[Fic.]
Guys and girls. Girls kissing guys, guys kissing guys, girls kissing girls. Swirly, colorful light patterns, blinking, blinking, blinking. Loud music, techno, blaring through the loudspeakers that seem so far away, thumping, thumping thumping. I'm not drunk I need to drive back my head hurts but I feel drunk. This is Kathmandu. This is Kathmandu?
For far too long I had avoided this. Pretended -- no, knew-- I was better, that the city didn't know how to party. I've done multi-day ragers in New York and San Fran, I said, I can teach the hippest kids in Kathmandu a thing or two. Real music festivals with real musicians who I heard before anyone even heard their names, before they conquered the world. In sticky, dingy basements, in deep comfy couches, among cool red trees. I'd seen the world, Kathmandu had nothing to show.
A close friend was getting married. To a doctor who he had been talking to on and off for four years. They met up somewhere nice for two weeks, twice a year, maybe thrice. Bali. London. Abu Dhabi. Rio. He was seeing other people, on and off, once a while. So was she. He didn't ask, she didn't ask. And now they were getting married. Everyone else was a hanky, they were each other's comfy T-shirts, permanent hanky-pankies.
Her friends were single ready to mingle smart doctors out for the last hurrah. The pressure was on for them just as it was for me, except it was quite serious and they had no physical escape away like I had. Maybe that's what they wanted forever but in their terms perhaps and not at this particular moment in time but it was not on them to make that choice was it. What was there for them to make a choice on was me. Us, rather. Nobodies who would go back to whatever foresaken sad-sack lives we'd come from struggling with our nine-to-five completely indebted lives who they'd never have to see again. That's what they thought anyway. They were doing us favors perhaps they'd earn good karma for whoever was to come next, we were good guys, our friend was a diamond and we were his best friends they could be themselves around us.
I want to say nothing happened it was all rather tame and we danced to hindi songs and got a little drunk and messed about went back to the hotel rooms we had rented for those three nights went out about town ate drank and had fun generally and everything was back to normal and those wonderful women went back into their lives serving as successful happy doctors married equally smart and successful doctors while we came back with sweet memories of cool girls who we messed around a bit with but there wasn't much in there and besides such occasions are not to be paid too much attention to because when people are afraid of getting old and being forced to marry they let themselves loose and let things happen particularly around people they trust because what do they have to lose anyway and you can trust these good people. That would have been a good ending to a fun story. A proper Penthouse-style story of repressed energies coming out interacting and intermingling with each other, sparking and sparkling burning everything in their paths and illuminating the night skies as they went away. Consenting adults interacting with each other. Everyone would have gone their own way, and two weeks on, life back to the old rut.
It was not to be.
Oh and the wedding, right. I guess I should explain the drama that happened before the wedding and how it got almost cancelled first, and then cancelled again because the bride and the groom and their closest friends were missing, but things got sorted out in the end. People barely noticed anything out of the place in the four goddamn ceremonies we went to. Just a bunch of young people doing young people things.
Good work, low-key-halloween [Thursday 31]
As I complete writing this slightly past midnight, there's strong winds and heavy rains outside. It's the night of Halloween, and I did not do anything special. And neither did my roommates. And I'm completely fine with this.
Just before I began writing this, I finished my regular pushups, and did a single one-handed pushup each for each side. I'm at 40 pushups a day now, up to 50 by next week, and on the path to 100. By the time I make it to 100, I'm hoping to do 10 one-handed pushups total.
Before the pushups, I was writing the post that's published immediately after this but was actually written just before. Wrote a little about Bojack before that, and watched perhaps five episodes of Bojack before that, as I ate my dinner of rice-dal-beans with added furikake. Roommate BB went to bed early, roommate SM is not bad from the library yet, and roommate PK got back from his friend's place 10 minutes ago so it was all me with the control of the TV.
Tried napping a little after getting home, unsuccessfully, spent some time catching up with international friends, watched a lot of Youtube, and watched Grant Tour with roommate BB. Didn't feel like cooking or making anything for dinner so just ate the leftovers roommates are having a hard time getting rid of because they just keep on piling up.
Commute from work was as crap as it's been recently, a 50/55 min trip that involved 3 trains and a bus (green to Park, green to North, Orange to Sullivan, 101 to home). Again, thank god for podcasts. Wrote some cool stuff in the train, but got deleted because of this stupid app, a little miffed about that. Work was quite productive and happy, and I was satisfied. There was a moment i thought I'd lost my earbuds they were stuck on the chairlegs and the relief when I discovered that was 'palpable'.
They did a Halloween party over lunch/an hour after lunch where they organized costume contest and baking contest. My coworker's wife's Korean Pancakes won the baking contest, and our remote coworker who used a fancy animation for his skype video chat won the costume contest. I put on a yellow T-shirt and pretended to be an M&M, Arthur the Aardvark, the rational consumer, etc to different people at different times. My coworkers took it rather seriously -- there were two soccer players, two marvel superheroes, a pumpkin, a harry potter, and several minor employees of other companies, including one from our direct competitor. I got lunch from Subway -- their veggie patty; it's better than I imagined I and was surprisingly satisfying.
The morning commute was rather frustrating -- I had to walk to Davis (through bus 89) after 10 minutes of waiting for the 101 because 101 is so unpredictable. The red line train was pretty tight too. Got to work on time still and it wasn't too stressful in the morning.
Left home late in the morning because I had to wait for the restroom for a while, and couldn't write in the meanwhile. That's the reason why my morning writings have not been up to the par recently. If I could get up earlier, and spend solid 30/40 minutes writing two different pieces, I could easily get 4, maybe five pieces of writing a day without feeling overwhelmed or feeling like this is taking over my life. Sometimes it can feel like that.
Just before I began writing this, I finished my regular pushups, and did a single one-handed pushup each for each side. I'm at 40 pushups a day now, up to 50 by next week, and on the path to 100. By the time I make it to 100, I'm hoping to do 10 one-handed pushups total.
Before the pushups, I was writing the post that's published immediately after this but was actually written just before. Wrote a little about Bojack before that, and watched perhaps five episodes of Bojack before that, as I ate my dinner of rice-dal-beans with added furikake. Roommate BB went to bed early, roommate SM is not bad from the library yet, and roommate PK got back from his friend's place 10 minutes ago so it was all me with the control of the TV.
Tried napping a little after getting home, unsuccessfully, spent some time catching up with international friends, watched a lot of Youtube, and watched Grant Tour with roommate BB. Didn't feel like cooking or making anything for dinner so just ate the leftovers roommates are having a hard time getting rid of because they just keep on piling up.
Commute from work was as crap as it's been recently, a 50/55 min trip that involved 3 trains and a bus (green to Park, green to North, Orange to Sullivan, 101 to home). Again, thank god for podcasts. Wrote some cool stuff in the train, but got deleted because of this stupid app, a little miffed about that. Work was quite productive and happy, and I was satisfied. There was a moment i thought I'd lost my earbuds they were stuck on the chairlegs and the relief when I discovered that was 'palpable'.
They did a Halloween party over lunch/an hour after lunch where they organized costume contest and baking contest. My coworker's wife's Korean Pancakes won the baking contest, and our remote coworker who used a fancy animation for his skype video chat won the costume contest. I put on a yellow T-shirt and pretended to be an M&M, Arthur the Aardvark, the rational consumer, etc to different people at different times. My coworkers took it rather seriously -- there were two soccer players, two marvel superheroes, a pumpkin, a harry potter, and several minor employees of other companies, including one from our direct competitor. I got lunch from Subway -- their veggie patty; it's better than I imagined I and was surprisingly satisfying.
The morning commute was rather frustrating -- I had to walk to Davis (through bus 89) after 10 minutes of waiting for the 101 because 101 is so unpredictable. The red line train was pretty tight too. Got to work on time still and it wasn't too stressful in the morning.
Left home late in the morning because I had to wait for the restroom for a while, and couldn't write in the meanwhile. That's the reason why my morning writings have not been up to the par recently. If I could get up earlier, and spend solid 30/40 minutes writing two different pieces, I could easily get 4, maybe five pieces of writing a day without feeling overwhelmed or feeling like this is taking over my life. Sometimes it can feel like that.
On Bojack
Watched the latest season of Bojack earlier this evening. I loved everything until the last part of the latest season. It's not the series last; they have the second half of the sixth season coming out in January. It's just bizarre that they seem to be bringing everything back for the ending, almost as if to punish the character. He's an awful person who has done shitty things to everyone around him, and we've seen in the last two seasons how hard he has been trying to be better as a human being (er...horse). To throw it all out for some sort of justice would be crappy. And so would not closing the show with nice tied knots. The show is about shitty, depressed people, coming back, etcetera. If in the end they show that there's no coming back (from reasonably shitty things), or the only reasonable end is like that of Camus's suggestion, it would be a fairly disappointing one.
Their throwaway jokes have always been on point, their show-biz references, city and brand-specific references have been great too. They have done many bits with layered complicated satire (a lot of which can somehow feel cynical yet hopeful, perhaps the latter because they are after a tv show and need to put in something nice). The focus on the boring has-been as their protagonist has gotten tired over the years, despite the layering and complexity added over the seasons. Great side-characters have grievous injustices happen to them show-wise -- Diane is a sparkly, bloated version of whatever she was in the first season, her issues that seemed genuine now seem tiresome and almost cliche at this point. The show played a big part in playing this about, and it makes fun of itself through the Mr. PB and depression storyline, but it's still taking itself with Diane. What was cool about Bojack in the first few seasons was that this was a show about Serious stuff that did not take itself seriously. It's started taking itself too seriously, perhaps smelling the proverbial self-farts. And sometimes it feels like the lead-character, washed-up version of something that used to be great
Which is not to say it's not a good tv show. It is, loved it. And if they made two, maybe three more seasons of it, I'd happily watch those. It's just...it has evolved towards a direction in these years that I hoped it would not go to.
Redemption. That's the word I was looking for. Truly awful characters don't deserve those. The show has gone out of its way to show us that Bojack is not one of those. He is ultimately, despite all his terrible flaws and weaknesses, worth saving. That he deserves redemption. If after all this, the show changes the tune and doesn't give him that, it's going to be a damn shame.
Their throwaway jokes have always been on point, their show-biz references, city and brand-specific references have been great too. They have done many bits with layered complicated satire (a lot of which can somehow feel cynical yet hopeful, perhaps the latter because they are after a tv show and need to put in something nice). The focus on the boring has-been as their protagonist has gotten tired over the years, despite the layering and complexity added over the seasons. Great side-characters have grievous injustices happen to them show-wise -- Diane is a sparkly, bloated version of whatever she was in the first season, her issues that seemed genuine now seem tiresome and almost cliche at this point. The show played a big part in playing this about, and it makes fun of itself through the Mr. PB and depression storyline, but it's still taking itself with Diane. What was cool about Bojack in the first few seasons was that this was a show about Serious stuff that did not take itself seriously. It's started taking itself too seriously, perhaps smelling the proverbial self-farts. And sometimes it feels like the lead-character, washed-up version of something that used to be great
Which is not to say it's not a good tv show. It is, loved it. And if they made two, maybe three more seasons of it, I'd happily watch those. It's just...it has evolved towards a direction in these years that I hoped it would not go to.
Redemption. That's the word I was looking for. Truly awful characters don't deserve those. The show has gone out of its way to show us that Bojack is not one of those. He is ultimately, despite all his terrible flaws and weaknesses, worth saving. That he deserves redemption. If after all this, the show changes the tune and doesn't give him that, it's going to be a damn shame.
Blogger ate my post so I have this instead
Saved a draft earlier today to post later, and it's disappeared. Such unreliability ha
Anyways, it was about...something....I forget about. Must have been good because I wanted to get back to it and do a rewrite, now I can't find it. Hmm, I remember writing it on the bus, and thinking this was a...okay, I remember it now, it was about halloween and dressing for halloween, and how dressed up as a BS thing, but not just one, multiple. Kept changing my story every time someone asked me about it. People at work took it seriously though, there was even a baking contest. I guess that all will go in the next post or the journal. For now, I'll write something else, and let this be as it is. Sayonara mofos.
Anyways, it was about...something....I forget about. Must have been good because I wanted to get back to it and do a rewrite, now I can't find it. Hmm, I remember writing it on the bus, and thinking this was a...okay, I remember it now, it was about halloween and dressing for halloween, and how dressed up as a BS thing, but not just one, multiple. Kept changing my story every time someone asked me about it. People at work took it seriously though, there was even a baking contest. I guess that all will go in the next post or the journal. For now, I'll write something else, and let this be as it is. Sayonara mofos.
Too late
It wasn't normal for him to be this late. He was on time usually, the few times he had been late, he had texted before and complained about the traffic.Twice he had been quite late but still not this late, and he had communicated his delay. Something was up.
They made fun of him for his un-politician punctuality. He'd explain that he wasn't really a politician, not yet anyway, before the elections, or a really bad one at that because he had yet to win an election. This was of no help. The school days and local ribbon cuttings he went to had learned to be extra careful about his arrival for they had found themselves on the unprepared side when he had shown up right on the dot, an hour before they expected him. Those he were not into his brand of politics had grown a liking to him for only his punctuality and the mild respectful manner he spoke to everyone in, from a peon to a Principal, from a local youth organizer to the Prime Minister. There were not yet sold on his ability to win or his policies, but his personality was a winner.
They made fun of him for his un-politician punctuality. He'd explain that he wasn't really a politician, not yet anyway, before the elections, or a really bad one at that because he had yet to win an election. This was of no help. The school days and local ribbon cuttings he went to had learned to be extra careful about his arrival for they had found themselves on the unprepared side when he had shown up right on the dot, an hour before they expected him. Those he were not into his brand of politics had grown a liking to him for only his punctuality and the mild respectful manner he spoke to everyone in, from a peon to a Principal, from a local youth organizer to the Prime Minister. There were not yet sold on his ability to win or his policies, but his personality was a winner.
Bad commute, good research [Wednesday 30]
Just took a warm, refreshing shower. Read a couple of pages of On Writing earlier. Three lessons I absolutely need to take on writing from King (and others):
1) Don't bore the readers with your descriptions and other bullshit. They're paying the twenty bucks to have the story mooove. Get it going then.
2) Don't write 'negative' stories. As in, don't have someone in present remember about the past through description. Instead, go to the past, describe as if it was just happening, and then come back to the present. Instead of "he had been dancing with her in the bar when his nemesis had dumped a gallon of petrol on his head", do "He was doing the tango with her. He saw his nemesis above the stage, fiddling around with a bucket. Before he had time to react, he found themselves drenched in a gallon of petrol." Make the readers feel as if they're there, don't make it sound like they're reading a third-hand story from a second-rate narrator, written by a third-grade writer.
3) Adverbs are bad, that we know. But in the hurry to avoid adverb words, don't fill up on adverb phrases. Anything modifying a verb or verb clause is an adverb, it's just words ending in '-ly' only.
Moving on....
Watched 20 minutes of the Weekenders with roommate PK and semi-roommate I, roommate BB has finished watching the series. Roommate SM has been quite busy lately, coming in late and retiring to his room whenever he's in the house.
The previous post was a pain to write because I had no clue what I'd write about. I spent a long time coming up with a writing idea, and settled on that one inspired specially by this page: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Mayer-Bernadette_Experiments.html. Good inspiration that.
I was eating yogurt and fruit before the sad writing attempt. The whole-milk yogurt was filled me up good, the tartness was well countered by the sweetness of the grapes. They were not as meaty-juicy as the globe grapes I had at SS's place (last weekend? Seems like ages ago now), ah such is life. I was also writing the post on Rudra as I ate. That was all researched stuff, there's very little original content there. I'm excited about the direction that angle might take, because we're beginning to see more and more conflict in that Universe. I didn't move the plot forward at all, still in the worldbuilding phase there and we're getting to know our characters and their angles better. Even if those words and sentences don't make it to the final product, we have a sense of what our characters are going to act like and why.
Youtubed for an hour after coming back from work because I didn't feel like doing anything. The commute had given me a headache. It took me 65-70 minutes to get home from work, which is insane because on good days it takes me half as that. My commute wasn't a strange one particularly -- green to park, walk to dtx, orange to sullivan, bus home, but the wait at dtx, the crowdedness, the slowness in getting to sullivan, and then the 20-minute wait for the bus was frustrating. It's pretty clear there's something up with the orange line today, not clear what that is.
Work was semi-productive, need to get my changes merged in, but people haven't had the time to review them yet, have waited a long time on that. Hopefully that will be done soon and I can get a clean start on new issues.
Almost skipped lunch today since I'd snacked so much on the granola that I have in my snacks drawer. Realized it wasn't a good plan, and I'd rather eat lunch and get extra unneeded calories than go the day on breakfast and granola. Need to get rid of the granola actually so that I'm never tempted again. Went to the Greek place and got stuffed tomatoes with rice and veggies. I liked it though I wouldn't call it the best lunch I've ever had. I'd definitely try it again at other places and would eat it regularly if I knew a good recipe for it. Everything was drenched in olive oil and dearie it was great.
Morning was sad and gloomy at work until I ate the apple I'd taken and drank two cups of water, after which I got in considerably better mood.
Roommate BB had warned us through text that the Orange line was seriously effed, so walked to Davis and took the red line from there. Red line is generally quite empty at Davis, and it was insanely crowded this morning, so pretty sure something was up with the MBTA train lines in general today. I'm so glad I got on the first train both the times. Listened to podcasts all the way to work and back, thank podgods for saving my sanity.
Need to go back to wegmans to return the shit light that they sold me, and bring bike back from work. I haven't brought it back yet because it's getting darker earlier and the brakes aren't working well. Had brought the lights to fix that, but oh well.
