'Okay these are my tasks.' These are the things. I want to get them done and so maybe I will and then I'll get to feel like one of those productive types. Acha fine. But then I find myself doing these things in exactly the most irresponsible order. For instance, last Sunday I was in the shower remembering how I wanted to clean the bathroom and finish painting the walls in my room. I am inside the shower, thinking about how I should have done these household tasks first and instead now it is like oof. Even if you were ambitious enough to do three things today (shower, clean, paint) it won't count one hundred percent because you ended up doing it in this faltu order. I get out of the shower, lay on the bed and stare at the ceiling fan for 20 minutes because this is generally what I do and because I do not like to move fast after shower. I realize that my habits all together are not that productive and then what is a habit anyway. Then I do some stream of consciousness about how my inability to do things right and make my meals cute-looking, accessorizing with bread etc have really shaped my character and perhaps how logically deprived those who do not often get to experience loss of productivity really are i.e. How to Let Yourself Feel Better in five seconds or less. Some gain from what they see as self-improvement and others gain from playing handgames with other peoples' illustrious stereotype of themselves(aka shittin on your whole life, amirite?!). Anyway, the point is not for me to be a rudegurl about people who like to think they have their shit together. If you like having your shit together and champion remembering to brush your teeth AFTER you drink orange juice then... go from me because you don't exist. Also why. Just generally in all things why. More specifically.... Why has this blog post been able to go on for so long? Why haven't I mentioned that I'm a brown lady with some brown missing?? Isn't that the only reason we read your poorly designed blog anyway #vitiligopoetry????
Basically I plan on blogging more regularly and less about laundry detergent or whatever this post was about in the near futch. It's also been brought to my attention that I might want to define what a [popsicle] piccolo is before some hip new yorker overhears and creates a whatshouldwecallmepiccolo tumblr and my one job prospect is ruined. To begin, I leave you with a piccolo of the day:
Hiiiiiii and welcome my blog readers!!!! I hope that you are enjoying your visits to my tropsicle slime machine and including it in all your gossips which is the most dubious honor I could ask for. I don't know why I have a tendency to begin my posts as if I'm receiving a Grammy aka Teen Choice Award for Best Eyes aka Ring Pop (?) but helloos to you and thank gad for all the oneness but most importantly for making me feel like a number 1. I figure that certain readers might feel cheated during their past visits here because this is suppose to be a time machine which to some implies serious boot strappy mechanics, nuts n bolts etc but for some reason after you read my blog you feel like you haven't gone much of anywhere except maybe to a shady popsicle stand where you found a dead fly in your ice cream..................and ate it. I'm unsurprised to say that I've created a highly neglected, confusingly sequenced archive of my purrsonal poisonals here. Also Why did you eat that fly? "I write emotional algebra," wrote Anais Nin which is a lovely quote of hers I found on some website's compilation of Anais Nin quotes. I don't really know shit about Anais Nin except that her sun sign is in Pisces and I also don't think I write anything as mastered or meticulous as emotional algebra, but more like non-bra wearing emotions written through the imagined inflection of a platypus. Point beez, whomever you are, maybe you'll leave a comment or something so I can figure out if you are from the federal government checking up on whether I am of good character or mostly not.
Mooing on, this blog post title is from my mom who recounted this lil jokesie from her tender youths in Madras. It goes:
"Jaggery pot!"
("what?")
"I ate sugar, you ate snot!"
This is something that my mom would say when she was a kiddo but I find more enjoyment from her saying it to me as a grownperson. Isn't it just? Pot and snot rhyme so nicely to say something so unnecessary. Also my mom talking about snot is probably one of the more precarious things to happen in months so I totes had to give yougaiz an update #jelous?
Another update is that I moved last week!!!! To New Orleans yougaiz. And I have plenty to say about that but for now I just want to send a lot of love to my peeps in the places I don't live anymore - specifically those I know from North Carolina and Hyderabad. Maybe it's my new job that's inviting all these Mr. Roger's neighborhood sensations but I'm recognizing the value of those communities by moving to this city where I came knowing practically no one. And while it's really pretty exciting to have the scope of my daily encounters feel like multiple first dates...... I guess I miss the companionship ? And with that conclusion I've literally turned into a cornish hen. What I mean to say is that there's a lot of unrecognized jaggery-pot-sugar-snot there and that magnificence has always been with us even when it was just the 50 millioneth pine tree I came across.
