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"

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Vote Now!

Unlike the average blogger pushing Obama and aching for change, I'm looking for some feedback on whether or not I'm over reacting to an incident that took place earlier this month.

October 16, 2008
10:45pm
Friendly phone call from an ex I hadn't spoken to in over 2 weeks.
HE mentions my upcoming birthday and tells me he has TWO presents for me which he doesn't want to give me until my ACTUAL birthday.
11:55pm
Drunk ex appears at my doorstep.
We take the dogs for a walk in the park.
We keep drinking.
HE asks if he can take my folks and I to Pastis. I say nothing.
HE mentions my birthday again.

October 17, 2008
8:45am
Ex goes to work.
I sleep in.

October 18, 2008
No calls/texts/e-mails from said Ex. None.

October 28, 2008
2:14pm
Text from Ex: Wanna grab some dinner/drinks?
5:55pm
Voicemail: Hey! It's me. Just calling to see how you're doing. Want to get some dinner or drinks (pause) tonight? Give me a call back. Thanks.

October 29, 2008
I'm livid.

Questions:
1.How wrong is it for him to BRING up my birthday less than 24 hours BEFORE my birthday (make a big deal of it) then NOT communicate with me until 10 days AFTER my birthday (making no mention whatsoever of said birthday)?

2. Should I even bother calling him back? I mean...what's the point. Clearly he doesn't think he did anything wrong, so what's the point of bringing up how hurt I am by his inconsiderate, selfish, rude behavior.

3. If we are supposed to be friends, how could he possibly treat me this way? Before you even pose the question would I react as extremely if a friend of mine did this as opposed to an ex, the answer is HELL yes. In fact, I'd be calling them up and screaming at them. But the reality is that he didn't forget, he TOLD me he wanted to do something and then completely DISREGARDED me on my special day. WTF?


Oh yeah, Vote for Obama. Go 4 Change!

I roared in my 20s!

Yesterday was my 28th birthday.

I woke up at 7am, crammed for the Psych GRE and was perplexed by the full 6 train steaming downtown. Took the test from 9-11:30am at the Silver Center at NYU. Fingers crossed for a good score in 6 weeks. I can never tell how these things go. A poor judge of self-performance. Hrumph.

Took the pups to Central Park for the annual Country Dog Fair--sponsored this year by Rachel Ray's Nutrish--where my Mom and her husband joined me for a few hours.

My mother was kind enough to bring me the flu shot which she administered herself. Happy Birthday to me.

We went to dinner at Pastis where my mom was drunk off one Gin Punch--anything in a martini glass will do her in. I had a few Dark and Stormies and felt nothing. The steak frites were fabulous.

After I sent the fam ferry-ward, I skipped my way to Sweet Revenge where Jo bought me a celebratory Crimson cupcake (their take on the red velvet cupcake with cinnamon to boot) and a glass of white. We then moseyed to the Banksy exhibit--creepy but cool--then slipped into One if by Land, Two if by Sea (OIBLTIBS). The motif reminded me of Candela--wonder if that restaurant still sits in Union Square? I'd forgotten that the only other time I'd been to OIBLTIBS was a romantic dinner with Z circa 2004.

We had one last drink at the Washington Square Hotel--where, in 2006, I first met Jo's former cohabitator who cheated on her in the wake of her father's death--we spent a moment being nostalgic both grateful to have moved past that stage.

I arrived at my abode at 1:30am to watch a DVR-ed episode of Law & Order: SVU before going to bed: officially 28 going on 29.
This is the first birthday I've ended sober in the past decade...am I growing up?

My Guy!

New Sweet!

Bye Bye Boarder

It is with a heavy heart that I write this post.

My boarder just texted me:
Hey! I'm on the plane. C u soon then...I hope I have the couch next time I'm in NY. haha. Take care!

It was bittersweet.

This is the first time I've really lived alone despite the fact that D'Souza moved out in May. I was away in the Hamptons in a full house most of the summer. Then the boarder moved in on September 2 when I got back to the city.

Sniffle and wail.

Well, guess I better get cracking on that Psych GRE prep I've been procrastinating on.

Summer Spoons

A few nights ago Taurean collected me from Joan of Arc Middle School where I'd completed my REACH mentor training and we ambled up Central Park West and across Central Park North till we arrived at my abode in SpaHa where the boarder, his British bud, and my white pups greeted us.

Along the way Mr. Spoons, a loquacious man, eloquently and heart wrenchingly explained to me his emotional mistreatment of Summer, his fiancee, over the duration of their relationship. I listened. I interjected on occassion. Mostly, I just listened. Hearing him extol her virtues made me realize that such men were still among us.

Of course, there are two sides to every tale and Summer's version is tinged with self-loathing brought on by the beating her self-esteem has taken as a result of his seemingly conditional love for her. But during my walk there was only his side of the story and in that side there were no conditions...just love.

Their relationship has seen its share of ups and downs but their willingness to continually renew their commitment to each other has kept them together. I marvel at that.

In my early relationships, I fled in lieu of fighting and in my more recent entanglements I fought to the point of the other fleeing...perhaps the ying to my yang is out there, but at this point I fret for the apparent foolishness of that statement.

Cycle 7

With another birthday looming I've decided to adopt the reality TV formula of defining my chronological life in NYC.

