Tomorrow, I am joining my mother's husband on the UWS for a taping of my dogs under his care. As a veterinary chiropractor he has been invited to perform his craft on television. Luckey and Vegas are fortunate patients who will be aired as part of his segment.
Yay! Hopefully I'll be able to link to the video once it's available.
November 30, 2008
Family History--Back to Bombay!
I haven't talked much about my family in this medium. Part of the reason being that they have factored less in my life over the last 10 years than they did in the first 18 but another salient point is to protect their collective dignity--no, thankfully they don't read this little outlet for my neurosis. Clearly this preface reveals that I will now proceed to air decades of dirty laundry and rattle some closeted skeletons...because I can. My apologies to those masked by annonymity in advance.
MY GRANDPARENTS
My grandparents marriage was arranged to meet my grandfather's family's growing debt. His father was an alcoholic fisherman who lost the love of his life to what we suspect is cancer--no one really knew what it was back then. My great-grandfather married my grandfather's mother, a stern teacher, because he was expected to have a family and she bore him 9 children, 7 of whom survived puberty, my grandfather is the oldest. My grandmother's family consisted of a schoolteacher mother to whose iron will the agrarian father bent out of love or necessity no one knows. The union of my grandparents was far from romantic and while it wasn't as feudal as land exchanged it did aid my grandfather's family in marrying off their daughters. Dowry that goes around, comes around! In June 1948, the 16-year old farm girl married the 26-year old printing press worker.
The story goes that my grandmother was grossly mistreated by my grandfather's family for her dark complexion and the reality that the additional mouth to feed would lead to diminished income for the whole family. My grandmother moved to Bombay to join my grandfather in 1950 where she bore him three children, my mother being the classic middle child and sole daughter. My grandfather continued to support his family, a self-made man, he set his younger brothers up with printing presses of their own and raised his children by providing for them financially. My grandmother did all the actual rearing of said children. She channeled all her unfulfilled desires into them, launching one doctor after another and finally failing with the third who has become a wealthy man of commerce to her chagrin.
MY PARENTS
My father married my mother as a result of an arrangement my grandfather made with him. My mother's older brother was a dentist in America and agreed to sponsor my mother and her new beau to start a beautiful life in the New World. My father who wanted to escape the tyranny of his own parents and the obsessive Indian need for medical professionals felt this was his way out. He was a General Practitioner but wanted nothing more than to live an academic life surrounded by his books and waxing philosophically on existentialism. My mother, a pediatrician, knew nothing of any of this...all she knew was that her parents would collectively commit suicide if she were to not marry a man of their choosing. Yes, Bollywood's flair for melodrama comes from its palpability across Indian subcultures.
Since the immigration papers were taking longer than expected, my grandparents sent my parents to the Gulf in 1982. My father was not impressed with the restrictive life in that part of the world and returned shortly thereafter to his parents family abode in South India, my mother toiled on to make the requisite monies that would be needed for their eventual life in America. When I was about 7 years old, she returned to Bombay and set up a pediatric polyclinic all her own. She was successful but the stigma of being separated resulted in gender biased attacks. Married men constantly came onto her in crude ways feeling that as the mother of a child no longer locked in wedded bliss she was primed for mistress duties. Women fearing for their marriages reviled her for their husbands, albeit unwelcome, advances. Additionally, covert female competitiveness which was only exacerbated by her financial success and independence led to unending discomfort in the social realm. Despite my mother's strength and general "I care not for what soceity thinks of me" stance, it was tough. When her sponsorship papers for America came through in December 1989, she decided to give her marriage another chance and truly establish a new life for herself.
My parents attempted a reconciliation which failed and led to their eventual divorce in 1995. My father, disappointed by his unfulfilled ideation of streets paved with gold and unmitigated freedom from familial responsibility, returned to south India sometime in 1990 after less than a year living his dream. I was delivered to my mother by her mother in Jamaica, Queens in May 1992. Prior to that date my memories of my mother involved coiling and uncoiling rotary phone wires and packages with dolls with flaxen hair and blue eyes who talked and walked. I bore her no ill will but I knew that my home in Bombay was no longer my home and my grandparents were no longer my primary care givers. I don't remember it being difficult to assimilate, but looking back I know it was.
THE UNCLES
My oldest uncle, M, married the janitor's daughter at 19 and ran away from home. When he realized that love doesn't put food on the table and their first child was stillborn, he came home. My grandfather banished him to America because he was ashamed of his disrespectful display and in an effort to help him live an unfettered life in the new land. The tale he tells is one of hard work and loneliness which led him to four wives and twice as many children in and out of wedlock. He returned to India in 1997 with two young sons after their mother got him shot in his New Rochelle driveway. He had to give up maxilofacial surgery and now focuses on cosmetic procedures since he had a long recovery from ths shot to his vertebrae.
His departure to India may have saved his life but it also continued in a Western bent the East doesn't accept. He married a divorcee of my grandparents choosing, who he has since divorced to take up residence with a woman half his age with whom he has a daughter. He is also having an affair with the manager of his booming medical practice--a divorcee with two grown daughters. He recently made this woman wife number 5 upon what he claims was my grandfather's decree, but my grandmother was unaware of the situation.
My younger uncle migrated to the United States in 1987, thanks to M's sponsorship.
