The quality of mercy

is overrated.
Who cares for mercy
as though it can help you when you need change
and you're standing in the cold and
it feels like all of your life's bad decisions are
laughing at you.
and you have never felt less loved and more hated.
Yes.
that.

Thinking aloud a while ago

Its that time of the year when I need to book tickets to go home and as always, I'm faced with some difficult questions.Lon-Del-Mas-Lon or simply Lon-Mas return?

There is a fabulous shoe store in Delhi that I simply must visit, and of course I must eat at Andhra Bhavan one last time before I return, but are these two reasons worth the extra ten hours either way in travel?

Edited to add in 2017.
No. They're not and you made pretty poor choices. Stupid 2012 Sow.

Look who's back

I have no where else to take my poetry. Spaax is back. 





The quality of mercy is not strained.

It is filled with bits of tealeaf bitterly regretting

letting go like the gentle rain that

droppeth on umbrellas

Ouch. Ah well, good that it is twice blessed

Triple filtered, osmosically

and did you know it blesses the receiver and giver

like good sex

Regardless, though justice be thy plea consider this

who among us has not while no one was looking

eaten all the peanut butter lindor

Purpose

I have it.

I feel like I've floundered for so long now, just thinking and being and doing and failing. Well, *I* call it failing, and quiet-time-ing, though really, its just being as 'on' as I'm used to being.

I feel like I found something I could do for longer than a year. For the rest of my life even. I'm happy.

It would be perfect if it rained today. But I'll take what Delhi throws at me (cloudy, breezy, almost monsoony)

I love choice

Sometimes we make choices that seem like they're holding us back, but actually, they liberate us in ways we cannot even imagine.

I am making one such choice today - and while its a bit grandiose to claim that I'm going to be liberated because of this choice in ways I cannot even imagine, I *am* going many steps forward with this little step.

Goodbye tyranny, hello you bittersweet independence.

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.

MY FIRST ENGAGEMENT LETTER

Today I had a client sign an engagement letter, officially hiring me to be their lawyer/advisor.

SO MUCH HAPPINESS.

<3 you world!

If this isn't a gold star kind of day, I don't know what is!

Being a friend to myself

I had to take out a Demand Draft today, and predictably, I asked DF "So what's the procedure to take out a DD? Have you ever taken one out?" "Nope, I don't know, but I guess you go to the bank and figure it out?", he said, rather unhelpfully. I guess the last time I used a DD was to pay for my NALSAR entrance exam application form, and mommy dearest took care of that!

Anyway, I went to my bank in Bhogal, and figured it out. #win

ALSO, I went to the dentist PREEMPTIVELY which is a big big big step for me, - I feel like I'm ready to be an adult - especially because I will have to work like an adult to pay for all the miseries my earlier dentist caused me. :X
(Pro-tip - ALWAYS go to the best dentist you can, and ALWAYS get second opinions!)

I also made a banofee pie - the dulce le leche came from a Nestle condensed milk tin and a pressure cooker. 

I feel like something has changed. Like there's something in the air (literally, and figuratively, if you live in Delhi, but whatev), something changing.

Could it be as simple as a winter blues thingy clearing up? Because I haven't been as excited in a long time - and more importantly...

 #onwards

Complete it or Kill it

I've designated one day out of every fifteen in a month to be a 'Complete it or Kill it' day.

A couple of weeks ago, while researching efficiency and optimality, I came across this article which had a central premise.

Complete a task, or kill it - don't shelter it in the warmth of your todo list.

The premise sounds deceptively stupid and simple, but its so liberating to know that there's an option to completing a task, a helpful prioritization meter so to speak, that I've adopted this wholeheartedly.

Practcially thought, I realize it isn't possible, even for someone like me, to get to the bottom of my list everyday, so every fifteen days, I have resolved to complete or kill.

Its 5 06 pm now and I have around 24 entries to complete or kill. I've done three.

#crie #completekill

Mold

I have this obsessive need to work towards a Zero-Inbox*. This need materialised sometime late last year, and since then I have spent hours (HOURS NO REALLY HOURS) every week trying to label, and archive every single email in my primary email account (15000 +emails).

