xx

sunset kisses

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

current exhaustion level: just tried to put glasses on when i was already wearing glasses, momentarily sporting two whole pairs of glasses on my face and only dimly thinking, something feels off….

finally it’s september ! ah september, the doorway to a season when i come alive ! it has finally cooled down enough for me to have the windows open all day and that has well and truly been (nearly) the only thing keeping me sane this week. but it’s got hot and humid again today. in a preemptive action, i started another course of prednisone. i think i have come to an understanding with this as i actually like breathing really well because of prednisone and am controlling my appetite, by skipping dinners or eating only fruits.

life is going as slowly as it could. i’ve been spending way too much time with humans lately and frankly it’s pissing me off. currently reading “girls burn brighter” by shobha rao and it is set in my home state (where they speak telugu) and boy i tell you…  today i came to a place where the girl is getting tortured because her father hasn’t yet paid the remainder of the dowry and i just was so upset, i had to slam the ipad shut and physically take myself out of my cubicle and had to take a walk to calm the fuck down !! then i went and ranted to mike as i was telling him that i was waiting to borrow this book. mike has recently joined out company and he still has that excitement of a freshly employed, and his eyes glow like dark marbles. he is a bit different and he impressed me when he told me that he gets up at 5 am so he can go work out and then read !! reminded me of my husband as he used to wake up at a god awful hour like around 2:30 – 3 am and go bicycling for couple of hours and come home and read till it’s time for me to wake up and he would bring me a cup of coffee to wake me up ! dude, i miss you so fucking much !

the other day “not ross” boy commented “i want to grow old with you but honestly achievement unlocked” because when we just rolled up to petsmart, he (and i realized) that we are accidentally wearing pastel pink outfits. umm, not sure what i should feel, and am i in a relationship now ? aargh ! i don’t wanna be in a relationship (throws a tiny tantrum), i like being single and not having to interact with any of the relatives !? and also can i get a free house in florida ?

the boy is considerably younger than i and i have absolutely no issues with that but i still think he should sire some kids but he detests children. a handful of days ago, i was coming home having discovered entirely new route which not only cuts my commute by 10 mins (driving) but also takes me through crops and open fields and i get to see sunrise every day and i’m happy and blissful to breath in fresh air and watch the skies and sun; but i digress as usual, anyway, i saw some sky divers in one of the open fields and i mentioned this to the boy and he immediately wanted to go and jump. on one hand i’m envious because the day i was supposed to go and jump out of a plan was the day (valentine’s day) i found out that i was pregnant; but i’m like “boy, i’m thinking of making you the step-papa for my kitties” and he said he wouldn’t mind being a dad to them. but i am just looking for a step-dad for my kitties as my husband will always be their dad. anyways, the boy went and jumped and i sulked on the ground.

now that summer is over, i started on my fall / winter self-care. here are a few of favorites : spraying some lush eau-de-parfume or eau-de-toilette after my shower / putting on a clean bra / undershirt and feeling super clean / dressing up just to go to a favorite french cafe on the weekends, ordering a nice croissant and chocolate cake and eating it in a small park near my house / putting on my favorite songs and listening to them on my bed while drifting off to sleep / going to those used book stores and browsing all afternoon (also, i would love to be kissed by ze american boy in a book store) / wearing agent provocateur panties / having orgasms. often. / eating home made fruit salads  / drinking tea and watch leaves fall / after dinner, walking around my neighborhood with my music on and peering at people through their windows

buttons (featured in one of my photos) is currently in that extremely hyperactive-kitty-cat-play-fever mode where if he sits still he’ll die and the slightest move on my part is met with tiny bites and swats and scampering and ten-foot vertical leaps and this is somehow both heart-meltingly cute and aggressively annoying BECAUSE I WAS JUST SITTING HERE MINDING MY OWN BUSINESS PLEASE DO NOT SLAP ME SIR….

sir !

sIR !

SIR !

my cats always make me a partner in their crimes. the other day after i got home and fed my kitties, and just after sundown, sonu was in super hyper crazy nocturnal predator bug-eyed mode and there i was indelicately lounging about on my bed, watching news or some other shit, and this boy just rocket launched himself face first in my no-fly zone. i literally got pussy slammed !

