More tales of Larry and Deepti in India!



The Luggage Recovered!

So. When we arrived in India our luggage did not. Well, half of the luggage did not. British Airways assured us they would find it and delivery it. No worries. Right?

Well...

I love the internet. The internet is a place that provides information. Up to the minute weather reports! News! Email! Movie trailers! I love it. One can find all sorts of useful (and to some useless) bits of information. British Airways has their own website—one that provides information like departure time! Arrivals! And luggage!

Whoopee! I thought. We'll be able to know when our luggage was going to arrive! How comforting. And sure enough, a day or two after our arrival: our luggage was at the Delhi International Airport and the "delivery process had been initiated." What joy! Ring the bells! Chant some chants! Our luggage was coming!

Well...

The "delivery process had been initiated" remained on the website for another day or two. And still no luggage. So we began to call. Hoping that some fine person on the other end of the line would be able to tell us: where are the bags?

I was getting upset at this point. I admittedly had a fear that they were on some truck somewhere in Delhi and people were going through them. The Liberal in me was getting a little antsy about such an attitude, until I realized my wife was feeling the same way. The Liberal got over being upset.

The people that we WERE able to reach had little to say, except the "delivery process had been initiated." Lovely. They couldn't tell us zip.

And my father in law (Daddy-ji) had booked the whole family into a hotel outside of Delhi in a state called Rajasthan and we were leaving soon...and still no luggage. So, we decided, time to go to the airport, which we did on our way out of the city to the countryside—we figured, it shouldn't take long to find out what was going on, it should be easy and then on our way. Right?

Well....

We arrived at the airport, and of course, it's as busy and crazy as ever—the fog had caused more troubles and generally it is a chaotic place. We make our way into the British Airways office, which is FILLED with luggage. A flutter of hope passed through my heart—some where in all of this—are my clothes, my presents for the family, all I have to do is dig.

We talk to the tired looking British Airways woman—she takes a look at our baggage claim tickets and types into her computer. And guess what? The luggage was still at the airport—the delivery process had begun and ended very quickly. It turns out, our bags were stuck in customs. The locks. They wanted to look inside our bags, but they didn't want to cut off the locks.

We asked, "if they were stuck in customs and they needed us to open it to look inside, why weren't we called?" The woman stared back at us—hoping, I think, to turn invisible. It didn't work.

Armed with paperwork, and determination, my wife went to customs—only one person would be allowed to go. Since my Hindi is, shall we say, lacking, she was the best suited.

Daddy-ji and I followed her as far as we could go and watched her disappear into customs. We waited outside. We chatted. About the weather. The people. It was a pretty pleasant afternoon.

My wife came storming out of customs...A document was not given to her. So, she had to go all the way back to the British Airways office, get the proper paper, and then make her way back. Daddy-ji and I thought it best to remain where we were...

And my wife came storming back into customs. And we waited. Chatted. This was the most conversation time I had ever had with him. Talking on the phone to people you have never meet while they are on the other side of the world isn't the best way to get to know them. Here's a little fun fact for you: the first time I had ever talked to my future father in law was when I asked permission to marry his daughter. Talk about pressure to entertain. It was a nice chat, a sort of circling around each other intellectually, trying to figure the other person out.

There was a pause.

And then suddenly—my wife appeared. With two bags. Finally. I could put on some clean clothes.



Rajasthan!

Rajasthan is a state south west of Delhi. We were going to a small town where a hotel chain had opened up a new resort hotel. This company was taking old castles, great houses, called havelis, and the like and converting them into nice hotels. An opportunity to live like the wealthy had a hundred or more years ago.

The seven of us (two parents, my wife and I, her sister and her boyfriend and the driver) packed ourselves into a car built for five without luggage. This led to some creative packing and stacking of both the luggage and the people inside. It wasn't particularly comfortable but it worked.

This leads me to a new vocabulary word for the day: jugaard. Jugaard is the idea of taking something that might be broken and using whatever it takes to just make it work. For example, it was raining on our travel to Rajasthan and the windshield wiper wasn't working well. So the driver, instead of buying a wiper, wrapped a towel around the old wiper. In our case, it was making 7 people and luggage fit in a car built for five.

There aren't highways in India like there are in the United States—the roads were built to connect one town or village to another. It's much more like the old Route 66—the roads wind through the countryside, some of them are in need of love, others are nice, and you pass through town after town.

On these roads I saw a weird clash of poverty with the 21st century mixed in. The roads could be dirt, above ground sanitation, open air home and then suddenly, an internet café. People using camels for transport of goods, being passed by nice SUVs. Some people sitting in their homes with the lights on, others huddled outside by a camp fire. Many of these villages were doing their best to keep up with modernization, but they just couldn't afford it. Many people were living a subsistent life.

We stopped once in a village, as the driver wanted some chai. We unpacked ourselves to stretch and breathe again. It was late, it was dark and there wasn't much in the village. Freddo started smoking, I started talking to Deepti. Then, Daddy-ji, got worried. Nervous. He said we should go. And by the tone of his voice: he meant right away. We were attracting too much attention. He was nervous that we would be robbed.

Back on the bumpy road.

The haveli was beautiful. The building itself is like two squares next to each other. In one square, along the edges are the rooms, with an open court in the center, then the next square has another court, and leads to the kitchens. The rooms were large with huge ceilings and stone floors. And it smelled of moth balls. Just what I imagined the turn of the last century to smell like.

The next day the plan was to go to another village and look at other havelis, some restored and some not. One of the restored ones we went to was owned by the village. A man, years ago, purchased it and gave it to the city with the idea of turning it into a tourist destination, in order to help get money into the village. I don't know how successful the plan has been, but the haveli was beautiful. This one was larger than the one we were staying in. More elaborate paintings, and rooms. It would be easy to fall back into time in these buildings.

The legacy of India is complicated. For many years it was a country occupied and run by a foreigner power. In order to do that, the British needed allies within India, and used India's wealth to pay for those very allies—the Rajs, for example. And those with the wealth and power built these beautiful palaces in these places—and perhaps brought a lot of work and notoriety to these villages—but when the rich people left....their households fell into disrepair as did the villages. And now, people live in and around these former glorious households of the past.



Deepti and the Bindi!

My sister in law, Swati, kept fighting with my wife about wearing a bindi. The bindi is the dot that married women wear. This is also sometimes done in conjunction with a red powder called sindoor being placed in a short line on the top of the head from front to back. These are done to signify to unmarried men that this woman is unavailable.

In New York, Deepti rarely wears a bindi—unless it's a special occasion—and hadn't planned on wearing one in India.