Cycle 1 - 2002 (Pilot)
Welcome to NY!
Drinking, dancing, Banker chasing, Happy Hour racing, Starting and Quitting Job I

Cycle 2 - 2003
Tea, Moved Uptown, Single Girl, Startup: Meetup, Traveling through India, Back to School: NYU

Cycle 3 - 2004
NYC Boyfriend, Cape Cod with Mom, Orlando with the Man, Cross Country Girls Roadtrip (DC-LA), Quit NYU, Corporate Grind II

Cycle 4 - 2005
Grad School Take 2: Columbia, Heartbreak 1, Bank Job I, Napa Valley, Single Again

Cycle 5 - 2006
Luckey, Bank II, Moved Downtown: Living with Boys, Unemployment, Quit Columbia, Eastern European Expedition

Cycle 6 - 2007
FOB Boyfriend, Non-profit stint, Cohabitation in SpaHa, Puppy II: Vegas, Contract Legal Job, Life's a Grind

Cycle 7 - 2008
Another Bank-esque Job, SF Visit, Judy the Jeep, Entrepreneurial Effort: Hamptons, Heartbreak II, Briefly Boarding, Volunteerism, Research: Performing and Participating, Career Chosen: Psychologist, Chick Lit Book Club, Part-time Jobs, Flying Solo

TO COME:
Cycle 8 - 2009 (Series Finale)
Visiting family in India
Down-sizing possessions--Driving Judy into the Sunset with Pups
Move AWAY from NYC--Last Tea
Starting Doctoral Study in Clinical Psychology: Full-time Student

Boarder Boards

Last week my boarder informed me that he would be heading back to Karachi, Pakistan on Monday, October 13. I was happy to hear I'd have the place to myself again and sad to note that my weekly non-taxed supplemental income of $125 would soon be a thing of the past.

Before his departure the boarder's childhood friend, a physician from Britain, is staying with us for a week. They spent last weekend and the early part of this week on a road trip to DC via Philly.

Additionally, my Chi-town gal pal is coming to town tomorrow for an NYC weekend...talk about a full 480sq feet.

Good thing we're all adequately brown--everyone is aware of the cramped living and no one finds it odd enough to warrant complaint.

The above statement is only one of the many reasons I don't date white men. Try explaining to one of them why not a shudder to be found at the reality of such close quarters among friends. I call it hospitality without boundaries--kinda like doctors without borders.

Testees

I've seen ads for a new TV show called Testees a few times now--more accurately I've skipped by them thanks to DVR--and realized that I could qualify to join the ranks of these people.

I'm currently participating in TWO paid research studies:
New York Presbyterian Hospital in Washington Heights
The study is focused on the effect of low-dose birth control on women between 21-30.
8 visits pay a total of $390 over 3 months
Rockefeller University on the Upper East Side
Smell research coinciding with ovulation to discern if a certain pheromone is more potent than others.
4 visits pay out at $220 over 4 months

Testee, indeed!

Dating Sucks

Saturday night, I went out with a Jersey-raised, Kanada (Indian), only kid who graduated from Cornell and chooses to live in Jersey City among the FOBS on the grounds that he enjoys having a car and thinks NYC rent is too ridiculous.

Yes. Despite the above statement I went out with him.

We met for a drink at The Other Room at 7:30pm as my original pick, Absolutely 4th had closed. I didn't think much of him making me pick the place but it should have been a sign that he knew nothing. Our first exchange was him extolling the virtues and importance of preparedness in life as opposed to my free-spirited stance on living life for the moment. He went up to get a drink not realizing the spot was cash only and promptly ran out of the joint to get cash without notifying me of any of these proceedings. Two points.

He told me he didn't drink wine and when I requested either a Reisling or Sauvingnon Blanc and he returned with the Reisling, I knew it was because he found that varietal easier to pronounce in my absence. Three points.

After a seemingly blah drink, he suggested dinner and asked again that I pick the place. In the name of politeness and to take the pressure off his city ignorance I proceeded to select a cheap Sri Lankan joint on 1st Ave. As we walked across town, he wouldn't admit to not enjoying the walk and complained as we walked past 6th Ave. "We're leaving the place with all the people. Where are we going?" Sigh. Two points.

Once we arrived at Sigiri at 10:04pm, we chit-chatted for a while and he revealed that he's only dated 2 women in his life and each of those had only lasted a few months. Five points.
He balked at my mom's divorce followed by her marriage to the white man and her utter lack of interest in the culinary arts. Five points.
He also explained that he really didn't enjoy drinking and would never go out on a Tuesday evening for a beer as it was a worknight. Nine points.
He also mentioned that his parents, strict vegetarians, actually prepare his meals which he picks up weekly. Nine points.
At that point I should have just excused myself and gone home....but there was the matter of the check--which we split. Ten points.

Post dinner, we walked down 8th St. then down 6th Ave. and across Houston and came to a stop in front of the carcass of Senor Swanky's because I refused to pick the THIRD place of the evening and he had no idea where we should go. I also didn't want to spend any more time with this provincial prude from poverty town.

Standing and making conversation got boring till he insulted me at which point, I actually smiled turned on my heel and walked east to the 6 without turning back. His grand total of 45 points on the suck-0-meter of bad dating isn't overwhelming. I've been on worse dates and I'm sure there are plenty of dates that are much worse than this one, but the fact remains it was a lousy date.

Dating sucks just as much as I recall.

Foosball Plant

Crazy Cooper Union Kids....steam energy infused plant life in recycled foosball tables on St. Marks.

EZ Parking

How easy must this car be to park?!

