you're gonna send me, right back to the start

Allow me to apologize for the manic nature of these posts. And let me write up front that this post is mostly silly. I think some silliness is warranted right now, because the serious things can't be written about at the moment.

First, I've thought about writing about this post since the first time I saw this video some weeks back- I think I first got the link from A N N A. I'm sorry it's not embeddable, but I suspect that most people have seen this wedding entrance dance by now anyway. A couple of my classmates have since sent the link to me as well, with the requisite ZOMG! and squee!'s required of their generation.

Do I sound grouchy? I suppose I am a bit. I do think the video and the idea is super-cute. I think all weddings would probably be improved by such ceremonial flourishes. Only, I wonder- have all the viewers of this video never been to any Indian weddings? Have they never seen any Bollywood movies? Yeah, these guys danced down an aisle, sure. Indians dance all the way down the street on their way to the wedding.

I don't know, but I was just thinking that it's sort of funny that the West seems to have just discovered that dancing is not a crime, and may actually demonstrate an appropriate amount of joy at an event that is supposed to be celebratory.

I just realized I totally sound like Indian Uncle on Goodness Gracious Me who yelps out "INDIAN!" at everything.

*

Though I know it's rather unfortunate to celebrate a person's body of work after they've passed away, rather than while they were still alive, I think John Hughes is so imprinted on most children of the 80s that we very nearly take him for granted. What I think makes Hughes' movies so Hughes is not that they were so quoteable- though they often were- but that they have such personal significance. I know that probably seems stupid, given how light in substance some of the movies appear. But they meant something to me as a kid, and even now. I was having these thoughts when I heard about his passing away:

• Even though the premise of Pretty in Pink is ridiculous on so many levels (and I'm not sure I'll ever understand how we're supposed to believe that Molly Ringwald ruining two perfectly decent dresses to create one of the ugliest dresses in film history is an indication of her character's talent), I've always been fond of it for a few reasons. First, the music, my goodness, the music. Second, I had a Duckie in college (he bore an uncanny resemblance as well). And even though Pretty in Pink never fully delved into it, I know how sweet and also how painful that can be.
  
• Sometimes I think I was permanently scarred by Hughes' movies. For example, I think Some Kind of Wonderful might have destroyed me on par with Say Anything. The latter movie is destructive in that it leads people to believe that there might be a Lloyd Dobler out there (although some of my friends have met and married him, so keep hope alive!). The former is destructive because it leads people to believe that Watts' martyr-style devotion can lead to a happy ending. I don't care though. I love Watts. How many characters can get away with saying "you break his heart, I break your face"? Even if Watts hadn't strolled out into the fade to black wearing her best friend's future, she'd still be the person I'd rather be.
  
• Probably my weirdest reaction to a Hughes movie was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. While so many of my friends were cuckoo for Ferris Bueller, when I saw the movie, my first instinct was to sympathize with his sister. I think this is because my brother was something of a Ferris Bueller. He wasn't really that popular in high school, but he was always the one getting away with all sorts of misbehavior. He could and can quite effortlessly charm people, and things just always come easier to him. So me, I could understand Jeanie's rage. And of course, I could relate to Cameron. My entire adolescence centered around worrying about getting in trouble, but then ultimately being dragged into doing something irresponsible.
  
• Even though a part of me begrudgingly has to admit that I like Sixteen Candles, it was also the first movie that I saw and thought this is some effed up sh*t regarding racial stereotypes. I've had entire hourlong conversations with RR about Gedde Watanabe, and whether he feels a sense of self-loathing about that role or whether he just found it funny.
  
• I came to realize that I was officially an adult/old due to a Hughes movie. While I still find the movie entertaining, The Breakfast Club now just seems like a bunch of overdramatic teenagers feeling sorry for themselves (with the exception of Bender- I now wonder why protective services never intervened on his behalf). But I'm not too old to remember that I did once think that it captured a lot of what it felt like to be in high school. I suppose it's a bit of a relief to find that high school really doesn't hold the same weight it once did. (on a side note, Don't You Forget About Me was my high school graduation song, which is sort of funny to me now because, um, I have forgotten. A lot.)

Anyway, as a tribute, I am also posting a song from Sixteen Candles that I've always liked, just to finish off the nostalgia overload.

if you want me to break down and give you the keys

I want to write of the things that I knew before I was born, the things that were predetermined, the things that everyone in my family knew but never dared to speak aloud. But of course, I am just another member of my family, the same tongue-tied inability to articulate cramping my fingers, constricting my throat.

Instead, all I can write is that the closest semblance to a sister I've ever had- not an older sister to look up to or a younger sister to dote upon, but a true sister- is not well. And from 2000 some odd miles away, there is very little I can do. Even were I there, it's likely there is not much I could do. Which is immensely frustrating given what I've been doing with my life for the past three years.

What I really want to do is write about her, but I feel as I have always felt about her. Fiercely protective. I often have little shame when it comes to writing, but I would not cheapen her by telling her story, especially through my eyes.

All I can write is that I am one of three. One never made it, one fought for every breath, and one was me. I doubt anyone knows that, I doubt anyone sees the connection. I am not my parents' child. I am one of three, and I have never lived up to it. And if she goes now, I don't know how I'll ever make amends.

tired of talking, talked out, ticked off or toughed up

I've been following the laws of physics lately, and thus, this blog has been getting the shaft in favor of sleeping, eating, and passing this forsaken rotation.

I haven't bothered writing about these rotations because I don't feel like boring everyone to tears with that babble, and besides which, being immersed in it as much as I am, it feels as though it is hard to write sensibly about it. I need some distance which is not really possible at the moment. I can say that it sometimes feels frustrating, sometimes feels triumphant, sometimes feels important, sometimes feels trivial, sometimes feels like medicine helps people, sometimes feels like medicine is in vain. I have worked with physicians that are admirable and some that are not so admirable. I have watched behaviors that I would like to emulate, and others I would rather avoid. I've been told that I should be a surgeon, and I've also been asked, "you're not interested in surgery, are you?"

For the record, no, I am not interested in surgery, not even vaguely. This rotation has been great, though, in that it has made me properly respect surgeons and confirm that it's work best left to others. And it's just an interesting unfolding of life or lives before your eyes. People minding their own business when they were hit by a car and are now stuck in a hospital bed for months with fractures and complications. Gunshots and stab wounds, alcohol and methamphetamine, the suicidal and the demented. There aren't that many opportunities in life to see that sort of cross-section of the world.

The only thing that's truly felt like torture is having to interact with some of my more difficult classmates, who have started to exhibit that classic medical school attribute that I like to call "I will stab you with a shiv first chance I get if I can do so while improving everyone's opinion of me." It is the innate characteristic that makes my stomach turn about students. It's not across-the-board, but all it takes is one student like that to really annoy.

But even that has been an opportunity. Such clowns will never go away in life. There is no one field populated by well-intentioned sweethearts. The key is not to let the a-holes get to you. I've been able to manage by refusing to rise to the bait, and also by recognizing that it's not worth it to me to engage in that fight.

That's the thing about being a middle-distance runner. You have to decide which race you wish to run, which mark you want to meet. I used to think, when I was younger, that you had to push yourself until you were the best, better than everyone else. But that was a long time ago, and I've seen how that kind of drive comes at a cost. I am starting to think I will be okay without losing who I am. That seems the thing most worth fighting for.

they say time may give you more than your poor bones could ever take

Last Friday, I had one of those days that made me quite grateful to have dropped out of Corporate America. I've never been particularly ungrateful about it, but last Friday was different. Some truck had tipped over on the freeway, and I was stuck in traffic for nearly three hours (this drive usually takes me about 30 minutes). When this happens, and you are sitting in gridlocked, stand-still traffic, even the calmest person starts to develop hypertension and smoke coming out of their ears.

But when I finally got to clinic, it took about five minutes to get into the swing of things, and I promptly forgot all about the miserable morning commute. When I was working for The Man, I would have spent the better part of that three hour drive contemplating whether I ought to take the next exit and simply return home. And I would have spent the better part of my work day annoyed by my late start.

It's obvious, of course, that this is because I did not really enjoy what I was doing for a living, and therefore all of those external forces and factors could easily encroach on the tolerability of my work day. Now it's so much simpler. No matter what is going on, when I get to clinic, I feel very much there and not much distracts me.

That last Friday, when I left clinic, I was feeling chipper even, until I was sitting in a ridiculous rush hour traffic jam on the way home. Since I've always had a soft spot for Falling Down, I decided I had better decompress before things got out of hand. I took a very early exit and spent an hour strolling around the local co-op, at which I bought overpriced cardamom pods. Yes, they were overpriced, and as an Indian and as a Guju in particular, I felt a measure of shame buying them. But I had decided it was my indulgence for the weekend.

Sort of. When I got home, I fixed myself a generous tumbler of Grey Goose and Hibiscus Tonic (it seemed like a good idea when I was at the co-op). Then I set to making the cardamom ice cream. It reminded me of childhood and home to some extent- the smell of the milk and cream scalding, gently crushing the cardamom pods and letting them steep, the fragrance of it as I cooked it into a custard. But it also reminded me of being an adult and having my own sense of home. When those smells were present in my childhood home, there was usually a frenzy and panic because my mother was frantically trying to do a hundred things in preparation for some large celebration. Instead, the scents wafted into the kitchen while I sipped a cocktail and erased all the annoyance of having spent over four hours in a car in one day. I felt very calm, and the process seemed very much mine, instead of me trying to reenact some fondly recalled memory.