However, Swati was adamant. She was concerned how her sister might be looked at, walking hand in hand with another man, let alone a white man, with no outward signs of marriage.

Deepti and Swati are very close, my wife is very protective of her little sister, but when they fight—it can become quite a battle. They don't get to see each other very often, so I think they like to explore the full range of emotion—love to anger.

Round and round they went. Both sisters dug in their heels.

In the end, with a little help from me, Swati won the war of attrition and my wife wore the bindi. It's just a dot.



Arjun!

One of Deepti's aunts lives a few blocks away from her parents' apartment. She is one of Daddy-ji's sisters, her name is Sarla, but because she is the sister of my wife's father, I would call her Sarla-bua. Her daughter, Nidhi, was living with her. Nidhi and her husband Anirban were planning on moving to Bombay soon. Anirban was already there, working and finding a place for them to live. Nidhi had given birth to a wonderful baby boy: the mighty Arjun.

I added the mighty part. For mighty he is. Not in weight, not in height, he was only eight months old, but mighty in his looks. This was one cute baby. Round cheeks, big eyes and a smile—toothless and very gummy—that was brighter than the sun.

We went over with some presents—as is the polite thing to do. Deepti reunites with the family she hasn't seen in many years and I meet them for the first time. There is hugging, laughing, especially when I do the respectful thing and try to touch Sarla-bua's feet. This is an outgoing family. Food is served—another attempt at poisoning—but avoided.

And then Arjun is brought out. He seems me and his eyes go wide. Now, I think I'm pretty good with kids—they like me, I'm playful. I get on with kids. And I have the full expectation that I will with Arjun.

His eyes went wide and he stopped blinking when he saw me. He wouldn't stop staring. And then I realized, there was a little bit of fear in those eyes.

Deepti can't keep her hands off babies. She grabs Arjun and does her best to lavish attention on him. But he won't stop looking at me. She would turn him away, but he would do his best to look at me. I took him.

In my hands, he was still, unsure and still staring. And then...he began to whine, he tried to pull away—as well as any eight month old can pull away. And not wanting to upset a baby, I passed him on. He stopped whining, but not the staring. We were certain at this point, he had never seen a white man before—I'm sure he was wondering what poor dreadful event had befallen me. I was a nightmare to him, I'm sure.

The conversation in the room was fast, frantic and in Hindi. Hindi is just such an expressive language. Its quality of rhythms and tones creates an atmosphere of energy. Deepti was thrilled to be speaking Hindi again, I could tell. Now, I think I've said it before, my knowledge of Hindi is limited, and I didn't recognize anything that was being said, but, I feel like I could follow the conversation. I think I did. Well, I knew when they were talking about me. And that's all that's important, right?


Next:
The Wedding, Taj Mahal, and Delhi vs. New Delhi, and Amitabh Bachchan!
(We're entering into the home stretch—it's the first of the last two blogs about India!)

Morning in India.

It was cold. Seriously. It was cold in the morning in India. I wasn't prepared for that. Well, to tell the truth, neither was the rest of the country. We had arrived in India during a particularly cold winter. That's not to say I saw snow on the ground, but, it was much colder than the country had anticipated.

And me as well. Even if I did have my luggage, I didn't have warm clothes inside. I was expecting to come FROM a cold place to GO TO a warm place.

The apartment my in-laws own is a three bedroom, two bath, a living room, large kitchen, and porch overlooking the park in the complex is designed for warm weather. The stone floors, the plaster like walls, are designed to pull heat away. This works even in cool weather, so it just makes things feel even colder.

However, it is a country of shawls, so...we layered up.

My wife and I slept in her old bedroom, recently refurbished by her parents. A brand new folding bed/couch combination, which slid out into the room. We also got the room with the computer—which in this day and age is a true bonus.

I woke up, I didn't sleep all that late, it was maybe nine or so in the morning, others may disagree, but then, this is my blog.

I realized something when I got out of the bedroom and headed towards breakfast: I was only going to have Indian food while I was there. Every meal was going to be Indian food. It makes sense really, in America we have American food, unless you specifically make the choice to have Indian, Chinese, Mexican, etc. But still, it wasn't something that I had really thought about. I like Indian food, so it shouldn't be a problem. I had just never eaten Indian food all the time, every meal.

Mummy-ji and a woman that she hires to help with making food, Gita, were in the kitchen, Daddy-ji was in his chair reading the newspaper. He gets quite a few papers everyday, and several on the weekends. That morning I read in the paper about the troubles the airport was also having with fog. Flights were being canceled left and right. And it seemed the staff there was about as well equipped to handle it as Heathrow.

One woman at the airport, so enraged at the behavior of the people behind the counter, threatened to set herself on fire if they didn't get her onto a plane. In New York, the target of the fire would have been the airport. Different strokes.

The first thing that happens: chai. Always chai. It's tea with milk, sugar and other spices. Chai is everywhere in India. If someone offers you chai, that's what it is. Of course, if you are European, they will ask if you want it with milk and the etceteras, and it will please them to no end if you say yes.

So, the tiny cups of chai are passed around and breakfast is being made. The questions of "did you sleep well?" were asked and answered. Everyone had slept well. Swati (my sister in law) was sleeping so well, she was still at it.

I'm going to disappoint some of you, my readers, and for that, I'm sorry, but I don't remember what I had that morning for breakfast. I just don't. I had quite a few there, and they blurred and blended. Most likely it was made up of purantas, a fried bread like pita that can have things stuff in it: like potatoes or carrots. I love them. Not as much as I love puri, which is also fried and also a bread, but a little lighter—though not in the caloric sense. My wife thinks I shouldn't eat puri. Mummy-ji likes to make them. It's a very difficult position to be in.

After breakfast, the big plan of the day was to go shopping. Things had to get done, we were already a day behind because of British Airways and the fog. So, we had to go to the market for clothes: a dress for Deepti and a suit for me. These would be clothes for the reception night, the day after the wedding. It was going to be Mummy-ji, Deepti and I piled into a car together with a driver. Drivers are cheap in India, so if you need one for the day, it's quite possible. And, well...I'll get to the traffic in a second.

Daddy-ji, because he knows what it is like for foreigners to come to India and drink the water, had provided Deepti and me a whole box of bottled water just for us. These were handed out and we were off.

This was the first time I was really able to see where my in-laws lived. We came in so late and with so much fog.

