So I've got to be as quick as I can... the laptop battery is so going to die in all of 15 mins and I'm so not braving the cold in the lounge just to freaking blog... I mean, this is spring and all but it's like mid-winter really... it's not fair, really, but there ain't much we can do. Anyway, enough about the stupid weather... I hope and I pray for warmer weather soonish!!
So the strange thing is, how that song from the last time still has a total hold on me... I mean, honestly, that's the only reason I'm even blogging tonight... if I hadn't had to listen to that song, I wouldn't even be awake right now. And I don't even freaking like Coldplay... as a matter of fact, I'll go as far to say I hate Coldplay...
That'll probably ruffle a few freaking feathers... but what can I say or do...
So anyway, I had the awesomest birthday... I think it always helps when your birthday is on the weekend... that means the whole world can party with you without missing work and feeling guilty for whatever reason. So my birthday began on Thursday evening when we prepared to go to the Steely Dan concert... it was full on... we had many drinks and tapas and then headed to Rod Laver and once the concert started, fully sipped on the hip flask and before I knew it, the concert was finished. I mean, I like Steely Dan and all but I'm not their biggest fan. I really love Dirty Work but they had some total Mary J. Blige type character sing it which just totally pissed me off and ruined it for me!!! Anyway, we all had a blast though and had many more drinks after the concert also. Friday was a total mess... recovering from Thurs night and attempting to clean the house in preparation for Sat night but not really making any progress. Anyway, Fri evening arrives and my lover and me go to dinner and have a couple of drinks and then he pretends like I absolutely have to go to this friends house to say Hi and way before I get there, I totally know all my friends are going to be there drinking away. So that's exactly what happens... and I have many drinks on my birthday eve with my best friends and we smoke cigars and all, just for a change. And at midnight, a home made cake comes out and champagne and all... and many overseas calls also arrive and it was just freaking awesome!!!
At about 5 am, we stagger back home and I open all my presents from my lover and try a few things on as well and somehow get to bed by about 5:30 am... alas, I am forced awake by 10 am thanks to many more overseas phonecalls... seriously, it is the only day in the year, I actually give a crap about my mobile and keep it beside me at all costs!! Anyway, there is no hope left after that and I still don't even have the energy left to clean and all... at about 6 pm, things are exactly the same and I am just many more phonecalls down. Finally, I force myself to get my act together and sleepwalk my way through cleaning the house and get ready and stuff and before I know it, it's 9 pm and my guests are arriving. And from then until 7:30 am, Sunday morning, who even freaking knows what happens. It was just madness all around. It was really awesome. And I got soooooooooo many presents, it was crazy. So much fun. And I think everyone really had a blast, that was really the best part. And the biriyani that I ordered totally got cleaned out in all of 2 hours... it was crazy... not even one grain of rice was left over. :-)
Absolutely nothing exciting has happened since then... I mean, obviously the week was completely crap and this weekend was supposed to be easy but with someone's birthday drinks last night and someone else's birthday drinks tonight, it's hard to slow down!!! So it's not strictly true that nothing exciting has happened, but for me, my birthday and all it's associated shenanigans are the eptiome of party time for the year.
The strangest thing... for a few years in between, life was strange... it wasn't as happening and I honestly wondered how smart I'd been with some of the choices in my life!!! But now, I can honestly say that I love my life more than ever and it doesn't really matter that I'm 26... I still feel 18 and my life is still as exciting as if I was indeed 18 :-) I mean, honestly, 18 till I die baby!!
Speaking of babies, my best friend's baby is almost 2 years old and obviously I still haven't met him yet but amazingly he's learnt my name... it's sooooo adorable... I spoke to him the other day and he's totally like Hi, Bye, Ithi.. awwwww.. sooo cute!!
But speaking of other babies, my baby sister is now 18... she still totally breaks my heart though!! I can't wait to hang with her in December and hopefully I can show her the way. Oh my god, did I mention the fact that she got a freaking Labrador puppy for her birthday... I'm so happy cos I get to hang with this puppy in a couple of months but I feel so sad that I can't get a dog of my own :-( And apparently, she looks like just like my beloved Holly... that figures... Christmas and New Years is going to be soooo weird this year. I'm not exactly sure why...
So I've decided to open up commenting again... haha... I'm really not sure why I stopped... but, whatever...
Sometimes when you take a step back and think about life in general, it's a bit frightening... because life is incredibly strange and it really takes you full circle... with the things you do and the people you meet and the way you change...
Also, this Forever Young song... I used to love the original by Alphaville until I actually listened to Youth Group and then it was totally like, oh my god, what were Alphaville thinking?! That just goes to show... old is not always necessarily best... this song I only like the remixed Youth Group version now... Alphaville is just yawn... but there are obviously other songs where this doesn't apply at all and old still rules!!!
It's going to be another freaking awesome year... what else is new ;-)
Forever young, I want to be forever young
Showing posts with label reminiscing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reminiscing. Show all posts
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
You’ll say we got nothing in common, no common ground to start from and we’re falling apart. Then I said what about Breakfast at Tiffanys...
Gee whiz… when things happen, they happen all at once. And sometimes nothing happens at all… like I think I was bemoaning nothing happening in like Feb and then suddenly life became hectic in March and we’re already at the end of April? Did time fly so when I was a child? I don’t think so really… what was life after all but a school timetable and weekends… so now its work and weekends but somehow it flies… I guess, cos there is no timetable. Well whatever, I have lots of updating to do on this blog. The real reason I continue to maintain this blog at all (with everyone on the blogroll being so slack at updating) is so I have a record of my life to look back on in one, two, five, ten, thirty years… it’s amazing the little things one forgets that one never expected to forget but forgot anyway, so the blog helps greatly. I wish I’d had a blog before I left India… I mean, I used to write stuff in a journal before I left India but it’s not the same as recording life events on a blog because a blog is public and a journal is private and I got over ‘Dear Diary, I did this and this and that between 3:00 and 5:00 pm today’ by age 12. So this blog is more like a dear diary in the sense of ‘Dear Diary, I went to x parties this weekend and got wasted at x of them…’ and then I can read these entries at some later point in my life when my life isn’t all that happening and then I can feel nostalgic for the good times and may want to kill myself at being reminded of a better time, but who knows… it may indeed only ever get better (but I doubt it).
So if you’re still reading, I left off at the long weekend holiday? The weekend that followed was meant to be really quiet because of the wild holiday weekend but it ended up that a friend and I met for a quiet drink or two at 5:30 pm on a Friday evening at this delightful bar along my one-and-only-close-to-my-heart Yarra river… by 8:00 pm, we had grown to 12 people and maybe 5 rounds down. And of course, that’s when we should’ve stopped and just GONE HOME. But of course we didn’t and of course we partied on and eventually I think we got home at 3:00 am. This is the trouble with Fridays – you always start off so early because it’s straight after work and sometimes it gets out of freaking control. It was an awesome night though – lots of laughs and tram and China Bar incidents! China Bar deserves a post of its own – it’s a mildly dodgy Chinese fast food place that doesn’t have a liquor licence but serves you Victoria Bitter beer anyway and I’m not a fan of Asian food but I don’t mind going to China Bar once in a while and eating the roti channai, which is like roti and chicken curry but I really couldn’t handle the place in my soberness and so most times we go there when we’re smashed and do crazy things like sing the Indian National Anthem. The rest of the weekend should’ve been quiet, but again, it wasn’t! I think I ate off our friend’s bbq for all meals beginning on Sat afternoon until Sun evening because Sat night he brought it over to our place and I actually spent a pleasant quiet evening by myself watching a Poirot whodunit on TV and then Sun afternoon, we had a tiny bbq partaay to watch the Australian Grand Prix on TV. The race was great, except for Ferrari winning of course. But how awesome is that young little Lewis Hamilton??!! So sweetly and talentedly he’s made it to the podium also every race since.
Then there was a week of work as usual but I do believe a few of us went out to dinner to a fancy schmancy Sri Lankan place that Thursday night and I finished almost an entire bottle of wine so was decidedly seedy the next morning at work. I was meant to go lawn bowling that evening with work but decided to give it a miss and went home to rest and I think slept for 12 hours+ that night. The next day I woke up well refreshed to find out India was pretty much out of the World Cup… Mr. Moonlight had stayed up most of the night to watch the match so was decidedly seedy that day and I convinced him to have an afternoon nap since we were going out that evening although at the time I was clueless about the things in store for me later that night. So then I did many household chores being in a domestic mood and expecting houseguests on the Monday and so forgot to wake him up and he was fully panicked about being late to this thing we were going to which was apparently some work friend of his party type thing. I of course never panic because I am never on time to anything ever! So I was done with my shower and hanging out in the bedroom and cutting my nails I think when I hear him on the phone outside trying to make a dinner reservation??!! So when he comes in I’m like, what’s the deal with the dinner reservation, I thought we were going to a party and he’s all, oh what are you talking about… very lame attempt at covering. But so anyway, I sorta fully guessed then that he was going to propose to me that night because well, I don’t know, I just knew. And then we sat in the car and he played a CD he’d burnt that day and the first song was Penny Lane and that was sooo funny and sweet and typical of him and just confirmed it. The rest of the songs were all the other songs we’ve considered our own over the years… there was Sweet Child of Mine, Can’t Help Falling in Love, She, Annie’s Song, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Strangers in the Night, and then he drove us to this stretch of road along the Williamstown beach where the waves dash against the embankment and there’s a lighthouse and everything and then on the way he pretended he was making up this poem and would give me two new lines every two minutes but really he’d composed it earlier and had to improvise anyway since he forgot half of it and it was just really funny and sweet because by now I was fully certain of what was coming. The reason for the beach was because we first met at the beach all those years ago (7 years and some months to be precise) at that wonderful rendezvous of our youth, EC-41… Then once we’d parked he proposed and got out of the car and got down on his knees and put the ring on my finger! Ah, the ring… the most fabulous exciting bit to any engagement and mine is absofuckinglutely stunning… I love it… it’s a half carat diamond in a platinum setting and it’s from Tiffanys cos Audrey Hepburn style, I’m just craaaazay about Tiffanaaays! Tiffanys has a special significance in our relationship because right from the beginning we never had anything in common except partying and drinking and smoking, and then we had a fight in the early days and I think this song just happened to play and it made us smile so since then he only has to play this song when we’re fighting and it makes us laugh. So when we discussed getting married and stuff in recent years, my only wish (well, by only wish, I don’t really mean only wish – I’m a woman, I’m allowed to have million wishes and dreams for my engagement and wedding) was that the ring be from Tiffanys! Here’s a picture for you but it really needs to be seen in the flesh.
So if you’re still reading, I left off at the long weekend holiday? The weekend that followed was meant to be really quiet because of the wild holiday weekend but it ended up that a friend and I met for a quiet drink or two at 5:30 pm on a Friday evening at this delightful bar along my one-and-only-close-to-my-heart Yarra river… by 8:00 pm, we had grown to 12 people and maybe 5 rounds down. And of course, that’s when we should’ve stopped and just GONE HOME. But of course we didn’t and of course we partied on and eventually I think we got home at 3:00 am. This is the trouble with Fridays – you always start off so early because it’s straight after work and sometimes it gets out of freaking control. It was an awesome night though – lots of laughs and tram and China Bar incidents! China Bar deserves a post of its own – it’s a mildly dodgy Chinese fast food place that doesn’t have a liquor licence but serves you Victoria Bitter beer anyway and I’m not a fan of Asian food but I don’t mind going to China Bar once in a while and eating the roti channai, which is like roti and chicken curry but I really couldn’t handle the place in my soberness and so most times we go there when we’re smashed and do crazy things like sing the Indian National Anthem. The rest of the weekend should’ve been quiet, but again, it wasn’t! I think I ate off our friend’s bbq for all meals beginning on Sat afternoon until Sun evening because Sat night he brought it over to our place and I actually spent a pleasant quiet evening by myself watching a Poirot whodunit on TV and then Sun afternoon, we had a tiny bbq partaay to watch the Australian Grand Prix on TV. The race was great, except for Ferrari winning of course. But how awesome is that young little Lewis Hamilton??!! So sweetly and talentedly he’s made it to the podium also every race since.
Then there was a week of work as usual but I do believe a few of us went out to dinner to a fancy schmancy Sri Lankan place that Thursday night and I finished almost an entire bottle of wine so was decidedly seedy the next morning at work. I was meant to go lawn bowling that evening with work but decided to give it a miss and went home to rest and I think slept for 12 hours+ that night. The next day I woke up well refreshed to find out India was pretty much out of the World Cup… Mr. Moonlight had stayed up most of the night to watch the match so was decidedly seedy that day and I convinced him to have an afternoon nap since we were going out that evening although at the time I was clueless about the things in store for me later that night. So then I did many household chores being in a domestic mood and expecting houseguests on the Monday and so forgot to wake him up and he was fully panicked about being late to this thing we were going to which was apparently some work friend of his party type thing. I of course never panic because I am never on time to anything ever! So I was done with my shower and hanging out in the bedroom and cutting my nails I think when I hear him on the phone outside trying to make a dinner reservation??!! So when he comes in I’m like, what’s the deal with the dinner reservation, I thought we were going to a party and he’s all, oh what are you talking about… very lame attempt at covering. But so anyway, I sorta fully guessed then that he was going to propose to me that night because well, I don’t know, I just knew. And then we sat in the car and he played a CD he’d burnt that day and the first song was Penny Lane and that was sooo funny and sweet and typical of him and just confirmed it. The rest of the songs were all the other songs we’ve considered our own over the years… there was Sweet Child of Mine, Can’t Help Falling in Love, She, Annie’s Song, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Strangers in the Night, and then he drove us to this stretch of road along the Williamstown beach where the waves dash against the embankment and there’s a lighthouse and everything and then on the way he pretended he was making up this poem and would give me two new lines every two minutes but really he’d composed it earlier and had to improvise anyway since he forgot half of it and it was just really funny and sweet because by now I was fully certain of what was coming. The reason for the beach was because we first met at the beach all those years ago (7 years and some months to be precise) at that wonderful rendezvous of our youth, EC-41… Then once we’d parked he proposed and got out of the car and got down on his knees and put the ring on my finger! Ah, the ring… the most fabulous exciting bit to any engagement and mine is absofuckinglutely stunning… I love it… it’s a half carat diamond in a platinum setting and it’s from Tiffanys cos Audrey Hepburn style, I’m just craaaazay about Tiffanaaays! Tiffanys has a special significance in our relationship because right from the beginning we never had anything in common except partying and drinking and smoking, and then we had a fight in the early days and I think this song just happened to play and it made us smile so since then he only has to play this song when we’re fighting and it makes us laugh. So when we discussed getting married and stuff in recent years, my only wish (well, by only wish, I don’t really mean only wish – I’m a woman, I’m allowed to have million wishes and dreams for my engagement and wedding) was that the ring be from Tiffanys! Here’s a picture for you but it really needs to be seen in the flesh.
