Another Roadside Attraction...

I am in love with this guy! If I could, I would quote his every word!

*****

"Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.

Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.

Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.

There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?

Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself."

— Tom Robbins

*****

"People tend the take everything too seriously. Especially themselves. Yep. And that's probably what makes 'em scared and hurt so much of the time. Life is too serious to take that seriously."

— Tom Robbins

*****

"Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need."

— Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get the Blues)

*****

Perfume is a disguise. Since the middle ages, we have worn masks of fruit and flowers in order to conceal from ourselves the meaty essence of our humanity. We appreciate the sexual attractant of the rose, the ripeness of the orange, more than we honor our own ripe carnality.

Now today we want to perfume our cities, as well; to replace their stinging fumes of disturbed fossils' sleep with the scent of gardens and orchards. Yet, humans are not bees any more than they are blossoms. If we must pull an olfactory hood over our urban environment, let it be of a different nature.

I want to travel on a train that smells like snowflakes.

I want to sip in cafes that smell like comets.

Under the pressure of my step, I want the streets to emit the precise odor of a diamond necklace.

I want the newspapers I read to smell like the violins left in pawnshops by weeping hobos on Christmas Eve.

I want to carry luggage that reeks of the neurons in Einstein's brain.

I want a city's gases to smell like the golden belly hairs of the gods.

And when I gaze at a televised picture of the moon, I want to detect, from a distance of 239,000 miles, the aroma of fresh mozzarella."

— Tom Robbins (Wild Ducks Flying Backward)

*****

"Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on them arrow of the volcano. It's not the tobacco we're after but the fire. When we smoke, we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning."

— Tom Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker)

*****

"Our lives are not as limited as we think they are; the world is a wonderfully weird place; consensual reality is significantly flawed; no institution can be trusted, but love does work; all things are possible; and we all could be happy and fulfilled if we only had the guts to be truly free and the wisdom to shrink our egos and quit taking ourselves so damn seriously."

— Tom Robbins

*****

"If you lack the iron and the fuzz to take control of your own life, if you insist on leaving your fate to the gods, then the gods will repay your weakness by having a grin or two at your expense. Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked. The dull and prosaic will be granted adventures that will dice their central nervous systems like an onion, romantic dreamers will end up in the rope yard. You may protest that it is too much to ask of an uneducated fifteen-year-old girl that she defy her family, her society, her weighty cultural and religious heritage in order to pursue a dream that she doesn't really understand. Of course it is asking too much. The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought."

— Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume)

Rooted...

Her incapability to deal with more than one relationship at a time was something I never understood. It was like she could entertain only one person at a time, all her energies focussed only on that one person, irrespective of how it affected other relationships in her life. Her Biggest failure was perhaps this.


In the days I spent living with her, I realised, there were many lessons to be learnt. The biggest perhaps was knowing how to deal with others.


Her second failure, which made things much worse for her, was her further inability to prioritize relationships. She was never able to judge which were more important and which not. Should one jeopardize one's close relationships for the inferior ones? Yes, sometimes it was okay to let a distant friend be upset if it meant keeping the important ones happy. Sometimes, it was okay to overlook the important one's mistake, sometimes it was okay to take sides even if the close one was in the wrong.


It was only after studying her that I completely understood the difference between what "one should do" and what "one must do". Right was after all an abstract concept. In relationships, atleast. She taught me, in failing to understand herself, that "appropriate" was right.


It was sad how she went about life with a relationship blindfold, with a rigid view of what was right and wrong, no matter who got hurt in the end. And this was why she was so unhappy.

A Revelation

Dealing With Assange and the Secrets He Spilled

A good read about how Assange contacted news agencies, how the agencies went about the business of publishing the secrets and everything thereafter. 

Between These Pages...

"You’ve found me, you said, I don’t know why you keep looking."

I Skipped A Heartbeat...

Listen,

I never dreamed

I would learn to love you so.

You are as flawed

as my vision

As short tempered

as my breath.

Every time you say

you love me

I look for shelter.

But these matters are small.

Lying entranced

by your troubled life

within as without your arms

I am once again

Scholarly.

Studying a way

that is not mine.