This is the stuff that filing nightmares are made off!

In the process, I often come across cryptic one-two line, no subject emails that trigger my curiosity, I stop to read, and before you know it, I'm reading everything I wrote to people in November 2012 and I am filled with eye-rolling + happiness at my stupid poetry-sending, guardian-discovering and mildly panicking self.

For example, this gem I sent to DF:

Sub: I ATE MOLD

am I going to die? What if it had mycotoxins (wiki says they are poisonous). My throat feels realy dry and sore, honestly. DRY and SORE.

(I feel like weeping a little).

I ATE MOLD - FACEPALM FACEPALM. 


As if you didn't guess already, DF sent back a "you're not going to die. I eat mouldy bread all the time' type terse response from a _blackberry_.

As you can see, I indeed did not die from (wtf are these?) mycotoxins. Hurrah.

I would laugh and poke fun at myself even more if only I hadn't had a similar outburst in Goa recently. Also, I'm not certain why I spelt it 'mold'. Also, I must have had a pretty sad day to eat mouldy bread for dinner - definitely one of the crazy deal-closing weeks.

Hindsight is love the second time around (aka I'm back bitches!)

STATUTORY WARNING*: I'm sorry if you have me on a feed of somekind - you probably woke up to 614 posts jostling for space and assaulting your attention, much like the armpits assault of the ladies compartment of the purple (violet) metro line at 6 pm to Badarpur on a warm spring day.
As you probably figured out, I didn't write them all in one night - duh, but instead painstakingly rewinded the procedure I performed three years ago (drafted all my posts then, undrafted them all now). ALL 614 of them. If that's not bravely crazy, I don't know what is. Welcome to the boudoir of my truest, deepest, showiest self. I'm scared you'll like me too much, and judge me too sweetly - I'm confident like that ya.

*Not really, you know, because there isn't a statute that says so. Still, in Spaaxland we like our legaljargons wink wink.

Hey hi ho - I missed you gentle reader(s), and I missed you bloggy.

It's been a mega mega rollercoaster these these three years here in India, and really, if  bloggy is to be believed, I was the sanest and clearest when I left *STABILITY* in 2012 to find meaning, purpose and to fulfill a long-standing desire to i) wear orange clothes to work, and ii) find and work on something truly 'useful' (neither, you understand gentle reader, are things that a magic-circle law firm encourages wholeheartedly).

Pah - how manicpixiedreamgirl ish of me na?

In the years since, I've thought of my time in India as a comma, changed it to a semi-colon, and this year I fervently hope that it isn't to become an ellipsis (you will be happy to note my penchant for cheap dramatism in sentence structuring is still the same).

I've been more thoughtful in this time than in any other before (less of the zara, more of the zen), and the last eight months especially have been the hardest, both in terms of forcing me to dissect my life-choices, and in not making what I want fall into my lap like its always done before.

Wounds unaware have blossomed and left scars and fears some of which I find when I'm looking for something else - a scrap of wrapping paper, or a red petticoat, or an unexpected email search result, while some I've become friends with, proudly, secretly, reveling in the story of the how-scar and the old-scar. Scar-friends, you could say (Say hello to my little fear).

And with all of the little-fears, and the ele-beles, and the brave-new-casting away of sloth and embracing of change, my life is in such lovely joyous shambles and order equally both, and I'm exasperated and delighted by its sine-wave-ness in a way that's oddly reminiscent of the times in VIII semester. Its all I can do not to snort, wipe away tears and roll up my fullsleeves (not really, it's still a bit cold) and get back to typing. Really there's nothing like the orange-white blogspot interface and a cranberries playlist to make me want to hug each of my posts, and eat some cake and do a little bit of laundry for old time's sake

<hug>

So - what's this about being back? Let's get some things straight:

