Thirty-something years in Ninaland

Can Watching 'Family Guy' be Meditation?

2011-12-22T07:12:00.000-05:00

I got up today at six o'clock to do some meditation. Then I realized that I don't know what meditation is. So I'm sitting here, with my eyes closed, wondering when "It" will hit me. I used to get up at six on Saturdays when I was a kid to watch cartoons. I was so engrossed, that, I have to wonder, is watching something as banal as "The Road Runner" a form of meditation?

Then where do we draw the line? Is watching pornography meditation?

I think it's about the mindset that you are trying to create. There are those who believe that sexual expression is a form of meditation, there was a book written on that, it's called the Kama Sutra.

Now here me out: The point of meditation is to be mindless or mindful, or both at the same time. That means something like awareness with the letting go of awareness. A television show is an imaginary world we enter and lose our minds in. So is video gaming, reading, writing, even jogging. So is sex.

So if life itself can be a meditation, then is meditation nothing? No, because while you are in the middle of life, recognizing that you are in the middle of life, and then letting that recognition go and being mentally free of the stupid chatter in your brain...Well I think that's meditation.

My head is spinning all the time, usually it's just crap that it's spinning with. Right now if I let my mind go this is what it would sound like: I gotta go to Wallmart to get those bulbs, what else was a I supposed to get from there, I hate fucking Wallmart, I have to take the clothes out of my car, if I don't pay that parking meter in four more days it will double, how much money do I have in my account?

And so on and so on. Our brains were meant for something higher than all that crap. For some people it is math and logic, for others it is creativity. But when you can shut that chatter off, you can be free. I would even go as far as to say that talking in a manner that is uplifting and respectful can be a form of meditation, it's an exchange of ideas.

Many people believe that meditation is very rule based: You must sit in a certain position, close your eyes and chant the name of god.

Why? Because this chanting gets rid of the bullshit in your head and there is nothing wrong with that. However, there are other ways of expressing spirituality that can be just as effective and real. I'm assuming that god or goddess put us on Earth to live, not to sit in a room all day every day and chant. We have work to do and a family to raise, but if in the back of our minds, we are realizing that we are one with all humanity and living things, even while we are doing mundane acts like washing the dishes, we might become free of the mediocrity of our lives.

I think sometimes it's just about transcending the moment, and being in the moment at the same time. Meditation is about being here, but realizing that the space we are in is temporary yet eternal.

Truthfully, it's hard to make sense of it.

Sometimes I hate television so much and I will just close my eyes while it is on and stop thinking. Maybe this is escapism, but maybe it is a form of mediation in which I leave my reality for a little while and enter some other space.

Maybe if you shut the clutter of your mind and get up and dance...well in some states in India people dance for god. If you want to do it for god, do it for god. If you want to do it for yourself, than I hope you dance.

nina

Yoga....and I'll have fries with that...

2011-12-21T21:20:00.000-05:00

So, the other day I did yoga and ate french fries on the same day. I'm just wondering how much of this dance I'm gonna do before I realize that taking one step forward and two steps back is not attractive. I don't usually eat french fries, but that doesn't stop me from indulging in bad choices from time to time, juxtaposed with my good choices.

It sounds so cheesy, but I want to get this life right. I don't know if standing on my head while focusing on my breath is the ultimate goal. But I do know that not eating french fries while lying on my couch is sort of a goal.

I mean ultimately what do I want out of this "Healthy" thing I'm doing? I want to breathe better. I want to be thin, ok, thinner, if that's possible.

I mean I hate to get all granola on you, but I will anyways, I went organic this month. And that's all good and fine but I'm still gonna mess this thing up. This eating and drinking the right shit so that my shit will come out right. I'm mean I'm thirsty at this moment and I want some Diet Coke. Does anyone really even know what's in that shit? Anything that bubbles like that should be cause for suspicion.

I don't know much about anything, but I do know that having the right intention has to be worth something to somebody. I'm trying to, you know, get healthy.

The thing is I don't want to get some weird disease I could have neglected had I had one less Butterfinger, and I love my chocolate and peanut butter more than life itself.

So instead of doing yoga and eating fries, would it have been better to just stay on my couch and drink water? No, I don't think so, because somewhere between the yoga and the lard infested fries, lies my life. And it's a good one. I'm proud of my half-ass accomplishments.

But in all seriousness, I will probably eat anything at a restaurant, organic or pesticide infested. I'm not gonna take the fun out of my life. But I'm gonna try to not let life take the fun out of me. No, I don't really know what that means.

nina

The Homeless Chic

2011-12-16T06:07:00.000-05:00

The thing is, I'm sitting next to this homeless chic. Well she's not exactly a chic, she's an elderly black woman and I should have more respect for her.
We are both sitting on a couch like seating at Starbucks in Royal Oak, Michigan. We have both been sitting here for four hours without getting up. I was studying for various exams and writing various papers. She was eating a cookie I would have eaten. She took a nap that I wanted to take.
What's the real difference between me and her?

I'm a bitch, that's the real difference.

I'm so bitchy that I thought some of my stuff was touching some of her bags, she has collected a couple shopping bags, when I thought my bag was touching her bag, WHOA, I moved my stuff closer to me.
I realized she's is an untouchable. I thought untouchables were only in India. See we think they have cooties or something.

I'm the one though, I'm the dirty one. She's probably real clean, she probably doesnt judge other people the way I do.

There was a time that homeless people were invisible to me, I really didn't see them. Then I spent some time in a New York City hospital psychiatric ward being hospitalized for Bipolar Disorder. I literally remember eating dinner with a human being that I later saw, when I left the hospital, eating of a dumpster on the street.

I broke bread with these people. What's the difference between me and some of these people? I am a few unmedicated days away from being on the streets, being confused and maybe even being homeless. Why? Because most homeless people are sufferring from what we as a society would call a mental disease of some sort.

Or maybe they are free?

Could it be that they just could not take life anymore, they could not handle other people? Maybe they choose this life over our empty domesticated lives where we go on the treadmill of life without thinking about a single thing we are doing, and just doing and doing.

Maybe they are just thinking and thinking or maybe not thinking and not thinking and not thinking.

Sometimes I don't want to think and sometimes I want to get away, away from even myself.

I'm no different from people on the streets, maybe you are. But I know my place in society, I'm an overeducated, underpaid, hop skip and a jump away from being on the streets. I'm just lucky I have a family and true friends that have been there for me when I was down and out. I ran away from them a few times and almost ended up on the streets.

It's not something I'm proud of. But I'll tell you why I did it: because I wanted to be free. Free of all the shit that life entails. All the boredum and monotony and hard work and bitchy people. I'm not defending myself, I'm explaining myself. I needed to run, cause life got too hard for me. They say it's my chemistry. Maybe. Or maybe life whacked out my head and I needed a fucking break. Maybe life changed my chemistry.

They say I have a chemical imbalance. I'll tell you what, the world has a chemical imbalance. Maybe I don't fit in because I'm the one whose chemically balanced. Again, I'm not trying to romanticize my mental illness, but what I'm saying is who are we to judge? These people that roam the streets, some of them could be so zen they are like prophets, but we don't even have the mental capacity to hear what they are saying. I can't even sit next to one of them in a Stabucks for godsakes.

Also, I know they look all sick and twisted, but did you ever for a moment think that a homeless person might enjoy walking the streets as opposed to being locked up in one of our "jails" we call houses or buildings. Maybe they want to keep it real.

I'm not trying to glorify homelessness. It's a disgusting problem and we as a society should sit down and talk to homeless people. Ask them what their dreams are. Ask them if they want to change thier situation, if we can help.

But I couldn't do it, I couldn't talk to her. Not that day, maybe one day, I will be able to have a conversation with someone who looks kinda scary to me. Not someone who looks like a serial killer, I try to stay away from those types of homeless people, (like I know the difference) but really someone who is not in my upper middle class lifestyle.

I should ask them how thier day is going. Because I know I'm counting them, these days that are good.

nina

My Name is...and I'm Addicted to Food

2011-07-24T16:29:00.000-04:00

I'm addicted to food. It's true.

You want to know why? Because it tastes good.

I know that may sound too simple. And it is. I have some emotional addiction, I emotionally eat, the food is filling a void in me, etc., etc., etc.

I just can't get over the fact that it tastes so fucking good.

I mean it's that good.

You know, you've eaten. You've all had those moments, where nothing else in the world mattered except what what you were chewing and what was left on your plate. Whether it be Thanksgiving dinner or cheesecake from the Cheesecake factory. You love it just as much as I do.

But you probably have some element of control. That's where I falter. When I like something, I want to keep having it. Hence the addiction to that 'high.'

So what am I going to do about it?

Well I'm gonna try Weight Watchers again...it has worked for me in the past. I know, I know, another diet, another death....

What's gonna be different this time? Well, I'll tell you this, I want to know what's missing inside me, what drives me to this insane behavior with food. I mean I don't want to shrink it out but: I have emotional scars, reasons from my past that I would be addicted to food. But who doesn't have scars from the past, it's just a matter of how you heal your wounds or something.

I mean something inside me is not right, doesn't feel right and that's why I go to food. But it's madness, it's a form of madness.

But so many of us have eating disorders of some kind. I know I'm not alone. In fact it's one o'clock in the morning and I want to eat again. That is how bad it is.

I'm actually eating right now, as I write. It's stressing me out, the eating itself and the thinking about the eating itself. It's sick actually, that left-over shish-kabob can take away that feeling of being alone in the middle of the night or whatever....

But I feel sick afterwards, like now, I just feel stuffed but the emptiness is not gone, it's just like I stuffed it with garbage so it would shut up.

The thing is, I want to change. And I know, I know, the only way to change is to just do it. You know, like Nike, I just need to run. I do you know, need to excersize. But underneath the change of habits, it's like I need to respect my body. Maybe even respect myself more.

So how is it going to be different this time? This Monday, that's when I like to start my dieting resolutions, what will I do that's different than last Monday?

Maybe I'll like myself better. Maybe I'll say to myself: fruit is the new cookie. I bought salad stuff, maybe I'll actually make it. Maybe I'll make it.

It's not like I don't know how to diet, it's just that when you fail at something over and over again, you lose some confidence about it. I know I'm always gonna be addicted to food in some manner, but maybe I'm addicted to the wrong kind of food.

It's not like drinking or drugging, you can't stop eating cold turkey. It's not fair.

I remember when I was in third grade my teacher asked us, "Was there a fairy that came down and whispered in your ear that life was gonna be fair?"

No.

nina

Frugal is the New Cheap

2011-07-05T20:46:00.000-04:00

So this is the thing...I have to budget myself 'cause I'm a graduate student and I have no money. So now I can only spend about fifty dollars a week on food and toilet paper or whatever miscellaneous expensis that I have. The fact that I can't spell expensis, should be a clue as to what my feelings about this issue are.

For the next couple years I won't be shopping unless my mother takes me shopping, she always pays. But don't cry for me, America, I have more clothes than god, or the goddess perhaps. I have so many clothes that I am currently filling three pretty large closets in two different houses. My car currently is housing some of my clothes as well...don't ask...

I'm gonna do things like make soup and clip coupons and I'm not even gonna cry. I mean, in the back of my head, I've always known that I was privileged. But I didn't really understand that I am spoiled. I expect to be spoiled, I want a man who will spoil me. I want to spoil myself.

I also realize that fifty dollars a week is enough money, really.

The truth is, I also want to be a teacher which is sort of like saying I want to be part of the working class poor. I mean really, but I would rather inspire children to write and change the world etc., instead of being able to drink that Starbucks iced coffee every morning. Even though Starbucks has this special syrup they put in the iced coffee to make it like super delicious.

But never mind all that...let's be real. I must join the real world now. I have no idea how much money I will be able to make as a teacher, it ranges from like twenty thousand to like a hundred thousand. I don't know if my writing will ever make me money, I like to think it will.

But let's be real. I need to watch myself, pay attention, make my own pasta sauce even though I love Prego.

The thing is, no matter how poor I am, I don't think of myself as poor. It may be because I have always lived a privileged lifestyle and I even went to an Ivy League School.

All my friends are richer than me, I should hang out with poorer people actually.

I think the reason I don't feel poor is because I chose this lifestyle. I could have become a lawyer, a corporate lawyer for that matter. I'm somewhat smart. But I'm a writer, and we are not known to make millions right away, if ever. I like being a starving artist in this way...not because I enjoy my own dramatic tragedy, which I by no means deny, but because I would rather do something that means something to me than have this vast collection of shoes that hurt my feet.

I want the shoes, don't get me wrong. I just would rather go to work every day LOVING what I do. I know I will love teaching, even though all my friends warn me about what a nightmare kids are these days. It's true, but I WILL find a way to get through to them. I will die trying. I LOVE writing. I wake up in the morning and I just want to get to the page sometimes.

Passion is not something you can buy.

I was worried for a moment that I would become "cheap," because of my new ordeal. Then after my friend so eloquently put it, "Girl, you ain't eveh gonna be cheap." I was touched. I think being cheap does not reflect a financial status, but an emotional one. Being cheap is a state of mind, it's about not thinking you have enough and not thinking that the universe has enough, not thinking that there is enough that you can still give.

I don't give money to nobody right now, I'm just learning how to live on less myself. But there are those who live on MUCH LESS. I gotta remember that. I've got to remember that no matter how much I have, I can give to them instead of wasting my money.

So don't ever call me cheap, just know that I am frugal because the universe wants us all to share, and I've definitely had my share.

nina

You...the Readers

2011-07-02T00:11:00.007-04:00

Something monumental happened in my tiny blog world yesterday... a phenomenal site named, Blogher featured my blog post about gay marriage on their website's Life section I got almost 900 hits and counting, that means that almost 900 people read my work. I'm so excited I want to jump up and down.

So I would like to take a moment to contemplate my readers, since I'm still fascinated that I have any. From the statistics that blogger shows me, I have consistent readers from facebook, which are people I know, which is really awesome because my friends are supporting my work.

Secondly, I have posted my blog on this incredible website called blogher.com from which I actually get a huge chunk of my readers. And then, to my amazement, there are people from like twenty different countries, like Iran and the Ukraine that have somehow gravitated to this blog. So if you are reading this blog from abroad, I am especially thankful that you would take the time to read this...I mean I should say I'm just as thankful for those of you in the United States....I'm just very thankful.

So I'm gonna try and broaden my horizons and get more readers. The most important thing is that I'm saying something you want to hear.

One of the fun things to look at on blogger is the various search words people have used to end up on my site. One of them was:

"new hot pockets "annoying waitress" commercial. is it on tv?"

I think we should take a moment to think about that....OK, then there was, 'Thirtysomething sexy' or try this

one, "Am looking for myself, have tried yoga." I'm particularly proud of this one since I'm looking for myself

and I have tried yoga.

Anyways, I dream of keeping the attention of all who stumble upon here...yet I know that some will be lost, I

can't like reach everyone.

So what I'm I gonna do to lure more readers in? Be profound perhaps, and witty but most of all just be myself. I'm just here to exchange ideas, to find questions as opposed to answers, to find what feels right to me, to you.

It can be weird sometimes, as a writer, to reveal so much about yourself. You sometimes feel naked. But that comes with the territory. If I can be naked with a lover I can be naked with you. Sometimes its even easier to be emotionally naked than physically naked.

It's almost funny to me that you would follow the thoughts of a slightly neurotic, day-dreaming fool like myself. I mean I have so many flaws, I eat too much, I take too many pills, I procrastinate and I'm not very good with money.

But I try to be sensitive to the world around me, I try to listen to people, and I try to make myself a better person. I think it's important that we all have this goal to just be better, no matter how good we are.

This is blog is a journal about how I come to real self-realization. I hope you dig it as much as I dig writing it.

nina

Women: Is India Dangerous?

2011-07-01T07:49:00.000-04:00

Apparently there has been a recent poll of the most dangerous countries for women and India was one of them. Mostly it was because of human trafficking and female infanticide.

What the hell is going on?

In my mind India is one of the greatest countries around. I may be biased, I am Indian after all, but I was born in the USA. The reasons I think India is so awesome is because it's a country where people are down to earth and spiritual and real. Where people have a different sense of a work ethic and they value life differently than we do, maybe more than we do.

Having said all that, this new statistic saddens me...

I thought India was a progressive country. I thought we were getting somewhere. India is in the same category as Afghanistan? I don't mean any disrespect to Afghanistan, but I can't believe that my country is plagued with these disgusting problems. I was born in America, but some of my head still lives in India. I might be an American, but I'm also Indian. I identify with this country, I identify with these people. How can they let this continue?

I don't really understand how Indian government works, but from this I can gather that women's and human rights is not at the top of their priority list.

Forty percent of the prostitutes in India are children. That's almost half. I'm so disgusted I don't know what to do except rant. Rant and rave.

I don't care anymore that India is soooo fucking advanced that it has a nuclear bomb and more IT graduates than it knows what to do with. I mean, in this area, the area of women's rights, India sucks.

I hate to say it, in public, because all around India doesn't really suck. It's like the most beautiful country in the world. So how is it that this land can mix beauty and blasphemy altogether?

I know, most of you saw Slum Dog Millionaire, and maybe you gathered that all Indians come from a very difficult past filled with dirt, and basically shit. The truth is that India is full of culture, spirituality, delicious food and I could go on for days trying to prove that we are not just a human trafficking factory. My parents grew up their and lived very nice lives.

But the truth is, in terms of the way women and children are treated, India has a long way to go. I'm sad to say this. It's really sad. I mean I guess I was mad at first, but now I'm just sad.

I know I'm not the only one that is outraged, that this country that educated the women in my family, my mother is a doctor for godsakes, could forsake it's women so easily. There is such a huge lifestyle difference between the educated and the poor and the middle class and the poor, it's outrageous actually.

My parents were shocked when they saw Slum Dog Millionaire, they couldn't believe that anyone would show India in such a dark, well a dark light.

There is a lot of darkness in India, the prostitution, the child abuse, but there is also a light that I cannot explain. As a woman, a lot of spiritual ideals in India claim that women have a higher spiritual capacity then men. This may or may not be true, but I like that I come from a place that considers this. I like that India is a country where there are female gods that are revered.

Sometimes I think India is a lot like me, I take step forward then I take two steps back. I forgive myself for this stupid way of walking. I am trying to forgive India for not being the homeland that I dream it to be. But if India is anything like me, it's striving to be better.

nina

The Pursuit of Unhappiness

2011-06-30T08:07:00.000-04:00

I've become more liberal as I get older. I think that the more 'spiritual' I get the less 'religious' I get. And the more I think about things, things like marriage, I start to think that they are constructions of society, they are not necessarily 'natural.'

I mean, that doesn't mean that I don't want to get married. It's just that I think that I know so many people who are married, and many of them are quite happy, but sometimes it feels like, when I look at the divorce rate and the couples that are unhappy, that the way we construct marriage as it is, is not always the greatest thing.

Then I look at gays who want the right to get married. Just like I don't know if I believe that religion is the greatest thing, everyone has the right to practice their religion. Just like that, everyone should of course have the right to get married.

I guess I haven't really addressed the gay marriage issue yet because, well honestly, I don't understand why it's an issue at all. New York made a monumental decision the other day to allow gay marriage. But really was it that monumental, or was it more like something that was long overdue?

I've been thinking and thinking about this issue and I want to say something unique, not just the obvious, that everyone should be treated equally and given equal rights etc. But what else is there really to say?

If it is your religion that is telling you that gay marriage is wrong, than don't become gay and get married. That might sound stupid and simple and sideways...but if you disagree with this new legislature I don't know how to talk to you.

And I want to talk to you. I have friends and relatives who think like you, who don't like the idea of the existence of homosexuals. I love these people, and I hate these particular views that they have.

But I think we should still have this conversation. Don't tune me out.

All I'm saying is that this does not affect you if you are not gay. Let them get married, they should have the right to be as miserable as the rest of us, right?

I'm serious when I say that people should have the right to be unhappy. When Thomas Jefferson said that everyone has the right to the Pursuit of Happiness, perhaps he should have added the Pursuit of Unhappiness.

I personally don't think being gay is a choice that one makes and that a person wakes up one morning thinking that the choice is going to make them happy. I think it is a thing that just is, whether it be biological or whatever, and people accept it within themselves even if it will make them unhappy.

When homosexuals come out of the closet, it's not always happy. But who are we to judge what's happy, what's good and what's not. Inside, when someone comes out of the closet, they may feel true happiness for the first time in their entire lives.

Maybe I'm going around in circles a bit here. What I want to say is, if you think that someone is going to go to hell for their actions, let them go to hell. They have the right to go to hell.

But if you are like me and don't really believe in hell, then you probably don't believe in condemning people.

My mother, the other day, said that she didn't think that gay marriage is natural. She's a doctor, nothing she does to prolong people's lives is 'natural.' What is 'natural,' barbaric behavior? Nothing we do anymore is natural. I'm typing my thoughts onto a machine, this is completely unnatural.

But it feels like the right thing. I think if you were to ask a homosexual person how they first knew they were gay, they might tell you that it just felt right.

It definately doesn't feel right to discriminate against someone who is just listening to their heart.

nina

The New Way is No Way

2011-06-29T09:10:00.000-04:00

So I've been trying all these things, like trying to like research happiness. I've read so many books and articles and listened to motivational speakers. I've tried meditation, yoga, writing, breathing techniques, and like visualizations.

There is nothing wrong with any of this shit. And I really sort of believe in it all. But sometimes, I don't really think I need any of it. Like when I watch kids. They are just happy, before they read all the books on happiness and see the motivational speakers, they just are. They play.

I think I have forgotten how to play. This friend of mine commented, after reading my blog for the first time, that I start playing a sport. I don't think it's a bad idea, I do have this like angst that could possibly be helped by throwing around a ball. He said something about pointless tasks being beautifully freeing.

When I was a little girl, me and my cousin would play like we were two Sex in the City type women and we would pretend like we lived in a city and had boyfriends and were career women. I don't know why it was so fun to pretend like we were adults and now I want to be a kid.

Besides the fact that kids don't have to worry about things like rent and where their next paycheck is coming from and they don't have to dwell upon the cobwebs forming in their wombs, kids are generally free to be fascinated by the world.

Little things fascinate them. I mean I can't remember how many times I watched the Road Runner smash to smithereens and would still go back to see more. It didn't take much to satisfy me as a kid.

So I am wondering how I get that childlike wonder again. It would be nice to have a kid, but ruling that out for the time being, what about pretending like I'm happy. Pretending like I don't have that exam to study for and that loan to pay off.

I mean half of being is pretending and kids pretend all day long. I had a an imaginary friend, I think her name was Jackie. When my real best friend, Amy, wasn't around Jackie did the job.

I mean I can't have an imaginary husband until the real one shows up and I can only fool myself so much when pretending like everything is going to be all right.

But it's not all fake. I mean in the end, what's the worse that could happen? I guess I could die. But in the end, that is actually what is going to happen.

Some say we are all in denial about our deaths. Some people say we never die, that life goes on after death. But regardless of what happens in that space, I want this space to feel good.

Smiling is simple. Happiness has got to be simple. You don't need a PhD. In fact education may be prohibiting us from being happy.

Maybe doing things like singing and dancing, while I'm doing things like cooking and cleaning. Or maybe I should learn how to sew, I've always wanted to learn how to sew. Or plant a flower, or like get massages more often.

I think, very often, just be simple nina. Stop all the sophistication for second.

I think that I have to stop thinking.

So think about that. Or don't.

nina

The Trial

2011-06-28T08:11:00.000-04:00

Why are we so interested in this chic who killed her daughter or whatever? Yes I'm deliberately being flippant. Yes, I understand that it is a heinous crime, but does it say more about us or her that we are obsessed with the DETAILS?

They say this is the O.J. Simpson trial of our generation. I don't know if you know this, but at the time that the O.J. Simpson trial was going on like a million (they say 800,000 but it's really about a million) or so people died in Rawanda over the course of like a 100 days or something, and it was never really shown on the news because the stations were so OBSESSED with O.J. The President, Clinton at the time, said he didn't even know it was going on...Does anyone even care about what O.J. is up to now?

Who knows what's really going on in the world right now as we are obsessed with this young woman who may or may not have killed her child. It's like we pick one death and obsess over it instead of thinking of the random deaths of so many in wars and like genocides.

The U.N. and the United States could have helped to stop the genocide in Rawanda if the country at large was paying attention to it. If the media had focused attention on it and public opinion forced our leaders to care. Instead, we just look at the skulls and skeletons of these dead people and think: Wow what a trajedy I wish I had known and by the way, was O.J. really wearing that glove or not?

Is it my fault that I didn't know about Rawanda until after the fact? Yeah, I would say it is. I don't make any kind of real effort to find out what's happening in the world at large and I enjoy a good Weiner joke now and then. However, should Anthony Weiner and this chic, I refuse to remember her name (I can't forget Weiners name), who allegedly killed her daughter, make the headlines? You know that Lifetime has already made a movie about them. In fact I think these two should meet...

But in all seriousness, these people are celebrities for doing really bad things. They are what we call infamous, right? There is only a fine line between being famous and being infamous. Pretty soon the lines get blurred and we are empathizing with the likes of the Anthony Weiners and the other murdering mothers.

So what are we supposed to do, how do we pick and choose our battles, our trials? How do we force the media to focus on what's really important?

I don't know, change the channel when you see another 20/20 episode about this mother-daughter murder. Try and watch the BBC, they focus on world news, real news. I know we don't always care about what's happening in other countries, then maybe it's time we look at the reality of what's happening in our own neighborhoods. There are a couple of homeless people that I see walking the streets of my neighborhood, and I'm sure there are more that I don't see. Maybe I should find out about them, care about them, more than I care about some random woman I will never meet.

I know, coulda, shoulda, woulda, you are trying to hold on to your job and run your errands and at the end of the day you turn on CNN and there it is...the woman who murdered her daughter, and who really has the energy to change the channel when you've got diapers to change and etc. etc.

I know, I'm the same way.

What can little old me do? Well I guess blog about it or whatever. Maybe just bring up the conversation that we need a new conversation. The media just latches on to a topic and over stuffs us with useless information.

We control the media, though, you know. We are their audience. If we don't care, they won't care.

I don't know what in the world exactly I'm supposed to care about and know about, but I don't think it's too much to demand that the media direct me away from sensationalized cases and into the real world.

nina

Dating Double Standards

2011-06-27T06:20:00.000-04:00

The thing is, sometimes I'm a bad person. I don't mean to be, but we all got to watch out for ourselves, don't we? Especially when it comes to dating...

Like take this for example: I meet a guy online and he tells me he has been out of work for the last two years and finally he got a new job (a contract job until the end of the year at least). But he had to move into his mother's place last year because things apparently got really bad. He said that he isn't ready at the moment to be in a relationship because he's financially strapped and can't really afford a relationship until he pays off his past bills. Yet we talk on the phone every day and he says he likes me and wants to get to know me. I like him, he's funny and smart and caring. He doesn't give me a time line or anything as to when he will be ready to date.

I have this like tug of war thing inside me. On the one hand I like this guy (he's not the best looking but I've always been able to overcome that) and he makes me laugh and think. But in like two years, if we got married, is his job stable enough, I mean if he loses this job will it be another two years? Can I live like that? Yeah, I know I'm jumping the gun and thinking about wedding and stuff, but I have to think long term.

After some time I tell him that I need someone who is more financially stable. I'm completely honest with him, I don't tell him some bullshit reason why I can't talk to him anymore. He reminds me that I'm not financially stable either at the moment, and he doesn't understand my double standard. He says I've been brainwashed by my parents who want me to marry a doctor or lawyer. He tells me he didn't realize that all I cared about is money.

Needless to say I felt bad, felt bad that I did care about money, that I do want someone who can provide for me even during the times that maybe I want to take time off for children etc. I mentioned this to him and he said that I was living in a dream and that I would end up a divorced single mother if all I wanted out of a relationship was money.

Wow, I thought. I mean should I feel bad about caring that someone can at least have the funds available to take me out to dinner? I understand that people get laid off and hurt in this economy, but he had a contract job that could end at any time and he could have gotten laid off again. But should I have stuck with him before I even knew who I was sticking too? I didn't really know him yet. Yeah I liked him, but I have liked a lot of men.

Alright there is a notion that you can live on love. And I really believe that you can. If I had met him somewhere and fell in love with him and this was his situation, I might have accepted it. But I wasn't in love with him yet. I was planning my love choices and, and he didn't fit the choice that I thought I wanted.

Is it OK that I have a double standard? If I was a lawyer or doctor, would I still care if my partner was a success? I think I might. Am I brainwashed though? Are these my thoughts, or like my parents?

