Monday, December 31, 2012

okay so i've been like boiling water and like breathing into it on occasion cause that helps with congestion, and my dad was just like "who taught you to do that?" and i said "nobody" and he said "my little sister used to do that..." and now i'm crying cause family

Friday, December 28, 2012

i can't believe you still exist, journal.


my mind has shifted from the beginnings of one project, to another.  i'm not sure if i want to do the first one anymore, or rather, i'm not sure if others are willing to give enough of themselves for the first one.  i think i'm ready though.  to give myself for the second one.  it just takes discipline, and the willingness to try to articulate.  i fear that, with this particular subject.  but i shouldn't.  no reason not to take it up in the coming months.

christ, i really must be my father.  he too, after all these years, is gonna try to remember his type-writer skills, and tap away at our desktop mac, for a new newspaper in the cultural community.  he came into my room, and told me, and he was smiling, so take that  cynicism, world views, and sruti!  i jumped in my seat, giddy, exclaimed, "when are you starting?!?!" to which he laughed and said, "i don't know."  it was like asking superman when he was gonna save the world next, and having superman respond in total clark kent humility, that he didn't really know, but he appreciated my enthusiasm.

i told a friend, who had a (4? 5?) year old daughter at the time, that all little girls eventually face a moment where they realize their fathers are in fact, not superhuman.  he said, "when?" i said, "around 6, i guess."  how cruel of me.  really, i had picked an arbitrary answer, because back then i was still uncomfortable with saying the phrase, "i don't know."  his eyes got wide, as this meant he was two years away from breaking the delusion.  i take it back friend!  i am 23, and sometimes i still forget my dad is NOT superhuman.

crowds gather to him.  friends gather to him.  the blessing we get are in due to the sort of respect and admiration he gains from absolute strangers.  it has been to his detriment, as well.  but i, i am like my father.  young, naive, and ready and willing to bare myself, because honesty is one of our greatest addictions.  even if at the cost of trust.

i don't know why i am so particular about this past week.  i keep telling everyone that my friends finally returned, and that made me smile, but - and not to discount the quality of the two - their value is great, but their quantity is low. they were just two friends.  i don't know how to describe it.  a large chunk of it, is definitely lauren's presence in my life.  she is the main person i talk to about most things, so that's a void coming, for sure.  but i don't know.  that day with lauren and jacob??  this past week has just been bliss.

listen, listen.  this is what we do.  and you will come to conclusions after reading this.  perhaps judgemental, perhaps not.  but you should understand, that i already have come to these conclusions myself.  i acknowledge that the bliss of this week is largely due in part to my total privileged existence.  so here's to my twenties.  listen.  we meet up, smoke, eat at my favourite place for lunch, where the sounds play solange knowles, and the visuals stimulate thoughts.  then we walk to the chocolate restaurant a couple blocks down, and share a sundae.  eventually, we end with a coffee.  but all through out, we talk.  we just talk and talk and talk about people, and society, and the way humans function, and the way we're socially conditioned exist, what do genetics say about our relationships with each other, what do we want as women, what's unfair about this culture when it comes to women, and have you noticed how we all have the capacity to read a language no one addresses?  the semantic language of symbols?  which i know is ultimately language itself, but i mean the way we stop at stop signs, and the way we read danger, and what does that mean - from an evolutionary perspective?  yes, maybe.  but if we're still working on that basis, are we as women failing to evolve, or are we achieving at a greater rate, given our maternal, and sexual growths?  why is this all so hard, but damn i love my butt, and skirts.

it's. bliss.

and i stumble home, sleepy, but alert, and a little buzzing from everything the day has inspired and fueled me with.  and oh man, i hope, i hope, i can channel this fuel again, because i've got nothing but time now, kid.  you've. got. nothing. but. time.  you better use this.  you better use this and become her, because you're not the only one excited about her.  you might even be worth something to other people.  you might help.

i think i adore attention.  i want to be challenged, not frustrated.  i want to be held.  but i also want to be lulled to sleep with stories of my beauty.

ever complex, in every way.

perfect boyfriend who would do things like this, we can meet now

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

intellectual stoner life is


it should be noted, that what blankets every aspect of the following, is the kind of intense, giving, gracious, conversation that can happen among individuals who care about what you have to say, and who you in turn, genuinely care to hear what they have to say.  and believe me, only once after they all fly away, do you realize how rare that in fact, is.  also.  note to self, really, really, really, glad every single one of your profile pictures isn't of you and your boyfriend.  really, really glad.

monday:

horrible morning work shift, done by 1.
lunch at k with l and j.  oh the sandwiches, oh the chic-ness.
hiding between a bar and the walls of my recently graduated school, to blaze.

