I guess we'll just have to adjust......

So the parents are gone which makes for a very sad Auri. I'd gotten quite used to all the pampering and non-paying at dinners and bitching in Bangla and cheering company while watching cricket - They were only here for a week, but for those 7 days, it felt like none of us had ever left Bombay at all. I tried to distract myself from the sadness, but unfortunately, I just ended up sad about something else. Today after a long time, I felt desperately sick for Montreal. It may or may not have to do with the fact that since yesterday, I've been listening to The Arcade Fire's Funeral. I'd worn this album out by listening to it incessantly in the fall of last year - in fact just the mention of it made me groan. By April, however, I had gained enough distance from it to want to see them in concert. And what a goddamned amazing show it was.

Since then, yesterday was the first time I listened to Funeral. Unlike the previous time, I'd stayed away from it because I was so afraid of it making me sad. Just like I'd anticipated, it took me back to Montreal, to 5325 L'Esplanade and snowy evenings with kahlua-laced ice-cream; it took me to a time when Thursday nights were unfailingly spent at Else's, when despite school stress, life was just...hunky dory.

Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels) made me think of waiting for the 535 on Parc.

Neighbourhood #2 made me think of Kate and me singing "Come on, Alex, YOU CAN DO IT!" to,predictably, Alex.

Une Annee Sans Lumiere made me think of ______ telling me he found the pathos of the song beautifully unbearable.

Neighbourhood #3 made me think of jumping around in Jupiter Room.

Wake Up made me think of how I used to always skip the song before I saw it being played live, and fell in love with it.

Haiti made me think of cleaning my slatternly room while this song played loudly in the background.

Rebellion (Lies) made me think of everything that happened in October 2004 from my trip to NYC to my continuing enamourment with Davesh, and when the chorus switched to a minor chord, it, as always, made me smile.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Since mid-August of this year, I have read the following books:

The Moor's Last Sigh (Rushdie)
The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
Midnight's Children (Rushdie)
SlaughterHouse - 5 (Vonnegut)
Amsterdam (Ian McEwan)
The World According to Garp (John Irving)

Considering I work 45 hours a week, that's not too bad. Granted I'd read two of those before, but three of those were over 500 pages. This is probably the most I've read in a continuous span of time. I plan to keep it up until I'm lured back to the evil lair of academia.

Tomorrow's the huge Stop Violence Against Women rally for which we've been working our asses off. I really really hope we attract a sizeable crowd.