The Voice In My Head…

Why? Because my blog has been nagging majorly fighting with me that I’ve just not been paying it any attention any more, that there’s been nothing really worthwhile written on it for a while, that I’m not replying to comments - *and* worst of all - that I’m flirting having an illicit affair with (God forbid!) Facebook! (seriously darling, how could you even think that?!)

So, here I am, trying to convince you, my dear dear dear darling thevoiceinmyhead.com; as much as I’ve neglected you & my commenters in the recent past, as perhaps not upto your high standards as recents posts may have been - and as much time as I’ve spent on Facebook recently - TVIMH, I do love you.

I love you very very very much. Really, really.

There have been SO many (so many!) times in the recent past I’ve wanted to post about stuff - like the time I “discovered” Pot Pourri has fabulous breakfasts - in fact it’s become my new favorite brekky place (I’ve done Crepe Station to death)..

Like all the stuff I want to tell you about my new favorite male-friend-in-a-supporting-role (deyamm you lead actor, where the bloody hell are you?) - he’s British (rather old fashioned & grandfatherly) and on occasion buys me African Daisies Oh, ho-hum & hurray!

Like when I saw ‘Get Smart’ and I wanted to tell everyone to go see, it was SUCH a fabulously fun movie. Oh, how I laughed. Laughed, laughed, laughed. I still have this nigling (is that a word? hmmm) doubt however, that they censored a bit of the movie… Anyway I enjoyed it despite that - and despite the loss of hundreds of my hard earned paisas (ok, the date’s paisas) that went into the Rs. 180/- popcorn at Metro Adlabs late late night show (seriously, it is just me or is popcorn at all our theaters becoming RIDICULOUSLY expensive???)

Or like the time I wanted to post about how because our President Pratibha Patil decided to visit Mumbai - they STOPPED ALL THE TRAFFIC (seriously WTHECK?????) - for hours on end. I waited for exactly 25 minutes on my way to the city in the morning (from 11.05 to 11.30am) and for about 45 mins on the way back in the evening (rush hour, 5 onwards) and I’m thinking:

BLOODY HELL, seriously.
Why can’t the President be FLOWN in from the airport to the city in a helicopter? There’s a helipad at the Mantralaya (& other places too in the city) and if someone’s important enough to stop traffic completely for hours, then they should be flown in! It’ll be faster for them and it won’t inconvenience the entire city.
I mean, seriously, how bloody inconsiderate. I don’t care if you’re the President of the country - you have no right to disrupt anyone’s work schedules. It’s just not right.
And in rush hour too? Seriously, you should have seen it - one side of the road jammed with cars, miles & miles & miles & miles on end. The other side perfectly clear.
And I counted the entourage: 42 CARS. Seriously, I kid you not. 42 BLOODY CARS.
For this, we have to wait. While madam and her 42 cars pass by roads that have been “cleansed” & cleared for hours ahead.
If I was the President of India - I’d be ashamed that I was whizzing past miles & miles of people I had inconvenienced (imagine those without air con cars or those in taxis paying by the meter!) - I’d use the power I had to do something about it. Either helicopter or travel in the night or early morning.

(click on the image above to enlarge & see the miles of jammed cars & the empty road on the other side).

So you see darling blog - I had this whole post planned - see I took pics & everything - notwithstanding the hawaldar who questioned me and told me to stop. I was thinking about you & only you all the time (Facebook, who facebook? Arey yaar, sheesh.)

I thought of you VERY much when someone told me recently that I was “ruining my chances” of finding a nice boy to marry me since I blog so much. I though, what the hell - “love me, love my blog”. And if you don’t, heck, I don’t want to marry you. Sorrbloodyrey. I wrote out this whole post in my head & I even thought of great title - “I blog therefore I am, single”. It was a great post. Unfortunately I just didn’t get down to typing it down.

So you see darling blog - it’s not that I don’t love you - or that I’ve replaced you by anyone else online - no, no, never! Perish the thought!

It’s just that I’ve been slightly busy. You know, I have to go out, earn my daily wage to pay for your hosting and your url and the fancy Manolo Blahnik shoes you like (ok, perhaps that last one was just for me, and only in my fantasies. Sigh, but you get the drift). I’ve been busy, but it’s all for you. It’s always been all for you.

And I hope this rather loooong post has made up for my seeming lack of affection recently.

