2114 : Stay away from that homely feeling

(Almost a continuation from the previous post).

I don't hate vacations, but I hate travelling or going to a place during vacations, especially if it is not more homely or loving than my own home. I absolutely hate living in home-stays (which are the marriage of two worsts - more terrible than business hotels or quixotic unique vacation houses....home stays are “some stranger’s home and food habits and strange world choices thrust upon you as an experience....almost like a blind fuck date....” And I am no fan of anything "blind” during my vacations.)

My ideal vacations are stay at home or travel to a new place (where I know what I want to do) rather than discover...like I want to do dharmashala, the autobahn, the wineries of California, the wine yards of sula, the laziness of a place like windflower or Orange County.....get the idea?

I definitely want great food cooked home style, by inspiration and love for the art, and not as an industrial buffet, or the cold emotionless fare at home stays....

Finally I want to nurture my soul (and very rarely if ever my body)...like me want to sip wine, I want to enjoy long silences, I want to have friends and family, I want to do gardening, I want to walk around aimlessly with a camera, I want to sleep for 18 hrs....in short I want to be connected to the charging socket....I want to recharge.

I don't want to go to a fort, a temple, a popular eating place, a phooking nightmare of a local market, I don't want to make small talk with locals, I don't want to schmooze with hotel staff, I don't want people at my beck or call and I definitely don't want any remote sort of regiment....

Now you know why I really hate themsoles..... I need to work my ass extra hard to recover from these periodic self inflicted nightmares called vacations.

2113 : I am an illegal alien

I like to believe (like everyone else) that I am a very simple unassuming human being with not too opulent materialistic needs. But....:-)

Here is where it gets a little tragic comic. Every time I travel I miss the comfort of my home. Of the fantastic lighting (not grand, but engineered to every mood and moment), my unbelievable comfortable bed (which envelops you like a mother to a child...great for the back and the soul), my wired home with music wafting through every corridor (even if it is saree ka fall which is ravaan's current favorite) and the comfort of the kitchen with its ingredients which always help me create an inspired meal in about 30 mins.....

Get the drift....

I miss these everyday little things a little too much, and consequently every travel away from home is little less fun that is used to be.

Does it still make you gawk at me not enjoying stay-away vacations )) I am perennially home sick to be ever happy away from home.

(The only places I don't dislike while travelling are no frills business hotels like club quarters or ginger.....the anonymity of the location...and the convenience of choosing great food outside give me great comfort always.)

2112 : Down and Out

Someone just found out that her yet to see the sun baby is going to have Down's syndrome. She is shattered, so is the family. It especially hurts when it's a baby after a long wait.

Just like my musings on dying, I have meditated and pondered on the Down's child. I have to caveat, it's easy to pontificate in the comfort of the air conditioned living room. (And my responses are currently theoretical....artificial and utopian. When the actuals frost bites, I might also have a ruptured vein.....)

If I ever tried to be a father, and if I did get successful....then my heart tells me that I shall own the Down's child. The way I look at it - the child with the 47th chromosome probably chose me because it thought I would really understand its difference and I would still embrace it just like any of my own flesh.

Would my partner choose to similarly own the kid? I know the answer and probably she would not. Does that view bother me? Not really, I don't judge. Given our difference in this matter, who would win? Lowest common denominator....yes we would throttle the unborn child.

Would I be proud of it? Absolutely not. I would probably hate myself forever for having done that. In my own little contrived philosophy - the purpose of life is to live....what that means is every one from the E Coli strain in your stomach to Obama to the child who lost his parents in MH370 - all of us are hard wired for only one goal...survive.

The Downer is similarly hard wired, the 47th worm notwithstanding.....would I rather help it fight that battle or would I remove life support ? Similarly.....Would I drop my partner if she tomorrow suffered a stroke and turned into a turtle of a vegetable ? Would I drop my mother, if she tomorrow is terminally dying of cancer ? Would I give up on my myself if my liver just crashed ? Would I feel my world collapsed if my child came under one of those alcohol influenced trucks ?

Is going off the script worthy of death ? Is life supposed to be only for those on the happy path ?

Another reason I probably am not wary of an anomaly - I have had to see the life of a rouge chromosome from a personal lens and I have come to learn to love the positive side of a gene run amok.

Do I judge the world for inventing the triple marker test ? Yes. Do I judge my friend who took the step to say an early goodbye ? Absolutely not. The world does not hold prisoners, and neither do I.

I sometimes wake up well past midnight, in the deathly silence of the darkness. I hear nothing for the first few moments, but for the white listless noise of the humming air conditioning.

As seconds go by and the mind awakens, and I realise that I am still very much alive....I begun to start hearing murmurs...and soon the drumming begins to give way to the meek but clear enough sound of a voice, which once foolishly hoped to inherit the earth.......Stillborn my child, she talks to me !!

2111 : A ever so slight tremble and the fine moment is ruined

I miss my photography. I really do. If there is something I truly love in this ass-shaped-lotus of a world, it has to be the art of capturing a memory.
Everytime we see an image, and it tells us an unsaid point in time story, it makes us believe that we can pause the world….and that is euphoria crystallised.
I have a lot of things I want to do when I grow up, and walking around with a camera is probably top of that bucket list.
Love. Click. Smile. Miss. Cheese. Flash. Bokeh

2110 : ImPerfect vision

Here is hoping that Uncle Universe corrects my fractured vision.
This wound requires a plaster for nice and smooth red mulled wine