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Friday, October 16, 2009

The Thrill

So you know that song, “Oh, yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of livin’ is gone,”? So I was thinking, I’m still happy but life sucks today. It’s cold, it’s like winter in October.

Last night I got into a little tiff with my guy, I weighed myself this morning and apparently I have gained two pounds in one day. Must be water weight, which does not matter, weight is weight is weight.

I couldn’t sleep last night for more than half an hour, insomnia happens to me sometimes. So yesterday I was like elated to be alive, today I’m barely awake, alive.

I find this all mildly amusing as I’m sure you do. The guy selling me coffee wanted to chat and I listened politely but all I wanted to do was drink coffee alone and sulk in my foul mood. The guy selling me coffee seems to know every fact about history there is to know, but he sells coffee and I see myself in him every morning.

There is something self-indulgent about sulking. I’m not feeling sorry for myself as much as I am just annoyed at the world. I decided to get a job at Macy’s right away, because I love clothes, and sell Mary Kay make-up on the side and get some freelance writing gigs. I genuinely love fashion and make-up, but I should be teaching and writing for a living. Life does not always cooperate though.

These jobs should feed me and the U.S. government who I owe money in loans to, until I get a good full time job with benefits. I do have some more leads for teaching jobs, so all my talent won’t be lost in the retail world.

But back to my personal tantrum, I feel like a kid who was put into the corner because she did something bad. I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life. I’ve lied, I’ve hurt people, and I’ve probably even broken the law at some point or another.

So sometimes when I feel like shit, I blame myself and feel I deserve it. See I kind of believe in Karma too. What you sow so shall you reap kind of karma. I would continue explaining this phenomena but I’m so damn tired, not sleepy, just tired.

I’m tired of the world not cooperating with my ideals or something like that. Why can’t everyone just behave the way I want them to? I know I sound like a petulant five year old, but I swear the infant inside us cannot always be ignored.

I want my way sometimes. Why doesn’t someone who wants to give me a dream job just hire me? Why do boys suck sometimes? Why do I suck sometimes? I was kind of bitch last night as well.

I guess I’m not nearly perfect or anything, I guess I have a lot of flaws and imperfections and idiosyncrasies. I never thought I was perfect, but I never thought I could be this flawed. Yeah, I love myself, but I do have issues.

But I have this feeling I’m not alone. I don’t know if there are issueless people but I assume they are like robots. I’m so the opposite of a robot, although I have a new respect for routine and discipline.

You know what I wish? I wish someone would pay me to write this blog and other blogs and poems and short stories and novels and essays. It’s not fair that what I do doesn’t have as much value as selling over-priced shoes at a huge mega chain store.

A store I adore, just as an FYI. I’m partly working at Macy’s for the discount since all of my clothes come from there. But there is a small part of me that is embarrassed that I have to work in retail after getting a Master’s Degree from Columbia University.

Part of me is a snob. Part of me is insecure. Part of me doesn’t give a shit what other people think.
What do you think?

