murighonto

No, it was of no use - I had not changed, and never would.
There was a soft spot in my nature, a strain of weakness, a
sensitivity that would never harden. All that I longed, and
had striven, to be - cool and stoical, detached and aloof, a
true Spartan - was beyond me. Marked ineradicably by my
singular childhood, by an upbringing in which too many women
had participated, I was, and always would be, the victim of
every sentient mood, the unwilling slave of my own emotions.

The last few lines of A Song of Sixpence by AJ Cronin, my most favourite writer in the whole world. Possibly because of these lines itself. It rains today. And I sit here trying very hard to shrug it all off and slowly, calmly collect the scattered pieces.

Monday mornings can be made fresh and crisp with notes from long-lost friends, a dead cellular phone, a cup of freshly brewed Darjeeling and the brittle remnants of a dream at dawn. The mind suddenly lifts above the obvious, the smoke and the haze of a big city and finds itself transported to a winter morning, ten years ago. Wrapped in the comforting smell of a woolen pullover and freshly washed hair.

Just because I have been away from this place doesn't mean I haven't been doing. I have. Terribly big things. Part of the evolution process. And I am only getting better. Sharper. Smoother. Shinier. Longer lasting. With extra additives for more power. Home delivered occasionally (on request). With great discounts for early birds.

Now there are a few things that I have been ignoring as well. Littler things. Invisible to the naked eye. Things that require complicated math. And round-shouldered, bald-headed, musty accountants to reprimand you mildly on occasion.

It's the last thing I need to do before I can label myself 'new and improved'. For your collective benefit. And perhaps even, mine.

And these are the last lines I will write for her.

One morning as you wake up you suddenly realise that the best parts about your life exist only in your head. As little videos running at varying frame rates. Yellowing memories with smiling faces of people who are not part of your world anymore.

This is a time when all are hopeful. When everyone is obsessed with shedding the old and looking forward to newer things. To stronger relationships. To better investments. To tastier diet plans. To faster, more fulfilling gratifications. To functional governments. To hair-fall products that actually work. To new-fangled substitutes for loneliness. Towards betterment. And in my quest for a future, enhanced me, I too will be abandoning a lot of my possessions. My intangible accumulations of more than two decades that I will give up, perhaps forever. An eclectic mix of habits, traits, mannerisms, fears and anxieties collected from a variety of sources. Gun-toting heroes of Spaghetti Westerns, hand-me downs from not-so perfect gene pools and dated, fictional idols from books.

And as I carefully pull each one out from deep within me, I remember a former self from a few years back. Comfortable, irreplaceable and invincible. And if only I could get back, to have a little chat with myself and exhibit the most pathetic specimen of my casual recklessness. Also known as, Me.

Above: Calvin and Hobbes travel time in a cardboard box. I think Bill Watterson could see the future.

Like every other new year, this too slipped in. Cunningly amidst much fanfare and drunken revelry so that no one would be alert enough to notice the large, rather inconspicuous bag of red days. Days that will start like any other. Days with leaky faucets and elevators that refuse to budge. Days with irate phone calls and the apparent stench of defeat. Days that will suddenly change gears mid-way and present you with the opportunity to change your life forever.

If only you notice.

Trust Mark Stivers to come up with this. Through this New Year I am determined to change a lot of things. A part of my evolution towards Phish 2.0. As a small step, I started with the template of my blog, an experiment that has been received well. The next step is towards being a better listener. Hopefully and completely. Happy New Year. May you find love.

Image courtesy Mark Stivers. He is a very funny cartoonist and a piano tuner from Sacramento, CA. I am a huge fan.

Approximately 2000 kms away from the shiny, happy people of Bombay I have a little vault. In which rests the collected paraphernalia of a now hazy life. The vault lies patiently in wait. For me to come by occasionally and turn the contents over, slowly and meticulously. Like a collector of fine china, taking in each piece to quietly marvel at it and yet be terribly careful not to chip it. It is where I stumble upon faded smiles, doodled notepads, dog-eared comic books and smudged photographs of happy dogs, all of who are probably in heaven now.

Even before I landed here, I had decided to walk the city. To plod heavy on the grey pavements that have nourished thousands of the starving souls that needless youth over the world seem to acquire at some point before adulthood. To give in to the unique sights and smells of every serpentine lane that vein across the grimy, sweat-stained heart of the metropolis. Hence, armed with a heavy sense of motivation (and brand new saintly-white Adidas shoes) I started walking. And with each dusty step, I found a little note. Left behind by a younger, former me.

