My longest and most focus-less post

Depression can be delicious, no? It's almost sinfully decadent - spending the day in bed, blanketed in melancholy, feeling awful for one's self. I think I'm a shoo-in for the world's biggest drama queen - I am a Grade-A moaner, a whiner par-excellence. I will tell all the world my problems and soak luxuriously in their sympathy.
I don't cry as much now, but when I was little, the tears were in limitless supply. In fact, the guard at my school had christened me 'ronewali' (the girl who cries). I could cry about anything - my younger sister being late for the school-bus, my mother being 20 minutes late to pick me up, the dead rat outside the school gates. Anything. You name it and I could cry.
In fact, we had quite a nice routine perfected for every time my mother was caught breaking a redlight. The cop would saunter over to our car and on cue I would start bawling. My mother would make the cop feel bad for scaring me and my histrionics would get ever more..well hysterical. The bewildered cop had no choice but to let her go.
Age and spirituality have made me calmer and more stable, but I'm still scarily bipolar. Sometimes I'll be the epitome of emotional maturity and at other times a prolonged case of conjunctivitis will be enough to induce serious hysteria. On a related note, I've also become strangely indecisive. At 19 there was no question about it - I was right and the rest of the world could stuff it. Now I constantly second-guess myself - Am I right to wait for 'the one' while the rest of my friends stand in a fast-disappearing queue to get hitched? Should I really stick to print journalism or make the switch to broadcast? And so on and so forth.

Yeah, yeah so I know you're going to say it's a quarter-life crisis. But dude, you've gotta admit - it sucks. Not sure how much more I can take of this nonsense. Can someone out there please just figure it all out for me and send me a postcard? Pretty please? Not even with the cherry and the sugar?

- Ends -

Why won't he talk to me? Why? Why? Why? Why? I mean, honestly, what did I do to deserve this? Okay so here's the back story, in case you haven't already figured it out: My bestfriend M has been in love with me for a l-o-o-o-n-g time, and he's finally realised that it's time to move on. It's been a strange five years - I've been in a long-term relationship, a long-term fling and several short ones, but I admit (and it takes a lot for me to come out and say this) that I've been giving him a lot of mixed signals. Which in no way implies taht I take the entire blame for this mess, but just that I'm willing to..well..shoulder part of it. It's just that we've always been so good..he understands me better than anyone else I know/ever will know, and we've managed to grow together. We're always, always on the same page. Always. But somehow, I've never felt it, you know? Never felt in love with him.
So anyway, he's decided to severe all contact with me, and it kills me. I can't even fathom life without him, and so I keep breaking down and try to re-establish contact with him. Everytime I talk to him, it hurts more. And it's not like getting out of a relationship, you know? Because then you're pissed off and hurt and there's reason to not want to maintain contact with the person, and you want to shut them out of your life. But now, I have no reasons. It's this horrible, forced exile. And no, that's not an overly dramatic analogy - it really is like being lost in a dense forest, with no way home. I don't know how to negotiate life without him.

- Ends -

As promised to Zaphod, here's part-1 of my guide to London:

Best places to eat:

Leon: Tiny eatery right across from Liberty. It's behind Oxford Circus station - take the Little Argyll Street exit, walk left, left again and you should see it. It's a limited menu which changes every six months, and the food is pretty offbeat, but it's tastes divine (if you don't mind experimenting). I recommend the ginger cake, the hummus and the superfood salad.

Souk and Souk Cafe: Litchfield Street, Leicester Square tube. The name sounds like a run-of-the-mill Moroccan restaurant, but both the food and the ambience are to die for. It's a basement restaurant, with occasional belly dancers, and menus on scraps of animal skin. It's also decently priced, and makes some killer tagines. They've opened a sister restaurant - Souk Cafe somewhere between Charing Cross and Holborn but I'm too lazy to look for the address.

Ciro's Pizza Pomodoro: Beauchamp Place, Knightsbridge tube. Another tiny basement restaurant, this one's a favourite more because of the atmosphere than the food. Oh, and it's also the first time the Palestinian and I seriously flirted; I got up and danced on the table. They usually have a live band playing, and because they play requests, the music can get cheesy, but in a really fun way. It's also very retro, with vinyl tables and pictures of Ciro with all sorts of celebrities plastered all over the walls. And to top it off, the food is to die for - the vegetarian chilli made me want to cry (in a really good, if somewhat scary way).

Osteria Basilico: Kensington Park Road, Ladbroke Grove tube. Was taken on a date to this place, and I have to say it's one of the most romantic restaurants I've been to. Soft candlelight, romantic Italian music, and discreet service. Oh and insanely good food. It's a little expensive, but definitely worth it. Try the pizza, try the pizza! And their dessert wine.

The Creperie: Kensington tube. This place really isn't much to look at - it's totally nondescript, aluminium chairs packed together, dirty plastic menu and a single waiter. BUT, and that's a pretty big but, the food is unimaginably good. And I'm really picky about my food, so when I use superlatives, quality is ensured. It's somewhat pricey - 7 pounds for a single crepe, but again it's totally worth it. The first time I went, they were trying to beat some world record for the longest time spent making crepes, which they unfortunately lost. But you should still visit it.

Next, my guide to off-the-beaten-track London.