Shopping $ucKzz

I hate shopping. Not in a perfunctory way or on principle. I like buying new things or getting new things just as anybody else. It's not that I don't like spending money either. I just cannot stand spending a long time stuck on a shopping trip. I hate shopping with people who will take ages to choose what they want or to find that perfect thing, and I hate it when I cannot at once find something I need. Because then I'm like, okay, is it here? Nopes? Okay, I'm off. Seeyalatah.
I tend to pick and choose rather quickly instead of dithering over this or that. In case I can't decide between two things, I'll ask the person with me to quickly choose and instantly stick with their decision the moment it's out of their mouth.
This behavior is highly annoying for the people who have to spend their shopping time dragging me around.

However.
There are two places that I can be taken to and that I can spend an unidentifiable amount of time in.
The first: a bookshop (no surprises there).
The second: a lace store.

I only realized this second one the last time I was dragged off by my mother and sister to match cloth and get other odds and ends and all those other pretty essential non-essentials of daily life. We entered the shop and I was like wow...I haven't been here in a while. And then I leaned over each counter like that observant little child waiting on the side while its mother busily carries out transactions, and just drooled. Laces, ribbons, buttons, brooches, net, silk, crochet, colors - the burst of colors and rows and rows of shiny and dull and sparkly and deep and light and bright - I could spend all day there looking at and fingering each and every one. Threads and laces are among my favorite things in the world. Never mind that the tiny little rectangular stores (we went to several so my mom and sis could find the ones they needed) were tiny and crowded and I could occasionally feel some part of someone's anatomy brush against me (I can't believe I totally forgot to add that as a chief pet peeve of mine with this whole shopping business: the presence of other people, in every way possible), I was lost in the stacks and piles of threadbundles.

I also paused in my perusing once (only once, mind you) to lament the absence of a camera, because I needed to capture some of it to show here since I had already felt the urge to share this overwhelming experience on the bloggityblog. This is someone else's picture, but it's a close, slightly paindoo version of what I am talking about.





Currently re-reading: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Temptation, fish-style.

When you are part of a shoal of fish and suddenly this big, nasty net comes and catches you gill-side and you find yourself trapped against dozens of your flailing brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and other relatives and then pulled out and slapped unceremoniously onto a hard surface while you desperately try to breathe...
I mean, that's not really your fault. You were just swimming along, minding your own business and hanging out with your numerous shoal-relatives when that net comes out of nowhere and hauls you in. Isn't that so?

But when you are a lone fish and you see a dangling, tantalizing nibble that appears to be just hanging around in the water in front of you and despite the tingling of some natural instinct passed down from your fishy forefathers, you decide to wrap your mouth around it and - floooshhh - you didn't notice the line attached to it and the hook may or may not be embedded through your lip and you're pulled up and tossed into a bucket and left to flounder until you are dead, wondering dimly why you didn't listen to your parents or pay more attention in school.

Really, I wonder, how often do you be that lone fish that gives in to temptation, and then have no one else to blame but yourself?

"Please pass the panic."

Various authors in their various books use various descriptions for a character who is panicking. They may say "he felt as if something large and wriggly was trying to force its way out of his stomach", or "she felt the blood rush to her head and there was a ringing in her ears in tune to her pounding heartbeat." The truth is, I have never felt like something large and wriggly was trying to force its way out of my stomach and I feel ... deprived. Like I have been cheated out of a great experience. I mean, yesterday's session of panic was SO wasted. Jeez.

The blood-rushing and the ear-ringing and the unsteady harsh breathing and the totally suddenly dry mouth (eww), I get that. It happens. I'd describe the blood-rushing more as it rushing out of my head rather than towards my brain, because it feels like a full-on downward trickling of blood. I wonder, when you have a moment of panic, why is it just for a moment? How long can someone be in that total-frantic-going-crazy-light-headed-blood-rush-panic mode before they have a fit or burst into tears or both?

P.S - When will I ever get half as much patience as my mother has?


Currently re-reading: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Watched: Kungfu Panda

So many thingzez to talk about!

Firstly, our daily dose of kitty stalking:

Unfortunately, they do not belong to me. A cat gave birth to kittens in my backyard, and they live there in some hidden corner. Since my room is at the back of the house, I get to witness them being ado'able wittle kitty cats (and secretly record their finest moments using my camera). My parents are usually not too pleased with stray cats having the run of our place, but I've noticed they never really try hard enough to get rid of them, so you see, I bet they have got soft spots for them too =p Big old softie-hearted parents, yeah!

Also, I baked:
(Muffins. Shame on you for thinking of kittens)

Sooo many chocolate chips *om nom nom*

Close up fail.

I've realized that although I've had this blog for years, I was never concerned about actual readers (plural yeah, didn't think anyone would actually be reading this!). But for a month or so now absolute STRANGERS are visiting and leaving comments (he-he, just kidding, I'm actually flattered by the attention). So it seems I will have to make an About page or something, because I follow a lot of blogs now and it's a thing apparently. I can imagine people visiting here and then going like..but who the heck is she?! What does she do? (or even people who will read this sentence and say Oh I just figured out this is a girl's blog). Because my blog has never followed any chronological events in my life, and I have never really said anything about myself at all in posts, I guess I'll have to divulge a tiny bit of personal information in the form of an 'about' page. The truth is, for four years, people did occasionally look in on me here and leave a comment, but I always considered this space to be for me...more than for others to read. I've changed a bit regarding that recently when I finally started discovering blogging communities and liking the feel of the atmosphere where people care about other people's writing and lives without actually knowing them. And I stopped being a nameless reader to all these amazing blogs I followed quite consistently and actually started leaving comments on them. Let's see if I ever get around to wanting to attract more readers to stick around =p.

I've noticed how open people are about their lives on their blogs. That is something I have never been able to do. I'm not sure I want to, but sometimes I have felt it would be liberating to talk openly of people and things and events and share things with bloggers who can tell you they understand. Going through the archives here, you would find lots of random pieces of abstract writing, some poems, and the occasional entry that was actually written in the first person and shared something about myself. When talking about something personal, or that holds a lot of emotional weight, I tend to slip into this writing style where I use metaphors to let it all out. After all, this is all just exactly what my paper journal would have looked like for the past few years if I had been writing it out instead of typing it on an internet page. I wonder, is it allowed in blogger-land to treat your blog like a journal with casual indirect spouts of wordiness and the virtual equivalent of doodles?

Anyway, yesterday I had a conversation with a friend, the type of conversation I have not had with anyone for a long time because I've been keeping a lot to myself lately and staying home mostly with family. It started off quite randomly and quickly became this serious discussion regarding changes in the past couple of years, and new things and the future. Without actually going into personal details of things we've both been through and experienced, we had a general talk about good and bad changes in ourselves, and I ended up talking a bit too much of my 'dark' side. But my friend had positive and supportive things to say to me which made me feel so much better about myself. I let on about how I needed time to go over things and kind of decide how to steer my life from this point. All the negativity I was spouting obviously made my friend say that I was in a dark place and perhaps over-thinking stuff; the truth is, I was in a dark place for a long time, but I feel now I am out of it and on the path to healing. I do have a lot of thinking to do to help keep my head above the surface so I don't sink back into the misery-abyss. But for the most part, I feel the worst is over, and no matter how much I dread the winter that's coming, things will actually be good *ignoring the impending daily loadshedding of gas and heater-less bum-freezing situations*

P.S. -  WHEN, WHEN WILL I BE ABLE TO HOLD IN MY HANDS AN ORIGINAL COPY OF THE FOURTH ERAGON BOOK INHERITANCE, JUST NEWLY RELEASED? GAAAHHHHHHH

Currently re-reading:  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Watched: 3 episodes of How I Met Your Mother