So there we were, engaged after all this time and it was a wonderful exciting feeling. We went to dinner and called all our friends in Melbourne and met a few of them after dinner and I finished a whole bottle of wine in excitement/celebration. The next morning we called up our families and spoke to a few friends in India and basked in the glow of moving on to the next step, scary as it may be. We also had shitloads of cleaning to do that day because the next day a friend from Brisbane and a few members of his family arrived in Melbourne to stay with us and there was barely any time to think for all the people around us and overseas phone calls to make and receive! That week was a total blur with friend getting wasted every night and me having to work so only got wasted one night mid-week. Laughed a lot that week but I think one of my favourite nights that week was just a random week night… I wasn’t drinking, friend was already down something like 6 beers, haha, we went to dinner and it was pouring that night and freezing cold but still lovely because it was raining because as you may or may not know, I love a rainy night. Then we took a drive and picked up a couple of other friends and there were 5 of us in this car on this rainy night with nowhere to go but aimlessly drive and it was just a total Madras flashback! So we ended up in some random outer suburb and parked in some random shopping centre parking lot to have a smoke and a spliff in the freezing cold (cos we do not smoke in the car, some things have changed from when we were juvenile, mildly delinquent teenagers) and then drove back into the city :-) Was so simple and fun and non-alcoholic and reminiscent of MADras!
So that weekend was my “fiancé’s” pre-birthday bash… it was at the rooftop bar I mentioned a couple of posts ago and was another crazy, drunken night that ended at 4:00 in the morning. That Saturday night was someone else’s birthday party so couldn’t recover from hangover and went out that night too but didn’t drink on this occasion so got home fairly early. Sunday was a day of relative rest I think but don’t fully remember and then Monday night we had to stay up till midnight to bring in his birthday and give him presents although there was nothing major cos he only wanted cash and then the next day was a stressful day at work and that evening went to Guitarman’s house to celebrate Mr. Moonlight’s birthday and also Big City Dude’s birthday the day after so quiet bbq and drinks AND a boob cake :-) I will have to find and post the pictures of that cake… was unbelievably delicious even! The next day, had another stressful work day and hurriedly packed and flew to Fiji that night, but that’s a whole other tale!
So that weekend was my “fiancé’s” pre-birthday bash… it was at the rooftop bar I mentioned a couple of posts ago and was another crazy, drunken night that ended at 4:00 in the morning. That Saturday night was someone else’s birthday party so couldn’t recover from hangover and went out that night too but didn’t drink on this occasion so got home fairly early. Sunday was a day of relative rest I think but don’t fully remember and then Monday night we had to stay up till midnight to bring in his birthday and give him presents although there was nothing major cos he only wanted cash and then the next day was a stressful day at work and that evening went to Guitarman’s house to celebrate Mr. Moonlight’s birthday and also Big City Dude’s birthday the day after so quiet bbq and drinks AND a boob cake :-) I will have to find and post the pictures of that cake… was unbelievably delicious even! The next day, had another stressful work day and hurriedly packed and flew to Fiji that night, but that’s a whole other tale!
Friday, February 23, 2007
And time goes by so slowly… and time can do so much… I need your love!
I am so bored bored bored! This blog is also going to die on me but I’ve been feeling too bored to write even. I was so bored today I went and queued up for some time at this place called The Hub at my alma mater to try and get my long overdue Masters degree certificate even though I knew it wouldn’t be available at The Hub. The Hub was supposed to be this central hub of all student activity but I went there once to register, get my student card, one other time to get an extension for my student card and then maybe one or two other times to look at the bulletin board of stuff for sale… or maybe I did that in the same student card renewal time. I bought one item off that bulletin board – a chest of drawers advertised for $10 by someone named Eddie in Southbank. Oh boy, Eddie… he must’ve spent that $10 texting and calling me to coordinate picking it up and how to get to his house and what not… it was so funny… I’ll never forget Eddie… I had at least 20 messages from him on my phone and I didn’t even get to meet him cos I didn’t go on the actual pick up ride. And then Eddie threw in a computer table worth at least $40 for $5. I guess Eddie just wanted to feel good about making $15 even if he’d spent $10 of it already. I would’ve just thrown it all away. I believe I did throw the computer table away. The chest of drawers I still have but it’s hidden in a wardrobe and stores many papers and things.
But as always, I digress… what I meant to say was, walking through that university courtyard with all the cliques of kids hanging out and soaking in the sun made me feel incredibly wistful for student days long gone by. I wish someone would pay me what they pay me now to just go and attend class a couple of times a week and write a paper now and then… cos that was the only thing missing then… I was dirt poor… how I had to carefully budget things like meals out, haircuts, movies, clothes, and well I’m really fuzzy on the alcohol intake now… can’t remember how often I was able to do it but I’m fairly certain I wasn’t a poster child for teetotalism or anything. Ah, school, college and university… what a lazy race in the sun. But so on the one hand, I miss all of this and would love to go back to being 15, 16, 18, anything but mid-20’s if you like, but also realise it is quite impossible to ever go back. So then I think about the other side of the coin, right, getting older… and I think about this a lot because I have a lot of time to think on my 30 minute trek to work and back each day… man, it better be shaping my calf muscles and ass good cos it ain’t fun leaving work at 7 pm sometimes and having 30 long minutes in front of you before home even though home is barely 2 km away. But again, I digress… so yeah, getting older… you know how people do the whole moan and groan I am so old, I don’t want to celebrate my birthday business (and I have been one of those people on numerous occasions, except for the birthday celebration bit)… well I’m just not buying into it anymore and am consciously going to welcome each passing year until I reach oh, I don’t know, 37! Then I will return to moaning and groaning about how old I am getting particularly as I struggle to keep up with my rambunctious puppies and babies… note, how I say puppies before babies… I’m in no hurry to have a kid but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out against getting a puppy… so many obstacles such as time, space and money (to buy more space) stand in the way. Well that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
So as I was saying about my new aging process outlook… I just feel it’s a bit ridiculous to be calling myself old when I am always the youngest person in any meeting room and sometimes by at least 20 years and even with my current crew I am one of the younger ones at a sprightly 25. One of my favourite phrases for getting old is something like… well, I won’t be a spring chicken forever will I? Quite possibly not, but for here and now, I am most certainly a spring chicken and so proud to be one! Until I compare myself with my 8-years-younger-than-me sister and her peeps but I’m going to try not to dwell on that no more.
So that’s that. What else is happening? Nothing terribly exciting… I guess one of the reasons for why I am so bored bored bored… the weather has been too kind in the last couple of months and now a great foreboding has been instilled in my heart for the ferocity of the upcoming winter. Summer days went by too quickly and funly… But on the topic of seasons, Melbourne weather being as “dependable” as it is, apart from my love for the warmth of the sun and heat and humidity in the air, my favourite season really has to be Fall (or Autumn as it is more traditionally called but I really like calling it Fall better). Why, you ask? Purely because of the multitudes of brown leaves that fall from the trees and line the sidewalks in crisp earthy piles just inviting me to step on them and hear for myself that delicious crackling sound of my foot on a dry leaf. I don’t know what or why… it just makes me so happy and I make it a point to walk on as many leaves as I can… sigh… so great, I have that to look forward to. God, I am slowly going insane.
One other tiny point to make… people in Madras suck! I could be wasting away here of a depressive sadness and loneliness and they wouldn’t even know or care! How hard is it really to drop a 5 line email?! I understand now why both my aunts just went off to the US and never looked back except to their immediate family… can you imagine anyone ever keeping in touch via snail mail? I mean, it happened, and sometimes we did but so sporadically. And only in recent years they’ve gotten back in touch with a lot of people because of email. But what’s my generation’s excuse huh? Could it be any easier than email? Oh wait, yeah, instant messaging! So now there’s no going back to email since IM is no longer available. Shame on my so called friends… I am so pissed off and feeling so unloved from that quarter!
I think I am going to go home now and finish with this painfully boring week at work. Oh I didn’t write about the various concerts of 2007… there’ve been 2 already which is cool. I actually wrote an incredibly drunken 10 page thing about Roger Waters but didn’t end up posting it and I think I will soberly edit it and post it later. I am so glad Feb is such a short month… only 7 more months until September which is when the year generally becomes exciting again.
I have this version of Unchained Melody by U2 – it fucking rocks! Bono just sings I need your love very coolly. Why is he such a cool rocker for such an old one? What am I talking about… all the cool rockers I like are old. So I guess the question is why are there no cool young rockers?! I just remembered that Sista T and I sang this once at college... it was sooooo lame, unlike our I Will Survive of the previous year... Well, you can't win 'em all! But you can certainly try...
But as always, I digress… what I meant to say was, walking through that university courtyard with all the cliques of kids hanging out and soaking in the sun made me feel incredibly wistful for student days long gone by. I wish someone would pay me what they pay me now to just go and attend class a couple of times a week and write a paper now and then… cos that was the only thing missing then… I was dirt poor… how I had to carefully budget things like meals out, haircuts, movies, clothes, and well I’m really fuzzy on the alcohol intake now… can’t remember how often I was able to do it but I’m fairly certain I wasn’t a poster child for teetotalism or anything. Ah, school, college and university… what a lazy race in the sun. But so on the one hand, I miss all of this and would love to go back to being 15, 16, 18, anything but mid-20’s if you like, but also realise it is quite impossible to ever go back. So then I think about the other side of the coin, right, getting older… and I think about this a lot because I have a lot of time to think on my 30 minute trek to work and back each day… man, it better be shaping my calf muscles and ass good cos it ain’t fun leaving work at 7 pm sometimes and having 30 long minutes in front of you before home even though home is barely 2 km away. But again, I digress… so yeah, getting older… you know how people do the whole moan and groan I am so old, I don’t want to celebrate my birthday business (and I have been one of those people on numerous occasions, except for the birthday celebration bit)… well I’m just not buying into it anymore and am consciously going to welcome each passing year until I reach oh, I don’t know, 37! Then I will return to moaning and groaning about how old I am getting particularly as I struggle to keep up with my rambunctious puppies and babies… note, how I say puppies before babies… I’m in no hurry to have a kid but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out against getting a puppy… so many obstacles such as time, space and money (to buy more space) stand in the way. Well that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
So as I was saying about my new aging process outlook… I just feel it’s a bit ridiculous to be calling myself old when I am always the youngest person in any meeting room and sometimes by at least 20 years and even with my current crew I am one of the younger ones at a sprightly 25. One of my favourite phrases for getting old is something like… well, I won’t be a spring chicken forever will I? Quite possibly not, but for here and now, I am most certainly a spring chicken and so proud to be one! Until I compare myself with my 8-years-younger-than-me sister and her peeps but I’m going to try not to dwell on that no more.
So that’s that. What else is happening? Nothing terribly exciting… I guess one of the reasons for why I am so bored bored bored… the weather has been too kind in the last couple of months and now a great foreboding has been instilled in my heart for the ferocity of the upcoming winter. Summer days went by too quickly and funly… But on the topic of seasons, Melbourne weather being as “dependable” as it is, apart from my love for the warmth of the sun and heat and humidity in the air, my favourite season really has to be Fall (or Autumn as it is more traditionally called but I really like calling it Fall better). Why, you ask? Purely because of the multitudes of brown leaves that fall from the trees and line the sidewalks in crisp earthy piles just inviting me to step on them and hear for myself that delicious crackling sound of my foot on a dry leaf. I don’t know what or why… it just makes me so happy and I make it a point to walk on as many leaves as I can… sigh… so great, I have that to look forward to. God, I am slowly going insane.
One other tiny point to make… people in Madras suck! I could be wasting away here of a depressive sadness and loneliness and they wouldn’t even know or care! How hard is it really to drop a 5 line email?! I understand now why both my aunts just went off to the US and never looked back except to their immediate family… can you imagine anyone ever keeping in touch via snail mail? I mean, it happened, and sometimes we did but so sporadically. And only in recent years they’ve gotten back in touch with a lot of people because of email. But what’s my generation’s excuse huh? Could it be any easier than email? Oh wait, yeah, instant messaging! So now there’s no going back to email since IM is no longer available. Shame on my so called friends… I am so pissed off and feeling so unloved from that quarter!
I think I am going to go home now and finish with this painfully boring week at work. Oh I didn’t write about the various concerts of 2007… there’ve been 2 already which is cool. I actually wrote an incredibly drunken 10 page thing about Roger Waters but didn’t end up posting it and I think I will soberly edit it and post it later. I am so glad Feb is such a short month… only 7 more months until September which is when the year generally becomes exciting again.
I have this version of Unchained Melody by U2 – it fucking rocks! Bono just sings I need your love very coolly. Why is he such a cool rocker for such an old one? What am I talking about… all the cool rockers I like are old. So I guess the question is why are there no cool young rockers?! I just remembered that Sista T and I sang this once at college... it was sooooo lame, unlike our I Will Survive of the previous year... Well, you can't win 'em all! But you can certainly try...
