the house

i've accepted the position at the consulate starting april 1st which means that i need to do two things immediately:

1. learn german

2. get diplomatic license plates so i can avoid parking tickets

preferably not in that order.

to get over the general feeling of w..t..f from the recent non-travel, everyone has decided to chip in. R's mom who is in town is over as is the extended family from nj and old high school, college friends brigade.

the home is a zoo of activities, people and dishes that need cleaning and ordering. clothes, shoes, books, paperwork, everything needs attention and nothing substantial is getting done.

the puppy is enjoying the better weather.. even though it isn't quite as nice as we hope all the time. he seems to have fit in with the lifestyle... staying indoors for a few hours and then a run with M in the evenings. how wonderful.. soon i shall be cookie-cutting type.

M has also finally decided on the uber cool project of taking her BAR exam this july which means that this insanity will be short-lived. *hopefully.

running watercolor on paper

a few hundred miles towards the water and you find yourself in the middle of wreckage and wretchedness.. i am here now trying to keep up my spirit

no posts for a bit and definitely no posts about this.

i heart

it's been a weird and wired feeling mixed with un-successful thoughts of life plans.

in the midst of this self debate, auntyR sent an SOS from haiti. much needed step away -a little break from virtual land postings.

i am hurrying out of nyc.

across the river

it's 11.45pm on wednesday and i'm back at home already after trekking to the city for a meeting and then taking three separate trains to new jersey (all three trains miraculously fell apart just before departure at penn station.) all this for cake.

the uncle, who usually does not partake in late night activities, actually volunteered to drop me back to brooklyn... past his bedtime. it is unreal.

what is further unreal is that i am not the circus act in our family dinners. rewind to various previous birthdays, it was me pulling out a rabbit from my hat, tricks from my a-hole and general uselessness to keep the dinner table smiling, this time i am acknowledged as an adult. which however means that i do not qualify for my usual dollar bills when i hug the family. ah, you win some you loose some.

clean sweep

hanging out with Ms is like hanging out in 2002 bombay. we eat, we drink, we try to get high and generally make arses of ourselves. impromptu raves, cutting chai and smoke filled corner rooms filled with artiste wanna-be's...this time around it was without the monsoon rain that often accompanied us. i remained in the city, as if in bombay, skipping around cafes, galleries and pretending my regular not for profit life didn't exist.

Tj, Cd and Sj are a family of film and artsy folks that i met with Ms and loved. he lives on the other side of brooklyn, with beautiful houses and tree lined streets that mark the boundary between hood and suburbia. the home is straight out of tlc clean sweep's "before" photograph. rustom loved the house and my lazy potty self loved it too. rustom spent the evening exploring every little nookie and corner he could and then decided on peeing in the living room atop their dalai lama'd carpet. i spent most of it being "inspired"... by candle stands, vintage furniture, old shoes, wine bottles, picture frames, jewelry.. you name it they had it...a little appalling at first but the many little touches; it warmed my soul.

in the spirit of exploring my own artistic nature, i have spent this morning looking at websites and artwork. i have unfortunately now realized that most famous artists that i quite liked use this cop-out... which may be a good thing for me. my virtual shopping cart includes canvas, paints and an easel. it also includes a trip back to1999 when i thought i would be a painter and had a similar shopping cart in my room in bombay. mum donated the custom made french easel to a family friend just last year. she said i wasn't about to be artist while in law school. i believe she single handedly killed my dream. they were right, we can blame everything on mothers.

sad, i really could use those supplies now.

brooklyn is no new york

so as oscar sunday rolls around i ignored the tell tale warnings that i do not actually live in the city. i may officially be a part of new york city but that does not mean diddley squat. back in chelsea, we had time warner give us cable... granted it was the mega-deluxe-super-duper package that cost us a bomb, but it worked and worked well. here, i don't have a choice. imagine that, no choice in cable. i must go with optimum / cablevision and those idiots who work at the optimum headquarters are anything but professionals. my cable company informed me, by way of advertisements on tv, that abc (oscar channel for all sense and purposes) would not be available to me... starting, wait for it, noww! since i was obviously not spending my entire sunday watching television, i skipped the advertisement. my trusted crackberry saves me in times like this - nytimes sent me a text message imparting this deathly news at 6.55pm. and to think i was planning on cuddling down to some serious oscar business.

6.56pm: panic - there may be only red carpet and no actual oscars

7.00pm: Sh and i run out frantically to locate a digital antenna that would allow us to watch the oscars on free tv (you know regular non cable tv)

7.25pm: Sh runs in to radioshack to discover that all digital antenna's are sold out! what?!