Earlier this evening talked to LP's bf L on his job application for a similar position to mine. He said the call was helpful and I said everything he needed to know, I was a bit weird because I started right off with the point at hand, without asking him what was up etcetera etcetera. He said he appreciated it that way, I fear he may have gotten the impression that I'm a to-the-point kind of person. Sigh. Hopefully things progress well here so I can earn that sweet sweet referral fee.
1) Don't bore the readers with your descriptions and other bullshit. They're paying the twenty bucks to have the story mooove. Get it going then.
2) Don't write 'negative' stories. As in, don't have someone in present remember about the past through description. Instead, go to the past, describe as if it was just happening, and then come back to the present. Instead of "he had been dancing with her in the bar when his nemesis had dumped a gallon of petrol on his head", do "He was doing the tango with her. He saw his nemesis above the stage, fiddling around with a bucket. Before he had time to react, he found themselves drenched in a gallon of petrol." Make the readers feel as if they're there, don't make it sound like they're reading a third-hand story from a second-rate narrator, written by a third-grade writer.
3) Adverbs are bad, that we know. But in the hurry to avoid adverb words, don't fill up on adverb phrases. Anything modifying a verb or verb clause is an adverb, it's just words ending in '-ly' only.
Moving on....
Watched 20 minutes of the Weekenders with roommate PK and semi-roommate I, roommate BB has finished watching the series. Roommate SM has been quite busy lately, coming in late and retiring to his room whenever he's in the house.
The previous post was a pain to write because I had no clue what I'd write about. I spent a long time coming up with a writing idea, and settled on that one inspired specially by this page: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Mayer-Bernadette_Experiments.html. Good inspiration that.
I was eating yogurt and fruit before the sad writing attempt. The whole-milk yogurt was filled me up good, the tartness was well countered by the sweetness of the grapes. They were not as meaty-juicy as the globe grapes I had at SS's place (last weekend? Seems like ages ago now), ah such is life. I was also writing the post on Rudra as I ate. That was all researched stuff, there's very little original content there. I'm excited about the direction that angle might take, because we're beginning to see more and more conflict in that Universe. I didn't move the plot forward at all, still in the worldbuilding phase there and we're getting to know our characters and their angles better. Even if those words and sentences don't make it to the final product, we have a sense of what our characters are going to act like and why.
Youtubed for an hour after coming back from work because I didn't feel like doing anything. The commute had given me a headache. It took me 65-70 minutes to get home from work, which is insane because on good days it takes me half as that. My commute wasn't a strange one particularly -- green to park, walk to dtx, orange to sullivan, bus home, but the wait at dtx, the crowdedness, the slowness in getting to sullivan, and then the 20-minute wait for the bus was frustrating. It's pretty clear there's something up with the orange line today, not clear what that is.
Work was semi-productive, need to get my changes merged in, but people haven't had the time to review them yet, have waited a long time on that. Hopefully that will be done soon and I can get a clean start on new issues.
Almost skipped lunch today since I'd snacked so much on the granola that I have in my snacks drawer. Realized it wasn't a good plan, and I'd rather eat lunch and get extra unneeded calories than go the day on breakfast and granola. Need to get rid of the granola actually so that I'm never tempted again. Went to the Greek place and got stuffed tomatoes with rice and veggies. I liked it though I wouldn't call it the best lunch I've ever had. I'd definitely try it again at other places and would eat it regularly if I knew a good recipe for it. Everything was drenched in olive oil and dearie it was great.
Morning was sad and gloomy at work until I ate the apple I'd taken and drank two cups of water, after which I got in considerably better mood.
Roommate BB had warned us through text that the Orange line was seriously effed, so walked to Davis and took the red line from there. Red line is generally quite empty at Davis, and it was insanely crowded this morning, so pretty sure something was up with the MBTA train lines in general today. I'm so glad I got on the first train both the times. Listened to podcasts all the way to work and back, thank podgods for saving my sanity.
Need to go back to wegmans to return the shit light that they sold me, and bring bike back from work. I haven't brought it back yet because it's getting darker earlier and the brakes aren't working well. Had brought the lights to fix that, but oh well.
Earlier this evening talked to LP's bf L on his job application for a similar position to mine. He said the call was helpful and I said everything he needed to know, I was a bit weird because I started right off with the point at hand, without asking him what was up etcetera etcetera. He said he appreciated it that way, I fear he may have gotten the impression that I'm a to-the-point kind of person. Sigh. Hopefully things progress well here so I can earn that sweet sweet referral fee.
The lost kids
[PS: An experimentation with word lengths. 1 to 10 to 1]
Silence. Confused looks. Everyone stares around. What was this about? No one seemed do know. Nobody had checked with the school. No one knew where the kids were. The parents understood it was a school trip. The teachers were out for the holidays, finally free. No one had suspected it to be a complex ruse. Now someone needed to find where they were. They couldn't have made too far this quick. There were only so many interesting places. Runaway groups of teenagers were rowdy. Not very hard to find. Someone would call, eventually. And then what. Restrained anger? Disappointment?
Teenagers. Stupid bocks. They didn't know. The world wasn't nice. Bad things could happen anytime. And they were not responsible people. What would happen if someone got injured? Everyone would lose their minds and call home. Load that stress on the parents who'd fix things. Children were great and all, but parents had life too. The teenagers these days didn't seem to get that. Back in the day, kids were like saints. Did everything told, none of the complaining. And now they acted like vagabonds. Tricking school and family needlessly. Just ask for permission. Ask it respectfully. That's all. Manners.
Silence. Confused looks. Everyone stares around. What was this about? No one seemed do know. Nobody had checked with the school. No one knew where the kids were. The parents understood it was a school trip. The teachers were out for the holidays, finally free. No one had suspected it to be a complex ruse. Now someone needed to find where they were. They couldn't have made too far this quick. There were only so many interesting places. Runaway groups of teenagers were rowdy. Not very hard to find. Someone would call, eventually. And then what. Restrained anger? Disappointment?
Teenagers. Stupid bocks. They didn't know. The world wasn't nice. Bad things could happen anytime. And they were not responsible people. What would happen if someone got injured? Everyone would lose their minds and call home. Load that stress on the parents who'd fix things. Children were great and all, but parents had life too. The teenagers these days didn't seem to get that. Back in the day, kids were like saints. Did everything told, none of the complaining. And now they acted like vagabonds. Tricking school and family needlessly. Just ask for permission. Ask it respectfully. That's all. Manners.
Rudra
This happened a long time ago. A close confidant of Indra, after conversing with him on various matters relating to the realms, brought up the issue of Rudra.
"Why is it that the Quarternity dare do nothing about the fierce one?, " she asked. The unsaid assumption was that he was beyond the reach of the Gods themselves.
"People honor most of the gods who are killer... Rudra is a killer. And so are Skanda, Agni, Varun. Yama is a killer. So am I. He is different from us, but he is also not that apart from us. Suggesting that he is an issue would imply we are a problems," Indra replied, after much thought.
His anger was variously described as irascible. Furious. Terrible. Savage, wild.
His named literally meant howler, his fame had spread far and apart. He was the master of poison and medicine, of consciousness-altering drugs, and their application at range. He could induce sensation of flying and viewing one's own body from outside on anyone at a distance, earning terror and respect from friends and foes alike.
He was the embodiment of wildness, unpredictable danger and fever. He was a healer and cooler who also attacked like 'a ferocious wild beast'. He lived on the margins of the civilized world as someone who came from the outside, an intruder, and was excluded from gaining the benefits of sacrifices made by humans.
The gods feared his powers and wrath would be intolerably awesome.
He was a hunter. He stood for what what is violent, cruel and impure in the society of gods, or at the edge of the divine world. And that was just the one of him.
He surrounded himself with six dozen of the unyeilding fearsome deities of storm and battle, each more powerful than the Gods in Svarga. The stories that grew around them showed that they truly were followers of the great Rudra.
Once Gotama the great sage was very thirsty and asked the Maruts for some water. The Maruts took a whole well to him and poured the water into a pot at his hermitage.
Indra's relationship with the Maruts was...complicated.
They were prophesied to slay Indra and end his regime of Swarga before they were born. Indra went down to Earth to prevent their birth just as their mother was due. He fired his thunderbolt at the womb, which divided the embryo into twelve parts, all of whom started crying in great agony. He was unable to console them. Incensed at their obstinacy in crying, he cut each of these twelve parts, and thus formed sixty Maruts. Indra, relizing that he had just tried murdering sixty infants in delivery decided to take care of them as his brothers instead.
Indra's guardianship guaranteed them all the avails of the Svarga and the associated powers. Rudra's mentorship and guidance honed their obstinacy. In the land of the fierce one, they were the fiercest ones.
"Why is it that the Quarternity dare do nothing about the fierce one?, " she asked. The unsaid assumption was that he was beyond the reach of the Gods themselves.
"People honor most of the gods who are killer... Rudra is a killer. And so are Skanda, Agni, Varun. Yama is a killer. So am I. He is different from us, but he is also not that apart from us. Suggesting that he is an issue would imply we are a problems," Indra replied, after much thought.
His anger was variously described as irascible. Furious. Terrible. Savage, wild.
His named literally meant howler, his fame had spread far and apart. He was the master of poison and medicine, of consciousness-altering drugs, and their application at range. He could induce sensation of flying and viewing one's own body from outside on anyone at a distance, earning terror and respect from friends and foes alike.
He was the embodiment of wildness, unpredictable danger and fever. He was a healer and cooler who also attacked like 'a ferocious wild beast'. He lived on the margins of the civilized world as someone who came from the outside, an intruder, and was excluded from gaining the benefits of sacrifices made by humans.
The gods feared his powers and wrath would be intolerably awesome.
He was a hunter. He stood for what what is violent, cruel and impure in the society of gods, or at the edge of the divine world. And that was just the one of him.
He surrounded himself with six dozen of the unyeilding fearsome deities of storm and battle, each more powerful than the Gods in Svarga. The stories that grew around them showed that they truly were followers of the great Rudra.
Once Gotama the great sage was very thirsty and asked the Maruts for some water. The Maruts took a whole well to him and poured the water into a pot at his hermitage.
Indra's relationship with the Maruts was...complicated.
They were prophesied to slay Indra and end his regime of Swarga before they were born. Indra went down to Earth to prevent their birth just as their mother was due. He fired his thunderbolt at the womb, which divided the embryo into twelve parts, all of whom started crying in great agony. He was unable to console them. Incensed at their obstinacy in crying, he cut each of these twelve parts, and thus formed sixty Maruts. Indra, relizing that he had just tried murdering sixty infants in delivery decided to take care of them as his brothers instead.
Indra's guardianship guaranteed them all the avails of the Svarga and the associated powers. Rudra's mentorship and guidance honed their obstinacy. In the land of the fierce one, they were the fiercest ones.
Gloomy sun,mon.tue,etc. day
Feels like I haven't seen the Sun in months, that's not strictly true, but it feels that way. The trees either have blood-red leaves or are all naked by this time of the year. The sun's out by 5, and that's ,that's not the worst part yet -- starting this weekend it'll be out at 4 because of goddamn daylight savings ending taking way an hour from the evening .
I was talking about my absolute fear disgust of the dark and cold days ahead, and NG mentioned this japanese concept that's apparently all about making the best of your circumstances. Not by Mary Kondo. As in, if it's the winter, you don't fear or complain it, or avoid it, you just go out there, resign to the fact that you won't get to see the Sun weeks, and live the winter lifestyle. Stay warm and cosy, with friends family, do wintery things, eat hotpot and baked goods, go to the sauna or the bathhouse, things like that. Seems like a totally reasonable thing, not sure how I want to approach it. If I could have, I would have, is what I'm thinking perhaps I've not given winter activities the benefit of doubt though.
I was talking about my absolute fear disgust of the dark and cold days ahead, and NG mentioned this japanese concept that's apparently all about making the best of your circumstances. Not by Mary Kondo. As in, if it's the winter, you don't fear or complain it, or avoid it, you just go out there, resign to the fact that you won't get to see the Sun weeks, and live the winter lifestyle. Stay warm and cosy, with friends family, do wintery things, eat hotpot and baked goods, go to the sauna or the bathhouse, things like that. Seems like a totally reasonable thing, not sure how I want to approach it. If I could have, I would have, is what I'm thinking perhaps I've not given winter activities the benefit of doubt though.
Strange commute home, talkies at wegmans [Tuesday 29]
Just finished reading several pages of On Writing and washing up. King says when you're writing a novel, you must write it with a passion and keep at it every day, until you're done writing it. Don't let the story go stale for you, you must be almost living it as you write, he says. That seems reasonable enough exercise I am not able to follow right now, because I just need to get in the writing habit first. Perhaps once I'm done figuring the basic 'write something, anything really, every day, until no more words come out of you' phase, I should look into that. It would be nice though, to start something and conclude it, with a nice head body and tail. Something I'd be proud of as a complete work, and not as a part of a part of something in progress, potentially, or something that might go somewhere hopefully? Here's the truth though: writing practice may be good, but often no matter how much you shit out, there's no way you can carve that pile to shine like a diamond, yannowhatimsayin'?
King also says he's not a very voracious reader and still gets about 80 novels a year read, because he enjoys reading fiction, not for the sake of reading. Oops. I should read more. Again, perhaps once my couple-of-paragraphs-maybe-a-page-a-days are over and I make a habit out of it.
I spent a really long and hard time coming up with the previous post. I must have been tired from my grocery trip to wegmans (walked all the way there, talked to friend NG while I shopped, talked to TD in Amsterdam on my way back) because I felt really sleepy this evening. I got some grits (among other things) and had it with my regular kimchi, butter, etc this evening. I could have done better honestly, it didn't taste great. Not sure if I'm growing out of my basic grubs phase, or if I did it wrong today, but there was just something...not right about that.
The 45 minutes between getting back home and heading for Wegmans I did some youtubing. After getting back from wegmans I joined roommate BB watching Inbetweeners. Roommate PK came in late after spending time in the North End, and roommate SM came earlier but they didn't get to see each other because they were in each other's rooms already. Also got to meet friend of the house ND a bit earlier this evening.
The commute back home was a really interesting one. I took the green line to park and then ran to dtx as I've been doing more recently. Then the Orange line to Sullivan, nothing strange yet. I tried making a run for the bus 101, but those bastards release those buses before they're due so I missed it by maybe 30 seconds. I did however get a bus 89, so I got on it. At winter hill, the 101 before our bus was stopped, so I got off the bus, and ran up to it. I missed it by a matter of 7 seconds -- if the driver had been more considerate he'd have stopped it -- and walked toward home. Only after walking for 8 minutes did I realize the way home was not as short as I believed, waited a few short minutes for the following 101 bus which took me two stops over, and then home. If I'd only run like five seconds faster, I'd have made it home 12 minutes earlier. What a loss, but also what an interesting hack right.
Work was really busy today, got pulled into a lot of different projects and issues. We had a big and important meeting over lunch, the lunch and learn was interesting, and the pizza was great. The meeting after was a bit of a bummer, but it made me realize that my way was always right, and hope people see that better too. Morning was happy and chipper, got rid of the creepy hand from my desk to the original owner's, didn't eat an apple, but whatever, I ended up eating grapes in the evening after Wegman's.
Morning commute involved waiting a long time for the Orange line train, and the 101 bus could have been faster than it was, but it wasn't a particularly unpleasant one. I was running late anyway because I'd lazed around on writing, the writing got rushed too. I keep snoozing till the latest time possible, because I've started thinking I'm not getting enough sleep. If I just grow up, realize that the last 20 minutes of snoozing aren't going to improve my sleep cycle, but will probably significantly improve my daily experience, my days would probably be a lot better and more productive.
Hope to finish the blogger CLI soon so I can start blogging on the go!
Need to get back to my fermentation research too, soon. Will be cooking and or baking tomorrow, so interesting times.
King also says he's not a very voracious reader and still gets about 80 novels a year read, because he enjoys reading fiction, not for the sake of reading. Oops. I should read more. Again, perhaps once my couple-of-paragraphs-maybe-a-page-a-days are over and I make a habit out of it.
I spent a really long and hard time coming up with the previous post. I must have been tired from my grocery trip to wegmans (walked all the way there, talked to friend NG while I shopped, talked to TD in Amsterdam on my way back) because I felt really sleepy this evening. I got some grits (among other things) and had it with my regular kimchi, butter, etc this evening. I could have done better honestly, it didn't taste great. Not sure if I'm growing out of my basic grubs phase, or if I did it wrong today, but there was just something...not right about that.
The 45 minutes between getting back home and heading for Wegmans I did some youtubing. After getting back from wegmans I joined roommate BB watching Inbetweeners. Roommate PK came in late after spending time in the North End, and roommate SM came earlier but they didn't get to see each other because they were in each other's rooms already. Also got to meet friend of the house ND a bit earlier this evening.
The commute back home was a really interesting one. I took the green line to park and then ran to dtx as I've been doing more recently. Then the Orange line to Sullivan, nothing strange yet. I tried making a run for the bus 101, but those bastards release those buses before they're due so I missed it by maybe 30 seconds. I did however get a bus 89, so I got on it. At winter hill, the 101 before our bus was stopped, so I got off the bus, and ran up to it. I missed it by a matter of 7 seconds -- if the driver had been more considerate he'd have stopped it -- and walked toward home. Only after walking for 8 minutes did I realize the way home was not as short as I believed, waited a few short minutes for the following 101 bus which took me two stops over, and then home. If I'd only run like five seconds faster, I'd have made it home 12 minutes earlier. What a loss, but also what an interesting hack right.
Work was really busy today, got pulled into a lot of different projects and issues. We had a big and important meeting over lunch, the lunch and learn was interesting, and the pizza was great. The meeting after was a bit of a bummer, but it made me realize that my way was always right, and hope people see that better too. Morning was happy and chipper, got rid of the creepy hand from my desk to the original owner's, didn't eat an apple, but whatever, I ended up eating grapes in the evening after Wegman's.
