The DEADLY Ex-Syndrome…

A splinter of a second after HE called I knew I had to do something drastic and quickly air brush myself into eye popping, jaw dropping gorgeousness.
It’s never good news when the ex comes knocking.
And now that SHE was……something had to be done.

A year since the man stepped into my premises no amount of coaxing, flattering, sweet-talking, back rubbing had smoothed him into talking about the mysterious ‘Former’. Sneakily I have often, I admit, searched through his wallet and papers in search of a stray love note or at least a toothy Polaroid which would give me a glimpse of what the lady looked like.

But all in vain.

Today a whole of 13 months, 2 weeks and 14 hours later however the curtain was finally to be raised. At last I was to rest my eyes on the Woman at dinner tonight. So effervescent was my excitement that I spent the entire afternoon speculating and getting drunk on an abandoned bottle of Vodka.

Speculation no.1
The woman was stunning.

She had to be.
Why else would he possibly keep me from the details?
Surely the guy was just being a sweetheart and saving me the heartburn.
Possibly because i knew her already.
Maybe she was a MODEL!
Maybe I had seen her already on a billboard or a magazine cover and salivated over her dress..or, worse, her perfect booty… in front of him!

He must have cracked into a nasty smug smirk at the very sight of my girlish envy!

God!

What would I do when she struts through that door looking like a groomed little peacock ready to perch on a catwalk?
I absolutely couldn’t be looking at her with puppy eyes between serving her appetizers and rummaging around the apartment for my autograph book!

That would leave him snugly satisfied with his prowess over women for the rest of the year!!!!!

Instead.
Instead I would turn the tables and make the gorgeous little thing go vra vra vroom at the very sight of me.

That’s what I would do, yes.

Tipsily I ran into the bath and turned on the shower.
With 2 hours in hand I still had enough time to transform myself into a strapping little Swan. I was a pro at conversions of the kind. Walk in the park. Piece a’cake.
One foot on the bathtub other on the shower floor I was squishily scraping away at my leg with a razor.

Quick.
Now the nail polish.
Toothbrush in mouth I tugged and pulled at my toe nails with clippers.

Maybe there was still time for a hurried visit to the beauty parlour for a nippy pedicure?
Maybe not.
Hurriedly, HURRIEDLY I jumped from one foot to the other trying to scrub my muggy looking feet into civility.
And that’s when it happened.

Well sometime around then anyway.

Speculation no.2

Daintily as i stepped out of the bath, carefully trying to get into character early and act as graceful as one can possibly look and feel in a hideous green bathrobe, I slipped on something….possibly some of the ultra luscious, super lubricating hair serum I accidentally dropped on the floor and landed, ungracefully, perhaps a tad pathetically, right on my head.

When I woke up I was in the hospital.

Looking concerned and with a buck-toothed, blinking girl, probably still in school, HE stood close by.
Through her mouthful of teeth the lady who had just cost me a twisted ankle, a couple of bruises, a nasty slash on my posterior and a visit to the hospital blinked and said

“I have heard so much about you.”

I grinned a toothy grin and wished I was in a state to bonk my head against the wall.

In the Office: Fighting back black with a vengeance…Grrrrr

Exactly 7 days 10 hours and 45 minutes after I pledged my life to establishing my presence in the office room I decided it was a lost battle.
This was not to be.
It just couldn’t happen.
Trying to get my co-workers to look me in the eye and answer my questions without rolling their eyes was like asking Lindsay Lohan to make public appearances wearing underwear! Read more

In the Office I: Being Invisible

So here I am clit-clattering away on the comp in my very own dignifiedly grey office cabin.
I am here for a 3 month long internship program.
My job concerns little beyond looking around the hopeless premises with distracted concern and copy pasting incomprehensible, and hence boring, information fom one document to the other and then making the final product look like my handiwork.
Piece of cake.
I eat often and remorseleslly. Given that their is very little else to do it manages to prove entertaining every now and then.
Stacked around my present abode, in discreet niches invisible to the naked eye are salty delicacies every self respecting health freak would shriek and pass out at the very sight of.

