Culinary Points from Thailand

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Bangkok was an interesting (in a good way) experience for me. This was my first adventure in a land where English was not the first language. I learned how to ‘wei’, and how to say the following: hello, please, thank you, and beautiful in Thai. Many were amazed by my thick braids that, usually, due to the heat, stayed propped up on top of my head in a messy bun. On different occasions, some women on the streets kept commenting on my hair. During a trip to a monastery, some local high school students visiting that same monastery politely asked to touch my hair. Giggles all around when I tried to explain how I braided it!

In Bangkok, I had my first plate of pad thai, and it was out of this world. It came wrapped in a fried egg. I visited the floating market and ate all sorts of bits. All in all, I was amazed by the hospitality shown to me by the people that I met, and the pounds that I gained from all the amazing food I consumed – both from the street and in fancy restaurants. I shall be back, I hope.

 

Chimamanda is at it again…

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Chimamanda is at it again…

One of my favorite authors has a new book out, and I cannot wait to read it. She touches on hair as a writing inspiration and, more interestingly, paints hair in all its varied forms as an independent but importantly subtle character.

2013 Reflections…

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I have missed writing. So much more than I ever thought possible. I haven’t laid a pen to paper since Attika passed away. No wonder I felt that I had lost a bit of myself during the last two years. I was moving my stuff today as I prepare for my post-graduate life, and I found an old piece that I wrote in 2002. And, suddenly it hit me, I missed writing.
I used to hide behind the cloak of my pseudonym, anxious about the reactions from readers, but I wrote…despite that anxiety. Now I have an urge to get back to what used to make me happy. Perhaps it’s the attitude and motto that I have entered 2013 with – ‘Getting back to what makes ME happy’. This has meant a variety of things – my favorite music, traveling, photography, dancing and…writing. It was inevitable that I would get back to this, my first love.  I lost it for a while, drowned myself in sorrow and academia, and forgot how much life writing breathed into me. I can’t wait to see where this new found oxygen takes me.

‘A’ IS FOR ‘PLEASE MOVE ON’

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I should have known that you were trouble
the minute your text popped up
peppered in one spot
with a glaringly misspelled word.
I was told that this is the year
to go with the flow,
give folks a chance instead of
running at a misplaced u or r.
Everything in me ached to correct you,
everything in those around me,
pushing for my wedding and kids,
ached to smack me for grammatical discrimination.
They should have known that wrong spelling
was the least of your troubles and issues.
You came, you saw, you tried to break me,
and they still hounded me to give you a chance.
Your horrible spelling skills hid your chauvinistic
and misogynistic machismo – A surprise, considering
how much you clung to your anthem of modernity
A renaissance man, the image you perpetuated.
My nerves bristled and my smiles kept dropping
every time you sent me an email with blatant mistakes.
I tried to hint to you, pointing out my loss of faith
in CNN for their wrong spelling in their tickers.
You simply did not get it.
Perhaps your horrible spelling also vaporized your
skills of comprehension and picking up of social cues,
along with any chances of my ‘going-with-the-flow’
I told them.
My future husband has to be able to spell.
Shoot, my future boyfriend has to be able to let me be ‘me’
A renaissance woman.
Snap, my future hook-up has to be able to spell that.

Broken Fall

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I stepped out onto the ledge,
your warm silken hands beckoning
me to step out even further,
a silent promise in the air,
a promise to catch me if I fell.
I asked you once, twice, thrice…
if you really would catch me,
for I could always go back.
Back into the cool embrace of

my quiet solitary life,
before I knew you,
before you walked up to me,
asking me how I was doing
in the dark confines of that navy basement.

I thought you’d break my heart,
and I said so out loud,
and you said you’d be the one likely to be
heartbroken.

I found myself on the ledge,
flailing and reaching for your hand.
You withdrew it so suddenly
that the gust of wind knocked me off
the tiny sliver of a precarious ledge.
Your empty promise echoing past me
as I fell head first into an abyss
where friendships are burned to ashes
by cold shoulders and forgotten intimacies.
You stared at me falling,
and failed to even flinch at my demise.
Your warm silken hands turned and revealed,
at that moment, their true selves.