at her hospital. My grandfather would pick me up after exams and take me to Arun ice-creams for a Krunch Kone. I remember how the price rose from Rs. 15 to Rs. 18 to Rs. 20 to (gasp) Rs. 22, and how he would tell me, you’re going to make me run out of money, you always want the expensive ice-cream,  and how I would grin mischievously and kiss him on the cheek (he was a very tall man, though that may only be because he appeared so to my childish eyes) with ice-cream sticky lips. He never protested.

He watched over me while I went through many years of restless sleep, placing a chair right next to my bed so that I wouldn’t roll off at night. We’d both read a book before going to sleep. He would listen to the BBC radio every evening (I remember hearing of Princess Di’s death on it) and would have a small drink every night with dinner, which would be a table-mats, place-settings and coasters kind of affair (it’s stunning how these things changed after he died). He was an anglophile, and taught me how to eat a mango “like the Queen does” – with a spoon.

He wasn’t the fun kind of grandfather, but I really really loved him.

When I go, I want to go quickly, and quietly, not fade away slowly. But I want to die old. I don’t want to be dismissed as the confused, elderly grandmother who won’t stop talking about things she did when she was young (which no one in the family believes), mixing up stories from different times, having to be tolerated instead of anything else. I want to retain my faculties, watch a couple of grandchildren be born and grow up a little, and then go, quietly, when I have to. No fuss. No long, drawn-out, painful illness. Somewhere, I think I’d choose euthanasia over that. I’d like to die with the people I love, and who love me, around me, if possible. No tears. No sorrow. Just happiness that I’ve lived a full life.

Taking old conversations, old memories, old happinesses, and pressing them close to me, I try to imbibe the essence of what was - that which died a slow death, and which, at the end of this long, long time, I cannot see even a spark of. I see two different people, and I hold on to the one that I loved. Tight.
The memories - I make them into a mosaic, weaving them tightly together, to form a screen that I can lean on, and rest on, when I am unhappy and exhausted.
The old writings, and confessions and declarations of love - I put them away in a trunk under my bed, which overflows with little scraps of paper - and this are affectionately read every time I clean my room and dust off the trunk. They make me laugh, loud and long. They were always that good. *smiles*
Bon Jovi's Always comes to mind. Not the sentiment of the song, but, as is more common, certain lyrics that jump out in one's mind:
All the pictures that you left behind
Are just memories of a different life
Some they made us laugh
Some they made us cry
*irrelevant-to-current-emotion rhyming lyric here*
I'm trying desperately hard to be fair to what was. And to forget the long, drawn-out unpleasantness. Really forget it, and the details. I'd rather have a dark haze over my memories of two years than recall unhappy details. I'd rather just accept that I did have some dark years.
And now... where am I now? That's a question I'm having difficulty answering. It's been so long since I was alone and lonely that I don't remember what I'm supposed to do. That's curiously ironic; humorous but not funny.
Strange... I can't bear to think about what was, except in the very best terms, any more. Too...numb...to go beyond that.
-----------------------------------
Dear Time,
Please heal me.
Love,
Asma.

I now have an anonymous blog on Blogger. This doesn't mean that I'm abandoning LJ, though it may appear so for a while until I get used to maintaining two blogs. I'll still blog here about the things that I can blog about here. The anon blog (and that's how I intend for it to remain - anonymous) is for all the things I have to censor out of my LJ posts. Hee hee. It shall be fun. :)

 

Fingers slightly numb, warming up in the cosiness of my room. The outside is cold, it made me shiver, and made my voice quiver and break into little hesitant stutters as I tried to explain to four guys why I'd decided the debate the way I had.
My heart wasn't in it today, either.  But I went and did it nonetheless. Because I need to know how far I need to go, myself. Because I'm pushing myself that little bit more because I joined this particular race at a later stage. I feel like I have to play catch-up. But mostly because I need to find the confidence in myself and my abilities to take me through the tournament with good performances. I'm looking forward to it, yeah. But there's a lot more tied to it. I want to do well. I want to break at the Worlds. That would be frickin' awesome. And I wouldn't feel like doing this weighs me down, any more. I'd be vindicated.
Now that I've opened my mouth and put every one of those quivering, flighty feelings down in writing, I'm a little mindfucked. See, now I'm worried I've jinxed it. <facepalm>
I've decided to adopt a 'never erase' policy - once I've typed out something, be it online or on my phone, I don' t erase it, and send/post it as it is. Let the world deal with the repurcussions. 
In any case. The debate. Was rather dreary. Maybe I'm just exhausted; and what with getting only three hours of sleep last night, it's no surprise. I've been pushing myself in strange ways, lately. Pushing myself to the edge in different ways, to see if I'd teeter and fall, or totter and regain my balance. Wondering if I'll ever gather the courage to just jump off the edge. I've contemplated it often in the last ten days, but what it implies scares the living crap out of me. It means complete loss of control. Doing something without caring for the results, or the consequences, or even the talk that tomorrow would be sure to bring. I can't ever bring myself to do that. So I day-dream about doing it instead, each action a deliberately planned spontaneous loss of composure and dignity. I've had to curb urges that threatened to take over my soul, every day. Every damn day. Damn, I'm spontaneous, yeah, but every bit in control of the situation nonetheless - I know that if I'm not in control of it myself, someone I trust is, and will take care of me. But yeah, I can't let myself go. Too much pride - and potential self-loathing - at stake for that.
Even when i don't give a fuck, I still give a fuck. How strange. 
This post is going to make no sense when I next read it, I can just imagine it.
Goodnight, cruel world. (Heh.)

