Ticket To Ride

Date: 31.12.2008
Time: 7:35 p.m.

Much like the rest of the year, the last day has been quite the rollercoaster ride, literally and figuratively. I spent the morning preparing strawberry cheesecake — the first attempt at making something completely by myself which doesn’t include baked eggs or sandwiches, as I’ve always avoided cooking like the plague. I wonder how it’ll turn out, but honestly I don’t really care that much. The day also involved me being coaxed by my mother to get back to eating meat, at the point of being bribed with vodka. :P I didn’t see any vodka flowing, so I did not acquiesce.

And then I also had the worst and most painful bout of a certain digestive disorder in my life, something that is certain to put me off my morning toast and other breads for quite sometime. And I’ll also remember that water is the only thing that sustains me. xP

The most significant thing about the day, I suppose, is that I was handed my driving license! (The test was last month: the day before end-semester exams started :P) The least significant thing about today is that my license picture is the worst photograph of myself that I have ever seen. Contrasts, anyone? Come to think of it, if I were to get a normal photo taken of me with boils covering every inch of my face, I’d still look better. The good thing is that if I am ever held up by a traffic policeman, the person might not recognise me from my license so I could hope to get off easily. Or maybe not. The thing is, you can’t expect government webcams to be professional photographers especially if the subject has just appeared for a test and been rudely refused a pen (to sign her name) at the end of the theory exam by the official supervising it. But that’s a long story and an old one.

Getting back to the day, today’s was the most harrowing as well as intriguing drive I’ve ever indulged in. Getting caught in a bad traffic snarl while moving up a bridge and being overtaken from all sides was an, erm interesting experience, to say the least. Although I might not say that I’d care to do the same on a daily basis. Narrow gullies where pedestrians love pretending to attempt suicide are much better in comparison, thank you. But I also drove using headlights for the first time! All my previous outings had been during daytime, stretching towards early evenings at best, so the experience was a good one. The most important thing I’ve picked up upon driving in the city streets would be abuses. They come spontaneously to mind. And I’m quite proud of my lexicon at present. All said and done, though, I quite enjoy driving. It is indeed relaxing.

I also managed to see Venus playing eye to the moon’s crescent smile on the way back home. It was pretty similar to the Venus-Jupiter-Moon isosceles triangle observed early this month. However, I missed the Jupiter-Mercury pair which was also allegedly observable right after sunset as it was quite dark when I peered out.

The funniest thing that has happened today so far, however, is that my dad has refused to have the cheesecake I’ve made because I ticked him off for swiping the strawberries to be used as garnishing. I guess it was quite obvious that cheesecakes are made to be not eaten. Oh well, there’ll be more for the rest of us.

As of now, I’ll go gorge on some more macaroni and then be off to catch some Pirates. All the best wishes for the coming year to everyone! Look sharp off the starboard people! Savvy?

End: 8:00 p.m.

Pictures taken with the New Cell!

I wonder if it is just me or has winter temporarily left the city... It is strange to find myself content with only a T-shirt (and pants, duh) so late in December. In any case, here are some of Justify Fullthe pictures that I have taken since getting my new phone! Most of these have been Radar-ed. :)

Canopy: This was taken near the lake where I had gone for driving practice.

The Greyness of Traffic: Taken while getting bored in a traffic jam on my way home.

Speed: Blur! Another picture to counter boredom while travelling.

Talk to the Hand: For those still curious about the phone, there will be a picture of my fingers posing with it. Tee hee.

Loneliness: Again, taken when out driving. I simply had to capture this. Although I would have been happier with better resolution. Oh well.

From the Pilot-seat: Another day of driving. I had stopped for some coffee when this was taken.

Paper cuttings for my room: I had got this sudden urge to do some paper cutting last evening, something that I don't think I've done since I was ten years old. So this was the fruit of my evening. :)

Smoke

Date: 23.12.2008
Time: 9:15 p.m.

