13 is an unlucky and unhappy number.

5pm and it was still so hot that merely sitting by the window felt like stupidity. never underestimate my inertia. i stayed put, glued to this cursed Vaio, feeling the white wire that might as well be an umbilical cord to my mother/interweb graze my freshly-shaved leg. one of you might send me GMail. someone i crave might sign in to AIM. the troubling blog post that is burbling up from deep within might FINALLY come out, and leave a grateful, lighter me.

i would like to feel lighter. this heavy, leaden feeling that is haunting me for some reason is a very painful sensation, akin to what one might feel like after a greedy thanksgiving meal. i'm uncomfortably and uncharacteristically full. despite that, whatever is bothering me is not ready to come out.

fine.
i'll ignore it.
sort of.

but just in case it does decide to depart, a typepad window is open and i am on high-alert. emotional terror level red, if you will. the terrorism of memory is always something i fear.

my mom was making tea. i watched her take several cardamom pods and crush them under a pestle. this is a modern amreekan home with a special tap that delivers water at 190 degrees, so that you needn't trouble yourself by even boiling some in a pot...and there she was with a stainless steel set of tools that probably trace their origins to the stone age. she didn't know that i was watching her. my mother spends most of her time at home in a state of semi-oblivion. i'm quite a lot to live with, and her work is never done.

a horrendous computer-y noise startled me as i spied and i felt bewildered. oh, right. veena bought my mom some ridiculous new home phone for mother's day...all the venerable black sony cordless models that have played a role in every short story i ever wrote (an unintended easter egg that was never found...most of you focus on a certain vocabulary word instead...) have been supplanted with these sleek gunmetal-grey pods that now dot almost every room in the house. that is a damned lie. they dot four rooms. still, they are unsettling. my attempt at exaggeration feels warranted.

mummy answered the phone, looked at me quickly and immediately walked outside, softly securing the front door behind her. whenever she does this, i frown. "you are talking about me," i murmur. orange flashes register in my spectacular peripheral vision and i forget potential treachery b/c one of you AIMs me.
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shiraz. i opened a bottle of shiraz. what does that tell you, gentle readers? did a uniform shudder ripple through your collective shoulders? that was not a rhetorical question; it should have.

it should have.
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i'm dazed. 75 wpm is an easy pace for me to rain down my thoughts upon you, but my laptop is balanced precariously on another dining room chair, with two cushions jerry-stacked underneath it, in a vain attempt to alleviate the profound discomfort this set-up ensures...the power cord to my Vaio no longer works properly. it is an arbitrary and capricious piece of shit, and it is so temperamental it makes me look like a person who owns the word equanimity. when it magically shifts to a position where the little "plug" icon appears in my taskbar (this has become the holy grail of my sad fucking existence), i gasp and then take massive pains NOT to move or jar the computer in ANY way, lest i knock it out of whatever mystical angle that is enabling me to keep the damned thing on. i'm sitting in another dining room chair, facing this fiasco. i have developed chronic back pains and am well on my way to carpal tunnel. fanfuckingtastic. i'm massaging my beleaguered wrists, lost in the drama of one of your lives, trying to carefully word the advice you've asked me for, when moms comes back inside. her eyes are wide and she looks worried. she is looking at me like she can see more than flesh and hair. she is looking at me like she can see my soul, my thoughts, my fate.
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"who was that?" is a question i always ask, even if she doesn't wander outside for privacy. i am the worst sort of child EVER. i take great pleasure in yanking my mom out of meetings at work, so that i can ask her where the new box of berry berry kix is, or so that i may shriek about something that has upset me. i especially did the latter when i was 3000 miles away. G-d damn your career mother, i fucking *need* you. you are not here. be here now. in short, i am obnoxious for the same reason i do just about everything in life that makes most of you shoot me incredulous looks or spew vituperative hate; merely because i can. as i write this, upon reflection, is it any business of mine to ask who she was just on the phone with? logical anna says, "no". anna balks and says, "i lived in her for nine months and have tolerated her occasionally shite advice and influence for the last 3 decades. my father is no longer around to annoy her. OBVIOUSLY this necessary duty has passed to me, the sole heir to all things daddy."

i never said i made sense. honestly, if i did? you wouldn't come.
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"that...was...your...", she speaks deliberately and her voice trails off.

what the-?

"nana." she finishes. oh. curiousity killed, this kitten turns 98% of her useless attention back to AIM.

"she asked about you," mom offers.

"oh?"

"yes. she's worried about you. it's my fault. i told her that you've been going through some difficult things."

i stare straight ahead, and summon extraordinary amounts of patience that will ensure that i don't decapitate her verbally. many of my recent "difficulties" have everything to do w/her and her sometimes-bullshit approach to "loving" me.

"how's nana?", i ask.

