I'm back! ~Adult~ Birthday Celebrations

TL;DR - I've found many birthday ideas to make this month wonderful despite being broke, tired, and chronically lazy. ☆

I'm one of those people who goes overboard in celebrating my birthday. I'm not sure how I came to find getting a year older such an exciting prospect, but for as long as I can remember I've celebrated my existence as a continued gift to this world by treating the entire month of August as one long party.

Over the past year I've gone through some ~stuff~ which kind of put a damper on my birthday last year. I felt like there was nothing to celebrate, though I did do the obligatory obliteration of my memories of the night with a few close friends. I had no job, no man, my health was not great, and my ambition was at an all time low. For me, one night celebrating at a bar was such a cliche it was as good as not celebrating at all, compared to previous years! To put that into context - for my golden birthday, 23, I was in Budapest the entire month of August for work and I traveled to Vienna, Ibiza, Dusseldorf, Rome, Geneva and Bern as well. On the actual day I went exploring along the Danube river and partied all night at a Hungarian bar called Peaches and Cream. I am the queen of birthday celebration. But last year I didn't do so well.

At the beginning of August this year, my mindset was sort of similar. I was going to go to Olive Garden with my family, a longstanding tradition, and that was it. I have bills to pay, sleep to catch up on, and not a lot of friends in the Milwaukee area. Celebrating seemed like more work than it was worth. But at some point my attitude shifted. Though it may be a glaringly obvious observation, I've concluded that I don't need to run through sprinklers or have a boyfriend or visit the Schonbrunn palace in order to properly commemorate this day. As an Adult™, there are many small but wonderful ways to celebrate! So this is what I'm doing/have done this year and I highly recommend it all if you, like me, have tired of drinking to celebrate absolutely everything and are looking for something more fulfilling. I'm chronicling it because I'm so over the top excited I just cannot contain myself (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and also because I have made a resolution to focus on positive things etc.

1. Visited the tiny children - everyone who knows me is aware that my brother and sister are my favorite people on the planet, so I visited them at the beginning of the month. They were off school, and we spent the week watching movies, eating ice cream, swimming in the pool, and playing board games, among various other shenanigans. Though adults can generally be relied upon to let you down, children can always be relied on to have an amazing time with at Chuck E. Cheese.

2. Planned a horse riding day - though this and everything below is yet to transpire, I'm really very extra excited about it. The last time I went on a proper horse ride was at least fifteen years ago, so I'm not exactly well equipped for this and am more than a little nervous, but animals are amazing and horses are beautiful so I'm doing it anyway. A small group of friends and I are going to go out to a ranch in the Wisconsin countryside and we'll have a picnic and there will be lots of bugs...but I am optimistic.

3. Getting my hair done - every girl knows the secret to having an amazing day is getting a your hair professionally blow dried, and since this year I basically am a real life Rapunzel I am totally capitalizing on this for exactly $19 because groupon.

4. Volunteering at the Humane Society - Though my tiny bunny is the light of my life, one animal is simply not enough for me. So before I get my hair cut I am going to volunteer with the little dogs and smother them with love and affection. I expect that their resulting goodwill will be a wave I can ride for the rest of the day.

5. Taking a yoga class with my absolute favorite Milwaukee teacher, Marietta Pucillo at Yama Yoga - classes with Marietta always leave me feeling pleasantly limber and relaxed, like I could be an Olympic gymnast if I wasn't about to have the best nap of my life. The fact that Yama gave me a free class credit for my birthday is just delicious icing.

6. Getting a Sephora makeover! These are, apparently, free with a $50 purchase which I will be making anyway to stock up on my green powder lols (yum)! Can't wait to leave Sephora looking like Kylie Jenner.

7. Getting (free) birthday drinks at Rosie's with Amy and a 2016 mug to add to my collection - this has become another Milwaukee tradition of mine, and I dread the day when I will be in another city and miss a year. Armed with my blow dried hair, my Sephora approved face, and free beer mug, I will be unstoppable.

