Go, go, go shawty It's your birthday We gonna party like it's yo birthday We gonna sip Bacardi like it's your birthday

I have never been so de-motivated before in my life. I thought I’d sunk as low as I could go at the last job but this new one is freaking unbelievable (except for the pay). Someone, help me escape please??!! This week has just been beyond awful and I’m soooo glad it’s Friday!!!

I don’t know if I’ve suddenly become super popular or if our little world has widened its borders considerably but it seems like I haven’t had a quiet moment on a weekend in more than four months. I’m not complaining or anything… after all, this is why I whinge and whinge about missing Madras so much. But I’m just finding it a bit unusual here. I had to ditch my parents also on two nights when they were here because of social engagements… haha… social engagements… of course, they don’t mind. In Madras, they’re used to just catching brief glimpses of my sister and me as we rush between numerous social engagements… haha… social engagements.

So, my parents… what a trip that was. I am not conventionally close to my parents… I think I stopped talking to them for a few years between 13 and 18 – there was some serious bottled up teenage angst. And I think about it now, and I’m still not sure if I really had anything to be angsty about or if it was just pure drama because I felt that was how a teenager should be – moody, rebellious and monosyllabic. But this was only at home right… I was the total cheerleader prom queen singing club president at school… I got involved in anything and everything… a lot of the times because I really enjoyed it, you know, like singing and acting and all… and other times just to alleviate the boredom of school by being involved in everything. Oh man, I’d love to tell you about my holier-than-thou Convent school one day… but not today.

So anyway, the relationship improved drastically since I moved away from home and last year when I went home I was shocked at how mellow and complacent they’d gotten with mini me (my friends would call her that because she’s often a spitting image)! And she like totally rules the roost at home… I mean, come on… I might’ve paved the way and everything but she is like in a totally different league of getting her way.

But so apparently I totally bossed them around on their visit and I’m like, well, did they not boss me around for the first 20 years of my life? The tables will always turn. My children will surely boss over me… or not… I’m not as easy as my mom. But then again, there was Holly and Chocolate and Rusty… one puppy dog look and I’m wrapped around their paw. Children quite possibly have the same power of the puppy dog look. But anyway, they fully exaggerate – I did not boss them around. And did I mention that in general, my parents are quite nuts. They’re not into formality of any kind and sometimes when my father speaks, I want the earth to open up and swallow me whole. And my mother is SMS trigger happy and it just totally killed her she hardly had anyone to SMS.

I was certainly pampered to a certain extent. My mom cooked a few meals and my dad took us all out for dinner all the other meals and I’m still happily living off leftovers – I never want to cook again… sigh :-S

They also bought me two more items of furniture and patience dear reader, all will be delivered and set up within the next two weeks and then all photos will go up for public viewing.

Anyway, they’ve only hopped across to New Zealand and they’ll be back in all their glory in a couple of weeks.

So my birthday week was lots of fun… with my dad around there’s drinking every night but of course I can’t really get drunk, not that they’d notice really… went out for dinner on my birthday eve to the Mexican place and downed a whole pitcher of Margaritas and then we stayed up as usual until midnight and my parents insisted on staying up too and then I got all my presents and cards. Had the day off on my birthday after two years and spent it very lazily and then had to get everything ready for the party.

The party was quite mad. I measure its success by the number of people who were beyond the limits of wastedness… someone kept forcing these strange shots called Jager bombs into my hand at the pub we went to after my house. Now there’s this Jagermeister stuff and what I think was happening is that you get a mug of beer and a shot of Jagermeister and you have to drop the Jagermeister in the beer mug (it makes the most delightful sounding plop) and drink it together as the potent Jager bomb. It was great fun even though it tasted like shit. I couldn’t do more than three.

Here’s a sneak preview of the house… haha… the dining table all set up

My huge ass cake…

The next night went to someone else’s house party and met two adorable Labs. One of them just chased people with a plate all night and since the other one was a guest, he very reluctantly had to stop following the other one around every time his owner called him. Oh my god, I miss dogs!! I don’t know that any dog of mine could ever be so well-behaved though – they would just be my ruination with their puppy dog looks.

Spent this week recovering and another action packed weekend ahead with left over painting, another birthday party and general planning for a bachelorette party the weekend after. So if there is plan anytime between now and January, please book me in now only (I don’t know who I’m talking to since only three people I know in Melbourne visit this blog)!!

