Came lookin' for a Blonde!

Location: A bar at the local brewery. Nothing remarkable at first sight, could be any where in small town America. On further inspection, its a bar full of enlightened people, or at least some that consider themselves to be enlightened and some that surely believe they are on the way there.

Characters:
Tom: An unremarkable young chap with a glint in his eyes and a strange accent
Jerry: A rather remarkable chap: a vibrant ball of life, dark hair, brown eyes, slightly stocky... but only slightly so.

Scene: Tom and Jerry are on neighboring bar stools. They are strangers to each other (at least relatively speaking). There is a half empty pitcher of lager somewhere in between and similarly half empty pint glasses.

Jerry (looks at Tom): Umm haven't I seen you before?

Tom (embarrassed): Er... maybe... Oh yes! yesterday at V's

An awkward silence follows.

Jerry: So you new here... What do you think of the brew here?

Tom: Oh I rather like it... the blonde especially!

Jerry: Well S_ has quite a micro-brewing community...

Tom: Yeah they do.... wait how did you know... ?

Jerry awkwardly fumbles ...

Jerry: ... er ... its just the S_ aura... you know how things are very unique up there.

Tom (not quite convinced): Ah... I see!

An awkward pause

Tom: So what do you do here?

Jerry: Grad student in art history! Very different from what you do ...

Tom (this time amused): So you know what I do as well!!

They both laugh and take a hearty swig!

Tom: So have you travelled?

Jerry: Yes a bit... I'am half -

Tom: -Hungarian?

They both smile

Jerry: And how the Dickens do you know that?

Tom (smiling mischievously): Oh well!! I guess its the aura. Eastern Europeans have it around them...

Jerry continues to look at Tom with an indulgent yet unconvinced smile... as if waiting for a better answer but not really expecting one!

Tom (cornered but enjoying it): ... Oh come on! I know! One of my best friends is of East European descent... Oh well never mind!

Jerry: Wait a minute... how many "Best" friends do you have?

Joyous laughter folllowed by yet another hearty swig.

Bartender: You guys need another pitcher? Or should I straighten up your tabs?

More laughter follows.

The curtain falls on two merry, red faced men laughing about jokes that were never cracked.

I Feel it in my fingers ...

Blimey! I thought I'd successfuly got over such things as romantic comedies and drowned such ideas as romance in buckets of cynicism... but now having unwittingly watched "Four Weddings ... " I realize I'm just where I was.

Oh well! What a nuisance!

True love... my little toe!!

Think about it!

Try this out:
Can you build a consistent belief system where a statement is true only if it is false?

That is, the only rule is:
if (not S) then S

Kinda fun to think about. The system would first have to disprove a statement to then declare it consistent. Clearly you cant have such a system in FOL, but what if we use a higher order... Its fun to twiddle around with.

My Sidey!

Sidey? Thats the immediate neighbor to the left or the right... so you can have at most 2 Sideys. What about other people in the same level? Well you could call them Backeys and Oppys (not to be confused with poppies... which could be an endearment for Pop: previous occupant of your current position). Of course you'd expect people above you and below you to become your Toppys and Undies... well almost... they are your Undies and Bra!!! Its a very expressive nomenclature because you can express any room in your building as a linked reference wrt your point. A more detailed version takes care of buildings with multiple wings... believe me it works.

Who would want to? Well I recently read a book called "Tigers in Paradise," the collected works of Philip Jeyaretnam (a well known Singaporean writer), and in one of his stories the protagonist, a young resident in one of Singapore's many highrises looks out of his flat and contemplates relating all people living in the city by their position and orientation in space (5th floor across the street and so on) and thus creating floor families. I thought it interesting and promptly had an uncontrollable urge to shoot off an emal to the author about how in a certain corner of the world, people do make such families (room pop's Sidey's room grand daughter). Since I was flying from Singapore to LA at the time, and I couldn't sustain the urge over 16 hours, I never did email him. Boy!! That gives out some of my heritage!!!!

But anyway, my sidey on this spot is a Canadian Catholic organization. Thats nice. I grew up Catholic. They also seem to be a nice progressive bunch. Very nice. Howdy do eh?

While on the matter. I was having lunch at V's today and there was this bundle of life sitting at another table with a couple who seemed to be harrasing him about, what sounded like, his boyfriends. He was dark and a bit of a teddy bear and his hair was mildly accented a deep purple. He was lighting up the room with his helpless smiles and exclamations and pretensions of being wronged... :) I couldn't help overhearing the conv. and enjoying it. I was obviously eavesdropping and also abviously enjoying it. On their way out... this 100 Watt bulb actually said Hi to me, and that was when I realized that in future I should concentrate a wee bit more on the food. I blushed profusely and could barely return the greeting! I wonder if I'll run into him again!

Oh well!!!

Hello!

Hello to all on blogspot. I am not new to the blogosphere. But then Snowflake is new... so, may be, I am too... i.e. this I. Maybe to avoid confusion I should be J here. You get it! right? you've seen something of me somewhere before... but then hey, thats true for every stranger you've met. Look closely they look like somebody you know ... before you know it you have neatly categorized them as the X -Type... Yeah! Yeah! we know all that. I'm not making a point here. Just saying that this blog is about an amorphous identity. An experiment in living multiple lives in multi-voicing... in enjoying the pleasure of having inconsistent opinions... In short, I'm not making a point... I've made enough of them in this realm.

So why the Snowflake? Well heres the deal. Sitting in my living room looking out of my picture window at the town square I see a spruce wilting in the late afternoon sun with Christmas decorations still hanging on it. No big ornaments, just silver streamers and what might be holiday lights. You wouldn't notice the decor if you didn't look hard enough. We need some snowflakes... Yeah its late summer, I noticed the first colors of fall last evening. The snowflakes will be here soon.

I love fall. I love the wistfulness in the air. The last glance after the farewell, as the taxi turns the corner, the last look at the airport after they went through security and grudgingly walked away down the concourse... they could stand there and keep looking at me standing a short distance away, thus delaying the inevitable departure... but then what is it worth? A lot, just like Fall has the most vibrant of colors those moments of distance are often the most meaningful and painful... hence some of us shy away from them and take the rational decision: Bravely wave with a smile and turn away just in time to hide the tears...

Flaky, eh? I'd warned ya!