And I got this out of it:



The picture, due to my horrible camera and photography skills, does not do it justice, but I was particularly pleased with the result because a) the flavor is very much like kulfi while the texture is that of ice cream rather than the icy consistency that kulfi can have, b) I had a nice buzz going on while the preparations were underway and c) I pretty much made up the recipe myself. These tiny ideas of mine don't always turn out so well, but when they do, it encourages me to keep tinkering. We'll see if that winds up being a good thing in the long run.

just a mirror of a mirror of myself

A conversation I had with a 6-year old who was tagging along with her mom at work today:

kid: Are you... American?
me: Yes... are you?
kid: No.
me: You're not?
kid: No... (holds up her hand) see my skin, I'm Indian.
me: What does it mean to be American?
kid: I don't know. Wait, what color are you?
me: (holding up my hand next to hers) I'm like you.
kid: So you're Indian too?
me: Yes.
kid: But you said you were American. (I nod) You know, I was born in America.
me: Me too. So you're American.
kid: But my parents were born in India.
me: Mine too. So we're both Indian and American, right?
kid: Oh... yeah. Wait, you were born in America, and your parents were born in India?
me: Just like you.
kid: Cool!

And that concludes this episode of Pediatric Identity Politics.

I could drink a case of you

Saheli recently tagged me on that always time-sucking addiction Facebook. While I try to avoid such things on Facebook, as a blog post, it's a happy excuse to have something to write. The idea here is to list 15 books that will always stick with you. I wrote them all down all stream-of-conscious-like, and made certain it was all off the top of my head by drinking a hefty dose of a Grey Goose concoction before starting. And the winners are:

• The Sun Also Rises- as a woman, I know that I should not technically even approve of this book, but there's something very raw and truthful to it. And since I was once the reigning heavyweight champion of dysfunctional relationships, there's a lot about this book that draws me in.
  
• The Little Prince- I can honestly say this book changed my life and me. It was given to me at a time when I was perfectly poised to be shaped by it, and so shaped by it I was.
  
• Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man- there's a whole chapter of torrid ridiculous business behind my initial attraction to this book. I have a copy of it from the Shakespeare & Company bookstore in Paris, though I have never been anywhere in France. There are still parts of this book that elude me, but, still, it sticks with me.
  
• Tell Me a Riddle, specifically the short story I stand here ironing- I think I stand here ironing might be my favorite piece of writing ever. It's not pretty or flowery. But it resonates like nothing else I've ever read.
  
• The Year of Magical Thinking- this one is haunting, so much moreso than The Road. Both are about a kind of inevitability, but Joan Didion's book is somehow more piercing because she's telling her own story. Sometimes you think she is out of her mind, sometimes you think she is a genius. It perfectly recreates what happens when you suffer a major loss and are left behind to live.
  
• Henderson the Rain King- I don't even know how to describe how much I will always love this book. There are characters in books that I've been fond of, and then, as I've gotten older, I've outgrown. Never with Henderson. If anything, I was amused by him when I was younger, and now I am convinced we are kin- messy, awkward, ambitious jacka$$es.
  
• Beneath the Wheel- while a lot of people are found of Hesse's Siddhartha, for me, this book was a revelation. It was another case of reading it at just the right time in my life, but it stuck with me. Almost any Indian kid can appreciate this story, which is all about the crushing pressure academics sometimes places on young people.
  
• My Antonia- I don't know. This book might stick with me for a single line in the novel. The writing is pretty, but also, I guess I am drawn to all of these stories that are about things not working out quite perfectly, quite ideally, but okay.
  
• Bartleby the Scrivener- I aspire to dispatch people with a simple "I would prefer not to."
  
• The Stranger- this book sticks with me because of the whole absurdist angle of it. There are times when we believe the universe is conspiring against us, but if you read Camus, you start to realize that the most important part is to be in on the joke.
  
• Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing- this is another book that changed my life. A auntie gave it to me when my mother complained that I kept getting in trouble for humming or whistling during class. A auntie took one severe look at me and decided I was bored and gave me this book when I was in second grade. I became an avid reader after that. Also, it was particularly perfect that the broseph bore disturbing similarities to Fudge.
  
• Metamorphosis- another absurdist tale. I was tied between this and Gogol's The Nose, but it's Metamorphosis that has more of a permanent mark on me. Strangely enough, it reminds me of Office Space.
  
• Persuasion- because I have enough alcohol in my system to admit that there is a romantic buried underneath all that cold black coal.
  
• The Corrections- because every single character in the book is a mess. And Franzen makes a point of dangling each one out as possibly the one that deserves your sympathy, and then proceeds to tear them down.
  
• The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao- technically, I may have read this too recently to claim that it sticks with me, but I doubt it. The thing is, I've searched writing by Indian or Indian-American authors looking for exactly what Diaz ended up providing. Wao has this fresh and new quality, and it encapsulates life in the new world, the real world. I don't think I'll ever lose my appreciation for that, even if I can't properly articulate it with a little too much Grey Goose in my blood stream.

Hopefully that's fifteen. May I make a small request? I know I probably have hardly any readers at this point. But, if you do happen to be reading, and are so inclined, please leave in the comments at least one book that will always stick with you. Or if you care to post an entire list, even better. I'm genuinely interested.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find my battery charger, so that I can actually post pictures of the cardamom ice cream that will be churning tomorrow.

but what would you change if you could?

The thing is, I'm not sorry.

Every time I think of complaining or whining lately, this is what I realize. I could write about how I cancelled some plans to go away this weekend, to go to a super posh wedding. I could talk about how training for a profession that is ostensibly all about interacting with people has paradoxically caused me to become more and more isolated. Or I could write about how I am supposed to be studying right now and instead spent an hour making toffee, then bashing it to pieces with a rolling pin so that I could add it to cookie dough (I think that might be the very definition of insanity right there). I could write about how I try to go to bed early and still barely make it to clinic on time every morning.

But the thing is, I'm not sorry.

There's something I've had to square with recently. Despite how it may seem both to others and to me at times, I do not want for motivation. The problem is that I'm not consistently motivated by the same thing. I am motivated, but not single-minded. And even though it often means I'm a horrible person, I'm not particularly concerned about my rather whimsical life. Despite how exhausting and ridiculous medical school can be, I actually rather adore it, and there is never a day that has passed that I regret telling corporate America to suck it. And despite the fact that it means I am not the super-stunner-number-one-gunner extraordinaire, I am perfectly pleased with the fact that I 'waste' all kinds of time experimenting with various materials in the kitchen or knitting some random thing or listening to a string of songs for an hour.

There's something else I want, something about which I am sorry. I can feel it. It's in there somewhere, buried underneath all this contentment. But it's there, and at some point, if I could just freeze time for a second and let myself breathe in and out, I should probably put my finger on it. And yet, it's so much easier to contemplate cardamom ice cream instead.

yeah, they'll stay with me until the end

Everyone, I like to think, grows up with some form of comfort music. Van Morrison has nothing to do with the corner of EBF where I was raised. And really, when I was growing up there, the radio mostly played things like Gloria, Brown-Eyed Girl, and Wild Night. But somehow it seeps into your bones just the same, so that, when I heard the rest of Van's rather extensive collection later, it felt like coming home. Home is like that, after all. There's the home you thought you had, and then little pieces of home you glimpse when you're a long way gone.

I've been thinking of home lately and the different people I have been. Home, because I realized recently that I had a sense of home only because I had a sense of family. The different people I have been, because it's nearly laughable to think of it now, but there was a time that I was ruled by a sense of family obligation. I used to drive 6 hours just to go to a birthday party. My cousins would call and invite themselves over for dinner or for brunch, and much to my mother's chagrin, I could never say no. It was all driven by selfishness, really, the same selfish impulse that always seems to spur most of my tendencies. I wanted to be of some use, I wanted to feel needed. And my cousins were exceptionally good at that, the way they'd grab my hand to show me something or the ease with which they'd nestle up next to me to watch television or the false flattery they'd heap upon me to coerce me into baking them something.

It's hard to trace the exact moment when everything changed. Some moved away. Some of us grew apart, as they became their own, distinct people and we had less and less in common. And some was my doing as well.

I got an email from a cousin recently, chiding me for drifting out of touch. It is sort of hilarious, because my cousins have been sort of mortified by me in the past few years. They are used to getting regular phone calls from me. They are used to me spending vacation time visiting them. They have been a bit bewildered that I'm not the person I used to be. In a way, I suppose it's a good lesson for them, the one I learned from them as well, after all. We're always changing, relationships are redefined, they sputter and resume. We grow apart and then something brings us close together. We hurt each other one day and comfort each other the next. I don't know if it's too bold to say that family remains, weathers the changing winds. But so I hope.

In the meanwhile, I see them, my family, my home, in all kinds of things. When I bake a batch of cookies and my friend AB gives me a bear hug, or when my friend BB prods me to knit her a camera case, or even when a friend is being bratty about something. I catch a glimmer, just a little, but enough.

just when you think you've got enough, enough grows

This was probably supposed to be an email, but instead it's turned into a blog post. The emails were about the struggle- the futility of all these beginnings, given how many of them lead to endings. What's it all about? They scream and then they shout.

It's a strange thing, because I feel I've had this conversation more than once and with more than one person. Echoes reverberate. Strange because there are these scotch-soaked discussions I've had with Seekers, people on a quest they sometimes do not quite recognize. Stranger still because it makes no sense that I'm in their company.

My ambitions are so small, to me. I'll take a quiet life, a handshake- I'm not looking for a rollercoaster, I'm okay with no alarms and no surprises. But then again, apparently I am a liar. No matter how little you long for in life, as long as the longing persists, I suppose the size of your ambitions hardly matters.