j needs to go buy a comic book.  let's go to the comic book store.

chocolate restaurant.

pretty sure j cried when he hugged me after that one.  i had handed over a key to pure bliss, so i understood.

tuesday:

horrible morning work shift, done by 11.
re-arranged the order.  blaze between bar and walls of school.
then lunch at k with l, where everyone knew.

chocolate restaurant.

bliss.

wanderings.

settle down at the station, with coffee's and intense conversations.

note to self:  tell l to watch tiny furniture, insist on it.  don't think you have in the past.

today:

j and coffee with l, pre-extended family dinner.  oh, that'll be a wonder.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

#Pray

I suppose this ought to be contextualized, given it's cultural significance.  But South Asian Islamic folks, especially of older generations, send a different kind of email than I do - that is, than your average Western 20-year old does.  There are no exclamations, and no lols, but instead there are the words "blessings" and "prayers."  So when my father tells me to help him out with a technical issue - like how to compress and attach some home videos from a family trip to Bangladesh, so that we can send them to one of my father's nephews - I suddenly find myself typing up an email to said nephew, in said South Asian Islamic rhetoric.  My dad says, "oh yeah, and mention how're your doing too.  Ask for prayers."

So I write:

"Sruti is doing well, she has recently graduated university.

Pray for her."

isley brothers describing my saturday






Sunday, December 16, 2012

Is this true?


Someone mythbusters this for me. 

But when I was younger and I had my first period, I was told about the inner-workings of my body, and how the inner lining around my pelvic area were ripping, causing me to bleed.  But because the lines of these walls were ripping, my exterior figure was supposedly changing.  And thus was born Beyonce Hips.  The curve that makes high-waisted things fun, and that allows for the waist of a skirt to cinch your waist just right.  So you tilt, and bat your newly formed luscious eyelashes, pout every so slightly, and brush that last strand of hair in your face, behind the corners of your small ear. 

This is the magic that alludes the men.  

84 Words On Facebook and Why I've Come to Hate It in

"but like i'll get these fbook updates of like X's friend Y who just "liked my comment" on X but Y will have Z who i went to highschool with as a mutual friend
and so for a second i will be all confused like, OMG WHY IS Z TALKING TO ME I HATED HER when in reality Z has nothing to do with X
it is all just one creepy world
of "things you may not realize but let me tell you. everything.""

my dad thinks i'm a writer


sex song #34573945730


Saturday, December 15, 2012

2012-02-15 12:07:00

and then there was the time in jaipur, india. the time we had that nice dinner at that nice restaurant, with the folk dancers, and we watched them, and laughed at dinner, like a real family does. and when we got back to the hotel room, my mom was drunk with silliness, and she started shaking her hips. "dance like her" my dad teases, and she defiantly stands up, and shakes her hips, and giggles at herself, and my dad and i are in our beds, exploding with laughter. because my mom's trying to dance like beyonce, but she's my mom. 

Friday, December 14, 2012

2011-11-05 01:03:00

sunsets without your having realized it, as you pull your knees to your chest, watching red painted toes gaping through your black wool socks. beer bottles on the table, and hearts on sleeves, two girls (who are very bad at being girls), delightfully spill repressed secrets on boys, sex, and the remarkable transition one makes from a weird high school nerd into an intellectual college babe. "you're a girlfriend, and i still like you" one shouts to the other. "you're really cool and totally hot" the other shouts back. 

stumble across to the hip side of town, and share evening lattes and muffins with your best friend who just got off work. take a walk through said hip side of town, and up at the local vegan-feminist majority-lesbian cafe, and wait for an old third-party friend to arrive. chili. grilled cheese. cookies. memories of a couple years ago, of the future, of the friends we love, and hate to love, but love when we hate. "what is wrong with people?" is the layer that blankets the conversation (it tastes bitter)

and then we get to some weird, hip loft, with christmas lights clung by authentic spider webs, and a chalkboard sign that has the word, "BEER" earnestly, half-heartedly, genuinely, scribbled on. friends in a corner, bundled together in a couch. wit and laughs, and then your friend notices something allen ginsberg on the table, next to something asimov. "i'm going to steal this" she says with a giggle. she stole it.

skinny hipster, collared shirt, black sweater friend, leans over the couch, and whispers in your ear to suggestively advise you that, "there are a lot of boys here" and you look around the various jean jackets, black skinny jeans, and striped shirts, simultaneously think, WHERE? and god, i love this city. and then it begins.

