Ganya and I went on a hike up Mt. Tamalpais yesterday

Here's the evidence

Movie week

For a while now, I've been off movies. Not consciously, but for some reason over the last several months I've just preferred endless re-runs of dusty sitcoms to even the best of movies out on DVD. Finally, I've managed to shake off my languor. And what a week it has been...! Five movies- one on opening day in the theatre. Here is my twopence in twenty words or thereabouts.

The Departed
Not that I liked ‘The Departed’ less, but I liked ‘L.A.Confidential’ more.

The Da Vinci Code
If you’ve read the book, don’t watch the movie; if you’ve not read the book, don’t watch the movie.

Music and Lyrics
No one other than Hugh Grant should act in romantic comedies! No really, I mean it!

Goodbye Lenin
Ich liebe Daniel Brühl! Er ist total ‘eye-candy’. Especially in ‘The Edukators’. Which ist also really gut!

The Last Kiss
Historical: The only chick-flick that Ganya liked and I didn’t.

Scribbling in Starbucks

7:25pm

I decided to lug my laptop over to the coffee shop and sit here for a few hours just to shake myself out of my TV-induced-stupor. I have my skinny gingerbread latte waiting patiently in front of me, while I engage in an animated conversation with the computer. More monoblog than conversation, I should say. ‘Narnya’ sits on the chair to my side, ready to entertain me, in case I should get bored of myself.

From where I sit, I can see the glass façade of the shop framing the world outside. The paper snowflakes stuck on the windows pretend as though winter is upon us… even in sunny San Francisco. The steaming coffee mugs and conversations fog up the windows from time to time. Through the fog, Christmas lights smile at me from the shop across the street. On the music system, a jazz saxophonist interprets ‘Santa Claus is coming to town’. Cars drive by to the music. Clingy couples coast by, to the music. A homeless man peers in for a long long time, to the music. A middle aged woman walks her Doberman in unnecessarily high heels, to the music. Short silent films set to a saxophonist playing ‘Santa Claus is coming to town’.

Someone opens the door, and a blast of cold air bumbles in through the door and snaps my reverie in two.

Been there, done that!

Ok... I am in love! San Francisco is charming, real, sexy, laid-back and ... has a great sense of humour! Been here for over a month now, and I am never moving out. I am going to pull a Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, if I ever have to leave the city :).

In the meanwhile, I am maintaining this spreadsheet with all the places - restaurants, pubs, bars, clubs, galleries- I want to visit in the city. As TO DO Lists go, it's the best- and each tickmark has given me genuine pleasure... and the next day, a brutal hangover. Anyways, here's the lowdown on my best city experiences so far- yummy lychee bubblies at Bar 821, can't-believe-it's-couscous at Medjool, addictive desserts across the road at Belganos (take my advice! no matter how much self-control you think you have, never ever live across the road from a gelato place), the best cocktails and the worst hangover of my life at Bissap Baobab, cheap-and-best Mexican food at Papalote, overly crowded on weekends but must-visit on a weekday to make up my mind abt Jade Bar- the list goes on and on. Each tickmark only creates more tickmarks to explore. And once I am done with all the bars and pubs and clubs, I am going to go out and get me some culture. No really, I am! For the time being, I am quite happy with my neighborhood bars on the weekdays, and the exotic far-flung all of 3 miles away kinda lounges over the weekends. The best part is, you can walk almost anywhere and hobble back to bed when you decide to call it a night! Have I already told you I am never leaving?

City lights

After, years and years of suburban living, ganya and me have decided to move to the city... San Francisco, to the uninitiated. Less than 45 miles from where we live, yet a whole world away! I am excited... and terrified. Am hoping that San Francisco will be the ear popping, heart racing, nostril flaring, eye opening adventure that it promises to be. The idea is to expand the horizons, challenge the thinking, push the envelope. If only, all that came with a washer-dryer in the apartment and a deeded parking space! Sigh!

Anyways, apartment hunt is on full blast. Today, we are going to see a one bedroom place in the famed Castro District. Ganya seems gung-ho about the place. Should I be worried? :)

Brand new day

I saw 5:15am today. And no, this is not my usual stay up all night and go to bed at 7am kinda 5:15am that I am talking about. I actually woke up at 5:15am! Like regular people. Alright... like regular OLD people, but like regular people, nevertheless. Through the 'skip-skip-jog-jog' of my jazzercise class in the wee hours of the morning, I got to thinking about the power of routine. Although I know it is terribly unsexy, I am in awe of the discipline it takes to create and follow a routine. In pursuit of this demmed elusive discipline, I have resolved to blog and floss everyday. And if that does not work out so great, I can always boss and flog. Which is not hard at all :)

Perspective!

