I was watching Bill Cosby accepting the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor and felt a big urge to talk to my dad. But he's traveling so shall have to write it down here.

I think everybody who reads the blog knows that I think the world of my dad. As M.L. once put it, the way I talk of my dad it's as if I believed he could climb Mount Everest & back in a single day. But the reason for what I know is a sort of almost reverential love for my dad is because he takes absolutely no shit from me. My mom can very sarcastically get me out of my funks but since she's so unlike me, it was (&is) hugely possible for me to pull one over her.

I remember visiting my dad in his office once & telling him that he should just accept me for who I am and him looking me up and down in my torn jeans and terribly dirty tee & very unkempt hair and saying - "sure, I'll accept you ... at home. But right now, go and sit in the car"
and just as I was storming away,
he called out - 'and roll up the windows...they are the dark ones, right?'.

And that's why Bill Cosby reminds me so v.much of him.
Especially in this episode and it's still as funny today as it was all those years back when we popped in the specially marked 'English Comedy' video cassette that my parents faithfully recorded the Cosby shows on.

I was feeling quite miserable today.
It's so illogical.
The boy comes back tomorrow from a week in Canada where he stayed with the M.L. So on top of talking to the M.L. nearly every day, & our regular daily emailing to each other, I was also getting anecdotal tidbits from the boy about her & the L.
I know that technically I shouldn't be feeling as if I am leaving my bff tomorrow but I am having a little bit of separation anxiety right now.
So weird.
sigh.
And then the A.D. told me how they are thinking of going back to Canada from where hails the A.D's boy.
And gawd.
I detest the neediness in me but really how can anybody live without best friends of forever? But I know that the boy & I have to be patient & can not immediately do what we most want to do.

I feel like curling up with a christie or watching really, really old movies from childhood or flying my mom here or moving to where all my friends & loved ones can be around each other (not in the same house, like an insane somebody told me once, but crisis distance away).

And then I retrieved this from my youtube favs & feel a wee bit better. Like everything will be ok. That all struggles will come out right. And all apprehensions and doubts will be cleared and we will see our way.

Because this year IS better than last year and we have many, many things to be joyful about!!!

Edited to add:

I've been feeling better & laughing ever since my brother sent me these two clips on skype to cheer me up.

What is it about movies you see when you are kids that stay funny forever? Ok, granted there's only one truly funny line in this scene for me but oh, how I remember us yelling out - Look man, I am no allavaladi (vagabound?), I am Pavaani, a real professional killer - at random when we were kids.



& the one below. Oh Tilakan - how can you say such dastardly funny lines with such a straight face



I do wish more old mal films had subtitles though.

Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act

I am so glad this has come to pass.
I remember listening to Judy Shepherd when she visited our school to talk about the hatred that led to her son's death. And I remember the earnestness with which the Westboro Baptist Church protesters answered my interview questions about why they were protesting and their v.strident belief that Mathew was burning in hell (the website was what they asked me to look into to understand more of their beliefs. At least today, it is far less frightening to look at than when I first glanced at it 4-5 yrs ago. Then it had these horrible fire graphics & other despicable whatnots. I don't think I have ever come across a more horrendous visual expression of bigotry stemming from religion. There is no possible way for me to reconcile what I know of my faith with what is taught to these young people).
In the interview, they used terms that we had to spend a lot of time bleeping in order for it to be airable on t.v. And I remember being beyond upset that such youngsters were brought up with hate in the name of religion. I know that this bill will not help in making those young people learn to love. But here's hoping that they learn to tolerate or even be more open to dialogue or at the very, very least learn to not act on their violent upbringings.

I am reading The Post-Birthday world, which I picked up in the library because the first few pages had something to do with snooker, which because of its close association of the boy's other religion poolplaying, made me want to peruse it more.
Other than Madame Bovary, I don't think I have read a more intense dissection of marriage or monogamy or infidelity.

1 down

It's been a year since this.
I didn't have this kind of victorious-hurdle-clearing feeling when we realised we had been going out for a year or even for 6 years.
In the pre-marriage era, anniversaries were always a - uhmm, we've been together for that long? interesting.
It was only when people called attention to the longevity of our relationship, that we felt it was something worth acknowledging.

