In Mourning and Labyrinth

Everyone’s after my life these days. Seems like I have no use and control over anything anymore. Just by saying yes, I denied my old life to myself. Of all things in te world, i actually get accused of NOT taking interest in shopping! I mean me, not interested in shopping? Has hell frozen over? Is the sun setting somewhere in the south? When it agrees to rise that is? I can’t be blamed for my lack of interest in shopping; everyone’s definition of shopping is different and ma and my are poles apart. So, tempers fly, fights ensue and I have taken to hating my parents and sister with a purpose. I had to keep myself busy somehow! Anyway. The other day while these despicable relatives of mine were oohing and aahing over over-priced, AA kurtas, I slipped out and into Liberty Books next door; a quick commando style scan of their shelves and I picked three titles, rushed to the payment counter and pleaded with the person to process my purchase ASAP, all the while asking A how much time had passed, and to check next door if ma was still busy next door. Then I refused the tell-tale Liberty Books shopping bad and stuffed the books in my bag, and another mom-approved store purchase. And after making an absolute scene of myself (imagine a full-grown aunty making furtive book purchases) I find ma and sis leaning on the railing right outside the entrance, with ma throwing dagger looks at me. Luckily my brothers have taken to siding with me, whether it’s stopping by for DVD/CD shopping or hiding the number of books I’ve bought or going anywhere.
So, I bought Labyrinth. I started reading it yesterday and now I can't put it down (inviting yet more of Ma's wrath). It's part Da Vinci Code, part The Historian and all in all totally unputdownable. Also it has also brought me back to hard-copy reading folds.

some days back i discovered esnips, a real treasure trove of e-books. and downloaded some hundred thousand books. parents, before the current spate of near warfare, had gotten the power outlet in my room fixed (and agreed to let me paint the room a girly pink) so that i could plug in my laptop. and my laptop had stayed plugged in for more than a month. first there was office work spillover to bo completed. then it was e-books. once i got into e-book reading, i just could not have enough of it, so i sneaked into my room at any given oppurtunity to read. i stayed up late, at times till 5 in the morning, reading. of course i also got up late, near noon, to make up for lost sleep but parents don't mind it really. in any case. i had so gotten into soft-copy reading reading proper books seemed tiring. but two days ago (and just a day fater my flash drive died out) my laptop wnet bust. just like that, it wnet blank. a grudge like creaking noise coming from its processor as i started on the first pages of the accidental tourist...and then the OS was no more. so i am in mourning, for my laptop, that steadfast friend that stayed by my side for all of three plus years, that bulky piece of machine whose blinking blue logging off screen i closed my eyes to every night and would have been the first sight i set my eyes on had ma allowed me that DSL connection in my room...ma said good riddance when i told her of my loss, pa blank-looked at me and sister all but rolled her eyes (enough reasons to hate them, right?) only bros understood my grief and promised to see to the revival of the dearly nearly departed. in te meantime i have to keep myself busy following Aloce/Alais through time in the Labyrinth.

What is it with me and passwords/PIN Codes? Now I have to figure out a way to remember them, else remember what convulted piece of logic was my secret answer...and how to decipher the random numbers i'd hurriedly jotted down that hold a clue to my PIN Codes (note the plural, Oh God!)
What did i do with my brain again? Oh yes, i'd wished the offending lump be eaten by a skeletal alley cat. Ouch!

Dear God

Very funny. Seriously.
Every time I think it can't possibly get worse than this, You surprise me.
Now suppose you make things better for me?

This morning I found a nail-polish remover in the fridge!
Who else but my brother could have thought to place the thing I'd asked him to get for me last night in a place I was most likely to find it in next morning as I opened the fridge to get milk? Of course the remover was ice cold and I could not put it to appropriate use in the morning. But it brought a smile to my grouchy morning. It's past noon and my sunny mood remains. I am going to miss my brothers.