Morning commute involved waiting a long time for the Orange line train, and the 101 bus could have been faster than it was, but it wasn't a particularly unpleasant one. I was running late anyway because I'd lazed around on writing, the writing got rushed too. I keep snoozing till the latest time possible, because I've started thinking I'm not getting enough sleep. If I just grow up, realize that the last 20 minutes of snoozing aren't going to improve my sleep cycle, but will probably significantly improve my daily experience, my days would probably be a lot better and more productive.
Hope to finish the blogger CLI soon so I can start blogging on the go!
Need to get back to my fermentation research too, soon. Will be cooking and or baking tomorrow, so interesting times.
Changing attitudes
[I'm feeling extremely uninspired right now, so here's a lot of nothing]
He hadn't had much time to think about it. He had been busy with his friend -- soon-to-be girlfriend, he hoped, everything besides that -- including that -- was low on priority. Now that push came to shove, he'd have to improvise. Everything that came before, he had thought, pondered, philosophized, and morally rationalized about. He had spent weeks practicing and improving, improvising, thinking of what he'd do in every possible circumstances. He knew his escape routes like the back of his hands, for he had practiced so often running away without looking guilty, he had almost convinced he was innocent. He didn't care about if he was clumsier was with the task, he needed to spend time with her, that's all that mattered.
He staked out the target's surroundings. A bank-teller of 27 who took the packed microbus to work everyday. She didn't seem to spend anytime by herself, she was with her boyfriend after work, he dropped her to her apartment in the evening, when she spent time with her roommates. No morning walks, no drunk binges, not even a shopping trip to the mall by herself. He had no idea what to do. He was stuck. He'd be in a lot of trouble with the Khyaak. No matter, he was ready to go hell if he could spend more time with Snigdha.
The Monday morning he took the early bus to Tokha. He got a cup op tea and strolled around the place. He checked his watch. 40 minutes for her to come out. He walked to the nearby park and watched the elderly grandfathers feed the birds, grandmothers walking with their toddler grandchildren, schoolchildren waiting for schoolbus as they held their hands and stared into each other's eyes, and into souls, he thought. His heart filled with love. The world was a beautiful place, full of people who loved one another, families, lovers, friends. All the bad, awful terrible things in life are outdone by the love and caring there exists. Evil would never defeat goodness. He was on the losing side.
He had been growing evil. Even if he had a gun to his head, figuratively, he would fight back, hard, and suffer instead of doing evil's bidding. There was so much goodness, the world didn't deserve such terrible happenings. He would come clean to the Khyaak, tell it that he no longer wished to follow its orders. If it meant eternal damnation and pain and torture to him, and maybe to everyone he cared for and would every cared about, no matter, his life and personal connections were not as important or wonderful as other people's lives. If the Khyaak cursed him to the deepest deaths of hell, so be it, he would become a martyr and forever be proud of what he had done. If the Khyaak killed him, he would die a happy and content man, one who had fought on the goodness's side. If the khyaak just ignored him, he'd go on living the rest of his life as a pious, kind generous man, who would harm no man.
The sun was rising. The schoolbuses had arrived to take the students, causing traffic jams all along the way to Kathmandu. There was noise and commotion of the daily commute in the air. He could still hear the birds chirping. He took a full breath of cool refreshing air. His heart felt healed. This was good. He just needed to go back home, consider his options for w while, and tell the Khyaak as it is. If he understood, fine, if not, he'd give his life suffering.
He got on the microbus to Ratna Park. It was full. He didn't want to wait for another microbus to leave, his life was too precious and full of potential to waste it that way. He squeezed into the vehicle, only to be pushed back my the crowd. He stood up, held hanging the outside bars instead. This was good. He would get to feel the chilly rejuvenating morning air against his face. Feel the air particles, get to know his city better. The microbus was ready to leave, the khalaasi boy was shouting for final passengers. He was about to get in on the vehicle himself and set off the vehicle when Raul felt a push. Someone else was standing on the climbing steps to the micro, and was pushing him front-wards. His reverie was interrupted, his head was angled against the vehicle such that he couldn't look who was pushing him.
The microbus left Tokha, zooming past the unpainted cement houses and tin-roofed huts. Haka took another breath of fresh morning air. Life couldn't get any better.
The air was too cold to be able to hold the outside bars comfortably. His hands would be numb soon, but no matter, this was all worth it, he thought. The khalaasi, a skinny tween with a tattered T-shirt on was shivering. He slid open the micro door as it ran, and pushed himself in. "Dai, you hold yourself on tight hai, I"m too skinny to be able to stay like this for too long, I'm going to go in for a bit," he told Haka, "And you too didi!'
Haka strained his neck to look around. A woman looked lifelessly ahead, her eyes tired and defeated. He did a second-take. It was cold, and he couldn't hold his hands to the bar much longer. He'd either have to push in, or shot at the driver to stop the vehicle. In this lifeless stretch of highway connecting the two towns, would anyone even notice if he slipped his hands due to the cold and bashed his head against the highway? He strained his head around again, checking to see if there was a single soul around. No one. The microbus was so crowded, he couldn't see the driver's face in the rear mirror. Or any of the three passengers' sitting at the front. Which meant they couldn't see him either. He considered the implications.
It was just too easy.
All it took was a little courage, and a well-leveraged push.
He couldn't help himself.
He hadn't had much time to think about it. He had been busy with his friend -- soon-to-be girlfriend, he hoped, everything besides that -- including that -- was low on priority. Now that push came to shove, he'd have to improvise. Everything that came before, he had thought, pondered, philosophized, and morally rationalized about. He had spent weeks practicing and improving, improvising, thinking of what he'd do in every possible circumstances. He knew his escape routes like the back of his hands, for he had practiced so often running away without looking guilty, he had almost convinced he was innocent. He didn't care about if he was clumsier was with the task, he needed to spend time with her, that's all that mattered.
He staked out the target's surroundings. A bank-teller of 27 who took the packed microbus to work everyday. She didn't seem to spend anytime by herself, she was with her boyfriend after work, he dropped her to her apartment in the evening, when she spent time with her roommates. No morning walks, no drunk binges, not even a shopping trip to the mall by herself. He had no idea what to do. He was stuck. He'd be in a lot of trouble with the Khyaak. No matter, he was ready to go hell if he could spend more time with Snigdha.
The Monday morning he took the early bus to Tokha. He got a cup op tea and strolled around the place. He checked his watch. 40 minutes for her to come out. He walked to the nearby park and watched the elderly grandfathers feed the birds, grandmothers walking with their toddler grandchildren, schoolchildren waiting for schoolbus as they held their hands and stared into each other's eyes, and into souls, he thought. His heart filled with love. The world was a beautiful place, full of people who loved one another, families, lovers, friends. All the bad, awful terrible things in life are outdone by the love and caring there exists. Evil would never defeat goodness. He was on the losing side.
He had been growing evil. Even if he had a gun to his head, figuratively, he would fight back, hard, and suffer instead of doing evil's bidding. There was so much goodness, the world didn't deserve such terrible happenings. He would come clean to the Khyaak, tell it that he no longer wished to follow its orders. If it meant eternal damnation and pain and torture to him, and maybe to everyone he cared for and would every cared about, no matter, his life and personal connections were not as important or wonderful as other people's lives. If the Khyaak cursed him to the deepest deaths of hell, so be it, he would become a martyr and forever be proud of what he had done. If the Khyaak killed him, he would die a happy and content man, one who had fought on the goodness's side. If the khyaak just ignored him, he'd go on living the rest of his life as a pious, kind generous man, who would harm no man.
The sun was rising. The schoolbuses had arrived to take the students, causing traffic jams all along the way to Kathmandu. There was noise and commotion of the daily commute in the air. He could still hear the birds chirping. He took a full breath of cool refreshing air. His heart felt healed. This was good. He just needed to go back home, consider his options for w while, and tell the Khyaak as it is. If he understood, fine, if not, he'd give his life suffering.
He got on the microbus to Ratna Park. It was full. He didn't want to wait for another microbus to leave, his life was too precious and full of potential to waste it that way. He squeezed into the vehicle, only to be pushed back my the crowd. He stood up, held hanging the outside bars instead. This was good. He would get to feel the chilly rejuvenating morning air against his face. Feel the air particles, get to know his city better. The microbus was ready to leave, the khalaasi boy was shouting for final passengers. He was about to get in on the vehicle himself and set off the vehicle when Raul felt a push. Someone else was standing on the climbing steps to the micro, and was pushing him front-wards. His reverie was interrupted, his head was angled against the vehicle such that he couldn't look who was pushing him.
The microbus left Tokha, zooming past the unpainted cement houses and tin-roofed huts. Haka took another breath of fresh morning air. Life couldn't get any better.
The air was too cold to be able to hold the outside bars comfortably. His hands would be numb soon, but no matter, this was all worth it, he thought. The khalaasi, a skinny tween with a tattered T-shirt on was shivering. He slid open the micro door as it ran, and pushed himself in. "Dai, you hold yourself on tight hai, I"m too skinny to be able to stay like this for too long, I'm going to go in for a bit," he told Haka, "And you too didi!'
Haka strained his neck to look around. A woman looked lifelessly ahead, her eyes tired and defeated. He did a second-take. It was cold, and he couldn't hold his hands to the bar much longer. He'd either have to push in, or shot at the driver to stop the vehicle. In this lifeless stretch of highway connecting the two towns, would anyone even notice if he slipped his hands due to the cold and bashed his head against the highway? He strained his head around again, checking to see if there was a single soul around. No one. The microbus was so crowded, he couldn't see the driver's face in the rear mirror. Or any of the three passengers' sitting at the front. Which meant they couldn't see him either. He considered the implications.
It was just too easy.
All it took was a little courage, and a well-leveraged push.
He couldn't help himself.
Say cheeses
As I've said a dozen of times already, I'm not in the friendliest terms with dairy products. Not that many people are, but I'm more aware of the coolness between us than more people. When I see something heavy and creamy it doesn't make me drool, it makes me fear the stomach upset that I'd have to deal with if I ingested it. It's not a big overarching issue of my life, more a constant annoyance I can't ignore if I want to be in my best form, so to speak.
So it's been curious how I've come around the most popular dairy products of recent times. The cheese. Or rather, dem cheeses. It wouldn't be accurate to say I'm into expensive cheeses, or even medium cheeses. I am however a big fan of Aldi cheeses. All of them stinky ones. And the sour ones. Got hooked into the goat cheese logs last year, they've come up with smaller, serving sized 'coins' now and I it's fair to say I'm obsessed with them. They're just the right size for a single serving, perfectly tangy and not too stinky, and not as upsetting as cow cheeses. No reason to not like them.
There's feta too, crumbled with olives. It's more of a dressing or dipping cheese than snacking kind, and pound for pound pricier than blockcheeses. It goes really well with salads and beans and sandwiches even, have to be careful with the saltiness though since the brand I buy is abundantly salted.
Other cheeses I've been eating: cambert, Gouda, cheddar, brie, Lamont (?). Working towards making my own mozzarella. More on that later.
The Imps and the new age
The order had come from above. Way, way above. They were not sure how above, and they were not sure if they wanted to know how high up it went.
The Imps were a curious people always in an existential crisis, this has been discussed in detail. They were however not stupid. Most questions in the Universe had a reasonable answer, they knew. They also knew that some question were not worth asking, for the answer could drive the questioner insane. Take this, for example. They managed the cosmic infrastructure for the Gods, and assisted the holy quintinity with whatever new cosmic changes they wanted. Creation, upbringing, overseeing, destruction, etcetera etcetera. This one was new. The request had come for the creation of a new cosmic entity, or a set thereof, more powerful than the Gods themselves. It was a tricky situation. The Gods didn't want anything beyond their knowledge happening with the Imps, they were also mighty insecure about their position in the power hierarchy. They had spies all over in the realm. Sooner or later they would figure out that the Imps were working on beings that would become superior to them, and hell would be lose. Until then, they had obstruction free time to work on the project. Such large projects often took many eons -- the minor interactions between all the power sources had to be mapped out, existing matter would have to be tested for its interaction with all the new abilities. Most importantly they would have to make sure that the limits placed on the power were strictly hard and nothing or no combination of powers by themselves of interaction with external powers could break the limits set. It was not ideal that they'd be doing this work hiding from the gods, but the alternative was to delay things for much longer under their suspicious supervision.
The Imps were a curious people always in an existential crisis, this has been discussed in detail. They were however not stupid. Most questions in the Universe had a reasonable answer, they knew. They also knew that some question were not worth asking, for the answer could drive the questioner insane. Take this, for example. They managed the cosmic infrastructure for the Gods, and assisted the holy quintinity with whatever new cosmic changes they wanted. Creation, upbringing, overseeing, destruction, etcetera etcetera. This one was new. The request had come for the creation of a new cosmic entity, or a set thereof, more powerful than the Gods themselves. It was a tricky situation. The Gods didn't want anything beyond their knowledge happening with the Imps, they were also mighty insecure about their position in the power hierarchy. They had spies all over in the realm. Sooner or later they would figure out that the Imps were working on beings that would become superior to them, and hell would be lose. Until then, they had obstruction free time to work on the project. Such large projects often took many eons -- the minor interactions between all the power sources had to be mapped out, existing matter would have to be tested for its interaction with all the new abilities. Most importantly they would have to make sure that the limits placed on the power were strictly hard and nothing or no combination of powers by themselves of interaction with external powers could break the limits set. It was not ideal that they'd be doing this work hiding from the gods, but the alternative was to delay things for much longer under their suspicious supervision.
Productive at home [Monday 28]
Just read a couple of pages from King's On Writing (I need to widen my reading material dont I) and writing the previous post. I've written seven posts today including this one, and while I don't feel particularly mentally exhausted, I do feel I haven't done the best of work today. Sometimes your mind just cannot come up with new ideas when it's forced to, so it'll go with the lowest common denominator. I guess the point of practice is to improve the quality of lowest of the lowest common denominators. 5500+ words today, including this post, yesterday's, and the private journal. Not bad at all.
Showered and cleaned up the kitchen a bit before getting ready to sleep. Rewatched the series Inbetweeners with roommates PK I and BB. BB had never watched the series, he enjoyed it, I realized the series is insanely targeted at males and I'm so glad I've never tried convincing a female friend of mine or a partner to watch it. So glad. It's a pretty grass guy-humor all things considered, unlikely to translate easily across the genders.
We were watching Grand Tour before the Inbetweeners, I was writing earlier posts here as I listened to the show in the background, and also catching up a bit with work stuff. I also got a dessert dinner today because I felt like it, the vegan rice pudding and apple pie were quite filling.
In the afternoon, I wrapped up my work, and was checking around youtube videos. I've really gotten hooked on the small clips of The Carbonaro Effect, the tv show that I've never watched even when I had the chance too. Also catching up on the released videos of The Good Place, waiting for them to release the entire season before I watch it.
Work was pretty busy today, I worked from our living room. I was juggling three or four or five things all at the same time, and it was really difficult to switch context. At work at least I know when to take some time off from the desk since everyone is walking around, but at home I felt like a slacker even getting away from the table, so got a bit done, but also perhaps too much for my comfort. Did my pushups (still at 40) and crunches (still at 25 regular, 10 reverse) all it the same time in the afternoon because that's when I felt fully active and fit to do it.
Roommate SM had to go to school and back a few times biking in the rain because he forgot his bags for the first time. That he had dinner plans for this evening worked out great for roommate PK and I because we got to eat the leftover meals and desserts from last night. Lunch was a leftover fest, cleared out everything there was in the fridge. Such an amazing meal though: rice, brocooli, mixed means (these roommate SM had made for last night). Cheese, furikake, eggs, oof. Good stuff, I'm glad I don't eat rice too often because lately when I do eat rice I've appreciated it a lot.
Work in the morning was hectic and busy, and I was working on two very separate projects. The undisturbed work flow was great though, and made me consider working from home more often, just for the productivity gains if nothing else.
Got set up to work at 8.30 after getting up at 7.30 going back to sleep for a couple of times or at least trying to. Knew I wasn't going to go to work today because I went to bed very late last night (this morning actually) and I wasn't feeling to well anyway. Slept soundly and was well rested when I got up.
The day was overall quite productive, restful, and encouraging. I didn't get hundred percent of the things I wanted to do done, but small steps. It's been a good beginning of a hopefully great week. Just need to remind myself to eat well and not get hangry under any circumstances.
Showered and cleaned up the kitchen a bit before getting ready to sleep. Rewatched the series Inbetweeners with roommates PK I and BB. BB had never watched the series, he enjoyed it, I realized the series is insanely targeted at males and I'm so glad I've never tried convincing a female friend of mine or a partner to watch it. So glad. It's a pretty grass guy-humor all things considered, unlikely to translate easily across the genders.
We were watching Grand Tour before the Inbetweeners, I was writing earlier posts here as I listened to the show in the background, and also catching up a bit with work stuff. I also got a dessert dinner today because I felt like it, the vegan rice pudding and apple pie were quite filling.
In the afternoon, I wrapped up my work, and was checking around youtube videos. I've really gotten hooked on the small clips of The Carbonaro Effect, the tv show that I've never watched even when I had the chance too. Also catching up on the released videos of The Good Place, waiting for them to release the entire season before I watch it.
Work was pretty busy today, I worked from our living room. I was juggling three or four or five things all at the same time, and it was really difficult to switch context. At work at least I know when to take some time off from the desk since everyone is walking around, but at home I felt like a slacker even getting away from the table, so got a bit done, but also perhaps too much for my comfort. Did my pushups (still at 40) and crunches (still at 25 regular, 10 reverse) all it the same time in the afternoon because that's when I felt fully active and fit to do it.