But on the 15th, after just a year of marriage, I felt intense gratitude for the year that has been. I don't mean to take away from our live-in relationship, which I v.firmly believe laid the foundations to our life; but marriage is just a completely different cup of commitment. This last year has seen us deal with our fair share of adult issues, but has also furnished with so very many gorgeous memories.
To celebrate all the work, love & joy we put in to our relationship since the wedding, I had planned a weekend trip to New Orleans.
For, I am the anal, type A planner in our relationship. I research the hotels, the activities, the restaurants, our days and cram it with eats & everything in between; so even if we don't do much of anything, at least we have the option of knowing what the place holds for us.

Which is why it was such a mixed surprise to find, at the airport, that we were actually heading to our favorite little city in the world NYC instead, courtesy of the boy.
Mixed because it made me feel a little less in control. And v.much more vulnerable.
The boy asked me to trust & let go, which I did in bits. And oh, it was so good I did, because he did so v.good!

Things we did in NYC:

Wandered around Times Square on Friday evening, where the boy insisted on checking out the Theatre District, which I got annoyed at because really what is there to see on the Theatre District except the theatres & all the lovely Broadway hoardings?
I eventually relented, which was wise since he had tickets for us to see The Lion King.
Sigh. I leave it to the video in the link to describe what an exhilarating experience it was.
So beautifully produced in fact that the boy, who has no great love for theatre, was entranced by it all.

Walked in an post-play daze after & partook of the quintessential NYC slice of pizza. Mine was a plain cheese one with balls of ricotta cheese on it & the boy had his with chicken.

The next day, got on to our favorite form of transport to the Upper West Side for breakfast at Barney Greengrass, which we decided to try on Bourdain's recommendation & did it ever live up to expectations!
It was this small hole in the wall deli, with plastic tables and chairs but the food - the sturgeon with scrambled eggs & chopped liver - brilliant!

We wandered around the Upper West Side for a while and then headed to Chinatown for some cheap shopping.
That's the great thing about being back in a city you've visited many times over.
The first time you are there - it's a frenzied sightseeing tour, as A.D. puts it. The next time, you've seen everything & so can just sit back and enjoy walking about.
In Chinatown, we headed to the big grocery store & bought bean paste, giant bags of dried fish & dried shiitake & our first sake set.

Headed out to Queens after, and shopped at the columbian/latin & the desi parts of Jackson Heights, where we got a ceramic coffee pot, dirt cheap almond flour & lovely others.

And of course ate the v.flavorful & spicy briyani from a food vendor.

We trudged back to the hotel, where exhausted by all our shopping jaunts, we fell asleep and missed our lovely anniversary dinner reservations.
We woke, grinned, dressed up, and made our way to Russian Samovar, which we had come across in our earlier jaunts.
And though a bit on the unwelcoming & intimidating side because we were really the only non-russians in it, we had such a splendid time sipping their infused vodkas! & ingesting their caviar platter.

On our last day, we headed to Le Pain Quotidien for breakfast, which though a chain, was the most fillingly simple food experience we had.
The boy had their bread basket with the spreads - hazelnut chocolate, apricot jam, red berry jam.
And I had their Tartines - which the woman across the communal wooden table informed us was just an open faced sandwich on really thick bred. It was such fun sitting at that table, having people around us give us input & butt in to converse, that we were quite charmed.

After, we walked to Central park and just walked some more :)
And then strolled toward the Met, where we spent the afternoon in its coolness looking at beautiful things.
And when it was time for us to leave this most interesting city, both of us agreed that we felt none of that queasy reluctant-to-leave feeling we got the first time we vacationed there.
For this time around, we were heading back not to miserable, monotonous Missouri; but to beaches, rivers, and our lovely house in sunny Florida.

Thank you, dear sweet Lord, for the turns our lives have taken!

I can't get this out of my head

Oh, flight of the conchords - I love thee

Happily Ever After?

We were at the bookstore today and I came across 'I'd Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper' a 'keeping your marriage together after babies' kind of book.

***me lets out of a big pocket of breath***

And egad, did it speak to me. In fact, it reached out, stroked me & gave me a fracking orgasm.

I can't tell you how afraid I have been to say that my marriage is not a 'happily ever after', not because it isn't working out but because my expectation of 'happily ever after' really has been so insanely high that the poor boy never did stand a chance.