Feeling nothing about feeling nothing - what is to be done with such a situation?
The tempting answer: nothing.
But, no.
I shall attempt (attempt, mind you) to write about it.

...or not.
Got a debate to judge. Later.

What kind of work befits the application of the phrase "finishing touches" to it? I mean, when would you say that you're putting the finishing touches to something - does it have to be a work of art, a masterpiece, or just something you're doing?
I think it all boils down to phraseology. You don't give any old thing 'touches' - some delicacy needs to be involved for that word to be appropriate. And, dear me, if no delicacy is involved, I don't very well see reason for 'finishing touches' to be applied, either. If you're going to randomly throw something together, you don't get to put finishing touches to it. Period. Create something with grace and beauty and intricacy, and you're perfectly entitled to do so - it's you're rightful place to be the artist, to look upon your work with a critical eye, and to change a little something here, and erase impudent errors there, and to bring that work ever closer to your idea of perfection, ever closer to completion.
And then there is the thought that that something needs to be somewhat complex. Unless you can convince me that the thing you are creating is so complex that it is simple, or can come up with some other such strange explanation, I'm not budging. Work hard to get to put finishing touches to your creations. Make them worth it.

I can sense the madness
It's just around the corner
Waiting to engulf me
If I gave it the smallest chance.
The madness -
The twisting, changing madness,
The fount of hysteria,
The loss of self-control,
The utter loss of self -
It is here.

Root and stem, a Mobius strip
Of cause and effect -
X follows Y follows X
With no discernible beginning or end.
Madness and loss and hatred -
All of self, all of me.

A small, lonely figure
Stands on a scarred, shattered landscape
Beside a torrentious black river;
Afraid to take a step,
Afraid to wet its feet,
Afraid to swim across,
Afraid to move at all.
Life, or death -
No way to tell which -
Lies in the current, and beyond.

Mired in fear,
The figure stands alone.
The madness takes its chance,
And makes itself at home.

Status messages: what we use to tell the world about ourselves - sometimes too much, sometimes too little, and sometimes just enough (when we get the mix right). They are the arena we use to crack our private jokes, have a superconversation, and do and be things right under people's noses, in full public view, without their realising it. A status message is our secret identity, our own private universe, a creature of fantasy.

The last time I took that quiz, I was something else - the Libertine. I'm quite fascinated by the results this time. The questions haven't changed; only my answers have.
Hm. Interesting.

So, folks.

Been adjudicating the NLSD the past couple of days. Awful debating, hashing and rehashing of arguments, ghastly behaviour at weirdly-drunk-people parties and general arbitness aside, I think it's time to really do it: it's time to discuss The Droolworthy.

All those toy boys and cute faces that I've had on my radar the past couple of days deserve their due. It's about fuckin' time.

Oh, and 's far as I care, They could read this. They should know!

Debate's the time when I feel I can really allow myself to lech. It happened at OxBridge, and I swear I was hot for those Irish blokes who lost in the semis while proposing to bomb the living crap out of some bunch of ethnic cleanser-type folk. They were a feast to the eyes, and even more attractive when drunk. Oh, and orators - and I mean real orators, the guys who have you enthralled, hanging onto their words, feeling almost obscenely involved with them on a crazy no-one-else-exists level - are super-sexy. 'specially if they have sandy brown hair and keep rising to a crescendo in their speech (and taking you with them, in more ways than one). Even if they are American and are wearing gloves indoors and their trousers don't go with their jackets. I thank Cambridge for its hotties, the wet-dream worthy crowd of intelligent young lads who made my day. Though I didn't speak more than two words to any of them, they made an impact. Of a lasting kind. :) Much love to you, boys.