I like to think these are my thoughts. And in this way, call me a bitch, but I want a man who is somewhat of a success in his career. I want him to be able to financially support me if I want to take time off to write a book or raise a child.

But really, more than that, I want love. Real love. The kind of 'fuck the rest of the world' love that you read about or sing about or see in the movies. (I am aware that kind of love morphs, but if I can at least marry my best friend...)

I mean I know I'm looking for everything, love and success, and may not find it all in the same man. If it so happens that the love of my life is just not very successful, then so be it. But I'm not seeking out men who are mediocre in their careers. And I'm not seeking a love that lacks passion.

You might think that this is why I'm still single, because my standards are too high. You might be right. But it could be that it just hasn't happened for me yet...and that I have to have standards because I don't want to end up living a life of quiet desperation.

But if you know me, I won't be quiet about it.

nina

School Woman

2011-06-26T11:58:00.000-04:00

So I'm a school girl again. This time I'm an actual real adult, last couple times I wasn't like fully developed or something when I was in school. I'm different now. I don't usually pull all-nighters. I'm not day dreaming about some boy in class.

The other day I went and visited Ann Arbor, the first college I went to was University of Michigan. I went to this thing they call Top of the Park where they play movies outside, in the fresh air. They were playing Top Gun. And there was just something about the mix of stale popcorn with cotton candy that tasted like detergent, and Tom Cruise whizzing away on his motorcycle and the wind in an outdoor movie theater that for a moment just made me love my life.

I mean things are not perfect over here. I'm thirty five and and I'm not in a relationship or married and I don't have any kids. I'm not saying this defines me, but sometimes it bothers me. I'm not in a stable career yet, and this also does not always bother me, I chose to be a starving artist, I knew what I was getting into.

Yet when I was sitting in that outdoor theater, with the wind in my hair, I just kept thinking about how free I am. I don't have to answer to anyone, no kids, no husband. And that may be sad sometimes. But sometimes its really great. So just as I was lusting after the younger Tom Cruise I thought that this may never happen again. I may never truly be free again.

I mean if I don't entrap some unsuspecting chap to take my hand in marriage, I'll literally force the hell out of some unreasonably commitment phobic dude into at least sharing the rent with me. And if I don't one day drop beautiful frolicky children from my womb, I'll adopt some unsuspecting child and bring him or her into my weird world.

I really am determined that these things will happen.

So as I have it now, I spend time with my friends and family at my own whim. I am as free as I was in college, when the only thing I had to worry about was exams and like the freshman fifteen pounds. Now, I really do have worries that go beyond that...but generally I'm free fallin'.

The question is, what am I falling into?

Am I falling into a free but lonely old age? I have friends who worry about getting married because it means having to share a bathroom and having to clean up after someone. As much as I say that those things won't matter to me, I'm also becoming like older.

I worry about things a lot more, I guess like my parents do. I like to say I'm free to do whatever I want whenever I want, but I'm bound, bound by the constraints of life.

Maybe I'm not a school girl anymore, I'm a school woman. I come to the class with more insight, more baggage, a little less fear than I had when I was a girl.

I used to think life was a school. And every time I got stuck, stuck on a problem I couldn't solve, I thought it was because I wasn't smart enough or didn't work hard enough. Now I don't think of life as lessons as much as I think of life as full of experiences. We are here to live. We are here to feel the wind in our hair and dream of a young Tom Cruise who isn't tainted by Scientology yet. We are here to feel.

I felt something that night, like a giddy school girl eating ice-cream and popcorn and cotton candy watching the first kiss of a man and woman and thinking that I will miss this. But don't miss this now. Be here.

nina

Let me Tell you a Story

2011-06-25T11:59:00.000-04:00

So this is thing, I went to this show called the Moth Series, I think that's the name. It's a show on NPR that is AMAZING. It was basically a story slam where people tell true stories about their life without any notes.

Listening to all these stories, it makes you want to have a life worth telling a story about.

I want to tell you some stories: Like did I ever tell you about the time I failed at becoming a temp? That is a temporary worker, in case your wondering. I moved to D.C. with dreams of being the most highly educated secretary in the world.

Actually the temp agencies sell themselves as agencies that will help you get a permanent job, so you think you are going to the right place. You think you might have a future. You tell them you are an aspiring writer and they ask you how many words you can type per minute and they check to see if you can spell. Then they stick you in random positions until they can find the "right fit." When you tell them all you really want to do is write creatively, they tell you to shut up and talk about your organizational skills.

I started out by stuffing envelopes. Literally, stuffing envelopes and licking them closed. I still remember the acrid taste.

Now, just as an aside, someone accused me of babbling the other day. Now forgive me if I don't know the difference between babbling and blogging. Yes, I in fact babble. A lot. I like to think it's part of my charm.

Anyways my humble beginnings in the secretary pool taught me absolutely nothing. I did not learn how to be humble, instead I scorned those around me who looked like they had a real job. I didn't really learn how to work my way up the corporate ladder because truthfully, I'm just not that kinda chick.

I know you want to hear a story about how I started by stuffing envelopes and then was stuffing my face at the company picnic as my employees shook my hand. I'm sorry that didn't happen.

Let me tell you what did happen. I was sent to the Chemical Safety Board. They were supposed to, by law, lock up all their incriminating documents about chemical disasters so no stupid temp could find out about the truth behind all the unhealthy toxic calamities. But I wasn't like the temp who worked for the tabacco company and found out that they were doing all sorts of illegals things. I never even looked at those unlocked files and didn't even try to be that hero that could bring the government down.

I'll tell you what I did. I tried, between answering phones and taking lunch breaks, to write stories. I made them up because I was a fiction writer and I had no real stories of my own yet. I made up characters, I even wrote a very bad screenplay.

Well, I also, like an idiot would save my writing to the work computer. Finally, I got the job temping at USA TODAY. My dream job, my dream temp job at least. Again, I had no professional skills, I didn't know how to be fake and make a good impression and pretend like I was busy.

They had nothing for me to do, so I wrote. But this time I wrote about two people talking about a certain sexual act, the same act that Bill Clinton was being impeached for. I wrote about two people talking about it and I was fired. Bill Clinton, that same year, did it and he wasn't fired. This was 1999.

I have to admit, as another aside, I did pervue a few unauthorized websites in the course of my stay at USA TODAY. Come on, the internet just was invented, I didn't know they could track your pages. I was an idiot.

You know, I think it was the thirteenth amendment that made involuntary servitude illegal. Even though I though it was voluntary, I was being connived. There is nothing voluntary about stuffing envelopes so you can pay your rent.

By the way, just as a babbling note, I tend to repeat myself, so did I tell you this story before? I think I told it differently before.

So where was I? I wish this story had an ending worth stating, like how I lived happily afterwards, or a climax where something meaningful happened and we all walked away better people.

But all I can say is: I never temped again.

nina

What Happened to Me?

2011-06-24T02:14:00.000-04:00

So this is what I think happened, I mean the reason I stopped writing this blog...it all started with Egypt. Egypt was protesting about THIS and THAT and the other thing and it was all sooo IMPORTANT. How could I say anything, even anything remotely that important? They were using Facebook to start a revolution...I was whining about shaving my arm pit hair.

I mean who really wants to hear about nina this and that and the other thing? Real things were happening. And nothing was happening to me.

OK, maybe it wasn't just Egypt. I mean, maybe it was more that I thought I didn't have anything left to say. I literally couldn't think of anything to say...I couldn't think of anything worthy...worthy of you, whoever you are, to read.

But the thing is, if you are like me, sometimes you just don't want to express yourself. Sometimes you want to be alone and not be heard and not say anything at all for just a minute. And just be. Maybe I needed that.

I know I'm not a disciplined person, in the traditional sense of the word. I am sort of trying out different spiritual thoughts, and the idea of discipline, like maybe meditating and writing everyday, well I like those ideas but I haven't followed through with them. I don't work out every day or floss every day. So how could I expect myself to blog every day?

But there are things that I do do every day. I try to be real. I try every day to remember that I'm alive for the simple reason of being alive, even if I have no purpose: I live, and that's enough for me. On the other hand every day I try to have a purpose. Every day I try to be thankful for something, even if it's as simple as a chocolate chip cookie.

Some days are really hard and because I battle depression, (I'm not suffering from it, rather I battle it away now) but there are days when I can't feel right no matter what I do, and sometimes on those days I do nothing and feel like nothing. And when that feeling of nothing passes, on a regular day like today....I feel so good, so good because I know what it feels like to feel bad...and every day that I can get out of bed and do something productive with my life, I try to remember that I'm lucky.

Sometimes I think that my problems are monumental, than I am reminded again of Egypt. How my mind stopped working when I saw those people, was moved by those people, who were really living. I mean they were doing something, saying something, being something.

Some of them also would die for their cause.

I haven't died for anything yet. Nor do I particularly wish to. At least not yet.

However, I don't have to compare myself with the people on the news. In fact I don't really want to end up on the evening news. No news is good news.

I realize now that I could have said anything in last six months or so, and you may have been interested or moved or simply accepting of it. I could have blogged about the weather, and you would have understood that sometimes its the nothingness that binds us together.

So much has happened in the last six months, but in this way nothing changed, nothing at all. I can't even imagine that it has been six months since I blogged. I missed it though, there is something about connecting with people so directly and spontaneously that is really fun and really cathartic.

I can't ever promise that I'll be the consistent blogger, unless of course someone pays me and turns this into a job. But just as a writer, as a starving artist, I love the inspiration and beauty of this dialogue that I have with you. I hope you will be patient with me, follow me when you can, and take my pauses as a breath of fresh air.

nina

Better Off

2011-01-30T12:31:00.000-05:00

I did a paper in school the other day about the demographic of my city. I found it really interesting that my city, Troy, Michigan, was much more affluent than the average city in the U.S.

This got me thinking, I'm a really lucky person. I mean I live in a place that the average human being on this earth would be envious of.

The thing is, how often do I notice how lucky I am? I mean I watch the riots in Egypt and I am forced to think again about how lucky I am that I live in a place that I am allowed to have a peaceful demonstration about, just about anything. I live in a place that I don't at the moment, feel I need to protest in any major way.

Although, I'm not like, singing, 'I love America' all day long, I would say I'm pretty lucky to live in a country that at least proposes to be pretty free.

The sad truth is that most of the population in most countries is living with less then I am living with. A lot of this population is living with a lot less. Much of this population is also living in countries that are not 'free.'

I don't know the exact statistics of these things, but I do know that I have been blessed with a silver spoon, yet I still somehow seem to feel my life has been plagued with problems.

If someone from the slums of Detroit were to look from the outside at my parents house (where I'm staying this month because my mother is away) this person might be surprised that we have 'real' problems. Maybe they would laugh at our problems.

I wish sometimes I could look at my life from their perspective. As I stated in a previous post, there was study done that proposed that it only takes $75,000 for a family of four to be happy. That seemed like a small number to me, but much of the world's population doesn't even have that much.

So what am I so worried about?

It seems to me that since I don't really have to worry about 'survival' in a base sense then all my other worries are not really important. I mean I have to worry about surviving in some sense of the word, but I have so many people in my life that would back me up if I needed it.

So tell me, what are you worried about?

Do you worry when you walk out your front door that you will get mugged or in some way hurt by someone you don't know? Are you worried you may not be able to afford groceries this week and don't know what you will feed your kids?

If you said no to these things, than maybe you also don't have it so bad.

I am aware that everything is relative, and you can't always compare your problems with anyone else's because it's just a different ball game.

But the fact remains that we are much better off than many people and to take a minute and appreciate that might make us a lot happier.

nina

Shaving: To do or not to do?

2011-01-29T11:35:00.000-05:00

Can you believe it, Monique shaved her legs?

It's kind of crazy when you think about it, that we shave or legs in the first place. I mean god keeps giving us hair, and even when we try to get rid of it, it grows back. It's not like your arm or leg grows back if you cut it off. There might be something special about hair.

Or maybe not.

Maybe hair is just there on our legs and arms for no reason at all. In some religions, like Sikhism, hair is considered sacred. They say that there are vibrations that are felt in the hair follicles while doing meditation that make our spiritual experience even greater.

Or for some it is an identity thing. Some Sikhs wear long hair to show that they are Sikhs.

But most of us in the western world want to get rid of all hair in almost every part of our body.

We want to essentially look like something we don't naturally look like. We want to look manufactured, like dolls.

I am also guilty of this behavior as well. I just wonder sometimes, if it is worth it to be so concerned about looking like something man-made.

And it is because of men. I read somewhere that what turns off men the most is unwanted and 'unsightly' hair on a woman's body.

On the one hand I understand that it is actually natural to want to be attractive to men, but on the other hand I feel like we have become slaves to what men want.

So where do we draw the line and what do we do? I think we do what we want to do. If you don't want to shave, then I think, more power to you. If you do want to get rid of some of the hair on your body, than that's your choice.

However, you should not be made to feel bad whatever way you choose.

Now back to Monique, she was taunted in the tabloids about her choice not to shave her legs. She seems though a strong enough woman that these type of things would not bother her. I think it just felt right to her to shave her legs at this moment and she went with it.

We should all be so bold as to do whatever we want when we want.

nina

Dreams as Reality

2011-01-28T12:27:00.000-05:00

Now most of us dismiss dreams as just dreams, fairy tales so to speak. They are neither here no there and if they mean anything at all, they are about our subconscious desires.

But what if dreams are some sort of reality? Maybe a parallel reality than the reality we know, but reality none the less. There is a theory that I read in the Huffington Post by Robert Lanza that is really convoluted and confusing, so I won't even try to break it down, but this is what I got out of it: If we think it, it is real.

We think dreams.

Since our reality that we have in 'real time' is so much about our perception and the way we experience things that the reality we have in dreams is much the same.

We have no idea that dreams are not occurring on some spiritual plane of existence that we have no idea about. I believe there are dimensions out there that are way beyond our understanding.

However, that doesn't explain why dreams are so weird. I mean I have this re-occurring dream that I go back to high school after grad school and I pretend to be sixteen again and I nearly fail out of high school this time.

What's interesting is that the same friends I had in high school are there with me, and there is no explanation of that in the dream. In fact I wonder how this could be in the dream itself.

It's just that dreams point to the fact that we are weirdos. Our subconscious or whatever you want to call it is illogical and strange.

Like I had a dream last night and one minute I'm getting chased by people who want to re-sell my furniture to the Salvation Army and the next minute I'm drowning in a pool full of really well built men. What the hell does that mean, and why? Why? Why?

Why would I think such crazy thoughts that have no logic or basis to them? Why is everything everywhere? But, why is there small details like the color of the carpet? Who drew in all the details?

Did you see Inception? That is truly interesting film about dreams.

In that film people could enter each other's dreams and influence their thoughts. The idea in the movie doesn't seem that far from reality. They also point to a life in dreams that exists in time, that you are living in a dream for a certain amount of time. I don't remember the ratio, but like 5 hours in human time would be equivalent to like 30 hours in dream time or something along those lines. I don't even know if I got that right at all, but the notion is that the time you spend dreaming FEELS like a lifetime.

I mean you can experience like a year in one dream, and you probably have. Does that year feel like a year while you are dreaming it? Sure it does because dreams feel real.

Some say that reality is just a feeling after all.

But most of us want reality to be much more predictable. We want it to make sense. However, does our reality make more sense than dreams?

If you turn on the television, a replica of reality and surf through the channels you will find that it is just as weird as your dreams. On the one hand you will find Jerry Springer with two lesbian mothers who entrap a father into donating his sperm and than they all fight like cats and dogs on the screen. Then you switch the channel and there are protests in the Middle East, these protesters are using Facebook and Twitter to get thousands of people rallied up to protest their governments. Then switch the channel one more time and you will see two people intertwined in a bed saying smooth talking cliche's to one another as they pretend to make love, this would be your soap opera.

Our reality may be just as twisted and 'unreal' as our dreams.

So the next time you dismiss your dreams as silly and inconsequential, remember that your life may be the same.

nina

What is Happiness?

2011-01-27T10:27:00.000-05:00

Well here is my favorite topic again...happiness.

Oprah did a show today about happiness, one thing that was inspiring is that people were surveyed and it was found that people who make $75,000 are just as happy as people who make a million dollars. Somehow they found that it really doesn't matter how much money you have.

They said if you had $75,000 and a family of four, you would be just fine, happy in fact. Doesn't that seem a little less than you thought? I always thought a family of four these days requires quite a bit more. But apparently as long as all the essentials of life are covered, you will be happy.

I guess we could have all theoretically known that, but when it comes to reality, to really understand that it doesn't matter how many things we have or how big our house is or how new our car is, well I think that I would be happier if I had the money to spend right now on an Ipad.

I don't know why I think this particular "thing" will make me happy when I know that nothing I own in particular, including the very machine that I use every day, this computer, really makes me happy. I don't know what I would do without this machine, but I would live. I could write with a pen, you know. I could use the library computers.

There was a time I did not have a lap top and I used to write in journals and then use the library computer at school to complete my work. I think, just maybe, I was just as happy then. I would walk around and feel like I was free and could write anywhere. I would literally sit in the middle of Macy's in New York, my favorite place to be, and just look around at all the beautiful clothes and it would inspire me to write in my journal.

I didn't need a machine then, it didn't even occur to me that I did.

In the study that Oprah was talking about, they found that Special Education teacher's were the happiest out of all people in any profession. They found that anyone who spends at least eight hours a day with some kind of social interaction is happier.

Those teachers don't make very much money. However, they are probably fulfilled because they are really helping those kids. And when one of them really learns something, it must be the most satisfying feeling.

The things that really matter are as follows according to Oprah:

Did I marry the right person? Do I like my work? Where do you live? Are you connected to your community?

Showing up once a month to club is equal to the doubling of your income in terms of happiness.

Isn't that crazy, that doing something so little can boost your level of happiness so much. They say it is because you are getting to know new people and expanding your social circle.

The survey that they did also says that getting to know your neighbors is really important, in fact it says that those who know their neighbors are generally happier.

Also, finally, the study suggests that the more sex you have on a regular basis can really influence how happy you are.

The great thing about this study is that none of things that we often think we want, material things, are a factor in our true happiness. That means that almost anyone can be happy.

That means that you or I can be happy.

nina

New Gender Roles

2011-01-26T11:23:00.000-05:00

It seems like almost every post I have done in the past few days has been about sex in some manner.

Well here I go again....

There is a new study posted on Salon.com about how men and women are changing their roles since more women are becoming successful in college and in the workplace. There are apparently more women in college then men and more women earning a lot of money right away in jobs.

Apparently this has all made the sex game very interesting. According to this study, even though women are more successful men are getting more sex and giving less commitment.

It seems to me that this points to the fact that women will never win.

We can again be smarter and faster, but again some form of male aggression has to take over.

In this case it seems that men are taking advantage of the availability of sex, educated women are less traditional and "giving it up" more easily however the men are not giving any form of commitment.

They say that this doesn't mean that successful women are not getting married, they are. It's just when they are in the dating game, they are not always getting what they want. It seems that women are competing for men, when it was the opposite not too long ago.

It seems like women are never given a break and we are never given the ability to 'have it all.'

So what is success if being successful means that women are having a harder time with relationships? Relationships are the most important thing to most women, all types of relationships, we are beings that focus on our relationships with other people.

The one relationship with a man is one of the most important out of these relationships that women value.

I think it is rather barbaric that men who feel inadequate because a woman is more successful then them will use sex to take out that feeling of inadequacy. The men are getting as much sex as they can supposedly and not giving women the kind of quality relationships they are looking for.

Again we have a shift in power, but the power of sex seems to be very strong still. It seems like women will always get the short end of the stick in life.

This makes me sad.

nina

Is Rape Natural?

2011-01-25T09:50:00.000-05:00

In many studies they do 'they' have come up with this notion that rape is an evolutionary and 'natural' phenomena.

Now I don't disagree that we are animals and that in the animal kingdom rape is very natural.

However, as human beings, we don't participate in barbaric activities that are 'natural' for a reason. We don't kill each other for no reason, or for what we conceive to be a good reason. Animals kill when they feel threatened or when they want to threaten.

Anarchy, would be another natural thing that occurs in the natural world. However most of us don't subscribe to the notion of anarchy because there would be a lot of rape and pillage for no reason at all.

The very fact that you are on a computer right now as opposed to say, hunting and gathering points to the fact that we are not following the 'natural' order that animals do.

There are by the way very calm cool and collected animals that are not mean and aggressive. I can't give you an example because I'm not that familiar with the animal kingdom, just trust me, I've read about it, there are many animals that are much calmer and peaceful than human beings.

But we are always comparing ourselves to like apes and lions, we are always looking at animal societies that are aggressively patriarchal.

We don't really know what is 'natural' for human beings and what is not. Maybe we create what is natural. It could be natural to live in complete peace.

It's definitely not natural to have guns and bombs.

So if you are not gonna give up your guns, I'm not gonna give up the idea that rape is a crime.

Some say love is not natural, but if you try to get a cub away from his mama bear, it's natural. Rape is the opposite of love.

It's not natural in my eyes.

nina

Selling Sex

2011-01-24T12:08:00.000-05:00

The women are not always full grown women yet. I said that any woman who had menstruated should be called a woman, but in this case, I take it back, these are girls.

Some of them start as early as twelve years old. Do you remember what you were like when you were twelve? I remember the most devious thing I ever did when I was twelve was skip school and play cards with my best friend all day.

These girls don't go to school. They instead have learned about life through the school of sex trafficking.

Sometimes there are two, three, up to five men in one day.

Do they choose this? They usually run away from home because they can't stand the confines of home and school. Yet they in return, have submitted themselves to a life of sex slavery.

If they try to run away they are beaten. If they hide any money they are beaten.

They say it's the oldest profession in the world. But twelve year olds are not supposed to have a profession.

What really gets me is that these men who are the pimps are so easy to catch, CNN was able to catch a whole hoard of men just by putting up a fake profile.

Everyone knows this is happening. No one wants to deal with it.

Well I do. I think it's time we talk about why we allow the oldest profession in the world employee underage girls. I suppose if a woman is of legal age then she can make a choice as to whether or not she wants to sell her body, but the girls, it's their only choice.

Maybe no one chooses this, it chooses them.

The girls and women usually have been victims of sexual abuse.

They are young, naive, easily manipulated.

They are "Sluts, Hoes, Whores." But most of them were victims of sexual trafficking as girls.

They are sold online, on these very computers that you are staring at right now.

Some say it's rape after rape after rape.

Beatings and rape.

"Sex is not as sacred as it once was," one woman laments as she talks about how she started when she was thirteen years old. -CNN

It's one of the saddest, most horrific and disgusting things that is happening in our country today.

Yes it's also happening around the world. But they don't always enforce the law the way we do in the United States.

There is a way to control this. Heavier penalties for those who buy sex, sell sex and even penalties for the women who sell themselves.

I'm sorry girls, but our daughters need to see that there are consequences that go beyond the loss of dignity, that there are legal consequences.

But it takes a village, so maybe we should think about the nature of this village that we live in.

nina

Dude!

2011-01-23T10:52:00.001-05:00

I was walking with my dad outside of the mall today and I mistakenly said to him, "Dude it's cold."

I called my father Dude!!!

Dude what's up with that?

It reminds me of the time when not too long ago John Stewart interviewed the president and in jest he called him, Dude.

The media was a buzz about the whole thing and claimed that it was disrespectful to call the leader of the Armed Forces, Dude.

But come on dude, the thing is he is a human being.

I am reminded of the film, The King's Speech, a true story, where the King's therapist refuses to call him, 'Your Majesty' and calls him by his household pet name. He also, at one point in the film, sits on the king's thrown, saying something like, "Well it is just a chair."

I love it.

I love when authority is questioned. I mean we in America question all types of authority, but we are a little hesitant about calling the prez Dude.

Why do you think that is?

We forget that the president was just a regular dude before he swore into oath as the leader of the free world. We forget that our father is our friend, and if we call him dude, maybe it is out of affection.

What is the fine line between affection and disrespect? I mean I think that it's kind of interesting that everyone has to say, "Mr. President" to the president's face while possibly calling him an asshole behind his back. Same is true of your father, you may call him "Dad" to his face but what do you say about him behind his back?

There is the notion that these titles like President and Dad are well earned. But one of the first things that our forefathers got rid of when they made the Constitution was titles of nobility. 'President' is sort of a title of nobility, don't ya think?

I wish I could write the president a letter addressing him as 'Hey Dude.' I'm sure if I did that it would never be read by his staff and never taken seriously.

The problem with titles is that we lose some of our friendliness and familiarity with a person we have to always refer to with a certain title. I'm sure if I could call my dad, 'Shani' his nickname, maybe some of our barriers would break down. I know it's just a name, but there is a lot of power in a name.

I once broke down some serious barriers when I called my own mother a b--- to her face. She will never forget it, she will never let me forget it, and I will always regret it. Of all the names I could have chosen to call her, that was the worst one. I'm sorry Mama.

The thing is sometimes I want there to be titles that are used properly. I think any woman who has started menstruating should be addressed as a 'woman.' Not a 'girl.' I feel like it is an issue of respect. I also think that the word, and I use this word very cautiously because it's nasty, but the word, 'cunt' should never be used to describe a woman because of the sheer fact that is disgusting. 'Lady' is one of those words that it really matters who says it, like "Get out of my way, Lady," is not nice. "Give the Lady what she wants," is nice.

I know I'm being biased here, not being objective. Well screw objectivity, this is just the way I feel. I never claimed to be a journalist in this space. I feel that some titles are necessary and some can be played around with. In all seriousness I think they can all be played around with and have loved when someone said to me with affection, "Giiirl, do you know what I'm talkin' about?"

Sometimes we gotta stop being so formal. Like for instance, we are usually very formal when addressing god. Very few of us say, 'Dear Dude' when praying. But the thing is, god doesn't really have a title or a name that isn't man made. If we could talk to Him on the level that we talk to other Dudes, maybe we would begin to break down our spiritual barriers.

Sometimes I like to think that god is my friend and in jest I have used swear words like, "How could you f----- do this to me!" Now it says in the Bible not to use the Lord's name in vain. But I don't usually follow the Bible and I don't really know what 'in vain' truly means.

Just like the king's thrown is just a chair, Dude is just a word.

nina

Jungle Fever

2011-01-22T09:25:00.000-05:00

Remember that movie, Jungle Fever? It was about a black guy having an affair with a white woman. I remember one scene in the film where the man's wife, who has light skin, screams about how her husband thought he wanted a light skinned woman but really he wanted a white woman.

Well recently, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was on the cover of Elle magazine and seems like they actually wanted a white woman, because they lightened her skin. They did this without her permission and made her very angry.

I would be angry too. Elle did not accept Aishwarya for who she is.

I mean come on, she is the most beautiful woman in the world. If she needs lightening, than what do the rest of us need? The magazine is perpetuating the notion in many communities that lighter skin is more desirable in a woman.

I know in my own Indian culture, where Aishwarya comes from, there is a very strong correlation between fair skin and beauty.

Obviously this is an obsession with the western notions of white women being the standards of beauty, yet it seems particularly offensive that a magazine that caters to Indian people would still try to sell this ridiculous ideal.

It's such an arbitrary notion that white is better than darker skin. It has everything to do with power than anything else. I suppose this is obvious.

I am a light skinned Indian woman. Would I want to look any other way?

No.

Not because I want to look white, which I don't, I just have fairer skin. But I don't wish I was darker or lighter, I just wanna be me. I think that's healthy. I think we should all just wanna be ourselves.

If you are medium toned, which Aishwarya is, she wants magazines to just leave her skin the way it is.

I don't really understand why people are sitting out in the sun to be darker, but that 'tanned' look is also evidence of wealth and prosperity. It means you can go on vacation, you have time to lounge and tan, you are probably wealthy and beautiful.

So light skinned people want to be 'tan.' And darker skinned people are given images by magazines and advertisers to get lighter skin.

Is it just me or do we seem like the idiots who are buying into this crap?

I was in fact confused when I was a kid because my Indian friends told me I was too pale and needed some sun, while my mother told me to stay out of the sun and avoid tans because I had beautiful pale skin.

What's a girl to do?

Nothing. I stopped caring how 'pale' or 'tan' I am. That is the least of my worries and out of all the things I have to think about all day, I have successfully crossed that off of my list.

Wanna try it? It's very freeing.

nina

Personally

2011-01-21T11:08:00.000-05:00

So I found out about a good friend's pregnancy via a Facebook wall post. I was not delighted. I was a little hurt that she hadn't personally told me.

What is personally these days? A text? An email? A Facebook wall post?

