Haruki Murakami talks about being Japanese, the idea of mujo →

I think that being Japanese means living with natural disasters. From summer to autumn, typhoons pass through much of Japan. Every year they cause extensive damage, and many lives are lost. There are many active volcanoes in every region. And of course, there are many earthquakes. Japan sits precariously on the four tectonic plates at the eastern extremity of the Asian continent. It is as if we are living on a very nest of earthquakes.

We can predict the timing and route of typhoons to a greater or lesser extent, but we can’t predict when and where an earthquake will occur. All that we do know is that this was not the last great earthquake, and that another will surely happen in the near future. Many specialists predict that a magnitude 8 earthquake will strike the Tokyo area within the next twenty or thirty years. It may happen in ten years time, or it may strike tomorrow afternoon. No one can predict with any certitude the extent of the damage that would follow if an inland earthquake were to strike such a densely populated city as Tokyo.

Despite this fact, there are 13 million people living “ordinary” lives in the Tokyo area alone. They take crowded commuter trains to go to their offices, and they work in skyscrapers. Even after this earthquake, I haven’t heard that the population of Tokyo is on the decline.

Why? You might ask. How can so many people go about their daily lives in such a terrible place? Don’t they go out of their minds with fear?

In Japanese, we have the word “mujō (無常)”. It means that everything is ephemeral. Everything born into this world changes, and will ultimately disappear. There is nothing that can be considered eternal or immutable. This view of the world was derived from Buddhism, but the idea of “mujo” was burned into the spirit of Japanese people beyond the strictly religious context, taking root in the common ethnic consciousness from ancient times.

The idea that all things are transient is an expression of resignation. We believe that it serves no purpose to go against nature. On the contrary, Japanese people have found positive expressions of beauty in this resignation.

If we think about nature, for example, we cherish the cherry blossoms of spring, the fireflies of summer and the red leaves of autumn. For us, it is natural to observe them passionately, collectively and as a tradition.  It can be difficult to find a hotel room near the best known sites of cherry blossoms, fireflies and red leaves in their respective seasons, as such places are invariably milling with visitors.

Why is this so?

The answer may be found in the fact that cherry blossoms, fireflies and red leaves all lose their beauty within a very short space of time. We travel from afar to witness this glorious moment. And we are somehow relieved to confirm that they are not merely beautiful, but are already beginning to fall to the ground, to lose their small lights or their vivid beauty. We find peace of mind in the fact that the peak of beauty has been reached and is already starting to fade.

Origin Coffee Roasting
Sometimes I’m a wannabe hipster. So I went to the place where all of Cape Town’s hipsteria congregates. 

Known as the godfather of gourmet coffee in the Mother City, Origin is located off Strand Street on Hudson. When I turned the corner, it was a picture of calm, dotted with the odd hipster. I sat close to the entrance and watched the locals pour in. It’s got a New York-y feel whilst entertaining an LAish crowd. I’m not a fan of chrome interiors but I liked the mix and match of chrome, wood and dim lighting. It was close to 8 am but it could have been 8 pm in some corners of the coffee shop. 

The cappuccino was well-made, the staff were nice. I’d go back to pick up a coffee to-go. Unless I had some cool hipster friends with me, then I’d sit back and be in with the crowd. 

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28 Hudson Street
De Waterkant, Cape Town

Delux Coffeeworks, Cape Town

Delux Coffeeworks, Church Street, Cape Town
I thought I saw Leonard Cohen in the window.

Truth. Coffee Cult, Cape Town

Truth. Coffee Cult
They roast coffee. Properly.

“Do you want sugar with that?” asked Thomas the barista. “Would I need sugar with that?” I should remember not to reply to questions with questions. Oh well. Who takes sugar with a well-made cappuccino anyway?

Truth takes its coffee very seriously. It’s religion to them. They have irrevently named blends like Resurrection, Vengeance and Donde’s Chaos. What caught my attention is how they describe each blend with a snippet of a conversation. Their decaf is dubbed Antithesis, because you know:

“Do you have a pacemaker?” We ask. “Yes.” You reply. “Then this is perfect for you,” we say only with the slightest hint of ag-shame, “It’s coffee without palpitations, or caffeine.”