Ah, and coming to the action right here at home. I've been confused. Here, the cute boys aren't just cute, y'know. They're intelligent, too. That makes the mix so sweet it's almost sinful. Heck, it is sinful. Heheh. 

V's spoiled me for men - I expect them to be good-looking and sinfully intelligent and nice people. Well, two out of three isn't bad if you just want to look. And there was enough and more to look at.

My highest speaker scores have often gone to the good-looking Boy on the team. Not without reason, though, and most often because it turned out that he wasn't just a pretty face. Score!

So, DD - you got it because you were a really pretty face, and refreshing at the end of a long day. And because I liked your hoarse voice. And the fact that you told the Opp to 'chill' every time they PoI'd. Maybe this indicates that I have a weakness for the younger crowd. Ha. So be it.

The second guy - let's just call him HinduGuy for now - caught my attention because of the lovely pink-turning-purple bite on his neck, and his slow, steady pacing up and down the corridor. He was a good speaker to boot. I really liked his eyes. These men are the reason I don't fault Delhi for its bimbette chicks, who are annoying but made irrelevant by the men who don't completely turn me off when they open their mouths. (Ref: disappointing first years who stopped being eye candy pretty fast.)

Then there is my own personal debating almost-God, who's the only person who comes vaguely close to where Sumati stands in my books - though the charm has kinda worn off because of a bad decision he gave today. But I like the steadiness, the obvious intelligence, and the live-in-kurtas philosophy which works for that lanky build. He's the kind of guy I'd trust. Reminds me a little of Naseeruddin Shah, oddly enough. Hm. (Anyone understand that?)

And then... there are my 'standards'. They form part of the team I've been rooting for, the 'good guys', great speakers, and the kind of boys the eyes tend to follow without meaning to. I totally want to adjudicate them again. Like, totally. <grins> I'd have a tough time deciding best speaker.

This post reflects, somewhere, what Raman calls my potential to be that 'hot fifth year woman' that the juniors talk about when they're back in their rooms and the night's drawing out. The ease, however, with which I can talk about all these boys, though, comes only from the fact that I never mean to do more than that. I drool, and I whisper excitedly about it to my scandalised bunch of girl-friends, and secretly admit to more than that to my less fazed guy friends, and it ends at that.

These are all those half-finished thoughts in my head - wishful fantasies of seduction, most often followed by alarmed thoughts about my wild imagination, that run through my mind when I'm in a contemplative mood. These are all those what-ifs and careless maybes that I allow myself while I stick to being a relatively well-behaved, staid woman who'll never work up the nerve to approach a guy she thinks is cute. It isn't my thing.

Am I happy? I don't know. It makes for interesting thinking, livens up boring class hours, and gives me opportunity for a quiet giggle when I realise how scandalous most of us secretly wish we could be. And hey, I know I don't have the guts to play anything but safe. So that's how it's going to be, I guess.

Ta!

So you've become That Guy,
The one who puts his arm around the girls
Who clutches his drink and *rocks* slowly to the music
Like it's his Summer of '69.

You're That Guy now
And I'm glad I don't know you any more.
I'm glad I don't have to feel ashamed
Because you aren't what I wanted you to be -
I'm glad I can laugh at you instead;

And now as you and your too-loud voice
In this smoke-filled room ring with incongruity,
I lean back, forget that I wanted to drag you into a corner,
And breathe in the music,
Bit by bit
And close my eyes to the world
and to you.

But in those moments that I am not strong,
I can't help but let it get to me
And I can't help but want
To haul you into that corner
And do you repeatedly;
Hating myself all the while.

---------------------------

And now, to close: Some lines from Robbie Williams' "Sexed Up"
"Why don't we talk about it
Why do you always doubt that there can be a better way
It doesn't make me wanna stay

Why don't we break up
There's nothing left to say
I got my eyes shut
Praying they won't stray
Oh, when I'm sexed up
That's what makes the difference today
I hope you blow away

Screw you,
I didn't like your taste anyway
I chose you
And that's all gone to waste
It's Saturday
I'll go out and find another you"