When the present stock proves unfulfilling I smartly dial fast food numbers pasted carefuly on the wall.

Since stepping out for lunch is a complete no no no one even notices the multiple orders that make way to my desk everyday.

The sun is bright outside.
I catch a sight of it every time I walk into the ladies room for a bit of fresh air.
My colleagues are great. I am guessing.
Most of them don’t speak.
My seniors let me know that speech is not an appreciable quality within these four grey, brightly tube-lit walls.
Here IM works fine.

If you want water, just IM for it, some speechless guy or the other will bring it down to your desk. You won’t even have to thank him.

Life here is a series of oscillations.
From the water cooler to the coffee maker.
From the coffee maker to the water cooler.
And later from the cabin to the loo.
Everyone here is very important.

Everyone here fingers their keyboard importantly and fixes their tie every fifteen minutes.
To stay attuned I clatter on my comp profusely and type A to Z a couple of dozen times with intent. When I tire of that I puff puff my face like I were Grace Kelly in a press conference in Monaco.

Every once in a while my IM peep peeps to jerk me out of my guilty nap. Jerkily I spit away my reverie, collect my collectibles and dignifiedly clappity clap my way to the meeting room.
When people talk in the meeting room they speak with BBC radio like precision. Occasionally, when I speak, I put on my best fake Garbo voice and nod like I understand everything. Of course I sneak a peek every now and then to see if people are watching my little act, but sadly NO ONE does.

Last evening for instance this utter moron of a fellow colleague of mine was reading a list of all the items we needed sent off on mail ASAP. Being reminded of an important bit he missed out I raised my hand politely, feeling uncannily like I were back in school. My projected limb however failed to so much as attract a raised eyebrow from him and on he went with his dastardly little catalogue. Feeling a little miffed I waved my hand like I were hailing a cab. Shooting my characteristic sarci-comic grin at the other suited booted’s present in the room I waved and wagged clicked my tongue and hooted.

But to no avail.
By the time he was on the last paragraph I had almost clambered up on the table in desperation.
And yet…YET the man paid not the tiniest bit of heed to me!
Such insolence!!!!
Even my neighbour’s spoilt brat of a snotty poodle would throw me a woof if she saw my present antics!
Whatever would I have to do to get a little bit of attention round here huh? Stride atop the table rip of my clothes and get jiggy with some gut sickening Christina Aguilera number?

Sheesh!

Completely unused to such cold inattention I spent the whole day biting my recently manicured nails and wondering what in the world would make these pale faced monstrosities working with me wake up and see exactly how great I was. I bought a brand new pair of McQueens just so they could soothe their eyes for crying out loud!

It was their birth right to be able to feel thankful for my existence.

Something, I felt deep down, had to be done for these unfortunate individuals.

Relationship basics: the NOT to do’s

Make no mistake, you can shove your relationship guru’s advice right down your kitchen sink, the one who makes the first after-fight call is the one who has Lost! Read more

Disaster Date: A tackler’s hand-guide

It was a simple case of ‘fabulous’ gone ‘frumpy’. The customary Friday night dinner had followed a movie. We cabbed it to our recent favourite joint and sat snuggled under a circular overhead lamp in a cubby, which eerily resembled an interrogation room. Read more

The ‘Scent’ of a woman

Last week my grumpy old Landlady finally threw me out.
It was coming, I could tell, for some time now. She has had her scrawny eyes on me ever since I set the kitchen on fire.
When she ultimately gave me the kick, she chose to be nice and had the packers wait outside while she consoled me. It would be alright, she said, the University hostel (where I was destined to move in) didn’t have any kitchen and so I was completely safe, no chance of being thrown out ever again.