‘seize the day’ they say. and idid. i kept it in your eyes. those staring, unblinking, kind eyes. that poured with your love for me. i hid details of our conversations in your laughter. so that the next time you laugh by yourself you can taste this moment. the waves crashing over grey shores and taking with them the soft light of the sun setting over our lives. another day had passed. yet, that moment couldn’t be encompassed by time. it still remains untarnished in my memory. i go back to the ones i’ve left with to make me last for the rest of my days. i’m using the soul you’ve given me to last for another day. day after day. i didn’t know it was possible to yearn for something as much as i yearn for you. the way you looked up to me like i was the only one you wanted to talk to. how you already knew what i was thinking. how you shared with me your days like a way to seize the day, in my memory. till the time it fades like every frivolous thing. but i’m still holding on to the last flicker burning the candle wick, drowning under the september night. hoping the same sun rises once again.

hello february

/ mycatisafrenchspy

february already feels confused – like blizzards and birds… like the stuff dreams are made of. by this time everyone i know, came to know my plans to buy a house. after going through my current neighborhood and finding no cottages with my specs i came to a realization that it doesn’t matter how big the house is, what matters is that it should feel like home. so i probably going to head back to my old neighborhood… houses with a past and character and probably lots of stories to tell.

“two bubbles found they had rainbows on their curves.
they flickered out saying: it was worth being a bubble, just to have held that rainbow thirty seconds.” (carl sandberg)

it’s enchanting to imagine a bubble finding joy in its brief existence.

february is enchanting and i can sense that spring is in the air… magic is in the air and nature is magical. it has a way of softening your heart without you even knowing. time moves so fucking fast and before i even realized it, it’s almost valentine’s day and yes i have a date or two….

i met this blonde boy who works for goldman sachs on the train who i named “god’s bankers” because that was the book he is currently reading. anyway we usually travel home together in the evening and we find ourselves seated in the same row sometimes next to him and sometimes with someone in between us (three seater) and today i was at a different end of the train and i had my eyes glued to my book all through the journey and when it was almost time for my stop i lifted my head up to find “god’s bankers staring” at me from the other end of the train and i wondered what happened to his book. oh well, here’s an interesting development i thought as he is cute in a way as i never really saw him as we usually sit next to each other. i made it a point to look into his eyes before i got off… i believe in having a backup plan.

i’m still reading the handmaid’s tale and i have about 100 pages to go. the other day something funny (?!?) happened. when i get to a interesting section in a book, i really can’t wait to get back to it and my best reading times nowadays are during my commute and so there i was behind a couple of blokes who are talking and i was behind them to get on the train and they don’t fucking move… they are letting everybody else get in front of them and here i was trapped and of course, i went “for fuck sake” and one guy was like “let the girl with the cloud on her head get in first..” well, fuck you, i thought, but i got in and happily read my book.

the handmaid’s tale is so damn beautiful. it’s the perfect metaphor or hyperbole for how the world works. for fear, for extremism and dangerous mindsets.

it’s a fucking masterpiece and it portraits reality through an extremely talented way and oh boy i love the characters. such powerful and fucking inspiring women!

the handmaid’s tale brings out such an important message out there. about a “ woman’s place” (very true reference) and a woman’s power and desire to fight back. it’s filled with the most relevant messages and lessons. for all of you out there that refuse to accept not just than the lack of gender equality but also the lack of understanding (about everything). i mean it’s a variation of my story or any woman who have to actually go through so much crap just to exist. most of the people live in their own version of reality but the reality is completely stunning and numbing.

a couple of days ago i had lunch with my boss as for some reason y’all, everyone wants to have lunch with me now a days and she was like tell me how you came to this country and the short version is my father gave me an ultimatum either get out of india or marry my cousin. i, of course, got out and i am the card carrying black sheep of my family because i did things my way. i am not trying to be disrespectful to my parents because they were confined to the social norms and they didn’t like to break any even if it makes them happy. and i understood them as they were caught between society and their daughter. but i have decided a long time ago, well, in fact after i read fountain head that i would be a howard roark and be true to no one else but me.