In short, I have no words of consolation. I can empathize with the frustration that comes from the fall. I understand how, even though it's most of the time exhilarating to want, all that yearning can often be exhausting. And I especially know what it means to want something and not get it. I know that disappointment.

But what would you rather? Throw down your anchor by some dreary shore and punch the clock every morning with the lunch pail in hand? There's an undeniable dignity to that, to the kind of steadfast existence that such constancy requires. But the trouble of it is that you've got to have that in your blood. You can fight it, but we're all just a bunch of molecules- eventually, we go back to our thermodynamically stable state, the place where we are most us. I guess, from time to time, it's natural to flog ourselves a bit, bemoan that we're not other people, people who don't have to dwell on such dilemmas, people who go from point A to point B to point C in a straight line without the hint of a doubt. But when that's over, it always comes back to- would you rather be someone else?

I'm perhaps sheltered and stupid, because I, for one, believe that if the answer to that question was ever yes, then I would start pondering whether it was time to become someone else. I've been a lot of people before, so I can't help believing it can always be done if necessary.

*

Sorry. Listen to the song of the week this week instead. It is much perkier than all of this noise.

too much candy gonna rot your soul

More to file under pointlessness.

SP: What about Zachary Quinto?
me: I'm not sure, I don't think I liked the whole Emo Spock thing.
SP: He was totally Emo Spock! Oh- don't you think the Shat is somewhere cursing JJ Abrams' name right now?
me: Yeah, his head must have exploded when Leonard Nimoy appeared on screen. Poor Shat.
SP: Yeah, but they couldn't put him in the movie, he would have chewed up the scenery to high hell.
me: Bones was my favorite.
SP: Bones! Where do I know that guy from?
me: Oh I don't know, little indie movies like LOTR and The Bourne Supremacy. Sheesh.
SP: Who did he play in LOTR?
me: Um. I don't remember right now. I think he was related to the blonde chick.
SP: IMDB, hold please.
me: Also, I love Simon Pegg, but that was the crappiest Scottish accent on earth.
SP: He was weak sauce. Do you know he and Ricky Gervais hate each other?
me: What?
SP: Don't worry, they've made up. Oh, you know what, I might have to watch the movie again because I didn't understand all the time travel stuff. It gave me a headache.
me: Oh, that's because you haven't caught up on Lost.
SP: Why, is it the same type of travel?
me: No, it's just that then you remember that Star Trek is a JJ Abrams' movie, and you think 'oh yeah, none of his plots ever make sense.' And then you stop trying to figure it out.
SP: That reminds me, I don't know what the hell is going on with Fringe either.
me: I rest my case. Also, I think I had a seizure during the previews for the new Transformers movie.
SP: Eesh, there is no way I am going to see that crapfest. I can't wait for the next Star Trek movie, it's going to be great!
me: Don't bet on it. Abrams is really good at ruining things.
SP: We're back on that? You're such a hater.
me: Alias.
SP: Whatever, I choose to hope. Star Trek movies are all about optimism.

SP is the only person I would dream of having this ridiculous a conversation with for such a prolonged period of time, especially while completely sober. Because she's something of a genius/mega-productive member of society, I think it's healthy for her to talk about nothing once in a while. If you think about it, it's really just for her benefit.

it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe

I keep thinking I ought to have something meaningful to write before posting, and today, I had an epiphany. Since when did anything of import, significance or meaning ever get written on my blog?

Here's something to file away in the Idiot Chronicles, which really should be a recurring column here. Previous installments would include the time that I went for ages without replacing a lightbulb in my bathroom because I didn't own a ladder high enough to reach it. Today's byline would include: things I really should be able to do by now but can't.

It's this absurd juxtaposition: I'm getting older, but I'm wholly immature in so many ways. Evidence that I'm getting older (or maybe evidence that I'm living in a hot dry ninth circle of Dante's creation): my eyes have been getting really dry by day's end, especially if I'm staring at a computer screen or reading for too long. Evidence that I'm wholly immature: I bought eye drops and just discovered that I am really not capable of using them.

I had blocked out my knowledge of this fact. I've somehow managed to hit fossilized status without wearing glasses, and therefore, without ever donning a pair of contact lenses. It occurred to me several months ago that I had missed out on some fundamental developmental ability as a result of this. My classmates and I were supposed to dilate one of our eyes so that we could look at them for an ophtho exercise. Now, most of you that have glasses or get your eyesight regularly checked already know this is a relatively painless process that just involves getting a few eyedrops to chemically dilate your pupils. The instructor said, "you can either put the eyedrop in yourself, or have your partner do it for you."

I turned to my partner and said, "I think you'd better do it." Trying to play it off as brimful is not actually a 3-year old, I quipped, "After all, it's good practice for when you have to do it to your patients." My partner proceeded to get the solution all over my face. In fairness, the fault was not his as he kept painstakingly dropping the solution into my eye, and my eyelids reflexively rebelled against the idea of anything foreign entering. After he had turned red with frustration, I finally ordered him to hold my eyelids open and take the bull by the horns. He was fairly traumatized by the whole thing, while I found it massively entertaining. I never have to worry about having no patience with my patients, because I am pretty much the worst patient on earth on all fronts.

I'd conveniently forgotten all about that incident until this evening, when I tried to put artificial tears into my eyes, and thought to myself um, how am I going to manage this then? Yes, sometimes the thoughts in my head have a British accent, I don't know why. In the end, I think I got half the solution in my eyes, and half on my cheek, and that is my definition of success. It made me muse at those scenes in films or on television, where a character whips out a bottle of eyedrops and just plops them into his or her eyes without so much as a mirror nearby. If I did that, I would look like I'd just come in from the rain.

Also, I pulled a baking fail yesterday. This was especially disheartening because I used the last of my eggs in the endeavor, meaning that I could not bake something else to perk up my spirits afterwards. Maybe that tendency should also go under the Idiot Chronicles, come to think of it.

I do not know where does it go when it goes

Even though I can be outgoing at times, I am best known for my silences. It’s not sulking, sometimes I’m not even angry or sad or hurt. Just quiet. Just nothing to say. Sometimes the silence comes on because things have gotten too intense and I need to inject distance however I can. Sometimes it manifests because I am at an impasse, and somehow the only thing that will solve the problem is to close my mouth. And sometimes, the silence begins as a question- every so often, I wonder if I am speaking to someone, or if I’m just enjoying the sound of my own voice. When I close my mouth, I wait to see if anyone speaks. If they don’t, they must not have wanted to know what I had to say in the first place, I reason, and the silence thus stretches out.

But it is a stretch. The silence fills a span, and then I get so overwrought, so taut, and I know, when I’ve reached that point, that I have two choices. I can snap back into place and resume the conversation. Or the elastic snaps, the connection breaks entirely, and there’s an end.

I used to be a person that didn’t believe in endings. Nothing ended, everything was temporary, all could be mended or broken all over again, and this was both frustrating and comforting. But now I know there is such a thing as permanence.

I know because, when the silence stretches out, there’s always a choice. Sometimes I’m not consciously aware of it, but some alarm goes off, and I come running back in a panic. Are you still there, is it too late, can we resume? When that happens, it no longer matters who was right and who was wrong, it no longer matters why the silence first came upon us, it no longer matters whether it will come again. I just need to speak, and I need to hear that voice in response.

This blog started because of silence. And I think this blog has been silent lately because the person who I so often had in mind when I wrote became a mirage, dissolved, disintegrated, irreversibly disappeared from my life. Not a ghost, just a void. A string wore down over the years and in the end it frayed with so little fanfare. It was a whimper, not a bang. But that’s the thing about a world ending- does it really matter how much violence is involved? Does that change the fact that it’s the end of the world as we know it?

It is the end of the world as we knew it, and I feel fine. But sometimes I don’t. I don’t know how to write about it, how to explain that a conversation which lasted over 15 years finally came to a close. Because it’s not heartbreak, this feeling. It’s an odd feeling to reconcile, when you know something you cherished so much is over, and yet you know it has to be and that it makes sense that it is. You wouldn’t do anything differently, you regret nothing- and yet, there it is, the silence.

Maybe that is the end- when there are no words.

there's no other way

It was very early. We were staying in a bungalow in Manuel Antonio. Since it was a tiny bit of a splurge, we took advantage of the kitchenette, and bought groceries the night before. For less than $20, we had enough for dinner that evening, breakfast and a lunch to pack for the hike we would later take.

It was very early and I surveyed the kitchen. We had forgotten one key ingredient- butter. AP was still asleep upstairs. I slipped out. The sun was already out, but the sleepy little village was deserted. A coati wandered around as the morning heat slowly started to gather, looking for scraps that might have been left out from the previous night. The big market was closed, but a more modest one was open. I surveyed the options and finally found leche de crema, which the cashier confirmed was butter through a series of typically comic exchanges in my garbled Spanish.

Back to what seemed like a cottage, back soundlessly into the kitchen, and I heated up the frying pan on the stove. It was the sizzle of the butter melting and crackling in the pan that finally woke AP from her slumber. But she did not descend for a while. I don't know why, but I was happiest then. Making a simple egg, ham & cheese sandwich for breakfast, I was happiest.

*

Today, most of my classmates are buying iPhones, purchasing study aids, getting sensible shoes, finding themselves proper hospital attire. My slow cooker is caramelizing onions. A batch of empanada dough sits in the refrigerator chilling. And I tried my hand at my first batch of homemade marshmallows, for no good reason except why not?

I tell myself it's just my way, but I don't know. Sometimes I think I just want too much. There are some things I'm not willing to give up, and the kitchen is one of them. That is the strangest thing to type. AP were talking about how different we were a decade ago, or in college. If you met me in college, you would never believe I would even step foot in a kitchen.

