Anil's Birthday

I have cranked up the laptop volume, headphones firmly pressed on my ears. Anna Molly is streaming though. Sitting on the porch of Anil’s second floor apartment, looking at the peach row of apartments sitting behind the stagnant-water-lake and the high tree line behind it, I notice a car-compass sitting on the table in front of me. The compass points exactly north-east to the direction I am looking at; Jacksonville Straight Ahead. A warm breeze flutters in occasionally through the screens on the patio. Kids play in the pool located beside the lake, but the sound of the water fountain drowns their playful screams.

This unfinished document makes me think why I am in Orlando in the first place. I wanted to try to write how much I enjoy the company of Anil, and that I drove ninety minutes right after work on Friday only to be here for his birthday, but that’s not all the reason why I am here. Something about an open word document makes me organize my thoughts more than my heart would want. Maybe this is what keeps me posting. Writing brings out my truest feelings and ideas, my frustrations and excitements. My fingers end up typing only the truth and nothing but the truth. What I can’t share publicly, I don’t write. Something about hiding behind the curtains of CSS, RSS and VB code and remaining incognito does not appeal to me today. I have been writing what I feel and experience in flesh and blood, and hence want my readers to associate my blog to flesh-and-blood me.

So, what am I in Orlando for? Three reasons:

1) Anil is a good friend and I wanted to wish him a happy birthday personally. Especially when I live so close!

2) I would have the opportunity to drive for three hours on the highway, crank up Octane and tear up some asphalt. My blog, Driven, got me pumped up and I wanted to drive long distances again. I love driving but I can’t drive without a destination. I know that the journey is more important than the destination, but it is also the presence of a solid destination that makes the journey worth while.

3) One of our common friend drove down from Gainesville, and he has a kick-ass girlfriend. She is obnoxiously outspoken, has a pretty good sense of humor and real fun to hang out with. To all you eyebrow raisers…I do not have a crush on her.
So here it is. The truth laid out on the table.

Friday was good. We had Udupi dinner at Woodlands, came home to watch a little bit of Finding Neverland, cut the cake, went out for drinks (Moi was the designated driver, so I sipped on Coke while every one had tequila shots). Back home, we drank the most disgustingly toxic burgundy wine ever and played a very brain-taxing game of cards. I happily quit when the bunch of sevens got infected when they were placed for safekeeping by @&!£ too close to his family jewels. It was also 4:30 am and yours truly had been awake for almost twenty three hours. It is Saturday afternoon now and I want to go back to Jacksonville, to Laya. Anil wants me to stay on and hang out more.

I left Orlando at 5:04 pm, reached Jacksonville at 6:37 pm, had din din with James and his daughter.

Here are some pictures of the birthday cake (or what ever is left of it), and of the party animals taking a nap while I was writing this post.