When I was there, there was a old man flitting about the place barking orders and muttering things about “customer service” while being quite dodgy himself. Spiteful managers and good coffee served by all smiles and gentle baristas, such a bittersweet way to start the day. 

I bought their House Blend quite aptly named Resurrection:

“How strong?“

“Well, strong enough to resurrect even those that stupidly chose to drink Kool-Aid.”

Exactly what I needed after encountering that slight old man so early in the day.

Jason Bakery
What is life without Bacon Croissants?

I’d just had a good cappuccino at Bean There. I’d heard so much about Jason Bakery and their bacon croissants. Google Maps told me Jason Bakery was just up the street from Bean There so I did what all touristy people in a new city should do - walked the extra mile to the place the locals love so much.

Jason’s just has a counter that opens up into the street and under the awning sit serious looking young people and old people drinking coffee, mulling over their Blackberrys. On the right is an enclosure where there are more such people, all suited and booted and ‘tie’d up. 

I almost tripped over myself while running-sprinting-walking really REALLY fast to the place because, y'know, I don’t want to be the person who went to Cape Town and didn’t eat a bacon croissant at Jason’s. All because the yuppier crowd got there before me. 

Yes, competitive. For food.

The bacon croissant was all crispy salty lardness ensconced in layers, equal parts flaky and satiny, of buttery goodness. Just look at that croissant, will you? 

I was tempted to try the muffins but I managed to keep my generally carbs addled brain in control and walked away with only a coffee. Which was good. So good. 

That’s when I learned they serve Delux Coffee and I knew my Coffee Trail Adventure would never be the same again.

I didn’t go back to Bean There because I found Jason’s coffee stronger, better, less milkier. I didn’t go back to Jason because the lady at the counter was not very nice. (Y U NO be nice and be so patronizing at 8 in the morning, lady?)

The baristas posed and that kind-of made me a little happier but I still didn’t go back. One bacon croissant is enough butter and lard for a week. Also one patronizing lady per week only, please. 

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Jason Bakery
185 Bree Street

Bean There, Cape Town
Cape Town’s first Fairtrade coffee shop

It was my first day in Cape Town. I knew I had 8 hour workdays to deal with and I was on a mission to discover the city. Work-life balance, trial one.

Cape Town is 3 hours behind Bangalore. Which means I woke up with a jolt at 6.00 am and felt like I was already running late. The city as it lay below me, while I watched from the 23rd floor was sprinting already. The skies were red, Table Mountain that was staring me in the face across the street was rolling out its table cloth, the streetlights were dimming out, people were pouring out of the railway station, breakfast was being served. You get the picture. Living on Strand Street, bang in the middle of the Central Business District (CBD) - didn’t seem like such a bad idea at all.

Mark, Eb’s friend, had emailed me about a few coffee shops in the neighborhood. I decide to venture out on my own and map these out. Cape Town has its history and as with any city in the world - just the right amount of caution is advised. Even the brochure about the hotel and the city in the room kept reiterating, “As with any city in the world…”. Ok, then.

Be over-cautious and you’ll be cooped up in your room all day, all night, all life long. Also it didn’t help that the concierge at the hotel was a little over-cautious: Don’t go by yourself, take a cab, it’s early to go out, it’s too late to walk around, blah blah blah. Pockets of the CBD are decidedly unsafe - they reminded me of Los Angeles’ Skid Row. So this what I do: I stay on the main roads, hold my bag close and don’t do absolutely racist things like crossing the road and on to the other side just because there are a bunch of black men heading to work. (I reprimanded someone for doing exactly that, BTW).

6.45 am and tt’s time for coffee at Bean There on Wale Street, just off Bree Street. I arrived at Bean There at 7 am. One of the baristas had to repeatedly tell me that they open at “half past 7.” (Too early to parse things like “half past”).

Could I sit inside then? Remember, nobody says no if you ask nicely.

