I wouldn't know

I guess these are just sad thoughts. It's hard not to miss someone when you see them in strangers. It's hard to imagine what my dad looks like now, if he's still the same as those pieces of him that I remember. A green suede jacket, some brown slacks, and black leather strap watch. It wasn't hard to draw this figure, especially in the way he's sitting. I can't draw hands but this time I did. And I drew what I imagined.

It's always seemed unnecessary that I even have these thoughts (I've inherited an emotional warmth and a frigid disposition which makes me a confused person). My father is alive, I spoke to him last night. But it's hard to feel like a little piece of him isn't gone forever, especially when he can't bring himself to say he wants to retire with us by his side. It's hard not to miss someone when they aren't a clear part of your life; when their role was once defined and now seems fully exhausted, yet there was never any precise point you can claim this happened.

Being vague is the same as being indecisive, and you can't have the best of both worlds. Maybe this isn't true; maybe I'm saying that because I just finished an Amy Tan story.

I want to make clown babies with you.

An Ode to Juanly


In other news, SNL is never funny. Bobby's dog smells like shit.
Live from my houz, it's Saturda-ZzzzzZzzzzzzZZzzZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZ.

Like a Banshee

I have taken quite a few sick days in one go (2.5 to be precise). I called out today after being sent home yesterday for having the plague. I emailed my boss an hour ago; she said okay and then proceeded to ask me about the status of a bunch of things I did yesterday. So it looks like I'm working from home to some extent. THAT'S NOT THE POINT OF A SICK DAY!
Home & Work should be like Oil & Water.
Now my sleepiness has gone away and I'm awake and my head hurts. Sonofabitch!

I want to leave this. I'm not equipped to deal with hotel contracts and all this administrative shit. I bring so much of my work stress home with me, part of me hasn't yet come to terms with the fact that I'm not in school anymore, that you're not supposed to think about your job when you leave the place.

I must remember something bigger.
***
1964

1965?

Cry Baby

Got a Gut Feeling.

Days & Nights

I feel like my brain is wrecked. It's like I have to use it for all this stupid shit, meanwhile any desire to read a book or do something creative has been completely sucked out of me. I know why, generally speaking; but I think there should be specifics regarding these choices I make.

I go to work everyday. Every morning I wonder, "Do I have to?" or "Should I call in sick?". Then I remember there's something to do and I haven an obligation in order to earn money, not necessarily to contribute to the household, but more or less for my own necessities and selfish reasons (I buy things to ease the pain, I am working on this flaw). Everyday I sit on the train and pretend to sleep, while only thinking incessantly, and dealing with tension all over my body sitting in a cramped seat next to some fat ass.

Everyday I talk to people on google chat. Everyday I find ways to pass the time, whether with work or my own little chores. Everyday I wonder why the bitch who shares my cube has to apply her cheap stinky lotion every 5 minutes (literally), and I feel very angry because she is being passive aggressive when I asked her to please stop twice. Everyday I eat lunch, and get coffee at 2 or 3 with colleagues. I leave at 5 or 5:30 latest. If I go straight home, I reach there around 6:30. If I don't, I see Juanly and we do something together. Sometimes I see other folks, which I wish was more often. Having friends who love you is rare, having those people in close proximity is rarer.

If I go home, I change into sweats, eat dinner and watch tv. Then every other day I work out for about 40 minutes. I stretch, take a shower, dry my hair and sit on my bed with my laptop. Then I call Juanly and we talk between 30 minutes to an hour. Then I fall asleep, wake up and do it all over again.

I don't know how to feel.

No Resolutions/Death of a Coat

Boo. My computer becomes soooo slow when Photoshop is open. I have yet to move all my music over to my external; this task is followed by a slew of other little things which never seem to get done:

1. Move all media to external hard drive
2. Get real copy of Photoshop (out of my hands)
3. Install software to my tablet
4. Move one of my wall-mounted shelves up to accommodate new bed
5. Dump unwanted clothes in charity bin
6. Clean car
7. Scan negatives/make the most of my Flickr subscription
8. Make my blog awesome

Unfortunately (or fortunately) my ability to do these things has been limited this holiday season for various reasons [NOT excuses!]: i.e., fun, rest, vacation, sleeping, etc.

I was able to clean out my closet and do two loads of laundry after catching a red eye from Las Vegas. Though in my sheer optimism in HOPING that the instructions on the label of my down coat would lead me to cleaner outerwear, this wish was destroyed upon retrieving my coat from the cold wash: the thing was ripped through the bottom inner lining.

