Ayumi

[She] had a great emptiness inside her, like a desert at the edge of the earth. You could try watering it all you wanted, but everything would be sucked down to the bottom of the world, leaving no trace of moisture. No life could take root there. Not even birds would fly over it. What had created such a wasteland inside her, only she herself knew. No, maybe not even [she] knew the true cause. 

 As if to build a fence around the fatal emptiness inside her, she had to create the sunny person that she became. But if you peeled away the ornamental egos that she had built, there was only an abyss of nothingness and the intense thirst that came with it. Though she tried to forget it, the nothingness would visit her periodically—on a lonely rainy afternoon, or at dawn when she woke from a nightmare. What she needed at such times was to be held by someone, anyone . 

Quotes of the Day

“I took my time, running my fingers along the spines of books, stopping to pull a title from the shelf and inspect it. A sense of well-being flowed through me as I circled the ground floor. It was better than meditation or a new pair of shoes- or even chocolate. My life was a disaster, but there were still books. Lots and lots of books. A refuge. A solace. Each one offering the possibility of a new beginning.”


“Heartbreak is more common than happiness. No one wants to say that, but it's true. We're taught to believe not only that everyone deserves a happy ending, but also that if we try hard enough, we will get one. That's simply not the case. Happy endings, lifelong loves, are the products of both effort and luck. We can control them, to some extent, and though our feelings always seem to have a life of their own, we can at least be open to love.”


-- Jane Austen Ruined My Life, Beth Patillo

You are a milestone

"Here we are back to these alexandrine discussions I had to go through before when in my heart I had the simplest, commonest desires, such as telling her I loved her, taking her in my arms."

— Nausea, Jean-Paul Sartre

Constance

"She realised, with a secret thrill of horror, that the moment had at length come when she must look full in the face the lurking anguish of which none but herself knew the existence; and which, in the press of more immediate miseries, she had hitherto contrived to keep well in the background of her thoughts. Only, she had known dimly throughout, that face it she must, sooner or later; and now her hour had come.

There was some one, bound to her by every tie but the tie of words, who had let the days of her trouble go by and had made no sign; a fair-weather friend, who had fled before the storm."

— The Romance of A Shop, Amy Levy

Qotd

‘This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it.  Look, ... it is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals.—Will you have it?’

-- Anne  Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Bay At Midnight

I liked to have at least the illusion of control over what happened to the people I love. [He] said that’s why I wrote fiction: it gave me total control over every single character and every single thing that happened. He was probably right.

- Diane Chamberlain

Book Review: To Rise Again At A Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris

'Paul O'Rourke is a man made of contradictions: he loves the world, but doesn't know how to live in it. He's a Luddite addicted to his iPhone, a dentist with a nicotine habit, a rabid Red Sox fan devastated by their victories, and an atheist not quite willing to let go of God. 

Then someone begins to impersonate Paul online, and he watches in horror as a website, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account are created in his name. What begins as an outrageous violation of his privacy soon becomes something more soul-frightening: the possibility that the online "Paul" might be a better version of the real thing. As Paul's quest to learn why his identity has been stolen deepens, he is forced to confront his troubled past and his uncertain future in a life disturbingly split between the real and the virtual. 

At once laugh-out-loud funny about the absurdities of the modern world, and indelibly profound about the eternal questions of the meaning of life, love and truth, TO RISE AGAIN AT A DECENT HOUR is a deeply moving and constantly surprising tour de force"

5 out of 5 Star Rating.

Having received an Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) from Little, Brown and Company through the Goodreads First Reads program, I can tell you that it was love at first sight for me. Some say that this LAFS phenomenon is a thing of lust and infatuation, since it is technically based on appearances. In the case of To Rise Again At A Decent Hour, appearances definitely had a bearing on my experience: from first opening the package to carrying it around with me for reading on the commute to and from work, I can say that I almost wanted to hold it up for everyone to witness its beauty in all its glory. When sitting beside another commuter who was reading a physical book, I could not but help gloat smugly at the internal feeling that my book was way sexier than theirs.

But not just in appearances. In my first few lines in, I was totally baited and Joshua Ferris simply continued to reel me in thoroughly and completely. What a read!

Throughout reading, I found myself pausing every now and then simply to reflect on how well-written this book is. And it never ceased. I had to observe that this was a very intelligent book, and that the 'feel-good' (chick-lit and YA) reading I had been feasting on in recent months made this realization and contrast even more stark. Ferris' writing style simply shines - he writes so densely, tightly, compactly, and so thorough in mind-boggling detail of much of what we take for granted in life. With writing like this, it bodes well to take the time and pace yourself in reading and absorbing; trying to complete reading this in one continuous stretch may likely cause internal implosions and disillusionment. I can safely say that my appreciation is heightened by having rationed my reading for only those hours spent on my commute, so I found myself eagerly awaiting the chance to reopen to the page I had left off at and dive right back into the depth of Paul O'Roarke's life.

Written in first-person, Paul O'Roarke is the protagonist you simply cannot help but relate to. I felt such an uncanny awareness of recognition; I had to consider that I really felt I knew Paul. Maybe it was myself that I saw in him, or maybe a man I know and love well that I also saw in him, or perhaps a few other men, but yes definitely myself. Granted, he differs in so many ways from who I myself am, in gender, age, profession, background, religious-affiliation to name a few examples, but at the very root of what makes him human is that fundamental concept that resonates strongly with what makes me me. Paul is such a flawed character and yet, intelligent in his hopelessness. In his personal reconciliation with his own failings, he makes us ask and consider the same of our own selves. Or rather, that's what he did for me.

To believe is to doubt, because to doubt makes us ask, and in asking we come to understand. That's one of the underlying themes of To Rise Again At A Decent Hour. Paul's disillusionment with life, with his own self, is itself a story, and while it may lend an air of despair and desperation to giving an impression of a intensely sorrowful story, that's not the case. Ferris infuses so much humour into it, that you cannot but help chuckle. I had to moderate an unexpected bout of laughing out loud on the bus ride home one evening, only to still keep grinning to myself even pages after the episode that made me laugh. Through Paul I realized that there is so much that we constantly take for granted in daily life: his mere ability to sit down and observe the most mundane and futile of observations bears contrast to the big picture of his disenchantment and loss of purpose in life. Perhaps that is exactly what Ferris sets out to do, and which is why I cannot but sing the glory of his writing; the possibilities for further introspection through simply reading this book makes my mind do happy cartwheels.

This is a book I can read again and again, I will pick it up and find another passage that will make me pause, stare out the window and think and ruminate and say 'Yes! Eureka! Thank you!', (I cannot emphasize here how many times this man (Ferris via Paul) has made me sigh or sing hallelujah at the uncanny points he elaborates upon which I too have pondered, for example this phenomenon of society's dependency on technology) and then months again I can look at the same passage and compare it and see something new from a different perspective. There are sheer levels and a plethora of microthoughts garnishing the entire story -- love, faith, (dis)contentment, loneliness, identity.. --, and that is why, for me, this book most definitely is a Supercalifraglisticsexyalidocious read.


I am totally putting Ferris down as an author I need to read, and will be reading his previous and future novels! I encourage and recommend To Rise Again At A Decent Hour  to anyone and everyone. The book comes out in May 2014.

Reading

If there is anything that has always been a constant for me, it has always been reading. Even before writing, which is sort of obvious when you think of it, since of course we learn to read before we write.

Reading has always been a thoroughly personal experience for me. Other than simply a relaxing pastime, which definitely it is, the process of reading (fiction, specifically) has always meant so much more. Perhaps, because I've always sought ways of evading reality (having had a not very pleasant childhood), and being an innate escapist, it's only natural that reading became my portal.

