Crying

There is nothing in the world that I hate more than crying. And feeling stuffy but crying comes naturally to me. Just as naturally as feeling sleepy which requires no stimulus really. My biggest stimulus to be able to cry is me with a good memory. You don’t have to do a thing. On bad days, I can wake up crying and go on for hours together and nobody, including me can tell you why I am crying. You know how articles on thought catalog claim that crying actually helps reduce stress. Buggers are lying. Crying has never helped me. It has made things go from bad to ‘I want to kill myself – bad’. It makes me a huge drama queen. Not because I can cry and I do but because I cry about every damn thing. I cry when somebody I am fond of yells at me, I cry when I find out that I have hurt them, I cry when they do a nice thing for me, unexpectedly or otherwise, I cry when I am incredibly happy, I cry when I am at peace, I cry when I am in love. My tears are guaranteed to make guest appearances at all kinds of occasions.

I knew I could cry easily even before I discovered the many irritating attentions that it pulls- from self and others. I cannot help but feel that longish, frustrating kind of guilt soon after I am through crying. Guilt comes just as naturally as tears. I feel guilty about having cried in front of people and embarrassing them. I feel guilty for forcefully demanding that kind of attention. I have tried, believe me, to see what is it about that heaviness that just has to come out no matter how hard I bite my lips and try to yawn to keep from bawling. The throat gets all weird and swallowing doesn’t help. My eyes go as wide as they can in the hope that the tears dry up in the eye balls or whatever part it is that they are threatening to come out from. I look away, fiddle with whatever entity is in front of me. Usually, it’s my bag, mobile, a book or a spoon.

Once, I touched an animal. A cat. I am not big on animal touching or petting but I did it that day because I didn’t find a spoon or whatever and I was in a public place. Have no idea how the cat got there. All I remember is that I was going to cry and my throat was heavy so I picked it up, put it on my lap and started petting it. I didn’t realise that this thing was on my lap until it got bored and leaped out of my lap leaving me curious more than anything. Still wasn’t enough to distract me from the waterworks that were beginning to shower.

Anyway, I have found that yawning and pretending to yawn are major rescuers when I want to hold from crying. The yawning helps me beautifully. I have gotten out of many crying sprees from just pretending to yawn and then quickly thinking of something funny.

Why am I writing about crying?

It was a choice between my 16 year old self in love and this so I chose this.

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Coming back

I find it difficult to write when I am surrounded by noise. Like now, for instance. I am sure even these idiots don’t like what they are listening to. I am waiting for them to leave. I miss how this place used to be or at least is, every now and then. Quiet. Music in public spaces should be banned. What the hell is the point of banning smoking? People talking or playing insanely loud music in public should be banned. Bah. I’m crabby. Why can’t they just leave and let me be in peace?

I am very close to finishing ‘The way to Paradise’. I cannot help but feel relieved, the way I do everytime after I finish a novel. But this time, a little more because I have been on and off with this book for 3 months! I have literally exhausted myself trying to finish the damn book. I didn’t have to struggle so much with any of the other Llosa novels. This one took a long time. Even though I struggled a bit with ‘Notebooks of Don Rigoberto’, I didn’t regret how slowly I read it because I was paying attention to details. But I cannot, for the life of me, get myself to pay attention to details with this book because there are many names to remember and also unlike most other Llosa novels, this one is lighter on the imagery and heavier on memory. And because it is biographical, it is easier to read without paying much attention to descriptions and metaphors. I know it is meaningless to just rush through a book simply because it is weighing down on you and because you want to hurry to other books but I cannot bring myself to start another book unless I finish this one. And it is going really slow. Is it because it is a historical novel or because I am a lousy reader?

Anyway, I had a rather interesting noon. As I was inching closer to finishing the book, I couldn’t fight the pre-orgasm of getting my hands on the next book; the only time I am excited about reading a book, which is. I dug through my collection hoping I hadn’t left my copy of Nabokov’s ‘The Gift’ in the department. Turns out I had. Instead I found myself feeling enthralled with the idea of giving ‘Possession’ another shot.

I found ‘Possession’ way back when I was still a Princess Diaries freak. I was running around feeling waves of panic upon seeing 10,000 books at landmark when I came across the ‘literature’ section and on the top shelf, the most attractive book cover I had ever seen. It had the most brilliant shade of green with a remarkable painting of Victorian looking women. Or maybe one Victorian man and one woman, it’s hard to tell because they look so much like 2 women.

