ode to fruit? or maybe just confessions of a fruitaholic?

My family loves bananas. I bought about 10 on Saturday night, and we are down to our last one today (it's Monday). I always thought our love for fruit was shared across the country, but recently discovered otherwise. Apparently, it isn't normal to choose a pear before a cookie, to consume a fruit with every meal, to eat clementines when you're bored. The summer after freshman year, I lived off of only bananas. I lived on my own in the city and bananas were cheap and convenient. I ended up eating 3-4 bananas a day. My physical therapist told me that's how I got fat. I would do it all over again if I could. That was one of my favorite summers, after the summer traversing Germany with wine gummies and apple in hand.

Despite all of our shortcomings, all of our differences, I think I finally understand just how my family stays together. Besides all the love, we manage to hold it together because no one else in the world loves fruit just as much as we do. I have to go back to the grocery store today, the second time in 2 days, just to buy some more bananas, blueberries, clementines, apples, pears, and whatever else calls out to me in the aisles. It's not so much a dependence on each other, but rather, a dependence on fruit that no one else can understand save the four souls living at 788.

I hear you are what you eat. I'm therefore either crazy or gay.

Take your pick.

2010: the People's Revolution

Another year has eluded us. 2010 came and went without remorse, without shame, without so much as a warning, as we all stood suspended in a disarray of broken limbs and broken hearts, of endless chills and heat strokes, of disillusionement and disorientation, and yet also in a chaotic frenzy of new lovers and old friends, of beach vacations and Netflix staycations, of life purposes and life goals. I thought 2010 would go on forever, and while I was still struggling to comprehend all the changes it imposed upon me, it suddenly ended. Enter 2011, the year before the famed apocalyptic global collapse.

Every year I think of new resolutions, the majority of which last all of 72 hours. One year, I wanted to be more assertive, while another year I wanted to be more artistic; once I was too busy with college applications to care about aspirational goals, and three years later I was too busy with my senior thesis to care about anything save breakfast and Kenyans. Sometimes I want to lose 5 pounds; other times I want to lose 6. I always resolve to be better, do better, better, better, better. And then January 3rd rolls around and I lose sight of my overarching annual goals and tend to focus only on today, on tomorrow, and on a hazy, confusing concept of "the future," which continues to disrupt my sleep every night.

Part of me doesn't want to think better, better, better, but rather, happier, happier, happier. 2010 was so kind to me I am almost afraid to keep any 2011 resolutions. I don't want to be resolute in anything I can't finish, in anything I don't want to accomplish. The 72-hour resolutions are good for nothing but carrying on weak conversations and inducing regret. I don't want 2011 to be a year of unfinished business, but rather a year of new discoveries and adventures, just like 2010.

So, no resolutions. No shame, no regret, no hesitation. And no resolutions.

My best friend keeps accidentally calling them "revolutions."

Go forth. Revolt. Write a book. Take a pole-dancing class. Go to Law School. Listen to your mind for two seconds, and then succumb to the recesses of your heart. Buy a hat. Eat apricots on Fifth Avenue. Enable a revolution, but forget the fragile resolutions. Revolt, not for the better, but for the happier. Rebel against yourself, and don't be afraid of 2011. It won't bite. It'll just happen.

India Abroad article on Bharat Yatra 2010

http://www.indiaabroad-digital.com/indiaabroad/20101224?pg=34#pg34

(yay)

WWJD?

It's so cold out that it hurts my teeth to drink hot coffee. CNN, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and even the arbitrary psuedo-political and barely intellectual blogs, all circle around the same 4 topics: not-so-secret diplomatic secrets; the surrender of politics to the moral obligations of helping 9/11 heroes, freeing closeted soldiers, legalizing those American in all but name; Obamacare's flaws and inadequacies; Sarah Palin's newest blunder, exalted by the Tea Party and Jon Stewart. It tires me. Everything is the same. People don't want to see Obama's brilliance, the NJTransit bus is always late, politics and the economy and all the other fabricated "isms" that have been so loosely thrown about are nothing more than words, words which don't stop frostbite or runny noses or stiffened toes.

In the midst of political and physical frigidity, the last thing I wanted to do was attend a foreign policy forum at the Yale Club. My juvenile conservative fetish has started to corrode, giving way to the forces of common sense and a more durable liberalism. I wanted to attend for a change of pace, but also wanted to not attend for the same reason. I ultimately decided to go, and after roaming around 42-44th streets on Vanderbilt Avenue for 15 minutes (I work right by Grand Central and yet its precise location still eludes me), I saw the Yale Club as refuge.

After handing in my coat, my scarf, my lunch bag, my overnight bag, (and after the man behind the coat check grew a few white hairs), I walked to the fourth floor, past all the libraries and men in sports jackets and women in pearls, to the forum. For some reason, I wasn't registered (even though I did it twice), so got to scribble my name on a blank card. I found a few other familiar faces, and as if I had not spoken in years, I let loose a tirade about PPACA, about flaky pedestrians, about Coach bags and Ugg boots. In between "Obama's saving the U.S.!" and "I'd rather buy 100 burritos than half a Coach bag," we explored the open bar and welcomed with open arms the waitresses providing endless mini bruschettas and knishes and pineapple.