In one aspect, we could view reading as the way one simply forgets reality and escapes to other worlds to live vicariously through the characters. Interestingly however, I've realized that somewhere along the way, a different aspect of reading developed. Rather than superimposing upon my reality the more appealing fictional world, somehow my process of reading became such that reading only emphasized, highlighted and enhanced my reality.

Maybe that's simply the process of growing up. When you're young you are expected, and encouraged, to use the imagination to develop new worlds and make-believe stories. Then somehow while growing up, you aren't. 'Grow up, already': get your head out of the clouds, stop daydreaming, get your feet on the ground, face reality. That's growing up. And it makes sense, because the process of growing up entails assuming more responsibility, and to do so you can't be always in the twilight zone of imagination.

Growing, 'becoming an adult' means that you have to come to terms with reality, with your life. You need to face it head on, and not engender futile daydreams that would detract from your execution of what actually needs done. I'm hardly lecturing here, if that's the tone it seems; these are lessons I especially have had to learn, and am constantly being reminded when I tend to go emo and trail away in my own Lalaland.

What I have discovered is that what I enjoy most about reading now is that ability for an author to be able to speak to me, heart to heart. The ability to relate is what ranks highest (or at least up there with some other variables) for me in reading. One line a character utters could make the entire book for me. Hence, the process of reading is entirely too personal for me.

Which brings me to the point of reviewing books. I find myself hard-pressed to be able to write book reviews for amazing books because it is difficult for me to extract myself out of what had just happened while reading. To accurately review a book would mean that I need to extricate the many tangles and knots of the story out of myself, or else only attempt to describe to others who could not possibly understand my entire life. Rather, my whole being - because for some reason referring to 'life' seems lacking in what I am trying to explain,  life seems to just mean the series of events occurring to make it up, almost distinct from me, or me-ness. I mean me, as a product of my life in conjunction with my cognitive and emotional self.  And to simply write a review without this is difficult, if not entirely impossible.

Sometimes I want others to experience what I had in reading a certain book, so I recommend it. But this is also a bit tentative and shy on my side since I can't expect that another person with their own 'me' would be able to appreciate what I did in the same way. It also occurs to me that this process of sharing something one truly likes and appreciates is another medium for us to understand or learn more about one another. We could open to the thought of what and why exactly did this person like it, and rather than just the literal context of the plot, what is it that makes a person receptive to a certain theme or concept or mood. I guess that is how we sort of gauge where another person is on a mental frequency. You send out vibrations and they hit that person and bounce back and you absorb the return frequency to learn that person's aura. (If that went over your head, think of a bat and their sonar echolocation. No kids, I said bat, not Batman. Focus.)

This morning I get an update from Goodreads that another person had finished reading a book and rated it 5 stars. Why am I telling you this? Because I recommended said book to that person and THEY RATED IT 5 STARS. I mean, that's awesome - they liked a book I LOVE.

This book is coming out as a movie. At first I  had huge, and I mean HUGE, misgivings about this news. Cmon, by now we all know 1. how absolutely screwed up books made into movies are, and also 2. how much I detest this happening. But apparently the trailer has been released and everyone is absolutely raving about how amazing the trailer is and how this movie will be absolutely great. And this is a "hey, wait" moment for me because it's not just anyone raving about the movie, it's like-minded book readers who really love the book just as I do, so it could be said that their comments have more credibility. At least, to me. I  have yet to see this trailer.

In case you were wondering, the book in particular is The Fault in Our Stars, written by John Green. It's a YA book, and yet there are so many wonderful things about it.  It isn't a long read at all, and I would love for everyone to read this before they watch the movie.

(Quote from The Fault in Our Stars)

Stephanie Meyer, A Word If I May

One of the sites I frequent often is Goodreads. You know the sites I mean: everyone has that handful of 'bookmarked' sites they always head to first when online. For some people it's Facebook, others Twitter, some Hotmail, Yahoo, and some Blogger. These are the ubiquitous examples, and now I introduce Goodreads.

Well, not literally 'introduce'. I know there are a few of my Blog readers who are already acquainted with Goodreads. Anyways, that's not exactly why I am writing.

