THE RECAP

I don't know about you but I'm bushed. I crammed a lot into the week. And I need sleep. Or tea. Anyway, this past week I:

Stocked up on gym-related gear at the Nike store.

Attended a local concert at the B52

Ate tons of beef and dessert.

Celebrated my friend - Z's birthday.

Yup it’s the end of the world... as you know it. Don't be shocked if, you see rats fly. Nor should you be shocked if Lady Gaga wins the Gloria Steinem Woman of The Year Award, the original Metallica lineup (Mustaine, Hetfield, McGovney, & Ulrich) reunites, global warming is completely upturned, China gives up hold over Tibet and the world welcomes eternal peace. Seth Rogen makes a movie that doesn't drive me absolutely apeshit, and the cure for aids is found and that cure is chocolate.

Why? As of Monday, I threw on my running shoes, joined the gym and worked out for a whole hour. There was no one at the back of me with a gun. Just me. Working out. By choice. Effin’ A.

I'm not sure what got into me. I wanted to get rid of the overwhelming feelings I’ve been having lately. And rid I did. And do you want to know something? It didn't slaughter me. In fact, it felt kind of good. Now, I'm not going to make any pledges about turning this peculiar goings-on into a routine. But don't be surprised if it happens again. Or the cosmos implodes.

That explains why I'm so worn out. What did you guys do?

I’ve been listening to Arnel Pineda (The Zoo) before he replaced Journey’s lead vocalist and let me first say, before digressing into a boring rant, that his voice is astounding. Quite simply he makes the band brilliant and will always be known as one of Youtube’s success stories. That being said let the wild rant commence.

The track is gorgeous, heartening, and layered in a way that fits perfectly with Journey. And yet in the background there is the invigorating and memorable vocal track provided by our indescribable hero. Is this enough to quench Journey fans? Probably not. But at least we can put our feet up, certain that the band is still alive and still caught up enough creating quality music.

THREE YEARS, 286 ENTRIES LATER

I had planned to bring you an unexpectedly dazzling post. It would have dangerously blown your socks (and quite possibly your undies) off. Then, in a strange yet progressively more regular victory of work over life, I had to slay the whole brilliant post. Why the hype? Well, it dawned on me awhile back that, Evuhleen was officially launched in May of 2008 and I started providing hardcore, woman-on-journal blogging action. So, yes, it’s my blogiversary!

In this aforesaid now-slain entry, I summed up the high points from the last three years. But I don't have the time to do all that again. Plus the procedure of going back and reading some of my own stuff was a little awkward. I wrote some dreadfully silly shit, people. It's remarkable you stuck with me as long as many of you have.

Regardless of how long you've been reading my humble little site, I thank you. You've put up with a lot. And I want you to know that, as invigorating and therapeutic as it’s been to put whatever it is I've written out there, the best part is the people I've met along the way.

Three years, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't seem all that long. Yet three years ago, I don't think I'd have been able to visualize life as it is today. I'm one lucky woman. Thanks for sharing the journey with me.

Kudos to Imcha Imchen, best friend and designer for creating the new header you see above. More about it in the upcoming posts.

There are some songs, which build and grow on you. And there are those that reach out and grab you on the first note. They start fast and morph from one movement to the next in a way that is intense, energetic, flowing, and unexpected. This amazing three minute track is one of the latter and I love the smooth vocals that Jamie Cullum features on this song titled, ‘Mind Trick’. No matter which way he’s swinging it’s all excellent.

THE JOYS OF A TUESDAY

Awkward moments you'd see if I had my own reality TV show:

1. On a daily basis, I forget I'm wearing headphones that are attached to my computer. I've smacked my forehead into the monitor more times than I can count, because not only is the headphones cord made of something with the strength of steel, it's got the springy-ness of a bungee cord. I think I have permanent whiplash.

2. This morning, after fully dressing myself, having breakfast and selecting something to wear after ten ramp-walks, I discovered that a shirt button was missing. This forced me to do the 'shit-I'm-all-ready-and-now-I-have-to-find-a-new-top' hop of irritation which consisted of jumping up and down and mutely cursing the name of Britney Spears.

If someone asked you, what some of the hindrances to your job performance was and you had to respond in knee-jerk fashion.

You as readers reply with, what you think, is the most suitable and fitting answer. This would be one of the options below:

a. Lack of motivation due to a pitiable income and/or incentive.
b. Monotonous work days without the assistance of additional challenges.
c. A drug habit. What? It's not something you’d expect to be an option but I bet it sure has an impact on performance!