Bean There is cheerful and inviting, cozy and warm. Just the coffee shop everyone wants in their neighbourhood.

The main coffee and cash counter have beautiful lampshades hanging above.  Glass jars containing beans from different countries are lined up on one side of the cash counter and on the other, cake stands containing baked goods are covered by glass bell jars. There is a bicycle on the wall and a sunburst mirror on one side. Cushions with funky prints dot the seating area. For the ‘What about the poor hungry children in Africa?’ crowd, they were also selling Coffee Sacks for 10 Rand.

Interestingly, Bean There is the only Fairtrade coffee shop in South Africa that roasts its beans on the premises. 

It’s half past 7 and time for the Cappuccino, my first for the day and the first one Bean There is serving on the day. It’s mellow, it hits all the right spots - no sugar and yet not bitter. Not too milky but just about strong enough to send me skipping to Jason Bakery. Where I picked up another coffee, because who can have just one? I come from the land of coffee from Cafe Coffee Day, remember.

I’m just another girl in the middle of a big unknown city. My cuppa has a perfectly shaped heart in the centre. The baristas are nice, the roads are shiny. Jason Bakery is a 2 minute walk away. Cape Town, I can’t be complaining.

Grandma Food

Gabriele Galimberti pays homage to all the grandmothers in the world and to their love for good cooking, starting from his own grandma Marisa who, before the departure for his tour around the world by couchsurfing, took care to prepare her renowned ravioli. She was not so concerned about the possible risks or mishaps her grandson might face in his adventurous travelling worldwide, but her major worry was, “what will he eat?”. That is because only at home you can eat well and healthily. And above all, only your grandma (and sometimes mum) knows what is best for you.  

Aside: Why isn't Grandma Food a cuisine in itself?

With the taste of his grandma’s ravioli in his mouth, Gabriele travelled around the world and, next to thousands of other adventures, turned into a curious and hungry grandson for the grannies of all the countries he visited.  Appealing to their natural cooking care and their inevitable pride in their best recipe, common factors to all grandmothers in the world, Gabriele persuaded them to do their best in the kitchen. This means moose stake in Alaska and caterpillars in Malawi, delicious, but ferociously hot, ten-spice-curry in India and sharks soup in the Philippines. 

The Art of Lepak

On the Malaysian Art of Lepak-ing:

“Sometimes, driving around the city on my way home after dinner, I am struck by its small-town ambiance – the inherent slowness of life, the dedication to a certain way of life that revolves around languid, simple meals with friends, often in modest, open-air eating places, or going from one mamak stall to another, nowadays perhaps interspersed with a drink in a fancy bar somewhere in central KL. We call this kind of social interaction to lepak, even when we are speaking English.

‘What do you want to do tomorrow?’

‘I don’t know, maybe just lepak’.

It can be most closely translated as hanging out, or relaxing, or kicking about, but it is more than that – it involves a greater sense of intimacy, an acute appreciation of the absence of responsibility, a feeling that there is, in fact, nothing more to do in life than to lepak – as if to lepak is inevitable. To understand the Malaysian’s commitment to the art of lepak (or lepak-ing; the verb can be used with great freedom) is to understand why KL is a strange place – a capital city with the soul of a village, a metropolis that doesn’t quite know how to be a metropolis.”

- Look East, Look to the Future

Sex Ratio and Rape

There has never been a day ever since I returned when I’ve not thought about rape. Most of it is about waking up everyday to news about rape in the country. But I’m an alarmist by nature and just like that, I also spend a lot of my waking life ensuring I don’t say or do something that might piss off the Average Indian Virile Man - the rickshaw driver, the watchman, the newspaper vendor, other virile men lurking in the corners as friends, foes, countrymen. Friends and relatives share their stories about rape and sexual harassment and police who counter an attempt to file a complaint against the rapist with “We will counter it saying you were a prostitute”, the mother worries incessantly. As one can imagine, there is a lot stress brought on by some seemingly unnecessary worrying.