The apartment complex has a fence all the way around it, and there are a few buildings within, with narrow lanes leading to each one. Small cars are packed tightly around them. The buildings were white stone, and everyone had a clothesline hanging from it. There's a small park, where the grass is mostly dead—the kids like to play cricket. Some had lived in the complex for quite sometime, some for their entire lives. It was like a neighborhood with in the gate.

The car pulled out onto the street outside.

Rules of the Road

1. Rules of the Road in India are merely suggestions. The traffic in New York is gentle and easy going compared. The drivers in India are prepared and drive like they are in combat, and they are. And I truly feel for the people on motor bikes.

2. If there is space for your car, take it before someone else can. If you can get your car even a little further ahead, do it.
3. Motorcycles are meant for more than one person. Why carry just one? Quite often I would see a family on a motorcycle. The father driving, the mother sitting side saddle. If the child was small, the mother would hold him. Or, the child would sit in between mother and father.
4. Go fast. Until you can't go fast. Then stop. Go, stop, go, stop.

Delhi is a city that is changing. New roads, new transportation, new money. The country is developing at a rapid pace; suddenly people can afford a car, or finally something that can transport the family. While the city is transforming, there is still a mixture of very old and very new—for someone who lives in a country only some 200 years old, it's unique.

The Market and the Suit

We arrived at the market. And what a market. I think I was expecting something like a mall—which there are plenty in Delhi, and again my expectations were challenged.

The market was a narrow street filled with shops on either side, jam packed with people, carts and an occasional car would try to make its way through.

It was noisy, colorful, and filled with Indian people. (At this point...I don't think I had quite really realized that yes, I am in a foreign country, a foreign country where my whitey ass is the minority. I couldn't recognize signs and the language, well, I know very little Hindi—my wife is more than willing to tell you how bad my Hindi is.) Mummy-ji led the way.

There were lots of foods—with smells that I couldn't recognize. It was more like a carnival than a place to shop.

We were heading towards a shop to get my suit made. Daddy-ji had gotten his suits made there and my in-laws like the work. The shop was about half way into the market.

Before we got there...I noticed something. People were staring. At me.

It was an occasional thing. But...heads would snap, glance and turn away. Except for the kids. The kids would stop doing whatever they were doing and would just....stare. Open eyes. Tourists never go to this area. It's not a place a tour guide would take them. There's nothing to see really, and the shops, well...in the tourist markets, shops pay tour guides to bring them tourists. This particular market is way off the path.

So the kids were staring. I had never been stared at. Even in high school when more clothes could be considered eclectic. Never like this. I didn't know what to do. So, I smiled. Which didn't change their reaction. At all. Stare. Stare. Stare.

The suit...well...the suit was easy. Measure, measure, measure. What kind of fabric? Deepti is amazed by my skills of shopping. While I enjoy trolling for books, clothes I am a man of a different sort. I know what I like right away. And I can be picky. But I'm fast. I found some charcoal gray fabric with a light pin strip. I had never had a pin strip suit. I had never had a suit MADE for me. It was kinda nice. No. I was great. I was cool. I got to decide vents or no vents, how many buttons, size of the lapel?

If you ever have an opportunity to get a suit made just for you, do it. Of course, it helps to either have someone else pay for it, or be in India where it's just a little cheaper.

That done: back out to the market and then home. Which meant...stare, stare, stare, and then...onto the roads!

Next up: The Luggage Recovered! Rajasthan! Deepti and the Bindi! And meeting a mighty hero of myth: Arjun!

The Trip Continues.

A nine hour plane ride is a curious thing. Things begin to blend—awake, sleeping, lunch, dinner—these things become a little meaningless. You're in the air, traveling east at several hundred miles an hour crossing time zone after time zone. It's a lot like being in a room with no windows—outside doesn't matter. You could change your clocks and calendars and that's the time and day it is. It's a sort of purgatory of waiting. You have nothing to do but wait and fill time. They should show movies or something.

Oh. Wait. They do.

In fact they show lots of movies. And TV shows. There's nothing that says you're traveling to India more than a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond or Friends. Needless to say, I was glued.

Deepti and I sat next to each other just behind a divider—which provided quite a bit of leg room, with no one in front of us. Sadly, though, we were in the middle, so the window was WAAAAY over there. Which, in hindsight, is just fine—it was dark and foggy, I wasn't going to see anything.

But there was a tiny little TV, all for me. The Tiny Little TV provided such a degree of safety—it of course did tell me what to do in case of evacuation, though not what to do in case the plane crashes in the mountains miles away from help and we are forced to eat the other passengers—and I'm surprised it didn't. The Tiny Little TV was a safety blanket of culture, it was going to ease me in, be my sugar coated medicine as it were of arriving in a country where I don't know the language and I have only a rudimentary knowledge of the culture. Ok. Let's be honest. I was nervous. I hadn't been to India before. I didn't know what to expect. But the Tiny Little TV would provide a tether back to my home country and it would give me a final delicate TV kiss as I landed in India. Oh, Tiny Little TV—I should write poems about you.

Not only was there TV, but there were also movies, quite a few, some I hadn't seen that I had wanted to. And now, for free! Well—if you include the 1500.00 airfare. (By the way, Lion Witch and the Wardrobe is BO-ring and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.) ALSO included: games that are impossible to play with the controls provided AND a map that plays out in real time. You can watch as your plane crosses into countries that may or MAY not be friendly to the US. (I had practiced my Canadian accent, just in case, eh.)

The food comes in two forms: veg or non-veg. Which of course is veg or meat—but I guess saying, "Would you like to eat meat?" sounds a little brutal. But, yes, for the record, I will take the non-veg. And yes, I would like another mini-bottle of wine, thank you so much for asking.

And they give it away for free!

There was a little movie at the beginning, on the Tiny Little TV, telling us passengers to make sure we drink plenty of water (does Bordeaux count as water?) and to exercise occasionally. Of course, British Airways does NOT provide a gym on the 747's; at least not to us in coach, the only recourse is to walk.

Late at night, or was in the morning, or the afternoon, I got up to go to the bathroom and take a little walk. Behind me, there were rows and rows of sleeping people, heads back or to the side, eyes closed and still. Just the whir of the engine. I made a circuit. Up and down a row, and through where the stewards sat and whispered. Outside: it was black. And the plane was still. It was strangely peaceful. Calm. Just sleeping, whispering and whirring. It felt good to stretch my legs.

Food marked time. British Airways gives you a meal shortly after taking off (veg or non-veg!), a snack and shortly before landing another meal. Each one getting more and more Indian. Like ticks on a wall, food was our only way of knowing when we were in the Universe.

