I Am A Big Girl Now. I Think.

I've been gone so long. There is no excuse. Well there is - Life.
Life is my excuse.

That being said, I'm back. For the time being at least..

So much has happened over the last few months. I settled nicely into the new job. I even finished a whole year here. Looking at this post, I was pretty sure I'd have another job on my resume within weeks, no matter how optimistic that post sounded. But I stayed, so hooray!

But the point of this post is to note how far I've come. Besides, it's the end of another year, what else is there to do? The difference dawned on me when my organisation hired a bunch of trainees right out of college. I realized I was looking down my nose on them and was super annoyed by their enthusiasm. Yes, annoyed because they had so much energy. Maturity, not so much.

So I've decided to make a list of things that prove that I'm no longer the-little-girl-trying-to-act-grown-up but am rather quickly on my way to turning into an old hag.

1) I've gotten used to being comfortable. There was a time when I used to get fidgety in about 5 seconds, but now the boredom is just replaced with comfort in routine. Scary, I know.

2) Loud music hurts my head sometimes. My younger self would dance all day, everyday to any kind of music. But now, your's truly needs the following for enjoy herself at a night out - right kind of drinks, the right crowd, the right ambiance, the right lighting, the right music, the right company, the right DJ..you get the point right?

3) The ideal way to spend my evening would be with a ...hold your breath - A book.

You may now exhale.

4) I have absolutely NO time for anything. A massage, a sudden meeting with a friend, or any activity that is not planned a few weeks in advance. It's a straight up, simple 'no'. Any free time I have is spent as per point # 3 mentioned above.

5) I am perfectly alright spending the night in my jammies and a sweatshirt, cuddled up on the sofa, on a Saturday! There was a time when that horrified me. I would worry about my Saturday night plans starting right from Monday morning. Now I don't make my Saturday night plans, even on a Saturday. That being said, I am still dragged to parties and I'm constantly looking at my phone for an excuse to cop out of them.

6) Movies bore me. I've seen them all. Movie plots seem to repeat themselves in an endless loop and I couldn't be bothered to see if this one's any different.

7) Every time I see an early-20-something-somebody act cocky, I don't react. I just wait for them to trip on their own laces 'cos I know exactly what's coming at them next. I also realize this is how the world felt when I was an early-20-something-somebody. *insert smug look here*

8) I am excellent at make-up. Enough said.

9) 'Fun' is replaced by just being happy. I truly value the feeling of 'peace'. It's hard to come by and if it does, it doesn't last long.

10) And lastly, I have only a handful of people I call friends and family. Everyone else has simply been eliminated by vices.

All this boils down to one thing - I am happy. Not satisfed, but happy.

I'm still not okay with little girls calling me 'aunty'.Thankfully, no one has started to. Yet.

P.S. I still love shopping till I'm broke. I said I've grown up, not transitioned into a man. Lets not get carried away.

And then, cognizance dawned

Three non-consequential things have happened this month. And because all things non-consequential need to be apprised to the world, I am going to do just that.

So, firstly, I watched Les Miserables.

Les Miserables, like all musicals was good. Very good. Though I did see quite a few guys walk out because they couldn't take so much, how should I put this..drama? And probably because watching fully grown men singing things, instead of just saying them might have threatened their own manhood. It was a perfect Sunday night movie and though hubby said he hated it, I'm thinking he secretly liked it. Don't tell him I said that.
Of course, I think the next few days we're going say all our sentences in a song. I realized things like 'I just woke up and I want you to make teaaaaa' sounded much better in a loud, tune-less sing song voice. And of course, like they say, my voice could be much worse than my problems.

Coming to the next point, I think my husband has mastered the art of managing women. I was watching 'The Mentalist' with my better half reluctantly perched on the sofa, when I saw Patrick Jane vocally admiring the tea he was given. "Clove and honey..mmmm...delicious", he said. And then, I had this sudden urge to drink clove and honey tea. Because I had both honey and clove at hand, I went and made some. I loved it. I did offer a nice cupful to the better half of mine who drank it wordlessly.
The next day, when it was my turn to make tea, "Honey and clove?", I asked, excitedly.

"It's ummm..too exotic.", said the husband, with a contrite look on his face.

Nice save, mister.

Lastly, I spent the last one year trying to whip my body cycle into that of a normal person. But it wouldn't have any of it. I spent sleepless mornings, awake as a dying frog, trying to force myself to sleep at night. And then, sometime in December last year, I turned into a diurnal person, doing a regular 9 to 6 work shifts. As luck would have it, I've been thrown again into night shifts and I was thinking my body would go into a roller-coaster ride again, trying to adjust.