one by one, some various twenty year old, or other, with their scraggly legs, and obnoxious hair, and oversized everything, tumbles onto the floor with the same pathetic story. born and raised in bumfuck, somewhere, of this northern country, and they've come to educate themselves in the artiest city they've heard of. teen pregnancies, fumbling sex (they call it frantic fucking though, alliteration is important), and an inclination to holler at their fellow colleagues, and say things like, "right on" instead of, "okay." they are enthusiastic about the state of the world today, and they laugh at the wreck they see in it. so they go, and they read, and your brain is having the most wonderful time figuring out what's happening. because what's happening is that these kids, and their simultaneous pathetic backgrounds, are coming together to channel something in them, that wants out. something that burns when all eyes are on them, and breathes when the applause begins. so they sit there, and some people read your mediocre secrets (it's no fun if you're lying to us, and some are lying, and we can see right through the-), and some let out real secrets. but all are letting it out. in that loft, in space, at that time, with that train passing right bye, right behind the goddamn window, as she's standing their reading a poem. and as you spot the crowd, girls in tights sitting on the ground with various scarves tied around their heads, boys with ties, and necks, and collars, and a disdain for showering, and the pillows and blankets that have been set behind the self-constructed stage, featuring gear for a band that's labeled it's drums with, the words "man + legs," you are thinking how obnoxiously transparent, this total, total, love for the "golden age" (the age that was never yours), is, and you think, my city is alive, and weird, and creativity has a home here. it can be harvested, and spawn truly, weird, weird, things. (have you heard our music?) but these are just kids. kids with the same fears, who wake up with the same shock of having just had sex. and some of their shit is kind of gross, and self-indulgent, and kind of bad, and kind of good, but they are cultivating something you feel in you every single day. at least these losers are touching theirs. no one, not even i, am touching mine.

2011-10-31 23:21:00

i cannot do apocalyptic settings. i think about them all.

the.

time.

my older, wiser friends say that's the source of my anxiety. that i think ahead to that which isn't yet here, and then feel a total loss for anything that isn't in the future. 

last night was sweats, and anxiety, and a tightness in my chest i can't ever get out of. and it wasn't because anything new had happened. the bad is never new. it is always there, but i make do, when i repress it. when i ignore the constant shaking fears that threaten the value i put to my life, and i try to make people laugh. but just because i ignore them doesn't mean they disappear, it means i am trying to continue, regardless. regardless. as in, they are always there. i can feel that tightness under my breasts, like a rock pushed up against my lung cage. things are not better or worse, they are either forgotten or remembered, and on the rare occasions where they are the only things i can remember, then i shake, and i can't breathe, and i sit up suffocating in the silly fear of my own skin.

2011-10-27 08:40:00

really, really, tense household as of late. don't want to be here. feel really bad about that.

school makes no sense. i apply, i get a C+, i don't study and or write papers stream of conscious style/hung over, i get A's. school makes no sense.

i just really want to be dancing this weekend, and making bad decisions with boys. i love boys. it's exhausting.

dude followed me out of class though and asked for my name. i never like those boys. it's exhausting.

2011-09-13 21:07:00

and then today, we're having coffee, and this crazy ole dude stops by and points out b's little richard shirt, and they're doing the crazy polite conversation, and this dude is telling b that little richard is crazy and we all love him for it, and if b's wearing the shirt, b must be crazy too. then the old man gives me a look over and says to b, "you gotta be a little crazy, to get a pretty girl like that" and i blushed and smiled, and the man walked away.

b says, "did you hear that, sruti?"
i blushed and smiled again. i think i shrugged.
b says, "should we have done the whole, uh, no, no, we're not together, we're just friends thing?"
and i said, "why? so we could live out a staple scene in our ever blossoming romantic comedy?"
b blushed and got anxious and grinned a lot.
"look at YOU," i said. "look how he's getting all bashful and anxious."

meanwhile, i got all bashful and anxious, and let my stupid self remember that supposed lingering attraction.

2011-08-14 19:34:00


so i went to a park, smoked a j, downed a beer, and told the unfortunate dude sitting next to me how "fucking dope i am, though." he said my legs felt real smooth.

2011-08-13 22:48:00

"so now shits awkward, and it's my own fault, and i'm feeling very "winter" about it at all. like, crawl into bed with a season of something good, and turn off the phone, and just let everyone realize they would miss me if i was gone. and by they, i totally mean me."

Thursday, December 13, 2012

was i supposed to save you?  is that it?  was i supposed to tell you were beautiful and worth more than you knew?  were you putting that on me?  is this what it feels like to be my friend?

i can't save you.

i can barely look at myself.

so, i can't save you.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

things that make me so happy



"when i see you, i'm gonna kiss you."

"i mean, really kiss you.  put your face to my face, and your lips to mine, and just fucking make out.  i'm gonna put my arms around you and just fucking kiss you.  hard.  is that okay?  cause if it's not, tell me now, or else i'm just gonna do it.  sorry, but not sorry.

i'm just... i'm... i'm gonna kiss you like they do in the movies."