1. It's a new year and I didn't do a 'what I want this year' post (spectacular success, back to writing and lots of travel) - for which I am sad/sorry.
2. It was bloggy's 9th birthday last August (my bloggy is the best and I love love love it) and I didn't do a post to commemorate - for which I am sad/sorry. 
3. I went to Goa and I celebrated my anniversary of being married to DF (which I am secretly overjoyed about and which gentle reader way back in 2008 - 2009 - 2010 - 2011 - 2012 etc etc would have thought we'd end up married haha) and didn't do a post about the unhealthily tremulous relationship that this bloggy, I and DF have - the public/private tightrope we walk everytime I post such a post, and how it was all so much easier when I was heartbroken and secretly writing lame-weepy-love-letters to DF on this blog - for which I am sad/sorry.
4. I had a BIRTHDAY for which I did not do a post - and really, for this, I am sad/sorry/angry a little (note to self: do not watch a dystopic movie on birthday and take it all out on DF).
5. I took some mega-mega life decisons (or atleast I decided to print some business cards for myself - which are kind of funky in a professional sort of way) and I didn't do a post about it (god figuring out how to host a website argrgrhrhrhrhhrhrhrhrrhhrhrhrhhrr) - for which I am sad/sorry, though I am certain you are relieved. 
6. I had house-guests over for TEN DAYS (DF's parents,and no-one cried or fought or disowned anyone, and no plates were broken and much mimicking of downstair's aunty was done and much amazing food was consumed), and I didn't do a post about it, for which I am sad/sorry. 
7. (FYI some were broken later, but that is another post which also I did not do - but given the circumstances, not really sad/sorry). 
8. I went to see the tanks and the missiles at the Republic Day Parade, 2015 and I didn't do a post about it (or the filthiness, or the crowds, or the rain and cold, or the twitter-miracle that helped me get the passes - really the middle part of this story is like the desi version of Home Alone 2, but the ending is a little flop), and for this I am now getting exasperated at myself.
9. I've fallen off the bloggy bandwagon - and I can't for the life of me remember why! (No, of course I do - the denouement is a couple of paras below).

So many good stories, in little crevices, in the quiet moments, when you know, I wore orange clothes, made tea at 2 pm, and sat in my balcony and *tried* to be purposeful (tick, tick, tick) - all of these and more, and the times I did laundry, and the times I've gone driving down Motilal Nehru Marg at 11 pm, and the singing along to Mukesh, and the second dinners at Sundar Nagar chomping down bhelpuri, and walking 8000 steps a day, and actively meeting more new people, and licking my hurts well, and the ASOIAF forum fascination, and the getting of a new sheesham desk to inaugurate my work-space at home, learning to host a website (failing at it), using Google AppsScript to install a functionality, besting myself at spider solitaire, learning co-ordinate geometry and behavioural econ and thinking about AI, and crypto-tech, and biases in judicial thinking, and and altruism studies, and getting mildly scared at Black Mirror, and getting very impressed with the Good Wife, and getting mildly annoyed with the Big Bang Theory, and everyday trying to become a brave, kind and successful person and failing sometimes and breaking down while DF makes tea badly :), and twitter conversations, and remembering not to flirt much with online strangers, and making creative excuses for buying things I *want* and not *need*, in these times of austerity, and more, would, in hindsight, have been just the thing - just the thing to make my future self feel warm the way I've been feeling the last two hours.

But no, I've gone and been mean to my future self, and now I feel bad. Let me make amends?

They don't tell you a lot about life you know? The ones who understand it better. Someone told me this today, and it felt like a big significant truthy truth. Really I am glad I stopped subscribing to Vogue and switched to Jezebel, though a small part of me misses my shallow happy-cute self.  All of this sophisticated angst about the city-polity and the egalitarian-consciousness, just echoes around you, and builds up, and you're not even sure what the solution is, and really who's to sit you down, make you tea and talk truth to confusion?

This, this bit of becoming an adult is tough, and its what I've been struggling with. A blank canvas is scary, but liberating, and I've had to work much harder at letting go of the former, and embracing the latter. I've learnt some things though I wish I didn't have to learn it through such hard lessons - I've decided to write it down for you-gentle reader, and for my future self, as a manual say, and because its more organic, homegrown and artisanal than anything you'll see on Buzzfeed.