When in my Idly Browsing About The Internet phase, I often just peruse book recommendations and book reviews - written by other members on Goodreads - and sometimes click around the odd Book Discussion forum topics.

NO SPOILERS. (as such)

This morning, I stumbled upon a discussion on the book The Host by Stephanie Meyer - which more people might be familiar with as it had been made into a movie. (Aside: if the name Stephanie Meyer rings a bell (for those who do not already know this), she was the author of the YA Twilight series. The Host  was her attempt to cater to an older audience, as such it is not technically a YA novel. This could be debatable.)

The discussion in particular centered around this question, "should there be a sequel made?" The response was highly varied, from absolute die-hard SM fans gushing a resounding yes, and an equal number of others saying no. Some, like myself, tendered a rather tentative response that fluctuated between a yes and no, conditional upon case-scenarios.

What mostly occurred to me, while scrolling through the pages of responses was that 99% of the responses missed out on something. Why does a sequel have to be defined as the continuation of a story inclusive of the same characters, following off the previous plot?

Specifically: I think a sequel would be a very good idea, if this sequel actually took in consideration the amazing context Meyer had already created. The substantive background that served as the stage upon which her characters lived was/is as unique a concept that it deserves living again.

The characters in The Host, however, have already lived out their story. The ending of both book and movie served that purpose, and furthering the story specific to the book would be a bit of prolonged torture to fans who might only become disillusioned and dissatisfied with the entire project.

Not having been a Twilight fan - book or movie - (I've never relished the conversion of books into movies; my own imagination seems to outdo that of movie-makers) I also hesitate to endorse a sequel being made solely with an intent to commercialize on Meyer's success, and to again make a literary endeavor more of a franchise. Cashing in on this rather than concentrating on the actual creative accomplishment of the author is what most readers should be wary of.

Again, I feel that the theme and context developed in The Host possesses lots of potential that could be and should be used and optimized. Carrying on with the same characters would be exploiting, not optimizing the theme. She created an entire new world and limiting her fictional universe to a mere handful of individuals localized in one place within such a huge world would be a...huge pity. Developing parallel stories would open up so much potential.

 If only she 1. somehow read this, 2. took this all in consideration and 3. actually listened to me, eh?

Fly

That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last and last. But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening.

The Truth About Forever - Sarah Dessen.

The Truth About Forever

It's all in the view. That's what I mean about forever, too. For any one of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. You never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count."

Sarah Dessen.

Queen of Dreams

Looking back, I could not point to one special time and say, There! That's what is amazing. We can change completely and not recognize it. We think terrible events have made us into stone. But love slips in like a chisel - and suddenly it is an ax, breaking us into pieces from the inside.”

(Rereading one of my favourites) Queen of Dreams, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Kindred Spirits

This is a post that should have been posted yesterday, simply to be strict on the date for it's aptness. However, the content itself does not need be restricted to this rule, as it exemplies itself not just on one day of a year, but in every moment of every day of the year, as you will soon come to understand.

From a very young age, I had always been a prolific reader, so much that my grandmother, when she came to stay with us, would often complain that the girl would go crazy, since reading so much apparently makes a person lose their mind. That, I realize may seem illogical on one hand, and on the other many of you who do know me well might be smirking and thinking, she was, afterall, correct.


And of course, by the third grade I was already squinting at the chalkboard despite sitting at the front row, and it became apparent that I was in need of corrective lenses since my eyesight had been impaired by my obsession with reading.

One of my earliest pieces of literature that had become so ingrained with who I was as I grew up was written by Lucy Laud Montgomery, a very Canadian writer, who was made popular by her character: Anne Shirley, best known in Anne of Green Gables.

Anne was a small red-haired child, an orphan, and one who had a way with approaching hardship and life in general. She was one helluva talkative and imaginative girl. (You see why I like her?) One of her "ideas" which gelled with me most strongly, even up till this moment in writing (well of course it must have, for I would not be writing of it otherwise) was her concept of "kindred spirits".