nina

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Happiness


So something strange is happening.  Have you ever heard that song, “Happiness is just an illusion, filled with sadness and confusion,”?  Well, I think I may be becoming happy.
Let me tell you why.  Well first and foremost, if you recall, I made a request to the universe to find some kind of peace or happiness or whatever.  Well, it just so happens that there is something listening out there, because I’m starting to feel fulfilled. 
It all started with me meditating, which just means I started noticing the beauty and oneness in everyone and everything.  That we are all connected I guess, by some blissful source.  It makes me happy to think that, even if I’m wrong and imagining the whole thing, it makes me feel bliss inside.  If I’m imagining the bliss, it’s better than imagining doom or gloom.
Then I started getting up in the morning and writing this very bullshit and spilling my guts to my little world.  The catharsis alone has created clarity in my head.  And thank you again for reading.  It makes me happy to know that I somehow have fallen in love with my audience, because they bother to read my untamed thoughts.  It makes me happy.
Thirdly, I’m in a relationship and as I suspected, it’s just as complicated and lonely to be in a relationship than it is to be single.  I’m just as happy and unhappy in the relationship as I was on my own.  It’s just that he makes me smile, inside.  That’s nice.  He sort of helps to make me happy.
And then after that, I have sincerely become committed to becoming healthy.  I don’t drink Coke zero anymore.  I try not to drink too much wine.  I try not to eat shit.  And I work out on a regular basis.  I’m losing weight, slowly but surely.  But most importantly I’m starting to love my body.  That makes me happy.
And lastly, I’ve started to respect my writing as a whole, as I’ve read over parts of my old novel and written new parts of my new novel.  I also have thought about how I’m going to market my old novel.  I’m going to start writing letters to agents and publishers again.  I’m ready for rejection again.  But most of all I think I’m ready for acceptance. 
There may not be a God, but there is a Universe for sure.  And the universe cooperates with you when you cooperate with it.  I think there is a system, as system of random madness mixed with beautiful routine. 
So some days I wake up at six am and write my heart out.  Some days I stay up late and get up late and feel like I deserve this right now because I don’t have a job. 
By the by, YES I’m still looking for that dreaded word: job.  I have some good leads for jobs as perhaps a writing professor.  In Michigan I have a contact and I may have a contact at Houston University that has like the number two program in the country for a Master’s in Fiction Writing. 
Oh, and my parents are going to India for six weeks, which means I have freedom, privacy and the room to have a possible party.  I’m excited.  Independence is hard, I have learned and will learn again, just as dependence is gruesome. 
Right now I love my life and love myself.  But my journey ain’t over.  It has actually just begun.  You know that song, “We’ve only just begun…”? 
So is happiness just an illusion filled with sadness and confusion?  Yes and No.

nina


Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Void

Let’s talk about nothingness for a few minutes, I don’t know why, but I find it interesting. I find it fascinating that zero, invented by an Indian man mind you, is the most important number in the world. Isn’t that crazy?


Didn’t Shakespeare say something like, “Life is a grand play, signifying nothing”?

I wrote this poem when I was eighteen:

Life is a grand play,

And it was an Idiot who pulled the curtain too fast.

The theme song had already begun before he realized,

That not none of us were fully dressed.

I used to write poetry and short stories about zero and nothing and color and the absence of color, black and white being the absence of color. Somehow I think that all of it had something to do with infinity and maybe God. Who is everything and nothing all at once.

God who is not colored but probably multicolored. My God is Indian I guess, I picture this Indian dude.

Anyways, the void, so what was there before there was God? Now someone was trying to explain this to me but I’m not good at math. It had something to do with the fact that there was nothing and then there was something at all times. The nothing I think was equal to zero and the something was equal to the number one.

There was always nothing and something, nothing plus something, zero plus one. What does zero plus one equal? One. Always One. God is One. That means there was never nothing. There was always something. There was always god.

I thought that was the coolest argument I had ever heard. Although I’m not sure if the person talking to me about this was trying to prove or disprove the existence of God, he didn’t make it clear. I think he wasn’t sure where his brilliant argument was going.

Even brilliance is after all a product of knowing nothing at all.

Sometimes it’s a feeling. Brilliant artists and writers, what do they know? Ask them and they’ll tell you nothing at all. Ask us and we say they know everything.

Hemingway shot himself. Sylvia Plath stuck her head in an oven. They felt like nothing. We hail them as knowing everything. It’s zero and one. They will always be something.

To be something after you death is what Plato called being eternal or something. I don’t remember his argument exactly; I think he meant that if we want to always be something, we must be remembered.

Sikhs say you must remember God. Maybe He just wants to be something.

It’s a meditation called remembering God, Naam Simran. That means whatever you are doing you remember that divinity, beauty and love in everything. You meditate on the something that is inside everything.

Even in this materialistic society there is SOMETHING inside inanimate objects. Atoms and electrons and neutrons are dancing around. Something is in there but it is also nothing at the same time. However my wardrobe means something to me at all times.

Alright this bullshit is even getting convoluted for me. I was very bad at logic or math or whatever when I was younger, but I don’t think I was as bad at is as I thought. My dad says that Calculus is the basis of life.

Life huh?

Is it something, or nothing at all?

nina

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Body Parts

So I want to talk about my body today. Why do hate so many parts of it? I’ve always hated parts of it whether I was at my thinnest at sixteen to my fattest…which would be right now. I don’t want to bore you with the list of things I hate…I just want to talk about the hate. This is how it happened:

I played with Barbie dolls incessantly when I was a child. They usually had blond hair, blue eyes, and perfect bodies. Have you ever read the “Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison? Have you ever read, “The Beauty Myth” by Naomi Wolf? Both books inherently describe how this Barbie may have ruined my body image for life.