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond…

Yay… I have been tagged… just when I was beginning to doubt my popularity in blogworld with no one tagging me :-( But, I have to ask, why is it 8 things about oneself? I don’t know if I have that many things to say… or maybe I have more. Let’s see how it goes…

1. I love my new phone so much I want to make babies with it. On Friday night, I was treating it like a real person and flipped it open every time anyone said anything exciting… and did I mention I can have any mp3 as my ring tone just by copying it over from the computer (look, these things have probably been possible for a long time with other phones but its my first time, ok?! Till now, I had to make do with Nokia standard ring tones… for some reason I couldn’t even download ring tones)!!! And, I have a guitar theme set and every time I flip it open and snap it shut, there’s a cool little guitar strum. Oh my god, my phone rocks (as does my boyfriend for getting it for me)!!
   
2. I care about stray dogs with no one to love them a hell of a lot more than I care about homeless people.
   
3. I am convinced I’m going to die of a slow, horrible cancer death one day but that doesn’t stop me from drinking, smoking cigarettes or smoking weed!! I have this great hope that a lot of people our generation have that someone somewhere will invent the miracle cure by the time all this shit goes down. I am also convinced I will have diabetes but that I can blame on heredity at least!!
   
4. At least twice a year my parents ask me when I’m getting married so they can plan and give people overseas enough notice and I just tell them that I haven’t even thought about it and will make up my mind in a year or so… I’ve been doing this for at least two years now and they’re getting more and more paranoid and advising me about biological ticking fertility clocks and they gasp in horror when I say there’s certainly no way I’m having children until I’m 35. The thing is I’ve already decided the year I’m getting married and I’ve already told my family and friends overseas to keep the year free for a trip to India and I’ve even planned little details in my head like what music will play when I walk down the aisle and what the wedding invitation will look like and I’ve decided to have my first child when I’m 30… ok that’s only 5 years away… scratch that and make it 31. So I’m not sure why I want them to be the last to know like this?!
   
5. I am the polar opposite of an atheist and fully believe in God and Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church and Heaven and Hell. Each day more (I am not sure if that phrase makes sense) that I live in sin sends me one step closer to Hell and sometimes it really keeps me up at night when I can’t get to sleep. And believe me it’s not as simple as saying Sorry to the priest at Confession.
   
6. Earlier this year, we decided we’re moving back to India in 2 years. At the time, it seemed the most obvious decision and I didn’t even have to think about it – it just felt right. Ever since, I have been having such a good time in Australia I’ve started having all these doubts like will I find a good job with a kick ass salary, will I be able to work those long 10 hour days and 6 day weeks, will I even be able to communicate properly with this maid I want so desperately considering my really sad level of Tamil, etc. etc. I’m not changing my decision but making this kind of decision always opens your eyes to the little things you love so much about a place. When I knew I was leaving Madras, I fell so madly in love with it. I know I’m leaving Australia and I’m falling madly in love with Melbourne and am already looking forward to trips I’ll make here once every few years. The grass man… why does it have to always look greener when really it’s all the same kind of muddy brown??!!
   
7. A certain addiction has bloomed very late in life for me… it’s called shopping! I’ve never been this way before. A huge aspect to this was money… I loved getting new things but if I knew I didn’t have money I wouldn’t even bother with window shopping. But ever since they started paying me oodles of cash at this new job, a long suffering caged animal has been set free and my mind says be still, my spending heart. After one such shopping expedition, Mr. Moonlight politely pointed out that I’d spent more in one afternoon than the average Indian worker makes in a year. This made me feel bad for about 2 seconds before I set out on my next romp – hey, I got the cash, I’m gonna spend it. The thing is though I’ve always had hoards and hoards of clothes – I just love clothes and because I have so many I don’t wear a particular item often and so it doesn’t get washed that many times a year and so I still have tops in mint condition from when I was 18 (and they do still fit!!). Clothes I know I will absolutely never wear again I donate but these 7 year old ones that still look good, I still wear now and then. But this addiction only became painfully apparent in the last two months when I couldn’t get my monthly clothes fix anymore because I had to save all this money for the outstanding payment on the house. So I avoid going into all clothes stores now – it’s really hard because I walk past a lot of them every day. And the other day I drove my parents to the mall and guess who ended up buying anything? I’ll give you a hint – it wasn’t the holidaymakers. But on this point, I have to say I’m not a shoe fanatic like most women. I have about 10 pairs that I use on a regular basis. Surely most women have at least 30? But anyway, I had to get my monthly fix from somewhere these last two month and it’s called furniture… muahahahahaha… unfortunately for poor Mr. Moonlight, he had to contribute towards this fix of mine too!
   