"she's okay. she's worried about you. she says that you remind her of your father at this age."

this almost gets my full attention. i haven't stopped typing words in the AIM window, but my head turns towards the stove, where she has resumed creating tea. i don't look at her fully. i'm too invested in messaging. my left eye gives me an imaginary salute as it steps up to patrol for flashing orange in the task bar.

what does she mean?

when mom turns away from the tea she's still stirring, i can see her face. she looks really sad. apparently the last question i typed was something i verbalised b/c she's answering it. i'm momentarily confused. my inner monologue absconded.

"he was really sensitive too...and so hard on himself. she was remembering how he always got so much attention, and how it wasn't always positive. just like you. i don't know what it is, latha. you AND your father. people love to..."

"fuck with us?"

the frown on her face had nothing to do with sailor's tongue. she gave up on that when i was a toddler. remind me to tell you the story about me meeting my maternal appachan. i was bilingual and forming coherent sentences easily by the time i was 15 months old. it's hilarious, but i digress.

"yes. no matter where he went, something always happened. nothing happens when veena and i go about the activities that make up our lives...but you AND your father. unbelievable."

"what do you mean?" i was asking for clarification i did not require.

"like the gas station incident! i would've screamed bloody murder at that man if he had the nerve to do that to you while i was there...but then again, he may not have done it...yes. he acted that way b/c you are alone. and the thing is, i know he wouldn't have done that to me OR veena. but you..."

flashing orange means salvation. fingers frenetically fly.

"you know what today is, don't you latha?" she's speaking very slowly again and this is starting to upset me. maybe i don't WANT to know.
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regardless of what i wish to know or ignore, SHE knows that i'm a dreamer, an abstract-thinking, soft-soul that spent her entire childhood lost in a book or a piece of art in progress, oblivious to time, date, place or the elements. i wore payal or kolsu until i was very old, b/c shopping w/me is a nightmare. if i see something fascinating, i become entranced, and i get lost. more accurately, i got left behind as everyone moved at a normal pace. when they stopped hearing the rhythmic jingle-jangle of tarnished silver, they knew that it was time to mutter exasperated curses under their breaths and scowl. "veena! go get her!" 3.5 years younger than me...but from the age of 3 on, veena was better at keeping track of me than they were. she'd solemnly trace her way backwards until she found me, and then she'd tug on me silently until i noticed. then i'd follow her back, for the inevitable and ubiquitous scolding.

or, they'd order me to clean my room when i was small, and several hours later they'd check on me, only to find ten-percent of a difference in organization or neatness...and me sprawled on the floor or tucked in a random corner, engrossed in something long-forgotten that i'd just re-discovered, to read. "three hours ago, i told you to put your toys away, edi!" i remember the ritual of reluctantly lifting my eyes from the words they had been caressing, and then feeling dread. this always happened. "how do you do this? you just dream the day avay!" you're right, i do.

so no, i don't know what today is, but that heavy feeling of discomfort i described is now boiling and bubbling within, as if just a moment ago, someone lit a roaring fire underneath the cauldron which contains it. i lose track of everything that has to do with time. it's why i'm always late, to everything. "you'll miss your own funeral!" my mom yells at me, on a weekly basis. sigh. i start w/what's easy...tuesday? is it tuesday? i have kickboxing soon...oy, it MUST be tuesday! but the date...the date might as well be swahili. i don't know it.

the roiling boil inside, starts to spatter and then it explodes. pain. the worst kind, the subtle, insidious kind that just makes me disintegrate. if my heart is this heavy, then it must be july 13. the tears want to come as i own this fact, but they don't. i'm too cold (in that broiling sun by the window) and filled with despair. this is almost a good thing, i don't want to lose it in front of her. i'll curse in front of my mother, but i hate crying in her presence.
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1.5 glasses of shiraz down, exactly that much to go. i fucking hate this shiraz.
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july 13th is my daddy's birthday.
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"you forgot, didn't you?" her voice is soft as she announces her epiphany, and her face contorts with so many different emotions, i can't pick up on all of them. mostly, i see compassion. maybe that's b/c it's what i'd prefer to see there. it's what i need to see there.

i don't speak, until she brings a mug of chai to me and sets it down gently near my hot-cold spot. i thank her quietly. she's in a good mood and that means she will be merciful, and not push this issue. this conversation is over, but the one within is only commencing.

i didn't forget, i suppressed. my father died two days before the end of 1998, but for many logical yet unwanted reasons, i'm experiencing "it" this year. so i pushed a birthday away. he would've been 67.
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the smell of this pissing shiraz is making my head throb. i can feel my pulse in my fingertips and it's bizarre. when i type, i don't feel it, so that's what i'm trying to do. i'm also trying not to disturb this Vaio, b/c the power cord is finally happy, even as it digs in to the sorrowful flesh of my left thigh. none of you has ever watched me type, but i do it violently. punching the keys as if the passion inside could only be conveyed w/matching force on a keyboard. it's very hard to type that way when you're trying to coddle a shite AC adapter. i feel uneasy. i am starting to truly hate my laptop.

right.