Do I need to tell you which one I went with?

Happy Tuesday! It's got to get better, right? Please?

Everyone has something they do after a rough day, when they're stressed or just worn out. This is mine...right here… right now….


I've given this Youtube star’s latest cover a couple of spins since it was published yesterday. Lisa Lavie may be one of the best online artists of the century so far. And her collaboration with a Youtube junior every year, in this case with J Rice on Alicia Keys’ ‘Unthinkable’ doesn’t do anything to change that. Is it her best? No. But it's good. It's beat-driven and wonderfully done. When I first got into listening Lavie’s brand of music, the first hurdle I encountered was the genre of music I normally didn’t listen to. Over time she's worked on her voice and sings more range-filled songs often than not. That said, ‘Unthinkable’ is a not-to-be-missed song.

Catch the song below and the video here.

So, hi. What’s up. Yeah, I know. Listen: I’m not so much abandoning EC as just sort of ignoring it. Totally different.

I’m trying to focus on texting elsewhere, offline, which takes up a lot of time, both valid and overstated. Also, whatever I write here lately would just be me gushing about my week so far with a cute boy, but I think instead I’ll keep it to myself cos there’s no way I’m going to make that particularly interesting or funny. In addition, my luck in all things seems to have done a giant flip-flop for the better, and I’d hate to jinx it.

On the whole, I’m super friggin’ glad. ‘Long-distance guy’ continues to painstakingly woo me. I know, I was supposed to not write about it, because it’d just be gushing, and do you want to read it? Hell no. The less you guys see me being all excited about this courtship ritual the better. All I’ll say is that he’s really really smart, witty and hilarious, so you can see what I’m dealing with here.

Right. Anyway. Moving along…to other stuff in my life. Uh… Runa and I watched Iron Man 2. I bet you have, too. And if you haven’t then I urge you to go for it. The best scene in the entire movie involves Scarlet Johansson looking like this and doing her own stunts:


So you know it’s good.

That’s all I got. The week brings dreadful work. Nothing too glamorous or exciting, but it’s money, honey, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 26 years, it’s that love don’t pay the bills. It will, however, make you feel like you just ate a bar of chocolate, and what’s not to like about that?


As much as I'd love to hate this band called The xx - I really can't. Seriously. I'd love an excuse. But they're pretty awesome. The song ‘Islands’ is really infectious and I love it with a fiery passion that burns with the strength of a thousand suns. But I am positive that the geniuses behind this track have somehow infused it with the mental (television counterpart of weed). How else can you explain the subconscious urge that compels me to awaken with this track in my head? Were I to be deprived of ‘The xx’, I know I would experience the shakes, enter a violently spastic state and end up chopping my ears.

P:S To all my friends and family in Nagaland. Please be at the Jumping Bean Café, Dimapur, tomorrow evening for the Soulmate show. You know the drill by now, right?

Cat, Out of Bag

Somehow the sky seems not to have fallen or my house hasn’t spontaneously imploded even though I told Long-Distance Guy two nights ago that I had a blog and had mentioned him in my last post. (Hang on; I'm cueing up the Hallelujah Chorus on my CD player....)

After he insisted on checking it out, I started to find airfares to Siberia, where I could drown myself in Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world.

And once he did read it and was okay with it. Slowly--oh, so slowly--but surely, the surplus blood began to flow down from my face to the rest of my body. My breathing started to return to normal. Of course, this didn't automatically stop me from feeling as though I was walking into a local store and all of a sudden realizing that I'm not wearing any pants. But I'm okay with that. (Figuratively. I still plan on wearing pants while visiting the local store.) It's a start, at least.

Will this less-than- dramatic twist of events alter anything? No. I mean, I'm not planning on doing anything drastic like watching what I say here (no way, that's ridiculous). I can say with a certain amount of confidence that Long-Distance Guy knows who I am, and I'm not going to change what I do here anymore than I'm going to change the laws of thermodynamics. Though I'm working on those.

If anything, I guess I feel a little relieved. This doesn’t have to be all hushed. And maybe just maybe he’ll get a glimpse of my life, of my friends and things he might not otherwise have gotten.

