the dream was just the same

[Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits]

I have favourite songs for specific moods. Yes, my subconscious suffers from a sad lack of innovation in the kind of moods it decides to be in: there’s angry, angsty/wistful/self-pitying/whiny, ecstatic, ridiculous, obsessive and resentful. Oh, there’s also temporary insanity tending towards social inappropriateness. And, err, that’s about it, I think.

‘Romeo and Juliet’ is my favourite song to listen to when I’m thinking about “love” [I can't think of it without mental inverted commas around the word]

Love is stupid, really. This is non-filial, non-platonic love, by the way. Yeah so, it’s stupid. All that talk of sacrifice and selflessness? Bollocks. I’m not sacrificing anything for some wretched human being who could walk out of my life at any moment on the flimsiest of excuses (“I just don’t feel the spark anymore!” I’ve found someone else!” “I’m sorry, I just don’t think this is going to work out”) and leave me feeling like a prize idiot for having proudly displayed him like the banner of my life’s achievement.

Yuck, I say. The very yuckiest of yuckness.

Grow a spine, for pity’s sake, and do what you want to do. In the end, the only person to blame if you fail is yourself.

theories of cake.

# 1: Choices.

How do you decide which kind of cake to pick? On what basis must your choice be made? Of course, there are the usual – flavour, texture, taste. But choosing what kind based on those parameters necessarily needs you to know which aspect of cake you like best and would want more of. Sometimes, confronted with a limited choice, you just take what you can get irrespective of what you might want; and of course, sometimes, with a wide variety of cake before you, your choices can get tangled up in more than just the factors mentioned above.

# 2: Categories of taste.

Of course, cake is never generic, but it can be categorised. There’s the basic good cake, and bad cake. And cake that might be good at first but can be bad for you in the long run. And cake that is an acquired taste. But at any given moment, confronted by the choice outlined above, how do you know which cake to choose? Momentary judgements are all well and good, but once you’re a regular at a particular bakery, how can you, with a clear conscience, switch to another on a whim? And anyway, making the choice takes some amount of determination and judgement, and when you simply don’t know what kind of cake you want, you can be indiscriminate and just take the first one you see – but then, you might go home and realise it was a bad choice and now you’re stuck with a huge cake you don’t really want but have to eat anyway.

# 3. Favourites.

Over time, you tend to grow into a particular flavour/category of cake. It’s comforting, it’s easy, and you know, ideally, that a triple layered Lindt chocolate cake with pretty swirls on top and chunks of chocolate is what you want. But, when you enter a bakery in the expectation that this is what you will find, all you see is an ordinary two layered cake with fresh cream chocolate frosting. It’s not bad, but it isn’t what you would have ideally wanted. And it grows stale far too quickly. On the other hand, it just might grow on you – while your decadent Lindt cake might have been too rich to consume on a regular basis anyway.

#4. Variety

So, you’ve found a cake you like. It’s good for you, isn’t too rich or too dry, and has been keeping well in the fridge so far. But then, you happen to pass the bakery and see a new cake sitting there, calling out to you. Do you cheat on the cake you have back home, sitting in the fridge, by sneaking in for a slice, or do you turn your head, ignore this new cake and go on?

A little bit of variety never hurt anybody, did it?

…so, what do you do?

How do you decide what cake you want?

Don’t ask me, I still haven’t figured that one out.

thanklessly

Finally finished The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, which I’ve been sitting on for the last week. And what do I get for ploughing through all of that intense characterization and careless wit? A haphazard, slightly unoriginal plot twist (almost an afterthought!) and, yes, that’s right, an OPEN ENDING.

I abhor open endings. Grr.

In the book’s defence – it’s a good example of the transitional period between Victorian and modernist ideas, values, language and style; Isabel Archer is a literary heroine I identified with quite strongly, and finally, it did manage to make me cry.

Think I’ll take a break from fiction for a while.

