A meditative rose

I need new genes. I check too many boxes on family medical history forms. And since I doggedly refuse to get myself checked up, I don’t check any boxes on personal medical history. Did I ever mention how much I admire ostriches?

On a related note, if you were faced with your mortality, what would you spend the rest of the day doing?
a. Carry on with the plans you had - You always knew you were going to die eventually, so how is this news.
b. Make new, more exciting plans - Since you’re going to die, might as well get the most out of life till you do, starting now.
c. Mope around at home all day, then order pizza at night. Kick yourself for not getting a 27th floor condo with windows that actually open.

The story so far …

Poor Corporate Slaves (PCS), while slaving away at their usual 300 things at a time, come up with interesting findings and possible new opportunities. Findings are considered to be interesting enough and opportunities are considered to be possible enough by Not-so-poor Corporate Slaves to want to invest more resources into them. Since PCS cannot be diverted from the other 299 things they are working on, and since it is considered especially cruel to make each PCS do the job of more than 2.4 regular human beings, Over-Paid Consultants (aka you squeeze our wallet, we’ll squeeze your balls) are brought in to add value through their broad industry experience accompanied by sharp functional expertise (or at least that’s what the pitch said). Meanwhile, the PCS use their powers of logic and creativity, backed by, well, knowing what the hell they’re talking about, to come up with some more detail around the interesting findings and new opportunities.

Forward to 10 weeks later.

It is two weeks before the OPCs’ presentation to Not-so-Poor Corporate Slaves. OPCs set up flurry of meetings with PCSs. PCSs have discussions that sound suspiciously similar to discussions had 10 weeks earlier. Then OPC pulls up slide outlining initial interesting findings and says: You know, this is a really Interesting Finding. I think you should pursue this Possible New Opportunity. The other stuff? Yeah, it doesn’t look possible to find that information. I wonder why noone’s looked at it yet.

Somehow, I don’t think it was too rude to point out that’s what they were being paid for. Strangling them … am thinking a jury might just have been lenient …

A couple of months ago, I read Mangs’ post about being assaulted on a train journey from Chennai. Reading it was … gut-wrenching … not just because of the feeling of being violated such an experience causes, but also because, as most women growing up in India, I have had experiences of this sort myself, and have denied them not only to the world, but also to myself. Reading this reminded me of those incidents, brought back feelings I thought I had suppressed enough to have forgotten back to the surface - no, I hadn’t forgotten at all.

After reading it though, I comforted myself thinking it was all behind me. I would never have to travel in a DTC bus again, I would never travel by train again. Essentially, I thought I could buy my freedom from a world populated with such pervs through plane tickets and rental cars. It was a selfish thought, I didn’t think about solving the problem, but I thought I was safe.

Then I read this. A 55-year old Indian man molesting a young woman on a domestic US flight. She screamed. He is in jail for seven years. But it means I’m still in the same world.

Overheard on Armitage and Cleveland:
Trixie on cellphone - (high pitched squeal) “She’s so excited to meet you. She was like - (even higher-pitched squeal) ‘I’m so excited to meet them’ ”

An incinerate button would really be nice.

Just missed seeing the last performance of this play because I procrastinated a little too much.

Am extremely pained … let this be a lesson to you all.

Also, lost opportunity to hit on guy who:
- Was intending to watch Kafka play alone standing (sold out show) on a Saturday night
- Was SUPER hot
- Didn’t look psycho
- Was standing 6 inches away from me

Why, Why, Why???????!!!!!! Should I blame it on social and cultural conditioning???

I think I might have just lost the love of my life.

Did I mention I’m extremely pained???

Will go wallow.

Why does it happen that I get a brainwave and a 76% R² at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. Then I get all excited and want to keep working longer …
Oh my god … I’m not just a geek, I’m a closet workaholic!!!

Maybe my boss has a secret deal with the brainwave Gods to keep me working late …

But, I am excited

What, you say!! Two posts in one day!!! Has to be the laptop …

No, this is just too hilarious not to be shared right away, plus input may be valuable … So, as most of you may have known or guessed, my parents have been trying, rather unsuccessfully, to put me on the marriage market (btw, if anyone knows how to get them to give up on me, will save me a lot of pain and them a lot of time, so will be eternally grateful). So after months of finding excuses not to interact with these people , I finally caved in and agreed to speak to doctor boy conveniently located in Chicago. Thought a free dinner couldn’t hurt, plus this way I don’t have to handle the kataoing process, my parents can take care of it (would be so nice if they could break up with every man I’ve dated instead of me having to do it myself). So anyway, I take the call. In the first 30 seconds, I had to remind myself not to dismiss the guy because he just said ‘hech’ and ‘jeero’ … as someone pointed out a few days ago - the only acceptable form of snobbery is intellectual snobbery … so I decided to wait a bit to let the snobbery kick in. Thankfully, the man didn’t disappoint me - he started by extolling the many virtues of Chicago - so many Indian restaurants, Indian movie theaters, so many temples … restaurants I buy, but I’ve kind of skipped the last two (also thought I shouldn’t mention that I’d probably not be allowed in a temple because I eat way too much beef). The other virtue of Chicago was also stated to be the opportunity to enjoy ’suburban life’ - where the obvious comment would have been that that’s an oxymoron, but I resisted making it because I’d then have to explain what an oxymoron was. So, on being told that I was actually more interested in reading and the theater, man goes on to acknowledge the existence of ‘American Drama’ in Chicago!!!!!! Well, granted that the theater scene here isn’t always perfect, and I can create drama over it (ref recent post on obscene Dollhouse adaptation) … this was a little too much to take. Another major qualification this person brought to the table was the fact that he had ‘well-settled’ family in New Jersey - now, given that I’m losing my place to crash in Manhattan in a few months, a replacement would have been attractive, but New Jersey just doesn’t work - that too with sundry relatives thrown in… What I don’t get is, how after a 20 minute conversation, where there was obviously nothing in common, nothing to talk about, and where my only contribution was to make monosyllabic responses, the man had the gall to suggest we meet up!!! So, since I don’t really know how these things work, I’m ashamed to admit I agreed to do so, and date has been set for Wednesday after work (just coffee - I’m not even getting a free dinner out of this ). So I’ve been trying to decide how to salvage some value out of this whole experience (I don’t think a $3 coffee will do it - though I guess I could get a brownie as well) … please to give suggestions on how to maximize amusement value. Possibilities:
- Actually pretend to be homely, fair, convent-educated sweet girl (the last two I technically am, and no - I am NOT homely). Could be fun - I’ll see if I can actually pull off enough soundbites about going to temples religiously (i.e. not just for prasad), and making the perfect aloo mutter … a challenge is always fun.
- When man asks me about cooking experience (which I’m sure he will), ask him about sexual experience, saying I’m concerned about being with someone who can’t keep up with me (have to confess this idea is stolen from friend who actually got asked the question)
- Be totally honest and discuss views on marriage as social contract, and with reduction of the need for external validation (which I’m actively working on), how the value of marriage would go down, and how the only reason I would consider getting married is because I think I’m a depreciating asset, and men are stupid enough to lock into a depreciating asset .. reaction might be amusing …

