When I started on this path, creating a blog on WordPress and obtaining a host and a domain name under tonu, I did not know, and still do not, the full extent of  the capabilities of this site. So, as I created it, within the first hour, and jotted down a post or two on it – I noted that my posts are supposed to have been created by one ‘admin’. The site had the tonu name, but the content belong to admin. And I was the admin. I knew it – but my guess is I was the only one that knew it at that point.
So, what to do? I logged out and tried to log in as tonu. Doing that, I came to the discovery that one can actually subscribe to this site I did that, as tonu, and selecting a dedicated email address not already used up for admin. And voila, I could not only log in, but start creating my own blog environment, not showing up anything under admin. Kinda cool, ehh ?
Then it dawned on me – I had not only created a blog of my own – I had created a site where any member can have his or her blog site without showing other peoples blogs in them. Well, something like it. When I do not log in, I can see content created by admin. If I log in as tonu and not admin, I see a different blog site of tonu, with no content created by admin showing up there. This was tonu’s own personal space.
So, another member can, I guess, do the same.
This was not just tonu’s blog, but it was indeed a blog site for any member so inclined.
Hmmm … fancy that !
Anyhow, this is the first post in a new category – a diary. Perhaps it should be named a journal ? I should be able to change the names and fix their relative hierarchy later on. Like most social animals of higher order, I guess even a blog category might eventually find a better fit within a hierarchy, with a parent, and sometimes a child too. Bleh.
The thing is – I need to spend most of today, a Saturday, not walking around swamps watching birds and otters and plants, but rather, cleaning house and shifting all things that appear more like junk and less like something I would like in a room – out to the garage. There, on the shelves, it can pass the next phase of its life, awaiting nirvana. Its not unlike people retiring from active work, and looking for either a reason to exist, or for the ultimate union with the void. I hesitate from mentioning union with God – somehow it sounds false.
So, I got up in the morning, cast a critical eye at the state of the house, or rather, the interior, and decided I liked the look of the uncluttered work desk in my study, but did not fancy all the stuff on the floor. They had to go, mostly to semi-retirement. I had one plastic box and two more small cardboard boxes. Lets fill them first, then see if I needed more.
Hunger is a feeling we the upwardly mobile but currently moving sideways class in the middle, that go by the generic name of middle class, have not experienced as a daily occurrence. Our familiarity with it is only abstract. We are sensitive enough to avert our eyes from, or better still not go near a hungry person begging for money, or food, or shelter. Hunger is often psychological for us. We see a cake, a stake, a pizza, and “think” we might be hungry.
But, this morning, my stomach definitely indicated that it needed something. I cut up half an fresh English cucumber, and sprinkled some salt on it.  The name is strange. It was a local produce of Canada and not imported from England. It looked pretty much similar to what we had in Bengal in our childhood, which is when I picked up a liking for it. In Bengal we called is “Shosha” and wrote it as – শসা . Anyhow, I liked these cucumbers, both the long English type and the shorter and rounder ones. The only difference with the Bengal cucumber might be that in Bengal the skin was lighter color and thinner, while these are a bit thick skinned and a darker shade of green. Am sure the reason has something to do with adapting to climate. And I ate up half of it without cooking, unless you consider cutting it up into small pieces and sprinkling salt on it may be defined as cooking, in a minimal sense.
It felt good, having that. But stomach said not enough. So I took two slices of brown bread and toasted it light. I added salted butter on it, and then some marmalade. Why do I take butter and not margarine ? And why salted butter ? What about blood pressure and cholesterol and the rest ? I don’t know and dont get me started on that. My parents, uncles and aunts have all lived to 80 and often well beyond that, most of them not even knowing what cholesterol was, not knowing there was such a thing called margarine, and to them, adding salt to butter improved its taste. It did mine anyway.
And I kinda got a sweet tooth. I am a Bengali – did I tell you that before ? Bengali babus are supposed to be in love with sweets. I guess that might be because their lives are otherwise so sour ! Anyhow, so I put a thick layer of marmalade on them, and ate them too. Stomach felt better, but needed a glass of water. I do not take bottled corporate created water. I drink water off the tap. It tastes absolutely great. I do not use special filter, I do not boil, or run ultra violet light, nor do I subject that water to any other high, medium or low tech process to kill bacteria. I love bacteria for that matter, and have made peace with the fact that there is no getting around without them. They were there before us. They are here today in most everything we eat or touch. And they will be here after us. They are a lot more omnipresent, that God, if you want to be frank.
Anyhow, that glass of water felt great, but left a little bit of craving for caffeine and some more sugar. So, I took a mug of milk and water, heated it and added instant coffee and some more sugar in it. For good measure, I added just a touch of pure honey too.
Then I sat down to finish the coffee. But its hard to just sit and have coffee. And so, I thought a category – a post – a diary, and a mug of morning coffee just might accompany each other in tuning me for the rest of the day, which should be spent on the inhumanely drab and boring work of house-cleaning.
tonu