Once there was a sailor, Watt was his name

Since I've told Facebook, I might as well tell you guys. I've changed my relationship status. It's been changed. I'm "in a relationship" with the pink heart icon on the minifeed, and late night phone calls and lots and lots of money off my cell phone thanks to text messages and doing things together and better skin and being a Girlfriend. Wow.

It's not without some sadness that I fold away my single life and put it up with mothballs somewhere at the back of my cupboard. Being single is awesome. Don't let anyone tell you it isn't (not even me when I'm being whiny and lonely). Being double is very awesome too--I could get all mushy on you at this point and do a whole Reasons Why I'm In Like With You thing, but I'm restraining myself heavily. (Oh but, sleeping with someone, not SEX, mind you, but just the actual act of sleeping is like some sort of drug. Really. I'm usually a kicking, tossing-around-in-my-sleep-only-to-wake-up-spreadeagled-across-the-bed kind of person, but this I could live with. Okay, I'll stop. See? I'm done!)

But I've noticed each time I blog about a relationship, it usually goes badly, and I'm superstitious like that. So for a while, with my dating, I kept it under cover, but this time I am totally tempting fate. I want to see if this lasts beyond this blog post, if this lasts beyond October even, if the good feelings have some basis in reality and not just my deluded mind. What shall we call him? So far we've had an initial (K., but that was very long ago), New Boy (which was nice, but very two years ago also), the Other Party (which I still like as a pseudonym, but using it again might be confusing) and the Nonboyfriend (which this isn't, so that doesn't apply really). I'm toying with Y chromosome. I think it has a nice, scientific ring to it, but then it seems rather long to type. An initial might be too revealing for his liking--even if it is a fairly regular initial, not like X or something. The Boy, The Boyfriend etc have been used waaay too often. Hmmm. This is harder than I thought. I know! We'll refer to him as Volt, a little inside pun I have going on with Deepti and Neel. (And he has lots of energy, fairly charged, positively electrical etc etc) Very nice. I'm so proud of myself now. Volt. Volt and eM. We sound like comic book characters.


In other news, I seem to have somehow gotten a bruise on the knuckle below my little finger. Which means this post will also have to be classified as "Injuries". When I first made that label, I assumed there would be one or two posts under it, but in this whole the-universe-will-fuck-with-me-each-time-I-blog-about-something thing, very obligingly, each week, sometimes, if I'm lucky, each month, I have a new injury to report. I might as well get it over with and admit to having strained my back badly from carrying my laptop backpack and rushing to catch a train. (I thought I'd be stylish and loosened the straps, so the backpack now hangs over my middle and lower back, ergo, backstrain. BUT I'm still not going to adjust the straps. Vanity, thy name is woman.) Perhaps certain obliging parties can be coerced into giving me a nice backrub.

My bed has no headrest and tonight, I sleep alone. Goodnight, lovelies, and I hope you all have pleasant news to relate this week as well.

(I wonder though if this general wellbeing is going to take away from the snark? That last line was positively angelic. I feel like I should insert a bitchy comment here just to reassure myself that I'm still here. Ah, fuck it. I'm in too good a mood to be bitchy. Next week, perhaps.)

Hanging up the high heels (but only temporarily)

You are alone on a Friday night, with your cat for company, a little leftover vodka from the party, Desperate Housewives on at midnight and your laptop. Your friends have all decided to migrate to South Bombay for Friday night, and since you are a) broke and b) lazy, you are instead sitting at home with freshly washed hair and an almost-full packet of cigarettes and the desire to put keyboard to MS Word document.

You have also been taking photographs of yourself on your camera phone, in order to change your Facebook profile picture. Several very nice sepia tinted pictures later, you realized that the Bluetooth connection on your laptop wasn’t working. Normally, if you were alone on one of the big party nights, at home, watching tv, generally vegging, you’d feel a little depressed, a little like watching one of those Sony TV New Year’s Eve specials with your maid, while even your parents went out smelling expensive. But tonight, you stretch into the nothingness, accepting the non-plan, feeling the vodka curl itself into your system, feeling the wellbeing that comes from the end of the week and also, it must be admitted, feeling quite righteous at being at home.

The phone rings and it is, well, it is someone you are involved with. You asked if you could blog about him and he balked, but you explained you wouldn't name him, or even describe him at all. In fact, you said, "I'll call you a friend." "A friend?" he said, sounding dubious, "Is that what I am?" "Okay," you said, "The person I'm involved with?" He seems satisfied with this, and so that is what you are going to stick to. He does not read your blog though, and for that, you are grateful. Also, very anxious to keep it that way. It's not yet time to change the Facebook relationship status though.