What does it mean, what does it mean. That's what I kept asking myself. In Iguazu, in Barcelona, in Arequipa, in Monteverde, there are plenty of things of interest, but eventually, I want to be in a kitchen. What a strange affliction.

Below is the post-baking hiatus backlash, for further evidence.



1. feeding freezy, 2. music in the streets sounds good to me now, 3. it's just overkill

Tomorrow, I'll post my post-trip kitchen madness, if I can find my camera in my bags.

When I grow up

Two so-cheerful-they-seemed-drunk middle-aged nurses got onto the van. They emerged from a rather swank hotel. When we peered from the van into the lobby of the hotel, there was a beautiful vista of a volcano. The top of the volcano was obscured by clouds, so technically we were just looking at a mountain, I suppose, or a very large hill. The first woman hopped onto the van, and immediately started chatting everyone up. AP glanced over at me, looking miserable.

Later, one of the middle-aged women and I were sitting beside each other, and she told me all about the Canadian health care system, and living in Nova Scotia, and the details of their tour, some of which involved some extreme sports in which you would not expect these particular women to be engaging. Later on, AP apologized for stranding me with the lady, but I failed to understand why. All through the trip, she had been chatting away with various backpackers, but somehow the fact that these women were older seemed to make AP's stomach turn.

I've recently discovered I'm fond of old people. Maybe it's because I'm getting older. Or maybe it's because, in my family, the older people were always more interesting. It's a strange thing. So many Indian children born in the US are raised and trained to get a good education, get gainful employment, buy a good house, find a good spouse, have their two-three kids. The stories kind of blur. But all the older Indian people I talked to when I was a child had a different story. My grandparents, especially, and my grandparents' siblings could claim the most colorful stories of the family by leaps and bounds.

And really, we were on a journey that attracts the young. It's a backpackers' country, where you can get from point to point on the cheap, stay in hostels, zipline through the jungle, hike into utter darkness. So, to me, the older folks were all the more fascinating. Later, as we stood on a plank cabled to a tree, it dawned on me that we were about to go sailing through the forest with nothing but a few cables and some caribiners locking us into place. All morning, we'd been debating between options, and so I had no time to really think of my fear of heights or my lack of coordination or the various ways I could go plunging to my death. It wasn't until I got up there, a light mist blanketing the canopy of thick, magical forest. It wasn't until the guides started giving us directions about what to do if we got stuck or if we were going to fast. It wasn't until just that moment, mere minutes before I was about to be bound to a cable, that a pit formed in my stomach.

Then I looked in front of me and there were two people that were easily over 65 years old, a couple. The man was hearty, his face ruddy and jovial. The woman was frail. She looked like she could break in two, and she looked worried that she would break in two. One of the guides accompanied her because of how frightened she looked. But she did it. And by the 6th zip line, she was sturdy, holding forth on how frightened she had been at first. She was embarassed that she had burst into tears on the first zip line, not that any of us noticed, engrossed as we were in conquering our own fears. I looked over to her and said, "Don't worry, a lot of us were crying on the inside," which caused her to laugh.

AP looked at me like I was the biggest drip on the planet, but I didn't much care. The thing is, those old folks had emboldened me. When I had stood up on the platform, my heart starting to pound a little, I looked out in front of me and thought, well, if people 30+ years older than me are sucking it up, who am I to have a nervous breakdown? And after the first second, as I went soaring through the sky, I was elated. It was breathtakingly beautiful, humbling, bursting with life.

So I thought- when I grow up, I want to be an old woman.

Help, I'm alive

I know this week's song is a bit down tempo, but humor me a little. It has some energy, some passion underneath the languid veneer. And I'd like to think that I am a bit like that just now.

When I finished the latest dance, monkey, dance! medical school exercise, I became a little extreme about reclaiming an aspect of my life. I went out drinking every night, made Nutella ice cream, baked myself out of house and home. I even went out and worked at a rather impressive rock concert. It was as though a part of me was starved and then felt the need to go out on a binge.

I don't like this aspect of medicine. I don't like this aspect of "work hard, play hard." In fact- I don't like "work hard, play hard." But the problem is that the universe conspires against balance. Balance, I'm convinced, is not some fixed point, is not some state of zen calm. Rather, it's war- it's a constant battle to even out two opposing forces that inherently want to pull to one end of the pole.

And now I am going away on 'vacation,' but it all feels a bit ridiculous, to tell the truth. I hope that, druing this trip, I determine whether I should really treat vacations in med school this way in the future. I'm always so brain dead that my trips have become a bit of a blur, and just when I have started to feel situated and present, it's time to pack up and return to reality. I think back on how magical my trip to Spain was and know that, were I taking such a trip today, I would have wound up in Madrid shrugging my shoulders, wanting to sleep in.

That's no way to be. Help, I'm alive, my heart is beating like a hammer. Sometimes, it's so demanding, it threatens to burst right through my rib cage. I believe, rather arrogantly, that I can lead any life I want. And so something inside of me is saying that I want some life in particular, that I have some idea of the shape of things as I want them to be- and when this happens, I won't be denied. Once I can put a name to the desire, things will get very interesting.

catapult

I told a friend yesterday that if I don’t take this test on Friday, I am going to burst into tears, and that I don’t cry, which makes putting the test off unacceptable. She looked at me as if I was in serious need of therapy.

I mean, I don’t blame her, because I was lying. It’s not like I am lacking in lacrimal glands. I cry. Sometimes it’s over inappropriate things like a good football game or tennis match or one particular scene in The Incredibles (okay, so maybe I really do need therapy, because I admit that’s weird), but I have been known to shed a tear.

It’s just that I don’t like to shed tears because I am feeling sorry for myself, or, more specifically in this case, because I’ve pushed myself too hard, too far. There was a time when I liked nothing better than destroying myself, bursting into tears, and putting myself back together again.

There are still things for which I’m willing to push myself beyond the limits of good sense, but those things are not academic. They will only ever have to do with love, and I don’t have that kind of relationship with school anymore (and that allows me to put off seeing the therapist for a bit). I still love some aspects of science and medicine, but I also love some aspects of poetry and music, and that is the kind of love that can’t be taken away.

Someday, undoubtedly, oh yes I do have optimism for this- which is to say that I’m not sure I should be optimistic about it exactly- but someday again I will undoubtedly barrel right over the edge of reason and be as messy and ridiculous as this song. I’ll save my tears until then.

I go there a lot

Next week, I'll be back with lots. Lots and lots (well, of culinary stuff at least). This is just another ten-minute break really, but I thought I'd post this song since it's relatively new, and I am a bit crazy for it.

It could just be my mood. I'm in that jangly, bluesy mood. I started to write a whole post about my current mood and I got so bored by it that I can only imagine what a snooze it would be to someone else subjected to read it. So I will spare you.

This song also reminds me of the heat. I believe Martin Crane hails from Austin. Their hot summers are just a tad more humid than the ones I put up with at my current zip code. But the idea is the same. One of my friends used to say that he could never imagine living in Southern California, that the sun was too much pressure- this requirement to be happy and cheerful all the time.

I can't speak for Southern California, but over here, those hot, bright summer days are sometimes still contemplative. It's a strange, submerged feeling. You think things through, you think you're onto something, but it's just too hot, and everything melts. Melts into the sidewalk, melts into the night, melts into places you can't see. You think that maybe a good night's sleep in an airconditioned room will let you sort it all out, but the next morning, the same thing happens.

Even though it's dry and clear and bright, you find yourself slowing down, weighed down. Sometimes you sit still just to stop from sweating. That kind of weather turns everything on its head- because, then, when it rains, it's a relief. And it's the clouds and the wet slicked streets that provide clarity, go figure.

shelter from the storm

When this is over, I will:

• wash my hair
  
• and then get it cut- it just dawned on me yesterday that it has been nearly 6 months.
  
• get my car fixed up- that, I’ve put off for nearly a year.
  
• go to San Francisco for no reason whatsoever, and isn’t that the perfect reason to go to San Francisco.
  
• bake. A lot. This is, of course, assuming that when this is all over there are still a few days before the scorching heat of summer hits these parts. Otherwise, there is going to be a whole lot of ice-cream & sorbet making instead.
  
• go to a concert.
  
• visit Costa Rica.
  
• buy some clothes that are not jeans or workout gear. I’m not really looking forward to having to look presentable again but it was probably about time.
  
• send some apologies, assuming there is anyone left who might accept them.
  
• laugh until I cry, and then cry until I laugh.
  
• reunite with my good friend, Mr. Goose, first name Grey. That really ought to be at the top of the list.

Or so I like to tell myself. In all actuality, I'll probably just want to curl into a ball and be comatose for a few days when this is all over. Of course, I don't really know what I'm going on about, since this will never, technically, be over.

crush

I love when you rediscover a song, and it reminds you of the good in all the bad. Lost to oblivion, almost completely forgot about this song by the Smashing Pumpkins. Corgan is such a windbag these days, and all that ‘bullet with butterfly’ business pretty much soured me towards him some years back.

What I’d forgotten, but what I’m glad I had done, is that I locked away Gish and Siamese Dreams (and yes, it freaks me out that 'Today' is now used in car commercials, but it was far from the best song on the album anyway). They are in a separate little safe place, with all the other things that need to be protected from the future. Michael Jackson in his prime, Joshua Tree and War, old Soundgarden, Prince before he became punctuation/symbol, Police before Sting went off the drugs. They’re all there, all my friends, all my memories, all the precious little crystallizations of perfection.

maybe you shouldn’t care
throw away those dreams and dare

You might look at it as sad. These guys had so much promise, and now Corgan is running around advocating for Clear Channel and other such unforgivable matters. Cornell is singing horrible songs produced by Timbaland. But I don’t know. Today, I don’t think of it as sad. I just think of it as lovely. A good song is a good song. The past and the future should not touch it. It should be the encapsulation of a moment, and a moment should be independent, should stand on its own.

