And then at work, I’m talking to Lil’ m about the gazillion weddings, engagements, hookups and one night stands taking place around me and I suddenly start freaking out. I go like, “Yo m, what if I end up spending the rest of my fucking life completely alone! What if I never find someone? What if I’m the creepy 65 year old with a grey ponytail and cheap sunglasses that buys your kids candy floss, lives with 3 cats and shows up in pictures like this? Sure I could also be a badass oldie like Gandalf or one of these guys. But lets face it, the odds are slim.” And then I decide to take matters in my own hands. BOOM. Just like that. I know that Lil’ m has a boyfriend so, OBVIOUSLY, I decide to make her my plan B. You know plan B? The one where if neither of us are married by the time we’re 30 (or 35 or 40), we marry each other.

But I was still in panic mode. I needed a plan A. Like yesterday. So I decide to con(vince) Big M into marrying me. Except that it wasn’t going to work. Because she works out like every fucking day, and the last time I stepped into a gym was back when MSFT traded at nearly 60 bucks. I wasn’t always like this though. Back in the day, my prowess at tomato racing was rather legendary. Tomato race no comprende? The one where your hands are tied behind your back and you race to the middle of the track, grab the tomato with JUST your mouth (twss!) and sprint to the finish line. However, my moment in the spotlight came to a crashing halt a few years later. I was participating in a 400m relay and comfortably cruising to the finish line. And in true Bollywood fashion, the world around me slows down. Everything and everyone begins moving in super-slow motion. I can hear people chanting my name! And I’m thinking, “Wow! People just love me. I’m quite the superstar here. The crowd just can’t get enough of me.” Except that it wasn’t the crowd yelling my name. It was another runner hollering and swearing and cursing at me because I was in his fucking lane. And as I stealthily move to my own lane, he promptly overtakes me and subsequently wins the race. Yes. Not my proudest moment on the track. And that fall from grace was directly responsible for the end of my career as an athlete and resulted in me embarking on a new career as a crackerjack slouch.

I thought of putting this up on the blog as I was walking back towards Grand Central Station this evening. But I was rudely interrupted by my coworker N who yells out loud that SOMETHING in her bag is vibrating. This would have been funnier AND infinitely more awkward for her had I not known apriori that she was carrying her boyfriend’s electric razor in her bag.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Now in an effort to give y’all an optimum blog-reading (bleading?) experience, I decided to conduct some stellar research and saw that cardamom is often used as a masticatory. Except that I didn’t know what a masticatory is and Firefox clearly agreed with me as is evident with the dotted-red-underline-thingy.

And since Wikipedia is editable by pretty much anyone, I was convinced that I was a victim of Wikipedia vandalism (it IS A REAL word, look it up), and that word is actually masturbatory, which kind of makes more sense, since this cologne is expected to seduce ANY woman, and hence its ingredients would have such prurient uses. Also the more I tried to imagine the use of cardamom in any sort of multi-person conjugal act, the more my brain spun out of control and the smarties at Google image search couldn’t help me out with this one either.

And then I took another quiz that concluded that was an alcoholic and in desperately need of help which is totally bullshit because all I got was like 3 questions right out of 20. And another that said that I look 62% like Ludacris which is a bucketload of crap because I don’t even have a moustache. And then I took another quiz that would tell me what Twilight character I am but before the goddamn site would give me the answer, it made me fill out like a gazzillion forms and subscribe to another gazzillion newsletters and even then it wouldn’t tell me what I was and then I was so FRUSTRATED THAT I WANTED TO KILL SOMEONE but I didn’t. Instead I finished my drink, closed the computer, drifted to sleep in my wine induced haze, and dreamt about innovative and slightly disturbing uses of cardamom as a masturbatory device.

So the thought that popped up in my dream this morning, I think, is one of the things that I find extremely annoying and inappropriate and completely wrong with the universe. Guys who use the word ‘dear‘ in conversation with other guys. And not in a grandfatherly ‘my dear‘ kind of way. More like in a ‘yes dear‘ sort of ridiculously schmoozingly castrating way. Every time I hear a guy use ‘dear‘ in written English, or even worse spoken out loud, my respect for them plummets to the depths of the nether world. Nothing is worse than a guy chopping his own balls off and serving them with bolognese sauce.