We were scheduled to arrive in the middle of the night. And as usual, British Airways was prompt in their lateness. We approached a fog covered Delhi sometime around three in the morning. At least that's what our pilot said. To me and my body it was like five in the afternoon. I think. Maybe not. But it didn't feel like three in the morning.

The plane landed. I still couldn't quite make out the city—it looked like any other city that I have seen from the sky, late at night.

I get off the plane and I realize: I'm in India. I'm not able to read the signs. And there are even more Indians. Strange. India having Indians. But it's true. My wife and I follow everyone else towards customs.

At this point, my wife and I have to separate. She gets to go into the citizens line, me...I have to head to the line for all foreigners. I get worried. What if they ask a question and I can't answer it? What if they ask to see money to prove that I'm not going to be a burden to India? (I've been asked these questions before: when I made a trip to Canada, and I didn't have a passport...I was grilled in customs...but that's a blog for another day.)

I look to my left: there is a couple sitting off to the side. The woman is crying. I can hear her saying she didn't know, she didn't know. And I'm not sure what she didn't know. Next to them is an Indian customs official, a woman who seems understanding. In my mind: some how they didn't have a visa, or something. I don't know. But the crying woman at three in the morning in Delhi makes me a little worried.

I get to my customs official. He takes my passport. Stamp. Boom. Boom. Stamp. He hands it back to me. I'm done. I'm free. I'm in India!

My wife is waiting for me and now we head off to the luggage.

The airport in India is chaotic. Families are returning home for the holidays and when they come home they are bringing gifts for everyone. Everyone. So, the floor is filled with people with carts filled to the top with fillings of gifts. Zoom. It's like a freaking highway.

We stand at our designated spot. And we wait. And wait. Two of our bags arrive. The two that we had to check in at the gate in Heathrow. And then we wait again. And again. A baggage guy asks me if I have all my bags. I tell him no. Our names are on a list. The list is those whose bags are still in London.

In London.

These bags have most of our clothes and all of our gifts. When we had missed the plane that was supposed to take us to Delhi, so did our bags. And while we had gotten rebooked, they didn't. So, now we had to fill out papers.

This means standing in line. Standing in line in India is a sport—because there really aren't lines, well, lines that people are willing to follow. Everyone just hovered around the counter and started demanding attention. I let my wife go in. I knew I would be ill prepared. I was good at standing guard. Which I did. I should get a medal.

Finally, she gets a piece of paper, which we have to get signed by someone else before we can leave—these are the final gate keepers, more customs officials. We wait in a shorter hover. Get it signed, but then that man tells us we have to go back to the other desk to get something else signed again. And then we could leave.

So, Deepti runs back, gets the paper signed, again, and then we come back to the same guard and he looks at it, tears a piece of paper, keeps one—which turns out to be an important piece of paper that we should have had, but that only comes into play later—remember this. And then, we get to leave and go to the waiting area.

My wife hadn't been home in four years. I don't know what she was thinking. I was excited, curious, nervous. I had met her mother, father and her sister a while ago, but this was on their turf.

We see my father in law—here after referred to as Daddy-ji, and my sister in law, Swati, right there in the middle of the waiting area. Smiles on their faces. It was good.

Deepti and I hug them. We mumble stuff about the lost luggage, Daddy-ji nods—he expected something like that must have happened—because it took so much time for us to get out.

We follow them to the car.

Now—to wait inside the airport requires a small fee—this is to keep people out—to keep people from just staying inside the airport. And the entrance is guarded by men with guns. Semi-automatic guns. Every time I see a gun like that they always seem so unreal to me and I have to fight the urge to run up, grab it and run.

The door of the airport opens and it is a sea of people. Of cabbies asking me if I need a ride, of families waiting for sons and daughters to come, of beggars. We make our way through the crowd and find the car.

Inside is the driver they had gotten, he was sleeping, Daddy-ji knocks on the window and the driver pops up. We load in, partial luggage and everything.

It's cold in Delhi. And foggy. Very thick fog. And there's a smell—earthy, spicy. Something. Forgive me for fetishizing the country, but there's a different smell in the air.

The car pulls out of the lot—we get to the gate where we have to pay. The guy who is responsible for the lot talks to the driver, the driver talks back, Daddy-ji joins. It's something about money. Back and forth. I'm not sure what, I ask my wife, she, however, is involved in the discussion. Later: the guy at the gate wanted to charge us more because we were a few minutes past the "time" we were supposed to be there. Of course, the guy was ready to take a bribe to let us out, but when Daddy-ji asked for a receipt in return for the bribe...well...the deal fell through and the guy let us out.

On to the street. At this time of night, they are pretty clear. And thank God—the fog got so thick at time the driver had to slow to a crawl. The trip back was filled with questions about the trip, questions about home, questions about what we were up to, questions about what I thought. I didn't have many answers, I was spending so much time just looking out the window, trying to figure out what Delhi looked like.

After a journey of about an hour through roads and paths that I would never be able to recreate, we arrived at the apartment of my Daddy-ji and my mother in law, Mummy-ji. We stagger up the stairs—by this time all this moving and driving and thinking and traveling was beginning to take a toll. I was getting ready to sleep.

Mummy-ji was up and ready for us. We come in the door and she smiles, thrilled to see her daughter home again after so many years. And Deepti was amazed at how much the apartment had changed—they had redecorated up to the minute of our arrival. New paint, new cabinets, new work in the bathrooms. It looked wonderful.

And then...that's when my mummy-ji tried to poison me.

Now, I have to take a step back and say two things. 1. She didn't mean to. And 2. She had no idea I had an allergy to cashews. I didn't either until a year or two ago. It's one of those things. One of those things that makes my face turn red, my tongue swell and difficulty breathing.

So, mummy-ji, because you are supposed to do welcome home prayer, or pooja, did one. A pooja involves rice, candles, and Indian sweets. Without thinking, as mummy-ji is offering the Indian sweet to me, she has to put it into my mouth, I open wide, ready to receive. It's only after that my wife thinks to ask:

"Are there any cashews in the sweets?"

Daddy-ji, as proud as can be: "They ALL are made from cashews!"

I take the rest out of my mouth. We wait. Nothing happens. We breathe easy. It was out first cultural hurdle. Which we all came through with flying colors. We talk a little more but we are all beginning to fade, my in-laws have been up for many hours waiting and we have been traveling all day.

We head off to our rooms...ready to sleep in a non-traveling way...

And then...well...of course, then is the next day. My first day in India!

The trip continues...

So. Where did we leave off? Ah. Yes. Jolly old England. Land of Shakespeare. Tea. And Royalty. The epitome of good behavior.

Well. Perhaps.