Sunday, January 07, 2007
I don't quite know, how to say, how I feel
We'll do it all
Everything
On our own
We don't need
Anything
Or anyone
Those three words
I've said too much
But not enough
Oh my god, this is one of them songs… I haven’t had one of these songs for a while… you know, one of them songs you listen to over and over one night… I don’t know man, I have these songs once ever so often and then for a long time, I completely lose interest pretty much in music all together and suddenly that song comes along that brings it all back… So tonight is one of them nights, and this is one of them songs. It’s called Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol and I’ve heard it on tv/radio/in the stores for the last I don’t know how many months but never had it but tonight I’m just like, I have to have it and so I downloaded it and right now its on iTunes repeat and I guess it will be on repeat until I finish this post… and I imagine that’s gonna take a while. Unfortunately this is the same song that was the finale for Grey’s freaking Anatomy this year in Oz (oh, sorry, 2006, last year it seems) but I hate the freaking show so it hurts that I like the song so much but it’s ok, I’ll adjust for tonight…
Oh right, so first off, Happy Birthday dear friend Rael… we missed you over Christmas and New Years and I guess it’s going to be a while before you’re back again after your jettsetting global adventures… So anyway, I’m just back after many drinks at his birthday party and I thought now is a good time as any to update blog… haha, it’s taking twice as long to spell right, but anyhow…
Where the hell do I begin??? I guess I could begin with the first couple of nights that they got into town (they being Rita and Phil aka auntie and uncle but never wanting to be introduced as such)… oh man, it was the most awesome time ever… they’re the coolest people I know… on par with my baby sister and my baby cousins… and none of them are babies no more… oh god, I miss my family!!! It just went by so quick…
Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads
I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
So anyhow, there was Christmas prep with the tree and presents and shit and then there was Christmas Eve where I forced everyone to stay up pretty much and so we tried to go to Crown Casino and stuff and the whole world tried to convince me not to go to Midnight Mass, but I went anyway, by myself, I might add… It was good though, I sang carols soulfully and missed my parents and sister like no tomorrow and then the next day my mom refuses to even believe I went to Church… geez, I’m a devil, but not that much of a devil that I’d lie about going to Christmas Mass… But anyway, I got home and we all wished each other and then exchanged the few hundred presents we had for each other and it was so good. I got so many cool clothes… I’ve pretty much worn all of them this whole little holiday of mine… Christmas is awesome!!!
Christmas Day was insane in its own little way… I’d had about 4 hours of sleep and then we went to this lunch where everyone was gathering at and oh my god, I drank like 3 drinks of Old Monk which was on offer and then it finished so I went back to Bacardi but basically we were all there from 1 pm until about 7 pm and who even knows what happened in between… This sweetheart was one of the highlights of my Christmas… no other dogs in my life at this point… there’s Rusty of course, but he’s so freaking far away!!!! Don’t worry though Holly, I still think of you evey fucking day… why? Why? Why were you taken away from me?
I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things
Will never change for us at all
Then I had about one good night’s sleep after 5 days and Boxing Day I conscioulsy said I would not even take a sip of alcohol and I didn’t and that night we flew to Cairns and got to Port Douglas really late but it was sooooo good to be back in tropical climates… guess what, so called summer in Melbourne, it freaking hailed on Christmas Day… too depressing! The only thing I don’t miss about tropical climates is freaking lizards… gross as “pallis”… gross man, they creep the shit out of me… But anyway, we chilled on the beach, we ate some awesome meals and then we went on a tour to one of the outer reef areas… I tried scuba diving and unfortunately for me it didn’t go so well :-( The water just went fully into my nose everytime I tried so I didn’t do it eventually and went snorkelling instead and went on some strange ocean walk where they put this space type helmet on my head and I walked about 6 metres down the ocean floor and it was just quite mad… it was stupid man, I was just like, what the fuck is this shit… but I got to touch some fish… haha, don’t know if I ever wanted to touch fish… anyhow, the Great Barrier Reef is awesome… and the warm water is unbelievable… the last day we went on some Rainforest tour and went on a cable car ride a couple of thousand metres high and it was pretty fucking scary! And then we took some scenic railway and I think I saw some Aboriginals in Australia after 4.5 years finally! The trip was soooo good… I’m sooo going back and I’m so getting certified to go diving so I’ll have more time to get used to the breathing underwater crap!
Then we got back to Melbourne and had a whole other kind of trip… haha, I so don’t want to talk about it… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… there are some trips better left unsaid!!! All I am willing to say is how much sense Penny Lane by the Beatles makes now!!! And I am sooo Penny Lane!!!
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Then there was New Years Eve… I suppose it could be considered rather tame compared to various other years… but it was great… all our near and dear ones in this city were around us! I had a great time… one of the best moments was talking to baby sister dear when we were almost going to bed at 5:30 am and it was just her midnight then. Man, I don’t know how she’s going to grow up without me around… I don’t know if I’m a positive influence, but I’m certainly her older fucking sister and that has to count for something… well, I’m not around either way, so I just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best!
And then there was New Years Day where I walked around in a daze and we went to Mexican Margarita dinner and then we went to a drive in movie and I freaking slept and I don’t think I’ve ever slept at a movie before, drive in or otherwise, so believe me when I say I was fucking done to have done that! And then there was their last day where we went to the wildlife sanctuary and I finally got to see a freaking kangaroo after 4.5 years… I don’t quite know how to say how much it meant to be able to finally see one… and they are so freaking adorable!! And then we got fucking wasted that night and then they left :-(…
All that I am
All that I ever was
It’s here in your perfect eyes
They're all I can see
I so don’t enjoy being at work right now :-( Life sucks when you nothing and no one to look forward to!!
Man, it’s 2007… we can’t even pretend to be little kids anymore even though that’s all I’ll ever be at heart… what’s up with this shit that we have to pretend to be responsible adults… and I don’t even mind being a responsible adult… but, it just sucks when your age and the year kinda dictates that you have to be one… 18 til I die baby…
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
This song makes me so sad though… I don’t quite know why… it just reminds me of a time when it wasn’t like this… of course, at the time, I wasn’t satisfied at all… all I wanted was to get away… I guess, just forget the world… but it was that same time that so many amazing things happened… I remember some days, I’m not sure what we did but I know we laughed a lot and the hours just went by so quick and we thought it was never ever going to get any better and maybe it hasn’t… and I remember some nights, the first few times we went out, we went to dinner each time and then we’d buy a quart of Old Monk rum each and get fucking wasted on that one little quart… and then we’d pick up some friends who’d we give some more quarts to, haha, and then we’d go to EC-41 and we’d both get in for free because we were cool that way… that’s a whole other story, how I got a lifetime free membership to EC-41… it’s a brilliant story, but not tonight… so then we’d be in EC-41 and most nights most everyone else was there… but there were some nights that it was pouring down rain and hardly anyone’d be there… but we were there… and we’d dance and we’d sing and we’d drink and we’d smoke and we’d laugh our asses off… so it isn’t as easy as that anymore… nobody does the same shit anymore… there isn’t the one place to go to anymore, the one place that is guaranteed to get you into a good time…
Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me your garden that's bursting into life
I don’t know what’s going to become of us… I mean, at one point in your life you’re so used to having a certain group of people around all the time and then one day that just doesn’t happen no more and maybe you get a different group of people and that’s also just wonderful but what about that first group of people? How do you get them back into the groove? Because you miss them and love them like you did when you were 18-20??!! But perhaps they don’t remember it like you do, and it’s as stupid as chasing cars to them to even imagine that it could ever happen again! I’ve been having these dreams these last couple of weeks, all filled with old times and old people… such good times… and this is at a time in my life where I’m completely enjoying my current life (apart from work of course)! I don’t know, I wake up highly disturbed because I feel like something’s gone terrribly wrong in my hometown and there’s nothing I can do to make it ok. I swear, it feel so real I honestly wonder what happened that I should dream of all of them so vividly… these kinda dreams haven’t happened since the first time I left India all those years ago.
I guess right now I’m sorta just hoping for good things whenever it is I get to go back again… I mean it’s always good, everytime I go back, but sometimes it just fucking kills you… I mean, it can only kill you when you’ve been away… but it fucking kills you anyway… but I love them all… and I miss them all… and that’s my utopian dream… that they could all be here with me…
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
I don’t quite know how to say how I feel… I’m still listening to the stupid song and it’s daylight now so that’s freaking great… I guess I will try to just not sleep until later tonight I think cos I gotta go to work early tomorrow morning anyway… But so, I was just flipping through the few hundred photos from the last 10 days and it just has to make you smile doesn’t it… the way people look in them… so happy… maybe they were drunk at the time, and sometimes they weren’t, believe it or not… but we all look so freaking happy… and a lot of the New Years Eve ones, we’re just kinda sticking our hands up in the air with the Christmas tree in the background and lots of crazy light effects happening because the fancy ass camera wasn’t on auto focus and it’s just funny… it’s just a perfect reflection of how people feel/felt/will feel… I hope it’s a good year… for everyone I know and love… something tells me it has the potential to be… the year a lot of things change for a lot of people in a good way… we’re getting old man, and there’s no denying that! I’m no longer early 20’s, I’m mid-20’s, my boyfriend will be “late” 20’s after his birthday this year, poor guy… but it’s ok… I think we’re entering a completely new exciting phase of all our lives… Happy 2007!!!
I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel
Everything
On our own
We don't need
Anything
Or anyone
Those three words
I've said too much
But not enough
Oh my god, this is one of them songs… I haven’t had one of these songs for a while… you know, one of them songs you listen to over and over one night… I don’t know man, I have these songs once ever so often and then for a long time, I completely lose interest pretty much in music all together and suddenly that song comes along that brings it all back… So tonight is one of them nights, and this is one of them songs. It’s called Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol and I’ve heard it on tv/radio/in the stores for the last I don’t know how many months but never had it but tonight I’m just like, I have to have it and so I downloaded it and right now its on iTunes repeat and I guess it will be on repeat until I finish this post… and I imagine that’s gonna take a while. Unfortunately this is the same song that was the finale for Grey’s freaking Anatomy this year in Oz (oh, sorry, 2006, last year it seems) but I hate the freaking show so it hurts that I like the song so much but it’s ok, I’ll adjust for tonight…Oh right, so first off, Happy Birthday dear friend Rael… we missed you over Christmas and New Years and I guess it’s going to be a while before you’re back again after your jettsetting global adventures… So anyway, I’m just back after many drinks at his birthday party and I thought now is a good time as any to update blog… haha, it’s taking twice as long to spell right, but anyhow…
Where the hell do I begin??? I guess I could begin with the first couple of nights that they got into town (they being Rita and Phil aka auntie and uncle but never wanting to be introduced as such)… oh man, it was the most awesome time ever… they’re the coolest people I know… on par with my baby sister and my baby cousins… and none of them are babies no more… oh god, I miss my family!!! It just went by so quick…
Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads
I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
So anyhow, there was Christmas prep with the tree and presents and shit and then there was Christmas Eve where I forced everyone to stay up pretty much and so we tried to go to Crown Casino and stuff and the whole world tried to convince me not to go to Midnight Mass, but I went anyway, by myself, I might add… It was good though, I sang carols soulfully and missed my parents and sister like no tomorrow and then the next day my mom refuses to even believe I went to Church… geez, I’m a devil, but not that much of a devil that I’d lie about going to Christmas Mass… But anyway, I got home and we all wished each other and then exchanged the few hundred presents we had for each other and it was so good. I got so many cool clothes… I’ve pretty much worn all of them this whole little holiday of mine… Christmas is awesome!!!
Christmas Day was insane in its own little way… I’d had about 4 hours of sleep and then we went to this lunch where everyone was gathering at and oh my god, I drank like 3 drinks of Old Monk which was on offer and then it finished so I went back to Bacardi but basically we were all there from 1 pm until about 7 pm and who even knows what happened in between… This sweetheart was one of the highlights of my Christmas… no other dogs in my life at this point… there’s Rusty of course, but he’s so freaking far away!!!! Don’t worry though Holly, I still think of you evey fucking day… why? Why? Why were you taken away from me?I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things
Will never change for us at all
Then I had about one good night’s sleep after 5 days and Boxing Day I conscioulsy said I would not even take a sip of alcohol and I didn’t and that night we flew to Cairns and got to Port Douglas really late but it was sooooo good to be back in tropical climates… guess what, so called summer in Melbourne, it freaking hailed on Christmas Day… too depressing! The only thing I don’t miss about tropical climates is freaking lizards… gross as “pallis”… gross man, they creep the shit out of me… But anyway, we chilled on the beach, we ate some awesome meals and then we went on a tour to one of the outer reef areas… I tried scuba diving and unfortunately for me it didn’t go so well :-( The water just went fully into my nose everytime I tried so I didn’t do it eventually and went snorkelling instead and went on some strange ocean walk where they put this space type helmet on my head and I walked about 6 metres down the ocean floor and it was just quite mad… it was stupid man, I was just like, what the fuck is this shit… but I got to touch some fish… haha, don’t know if I ever wanted to touch fish… anyhow, the Great Barrier Reef is awesome… and the warm water is unbelievable… the last day we went on some Rainforest tour and went on a cable car ride a couple of thousand metres high and it was pretty fucking scary! And then we took some scenic railway and I think I saw some Aboriginals in Australia after 4.5 years finally! The trip was soooo good… I’m sooo going back and I’m so getting certified to go diving so I’ll have more time to get used to the breathing underwater crap!
Then we got back to Melbourne and had a whole other kind of trip… haha, I so don’t want to talk about it… I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… there are some trips better left unsaid!!! All I am willing to say is how much sense Penny Lane by the Beatles makes now!!! And I am sooo Penny Lane!!!
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Then there was New Years Eve… I suppose it could be considered rather tame compared to various other years… but it was great… all our near and dear ones in this city were around us! I had a great time… one of the best moments was talking to baby sister dear when we were almost going to bed at 5:30 am and it was just her midnight then. Man, I don’t know how she’s going to grow up without me around… I don’t know if I’m a positive influence, but I’m certainly her older fucking sister and that has to count for something… well, I’m not around either way, so I just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best!And then there was New Years Day where I walked around in a daze and we went to Mexican Margarita dinner and then we went to a drive in movie and I freaking slept and I don’t think I’ve ever slept at a movie before, drive in or otherwise, so believe me when I say I was fucking done to have done that! And then there was their last day where we went to the wildlife sanctuary and I finally got to see a freaking kangaroo after 4.5 years… I don’t quite know how to say how much it meant to be able to finally see one… and they are so freaking adorable!! And then we got fucking wasted that night and then they left :-(…
All that I am
All that I ever was
It’s here in your perfect eyes
They're all I can see
I so don’t enjoy being at work right now :-( Life sucks when you nothing and no one to look forward to!!
