Keeping up with the Kardashians...

...cannot be as difficult as keeping up with my own life and its menagerie of mad people. If it's not trying to write a thesis while battling chronic lethargy and spurts of holy-shit-why-why-why-did-I-take-this-on, it's family members with attitude problems, dogs that refuse to leave your room, and friends dropping bombshells, accompanied by clients with bad accents and worse personalities, chores, and just general fatigue.

Taking deep breaths would help, I guess. But it's too bloody hot here in sunny Colombo for that, and the lights just went out. Godforsaken CEB. Might as well listen to some good music. Pfft.



Also, loved Kim's wedding dress. So pure and virginal *snigger snigger*

The Philosopher's Stone

There are times in life, when all you want to do is bang your head repeatedly against a hard concrete wall and gouge someone's eyes out just to release your extreme frustration and inability deal with some shit.

In times like this, I assume mature people would listen to awesome, sublime music like this. I am so freaking mature, and hence, here it is.



Sometimes I wish I could just pack up a car and head off into the blissful unknown, seeking the Philosopher's Stone.

Frank's the man...

After revamping my blog, I tried to write a meaningful and deep post -- FAIL. Did not work. Pleased as I am with the casually abstract and slightly winsome look my blog now has (not contrived at all), I'm all out when it comes to the written word. So, here I share what's occupying me as I sit, sick, in the middle of this balmy, mosquito-infected Colombo night:

1. Reading this. Discovered on one of those late, not-doing-much-here-boss nights at work. Turns out Gaius Vallerius Cattulus was an ancient Roman orator, philosopher and poet. Tidbits of knowledge like that always make me feel hopelessly ignorant of everything else I do not know.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/advice-to-himself/

2. Also skimming through this. Found through a friend's Facebook post, and I must say, it seems sensible.

http://www.trulybuddha.com/

3. Also reading Sophie's Choice. Brilliant and almost done with it!!

4. And finally, listening to this man -- nearest thing to chocolate that I can stomach right now. Ah...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7GHgE8fylQ

Soundtrack

I want to say something like "Soundtrack of my life", but I'm holding myself back from the cheesiness :P



Great music from an Aussie band that's recently shot to fame. If I'm not wrong, this is from Temper Trap's 2009 album.

You and Yourself

A song by one of my favourite-st bands on the beauties of solitude and the plus points of, sometimes, not really needing other people or their company. Listen to The Weepies if you haven't :)

I love those moments...

When you want to bang your head repetitively against a hard wall. Really.

Or, as a happy alternative, lay your neck gently against the cold steel of a railway track. And then hope that Sri Lankan Railways is not on strike, again.

As a generally non-suicidal individual, these thoughts always fill me with a sense of being in no control whatsoever of my "Destiny" or life. Like today, for God's sake.

Assume you stand at a beginning of a branching in the road you're taking. Yes, very Robert freaking Frost and all that crap. So, then you try to take road A (Also here, it is assumed that you haven't spotted Road B yet), and as you're going all fine and dandy when POW! you trip and fall and fall face-first into...elephant poop. So now you're filthy and pissed and angry with life and yet not surprised because Life has so far been throwing dung in your face for a while now.

So, you trudge back to the road and stand there glumly contemplating, when it starts to rain, drenching you but also revealing...Road B.This reaffirms your faith in life and you happily set off down the road, picking flowers, strewing them at innocent bystanders, petting babies and other little animals and in general making a grand racket about how great Road B is.

Then, one fine day, you stumble across a by-lane, one that leads you straight into Road B. Straight, clear and obstacle free.

The point of this meandering analogy is lost even on me. However, initial sentiments remain firmly fixed in my head. As of now, listening to a Strauss marathon in hopes of reducing them.

Beauty

In one of its many forms :)

All Time Low Behaviours

I imagine everyone has a way they deal with or behave during those (hopefully) rare moments in life when one feels defeated, left out and generally fucked by universal energy.

My least favourite of these behaviours, from what I've observed at least, is the tendency to lash out at others, bang doors, curse violently and inventively and generally become a fat worm up everyone's asses.

Some, I know, listen to hard, thrashing music, hoping to beat out the misery, or at least if God is merciful, block it out for a little.

Some eat. Gorge. Feel sick, gorge some more.

Some bawl. Noses dripping, undignified, ruined tissues all around them, generally a hot mess with no one to see them.

Some update their Facebook status and damn but if that's not good gossip for the rest of us!

And then some of us, put on Adele, take out the tub of ice cream, sit in a corner and scare the cats in the neighbourhood with a heartfelt, from-the-gut, caterwauling version of "Someone like you".

Favourite bit being, " Never mind I'll find someone li-ike youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhoooooooo, I wish nothing but the best for youuuuuuuuuuhooooooooooooooooooo...." etc. Really,it's too much for the written word.

Hafoi. Pathetic only.  

Strength of a woman

Went to watch the original Mr. Lover Lover last weekend, Shaggy live in concert! Not only was it entertaining but also highly amusing to see Shaggy sidle his slimy way up to the local ladies! That might be the cynic in me talking. Anyway, when he started playing "Strength of a woman", he asked the aaalll independent women in the audience to raise them hannnds!!! And there were shrieks and raised hands of course.
Made me think of this idea of an independent woman. With years of feminist ideology backing us, every educated, open-minded woman should ideally be an independent woman. But what strikes me as ironic, often about myself more than anyone else, is the sheer effort women put in to being independent, of men. If we strive always to "be our own woman", then there is an invisible thread that is still pulling us mentally toward the Alpha Male who in the end decided our fates as human beings- woman, mother, sister, lover, wife, colleague.

Now, the really admirable ones are the women who have grown in spite of the invisible thread. The well-balanced, non-extremist women who, yes admittedly, need and have men, but are alone in their strength and don't depend on a sort of male crutch. Those are the admirable ones. And having in a few in my life isn't just helpful, it's downright inspirational.

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Triskele/The triple spiral

"She'll take you too a hiiigher plaaace..." You know you wanna sing along ;)

On a related note, this symbol is the triskele, a neopagan symbol for the three stages of the woman : maiden, mother, crone. There's more to it than that, as it is apparently a Celtic and pre-Celtic symbol as well. Must do some digging.
If I ever get a tat, this could be it. The strong woman, har har har ;)