Roommate SM had to go to school and back a few times biking in the rain because he forgot his bags for the first time. That he had dinner plans for this evening worked out great for roommate PK and I because we got to eat the leftover meals and desserts from last night. Lunch was a leftover fest, cleared out everything there was in the fridge. Such an amazing meal though: rice, brocooli, mixed means (these roommate SM had made for last night). Cheese, furikake, eggs, oof. Good stuff, I'm glad I don't eat rice too often because lately when I do eat rice I've appreciated it a lot.
Work in the morning was hectic and busy, and I was working on two very separate projects. The undisturbed work flow was great though, and made me consider working from home more often, just for the productivity gains if nothing else.
Got set up to work at 8.30 after getting up at 7.30 going back to sleep for a couple of times or at least trying to. Knew I wasn't going to go to work today because I went to bed very late last night (this morning actually) and I wasn't feeling to well anyway. Slept soundly and was well rested when I got up.
The day was overall quite productive, restful, and encouraging. I didn't get hundred percent of the things I wanted to do done, but small steps. It's been a good beginning of a hopefully great week. Just need to remind myself to eat well and not get hangry under any circumstances.
Catching up
[This could be a building block for the Appointments and Disappointment series, not clear. It's not very strong, trying to figure out what direction I want to take]
We should kiss, Sheena said.
I'm enjoying staring deep in your eyes and holding your hands tight, Arpan said, kissing will take me away from seeing you.
You can kiss opening your eyes then, look at the rest of me, can we please kiss now, Sheena said.
Babeee, he said, you are the prettiest person I have ever dated, and I have dated a few women, he said. Your laughter is like the most beautiful song, and I love smelling your hair, the smell of your shampoo makes me feel like I'm in Indra's heaven, he said.
She pecked his nose with her lips. "Ohh yeahh, tell me what parts of me you like more, " she said, removing untying his hands away from her thick hair guiding then to her neck. "I heard some people are planning to have sex today, good time for us to start kissing and making out no, " she said.
He looked at her face with glazed, passionate eyes. "You are my princess and anything you say, I will do for you my Queen. If you want me to pick up all the stars from the sky, I can't do that for you, and bring them to your feet, you are my everything, " he said, his hands feeling the shape of her face and forehead now.
She put her hands on his cheeks. "Yeahhh, I am your princess? Then we should kiss. Kiss my hair, and kiss my forehead, and kiss my nose, and kiss my um, forehead, etcetera, and when you eventually get around to it, kiss my mouth, you potato, " she said, in a breathy voice. She winked her eyes and grinned wide.
"Of course I will kiss you, I will kiss you until that is the only thing I can do, " he said, moving his head closer to hers. She moved hers closer to his. It was happening. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating, she knew it had stopped breathing, she couldn't hear anything, couldn't think of anything, and the only thing on her mind was the feeling of his lips on her forehead.
Two minutes. He had been kissing her forehead for two minutes, in three places now, and was sucking now as if he were a starving mosquito sucking life-blood for his survival. Between the long, intense smooches, he would stop to get a gasp of air. 'You are my loveliest greatest queen, the most prettiest and smartest girls to have ever lived, I am in awe of you, " he would say, or some variation of it, and get back to sucking her forehead.
She cleared her throat. His hands were still grasping her face, she guided them slowly downwards, but they got back to feel her hair or face soon after. Her eyes were awkwardly staring at his neck and chin, she couldn't close them, she didn't know what else to do. "You are the best, most gentlest, kindest, loveliest lover I've ever had," she said, pulling her forehead away from the suction of his mouth. As the rushing air filled the gap, it made a glugglugg sound like a plunger. She held him straight in front of her by his shoulders.
"You are a great kisser Arpan, these are the greatest moments of ecstasy I have ever experienced, and now I want you to kiss the rest of my face. Don't get carried away by the river of my love, and do as I say, okay, because I'm your king. You should now kiss my cheeks, and stop when I tell you to, change cheeks when I tell you to. You need to do exactly how I tell you okay, or your queen will not be happy, agreed," she said.
"Yes babe, my queen I will do exactly like you said. Tell me what to do," he said.
She took a long breath. Her heart was racing. Finally, this could go the direction she wanted it to take. She closed her eyes, loosened up her face, swallowed and said ---
"Guys, it's time for dinner, let's go, let's go let's go! We're doing campfire! Arpan, Sheena, lets go! Let's go guys, they'll pack dinner, we'll be late, everyone let's goo!", someone shouted outside, knocking on their window.
They disentangled from each other in quick, longing motions, and straightened up. Sheena took a long wistful sigh, told Arpan to bring her bag with him and not forget the key inside before locking the door, ran to catch up with the rest of the girls.
We should kiss, Sheena said.
I'm enjoying staring deep in your eyes and holding your hands tight, Arpan said, kissing will take me away from seeing you.
You can kiss opening your eyes then, look at the rest of me, can we please kiss now, Sheena said.
Babeee, he said, you are the prettiest person I have ever dated, and I have dated a few women, he said. Your laughter is like the most beautiful song, and I love smelling your hair, the smell of your shampoo makes me feel like I'm in Indra's heaven, he said.
She pecked his nose with her lips. "Ohh yeahh, tell me what parts of me you like more, " she said, removing untying his hands away from her thick hair guiding then to her neck. "I heard some people are planning to have sex today, good time for us to start kissing and making out no, " she said.
He looked at her face with glazed, passionate eyes. "You are my princess and anything you say, I will do for you my Queen. If you want me to pick up all the stars from the sky, I can't do that for you, and bring them to your feet, you are my everything, " he said, his hands feeling the shape of her face and forehead now.
She put her hands on his cheeks. "Yeahhh, I am your princess? Then we should kiss. Kiss my hair, and kiss my forehead, and kiss my nose, and kiss my um, forehead, etcetera, and when you eventually get around to it, kiss my mouth, you potato, " she said, in a breathy voice. She winked her eyes and grinned wide.
"Of course I will kiss you, I will kiss you until that is the only thing I can do, " he said, moving his head closer to hers. She moved hers closer to his. It was happening. She stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating, she knew it had stopped breathing, she couldn't hear anything, couldn't think of anything, and the only thing on her mind was the feeling of his lips on her forehead.
Two minutes. He had been kissing her forehead for two minutes, in three places now, and was sucking now as if he were a starving mosquito sucking life-blood for his survival. Between the long, intense smooches, he would stop to get a gasp of air. 'You are my loveliest greatest queen, the most prettiest and smartest girls to have ever lived, I am in awe of you, " he would say, or some variation of it, and get back to sucking her forehead.
She cleared her throat. His hands were still grasping her face, she guided them slowly downwards, but they got back to feel her hair or face soon after. Her eyes were awkwardly staring at his neck and chin, she couldn't close them, she didn't know what else to do. "You are the best, most gentlest, kindest, loveliest lover I've ever had," she said, pulling her forehead away from the suction of his mouth. As the rushing air filled the gap, it made a glugglugg sound like a plunger. She held him straight in front of her by his shoulders.
"You are a great kisser Arpan, these are the greatest moments of ecstasy I have ever experienced, and now I want you to kiss the rest of my face. Don't get carried away by the river of my love, and do as I say, okay, because I'm your king. You should now kiss my cheeks, and stop when I tell you to, change cheeks when I tell you to. You need to do exactly how I tell you okay, or your queen will not be happy, agreed," she said.
"Yes babe, my queen I will do exactly like you said. Tell me what to do," he said.
She took a long breath. Her heart was racing. Finally, this could go the direction she wanted it to take. She closed her eyes, loosened up her face, swallowed and said ---
"Guys, it's time for dinner, let's go, let's go let's go! We're doing campfire! Arpan, Sheena, lets go! Let's go guys, they'll pack dinner, we'll be late, everyone let's goo!", someone shouted outside, knocking on their window.
They disentangled from each other in quick, longing motions, and straightened up. Sheena took a long wistful sigh, told Arpan to bring her bag with him and not forget the key inside before locking the door, ran to catch up with the rest of the girls.
Schoolgoing
Exploring options for doing a CS-PoliSci joint PhD on the effects of AI/ML/friction-less communication/international grey economy on the distribution of power. How does this effect large countries versus small, give leverage to small countries, and act as a multiplier for cultural/linguistic hegemony. How can it be used by rebels and dissidents without being used for strictly illegal purposes. The question of jurisdiction, and how less-powerful nation-states can enforce their legal systems upon global platforms. How global platforms can be mused/misused, particularly in times of great political change and violence. If such platforms can/have been used to reduce rampant violence/genocide, or whether they add fuel to the fire, so to speak. All this in addition to the general issue of unfairness and racism and opaqueness of computational methods of governance. Identify if online platforms have a way away from literal trash fire they are now.
Apparently PoliSci PhD is all analytics and R now, mostly stats. At which point, what even is going to be my contribution if I can't bring anything new to the table. Stressful times.
Apparently PoliSci PhD is all analytics and R now, mostly stats. At which point, what even is going to be my contribution if I can't bring anything new to the table. Stressful times.
Boring Monks
It was a mess.
Darkness and confusion. No one knew where they kept the reset key anymore. Over the ages things had just worked no one bothered to check how to fix things if something went bellyup. They knew there had to be a key somewhere that reset everything, all thanks to the human-sized keyhole that said 'insert and turn to reset' in the middle of the control room.
The temperature thermistors were going out of whack without sufficient feedback from the central control. They were decoupled enough to run steadily for thousands of years, the calibration was not going to be maintained going forward. Winters came longer and earlier, summers impotent and shorter. They called it the everlasting winter.
Amidst the confusion there was a group that grew and thrived. The Most Venerable Order of Boring Monks saw its ranks triple over a matter of half-a-year. A warm bed to sleep at night and two hours during the dry, two square meals a day, clean water to shower, and a company of a large number of similar-minded men and women. These were all one could ask for in these testing times. Alcohol was banned and so was loud music and dancing, but any sort of physical fraternization would be overlooked. All in exchange for reading the hymns, making physical copies of all available knowledge, and two hours of physical labor. The potatoes weren't going to grow themselves, harvest, clean and cut themselves, and fry in the pans. That was the other complaint. The major one. Food consisted of only the heartiest of grains and vegetables, which meant potatoes played a very big part in the diet of the Monks. Meat and eggs were reserved for special occasions.
The order wasn't meant to grow in the manner that it id. It was founded originally by a group of men -- and later women -- who had abstained, often involuntarily, from sex and merrymaking of any kind. Unlike there more violent counterparts, the Celibates they called them, the Boring Monks had no strict rules barring fraternization between the sexes. As the membership swole, the identity of the group changed, they went from involuntary abstainers to voluntary abstainers, and finally the semi-abstainers. Sex didn't feature prominently in the lives of the members of the Most Venerable Order.
It wasn't not much after the incident that some higher-up dunderhead decided to take the name of the order too literally. The point of the existence of the order, it was decided, was to bore. We already bore everyone your honor, someone had quipped during the extended meeting. The order decided tunnels were the way to go. Under the mountains, under the sea, across the valleys, beneath the dying trees. The stores would be underground, the meeting halls too. Overground would be limited to living quarters, farming, and relaxing. For no reason other than to satisfy their name, the order had gone underground. They should ban farting downstairs too, someone had joked in the newly-built corridors, which was overheard by a supervisor. It was promptly implemented -- overground was the designated fartspace. A region of impurity. Where no senior Monk should have to go to.
Darkness and confusion. No one knew where they kept the reset key anymore. Over the ages things had just worked no one bothered to check how to fix things if something went bellyup. They knew there had to be a key somewhere that reset everything, all thanks to the human-sized keyhole that said 'insert and turn to reset' in the middle of the control room.
The temperature thermistors were going out of whack without sufficient feedback from the central control. They were decoupled enough to run steadily for thousands of years, the calibration was not going to be maintained going forward. Winters came longer and earlier, summers impotent and shorter. They called it the everlasting winter.
Amidst the confusion there was a group that grew and thrived. The Most Venerable Order of Boring Monks saw its ranks triple over a matter of half-a-year. A warm bed to sleep at night and two hours during the dry, two square meals a day, clean water to shower, and a company of a large number of similar-minded men and women. These were all one could ask for in these testing times. Alcohol was banned and so was loud music and dancing, but any sort of physical fraternization would be overlooked. All in exchange for reading the hymns, making physical copies of all available knowledge, and two hours of physical labor. The potatoes weren't going to grow themselves, harvest, clean and cut themselves, and fry in the pans. That was the other complaint. The major one. Food consisted of only the heartiest of grains and vegetables, which meant potatoes played a very big part in the diet of the Monks. Meat and eggs were reserved for special occasions.
The order wasn't meant to grow in the manner that it id. It was founded originally by a group of men -- and later women -- who had abstained, often involuntarily, from sex and merrymaking of any kind. Unlike there more violent counterparts, the Celibates they called them, the Boring Monks had no strict rules barring fraternization between the sexes. As the membership swole, the identity of the group changed, they went from involuntary abstainers to voluntary abstainers, and finally the semi-abstainers. Sex didn't feature prominently in the lives of the members of the Most Venerable Order.
It wasn't not much after the incident that some higher-up dunderhead decided to take the name of the order too literally. The point of the existence of the order, it was decided, was to bore. We already bore everyone your honor, someone had quipped during the extended meeting. The order decided tunnels were the way to go. Under the mountains, under the sea, across the valleys, beneath the dying trees. The stores would be underground, the meeting halls too. Overground would be limited to living quarters, farming, and relaxing. For no reason other than to satisfy their name, the order had gone underground. They should ban farting downstairs too, someone had joked in the newly-built corridors, which was overheard by a supervisor. It was promptly implemented -- overground was the designated fartspace. A region of impurity. Where no senior Monk should have to go to.
Unrelenting failure
Unrelenting. Unrelenting was the word I was looking for in the
previous post about milestones. I need to fail unrelentingly. If I fail at something, I
need to try to fail at something else, as soon as I can.
The aim is obviously, to not fail. However, making failure an acceptable criteria, nay, even something to target, makes things easier. Take this blog for example. If I'd aimed at writing well and being read widely, I'd fail miserably. Instead, I aim at writing crap and not being read if it comes to that, and it's fine, I'm killing at not being very successful at writing.
It was inspired by SD back in July. He said that people are afraid of failing. They're so focused on getting things right, they lose perspective of the fact that putting on your boots and opening to face the snowstorm is the first step to winning a ski-race. If you never leave in fear of failure, you will most definitely never succeed. To get somewhere, you must target for acceptable failure. Be excited for it rather, a proud example of a failure who attempted. And that's the first step, Dare to fail. Most people fail not because they're bad at something, but because they don't dare to fail. Doing things, and failing over and over again should be an acceptable outcome for personal goals.
The second step is to fail unrelentingly. It's important because you learn, and you improve your stamina. Giving up after the first few tries is not enough, even if you've dared to fail. You must fail over and over and over again. No number of failures is enough, there's forever another opportunity to fail. Every failure is a chance to learn, unpack, explore, grow. Even if you're not improving in the skill or objective you're aiming for, you're learning more about yourself, and the system you're dealing with. It'll be tiring. You'll look at those who've succeeded and try comparing yourself, and feel like a loser. And think about giving up, because what's the point?
The point is, you will need to remind yourself, winning is not the point. Doing it, and failing while trying is. And if you fail ones, you're already getting good at it, so you need to be an expert in failing by failing the second time. And failing the third time. And over and over and over and over again. Eventually, you'll either succeed, in which case good for you, or you'll become an expert in failing at that particular task. Someone who knows all the things Not to do. You may not succeed, but you goddamn well know what do definitely not do.
This won't make you the world marathon champion, no. You may try all that you can, run over and over and over again, and you won't still be the fastest man on the planet. But the point is not to win. You will even not be the best running coach in the world (or an expert at failures). And that's not the point either. You will however become the person who failed the most times to attempt to set a world record. The recordbooks may not make a note of it, but your personal being will. You will remember your determination, and grit, and the continuous unrelenting need to try again and again. You will build a stamina for never giving up. And one day, somehow, somewhere, in something else you care about, you'll succeed. A bonanza! Or maybe you won't, you'll be medicore, and keep on going. Either way, you'll have done things you always wanted to do, no regrets, and be satisfied that you gave it the best you good. A good-frkiin' chance of succeeding you had, if after putting in all the effort and energy you didn't succeed, it's not on you, it's on the universe.
The aim is obviously, to not fail. However, making failure an acceptable criteria, nay, even something to target, makes things easier. Take this blog for example. If I'd aimed at writing well and being read widely, I'd fail miserably. Instead, I aim at writing crap and not being read if it comes to that, and it's fine, I'm killing at not being very successful at writing.
It was inspired by SD back in July. He said that people are afraid of failing. They're so focused on getting things right, they lose perspective of the fact that putting on your boots and opening to face the snowstorm is the first step to winning a ski-race. If you never leave in fear of failure, you will most definitely never succeed. To get somewhere, you must target for acceptable failure. Be excited for it rather, a proud example of a failure who attempted. And that's the first step, Dare to fail. Most people fail not because they're bad at something, but because they don't dare to fail. Doing things, and failing over and over again should be an acceptable outcome for personal goals.
The second step is to fail unrelentingly. It's important because you learn, and you improve your stamina. Giving up after the first few tries is not enough, even if you've dared to fail. You must fail over and over and over again. No number of failures is enough, there's forever another opportunity to fail. Every failure is a chance to learn, unpack, explore, grow. Even if you're not improving in the skill or objective you're aiming for, you're learning more about yourself, and the system you're dealing with. It'll be tiring. You'll look at those who've succeeded and try comparing yourself, and feel like a loser. And think about giving up, because what's the point?