Man, it’s 2007… we can’t even pretend to be little kids anymore even though that’s all I’ll ever be at heart… what’s up with this shit that we have to pretend to be responsible adults… and I don’t even mind being a responsible adult… but, it just sucks when your age and the year kinda dictates that you have to be one… 18 til I die baby…
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
This song makes me so sad though… I don’t quite know why… it just reminds me of a time when it wasn’t like this… of course, at the time, I wasn’t satisfied at all… all I wanted was to get away… I guess, just forget the world… but it was that same time that so many amazing things happened… I remember some days, I’m not sure what we did but I know we laughed a lot and the hours just went by so quick and we thought it was never ever going to get any better and maybe it hasn’t… and I remember some nights, the first few times we went out, we went to dinner each time and then we’d buy a quart of Old Monk rum each and get fucking wasted on that one little quart… and then we’d pick up some friends who’d we give some more quarts to, haha, and then we’d go to EC-41 and we’d both get in for free because we were cool that way… that’s a whole other story, how I got a lifetime free membership to EC-41… it’s a brilliant story, but not tonight… so then we’d be in EC-41 and most nights most everyone else was there… but there were some nights that it was pouring down rain and hardly anyone’d be there… but we were there… and we’d dance and we’d sing and we’d drink and we’d smoke and we’d laugh our asses off… so it isn’t as easy as that anymore… nobody does the same shit anymore… there isn’t the one place to go to anymore, the one place that is guaranteed to get you into a good time…
Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me your garden that's bursting into life
I don’t know what’s going to become of us… I mean, at one point in your life you’re so used to having a certain group of people around all the time and then one day that just doesn’t happen no more and maybe you get a different group of people and that’s also just wonderful but what about that first group of people? How do you get them back into the groove? Because you miss them and love them like you did when you were 18-20??!! But perhaps they don’t remember it like you do, and it’s as stupid as chasing cars to them to even imagine that it could ever happen again! I’ve been having these dreams these last couple of weeks, all filled with old times and old people… such good times… and this is at a time in my life where I’m completely enjoying my current life (apart from work of course)! I don’t know, I wake up highly disturbed because I feel like something’s gone terrribly wrong in my hometown and there’s nothing I can do to make it ok. I swear, it feel so real I honestly wonder what happened that I should dream of all of them so vividly… these kinda dreams haven’t happened since the first time I left India all those years ago.
I guess right now I’m sorta just hoping for good things whenever it is I get to go back again… I mean it’s always good, everytime I go back, but sometimes it just fucking kills you… I mean, it can only kill you when you’ve been away… but it fucking kills you anyway… but I love them all… and I miss them all… and that’s my utopian dream… that they could all be here with me…
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
I don’t quite know how to say how I feel… I’m still listening to the stupid song and it’s daylight now so that’s freaking great… I guess I will try to just not sleep until later tonight I think cos I gotta go to work early tomorrow morning anyway… But so, I was just flipping through the few hundred photos from the last 10 days and it just has to make you smile doesn’t it… the way people look in them… so happy… maybe they were drunk at the time, and sometimes they weren’t, believe it or not… but we all look so freaking happy… and a lot of the New Years Eve ones, we’re just kinda sticking our hands up in the air with the Christmas tree in the background and lots of crazy light effects happening because the fancy ass camera wasn’t on auto focus and it’s just funny… it’s just a perfect reflection of how people feel/felt/will feel… I hope it’s a good year… for everyone I know and love… something tells me it has the potential to be… the year a lot of things change for a lot of people in a good way… we’re getting old man, and there’s no denying that! I’m no longer early 20’s, I’m mid-20’s, my boyfriend will be “late” 20’s after his birthday this year, poor guy… but it’s ok… I think we’re entering a completely new exciting phase of all our lives… Happy 2007!!!
I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel
Monday, November 13, 2006
A song for no one's in my hand A song they'll never understand Till I have gone And tomorrow brings the sun
From night skies dressed in clouds
Morning came, your taste in my mouth
I like the way that your hair falls down in your eyes
And you blush when you smile
When sleep combs your side then far away flies
I love the way that you stare when the sleep fills your eyes
So yesterday has gone
Who knows, tomorrow may bring all we'll desire
Tomorrow brings the sun
Kiss the world with fingers crossed
I've kissed the world with fingers crossed
I've been praised
I've been cursed
I've been blamed
And I've won
And I've lost
On waves that fill your heart
The future glides
I hope the serpents in the tide
Are all gone
What's done is done
A song for no one's in my hand
A song they'll never understand
Til I have gone
And tomorrow brings the sun
I’ve had this list of songs my whole life (well, it keeps getting added to) that I’ve always fantasised my loved one would serenade me with. Well, if not serenade per se, think of me whenever it plays and dedicate to me by explaining why it reminds him of me. I would feel strange to publish this list to him (cos that would be crass) because it happens that I listen to a song and think he should somehow read my mind and know too that that song was written for me and tell me so… . The list is long and varied… most of them are vague like this one… a song for no one… and then are the ones about women and relationships like Woman by John Lennon and She by Elvis Costello and then there’s Always A Woman by Billy Joel. I remember we were listening to it on shared earphones on our way to work one morning when we still had to travel 45 mins by tram and I explained how I wanted him to sing it to me because couldn’t he see, it was completely about me (it’s ok to be crass once in a while). So he said, not to worry, Billy Joel himself would sing it for me. This is true. I watched Billy Joel live in concert on Friday night. I’d like to tell you about my terribly exciting gig calendar but I am strangely not in a mood to crow about my love for U2 (although, believe me, I do love them)… I’m in a very vague mood… this could be because I’m finally moving on to bigger and better things. The risk with bigger and better things though is you just never know how really bigger and better they can be. And sometimes they’re neither.
Wow, Shakin’ Stevens and Give Me Your Heart Tonight just started playing. That’s another one. And I Love You by Saigon Kick. And The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra. And then there’s that other completely random Jesus of Suburbia by Green Day. You know, I was thinking about the bands I still have to watch live and I’m only missing Paul McCartney, R.E.M. and I realised that I would very much love to watch Green Day. And my aunt and uncle insist Beck is a must see but I don’t think I’ve heard any of their music in ages. Not that any of these people are coming over but they might. Modest Mouse who I really really liked for a while is playing on Dec 29 but I won’t be in Melbourne. The Killers wouldn’t be bad either.
Alright then… since I started talking about music I might as well talk about the concerts I’m going to watch/have watched in these two weeks… Billy Joel last Friday night, Pearl Jam this Thursday night and the grandest finale of them all, U2, baby this Saturday night. Oh, and I might as well throw in Roger Waters on Feb 1, 2007. Of these, I am more excited by U2 than I thought possible because I hadn’t even listened to my How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb LP that I received as a going away present from work in MARCH until one drunken Thursday night two weeks ago. And on that same night, I listened to the whole album once and then I listened to City of Blinding Lights for three hours perhaps… and believe you me, with an LP this is no easy task… one has to manually go over and position the needle every fucking time! But so seriously, until last Thursday all I wanted to watch U2 for was One and possibly With Or Without You and all the other randoms like Streets Have No Name and Sunday Bloody Sunday and everything but I really only cared about One. This is of course until I heard City of Blinding Lights and I will throw a severe tantrum and go into a dark depression if I do not hear them play this live after all that. I mean, them playing One is a given… it’s going to be a total final encore type song with the lighters in the air and everything. So yeah, we’ll see… either way, it’s going to be an awesome week.
Actually, it’s been pretty good for the last two weeks too. I heard some great news the previous Thursday and in preparation/anticipation/celebration had many drinks on Wednesday and Thursday night (the same U2 marathon Thursday). Then I took an extended break from work from Friday until Tuesday and luxuriated on the couch on Friday and accessory shopped for the house on Saturday and Sunday and did many household things on Monday and then Monday night arrived. Two legendary progressive DJs named Sasha & Digweed graced these shores… in fact, they graced the club right outside my house which was just an added bonus… I went for Sasha last year but apparently Sasha & Digweed together is an unbeatable combination and so went fully prepared for the time of my life and I have to say, I think I had it. I think there are some experiences better left unsaid because it is impossible to try and express with words how one really feels. I have had many such moments where there is always an overwhelming factor like the music or the lights or the people or the emotion and with one big whammy, I’m left speechless and either want to laugh or cry and sometimes do both. That Goa one on New Years Day 2002 and Roger Waters singing Comfortably Numb in Bangalore and some rainy and non-rainy moments heavily intoxicated and dancing under the moonlight with Mr. Moonlight and Mark Knopler playing Brothers in Arms in Melbourne and well, you get the idea…
Billy Joel was great. I never even fully appreciated how freaking brilliant he is on the piano. And when he sang Uptown Girl, I was so very very happy :-) That song, goes back so many fucking years, it's crazy. Of course the second encore finale was Piano Man and I have it entirely recorded on video on my phone… only, my voice singing along is seemingly louder than his… haha…
So, the days are blurring from one to the next as I wake up late and choose whether or not to come into the office… most mornings in the last two weeks, my head has had a light drum and bass band playing a welcome for the first two hours of the day and my throat has cried out in pain until I satisfied its demands for the elixir of life… The nights have been flying by with the aid of all manner of intoxicants and then there has been U2 and Pink Floyd at the crack of dawn.
Funny thing about U2… I've been an unconscious fan my whole life… When I listen to their Best of 1980 to 1990 CD, I can't help but associate memories with the entire CD… cos it would play in my car, over and over and over… as I drove through the hot, humid, dusty, streets… to college, to entertainment, to shop… the scorching sunlight abated somewhat by the air conditioning and the sunglasses…
Sometimes, as I drove home at evening or night, still humid and dusty but allowing a faintly cool breeze to come in by rolling the windows down a crack, belting out… walk on by, walk on through, walk till you run and don’t look back, for here I am… and at a lot of these times, I was hurrying home because I had the munchies and needed a food fix ASAP and all the frying smells in the air on the way home would drive me insane cos have you noticed that Madras (and quite possibly, India) smells of food everywhere you go… sure, there’s pollution and cow dung but heading home on the main streets, passing by the tea kadais and the street vendors, its impossible for that smell of something deep frying in oil to not come wafting across the cars and pedestrians and cows and noise…
And then a lot of the times, as I sat there stuck in traffic, outside the back entrance of my alma mater Good Shepherd and inching forwards towards Sangeetha’s and I’d be singing out loud as I tend to do in the car and people around me would sometimes give me amused glances and sometimes I’d be amused too and smile back but mostly I just tuned out and lost myself completely in whatever was playing… and then before I’d know it, I’d be over the Chetpet bridge and into the relatively sweet release of Poonamallee High Road… once I got to Annanagar, I always had this thing about the home stretch… it was my own special route from just before the infamous Annanagar Roundturner (which is pronounced by all and sundry as “roundtana”) to home a couple of blocks away… it was a major timesaving escape from the traffic at the Roundturner and it was down some peaceful streets with lots of trees and beautiful houses… and then this time I visited, they had concreted the main road so you couldn’t turn into the street anymore… the home stretch has never felt the same since.
So U2 were there and you were there too, and us, and them, and now U2 will be here again this weekend and I’m gearing up to bawl my eyes out because the beauty of it all will just kill me. And no one has put it better than I believe the Grateful Dead when they said…
What a long strange trip it’s been!
Morning came, your taste in my mouth
I like the way that your hair falls down in your eyes
And you blush when you smile
When sleep combs your side then far away flies
I love the way that you stare when the sleep fills your eyes
So yesterday has gone
Who knows, tomorrow may bring all we'll desire
Tomorrow brings the sun
Kiss the world with fingers crossed
I've kissed the world with fingers crossed
I've been praised
I've been cursed
I've been blamed
And I've won
And I've lost
On waves that fill your heart
The future glides
I hope the serpents in the tide
Are all gone
What's done is done
A song for no one's in my hand
A song they'll never understand
Til I have gone
And tomorrow brings the sun
I’ve had this list of songs my whole life (well, it keeps getting added to) that I’ve always fantasised my loved one would serenade me with. Well, if not serenade per se, think of me whenever it plays and dedicate to me by explaining why it reminds him of me. I would feel strange to publish this list to him (cos that would be crass) because it happens that I listen to a song and think he should somehow read my mind and know too that that song was written for me and tell me so… . The list is long and varied… most of them are vague like this one… a song for no one… and then are the ones about women and relationships like Woman by John Lennon and She by Elvis Costello and then there’s Always A Woman by Billy Joel. I remember we were listening to it on shared earphones on our way to work one morning when we still had to travel 45 mins by tram and I explained how I wanted him to sing it to me because couldn’t he see, it was completely about me (it’s ok to be crass once in a while). So he said, not to worry, Billy Joel himself would sing it for me. This is true. I watched Billy Joel live in concert on Friday night. I’d like to tell you about my terribly exciting gig calendar but I am strangely not in a mood to crow about my love for U2 (although, believe me, I do love them)… I’m in a very vague mood… this could be because I’m finally moving on to bigger and better things. The risk with bigger and better things though is you just never know how really bigger and better they can be. And sometimes they’re neither.
Wow, Shakin’ Stevens and Give Me Your Heart Tonight just started playing. That’s another one. And I Love You by Saigon Kick. And The Way You Look Tonight by Frank Sinatra. And then there’s that other completely random Jesus of Suburbia by Green Day. You know, I was thinking about the bands I still have to watch live and I’m only missing Paul McCartney, R.E.M. and I realised that I would very much love to watch Green Day. And my aunt and uncle insist Beck is a must see but I don’t think I’ve heard any of their music in ages. Not that any of these people are coming over but they might. Modest Mouse who I really really liked for a while is playing on Dec 29 but I won’t be in Melbourne. The Killers wouldn’t be bad either.