Kill yourself with every breath you take
And ask me why I threw out your mistake,
Those poisonous boxes are expensive, you say
While I counter it with: “And your life isn’t, pray?”
What shocks me more is your firm belief
In spite of all the intelligence of grief
Available to everyone with eyes
But who can teach that to one who never tries
Anything beyond his own obstinate mind!
Listening only to be charitable and kind
With condescension befitting a king
And a chauvinistic attitude in full swing,
You still ‘know best’ that you will not be harmed
Though you cough enough to leave us all alarmed
With absurd excuses like bowel-movements
And work and stress and how it all augments
Into a forceful need to puff it all away
Taking every worry with it in wisps of grey…

I am glad we threw them out the window
Glad that now they won’t make you mellow
Enough to lose all the reason you posses
Give in, cave and disgracefully obsess
Over what will slowly kill you over time
And kiss our fates too with that same sorry grime
So be as ungrateful as you wish
Do your very best to blemish
The clean spot we have in our lives
And blame me with your characteristic emotional jibes
I will not yield for I am not wrong
You cannot break me, you’ve never been strong
Enough to get past in an argument with clear logic
You see your side alone, in a manner painfully tragic,
Don’t give me the eye and expect me in tears
I’m not that little girl who’s afraid of your sneers
Have not the dignity to acknowledge the above
And you’ll lose my respect as you have lost my love.

End: 9:55 p.m.

Lou Tag

Since Princess Stefania has been quite so charming about tagging me with this, I am compelled by my conscience not to procrastinate further. Here lies the tag on Love and Life, affectionately called the Lou Tag by me:


If your lover betrayed you, what would your reaction be?
A very calm execution of affairs. Pun intended. I am possessive, thank you. Although yes, wounds would heal over time, a long time, but yes, they would heal.

If you can make a dream come true, what would it be?
It would be one of many dreams fulfilled… I’d have to move on to the next with promptness.

What do you do when your love is unrequited ?
Write amusingly snarky things about myself and laugh at the irony. But never admit the fact. :P

What would you do if you had a billion dollars?
Er, use them?

Would you ever fall in love with your best friend?
I think I have the liberty to laugh here.

Which is more blessed, loving someone or being loved by someone?
I dislike having to choose between Chocolate and Cats. Both are required.

How long do you intend to wait for someone you really love?
Love has never been a necessity for me neither do I take it for granted from any sphere. Love is a conscious choice made unconsciously. That should answer the question.

If the person you secretly like is already attached, what would you do?
Attached to what, pray? :P

What captures your heart the quickest?
A quick wit, a mad spark and sincerity. *bats eyelashes demurely*

What would you be, ten years from now?
As quirky as ever!

What do you fear?
Lizards taking over the world. How horrible! *shudder shudder* But seriously? Losing my identity.

What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
A very talented Pixie Princess Poet. And that was an alliteration! :D

What's the first thing you do when you wake up?
“Chirp-laugh” after realizing that I’ve overslept again. :P

Would you give all in a relationship?
Depends on the relationship, wouldn’t it? I’d give nothing to my grandmother. :P

If you love two people simultaneously, who would you pick?
It’s enough loving one person, isn’t it? And I am lazy.

Would you forgive and forget, no matter how horrible a thing that special someone has done?
Forgive, yes, with time. For my own peace of mind. Forget? Never. That’s mainly to avoid a similar incident later. A lesson learnt should be remembered.

If you get to go back in time and fall in love all over again, would it still be with the same person?
I can laugh again now, I think. And smile.


Regrettably, I haven’t tagged people in the last few tags that I have done, although that hasn’t stopped me from being tagged by others. :| Therefore, for the benefit of all tag-unfriendly bloggers out there, I tag Prince Kazarelth (who hates tags and loves tagging me), Ship (who wants to get married although the fact is irrelevant to my tagging her), Jadis, Nothingman, Lucifer (who needed something to blog about and this is just the thing to make him squirm muwhahahah), Saturnalia’s Offspring (who doesn’t like tags much either :P) and VB! That’s an even seven!

Tra La La

After months of living like a miser I had finally saved up enough this month and got my new phone today! It is one handsome babeh, oh yeah and I've been drooling over it and admiring it all evening!

The best thing is that the phone comes with a USB data cable (apart from its utterly hot, snappy and sexy features) which means that I can transfer the pictures that I take with it! *jumps up and down excitedly*

So yes, I have had an awesome day (apart from getting the phone, muwhahaha ;]) and feel happy enough to eat any rot that I have to for dinner. *grins like an idiot*

More importantly, I've also come to terms with the fact that it is now far too chilly to be prancing about in shorts at home, so I've taken to warmer attire. :P AND I WENT UP TO THE TERRACE YESTERDAY! FINALLY! *chicken dances with glee*

As is quite obvious, I'm rather high at the moment, so I'll stop my ramble right here before I end up offending my senses at a later period. Tee hee hee. Season's greetings everyone! Hope all of you enjoy the holidays!

For The Love Of Plagiarism

Winter is supposedly the most romantic of all seasons. I say this here since romance is apparently an excellent muse for many a person. Now whether the prose or poetic outburst that comes forth a person's pen is indeed worthy of the term ‘literature’ is often debatable and I am quite the snob when it comes to this as I’m not easily impressed. But the point I’m trying to make is this. Normally, a person inspired by winter would speak of his or her own feelings, thoughts or musings, ‘own’ being the keyword here. I mean, honestly, if you cannot write original stuff, don’t. No one is forcing you.

I wonder if this is the season to plagiarize other people’s work. In that case Christmas carols should be re-written this way:
“It’s the season to be a plagiarist
Tra la la la la, la la la la
Let me copy another’s original work
Tra la la la la, la la la la,
Pass it off as my own and think I’m smart
Tra la la, la la la, la la la
Considering myself to be the best writer in the world
Tra la la la la, la la la la.”

Ship posted last night about how she found two amazingly talented people from dA being ripped off by a blogger. This afternoon, having had the chance to finally use Broadband, I decided to go look in on the blogs of all those who have commented on my posts recently, especially since I hadn’t been able to blog-crawl much of late. Now imagine my surprise when my first visit to a classmate’s blog (a classmate, mind you, WTF!) had me spot a line I had written in Sunset sometime back in October in her most recent post. It wasn’t ripped off exactly but my own: “I don’t know if it was our condition affecting our senses or whether winter had really decided one morning that it would visit us early” got changed to: “It is as if Winter woke up one morning and decided to visit us early this time” by her in a post she calls fiction. And she happens to have commented on that very post of mine.

I was much too angry to go through the rest of her blog and my net connection had to go off the very moment I was about to comment asking her what she was doing copying my work. Talk about timing. Isn’t it the funniest thing you’ve ever heard? I mean, I’m laughing about this now in an oddly ironic way and I suppose I should be complimented. But there is a copyright on all my work published in this blog and I will certainly not have people steal things from me, no matter who they are!

It is hardly fair on the writer, isn’t it? A person’s original creative endeavours should not be copied without mention. It’s nothing short of thievery. I’ll think up something (on my own, thank you, since I arrogantly believe that I can think for myself) and another person passes it off as her own, that too without even crediting me. Where is the justice in that? It is something only a petty common thief would do. And this would just be one case that has come to my notice.

I have asked the person concerned to come and have a look at this post. Hopefully, such an incident will not be repeated. There will be worse repercussions otherwise and this is no idle warning. No one steals my work, not even a line... no one.

Lull

Spring flowers had said their goodbyes long back. Their fragile petals had been withered by the harshness in the air. Now, all that was left was a barren expanse where dust gathered gleefully only to give way to frigidity at night. Stepping into this dustbowl, the sudden chill would freeze your steps instantly and awaken you with an electric jolt down your spine.

Merr would go there every night. Dressed sparsely, he would walk up the slope to reach his panoramic vantage point. Once there, the world would swivel and swirl before him to take him away from his grief. It was an idyllic setting, with the stars dancing in their heavenly niches, mocking the death in the lands below and far away from the numbing touch of the North wind that blew across it carrying the stench of more death in its wake.

He had been going there since he survived. Ever since the frolicking Fates decided to let him live with memories of his family’s demise. Ever since he found himself alive, while his wife had an iron rod pierce through her head, and his young children lost their teeth and their lives. He needed perspective to keep himself from driving rashly down the very slope that almost took his life, but didn’t, leaving him far worse than dead instead. And so, he religiously haunted his deserted domain night after night.

All alone, he would stand and watch the lights dim in the valley before him, as people would slow down with waning strength and sunlight and then retire to bed. He would watch the stars above him and wonder why he could still see them. He was never a believer and did not see smiling faces of his family look down beatifically upon him from above. He now had no hearth to return to. He only felt left behind. His mind reeked of the broken promise of always sticking to his folks. And he felt lonelier than ever.

He would not speak of the accident to any of the people down below. It felt to him as though memories were his and his alone, now that nothing else was left behind. People would come and go, offering kind words of sympathy but their condolences went over his head. He was the feather that is undisturbed by a breeze when it has been displaced and shaken by a storm. His nightly ritual of torture was meant only to cleanse himself of the guilt of being alive. Bathing himself in winter and all its cold darkness was his way of suspending time. It would be years before spring would arrive again.

Till that time when the warmth of sunlight would make its presence felt on his soul and thaw his frozen spirit, Merr would let the cold make him forget death and all that he once knew of life.

Pearly Tears

I started on this late last night and finished it before going to bed. Pen and ink, as usual. :)

This would be another view: from my desk.

Wakeful Melancholy

Date: 11.12.2008
Time: 7:50 p.m.

It is the season of deaths, the season in which a nip in the air only appears to be there, enough to give you a blocked nose, but then disappears by afternoon to leave you perspiring in the sun. And, it is the season of death.

It seems rather strange to look around and see leaves still lodged firmly on branches and remember those who have passed away. Knowing these people for as short a time as I did, yet feeling oddly affected is even weirder. The insomnia is back, although I’m not sure it is just that. Perhaps it is a seasonal thing… like death is, along with periods when you feel even more aloof than usual and thoroughly disinclined to talk.

What is it about nights that they are gloomy and alluring at the same time? I suppose it is the morbidity within me which is attracted to the ague. Just as the time when I watched fascinated while the chicken was casually beheaded while its wings and legs were still flapping, and how it got skinned and cut even more casually by the butcher, but after which I’ve decided to go off chicken, possibly permanently. I realised today how much it limits my choices in food, especially when eating out as part of a group, but well, it is one thing to be fascinated by the dissection of creatures and another to eat what you’ve dissected. Or watched being dissected. Whatever.

And then again, there are the deaths you hear about. Some don’t affect you at all, and others leave a slight numbness in your spine whenever you think of them, leaving you feeling a mixture of remorse, pity and apathy all at the same time. I wonder how people would have survived if they all had excellent memories. I should complain less about how I walk into a room and forget why I went there in the first place. It means I’m forgetting other things too. And some painful memories are best forgotten till I’ve grown enough to deal with them objectively.

The thing is an idle spirit can call up a dust storm even by sneezing too much. However, it needs something to do. And often, spending time deciding from a list of possible courses of action adds to the restlessness, for then, it is procrastination.

End: 8:04 p.m.

Bird

This is just something I made some minutes back, to celebrate the end of the end-semester exams. I had taken the stock picture sitting on top of the terrace water tank last year. :)

Fish Story

Don’t catch me
Don’t catch me
Don’t catch me
Don’t catch me!

Don’t cut me
Don’t cut me
Don’t cut me
Don’t cut me!

Don’t skin me
Don’t skin me
Don’t skin me
Don’t skin me!

Don’t eat me
Don’t eat me
Don’t eat me
Don’t eat me!

Damn you.
Just you wait now…
I’ll give you indigestion.