Generally Speaking

Its an awful shame I think. Everyone's favourite season of joy is around the corner and yet strangely I cant hear any bells ringing at all. Neither is the cash register at Walmart tinkling. There is just too much of gloom and worry in the air. Either people have already lost money or are on their way to losing some. Lots have lost jobs. That directly contributes to an increase in gambling and mental depression.

Personally I have been affected too. The good point about being a content writer is that you are your own boss. And the bad point is that you dont know where your next cheque is coming from. Thanks to the global recession that has simply permeated almost every industry, either on going projects have been shelved, or payment isnt turning up anytime soon. Very frustrating. Am too used to a creative outlet to stay quiet but the restlessness that is so a part of me right now, refuses to reflect and write poetry. Just wont and I cant force it.

On the home front, I have started to give my baby solid food and he looks even cuter with the mash all over his face. Of late he has figured out a way to make me laugh just when am about to tick him off for something. He puts his toungue out. That totally disarms me. And makes me laugh. So for him, its mission accomplished. I have also been able to keep a tab on my wild temper, which flares up usually without notice and in a nano second.

Am thinking of having some friends over for xmas. Will do the quietness in the air good. A really excited deep down. Its our first xmas, just the three of us together and am so waiting to put up the tree and do all the other chrismassy stuff. Our baby will have a great time playing around with all the decorations am sure. It would help, really help, if everything was happier around me. Its true what they say- you dont know what you have till its missing. Happiness, come back. Please.

Joy and Happiness

Iam a highly emotional person. The stupidest, silliest and smallest of things can bring heavy tear drops to my eyes. On the other hand, I also have a short temper. Things can irritate me so easily and so fast. I like everything spic and span, so even one misplaced spoon, or a dirty plate or untidiness can spell woe for the person concerned. So, even if I go all over the place in that one minute am fine for the next 100. Just boom and then calm. So it was with a lot of surprise that I found myself yelling, screaming and shouting on sunday. My face went red, I got seriously angry, my voice took on a very harsh tone, and one the whole I was highy unpleasant. After that one horrific episode, I sat down to cry. Cry because I was mentally exhausted, and above all very very ashamed of my behaviour. Every person has some unseen lines or limits that they wouldnt cross, and I was very upset with myself to acknowledge I had crossed mine bigtime. As I sat down, feeling even more weary in all ways, I realised what the big self help 'gurus' meant. Anger is just not worth it. At all.

I hate self help books. I hate the fact that some person suposedly found out something I didnt realise and wrote a book about it. So while class mates were reading some self help book or the other, I stayed away from all of them. They dont make me feel or be any better. I am capable of reading them, getting bored and then never applying any of it to practical life. Everybody's lessons and experiences are different. My major fuse episode left me feeling that anger isnt worth my time at all. Not only did I feel horrid but fighting the guilt was worse. It took me two days. Every time I tried to push it away, the memory just came back. I felt so crappy and mean. And I am not a mean person.

I happened to read something interesting in a magazine the same day. It talked about joy and happiness. Happiness depends on external elements like your job and family while joy depends on internal elements. I can say that I have honestly been trying to find bits of joy in everything around me. I need to stay calm, especially because with a baby around, its easy to lose your head and get frustrated easily. So now, if hubby spills tea on the counter, instead of raising my voice, I remind myself that everything is reversible and can be made alright. I reach out for the cloth instead.

Something out of the blue-

I love listening to the radio. Class 95 actually talks openly about issues in marriage ( like sex, children, working mothers) and that kind of makes me feel like the radio station is more of a friend than being just about music. Today, they were talking about an interesting blog site called www.lettersfromjohns.blogspot.com which has open confessions and blog entries from married men who visit hookers secretly. Best part is that the entries are all anonymous. Its been long since i wrote a decent poem. A poem to be called decent by me, has to be on a topic people dont usually write about and has to be good. I have high standards as far as 'good' is concerned, so inspite of the fact that I have written 100 plus poems till date, the ones I can actually show the world number not more than maybe 30?

So, I visited the site. More out of curiosity and also because I needed some inspiration. Poets always need to be inspired by events, people, something happening, or something unusual. Its been long since I got properly inspired by something or somebody else other than my kid. Barrack Obama may be inspiration for a lot of people, but not good enough for me. Anyways. The site has as they said on the radio- entries and confessions from men who go and pay for sex. Lots of bits about how their first time was, and more importantly WHY they do it. For some its the thrill. For others its because they dont get enough at home. For most others its because they just want the experience. Of all the entries I scanned through looking for inspiration, there was this one entry that caught my eye, and made me smile. It stood out, it had enough spice to be put down in a poem and I had never read anything like that before. You can read the whole entry on the blog if you want but heres the reason for why this guy goes to hookers, that I found simply interesting-

I grew up devoutly religious. My religion taught me that sex was sacred and not to be trifled with. Something about the forbidden fruits there that created an obsession. Since losing my faith, I discovered that many others in my faith and other similar authoritarian based faiths also were plagued by this same obsession. I was warned all the time about the evils of pornography and petting and fornication. Tsk. Gasoline to the fires of curiosity.