I sucked it up, praying the next step of adding three tennis balls with the wet coat in the dryer would at least fair for a fluffy coat---I took the thing out of the dryer, it looked a little dead, maybe because it was likely still damp from the inside, but also probably because so many feathers came out :( I haven't had the nerve to go check on it since, it'll make me sad- that jacket was so warm (but luckily not expensive, plus the zipper got stuck all the time). I would've dry cleaned, except it said DO NOT DRY CLEAN (yes, in caps)

Lesson: Febreeze is always the answer.

I lied.

I lied. Big surprise. Come alive again, Blogger. I'm a polyblogamist, and have no shame. Xanga will be my wife; Blogger, you be my mistress. Because I might have more fun with you, but probably won't see you as often.

At the risk of killing the metaphor, I want to leave my wife for my mistress.

Watch me, I'll show you what I mean when I finally get to scanning some stuff. I totally ruined the surprise for all my fans out there. Idiot.

[In]Action

There is little for myself that I can really reveal in a public space. I make faces at people probably everyday on the subway, but I need to admit to myself that I can't blog for fear of public embarassment. It's definitely not a good kind of self-consciousness. It was easier a couple of years ago, when blogs were not what they are now. I can't pretend I'm a writer or an artist when I'm not doing anything in a visible domain which shows as such. I have to remember how to document again, especially visually. I miss that most.
(I should treat myself to a camera finally. Too bad I'm so stingy.)

I want to contribute, and to learn and to give to the community I exist within. I feel bad about giving up on that brown girl blog, but I'll be honest, it was a fleeting desire, and I'm most likely having commitment issues as usual. It was my post-YSS fling.

I'm off to explore, and to actually force myself to DO things whereby I can (with some confidence feel creative or helpful in some way, I must re-articulate myself to remember what I am). My deepest concerns cannot be aired in this space any longer.

Khuda-hafiz!

Ambition

...Or lack thereof.

Bush's Great Ambition: Wealthy Boredom
Wow, this man is our president!! It's still hard to believe...Not a word in this article about putting his position to good use in the future (because why break the cycle of shittiness?)

A few gems from our dear leader:

[On retirement] "I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch," he says. He also has big plans for making money. "I'll give some speeches, to replenish the ol' coffers," says Mr Bush, who is already estimated to be worth $20m. "I don't know what my dad gets - it's more than 50-75 [thousand dollars a speech], and "Clinton's making a lot of money".

He goes on to note that,

When it all gets too much for the president, his wife Laura storms to the rescue. "She reminds me that I decided to do this," he tells Draper.

And by far, the best quote:

"I've got God's shoulder to cry on, and I cry a lot"

Thanks to my schwes to bringing the article to my attention. Made me feel good on an otherwise down day!

The little posting that could

Work kind of sucks. I've never done this 9-5 thing so regularly and my mind is melting at the thought of doing this indefinitely (at least for the next year). I have this weird anxiety & I feel as though my time is no longer my own; my life is compartmentalized too neatly now and I feel bored & restless.
The time to get cracking on GREs has come, I think...

The summer started off well enough, although extremely hectic, graduating, going from one job to the next, moving far away from Yonkers to Queens, visiting Boston, Rochester, packing and unpacking, friends and visitors. Now I anticipate the season dwindling into fall; and I'm looking forward to thinking about sweaters and scarves again.

I got to see my friend from Iowa, whom I met during my study abroad in India. I love love love seeing my Iowa/India friends; I spent about 7 weeks with these people, but it felt more like 7 years; I have never been so comfortable with a group of people in such a small amount of time. We jabbered on and on and it was great. I sincerely crave and miss that since school ended and it's probably one of the things I most took for granted, even amongst my small group of friends. Everyone is scattered. I need to leave and go somewhere and do something (but where and what?), there is so much here & so much to leave behind...

All about books: I've read Fun Home and Brick Lane which were both excellent. I just finished the Inheritance of Loss, which is another great read. Shards of history, fragmented memories, people leading separate lives while all managing to be somehow connected. I have made my way to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which I read once when I was 14, but reading it now is so much better. I was by the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday (near Front Street) and I saw flattened trolley tracks pushed into some old cobblestone---getting to actually see parts of history like that while reading a book about old New York is exciting.

***

Edit- Wow, this post is unbelievably boring and doesn't resolve any of the loud issues that are screaming inside of me.