Bipolar

Can it possibly not be frustrating in any way when whatever you do just keeps MESSING UP? I mean, who cares about your good intentions. Who cares about the actual point you try to make that is in your head when no one else can see it? Because you are utterly unable to get it across. You just simply FAIL at saying what you mean to say. If you shut up, you're still wrong. If you try to talk, you're still wrong. Can someone please tell me the formula that will ensure at least some of the time things can go smoothly and not get screwed? Just sometimes? Please?
I've been sick all day, and extremely restless, with that distraction-irritable thing in my head that keeps ticking the way a clock does when you keep hearing it so loudly when you don't want to at all. But that was for me. Mine. I exuded positivity all day, as much as I could, without letting the nausea cloud every sense of mine. But still, either way, I will mess up. I cannot stay silent, I cannot talk, I cannot laugh, I cannot cry. I cannot cease to exist. I can spout crap or I can shroud myself in cheeriness; the moment I let someone in a little bit, I lose it. Completely. Have I lost it right now? Yes. I cannot take the presence of a hundred people. Two hundred. Fifty. Ten. I cannot. I cannot bear the constant noise, the background clamor, the constant nudging and poking and the dependence attached to a singular attention-begging object. I'd like to stay quiet. I'd like everyone to be quiet. I can't take it when there is just so much NOISE.
I hadn't realized this would happen, hadn't known that is how my self would react to certain stimuli. I've been keeping myself sheltered and for good reason. How do you explain that to people who know nothing but making noise? I owe you nothing. Please leave. Stop making noise.
On the other hand, when my heart and mind are in harmony, I can believe in dreams, because I know why and I know how and everything is beautiful and possible. But that is private and not for you to know. Who let you in?
I intended to give strength, and all I did was mess up. Stay silent? Is that the way now? And of the restlessness? There is no cure. 24 hours a day do not fill up the gaping holes; I wish the days were longer because I have much more to cram into them, only if I could. I would fill those holes if I could. But you, you are not welcome here. We...we are enough. More than enough.
Us.

Stalking kittens, and meaty-cheesy-pasta cravings.

I'M GONNA SHOW YOU MY BACK AND NOTHING ELSE

I'M NOT GONNA TURN AROUNDDDDDD NANANANANA

HEY, WHERE'S THAT TAPPING NOISE COMING FROM?

OH, IT'S JUST YOUUU. ANNOYING WINDOW CREEPER.

I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU. OH LOOK, SOMETHING TO EAT??!!

OH HERE'S THAT FEATHER I WAS PLAYING WITH BEFORE.

I'M JUST GONNA SLINK AWAY NOW BECAUSE YOU WON'T STOP STALKING ME WITH YOUR SILLY CAMERA!

Sigh. Cats. I love.
I was going to do NaNoWriMo for the first time this year...but then I didn't. Partially 'coz of me being in lazy-central and partially not having the patience that I used to have when I would sit down and get something done. And by done, I mean done.
I'm going out shopping with my mama soooon.
Lasagne, please?

P.S. - I like how the Kitchen Confidence Samosa box of 24 has two separate plastic bags inside of 12 samosas each. Just saying.

Currently re-reading: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

An unusually long post.

Being someone who finds it quite difficult for the most part to vocally express their thoughts, it becomes very frustrating when your written medium isn’t supporting your brain either. It causes large gaps between the times you actually do print out all those thoughts and ideas and feelings, and sometimes becomes a bad habit, which is funny because you have experienced the opposite, too, when too much of the verbal/written junk is clogging the pores of the atmosphere and is therefore unwanted. If that makes sense.

I was looking back through older entries and realized that the blank scary place I talked about in one of them as coming up in two months? Well, yeah, I’m right there now two months later, existing in this big, scary, blank place. There are many, many things that I can use to fill up my days, for myself and for others, and yet, there are those nagging thoughts that will just not go away. I don’t need lectures on kindness and consideration; I know how the tiniest things can have all sorts of big and small impacts, sometimes short-lived and sometimes far reaching. I know I have screwed up multiple times and I know exactly what mistakes I made.  Sometimes I set about to justify my actions and words, sometimes I knew better and just kept quiet, because that was how I felt I needed to deal with the situation on my own part. 