The point is, you will need to remind yourself, winning is not the point. Doing it, and failing while trying is. And if you fail ones, you're already getting good at it, so you need to be an expert in failing by failing the second time. And failing the third time. And over and over and over and over again. Eventually, you'll either succeed, in which case good for you, or you'll become an expert in failing at that particular task. Someone who knows all the things Not to do. You may not succeed, but you goddamn well know what do definitely not do.
This won't make you the world marathon champion, no. You may try all that you can, run over and over and over again, and you won't still be the fastest man on the planet. But the point is not to win. You will even not be the best running coach in the world (or an expert at failures). And that's not the point either. You will however become the person who failed the most times to attempt to set a world record. The recordbooks may not make a note of it, but your personal being will. You will remember your determination, and grit, and the continuous unrelenting need to try again and again. You will build a stamina for never giving up. And one day, somehow, somewhere, in something else you care about, you'll succeed. A bonanza! Or maybe you won't, you'll be medicore, and keep on going. Either way, you'll have done things you always wanted to do, no regrets, and be satisfied that you gave it the best you good. A good-frkiin' chance of succeeding you had, if after putting in all the effort and energy you didn't succeed, it's not on you, it's on the universe.
Not an uplyfting post
I had to head out early. It was a surprise party and I wanted to be in the party that surprised, not in the one that made it fifteen minutes after everyone was in. I had planned it right too, an hour before the scheduled time, I started getting ready, packed my bags, earbuds, everything. I wanted to look nice because the evening before at SS's, I had looked like a round-bottom uncle against a Veela, didn't want a repeat of that.
I put on my good Peacoat, my only one actually, but I do love it so. I think -- I'm not sure -- that it may have buttons on the wrong side, but I'm so used to mistakenly buying and wearing clothing meant for women for years before realizing it that I don't even care. Let's pretend its about the fight against capitalism and gender standards for clothing, and there is some of that but really it's mostly due to what an unrelenting buffoon I am.
The Peacoat is nice, and so is the plaid shirt that I put on underneath, the corduroy pants I put on are perhaps the best of the bunch I have. It was a perfect uniform for a party. My shoes matched the color of my belt, my hair didn't look like I had just gotten up (that I had), and everything was faaaain. Fine in not the 'meh, ok' way but in the more 'that giirl is fiiine' approach. I wanted to cherry the top, a finisher, so to speak. Comes my shawl, muffler, scarf, what-have-you. It's grey in color, it's soft to touch, and I feel I'm classy when I put it on. I put it on.
The thing about putting the muffler on is, you need to put it on right. You don't want to look like someone just jumped off the boat, stole a piece of fabric from a well-dressed gentleman, and decided to strangle your neck with it like Shiva and his snake. You want to convey intention. Planning. Poise. A certain finesse, if I may. Haah. This man cares, you want the commoners to think, how else would he have the muffler in the perfect orientation even though he just finished a half-marathon? He's dying of exhaustion and dehydration, but look at what an effing beautiful corpse that's going to make! Anyway, that was the thinking behind me spending twenty minutes fixing it. When I say twenty minutes, it could be somewhat of an exaggeration -- it was probably not exactly twenty minutes, but it sure felt that way. For before it I was well ahead of the schedule. After it, I was running quite behind.
I'd be five minutes late. I texted PD. She said don't be too tooo late though. I was worried. Someone who dressed up that well would never be too late. Or huffing and puffing to make the bus-train-bus connections. It would take me 35 minutes in 89 bus and the red line trains. I looked up Lyft, and it said it'd get me there in 25. Actually, I texted back to her, I'll be a little early, I said. She replied: okay, keep waiting at the table, I'll be out to get the balloons. A King I felt like, making it to a surprise party before the organizer.
The Lyft arrived almost on time. Good feels. We drove out, my charioteer ready to drive me to victory. To validate my impeccable planning and taste, I kept checking the arrival time. Way before the original planned time. What a win! High in my spirits, I was fixing my coat collars -- winners pop their collars is my understanding -- when something was off. The driver made a u-turn. Uh oh. I knew where this was headed. I checked my app. Adding another rider. Five minutes added to the trip.
No matter, I'd still make it on time. I wouldn't make it before the hosts now, important well-planned people get right on the dot. Not a big loss. As we drove towards Powderhouse roundabout, my heart began sinking, though. One, they just had road construction work finish there, so the quality of the roads was not the best. And second, that roundabout is the worst. By which I mean, I'm told it's one of the most dangerous traffic circles in MA. I've been told repeatedly by my driving friends that no one seems to understand how to drive there, and it's like driving in a different country there.
Shit.
The diversion, if we could call it that, added four minutes the trip. It wouldn't be the end of the world. I mean, yes, I'd be late for the party, but so would everyone else. And besides, it's Boston, everyone understands how driving in Boston is like. If they didn't plan for slack, it's not my fault. I was still running ahead of my original train schedule by a couple of minutes, so it was no loss for anyone. I had paid a lot of money (it was an expensive shared right, annoyingly so), for the pleasure of being driven and getting there before the public transport. Things would be good.
And so they were. We picked up the first person, and drove down towards Davis. Until the feared rrrringg that the Lyft drivers get. Second pickup for the driver. He made another U-turn, and we drove towards Ball Square. I was palpitating. Four minutes added to the trip. At best, I would be as quick as if I'd taken the train.
The consolation was that both my co-riders didn't make us wait for more than 10 seconds. I hoped that luck would be with me through the traffic too. Alas, it was not to be. Traffic near Porter was heavy, so so was it near Harvard Square. By this time, I had given up. I wouldn't update anyone about how late it was, because it'd be embarrassing. If I'd just taken a train like a normal person, I'd have gotten there reasonably late. And here I was, like a buffoon caged inside a thousand-kilo metallic box, unable to control my fate, unable to do anything about the impending delay and embarrassment.
I got there ten minutes later than I would have if I'd taken the train. I texted my roommates about the frustration. It wasn't just the fact that I got there late, it was also that I paid a lot of money for the opportunity to have been late. It was incredibly annoying. I deleted the app as I was in the car, vowing to myself to never use ride-sharing services until absolutely needed. Uber/Lyft are like public transport, but (with few exceptions) for stupid people, I texted my roommates. I was done. Ready to apologize to the annoyed group of friends who were probably waiting for me outside in the cold. A lot of places don't let you in if you don't have your entire group.
I was the only one there, besides PD who was organizing this, and she was comfortably seated in our place. We waited for 20 more minutes for the next person to arrive, 30 for the group to assemble. Ah well.
I put on my good Peacoat, my only one actually, but I do love it so. I think -- I'm not sure -- that it may have buttons on the wrong side, but I'm so used to mistakenly buying and wearing clothing meant for women for years before realizing it that I don't even care. Let's pretend its about the fight against capitalism and gender standards for clothing, and there is some of that but really it's mostly due to what an unrelenting buffoon I am.
The Peacoat is nice, and so is the plaid shirt that I put on underneath, the corduroy pants I put on are perhaps the best of the bunch I have. It was a perfect uniform for a party. My shoes matched the color of my belt, my hair didn't look like I had just gotten up (that I had), and everything was faaaain. Fine in not the 'meh, ok' way but in the more 'that giirl is fiiine' approach. I wanted to cherry the top, a finisher, so to speak. Comes my shawl, muffler, scarf, what-have-you. It's grey in color, it's soft to touch, and I feel I'm classy when I put it on. I put it on.
The thing about putting the muffler on is, you need to put it on right. You don't want to look like someone just jumped off the boat, stole a piece of fabric from a well-dressed gentleman, and decided to strangle your neck with it like Shiva and his snake. You want to convey intention. Planning. Poise. A certain finesse, if I may. Haah. This man cares, you want the commoners to think, how else would he have the muffler in the perfect orientation even though he just finished a half-marathon? He's dying of exhaustion and dehydration, but look at what an effing beautiful corpse that's going to make! Anyway, that was the thinking behind me spending twenty minutes fixing it. When I say twenty minutes, it could be somewhat of an exaggeration -- it was probably not exactly twenty minutes, but it sure felt that way. For before it I was well ahead of the schedule. After it, I was running quite behind.
I'd be five minutes late. I texted PD. She said don't be too tooo late though. I was worried. Someone who dressed up that well would never be too late. Or huffing and puffing to make the bus-train-bus connections. It would take me 35 minutes in 89 bus and the red line trains. I looked up Lyft, and it said it'd get me there in 25. Actually, I texted back to her, I'll be a little early, I said. She replied: okay, keep waiting at the table, I'll be out to get the balloons. A King I felt like, making it to a surprise party before the organizer.
The Lyft arrived almost on time. Good feels. We drove out, my charioteer ready to drive me to victory. To validate my impeccable planning and taste, I kept checking the arrival time. Way before the original planned time. What a win! High in my spirits, I was fixing my coat collars -- winners pop their collars is my understanding -- when something was off. The driver made a u-turn. Uh oh. I knew where this was headed. I checked my app. Adding another rider. Five minutes added to the trip.
No matter, I'd still make it on time. I wouldn't make it before the hosts now, important well-planned people get right on the dot. Not a big loss. As we drove towards Powderhouse roundabout, my heart began sinking, though. One, they just had road construction work finish there, so the quality of the roads was not the best. And second, that roundabout is the worst. By which I mean, I'm told it's one of the most dangerous traffic circles in MA. I've been told repeatedly by my driving friends that no one seems to understand how to drive there, and it's like driving in a different country there.
Shit.
The diversion, if we could call it that, added four minutes the trip. It wouldn't be the end of the world. I mean, yes, I'd be late for the party, but so would everyone else. And besides, it's Boston, everyone understands how driving in Boston is like. If they didn't plan for slack, it's not my fault. I was still running ahead of my original train schedule by a couple of minutes, so it was no loss for anyone. I had paid a lot of money (it was an expensive shared right, annoyingly so), for the pleasure of being driven and getting there before the public transport. Things would be good.
And so they were. We picked up the first person, and drove down towards Davis. Until the feared rrrringg that the Lyft drivers get. Second pickup for the driver. He made another U-turn, and we drove towards Ball Square. I was palpitating. Four minutes added to the trip. At best, I would be as quick as if I'd taken the train.
The consolation was that both my co-riders didn't make us wait for more than 10 seconds. I hoped that luck would be with me through the traffic too. Alas, it was not to be. Traffic near Porter was heavy, so so was it near Harvard Square. By this time, I had given up. I wouldn't update anyone about how late it was, because it'd be embarrassing. If I'd just taken a train like a normal person, I'd have gotten there reasonably late. And here I was, like a buffoon caged inside a thousand-kilo metallic box, unable to control my fate, unable to do anything about the impending delay and embarrassment.
I got there ten minutes later than I would have if I'd taken the train. I texted my roommates about the frustration. It wasn't just the fact that I got there late, it was also that I paid a lot of money for the opportunity to have been late. It was incredibly annoying. I deleted the app as I was in the car, vowing to myself to never use ride-sharing services until absolutely needed. Uber/Lyft are like public transport, but (with few exceptions) for stupid people, I texted my roommates. I was done. Ready to apologize to the annoyed group of friends who were probably waiting for me outside in the cold. A lot of places don't let you in if you don't have your entire group.
I was the only one there, besides PD who was organizing this, and she was comfortably seated in our place. We waited for 20 more minutes for the next person to arrive, 30 for the group to assemble. Ah well.
Oh no, not a milestone post!
As a principle, I avoid writing milestone posts because they're too self-referential. They set expectations too much, and I have trouble meeting them. And they're just a use of more words and more posts, so where does it end people, would you have a milestone post on the number of milestone posts you've written, ad infinitum? My hate for them is inspired by Prawin dai who is a real writer writing real things.
But here's the truth. I'm running out of things to write today. It's not that I'm out of ideas, no, I'm full of a crapload of ideas (here's an idea: I've been saying Dare to Fail! How about not just that, but Dare to Fail! And Fail with a Vengeance! Don't go easy into that goodnight, rage, rage against the dying of the light! Thanks Bob Dylan!) It's just that...if I'm writing for the past two days, and today, there's a lot of content overload, and I don't want to overload my daily readers with too many inspired ideas and make them feel bad about themselves, you know. Inspiring people is one thing. Scaring them into not doing anything something entirely different. Not into that, please.
So here's a filler post with absolutely no content, because once I'm done with it, I'll only have to write four posts for yesterday and the day before, and then maybe today's journal, and I can get caught up on my regular posting schedule by posting one extra tomorrow. In any case, the title of this post involves a 'milestone' so I should get around to talking about it.
If you've been reading my ramblings this far into a filler post, you deserve to know what this year/month/week etcetera have been special! Look at the number of blog posts I've made! This will be the 191st post of this year -- the second-best year for postcount was way back in 2010, and at this rate I might be able to easily double that this year. That's a really exciting proposition for me because I haven't done so much writing in a long time. Since I was born actually.
It's not like my posts have been the best reads or anything, but they exist, and they make me disciplined, make me easy to come up with ideas on the go without fearing what the lesser-practiced (uh oh I shouldn't be bragging or making fun of folks, but I'll take this teeny tiiny opportunity and never again) call the writer's block. I mean sure, all my ideas suck and by writing is no better than an eighth grader -- I as an eighth grader probably wrote better than I do know -- I understand all of that. It's that even for something badly-written, it used to be tough coming up with idea on the spot. I may not write well now and spelling and grammar surely seem like foreign concepts to me, but at least I write. As long as I'm writing, I'm giving myself a chance to improve myself. Feels good man.
I've mentioned this a few more times already, but it's that important to me. As long as I write, I feel good. That I have readers or not is besides the point right now. If you're reading this, fine, thank you for reading home you had a good time. If not, so what, I'm pushing this crap out of my intellectual sphincter and dear god does this intellectual exercise feel good.
It's important to remember to not push yourself or you might...uh burn out, I guess, don't want to take the shitting metaphor too far here. If I take the posts easily, without too many 'insightful' comments and without the fear of being judged or marked for the quality of my writings or reasoning, I can go further. That's what's happening. I post bad posts one after another, because I'm afraid of no one and nothing (in writing), and all I care about is letting those fingerbabies dance. What a turn of phrase, ugh.
I disgust myself sometimes. In a good way though. Probably.
But here's the truth. I'm running out of things to write today. It's not that I'm out of ideas, no, I'm full of a crapload of ideas (here's an idea: I've been saying Dare to Fail! How about not just that, but Dare to Fail! And Fail with a Vengeance! Don't go easy into that goodnight, rage, rage against the dying of the light! Thanks Bob Dylan!) It's just that...if I'm writing for the past two days, and today, there's a lot of content overload, and I don't want to overload my daily readers with too many inspired ideas and make them feel bad about themselves, you know. Inspiring people is one thing. Scaring them into not doing anything something entirely different. Not into that, please.
So here's a filler post with absolutely no content, because once I'm done with it, I'll only have to write four posts for yesterday and the day before, and then maybe today's journal, and I can get caught up on my regular posting schedule by posting one extra tomorrow. In any case, the title of this post involves a 'milestone' so I should get around to talking about it.
If you've been reading my ramblings this far into a filler post, you deserve to know what this year/month/week etcetera have been special! Look at the number of blog posts I've made! This will be the 191st post of this year -- the second-best year for postcount was way back in 2010, and at this rate I might be able to easily double that this year. That's a really exciting proposition for me because I haven't done so much writing in a long time. Since I was born actually.
It's not like my posts have been the best reads or anything, but they exist, and they make me disciplined, make me easy to come up with ideas on the go without fearing what the lesser-practiced (uh oh I shouldn't be bragging or making fun of folks, but I'll take this teeny tiiny opportunity and never again) call the writer's block. I mean sure, all my ideas suck and by writing is no better than an eighth grader -- I as an eighth grader probably wrote better than I do know -- I understand all of that. It's that even for something badly-written, it used to be tough coming up with idea on the spot. I may not write well now and spelling and grammar surely seem like foreign concepts to me, but at least I write. As long as I'm writing, I'm giving myself a chance to improve myself. Feels good man.
I've mentioned this a few more times already, but it's that important to me. As long as I write, I feel good. That I have readers or not is besides the point right now. If you're reading this, fine, thank you for reading home you had a good time. If not, so what, I'm pushing this crap out of my intellectual sphincter and dear god does this intellectual exercise feel good.
It's important to remember to not push yourself or you might...uh burn out, I guess, don't want to take the shitting metaphor too far here. If I take the posts easily, without too many 'insightful' comments and without the fear of being judged or marked for the quality of my writings or reasoning, I can go further. That's what's happening. I post bad posts one after another, because I'm afraid of no one and nothing (in writing), and all I care about is letting those fingerbabies dance. What a turn of phrase, ugh.
I disgust myself sometimes. In a good way though. Probably.
Laxmi Puja [Sunday 27]
Summary: Celebrated laxmi puja, cancelled some plans, followed through most others, good times generally, but a depressing day with weather, and I fell just alright right now.
As I write this I've been talking to P for the last two(?) hours, it's two am in the morning, my roommates came back from the Tihar party (SM and PK) like 30 minutes ago. I'll write more tomorrow. I'm ending this now will write more on this later.
Continued the next day....
I haven't been writing much for the past several days because I got busy going to people's places and celebrating festivals. It's also mighty inconvenient writing anything sizeable from the Blogger android app. At least they updated it recently so that's great.
Going back to my journal...
Got up pretty late in the morning, because I'd gone to bed at 3am. Tried going back to sleep, but couldn't. Finally made myself get up (this is in Brookline, I'm crashing at AD's couch in the living room), freshen up. The three of us (ND, AD, myself) made spanish omelets and mushrooms. For brunch we also had those tiny strawberries from TJ's that actually have some flavor in them instead of large blobs of pink water. They weren't the best, but they were out of season so lets give credit where credit's due.
