Last night the birthday was so much fun. Went to this Japanese restaurant and loaded our stomachs with prawn tempura, prawn balinesse curry, kakuni pork, some other pork belly thing and lots of sushi. Its an expensive place though, we paid close to 1500 per head. So that might not be a lot for quite a few people, but I live on hand to mouth allowance, hence. But worth every penny, the food and the company! Also we got complimentary mochi ice-cream, it was great except that the green tea flavoured ice cream tasted like raw fish
It was actually a great evening, and maybe I should go out more and meet my friends. Met a very cute woman. I wish we become friends or something, I really liked talking with her, the little bit that we did.
Other than that, I had full plans of working all of last night, but it didnt happen. All that sticky rice made me sleepy, woke up to a panic call from my Editor, who yelled saying 'we cant wait anymore!', so now I am racing to finish the work.
I've just discovered that I like nice red lipsticks!
Happy to report that from being able to run for only 5 mins at a stretch, I have finally reached the 20 minute mark, I finish 4 kms in 20 mins. Not bad I say!
Back on the diet, and it does me well. Mostly I like the fact that I dont think of food that frequently. And I love having all that cheese.
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I can be productive from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. after that I literally waste my time. Mostly listening to music, reading books, and also often writing shitty pulp in the privacy of my room. Eight hours of work a day sounds good, but I have literally have bitten off more than I can chew, and I cant but have to chew of all it, within a stipulated time. A couple of my editor friends have been very very patient with me, and they have been extending my writing deadlines as often as I demanded but I really feel that I am abusing that now.
Im not sure why I committed to writing, when I know myself that I can't write on demand. My writing reads shit, and I just end having more coffee than usual in my pursuit of that elusive text I once dreamed of writing.
I have no idea about what I am doing in my life but I've really given myself a deadline, if by the year end I cannot start writing and publishing, I will really adult hard and get into some policy based work in the development sector, those people pay a lot of money. And its as boring as any other job, but one can travel once in a while so that's the saving grace.
I am thinking about them because tomorrow there is a birthday dinner that I think I'll have to attend and I will be seeing two of the editor friends there, who I haven't met in like 10 months. They put me on the planning group on whatsapp, basically all of us are planning a surprise party for a friend. And I did offer to pitch in for the cake, gift etc but I wrote that I won't be joining. But they have all ignored my message because I got a notification today that I have a dinner reservation for tomorrow. I really hate socializing. I have zero skill and mind space and I know it ruins friendships and relationships but so be it.
The most damning news in a while has been that of Chris Cornell's death. I was not much of a soundgarden fan, even though punk-grunge-industrial-noise is quite my thing. But I was an audioslave fan. Moreover, I loved his voice. The songs he wrote, they spoke to me because they were about the same feeling of a sense of not belonging to the world, that continuous feeling of being an outsider. For a long time I didn't really speak of my depression, I always thought clinical depression was something different than what I had. My friends would also often make the distinction. This only meant that I got help really late in life. It was after 13 years that I started getting help for the most traumatic experience of my life. And yes, I have missed out on so much. I wish I could be 19 again and not have to pretend to be okay and to be strong. I wish I got the space and the help to process the feelings. I only got some validation from friends, and sometimes even they would be like dont talk too much about it. So this why music and the books I've read meant so much to me, they helped me process these unfamiliar feelings.
As my descent into this mental illness deepened, I couldn't relate to most of my friends, I still have a hard time on some days. On somedays it feels so bad, even the roads look unfriendly, sterile and unwelcoming.
I had zero friends in high school, college was more or less the same, it was mostly me pretending to myself that I had solid friendships, I didn't. That goes for most part of my life, but eventually in 20s I did make friends, who are friends, they haven't disappointed me, they haven't told me more than what I mean to them. I've realised that no-bullshit friendship works best for me, and I don't like dealing with 'greys'.
No I am not a band worshiping teenage, but unless you've related to art in the way I have, unless you've seen it as something that helps you make sense of your feelings and pain, you wouldn't know.
Anyway, these are a few of the reasons Cornell's death has hit me hard. and all I would want to say to him is So I blow out the candle and I put you to bed Since you can't say to me now how the dogs broke your bone there's just one thing left to be said
Skipped therapy today, but it was just fucking hot and I couldn't get myself to leave my home at 12 noon. I'll miss seeing her in person, once she leaves for Canada. Yeah, that's one more exit. </3
I've really built a nice relationship with my therapist and I've known her for 3 years now, I'm the only patient she'll do Skype sessions with. So yeah, I feel really special right now.
