not so vanilla

There was a period of time in my life when I would be late for school because it took me so long to swallow pills, even the small ones you could easily lose if you dropped on a tile floor. Now, I take several huge pills a day--calcium twice daily, fish oil three times a day, a multi vitamin with breakfast--all necessary to prevent a complete degeneration of my already debilitating joints. After dinner, as I sit at the counter popping the last round of pills, my family gathers in the adjoining room. The television is always on, and my sister pretends not to watch it as she does her homework. My father is either half-asleep and mumbling about the gym or releasing a full-throated laugh at Stewie's latest antics on Family Guy. My mother is either sending out emails and text messages, inevitably misspelled as she neglects to wear her glasses, or she is periodically shaking her arms during commercials, in efforts to build triceps. At times my father gains a sudden interest, and, filled with an arbitrary energy, he supervises my mother in her peculiar arm movements, shouting out instructions along the way. My sister yells at everyone to be quiet so she can watch her show, and then everyone yells at her to finish college apps, to finish her psych homework, to finish her breakfast every morning. When I finish overdosing myself, I sprawl across my mother's lap, stick my feet under my sister's butt to stay warm, and then loudly recap the contents of my lunch to no one in particular.

And after unsuccessfully resisting sleep for a few hours, we all head to our respective rooms, and four simultaneous screams of "good night" converge in the middle of the corridor, where they stay suspended until the first signs of morning.

Not sure about the other 6, but Sleepy definitely exists

Yesterday was Thirsty Thursday. I could say it was my first since I graduated, but that would imply that I used to be thirsty every Thursday, straying from reality of my addiction to the study lounge. Last night, the office stayed back to watch our boss debate her Republican opponent, Joe DioGuardi, a wrinkly old man who talks in the third person. There was wine, there was pizza, there were cookies, and there was a seemingly dysfunctional cable television. And yet efforts to exercise before dawn, efforts to defend President Obama's health reform to ignoramuses, efforts to comply with the harsh realities of business casual--all of it converged into some sort of inexplicable exhaustion.

So, instead of waking up refreshed by the anomaly of midweek festivities, I was borderline unconscious on the bus into the city, to the point where a slightly alarmed, older man had to shake me awake after everyone had gotten off. I awoke with a start, jumped of the bus, and walked in circles till I figured out where I was.

I can do without Thirsty Thursdays. But I think somewhere in between the lists of things to do and the plans to make plans and all the other in betweens, I need a nap. Not a nap on the bus, but a real one, with dirty sweats and a soft tee and no coffee-fragranced commuters next to me.

Till then, Thirsty Thursday may have to be put on hiatus, possibly for a Siesta Sunday.

we go back to the bad things for some good times

Real-life was no fun last week. I had a flu of bubonic proportions, and was surrounded by office politics and grown up street fights. All I wanted was Friday, the start of a 3-day weekend so I could just let loose, wear flip flops, breathe. And finish season 3 of 24.

On the eve of my sister's SAT, we decided to get a nice dinner so she could relax before the big day. The most obvious choice was Matt's, the overpriced, overrated, overcrowded diner in Waldwick. Wanting to forget our present lives in its entirety, we pretended it was one of those arbitrary summer days when the wind messed up our hair and the music on the radio could shatter the suburban silence without reprimand.

Unfortunately, it was a bit chilly. The flu left me weak, and I was not ready to run my fingers through the night air, and instead kept the windows rolled up. My sister protested, and suggested (with exasperation) I put on my jacket. I refused, and insisted the windows stay up. Besides my runny nose, the cold was also bad for my knee. Resigned to life with a geriatric sister, Manu could do nothing but fumble with the radio; finding nothing, we resolved to play her iPod. Since we didn't have the deck with us, we decided to improvise--we set the volume to the max, and I held up the headphones so that we could hear the faint rumblings of something remotely R&B. And so we drove to the diner, with but remnants of our carefree summer nights, headphones and shivers in hand.

Once we sat at the diner, thoroughly looked over the menu as if it had changed at all in the last 7 or 8 years. I told my sister I was really craving their veggie burger. "But I thought you hated it," she said as she briefly flirted with the idea of getting scrambled eggs. "Yes, but I am really craving it. I just want their awful veggie burger. It falls apart every time, but I want that mush." She shrugged her shoulders and went with the penne a la vodka.

Her meal came with salad, which was so unfresh we only ate the kidney beans and stale croutons. My burger was reliably awful, and as I picked it up it fell through my fingers, so that I was forking broken veggie patty doused in ketchup, with lettuce leaves and coleslaw. Once my nostalgia was satiated, I became angry at myself for intentionally paying for bad food. I then resolved to finish my sister's dish, which was just short of authentic Italian, leaning towards something like Kraft or Velveteen.

On our way home, we stopped at Van Dyks, to wash down our gourmet meal. I was too full from finishing 2 dishes, and still too cold from the October skies, but my sister got cookies 'n' cream. On the way home, I held the headphones in one hand and the ice cream in the other, and periodically fed her large spoonfuls so that she could drive with both hands on the wheel. We're all about the safety.

By the time I went to bed (after watching a couple of hours of Jack Bauer saving Los Angeles from a biological weapon), I had forgotten everything I had ever worried about, and fell asleep to the sounds of an undercooked veggie patty swimming uncomfortably in my stomach.

rainy days and frivolity

Today was one of those days when you're allowed to buy overpriced coffee rip-offs. I seemed to be at a loss with my casework, have a nagging, crippling knee, and, most importantly, have a Visa gift card. All circumstances pointed to the necessity of making a frivolous purchase, one which would usually go against my principles.

