Coach bags, Manolo Blahnik shoes and New York City

Warning: A large portion of this post is going to be mindless rambling, but I need to vent and I rarely need an audience for that. And if you love Coach bags, or Manolo Blahnik shoes or New York City, and you're still reading this, my apologies.
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Recently I had the misfortune of encountering a relative I simply just dont like. We're as different as chalk and cheese, me and her. The trouble is, while I make my dislike for her obvious and she knows it and the whole world knows it, she insists on playing mind games instead. Pretending we get along. Pretending we're similar after all. To her own convenience. Even though we're not. Not in the slightest bit. Dont you hate it when people do that? Pretend to be diplomatic and polite and hypocritically, sugary sweet when all you want from them is to be real? The only good that comes out of this extremely disastrous relationship is the fact that she makes me appreciate my own life a little more every time I encounter hers. I know, I know, I sound a little bitchy but she does have that effect on me.

So in a sickeningly saccharine display of her fake affections toward me, Ms. Snobby-two-shoes gifted me a sickeningly pink 'Coach' bag. For anyone who hasn't been living under a rock for the past decade, a 'Coach' bag, right along with Manolo Blahnik shoes, represents the epitome of having made it to Carrie Bradshaw status in Sex and the City. Think snotty looking purses and shoes that cost hundreds of dollars. And she is a Carrie Bradshaw of sorts. Because the concept of success in her head is analogous to how many Coach bags you own, and whether the clothes in your wardrobe are true designer wear, and whether or not you live in New York City, the mecca of all Carrie Bradshaw wanna-bes.

I dont own a Coach bag. I dont care for designer clothes. And I dont want to live in New York City. Mighty unsuccessful, huh? And I'm okay with it.

Because what I do want is a life full of experiences. In the end, stuff is just stuff. It sits in your wardrobe, you staring at it, it staring back at you. And while it tries really hard to dress you and give you an image, in the end it doesnt have any say in who you are. But the experiences you live, those are what truly define you. I want to live my life to the fullest. Travel new places. Experience new experiences. Be enveloped in new cultures. Have no regrets over what I didn't get to do. And when I'm 90, I know I will remember the day I went white water rafting down the Colorado River or went camel riding in the Rajasthan. What I will not remember is the hideous color of the Coach bag I owned in 2008.

PS. Any bets on how long it will take before I sell the Coach bag on ebay?

PSS. I do not hate New York City. I do want to see New York City, but only for its architectural beauty, its cultural diversity. Not for a shopping extravaganza. And not to live in it.

Crappy, crappy day

I feel absolutely miserable. :( I want to crawl into my bed, curl up in fetal position and have a good cry.

It was my first day of my clinical rotations today, and talk about everything that could go wrong going wrong. I showed up LATE for my clinicals on the FIRST day. Who does that?! I swore I would never be THAT person. I woke up this morning to a gigantic headache (I think I'm down with a bug and there couldnt be more wrong timing for this), it snowed enough to build a snowman on my car the night before, the roads were icy, I parked in the wrong parking lot, almost had my car towed before I was able to get it to the right parking lot, had a photo ID taken where I look racoon eyed and horrible, and spend my day having an awful case of nervous jitterbugs on my first day to work. And I actually want these guys to hire me after I'm done with the rotations?! I wouldnt hire me right now! I really need a job after this to start paying my student loans and I'm supposed to be doing an outstanding job so that they'll want to hire me or they'll give me these really nice recommendations that can get me a job elsewhere and instead I ended up looking like a ditzy blonde on her first day at work. I am so majorly pissed at myself, so dissapointed with everything, and I need today to just end.

Oh, and did I mention I drove down the wrong way on a one -way?! Yeah. That's a whole time low even for me.

