God Damn it, Where is my Damn Horse???

Mood: Positive

Listening to: With or Without You - U2

Hello Internet Folks,

It has indeed been quite some time since I wrote last. Life is keeping me busy. Since I wrote last, I have been traveling and teaching quite a bit. I love it, but have been missing writing lately....so here I am. 

I have almost 20 students at present and it is challenging to have 5 classes a day twice a week, but I absolutely love the teaching part. I am also gearing up for a recital in August that I'm really excited about too. Ah, nothing like young minds in the afternoon. 

I traveled to Goa in April for Daddy G's and my 10th anniversary. It was a fabulous trip without the kids. Head on over to http://followingthemasala.blogspot.in/ to check out what we did and some pictures.

I returned to the US for the first time in 18 months in May. Can you believe I was scared to go back? It was an amazing trip, but exhausting. We were in Minneapolis, Chicago, Michigan, and New York over the course of 3 weeks. It did, however, help me re-orient myself as to who I am and who I want to be, so I see it as a positive thing. When you are immersed in a culture that you have to fit in to, sometimes you need that jolt to remember that you can be in it without changing everything. 

The side effect that I haven't reconciled yet is that I really, really miss living in the US. I think more than missing the US, I am getting to the point in my life where I want a sense of permanence. For a while, I thought we may stay in India permanently and I was cool with that. Now our plan has shifted a bit and we have decided to head back to the states in a few years. This has kind of thrown me off a bit because I know my piano business is not really going to evolve into anything beyond lessons (which to be honest has been my suspicion all along, but I'm ok with that too) and anything else I do here, including making friends, will be transient. So it's almost like I see a move coming in the future...so I'm anxious to move and get it done. On the same token, as I've mentioned many times before, I absolutely adore India. It is one of the most fascinating/frustrating/amazing places on earth and I unabashedly in love with it.

What I'm trying to adjust my head around right now is just enjoying the time I have left to live here and enjoy being in the moment.  God damn it, I am definitely getting old. 

For those of you that did, thanks for sticking around! Hopefully I won't disappear again. 

Becky

Busted

Hello Lovelies,

You know the drill, I'm sorry, I've been busy, I'm a work-a-holic, etc. Moving right along.

So. Someone found me this week. From my blog. The one that I talk about sex and say Fuck on a regular basis. For piano lessons for his children. Wow.

I have to give it to the guy...Mad props for not shooting off a mental "Hell no, that chick is crazy and will not be good for my children" type response. This blog may be an accurate, true picture of me, but it never, ever comes out in any form when I'm around children, including my own. I like to keep it professional. Especially with my students. Good god, I hope I'm not shoving my foot further down my own throat. 100 bonus points for actually associating this blog with other more reality based aspects of my personality and my business, sir. Cheers. Actually, I'm really glad this happened, because I've met some really interesting people, one piano player with tons of potential, and one very, very gifted piano player. Pianos are very few and far between here, so I'm actually extremely excited to find students who have a real piano, leave alone ones who have pure, natural, expressive talent. 

God damn it. I had a brilliant post about middle fingers up in the air about society's expectations of me and how I don't really care, but I just couldn't post it. Good lord but I feel like a fraud to liberated minds everywhere. 

Here's the thing. I know that I'm not the first person to run into people from real life finding me on the internets. Old stories, right? The thing is, I still haven't reckoned what is in my head with actual functionality in society. I've had the freedom for most of my adult life to basically do whatever the hell I want in relation to a community and professionally and have done so. Not that I actually work in an organization, but I'd like to keep my illusion of working as a professional in my own piano/guitar lesson organization as it is, thank you very much. I'm not ashamed of who I am, but I'm not really looking to fit in. I do smooth things out in my regular day to day interactions because fighting the system all the time is exhausting, and people are judge-y. It's easier to give the illusion of assimilation.

I promise to keep it real with you guys. That I can promise for sure, even if the word Fuck is involved.

Becky

P.S. I in no way condone your children reading this blog. Seriously people.

Hey Look, Didn't That Girl Used to Blog?

Mood: Pissy as hell. Daddy G and I just had an hour long argument about boundaries that didn't clear up anything. But this is not a ranting blog - so don't leave. Please? Just think of the children. Or don't, that tends to ruin the mood. Ahem.

Listening to: I See You Everywhere - Chris Isaak   I have been loving me some Chris Isaak lately, but seriously honey, it's called stalking. Or hallucinations, which are much more fun.

So. I almost begged out of blogging this evening, in spite of my promise to a certain chivalrous blogger with a great accent, because of said ridiculousness with Daddy G. I figured that since the man is passed out at 10:30 from a happy hour at the pub for work, I may as well do something to boost my mood. I have my ipod cranked (well, as cranked as my acer will get, which to be honest, is pretty sad) and am getting my write on, both of which tend to turn me back into little miss Sunshine. Only Snarkier. And much, much more inappropriate.

Speaking of which, this just in - Daddy G is discovering the fact that I have the utmost absolutely inappropriate sense of humor ever. I'm not sure how it took the man 10 years to figure this out, but I swear I've been like this since I was little. Last weekend, I had to walk into another room at Daddy G's bosses dinner party to avoid making a dead baby/penis quality joke. I just couldn't hold it in and Daddy G would have divorced me, I'm pretty sure of it. People, the joke was just that good. Unfortunately, it was more of a you had to be there joke, or I definitely would have shared it. After all, I shared the Swedish joke with you. 

So General knowledge you can add to your brain about Becky G - inappropriate sense of humor and inappropriate obsession with Guns and Roses.

Speaking of said obsession - I saw Guns and Roses last weekend. Wait, did I scream that? No? Let's try again. I SAW FUCKIN GUNS AND ROSES! Yep, my absolute favorite hard rockers ever landed up in Bangalore and gave an amazing show. Axl has gotten his shit together and the rest of the band was outstanding too - the show was amazing. The stunning thing about it was that it was a standing room only venue and we were 10 feet from the stage. 10 feet. Were it not for the beefy Indian security guards that let's face it, I spent plenty of time ogling before the show, I probably would have had to launch myself onto the stage at Axl. Well, maybe not launched, but crab scrambled up there or some crazy shit - I'm not in the shape I used to be. Cause you know, at 31 I'm getting up there in years. Ha. I'm just kidding. I fully intend to live to about 120. I'll be that crazy old lady that just won't die and doesn't know how to dress. That's right people. I will have those GNR tees on until they bury me in one. Ahem. The only downside was that I was surrounded by WAY too many sweaty Indian guys (no hot ones unfortunately) with no concept of personal space and that Cheech and Chong standing in front of us wouldn't share. Not cool Puff the Magic Dragon - pass it along! Random guy sweat may be the grossest thing on earth for me. Ew. Unless the guy is really, really hot.....yeah, still ew.

I held a piano recital you guys. Like a real honest to goodness shindig with about 30 people and food in my apartment. I think I'm looking like an actual teacher and all that now. Crazy. I teach 15 students plus my own kids. Right now, I'm looking to actually expand and hire another teacher. Crazy how this project is coming together. 

I survived my daughters' joint birthday party with all limbs and sanity intact. I think.

Daddy G, the girls and I are headed down to Kerala to see some of what there is to be seen. I am SO stoked for a vacation. I could really use a break. Because it runs in my genes, there will be pictures. Lots and lots o pictures. They'll be up on Following the Masala at some point in time in the next 2 weeks.

I'm going to stop here because apparently once you tap my brain after a long writing absence  it generally spews nonsense here there and everywhere until heads start exploding. We wouldn't want that, now would we??

Becky

Seriously. Guns and Motherfucking Roses, people. 

Get off My Lawn!

So I'm not sure if this warrants a response or not...but it kind of ticked me off, so here goes.

No. You may not reproduce my writing on your blog. Especially if the request comes in the form of a traumatically grammatically poor spam request. If you think I am an excellent writer and actually do want to feature my work, number 1, lay off the crack, number 2, do me the courtesy of actually sending me an email instead of a spam comment, and number 3, that's what linking is for. Even then, if I don't know you, the answer is no. My writing is mine - you may not claim what goes on in my head, and I'm pretty sure this would be an uncredited type situation.

