When the lights come on...

Last night, I was hanging out with a bunch of girlfriends at the bar. I had originally planned on spending the evening reading a book or maybe watching one of the DVD’s that have been vying for my attention for sometime now. I miss watching films as much as I did in the past. When I was living in New York, I would go to the movies at least two or three times a week, preferring to spend my evenings in a darkened theater, hunched low in the plush, soft, seat, loosing myself in the mesmerizing adventures of someone else. Forgetting my own reality for a moment, living someone elses instead.
An uneasiness stirs my soul, it a mixture of anxiety and excitement that titillates my senses. An unexplainable feeling, both intuitive and strong, I sense a change of pattern to occur in my humdrum universe in a monumental way. I don't how this will happen, but just like the movies, something fantasic and unpredictable will eventually come my way, knocking me out of my senses and culminating into an explosive finale.
I often get the feeling that I have been wasting my life for the last months. Uninspired, afraid, complaisant and apathetic, I have ignored time and again the burst of creative yearning that intoxicates my senses. I ache with the desire to create something extraordinary from the most mundane of things that encompass this life. One of the reasons I have been so incredibly unhappy and unsatisfied is because everywhere I look, I see a story that I can narrate through an image or a verse and time and again, I walk by, turning a blind eye to the magnificence of the ordinary.
One of the reasons why cinema fascinates me so is because often it is the reflection of the simplest moments in life told with great honest and sincerity. To me cinema is the greatest poetry ever created, a harmonious balance of visuals and verses created to shock, please and reflect the world. It is zenith of all art forms, finding its ultimate emancipation in a burst of light and color even in the dreariest place, making me believe in the existence of God. Only he, the mysterious, all powerful, all knowing almighty, has the power to bestow man with such unfathomable genius.
So M, A and I were chatting at the bar, discussing the days gone by, reveling the experiences of our past. We sat there listening to each others tales, our ears taunt from the effort of deciphering each word over the loud clang of the music, momentarily silent, drawing and deducting our own conclusions from each others experiences, extracting information and inspiration that we could possibly utilize to enrich our own lives. How similar our conversations and interactions are to those that we see in the movies! What plays on the screen is a chain on interactions that cluster into a tale. Films make us laugh and cry, they hold the power to influence our existence and sway our ideologies and beliefs. But, at the end of the day, no matter what the message maybe, whether it's blatant propaganda, a bitter sweet reflection or a string of absurdity, what one takes away with him after the curtains rise and the lights come on is personally unique. Much like our own interactions in the real world.

Friday Night Lights....

Last night was fun, after a really exhausting and challenging week at work I was finally ready to roll up my sleeves and seriously unwind. My quest for a perfectly enjoyable evening took me to Zenzi, of course. It’s that friendly neighborhood bar where everybody knows your name….well actually, they don’t but does it really matter anyways?
The place was bustling in its Friday night frenzy, S and I walked in there together. He was a tad bit earlier than I, in anticipation of my grand “coming”; he aimlessly walked the streets in order to avoid the painful awkwardness of being at a bar all alone on a Friday night. I often wonder why we as people always find it so incredibly painful to encounter our isolation in a crowd. What is this inexplicable need to be constantly seen heard and wanted in general public view?
S is my new friend, a good specimen of the human race, I think with time and effort we could embark upon a beautiful friendship. He is definitely my benchmark for future boyfriend material, after all who wouldn’t want to be with a cute, smart, funny, kind guy who would adore you. Yeah maybe I would be bored initially, the sweetness would be incredibly nauseating, but once my stomach has settled I think it would be a nice treat.
My friend M is dating this incredibly sweet guy for the last few weeks. Last night he mentioned within hearing distance that he was waiting for his “girlfriend” to arrive. So when does dating turn into a relationship? Is it after the fourth, fifth, tenth date? Is it a relationship if you see each other every day in a non-platonic manner and just assume you are with each other? Or is the “so what are we?” conversation absolutely essential to take the dating encounter into the next big “R” stage.
And really now, who gets to make that decision? As much as I like P it was rather presumptuous of him to assume that M and he are in relationship when there was really no conversation to that effect. Why does it always have to be the man who gets to make the call on a decision that equally affects both people? It’s not just India; this is a truly global masculine trend that unfailingly repeats itself in every single culture across the universe.
As a woman am I suppose to be happy and all accepting of the fact that the men which we associate with are willing to finally accept us as girlfriends, wife’s or whatever, therefore we must accept this decision unquestioningly?
When a woman wants to, or is finally ready to go from dating stage to a relationship or from a relationship to a marriage, more often than not the man gets completely freaked out and runs away. We as the docile, gentler sex are expected to accept the hash reality that some of the most monumental decisions in our lives aren’t really made by us at all.
The night progressed and so did the jolly good time. S and I ran into several people that we know including Butch Cassidy and his bitch that we met at the saloon a few days back. As the awkward small talk progressed, J had the audacity to ask me in rather upright manner if I came to Zenzi all the time? I think I even noticed him turn his nose up ever so slightly as he spoke those condescending words.
First of all, if he has seen me at Zenzi ALL the time, he is there just as often as I am, therefore the moral high ground that he stands on so damn proudly come crashing down with a big, huge, loud ugly THUD.
Even if I did go to Zenzi everyday it’s clearly none of his business. Oh wait but it is, because in this rather complicated world that we co-exist in, we choose to wear our so called liberal ideals on our sleeves so proudly, which of course only apply to us. Deep down inside we will never tolerate those same values exercised by others, especially our women. Imagine the horror if J does end up with a woman who is smarter than he is, (which wouldn’t be that hard to find) who can think for herself and the worse of all make her own decisions, including how often she wants to hang out at her favorite bar.