When Appu took over watchman duties at the apartment complex, I pegged him as quite a creep and made sure K knew what I thought. One Saturday morning, he came around to deliver a package, rang the bell and as I walked to get the door, I could hear him trying it. I could see him trying it. Why would the watchman try the door to my apartment? It didn’t matter if I was in or not. A few days later, a friend was dropping me home and as she pulled into the building, Appu yelled at us for blocking the gate. “Kya Appu, kyon chilla rahe ho?” I yelled back adding that he routinely allows rickshaws to park in front of the gate, what’s the harm in a car stopping for a few minutes while I get off.

This was also the time a lawyer was raped and murdered by her apartment’s security guard in Mumbai. I then spent inordinate amounts of time worrying about Appu plotting his revenge for insulting his masculinity, etc. K spoke to Appu asking him never to deliver any packages at home - “Madam will pick them up from you downstairs”, spoke to my neighbor Renu about the incident and chewed off all my fingernails out of fear. 

When the story broke out about the gang rape in Delhi that caused nation wide outrage, I asked on Twitter and Quora: Is there a correlation between sex ratio and the rapes in a country? The sex ratio in India as per the 2011 census is 940 females per 1000 males. Does this have an impact on the incidence of rapes in the country?

The Gender Gulf

CNN did a story about the gender gulf in China in November 2012. Here is what the gender gulf looks like for China:

What does the Gender Gulf look like in India?

I couldn’t find a Population Projection report published as per the 2011 census but I did find a Population Projections for India and the States 2001-2026 published in 2001 (PDF) As with most government data in India, none of it is available in an easily downloadable format. It’s all tucked away in PDFs and printed copies.

First, the numbers. 

Going by the projections, the gender gap in India as projected for Year 2020 stands at 3.61% while China’s projected to have a gender gap of 3.75%. The future is as bleak for India if you go by what the CNN story says about China:

Young men with poor prospects of ever starting a family spell danger to themselves and to their societies. Over millions of years of evolution, large numbers of women and even larger numbers of men left no offspring at all. Yet everyone alive today descends from ancestors who managed to avoid that fate. Our male ancestors were the ones who strove most frantically for status and the respect of their peers, and who won the chance to mate.

As a result, young men are hair-trigger sensitive to their circumstances, and when the number of men who will never find a mate rises, so does the intensity of the striving. Young men discount their futures and take ridiculous risks in order to improve their prospects. They also become more violent, rising more readily to perceived slights and insults, and starting more fights – often over trivial issues. These are the triggers for most man-on-man assaults and homicides.

Many factors contribute to the number of men who will never find a mate. Economic inequality, for one, leaves a great many poor young men unable to attract a wife. When a society allows powerful men to take several wives, too few women remain for many poor men to take even a single wife. But most dramatically of all, male-biased sex ratios consign the excess men to never having a family of their own.

Under each of these scenarios, large numbers of young men competing for dominance elevate local rates of violence, homicide and lawlessness. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson’s studies show that local income inequality can explain variation in homicide rates on a number of scales: from Chicago neighborhoods to American States and Canadian provinces.

Throughout history, a surplus of young men often heralded violence. The American frontier earned its “Wild West” reputation for lawlessness because its towns overflowed with men, yet marriageable women were vanishingly rare. In The Chivalrous Society, historian Georges Duby argued that European expansionism, from the Crusades to colonialism, was fueled by a surplus of ambitious and aggressive young men with otherwise poor reproductive prospects.

China is already feeling the effects of so many bare branches. The economist Lena Edlund estimates that every one percent increase in the sex ratio results in a six percent increase in the rates of violent and property crime. In addition, the parts of China with the most male-biased sex ratios are experiencing a variety of other maladies, all tied to the presence of too many young men. Gambling, alcohol and drug abuse, kidnapping and trafficking of women are rising steeply in China.

Every December, the Edge.org asks writers and scientists to ponder a single question. As the world readied to spin into another year, the question for 2013 read: What *should* we be worried about?