Seeing the dysfunction around him, he has cut all ties with the family. His Russian wife (blamed for his distance, obesity, and childless status) and he live in Long Valley and hope to retire to a mansion they are building in south India. His correspondence with my grandfather is strictly business. He remains a member of the family who surfaces rarely in matters of domestic politics.
THE PRESENT
Now, the reason all this history is relevant today is that I've volunteered to go to India for the month of January in an effort to get my grandmother into therapy or at the very least medicated for her condition. The actual condition remains a mystery.
On the day of the Mumbai attacks, she had a blowout fight with my grandfather--the straw that broke the camel's back: my grandfather's insistence that M. marry the mother of his most recent child in our parish in order for my grandfather to be buried there in the event of his death (it is unclear WHY my uncle needs to get married in the church my grandfather has been a member of for the past 55 years in order for him to be buried there) but my uncle went ahead with it without consulting or notifying my grandmother. She found out about the marriage through the church grapevine then my mother confirmed that my grandfather had insisted on this union under God. Her furiousness led to the removal of a substantial amount of gold from her person and a weeping departure from her home in a housecoat via rickshaw.
She disappeared for five hours on one of the worst possible days in the history of the city.
M. called my mother at 2am on Thanksgiving morning, whilst she and I chatted beside a fire in suburban New Jersey, to inform her of the situation. A transatlantic shouting match of the blame game ensued. Shortly, thereafter he called to quell her worst fear; my grandmother had been found standing on the rocks at Bandstand praying and crying. A suicide attempt thwarted; they've medicated her heavily since and my conversations with her have been stilted due to their side effect: disoriented affect, grogginess, and exhaustion.
ME
I am going back to India.
My grandparents raised me and I love them, I also owe them. My mother loves her mother, despite the hysteria, and she'd riddled with guilt. She was just in India for a few weeks and will be returning in February for a family wedding, but she doesn't have the luxury of taking off for months at a time. She has a medical practice to run. Additionally, her American husband isn't going to understand, let alone accompany her on a voyage to her motherland to care for her physically well/psychologically failing mother. Not that he can be expected to but he cetainly won't. I have neither a husband nor a career, I will go. My mother mired in the guilt of a filially pious upbringing can stop self-flagellating because her emissary will represent.
My career choice of mental health is both timely and soon-to-be-tested. I will return to my Bombay to ensure that my grandma gets the helps she needs--stigma be damned! Finessing my grandfather to allow this will be an epic journey in manipulation and wiles. It may take more than the month of January, but I intend to go back after any interviews I may garner as part of the clinical psychology doctoral application process and stay as long as is needed to begin the healing to hearth.
"Piety starts at home"
MY GRANDPARENTS
My grandparents marriage was arranged to meet my grandfather's family's growing debt. His father was an alcoholic fisherman who lost the love of his life to what we suspect is cancer--no one really knew what it was back then. My great-grandfather married my grandfather's mother, a stern teacher, because he was expected to have a family and she bore him 9 children, 7 of whom survived puberty, my grandfather is the oldest. My grandmother's family consisted of a schoolteacher mother to whose iron will the agrarian father bent out of love or necessity no one knows. The union of my grandparents was far from romantic and while it wasn't as feudal as land exchanged it did aid my grandfather's family in marrying off their daughters. Dowry that goes around, comes around! In June 1948, the 16-year old farm girl married the 26-year old printing press worker.
The story goes that my grandmother was grossly mistreated by my grandfather's family for her dark complexion and the reality that the additional mouth to feed would lead to diminished income for the whole family. My grandmother moved to Bombay to join my grandfather in 1950 where she bore him three children, my mother being the classic middle child and sole daughter. My grandfather continued to support his family, a self-made man, he set his younger brothers up with printing presses of their own and raised his children by providing for them financially. My grandmother did all the actual rearing of said children. She channeled all her unfulfilled desires into them, launching one doctor after another and finally failing with the third who has become a wealthy man of commerce to her chagrin.
MY PARENTS
My father married my mother as a result of an arrangement my grandfather made with him. My mother's older brother was a dentist in America and agreed to sponsor my mother and her new beau to start a beautiful life in the New World. My father who wanted to escape the tyranny of his own parents and the obsessive Indian need for medical professionals felt this was his way out. He was a General Practitioner but wanted nothing more than to live an academic life surrounded by his books and waxing philosophically on existentialism. My mother, a pediatrician, knew nothing of any of this...all she knew was that her parents would collectively commit suicide if she were to not marry a man of their choosing. Yes, Bollywood's flair for melodrama comes from its palpability across Indian subcultures.
Since the immigration papers were taking longer than expected, my grandparents sent my parents to the Gulf in 1982. My father was not impressed with the restrictive life in that part of the world and returned shortly thereafter to his parents family abode in South India, my mother toiled on to make the requisite monies that would be needed for their eventual life in America. When I was about 7 years old, she returned to Bombay and set up a pediatric polyclinic all her own. She was successful but the stigma of being separated resulted in gender biased attacks. Married men constantly came onto her in crude ways feeling that as the mother of a child no longer locked in wedded bliss she was primed for mistress duties. Women fearing for their marriages reviled her for their husbands, albeit unwelcome, advances. Additionally, covert female competitiveness which was only exacerbated by her financial success and independence led to unending discomfort in the social realm. Despite my mother's strength and general "I care not for what soceity thinks of me" stance, it was tough. When her sponsorship papers for America came through in December 1989, she decided to give her marriage another chance and truly establish a new life for herself.