I remember having started to read this in my good old Jain days. But something didn’t stick. I guess it was the timing. There are so many names in the book I could have only caught after my M.A., I couldn’t last more than 30 pages. I’m through with the first 50 pages now and I am enjoying it. I don’t remember liking it so much then though.

I am waiting to read more. I like this woman already.

Get Ready for the Next Blogging U. Challenge: Writing 101

Blee.
Round 2

The Daily Post

Feeling a bit bereft now that Blogging 101 and 201 have wound down, or just looking for a way to cultivate good writing habits? Never fear, Writing 101 is here!

(Well, it will be here, starting June 2.)

Our next Blogging U. challenge moves away from the technical and design aspects of blogging to focus on your content. Writing 101: Building a Blogging Habit is a write-every-day challenge designed to help you create a writing habit while publishing posts that mesh with your blog’s focus and push you a bit as a writer.

Here’s how it works:

• We’ll post a new writing assignment just for Writing 101 each weekday in June here on The Daily Post. Assignments will publish at 10:00AM EST (14:00PM GMT).
• There are no weekend assignments — you’re free to expand on a weekday post, write something unrelated, or (gasp!) spend some time away from your blog.
• Each assignment includes…

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Meditation and working out (haha)

Meditation can be such a pain in the ass. Never works for me. Maybe it would if I take it seriously but what the hell, it is bloody difficult. I used to think meditation requires a humongous ability to concentrate and stuff but I have only just discovered that meditation can mean anything so long as you know what you are thinking. It is like being fully aware of what thoughts you give permission to enter your mind, what thoughts (bad or good) are you nourishing in your mind. Nourishing is a strange word to be using here but it makes sense. A thought becomes bigger because I nourish it. I feed it, make it healthy, take extensive support from the demons of my past, make room for all the voices in my head (not very nice voices) to be able to make the thought stronger and eventually allow it to take control of my whole mind and body and later, the whole day. 

Today I woke up feeling bothered because when I woke at 6:30, my mind wanted to go start the day early but my body convinced my mind to let go and just sleep because holidays and everything. When I finally woke up, it was 8:30 and my mind and body weren’t talking to each other. Spent the morning watching Bruce Almighty and relishing a mango. Came up to my room, cleaned a bit, played Plants vs Zombies for an hour, got mad at myself and uninstalled the game and started to write. 

I am feeling rather good about today even if it means ignoring the fact that I have to run/ walk/ do something to give my body some exercise because of something foolish I did on Sunday. I worked out at F’s gym because I am crazy that way. And now my thighs seem mad at me and I am sure they are planning a full revenge on me today. So apparently if I don’t want to walk like a zombie for the next 15 hours I have to get off my ass now and work out. Bleh. 

Forts, Princesses and their diaries.

Somewhere on the old airport road in Bangalore was once a huge fort (read: shopping complex) for kids called Kemp Fort. Did I just say for kids? Because it wasn’t all for kids. Now that I recollect it, the first floor was women’s clothing and accessories. Sarees in golden and the most beautiful shade of blue – you know, that blue? The one that you see very rarely but when you do, you clobber everybody around you to look at it and give you the exact name of the damn blue and they don’t know the shade but all they know is that they don’t want to be friends with you anymore, also the one that is simply unattainable for small little projects like setting up the header for your blog? Yes, that lovely shade of blue.

I remember the floor distinctly because every time I entered the damn fort, I felt royal. On one end of the floor, there was the smell of popcorn and softie ice cream mingling in soap bubbles being blown by Goofy. On the opposite end, there were colors of a thousand different colors dancing on a whole showcase of bangles, earrings and necklaces in assorted sizes and shapes, tall mannequins clothed in the most exquisite sarees that I have seen only there; shoes, sandals, dress materials all throwing out a myriad of colors. I used to be very mad at this floor because so many colors and all I could have was the boring white popcorn, which smelled great but, you know, still.

The second floor was rather uninteresting because it had household stuff – crockery, curtains and the likes. The third floor was my favourite because here were colors I could afford buying. Like Kelly dolls and books and stationery that nobody in the history of mankind knows how to use – A sharpener concealed beneath a pink bush like object with scary blue eyes on top of it. I am pretty sure it wasn’t a sex toy. It was just a sharpener that was unusable.

There was also a whole section of books for kids, teenagers and et al. The section I used to haunt was called ‘young adult’ and it is very special to me because most of my firsts happened here. My first Judy Blume, my first set of  Princess Diaries, also now that I think about it, my first journal was picked up from here. I remember picking up the first book of The Princess Diaries and giving it a quick glance. I read the first page and was immediately impressed because it had a date and so I thought it must be a diary so I picked it up and scrammed to my mother because I noticed a girl my age eyeing the pink and stars and stuff on the cover of the book. Needless to say, it lay on my table for about two and a half months, dusty and unread until one day I just picked it up and started reading it. And I am not exaggerating when I say that I haven’t been the same person since. The Princess Diaries series has been the only book that I have read without stopping until the end. I don’t care about what kind of a reader that makes me.

