Iris

My profile image was the one that had survived my 5 years of blogging which represented my first pen name, named after an A.I. computer in JonnyQuest and also representing the Iris of a camera. But too many people thought it was a girl's name and I eventually gave up the name. I was always nagged by the fact that the image was not created by me and I had lost the link from where I got the image, so I could not credit anyone either. Finally, Google seems to have decided that the tutorial site from where I took the image is important enough to appear early on the search. So, in a search that I do every so often, I found the link again and followed the tutorial to create an Iris.

old image new image

Twilight 013

Black Ghosts - Full Moon

I have not read the book. The movie was... let's see. If it had not been for the title song I might not have got past the opening credits after having heard a few bad things about the Twilight books and the movie. I can sit through a movie just for the visuals if not for anything else. In fact, a bad story might be the right contrast for it. I got hooked in at the get go. Then the story settles into a neo-classical beauty and the beast formula with sufficient spin on it. What can I say? I liked the story too. I can't help but feel a minimalism in the drama and the acting which is refreshing, but it seems to have aggravated other people. I like the fact that it is a not a happily ever after, just a day that ended well, though I understand that it represents a series. The movie gets an undeserved rap by getting compared with the Harry Potter story. There is more than one fantasy out there and if this one has to be compared, it ought to be compared with the innumerable Vampire movies. This one is definitely among the top of that list for me, if not a few more. Now just to reassure myself, I will watch it again.

Sphinx 012

It took me long enough to get a hang of what poetry is. No one explained it. I like to think of it as a painting in words. You create an image with words, if you can, with measured lines and curves of rhymes, colorful metaphors and breathe life into it with the theme. A shell with no life or a spirit with no substance. Let's see if we can balance this seesaw on the knife's edge, if ever.

I, in general, dislike this moving on business. I wish someone would say, "It's OK. stick around!". Anyway, moving on... I have been asked not to use monikers. That's one of my spontaneous creative outlets. Hold on. Sphinx is not my creation, it is from the same person who suggested that I stop creating monikers. Ahah! gotcha! I have a case.

meeting of the kids 1.0 011

There are days when I wish I were just dead. I am that peaceful.

It was a very nice time with friends and their children. I never thought I could talk gibberish to a kid - you know, all those nonsensical sounds that people make when they talk to a baby? Well, I still can't do that, but I can talk to them at least. It is fun :), though the baby started crying when he saw me. I can record today as the most I have made a particular kid talk. I used to be completely invisible to her, so much that if I block her way, she will look far ahead as if I am invisible :) Apart from that some of us have reached some milestones in our career and it was nice to share that too. It was a natural, spontaneous time together. I just want to sleep now.

meeting of the kids 0.1 010

There's a little congregation tomorrow. After a very enthusiastic setting up of the event, I suddenly feel like a stranger going there. But I will make it. The meeting is for adults who act like kids and kids who act like adults :) -- just friends and kids of friends. It's going to be fun. I will go early and help with the food preparation. I don't know how exactly I am going to help(may be by starting to eat it even before it is prepared... or may be a food taster/tester or very likely doing the dishes or changing diapers). If anyone fault with me for bringing food into the equation, for the hosts are supposed to be busy with their baby, I am going to feel bad. The hosts are OK with it though (duh!). We'll see how it goes, hopefully, uneventfully.

ellipsis

If I did not believe in signs, I might just start believing it.

Dots turn into an ellipsis...
Things are peaceful once more...
The cage opens...
I shall spread the wings...
The winds can guide me now...
A little discretion along the way can't hurt...

...thank you, ever so much...

that which gives life, can take it away,
...and also give it back...


It is going to get bad now, I can sense it. And I will not be able to do anything about it. But I know that the storm will pass, all by itself.

5

Yesterday I started my sixth year as a professional. That also means, I have been blogging for as many years. I have deleted my old blog once, looking for a fresh start. I wanted to do that a second time as well, but thought I will try something different this time and chose to keep it and evolve.

Others have been congratulating me and me them. The job is what I have made my sanctuary. I have worked for long hours, hiding from everything else. It has been a place where I take all my 'otherwise flaws' and put them to some use. Even if I don't like anything else about myself, I can confidently say, I can do my work and do it well enough. After the initial shock of 'where did all those days go?', I realize that I like this almost settled feeling and near level headedness. I might age gracefully afterall :)

on hire 008

The voice is reading the book flawlessly. I wonder how many 'takes' it took. Did she practice reading once before so that she will get the intonations right? Or can you just get the drift of the story so well that you can afford to read aloud a random book, with no mistakes? I have tried and got a good deal of things wrong. If any soul is reading this, have you ever tried reading a book aloud? Have you listened to yourself? What do you think of it?

Someone* has commissioned me to write things that are NOT certain things. I have accepted it, more as a challenge to get me out of a... spell. Very early, I realized that rather than creating something absolutely new, I was rather good at putting together things or observing and narrating something. I am almost convinced now that no one actually creates something absolutely new. Every one takes inspiration from somewhere and incubates that embryo+.
* I,Sojourner
+ the usage of that word is no coincidence. In my little universe, there's a baby boom of sorts.

[ellipsis 1]

turn right, look left

from "Frasier".

"You know, I guess I don't say it often enough, but you are good a kid."
"Thanks dad. You know, there is something I don't say often enough..."
"No. There is nothing you don't say often enough."

"Six months ago my wife left me. It was painful. But then, you know, she came back... it was excruciating."

"you know what I think about that subject?"
"Yes, I know about everything you think. When was the last time you had an unexpressed thought?"
"I am having one right now."

"I thought you liked my Maris?"
"Oh I do like her... from a distance. You know the way you like the sun? Maris is like the sun... except without the warmth".

(-: :-) 006

Palindromes read better in reverse don't they? Even though it is the same thing in the normal direction?

eagerly awaiting some inspiration,
I can smell the dampness,
feel the dimming light,
taste the temperature,
see the music,
and hear the dance...
in this wanton melee of emotions,
something has been mistaken for happiness :)

someone else, anyone else 003

I see... ... voyager. Alright, you are it.

With each episode that passed, the actors seemed to settle into their characters. The story lines seemed to do the same: Captain's log, on screen, hail them, shields down, shields up, set a course, engage... In the confines of a ship, what more can you hear, if such a thing were to actually exist? I found the next generation's screen and 'red alert' to be much more impressive. Once you get past that, the early episodes reached their final sheen. Now we are inching towards 'the scorpion', where we shall meet 'seven of nine'. There you get spice and hence irony. Are you sure? All you need to hear is an exhilarating "I amWe are Borg"! That's where I started. I started in the middle, went forward in time for a while and then decided to loop back and start over. Just a minor temporal re-sequencing.

Right now, some cheese is being taken to the doctor for examination.

sea 002

I am held by the hand. No, I levitate by the magnetism of the soft fingertips, like a stained-steel pin. My head is almost above the water. The little waves splash and dash, blocking the airway now and then.

Keep me up here, it is nice.

The wooden boat on the transparent sparkling sea green is manned by the nascent power. Looking up from where I am, it seems to rise out of the floating boat and extend into the brilliantly blue sky, breathing the air and punctuating the wind with flowing curls, soaking in the brightness of the day.

The hands splash around in the water and get their wrinkles examined by curious eyes. With every move made, I follow, bounded.

When you drift away, on your own course, I am dragged along. But the force weakens with distance. Soon I will lag. Then I will have to be content that I can see you... then that you are out there... then I will start to doubt that you are out there... then I might...

Faith, has to be blind... or does it have to be faith? Don't I 'know'?

[Edit 14/6/09: PS: My blog has had been marked as a 'spam blog'.]

vanishing point

In the impending change to darkness, the parallel rows of buildings and trees converged along the road that met the horizon. The sky opened upwards from there in bands of different colors interleaved with rows of gray clouds. The arrangement put things in perspective showing how enormous things are above the surface of the Earth and from how far up the rains had made their way. There is a fresh look about everything and the evening was turning into shades of yellow. I heard there was a rainbow too. The blue and turquoise up there in the sky tickled a few muscles in the face. "I like more colors now", I thought. The fever and cold that have stayed away for long have made a visit. So far it has reached a shimmering burn in the eyes. So I can't work. I have to be on the web. Not a bad time to be sick either.

This is how myths are born and become larger than life, I guess. For good. Or for worse. "Don't be evil" ? I have to be sarcastic here and say "yeah?". I don't see how an illusion of information can be better than no information, under such censorship. May be now that they have gone in, they should get out. That might paint a clearer picture. I may avoid news, but that's not the same as being denied information. Time heals things, as it should and selective memory has to do its job. But.... oh well. We'll just see what happens with the "Whole Sort of General Mish Mash".

talk 001

Her nasal mumbles to an imaginary audience sputtered out viscous drool around her as she precessed now and then under the influence. Influence of gravity that is. She carefully placed the tweety bird on my palm when I extended my hand, as I lay down on the couch. A few seconds later, she took it back. I did not move my hand. She was busy with the toy. A few moments later I showed the other palm. She repeated the same steps again. She did not get bored for the next five times. Then she got distracted by a noise from the outside. She dropped the bird absently on my hand and hurried on her toes to the entrance and stood there looking outside. Her silhouette, with a bright halo, was stalk still, rapt in attention. A moment later she hurried back in, on her toes, shrieking with joy. She got distracted by the tweety bird again and took it from me and started to explore it with her mouth. I didn't have to guess what she saw. "uh!" she said, wide eyed and open mouthed, an expression that said: "have you not understood yet?". "Oh, of course. I understand", I said and smiled at her. She left it at that and went back to chewing the toy. Sometimes I take away the toy and put the side of my palm under the gums and watch her not being able to bite with a mouth that's now too full. I got reminded of Charlie Chaplin being fed corn by a machine. I laughed out aloud. She responded in kind. That was a good conversation, I thought. I said thanks. I opened my eyes. She closed hers.

keyfabe

I have been talking too much at work lately. Too many anecdotes. I am afraid I don't know what I am going to say next. I have always enjoyed the fact that I don't have to watch what I am saying, but lately I feel like I know too much about too many things to be blurting out words carelessly. I am not able to catch myself on time before this happens. I helplessly watch myself get into a minor mess which perhaps only I am aware of. I can't say that for sure because people around are not exactly honest. They observe etiquette. That was not the case when the team's average age was lesser. Nowadays you really have to wonder what goes on in someone's head. Probably nothing is going on, but there's nothing better than silence to stir some chaos. I don't know when my mouth is going to cause some serious damage. I don't know how I got into this keyfabe. I will break character. I need to stay away from news/information/forming opinions and bury myself in the task at hand and just lie low for as long as possible. There could be a problem. What I have observed is, without a certain amount of attention from people, especially when I have zero 'friends' near me, I have become a sucker for any kind of attention. Lame. Yes. But, fact. Just like a moth... can't resist getting burned. I can't resist showing off a clever word play or when I find a problem and see a solution. I also get insecure when credit is not given where it is due, especially when I think I am diligent on this regard with others. This is not about modesty, this is merely about acknowledgement. There's nothing more irritating than to hear someone explain a problem or a solution to someone else as if it all occurred in their head. Actually there is just one thing more irritating... that's when the problem/solution you found makes a full circle and finds you :). That begs a question though, what would my boss feel? He must face this ALL the time.

"do thy duty, fruit is not thy concern". Deep breath.

sobriquet, turquoise

Pleased with the state of affairs, I switched off the lights and pulled the bag over my shoulder. Under the fluorescing energy savers, an ethereal figure with silvered hair walked towards me as I approached the glass door. I swiped the electronic card on the card reader and pulled at the door handle. I left my reflection behind, got past the darkened walkway, the lobby, the landing and then climbed down the dark stairs. Outside, the night was balmy, as the summer peaks. The car beeped as it unlocked. Turquoise is not a great color for the car. Neither is the car itself a design magnum opus. It is a box with a nose. But what can I say? when I bought it, I had a horrible case of... something. It is a souvenir. I can't bear to have the car anymore. I don't want to sell it to anyone else. I eased the car out of the parking lot and floored it as soon as I got out. The emptiness of the late Sunday evening zipped past as the turquoise crystal sliced through the humid air for the first time and also for the last time. Can it drift? After an hour of tire warming, the tires started smoking their way up the little hill. At the summit, I stopped. It just seemed ill fitting. Too rough. I drove it back home, gently. I contemplated taking it apart and putting it back together and see if that would help me bond with it. It felt like an autopsy. I just left it alone.

Today, at dawn, it looks like a fresh bloom after a stormy night... Soft and fragile... I am powerless to crush it. Indifference - Let's see if that works. I closed the door with cold deft touches. It seemed to smile innocently. The kind that wants you to dent it in real deep.

to be

lost for the eye and silent to the ear,
conjugate hearts now beat together,
a treasure fragile as a silent lake,
another, soon to be discovered easter egg,
as one wells up, the other cracks open,
bundles of joy, in you, in heaven.

words that deserve to be spun,
cotton mists of soft dreams churn,
convective fluffs thread up the blue,
gypsy jet streams weave a magic on cue,
hurtled across the land, the cirrus fall,
a message spills itself at its call

words are but vibes,
the heart rumbles in the skies.

crude bulbs

♥ Indie Gold


The Puzzle by Ane Brun


Ane Brun [ from astropixie from lofi.tv]


Beast by Nina Kinert


Nina Kinert & Ane Brun[ from astropixie from Diaspro].

indie crude science.

I don't know if ants can look up. But I imagined one doing so. I wondered what senses they use to locate food. Do they scour around, in seemingly random directions until one of them stumbles upon something, bookmarks it and lets others know... some how. I don't know how acute their vision is.

If they started looking up and if they have acute enough vision, they can get more food from me. If a crumb or speck of food falls down, a clever ant can deduce that it must have fallen from above, possibly from a place where more food is stashed away. At the very least there could be more specks of food. Of course, it can't fly up to investigate. So it would have to find a route. Here it would include walking up a wall, grappling on the ceiling and climbing down a hook, then walking down a wire or a rod and then take a dive of faith into whatever it is that is hanging in mid air.

If it found the food like this, knowing fully well that it won't get hurt, it can just drop from the bag of goodies on to the floor, then find its sent trail or whatever navigation cue it uses and hurry back to the colony.

I have not seen any ants dropping out of thin air, yet.


PS: As I wrote this I remembered: 'epigenetics'. I think(in my layman capacity) epigenetics is one of the missing links in my understanding of evolution of species. Natural selection - as in chance mutation of genes as the only cause for evolution (as I understand it) - is too random and too chancy.

ah! the good one

the taut string, plucked by inept fingers,
made a sweet note. sound lingers...

dust flies away from the harmonic waves,
paper fish get woken up, stir and scram...

the stale air vibrates away and heats up,
microscopic fluctuations, invisible chain reaction...

the dog's ears prick up, for what you hear,
and for those you can't. design differences...

sunlight spills in, warms up the dank room,
in a scanning beam, on the real time scale...

dust's gathered, cloaked, in a seeming stillness,
exit, taking some of it away, dancing.

the good one left, again, locking up.

Orange, sour or not

Photo ☛ Georgios Karamanis

Allegories. Excess adjectives. Meaningful. Coherent. Reality. Fiction.

The dog was sniffing around the orange car in front of the orange house.

Before it did something to the car, I walked up close and tried to shoo away the dog. It is not a stray to know how to adjust with other creatures on the street. This one has a collar. It thinks it is home and owns everything. It bared its teeth at me. I froze. I stopped thinking. I felt it peeing on my leg and make me a part of its territory. I was relieved to know that it was perspiration. The dog was far away now, jogging along, expanding its rule, overwriting claims made before it, each stride that it made was aloof and uncaring. It knows who is the boss. I imagined hurling it in the air by its hind legs, on to the roof of the house and watch it shiver and freeze out of vertigo.

I took a deep breath. The air still smelled like that four legged worm. I sighed. I stuck the dog helpline poster on the next lamp post.

tangent

The worn out painting on the wall is timeless. Looking at the contents you could make a statement like "no earlier than", but cannot say when. The donor had chosen to remain anonymous just like the painter and did not furnish the details of its origin either. The colors and the shapes are not unique of course, but the blend can throw anyone off from trying to fix its origin. The scene does not contain anything unknown. It is rather unimpressive for that reason. But you can hardly call a painting, that changes itself, a painting, can you? No one else can see that. But I do. Everyone else sees the painting. I alone see the changes. I have come to see this painting many a time. On no two occasions has it remained the same. I spend a good part of an hour talking to one or more people standing in front of this painting every time I visit. I don't do anything else.

After an hour of pointing my finger and tilting my head while talking to a few people, I decided to leave. I turned right and counted my steps. I turned right again and counted four times the number of steps. I think I am getting old. I remembered that on the way in, after 5 years, I had to take a few extra steps than the usual. My stride has become smaller. I carefully moved down the steps feeling with the cane and once at the bottom I put on my shades and walked to the curb. I raised a hand. A cab pulled up. In the comfort of the cab, I chuckled. Then I became quiet just as fast. The joke's on me.

severance

It is true until it is said.

I have to take a few words out of my head and throw them in the trash can. I wish I could draw.

I want to invite many people to 'the restaurant at the end of the universe', the previous universe, and tell them that I am more or less gone. There's a difference between curiosity and caring. Under that distinction, now a days, I am a machine. People remain connected by inertia, prejudice, illusions, denials, microscopic short sightedness which refuse to see the whole truth under blind love or blinds I have drawn down. An understanding has come from within and all perceptions from outside have to rebuild themselves. Trying to project a new image wreaks futility. In most cases it is language that stands in the way, overlapping with a refusal to utter a syllable. I have not answered personal calls for a while. Curiosity, energy and insecurity all give way to an indifference and unwillingness. I don't know what to talk anymore. I understand work alone, though I am disinterested at present. The water here, still and shallow, is mixing into the invisible inevitable draft of life.

I am letting people go, as finally, just as I hoped, I am let go. It would have saved guilt, if it had come early enough to beat the indifference. It is not even I and the world, it is only the world, my skin is punctured and hollow.

swatting

I took the big fat book and set it on the table. There is the cat too sitting near my foot. Or is that written in the book? may be. I closed the cover, to find that the book is open. Err... ok. I closed it again and it was closed. Fine. I understand. I had closed it. I looked at my foot. The cat wasn't there. I opened the book again. It was closed of course. I just closed it again. I walked backwards and entered the dusk by the front door and kept walking, receding from the house until I hit the big tree and turned to face it. Sitting down at its base I stared up. Holding the trunk for support I leaned back. The branches spanned out so far and so long and finally the top of the house came into view and there it was... a cat. I turned around fast to look at it. It was still there. It stood there and stared at me. It was an unusual cat, black with gray spots on it. I have seen it a few times. It started to walk. It disappeared into the dusk at the other end of the roof. I walked forwards and got into the house. My cat was near the fire place, swatting insects. No gray on this one. I kicked the cat out of the house and closed the door.

cliché

:)
stop smiling.
:)
pipe down.
Sorry can't help it. :).It is just this thing I remembered :)
...

:(
Why so gloomy?
It is miserable...
you are a blithering idiot.

:)
what?
Tomorrow, this is going to feel real silly.
It already does.

Groundhog day

We like to count and measure things and take stock. Another popular kind of milestone has come and it is almost gone - the calendar year. I wish those who wish me. It is a very useful event, for which I have very little use. I have this natural tendency to look at the other side of the coin always and also lack a conviction in pretty much everything. It can be called anything from a balanced mind to the ficklest. I exist in poles and tend to reverse polarity, so what's attractive now is pushed away later.

Instead of getting myself in a loop by thinking on both sides, I have started to put the best foot forward and see where it goes. Calling in sick for two days without being sick and avoiding work is not the best place where you start doing such a thing, but the cogs are just not willing to turn for what I have now almost accepted as a day job. The bosses are on vacation, otherwise I would have told them all this already. A month ago, people were asking me to take a vacation. Three/Four months of non-stop-weekend-inclusive-long-hour working is disconcerting for anyone to watch. I have taken that vacation. Now I am not able to end it. I feel like I am just stuck with the job. I don't know if I like it. I don't know what I would like to do either. Perhaps something that does not require you to sit in one place and think day in and day out. May be do something where your efforts show a tangible change. Like, cleaning your room or cooking your own food or brushing teeth. All of a sudden, it does not make sense to make a few electronic brains tick and show some intangible results and make virtual money. It is repulsive. I don't know if I want to go to work tomorrow either. The boss might call me and make me work of course. He will have all the weapons of truth on his side -- this job is easy money. It is something I had wanted to do. It is what feeds me. There really are not too many skills in my resume for me to get a different job. I am chicken when it comes to 'change'. Have to pay off the loans. But, the message is simply not sinking in. Unless I really empty the bank balance and start to starve, as things stand, I am simply not going to work. There is no hunger for this food called work. I am also anorexic. Call me lazy. I did. But looks like I am too lazy to allow it to bother me.

If I don't work tomorrow, I will starve myself to simulate poverty and see if that helps.

update: I didn't have to starve. Just woke up on the right side of the bed.