—

Sometimes, there are things, there are people, there are places that you feel like you understand better than anyone else. The entire world thinks you’re thoroughly stupid for even undertaking to care about any of the above, but you still continue to do so, because even though you’re doing a thankless thing – like defending a genre, tolerating a partial friend and going somewhere you’d rather not go – you just go on doing it. It doesn’t cost you much, but it doesn’t give you anything either. And yet, you continue doing it, smiling at the pointlessness of the act, but smiling all the same.

Maybe someday you’ll regret it.

But future regret is better than present discomfort, arguably.

the chasm

I can only live a life of extremes.

For the past four odd days, this has been an extreme of indolence: I’ve slept for over twelve hours a day, watched movies, read books, drunk numerous cups of tea and coffee and glasses of beer and wine; eaten chocolate covered cookies, the best banana chips in the world, my mother’s cooking and had meaninglessly entertaining phone conversations. I don’t even feel guilty or troubled at the lack of excitement.

In comparison to other phases in my life, this is one that’s comparatively more satisfying and self-sufficient than all the others. Should I pat myself on the back? Probably not, and this post is getting progressively more pointless and self-indulgent.

The level of self-absorption I possess is simply alarming, at times. I keep attempting to reform myself, to actually listen to what people are saying instead of trusting to luck that my response will be in keeping with the conversation in progress; but it doesn’t seem to work. At some point, I’m sure, people are going to tire of it.

Even now, I’m wondering if I’m more like Emma Woodhouse, Marianne Dashwood or Elizabeth Bennet?

In vain have I struggled, it will not do. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

Yet again, Mr. Darcy. I’ve spent all of today, one of my many summer holiday Mondays, lounging around at home  and watching the TV series ‘Lost in Austen’ – the latest addition to the cult of P & P. And yes, it contains yet another feisty, erudite heroine in search of love and yet another smouldering, to-die-for Mr Darcy who simply stares and glares his way into her affections (and mine). There’s just something about men in breeches and waistcoats and high neckpoints that simply takes one’s breath away. And no wonder, I suppose, when what we’re sentenced to is often immature, idiotic and clad in dirty jeans and t-shirts. 

Of course, it was fictional wish fulfilment that made the series so enjoyable. I mean, what woman in the mould of the aforementioned title character would not want to be suddenly thrust into the 19th century, with the promise of Darcy, no less? 

I did a bit of googling while I sat here drinking my tea; unsurprisingly enough, there are a considerable number of Darcy-bashers (not too many though, maybe one for every five adoring fans).  Apparently, the twenty first century woman would rather be with an enlightened, sensitive man whose penchant for equality would preclude any chivalrous impulses he might have. Darcy is now identified as being repressed, domineering and entirely undesirable. 

But I suppose it might be interesting to delve into why women still cling to the Darcyesque Byronic hero type, whose veneer of cynical detachment is a masque par excellence, and one that only the right woman can see through and gently peek behind.  Personally speaking, I’m a feminist. I believe in equality. But as far as chivalry or compassion go, I’m still very much aware that I’m a woman, and I still want to be taken care of. I’d never win the award for being Miss Independent, but neither would I want to be characterised as one of those prissy, simpering women who need men like a fish needs water.  

Darcy seems to fill that in-between space: he’s neither overtly concerned, nor is he an advocate of free love and casual sex. And of course, any relationship involves a certain amount of power play, though in a typically 21st century manner of being politically correct, we’d rather not admit it. Darcy’s attractive precisely because he’s so politically incorrect: he would automatically assume the role of the dominant, superior partner in a relationship, as a matter of principle.

This 21st century penchant for the middle-ground, for tolerance, for an everything-goes sort of attitude towards life is just disconcerting. Where do you find yourself, how do you define yourself, and what do you categorise as important in a world that isn’t willing to commit to definitions or categorisation? But I think, in the race to be politically correct and to foreground our acceptance of differences, we’ve begun to glorify insubordination to such an extent that it has become the new norm. Rebellion isn’t just taken into one’s stride anymore, it’s expected.

Which is why, I suppose, a character like Fitzwilliam Darcy still resonates. In a world where everything seems to be falling apart, and the only principles are those that you coin in order to suit yourself and your goals, he represents constancy, value, respect, integrity and intelligence. And without those, what is love or life?