Crazy Van - St Marks

Headstones by the Highway

I was driving along Rt. 23 in NJ towards the lakehouse where my mom now lives when I pulled over to capture this set of headstones beside the highway.
I'm not clear if they are for sale or serve as a memorial--no signs were visible. It was near a Fedex and UPS drop off box--no strip mall.

Pothole on E. 28th @ Park

Dogs of Summer

Vicious on Vespa

Traveling Pups

Whatever You Like (T.I)

I said you can have whatever you like
I said you can have whatever you like
Yeahhh

[Chorus]
Stacks on deck
Patron on ice
We can pop bottles all night
And baby you can have whatever you like
I said, You can have whatever you like
Yeahhh

Late night sex, so wet and so tight
I gas up the jet for you tonight
And baby you can go wherever you like
I said, You can go wherever you like
Yeahhh

[Verse 1]
Anytime you want to
Pick and telephone, you
Know it ain't nothing,
Drop a couple stacks on you
Want it you can get it, my dear
Five million dollar homes
Drop Bentley's, I swear - yeahh
I want your body, need your body
Long as you got me, you won't need nobody
You want it I got it, go get it I buy it
Tell them other broke niggas be quiet

[Chorus]
Stacks on deck
Patron on ice
We can pop bottles all night
And baby you can have whatever you like
I said, You can have whatever you like
Yeahhh

Late night sex so wet and so tight
I gas up the jet for you tonight
And baby you can go wherever you like
I said, You can go wherever you like
Yeahhh

[Verse 2]
Shawty you the hottest
Love the way you drop it
Brain so good, coulda sworn you went to college
100K deposits
Vacations in the tropics
Everybody know it ain't trickin' if you got it
And you ain't never ever gotta go in your wallet
Long as I got rubberband banks in my pocket
Five, six rides with rims and a body kit
You ain't gotta downgrade
You can get what I get
My chick can have she want
Can go to any store, buy any bag she want
I know you ain't never had a man like that
To buy you anything your heart desire's like that
I want your body, need your body
Long as you got me you won't need nobody
You want it, I got it
Go get it, I buy it
Tell them other broke niggas bequiet

[Chorus]
Stacks on deck
Patron on ice
We can pop bottles all night
And baby you can have whatever you like
I said, You can have whatever you like
Yeahhh

Late night sex so wet and so tight
I gas up the jet for you tonight
And baby you can go wherever you like
I said, You can go wherever you like
Yeahhh

I'm talkin' big boy rides
And big boy ice
Let me put this big boy in your life
The thing get so wet, and hit so right
Let me put this big boy in your life, that's right
I want your body, need your body
Long as you got me you won't need nobody
You want it, I got it
Go get it, I buy it
Tell them other broke niggas bequiet

[Chorus]
Stacks on deck
Patron on ice
We can pop bottles all night
And baby you can have whatever you like
I said, You can have whatever you like
Yeahhh

Late night sex, so wet and so tight
I gas up the jet for you tonight
And baby you can go wherever you like
I said, You can go wherever you like
Yeahhh

Miss Independent (NeYo)

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah

Ooh is something about
Just something about the way she move
I can't figure it out
It's something about her

Say, ooh is something about
Kinda woman that want you but don't need you
Hey, I can't figure it out
It's something about her

'Cause she walk like a boss
Talk like a boss
Manicure nails just set the pedicure off
She's fly effortlessly

And she move like a boss
Do what a boss
Do, she got me thinking about getting involved
That's the kinda girl I need (oh)

She got her own thing
That's why I love her
Miss independent
Won't you come and spend a little time

She got her own thing
That's why I love her
Miss independent
Ooh, the way you shine
Miss independent

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah (ohh)

Ooh there's something about
Kinda woman that can do for herself
I look at her and it makes me proud
There's something about her

Something, ooh, so sexy about
Kinda woman that don't even need my help
She said she got it, she got it (she said she got it, she got it)
No doubt, there's something about her (there's something about her)

'Cause she work like a boss
Play like a boss
Car and the crib she 'bout to pay 'em both off
And her bills are payed on time, yeah

She made for a boss
Only a boss
Anything less she telling them to get lost
That's the girl that's on my mind

She got her own thing
That's why I love her
Miss independent
Won't you come and spend a little time

She got her own thing
That's why I love her
Miss independent
Ooh, the way you shine
Miss independent

Her favorite thing to say, don't worry I got it
And everything she got best believe she bought it
She gon' steal my heart ain't no doubt about it, girl
You're everything I need, said you're everything I need

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah

She's got her own thing (ooohooohhoh)
That's why I love her (that's why I love her, oh ohh)
Miss independent (independent)
Won't you come and spend a little time (ohh)
She's got her own thing (she got, she got)
That's why I love her (that's why I love that girl)
Miss independent (ohh ohh)
Ooh, the way you shine
Miss independent

Miss independent

Saturday Night Fever

Since my triumphant return from the Hamptons, I haven't done much on the weekends due to my abject poverty and the need to settle into city life firmly.

Yesterday I drove out to NJ to get Judy's tires rotated, had lunch with my mom and her husband at Rt. 23 Buffet--don't even ask--, stopped for a timed 1-hour date in JC, and parked in front of Lolita on the LES for LitQuake with Z and the Levar Channel minion (and his photographer wife) he bosses. I missed the actual reading due to my pitstop in Newport but made up for it by imbibing enough $3 G&Ts to catch up to the slow-drinking crew.