If I could make life fit into those same parameters, I suspect I would be a much happier person.

nobody's listening

This is starting to feel futile. The song says ‘my patience still remains,’ but in fact I lack patience, always have. I was the kind of kid that got really good at the things I was already kind of good at: if it was hard, no thanks, moving on. It was easy to just conclude I should focus my efforts elsewhere because at that age there was still promise, there were still things I thought I was good at.

Then you get older and you push too hard, go too far, and realize that every part of you has it limits. You always fall short. You never measure up. It's physics, it's science, it's math, and it's poetry, it's the classics. You should know this by now.

And me, when I feel like this, I get tired of trying. A month ago, it all held such possibility. This is why I could never be a marathon-runner. I get this far along and just wonder what the point is anymore.

My legs feel like rubber, and my head hurts- it actually feels strained. I don’t want to think anymore. If I think anymore, I’ll start thinking and then everything will go to hell.

I want to say this is all meaningless. I want to say none of this defines me. I want to say none of it matters. It’s just a hoop, you jump through it, you move on. I want to be that zen. But it would be a lie, is the problem.

just can't get enough

K was the most conventional girl in the universe outwardly, but we kids from EBF, you have to watch out for us. For no reason or rhyme, a lot of us have dark eye-liner pasts. D too was a cliché in so many ways, but he would probably fight you to the death if you called him that. Reluctant yuppies if you will. Their wedding was meant to be a standard affair, a standard outdoor wedding with the standard blazing orange, red and purple leaves of a New England autumn as their backdrop, picture perfect, as it had been many times before them, I’m sure.

That’s the thing about growing up in EBF. You have to look closely to find the cracks in the mask. We all have them. I was at the bar. K’s brother was remarking that a Vanilla Stoli in Coca Cola tasted like frosting (for the record, it did), while I had already finished my second drink. AL was ready for prime time; despite the presence of his mother and sister, kid was already getting ready to order shots, and we had to talk him down. Just a standard bunch of soon-to-be-drunk wedding guests leaning against the open bar getting sloshed. The whole thing could have seemed so bland and predictable and dull. Maybe that’s why we had taken to drinking immediately.

The cake came out, and we smiled patiently. K looked over at us, and there was a little knowing flash in her eyes. Just a tiny bit of subversion. Have you ever really watched a cake cutting? I felt compelled to pay attention that time because there weren’t that many people at this wedding, and the bride’s brother was nearby. If there is actually music for this part of the ceremony, it’s usually super cheeseball. It’s usually something like the cheesy first dance, something somber, something some American Idol contestant will be covering someday. But as we turned to watch them, out came the unmistakeable synthpop, bubbly, smile-inducing- when I’m with you baby, I go out of my head, I just can’t get enough, I just can’t get enough.

That’s life. Not that many of us can pull off being hipsters. Some of us have to pay the rent, or the mortgage. We have to wash our hair and look presentable at work. We have to keep our jobs. We have to play along. I say that as someone who doesn’t have a mortgage, hasn’t had a job for two years, hasn’t washed her hair in two days (don't judge!), and has been alternating between wearing sweatpants and scrubs for the past week. But I’ll probably go back to being a working class stiff soon enough.

Just look a little closely, though. There’s a little mischief in there. There’s a little something to appreciate. It would be so easy to think of K as boring if you wanted to, but she wasn’t really. Nobody who plays Depeche Mode while cutting their wedding cake really can be. And in some ways, that made her a lot more interesting than a hipster, come to think of it.

mistaken for strangers

I don’t want to be known, and I don’t want to know you. Names are not necessary. I just want to shed a little light, maybe a glow, but leave the stage dark. You can show me whatever you want too. Just show me a piece. Leave out the parts you don’t want seen.

You don’t have to find the right words, and neither do I. We can just speak into the void. We can let the darkness swallow the things we did not mean to say whole, never to be heard again.

When we part, you won’t remember me and I won’t remember you. You won’t know for sure if I ever really existed. I didn’t. We didn’t. We are a figment. We are the fractured mirror, the sliver left in which you can see a reflection- but a distorted fragment. If you saw me, you wouldn’t recognize me, and I wouldn’t recognize you.

That’s what we want, and that’s what we got. We never mean to pry, we never mean to push it too far. And so we float, float above the world, or away from the world with this weightlessness. Eventually, you might need a little gravity. Eventually, curiosity might get the best of me. I ask a question, or you ask a question, and the pinprick deflates the balloon. Down we fall to the ground in the light of day, two strangers. It doesn’t look so good from down here.

So we part, in search of the night and shadows, places we can hide, places where others congregate in the darkness and inevitably offer you a light to start it up all over again.

use somebody

(Disclaimer: another installment of five minute free-form babble.)

*

The feelings should not have been the same, but they were.

Warm September, end of the evening, he tried to plan it out just right. It was so late, all the trains had stopped running. I’ll never be that naive since then, because I’ll never be that girl again. When I think back on it- how could he have resisted anyway? I held onto every last word he spoke as if it was dripping with the secrets of the universe.

A cab was pulling up, and he was sure he had flagged it. So he made his move, and then tried to jump into the cab. Except that this was Boston. So the taxi went on its way, and he sheepishly said goodnight, a bit disappointed. He always wanted to construct movie scenes, it seemed.

But it didn’t matter- I remember listening to my heart racing that night, the breathlessness, the everything that was that moment and how it overwhelmed me.

Foggy November. Get off the BART, always in my own head. But I was always fond of the chilly walk. In the classroom that night, we had a big exam. This is the class, this was the spark. I knew what I wanted, but this class made me remember that there is what you want and then there is what wants you, what swallows you whole. There are goals and then there is the heartbeat underneath, the pulse that pounds when you have found your rhythm in something outside yourself.

It was not necessarily because of wondrous teaching skills, though his teaching skills were quite good. But it didn’t matter. It never has. It has never mattered to me in that regard- if you were there, if you bore witness, you get full credit. I’d rather believe everyone was instrumental than leave it to random, blind chance.

So when the instructor said what he said, I might as well have been a teenager all over again. An innocent little playful comment. I didn’t really even deserve it, and don’t worry, my head only swelled for a second.

But oh, the feeling was so much the same. The fluttering, the breathlessness, the excitement, the promise of things to come, all so familiar. There are all kinds of mutations of love and lust and crushes in this world. And sometimes, for all their different incarnations, what is underneath is exactly the same.

black swan

(Disclaimer: remember, this is just a 10-minute stretch.)

*

Here’s the conversation, the way it played in my head:

Salvador Dali said, “Take me, I am the drug; take me, I am the hallucinogen.”

To which, Joni Mitchell replied, “I could drink a case of you, darling, and I would still be on my feet, I would still be on my feet.”

A game of chicken, a gauntlet of dares. Which one are you- the drug or the drugged? Which one do you want to be? Do you want to be the spoon or the force that bent it?

Oh these are not healthy thoughts, not at all. Who boasts about melting clocks? You want to be the cause of pinpoint pupils. You want to overtake their brain, shut it down, make them shake.

But then again, who brags about their capacity for heartbreak? You’ll be sorry in the dead of the night when you can’t sleep, when your hair stands on end, when your stomach squeezes into a globe like the world you threw away in your pursuit of the edge. You wanted to see how far you could take it, but you won’t ever be the same.

Yes, yes, that’s what we learn in the books. All those things. All those facts. But what about this fact: put a moth and a flame together, and the moth will get burned, and the fire won’t feel sorry.

Lucky

Disclaimer: explanation for the choppy, 10-minute bursts of indecipherable babble here.

*

The bug got me, infiltrated me but good, put me in my place.

I feel like a Radiohead song today. Even though it’s sunny outside, I feel like the fog of those entrancing San Francisco evenings. I feel like feeling a little sorry for myself.

But I don’t have that luxury, so instead I get a Radiohead song. When I was younger, I used to sit on a stoop with S. He’d bring over a pack of cloves, and we would smoke one or two while looking up at the stars (I know it was extremely foolish, forgive me for my youthful need to behave like a beatnik). He let me stew, we never really talked. It was like being alone, but more lonely, because it was almost like an acknowledgment that there was every reason to feel miserable.

Later on, the other friends, the ones that I always get a kick of, even when I think of them to this day, the rough and tumble crew that are, weirdly enough, my people, they would remark, ‘life’s a b*tch and then you die.’ Like a mantra, except maybe it was more of a punchline. Didn’t get the A on that exam? Had a bad breakup? Have a hangover? Gained a few unwanted pounds? Can’t afford that dress? ‘Life’s a b*tch and then you die.’ We said it all the time. Peddle self-pity somewhere else, we’re not buying here.

Like the Cake song says ‘as soon as you’re born, you start dying, so you might as well have a good time.” Oh it’s all in good fun, right? It’s all funny. Yet it’s also sort of true.

So suck it up, put out the cloves, switch the tune, shake away the fog, and face the day.

dirt off your shoulder

Disclaimer: see yesterday's post for an explanation.

*

Sometimes, and it’s embarrassing to admit, because pride always comes before a fall, but sometimes, I feel invincible. It’s easy when you’re self-contained and everything depends solely on you. Which is, of course, a total lie that we tell ourselves.