it's my "laptop" that i hate. i'm sure that the anxious tremor i feel right now has to w/my rage at Sony. my headache is entirely due to red, red wine. all this unhappiness has minor causes.

i'm an excellent liar, but that doesn't mean that that shit works on me. even if i'm beyond tipsy.
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when i'm 67, where will i be? will i have the love of my grandchildren, something my daddy will never know? will that one asshole offspring who was sent to torture me--much as i was born to fulfill MY grandfather's curse that my father "know great pain and irritation, constantly, through a child WORSE than" him-- actually graduate from law school or jump through whatever other pointless hurdle i've decided upon? will i be alive? i'm too disassociative to tell you. i don't know anything. i don't know why i'm here, in a place i swore i'd never return to (b/c all i'm doing is paying egregious amounts of interest on the grief that i placed on my emotional AmEx five years ago)...i don't know where i should go or what i should do next. i don't know a damned thing.

sixty-seven. daddy would've been sixty-seven. 67. six-tee sev-en. doesn't matter how many ways i type it, i still can't wrap my worthless brain around it. what does that even mean? would have been. if what? if he didn't die? if he were here? yes, that is what that means logically. so what. it means nothing to me. my daddy would've been nearing seventy. it's pointless, i cannot fathom this truth.

my daddy is dead.

the conditional does not apply. he lives in a very expensive and coveted piece of bay area real estate, and when i go visit him, it's rare that i feel anything but disassociative numbness. i try to be mindful, to realise that 12-feet below, encased in protective cement, inside a very nice casket, my daddy may or may not be rotting. such attempts at visualization are no good. all i see, when i look, and focus, and "mind" and concentrate...is emerald-coloured grass.
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there are things transpiring in my life right now that are very intense. very important. very challenging. these are the occasions which make it 100x more obvious to me that he's gone. i need his wisdom, to live by, or his vehement disapproval to defy. one or the other. something.

anything?

nothing. i got nothing. and that's why emotionally i twist slowly now, a slightly jerking almost-corpse suspended from the noose that is my life. happy birthday, daddy. i hope...

no.

i know that you're at peace. i wish you were here to give me some.

Comments

[A N N A]

a rudely-worded parenthetical sort of caveat:

(first draft.
liberally lubricated with shiraz.
massively unproofed.
go bugger y'self if you spot errors and gloat.)

that is all.

[kuttapen]

i enjoyed this post.

[AR]

I am listening.

I can almost hear ur heart beats here like this eternally blinking cursor.

Peace.

[callcenterguy]

i want to cum on your brown-sugar gold digging tits.

[SD]

What the fuck is the matter with people.

It's damn difficult to cum when you don't have balls enough (at all?) to show who you really are when making an invidious statement like that.

What's interesting, and paradoxical, is that she'd rip them right off if you did have the genitalia required to be a fucking man.

The happy feeling you got when posting that bullshit and knowing that you wouldn't get caught is probably the closest sensation you'll ever have to an actual orgasm. Although what with the cowardliness shown here it's safe to say even the mere thought of a "gold-digging tit" is too much for your premature needledick.

She *just* wrote about something very dear to her. Not that something like that would be condoned if written anywhere, but here of all places?

Just don't. Have a little decency.

Sorry, Anna.

[callcenterguy]

uhhh...so can i cum on your tits or not? still waiting for that porsche 997?

[julie]

i have nothing comforting to add though i must say i'm completely appalled by the audacity that character had to say something so offensive, especially following your poignant blog. i'm sorry that you have to deal with individuals like that on a daily basis, but it's especially wrong when they insert themselves into your life when you are sharing such precious thoughts. i know you're an indomitable spirit, but even the strongest have their weak moments and i hope that horrible person didn't hurt you.

on an another note, i just wanted to say that it's another trying summer for me and whenever i am especially overwhelmed and feel the rage and frustration building inside, i recall that early morning aim chat we had last summer. you told me about how you went to uc davis instead of barnard and how that ended up being the most precious disappointment-turned-gift God had given you. i've thought about that a lot this summer during these trying times and i wanted you to know that i haven't forgotten and it's comforting to know that we plan our lives can't compare to the beautiful way God has planned ours. =)

i can tell you're in love and feeling loved by "s". i'm glad to see that you're finally appreciated by someone as dynamic as yourself.

[John]

haha i just read ur malu names post, good one, luckily my parents were kind enuff to name me John, im so srry bout ur dad, my cousin passed away recently, Subin, you mite have herd bout that, he was only 17 yrs old..

[CPCA]

Of the many thoughts that came to mind while reading this post, I'd like to post two.

Loosing a parent is the second most painful thing in the world (2nd only to loosing your child.) I am sorry you are in pain.

This was an exceptionally written post.

[Ank G]

Jeezus - this is why I can't read your posts...the first one I glance at in weeks makes me want to start formulating yet even more plans of attack for you...

...I mean, after all...You are the Quarry....;)

A