Last night I had a dream that tornadoes were destroying my entire neighborhood. I was face-to-face with them, I was scared but excited. I was hiding in basements, getting into them from the tiniest little opening which sucked me in and kept me safe. This was after I woke up at 3am from a dream that my boss happened upon my house while drunk and hung out with me and my family. I was so upset that I was dreaming work things. I got up and went to the bathroom to cleanse my body of any work-related toxins. It took me a few minutes until I was able to clear my head of grant deadlines and agendas and fall asleep.

The former was not a nightmare, the latter was.

Frightening, yet somehow hilarious...

Let's not move to Katy.

"Real Life"

So I graduated, that was fun. Graduation itself was pretty anticlimactic; although I got weepy in the beginning (at the mention of parents), it sort of just ended after BA candidates were announced with the president telling us to take our chairs to the edge of the tent on the way out.

It feels good though. I'm working three days a week at Demos, applying for jobs, going on interviews, reading books I like, wandering around the city and hanging out with people I haven't seen in a while. I'm generally hopeful right now, but at the same time I fear once the summer ends, I'll fall into a slump when I see other people gearing up to go back to school. We shall see.

I'm reading No Logo by Naomi Klein, and I gotta say, it's pretty great. It feels weird going into malls, to think about how we have so few public spaces that aren't corporately owned (so in a way, corporations own our social interactions). I was walking through the Westchester (an unusually swanky mall located in White Plains) while dropping off my computer for repair, and I realized (as I do so frequently now) how many families were out, and how many little children there were. It is crazy to think that we are socialized to behave as consumers from the day we are conscious of ourselves and can express our needs and wants. I happened upon Anthropologie (why that store is called that, I will NEVER know) and drifted in while on the phone, and every time I've been in that place I'm amazed at how expensive things are; how the labor is probably so cheap, yet they can sell a pair of jeans for $210. How much profit must they be making!? It's absurd! Anthropolgie is a high-end off-shoot of Urban Outfitters I think, they're likely owned by the same parent company. Both sell a lifestyle though. Anthropologie also sells frilly, shabby-chic type of housewares; from dishes to rugs and bedding. It's a brand that's been made into a lifestyle.

Maybe it's not so ridiculous to some, but when you deconstruct it (even a little) it's pathetic.

From Klein:

"What these companies [referring to Nike, Microsoft, Tommy Hilfiger, etc.] produced primarily were not things, they said, but images of their brands. Their real work lay not in manufacturing but in marketing"

She goes on to talk about how in the beginning of the 20th century, there were so many inventions coming out that were innovative, and that were going to change the way people lived. As time worn on though, this psychological prompt in buying new products evolved into lifestyle choices (rather than necessities) in consuming products marketed to the masses.

Why are there offensive Miller Lite ads with women being objectified on the NYC subways? Why are there cheap-looking Lava Life ads selling a heteronormative dating lifestyle on the subway?
Why are we being told to buy this? Why do we measure ourselves against these images?

Why are more people not awake?

The Motel

This looks pretty good. Apparently it came out last June, but I wasn't around then. It's out on dvd now.


(pubertysucks.com)

I love the design and animation for the ads, very reminscent of Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan.

I think I want to make an ice cream run. Mmm sprinkles.

HumDrum. DrumLost.

I just spilled coffee all over myself-- all I needed to do was sip it not like a savage, but I couldn't handle this simple function & got it all over my face, in my hair and down my shirt. I accidentally fell asleep at 7 until 9pm. I'm supposed to hand in work tomorrow (Saturday...!?).

Uh, the plan is to stay up until 7am or until I can finish all this stupid thesis shit. I don't mean that it's for seriously stupid, I'm just sooo dragging myself at this point & subsisting solely on caffeine. I feel gross and unhealthy.

Books I will read upon my gradulations/summer reading list:

Passing It On by Yuri Kochiyama (Japanese-American freedom fighter)
The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Darker Nations by Vijay Prashad
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
No Logo by Naomi Klein (any writing/documentary by her is awesome)
The Revolution Will Not Be Funded by Incite! Women of Color Against Violence

I want to go on a trip & take pictures of people. I want to buy a Mamiya or another awesome medium format camera, and be a photographer on the DL. But where to print? So expensive, naa. I want to make art again so badly. I need it.

Also getting a tattoo but need someone to design it for me; I can't seem to get the right outline of the little elephants I want.

Back to workus.

A-musings.