No?

Gosh, you are quite the drama blog aren’t you?

Ok, here’s something more just for you. Some breaking news!

I’m off to Switzerland for a bit - and then onto France. Not too long, just a little holiday - but enough for you to miss me some more before I come back & fill you up on a regular basis. Quality AND Quantity, baby, you have my word.

I promise you, I’ll miss you VERY VERY VERY much. And I also promise you I’ll give you all the khabbar when I return.

AND - I’ll also throw in a photo of me for free. To heck with the people who tell me my feeds are high only because I post photos of myself. I happen to think I write pretty decently. See how much of insults I take on your behalf blog? How much I am spat at & humiliated - and yet, undaunted, I continue to blog being true to who I am and write & post the way I like to? See, see, see??

(the precious pup incidentally isn’t mine, he’s belongs to a friend & his name is ‘Reo’, awww)

So you forgive me darling blog?

You do?

Can we have make up sex now? (heck, I’m not getting any offline anyway).

And seriously, to heck with all of those ppl who called me up after one of my recent posts & said WHOA, seriously, you prude you, what the heck are you blogging about?! To heck with them, I say.

I want you blog.

Now!

Are you superstitious?

I’m not.

In fact, I’m antisuperstitious, if that were indeed a term. If I see a ladder; I walk under it, if find a black cat; I pet it, if it’s Friday the 13th; I’m quite ridiculously happy

This is because I firmly believe all superstitions have evolved out of things which at some time in the past were just common sense. For example, the superstition about not cutting your nails after dark or something “bad” will happen, probably was due to the fact in ancient times there was no electricity. Add to that whatever they were using to cut their nails couldn’t have been too high tech, it’s understandable why they would want to avoid cutting their nails after dark! Perhaps someone with a missing digit added to it all.. “See Mr. Onefingerless? You’ll become like him if you cut your nails after dark!”

Being antisuperstitious is not always appreciated though.

I have been banned from watching cricket with the family - unless I solemnly swear not to say “Wow, he’s batting brilliantly!” for fear I might jinx him. Because apparently, the batsman, who is only just a few thousand miles away, in the middle of a stadium full of several thousand screaming fans, can hear my every word - and then he’s going to choose to do the opposite of what I say.

I am also not allowed to comment in the car “How empty the roads are!” (though seriously in Mumbai city, how often are we going to get a chance to say that anyway?!) for similar stupid brilliant reasons.

While I am thus censured however, I find no lack of people who continually use the phrase “touch wood” ostensibly to ward to evil spirits, but in my opinion just out of habit. These are the same people who say something, then look all around desperately for some wood to touch, fine none & then touch their heads. Yes, you know what I’m talking about. Heck, you probably do the same thing yourself, be honest now, wood-head you.

Back to me though, my “triumph” over superstition came one Friday the 13th, twelve years ago. There was this really cute pilot who wanted to date me, who’d call and call and be upset that I never called him back. He was ridiculously superstitious and refused to fly on that date or stay in a hotel on the 13th floor or anything of that sort. Incidentally, any of you notice that most five star hotels don’t have a 13th floor? They go from 12 to 14 - so my ridiculous pilot would then refuse to stay on the 14th floor also. Sigh.

Anyhoo, one Friday the 13th, early in the morning I did call him up, for the first time - and he was just so thrilled by the fact I had called, he forgot it was Friday the 13th. He had a brilliant day - and just before it ended we spoke again & I told him what date it was - and he swore to me I had “cured” him of all superstition.

Of course, I should have waited the full 24 hours before telling him, because an aunt of his died an hour after I called him that night and he insists it wasn’t a good day after all. Small lived victories.

So now, while I continue to be my antisuperstitious best, I don’t try to convert anyone around me anymore. I even manage to tell all my theatrical friends to break their legs before performances - how kind of me, indeed.

So today, I wish you all a very happy Friday the 13th. May you be as scared, as safe, as sorry as you want to be. Touch wood.

Recently I went out to Bombay’s newest coffee chain - Gloria Jean’s Coffees. Though it’s a brand that started out in a small coffee and gift shop in Chicago USA (named after it’s owner - Gloria Jean Kvetko), it’s really big in Australia. I remember thinking on my last trip down under that Gloria Jean’s Coffees was just everywhere, just like Barista is here in Mumbai seemingly around every corner.

When I entered the Gloria Jean outlet in Bandra (where Lemon Grass used to be, near Pot Pourri) I was stunned - it was completely full (& remained full with constant in & out flow the whole time we were there). I guess I shouldn’t have been too surprised, it was new after all, people are still interested to see what it’s all about, what’s so special about it.

Then later I realised - this is the case with every coffee place I’ve seen in Bombay - be they Barista or Cafe Coffee Day or Mocha - all of them are always completely full or getting there. It’s like Bombay thrives on it’s coffee culture.

Incidentally, the Mocha at Bandra has been shut - I have no idea why yet - there’s a plastic notice at the entrance which though I saw from my car, I was unable to read. Will go and pry later. Or if anyone knows, feel free to enlighten us.

Meanwhile, I’d like to be the first one to say (but I’m sure many have said this before me) I’m waiting for Starbucks to come to Mumbai. And I’m sure it will, and I’m sure they’ll be as full as all the other coffee shops.

This month’s cover of Vogue (India) scares me. Not only because Kareena Kapoor is looking sickly thin - but because her weight loss “spree” is being heralded as a good thing -

“Kareena is on a major weight loss spree again, and must say, she has never looked so gorgeous and sexy” cf TOI

I was never a big fan of Kareena Kapoor - but imo - she wasn’t fat before. She didn’t need to go on a “weight loss spree” and she definetely looked tons (much) better earlier. Look at these before and after shots for example - note the now sunken face, the protruding collar bones, the bone thin hands. Gorgeous? Sexy? I think not.

While the western world is now wary of “overly thin” celebs like Nicole Ritchie, Keira Knightley & Mischa Barton, especially in light of eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, it is sad how almost everyone here is celebrating Kareena’s weight loss. When questions did arise, she went on record to say she is “far from anorexic” and all her weight loss is due to “power yoga” and a “special diet”.

Regardless of how and why she lost all the weight - the issue at hand is so much bigger than Ms. Kapoor. It’s about what fashion magazines dictate to our society. And the images of “gorgeous and sexy” that perhaps sub-consciously get ingrained into our psyches. It’s about what we as an educated thinking society are willing to accept as our perception of beauty.

Way back in September of 2006, organizers at the Madrid fashion week took a stand against models who were “too thin”. They banned models with a height-to-weight ratio below what the World Health Organization considered normal - three top models were sent home.

Most of the world applauded the move and runways and magazines alike made special effort not to endorse “too thin” girls, if not nothing else, for fear of being labeled as promoting anorexia by feminist groups.

Now, even as new skinny Kareena insists she’s not “too thin”, even as she appears on cover after magazine cover in her new avatar - the question is:

Just when is thin too thin? - and what are we as a society doing about it?

I just saw the cover of Vogue (India) with Mrs. Shah Rukh Khan (ok fine, with Gauri Khan) - and I must admit, the first thought that came to my mind was, wow, she’s really looking fabulous.

Then I read some of the comments online at Rediff, like this one:

This photo seems liked a computer generated image of Gauri khan. Lots of touch up. I have seen her in real life..she is nowhere close to what is displayed here.

& this one:

Someone said right..Gauri looked wasted in most of the pics one has seen of her in the past. Brilliant photo-editing work..

Then I looked at some older pics of Gauri online (yeah, so I had a slow work day, sue me )

And I thought, hmmmm!! It does look pretty photoshopped doesn’t it?

I started thinking - if even I photoshop all my pictures before I put them online (for those of you who haven’t seen me offline, trust me, I’m perfectly hideous), why wouldn’t Vogue do the same with their covergirls, whoever they are?

It reminded me of a line, in a song, which I really love (commonly referred to as ‘The Sunscreen Song‘)

“Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.”

and also of this video, which I had originally seen on the Oprah show & which embedded itself in my head ever since:

I believe that beauty is in fact skin deep - but still I know I’m quite a slave to it.

I hope in the coming year, I mature enough to get beyond it all. Or at least, to rise a little from my present narcissistic state.

Quite a nice conclusion to seeing Gauri on the cover of Vogue, doncha think?!

