Just Five Minutes

appaamma

This is Love.

To tell you the truth, it takes  a lot longer than FIVE minutes to type up an itty-bitty blog on my iPhone. Although, I haven’t tried to dictate the words to Siri, who still thinks “Raj” is “Rise” so I’m not holding my breath on that option.

Anyway, I write my first-five minute blog yesterday on the LIRR, heading to Manhattan, and Hubs sits next to me, amused. At first. After six. Then ten. Then twenty minutes of fixing all the words Auto-correct thinks I meant to say, I round out the five sentence story and hit SEND. Off to impress the socks off readers everywhere, because who doesn’t have five minutes to spare?

I promise to tell you all the details of our ultra-fun, topsy-turvy, full of “No way!… WAY!”-moments date, but first: The value of five minutes as I’ve experienced this past week, leading up to yesterday.

This past Tuesday, I make plans to attend a book reading of Ashok Rajamani, the author of the memoir “The Day My Brain Exploded” at a Barnes and Noble in the city. But I haven’t been to a bookstore in a while, so I decide to arrive plenty early to read and research popular Young Adult novels currently circulating the hands of teens. The train two minutes from my house, according to the LIRR website, leaves at 12:35PM. I leave my house at 12:27PM. Sure. I probably didn’t need to zap my coffee those last 30 seconds. But what can I say, sometimes a girl just has to have her coffee. Warm. Continue reading

Masala on the Mic!

2013-03-07 19.59.10Thursday morning arrives and I am a different person. Even a year ago, I might have spent weeks preparing for a speaking event. Thought of what I was going to say days ahead of time. Picked my outfit the night before. And rehearsed plenty before the day of.

Today is different. Because I learned something from the past. All that extra prep just makes me nervous. And I get more antsy than if I just plan minimally, think through the basics, and leave the details for the day of. 

So I wake up, thank God for kids who help me with laundry, and thank God again that we replaced the ink cartridge on the printer a day ago. Print out a few pages, pick out a black dress (can’t go wrong with black,) and head out to  get my hair blown out. Simply because it doesn’t cost much and when my hair looks nice, I feel like I can fly. Or at least have a bit of confidence in front of strangers.  Continue reading