UPDATE: Erm. I feel foolish about my dramatic outburst. They did like me after all. And I did get the job. Despite all that^ :D

Road Rage

I hate driving. No, I don't mean I dislike driving. I mean I really, really HATE driving. I may just well be the world's worst driver. To me, driving is all about getting from point A to point B and all those traffic lights, stop signs, speed bumps, pedestrians, other cars etc etc are just annoying little nuisances that get in my way as I'm going from point A to point B. I don't understand people who roll down their windows, turn up the music, one hand on the steering wheel, whistle and enjoy a "good" drive. Nah. Me, I'd rather be the person sitting next to that person. You know, the person who's stretched out lazily, enjoying the cool breeze blowing through her hair, listening to the music, watching the road go by, and letting my thoughts ramble wild as I simply ride along.

I've always known I hated driving, but I've never quite realized just how many things really annoy me about driving. Apparently, the rage runs deep.

Parallel parking. Honestly, it's the invention of the devil himself. Half the world humbly acknowledges it's impossible to do, but then the other half of the world just goes ahead and insists on parallel parking anyway, making the rest of us look stupid. Which idiot came up with this one anyway? Why cant we all just get along and park however we feel like? So some of us are good at parking with our tails sticking out and some of us can parallel park. Big deal. Just park the darn car and get out of it. What does it matter if you're on the yellow line or within it? Isn't the much more important fact that that you've made it to your destination? But no, we've got to fuss over being inside a line and over a line. Sheeeeeesh.

A slow truck clambering slowly down the inner lane as I'm about to enter the freeway. Should I slow down as I enter? Wait. The truck's going real slow. If I slow down, I might as well stop. But there's another car behind me. And this is the goddamn freeway. Maybe I should just speed up and go cut infront of it and then speed up reeeal good and I'll be fine. Wait. Too late for that thought. Okay, here's the truck going by now. Right. Oh well. So much for all that thinking. I'm on the freeway now. Maybe indecisiveness is my REAL problem.

An overspeeding me behind an overspeeding truck. An overspeeding me trying to overtake the overspeeding truck. Why? Because all trucks by virtue of their being a truck scream "overtake me". But not this one. Because this truck doesnt even really believe it's a truck. It actually thinks it's a cruiser. When it's not. It's just a truck. A truck which is overspeeding and speeds even faster when it sees me trying to overtake it. Damn trucks! They should all just have a special underground tunnel built just for them.

People sitting next to me while I'm driving instructing me on where to go.

"It's a left here." *left blinker* blink* *blink*
"oh wait, nope a right...yeah, yeah, definitely a right." *right blinker* *blink* *blink*
"Oooh. This looks unfamiliar. I think it was a left after all." *left blinker again* *blink* *blink*.

Or

"On this exit" as I see the exit fly by.

Or

"Turn here" Screeeeech. "No, not here as in right here. Here as in here, the next one"

Sheeeeesh.

And for the record, I dont handle criticism very well. It's one thing for me to know that I'm a bad driver. But I'm not exactly thrilled when someone else points that out to me. "You just blew off a red light!" "Er. No I didn't. It was orange when I zoomed past" "It turned red when you whizzed through" "Yeah, whatever. Next time, YOU drive"

Maybe someday all my dreams will come true and I wont have to drive. Maybe gigantic conveyor belts will replace the freeways of the world and all we'll have to do is sit on one as it delivers us to our workplace or to the mall or wherever. Or maybe some really smart, frustrated driver somewhere will come up with an intelligent car that drives itself. Or maybe I'll just relocate to a place with better public transport. Until then....sigh...drive I must.

HONK! HONK!

~vagabond~ © 2007

Writer’s Blog

I have a bad case of writer’s blog…err…block.

I’ve thunk and thunk and this is all I can come up with.

*blank look*

*chirp* *chirp*

*nervous cough*

Umm... Err...Ahem...Writer’s block.

Alright, so any moment now it’s gonna happen. Those hopelessly tangled knots of thoughts within my head are going to come loose and splatter themselves all across my computer screen.

AAAAAAAARGH!

Nope. Nothing yet.