8. Getting a facial at Aveda - this is a pre birthday treat which actually has nothing to do with my birthday and just happens to coincide with the time that Aveda was doing free facials for rewards members to introduce their new skincare line. But I'll take it.

9. Movies on movies on movies - this is also kind of a coincidence in that a lot of good movies just happened to come out this month, but I am attributing it to the secret world plan to make August the best month.So far I've seen Ice Age (pretty good but I saw it with my sister so it was a top notch day) and Bad Moms (HILARIOUS) and I will be seeing Sausage Party next week which by all accounts should be amazing.

10. Birthday rewardsss! These are way too numerous to mention but suffice it to say that if you sign up for enough rewards programs and mailing lists you will feel like a queen for the ENTIRE MONTH. So far I have gotten freebies from Aveda, GNC, Gigi's cupcakes, Yama Yoga, Sephora, and several others. I didn't have to spend a dime (though in some cases...I did cave). Yes please.

11. Good deeds - this is sort of in the same vein as volunteering at the humane society, but I read an interesting article online that suggested celebrating your birthday by doing random acts of kindness for others. Because I am way too selfish, materialistic and hungry to celebrate in this one very altruistic way, I am making it only a part of my day.

12 Getting a massage - this also happening pre birthday (tonight) because I don't want to feel sleepy and moist while I'm trying to celebrate my existence (although I suppose on my actual birthday...I was likely both sleepy and moist).

12. And of course...dinner at Olive Garden with my family and Delishmish in my new bunny print shorts. I plan to eat for three.

Pilates & Yoga for life lessons

It's past midnight, so it's officially Valentine's day. And as of a few days ago I am officially single for it. Hooray!

The past few days have been hard. I'm not sure who I want to share this with. I'm not trying to convince anyone, reader. I know they've been hard. I'm not trying to convince myself. Sometimes I find myself wanting to tell him, which is silly, because he knows this too. I wish I had more friends nearby. But I am grateful that I have wonderful friends to call on for strength and motivation and validation, when I need it, even if they are scattered around the country and the world.

But you know what, I feel good. My muscles are very, very, sore. I've kicked up my workout game a few notches. Hour long Pilates sessions every day, no excuses. Yoga afterwards. I'm finding that Yoga helps a lot. When I'm left to my own devices I'm very fidgety. Practicing Yoga, pretty much any pose, really centers me. If it's easy, that's great, and I give myself a pat on the back for being more flexible than I give myself credit for. And if it's hard, then I will be more flexible tomorrow. If it hurts, tomorrow it will hurt less (except in some cases, when it hurts more before it hurts less - gotta love those).

Pilates and Yoga keep me disciplined, they keep me focused on myself and on becoming better every day. I'm committed to this now. And I try to bring the lessons I'm learning into the rest of my life. Like I said, if it hurts today, it will probably hurt less tomorrow. And if it doesn't, I know that over time it will go away and it will make me stronger. Soon, I'm going to be okay. That's my new mantra. I cried all of Wednesday night, all of Thursday, and some of today. I'm a little ashamed, though I know I shouldn't be and I'm trying not to judge myself. But I'm going to be okay. I feel this with certainty. If I can keep moving, and not collapse onto the floor (which I admit I did on Wednesday when I got home), then I will be okay. It will all be okay. With or without him, or anybody else. Because I am with myself.

Corporate America or your happiness?

I am on the cusp of becoming a corporate sellout. Let me preface this by saying that I don't mean this to be a rant about my job or company specifically. I, like most people probably, want my company to flourish in the market and enjoy the hoi polloi's goodwill. Mainly for selfish reasons but also because I think the leaders here at some level care about the right things - personal development, employee satisfaction, corporate social responsibility, etc. And I enjoy working here as much as I believe anyone can enjoy working in a corporate atmosphere. I truly believe that my company is one of the better ones to be at, from a personal and professional point of view.