We ambled over to Congee Village for dinner--the wait gave us a chance to drink a few Lychee Martinis and sit on lacquered, hand-shaped seats carved out of tree stumps. Over a steaming table of Soup dumplings, Singapore Mei Fun, Chicken in black bean sauce, Shrimp with Salt & Garlic, and Mushroom Tofu-ness we learned about the couple's Music Club (I was invited to join given my brilliant music category: songs with girls names). The way the club works is that each month a category is chosen (i.e. break-up, president names, cheese, etc.) and each member sends the curator (this couple) their song which is burned on a CD and distributed to all members of the club. Cool, right?

Then we walked up 1st Ave. to International Bar. The wife brought down their brown, 25lb, Boston Terrier--Jack--Z and I pet, cooed at, and generally fawned over him. Dogs in bars on Saturday nights: another reason I love the East Village. We called it an early night at 1am but the evening was terrific.

Met new people, checked out new food all the while eating good food and drinking cheap, yummy drinks. I really really needed it.

Sweet Schedule

An overdue update!

I have settled on the pseudo-celeb assistantship (PCA)on the UES in addition to the test prep center job (TPC) in Chelsea. In addition to my free labor at the social psych lab at Columbia's Public Health spot in Washington Heights, I've been accepted as a mentor with the REACH program on the UWS. My fingers are crossed for an amazing clinical research opportunity (CRO)* coding and interviewing at Bellevue--hoping to hear back this week. I'm training with the SAVI program at Mt. Sinai and hope to work on shift a week once I complete my 40 hours.

Due to this new schedule I'm hoping the ladies of Tea (LoT) will allow me to move our weekly meetings to the end of the week.

So my weekly schedule looks pretty much like this:
M 11-4 PCA 5-10 TPC
T 11-5 Lab 6-7:30 REACH
W 11-4 PCA 5-10 TPC
H 10-4 Lab 5-10 TPC
F 11-4 PCA 4:30-6 CRO* 7-10 Tea
6pm-8am SAVI
S 11-4 CRO* or Lab or TPC

Vegas is 1

Today is Vegas's 1st birthday.

To Vegas:

So much has happened in my life this past year--most of it hasn't been that great--but the addition of you has been the highlight. You barked, chewed, clawed, and whined your way into my heart.
Your crazy escape artist stunts constantly make me wonder if we should have waited to name you--we would have gone with Houdini. You give new meaning to the question, "What's in a name?"
Unlike Luckey, you never nipped at my toes but you can't bear to be left alone and bark non-stop in my absence. You also damage everything you can sink your puppy teeth into. That irksome behavior however doesn't compare to the fact that you will mark (aka pee) on anything that is newly added to pre-existing space: this includes laundry bags, grocery bags, trash bags, and travel bags.
You always throw up in th car. I don't know if it's just the way I drive of it you just suffer from motion sickness, but it truly hampers Luckey and my vagabond nature--so you get left behind for the greater good more often than not. But I always regret leaving you when I come home to the havoc you've wrecked.
Just when I am at my wit's end with you, you sense it, so you climb tamely into my lap and vigorously lick my face. It's the kind of apology even a hardass like me can't resist. Your eyes are always curious, your face forever upturned, if not for your devil antics you'd be an angel.

I've learned a lot about the kind of person I am through you. Unlike Luckey you try my patience and I've learned that I have it in me to wait it out and handle these annoyances with grace and poise. You've shown me a patient side of myself I would never have believed existed.
I miss you when you are gone. I notice your absence when I'm alone with Luckey. I think he revels in that time without you but I feel a void which your unpredictable behavior unfalteringly fulfills without fail.

You're the Ying to our Yang. In your difference from us, you complete this family that we've become. I love you.

Happy Birthday, Vaygee!
Love,
Mama

Job Shopping

Since I've job hopped my entire adult life, I am seriously job shopping this final go around. I intend to hold onto whatever job I get through the next academic year. That's right, I'm settling down--well my version of it, anyway.

Here is the part-time line-up as it currently stands:

1. Assistant to a legit TV B-lister (as per IMDB)in her UES home office primarily focused on her non-profit venture. Cleared the interview--my trial day is Thursday.

2. Corporate Short-Term Rental Manager at Furnished Quarters serving as a point person to corporate relocators. Interview Thursday.

3. SURF Progam Coordinator at Columbia University--managing the Science Undergrad Research Fellowship in the Biology department under Dr. Alice Heicklen. Interviewed on Friday, but I have a feeling I didn't make the cut.

4. Columbia Business School Executive Education Conference Planner. Phone interview in 15 minutes, followed by an official interview on Friday at Columbia. This job involves 3 weeks on-site in CT facilitating a conference and only runs through November 2008.

5. Real Estate Assistant at an UES boutique: showing properties, returning phone calls and e-mails as well as assisting brokers. Interview Friday.

6. SCORES (not the strip club) Poetry Teacher for an after-school program in Harlem for 3-5 graders. Interview Friday.

7. Manhattan Review Academic Program Coordinator: Liaising with international students and professors with Ivy PhDs in developing tailored classes for GMAT prep. No interview yet, but I'm hopeful!

Vicious Waterlilies

Crouching Street Cat

GWB from the Lab

Photo Taker-Outer

I just got home from a photo taking frolic in Central Park with A. He looks a lot like V and he laughs at everything I say--I haven't decided if that's endearing or annoying.

While we were walking and snapping pictures of everything from trees to ducks to lovers in Strawberry Fields, I fell silent and he sidled up to me and said, "What are you thinking?"

