Who Am I?

Funny how not having a job and a designation makes me wonder about myself and my identity. Even funnier is the realization that no one forced me into this, it was completely my own call and my own wish to end that part of my career. I wanted to write, not to think how I can mould the client’s requirement into a spanking, wonderful new learning module. Or courses as we used to call them.

Now, I struggle to write and ponder mostly about how I can work from the comfort of my new home, with its new internet system, with a thousand things I am not familiar with. I think this feeling of discontent bordering on despair is something that’s caught on after reading Arlington Park. I cannot dissect what I’ve read and re-shape it into sentences that describe what I feel about a book but utter hopelessness and the gray feeling personified by each woman’s state of mind and embodied by the weather is what stands out the most to me. Perhaps I ought to read it again a few times, separated by a gap of a few years before I start to identify with the book. The feelings are entirely complex, so much that they’re sometimes beyond my grasp. I can just about skim the surface of each protagonist and her own private little world full of its own secrets and mystery, but I cannot understand. Which is how the mind works, I suppose. I try to find something that explains and something that’s a straightforward message to everyone but this book reminds me that it’s life we’re talking about and each interconnected being is made up of a billion little molecules and the resulting fusion does not necessarily mean there is harmony between the molecules. If you go deeper, you find billions of atoms and a realm of possibilities that it can go on splitting into a sequence of minuteness and you still won’t have discovered it all.
That probably says a little bit about my feelings in regard to Arlington Park. It is a fine book and the technical nature of writing does tend to impress more on my mind as I tend to get a bit lost in the overwhelming thoughts that are going inside each woman’s head. I think the summary behind the book kind of oversimplified it and I thought it was another thing altogether. Going through it makes me realize how many more galaxies are out there and how little I have experienced.

Idle? What's That?

Another phase starts...new things like making segments of a day and budgeting time across those segments for fun, travel, and eating out. Weird for me, so used to having 'free' time that would be spent any way one preferred. The lack of incoming wealth or rather the depleting reserves then made me look for something to do...part time or freelance.

I get to sit at home and work at the moment. Everything I need except for a printer (which I havent yet had a requirement for) is here. Even an occasional game of Spider Solitaire to stir up those bored electrical impulses flitting across my brain is right at my fingertips.

The best part is if I can continue to make a living (permanently, if possible) in this way, I would probably be a very lucky and content person. Of course, if one could leap across the space-time barrier and have a peek into the future, one could guess if this is blind optimism or intuition.

The Big Bad Thesaurasaurus

:) Just blaming machines for a human's shortcomings. It really scares me to modify a sentence especially if the word I'm looking to modify has multiple connotations or meanings and well...it really scares me coz there's no way of checking it out (I cannot ask the author). So, the work of actually sitting down to condense something interesting becomes a TASK.

Which I've been trying to complete this week and it still seems an uphill journey. Especially with healthy diversions like housework, making dough for chapattis, watching tele soaps, reading mail about Crossword Summer Fest, which has to do with everything other than books. Plus, all those activities are for kids! I agree with having a few days for kids to go crazy at a mega bookstore (someone has to buy those dust-collecting Harry Potter books!!) but at least something for a home-bound, freelancing book freak to enjoy in and at least have an excuse to visit a bookstore for something other than buying books! I've spent a lot and my bookcase wont be able to hold any more of my hardbound or paperback treasures...and well! Once an addict, always an addict.

I need to go back and battle the Thesaurasaurus and finish the pending task for once and for all. Enough diverting!

The Mood is Black....

I wish to sit in a dark room where the only light falls in a Venetian blind pattern on the wall behind the dark velvet sofa I sit on. I want to cast a spell on everyone in a swift click of two fingers. I want to wrap my body in the darkest hue of black coffee. And let the material glide over me before I fasten it with a diamond brooch. Slapping on a sparkling cinnamon shade of lipstick...or should I opt for the deeper shade of cardamom, dark as the mood I'm in. I want to turn the world into an echoing nothingness...a black hole.

I dare to wear black...for I'm dressed to kill tonight.

The Holiday Ends...

...my in-laws are back tomorrow morning, early. Last minute cleaning up is on the list of tasks today and a getting back to the routine...not being on my own any more. My husband really missed them and of course, I did too but in a different way to his. I do love my independence and wasnt sure how I would manage the joint family thing but that wasnt so bad. But a bit of doing things as I like them, being alone with my hubby, taking care of him solely...that I loved. Now, it'll again feel like apprenticeship under my mom-in-law but the way she can manage and run things is something I've come to trust and respect. In this especially and many other things, I know I'm too inexperienced and lazy, and must work towards setting up this home if it ever comes to running the home on my terms. She has a fantastic system that I can emulate...if not copy.

But well... all holidays come to an end :). Somehow I still have mixed feelings, grateful that I'm not going to be running around everywhere on my own or get too dead tired at night to be an alluring mistress to my husband.

Sloppy Morn

Woke up half an hour later than the usual, which caused such hurry in the morning that I'm quite exhausted and dont feel like moving out or making lunch. Although in the evening, I want to go to the mall and buy new kurtas and perhaps, an entire outfit just to get out of the slop that's my ensemble. Had a refreshing browse at the library last evening and a pitawich. Today's burger night and I dont need to cook anything but pasta for lunch and yet...seems like such an exertion!

The Ketchup Song is awfully outdated but its nice to get retro once in a while although I'm not sure it qualifies as retro.

Since thoughts are flitting like butterflies in my mind, I was just pondering on having another cup of Boost. Nothing like Boost to help you unwind completely. The prediction for today is hot and muggy and yet, feel like I'm going to be cooped up all day! Just in a very contradictory mood today. Perhaps coz my holiday's ending and soon the house will be bustling and will no longer be allowed to get as lazy as I am today.

Sighs!

Good Morning World!

After a relaxing morning cup of Boost and a mixed fruit salad, I want to shout "Good Morning World!" off the rooftop. The Devil's getting comfortable in her seat by the window, tapping away on her PC and listening to Maroon crooning "She will be loved..."

I finally picked up the overdue read Shopaholic and Baby, the series of which I'd suspended when reading Shopaholic Ties the Knot collapsing into a heap when the magnificent proposal happens. Mainly because she was getting married and I wasnt. Now of course, that's in the past and my life changed by leaps and bounds since that time. I'm happily married (newly) now and am looking for a new job. I've relocated to this new suburb and well...it's not the same, but it's not bad either. Anyway, I picked up Shopaholic and Baby and it's amazing how consistent the books are. It was almost as if the gap had never happened and I just picked up where I'd given up and gone on as if nothing changed. And nothing has changed, the Shopaholic is still as mad and addicted as ever. It's worse now that she's expecting...

Anyway, my best friend who lent me this book and I often go through the series in the same way: how it relates to us and our own individual struggles. Although I've considerably toned down the shopping urge now that I'm jobless, she's still happily addicted although very different from what she used to be. She budgets now and sticks to it! Apart from that, her personal life is looking up and I'd love to see how it goes for her in a few months from now. In fact, I'm totally eager to find out. Anyway...

The Devil's muttering something about looking at the clock and getting to the kitchen to cook a meal... Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!