Alright then… since I started talking about music I might as well talk about the concerts I’m going to watch/have watched in these two weeks… Billy Joel last Friday night, Pearl Jam this Thursday night and the grandest finale of them all, U2, baby this Saturday night. Oh, and I might as well throw in Roger Waters on Feb 1, 2007. Of these, I am more excited by U2 than I thought possible because I hadn’t even listened to my How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb LP that I received as a going away present from work in MARCH until one drunken Thursday night two weeks ago. And on that same night, I listened to the whole album once and then I listened to City of Blinding Lights for three hours perhaps… and believe you me, with an LP this is no easy task… one has to manually go over and position the needle every fucking time! But so seriously, until last Thursday all I wanted to watch U2 for was One and possibly With Or Without You and all the other randoms like Streets Have No Name and Sunday Bloody Sunday and everything but I really only cared about One. This is of course until I heard City of Blinding Lights and I will throw a severe tantrum and go into a dark depression if I do not hear them play this live after all that. I mean, them playing One is a given… it’s going to be a total final encore type song with the lighters in the air and everything. So yeah, we’ll see… either way, it’s going to be an awesome week.
Actually, it’s been pretty good for the last two weeks too. I heard some great news the previous Thursday and in preparation/anticipation/celebration had many drinks on Wednesday and Thursday night (the same U2 marathon Thursday). Then I took an extended break from work from Friday until Tuesday and luxuriated on the couch on Friday and accessory shopped for the house on Saturday and Sunday and did many household things on Monday and then Monday night arrived. Two legendary progressive DJs named Sasha & Digweed graced these shores… in fact, they graced the club right outside my house which was just an added bonus… I went for Sasha last year but apparently Sasha & Digweed together is an unbeatable combination and so went fully prepared for the time of my life and I have to say, I think I had it. I think there are some experiences better left unsaid because it is impossible to try and express with words how one really feels. I have had many such moments where there is always an overwhelming factor like the music or the lights or the people or the emotion and with one big whammy, I’m left speechless and either want to laugh or cry and sometimes do both. That Goa one on New Years Day 2002 and Roger Waters singing Comfortably Numb in Bangalore and some rainy and non-rainy moments heavily intoxicated and dancing under the moonlight with Mr. Moonlight and Mark Knopler playing Brothers in Arms in Melbourne and well, you get the idea…
Billy Joel was great. I never even fully appreciated how freaking brilliant he is on the piano. And when he sang Uptown Girl, I was so very very happy :-) That song, goes back so many fucking years, it's crazy. Of course the second encore finale was Piano Man and I have it entirely recorded on video on my phone… only, my voice singing along is seemingly louder than his… haha…
So, the days are blurring from one to the next as I wake up late and choose whether or not to come into the office… most mornings in the last two weeks, my head has had a light drum and bass band playing a welcome for the first two hours of the day and my throat has cried out in pain until I satisfied its demands for the elixir of life… The nights have been flying by with the aid of all manner of intoxicants and then there has been U2 and Pink Floyd at the crack of dawn.
Funny thing about U2… I've been an unconscious fan my whole life… When I listen to their Best of 1980 to 1990 CD, I can't help but associate memories with the entire CD… cos it would play in my car, over and over and over… as I drove through the hot, humid, dusty, streets… to college, to entertainment, to shop… the scorching sunlight abated somewhat by the air conditioning and the sunglasses…
Sometimes, as I drove home at evening or night, still humid and dusty but allowing a faintly cool breeze to come in by rolling the windows down a crack, belting out… walk on by, walk on through, walk till you run and don’t look back, for here I am… and at a lot of these times, I was hurrying home because I had the munchies and needed a food fix ASAP and all the frying smells in the air on the way home would drive me insane cos have you noticed that Madras (and quite possibly, India) smells of food everywhere you go… sure, there’s pollution and cow dung but heading home on the main streets, passing by the tea kadais and the street vendors, its impossible for that smell of something deep frying in oil to not come wafting across the cars and pedestrians and cows and noise…
And then a lot of the times, as I sat there stuck in traffic, outside the back entrance of my alma mater Good Shepherd and inching forwards towards Sangeetha’s and I’d be singing out loud as I tend to do in the car and people around me would sometimes give me amused glances and sometimes I’d be amused too and smile back but mostly I just tuned out and lost myself completely in whatever was playing… and then before I’d know it, I’d be over the Chetpet bridge and into the relatively sweet release of Poonamallee High Road… once I got to Annanagar, I always had this thing about the home stretch… it was my own special route from just before the infamous Annanagar Roundturner (which is pronounced by all and sundry as “roundtana”) to home a couple of blocks away… it was a major timesaving escape from the traffic at the Roundturner and it was down some peaceful streets with lots of trees and beautiful houses… and then this time I visited, they had concreted the main road so you couldn’t turn into the street anymore… the home stretch has never felt the same since.
So U2 were there and you were there too, and us, and them, and now U2 will be here again this weekend and I’m gearing up to bawl my eyes out because the beauty of it all will just kill me. And no one has put it better than I believe the Grateful Dead when they said…
What a long strange trip it’s been!
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me… I’m not sleepy and there ain’t no place I’m going to
This life of debauchery and excess on the weekends is taking its toll on my aging quarter century old body. My weeks suck ass because, did I mention I’m not happy at my job? Yeah, that’s going to be a bit of a recurring theme for a while. But the weekends, oh boy, where do I begin. I left off at my birthday weekend and then two weeks and weekends have passed already? The weeks are a serious haze of recovery from Saturday nights.
So the weekend before, I decided I couldn’t spend money (because have I also mentioned that my new house and furniture have destroyed me financially… me,… who always had thousands of dollars so safely saved up and now only have $50 in liquid cash to last me till the end of Oct) and couldn’t buy a bottle of alcohol (cos no one else in this crowded world drinks Bacardi and I’ve really had it with trying to switch to whiskey… all I get for my efforts is a mild headache instead of a buzz)! So I took stock of leftover booze from my party and the only thing on offer was tequila. So I thought, why not… awesome plan… a few shots and then we hit the bar where the birthday party is and I’m set for the night… also shots, so no coke or anything fucking things up… won’t even need to buy drinks later.
Plan worked brilliantly… some might say too brilliantly. There was me and Mr. Moonlight and Sam and Guitarman and I got them into the shooting spirit too, so it was 4 really wasted individuals who made their way on foot across the river and into the crowded noisy city (was Grand Final Night – Grand Final refers to the finals showdown of Aussie rules football which is bigger than Christmas in Victoria). Smashed as I was, it was a really perfect high… felt on top of the world and in the bestest of spirits… even made a speech for the birthday girl about our school life together and a certain fancy pencil case she had that I was highly envious of in class two (this speech has now been spread far and wide… stupid fuckers). Now, don’t think I just stood on top of a table and said hear ye, hear ye and started reminiscing… far from it… I was “requested” to make a speech… and the tequila helped mightily with the public speaking aspect.
And then at the very early hour of 1 am or so, we chose to leave for our general health and well being… actually I didn’t want to leave but then, I never want to leave if I’m having a good time… and staggered home and had numerous adventures on the way… like, for real… Walking home drunk is awesome… and I love how much I’m saving on cab rides.
Sunday and the week that followed was too dreadful for words. Actually that weekend, on Friday night I stayed up late and practiced guitar scales and chords for many hours and believe I have made a breakthrough (of course, haven’t been near it since)… I can play Last Kiss and Tambourine Man albeit with 5 second pauses every time I need to change chords. Actually it started cos I was just browsing channels late at night and the only thing watchable was this movie A Lot Like Love… and towards the end (I missed the first half hour), Ashton Kutcher serenades this chick with the guitar and he plays I’ll Be There For You by Bon Jovi (and he played it exactly like I’m playing my Last Kiss and Tambourine Man, I might add… but of course, it’s a movie ahd he’s an actor) and suddenly I got all nostalgic for Bon Jovi and his power ballads… I’ll be there for you, these five words I’ll swear to you… and Jon Bon Jovi has always been about living and dying for you and what not and I’ve always known that’s incredibly cheesy but by god, there was something about his voice and the way he sang and his music videos and I guess the way he looked himself, that I just believed him. I believed true love could be suicide and that I’d already cried a thousand rivers (and I was what, 14 or 15?)… and if any boy had come to me and said or even better, sung… baby, you know my hands are dirty, but I wanted to be your valentine, I would’ve forgiven him anything and everything and considered that the single most romantic moment of my life. :-) And the truth is,... baby... you’re all that I need.
So I don’t know… I’d forgotten all about them and at one point I lived and breathed and sang only them. So, now I’m listening to the songs again and they’re sending little tingles down my spine… well this hotel bar hangovers whiskey’s gone dry… tonight I won’t be alone, but you know that don’t mean I’m not lonely… I’ve got nothing to prove for it’s you that I’d die to defend… I’ve made mistakes, I’m just a man… If you told me to die for you I would… What tragedy, what drama and then always hope… We’ll find a place where the sun still shines.
So I didn’t mean to talk about Bon Jovi so much… I guess some memories from another age of listening to Keep The Faith and Crossroads every night before falling asleep (and singing along really loudly too) and every morning while getting dressed, have resurfaced and just needed to be laid down on (electronic) paper. My own personal Bon Jovi teenage angsty anthem from this period was Runaway. Gee, there was no Google then either… all the lyrics had to be painstakingly learnt by heart with the CD on repeat or written down and memorised with pause and play being hit every 5 seconds… I’d like to have that much time on my hands again… :-) It was a great life, a perfect time…
So the desire to be able to play I’ll Be There For You and other such greats as Livin’ on a Prayer got me to pick up the ol’ six string and try my luck… I’ll get there… eventually…
I wanted to tell you about this weekend and the absolutely insane crazy wild Saturday night but I might save it for the next one… besides, I’m still waiting on a lot of pictures… lazy bitches!!!
But one other tiny thing about that weekend… on the Sunday I watched the first three episodes of Star Wars for the first time in my life… I haven’t even watched the original trilogy… I just automatically tuned out anytime anything remotely sci-fi came up in the past (although I did go through a Star Trek phase very briefly but that was only cos I probably needed a break from Bon Jovi and there weren’t all that many options on a Saturday night on our beloved Star Plus). But so, I somehow got into watching the first one and I was riveted… it was a marathon on tv and by the time I got to episode 3, I knew that Anakin was going to become the evil dark lord Darth Vader or whatever but it didn’t make it any less painful to watch his slow downfall. Why Ani, why? Haha… I kinda get it now… the obsession for some people… I don’t think I want to watch 4 to 6 though… the dodgy special effects would just piss me off and I know the story anyway… or maybe I will… who knows…
You know, my Bon Jovi companion was always Aerosmith… it’s amazing… with the blink of an eye you’re 25. At least, I let the right ones in…
So the weekend before, I decided I couldn’t spend money (because have I also mentioned that my new house and furniture have destroyed me financially… me,… who always had thousands of dollars so safely saved up and now only have $50 in liquid cash to last me till the end of Oct) and couldn’t buy a bottle of alcohol (cos no one else in this crowded world drinks Bacardi and I’ve really had it with trying to switch to whiskey… all I get for my efforts is a mild headache instead of a buzz)! So I took stock of leftover booze from my party and the only thing on offer was tequila. So I thought, why not… awesome plan… a few shots and then we hit the bar where the birthday party is and I’m set for the night… also shots, so no coke or anything fucking things up… won’t even need to buy drinks later.
Plan worked brilliantly… some might say too brilliantly. There was me and Mr. Moonlight and Sam and Guitarman and I got them into the shooting spirit too, so it was 4 really wasted individuals who made their way on foot across the river and into the crowded noisy city (was Grand Final Night – Grand Final refers to the finals showdown of Aussie rules football which is bigger than Christmas in Victoria). Smashed as I was, it was a really perfect high… felt on top of the world and in the bestest of spirits… even made a speech for the birthday girl about our school life together and a certain fancy pencil case she had that I was highly envious of in class two (this speech has now been spread far and wide… stupid fuckers). Now, don’t think I just stood on top of a table and said hear ye, hear ye and started reminiscing… far from it… I was “requested” to make a speech… and the tequila helped mightily with the public speaking aspect.
And then at the very early hour of 1 am or so, we chose to leave for our general health and well being… actually I didn’t want to leave but then, I never want to leave if I’m having a good time… and staggered home and had numerous adventures on the way… like, for real… Walking home drunk is awesome… and I love how much I’m saving on cab rides.
Sunday and the week that followed was too dreadful for words. Actually that weekend, on Friday night I stayed up late and practiced guitar scales and chords for many hours and believe I have made a breakthrough (of course, haven’t been near it since)… I can play Last Kiss and Tambourine Man albeit with 5 second pauses every time I need to change chords. Actually it started cos I was just browsing channels late at night and the only thing watchable was this movie A Lot Like Love… and towards the end (I missed the first half hour), Ashton Kutcher serenades this chick with the guitar and he plays I’ll Be There For You by Bon Jovi (and he played it exactly like I’m playing my Last Kiss and Tambourine Man, I might add… but of course, it’s a movie ahd he’s an actor) and suddenly I got all nostalgic for Bon Jovi and his power ballads… I’ll be there for you, these five words I’ll swear to you… and Jon Bon Jovi has always been about living and dying for you and what not and I’ve always known that’s incredibly cheesy but by god, there was something about his voice and the way he sang and his music videos and I guess the way he looked himself, that I just believed him. I believed true love could be suicide and that I’d already cried a thousand rivers (and I was what, 14 or 15?)… and if any boy had come to me and said or even better, sung… baby, you know my hands are dirty, but I wanted to be your valentine, I would’ve forgiven him anything and everything and considered that the single most romantic moment of my life. :-) And the truth is,... baby... you’re all that I need.
So I don’t know… I’d forgotten all about them and at one point I lived and breathed and sang only them. So, now I’m listening to the songs again and they’re sending little tingles down my spine… well this hotel bar hangovers whiskey’s gone dry… tonight I won’t be alone, but you know that don’t mean I’m not lonely… I’ve got nothing to prove for it’s you that I’d die to defend… I’ve made mistakes, I’m just a man… If you told me to die for you I would… What tragedy, what drama and then always hope… We’ll find a place where the sun still shines.