8. When people say way to go on buying your first home so young, I kinda shrug and say, yeah well… But inside I am secretly more proud than I’ve ever been before of anything, that I owned my first home before I was 25. Now I’m just hoping I won’t have to sell it by the time I’m 26 the rate at which I’m spending :-)
   

So to pass on the tag, I tag Tartrazina, JR, Jay, DnA, AB, Jax, The Box and Wanderstruck… I hope at least two of you do it!

When Im tired and thinking cold (substitute with feeling old) I hide in my music, forget the day And dream of a girl I used to know

I closed my eyes and she slipped away

What am I doing blogging on my birthday? Well it's like this... my boyfriend and friend have abandoned me for work/student pursuits and my parents take like forever to get ready when they're on holiday!!! So I thought, now is a good time as any for the pearls of a quarter century of wisdom to pour forth... Yes, I laugh too at the pomposity of the last statement!! What pearls? What wisdom? Is there any such direct relationship between age and wisdom? I don't really think so... I think the only great thing about age is the pragmatic way you begin to start looking at things that just never used to happen when I was 10 or 12 or 14 or even 18. Those are the girls that slipped away.

So maybe that's what wisdom is... who knows, who cares. All I know is I'm 25 and certainly not feeling as exuberant as I normally feel on a birthday but I could be feeling this way just for the sake of drama also... :-)

There's just been so much happening with my parents' visit and work and what not. Tonight is big party as usual and will update next week on all the events/presents/etc.

But I just have to say, I am the proud owner of a brand new Nokia 6131 (courtesy Mr. Moonlight) which is one of them flip ones and I've just been dying for a flip phone for a while and this is the first time in my life I'm owning a funky phone while the model is still new and funky... haha... I love my new baby and will christen it sometime...

Happy Birthday baby sister!!! (well, when she was just 17, you know what I mean, and the way she looked, was way beyond compare)

I get by with a little help from my friends… I get high with a little help from my friends… do you need anybody...

Dandenong Road is slowly receding into the background… the big move was begun on Saturday evening and completed on Sunday night at about 10:30 pm. Right now I cannot walk without bumping into some item or the other. I have too much stuff… I’ve always known this but this time has scared even me. And I have thrown/donated all I could… and I am the most sentimental of people and will keep even one ugly button if it was presented to me with love and affection by someone I love and have affection for… but this time I was merciless when packing and threw away a lot of junk that let’s face it, I was never really into and only kept because it was presented… my adoring baby sister has given me a number of dog curios over the years and yes, baby sister, I love dogs and you bought me these things so lovingly because you know I love dogs… but I think you also know I only love real dogs and only big ones at that so sorry fake dogs, but in the rubbish go you. And stuffed toys… don’t even go there… mostly from my father… dear man always bought us something on Valentines Day that invariably involved a stuffed animal… and when I was tearing the room apart sorting through things, I found so many of them and they just annoyed me no end… that someone dear has bought you these things and there’s really no room in your life for tacky sentimental items anymore because it just won’t suit the décor and they’re just one more dust trap making your cleaning life that much harder… so I just threw them away… one after the other… and my farewell speech was “go f*@# yourself teddy bear”!! Like I said, just finding so many of them and having to throw them away just really annoyed the hell out of me… Haha, I also found these really dreadful unidentifiable stuffed items from the Royal Melbourne Show we went to in 2003… it’s an annual fair and we went that year on my birthday thinking there’d be some cool rides but the rides were really really sad… and people have actually died once or twice because they’re so old and faulty… but we decided Mr. Moonlight absolutely had to win me a stuffed toy as they do in Archie comics and of course he spent more money trying to win than those miserable unidentifiable stuffed items could ever cost… but it was just for the fun of it all… anyway, I said “go f*@# yourselves” to them too… they were like bright orange and pink and really did not look like anything remotely human or animal.

Anyway, finally everything was moved out after some 300 trips… and we hired professional cleaners, thank god… cleaning the old place would’ve just about finished me off this weekend… not that I wasn’t completely and utterly exhausted anyway… but I saw it all clean and smelling fresh and compared it with the new place that doesn’t have one square inch of free space at the moment and smells strongly of paint, and I just wanted to throw myself on the newly steam cleaning carpet and go to sleep for a week!