I can only keep my molecules together, can only keep myself completely within the margins of reason for a window of time. But during that time, oh, I won't be pushed around. No one on the corner has swagger like me.

And during that time, for that brief window of time, I can’t be swayed. I am single-minded in my purpose. I have some kind of fire that fuels me forward, and the road before me is certain.

This power is free of all insecurity. I am unapologetic, as I discard any source of noise, anyone that stands in my way. Give me a guilt trip- I will look at you with the blankest look of indifference. No one can hurt me.

How I envy those who maintain this kind of pomposity, this kind of self-assured arrogance for all of their days. Me, I can only make it for a window of time. And then I wonder who am I kidding, and all of that certainty and bravado leeches out of me. At which time, I am just like anyone else. I always was, but then I’m back to knowing it.

across the universe

Disclaimer: I'm giving this a whirl, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I've been doing this exercise for the past couple of days, just to keep myself from losing my mind. I listen to a song, and I give myself about 10 minutes, and write what comes to mind. My point is that the next several posts will probably be extremely self-indulgent, possibly incoherent, and kind of free form (hmm, how is that different than usual?). I might balk at this in the next day or two; I'm bad when it comes to commitment at the moment. We'll see.

*

How could there not be something supernatural at play? A scientist, by training, wants to doubt. A scientist has to question.

I used to think it was just human nature. Be nice to someone, and they’re nice to you. Live a good life, and there will be goodness around you. Meaning (as my dad prefaces when he is trying to make a point): you have control. You decide, you determine. It’s an equation, it’s Le Chatelier’s principle, it’s science.

Except no.

Some days you lose everything. You stand over a waterfall and see your whole life crashing with such force against those rocks. You think you’re that meaningless, you think your life is that insignificant. And that is true.

But it’s not the only truth.

Explain it, that which has no explanation. Explain how, suddenly, and with no warning or reason, people can disappear out of your life. People who you thought were there forever, who were your constants, just gone. Explain it, but you absolutely can’t.

And then explain this, even more impossible to explain, even more difficult to define or describe. Explain how, just when you have concluded that such is life, and no one is reliable and nothing is forever, other people reappear, ghosts coming out of the ether and holding out their hand. They say, ‘we’re here, and we missed you.’ Explain it, how suddenly, someone’s words say ‘You mean something to me. Your life has significance to me.’ And that is true too. Even though it may not be true tomorrow.

Explain that, explain it all, but really you can’t. Be nice to someone, and they’re nice to you. Maybe. Maybe not. But be nice anyway, because there’s a chance, and the chance is worth it.

I must remember there'll be days like this

Here's an explanation of why I haven't blogged, in the form of a rundown of my extremely uneventful days this past week:

• wake up
  
• put on the kettle- of all people, a white, 22-year old Southern Californian surfer dude finally got me hooked on a morning cup of chai with almond (or soy) milk in it.
  
• over a cup of tea, while knitting a sock, I listen to a 45-minute mp3 lecture, convincing myself I am learning something this way while still easing into my morning.
  
• suffer through two hours of test-taking, head-banging-against-a-wall, acceptance, and learning
  
• shower, dress, try to memorize some random factoids
  
• lunch
  
• read
  
• gym, while trying to dodge phone calls from classmates inquiring about strategies and schedules and wanting to generally compare everything as if this was some sort of clone war
  
• dinner
  
• one hour of prescribed television, though I've been so distracted that I am only half-watching
  
• repeat performance of two hours of test-taking, head-banging-against-a-wall, resignation/learning
  
• sleep

Lather, rinse, and repeat. On the one hand, it's working. On the other hand, it's depressing. I get a few five minute breaks in between all of these things to maybe check email or twitter it up, but other than that, my day feels disgustingly regimented. It's weird to be an extremist and yet loathe the extremity of it all. But hey, sometimes you have to suck it up and deal.

One thing that is good is that I am so inside my head right now that I think I will indeed have a bit to write when all of this is through.

then again it feels like some sort of inspiration

To tell the truth, I wanted to dislike Sita Sings the Blues. Or I should say, I fully expected to dislike it. I’m not a particularly religious person, but I feel about Sita, Mirabai and Radha the way some girls must feel about Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Since we were marooned in EBF, my father was more than happy to indulge my interest in reading by getting me every book I requested that had to do with anything Indian. I read Jawarhalal Nehru’s letters to Indira Gandhi, I read a version of the Ramayana, I read cartoon depictions of the Mahabharata, tales of Mirabai, books on Prahlad. Anything I could get my hands on. Maybe that’s why, when I ran out of these books, I found it easy to read Frank L. Baum, C.S. Lewis, or Madeline L'Engle- all that other-worldliness seemed to me just part and parcel of reading.

But the story of Sita always stuck with me. I remember reading every bit of information about her as I could gather. And I remember, from a very young age, thinking it’s rough out there for a girl. But even though I had my quibbles with the story of Sita and Rama, I have always been fiercely protective about it.

So I approached the film, fully expecting to be annoyed that it was misappropriated. But I will tell you what- Sita Sings the Blues deserves all the accolades it has been getting. It is extremely clever, not just in terms of the story it presents, not just in terms of the graphics and music, but also in terms of how the story is told. There is fascinating discourse as the story proceeds, fascinating to me because it’s exactly the kind of conversation that used to transpire in my family’s living room. Aunties and uncles would be sitting late at night dissecting the stories, picking them apart for their inconsistencies, everyone having heard a slightly different version of the story.

I’d seen clips of the movie before, and from it, the movie had just struck me as something kitschy. It’s way, way more than that. I’m honestly a bit jealous of it. When I was in college, I tried to mine the whole tale of Sita to write a story for a writing class. It was okay, but it nagged at me; it never quite connected the dots. It was always the idea that I thought, if I actually knew how to write, I would go back and get right. Along comes Nina Paley and she has figured out exactly how to explain how universal Sita’s story is. And she managed to do it while injecting healthy doses of clever humor where it is needed.

The jazz vocals used in the movie have apparently created some problems in terms of getting the film distributed. That’s a shame. I hope anyone who wants to gets a chance to see this movie, because it truly is brilliant. Currently, it's possible to watch it in its entirety here, and it's currently screening in New York.

just a bad movie where there's no crying

It seems that it’s worth posting something kind of silly and superficial at the moment. So here’s a little rundown on the Oscars, or more accurately, my rationale for why I watched various Oscar-baiting movies, why I did not watch others, and my unsolicited opinion of them. It turned out to be a lot longer than I expected it to be, but I haven't been posting much of late, and have some things going on that will prevent me from posting for a while yet, so here's some drivel in the meanwhile.

Oscar Bait #1: Slumdog Millionaire
Why I watched it:
Anil Kapoor. Danny Boyle. A desire to escape the doledrums of December after finals.
Unsolicited opinion:
Light as a feather, substantial as cotton candy, but as fun as a pillow fight or munching on a confection. I am kind of shocked at how likely it is that this movie could take home an Oscar or two, but then I realize that Gladiator and Titanic have won Oscars, and it becomes clear that the academy is all for slick entertainment over substance if the mood is right. When Network was released, Rocky beat it out because it’s a feel-good film. Sorry, Milk.

Oscar Bait #2: Frost/Nixon
Why I didn’t watch it:
I watched NPH’s Frost/Everyone skits instead (I know this is a poor excuse, but there are really only so many movies a person can watch in a few months while trying to bake various things and not fail out of school). Also, I am not a fan of Ron Howard movies.

Oscar Bait #3: Milk
Why I watched it:
San Francisco shout-outs galore. I love Harvey Milk-lore. SpyDaddy plays the mayor of SF!
Unsolicited opinion:
I am kind of shocked at how unlikely it is that this movie could take home Oscars, and that it hasn’t been an awards darling. I only saw this movie recently (a true sign that I no longer live in SF, it was impossible to find companions willing to go see this movie with me out here in EBF), and I was amazed by it. Sean Penn is obviously a fantastic actor, because he didn’t seem self-important or like the d.b he comes off as when defending Jude Law’s honor. I’m not really kidding about Harvey Milk-lore. If you read about San Francisco, specifically about the Castro, the stories about Harvey Milk are boundless, and he is always known for being a genuinely nice guy. And wonders upon wonders, Spiccoli actually comes across as genuinely good-hearted. Josh Brolin is creepily good. The shots of the Castro and Eureka Valley made my heart swell three sizes. And the film is talking about a lot that is relevant. One reason I love Milk-lore and the Castro is that it’s a demonstration of what has to happen. If you think that gay folks only live in the Castro in San Francisco, you’re sadly mistaken. Similarly, all the Indians in the Bay Area do not live in Fremont. But sometimes, you need to have a home base, a place to have enough of a presence that you have to be acknowledged, and then you can actually be accepted everywhere else as a result. And perhaps my favorite thing to think about in the movie is one of the first things Milk says to his boyfriend before he moves to San Francisco and becomes the Milk everyone knows: “Forty years old and I haven’t done a thing that I’m proud of.”

Oscar Bait #4: Doubt
Why I didn’t watch it:
I didn’t get around to it. I think I would prefer to see Amy Adams in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. And I figure if Meryl Streep wins the Oscar, her acceptance speech will be more entertaining than her film performance, only because the woman seems to be innately hilarious, moreso as she has grown older. It’s my not-so-secret fantasy that Meryl Streep, Emma Thompson and Helen Mirren should perform stand-up together. Maybe Tracy Ullman could help write it for them.