My parents attempted a reconciliation which failed and led to their eventual divorce in 1995. My father, disappointed by his unfulfilled ideation of streets paved with gold and unmitigated freedom from familial responsibility, returned to south India sometime in 1990 after less than a year living his dream. I was delivered to my mother by her mother in Jamaica, Queens in May 1992. Prior to that date my memories of my mother involved coiling and uncoiling rotary phone wires and packages with dolls with flaxen hair and blue eyes who talked and walked. I bore her no ill will but I knew that my home in Bombay was no longer my home and my grandparents were no longer my primary care givers. I don't remember it being difficult to assimilate, but looking back I know it was.
THE UNCLES
My oldest uncle, M, married the janitor's daughter at 19 and ran away from home. When he realized that love doesn't put food on the table and their first child was stillborn, he came home. My grandfather banished him to America because he was ashamed of his disrespectful display and in an effort to help him live an unfettered life in the new land. The tale he tells is one of hard work and loneliness which led him to four wives and twice as many children in and out of wedlock. He returned to India in 1997 with two young sons after their mother got him shot in his New Rochelle driveway. He had to give up maxilofacial surgery and now focuses on cosmetic procedures since he had a long recovery from ths shot to his vertebrae.
His departure to India may have saved his life but it also continued in a Western bent the East doesn't accept. He married a divorcee of my grandparents choosing, who he has since divorced to take up residence with a woman half his age with whom he has a daughter. He is also having an affair with the manager of his booming medical practice--a divorcee with two grown daughters. He recently made this woman wife number 5 upon what he claims was my grandfather's decree, but my grandmother was unaware of the situation.
My younger uncle migrated to the United States in 1987, thanks to M's sponsorship.
Seeing the dysfunction around him, he has cut all ties with the family. His Russian wife (blamed for his distance, obesity, and childless status) and he live in Long Valley and hope to retire to a mansion they are building in south India. His correspondence with my grandfather is strictly business. He remains a member of the family who surfaces rarely in matters of domestic politics.
THE PRESENT
Now, the reason all this history is relevant today is that I've volunteered to go to India for the month of January in an effort to get my grandmother into therapy or at the very least medicated for her condition. The actual condition remains a mystery.
On the day of the Mumbai attacks, she had a blowout fight with my grandfather--the straw that broke the camel's back: my grandfather's insistence that M. marry the mother of his most recent child in our parish in order for my grandfather to be buried there in the event of his death (it is unclear WHY my uncle needs to get married in the church my grandfather has been a member of for the past 55 years in order for him to be buried there) but my uncle went ahead with it without consulting or notifying my grandmother. She found out about the marriage through the church grapevine then my mother confirmed that my grandfather had insisted on this union under God. Her furiousness led to the removal of a substantial amount of gold from her person and a weeping departure from her home in a housecoat via rickshaw.
She disappeared for five hours on one of the worst possible days in the history of the city.
M. called my mother at 2am on Thanksgiving morning, whilst she and I chatted beside a fire in suburban New Jersey, to inform her of the situation. A transatlantic shouting match of the blame game ensued. Shortly, thereafter he called to quell her worst fear; my grandmother had been found standing on the rocks at Bandstand praying and crying. A suicide attempt thwarted; they've medicated her heavily since and my conversations with her have been stilted due to their side effect: disoriented affect, grogginess, and exhaustion.
ME
I am going back to India.
My grandparents raised me and I love them, I also owe them. My mother loves her mother, despite the hysteria, and she'd riddled with guilt. She was just in India for a few weeks and will be returning in February for a family wedding, but she doesn't have the luxury of taking off for months at a time. She has a medical practice to run. Additionally, her American husband isn't going to understand, let alone accompany her on a voyage to her motherland to care for her physically well/psychologically failing mother. Not that he can be expected to but he cetainly won't. I have neither a husband nor a career, I will go. My mother mired in the guilt of a filially pious upbringing can stop self-flagellating because her emissary will represent.
My career choice of mental health is both timely and soon-to-be-tested. I will return to my Bombay to ensure that my grandma gets the helps she needs--stigma be damned! Finessing my grandfather to allow this will be an epic journey in manipulation and wiles. It may take more than the month of January, but I intend to go back after any interviews I may garner as part of the clinical psychology doctoral application process and stay as long as is needed to begin the healing to hearth.
"Piety starts at home"
November 23, 2008
Series of Voicemails
To know me is to know my friends.
While I don't often admit to being utterly shaped by my environment--a hapless homo sapien--it's not invalid. I'm framed by the people I place on pedestals of varying heights in the largest chamber of my brain--the one wholly dedicated to interpersonal relations.
Ditha (my former NYC roomie and Indian sorority gal pal who ran off to Tollywood and now resides in Dallas with her family working in the theater despite) left me this message earlier this week:
(indecipherable music blasting on a car radio) It's that time of year again. Christmas time. I know how much you LOVE Christmas music, so as soon as I heard Christmas songs on the radio I had to call you and remind you that it's THAT time of year again. Call me back. Oh, it's Ditha!
