84. DESI GIRL AND TIMELINESS IN THE ADVENT OF THE DIGITAL CLOCK

Do I really I need to write more on this topic? Okay, since you insist.

I may have mentioned that desis (American, Indian or immigrants) -- are tardy. Not fashionably late, but insanely NOT punctual. They operate on IST (Indian Standard Time). It is SOOO bad that I am considering a moratorium on desi friends. And you know these desis are getting to work on-time, so you know damn well they can IN FACT tell time or own  a digital clock.

Oddly enough, I have noticed people in Manhattan are obscenely tardy, too. And not 7 minutes late because the A train had a signal malfunction. Or the M4 bus had a longer than expected driver change in Harlem. Or, that the N track caught on fire and train traffic was re-routed along 6th Avenue. No no no, I mean they show up at 8:42 for 8:00 pm dinner reservations. Who cares that I passed out from hunger!

Maybe they are self-absorbed. Maybe they cannot tell the little hand from the big hand. But, because it appears to be against the law in New York NOT to have a cell phone (that generally comes with a clock), I cannot determine one good reason to regularly show up late. I mean other than, people really don’t value me or my time.

To show up once late, it happens. I got stuck on an A train that took 54 minutes to get to Time Square (normally a 28 minute ride). Show up late a third time, well I better learn to stick up for myself and decline your next dinner invite.

Now, I wish I had ovaries of titanium when it came to men, especially the ones who mistreat me or post two profiles online …

83. DESI GIRL AND THE TEST RUN

Back in my Manhattan apartment, I turn on the air conditioning and let coolness settle against my skin. To keep me company I switch on the telly. My bags are the only untidy element in the apartment so immediately I begin unpacking. I super clean before I leave for trips. You can still see the vacuum cleaner lines on the carpet. It isn't simply that I like returning to a spotless apartment. It's because I worry, if I died, I would not want whoever packed up my stuff to think negatively of my hygiene. Morbid, I know. I have issues, I know.

Once I finish that task, I sit down at the computer and write an email to Reindeer. It is never good when I like a man this much. My inner control freak really freaks out when I lose all control of my emotions.
Dear Reindeer … There is a 942 am train leaving Fordham that arrives White Plains at 1012 am. How does that sound?

Reindeer responds:

sounds perfect! see you then. (Please note: the man has used an exclamation point). also...don't eat a huge breakfast of aloo-parathas and gobi before coming over...maybe i can interest you in some 'brunch' while you are over...at home or at stone hill farms.....intriguing, right?

 Hhmmm. Gotta love a man who plans dates. (Sidebar: are your wondering what aloo parathas are? They are desi flatbread stuffed with potatoes and spices. See image to the right).


Also, because I don’t like being tardy, I’m initiating a TEST RUN. Think I am joking? Not so much. Tomorrow I am going to Westchester to meet my college chum Abby. We’re going to Target and Shop and Stop for groceries. I will be clocking how long it takes to get from 181st Street to Fordham Road, and then scooting over to Metro North.

82. DESI GIRL’S LAST DAY IN THE MINNE-APPLE

My two week visit in Minnesota ends tomorrow. While I enjoyed seeing my family and friends, I am E-X-C-I-T-E-D to go back. I must still be in a transitional phase, one foot in each apple, Minne and Biggie, because neither place really feels like home.

I’m finishing up my last work assignment and logging into my email. I think I am in trouble with this Reindeer sitch, because I cannot wait to see him again. Full disclosure: I totally mentioned my upcoming Westchester trip to see if he’d notice I was coming his way and invite me on a date.

I open my inbox and find this Reindeer email:
hello ...i found this link on the mta website http://as0.mta.info/mnr/stations/station_detail.cfm?key=108 which says the Fordham Metro North station is 5 blocks from the D line...you'll need to refer to the Local trains from Fordham to White Plains.

Goodie. He does want to see me and so I write:
Mister Reindeer ... you are too sweet to find me that link just for me. I can handle 5 blocks. Now, when you say transfer to the local train ---- do you mean the Metro North train I get on at Fordham Road bound for Westchester will be a local train versus an express?

Reindeer writes back almost immediately:

dear ms. i-am-too-sexy-too-pay-attention-to-your-train-details... I said 'refer' not 'transfer'...refer as in 'refer to the timings of the local trains' if you want to plan when you get to Fordham)... Yes, the Metro North train from Fordham to White Plains will be a local. .am i getting any samosas?? the ones you hand-rolled..

I swoon at his reference to me being SEXY and write:

Reindeer … sure you can have some samosas. i'll check out train timings later. Do you want a Twins tee-shirt?

Reindeer writes:
you are too kind - unfortunately, i am not a big sports-logo-tee-shirt-kind-of-guy....something you probably didn't know about me...the samosas will be just fine..