It has just come to this point where there are certain long moments, many of them, where I go into a state of anxiety and sometimes full blown panic, because I just can’t deal with all of it. I feel stuck between the past and the future and am unable to decide what exactly I need to do to get out of it. How to fix things, if things can be fixed, and how to proceed if there is nothing that can be done about what has happened and is now just done. I will begin to despise my own self, because I can almost see the trails leading out from me to far away consequences, and I feel powerless now to do anything about it, to prevent the inevitable impact of my actions and of my very existence. It’s like a timer constantly ticking in my head, constantly going off and then being reset. I do not know how to explain that I cannot do this, I cannot sit and watch everything crumble like I made it all crumble before. I hurt enough last time when I screwed up, and I don’t want to dive into a new place of pain and guilt and misery. I don’t know how to explain this. 

I am usually good at coating myself in impermeable material that prevents shocks and most other things to just roll off of me mostly, and can buffer my brain into layers to trick it into missing thoughts that I don’t want to be thought about. Lately, this tactic has become a survival technique, because two months of constantly coating and then breaking down the impermeable layers that I painted on myself caused a lot of wear and tear. It is hard now to feel myself for most of the time. I no longer exist in the safe haven of trust and faith and security. I have lost faith in immeasurable quantities. Attempts to try to cement it all together again have resulted in disastrous miscommunication and the situation being worse off than it all was to begin with. Indifference will not help. It uses so much energy to do that that I can’t tire myself out like that anymore. Don’t want more wear and tear.

I am searching for a solution, and for the right words to explain how I feel. It is highly disturbing how I fail to find those words, but also quite clear why this is happening, because the lack of faith just makes everything so much harder to handle. I can’t blame the poor environment that is created for me that is also one of the reasons my thoughts aren’t getting across, because that needs to be clarified by me too. I need to let that be known. 

Pardon me for this lengthy vomit; feel free to leave it as it is on this blog because I always keep the good and the bad and this is one of those things that shouldn’t be cleaned up. Is it pointless? I don’t know. Vomit makes you feel better once it’s out.

Currently re-reading: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Movie watched: Fireflies in the Garden

Fluey plus bored - whattodo?

Things to do when you are down with the flu AND bored:

1. Record yourself singing to your favorite songs in that blocked-dose boice.
2. Switch on the radio and text in rude/silly responses to the questions being asked.
3. Lie on your back and make out shapes in the ... patches on your ceiling where the paint has fallen from.
4. Score your successful throws of used tissues into the garbage basket. Post on twitter every time you score a basket.
5. Re-organize your bookshelf into alphabetical order, then pull forward the favorites and assign them prime locations, then make labels for the sections or genres and arrange them like that, and then into an aesthetically pleasing line-up.
6. Remain firmly seated or sprawled on your bed and dance to music just by twitching your shoulders and swaying your arms. See how creative you can be.
7. Paint parts of your face with hideous makeup combinations just for fun (rather inconvenient considering the flu status...well EVEN BETTER).
8. Write a blog post.

Oops.

Post with random single words at the end

A little while ago I looked out the window of my room and saw two adorable kittens drinking from the abandoned hose in the middle of my backyard. I instantly glued myself to the window to look, and the next second, jumped and pulled out my camera from a drawer to take a picture. The battery was low but I was hoping I could get just one picture and it would be a nice new blog post picture and other people may die with cuteness-overload after seeing those tiny kittens. But, my camera sadly informed me in red letters that the battery was low and shut off. So, I sadly extracted the battery and put it to charge, while watching first one of the kittens run back into the trees, and then the other. (They don't belong to me, but they are one of the cat families that happen to be born in my backyard; this one I had only heard mewing yesterday and saw for real today).

That long and boring paragraph was to make up for the amazing picture I was not able to take and post. It has been a while since I wrote on my blog, mostly because I was very busy with finishing up college stuff, and because I spent any free time doing other useless and mostly unhealthy things. Mostly.

I can hear cricket on the TV in the lounge, but I've never been interested in watching it at all.

This is a disjointed blog post. I am out of practice. One good thing about right now is that I feel very motivated and I intend to get a ton of work done starting five minutes from now.

Yes.

(Weird).

Why?

Dunno.