1) Life is short. Young people die all the time. Don't feel guilty about pushing work to the next day and going for a walk. Unless you're a doctor or something, it's fine. The world will learn to survive without you. It already knows how to.

2) Life is very hard in small ways and in big ways. Finding good ways to deal with the hard stuff is worth spending time on.

3) Working hard is non-optional. Genius, passion and brilliance are really no substitutes. Even for me.

4) To thine own-self be true. I didn't have to make tough choices when young, but I've had to make them more often recently, and it isn't easy. There is a banality to unhealthy compromise, and it slowly kills idealism and passion. Stick to your guns, and your positions, albeit politely. The comfort of doing the right thing is nice, though I can't say for sure that its always better than the ease of compromise.

5)  Being someone else is hard, but being yourself is easy. The tough part is figuring out where oneself ends, and someone else begins. It can be hard trying to figure out if you have a 'voice' even or if all you think and say is manufactured and reworked brilliance from the previous evening's bunch. I don't know how to tell - but something surges in me sometimes when I blog and the words seem to spill out of me because I know what I want to say quickly quickly before I forget, and it seems to fit, it seems true. Some other times, its more contrived - and I can tell it isn't right just by looking - so I guess your internal radar will ping too? It's worth trying to find.

6) Love yourself. Change is scary, and breaking new ground is scary. People are casually dismissive and actively cruel sometimes (why!?)  - you need to believe and love yourself enough to disregard the filth. I don't think this is nearly as easy, and the older we get, it can be hand to be anything but easy on yourself.  Try not to and have faith instead.


***

I hope this makes up for the silence - it took a while to learn some new things to talk about.
A spell of hindsight is a joyforever - said nobody but me.

***

You'll recognize this reference if you've been here before, but I had to do some laundry, and its done now. Time for some tea, and bed, and brunch tomorrow. Excuse the label, but we're pretty relaxed about that sort of thing around here. It *felt* right.

BACK TO COLLEGE

I spent five years and about a few hundred blogposts all within a little campus by the lake.
I'm now going back. For only a day, but still.
202 and 209 - here I come.

#nervous
#happy
#TOTALLYEXCITED
#messfood
#lane
#netcentreandtetravex
#somuchsomuch

Self-destruct sequence

I feel like I should be doing more than drinking sweet tea and eating khakras as the occasional tear pools in the rims of my large retro glasses.

I may also be the only one who remembers, well, me and bloggy. I just realised that of all the constants in my life, the only one that has remained through all of the good times and the bad, is the image of me sitting in front of a computer and tapping out on the familiar white and orange interface. Sometimes there are tears and sometimes there are such wonderful incredible highs and often times there is a wry smile and some CAPS LOVING. I love this image of me, and I should carry it around more and feed it well.

Five years since the first October 28.

I'm alone and angry and calm and melancholy, but not so much so that I can't laugh at myself and shake my head sadly.

My post after Diwali was to  be a fabulous one, filled with happiness and colour and light and the bliss of finding new family that is so so easy. But this is what procrastination does, gentle reader, and instead of bubbling over with mirth and eating homemade sweets and narrating jokes in broken Telugu, I am now sad-raging.

Appreciate, if you can, the understated tone of this post, for it is an expression of my heart's waxing and waning. I'm old enough to know nothing is fair and young enough to hate the unfairness of it anyway. Such maturity comes at a price - and that price I think is restraint, which should be the politeness of princes (not punctuality, because of course a prince(ss) is never late, the rest are merely early).

I think its time for more tea. And without sugar, I think, for the old masochistic joke about one lump or two comes to mind and we can all do without that, don't you think? xx

Sex with Patrick Stewart

A few days ago, we had an impromptu party at home. A bunch of friends dropped by (not one of them was a lawyer! ha!) and we decided to drink a little, chat a little, and then play Cards Against Humanity.

If you haven't yet played the game, I would urge you, nay, I beseech you, to gather around a group of terribly funny people and PLAY PLAY PLAY - this game, with the enticing tagline "The party game for horrible people".