we recently had a week of frigid weather and i worked from home as i couldn’t really risk standing in the cold weather waiting for a train as i would surely die of asthma. but i had to go out one day and i poured a glass of hot water so i can get the car door open and then i locked my front door and got into my car leaving the keys on the passenger seat and then realized that the car was severely freezing and so decided i would go and fetch gloves and beanie from the house and in my haste i shut the car door forgetting that i left my house keys inside and of course, the car door froze itself again. and i looked up and noticed one of my cats is at the window, staring at me. and he paws at the window lightly and meowed. it’s devastating. his eyes are so big and imploring. and my heart broke and decided that i have to get back inside my house at all costs. not even god himself can stop me from reaching my cats and feeding them their wet food dinner. a greek god may materialize out of the frozen mists and ask me “hey you wanna bang ?” and i would be like ‘hell yeah but first let me get this car door open so i can feed my cats his dinner” i remember there is a hand sanitizer in my purse which may have a bit of alcohol and so i took that out and rubbed it on the key hole and the sides where the door contacts with the rest of the car and also methodically poured the same over the door frame and after a bit the door moved a little bit, but didn’t quite open and screeching like a pterodactyl, i pulled the door with all i got and thus released the frozen grip of the door… i grabbed the keys (after lowering the window of the car and starting the car to warm the interior) and opened my house and ran upstairs and yelled  “mommy’s home my little babies and don’t worry”at my cats… and minnu started purring and trying to climb me like he always does every time i came home and the others looked confused wondering why i got back home so soon….

there you have it.  a warm end to my frozen story.

metamorphosis

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

hi there all you wonderful souls !

i am morphing through my life like a chrysalis and there are changes everywhere as far as i could see.

i finally gotten used to my train rides. the transit time wasn’t that much of difference than the old days, but because of the way the other train seems to rattle, it felt like my new travel time is kind of slow and i felt (and somedays i do feel) every minute of my 50 minute or an hour commute and by the end of ,my journey (either going to work or back from work), my bum is completely numb, my legs and body stiff, and bladder completely full. but now a days i am used to these and i don’t feel those aches and pains.

praise be to heavens, my book reading has gone up considerably having finished four books in a span of a month. confession: i’m not reading book books, i am reading the downloaded pdf formatted ebooks on my ipad and i’m ashamed to admit this, but i’m taking the easy way out and preferring books to reading on ipad on account of lack of enough room to hold a book and this is true as the trains’ seats are not conducive for book reading even though i have seen some passengers carrying books (sheepish look). i am currently reading margaret atwood’s handmaid’s tale, another book i wanted to read forever and never found time.

as you all probably have recognized by this time, i have a thing for galaxies, space and other such nature related things and i have finally read the book “the alchemist – paulo coelho”

the year i wanted to read was the year i lost julien, and so the book was set aside. so when i finally finished this book last week, i was kind of stunned in a happy way as this boy in the book could be me. it’s by far my favorite book to ever exist; its a lovely story about a boy who travels from spain to egypt looking for the treasure he dreamed about multiple times. the boy meets many people on his quest to the desert including a gypsy, a merchant, the love of his life and an alchemist.

while reading this book and this boy’s journey, i remembered the time when julien and i tried to go climbing a mountain in kansas. in case you are not aware of it, kansas is a plain. my love for hiking was nurtured by julien and he used to climb alps and other mountains on account he was born filthy rich and his parents did all these holidays in glamorous places. so he when he was down in kansas visiting me, he chatted with some natives and they told him about this mountain we could go climb and so come sunday morning, he ifitted me and himself with gloves, hat, big jacket and hiking boots and we bundled into a car and we went a distance and we started trekking. french are polite and so he was silent and not asking about this mountain, as we can’t see any and we were both looking over the horizon, but nothing… so we kind of went up a bit of a hill and then we finally asked our guide where this mountain could be, and he was like you are standing on it !! and we bursted out laughing as this was not even a hill, it’s like a anthill..

anyway, back to the alchemist. this book is a great book if you ever find yourself stuck at a cross road and you need answers about love and life… i mean, what other questions does one have about life ? there are many teachings and lessons across his journey and i was completely transported in his journey and yes i find myself as i often do, at a cross road and it’s a nice understanding for me to know that no matter it’s good or bad, the treasure will be worth it especially when you find it where you least expect it.