• The book talks about women thinking of marriage (and I paraphrase here) as the comparatively easy part (And I am so guilty of this - the hard part was finding the boy, getting the parents to agree, planning the beautiful wedding - so definitely the marriage should be easier). Whereas men see marriage as a sort of 'giving up of things' - which though it sounds terribly unromantic, makes them better prepared to face up to the work that a marriage is.

• It also talks about the shift in gender roles that has left men and women confused and confrontational about what they should / should not be doing within the house & without. Like, there is no more a road map for this generation to look to as to what their roles should be like. We are constantly redefining ourselves & striving towards equality in our marriage.
  

• One of the best quotes in the book is from a 10 year veteran of marriage, & it goes:
  

"My poor husband has cereal three nights a week. I feel awful about that - I know I should be doing more! I have this anger about having to do it...I know that it's expected, so I rebel and don't do it and then feel guilty for not doing it"

Oh unknown Sara from Becks County, USA - you made me cry!!!

I don't mind feeding the husband
I don't mind cooking for the husband
I don't mind making his meals
It is so traditional and so what my mom used to do that I am having a hard time even writing the fact.
I like cooking but I hate being expected to do it.
I hate being looked at as a wife because, much as I love my liberated-in-comparison-to-the-rest-of-the-family father, there were so many things I heartily disliked about what my dad expected my mom to do that I vowed that when I got married things would be different.

And though our relationship is vastly different, yet I yearn for perfect equilibrium.

• The book speaks of how "in this pro-feminist era....with more choices & opportunities...we expect to be happier than our mothers".

How very true! I thought that since I had grown up in much more unrestrained world than my mother, I expected to be much more in control & to be in a more perfect relationship (which in my mind, equates to happiness).

And while I am, yet there seemed to be a constant need to do more, to experience more photograph worthy moments, to have more, to be yet more closer.

It's almost like I was trying to judge my own marriage/relationship from what it looked like from outside & found it lacking perfection.

'We are supposed to be romantic'
'We are supposed to be out and about'
'Our wedding anniversary has to be superlative. Superlative I tell you!'
'We need to be having more sex and being more adventurous'

Old news but it took seeing it in print for me to realise I was struggling not with the boy's expectations but with my own.

I am happy. Not excited in a Harlequin romance sort of way. He doesn't make my heart flutter all the time like he used to when we first started dating, we don't rip off each other's clothes all over the house as much as we used to, sometimes we are out and we have really boring conversations.

Is that normal?
Are we normal to be like this after 7.5 years of being together?

And today, the boy & I were discussing it and he was like - you think we don't talk enough???
Ugh.
Don't you even remember who I was when we first started going out?

And gawd, yes I do - that reticent gangly man with a cute behind who grunted his way through a conversation.

And we have come so far!

And yet, I want more. NOW!

I know that the boy is a far far cry from any of the male role models in our combined families.

But he is not yet the Renaissance man.

An example:
You think you know everything about a person and then he comes out with - 'no, I won't be comfortable with our child being gay'.
And it boggled me.
Because he has gay friends. And I have gay friends. And we have mutual gay friends.

And to confront the fact that we have such fundamental differences as above perplexed me.
Because hadn't we known each other forever?

Where does that leave me?
His nonacceptance of a potentially gay child?
Why is it easy for him to accept gay strangers and not a gay flesh and blood?

Side note:
He would not budge even in the face of disapproval from friends. I suppose it is good that he's stating his opinions and not pretending to be one person online and another offline who goes 'Oh no, I couldn't possibly move in with that person, because he/she is gay/divorced/single mother'.

Another instance, he still maintains that the appropriation of Palestinian land by Israelis is justified.
How is it that we can love each other and yet have such vastly different view points?

It's been a struggle for me to get away from the fact that two did not become one after our marriage. We are still two different entities, with unique personalities and differences, living in love. And to accept that that is fine too, in fact it may just well be fantastic - our differences creating a more interesting household.

The relief has also come from the fact that with the boy, there is no pressure to be similar.
From him, there is always acceptance of differing view points & even a matter-of-factdnessabout it.
He accepts my attitude and I am learning (v.slowly) to accept his conservatism.

And live with the fact that perhaps we may see eye to eye in the future or we may not.

It seems like such obvious fact but I am constantly surprised that our relationship is still a work in progress.