I personally don't understand text messages. It seems like your sending someone a telegram, but we don't send telegrams anymore.

I mean I think it's bad enough that we tell each other important things on the phone instead of in person. Things about divorce and having babies-and when we say it over a text I feel like it loses all its personal touch.

However most people will tell you it's the most convenient thing.

Convenience means everything to people these days. Convenience trumps personalization. It trumps almost anything.

And yet do you remember when you didn't have a cell phone? People couldn't get a hold of you for hours, even days.

I remember the good old days - in college - my parents wouldn't talk to me for like a week at a time. Now if they can't get a hold of me in five minutes, they panic.

We are constantly trying to be freer, right? I mean ideally, as Americans. Are we really freer if every second of the day someone can get a hold of us? People can even put a GPS thing on your cell phone without your knowing. They can know where you are at all times without you even knowing.

What kind of life are we leaning towards?

Maybe we were a lot happier when things were less accessible, when things were simpler. When you could walk around anywhere and no one could find you...

nina

What makes Me Unique

2011-01-20T12:34:00.000-05:00

So do you ever think about what makes you unique? Trust me, you are not exactly like anyone else. There are always things that set you apart.

Good things.

One of the things that sets me apart from at least half of the population is that I'm a woman. Now what does that mean to me? It means a lot.

It means I will fight for the right to have rights. It means I have to be stronger, better, wiser, and work harder than a man in my field of work in order to be recognized the same as a man. It means I will get paid less than a man even if I do more work. It means I can be raped, attacked, hurt, or stalked.

However it also means I have this beautiful sensitivity to me. I understand people I don't even know, I have the capacity to understand men, women, children, and even some household pets. I love passionately and I love intensely. I may get emotional and cry and scream when I shouldn't, but I will take care of those I love with a real honesty.

Another thing that sets me apart from the crowd is that I'm Indian. Now I know that there are like more than a billion Indians in the world and it hardly makes me unique, but I still feel there is something to be said for being from a beautiful country that is often misunderstood.

I have inherited the spiritual nature of India, and I often try to wake up early in the morning and meditate, whatever that means. I enjoy the idea of family that is instilled in most Indian households. Family always comes first, and I cherish that notion. I also love the idea that I have come from immigrants and have learned to work hard from the immigrant mentality.

Another bit of myself that is particular to me is that I'm an Asian American in the Arts. I chose to be a writer as opposed to the usual track of becoming a doctor, engineer, or lawyer. There is nothing wrong with following the usual track, if you do you are probably a lot better off financially, but I enjoy my work nonetheless. I enjoy the fact that I had to rebel against my culture and my family in order to pursue my passion. I hope it pays off.

There is also a part of me that makes me particularly vulnerable, yet I think it adds to my creativity and ability to create art. I have a mental illness. I'm Bipolar. This has often led to very trying times when I was out of my mind completely and did unmentionable things. It has also led me to fall into a deadening and very dark depression at times where I could see no way out.

However, my insanity also led me to have a particular mind set and think outside of the box, or rather, put the box aside. It has also made me appreciate life when I feel 'normal' and can function 'normally' I see beauty in every little thing because I know that I may lose it at any moment.

Lastly, I'm a Sikh. Sikhism is a very unique and modern religion that teaches personal salvation through meditation. It is a religion filled with the most divine music and poetry ever written, it is truly a rich and beautiful religion. I am lucky to be a part of it.

So basically I'm a Minority Sikh Woman in the Arts who has a Mental Illness. There are a lot of things working for me and a lot of things working against me here. But I feel like I would rather be set apart from the crowd then just be 'normal.' I don't think that anyone is really ordinary or boring because of their particular stance in life, however it is particularly interesting to be on the borderlines as I am.

Sometimes I have to fight just to live.

I think that's OK.

I will fight the good fight.

What's your fight about?

nina

Isolation in America

2011-01-19T12:29:00.000-05:00

Of course I chose the loneliest profession around, writing. It's just me myself and I when I do this work. That's probably the reason I want to go into teaching, because I like the idea that the classroom is a kind of community.

I feel like there is a lack of community in the United States and maybe even in the world. I mean I live in a condo-complex and I have said "hello" to everyone who lives there, but I don't know any of them, I don't socialize with any of them. I go to the same coffee shops and bookstores every day. I find that the chain type of coffee shops, the ones that are so American, are where strangers rarely talk to one another. It's only at the independent coffee shops that I find very independent people who seem to think of the place as a community.

We, in this country, rarely step out of our comfort zones to talk to people we don't know just because they are there. Our community usually consists of people we work with, went to school with, or grew up with. These are our friends.

Yet there are people outside of my circle that I would like to befriend. There is a very interesting looking man who works at Panera Bread, his accent tells me he's probably from somewhere in Africa. He's a very dedicated worker who doesn't speak English very well. I would love to talk to him so he could tell me stories about where he came from. I wish it wouldn't be weird for me to talk to a man I don't know.

I'm not saying we should go around talking to every Tom, Dick and Harry for no apparent reason. But it would be nice if we got to know our neighbors, the people who frequent the coffee shops and restaurants we go to. It would be nice if it weren't "weird" to start talking to a complete stranger for no reason.

I love strangers, actually, a little too much I've been told. When I first moved to a real city, Washington D.C. I was still naive and talked to anyone who would talk to me. I met a man on the train who told me stories about how he worked for the CIA and knew secrets than even the president didn't know. Of course it later occurred to me that he was probably lying because if he knew stuff even the president didn't know, why was he telling me?

Then there was the guy at the bus stop who started telling me about how is brother married a Mormon after he was let out of jail. I suppose you shouldn't convict someone in your head because their brother was in jail, but he then told me about how skateboarding was his passion in life and that he wanted to skate board around the world.

Nothing wrong with that. I think the problem that my friends had with me talking to complete strangers was that they could potentially be weirdos that could follow me around or stalk me or harm me in some way.

Yet I love the rush of meeting someone new. I met a guy at the coffee shop recently who read my Tarot Cards. I don't know if I believe in Tarot Cards or if I believe that this particular man could really read them, but is was fascinating to me that he had the guts to try and tell me personal details of my future. I didn't pay him, I just listened. I definitely learned more about him than he did about me.

Right now, because I'm a student and a writer, I spend a lot of time in coffee shops where people from all walks of life gather. Most people are too busy to want to chat, but there are people who will bring out their laptops as well or bring a book with them and sit for hours. Chatting with these people now and then brings me great joy, I love to get to know almost anyone.

Right now there is an elderly woman sitting alone, drinking her coffee and reading the paper. I don't know why, but something about her mannerisms screams that she is lonely. I want to approach her, but there is no language in our culture that allows us to just come up to someone and talk to them for no reason.

I don't know if there is a way in any culture, a way to sit next to someone and just say, "I understand."

Because the more we rely on our phones, our computers and our other gadgets, the more we disengage with the people around us.

Isolation can be a hop skip and jump away from depression. So watch yourself. And watch other people. Look at them and wonder if you can maybe change their day just by saying hello.

nina

Tigers

2011-01-18T10:16:00.000-05:00

My dad used to call my sister "tiger" when she was a little girl. She's gonna kill me for bringing this up, I only bring this up because my father was what you might call a 'Tiger Father.' He was strict, but hey, his father was stricter. And we, me and my sister, do OK now. We don't always agree with or will repeat my father's parenting methods, but we thank him nonetheless.

In Amy Chua's latest book, 'Tiger Mother" that was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal, Chua chronicles the very strict and often scary mothering of her Chinese mother. She also explores her own Chinese mothering methods.

Imagine if you "once told your own hyper-successful Asian American daughter that she was 'garbage.' That you threaten to throw out your other daughter's doll house and refused to let her go to the bathroom one evening until she mastered a difficult piano composition. That you threw the homemade birthday cards they gave you as 7-and-4 year-olds back in their faces, saying you expected more effort."-The New York Times. Chua did all of these things.

Chua was pretty harsh. However, Chua got death threats from people who were so upset that she said that Asian American mothers were superior.

Death threats?

Ummm...is it just me or is that a little harsh?

I'm sorry, is this worth threatening someones death for? Isn't parenting a matter of choice? What's next in the death threat pool, I wonder?

I don't even agree with this very verbally violent and bordering on abusive parenting style. However if someone is honest enough to talk about it, I'm all ears. I'm listening because I want to learn from someone else's mistake, even if that person doesn't think it is a mistake.

You see, my problem is not with Amy Chua's book, her opinions or her parenting style. My problem is that people are so violent and absolutely nuts and anything can set them off.

Yes I have a personal stake vested in this issue. Yes I will probably write something that someone will hate, if I have not done so already. Maybe I'll write an entire book that someone will hate.

Will I get a death threat one day?

What are you supposed to do once you get a death threat? I mean come on. On the one hand I would be flattered that my words could be so strong as to offend someone to this level of violence. However when it comes down to it, nothing really is deserving of violence. What are you supposed to do, keep looking over your shoulders every five seconds, or just pray that is all a joke? How are you even supposed to live after you get a death threat?

I mean, a few days ago we were celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s life. We all got a day off because this wonderful man came into this earth and said that violence is not the way to get your point across. The man was killed because he abhorred the very type of violence that caused his death.

When are we gonna learn?

We are not barbarians who need to kill each other for competition of food, but now we think it's worth killing each other over parenting methods? Is this really happening?

Amy Chua is not advocating beating your children, she is simply pointing out that Asian American kids are really successful because their parents were really strict. Sometimes these parents are mean.

I'm no parent or anything, but sometimes I'm mean. I went to Columbia University to get a graduate degree, I'm an Asian American who succeeded in many ways due to my very strict upbringing.

All of this does not mean that I agree with Chua. I however, love that she has the right to her point of view. And she does make one very good point: the Loosey Goosey I love you no matter what- type of parenting often leads to less successful children.

Why do we live in a country and world that is so afraid of the truth. The truth is that if you want a successful child you can't always be the nice guy. The truth is not fun. The truth scares people.

And in turn they decide they want to scare the truth-maker. Chua was simply stating her truth.

Who is next, I ask you? The guy who doesn't like ice cream because it's too cold? Everyone likes ice-cream, how dare he say it's too cold? I want to kill him.

This is what we are going to be reduced to in a short while. There will be no relevance to our violence. (I'm not sure that there is any now...) People will be so scared to say things, say things that are true to them.

Chua was simply saying what was true to her.

If you want to kill her because of that, I'm sure you are one hell of a parent.

nina

Indian Identity

2011-01-17T11:45:00.000-05:00

Today I would like to thank Martin Luther King for helping me create what I consider to be my Indian American Identity. What does that mean, you ask? Let me explain:

Fist of all, even though my skin color is a little different than the average person in America, I am still an American. Sometimes it's hard for me to say this because when people look at me they see a person who comes from another country, yet I grew up here. This is my home. America defines me first.

Secondly, I still retain some of my parent's Indian culture, or I should say my Indian culture. I understand some of the language, I follow some of the religious rituals, and I like some of the food. Some of my values come straight from my parent's homeland, I find that I have slightly different values than the average American.

So maybe you want to ask me why I have to call myself an Indian American as opposed to just an American? Because often times I look in the mirror and I see a person with so many different dimensions. I don't see blonde hair and blue eyes, but when I talk Hindi does not come out of my mouth.

The truth is I wouldn't fit in India even if I tried, I'm different than Indians in India. I sometime hang out with Indian people in America just to feel like there is somewhere I fit in.

I am often between two cultures and have the right to define myself within the borderlines of these cultures. Sometimes I don't feel Indian at all and sometimes I don't feel American at all. I also have a unique religious identity as a Sikh. Sikhs are a minority in India so I sometimes define myself as a Sikh Indian American.

When I walk around town, I'm one of those people who is mistaken to have many different culutral identities. People think I'm Arabic or Mexican etc. I don't mind this at all, it makes me feel worldly in fact.

However, I remember a time when I didn't feel so worldly. My uncle wears a turban and he was living with us in 1984. There were huge riots in India during this time because two Sikh men had assasinated the Prime Minister of India, Indra Gandhi. I suppose someone must have seen this on the news, since it was on the news every night.

It stared with eggs, they threw a few eggs at our window and we could hear laughter coming from outside. Then, the next day, it was tomatoes. And finally they threw rocks through our windows.

We don't know who did it. I remember feeling scared and hated and feeling ill. I didn't really realize, at that age, that I was so radically different than the average person. That we as a family were so different, different enough that people should throw stones.

I couldn't talk to anyone about it really, most of my friends were white at the time. I just went about my business with this new feeling of uncertainty. I felt like maybe, there was a chance, I did not belong in this country.

However, eventually I would read about Martin Luther King Jr. and how he helped make it so people like me would be accepted no matter what. Of course he was an idealist, but so am I.

I know there are people who look at me now and think I could be the girlfiriend or wife of a terrorist, or something like that. I think they think that I might be someone who doesn't speak English well even though I have two degrees in English.

The Civil Rights movement was not only for Black people, it was for everyone who felt like they had a place in this country, a place that was not being respected.

My place may look different than yours, but we share a space on this earth. America may not look like other countries because of people like me, people who mix things up, and I'm proud of that.

I'm proud of who I am and I will be a part of this country, a part of this world, and I will force you to accept me.

Whether or not you like it, I'm here to stay.

nina

Should we Care?

2011-01-16T11:32:00.000-05:00

You wanna know what I care about the most: me. I care about myself first probably, I mean come on, let's be real. My family comes in a very close second, I feel like I care about them more than myself, but I cannot guarantee that. And then I care about my friends. Are you kinda the same?

If anything bad happens to any of these people, especially me, I'm upset. Why I should care about one more natural disaster or famine etc. in a foreign country sometimes bewilders me. Sometimes I just don't care.

Does that make me devil-like, or just human-like?

I don't want to be like this, I want to care more, but sometimes I can't stand how every single day there is something going on somewhere to somebody. I want to take a break from the world and escape in my own bubble. The bubble of my life, where my people are.

I'm sure there is a lot on your mind right now. You may be reading this, talking on the phone, eating lunch and thinking of your plans for a weekend getaway all at the same time. You are worried about bills and relationships and maybe even your own mortality. Then you switch on the news...

There was a huge flood in Brazil. 420 people are dead. Most likely you don't know any of those people. You sit through that and see that there are food riots in countries all across the world because the price of food has soared internationally. So the question is, should you care? Should you worry? Why? Do you change the channel to Real Housewives of Atlanta or do you watch in horror as Wolf what's his name on CNN tells you about mass devastation?

There are tragedies going on all around the world every minute of the day. How many are reported on and how many are ignored often determines whether we care or not. But let's for a moment trust our news sources and decide, should we care about natural disasters in other countries? Should we care about unfair wars in other countries? Should we care about tyranny and poverty in other countries?

Well the sad thing is, when Katrina occurred, it seemed as though our own government didn't care enough about it to do enough and left many people in horrific situations. But is Katrina more important than what happens in Brazil? Did you notice that people all around the world were concerned about Katrina, yet how many Americans will be worried about world tragedies?

I mean, of course you are gonna try and protect and be concerned about your own home first. America is my home and when something happens within it's borders I am more concerned than I would be if something happened in India, even though my cultural heritage comes from India.

But should I even care about countries that I have no associations with? Should I spend that extra minute worrying about the people in Sudan? How much worry can I fill my brain with before it explodes?

Well, there is the notion that we are only using like ten percent of our brain, some say it's an urban myth. But if it's true, than we can think and worry about all kinds of things at the same time. You can worry about your waistline and at the same second be worried about those in the world that have no food. We are capable of a lot more than we think,

Also, we live in a world, not just a country. The boundaries that we have created between our land and foreigners land is sort of made up, they are not naturally occurring boundaries. Even just raising awareness by having a conversation or reading a blog about what happens in other counties helps.

We may or may not care about what happens in other countries, but you better believe that other countries care about what happens to us. You will often find that foreigners know more about what is happening in this country than we do. I noticed this when I went to India a few years ago.

I wasn't in India during any particular tragic event, I was simply confronted with severe poverty head on for the first time in my life. I'm not just talking about people who don't have homes, but people who don't have limbs because Leprosy has spread in their poor neighborhoods. I'm talking about people who walk around naked and sleep in tents on the side of the road. Small children with sad faces begged me for food and money.

I did care when I was confronted with it. I did care for the short time that I was there. However my relatives
who live there sort of stopped being shocked by it, they didn't care as much as I did. They were desensitized as we are when we watch the news. However this wasn't just the news for them, this was the situation in their backyards.

None of these poor people were my relatives, of course. Of course I could plainly see that they were not one of us and I was not one of them. But just to see that every day when I woke up in the morning made me a little more humble. It made me appreciate my life a little more. It made me think about what I want to do with my life, that perhaps I should think about lifting at least a finger for another human being.

Although I sit here and do nothing for anyone really, and I'm concerned about myself first, I would hypothetically like to help battered women and children in India find refuge and education in order to recover and prosper. I have no idea how I'm going to help make this happen but even having the thought, writing it down, and sharing it, helps I think.

I don't think it is only the responsibility of Americans to help the world, but we do owe the world something since we eat up like an enormous portion of the world's resources just by being alive and going to Starbucks.

Do you have to care about people suffering outside of our borders? You don't have to do anything.

It would be nice though, if we all did our small part.

nina

Sexy Tears?

2011-01-15T10:19:00.001-05:00

I think about being sexy, and how it would be nice if I could perpetually exist in a sexy zone where I exude pheromones that make men fall to their knees. I have probably spent thousands of dollars buying perfumes and hair products and make-up all in the hopes of being as sexy as I can be.

But now I've been told that even if I'm wearing the sexiest boots with the most sensuous black skirt, if my eyes water with tears, even tears of joy, I will negate all my sexy effort.

You probably worry about your clothes being sexy, your shoes, your hair, but what about your tears?

OK, you may have heard of this study they did recently that says that men are turned off by women's tears. The thing that women are asking is, who would first of all, fund such a study? And for what purpose? Secondly, are women trying to be sexy when they sob, are they even interested in sex when tears are flowing from their eyes?

Is it just me, or does it seem like everything in this world has to be sexy these days? We can't just leave crying to be an emotional event, it has to be graded on the sexy scale.

Remember that song by Right Said Fred that went something like, "I'm too sexy for my..." and you could put anything in there. I'm too sexy for my cat, too sexy for my hat, too sexy it hurts. He was talking about models acting as if they were so sexy nothing could touch them, they acted as if they were too sexy for life itself.

Is that what we are supposed to be?

With the proliferation of Internet pornography, it is so easily accessible that almost every man divulges in it from time to time. I'm sure women do as well. The images in pornography suggest that the actors are "too sexy" for their own good as well. The women's boobs are too big, the men's packages are too large and everyone has a fake tan.

How are real human beings supposed to compare to this?

To top it off a lot of men I know watch Internet porn at least once a day. How is a real woman supposed to compete with a quick fix like porn that is infused with unreal bodies?

The truth is we men and women, are not always sexy. We do things on a regular basis that are not sexy at all.

Why are we expected to live by a standard that even our tears should be evaluated as sexy or not?

They say that men think about sex every like six seconds or something. I think this may be an urban myth as well, and men are not thinking about sex as often as we are told. I mean how would they get any work done? How would they have a conversation or concentrate on anything else in life?

Why don't they do a study about how men's obsession with sex makes women cry?

It is true that evolutionarily the people who have evolved are the ones that have procreated the most or the best, but we are more than an evolutionary explanation.

However if you paid attention to all the images we see on television, magazines and other media outlets, it's not like you could tell that we are anything but sexual beings.

Yet the real question is, with all this talk about sex, how much sex is the average person having? In the beginning of any relationship sex is probably pretty regular. But once you have been with someone over the course of some time, sex becomes less and less frequent. I think that the average person, whether married or not, is not having tons and tons of sex on a regular basis.

Why is life so much less sexy than we want it to be?

Probably because we are slaughtered with the idea that life is supposed to be sexy, and when our life or our partner doesn't live up to some bizarre ideal we start to feel less sexy.

After all, the real measure of whether someone is sexy is whether or not they feel sexy. It's hard to feel this way when you can't live up to the sexy standards of the universe. And I think that half of sexy is self-esteem.

When I'm crying, I don't want someone to necessarily get excited, I want love, companionship, all the other things that come with a relationship. Although I know for a fact that the study needs to be evaluated because many people have had sexual intercourse after a very emotional outbreak that included tears.

I happen to find a man crying to be very sexy. I think it's beautiful to see anyone release real feeling.

Another problem with this study is that it is going against the idea that we as human beings are allowed to experience and share our pain with each other. This is especially difficult for men to do, so I understand why tears might not turn them on, but at the same time, as a culture we need to help men get in touch with their tears. I'm sorry if that sounds corny.

So ask yourself this: Are you too sexy for your tears?

nina

Crazy Killing

2011-01-14T11:14:00.000-05:00

OK, I have a problem with the media coverage of this Arizona shooter. Allegedly he is mentally ill.

Let me ask you this? When was the last time you heard of a mad man with a gun shooting people? It's been a while right? Mostly, the people who shoot other people are "sane." Or to be more exact, they don't suffer from any known mental illness.

However why is it that when one man is mentally ill and makes a commotion by killing all these people, now there are articles all over the place about how to detect if someone is mentally ill?

I think it's a lot more important to detect if someone is violent rather than if they are mentally ill. Perfectly sane people beat their wives, beat their children, get into bar fights, and then we are shocked when they shoot someone with a gun.

The percentage of people who are mentally ill who will actually harm another person are probably the same as the percentage of people who are sane that will harm another individual. In fact I can bet you that most crimes are committed by perfectly sane people.

So how do you detect whether someone is gonna pull out a gun and kill you? You can't really.

I mean if we are talking about people you don't know, complete strangers killing you, there is no real way to tell. But if it is someone you know, there are always signs. I don't know what those signs are, I don't hang out with violent people, but I assume that they have something very eerie about them that suggests that they may turn on you any second.

You know that guy that killed John Lennon and the guy that tried to kill Reagan were both obsessed with the book Catcher in the Rye. Perhaps we should ban this book now, because it is narcissistic and shows a main characters who only cares about himself.

The thing is, that would be an absurd thing to do. We cannot psychoanalyze killers with our pop-psychology.

Killers are all crazy. It is crazy to kill.

Whether or not they have a "mental illness" is irrelevant. The act of killing itself is an insane act.

Just because every now and then a mentally ill person kills, does not mean that all mentally ill people are killers.

I may have a partial viewpoint about this because I have a mental illness. But I guarantee you that most of the people that I have met who suffer from mental illnesses are much more likely to hurt themselves rather than hurt anyone else.

The thing is that people like to either romanticize or demonize mental illness. Either he's so crazy he's a genius or he's so crazy he's dangerous. But mostly, mentally ill people are oddly normal. We are your waitresses, your teachers, and even doctors. We are your autistic children, and even your presidents have suffered from mental illness.

Don't write us off just yet, we are your friends.

nina

Embarrassment

2011-01-13T13:46:00.000-05:00

What's your most embarrassing moments growing up? I'll tell you mine.

Well first of all this was beyond embarrassing, it was hurtful. When I was in kindergarten I had a sweating problem of some kind, and these kids would chase me around the schoolyard yelling, "Stinky Nina." I guess you can imagine how devastated I was that this was happening. I don't remember how terrible it was, I think I sort of blocked it out, but I can imagine the psychology of someone who is being teased in this way over and over.

The second incident happened in like third grade I think. It was my friend's birthday party and she was one of the cool kids so I was really excited to go and I really wanted to impress her. So the thing is, I had to take a gift and my mother decided that she would not buy me anything brand new. She had bought this cooler, yeah a cooler you would take on a picnic, an actual cooler, that she thought would be a perfect gift.

It was huge. It was the biggest gift at the party. Everyone was staring at it and staring at me. "Nina, we'll open your gift last because it's the biggest!" my other friend shouted. I couldn't look at her or anyone, I wanted to die. I cringed as my friend opened her normal gifts from her other friends. Not only was I the only person of color at the party I was the only person with a cooler. Everyone else bought her cool stuff, I got her something she could cool stuff in. It was tragic, it was the end of my social life as I knew it.

Finally when they got to my gift, everyone was sooo excited to open it. She slowly unwrapped it and was like, "It's a cooler." She didn't know what to say. Everyone kind of looked at me a little funny. Even her mother said something like, "You got her a cooler?" Her mother's friend had gotten my friend really awesome like teen magazines and all this cool stuff and she was like forty. My gift wasn't even cool enough for a forty year old, I was mortified.

The third most embarrassing thing to happen to me as a kid was when I tried out for the school musical when I was fifteen. I was a loser freshman and decided that I wouldn't try out for the chorus like a normal person with no talent whatsoever would, instead I decided to try out for the role as the main character. I don't remember what the play was or what the name of the characters was, which is indicative of how much I studied for this part before going on stage in front of a bunch of talented people.

For starters I had forgotten how to read music from my trumpet playing days, so I when I practiced singing I just sort of made up a tune in my head. Did you hear what I said, I made up a tune? I was the stupidest little freshman that ever existed.

I went up there and in my high pitched voice, I stared singing words that no one could make out to a tune that I had made up. The director of the play stopped me. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know which song you are singing." I was more than mortified this time. I told him which song, and I began singing, my own made up tune to these words that I was slaughtering with my high pitched horrible voice.

I saw a few people in the corner of my eye smile in this way that they couldn't believe what was happening. I wasn't sure what was happening. I went through the rest of the audition like a zombie. I couldn't follow the dance steps for the dancing part, I didn't know how to inflect for the reading part where the main character was speaking. All in all it was a travesty.

I have no lesson to give you here, I have no idea what these moments taught me. I do know that I would never want to relive them. I would never want my worst enemy to live them.

Thank god that's all over.

nina

"Happiness is just an Illusion, Filled with Sadness and Confusion"

2011-01-12T11:27:00.000-05:00

"One person is grateful and appreciative in life when they have many a struggle to deal with; another person constantly compares themselves to others and is discontent in life when they seemingly have nothing to complain about- thoughts on what provokes either tendency?"

Why are some people happy and some people not? I would like to say it is the way you are raised, but I wasn't raised to be happy, I was raised to be successful. When I was a kid if I told my dad I wanted to be a teacher or an actress or something, he would say, "No, you will become a doctor." As you can see that method really worked well with me. I somehow turned out to be the kind of person that is constantly striving for happiness.

I am amazed sometimes at people whose life seems smooth sailing, yet they are not sailing through it. It could be that we don't really know what happens behind closed doors. But there is also an element that if you haven't had hard times in your life while growing up they are harder to take when you do grow up.

I mean come on, some people should just be happy. I mean I don't know, who am I to judge? I grew up pretty privileged. But then the shit began to hit the fan in my life as a teenager.

The first sign that it was all over was when I had my year of zits when I was sixteen. I'm not even kidding, it was so tragic for me. I was so vain and then suddenly I couldn't look in the mirror without cringing. Thank god the acne went away without scars.

Then, my father started actually going blind. That was the worst part of my life. Of course it didn't help when my mother was falsely accused in a lawsuit.

Things were actually a lot worse then I'm making them sound because I'm just not gonna tell you the really personal details, but it got ugly, very ugly. But I was always, even in my darkest moments, I had this weird optimism that everything was gonna be alright. I used to tell my parents that anyone living in the slums of Detroit who saw their beautiful home would laugh at their problems. My parents didn't think it was funny.

Did we have a lot of problems, yeah, but we also had a lot of support and love. We stood by each other, and that's why I can get through shit, because I know my family and friends always have my back.

I carried this optimism with me during 911. I know, I've heard, that people in the suburbs were upset. I was in New York when it happened and I didn't cry until about a week after it happened, when I went to a candlelight vigil for some of the victims. I wasn't on medication at the time, so I can't blame that for me not being completely sensitive to what was happening.

There was only one thing I knew: I had to survive. I had just been diagnosed with Manic Depression at the time and was ignoring the diagnosis, but knew in the back of my head that I was a vulnerable person. I didn't go down to the site until months later, until I knew I was ready. I was so strong, I'm so proud of myself. Of course a few months later I did have a mental breakdown that could have been partly caused by the stress of living in a place that was so scared and depressed.

But let me tell you something, you would have been strong too. You may have later fallen down on your knees too. You don't know what you are capable of until you go through it. But I haven't answered the question as to why some people crumble while others soar.

I had a friend who walked from the site on 911 and was so badly covered with soot that people were staring at him and crying. He lost some people, but he didn't lose himself. He was one of the most jovial people I knew during that time.