Now there's an interesting argument. Can too much of religion and moral teaching actually make a person swing the other way?

When you come across an idea for a poem, every poet wants to sit down, think it out and write it down. Easier said than done when you have a 5 month old baby trying to crawl, scream and eat all at the same time. So, my next mission was to put the baby to sleep as soon as possible.. Once I did that, here's the poem that was born-

MOTHER'S FAITH

Mother wouldn’t approve am sure,

Of this sexy, young vixen in bed with me,

She isn’t my wife or anybody I care about,

Just this good-looking hooker I happened to see.

Mother always said that sex was sacred,

Only to be had with a goody wife,

Boyish urges were cruelly chained,

To give me a good character in life.

Looking or thinking were out of bounds,

The forbidden fruits lay outside my door,

Forcibly shut to my eyes and mind,

In case I sinned some more.

My marriage was over before it began,

To that simple gentle dove,

The staunch teachings of my mother’s faith,

Ensured I didn’t know how to love.

I stuttered and went speechless,

Each time she came to give me a kiss,

My mother’s shrieks came to mind,

About how all affection was amiss.

I left that town to discover,

The emotions I never knew,

To become a student and learn,

Lessons in love few.

So why this hooker you ask,

Because she will do as you please,

Everytime I think of walking away,

Am down on bended knees,

I am too wasted to love again,

But she will never judge me,

In the morning before I hate myself,

She gets up to leave,

Its in those few hours of lust,

That I hear the chains break free,

Those awful mind shackling fetters,

That mother’s faith had put on me.

Am all smiles.. Tell me what you thought about the poem..

Gym weirdo of the day

Since I spend or atleast try to spend a max of 30 mins everyday at the gym, I have come across some very illuminating characters. I am very thrilled to say that the complex I live in has people from different races, communities and religions. When some of them turn up to work out, you can expect some humour to take place at the last place you thought you would find it- the humble gymnasium. Full of machines designed to help you discover muscles and bones ( am still looking for my funny bone !) that you didnt know existed and to make you or atleast help make you slim, trim and bicepey. Then why is it that I can never seem to focus on those fat burning agents than the people who work out? Well simply because people do weird things at the gym.

Today's hero is a balding 30 plus something , slim gentleman. Well, when I entered the gym, he was walking like a normal homosapien, on the treadmill. Nothing unusual about it. In ten minutes, he was doing a mild jog. Still nothing unusual. In fifteen minutes he was running. For his life and health. Literally. Still nothing unususal. AND THEN, as he picked up speed on the treadmill, he stretched out both his arms to both sides and then began to flap them hard. Like a bird. Worse he had this expression of absolute bliss on his face. Now picture that, isnt it funny?? While I was trying hard to control my giggles, these are few of the reasons as to his very ubnormal behaviour-

1) He mistook the poor treadmill to be a helicopter launch pad or an airport runaway.
2) He was trying to disprove the theory of gravity holding you down.
3) He had invisible wings?
4) He is an athlete who was inspired today by a bird.
5) Some other person told him about how he himself had risen up in the air a few centimetres after attempting the same act.
6) Our poor hero likes to do insane things in the hope that nobody else notices. Unfortunately I did.

Well. I laughed even harder once I came out of the gym. I never saw that gentleman after that. Am kinda worried that even if i did, I may laugh out loud again. Very rude on my part I know. But he holds the distinction of being the first gym weirdo on my blog !

Why do the best things in life come with a price??

I grumble. A lot. Grumbling is good. Great for letting out steam and even better when you want to seriously reflect on something. So you are being warned. This is a piece drenched in grumble.

Why do all the best things in life come with a price?? Dont believe me? Ok, love comes with pain. A child comes with labour pain. Babies come with poop, pee and sleepless nites. A husband comes with............ whatever you want to fill in the blank... ok lets move away from human beings. An ice cream comes with calories. Money comes with bills. Growing up comes with responsibilities. Even a car comes with maintenance issues. Neighbours come with unwanted habits. Pets come with their own attitudes. Even that gorgeous Valentino gown comes with a tag I can probably afford after I work at four jobs. Working at a day job comes with office competition, and working from home comes with a lot of tension as to where the next paycheck is going to come from. The list could go on and on..

This is one of those awful days for me. Awful because am thinking about my birthday cake. Heres a pic. Doesnt it look divine? check out the soft light cream, the juicy cherries and the yummy chocolate shavings. Can you blame me for grumbling about the calories it comes with and how hard I have been working at the gym, and how digging into that lovely piece will definetly send me on a high but is also going to hug my waistline? The guy who makes these pastries knows his cakes well. The right Black Forest sits lightly on your tastebuds, never too heavy and just rightly light. The more I type, the more am drifting away. You know what... what the heck... life is short, comfortably short. I am going to walk into that shop and buy one, maybe two and dig into it. ..... and after am done, theres always room to grumble about the weirdos around me who can hog for two and still look underfed.