Not.

I was awake as a baby on steroids on my first night in shift.
People have, for years, been terrified of waking me up early in the morning 'cos I'm such a joy and take pleasure in biting their heads off when they do. It all makes sense now. I realized I never was and never will be a morning person

God Bless the Queen. And King. And everybody else.

Serotonin AWOL

I've hit rock bottom, once again and there are very very few things that make me want to drag myself out of bed. So I've decided to make list of things I can look back on when I'm left wanting for a silver lining.

1. Sleep it off :

That basically means don't bother getting out of bed in the first place. Come to think of it, it's a plan as good as any.

2. Happy Music :

Vote for song of the month and listen to it on repeat. 

Note to self : This song cannot suck, since my sanity depends on it.

Song for current month : Can't Smile Without you, by Barry Manilow

3. Chocolate :

In all its forms! Being partial towards rum and raisin flavored chocolate is accepted and also expected.

Or a mug of steaming hot chocolate milk, since milk does make up for my calcium quota for the month.

4. Cheesecake :

Need I say more? Serotonin's already peeking from it's hidey hole.

5. TLC :

This one time, I felt super weepy and down. So I went and found my husband. Then I got a blanket and cuddled up to him. He happily obliged and I promptly fell asleep without moving for a few hours. Read point 1 again.

6. Read a good book :

A nice hot cup of chai to go with it won't hurt either. Again, stay away from murders, horrors, zombies and anything else that might be disturbing. 

7. Put off all decisions :

Unless someone's dying,in which case, find someone to make the decision for you. You cant decide what flavor juice you want right now, so making life altering decisions can be, well, life altering.

8. Watch a movie :

And make sure it's something happy. Like Madagascar, or When Harry Met Sally or Despicable Me or..you get my drift. Stick to animations, you can never go wrong.

Works wonders when used in combination with points 3, 4 and 5.

9. Stay away from bright lights and sounds :

It wont do any good to your already messed up head. It's like Alice in Umbrella Corp lock-down in there.

10. If all else fails :

Sit down and have a good cry. Then get up and take a hot bath. The wonders of a nice, hot shower are truly undermined.

Yup. That'll get you through the rest of the day.

Yeah, let the Sky Fall

Let me put this out there. I love music. And I certainly didn't expect a 23 year old to compose the title of a Bond movie.
But Adele did justice and honestly, I watched the movie twice just to listen to the track (in spite of downloading it and listening to it on repeat). Oh, the familiarity and the newness of it all.

Secondly, why the hell was a guy like Javier Bardem looking like the cat got to him and shook him up?
Bad hair - check
Face in pieces - check
Obsession with rats - check

My expectation from a Bond movie reduced drastically when I heard that Daniel Craig is being cast as Bond, few years ago. He is not the Bond, period. I realize they wanted to get someone with a face that hasn't been branded already, but I don't appreciate Angelina's perennial pout on a guy. His style looks practiced, though that goes to say he did what he could to play Bond convincingly. When I watch Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan get pally or up close with someone on screen, I WANT to be that person. With Craig? Not so much.
What happened to all the gadgets? I know Q says they don't make exploding pens anymore, but that's what made Bond so much fun. He saved the day using exploding pens and key-chains! Craig only gets a palm-print sensing gun, which he promptly loses and a radio transmitter.
Poor Severine didn't seem to have planned her day very well and ends up dying. Talk about all eggs in one basket. I did like the good agent gone rogue bit, and not because Demi Moore did exactly the same in Charlie's Angels. Yes, I used James Bond and Charlie's Angels in the same context. Sue me, it's just old wine in a different bottle. The old wine is given a lot of importance in the movie anyway with M insisting that the old fashioned ways work best with the enemies that come from the shadows (atleast, that's what I think). Now don't you dare call an old woman 'old'. She'll rinse your mouth with soap.
After all the mouth rinsing and defending the dinosaurs, M actually dies. What the hell! I thought that wasn't the point of this movie. His one mission was to save her and she dies of a freaking bullet to the leg. At this point, I was a little confused. The ending reminded me of Battleship, when they use an old relic to win the war, leaving the relic thoroughly destroyed. But atleast in Battleship, they actually won the battle.

I liked that Bond is portrayed as the rising-from-the-ashes hero and struggles to get though the typical Bond day. It just shows that everyone has skeletons and needs to fight their personal battles. But maybe they humanized him a little too much.
Nevertheless, I grew up listening to how awesome 007 is and probably wouldn't mind sitting though another episode of his awesomeness.