I almost burst into tears....it's been so long since anyone asked me what I was thinking--too long. This perfect stranger not only cared to know what I was thinking but in our brief time together sensed that my silence was a sign that something was amiss.

Thankfully I didn't weep but sighed and continued chirping about the green water and light in the trees...he let it go, but I'm still thinking about that.

Not once in my time with D'Souza did he EVER ask me what I was thinking...it doesn't really matter whether if it was because he didn't care of because he thought he knew...but not once...in over a year...not once.

An Academic Love Story

I'm at the lab and it's my first time here by myself. The "lab" is a two-bedroom, two-bathroom former medical/dental student dormitory. Some floors still function as dorm apartments.

It's VERY spacious for a dorm apartment but essentially that's what it is. The kitchen has been converted into a study with metallic filing cabinets and an arcane, academic desk and non-ergonomic chairs. The living room is now an airy conference room with mismatched conference chairs and wooden dining chairs drenched in the western sun with a view of the GW bridge. Within the long school table that serves at the conference table, I discovered a yellowed dissertation typed on a word processor dating back to 1989. The master bedroom is the professor's office: it is filled with psych manuals, journals, graduate textbooks, and assorted other literature. He has no photos in his office except a piece of paper celebrating the life and work of Dr. BD in a clear plastic frame--a lovely bushy browed, slim, academic seated in her office with her salt and pepper hair frizzing at the ends and a her hands clasped in her pencil-skirted lap atop legs crossed at the ankles.

The invitation reads: "You are invited to attend the celebration of 40 years of Sociomedical Research at Columbia University. Please join us on Wednesday, January 31, 2008 to honor our second Department Chair, Dr. BD who served from 1978-1982. Her husband and co-author will speak briefly."

Drs. D published much of their research jointly and it appears that he tirelessly carried on their work after her passing--I speculate it was sometime in 1982. He still wears a plain wedding band loosely on his left hand. A soft-spoken man who goes to the Columbia pool every afternoon from 12:30-1:30pm, it's hard to imagine him living a life outside this dorm-lab yet he led one. Undoubtedly one filled with love, a love perhaps even deeper than his love of learning and research. I don't think he ever remarried.

I doubt he has children or grandchildren but I'm not sure. In my version of his story, he has neither, just his research and us, his lowly assistants.

This story is real. This happens in real life. Real people fall so completely in love with each others shared interests, values, and life goals that their two lives really do converge into one full life.

Not that you need another to complete you (a la Jerry McGuire) but it is possible to achieve this romantic steeple albeit for a pair of academics. It happens.

Enemy of the Day: Con Ed

This morning I awoke not to the pitter patter of rain but the banging on my door. Alright, there was also the pitter patter of rain. I decided to ignore it in the hopes it would go away but then my fan went off and I realized my power was out.

The boarder had awakened thanks to my barking babies and the banging on the door continued.

Con Ed men in uniform stood before me, clipboard in hand, informing me that I did not have a valid account with them. Wiping the sleep out of my eye, fear gripped me, had I not paid my bill. As consciousness seeped in, I realized that I had set up my Con Ed bill to auto-pay and the company dutifully removed funds from my account on a monthly basis. Of course, the conservationist that I am, I had gone paperless so I had no bills to show for any of this and in the name of e-organization I always deleted my paid bills. Clearly the 16-digit account number was hardly at the tip of my tongue.

Thankfully, the Con Edders contacted the mothership who informed them that I did indeed have an account and dutifully paid my bills but for the wrong apartment.

Wait just one cotton-picking minute, so for the last 15 months I've been paying somone ELSE's electric BILL. WTF?

I'm not ordinarily a litigious person but let's back up a minute: instant replay!
Men come banging on my door at 11am on a weekday.
They turn off my electricity.
They accuse me of not having an account which gives them the right to deprive me of light, air, and sound.
Then upon realizing that I have an account in good standing, they inform me that this account did not pertain to MY abode but someone else's.
Are we in America? Can I sue them?

Doggie Handshake

Desi Chick Lit

The newly popular fiction genre--chick lit--has a sub-section filled with emerging south-asian authors. These women span the spectrum from ultra-conservative to crunchy hippies in their musings on life and love.

I had two such books thrust upon me by a former colleauge from my law firm recruitment days (just a year ago but feels like a lifetime). We had lunch at Chipotle on friday and afterwards I escorted her back to her office where she pilfered an academic desk calendar for me from supplies and handed me a stack of paperbacks. She sure reads a fair amount of chick-lit given the five books she unloaded on me. For a Peruvian immigrant who attended Columbia University, she has a penchant for south-asian fiction or perhaps she is just a voracious reader given her hour-long daily commute from Forrest Hills to Grand Central.

I sped read through the first entitled "Invisible Lives" belittling the rudimentary writing style and bemoaning the sari metaphor but devouring the plot. I'm looking forward to an evening of "Goddess for Hire" which I can only hope swings some style into the typically overdone topography. Like Bollywood films, south-asian authors tend to overflow with wordy interludes instead of creating snarky dialogue.

Part of my gripe lies in my inability to create such a convoluted yet formulaic tale of my own. It seems that despite my basic writing style, I could easily craft a piece that would match the level of fetishized easterness required to get such a novel published. Yet my ideas never make their way to paper and I sit here sans manuscript complaining about women who, if nothing else, had the dedication to write a whole damn story out of the ideas rattling in their heads.

New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University

I secured a coveted research project at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbua University that begins on Monday.

