Vaudeville women

Basically pissed off.

The only thing I don’t tolerate apart from stupids not accepting their stupidity is stupids being unprofessional.

Over the last ten days much of my resources have been devoted to troubleshooting problems brought about by, well, though hate to point out but simply cant ignore - ahem - women.

Before some silly feminist unhooks her bra crying she-wolf, I would like to put up my hands and say that some women I have come across in my professional life have been brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. But only some mind you. Most are not ; they get by doing religiously what has been delegated to them. It is when they try to play something that they are not that the ecosystem gets disturbed.

The point is that we all as species are defined by our strengths and limitations.The entire idea of coming to adulthood is to be prepared to accept and work with it. Like - it would be absolutely hilarious to imagine me beating the 9 ½ seconds mark for hundred metres.

Ditto the charecters unique to men and women.. Some things are forte of women whilst some others are the domain of men. Accept and move on. But some don’t. And having used all the resources, and all the structure of the set-up a round them , all they can produce is this

A load of shit. Before eventually being theatrical, womanly and begging others to clean it all up.

As much as I hate to use my power, I was compelled to use it many a times over the last week - including once to coldly point out the absolute stupidity with which a particular plan was being pursued in a meeting at 2 am in the morning. As it happens often under such circumstances the lady colleague had no corner to cover herself with. Only people who can look at themselves objectively can work in horizontal professional relationships, most others would be asking to be a part of hierarchical work set up where they would want others to tell them off. Go become a software engineer or something where you chase a deadline from your cosy-cubicle, why take up jobs where you should be thinking on your toes?

In the context check this link that S sent me following discussions on Indian women bloggers.

To make up for all the negativity, here's an interesting poem called Mal in a brilliant format by Kevin Oberlin.

Situation	Automatic Thought	Physical Response	Emotional Response	Cognitive Distortion	Changed Thought
back on Shadow, but that was before the war	no longer my world	press my forehead to the margins, fly low	silence where survival’s concerned	and faith in ownership	lots of rocks look like home
a sack of money for a crate of goods, an exchange of containers	where we keep our bodies and what it felt like to inhabit them	I would most certainly like you to touch me	maybe with nostalgia	the package travels because we carry it	exchange is not change, but constant motion
what you break down, what you build	a family	your own quarters, your own bunk, your own cut	except when I conjure otherwise	a thing with roots can’t be moved, that’s the point	and I am in constant motion
fog and fuck sound mighty similar to my ear	maybe you should see what it feels like	I’ve kept some of your things in a trunk	not knowing you’re in love, a stronger thing by far	but why admit it?	skin, only a middle layer
shot in the shoulder again	take a bullet, you take someone’s burden off	also, it hurts	if I recover, expect me to get a few things off my chest	the tight pants improve my range of motion, asshole	don’t make me turn this ship around
bar fight	careful what you say next	a brown shirt, a brown coat	patience isn’t a virtue, she’s a bitch	fighting keeps the dust down	with my shoulder blades I know if I’ve got help behind me
in the black, what don’t matter comes clear	we’ll stop for supplies and make what repairs we can afford	to keep flying	like a crate buoyed by its cargo	life makes its own self interesting, bullet by burning bullet	you take the battle with you

PS - I see The Class was a last minute surpirse at festival de cannes , have been told Paris has been rejoicing in streets - félicitations, buggerers.

Congratulations on your Marriage...

Perhaps this is one of the brilliant poems I have read in a while. It’s penned by Finny for Y, congratulating on her marriage. I fucking wish I had written it. Here are some of the terms of trade for putting it up here, negotiations are still on.

a year's subscription to TLS
a certain maths book from Waterstones/a selection of books frm your collection?
a bag of new de wolf decor i left behind in my room in bruss
a packet of queen fabiola bulbs (for planting) i left behind
a rosemary plant in a pot
a thyme plant in a pot


Some typos you may find are purely incidental, I am afraid you have to bear them. And, Yes, the poem’s copyrighted. Don’t get yourself into trouble.

© Poet.

To Light An Answer

Dear Diary,

Driving back home on this absolute gorgeous day I remembered Keith Althaus; for writing such a gorgeous line. May be poetry is the memory of the universe, how it wants to remember itself.

I am crossing years tonight
to light an answer.

~Keith Althaus, POEM

Blend

One of the most relatable Post-modern poems Ive come across recently, From Michael O'Siadhail's Globe.

Blend

Beyond each heartland over millennia
exodus, migration, scattering,
eternal Jew, Chinese sojourner
Or wherever green is worn.

Remember how many thrived in Babylon,
exile and rover making good
Or darker musics of belonging
Blues, calypso, reggae.

As both before Europe's lines and maps
And in gaps and interstices then,
Even more so now that all
Our frontiers shift and leak.

Every homeland falls short of our desire.
...che retro la memoria non pio ire--
memory can't backtrack-
Dante dreams onward.

Uprootedness, estrangement, our starting again.
As in the beginning and maybe always
blends of memory, story, myth ;
cross oceans of longing.

~Michael o’ Siadhail

On the art of innocence.....

It would be good to give much thought, before
you try to find words for something so lost,
for those long childhood afternoons you knew
that vanished so completely --and why?

We're still reminded--: sometimes by a rain,
but we can no longer say what it means;
life was never again so filled with meeting,
with reunion and with passing on

as back then, when nothing happened to us
except what happens to things and creatures:
we lived their world as something human,
and became filled to the brim with figures.

And became as lonely as a sheperd
and as overburdened by vast distances,
and summoned and stirred as from far away,
and slowly, like a long new thread,
introduced into that picture-sequence
where now having to go on bewilders us.


~Rainer Maria Rilke, Childhood.

Undoubtedly one of the most adorable photos I have snapped.

~ Somewhere opposite Lake Léman, Geneva.

Love in a Bathtub

For J,

Love in a Bathtub

Years later we'll remember the bathtub
the position of the taps
the water, slippery
as if a bucketful of eels had joined us ...
we'll be old, our children grown up
but we'll remember the water sloshing out
the useless soap,
the mountain of wet towels.
'Remember the bathtub in Belfast?'
we'll prod each other -

~Sujata Bhatt