Random musings on a Friday afternoon

Right. So it’s a Friday afternoon, the sun is shining brightly on my window, and the vibrant spring colours out in the open are doing a merry jig inviting me to partake in their celebration. Must sound very nice to you, but if you happen to be that discerning reader, your ‘danger ahead’ sensors should have picked up those two words that are the license to write on all inane and mundane things that happen in the semblance of life that people like me lead. Yes, I know you are bright, and I was indeed alluding to that particular time of the week called Friday afternoon, which in my world happens to be a cornucopia of visions of all things useful and useless. Not that I don’t have anything better to do, but when I am fighting with every ounce of my resistance to keep my drooping eyelids open, the only reprieve away from la-la land happens to be Writing.

“Write for joy and understanding,” beseeched Erica Jong and I have been doing just that even before I read her propose this. But I also write for a lot many other reasons, one of them being – just for fun. To just be! So as I sit at my desk fighting the sleep demons, meandering through the convoluted web of thoughts doing the rounds in my head and munching on freshly microwaved popcorn, I realize I want to write about my birthday. (Boy, am I a pro at multi-tasking or what?) Well, not about the day exactly, but about what I want to do in the run-up to my birthday at the end of this month. Why post that here, you ask? Well, here’s the newsflash: It still is a Friday afternoon! So those of you who are still with me, having fought your desire to move on to constructive things, let’s move forward, shall we?

The thing is I don’t know what this birthday is supposed to mean to me. I am about to turn 29. I was a lot more excited last year, but the day itself was a dampener with my grandma’s sudden death close to my birthday and the funeral being held on that very day. The year that has been however was an eventful one. I got a job, chucked that for another one, and still vacillate about deciding on what is it that I want to do with my life professionally as well as personally. The more I think about it, the more I find that my days and nights merge into an unending spiral of questions, with no answers in sight. But it’s okay I say to myself, as long as I keep thinking and be on the look-out for those occasional flickers that offer me new directions to pursue. So by that token, I thought I’d make a To-do list of things to do before my 29th birthday. I am not thinking world-peace here or any such magnificent issue, just some little things that mean a lot to me. Heck, I do not even have the list ready in my mind, and I’ll just have to think as I type on. So here goes:

1. Write an e-mail everyday to one person in my address book, whom I haven’t spoken to in ages. Yes, there are many people in this category. So, that means I need to think of many different ways of breaking the proverbial ice. Or may be not, who said I can not use the same opening sentences for each of them. ;)

2. Speak to my colleagues more often. This is on the list because I don’t speak their language, and they are not too keen on speaking in English. So I am like an alien sitting in our shared office, being spoken to only when I speak with them.

3. Check the following:
(a) How would staying away from gtalk while at work, affect my sanity?
(b) Will I develop finger tendonitis if I don’t refresh my Gmail inbox every 30 milliseconds?

4. Post something on the blog everyday till the end of this month. I have been rather negligent about writing here.

5. Finish that article that I have been working on for almost a month now.

6. Begin work on revising the article from the last job, and set a deadline to have that out of the door. More importantly, convince boss to have that article see the light of the day after having it hibernate for almost two years now.

7. Decide on what I want to do in the short break from work that I’d get in May. I want to see this country. It is beautiful, my words have not been able to do justice to it so far, may be I should let some pictures do the needful.

8. Begin my early morning jog routine. Been ages since I turned my back to it. Spring sure is a good time to turn over a new leaf.

9. Enquire about a gym in the locality and work up a schedule to join beginning 1st of next month.

10. Get back home at a reasonable hour every night from work.

Ten sounds like a good enough number for me to stop. So good luck to me and all that jazz. And off I go to scan my address book to pick that one person to send my e-mail out of the blue. I will write here how it went, if the responses (if any) I get aren’t too abusive/sarcastic/associated adjectives to be posted here. Hell no! Who am I kidding? I just want to do my part – which is to write that e-mail. I am not thinking of the outcome.