I’ve been meaning to create a new blog for a while now, an
anonymous one, and write more freely and honestly about life as it is now, a
new blog that my old readers will know nothing about so I won’t be scandalizing
and as a result alienating my old friends and readers and quite possibly
members of my family. And then I realized what the heck, my family members have
proved to be a lot more resilient and open minded at most points in my life
than I gave them credit for and that the readers of my blog are changing just
as much as I am, so maybe, just maybe, my fears of this scandal-causing and alienation-happening
will come to pass. Anyway, just in case, I am taking the link to my blog off my
Facebook page and any other places I might have put it up and taking a plunge
to the deep side of the discovering-yourself-and-being-honest-about-it pool.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
There was a lady we all know
Sometimes you get lost wandering. And you find yourself in a part of your universe you've never seen before, in an alternate reality where things that mattered so much before drop away and things you'd kept buried come alive again and you no longer seem to be the strict definition of yourself you'd come to terms with and you need to do the coming to terms with all over again.
That's where I've been. Busy. Bored. Dealing with a lifestyle change and all its accouterments. Fighting an idle mind playing truant. Filling gaps in the day with a thousand activities. Endless lazing about and discovering a new place and missing an old one. And talking and talking. New roommates. Old friends. Still the same old friends. Thinking random thoughts.
For people who want an update: I am learning to play the keyboard. I'd forgotten a lot of music theory I used to know from my guitar days and its an interesting experience trying to read two clefs at the same time and play them simultaneously nonetheless. I am learning French. I am reading Feynman's lectures in my free time. I am eating salads for lunch and doing jazzercise occasionally. I've lost the taste for alcohol. I volunteer to be the designated driver on most nights coz I know I wont drink much anyway. I still fondly remember nights of rambunctious revelry that have involved everything from dancing on and correspondingly falling off chairs to ending up on street pavements unable to move an eyelid. But now that I'm on the other side more often than not, trying to figure out how to move the person on the street pavement, I no longer find it all so very amusing. I am doing a project 52, though its not going very well on account of my laziness. But on the days I click pics, I end up taking so many that I tell myself makes up for the weeks I don't. I have become extremely cynical of relationships and distrustful of men. Every time somebody I know gets married, I think of the ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, all the old crushes and secret romances. And I wonder what those people think about. Every time I move, I think of how easy it is to transplant a life now- everything you own and everything you are in a couple of boxes in a car. Sometimes I think about how easy it would be to disappear now- if I tell my parents I don't want to be found and just up and leave to a new city, informing no one. I used to be the person who loved grand farewells. Suddenly I am seeing the beauty of just fading away in an air of intrigue. The romance in constrained choices. The curiosity in things that never used to define me. I am making friends with people I knew from what feels like a really long time ago, on account of my roommate who is herself one such 'person from another lifetime'. I have a thousand things I want to do, a million thoughts bursting in my head and no mood to think or act. So I lie in my couch and watch the clouds go by outside my balcony. Life is dreamy.
It's tough trying to explain this to people who are tremendously mad at me for seemingly dropping off the face of the Earth. Its like suddenly I got bored of being the usual "It's been so long, lets talk" me and ran out of energy sustaining being myself. I could say I would try and be more like how I used to be and call everyone and mail everyone and blog a lot but I don't want to make no promises I might not keep.
Sometimes it is easy to forget what the point of starting this blog was- that there is no point at all. Back when everything I did had a purpose and every unit of energy spent was carefully measured and doled out, this was something I cherished- me time. Now that hardly anything in my life has a purpose, maintaining a blog feels like so much effort. But its still fun going back and reading your old posts, if only a little painful at the naivete of it all. I am even braving reading extremely sad posts from a long time ago that I try to never open because it reminds me of a time I don't like to be reminded of because of the stupidity and the pain I unleashed on myself through bad decisions. I am actually even listening to 'Stairway in Heaven' again, this time without the feeling of being overwhelmed by it.
I am back to this blog in the spirit of this week which has been all about paying homage to the past for me. i went back to LA for the weekend just 'coz I missed her so very much. I braved Carmageddon II to go to Santa Monica pier and stood amidst all the lights thinking about how very much I missed being in this city and how very much I would like to go back and grow old there. Its funny, the things I can commit to and the things I cant. But for now, I'm focusing on committing to keeping this blog alive if only so I can come back here 10 years later and laugh at my own petty self.
<3 p="p">Divya
P.S. May, I got your mail and I keep meaning to reply but like I said, I've gone crazy lazy. Tell me if you still want the stuff you were asking about.
