Hurricane "Irene"

So there was a lot of hullabaloo about hurricane Irene. The news channels were charmingly successful in instilling fear. You MUST evacuate if you live in such and such areas, you MUST stack up on food supplies, water, torches, batteries, candles, you MUST stay the hell away from windows, you MUST lock up your doors and windows, you MUST not take your dogs to walk, put bladders on test! you MUST not by all means go to the beach for a sunbath! (just take a cue from i donno... the Sun? or rather the lack thereof?!) you MUST listen to us. Do you hear? Of course not everybody listened. Some folks actually went kayaking and surfing in this weather! (At least there was a lot of rain and respectable wind-speed, and the waves had swelled up considerably). They had a valid defense of course, "o the waves were so good for surfing y'know."
And then of course the rescuers, perhaps when just about to tuck themselves in with a hot cup of coco, hurriedly summoned and rushed for an undesired, ill timed swim to save those pesky nitwits out kayaking! It's actually amusing how some people juuust don't get it! They're like "i WILL go kayaking in the hurricane. Do what you can!"
After being rescued they were immediately handed subpoena. Hah! The lifeguards are not the only ones "summoned" tonight :-/

But anyway, all is fine. There was not much of a hurricane after all. Rather, Irene kinda stood us up. All the planning and preparation, you know I got dressed up, got lot of food and everything, planned a candle/torch lit dinner in total privacy (yes some even BOLTED up windows with scotch tape and wooden planks!)... alas! Irene just teased a bit all through the night. O well... bye bye Irene, we couldn't have handled you anyway.

more gray hairs

As the getting-yanked-out-from-a-uterus day closes in, I almost wish if I could skip the day altogether. And to think that not even a cupla years back I was a happy monkey unleashed at the prospect of a full house! * sigh * o yes, I grow old. And with that I realize that the mind is the eternal time-traveler, and the greatest alchemist.  

stoic

and then this is what happens...

stretch of flesh inflated, deflated, contorted, and twisted to many amusing figures- sometimes a horse, a cat, a bike, a girl with plaits, a dolphin with a hat, a motorcycle, a penguin, or just a curly Q... and while it sometimes bled with a sharp tang, the thrill of performance ruptured by applause or obloquy, the tingling buzz- Reassuring. 

and then somewhere between the order and the bite, flesh is steak- well-done.

unchained melody

There is something about Don Mclean songs that makes me nostalgic about an imaginary romance in a Tuscany countryside where I might have been desperately in love and had my heart broken in a very old fashioned way. And let’s even dress myself in a frilly plaid tunic frock with the hemmed petticoat lining peeking out, wearing a matching bonnet and bright red palm shoes. I guess this imagery directly plants me in an impressionistic painting from the nineteenth century, transporting me to “back in the days when romance was in fashion, before the days of whips and rollerblades…back in the days when we were idealistic and younger than our years…”¹

 

I have been thinking about love. 

Among the many disagreeable things that Freud has taken the liberty of making famous and manipulating future psychology students with for the rest of their lives, inciting dissentious outbreaks in classrooms, university offices or coffee houses, one particular analysis that “we are never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our love” rings true with a million resonance. And even though for the most part we don’t exactly have a ready conception of love, yet most of us would agree with a marginal degree of skepticism, applying Mendel’s law, Murphy’s Law, allowing anomalies, that love is in fact a noble thing. And yet, it inadvertently becomes perverse if one should love a third emotionally or romantically (which does not necessarily mean sexually) if one is already committed in that capacity to someone exclusively. The fear of losing one or the guilt for loving another seems imminent. But what should one do in times like these? One could lie or deny both to the existing lover/partner and to this other object of attraction/love, (a person no doubt). But is there a purpose? Yes, perhaps much argument is averted, but what more? Can you honestly evacuate or terminate the stirrings you inexorably are sinking into for this other person? For some I guess the excitement or the very attraction stems from the fact that the other person is untenable, unattainable. Some takes pleasure in the palpable, adrenalin pumping, hormones flying, blood boiling sexual undercurrent, and the challenge to overcome the moment of intense willingness or seduction… when two riving, writhing bodies comes close… very close. It is perhaps only in the overcoming and not in the succumbing of the temptation that the attraction between the forbidden two will remain… 

And for few others who keep their feelings a secret, sipping fondly but clandestinely from the resplendent font of love in all its splendor… those who spend their days in quiet commitment and soft pining for a lingering wishful desire, must seek inspiration in the words of Shakespeare again, 

She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm in the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And, with a green and yellow melancholy,
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.

.

all the world's a stage

I wonder sometimes how it would be if I was ten years old today and still quite engaged with “growing up.” Well yes, technically I am still growing up or to be precise, growing old. That is VERY different now, isn’t it? Your legs don’t grow any leggier, your breasts don’t get any breastier (unless you are sculpting with copious amounts of silicon), your penis has had its 'ohhhkay that's it. you happy now?' moment, your nose don’t chisel itself out, your teeth don’t reach new levels of geometric perfection or concaveness… nothing good really occurs in this stage of growth, namely the period between your late teens or early twenties to the end of your life, anymore. Any “growth” now, after 25 at most (I would think), is an aberration, a trespassing fleshy appendage, which quite possibly will need a surgical intervention in the non-silicon, non-enhancement kind of way. If anything at all, the only slab of our body STILL growing would be our belligerent, teasing old gut, perpetually snickering at our incapacity to check the eternal threat of portliness. Anyway, let me come back to my original tedious curiosity of how it would be to grow up in these times.

