Something I enjoyed writing for Facebook. Being the Facebook whore that I am.

1. I can no longer taste the Jack Daniels in my Jack and Coke, so bring it on. Some call that a problem; I call it a gift.

2. I love taking things apart to see how they work. Even picking people apart to see how they work. I'm not always so good at putting things back together. Holy crap.. I'm Sylar!

3. I give nicknames to the people most important to me. It's a Bengali thing. Most of my closest friends have some sort of nickname or another. It makes people more personal to me. I have a personal stake in this person. Does that make me weird?

4. From time to time, I will call my friend Steve, get his voicemail, start a legitimate message, and then abruptly cut myself off screaming COCK! like some dumb teenager. I then giggle to myself in shameless pride for at least 2 minutes. I'm 28 years old.

5. I donate money to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society every time they send me a flier because I was once tested for Leukemia and had to sit in the waiting room of the oncology department in a room full of sick children that were emaciated and mangled beyond anything you could imagine. I went home and cried.

6. I filed my taxes already. Bitches.

7. I have a really strong sense of empathy. In fact, if I'm watching a movie and a character is portrayed really well, I unconsciously mimic their facial expression I guess as a better way to feel what they are feeling. Anita makes fun of me for this all the time. So should you.

8. I like to pee with the door open. And outdoors. I guess I just like peeing. Did I mention I was 28 years old?

9. I love pictures. I love capturing moments. I have 5 years of pictures archived on our media server in the basement. I need a new hard drive.

10. If you've ever been important to me, I've probably never forgotten you and I probably think about you from time to time.

11. Hot dogs are my favorite food and have been for as long as I can remember. My mom tells stories of her and my godmother going for chili dogs after every sonogram during her pregnancy with me. I guess that's where I got it from. Hot dogs are delicious.

12. I used to play Magic. Yep. Magic. The Gathering. In fact, I used to play Magic with some of YOU. It's time we owned up to this sort of tomfoolery. Magic got replaced with fantasy sports. Much the chagrin of Anita.

13. I like making dips for parties. I have a spinach dip that my friend Mike gave me the recipe for (that I tinkered with) that people go crazy for at parties and that makes me happy.

14. One word that can make me happy no matter what. Karaoke.

15. Music is not a means to dancing to a beat or any kind of escape for me. It's a complete emotional experience. There are songs that give me goosebumps, songs that fill me with joy, and of course, songs that make me cry. If I could somehow make some sort of semi-meaningful life out of being a half assed musician, I would.

16. I miss India. I was making plans to go there in 2010, but that's not looking so good anymore. Maybe 2011? Hopefully.

17. The radio doesn't work in my car. The radio was stolen once and when the dirtbags took it, they broke the pin that comes from the antenna. If I had a radio, I would listen to Tirico and Van Pelt (aka Van Peezy) as much as possible on AM radio.

18. If I wasn't such a rabid Yankees fan, I'd be in love with Albert Pujols. Ok, let me stop lying. Even though I'm a rabid Yankees fan, I have a ridiculous baseball crush on Albert Pujols. What can't he do? Is there anything? Is he a man? Is he a God? Is he THE God? Will I ever have these answers?

19. Every time I visit my sister's house and I walk through the door, the second my niece lays her little brown eyes on me, she charges towards me at full speed expecting me to pick her up and hug her as hard as I can. It's the highlight of every trip.

20. Some people judge you if you have poor grammar, I judge you if you watch Fox News. These people are crazy to me. Seriously? Sean Hannity? Really? Bill O'Reilly? Listen, I know I'm a bleeding heart liberal... but come on. Sean Hannity? Can you really believe anything that guy says without laughing or being scared? Say it ain't so, Dennis Miller. Say it Ain't So.

Ps - I watch Fox News all the time. I think these people are hilarious. The fact that they're popular scares me.

21. I regularly request niggermania.net because I think these people are fascinating. I think some of the stuff they wrote leading up to the election and the inauguration was down right comical especially if you consider the fact that they're not joking. These people are serious.. I imagine big white guys with shaved heads or close cropped hair with lots of tattoos sitting at their computers typing things like "MSM" and "LOL" and "IMO". That amuses me.

22. I love baked goods. And it shows.

23. I used to be pretty awful with managing my money, but now am actually getting pretty good at it. Thank you Quicken!

24. I plan on trying to move back to NJ in 5 years. I love the life I've built here in PA, but let's face it, I'm a Jersey boy. I need to eat at diners and order "taylor ham" egg and cheese . I need to go to the movies and see at least 3 Hindi movies playing. I need to get on a highway and have to make a jughandle. I need a mall every 12 feet. Mostly, I need to be able to go to the city on a whim. Instead of having to plan it.