I realize I don't need to remind you of this but its Friday. This means that the weekend is here. I had the usual work week stuff going on. Nothing bad, just stressful. Getting to Friday was going to be tricky but I’m finally here. Which signals my need to tell you all the crap that I’m going to do this weekend? Instead of rambling paragraphs of prose, I have organized key activities (or inactivities as the case may be) :

Things to do this weekend:

- Watch a couple of movies
- Do lots of reading
- Sleep all friggin’ day

Things to not do this weekend:

-To not get out of bed.

It’s almost a sure bet that when a jazz band covers one of my favorite songs it’ll be worth listening to. This easy-listening/jazz cover of "Smooth Criminal" comes from the wonderful year of 2008 by J.Viewz, stage name of Israeli musician Jonathan Dagan and his band and it’s still hot. Enjoy the music, enjoy your weekend.

I'm bushed! It was a busy weekend. Here's the 411.

Weekend Movie: We went to see ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, the new DreamWorks Animation movie, which I can't recommend highly enough.
At a particularly moving moment in the movie, I started crying. (Don't laugh. It was a terrific movie. I would quote some of it but I don't want to ruin it for those of you who haven't seen it.)

Weekend Food & Books: Luckily for me my friends love food as much as I do. So we got to head over to a restaurant called ‘Hong Kong Hustle’ on Church Street for greasy Chinese food and then to the bookstore where I got myself ‘The Encyclopedia of Mythology’ by Arthur Cotterell and… I also managed to score a nice version of ‘500 Comicbook Villains’ by Mike Conroy. And holy cats, is this thing beautiful. This paperback by genius annotator exhaustively details the villains who have prowled the pages of comic books from 1934 to the present day. Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here’s a page–chosen at random:

Dancing: Was invited to go dancing by a couple of friends to a club called ‘Ice’. Results were mixed. I was thrilled to be there but I could have done without the crowded sweaty people who kept bumping into me every five seconds. For ninety-fucking minutes, I shit you not. It was mind-numbing.

My Online Date: Over the weekend I met an awfully fascinating person. But due to the issue of distance we had to settle for an online rendezvous. Yes, that’s taking dating to an all-time low. But I think I might like him. And I love it when people who are smart and funny and handsome online turn out to be smart and funny and handsome in person.

My good friend Abhi is an amazing artist. Whenever he shows me portions of his work, I can’t stop myself from saying things out loud, because I can’t help being like, “I think your stuff is the best” or “Look at the use of color here!" and then want to shoot myself because I remember that's exactly what Leonardo DiCaprio said in Titanic. I’m sorry, but his stuff really is the best. His graphic novel will be published very soon and I’d want to spend an eternity in that book and never come out until the pages begin to melt.

You, of course, might want to view his work here.

Ok, enough of my blathering on and on. Now that you’re home from college or work let’s think of something constructive we can do with our Tuesday evening.

Here’s ‘Ana’s Song’ by Silverchair because I feel like this could easily be the background music to an after work special. The type of work special that would feature copious amounts of high fives and thumbs ups. Hope this week is bearable on whatever location you’re currently residing. Cheers, and come back often.

After a long, work-filled week, it’s finally Saturday. Luckily for me, it’s going to be a weekend with a chock-full of things to do. And, really there's nothing better than getting out of the usual office wear and into weekend pj’s.
Stretching and curling my toes under my quilt, I realize - not for the first time - that I would just be really happy to sleep in a bed that feels and smells the most familiar. Perhaps it's the ideal weight of the quilt, the way the pillow embraces my head, the unmatched smell collected of sleep and hair and books and dreams; and the bed that waits for me like a timeworn ship ready to bear me to fairer lands.

But before I set out to discover lounge-land, there are two people that I would like to mention in this post. This weekend is going to be a special one, mainly because it’s their birthday. I won't tell you which one, not that I think they care.

Happy Birthday Pete. I can't offer you much advice except to keep on truckin'... Remember that you're pretty good at what you do. Or you wouldn't still be doing it. And for the love of Phil Collins have a little faith in yourself.

Happy Birthday Runa. And what a sweeping difference a year makes. Last year I was throwing you a terrible surprise party. This year, well, um, we'll eat popcorn and celebrate your last year as a single lady. I'll be right here for the next 27 years. And hopefully many more. Happy birthday, my love.

Because I don't listen only to sad music and because it's a Saturday here’s a track that hails from Paul Dateh’s ‘The Good Life’ and it’s titled ‘Hope that you’, which quite possibly could be the perfect tune for a Saturday. It’s up-tempo enough to keep you awake and happy enough to get through another week.

Enjoy your weekend world.