it's his baby.

i figured
that the lack of public transport
would save me from the weirdness i usually experience
but no..

i was driving in richmond
and on the sidewalk
i see a grown man
with a stroller
and a dog

he's pushing the stroller
and the dog is on a leash
and i get a closer look
and there's another dog
strapped into the stroller...

!!

what the hell!
he didn't even have a baby!
the dog! is his baby!

i realize
that maybe i'm being judgmental
but people, come freaking on.

i (almost) got mugged! ...kinda

the long awaited day
has finally arrived

no more transit.

in celebration of this monumental moment
i'd like to share
an experience
bestowed upon to me
by the lovely people of Translink

i can't even remember when this happened
but everytime i think of it
my face contorts itself into an expression
part disbelief
part amusement
part disgust

like every other story of mine in the last four years
this one begins in the same way:

so, i was like on the bus, right?
i'm sitting there
pretending to be preoccupied with some mundane paper im holding
just to avoid making eye contact with anyone
should any of them break the social norm
and actually start talking to me
at 730 in the morning

i should mention
i was sitting in the back-ish
where the seats inconveniently face one another
providing with you those horrible moments
where you
and the person sitting directly in front of you
look up at simultaneously
to share an awkward point in time
where you're looking at one another

so, as i paused to take relief from the boredom of this paper
i look up
and
this woman looks at me
motions to me, as if she wants to talk to me
i, niavely, take out my earphones
to hear her request:

do you have a cell phone?

i respond with a smile
glad to be of assistance
"yeah, do you need to use it?"

and she looks at me
straight in the eye
"yeah, can i have it?"

i must've heard her incorrectly
"you mean you want to use it? like, borrow it for a moment"

with the utmost seriousness
"no, i mean, can i have it?"

i'm obviously not understanding the situation
"you want my phone? to keep?"

she's getting impatient with me
as if i'm supposed to be used to being mugged politely
"yeah... that's what i mean"

i'm too scared to be offended
"....but why? why do you want my phone"

as matter of factly as possible
"i dont have one, and i need to call my boyfriend"

i dont know how to respond
"i.. uh.. i don't feel comfortable giving you my phone"

"why not?"

"because it's mine"

and since i'm still nice
i add
"but you can use it to call your boyfriend if you promise to give it back"

and you know what the woman says to me
"no thanks."

and the most predictable part of the situation is
my fellow bus people
are watching this ping-pong conversation
and don't say a thing

people! i'm being mugged!
they're sitting there
soaking up this story
that i'm sure was circulated among their friends
received plenty of laughs and i-cant-believe-thats
but no one came to my rescue

so i sat the rest of my ride
feeling this woman's eyes burning holes into me

and you know what?
i actually felt bad!
starting thinking... maybe she can't afford one, maybe i should've just given it and told my parents it was stolen...

that's what transit does to you
it sucks you into its world of... weird.

but i'll miss it
i'll miss the stories it gave me.

pieces.

privilege
redemption
uncertainty
fallibilty
humanity
solidification,
validation of
innate intuition
mantra: it'll be okay
or better, at least
6 feet deep but headed toward a higher ground
ask, beg
without pause
breathless
desperate demands
beyond repair
fix, or at least try
sense strength
breathing in and out
give me
an honest reason
or
haunting moments that last close to forever
we live hoping.
we die hoping.
and even then,
we still hope.


darling, where have i been?

what am i saying?

i need to know why.
yes, this; but why?

pen-a-holic.

hi
my name is navi
and i'm a pen-a-holic

today was term's-over-so-let's-organize-everything-and-put-it-away day
naturally
after i did this
i cleaned up my desk
threw away all useless pieces of paper
(so much, holy)
anyhoo
i was throwing away all the pens/highlighters that no longer work
and there was a huge pile of things that still worked
which was then divided into 4 groups:

1.) blue and black pens (gel, ballpoint, etc.)
2.) highlighters
3.) coloured pens
4.) virgin stick pens

each pile was then put into its respective pen holder on my desk

i felt the need to count them
and...

*drumroll*

i counted a total of 83 working pens and highlighters.

(i'm sure i have more lying around)
i'm not ashamed.
i don't have a problem.
i just have a whole lot of pens.

--navi

announcements.

there are somethings
which i can't tolerate
i don't have a lot of principles
(i think i have 3)
but there are somethings which come under "inappropriate" for me
i'm going to tell you about one of these things:

i don't like it when people broadcast news
especially when it's over their msn-user-names

there are some people
that i never talk to
i don't call them
i don't run into them
i keep 'em blocked
(it's in my antisocial nature)
and yet
i know about everything that's going on in their lives
how?
they're constant msn-user-name changers:
they ate a peanut? i know about it.
they changed their hair? i know about it.
they broke up? i know about it.
they're in love? again? i know about it
they're constipated? i know about it.
i know all about it.

but that
that i can still tolerate
because it's mundane
msn is mundane
they mesh;
it works.

but then..
then it escalates:

if their mom's brother's wife's best friend's great grandmother's dog died
i need to know about it
but not only that
i also need to know that they're sad about it
then
i need to sympathize.
oh joy.

but sometimes
bad things happen
tragic things happen
and it's inhumane to not feel something
but you honestly rape the sentiment out of a tragedy by broadcasting it to everyone
and msn?
it's only most impersonal of media.

someone is going through a really hard time
someone is at their lowest
someone doesn't know if they'll make it through

it's aggravating to me
because those are REAL problems
and to do that
to announce them to every tom, dick and harinder

is the greatest insult.

because now it's not about those people
you changed it
and now
it's about you.
and sometimes
everything doesn't need to be about you.

i like validation
we all like validation
but don't steal it.
don't steal sympathy from strangers to feel validated.
don't create drama.

and now
don't go apeshit on me
because i expressed myself.

go rant on your own blog.

--navi

fleeting.

it's like
there's this shelf
and on this shelf, there's a box
that i really want
but i'm not tall enough to get it
because i never grew enough
so
i made a ladder
and i'm climbing the ladder
but it's not high enough
so i'm reaching out to it
and i can feel my fingers scraping against the edge
but
i can't grasp it
it's just
it's right here
it's so close
but not close enough
i didnt build the ladder high enough.
and i don't know how much further i can reach..

i'm anticipating heartache
and the anticipation
is breaking my heart

this has to work out.
It has to.

some one give me a boost:
i'm so close.

blind spot.

i was on the bus this morning
going to school
and i was doing my reading for cogs tomorrow
it was about vision
the user illusion
and how we think we see everything
but we barely see anything
anyways
they were doing the classic experiment
of how
there's a blind spot
and they were saying the usual:
how there's a blind spot because there's no input at a certain area of the retina
okay, no problem.
and then they were saying
how our vision system "fills" this gap in
how we don't "see" the gap
how we don't see a black spot
but why would it be a black spot?

and i started thinking about blind people.
they don't "see" the way we would "see" if we closed our eyes
they don't see darkness
they don't see anything
it's.. nothing
in a social context, we teach them that this is darkness, this is black
but it's not.
it's such a natural way of thinking
that they would see black
but they dont!
can you believe it?
i can't even imagine what they see, or dont see.
it's nothing
they dont have the sense
to see.
it's something so completely different.

it's a world
so beyond me.

think about it.