That's where I've been. Busy. Bored. Dealing with a lifestyle change and all its accouterments. Fighting an idle mind playing truant. Filling gaps in the day with a thousand activities. Endless lazing about and discovering a new place and missing an old one. And talking and talking. New roommates. Old friends. Still the same old friends. Thinking random thoughts.
For people who want an update: I am learning to play the keyboard. I'd forgotten a lot of music theory I used to know from my guitar days and its an interesting experience trying to read two clefs at the same time and play them simultaneously nonetheless. I am learning French. I am reading Feynman's lectures in my free time. I am eating salads for lunch and doing jazzercise occasionally. I've lost the taste for alcohol. I volunteer to be the designated driver on most nights coz I know I wont drink much anyway. I still fondly remember nights of rambunctious revelry that have involved everything from dancing on and correspondingly falling off chairs to ending up on street pavements unable to move an eyelid. But now that I'm on the other side more often than not, trying to figure out how to move the person on the street pavement, I no longer find it all so very amusing. I am doing a project 52, though its not going very well on account of my laziness. But on the days I click pics, I end up taking so many that I tell myself makes up for the weeks I don't. I have become extremely cynical of relationships and distrustful of men. Every time somebody I know gets married, I think of the ex-boyfriends/girlfriends, all the old crushes and secret romances. And I wonder what those people think about. Every time I move, I think of how easy it is to transplant a life now- everything you own and everything you are in a couple of boxes in a car. Sometimes I think about how easy it would be to disappear now- if I tell my parents I don't want to be found and just up and leave to a new city, informing no one. I used to be the person who loved grand farewells. Suddenly I am seeing the beauty of just fading away in an air of intrigue. The romance in constrained choices. The curiosity in things that never used to define me. I am making friends with people I knew from what feels like a really long time ago, on account of my roommate who is herself one such 'person from another lifetime'. I have a thousand things I want to do, a million thoughts bursting in my head and no mood to think or act. So I lie in my couch and watch the clouds go by outside my balcony. Life is dreamy.
Sometimes it is easy to forget what the point of starting this blog was- that there is no point at all. Back when everything I did had a purpose and every unit of energy spent was carefully measured and doled out, this was something I cherished- me time. Now that hardly anything in my life has a purpose, maintaining a blog feels like so much effort. But its still fun going back and reading your old posts, if only a little painful at the naivete of it all. I am even braving reading extremely sad posts from a long time ago that I try to never open because it reminds me of a time I don't like to be reminded of because of the stupidity and the pain I unleashed on myself through bad decisions. I am actually even listening to 'Stairway in Heaven' again, this time without the feeling of being overwhelmed by it.
I am back to this blog in the spirit of this week which has been all about paying homage to the past for me. i went back to LA for the weekend just 'coz I missed her so very much. I braved Carmageddon II to go to Santa Monica pier and stood amidst all the lights thinking about how very much I missed being in this city and how very much I would like to go back and grow old there. Its funny, the things I can commit to and the things I cant. But for now, I'm focusing on committing to keeping this blog alive if only so I can come back here 10 years later and laugh at my own petty self.
<3 p="p">Divya
P.S. May, I got your mail and I keep meaning to reply but like I said, I've gone crazy lazy. Tell me if you still want the stuff you were asking about.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Hey,
Its been a long time since I wrote. I know that. I thought I'd almost forgotten how until I was cleaning up my desktop today (amongst other things) and I came across a random post I'd written waiting for a train in San Diego's Amtrak station, cold and tired after an interview. And I remembered how effortless it used to be to write. And it reminded me why I took to writing a blog in the first place- to document the small things and to make sure they're never swept by the wayside of life. I'd forgotten a lot of stuff that had been on my mind then, a couple of months back. I wonder how much I would remember of today a couple of years from now.
I didn't do much today. I did some cleaning, some house hunting, some learning to play Texas Hold 'em, some eclipse-watching, some chilli-bajji eating and some random impulse following. I walked out of my friends' house not wanting to go back home yet and I randomly decided to take my new car for a drive. (I'd bought a new car last week. It's a Volkswagen Jetta and it deserves more than a passing comment but thats all it shall get today.) Not knowing where else to go, I drove to work, past endless lines of Cisco buildings along Tasman and past Cisco Way. And then, worried about the late hour and less than a quarter tank of gas, I turned back. It was a nice hour of just me, the car, the music and the road. And it was beautiful. I've been learning to do a lot of stuff on my own these days and not to get bored by lack of company. Now I'm beginning to see the beauty in it. Thats a personal landmark, right there.