The transition from the 700 sq. ft. appartment to the 200 nothing sq. ft. hostel room has not been what one would call ‘rippleless’. For starters, there is the room mate.
To be fair, I have never been much of a team player. But even if I played football I wouldn’t be able to tackle the mini monstrosity I now sleep with.
She is a nice girl, of course, quick on a joke and all that. But what really defines her identity, what really sets her apart, marks her out in a crowd is her absolute, vehement, stubborn reluctance to take a bath.
That suits me fine.
I am all for individual choice and all that. And truly who am I to question her personal principles about hygiene. But if only she wouldn’t insist on sharing my clothes!!!!!!!
Every sleeve she slips her arms into, every scarf she winds around her unwashed neck becomes a blackhole of impenetrable odour.
I have tried to ‘introduce’ her to the idea of deodorants or anything else, which might, unassumingly obstruct her personal stamp of fragnance, but in vain.
Of late, when she is asleep and unaware I have (guiltily) sprayed around her and under her to help pierce through the halo of stench. But nothing has been of much help.

To add to my current misery the lady in question has recently acquired a man (!!!!). With this creature, who is either sensually challenged or has been rendered ‘breathless’ by love, she romps around rather noisily till the wee hours of the morning while I, loveless and deprived, study what Bordwell has to say about the debatable concept of Modernity(!!!)

HmmmPh.
Tough year ahead, I can tell.

When in doubt get gorgeous 2: the diet plan

2 ‘o’ clock in the morning.
Stomach’s yearning.
Eyes sleepless yet longing for respite.
It’s been exactly 50 hours 20 minutes and a couple of seconds since I launched into my new diet.
Life since then has been about ducking desires and astute asceticism.
It’s not an easy deal.
Every fifteen seconds or so I remind myself of the exact stratagem to be adopted, ‘Brown before white, if you wanna eat right”……
It’s not an easy deal.
They are yet to cook up a whole wheat blackforest cake fit for human consumption.
So I grit my teeth and barricade the means of consumption.
2 ‘o’ clock is the moment of its reinforcement.
In my mind a half eaten slice of cheesecake, a recent inmate in my refrigerator, was beginning to grow.

The axe had to come down on the extra pounds sooner or later. The time had come, I’d decided a good time back. My new found interest in getting my life in order had reinforced the need for the hourglass with virgin intensity.
It had proved far harder than I had imagined it to be.
Incorporating the diet into my life had taken time.
For the first few days I had dilly-dallied a bit, I confess. But it was Easter and little could be done to keep a red blooded girl from food on festival days.
A week later when I still hadn’t managed to tackle it I told myself such transitions took time and planning.
Accordingly, I browsed the net and noted down important pointers to help me with my metamorphosis.
These took 4 whole days to sink in.
Once the message was assimilated, I took my time to enjoy the greatest joys of life, for the very last time.
It was a prolonged goodbye, sunk in crates of beer and peppered with the last traces of Cheetos.
When I recovered, I was a new girl.
Promptly I sauntered off to the green grocer’s and came back with veggies I had only seen in encyclopedias.
Morning began with stringy sprouts.
Tasteless and altogether unfit for ingestion.
As I chewed I had the image of a sweater strung in my head. Thousands of shreds of wool drawn out of them…..like hair off a blonde headed dolly……
No. Breakfast wouldn’t be sufficed by this alone I decided determinedly, spitting out the remnants of the fiber out into the sink.
So I sank back into routine and selected a big bowl of syrupy cereal instead.
Munching on the chocolate coated flakes I felt fulfilled.
Sighing with pleasure I decided the afternoon would be the starting point.

Afternoon came.
I skipped the meal, by then feeling guilty as hell over the cereal and convinced that it had added an extra inch to my waistline.
By evening I coul swallow a whole cow,horn and tail and everything in between.
Accordingly, I binged like a child, yet untouched by the grime of the calorie counter.

That was then. In the 36 hours that had followed I had struggled to stay afloat.
Bursting at the seams to keep myself from surrendering to the roadside muffin store.
Turning green under the pressure to resist the insurmountable temptation of fried chicken.

UGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Resistance, I had taken, to a new gastronomical height.

When in doubt get gorgeous: ahoy acne strucks!

Now that all seems lost I figured it would be the perfect time to metamorphose into a swan and unnerve all those around me and make them go ‘Gah!!!’

There were a decent few who made it to the list of people I particularly wanted to perturb.