And then someone clutched my arm. "Is that Jerry Springer?" I looked to my right and saw an older man talking to a group of eager young faces, but could hardly believe it to be Mr. Springer in the flesh. I almost yelled, "Jerry! Jerry!" but decided instead to silently stand next to him till I could confirm it to be true.

Most other groups in the room formed around a topic of interest--North Korea, socialism, the free flowing white wine. As I edged closer to Mr. Springer (not yet on a first name basis), I caught snippets of the conversation. "So, do contestants on your show really have those issues or is it scripted?"

It really was him. I introduced myself, he introduced himself, and then we briefly discussed my boss and her policies before a blonde JP Morgan banker inserted herself into the conversation and stole Jerry from me forever. As she maintained a fixated gaze, I fumbled around for my camera. I didn't have the passion she had, and I just wanted my taste of fame before I headed home.

He said he would be in a picture only if he could get a copy.
The rest of the forum went well. Most of the economists on the panel were conservative, small government folk, the types of people both Jerry and I resented. I stopped caring what they had to say, what Chris Matthews and Brian Lehrer had to say, what my office had to say, what my parents had to say.

I just want to know what Jerry would do.

Catharsis

It was one of those days when the wind whips your face so hard it looks like you're wearing a cheap brand of blush, when it rains so hard that the windows groan, and when the only relief you have from large muddy puddles of water are smaller puddles to the left. People were poking each other with umbrellas, hurriedly brushing past the AM New York newspaper guy in order to get to the nearest awning, running from one to the next. Despite best efforts, everyone was drenched, cold, frenetic. In an epic battle against the ennui of our fabrications and constructions, of midtown east and overpriced delis, of business casual and leather shoes, of 9-5 and 9-infinity, of Republican filibusters and self-indulgent nuclear warfare, Mother Nature rose from within herself to shatter the very artifice in which we have captivated ourselves. It rained and rained as if the Earth were crying, as if purging its elation, fury, passion, sensuality in one desperate attempt at reinstilling chaos.

j'attends

I think about 87% of the day goes into waiting. (I also think about 46% of all statistics are made up on the spot.) Life is scheduled, rendered static by the multitude of deadlines, due dates, red flags we impose on ourselves. And still, despite knowing what is next, I find myself constantly suspended somewhere between the past and future, without having realized the present. We just sway back and forth, rapidly tapping our watches in anticipation.

I wait for the bus, for Port Authority, for the E train. I wait for the right word to come to me as I write an email. I wait for the response. I wait for the right time to relay bad news to a constituent, for the right time to finally throw my hands in the air and give up. I wait for Friday. I wait for 5:00, for 6:00. And then I wait for the E train, for Port Authority, for the bus.

And during all this waiting, nothing gets done. The goals to refashion my body, to refine my French, to apply for whatever is next in my life seem to slip from my fingers as I can only focus on the idea of some distant future, not the actual process of attaining it, of making it a present reality. As I wait to fall asleep, I tell myself tomorrow will be a new day, the day I start writing a screenplay, swimming 5 AM laps, reading the books on my ever-growing list. And then tomorrow becomes today, and today we just sit waiting for tomorrow.

Some of us are waiting for Godot. But the rest of us are just waiting, not even sure for what, or for whom, we wait. Such is life. We're at a standstill, breathless.

telephone

The last time I played telephone was in the first grade. We played during a fire drill in order to pass time. After the initial shock of "chicken nuggets" becoming "Rick and Meg's cats," we slowly grasped the way to overcome the mispronunciation--speak loudly, listen clearly.

I never would have thought that this elementary game would manifest itself in my actual life. Last week, as my family took its usual seats around the kitchen and family room--my father standing above some dark chocolate scattered on a TIME magazine, my sister lying on the couch with her laptop propped on her knees, my mother standing by the stove in frantic disarray, and I sitting at the counter with some cheese--we engaged ourselves in some real-world telephone.

Manu: Guys, you don't have to come to my dance if you want to pick up Dinaben and Nanaji from the airport.

Rucha: Yea, no big deal, I can drop her off at Mexicali Blues. And I'll get wasted while I'm there. Where is it? Is it on Cedar Lane?

Abhay: What about Mexico? Aw, guys, I am so sorry, I didn't know you wanted to go to Mexico for Christmas. Okay, fine, no problem, let me start planning it now.

Parul: Katariiiinaaaaa.

Manu: Who wants to go to Mexico?

Rucha: Isn't Katarina a Russian name?

Abhay: [launches into history of the name, "Katarina"]

Parul: Who cares? I was just saying we should watch "Dancing with the Stars!"

Manu: Oooh okay! But watch my dance first I need to practice for Sunday.

Abhay: Speaking of which, we might not be able to go because we have to pick up Dinaben and Nanaji from the airport. Will that be a problem?

~~~