I found the little cafe that we could never walk into fearing it to be expensive. The shuffling old ushers, bent with consumption, at the local cinema, now as derelict and run-down as its light bearers. Our bumpy (and very dangerous) pitch at the cricket field which the kids from the other neighbourhood never dared to step on. The corner newsstand where we flipped through trembling girlie magazines. The dusky, winter evenings spent on park benches huddling and coughing as we struggled with perfecting smoke rings. The window that became the cynosure of our lives because of the unseen, pretty girl who lived behind it.

In varying degrees of intensity they came back. The bits and pieces. Broken and in parts. Shrapnels of memory that are impossible to remove surgically. Lodged deep inside, destined to cause pain for as long as I live.

30 days of leave lie in front of me. 30 (apparently, very expensive) days that the company that I work for granted me. 30 terribly short days that I have to get maximum purchase out of. 30 days of potentially life-altering circs. 30 days of uppishness. 30 days of colour. 30 days of blank pages.

And I just wasted the last 45 minutes to find an appropriate cartoon.

I don't know who drew the cartoon. But I think I understand what he's trying to say.

You can always tell a rich girl by the way she does her hair.

Someone once told me that man, intrinsically, does not change. The very core of us remains the same. Irrespective of time, environment and experience. So if you were a procrastinating, lazy, run-of-the-mill, average, vanilla advertising writer with no remarkable skill sets, chances are you still are. And will forever remain to be. People don't change that fast.

But the efforts are exemplary. To learn more. To know more. To grow exponentially and without limit. Academically, financially, socially. To seek out and grip that invisible rung that's keeping us from reaching the top and the world beyond it. Every few seconds the auto mechanism kicks in. Tweaking itself a little to adjust, recoil and take yet another frog leap into space. Recording the data of every unsuccessful attempt with absolute precision. Only to repeat them. Over and over again.

Which is why the decision to upgrade myself is not so bad. To quit is harder than I thought. To change altogether, excruciating.

But evolution is a good idea. That's what they all say, anyway.

When in doubt, get Gary Larson. And sure enough. The image is copyrighted. I used it because I am a fan. Not a pirate. Or a scumbag. Though, sometimes I can be both. With utmost efficiency.

Been close to two months ago that I visited this place. Armed with a middling philosophical treatise about loneliness and an abstract justification of an addiction. Fifty soot-slimed, grueling and acidic days of work later, I am here again. With an entirely different self and purpose. And a little surprise (worth one cm displacement of either eyebrow, either way) of a announcement.

I quit smoking.

It's not a resolution. I am not in love with a non-smoker. And I am not playing out a silly macho bet with anyone. I just quit. One sultry evening inside a taxicab I decided to just give up. I have been smoking for 14 years. It has been a good, loyal friend holding me up in the empty hours between good and bad times. Providing me with a warm, crackling glow and a temporary haze. Just when I needed it.

Been ten days now and I am still surviving. The first three days were horrible though. I don't really know what or how long the detox process is. But I am willing to go through with it. After a long time I am doing something for myself. And it feels good.

Really.

That's from Gaping Void. With just the kind of words that were forming in my head. Forty seconds ago.

All I really need now is a lazy cigarette. To create a cloud bank of suspended blue smoke coils over my head. Much like a speech blurb in a comic book that the artist forgot to letter in. Condemning the character to eternal silence. And you never know if his facial expression is contorted in laughter or in pain.

There are days that last a thousand hours. And all you need is a warm, safe smell to crawl into at the end of them


Life in Hell is a weekly comic strip by Matt Groening. The strip features anthropomorphic rabbits and a pair of gay lovers called Akbar and Jeff. Groening uses these characters to explore a wide range of topics about love, sex, work, and death. His drawings are full of expressions of angst, alienation, self-loathing, and fear of inevitable doom. And I can see why some of you are smiling.

2.30 in the morning is a fine time to reassess your life. The fading sounds of sleepy vehicles, the rhythmic pattern of rain, the silent hum of the air conditioner and the distorted, moving light patterns on the ceiling create the perfect setting. To the cranking of rusty machines in your head, as you twist the handles of memory, wincing with each painful print it pushes out in exhaustion.

So I decide to write. I need to put an end to this break. Time and I have severe compatibility issues. Actually, like most things in my life, I have never given it the importance it deserves.

