pardon my disappearance...

have i lost my audience? i think i might have. i apologize, dear readers, for my hiatus of sorts. it wasn't intentional or planned, it just happened. i think the last time i blogged was back in september of last year shortly after katrina, and then all of a sudden things just started happening in my life that made it really difficult to find time to blog. and then i just got lazy and figured no one was reading my shit anyway cuz i hadn't written in so damn long.

but my original reason for not writing was a valid one. i promise. sometime in late august i decided to respond to a call for submissions for an anthology and so i needed to save every ounce of my writing energy to write an essay. it was worth it though; my essay was accepted and will be published as a part of an anthology sometime in june of this year. i'm psyched as hell, it'll be my first published piece ever! email me in june if you want to know the title once it comes out in stores.

right now, i'm in india. chennai to be precise. my sis and niece live here now so i'm splitting my vacation time between here and dhaka. my mom is here too, but i won't see dad until mom and i fly out to dhaka next saturday. i decided this year, that i wanted to spend my birthday with my niece, because, um... frankly folks, she seems to be the only person in the world who is excited about the fact that i have a birthday coming up and that she'll get to spend it with me for the first time in her life. i arrived here late last saturday after a sleep-filled-long-ass-uneventful-journey via london, and the morning after i arrived my sister (and niece) surprised me with a quick getaway trip to a resort called temple bay in mahabalipuram which is about an hour drive from chennai. my birthday isn't until thursday (the 9th) but they wanted to do it over a weekend since my niece has school and sis has to work. let me just say, it was the best fucking birthday i've ever had. period. i spent the weekend swimming in an infinity pool overlooking the indian ocean, lounging in the sun, eating like a pig, relaxing and reading on a hammock and just all around chillin'. it was great. i loved it. i can't even say enough good things about it.

so yeah, turning 33 has so far been great. i'm looking forward to this year. it's funny how you get older and you start caring less and less about birthdays and you sort of stop getting presents and the specialness of the day just fades into oblivion and then it takes an 8 year old to make you feel like your birthday is indeed a special day and should be celebrated as such. as for the actual day of my birthday, i believe a visit to a local spa for a massage and a chocolate cake are on the agenda courtesy of my fabulous sister.

i really do feel special.

so let's see, i suppose i should catch you all up on a few highlights of my life in the past 6 months. i'll never be able to write it all up, so bullet points it shall be:

* i applied for a job in india. actually, they approached me, i wasn't even looking. i still don't know if i'll get it, but from the looks of things i don't think i will. the plan was to interview with them while i'm in chennai, but the company is having problems trying to work out a visa thing that would allow me to work in india and the prospects are looking kinda slim. i haven't heard from them yet, and i'm only going to be in chennai for 3 more days, so... you do the math. it would've been a great opportunity and i was really ready to make the move, but as with everything else in my life, being a bangladeshi citizen doesn't come with too many perks in the global visa department.

* i finally painted my living room and bathroom! yes, after living in my condo for a year and a half, i used thanksgiving weekend to get down to business and paint. it then took about another few months to actually put up all my artwork and stuff, but the place is really starting to come together nicely. it actually feels like a home now instead of a half-assed, bare-walled, temporary abode with a pool table in it!

* my new job was going really, really well until they hired someone in late september, who, let me really emphasize that i'm not lying at all, is a complete moron. normally i wouldn't care, except that the guy is my direct supervisor. it's one of those situations where the guy has a shit load of letters behind his name (and never fails to remind you of it), yet he somehow has no concept of some of the most basic stuff that you just have to know to be in the business that i'm in. i seriously know more than he does, and i feel like my intelligence is insulted every day that i walk into the office and have to deal with his ignorant ass. personality conflicts aside, the man is an idiot. i have no idea how he got all those degrees but i'm assuming he's just a really good test taker. the issue is actually a lot worse than i'm making it sound, and i'm hoping that my manager will see through his bullshit eventually and after the standard 6 month probation they'll fire his dumb ass. but one never knows. all i know is, if he stays, i go. i cannot, in my right mind, continue to work under this guy knowing that he's an imbecile. i'll give them until april (my one year anniversary) to figure out what a jackass he is until i start looking for another job.

* i had some really weird experiences with women in the past few months. remember raquel from miami (see private dancer post)? well, i went to miami again in december and my cousin, true to form, took me back to the same club and of course, raquel was there! she recognized me, and um, we went into the back room, and um, i did things to her that according to my cousin, men aren't ever allowed to do for the mere price of a lapdance. i also went out on a few non-dates with this chick who didn't have any eyebrows. well, ok so she didn't have real eyebrows, but she painted them so badly that they just looked downright whack. i really couldn't get past it. i think i might've been a little desperate, but nothing happened in the end except that i wasted a lot of time and drank a lot of wine and got sick on new years day. a few weeks later i had an make out session with a butch girl and um, i think i've come to the conclusion that i really just can't do butch girls. the chemistry just doesn't work. i mean, i'm sorta kinda butch-ish a little bit already, but i've always been attracted to androgynous girls. some of them turn out to be butch and some not. i just need to stick to the ones that are not. you know what i mean? i hate to blindly make statements like that, but i guess it's not that blind when you speak from experience, no?

* i'm officially calling myself a swimmer. i, deshigrrrl, am a swimmer. ever since august or september of last year, i've been swimming regularly at least 3 times a week if not more and not only am i getting really good at it, but i've also regained much of my girlish figure. i'm so proud of myself! at first i could only swim about 5 lengths of the pool before getting winded, but now i can swim 100 lengths without stopping (and i still smoke!). it's one of the most pleasurable achievements i've had in a long time and i simply can't get enough of it. i have a friend in the neighborhood who is equally freakish about it and so together we try to motivate each other to go. we call ourselves the aqua unit. yes, we do.

* i went to san francisco in early november with summer homeslice and fell in love wiht the bay area. summer's posts would do the experience more justice than this here little blip, but i must say that we went to a party in oakland that was quite possibly, hands down, the best fucking house party i'd ever been to in my entire life. the women in the bay are just gorgeous and i blame the superdopecaliweed on the fact that i spent the entire party dancing my ass off instead of trying to get my (lack of) mack on.

surely i'm missing things to write about, but my memory escapes me and, well, it's late here in chennai and i'm a bit tired from all the shopping i've been doing! :) i'll try to be a bit more regular about posting and hopefully i haven't totally lost all my readers. in the meantime, i'll be chillin' here in 80 degree weather, eating mom's home cooked food and getting ready to go see my dad and my friends in dhaka this weekend. i'll be back in chi at the end of the month. drop me a line in the comment box and let me know that you're still reading. i'd love to hear from you!