However. That is not to say that of all the life choices one could make, having a corporate job is the most satisfying. When I first forayed into the grown up world I had this idea that your career and your life purpose should be one and the same, and that this is a very realistic goal. A couple months in and I realized I was an idealistic youth with misplaced ideas about happiness. There is no way that this job - or any corporate job - can become my life's passion or a source of perpetual contentment for me. Running system tests on a sales application in no way trumps the very real and meaningful experience of training a puppy at the animal shelter or serving food to the homeless. To compare the two ways of life would be ludicrous. I thought about quitting and working at a non profit - I was actually told by an executive that that would probably make me very happy - and then the same executive told me I would probably earn about a quarter of what I currently make if I did that. And that is the grim truth about Corporate America, friends. They buy your soul in exchange for pay raises and flexible work hours and dental.

It's hard to crush young people's ideals. Let me tell you. I am a vehemently idealistic young person. Nearly two years into working full time I am still convinced that this job cannot make me, or anyone, truly happy. Up until a few weeks ago my long term plan was to quit eventually to go back to school and/or do something more fulfilling and altruistic with my time. And then something terrifying happened to me. A finance manager asked to reschedule a meeting I set up with him because this is a busy week for finance - this is the time of year when all the executives go back and forth over which projects need to be funded and finance has to figure out how to orchestrate it all, essentially - and I found that I was interested in the process. Not only because it impacts me (now I have to reschedule my meeting!) but because I was genuinely curious about the timeline and deliverables and how it all works. So I walked over to my colleague Lacey's cube and had the whole process explained to me very thoroughly. Then I walked back to my desk feeling very happy and satisfied with myself* OH MY GOD I'm becoming a cyborg.

My dream of going back to school, making the world a better place, and finding true fulfillment in what I do with the majority of my time is at war with the practical side of me that knows financial stability and health benefits are somewhat indispensable commodities. It is very tempting to pay off my college loans and buy an overpriced Kate Spade handbag. Is that settling? What do you think?



*Not, like, a deep and abiding satisfaction with my contribution to this earth. This is the empty corporate version that you experience when you understand a particularly convoluted problem that could only ever exist in Corporate America to begin with.

Portrait

Come in from the snow and take off your boots otherwise you’ll get frostbite and your little toesies will fall off, you don’t want that, good girl…and now the other foot, there and now mumma will make you a castle by the heater.

The grey sofa cushions are very much taller than her and they make a cozy fort to keep the heat in nicely and she can feel her toes again and it is almost her favorite part of playing in the snow except for when her father pulls her around the block in her sleigh. The sleigh is red and it is new. Except sometimes Sean comes too and he is mean so she does not like him. But her mother has told her she must be nice to him because it is Manners and besides his parents bought the light blue and dark blue house next to hers. Her house is red and green and white and there are wild raspberries in the backyard and a big mulberry tree on the deck. When the berries fall on the deck they make a dark stain and her father can get very angry about that.

She is given her berries to eat in the kitchen which has a shiny white floor. It does not stain. She knows because she has spilled berries on it before. And when her grandmother cleaned it up her mother had said Don’t Spoil Jahnavi.

*insert cryptic Joyce-like diamonds*

It was warm under the blankets. So warm that she did not want to get up, but her mother was talking to her softly and she knew that it was time to get ready for school. Her mother had laid out a pair of jeans and a yellow shirt with a sunflower on it for her to wear after she showered. Her mother was very keen on showering in the morning. So was her grandmother. Something about energy but she never had much energy to begin with, at least according to Miss Sellers. Miss Sellers was always telling her to Look Alive in Gym class but she wasn’t quite sure what that meant. Honestly she wasn’t quite sure what to make of Miss Sellers either, who had very short hair and kind of looked like a boy. But her mother said Miss Sellers was definitely a girl. But it was still hard to believe sometimes because why would a girl teach Gym. Anyway, she was pretty sure she was alive even if Miss Sellers didn’t think so. And running around the field for Exercise was so very tiring, especially in the sun. Besides, if she ran an entire lap then she had to pass the big gray house behind the trees on the far side and all the older kids in the fifth grade said it was haunted. And she knew that the fifth graders were always right because they were so much taller than she was and kids didn’t lie to other kids the way grown-ups sometimes did, like when her father had told her he wasn’t divorcing her, only her mother, but then he still moved into another house and he only took her around the block on Thursdays and only if she rode her own bicycle, which was hard and sometimes she skinned her knees.

