All Things Considered

This is my entry for the Indie Ink Writing Challenge. This is my first time and I feel a little nervous because the other writers are just awesome (for the lack of a better superlative). The challenge I received is at the bottom of the post. Here goes

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Her heart was beating faster with every step she took to her son's room. She had made that trip a million times and yet had never realized there were so many steps from the living room to his bedroom.

He was lying on his bed with a sullen look on his face.

Hi sweetie, how was school today?

Don't "how was school today" me!

She felt a little cheered up. At least it was not the silent treatment. She thought about asking about homework, but wisely decided not to.

I want to talk to you about something. I know I should have checked with you before doing anything. It's not like I am the only person who is affected by this.

Well duh!

She could see his mind churn furiously, searching for a better response.

I know, I know! I screwed up this time. But you should think about this from my perpective too. It's hard for a woman like me to get out there.

The minute she became a little defensive, the anger came back flushing into his hot cheeks.

No no, that is not a reason! If I trash the house tomorrow because I feel upset, would you consider that from MY perspective? Or the next time I fail an English class and tell you it's because I hate reading, would you let me off without bringing the roof down with your high pitched shrieks? So to answer your question, no, I refuse to consider anything from your perspective. If anything, you should have thought about me. I don't know how I am going to face my friends tomorrow. How about thinking about that for a change?

She blinked back her tears after the eloquent tirade. She agreed with everything he said. What was she thinking!

I am sorry.

She said the words she came to say and said it again.

I am sorry. I really am. I know this is a difficult transition for you. Your father left less than six months ago and I know it must feel awful to see your mother out on a date with your classmate's father. But it has been hard after your father left and it's been a while since anyone made me feel pretty. But obviously it is too soon and at any rate I should have talked to you before I did anything. I didn't mean for you to find out this way, when you spotted us at the restaurant yesterday. I will call him tonight and tell him that I can't see him again. You are the most important person in my life.

She felt a wave of relief washing over her entire being the minute the words were out. She had really struggled with alternating feelings of guilt and romance pulsing through her mind the entire time on the date. She wondered how her ex husband had managed to cheat on her for more than a year and claimed to have enjoyed it.

Oh you wanted to feel pretty! Is that why you bust out my Halo:Reach out of the XBox without saving my campaign and put in your stupid Biggest Loser Kinect game? You know I was playing that campaign with my friends on Live. How many times do I have to tell you that you do not just pop out a game from the Xbox without hitting save? Do you know how long it's going to take for me to get to where I was? Why couldn't you have used the Wii Fit instead?

She stared him, hearing but not comprehending what he was saying.

Did you even hear what I said?

Oh that, yeah whatever. I mean, don't make me be nice to his kid or anything. Or let me see anything that will make me throw up.

She looked at him trying to hold back a different kind of tears this time. He had been a Daddy's boy ever since he was a baby and this could not be as easy as he made it out to be. She remembered the look of surprise on his face when he had seen her yesterday and it had broken her heart into a million pieces. She knew that he had done a lot of soul searching, after all the light in his room had been on until after midnight yesterday. She was being let off easy only because he wanted to and she was grateful for that. Sometimes, wise men take refuge under video games.

So let's make it a rule. The XBox is off limits to you. Or if you want to use it, send me a text asking if it is ok. You know we should just move the big TV and the XBox into my room. The Wii does not do HD, so you can make do with my TV.

She gathered him, despite his protests and gave him a big hug and after a few seconds he hugged her back too. Sometimes, the best conversations happen when people don't say out loud exactly what they are thinking.

She skipped down the stairs, humming a tune. They were going to be alright.

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My prompt:

Dialogue between a parent and child over a serious mistake the parent has made.

My prompt was from Joelyn. Thank you for this prompt. It was hard to do dialogue only and I hope you don't mind the narratives I sneaked in between.

What's Up With This Blog?

I have been thinking a lot about this blog lately. I started this blog back in the days of yore, when I broke up with S. We all know where that ended, don't we? But even back then, I started a blog because I loved to write. I tell everyone I meet that when I grow up I want to write a book. Sadly this blog does not look like something that a writer owns. And apart from owning a Moleskin notebook and claiming ownership to S' Macbook Pro, I don't bear any semblance to a writer too. Any (imagined) creativity in me has dried up like a creek in Madras during summer.