I think that if you were watching all of this on T.V. and you were more upset than I was, you should evaluate some things. First of all why are you so upset about something that doesn't directly affect you? If you lost someone during 911 that's a different story, you the right to be as upset as you fucking want to be. But if you are just upset because of images you saw on T.V. you should think about how the media is affecting your brain.

I think the media wanted you to be upset so you kept tuned in. I think the government wanted you to be upset so you would support their wars. Yes, it was a tragedy and since anyone at all could have been a target, we were all targets. But if you couldn't get through your day without weeping or having some kind of panic because of it, think about what you were really upset about.

I guess the question is, why did some people sail through 911 and some people fell down? I don't really know, as you can probably tell at this point. I am exploring the idea with you, not for you. I think I did both, I was strong until a point and then some other stuff happened in my life and it was all too much for me. I don't blame the terrorists alone though.

You know a lot of people with Mental Illnesses who don't take their medication end up on the streets. That could have been me. I made it because I had love in my life whereas other people who did not, may not have had that kind of support.

Was their something inside me that made me get through it all and still I hope come out OK? Yeah, I have a very strong belief in the good. You can call it god if you want, you can call it a positive force in the universe, you can call it godot. In the play, Waiting for Godot, God comes to these guys in the form of people while they are waiting for some supreme being to arrive.

God didn't show his face to me, instead there were gods all around me, including my doctors and therapists, that saved me. And some of it is luck as well. I have a disease that happens to have a cure: medication. There are many people who cannot get through their lives because they have a disease that has no cure.

But what about those people with nothing to be upset about? I think that they have too much time on their hands to be upset about little things because they don't have to concentrate on anything real. They are petty and small and probably don't deserve happiness.

I don't mean to be mean, but come on. If you've got it all, at least be happy. Do it for the rest of us, if not for yourself.

And if you've got some troubles, and you can't get through it, remember somebody has it worse than you and they are getting through it.

nina

Adult Content

2011-01-11T09:50:00.000-05:00

Ummm, is it just me or do you not feel like an actual adult sometimes? I swear it was just yesterday that we were playing with our friends, laughing our heads off at nothing, and ignoring our parents.

I mean most likely you are not depending on your parents for much anymore, but why do I sometimes dread that phone call from them, the one where they ask you all these questions about what you are doing with your life? Why is it harder to ignore them now then it was then?

The other day, I even told my father how much money I had in my bank account. I don't think I should do that anymore. He told me I was spending too much. I don't necessarily think he's right, but he's a tiny bit right.

However, when does all this stop being their business? I'm in a little bit of a different situation than most people because as a full fledged adult, I lived with my parents for like four years. It was a long four years and I just moved out. We are all still getting used to this.

I love my parents to death, but we have to understand that there are boundaries.

They actually don't read my writing. I'm dreading the day when they do read my novel or this very blog. They are going to be soooo irrationally upset and they are going to make me irrational and upset. I will act like a bratty kid. I knew it would happen one day though, with my writing, I knew one day they would be ridiculously inflamed by it. I was just hoping I'd be rich and famous by then.

Is it just me or do all of your relatives give you an inferiority complex? This partly may be unique to the Indian culture, I don't know, I only have Indian parents. But the questions after questions become so mundane. When are you getting married? When are you gonna have a real career? What is this writing thing? If you are gonna write can't you write a children's book like Harry Potter, the woman who wrote that is richer than the Queen of England? Etc.,etc., etc.

I don't write or read children's literature, but I still feel like a child on occasion. In general, don't you still feel kinda young? I mean, however old you are, don't you feel like you are a kid sometimes? Don't you want to play and nap and have recess?

When exactly did I become an actual adult? Was it when I started college, 'cause I was naive, innocent and green then. Was it when I graduated from undergrad and ventured out on my own to D.C. knowing no one and having nothing? Was it when I graduated from grad school with a completed novel that was my thesis? At what point did I stop having my childlike innocence?

I don't think I have lost my innocence completely. I have lost a little bit of it, maybe even a huge chunk of it, but I still have a childlike wonder about me. I try not to take everything too seriously. I know there are things that are serious, too serious, but even those I take with a grain of salt. I am an adult, but I haven't killed the kid inside me.

We kids are gonna rule the world pretty soon, you know.

John Mayer put it very elegantly, "One day our generation, is gonna rule the population." Is it just me, or do you have trouble actually seeing that happen? Imagine someone you went to high school with becoming president. There was one chic I went to school with who I know will make it big someday, but even that seems crazy to me now.

It's crazy to me that people that are in their thirties will be the movers and shakers of our time. It wasn't that long ago that we were pinning our jeans to create a "tapered" look. I mean come on, I used to wear shoulder pads for no apparent reason.

I am aware that fashion mistakes don't define an era, yet I'm just saying that my generation doesn't seem "adult" enough to run this country, or this world.

But we will. I mean we are all gonna be forty soon, if we haven't turned that already. Forty, for godsakes, I thought of that as so damn old. I mean it's so strange to me that people my age will be running the churches and temples and Gurdwaras. Aren't we gonna change something when we do have power?

Or are we gonna become like our parents generation? Are we gonna keep the status quo going?

Probably.

But hopefully I'm gonna personally try not to turn into my parents. Although the things that my parents did were beyond what most adults can accomplish because they were immigrants. Imagine going to like China, starting your life over not knowing anyone or anything and making it there, having a better lifestyle than most Chinese people. That's what my parents did when they came from India to America.

My parents are great people, they really are, and I owe them my life, but I want a different life than they had. I want to be a different kind of adult. We all want to do better than our parents generation financially, but how about emotionally?

I just want to be more content than my parents are. I want to be happier. I may not be richer than them or live in a bigger house than they do, but I want to appreciate my life more than they did.

They are not unhappy, but my parents in particular were always concerned about everyone else's happiness other than their own, they still are.

I need to be a kid again in order to be the kind of adult I want to be. Look I still have bills to pay, I have student debt that would alarm most people, I have career issues, and lack of boyfriend issues, and issues with my very sanity.

But still I want to forget about all that and just be. It's not easy, I wake up at like five every morning first with this alarm in my head about what my day will bring. Sometimes I get up and try to write it away. Sometimes I go back to sleep and try to dream it away. Either way, I'm still scared of what the day will bring.

However, much like you, I'm trying to be more of the kind of adult I can respect. I work hard, damn hard. It's hard to express my feelings and thoughts in public every day. It's hard to even come up with feelings and thoughts to share. But I do it because I have to. I have to because this is the nature of my work.

I know you work hard, you dream hard, and you have fallen hard at at times. We all have. They say a girl becomes a woman when she gets her period. I would agree with that. I think a person becomes an adult the minute they can bear children and have the ability to take responsibility for their actions. However there are people who are past Menopause who do not to act like adults.

It's all relative.

When you are an adolescent you are really in the process of becoming an adult. When you are an old person sometimes you regress and forget you are an adult. I am fully grown now. Yet still sometimes I want to play pretend. I want to pretend like I'm a totally different person than I am. A person who has all the things I long for. Sometimes I feel like I am pretending like I'm an adult. I can't believe the acrobatics I have to do just to survive.

To enter certain websites you have to be an adult. Some of these websites are nasty, some of them are informative. I may not put a warning label on this website, but I do think you have to be an adult, a real adult to understand what I'm saying, in general.

The adult in you knows what I'm saying. The kid in you would rather go outside and play.

Let's find a balance.

nina

Fake Friendship

2011-01-09T11:25:00.000-05:00

I was hurt at first. I noticed that I sent out my blog about my views on Spirituality and Sikhism to a few Sikh "friends" on Facebook to see what they thought. I mean, I know I'm not traditional, but I'm also not the most offensive person alive. I was defriended by one Sikh chic who friended me first. Then another guy, I posted a link to my blog on his wall and he removed it and never commented to me on it. The rest of the Sikhs I sent my link to did not comment.

I think that's weak. Sikhs are supposed to be strong. You see, I made it really difficult for the religious people who don't like me to ban me. They know that's a stupid idea. So it's now sort of just silence.

Some of the people who made no comment I think just don't know what to say. But the others:

I'm twisting "their" religion in their eyes. I don't understand anything about what "their" Guru said. I'm not one of them.

How dare I, how dare I disagree with their beliefs and have the gall to be publicly displaying my thoughts? What if I get through to some people who are not Sikh and they start to get this distorted view of Sikhism? And what about impressionable young kids? I imagine these are some of their thoughts.

I don't care.

I take that back, I do care that there are people who are so closed minded that they become fanatical fundamentalists who cannot see anything but their own perspective. I care that these people have power in the world. I care that they think they are "good." I care that they usually do things that are not.

I'm honored though, that someone would think that I'm a force to be reckoned with. That someone would think that ignoring and de-friending me was the way to maybe ensure that I don't try and shake things up.

I think things need to be shook up. I will not shut up. I don't care if you don't want to hear what I have to say. There are people who do, I have found.

So what's my plan. To keep writing and writing and exploring my own thoughts, in public. I sometimes am not even sure what I think about something until I write it down.

I don't care how many friends I have. I know who my friends are and I will find out for sure the more and more I keep displaying my true thoughts, which sometimes are not popular amongst some groups of people.

I want to say this. I am a Sikh. I am not however, the poster girl for Sikhs. I don't want to be the poster girl for anything. But you have no right to take my identity from me because you don't think I'm a "good Sikh." I don't think that's for you to decide.

Sikhs as a group like to think they are so modern, progressive and open minded. However if someone in their own community says something they don't like, a small minority have been known to even get violent. Sadly, that is the dark side of our community.

The better side is the Sikh people I know that live and let live. They are not always trying to prove that they are the "true believers." They understand that "truth" is relative.

So if you have a problem with what I'm saying, why don't you step up to the plate and say it to my face? Why don't you say it in public? What are you afraid of?

Tell me I'm crazy. Tell me I'm stupid. Don't just say nothing, that's just sad.

Let's open some debates. We don't have to be "friends" or like each other, but we can agree to disagree. That would be the adult thing to do.

Defriending someone is a bit childish, don't you think?

nina

The Beauty Myth

2011-01-08T06:44:00.004-05:00

You've seen replicas of the Mona Lisa. Did you ever notice that she is ugly. I don't mean no disrespect to a heralded piece of art. I just happen to think it's fascinating that back then a woman's face that was not "pretty" could have been considered so mesmerizing. What was it about her that was considered so beautiful? They say it was the look in her eyes.

I wish we could go back to a time where the look in your eyes could determine your physical beauty. Now we are obsessed with size, and breasts, and the perfect nose. It's possible that human beings have always been kinda superficial, but now that we have the mass media telling us what we "should" look like, it's a lot harder to feel like you personally size up.

If you are a woman and someone ever told you that you were "pretty," it was probably one of the most important compliments you got, especially when you were growing up. If they dared to use the word "beautiful," well that is the jackpot of human worth. Especially for a woman. As the Counting Crows sang, "We all want something beautiful, man I wish I was beautiful."

When I was a girl I loved hanging out with black men because they loved Indian women, they thought I was beautiful and told me so. Indian boys and other ethnic boys, I generally find, liked Indian girls as well but weren't as vocal about it. But I remember in high school I had crush on a white guy who said he was not attracted to girls who weren't Caucasian. I don't think sexual preference counts as racism, but I felt like shit when he told me that. I didn't measure up to the pictures I saw in magazines and in my school's year book.

Now, as an adult I know a lot of white guys who are attracted to Indian women. In fact it is starting to matter less and less as the years go by, what color you are. It has become fashionable as of late to be "exotic."

In India fair skin is considered beautiful, maybe because of the British Rule, maybe it's been happening for centuries, there is much debate about this issue. I happen to have fair skin, but I would personally be offended if someone found me attractive simply for that reason. Yet I want to be considered beautiful just like the next woman. So what is it exactly that I want? For someone to not be attracted to me because or in spite of my skin color.

I did feel beautiful before I gained weight, now I feel less pretty. My body has never measured up to size four standards. Yet I'm blessed nevertheless to have a descent face. I still wish I looked better, it's sad but I would like myself better if I looked better. If I was thinner. My own self love is based on some strange standard that makes no sense.

It doesn't make sense that thinness is a symbol of everything good. You would think that a little fatness would be considered wealthy or something, you have money to eat. But nowadays, fattening food is a lot cheaper than healthy food. You have to have money to get thin.

A man once told me that men are taught to hate their bodies as well in this new culture. The man's body is supposed to be not important, it's the woman's body that is the focus of attention. Woman are given messages that their bodies must be a symbol of beauty, whereas men are told that their bodies are not capable of gorgeousness.

Although everything I'm saying is exaggerated, some men are even as concerned about their body image as women, and vice versa. Yet, women are put in this situation where they have trouble loving themselves if they don't fit particular beauty standards. In the fifties, these standards were more laxed, I've heard that Marilyn Monroe was a size 12. As Hugh Grants ex-girlfriend, what's her name, said something like, "God I would never let myself get that fat," after buying Marilyn Monroe's dress.

Today the standard of beauty is not usually humanly possible. It's a rail thin woman with huge breasts, no wrinkles, a perfect nose and a perfect ass. And I haven't really mentioned all the other standards that go along with this.

My own standards of beauty for myself can be harsh. People wonder why I don't put pictures up on facebook or on my blog. It really has more to do with vanity than insecurity. I look terrible in photographs, something happens to my face when you put it backwards like the camera does. It's freaky. I would rather you imagine what I look like.

The things we do for beauty. We remove unwanted hair from our ENTIRE body. I even want to lazer it all because I'm tired of having to get rid of it. But in my religion, some of my Sikh sisters believe that we are supposed to keep all of our hair. I have great respect for them because they have given up vanity in order to follow something they believe in. They haven't succumbed to the MAN-made notion that women are hairless.

Essentially I am a slave to this notion as are many of my girls. We women take great pains to look like some kind of weird non-animal. Like a statue or something. All because men allegedly are very "Visual Beings." If I hear about how men are so visual one more time, I will croak.

Hopefully I won't throw up though, like many of my sisters who throw up their food in order to remain thin. Some of them starve themselves to the point that they need to be hospitalized

I personally don't have the same standards of beauty for men as I have for myself. I've liked men who are not aesthetically pleasing, I've fallen in love with men who just had "something about them" instead of traditional good looks. I like to think I fell for their charming minds or even their souls. I like to think I have depth.

But the truth is I'm genetically designed to find a mate who can financially take care of me, hence the reason I like men who are intelligent, even brilliant. Men are genetically designed to find a mate that will make healthy beautiful children or something. I don't know if I really buy or get it.

I do know one thing though, if I had a superpower I would like to become invisible. I'm tired of the visual game. I have been invisible before. My father is blind due to a genetic disease. In his presence I have been at times more real and more myself than in front of anyone else. I am a being with thoughts and feelings to him, not an object to be looked at. I know that almost every woman doesn't feel like an object in front of their father, however I think it's more pronounced when your father can't judge you physically in any way.

Although my father tells me everyday to go to the gym to get healthier, but I still feel slightly, oddly, like he knows only my insides. He really truly loves me for who I am.

We could all be like this you know. We could all close our eyes for minute and not look at each other, just listen. Not worry about our zits and wrinkles and fat. Now I have to worry that may hair may grow grey soon.

Getting older for a woman is especially hard, although it's hard for everyone. Luckily I look young, knock on wood, but won't always look this way. I will become wrinkly etc. At some point, if I'm lucky, I will be a grandmother. Then I will have to only concern myself with being loved for who I am as a person.

I'm gonna start now though, trying to love myself for who I am, not the size of my dress. Elizabeth Hurley, I just remembered that woman's name who said Marilyn was fat. Elizabeth is a strikingly beautiful woman but her boyfriend still had an affair with a prostitute.

So why are we going through all these pains anyways? Again, we are being controlled by something other than our true nature.

Our minds are being controlled by a Myth.

The Myth is Mad. And it's very Bad.

nina

The Wonder Years

2011-01-07T06:49:00.000-05:00

You know Thirty-Something was a show, a good show. Although I was like a teenager when it came on so those people were old to me then. Their problems with relationships and work and life were a little too adult for me. Now I long for a television show that will show what my life is like.

They try these days, with reality T.V. to show you what life is really like. However my life never seems like the Housewives of Atlanta. They pick "special" people and put them in strange circumstances, like Survivor, in order to create something "real." The shows that mimic reality fictionally, I find are more real than a show like The Bachelor or the bizarre shows on TLC that show like pregnant women who don't "know" their pregnant.

The truth is a lot stranger than fiction.

If you were in anything like me, you watched a lot of T.V. growing up. Those were the days, huh? It reminds me of a simpler time, when there were four channels, there was no reality T.V. and Geraldo introduced me to Drag Queens. "We didn't have no Internet, but man I never will forget..." Kid Rock was still a kid. M&M was still a candy.

Now I realize that T.V. was always a little dumb, but I was partially raised by T.V., so does that make me a little dumber? My attention span is sometimes as long as a commercial break but sometimes I can stretch it to a half-hour long sitcom. The hour long dramas are great, but they take great concentration. I often find myself needing to take commercial breaks in life, I spend a minute or two thinking about nothing or about buying something I don't need.

The introduction of Cable Television in my life was one of the pivotal points in my childhood. My dad didn't want to get cable but the subdivision we moved into in Troy, Michigan when I was twelve didn't allow T.V. antennas. I discovered MTV then, that's when they used to actually play music. I discovered hours and hours of stand up comedy that I would make sure my parents never saw me watching because comedians would always come to subject of sex.

There really was very little sex on T.V. when I was growing up. In fact when I was a little girl I thought kissing was sex because that's all they did on T.V. Even on soap operas, which I started watching when I was a toddler, they used to be a lot more kosher than they are now.

But on the talk shows, I really learned about sex, drugs and rock and roll. I mean there were no rules on those talk shows and even though they weren't as raunchy as Jerry Springer, they were definitely a little racy. I remember learning what a threesome was on Oprah, I learned what a Lesbian was by watching Geraldo, and I think Phil Donahue taught me how to dress provocative in order to lure a man.

I also learned a lot from regular T.V. I learned quite a bit on The Facts of Life. I learned about how to part my hair to the side and that my girlfriends will always be there for me, even when the men in my life come and go. I learned a lot about "misunderstandings" from Three's Company, a little too much in fact. I used to watch that with my parents every night, they thought it was a trip. We would all laugh and laugh as Jack Tripper tripped on the carpet. John Ritter recently passed, god rest his soul, he was like a boyfriend figure to me. I wanted a guy like that.

I wasn't allowed, but secretly watched, "Fame." My parents thought it was too adult for me. They wouldn't let me watch the Love Boat as well, even though when they weren't home I was watching all kinds of twisted shit.

Nowadays, well they just don't make T.V. like they used to. When I was in kindergarten, during nap time I would stay awake and dream that they would make a small T.V. that I could hold in my hand and watch episodes of Scooby-Doo. My dreams have come true. The only problem is, at the moment, I have not invested in a descent phone. (My phone is so old school I think people think it's a brand new kind, it's the kind that comes free with the plan).

I didn't have a cell phone with a built-in T.V. when I was a kid. I got my first cell phone when I was twenty-five. If I could have watched The Smurfs at nap time when I was five, my kindergarten life would have been complete. Instead I had to learn how Smurfette survived in a world of men every Saturday morning at six a.m. Nowadays I actually sleep during nap time. They say you should wake up in the morning and like close your eyes and meditate. Or if you grew up like me, your mother was doing that while you were watching, Sheera, Princess of Power!

The Wonder Years, now that was a show. The Wonder Years for me was in the Eighties and early Nineties. That's when I still had my innocence. At one point I didn't understand that I wasn't white, I was like eight. A blond friend of mine asked me what my "kind" was and it shook me up. I didn't understand what she meant. I knew I was Indian, but I didn't know why it mattered so much. I didn't think people noticed. I think seeing a world of white people on T.V. had a lot to do with that.

There were no Indians on T.V. back then. But there was some good stuff. Do you remember 21 Jump Street, Johnny Depp's greatest work? And then there was Bosom Buddies...that was Tom Hanks at his finest, in drag. I don't care how many Oscars that man wins, Bosum Buddies was his best work.

Ahh...those were the days. Just tonight, a friend of mine didn't want to hang out with me, she wanted to watch Law and Order SVU instead. I was ditched for a T.V. show. I remember when I used to be that excited about T.V. The only show I really like that has been on the air recently is Six Feet Under. It's about death, but more about life.

Interestingly enough I'm watching T.V. at the moment. It's more like the T.V. is on and I'm in the room. The Office, a great show, is on right now. This is sort of my office.

Speaking of great shows, there is always trash T.V. like Jersey Shore and Celebrity Rehab. These shows are so bad they're great. They are the most fun to watch with friends so you can make fun of them and feel superior to these "weirdos."

My life is different now that I don't watch that much T.V. Unfortunately it's not as interesting as a Reality T.V. show, but it's probably better now that I stare at this computer rather than a television. I switched screens is all. Instead of being addicted to television I'm now addicted to expressing my own thoughts on a computer.

I used to let the T.V. think for me. I wonder, I wonder, who I would be without it.

nina

I know why the Caged Bird Sings

2011-01-06T07:20:00.000-05:00

The sky is falling. I mean dead animals are falling from Heaven, or is it Hell up there? It's becoming Hell down here. There are more dead coming up from the depths of the ocean.

Are we the ones falling? Is the water getting a little too deep?

Is everything upside down, or is it just my imagination?

I'm not some kind of crazy animal lover, I don't even like black birds, they scare me and I eat fish. But when birds fell from the sky and ended up dead in Arkansas for no reason, and dead fish showed up in the waters, I have suddenly become a black bird/fish advocate. Ummm...is it just me or is it plainly obvious that we are truly barbaric. I mean animals kill for survival, we kill by mistake? Thousands of bird carcasses on the ground is just a mistake? The birds are being dismissed as coincidence?

Coincidence my ass. Dead birds were found in Sweden. There were millions, yeah you heard me millions, of dead fish found in Arkansas, Brazil and New Zealand.

They say you should teach a man how to fish instead of giving him a meal. Maybe we should teach Man not to fuck with fish.

What the hell is wrong with us? This is not about "Loving the Environment" and "Being Green." This is about being human. We are not animals. Nooo animals don't kill, for no reason or by mistake!

(I mean who am I to talk? I don't even recycle, that's like a sin).

We apparently this time polluted the environment with fireworks that were so harsh they confused the poor birds and made them all fly into each other. The fish on the other hand, I don't even know what happend with that. I couldn't read the rest of the story and eat my lunch. It was probably some chemical or another or every chemical.

You know the birds are not the only ones dying because we pollute the environment. I mean why is there so much Cancer, Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimers, etc. in this world all of a sudden? We act like it's a Medical Mystery. It's really a mystery to me when I'm drinking water that contains more cholorine than is legal in a swimming pool, I'm eating food that has been sprayed with toxins that I would never spray in my mouth, I'm smelling air that is filled to the brim with god knows what.

I thought it was bad enough to domesticate animals, put them in cages etc. Even though I have a dog that sits in the cage of my condo, I am not sure if I believe in the domestication of animals. They have the right to be free and hang out with each other.

What if someone took one of us, strapped us with a collar and made us hang out with a bunch of wolves? We had to eat special food that the wolves didn't even touch, we were essentially a little toy for the wolves to play with when they were bored. That's what a household pet is. It gives new meaning to the phrase, "raised by wolves."

I mean I love my dog, but it's actually my sister's dog. I love my dog but I'm not one of those people who thinks dogs are like people. Dogs are like dogs. They bite each other, they make a lot of noise and shit on your carpet. They are also furry fun, lovable, more loyal than some people.

They are their own beings, different than us. Whether we should all so intinmately mingle may be questionable. Whether we are superior enough to them to keep them captive is the real question.

So back to the birds, the consensus now is that the Fireworks scared the birds. I don't know if I buy that, it has never happened before, what kind of fireworks were these? Should humans even look at them if they are that intense, could they cause blindness?

What are we doing with our time? Instead of creating the most potent fire works around let's take the time to see if our furry friends are OK. Our friends have wings, but we have taken away their ability to soar.

I always wanted to be able to fly. But I don't know about that anymore. What am I gonna run into up there?

I was a vegetarian for like five years starting at sixteen. I did it 'cause we torture animals so we can eat them. I don't know exactly why I went back to eating meat, probably because I lost some of the conscious I had as an adolescent. We get used to the idea that the things on our plates were once beings that were tortured.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a nice Salmon or Steak just like the next girl. But I just wish we didn't have to put the animals in terrible circumstances in order to get lunch. We don't have to be violent and dirty.

We choose to fill our world with disgusting chemicals, violent actions, and explosives.

In the Bible, if I'm not mistaken, it says that one of the seven signs that the world is ending is that the seas will turn red, presumably with blood. I don't always buy everything in the Bible, but maybe there is something to it. My real Bible is written by musicians like Prince. He predicted how we would party in 1999, "When I woke up this mornin' could've sworn it was Judgement Day." He also sang, so eloquently, "This is what is sounds like, when the doves cry."

Doves, Crows, Swans, these beautiful animals could die before our eyes. Swans could be sacrificed. I recently saw Black Swan, a film about a woman who falls from grace. A beautiful metaphor for what's happening to this world. It's getting really dark here.

This world was a gift to us, a pretty nice gift if you ask me. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know: We have destroyed it.

Now what are we gonna do?

Let's at least start by talking about it for real. Let's open our eyes for real.

Most of us may die of a disease that is in some manner caused by our neglect of the universe. We will have ingested so many toxins by the time we can even say: "It's not my fault."

It's everyone's fault. It's my fault.

I'm sorry.

nina

Should we ban my blog?

2011-01-05T09:29:00.000-05:00

Apparently there are people in like Germany and The Philippines who have viewed my blog. I don't know how this happened, I have been blessed. I even have one reader in The Netherlands. They say that reading something someone wrote is like reading someone's subconscious. Like if you read history from a particular author, you are partially reading their mind. I kid you not, I just checked my audience stats and someone is currently reading my mind in China.

It's a beautiful thing.

But my mind. Is it really that beautiful? Or is it rather strange?

I wonder how many Sikhs around the world are reading this.

I don't remember if I've told you this, but I'm a Sikh. Sikhi is my religion. I generally speaking, am not "religious" I like to think that I am spiritual, but there is nothing in the Sikh scriptures that I disagree with. There are things in the "religious code" and community that I do disagree with. But I'll get into that later.

I get this feeling that many Sikhs may not like what I have to say. I'm a little vulgar. My views on Sikhism are not traditional. I believe there is a connection between things like Spirituality and Sexuality. I mean it's in the oldest Hindu texts. I haven't read the Kama Sutra but I think I should.

But let me be clear, Sikhism is not Hinduism. It is a totally separate and totally unique religion.

So maybe I'm not a "True Sikh." But I don't believe in such judgmental labels. If I think I'm a Sikh, I'm a Sikh. I do cut my hair, I do drink, I do many things that are banned by the Sikh community.

I'm practicing being nonchalant if I get the Sikh version of a Fatwa if I ever do end up selling a book or two. I don't expect anyone to care enough about me to ban me from existence, but if some nut or other thinks that I should totally die for my sins, well I guarantee that will make me a superstar. "Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie is a terrible book. However it will always be remembered as the book that caused international controversy. Everyone loves a good controversy.

I have no intention of causing controversy for the sake of controversy. Nor am I seeking some kind of unwarranted attention. I simply have a viewpoint about things that happens to be a little unorthodox at times.

Along with the unmentionable things like the connection between erotica and enlightenment, I generally have a very blasphemous way of practicing Sikhi. Sikhs believe that music is one of the ways to god, which we call Waheguru. Not just any music, they don't generally believe that you can reach Nirvana by singing Bon Jovi songs.

I however, do.

I really do, I'm not even kidding. (After all we are "Livin' on a prayer.").

I think it doesn't matter what the music is, if you are thinking about God then how can it matter when everything is God? Even Satan is a part of God. I mean I'm not saying you should try and listen to your Bon Jovi record backwards and worship the Devil, I'm just saying that if you are singing love songs, then how does it matter if they are gangster rap or beautifully written hymns.

I mean if you are talkin' about bitches and ho's than I see your point, but I'm talking about like regular shit you can legally play on the radio. Or even music that has no lyrics, I believe it is the only universal language. You can appreciate music without having an education of any sort. You can be of any caste or class. (By the way Sikhism banned the caste system in India hundreds of years ago, when it wasn't popular to do so).

It's a great religion. But truthfully I'm not really a fan of "religions." That word has so many weird meanings and connotations. It's like the word God. By the way, the word Waheguru, means Wonderful Guru, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong please, I don't want to be wrong about that. It's also used as a breathing technique while meditating. Wa-He-Gu-Ru. You are supposed to repeat or remember God in our religion in order to achieve salvation.