On other more delicious thoughts, I was recently introduced to the orgasmic pleasures of eating sushi. It was lil’ m’s birthday last week, and big M, lil’ m, Mixie and me celebrated it at Komegashi, a rather fancy joint in Jersey City. I’ve always been a little skeptical about sushi, well, because it’s RAW FUCKING FISH! But lil’ m did a fabulous job of introducing me to the cuisine. Maybe it was hormones or maybe she’s just getting all maternal on my ass, but she’s like, “Try this Morty. It has cream cheese. It’ll mask the taste of the fish. Or try this one- it has avacados in it. A little high on calories, but that’s alright.” And I was all but salivating with my puppy dog eyes wide open. Almost like when I was learning to ride a bike. Or when Dr. Bhonsle, the sex-ed consultant in 9th grade showed Mrs. Sanghamitra’s class of 40 curious, overly enthusiastic and horny boys a diagram of a vagina.

I suddenly remembered a promise I made to a coworker to bestow on her pseudo Internet celebrity status. So Shonan, as you enjoy the delicious tiramisu from Hot & Crusty flanked by your birthday presents- the hunky Edward and Jacob, I hope that someday my blog hits superstardom and you shall thereby be immortalized in the annals of the Internets.

Shonan with Edward and Jacob

My New Year celebrations were surprisingly fabulous. After spending the last few hours of 2009 at my pal D’s apartment, I bounced to another house party where I barely knew more than 3 people. The roads were slushy. I wasn’t dressed appropriately enough for a party. And that last shot of patron was starting to kick in. Oh and not to mention, this was my FIRST EVER party that was busted by cops! Kinda lame, I know, since I’m like all of 25. But fuck you.

Yes! That's my buddy KB partying like a rockstar!

Molten Plastic Cup Sculptures

This one, I’m proud to admit, is my baby. Partially inspired by Frank Buffay Junior’s penchant for melting stuff, one fine afternoon, I came across the magical properties of hot water in a plastic cup. It tickled my imagination when I realized while absent-mindedly filling my cup with scalding hot water, that it lead to a peculiar deformation of the cup. And then there was simply no looking back. On the next coffee break, I demonstrate this phenomenon to my slacker-extraordinaire buddies and watch their jaws drop as they witness the awesomeness of the moment!

What do you get when you put a group of creative, underutilized, idle minds together in a pantry with access to a plethora of plastic cups and an infinite supply of hot water? Ladies and gents, I give you the “Siamese Cups”. My chemistry professor would have teared up with genuine joy at this sight.

Plastic cups heated, melted, deformed, fused together at the base, and cooled beneath a tap of running cold water.

Soon to come, an excerpt on the techniques used by professionals to deduce the least optimal route to take to and from the pantry to the desk, so as to maximize the time spent away from the aforementioned desk.

Now I’m not the kind to take an insult lying down. But here I was getting trash talked by a woman. So I did what I do best- bring out my smart alecky self and make a feeble attempt at redeeming any self respect I might still have after my argument was demolished point for point and my ego destroyed. And after a moment, I say that Kajol should play her in the film. And cheekily added that the only way she and I would get to star in the movie would be if she played the role of my mother or sister, since the rather obvious age gap between Ranbir and Kajol would make for a very awkward couple. Pleased with my acerbic wit, I grin with absolute glee. She responds, “Ok Morty, go ahead, be Ranbir. I’ll be Kajol. I’ll walk away with all the awards year after year. And you can spend the rest of your career compering those very same award shows”. Touché.

