My Coerced Posting

I just received an SMS asking me to post something more cheerful than that last post… Hmmmm… The pressure of having to write under pressure is a lot of pressure. I hope I don’t buckle under the weight of exceptional expectations… I don’t really have anything to say, but I was raised to obey orders and so I will be making this up as I go along. So if this post sucks, then blame the guy who sent me the SMS, not me. This is not my fault. I am a victim, a pawn, a prisoner in an alphabetical Guantanemo of my own making.


First off, let me start with an update – Manuel and I are doing much better and things seem to be on a very good track and going in a good direction, and for now, that’s all I will say about my relationship.

Blogging is a strange thing and at times I find myself at odds with my life, what is on my mind and what I write about in my blog. When I first started, I wanted to write funny stories, I wanted to make people laugh. I wrote things that sometimes made me laugh as I was reading them. I would often write for a specific person and imagine their laughs or comments or looks of shock. Christina, Marco, Ulco, Joe, Nik, Laura, and many, many others were often the inspiration behind a story just because I know their sense of humor, I know what will make them laugh and if I knew someone was going through a hard time, I would write to cheer them up in my own little way. It's also my way of spending time with people that are way too many time zones away from me.

And all the while, life happens and many times it happens in a way other than I want it to be happening. Then I have to decide if I want to fake it and be funny or witty, write the truth about my feelings and thoughts, or avoid it all together by not writing. I broke one of my rules recently about not being too personal, especially if someone else was involved in any negative way. I was scared to do it and scared of what people might think, but getting it all out was hugely therapeutic and it let me examine my thoughts in a different way. And then the question arises of how personal I can get without getting too personal and giving away my life. And then there is the question of what type of writing I want to do… Do I just write according to what my mood is and what’s going on (maybe it will be funny, maybe it will be depressing, maybe it will just be) or do I force myself to keep it on the lighter side. I also have no idea what everyone likes to read - and when I say everyone, I mean the three people that visit my blog – Hiya mom!

So, why don’t you tell me. What would/do you prefer?

Gramatically Yours

hi
i just read 1-2 paragraphs and found lot of grammatical errors as well.
honestly, i dont like the style.

I received that message from someone to whom I had given the link to my blog and decided to copy and paste it here for the world to see. It humored me how someone who isn’t bothered to use capital letters or proper punctuation is the first to make a comment like that. Honestly, I was a bit upset when I read it and immediately wanted to attack the person that would shove such a cold and sharp dagger into the heart of my ego.

But then I took a step back and looked at it in a different way. I know I don’t always spell correctly. I know the grammar in which I have chosen to write would make my old English teacher’s hair fall out in clumps. I write to be funny, not correct in a grammatical, punctuational or any other way for that matter. Like Pee Wee, I am a rebel and a loner. A lone reed. A lone reed standing in a sea of something, blah, blah, something. I forgot the rest of the quote but it is from the film “You’ve Got Mail” so feel free to look it up at your leisure.

I like using commas. I would even go so far as to say I like abusing commas. I like inventing or modifying words when I can’t think of an existing one that fits. Sometimes I like short sentences. I do. Really. And other times I like to run on and on wherever my mind wishes to wander not caring if the subject matter or focus changes mid sentence or makes sense to anyone but me. And I like to start my sentences with “And.” I don’t know if the end of sentence punctuation goes inside or outside the quotation marks, but I don’t really care. If everyone who wrote concentrated on those details, we would not need editors and proofreaders. I like getting my ideas out. I like that I have ideas to get out, and every time I write in my blog, I think of my friend Christina who encouraged me to do this in the first place. In fact, she used to be my audience of one and it was in the wee hours of a San Francisco morning that I sat in her amazing living room up in the hills off Castro with a straight shot down the middle of the Bay Bridge, all jet-lagged from my previous day’s flight from Beijing that I started this blog by posting a few of the stories I had emailed her over the years. She was the one that edited my profile after I typed it out, cutting it down by half.

Perhaps this means I have arrived. In all the years I have been writing stories, I haven’t had anyone say anything negative. In fact, total strangers like Stephen and Pierre have become friends. I have met people like Suzy who already knew things about me, things I had forgotten I had written about. But that little message made me realize something. At some point I stopped writing for me and started writing for other people. I started writing what I thought would make someone laugh or be about something they wanted to hear instead of just writing about whatever popped into my head.

I have also become a bit lazy and instead of setting aside a reasonable amount of time to actually write the way I like, I steal five minutes here and there and quickly post it online. I miss having the time to sit and just let it happen, but that is my own fault. I spent two years without a television. I moved to India and had no friends and everything was new and surprising and exciting. Everyday was an adventure and lately it seems to be about work and coming home and eating and watching show after show until it is time to sleep so I can wake up and do it all again the next day. My life has become routine, dull and predictable. And that is saying something when living in India.

So perhaps that little grammatically incorrect, capital deficient and poorly punctuated comment has some use that goes beyond puncturing my ego. Maybe it’s a challenge to stir some things up.

D is for Diet

Geographic intelligence seems to be at an all-time, nose-bleed inducing high.

According to Miss Teen South Carolina, most US Americans can’t find the US on a world map because they don’t have maps due to the lack of education in the Iraq and such as.