So I didn’t mean to talk about Bon Jovi so much… I guess some memories from another age of listening to Keep The Faith and Crossroads every night before falling asleep (and singing along really loudly too) and every morning while getting dressed, have resurfaced and just needed to be laid down on (electronic) paper. My own personal Bon Jovi teenage angsty anthem from this period was Runaway. Gee, there was no Google then either… all the lyrics had to be painstakingly learnt by heart with the CD on repeat or written down and memorised with pause and play being hit every 5 seconds… I’d like to have that much time on my hands again… :-) It was a great life, a perfect time…
So the desire to be able to play I’ll Be There For You and other such greats as Livin’ on a Prayer got me to pick up the ol’ six string and try my luck… I’ll get there… eventually…
I wanted to tell you about this weekend and the absolutely insane crazy wild Saturday night but I might save it for the next one… besides, I’m still waiting on a lot of pictures… lazy bitches!!!
But one other tiny thing about that weekend… on the Sunday I watched the first three episodes of Star Wars for the first time in my life… I haven’t even watched the original trilogy… I just automatically tuned out anytime anything remotely sci-fi came up in the past (although I did go through a Star Trek phase very briefly but that was only cos I probably needed a break from Bon Jovi and there weren’t all that many options on a Saturday night on our beloved Star Plus). But so, I somehow got into watching the first one and I was riveted… it was a marathon on tv and by the time I got to episode 3, I knew that Anakin was going to become the evil dark lord Darth Vader or whatever but it didn’t make it any less painful to watch his slow downfall. Why Ani, why? Haha… I kinda get it now… the obsession for some people… I don’t think I want to watch 4 to 6 though… the dodgy special effects would just piss me off and I know the story anyway… or maybe I will… who knows…
You know, my Bon Jovi companion was always Aerosmith… it’s amazing… with the blink of an eye you’re 25. At least, I let the right ones in…
Thursday, June 29, 2006
What is this I think I feel... I wanna feel the sunshine all the time...
I wanna feel the sunshine lift my head
I wanna see your face when I wake up
I wanna be the light that’s in your life
I wanna feel the sunshine all the time
Today I remember Goa… the music brought it back… party shuffle all the way… this time it was the Ministry of Sound Annual 2006… the only CD we had… not even both discs… just disc 1… well, there was another CD… a mish mash of all the songs I hurriedly downloaded when I got to India and realised I had no music at all for the car… so there was also Dakota and Scissor Sisters… driving back drunk late at night in our dodgy Tempo Traveller that seats 12 but should only be allowed to take 6… and there was Kat playing the Pussycat Dolls to perfection… Dontcha think your girlfriend is hot like me… Kat is a guy…
But the thing with Ministry of Sound is you gotta listen to it over and over and sometimes its hard to tell one song from another until you’ve listened to it enough times to pick out your favourite parts and then you actually pick up song titles and track numbers so you can rewind and fast forward at will…
So we listen as we drive 16 hours from Bangalore to Goa… we listen to other stuff other people have too but nothing else registers… tracks 5, 9 and 13… we wind our way through the Western Ghats… sometimes at breakneck speeds… the hazy layer of smoke in the air… the gentle buzz from the ready mix in my head… there is no fear… the music lulls us to sleep and wakefulness again… we stop for chai and chocolate fixes…
I wanna see your face when I wake up
I wanna be the light that’s in your life
I wanna feel the sunshine all the time
Today I remember Goa… the music brought it back… party shuffle all the way… this time it was the Ministry of Sound Annual 2006… the only CD we had… not even both discs… just disc 1… well, there was another CD… a mish mash of all the songs I hurriedly downloaded when I got to India and realised I had no music at all for the car… so there was also Dakota and Scissor Sisters… driving back drunk late at night in our dodgy Tempo Traveller that seats 12 but should only be allowed to take 6… and there was Kat playing the Pussycat Dolls to perfection… Dontcha think your girlfriend is hot like me… Kat is a guy…
But the thing with Ministry of Sound is you gotta listen to it over and over and sometimes its hard to tell one song from another until you’ve listened to it enough times to pick out your favourite parts and then you actually pick up song titles and track numbers so you can rewind and fast forward at will…
So we listen as we drive 16 hours from Bangalore to Goa… we listen to other stuff other people have too but nothing else registers… tracks 5, 9 and 13… we wind our way through the Western Ghats… sometimes at breakneck speeds… the hazy layer of smoke in the air… the gentle buzz from the ready mix in my head… there is no fear… the music lulls us to sleep and wakefulness again… we stop for chai and chocolate fixes…
There’s nothing quite like the start of a trip… anything can happen… funny things funny people say and do are happening already but you know the best is yet to come…
Here we are in crowded Calangute all of a sudden… along the way we pass Angel Resorts where we stayed 2001-2002… what a time… what a trip…
Goa is the same but everything else is different… maybe it’s everyone else who is different… maybe I’m suddenly too old and tired to drink as much… I definitely know I’m too tired and sick to smoke so much… the sore throat I’ve been avoiding for a few days by diligently gargling with salt water is finally catching up with me… so passes the first night in Goa… desultorily drinking at Tito’s…
The bright sunshine the next morning makes the world look beautiful again… and that first glimpse of the bright blue Arabian Sea makes it all worth it… we claim a shack as our own and spend the next six hours sunbathing and swimming… we keep up a steady stream of orders for drinks and food… and then the long awaited sunset… this is the Goa I know and love… the beach, the shack, and the sun setting…
That night we drink up and head out… we try one place after another but nothing feels right… and whoever heard of such exorbitant cover charges in Goa before… and where have all the raves gone… I’m not the world’s most enthusiastic raver but once every couple of years is alright… but no dice… everything’s busted… are we in Goa or Madras?
Today is the last day of the year… the sun is shining again and we luck out with a shack that has deck chairs that we lie on all day… before I know it, the sun is setting for the last time this year… so many memories flash before my eyes… the years that have been… tomorrow, a new year… a new beginning?
Is it 11:30 pm already? I am happy… I am with the one I love and surrounded by near and dear friends… the music at Nine Bar is loud but not intrusive… I am quietly high on life and Bacardi (with a little bit of Old Monk thrown in to make it interesting)… the organisers ask us to move away from the wall as they set up the fireworks… someone gives me a little taste of their ecstasy pill… my blocked nose clears up for a glorious 10 seconds… people hugging kissing laughing… Happy New Year… so, now what?
By 3 am, I have reached my peak… I have danced and drunk and smoked… I am in a curiously violent mood and ready to punch anyone who invades my space… the curious part is I am most disappointed I don’t actually get to practice my Kung Fu Kick… by now we have walked a lot and moved between a couple of places… word on the street is the Hilltop is where its going to go off as the sun rises… in my alcohol fuelled enthusiasm, I am all set to last until then… alas, by 5 am I’m back in my bed and pass out in seconds…
I wake up in the afternoon of the new year and my head feels like I got punched the night before but the unbearable pain in my throat clues me in on what is really going on… we head to the beach one last time but for me there is no swimming, no drinking, no smoking… all I can do is sit in my chair and gaze out at the wide expanse of sea in front of me… the air is still warm and the sun is still shining but today I am shivering… I remember the last time… I wanna feel the sunshine all the time…
There are many things I’ve forgotten over the years but there are some moments that stand out and that I will never let go of… like that moment on New Years Day 2002… it was nearing sunset… there we all were sitting around on the beach… maybe it was the same beach I am sitting on now 4 years later… coming down from our first (and last... for me, at least) ecstasy hits of the night before… a swim in the warm water… someone finds a little starfish on the sand… stomachs pleasantly full… two Bacardi and watermelons down… at that moment, I felt more content than I’d ever felt before or have felt since… anything was possible… we were young, healthy and the world was our oyster… I knew everything in the new year was going to be terribly different… I didn’t know yet if it would be good different or bad different… but I knew that whenever I just needed to feel good I could go back to that moment and feel that same warm feeling of contentment wash over me again…
So I look around now… most of the faces are different… one or two from the first time… the missing ones are overseas or otherwise occupied… and half of these new ones are fresh faced 20 year olds… the same age I was the last time… they are now coming down from their best ever high and are already planning their next visit to Goa… same time, same place… I smile in amusement at this rite of passage… maybe they will come back and maybe they won’t… and if they do come back maybe they will find what I have found… a place may never change but how it makes you feel can change because of the way you have changed…
I’m so tired… all I want is to sleep… I close my eyes and go back to that moment all over again… it still works… it still makes me feel so good inside… I realise that I am still young in a relative sense but of course that doesn’t stop me from feeling old… hopefully I am still healthy… but is the world still my oyster… is anything still possible… anyone with a gung ho live-life-to-the-fullest attitude will say of course it is… I’m not so sure… I know now that there are some things that are just not going to be possible… there are some dreams that I just have neither the time nor the inclination to follow through with… but that’s the real difference between then and now… then it might’ve seemed a horrible betrayal of myself to give up on anything… now, I accept what is and what can be and am learning to let go of what will never be… and now there are new dreams… and so that’s the same between then and now… I still dream…
There isn’t much else to tell… we leave later that night… I sleep all the way back to Bangalore… it’s a dreamless self-medication-induced stupor… I wake up to stifling heat, crowded roads and polluted air… it’s a brand new day and a brand new year… whatever will be will be…
Maybe the last two weeks of my vacation will be fun fun fun with wedding madness, Mexican themed bachelorette nights, Wild Wild West parties and six year anniversary celebrations… maybe I will return to Melbourne and walk about in a daze of homesickness and job dissatisfaction for weeks… maybe these things will pass… maybe I’ll get a better job… maybe I won’t write a word for 6 months… maybe I’ll chop my hair to half its length after 3 years… maybe before I know it, I’ll reach the halfway mark of the new year… maybe winter will go by quickly with the aid of layers and heaters… maybe there will be planned trips overseas… maybe visitors from overseas will plan to visit me?
What is this I think I feel… why do I love the sunshine… because its not always shining… that’s when we go to the secret places in our hearts where it is shining… and when it is shining, well, that’s as good as it’s ever gonna get…
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Living life the easy way... And sippin’ on Bacardi Rum
Oh joy… summer is almost here. We’re on Daylight Savings Time and that always puts me in a holiday mood since the sun doesn’t set until 9 pm or thereabouts and as a result I always feel like I have some few more hours in a day and take things much easier. We have also had two gloriously hot 30 degree plus days this week and it was simply blissful… especially since the first one was Tuesday and a holiday for the Melbourne Cup of all things (public holiday so we can all sit back and watch the horse races is something else, but I’m not complaining… its our first public holiday since JUNE), and the second one was yesterday and I just couldn’t wake up in the morning so took a sickie… Have I ever mentioned that I love to sleep and once I’m asleep I really really hate waking up but falling asleep is a big big problem for me these days… Ah well, we can talk about my insomnia another time. Lets get back to talking about alcohol instead…
So with spirits we also have the whiskeys and the bourbons and it seems that as people get older they’re drinking more of these but this is one kind of spirit I just can’t stand… not that I haven’t drunk this also when really desperate but its not something I particularly enjoy. I remember that when I first came to Australia I drank a lot of Jim Beam because S and my housemate at the time preferred it and we were poor students so we couldn’t always choose what we drank so I just went along with it and drank it and the thing about it is that it doesn’t really get me happy high… it just gets me into that mode where I know I’ve drunk a lot but can’t really feel the fun effects of it… like when you smoke too much and reach a kind of zone… So anyway, one night in particular stands out when we the three of us drank Jim Beam the whole night and then S passed out and my housemate and I continued and suddenly it was 7:00 in the morning so I thought, “oh, what the hell, let me just go for my 9:00 am class now instead of missing it’. So I went… hahaha… what fun it all was. And it wasn’t my fault my stupid course had a class EVERY Saturday… did they not take into account that people like to get smashed on a Friday night!! But yeah, the whiskeys and the bourbons are so not my thing…
So is Tequila my thing? I think not… although I have always had shitloads of fun every time I went the Tequila route. But its not something I would be up for every weekend… its more a once every four months experience. At the last one, three of us slammed almost two bottles over a few hours and I yelled at everyone at the party and told them they better come to my birthday party the following weekend and on the way home I used up all my credit calling Rat and Sista T and apparently all I kept saying was “Yeah maaan, I’m coming next month maaan… yeah maan” and then just kept laughing hysterically of course. Good times good times… :)
So before we get to the grand finale of my favourite type of alcohol ever (and which you should’ve guessed by now if you know me even a little or if you have been following the alcohol posts closely ;)) lets talk about sweet tasting and some not so sweet tasting liquors and such. I’ve always been a Baileys on the rocks fan for just a quiet dinner and night in type thing and I’m very attached to Kahlua for sentimental you me and you reasons. So guess what… it is also possible to get extremely fucking high on this deadly combo particularly if you are slamming them both together… So one sunny AFTERNOON, four people slammed a bottle of Baileys and Kahlua and guess what me and my friend slammed next… we finished a whole disgusting bottle of Sambucha… oh my god, that stuff tastes GROSS… but we slammed it… and I was very very high, I kid you not. We also went clubbing that night after all this and I had a good time dancing for a while and then went stumbling to find a bathroom and instead I went into some employee area and literally stumbled down a few steps and twisted my ankle and just lay there in a heap for some unknown period of time. I really have no clue how anyone found me or helped me out of there… the next thing I know I’m in the lounge next to the ladies bathroom and there’s an ice pack around my ankle and all the ladies who came in kept asking me if I was alright and if I wanted anything… so I bummed a couple of cigarettes and lay back on the couch with my leg lifted and smoked away until S found me (and I don’t really know how he found me… I was rather out of it to realise that people would be wondering where I was)… That was such a fun night… even the whole ankle experience… at the end of it all on the way home, in extreme drunkenness I started crying for my Mommy and its so funny that I started crying for my Mommy because my Mommy is not the ‘oh you poor thing, how did it happen’ kind of Mommy… she’s more the ‘serves you right… this is what you get for going out at all hours and drinking and what not’ kind of Mommy.
So this of course brings us to the end… the best kind of alcohol ever… (drum roll, please)… RUM… sweet smelling, molasses fermented rum… rowdy, ass-kicking, rum… Ah rum, how I love it. I’m very glad that I got off the vodka in the early days and switched to rum… what a whole new world it was… I’m at a loss for words right now… I should probably be under the influence of some rum to write more eloquently about it … my favourites are Old Monk (I hate Old Cask for some reason) and Bacardi Lemon (affectionately called lime juice)… but I also like plain ol’ Bacardi Superior and Bacardi Oro and Reserva… I’ve had some lethal Jamaican Coruba rum and I think after Old Monk, my favourite Indian rum is good ol’ Kodais (I don’t even know how its spelt… I am referring to the Bangalore one)… But has anyone tried Bacardi 151… I think its 60% alcohol or something and I almost threw up slamming half a shot and couldn’t even drink it when it was mixed with coke.