may be it struck a chord as i am trying to figure out if i should give myself a chance at happiness with the american boy, not knowing if it could lead somewhere or if i would get terribly bored and chuck him aside. (i have the attention span of a gnat when it comes to boys and i don’t want to rob him of a good relationship if he is in one). but as the king in the book tells this boy, “when you really want something to happen, the whole universe will conspire so that your wish comes true”…. so don’t know, but i’m wishing this would happen that i’ll have a fling or a relationship with ze american boy, and let the magic begin 🙂

the house which i really wanted to buy was found to have a big problem, and so i discarded that and am looking for another one. and alas, the place where i live now, doesn’t seem to have my particular kind of house for the price i want to spend. and again i really wish i could read what my boy really thinks of me, for example, that he is bonkers over me or he detests me, because i would love to share my house with the american boy (in the list of my priorities, he is now at fourth position – god, my cats, me, and then american boy). and so if he likes me, i would buy a house keeping him in mind… but i have till june to suss him out i guess. and oh, in my kitchen, i have his passport photo. i forgot that i had his photo as when i first joined the company i took it home to scan and i completely forgot and the other day i was clearing out my so called wallet (it’s falling apart) and out it fell and now i stuck it next to my coffee pot. well, bon jour, mon ami !

anyway, i have been driving around on the weekends looking at houses with my specs and so far i haven’t fallen in love with any. but i know i will find my dreamy little cottage where i can have french garden and flowers with nectar to have a little butterfly garden and birds.

plans for this year also include, buying a bmw x6… i am dreaming of a bmw, as both my boy cars are older and they are still running, but i would love a new car (or buy a reasonably older year and modify for drag racing)

i was thinking about this french canadian i dated once – jean-pierre drove in formula one and he was like a millionaire (investment banker). he used to make fun of me saying that he only did highschool and he was a millionaire and i have all these degrees and tha i’m not. i told him that money is easy to make if you have like two neurons but all the people who make money, may not be entirely happy and they don’t enjoy life… i don’t spend a lot of time thinking about making money, but importantly i’m content and i enjoy my life. i told him to go fuck himself when he asked me to be his wife, but just stay home and be a wife. i don’t fit that bill but true, somedays i do feel that i should have taken him up on his offer.

i’ll be rich – that is not a big problem as i have more than two neurons plus no distractions of a family and oodles of time to use my brains. i just went through a rough road, but i’m in final stages of smoothing my way, and probably it would take me another year to start playing with money. i can’t do that just now as i have kids and i don’t have enough spare money to play with, in case i need it for their emergency vet bills.

but then again, i don’t want to be super rich at the expense of my enjoyment or my happiness. i want to have enough to take care of my bills and emergencies and then the rest would be for sport. and then, i look at people around me with monies but not happy. and they teach me things and i learn very studiously. my boss keeps asking, how can you stand me, even when i can’t stand myself ? the answer is very simple and alas, i could never say this to her directly. i feel sorry for my boss. she is extremely intelligent, hard working, very fair and very rich. i admire her immensely, but she is one of the unhappiest people i’ve met. i think sometimes riches do that to you. somehow all that money can’t give you contentment or happiness. i understand her misery but i can’t help her as happiness is something which should come from within you. and so i try and make her work life a bit easy by doing my job and am hoping to help her be content and happy.

i think it’s very important to live a life of content and bliss. happiness is never a constant because it’s relative and there are things which could make you immensely sad but if you are content, happiness becomes a hue of you and makes you glow.

my boys patriots have come to their final leg of the race and to get that superbowl. recently in the news, there was a daft kid who won a science fair by doing a silly little experiment and thus proving “tom brady cheated”. i try and not insult kids as they are still learning and their minds are sill blank. what i would like to do is first find the science fair judges and give them a whooping and then find the guy who generously gave me a copy of that article (at work) but didn’t have enough balls to admit that he did.

what he forgot was or he didn’t know was, that i am a scientist. we are arrogant and we know how to make you feel small because we know science. the kid’s experiment is totally invalid as he experiments with footballs which weighed different lbs, like 5 lbs, 6 lbs, etc. but there is an physics law known as “ideal gas law”. where it says that if the volume is constant, the air pressure drops with temp fluctuations and the mass changes are insignificant as the air weighs nothing and this whole experiment was an exercising in irritating me and trying to distract patriots from winning the superbowl. but tom brady and patriots got this !

in the end, after all the dust has settled from a trying ordeal and the universe finally gives you some signs that begin to reveal things you didn’t know but in hindsight you see the writing on the wall and what you’ve found.

anyway, whether you are the american boy or tom brady… hear this, for i shall say this only once…

“once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen”

see you soon !

love and light 😘

star dust and fluid self

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

i dream of you in delicate images, of fragile portraits built only in sleepy dreamy hazes, shivering at the sight of tumbling walls and shattered mirrors. yet i’m not built of glass, i’m an individual tracing outlines of you, a familiar stranger, sadly inaccessible, and i’m prying open the cracks within me only slightly, because if i expose the gaps, i illuminate the flaws and risks i’m (trying) and willing to take. my eyelashes flutter shut and i imagine the bits and pieces of star dust that created me, you and us, wondering if i’ll ever learn how to stop cowering behind the things i should say and start spilling the hastily formed sentiments; the words i tried to catch early in the morning, composing love letters in fog from the shower, before the wind blew them out of me. because sometimes you can’t keep it safe anymore, sometimes you have to take a risk, sometimes you have to be really goddamn honest with (or without) the promise of any reassurance or guarantee.

i may write great paragraphs about learning how to be brave, the twisted way i’ve thought that by shouting all of my secrets, i might become something bolder. but maybe i’m still not ready to say some things out loud yet, afraid my voice will quiver and my jumbled words will become nervous laughter, my mind falling into apologies and excuses. if i had the guts though, if i could gather the courage to look you in the eye and tell you everything that has been on my mind when you were standing in front of me all those times, and all those times i kept talking to you with my mouth full of bees so you couldn’t hear what i’m saying and tonight while sitting in the cold wind that wakes us up from the tingling skin to the core of our hearts, i would tell you this:

this is absolutely terrifying and i’m tapping my fingers in a steadying rhythm against my wrist to remember not to run away and not to destroy, not to repeat a passive aggressive path. because to me, this is big and this is heavy and i’m incredibly unprepared for it all. i feel all of this emotion welling up inside of me, a knot in my stomach, the swarm of bees in my chest and it has been so long since i felt a happiness that sits like a lump in my throat. so i claw my way through slowly unfolding ready to shout or cry or bury myself into a slight solitude so it will burn out with a small pop! but no matter the conflict of emotions, the net of protective keeping i’ve placed you into, there are some things that no matter how mixed up or complicated they might be, they fucking mean something. you can’t just ignore that and you can’t wonder where they might take you. you just have to lay it all out.

so here i’m. i’m ready to give you everything i’ve got, all the broken pieces and parts i’ve stitched back together with high hopes and good intentions. here are all my poorly told stories and histories i hoped to hide within myself, but shared too soon. here are my mistakes and successes, my flaws and my promises. here is all i’m, with shaking hands and an unsteady heart. here are my fearful thoughts and things i can’t quite articulate yet, my trust and my willingness to uncover everything ahead of us. because i’m tired of being safe and i’m tired of pretending it isn’t happening and i’m tired of wanting things and i’m tired of second guessing what all of this might mean;i’m keeping every goddamn finger i’ve, crossed that it is worth it in the end, when i want to believe in this so fully and deeply that it shakes me to my core.

i am crooked. i am old. i am placing all of my bets with pocket change. i am hoping to find you soon, and even from my deepest slumber and daylight moments spent wide-eyed, i know i will.

somehow i always am forgetting how difficult it can be to love fully, and to remain open armed and grateful.  how i don’t think my heart could get any bigger. and how i could fall farther in love with you than before. but here i’m, again and again.

how wonderful !

