Hey, remember when this place used to be funny? When did I become such a heart attack?

I get these letters. From friends, people I’ve known for short periods of time in my life, who seem to want to stay in touch forever. But you know how letters are. They’re rarely good news. The letters you write to the truth nomad you once met are not the type you’d be sending to your mom. They’re needy, seeking, and eviscerating. I’m supposed to read them – broken hearts on electronic paper – and be able to put the pieces back together.

Consequently, I've picked up rather a lot of varied advice-giving experience. Mid-life crisis, spiritual death, unsuccessful love, you name it, I’ve got the glue for it. That is, as long as it’s in the form of pithy maxims and sympathetic simpatico. I don’t really have much else to offer, beyond showing my own nugget of despair, dug out from my scars, to show that one can heal.

But I am coming to tire of the job. I don’t always know what to say. And I don’t always want to say anything. It’s getting harder and harder to find the patience to read these letters, let alone write back. It was conceit that deluded me into thinking I could offer much insight anyways. Touched I was that I was the one who was told this secret. Then the one that was asked for some hope. I had to live up to the compliment, and would devote thought and emotion to the response. But no longer am I certain I do any good, and doubt makes a poor diet for the ego.

A girl I know has been writing me for years, long after we were neighbours on the same street. I knew her when she was a younger teenager, too cool to even look at me when I was politely introduced. Dark, angry and unimpressed, she grudgingly joined her family in visits to my family’s home. In time she began to show up by herself. I’d be standing in the kitchen, doing dishes in my pajamas, and the door bell would ring and she’d be out there, needing someone to listen.

I have since hopscotched around the globe and she too has moved. But no matter where I’ve gone, I do not have a few months without her emails – that vitriol and venom I knew in person on paper – finding me. It’s like being plunged into icy, murky waters. Each time it’s harder and harder to rise to the surface, some lesson or advice gripped in my white-knuckled fist. Because no matter what I say, no matter what I share, it never lets up. She spirals ever farther and downwards, leaving me an unwelcome voyeur to her eventual crash.

I have another email in my box today.

It was fated to be an interesting experience. My siblings and I have not been together in one place for five years. Not since we were angsty teenagers and power hungry young adults. In that time, things have drastically changed. My elder bro is now the father of his own mini tribe. Abez is a mom and professional. Even the kid bro has cut his long hair and for once wasn’t looking like Jesus-the-Axe Murderer. And I’ve since lived on my own and traveled the world. In short, we’re all better, right? So it stands to reason that we’d be improved as a group. There would be none of the noogie giving, or tear-inducing teasing, or kicking and screaming. We’re grown, damnit.

So how was it?

For the first five minutes, oh so polite. The brothers shook hands and manfully asked how the other was. The babies were dutifully cooed over. Health was inquired after and the state of weather was commented about. Then we lined up for the first family picture in eons, all trying to radiate our new and improved maturity.

First the bunny ears began to appear, slowly, behind the heads of the shorter siblings – namely me and Abez. Then the tongues came out and the eyes went cross. All of that of course prompted slapping and poking. And thus began the disintegration that resulted in a photo where you can almost read our lips saying “Mom, make them stop! They’re ruining the picture,” which is met by obnoxious raspberries and snarky laughs.

Ah me.

Boy do I ever put my foot in it.

One of my worries going into my program has been fitting in. I’m a whole hellova lot younger than everyone else. That’d be ok if I was some sort of prodigy, but I’m not. I’m barely an adult, and no genius. On top of that, I’m hanging out with people who’ve been in the field as long I’ve been alive. Everyone’s been really gracious though about not rubbing my nose in it. I just gotta learn to do the same.

We had a lovely fieldtrip yesterday. The program’s staff and my fellow participants went down to Concord, MA. It was all awesome. We got to bask in the literary and philosophical history of the area and along the way and chat and swap stories and just have a blast.

