Romancing The Bottle

I'm ashamed to say it, but I have to admit that I cannot hold my liquor. Over the years I 've used a multitude of reasons to convince myself that this does not matter, from saying that I'm young, that it's one night, everyone's having such a great time, it's all between friends and even going so far as to believe that i can't dance without a drink in my hand... well, three hours later, needless to say, I'm drunk and I'm defintely not dancing...
I used to say when I was younger that I would smoke but I would never drink. I remember always looking at the people around me who were falling down drunk with such distaste and think to myself that I will never let myself look like that.
To be honest, I'm not sure why I've learnt to drink the way I do.. I cannot really decide whether I start drinking by giving in to the peer pressure, or whether I start drinking because I actively crave the alcohol. After all, I know that for everytime I've given in to my friends about having a drink when I had decided I would not, I know that I have also called them up and dragged them to a bar to have a drink... to take the edge off...!! (shudder)
When I think about it, I'm not overly concerned that I have a drinking problem. I can go quite comfortably for a stretch of time without feeling the slightest urge to have a drink, and sometimes when people around me are drinking, I ignore this urge. My problem is that I never taught myself to drink right, to drink responsibly and most important to me, drink gracefully. I never taught myself how to pace myself, when to say no and when to say enough.
Now you can call me lazy, but I have no intention of teaching myself how either. Since there's a part of me that's become wary of the drink, I've come to the conclusion that the only thing for me to do is to take control, free myself from this vicious cycle of drinking and drama, and end my soul-sapping love affair with the bottle.
So for all my friends who have always said I'm so much of fun when I drink and when I party, and that there's no one as crazy as me in a club, I hope you all still find that I'm the same girl, just with a little more dignity.

Crash and Burn..

Why is it that drifting from being friends to more seems like a natural progression, but reversing the process is so complicated?
I met this guy, and one month into hanging out (and all that that entailed), I decided I wanted to have the 'where is this heading' conversation. Well, perhaps that conversation was required because it was explained to me in no uncertain terms that he is not looking for a relationship and he would be more than happy to just be friends.
Now, I know how that looks... it looks like I got duped. But regardless of how it seems, I don't really think that's what happened. This guy is not malicious, he's not rude or mean or disrespectful. He just doesn't want a relationship. Now perhaps I can argue that if he knew that all along, he could have made that clear before the relationship went physical, but then again I don't think either of us anticipated that happening so quickly.
While I am disappointed, after all I really did actually quite like this guy, I have to respect his point of view. I can't take offense that he doesn't want something more, that is his right. Well, maybe I can take a little offense..But that's my right...:)
There is a slightly bruised part of me that's a bit hurt, embarrassed and insulted that he managed to so flippantly brush aside the whole idea of looking at something more, with what appeared to be remarkably little regret... but then again I have to assume the man knows his own mind.
I was told that there is no need for me to feel wounded or embarrassed because he does in fact like me, he just doesn't want to date me... Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better because the woman inside me is thinking, 'well, maybe you like me, but you obviously don't like me enough!'
Now I actually am not in love with this man in the least. I'm fond of him, I enjoy his company and I would have enjoyed the opportunity to take things a little further.... But I think what's gotten to me was the unequivocal NO. It's not that I've never been rejected or I think it's impossible for a guy to not want to be with me,... It's just that I think I had this guy pegged all wrong.
I'm used to knowing right at the offset pretty much how it's going to go... You usually know if it's a fling, and the approximate lifespan of a fling.
This guy wanted to take things slow right from the beginning, leading me to believe that he was taking it seriously and wanted to see where things went. Then when we started fooling around, he still wanted to take things slow. At all these points of time, I was misinterpreting the reason he was taking things slow as that he wanted to do it right and not because he wasn't sure if he wanted to take things further!
Perhaps it was destined for doom right at the get-go... Now the real question is, can we start over and this time just be friends...?? I'm not too sure, because for one thing, while my bruised ego makes me want to take a snap at him every once in a while, apparently my brain hasn't told my body yet that it's not working out! Pride and Lust... it doesn't seem to be the best recipe for friendship, does it?!!

The Road To Perdition

After three months of sitting on my butt, I FINALLY scored what appeared to be a great opportunity to work with the TV station TV9. Little did I know that it would be the equivalent to selling my soul, my social life and my will to live.

