I'm Kiran, I'm a dreamer. A writer. A singer. A mother. An ugly crier. An Indian-American. Who loves Gandhi. My stories are full of truth that is sometimes hard for me to say out loud. This blog is where I overcome my fears and live (and love) out loud.
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Don’t Go Breaking Their Hearts
Or maybe you can.
A post on why I want my children to have their heart broken. The lovely Shell from Things I Can’t Say is graciously hosting a post from me today.
Go check it out.
And have a great weekend!
Last Mornings
“The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.”
- Khalil Gibran, “The Prophet”
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“Last morning, I peed my pants.”
“Last morning, I got a boo boo, Mommy.”
“Remember? Last morning, Shaila hit me.”
These are all things my three year old son, Nico, can say on a given morning. You would think that “last morning” might mean yesterday, or the day before yesterday morning. But no. Last morning can really be any morning that happened in the past. Heck, it might even be an afternoon or an evening.
We have a lot of stories about “last morning” going on in this house. “Last morning” basically is a sum of all our yesterdays; it’s where the accidents of our past took place and where we lay our mistakes to rest.
Get out the Map
“Mom, where is your family from in India?” Shaila asked me the other day.
“Your grandparents are from a state called Bihar.”
“Where’s that?”
“Well, it’s in the North.” I explained, “If you were looking at a map of India, it would be at the top, near a country called Nepal.” I explained.
She looked at me blankly.
“Here, I’ll show you.” Rather than pulling out a handy map though, I had something much better.
“Mommy! What are you doing?!!” Shaila yelled at me, diva hands on hips and all.
I had pulled up a pant leg in the middle of the mall, figuring I could find some vein formation on my legs to show her the geographical landscape of India. It didn’t take long to find an imperfect asymmetrical peninsular shape of India on the map somewhere on my right cankle.
My Husband, the Teeth Model
Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. I wished him “Happy Birthday” on Facebook, because this is the way you are supposed to profess your love to a spouse in the world of social media. You have to do things like this to let your Twitter crushes (Shout out to @Cali_Kid_Mike and @TheMichaelRock! No worries. I just stalk them platonically) and your ex-boyfriends on Facebook know that someone really did end up marrying you.
Now, I know that most everyone looks forward to his or her birthday on Facebook. Unless you are one of those people who doesn’t want anyone to know your birthday and you mark that shit as private. Or one of those people who doesn’t have a Facebook account because of privacy or because you are too good for it.
I know some of you guys. Some of you are even friends. I will not judge you except to say that I think you’re really weird.
Sex and Candy – The 8 Rules of Engagement
I am as guilty of loving Disney princess movies as any pre-adolescent girl in my neighborhood. And I love sweet movies about unconventional romance, like Pretty Woman and Bend it Like Beckham. Boy meets girl, girl is feisty and cute and somehow doesn’t realize how beautiful she really is. Boy and girl fall in love, despite social differences (race, socio-economic status, religion). Those differences result in some kind of conflict which are ultimately saved by one overwhelming thing.
Love.
And when you go through life, you realize that love is complicated shit. It doesn’t work out as clearly as in the movies and there is no musical crescendo to notify you when you are kissing someone that this is the one. No laugh track when you accidentally bump heads reaching for a pen you dropped. No fairy godmother to dress you up in an outfit that’s just the right amount of pretty, classy and slutty to let him know what a goddess you are.
It’s MY Party
I’m trying to run interference on a battle between my three year old son and my five year old daughter.
“Nico! I can’t believe you did that to me! You are NOT COMING TO MY PARTY!” She yells at him.
“Shaila….” I interject.
“Oh yeah?!” yells Nico back, finding his voice. However high pitched it might be. “Well you’re not coming to MY party!”
“Nico….” I start.
“Well MY party is going to be bigger than your party. And I’m going to have pinatas!” She yells. She turns to me. “Mommy, I can have pinatas, right?”
“No, MY party is going to be biggest-er than yours and I’m going to have a water slide and you can’t go on it!” He screams back.
There’s Some Scary at Scary Mommy
I wrote a post yesterday about how I feel about recent gun violence in America. It’s over at Scary Mommy today. I want to make a few points clear:
1) My post does NOT call for the disarmament of Americans.
2) My reference to technology is to bring the discussion back to the point of perspective. We keep going back to the 2nd Amendment as if it is infallible or impossible to believe that it needs to be revisited. I am not suggesting the revocation of the law, but for us to evaluate what that means under the context in which we live.
3) Yes, driving a car without a license is illegal in all states, despite the Twitter storm that tried to tell me otherwise. For the guys who were on my back yesterday trolling the guncontrol hashtag on Twitter, if you have found some nuanced way under some provisional law where you can operate a vehicle without a license and not have the vehicle registered, congratulations. Those are not the guidelines most Americans live under.
Like My Gake?!
Most of you have probably seen this picture by now, which is making its rounds online. It’s a young woman’s coming out letter to her parents. The young woman, Laurel also leaves a cake for her family to sweeten the message.
The message reads:
Good morning parents,
I’m gay. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time. I thought doing it this way would be a piece of cake. I hope you still love me. I mean, it’s hard not to love someone who baked you a cake.
All my friends know and still love me. Your acceptance would be the icing on the cake.
I hope you, much like this cake, are not in tiers.
I hope we can look back at this and say, “boy, this one really takes the cake.”
It gets batter.
Love,
Laurel
Stop. Drop. And Play Dead.
The other day (okay, a few weeks ago), I was working out at the gym, taking a break between sets during an intense leg workout. Well, let’s be honest. It was a leg workout, made intense by the fact that it involved work.
I don’t know what triggered the thought, but as I finished taking a sip from my water bottle, I remember thinking to myself,
“If a shooter were to walk in right now and start shooting up this place, would I have anywhere to hide? Where is the emergency exit? Do I know how to play dead?”
Not so bizarre. Not anymore.
I find myself thinking about those things more and more these days. I don’t think it’s hubris – I’ve never been one to be paranoid about protecting my life. I will jump on a trans-Atlantic flight, go on the most daredevil, heart-pounding roller-coaster and can go on a passionate carbohydrate binge that would have me banned from South Beach forever.
Les Mis Holiday Adventures – Part Deux (That’s 2 in French)
Sorry, this post is a little later than promised and I know many of you are biting your nails and waiting with baited breath for me to hit publish. Oh, you’re not?
Alrighty then.
So I started my adventures in “Les Mis” over the holidays, writing in this post about how I had seen it twice in one day. I consider that to be pretty extreme, hard core movie lovin’. Sure, I didn’t sleep in a sleeping bag to get to see the first show – I’m not that pathetic. Especially not on Christmas. I mean, even for people who are crazy about something like “Twilight,” – well I think even those guys would look at me weird, which is pathetic because hello. They are in love with vampires.
It’s about perspective people.
So yes, I saw it that second time. And I walked back into the house twirling and singing and dancing.
I'm Kiran, I'm a dreamer. A writer. A singer. A mother. An ugly crier. An Indian-American. Who loves Gandhi. My stories are full of truth that is sometimes hard for me to say out loud. This blog is where I overcome my fears and live (and love) out loud.
Read More....
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