I went to watch a film yesterday. After 16 months of finding excuses, yesterday I finally ran out. The film was good enough. I quite enjoyed it. Drank two-thirds diluted coke. Used the men's washroom twice. Choked on a popcorn kernel. Smoked the exact length of a cigarette with three seconds to spare. I also managed to fall in love with the actress (I still am, I think).

In the last few days my social self was at its best. I was invited to a friend's house for dinner. A college re-union of sorts. Most of these people are now married. I sat there slowly getting drunk as the women fluttered their wings around me cooing infrequently that I should be next in line. Their husbands just looked at me glassy-eyed like cattle after yet another exciting afternoon of chewing cud.

I also met up with Gaurav (read: the life of others). I was one of the chosen few he decided to give away his stuff to. We got talking (got dangerously drunk on some extremely potent martinis actually) I never really wanted any of his stuff. And I told him so (though he is giving away a selection of his precious books to me). I really wanted to meet him and figure out a few things. About him. And maybe, in the process, a little about me as well.

That's also because I am a little confused today. Setting up the apartment has taken up most of my productive hours in the last few weeks. I have spent a lot of time thinking of ways to ensure it is liveable. And likeable. To get the futon at the exact angle that faciliates the flow of positive energy and yet make the living room look bigger. To carefully select and arrange my assortment of framed pop art posters. To get lamps that best reflect my delicate disposition. To ease out the slightest oohs and aahs out of the people I allow inside. Which in turn helps me to mould their view of me just as I want. Without seemingly trying too hard.

And I wanted to meet someone who was really shedding all of that. I was interested to know if that means we are really changing our intrinsic selves. Our core. That what makes us, us. I wanted to understand if we are really giving away mere objects or are we really shedding ourselves of all the little layers that we have accumulated since birth. There is no real answer. Gaurav's situation allows him to experiment with the concept. Something that gives him more elbow room. And I wish him luck in his endeavours.

I, on the other hand, find myself in a cupboard. Stifled and yet comfortable. But I don't chide myself. There's still a lot to do. A lot to find out in my cultivated and nurtured darkness. And only once I know what exactly I am hiding from can I face it completely. The inertia, the sleeplessness, the longing, the battery of self-abuse can only stop then.

The mission statement has been written. I need to manage my information systems and processors more efficiently. To better understand my motivators. To strive to meet the exacting standards of self can only be possible once we have the necessary qualifiers. One that enables me to stay on the road. And not meander away into the fields to have chats with smiling scarecrows.

Or develop a sudden, intense schoolboy crush on an actress.

Theology was never my favourite. But Peanuts is different. No?

It’s a nice house. Though given the circs. I would have settled for just about anything. It is big, airy and though somewhat noisy, has all the psychological and emotional strokings that add up to, for the lack of a better word, cosy. After being without an address for 45 days in one of the most volatile cities in the world, this seems like a dream. And I am surprised at how in the short span of a week I have taken this for granted. As if this was always meant to be. The delirious hunt seems like a distant nightmare. The body seems amnesiac about the rising blood pressure woes. And friends and family are luxuriously nonchalant about the entire thing.

I could have written a book. Another ‘drawn from self experience’ that I just had to share with the world. Or perhaps, made an appeal to people through this place to please allow me the use of their apartment (one, very sweetly has done just that). Even if it didn’t work out the traffic on my website would definitely soar. That is an intangible asset these days. But I don’t really know how many alert marketers would really pay heed since my blog isn’t really about anything but potatoes.

It was then that I read this. And I admit, the man did honestly put me into a spin. I am quite monk like myself. I have no fascination for cars or the frills of a large backseat. I don’t really care about what I am wearing most of the time. Quality means more to me than quantity. But here was someone taking to a whole new level altogether. To renounce everything, he had to a complete stranger and live the life of a leaf. Hoping for a strong wind. My first reaction was that of excitement. Here’s my chance to get back at life. For eight years of struggling against the system. For all the times I have been homeless or broke, or both. For all the times I have walked in the rain as cars arrogantly splashed by cars, smiling and thinking about where I am headed in the first place.

But then it got me thinking. Do we really adopt minimalist ways (or yet, advocate it) because we cannot afford to see what lies on the other side? Do we merely hide away from the harsh reality that we can never possibly get that much and hence positively reconcile ourselves with what we have, sometimes taking it to the extreme of actually not wanting some of the stuff in the first place? I mean, do you really, really need a bidet?