My volunteer position as a rater involves watching pre-recorded narratives of people who recently suffered from stressful life events in an effort to develop a more economical measure than the one that currently exists. Basically providing inter-rater reliability for the research being done.

My hope is to secure a stellar letter of recommendation for graduate school from this position which will more than make up for the fact that I will be spending 18hrs/wk in an unpaid work setting. What better practice for my future life as a doctoral student in clinical psychology?

Boarder

Upon my return from the Hamptons, I realized that despite the relative inexpense my rent imposes (as opposed to the greater Manhattan population) the figure remains oppressive to the officially unemployed.

So the lemonade I've made with these life's lemons involves a boarder. A person who lives in my living room on a paid, weekly basis.

His name is Rahul Karahi. He's very international but Pakistani by upbringing. As an internet starter-upper he is working on building capital for his website that caters to litigants seeking litigators in class action suits. Currently he is also working on another site that will enable indie film-makers to secure brand marketing and sponsorship from Fortune 500 retailers.

The diminutive nature of my abode combined with the reality that south-asians have a lower expectation of privacy has led to a fairly amenable living arrangement. He sleeps on the couch in my 17x6, fully furnished living room and I get help with the rent. Beats working but puts a damper on socializing...just as well since I need to focus full force on my Ph.D applications.

Not to mention, my lazy ass needs motivation to get out of bed and into the world. Having a constant home presence pushed me to actually get out of the apartment and into the many city activities I procrastinate on participating in.

Hindi Conversation Partner

I met Lila mid-day yesterday.

I had responded to her post on CL for a Hindi conversation partner. She married her radiology resident husband last year and moved from Chicago to Long Island via Manhattan and needed to polish up her Hindi before embarking on a journey to India this Christmas to meet his extended family on the outskirts of Aurangabad.

In my desire to keep a firm hold on my Hindi, I thought it would be great for us to work together towards polishing the language of our people. She's Gujurati so her struggles were that of a native Italian learning Spanish--a fight to realize that the similarities in grammar don't extend to vocubulary.

We were supposed to meet at Cafe Cluny but felt it too fancy and walked over to a quaint coffee shop on Jane St. where she had the coconut lime sorbet and I enojoyed a mango cardommon sorbet.

She was impeccably dressed in grey, lightweight pants, a black, lace camisole carefully hidden under a sharp black vest with deep, faux-croc, purple heels and chandelier earrings. Her make-up was smoky for day with the kohl lining smudged at the edges of her large, almond eyes. Her grey-green colored contacts glinted as she gesticulated gracefully telling me her life story. She had that generic Gujurati bone structure: slight in height, light in weight, and the propensity for thickness in the middle.

I felt dowdy beside her in my careless white tee atop a black skirt lined in sweatpant material with a cursory ruffle to dress it up. Even Anthropologie flip flops on gold-painted toes felt uber casual. My thick rimmed, I'm-a-grad-student glasses perched high on my nose, void of earrrings or jewlery I easily doubled her in size but halved her in style. I don't often find myself drawing these superficial comparisions but something in the humid air made me realize that where I sweat buckets she doesn't so much as perspire. Ah the curse of my south-indian heritage. My people didn't crunch numbers but worked in the fields and filled their bellies with the rice that grows in the paddies.

She was my age. She worked in finance. She was married. She wanted children. She lived in Long Island. She missed her mid-western family and elements of her single life. She was unlike me in almost every way but our tangible Indian hue and desire to communicate in the tongue of our ancestors.

Sweet SAVI

Today, I had my interview for the Sexual Assuault and Violence Intervention program at Mt. Sinai. I spent three hours filling out forms, watching the HIPAA video, and participating in a group interview which focused on role playing as well as posing uncomfortable personal questions. The 40 hours of training to follow over several full day weekends will prepare us for monthly 8-hour on-call shifts at 10 hospitals in Manhattan and Queens to serve as advocates for the survivors of intimate sexual violence and assault.

One of my former colleagues at Pfizer Animal Health recognized me and I surprised myself by not fully recognizing her. Even now, I know I knew her but my trusty name/face recognition are faulty in pinpointing past interactions. How can this be?

After the interview, I stepped into the pouring rain. The kind of rain that they create for Bollywood films where heroines in white saris run through the hills bemoaning the loss of their lovers to death, family dissent, and outright theivery. I walked slowly sans umbrella letting the pulse of the storm drip into my bones.

I felt my ornate flip flops sliding and clutched my large, white tote bag closer to my chest. I wondered if this was the Lord's way of bemoaning my loss of control over the good life he'd given me. I was borm with many blessings; I've squandered them. Perhaps it's not all irrevocable but time has been lost and in the accelerated pace of the frenetic desi life I'm behind. Oh so far behind schedule (pronounce it shed-duel for increased Indian effect)--

Vicious with the Elderly

Last night, I was at the Village Nursing Home with a group of like-minded New Yorkers who volunteer with NYCares. I give props to the organization and kudos to all the volunteers who devote precious man hours serving in soup kitchens, visiting the elderly, teaching children to do things, preparing ex-convicts for jobs, working with animals, and planting flowers.

I have been involved for a year or so now, but this September I've signed up for four unique events, the first of which was spending two hours on a Friday evening with the geriatric residents suffering from dementia who live on W. 12th on Hudson.

Once you get over the clinical surroundings and sterile smell mixed with bedpan refuse post Jell-O enjoyment, it hits you hard that these wheelchair bound people have few visitors. The lucky few who can form sentences are still fairly incoherent, the others just sit and stare off into space.