Here’s what Robert Kurzban, Evolutionary Psychologist from UPenn says in the response titled, All the T in China:

Anthropologists have documented a consistent historical pattern: when the sex ratio skews in the direction of a smaller proportion of females, men become increasingly competitive, becoming more likely to engage in risky, short-term oriented behavior including gambling, drug abuse, and crime. This sort of pattern fits well with the rest of the biological world. Decades of work in behavioral ecology has shown that in species in which there is substantial variation in mating success among males, males compete especially fiercely.

The precise details of the route from a biased sex ratio to anti-social behavior in humans is not thoroughly understood, but one possible physiological link is that remaining unmarried increases levels of testosterone—often simply referred to as “T"—which in turn influences decision making and behavior.

Should all this T in China be a cause for worry?

The differences between societies that allow polygyny and those that don’t are potentially illustrative. In societies with polygamy, there are, for obvious reasons, larger numbers of unmarried men than in societies that prohibit polygyny. These unmarried men compete for the remaining unmarried women, which includes a greater propensity to violence and engaging in more criminal behavior than their married counterparts. Indeed, cross-national research shows a consistent relationship between imbalanced sex ratios and rates of violent crime. The higher the fraction of unmarried men in a population, the greater the frequency of theft, fraud, rape, and murder. The size of these effects are non-trivial: Some estimates suggest marriage reduces the likelihood of criminal behavior by as much as one half.

Further, relatively poor unmarried men, historically, have formed associations with other unmarried men, using force to secure resources they otherwise would be unable to obtain.

While increasing crime and violence in Asian countries with imbalanced sex ratios is a reason to worry in itself, the issue is not only the potential victims of crimes that might occur because of the sex ratio imbalance. Evidence indicates that surpluses of unmarried young men have measurable economic effects, lowering per capita GDP.

An increasing gender gap, high crime rates, lower GDP and considerable social unrest. Any country that shows a systematic preference for boys would face a similar situation. India, are you listening?

The Twain Shall Meet

Where two seas of different densities collide, taken off the Alaskan coast.

The Ordinary Life

To write a post, I have to deem its subject wonderful or beautiful, puzzling or revelatory - it has to be pretty extraordinary. There is an unspoken need to weave a story, for it to be a serendipitous discovery, to be meaningful to my life, my living.

It’s difficult to write about the ordinary. Everyday life isn’t always wonderful or beautiful, it doesn’t puzzle me enough to keep me up at night thinking about existentialism, it isn’t revelatory about the purpose of life or I don’t make new discoveries about how to lead a life of purpose.  It’s ordinary: The daily chores, the everyday food, the daily rituals of breakfast, lunch and dinner, the conversations that move the days and nights along. 

Few minutes ago, I was caramelising onions for a chicken curry I’m rustling up for lunch. I crushed ice for a quick drink of rum and coke. I made a mental note of the pending work items on my To-Do List. In an almost meditative moment, I measured out the rice, washed it, added enough water, watched the rice settle, some grains did the dance of Brownian motion and thus I completed the weekend ritual of making rice. All simple nice things that make up my day but nothing to write about. And that’s OK.

Yesterday Anisha called from the neighbourhood Au Bon Pain. “Do you want something from here? I’ll come over if you make me some Cherry-Cinnamon tea.”

Ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. I paused Newsroom and we sat down for a quick afternoon meal of sandwiches, cherry-cinnamon tea, chocolate and blueberry muffins. Anisha also brought along a small gift of honeyed peanuts. “I wasn’t sure if you were working today but I thought I’d check anyway.” I was happy that she chose to keep aside all modern misgivings of plans and calendars and turn up at my door. It was a spontaneous act of warmth and friendship - I preferred this to a more elaborate meal planned weeks in advance, weighed down by expectations and social niceties.

It takes time and extraordinary resolve to consciously step back and savour the moment. It’s almost a mantra I have to repeat to myself: Stop foraging for a story, ignore the urge to be constantly awed, appreciate the stories in the ordinary moments. Sometimes it’s just about allowing for the moment of spontaneity and giving yourself up to it, like the afternoon tea with Anisha. I could get used to it.