Anyway, at the least, I’ll miss rush hour traffic on the way back from work - just hope I don’t lose my parking spot …

I came across a very inadequate (i.e. not scathing enough) review of an adaptation of Ibsen’s Dollhouse I saw a few weeks ago. Since this clearly doesn’t bring to justice the travesty to Ibsen’s work, I felt morally obliged to put some things straight, even though only to my small, but faithful (I love you all ) audience. My initial reaction was to go find the playwright, strangle her, profusely apologize to the friends I had dragged there with me, and go rant to anyone who would listen (and some who wouldn’t).

Why the strong reaction, you ask? Well, let’s skip the inane portrayal of Nora, complete with bunny hops (he said squirrel, not rabbit, you imbecile), the way too obvious plugs of the innumerable local sponsors, and the too cheesy references to Chicago events, locations, snobbishness. The ultimate travesty, that the idiot reviewer calls an ‘intriguing epilogue’ - NORA CAME BACK!!!

Now you know why I’m pained. Essentially, this ending makes their situation no different from most provider/housewife marriages we see around us. The little contrast is just that most women know what they’re in for up front and accept it as the price to pay for financial support, security, etc., while here, Nora just took a while to figure it out and it hit her pretty bad.

So since I can’t realistically go murder the playwright (if bad writing was a crime, there would be many more on that hit list), I tried to figure out whether she could have had a deeper, ‘intriguing’ reason for having Nora come back (if you need facts - she slammed the door, Terry (Helmer) sat looking on the couch looking very despondent, then she came back 90 seconds later and said something to the effect - I’ll stay if you say sorry, and thank you for saving your life).

Anyway, so why would she come back, and what would their lives be like after that?

- The first argument, giving the most credit to Nora, is that her realising her inadequacies and weaknesses is ‘education’ enough. Once she knows what she needs to do to become a human being in her own right, she can go ahead and act on it while living with Helmer. In this scenario, leaving wouldn’t serve any purpose, except hurting herself and the children further. So, by staying on, she does what is best for herself, and Helmer has to accept the changed power equation since she isn’t necessarily staying on because she has to, but because she wants to. And she can change her mind when she feels that’s what would be advantageous. This would in fact tilt the power equation the other way, since Helmer has shown he needs her to preserve appearances in society, while Nora is comfortable making decisions that are best for herself, irrespective of society’s views on them.
- The second, and far more realistic argument, is that Nora realises they’re both in the same boat, and need each other equally, and for similar reasons. Nora needs him for financial support and social acceptance, and Helmer needs her for social acceptance and housekeeping. This would be a pretty rational decision, where Nora would have realised that she didn’t have the education, college degrees, etc. to make a decent living, and it was far better to be transactional about the marriage and get what she needed while giving Helmer what he did. This, I think, is the premise of most marriages I have seen.
- The third argument, most damaging to Nora, is that she walks out, thinks - Who am I kidding, I can’t handle this. Sure, Helmer has treated me like a plaything, but it’s true, that’s what I am, so why don’t I accept it and just go back. I think this is very unlikely though, because I believe one is not born a helpless idiot, and once one realises it, there is no way one can be willing to not change it. If this did happen though, it would bring things back to the way they were, but with an undercurrent of bitterness and tension. The marriage would probably still continue, unless Helmer lost interest in her and decided to trade her in.

So this is my justification for sparing the playwright’s life - though somehow I doubt she thought this through too much…

Can you imagine being in a place surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people with food, sweet food in their hands, and not being able to get any because the stupid coupon booth closed half an hour early and the stalls don’t take cash!!! Why on earth is it socially acceptable to bum smokes off a complete stranger, but not food (or at least food coupons)? Why does potential death from lung cancer form a stronger fraternity than potential death from high cholesterol? I think if eating unhealthy was made as much of a social taboo as smoking, it might help (you’re ordering steak? Go sit in the corner … no, THAT corner - way over there). I think if this kind of bonding happened, it would be great for me - I could meet someone who loves food, is asocial because noone talks to him, has time on his hands so might just read, and then once we get together, we eliminate both of our high-risk genes … perfect!!