Remember your true identity is part of God.

They say that Sikhi is not a religion, it's a way of life. I would agree with that. There are many ways of life, Devil Worship is one of them. But I'm gonna go with god on this one. Just in case.

No, it is a lot more than that for me. Don't get me wrong, I have so much respect for atheists. Atheists question the very idea of a question. The dead comedian George Carlin once said something like, when asked whether Churches should get tax breaks, "I am all for assisting the Mentally Insane. Because if you think there is a guy up there who's judging and punishing you but he's all good, and he might send you to Hell if you're bad, you're Insane."

Maybe because I have been insane, I have very weird ways of expressing my spirituality. I think there are all kinds of meditation. In Sikhism they say you should work with your hands and remember god with your mind. In Buddhism there is like walking meditation and maybe even talking meditation. If there is such a thing, I am totally enlightened at this point. But seriously, talking about the universe and it's oneness could be considered a form of mediation.

We do we have so many boundaries? Why do we make so many rules?

Maybe, just maybe, God is a lot cooler and chilled out than us. Maybe She thinks that if we open our minds and try and fit god into all parts of our life then we're good. I remember I went to Sikh camp as a kid once and the leader of the camp said, jokingly but seriously, when you are on the toilet sing to yourself, "Chardikala, bai, chadikala!" I think Chardikala means spiritual joy.

I mean I don't mean to be disrespectful, believe me I don't need any more bad karma in my life, but god did create shit. Maybe he created it so we could see the rainbow above it in the sky and know that it was different, like you don't know it's dark until you see light.

Enough of my philosophizing. If I have offended you, I don't apologize. I'm allowed to have my opinion. I'm allowed to try and mold young impressionable minds with my bullshit. This is my creation.

Please do, by the way, ban this blog. I would like all the publicity that I can get.

nina

Perpetual Passion

2011-01-04T05:24:00.000-05:00

What are you passionate about? First of all are you passionate about your work? I hope so. Do you realize how much time we spend doing this work...if it doesn't mean the world to us...what's the point? I mean survival is a point, but most of us have the luxury to survive under most circumstances. I mean I think the chances are, if you are reading this, you went to college. Unfortunately I only know privileged individuals. If you have the means, I implore you that it's worth it to rethink your career if you are unhappy.

This advice is coming from a pauper...U may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us...I dream that I will make at least some money writing books etc. and I dream that I will be content with a teacher's salary. I dream of opening up a school one day that promotes creativity in all subjects. What's you dream?

I'm gonna be a high school teacher and I'm planning on loving it. I'm passionate about it in advance. The reality of it may not be so dreamy, but I intend on changing lives or at least teaching kids how to express themselves.

I had one teacher in elementary school who inspired me to become a writer. She was this charismatic black woman (I lived in Livonia, Michigan, voted the whitest city in America). She would play music and make us write poetry. I was like nine years old and was quoting Nietzsche. I have yet to understand (or know how to spell) Nietzsche but she didn't underestimate my intelligence.

Are you underestimating your intelligence? If you are doing something you hate, you are not valuing yourself. I understand there are bills to pay and there is always tomorrow, but but I swear today is the only time you can count on. I hate to be a Debby Downer but you could be dead tomorrow. We ain't gettin' any younger.

What kind of legacy do you want to leave?

I had a dentist once who was so passionate about metal like retainers and wires that he was so excited when he found the right fit for my mouth, he almost jumped up for joy. I'm not even kidding. Then once I had a dentist who was such a people person that he cracked jokes and I was like looking forward to getting my teeth cleaned just so I could chat with him.

My point is that, even if you are passionate about one aspect of your work, whether it be the people or the technology....I think you are doing well.

Do you work too much? OK, I'm not a slacker, but I don't believe in personally working like too much. OK, I know, I know, if you are doctor you have to put in your time, and I think that's different. But if you are like established in your career, I don't really get it. Why are you doing it, what's it all for in the end?

Maybe you are a workaholic, so passionate about your work that you can't get enough. It's an actual addiction you know, you don't let your mind think about all the things that are wrong in your life by occupying your mind with work all the time. I mean seriously, seek help, and don't think it's any less serious than any other addiction.

Maybe you are addicted to the money, I think it's rarer than we think, but there are people who need to maintain a certain lifestyle in order to be "happy." The passion for material things is transitory, I think that's obvious to me and most people, but if you happen to just love money...what can I say, you know what they say..."I don't know what they want from me, but the more money we come across the more problems we see..."

I happen to have some experiences being very close to people who are very rich. In my assessment they are not more or less happy then the rest of us. Their problems are slightly different because they are not always focused on survival in a basic sense, but they have to survive in a world that can be very cruel and jealous. The people I know have not let the money get to their heads, but I have also met people who have been destroyed by money. In my opinion they have sacrificed the quality of their personal relationships because of thier obsession with work and material things.

So what was my point again? I'm losing track here. I guess like I'm trying to say something very obvious, passion for money will probably not work out in the end.

Obviously I'm passionate about writing and I'm passionate about teaching, mostly because I like the sound of my own voice. No, but really, I like the idea that I could mold a mind. I will teach in college as well, I'm more nervous about that, college kids being more articulate than I am and all. Even I am insecure about my passion. I mean I love books but often think I'm not well read enough.

Well, you know, it's OK to be always wanting to improve what you are passionate about. I'll tell you something, living passionately, there is nothing like it. When I don't write, I feel a little lifeless. I recommend, by the way, that everyone try writing, even if it's just in a journal. There is something about expressing yourself that can free your mind and really release your passions.

"Too much passion is never enough..." Are you sick of my songs yet? As an aside I'm very passionate about music, sometimes our passion for our pastimes can make up for when our work sucks. (I don't by the way have any musical talent whatsoever even though I secretly think I can sing. I played the trumpet in junior high and my parents told me to stop practicing after buying me a three-hundred dollar trumpet). I have to get a minor in Poly Sci...that could be boring sometimes, although I'm very interested in current events. I'll need my my chunky huge, archaic i Pod on the eighties play-list for that one, "Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill, of living is gone."

I'm still thrilled to write to you every day. I hope the feeling is mutual. I hope it never fades.

nina

Just another Manic Monday

2011-01-02T10:22:00.045-05:00

Wish it were Sunday. That's my fun day.

Ummm...is it just me or is the Monday after the holidays hell? I'm not even starting school for like a week and I feel nervous 'cause I got to get going. I have to publish my book before school starts, I have like a few days, ha...ha....I have to schedule my classes, get my books on a Kindle, (Yahoo, the best part of starting school is getting a new device). I have to learn how to re-enter society after living in a void for a few years.

I have to do it all today, dude.

It's funny how days of the week are a man made creation that mean so much to us. I'm perpetually anxious on Mondays...Tuesdays I'm usually trying to get over Monday...Wednesday I'm upset that life is neither here no there...Thursday is like a tease, it's close to the weekend yet so far away...Friday is brilliant because you look forward to things more than you even enjoy them...Saturday is pure fun it's a mini holiday...and Sunday is very relaxing.

How'd I do?

Now if you work on the weekends, god forbid, these things get moved around but there is still this meaning behind a day that remains. It's like this trap...how about we just say it's Anyday and feel free? We need not feel obligated to feel a certain way on a certain day. But we are slaves to our man-made measures. There might not even be such a thing as time, but we've got a really expensive watch to make sure we don't miss out on the rotation of the earth.

What other stuff do we make up in order to stress ourselves out? The concept of the year. As one of my friends so eloqeuntly put it, "Why does observing the moment when our rock passes an arbitrary spot in it's orbit give us hope? Here's hoping for a better two thousand and eleventh revolution (AD)."

I turned a certain number of years this year and it's stressing me out. I feel old because I crossed some stupid line, and now I feel like I need to be different. But I know, in the back of my head that these numbers and lines are made up. I can feel any way I want. If I want to feel like a two year old and suck my goddamn thumb than let me be.

Let's go on to the issue of weight, I'm sorry that I harp on this issue, but anyways, the number on the scale shocks me every time I step on it. I haven't stepped on it in the new year because I'm happy right now and don't want to upset myself for no reason.

But I look in the mirror everyday and I'm not disgusted by my appearance, although I'm not like ecstatic about it, but I can deal with it. It's the number that throws me off, I've never been good at math. My father thinks that Calculus contains the meaning of life, but if you were to take the derivative of my age and weight you would end up with a very sad number. No, I don't know what that means or what I'm saying.

These equations by which we measure our lives don't equal us.

Must we measure? For once, let's not do the math.

I want to stop. I've never been a friend of numbers. I'm ageless and timeless, right? Deepak Chopra would be proud. I believe our souls are these things...eternal and all that...

When I was a kid I used to make up soap opera's out of the numbers in math instead of doing the mathematics, the number two was a good guy, the number five was a bit shady. Four was the good girl and six was the back stabbing bitch. (If you have any qualms about shutting off that television just remember that this was coming from the mind of a five year old who started watching soap operas).

I personally like stories instead of equations. But I also don't have a left brain, I barely know my left from my right.

Our soul has story. Never mind how long it is. I mean what is eternity anyways, a really long frickin' time right?

So let's stop all this man made mania. It's mind control. Be your own boss...take Monday off.

nina

Do I stutter?

2011-01-02T05:45:00.000-05:00

I just saw The King's Speech. It's a beautiful film about King George the something who had a horrible speech impediment. Interestingly enough speech impediments are usually caused by psychological trauma, so King George faces his past demons in order for his voice to be heard.

He was a king and even he couldn't say what was on his mind. How many of us can speak what is on our minds? How many of us have stuttered in the past, even if just metaphorically.

Do I stutter? Yeah, I do. (I mean that symbolically, thankfully I don't have a speech problem except for the fact that I talk too much). I have not only stuttered when trying to say what I mean, but I have said the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time, I've put my foot in my mouth etc. etc.

I used to be a lot more blunt and tactless than I am now, if you can believe that. That was my speech impediment. I was thinking out loud is what was happening.

After probably offending everyone I know, some people started telling me to cap it. I'm better now, but I do believe in honesty...in most cases.

Now I have another problem: I reveal too much. I mean some of the things I've told you all, some of good friends don't know. In some ways I'm an open book. I wish I had a little more mystery. But I have to admit, there are quite a few things even I won't talk about, yet. However eventually I will spill it all in some book or another, I'm even writing a Memoir at the moment.

But the thing is, people want to censor me. My family does, they don't understand why I would want to tell the world that I'm a flawed being. They are tired of my flaws, they don't find them entertaining.

I'm not here just to entertain though, you know. So why do I give away so much of myself?

'Cause I kind of wish we would all stop hiding in our caves. I lived in a cave for a very long time, a cave of depression, it ain't fun. However even I understand the idea that we should all maintain some level of privacy.

So should I stop spreading my secrets like cream cheese? I don't know, what do you think?

I know you, you wanna hear about it. But it's natural to want to really know someone, to see their walls come down. But I have to admit that it is different in a public setting. Sometimes it feels like those dreams everyone has about being naked in front of everyone...isn't funny though but all other animals are naked and presumably don't have nightmares about it.

Are we prudes, or are we the chosen species that has to cover all of or scars? The truth is I would never walk around your neighborhood naked, (I don't even like how I look without make-up on). In many regards I will block you out, but in some ways I'll let you into my secret garden. Just be careful, sometimes there are thorns on those flowers.

Funny thing is people go on like talk shows and tell their intimate secrets all the time. Why do they do that?

There is this notion that we all want to be heard. Somewhere in the middle of The King's Speech the King laments, without stuttering, "I have a voice!"

I bet you've got a voice. I bet you can even sing with it. But I bet that you only let yourself do it in the privacy of your shower. That's OK, if that works for you. But if you ever want to drop an album...you'll have to learn how to get over your fear of the public seeing you naked.

Well I guess that's why I do it, this is my song. Maybe sometimes I do cross the line. I apologize. I don't mean to make anyone uncomfortable. Sometimes I even make myself a little uncomfortable, but maybe it's good to shake things up a bit.

There are things that are out of line though, even for me. My family is off limits. Even my friends, I have no intention of revealing any one else's secrets.

And then there are things that have to be said. My political views will creep into my text, my spiritual views will be felt in the pauses, and my moral compass will asses situations.

It might come as a huge surprise to you, but I'm not perfect. I don't know what's good, what's bad. I'm new to the ettiquette appropriate on the net. I do know this though: If I were to stand on a pulpit and speak, sometimes I might not know what to say, say the wrong thing, and sometimes I might stop, and stutter.

Forgive me for being human. Underneath this thin layer of clothes, I'm naked.

nina

The Crying Game

2011-01-01T05:48:00.000-05:00

We have these markers in life, one of the big ones is today...New Years Day. We want to start things and make other things end, on this day. We want to be bold, new, fresh.

How long does that usually last?

I'd say round and about until mid-February for me is when I usually can sustain my enthusiasm until. I didn't know this, but apparently there are these books out there about this Dip or Tipping Point where you have momentum until a point. Then you stop. If I were any kind of real author, I would read these books right now and tell you what they say. It's something about winners quiting sometimes and quitters winning.

But I'm not here to give a book report, I'm here to tell you it's OK that you might not get to your New Years Resolution in the time or manner in which you want. The reasons are complicated. So how do we actually get to our goals then?

Well if I really knew would I be sitting here writing a free blog as opposed to writing for the New York Times? I don't know shit, but I know that I don't know.

What I think, maybe, is the point, is something one of my good friends used to tell me all the time: take baby steps. (Are you allowed to use that many commas in one sentence?) This friend of mine doesn't speak to me anymore, so take this with a grain of salt: If you've never worked out in your life, go on the treadmill for five minutes. If you eat at McDonald's every day and you are now trying to lose weight for the New Year, try Wendy's, they have some healthier options. You don't have to go Vegan tomorrow.

We watch shows like the Biggest Loser and think that you can change your life entirely in a manner of months. Although what they do on that show is amazing, it's a controlled specific environment that is unrealistic in most of our lives. I still believe anything is possible, but realistically....

I will stop measuring food this year, I will eye ball what looks like a serving of what a normal human being should eat. I will stop counting calories, I will glance at something and I will trust my intuition. Sometimes I will eat shit, I won't cry about it though. I'll let myself indulge every now and then.

This is in a perfect world of course. In the real world, I'm starting school again full time. I'm gonna be stressed and I might use food, as I have in the past, as a sedative. How do I stop doing that? By letting myself do it every now and then...trying to not make a habit of it, trying to let myself be, trying to get to a state of mind where I don't need to use food as a drug.

Besides losing weight, which is on pretty much everyone's wish list for the New Year, what else do we want? I wanted to be a better person and volunteer at a women's shelter. I don't think it's just procrastination, something is keeping me from doing this. I've had my own troubles with men, it's going to be very difficult to listen to women who have been abused, stalked, attacked etc. I'm gonna have to be really strong.

I wanna be a stronger person this year. I mean I'm pretty strong, I can hold my own, but I want to be strong enough to face my demons. One of my demons is being molested as a child. (I can't believe I'm telling the whole world about this, but like Oprah, if one person is changed because they hear about my own experience, I will have done something worth while. I'm not like Oprah though, I don't do things for other people, I just talk and talk. I may have trouble volunteering but one thing I can do is communicate my story. Unfortunately this is one horrific aspect of my complicated story. If it's part of your story then know that you are not alone).

My demons are keeping me from losing weight, they are keeping me from finding the right man, they are keeping me from doing a lot of things I'm capable of. There's a little girl inside of me that doesn't want to grow up, that doesn't like grown ups. But I'm a big girl now, "And big girls don't cry." I forget who sang that. "I hope you know, this has nothin' to do with you, myself and I got some figurin' out to do."

I'm sure you've got your own demons to deal with. Enough about mine. That should be our goal, you know, to try and deal with the past. Accept it for what it is. That's the only way to approach the future.

This year, the future, could be good for us. This time maybe we'll get it right.

We're gonna damn well try, aren't we?

I haven't really cried in four years, since I started taking my mania and depression medication. I cried while writing this. And as funny as it may sound, I thank god I can still cry. I can feel again. I was worried that the medicine was sucking my soul out, but apparently writing about my past makes me feel alive again.

I want the future to not contain the type of horror or sadness I experienced at a very young age. I want to protect the kids I don't even have yet. I want to protect myself. I want to protect you, if I can. I want to share with you how sharing your story can free you. I remember I had a boyfriend who kept telling me my past experience of being abused was not my fault.

I know that. But I needed to hear it. Hear it from someone I loved.

So if the past years didn't really work out because of something that wasn't your fault, know that you have power in the future, in this new year.

This is your new life...how does it go, this is the first day of the rest of your life? How 'bout giving yourself a break and making it a good day.

P.S. And if you are a sensitive person, don't cry for me, cry with me. I know you've got your own past to deal with. Let's take a minute and sobbingly celebrate, shall we?

nina

A Decade full of Deers

2010-12-31T09:54:00.000-05:00

It's been ten years now...ten years since we thought we were entering the future. The future seemed like anything beyond the year 2000. Well here we are, at the end of a decade. Now what? Is it just me or do you not feel that futuristic? Didn't you kind of think we'd have flying cars and be taking vacations on Mars by now?

The past and the future never go the way we want. That's why they say there's only one moment, the Now. The Present. And I think the only way you can make the Present go your way is by being in it. You know when your 'in it.'

These last ten years have not gone exactly the way I intended. I've definately had some brilliant times, peppered in with times full of despair. It really was full of the good, the bad and the ugly.

Was it smooth sailing for you? My particular experiences led me on a roller coaster ride. I don't regret going to the amusement park, but I will take my Dramamine next time.

So what do I want for this decade? You know what I really want, more than kids, more than a man, more than money and fame...I want to be able to breathe. I want to be able to take deep breaths on a regular basis and be able to feel safe or something. I don't know what peace is, but I know I'm getting tired of my personal wars. My war with myself, my mother, my mania, my mistakes...mmm...

If you are about my age, which will remain a mystery, you are tumbling towards middle age. I'm not really a young adult anymore...even though I look at my senior citizen parents and think about how far away I am from them when they were middle aged. Right?

I worry like they used to and still do. I worry about my family, my future, my past, my health, my career, money...etc. etc. But am I just gonna spend the next ten years worrying?

Probably.

I could you know, follow the path of my ancestors. My grandfather, at ninety-eight, I kid you not, kept writing the Indian government about his pension. (He was also known for taking two shots of vodka every morning). And he was worried about us....hmm...(He lived to be ninety-eight, you gonna argue with that?)

I mean, these are all normal worries you know...it's just that normal people are not exactly what I would call fulfilled. But, come on, who am I to judge a regular bloke (I love that British word)? I have a brother in law who is British. When he came to the States to visit (albeit he visited Kalamazoo, Michigan) he said that everyone's face was so hard. Like they had lived something hard.

It's hard to keep up with this race. In Europe they take vacations for like six weeks a year without guilt. That's the important part, they feel entitled to recreation. It does not mean that they have less of a work ethic, but we are little crazy robots here in the U.S.

So what should America want for this decade? Maybe we should start small, like teaching kids in school how to relax and still do their work. Maybe in America we should all try to make an effort to understand that it is quality not quantity that counts. It's not the number of dollars, but the richness of our lives that matters.

Maybe we should take a holiday, "Take some time to celebrate," as Madonna sang over two decades ago. Maybe we should slow down with the gadgets...they are nice...I want a Kindle myself because I love to read and it promotes reading, but come on....let's have a conversation that isn't interrupted by a cell phone call, a text message, an email on an iPad...Let's talk face to face. Let's look in each other's eyes.

Let's stop for a moment and breathe. Really breathe. We are not going anywhere, I'll still be here after you are done taking that breath. In some Eastern religions they believe that your life is not a number of years long, but a number of breaths. If you slow down the breaths allegedly you will have a longer life, but of course that's not the only reason to do it. It may sound too simple, but breathing deeply and consciously could save your life. Try it.

I intend on stopping a little more in this new decade. If you don't like flowers, or you are allergic, you don't have to stop and smell the flowers. But I'm gonna try and just stop and see if I notice my own fragrance...Like the deer who smells a beautiful musk and doesn't realize it's coming from his own body, instead he goes chasing nothing through the jungle, looking for the source of the smell.

I don't want to be a deer. I'm a woman.

I'm talkin' 'bout the Woman in the Mirror.

nina

Serenity

2010-12-30T05:41:00.001-05:00

"So this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year over and another just begun..." John Lennon or the Beatles or whoever sang that.

So the year is over and we all inevitably ask ourselves: What have we done?

I can safely say I did nothing.

I mean it. I didn't further my career in any way, I didn't lose weight, I didn't find a guy, get married, have kids, and build a good damn picket fence for the dog.

Instead I woke up this morning and the dog shit on the carpet again. I tried not to see it as a sign. I am the one cleaning HER shit. What does that say about the balance of power in even that relationship?

So basically I've even failed to properly domesticate a dog.

So I must have accomplished SOMETHING, this year. Well, I learned that discipline is my friend, if I get up early, meditate, work out, eat well, write everyday even when I have no thoughts; if I do some or all these particular things I in particular have a chance at being happy. I learned that I'm a victim of inertia, I'm either going and going or not going. I'm trying not to be so extreme.

What did you learn? Maybe you lost your job this year and learned that it's hard to be happy without money. Or maybe you lost someone in your life and you realized you would rather have them back than all the money in the world. Maybe you won the lottery. (Isn't it funny how someone won the lottery this year? Isn't it not funny that it wasn't you?)

What else did I learn? Let's see, I learned that even if I like the president the country is not going to have a revolution. Same shit, different dog. Although I like this particular breed, there is a fine line between being a democrat or a republican, I have no idea what that line is or where I'm going with this. But I do know that I can have my own revolution even if the country remains the same.

I learned that I have good people in my life. I have somehow, through some magical fate, created and maintained some beautiful relationships with people who genuinely care about me. Some of these relationships I have neglected but these people have remained solid none-the-less. If you are one of these people, thank you.

OK, enough learning, let's talk about what I still don't know after a year: I still don't know what I don't know. On the extremely negative self-talk side I don't know if I'll still be fertile when I find my soul mate, I have these sudden maternal instincts and wonder if someone as crazy as me should even have kids. I don't know when I will cash in on my talents, i.e. my novel etc., hopefully it's before I die.

Like you I still don't know when I'm dying, so I'm gonna try and live like I'm dying. Isn't that a song?

I do know what it's like to have a glimpse of happiness. Every now and then, I was happy this year. I am oddly happy right now...maybe it's the holidays or maybe I've turned a new leaf. (Leaf? What does that phrase really mean?) I know that I don't want to be a miserable old goat and being positive takes work.

This year I will make no resolutions. I will make no promises. I do have goals, but I said I would make a phone call to volunteer and I still haven't done that, I don't think I'm good at keeping promises to myself. What does that mean? I'm I gonna give up?

No I'm gonna try a different approach this time. This time, this year, I'm gonna think positively even in my darkest hours, if I get depressed I'm going to remember that I have gotten out of it before. I'm gonna try and meet people who have had similar weird experiences as I have had. I'm not gonna try and change myself, just like you would not want to change your best friend. I want to be my best friend and accept who I am, and maybe what I don't like about myself, I will examine and not "change" but sort of redirect.

I realize I'm just playing with words, but words are important to me, and the word "change" is not working for me at the moment. "Hope" will hopefully work for me though. This time, I'm not just gonna hope for better days, I'm gonna try to architect those days by the Serenity prayer that addicts use, after all I am addicted to the status quo:

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The Courage to change those I can,
And the Wisdom to know the difference.

That should be a song.

This time I'm gonna sing...hopefully if no one else is out there listening, I will at least hear myself.

nina

What Face will you Make?

2010-12-29T09:48:00.000-05:00

In a poem by T.S. Eliot, he says something like, "Prepare a face for all the faces that you meet."

Well I just joined Facebook, I wanted to be the only human being I know who wasn't on there, but I have to admit it's loads of fun. So much so that it's decreasing my productivity. In fact you may be reading this right now because I shamelessly promote my blog on Facebook.

Did you see "The Social Network?" It's a great film about the guy who created Facebook. But you know, things are not always like the movies, or like Facebook, they are not always as they appear. The film my have distorted the truth...I have no way of knowing...just like I have no way of knowing what all my "friends" on Facebook are really like, what they are really feeling or doing. By the way, I'm shocked at how many "friends" I have, I thought I knew like twenty people. But apparently though there are less than six degrees of separation between me and, maybe you.

It's like an Internet party, these social websites, everyone's wearing their best smiles, their best faces. We exchange smiles and witty comments much like we would at a real party and make fun of each other. It's nice...I even had a discussion with a total stranger about philosophy, we even went as far as the meaning of life in some sense.

But much like a real party, you are considered a freak, if you want to have a conversation that is not somehow promoting happiness and fun. I haven't read the paper or watched the news since I joined facebook, it's only been a few days, but seriously. I like this happy news from my friends better than that depressing shit on T.V.

I know people are dying, and I know I'm doing nothing on this Earth, not lifting a single finger to help a single human being who is suffering. I promised myself I would call a women's shelter to volunteer and I still haven't done that yet because I've been busy socializing during the holidays.

If I keep at this and read facebook comments instead of the New York Times will I become a smiley person, who is totally unaware of what's going on in the real world? At least if you live in India you can see inane poverty right outside your window, but in America, if you live in the suburbs, you can't see anything but a reflection of your own face.

When my uncle came to America from India his biggest complaint was that people ask you how you are all the time in America but they actually don't care. Every morning they will ask you how you are doing and they want to guarantee that you say you are great.

If you try to start a real conversation about how maybe your day sucks, you might be considered a Debby Downer. The thing is sometimes it totally sucks to be alive and you want to vent...god forbid you write about your horrific experience on Facebook and make someone cry.

I mean but when it comes down to it, given a choice I would rather laugh than cry. So I'm gonna stay on Facebook because it makes me laugh, it makes me smile. I mean after all the real thing I want in this life is to be happy. But I'm gonna try to keep another eye on what's going in the world beyond my doors. Because even though I don't really act on it, I do care.

I may not know you, but I care about you. I don't want you to suffer. If you are my friend on Facebook or not, you deserve to have some fun no matter how miserable your life may be. It's a good thing to try and be cheerful, I just need to remember to take all good things with a grain of salt.

nina

Being Nina Uppal

2010-12-29T01:34:00.000-05:00

In my last blog entry I wrote about being Bipolar. Have you ever seen "Being John Malcovich?" The reason I bring it up is that the films is very much like Manic Depression, it makes no sense, but it's beautiful and in some ways mind bogglingly profound.

It was kind of hard for me to "come out" so to speak about having this disease, even though many people already knew. I've slowly been telling people over the years. The closet that I came out of was filled with a lot of nasty thoughts about not feeling like a worthy person, or normal or love-able.

Apparently though, almost everyone has these dirty thoughts of self loathing at times. And normal is the new boring in our culture.

I guess I'm not like "Crazy and Proud" or something. I'm OK with it though.

There's this song by Seal that goes something like, "No we're never gonna survive, unless, we get a little crazy..." I guess I live by that motto.

You wanna know what it's like to be crazy? I bet you do. I bet you might even know, even if you won't admit it.

Well let me try and put it into words. They call it a "trip" or "tripping" because truly you do go somewhere else, your mind visits another dimension. In such a small space, and such a short life, I cannot explain or do justice to this dimension or place or feeling.

I have experienced both Mania and Depression. Mania is a lot more fun and more dangerous. The fun part is that you have this feeling of joy at times and feeling of ecstasy that is really out of this world. You feel like you are a goddess, more than alive The most dangerous part is that you can hurt yourself and other people. I don't mean just physically. I never did anything physically dangerous to myself or anyone else, but I sure as hell hated myself in a very hurtful way and was terrible to the people I loved the most.

The best part about being crazy is that I feel like there are other dimensions that you can reach, where love and joy exist beyond our imagination. You can reach them through like drugs like Crack, but I choose not to do Crack, and instead I think you can reach these places through meditation or music or like art, love, or maybe even sex.

The worst part about being crazy is that you will most likely hurt the people you care about the most. You might even lose some of those people, I did. The damage is often irreversible. You want to say it was the Crack, but in the end you were the one doing the Crack and even if it wasn't really you and it wasn't really your fault, where do you end the illness begins ? Was I me when I was crazy? If I wasn't than who the hell was I? My evil twin? None of it makes any sense so don't try and think about it too much, I'd rather you do Crack than think too much about insanity since it is in fact a thought process that I think you can slip into.