But I’ve drunk rum at the oddest of times and the oddest of places and it has always delivered a good time… I’ve drunk rum with coke and orange juice and sprite and pineapple juice and I’ve even drunk it with fucking water whenever we’ve run out of coke at a slumber parties at my house… Old Monk & water is just fucking foul by the way… we’ve finished a whole bottle of Bacardi at 5 am as we watched the sun rise and the train glide into Londha station one hazy December morning… … we’ve drunk it in paper cups in backseats of cars with no ice and warm coke and we’ve sipped it in style sitting in beach house gazebos… we’ve mixed it in 500ml bottles of coke to quickly slam on the road on the way to a party (the ever present “ready mix”) and we’ve drunk it in Pina Coladas and Mai Tais… I’ve finished a quart of rum in my room one night by myself and sneaked down and stole some of my Dad’s to keep the buzz going one jobless night.
Under the influence, I have professed my love and undying friendship to many a rowdy rum compatriot… I have danced till the cows came home and sung till I couldn’t sing another note… I have pretended to be sober with family and how many times have I driven home in such a state… I have puked my guts out and laughed my ass off… I have cried like the world was ending and I have eaten like there was no tomorrow… I have yelled at anyone who would listen (including my boss) about my current depressing work situation (this actually happened last Friday in a marathon Bacardi session – I think I had at least 12 drinks in total) and I have karaoke-d like it was going out of style… all in all, I really do love that little drink called rum. Remember that Bacardi ad with all the people chilling and drinking in the tropical island type place and on a yacht and such and singing this song…
Be what you want to be
Taking things the way they come
Living life the easy way
And sippin’ on Bacardi Rum
I used to love that ad before I started drinking and I’d actually forgotten all about it until now. There may not have been yachts or a tropical islands but we have had some very good times sippin’ on all sorts of rum… May the good times roll on… Cheers!
So with spirits we also have the whiskeys and the bourbons and it seems that as people get older they’re drinking more of these but this is one kind of spirit I just can’t stand… not that I haven’t drunk this also when really desperate but its not something I particularly enjoy. I remember that when I first came to Australia I drank a lot of Jim Beam because S and my housemate at the time preferred it and we were poor students so we couldn’t always choose what we drank so I just went along with it and drank it and the thing about it is that it doesn’t really get me happy high… it just gets me into that mode where I know I’ve drunk a lot but can’t really feel the fun effects of it… like when you smoke too much and reach a kind of zone… So anyway, one night in particular stands out when we the three of us drank Jim Beam the whole night and then S passed out and my housemate and I continued and suddenly it was 7:00 in the morning so I thought, “oh, what the hell, let me just go for my 9:00 am class now instead of missing it’. So I went… hahaha… what fun it all was. And it wasn’t my fault my stupid course had a class EVERY Saturday… did they not take into account that people like to get smashed on a Friday night!! But yeah, the whiskeys and the bourbons are so not my thing…
So is Tequila my thing? I think not… although I have always had shitloads of fun every time I went the Tequila route. But its not something I would be up for every weekend… its more a once every four months experience. At the last one, three of us slammed almost two bottles over a few hours and I yelled at everyone at the party and told them they better come to my birthday party the following weekend and on the way home I used up all my credit calling Rat and Sista T and apparently all I kept saying was “Yeah maaan, I’m coming next month maaan… yeah maan” and then just kept laughing hysterically of course. Good times good times… :)
So before we get to the grand finale of my favourite type of alcohol ever (and which you should’ve guessed by now if you know me even a little or if you have been following the alcohol posts closely ;)) lets talk about sweet tasting and some not so sweet tasting liquors and such. I’ve always been a Baileys on the rocks fan for just a quiet dinner and night in type thing and I’m very attached to Kahlua for sentimental you me and you reasons. So guess what… it is also possible to get extremely fucking high on this deadly combo particularly if you are slamming them both together… So one sunny AFTERNOON, four people slammed a bottle of Baileys and Kahlua and guess what me and my friend slammed next… we finished a whole disgusting bottle of Sambucha… oh my god, that stuff tastes GROSS… but we slammed it… and I was very very high, I kid you not. We also went clubbing that night after all this and I had a good time dancing for a while and then went stumbling to find a bathroom and instead I went into some employee area and literally stumbled down a few steps and twisted my ankle and just lay there in a heap for some unknown period of time. I really have no clue how anyone found me or helped me out of there… the next thing I know I’m in the lounge next to the ladies bathroom and there’s an ice pack around my ankle and all the ladies who came in kept asking me if I was alright and if I wanted anything… so I bummed a couple of cigarettes and lay back on the couch with my leg lifted and smoked away until S found me (and I don’t really know how he found me… I was rather out of it to realise that people would be wondering where I was)… That was such a fun night… even the whole ankle experience… at the end of it all on the way home, in extreme drunkenness I started crying for my Mommy and its so funny that I started crying for my Mommy because my Mommy is not the ‘oh you poor thing, how did it happen’ kind of Mommy… she’s more the ‘serves you right… this is what you get for going out at all hours and drinking and what not’ kind of Mommy.
So this of course brings us to the end… the best kind of alcohol ever… (drum roll, please)… RUM… sweet smelling, molasses fermented rum… rowdy, ass-kicking, rum… Ah rum, how I love it. I’m very glad that I got off the vodka in the early days and switched to rum… what a whole new world it was… I’m at a loss for words right now… I should probably be under the influence of some rum to write more eloquently about it … my favourites are Old Monk (I hate Old Cask for some reason) and Bacardi Lemon (affectionately called lime juice)… but I also like plain ol’ Bacardi Superior and Bacardi Oro and Reserva… I’ve had some lethal Jamaican Coruba rum and I think after Old Monk, my favourite Indian rum is good ol’ Kodais (I don’t even know how its spelt… I am referring to the Bangalore one)… But has anyone tried Bacardi 151… I think its 60% alcohol or something and I almost threw up slamming half a shot and couldn’t even drink it when it was mixed with coke.
But I’ve drunk rum at the oddest of times and the oddest of places and it has always delivered a good time… I’ve drunk rum with coke and orange juice and sprite and pineapple juice and I’ve even drunk it with fucking water whenever we’ve run out of coke at a slumber parties at my house… Old Monk & water is just fucking foul by the way… we’ve finished a whole bottle of Bacardi at 5 am as we watched the sun rise and the train glide into Londha station one hazy December morning… … we’ve drunk it in paper cups in backseats of cars with no ice and warm coke and we’ve sipped it in style sitting in beach house gazebos… we’ve mixed it in 500ml bottles of coke to quickly slam on the road on the way to a party (the ever present “ready mix”) and we’ve drunk it in Pina Coladas and Mai Tais… I’ve finished a quart of rum in my room one night by myself and sneaked down and stole some of my Dad’s to keep the buzz going one jobless night.
Under the influence, I have professed my love and undying friendship to many a rowdy rum compatriot… I have danced till the cows came home and sung till I couldn’t sing another note… I have pretended to be sober with family and how many times have I driven home in such a state… I have puked my guts out and laughed my ass off… I have cried like the world was ending and I have eaten like there was no tomorrow… I have yelled at anyone who would listen (including my boss) about my current depressing work situation (this actually happened last Friday in a marathon Bacardi session – I think I had at least 12 drinks in total) and I have karaoke-d like it was going out of style… all in all, I really do love that little drink called rum. Remember that Bacardi ad with all the people chilling and drinking in the tropical island type place and on a yacht and such and singing this song…
Be what you want to be
Taking things the way they come
Living life the easy way
And sippin’ on Bacardi Rum
I used to love that ad before I started drinking and I’d actually forgotten all about it until now. There may not have been yachts or a tropical islands but we have had some very good times sippin’ on all sorts of rum… May the good times roll on… Cheers!
Thursday, October 27, 2005
Well, show me the way to the next whiskey bar... Oh, don’t ask why…
By the way, I was extremely wasted when I wrote that last entry. I’m not sure if anyone picked up on that… skilful that I am at hiding my highness. Haha, as if… you can always tell if I’m high from a mile away. But anyway, I was high on wine so I myself was not fully aware of the extent of my highness. Wine is so strange that way… two glasses pretty much get you to the “I’m so happy” stage and after that it can go either way really quickly for me… feel really sleepy, head starts hurting, bad mood, stomach contents start heading north, etc. etc. OR drink a few glasses more, everything is fine as wine as far as stomach contents go, head buzzes quite happily, and anything goes in terms of dancing, singing, eating, etc. etc. But still at the end of this nice side of wine also my head eventually starts hurting and sleep beckons and all and the next morning always feels like a professional football team spent the whole night practicing in my head. And I know what you’re thinking… ah, it must be all the cheap wine, but no, my wine hangovers do not discriminate. Once, my visiting uncle took us to an incredible fancy Italian restaurant/wine bar and we tried at least three different types of fucking expensive wine and it was the same old saga the next morning. So why do I drink wine you ask? I’m not entirely sure… sometimes there’s nothing else on offer, sometimes my stomach is too full to handle anything heavy like spirits and Coke, sometimes I think “Oh yes, two glasses of wine to get a nice buzz and no more drinking because I don’t want to get drunk”… that plan always fails of course because I can never halt at that nice buzz stage… I prefer to not drink at all or just get totally wasted… There’s nothing worse than running out of booze when you’re halfway there… its really like taking you to the top of the mountain and showing you what you can’t have.Well anyway, we have established that wine and me are not best friends. Having said that though, I absolutely adore homemade wine and Christmas in Madras is always a bumper season of slamming bottles of homemade wine. Every time I’ve had a wine party at my house on Christmas night, everyone pretty much has a bottle for themselves. Much fun. Must remind Mom to start stocking bottles for this year, now only.
Wine’s close compatriot is beer of course. Mmm… Beer… Come to think of it, beer is possibly the first taste of alcohol I ever had because my Dad was in the habit of giving me tiny sips now and then when I was a kid because I used to think it looked absolutely wonderful… the golden colour and the white froth and all. How funny, I was just typing this and thinking about my Dad and he calls unexpectedly. There are forces at work a lot of the time I tell you. Anyway, I never really enjoyed beer until I came to Australia. And by the way Fosters is a really shit Australian beer and no one here drinks it… how they bloody promote it in India like it’s as synonymous with Australia as Waltzing Matilda.But there’s a time and a place for beer and again I am limited to what conditions I can drink it in. For example, if I’m starting my drinking on a Friday evening and plan to be out until the wee hours, beer is a big No No because my stomach just feels really full and all the gas builds up and I just feel like I’m going to explode. But if I’m just hanging out on a warm Sunday afternoon in the park playing cards and Dumb Charades and have no deeds to do before I sleep, I’m quite happy to drink three beers and go to bed with a smile on my face and a lovely beer buzz in my head. Its also quite pleasing to sip a cold beer when everyone and everything is winding down after a huge night of partying and all we can afford is a Rs.100 bottle of Kingfisher compared to the relatively expensive Rs.150 for an Old Monk & Coke… I’m just randomly quoting figures by the way, I can’t really remember the prices. But I think that when it comes to taste, there is no other alcohol that is quite as exciting as beer because there is just so much freaking variety. I’ve tried many different beers from different countries and some of my personal favourites are Australia’s own Beez Neez, Belgium’s Stella Artois, Australia’s James Boags, Mexico’s Corona (without the lemon though), and quite recently I was introduced to a very delicious German beer called Hansa Pils. Mmm… Beer…
Moving on to my favourite alcohol genre… Spirits… in all shapes and sizes… well, actually not… I’m quite fussy here also. Let’s talk vodka. Most people I know first started drinking with vodka. I don’t why this was but when I think about that horrible Romanov vodka we used to drink for lack of better options I seriously wonder how it did not just kill us… that too, we used to only take shots when we first started… The only picture this presents in my head is one of acid corroding our insides. But anyway, it was all good fun to get SMASHED on two shots of vodka… so much cheaper and nicer on the waistline also because of no added Coke calories… Since those heady “get smashed on two drinks” days, quality of vodka has improved steadily. All the Absolut and Smirnoff varieties available these days make for nary a dull moment. And has anyone tried Stolichnaya vodka? I’m not sure if its very good or not but I have had a couple of fun nights on this vodka. But still, vodka is still not what really gets my juices flowing. I’ll drink it if there’s nothing else but wouldn’t really go out and buy some for myself… although, there is a very nice ad on TV these days for something called Absolut Cut and the ad is incredibly tempting, so we’ll see. And how about the rumour that vodka causes impotence in men… don’t know how true it is but I do share this tip with any boy I know who drinks vodka. And then there’s that whole “oh, but vodka doesn’t smell so its perfect to avoid letting your parents what you’ve really been up to” but that is such bull crap… all forms of alcohol smell and it doesn’t matter if you take two shots or two sips… anyone with a keen sense of smell (like me) will immediately be able to tell if you’ve been naughty or niceIt seems there is a lot more to cover than I originally thought so looks like this will have to be continued. But in the meantime, do share your views on wine, beer and vodka. White or red? Best beer ever? Drank vodka the very first time you drank? And if you’re a teetotaller, I’d like to hear from you too… and hang on, don’t call AA yet… I only drink once a week except for holidays and special occasions…
To be continued…
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Last night I had the strangest dream. I sailed away to China, on a little rowboat to find ya…
Very lazy to blog about anything original so I will give you some random recycled rambling excerpts from the rubbish I wrote three years ago and that I recently rediscovered thanks to recovered hard disk. Wow… that must be a personal best record of number of words beginning with R in the same sentence! I must warn you… a lot of it is really random and makes me wonder what the hell I was thinking back then!