Then when I was in grade school I read Sweet Valley High. Those girls were so pretty, in fact one of them was a writer and I wanted to be like her because she was smart and pretty. They would show their perfect bodies on the cover, describe their beautiful blond, blue-eyed selves in the descriptions. That may have been strike two.

At the end of Middle school I grew up and grew breasts and was given a little too much extra attention by boys, and a few Uncles of mine. I didn’t understand why looking pretty was sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. This was my first dilemma.

When I got to high-school I started reading fashion magazines like Cosmopolitan and Vogue. In there I did find some darker haired beauties but rarely or maybe never did I see anyone of ethnic origin. What I did see was perfect bodies over and over and over and over again. That was my third mistake.

In high school I wanted to be popular but I wasn’t white, so I hung out with the “alternative” crowd where there were us Asians, Indians and non-blonds. I, along with MANY other girls, was sexually harassed by a few teachers. I wanted a good body and I wanted attention, but why was I getting unwanted attention? This was my second dilemma.

In college I learned about feminism and body image. In college I actually started dating. Men were looking at my body up close and personal. I wanted to believe that my worth was my mind, body and soul. However I wanted the frat boys and the football players and the hot men in my classes to look at me. This was my third dilemma.

In college I really learned about the concept of rape and I didn’t want that, but I wanted to be looked at and hit on and liked by men without them hurting me. This was my fourth dilemma.

When I graduated from college I noticed that in the work place body image was all of sudden supposed to be hidden under conservative clothing, yet there were flirtations and such with even married men. Then I was sexually harassed in a very twisted way. I quit that job. That was my first step towards empowerment.

When I was twenty-four and an Uncle finally did the unthinkable and “accidentally” ended up in my bed. I told my parents, who then confronted him and his family. That was my second step towards empowerment.

When I went to Grad School the man who called my house from my school and wanted me in his class was known to sexually harass his students. I changed professors and never took a class with him even though he was supposed to be one of the best and liked me so much and could have helped me get published. That was my third step towards empowerment.

After Grad School I realized that getting published may mean sucking the right dick (Please excuse my crassness). But it could be true. I never dated, had sex with or even flirted with anyone in the publishing industry. And I’m not published.

Because I want my talent, not my body, ever as flawed as it is, to get me to the top.

So why am I not totally empowered yet? Because I’m a human being. I have insecurities and desires and I’m still confused about a lot of stuff.

So why am I so unhappy with my body still? Because there is a lifetime of bullshit keeping me down as a woman. And I’m working on it, I actually look at my body in the mirror standing naked and tell myself “I love my body.”

It’s hard though, in world where mannequins wear a size zero…it’s a scary world out there. I don’t know why they are always trying to sell us skinny when beauty in every other realm of the word comes in all shapes and sizes.

nina

Monday, October 5, 2009

Someone to Watch over Me

So I met someone. I can’t talk about it because it’s too good right now. So this is me talking about not talking about him. I respect him too much. But I’ll tell you one thing, I’m scared.

I’m scared that I don’t know how to be a person. What is a person? A human being is someone who is different than animals because they have a conscious. I’m not worried about my conscious, I’m worried …I’m just worried ok? Is that OK?

I’m worried that I’m happy. Happiness is hard. It’s the most mystical thing in the world, falling for someone, but it is also the most heart-wrenching, soul crushing…it’s everything and nothing all at the same time. (Does this sound like a crappy love song?)

He makes me feel like a woman. I’m sorry that I’m gushing and I’m sorry that I may not have anything interesting to say, but sometimes beauty is not interesting. He makes me feel real. It’s hard being real.

When someone cares for you, when you look at them looking at you, it’s like looking in a mirror. It’s amazing that this other person is so enamored by your reflection, because all this time you thought it was quite ordinary.

I want to be special for him and ordinary for him and everything and nothing.

Passion is nice, ain’t it?

I’m not even worried if this is the real thing or the false thing or a figment of my fucking imagination. The things he says to me no one has ever said before. The way he appreciates me is unique to me in my life thus far. That’s all I can say about that. OK I’ll say a little more: he’s witty, intelligent and strong.