How do I exorcise a ghost

It’s a little difficult to live with a ghost. As is understandable, I’d presume. Who’d choose to live with the dead when it’s hard enough with the living. But that’s not the matter. I have to live with a ghost. I’ve almost made peace with that, the larger question that haunts(along with the ghost whose career it is to haunt) is “How?”

The question of space: Do you quietly go about with your living and hope the ghost leaves you to it? But that’s not to be - this one’s an attention whore(Yay! I have company?). Do you include the ghost in your day-to-day living? Do you change your bedroom’s curtains to suit her fancies? Or do you stomp your feet and say, To hell with what you want! It’s my bedroom! But surely you can’t deem her to hell, why else would she be such a permanent presence in this land? It’s an odd conundrum, this.

Then the question of time: Who came first? The ghost or I? Maybe that’s the wrong question to ask. Whose world is this, of the dead and the undead? The ghost’s or mine?

The matter of life and beyond: Does one ask the ghost about living and unliving? Is it polite? It sure is, you don’t walk into someone’s life just like that, plonk your non-existent ass and expect to be treated with warmth and love and given a hearty welcome.

You can’t exorcise a ghost. A frightfully ugly and stupid ghost, at that. You let it be and hope it finds its peace. And goes away. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Or flings itself off a cliff and finds itself flying away to Neverland.

I understand why gravestones read RIP. It’s just polite speak for “Leave us the fuck alone. Be gone!”

A Christmas Tale or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wooden Pole

This you should know: Weddings, festivals, happy occasions with food, alcohol, people and other such fun things? I’m not the person to have around. Introspection tells me I’m quite the Scrooge. I get irritable about everything - food, drinks, people; I find it no fun to play dress up and be warm and friendly towards genial people when all I want to do is read Bridget Jones’ diary under the bed covers. It’s a bad cocktail and everyone else suffers the hangover. 

I had just attended a friend’s wedding in Ahmedabad where I had many arguments about how ‘giving away of the daughter’ was the most bizarre ritual I’d come across, EVAH (See what I said about being Scrooge?). I’d not fully recovered from this exercise in extroversion before Christmas was thrust upon me.

On Saturday I headed to the airport a full 2 hours before flight time. Two spoilt milk frappes from Barista, some unnecessary misplaced honesty towards Spice Jet and my wallet lighter by Rs 1500 for excess baggage later, I made my way to Mangalore. 

Where it is always sunny balconies, overflowing balconies, way too many cacti, way too many flowering plants, way too much fauna & wildlife, not enough herbs, way too much Jim Reeves, not enough Amy Winehouse, way too much wine, not enough beer, way too much meat, not enough veggies, way too much mood lighting, way too many candles, an excess of natural light, way too hot, not cold enough. Where it is always Christmas in Summer.

At home, we love our offal food. The menu for the next few days didn’t disappoint one bit: 

Saturday: Sting Ray Curry
Sunday: Boti - What we call Tripe in Konkani
Monday: Dukrachi Kaleez Anketi (Pig’s Kaleez = Heart, Anketi = Intestines) + Sannas
Tuesday: Christmas Lunch at the grandparents' 

All the kuswar, the open bar and I just could have been on a Goan beach. Only there was no beach, only miles and miles of unending sunshine and heat.

Ever since I 'came out’ as an atheist to the parents, I have been excused from the farcical Sunday morning rituals of Mangalorean Christians. No more mass on Sunday mornings, no more lying about being at mass on Sunday mornings when I’m lying hungover in my bed-someone’s bed, no more “Bless Me” with folded hands to every old person, priest, nun and no more tottering to the church altar in heels that could kill only to partake in another dead man’s body. Body & Blood. When the nosy neighbours’ questions ask uncomfortable questions about where I was seated during mass and what I wore and what I ate, the parents say things like “She was somewhere at the back” or “She traveled to Ahmedabad” and somehow manage to confuse and convince the person to not ask more questions. Disaster involving Uncomfortable Questions about Devilish Spawn of Devout Roman Catholic Parents successfully averted.

Not when it’s Christmas at home in Mangalore. 