Picking the dandelions that grew along the edge of the field was a lot more fun than doing laps and that was how she had met Samantha, who didn’t like Gym either. Samantha’s mother was a hair cutter and sometimes she did free haircuts for Samantha’s friends. One day she said Do you want a haircut Jahnavi and Jahnavi said yes, and after that she always got free haircuts and she and Samantha were best friends.

After she had put on the shirt with the sunflower on it her mother gave her a glass of milk and a jam sandwich and drove her to school. School was very loud because of all the kids screaming and running around like little angry heathens and she really didn’t want to go, but her mother had to go to work so she squared her small shoulders under her big backpack and got out of the car. She allowed herself to be buffeted along towards the stairwell, which was where Ms. Fraser took attendance before everyone got to go into the building. She tried to stay by the wall and remain inconspicuous but somehow she found her path blocked by Ryan Emery, who said nastily Your head’s so small, I bet your brain is really small too. There’s no one with a smaller head than you. She looked up at him and tried not to have the afraid expression on her face. He was very much taller than she was but he was not a fifth grader: he was in her class and mostly the only time he ever talked to her was to tell her that her head was too small. In kindergarten there had been a girl named Corey whose head was even smaller than Jahnavi’s, but they both knew that it didn’t matter how big your head was as long as you got A’s on the weekly spelling tests. And anyway Corey had moved away when they got to the first grade and Jahnavi thought that it was so sad that they didn’t get to enjoy being big kids together.

The Fat Uncle

The fat uncle first of all is from "foreign." Not America – he has not made it that far – but from Europe or Australia. Because of this the fat uncle is laboring under the delusion that he is always right. Delusion, I say, because this is nearly always untrue. The fat uncle visits India only once or twice every decade, and he calls it ‘my country’ in as patronizing a manner possible – “In foreign, they give you big-big ice cream scoops, and I am telling in my country one ice cream scoop is not even half the size!”. This is another thing – the fat uncle doesn’t have any grammatical skills to speak of and refuses point blank to accept it. His English is also heavily accented, which for some reason becomes even more extreme when he is in public, as if he is trying to prove something.

The fat uncle has a fanny pack. He has a camera also. He will bring these two items with him everywhere. The fanny pack resides under his ample stomach rolls and no one knows what it contains, but he tucks his thumbs under the straps importantly as if its contents are of national importance. The camera is a source of constant interest to him. It is an SLR and is of course equipped with multiple lenses, flash diffuser and all. He will take all this out and always be screwing and unscrewing something. Then he will take aim ostentatiously, preferably cutting across your line of sight, and when he takes a picture it will make a loud ‘click’ sound. He has set it up like this to make sure you know he is very good in photography.

And God forbid you live in America and the fat uncle decides to drop in. He will bring his fanny pack and his camera and he will be unbearable. He will force you to take him sightseeing and he will insist that you stop at all the places on the freeway marked ‘tourist view point’ and he will take out his camera and take many ‘scenic’ shots. Then he will ask many questions and compare all your answers to what it is like in foreign (Europe or Australia or whatever). If you go anywhere the fat uncle will cling to you like a wart plaster and nothing you say will dissuade him. Even if you are going out to buy vegetables and toilet cleaner he will insist on accompanying you. Then he will adjust all the settings in your car – stereo volume, back rest, everything and he will talk so loudly he will give you a headache. And he will probably stick his arms out of the window on the freeway too. Then when you reach the shopping mall he will be tired (from what?) and decide to wait by the fountain while you complete your work, and when you come back he will be taking pictures with his camera again. When you ask to see these pictures he will tell you they have not turned out well and he will pretend to delete them, but actually he is just worried you will upload them to your computer and try to pass them off as your own (he has great faith in his talent).