25. In case you couldn't tell, I tend to ramble. Sometimes.

ALL NEW BIRTHDAY - Now with less fanfare

Is it wrong for me to be a little depressed about the lack of fanfare for my birthday?

I know I'm 28 and enough already, but I'm just not used to it. My family always made a big deal about my birthday and this is really the first time that no one around me really cares. Don't get me wrong, Anita's best friend had a little dinner thing at her house last night and had me over and it was delicious (as usual), but it felt like more of a get together as opposed to any sort of celebration.

Am I getting too old? Is this it? It's happened? The return of Saturn marks the time that I officially stop looking forward to birthdays?

Lucky for me, I'm creating my own psuedo-fanfare. Tomorrow, I'm taking a half day from work and then taking the rest of the week off to just chill out and do whatever I want. My mom is coming up tomorrow and we're going to spend the rest of the week hanging out. I guess I'll make a little of my own fanfare.

Blech. I shouldn't feel this crappy headed into my birthday.

What it means to be plastic

So, I learned a new meaning for an old word last week. Plastic. Sure, it's an old faithful word with many meanings, but this new meaning in particular has resonance in my life right now. It was taught to me by an old Bengali man last week while I spent time at my mother's house being ill. He's someone I've known most of my life, but never really looked at in the light that I now see him. He's about average for a Bengali man, small in size. Salt and pepper hair and balding in the middle. He has a matching beard and mustache combo His age is showing in his face and around his eyes. They emote a sense of sadness and a life missing something essential. Something that was there before, but now has gone.
He sat in my mom's living room, on her deep burgundy couch, sipping red wine, chatting about nothing particular; completely unaware of the impact he was about to have. The conversation changed topics like the direction of the wind until it finally landed on the subject of my generation and its general apathy towards Bengali culture. This lit a fire under under our family friend. He was much more animated about this topic than he was about any other topic. His hands were much more active, he waved his head. He stated that the issue with this generation and their passe attitude towards Bengali culture was to be blamed on their parents. His generation. The incoming immigrants are too concerned with earning money, buying a house, impressing their "friends", and sending money back home to take too much on an interest in getting the younger generation excited about their own culture.
It was this passing reference to "friends" that brought on the new meaning of the word to me. When he said the word "friends" and made quotation marks in the air, I thought I might've been stuck in some Bengali version of a Norm MacDonald movie. I just chuckled to myself and was almost immediately challenged. I told him that I never saw someone of his age and stature use air quotes.
Maybe he had a little too much to drink. Maybe I spoke too fast. Maybe my Bengali is a little more broken than I would like to admit, but for SOME reason, he thought I was challenging something about his friends and he settled into a story.
He spoke of his life 15-20 years ago as if it was foreign to him. He spoke of the people he hosted and that hosted him as if they were people in a movie playing characters. He had such contempt for people, but at the same time, it made him sad. He told me that before his wife died and he used the loads of money he made, he had more friends than he could count. He felt like the center of the universe.
Then tragedy struck. His wife mysteriously died of an adverse reaction to medication on a plane. He spoke of devastation. He told me about the people coming over to console him and bring food for him and his sons to eat.
Then his voice changed. What almost sounded like rage filled the room as he spoke of what he referred to as his biggest mistake. He felt lonely. He ended getting remarried and he was completely ostracized from the Bengali community. This woman ended up being the wrong woman to cure his ails, but the damage was already done. He had disgraced himself in the eyes of the socialites, and there's no coming back from that.
He's rebuilt some relationships, but nothing like the incredible social life that he had before. He tells me that he sometimes sits in his room, alone, thinking about exactly how alone he is. He tells me he feels helpless. Helpless. A man of his stature, his education, his wealth. Helpless. How is this possible? This is when the definition is dropped on me. He describes all his current relationships as "plastic" something that resembles reality, but is not. Something that looks good on a mantle at a distance, but when you get closer... It's just... Plastic.

After hearing this, I find myself obsessed. Is this the fate I am doomed? Am I... Plastic? Am I destined for the kind of sorrow he has experienced and is experienced? I find myself secretly evaluating the people in my life. Plastic. Real. How do you tell them apart? Obviously, some relationships are easy to evaluate, in either direction. It's the ones in the middle. Are these people for real? The people that I know I'd be there for, but would they be there for me? No matter what? I question Anita's friends more than anything. Even though I spend infinitely more time with them than I do my own friends, I wonder how real my relationship is with this person. This is probably mostly paranoia with some other irrational fears thrown in, but I still can't stop myself. I just don't want to end up like him. I don't want to be surrounded by people smiling, but not smiling with me. I don't want to be caught in a room full of strangers I call my closest friends.

I guess only time will tell.