Kindred Spirits are two people that make a special connection by sharing a bond that has joined them by the means of an experience that has drawn them together on a higher level of consciousness. This connection can be from the same experience at the same time or two separate experiences similar in nature.

Having read that, I am certain a few of you, dear readers, feel some sort of lightbulb of awareness light up. Because of course, in writing this, I mean to emphasize on the beautiful phenomenon of kindred spiritship I share with you.

It happened to me a few weeks ago, actually, just sitting randomly and thinking (something I do often). And
as I let my mind linger about, it came upon the memory of "kindred spirits" and somehow suddenly I sat up a bit straighter, and felt happy.

For, of course, I realized, that after some time, I had managed to make some very special bonds with some very special people, and for whatever reason it was a revelation that shot a pure dose of "happy" into my very bloodstream.

The special thing is that these friendships happened instantaneously. Maybe the actual forged bond that now exists did not happen right away, no, but there was inexplicably something more and something that tickled the mind, and somehow the very soul, the first time I came across the other's spirit.

There are some friendships that are good friendships, but they are those which somehow just exist for the sake of convenience, and then you have those friendships...which almost feel less defined by the very name "friendship" because they seem to be so much more, even while only being friendship...sometimes you can talk and talk and talk about what makes it special, and never ever come close to being able to really do it justice.

Sometimes I feel that we, kindred spirits, exist in a realm beyond mortality, that our existence and bond coincides with that force that exists beyond causality itself. That somewhere up there, out there, above everything else, where the stars are so close but yet so far left behind, we have each been neighbours, cut out from the same section of material of life-force, so much that we've been one at one time, and our meeting here in this world is only a flicker of memory as we meet one another again. This is how I feel about love and soulmates, and it cannot be so far from this that even our kindred spirits are the same.



This post is dedicated to my kindred spirits. You know who you are.

Safe Haven

"She told him that of course she would marry him. She loved him, she’d said. He made her feel safe.
Safe. That was the word she used. Safe."

I'm reading Safe Haven. The latest Nicholas Sparks book that's been out in theatres. Of course, if it's made into a movie, I need to have read the book before I see the mauled version.

As always, Sparks has done an amazing job. Don't know what it is about his books - you can never deny the pure and deep love in them.

"She wasnt exactly sure when it happened. Or even when it started. All she knew for sure was that right here and now, she was falling hard and she could only pray that he was feeling the same way. "

And I really am into Safe Haven. About a woman who enters a marriage on the premise that her husband made her feel safe. And ends up running away from the marriage in fear - of his abuse, his shouting, his fists, his punches.

“Every couple needs to argue now and then. Just to prove that the relationship is strong enough to survive. Long-term relationships, the ones that matter, are all about weathering the peaks and the valleys.” 

I don't want to give away much more than that - don't worry, no spoilers....and anyway, I am not through with the book, but it's one of those amazing books that touch me very deeply. She lands up in a remote lazy town with absolutely nothing to call her own, no money, and having gone for days without food. She is living on the edge of a past filled with a lonesome childhood and memories of abuse, and fear. The edge upon which, looking forward, she finds true love.

“Love doesn't mean anything if you're not willing to make a commitment, and you have to think not only about what you want, but about what he wants. Not just now, but in the future.”

Book Review

Last night I finally finished a book I've had for quite some time (the fact that it got stolen when I was midway through it when I first bought it has something to do with the fact that I resumed reading it perhaps a year later).  The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet by Colleen McCullough.

You remember Mary right? Mary? Who?! Nah, of course you don't. Noone remembers Mary, the younger middle, and therefore unmemorable, sister of the Bennet sisters in the classic Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Everyone who remembers P&P knows Elizabeth. And anyone who is a female and read P&P at an impressionable age would have fallen in love with Darcy. I sure did.

But noone remembers Mary. Or, you might, just in the way you'd remember all the sisters enumerating one hand. But she was so indistinct a character that at the end of the day, you don't lose much by forgetting her.

