Hug me

World,

I'm having a crisis of confidence.  I'm trying to put up a brave face, and in fact, right now, I am on my two and a third mojito, trying to be calm, and measured and brave - and not give in to weeping, but its not easy. And sometimes, a good cry is really worth its weight in tea and sugar.

But mojitos, and nachos are all I have. Yes, its the middle of the day but since I am Founder/ CEO whatever title title, I can decide to work out of a innocently named "Market Cafe" where they have many plugpoints and oneplusone drinks at 3 in the afternoon.

Also, I have listened to Glee's Halo / Walking on Sunshine on LOOP for over two days now, and  I have all the adrenalin I need, I swear, but no answers, no hugs, and no solutions.

I have an email from ten years ago that I go back to when I'm sad. It contains many gems, including the now famous line: "If one is offered chocolate, one must always take it, unless its five star, which is yucky"

How do you think I find this email? By searching for "five star yucky", of course.

All your knowledge are belong to us

Somedays, while I am supposed to be revamping my CV but I idly chase a stray thought through the freescape of my imagination, I am struck by how little I know about the world.

Truly, and despite spending an inordinate amount of time on the interwebs (going from CV writing tips (bleargh) to reading about B-52 Bomber updates within the span of a couple of minutes), I know less than what I think I should about the world. 

For example:

1) I don't really know how electricity is transmitted. Or radio waves. Or sound waves even. Or light.  I can't really prove the Big Bang happened.
2) I don't know how fossil fuels create energy, and why steam cars are silly, but steam turbines are awesome (er?).
3) I don't know how to construct a building. Or make bricks, or cement, or steel. And paint! How do you make paint!
4) I don't understand carpentry well. Or plumb-ery. Or electricty (wait, I already said that.)
5) I wouldn't know how to make a processing chip. Or wine. Or perfume. Or cheese! CHEESE. Or tomatoes. Or fertilizers. Or refrigerators. Or bras. Or tampons.
6) I don't know how to set a bone. 
7) Or write music.
8) Or make a candle from animal fat.
9) Or make a fountain pen.
10) Or ink. Unless I catch a squid.
11) But how will I make a net?
(old joke: Sew some holes together).
12) OMG. needle and thread.
13) For which I need bones.  But where to get bones? :(
14) And fibre.
15) Rope! Rope-making is supposed to be an art. Yet another thing I have no knowledge of. 
16) And how will I ever build a raft. Forget a canoe, or a trieme, or a ship. OMG what to do about AIRCRAFT CARRIERS.
17) Bombs. Fission. Sigh. How to tell uranium 231 from whatever else.
18)  And how to make batteries. Spectacles. Torches. Matchsticks (phosphorous  - this I remember from Chemistry class but not much more).
19) Headphones. (by this point I am weary and am randomly looking around my study to see what I can make from the objects all around)
20) Post-its, no. PAPER! TOILET PAPER OMG, PLUMBING (already said that, didn't I?).

Everyday, around item no. 20 on my list of things I don't know, I give up on the pursuit of useful knowledge, and I console myself with the fact that some disaster-preparedness star American has figured this out, and collected books, and built bunkers and so on. If the world ever sort of ends, I will just have to find this person (but what to do about compass and sailing and processed and preserved food and emergency medication and nets and all?) Sigh.

What if I end up in Australia instead and get eaten by a jellyfish. Life is treacherous, you know, and its just the kind of comically-ironic event that would happen to me.

Anyway, I don't know why, but everytime I think about all of the awesome knowledge out there that I'd like to learn (like transistors and submarines and stocks and monetary policy and the concept of private property!), I feel bad that I'm instead becoming the kind of person who's writing a CV.

Screw the CV, I want to say. My CV should say.

SPAAX:
Address / Ph / Email :
_______________________

I AM AWESOME and funny and I like dragonflies. I am also very smart and I think you should talk to me because I like lots of interesting things and can tell you about them (like nets and jellyfish invasions ). Bye!
_____________________

But it doesn't. Someday when I have broken the system responsibly from the inside, I will make a CV like this one. Unless a jellyfish has eaten it. 

Hello, is it me you're looking for?

Righto.

1) Firstly, I'm really sorry if you have me on Google Reader (why, why would you do that when this header and bloggy design are so pretty?) and I've 'published' about 131 posts today and you missed out on the important news-bloggy stories out there.

Anyway, calm down. I, even I, am not that prolific. They're re-posts (as you already know).

2) Secondly, I know I went away, but I couldn't write on my new secret blog on wordpress. It was a short-lived affair but I am back to my current and usual true love - blogspot bloggy.
(Also, I like tinkering around here better). Also, I heard you missed me. I missed me. So I had to come back by popular demand. Sigh - fandom.