That needs to change, pronto! And it begins with changes to my blog. I ashamed to read the past posts, where I talk about the Kinect. Jeez! And I have 2 unpublished posts that also talk about the Kinect. When I am not writing about the Kinect, it is Super Mario. Though I have been reading some wonderful books lately, there is no talk of them. This blatant reduction in the quality of my writing has not resulted in more quantity too. I feel sad that the first page of my blog has posts back from September. And look at the blogs on my blogroll, with the exception of one, all others have not been updated in months.

One of my favorite blogs in the whole wide web is widelawns. She has some extraordinary tales and she writes the regular stories in an extraordinary way too. If I could write half as well as she does, I would consider quitting my job and start writing a book. In her last post, she had talked about the Indie Ink Writing Challenge. Since I am the kind of person who jumps into things without thinking about anything, I registered for next week's challenge. And then I started reading the past challenges and reading the incredible writing by the amazing writers. I feel quite intimidated and honestly would not have signed up had I read more of the writing before. But I did sign up and I have decided to try my best. I have sent my prompt and got my challenge. I will post my response by Thursday.

Gentle readers, this means that I want to grow up. I like writing almost as much as I like reading. I want to take this business of writing more seriously. That is not say that I will only be writing about art and other such serious matters. I will still be writing silly stories, things that happen to me and rant about people I don't like. But I want to write more and not in 140 characters or less. It seems presumptuous to write a post saying I want to write more, when I can just go ahead and write more without making so much of an ado. But they say that if you want something bad enough, you need to tell the universe what you want to make things happen. And I am doing just that. Just hope the universe reads blogs.

How to Beat the Blues

The more I talk to people, the more I discover that very few people seem happy with their life. Every one gives me a different story, but at the end they all seem to mean the same thing. There is a serious case of the blues going around, we all would feel better without it. I figured I would write something that would give us all something to think about if not change lives entirely.

Let me begin with some lengthy disclaimers. I am not a psychiatrist and if you are hurting about something like abuse or loss of a dear one, you need something bigger and if possible to talk to a professional. This post is aimed at people who outwardly seem to have it all, but are not able to feel truly happy.

Again, this is not a "Look at me, I am sooo happee, nyah-nyah" post. I am human, I have bouts of depression too. I sometimes cry for no real reason and I am a pessimist. This post talks about some small things that have helped me overcome my bouts of self pity. And I hope this can help others too. If I sound patronizing, please be forgiving and know that that was not my intention.

1. Organize your living space
It is really surprising how something as insignificant as this and can cause such a great impact on how we feel. Start with just your desk for instance. First take inventory of all your possessions. You would be surprised at the number of things your find hidden in the corners. Have a trash bag handy to throw away everything you don't need. For the things that you do want to keep, make sure that you find a place for it. Don't lump all pens to the bottom drawer, find a pen stand so that the next time you need a pen you don't have to hunt. This is seriously the most important part of the process. Many times when we clean, we have the tendency to clean the surface and dump everything into an unseen closet. Take the time to find a place for it. So that the next time you clean, it's just returning things to their places.

And when you are done, it will feel good. Even people who don't find the act of cleaning to be therapeutic will find the after effect very satisfying. Every time we see a messy space, our mind cringes. For some it cringes really loudly (think Martha Stewart) and they are the kind of people who have a spotless home. But for everyone, I am sure have atleast a small negative reaction when we see the mess. If we get rid of this, this is one less time we feel bad on a daily basis. And it doesn't take that much time at all. A journey to a million stars begins with a tiny step. So take that step and you will realize that the stars are not so far off after all.

2. Have a To Do list
I have always believed in the power of the written word over the read word. You get an email about a bill that needs to be paid. Sure, you trust your memory and file it into your trusty mental file cabinet and decide to pay that bill when you get paid in a few days. Time rolls on and you get another email about the late fee that is now tacked onto your now delinquent account. Sound familiar?