So yes, the painting… what a far out experience that was. It was really hard work but also lots of fun… I’ve decided it’s going to only be a once in a lifetime experience though. But then again, we are now indebted to everyone who helped us and if ever they decide to paint their own house, we will certainly pitch in… but after our little experience on Friday, I think everyone is well aware of all the pros and cons… So we started at 2 pm and finished around 2 am… I didn’t even know I had it in me to keep at something for 12 hours… it wasn’t a perfect job… tons of touch up work to be done… but we pretty much painted everything we set out to paint… except for my dark trim… sob sob… sacrifices had to be made… that is my own personal project but and I will make it happen!!! But most importantly, we couldn’t have done it without all the wonderful people who turned up to help us (and also to help us move)… only some two of them know of this blog, but anyway, thanks guys! Maybe I’ll tell you about them… I’d be quite interested to see what I have to say about them myself because most of them are people I’ve met here and haven’t really spoken about before in terms of what they’re like…

We had the day off on Friday for the so called “settlement” of the house and to begin the painting… so we started off by picking up our perpetually jobless friend… let’s call him Sam. He’s not unemployed but he’s a student so he only works part-time and has Fridays off and class like once a week or something… he’s not really a new friend. He was Mr. Moonlight’s friend from college and I’ve known him for as long as I’ve known Mr. Moonlight… he is, of course, best friend, recently departed housemate, and in general our fellow Madras person… we partied our asses off together, drank shitloads of rowdy rum together, smoked shitloads of weed together, hung out with a lot of the same people at all the same discos and parties, and met up every single day for an afternoon smoke and then we’d go to Coffee for cold coffee… oh man, I miss the cold coffee at Coffee… by the time he arrived in Australia in 2004 he’d quit smoking weed which was a huge shocker and had taken up smoking cigarettes like they were going out of style which was a bigger shocker and he’d also switched from rum to whiskey… why am I the only one who still loves rum?? So he was housemate until a few weeks ago and we had many fun times here too… and we actually smoked hash together the other night… it was my first hash night in Australia… apparently its really expensive but some friend of Sam’s had some… so we smoked lots and Sam eventually passed out cos it’s been a while. Anyway, that’s our friend Sam…

So the three of us went to Amici and ate the usual and waited for the agent to ring and say settlement had happened so we could pick the keys up. This settlement is a big anticlimax. The previous day we went and left the cheque for the remaining amount and that’s all… there was no formal signing over/handing over of keys or anything. I was quite disappointed. So when she finally rang, we just looked at each other and said Homeowner… we just did that the whole weekend… I like saying it… homeowner… hehe… I want the MSN emoticon for hehe to go here… you would only understand if you saw it bobbing about… Rat and I chat on MSN everyday and almost everything we say is followed by a hehe…

Anyway, we arrived at new apartment and the first person to arrive to assist was photographer by profession pal… let’s call him Shutterbug. Shutterbug is my friend from school days and he is of the alcohol/smoke/drug free variety… he gets very high on life though and if you were ever around in Madras between 97-99, you might’ve noticed the guy with the chessboard shaved into the hair or sometimes the concentric circles, dancing near the speakers at a party or disco… he was perfect designated driver and he would insist on walking us girls to our doorsteps even if it was after dropping us off from rowing at 9 in the freaking morning!!! But that’s Shutterbug for you… his charm lies in his old fashioned chivalry and other eccentricities… :-) so he read my blog last week and called to offer assistance and I was quite happy to have him along to bring some method to the madness… he’s always been quite good at bringing method to madness…

However, this painting an apartment thing is no easy job and by about 6:30 pm, we weren’t even close to halfway done and Shutterbug had to leave and we awaited our second shift of happy helpers. First among these was the guy who used to live in Geelong… he now claims that Melbourne is the Big City and Geelong is the City of the Future… hehe… I have decided anyhow to name him Big City Dude on this blog… he spent his childhood in Africa, his adolescence in Kiwiland and moved to Australia about 3 years ago which is when we met him through common friends… I am at quite a loss to describe Big City Dude… he is at once most hilarious and fun and also quite peculiar and random… I think the hilarity for me lies in all the peculiar random things he says… at a lot of the times we hang out, you will find me simply shaking my head in wonderment at his newest bizarre theory… he had a metaphor once about dance performances and group emails… I won’t even try to explain… but he did follow it up with a short demo of classical Indian dance and by then we were laughing too hard to care… hahaha

