Quote

"But plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate response to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure."

~ Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

A Distressing Realization (in which she's becoming everything she mocks & mocks everything she's becoming)

The boy I am currently observing closely for the purposes of long-term-companionship-shortly-to-be-followed-by-imminent-rejection, has an intriguing habit.

We'll be coasting along merrily, when I will turn to him and EMOTIONS.

At other times, I might gently (or not so gently) CRITICAL DECONSTRUCTION OF SAID BOY'S BEHAVIOUR OR CHARACTERISTICS.

When this happens, he usually does a swift about turn and zips off into the horizon as fast as his Road Runner stalks can carry him.

Without so much as a beep-beep.

At this point, I usually take a moment - or several - to fall apart in a fashion not unlike that popularized by this fresh thing:

Yes, Uncle indeed.

  

Then I gather myself, wipe off the snot (or not - I work from home) and realize that there's a major part of my brain that's now freed up to think about other things. Like politics and my bank balance and travel & exploration. Yoga perhaps? Or Twitter. Aah Twitter. With a gaping boy-shaped hole in my cerebral cortex, other things of CNN-level importance can now pour in.

Over the last 5 months, these boyless interludes have resulted in (1) an accelerated rate of meeting work deadlines, (2) me powering through several unread volumes in my Kindle (including a David Foster Wallace book, which is worth not one but TWO 'boyfriend-stonewalls'), (3) writing a film script on ceramic crucibles made out of something called Mullerite (which I may have misheard as Miller Light and taken on), (4) planning a vacation to South East Asia and (5) being nice, in small doses, to my mother.

In contrast, when things are peaceful in the realm of boy, life takes on a decidedly free-flowing-no-responsibility tenor, where social outings and alcohol intake rise and a new daredevil attitude takes over me, where things such as caution, deadlines and reading the newspaper are thrown to the wind in lieu of weeknights out and pretending I still inhabit the body of an all-nighter-pulling 20 year old. There is sweet, sweet chaos in my otherwise ordered world - the kind that makes me wonder why I needed order in the first place.

Which all makes me come to a distressing realization. What kind of woman am I? The kind who can't function at her best when she's happy? Or someone who's governed so thoroughly by hormones that she has to drop practically everything in her life just to stay upright? Oh God - can I not have sex and a tweetworthy political opinion at the same time? Am I not - shudder - a female and hence a multitasker?

If this is indeed the case then I should perhaps, instead of weeping at the temporary loss of a cootchie-cooing counterpart, focus on all the things I neglect when in the throes of romance. Like reading a book, doing my taxes, taking in a show or an exhibition (haha who am I kidding, I never do that anyway), writing down all the wisdom I've gleaned from relationships with men and once and for all deciding if I want to audition for Indian Idol or not.

More importantly, just in case the boy returns before that hard-earned final chapter of DFW's book ends, I can always just EMOTION or DECONSTRUCTION OF CHARACTER more time to complete it.

Pretty Sure It's The Meds

This post is all whine and some crackers.

I'm having such a bad hair day, I'd say my hair is having a bad me day. 

I've been working for what feels like Mandela's stint on Robin Island and my only entertainment in forever has been getting up to go pee.

I have not left the house in 7 days.

I've been sick - as in, body being attacked by germs kind of sick. Or so I tell myself as I pop another pill while searching for an excuse not to bathe - offered to one of the many disinterested parties that inhabit my life. It's the kind of cloying season-change illness that has your skull feeling like it's trapped in a Phantom of the Opera mask with his singing voice echoing in your ears, even though you never bought a ticket to the show and frankly think that Andrew Lloyd Webber's finest ouevre was Roop Ki Rani Choron Ka Raja.

I have seen the entire second season of Girls in a single sitting and am now riddled with dreams of disembodied boobs playing table tennis (Wilson's, not Dunham's.). It's not entirely unpleasant and it sure beats that recurring dream of P. Chidambaram in his Don't-Call-It-A-Lungi-Or-The-Tamilian-Mafia-Will-Come-After-You.

In other news the Anti-Rape bill was passed in the Parliament. The news was received amidst lamentations & recriminations that Rahul Gandhi was absent for the vote (along with a sizeable chunk of the legislature. I think the only people who stayed to vote were the folks who fell asleep in the previous session and woke up in the middle of this one).

I've been trying hard to decide my feelings about all of this and have been in hiding from the droves of reporters, banging on my door, anxious to know my special thoughts.

On one hand, I'm relieved that something got passed - like a kidney stone.

On the other hand, I wonder if this anorexic version of the Justice Verma Committee report will make it difficult for anyone pushing for anything better - like constipation.

Every single day I get closer to menopause.

I read an essay by Frederick Douglass and saw 'Gone With The Wind' in the same day, which is an adventure sport I would recommend to anyone serious about understanding the 'Dalit Sich'.

Meanwhile, Chetan Bhagat managed to con another group of earnest filmmakers into elevating his book from toilet paper to That Film Where That Hot Guy Shouldn't Have Died. 

These are the moments when I wonder why I'm putting any effort into this existence. Then I remember I haven't bathed again today and feel better about it all. 

Besides, as Scarlett O Hara said: "Tomorrow is another day (and if the DMK is still in the news you can laugh at Delhi-based news anchors trying to pronounce Alagiri and Kanimozhi)."

Eiiiiiii. I said - Eiiiiiiii

This Suitcase

This year I've packed a lot of suitcases because of work (no I don't work for a movers & packers company ha ha).
I've become quite adept at it now.

But this suitcase - it's quite another thing.
No sensible shoes. Two pairs of heels, one pair of boots and bright red sneakers.
No functional shampoo-cum-soap. Three types of hair products and a hair dryer.
I'm ditching my 'outdoor location' pants that have been through unimaginable, pan-Indian trouser trauma. The tight-tight jeans and skirts are in.
No serious kurtis packed for meetings. There's a special corner in the suitcase for my disco-ball, sequined, swishy top.
And SO MUCH make-up and dangly earrings.
No laptop bag full of research materials and power-point presentations. Just Steinbeck and a trashy magazine.
I'm finally going to listen to that loooooong podcast that's been slow-basting in my Ipod.

In what seems like an eternity, I'm finally going on vacation.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? Booze. Lots and lots of booze.

State of The Union

I have Jonny Lee Miller on my TV as Eli Stone.
During commercial break I have Jonny Lee Miller on my computer as Sherlock Holmes.
In between, I google Jonny Lee Miller to see who Jonny Lee Miller is.
And somewhere Jonny Lee Miller weeps for the best years of his adult life he spent honing his craft.

The Business of Acting: Serious Bloody Thing

As far as confrontations between arch nemeses go....

Patrick Jane meeting (who he thinks is) Red John:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iofX3tcUN4Q&feature=related

trumps Sherlock meeting Moriarty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeEVuPiqE24

Because:
Bradley Whitford + Simon Baker + Great Writing > Benedict Cumberbatch + Great Writing - Andrew Scott (No. Just, no.)

I know, sacrilege right? What to do, it's been a day of brutal honesty, television & hiding from real life.