Heathrow, when we had landed had been under cloud cover for days. And this had backed up a lot of planes. A lot. And not just in England. Apparently there were flights out of Europe that weren't even taking off because they couldn't land at Heathrow.

We had just missed our flight and now it was time to rebook. My wife and I, and the rest of Europe. We got into the line as quickly as we could. And began the process of waiting. Which, really, shouldn't take long, right? There were maybe 50 people a head of us. It should be fine. Right. Maybe there's even another flight out to Delhi today, we'll just be hours late, but we'll still get there.

Two hours later and I was beginning to think, perhaps they needed more staff.

Basically, there were three people who were assigned to rebook us lost travelers. And many of them were pissed lost travelers who were determined to laugh in the face of mother nature, the airlines and destiny and still arrive where they wanted to as soon as they possibly could. Many of them didn't understand: there are no flights. One guy was trying to get to Denver, CO. Denver was undergoing a blizzard. I knew he wasn't going to make it. So, things took some time.

As I said in the last edition, the British are not particularly good at solving problems and this trip was certainly testing that theory, but they ARE excellent at apologizing. And waiting in line as another opportunity to apologize. In this case, for not having enough staff to handle the rebooking. At about two and half hours in line, they started passing out water, sandwiches, and cookies. Mm. Cookies.

Finally, we get to the front of the line. Which is a great place to be. Finally the journey is over, finally the pickering, the depression, the what the hells are over. We've arrived. Perhaps there's another flight today? Sure, that guy didn't get to go to Denver, but that was Denver, we're doing to India, surely we must be different!

No.

They rebook us on the next flight, which will be the next day. I think the guy behind the counter was happy with us—we didn't argue or yell with him. Why? Unless he can fly a plane he ain't worth it. The flight being the next day, they gave us a hotel room. Bonus!

And now we have to go through customs, which of course means standing in another line.

Panic, however, sets in. I'm a US citizen. I have a US passport. Many places in the world, Europe and the UK for example, I don't need a visa to visit. It kind of kicks ass really. The US passport. Heee AH! However. My wife is an Indian citizen. Indian citizens require a visa to visit the United Kingdom. Will she be able to get out of the airport?

We get to the head of the line much faster—there's more staff—go figure. Behind the counter is a snappily dressed British Bloke. I say Bloke because he had pin stripped pants and purplish shirt that could only be pulled off by a British Bloke—like a guy in a British Heist film. I would never be able to pull off a look like that. I was jealous. I handed him my passport—with a knowing heart that I would have no problems.

And I didn't. And then my wife handed hers. With her Green Card.

Now. Let me tell you something you may not know about the Green Card. It's not Green. I don't know if it was ever Green. But my wife's isn't. It's like a pale yellow. However, a Green Card is a marvelous thing. When we got to India, everyone always asked, like it was a great key to some magical place. When in reality, it opens the door to our apartment in Queens.

The British Bloke checked the card, checked her passport, filled out some papers. And then...he had to check with his boss. This British Bloke was in training.

He came back all Bloke like. We were fine. For 24 hours! Wahoo! England ROCKS!

We're out of customs and then to the bus—after making our way through baggage claim, which looked like a luggage store had exploded.

We get on our bus, which will take us to a nearby hotel, for our free night with dinner and breakfast. Free! I love it! The bus made it way around the Heathrow Complex—an appropriate name for sure. And the fog was thick. I cannot emphasize this enough. I had thought I had seen thick fog. But. No. England triumphs.

We make it to the hotel, we check in, go to our room and sit. For the first time in hours. Silence. Comfort. And a bathroom that hasn't been visited by the rest of the world. We nap. Then. We eat.

The dinner is a buffet. And all you can eat. Not that one is going to eat everything. It is a buffet and has been sitting there for who knows how long. But eat we do. My wife likes deals and nothing is a better deal than free.

We go back to our room. We watch some American movie. Watch some British TV. Titter at the jokes we think we understand and then we sleep again.

Back to the airport.

We go into Terminal Four in a different way than we left it. We go in the front door. And into utter chaos. People wandering around, pushing luggage carts, leaving kids to find for themselves. People standing, sitting, sleeping, not sure what to do, where to go. Everyone was a refugee. It was like Dunkirk. (Points to anyone who remembers Dunkirk).

My wife and I were determined. Determined to get to where we needed to be and get on our damn plane. India wasn't going to wait for long.

Now. I need to step back a little. We both had checked in some luggage and we both had rolling bags for the overhead. In New York, we were told they looked ok, even though British Airways was hardcore and our bags were just a wee bit over. And from New York to Heathrow everything was fine. So. We were hoping that it wouldn't be a problem again.

It wasn't. Our luck had run out. We had to check them in. No extra charge, this time. But they wouldn't even budge a wee. My wife was pissed and I ushered her through the whole thing rather quickly, I wanted to get through security. I wanted to get to my gate.

This led to our first fight of the trip. I was trying to avoid a confrontation between my wife and the security woman. I just wanted to get my wife through everything and then...it would be ok. However, what I got was a fight between me and my wife. In hindsight, I should have just let her yell at the woman behind the counter.

But. We did it. We got through. And we had some time to kill. Which we did buying liquor at the duty free shop.

And then we went to our gate.

There were a lot of Indians going home. It was the holidays after all. But. Still. There were a lot. It was going to be a crowded flight. And this time, I was going to be able to sit next to my wife.

We boarded the plane and commenced departure procedures. In both English and Hindi. Meals were both western and Indian. The movies...yes...English and Bollywood.

I ate. I slept.

We arrived in Delhi!

Next up! Wait, is it supposed to be this cold and foggy in India? Why are my In-Laws trying to poison me!?

About clutter, I'm a man of two minds. In some ways, I actively support it. In other ways...well...I carefully organize my bookshelf and my CDs. Perhaps I suffer from a lame kind of OCD.

My wife just got back from India, and I was a good husband and I cleaned the house before she got home. Not that it was quite a sty, but I had been living the life of a bachelor, so things needed to be picked up. Of course, as soon as she got home, we had to open the suitcases right away—hey, there were presents—and so the clutter returned.

But that is easily remedied—she's working on putting all the doo dads and such away.

The physical clutter is easy to pick up, because we see it, we touch it, and sometimes stub our toe on it. But, in the 21st century, there is a more insidious kind of clutter, a clutter that has no stench, a clutter that maybe isn't really clutter, but...it is. I am referring to electronic clutter.

Last night, in an effort to not watch TV, and since I wasn't particularly interested in working, I went through my hard drive, just to see what scripts or monologues or whatever (remember it was an attempt to find something else to do than work) I might find. I found a lot. A lot.