Sometimes I think about all the things that need to be done and I feel overwhelmed that the chores will never end. But most of the tasks that need to be done require just a small amount of time. You just need to remember to do them. I find writing these down to be more effective than just thinking about getting them done. Also I find it therapeutic to cross items off the list. When I write things down in my planner, I try to make it so that each line item is something that can be accomplished in 15 minutes. For example, a year ago we decided to refinance our car loan. While writing that down, my to do did not say "Refinance car loan". It was
1) Call credit union to check eligibility
2) Collect required documents
3) Register car in Wisconsin
4) Make appointment with credit union to refinance.
Each of these are specific goals which take a definite amount of time. Even though it took a long time to register our car in Wisconsin, I was able to cross off 2 items in the process before that. This way I know that I am making progress in my plans and each small step is recognized. I know that the concept of a todo book or a planner does not appeal to everyone, but I really urge you to try it. And it doesn't have to be paper and pen, there are iPhone apps to do this. Or it could just be an unsent email in your drafts.

3. Get a hobby
I can see you rolling your eyes. I am sure every self help book out there talks about this. But trust me folks, it does really help. There are two parts to "get a hobby". First we need to find something that we want to do and more importantly we need to find sometime every week to actually do that. For this purpose, it helps if we pick something that involves going to a class. It seems too much of a commitment to set apart a few hours of the weekend every week for this, but after awhile you will start to appreciate the schedule. When it comes to choosing something, I am partial to learning a new language, because I find it fun. It can be anything - dancing, yoga, art, roller skating, swimming. The possibilities are endless. You need to pick something and commit to spending time on that for atleast a month. This is important because only after a period of time will you realize if that hobby is for you. For example, I joined a drawing class an year ago with a local artist. I visualized myself spending hours in front of an easel and producing magnificent works of art. But after 4 classes I realized that while I seemed to love the idea of drawing something beautiful, I didn't enjoy the actual drawing process. I found the process of perfecting strokes to be very tedious and resented the time spent on it. No harm done, I just stopped going to those classes and picked up swimming. And I cannot stress this enough, but once you find something you remotely like, start devoting a fixed chunk of time to that regularly. Something like Saturday mornings are for swimming.

Once you start spending more time on you activity you can see yourself getting better at it. And once you create that piece or art or the instant when you realize that you can string together complete sentences in that language is amazing to say the least. You don't have control over other parts of you life, but this tiny part that you control and nuture can give you the happiness that will spill over the other distasteful parts of it.

4. Eliminate/Reduce your time sink
Everyone has one of those. That thing you do mindlessly, all the while knowing that there are 100 other more useful things that you could be doing right now. For me it is playing Angry Birds while some sitcom rerun is running on TV. For S it is browsing through youtube videos. I am sure Facebook is a time sink for many. Make a conscious decision to cut that off for a week or if you are worried about quitting cold turkey, atleast impose a time restriction. The time you recover from this can be spent on the item I discussed above or the item I am going to discuss below

5. Meet new people
This is something I struggle with and trying my best to improve. As we become older, we become more set in our ways and I find that it is no longer easy to just go and talk to someone and make them my new best friend. We seem to subject friendships to higher standards and the fact that they are the same age as us doesn't count for so much anymore. But all this makes it more important to go out and meet new people. So many times my couch seems more comfortable and the TV seems to offer more familiar entertainment than going out to meet someone or invite someone we don't know very well for dinner. But we always build these things up in our head and make it seem like a super awkward fest where everyone ignores you. But that's not always the case. Most times the other person is also looking forward to meet people. I am not going to lie and say that it will be absolutely fantastic each time. But what do you lose? A few hours of your time maybe, and you get a story out of it too. :-) So join a book club, go to happy hour, go to a class, talk to the person sitting next to you in the airplane. Everything need not conclude in long lasting friendships.

6. Stop feeling sorry for yourself
Oh how we love doing this! In my mind I am the unluckiest girl on the planet and nothing good happens to me. But that's not true and it's not true for anyone. I am not asking you to beat yourself up for everything that happens, but give the universe a break and do not blame the stars for misfortunes. Just move on. There is nothing you can do to change the past. When it stops hurting so much, you can look back and see if you can learn some lessons from it.