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Sometimes you think about life back home and you wonder what you miss the most, apart from the people and dogs of course. It would be easy to say it was the food and the car and the entertainment, but I think it goes beyond that. It’s the smells… I step out on my balcony here (when it’s warm enough) and I only smell the city – dust, fumes, noise (yes, I can smell noise)! At home I’d often wake up to smells of people cooking… rich, spicy aromas. Sometimes I’d wake up to the wonderful smell of rain. And when I enter my house, it’s the smell of food and dogs… And my room, just the right amount of perfume in the air… it was perfectly balanced. If I smoked, the balance was destroyed and I worked painstakingly to restore it. It never failed to bring a smile to my face whenever I entered my room and caught a whiff of that familiarity…. like an old friend. And my parents’ room, so comforting… And my Dad’s aftershave… every single day I’d smell it in the living room, on the phone and in the car. And strangely enough the smells change as the seasons change. Summer has such a distinctive smell… it reminds me of something musty and old. Christmas leaves the smell of wine and cake in the air. When I first got here I imagined singing “I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams”. But now I will be home for Christmas and I can hardly wait.
Last night I had a strange dream… it was me arriving for the first time in a foreign country. However the trams were strangely elevated and you had to take an escalator to get to the tracks. Something or someone informed me it was
Editorial Note: I remember now that I was very very drunk when I wrote this!
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My goodness, I can’t wait to see Holly’s adorable face and Chocolate’s adoring face!! I try so hard to be cosmopolitan and everything but it never really works… when you think about it! Let us be lovers – we’ll marry our fortunes together. It’s so strange sometimes, actually living with people! I am homeward bound and I can’t hardly believe it… everyone looks at being homeward bound as a bad thing. Sometimes it might as well have been the 70’s or 60’s in
I mean, tonight I was watching
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My life is flashing before my eyes… I didn’t have the high school years of
Sometimes I wonder about the things I write… Is it really normal for a 21 year old to have such a pessimistic outlook on life? And the constant reminiscing… isn’t that more in keeping with a 65 year old? Or have I already passed through the best years of my life? Life was a lazy race in the sun… How on earth did I get so jaded? There is one thing that’s improved over the years, and that’s my newly straightened hair… Well, not so new anymore but it still gives me such pleasure to look at it in the mirror that I’m convinced it’s going to be taken away from me.
My dreams haunt me terribly… Lately they’re very real and based on people in my life and sometimes I don’t like to wake up. And sometimes I wake up with a smile only to realise it was just a dream. Isn’t life cruel enough without giving us the option of fantasising other versions of it? Some days the lines between fantasy and reality are so blurred, I worry about myself!
Its understandable why half the population in the world has experimented with drugs at some point in their lives… it’s the easiest form of escapism. Even now, just remembering it all has done enough for me. I am fine… I will be fine!
Monday, September 12, 2005
The day the music died...
Another weekend gone by and only 10 days left until the big day. The big day refers to my birthday, of course. I’m not one of those people who pretend they don’t care about their birthday and who say things like ‘oh, its no big deal’. I’m one of those people who loves birthdays, especially my own and says things like ‘oh, its my birthday, so drop everything you’re doing and come party with me’. I mean, come on, birthdays are meant to be celebrated and I’ve celebrated every single one of them like they were going out of style. Anyway, we’ll see what happens this year…
On Friday I went to the housewarming party of someone who lives on the ground floor of my apartment building. He had invited everyone in the building and since we’ve never really met any of our neighbours, we dropped in. It was mostly middle-aged to older people and a couple of young people. Shantaram became a topic of conversation as it is prone to become when a white person meets an Indian for the first time and looks for some common ground. I don’t mind… I think its great that so many of them enjoyed the book. They won’t be so biased or culture shocked if they ever visit.
At one point, the host asks me "How do you take that life-altering decision of leaving family and friends and everything familiar behind and starting out fresh in a whole new country and culture"? Fuck, good question! For me, it was never a conscious decision… it was just an undercurrent in everything I dreamed my life would be when I grew up. And when I did grow up, I couldn’t really take it all back… But when I grew up, I realised that I really loved my life in Madras and didn’t think anything could ever compare with it.
Nothing has, so far.
I remember writing something when I left three years ago, something like:
But this is everything I’ve dreamed of since age 7. So why do I wish I was 7 again and this day was still 14 years away?
So these are the choices that we make and we have to stand behind them or we would be left with nothing, no direction, no mistakes to learn from, no right to say ‘I did it’. And there are still choices, there is hope yet! I didn’t mean to get all melancholy like this. Its not that my life is shit or anything but its soooo very different to my previous life in Madras.
There I was a part of a social fabric… there was always someone to call, someone to visit, someone to smoke a cigarette with, someone to smoke a joint with, someone to have a drink in the afternoon with… there were competing priorities… education, family, partying, dogs… rushing off from a family dinner to the night’s drinking gathering… rushing off from Sunday afternoon smokes (in full stoned glory) to catch at least the latter half of Mass (and more importantly, making sure my parents saw me)… rushing off from college to give my sister a lift home, take the dog to the vet, drop the dog back home (sometimes spastically sedated, poor baby) and rush off for the day’s entertainment. Anyway, my point is, it was really quite a happening, never-a-boring-moment kind of existence and then I played the cruel joke upon myself of leaving all that behind to study here.
Now I’m sure lots of people have some really fun times in university here but it just so happened that mine was the only course on the planet that people actually did for the sake of the course itself and not for the sake of getting a stupid degree. The average age was 35 and the most scintillating conversation was about which website was more usable and which website was more community building oriented. There were some fun moments and a couple of smashed moments but mostly it was coursework, coursework and more coursework.
Work at least has been much better… I’m part of a band of merry boys and girls (average age of 23 which is just right) and we get each other through the monotony and drudgery that is corporate life by talking shit all day. And sometimes we hang out on a Friday evening but it’s pretty much a work life/personal life separation thing!
So outside of these two social avenues, there have been the people you meet somehow or the other and some of them are fun and some of them are not and some of them are fun only when drunk and some of them talk too much or don't talk at all. Well obviously, I am extremely choosy… how can I not be when my friends from school and college and Madras and even Bangalore are just some of the coolest people around! I’ve been spoiled with good company and now no one seems to meet those standards.
And as for family, well really, don’t knock ‘em. Its only when they’re not around, you realise how entertaining even they can be. And as for dogs, well I don’t want to start sobbing my heart out now, so I’ll save my dog tales for another day.
So the best thing out of all this is that S and I are as close as two people can be and have had to entertain each other for three years and we aren’t bored yet.
And I really believe that everything happens for a reason and my happening life will come back to me sometime soon.
It seems I’ve forgotten what I even started writing about. The host also asked if I felt that Australia had accepted me and I think I’ll save that can of worms for another day! Got really wasted that night with some people who came over. It was fun. Had a really lazy Saturday, got a haircut, shopped for miscellaneous items, oooh S bought me a pre-birthday gift – a pair of Levis, watched The Interpreter and Hostage on DVD – the first one was shit and the second one was ok! Yesterday I just slept and slept and slept and read a bit in between. Today I have my first gym session in about an hour and I’m really excited about it – you will be hearing much about my fitness regime in the days to come.
For me, the day I left Madras was like the day the music died. Because like American Pie was a semi-autobiographical journey from innocence to adulthood for Don Mclean, so was my life in Madras my journey from innocence into adulthood and one day it ended as all eras tend to and that was the day the music died.
A long long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while
Invariably, the music that makes me smile always leads back to Madras. They have that saying ‘All roads lead to Rome’ because in those BC days, all roads did literally lead to Rome since they were the only ones building them. For me, all roads lead to Madras… what a name, what a place, what an era!
On Friday I went to the housewarming party of someone who lives on the ground floor of my apartment building. He had invited everyone in the building and since we’ve never really met any of our neighbours, we dropped in. It was mostly middle-aged to older people and a couple of young people. Shantaram became a topic of conversation as it is prone to become when a white person meets an Indian for the first time and looks for some common ground. I don’t mind… I think its great that so many of them enjoyed the book. They won’t be so biased or culture shocked if they ever visit.
At one point, the host asks me "How do you take that life-altering decision of leaving family and friends and everything familiar behind and starting out fresh in a whole new country and culture"? Fuck, good question! For me, it was never a conscious decision… it was just an undercurrent in everything I dreamed my life would be when I grew up. And when I did grow up, I couldn’t really take it all back… But when I grew up, I realised that I really loved my life in Madras and didn’t think anything could ever compare with it.
Nothing has, so far.
I remember writing something when I left three years ago, something like:
But this is everything I’ve dreamed of since age 7. So why do I wish I was 7 again and this day was still 14 years away?
So these are the choices that we make and we have to stand behind them or we would be left with nothing, no direction, no mistakes to learn from, no right to say ‘I did it’. And there are still choices, there is hope yet! I didn’t mean to get all melancholy like this. Its not that my life is shit or anything but its soooo very different to my previous life in Madras.
There I was a part of a social fabric… there was always someone to call, someone to visit, someone to smoke a cigarette with, someone to smoke a joint with, someone to have a drink in the afternoon with… there were competing priorities… education, family, partying, dogs… rushing off from a family dinner to the night’s drinking gathering… rushing off from Sunday afternoon smokes (in full stoned glory) to catch at least the latter half of Mass (and more importantly, making sure my parents saw me)… rushing off from college to give my sister a lift home, take the dog to the vet, drop the dog back home (sometimes spastically sedated, poor baby) and rush off for the day’s entertainment. Anyway, my point is, it was really quite a happening, never-a-boring-moment kind of existence and then I played the cruel joke upon myself of leaving all that behind to study here.
Now I’m sure lots of people have some really fun times in university here but it just so happened that mine was the only course on the planet that people actually did for the sake of the course itself and not for the sake of getting a stupid degree. The average age was 35 and the most scintillating conversation was about which website was more usable and which website was more community building oriented. There were some fun moments and a couple of smashed moments but mostly it was coursework, coursework and more coursework.
Work at least has been much better… I’m part of a band of merry boys and girls (average age of 23 which is just right) and we get each other through the monotony and drudgery that is corporate life by talking shit all day. And sometimes we hang out on a Friday evening but it’s pretty much a work life/personal life separation thing!
So outside of these two social avenues, there have been the people you meet somehow or the other and some of them are fun and some of them are not and some of them are fun only when drunk and some of them talk too much or don't talk at all. Well obviously, I am extremely choosy… how can I not be when my friends from school and college and Madras and even Bangalore are just some of the coolest people around! I’ve been spoiled with good company and now no one seems to meet those standards.
And as for family, well really, don’t knock ‘em. Its only when they’re not around, you realise how entertaining even they can be. And as for dogs, well I don’t want to start sobbing my heart out now, so I’ll save my dog tales for another day.
So the best thing out of all this is that S and I are as close as two people can be and have had to entertain each other for three years and we aren’t bored yet.
And I really believe that everything happens for a reason and my happening life will come back to me sometime soon.
It seems I’ve forgotten what I even started writing about. The host also asked if I felt that Australia had accepted me and I think I’ll save that can of worms for another day! Got really wasted that night with some people who came over. It was fun. Had a really lazy Saturday, got a haircut, shopped for miscellaneous items, oooh S bought me a pre-birthday gift – a pair of Levis, watched The Interpreter and Hostage on DVD – the first one was shit and the second one was ok! Yesterday I just slept and slept and slept and read a bit in between. Today I have my first gym session in about an hour and I’m really excited about it – you will be hearing much about my fitness regime in the days to come.
For me, the day I left Madras was like the day the music died. Because like American Pie was a semi-autobiographical journey from innocence to adulthood for Don Mclean, so was my life in Madras my journey from innocence into adulthood and one day it ended as all eras tend to and that was the day the music died.
A long long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance that I could make those people dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while
Invariably, the music that makes me smile always leads back to Madras. They have that saying ‘All roads lead to Rome’ because in those BC days, all roads did literally lead to Rome since they were the only ones building them. For me, all roads lead to Madras… what a name, what a place, what an era!
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Oh we made one another cry
Rat has her song of the week. I have my song connected to a memory thing. Its not a regular weekly thing. Sometimes there will be many songs in one week and sometimes there won’t be songs for many weeks… it’s all up to what iTunes Party Shuffle throws at me and how often I switch it on (as an aside, my boyfriend and housemate think I really should be working for Apple’s iTunes division… they can’t get me to shut up about its virtues over such lesser players as Windows Media and Real Player for example)!
So anyway, today, I heard The Games People Play by Tesla. Like any other 13 year old at the time, I was only familiar with that extremely happy reggae version of The Games People Play by
And then he grew up… he still teased us, but in a nice way… his position as chief torturer was taken over by many other more juvenile boys and now we’d just say to him, tell them to leave us alone and he’d tell them to leave us alone and they would actually listen sometimes!! Around this introduction to Tesla time I spent a lot with him and his sister at their house… quite often I’d stay over and we’d stay up all night talking and laughing and listening to music. When I was 13-14, my Mom used to let me go hang out with his sister and him and his friends… I was allowed to go for movies and concerts sometimes… we spent three New Years Eve’s together from ages 13 to 15, him and his sister and a few of their friends and a few of my cousins. So anyway, I’m not sure what my point is anymore or if there was one to begin with. I suppose at the naïve age of 14 or 15 I just thought that him and his sister would be my best friends until the day I died. It didn’t really turn out that way… from ages 16 till now I must’ve met them around 15-20 times. He even got married just last month and obviously I wasn’t there. And I remember their mom once said the test of true friendship is whether you can pick up wherever you left off since the last time you met.
So yeah, maybe they’re not my best friends anymore and maybe I don’t hang out with them all the time anymore, but there are times I remember them (like today) and the fun things we did growing up and there may be times in the future when our own children will play Cops and Robbers together (or more likely, they will battle for supremacy on a PlayStation or Xbox)!
Everyone has these family friends that you spend your whole childhood with and if you’re lucky enough it continues beyond that. Since they knew you from the time you were a cranky baby, there are no pretensions or stereotypes involved in hanging out with them. They bore witness to all your tantrums and fussy habits of eating only curd rice and French fries and they listened without complaint to you singing the same nursery rhyme over and over again (apparently I did this)! They are the closest thing to family (duh, that’s why they call them family friends I suppose) and sometimes they’re dearer than some random members of the family you don’t really care about or see often!
Oh, something else I remembered... Rat had a HUGE crush on him when we were 14.
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