Oscar Bait #5: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Why I watched it:
I’ve asked myself every day since I’ve seen the movie. I blame David Fincher. Come on. The dude made Fight Club, and I think that might have been the last time Brad Pitt was truly entertaining in a movie.
Unsolicited opinion:
I’ve revealed myself as a sap in the past (I mean, put Before Sunrise and Before Sunset in front of me, give me some See’s, and call it a day), but I’m not this much of a sap. I think you can determine whether you will like this movie or not based on the following: did you and do you still like Forrest Gump? If so, then by all means, run out to the theater. If, like me, you thought Gump was overrated even when it came out, then this movie is probably going to drive you crazy. Blanchett looks a little befuddled to be in the movie. Swinton shows up and decides she is the new Meryl Streep- she doesn’t care if she’s in the middle of a sh*t-fest, she’s going to come in and steal every scene. The special effects are, of course, well done, but unless you’re crazy about Brad Pitt, and long for his Thelma and Louise days, they’re not enough to be captivating.

Oscar Bait #6: The Wrestler
Why I didn’t watch it:
Mickey Fricking Rourke. Sorry, but I already took a chance on one reformed sleazebag, and the gamble paid off with Colin Farrell in In Bruges. I’m not going to tempt fate. Plus everyone who has seen it has remarked on how depressing the movie is.

Oscar Bait #7: Rachel Getting Married
Why I watched it:
Small movie. I heard there were saris. The idea of Anne Hathaway playing someone edgy seemed funny to me.
Unsolicited opinion:
Surprisingly good movie. I quickly forgave the saris especially because I feel like they might have been there just so Hathaway got a chance to make a sarcastic comment about the necessity for ‘fittings.’ What was refreshing about the movie was also what was frustrating about the movie. The wedding itself, to me, was the most interesting part of the movie—how did these two people meet, how did they get together, how did the wedding turn into the ceremony it became? But everything takes a backseat to Hathaway’s troubled character- which might have been the entire point of the film. Anyway, not great, but not horrible. I’m not really sure Hathaway deserves to beat out a powerhouse such as Viola Davis, however.

Oscar Bait #8: The Reader
Why I didn’t watch it:
Already saw Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road. Nothing about The Reader compelled me to see it, except perhaps the Extras episode where Gervais basically got Winslet to make a crack about getting an Oscar for getting into a movie about the Holocaust. This allowed Gervais to give himself a shout-out at the Golden Globes, which only 50% of people understood was a reference. I thought Revolutionary Road was alright.

Oscar Bait #9: In Bruges
Why I watched it:
No explanation except good luck. The trailer kind of entertained me.
Unsolicited opinion:
What a surprise. This movie has messed me up for good about Colin Farrell. He and Brendan Gleeson were fantastic together in this movie. Gleeson’s performances are always great though. But watching Ralph Fiennes relish a villainous role was also a nice, unexpected turn. What’s more, as much as Farrell’s character endlessly makes fun of it, Bruges grows on you over the course of the movie. Now I’d like to visit.

Miscellaneous Oscar Bait Performances:

• Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight: so I know Ledger is going to win. And there’s no doubt that his creepy turn as the Joker was his best performance ever, and redefined the way villains are played (sorry, and see ya, Nicholson). But I have to say that I think both the performance and the movie are hyped. The Dark Knight is impressive for its genre, but a lot of its messages are murky, and I am really tired of the incapability of summer blockbusters to write anything interesting as far as women’s roles go.
  
• Robert Downey Jr in Tropic Thunder: I think this is a ‘good job RDJ, stay off the sauce’ nomination by the academy. Unlike Ledger’s performance, I think Robert Downey Jr’s performance got overshadowed a bit by all the glee regarding Tom Cruise’s performance as a fat, foul-mouthed, gyrating studio head. But the fact is, someone else could have played that goofy studio head role. I can’t think of another actor that could have pulled off RDJ’s role, which could have been a political landmine that, in anyone else’s hands, probably would have blown up in everyone’s faces. I’m not a big Ben Stiller fan, but I have to give him credit for having the good sense to cast RDJ.
  
• Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona: All I can say about this is that, prior to watching this movie (I had not seen Elegy yet), I put Cruz in kind of the same category as Colin Farrell. But wow, throw her opposite a powerhouse like Javier Bardem, and she steals every scene she’s in?!? I wouldn't have guessed that. The problem with Vicky Cristina Barcelona is that you very quickly don’t give a crap about Vicky or Cristina, because you’re far more interested in screen time being devoted to Cruz’ Maria Elena. Then I saw Penelope Cruz in Elegy, and now I have to begrudgingly admit that the woman can act. And her English is improving considerably.
  
• Richard Jenkins in The Visitor: Jenkins first caught my attention in Flirting with Disaster. The he became well known for his sometimes somber, sometimes hilarious portrayal of a dead father in Six Feet Under. The Visitor seems to have been tailor-made for him. He is so quiet about his performance that he takes what could have been schlocky cheese and turns it into a believable and compelling metamorphosis. He has no chance in hell of winning any awards for it, but maybe more people will go see The Visitor as a result of the nomination.

Wow, that was probably all rather haughty. I'd be more curious to hear what others thought of various performances this year. It should be noted that I didn't see any of the animated films in contention this year. This is because medical school is filled with cartoons, so I could not bring myself to watch them on the large screen.

the history books forgot about us

I'm always posting songs here that are ancient. This is not exactly the place to discover new music, but then again, that's not really my intention. The thing is, sometimes a song has to age a little to have any meaning to me. But ironically enough, not this one.

In this case, it's more a difficulty of sharing this song, or writing anything about it. This song feels to me about perspective. When I first heard about this song, it reminded me of a quote from the movie Before Sunrise:

"You know what's the worst thing about somebody breaking up with you? It's when you remember how little you thought about the people you broke up with and you realize that is how little they're thinking of you. You know, you'd like to think you're both in all this pain but they're just like 'Hey, I'm glad you're gone'."

And then it also brought a little Neruda to mind:

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

It's like a prism with all these different facets. Somewhere in there is the truth. Spektor's song is about someone who is reminding someone that she existed, that they existed. Jesse in Before Sunrise knows he's been forgotten, but knows he's done plenty of forgetting in his time. And Neruda makes it seem like simpler math, an eye for an eye. But were that true, Neruda couldn't write this kind of poetry:

love is so short, forgetting is so long

It's interesting, to me, though, that common sense says forget, move on, get over it. When all most people ever want to do is be remembered. And some of us feel compelled to do the remembering.

you laugh until you cry, you cry until you laugh

You might not guess it from the ramblings here, but my biggest defense mechanism to stress is not baking: it’s humor. I can’t write with much humor, not the way one of my favorite bloggers did. But in person, I will do almost anything to make myself laugh when I get stressed out. And it doesn’t take much, because usually just the inherent absurdity of whatever stressful situation I find myself in is enough to crack me up. Today was not that sort of day, unfortunately. It took a lot longer to laugh, and it felt wrong when I giggled, but I made someone else laugh, a necessary release, a useful distraction. So I don’t mind.

It’s my brother that is the real comedian of my family. But there is also that natural phenomenon that occurs between siblings- you start speaking in some odd language that is peppered with inside jokes to do with movie quotes or obscure references or shared history. Some are things that only the two of you find funny.

My cousin SD, poor unfortunate soul (not really, in the end he wound up way more successful than either my brother or me), moved from India to the US when he was 12 years old. Could you pick a more unfortunate time, I wonder? As many people who read this blog know, in India, you learn the Queen’s English. But you must understand that my brother and I were 11 and 13 respectively when SD moved. And we had little to amuse ourselves. Certainly at school, we were likely the outcasts, the outliers. Being the little sh*ts that we were, we basically projected that onto SD. If we seemed foreign in EBF, SD seemed to fall from another planet. And we relished this, because it detracted from how weird we were.

SD would say all kinds of things upon which we would seize like hyenas. The most memorable of these, inexplicably, had to do with the simple act of spelling out one word. Once SD had spelled it once, my brother and I would needle him into spelling it again and again. Moreover, to this day, my brother and I spell the word the same way.

It started so innocently. We were introducing SD to one of the finest cuisines this great nation has to offer, and he had never had the good stuff. I can’t remember now why he spelled it out, but spell it out he did. And once we heard him say, “P-I-Zed-Zed-A,” that was it. We were done for.

To this day, my brother and I do not use the word ‘pizza’ with each other. When in each other’s presence, that word is always spelled out, and the “Zed”s are always overexaggerated and celebrated. So stupid really, but as I mentioned earlier, it doesn’t take much to get us laughing.

And today, when there was really no reason for laughing, I retold this story and by the end of the evening, a friend said, “I would like to go over to B’s for some P-I-Zed-Zed-A.” My work here is done.

*

Of course, I have also baked. And am baking for the rest of the night. I’ll try to charge my camera so that I have some photographic evidence for a change.

word is there's a new girl in town

Right when muxtape collapsed, I had this idea for a mix. It turned into a CD that I sent to a few tolerant friends. The premise of the CD had to do with derivation. When Jet first released Look What You’ve Done, a whole lot of us thought they were trying to trick people into thinking they were the Beatles. When The Silversun Pickups released Lazy Eye, I had to listen carefully before discerning that it was not in fact an unreleased Smashing Pumpkins song.

Of course, in neither of those instances did I find myself offended by the new songs or bands. I compared that to my reaction of listening to Creed for the first time. I remember feeling absolute rage about that band trying to sound like Pearl Jam. In the 90s, having a deep, low crooning voice filled with angst became so ubiquitous that it turned a lot of people off the original sources.

I like to think the difference has to do with motivation. Those 90s knock-off bands seemed like they sprung up, molded by record companies who seemed to have decided the formula for success was to dress a decent looking fellow in a grunge uniform and put him on stage. It worked too- some of those bands were more accessible, more willing to market themselves and put themselves through the machine, and so they got plenty of radio time.