My visit was with Beatrice--a grey-haired fashionista toting a black and white purse featuring Heidi Klum--she had no idea who was on her bag. She wore clips in her wispy hair and bright green earrings. She approached me to help her re-affix one of these lovely green stones that had fallen off her right ear. I did so and for the rest of the evening she kept telling everyone who passed how much I had helped her. It made me wonder if anyone had been kind to her in recent days.

In addition to the elderly, the volunteers were a hodge-podge. I was particuarly moved by a young, unmarried Indian couple who'd moved to NJ 6 months ago from India. Their joint volunteerism touched me. It affected me more than being there with these people whose lives had wittled down to this.

It made me marvel at how far I had fallen in my romantic leanings when I had dreamed of a life with D'Souza--a man who scoffs at the notion of volunteerism and prefers to write a check or ten to any organization named after a Saint. But here, just before me were two FOBS in love, showing love for drooling old people in a smelly home in the West Village.

End of Summer

Labor day is the unofficial end of summer. School's back in session and even if you don't live life on an academic calendar there is an element of ending harkened by Fall.

As a child of the Fall (Oct. b'day and such), I've always looked fondly on the season post heat...dig the colors, enjoy the back-to-school frenzy, and above all look forward to a little bit of new routine establishment but this year I'm less than enthused.

My Hamptons entreprenuerial effort has ended. There were some events but I wouldn't term it eventful in the grand scheme of summer. I didn't make any money but I did get to spend a whole summer unemployed and living in the Hamptons--so can that really be measured in $?

Dapper Duckey

No Cure for Loneliness

Sometimes I cry and there are so many reasons why I don't know which of them is responsible for these set of tears. Other times I lay still and hold my breath--hold it till it hurts--hold it till it burns. Not every day, not even every other day, but the days that I don't smile I'm not sure if I ever will again.

Inside me there is an emptiness, a loneliness, one that is unfilled even in the happiest of times. One that cripples me on days I miss living. The sun shines and the mooon rises but I stay unmoved--unchanged by the course of time past. How many days and months I've lost this way, I've lost count. There was a time I knew. There was an odometer for my solitude but it broke along the way. It melted away with my spirit; my ability to fulfill any given day's true potential.

Over and Over Again

Fresh gashes on my Heart
Every day we're Apart
Why do you Vilify?
Each tear from my Eye.
Remember--

when life was measured in "Always!"

The hours of Humidity
Entangled in Ecstacy
Above loss and Apathy
Refrain, please, Remain
Some more on love's Train

Koala Vegas & Luckey Cushion

Vegas, The Koala Puppy, perched on a tree while I smile and shake my head--near E. 98th Street in Central Park. Photo courtesy of Zayan on my camera phone.


Luckey managed to sandwich himself in between all the cushions at my Mom's house to maximize his comfort while the rest of us watched TV.

New York Magazine Website--SWEET

Luckey and I have made it as big as we possibly can.

Checks us out on the New York Magazine website!

Guess Getty Images is a bit hit in the internet image community.

Moo Mobile

Saturday, August 2, 2008
Li, CLui, Tommy, Stu, and I hit up the Sunburnt Cow on Ave. C for brunch. The line was insane so the guy sent us over to Bondi Road on Rivington on the Moo Mobile.
I wish I had a photo of the inside of this Scooby Doo-esque mode of transport. Take my word for the plush, velvet, polka dotted blue/push-pin seats in the spacious van circa 1972.

3 Little Pigs

I saw these three little peeking into one of the random boutiques on Little West 12th Street on Thursday last week when Li Chen was in town. We went to Brass Monkey, Revel, The Little Inn, and Garden of Ono on a MePa bar crawl I set up.

I-Spy

Park-ing

Tonight, I went to the Conservatory Garden with Zayan and my dogs. It was his first time there. It was his first time meeting Vegas. It was his first time in my apartment. It was my first time in Central Park after nightfall.

I met him at Best Cellars at 6:15pm. We tasted some wine--purchased a bottle of blush and a bottle of pinot grigio--before moving up to Gourmet Garage. I picked up Salute and Pepper-crusted goat cheese as well as an assortment of olives (for him) with Genoa Salame and Proscuitto to go with a fresh baguette. A bar of Belgian milk chocolate for dessert while he watched the dogs.

We walked over to the garden where we unwrapped food and drink beneath the luxurious Italian wisteria of the middle garden. We started with the blush while the dogs ran and barked below us. We saw a raccoon emerge and climb up the ivy covered trellis. We talked about nothing and everything. We ate cheese, meat, and bread while extolling the European way of life.

The fountain shut itself off at 7:45pm when the park guard announced the place was closing down--after all sunset was at 8:05pm. Then we moseyed over to the field at E. 102nd St...laid out the blanket I'd brought along and popped open the white wine as we unwrapped what was left of the feast. We talked about getting older. We talked about the future. Loving New York and leaving New York. Believing in each other and believing in tomorrow. Missing yesterday and knowing it was today. We sat there till well after dark. Many owners with unleashed dogs went by--mine socialized with some of them. We sat. We lay. We were.

It was a good night...beneath the watchful eye of Mt. Sinai. It was very New York with an ex.

Houdini

D'Souza and I have long joked that Vegas is Houdini reincarnated as a fluffy whie pup. This has never been more true than yesterday.

Luckey and I went downtown to check out The Falls--whilst a nice guy from Getty Images photographed us going about our "Staycation".