The simplicity of the game is matched by just how easy it is to play (very easy), to get (download and cut into squares) and bring out the repressed bitchy horrible person inside you!

 For more inspiration, check out their Tumblr here.

Apart from providing entertainment, and a window into your friends' minds that you sometimes wish you'd rather didn't have, Cards against Humanity also proves to be an educational experience.
 

All of life's a circle what

What <yet-to-be-determined-punctuation-mark>

It's my new thing these days. My new word accessory of the -till-whenever-I find-a-new-one.

For the past many weeks or so, it was 'and so on and so-forth', and you would think adding it to every other sentence would induce a rather overwhelming sense of elegance and a wisp of nonchalance when I speak, but sadly, it turned into a crutch I clung to while refusing to let my on-holiday-come-back-later brain really try to accomplish more than mango-eating.

My new word therefore is what. Its not said as a question, as in "What is wrong with you?" or even an exclamation "Whaaaaaat." its more of a mocky-sarcastic, drawl that cool people have and that I am now going to try to emulate. What.

***

I have eaten many mangoes, but none have come close to achieving the perfection of the Banganapalli mango from last summer. Just saying.

***

Suddenly feeling much deja vu. As I sit on my living room floor in front of the TV and type this out, its raining outside, and I am suddenly transported to Spore just after I quit when all of the city was rainy and I was sitting on my living room floor and writing a blogpost about quitting. :)

I was listening to Samba Noir then, but for now, I feel this is an age+ time -appropriate piece of music. Failing which, we'll always have Toco.

***
I've had the time of my life the last few weeks. I don't know why more adults don't take summer vacations, and I have to say, truthfully, DF has been the best for sponsoring this break of mine. Totally - ja, jee le apni zindagi type moment, and all I have to show for it, is a long list of youtube videos we have to watch when he comes back home everynight.

FYI, this marriage rox.

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. 

Well, hello there

Excuse the hiatus - would you?

In the last 11 days of doing-nothing-ness, I have:

1) Cleaned, organised and sorted out the house I live in to within an inch of my life. Various items, including all pairs of trousers I own and election id cards are still missing. We are awaiting word on their safe existence while I wear the same pair of pink trousers everytime I step out of the house.

2) Got used to the idea of sleeping 14 hours a day.

3) Experimented with everyday household food items and white rum to create cocktails, much like George in the wonderful George's Marvellous Medicine. (roohafza, golgappa paani, rasam, etc).

4) Downloaded Calibre to organise and restore the previous organisation of my kindle collections, which is hopelessly jumbled across devices, id-s, and programs. Been procrastinating on the same.

5) Downloaded some books by Charles Stross - started reading Accelerando which is interesting so far.

6) Received Piketty's 'Capital in the 21st Century' as a gift - along with a lovely legend asking me to please move out the lyrics of Bollywood songs from my head and instead replace them with useful knowledge.

7)   Started to root + install Cyanogen Mod on the spare phone at home. Been procrastinating on the same.

8) Having the voice inside my head do Toby Ziegler's when reading the news.("Bonnie, Ginger" "The BBC
just announced a coup in Thailand.")

9)  Re-watching all of West Wing, by means of a marathon session  - at Season 3 thus far.

10) Setting up a gym in my terrace, which can be accessed by climbing a ladder and then stepping on a split ac unit. Making contact with grease, rags and screwdrivers for the same.

11) Eating and drinking and making merry.


And you thought I was merely being lazy? Pshaw 

Shammi K

Today my life feels like a Shammi Kapoor song. I can't figure out why, it wasn't a spectacular day or anything, but I'm jauntier and perkier and happier than usual. :)

I'm like the sheepish call you get the morning after

You know the ones, don't you? Where you've either dropped me back home, knowing fully well that despite my calm, drunken assurance that I'll just be a moment before I pick up my passport and come back down so we can head to the airport (and fly away gloriously into an adventure), I'm going to curl up on my sofa, shoes on, spittle clinging gently to my chin and a bucket under my head, just in case, forgetting all about you.

