HERstory

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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words as art

articles like this one make me happy. if that isn't a profound comment about what kind of nerd i publicly once was and secretly still am, i don't know what is...

i pay attention to details like this.

i love the backstory to something that most people will hardly care about or notice. the choice of all uppercase vs lowercase is something that matters to sad, swooning me. i swoon b/c i'm someone who is never happy with her font, i'm always looking for shapes and images that better fit me and the words i attempt to cobble together with all the charm and offense of an amateur.

part of me is calmly vindicated regarding my occasionally challenged devotion to new york. the font that i desperately seek like susan looks EXACTLY like the one chosen above. i am pleased to realise that the eras that inspired it also inspire me. what else inspired it? something very close to my heart...well, something whose location is...the letters that clearly declare "PORT AUTHORITY BUS TERMINAL" were the starting point for the font "GOTHAM", and i cannot count how many times i walked by and noticed those words, as well as how they were graphically designed. during that one ephemeral, shining moment i spent in manhattan, i was located on eighth avenue, too. beyond that memory, subtly, secretly, subconsciously, my eyes and ADDled mind have craved "gotham" forever and i hold that sublime truth in my heart.
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but i digress, and i do so almost disrespectfully (dilettante, remember?).

the article linked above is from the new york times. it discusses a very significant font, chosen to chisel a far more significant piece of native-strength from the adirondacks; the cornerstone for the architectural phoenix that will rise from the sorrowful ashes of the WTC is lettered and worded just so, and i am gratified that so much thought was invested in something so worthy of effort and intention. gotham. it's apposite. i am quietly happy.

j, i miss you. part two.

(a continuation of this story.)

i don't remember what dream i was ensconced in that night, five long years ago...i just remember being startled, frightened, anxious. i was shaking...no, the bed was shaking...more worrisome than that, someone silhouetted leaned over me, making me want to shrink away...

"latha GET UP, NOW!" my mother's accented voice, the shadow of the black sony cordless that she was attempting to thrust at me...

i whimpered. i didn't understand anything at that moment except panic and fear.

"latha, you HAVE to wake up, this is SERIOUS."

i jackknifed, my body now a perfect right angle. "veena," i gasped. "what happened to veena??"

mom was far too calm, deadly calm, blood-chilling calm...when was the last time her voice sounded like this? groggy, fuzzy brain muddled through memory until it traveled 12 months...oh my GOD, this intonation...this is what she sounded like when my...

she shoved the phone hard, and it bumped the side of my head...i could hear sobbing.

"anna?"

unmistakably j. "ohmigod j...honey...what happened?" i squinted, confused at the sudden absence of one mother...wait, what time WAS it? according to the sony dream machine? 5:02 am. my mind worked feverishly once it realised how early it was, and how hard j was weeping.

j...just a few days ago, i was with you in san francisco...i met you at work, near the end of your day. we were so excited to finally see each other, i remember hugging you twice. it was 6pm. we walked out of your office, and i was being annoying about dinner as i surprised you with my newly developed-imperviousness to the chill san francisco air...

"what do you want to eat, miss home-from-DC???"...she was beaming at me, awaiting my choice.

"i don't know..."

she persisted. "gaylord's?"

"mayyyybe..."

"what do you feel like?"

"hmm. i'm actually craving pasta..."

j's eyes widened with a "eureka"-sort of look..."oh! there's this place right around the corner...perfect."

and in we went. we flirted with the maitre'd and then laughed at the dramatically empty restaurant. there was one other gentleman, and he was across the room. a sea of white tablecloths divided us. i remember smiling as we opened menus. j called me out on it..."what's so funny?"

"i know we're getting garlic bread...it's so predictable."

"um, YEAH. i can't eat it around vinod...HIM i have to kiss..."

"what about me? maybe i want a kiss?"

"you'll reek like i will, so we're even."

the waiter arrives and j settles back in her well-upholstered chair for the eternal ritual that accompanies any meal out with me; my gentle interrogation of the staff is something that she could probably recite if i asked her to, from memory. i'm not an asshole about it by ANY stretch...when my little sister was 16, she worked in an italian restaurant just like this one, to pay for her beloved private phone line, and i remember more than a few occasions when she came home in tears b/c of some jerk.

i never forgot how she described the people who hurt her, and i then resolved to look at every waitress as if she were an avatar of veens. this must be working, b/c i'm at the point where i almost never order off the menu, and i get away with it, thanks to veena's precise instructions about how to ask for anything in a restaurant and get it, body-fluid-free (remind me to tell you what happened at Asia de Cuba in nyc...ah, some other time.)

so no, i'm not some imperious twat, i'm just a very careful, life-long vegetarian who's been fed meat accidentally on wayyyy too many occasions. i also like my food spicy (like i like my mens!) and i wanted to know what our smiley waiter (or more likely, the talented chef) could do with the penne arrabiata, which is one of my absolute favourites when created properly. he promised me that i wouldn't be disappointed, and at this, i smiled radiantly at him.