First, there was my old Art history teacher who hobnobbed with Vogue models and looked at me like I were some primitive insect, who survived the Armageddon and somehow stuck around. Last semester he gave me a ‘B’ because I wore a patchwork gypsy skirt to my presentation. (Of course he didn’t admit this publicly but I can see through these arty-farty kinds as good as I see through glycerine soap).

Secondly, there was my landlady. Sweet breathed and xylophone voiced, even her fart smells like room freshener! Every month when she clip-clopped her way down to my room for the rent she invariably stopped short at my study desk and rubbed a manicured finger over my acne poked face. “Unfortunate”, I would hear her say like clockwork, with strains of concern lining her otherwise seamless face. Twice this year she offered to reduce my room rent due to my ‘disability’.

Thirdly, there was my slimy, reptile of an ex-boyfriend whom I now see strutting about in the cafeteria with a leggy model-type, proud as a peacock, chest inflated and eyes shining like he were on ecstasy. Last month when I caught the two smooching around like there was no tomorrow the creep blinked like he had just been slapped out of a dream by reality herself and simply claimed that he didn’t recognize me!

So that was that.
Action had to be taken, and that too pronto.
Determinedly I downloaded some handy tips off the net.

First step to swan hood – earth shatteringly gorgeous make-up.

I clicked and clicked repeatedly on page after page.
‘Looking gorgeous is all about identifying your assets and cancelling out your flaws’.

Identify assets. Cancel flaws. I noted down gravely.

‘Locate your drawbacks. What is it that you need to hide? Is it your poke marks?’
Check.
‘….a few residual zits and gits?’
Check.
‘…that stray acne breakout?’
hmmm…Check.
‘or is it those exasperating eruptions that emerge from nowhere and stick around till eternity ?’
Sigh. Check. Check.
“No problem”
The page finally said after having shattered my hopes into bits.
‘Just click on……for special acne blemish make-up tips or …..for special zit and git camouflaging tips or on…..for special tips to take 10 years off your face and look like your pre-puberty self.’

It was an overwhelming palette. Unable to make my mind up about what my priority ought to be I clicked randomly and sat facing a series of brightly lit up windows.

First up, Zit and Git camouflaging tips.

Tip 1: if you have a red sore zit staring out of your face like a headlight don’t fret simply use Green Concealer (!!!!!!!!)

Green concealer? GREEN concealer????? Forget the fact that I had no clue where you could possibly get one of those or if anyone except the Grinch’s special cosmeticians even manufactured them I was simply NOT going to put anything GREEN on my perfectly un-green face. Uh-Uh.

But the beauty guide was adamant. ‘ The green will cancel out the redness of the pimple…’
Nope, still not convincing.
‘It works like this, on the colour wheel green is immediately opposite the colour red, which means that if you use these on each other they will cancel each other out…’

I was not buying, and had a good mind to try out the theory with pastels on some good old paper before actually performing the art-work on my face. The last thing I needed was to walk around with green fungus like smudges covering odd spots on my face!

Okay now Tip 2: Add emphasis to some other feature of your face, like your eyes, to take away the attention from the blemishes. For this use a good water-proof liquid eyeliner and mascara and a nicely sharpened eye pencil.

Now this sounded like solid advice, something that could be done, something I had seen other people do and therefore knew was do-able. I quickly scrawled down ‘water-proof mascara and eyeliner and a kohl pencil’ in my wanted list.

Tip 3: for small irritating and visible eruptions on the face use a concealer of a shade either lighter or darker than your skin tone. Dab them on the individual zits and blend 10 minutes after having set it.

Concealer. one shade darker or lighter than skin tone/foundation.

Tip 4: before you start off with your make-up regime remember to Moisturize, Moisturize, Moisturize!!! Albeit with a water-based lotion else your cleansed and toned face will start feeling dry and your face will supply more oil to keep it hydrated. Result, more zits and pimples.

Water-based moisturizer.

My list was now long and fruitful. Soon, I would sway my magic wand and change things around.
Till next week then. In search of swan-hood.

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