Letters to friends I don't even talk to anymore, contact information that is horribly out of date, introductory emails, horrible writing assignments, etc, etc. A glut of electronic information. These are files that I haven't opened in years and years.

I thought about it. It doesn't hurt me to have it. I certainly don't stub my toe on it, and if I don't want to look at it, I don't have to open those files. And these are small files, it's not like they are taking up a whole lot of room. But—in the end, in the interests of organization and reality, I deleted them.

But then, I looked into my playwriting files. Into the folders of plays that I consider finished. Drafts and drafts and drafts, notes and notes. Endless doodles of scenes. False starts. Drafts that I will never look at again. What should I do with this?

I have no idea. It's the clutter that is more than clutter. These old drafts aren't the pieces of paper lying on my floor, or the coins that have fallen out of my pocket. These are the beginnings and mutant brothers of my work. Do I just chuck it? And if I do, it goes into electronic oblivion...it's not like I can run out and dig it out of the garbage.

But...they serve no purpose anymore. Sure, someone could appeal to my vanity and say preserve it for the future...but...again, that's an argument to my vanity. And believe me there's enough bad work in these files I don't need whatever reputation I have severely crippled by it.

I feel like I should dispose of them. Just go on a mad Guy Montag burning spree. (5 points for anyone knowing that reference.) Just go into the computer and delete, delete, delete! Gloriously sending those files to the recycle bin, bwah hah hah, and not look back! Just a clean simple folder for a play, story, or screenplay.

But, I'm resistant.

In some ways, I do feel bound by these electronic files that have no mass or mind. They reflect who I was at the time I was creating them. Not only are they pieces of my work, but, quite simply, they are pieces of me. Of who I was. Of where I was. Of what I was thinking. At that time. And that makes it hard to throw away.

But, I don't read them. I don't go in and examine who I was. That's who I was. I'm not that now.

We all have tokens of our past. Objects that we have imbued with significance, with memories and emotions of a certain place and time. I have a Return of the Jedi blanket, I adore that blanket and when my wife is really nice, I get to use it. I'm looking at my bookshelf and I see a Darth Vader shampoo bottle from 1980. These objects transport us into our past, through memory. Sentiment is a powerful thing.

But these are real objects—I have to move Darth Vader if I want to get a book.

In the end—it's all clutter. But is it worth saving? These electronic files take up a tiny, tiny bit of my hard drive. They could easily remain and nothing would change the function of my computer. Like I said, I'm of two minds.

So...what do you think? Should I purge? Should I keep? Help me solve this uniquely 21st Century problem!

For next time, and I promise it won't be so long: My Trip to India! ALL of those new relatives! The Taj Mahal! The Wedding! And, of course, super-star Amitabh Bachchan!

I think it's only fitting, since it has been forever since I have posted, that I write about something that is clearly one of my favorite things: Procrastination.

I'm sure I've mentioned it before. But, because of its clear importance in my life, I feel it..s important to talk about it again.

Procrastination. Or maybe, I'm just someone in favor of crastination. What is crastination? I don't know. I would look it up, but that would require me to get up, cross the eight feet to my book shelf and get down the B.A.D. (Big Ass Dictionary). I'll do it later.

I don't know how I became a procrastinator, but, here I am. I wait. Maybe I'm a waiter, not a procrastinator. Nah. Because if I'm a waiter, then I'm just waiting for the right moment, with procrastination, one is experiencing the right moment to do what ever activity one might have, but they are putting it off.

I like to distract myself. Just now, I looked out the window to see what was there, not to think of this next thought, but, what might be more interesting out side rather than inside my head. Back to distraction: thank god I was born when I was, in a century that thrives on the next big distraction. TV, movies, gossip. So much information is flowing at all times, it takes effort to shut it out, rather than a century ago, one probably had to make an effort to find out what was going on in the world.

And now, of course, we are reaching a point where our distractions are competing with each other. TVs are getting bigger and flatter..one company is putting out a flat panel TV with an ambient light on the back..as if the flashing images of your favorite shows are no longer enough to remind you where to look.

Game consoles are getting faster with better images, and of course, you can also multi-task in your distraction, because they can also be used as DVD players. And in fact, with the new Wii, you can play sports using the remote, going through the motions and everything, probably work up a real set. It's only costs several hundred dollars, much better deal than buying an 80 dollar racket to go play tennis. It keeps you safe out of that dangerous sun and that noxious fresh air.

Not to be out done, and taking a different course, is the MP3 player..smaller and smaller, with more and more storage space. Now, we can take our music library out for a jog, which in the old days of CD awkward, in the middle ages of cassette tape weird, and the ancient days of vinyl upsetting, and I don't think people jogged in the days of the shellac disks. Perhaps in the future we shall be able to implant our MP3 players under our skin and control it by our finger tips, uploading with a wire stored in our nose.

(Whoops. I just looked up gramophone records on Wikipedia. I wanted to know what they used to be made of, for the above paragraph, and then I got stuck reading about the argument between CD and vinyl regarding sound fidelity. So, let's just take this as an example of the quick sand like quality of the internet to distract.)

Distraction.

Honestly, I distract my self from getting things done because I don't always want to get things done. That sounds counter intuitive, I know. But. Well. I'm a writer. So, I'm supposed to write, right? So, what happens if I write long enough? Well, probably, I would finish something. And when I finish something, I need to do something with it, right?

Right.

But, what if nothing happens with the stuff that I've written? All that time wasted. So, it goes.

Let me be more honest. Sometimes I want to distract myself from the work at hand because...ok...let me put it this way. I work with deadly chemicals. In this case, the deadly chemicals are the ones in my brain. I hope the work that I create touches people some how, some way emotionally, that means I'm triggering chemicals in their heads, which means, I need to get into some emotional places myself. The deadly chemicals.

Writing truthfully, honestly doesn't come easily. It's exhausting. It's hard. Especially when you begin stepping into things that might hurt. Hey, not everything can feel good!

I know when I'm getting into something close, personal, because I begin to get antsy. I want to search for something on the internet, I want to change what I'm listening to, I want to go check out what's on the History Channel (World War 2, again!?), rather than to sit and deal and write about something that is personal, painful, and perhaps best not brought up again.

I procrastinate to avoid. Avoid ..going there... Avoid finishing. Avoid, avoid, avoid. It's far easier to distract myself with an MP3 player than face what..s going on around me.