It took us a long time to agree on what we wanted to watch on Netflix. We were deciding between Dolemite (it's a cool movie with an all-black comedy crew) and this movie called the Awakening of Motti..something, we decided to watch the latter because I figured the former was probably gonna be good enough to watch by myself later.
The movie, The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch, (or it's Swiss? German? translated title Wolkenbruch's Wondrous Journey into the Arms of a Shiksa) wasn't as mediocre as I expected it to be. The storyline is pretty predictable -- a devout jewish man, his mother's favorite, falls in love with a non-jewish girl, which causes him to question his faith etcetera. The ending is dubious, but it's a funny movie, and it lampshades a lot of tropes (there's a jewish-hindu aka hinjew guru), so it was entertaining for a rainy boring day like yesterday. I was catching up with folks online too because the movie wasn't very heavy on plot.
We went to SD's after the movie. It drizzled the entire day, so our ten-minute walk was miserable, at least I got a couple of good fall photos out of the walk. At SD's, we watched more Netflix, celebrated Laxmi Puja with sparklers and all, ate selroti, and fought for netflix. We ended up watching something japanese, a series focusing on food. And then the first episode of the Netflix series. I was supposed to leave there for home at 6-ish because I'd promised folks near home I'd be there (nice couple invited our household, including me), but I had to bail out because it was raining heavily, I had no umbrella, and I felt lazy. Was there at PD and SD's until 10, and took the train back home. The train ride was frustrating because it was slow and made me miss my tightly-scheduled bus. I was abandoned in Lechmere.
I had to download the Lyft app again, sign in again, and call a Lyft ride back home. Such cruel, cruel irony, considering the last time I'd used the app was when I'd left home and deleted the app because it was too much. Anyway, got back home at 11, and felt not so great about myself, so stared at the screen for a bunch. I think I'm starting to get the gloomies because of the weather. Also likely because I hadn't been following any of my disciplined steps for the last several days. Called and talked to P for a couple of hours and felt really good.
My roommate SM had organized a baby shower for his friend at our apartment. I didn't get to see it, but I did see the leftover foods and the decorations later. I wouldn't mind if the decorations stayed, honestly. The food -- I had some this morning -- was great too. Apparently they finished the baby shower pretty early, and roommates SM and PK both went to the party at RL's. They came back at 1.30 am, and I didn't get to catch up on the weekend haps because everyone was tired and wanted to go to bed.
Since I wasn't feeling the best, I decided to work from home Monday (today).
As I write this I've been talking to P for the last two(?) hours, it's two am in the morning, my roommates came back from the Tihar party (SM and PK) like 30 minutes ago. I'll write more tomorrow. I'm ending this now will write more on this later.
Continued the next day....
I haven't been writing much for the past several days because I got busy going to people's places and celebrating festivals. It's also mighty inconvenient writing anything sizeable from the Blogger android app. At least they updated it recently so that's great.
Going back to my journal...
Got up pretty late in the morning, because I'd gone to bed at 3am. Tried going back to sleep, but couldn't. Finally made myself get up (this is in Brookline, I'm crashing at AD's couch in the living room), freshen up. The three of us (ND, AD, myself) made spanish omelets and mushrooms. For brunch we also had those tiny strawberries from TJ's that actually have some flavor in them instead of large blobs of pink water. They weren't the best, but they were out of season so lets give credit where credit's due.
It took us a long time to agree on what we wanted to watch on Netflix. We were deciding between Dolemite (it's a cool movie with an all-black comedy crew) and this movie called the Awakening of Motti..something, we decided to watch the latter because I figured the former was probably gonna be good enough to watch by myself later.
The movie, The Awakening of Motti Wolkenbruch, (or it's Swiss? German? translated title Wolkenbruch's Wondrous Journey into the Arms of a Shiksa) wasn't as mediocre as I expected it to be. The storyline is pretty predictable -- a devout jewish man, his mother's favorite, falls in love with a non-jewish girl, which causes him to question his faith etcetera. The ending is dubious, but it's a funny movie, and it lampshades a lot of tropes (there's a jewish-hindu aka hinjew guru), so it was entertaining for a rainy boring day like yesterday. I was catching up with folks online too because the movie wasn't very heavy on plot.
We went to SD's after the movie. It drizzled the entire day, so our ten-minute walk was miserable, at least I got a couple of good fall photos out of the walk. At SD's, we watched more Netflix, celebrated Laxmi Puja with sparklers and all, ate selroti, and fought for netflix. We ended up watching something japanese, a series focusing on food. And then the first episode of the Netflix series. I was supposed to leave there for home at 6-ish because I'd promised folks near home I'd be there (nice couple invited our household, including me), but I had to bail out because it was raining heavily, I had no umbrella, and I felt lazy. Was there at PD and SD's until 10, and took the train back home. The train ride was frustrating because it was slow and made me miss my tightly-scheduled bus. I was abandoned in Lechmere.
I had to download the Lyft app again, sign in again, and call a Lyft ride back home. Such cruel, cruel irony, considering the last time I'd used the app was when I'd left home and deleted the app because it was too much. Anyway, got back home at 11, and felt not so great about myself, so stared at the screen for a bunch. I think I'm starting to get the gloomies because of the weather. Also likely because I hadn't been following any of my disciplined steps for the last several days. Called and talked to P for a couple of hours and felt really good.
My roommate SM had organized a baby shower for his friend at our apartment. I didn't get to see it, but I did see the leftover foods and the decorations later. I wouldn't mind if the decorations stayed, honestly. The food -- I had some this morning -- was great too. Apparently they finished the baby shower pretty early, and roommates SM and PK both went to the party at RL's. They came back at 1.30 am, and I didn't get to catch up on the weekend haps because everyone was tired and wanted to go to bed.
Since I wasn't feeling the best, I decided to work from home Monday (today).
Good friends, good day [Saturday 26]
So Saturday morning I was slept pretty late. Did a lot of sleeping after getting up and then youtubed and talked to my international friends. Good times, getting too good friends with them.
Ate rice with mustard greens, furikake, sesame oil dressing, cheese and eggs. It was really filling and tasty. Not sure if it was the rice food situation or I was just being lazy because I slept for a few more hours on the couch as I watched Bojack and the office. Bojack's new season is so good, the density of throwaway jokes is really high, they must not throw away too many jokes produced in the writers' room. I wont binge-watch it but a goddam good show nonetheless.
Got ready for SD's birthday party an hour in advance. The muffler took forever to fix, I was about to get late (35 mins to the restaurant in Harvard Sq), so I ordered a really expensive Lyft. In the end, it ended up taking 45 minutes. I was so mad because of the delay so I deleted the app. This is important because it'll be relevant in tomorrow's post.
Still made it half an hour before everyone else. So that was something. The celebration with the gang was nice because we hadn't met in a really long time. The place, nubar, wasn't great and a little overpriced for the quality of food they serve. Too many fries too, it was annoying. Ended up wasting a large plate of fries that came with my burger. We had brought the birthday cake from a great bakery brookline but the plating charge was going to be more expensive than the cake itself so we decided to carry it to brookline. The six of us (of nine) clown-carred and drove to Brookline.
Watched a bunch of old Nepali songs and chilled until 3am (and watched some strange new songs) until we walked to AD's place, where I watched tv for longer than I should have. Went to bed way later than I should have.
Old deleted text:
It's been a good day today, haven't gotten around to writing a lot but will get to it. Eventually.
Ate rice with mustard greens, furikake, sesame oil dressing, cheese and eggs. It was really filling and tasty. Not sure if it was the rice food situation or I was just being lazy because I slept for a few more hours on the couch as I watched Bojack and the office. Bojack's new season is so good, the density of throwaway jokes is really high, they must not throw away too many jokes produced in the writers' room. I wont binge-watch it but a goddam good show nonetheless.
Got ready for SD's birthday party an hour in advance. The muffler took forever to fix, I was about to get late (35 mins to the restaurant in Harvard Sq), so I ordered a really expensive Lyft. In the end, it ended up taking 45 minutes. I was so mad because of the delay so I deleted the app. This is important because it'll be relevant in tomorrow's post.
Still made it half an hour before everyone else. So that was something. The celebration with the gang was nice because we hadn't met in a really long time. The place, nubar, wasn't great and a little overpriced for the quality of food they serve. Too many fries too, it was annoying. Ended up wasting a large plate of fries that came with my burger. We had brought the birthday cake from a great bakery brookline but the plating charge was going to be more expensive than the cake itself so we decided to carry it to brookline. The six of us (of nine) clown-carred and drove to Brookline.
Watched a bunch of old Nepali songs and chilled until 3am (and watched some strange new songs) until we walked to AD's place, where I watched tv for longer than I should have. Went to bed way later than I should have.
Old deleted text:
It's been a good day today, haven't gotten around to writing a lot but will get to it. Eventually.
Too much fun to write [Friday 25]
I got back home Friday night at 1am. It was drizzling lightly, I walked from Davis Square, and it was a walk I didn't mind, even as I got a little wet. The train ride was from Harvard square, where I'd been dropped by bus 66, which I had taken from Allston at 12.
It was SS's birthday party friday night. This is our drinking buddy SS, not the other SS who I started hanging out with too, who I also want to include in our drinking group. I still don't drink alcohol, but they're a fun bunch so even almond milk drives me drunk.
It was such a great time at SS's. I met a tonne of her friends, and talked to exactly all of them, getting to know them a bit. After the night, I feel a lot closer to A (no last initials), who helped me out when I was in a difficult place, and seemed in such a better a nicer place than the last time we talked and hung out. There seemed to be a mismatch of energy level that I thought was unbridgeable the last time, this time it didn't seem to be there. SS's friend from NH who drove down was really funny, and he made such goofy jokes, everyone was in stitches. I filled myself on the really great globe grapes that no one knew the origin of. The cake that SS baked for herself was awesome, we talked about her wall decorations and curation of cutesy art stuff for the better part of the night. And her recent trip abroad. And her incredibly nice dress. She looked so good I didn't want to be seen next to her in a picture because I looked like a creepy old uncle with a round belly next to an incredibly attractive young woman. So I deleted the only photos of us, which were taken from my phone. I already knew her roommate S, and we talked more about the towns of NH which we've both lived in. Her friend R was cute, and reminded me of P (hi!) and she has better things to do to, so I'm back to crying myself to sleep everynight. There was a funny incident where their building's fire alarm went off and it had such a weird sound some people thought it was a really loud vibrator. We had to go out in the cold for ten minutes just like in the 'back in the ole days' of college which was quite something. After some tarot-reading by R, and intense dancing to bollywood songs, to which I very rigidly shook my bones at, PB and I caught the 66 bus to Harvard.
PB and I had gone to SS's together from Back Bay. We met in Back Bay at Nordstorm, spent a good chunk of time finding gifts for SS. The scarf that we ended up giving (besides the other gift), is the one that Barney the creep's girlfriend wears in HIMYM (the really cute south asian british girlfriend), and I'd always had an eye for that. We spent a really long time figuring out what we wanted to get for dinner. We tried going into Santouka but the wait was perhaps towards the hour. She came up with the incredibly smart idea of going closer to SS's place and getting dinner there. We ended up in Kenmore where we got dinner at U-Burger (see previous post). For ten bucks per person it's such an incredible deal I'd legitimately consider going there from work in the train just for the burgers. It's so much nicer and less stressful than BK's, and in the end it comes out to be cheaper too. If fast food is not cheap anymore, it's worth spending a little more money for better food, and U-Burger is just as cheap as fast food while being better.
I stayed at work an hour longer than usual before meeting PB. It was really tiring. I'd skipped lunch at work so my energy level was probably low because of that. Didn't feel so great or productive at work either. The morning commute really absolutely sucked, I missed a train, waited for 15 minutes. Waited for 10 minutes for the train too. Ugh. Sick sucky Friday. And at work it was all empty because all were WFH so I needn't have even suffered through that, and going to work physically.
It was SS's birthday party friday night. This is our drinking buddy SS, not the other SS who I started hanging out with too, who I also want to include in our drinking group. I still don't drink alcohol, but they're a fun bunch so even almond milk drives me drunk.
It was such a great time at SS's. I met a tonne of her friends, and talked to exactly all of them, getting to know them a bit. After the night, I feel a lot closer to A (no last initials), who helped me out when I was in a difficult place, and seemed in such a better a nicer place than the last time we talked and hung out. There seemed to be a mismatch of energy level that I thought was unbridgeable the last time, this time it didn't seem to be there. SS's friend from NH who drove down was really funny, and he made such goofy jokes, everyone was in stitches. I filled myself on the really great globe grapes that no one knew the origin of. The cake that SS baked for herself was awesome, we talked about her wall decorations and curation of cutesy art stuff for the better part of the night. And her recent trip abroad. And her incredibly nice dress. She looked so good I didn't want to be seen next to her in a picture because I looked like a creepy old uncle with a round belly next to an incredibly attractive young woman. So I deleted the only photos of us, which were taken from my phone. I already knew her roommate S, and we talked more about the towns of NH which we've both lived in. Her friend R was cute, and reminded me of P (hi!) and she has better things to do to, so I'm back to crying myself to sleep everynight. There was a funny incident where their building's fire alarm went off and it had such a weird sound some people thought it was a really loud vibrator. We had to go out in the cold for ten minutes just like in the 'back in the ole days' of college which was quite something. After some tarot-reading by R, and intense dancing to bollywood songs, to which I very rigidly shook my bones at, PB and I caught the 66 bus to Harvard.
PB and I had gone to SS's together from Back Bay. We met in Back Bay at Nordstorm, spent a good chunk of time finding gifts for SS. The scarf that we ended up giving (besides the other gift), is the one that Barney the creep's girlfriend wears in HIMYM (the really cute south asian british girlfriend), and I'd always had an eye for that. We spent a really long time figuring out what we wanted to get for dinner. We tried going into Santouka but the wait was perhaps towards the hour. She came up with the incredibly smart idea of going closer to SS's place and getting dinner there. We ended up in Kenmore where we got dinner at U-Burger (see previous post). For ten bucks per person it's such an incredible deal I'd legitimately consider going there from work in the train just for the burgers. It's so much nicer and less stressful than BK's, and in the end it comes out to be cheaper too. If fast food is not cheap anymore, it's worth spending a little more money for better food, and U-Burger is just as cheap as fast food while being better.
I stayed at work an hour longer than usual before meeting PB. It was really tiring. I'd skipped lunch at work so my energy level was probably low because of that. Didn't feel so great or productive at work either. The morning commute really absolutely sucked, I missed a train, waited for 15 minutes. Waited for 10 minutes for the train too. Ugh. Sick sucky Friday. And at work it was all empty because all were WFH so I needn't have even suffered through that, and going to work physically.
The big dubrowsky a review
Just got the big dubrowsky at u-burger in Kenmore Square, it's a goddamn great burger. A good serving of fries (that got wasted) and a solid burger for less than ten bucks? Fuhgedabaudit!
They know what they're doing with their veggie patties. They're not overwhelming like the faux meat patties and not as beany as regular bean patties. PB, who I went there with, says she saw rice in there and I'm not surprised. It's a well-thought-out item whose copy recipes you will no doubt find online. Need to check the reverse-engineered notes.
The bun is sublime, if I may say so. It's soft, well toasted, and not bloated as BK's. It's not too pillowy either. Too much pilloyness is disappointing. Love the brioche color. I bet these are seasame brioche buns.
They added eggs, onions, and a bunch of other additives to mine. The cheese and the egg were a particularly good combo.
Love the metallic packaging for the burgers. Keep em warm, look nice, good for the environment.
PB says she had deep fried jalepeño in her burger, and she added BBQ sauce. Good combo. She had an amazing meal too.
All in all, a very happy experience, blows burger king out of the water. In literally every category, beginning at ambience. 9/10. Highly recommended.
Witchita labs
A hairball of a balding woman, the witch said.
Yeah. Here it is. My wife's, the assistant said, handing her a tiny tuft of hair.
Liver of a green toad, she read out aloud.
Here, the assistant handed her tiny purple goop.
The spirit of a sad man, she said in a monotone.
Wait, what? That's not in the list you gave me! And how am I supposed to go around collecting spirits in bottles, he said.
That would be your spirit, you sad sad man! Cheer up, your gloom is rubbing off on me.. What's happening? the witch said in her real voice instead of the recipe voice she was using before.
Ohh! I'm relieved, that I can say! Nothing, it's just...my wife's hair..balding...we're getting old, and I've spent my life here and it's good but we don't have kids. It's getting lonely, just her and I, he said.
Wait, is this a weird sex thing or a child thing, the witch said, looking at him, her eyes narrowed into tiny slits, her bushy eyebrows raised high.
He sighed.
A child thing. Of course the child thing! We....already... kind-of tried. The weird sex thing. It was just ok. Didn't make us happier ultimately just gave us more things to be worried about. Not the long term solution we hoped it would be, he said.
How long have you guys been trying, she asked, taking out her large magnifying glass from a nearby cupboard. She searched around the table with it, carefully inspecting every inch of the small wooden table.
Two years now, though we tried earlier when we were much younger, he said.
Yeah. Here it is. My wife's, the assistant said, handing her a tiny tuft of hair.
Liver of a green toad, she read out aloud.
Here, the assistant handed her tiny purple goop.
The spirit of a sad man, she said in a monotone.
Wait, what? That's not in the list you gave me! And how am I supposed to go around collecting spirits in bottles, he said.
That would be your spirit, you sad sad man! Cheer up, your gloom is rubbing off on me.. What's happening? the witch said in her real voice instead of the recipe voice she was using before.
Ohh! I'm relieved, that I can say! Nothing, it's just...my wife's hair..balding...we're getting old, and I've spent my life here and it's good but we don't have kids. It's getting lonely, just her and I, he said.