I haven’t written a blog in over three months. You know how every semester you have that one teacher who is completely irrational, totally unreasonable, unbelievably arrogant and drives you absolutely nuts? Yup. In a humiliating conspiracy by fate, I had four of those the past semester. And between studying for stressful exams, writing technical papers and giving technical presentations, any creative juices that I may have had flowing within my being have been sapped dry. Not that there was too much to begin with. Creative juice, I mean. But just enough to fuel occasional rants over the state of the universe or sad monologues over things that made me nostalgic or just records of events that made me happy, angry or sad (just in case God forbid someday I forget the things that made me mad). But right now, it’s all dry. Not even a drip of creative juice flowing in those blogger veins.

Zilch. All dry.

So in the sad pursuit of elusive inspiration, I surfed through the internet. Again and again. From cover to cover. I may just have scrolled on to the end of the internet too. And sorry no, for those of you who were searching, there is no pot of gold at the other end of the internet. Just endless rants and monologues by one happy blogger after another over the sad state of the universe.

Nope. Nothing there to break my dry spell.

Coffee. That ought to do it. I need a good old coffee shop inside a good old bookstore. Barnes and Nobles with a Starbucks inside. A well brewed cup of coffee at a window seat of a bookstore surrounded by endless aisles of words is what I need. And it’s snowing outside. Even better. Sweeet. This is going to be great. Best way to jumpstart my brain into cranking out a blog.

*Mind numbing silence*

Nope. Did not work. On the bright side, I am now highly caffeinated.

So I finally figure maybe the best way to make this sad state of affairs end is to just write…to ignore my inability to write and to write anyway…to blog away. Even when I’ve got nothing to say. To blog despite my blogger’s blo(g)ck. To just keep going against all odds. To…holy crap…wait a minute….did I just write up a blog?!

I’ve written up a blog!

~vagabond~ © 2007

It's a procrastinator's life

If there were an annual award given out for procrastinator-of-the-year, hands down I'd win it every year, without even breaking a sweat. So in celebration of the one thing that I'm really, really good at, here's my list of things that I'm procrastinating on right now, this very minute:

1. Sorting out my whites and my darks so that at some future date, I can actually get my laundry done in an organized fashion. I will get it done soooon, you know.

2. Replying to one of my closest friend's fourth (or is it fifth?) email asking me if I'm going to be attending her wedding in August in Seychelles. "No!" The answer is "No!" but I just don't have the heart to reply and say, "No, I will not be attending your wedding because flying to Seychelles would be the quickest way to empty out every last dime I have within my meager bank account...but that doesnt mean I dont love you or that we arent as close as we used to be...what?!...do you really think it's easy to say no to seychelles?! come on!"

Yup. So instead I choose to procrastinate.

3. Returning my aunt's zillionth phone call in the past month to express concern over the fact that I'm still not married. Sheeeeesh. I miss the good old days when she still lived in India, long distance cost a fortune, and phone cards were a thing of the future.

To call or not to call is the question.

4. Returning books that are waaaay overdue at the library. Maybe they wont even notice they're overdue if I just don't show up at the library ever again. ;)

5. Replying to emails from people who call themselves my friends, but who really are only my friends by virtue of wanting to know exactly what I'm doing with my life, so that they can tell me how much better they're doing in their life. :/ I've had enough of "Do you have kids yet? Oh, I'm only just asking because I just gave birth to a baby boy last month." Seriousssly, were we even competing? I didn't know, otherwise I'd have gone over to Malawi along with Madonna and adopted a kid.

6. Going grocery shopping. There's nothing wrong with an appetizer of stale crackers, an entree of ramen noodles, and the last bits of icecream left in the tub as dessert. I'm doing just fine with my three-course meals, just so you know. :|

7. Getting rid of my junk mail. No, I don't want another credit card. And while I do enjoy leafing through the Avon catalogs that you people keep sending me, I never buy anything. And why send me coupons for take out and delivery places that don't even deliver within this zip code?! I've reached a point where I peek into my mail box, look at all the junk mail lying in there waiting for me, stuff it all back into the mailbox and walk back into my apartment cool and composed without any mail. 8)

This ought to do it for today. Now, this is true therapy. Try it. Got a list of your own? Do share. :)

~vagabond~ © 2007