M.A  English and then a teaching job where I regularly share space with some of the finest people and this is still the only book I was/am a huge sucker for.

I related to Mia and her dramatics quite naturally because I was a lot like her those days and still am maybe. It gave me an unforgettable reading experience because after that pretty much every book I’ve picked up, I have struggled to finish. And I am ashamed of it. It takes me 2 months to finish a book. And it just keeps getting worse. At one point I thought it could be the internet’s fault but it isn’t. I am just a lousy reader.

But here’s to The Princess Diaries.

Next up: Judy Blume!

Reading old stuff

Most of my evening today was spent reading old journals that I finally got my hands on. They were all stashed away at F’s for safekeeping because every now and then my mother decides to ruin her life and walk into my room and eventually find something – Anything – an old movie ticket stub, bills from some resort, an old letter, kuch bhi; that will leave her feeling like her uterus dropped down to the basement and died. Because I came from bloody there no? The uterus, I mean. Not the basement. So to avoid this tragedy, I had given away all my journals to F because they were all about him anyway. Let’s not even get to the fact that he hasn’t read any one of those journals that are all about him and me and all the romantic goof shit that I was made of a couple of years ago.

I realised a whole lot of things from reading all that today.

1) That I was a far more regular writer then and a lot better also.(Even though I say so myself) And maybe why I was better was because I wrote like freaking everyday.

2) The life threatening problems that I had a year ago are laughable today. Just goes on to say how pointlessly serious I take myself and my life. And that eventually, whether or not I am prepared, time heals everything.

3) I was very stupid.
Back there I found some stuff about myself. That I wrote. With my own bloody hands. That I never want found out. By anyone. Not even after I die.

4) I was a dick head to assume that I would never change and that what were priorities in my life about 3 years ago would be my priorities forever.

5) I Trusted too much and too many people.

6) I was in touch with myself a lot more than I am today.

Which only means, I need to write more and write everyday.

Pica and other disorderliness.

All of yesterday was spent moving all my posts from blogger to here. I had to ditch moving some of my earlier posts because I physically and psychologically couldn’t do it. Bleh. All my grand plans for the vacation are now sitting and bathing in their own filth. I haven’t started work on any of the things that I was supposed to. Haven’t started on my great reading list yet, I’m not even writing regularly. I have 25 free days exactly before college reopens and I become enslaved to time and its violation of my body and mind. I have spent a month of my free time doing nothing. I wake up really late because summer takes ugly liberties with my sleep cycle and now that it has also fraternized with bed bugs, I cannot sleep until 3 in the morning, which means I can only wake up at 9:00 after which  my day just dissolves into guilt followed by mushy laziness involving slumping on bed trying to discover new postures which relieve my neck/back pain, romancing with the idea of writing or reading and then laughing my ass off while watching new girl.

New on the list is my new found super secretive smoking activity which, quite frankly leaves me more tensed than relieved. Because it involves the herculean task of locking the door and double checking the lock, opening other doors and windows trying to make room for ventilation, all the while hoping nobody smells what I am doing, lighting 2 dhoops, each placed strategically at the corner of the entrance, one incense stick right next to where I am supposed to be sighing and playing with rings of smoke, while actually looking nervously at the door every time I sense movement, acting like a fucking cat. This is so not done. I hate being a cat in my own  room. Nevertheless, I found the perfect time and place to do it which is evidently after house people go to sleep and I become the dark knight in my balcony.

In the mornings, my detective alter ego finds major orgasm in sneaking into the puja room to satiate my pica disorder. There is this massive round chunk of god knows what but is white and gray and extremely chalk/stone/vibhooti like that makes that crunchy chunky noise every time I devour it. I’m not half as excited for chocolate or crab or even sex damn it! The taste of mud in my mouth is what my teeth is grateful for. The bitter sweet meet of concrete and calcium in my mouth is what I live for. I reserve similar feelings for paint, dust and slate pencils. My best so far has been the plain white slate chalk because it is followed by 100% satisfaction and lesser guilt ridden behavior. The only good thing about this summer has been my seemingly full and final de-addiction from the regular dose of Gilmore Girls. It hasn’t been replaced but I am watching new stuff, like New girl so yaay!