Aug 22nd is Madras day!

Check out http://themadrasday.in/

In all my days as an ahem-ahem-'avid'-ahem-ahem blogger, I have never felt compelled to check out blogs on Chennai. For some reason, tonight, I was missing the home town. After talking to my friend who is getting married today as we speak, I found myself tossing and turning under the comforter thinking about home. So at 1:30 in the frikking am, I microwaved some takeout 'kotthu parotta' from the fridge and sat down to check out what's happenin' in the city! And I find that tomorrow is 'Madras Day'. There's going to be a live webcam transmitting glimpses of the city on the web all day. Can't wait! :)

Married women can't blog

I have racked the remains of my fried brain to figure out why I haven't been able to log some of the most eventful days of my life... and this is the best I came up with. Married women can't blog! How else can you explain that I have not found the energy to write in almost 6 months, in spite of the number of memorable things that I have to write about? Like the 300 bucks I won in Las Vegas, or the lonely waterfalls we scrambled up in Hilo... and what was that other thing that's slipping my mind... oh ya, my wedding?

Friends have been asking both Ganya and me whether marriage has changed anything in our relationship. I feel no different now than I did living-in-sin, so I tell them so. Well, except, as I already told you, I can't seem to blog. And I read more trashy chick-lit now than I ever did in my life. I can blame Ramiya for the neverending supply of the 'Shopaholic' books. Or my work that demands constant travel that demands long flights that demand mindless page-turners. Or Ganya, who bolts off to Alaska every other week, since the aforementioned marriage. But I shall 'be-a-man', and roundly place the blame on the strong square shoulders of the institution of marriage. Also, Ganya's ever increasing interest-in-Golf seems to have met his interest-in-me at the wedding and overtaken it at an alarming rate. How do I know? Well, when conversations and quiet times are punctuated with the swish of the seven iron, you kind of know. Mmmm... what else.... Both Ganya and me seem to be drinking more since the wedding. Now, the excuse is "what if we decide to have a baby next year? we will have to be non-alcoholic for a good (gasp!) two years atleast. let's make merry while we can".

So ya, come to think of it, really nothing has changed. Ganya and I travel on work. We drink. I talk, he listens. With Golf club in hand. There's a healthy amount of trashy chick-lit in the world. Ramiya and I read an unhealthy number of them. And I blog about once in six months.

TGIF!

It's Friday afternoon and I'm watching an episode of 'Mad about you' in which Jamie loses her job and drives Paul up the wall by being in his face all the time. She spends all day watching daytime TV, buys stuff she doesn't need from infomercials, invents chores that she would otherwise have never touched with a barge pole, and calls Paul several several times during the day. Somehow, the image seems vaguely familiar. Except that I work from home and I don't buy stuff I don't need from infomercials... I buy stuff I don't need from the internet. And I don't call Ganya without reason. I mean, I absolutely do have to call and tell him whenever he gets a telemarketing call at home, don't I? How would he know, otherwise? And I do have to call him when I'm eating lunch. And it's out of the sheer goodness of my heart that I call to give him the summary of that day's Gilmore Girls episode. Sometimes they are repeats, but that's hardly my fault! Ofcourse all those calls after 2pm are just to remind him that it's ok to leave the office if he doesn't have that much work that he is picking up my calls :) I'm not really all that bad, but seeing that episode on TV made me re-resolve that I will find a regular job, which requires going to a normal office and watching the clock like normal people do on work days, rather than watching TV (which frankly is not that much more entertaining than the clock during the day). And yes, it also made me thank god it's friday. Finally.

"And I have to live with a boy!"

I spent the better part of yesterday mourning the Colts’ loss in the playoffs. It was just incredibly sad to watch Vanderjagt’s lopsided last kick and see Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy mouth ‘He missed it’ in slow motion. And I’m not even a football fan! At least I wasn't, the last time I checked. I remember a time not too long ago when I couldn’t understand football… couldn’t stand football!

What living with a guy can do to the best of us!!!

New Year. Same old story.

The first day of 2006 felt much like the first day of 2005. And the first day of 2004. And I made the same resolution this yr as I made the yr before. And the yr before that. "I WILL NOT drink... ever again!!!" You know the feeling. It lasts for about 2 weeks... and then you forget what a hangover feels like and in a moment of weakness reach for that fateful glass of wine again. Another new yr resolution dies a silent death.