Of course I like to think if you think too much or are some sort of genius you are prone to insanity. Of course I would like to think that. I like to think there is a fine line between insanity and enlightenment. Again, in my fantasy world I romanticize my experience so that I can make it into a song. Trust me you don't want to sing this song. If you want to be a genius or a Zen master, I would highly recommend you avoid the route of reckless mental activity. Instead, you know, just do the work.

You may not be familiar with mania, but I bet you know a little about depression. It's soul sucking...I told myself I would not use the word fuck in this blog, to make it child friendly (since everyone but me is having kids), but I'm sorry, depression fucking sucks. That's all I have to say about that.

No actually, you know I have more to say. It's mind numbing...you're dead while alive. You become a zombie. At it's worse, people become violent towards themselves or others. Thank god, that never happened to me, yet. Thank god for medication and meditation, equally they saved me.

You remember that song, "Say a prayer for you mother, say a prayer for your father, but most of all please say a prayer for me..." Finally, if you are like me, it's not a question of believing in god or not, it's a matter of soul survival, my soul needed a god to pray to.

I thought I met God when I went crazy. I still don't know if I did or not.

So I implore you, if you think you could go crazy, if you want to go crazy, know that there are other ways to get to those dimensions other than not taking your medication. It took me ten years of being on and off of medicine to realize that. Now I'm on it. I missed one day in four years and nearly went crazy that day.

And if you now and then say a prayer, say one for me, pray that I don't go back, because this time I may not come back.

nina

Who are You?

2010-12-27T21:30:00.000-05:00

When I'm writing I often wonder who I'm writing to. Who are you, precisely? I assume things about you. I like to think you are smart with a quick wit. But for all I know you could be a true idiot, devoid of any humor. I like to think you are special, that you chose to read my stuff vs. all the available crap in the new media because I'm special. But you may have accidentally stumbled upon these words and be a person who is controlled by inertia and can't stop doing something they started. So you will at least finish reading this sentence due to a force in the universe completely out of your control.

What's interesting too, is that you are all different. I have to come up with something that can appeal to almost totally different species of people. Maybe you are a an upwardly-mobile-upper-middle-class individual, because I know too many of you. (I need to branch out in my associations with people). But maybe you are the guy I talked to at the cafe who works nights, and works hard, and drinks just enough every night to get tipsy but not become a drunk. Maybe you are the guy who puts the letters up on the movie theater so I can see Angelina Jolie's name in bright lights.

Maybe you throw up after every meal because you dream of looking like Angelina Jolie. Maybe you are sad.

Let me tell you a secret: I'm mad.

I am serious when I say this. I have experienced actual madness, or what we upper-middle-class-individuals call mental illness. I have Bipolar Disorder. I literally have been in group therapy sessions with people who have eaten out of dumpsters. I broke bread with people who are the lowest caste in our invisible caste system.

I went to an Ivy League School. I thought I was better than them. I thought I was better than you. Because you could be anyone, and I was taught to be the best and better and to think that I might never go where I went.

Well I went there and I came back and it turns out that I ain't better than nobody.

It turns out that People are People.

So if you are you, which you most likely are...then know that you and I have a lot in common even if we come from different planets.

I come from a planet where most people are semi-liberal, extremely intelligent, well educated and not eating out of dumpsters. But when I sat down at a cafe and talked to this guy who had spent a year being homeless he told me something I will never forget: Everyone needs to have no one for a year.

I don't know if I agree with him, I certainly don't want no one. And late at night, sometimes I get up, and I am sadly alone these days, but I think of you. My strangers, my readers, my friends. Thank you for reading these words and making me at least have the delusion that I have someone.

And if it's any consolation, you've got me babe.

nina

Are we too Cool to Care about Being Cool?

2010-12-27T07:20:00.001-05:00

I can't sleep. I went to bed at three and it's six. I'll have to drag myself to a cafe, because truthfully it gets lonely early in the morning...sometimes I just like to look at other people's faces. I'm a little cranky but feel oddly peaceful with such little sleep.

Sometimes it's hard to be interesting at six a.m. I want to say things to that matter and think thoughts that profoundly affect the way you live your life. But the truth is I just want someone to make me some coffee, because I don't know how to use my sister's high-tech coffee maker. Did I tell you I moved in my sister? It's great.

I'm starting school again because with three degrees I hope to at least be able to pay the rent. I'm going back to to learn how to teach. Of course I'm arrogant enough to think that I can reach out to young adolescents today. I will be an English teacher, a "cool" English teacher that has them do things like write raps. Right. I listen to Light F.M. I don't know a rap from a rant from rock 'n roll.

They will be able to tell I'm an Impostor. I'm not a real cool person. Some days I don't know if I'm a real person. I wasn't cool in high school, I was geeky and weird. I interviewed a Witch in our school for the school paper. I think there were people who thought I was a witch. Sometimes I want to be a witch, but I'll settle for bitch.

Truthfully, I feel bitchy right now, this early in the morning after having such a late night. I worry that sometimes the bitchiness won't wear off even after the coffees. The last thing on this earth I want to become is bitter. Bitter old women are sad and mean and very uncool.

I wonder when the last time I wondered whether I was cool enough to be alive. Was it when I listened to an Elton John song while working out? Was it when I had a birthday party and all I wanted was for everyone to sit around getting drunk and talking instead of going to a club? I know I feel totally uncool when I go on the weighing scale.

So I guess, at this time, before the sun has risen, I wonder if I am cool enough to like myself. I use the word like instead of love, because on a base level I do love myself. But do I like myself? It's only me and me in the room right now.

I guess I'm not jumping up and down from the excitement of being me. But I guess I like myself OK, OK enough to put my inner thoughts out there in writing for everyone to examine. I must like those inner thoughts.

But you wanna know what the coolest thing about me is? I don't care if you like me.

OK, I retract that statement, that's only partially true. I want to write best-sellers and have the masses love me. But the truth is, if you don't, life goes on. The coolest people in the world were hated by many. It would be coolest if you could find a reason to hate me.

It would be totally uncool for me to find a reason to hate myself. Let's hope that never happens.

nina

The Mall is the Real Women's Shelter

2010-12-27T02:35:00.000-05:00

OK so I'm such a good person that instead of calling that women's shelter, I woke up at six this morning and got to a shopping center by seven. I shopped (for myself) non-stop until three-thirty ( i went with other people, it's not as scary as it sounds). I know...I'm sick...I'm devoid of any Christmas or other spirit. So how do I justify being this person...this person who just the other day claimed that Christmas was to materialistic for her precious ass?

I guess I don't justify it. I think I'm done justifying shit to anyone, especially myself. Yeah, so I like to shop. More than I like to do a lot of things. Maybe even more than I will love listening to a woman tell me about how she has been raped....maybe I will love being that person who listens with integrity and then I will go shopping afterwards to make myself feel better.

I'm sure you've heard that song by Amy Winehouse, "I treated myself, like I knew I would, I told you I was trouble, you know that I'm no good." I don't actually think I'm no good, I just think we are complicated people. People are more complex than good or bad could ever encapsulate.

I said I would call a woman's shelter and maybe volunteer or something, and I didn't. Sometimes I don't do what I say I will. They say the commitments you make to yourself are the most important ones. A good friend of mine told me that I need to stop thinking about things and just start doing them.

It's really not that complicated when you think about it. I want to be good. But wanting is nothing in the real world, it's like wanting to be rich...who cares unless you are. You have to do something to get rich, you have to do something to be good. So since I really want to make this phone call and maybe inquire about volunteer positions....I think since I somehow managed to get a college degree or two, I can manage this.

I can manage to be good. Why, I have to ask myself, am I so concerned about doing the right thing? I mean I believe in Karma, but that's not the reason I do things. The truth is: I don't wanna be no good. I don't think you do either.

Maybe you can also pick up the phone and do something...even if it's like calling your mom. You know that other song by No Doubt, "Don't speak, I know what your thinking...I know your good, I know your good, I know your real good."

If there is anyone on this earth who knows you're at least worth something even if you don't do shit for anyone, it's your Mama.

nina

No New Commitments

2010-12-25T10:04:00.000-05:00

I decided to continue with this blog, even though I promised I would continue over a year ago. I suppose this means I have no discipline or whatever. I'm not exactly OK with that, but somehow it doesn't bother me that much. Should it bother me?

I will make resolutions this time like I want to be a better person, or lose weight or blah, blah, blah. By the way I do want all those things, I just don't think they are gonna happen by promising on a blog. I think the only thing that is accomplished with keeping a blog is catharsis.

So it's Christmas morning! Wow, I'm not excited. To someone who really is not that Christian Christmas morning means that everything is closed. I did celebrate, sort of, with my family. We didn't trade merchandise though. We ate Thai food. Now I have heart burn.

I always wonder how I should feel on Christmas when my family hardly celebrates it. Should we celebrate another religion's holiday? Why not? It could mean gifts.

It could also mean that I would have had to spend all of my extra money, of which I have very little at the moment, on gifts for other people. This could be a good practice giving or whatever, but come on, what are the chances that people are gonna get you things that you want? I know it sounds selfish and crude but I like the fact that I can spend money on myself during Christmas.

I don't know if this makes me more or less materialistic than the rest of the world. I don't know if it's really a contest.

So this Christmas I got myself those knee high boots I always wanted and I will, shortly after Christmas, get myself some kind of Kindle thingy 'cause I like books. Baby Jesus was not involved in any of these purchases.

Yet there is something cold and unfeeling and unspirited about the way I am handling Christmas. I mean I should do something good....I have friends who get toys for underprivledged children. It never occurs to me to do things like that.

I want to be that person, that person who cares about people that I don't even know. I was gonna go see a movie this Christmas Day. I always wanted to volunteer at a women's shelter. Maybe I'll call them today. Maybe you have to create meaning in your own life, because no one else will do it for you.

I'm still gonna see a movie, maybe the one with Johnny Depp. But if I just make that one phone call, not committing myself, for god's sake, then maybe well maybe I'll remember this day.

Christmas was the day I realized that I need to care more. That's cheesy as hell. But sometimes the truth is.

nina

A New Ninaland

2010-07-28T06:36:00.000-04:00

I guess I just awoke from a somewhat moderate form of depression. I say moderate because I didn't have fantasies of jumping off buildings, in essence I was not obsessed with my death as many depressed people are. I was just in a fog. My head was foggy. I didn't want to write, or move on with my life.

I write stories for a living, but it seems now that the story is writing me. Something has changed in my forecast, I have decided to try out moving to India for a while. This is drastic, this woke me up.

What the hell am I going to do in India? I'm not doing that Eat, Pray, Love thing. Although I did love that book, I'm going to India not to find myself, I want India to find me. I want India to find me as a great teacher, someone who works in some form of charity.

I have no idea why, but I have no interest in working in charitable organizations in America. But I do want to in India. Maybe it seems exotic, the way people are oppressed there. Maybe I won't care for them as I seem not to care here. Well it's not that I don't care, it just seems that I haven't found my 'place' here in America.

This will not be good unless I deeply understand that it could be the worse thing I'm doing to my life. But they say without risk there is no reward. They say a lot of things though.

I'm an Indian, but really I'm an American. But really I don't know I feel like something is missing in my world. Maybe something spiritual. Maybe something real, like seeing people who have nothing, seeing them smile.

Or maybe they need to see me smile.

I need to see myself smile. I need something greater than myself to live for. I need to know that it's OK that I'm different, different than Americans, different than Indians. That I am even different than myself.

I think the worse that could happen is that I experience beauty of some alien sort and find that it isn't for me. But if by chance I happen to find some real beauty inside me instead, it will be worth it.

This is not a commercial. I am worth it.

nina

Guilt

2010-01-17T22:33:00.000-05:00

I decided something today, while feeling bad that I had neglected my poor little blog. I decided that I can do this thing on my whim. I can do anything really. I thought maybe I was letting someone down by not posting my blog every day. Then I realized I wasn't letting anyone down, not even myself. I made a vow to record my life or live it, or something. My life. If I have to apologize to my very blog, for leaving it empty, where does that leave me in terms of being the master of my own universe?

I think when you write you want to create your own Universe, you want to own it, express it, create it. Without sounding like an idiot.

I took a hiatus from my small blog universe. I wanted to be remembered, you see, for this blog, for writing something profound. But I realized I've got time, an entire lifetime actually, to make my mark.

So what do I want to talk about today? There's like so much shit, so much that has happened, so much that is happening. I'm watching the Golden Globes and thinking about the recent earthquake in Haiti. There are moments I wish on was on that Golden Globe stage accepting an award for best screenplay. The next minute I wish I was underneath some rubble, all the way across the world, digging out bodies.

But I suppose sitting here writing about movie legends and dead bodies will have to do. It is interesting to me that Hollywood makes movie after movie about catastrophic events, yet if everyone who bought a ticket to see Avatar spent that ten dollars for relief efforts in Haiti, maybe I don't know.

Don't get me wrong, I spent the money to see Avatar and it was worth every penny. And I don't have any money so I didn't give any for the Haiti Earthquake. I guess I could have given that ten dollars. Maybe I could have saved one life or something.

So how do you decide then? Decide the right thing to do? Decide if you are a good person or just some lame idiot who would rather watch blue people in a jungle then help real people in a real jungle.

But again, who am I gonna apologize to? And do we need to apologize sometimes for just going to the movies? Maybe but I'm not going to.

nina

Homeless

2009-11-12T08:40:00.000-05:00

In the early mornings, I go to a café that’s open twenty-four hours. There is a man I find is there before me, and I reach there around seven a.m. He wears an old red tie and is sometimes sleeping a little, his head hung over his Dell computer.

When I first saw him I assumed he was a business man, but after seeing him slumped over his computer, it occurred to me that his tie was too old fashioned, he is probably a homeless man who spends some of his nights at this very café that I’m sitting in right now.

At first it alarmed me to be sharing a space with a homeless man. I think it made me see very closely that I wasn’t that different or far away from his situation. I wonder if he’s looking for a job too. I wonder if he wants to reinvent himself as I do.

I’ve never been homeless before but I did live in hostel once when I lived in New York City. There were mostly visitors from other countries in there, but every now and then a homeless person would show up. And there I was, confronted with my own fears of losing everything.

I remember one woman very clearly. She was Indian as well, and that scared me even more. She was highly educated, she had been a stock broker, but lost everything after September 11th. I was highly educated and I had just lost my job, god her face scared me because I could see myself in it.

This woman liked me because we shared a culture and I would listen to her stories, I was fascinated and from the way she spoke, very intelligently, I could tell she was once something spectacular. She just couldn’t get herself together after the tragedy. She was probably in her mid-forties.

It can happen any time, can’t it? We could, all of us, lose everything. In this economy the rate of home foreclosures is astonishing. What happens to these people? Where do they go? They were once our neighbors and now we fear them, look down on them.

They are probably homeless.

I think if I were homeless I would pick myself up and try to do anything, almost anything legal, to get out of the situation. But what if I fell into a deep depression because of my situation and wasn’t able to do ANYTHING like I wanted to?

I once met a homeless man in Ann Arbor and I told him how my blind father worked for EDS. He was surprised. “Well, hell, if a blind man can get a job, I guess a black man can,” was what he said. If my father was not a genius and educated with a family, he could be homeless.

We’re not that different than THEY are. I’m just lucky. Lucky I have a family and friends who can support me. Lucky that I’m educated and come from a middle-class upbringing. Luckily I’m far away from being homeless.

But if I was homeless, would the things that bother me now bother me in the same way? Would I be so concerned about my weight if I was wondering where my next meal was coming from? Would I be so obsessed with finding a mate if I didn’t even have anything to call my own?

The answer is no.

I would be different. I would be more real. Life is about survival. If I was put into a situation where I had to survive or die, I hope I would survive. I hope I could make something out of myself.
Now I have practically everything. Why am I still scared that I can’t something out of myself? Because maybe I’m not real enough, maybe I need to realize that I need to learn how to survive without all the cushions I’m used to.

And maybe I should count my fucking lucky stars. Many great writers and artists were paupers while they were alive. I hope I’m not just a mediocre middle class writer, maybe that’s worse. But maybe greatness is not what I need to strive for, but simply to survive.

So if you have a home or not, give yourself a round of applause.

You are alive.

nina

Am I my Mother?

2009-11-10T07:36:00.000-05:00

It starts slowly, with little things. You notice you won’t let anyone in the house if it isn’t at least presentably clean. You are nice to strangers at the grocery store even though you are in a bitchy mood. Shopping for shoes or purses can uplift just about any mood.

You buy things and hide them in the car so no one will know how often you buy things.

But there are good things too. You don’t tolerate disrespect from men, unless they are your father, in which case you try to sublimate that disrespect as old fashion love.

You want to cook for people you don’t even like. You want your man to appreciate you even when you can’t appreciate yourself.

“One day you’ll know,” she says to you when you disrespect her. “When you have a daughter of your own you will know.”

I don’t have any kids yet but I can imagine my thirteen year-old daughter hating me and thinking I am the uncoolest thing since coolness was invented. I like to think I’ll be hip and cool for my kid, but by the time I have kids they could be texting aliens, telling me I’m racist against extraterrestrial life.

Let’s be real, no one wants to be their mother, not because we don’t love them with all our heart, but because we think they have taught us to be better than them. I want to be able to shoot the shit with my daughter. If I say the word ‘shit’ around my mother she thinks I’m not acting like a lady.

If there is one thing that my mother wanted to teach was to act like a lady. Even when I go to the drug store, she wants me to look at least human, which I sometimes resent until I see tabloids at that very drug store showing celebrities and how bad they look at the drug store.

I like jewelry, but I don’t always wear earrings and my ears have a tendency to close up. My mother finds this to be unacceptable. I have shoved HEAVY 24 carat gold in holes that barely existed to make that woman happy.

But I know, I know what she has done for me. I know how much she worked and then sacrificed her career for her two daughters. So we could grow up to be women she would admire.

But I was supposed to get married and have children by now. Sometimes I think I can’t be a lady in her eyes because I have not accomplished these things. Sometimes I can’t look at her because she only sees half a person in me.

So will I be like my mother? I don’t think so.

But there are times, when Mamma, I need your help. I need to know what being a single woman in her thirties means. My mother wanted Hillary Clinton to be president. Mamma do you at least believe if I can’t be president that I can rule my own life?

What did a man ever do for Hillary? Someone asked Hillary that if she had married one of her first boyfriends, a man who pumped gas for a living, what would she have done? “He would have been president,” she said.

Mamma I know you hate that I will be selling the very clothes that you buy, for a living, after all this. But know that one day soon, you’ll know, when I do succeed, then you’ll understand the method to this madness.

If after all I can understand yours, you should be able to understand mine.

nina

Time

2009-11-09T08:53:00.000-05:00

I only have half an hour to write this because my meter at my car will run out. Well I have been out of touch for a few weeks and I think I learned something from that.

I learned that I have the luxury to become out of touch with reality. When I say that I sort of mean I stopped writing for a couple weeks and started slacking around a lot more. Then I got depressed that my life was gonna be worth nothing in the end if I continued like that.

But I have the luxury of time. I don’t really have any responsibilities besides myself, and right now my mommy and daddy are helping to pay my bills. So essentially I have the capacity to get everything in life because I have the one thing many people lack, especially in America: Time.
In a way it is freeing to have time, yet I notice that when I don’t schedule my life I fall apart and decide to do things randomly and nothing actually gets done. I have all this time and it’s only when I organize it and schedule it that I feel like I’m a human being again.

So I’m caught between these two parts of myself. The part that wants to just be free and the part that wants to ACCOMPLISH things in my life. So my compromise is that I don’t schedule my life on weekends. That’s all I can come up with at the moment. I let myself be free with time on the weekends.

The rest of the time I must be either reading, writing, looking for an immediate job, looking for a permanent writing job, and then I allow myself to socialize with friends and family because I just think that’s important.

So I wasted a couple weeks, I had some good reasons, which are not even good enough to repeat, but I had my reasons to sort of go into what my therapist calls my “cave.” It’s a place I go to escape perhaps the mundane reality of life, that life requires work. The funny thing is, work is not so bad if play is also allowed. And after all half of my work, reading and writing, I love.

It’s the JOB part that scares me. I am trying to get a job in retail right now and I’m scared I’ll hate it will all I have. But I was watching Suzy Orman on Oprah the other day and her first job was working at a diner and she said when you turn Average into Great, you realize you can do anything.

So if I can turn saving money by working at the mall into some kind of reservoir that I can tap into when I finally move out of my home and move somewhere I want to live. And if I do this with the idea that work for the sake of work is all good…I think I can do this.

All the goals I have are achievable, it’s not like I’m asking to win the lottery. Although I would like Oprah to pick my book when it gets published, that would be my equivalent of the lottery. But realistically the things I want I can achieve with work and time.

Time doing work.

I want to spend this year focusing on me and focusing on my own health, wealth and emotional prosperity. Because I know maybe one day I’ll have other people I have to take care of and I won’t be able to do that unless I have taken care of myself.

So I’m sorry I was gone, but I am back, if you are reading. And I intend on moving…through time.

nina

The Thrill

2009-10-16T08:13:00.000-04:00

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

Happiness

2009-10-15T10:44:00.000-04:00

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

The Void

2009-10-07T14:26:00.000-04:00

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

Body Parts

2009-10-06T17:42:00.002-04:00

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

Someone to Watch over Me

2009-10-05T15:23:00.000-04:00

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

Nostalgia

2009-10-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

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

Marrying Yourself

2009-09-30T08:39:00.000-04:00

There seems to be something very interesting in the West that is different than in most other societies. The idea that you NEED another person to make you happy is considered weak, dependent, unoriginal, and archaic. In many parts of the world being married and having a family is considered the basis of life.

Yet in America we have this “Self” that we are constantly trying to make friends with, to marry, to love more than we love anyone else. But is it natural to love yourself more than you love anyone else? Is it really true that you can’t “really” love anyone else until you love yourself? I think when you come out of the womb you love your mother; you don’t even know you have a self at that point.

Loving another human being is the first, most natural of our inclinations. Life is actually usually created through this love of another person. Yet we live in a society that promotes the idea that everything should be self-contained, even love, that loving yourself is somehow “The Greatest Love of All.”

But think about your past, think of a happy time, and I bet it was usually a relationship with someone else that made you happy. Whether it was your best friend, your boyfriend, your mother, or your own kid. Relationships, romantic or otherwise, are usually what the most loving and happy times in our lives are made of.

Yet there is this notion in our society that we must learn to be HAPPY WITH OURSELVES, BY OURSELVES, FOR OURSELVES, TIL DEATH DO US IN. The desperate need to be coupled that most single people feel at some point in their lives is considered an emotional flaw.

Perhaps, however, loneliness is the flaw. Maybe it’s not natural to be alone, at least for humans. The most natural thing we do is talk to another person, hug another person, make love to another person. Staring at a computer all day is perhaps the most unnatural thing we do. Sitting alone and watching T.V., where other people are being natural and talking and hugging and loving, is perhaps our version of fake living, it’s certainly not natural.

But “real life” involves the risk of ending up “alone.” So I think that as a protective mechanism we have created this notion that being independent is the final test of a person’s worth. I mean if I lived in India it would be considered very appropriate for me to live with my parents until I got married.

However in the U.S., I have this great desire to be alone, yet the times when I have lived alone I was lonely some of the time and felt that was my own fault somehow. Even having roommates that I didn’t like very much or a boyfriend I didn’t love helped erase the loneliness. Even the experiences I have with people I didn’t necessarily “love” were sometimes better memories than I have of being alone.

And what do I do when I’m alone? I read. Usually about other people having relationships with other people. Some of my greatest memories alone are with novels that have moved me. Another thing I love to do is watch movies. Again these movies are always about people making people happy or sad or mad. I also like to listen to music, and nearly every song is a love song of some sort.

Does being alone even exist? Because when you are alone, let’s say you are taking a walk. It’s nice to have nature around, and nature is like other beings. I mean even goddamn bugs and birds are around, trees seem to have personalities and even water seems to speak to me.

I’m alone right now, but writing assumes an audience since I’m not writing this to myself. It’s a conversation, and although I love writing more than anything else, sometimes I wish a man I loved was maybe sitting across from me at this same table. Even if he was writing his own life and not paying attention to me, the idea of not being alone would be nice sometimes.

I go to a café everyday when I’m writing in order to have someone smile at me, someone breathe in the same room as me. Does this mean I don’t love myself? I don’t think solitude is the measure of how much you love yourself. Probably how you let other people treat you, how you treat others, is the measure of how much you love yourself.

As much as we love our independence, most of us would not survive alone on island like Tom Hanks in that movie where he finds himself alone in the middle of the ocean. Yet maybe, there is something to be said for self-preservation, if we were in that circumstance. But most of us have people. If we do, it’s the luckiest thing we can have and the reason we would want to continue living even if those people disappear or die.

It’s true that we all die alone. However, we don’t have to “live alone” to prepare for that death. Perhaps there are some kinds of relationships out there even after we die alone.

nina

Great Expectations

2009-09-29T08:37:00.000-04:00

I think I’ve read too many books and watched too many films because what was I expecting out of life? I think I was expecting it to read like a novel or play out like movie. I’m thirty-three years old, living with my parents again, jobless, boyfriendless, husbandless and childless.

I was talking to a young high-school student a minute ago and I looked at her beautiful young face, she has her whole world ahead of her and she was asking ME what to do with her life? ME, I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’ve fucked up…I don’t know where I am…I have a Master’s Degree and I call my parents at ten o’clock at night to tell them where I am.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a sense of humor about my existence at this moment and I don’t necessarily look down on myself. It’s just hard being alive, for most of us, I assume. Because I feel like there are those who have a job, a husband and kids and still feel this void or emptiness that I sometimes feel.

I mean as much as I wish I were thinner, richer, and more famous, I think about Michael Jackson. He was the thinnest, richest, most famous mother-fucker (excuse my language) in the world. But the man couldn’t sleep at night.

I can sleep at night. I don’t do drugs. I try not to drink too much wine. There are people in this world who love me, despite my many flaws and the horrific mistakes I’ve made in my life.

I’m lucky.

But what did I expect?

After all that fuckin’ work, I think Michael Jackson at least, at the very least, expected to be able to sleep in his silk sheets with hundreds of thread counts. My sheets are from Sam’s club, they are beautiful but I got them at a good price. Michael Jackson was beautiful, but at what price? How much did he pay for that beauty, I mean that both literally and metaphorically.

What did he expect?

I think he expected to find love. I think that’s all any of us wants. Whether it be the love of a partner, the love of children, or the love of the public. He wanted it all. He was lucky. He had kids who loved him, a public who hated to love him, and if he tried I’m sure he could have found a partner of some kind, alien or otherwise (I’m kidding). I hate to disrespect the dead, but you have to admit, among other things, he was a weirdo. But even weirdo’s are worthy of love.

Sometimes I think I’m a weirdo.

Unlike other Indian second generation children, I didn’t become a doctor, engineer, or lawyer. I don’t have a steady career. If it weren’t for my parents I might be homeless right now, alright I’m exaggerating. I’m sure I could get my lazy ass up and wait tables and live in a shack.

But my precious upper-middle class ass likes the luxury of Egyptian cotton sheets from Sam’s Club. My privileged self enjoys the comfort of family and old friends. I’m ready to go on my own again, but I have the support and love of a clan.

Perhaps all those people who cried at Michael Jackson’s funeral should have cried to his face. Should have told him how much they loved him when he was alive. I can’t imagine he wanted more in life than that elaborate funeral.

I don’t want to be dead yet, but I want to live like Michael died. I don’t want to live how he lived. But, I wish the world would cry to my face and say, “I love you.”

Call me vain.

nina

Schedules

2009-09-28T08:34:00.000-04:00

So I decided to put myself on a regimented schedule. It’s very unlike me, but I realized that I think having some sort of discipline helps me to convert my creativity into something tangible. Perhaps, a life even. It helps to turn the fire inside me into something I can gradually cook.

There’s a part of me that thinks we are all animals and we work by instinct and I should have the proper intuition to know what to do at any given hour. However, there is another part of me that thinks we are machines, like robots with a personality, and we need to be told what to do at any given hour. Even if I am the one telling myself what to do.

There is something decent about discipline; it seems to make an otherwise chaotic and unpredictable universe, livable. I can’t make the weather become what I want it to be on any given day, but I can decide to go to the gym at nine-a.m. every morning.

I can’t predict whether Obama will be able to pass his health plan, but I know I will be able to pass mine. I know I can be healthy if I make a decision to do the right thing every day. No, don’t get me wrong. Rules are made to be broken. I ate a sugar free-health-nut breakfast and then came to this coffee shop and had biscotti, which is a European version of a chocolate thingy you dip in coffee.

Even though I told myself I would not have sugar or coffee this morning, I did it anyways I broke my discipline even as I am starting it. But that’s the kind of person that I am, I believe there is a human being behind all of my actions and I often let that human being have its cravings and idiosyncrasies.

So what I’m trying to say is, discipline is a good thing, but it can be kind of like religion. There is a saying in Buddhism that goes something like this: Religion is like a boat, it ferries you across life. However once you get to your destination, there is no need to carry the boat on your head.

I think discipline is like that, it is supposed to carry you to some destination, some goal, but the discipline itself is not the destination and once you have achieved your goal, you need not burden yourself with the excessive rules of discipline. For example, I like to write in the mornings, that’s when my creative energy seems to be flowing lately. Now, if I can get myself to a great writing job and selling my book, then I may decide later that the morning writing ritual is better done at night or smack in the middle of the day.

If I do ever become a successful writer, I will realize it wasn’t the morning that saved me, but the creativity that I tapped into during the time of the day that I chose, or the universe chose, to give me a creative time and space.

It is strange though, the idea that we need to do the same thing over and over every day in order to feel alive. Like every morning and night, I brush my teeth and I don’t know where I would be without this ritual. I mean besides having disgusting yellow teeth, I NEED to feel that brush against my mouth every morning and night. I found myself without a brush the other day when I spent the night at my sister’s and I found that the rest of the day didn’t taste right even though I brushed with my finger and toothpaste. I felt incomplete, I felt partially naked, and a little gross.

If I didn’t make myself write and read every day, or almost every day, could I even call myself a writer? It’s the discipline of writing that makes me a writer, not my love of words or my miniscule talent, but the act of writing itself, and doing it on a regular basis, that makes me who I am.

So as much as I’d like to think I’m not a creature of habit, I am. They say it is our actions that make us who we are, not the words we use to describe ourselves. So I’ve decided to act on who I think I am.

nina

Differences

2009-09-23T07:45:00.000-04:00

So I’m vaguely acquainted with a very intelligent guy who works at this coffee shop and happens to be an Orthodox Christian and pretty conservative in his views. I kind of got to know him before I realized he was so conservative.

He doesn’t hate me because I’m not Christian, but I wonder, does he think I will go to Hell as he hands me my coffee?

And anyways, does it matter that he might think these things in the back of his mind and treat me with complete respect to my face. But then what does the word ‘respect’ mean?

And how much do I judge him for believing his way is the only way. But we have these amazing conversations about politics and history and I can’t just dismiss him as someone I don’t want to associate with. Even though if it came down to it, and we were in some kind of civil war between Christians and Non-Christians and they were coming after me with knives, would he hide me in his basement?

That’s the test isn’t it? That’s what happened during the Holocaust and the Partition of India and Pakistan. People were being persecuted for their religious beliefs and ‘enemies’ were hiding each other in their homes and saving each other’s lives because after all, even if you were a Christian who believed the Jews hiding in your attic were going to Hell, you knew there was something more Hellish about religious persecution.

My friend at the Coffee Shop doesn’t hate homosexuals; he just doesn’t like to think about them. He wishes his female neighbor would stop hitting on his girlfriend and telling her she’s missing out on something profound by not copulating with her.

I happen to be straight, and I don’t hate straight men but I wish many of them would stop harassing women to go to bed with them. Am I that different than this guy at the coffee shop? I don’t necessary like the idea of polygamy, but I don’t hate people who are doing it.

See I think I hate polygamy for the right reasons, because women are usually being treated badly, or so I assume, in these circumstances. But what I do I know about the love of sisterhood that these women who share a husband have? What does this guy at the café know about love between two men?

Is it better to just not think about the things that you are uncomfortable with? Or is better to confront them in your mind before you are confronted with them in life? This guy working at the Café just wishes Homosexuals would stop shoving it in his face.

I wish the conservative right would stop shoving Jesus in my face. I’m delighted when someone even knows the name of my religion, but they don’t even know that I’ve studied their Bible in school, written papers on it. Compared other texts to it, accepted that it is what this society I live is based on.

So how do we peacefully coexist with people who have different beliefs than us in times of relative peace? I guess it begs the question, what is peace? If homosexuals can’t get married in most states, is that peace? If young girls are raped and then forced into marriage in polygamous societies, is that peace? Just ‘cause this Orthodox Christian guy smiles at me politely and asks me how my day was, should I trust him to not spit in my coffee?

I think it all comes down to this strange notion of intuition. They tell women to always trust their intuition around men, and if they feel unsafe, they should trust that feeling. I think this guy who works at my hangout and once lived in a Monastery has a good heart. I feel like he’s good people.

I don’t know if he would always do the right thing when it comes to respecting those who are different than him but he has not offended me thus far. And that’s as far as I’ll go right now. I’ll converse with this complete stranger who says it’s so amazing that in coffee shops meet who would never otherwise meet. He says coffee shops should be in every neighborhood in America.

I agree.

Later, we will agree to disagree.

nina

Illusions

2009-09-20T07:10:00.000-04:00

I think I got a little dissillusioned or however you spell that, can you have that feeling if you can't spell it? I almost quit my blog because I was feeling sort of frustrated with everything in life, but alas the universe does conspire for you, not against you, if you really try and have a purpose.

So here I am 6 am on Sunday with the purpose of coming back to my blog. A friend of mine last night told me that I made a commitment and I have to stick to my vow.

I made a vow to spend 365 days involved in some kind of journey and I really want to stick to that. I think part of the journey is wanting so badly to quit. To cry. To maybe even die.

Don’t get me wrong I do not ACTUALLY want to die, but I had this illusion that as soon as I had discovered my destination, getting there would be a snap. However, I can’t twitch my nose like that chick on Bewitched and make things happen.

But sometimes when I’m typing, I feel like some people do on a piano, there is a rhythm that I’m following, a sound in my head. I can’t play the piano, but give me a few words to work with, and I can play. Sometimes I live with the illusion that that’s all I have.

But as much as I love writing, I love living more, so I find that words are like my little boats sometimes that carry me through life. But it is life after all that I’m after. Sometimes I have the illusion that life can be put into words, when it is far more complex than that.

In these early summer mornings I drink iced coffee and wonder why I don’t smoke because I so desperately want something in my mouth. I stick the ice in my mouth and chew on it as if my life depends on finding something to eat. I think it’s funny that I eat water first thing in the morning.

When all I want is this summer to not end two days, I’ve been wearing flip flops and no one knows how much I hate shoes, in the sense that they represent this lack of freedom for my feet. I mean I love shoes just as much as the next girl, but being able to have your feet breathe all summer is a luxury. And no worries, I have flip flops in every color and style available.

It can be lonely, sometimes in the early hours of the morning when the only people who are awake are those that are paid to be awake. But I find if I don’t just get up when I first wake up in the morning, I want to never wake up. Not never but not until much of the morning has passed me by.

There is something about being alive when everyone is still sleeping, I feel like I can get something out of system when no one is around watching me, as if I can stand on my head, metaphorically, and every time I fall before I am able to do it is washed away in the dark stillness of the morning. No one knows.

No one knows, except that guy who sells me my coffee, how much I crave that conversation when I ask him for my coffee and he asks me for some money. How much I need to be a part of some kind of exchange in life that is so mundane but makes my morning ritual real. If he wasn’t there watching, would I be awake? If I really did try to stand on my head and fell when no one is watching because even the coffee guy is on break, have a really fallen or even existed in these strange mornings?

I sit next t a painting that is so beautiful, with colors swirling all around, yet I feel like I could have painted it myself when I was like five. These particular colors are so special that this painting is worth four hundred dollars. Sometimes I want to rip it apart and see if they would charge me the 400 dollars.

I want to create beauty, not for the money, ‘cause we all know how much money there is in beauty. But I want to see beauty in that man and woman smoking outside the window at a quarter to seven. Killing themselves softly, as I ingest caffeine in a tiny Styrofoam cup that will eventually kill my planet.

Sometimes, in the early morning I want to do things like scream or maybe sing, in front of the three people that are with me in this café. On the one hand I enjoy our distance, but there’s a part of me that wants to stand up and sing with them, as if we were at some secular church where people just sang for the hell of it on Sunday Mornings instead of having a divine purpose.

This is our divine purpose, isn’t it? To be like robots and never scream out of place. To never dance unless you are in a ‘designated dancing place.’ I want to get up and dance right now, though I’m no Michael Jackson, I can’t do the moon walk but I can look at the moon fading and wish I was up there this morning.

Maybe the moon is an illusion too. And maybe Mars wouldn’t be any better than Michigan. But the dream is so pretty, as beautiful as this painting I stare at every morning. So forgive me my illusions and I’ll forgive you yours.

nina

Meditation

2009-09-14T04:46:00.000-04:00

There are a lot of different opinions as to the definition of meditation. What is it exactly, you ask?

For one thing, I don’t think there is a good book definition of meditation or a good one line answer. Kind of like feminisms, I think there are meditations, and they mean something different to each individual.

Buddhists believe in things like walking meditation, sitting, standing, etc. meditation. I’m sure you could swim and meditate if you wanted to.

So all I can tell you is what meditation means to me: It means to concentrate on the beauty and oneness of all things. To focus on love and joy.

Now this may sound like some kind of new age hokiness to many of you. It’s not new age, its very old age. It’s not ‘modern’ to meditate it is in fact very old fashion.

The oldest text in the world is the Vedas, written in India some thousands of years ago. The Vedas talk about meditation.

So why do we close our eyes when we meditate? Well in psychology there is this state called ‘alpha’ which is between sleep and awake. It was when they say you are most vulnerable to absorb things.

I think that when you close your eyes and concentrate you are reaching first the state of alpha before you reach other higher states of mind.

I don’t know enough about the different stages of chakras, or states of being or mind that you can reach when you meditate. Quite frankly I think that if you get to analyzing it too much you lose its beauty.

I like to listen to music to meditate. Now I don’t just listen to instrumental music, I listen to regular old music. Since most songs are love songs, I figure God is love. Or something like that.

Now, remember in the film Footloose where the preacher says that Rock and Roll is from the Devil. That preacher would think I am a Devil worshipper because I happen to think you can listen to rock and roll and meditate at the same time.

You know that song by the dwarfs in Snow White, “Whistle while you work…” I think you can meditate while you work. In the back of your mind if there is a notion that love and beauty are the essential components of every task and every trade, then you will succeed at noticing the divine in the mundane.

Life is short. You have to wonder why we are here etc. etc. I think we are here to notice our divine nature and see that every being is connected.

I think ‘God’ is just a conglomeration of all beings dead and alive. It’s an energy source or something. And we know that energy is neither produced nor destroyed. It simply changes shape.

The universe has many shapes, but I don’t think God takes any particular shape at all except what we imagine in our head. If you imagine a really old guy who looks like Santa Claus that’s fine, if that works for you.

If you imagine God to look like Kali, the black goddess, that’s probably also just fine with god or the Goddess. Unlike ourselves, I don’t think She’s that vain or particular.

So do you have to meditate on God? I have no idea what happens to you if you meditate on the Devil or Satan or whatever…but I do know that positive energy feels better than negative energy.

So if you’ve ever had a bad experience on the Ouija board you know that there is probably negative energy out there, waiting to take over your self or soul or whatever. But if you have ever seriously meditated you know that there is positive energy out there that is waiting to invade you, to pervade you.

I don’t think you have to believe in anything at all in order to meditate. It is a way to escape the everyday and come to a place of peace. god knows we could use a little peace.

nina

Annualism

2009-09-13T05:13:00.001-04:00

Well I guess there’s this new “trend” of journalists doing things for a year in order to get attention and maybe get a book deal or whatever. Apparently this “trend” has been going on for ages.

Writers will do stuff like “pretend” to be mentally ill (a very difficult feat for most of us) in order to see what it’s like in Mental Hospitals.

Or they will like abstain from like sex for a year or have sex everyday for a year. There is something about the stamina it takes to accomplish a year-long project that intrigues people.

I embarked on my journey of blogging for a year in order to attain some kind of self discovery and it hasn’t even been a full month yet but I’m nervous as to how I’m going to finish this.

It’s hard to come up with bullshit every day that can both entertain and interest the five people or so who are reading this.

But there is something about having a discipline every day that makes the days go by with some sort of meaning. I feel like I’ve accomplished something in these past few weeks. It doesn’t feel like time is just passing me by. It doesn’t feel like I’m just letting my life pass me by.

There is something to be said about documenting your life that makes you want to color within the lines.

It’s like I stopped for a minute, or maybe a year, to digest all that’s happened in my life, or all that’s happening and take it all in.

See we get so caught up in “doing” things like living that we forget sometimes to take stock of why we are doing what we are doing or who we really are in the midst of all this action and circumstance.

It’s like if you had to look in the mirror twenty-four hours a day. You’d finally find the right hair style, I swear, but more than that you’d discover just how meaningless the way you look is.

What I’m trying to say is, after looking inside myself for like a month, I’ve discovered that there ain’t some strange ghosts inside me, but that I quite simple after all.

I require love, a little entertainment, and some goals to accomplish. Besides that I don’t need all the money in the world like I thought I did, or I don’t need to be the thinnest girl on the block, or I don’t need to be even the smartest person I know.

Sure I still relish the idea of one day being on Oprah’s book selection and winning the Nobel Prize in Literature (an ACTUAL goal of mine). But I somehow realize that I don’t need these things in order to be fulfilled.

In the East they call the worldly things we want to acquire MAYA which means the great illusion. Rumor has it that Maya is the thing that is keeping us from attaining peace of mind.

It’s the chase really that holds all the excitement. It may be that after this year is over, I will not know what do with myself. I’m chasing after a dream of self-discovery but it could very well be that after I accomplish this dream, if it’s humanely possible, then I will feel empty without the “desire” for something better burning inside me.

I’m not doing some unimaginable feat like “pretending” to be insane, or living on five dollars a day, I’m just trying to become some kind of human being that I like a little more.

This is fun, you know, ranting and raving about the first thing that comes to my mind and having an audience for it. I’m afraid though, afraid I’ll screw up and saying something I’ll regret. Or bore my readers with mindless jibber jabber.

But if you’re out there and listening, do you think you can follow this stupid heart for a year? I have nothing to give you in return but my gratitude.

nina

War is Menstruation Envy—Gloria Steinem

2009-09-12T02:55:00.002-04:00

Do you get scared when you hear the word, Feminist? What do you picture? Do you picture a bunch of butch dike biker chicks with chainsaws ready to chop off the next dick that pisses them off?

That’s a tad harsh, don’t you think?

Do you know that every word in the English language that has been used to solely denote women as been demonized. Harlot, Whore etc. used to just mean woman.

Feminist is the new demonized word.

Actually there is no such thing as feminism. There are feminisms. Every woman has a different view of what the word and notion means to her.

I’ll tell you what it means to me. It means that women should get equal pay for equal work. It means that men who abuse women should go to jail for a very long time. It means to me that rapists should be castrated.

Yeah, you heard me correct. They should be castrated. Alright, I’m not sure if I believe that but I’m not sure that I don’t.

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle—Gloria Steinem

What does feminism mean to you? Did you know you can be a man and be a feminist? It doesn’t make you gay, I promise.

Being a feminist means you care about the cause for women. It means that you care about the cause for equality. This is not about superiority or anything like that.

Feminism is about those little things you don’t always think about. It’s about making life better for battered women, stopping the sex trade and human trafficking of women, and understanding PMS.

No seriously, PMS is a serious disorder that can make any woman turn into a monster. It’s not her fault. It’s your fault…just kidding.

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people too—Bumper Sticker.

So if you are stay-at-home mom or any kind of dad for that matter, you should consider becoming a feminist. It has nothing to do with gender or race or economic status.

Feminisms are about the way in which you perceive the world to be a male dominated society and the ways in which you would like to change that.

You know that there are countries where little girl babies are murdered because they are not boys. You know that women are sold into prostitution in many countries.

You know that men are not the enemies. A society that does not value women is the enemy.

So why should you teach your young girls and boys to become feminists? Because it will open their eyes. Women are still being paid less for the same work. Women are still being promoted less, hired less, and finally respected less.

Now I ask you, are you afraid of the word FEMINIST?

And always remember that there are interlocking oppressions. Being poor and a minority and a woman adds up to a difficult plight. Feminism is about breaking all forms of oppression, not just against women.

So if you thought that feminism meant that you have to hate men or turn into a lesbian, think again. Feminism simply means you are aware that there is inequality.

Don’t let them censor this F-word.

nina

Far Away...

2009-09-11T00:08:00.000-04:00

This is one of those days when I want to go away. I don’t want to be here. I mean like on Earth. I just wish I could be somewhere else today.

I don’t have a “happy place” I go to when I meditate. I should probably get one. I hear they’re exciting.

I mean I have places in my head that I can go to feel better, but mostly I feel lost today. Have you heard that song, “You’re so Far Away…Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore? It would be so fine to see your face at my door…”

“And you’re just time away…” They say time makes things easier, I think it does. But tell that to someone who knows someone who is Missing. See there are all these people that never came home on September 11th, 2001. They just went away. Far away.

It was a long time ago, you know. And most people have moved quite far away from it. But every year I’m reminded that I didn’t go anywhere. I was saved. I don’t know why, but nothing happened to me when there were people dying all around me.

I was lucky.

Missing was a nice word for Dead for many months. Those people who were looking for a loved one, no one could look them in the eye and say, “Stop looking.”

So every year they read the names of everyone who passed away. My dad said, “It’s only in America that everyone’s life is worth something.” Sure there have been bigger tragedies in the world where more people have died.

However, the kind of reverence that we in the United States give to the dead, no one can replicate.

My name isn’t on that list, so I listen to all the other names.

I don’t recognize a single name I hear because I’m lucky. Not a single person I knew or loved was there. Although I know some people that were around the area and got lucky.

Living five miles away was considered far away. I had friends whose apartments were demolished and lived in hotels.

I could only manage to go to ground zero in April. I went with a very good friend of mine. As soon as we got off the train I was lost. So I stopped a woman and asked her, “Do you know where the World Trade Center is?”

She looked at my Middle Eastern looking face and friend who looks the same and said, “I don’t know what this is about but I don’t want to be a part of it.” And she walked in the opposite direction that she was walking in before.

My protest was to keep the picture of a black woman wearing white Muslim Headgear on my window sill. My protest was to keep the Sikh calendar up in my living room that showed a bunch of Sikh men with turbans in artistic form. When strangers came into our apartment they thought we were Muslim.

My protest was not to clarify anything. I’m from India; Pakistan is not that far away.

And anyways, I’m only six degrees of separation from some of those names I hear ringing in my ears today.

Friday’s Report Card:

Health: I didn’t lose any weight. Umm…it was Labor Day weekend and my dad’s birthday and I have no other valid excuse. SHAME ON ME. I worked out every other day, can do better.

Wealth: Did not send out enough resumes, thinking of posting resume on all job sites. Have steady followers of blog!!! Found a website advertising my blog!!!

Wisdom: Need to honor the past, not dwell on it. Need to forgive myself for past mistakes.

Cyber Nut?

2009-09-09T22:27:00.002-04:00

So this guy called me a Cyber Nut at the café this morning. I don’t know why I think that’s so hilarious. I was the one who rebelled against the Internet when it first came out. People would email me and I wouldn’t check it for months at a time in college.

Now because of the resume situation and because I’ve started writing a blog, I’m on the Internet a lot it seems. I mean where else are you supposed to look for a job? How did people look for a job before the Internet? It’s so weird, life before.

Life before. Remember when we used to buy CD’s instead of installing music into our iPod’s? I used to have a record player when I was a kid. I would listen to the same songs over and over again. Those were the days, huh?

Nowadays I have a like a gazillion songs on my iPod. And I listen to the this awesome Internet radio station called Pandora, where you put in your favorite singer or song and it plays other singers and songs just like it.

So am I a Cyber Nut? I don’t know, are you? Remember when you used to get up in the morning and read the paper, now you are reading a blog. I don’t even have any editors or rules.

So what if your computer privileges were taken away for a while? What would you do with that time? I’ve been noticing nature a lot lately, I mean like just staring at it. Maybe I would do more of that than staring at this screen.

It’s with this very machine that I can reach out to like a dozen people. Think about if I had to write this on paper and pass it out. How weird would that be?

What if you found my diary after I was dead, like Anne Frank’s? You’d like that wouldn’t you? To know what I’m really thinking with really no censors. My true thoughts and feelings. Or would it bore you to death?

I had a poetry professor tell me once to NEVER write in a diary, because everyone sounds crazy in their diaries. And after you die, dude, don’t pretend like it’s not gonna happen. But people are gonna look at that shit and read it and try to know the real you.

They plan on being SHOCKED by even your most mundane observations. So instead let it all hang out. So instead just say what you want to say to that person you keep writing about in your diary.

Journaling has been done for ages and people say it is very therapeutic. In the Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron says you should write first thing in the morning, she calls these morning pages, and like vomit out all the stuff that’s in your head.

As much as I love that book I just can’t do it. It’s like I don’t trust the page to keep my secrets. Because the fact is, the page is not gonna keep your secrets for you.

As crazy as it sounds, I talk to my imaginary friend when I need to really talk about my deepest secrets. You call Him God. I have different names for Him, but it doesn’t matter. I know one thing; He knows my deepest darkest secrets and loves me anyways. Things I wouldn’t even tell my significant other.

I don’t know if God reads my blog, I mean c’mon He’s a pretty busy guy. But when I talk to him, it’s like I’m emailing a celebrity or something. It’s like He’s in Cyberspace, just hangin’ out, waiting for me to write. Instead I talk, in my head of course, not out loud. I’m not that crazy, yet.

Remember when we used to write letters to Santa? That was before this crazy Internet thing started. I wonder if Santa has an email address now.

There were Santa’s and Bugs Bunny’s and all sorts of stuff in the Life Before. Today is one day before the terrorist attacks eight years ago. Life goes on, but life before was different.

Remember when you were only scared of ghosts and the boogeyman? Now these new nuts are in cyberspace with us. Terrorists are probably Cyber Nuts just like me.

I hope that’s all I have in common with them.

nina

Man on the Moon...

2009-09-09T00:56:00.004-04:00

Have you ever heard that song by R.E.M., “If you believe they put a man on the moon, man on the moon?” There are actual individuals roaming this Earth who believe that the man on the moon stunt was a camera trick.

I don’t know about all that but like in the Cold War wasn’t Russia bluffing about stuff? And did I ever tell you about the man I met on a train once?

OK so I was like twenty-two and had just graduated from University of Michigan undergrad with an English Degree. I decided to spontaneously move to Washington D.C. for the hell of it.

So I first visited a friend in North Carolina and then took a train to D.C. While on the train I met a man who claimed he was in the CIA. I was interested. So I let him come and sit next to me.

I was such an idiot. He told me things like the president knows about aliens and travesties that are so bad that he didn’t have the proper authority to tell me, but I might like kill myself if I found out. It was one of those, I could tell you but then I’d have to shoot you.

He didn’t have any identification. Of course I didn’t even ask for any. I was just enthralled with his epic stories. He should have been a fiction writer.

I can’t remember what else he told me, it was a long time ago. The point is I believed him and after I told the story to a few friends and my boyfriend at the time, I realized he was pathological liar.

But you see I have this fascination with strangers. I don’t know if the man was ill or just having a good time. It doesn’t matter to me; I think it is fascinating that people will tell stories to complete strangers.

Like this one guy told me, when I was in Ann Arbor at U of M that he saw the angel Mary. I asked him what she looked like. “She was about your height.”

Now I know what you are thinking. These people are mentally ill. But what if this guy saw an angel, what if there is such a thing as angels?

I know, I know, I live in an imaginary world most of the time. My good friend is the one who named it Ninaland. I space out, I day dream.

But if you tell me something, I might just believe you. Your deepest and weirdest experience, your stupid thoughts. I’m interested.

I don’t even know you.

Call me gullible or stupid or naïve, but I will listen to you.

I wanted to be a therapist when I was a kid. But really it’s the story I’m interested in. I’m a writer and I love stories. I can’t help anyone. But I can write a good story.

There are people who think the Holocaust is just a story. I’m sure that years from now there will be those who think that a small tragedy like 911 was just a bunch of stories.

But we have footage now, from the news, on YouTube. Our stories have facts and legitimacy and no one can tell us we are lying. Except like the moon, they may, in the future, say it was movie, all staged.

If you believe they put a man on the moon, than come with me, I have some more stories to tell you.

nina

September Stories...

2009-09-08T01:19:00.000-04:00

I’ve never written anything about September 11^th before. I don’t know if I will be able to write anything on September 11^th. So I’ll tell you what happened to me that morning.

I was in college at Columbia which is 5 miles from ground zero. So I had a rule that no one could call me before nine o’clock, I would go to bed around 2 am. So around eight in the morning of the 11^th my phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing.

I was so annoyed. I finally answered it. It was my dad. “Don’t go to the World Trade Center, they think there may have been a terrorist attack,” is what he said.

“Why would I go there, I don’t even know how to get there? Why did you wake me up to tell me this?” I ranted. He laughed and hung up.

That would be the last time I spoke to my father on the telephone for like a few days. All the lines were down after that.

So since I was up I turned on the TV and the minute I turned it on I saw the second plane go into the second tower. Chills went up and down my back.

Then I looked outside my window. People who didn’t know each other were talking to each other. Did you hear, they said. This is worse than Pearl Harbor. My son, this woman screamed, my son works in that building! My Son! She fell to the ground.

These are the echoes I hear in the night sometimes in September.

I watched TV with my roommate for a few hours than went to the bookstore. I was assigned a book to read that I had yet to buy. The credit card and debit card machines weren’t working so I asked the clerk if I could write a check.

He looked at me like he didn’t care if I just took the book and walked out. I started writing the check. “What’s the date?” I looked up at him and asked.

“You don’t know the date? This date’s gonna go down in history and you don’t know what day it is today? It’s September 11^th.” He declared it like he was writing history himself.

The thing is, I knew the date, I think. I just, I just, it’s like I needed someone legitimize what was happening. This surreal dream.

Then I went to my class like a good girl. What else was I supposed to do? It turned out that my morning class was cancelled. There was a sign that said something like, “Class is cancelled. I’m sorry for anyone’s loss,” or something.

What was I supposed to do? Eat. Drink.

That’s what we did a lot of those first few weeks.

We ate a lot, we drank a lot.

I didn’t do a single thing, lift a single finger to help a single person.

The only person I could help was myself. I had to SURVIVE.

I couldn’t go down there either, to ground zero. No, I couldn’t go there until many months later.

But I remember, I remember, every person who called me to make sure I was alive.

I remember every person who didn’t call.

The lines weren’t working, but those people somehow got through to me. Some people wrote me emails. My uncle and my father wrote me an email every day.

My mother cried. My sister cried.

I didn’t cry yet.

Does that make me an unfeeling bitch?

nina

Labor Day

2009-09-07T01:52:00.000-04:00

So today is the day to honor those who can do what I cannot do: Hard Labor. So this one’s for the construction workers, the garbage men, the gardeners, and the plant workers.

But what about the women and children sold into slavery in other countries? Should we send them a gift? Will that make it alright? See they don’t get a day off. I don’t even know if they get a couple hours off.

Not to belabor the point but does the way we celebrate even make any sense? We have barbeques or go to the beach on some tropical island.

So how do we honor them? I don’t know. Maybe by trying to figure out a way to stop all this madness. Maybe by designating this as the true craziness.

Labor can be a satisfying thing, so I’m told. Those who have worked with their hands their entire life will tell you that. But I can’t imagine that slave labor is satisfying and not torturous and wrong.

Slavery is illegal in America you say, so why should I care?

Because we live in a world, not just a country. Because if you happen to go on VACATION to some remote part of the Earth, break the law by like spitting or something, you could end up in SLAVE LABOR for the rest of your life.

Sorry to be so depressing and ranting, but come one. In this day and age, when we all know its happening, why aren’t we doing something to stop it.

What are we gonna do? I don’t know bring it to Obama’s attention. Join the One organization. Listen to Angelina Jolie….I don’t know. Send a letter to Oprah. We all know she rules the world.

I do know that I’m scared. Scared to death of not living my cushiony life. Scared to death that chains could be put around my feet. There is a saying that goes something like this: If there is one man in chains, none of us are free.

So should we celebrate on Labor Day? I think we should always celebrate something. But we can’t forget. Forget where our tennis shoes came from and our pretty rugs.

I love pretty things, embroidered shirts, pillows, shoes. I look at where these things are made and I buy them anyways. Knowing full well that in China and Indonesia and India etc. there are very few laws about how beauty is created.

