The Internet Personified: Hold on for one more day
Is there any pleasure as great as going out with your girlfriends? Few things come as close, they are:
1) Hanging out with your one and only with no deadlines to come in your way.
2) A book you've been looking forward to for a long time finally being available on your Kindle or in your hands.
3) An afternoon in the middle of a long holiday when you look up and you think, "Oh that's right, I have nothing to do today except to please myself."
4) Time with your mum or dad or both when you look up from the meal they have just served you and you realise there is nothing you have to say, no more words are needed, and you can take off to your bedroom in their house, the bedroom they have designated for you and be quiet for the rest of the day because nothing is expected of you, you don't have to make conversation or anything.
5) Binge watching a TV show and your cat (if you have a cat) crawling into your lap and you're all like, "Oh, I can't get up now because I have a cat in my lap" but you're kinda glad he's there because now you can watch TV and stroke the spot under his chin that always gets him purring and when he purrs you feel it vibrating deep inside of you and you feel like someone's just put you in a warm bath.
But an afternoon or evening with your girlfriends is just as good because you all trip over your words, there's SO MUCH to say, there are drinks to be had and you feel floaty like that Mary Poppins sequence when they're all laughing and they drift to the ceiling, it's a bit like that, a warm bath of no judgement and no angry words and no want want want all the time, you just are. I hope you have friends like that, because I do, and we try to meet a few times every month and each time, we never want to leave, even though some of us have kids, and others have cats and responsibilities and things, we just know that no matter where we go, there we are, to paraphrase Douglas Adams.
It's kind of harder in your thirties if you're all married or in civil partnerships like I am to make time for each other, but I find in my thirties I need my women friends more than I ever did, but not for the intense co-dependence you had in your twenties, that was great, but that is not now, now it's like you're meeting as grown ups and as grown ups you all listen to each other and you still talk at a rapid clip of 60 wpm, but you're also listening more and when you listen you notice the gaps between the conversation, which often says more than the words that come out of your mouth.
This week in food and drink: All those words to say I went to Hungry Monkey again for brunch with my friends Sam and Mansha, which has a really good deal of 899 for all you can drink cocktails and beer. Except if you're a slow drinker like me, you wind up drinking your last two very fast, because you want to get your money's worth. However, if you're into long Sunday drinks, I'd recommend it.
Was very sad to find that Big Fat Sandwich has stopped delivery, and when I met a new friend this week, I was thrilled to hear her husband owns Sandwich and Sons, a new delivery place, which, alas, does not deliver to us. But! When she heard we were big sandwich people--because who isn't, right?--she sent us two to try--the lamb burger and the chicken with gunpowder, both of which were SO GOOD, so if you live in their delivery radius, please try. You'll love it.
Yesterday, craving Chinese, we ordered from a new place called Chilli Kitchen, because our usual cheap Chinese, Pema's has stopped taking online orders (boo hiss.) Chilli Kitchen is fantastic, not just for the chilli pork I ordered, but also great North Eastern food, if the Assamese fish curry we got is anything to go by. Spicy enough to make your nose run, and really good as well. I ate like a pig.
Next week in events: My mum's book Mr And Mrs Jinnah is being launched at Bikaner House on Wednesday at 6.15 pm! Come! It's a really good book too, even if you have no interest in the Jinnahs, because Ruttie Jinnah (the mrs) is basically someone you've met at a cocktail party and she had a very interesting and tragic life.
This week in comics: I did a listicle comic on stuff I like to read about. I'm loving my Wacom by the way. Much nicer than pen and paper now that I'm used to it. (Enable images to see!)
This week in home improvement: We got two little gadgets for our house this week. One is a little doodad that basically checks how much voltage everything uses so we can save on power bills which means we had a few days of plugging it into EVERYTHING and then gasping at the power used (turn your thingies off, people!) and the other was a power drill so I've hung up a bunch of paintings, and we feel very Tim Allen and DIY right now, so some of our Goa life has obviously drifted into Delhi.
Reading list: What happens at Uber, stays at Uber. ** Read this review of 50 Shades Darker instead of watching the movie. ** In Delhi, no one really cares if you're being beaten up at home. ** How NOT to report a rape: lessons from Times of India. ** An old story by me on only children in literature which I was thinking about this week. ** Roxane Gay is everyone's Twitter crush. ** Horses are not dogs, dude: horses in SFF are troublesome. **
Have a great week!
xx
m