Or where I insist that you leave the house at 3 am after a rowdy racuous argument, and then proceed to  meticulously snip the buttons off each of your shirts and dump them on the stairwell in a fit of controlled rage.

Or where I hide your glasses and go away to a party and switch my phone off, because in that moment of pique, immaturity offers the best shield under which I can hide my frustration.

Or where, well, you get the picture.

And the sheepish call. Where I don't really say, I'm sorry bloggy, I left you thinking it was the sophisticated and adult thing to do, but in the harsh, hungover, light of day, its a bit petty, what?

Yep.

***

Veiled apology to bloggy apart, for the first time, gentle reader, I realised what it was like to have someone actively and clearly try to screw me over. While one part of me was scrambling for evidence, and writing emails saying things like "this is without prejudice to the other rights under the Retainer Agreement" and calling up lawyer-friends for legal advice and forcing them to send me bills, the other part of me was like:

1)  "huh. look at that. you're getting screwed over. huh. interesting.this is what it actually feels like."
2) "clearly all the times you had to forgoe your morning flatwhite + chocolate croissant for a wonderfully exciting meeting was not actually a screw-over. huh"
3) "being asked to do timesheets was not a screw-over. huh"
4) "being paid in full without any dicking around on leave entitlements was not so routine as I thought. huh"
5) "so this is what being treated like a worthless piece of crap actually means. huh"

After a couple of fairly traumatic weeks, where I had to question self-worth, other people's worth, wish I had a chief minister aunt/uncle hidden away somewhere, make long-distance and short-distance advice seeking phone calls and draw up a vindictive game-plan, things finally ended in the most practical/unexciting manner yesterday. And it ended because I had the foresight to set up a smoking gun.

And I'll say this - no amount of literature on power-dynamics, or societal structures analysis or gyan on drafting contracts, or understanding dispute-resolution strategies could have given me the kind of learning I had in the last few weeks.

I feel like I left bruised but a winner, though not as much win as I'd like. Ah well.

***
Though its been advanced by a couple of months, I'm finally, actively, totally and unresistingly entering into a super-scary phase of life - the I AM JUST CHILLING AND NOT WORKING AT ALL UH HUH THAT'S RIGHT phase.

Not only am I be completely free to do whatever I want, I am also doing this with  
 no lifeboat/gameplan in mind for the future. Exciting in the scariest possible way! YAY!

As much as I hate you uncertainty - looks like we're going to have to become great friends - so let's get a move on.

As Day 1 of chill phase - I have woken up late, had a domestic argument, watched the most recent episode of Big Bang Theory and eaten cold pizza for lunch. I may or may not nap now. I have a feeling this is going to be fun! Await my despatches from the front.

I have the honour to remain 
Your most truly obedient servant
Spaax

Let us go then, you and I

The past few hours, I have been filled with a strange restless sort of energy, neither letting me work, nor letting me read in peace. I have opened and closed tabs, only half-focusing on the content I consume, I switch back to my twitterfeed, eyes only partially taking in the steady rhythm of  tidbits of news, randomly clicking on links, and parsing bits of some poetry I've started to read and back to my inbox calling out to me with its neat list of unfinished tasks and diligent reminders, and I alt tab ahain.

I'm doing all things badly, listlessly even, these few weeks, and my mind is approaching the kind of overwhelmed, blank state I find myself in more often than not.

There's an increasingly large list of unfinished promises I've been trying to keep and I;m doing them all badly. So, in honesty to myself, and after a lot of introspection about life, and how I should live it, I've decided to cut out on vague deadlines, impractical goals, a gazillion scribbles to do things better, grand visions of all of the things I am going to change. This next birthday year, I am going to hunker down and work smart and live smart and be as zenspaax as I can be, and do it well.

One of the things I am thus ending is bloggy. Its not a big deal, you know, been there, done that, and since Singapore, this bloggy has been barely there, but it too like everything else I'm putting away, is from a time ago and deserves love, respect and a kindly goodbye.

Goodbye world, goodbye bloggy. The shoes will remain, but I will go.