Now, as for love. I want it. I feel like I deserve it. I cherish it. But I don’t expect it.

You know you can become a blithering idiot when you start to fall for someone. Everything about you becomes hypersensitive. And if you are a woman you usually try on a bunch of clothes to figure out what you are gonna wear when you see him.

Life can be nice sometimes; I don’t want to let these times pass me by. The rush and excitement of someone new in your life. The feeling that you can conquer the world.

The peace. The realization that you have an actual heart, and it is feeling something.

So I set an intention out to the Universe, and I swear to god, the universe heard me. That doesn’t mean my journey is over. Oh no, it has just begun.

You know that song, “We’ve only just begun…” Well this is just beginning of something beautiful, and I hope there is no ending. I hope it’s just a bunch of beginnings from now on.

I’m not gonna become OBSESSED with him and only talk and think and dream about him for the rest of this blog or this possible relationship. But there is something mildly amusing about sweet obsession.

It makes you crazy.

It makes you blind dumb and deaf. So besides the Helen Keller syndrome that is caused by infatuation, there is sometimes something deeper.

I feel like there is something deeper here.

I’m sorry if this reads like a really bad love song, but I bought fresh flowers today.

I bought fresh flowers today.

nina

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Nostalgia

So I’m In Ann Arbor, my school town. I’m sitting in the café, Espresso Royale, that I used to go to everyday when I was in college. I did my undergrad here. It’s funny, it‘s been many years but I still feel like myself while sit here. I can’t figure out if it is the same self that was there when I was in college.

When I think about all that I have been through in the almost fifteen years since I graduated, I think I can’t possibly be the same person. I know I’m different, I’m more mature, maybe more cynical, maybe more real or at least aware of reality.

I was so young and optimistic and naïve when I came to the University of Michigan. It’s not like I hadn’t seen some of life’s realities at home, I’d seen quite a bit since my father was going blind and mother almost ended up in jail for a false malpractice claim that she won.

But when I came here, I thought, I can be anything. I’ll be a lawyer I thought first, and fight for battered women and children. Then I realized I could fight with words, I started to realize that for me words were everything. I wanted to make meaningful speeches and write columns in the newspaper about these issues.

I didn’t know it yet, but all I wanted was to be a writer. I thought I would do it on the side back then, but I slowly but surely realized that writers have power to change society too. However I thought, I would just study and become successful because I assumed I would learn to become brilliant here.

In this school I dreamed of changing the world. I dreamed of “being the change in the world I wanted to see.” I remember that, but not every day. Yes I developed plans in life where later I will teach in underprivileged countries and eventually open up a school for the battered women and children in India.

However, I haven’t gone to those countries and worked yet. Other things came up. Important things. Life. I thought I would be part of a revolution of some sort. A revolution for women, a revolution for peace.

Little did I know that that revolution would include voting for a black president. Little did I know that I would become that woman who had to save herself from the abusive men in her past. (Let’s just say as a woman I went through very much because of the lack of laws and social stigmas against sexual abuse and exploitation).

Little did I know that everyone has to first have their own personal revolution, before they can change the world. I thought the world was a lot NICER than it is. I thought life would be a lot EASIER than it was.

I totally assumed I’d be married with children by now. I’m sitting here, and I’m so glad I’m not married with children yet. There is much of my revolution that must continue to occur before I am ready to give myself to someone completely and feel I can actually bring another human being into this mad, mad, world. Although I am looking around and feel ready to start this journey in my life, I’m glad I waited.

Then there is my own madness I must deal with. I never knew, when I was eighteen, that I had the capacity to become as mad as I have become at certain points in my life. When I say mad I mean it in both meanings of the word: Madness and Anger.

I never knew the world could make me react that way.

God I miss that. I miss not knowing. I came to this University to dispel my ignorance. And I read about wisdom and I wrote about wisdom and I even had a wise thought or two. But I didn’t know that real wisdom comes with a price. With scars and pain.

Don’t get me wrong, I have experienced unmentionable beauty and love, but I expected that. What I didn’t expect was the beauty of knowledge and understanding the world as it really is and not how it plays out in the books.

Sometimes I miss my old dreams.

nina