Day was spent, hurriedly trying to finish off some work, while falling asleep every 30 mins. I am not sure what's happening to me. But my day went weird after my afternoon nap cuz I dreamt that I fucked Jackie Shroff in a ghetto like set up. We smoked up before the nasty, and he was really old and dressed like an old left union Dada from JU. I am not even attracted to that guy. Dafuq is up.
So I sort of completed a week on LCHF diet. Brain fog, headaches etc faded out by yesterday, but I've hit such a bumper. And its all my mistake.
A few months back I was diagnosed with hypothyroid, and Im on the minimum possible dosage of medicine, but I am. I forgot to mention that small detail to my doc. She had asked me to get a few tests done before I started the diet and I came clean for all of them. I got a google reminder that my thyroid quarterly test is due and that's when it hit and I told her about it. And she asked me to stop the diet immediately, and asked me to boil a cup of rice with a few slices of potato and have it for a meal!
By this time, I have bought literally all kinds of stuff you need for this kind of a diet and now Im feeling stupid and also a little sad. I have to lose about 10 kgs of weight and I really thought this diet would help because as we all know, weight loss= 80% diet+20% exercise.
Now I have been sent a new chart of complex carb meals, which would help my thyroid function and possibly keep the calories down. Complex carb meals are easy, along with some rice, boil some vegetables as well. And yeah, thats a perfectly healthy complex carb meal.
Anyway, feeling bummed right now and wondering what would happen to all the cream cheese, bacon and mozzarella in my stomach.
I'm doing much better today I think. I've bought all kinds of cheese possible. I baked some spinach+cottage cheese+broccoli+half cup spring onions with cream and mozzarella cheese. Before I put it to bake, I sauteed these with a bit of garlic in butter and some nice soy sauce. It was delicious, I had a small serving each for the meals.
For beverage, I had a cup of black coffee and a cup of green tea. I snacked on some almonds and walnuts,and had two glasses of butter milk(added a pinch of salt).
It wasn't so tiring today, I could run+yoga for about an hour and half.
I've realized that I really love doing yoga but breathing exercises really get my goat, I just cant. Though I force myself to somehow do those exercises for about 15 minutes.
The only thing about this diet that I really miss is having fruits. I really miss having my watermelons, oranges and apples. I just keep telling myself that in six months, I can get back to eating fruits and all things I love.
I feel so fagged out, thanks to the low carb diet. My friend tells me this will happen for a couple of weeks, I'll get headaches, feel dizzy, cranky etc but once my body adjusts to it, it will not hurt so much.
I slept for 4 hours in the afternoon and I am yawning again as I type.
I have so much work to finish before I sleep, I think Im gonna die.
Thats the name of a cheesy song by the Spice girls.
My friend K, or as I now call her, K dawg(I know, the 30s have hit us hard...on the head)...so yea K dawg left for her hometown yesterday and we really tried to not cry at the airport, but then we did. I mean we werent that kind of great friends before she got here, just that we knew each other for close to a decade. But us staying together, and both of us being at the same curve in our lives, I think we've built a different kind of solidarity and love. Last night I really felt lonely, I cried on the phone for a bit, looked at all our selfies taken in the past two months and in the morning I woke up feeling better.
I think its been a while that Ive known that I do not want a marriage kind of a family set up, I love companionship and I seek to make a different kind of a support infrastructure for myself. Hence, I really treasure my friendships. My friendships will be my lifelong relationships. So as friends we practiced not to place a romantic love above than the other relationships, and that the care an that sense of companionship is going to stretched beyond the partners'. So we try to be there for each other's important days. Its difficult, yes, its quite difficult actually, because then you are looking out for quite a few people at the same time and therefore having a few solid friendships helps, so that there'll be someone atleast! Ive grown up in a family and society where women value their marriages above their personal relationships, because after a point their women friends also tend to do the same. Its a vicious circle, but its a circle, we hope to break.
So anyway getting back to the point, Ive realised the importance of building solid friendships and now I try, very hard, to do that. My therapist and I were talking about something and I realised that last time I really really made friends was maybe 2011 or 12? After that Ive only left friends behind, or they've given up on me and left. Ive not also seriously fallen in love, till date its the same old characters in my life. So thats why K leaving has left a hole in my heart. I miss having a wholesome friendship around me, which is not tiring and draining.
Making new friends is such a suck. How does one even begin? I hope to magically find some answer to this someday, because who knows what tomorrow may bring?
I listen to a lot of Malian music these days, these guys are one of my favourites. They are both blind, Amadou lost his eyesight at 16 and Mariam at 5, look at them being just so ridiculously talented.