They are artists you know, kids who make carpets, women who sew beautiful tops and skirts. So next time you see something beautiful, turn it upside down and see where it’s made. Most likely not in the USA. Most likely by some kid or woman in a remote village.

I still buy that shit. In fact most of my clothes are made in other countries. But I’m a hypocrite and should practice what I preach.

So who is to blame? Me? Nike? The guy who kidnaps the people to do the work? Who owns him? I don’t know, I just thought I’d bring it to your attention.

So go to that picnic or the beach or the barbeque and have few laughs. Just don’t forget why you have a day off. Don’t forget that there are those who don’t get a day off, a minute off, a second off.

To be “on” all the time is torture. My back hurts from typing on my bed. I can’t imagine if I had to lift heavy things all day. I think I would die.

Sorry to be so preachy but there are times when it is necessary to think about what’s going on in the world besides what we are shown on TV. It’s time that someone stopped this madness.

nina

Sunday Morning

2009-09-06T00:53:00.000-04:00

There’s something really sacred about Sunday Mornings. First of all you don’t want to get out of bed. Second of all, if you are anything like me, you want to eat brunch because by the time you get up breakfast doesn’t make sense.

So did I ever tell you about the time I tried to sell knives door to door? These were expensive knives, in the nineties they were six-hundred dollars for the whole set. But I was sold; these were the best knives in the UNIVERSE. They had like marble handles, to this day the few that I have left can cut through anything. But I couldn’t sell them.

And these dudes were making like thousands of dollars a week or month or whatever, and I didn’t understand how they did it. I went to one of the knife sellers conventions; it was like a cult of positivity. It was the scariest thing I EVER encountered. People with the highest selling record would stand up and everyone would applaud, I can’t explain the FREAKINESS of these people.

My boss was like the happiest person alive. When I told him I was quitting, I almost cried and said I felt like I was disappointing him. Who the Hell was He? But I’m telling you it was like this cultish mentality.

So have you ever experienced Imposter’s Syndrome? Apparently it’s when you…alright a hot man just walked into the café. I couldn’t see his finger, you know if he had a ring on it. What I do? I smiled at him but he was on the phone. I have my headphones on so I can’t hear what he’s talking about, like if he’s talking to his girlfriend.

I’m trying to look busy and important, as I turn around casually to stare at him. I think he just came from jogging. I think I don’t know how to get picked up or…he left. Well he’s gone. I see him driving away in what looks like a single guy’s vehicle; I don’t know you could fit a few kids back there. It’s one of those like Cadillac SUV’s.

Anyways, I’m cold and it’s still summer and my sister says I could have something wrong with my blood because I’m cold all the time all of a sudden. She’s a nurse.

Anyways, I have a cousin who’s a doctor and experienced what she called Imposter’s Syndrome when she first started working. She said she couldn’t BELIEVE that she was the DOCTOR and you know not like the patient or whatever.

You know the thing about Michigan is, people smile at each other, you know like on the street and in the café. It’s rather nice. it’s different in bigger cities. People are not as NICE as they are in the Midwest.

Don’t get me wrong…I hate this place…but I’m trying to be like Positive Girl here. You have to be, you know. You know that song by Kenny Roger’s, The Gambler? My favorite line is, “Every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser…”

I have to work out I’m only doing it every other day. It’s just sooo hard. Ok it’s not that hard, I exaggerate, it’s kind of fun. I should do it every day…have you seen the BIGGEST LOSER? Those people are on like crack or something. They work out for like hours and hours every day. They drop like hundreds of pounds in like months. It’s got to be unhealthy.

And to all you joggers: Hat’s off to you. I have some serious RESPECT for people who can jog outside. I get winded by talking a walk…I’m so out of shape…I mean I like to walk I’m not saying I don’t. I take walks all the time, but Runs? Wow. I am just not there yet. And marathons, that’s some cool shit.

I’ve never thought of myself as an athlete. I can’t even spell the word, which is not coincidental. I’m just not there yet, you know. But it’s true that endorphins are released when you work out. I feel happier.

Anyways…have a good Sunday. If you go to church or the Temple or Gurudwara, tell God I said Hello. Give Him my regards…

nina

Her

2009-09-05T00:19:00.000-04:00

When I was a little girl I had a best friend. I mean she was my BFF. We hung out every single day of our young lives. We did everything together. Then when I was twelve I moved away. Well, I tried finding her a few months ago via the great god of google.

According to some random paper I found: I think she’s dead.

I remember Her father’s phone number by heart. So I called him a couple times but didn’t leave a message. I called from the Land Line and he called back and my father answered, I wasn’t home. “Someone called from this number?” Her father asked.

“Oh it was probably my daughter, Nina. Who is this?” my father asked. We’ll call him Tom.

“This is Tom do you remember me?” he asked. They lived across the street from us at our old house.

“Oh yes how are you Tom, maybe she wanted to talk to you about Her,” my dad said. Tom didn’t say She was dead.

“Just tell Nina I called,” Tom said.

See the thing is, Her mother died of alcoholism when I was twelve. The thing is, She asked me one time when I was like eighteen if she could stay with me because Her father remarried a woman who was making Her life miserable.

Coincidentally there happened to be “crazy drama” going on in my household at the time that she asked and there was no way my parents were going to allow Her to crash with us. So I told Her no.

Then she said the words to me I will never forget: “I guess this is how you know who your true friends are.”

I never saw Her again.

I invited Her to my graduation party and Her father, Tom, and his wife came, her brother even came, but they said she had a stomach ache. I was too busy at the party to think too much about it and maybe start crying or whatever.

Years later I decided to dedicate my novel to Her and I imagined I would send Her a copy and we would be friends again.

I found Her name on the people search engine, and it’s her correct first name, last name and her correct age living in Michigan. But the Paper says Tom’s daughter died. I never called Tom back.

I don’t know if she is dead.

Am I a weak person for not trying to find out? All I have to do is make a phone call. I remember, I remember everything that we did together. We started a band with tennis rackets as our instruments. We played monopoly for days at time without cheating or quitting. We watched The Facts of Life. We danced for hours to Madonna tunes.

I was there when she opened her mother’s diary and found out that her father was having an affair. Her mother blamed Tom for ruining her life, making her run to the bottle.

I was there the night Her mother passed away.

I can’t, I just can’t know.

Ignorance is bliss right?

Wrong.

I’m gonna call Tom. I’ll get back to you when I get the courage to make the phone call.

If she is dead, how did she die? I assume she got involved with the wrong people and maybe drugs. Or maybe she contracted AIDS. How does someone so young die? Drunk Driving perhaps?

Could I have saved her?

nina

Reviews

2009-09-04T00:30:00.000-04:00

So you want something to do this weekend that’s different than barbequing or lying out at the beach. Here’s a couple of suggestions for entertainment:

Book Review: The Forty-Year Old Version; Humiors of a Divorced Dad by Joel Schwartzberg:

This one’s for the boys. However, women should read this if they want to understand their men better. It’s a very witty, well written account of what it’s like to be a divorced father. Have you ever heard of postpartum depression in men? Did you know that it’s just as hard to be a father as it is to be a mother?

I didn’t know that. This book is not just for divorced dads, dads, or even just men thinking of having children. I think this is an excellent book for women to read in order to understand men, fathers, and how we women can overshadow them at times.

If you ever wondered why some men run away from their families, this book gives you insight into the men that stay. Schwartzberg shows us how it’s hard but fun and beautiful. “My children have faced the same breakfast choices since they were old enough to chew: frozen waffles, cereal, and toast. It’s their version of death and taxes.”

This memoir is very funny at times, and at times very moving. It also makes you think. It will inspire the reader to reconnect with their children or just appreciate life as a parent. Five Stars.

http://www.divorceddadbook.com/

Film Review: Ocean of Pearls by Sarab Singh Neelam:

This is a beautiful account and coming of age story of a young Sikh doctor. It’s a love story and a story about the Sikh religion, culture clash, discrimination, and generational conflict. I cried at one point, don’t want to give it all away but it is definitely worth seeing.

I don’t know that much about acting except that I grew up watching television, so I think that makes me an expert when I say the cast is brilliant. Especially the main character. My brother in law is in the film, which was exciting for me. So are other members of the Michigan Sikh community.

As a writer I was paying attention to the script which was beautiful, charming and moving. The cast was also very nice, random people like the dead woman from Desperate Housewives made a cameo appearance.

If you want to know what it’s like to be a Sikh man living in America, see this film. Thumbs Up.

http://www.oceanofpearls.com/

Friday’s Report Card:

Health:

Stopped drinking Coke Zero. I lost weight!!! Bought a whole bunch of healthy groceries, including salad stuff and stuff to cook. Worked out four days, can do better. Ate a few chocolate things here and there, have to cut that out. Don’t drink enough water either.

Wealth:

Did not send out enough resumes, SHAME ON ME. Visited blogs and tried to promote blog, good for me, however can do better and more marketing. Nurturing job contact, hopefully it will come through.

Wisdom:

Realized that my self worth must not come from my accomplishments but from my heart. Sounds very cheesy but it‘s true.

So have a good long weekend. Go on vacation or staycation, or just sleep in a little more. Go swimming, read and have a good time. I will. I’m not going anywhere but still plan on having a good time. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Thanks again for reading.

nina

Tid Bits of Info...

2009-09-03T00:05:00.000-04:00

Cuddle Parties?

I’m a little disturbed. I just saw this thing on MSN news about Cuddle Parties. People like spoon with total strangers in order to relieve stress. Is that disgusting is that just me?

It’s not an orgy, no, no, no, that doesn’t even disgust me for some reason, probably because I am disgusting but this is about laying around ‘hugging’ total strangers. I tried to hug my sister the other day and she was like, “What’s goin’ on there Nina?”

I like the side hug, you know the one you do with extended family or like friends you see regularly. But full on long hugs, that last for like hours: that should be saved for your significant other, don’t you think?

Maybe I’m being closed minded. Maybe I don’t know what it’s like because I’ve never been to a Cuddle Party.

Coffee Dates?

Then there’s this thing on Oprah.com about Coffee dates. People meet people for like fifteen minutes over coffee and decide whether they like each other. I think that’s cool. I think I’m gonna try it…will…get back to you.

I’ve done speed dating….not enough time to get to know ANYTHING about the person besides like their name and profession. But fifteen minutes you can gather enough info to know if you want to like go on a date.

Hard labor?

Alright, what happened to Lara Ling and Euna Lee (Current.com), is my worst nightmare. Hard Labor? The sad thing is, there are people who do that, slavery may be dead in America (allegedly) but in other countries, poor women, children and even men are being captured in order to do unimaginable types of hard labor. Human Trafficking is also alive and well.

Look, I don’t mean to make fun, but I think its hard labor when I can’t find the remote.

I’m serious, physical labor is soooo out of my realm of reality that it’s probably wrong. I should probably join the Peace Corps and farm for living for a while in a remote country in Africa. That’ll teach me to take the stairs instead of the elevator.

I like to think the Elliptical Machine is hard labor, and I won’t even touch the Stair Master, that is some serious LABOR.

And I’m afraid of having children because of the LABOR.

Am I just a spoiled upper middle class bitch who deserves to be alone for the rest of her life? Or are you a little like me? Do you consider washing dishes to be hard labor?

Hobbies?

So I was thinking I should have some official hobbies besides reading and writing. I don’t consider those hobbies, I consider those work. But I was thinking maybe photography. Writers are known to be great photographers. If I shoot anything good, I’ll post it on the site…need to get a digital camera first.

I think I can draw. I’m gonna try it today and see if it brings me any joy.

Also I secretly think I can sing. No one knows this but you. I can’t play any instruments though, even the piano or the harmonium (Indian piano). The Vaja it’s called. I can’t play it.

I tried to play the trumpet in the sixth grade. I played very badly and my parents asked me to stop practicing. I still have it though maybe I’ll try selling it on EBay. It was three hundred bucks in the eighties; it hasn’t been touched since the eighties.

But I know there’s this phenomena where your voice sounds different to you than it does to everyone else, so I may think I have a good voice, but world might cringe. I’m gonna try singing more in the shower in the morning and in my bedroom alone at night.

Is that Freaky? “She’s a maniac, maniac…and she dances like she’s never danced before…”

I love to dance.

nina

Do I know the Devil?

2009-09-02T00:10:00.000-04:00

So I was sitting at this Starbucks like a few years ago. This woman sitting next to me starts talking to me about how she’s phobic about germs. When she stays at hotels she cleans the bathroom and brings her own sleeping bag to put over the bed. I think she even mentioned that she sleeps in a tent sometimes, to make sure that no ‘germs’ touch her.

This crazy Obsessive Compulsive woman was African American and probably about forty. I had just moved from Chicago (I lived in Chicago for like a year) and was looking for freelance writing work. She said she might have something for me.

She asked me what it was like being, you know, Middle Eastern. I told her I wasn’t but people think I’m like related to Osama bin Laden.

I don’t know how this came up but she just looked over at me and said, I swear out of nowhere, “Do you know him?”

“Who?” I asked and imagined her zipped in a tent at the Holiday Inn.

“Osama, you know Bin Laden,” she replied and I stared at her in disbelief.

“Excuse me?” I mean I knew she was a little strange, with the germ-o phobia and everything but this was ridiculous. Of course at the moment I could think of nothing to say.

“I-I-NO! OF COURSE NOT!” I was a little loud. Then I got up and walked away.

Well, I have something to say now. How dare you. Being a minority woman yourself, a successful, (she owned a business) minority woman how dare you assume that I, because I’m brown, know the devil. You paranoid weirdo.

No, me and Osama Bin Laden are not pen pals. No, I’m not a part of his Harem. You ignorant witch…the CIA can’t find him but little girl over here knows where he is.

I’m sorry I just, I just, I just get so pissed off at stupid people. Anyways… no didn’t slap her. I’m a nonviolent person. I just looked at her funny. Real funny.

What would Buffy the Vampire Slayer do? I don’t know I never got into the vampire scene; however I have heard amazing things about it. I should have sucked her blood.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe in the devil. However Al Pacino played the Devil in that one movie…damn it…um The Devil’s Advocate. He was amazing. Almost as amazing as his Academy Award winning performance as a blind man in Scent of a Woman.

I watched that with my dad when he had a little eye sight left. He would go up real close to the screen and say…”He’s doing it right…he’s got it right.” One line I will never forget is when Pacino put’s a gun to his head and says, “I’m in the dark here…” He played a devil like character who had a heart of gold.

Anyway…apparently Madonna said some stuff at a concert and got booed by like thousands of fans. That woman has got it goin’ on. She stood up for Gypsies who are being slaughtered at an alarming rate. I think Madonna’s goin’ to Heaven.

A little note about Michael Jackson, God rest his soul: Michael, did you meet the devil? Did you do it or not? Are you in Heaven or Hell. Is there really a Hell? I didn’t think so.

Whether or not you believe Michael Jackson was a child molester or a genius or a freak, you didn’t want him dead anymore than I did.

If there is a God or a Devil or just nothing: Know this Michael you are missed.

I think it’s time now for Osama Bin Laden to meet his match. Who do you think is worse off, the Devil or Osama? I think Obama is kind of the anti-Devil.

Devil inside, devil inside, every single woman’s got the devil inside…U2. Maybe the Devil’s a woman.

nina

Mystery Machine

2009-09-01T01:45:00.000-04:00

As a woman, I’d like to think I’m mysterious. However, mostly I’m blunt, crass and putting myself out there with every little detail of my innermost thoughts. But there are still some mysteries to me:

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side?" First of all, have you ever heard a song about a rainbow? I don’t know what Kermit the frog is ranting about, but I love that song.

Where do I live? In Troy, Michigan. Nina of Troy. Like Helen. That’s the title of my autobiography that I’ll write before I die. What do you think? I’d like to move out of Michigan, as fabulous as it is.

Does water and electricity still not mix? Because I just spilled some water on to my outlet and the plug and a few hours later I hesitantly put the plug back in and I didn’t get electrocuted and I’m still alive. WHEW! That was a close one. Oh my god, I’ve had a near-death experience. HOORAY! I always wanted one. (No, I didn’t see a shining white light).

If someone has morning sickness because they are pregnant, if they travel to another country, do they have night sickness because of the jet lag? I have a cousin who is pregnant and I was just thinking about her.

Will I ever have my own children? I hope so. I really, really, hope so. I know there’s overpopulation, but I would also like to adopt, but who’s gonna let me after reading this bullshit? I wonder if nowadays adoption agencies look at your Face Book etc. accounts.

Where have I been for the past few years? I was in outer space. I’m serious. I was gonna save it for my next book but since the first did so well, I figured—I met E.T. He’s better looking in person. No but seriously, I was busy.

I met Mork, you know, from Mork and Mindy. He’s more of riot in person. (Did you know they had to get censors who knew like Yiddish when Robin Williams would go on his Mork rants?) People, the man is a real alien, no person can be that brilliantly hilarious just naturally.

OK seriously, if you must know, I had one of those Lifetime Original Movie breakdowns. It takes a little while to build yourself up after one of those. So now do I have like “issues?” Oh go to Hell, of course I do, so do you. Am I high maintenance? Some days I am. Some days nothing in the world matters to me.

Actually, do you have to be an important person to say, “I was in Exile?” I was. A woman in Exile.

What exactly is Exile, you ask? For me it was when I tried to run into the woods, to leave the world, and “find” myself. I found that I am myself. (Do you have any idea how much money in therapy it took for me to realize that rather simple fact?) Exile is interesting. Sometimes you can put yourself into it. Sometimes other people can nudge you along.

Either way you realize that the world follows you in your head, not just via satellite or wireless Internet, but via your heart.

There is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide besides even if you go to outer space, you’re still here. Earth is sort of unforgettable. It’s a mystery to me.

nina

The Idiot Box

2009-08-31T06:15:00.000-04:00

I remember when I was five I would get up at like six a.m. to watch cartoons. Now I get up at six a.m. to watch my computer. Albeit I usually go to the cafe, but how is it really any different? When I was in kindergarten, during nap time I would stay awake and day dream, imagining how cool it would be if I had a small TV that would fit into my pocket on which I could watch Scooby-Doo.

What I’m trying to say is: I invented the iPhone when I was like five.

Remember when you didn’t have a cell phone? Remember when the only way people could get a hold of you was on the land line? If you weren’t home, you’d miss the call. When I was real little we didn’t even have an answering machine. So if someone called and we weren’t around, it’s like it never happened. It’s like when a tree falls in a forest, if no one is watching, did it happen? Is that how it goes?

When I was a kid, if we watched too much TV my dad would get mad. He called it the idiot box. Is the Internet the new idiot box? I saw this little kid on Oprah who, when his computer privileges were taken away for like a week, he cried, “I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT IT!”

This is kind of scary, don’t you think? Don’t you think you should shut down your computer and go garden or something before summer is over? Or maybe play? How come adults don’t play?We’ve got the toys, but we don’t just want to go outside and play. How about talking to each other? What happened to that? Now we ‘chat’ online instead or ‘text’ crappy lines communication.

The world is changing, but is it changing for the good?Is it taking us away from the moment? If you are taking a walk, why not just look around and be alone with your thoughts rather than talk on the phone or text people or surf the Internet? And do you want to be available all the time for others to contact you? Don’t you want a little peace?

In Hinduism people used to run away to the woods to get enlightened. Now if we go into the woods, I think our cell phones will still pick up some kind of signal. “Can you hear me now?” You’ve seen the commercial for like Verizon or something.

Can you hear me now?

So I asked my dad if he thought that the Internet was making people as dumb as the TV did. His response was, “No…that Friends show…that one you watch….that will make you stupid.”

Friends? Really? When I was a kid, we as a family we used to watch Three’s Company every night, where John Ritter (God rest his soul) acted like a gay guy, lived with two women, tried to sleep with any woman he met and had a creepy friend named Larry.

My parents thought that Jack was hilarious. Those were the days, they will say, when TV was good. They also enjoyed the bigoted Archie Bunker. My professor once said, “America is all about nostalgia.”

I wish I was around in the sixties, since I believe in reincarnation, maybe I was around then. I mean where was I before 1975---December OK? I’m not 34 yet. But really what was I DOING before I was born?

Anyways…My favorite show to this day is Six Feet Under. It’s off the air now, but it really was brilliant. It’s about death. It’s witty and real…I think you can get the DVD’s at Blockbuster…I wouldn’t know.

I’m not really following anything right now, but occasionally I watch re-runs of Boston Legal. (I’m in love with James Spader, I wonder if he’s hitched). We don’t have HBO or Showtime, where all the brilliant shows are. Oh and The Office, that’s pretty entertaining. I do like Kathy Griffin; her stand up is hilarious. And Brothers and Sisters is decent. Oh and Lost. I like the Daily Show and Ali G. as well. (I think both Jon Stewart and Sasha Cohen are hot).

Enough about that. I wonder sometimes what TV has done to my brain. I also wonder what this very computer is doing to my mind as we speak.What’s the next revolution after the Internet? I vote for flying cars. Doesn’t the world look more like The Flinstones than The Jetsons?

Whaever dude, when are they gonna come out with a Sheera movie? Princess of Power, right? My middle name is Kaur, it means princess. You can call me Princess Nina. All Sikh women have Kaur after their name. (I’ll explain why LATER).

Sikhs are saints and soldiers. We are supposed to carry a small sword (kirpan) with us everywhere we go to be used for self defense ONLY (kind of like Sheera). It symbolizes strength. I don’t wear one but I have thought about it for protection. Protection from bad men and a few bitches I know. I'm not kidding.

But like I said, I’m not a good Sikh.

nina

Reality TV vs. Reality

2009-08-30T03:14:00.001-04:00

Reality TV vs. Reality

Ok I’m not gonna talk about those people with all those kids, if you want to read about that go to the grocery store, look to your left…and it’s tabloid mania about Jon and Kate plus eight. However I’m really not interested, whose life is so interesting that it could be a TV show? It’s this weird voyeurism. And those people, don’t they want privacy, isn’t anything sacred to them?

If I wanted to see reality wouldn’t I just look out my window, why would I pay for Comcast Or the Dish Network or whatever it is you have in your neighborhood? Why are we paying for REALITY? Last time I checked it was the only thing in life that’s free.

The thing is: you have a neighborhood, why don’t we hang out in that instead of watching other people hanging out in their neighborhood? (Remember Mr. Rogers, “ It’s a beautiful day in your neighborhood…Would you be my neighbor?” The man was psychotic, am I right? He was so nice. Yet he may have been on to something).

If not mistaken The Real World by MTV started all this. That was when MTV used to play music.

That was a good show, but it was staged. Now it’s like reality, reality. I mean the Housewives of Atlanta got it goin’ on, I agree with you, but are they real? They’re like married to football players, they live in mansions, their biggest concern is this weird chick named Neneh, if I’m not mistaken. I’m not even gonna look that up. Some things aren’t worth it.

How about we watch people in line for food stamps? How about we watch what’s goin’ on in Iraq on a daily basis? I mean I know it comes on the news, but I want to see what really happens instead of just reading about it in some guilty memoir twenty years later. I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m gonna write a pathetic memoir and things like being in New York on September 11th will be in it…but…I didn’t watch a moment of TV news when I was there the weeks and months after. Reality on TV and in reality was too much for me.

Except one time I watched Oprah and there was this woman from Minnesota or something who said she was too scared to walk outside after the attacks. I was so pissed off. Fuck her. I’m not saying that the only people that were affected were the people there, but come on. I look Muslim, I lived next door to a Jewish cultural center. My brethren wear turbans, you know that about the Sikhs, right? The men wear turbans….And I walked outside, proudly, every day.

I didn’t have to watch it on TV, I watched TV to escape the reality of it. (Did you notice all the shows pretended like there was no 9/11, even like Sex and the City? I find that fascinating). The signs on the subway platforms for missing people…The candlelight vigils…and anyways…I live in the suburbs right now. I don’t’ even talk about it because there ain’t that much goin’ on outside my window except professional lawn mowers.

If you want reality from me you aren’t gonna get it. These words just don’t come out spontaneously out of my head. I think about it. I edit it. I add to it. I subtract the shit. If I just sent out what was at the top of my head you’d be bored out of your mind (assuming you are not bored right now).

Is art mimicking reality or vice versa? Art is a lot of work. Reality Bites (good movie though). It’s also fun and beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but if the seventies was not like Three’s Company and more like Woodstock, I’d like to know from Ang Lee’s perspective rather than seeing some guys youtube video of it.

I don’t know, that’s just me. Anyways, on a lighter note…ummm…what am I gonna do today? Go shopping with my sister and then get my nails done and hang out at the bookstore then have dinner… Yup…then I’m gonna…see how boring this is? See how boring I am?

Maybe you have a more interesting life. Maybe you I don’t know, what do you do that could be worth us watching? The truth is, maybe you abuse your kids, maybe you are plotting something dangerous. The REALITY is it’s a sick, sick world.

I’m Sikh, not sick, though. That’s a stupid joke I tell people. It’s not funny, I know.

None of this is really that funny is it?

nina

Spansh Harlem on my mind...

2009-08-29T06:16:00.000-04:00

Did I ever tell you how I ran a coffee shop in a Jewish Nursing Home in Spanish Harlem for like a month? The writers told me it would make for good material. It definitely made for a good headache.

First of all I look Hispanic so it didn’t help that I don’t speak a word of Spanish. People would have long conversations with me as I was walking to work. I think they thought I was a snob or an uncultured Hispanic woman. I don’t just look Mexican, I also look Middle Eastern and Indian…etc.

Sometimes people can’t place me. (Why don’t I have a photo up so you can see for yourself? Because I look like a FREAK OF NATURE in photographs. I mean I don’t know what happens to my face, the camera totally distorts it. It’s true…I’m too vain to take pictures anymore).

Maybe I’ll put up an artist’s rendition of me. Any artists out there interested? I would have nothing to pay you but my gratitude. I’ve always wanted to have a HUGE ASS portrait of myself painted before I got old. Or get old. Whichever one suits you. (I was carded last night, YAY!)

I really fit in the Jewish Nursing Home though. I have respect for the elderly but these people were bitter. Some of them were flat out mean. They were tough though, they had seen the world and I was an annoying waitress to them that wouldn’t give the Diabetics sugar in their coffee when they asked for it as they rolled in with their wheel chairs.

One old man loved me, another hated me. Some of the women looked as though they weren’t scared of anything and didn’t trust anyone.

The man who I was working for was a recovering drug addict. I judged him for that back then. Now I judge myself for judging him. I’ve never had a drug problem but I have this feeling it’s like other problems, half of it’s your own damn fault and the other half is someone else’s fault. Like maybe a world that makes you want to hide from pain by getting high. A spiritually devoid world where you don’t know how to get naturally high.

Someone once told me a there is a book about Hippies in the sixties who stopped doing LSD for the obvious reasons and started meditating. They claimed they reached the same high as LSD. I know a guy who is a recovering addict as well who started doing meditation and was cured of his withdrawal symptoms. If you want to see some scary withdrawal symptoms, god what’s the name of that movie about Heroine addicts, um…damn…it’s with that guy from Star Wars. Anyone? Google, I guess, here I come…Trainspotting. Google is my new Mantra. Maybe Google is God.

Anyways, this guy that I was telling you about, he did what Sikh’s call NAAM SIMRAN. Or repeating a mantra WA_HE_GU_RU. Waheguru is the name of God as well as a breathing technique. When repeated over and over again it is rumored to lead to bliss because of the concentration and breathing and connection to the oneness of the universe. Although Sikhs believe you can recite any name of God.

I’ve tried it. It works for me. I could be imaging the bliss though. Imaginary happiness can be just as good as the real thing though, perhaps though, like wealth and beauty, are imaginary happy things. Maybe oneness with the universe is real happiness…I’m sorry if this sounds hokey or preachy.

Anyway…You’ve heard of the pleasure principal, there is now a Pistachio Principle for dieting… I don’t…

Look I’m not the poster girl for Sikhs, I’m not a good Sikh. But I like Sikhism’s spirituality or Sikhi as it is properly called. That’s all I have to say about that right now.

As for Introspective writing: The thing is, get over it. If you are going to write you have to put yourself out there. It’s a really cathartic and beautiful experience; I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it. If you want, write fiction…then you are not directly putting yourself out there. I never write in a diary because someone will read it, I could die tomorrow. There are many thoughts that I keep to myself.

A reader said writing is good for your soul. I think she is right; it is a meditation I think it makes me happy. One last comment I must respond to. A woman named Nina asked me why I thought I was such a bad person. If I had a ‘Secret.’ I do in fact have many secrets. I don’t in fact hate myself.

Irony is funny thing ain’t it?