Prose before hos

Hating carpeted hotel rooms. I don't know but it's finally happened

Pav Bhaji. Don't understand the fuss (anymore)

Embracing obesity. It's not bad when you accept you'll never fit in your hot clothes again

Accepting passive behaviour in relationships, it is what it is sorta thing

Baking cake(s) once every week, to have some semblance of control over my life, that nothing else seems to give besides baking

Cutting friends loose. Long incoming, so long

Smoking up with vertigo is a terrible idea

Getting stuck in a corset in a trial room is a worse idea

Understanding that promotion has nothing to do with your desire, effort, hard work, and capability. Everything boils down to circumstances, how liked you vs the other person and the budget allocation

It's not personal until your boss feels it is personal

Mad Men has aged well but is still a heartbreaking show to re-watch. 10/10 recommended while moaning and whimpering about the Winter rains in the city

Watching your parents grow old is an uncontrollable, deeply upsetting and isolating thing that no one should have to go through alone but some of us have to

Accepting that there will be days you'll be sick in hospital alone and nobody will come rescue you because you chose your cards that way

Astrologers are always a bad fucking idea. Spend money on green

You feel like a child of divorce when you watch your other favourite driver and favourite team part

I am also at peace and rest because I'm glad I'm seeing the year on it's way out without any resentment in my heart for the men I've dated this year. I have come close to dealing with bullshit but nipping it in the bud each time was remarkably helpful. I think there's a lot to learn here, especially in perseverance. I may not be anywhere close to finding the one or just anyone but I have met fantastic men this year who tried their best to set a remarkable example to pick from. Sure, not all of them but the few who did should be equally acknowledged. I've also possibly seen the most unhinged version of myself yet so I guess we've hit a real balance between the gents who indulged me in my tomfoolery and then those who were there for me through it. 

I want to say I have hope for 2024 to be a bigger, badder, meaner version of all the peace and patience I got out of 2023 but who am I kidding, I can't get lucky every year. Or, can I?

 Choose your fighter

No writing for a whole month versus squeezing writing between shaving cooch, showering, baking, getting ready, and paying a credit card bill because wow I had an epiphany that writing can cure my yearning

Ghosting every single man cause he's not him versus putting all eggs in the basket for a man who's so emotionally (and physically) unavailable that my ADHD friend has now remembered him for 4 whole days

Attending all occasions in life make-up-free and avoiding putting a single thing on the face versus having a whole eye-shadow routine that makes you second guess if you're now a woman-possessed

Falling for every damn writer—ugly or otherwise—at the drop of the hat vs cringing on a date with a writer when he's seemingly on the same page as you

Not questioning a damn thing when the man in front of you love-bombed the hell out of you versus screaming, crying, throwing up cause someone you went out with that the better sense of taking things slow (so slow that it is fading out so what's even the point)

Putting in an aggressive workout versus eating deep-fried bread rolls for dinner the same day

Taking 10 days off from work to repair your relationship with yourself versus not staying home for a minute, not rotting in bed but just travelling and prancing around the city

Sporting a heavy bush versus cutting yourself trying to shave aggressively

Going out with the hope of meeting a cute guy and falling in love eventually versus getting upset at the end of a date cause we didn't bone and nothing of the sort suggested we're down that road soon enough

We made it, another year. 

My end-of-the-year playlist has been the same since 2010, with lots of Miles Davis and then more. I've replaced it with Jason Derulo and Lil Nas X. 

That should tell you everything you need to know about me. 

"Prayers, too."

To say anything other than calling this year unimaginably unhinged would be a lie. I'm making the transition in the same way. Five hours with my old bookshelf and I lived through a decade of memories today- books I bought myself, books I was gifted by my (then) beloved, friends, the award(s) from college as books for academic consistency, a handwritten note that my grandfather gifted with the book when he went to the bookstore and put the advance down so I could read Deathly Hallows in time. 

I think looking at my old books was cathartic, and I finally realized when it all went down- when I stopped writing the date of purchase and my name in books. Growth for some, disassociation for others. 

This year I wrote. Not as much as I would have liked and not as much as I could have, but I did put out stories with my name down, felt like I served a purpose in taking a lot of important stories forward, and felt proud of myself, first time in a decade now. It was all me, all alone. No colleague, no partner, no friend, nobody and let me tell you, the feeling is unparalleled. 

For my next year, I want to hustle. I want the grind. I want to pitch harder and write every day of the year. Be aggressive, make a fuck tonne of money and be the best version of myself. 

Among other goals, I want to be able to binge eat less, cut back on processed food and sugar, and really pace myself to get back to the body I had in December 2018, jaw-dropping hot and unapologetically sexy. I don't know how that will be possible given the raging pandemic ensured I was on steroids and couldn't even cut back on my food with the medicines but I'd really, really like to be able to do that.

Basically, I got goals, newfound determination (courtesy an "I'm out" and lots of gaslighting) in being ten times more hard-working, sexier and competitive. There's a lot of anger and grief and I'd like to do nothing more than to transform that into tangible results about my life, my body, my self and my personal life. 

If you're an old-timer, you'd know I do a year-ender and write on the last day of the year. But tomorrow night I plan to be in the hottest outfit I own, best make-up and hair done. Gotta bid a solid goodbye to the year that was 2021 and honestly, it deserves. 

Jason Derulo tells me to talk dirty to him. Brb, more later. 

Historically, a lot has been written on the subject of decay and intangible endings. I won't be the first, and I certainly won't be the last to derive that analogy and fixate on it but I can sure as hell make it mine. 

When I got the two bunch of flowers I did the weekend before last (my 30th), I didn't imagine, I'd co-relate the process of decay with the longing of a dead relationship. I had no reason to believe that either; for the first time in my life, I felt absolutely secure, safe, and allowed myself to be a whole and not put out to be like an old loaf of bread by the sun. I was absolute, not crumbs of eaten bread left by people over the time. Yet, here we are. 

I thought the whole pineapple can bit in Chungking Express was rather funny. A man pining for nearly a month and OD-ing on cans of tinned pineapple makes for an absurd tale of love and longing. But that's the thing about longing, all of this is absurd. The heart wants what is unavailable, what is no longer accessible nor acceptable. Yet, a juicy bite is all it craves. 

Similarly, in The Last Leaf, O. Henry attempts to visualize pining with withering and decaying of self. It's wholly powerful, potent enough to take your life. You think it's a work of literature and thus, the storyteller has put their imagination to test, and taken you for a ride. Yet, your own hopes are pinned on the bouquet of flowers blooming for just another day. 

If the flowers can outlast their natural span so can you, my love. 

Never mind, the bunch I had to discard cause much like us, I went all in and did my best to rescue it. Sometimes it's best to let things be, and allow them time. If they survive, they are yours to be and if they don't, atleast they brought you joy for as long as your lives intersected. 

I can't say I know what I'll do when I discard the last bunch in the bin; do I be hopeful that we still have a chance or do I celebrate what we had and move on as you had wished for me to do?

For part-I, head on here. If you haven't read that or just feel it's not for you, then maybe, find something else to read. This won't make sense without the context. 

I've not read the greatest comic book ever written. 

Speculation on why we got fucked by Covid: