The Italian Affair

It was an impromptu decision to go out for dinner and I think the white wine was the point at which it turned into a dinner date at an Italian restaurant. It's funny how easily lighting, ambience and a bottle of wine sets the stage in a certain fashion. It was a nice, warm dinner and details fuzzied by the tipsy feeling in my head. We talked, we laughed and i shed a tear or two. I am a barrel of emotions waiting to burst forth at every opportunity. There was something in his eyes that looked a little different last night, was it empathy? I've only seen that expression on one other guy whom I shared my thoughts with, the boat I waited in vain for. Yet I shook my head as a reminder to self that no, this was someone else I'm talking to. And I didn't expect myself to share about my missed boat as well. It must be the wine tat tipped the barrel.

Perhaps my threshold and love for wine has never been that consumerate. I was tipsy by the later half of dinner and requested that he had to remain sober to send me back. Not that he needed to hear that of course. I leaned on his arm on our way out to the car, all the time laughing about how scandalous it looked if we met someone we knew. He said i was going to die of embarrassment the next time we met, for he had never seen me like that - he said it was cute, whatever that meant. I just didn't want to be seen tipsy - it was to me a sign of lack of self control (ok it really was) and i hate to be seen like that. I was singing to SOMEWHERE OUT THERE in the car, one of my fav songs. We argued if it was fr Aladdin or in his words, "sung by the rat in American Tales". (and this is one evidence that i was truly tipsy - i found myself insisting on sth that is obviously wrong. I just couldn't accept, in my state of fuzziness, that a rat sang my fav song). When we reached my place, he held my hand like a gentleman would, and guided me all the way to my doorstep.

I found myself thinking about last night most of today, trying to make sense of what it meant. Probably nothing much. But it was a nice night and I don't want to spoil it by thinking of what-ifs. Something in the equation will change, and that's not what I want.

Write.Right.Rite

A twitter account to amuse myself with (but it's really trashy - whoever thought of putting a 140 char limit on words clearly doesn't love words enough), a tumblr blog to store my more philosophical musings and my trusted blogspot to pour out my deepest darkest. Only old friends who still remember will bother to visit this humble abode and I feel a sense of camaraderie whenever one of you tell me, "hey, I read your blog". It matters to me, that you want to be updated about my life and participate in my rite to write, right.

the JD

i had the most informal session today, with talks of travelling the world to seal agreements, living the "high intellectual and governmental life" of meeting people, going places, charming my way to make a difference for a greater good. i did well i think, granted that i didn't have much time to rehearse my lines or organize my thoughts. but a part of me remains lucid and cynical of the fulfillment that a younger me might have envisaged. this opportunity in the horizon was after all, still a part of the mammoth system that sustains the city-state, with strings attached and glass ceilings thick as walls. the JD always sounds awesome, challenging and sexy - but reality is closer to the pendulum oscillating between boredom and hectic activity, with the sword of Damocles hanging over one's head, ready to set some heads rolling at the whim and fancy of some big shot in the system.

I dislike the system - how it has always streamed people at some early point in their lives, divided into gold, silver and iron by some Noble Myth which has ceased to be noble for a long time. the glass ceiling for the silver caste (who made it there through a longer and more arduous route) was solid as stone. yet the guardians of the system like to polish that ceiling, thinking that it makes it more transparent and less of an eyesore. but no, we silvers feel it rather acutely as we try to become more upwardly mobile.

I have to concede though, that the city state is too small to escape its clutches. every other opportunity that I hear (with remote Prospects) was linked to the system some way or another. I have increasingly lost patience with a regimented existence, but it costs too much to be an outcast of the system. financially, socially, emotionally. until.... i find that which motivates me beyond the fat paycheck, flexible hours and a comfortable obscure existence. I seek to find it, but the city-state might be too small to house it.