THIS is patently untrue. Ditha LOVES the season--crazy Hindu--and when we shared a residence she started with the Christmas tunes on chilly October nights. I mean you have to get past Halloween at the absolute earliest!
Tracey (my high school bff, Russian comrade extraordinaire who has trascended selfishness to realize her purpose on this Earth is to patiently teach developmentally challenged children in suburban New Jersey has finally given up her ornithological dreams yet clings to her ice skating and snowboarding frivolties) left me this message:
Woman, I love your well-crafted messages. Such a delight to listen to. Especially that xoxo sign off, so Gossip Girl. You will forever remain my Felicity. I'm glad we aren't going to that dang 10-year reunion. I would rather shred my insides than sit at the Elks Club with this girl I work with who is dating Dick Potter--you remember him, he wrote "penis breath" in your agenda in art class in 8th grade. Yeah, I work with the woman who thinks he's the cat's meow. Give me a call if you have time or anything to report.
She's not one for flattery or social politeness but I'm still a sucker for both.
Li Chen (my Cali Asian hip hop loving booze hound bridge builder--literally he's a civil engineer--who loves his SF life but misses those East Coast nights of bacchanalian post-collegiate revelry) said this to my machine: Chili, Where you at? I finally got the papers for my new job, so back to happy hour in the city...finally. I wish you were here and we could go for drinks right now. Sadly, I'll have to make do with LIGS *lame indian girl* and LAGS *lame asian girl*. Holla back.
There were a small group of Asians who referred to me as Chili in college--I don't think I ever resembled the diminutive TLC member who dated Usher in the last '90s. Li just switched jobs. He's thrilled to be closer to the city and HH, even if his choice of companions is lacking.
Helen (the granola Brit--youngest of four--spent a year under a thatched roof in South India after college and is currently completing her MBA at MIT in order to work in disaster relief in the developing world) had this to say: Ray, it's Maddog. I stopped seeing the security guard. Despite the ease of conversation based on his limited intellect and the thrill of being picked up in a club, I just don't have the time. Are you still not talking to V? Honestly, it's ridiculous. My schedule is crazy but try calling me before 10pm. I can't believe we aren't going to the 10-year high school reunion. I bet Norman is going. We should go. Think about it.
She came up with these nicknames for us. Her family is all about nicknames. She's also all about reunions, clearly.
Taurean Spoons (true IBM *intelligent, black man*-- music maker, booty shaker, lover of all things romantic and spirtual--an artist at heart yet wicked smart) called to say this:
Bud, you never pick up. I'm feeling particularly down call me when you get this. You're my core. I need to talk to someone who understands what I'm going through. Love ya, 'bread.
He's going through a tough break-up...of engagement ending proportions.
Chi (crazy Tupac lovin' Kansan who consults in Chicago after her b-school/health management dual graduate degrees in Ann Arbor is my constant consort on all that ails single Indian women over 28) harried yet steadfast in her messages: Slutbag, I couldn't remember when I was supposed to call or what your work schedule is for today so hit me back on my Jack. The green-eyed monster is not making my life any easier and I think the Frog is trying to get back in my good graces. I hope Citi crashes and his lilypad above the Lincoln Tunnel burns down. You better not be returning Satan's calls/texts/e-mails. Don't lie, I know you get them. You're probably out with the Devil despite my warnings. You'll see, it can't possibly end well, again. I'm here when you come crying. I told you so.
The green-eyed monster is her current love interest--a dashing Neurology resident she recently started dating in Chicago.
The Frog is her ex (neither will admit to having had relations for two years in bschool)--the brash banker with bravado but zero follow through who lives in NYC.
Satan is D'Souza...her title not mine. I think that's a helluva promotion from DoucheBag, but I let her have her names and I have mine. She's forever chastizing me for maintaining contact with the exes.
The Devil is Zayan. My name, not hers. Appropriate for the time, just faceitious now. He's aware of the nickname and alright with it. Being Muslim I think he's heard worse. I was indeed out with him last night enjoying some art, free booze, more art, potential music and carefree drinks at B Bar...Jo was in tow, it wasn't even a non-date.
Those are the people nearest and dearest to me...the ones who called and the ones they called about. Sigh.
While I don't often admit to being utterly shaped by my environment--a hapless homo sapien--it's not invalid. I'm framed by the people I place on pedestals of varying heights in the largest chamber of my brain--the one wholly dedicated to interpersonal relations.
Ditha (my former NYC roomie and Indian sorority gal pal who ran off to Tollywood and now resides in Dallas with her family working in the theater despite) left me this message earlier this week:
(indecipherable music blasting on a car radio) It's that time of year again. Christmas time. I know how much you LOVE Christmas music, so as soon as I heard Christmas songs on the radio I had to call you and remind you that it's THAT time of year again. Call me back. Oh, it's Ditha!
THIS is patently untrue. Ditha LOVES the season--crazy Hindu--and when we shared a residence she started with the Christmas tunes on chilly October nights. I mean you have to get past Halloween at the absolute earliest!