Undoubtedly, in many singular ways the act of living your life has been made easy and efficient. I am not questioning the ramifications of technological advancement at all. It is most certainly, and absolutely a winning argument. And indeed, I am not engaging myself in an altercation that life cannot be lived without technological efficacy. Of course it can be. The denial of that, I imagine, would finally enrage the peaceful Amish people enough to shoot me with bows and arrows! (Um, pardon me for my lack of knowledge about Amish armaments). My argument stems from the run-of-the-mill concern of the evermore growing lack of innocence enshrouding us all. Yes, this realization at this point in history will not make me famous… I am behind the mark by at least three centuries. Even William Blake wasn’t really the pioneer of that aphorism, and HE worked pretty fast I tell’ya! Day 1, born. Day 2, write. Day 3, create the Tyger and the Lamb. Hence, this concern is not new. But nevertheless I am rather sad, and a peculiar sense of loneliness haunts me, at the general lack of innocence in the world that I inhabit. It is inevitable that I insert a disclaimer here: I am not a saint, not a prude, not a puritan, and have participated in many cardinal sins with volition, I am sure. Had I any camelesque bodily functions to store liquids, gallons of alcohol might be pumped out worth a whole capacity of an artesian well in one of our own Amish lands! Indeed, cocktails have been drunk, sex with its many imaginings has been practiced, and meat has been ravaged without the slightest reprehension… basically, the works. Hence, I am not a saint. But even then I have not been able to evacuate myself of this brooding, breeding, and intransigent feeling that the world has reached and penetrates into new realms and levels of inebriation, vulgarity, and unscrupulousness. And in me I have been able to locate for some time now, a smooth transitioning with retrograde motions of awe, absorption, participation, disapproval, detest, fear, more fear, detachment, or aloofness as possible reactions to the world around me. I imagine in my head that a randomly selected 25 year old of today is outrageously more profligate than a 25 year old of my parents’ time. And that if I was a 10 year old today, I might be acutely aware of many of the beginners lessons on sex, which in my lifetime I had stumbled upon a biology class in eighth grade. And I remember I could not comprehend for the life of me, how and through what the spermatic visitors reach the ovarian hosts. The teacher did not quite explain that in class either, at least not during my attention span. My friends from school can vouch for my inconsolable naivety back then. In fact R was the one who enlightened me after the class, in a fit of amusement, about the mechanics of sex. So anyhow, my point is I was, I am sure, not the only 14 year old who had absolutely no clue about certain things in life. And it had seemed fine. But I am afraid that a 14 year old of today might have had field experiences already. My concern is that the average girl/boy of today of any age is far more tainted, and lost a little more innocence, and acquired a little more experience, and had a little more “fun” than that of the average girl or boy of the same age of even half a generation ago. There seems to be an anachronistic compression today, and people just know and do a lot more in every aspect especially of the bad and the ugly; I am not so sure about the good. Am I entirely concocting this or is there a figment of truth embedded somewhere? Browsing through pictures in social networking sites has prodigiously rounded my belief that indeed we are all looming in a world of amorality, at best. I don’t know what I am looking for; I don’t know what I am hoping. I am not seeking a world where everybody is a buck toothed farmer, looking like the kid from Jerry Maguire, leading a Forrest Gumpian life, or holding hands and singing nursery rhymes, and drinking milk as the only other substitute for a liquid refreshment; no that is not what I expect, and that is not my definition of innocence. But I guess I am just looking for some elegant quality of the heart, which does not tarnish with time, and retains some sense of purity, and faith. I don’t know what I am looking for in these snapshots of peoples’ lives exhibited in the electronic world…I don’t even know if a single hour of my life entailed the very innocence that I am searching for. I probably don’t make a rational argument here. I am probably looking for something entirely unreasonable, which makes no sense… which never existed, which does not need to exist…

And yet it’s just that… I need to believe that you effortlessly understand what I am trying to say… and offer me a reassuring nod that all is not lost…

heh

A woman complains about giving back her wedding ring to her ex-husband. To be fair the ring is a family heirloom, and if anyone should have it it rather be his soon-to-be fiance. However, this ex-wife claims that the ring is her "only priced possession." I suppose, something to remember her first marriage by. The divorce papers alone don't ring a bell, ya'know! Hence she does not want to return the ring to the ex-husband. That she has potentially lost the ring, her "only priced possession" is of course another matter.  Turning her house upside down to find the ring her defense is:

There is a lot of things I love that I can't find.
Also, there is love that I can't find :P

The therapist

here's why we need therapists: for example when i listen to someone's problems, i TRY to just listen. without offering any solution to them. which can be both good and bad. the most I do is try to make one feel better, perhaps by reminding them of better days when it was not that bad, or reminding them something positive about the person they might be having trouble with. however, if i talk about my problems, I am mostly greeted with similar counter examples of problems in their lives. and then it seems like a comparison of who has the bigger problem! i do! no, i do! and i HATE comparisons and competitions of any kind. also, i'd hate being accused of such a thing. you couldn't do me more wrong. so the minute there is such a danger of that, i back out. now you see a therapist wouldn't do that! also there'd be a soft comfortable couch! just listen can't you? i think one needs a dog or a therapist sometime or other in their lives :D