"I'm Shipping Up To Boston"

I'm watching The Departed on the telly right now. It's the 6th time I'm watching it in as many months. So friggin' baller!

*Ooh I love how the film poster looks on the black background of my blog. The film and I were meant to be.

** Just finished le film. Jeepers, I miss Boston like craaaazy! Can't wait to be back there in a few months :)

"Oh crap, I didn't make a friggin' wish! Dammit! Hello, you guys are supposed to *remind* me!"

...LOL ok, so I forgot to make a Birthday wish. Genius, I know. But after yesterday, I can't possibly think of much else that life could be offering me right now. I want to thank ALL of you for making my Birthday so very special!! I'm truly blessed to have friends and loved ones as awesome as you lot. THANK YOU for the calls, messages, cards, presents!, love...it really made me feel so spoiled :)

It was so lovely to be home this year for the b'day. It was a quiet day, which is something I really wanted. Just some time to reflect on the past year (which has been packed to the rafters with Change, Obama included ;)) and to be surrounded by the people I care most deeply about. Oh and there were some non-sappy incidents as well - for instance, I *FINALLY* WATCHED THE HANGOVER!!! Eeeee! And yes, I loved it. I literally fell off my seat, had an unstoppable bout of hiccuping and basically annoyed everyone with my incessant guffawing for the entire 99mins of film. [If you haven't seen it yet - what on earth are you waiting for?!] Anyway, all in all a great day! SADLY, though, I have no exciting Karaoke story to tell. Bummer, I know. My parents and I skipped going out to dinner and instead stayed at home and talked late into the night - so no "Stop right now thank you very much"-ing occurred.

However, the good news is that I'm going to the Creole place TOMORROW night for a friend's Birthday dinner!! And the people I'm going with are simply awesome (read as: as far from 'normalcy' as humanly possible) -- so I promise to have atleast some interesting stories to tell!

Alright if I'm to wow the patrons at Le Triomphe Dolphin (yes I'm as puzzled as you are as to why it's called that...crazy Mauritians) with my Baby Spice impressions, I'm going to need some sleep. So, bedtime it is. Warm bed, fluffy pillows, Pride & Prejudice -- Mama's coming :)

Zzzzzz,

S xxx

BLURG! I'm old!

...15hours away from being 22 (technically, because I was born at 12:13PM on 26/08/1987). Gosh, I'm suddenly feeling quite ancient (no offence to the above-22 readers of LFMACH). Two-and-two...Twenty Two. Like in Lily Allen's latest single. I'm supposed to be living life to the fullest right now, aren't I?!

Erm...yeah, about that...

It's a hard thing to do, hey? A part of us just knows (or, I suppose, assumes) that we are going to be up with the sun (well some of us, atleast - I definitely have a few friends who rise when the sun is in its third quarter...slackers) tomorrow. So how does one live as if today is all s/he has? Oh, to be as carefree as (a ridiculously awesome) Mika in "We Are Golden"...

You know what...I think I've just been inspired! (NO, smartass, I'm not about to whip off my clothes and prance about in my neon-bright bedroom) I think I'm going to do something that I've never done before. OK, I'm going to start off small. There's no way I'm telling him I love him. And I'm definitely not going to bash in the windshield of my mortal enemy's new BMW. No. (But thanks for the silent offers :P) What I am going to do is join the cornballs at my local Creole restaurant/Karaoke place (yes, these do exist. come visit me in Lusaka, if you don't believe it) tomorrow evening and (with full commitment) belt out a Spice Girls song in front of 60-odd irate customers :)

Hah, you're laughing now but wait till you find out that the talent scout of Interscope Records was in the audience and that I've been signed up for a multi-million dollar record contract/world tour. Then I know you'll be the first to ask - Lady Gaga* who?

Birthday dares, anyone?

Love and back aches,

S xxx

*Does anybody else think this woman is absolutely rubbish?

Ramadan Mubarak!

When the carnal soul is in need,
the spirit goes into ascension;
when the gate of the prison is broken,
the soul reaches the Beloved.

The heart has rent the curtain of darkness
and winged up to the sky;
the heart, being of the angels,
has again arrived.

Wash your hands and your mouth,
neither eat nor speak;
seek that speech and that morsel
which has come to the silent ones.

-- From Rumi's Ghazal No. 892 from the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi

Stay strong, stay true, and insha'Allah we will find ourselves.

Hiatus

...for reasons that my dreams are made of.

I promise to return with stories, music, love and maybe even a little magic.

And before I leave, a little something to make your summer just that much sweeter. Possibly one of the top 5 tunes of the year, it's a song that gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. Enjoy (and think of me everytime you play it on your computer/iPod :D)



Byebyebyeeee xxx

Happy Birthday, handsome.

And yes, still a fan.

On being a CHJ

Writer's block. Bad, ugly, scheming writer's block. The past few days have been awful. Not only have I not been able to string together a coherent piece of writing, to add salt to my proverbial injury, my verbal arguments make me sound like Daffy Duck's slightly-demented older cousin. BLURG!

Also, I think I'm turning into a "Chalta hai" jerk. If there was one thing I never thought I'd ever be - it was a Chalta Hai Jerk (CHJ). [Is that sentence even grammatically sound?] I've always cared, always had an opinion, and always cared very passionately about my opinions. And yet, for the last few days, I've been totally OK with ending fights *ahem* conversations on Kashmir, the Gates arrest, organised religion and Palestine with the most vile of all communication patterns: the shrug of the shoulders, followed by a subtle, complacent grimace and then the final flourish: "Arre forget it, na! Chalta hai..." Type A CHJ behaviour, right there. I even turned off "The Big Fight" this evening (in my defense, they were all yelling), watched a programme on The Home Network instead and learned how to re-decorate a dorm room so that it resembles the set of a Busta Rhymes rap video. OH GOD!

I find it mighty suspicious that this slow-but-steady transformation into my Hyde-esque CHJ coincides with Mama Language dumping my sorry ass. And, I believe I may have discovered the relationship between the two factors (when I win the Nobel prize for this achievement, you'll *want* to know me): the intensity of CHJ behaviour is inversely proportional to how much Mama Language loves you. Clearly, using this post as scientific evidence, I'm in the shitter.

At this point I'm getting desperate to find a cure, any cure (Note: to all Black Magic practitioners, please do NOT read this as an invitation to send me vials of hedgehog saliva, ground up aardvark toe nails or neon green unicorn eyelashes, thankyouverymuch). And, while I've tried a whole host of things (blasting an N.W.A. album included), nothing seems to be working. The cycle continues to spiral out of control. Oh, it's during these complacency-ridden spells that I wish I were back at Brown - amongst a whole host of self-proclaimed Anarchists (and yes, I realize that is oxymoronic...but a lot of college students' ideological parading is exactly that; oxymoronic...minus the oxy-) who would take me by the hand and educate me in the art of fighting the Man and his hegemonic social constructions. Hmm...maybe I'll get a mohawk.

Or, Plan B. I can just wait. Before I dye my hair Goose Bill Orange (I saw it in a Plascon catalogue. why I was looking through a Plascon catalogue is none of your business, dummy!) and get a piercing in my elbow, maybe I'll just give myself some time. Maybe Mama Language will see how much I miss her and how hard I'm trying to win back her love. Maybe I'll stop being a CHJ and actually end a conversation on a more constructive note. And maybe, just maybe you won't have to read psycho posts like this ever again.

And then there's always Plan C. Sometimes the status quo ain't so bad. If you can't fix it why try, right? Arre chod naa, yaar! Chalta...Hah, only kidding :)

My day in a quote

"Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men."

— Joseph Conrad