1. Obama stuttered through the first of three US Presidential debates last night, but won it anyway.
I am very glad for him even though I supported Hilary throughout the primaries. But then Sarah Palin arrived with her moose brigade from Alaska, and she managed to scare me away from all that independent, maverick libertarian nonsense. Thank you, Mrs. Palin.

2. I am very very nervous about October. Also, a little bit happy because I made a new friend at my office. ( + a small raise! yay!)

3. This past year, I was a little little fish in the massive ocean that is my local Indian Association. This fall, I will graduate into becoming a little big fish.

4. I have become so Behenji these days that it's beyond just sad. At my writing class, I can't seem to think of a single pitch idea that doesn't smell of curry or mention India in some way, shape or form. Also, I write in cliches, but nothing new there.

5. Come November, I will move into an small apartment in a town that hosts two of the most expensive country clubs in this fair country. Three Hurrays for G , me and (-here it comes-)the American mortgage industry!! :- P

+1. As always, I miss you more than anything Cochin.

I used to read McSweeneys at work but no longer.

Midafteroons (somewhere between lunch and losing my mind), Facebook provides an easy distraction from responding to emails from St. who TYPES LIKE THIS ALL THE TIME. ENOUGH SAID.

Anyway, I like FB because it lets me make small talk with people without having to dial a single digit and because I despise talking on the phone with all my heart. Also, I find out all kind of nifty bits of family trivia from relatives I haven't talked to in years.

Last night for instance, someone told me that my great great grandmother's name was Kuttiamma, and that the 200 year old house she grew up in still stands in a small village outside Alleppey.

It is not that I haven't had time to write here but I have been too busy watching Korean movies, looking for a place to live, thinking about babies and driving to work.

Inspiration is also a problem - parts of me are rocklike and mute while my inner six year old wakes up at 2 in the morning with barely suppressed panic. I can't imagine ever putting my name to another short story, blog post or poem again but I am also convinced there is at least one good long streak of creative writing in me.

Hmmmm? Say What?

that make me feel like a grown up:

Going to work in a suit.
Filling up the trunk of my Honda Civic with groceries on a Sunday afternoon.
Becoming a five year old's tooth fairy.
Choosing apples instead of ice cream.

3 that don't:
Fighting dirty with G.
Envy.
Crying for no reason.

To the conventional eye, Vanessa Paradis is a pretty enough woman- with wild hair in the French fashion, and an emaciated frame. But every time I see her gap toothed smile, a small unkind and insecure part of me jumps back, startled. But I can think of no better example of true physical beauty. Sorry Aishwarya.

As somebody who has been at constant (CONSTANT) war with her body for as long as I can remember, I don't think it is very easy for Paradis to put herself out there, on a public stage suspecting that people could be making fun of you for not conforming to what they think Beautiful should look like. Of course, it helps that Paradis is rail thin and that she is married to Johnny Depp. A modeling contract with Chanel and thriving career in French Bubblegum Pop doesn't hurt either.



I think Paradis has been on my mind because I have been having some very one sided but fat-phobic conversations with a friend over the last 3 or 4 weeks. At the moment, I am an average sized woman and nobody on the street would look twice if I walked around the street eating an icecream cone. But there used to be a time when they would have. So I am not sure how to say that I don't just NOT agree with my friend, but that I am intensely uncomfortable with body prejudice.INTENSELY UNCOMFORTABLE, in case that wasn't clear the first time around.

The time of the year has something to do with ( it has been sweater and hot chocolate weather lately) but I spent a lot of my Sunday at the bookstore I am secretly in love with. And front and center, on their bestsellers table were 4 books by authors from the Subcontinent. Yes, FOUR out of ten. Aravind Adiga, Preeta Samarason, Jhumpa Lahiri and Indra Sinha.

All decent writers, and thank god - not one of them seemed to mention the smell of adulterated saffron or the swish of a cheap sari or the smell of burnt curry, except maybe for the Samarason woman.This is a good thing because writers should always write about what they know but not just. This is not such a good thing because if you are a wannabe writer, now what are the odds of -?

The book I really want to read is Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger which appears to walk on the seedy side of the Great Indian Dream, much like Sharma's An Obedient Father. The pervert in me totally adored and enjoyed reading that book.

What does it say about my current mental health that my favorite new tv show is Dexter, the series about your friendly neighborhood serial killer, that my favorite new author is Kate Atkinson, a magical realist who writes about gruesome family tragedies and my favourite new Mallu movie is Calcutta News."

In any case, there are things (oh so many things) that I have to tell you - but these are the few that are swirling around in my head at the moment:

- I went to Disneyworld and the Florida Keys on a long two week vacation and narrowly escaped being eaten by an alligator. True Story. At the end of the day, Disneyworld kicked Key West's ass, but only by a smidgen. Sorry, Blue Heaven. Also, Mickey is a lot shorter than I expected.

- Weightwatchers. Yes, that's what I said. Sadly enough for my skinny jeans, it has indeed come to that.

- I have joined a new bookclub. We actually talk about books here, unlike the other one where we talked about husbands.

- I used to support the smart, cool and sexy-intelligent HC but then she turned all shady and Karl Rove on me half way through her campaign. Now I am an Obama girl, but only on the inside.

- Song of the moment: Daydreamin' (Featuring Jill Scott) by Lupa Fiasco.



In addition:

- I have embraced my Mallu heritage totally and without the remotest sense of post modern irony: Vishu Kanni, Thiruvathira Nombu, Kerala Association and all. I can barely remember how I got here but it has turned out to be not as terrible as I feared.

- Speaking of irony, however: I hate hate hate doing laundry but I now work for a company that services laundry machines.

- I have found that after two years and many more to go, I still love my husband but not all the time and not always well.

- Life is full of woe and foreboding and chaos and uncooked dinners and dirty pillowcases but Spring is sort of here.

- I am househunting for a new home and for a new blog.

Is it really the 14th of January already???? What? Where? How? My outrage at this totally unreasonable pace of time aside, I tried to write a short story today. One of my goals this year is to sneak a piece or two into Agni

After spending ten minutes staring at my notebook, I came up with " I always imagine India in color." Which is fine if I were planning to apply for an copy writer's position with Tourism India, but perhaps not so awesome for somebody with literary airs, like you know who.

However this silence that has ambushed my pen and left it for dead does not bother me as much as baby-watching at the mall does.

I haven't made a fool of myself with a toddler yet, but I am at that point in my life where my body will sometimes send out little rays of utter panic when I see a child with a mother who sort of looks my age.

On the days I feel particularly low, I make odd bargains with my God, but so far I haven't told anyone about them yet. When I am this way, it is the secrecy that really makes me feel better, because my mind convinces me that this will give me an advantage over everybody else. I haven't met these imaginary adversaries of mine yet, but naturally, I don't like them already.

G thinks I am sound hysterical about the subject, but since we have been married for nearly 2 years, he has learned to be patient about it. Maybe this too will pass, like my one time fascination for Bikram Yoga. In any case, G. indulges me by switching his regular cup of coffee for green tea and adding Brazil nuts to his daily oatmeal. On the other hand, I have taken to sudden mood swings and have become obsessed by white bread, sugar and Amrita TV.

Still, so far my story is that there is no baby. In the meantime, India remains, as in my memory, full of color.