Tomorrow--you have promised an old school friend who is in town--you will go dancing. You will wear your Dominatrix high heels and you will tilt back your head and pretend your finances aren't giving you a stomach ache at that moment, and that it's time to get your eyebrows done and that there are still things that niggle at the back of your mind and the base of your spine. Tomorrow night you will let go like you were still in college and your smile will be wide and genuine and your eyes will sparkle and people will say, "Oh, that girl has no problems at all."

There you go again. You're happy now, why sound like you're not? You enjoy the angst, you enjoy the drama, in your heart, you wear black nail polish and thick black eye makeup and leather wristlets. In your heart, you are that girl who cuts herself and thinks smiling is uncool. But you don't have the energy to be that unhappy, so for now you wear blue and feel smug and content with your situation. For now you focus on the stomach meltingness of an afternoon kiss, the bliss of staring around a room where you are sitting with your good friends and realise there's nowhere else you'd rather be, the mellowness of a rainy afternoon and a sleepy tabby on your lap, the satisfaction of a cigarette after a good meal, the wonder that comes every now and then of looking around a new city and seeing how it is becoming home.

Vokda makes you profound and profuse.

Men Are The New Women

The opposite sex has always been a source of great confusion and mystery to me. But recently, it’s like they’re all, “Oh let’s fuck with the girls some more” and invented some new gender thingies that completely throw me off. Let’s recap: some of the men I’ve been with in the last year or so have said stuff to me like, “Let’s take it slow”, “I want this to mean something” blah blah blah to which my only bemused (half-naked) reaction has been WTF?

At first, I thought it was a one-off. Just one anomaly in a sea of otherwise normally horny men, for whom good sex was when you showed up and took off your top. But noooooooo. The one thing that women through the ages had going for them (see Lysistrata), the power of sex, the power of saying not tonight, I have a headache, has been taken over by the men. In fact, not so long ago, I actually heard a boy tell me, “Not tonight, I have a headache.” Seriously? SERIOUSLY? You’re taking this away from us?

More and more of my male friends tell me, “You know, sex isn’t that important.” And I’m wondering when they reached that conclusion, for me, sex isn’t that important unless I have to go without it, in which case I turn into a mixture of Cruella De Ville and Bambi, alternating between long drags of my cigarette and fluttering eyelashes at whatever’s closest. My female friends, a strong posse who are not afraid to say what they want, often lament the lack of sex, we talk about everything, unless the boy is special, we are ribald and often objectifying. My male friends are now beginning to talk about “feelings”. I’ll say (in a moment of drunkenness) “Oh my god, I don’t think I’ve ever seen breasts that huge!” and they will look at me reproachfully, and turn their bodies away, pictures of injured innocence.

Am I missing something here? Is this just the men I know? Or are all the men in the world taking the reversal of gender roles one step further and embracing our stereotypes? As women get stronger, more assertive, more take-your-pants-off-in-a-movie-theatre, men are becoming the chased, the ones with the goods to be withheld, the ones with the sheets clutched up to their chins. Therein lies the catch. So, traditionally, women do not chase right? As it is, while we’re chasing (well, me at any rate) we’re constantly second guessing ourselves—will he still respect us, will he still want to be with us—so the more the men are doing this drama about oh-sex-isn’t-all-that, the more we’re going, really? What’s wrong with us?!?

Why are the men doing this? To be the forbidden fruit, I'm assuming, to be the ones with the sexual power along with everything else. HMPH.

Recycling

I know, I know. My poetry isn't exactly Elizabeth Barrett Browning. But, I really like this one! And it's so appropriate! And my life is very fun right now, but full of very intimate personal details that I simply can't write about. Therefore, may I present Raising A Toast?

Pick a girl, any girl,

The game began,

Over beer,

And drawn into it,

He stammered through,

Foam-wet lips, his once

Desire, before heartbreak,

And growing up and PFs,

Before car installations,

And kid’s names, before

Commuting and down payments,

Before worry became WORRY,

And stress was for old people,

Before health was an issue and

Cigarettes were just smoke, before

It all just became so damn complicated,

And dating was going around and a relationship

Was what you had with your parents or

That old aunt you saw every now and then,

There was a girl and he liked her,

Very, very much, not for

Her childbearing hips or her salary

Or the fact that she liked the Beatles too, or

That they seemed compatible in any way,

Compatible wasn’t even in the dictionary then,

He said, smiling now, but I liked her because

She blew the biggest bubbles ever with

Her bubblegum.