On our way back to campus, we pass some dorms that one of the other fellows points out. And I, the idiot, muse aloud "I wonder what it would have been like to have dormed instead of taking a off-campus place." To which someone asks "In what way?" And I half brainedly answer, "Well, I don't seem to hang out with people my own age very much. I think it would have been interesting to do that." There’s a couple seconds of uncomfortable silence before one of them laughingly asks “Is that a really untactful way of saying you don’t like hanging out with us old fogies?”

0_0

I try and play it off, of course. “No no,” I splutter “It would just be nice to be able to lord my laughable experience over SOMEONE. They’d dub me they’re one-eyed wise king.” The next wave of conversation quickly took over, but I’m sure they all spent the rest of that drive thinking the same thing I did.

“No Owl, not even among frat boys and sorority girls are you any kind of wise.”

There has been a lot of speculation as to where my stepping out on my own will lead me.
My irreligious friends have put their money on a complete moral meltdown. After all, Owl can't have been Mother Theresa with A Kick by her own volition, right? It's those evil meddling parents that have kept her in the veil and at home. Take that away, and you've got a wild woman on your hands. Watch out world.
Then there's a party that thinks I'm going to disintegrate. I tend to be a bit of a neurotic nutcase who requires regular 'step back from the brink' sessions with some of my more responsible friends. I'm also rather blase about my health and diet, and take a bit too much pleasure in self denial to retain any rosy pinkness. Without their regular infusions of sanity, home cooking, and doctoring, I'll probably wither away and die. Or just come to resemble a piece of wood. Which I may already do.
And there are some who, remembering my painfully shy, slightly agoraphobic nature, worry that on my own, I'll be more 'cloistered' than how I've been at home. Granted, I have been known to have my electricity cut rather than face the uncertainty of finding the utility office, going inside, staring down a scary clerk, and paying. And yes, I am allergic to using the phone. So I'll probably just shut myself up, stop paying my bills, and turn into an ice cube.
And last but not least, there is a small vanguard of people who think I'll thrive. They see the fact that I've been running my parents home for years (only in the logistical sense, I assure you), have been a solitary traveller for nearly as long, and am a survivor in the Gloria Gaynor sense. Put all that together, and you've got a stubborn little ascetic who'll figure out how to manage their budget and small needs like clockwork.

I hope.

But this weekend's shopping excursion isn't much to go by. I headed out to the local shopping centre with the idea of returning a pair of shoes (silver ballet pumps, bought in a moment of weakness and thoroughly repented of), along with the vague idea of picking up some necessaries. What I came home with didn't quite fit the bill, but made me very happy all the same.

I am now the proud owner of my very own....

*cue drum roll*

... jellybean machine! YAY! And not just ANY jelly bean, but a Jelly BELLY machine. It's red, and lovely, and spits out the little candies that hold me together.

But you know what? It's not a mere dispenser, it's a proper MACHINE. Meaning, I have to PAY it to get any of MY jellybeans out! The nerve!

Wanna send me some quarters, I'm running out.

So much for getting back in the saddle. The affliction that stopped me blogging earlier is still with me – gross disinterest and mild disgust with my own thoughts. I feel no compulsion to write.

For those of you who blessedly have not been subjected to my self-absorbed droning via phone, Google Talk or email, I’m in Beantown, USA, studying stuff. We’ll leave it at that. So as my friends and family are no longer treated to my nightly monologues on the absurd slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune I throw at myself and others, they expect to get it all in writing.

But this blog, when I started it back in the day, was meant to be enriching. Either the reader, or myself, would benefit from the content by way of being amused or enlightened (hah!) in the case of the audience, and I would get practice on how to write quality. A Day in the Life of Owl doesn’t really follow either.

I’m not benefiting anyone by telling them how I fell off my bike, or how I’m awful at keeping myself fed and watered, or what a ham I’m becoming. Does anyone really care that I spent ten minutes in the supermarket mulling the ethics of eating baby carrots over geriatric ones? I surely don’t. And how can I make perusing a 700 page course catalogue exciting? It’s dead air at best, awful braggadocio at worst. Hence my dilemma.

Yeah, I know, I make a complicated mess out of everything. What can I say. Everyone has to have a talent.

Now that you all know why Degrouchyowl has made the transition from something with a theme and purpose, to a snore-fest diva diary, let us begin…

College is a new thing for me. I didn’t really go the first time around. Dude, I had better things to do. So while everyone else in my program is worrying about how they’ll keep up in lecture halls full of bright-eyed grad students, and are beginning to relive those ‘forgot to finish my coursework’ nightmares, I’m thinking, what’s coursework? And how many classes can I even have a semester? And what’s the difference between a seminar, a class, and a lab? And where should a charlatan like me be aiming?

Today, after copious napping, waffling, and net surfing, I finally buckled down and pulled out the course catalogue. I had told myself I wasn’t going to bother doing that, and would only go with the reviewed and recommended classes for my program. Come on, just cuz I lucked out and got into the Ivy League doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to be on the ball. I’ve always been half-assed about how I operate – a big chunk person not a detail person - but panic set in and I thought I should at least know what I’m passing on. Cue two hours of flipping pages detailing prerequisites for Foundations of Computational and Systems Biology and Nonlinear Dynamics and Waves. Impressed? Don’t be. I picked stuff like Strange Bedfellows: Science and Environmental Policy, probably because it had the words ‘strange’ and ‘bed’ in it. I've got one of those!

But I do feel a little better, having gone through the trillions of classes. I’ve marked a bunch of them I didn’t know were offered before. But now the next question is, how many classes can I take a semester? Is there a limit? Cuz, I think I’ve selected about 43 classes for one academic year, and I may not know much, but I think that’s too many.

Haha, more complications. Now I have to weed out my classes – all of which I hope will somehow transform me into a super genius or introduce me to some amazing inbuilt ability I never knew I had. Like yodeling. But with science.

That is my mission for tomorrow. Alongwith buying a tea strainer. Ah the adventures of the adult life. You know you’re jealous ;)

Can one have a genetic predisposition to bad knees? Cuz after years of teasing my siblings for their jointular fragility (all have had one form of knee surgery or another), I think it's my turn. :(

Today my limp was so bad, my 65-year-old landlady commented on it. And when slightly geriatric people are noticing your creakiness, as they outpace you, then you got a problem. Or maybe this is just how very uncooperative body has decided to celebrate my newfound agedness. A cupcake would have been sufficient!

So I was thinking, maybe some of you doctor types (*AHEM* Aamir, Maryam), can tell me if it's serious.

The story goes a little like this.

I think I broke my knee. But it got better. Sorry, couldn't resist. Carrying on, I mean I think I broke something INSIDE it. Yes, professional editor and science writer here. What, me inarticulate? Shatap!

Yes, as I was saying... Many months ago, I was jumping fences. I seem to have a tendency to do this, as some will recall the story of my scrambling over an 8 foot iron fence in skirt and boots last summer. Yes, I only hang out with the best-dressed geographic partitions. (think about it)

This time around I, and the fence, were more apty kitted for the occasion. It was softball practice, and I was jumping the fence to retrieve homeruns. I must have jumped this fence a half-dozen times to no immediate consequence. At no point did I fall off the fence like Humpty Dumpty. Neither did I hear anything snap, crackle or pop. I just jumped the fence, got the errant ball, and went back to playing.

But from that day forward *cue ominous music and dramatic lighting*, whenever I suddenly drop down to pick up something, or squat to tie my shoe, it hurts like hell. And then it got worse.

Ok, this additional Damage (with a capital D, said in a desi accent) is probably my own fault. As if the fence jumping wasn't? Who said that?!

Er, right, so it was the end of the softball season, and I insisted on going out with a bang. That involved copious stealing of bases, diving for balls, and lastly, sliding into base with a literal bang. I ended up tripping over it, and landing in an undainty heap. But hey, I was safe, so what'd I care.

Since then, my knee has been UNBEARABLE. Now it hurts all the time it's bent, and when I get up, I end up limping around for 5 minutes or so, till it loosens up and stops hurting. So prayer is painful, and I'm not sure I'm up for my planned 10-mile daily bike commute to class.