That's the whole point of McCullough's tale. She turns the spotlight sideways, away from the classic love of Jane and Bingley, away from the intense chemistry between Elizabeth and Darcy, and suddenly we see Mary in HD.

You don't care really though, do you? I know. But I care. Because, like always, there are so many things about this book that I can relate to, and at the top of the list is the development of Mary Bennet.

As a child, in P&P she was the bookworm, nose stuck in books, acting like a little know-it-all brat, the one noone really liked, but tolerated simply because she was family. Her father detested her, because she wasn't the classic beauty of the two elder sisters, and she wasn't the baby of the family like the younger two sisters.

In The Independence of Mary Bennet, we are taken many many years down the road from when P&P was written. We are given a deep inner look into the actual workings of the marriages of Jane and Bingley, Elizabeth and Darcy - a more realistic look because, unlike the fairytale ambiguity of the love stories in the original P&P, we encounter relationship breakdowns, loves gone stale, and the effects of time upon them all. Which we can relate to because we simply walk in stride with these characters in parallel with our own lives.

Mary was left behind to take care of her miserable mother. Years and years shut up in one house, in a Victorian time when it wasn't seemly to be out and about when a woman was unmarried, and it was a duty to ..do one's duty. A duty that meant she was forgotten and had to take care of a parent who had no love for her, and expected everything back.

Mary is a woman who's spent all those years cooped up trying to educate herself, she read through all the books left in her father's library. A father who spent his money on building this library, his wife's clothes, and none on educating his daughters. So the story begins with the death of her mother, and suddenly she is free.

"But now that I am free, I have no wish to experience any of those things. All that I want is to be of use, to have a purpose. To have something to do that would make a difference."

Fiercely independent, a Miss-know-it-all, prim and proper in the pious way, a flower that has suddenly bloomed beautiful from a wacky looking geek everyone knew her as, yet oblivious of the attentions of enumerable suitors, feisty and equanimous at the same time, then ends up falling in love with her best friend - is it such a surprise that I wouldn't relate?

A Week

Yes, I know that little voice has been there consistently, poking, prodding and telling me what I already know - it's been a week since I've actually written or posted anything here. Reasons? Hmm, I'm not really sure. I've been more busy with working and tweaking coding and themes for a few other blogs. And while I sure do love writing, I love doing artistic things also, which is why when I get into the delight of experimenting, designing and making a blog/web look beautiful, I go into it full bodied (or mindedly?). If I spend my time idle, thinking to myself, that's when I get some stray thoughts to pen down, and lately I think I've spent any idle time doing that stuff, or just having some me-time (usually on the commute home).

I've finished that Lit Course at UM that I was taking just for fun and I miss it. Quite a number of us taking that course had developed a bond of sorts, and we started a post-class reading group on Goodreads, but it hasn't been the same, obviously.

As for reading, I've finished most of Cory Doctorow's novels - I'd have mentioned the book we read for the Lit Course, Little Brother. This book and his sequel Homeland are two books I strongly suggest to anyone who is looking for something to read. His writing isn't on par with great writers, but then again, the standard of writing and reading really has flat-lined with the breakout popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey. Anyways, the topics and themes Doctorow puts out are those that make you think and relate to. For most of us using the internet especially. I learnt how to make awesome cold-brew coffee.

On to books to movies, I watched The Host. As always, a book made into a movie will never be better than the book. And this is a book I have a strong attachment to, since I think I read it the moment it was hot off the printers and first put on the shelves, and after reading insisted to anyone who would listen or I knew read books, to read it. I think my only success thus far in that regards is with my favourite co-blogger reading it and falling in love with it just as I did. She watched the movie before I did also, and wrote a review about it which somehow is on par with my own feelings.