Okay, I was joking about the Twins tee-shirt. I am as Sporty desi Spice girl as my blind aunt with dementia. When someone throws a Frisbee at me, I duck.

Clearly he doesn’t get my humor, yet. That can change, right?

81. DESIS AND DEEP FRIED DELICIOUSNESS

Three days have elapsed since I left a voicemail for Reindeer. I am eating my fourth samosa (from Post 24),  devilish Indian pastries stuffed with potatoes, peas and spices then deep-fried into a divine appetizer. I think Mom adds cocaine to them. They are so addicting I honestly believe I could seduce Napolean-esque dictators and take over their small nations.

The lack of Reindeer response is making me glum, depressed and obsessed with wonder. Between bites of samosas I wonder if he is dating someone else. Part of my neurosis is that I rarely meet men I like emotionally, intellectually and physically. I like educated, smart men who out-weigh me, out-height me and make me laugh. Is that asking for too much? I don’t think so.

I settle in fron of the TV when my phone rings. I am a sad and pathetic woman who becomes a giddy, ECSTATIC school girl. “Is it too late to call you in the State of Lakes?” he asks. Minnesota (according to the license plates) is the Land of 10,000 Lakes. I am rather impressed that he knows that. Until I came along, he had not met anyone from Minnesota. Nor has he ever been to the Midwest. “No, it is fine,” I reply. “Are you getting lots of home cooked meals?” Reindeer asks. “Yes. I ate samosas for dinner.”

In addition to being a foodie, Reindeer is a juice snob. He won’t drink anything made by Tropicana or Minute Maid and has some pimped out juicer. “When will I be getting my samosas?” Reindeer asks. From his tone I can tell I captured his interest. If he is dating someone else, her mother’s samosas are not as good as my mother’s! “Well, when I get to New York, we’ll have to make a plan.” WOW! That was very clever on my part, to set up the next meeting without sounding needy or desperate. “When do you come back?” Reindeer asks. “I will be in your neighborhood for a friend’s party,” I reply. This is no lie; my friend Abby’s daughter is turning one. “How will you come?” Reindeer asks. “Metro North,” I reply casually, like I go to Westchester County all the time.

“You should come up earlier and we can spend some time,” Reindeer suggests. I pause, to make it seem like I am thinking. “Oh, that might be nice,” I reply as if his suggestion was so novel and unexpected, when really I am thinking, “fin-a-freaking-ly!” “Where will you get Metro North?” Reindeer asks. “Harlem,” I reply. “I don’t think that sounds safe. I think the Fordham stop is better.”

This is touching and sweet. He’s worried about me. And I decide to let him be the man and feel protective. “That does sound safer. I’ll do what you suggest,” I reply. “Yes, I think that is best,” Reindeer replies.



Total disclosure: Harlem is safe. I roam around 125th Street all the time.

80. DESI GIRL FINDS REINDEER’S OTHER PROFILE

Contrary to public opinion, working for your father (like I do) is not a princess job. Instead of lunching with friends and filing my nails, I have been yelled at more times for other people’s mistakes than I can remember.

And God forbid I actually leave the office for lunch. Dad, because he’s stuck in Delhi 1967, feels that a woman MUST answer the phone. Sexism? Yes, a little bit. And when you work for your family, you wear lots of hats. With my undergraduate degree in architecture and graduate degree in business communications, I have done everything from answer phones, reprimand contractors and pick up the garbage. I draw the line at snow shoveling. That is a boy job. Sexism? Why not use it to my advantage?

Because I want to check my email and online news I need to come into the office early. My parents are fully enjoying a life in the dark ages with no Internet or cable. They do have Zee-TV beaming in desi serials from India. And yes, to their point, they are money saving Indians who don’t use computers or care that TNT has 12 hour Law and Order marathons.

I sit down at my desk and inhale coffee like the true addict I am. Then suddenly I have a heart stopping moment of shock. I am reading notifications from the matrimonial site of interested men (whom I plan to reject) and stumble upon Reindeer’s SECOND profile. Both profiles have TOTALLY different photos, descriptions and locations. One lists him as residing in the City and the other the County.

I check the activity on both accounts and see that he was on both around 10:00 pm. So he could have called me back last night. Does this mean? Is he seeing others? Why hasn’t he told me has two profiles? And why does he have two profiles? What if he assumed I would never find this one? I think then I should be more worried about that than if he is dating several women. And it’s true; Reindeer doesn’t owe me anything. We’re not exclusive. God I am an idiot for brazenly liking him.

Somehow I manage to get through the day and at 4:00 pm I bolt across the street. Jack and Jane are sitting at an outside table drinking beers. Jane dominates the waitress’s attention, ordering her salad as fat-free as possible in a Sally-from-When-Harry-Met-Sally-manner.

