Currently Listening 9 By Damien Rice see related

i was having lunch with jumbojet this afternoon, and we were talking about spoilers and he mentioned laemo. and i said i haven't been to xanga for so long, i don't xanga anymore.

but then i got home, and it's been a not very good day. i'm trying to believe delayed gratification is good, so i haven't opened the seventh book yet. i decided to play ms. fix-it, even though that's beyond stupid because you can't fix what's not broken. and i'd  rather be fixing that because i don't know how to fix me yet.

since last i xanga'd, i lost a friend, i think. everything else is as was.

since last i xanga'd, i made a ton of money and bought a camera.

since last i xanga'd, i lost my phone, and bought a replacement too.

since last i xanga'd, i haven't felt anything real, because i just would rather not risk the disappointment of it going away.

this is not a happy post. i met a friend some days back who reads my restlessness as restlessness. others think it's rudeness. or lack of sincerity. he said, since everything i was has gone away, he's glad that whatever chased all that away hasn't taken away the restlessness. he said that atleast there's one thing left that's me. he says the new me is high on sociable, low on feeling. he asked me when was the last time i felt incredibly happy. or unbearably sad. i said i don't remember, but the truth is i'd just rather not say. i'd rather not face that i'm feeling extreme emotion, because it's not going to stay. and i've been told no one wants to know. everyone's really too busy to really hang on for a moment to watch emotion. so no one shows any. i miss emotion.

this evening, i went to a gallery to see a friend's work. i can still see it. i don't need to stop doing this. i feel like i'm writing on rose petals. it made me want to sit there. in that room. and just breathe. on my way home, i wanted to cry in the cab. but it was already raining.

the thing about cold is, it makes you appreciate the summer. every year, people scornfully ask, there's winter in Bombay? and i nod. right now, as i type this, i'm very close to shivering. and i could do with a nice hot tea. but then, it won't be cold anymore. i don't know if it's punishment of some sort. it's still maddeningly fun to slurp on a gola, or a kulfi, or even crushed ice in a glass. like i'm doing now. some of us, we're weird, and we look forward to the quick and momentarily debilitating brain-freeze that follows.

near my office are some of the best places to spend a winter evening at. one of them is magna bookstore. the thing about magna is hardly anyone knows about it, and of those who know about it, not many know where exactly it is. so there, two floors up an old building, is a big hall with stacked books. their collection is nothing out of the ordinary [except their art books - they seem to have an inordinately large number of those]. and there's the necessary copies of magna publications. but then, just outside the hall, is a closed verandah, with little canee chairs and tables, and the most beautiful stainglass i've seen in bombay. and it's fabulous to just sit there, at about 4 pm, in the winter sunlight, flipping through whatever book strikes your fancy [for me it's been right from an autobiography of Goya, a 1000 Movies You Must Watch Before You Die - rohan, one day i'll give that to you - People's Sexiest Men of 2006, and  book on Edie Sedgewick], and sip the best cold coffee in Bombay.