I may be telling me to shut up

Pretty sentences get in the way of what i want to say. Sure, they make for great arm candy and impress people sometimes (myself included) but is that what I want a sentence for?

Well, yes.

Maybe until i learn to get pretty things to say what i want, i should say nothing at all.

Retail therapy

I am, as of today evening, an increasingly indifferent owner of a netbook. The whole process of ownership, from inception to execution, took less than 24 hours. Rather like that Solomon Grundy rhyme.

Vinaya's netbook
Conceived on Saturday
Late night. Over a chat conversation. When her official laptop got wet in the rain and drowned. Or should have. The keyboard developed a high sense of whimsy. The wireless wouldnt work.

Discussed on Sunday
Morning. You know how Sunday mornings are. You want it to be different but it rarely is. All the possibilities that could make it different are bought out of the cupboard, discussed and then safely stored for next Sunday. Like radical changes to room arrangements, big purchases of interesting but essentially unessential things, food from outside.

Googled on Sunday
Prefternoon. On the old one with the whimsical keyboard. Which ups the whimsy. Which makes me take the whole plan more seriously.

Checked out on Sunday
Afternoon. In shops across town. None of which have any of the models the Internet recommends. Seriously. Is this an alternate universe we live in, or merely an older version?

Regoogled on Sunday
Prevening. This time for models we do have in our universe. Fortunately, none of them the Internet spits on.

Bought on Sunday
Evening. On the last day in the life of that shop, so we get a discount. The salesman asks me， do you want it initialized. I say no, thanks. He says Are。You。Sure。Which of course raises all sorts of doubts in my head. (i know, i know). What do you mean by initialization, i ask him. He vaguely mutters about stuff their "engineers" do when the laptop is booted for the first time and takes me to one. Who then proceeds to set the time zone and enter the user name. I want to break my head. But wait, there is more "initialization" where he says no to the anti virus. Right. Extremely important, that.

Blogged on Sunday.
Night. So far so good.

Not long ago

in a city not at all far away, there lived a girl. There was this bunch of stuff she was supposed to do. You know how it is with stuff you are supposed to do. If it is in your way, you step around it. If it grows so big that it becomes impossible for you to step around, why, you sit where you are, lean your back against it and enjoy the view.

One day the stuff she was supposed to do was being a very persistent nagger. It wouldnt let her rest, no matter how much she tried to ignore it. Fed up, she decided to go looking for excuses.

She crossed mountains
she swam seas.
She fought dragons
and got stung by bees.

Finally she found one. And what a good looking excuse it was! Strong and sturdy. No loopholes, whichever side it looked at it. She bought the excuse home. The stuff she was supposed to do was waiting for her, having grown stronger from all that neglect.

She walked in
her head held high.
Leaned on the excuse,
and looked the stuff in the eye.

The stuff gave up. For the time being. It knew however, that as long as she was willing to go through all that just to look for an excuse, it was safe. Its only when she really started to look at the stuff that it had to worry.

She and the excuse went on to live. Not too happily. Not at all for ever after.


(P.S. Thats the second time its happened. One sentence inspires a post and at the end, that sentence is nowhere in the post! This one was to be about her finding an excuse and them living happily ever after and making little baby excuses.)