Jane has the uncanny knack to, in the middle of ordering, shriek at me, "You look hot!” Then turn to the waitress and say, “Can you believe she’s not married.”

I sit down next to Jack and say, “I am giving the keys to you because you’re the responsible one. He smirks and asks, “How does it feel to be back?” “Okay. Lots of trees.” Jack laughs and says, “How is Reindeer?”

Ugh. Jack must sense something is off and says, “Don’t worry he’ll call. You’re a catch.”

I don’t think Jack knew how much I needed to hear his kind words that day. Thank the goddesses for friends like him.

79. DESI GIRL REPLIES WITH ‘SOMEWHERE BETWEEN RAPID CITY AND SIOUX FALLS’

On Sunday night, I lounge with a book. All around me, my things are strewn about --- shoes, clothes, cosmetics, purses, magazines --- not only in my bedroom, but also my brother’s bedroom next door and across the bathroom counter. As a teenager I would NEVER have gotten away with creating this chaos because my mother keeps a very meticulous house. Growing up, my brother and I never dared to leave a closet door ajar. And normally I am a fastidious clean freak. But coming out of cramped and crowded Manhattan has me wondering what to do with all this space.

When I begin to doze off my phone rings and I pick up. “Hi sweetie,” Jane says. “How is South Dakota?” I ask. “Great!” Earlier that day my father asked where Jack’s family’s farm was located. I said, ‘somewhere between Rapid City and Sioux Falls.’ Incredulously he said, “that is the whole state.” Well, almost. “It is so relaxing here,” Jane adds. “We’ve been working on the barn for a few days.”

This amuses me about Midwesterners. They find work fun, which is probably why they make great employees with a phenomenal work ethic. When I used to live here … hhmmm … that was a little strange to say … I knew so many people who worked Monday through Friday and then went “up north” and spent all weekend working on their cabins. Come Sunday they came back to the Cities and worked all week and did it again. To be honest, I was never the “work on cabin” kind of girl. I might chip a nail.

“What time will I see you tomorrow?” I ask. A strange thing happened last week in New York. The night before Jack and Jane departed Manhattan for the Midwest, Jane left her house keys in her New Jersey office. Jack had already given me his keys so I could check on their cat (who hates me, yes, hates me). So they locked their apartment and left.

Now that they are headed back to New York tomorrow, her keys are STILL in the Garden State and Jack’s keys are with me, in Minnesota. Clearly luck and the goddesses have intervened, allowing for some sort of key exchange to occur. “Can we come around 4 pm and have a drink at Maxwell’s?” Jane asks and refers to a quaint corner bar across from the office. “Sure, I reply.

We hang up. I am still in the mood to chat and decide to call Reindeer. Immediately I go into voicemail. I look at the time and leave a message, wondering where a single man might be around dinnertime? On a date?

Ugh. The thought makes my stomach sick.

Maxwells

78. MORE CONFESSIONS FROM A DESI GIRL

I lay on the bed in my childhood bedroom. From here I can smell my mother cooking tharka, onions browned in oil and ginger. It’s a pungent odor that is cooked into the carpet just like it was once cooked into my hair. A smell that led bus bullies to taunt, “Hey, the foreign girl stinks!”

When I think about it, onions were only the beginning. My dark eyes, un-prounceable name and straight A’s, only furthered the ridicule in school.

I spent a long time rejecting Ravi Shankar and replacing him with Madonna, my material girl of a heroine. I bought pants and lots of them, black ones. I heckled the sari, telling my mother it was ridiculously archaic. You better believe hell will freeze over before I slap a bright red bindi on my forehead. I make Taco Bell border runs rather than cook dal and roti. Ready-made food is easier, don’t you agree?

I pretended the smells of sandalwood mixed with sweat and petrol didn’t remind me of India. I lied and said I loved the American Midwest. It was a great excuse to wear goose-down. Of course, snow at the end of April was charming. The sight of beggars in India, starving children, bullock carts with dark dusty riders, trucks polluting the New Delhi horizon, had no effect on me.

The problem is I don’t like Madonna. Whoever thought to deep-fry onions into rings is a freaking genius. I heckle the sari because to wear it requires a grace I didn’t inherit from my mother. My problem with the bindi is I don’t know what it means. Are you kidding me? I don’t eat beef, what am I doing in the taco drive through lane again? I dislike goose-down and cold weather. Don’t tell anyone, but I should have moved to Los Angeles. I find Manhattan too cold, too.

Now I am beginning to think that when I rejected the goddesses, I was really rejecting myself. And then I thought if I just moved to Manhattan I'd be able to wipe the slate clean and start over. But as I am learning, it doesn't work that way. There are no go backs, only move forward.