On the other hand, now when I hear the derivation, when I hear the hints of other songs and bands, I am less cynical about it. I remember now that I’m not a teenager. Now influences from my childhood are blooming forward in interesting ways, I like to think.

If you were going to pick a band to mimic, I doubt a record company would encourage you to try to imitate the Pixies. Critical darlings, sure, but not exactly associated with mainstream, rolling-in-the-green success. So, I don’t really have a bone to pick with Kings of Leon.

W and I used to, sometimes in college, go to these record stores that had listening stations. You threw a big pair of headphones on your head and listened to a few CDs that had just been released. We would, every once in a while, hear something that was familiar. It was familiar because it sounded like some band we had recently heard, or because the lyrics were about something that we seemed to recognize, or because the way something was phrased was just exactly how we would have wanted it put. Whatever the reason, we would glance over at each other and nod, exchanging knowing glances.

I don’t know that W was ever a big Pixies fan. He put up with my fondness for The Breeders, and would patiently listen to me explain the connection. But still, I’d like to think he’d hear these two songs back to back, and we’d be able to smile about the similarities.

Technically, there is a lot that is different between The Pixies’ Gigantic and Kings of Leon’s I Want You. But still, take a listen to the opening bass on both songs and it’s hard to not catch that there’s some connection between the two songs. Me, I’m always going to prefer Gigantic- because that was the first time I heard that moody bass and then the building crush of guitars in Kim Deal’s chorus. Also, I associate the Pixies with adolescence- there was so much subversion in their music that, for an Indian girl growing up in EBF, it always felt like an act of rebellion to listen to them. You always felt you were getting away with something, listening to songs like these.

I Want You, however, is a perfectly respectable song. It’s probably more than that, really. It makes more use of that moody bass, lets it build into a yearning instead of catharsis. It’s not punk like Gigantic. The vibe is more of straight-ahead rock, and so are the lyrics for that matter. Kings of Leon are really good at capturing what the underbelly of a city would sound like.

But I don’t really hold it against them, the similarity between this song and Gigantic, except when I do. A band like Kings of Leon, I’ll always like them. If I was in a bar and their music started playing, I would order myself another drink and settle in for the night. But I find it hard to get hyperbolic in praise about them. It feels instead like they are part of a progression of a sound. So I note them down and think, huh, this is what the Pixies have yielded, cool. I recognize this is faulty thinking- everything was derived from something. Matter is conserved. But still, I find it hard to ignore the past when a bass line in my ear insists on reminding me.

the feeling I get when you walk away

This song I like for how slippery it is. It is also a lovely song, to be sure, which may be a bit surprising when you consider that John Doe is also a bass player for a hardcore punk band. But more than being lovely, it is cleverly tricky, even in its chorus.

Sounds romantic- we are the feeling you get in the Golden State. What does that mean, really? It’s up to you. I was thinking of this because I was thinking that love of people and love of places isn’t really all that different sometimes. That’s probably not the first time I’ve pointed that out in this here navel-gazing repetitive loop.

There are aspects of California for which I’m thoroughly mad. Sweeping vistas, sunshine, and natural abundance. And then there are things about California that are absolutely heartbreaking. So expensive, so transient, so isolating. And both of those feelings can coexist on any given day.

It seems that way with this song too. This song says you are the dream in my nightmare but it also cheerfully points out: you are the pain in my neck. I like to think it’s because this song knows things, things like reality is always some conflicting dichotomy of feelings. They seem contradictory and yet they always, always coexist.

along may come a bigger one

As much as I have cheered for Rafael Nadal, because I am a sucker for Spaniards and upstarts, it took until this Australian Open for something to occur to me. A bit less than 4 years ago, I was marvelling at Federer's level of play and how, even on an off day, Federer was a hard fellow to beat. In the Australian semi's this year, Roddick threw the kitchen sink at Federer, then went out back and tossed the shed, a wheel barrow and a lawnmower at him, and it still did not come close to keeping the Fed from the finals. That's the thing about the Fed, that's always been the thing- some players can play flawlessly, can play at their best, highest level ever, and still lose to him.

But it took me until today to realize something. Though I've always thought of Nadal as more than a brute, more than just some little punk who keeps nagging at Federer, I really did not understand the shift that has occurred in tennis until today. He's been ranked 1 for a while, but still, Nadal had never won a Slam on hard court. What's more, Federer had nearly a full day of rest on Nadal: Rafa played a day after Federer's semi, and he had to battle through a 5-set, history-making-long match against Verdasco in order to get to the finals. He was less well-rested, he was playing on a court that Federer usually dominates. And throughout the tournament, Federer was playing the tennis that everyone always associates him with- effortless, beautiful, sorry-Roddick-see-ya tennis. Plus, he has some history of his own to make, since he is one Slam away from tying Sampras' record of championship wins.

He didn't play perfectly, mind you, in the finals, but he gave it all he had. When Federer and Nadal play, they push each other past their normal limits. They know they have to. They make more errors than they normally do, because of the way they push each other, press each other's buttons, shake each other up. In the end, there were no excuses. You could blame the rain delays or the failing light at Wimbledon, you could give the clay advantage to Rafa at the French, but at the Australian Open, there was only one conclusion that could be reached, a conclusion no one (not especially Rafael Nadal) is comfortable saying out loud- Rafael Nadal is currently the best tennis player in the world.



Also, who doesn't love bromance?

we are interlocking

What do I like about the song I've posted this week? What do I not like about the song this week?

I like this about it:

well, the sidewalk's shady, I fully expect
a piano to fall on my head

And I like that the song is really two songs.

And I like this about the second half of the song:

And 'hello, how are you?'
it's simple, but it's true,
I'm curious

I like that the name of the band is Brazos, which also happens to be the name of my cousins' favorite bookstore in Houston- they used to always take me there when I visited them.

I haven't seen them for a while now, and it makes me think of the line above. I've been admittedly horrible about properly corresponding with people since starting school. It sounds pathetic, but I am often just too drained to talk, to catch up. That's what makes me think of the above line. The second half of this song has a weary affect- the song slows down and seems tired, jet-lagged really. Sometimes I wish life was as simple as songs- like I could just email someone with that line from the song, like that would be enough to mend it all, like that would be enough to elicit the desired response.

What else do I like about this song? How about the vocals? How about the music? The first half of the song drew me in immediately because there's a pleasant, fiesta-like cadence to the music. I don't know what it is about Martin Crane's vocals either. It's not like the voice is refined or pitch perfect. In fact, there's something charmingly off about it. The second half of the song slows down and it seems as though it will be a down-shifting lament, but it builds, crescendoes into a bluesy jam instead.

It's not meant to be some deeply meaningful masterpiece, probably. Yet for some reason, I find it to be. I'm too tired to articulate it at the moment. Maybe even if I had the energy, I wouldn't be able to do it though. I will say this- I've written an entire email about it, and I could write an entire post on the deceptive simplicity of this one lyric:

Sleep when you're tired and sleep when you're done

That pretty much sums it up for me. I forget it all the time, of course. I forget to let myself off the hook for being tired. I forget the difference between being tired and being done. Either way you take a rest, but it's important to know whether you have miles to go still or not. Come to think of it, it's important to remember that you always have miles to go still. Because if you didn't, well, then, you'd be done.

Anyway, enjoy, if you like. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a poundcake that very much wishes to be liberated from my oven.

now the colors convene

This week’s song isn’t quite as much of a fossil as the previous ones.

This week’s song can be filed under the Isn’t it pretty to think so? category of tunes. If yesterday, I was overly concerned with reality, today I’m acknowledging that love is blindness or, more importantly, blind spots and hazy vision are necessary in the business of living.

Last night, I had a little tussle with insomnia. It was stupid really- bedtime reading is generally not thought to involve someone getting stabbed 22 times in the chest. Every time I closed my eyes, my imagination went a little crazy.

I started with honesty. I turned the light back on and started writing something, but it was filled with too much truth. It was so frightening that I had even more trouble going to sleep after that. It was time for oblivion. Time for lies. 2:30 is time for lies.

Life is better now that I’ve found you. I erased the bad parts. Edited out the ugly pasts or the hopeless futures. I found the window. When I imagined it that way, I realized I have a knack for windows. Life has a knack with windows. If you let it, life can lull you into some real highs- the only condition is that you cannot ask for it to sustain, cannot expect it to fix everything that came before.

It was easy once I was down with poetic license. It took me less than 20 minutes to fall asleep, and it only took that long because I was starting to enjoy thinking of all the perfect memories. Some were just beautiful places, some were people I loved in all sorts of different ways, and many were different laughs. The laughs are for another post, maybe tomorrow.

If, however, I had spent even an extra minute lingering on any one of those images, any one of those memories, the illusion would have surely been shattered.

Set all of that aside, though, and note that Norah Jones sounds weirdly like she has some soul in this song. Maybe not weirdly, because Q-Tip is at work here. And Q-Tip is in prime form. Even if you correct for my ridiculous bias (I have a serious thing for his voice, regardless of whether he’s spewing nonsense), Q-Tip is staying in the moment here. He’s celebrating what he can, both what came before him and what followed, without getting weighed down in the complexities. But it’s Q-Tip- it’s not like he’s unaware. He’s making a choice, he states it up front:

one step at a time, a man walked on the moon

You can’t always think about things in their entirety or you’d never get much accomplished. If you think about 2009 and everything that has gone wrong, the idea that anything will improve is nearly impossible to imagine. If, however, you think of 2009 as a window, cut it free of the bonds of the past and the future, who knows?