Thank you, you're all most kind.

I got rhythm, I got music, who could ask for anything more?

eM has been a bouncing, happy Tigger-cat all week, and it is awesome. Several epiphanies, even, which I shall elaborate on, shortly. Isn't life great?

*We can now play the field with greater ease: So Major Epiphany One happened, when was it, Wednesday night? Yes, Wednesday. I was out with a friend for dinner, and because there was a (BLAAAAARGHKILLMENOW) cricket match, and we were at High Street Phoenix, he suggested that we go to the Sports Bar. One assumed he only wanted to go to the Sports Bar to get a drink and spend time with me, but once there, his eyes glazed over as he stared, fixated at the screen. The Sports Bar was full, so we hopped next door to the Brew Bar, which was also full, but we got ourselves bar stools. Many aborted attempts at conversation later ("So yesterday? I saw an alien!" "Uh-huh, that's nice, ohhhhh, SHOT!") I gave up and tried to read my book in the dim lighting, which also got too much, so sulkily, I also looked at the screen. And dudes, I totally got cricket for like the first time ever. It was a very exciting cricket match, all like the last scene of a sports movie, where everything happens in slow motion, and you're biting your nails, waiting for the good guys to win, and the good guys won and the entire bar exploded and mmmm so much testosterone in one room I swear I started ovulating right then. So. Not that I'm a cricket convert, I still think it's deadly boring, but I also cheered and whooped and grinned around at my fellow countrymen and scratched my balls. Urrrrrr. (That was a growly noise. Imagine me also flexing my biceps. You want a piece of me, beyotch?)

*Can you spell P-L-A-Y-A-H: Major Ephiphany Two is that it's possible to date. I'm dating. Which is different from DATING dating, when you're only dating one person. (Wow, that was a confused sentence.) But I'm going out with boys, nice ones, and allowing myself to wear skirts and feel all chick-like. This is fun! I realised about a week ago, that I was only picking the strange men, so I decided the next time a guy who seemed normal, asked me out, I would go for it. And I'm having a good time, and not feeling all fucked up or obsessive, and everyone should date. Exercise your gender roles. Be able to flutter your eyelashes by moonlight. Etc. Place your bets now, ladies and gentlemen, how long can eM stay healthy? Excellent odds!

* Music, makes the bourgeoisie, come together: I think there were only two epiphanies. Ooh, wait, there was one more. So Janmashtami recently happened, and like every other religious festival in my locality, this too was celebrated by two loudspeakers surrounding my house playing very different kinds of music. And since I had to meet someone for a story I was doing and had to pass by many more of these loudspeaker gatherings, I came to the conclusion that the most popular song played at these things was Sean Paul's Temperature, you know the one that goes, "I got the right temperature to shelter you from the storm, oh lord, gal, I got the right tactics to turn you on." I kid you not. I heard this five times outside my window and then thrice as I travelled through the city. Maybe it's a reference to the whole Krishna lifting the Mount Govardhan thing?

* Because no post is complete without some snark: In other news, despite all this positive reinforcement, things on the personal appearance front have totally turned for the worst. My hair! My hair! COMPLETE nightmare. There seems to be nothing I can do about it, it frizzes, it stands up in odd places, in the mornings, I have an afro, and no matter how much styling spritz or Livon I put on it, it still looks the same. Like crap. And my skin is breaking out. Which is what, I suspect, prompts people to ask me how old I am. And all this while, I put it down to my youthful exuberance and demeanor.

Is all. I leave. Thank you, come again.

I put the 'sing' in single

Happy September! Although, I'm not a big September fan, despite its pretty name. September in Delhi is awful, all muggy and humid and it feels like you're breathing liquid air and you can't wait for the damn month to be over already so glorious winter can come in. In Bombay, now, September is an exceptionally nice month, I realise. The weather is pleasant, there's enough rain to keep everything art-movie-interesting and when it's sunny, it's still pretty. This is the last of the monsoons I've been told, before the second summer, when it's back to sleeping with the air conditioner and then "winter" where the temperature will drop to a nice 22 degrees. Tropical cities are lovely, though I will miss the beauty of a Delhi winter and the crisp cold air in my nostrils and my lungs and curling my fingers around a mug of hot coffee and my black coat with my VS Naipaul hat.

