Forever in Blue Jeans

I remember the first time I went out to a Karaoke in Delhi. It was at a pub called Knight Rider. After all of my friends (including Mister) had had a stab at singing, I finally gathered some courage and picked a song I had been singing in my head for years.

Money talks.

But it can’t sing and dance 

and it don’t walk.

As long as I can have you here with me,

I’d much rather be

forever in blue jeans…

My people cheered as I sang, for they knew about my obsession with Pepe’s Gina – a basic blue mid-rise straight-fit pair with exactly zero embellishments, which was hard to find in the day and age of monkey wash, stone wash, swarovski, patches, and other punky shit I did not care for. For that same reason, I owned four identical pairs, and that’s all I ever wore. Much like my black and red converse.

I sang the same song at karaoke after karaoke, until they stopped making Gina. I was miserable and lost. I shuttled from store to store for months on end to find my jeans – people kept  telling me they weren’t fashionable and nobody bought them anymore.

Soon, I found myself clutching at the last pair of Gina in the Pepe store at The Great India Place (a mall in Noida), wondering whether to buy it – it was black, and I wasn’t sure whether I’d ever actually wear it, because well, forever in blue jeans.

I bought it. I still have it, but I have only worn it six or seven times. (I hate that it’s not blue.) I kept wearing tattered jeans – which also eventually became fashionable and then it became impossible to find jeans without the worn out “look”. (WTF is wrong with people?)

So I didn’t couldn’t buy another pair for at least three years.

Eventually, I had to switch to skinny jeans that people swore looked really hot on me. I was changing so many things in life, such as my marital status, I didn’t think one more would make a big difference.

I was very uncomfortable at first, because my body was used to having way more space, and I wasn’t a fan of the waistline being dangerously close to my asscrack.

And now, after having worn skinny, low-waist jeans for two years, I can safely say there is a certain way that jeans make me feel – like I’m dying of crotch asphyxiation.

Seriously – jeans are impractical when the sun is spewing heat like it hates your guts and wants to wipe out your entire race. Not kidding – it’s fucking 50 degrees outside, and all the heat and the moisture have had some serious impact on my sexual wellness (read two painful bouts of vaginitis) in the recent past.

I’ve also got rashes and tingly thighs from crouching to plug my charger in at work. Not to mention the butt crack that peeks out if I bend ever so little.

So I’m giving up jeans and switching to skirts and linen pants and whatever else that’s not jeans. Who’s with me?

Ever noticed they don’t make normal person jeans anymore? Do you wear skinny jeans, and do you face the same problems? Have you ever been on the verge of giving up a type of garment completely? How hot is it where you are?

of revelations: the shoes and the potential rapist

Nobody thought I could be lying about being obsessed about shoes, or about a blogger who wanted to date rape me? You were right. I don’t make jokes about rape. Or shoes.

So here’s the truth, and nothing but the truth.

The shoes

In 1999, just before I started college, my cousins decided to take me out shoe shopping. I had saved exactly 1500 bucks (that’s roughly $24) and I specifically told them this was my shoe and clothes budget. They were a bunch of brand conscious kids so they didn’t care about my budget and took took me to a Nike factory outlet anyway.

The moment I entered, I saw a wall full of white and blue, white and yellow sneakers. My head reeled. All I owned at home was a pair of dirty blue-grey hawaii chappals, a pair of white canvas shoes (the school uniform ones) and a pair of black ballerinas (again, school uniform shoes), and a pair of red sandals for parties, etc.

So I inched closer and closer, when one of the bros stopped me and said – this is the men’s section, and dragged me to a scantier wall, where I saw pink and blue shoes. One pair clearly stood out – black canvas with red laces – and I fell in love. I paid 750 for it, and on my way home I was wondering if I should’ve bought another pair, just in case. I never stopped buying them.

This was 1999, people. I think I may have started the canvas shoe fetish.

Do you wear canvas shoes too? Ever realize you have a similar obsession about something?

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The date rape

This is a story from two or three months ago. I was new to IndiBlogger, and was done lurking in the shadows, so I gingerly entered the group chat. I made “friends” with a blogger, who then proceeded to chat me up via IndiMail, the personal messaging system on IndiBlogger. To be honest, I knew that if I were a man, he wouldn’t have done that, but you know how I am about wanting to fit in, so I responded to him once in a while.

Soon he started following this blog, and left random comments that reeked of I know you so well. I do not like people who try to act over-familiar, so my responses to him became delayed and scanty and mostly contained smileys and thank yous.

On IndiBlogger, it was difficult to ignore him. He kept talking about the fact that he used to write soft porn, to which I never responded. Then he asked me if I wanted to be interviewed on his blog – I didn’t really want to, but politely said sure. He sent me some grammatically incorrect questions, very badly framed, and I asked if he wanted me to correct the English for him, and he didn’t say anything about it, so I was pretty relieved.

Two months ago, he realized that I had said nothing about the interview. So he sent me this:

Of course I already knew he was saying this in jest, but I just couldn’t let it slide. So I confronted him, saying I didn’t appreciate jokes about rape, and he said he only meant it as a joke.

I blocked him. Then I thought some more, and reported him to the IndiBlogger team. Not because I felt threatened by him. I’m sure he didn’t even mean it, but it angered me. What kind of insensitive person jokes about rape?

What would you have done? If you could address this guy directly, what would you say?  

of obsessions

I woke up this morning feeling like crap. The house seemed to crowd around me. I had melted into oblivion. The disorder was all that existed. There were no sounds, no fiance, no thoughts of love or happiness. Just a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and the vulgarity of the laundry basket and the clothes spilling out of it; the unutterable chaos that was my night stand.

It suddenly began to torment me that I’ve been living in the same mess for over a year. The fiance’s a slob, and has turned me into one. I didn’t know what was more horrifying to me, the fact that our home is basically a dump or that I have learned to live with it. And then the devil struck. It was as though I woke up on a different planet, and I could see only the laundry basket and the side stand. I lost all control. I had to clean. Right away.

I spent two hours cleaning the house today, muttering mean things to the fiance under my breath, treating him like an incompetent employee I couldn’t fire. He was trying to help, but is so awful at helping we ended up breaking a whole set of wine glasses. Yes, the same ones that have been sitting on the dining table for a week now. At least I don’t have to bother putting them back on the shelf anymore!

After we were done, I was still in a sulky mood, so he made me tea and sat me down. It was working great, until he said: Hey, I get that you like to live in a clean house and I’m no help at all, but that’s not reason enough for you to get depressed. I don’t know how to deal with this, you know, when life’s a breeze for months on end, and then suddenly wake up and start doing this. You’re freaking me out!

I was livid. I wanted to say: Not reason enough? Really? Do you know what goes on in my mind in those peaceful months? What do you know of obsessions anyway?  There’s never a moment when I’m not thinking about cleaning. Some days I feel so low I almost feel paralyzed. I don’t want to even wake up because I’m afraid of what I’ll get to see. Part of me wants to set the house on fire so I know that I can start setting it up from scratch. But sorry for the inconvenience dude. I know you’re late for work today because of me.

Then I remembered that he does know how it feels to be depressed. He is clinically depressed. He is battling two dissociative disorders.

I’m sorry. I don’t want to freak you out baby. I just feel so paralyzed some days.

I know sweetheart. You know what, we’re going to spend this entire weekend cleaning.

I think I may be more obsessed with him than with cleaning, after all.

with anawnimister