Wait, is this a weird sex thing or a child thing, the witch said, looking at him, her eyes narrowed into tiny slits, her bushy eyebrows raised high.
He sighed.
A child thing. Of course the child thing! We....already... kind-of tried. The weird sex thing. It was just ok. Didn't make us happier ultimately just gave us more things to be worried about. Not the long term solution we hoped it would be, he said.
How long have you guys been trying, she asked, taking out her large magnifying glass from a nearby cupboard. She searched around the table with it, carefully inspecting every inch of the small wooden table.
Two years now, though we tried earlier when we were much younger, he said.
Cooked again! [Thursday 24]
As I write this, I'm out in the common room talking to roommate PK and semi-roommate I. They're talking about going to gradschool, because PK is done with working, doesn't want to work and just wants an out of this bs 9-5 work-till-you-die life. We were discussing the possibility of living as landowners in an rentier economy, and that appears to be of common preference. Regardless, as of right now, the boys want to go to grad school soon.
Roommates PK and SM ordered groceries using Instacart from wegmans, so many packages to unpack, such a tight fridge now.
Shaved, finally, after a really long time. It's always a surprise how long it takes me to shave, today it was almost 20 minutes. I timed it this time, and I realized a large portion of it involves cleaning up all the little bits of hair from every nook and cranny in the sink and the shaving blade. I'd been lazy all this time, tomorrow's SS's birthday party (though apparently it's only a token birthday party, and the real birthday party is later) and there could be people who could be interesting, and I don't want to look like an old hobo to them. Just a regular hobo please, because that reflects my true self. Did the workouts before that, I'd rested yesterday and I was in my full form today without missing a beat. I wish I could go back to inspiring myself to do intense cardio. Maybe I should look into insanity or p90x just for the cardio, if what bothers me about it is leaving the house.
Before that I was working on writing the previous post. I'd marked 20 minutes to write it, ended up spending 35 minutes, because it got out of hand, but I'm not ashamed of it. If I polished it right, and put it well together with the rest of the story, that could be going somewhere, it feels like. I wanted it to be funnier, but one thing at a time. When I come back to the second or third draft, I'm going to be more mindful about what funny stuff I want to add and keep around.
Before that, I was talking to PK and I and roommate BB while we watched The Office in the background. Roommate SM has been AWOL of late, coming back home much after midnight every day. It's probably the midterm season that's stressing him out and the increased workload that's not giving him any time to eat and hang out in peace.
Before that I ate rice (that SM had made) with the Oyster mushrooms and mustard greens that I'd made. I added furikake to the rice, and I couldn't really taste it, but it must have been good, I found the rice quite palatable. I keep forgetting this everytime I make mustard greens, because they're quite bitter really particularly if you overcook them, I forget that every goddamn time and end up thinking how bad of an idea it was. It goes well with a lot of butter and garlic, but what doesn't really. I crisped the mushrooms and added extra garlic, and that's where all the bitterness came from. I added pickle-water to the dish before eating because it would have been too bitter otherwise, but still, ugh. It was pretty good, I have leftovers, and I'll eat it again and cook it again happily, but gotta remember to cook in small batches, and buy the long-stemmed greens, and not the broad-leafed ones.
As I write this, roommate SM just came back home in his bike, and I was surprised and confused that he came from the back door since he had never seen someone come up from there.
Before that I talked to PK and BB a bit, cleaned up, youtubed, and just wasted time really. I should have been working, I brought my laptop home this evening so I could work, but I couldn't make myself work. Whatever. I youtubed for about an hour after coming back before PK called me out to talk and chill. Almost napped there too.
The busride back home before that was pretty shitty, as I've mentioned in the previous trip. My entire ride back home took a solid hour, maybe even a little more, and most of it was spent either waiting for the train or the bus, or just standing in rightly-packed tuna cans of trains. Awful, awful experience. That's what provoked the post. At least with the red line, I can sit in comfort for 30 minutes and write whatever I want.
Work was fruitful but wasteful, and I felt generally good by the time I left, but I still have a lot to work on. I feel well-motivated lately. I didn't get much (or any) writing done at work, particularly for fiction stuff, but I wouldn't call it a bad day. For lunch I had the egg sandwich that is my signature item they should name after me at the sandwich shop below my office. I added two packs of mayo, 90 calories each, and two packets of hot sauce, and oh goddamn it was so satisfying.
Here's my latest thought on mayonnaise: people don't actually care for the mayo itself, but mayo is only a vehicle to stabilize and carry oil for circumstances people don't want to admit they're eating oil. And the oil is good and satisfying. Yeah, squeezeable oil is an incredible technology, lets give credit where it's due but lets not be fooling ourselves, it's oil in jel form.
The commute to work was pretty long and annoying, I missed a couple of buses and trains my moments. Commute at this time of the year would be so much more stressful if there were no podcasts to listen to.
Which reminds me that I've started listening to my regular gang of podcasts and it feels like I'm hanging out with old friends.
In the morning I ended up leaving late because I got lazy and there was the weird dream plus I spent a lot of time writing the post about my dreams. At least I didn't forget to pack any of the basic things -- two apples. They were amazing, two apples a day is really the perfect amount of apple one can have this time of the year, I was so so so content after lunch, after my 2 apples and a very mayonaissie lunch.
As I write this, the boys are eating midnight dinner since SM just got back, and talking about getting groceries on bikes. Which reminds me, we set out mousetraps all over the house after I came back from work, I'm afraid I am the likeliest person to trip it off and lose an appendage or any of the digits.
I is going back home, and he tipped a lot of money which he mentioned earlier about, to the wrong uber driver. The thing about debt is, it's all on credit cards, which as everyone knows, is not real money.
Roommates PK and SM ordered groceries using Instacart from wegmans, so many packages to unpack, such a tight fridge now.
Shaved, finally, after a really long time. It's always a surprise how long it takes me to shave, today it was almost 20 minutes. I timed it this time, and I realized a large portion of it involves cleaning up all the little bits of hair from every nook and cranny in the sink and the shaving blade. I'd been lazy all this time, tomorrow's SS's birthday party (though apparently it's only a token birthday party, and the real birthday party is later) and there could be people who could be interesting, and I don't want to look like an old hobo to them. Just a regular hobo please, because that reflects my true self. Did the workouts before that, I'd rested yesterday and I was in my full form today without missing a beat. I wish I could go back to inspiring myself to do intense cardio. Maybe I should look into insanity or p90x just for the cardio, if what bothers me about it is leaving the house.
Before that I was working on writing the previous post. I'd marked 20 minutes to write it, ended up spending 35 minutes, because it got out of hand, but I'm not ashamed of it. If I polished it right, and put it well together with the rest of the story, that could be going somewhere, it feels like. I wanted it to be funnier, but one thing at a time. When I come back to the second or third draft, I'm going to be more mindful about what funny stuff I want to add and keep around.
Before that, I was talking to PK and I and roommate BB while we watched The Office in the background. Roommate SM has been AWOL of late, coming back home much after midnight every day. It's probably the midterm season that's stressing him out and the increased workload that's not giving him any time to eat and hang out in peace.
Before that I ate rice (that SM had made) with the Oyster mushrooms and mustard greens that I'd made. I added furikake to the rice, and I couldn't really taste it, but it must have been good, I found the rice quite palatable. I keep forgetting this everytime I make mustard greens, because they're quite bitter really particularly if you overcook them, I forget that every goddamn time and end up thinking how bad of an idea it was. It goes well with a lot of butter and garlic, but what doesn't really. I crisped the mushrooms and added extra garlic, and that's where all the bitterness came from. I added pickle-water to the dish before eating because it would have been too bitter otherwise, but still, ugh. It was pretty good, I have leftovers, and I'll eat it again and cook it again happily, but gotta remember to cook in small batches, and buy the long-stemmed greens, and not the broad-leafed ones.
As I write this, roommate SM just came back home in his bike, and I was surprised and confused that he came from the back door since he had never seen someone come up from there.
Before that I talked to PK and BB a bit, cleaned up, youtubed, and just wasted time really. I should have been working, I brought my laptop home this evening so I could work, but I couldn't make myself work. Whatever. I youtubed for about an hour after coming back before PK called me out to talk and chill. Almost napped there too.
The busride back home before that was pretty shitty, as I've mentioned in the previous trip. My entire ride back home took a solid hour, maybe even a little more, and most of it was spent either waiting for the train or the bus, or just standing in rightly-packed tuna cans of trains. Awful, awful experience. That's what provoked the post. At least with the red line, I can sit in comfort for 30 minutes and write whatever I want.
Work was fruitful but wasteful, and I felt generally good by the time I left, but I still have a lot to work on. I feel well-motivated lately. I didn't get much (or any) writing done at work, particularly for fiction stuff, but I wouldn't call it a bad day. For lunch I had the egg sandwich that is my signature item they should name after me at the sandwich shop below my office. I added two packs of mayo, 90 calories each, and two packets of hot sauce, and oh goddamn it was so satisfying.
Here's my latest thought on mayonnaise: people don't actually care for the mayo itself, but mayo is only a vehicle to stabilize and carry oil for circumstances people don't want to admit they're eating oil. And the oil is good and satisfying. Yeah, squeezeable oil is an incredible technology, lets give credit where it's due but lets not be fooling ourselves, it's oil in jel form.
The commute to work was pretty long and annoying, I missed a couple of buses and trains my moments. Commute at this time of the year would be so much more stressful if there were no podcasts to listen to.
Which reminds me that I've started listening to my regular gang of podcasts and it feels like I'm hanging out with old friends.
In the morning I ended up leaving late because I got lazy and there was the weird dream plus I spent a lot of time writing the post about my dreams. At least I didn't forget to pack any of the basic things -- two apples. They were amazing, two apples a day is really the perfect amount of apple one can have this time of the year, I was so so so content after lunch, after my 2 apples and a very mayonaissie lunch.
As I write this, the boys are eating midnight dinner since SM just got back, and talking about getting groceries on bikes. Which reminds me, we set out mousetraps all over the house after I came back from work, I'm afraid I am the likeliest person to trip it off and lose an appendage or any of the digits.
I is going back home, and he tipped a lot of money which he mentioned earlier about, to the wrong uber driver. The thing about debt is, it's all on credit cards, which as everyone knows, is not real money.
Safety first
[This is supposed to be a side story/explanation to the Appointments and Disappointments series]
He brought a friend with him. He wasn't sure what else to do. Not that the friend knew what do do either, but he figured they'd be able to figure out what needed to be done quicker. They didn't want to be caught. This was risky business. Kathmandu was full of spies.
The walls had ears, and mouths. Very judgmental ones at that, those wall-mouths. Friends, relatives, their friends, their friends' relatives, neighbors, their friends, their relatives, so on and on and on. Everyone was a potential threat. There was of course the regular threat of police...Nepal police considered harassing young men and women just going about their daily lives and doing things they did the pinnacle of its achievements. Catching rapists, murderers, robbers: not in the list of their top ten priorities
They were in his bike for fourty five minutes. A remote suburb of a suburb, barely a town. They staked out at the teashop across the street. For two hours they bought cups after cups of milk tea and coca-cola they didn't want to drink, their shifty eyes looking eagerly at the medical store across the street. It was a slow day. Two customers over two hours and one of them spent half and hour talking. Not good, good god. How were the stores surviving with such slow business, the markups must be really high, they figured.
How much money did you bring, the friend said.
I have..., he opened his wallet to check, one, two, five...two thousand five hundred rupees. Do you think this will be enough? he said.
Maybe. I'm sure it will be enough. Not sure how many you want to buy, I have some money too, I can contribute for you, if you promise to tell me about it later, the friend said.
Yeah shut up, not happening bro, he said, snatching away the thousand-rupee note the friend had taken out from his wallet.
After another unfruitful hour of spycraft, the boys paid their bill and got themselves together. The shop had a change of shift, from an elderly woman to a man who couldn't have been a few years older than themselves. He would understand, they knew. They walked confidently to the shop, ready to take over the world.
At the same moment, they abruptly turned around, and huffed back to their bikes.
What happened bro, you chickened out? I thought you were a man, and you were gonna do it, he asked.
Oh I was, but I remembered you had the money, and besides you don't want me there. It's you who wants the goods. I didn't want to crowd out the store there. Besides, two dudes showing up at the pharmacy, asking for...that... Not that I'm saying it's anything bad, but you know, wouldn't want to give the impression, the friend said.
Saale, I brought you because you said you were good at this! You're supposed to help me man, how do I get this done by myself, I don't know what to do. Do you know anyone who's done this before, he said.
Wait, how do I know. I just gave you a thousand bucks to subsidize your sex-having, and you're blaming me muji, I'm not the one who's fucking why should I care. Yeah, I had a dai and he got it, I can call him to ask what to do. Our boys obviously have bought many times, but those women sell those themselves. You want me to ask if they have spares? the friend said.
No no no, leave it man, leave it! We'll look like idiots if we ask anyone else. It's not a big deal, we aren't experienced in things like this. First time's always nervous you know because we don't want to get caught. We'll... we'll figure something out. Let's explore this village first, nice town, he said.
The boys strolled around the town. They walked up the temple with a thousand, down the forest of deers, across the street from a new five-star resort that was under construction. They bought a couple of trinkets. They met an old friend who was there to smoke pot among the trees, away from the cops, and ended up buying a sizeable amount of what he claimed was locally-grown high-quality stuff from him.
The shadows were getting longer, the air colder, more fragrant with spices and wood-fires. School buses that had dropped of the schoolkids were returning back to the town empty. It would soon get dark, and the shops would close. He didn't have much time. He had promised her that he would take care of this a week ago and now there were zero days left. He didn't want to let this go. This was a gift horse and doing otherwise would be farting in its mouth and kicking it hard. They had had a good time about down chillaxing around, but the fact was he hadn't done what he had promised to do, and he had a hot girl with him and didn't want to disappoint her and scare her away. She would find a dozen guys for a guy like him. This was it.
He swallowed his pride and self respect, ready like a soldier fighting a battle for his life, and climbed the steps of the medical store. He held his wife. Can you give me a box of panther condoms please, he said.
They had ended up spending all the money, he had just enough money for six condoms. That was after the shopkeeper had convinced him to buy two thousand dollars worth of herbal supplements to helm him, of course, but she didn't need to know about those. She would be rolling about the waves of pleasure in moantown, he thought to himself. He made a mental note to play Motown songs while they did it.
It had been a successful trip.
He brought a friend with him. He wasn't sure what else to do. Not that the friend knew what do do either, but he figured they'd be able to figure out what needed to be done quicker. They didn't want to be caught. This was risky business. Kathmandu was full of spies.
The walls had ears, and mouths. Very judgmental ones at that, those wall-mouths. Friends, relatives, their friends, their friends' relatives, neighbors, their friends, their relatives, so on and on and on. Everyone was a potential threat. There was of course the regular threat of police...Nepal police considered harassing young men and women just going about their daily lives and doing things they did the pinnacle of its achievements. Catching rapists, murderers, robbers: not in the list of their top ten priorities
They were in his bike for fourty five minutes. A remote suburb of a suburb, barely a town. They staked out at the teashop across the street. For two hours they bought cups after cups of milk tea and coca-cola they didn't want to drink, their shifty eyes looking eagerly at the medical store across the street. It was a slow day. Two customers over two hours and one of them spent half and hour talking. Not good, good god. How were the stores surviving with such slow business, the markups must be really high, they figured.
How much money did you bring, the friend said.
I have..., he opened his wallet to check, one, two, five...two thousand five hundred rupees. Do you think this will be enough? he said.
Maybe. I'm sure it will be enough. Not sure how many you want to buy, I have some money too, I can contribute for you, if you promise to tell me about it later, the friend said.
Yeah shut up, not happening bro, he said, snatching away the thousand-rupee note the friend had taken out from his wallet.
After another unfruitful hour of spycraft, the boys paid their bill and got themselves together. The shop had a change of shift, from an elderly woman to a man who couldn't have been a few years older than themselves. He would understand, they knew. They walked confidently to the shop, ready to take over the world.
At the same moment, they abruptly turned around, and huffed back to their bikes.
What happened bro, you chickened out? I thought you were a man, and you were gonna do it, he asked.
Oh I was, but I remembered you had the money, and besides you don't want me there. It's you who wants the goods. I didn't want to crowd out the store there. Besides, two dudes showing up at the pharmacy, asking for...that... Not that I'm saying it's anything bad, but you know, wouldn't want to give the impression, the friend said.
Saale, I brought you because you said you were good at this! You're supposed to help me man, how do I get this done by myself, I don't know what to do. Do you know anyone who's done this before, he said.
Wait, how do I know. I just gave you a thousand bucks to subsidize your sex-having, and you're blaming me muji, I'm not the one who's fucking why should I care. Yeah, I had a dai and he got it, I can call him to ask what to do. Our boys obviously have bought many times, but those women sell those themselves. You want me to ask if they have spares? the friend said.
No no no, leave it man, leave it! We'll look like idiots if we ask anyone else. It's not a big deal, we aren't experienced in things like this. First time's always nervous you know because we don't want to get caught. We'll... we'll figure something out. Let's explore this village first, nice town, he said.
The boys strolled around the town. They walked up the temple with a thousand, down the forest of deers, across the street from a new five-star resort that was under construction. They bought a couple of trinkets. They met an old friend who was there to smoke pot among the trees, away from the cops, and ended up buying a sizeable amount of what he claimed was locally-grown high-quality stuff from him.
The shadows were getting longer, the air colder, more fragrant with spices and wood-fires. School buses that had dropped of the schoolkids were returning back to the town empty. It would soon get dark, and the shops would close. He didn't have much time. He had promised her that he would take care of this a week ago and now there were zero days left. He didn't want to let this go. This was a gift horse and doing otherwise would be farting in its mouth and kicking it hard. They had had a good time about down chillaxing around, but the fact was he hadn't done what he had promised to do, and he had a hot girl with him and didn't want to disappoint her and scare her away. She would find a dozen guys for a guy like him. This was it.