~ Recently been mulling over the fact that in the many different relationships I’ve had in life, I’ve switched roles in an almost karmaic (if indeed that were a word) fashion. For example, wherein one relationship I was the hurtee, in another relationship I became the hurter (in weirdly similar fashion, though completely unrelated relationships) and vice-versa with other things as well. Is it non-reincarnated but present life karma? Or is it learned behavior from people we’ve had significant relationships with? Is that why people who swear never to be like their mothers/fathers grow up and become exactly like them?

~ Am I temporally incongruous? I was called an “Anachronism” by someone really close, which made me wonder. Am I living in a modern world with old world ideas? Who decides these things? I mean, who decides who’s temporally congruous with the world and who’s not? Society? Who them be? Mass Poll? Where them be taken? Am I Scarlett O’Hara? Wasn’t she “selfish, shrewd and vain”? That doesn’t sound too complimentary now does it?

~ Why do people say “Blogs” instead of “Posts”? Why do they think I’ve made a new post when I’m saying I have a new blog? Incidentally, I’ve bought the new domain - it’s Melodylaila.com/thoughts.

Thought I’d add as an aside, though I’m shamelessly trying to promote the new blog (I so love it!). Why do people do that? Why do people put things they want to scream out loudly as asides? Don’t people know that everything is obvious to most people most of the time? Is that why people who want to shamelessly promote things say that they are shamelessly promoting things? So it seems less like shameless promotion? (btw, an aside , while I’m shameless promoting the blog, why don’t you check it out, add to your feeds & link from your blogrolls? Thx!)

~ Why do we fight with people whom we love? Why are relationships always the most difficult with people whom we love? Why do we expect more from these people? Is that why they disappoint us more?

~ Why is that I was thinking of my ideal man who I’d want to settled down with & I thought of Topher Grace? Is it because he’s one of them tall, skinny & lanky, bespectacled, suited and seemingly nerdy boys (ah, love you my Adam Brody) ? What is it about yuppy boys? Then again I also have a thing for Joeys & Jon Bon Jovis. What is it about every Bon Jovi song that make me want to sing out REAL loudly?

~ Why am I wasting time thinking of ridiculous things? Will go now.

It’s a new month, before a new year & I thought I’d share with you all, my latest, brand new blog - “Simple Thoughts on how to Live Life Fabulously!”

As the About Page there says (yes, I actually wrote an About Page on time there!) the thoughts and inspirations there are not my own. Most of the thoughts have been around a long time. Also since I’m a believing Christian, some of these thoughts & inspirations are Bible based. So the new blog is basically a place where I collect these thoughts - the ones I subscribe to, the ones that inspire me and add my take on them.

All that & more, through my ‘Sunshine Girl‘ eyes

I hope the blog is a blessing to all who read it! (click on image below to go to there!)

Edit: Have booked a new domain after all It’s Melodylaila.com/thoughts ! Do blogroll, add to your feeds etc etc

Incidentally, am really happy, within a week, I have 15 feeds for the new blog, plus two mails telling me how the blog has helped! Am glad it’s helping anyone in anyway, makes it all feel so worthwhile!

Imagine this: A young marriageable girl from Tiruchi. The parents anxious to get a “good” husband. There must have been much rejoicing in the Jenita household when the boys family agreed to the marriage with their son, an Infosys employee. To make it better, the future son-in-law for the Jenita family was from the US - a “prestigious” alliance no doubt.

The young girl, though an MBA herself, must have no doubt been excited. And then there must have been the wedding. Again undoubtedly, dhoom-dhamal. The Jenitas must have proudly told family & neighbors about the “good catch” their daughter had got. Sweets. Saris. Flowers.

And then the day she had to depart for the US with her husband and his family. Tears. Her parents must have come home from the airport, taking solace in the wedding photographs, feeling now they had finally done all they could for their daughter.

Now she was “settled” in life.

At what stage did dreams turn into nightmares for the girl Smalin?

In a shocking case of dowry-harassment, a 23-year-old pregnant woman was beaten by her husband and in-laws and thrown out of a moving car, while she was in the US. The 7-month pregnant Smalin Jenita was comatose till a week ago, and had sustained 52 fractures while being harassed for dowry by her husband and his family in the US.

Perhaps we’ll never know. Perhaps we’ll never know if from day one she was harassed by Christy Daniels, the man who was meant to be her life mate. We’ll never even know how she got pregnant, whether she had a good union with her husband.

