guess who's back!

me: i live in hope. i can't help it. hope is hardwired into my head. its part of the operating system. it refuses to go away. but, is it justified?

he: well, here's the funny thing about hope - it justifies itself. as long as you have it, you can turn a difficult situation into an easy one. but the fucked up part is - the moment you lose it, you find yourself missing the most crucial too for survival.

marketing experts often speak about ‘brand loyalty’. they use the expression excitedly and rub their hands together with glee. some people care so much about the name of a particular manufacturer that they will pay almost any price for their product, regardless of its quality. do some of these famous names actually deserve their reputation?

bitching session:

the british consulate in new york lost my passport, green card, job letter, bank statements, tax returns for the last 3 years.. and every fucking id i've got! they've been giving me the run around for a week now!

i submitted my documents last tuesday. was supposed to pick up everything, including the visa, on wednesday. i go in. wait for 3 hours while they try to find my file. finally get called in by the vice-counsel who says, "sorry ma'am, we shipped out your documents to your house."

i hadn't asked them to ship it out to me!

and they wont even give me the FedEx tracking number..

i think i know what happened - they misplaced my file and now they keep delaying the inevitable. and tomorrow they'll see the side of me that no one i know would ever want to see.

tomorrow, they face my wrath!

19 books in 21 days - now that's a reading binge!

J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

John Grisham
The Brethren
A Painted House
The Testament

Gary Zukav
The Seat of the Soul

Anne Rice
The Vampire Lestat

Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina (incomplete)

Janet Evanovich
One for the Money

Nora Roberts
Heaven and Earth
Carolina Moon

Michael Crichton
Airframe
Disclosure

Stephen King
The Shining

Richard P. Feynman
Six Easy Numbers

Susan Hepburn
Missing

Fredrick Forsythe
The Devil's Alternative

Tami Hoag
Cry Wolf

Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Rings

only my family knows how stress-free these 21 days have been :)

ignorance is not bliss. it's rather like a strong painkiller. as long as i can keep some in my system, i can avoid noticing many problems and difficulties. warning signals pass me by. important alerts fall on deaf ears. situations go from bad to worse to diabolical. like i care? i'm oblivious to it all.

i'd like to buy the whole world a coke.

back from a long long weekend in delaware.

some people have a teflon-coated psyche. no matter what they encounter, they shrug it off. even the most intense experiences seem to make no mark on them. then there are others who resemble cactus plants. anything that gets remotely near them tends to stick for a while. they don’t forget or ignore a situation until they've learned all it has to teach them. they ask question after question. they reflect very deeply. but when it finally comes time to put it behind they, they do so decisively.

it’s a funny old thing really. i pride myself on my intellect yet there are millions of things my brain can never comprehend. i tried wrapping my mind around the concept of infinity. or eternity! i sure can use those words but not grasp their meaning. when i sit down to imagine a universe that goes on forever and ever, i just start to boggle. likewise, when i think about time that has no beginning and no end. so, if i cant understand such fundamental factors – basic building blocks of existence itself – how can i expect to understand anything else?

Jay Gordon of Orgy - Slept So Long

Walking
Waiting
Alone without a care
Hoping
Hating
Things I can't bear

Did you think it's cool
To walk right up
To take my life
And fuck it up
Well did you?
Well did you?

I see hell in your eyes
Taken in by surprise(surprise)
Touching you makes me feel alive
Touching you makes me die inside

Walking, Waiting
Alone without a care
Hoping
Hating
Things I can't bear

Did you think it's cool
To walk right up
To take my life
And fuck it up
Well did you?

I hate you!

I see hell in your eyes
Taken in by surprise
And touching you makes me feel alive
Touching you makes me die inside

I've slept so long without you
It's tearing me apart too
How'd it get this far
Playing games with this old heart
I've killed a million petty souls
But I couldn't kill you

I've slept so long without you

I see hell in your eyes
Taken in by surprise
Touching you makes me feel alive
Touching you made me die inside

i sometimes, when i'm hungry, look wistfully into the fridge yet no matter how much it contains, there seems to be nothing that i fancy.

back from a really crazy weekend in charleston, sc. exhausted is not the word to describe me. really. :)

she: bahut buri tarah dil toota hai mera.... bikhari hui hoon aajkal...didn't think it would happen to me. i was happy for a few weeks and now complete sadness.... i have never talked of this with you or anyone else because its just been too unreal.

he: I hope you feel better.

she: its not about feeling better rey. its about feeling. go now.

people claim to value the truth yet they rarely speak it. nor do they seem especially interested in hearing it. we love our fantasies. we adore the chance to weave webs of deception. we want to see ourselves as anything other than what we actually are and we resent being reminded of qualities that we are doing our best to ignore the existence of.

two wrongs do not make a right.
two chaotic situations do not make a sense of order.
two crazy ideas do not add up to an inspired stroke of genius.
two incompatible individuals do not make a perfect partnership.

I've got some selective memories.. that’s how i survive. i have this tendency to conveniently forget whatever it pains me to remember. i rewrite history just as soon as it has happened. and as for the future? well, i absolutely love the fact that it is such an open book. i can project whatever i want. and i do. that's why i can barely see forward in time with any degree of accuracy. like wine tasters who forget to swill and spit, i swallow the first thing i see and end up drunk on my dreams.

life is a roller-coaster.

would i really have it any other way though? i don't really like being hurtled towards apparent oblivion at a terrifying speed. i'd prefer not to be looping the loop or taking sharp corners. and i like it even less when the intervals between each perilious plunge are short. and i'd definitely prefer a chance to get my breath back in between the assaults on my senses.

yet there are glorious, energizing, exhilarating moments on this ride too.. and when they come, they make it all worthwhile.

humility is a fine thing.

don't you think that those who achieve it are entitled to brag?

subtlety too, is important.

lets erect a giant neon sign that says as much.

too often, we undermine each other. instead of encouragement, understanding and constructive advice, we carp, complain and criticize. we try to feign indifference. we insist that it is all, "water off a duck's back". but we're not ducks. we're people. and we have feelings too. once these have been hurt, we take a long long time to recover. that's why, when we finally manage to get ourselves back on an even keel, after our especially destabilizing attack, we work hard to ensure that we are never caught off-guard again. sometimes though, we work a little too hard. and we end up putting up psychological barriers that then prevent us from sharing innocent emotion.

i would never hurt you, rohit.

he: you spend a lot of time in your head. you're a thinker and you can string a pretty powerful sentence together. you know what you want (and don't want). so why you've been so reticent about speaking your mind - and your truth?

me: i just can't seem to loosen my tongue.

even when change is good, its traumatic by its very nature..

he: why do you always have to seek out drama?

me: i don't seek it. i create it.

one constructive conversation can make all the difference between a good day and a bad day.

its funny how you can know someone for years - perhaps even decades, and still be surprised by their behavior. but i guess, its not so strange. after all, i don't think we know ourselves completely. we have a frail sense of identity and we look upon relationships as a way of strengthening this. sometimes though, they do the opposite and erode our individuality still further.

do i make sense?

i am beautiful
no matter what they say

34 things i like in a man:

yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum
yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum
yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum yum
yum yum yum yum

phew

*wipes beads of perspiration off of brow*

that was a really close shave..