Horrifying Parents part - 1

Have been thinking more and more about getting a tattoo done for a while now.
Obviously, permanent. So now the question is - what? Everything that looks damn cool today will be horribly embarassing tomorrow. Besides, I'm not really the kind of person who'll be able to wear a naked-woman-entwined knife-through-left-eye fire-breathing-snake-through-right-eye kind of thing without having a "Yeah, I know how it looks, :(" added on under it.

What else? Abstract celtic patterns is good, with the tremendous advantage that if I put on 20 kgs over the next couple of years, the tattooed Charlize Theron won't become the tattooed Aileen Wuornos.

Japanese Kanji characters is pretty good too. Looks nice, and you can always customize what it means to anyone who asks according to what they want to hear. A 'No Smoking' sign in Kanji could become the basis for a lifetime bonding with a Gladrags Model Of The Decade if you tell her it means Save All Cute Furry Creatures Of The World. Or some such crap. Some marketing needed.

Even your own name can be a pretty good idea. check this out -

Nice, huh?

Anyway - feedback invited. What do you think would look really good? I'll probably go for a full-back-and-shoulderblades-thingy; everywhere else is too much hair and I'm not disposing of the best mosquito protection I have during treks just for a little beauty. Best suggestion gets five-star dinner and a chance to give me back massage on brand new tattoo.

another meeting

9th floor

light playing across the ceiling
windshield reflections from street below
sound muted
dim light, cold air

skin drying, fingertips going numb, goosepimples
hair standing up, brief muscletrembler shudders
killing chill

blazing sun dusty heat strident traffic an eighth of an inch away outside
a sheet of glass, a different world
dust motes dancing in the projector's lightstream
a rushing icestorm in a cold blue searchlight
silent violence
cold

geekgasm

The high point of my day has been getting a meebo widget installed on my blog. (see further below, in the Contact Me section of the sidebar. It's a neato little bit of code that lets anyone reading my blog chat with me live on the net and tell me how much he admires me and my writing.) Not much use, and quite probably a major irritant in future... but somehow the whole deal of getting a bunch of raw material, and sitting down and fiddling around with it, tying, soldering, cutting, twisting, glueing, taping, stretching, sealing, and painting it until you have a... something else in front of you is extremely... entertaining. It could be junk from your grandparents' storeroom, or a hedge sculpture, or a Red Alert 2 mod, or a broken amplifier, or code, or plumbing, or an anthill, or a messy desk, or the electrical system of your house, or a model plane, or somebody's self-esteem, or anything, really.

Maybe it's a kind of displaced maternal instinct. Guys can't give birth, so we try to find other ways of creating something. Or we're genetically subconsciously jealous, and are desperately trying to make ourselves useful and justify our existence...

Either way, at the end of it... it's still fun.

life's aches and pains and sunday mornings

This morning, my breathing stopped. We were doing a contact drill in the jeet kune do class, and I took an unexpectedly hard knuckle in the solar plexus when I wasn't expecting it; and a whole bunch of involuntary functions - like heartbeat, breathing - went haywire for a second. Easy to see how you can kill someone with your hands like this.

Now I'm in a delicious fugue state that usually happens after any high-intensity physical activity followed by a bath, a pizza and a holiday. We're lying around like a pack of dogs - me, N, P, and Bd, on the mattresses amidst newspapers, music systems, wires, chargers, phones, and water bottles, alternating between F1, The Great Indian Comedy Challenge, the lifecycle of urban coyotes, napping, and SMSs.

It's like I can't move beyond the essentials - no need to. Thirsty, stretch a hand, pick bottle, drink. Send a message. Eat a Smokin' Joe's Special slice. Watch TV. Chew on a carrot. Zzzz. Smoke. Zzzz again. Stretch. Carrot.

Like a Tom & Jerry cartoon where everything you want - irons, anvils, baseball bats, pies - can be had by just reaching beyond the edge of the screen. Everything I want is within reach, and I don't even need to get up.

Sun. Day. Dozing.

God, my arms ache. Will need to start getting into some serious shape soon; Won't be able to keep up in the JKD at this rate, and I can kiss the mountain trip goodbye as well.

What do you describe that state when you know what you're going to do, and you know you're going to do it, and you want to do it, but... you're not doing it. Yet. Maybe the next second, the next hour, the next day... I guess the closest parallel is travelling, looking out of the window. Or the thinking-nothing phase during meditation, when you see grey-maroon shapes and hear faint wind-noises of your thoughts disappearing behind you as soon as they form, except for the one that says, any time now, any second, you're going to open your eyes - and conscious thought will begin again. Or sleeping in a cab. Or that pause before you sign, the pen a quarter-inch above the paper.

Today, that feeling is complete, all-pervasive, everywhere, everything. The Pause Before The Life.

You scored as Hobbes.

You are Hobbes! Resourceful, laid back, optimistic, understanding, and able to put up with Calvin on a day-to-day basis. You are the best type of friend, someone who you can get in fights with and look at comic books with, someone who will send prank letters to you through the mail and someone who leaps over cliffs with you. What more could anyone ask for? Hobbes 86% Calvin 79% Susie 61% Mrs. Wormwood 54% Mom and Dad 29% What Calvin & Hobbes character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

No wonder I loved this exchange -
Calvin: What's it all for? What is our ultimate purpose? Why are we here?
Hobbes: Tiger food.

Interestingly enough, this is a confirmation. People had already identified me as Hobbes earlier.
Mmm. Time for a nap, and maybe some tuna...

and the wettest dry day ever

Calling any day a dry day is the meteorological equivalent of hanging a 'kick me' sign on your back and walking through 1955 high school for clouds.

Dry day my squelching wet foot. Six hours on the bike. Fat rain, sprayey rain, vertical rain, sideways rain, rain like sheets of water and rain like an aerosol spray. Cold rain, warm rain, tepid rain. Rain that rained like it was the last rain on earth and stopped only 4 times -
1. When I was inside Inorbit
2. When I was inside my sis' place at Bandra
3. When I was having a chai in the shelter of a plastic tarp
4. When I was home.

In between, I took the bike through sheets of water. I did 90 on wet roads. Cars would go past like Tata Safari Dicor ad auditions. I would in turn spray elderly gentlemen standing on pavements and sitting in autos, who would shout and shake their fists at me. Finally after six hours I am home, and I find waist deep water.
Nothing is more frustrating than driving for six hours, going through half of Bombay, sloshing, splashing, Dicor'ing, crawling, and finally find the last fifty feet are the ones that're waist deep.
Sigh. Park on the main road and wade.

Hot water. Followed up with an RC + ice.
Happy Birthday, MKG.