Pigs, Figs and Higgs

I’ve been picky about hair dressers for as long as I’ve needed haircuts. Once I meet and fall in love with the hairdresser destined for me, I go to them for years until either one of us leaves town.

But the rest of the hair on my body doesn’t get the same exclusive treatment. In fact, just the opposite. I’ve been to the big fancy waxing places where you could fall asleep while they de-hair your…

My grandparents live 70 km to the right and my in-laws live 60 km to the left from where my parents’ stay when we’re in India. Which means long drives have become such a mainstay in my life that I have my favourite sights and pit stops bookmarked. Like the shops with heavily plagiarised names of social media networks and barbershops that Brad Pitt and Cindy Crawford unwittingly endorse. Certain…

How Advertising Trained Me For Parenthood*

Impossible in nothing.

That one line got me into advertising. I didn’t own a single Adidas product until last month (Dem Superstars got me), but that tagline blew my mind (as did the whole speech by Ali).

And advertising is everything it promised to be! The ideas and the mental blocks, the little wins and the epic crashes, the stress and the drinking, the stress drinking, the exhaustion and the…

It’s only words.

I started writing an amusing (if I may say so) post about getting my legs waxed, but kept getting derailed by one that’s been swimming in my fingertips since November 8 last year.

Tomorrow the free world gets itself a new despot – the Stale Cheeto aka Fuckface Von Clownstick aka Little Donnie Diaperpants aka PEEOTUS aka The White Pride Piper aka…you know what, just go here and here.

I share the…

This is the year I lose friends.

Crabs have been crawling out from under my son’s blanket and pillow at approximately 2 am every night, pinching him with their “pinchers’. He wakes up screaming.

We assure O that there are no crabs, and tell him that maybe they’re lost and looking for their friends? We calm him down saying we will never let anything hurt him, and that we’re right there with him.

Did little Aya’sparents tell her…

Deflate belly, inflate ego.

We are inseparable. I’m never too far from its tender loving ingredients, and it refuses to leave my wobbly belly and thunder thighs. I can’t compromise on food. I won’t. Therefore, I gym.

Also, childbirth left my mobility at the mercy of exercise, but I’m too much in love with the little cutie patootie right now to rant. I’ll save it for when he pisses me off. Give him a second.

Meanwhile,…

  We’ve been on the move for 16 months. And after 16 months of stay-at-parent’s-home-mumming it, I was ready for school. I was looking forward to school. Then they go and ruin it all by saying something stupid like uniforms and packed lunches.

I’ll be right here when you’re done singing, thank you.

I’d gladly jump on the emotional roller coaster again, over packing a healthy lunch EVERY DAY…

Another month, another move

It’s 7:15pm and I just want to crawl into my parents’ pull-out sofa bed and pass out.

12 hours earlier we left our spotless new apartment, with stars in our eyes and crumpled clothes on our backs. This was it, our first official workday from our new home.

It’s 7:18pm and we’re taking the familiar elevator up to my parent’s home to pick our son up and say no to my mum’s requests to have dinner…

Just the other day, we were out window shopping when we got-on-a-flight-and-went-to-melbourne-and-returned-a-month-later-and-flew-out-to-muscat-for-the-weekend-and-signed-the-kid-up-for-school-and-found-an-apartment-and-got-into-a-super-intense-interior-decoration-mode-and-OMG-I-FORGOT-ABOUT-THE-BLOG.

I’d apologise for my absence, but then I’d have to apologise for my insolence in assuming that…

I go wherever egos.

Put it away, leave it behind, drop it, forget it, destroy it.

The word “ego” gets a worse rep than the ego itself. I’m convinced that people are more afraid of it rather than against it. Afraid in the way that people are of heights; because you felt you needed a weakness and this one seemed like a no-brainer.

Please let me, from my current not-so-full-of-myself vantage, tell you why you shouldn’t…

Yo’ mama needs a break.

He’s a skinny boy, with nary a growth spurt in sight. He’s crawled into our bed sometime between deep sleep and morning dreams, and has now taken over my space and sleep.

I carefully slip his warm weightless arm off mine and pick up my cold weightless phone. It doesn’t take a new-age embrace-your-child-or-ruin-them-forever mama to point out what was wrong there. So I toss my phone aside and pick…

Daymares (When day dreams go bad.)

I stumble out of the car, intertwined with my best people. We’re laughing uncontrollably about something that won’t be remotely funny to anyone who isn’t here.

It’s dusk and our shadows double over in laughter with us. I turn around, in a desperate bid to catch my breath, and my friends aren’t here anymore. Just a stranger with a dirty machete and a dirtier smile.

I wake up from the…

1 heart-2 bodies, and other such crap.

Yay to the high-school sweethearts who celebrated their 83rd anniversary, and the Obamas with their “we’re-just-your-average-everyday-power-couple”.

Yay to the BFFs with a split photo of them both all cheeky at 9-years-old and all giggly at 60, and the mum-besties who take exotic holidays together.

Yay to the profile photos, hazy filters and status updates that celebrate these relationships.

I’m…

I’ve been silent for a while now. A month to be exact.

This time my excuse isn’t that I’m drawing a blank. In fact, the drawing is a bit out of control. And I won’t use the busy variety of excuse. That’s a given now; everyone is busy all the time.

And it isn’t even my inability to write. I’ve been writing. But as I read through each piece for the 100th time, I realise they’re all silent. Each one…

I’ve been silent for a while now. A month to be exact.

This time my excuse isn’t that I’m drawing a blank. In fact, the drawing is a bit out of control. And I won’t use the busy variety of excuse. That’s a given now; everyone is busy all the time.

And it isn’t even my inability to write. I’ve been writing. But as I read through each piece for the 100th time, I realise they’re all silent. Each one…

Who you gonna call? Drumpf Busters!

These days, every national celebration comes with a warning label. High Threat Alert. High Security Area.

But we don’t want to give into the fear mongering, so we go out and celebrate anyway.

But fear has never looked as real as it does right now.

In the name of Donald J. Drumpf.

There is a part of me that keeps waiting for him to turn around and shout “Punk’d!” But after the past few weeks of…

As kids, right when we were in the thick of running wild and having the time of our lives, an adult would walk in and ask us to settle down.

Settle down, or you’ll hurt yourself.

Settle down, and stop making a mess.

Settle down, it’s getting too loud in here.

Just. Settle. Down.

When we left our home in Melbourne almost a year ago, we were very excited to start a new adventure. It took a…