I want someone to write my LPD project for me. And no, I'm not kidding - I really, truly, desperately want someone to volunteer to help me write the wretched thing, or offer to write it all by themselves. I'll sell my soul to that individual, I swear.
The reason for this madness is the fact that the submission deadline has just passed me by right now as I sat wondering about the results of the CLAT (yes, the CLAT), and I felt nothing. No panic, no feeling, nothing. I just turned to my laptop and made an attempt to absorb the UNDP Human Development Report I was trying to read. When that failed, I resumed my curious day-dreaming.
Perhaps it's the fact that V is in the same position I am in - the point at which "slipping it under" has become your only option - and he's not threatening me with the end of the world if I don't finish it and submit it by 6 am tomorrow.
Perhaps it's the fact that the world did, in fact, end, sometime in August last year, and now I'm just floating along in limbo.
Perhaps it's the fact that I've been blog-silent, imposing this upon myself because I felt no bursting emotion at all any more.
Perhaps it's the fact that I've behaved like absolute law school slime over this project sub, abandoning all principles and ideals in order to get.things.done.
Perhaps it's the fact that I haven't heard my mother's voice, or my father's, for weeks.
Perhaps it's the fact that I feel that I'm afloat in a sea that's deceptively calm, waiting for it to take me where it will, even though I can see an island in the distance and want to go there, knowing as I do that that island is where home is, where hope is, where a future is, and not being able to care enough not to abandon it.
Perhaps it's just the fact that I'm approaching the end of my third year in this institution, and have long ceased to care...
... but I can't seem to bring myself to work on this project.

Which, by the way, was supposed to be submitted about an hour ago, today, two days after the 6th day of project submission, because I went to Dhaka and judged some debates.

Warning: NEVER - never never ever ever - wake me up badly.
'Badly' includes the use of squeals, yells, sudden and intentionally focused bright light, vigorous shaking, annoyingly cheery voices, and complete and obvious lack of respect for the fact that someone is asleep and probably wants to stay that way.
Do not wake me up if you don't know me. If  you are close enough, I will throttle you. If not, I'm going to hurt you very badly at some later point.
Do not switch on tube lights and simultaneously yell my name and say it's time to get up. Or ask me if I want pizza. No, I don't want pizza, I want to sleep, dimwit. If I wanted pizza I wouldn't be asleep, now, would I?
I begrudge you this intrusion even more if you pulled me out of a dream. You fuck with my dreams, I fuck with you.

Well, enough of that.
Waking up when I wasn't meant to this evening has left me feeling empty and purposeless. I don't *want* to do anything, because it all feels very wrong. It's like I was meant to live this day in a particular manner, but now I can't, and no alternate vision of the now has presented itself to me for me to slip into. It's just this: I'm simply not meant to be awake right now. I'd thought about it and accepted that I would remain asleep, possibly till tomorrow morning. It was how things were to be. Without them, there is emptiness.
And emptiness brings out the very worst parts of me - all those things, those thoughts that I have put away and suppressed in the past, hoping to be mature and ready enough to deal with them in the future, have come rushing to fill the void, though this is not their time. I find myself disoriented, a sudden tear on my cheek, a wetness on my pillow. Memories of days gone by fill my mind. I can see them in front of me, and I can see the parallel realities they could have brought. The visions then vanish, and the emptiness comes back, bigger and hungrier because it can't find the right things to fill it up.
I can see the effects of reading Dune here.
I am fatalistic.
I'm vulnerable when I sleep. Please don't abuse the trust I place in you when I sleep in your presence by waking me up, and badly at that.

I've lost a dream.
And I can feel the place
Where it was wrenched from me -
All the broken bits of me
Lurch at the thought of it
And the remembered feel of it.
I sorrow for it.
It was in my care
And as you joyously sunder'd it from me
I saw it die.

I felt magnificently and spectacularly alone.
There was a void, a big black void
And though I saw it
It saw me too.
It liked what it saw
It knew, as did I
That I could not,
And would not,
Turn away.
Into this void
I fell.

The sound of breaking glass. Fuzzy moving pictures of people moving towards each other. Goosebumps. Gradually letting the music dictate the mood.

Ah, well.

It strikes me as a matter of comfort. Of ease. It's strange how I want to share, dictate, pull and push at the same time.

Innate, taken-for-granted comfort.
Surprise hugs from behind.
Instinctive understanding of what was going on.
Unspoken, intimate communion.
No pressure. No walls.

Watching them being built, the pretty walls.
Building some myself.
Sticking something out because it was the kind of something different that tasted good, that felt good.
It sometimes seems to boil down to a matter of perspective.

Short, hard-to-decipher sentences.
That's me, for you.