When I went for the interview, which was initially a written test to guage my writing skills, all seemed to go well. But when I didn't hear from them for over a week, I resorted to hounding them, initially as a follow up, and later out of sheer perverseness, since I had explicitly told them I wanted a response either way.. (And I thought it was extremely badly behaved of them to leave me hanging)... In retrospect, that should have been my first clue that it was all going to go south...

Eventually, I did get a call for a second round of interviews. Buoyed by my natural optimism, i showed up fresh faced and enthusiastic 25 minutes ahead of time.. I was made to wait a total of an hour and 15 minutes before my interviewer deigned to show up.... That should have been my second clue...

In the course of my interview, I was told that since I have no prior work experience in journalism, have never studied journalism and cannot speak Kannada or Tamil, I am being hired purely for my writing skills and I am effectively useless to the company.....Third clue perhaps?

Then they listed down the rules and stipulations - The 10 hr shift system, the 3 month salary deposit and the 3 month notice period... By this time my ever present optimism had taken quite a hit... But nonetheless, I agreed (fool is me) to join and showed up starry-eyed and shitting bricks the following monday.

Within the first 48 hours, it was becoming exceedingly apparent to me that I had made a grave error in judgement. The news9 office was what I imagine any government office to run like. The head Babus posturing and screaming at everyone in sight and the rest of the staff scurrying around like mice, taking as many smoke breaks as possible to gain some peace of mind and vent their frustration, and don't even get me started on the office politics!

Being the new comer who didn't know anyone, I think I was given a crash course on job satisfaction and employee morale.... simply put, there was none. In a nutshell I was told to keep my head down, my mouth shut, not to gossip, stay on the boss's good side, smile and nod when people bitched and to always be non-committal...It's somewhere around now that I really started to panic.

However, I still had not signed any papers, a fact that they were aware of, so the News9 babus were on their best behavior with me, asking me how I liked it, asking me if I was happy, if I had any complaints... lulling me into a false sense of job satisfaction.

However, luckily for me, my ever dissatisfied colleagues kept me from being completely blinkered. After all, no matter how good your day is going, after listening to ten hours of bitching you're bound to wonder if someday that's going to be you.. Heaven forbid!!

So after taking stock of the one Pro (the work ex) and the numerous Cons, I woke up this morning and threw in the towel. Perhaps it was a tremendous opportunity to learn and maybe people will say that I lost out, and maybe people will think I didn't have what it takes to stick it out... Perhaps I didn't.. But then again, shouldn't the profession you've chosen for the rest of your life provide you with satisfaction and joy? Shouldn't you want to wake up in the morning and go to work? I'm all for the struggle and I've never ever shirked hard work in my professional life... but when the thought of walking into your office where you're spending most of your waking hours fills you with dread... now, then there's something wrong.

I suppose it's all just a matter of degree of how much you can take.. Giving up my time, my social life and my sleep cycle for a job I hated...well, I guess now I know just how much is too much..!!

I Walk The Line

When I started writing this blog, I was of the opinion that I would be a bold and fearless writer addressing every issue or controversy that I had an opinion on, with no compromise to myself or anyone else.
I now face a problem.. What happens when you meet a boy and he reads your blog?! (describing in detail your past escapades, your flings, your relationships... and your evaluation of mens attributes in no uncertain terms!!).. You can be sure he's going to balk at the idea of eventually being included in this accounting.
Being a woman, I love to talk. And I mean really talk about everything! Who i met, how he looked, what he said, what he did, what his friends were like, where we went, what we ate, how we danced, what we danced to, what time we got home, how he kissed, where we kissed, where his hands were, maybe even how high I had to stretch..... and eventually more..:)
Sorry boys, it's a fact of life. You gotta deal.
Now I'm suddenly faced with the question of 'Do I still proceed with writing my every thought, emotion and opinion with as much abandon as earlier?'
Do I start taking what he has to say about it into account, or throw caution to the winds and proceed full steam ahead. (The problem with that is, I may eventually sink faster than the Titanic).
Or do I just carry on as per usual and expect him to be a good sport.
But here's the deal, I started this blog to talk about me and my life. I have written about my family and friends. And sometimes I've written in less than flattering terms. While it might sound lofty to say this, I've always tried to be objective and write the truth, whether it's about me or anyone else.
So I suppose it wouldn't be doing justice to the vision I had when I started this, or to my readers, if I started dishing out the same old, overdone, politically-correct drivel.
So to the present and future men in my life, I have to say, I'm sorry my loves, but the blog was here first.