So, speaking about her, you will have known her quite well as Kiara, blogger at a-shared-thought.blogspot.com. For quite some time now, she`s been thinking about renaming herself with a more apt and current blogger name, because Kiara was from another phase of her life. (Albeit, a Ranbir Kapoor connected phase, but the direct RK Phase is one that can never get old :P)

So, I`m taking the opportunity to introduce you to her new look and new name: Wanderer. :)

If you want to know the reasons for this name, you will have to read the book, or watch the movie.

Back to the movie: It was okay, if not leaning onto the "good-ok" barrier. I say it's good, because it's from THAT book. But I don't say it's great, and perhaps I am afterall reluctant to say it IS good, because noone can know how much better it can be without reading and comparing it to the book. What I have to say is what I dislike most about a movie made from book is when the movie absolutely changes the plot. While The Host movie loses most of the rich layers of the book, it doesn't actually change, but rather leaves out a lot. The casting was weak in that Ian wasn't portrayed as per the book Ian (a rather dweeb faced and skinny rendition in the movie), and the depth and intensity of the love between the couples is definitely not developed as well as the book. And, after all a Stephanie Meyer story (although for a more mature audience vs. the Twilight teenager saga), it's the love that is the foundation that makes the other elements, sci-fi and otherwise, so much more inspiring. That's lost out in the movie. But I still say, watch.

The week has seen yet further development in terms of the weather; the grass is so amazingly, richly, vibrantly green at some instances it just takes my breathe away. The trees are still bare, with no buds as yet. But I know one day I will look out my window and it will take me by surprise and give me yet another reason to smile to myself.

You may recall me writing about that tendency wherein people usually find it easy to approach me, or think I'm one of those 'somehow familiar faces'. I'm approachable I guess; I have a ready smile for others - and well, a ready cut-eyed glare for the usual perverts :P. Anyways, so on my commutes home, there are the usual faces, those others who are sharing the same bus or train home from work daily. One of these is a somewhat older than me woman, who for quite some time, we'd end up sitting next to or near one another without a word. Me reading or minding my business, her doing her own thing. Anyways, some time ago, another woman had approached me asking which bus she needed to take to get to some other place, and I helped her out, and it turned out the other woman had given her a suggestion previously but wasn't sure, so she had come up while I was telling the lost woman where to go, and when we sent of the lost woman onto her bus, and still waiting for our own bus, we fell into the easy small talk of acquaintances. For a long time she thought, or so she told me, that I was from Goa. Yeah, I'm shrugging too: her reason (like always) was that she was from Goa so, yeah, that's why I must be also. But anyways, now I have a small-talk buddy. To be honest, I rather not, I like the anonymity to be able to think in my own world, or read, or write, without someone's little nose peeking into my bubble. But oh well.

And the final bit of news is, I'd like to also introduce another new blog to our family of blogs: Nerdyy - who either you know, or have seen his comments - has FINALLY started his own blog, and I'm totally excited because he's full of lotsa things to write about and I've been telling him to make his own blog for the longest time ever. So yes give it up everyone for the man at musikellishus.blogspot.com.

And with that all said, I'm back to work!

Left Hand of Darkness

"The unknown," said Faxe's soft voice in the forest, "the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action. If it were proven that there is no God there would be no religion. But also if it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion…Tell me, Genry, what is known? What is sure, predictable, inevitable—the one certain thing you know concerning your future, and mine?"

"That we shall die."

"Yes. There's really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer. … The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next."

Battered

"I may have survived, but I am broken," I remind him sadly.

"No, Sunny, you're just a bit battered. We both are. Or if we're broken, that's only when we're alone. But now we're together, baby! And together, we're both whole.”

― Olivia Lynde, Summer's Desire

Summer's Desire

“Much better now. And Sunny—there's no such thing as 'too much' when it comes to us. Too much mutual interest, or awareness, or desire, or too much damn love—there's no such thing."

"I love you beyond obsession," I murmur, terrified because it is too much.

"I love you to insanity," he replies, utterly solemn. "That's who I am, and that is who we are. I don't have any qualms about admitting it, and I don't have any regrets. Do you?”

― Olivia Lynde, Summer's Desire

Once Upon A Time