I don’t mind marriages, honestly, I don’t; but weddings are absolutely abhorable. Why would two otherwise reasonable and passably decent people want to exhibit themselves is beyond me. If I were to say 'Physician, heal thyself' now, it would only be too true. We have the newly wed couple paying house-call on us, Ma and Pa and two mean bros have conveniently fallen ill to justify the two day doctors' stay. Me? I am too exhausted to even complain of anything but I do now that I am beginning to hate sis and my brand new BiL; a BiL who fits the 'bro' bill perfectly, the sly, mean, smugly vain specimen of mankind that he is...only my parents could have ended up with SiLs who rock the mean-ness scale and are a constant threat to their sons' elevated mean-green status.

I am not too tired to NOT kvetch, it seems. Oh well.

Vile

When it rains, it pours. It's a particularly vile mess, personally and professionally, that I am in; perhaps I should just leave everything and sleep it off.
The best part is, there is no sis for me to talk it out...and from the signs of it, there would be no job either.

OK.
This is something I've read about and watched unravel in movies...troubles and troubles in heaps...but things work out eventually...and teh protagonist comes outs victorious.
So. I will not scatter my itsy bitsy brains in what remain of the week. I will be on top of things, manage and live with goof ups, meet deadlines, just make sure things work out all in all.
My life is NOT in bits. Not now anyways. If I can just manage to drag my life till Monday, i should be in better position to somehow get it back on track. But a week long backlog would take heaven knows how long to make up for.
urghhh!

Wedding!

Ok, whoever said Bridezilla is something to be feared hasn't been invited to sis' wedding. At the moment I have to sneak off time from various tasks (read all work) and reply to emails from work. And attend calls, and answer to shouts for my name from all corners of teh house...and manage a couple of unruly kids. The mothers told me to make sure they behave themselves, so I give them a scolding from time to time. Now they are peeking in and whispering my name and running off giggling. Funny of course. Have to answer to another summons from Ma now. And have to go to the market to buy things for today's fucntion. Why are weddings such a complicated business and why did we all insist on doing all work ourselves becuase no one else's work would do for us?

Eid

For some strange reason I have worked up a real snit, not the funny one when my only annoyance is that it isn't snitty enough. This time I am in a generally intolerable snapping at everyone mood. And the best thing about it is the timing; Eid holidays. And considering how it's going to be us sisters' last Eid with the family and as a family as known to us all our lives, it's all the more reason to get reasonably irked. I mean what? Not fair is it? Add to it the fact that we have not, no one in the family, prepared in any way for our last Eid together. It's sis' wedding right after Eid so we thought we'd rough it in relatively new clothes for the festivities and launch ourselves into full-time celebratory mood. But Ma spoiled it for me the other day; she cried and in turn I snapped at sis. While sis and ma and ma and I are all fine now (so to speak) sis and I are not. She soes not take to snapping kindly (nor do I for that matter) and seeing how she has less than a fortnight with us I should be more gentle with her...but then she'd miss our cold wars so it's better I give her a taste of what it was like all these years growing up with her. But honestly, I am going to miss her. It just won't be the same when she won't be around to hear me go crazy middle of the night...there would be no one to share a quick mocking glance with while sitting for dinners...that exchange that drove ma and pa crazy...

so it's Eid tomorrrow, men of the house are out to collect the suits they'd be wearing on the wedding day, women of the house are holed up in their rooms and I am sitting in front of a screen watching words spring up before me.

Weddings are a crazy business. I have yet to decide what I'd be wearing on Mayoon day, the day for which I broke my back and made cards myself (with two toned paper, gota, dori and sequins and color), most wedding invites are still to be sent out (Pa got 165 cards made for our guest totalling 200, so every second child in each invited family gets a card), I have to get my matching scarves and bangles, some of sis' stuff is yet to be bought and packed...BiL's things are still un-bought, brothers' clothes for the shadi day are un-bought, we have to go and finalise the wedding hall stage arrangements, confirm food arrangements for two days...and God knows what else remains to be attended to...oh yes, videography, photography, mehndi for the bride, my shoes to go with wedding dresses, cars to be arranged to drop and pick up sis from the Salon, have to take her for services, get my own face fixed for the wedding...the list is endless...so our last Eid with the family is going to be very unlike a Eid...

Last year's Eid would then be the proper last Eid with family, only I can't remember what it was like. Not at all...

Certainly

The only thing certain at certain times is that you are full of uncertainty.