And then there's the other resolution I make every year- I will brush my teeth every night. In the past coupla yrs, it also includes a sub-resolution- I will floss every night. And I've been going real strong on that one this yr. 2 nights down. Just 363 to go! I know how this one will end as well... in roughly about 2 weeks, I will reach for that fateful glass of wine, get drunk silly, and end up crashing without flossing. Or brushing.

Then there's that eternal favorite... I'm gonna get fit this yr. Ha! At least no one can blame me for not believing in myself :)

Well this half-hearted post is the result of yet another resolution. To be good about blogging regularly. Well its 2 resolutions really. To be good. And to blog regularly. But I do know my limitations. So will try to blog regularly.

Happy new yr!

Nebrrrrrraska

The last two weeks have been kinda unkind. I've been tossed from shore to shore... from sunny San Jose into bitter cold Omaha and Lincoln (free beer for anyone who can point it out on an unmarked map) and then onto a snow storm in New York. Now, while I may grudgingly go along with Ganya to the occasional skiing holiday, I'm no polar bear. Gimme sun over snow, and rain over sun anyday!

But I'm finally beginning to understand what people see in this ... snow. So my colleague and I arrived in Omaha at noon and we didn't have to be at the focus groups till 6. We had a good 4-5 hours to kill in hip-n-happening Omaha. And we did what any hot blooded woman would do on a cold cold afternoon with boyfriend not around and 4-5 hours to spare. We shopped! By the time we got out of the mall, it was dusk and the evening had a weird golden glow from the heavy air and the flood lights.

It was then that it started to snow. Little flakes of white nothingness wafting down from nowhere. As we made our slow progress towards the car- clutching each other and taking cautious short steps in our high heeled boots on the iced ground - it started snowing harder. Millions of glowing snow flakes were making their way carefully towards the ground. And even in the drone of the mall, if you looked up into the sky, it was silent night. It was, at the cost of sounding cliched ... magical!

I remember thinking then that rain and snow couldn't be more different from each other. Rain falls. Snow parachutes and lands gracefully. Rain is loud and sensuous and smells of sex. Snow is Ssshhhhhh. Rain is of the earth, belongs to the earth. And standing there in white Nebraska that day, I got the distinct impression that snow isn't.

Young and disturbed

...And I'm not talking about myself here. However, I'm deeply distrubed and not so young after reading this news article about Lamb and Lynn Gaede, 13 yr old twins from Bakersfield, CA. They are cute as identical buttons, about as musical as the Olsen twins... and spreading messages of white nationalist supremacy and racist hate a la ze nazis!!!

Some quotes from the news article...

"We're proud of being white, we want to keep being white," said Lynx. "We want our people to stay white … we don't want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race."

Since they began singing, the girls have become such a force in the white nationalist movement, that David Duke — the former presidential candidate, one-time Ku-Klux-Klan grand wizard and outspoken white supremacist — uses the twins to draw a crowd.

Gliebe (operator of one of the nation's most notorious hate music labels, Resistance Records) says he hopes that as younger racist listeners mature, so will their tastes for harder, angrier music like that of Shawn Sugg of Max Resist. One of Sugg's songs is a fantasy piece about a possible future racial war that goes: "Let the cities burn, let the streets run red, if you ain't white you'll be dead."

Check out the kids' song lyrics on their home page prussianblue.net. Also, read the full news clip below and feel your black or brown or white blood pressure rise...

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1231684&page=1

And I thought being 13 was about 'best friends', braces and heart breaking idealism.

Cheat post

I shamelessly copied this hilarious post off banterist.com.