I dress up, deck the halls with boughs of holly, sing fa la la la all the way to Midnight Mass. Here, “Midnight Mass” on Christmas Eve the sole defining moment of the Christmas Season in every devout Roman Catholic’s life is held at 7.30 pm. 

All was well - the priest asked that everyone switch off their mobile phones, hymns were sung in tune and then out by the resident choir, the sermon involved some very dramatic dialogues - till it wasn’t.

An 8ft tall wooden pole that was tucked into a corner to hold up some paper lanterns was pushed down by an overtly enthusiastic annoying little kid and this tall heavy wooden pole fell on my head. 

You know how it’s said that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights? I think it’s time they include “wooden pole on the head” as well.

I don’t remember the pole falling, I remember seeing it rest on my shoulder. My Mom had an expression of absolute horror on her face, Dad was yelling at someone who had put the pole back into its precarious position again for another kid to push it onto another unsuspecting stranger. Everyone else was staring at me. 

“Give me ice!” I shout. No one responds. People continue staring. I make a mental note: Don't count on these stupid devout Catholics to save your life. I make my way to the altar, wag a finger at the priest who is also staring, “If something happens to me, I’ll drag your ass to court!” Mom and Dad are now next to me, get in the car, don’t say such things to Father, let’s go home.

I escaped with just a hump on the right side of my head and some bruising on my shoulder.  

Thinking back, I know it could have been worse. Could have cracked my skull even, that damn pole. Mom’s taken the incident to be divine intervention for the most perfectly pitched ad for Roman Catholicism: “That pole could have cracked your skull. It didn’t. It’s God’s miracle! He saved you! Jeebus loved you. He averted a major disaster through a minor incident.”

I just think it was a perfectly orchestrated opportunity for God to prove he existed. He could have held back the damn pole from falling on my head in the first place.

He didn’t, I lived. God - 0, Joy - 1.

Happy Holidays! 

Tiny Beautiful Things →

Why we must all read Dear Sugar:

Dear Seeking Wisdom,

Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea.

In the middle of the night in the middle of your twenties when your best woman friend crawls naked into your bed, straddles you, and says, You should run away from me before I devour you, believe her.

You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart.

When that really sweet but fucked up gay couple invites you over to their cool apartment to do ecstasy with them, say no.

There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.

One evening you will be rolling around on the wooden floor of your apartment with a man who will tell you he doesn’t have a condom. You will smile in this spunky way that you think is hot and tell him to fuck you anyway. This will be a mistake for which you alone will pay.

Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.

One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.

When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life.

Say thank you.

Yours,
Sugar

Brassiere vs Otto Titsling

I met a friend for brunch on a somewhat sunny summery day. Which means if you’re sitting outdoors and the person you’re having lunch with is wearing a tube top held up by transparent bra-straps with dinkchak glitter on them, you’re going to have shiny disco balls in your eyes all through lunch. Not used to poking my eyes with swords of light for pleasure, I did what any girl does: I came back and bitched about this woman and her utter lack of taste in bras to Mousey. I generally expect my girlfriends to empathize and nod in agreement when I’m being the fashion police but not this time. Mousey proudly declares, “Hey! I wear them too." 

Which is when I called her the "30 year old going on 16”. Because, you know, it was acceptable when you were sixteen. It’s acceptable now if you wear wrong sized bras, wear that stuff from Victoria’s Secret with PINK painted all over the ass and maybe, if you come from that part of the world where they manufacture see-through bra-straps and you can buy them in factory outlets. ON DISCOUNT. 

But even if you’re not from that part of the world, you’ll still see so many Indian women flaunting their 34Bs. No, no they don’t all come in one size but if you end up walking around in any neighborhood you’re sure to see a 38DD spilling out of a 34B.  What’s up with that, people? It’s almost like every Indian woman is afraid of NOT being a 34B. I was patiently explaining all this to Mousey when she had a eureka moment, “How do they fit then?” Well, hello! They DON’T. That’s how you know they are wearing the wrong bra, duh! Because when you see them jiggling around like that you really want to hang a warning sign around their necks: “BUMPS AHEAD”. 

*headpalm*

Screw the color, size matters.