I light a cigarette. It’s time to cross over to the other side. To Gaurav’s experiment. The off-consumption life. From a marketer, whose genus believes in spending every second of available time devising somewhat evil ways to sell soap to people like you (Often taking the help of equally devious and misleading wordsmiths, like me. It is a happy, torrid relationship that borders on organized crime and very long and complicated ‘back-scratching’ instruments that would have been banned even in the medieval ages).

What might he have been thinking? Is he really giving away all of it? I love my books. I adore them. I don’t even let people flip through them for more than a minute in my house, leave alone lending them. More than a few thousand odd, my books have never known the pleasures of promiscuity. I love my little, inexpensive bar. With faded bottles of Scotch that I dare not drink because I don’t know when I will get hold of another bottle. Stacks of DVDs, painstakingly catalogued by genre. My inexpensive cane furniture. My photo frames of jazz artists. To give them away would be to give away a part of my life. And he is right when he says that. Do these define me then? Am I not complete without them? Do I need them for emotional support? For approval? The nod of assent? To impress and encourage women to go the distance? (Umm..with me…hopefully) To standout amongst my incestuous peer group? Oh Please Look At Me, I Am Different Because I Like Miles Davis And Philip Roth As Against Your Trash. And no, it doesn’t make a difference if you are a better human being. If you have found true love. If you can talk to birds. Or are concerned about the world. It doesn’t matter. If you don’t have the sea facing apartment, you are just not important.

I slip back into my being. I don’t think I can do this yet. There’s just too much to do. Important or otherwise. But I think it’s a delightfully crazy idea. I think it’s eccentric and powerful enough to change one’s life. If not the world. I don’t really think it’s for attention, but rather letting people know that it is possible in today’s world to move away from the glitz and get back to basics. A modern day Chris McCandless.

And yet I find myself a bidder. To be a part of his experiment. And I want the apartment, the books, the cane furniture that he has designed, the DVDs and whatever else comes with it. And, no I am not going to give it away. Not yet. Here’s my pitch, in 300 words.

“The apartment will be mine. I shall make friends the little nooks and corners. The corner shelves. The spot where you get the sunlight in the afternoon. The room with the creaking door. The bedroom where you slept after a harrowing day at work. The place where you sit and frown. And I will strip them off their old owner’s shadow. And if you happen to drop in weary, they will greet you warmly as a guest but not an old lover.

I will categorize and catalogue the books and DVDs and put them upon my weary shelves. Next to the ones that I have been having affairs with. This will be my personal harem. I shall not erase your names. But write my name under it. Duplicates will be forgotten in cafes, taxis and parks for others to pick up.

The furniture shall bear my weight. I shall rest on the futon on tired days. Frolick around the bed on others. Stare at them passively and think of where you might be at that very moment on off days.

The appliances shall be there. So will be the utensils. Serving out their remaining days and helping me in my endeavours to be socially acceptable. Washing machines will clean. Ovens will cook. I will treat them nice as long as they behave. Maybe sometimes, I will put in a shirt that looks like yours or cook something that you used to. Just to confuse them a little bit.

The bar will be for me to enjoy. I might put up a neon sign over them. The ones that flicker away in the night rain. They have a depressing quality about them that I adore. The glasses will be wiped clean and used. By a variety of lips. Promiscuous or otherwise.”

Gaurav, this is what I intend to with your constructed life. All the best with yours. Drop me a postcard from little misty villages that you come across in your life. The post offices are quaint. And there are beautiful women who don’t speak your language behind the counters. Selling stamps to backpacked strangers of no fixed address.

To everyone else, if you are in the mood to give away anything at all, please do not hesitate to contact me at phishpot@gmail.com. I need a cloud, for starters. To others, I would love to know what you think.

45 days is enough time to fund a revolution, woo someone you love, come up with a new, less painful method of waxing, make friends with a duodenum, cultivate an itch and maybe even learn how to brew a perfect cup of tea.

In short, 45 days is a long time.

And that is exactly how long my house hunt is taking me. Like fellow citizens of the big cities around the world, I am destined to change addresses (much to the collective irritation of bill collectors) once every few years. Throw the word bachelor into the mix and the picture is oh-so-very-clear. Ruddy furniture, half-baked kitchen, sentimental pillow cases, picture frames and 35 cartons of musty old books make up my world. And I have been carrying it all over weary shoulders as I plod my way through the world of estate agents and brass nameplates.