What we do know is that shortly after her marriage, Smalin got pregnant. And we do know that even in her seventh month of pregnancy, she was being harassed, beaten - and ultimately thrown out of a car! - by her husband and in-laws. We know she was abandoned in a hospital in the US in a coma. We know her family in India wasn’t even informed by the in-laws of her condition. We know it was only by the intervention of a kindly good Samaritan, a Pakistani doctor in this case, that these matters were brought to light. More details here & here.

(Smalin is currently in the ICU at Mehta hospital in Chennai. She and her unborn child are in stable condition. Besides the 52 fractures suffered, Smalin is now paralysed on the left side due to the brain injuries she suffered)

Continue Reading »

On a night long long ago (oh well, it was in Dec of ‘05), I read my Bible before sleeping. There was some stuff on Virginity that touched me enough to post about it the next day. Which I did. End of story?

Almost.

Thanks to Google, my post is picked by earlier this year by an atheist, who slams my views and starts a blog war. And tons of post all over the desi blogosphere about whether desi girls were having sex or not, about virginity in general and seemingly every tangential topic under the sun.

I submitted my first article to the Hindustan Times a while back. The ed called me just before it was frozen for publication asking what my byline should read. “Write whatever you like, whatever you think of me” I told him. “Well, I can’t write the first thing that comes to my mind about you is” he says. I am now intrigued! “What is the first thing that come to your mind about me??” I ask.

“Naturally,” he says, “that you’re a virgin”.

Wha-@#*$-huh???

I somehow just do not get it: what is the fascination is with my sex life, or rather the lack of it?

Within just the last week, several references were made to it:

Close friend: You know, she’s telling people she doesn’t believe you’re a virgin!
Me: Why should I care? I am answerable to only God and myself. Even if I was a saint (which I’m not) people would talk about me anyway.

Another time, two friends discuss me, in front of me:

Boy X: You know you’re not getting any from her
Boy Y: Of course I know. She’s the most famous virgin in India.

My very First (!!) conversation with happening blogger on gTalk:

Happening blogger: So you are a virgin for religious reasons is it?
Me: there we go again! Everyone wants to talk about my bloody virginity

Same blogger later on in the talk:

Me: Yesterday someone said that I am the most famous virgin in India
Happening blogger: Nope. That would be Mother Teresa.

Happening Blogger is a non Catholic. I am suitably shut up. I hope everyone else is too.

— Update —
Further to this post, some more jokes! Some are just not man enough to post their “funnies” here directly.

plus, An Oriental Eye Test

Kapil tells us to observe this image and try to decipher what’s written.

If (like me) you still can’t make out what’s written; try pulling the corner of your eyes to make them look like those of a Chinese person.

Makes me wonder what is this newest find saying about me!

The voice in my head is ill. And when the voice in my head is ill, it doesn’t make as much noise as it usually does. It just sleeps. Perhaps the lady who calls herself my mother is right. Perhaps I’m just sleep deprived and rest deprived and perhaps that’s what leads me to get ill. “No reserves”, she shakes her head at me.

What’s wrong with getting ill once in a while though? Besides the fact that it makes you feel terrible (oh my aching throat) and the other fact that it disrupts your schedule - I had to miss a wedding of a friend, and possibly miss the chance to meet & have the actual Chak De star of India, Viren Rasquinha, fall in love with me. The only two people I spoke to today - besides my family and the pesky doctor I unfortunately have to go to time and again - did not know who he was. I think most people in the Catholic community know who he is though. They say “Our Viren”, as if they the the ones who talked him into playing hockey when he was young and wanted to learn the piano instead.

He’s actually the only other person who’s ever played hockey for India that I know by name, the other obviously being Dhanraj Pillai. Hang on, what did Bhaichung Bhutia do? I can’t recall, I’m ill. But this kind of non recollection is acceptable in India. If I didn’t know who Sachin Tendulkar was, even if I was in a 10 year coma, I’d be murdered by a drug selling orderly. Then again, very few people who’ve been in comas for 10 years survive. Perhaps I’ll pretend not to know Sachin Tendulkar if I’m ever in a coma for 10 years and asked by a drug selling orderly.

