The Internet Personified: Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

After threatening to do so for the past few days, I fear my body has now given itself up gloriously to the malaise of a runny nose and a scratchy throat. I blame Delhi this time of the year, the air thick with celebratory fireworks and more to come. Normally, this is the kind of sore throat/head cold/meh feeling I can work with: just give me a bunch of tissues and let me lie around in bed, but unfortunately, this weekend is also the wedding of one of my oldest and closest friends, and so I have several guest starring roles to play, starting with a party at our house tonight.

In preparation for this party, I set up the Housejoy app, because apparently they have beauticians on it now, and am getting someone to come over to flat iron my hair. Because even if I'm sniffling through the whole thing, at least I'll be able to flick my hair about like someone in a shampoo ad. Ironing my hair is a pain in the ass which takes anywhere from two to three hours on account of the sheer volume of it all. I tangle teased with my brush last night though, so hopefully the knots will not be too frightful. It's a fleeting, temporary beauty that vanishes as soon as you wash your hair the next time, but, even though K is all, "Straight hair doesn't suit you" (which is LUCKY, because I do not want to have to do this all the time) I'm looking forward to a weekend spent unrecognisable, Cinderella-like.

This week in new purchases: I do have one thing to look forward to in this Threatening To Be Flu day, which is: I bought a new phone! I've had my One Plus One, which I still love, but the battery is all but gone and it's kinda behind the times now, for about three years now, which is long in the life of phones. I'm now getting the Moto G5S Plus (reviews here and here) which fits nicely in my 15,000 and under budget: not a lot to spend on a phone if you're using it for two or three years. Mostly importantly, it has a great camera and an even better battery life, plus the latest version of Android already running on it, with the promise of at least one update. I got it through Amazon's new exchange offer which meant I needed to back up everything on my old phone, but eh, it's something one should do anyway. If you're in the market, it was a toss-up for me between this and the Xiaomi Mi A1, and the only reason that phone didn't win (they're virtually identical) was because of Xiaomi's flash sale nonsense, which means you have to wait and do like a trigger finger as soon as the new sale is announced. A bit like trying to get a tatkal ticket on IRCTC. Not for me, thank you.

(The One Plus 5 would have been my obvious choice since I liked the One Plus One so much, but the reviews have been average and the price has gone way up, so no.)

Still waiting for my phone to arrive though, so look out for user reviews soon.

This week in books and reading: Took advantage of the Flipkart Big Billion Day sale to get K to buy me some books off my Amazon wishlist (sneaky) (He also bought me my new cellphone, I'm enjoying being showered in gifts). So far I've been immersed in only one of those purchases, The Collected Stories Of Hercule Poirot, which I have read between parties and lying on my couch and are the perfect kind of detective story. I like them so much, I'm going to get The Collected Stories Of Miss Marple next. I have SO much going on right now in terms of work and other life things which will be revealed to you in due course, that I only have the attention span for very short reads.

(I found Hercule through this Facebook group I joined called Deals For Broke Bibliophiles. Often, it's not stuff I actually want, being mostly box sets and things which I think are more of a luxury item than a real book, but sometimes I get gold. I subscribe to their Telegram channel which is nice and easy.)

Then I got Graeme Gibson's The Bedside Book Of Beasts which is this gorgeous hardcover collection of writings, poems and art about beasts in literature. Graeme is Mr Margaret Atwood and the two of them run a bird sanctuary together, because of course they do. I wanted The Bedside Book Of Birds but that wasn't on sale yet.

Also, Pranay Lal's Indica about the dinosaurs and things that used to roam the Indian subcontinent, which looks fascinating and also has great illustrations. I think if you were to buy me a book, you couldn't go wrong with something Nature + History + Myth. The bit where those three meet on the Venn diagram is my sweet spot.

Also related: picked up a book for my friend's young daughter the other day. Bookstores have also become so horribly gendered: tractor books or princess books, you have to really hunt to find the good stuff. And also hard to find Indian authors who aren't just doing mythology. (Actually this is a specific complaint about Midlands. Bahri Kids and Full Circle both have great collections.) I bought her Prerna Bindra's When I Grow Up, I Want To Be a Tiger which is a fun story about a tiger cub and the forest he lives in along with a conservation message. It's everywhere in stores now, which means they already HAD a copy of the book, but since the other one was shrink wrapped and mine was not, I persuaded her to regift that one instead. Quite fun, and full of sound effects for your 3 to 5 year old who still likes to be read to. I think I'm getting quite good at giving children books these days. I'm not sure, because I usually never get a review from the actual child, but their PARENTS seem to like them, so that's good, right?

(Before you @ me, Tara Books has changed or stopped their usual distributor so their books are no longer available as widely.)

(I'm reminded of a story someone told me at a party recently: they bought their nephew a really nice box set of a series they thought he'd be into and he looked at them and said, "Um, we don't read, could you give me cash instead?" Apparently, all the kids only give cash, and even have special monogrammed envelopes so you know who has given what. I heard this and was all, "OVER MY DEAD BODY" and kids I know will continue to get books for all their birthdays forever and ever, until they are old enough to have cultivated a proper reading habit without my help.)

That's all from your poor stuffy headed correspondent this week. But! Here are my favourite links of the week:

“This has been my go-to brownie recipe for 30 years. In the ’80s, an acquaintance in Germany to whom I brought some of the brownies, and who considered herself a great cook, asked for the recipe but was never able to get it to work. She kept asking me what she was doing wrong and I was never able to solve her problem. Eventually, she moved to the U.S. and stole my husband!”

- The story behind the best comment ever left on an internet recipe.

I’ve realized definitively that every person’s story is partial. By which I mean that every story leaves things out—a lot of things; there aren’t enough pages in the world to hold everything. And by which I mean, it’s subjective. I can only tell my version of my story. That means that everyone in my story is misrepresented. I’ve come to also understand definitively that there is nothing more terrorizing than being misrepresented, because its consequence is being misunderstood.

- I love this essay although I still can't tell you what it's about. Children? Parents? Both? (Also had to link to it once I saw the byline.)

That's all. Stuffy nose and looming deadlines. Have a great week darlings.
xx
m





Where am I? The Internet Personified! A mostly weekly collection of things I did/thought/read/saw that week.

Who are you? Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer of internet words (and other things) author of six books (suppport me by buying a book!) and general city-potter-er.

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