Tracey (my high school bff, Russian comrade extraordinaire who has trascended selfishness to realize her purpose on this Earth is to patiently teach developmentally challenged children in suburban New Jersey has finally given up her ornithological dreams yet clings to her ice skating and snowboarding frivolties) left me this message:
Woman, I love your well-crafted messages. Such a delight to listen to. Especially that xoxo sign off, so Gossip Girl. You will forever remain my Felicity. I'm glad we aren't going to that dang 10-year reunion. I would rather shred my insides than sit at the Elks Club with this girl I work with who is dating Dick Potter--you remember him, he wrote "penis breath" in your agenda in art class in 8th grade. Yeah, I work with the woman who thinks he's the cat's meow. Give me a call if you have time or anything to report.
She's not one for flattery or social politeness but I'm still a sucker for both.
Li Chen (my Cali Asian hip hop loving booze hound bridge builder--literally he's a civil engineer--who loves his SF life but misses those East Coast nights of bacchanalian post-collegiate revelry) said this to my machine: Chili, Where you at? I finally got the papers for my new job, so back to happy hour in the city...finally. I wish you were here and we could go for drinks right now. Sadly, I'll have to make do with LIGS *lame indian girl* and LAGS *lame asian girl*. Holla back.
There were a small group of Asians who referred to me as Chili in college--I don't think I ever resembled the diminutive TLC member who dated Usher in the last '90s. Li just switched jobs. He's thrilled to be closer to the city and HH, even if his choice of companions is lacking.
Helen (the granola Brit--youngest of four--spent a year under a thatched roof in South India after college and is currently completing her MBA at MIT in order to work in disaster relief in the developing world) had this to say: Ray, it's Maddog. I stopped seeing the security guard. Despite the ease of conversation based on his limited intellect and the thrill of being picked up in a club, I just don't have the time. Are you still not talking to V? Honestly, it's ridiculous. My schedule is crazy but try calling me before 10pm. I can't believe we aren't going to the 10-year high school reunion. I bet Norman is going. We should go. Think about it.
She came up with these nicknames for us. Her family is all about nicknames. She's also all about reunions, clearly.
Taurean Spoons (true IBM *intelligent, black man*-- music maker, booty shaker, lover of all things romantic and spirtual--an artist at heart yet wicked smart) called to say this:
Bud, you never pick up. I'm feeling particularly down call me when you get this. You're my core. I need to talk to someone who understands what I'm going through. Love ya, 'bread.
He's going through a tough break-up...of engagement ending proportions.
Chi (crazy Tupac lovin' Kansan who consults in Chicago after her b-school/health management dual graduate degrees in Ann Arbor is my constant consort on all that ails single Indian women over 28) harried yet steadfast in her messages: Slutbag, I couldn't remember when I was supposed to call or what your work schedule is for today so hit me back on my Jack. The green-eyed monster is not making my life any easier and I think the Frog is trying to get back in my good graces. I hope Citi crashes and his lilypad above the Lincoln Tunnel burns down. You better not be returning Satan's calls/texts/e-mails. Don't lie, I know you get them. You're probably out with the Devil despite my warnings. You'll see, it can't possibly end well, again. I'm here when you come crying. I told you so.
The green-eyed monster is her current love interest--a dashing Neurology resident she recently started dating in Chicago.
The Frog is her ex (neither will admit to having had relations for two years in bschool)--the brash banker with bravado but zero follow through who lives in NYC.
Satan is D'Souza...her title not mine. I think that's a helluva promotion from DoucheBag, but I let her have her names and I have mine. She's forever chastizing me for maintaining contact with the exes.
The Devil is Zayan. My name, not hers. Appropriate for the time, just faceitious now. He's aware of the nickname and alright with it. Being Muslim I think he's heard worse. I was indeed out with him last night enjoying some art, free booze, more art, potential music and carefree drinks at B Bar...Jo was in tow, it wasn't even a non-date.
Those are the people nearest and dearest to me...the ones who called and the ones they called about. Sigh.
November 22, 2008
Date Night!
I haven't been on a date for the better part of the year....well, that's not true. I was on a date just last month with that disaster from Jersey City. But I haven't had a standing Sat. night date in over a year. Yes, despite living with D'Souza the first quarter you will recall we never actually DID anything outside our apartment after the initial weeks of wooing early in 2007. Lesson learned, but point being, date night has had no meaning to me in many moons.
However, the last two weekends I spent saturday evening with Zayan. Two weeks ago attending Jo's "Depression" party in Williamsburg--back when we thought the economy couldn't get worse--then last weekend watching Slumdog Millionaire and getting wasted at Continental. Tonight, we are meeting in Chelsea around 6 to check out Medieval Pagoda Art then dining at Naima or Brite Bar before heading back East to Bowery to check out live music at Crash Mansion. That's an evening of New York proportions. His bff from high school and Jo will join us on this non-date just to ensure no set pattern emerges.
You are well versed in my belief that once is chance, twice is coincidence, but three...three, my darling, is a pattern. Too bad, three broken promises didn't alert me to this reality about the Douchebag but Hope was the salve I liberally applied in the aftermath of that debacle. Coitally induced cohabitation blurring any foresight. Hindsight, thankfully, remains 20/20!
However, the last two weekends I spent saturday evening with Zayan. Two weeks ago attending Jo's "Depression" party in Williamsburg--back when we thought the economy couldn't get worse--then last weekend watching Slumdog Millionaire and getting wasted at Continental. Tonight, we are meeting in Chelsea around 6 to check out Medieval Pagoda Art then dining at Naima or Brite Bar before heading back East to Bowery to check out live music at Crash Mansion. That's an evening of New York proportions. His bff from high school and Jo will join us on this non-date just to ensure no set pattern emerges.