To finish, here is a picture of my previous birthday cuteness to commemorate the slightly aged, sappy cuteness that I feel today:
I wanted to write a blog post about how from a young age I've sympathized with women who kill their husbands but then I reconsidered it because that kind of thing might get this popsicle stand piccolo in a lot of trouble ! Maybe I'm paranoid because last week I posted a picture of my dad on facebook and he got supar mad at me. He was sitting in this reclining chair that he sits in with a tv remote, a small bowl of chanachur and some scotch. My mom was in the kitchen doing something near the sink and there was probably some Mitt Romney v Obama shit in the air because of the tv. Maybe I got girlchild issues but something about this reads a bit like the non-calm before a domestic violence episode, no? My dad had recently been sporting this blue shirt and so I captioned the pic "Spotted: a smurf in his natural habitat." I guess I made a joke of it because sometimes I want to bond with the same person who once tried to make me feel bad about buying tampons in front of him. I showed him the picture being like 'lololo dad' and immediately he got sososososo mad at me - which is a good male chauvinisty way of reminding your daughter that *you* get to make the decision about what is fun and what is scarymisery. Partially I felt bad and respectful of his anger so I took it down. He yelled at me saying that, "Fun is for inside the home!" and I mean lez be real what's more fun inside the home than that disciplinary moment when family fun becomes Awful Hopeless Never-Ending Labyrinth of an Evening Inside the Home? This isn't even like fun on opposite day. To ride the waves of my cyber dwelling, I think it might be a sort of time machine sadness. Looks like this blawg is getting very eeyore today, hmmm? Not having as much Hajmola Chewing Fun inside the home, you say?? Well - to invoke something Kuzhali Manickavel once hashtagged - #chee on your face if you thought that hajmola chewing was actually a fun thing to do because this blog post is not really about fun (and it's definitely not about killing dudez).
"Children are getting their parents in trouble through Facebook! What if your brother becomes President?"
^another something that was said to me during smurf pic wincident. 'What If Your Brother Becomes President' must be the most aggressively boring prediction ever and I think it is suppose to somehow control my reckless girlchild behavior which is very hehehe. I feel inclined to use valley gyrl swag when talking about it because gender struggles between brown peoples can be sooooo complicated especially if one is tired of giving elegant psychological fux about how brown men benefit from the oppression of brown women. It seems like difficult questions about compromise are tew ~feminine energy~ when the more controlling question is Waddif Like Your Brother Becomes President?? I am suppose to feel bad about messing up my brother's non-existent illustrious career and for that reason this blog is totes not one of those blogs that sympathizes with women who defend themselves. Maybe it is like the lying-naked-on-the-floor natalie imbruglia version of a misandry blog. slow death = ± defeat ± defeat ± defeat
And tbh I didn't really know how to do the topic that this blog post is definitely not about any justice. Probably because killin dudes is not really a basis for comparison. Again, to irresponsibly quote Tavia Nyong'o: "it is less a question of choosing failure killing men than choosing what to do with the failure gratuitous bullshit that has chosen us." I almost deleted this post because of other dilemmas that came up when I was writing about definitely not writing about it. I've once again 'disloyally' re-presented my father which means that even when it comes to power dynamics, his legacy is getting more mic time than the relationship between me and my mother. Which btw is not analogous even though I just framed it like it was. Friendly reminder that you shouldn't try an double check the math in any equations I use on this blog. I will not feel disappointed by a grim popsicle stick joke that was frontin like it could be mathy. I will just laugh really horrendo in your face like someone who doesn't care about mastering how to write a blog post about--
This week's popsicle assembly marks my first full month of living at home with my family and maintaining high levels of time machine realness!! For example I'm still trying to get over my MSNBC hangover from last week. Or for instance sometimes when my mom asks me to put away the dishes I feel hectic lethargy from the mere thought of organizing the utensils, just like when I was a kidster - is poetry no? Like gewd indian garl I've been keeping shop at my family's indian sweet store and bringing jalebis and masala chai (don't tellum it's Lipton luls) to the people/paying customers. I do very well behind the counter as a part time samosa fryer, part time hajmola chewing bad attitude biotch, and am gaining some notoriety amongst the south asian strip mall frequenters. Particularly inspired by these queer bully bloggers, I write this post to simply acknowledge my preference for failure and also give cheers to a promiscuous life of in-home living and destabilized independence.
