Thirteen reasons why I am a Cat

1. If you rub me just right, I purr.
2. I have lethal claws, just ask OOF.
3. I love milk.
4. I shed a lot and get hairballs
5. I have been known to talk in meows.
6. I have been called meow by two separate, and disparate even, people.
7. I like to lie around and stretch.
8. I tend to gravitate to the position of the least potential energy.
9. I'm a good heat source when it's cold.
10. I like to lie on people.
11. My attention is easily distracted by bobbing things.
12. I can't lick my elbow, but I'm disturbingly flexible.
13. I'm wildly curious, about everyone and everything no matter how remote from me. This also puts me in the category of endangered species with extinction imminent ;)
    

Thirteen

Clearly I should re-read old blogs more. It has certainly help ease the writer's block. One thing I started doing back in 2005 was write a series of posts called thirteen. It was a list of thirteen posts which were lists of thirteen somethings.

Thirteen
1. things i hate about me
2. things that scare me
3. things i love about my life right now
4. things i love about driving
5. things i love about India
6. songs that i have no defences against
7. reasons why food rules
8. things that make me purr
9. reasons why im a cat
10. books that ill never forget
11. people who changed me
12. things noone knows about me
13. things i will do before im 30

I did some of them, and re-reading them I realised how much I've changed about certain things and how little I've changed about others! (Punctuation!) So here's a modified thirteen series. Which will appear in no particular order. Heh.

1. Things that scare me
2. Reasons why I'm a cat
3. Books I will never forget
4. People who have changed me
5. Things I've done I never thought I would
6. Reasons why food rules
7. Things I love about my life right now
8. Things that make me purr
9. Songs I have no defences against
10. Things I might concede are less than perfect about me ;)
11. Things I love about India
12. Things I love about New York
13. Things that have never happened to me, but I wish would

Things I wanted to do before I turned thirty

As the birthday approaches (no I'm not turning thirty, but am turning three years away from it), I found an old post form a very old blog.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

1. see the following in concert: Dave Matthews Band (check), Santana, Mana (almost, sob), The Wallflowers (meh), U2, Coldplay (not anymore), the Goo Goo Dolls (woevah), Euphoria (could live without), Live (nope). possibly more.
   I would like to see: Juanes and March Anthony though.
   
   
2. visit Hispanoamerica, most especially Peru and Chile.
   Oh no not anymore. Now it's Colombia, the DR, and Venezuela! And I did manage to go to Mexico, so check.
   
   
3. go to Norway.
   Good lord, WHY? Now Amsterdam...Though actually would do Norway at some point for the fjords.
   
   
4. live in Canada.
   Still would, but it's shunted down the list, below many other places, perhaps not as cold, but def more cool. hee.
   
   
5. walk through snowfall. [oh shut up]
   CHECK!
   
   
6. learn to play the guitar properly.
   Hm.... might happen
   
   
7. sing in public.
   Check. Every Thursday I'm in Hyderabad.
   
   
8. taken trains all over India.
   Well....still have the east and west to do, but I think I've got it covered. However, I think I meant it along the lines of a trip. So maybe not. But doable.
   
   
9. see Kashmir, or Jammu atleast.
   Still on the list. Ladakh - so close, yet so far.
   
   
10. have two daughters and a son. adopt most prob.
    This one we shall pretend we have not seen even because the worms oh the resultant worms from that ginormous can...
    
    
11. take a cruise, hopefully mediterranean or caribbean.
    Still on the list. Maybe 30th birthday eh?
    
    
12. be slightly famous for photography. teensy bit even. little published.
    Well....did get that photo in the UK Times...and there might be developments coming up...
    
    
13. read the complete works of mario vargas llosa, pablo neruda and manuel puig in spanish.
    Ahhh the enthu. Could still try. Maybe shoot for one book each.
    
    
14. read, write and speak italian, portuguese, spanish, french, german, russian, tamil, gujarati and kiswahili.
    Man I was enthu.
    
    
15. have a degree in art history.
    Still possible, but moving towards development economics. Eeesh.
    
    
16. be paid for theatre work.
    Can keep dreaming =)

Hey sista, go sista, soul sista, flow sista

The Bride's post the other day has inspired my own little paean.