1. What is your current obsession?
   Perfecting my biryani recipe, and learn to heat a paratha without tripping the smoke alarm.
2. What are you wearing today?
   A business suit.
3. What’s for dinner?
   Paneer makhni, mango achar, parathas and a glass of Merlot.
4. What’s the last thing you bought?
   A fancy ass camera for my birthday.
5. What are you listening to right now?
   “Bullet the blue sky” by U2. Not my favorite U2 song, but it’s the one currently playing on my iPod. My favorite would be “City of Blinding Lights”. It was only very recently that I was introduced to the awesomeness that is called Bono.
6. What do you think about the person who tagged you?
   Shamelessly picked this tag up from a stranger’s blog. So nothing.
7. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
   Anywhere between 86th-96th Street on Central Park West, New York, NY overlooking the lake.
8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?
   A pair of well fitting shorts, sunglasses, flip-flops and my Yankees hat.
9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
   I was reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth a few days ago. The last 3 stories still haunt me. Hence, Rome, Italy.
10. Which language do you want to learn?
    Spanish and, of course, better Bengali so I don’t come across as a pretentious idiot when I speak to my relatives.
11. What’s your favorite quote?
    I have several. Amongst my favorite is this one by George Costanza from Seinfeld about his perspective on life: “The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for High School. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last 9 months floating… then you finish off as an orgasm! Amen!”
12. Who do you want to meet right now?
    Chris Brown and sock him in the head.
13. What is your favorite color?
    Blue.
14. What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own closet?
    A gray tee-shirt that I’ve had for 3 years. Its faded, torn and I think its the coolest thing I own.
15. What is your dream job?
    Chief model coordinator at Victoria’s Secret.
16. What’s your favorite magazine?
    I’m a total gossip junkie- so it has to be People magazine.
17. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?
    Books. I’m a huge book whore.
18. What do you consider a fashion faux pas?
    White socks while at work, pleated trousers, black belts with brown formal shoes.
19. Who according to you is the most over-rated style icon?
    Rihanna.
20. What kind of haircut do you prefer?
    Any kind that Mary gives me with her soft-soft hands!
21. What are you going to do after this?
    Walk down to Grand Central Terminal, hop onto the shuttle and head home.
22. What are your favorite movies?
    I’m a big movie junkie. I’ll watch all kinds of crap that Bollywood dishes out on a regular basis. Huge fan of the classics. Roman Holiday is amonsgt my all time favorites, along with Snakes on a plane.
23. What are three cosmetic/makeup/perfume products that you can’t live without?
    Deodorant, hair gel, Polo Blue.
24. Give us three styling tips that always work for you:
    Boots are cool, white shirt/tee-shirt with jeans don’t go out of style,
25. What do you do when you “have nothing to wear” (even though your closet’s packed)?
    Go shopping.
26. Coffee or tea?
    Tea. Yes, definitely tea.
27. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?
    Sleep.
28. What is the meaning of your name?
    Immortal being.
29. Which other blogs do you love visiting?
    Current favorite Dooce.
30. Favorite Dessert/Sweet?
    I <3 tiramisu.
31. Favorite season?
    The 7th season of 24. Okay, that was terrible. But I have to say it- Jack Bauer is fuckin’ awesome.
32. If I come to your house now, what would you cook for me?
    Mac and cheese or ramen or maggi, whatever is available.
33. What is the right way to avoid people who purposefully hurt you?
    Cut ‘em out of your life.
34. What are you afraid of the most?
    Losing.
35. What inspires you?
    Ambition.
36. Is it possible to be in love with two persons simultaneously?
    Most definitely.
37. Life without music/dance.
    Would make the pain unbearable.

Coming to my main point, I find it hard to comprehend why some men consider urinating to be an art. Gentlemen- it’s most definitely a science. A science that any grown man, given the years of practice, would have perfected it down to an art.

1. Walk to your favorite stall
2. Unzip
3. Do it
4. Shake
5. Zip up
6. Wash and leave

Step 4 might require a certain amount of skill, but it still doesn’t warrant the splattering on the urinal floor, that I once felt had a faint resemblance to Monet’s fabulous oil on canvas ‘Impression, Soleil Levant‘. Consequently, it requires me to up my game, straddle the aforementioned pee-on-granite, and aim from nearly foot away, which is a lot harder than the world gives it credit for.

On a closing note, here’s something I read on the walls of the men’s room, back in college. Not exactly relevant, but certainly poignant and thought provoking.

“You may try by any means, the last two drops are for your jeans.”