Oh geez, I took this too-long nap at 5 and woke up at 8. It's not a good feeling, especially that napbreath--you gotta gargle twice to get rid of it.

The nap was brought on by a series of events, mostly related to school and constricted by time. I went to bed at 5am this morning and work up and 9:30 only to rush to print out my paper, only to get to class to have the professor announce that seniors could email him the draft.

After class I got to go to the gynecologist, where before being poked and prodded I had an extensive (20 minute) conversation with the doctor about activism, corporate ethics, environmental consciousness and just life in general. It was really remarkable, mostly I felt like giggling, it was so random. I told her about this documentary I had watched in class called "The Corporation", good stuff. Then I went for a haircut, which basically was me spending $23 to have nothing done to my head; but maybe that's a good thing since I freak out after having my hair did. But I always need something to complain about, y'know?

I'm trying to get enough money to go to the U.S. Social Forum with the study abroad folks from last summer, although everything altogether (travel, food, transport, etc.) will probably cost me about $400. I wonder if I can get a sponsor or something...
A corporate sponsor! Like these guys.

I've been introduced to The Blow, a neat group from Portland. I really like their music, especially this one song, Parentheses.



"You're not a baby if you feel the world.
All of the babies can feel the world.
That's why they cry."

Thinkings/Collectives

Boredom/break from work compelled me to google myself, and my Demos blog posting in Dispatches came up. This means my ascendancy and strategy for total domination has begun. TOTAL domination, only; no exceptions. And all it took was a tiny little internship.

Are nuts fatty? I wonder; my stepmother told me that almonds make you breakout, but I should take into consideration that she's a deceitful person in general, so I'm torn here. I really want to eat that bag of badaam, though.

I've been thinking a lot, maybe too much taking into consideration this is the final stretch of work as an undergrad at SLC. In the midst of this craziness, I've been fortunate to experience a few things in the past year most don't even consider in their education. And I can't believe the amazing friends I've found in the process (meeting people like this peels away at my layers of cynicism). The first awesome experience was my study abroad in Karnataka. I learned more about myself, my desi self, my American self, U.S. foreign policy and the state of the world than I probably did combined in my 3 years at Sarah Lawrence. But I will say I wouldn't have experienced India the same unless I had the knowledge base I did at the time. So it wasn't all for nothin'.

Second has been the exposure I most recently had at the 2007 Organizing Youth conference the weekend before last. It was hosted and organized by folks from YSS (Youth Solidarity Summer, what was a NYC based week-long conference), with contributions from OY! and RadDesi (Bay Area & Austin, respectively). There were some amazing panel discussions (Deepa Fernandes, DJ Rekha, Vijay Prashad, and Biju Mathew among some of the speakers); mostly though, we were there to figure out how to build a collective structure, since YSS is looking to create a larger base and do more educational outreach work (well, at least in the beginning).

The three-day conference culminated on Sunday the 15th, with the 50 or so people split up into various working committees, handling different issues. My committee deals with what is likely the core of how this yet-to-be-named organization will operate on either a regional or national level (or both). Aside from all the technical stuff, we have to determine who our audience is, what the general vision is, what the issues are, as well as our time-sensitive goals which require real commitment from the people in these groups.

(We also got a presentation from The Campaign to Stop Funding Hate, which talked about the brand of "Yankee Hindutva" promulgated by groups like the HSC and funded by fanatic peeps abroad. I was happy to see Murli, the Anthropology professor from my study abroad there and launching this program.)

So what I have (in addition to be totally green and new to all of this) is essentially the opportunity to be apart of the very building of an organization. I really want things to pan out. I met some great people, people from different parts of the States and some in Canada; there is interest, we're just trying to figure out how to engage that interest in a progressive desi youth org.

Anyway, that's where my brain is at. Trying to learn from the different movements in American history, especially African, Asian & Chicano struggles in the 60s and 70s. Where do we come from? We're not sure, but until the group's mission is more solid, we're committed to finding out. The trick is framing the motives of this group in light of a specific South Asian-American history.

Back to Blogger

i think i'm gonna kick my xanga addiction. that thing isn't as versatile; blogger is shiny & new to me (even though i've had one for almost 2 years).

looking to start a collective brown blog of sorts.
(very into collectives nowadays)
who will do this with me? this has yet to be determined.

fabulous, i've wasted my whole day not being productive with all the work i was supposed to do...gotta get serious now; hopefully something more inspired to be written later & later.

sarahriffo