When you reach home he will collapse on the couch and occupy the whole thing also (after all he is the fat uncle). He will sit like Ganesha and look like he is waiting for you to feed him grapes. If any small children come near him he will poke and prod them until they are dissuaded from occupying such a location. Then he will drag himself off to shower and when he comes back he will refuse to play with the children (that he has only previously riled up) because he has had enough exercise from accompanying you to buy toilet cleaner and after all he has just showered, besides.

Finally the day will come when it is time for him to fly home. On the way to the airport he will ask many questions whose answers can be found on the roadside signs, and then he will answer them himself as if he has figured it out all on his own. After all this is his last chance to show that he is very knowledgeable even if he is not living in the same foreign as you. When you reach the airport he will read all the signs out loud as if he is the designated navigator and actually knows where he is going.

After he has gotten his boarding pass he will make you sit with him to give him company, and then he will take out his flashy touch screen cell phone and play games with the volume on high. In between he will get some calls which he will not answer because of the roaming charges, but nevertheless he will let the phone play ‘Cosmic’ (or ‘Rumba’ or whatever ringtone he has chosen instead of a normal ‘Ring 1’) for a full fifteen seconds before dismissing the call. When you tell him it is late and you want to go home he will insist that you accompany him all the way to security, just in case there is something in his bag that is not allowed (hasn’t he flown to America from his foreign? Doesn’t he know you can’t take water bottles through security?).

Once he is through security he will wave forcefully at you for at least ten minutes, and then he will gesture regretfully that he has to go (he has probably only just figured out in which direction his gate is) as if he is depriving you of some very basic happiness by taking his leave.

We all have these uncles. We can’t say anything also. What to do? Athiti devo bhavah.

You bet I'm an AB(no C)D

Born to Indian parents in America, I don’t really count as an immigrant. But there are some differences between me and the other Indians born here – back home we call them ABCDs, American Born Confused Desis – that make me feel like one. My accent, for instance. My roommate, one of the only people comfortable with commenting on my accent, says I pronounce the “th” sound in “thank you” like a “t”, making it sound like “tank you.” I don’t see it. But I don’t see a lot. There are so many things high school in India neglected to teach me – that blt stands for bacon, lettuce, and tomato, or that in America, movie tickets rarely have to be bought in advance (in India, tickets to a first day showing have to be bought as soon as they go on sale, or chances are you won’t get to see the movie until everybody else on the subcontinent has). Sure, I learned to solve diff eqs before anyone in AP math had heard of them, but only after living in America a year did I break the habit of giving truthful responses to the worn out question “How are you?”, or realize that telling friends’ parents about “my boyfriend” wasn’t going to make me seem racy or impertinent (in India, although the mindset towards “dating” continues to soften, many parents still see it as almost shameful for their teenage children to have significant others). Although you’d think, me being born here and all, that my brown skin would be the only things to delineate me from everyone else, there is an astounding amount of difference between us.

In India too though, my friends tell me I stick out like a sore thumb – affectionately, of course. Apparently my Indian accent has developed an “American twang” – again, something I don’t see. But there are some manifestations of my “American-ness” that have convinced me that maybe the countless people who tell me I’ve changed have a point. For example, auto drivers no longer nod unquestioningly when I name MG Road as my destination – they try to charge me twice what the meter would record, and are surprised when I point this out, or point them in the right direction when they try to take me via a longer route. When relatives ask me how life in America is, I have to bite my tongue to keep from offering the standard answer “good,” and remember to give them the detailed response they really want. When older relatives learn that I don’t live at home, it takes me a moment to figure out why they look surprised – in India, living alone before even getting a job is practically unheard of. Most live with their parents until they get married, or until they start work, at the very least. People are also impressed with my job at the library, and find it odd that is not only normal to work while in school, but also necessary. My dress sense is different now, my taste buds less accustomed to spicy Indian food, less eager for (to me) bland Italian or similar– the first time I came home from college over the summer and asked for dosa and chutney, my servants (yes I have servants, everyone in India does. Get over it) looked at me with incredulity, amazed that I wasn’t asking for an omelette or pancakes. All small things, really. But smooth a corrugated edge even a little, and it will no longer fit in its niche, will it? I’m different enough not to fit in here, but changed enough not to fit in there, either.