This last step is easier said than done. I think that following the first five steps will help you with this one. You have a fancy to-do list with the half the items accomplished - there is no reason for you to feel sorry for yourself. It is also difficult to pity someone who is at a kick-ass party and is surrounded by people.

I am sorry for anyone who started reading, looking for an instant pick-me-up. I have said nothing new and this is something that any person on the road would tell you if you told them you were unhappy with your life. We have a tendency to ignore the obvious and use that as an excuse to not do anything. The cliche works, but only if you choose to do something about it. You can read about 1000 ways to improve your life, but it will not amount to anything if you don't do anything. So get off that chair now and go do something. Trust me, you will feel happier.

So We Meet Again

Let's fast forward through the apologies and reasons for not blogging. I have not been doing anything special and this time round, I don't feel particularly sorry too. :-) I do have about 5-6 drafts, waiting to be concluded and polished. I think I will make that my March resolution - to publish my drafts.

I have begun French lessons again. The current teacher switches completely to French during the lesson and expects me to answer all her questions in French too. It has been interesting to say the least. But her methods seem to be very effective. My previous tutors were French exchange students studying at UW. While they were nice and sincere, my current tutor is a teacher and it shows. I would really benefit from 4 hours of studying for every class, but sadly I just flip through her notes the day before her class.

There seems to be so much I want to do with my life lately that I don't seem to have the time for. These include, but are not limited to - completing Super Mario Galaxy 2, finishing Donkey Kong Country Returns, getting 3 stars on all levels in Angry Birds, reread Lord of the Rings, reread all Harry Potter books before the last movie, reread "A Room With a View", watch something from Netflix, steam vacuum the apartment, vacuum the car and so on. I don't know if I can ever get all this done. When I was young, I would dream of having a huge library filled with all my favorite books. Now I realize that even if I do have a huge collection of books, I would most likely never read any of them again. This realization made me more accepting of the Kindle. I have been reading a lot more since getting it. And the instance gratification of just buying another book when I finish one has been awesome. When I was really young and believed in genies and granting wishes, my wish was that whenever I finished a book, a new one should magically appear (new books then, meant changing 2 buses to get to Eashwari Lending Library in Gopalapuram). Kindle has made that wish come true and so we are uneasy friends now.

Speaking about books, the Borders in Madison is closing. I really feel upset about this. I realize that Borders drove out all the independent booksellers out, but I really liked Borders. The staff there actually read books and could always pick out any book I wanted without looking it up in the computer. They also had a staff picks section and I've discovered some gems that way. The Kindle felt very heavy in my bag when I walked into Borders one last time for their closing day sale. We didn't buy anything though, the checkout line was a mile long. Barnes and Noble will get all our book sales now.

Moving onto cheerier things, the weather here is positively unpleasant. We have this thaw-freeze cycle which coupled with fresh snow makes driving an absolute nightmare. I swapped my Sonata for S' Yaris today, since the man drives farther for work. The roads were not kind to the tiny car. I literally skated and skidded my way to work. I have endured this long winter and the last stretch is trying my patience. I can't wait for Spring and then glorious summer. I can't wait to do some more traveling. Definitely Door County and Upper Michigan again. Visiting New York in summer would also be nice, I am itching to watch the new Spiderman musical before they close it for good. If only the snow would melt and the sun would come out soon!

So what have you all been doing?

The One with the Xbox Kinect

We ordered the Xbox Console with Kinect yesterday. After writing the last post, I did a quick check on Amazon and found that it was sold out and I was told that was the case in other stores. I also read that Microsoft was asking people to order one this week if they wanted to get one for Christmas, I was really down on reading it and I was all set to start blaming S for it (I like to blame him for all my problems in life, isn't that what all wives do?) Then someone told me that Best Buy had got some and I checked the site and viola! I quickly ordered one and we picked it up yesterday.

And the verdict - WOW! It really is amazing. It does a good job of recognizing arm and leg movements and as far as voice commands go, it doesn't seem to have a problem my accent. We didn't buy any game for the Kinect and we just played with the Kinect Adventures game that it came with. The game is very light and is just intended to let people know what the Kinect can do. The games are in 3D and I did face a little problem with mapping co-ordinates, but it's not overly sensitive and I managed to get the hang of it soon. The surprising thing was, I worked up a sweat in the 45 mins I spent playing this game. I am yet to check out the other games on Kinect - I want to buy Dance Central and Joy Ride. I hope the games live upto their hype, because unless there are good games there is precious little that one can do with the console. It was bit of a gamble to buy this new piece of technology so soon (I usually never buy any first generation product) But since the Xbox 360 is something that we can use without the Kinect, I am not very worried. And at the rate at which Kinect seems to be flying off the shelves, I think we will have more games on it soon.

In other news, I got a new pair of glasses and I spent the day thinking that I looked like Tina Fey. Then last evening we were watching The Big Bang Theory and S said "Look, Leonard's glasses look so similar to your new ones" and my bubble burst. However a couple of people at work said my new glasses look really good though. I have a 90 day period to decide if I like the glasses, so we'll see. What I really want is to get Lasik done so that I can be done with glasses, contacts and prescription sunglasses forever! Wonder how much it costs.

A Serious Case of the Gimmes

Like I discussed at length in my previous post, sometimes when I want something, I want it really bad. A few years ago, it was the iPod (you can read about it here and here) Now, everyone knows that I am a music ignoramus. And I hardly never listen to music. Even when I am at the gym, I watch TV while working out. If there's ever a person who should not get a 30GB ipod, it's me. And I knew all that and yet I wanted it. I imagined myself listening to music all the time and filling my ipod with new age music. Cut to 2010, I have less than 3GB of music in my ipod. The newest album on it is Vettaiyadu Vilayadu. I use for 30 mins each night to listen to Crazy Mohan/S.VE Shekar dramas.

My newest craze is the Kinect. For the uninitiated, Kinect is a sort of add on for the XBox 360 which lets you play games without a controller. In their own words, you are the controller. So they have a camera to track your actions, so that in a dancing game, it tracks your dance moves and you can see it on the screen. I really think Microsoft is marketing it really well. When I see the Kinect ad where people are having fun dancing, driving imaginary cars with imaginary wheels, I want one too. Again like the ipod, I don't doubt that the Kinect is an awesome game platform. It's just that S and I are one of the laziest people to roam the earth. We like our couch and enjoy the time we spend sitting on it. The only games we play on the Wii are the ones that we can sit and play. When we feel the need to exercise, we haul our rear ends to the gym and we both believe that exercise games on the Wii or Kinect are not very effective. So buying the Kinect is not really a good move for us at all. I am sure we will be all excited and play with it for a week and then let it gather dust till someone visits us and wants to try it (that's what happened with the Wii Motion Plus!) However since both of us are moderately interested in regular video games, I am sure that we would enjoy playing games like Halo on the XBox. The XBox 360 costs $199 and with the Kinect bundle it costs $299. Despite everything I've written here I am sure that we will end up buying the Kinect bundle (if we decide to buy the Xbox 360 that is).

While I am very free with my money when it comes to day to day things, ("Let's buy the more expensive laundry detergent", "Let's go out to eat, I don't care that we went out for dinner yesterday", "Tip the waitress 30%, she was really good to us") I am usually wise (or so I think) when it comes to big purchases. I still use the same laptop that I used in grad school and I have no plans to replace it anytime soon - even after watching the numerous MacBook Air ads on TV. Our TVs at home are really old and despite my initial love of the iPad, I don't plan to buy one ever. I know that I am not the most careful with money (like my father likes to point out every time I tell him we went out for dinner for 2 days in a row) but since I don't spend on these big things, I used to think that it cancels out. But the Kinect seems to prove otherwise. Since S is worse than me, I am sure that we are never going to leave our children houses, wealth and money. However we both have a zest for life and a desire to live our life to the fullest, travel widely, do crazy things just because we want to and this kind of people are never expected to have money in the bank, are they? :-)

PS People don't give me grief about people who save money and yet manage to live a full life. A girl is allowed to have her delusions right?