D recently installed an AC in my apartment but instead of investing in actual unit siding from Home Depot we opted for a piece of flimsy folder and scotch tape to close the big gap left by the relative shortness of the AC to the width of the window.

I thought nothing of any of this as Luckey and I jauntily set off at noon yesterday. We had a fine time and even picked up some 5 for $1 dumplings from Chinatown as we returned Uptown. As I turned the bend on 102 Street, I heard high-pitched barking which sounded a lot like Vegas but I dimissed as just another pup on the premises. Lo and behold, as I ambled down the block the barking grew louder and I looked into my small courtyard to see my small dog sitting beside the black gate scratching the front door to my apartment and barking his little puppy head off.

Alarmed, I rushed down the few black steps leading to the gate unlocked it and plucked him up off the ground--shaken by the thought that he could easily have been stolen for parts if not the whole. YIKES! He could have been taken just to silence the irksome barks. How long had he been sitting out there?

I couldn't believe he jumped from my bed onto the window sill and clawed his way out through the folder then dropped 2.5 feet through the black bars on my window into the filthy courtyard. My neighborhood is not known for its cleanliness or respect for public/private property--people routinely throw stuff down into my diminutive outdoor space. Sigh.

Luckey would never have done any such thing had I left him home alone. Now I'm petrified to leave Vegas unattended--what if he embarks on anothe stunt like this but isn't so lucky. Crazy animal.

Bryant Park HBO Movie Festival

Every year I look forward to summer in New York primarily because Monday nights shift from tea to Bryant Park for the HBO Movie Festival.

This year I have not been to a single film--a sympton of my romance with Manhattan trickling down to nothing. I'm that suitor who has sidled past courtship into the comfortable but boring role of live-in lover...I take without giving, indulge without appreciating, and generally survive where I was once thriving.

What happened? How did we get here? My main Man has lot his luster...really, I'm the one that changed. Swear as I did I couldn't possibly get over this mega-metropolis I think that's just what happened this summer. The slow faling out of love has become a firmly out of love status.

What city can possibly measure up to NYC? Where do I go from here?

______________________________________________________________________


In an effort to reconcile I've e-mailed the tea girls--we will be catching The Candidate starring Robert Redford in Bryant Park next Monday (8/11)--I'll be raising my plastic cup full of white wine to the city while I get very sleepy.

Eleanor

I have wantted to live at 45 Wall in FiDi for many years--yet she eludes me. Please appreciate the "Gone in 60 Seconds" reference, people.

Boxed In

Seen on 3rd Ave. at 9th Street on Monday at 9pm...

At BJs Today

As if parking for pregnant people wasn't bad enough...now this!

Lion Love

This display of lion love made me wonder if my pups would recognize me a year after I released them into the wild. I'd drop 'em in Malta, of course, they wouldn't last an hour in Africa.

I'm totally in love with this video right now.
Do you think Ace and John are gay? Does Harrods sell lion cubs?
I know it was 1969 but a giant dept. store in London sellling a lion cub to a gay couple...really? Not to mention a lion cub living in London...double really?

Hampton Honey

The moniker bestowed on me by Zayan on the card attached to the silver wine bag that held my fave vodka when he came out to the house on June 27 has stuck in my head...

Shouldn't it be Hamptons Honey?

I'm not suggesting it's an apt title but I like it. A lot.

Don't worry this isn't a relapse in the making--trust me--
As we sat at Birdie's last week scarfing down fried chicken and eviscerating one another's love lives--me more so than him--I felt a twinge of sorrow at the loss of any romantic inclination towards Z. Now, I realize this is a good thing but for so long I had believed that he was the one for me and perhaps I would know the flame that burned eternal in my dealings with him. This is just not so. Despite the positive mental health factor, it's a romantic rumination that's been ruined.

Combine this reality with my tepid temperament towards D'Souza, I'm burning through exes. I, as someone who has always prided herself on maintaining good post-relationship dealings, suddenly find myself in the shoes of the masses--longing to cut off all ties to these people and generally pretend they never happened to me. Alright, so that's a bit extreme but it's not wholly inaccurate. My version of letting go has been to hold a long thick string tied to the ex's wrist and stand behind a pressurized NYC wall. I'm contemplating dropping the string and leaving the apartment.

Wow. Is that personal growth? Is that maturity? Or is it just "that I've been dating for 10 years and my hair hurts"?

D'Souza Delivers

D'Souza came out this weekend.
11:45am-5:45pm Saturday
Spent the day in the poool drinking beer and making runs to King Kullen for food.
The dogs got pushed in--damn D'souza--so he put them on some floats so they could dry off without getting disgusting from jumping around the sand.
He drove off in a huff after injuring his toe.

10:00am-9:34pm Sunday
I collected him from the Hampton Bays train station bright and early.
We drove to Babylon where his car had broken down so he could get AAA to tow it.
Spent an hour or so at the ocean beach drinking beer out of a cooler and watching white people tan.
Drove out to DuckWalk's winery in Water Mill for a tasting before they closed at 5:30pm then booked it home to grill some delicious chorizos for dinner.
Popped open some champagne and dove in the pool before warming up in the hottub--so we had to jump back in the pool to cool down.
Then I deposited him at the train station so he could head home to Jersey City.

Beach Bum (15 summers strong)

At the ocean beach yesterday, I spied this old school wooden Jeep--made Judy look young--sporting beach permits from 1994 to 2008...there is an owner who LOVES this particular beach in East Quogue.