Sunday, December 9, 2012

excerpt from the time lindsay asked me to write a list of 25 things that made me happy, and i could only think of 10


1. beyonce
2. laurens apartment, alcohol, and beyonce dvds
3. joints, at the right time
4. weird, weird, humour
5. cuddling
6. kissing
7. being bare legged (ex: in skirts etc)
8. the smell after it rains
9. that moment when you realize you forgot you existed cause you were too absorbed into that good book you were reading
10. hot showers

i've started something.

i've gone and dipped my toes in another fiasco, and i'm putting on a brave face before i embark on it, but it's been embarked.  x says i have sexuality hang ups, which is not an uncommon opinion.  none of my sexual partners would agree, though.  strangers would definitely disagree.  but people you know for a long period of time, take the effort to analyze you, to try to understand you, to frame you.  so i have sexual hang ups they say.

you look so vulnerable before you're about to come.  is that sentimental?  i don't think so.  every man who's ever seen my naked, has gone completely dumb in the face, post-shirt-off.  this isn't braggadocio  this is awe at the power of the female body.  and when i say dumb, i really do mean dumb.  it's almost unattractive.  well, i find stupidity generally unattractive.  so before you come, you look so vulnerable and far gone, and once it's over, you instantly revert back to your straight, cold, angel-broody face.  which is why i was probably attracted to you, in the first place.

men.

AND.

women.

are horrifically insecure.  so when you try to tell someone that what they're doing is "not nice" and they start yelling at you, it is because no one wants to admit to being capable of being "not nice."  which is stupid, because everyone is capable of being not nice.  i have "criticized" men before, and they have emotionally. shut. down. harder, than i ever have post-intense heartbreak.  and they get pissy, and the make you feel really bad for criticizing them, and say things like, "why are you so critical and mean?" at which point you feel horrible and vulnerable, and basically ready to plead for them back.  because you too, are insecure.  one jab, leads to a defensive jab, which results in a series of defensive jabs.


and that, friends, is relationships.

i've never been in one.



etched in my brain is the conversation i had with a, regarding sexuality.  "vanilla sex" was the term he implied, and for him to suggest that most if not all had vanilla sex??  what a concept!  "you know... some people, are like... starfish..." i stare blankly.  i stared blankly, with a coffee stain, on my newly purchased white-top.  i stared blankly with my tussled hair, and dark eyes, and grumbling stomach.  how, am i, not a member of the vanilla sex category?  how much horrible sex must the majority of the world be having, for me to be considered "freaky" (his words, at that).

i gave a boy a lap dance once.  it seemed like a fun idea.  to which he responded, "do you do this often?  you're... really good at it."

also, a certain song came on, and does no one else make life soundtracks the way i do?  maybe it is telling of my perspective - that i foresee events in a such a way, that i can predetermine what songs to soundtrack them by.  i don't know if i'll ever get married, but i have a wedding ost.  i've had one since i saw my first rom com (and no, i do not remember what that was...) among my wedding ost, i have my funeral ost (i should really work on that one in case of anything...), and a sex ost.  these osts exist in my brain, wherein i bookmark certain things for later.  later, at my wedding.  later, during sex.  later.

yeah, so the song that came on that inspired the lap dance was on my sex ost.

do you, really, still not know what i'm talking about?

sigh.

Friday, December 7, 2012

"Anhedonia - On Relationships"

"You could call that “overeducation,” or you could call it one more instance of “people constantly creating these real unnecessary neurotic problems for themselves that keep them from dealing with more terrifying unsolvable problems about the universe,” or you could call it something else."

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1979/aug/16/letter-from-manhattan/?pagination=false

crying forever


"you want the moon?"


Sunday, December 2, 2012

WHOEVER SRUTI IS, SHE RULES

amazing thing happened today.  had the chance to meet myself, as not me.  i went out awhile ago with some friends, and we got, as they so eloquently suggest, "smashed."  over coffee, this friend told me this story i have 0 memory of, to me, about me.  so it felt like hearing a story about someone else, admiring that person, and then the total delight in realizing that person was you.  try to imagine that, if you can.

"so basically, there were a couple people being lame and not dancing, and i remembered you looked around at one point, looked at me and said "watch this."  then you ran off to a timid guy standing in the corner.  the guy was staring to the ground, at the people, and back, in all his hesitancy.  then you ran up, grinded up and down him for a total of 30 seconds, ran back to me, and we continued dancing.  but dude, like while you were dancing on him, he was like, looking around, totally pleased, and totally like he didn't know what to do with life anymore.  after the 30 seconds was over, you ran back to us and continued dancing.  the dude had the look you left with him on the rest of the night."