Today's post was easy, lifted straight from my Facebook exercise of yesterday. Try it; it's interesting to see what comes up when you let your mind wander...
1. Culturally, I've always been something of an outsider/diasporan all my life. Even when i was an Indian living in India, i was of the Telegu diaspora in a Tamizh state.
2. I've been engaged twice as many times as i've been married. And i've been married more than once.
3. I used to be terrified of the paranormal. Then one night (which in my melodramatic, adolescent state i no doubt termed "a dark night of my soul") i faced my terrors down in the dark with a stray wolf for company, and some unexpected, nearly drunk college kids in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill.
4. Before anorexia was widely diagnosed in India, i was anorexic for three years out of a sense of exacerbated solidarity with the human condition in general and famine in Africa in particular. I started to put on weight again out of vanity. This is counter to most anorectic case histories and incredibly bathetic.
5. I don't think i really understand that i can control my monetary status. When i have it, i spend it; when i don't have it, i don't. I have been well to do and i have been fairly poor. I cannot imagine being wealthy.
6. My sister is my rock. We share a shorthand of memory and linguistics. And unconditional love.
7. My parents claim that they never find any but their own kids (that's me and my sister) cute, sweet, virtuous, etc. On the contrary, I haven't met a kid i didn't find fascinating.
8. I have memories of my dad helping my mom wax off her underarm hair, but my parents deny this. But i remember the horrible chemical smell.
9. My earliest recurrent dream since i was around three involves me running down a flight of stairs holding in my hand a spindle that grows as it rolls around in my hand. I'm not frightened by this dream, mostly repulsed. I began wondering recently given the phallic nature of the dream symbols if some adult male had exposed himself to me when i was a child.
10. I used to have really thick hair and a maid used to help me wash it twice a week. My husband thinks this is hilariously privileged.
11. My mother told me once that even if God himself told her so, she wouldn't believe that my dad could have an affair. I was so impressed by the trust she had in my dad. Until she added, "He really hates to spend money."
12. My father claims that the most beautiful women he has ever seen are his wife and daughters. He's not right, of course; but he's not fibbing about how he really believes it.
13. I want to be able to raise my kids to be happy, loving, confident people who will make a difference in the world.
14. When i was little, unsolicited soothsayers told me that (a) my son would be as beautiful as the young Lord Murugan [true] (b) that he would change the world. [i hope.] They didn't say anything about my daughter. But i know she's beautiful and hope she changes the world too.
15. I would be happy if my daughter chose to be lesbian. I think that heterosexual unions come with embedded hierarchical differences that are difficult to negotiate and impossible to overcome.
16. I used to be a near omnivore. I've eaten goat's hooves and tongue and i *enjoyed* eating goat's brains (egh!!) as a kid. Now i'm on the road to veganism. (O chocolate, why must you have dairy in it?) (And while we are at it, why is there no good soy cheese?)
17. I worry at any putative (or imaginary) harm that may befall my babies. If i had one superpower, it would be to make it so all the kids in the world were fed, healthy, and happy.
19. I can listen to my parents' stories all day and all night. And i can argue with their politics all day and all night too. When i visit my parents i like to climb into the space between them and listen to stories of their childhood.
20. The level of marital discourse between me and A is infinitely infantile. I cannot imagine either of us living without the other. I can cry thinking about how much *he* would cry if something were to happen to me.
21. I seem to have incredible good fortune in landing awesome mothers-in-law.
22. I went through two or three paperbacks a day as a kid. I read de Sade, Joe Orton, and a lot of Martin Amis when i was thirteen. It was in hardback and my parents didn't investigate. Now, thoroughly grown up, I sometimes still read Enid Blytons.
23. I'm confused by why it is "thoroughfare" and not "through-fare" when clearly it refers to passing through and not to being thorough.
24. Are we there yet?
25. When i yell, "family conference" it usually involves everyone piling into bed to snuggle.
