Of poo paper and New Year cards

Good Fun! I’ve gone right back to kindergarten…
In the last couple of days I’ve cut up a blue-and-white-striped camisole I’d bought a while ago from Linking Road (there was no hope in hell that I'd fit into it anytime soon anyway), picked up a tiny wooden birdy stamp and upturned my trinket box to make a dozen New Year cards. Sadly they aren’t the masterpieces I had intended them to be (I could pass them off as “SUPW cards” made by 5-year-olds!). But at least they got me a dozen smiles and a couple of proper hugs to refrigerate and stow away as blue-day-perk-ups.

And oh there’s a whole lot of itsy-bitsy elephant poo paper stuff I’ve picked up as gifts – notepads, scrapbooks, bookmarks, monitor calendars… with cute little candy pink, orange, bright blue and magenta elephant rumps all over them. Check out http://www.elephantpoopaper.com/ (though they’ve not uploaded pictures of the products as yet.) And vote for Haathi Chaap I say!

What's my bandwidth?
What's so swell?
Why's me so special?
Why can't I tell?

I sit agape
Watch time ticking tock
Empty head
Am stutlified

Frozen deep
Stump, shoot and leaf
Am wanted dead
Or alive

Dreamcatcher in my closet
Aching for the wind
Its feathers unruffled
And soul swathed in lint

a doubting Thomas (to the bone!), i'm rarely (if ever) hopeful about anyone or anything. but i find that when it comes to doling out advice (not necessarily to those who solicit it), i'm a picture of boundless optimism... 'Of course things will sort themselves out' -- or a rhetorical -- 'Must you give up just yet?'
and oddly enough it's not always lip service. i actually believe that things will sort themselves out and that not giving up will help said person inch closer to his or her goal. wonder why faith flies out of the window, the moment i need some?!

There are days when I become a refrigerator – coolant racing in my veins, keeping thoughts of yesterday and today from rotting. Then there are other days when I am a tomato: red, juicy, happy tomato with a twang.
Between the ice-box and the vegetable there are more days; days spent in a daze or days crammed with plans of imagined heists.

I ride on my dreams - through deep, dark woods of uncertainty or through the Alladinesque maze of domes and turrets. I also dupe fellow time-riders into believing that I live a 9-5 job and breathe human breath. My expanding girth, filling out at the seams, is proof enough of my sincere intentions of pursuing all things material, now and always.
But when the clock strikes dark or even day sometimes, I orbit my secret universe hidden in the folds unscathed by old man Freud’s cudgels.

Though in my human days, when I walk, make small talk, gorge on lard and meat, and snore aloud like boiling, bubbling water, I also manage to think human. I lust after cars and people and live parasitically on TV dreams. Just for my human days, I even know how to use chopsticks; a weapon of refinement, entry fee for the Dandy club.

I wonder why I’m taken aback by the fact that these lines, written many months ago, continue to articulate my general state of mind today or anyday. Is it a timewarp? Am I stunted?

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Does floating listlessly qualify as a purpose per say? Can the phrase be used interchangeably with life? Am I living, err… alive?

To those who have every reason to believe that they belong to the innermost concentric circle of my matrix, I appear normal. A girl who knows where she’s going; one with a set of acceptable ambitions though off late the edge seems blunted by sloth/comfort. One who always makes informed choices, weighing each ounce before imbibing. And every time a boundary is pushed, there’s someone else to blame for her ‘going astray’.

But if truth be told, I’d like to be as abnormal as I can. Not a closet-hippie wanting to live it up with gay abandon. A backpacking traveler perhaps… stung by wanderlust, scarred for life. But is it not what most people aspire to be – free spirits in another world in another time riding into golden sunsets?

Expecting to sever the many umbilical cords, without missing the cocooned comfort of familiarity is clearly naïve. But is asking to live a life on my own terms a sin? Must I feel guilty for not factoring in everything and everyone before I move an inch? Can I not demand my pound of flesh at 24?

An indecisive wreck, am I to pendulum endlessly while life passes me by?

ER addict

come 9:30 and all else comes to a grinding halt. frozen over i watch as the chaotic ER of the chicago county general hospital walks right out of the television into my bedroom. it's like i am a mute bystander -- the filing cupboard or the OT door -- vicariously living the dramatic, compelling lives of dr greene, susan, doug, peter, carter, carol, janine... a hopeless channel-surfer, this is the only station my train seems to halt at. in fact, often i even carry ER images into my dreams. i've never fancied myself as one of them though. ever. i guess the thrill of leaving CT, X-ray, CPR and blood in my trail has never been a real life obsession. i've never been the child who wants to play doctor.
but i guess the vulnerability of the extreme (sometimes absurd) situations transposes itself onto my psyche and draws a cathartic (ironic) calm from the madness. with every life they save, words like hope and goodness seem redeemed from the dark alcoves of my consciousness, where cynicism leads them to rot. eye-candy george clooney or the guy who plays carter (think he's called noah wyle) help too ;)
idiot box it may be, but i'm willing to spare TV the noose just for ER's sake.