Spill: The Aftermath

Tell me your dreams,

Tell me about your life before me,

Share with me everything,

especially your friends.

Tell me about your family,

your favourite movie,

your addictions, your fears,

your biggest regrets.

Bare your soul and all that you are,

Give me the privilege of your trust,

your heart and mind.

And then let me trample it,

crush it all and throw it away.

So that it becomes indecipherable

to the next person who cares to try.

Everybody goes 'Shriek!!!'

I can't scream.

I'm not even trying to lace this with innuendo, it's just a fact.

I have absolutely no capacity for working up a good scream.

At the very most, after a particularly scary movie and a friend jumping out at me in a dark corridor, I managed to work up a yelp before proceeding to beat the crap out of him.

But over the last few weeks, I've been treated to a variety of very loud shrieks and screams (I don't even want to know what caused them!) which made it seem like they could be summoned at a moment's notice and without any great effort thrown into them.

Spider = Shriek, Startled by random person = Loud shriek, Passing whim = Loud Scream (yes indeed, there is a tad bit of a difference between a shriek and a scream)... this has been my recent experience with some part of the female population.

It seems like an absolutely feminine thing to be able to do. After all, which good old entertainment movie (Hollywood or Bollywood, take your pick) does not have at least one damsel in distress who can truly exercise her lungs for all she's worth?!

Then again, when I consider the hearing loss that I've probably suffered from all the shrieking and screaming, I consider that I'm doing my part for the environment by keeping the noise pollution levels waaaaay down.

Perhaps I'll keep my yelp after all.

S

Since you were expecting to find yourself mentioned here at some point, I thought, why not end your misery?

I'll admit I have a penchant for pessimism, therefore writing about you and things that annoy me in the same vein would be... easy. Then again, where would be the fun in that?

So we'll leave it at this; we've come a long way, you and I. And we're all the better for it.

You have my hugs and I have your diamonds... equal footing when you really think about it.

I'm glad we're us with the stupid humour and the sarcasm and the cuddles and the fact that we can cry unabashedly when we both needed to.

Oh yes,

I almost forgot to mention,

I really do love you.

Learning Curve(s)

If you keep chocolate in your room fridge instead of your kitchen fridge, you're kidding yourself that it's going to last more than an hour.

And it will come to bite you in the ass. Literally.

Kapwoosh Times

According to the handbook of my life, i.e. Calvin and Hobbes, there are times when words are simply inadequate to describe something that is above and beyond beauty, greatness, happiness etc...

In one of the strips, Calvin is looking at a beautiful summer's day and with nothing in his vocabulary to articulate just how amazing it is, he ends up with a word that goes a lot like 'Kapwoosh'.
It means nothing of course, but then again, it means everything!

My life for the last few months has been one long series of incredible moments.

So in the absence of any other way to explain it -

KAPWOOSH!!!!!

Newsflash!

Here's a little FYI moment for men - women always know when they're being felt up.

So when you're trying to do that casual brush of the hand 'accident' thing,

don't.

Siblings

I sat with you for talk about shoes

I sat with him for talks about boys

I sat with the other him, for words in dictionaries that he would not explain to me

and with all of you, I felt such love.

I drank Old Monk and Grey Goose,

with equal ease and equal grace,

our old table of memories and stylish tables of novelty,

they seemed the same in the company,

did you notice it?

I held hands with all of you,

fell asleep lying next to you,

I cried for love of you,

when you were long gone and went your own way.

When I close my eyes,

I remember the room we were in,

The air we shared,

the laughter ringing off the walls.

I talk to you,

I talk to them,

And your voices make me happy,

wherever I am.

Just smile and say 'No'

I used to be able to do it.

Just say 'NO'.

I've often berated other people for being pushovers and questioned them about why it was so difficult for them to stand up for themselves. I would tell them to just be polite, but firm and throw in a smile for good measure.

And then today I was one of them.

At an event whose description is really not relevant to this story, I met a boy from India.

Like me, he had come to London in September and like me, he is a student.

But that's about where the similarity ends.

This guy is obnoxious. He's chatty, but not really what you could call friendly. He smiles a lot, but there's a glimmer of someone that has the potential to be very, VERY annoying. And of course, the clincher - he has an opinion on everything, especially when he isn't asked for one.

So really, when he asked me for my number on the way back home I should have just said 'No' and left it at that.

Instead, I became one of the 'them' people.

I gave him my number.

Moreover, I gave him the right number.

When I got off the train, I was thinking of all the excuses I will have to make when he calls, and how I really must find out if I have a call -block facility on my phone.

I was mentally kicking myself for not thinking of a great excuse as to why I don't hand out my number.

The girl I was travelling with then says to me, 'You know, you should just smile and say No next time'.

The vicious circle of want

It's the whole Mars-Venus thing again... isn't it always?!

If men want something, they are able to express themselves pretty easily.

I want - therefore I should get.

Somehow the vast majority of women aren't able to articulate this particularly well.

I want, but I want you to want to do whatever the hell it is that is the subject of the argument. Doing something just because I want you to do it is just not good enough; it's the intent that matters. Do you want to do it, or are you doing it just because I want you to do it?

Besides the obvious difference in complexity of one sentence versus four, what on earth is wrong with the female mind?

Simplicity in articulation... that's what I want!

Way too much free time

He has a look on his face when he talks to her.

She twirls her hair and smiles a lot when he's around.

They spend waaaay too much time together.

'Just friends' don't act that way around each other.

There must be something going on.

No of course I'm not saying that they're going out! Don't be ridiculous!

But you know, she is single... and so is he.

Maybe they are, who knows?!

I'm not asking them, it's none of my business!

Her friend's brother's cousin's wife told my classmate's room-mate that he spent the night in her room.

He lent her a book, he never lends his books out.

She's taking a trip with him, a trip! We all know what that means!

He's gay? Well of course, he's gay! I knew it all along.

It was something about his mannerisms...

The way he spends all his time with her.

2 Down

I had decided a few years ago to live with as little regret as possible.

While it sounded all Hallmark-cardish and inspiring at the time, it was harder than I thought.

So as a compromise, I can hang on to about three things, but everything else has got to go.

Right now, the count is up to one; but my days are spent doing things that I may regret not doing later on, e.g. speed dating, or not doing things that I know I will regret for sure, e.g. drinking until 5 a.m.

I guess while I was running around filling up up my time doing as much as was humanly possible, I forgot about my first and greatest love - sleep.

A cousin once told me he doesn't like to waste too much of his time in bed because he can sleep when he's dead. I tried to follow his sage advice... and failed miserably.

I know the rationale - seize the day, the birds are chirping, the sun is shining (ish, as far as London is concerned), live while you're alive etc etc, and believe me, I try!

But it turns out that I'm just one of those people who loves to sleep.

So against my better judgement, I'm notching up my second regret... and taking a good long nap.

Clean Slate

The thing about new places; you can reinvent yourself.

You can go from quiet, shy, back of the class variety to being the gregarious, self -confident person that everyone wants to be friends with.

You can keep all your secrets, because honestly, who would know?

And can gloss over your past painful memories, by making new ones that you're happier to keep.

But here's the other thing about new places; everyone gets a shot at reinvention, even the assholes.