Strange brew.

Weird things happen. A series of random events led me to discover (on the net, where else?) three pieces of poetry written about six years ago. Two prove that I've always been this angsted out. The third, that I always wanted to write.

Alkiegirl

Alkiegirl
Runs through a crystal clear vodka maze

Shots for energy
Screwdrivers for war
Bloody Marys for symbolism
Martinis for style

Alkiegirl
Sees life through a crystal clear vodka haze

Olives for nutrition
Tomato juice and tabasco for zing
Tonic for, well, tonic's sake
Ice for climate control

Alkiegirl
Props her eyelids open with celery sticks
Turns the volume down to a manageable din
Loosens her grip on reality
And the lid on the aspirin

Alkiegirl
(I'll have another, thanks)

Not

I'm tomorrow's child, I am
Today asked me to hold on for a bit
Yesterday claims to have never seen my face
I'm firmly put in my place

I'm an uneasy truce, I am
Trapped endlessly between here and there
I'm the pièce-de-résistance of too many cooks
I don't exist outside of books

I'm a contradiction, I am
I question answers, I flow with the go
I conspire with myself to foil the enemy
Then I give myself up, turn to the law, try me

I'm not, I am
Sometimes, at least, that's true
I'm not, I am, I'm not again
And how I wish that I were you

We all have our demons

Mine is a cranky, nagging voice much like my own
That reminds me I wanted to be
A writer.

Which I am.
Just not the kind
The Voice finds
Acceptable.

Copywriting fun, fashionable
Is never 17.65% as respectable
As its less-paying cousin.

The good sister.

Pure for its own sake
Writing.

In the dim, distant hope someday, somehow
Someone will see it for what it is
Its merit.
Dash off
A few million editions.
Announce to
The fickle, fickle world
That it had yet another one
A writer in its midst.

To be followed by cocktail parties, book signings, the occasional newspaper column
Happily ever after.

You always wanted to write the Great Indian
A novel.
28 years is too late, too late
A frightening old time to forfeit, forget
To remember.

Other writers have stolen marches Bookers, Bookers
Over you.

Old, it is.
Too late, maybe
Never.

She lent me the words that graceful goddess of language
To tell my stories, find my way, lose my religion
Sing my life.
The patience I had to buy 30% extra free
From the marketplace.

Time/ Is on my side/ Yes, it is.

Notable sense of humour, mine. Especially since I've just realised the truckloads of things I haven't yet done. (And the thimbleful that I have.)

Stuff to do immediately.
1. Start a book. Writing, as opposed to reading, that is.
2. Get a dog.
3. Get a grip. (Hah!)

Stuff to do soonish.
1. Write for a travel magazine.
2. Do the film appreciation course at FTII.
3. Study something. Film, literature, anything.
4. Learn something unconnected with my life: a new language, a musical instrument, scuba diving, whatever. Just something irrelevant that I haven’t done yet in these 33 years.

Stuff to do before I pop it.
1. Work for Discovery/ NatGeo.
2. Assist on a feature film.
3. Teach literature in college.
4. Work backstage with a theatre group or a band.
5. Run a kennel.
6. Wait tables in a shack in Goa.
7. Do a month-long meditation camp in Dharamsala.

Stuff I've done and forgotten about, but shouldn't have.
1. Dogsitting.
2. Working with an animal welfare thingie.

A little bit of this/ A little bit of that.

Things I hated before I went on holiday.
1. Work (for reasons too numerous and mind-numbing to enumerate).
2. The weather in Madras (for making it impossible to live, breathe, work, drink, or whine without sweating copiously and unglamorously).
3. Chelsea (for finishing on top of the EPL and relegating Arsenal to second place).
4. Douglas Adams (for dying).
5. The Government of India (for taxes).
6. Shops (for stocking stuff that rightfully belonged in my closet).
7. Rich people (for not having fine lines and wrinkles caused by retail therapy).
8. Jasper Fforde (for writing like I wished I did).
9. Owen Wilson (for living miles and miles away).
10. People who are cruel to animals (for being the scum de la scum of the universe).

Things I hated after I returned from holiday.
1. Work (for not changing).
2. My bank balance (for changing).
3. The Third World (for making it impossible to sip a three-euro espresso without mentally tut-tutting at the hopelessness of a three hundred-rupee coffee).
4. The rest of 2005 and some part of 2006 (for making it impossible to even dream of another holiday in the immediate future).
5. Mad Chinese lady at the salon (for attributing my tan to Goa).
6. Monaco (for being too beautiful to be true and keeping me up nights, wondering when, how, if I could ever live there).
7. Italian men (for being tacky and lecherous instead of impossibly and unattainably dishy).
8. Stairs (for not being escalators).
9. The creep who stole my mobile phone (for being the ugliest, darkest cloud in the sunshine of my life).
10. Myself (for being uncharacteristically stupid and leaving my phone lying on the bar counter instead of clutching onto it for dear life).

After/ You get what you want/ You don't want it.

Got visa. Now to wrap up the truckloads of work that has been piling up on my desk while I fretted and fumed.

Serves me right.

I try to stay awake/ And remember my name/ But everybody's changing/ And I don't feel the same.

In a parallel universe fairly close to ours, things are falling apart. And a bloke called Tom Chaplin's singing stuff that vaguely makes sense to me.

Here's something I do to keep my angst down to controllable levels: loop a single track endlessly. It becomes my Song of the Day, and acts as a theme/ counterpoint/ silly comment/ distracting thought/ antidote to whatever ails me at the moment of listening.

Does it work? But then, does anything?

How long, how long, baby/ How long has it been?

Checked my visa status online a while ago. Was politely informed that my passport was at the embassy. Called the visa centre, only to be told that my application only arrived at their doorstep yesterday.

Yesterday!

Naturellement, Polite Lady at the Other End of the Line could only tell me about my visa tomorrow, or, worst case, the day after. I counted to 300 before smiling and putting down the phone.

Today, a travel agent will die.

This happened once before/ When I came to your door/ No reply.

The trip was planned a long time ago ('a long time' = several months). Postponed twice due to lack of funds. Finally attempted not due to an improvement in financial status, but the scary-as-hell realisation that the ticket to Paris expires at the end of July.

Invitation letter sought. Nervous breakdown approached thanks to many long-distance calls to friends and family in France. Invitation letter stood poised to arrive early next year. Or, a few dozen more calls later, at the end of the scheduled trip. So went back online, booked a hotel, applied to the French Consulate, and waited.

And waited (la la laa!).

Meanwhile, the world went on. Bombings in the UK. Patrick Vieira joined Juventus. HP6 was released. Bastille Day came and went. My blonde highlights got two shades lighter. Another age-revealing (I'm 33) fine line appeared on my otherwise fairly unlined face.

'Tomorrow', said the travel agent. A few days later, he rephrased his reassurances: 'This evening, or perhaps, first thing tomorrow'. It's now Tuesday. My flight leaves for Charles de Gaulle at 7.20 a.m., Saturday.

As I pack for Goa, people ask me why I have no faith. Bah.