[SenorJalapeno]

Rani! Rani! Rani!

Hollywood or Bollywood?

[SenorJalapeno]

Touche! Cell Phone it is.

Left side of the bed or right side of the bed?

[SenorJalapeno]

Hello person above me! How are you? Duderino huh? Sheesh! I'm collecting some strange ones: Spice Dude, Spicelicious Dude, Duderino, Professor ji…

[SenorJalapeno]

Is that the question? Well, it is not personal. Happens to be part of the plot of a short story that I read. Just a bit perplexed at the gall of a few writers who probably think one could concoct a full-blown romance out of a cockamamie twist. In retrospect, may not have been the place or the time to have asked the question. Just one of those spur of the moment turn of events that you tend to rue later on, especially, after a retort like Ninja's, Lol. Back to the more appropriate question:

Would you rather be under-dressed or over-dressed at a party?

[SenorJalapeno]

I seek to please God.

Next: Do you like confrontations?

[SenorJalapeno]

Lol Kavita ji, I can almost imagine you! Please ask a question.

[SenorJalapeno]

Apple Pie.

Whipped Cream or Icing?

[SenorJalapeno]

Hello!

[SenorJalapeno]

Cheddar!

Raclette or Camembert?

[SenorJalapeno]

Honesty.

Next question: Would you kiss a stranger in an airport if they said they were taken by you and wanted nothing more than the delicate pleasure of a kiss?

[SenorJalapeno]

Bayou

[SenorJalapeno]

Andrea Del Sarto, I believe, is one of Robert Browning's finest works, behind 'Pippa Passes' and 'Porphyria's Lover' and maybe 'My Last Duchess.' I also like 'Rabbi Ben Ezra,' 'Fra Lippo Lippi,' and 'Fifine at the Fair.' Browning and Tennyson pioneered what is now known as the 'Dramatic Monologue' so beautifully demonstrated in Porphyria's Lover. Neither Ezra Pound, nor T. S. Eliot…not even Tennyson could unseat Browning as the master of the dramatic monologue.

'My face, my moon, my everybody's moon,
Which everybody looks on and calls his,
And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn…'

The above lines are from Andrea Del Sarto, a poem about an Italian Painter, known to his contemporaries as 'Il Pittore Senza Errori' which means 'The Faultless Painter.' Sadly, as art historians are wont to observe, Andrea was a great painter but lacked the zeal that urged other great painters such as Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael to accomplish more.

The 'face' here belongs to Andrea's coquettish wife, Lucrezia, whom Andrea had hopelessly fallen for, and promptly married after her husband's untimely -or timely- death. Flirt she was, Lucrezia's affections were no more real than the proverbial carrot in front of the horse. So, he who had been destined to sparkle in the firmament of fine painters barely flickers.

So, drawing on Giorgio Vasari's 'Lives of the Painters' Browning penned the now immortalized lines. Concerning Lucrezia, and the painfully beautiful lines above, there are as many opinions as there are scholars, perhaps, justly so. I for one cannot fully explain the range of emotion within me whenever I read these lines. They poignantly capture Andrea's agony, as they do every lover's shameful regret that the one he or she loves with such soul-stirring, heart-throbbing, spine-tingling, gut-wrenching, parched-tongued, misty-eyed passion, does not reciprocate, not that she is oblivious to the feeling or illiterate in the art of love, but because her affections belong to another.

Andrea's love for Lucrezia is as deliberate as it is desperate. It's an extravagant love. It's an exuberant love. He has neither more love to give, nor a surrogate emotion to devote to another. So he waits ardently in pathetic hope that perhaps there would be a change in his romantic fortune.

If only there were a mystical straw that you could slip into my soul and sip long and deep from the mysterious pool within, you would perhaps feel the agony that is Andrea:

'But do not let us quarrel any more,
No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?'

'Let us love each other. Must you go?
That Cousin here again? he waits outside?
Must see you—you, and not with me?'

'Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,
The Cousin! what does he to please you more?'

'Again the Cousin’s whistle! Go! my love.'

The misery of being in love is only equal to the misery of not being in love and vice versa. How strange life is? Perhaps we were meant to live for love. Perhaps we were meant to die for love. Live and die, we will. So love, we must.

[SenorJalapeno]

(14 Hours and 4 Minutes Later) Cherries (Not the preserved stuff).

Muscadines or Nectarines?

[SenorJalapeno]

Peanut butter and Banana is Yum. Don't know fluff. Sounds suspect Lol.

Jackfruit?

[SenorJalapeno]

Duplicity

[SenorJalapeno]

I wonder if letting feelings out is over-rated. I live a transparent life, only because I have nothing to hide as of the moment. When I was in Uni, I was very discreet, only because I had much to hide. Sometimes letting our feelings out may hurt others' feelings and though we may cajole ourselves into thinking what others may or may not feel as the direct result of our 'emotional outbursts' is of no consequence, perhaps, sometimes it is.

There was a time when I used to 'post-it' my feelings all over the house. For instance, a note on my refrigerator would say, 'I'm famished and there is nothing worth eating inside, you stupid infernal fridge.' My friends thought I was strange, but it helped control my outbursts, and saved me from inadvertently hurting others. Sometimes, I would leave notes here and there which would crack up later during the week. Since life is given to inexplicable moments of insanity, the only way to combat insanity is to give yourself to a bit of craziness here and there.

Oh, Ninja, I have Honey-Dew Melon, Lychees, Turkish Apricots soaked in Manuka Tree Honey, Raspberry Sorbet, and Pellegrino in my fridge. I have some lovely coffee -Ethiopian, New Guinea, Shade-grown Guatemalan, Colombian and a limited edition espresso roast- which is crying out for company. If I promise to get you to the Mosque on Sunday on time, would you care for a bite and an extended bout of caffeine intoxication?

[SenorJalapeno]

Laundry

[SenorJalapeno]

Almonds

[SenorJalapeno]

Aunty ji will have a change of heart. One cannot suppress their true self for too long. She is as kind as she is beautiful as she is generous. (I do hope she reads this or else it would have been in vain).

[SenorJalapeno]

Silver

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