Category: general

naked

The redesign is underway. About 25% complete.

Currently there is no CSS, thus naked.

update

Design is about 50% done. Sure, it looks a lot like the old one. But a lot of plumbing was redone.
Click here to see the site without CSS.

update update

About 70% done. Pulled in flickr photos.

more updates

Pulled in tumblr links.

my foot.

My feet hurt. Like injured soles.

They don’t hurt all the time as you might hear me say now and then. There are moments of relief. Somedays I will wake up and not feel anything in my feet. Bliss.

I’ve been reading Dexter, the first novel. Sometimes I feel like I want to pull apart my feet. Separate the nerves and take the muscle off the bones. Find what’s wrong and fix it. This is assuming that pain isn’t normal, that pain is wrong.

Then I start to wonder how feet that were pulled apart and put back together would function. It’s not lego, is it? Would lego feet hurt?

This doesn’t keep me from walking, however. I try and stretch my feet as I walk, covering the pain points. At least I think I am. Like it’s some kind of massage. It isn’t.

I took the bus to school today. Sounds like I’m in grade school, or lower. But I did. I took the bus. I had to walk 20 minutes from the house to the bus stop, up hill. No joke. Just like all the elders did, back in the day. But I did it in the snow. They didn’t have snow up my family tree.

It was beautiful. Sunday morning. Hovering around zero degrees. Not warm but not cold either. Weatherless. Mostly empty streets. Mostly empty roads. It reminded me of The Road. I like imaging that sometimes. Being in an empty city with everything mostly intact. Its lifelessness. Everything mostly still. Nothing that moves of its own volition but you.

I waited at the bus stop. For a moment, actually, for many moments I thought the bus wouldn’t come. At least not on time. 8:06am the trip planner said. But it was Sunday and this was the first time I was taking the bus to school this early on a Sunday. 8:04am, no sign of the bus down the road. I quickly run to the garbage bin some 35 feet away to throw away my coffee cup. I quickly run back.

8:06am, the bus was there.

How would you know you were the last person on earth?

You wouldn’t know, you’d just be it.

natural beauty

I walk by a park and pause for a moment. The trees stand still, unswayed by the wind. The leaves fall in a slow and calm manner, as if it were a pace of their own choosing. The autumnal colours are fantastic. I take a deep breath and find a smile on my face reflecting the joy of the experience. Such beauty in nature, I think.

But is the process of nature intrinsically beautiful? The tree is losing its leaves. The leaves are dead. Their range of colours could be an expression of pain, a slow progress towards death. Is this beautiful? Have you seen a sick child’s colour change? Seen them turn pale or blue? Could this not also be beauty in nature from a tree’s point of view?

We could say that this is only natural – it happens all the time – leaves fall and grow again. So do humans, we die and more are born. Just a part of nature. How beautiful, yes?

A leaf in the wind may indeed be beautiful. But is the fungus eating away at the leaf also beautiful? What about the lost ant sticking onto the leaf for dear life? Also beautiful? Is it beautiful if we didn’t know about the fungi and the ants? So that the less we know the more beauty we see?

Nature is beautiful, but it is also ugly. And that’s okay. The tree, the leaves, the colours and the wind – all a part of nature – are beautiful, but they are also ugly. We too are a part of nature. We are beautiful but we are also ugly – in all our parts and all their sum. It’s okay.

sometimes.

Sometimes I will speak in broken grammar to people who were sleeping but are half-awake. I quite enjoy it. It also might be a form of torture.

Sometimes I wonder whether birds ever wonder what it would be like to walk like humans. I often wonder what it would be like to fly like a bird.

Sometimes I can’t get enough of the sounds of laughter but sometimes I can’t stand them – just the sounds themselves. Though I suppose it is better to have the sounds than not.

Sometimes I like to listen in to conversations of strangers who are trying to make sense. Sometimes I will listen in even when they are not trying to make sense. It’s fairly safe to say that sometimes I like to listen in to strangers’ conversations. And also stranger conversations.

Sometimes I will say “have a weekend” to people on a Friday, have them say “you have a good weekend, too,” and feel like I one-upped them.

Sometimes I will say “have a good weekend” to people on a Thursday or a Wednesday just to see how they react. Sometimes I will lie about the time.

Sometimes I will say something and then repeat it in my head (sometimes more than once). I have a feeling many people do this.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if those with shelter had all the umbrellas and those in the rain had none. Then I realize I don’t have to really wonder much to see it.

Sometimes I think a lot and say nothing. Sometimes I think little and say a lot. Sometimes I do both.

Sometimes I wish the earth had more moons. Just one or two more (not asking for much) and all visible at the same time. Sometimes I wonder whether I would wish for more moons even if there were more moons. But either way, the single one will do.

yunhi kabhi kabhi mere dil mein khayaal aata hai

dry

So. It might not be such a good idea when on an overcast day you choose to walk to the movie theatre with just a book in hand, leaving your bag and umbrella behind.

Sure. The book is useful when you’re waiting in line or right before the movie’s about to start. It can be difficult concentrating with all the ads flashing in your face, but it’s not impossible. Minutes otherwise wasted can be gainfully employed.

A little drizzle, you think, this won’t be a problem. But rainfall does not ask for your permission. It doesn’t make a judgement call to fall based on your condition. It just falls. You slide the book under your shirt. That should be enough protection, you think.

To compound matters you decide to pick up some food on the way back. Hunger must be met, even at the expense of rational decision-making. Now you’re carrying a bag of food in one hand and ensuring that your book doesn’t fall out of your shirt with the other.

When it pours, you know it’s raining. Mostly because there’s water pouring from the sky. You battle the drops as you walk alone. There are many more steps to take before you get home. You do not win this battle. You’re are soaked from head to toenail. Your shirt is entirely wet and water is seeping through to your skin. Yet for some odd reason (but most probably lack of reason) you hope the book is still “safe”, still dry – somehow.

Like yourself, the book did not fare well. Not all hope is lost. While your protection mechanisms failed, it is important to lay the book still and let it dry. This part is key and therefore worth repeating. You have to let the book dry. Let it dry.

If the ink does not bleed the content is preserved. The pages will be wrinkled but the function unharmed.

Hope is realized. Not all is lost.