He swallowed his pride and self respect, ready like a soldier fighting a battle for his life, and climbed the steps of the medical store. He held his wife. Can you give me a box of panther condoms please, he said.
They had ended up spending all the money, he had just enough money for six condoms. That was after the shopkeeper had convinced him to buy two thousand dollars worth of herbal supplements to helm him, of course, but she didn't need to know about those. She would be rolling about the waves of pleasure in moantown, he thought to himself. He made a mental note to play Motown songs while they did it.
It had been a successful trip.
Shorter days and bad traffic
I'm writing this on the bus back home. I wrote a couple of weeks ago how the commute has improved so much lately after they made the bus lanes. Things had been great for two months. More recently though, as the days have gone shorter and night falls before I get home, the busrides have become so much longer. The trains seem to be off their cycles, and the buses -- when they do come on time -- take much longer to go around than they did the the first few days of the change. I'm beginning to wonder if the length of the days and my bustrips are related. Maybe people leave for home early in fear of the dark and cause all this extra traffic. Or everyone is just mad and depressed and doesn't want to give way.
The bus lanes are alright, the lights seem to go longer. The people seem to take longer to get in and longer to get out. Where there's no special lanes, the traffic is a lot worse, the situation is a lot worse. And by the time I get home, even when I'm full and satisfied, all I want to do is fall to my bed and get a nice and solid nap.
There's apps for that, for gaining a good night's sleep by watching soothing videos and listening to songs. Yet I don't believe they work as good as the seasonal sadness and the tight comfortable warmth of a heated apartment in the cold wasteland that is Boston. I was almost there a year ago, napping every opportunity I got, tired and sleepy as a lazy dog as soon as I got home for no discernible reason. Yet this year I've been organising everything, get things in order. All to avoid last year's fate, to enjoy the season, to live more, socialize. To be productive, for myself. Get things done. Now I don't seem to care anymore as I fall asleep in the bus.
Funny, how these things work. As I walk home from the bus right now, all the lethargy and tiredness seems to have gone. Is it possible it's just the bus and the traffic? I hope so, well find out next week when the darkness comes here an hour earlier.
Fingers crossed
What I listen to when I'm listening
Here's a list of the podcasts I listen to regularly. More reviews in the future.
Spilled milk - A comedy podcast about food with two food writers, cooks, performers, entertainers, but most importantly goofballs
My dad wrote a porno - Possibly the most popular comedy podcast out of the UK, by a bunch of friends who are in TV production. Insanely popular, they have an hbo special about themselves and have had several knighted guests. Lin Manuel Miranda was a recent guest
No such thing as a fish - General knowledge and trivia comedy podcast from the UK
Savor podcast - Food podcast from iheart radio. Great hosts, great content, well structured.
Gastropod - Really well researched food podcast by top magazine researchers
Ridiculous History - Fun historical facts podcast from iheart radio. Good hosts
Strange dreams
This is not fiction. Surprisingly.
As I've mentioned in the daily journals for the past several days, I've been having some strange dreams lately. They play out as a movie to begin with -- I'm sitting with my friends, and watching a movie. This morning, it was about a traveler from the future leaving a message to the past in Tokyo about making the right choices, and how choosing wrong would end human existence pretty much. There's crashing human-carrying drones, lasers that can push people around, etcetera. And then it morphs into my reality, I somehow get involved in it. When I'm changing to get ready for action in my room, I discover people have been hiding many years worth of their crap they didn't have anywhere to store in, under my bed. I'm not sure if it includes dead bodies, I'm too afraid to ask or look under there to check. That's around when I realize the dream is too stressful, too suspenseful for me, and I start wishing the dream ended, right in my sleep. Earlier this morning I remember telling myself 'ahh not again, this dream repeats over and over and so intense. I want to watch something else, brain', and then I go to this waiting room kind of place where I'm made to wait. My alarm usually wakes me up from that.
The more interesting thing there is that I'm beginning to fear I've been seeing the same dream over and over again. I can almost fast forward through some parts to get to where I last left it seems. Not true obviously, but it seems like that.
This reminds me of a very memorable dream series I used to have as a child. We were living in Chitwan then. I remember I'd wake up every night in cold sweats, and begin complaining -- don't think I ever cried, maybe I did once -- and my parents would try putting me back to sleep. I'd roam around the house for a while until I tired myself out, went back to sleep.
It was about these demons. They were all about carrying people, turning them around, and thrashing them back to the ground. Somewhat like wrestlers. This was in a hellish landscape, everything black and grey-red. The demons themselves were quite strange looking -- all alien-like, with arms and legs stretched thin and the power to thrash people easily. What impressed me even them -- I'm surprised how vividly I remember this -- was the ease with which they carried people and threw them around, as if they weighted nothing. They took turns thrashing me. And this wasn't even the scary part yet. I'd get scared and get up when they got tired of their thrashing around, and expanded their mouths like elastic to show their giant, sharp teeth, and laughed menacingly. This strange demonic cackle that would scare me more than all the physical torture they had put me through. I started getting fevers every night I saw those dreams and my parents got quite worried. The dreams went away when the fever went away, they took me to a pediatrician to make sure everything was ok with me. It got better, and these events began fading from memory.
Strange times, strange dreams. I'm sure these dreams will start changing soon. I'm not even being paranoid.
Maybe my brain's realizing I've been writing a lot lately, and trying to come up with strange ideas and scenarios to seed other things into my head. If that's the case, thanks brain, wuuv you.
Writing idea: Someone like me writes a journal every day, and suddenly start mentioning strange dreams. Those dreams get more and more visceral and start seeping into daily life. The journals themselves start getting more and more confused and messy, but third-person narration starts, describing the devolving of a reasonable man and a wannabe writer to an absolute crank.
As I've mentioned in the daily journals for the past several days, I've been having some strange dreams lately. They play out as a movie to begin with -- I'm sitting with my friends, and watching a movie. This morning, it was about a traveler from the future leaving a message to the past in Tokyo about making the right choices, and how choosing wrong would end human existence pretty much. There's crashing human-carrying drones, lasers that can push people around, etcetera. And then it morphs into my reality, I somehow get involved in it. When I'm changing to get ready for action in my room, I discover people have been hiding many years worth of their crap they didn't have anywhere to store in, under my bed. I'm not sure if it includes dead bodies, I'm too afraid to ask or look under there to check. That's around when I realize the dream is too stressful, too suspenseful for me, and I start wishing the dream ended, right in my sleep. Earlier this morning I remember telling myself 'ahh not again, this dream repeats over and over and so intense. I want to watch something else, brain', and then I go to this waiting room kind of place where I'm made to wait. My alarm usually wakes me up from that.
The more interesting thing there is that I'm beginning to fear I've been seeing the same dream over and over again. I can almost fast forward through some parts to get to where I last left it seems. Not true obviously, but it seems like that.
This reminds me of a very memorable dream series I used to have as a child. We were living in Chitwan then. I remember I'd wake up every night in cold sweats, and begin complaining -- don't think I ever cried, maybe I did once -- and my parents would try putting me back to sleep. I'd roam around the house for a while until I tired myself out, went back to sleep.
It was about these demons. They were all about carrying people, turning them around, and thrashing them back to the ground. Somewhat like wrestlers. This was in a hellish landscape, everything black and grey-red. The demons themselves were quite strange looking -- all alien-like, with arms and legs stretched thin and the power to thrash people easily. What impressed me even them -- I'm surprised how vividly I remember this -- was the ease with which they carried people and threw them around, as if they weighted nothing. They took turns thrashing me. And this wasn't even the scary part yet. I'd get scared and get up when they got tired of their thrashing around, and expanded their mouths like elastic to show their giant, sharp teeth, and laughed menacingly. This strange demonic cackle that would scare me more than all the physical torture they had put me through. I started getting fevers every night I saw those dreams and my parents got quite worried. The dreams went away when the fever went away, they took me to a pediatrician to make sure everything was ok with me. It got better, and these events began fading from memory.
Strange times, strange dreams. I'm sure these dreams will start changing soon. I'm not even being paranoid.
Maybe my brain's realizing I've been writing a lot lately, and trying to come up with strange ideas and scenarios to seed other things into my head. If that's the case, thanks brain, wuuv you.
Writing idea: Someone like me writes a journal every day, and suddenly start mentioning strange dreams. Those dreams get more and more visceral and start seeping into daily life. The journals themselves start getting more and more confused and messy, but third-person narration starts, describing the devolving of a reasonable man and a wannabe writer to an absolute crank.
Words [Wednesday 23]
Posting late this evening because I was not feeling it, and almost didn't write. Felt like writing because...it's become a habit now, and I wouldn't have been able to sleep otherwise. I realize now I can't feel 'bad', just delayed, which is a great thing. Just wish I'd gone to bed earlier.
Working backwards this evening because my daily format has gotten boring lately.
Roommate SM just got back from school at 12.30 am, must have been a long day for him, I saw him on the restroom door and it didn't feel polite to ask. Before that, I was reading up a bit, again King's On Writing. Did 15 pushups today instead of the full 50 because giving my body a rest today. Talked to roommate PK and friend ND before that. ND is a fun person, and really gives me the respect I feel I don't deserve, considering what an accomplished lawyer she is. And we agree on all the major points about approach to life, so our conversations involve mostly nodding heads vigorously in agreement to the other's points. Could lead to neckache someday.
Before that I wrote the previous post, which I know was half-hearted, but I was not feeling it, so that's all I got for this evening. Ate dinner, which was my beans salad. I know it's embarrassing to eat 3 days old beans, but whatever, it was full of proteins and so healthy, tasted pretty good. We still have our loaf from yesterday, half of it hasn't been eaten. Need to work towards finishing that soon.
Before that had several deep conversations with roommate BB. We talked about my interest in people generally due to occasions precipitated by recent events n the household. I told him I didn't know anyone and wasn't going anywhere, but in better terms so he wouldn't feel like my therapist. We discussed my theory of cosmic equivalence, which I believe is the first time I've brought it to anyone outside this blog. It's not a mind blowing concept or anything, just a tool for people to use to have a clarity in their thoughts, and I believe it's useful.
Before that, I was in Harvard Square doing the writing group prompted writing for two hours. Went there in 89 and the red line, and walked back home from davis on my way back. Got 2500 words written most of which was egoist rambling but words are better than no words regardless of the quality of the words. I did get some good writing there too besides those, so I'm not too shy about that. Before that, I basically rested for an hour after work in my bed, caught up on the youtubes and had a quick pre-dinner snack of goat cheese and the bread baked yesterday.
Came back from work a little later than I've been getting back recently because the bus waited forever in Sullivan and the traffic near there was pretty bad. If this is how it's going to be all winter, this is going to be a bleak affair. At least I was able to get seated on a newer Green Line train after work, straight to the North Station after a long time. Since it was such a privilege to sit down, I got the writing on coconuts done there. I'm thinking of making commute writing a part of my daily routine, but I'm not sure how I'll handle the topics. It wasn't the strongest, that piece, in terms of length and honest content.
Work was pretty reasonable, with a few ups and downs but generally fine. Productive in some ways, unproductive in others (I had to do a repeat because of misunderstanding some requirements which I didn't know because I'd never worked on those projects). Had a basic oatmeal lunch, which was not at all as filling as I imagined it would be, which is probably why I was in a bad mood for the second half of the day. Had a very good 1-on-1 with the manager which I'm happy about.
Pre-lunch work was good, did some solid work done, even though I got to work 20/25 minutes later than I usually do. The reason was that I decided to take the bus 95 because it was raining and the next 101 wasn't scheduled for the next 20 minutes. Unfortunately I ended up getting on 95 way after 101 showed up near home and 95 takes longer to get to the station to begin with so I lost a lot there. The bus fiasco happened because I was late to leave home. I got up on time, but decided to go back to sleep in the morning because I'd waken up at 5am and hadn't gone back because of sleep cycle or whatever, so at least I caught up a bit on the sleep. Then my morning post was longer than I expected it to be, so I was very late to leave.
The morning dream was strange and weird, and probably one of the reasons I got up too early and couldn't go back to sleep. I don't remember what it was, but it was quite awkward -- so much so that I found it irritating that I might have to watch it again. Really, my body should be showing me medium interesting things in the morning, so I don't want to sleep for too long, or get up too early because it's awful. I need to train for that.
Realized that writing is like training for a marathon, or a game, and regardless of the quality of writing, as long as you're writing, you're working out. I'm on my way. My form may be bad, but I'm still going somewhere. The question of form arises only among athletes. I'm not one of those people anymore writing-wise who are out of shape, so I'm thankful for that.
A few hours ago PLNG called saying they'd watch the movie Parasite and were weirded out and confused by it. It turns out I may have raised their expectations too much. And SB apparently read the plot and decided he wouldn't like it. Such a loss. They should have all gone in blank with no expectations. Anyway, it's a good movie, and if other people can't appreciate it, whatever. It's not like an art movie or anything, just a commercially popular movie, a pretty good one at that. They're saying it might win the best movie overall in the oscars. I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
It's really late now, and this post somehow got bloated way beyond my expectations. I should change up the format more often so if anyone's reading it (and I know people are hoh hoh hoh), they don't go insane. Goodnight.
Working backwards this evening because my daily format has gotten boring lately.
Roommate SM just got back from school at 12.30 am, must have been a long day for him, I saw him on the restroom door and it didn't feel polite to ask. Before that, I was reading up a bit, again King's On Writing. Did 15 pushups today instead of the full 50 because giving my body a rest today. Talked to roommate PK and friend ND before that. ND is a fun person, and really gives me the respect I feel I don't deserve, considering what an accomplished lawyer she is. And we agree on all the major points about approach to life, so our conversations involve mostly nodding heads vigorously in agreement to the other's points. Could lead to neckache someday.
Before that I wrote the previous post, which I know was half-hearted, but I was not feeling it, so that's all I got for this evening. Ate dinner, which was my beans salad. I know it's embarrassing to eat 3 days old beans, but whatever, it was full of proteins and so healthy, tasted pretty good. We still have our loaf from yesterday, half of it hasn't been eaten. Need to work towards finishing that soon.
Before that had several deep conversations with roommate BB. We talked about my interest in people generally due to occasions precipitated by recent events n the household. I told him I didn't know anyone and wasn't going anywhere, but in better terms so he wouldn't feel like my therapist. We discussed my theory of cosmic equivalence, which I believe is the first time I've brought it to anyone outside this blog. It's not a mind blowing concept or anything, just a tool for people to use to have a clarity in their thoughts, and I believe it's useful.
Before that, I was in Harvard Square doing the writing group prompted writing for two hours. Went there in 89 and the red line, and walked back home from davis on my way back. Got 2500 words written most of which was egoist rambling but words are better than no words regardless of the quality of the words. I did get some good writing there too besides those, so I'm not too shy about that. Before that, I basically rested for an hour after work in my bed, caught up on the youtubes and had a quick pre-dinner snack of goat cheese and the bread baked yesterday.
Came back from work a little later than I've been getting back recently because the bus waited forever in Sullivan and the traffic near there was pretty bad. If this is how it's going to be all winter, this is going to be a bleak affair. At least I was able to get seated on a newer Green Line train after work, straight to the North Station after a long time. Since it was such a privilege to sit down, I got the writing on coconuts done there. I'm thinking of making commute writing a part of my daily routine, but I'm not sure how I'll handle the topics. It wasn't the strongest, that piece, in terms of length and honest content.
Work was pretty reasonable, with a few ups and downs but generally fine. Productive in some ways, unproductive in others (I had to do a repeat because of misunderstanding some requirements which I didn't know because I'd never worked on those projects). Had a basic oatmeal lunch, which was not at all as filling as I imagined it would be, which is probably why I was in a bad mood for the second half of the day. Had a very good 1-on-1 with the manager which I'm happy about.
Pre-lunch work was good, did some solid work done, even though I got to work 20/25 minutes later than I usually do. The reason was that I decided to take the bus 95 because it was raining and the next 101 wasn't scheduled for the next 20 minutes. Unfortunately I ended up getting on 95 way after 101 showed up near home and 95 takes longer to get to the station to begin with so I lost a lot there. The bus fiasco happened because I was late to leave home. I got up on time, but decided to go back to sleep in the morning because I'd waken up at 5am and hadn't gone back because of sleep cycle or whatever, so at least I caught up a bit on the sleep. Then my morning post was longer than I expected it to be, so I was very late to leave.
The morning dream was strange and weird, and probably one of the reasons I got up too early and couldn't go back to sleep. I don't remember what it was, but it was quite awkward -- so much so that I found it irritating that I might have to watch it again. Really, my body should be showing me medium interesting things in the morning, so I don't want to sleep for too long, or get up too early because it's awful. I need to train for that.
Realized that writing is like training for a marathon, or a game, and regardless of the quality of writing, as long as you're writing, you're working out. I'm on my way. My form may be bad, but I'm still going somewhere. The question of form arises only among athletes. I'm not one of those people anymore writing-wise who are out of shape, so I'm thankful for that.
A few hours ago PLNG called saying they'd watch the movie Parasite and were weirded out and confused by it. It turns out I may have raised their expectations too much. And SB apparently read the plot and decided he wouldn't like it. Such a loss. They should have all gone in blank with no expectations. Anyway, it's a good movie, and if other people can't appreciate it, whatever. It's not like an art movie or anything, just a commercially popular movie, a pretty good one at that. They're saying it might win the best movie overall in the oscars. I wouldn't be surprised if it did.
It's really late now, and this post somehow got bloated way beyond my expectations. I should change up the format more often so if anyone's reading it (and I know people are hoh hoh hoh), they don't go insane. Goodnight.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)