I am aware of what scrapping is and if you are putting my work up somewhere else, I will find you. And I will resort to all sorts of unpleasantness that will probably end up with you going into witness protection just to get me to stop bombing your world. Trust me - not worth it. 

Allrighty then. Now that we have that unpleasantness out of the way, more writing coming up soon!

Check it out!

A New What the Hell India over at Following the Masala! Check it out here.

The Ballad of Daddy G

So...One of my more entertaining conversations on Twitter recently ended with my disclosing the fact that Daddy G and I met over the Internets. Laugh all you want, but it turned out well for me. After being asked if there was a blog post about it, I realized that no, no there was not. As inspiration is a spread a little thin around here, I thought I would share with you all how I ended up married to a Telugu Indian guy who is 6.5 years older than myself.

It all started back in 2000 (you can stop counting you bounders, I'm 31 and not at all scared of it) when I was an innocent young idiot ahem, I meant 18 year old. I had just moved out of my mom's house and into my very first apartment with a friend who would make a terrible room mate, yet is ironically still a friend. Being the young, nerdy virgin that I was back then, I was terribly interested in meeting some hot boy to spend some time with. Since I was (and to be honest still am to a degree) a wee bit socially awkward, I figured the internet would help me widen my search as I lived in the middle of nowhere in the US.

Lo and behold, with all of the other sick, ridiculous people (and there were tons - one proposed marriage in a first email!) who responded to my ad on Yahoo personals (oh shut up.), Daddy G was one of them.

We emailed for a few months because mama didn't raise no fool - the internets are dangerous. I figured we could just be friends as Daddy G is older than me and from a completely different locale in the world. A word to the wise for girls - if you feel it, age and distance won't matter to you, don't lie to yourself.

We went out for a movie and icecream because I was such a naive idiot I told him I didn't like coffee. Luckily for me, Daddy G was smart enough to offer something else. The rest, as they say, is history. I ended up falling hard for him and he fell for me too. 2.5 years later, we tied the knot and have lived mostly happily ever after.

So there you have it. An internet success story.

Lots of Useless Information

So. In yet another effort to avoid just selling the damn horse already, I'm posting a useless information post so all of you millions of fans can get to know me better.

1.  I am unabashedly in love with pomegranates. I find it very therapeutic to sit and peel them. I love eating them too.
2. On a side note to the above, I am desperately afraid that one day, a spider will jump out of the crown end of said pomegranate and bite my finger. This will doubtlessly lead to my finger necrotizing and falling off. I will end up a 9 finger gimp, unless it spreads and rots my hand off too. Too much Animal Planet maybe? I still check every time.
3. I love the fact that my husband is nuts about playing the guitar. This doesn't stop me from considering divorcing him when he plays the same riff or strum pattern for 4 hours in a row. Seriously.
4. Speaking of the devil, I met him on the Intertubes. More on this in another post.
5. I am not a cougar/cradle robber. I do, however, play one on Twitter. (I'm so sorry for being creepy Michael! I really do love your accent!)
6. I would give my right leg to have the discipline to start running again. Oh wait....
7. Speaking of which, my humor is often inappropriate, dark and convoluted. I don't care at all. I have been known to laugh at funerals, though I try to hide it as best as I can. Fist fights at a funeral are not fun.
8. A praying mantis crawled in my window the other day and watched me cook for a few hours. I'm all for peeping toms of the insect variety, but come on dude, at least catch some mosquitoes while you're at it.
9. I'm reading a book on microbiological immunity to antibiotics. And I am FASCINATED. Why yes, that is my nerd card pinned to my shirt.
10. I think I may miss cheap wine (not the cheap type wine, but wine not requiring me to promise my first born son. Even cheepie wine costs multiple limbs here) from the US more than I actually miss people. Alright, maybe not more, but damn it, it's a close second.

So. I'm not sure what exactly you'll do with this info....but enjoy. I'm headed into my weekend with some Old Monk and the promise of 4 screaming daughters/nieces. Hopefully all of you enjoy your weekend as much as I hope to enjoy mine!