Junoon

When you talk to people who know me really well, they will tell you that I can be a very stubborn person. When I was young I was really known for my "pidivadam" - I am not able to find a good English translation for that. I have been told that when I was 1 or 2, I would start crying in the middle of the night for no reason and would not stop crying till my aunt (who was 12 or 13 years old at that time) would dance for me. I have never displayed any propensity towards any form of dancing, and I think I just wanted to get what I wanted.

Growing up, I remember throwing tantrums for a lot of silly things. Once when I was about 10, Kwality Walls ice creams had just been introduced in India. I bought an ice cream on a stick which had 3 flavors, so that it looked a rainbow. I was really excited about the ice-cream and all through school I thought about eating that at home. When I came home, I noticed that my mother had forgotten to keep the ice-cream in the freezer and had kept in the regular portion of the fridge. So all the 3 flavors had melted and fused into one. Instead of realizing that this is spilled milk and asking for a new ice-cream, I threw a big tantrum about it and refused to talk to anyone or eat. I think my biggest grouse was that my mother had not admitted that she had kept it there by mistake and insisted that she didn't know the ice-cream would melt if kept in the refrigerator outside of the freezer. (Many people tell me I inherited the stubborn gene from my father, but I really think it's from my mother! :-)) I doubt if my parents or sister remember this (btw, her ice-cream was safe in the freezer for some reason, which made me angrier at that time), but I wonder why I didn't attempt to resolve the issue and asking my mother for a new icecream rather than be upset about the other one.

I think the reason is, I tend to plan a lot of things in my head and when things don't go exactly according to the plan I freak out since I don't have a Plan B all mapped out. And many times, my plans would go awry when my father was involved. My father does not remember things and almost never reaches any place in time. I remember telling him the PTA meeting at school is at 3pm when it would actually be at 4pm so that he would get there in time. And my father hates saying no to anything that my sister and I ask for. So he would promise us whatever we asked for. And he would always mean to follow through with the promise, but sometimes he would forget. Like once he promised to buy us bicycles. For a 10 year old, that's a huge deal. Me being me, expected to get the bicycle the day after he promised it. I did not get it. After waiting a couple of days, I took matters into my own hands and started my usual tantrum "I want to get the bicycle today!" and refused to talk to anyone and locked myself in my room. I remember my father coming up to try and talk to me, but I refused to relent. I did not get the cycle that day (coz those days, buying a cycle meant going to Parrys and it simply was not possible to do that in the evening). But that weekend we did go and get the Street Hawk cycle I wanted.

Though my father forgot a lot of things, he was far more understanding of my "Must do it NOW" attitude than my mother. She would just say "No" and go about her merry way. My father would really try to do or get what I wanted, but most of the things I wanted would involve going back in time to satisfy me. My sister threw tantrums too, but those would be doable, like she would ask for a huge bar of chocolate when we are out and though that was less from ideal, it was something that my parents could actually do. I know Karma will make sure when I have a kid, she/he would be just like me and ask for impossible things. I hope that I am able to have the same patience that my father had, towards my kids. (People who know my father personally would find it funny that I attribute a virtue like patience to him, but he has always been a different man when it came to his girls!)

I have read that girls subconsciously try to marry a man who is just like their father and I think I have completely succeeded in doing that. S could actually be my father's son. He has the same short fuse, the same generosity, the same attitude towards everything in life as my father. Sometimes when I talk to my mother about S, she is amazed at how much alike he is to my father. Like my father, he lacks in the "getting things done right-away" department. In the initial years of my relationship, we used to have a lot of arguments and fights about his lackadaisical attitude. I think my mother might have had the same arguments 25 years back with my father. We have now reached a implicit agreement, I try to add a buffer zone to my plans and he tries to actually do something rather than just wanting to do it at some point in time.

I guess there is no point to this post. It doesn't really go with the tone of my blog and seems more personal than my past posts and I might decide to pull this down later. But then like my sister says, it's just a few people who read my blog so I might just keep it. :-)

PS. The way I've written this post, my sister comes off as an angel. But believe me when I say I am the good one. :-) Her shenanigans will fill ten such posts. While I had just my father indulging me, she had my grandmother, aunt and uncle (who lived with us) twisted around her little finger.