Because if I face what is going on around me, then I have to do something about it. And maybe that's why distraction devices race off the shelves: we don't want to really look outside our windows, we don't want to hear what the person next to us on the subway maybe saying, we don't want to know.

Because then we would have to do something about what we see...

My apologies. It's been sometime since I have written. It's because. Well. I didn't want to admit something.

You see. For almost a year now, I have been harboring a secret. A secret that...well...a secret that is too heavy for me to carry as a secret any longer. This secret is a burden and a half.

Ok.

I'm not all real.

That's my secret. I am not a totally real human. Some of my parts are fake. That's right. Fake. I am slightly more machine than man than I was when I was born. Oh. True. I don't have that cybernetic arm that I'm hoping to get someday. It is something much more insidious than that. With a cybernetic arm, that would be clear, that would be obvious. You would know that I would have the ability to pick up a car and hack into your computer, entering into the digital world.

I have a fake tooth. Well. I WILL have a fake tooth. For the moment, I have a retainer like thing with a fake tooth hanging off of it, designed and determined to fool you, the casual viewer.

Last winter I was eating some Indian food my wife had brought me. I was chewing on some Tandoori chicken, as I am wont to do, when it happened. I bit into a bone. It seems part of the preparation of Tandoori chicken is taking the bird apart with a saw..a table saw, or, perhaps, just a handsaw. So. I bit into a bone. And it hurt. A lot. It was the left incisor, you know, the lame Dracula like tooth, the one you use to tear flesh from the bone, and not bite into the bone? That one.

Well. It started to wiggle. Oh, man, I thought. This sucks. It wiggled and it wiggled. I was going back to Illinois to see my parents and I already had plans to see the dentist I had been going to for many many years. How many? I don't know. That many.

So, for a few weeks, the damn thing wiggled and I kept biting into things with it. I cursed my name to the high heavens, yet, nothing happened. The tooth wiggled and I kept biting into things. It was a vicious circle.

Finally, I arrived at the dentist.

So, here's another dark secret. I still have baby teeth. Perhaps that isn't a surprise to some, but, it..s true. Behind my baby teeth there was nothing...no adult tooth to replace it. These babies in my mouth are the original things, in there since...well, I don't know since when, that's how long.

And it turns out that the tooth that bit into the Tandoori chicken was one of these lucky ones to have survived 30 years, one of the last ones to hold on desperately.

The dentist looked, he poked, he x-rayed and he sighed. It had to come out, he said. There was only 3 millimeters of root holding it in and it was never going to take hold again. The only real option was to take it out.

I was surprised at my reaction. I don't think my wife was, but, I was. I was upset. I didn't cry or anything, but it felt like someone had just punched me in the chest. My tooth had to come out. I had never had a tooth taken out. Well, ok. When they FELL out, but even then, I didn't pull them out, I let them stay as long as they liked, holding on by the merest of flesh. No string and door for me.

It's a body part, you know. And this one, THIS one had stayed around. It liked being in my mouth. And now...I had to part with it. All of a sudden, I felt like I was falling a part. My knees starting hurting, my hair turned white and fell out, and I had an overwhelming need to sit outside in the summer with a blanket on my lap.

The tooth was pulled with out much fuss, but a lovely amount of laughing gas. Which is funny, I don't remember laughing as the oral surgeon approached me with pliers. He gripped the tooth and pulled. Didn't feel a thing. It's just a very weird visual. And then...

And then comes the cybernetic parts. Alright. Not REALLY cybernetic. It doesn't do anything. The implant. But, it sounds very sci-fi. Me and my implant. It's basically a metal plug in which, at a later date, they will screw in a fake tooth. A fake tooth, I hope, is made from some sci-fi metal which will allow me to tear through steel.

Of course, from the removal of the tooth until the new super tooth, I had to heal for eight months. In the meantime, I had to wear a retainer with a plastic tooth attached with the cute name of ..flipper... Because, as the dental assistants tell me, patients flip them in and out. Cute.

I suddenly went from being old and my body falling apart to being 13 again and wanting no one to look at me or my mouth. And suddenly, I had to learn how to talk clearly all over again. Nothing screams success like a retainer lisp!

But, I'm now nearing the end of the tooth journey. Soon, I'll be able to lay down the retainer, and pick up the new tooth. Which, sadly, will not be super and I should probably NOT try to tear through steel.

The eight months have been interesting. At the beginning, I never left the house without the flipper in my mouth. Never. I would turn back if I forgot it. But, then. Eventually, I started leaving flipper free. I was...nervous about how I looked. Without a tooth. What did people say? Is that girl crying because of me?

No. She wasn't. It's New York City. There are a lot better things to cry about.

The new tooth is going to be put in just after Thanksgiving. It should take an hour of screwing, literally, and probably glue. And then, I'll have a brand new smile. No more plastic, no more retainer lisp.

And it's kind of a weird feeling. I'm thrilled that I don't have the retainer anymore, which I have to keep in a glass of water at night..yeah, with the little fizzy things. How cool am I? It's going to be gone soon and I'll have a tooth that isn't original, that is totally man-made, by some person in a lab who makes teeth. Teeth. TEETH!

In the end, it's totally unnecessary. I don't need that tooth to eat. Or smile. Or breathe. Or...whatever. But getting the fake tooth will make me feel more complete. Even if it's an illusion, it will be like I have all of my parts. After a while, I will forget about the tooth being fake. It will be there, like all of the rest.

And maybe that's what we do as we start to age, and we aren't ready for it. We try and replace what we have lost, or cover what may be growing (!). I go back and forth whether I'm ready for my future self. Some days, I'm all bring it on! Give me my soft belly! My thinning hair! My stiff joints! But many days, I want to say: I can eat ANYTHING! I can put my legs behind my head! I don't need to sleep!

It's inevitable, however. It's a law of the Universe, its Thermodynamics. Every system slides towards Chaos. I'm just not sure how to do it gracefully...

So. This week I'm going to write about last week. And last week was vacation. And, ah, what a vacation it was.

My friend Ben was getting married in a lake lodge resort in northern Minnesota, so we decided that we would make a go of it and get there a few days early to enjoy some peace and quiet. And did we have the quiet? Oh, yes. We did.

We left New York City at 6 am..and who would think New York would be noisy at 6 am? We landed in lovely Minneapolis around 10 am, picked up our rental car and hit the highway. All the way to...The Mall of America.