Next to arrive was fellow blogger and Beatles enthusiast… you will find him under Blogger Buddies as Rael Imperial Aerosol Kid and this is some arcane reference to something I’m not very sure about so I have decided to name him Guitarman on this blog… he has another new nickname that is really most amusing but he will probably kill me if I publish that on the world wide web so I will refrain… Guitarman is also from Madras but we only met him in Melbourne and it’s really one of those random small world chance meetings… Guitarman and Sam used to be neighbours as children or teenagers many many years ago in Madras and one night Mr. Moonlight, Sam and I were chilling on some bench in the city hungrily eating our subs after an evening of watching Saturday Night Fever – The Musical… hehe… I’ve forced these boys to do many things they wouldn’t normally do ever… but guess who ended up shaking their booty through all the musical numbers… but I digress… so Guitarman was going to cross the street and he was with this other friend of Mr. Moonlight’s and mine from Madras and we yelled out her name and we were just talking and next thing we know Guitarman and Sam are all over each other like ants on a jar of honey… of course, I exaggerate… but so anyway, long story short, Sam and Guitarman got reacquainted… by general proximity and love of all things alcoholic and herbs, Mr. Moonlight and I also became friends with Guitarman… and naturally I have named him Guitarman because he plays the guitar really well and I cannot count the number of singing sessions we’ve had… the latest song he’s learnt is One and since that is currently everyone’s favourite song (I’m not entirely sure why) we just force him to keep playing it… Oh, and Sam, Big City Dude and Guitarman are now housemates and they’re the cutest little family ever… sometimes it’s hard to see the jar of honey because of the ants all over it… kidding, kidding!!!

By about 8:30 pm, the base coat was mostly completed except for two bedrooms but we’d also ditched base coat for a few of the living room walls because they’d been painted recently. This killed my obsessive compulsive Virgoan trait of everything being done exactly the same way but fatigue and common sense prevailed…

Enter two new labourers… she is a bohemian free spirit type video editor who I met through common friends and he is her boyfriend who I’ve only met twice so can’t really say anything about him except he seems really nice… I shall name her Flower Child… I’ve only been hanging out with her in the last five months or so and the first time we were both totally wasted so I thought, well here’s a chick I can finally drink with. Alas, the next time she was drinking Bacardi Breezers… and I said why, why, why would anyone do this? And she said, we drink for very different reasons Penny Lane… it seems she drinks because she likes the taste. I know there are lots of people who do this, women in particular… I am just so not one of them. Anyway, it kinda works that she’s not that drunk while I’m always super toasted… she faithfully listens to all the extra shit I have to say when I’m drunk. When two people are really drunk it often happens that both of them say a lot of shit that neither of them pays much attention to.

Oh, I forgot to mention… at some point in the evening, 24 bottles of beer arrived… I had grave concerns about drunken helpers spilling beer on the walls instead of paint but an admirable job was done in spite of the beers going down like water. I didn’t drink because I found it way too hard to hold a paintbrush in one hand and a beer bottle in the other and simultaneously climb onto the stool to reach the upper wall.

By about 10:30 pm we reached the last stage of our painting marathon… the soothing Beige Drop was on most of the walls and only the skirting and corners and edges needed to be completed as also the feature wall. Our final two helpers arrived bringing a fresh second wind with the rest of us being totally over the whole thing. He originally studied with Mr. Moonlight for the final two years of high school in Madras and then came over to Australia for his undergrad. They had completely lost touch and they both got the surprise of their lives when someone in common reunited them in Melbourne in 2002 when we arrived… Madras is just the smallest little village I tell ya… that’s why I love it and why a lot of people hate it… She is now his wife and they started going out about five months after we arrived and just tied the knot a couple of months ago in a civil ceremony… that was their first wedding… they’re having two more weddings in Delhi and Malaysia in November and I really really wanted to go but many constraints have held me back, the strongest of which is finance. So now they keep referring to each other as oh, my husband, oh, my wife… kinda like our homeowner thing… and I just find it really funny… I shall name them Bonnie & Clyde… no reason… that’s the first ‘couple’ name that popped into my head…

So finally we packed it all in by 2:00 am… the last wall to be painted was the feature wall… I applied the inaugural strokes of the delicious Palm Sugar and then went off to start cleaning and left the rest of the crew to finish it up… I didn’t take any pictures because at the start there was nothing to take pictures of and at the end I was covered so much in paint I wasn’t going to let my fingers anywhere near my camera. Also, I really want to finish all the touching up and the dark trim and receive all my new furniture first and set up the house really awesomely so it looks likes a picture for one of those Home & Country magazines.

But anyway, it was fun :-) And these friends of ours quite truly rock!