One Friday, after a fairly brutal session at the gym that Wednesday, and an exhausting and eventually frustrating day, I came home to pass out on the couch. I was so very tired. All I wanted to do was sleep. My arms hurt, especially my triceps. I hadn't been able to lift my arms all day, couldn't tie or untie my hair, couldn't hold my phone, etc. And it being a very important day at work, I'd had tor un around, lift things, coordinate etc anyway. Suddenly my arms began to spasm and they hurt so much I couldn't find a comfortable position and I just lay there and started to cry out oh sheer helplessness.

Once OOF soothed me out of it, and I had the energy to try and do something I didn't know where to find out what to do. So I called my sister, all the way in the USA. To ask her if I should hot or cold foment it. 

What! you might say, gentle reader, is this not a time for frugality and the avoidance of unnecessary ISD calls? 

Somewhere between 2006 and 2008, I became addicted to my sister. I have known her for going on 27 years, and boy oh BOY did we have sibling issues! All the aunts and uncles would spoil me and ignore her, and my mum would ignore me to combat that. She always did exceedingly well in class (top of the bunch right through), and was Head Girl etc. For a long time I was referred to as (mincat's)'s sister. 

Spoilt brat that I was, I hated it. But she was also my big sister. I used to go skulk outside her class during breaks for the first 2 years of school. I always wanted to do the things she did and wear the things she wore. (Well...except for that wedge cut...) There was no greater mystery than what she did with her big gang of friends in high school (and recently I have begun to discover what some of those things were and they STILL evoke excitement).

Then she went to college and I went to high school and we couldn't even be around each other mroe than 2 days without humongous fights erupting. I felt it was unfair that just because she wasn't living at home she got to get away with stuff that I would be reprimanded for doing or saying. 

Then she moved off to the US for her PhD and I went away to college too. My parents freaked out when I told em I had a drink (they still get far more hyper than the situation merits, but they stillo don't react when she does). I came back for post grad. They still freaked out about everything, such as coming home after 11pm. I remember my sister, in high school, being allowed to go to the only club in town, far out, with a friend driving our car. I barely ever talked to her during all this time.

Then I moved to the US. Just before that, I managed to deal with some of these issues and understand parental perspectives on a highly unpredictable erratic child, who could do so much but would simply toss it away for no reason what so ever. How could they not freak out. I figured that my sister, for all our friction, was still my sister! And she understood the madness that went into the formation of MinCat more than anyone else. And so began the building of this relationship I can't imagine how i managed without. Calls once in 2 days becamse calls twice a day, plus hour or two-hour long yaks on weekend free minutes. Every so often I'd fly out to the West Coast to see her. We talked about boys, and drank together. I became able to take her advice without criticism. 

But it was only when I came back, and no longer had those daily chats that I realised just how important she is to me. I'm so happy we got past the nonsense years! Today there is nothing major I will do without asking for her opinion, even if I don't do what she tells me. And there is no more shame in admitting that I was wrong and she was right. As recent events indicate.

I love you Scoo!

Trophy Girls

It's interesting how people react to stereotypes about looks and attractivness. OOF, for example, gets very defensive while talking to me about what makes a woman attractive, because he just happens to like that more conventional type of girl. I, on the other hand, tend to refuse to credit someone with being attracted to me, even when they say they are, because I seem to buy into that stereotype too.

However, I've noticed that there seems to be a pattern with the boys I know, that tends to seek trophy women. Until they reach a certain degree of maturity I've seen that these boys will be completely into a non-conventionally attractive girl, with all those things that make for a good relationship, but they won't take it that far for fear of ridicule by their peers - because the girl isn't a trophy that the other boys will covet.

Perhaps I'm not as objective as I could be on the subject, since I am patently not a trophy girl, and have felt that sting so many times. But it's a thought, isn't it?

Writer's block

I have four, yes four posts in the drafts that I really want to write, but I simply can't.

I have a HUGE boil of emotion that needs catharsis and I don't think the block will go till the boil does.

On the way home today, I found the perfect way to begin to drain that boil. And then I forgot it. So if anyone's left, and anyone wants to hear more, hang around a bit I'll be back. Just need to wait for the scalpel to come back.