Life's been dramatic. Life's been chaotic. And life's been overdriven by passion the last couple of months. So much so that I didn't want to take time off to write. But now, as life settles in to a little more structure, I will be here a lot more often.
Soonly!
Div
Its been a long time since I wrote. I know that. I thought I'd almost forgotten how until I was cleaning up my desktop today (amongst other things) and I came across a random post I'd written waiting for a train in San Diego's Amtrak station, cold and tired after an interview. And I remembered how effortless it used to be to write. And it reminded me why I took to writing a blog in the first place- to document the small things and to make sure they're never swept by the wayside of life. I'd forgotten a lot of stuff that had been on my mind then, a couple of months back. I wonder how much I would remember of today a couple of years from now.
I didn't do much today. I did some cleaning, some house hunting, some learning to play Texas Hold 'em, some eclipse-watching, some chilli-bajji eating and some random impulse following. I walked out of my friends' house not wanting to go back home yet and I randomly decided to take my new car for a drive. (I'd bought a new car last week. It's a Volkswagen Jetta and it deserves more than a passing comment but thats all it shall get today.) Not knowing where else to go, I drove to work, past endless lines of Cisco buildings along Tasman and past Cisco Way. And then, worried about the late hour and less than a quarter tank of gas, I turned back. It was a nice hour of just me, the car, the music and the road. And it was beautiful. I've been learning to do a lot of stuff on my own these days and not to get bored by lack of company. Now I'm beginning to see the beauty in it. Thats a personal landmark, right there.
Life's been dramatic. Life's been chaotic. And life's been overdriven by passion the last couple of months. So much so that I didn't want to take time off to write. But now, as life settles in to a little more structure, I will be here a lot more often.
Soonly!
Div
Friday, February 10, 2012
Playing with Magnetic Poetry
Got Magnetic Poetry's Happiness kit from my University store since they had a Valentines day sale going on. I've wanted it for a year now 'coz it makes me feel all writer-ish. Anyway that was what I came up with after the first half hour of making dirty sentences with different permutations of feel, vibration, glow and warmth. And before somebody else says it, I'll go ahead and say it is inspired by and an homage to e.e.cummings. I came up with it while my roommate was making fried rice on the side. Makes me wonder if e.e.cummings wrote all his poems from magnetic poet. Anyway, its quite fun. I had my doubts but I guess it really is helpful if you are stuck for words. So, this is what my freezer looks like now from the point of view of a crappy Samsung 1.3 megapixel camera mobile.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
How has life been with you old friend?
Have you changed a lot? I sometimes wonder what it would be
like if you walked in through the door. Would I still see the person I last
saw? How is your family? I never understood them when I knew them and was
always convinced they hated me. How are your roommates? The last I remember,
you had your issues with them. How is school? How are things with your
girlfriend? How is your house? How are things in general on your end of
paradise?
The last we spoke, life was just beginning to get rough. I
got jostled around a lot. I burst out one evening and that was the end for us.
Since then, a lot of things have changed. I finished my course requirements for
my Masters. Some friends graduated. Yet another phase of goodbyes has begun
with packing and moving and sending friends off to richer pastures. I shifted
homes. When I moved the last box out of my house, I stood at the threshold and
stared at the tiny bubble of universe that I’d found and furnished and fought
for and about and called home the last year and a half. And remembering how it
felt to come back to it every day, make myself a cup of coffee and sit at the
edge of my bed and talk on the phone, I called Maya to talk to one final time
from the then empty space. I would have liked to call you. That place holds
memories of you too. Most of them are colored sad though. I made new friends in
my new home. We travelled together, celebrated the New Year together. We went
to Vegas, like we’d once planned to go. I stood at the edge of the pool at
Bellagio while waiting for the fountain show to start, threw in a penny and
made a wish. I danced till my feet hurt. I went to Tucson for Srivi’s
graduation. We walked around the empty campus and spoke about life. I cried
when she was conferred her degree. I gave, I don’t know how many, interviews. I
got the job I’d always wanted. I signed the offer a couple of days back. I got
my Driver’s license the same day. It’s like 2012 is being extra nice to make up
for the last year. Life is good.
Life, now, is racing towards a phase shift. And I am tying
up a lot of loose ends and racing along with it. And sometimes it makes me
think of you. You’ve always been the one loose end that I’ve never been able to
fix. I've given up wondering why or trying to set it right and just accepted it
as one of those quirks of life. If that doesn't come from a place of wisdom, I don’t
know what does.