I bought a chocolate stirrer. It was a wooden stick with a dark chocolate cube at the end. Again, everything seemed to point to the necessity of this chocolate aparatus in my life.

These edible stirrers were by the register, and so I picked it out last minute when I was paying for my cappuccino, which in and of itself is too wild of a purchase for me. The chocolate cube at the end of the stick immediately started melting away, till my cappuccino tasted like thick hot chocolate and I was holding a wooden stick with brown putty on it.

I threw out the remains of the stirrer and indulged in the hot drink. The weather is still gloomy, the knee still throbs, and New Yorkers still suffer the rising costs of their own existence, but I'm hoping everything just melts away, and becomes a de facto hot chocolate.

buddies

So as I step off the E train headed in the direction of Third Ave (where I work) I bump into the Deputy Director who was heading in the other direction. He looked puzzled and I told him it was quicker to walk the other way. And then as we made small talk on the elevator, we turned to see the State Director on the escalator right next to us.

And then the three of us skipped to work holding hands.

AM blues

It was one of those mornings when you heave a sigh, ruffle your bangs, and say with a scowl, "It's just one of those mornings." I woke up more exhausted than when I hit the pillow the previous night; I had waited 2 hours in Port Authority the evening before, nestled comfortably between a pack of Korean tourists and a middle aged commuter who smelled heavily of white-out and cigarettes.

The aftermath of my moving back home as my cousin moved in finally hit me, and in the morning I was scouring through piles and piles of my clothing on the floor, trying to look for a decent shirt. I had no time for breakfast--I was too busy cursing my room, my family, and the gods which rendered me helpless to the clutches of disorganization and lethargy. As usual, I took everything out on my parents, who in turn brandished their most lethal weapon of mass destruction: kindness. Loyal to their origins, the state from which Gandhi hailed, they never reacted violently to my tantrums, choosing instead a path of peace that rendered obsolete any of my concerns. They passively accepted everything I said, and even felt bad for me, before promising that they would build my dresser over the weekend. Their kindness angered me more and I told them I didn't want a dresser. I just wanted conditions to stay miserable for some time so that I was justified in lashing out at the world.

NJTransit proved to be a reliable factor in creating cruel and unusual conditions. The bus was late, and as it started raining, we found ourselves stuck in traffic. The woman in front of me was yelling about her local car dealership. My Sherlock Holmes mystery conceded to the complexities of this woman's life, detailed so clearly for anyone on the bus who had the slightest interest.

I rapidly limped to the E train, only to find the doors close in front of my face. My knee throbbed under my own weight, only reminding me that my new job was a sad excuse to stop working out. The E train arrived 10 minutes later, and, like cattle, we were herded onto the train by the forces of responsibility, obligation, and habit.

Many of the side streets by my office have been closed off for the United Nations Millenium Development conferences, and so as I stepped out of the Subway, I was again shuffled through arbitrary matrices crafted by the NYPD.

I finally neared my building. I stopped at the cart by my building, run by an old Italian man who always says "thank you" to me in Hindi. Instead of the usual small, I ordered a medium coffee with milk, and could barely manage a smile from my immobile lips. The wrinkles around his eyes creased with concern. "One muffin for you, my darling. Just for you." For the first time since I awoke, I felt my own heart beat. I was suddenly conscious of myself, of my own breath, and the slowness of the persistent sunlight, which parted the clouds that had hung heavy during my morning endeavors. I sipped my hot coffee and clutched my muffin as I waved to the security guard inside the building.

The first email I got in the morning was from an agency contact informing me of a favorable decision for a constituent. There was a resolution, some hope, for an economically and physically disabled woman with whom I had been working all summer. I immediately called the constituent to relay the good news, and I could hardly comprehend her words of gratitude as she heaved sobs of happiness.

I felt pretty accomplished. Before 10:00 AM, I got a corn muffin from an old man and blessings from an estranged lady, her face anonymous but her life familiar.

When I got home, I ate Lebanese food with my family. The fattouche was stellar, and the falafel was pretty subpar. I kept staring at all of them. My grandfather read aloud the menu for the entire restaurant to hear; my grandmother and mother sat in fits of giggles; my father was trying to compare all the dishes to Gujarati dishes for easier access. My sister was there in spirit--she kept texting me her misery in SAT class. No one made any sense. I forgot about the morning's fuss, mainly because of the chaos of dinner. I smiled again, as I smiled with my free muffin and my favorable case.

It was one of those days when you heave a sigh, ruffle your bangs, and say with a smile, "Life isn't half bad."

no drama, just life.

I secretly want to be a Bollywood actress, and dance in the rain and fall in love and fight bad guys. In fact, sometimes I listen to songs, English or Hindi, and create makeshift music videos in my head. Pain, confusion, loss--it all seems bearable when it is accompanied by a background score. But then the song is over, the iPod runs out of battery, or we just grow up, and the beautiful tragedies we have woven are dispelled, rendered obsolete by the cold reality of life, which happens backstage. There is no drama. There is no poetry. Pain isn't beautiful. It hurts. And as much as we have made ourselves out to be the tragic heroes of our Romantic histories, we're just people, without a background score or a rain machine or any hint as to what will happen next. We just are, life just is, and everything else follows.