That's right. The Mall of AMERICA. The mall that represents America. I guess. I'm not sure what the thinking was, but then, it's three floors and the size of the Pentagon, so I don't know if there was any thinking involved. I remember on 9/11 that it was evacuated for fear that it too would be attacked after the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

We stopped at Macy's to get our wedding present..could we have been bothered to get one in New York? No. So. We got them a present at Macy's in the Mall of America. We went to the counter to get it wrapped. The woman took the present, we chose the number and then we waited. And by we, I mean all three of us. The woman behind the counter sort of stared at the box, we stared at her. Slowly, but, surely, she started pulling paper. Then looked at it all again. Then cut it. Then pulled some tape, looked at it, and then applied it to the package. Twenty minutes later...

We were on the road! Heading north! North into the woods.

It was a little scary.

I lived in Minneapolis for four years. And the first north I had ever gone was a north suburb. I had heard of the ..beauty.. of Minnesota, but I had always scoffed at that idea. How could it possibly be more beautiful than Minneapolis? Than St. Paul? I mean, come ON.

Traffic disappeared as we went north. It fell away as we got off the major highways. And then...the color...so much green. And mixed in with the green...yellows, oranges, reds. I had forgotten about Minnesota in the fall.

And then. Two rainbows. Two RAINBOWS. Within minutes of each other.

Ok. I admit it. North Minnesota is prettier than the Twin Cities.

The Lodge that we were going to was fairly expensive, more expensive than my traditional home away from home..the Super 8. But, meals were included and it was supposed to be nice, and we don't spend money like that normally, so...what the hell.

Oh. My. God. The place, first of all, was BEAUTIFUL. We got a tiny cabin, i.e., cute, right by a lake, and so every morning we wake up with this view...of water...of trees...just beauty. We had our own fireplace! We had our own hammock! People...this was awesome.

The lodge served two meals, included in the price of admission, breakfast and dinner. Breakfast had fresh baked goodies as well as eggs or pancakes or waffles. And the dinner...the dinner. It was a four course dinner. Four. And if you wanted you could have five or six courses.

And let me tell you...the Filet Mignon...it was heaven in the form of medium rare beef. And I say this with honesty...if it was legal in the United States, I would marry it. I would marry that piece of beef, I loved it that much. Deepti..I'm sorry.

The wedding went off without a hitch with the most perfect weather that Nature could provide. People were happy, charming, all those great things that happens at weddings. I got to see old friends, introduce them to my wife and talk and talk and talk...

And after spending five days there, we had to come back to New York. A land of concrete, of noise and cable TV. A land were you can get anything you want right way, it may not be very good, but you can get it now.

I'm hardly one that can stand up and say no to fast food. I am clearly one who is firmly entrenched in the I Want It Now or as Close to Now as I Can Have It Generation. I like that I can go in and get a meal plopped down in front of me fast, I like that I can go and get Japanese food in a few minutes.

But is it always good to get something right away? To just have it handed to you without any trouble (because waiting is a form of trouble for some)?

True..I didn't make the food in this magical lodge that I visited. It was a person with great skill, who took the time to train and practice to make such divinity. And then, to take the time to prepare the meal for someone the likes of me..who can whip up a mean batch of cereal.

But, is faster better? Is now better?

I would argue no. While it's great to get what you want right away, there is to be said for the journey towards what you want. Be it a meal, the perfect pair of shoes, or a career.

I admit it; I hate struggling, struggling sucks. But, if it takes some struggle to make Filet Mignon that I would marry...

We miss the woods. We miss the ease of living. Or maybe it was the fresh air. I don..t know. But, suddenly, as we arrived back in New York, there wasn..t a thrill of coming home, but the sense of defensive screens coming back up. Of going back into battle. And it's taking some time to remember: why are we living in this city?

Because it's a part of a journey...



That's it for this week. Next time...the topic: Why do I write all sentimental and sweet and shit in this blog? It should be electric.

Why is pine the smell of clean? I think its an interesting question. And frankly, I have no idea. My wife wanted me to make up an answer and hope I would fool all of you kind people out there who read this blog. I briefly considered it...I did. But then I didnt come up with any good answer. Other than this...

Because it smells better than coffee. Because it smells better than tomato. Because it smells better than a lot of other things.

We associate the smell of clean being something different that the smell of dirty.

They COULD invent soap that had no smell whatsoever. A completely odorless soap that does the job just as well. And they have for laundrybecause certain people are allergic to the chemical smells they add to the detergent.

But who would want to clean their kitchen counters and floors with a soap that had no smell? No one, I would guess.

Who wants to spend all that time cleaning their house and have it smell exactly as it did before? How would you know that you accomplished anything? Sure, the socks are off the floor but if the joint smells the same, what does it matter? No one likes the smell of dirty, no matter how clean it looks.

Personally, and Im sure Im not alone, and I know this wont be a huge admission to my parents, Im not a huge fan of cleaning. Now, I dont live in filth, I live in disorganization. (Unless we talk about my booksthen we are talking organized.) I admit to a certain amount of chaos. And as the law of Thermodynamics teaches us: if you want to fight chaos, then you have to put energy into it.

So, when we clean, we put a lot of energy into it. And I believe we want to know without a doubt that we have cleaned. True, we can see it. But in this day and age where video can be manipulated, who is possibly going to believe their eyes? So, we want to see and smell it. We want to smell clean.

Of course, now there are products that give you that smell of clean without actually having to clean! Fabreeze. Whats the point of Frabreeze? Oh, thats rightit just makes things smell clean. You dont actually HAVE to clean, just spray it on those dirty, smelly shoes, and voila! Its like clean.

Theres a Frabreeze commercial where a mom is going through her sons roomor very butch daughterand she finds a huge mess in the closet, including dirty sneakers. Whats the solution? Spray Frabreeze on it and its just like being clean.

Its easy...

And maybe thats what bugs me about Fabreeze. It takes all the smell out of clean, and just gives you the smell.

It feels hallow. It feels empty. I hate that. Do we really want less? Do we only want ease? What about substance?

I feel like we already live in a time where substance is losing ground. TV, Novels, Film, Musicthey have always had their lighter fair, but it feels like the lighter fair is more and more important to people. For Gods sake, why do we care about pictures of Tom Cruises baby? Why is it on main stream network news? I feel like now more than ever bubble gum literature and easy movies receive praise.

Who wants to be challenged? Who wants to have to question their lives and what they do in the Universe?

Im not arguing for the total elimination of all escapists stories. I love my summer blockbuster, I do. But, I try to balance it out. I dont think I can go see a movie like Mission Impossible 3 to help understand my life. I go see movies like Little Miss Sunshine.

But...just as a question...do people want to know, to want learn, want to challenge themselves? Is there a point to art? To storytelling? Do people want substance?

Or would they prefer to just spray Fabreeze on it?