You are well versed in my belief that once is chance, twice is coincidence, but three...three, my darling, is a pattern. Too bad, three broken promises didn't alert me to this reality about the Douchebag but Hope was the salve I liberally applied in the aftermath of that debacle. Coitally induced cohabitation blurring any foresight. Hindsight, thankfully, remains 20/20!
November 21, 2008
10 Things I Hate About Alphas
1. You break promises...over and over again.
2. Your lack of empathy.
3. Your single-mindednes, sole goal, ambition.
4. Your ability to shut off your feelings immediately and completely.
5. Your anger, built up from years of abuse, and your unwillingness to deal with it.
6. Your lack of respect for women: treating them as objects, transient to your taste.
7. Your controlling nature based on your belief that you know best.
8. Your quickness to commit and depart sans discussion because your will is law.
9. Your selfishness.
10.Your utter obliviousness to the hurt you cause and the heartbreak in your wake.
wish I'd never met you. I wish I never see you again.
I wish upon you the golden rule--someone to afflict on you the damage you have on me.
I hope you wake to a slow and awful emotional enlightenment.
2. Your lack of empathy.
3. Your single-mindednes, sole goal, ambition.
4. Your ability to shut off your feelings immediately and completely.
5. Your anger, built up from years of abuse, and your unwillingness to deal with it.
6. Your lack of respect for women: treating them as objects, transient to your taste.
7. Your controlling nature based on your belief that you know best.
8. Your quickness to commit and depart sans discussion because your will is law.
9. Your selfishness.
10.Your utter obliviousness to the hurt you cause and the heartbreak in your wake.
wish I'd never met you. I wish I never see you again.
I wish upon you the golden rule--someone to afflict on you the damage you have on me.
I hope you wake to a slow and awful emotional enlightenment.
November 13, 2008
Crusade Against ConEd
Last night, I came home at 10:52pm to discover that the electricity in my abode had been turned off. I had not been notified that this would happen. I have my bills set to auto-pay using a paperless online system. Clearly, my bills are paid and for tha matter paid ON TIME.
I call ConEd's emergency number to discover that they shut down their computerized system between 11pm-1am for daily updates. My phone starts beeping due to low battery. I walk to my car and charge my cell phone whilst draining my car battery.
At 1am I speak to the ConEd rep who first tells me they did not turn off my meter. I insist. He then informs me that I do not have an account with ConEdison at which point I ask to speak to a manager. This manager, Michael George, reduces me to tears of sheer frustration and electricity outage hopelessness. He, none too gently, explains that according to my building's management company my apartment (less than 500 sq. feet) is serviced by two meters. When I ask how it is possible that I have NO current flowing anywhere in my apartment when ONLY one meter is turned off, he dismisses me and continues to insist that it is not possible for one household to use as few kilowatts as I have for the last several months. He explicitly states that I have been using the wrong meter and a letter was sent to me on September 10, 2008 to that effect. When I inform him that the food in my refridgerator has spoiled and I have no light anywhere in my home...I hear him shrug--that's right, his reaction was the equivalent of a SHRUG--
Pray tell, how I am supposed to know which meter is affiliated with MY apartment. How am I to know which meter that is? How am I to be assured that I will be now paying for just my electric and not that of the ENTIRE basmement of my building.
Outrageous!
He then transfers me back to the peon I was originally dealing with to set up a time (8am-4:30pm today) for a ConEd person to come turn ON my meter. Before he releases me to his subordinate he explains that if I am not home to provide access, they will leave without turning on my meter and even if they gain access without me, unless someone is home they will not flip the circuit breaker by the meter which will actually allow me to HAVE electricity in my apartment. I sigh.
I go to the lab for my 9:30am staff meeting and call ConEd on my return bus ride to be told that someone came by at 10:30am, couldn't get access and left.
I try to reason with the woman who informs me in an irritating calm and unaccommodating tone that I am welcome to switch to solar panels or wind energy if I don't wish to continue my service with ConEdison.
Double sigh. Seriously? If I could afford a windmill or a solar panel I would not live in a hovel in SpaHa!
So, finally the guy shows up at 3:40pm, I let him in. He huffs and puffs that the meter is locked in a way that he is unable to unlock it. Finally, discovers it's not off at all and just flips the circuit breaker above the meter. So I went without ELECTRICITY for an entire night and most of a cloudy afternoon for NOTHING. Had I only known!
We are at the mercy of our vendors. I hate ConEd.
I call ConEd's emergency number to discover that they shut down their computerized system between 11pm-1am for daily updates. My phone starts beeping due to low battery. I walk to my car and charge my cell phone whilst draining my car battery.