In Delhi, hands very very cold. But still thinking about it all. Didn't really mentally prepare myself for coming to Delhi, or for the massive change that has taken place in the way I feel about this city. It's changed from CWBL to just "C". (Some of you know exactly what that means. To the others - sorry, but I'm not telling.) The charm is gone, and my automatic love for it that endured despite my bitching and complaining has also faded. This city now has to earn my love, and earn my attachment to it. There is no longer reason for me to give it easy going.
Yeah, I'm like this - sentimental and weird. I don't ask for you to understand it; in fact, I don't really care if you don't. This isn't for your understanding - it's for me. And that's the way things are.
One thing, though...I find myself longing for, as I put it not so long ago, a "nice boy to hold me and be with me". While I'm at it, I wouldn't mind him being good-looking, firm-bodied and intelligent, either. It would be nice if he were a good kisser, and had a nice singing voice, also. <shrugs>
Ah, well. One can only hope. :-)
It's just that there are a whole lot of dumb good-looking Delhi boys I've seen in the past two days. And somewhere, I wonder why the idiot Delhi boys I know from college keep going on about the "stupid Delhi women." <throws hands up in the air in frustration> As I said, idiots. This place is just like every other. Just because you're bigger and have Factories like RKP doesn't mean you're not like every other place.

Oh, blah. I still want me a nice boy to cuddle with. Sigh.

I'm sitting in the Keynes Library at the Cambridge Union. Have been struck by the strangest thoughts over these past few days. Maybe I'm being overly emotional, but this is the colour with which this part of my trip will be tinged. Was supposed to go out and explore Cambridge today, now, but my company is filling out her Linklaters application form, so I'm hanging around. Will cut in a bit and take a stroll.
It's positively freezing here. There was frost on the cars this morning when I was walking to the Union, and I thought it quite spectacular. I'm going to go punting and see the market over here. See the Mathematical Bridge and the Bridge of Sighs and everything.
Coffee pots and Irish Cream everywhere and I don't know what to get people and I want to hold on to my memories of Phantom of the Opera and all the soft, majestic beauty of Westminster Abbey.
I'm lonely, though, and some part of me really wants to go home and spend time with people. These ten days of absolutely no work and tons of living has been the most wonderful thing. I refuse to go back to the usual law school life. I've spent horribly large amounts of money here, and have realised that I've just been letting life pass me by in law school, living nothing each day, just sitting around. I'm going to go out and do all the things I keep looking at and wanting to do, and I'm going to take my camera with me and take photos of it, too. I'm going to live. I refuse to let law school reduce me to a meaningless existence. This is my life, for Pete's sake!
Perspective is lovely, sometimes.
"Baby, I want you right here next to me..."

It's good to have somebody to love. Somebody who is right for you. Somebody with whom you can be easy and not have to be another person for.
It's good to have somebody to love.

[Cut to Jim Carrey in The Cable Guy, singing "Somebody To Love"]

Skies are clear, and my eyes are dry... for now. Silly tears and meaningful ones - they've all been cried, the way they wanted to be. Everyone wants their day in the sun. Why not these useless tears of mine? *shrugs*

Take a nice, sharp blade, and nick me good. At least it'll be real.

I'm deeply ashamed and disgusted with myself. I don't know how to behave, now. I do blame myself. I do berate myself.

When the walls fall, they're broken, and shall not be rebuilt. They aren't like the covers which you can conveniently pull back up over yourself, to cover and shield yourself with.

Calm, cool, very well-thought-out words. I should've seen them coming, they were there, ephemeral, ethereal, for so very long. I've never seen him speak after having put that much thought into anything except times like these. Yeah, it's times like these you learn to live again, times like these you give and give again, times like these you learn to love again. Times like these too many times, and you're at an end. <tired smile>

I've cried a lot in the past twenty-four hours. An awful lot. But I still feel like there's an ocean of tears within me that's waiting to pour out. That ocean will flow, and flood the land, for many, many days. Then, the tide will recede, and the rebuilding will start. 'tis the way life works, eh, mon?

As tame_wildcard put it so very well, I have to learn to enjoy being with myself again. That's one of the things. Not by any means the most important. Oh, not by far. But 'tis there. Yeth.

Can't write honestly right now. Will try again later. The words are there, and they'll find their way out when the time is right.

Maroon 5 songs are always around. Better off this way, better that we break... baby.

Dedicated to tongsinanpei, carboxymoron, and tame_wildcard:

This hit me so very perfectly, especially after the events of today. After all we said, and all that I thought about.




















































It just fits.

It's perfect.