The Perks of Having the I-Read-a-Book Mien.

6:03 a.m

Sick.

Just took a shower.

Sick again.

Read some Emily Brontë.

Opened Safari. 

No Latte for today. 

I have that look when I shave the beard. I look like I read books when I don’t sprout my beard, and put on Hala’s glasses. My roommate does too, barring some of his quirks, he would always get away with his shenanigans in the class. He would constantly get his classmates framed. He is a natural, endowed and hidden behind that Conan kind of character. I do. I know how to get away with my mischiefs, but it took me observation and smithereens of cunningness to reach that point. 

When I grow my beard, people like it. Alas, I don’t. I feel much lighter without it. Even if it takes snubbing the female gaze. I sound a little skeevy and braggadocios I know, but I am very meticulous and accurate with the female psyche. I’m a shrink of my own when it comes to dissecting what women think, and it would always add up when my friends try to naysay my little uncharted theories. 

My life is more or less like Hegelian Dialectics. I have me, with a beard. Me, without it. The synthesis is, me with a very light beard. That’s the very moment when I become both, Prince Charming, and Bluebeard. I control situations, and I operate under the Facework theory. 

But hey! I read books for reals. I read a lot. When I indulge in a reading spree, god only knows how I sweep my friends off their feet. God only knows, how I read tomes and multi-volumed books. 

But when doldrums and anxiety hit, I wouldn’t read a line, especially if it was an assignment.  Last summer, I have read more than 50 books. I found that lacunae in my mood swings. I would binge-read, submersing myself utterly in “escapist literature”. I went off-grid from this world of misery and woe. I stitched every wound I had, with words of literati. I felt that I am one of them. In a world of me, being a nihilist, I enjoyed books about chivalry, magic realism, and surrealism. I went from a Kafkaesque summer, to sitting with Three Musketeers in the rear seat. 

Looking like a person who reads, is inordinately great when you really read. Reading, per se, is not as effective as when it’s superficial. The moment you lack the knack for questioning everything that is put there, you are doomed. You should read, not because you should fear an inquisitive Sherlock, but for your own sake, to have a room of your own (Right Virginia?). You can’t just walk around, and think that you are complete and sewn up. Walk on the ground, that you haven’t compensated yet. Claim that you know the skeletons in the world’s closet, but sound too stupid when you sit with a slightly educated person. 

Guess that’s it for now, see you soon. Babbay!