I hear people talk of you sometimes and I itch to ask them
what’s up with you. And I talk of you sometimes too. In parties after the
celebrating is done and we are a little tipsy and somebody asks what was up
with you and that person, and I laugh and say we were a little mad and I laugh
again. I’ve always wondered if we’d meet again or rather when. Our world is too
small to break it down into two completely disjoint sets. So I wonder when we’d
meet again and as whom. And when we do, I will write another blog with all the
answers.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Average thought process on an average evening
19:00
I am bored
19:25
Maybe I'll write something
19:27
What do I write about though?
20:00
*Phone call*
Me: Hello?
Friend: Hi. I am at this cool fort kind of a place and the girlfriend whom I ignored you for all these months is not talking to me or posing for pictures with me, so I am feeling awkward and need to project a cool dude image to all her roommates, so I need to act unconcerned and busy, so talk to me.
Me: Um ok.
Friend: So how's it going?
Me: Oh well, it started out with-
Friend in background: Oh wait, take one of me like this. With this hat on. One sec.
Friend to me: I'll call you in a minute.
Me:Bye
20:12
*Phone call*
Me: Hello?
Friend: Ok, talk now
Me: So as I was saying-
Friend in background: Ha ha. I'll tell you later. I'll tell you later I say.
Friend to me: I'll call you later.
Me:Bye
20:17
Me to roommate: You know about this article about how girls just use nice guys to get stuff done and to crib about their boyfriends and when they get asked out by said nice guy, they don't want to 'ruin the friendship' so the nice guys basically always get ignored and finish last?
Roommate: No
Me: That's ok I'll send you the link. But anyway, I'm gonna write an ode to nice girls- the girls who get ignored; the girls who set their friends up with their bff's and then fall off the face of the earth (or atleast the terrain of their friends' love stories); the girls who get called to proofread SOPs, Resumes, Cover letters, who get called up when referrals are needed for an internship, a part time job but never for holiday meetups because the 'girlfriend wouldn't approve'; the girls who get called when there is trouble in paradise and who sit through hours of "that bitch.." and "I cant believe she is doing this to me.." when they have a project proposal due the next day; the girls who will always be 'the best girl I've ever met, but..'.
Roommate: Dude I cant find my cell phone charger. Have you seen it?
20:40
Staring at laptop is nice
21:05
I am bored
21:11
Maybe I'll write something
21:13
On all the jerks I usually attract???
21:15
Gender stereotyping in the movies???
21:17
On why I am not a big fan of Selvaragahavan movies???
21:20
On how my mom is the coolest and I admire her more as I grow older and more mature???
21:35
Me: Back home?
Friend: Nope... In car... Sent from my iPhone
Me: I'm bored. Want to write. Dont know what about though.
Friend: Write about why each of us is a hero and an asshole at the same time.
Me: Mmm... too deep. Something else?
Friend: How maturity comes with age.. How what we did few years back seems dumb now.
Me: Ok that kinda occurred to me in a different way. I'll work on that. Give me something else.
Friend: Environment. Sent from my iPhone
Me: achi peh
Friend: Seriously .. You can write it in a lot of depth if you research.
*silence*
21:40
I am bored
21:43
Maybe...
21:43:20
Screw all of you. I am going to watch ugly betty and kill some brain cells.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Do I know you?
I wrote earlier about how I stuck this trackbar (yeah the Live Traffic Feed in the lower right) in my blog to figure out whether my family knows about the existence of this blog or not. After several excited data analyses the first few days after I got the trackbar, I gave up trying to imagine who could be reading my blog. Now, every time I open my page, I scroll over to see if anyone other than myself has visited it and try mapping it to people I know. I am fanciful that way. I try to imagine the lives of people who read my blog and whether I ever pass them on the street without knowing it.
That brings me to my question. Who are you, oh person from Richmond, Virginia? Do you live in Columbus, Ohio? Why is the DoD your Internet Service Provider? Do you work for the DoD? Do you VPN in to my blog? Do you like it? My blog I mean, not the DoD. Do I know you?
Who are you, reader from Scranton, Pennsylvania?
Who are you?
That brings me to my question. Who are you, oh person from Richmond, Virginia? Do you live in Columbus, Ohio? Why is the DoD your Internet Service Provider? Do you work for the DoD? Do you VPN in to my blog? Do you like it? My blog I mean, not the DoD. Do I know you?
Who are you, reader from Scranton, Pennsylvania?
Who are you?
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