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I miss the walk to the Hanuman mandir in the mornings. I miss being overcharged for a lymca at the ymca. I miss the poorly constructed cement tile sidewalks. I miss watching schools of monkeys trot along the fences. I miss shop merchants greeting me with ‘hello friend’ as they push leather wallets and belts at me. I miss Rumpi’s ghetto hat. I miss the kid at the marg who always just wanted to hug me. I miss the puri, potato shak, and tea for breakfast at the y. I miss our cab driver. I miss seeing shrines on dashboards. I miss Chandu. I miss walking across the hall and knocking on Lindsay’s and Daphne’s door to hang out. I miss the floor guy at the y saluting me with ‘good morning, sir’ as I walked out of my room in the morning. I miss the hot water heater that took 30 minutes to warm up for a hot shower. I miss the Sony music store at Khan Market. I miss referencing my Lonely Planet guide. I miss crammin on the bus. I miss bargaining with riksha drivers. I miss wanting to reach out of the rikshas to touch the car next to me, cause i was that close. I miss the kuttas at the marg. I miss 3 dollar 40 ounces. I miss the alley the Rikhi Ram store was in. I miss being paranoid about getting lice. I miss the lane markings on the roads that no one ever followed. I miss the dude on the sidewalk outside the y cooking dried indian snacks. I miss lunches with Dev and Veena. I miss trucks that said ‘please use dipper at night.’

I miss India, dudes. I gotta go back.

So this weekend was good, and bad. I went to a show at the Hot House on Friday night. It was this Brazilian woman Cibelle that this kid in my breakdancing class was opening up for. It was a TIIIIGHT show. She had two microphones she was singing into all night, one normal mic, and one with crazy delay on. And she’d go back and forth, back and forth between the two, she was doing some really cool stuff with that. And her whole presence was cool, the whole stage was like a really big toy for her. She was really into what she was doing, and that was cool to see. Then they had a bassist, and really good guitarist, a laptop/keyboard dude, and a white drummer with a fro. She did a cover of Nancy Sinatra’s tune Bang Bang recently made famous from the Kill Bill movies, and she did a cover of Nirvana’s About a Girl with just her and an acoustic guitar doin some really cool fingerpicking type stuff. It was TIIIIIIGHT.

Friday night I went a ‘going away party’ of sorts for my friend Rupal who’s going to India for a year to set up an art and design school out there. Which is cool as hell, all of her friends are really proud and supportive of her, myself included. But I’m a selfish bastard when matters of my friends go, and I’d rather see her stick around than leave for a year. I know, I’m a bastard. But I like my friends, and I’d rather keep them around, what can I say. She’s gonna have a great trip, and she’s going for a really cool cause, so I GUESS I can suck it up…

Of course, I’ve been practicing my sitar a lot. The tips of my first finger and middle finger of my left hand are so callused I can’t feel anything any more. That’s AWESOME. Lol. When I’m tapping beats out on my desk now, my right hand can serve as the kick drum, and my left hand can serve as the hihats and snare drum quite effectively. After I heard Bang Bang on friday night, I’ve been obsessed with the song, I figured out how to play it on my sitar and decorate it with some cool sounding meends. If I can get the intonation right on the bends, it sounds SWEET. I also figured out how to play it my buddy’s guitar at work (yes, I have a buddy at work who keeps an acoustic in his office). I’m obsessed. Other than that, just been practicing the same few songs, and trying to get tighter with my meends. I’m getting there.

Anyway, back to the stress of work, and the added stress of trying to figure out when I can move into my place. Worthless…