"it is less a question of choosing failure than choosing what to do with the failure that has chosen us" - Tavia Nyong'o
Sometimes I want to repeat this quote when the uncles come around askin what my "5 year plan" is and how I will get the success. "Oh so you are interested in Wimmins Rights? Will you be doing Public Policy? Law eschool?" I don't know how often this happens to people who study gender in the U.S. but I'm beginning to think that there's a poorly ventilated rumor going around that women's studies means we sit around all day ruminating over how American women make 70 cents to the dollar. For some reason whenever anything Hillary Clinton-related comes up my dad looks to me for shared acknowledgement over his #1 white lady love in a post-Princess Di era. I made the mistake of breaking this news to my mom and she cut her eyes at me! Oh noes, are yew cutting your eyes at me too?? I like this quote from Tavia Nyong'o because I think it helps me clear up some confusion around my life goals and dweams and what it means to not have many professional steaks but stakes nonetheless. If you are more interested in success stories, allow me to redirect you to here.
Recently I had to look up what the U.S. holiday July 4th was actually about besides exotic star spangled car dealership commercials and this is what the US government website said: "On this day in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress, setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. As always, this most American of holidays will be marked by parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues across the country." Honestly I do not know what "sovereign" means just like I don't know what "excellence" means except that people use it a lot like it means something. Anyways moraloftheangst is that my parents are throwing a barbecue birthday party for Amrika and inviting all their brown frands so it is going to be looking bengali american dreamz up in here tomorrow night. Now that I've complained, is that gonna stop me from gettin down with some potato salad?? However in preparation, I read this piece on How To Write About Pakistan in order to inform party guests that I think that they are doing it wrong and supar racisty also.
Moving along, I came across this interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak which includes a pic of her making an awesome face but also answering the question, "How do you see yourself? As an Indian or someone from America?" by failing to answer the question and even seeming totes bored by it:
"I don’t really know. I don’t know how a person actually thinks an identity. I think it’s probably something that came about from this process of national liberation. You were thinking that you belonged to this nation and that you should be free but I am truly not very concerned about questioning myself about my identity and so on, so I can’t give u a fully-fledged answer to this question. I think one manufactures a stereotype for oneself and I don’t think that’s a very interesting thing one’s own stereotype about oneself, so I don’t spend very much time thinking about it."
Yay to GCS for failing both Indian identity and American identity and failing the eclipsing cultures question very well. I decided to misuse it by reflecting on the stereotype I have of myself as a Leo (Pisces rising!) which is a fairly authoritative thing that I happen to think about a lot. I will probably still keep thinking about it seriously especially if it makes me look irrational and like I practice lite witchcraft.
Did this blog post really have a point? What is the need to be so self-referential? Y ur not protesting potato salad??? Is just sucha promiscuous life, y'all.
Hiiiii and welcome to my popsicle stand time machine! I made this blog to commemorate a very adventurous time in my life of post-college unemployment and living with my parents. I know folks typically start travel blogs when they are about to leave their homecountry and go diving in jungles as crocs-wearing cowboys wont to do, but I'd like to offer a different kind of lucrative experience a la ~alternative~ archive. Introducing: SUMI'S POPSICLE STAND TIME MACHINE! Is it gawsip column? Does it fux with normative understandings of time? Why didn't I name it masala walla popsicle stand - south asian american fusion foodie group, amirite??
The title for this post is a quote from my dad - who recently told my cousin and I that while he *says* a lot of prejudice thing, he is actually not a Prejudice. Sometimes my dad imparts these personal truth hippopotamuses on me like he is doing me a great favor. He says it with many dramatic pauses and closes his eyes so that I can reflect graciously in the interim but personally I feel like all I really get is the burden of a dumb hippopotamus out of water and also out of tropics which is the natural temperature climate of the hippo and where they should stay I say. Not to be mean about it but I just never asked for all these hippopotamuses in my life, yougaiz. Anyway now I have this popsicle stand time machine for me and my hippos so that we can all seek banana leaf hawa reliefs from the logical humidity.
The idea of saying lots of prejudice thingies but not actually being a Prejudice must be very self-fulfilling because then you can say lots of oppressive shit and at the end of the day feel assured that you have a communist heart and mind, vande mataram etc. A friendly reminder to my frands reading this blog that it is probably best to not try and imitate my dad saying this in your idea of an Indian accent because then I'll have to juggle my dad's ridiculous with your ridiculous and you will have ruined everything by starting a racism circus. Especially if you're white #isayalotofprejudicethingbutiamactuallynotaPrejudice