So doctor sahibs and sahibahs, use your amazing telescopic/telportive/telekinetic/X-ray vision to look deep into my knee's eyes (?) and tell me, IS IT DEAD?! Do I have to have surgery or something? Cuz I don't want any. It does not fit in with my rockstar schedule right now. And I don't have health insurance.

Next up.... Using telescopic/teleportive/telekinetic/X-ray doctoring skills to mend a busted knee THROUGH THE INTERNET..... OOOOOOH. Stay tuned.

Am I sure I want to do this?

Something aint right.

It may be that I’m attempting, for the first time in my life, to blog from a laptop – some newfangled contraption that is trying to fool me into believing smaller is better. NOTE: Until Science can miniaturise my FINGERS I do not NEED a tiny little keyboard upon which to write my Pulitzer prize winning blog. No, it hasn’t actually won. I just threw that in there to see if you were paying attention. In the meantime, I’m working very hard to only hit one key at a time, while simultaneously training my wrist to NOT activate the damned touch-operated mousepad.

Then it might be that I smell like a bar of soap. See, I washed my hair with one yesterday. I’m sort of in the middle of about two months of the most chaotic travel of my life, involving lots of continents and various cities. Along the way, I seem to be dropping off bits of me – or my gear anyways - hairbrush in Ayraybee-A, sunblock in Indiana, braincells in DC, etc. So I finally arrived at my destination, only to discover I had no shampoo. Or food, but I have enough stored calories on my frame so that’s not as pressing a problem. But I did have a bar of soap. Which I decided, had to help me with one of the two problems – hunger or grimy hair. I wasn’t sure if the soapbar was Kosher – coulda been an unbelieving wildebeest in a past life - so I decided on the latter. Now I smell like Lever 2000. Except that it’s now Lever 2001.

Or, hmm, it may be that today is the first proper day of my life as a Quarterarian. See, I turned 25 yesterday. Or 52, if you believe the writing on my cakes. I personally, however, never trust baked goods for my information. So I’m a quarter of a century old. I’m utterly, and completely, GROWNED UP. This much is certain. At 25, you are well outside of being a kid, and unlike your early 20s, you can't even pretend to be some sort of repeat customer teenager. Halfway down to 30, you are safely beyond the insanity of the early years of being ‘legal.’ By now, you are ideally out of school, done being dumb, sowed all your oats (and are probably responsible for random oat fields across the world) and now are now getting your act together. A 25-year-old may not yet be ready to join the Choir Invisible, but they are considering home loans, anti-wrinkle cream, and career mobility. Right?

So was I wrong to assume that when I woke up today, I’d be a different man. I thought I’d be somehow more distinguished. Instead of wanting to start my day with a Slurpee, I’d brew myself a cup of English Breakfast, and sip (not my usual slurp) it delicately whilst reading the business pages of The Guardian. And apparently, being 25 would make me automatically British. Go fig.

And I’d also no longer want to get dressed in my oversized, stolen-from-the-brother’s-closet jeans, and snarky T-shirts with ambiguous sloganeering on them. I wouldn’t spend my day wondering if I had enough pairs of hightops, and where I could procure some more. Instead, I’d finally put on something that fit, and was actually made for my gender, and wasn’t a slap in the face visually or politically. It may even have involved khakhi and heels. *looks solemn*

At the ripe old age of half of 50, gone would be my need to be slightly scary and Grinch-like. For once, I wouldn’t wake up and put on two tons of kohl and my customary scowl. No, I’d be too mature for the childish pleasures of obnoxiousness. I’d look wise, kind, and I’d have magically clear skin.

Except it didn’t happen. I woke up at noon, fell out of bed, rolled into a pair of jeans that have a huge stab hole in the thigh and a shirt cobbled together by blind monkeys in the Alps. The melty eye-makeup was hastily painted on to mask sleep deprivation and detract from stubborn spots (they didn’t get the memo that I’m now TOO OLD to have acne!). And as I washed down Reeses Peanutbutter Cups with tepid coffee, I blogged.

And what a blog it was.
By Aniraz, The End.

Look hamburger, I made you a new other blog.

Love,
Abez