7.40pm: Sh sprints to cvs to check whether they have one in stock. we find one with the help of the slowest cvs employee in the world... it takes all of Sh's patience to not speak his mind

7.55pm: we wait in line to pay... for forever

8.05pm: we have missed the opening ceremony but have the digital box

8.05pm to 9.00pm we struggle with the antenna, we struggle with the cable box, we end up watching WFTYDT (spanish red carpet rerun) while struggling with antenna (Ak helped and so did the vietnamese sandwiches to fill up time) only to realize that cablevision and abc agreed on a deal that allowed us to watch it all along. ugh serious fml.

i am writing all of this down for when i am slightly tempted to stay in brooklyn long term.. the answer dear girl is a big fat no.

now for some morning joe and hangover control medicine.

two five and three zero

my two girls are turning the big numbers this weekend and i am surprised, by the lack of birthday fever... not just at their end but also my own. i remember my own 25th two years ago and it was such a big deal.

in any case, i seem to have hit some kind of rut in my regular living. it is a full time job, getting out of bed and then going back in to it. i'm not entirely sure why, but the day is filled with activities, people and things to do... but beginning and ending the day - now that is a struggle.

still, i have realized that i cannot let this negativity rub off on everyone else. it may mean that i now have some kind of eating disorder because my rut is definitely coming out in binge eating. everything.

i ordered R a ridiculous lemon and buttercream cake from buttercup with birthday spelled the way we spell it... let me tell you, i ate that entire piece (see picture)... by myself.

the flowers are a nice touch by M, but it doesn't distract from the humungo piece of cake that is now blocking my arteries. full force.

we watched alice in wonderland and the colors were not as bright as the red i kept seeing inside me. what does this mean? am i one of those people now... with the strange body experience, there has to be a dsm diagnosis for this. F's 30th was no different, she was struggling with her own diagnosis .. her relationship. the boy is 3 years younger but we all know men are really.. well.. a lot younger than women. F said she was expecting an engagement ring by the end of the night. it didn't happen and now she is struggling with whether or not to stay in the relationship. commitment is an interesting place... you want it when you can't have it and when you have it you just don't know what to do with it. i wish things were easier, better and warmer and i wish, so bad, that i didn't like cake so much.

mid week hump

i am addicted to all things law and order.

most nights, i am watching svu in the background while hitting the computer. it is therapeutic and kind of settling to watch episode after episode of gruesome-ness.

i need so much help, it's distasteful!

let's not dwell on that though... today was one of those poster perfect days. the first after a biting cold stretch... it was clear and sunny, and quite pleasant. i tend to enjoy less than a week during the year where weather, mood, dress code and hair all cooperate... you can understand why. today, however, was one of those few precious days that everything truly was quite perfect. rustom had his first walk out and about at the river cafe, granted in the picture he isn't doing much walking but he got to it... eventually. and he played with the lovely flower girls...drank water from beautiful silver dog bowls while i brunched. if there could be a movie moment, today was a pretty ditty, music in the background and lovers skipping together. what a difference good weather can make.

i almost forgot the working brunch, the errands and the innumerable things to do that accumulate in my mind. i forgot the horrible mood swings i suffer from these day and the usual feelings of inadequacy... today, was simple and beautiful and i must not gush in case the bubble bursts!

scope

i am seriously proud of my commitment to getting back on track... it seems that my commitment to being a better me is partly inspiring my new puppy to be a better doggie he has taken it upon himself to wow me with his potty powers.

that's right.. two potty's on the wee-wee pad!

my love knows no bounds and in the spirit of general awesomeness, i shall be a better me and learn to do the right thing, on the right place.

my day has been filled with all the rights... i made my bed, i had breakfast, i loved the dog, i slept the right amount, i went for bikram yoga (this alone quantifies my day as morally good but check out all the other things i did to win brownie points!), i worked, i wished V happy birthday and then M and i went to a friend's art debut at the lincoln center. i even topped my day by cappuccino (not a cosmo) and molten chocolate sinful death in a bite at pasti's... in heels. repeat required, in heels on the famous cobbled stones of meatpacking, in march, when there is snow outside.

i am so incredibly excited to have achieved all this in the span of 8 to 10 hours that i must carry on the momentum in to tomorrow. i have also decided to extend this awesomeness to bedtime and sleep like a model girl and not as my usual cow self - this implies that i shall attempt at sexy look in bed. which by the way is more encouraging since M has a never ending supply of ho_nyness. [insert appropriate blush] bless her, she really has me spoiled. i can wear a potato sack to bed and she thinks it's hot. what is wrong with her? i guess the fact is (and i should accept it), no one out there could possibly be 1% attracted to me in my current state of affairs except for M. this statement raises some serious intellectual and questionable issues about M but i sure ain't going to look a gift horse in it's mouth.

on that lovely note, good night!