I've had a busy weekend, despite being very very broke (it was the end of the month and you know I live far beyond my means). We had a little farewell party for Mouse and another friend of Shark Tooth's and when I say little, I mean under a hundred people, of course. I don't know how everyone managed to fit into our apartment, let alone dance, there was dancing! which made me most proud! but they did and proceeded to get very drunk. I didn't know half the people there, but big achievements for this party were a) as many, actually perhaps more women than men, which made my male friends pleased and b) me, your friendly hostess, for the first time in a very very long time, getting completely HAMMERED at her own party. Also some cute boys (okay ONE) who was eyelash fluttered at, although by the time we got to the eyelash fluttering, I may not have been in the best state to decide whether someone was cute or not. I remember his hair though, even if the face is a little blurry in my memory. But the next day, waking up with a backache (back story: TC's litter is usually the branded stuff, which costs about a 1000 rupees to a 5 kilo pack. This time, to economise, I bought a cheaper variety--10 kilos for 400. BUT I had to carry it around with me, because I was meeting my friend Deepti for lunch, and ergo, the backache) and no memory of large parts of the evening. I was told that for the most part I behaved myself, which is a relief. I also informed people that I didn't like Bengali food and spent a part of the evening prancing around in a cowboy hat.

Anyway, so Saturday, I napped most of the day away and then later hung out with Sameer and Chrisann, and Saturday wasn't very exciting at all, except for a recap we all did of the party the night before. Cute Boy from the party had invited me to another do, but because I had no one to go with, I chose not to. Besides, my mouth was still fuzzy and by the time I got into bed, little men with tom-toms were playing One Night Only concerts in my head.

Sunday was excellent fun though. I got just about the right amount of sleep and then Deepti and her husband Neel called me for brunch, which, because it was Sunday and all, turned into lunch at a very nice restaurant called Cafe Madras, which marked a milestone in my Bombay development, being the first time in eight months (it's been eight months! yay me!) I've had nonsweet sambhar and rasam in this city. Post that, because they are posh and have all these club memberships, we went to the Turf Club for coffee, where I totally wished I was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman so I could do the outfit--large white floppy hat, gloves to my elbows and a spotted dress. (I was wearing, instead, a t-shirt, jeans, red chappals and a black bag with gold Hare Krishnas on it. It's a good thing Fashion Week is in Delhi). Despite my non dressiness, we had a good time and moved onwards to try and catch Ratatouille but all the tickets were gone. Being an enterprising couple, Deepti and Neel decided we should rent a movie instead and then go back to theirs. (Also, being an enterprising couple, they have the loveliest home theatre system with a PROJECTOR SCREEN and I was all like, why do you ever go out to watch movies?) We hung out at the Yacht Club for a bit, drinking Bloody Marys and going, "Yar." Then (phew) back to their house to watch June Bug which has that really really elegant woman from The Wedding Date, what's her name? The one every woman wants to be with her arched neck and perfect manners? And Ben McKenzie, Ryan from The OC, who I greeted like an old friend. ("Hello Ryan!" I said to the screen). And then, home. (As I recap, it makes me tired. That's quite a bit to fit into one day!)

And it's a new week. Diabolique's farewell party tonight at the Hawaiian Shack (waaaaaaaaaaaaah, don't leave me and GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO), shitloads of work to do, but with weekends like my last one, I only feel energised and all powerful.

(Of course, the songs stuck in my head all weekend include London Bridge by Fergie, Mahiya by god knows who and Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. I think that pretty much sums up the last couple of days.)

(I'd only recommend Chasing Cars, if you haven't heard any of the abovementioned songs. It's awesome.)

(Hanging out with married couples totally rocks. I suggest you cultivate one today! It's totally low maintanence, politics free socialising. Or maybe it's just the married couples I've known)

EDIT: Also, I've added a new element to my left sidebar, if you will just move your eyes there. I like a lot of blogs, and I know many people don't use the blogroll (that's mainly for me, anyway). Anyway, so I'll be updating that whenever I find something new I like, or that I haven't pimped before. Either just a post or, in this case, the entire blog. The first one is The Mad Momma, who I've been seeing around the internet, but only just read recently. And then wondered at my stupidity for not reading her before. Lovely stuff, if you like mom blogs, and I do. (Something about their structured lives, caring for someone other than themselves draws me like discovering a weird polar opposite to you and falling madly and passionately in love.) But you lot know I'm lazy and disorganised, so it'll be updated as periodically as I remember. We're all about the internet.