At 1am I speak to the ConEd rep who first tells me they did not turn off my meter. I insist. He then informs me that I do not have an account with ConEdison at which point I ask to speak to a manager. This manager, Michael George, reduces me to tears of sheer frustration and electricity outage hopelessness. He, none too gently, explains that according to my building's management company my apartment (less than 500 sq. feet) is serviced by two meters. When I ask how it is possible that I have NO current flowing anywhere in my apartment when ONLY one meter is turned off, he dismisses me and continues to insist that it is not possible for one household to use as few kilowatts as I have for the last several months. He explicitly states that I have been using the wrong meter and a letter was sent to me on September 10, 2008 to that effect. When I inform him that the food in my refridgerator has spoiled and I have no light anywhere in my home...I hear him shrug--that's right, his reaction was the equivalent of a SHRUG--
Pray tell, how I am supposed to know which meter is affiliated with MY apartment. How am I to know which meter that is? How am I to be assured that I will be now paying for just my electric and not that of the ENTIRE basmement of my building.
Outrageous!
He then transfers me back to the peon I was originally dealing with to set up a time (8am-4:30pm today) for a ConEd person to come turn ON my meter. Before he releases me to his subordinate he explains that if I am not home to provide access, they will leave without turning on my meter and even if they gain access without me, unless someone is home they will not flip the circuit breaker by the meter which will actually allow me to HAVE electricity in my apartment. I sigh.
I go to the lab for my 9:30am staff meeting and call ConEd on my return bus ride to be told that someone came by at 10:30am, couldn't get access and left.
I try to reason with the woman who informs me in an irritating calm and unaccommodating tone that I am welcome to switch to solar panels or wind energy if I don't wish to continue my service with ConEdison.
Double sigh. Seriously? If I could afford a windmill or a solar panel I would not live in a hovel in SpaHa!
So, finally the guy shows up at 3:40pm, I let him in. He huffs and puffs that the meter is locked in a way that he is unable to unlock it. Finally, discovers it's not off at all and just flips the circuit breaker above the meter. So I went without ELECTRICITY for an entire night and most of a cloudy afternoon for NOTHING. Had I only known!
We are at the mercy of our vendors. I hate ConEd.
November 11, 2008
My Fave Love Poems
Love's Philosophy
--Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle -
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea -
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me?
Sonnet XLIII
--Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
[somewhere i have never travelled]
-- ee cummings
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
--Percy Bysshe Shelley
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle -
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea -
What are all these kissings worth
If thou kiss not me?
Sonnet XLIII
--Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
[somewhere i have never travelled]
-- ee cummings
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
November 10, 2008
Happiness
"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." -
-- Helen Keller
"Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted."
-- John Lennon
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."
-- Oscar Wilde
"Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."
-- Joseph Addison
"Happiness in not a state to arrive at, but a manner of travelling." -
-- Margaret Lee Runbeck
-- Helen Keller
"Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted."
-- John Lennon
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."
-- Oscar Wilde
"Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."
-- Joseph Addison
"Happiness in not a state to arrive at, but a manner of travelling." -
-- Margaret Lee Runbeck
Siddharth Anand
Do you believe, in what you see
do you believe in reality
do you believe in the sun that’s bright
do you believe in the stars in the night
Do you believe in the birds that fly
do you believe in clouds and the sky
do you believe in wind that flows
do you believe in moon that glows
do you believe in light
Do you believe the spoken word
do you believe the things you’ve heard
do you believe in the final answer
do you believe in the swirling dancer
Do you believe in sound and sight
do you believe in moments bright
do you believe in taste and touch
do you believe that much
Do you believe in the soul inside
do you believe in ecstasy and delight
do you believe in glory and god
do you believe in that thought
Do you believe in the sky above
do you believe in love
Do you believe in the heaven and the earth
do you believe in death and birth
do you believe in life
open your eyes with hope within
open the door, let light reach in
if you believe, then you'll win
do you believe in reality
do you believe in the sun that’s bright
do you believe in the stars in the night
Do you believe in the birds that fly
do you believe in clouds and the sky
do you believe in wind that flows
do you believe in moon that glows
do you believe in light
Do you believe the spoken word
do you believe the things you’ve heard
do you believe in the final answer
do you believe in the swirling dancer
Do you believe in sound and sight
do you believe in moments bright
do you believe in taste and touch
do you believe that much
Do you believe in the soul inside
do you believe in ecstasy and delight
do you believe in glory and god
do you believe in that thought
Do you believe in the sky above
do you believe in love
Do you believe in the heaven and the earth
do you believe in death and birth
do you believe in life
open your eyes with hope within
open the door, let light reach in
if you believe, then you'll win
Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
November 5, 2008
Drying Tears
The thumbprint on my Heart
Is Evidence of Blame
Ache that dulls with Time
Awakened once Again.
How hard can I Cry?
How long will I try
to fix a FOREVER
undone by one?
Sad songs resonate
filling the recesses
cracking the pretenses
Echoing past patterns.
Caring is my cross/burden
The abuser-survivor
Contradictions @ Broken
My solo intersection.
Is Evidence of Blame
Ache that dulls with Time
Awakened once Again.
How hard can I Cry?
How long will I try
to fix a FOREVER
undone by one?
Sad songs resonate
filling the recesses
cracking the pretenses
Echoing past patterns.
Caring is my cross/burden
The abuser-survivor
Contradictions @ Broken
My solo intersection.
He Won!
There was a big part of me that just didn't believe it would happen. That is could happen NOW....Barack Obama--Mr. President.
I could hear the celebration from my basement abode. The cheering wafted down from Harlem wrapping my block in a cocoon of hope.
