Terrific weekend
Life has just been swinging since last evening. I feel so good...ummm well not that i have been feeling bad all these months. I like staying by myself and spending time alone ..but i realise i don't mind spending hours amongst strangers either! Its something i have never done before..going to dinners with people i have never met in my life. It would be a shock to friends who have known me for years, that the introvert in me is slowly giving way to the carefree kid inside. I know where this carefree don't-give-a-damn attitude is budding from. Well he saw this lil girl in the winter of '99..you did study people for 4 years and i believe it now :) I can faintly recall those words .."let your hair fall down and don't throw caution to the winds of change". Man was i impressed..i was. I fell for his words in the summer of '99..long before i thought it happened. Accident and thereafter is just a convincing cover story for myself and everyone around!

Fun Friday
Having said all this, let me narrate the events of this weekend. Friday evening, conincidentally H and H (H's friend) left office with me. I was leaving at my usual time. It was rather late for them for a typical Friday evening. They had plans to goto the movie Elephant and were meeting friends downtown. H asked me earlier in the day if i would like to join him. I declined considering it would be very late when i return and thought it was no safe to take a risk second time in 1 week. I'll come to it later what happened earlier this week and why i'm being so cautious. H coaxed me into going to dinner with him. I wasn't sure but i was willing to try. Since this Tuesday i have felt the urge to make friends in this city, call it selfish or whatever but for a girl living in such a big city alone is not easy sometimes. So long as things go fine, its fine. When they don't, they can be really bad :( The words Vivek spoke were playing in my mind all the time since last Sunday, when he said do you know who to call if there's an emergency. I didn't have an answer an he knew it. He also knows i'm not the kind who will pick up the phone and ask someone to come over for the silliest of reasons until i have not put a fight. So i agreed to H and we walked over to Sheraton to pick his mom's friend and her husband. Then we went to a middle-eastern restaurant called Rezaa's. The food was yummy ..i loved it. We were met there by H's roommate - another H-Hiromi :). She is such a lovely Japanese girl. In H's words, she is as much sane as he is insane. He is funny and she is so sweet. H and his 2 other guy roommmates are jugglers and Hiromi i persume would go nuts watching these guys upto their antics at their home. Come to think of it, i want to learn how to juggle balls. I want to do something different apart from the shit work i do. I think i'll start sketching again. Anyways so Hiromi and a professor of hers who teaches art in the University of Iowa joined us at dinner. It was kind of awkward for a few minutes in the beginning but we hit off well pretty soon and made a really good conversation for the next 3 hours. After dinner H tells me "I'm so glad you came out with us". I am glad i went out too. And he meant it when he said i could call him anytime i'm in need of help. I know i wouldn't bother him but it felt so good to hear those words in a strange big bad city! I wish i could have gone for the movie with them but i just wanted to get back home and sleep to get up in time Saturday to prepare lunch for Sarah. As promised, H and others dropped me back home though i insisted on taking a cab back home and they could go to the movie. It was nice of him.
V always tells me "So long as you hold your self-esteem very high, no one can hurt you. I think thats very true. Only when you agree to everything to what others say , do you give them the right to treat you like shit. And i don't think i will ever do that."

Shopping Saturday
Well that was Friday. Saturday began with the customary electronic conversations with mom dad and guinea p :) I can see gp growing up..his need to talk to me, relate to me, i feel closer to him now after all these years of tensions. I hope it gets better. Sarah came home for lunch..we had a nice talk..enjoyed Indian food and went shopping for a whooping 5 hours. It was kinda fun to have her around. I'm looking forward to a dinner at R's place tomorrow. Huh..as though HIM heard me, i'm surrounded by people..so much unlike me.

The event earlier this week that i mentioned was this. I was stranded at a grocery store about 5 blocks away from home. On the way back home i got down to buy a few things. In the few minutes when i was gone inside, the clouds decided to give way to rains and it poured and poured so heavily that one couldn't even cross the streets. There i was stuck for a good 1 hour without an umbrella and no taxi passing by. Had it been any other day i wouldn't have bothered. That night i had planned on getting back home and getting a couple of hours sleep as i had to stay up the whole night. I couldn't do that eventually. What upset me---------

1. What was i doing in this city and what would happen if something was to happen and no on would even notice for hours?
2. I saw people frantically pressing numbers on their cellphones calling their trusted ones to come n pick them up..and here i was standing there holding the phone but no number to call..silently watching people waiting with me and leaving within 10 minutes to be eplacd by a new set of people cursing the rain..until finally standing alone with helplessness surging inside.
3. Why had i picked this day (though i knew the answer that i didn't have time during the weekend) and why hadn't i carried a umbrella?

I felt helpless and it made be very sad but was brave enough to make it the the rain finally to the bus stop when all taxis refused to stop by - its a goddamn survival. I came home and listened to "Socha nahi tha.." and it put a smile back on my frowning face. Someone rightly said "People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles."