Super-Quirk Me!

I've always thought myself to be fairly quirk-free. But over a conversation with APSD, I started thinking about quirks and it turns out I have quite a few. For your benefit, here they are-

1) I am a green tea addict. On any typical day I will have atleast 3-4 cups of green tea and on special days (read: freezing in office coz the AC is too effective) the number goes even higher.

2) I am usually excited about everything and will think nothing of breaking into a little dance move to the music only in my head or iPod, in the middle of a crowded MRT. Yes I've gotten some pretty wierd stares.

3) Up till some years back, I used to suck my thumb fairly regulary (read: 3-4 times a week) before going to sleep. Now I do it only when I am sleepy and in need of some comfort (which is rarely). And yet I protest when C-Tan calls me a 'baby'- Go figure!

4) I can write with both hands. And sometimes when I know people are watching me write, I will switch hands, just to be able to see the look of amazement on their faces (mixed with the thought- What a freak!). Ambidexterity rocks!

5) The only thing I will wake up to 'smiling' is music. Try an alarm clock on me and I will either not get up at all or I will get up violent (throwing alarm clock, phone, anything else in hand's reach type) and grumpy, in which case all around need to run for cover. But when it's music I am getting up to, chances are I'll be singing along and shaking a leg much before I even open my eyes. Thank god for radio alarm clocks, I say!

6) I still believe as fervently in the One-for-sorrow-two-for-joy birds as I did as a 7 year old. And I love the ones in Singapore, coz somehow they always predict joy for me.

And I thought I wasn't quirky. Yeah right!

Everything is dust in the wind

I am no good with deaths. Never have been. I never know the right thing to say, the right thing to do, even the right thing to feel. Initial feelings of shock, sadness quickly dissolve into a mask of practicality and optimism, leaving me feeling like a faker. You see, I don't feel the grief, the pain, the loss that usually comes with a death. And yet the tears do flow, with every memory that the mind throws up. I respond to the grief, the loss that I just can't feel. So it was then, a year back, so it is now and, I fear, so it will be the next time. Tears and no feelings.

For whom the tears flow and the mind does not feel, this time, is my uncle. My dad's older brother. A guy who refused to live a half-life for the sake of longevity. He was the guy who would always reach out for the sweets, that extra dollop of butter, that 6th serving of a parantha . He was the guy who was always laughing, always up for a silly idea or adventure. The kind of guy who would think nothing of driving out to a place on a whim and staying a few days.

People keep asking me if I was close to him. And I feel like shouting back, that it doesn't matter. I still feel the cold creeping up on me, the tears seeping out of me and the realisation dawning on me that it all ends. Everything. And you never see it coming.

And yet we all live our lives like we know exactly when it will be time to wrap up. We postpone the things that really matter, the wishes that really count. all for that next job, that new car, that new house. What if the curtain drops much earlier? What if you never get to have your finale?

Maybe I should tell you about...

...How I chomped down a plate of fried bamboo worms, strung a garland of marigolds, maneuvered a cycle rickshaw around a track and put together a crazy spicy papaya salad.

Or the 4 hour hike in the wet, slippery, beautiful and extremly wormy jungles of Chiang Mai, where the air got thinner as we went up and the clouds surrounded us completely.

Or even about the food. The delicious and crazy spicy Khao Soy noodles that burnt on the way in, burnt on the way out and probably burnt a hole in my stomach too. And the simple and delicious thai fare that was served up to us daily at the pang soon lodge.

Or about the bugs. The giant earthworms, one of which was mistaken by everyone to be a snake and another of which was split into two by my walking stick as I made my way downhill (Yuck!). And even the leeches, that I was so wary against; how everytime I stepped into the shower after a long time in the wild, I would scan myself with trepidation for the blood suckers and the joy I would feel on not finding any.

Or maybe I should tell you about abseiling down a flowing waterfall. About losing my footing, flipping in the funniest way, getting completely dreched in ice-cold water and still thinking how brilliant it all was.

Or maybe, I shouldn't tell you anything really. For what my Chiang Mai trip was, what the weekend was, I can't describe. Not sufficiently. Only thing I can say is that my weekends now have a new standard to live up to!

Currently Reading: Swahili for the broken-hearted- Peter Moore
Currently Listening: Friday- Goldspot, Your ex-lover is dead- Stars