Proof of evolution's

variegation.

You would choose

not to come back again,

you say.

Except perhaps

as rock or tree.

But listen, love. Though human,

that is what you are

already

to this student, absorbed.

Human tree and rock already,

to me.

--Alice Walker

Purple...

So there's this friend who insists on paying every time we go out for dinner or movies or whatever, and I have to literally fight with him for him to accept money***. And the other day, some 10 of us were sitting in an expensive cafe for some late night snacks. The bill came to a cool 7k, and like always, we started going through the bill to see who owed what. But this guy just went ahead and paid it all! The first thing that went through my mind was, "Is he mad?" and then second thing, "I would never marry this guy. He's so careless with his money! Who pays 7k just like that?" It's not that one can't spend money on one's friends, but those were all my friends! He didn't know anyone anyway! And paying for strangers?

I just found it funny how your perspectives change as you grow up. At one point, perhaps, I would have thought the gesture sweet. Now I think, stupid.

***I don't mind being pampered, but only if I am dating the guy. Otherwise, I can pay my own bills, thank you.

*****
I also think the few days/months before a guy gets married are the best times for him to openly flirt with other girls without being lynched. The to-be wife is busy preparing for the wedding, so she's not going to be bothered with what the guy does 24/7, and the guy? Well, everyone knows he's getting married in a few days, so well, you see, other girls are "safe" from him. He can flirt and hit on you and end it all with, "Hey I was just kidding, I am getting married to the love of my life in a few days after all!" And add an enthusiastic, "I can't wait for the day!" for extra safety. And also the girl can not complain about his flirtatious ways cause she'll be accused of "thinking too much" if she does. "He's a committed guy now." And so you have to put up with lingerie shopping with these soon-to-be-married guy friends and shop for Valentine's day for their sweet-to-be-wives :| Can anything be more torturous?

Toothpaste For Breakfast...

She had the potential to be a brilliant actress, but she could never be. For she was way too self-conscious to be somebody else in public. In private though, it was a whole different story. So many, so many wonderful characters stuffed inside one person. A siren today, a saint tomorrow. A selfish, unforgiving woman today, a loving caring mother tomorrow. Unlike an onion, the more you peeled, the more there was to her. Her ability to transform herself into someone totally contrasting, that too with the ease of a chameleon, was truly magical. She could be so much more, Austin thought. He never understood why she had let such talent go to waste.

*****

Never black or white. Never the villain and never quite the hero. Always grey. Always. 

****

Her goodness, Ray thought, was her undoing. She cursed herself often, but that's all she could do. Goodness was in her blood and try as she could, her tears would not wash it away. 

*****

She was crying today. Again. 

"Why can't he see how much I love him? Why can't he see it? Why does he behave in such a fashion! I don't understand Doris! I had just called to tell him about, you know, about this new job. And he yelled at me."

"Why don't you see? He wants someone else. Someone you are not. You're too simple for him." 

"What do you mean? What should I be then?"

"See, that's the problem. You don't understand him Nina. He wants a woman, not a child. You have to stop needing him first. Only then will he come to you."

"That's not possible. I can't not need him. I live only for him."

"I know", Doris said. 

*****

In the later years he was a different man. So completely different from the one she knew from many many moons ago, that it thoroughly confused her. Was the one she knew once-upon-a-time, the real him? Or the one that stood in front of her now? Maybe she never really knew him. Or perhaps this was his hidden side she thought, now emerged. But why, now?

Time loved a good laugh as much as God did. Perhaps they were buddies, she thought. Each playfully competing with the other to script the next funny tale. God, poor guy, always blamed and cursed, was infact quite predictable. You do good, you get good. You do bad, you get bad. Infact, God was an easy guy. You could bribe him with cows and sweets, and he would do your bidding. Time, impish, loved playing pranks. With Time, anything was possible.

What God couldn't do, Time did with much cleverness. 

And what wouldn't Time do? He could turn the King into the court Jester and as easily place the Jester in the king's throne. Only Time could reveal that the shiny crown was nothing but a rusted piece of scrap. 

Oh yes, Time was a funny guy. And that man who stood in front of her, he was a bad joke.