When biology takes over...

Hello, my non-existent readership and fans in the making. Since I have vowed to make more of an effort to write, here I am, two days after my extremely depressing post. Luck for me, I have been blessed with an steely sense of determination by the Almighty. If I ever run into him some day, by some freak accident, I will make sure to thank him for this one. With new found inspiration and divine intervention I have dived into work with renewed energy and wisdom. Personally, I don’t think I ever really lacked it, but now I make it super obvious to those around me.
My attitude went from quietly working and intermettiantly day-dreaming at my desk to-Look, look I am super excited about making a million budgets! Weeding through countless invoices and technical jargon is my new found passion! My personal favorite is going through ALL my old emails and reading them at least three times so that I absolutely capture every single, subtle nuance of it in my mind. I'm so dedicated about what I do that I have even started to contemplate everything including my life as an excel sheet. They wanted questions, consider their wish granted, I have way too many of them floating in my mind anyways, now everyone will know what kind of query is bothering me then and there and it won't be pleasant!
Figuring out things on your own is so overrated anyways!
Seriously though, I have been pretty busy with mountains of work and have been putting in the extra time and effort to smooth things over. This hasn’t stopped me from making some pretty stupid mistakes, but everyone is allowed some slack right? I just hope my boss notices my change of “attitude” and doesn’t fire me for my lack “enthusiasm” or “communication”. I could go on and on, but my fingers are worked to the bone and typing this is taking some serious effort. I just hope that my medical insurance covers Corporal Tunnel (sp?).
I have been rather cheerful since yesterday, for no particular reason. Considering the state of mind that I was in the previous day, this is simply wonderful. Nothing pleasantly out of the ordinary or remotely thrilling has happened that would make me go “yippee” on the inside. Life is chugging along in its routine fashion. There’s work, followed by the gym, followed by some quiet reading time, on the nights that I am home, or a drink or several drinks at Zenzi. There have been no wild, unpredictable, exciting, encounters. Kisses stolen in the dark alley have not tintilated my senses. Mind blowing sex with someone delicious hasn't occured either. In spite of the lack of obvious, visible excitement, I am pleasantly numb. Maybe I have finally learnt to let the simple pleasures in life intoxicate my senses and supply a healthy sense of emotional well-being.
I’m in a superb state of mind after my rigorous workout. Those pheromones or endorphins or whatever it is that is released from exercising does weird shit to the chemical composition of my brain and generally puts in a wonderful, wonderful place! For those few pleasant hours, gone are the feelings of grumpiness, isolation, trouble and melancholy. It’s most definitely better than sex. The only person that needs to be satisfied here is I and I am plenty capable of doing that. The second runner-up would most definitely be masturbation, which is in a league of its own. Sometimes I really wonder why women even bother with men? Practically speaking they serve very little purpose, which really when considered can be satisfied by other means with far greater satisfaction and competence. Maybe I can train myself to not ever need a man while still maintaining my heterosexuality. I would possibly be the only woman in the world to achieve this. Oh the glory and accolades that I would be showered with! The praise and adulation thrust upon me by all of womankind would be simply spectacular.