 

here & now

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

it’s snowing this morning but no accumulations because it’s warm out. i walked around my neighborhood with a cup of cocoa for a bit and caught snowflakes in my hair. (i’ve asthma and i shouldn’t do stupid things like this, but i’m being stupid for a change…. pneumonia, you are welcome). i stayed home as i needed to bring my kid horus to ze vet for his f/u blood work to make sure he doesn’t have internal bleeding.

i’m happy to be home to be surrounded by my cats as i’m kind of sad. i’ve been thinking about the american boy and how he talks about his girlfriend and i was thinking he is happy with who and what he got and while i’m happy for him, i’m sad as i’d have to push pause and explore couple of other boys who actually seem to be interested. i just need to find out if any of them is worth having a relationship ie that they are not neanderthals and all too much bloody americans as i find all americans loud, relatively obnoxious, unromantic and too chauvinistic and me being a highly intellectual, educated and feminist being, we are not a good mix. all this came about as how these boys keep wanting to do stuff with me and its not fair for them i think as even though i do go out, my mind is always on the unknown. and having said that, i’m planning to get a passport so i could go away for a weekend… anyway, american boy has to wait for a bit while i pursue other avenues… oh well, life goes on…

i often find myself falling into an overwhelming grief and by some coincidence, like when i’m chilling in my car or my bed or listening to music so it’s not that bad.  my brain warps and warbles when i’m in a mood like this and my thoughts go like: “the world in general is very much fucked and i’m running low on hummus; are those yellow flowers on that open bush; why is that woman wearing that awful dress and oh my car has great speakers and this is a great gift to be immersed in the greenness of the traffic light and so on and so forth. the mere multiplicity of it all… and ding ding ding…

being in the present moment. there’s full immersion and magical things like attending concerts, having sex, and skydiving (i never get to do this because i found out i was pregnant the day i was to jump) or bungee jumping or going scuba diving; participants in these activities are completely and utterly immersed to their bones in these moments. there’s no pausing in the past no stress for future and just living, breathing and absorbing every detail like a thirsty, bone-dry sponge; highly tuned to the smells, the sights, the tastes, the touches and the sounds become rich and colorful and alive; is there a better way to live than being in the present moment ? that’s why i love animals as they live in the present moment. just acknowledge and appreciate your current situation with eyes wide open and even more wide open heart. such liberation, such life !

i love being surrounded by my cats when i’m sad. i long for the velvety silk milk warmth of loving by a human, which is currently in hibernation. it faintly translates to getting caught in a deluge and getting drenched and just laughing but the sky was black as my grief; and when the rain ended the color of the sky and there’s no way i can describe how clean and how clear  and how crisp and how surreal the world seems; it amazes me what these violent storms do to the colourscape and it amazes me what ends up radiating. i don’t necessarily feel sad; i just feel like …. oh what are the words ? … i just feel like, my heart is buried somewhere deep, deep and going pitter pitter pitter… who knows about relations, or who knows what love is or even whether i’m equipped for it or whether it’s enough ? i’m sure i’m not gonna die of an aching heart, or loathsome loneliness; i’m sure i’m going to laugh those big laughs again while hanging off of a loved one and catch snowflakes in the hair while holding hands with someone who loves me and i’m sure there will be days for me with cozy comfort but i’m here, now and thinking about not running away; there will be days we can meet in a garden where cats roam chasing squirrels and there will be days, and yes, we have to meet there again.

i wish us all sudden and unpredictable velvety silk comfort.

i will now go and put on a sweater.

unspoken

/ mycatisafrenchspy / Leave a comment

think of me as a love letter between your fingers. cradle me and caress me. imagine that my spine is aged with a love that is older than my time on this earth. that my corners crinkle when i blush and that the creases in my body are similar to the scars on my thighs – i ‘ve been folded in two, in four. i don’t always fit my surroundings. imagine that i’m that ink stain that rests on your fingertips and that i carry permanent promises when you mark me and that i’m carved on paper and on bark, on bare walls and on crowded skies.

that i ‘m here for you to read on your loneliest nights. imagine that i weave my love through my words when i’m not there to weave my fingers through yours or toss your hair. that there is so much to say that my sentences run off the page. that despite this, i’m always ready to sign “yours” with a steady hand. i’m always ready to love you with a confident heart.

think of me as a love letter between your fingertips. come kiss my lips and open my lines. remember that i’m written in a language just for you; sometimes in braille, run your fingers on my body and read me; sometimes i’m written digitally, and that i stutter more when i write than when i speak – i’m still learning how to use certain words when you are around. be patient with me. know that my love screams louder than the pauses between unfinished syllables, the same way that it is more prominent than the miles between our souls and bodies. come and say hello to me and share your story with me.

share yourself with me.