Back to Viren though, a reader of TVIMH and a (supposed) friend of Viren’s wrote in to me. “He’s nice, you’re nice, you two should get married”, he wrote. Two people being nice is not a definitive argument to them getting married, I write him back, but this reader doesn’t give up. He keeps at it. Giving me reasons to marry random men I’ve never met and insisting all the while that he’s perfectly sane. This incidentally, is why I write my blog, to meet sane men like these, and their supposed friends.

I also write perhaps to make sense of the thoughts in my head. Like why the third man I know is telling me he’s reading ‘Fooled by Randomness‘ and loving it. Is that random? Or some sort of indication of the type of men I’m in circles with? I incidentally struggled to get that word. Circles. Because I’m not in any relationship. I’m not dating. I’m just in circles with people.

Once I was dating a guy though, or wasn’t I? I forget now. But anyway, this chappie ‘insulted me’ because I wouldn’t make out with him. He told me - “your mind is like concentric circles and it’s circled around Christ”.

If you’re wondering why I put the ‘insulted me’ in inverted commas, it’s because he meant to, but had inadvertently paid me perhaps the highest compliment of my life. That is who I aspire to be. And that’s what he thought I was.

Though I’m not. But I’m trying.

Sometimes though, I wonder. I wonder whether I’ll ever write anything great like this guy I met over the last weekend Anand Giridharadas. He writes so brilliantly and yet, the first thought I had when I met him was that he had a funky haircut. I guess I’m just very superficial. And perhaps, like someone told me sometime back, deep down inside, I’m shallow. And perhaps also, I’m not a great writer.

But I’m trying.

Even when I’m as sick as I am right now, so cut me some slack, ok?

Don’t expect Bastiat-award-winning-Amit-Varmafied-brilliantly-funny-insights into the Emergency in Pakistan or thought on the Economic Times Awards. Those guys are really brilliant though aren’t they? I’m sitting there (by there I mean, in front of my tele, and not at the awards show itself) and there comes P Chidambaram and I think, this guy is brilliant.

By the way, I googled and found the hilarious picture above. I also googled for pictures of cows, but I totally vetoed that for this pic of Amit; serious and yet, completely funny - which, if you think about it, sums up Amit’s writing, too doesn’t it? hmmm. I wonder how much wifey Jasmine paid him to cut his hair off finally?

I realise I’m a short-haired-man loving woman myself. No long haired men for me, thank you kindly. I like crew cuts, the shorter the hair, the better. Abhishek with a hair band on his head. Yeech. Tom Cruise in Top Gun and A Few Good Men. Yumm. What is it about pilots and men in uniforms though? Or men that play musical instruments? ahh. Even through my illness, I get an epiphany! What I’m looking for is a Tom Cruise lookalike, crew cut, musical instrument playing pilot in a uniform. Then I realise that I’ve been there, done that. sigh. Oprah was right. Tom did spoil her couch.

What I am glad of though, is that Aishwarya Rai turned 34. It’s about bloody time that someone famous is older than I. What IS it about kids like Deepika Padukone and the entire cricket team all being decades younger than I? Deepika Padukone and the entire cricket team, that seems like a nice topic to muse on.

But no, let’s go back to Tom. Here’s a picture of Tom Cruise on another set couch. What is it about men behaving like children? And some people call me a child! Humph. Many, too many, guys I know have bean bags and play on their own personal playstation. Bean bags and playstations. Seriously though, I just do not want to started on either of those two brilliant topics.

I realise I use the word brilliant a lot. And though. I use the word though a lot.

And I write a lot. When I’m sick especially. I write perhaps more because I speak perhaps less. And I just have to get all this muddled tangentialism out of my head. I feel like Annie Hall on somedays. Woody Allen was brilliant though wasn’t he? There I go again with the brilliants and the thoughs.

I’m just going to go back to bed. Blame it on the medication. Cough syrup is as close to drinking alcohol I’ve ever gotten to.

Incidentally before I end, I forbid anyone to wish me to “Get Well”. How dare you? With so much of nonsensicalness to comment about, the only thing you want to say is Get well soon? Besides, my glass of cough syrup is already half well. I’ve always been optimistic. I’m even optimistic about the number of you who actually are going to listen to that, being greater than one. And perhaps that some of you even understood a word of what I wrote above.

Yes, yes, I’m going. I’m finishing my apple and going to sleep. Did I tell you I’m eating Hershey black chocolate in between of an apple? And I’m loving them both? I’m telling you, really.