At first McCain's speech seemed bordering on racist to my sensitized ears. I mean could he have used the work black more often? Bringing up BTWash to make his point that 100 years have seen blacks go from scrappy invites to ruling the house itself. Is there any REAL need to STATE the obvious. It's one of those backhanded compliments I hate. I'm stunned he didn't break out the Bell Curve and start reading passages explaining how blacks with their inferior intellect compensated for by their superior atheleticism ought to be darn proud of this great victory!
What's next...Caribou Barbie calling it the BLACK House?
ON the flip side, Obama didn't bring up race at all. He focused on his family (wonder what kind of pup will inhabit the Big House--wonder if it will be a white pup?), 106 year old Ann Nixon Cooper in ATL, and the slogan that has shaped American History and I can only hope it will continue to do so under his leadership: We Can. NONE of this I think I can business...We Can. Simple.
I clearly see the difference in agendas--it's not lost on me--the lizard wanting to seem gracious despite his loss but asserting with clarity the blackness of the new president and the victor focusing on a "we-opic" vision ensuring his constituents don't other him in his future efforts to determine the trajectory of our governmental process.
I could hear the celebration from my basement abode. The cheering wafted down from Harlem wrapping my block in a cocoon of hope.
At first McCain's speech seemed bordering on racist to my sensitized ears. I mean could he have used the work black more often? Bringing up BTWash to make his point that 100 years have seen blacks go from scrappy invites to ruling the house itself. Is there any REAL need to STATE the obvious. It's one of those backhanded compliments I hate. I'm stunned he didn't break out the Bell Curve and start reading passages explaining how blacks with their inferior intellect compensated for by their superior atheleticism ought to be darn proud of this great victory!
What's next...Caribou Barbie calling it the BLACK House?
ON the flip side, Obama didn't bring up race at all. He focused on his family (wonder what kind of pup will inhabit the Big House--wonder if it will be a white pup?), 106 year old Ann Nixon Cooper in ATL, and the slogan that has shaped American History and I can only hope it will continue to do so under his leadership: We Can. NONE of this I think I can business...We Can. Simple.
I clearly see the difference in agendas--it's not lost on me--the lizard wanting to seem gracious despite his loss but asserting with clarity the blackness of the new president and the victor focusing on a "we-opic" vision ensuring his constituents don't other him in his future efforts to determine the trajectory of our governmental process.
November 3, 2008
Labour of Love--Frente
Oh am i fooling you?
Do you fall for it all
Or do you just see right through?
Are you as cool as you believe?
Are you playing hard?
Are you waiting just to quietly clock my card?
Are you waiting for a moment to leave?
I don't know how i bent what you said
To what i believe you meant
I don't know anything at all
I'm standing in the push and shove
And i'm just within the rescue
Of the labour of your love
I can't do anything but fall
A-fall, a-fall-fall-fall
Why do i feel like i can never find you?
Why do i feel like i'm the only survivor?
Why am i thinking of -
You and me and the labour of love?
One chance, one shot
That's all anybody ever got
Newborn still warm
Naked in the rush hour
Dancing in my gutter
And if you want to find me
Call me, i'll be far from
The cars and guitars and
Everybody
Why do i feel like i can never find you?
Why do i feel like i'm the only survivor?
Why am i thinking of -
You and me and the labour of love?
And i never knew before
But i feel like a child in a cold, cold war
So strong, so tough
Sitting in suburbia, waiting for the wind up
And i don't want to dance
I just want to jump from the prison of circumstance
Why am i thinking of -
You and me and the labour of love?
Why do i feel like i can never find you?
Why do i feel like i'm the only survivor?
Why am i thinking of -
You and me and the labour of love?
I've loved this Aussie guitarist girly girl since 1997 when I first heard this song at Cornell. Love it. Love rediscovering it.
Do you fall for it all
Or do you just see right through?
Are you as cool as you believe?
Are you playing hard?
Are you waiting just to quietly clock my card?
Are you waiting for a moment to leave?
I don't know how i bent what you said
To what i believe you meant
I don't know anything at all
I'm standing in the push and shove
And i'm just within the rescue
Of the labour of your love
I can't do anything but fall
A-fall, a-fall-fall-fall
Why do i feel like i can never find you?
Why do i feel like i'm the only survivor?
Why am i thinking of -
You and me and the labour of love?
One chance, one shot
That's all anybody ever got
Newborn still warm
Naked in the rush hour
Dancing in my gutter
And if you want to find me
Call me, i'll be far from
The cars and guitars and
Everybody
Why do i feel like i can never find you?
Why do i feel like i'm the only survivor?
Why am i thinking of -
You and me and the labour of love?
And i never knew before
But i feel like a child in a cold, cold war
So strong, so tough
Sitting in suburbia, waiting for the wind up
And i don't want to dance
I just want to jump from the prison of circumstance
Why am i thinking of -
You and me and the labour of love?
Why do i feel like i can never find you?
Why do i feel like i'm the only survivor?
Why am i thinking of -
You and me and the labour of love?
I've loved this Aussie guitarist girly girl since 1997 when I first heard this song at Cornell. Love it. Love rediscovering it.
November 1, 2008
28
I went to see the Banksy exhibit in the West Village on my birthday after dessert at Sweet Revenge which is where I went after family dinner at Pastsis.
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