In addition, I get gooey eyed at the sight of any child, brattish or otherwise whereas in my twenties I couldn’t be bothered with the perfunctory cooing that most women believe they have to perform whenever a toddler was in sight. In my thirties, I like to stay at home and read, sip wine…even take an interest in – good lord, is it possible- gardening??

More on my cliched new self later.

Writing about how she pieced together her father’s life story as she made contact with his friends, family members, acquaintances, she explained how it was through letters, albums, footnotes that were lying in trunks, gathering dust, in her home. Self consciously, I wondered what paraphernalia I would have, to show to my kids,  twenty years from now.

When my mother in law passed away, it took all of us a while to unlock her wardrobe and give away the things in it. Clothes, small knick knacks whose significance we had no clue about. There was a letter written to herself on her graduation day, talking about the future and what she hoped for. A recipe for meatloaf. A few more dog eared, pages  with instructions of home remedies, hand written in her precise handwriting.  Even an autograph book (or what passed as one in those days) with good wishes from all her school mates on the occasion of their graduation, hopeful wishes for the future. Some naughty ones, too.  A hand written ‘I’m sorry’ note by my husband when he was six, apologising for having made his dad buy  sneakers worth rs 4000 then.  (he threw a tantrum at the store and refused to leave till his indulgent & hapless dad bought it for him) Pictures of her trip to Andamans where she went scuba diving at the age of 50. A life well lived. Could I say the same when I was 64?   The only bits of paper that line my drawers are bills of expensive appliances bought, and their guarantee cards. A few cards from my husband, photos but that’s about it.

Where does one write letters anymore?

I don’t remember the last time I went to a photo studio and got my pictures printed. Everything is digital, stored on my computer and liable to disappearing with one crash of the hard drive (dear computer god, I am merely hypothesizing, do not take me literally)  So how do we remember our 20s? and how will we remember our 30s (so my age is established, now)  and so on…

I dont remember the last time i blogged, which means in blog terms my blog is hereby declared dead. Here’s a toast to new promises and resolutions. I shall blog every alternate day for sure.

For whom, did you ask? Well, I know my mum definitely reads the blog. 

I just got my new credit card in the mail today. And I had mixed feelings. I’ve been at the wrong end of credit card companies in my younger days and I had promised myself that I would live a plastic-free life in future. I did, for about six years. But eventually the bug bit me.

So, I’m happy at the thought of all the limitless possibilities. Mango, Promod, Aldo, MAC, Charles& Keith, Marks & Spencers, Body Shop, here I come. No wretched feelings of the end of the month need bother me anymore.

And I’m aware (just a bit) of the fine line between being conservative about the card and going nuts with it.

“I am only just keeping ONE credit card for booking my travel tickets from time to time. I shall leave it at home,” I reason to myself and to no-one else in particular.

Yet, the temptation to carry the card along in my daily wallet is…well, Excruciating.

Somebody suggests that I use it once to make sure it is working and my brain immediately goes into overdrive checking out sales at all nearby Mango/Aldo/Promod stores. I mean, if I must shop, it might as well as be a shirt rather than some mundane grocery, right?

I did leave the card behind though. I know the first swipe is as good as the tenth, twentieth, thirtieth. Once, you’ve tasted blood, its a lil naive to expect to stay vegetarian. Prudent in this case, it would seem.

That has to be the most infantile thing to say to anyone who lost their phone. It demonstrates a clear undertone of ‘I told you so’ and clearly implies the unsaid- ‘Tsk, tsk. I ALWAYS back-up my phone data.”

So yes, I lost my phone. Yes, I didnt back-up. Yes, I always meant to. But yes, I didnt .

Can we move on, please?

Despite the loss of my phone, though, I was secretly (and secretly, only!) glad that I had lost my phone. I was getting tired of the damn thing anyway. and guilt wouldnt let me chuck it and buy another. God’s way of saying, ‘Change the phone, dammit!’ was my reasoning.

So I promptly went to Nokia (some loyalties are hard to shake) and bought meself a brand new Nokia phone, nothing fancy but one that I had always wanted to buy and resisted. It’s a flip phone. You must understand here, I always wanted a flip phone, just never got around to buying one. so while its not fancy at all, has the most pixelated camera phone, allows only limited saving of names in phone memory, and has virtually no memory at all, me and my flip phone look like something out of a picture postcard, posing together happily.

there is a certain science to being organised. what it comprises of, I have no clue, but it sounds nice anyways.

so in the last one week, i’ve logged in and created my profile on two different list sites. one is www.43things.com and www.rememberthemilk.com.

check them out if you are a freak like me…

I have a graphic novel in my head, its there somewhere and flashes lil bits of brilliance from time to time, but it is, by all accounts, shy and needs to be coaxed into the public spotlight.

Here is a list of the top five things I aspire to be: (Confidential, i know but wot the hell…)

1. Design shop owner

2. Award winning screenplay writer

3. Graphic Novelist

4. Genius (read elusive) illustrator

5. The best rally driver in the world

6. Best chef in the world 

Umm, thats six but no harm in getting carried away, eh?

From what I remember, that was always the elastic point. The point where the screenwriter made a mental note that said, ‘This is it, now send in the rescue men/women’. My reaction to all such agitated dialogues was an amused “Mum, it’s just fiction, why are you getting all worked up?”

True, but by the same logic I ought not to get irritated when I watch Carrie swoon over all the wrong men in her life and bypass the man she ought to be with. According to me, that is. (And for the record, Mr Right is Aidan Shaw. Aww, that man is just too good to be true. And she breaks his heart??? That’s too much, that woman deserves to be put away in an asylum.) My self-realization happened when I happened to mention it to hubby in a moment of utter irritation at the treatment of Messrs Shaw.

“Why does she keep going back to that dick Mr Big?”

My husband for all his angst against the creators of Sex and the City (his official view? Ban the show, its taking our women away) looked at me in a moment of utter logic and patiently said, “Honey, how is the series ever going to go on, if she turns to Mr Right?”

There. The most logical answer that I, in my TV induced stupor, otherwise perfectly capable of logic and reason, had failed to recognize.