The fund for ribbons

The statistics are gut-wrenching.
Every twelve minutes, another cause suffers from lack of a ribbon.
Many of us take ribbons for granted. When cars pass us on the highway with 2, 3, even 8 ribbons it's easy for us to think that every cause has a ribbon.
Unfortunately, that's far from the truth.
No doubt you've seen breast cancer ribbons, patriotic ribbons, autism ribbons, lupus ribbons and dyslexia ribobns [sic].
Amazingly, they're only the tip of the iceberg. The sad fact is there are hundreds and hundreds of causes that end each day completely ribbonless.
Even in America.I know it's hard to believe, but even in the land of plenty, unwed mothers lack a ribbon. Cross-eyed bandits. Sephardic pimps. Churro Awareness. The list goes on and on.
That's why I'm asking you for your help.
I'm counting on you to make a small financial sacrifice. Your much needed funds will help us identify new causes.
Like Chicken Envy.
And your funds will then help us assign those causes new ribbons. Unique ribbons. Ribbons that say we care.
I'm thinking yellow and white - for the chicken part - with a frilly green edge to symbolize envy.
See? We can make a difference. That difference starts with you. Don't be discouraged by the seemingly overwhelming task ahead of us. Though there are countless un-ribboned causes - like Fat Acceptance and Dandruff Pride - we can come up with ribbons for all of them. But we need you to help.
Your contribution will help buy hundreds of shades of blue or green or yellow, not to mention low-cost icons, clip art, squiggles - whatever it takes to get the message out and stuck on the back of a car. Once we do that, we're halfway to a cure. Unless it's not a disease, in which case we're halfway to acceptance or awareness, depending.
But one thing is certain: Without your help, we can not cover this great country in ribbons. While god, guns and guts made this country great, ribbons help keep it together. Ribbons, ribbons, ribbons. And rubber bracelets.
The Fund for Ribbons needs your support. And ironically, we need a ribbon ourselves.

Sincerely,
Jan-Michael Vincent & Tone-Loc

...Left on a jetplane

Finally, after a whole week of being back and jetlagged, I am sitting down and taking stock of the two weeks that I spent back home in India. It has been hard for me to put my hands around the trip and actually digest every second and every sensation. Too much happened. In two short weeks. Feels very much like I just swung past the two weeks on a vine going 'aaaAAAaaaaAAAA'. The image is savage, but imagine slow motion and soft sentimental lighting.

Home! Aaah! Home! It was like I never left. I had friends zipping in and out all the time. Me zipping in and out with friends for long parts of the day, or night, as the case may be. And my parents fondly complaining (wouldn't quite feel like home without that:) ). Meeting family and old friends once in 2 years just doesn't feel right. But the amazing thing about family and old friends is that you can meet them once in 2 years, and you can start right where you left off... like you met them just yesterday. And as you sit there having chai, incredible conversations, and a bloody good time, you wish so hard that you could actually have met them just yesterday... and the day before, and the day before that.

Then there was meeting the friends of the boy friend. It's kinda like meeting the 'family'. I was already not a little nervous. And Krix the you-know-who willed that I meet the 'family' for the first time amidst loud music and lotsa alcohol. So all you who were there, kindly blame the copious amounts of alcohol for any and all nervous chatter, awkward pauses and inappropriate conversations! Yennyways, as all of the above imply, I had an absolute blast that night. And although I was initially rooting for a quieter evening, and inspite of the fact that I woke up the next morning in my in-laws' house with a god-awful-hangover, I wouldn't trade the Ghetto's night for all the wine and violin dinners in life :)

And oh! I have to mention the babies. Not in relation to that night, although it may seem that way right now. Read on. I met some of the most adorable babies in the world during this trip. First of all, they were all so unbelievably cute. Add to it the fact that they all belong to people I love. And to top it all, they all don't cry! At least they didn't during the limited time I spent with them. (Although I must confess at this point that I may not quite be able to return a baby, if she were to pop up next to me right now, to the rightful parents... coz I met so many of them little people on my trip this time. )

... And then before I could say Hattangadi, it was over. It was time to say the goodbyes, to get ganyamanya to pack our bags and to head back here.

Aahhh. India! Home! Sigh!

Incomplete complications

I’m reading this Independence Day special issue of India Today on my flight to Montreal. And I start pondering, like I have done ever so often in the recent past, about Nationalism, India and my nationalism and my India. Every time I hear, read, talk, see anything about India, I’m filled with this irresistible urge to go running back home, grow roots and never leave. Then I wonder… what is it that keeps me from doing exactly that, right now?

Five years is a long time. I started my adult life here in the US, and in five years you “weave tangled webs”- make friends, create routines, build patterns- that are hard to leave behind. It’s here that I came into my own as a person, as an adult, earning my own keep and doing my own laundry. It’s here that I experienced the incredible convenience and utter loneliness of island living. It’s here that I live with my boyfriend, my books, my weekend India calls and my many pairs of shoes. This cocoon I have, is hard to give up. Also I have this niggling suspicion that there are things to do, places to see, oceans to swim in, people to meet in this part of the world … all of which may never happen if I pack my bags and leave right now, never to return, as the story goes.

