Airing dirty linen dot blogspot dot you shut up

Finally, and I say this with a quiet sense of misplaced victory, I discovered my boyfriend's blog.

It was an accident. No credit to me. For two months, I've nagged him to stop being a little bitch and give it to me. He likes the sound of that, I'm sure. But nothing I said made him part with the link. I was hurt at the secrecy around a webpage.

I'd ask him, trying to be casual:

So! What do you write about?

Grunt. None of your business.

When will you show it to me?

I don’t know. Depends on your behaviour.

But I am behaving! I'm saying ‘please’! Hear my tone! Doesn't that count? Have you become immune to my charms, my way with words, my big scary eyes, you stupid lumbering fool?

Cut out the drama.

Aaarggh! Alright, fine! Go to hell! I don't want to see your stupid blog! Mine's better anyway!

Ok, I didn't say (all) that. But you get what I mean. This sort of nonsense has carried on for weeks now. We haven’t had the smoothest sail of late. But those issues belong in a different post, if at all. Our modus operandi often regresses into not so much a shut-up, no-YOU-shut up. It’s more, if you ignore me, I’ll zap you with passive aggressive. Then nobody calls. Ego takes over. Time is lost. Resentment festers. Hell freezes over. If you saw us, you wouldn’t necessarily think we’re in a relationship. Sometimes even we get thrown off track. It’s become a joke.

So when after a particularly fun round of intimacy post a week-long fight, when I slimily go across to the computer in his room and find, right at that moment, a white and blue G-talk envelope with [name of the blog] in the subject field pop up and say to me, Hello, I am New Mail That You’re Not Supposed to Read, I feel like the devil. Hah! Game's over, little one. Hand over your soul and keep walking.

Cherry on the icing: seeing his oh-shit!!-don't-you-dare-click-on-that-link expression. Oh, what a glorious moment.

The secrecy wasn't as bad as, let's say, that actor in Mad Men, also GQ's Man of the Year, Jon Hamm, who, on the show, leads a double life. But if you were dating someone who wouldn't part with a blog link, that's a fight, don't you think?

I felt left out.

How can you give Tushar – said in disdainful tone variation 1 -- the link and not me?!

(Tushar is his friend. I don’t mind Tushar. But Tushar is not my friend.)

Lesson of the hour: Disdain = bad move. Rewards = 0.

Another time, I said to him, how would you like it if I played a secret instrument?

(‘pretty sure I meant ‘instrument secretly’).

Pianist wouldn't move: 'Do you?’

No, but that’s not the point! It's not like we need more strain on this relationship!

Yelling didn't help. Tends to make him go quiet.

Ohhh, come on ya, blogs are my thing! You need my feedback. After all, when we're broken up, I won't be able to shove it down your throat as authoritatively!

I begged. He whistled. I thought I made perfect sense. He, let's just say, isn't a big fan of how I put things across – “WHEN we’re broken up? For god’s sake, woman, who talks like that?”

Since the beginning of last month, 'fellow's been writing late into the night, sipping vodka straight from the bottle. Says it helps kill the itch in his throat and eradicates general jumpiness he feels when staring at a blank page. Obviously I dared to click on that link. First impressions: unremarkable grey template, but at least you’ve broadened your widgets and the orange title leaps out. Not bad.

I read nothing. I scrolled, fast-fast. How much have I missed? There are seven posts. Okay…scrolling, predictable, phone review, android, predictable, jazz this, wires that, blah, blah, gadget, gadget, Art Tatum is your god, yes, yes, you miss Sarah Michele Gellar, you want to marry Buffy, magic red bras, phhrbt, next, scroll, mm hmm… A-HA! Jackpot – post that seems to bitch me out.

And so he writes. (Go beyond the thesis that is sentence one, please)

“Why can’t people let go of the things they've been holding onto longer than the things they ask others to let go off, which the latter cling to only because the former are holding onto their things in the first place. HA 41 words in a sentence. An editor’s nightmare, I'm told. That's a little bomb I've left for my girlfriend, with whom I'm currently pissed, to come across when I finally give her this blog's link...She’s a journo and has OCD. Obsessive compulsive disorder. Seriously, I dare you to mispronounce a word in front of her. And I still chase her, I feel like a lost little boy if I don't have the hem of her skirt to hold. Talk about self destructive.”

The last bit tickled me. Honest and pathetic all at once, different from honestly pathetic, but I live in hope that in cultivating a blogspot home, he will reveal to the world parts of his deeply inaccessible soul, different from deep, inaccessible soul. I'm hazarding a guess that he didn't want to share his link with me because I'm horrible (also honestly pathetic?) and he was terrified that I might puke on his template and, I don’t know, yawn all over his content or something.

The Google envelope was a comment, his first. Really, someone commented? He was like a child, fascinated at seeing a milk tooth placed on his palm. I was Little Miss Complacence, smoking my figurative cigars. Yeaa, good feeling, huh, cub?

Pass me the nail file, love. My turn to whistle.

~

Dear Asshole,

You might think I'm being a petty little (word you used the other day) in NOT linking your URL to mine but think of it as Karma. Maybe in two months if the self consciousness eases off, I will. And you'll get a few measly hits. But that'll be too easy on you. I’ll be like the person who recommended your CV to my boss and you turned out to be a lousy worker.

Make your mistakes. Edit your thoughts. Understand apostrophes. You see, I’m enjoying this too much and I’m concerned about premature success going to your head, like a child TV star, and you turning into a virtual spoilt brat like Darsheel Zafary. And because I'm kind hearted, and not beyond affection, I say this to you, keep writing. And take this with a pinch of salt: you're not dull even in person, but you’re less boring in words.

But just so you know:

a. You were a complete (word I used the other day) in not letting me in for two months.

b. You need an About Me. Baniya, 26, with a labrador, a baby grand and a bakery-- or something that your OCD girlfriend didn't come up with.

c. From those long emails you stopped writing to me a while ago I've known you could string a sentence. Still, it’s nice to be reminded.

~

From his post called ‘Alfie’

Think of a golfer’s swing, the mechanics, the level and relaxed positioning of the shoulders, waist, knees, legs, arms, elbows. The flow of the club as you move it back and forth, how you pivot at the waist, thinking about every tiny detail the instructor told you and you grandly duff the ball. Once, twice, a thousand times. Then, all the conscious thought disappears, all the mechanics become sub conscious, and only the fluidness of your body is in your mind. That’s when you hit the 320 yarder. That’s when you produce that sweet and harmonious sound from your piano, the little inflections in the hand, arm and shoulder become sub conscious, and you suddenly begin to use gravity rather than force the keys. It’s a quest. The nuances of which elude even the most seasoned pianists, who care only about speed and virtuosity. True virtuosity implies perfection in every aspect. And I'll get it someday, peacefully, when I've stopped caring how long it'll take. And I keep playing that one note in the middle of the keyboard, patiently, coaxing the sound to come out.