I’ve lived in America for two years now, and I am well trained to answer “How are you?” with “Good, how are you?” no matter how badly my day is going. I now not only know what a blt is, I am almost tempted to order one sometimes. I still haven’t learned how to say “thank you,” though – I might be American Born, but I’m still a Desi.

Untiltled

I know I’m not your type.

I know you are going to reel me in, because you are perfect on paper.

I know I’m going to fall for you and skin both my knees. Probably my elbows too, because I'm clumsy like that.

I know you will convince me to open up to you like I never have with anyone else, and I know you’re going to shut me down.

I know you are going to tell me that it isn’t that I’m not good enough; it’s that we have “irreconcilable differences.”

I know you are going to disappoint me in the worst way possible.

But fuck all that. Here, take my heart.

On Being Alone

Ever since I can remember, my relationships have been, for lack of a better term, collectively dysfunctional. My parents are divorced and while I don’t particularly blame them, I feel like this fact is partially responsible for my descent into… into god knows what this is. This refusal to be by myself.

It’s ridiculous, really. My childhood was brimming with people and love. I was surrounded by light and happiness for the most part, and while the occasional incongruous memory surfaces, time is the distance that helped me control them – with every passing year, although they remained just as potent, I learned to lock those painful remembrances down. I tell myself that this ability to control myself (or my inability to deal, whichever you want) is a talent I must hone.

I’m not a particularly daughterly daughter to my father. A few years ago there existed someone I might’ve been a better daughter to – but for reasons I don’t feel like going into now, that didn’t work out. Another relationship axed. Over the years my mother has become my clichéd “pillar of strength,” but I don’t like leaning on people (or I do, but I don’t trust myself not to lose them, so I don’t let myself lean). I cannot really distance myself from her, but I have moved away for college. With every visit, I feel like we have less in common, less that we agree on.

On the whole I prefer male company. Girls are unintelligible, because we are so varied – unless I can find some part of myself in a girl, I can’t bring myself to spend time with her. And it is rare that this happens. Boys, on the other hand, are more or less cut from the same cloth and stitched with the same color thread. If you can make a man laugh, are willing to show a little skin, and make him feel more capable than you are, you can bend almost any to your will. I know this from experience. This is why men are so easy to be with. They are easy to understand.

I like having a love interest. One you have found one, given my understanding of boys, it is not hard to be his love interest – it is finding one suitable for the position of yours that is the trouble. My love interests are the most stable men in my life – which is simultaneously why I always need one, and why losing them tends to be detrimental if I can’t find a replacement asap. In general, I can tell when it is over. Most of the time I will make the break myself. This allows me to be in control. This is also why it sucks that I was not the one to do it this time.

With no preparation to be alone, being alone is sucking more epicly then I have ever imagined being dumped would suck. Obviously my ex is an unsuitable love interest, and living with my mother the whole summer isn’t going to give me much opportunity to find another. Dilemma? I think yes.

The answer is simple, in theory. I need to learn to be alone. It should be easy. I can do alone everything I’ve done with someone else. Going to movies, or grabbing a coffee – these things don’t require a man. Pshaw. My problem is being alone when I’m alone – in my dorm room when my roommate is in class, or at night, in bed, knowing there is no one wanting to hold me. Knowing there is no one I want to be with who wants to be with me. This is what I need to learn to be okay with.