Category: post

It’s 2 minutes past midnight, and everyone has already been asleep for a while. Except me.

I had a productive day. Say down to work after breakfast, and except for a late lunch, and to pick up lil R from the station, didn’t move till dinner.

Gorda and Chewie had a good day though. They went for what looked like a happy walk in the sunshine. He got to play with his neighbourhood friend, Soham, in the evening. She got to do stuff she likes to do -clean and arrange stuff, and then chat with lil R.

I was in front of a monitor almost all this time.

Now all three are deep asleep, while I plot tomorrow’s actions. Tail runner at the Guildford parkrun in the morning. Hopefully, some Eggs Benedict for breakfast later, then a few hours of work, and maybe another run in the evening.

Given that Gorda let me work in peace all day today, it seems quite likely that I’ll get none of the above tomorrow, other than the park run. Wouldn’t be a bad day either way ☺

P.S.: just about a week remaining to Brighton Marathon, for which I’m woefully under prepared. Trying to drown myself in work, love, fights and TV to keep my mind off it 😦

Guy comes out of Tesco. Lights up a cigarette. Balances the phone between his ear and shoulder. Opens the box of mini brownies, and happily chomps on them between drags on the cigarette, and phone conversation.

I’m judging him. And hating myself for judging him.

He’s exploding at the waist. I hate myself.

The cigarette is over, as is the call. So he opens a can of coke (regular) to help with the brownies. I HATE MYSELF.

Judging is easy. It’s almost addictive. Changing people is hard. Almost never starts with judging. I need to let it go. I need to try harder.

(As does he)

Shame stares

I’ve just parked in my usual parking spot on the far side of Tesco.
Guy drives in, doing 30mph in the 5 mph zone, straight into the parent and child parking spots next to the door.
In a sports car. No child, or space for a child evident in the car.
While there are loads of non-marked parking spaces all around, including just opposite where he parked.

I walk past his car with my best despicable stare.
He gets out of the car – a seemingly respectable man in his 50s – just as I enter the cafe.

Sadly, for him, he too is coming to the cafe. He orders a tea to take away. I’m still giving him a nasty look.

They accidently make his tea to drink-in. I’m still giving him a bad vibe.

He takes one sip of the tea, drops his head, quietly exits and drives off.

For once, I was on the other side. And I don’t know how to feel about it – I should feel good, but I feel bad.

Rumour has it…

They wrote me off when I screwed up on my boards and JEE.
They told me off when I went to a private college.
They told me they always believed in me when I got placed the same place that my IIT compatriots went.

They wrote me off when I instead went to work with a small startup.
They laughed at me when I decided to write CAT again instead of joining a smaller college first time around.
They told me they always believed in me when I got through, and joined an IIM.

They told me which jobs to pick and work towards.
They dissed me when I didn’t follow their wise words.
They told me they always believed in me when I got where I wanted.

Rumour has it that they’re writing me off again. It’s a good sign.

Gluttony & spices don’t go well together

tldr: skipped meal + spicy home food => gluttony => discomfort => finger sandwich => further unease

Thanks to an uber productive morning, both at work and run, I missed a meal yesterday. This meant that I was quite hungry by dinner time.

Mother in law was making their (Gult/Tam) version of Punjabi pooda. Almost the same as my mom’s except packed with chillies 1. Additionally, Raghs and I, sharing a plate had a ton of her chilli mint chutney with the poodas.

It was quite a yummy combination, and combined with the hunger from missed meal, it meant I had quite a few. And then some more. Literally!

Paid for it dearly.

I was walking around the house at midnight, trying to ease the discomfort in tummy and chest from *all* the food, and chilli.2

That didn’t help, so I resorted to a more drastic option – a finger sandwich :(

Did a small vomit, clearing up most of the oesophagus. Cleaned up – myself and the pot. And then, suddenly, came the involuntary puke – emptying half my stomach. Worse, some of that super hot chilli puke entered the nasal channel from behind, causing even more agony.

10 mins later, my eyes were red and bulging, nose burning, and head throbbing. Well, at least the stomach and chest were clean(er).

It’s almost 12 hours since that episode, and my nose and throat are still feeling the effects, with odd spittle of blood coming through.

And I’m feeling weaker than I have in a while, probably jeopardising today’s run.

Lesson’s learnt:

  1. don’t skip a meal
  2. don’t eat spicy grub like a glutton
  3. go for a run to move grub down, rather than use a finger sandwich
  1. She doesn’t like the frozen English red chilli we have at home, so packs them in heavy to make an impact ;) ↩
  2. No, it wasn’t to increase my day’s step count, and create some space between MiL and me :D ↩

Presentability = fn(Personal grooming, personal fitness)

I have a relative. He’s one of the most well-groomed people I know – always immaculately dressed, shaven, clean shoes, perfumed, even a fancy car. He’s probably the unfittest person I know of my age. But that excellent grooming overcomes, if not obliterates, the lack of fitness – as far as appearance goes.

I’m probably the fittest amongst all my relatives of my generation. I also probably rank in the bottom quartile of them in personal grooming. I don’t like wearing formal suits – even for work or social events. I don’t iron my tees and jeans – just fold them out of the drier. My hair is perennially a mess. I shave twice a week, at best. One of my shoe laces got shredded in bike chain 8 months ago – I’m still to replace it. And still, despite dressing like an undergrad hosteler, I’m modestly presentable (though never attractive) – the fitness bit covering up partly for the ill-groomed bit of the personality

Then there’s the person who connects me to the relative above. She’s almost as unfit as the relative above, if not more. And she may probably be the only person I know who’s worse at personal grooming than me. This combination of lack of personal grooming and personal fitness is not attractive. It’s often repellant.

It doesn’t help that both of her families – the one that she shares with me, and the one she shares with him – have a dismissive, almost repulsive, attitude towards personal fitness. It’s worse that she seems to have picked up from me the one trait that I don’t share with rest of the family – (lack of) personal grooming.

I’ve tried nudging, inciting, incentivising her towards improving her personal fitness, to little success. I believe the other person must have tried similarly on personal grooming, to little success.

I love her, and this lack of attention to her appearance, upsets me (her lack of fitness upsets me a *lot* more).

Yet there’s nothing I’m able to do. Help! :(