The bulk of US high school graduates can’t locate Washington DC on a map of the US. I assume this is also because they don’t have maps, again let us blame it on the Iraq and such as.

There are people who are not smarter than a fifth grader and who think Turkey is Hungary, Europe is a country and Amsterdam is the capital of Copenhagen. Let’s just blame that one on good old fashioned stupidity.

So I was not really surprised when I discovered that in addition to the United States, France and Italy, Hermes has included Hawaii in their list of countries. Did Hawaii just pull a Kosovo while I was out shopping? Perhaps Hermes should consult a map. Assuming they have one, of course. But I guess when you are that glamorous, you can call anything you want by any name you choose. After all, a rose by any other name is still a rose, and if it comes in an orange box, all the better.

I was on the Hermes site doing research. I seem to be swimming in a sea of luxury brands and exclusive retail experiences these days, all while getting paid to do so. It’s fantastic. Earning a living while participating in my favorite full-contact sport. Lifestyle and luxury have become the buzzwords around my team as we pitch for a client who at this point in time I must keep under cashmere cover lest I get in trouble for disclosing portions of what falls under a non-disclosure agreement… The advertising version of patient-doctor confidentiality. But when I write my Tori Spelling-esque tell-all, I will spare no details…

While Googling the US and searching for images of world maps I could print out and hand to the poor unfortunate souls without one of their own, I just discovered that it has been over a month since I last wrote anything here. A whole month. It begged me to ask myself that age old question, the very same question we blonds have been asking ourselves since we blonds began asking questions… That question is this “where have I been?” and I realized I had no idea. I was stumped. I paused. I reflected. And then in a montage worthy of Gloria, “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille” Swanson it all came flickering before my eyes.

These days have indeed been filled with all sorts of exciting (and boring) new hobbies for me. And it all started a few weeks ago when I accidentally joined the elite ranks of inventors and creators. No, I didn’t invent anything nearly as passé as lets say an iPod or a quick fix for that little issue of global warming which seems to be quite the hot topic at the moment. Glacier melting, blah, blah, blah. Instead, I invented something much more noble and useful. I had no prior intention of becoming a celebrated, perhaps Nobel Prize wining inventor destined to impact the lives of dozens everywhere, but destiny lent a hand and the rest is bound to be history at some point in the future. It all started on a normal Friday evening.

It was a warm February late evening, dust hanging in the air, overisized bats fluttering overhead and our names inked in on a guest list for the opening party of Forbidden City, the new bar and restaurant to be seen at in Delhi. We walked up the path lined with replicas of terracotta soldiers, past the fountains and right to the bar where we ordered passion fruit and basil mojitos while the rest of our glamorous entourage strutted in. Anjali arrived and we hugged exchanged enthusiastic New Year’s greetings, drawing odd and confused looks from those around us. Chris and Poul appeared and staked out an alcoholically strategic location. No way a waiter was getting past them without taking drink orders.

Stephen and Pierre were sunning it up and shaking their groove things in Sydney for Mardi Gras and Danielle was doing whatever it is that Danielle does when not with us. She works for an embassy in what I imagine to be a very 007 like role.

So there we were in our little group, drinks firmly in hand and sampling the never-ending tsunami of edibles that were being shoved upon us. It didn’t hurt that we were in the company of Bennie and Tina, two of the arrangers of the party. The keepers of guest list. The ones that hold the keys to the kingdom of social excellence. We were served shrimps wrapped in spring roll, aloe and cucumber salad, chicken satay and on and on it went until we had been whipped into complete culinary submission. The drinks kept coming and food kept drifting by and suddenly, my life was forever transformed by a silver tray. There they were, little blobs of epicurean heavenliness. Prawn and lychee balls in a light and fluffy puff pastry topped with just a dab of crème fraiche and a tasteful sprinkling of orange caviar. I popped one in my mouth and it was nothing short of an oral orgasm. And I had multiple ones that evening. I think at one point my eyes actually rolled back in my head and it was everything I could do not to start screaming “Yes! Yes! Yes!” until I blacked out from pleasure. But instead of that, I kept banging my head against the headboard of fabulous hors d’ourves. I did what anyone in my situation would do, I cornered one of the waiters and begged in my best quivering begging voice until he left a tray on the bar for me. I immediately shot everyone a look that said “think about it and die!” Chris and Poul managed to sneak a couple, but I quickly shoved as many as I could into my mouth. And like Jell-o, there always seemed to be room for more.

It was then and there that the idea occurred to me. I would join the ranks of Beverly Hills, South Beach, Subway and the Grapefruit by having my own diet. I guess I was born to this fate. My mom was, after all, a professional dieter. One of those people that live to diet and if she wasn’t starving herself, counting her calories or finding some new and inventive way to lose that stubborn 5 pounds that seemed to haunt her very existence, then she really didn’t see the point of breathing. In fact, she had even been so bold as to create her own diets. You might remember the Pepsi Diet. The noodles and soy sauce diet? The lettuce diet? The-three-calorie-a-day-until-you-pass-out-diet? My diet was a little more glam, prawn and lychee balls in a fluffy puffy pastry topped with a dab of crème fraiche and the obligatory sprinkling of caviar.

I can only hope I make my momma proud.