The problem is quite simple really. No one wants to rent out an apartment to a single male. We are perceived as a debauch group of individuals, perilious and of unsound disposition. Seemingly more vicious than serial killers, rapists, anti-Semites, neo-Nazis put together. More volatile than ladies who have missed their beauty appointments. And as troublesome as vociferous advocators of non-smoking.

Apparently, we have sex all the time (I wish) with our loose, lady friends (if you know any, better still, are one, please do not hesitate to contact me, photograph mandatory) with a joint, dangling from our lower lip coupled with infrequent gulps of cheap booze. While I am happy that my single status merits me with such an outwardly Steven Tyler-ish glow, it is just plain unfortunate that I am also being denied shelter because of it. More so, because my only resemblance to the aforementioned personality is at best, limited.

And the drudgery continues. All my stuff lies locked in a warehouse far away. I make do with three t-shirts, one cellphone, one pair of jeans, my iPods and a tremendous sense of determination. My phone rings every 32 seconds with the news of another apartment that will definitely work out. My affliction with taxicabs continue. I frequently find myself at wrong turns and strange corners. The winds don't listen to me anymore.

As I type this, a fine muslin rain quietly wets the pavements. I think I will lose another umbrella today.

That's Top Cat. A New York alley cat who's always well turned out. Voiced by Arnold Stang, the series created by Hanna-Barbera ran in the early 60s on prime time television. He lives in a dustbin by the way. And still manages to remain rather unfazed. Cartoon characters have it easy. Even if they are single and presumably, gay.

There is a phone right next to me as I type this. And the only thing that separates me from talking to someone is a speed dial button. And my head. Like a house ransacked by clumsy burglars, it lies in wait. For someone to come and raise the alarm. To maybe even attempt and create a semblance of half-order. I stand paused by nature, guilt and a ferocious gust of sadness.

I was good yesterday. And for a long time. All this time that I wasn't here, I was standing behind the camera and instructing excitable, young girls to look happy. Though I didn't really need to. I have noticed models have this mysterious vault of happiness. And they willfully scatter handfuls of it around. But it is of course, a professional demand. Like a gloomy philosopher who is contagious with his darkness. Or like an advertising writer, from whom you might contract a curious blend of arrogance and insecurity.

I deviate. The point is, that sometimes I go about life waiting for things to get better. Without doing too much. I am scared, lazy and completely unfair when it comes to myself. I refuse to give myself a chance. I accept things people have deduced about me. And if it irritates me, I try to sleep it off. Now with a recurring affair with sleep apnea, that too is becoming a problem.

I had a limited conversation. And I can recount from memory every word she used. I could almost see her. Weighing the words in her mind, forming them with quick taps of the finger, then a pause to read it over. Followed by a quick tap again to send. And though I tried my level best to tell her about how I feel, I failed. The wooden letters of modern messaging systems are completely and utterly unemployable as communicators of micro-emotions.

Not just that. I was also terribly afraid that her little acceptance of me would be lost forever if I pushed it. And before I knew it, she was gone. Back in her world of trinkets and magentas. And as I held on to the little magic brick in wait, I fell truly and deeply asleep. Unhindered by the chokes and gasps of big city nights.

Is it really too late for another dream?

That's Hagar the Horrible by Dik Browne. One of my original favourites.

I am telling you. Saturdays do smell different. In an cool, opiate haze you want to be entangled in those lazy curls forever. Just like her hair. Right after she'd washed it.

I have been out again. In my head i.e. Trying vigorously to fight the inertia that settles in due to work, losing reason, engineering mini-failures, deconstructing the moral fabric and shifting logistics. Each time as I decided, this was it and sat down gassy-eyed, in front of the keyboard, my fingers failed me. The mind decided to play truant and the nervous system busied itself to make all the involuntary actions as painful as possible. The words came jumbled and no matter how hard I tried, stubbornly refused to obey and stand in a coherent line.

But I did find time to pick up on a few lost strands of my life. I started watching the now long since downloaded (yes, I do indulge in occasional piracy) episodes of Heroes. I had stopped mid-way of the first season, same time last year. And though I have lost my partner in crime to the world, I decided enough was enough. I needed my dose of digitally-enhanced pulp (if at the cost of a wasteland of memories, so be it). So I crept into it with the same nervousness and perseverance found amongst gangly individuals with names like Frederick Entwistle, Esq. or Norton Bladderby, when they decide to recite scabrous prose to pimply women at hash parties.