So I don’t leave right now, and wait instead for the right time and the right opportunity. Months could become years could become a lifetime and I could still be here- with confused teenaged children and all- still waiting for the right time and the right opportunity. The thought scares me silly. I wonder why? I wonder why human beings feel the need to be where they can say they belong. It’s such a strange need… this need to belong.

But this obsession of mine to return to India is a bit more complicated. There is, of course, the need to belong. There is also the sheer joy of living in a complex cultural set up like India. Only the monotonous sanity and sterility of life in the US can teach one to savour the unpredictability and quirkiness of our homeland. But in addition to all of these, there is also the random feeling of guilt. At leaving, at not being ‘home’…the guilt of a deserter.

I think of these boundaries of nation, which should be no more sacred than those of religion, language, caste and place… but somehow they are or have become! If I should feel guilty about leaving the motherland to live in some strange country, I should also feel guilty about leaving my native Chennai to go settle in Bangalore, Bombay or wherever within India.

I remember reading Tagore’s denunciation of Nationalism when I was much younger, and wondering if he was not just making excuses for his lack of national fervour. I wonder now if I’m making the same excuses too. Or maybe I am just growing up.

Gilmore girls and other guilty pleasures

I have no clue how this happened. It happened suddenly, and against my iron will. It all started at Yellow Stone. Amidst much girl-talk on a particular hike at Yellow stone, conversations drifted to the G.Girls. Some one remarked, rather mildly, that they liked the show. Some one else seconded it. And then a month later, on one rather sleepy tuesday afternoon, desperately trying to find something...anything... to keep myself occupied, I stumbled across G.Girls. And now, I'm hooked!

It's one of those things that you don't talk about, things that you don't admit even to yourself... like one's weight, for example, or like the fact that one opens a bottle of wine by oneself on some boring work-day afternoons (perks of working from home :) ). Being addicted to Gilmore Girls is like that. It came as shock even to me that I was enjoying a soap. But hey you learn something about yourself every now and then. It's what keeps the joy in life... and your hair from turning gray.

Anyways, here's the worst part. I learnt very recently that the season that I'm watching right now is the one at the very beginning- much before Rory got admission into Yale... or Lorelai started going out with Luke. I happened to catch one episode from the current season one of these days, and maaan was I shocked to see how my flock had grown.

Rarer than a blue moon...

... here it is, the double post. This one is more like a news flash, really. Ganyamanya and I are coming/going to India in September! It's been almost two years... so I'm reeeelly looking forward to it.

And Krix, nottum fairum to be running away to some god forsaken hell hole right when I plan a trip to India. Pliss o pliss... be there!

Post script

... there is illustration. Just spent a few happy minits of my increasingly hectic life viewing Paige Pooler's blog. http://eyeswideapart.blogspot.com/. No- she's not a friend of mine, and no- this is not a plug. Just sending out happies into the universe.

Talking about illustration and such like, there is something meditative about art. And sports. Or physical labor, for that matter. I remember being lost for hours on end on a single sketch, trying to get a certain twist of the eye or twinkle in the arm just right. 6 and a half hours would have gone by; my left leg would have gone to sleep and woken up several times over; i would've skipped several meals in the meanwhile; and I would not so much as notice (try taking one snack away from me now, let alone a meal!). These days, I try to work for 20 minutes straight... and in that time I've made 7 trips to la la land! I take 22 chai breaks in a day. I browse. I blog. I call random people. All in an attempt to break up the dreadful monotony in my slow and painful trudge up the corporate ladder.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Chick-sent-me-highee, i swear am not making this up- he he he) spends his life studying human beings and happiness, and he determined that human beings are happiest when they are in a state of 'flow'. I think he defined 'flow' as an intensified emotional state when one is immersed in a challenging activity which requires one to extend one's abilities in order to complete the task at hand. I think that's what is missing in corporate careers... there is no immersion, no passion, no happiness, no nothing. Well, one can hardly be passionate about opening and closing excel spreadsheets, attending meaningless meetings and filling toner in the printer. I do not exactly stay up outside the window of my 'corporate career' all night going "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?It is the east, and 'corporate career' is the sun."

I wonder... what prompts us to stay in these meaningless jobs... and many-a-time, for life?

(True Post Script: This ponderous meanderous post is multipurpose:
1. It's an excuse to get away from the above mentioned lifeforcesucking work
2. Implied in the post is the excuse for not having blogged in forever
3. It's an opportunity to show off that I have heard about someone called Chick-sent-me-highee (he he he) )