3) Thirdly, like, have you been reading the news? What an AWFUL world we seem to live in. There's been way too much abuse and grief and sadness on the news for my liking. Only the Higgsteria made up for it. And Aung San Suu Kyi. And Santorum withdrawing (horrid man obssessed with vaginas and foetuses and uteruses). America - don't become the Knife of Never Letting Go.
(shudder)

4) Fourthly, I have been reading a lot. Feed by MT Anderson was brutal and honest in a way that little else I've read recently. Except Charles Stross's science fiction which I liked and then immediately unliked and you'll see why.

5) Fifthly, I have had a lot of time to think. Serious think. Like, I read Saturn's Children and I was like wtf is it with female sex robots and why tf do sci-fi writers write semi-porno-sadistic-abuse crap about them? (See below). I mean, is it because you won't be respectable if you write about semi-porno-sadistic abuse crap of male sex robots?  Why dude, why? And The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Why talk about their perfect breasts and mango smooth skin and perpetuate body imagery that is patently illogical. WTF is mango smooth skin? And these books are insanely famous. Promethues, Hugo, Locus, Nebula - you name it they've been nominated.
This is not fiction. This is Cosmo + Fifty Shades of Grey.

And lets not even get into gaming and quizzing.

From Wiki, a little intro:

"Emiko is a Japanese-designed windup girl (a humanoid GM organism, used as a slave, and programmed to seek a master and obey him; windups call themselves "New People") abandoned by her Japanese master. As such, she is illegal in Thailand. Raleigh, a sex club owner, gives her some measure of safety by bribing the police to let her live, but at the price of forcing her to work in his club, where she is routinely abused and sexually humiliated." - The Windup Girl


 6) Sixthly, the internet is a wonderful place because there are so many important ways to say what you can about the issues that anger you. Like, you can ready about the Bechdel Test and then say: I will legally only own copies of stuff that passes the Bechdel Test. And you can tell people about it on-the-line :). How wonderful a place is the internet. Also I am now a wiki editor. And a news junkie; seriously, I've read SO much news in the past few months. I've also completely STOPPED buying hard copy books. Ok, if I go on in this rein, this blogpost will not end.

7) Seventhly, I have not been shoe-shopping at all. I have disavowed the excessive materialism which characterised my life for the past couple of years. I like my simple (non shoe-shopping life now). I thought I should tell you this, in case you thought I was buying every pair of flat happy open-toed shoes I could find here

8) Eightly, I am in Singapore - did you already know this? I can never go back to living in a non-sun non-swimming pool place anymore. There is also less Asian vegetarian food in Singapore than in London (also less cupcakes - sigh) so I have been cooking more and I am an excellent chef. Really truly. I am on a new crazy eating and exercise plan though so I haven't eaten a cupcake in about four months. I didn't even eat one when I found out about my new job - though I skipped the gym for 8 days in celebration.

9) Ninthly, I am going to need to make new friends because I will be moving to Delhi.
(Sad face * 453867)

10) Tenthly, hey, hello, gentle reader!!!! Are you well?

Girls rule the world so shut up already

Maybe it’s the spate of dystopicky novels I’ve been reading, or the validly sci-fi ones which tend towards dystopic otherworld, or maybe it’s just Rick Santorum, I don’t know which – but everyone has an opinion about what women can or can’t do. I wouldn’t care much for talk like this, you know, the whole, you can’t kill people, you can’t nuke Palestine, you can’t move the Jews to Mexico (as Sheldon suggested) or the whole, yes you can, can, can can, side of things. Mostly I am plodding along in my own shell.

Very hypocritical, I know, but that’s what I do. I make mental adjustments to my ‘how to rule the world manual’ and then move along (and since I don’t even blog regularly anymore, I can’t even rage about it on bloggy!)

Except. Except. This week. This week. Its making me reiterate heavily, and splutter more than I have in months. And it made me angry. Yeah, that’s a big deal. I’ve been on this whole nothing, not even you Rush Limbaugh, can make me angry phase.

It’s been a beautiful few months – stop spoiling it by telling the world what you think women can and can’t do. Go fix your own life.

Be kind to him

I  saw something really bizzare yesterday as I stepped into the elevator in my apartment: Every single note pinned to an orphan-type in a milk basket came rushing to mind. I wonder why anyone would abandon him though. Such a cruel cruel world.

Whatever happens to old toys? Does anyone give them away, throw them away?

Is there somewhere that the souls of not-anymore loved toys go to retire in peace and sit on rocking chairs while they sip mint juleps?  Some kind of post-retirement bliss with sunshiny brochures and antisepticky walls? Something called the Quiet home for Olden Toys?

He looks tres adorable, and if he’s still around when I get home today, I am going to adopt him.

Directions

Its been a long time since I've read a witty, thoughtful quote that did not originate on Twitter. Thanks Shruthi  - for pointing this one out.

***

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there." Rumi.

***
I want to add, "Bring cookies."