And how I raced through it. The time warps, the monologues about the mind, the scientific impossibilities (yet), the genetic mutations and the like. I am never short of surprise at how the packaged pop culture that America has thrived on, has been so successful the world over. Before I launch into a pithy commentary on the human condition and how all of us, regardless of race and sociological patterns, essentially yearn for the same kind of powers (in this case, invisibility, ability to fly, regeneration, reading minds etc) I felt a distinct change in myself. For starters, I felt light and heady. I couldn't feel my legs (maybe that can be attributed to pins and needles) and I was strangely ecstatic. Surely, I thought, surely I too am one of them. A hero with a unique and deliberate set of abilities. And these, just like the ones in the show, are just too powerful for me to control and exploit.

For instance, my ability to procrastinate is legendary. I can postpone anything for any given period of time. Sometimes, forgetting as a whole, what I shelved in the first place. Next, is my phenomenal power to shove things under the carpet. Third, my razor sharp (or thin) will power. My emotional resistance, is probably as bad as my physical one. I am what one would call of a delicate disposition. Fourth, my belief that everything will be okay in the end. My advice to those who believe the same, is simple. Don't.

Maybe, I am being too harsh on myself. Maybe. But I am currently experiencing these powers. Sometimes, they are so strong I have no option but to submit myself to their whims and follies. With consequences, that doesn’t really need a soothsayer to predict. So I lie low, spending most of my time reading, swimming and trying to touch tennis balls with a racquet. The books look heavy. The water's too cold. And someone increased the size of the court while I was away.

If anyone of you needs my services as a hero, therefore, do call me. I seem to be available. Unless of course, my aforementioned powers take over.

That's Super Duck, the cock-eyed wonder. A comic book from the Golden Age. Drawn by staff artist Al Fagaly, I stumbled upon the exploits in the early editions of Archie Comics. And today, after many a year, I know what he might have felt like after a hard day of misadventures.

Most of my friends are married. And those who remain, seem to be in a dashed hurry to do so. Infrequently, I hear faint strains of the question being posed to me. I try to smile and answer as politely as I was taught in pre-school a long, long time ago. But I am not averse to the idea. Nor do I aggressively advocate the same. But some things are best left to greater things. It's just that I feel I am still rather immature. There are a lot of things that I want to do more. Besides, there is also the small problem of finding a candidate. Preferably, willing.

I was at a day long shoot yesterday. One of my clients is a big fashion (sic) house. And hence I spend considerable amount of time at photo shoots all over the country. Most of them involve beautiful women. All of them are attractive, approachable with varying levels of intelligence. The chances of making something happen with anyone is remote. Especially by someone like me who is fidgety, insecure and has a day old fuzz. Also I am clueless about the kind of language to employ that facilitates consummation (of any kind). Not to mention, that I am allergic to, if I may, a peculiar kind of silliness, accompanied by snortish giggles, that the female of the species use to continue insipid conversation. Overall, my demeanour is the complete converse of what is known popularly, as a chick magnet.

Hence, it is safe to assume my love affairs are shortish and often leave a lot of things unsaid. I prefer to communicate my very, intense feelings with watery eyes, faint mumbles and subtle, shuffling movements of my feet. The latter I hear is a very potent and promising technique practiced by migratory birds around the world. In season, of course.

It happened yesterday as well. I was shooting with the winners of the Miss India contest. Four of the most beautiful women in the country (or so they say). And it took me all of seventeen seconds to decide who is that I love. I played up to my affection, knowing fully well that nothing is to happen. Alternating between being sweet, a listener, intelligent and talented at the same time. Mild, pathetic attempts at that. She looked interested. Though to be fair she looked interested in everyone who was having a conversation with her. But she was truly delightful and I was really attracted. The shoot ended soon after. And as she walked out with her Mum she waved goodbye and was out of my life. Probably forever.

The best part of all of this is that I envisioned the end even before I left home. The "i-will-think- of- the- worst- case- scenario- then- it- will- not- happen- to- me" theory, I have come to see doesn't hold true for me. I don't even know whether this is Murphy's fault. Or Freud's for that matter. But I do know that this is the story of my life.

And in a strange way I like it. The romantic notion that we will never meet again. Or perhaps the feeling that we will. In another time and place where talking is easier and no professional ethics are under the scanner. Or intentions. Where the laughter is not polite, but free. And where watery eyes are better heard.

In another time and place.

Peanuts by Schulz has a delightful take on love. With Charlie Brown under a tree. Life is easier with a comic book, no?