Something a little more like a proper update.

I’m feeling distraught. Try as I might, my work doesn’t seem to get itself done. I’ve gone to great lengths; even tried putting it in a bucket of water and chanting that Tanuki charm, hoping to see it grow into completion, but nothing’s changed. And I’m feeling frustrated. And it’s so hot today I’m already making it an excuse for not properly doing work.

I think, right now, what I really need is a hilltop somewhere in New Zealand, one that hugs the coast, where it’s cool with ocean breeze and warm with gentle sun, and a computer that functions with Internet despite being miles away from the nearest power source. I’ll finish off my work and even write you a novel. Or a short story anthology. Whichever you prefer.

So. Period: it’s too hot, my work won’t finish itself, and I prefer to fill the remaining time with dreams of the impossible. Ah.

Ah, yes, speaking of novels, this is what I got from the MPH Warehouse Sales that happened last week;

And the books, from bottom to top:

Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris - RM10 and hardcover.

Abarat by Clive Barker - RM10 with glossy pages and Van Gogh like illustrations occupying several of the pages.

The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S Lewis), in a whole tome, and only RM15.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - introduced and found by Pauline, and only costing RM5 because it is water-damaged, but still very readable.

The Old Kingdom Trilogy by Garth Nix (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen) - RM19 each. I think it’s slightly cheaper than getting the complete box-set.

The Sandman: Book of Dreams, Edited by Neil Gaiman and Ed Kramer - an anthology of Sandman stories by several authors. RM20.

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett - I’ve always wanted it, never knew it was written by Pratchett, and now that I have it I can proudly say I only got it for RM20.

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon - This is a compulsory must-have, because I really enjoyed Curious Incident. RM20.

And, last but not least, Sun Tzu’s Art of War, bought for the father and brother. RM20.

The total tally of money spent: RM177.

Which means that I’m so broke now I’ll be eating Roti Canai for weeks to come.

*****

On another novel related topic, I think it’s proper to point out that Nanowrimo starts on Saturday.

And being a participant, it’s only natural that I ask people to join, because it’s fun and if you’re dedicated enough, it’s also frustratingly blissful.

Sign up at: www.nanowrimo.org

And you can find out all about it there, if you don’t know anything about it.

********

Ok. After a whole entire year of doing nothing but growing roots into this chair here, I’ve finally (oh dear Heavens, finally) managed to play a game of badminton.

It was fun. I ended up pulling both my calf muscles and one at my left foot (which was a curious sensation; it didn’t quite hurt but my toes kept bending backwards and it impeded walking, so I had to waddle to the car and stretch for a bit). This means I need a couple more sessions, preferably enough to last me my entire lifetime, even during my wheelchair days (count: 20 more years).

And my play-mates are still a bunch of wackos.

And Michelle’s tennis swings still scare the intestines outta me.

Oh, and Mekz is surprisingly fine at badminton. I say surprising, because somewhere some time I heard (whether from herself, or from other people) that she won’t play sports for nuts. Mich managed to get her to come along, and she’s a fine player.

Well, hopefully, another game this Thursday will materialise.

**************

The Longest Sunday.

It ends with fireworks.

I hear it outside. I hear the jubilee, and beyond that I hear the celebrations, imagined the joy and cheer and merrymaking, those that fill itself with night and stars and the great big bottles of beer.

It is 12.

It is The Celebration of Light.

And it is my pleasure in wishing everyone a Happy Deepavali; if you’re celebrating it, then my best regards and wishes, and if you’re just enjoying that extra bit of holiday then I say go out and have fun and fall in love, or keep loving, because you have time and parking is free.

I’m wool-gathering. Forgive me. The night is of such, and I’m trying to tell something that wouldn’t come immediately. Or, at least, I feel that going into it immediately wouldn’t come off as right or proper. Then again, you’d do better someplace else.

It’s a long post, as far as I see it now. And I haven’t actually started.

Where do I start?



I kept thinking… ruminating, more like, in a reminiscing sort of way, of what my brother would’ve said today. I’ve sat down and waited for him to sit beside me, where we would’ve been silent of a bit. And then he would’ve turned and said to me; “This is just how it is. One rock in that rivulet; one chink in the chain, and the whole process changes. And everything, norms or monotony or whatnot, becomes chaos.”

And he would’ve said it sagely, though he wouldn’t sound like one any day. He would’ve said it like he had forgotten he’s told me the same thing for more than 5 times now.

But 5 times or not, he would’ve been right. This is how it is. This is the reality of the world; how easily it crumbles, and how easily to look at the broken, unfixable path and say, but there’s where I’m going. Nope. The road always changes. It’s all about keeping to that right direction, and knowing where that exit is.

I’ve made it sound dramatic. It isn’t. It’s no biggie, I guess, and that perhaps would tell you to go away; you won’t find anything here. This is just rambling. Thoughts that I feel that I need to put down for no significant reason, aside from personal satisfaction.



It started with rice vermicelli in soup.

That was breakfast. Sunday’s breakfast. We haven’t had something else for a long time now, and that was fine by us. It was good, within that expectation that won’t likely break. And it was with its pleasantries. It was quiet.

And then we cleaned the store.

Here’s the thing about spring cleaning with the father. He gets grumpy and starts blaming everything else for the pile of junk we somehow ended up keeping. He’d accuse people for putting things away and forgetting it when its needed, and then he’d blame useless junk on other people. He’d forget that most of the junk was kept there by himself, or by his orders, and now that it’s piled up he’d clear off every fingers of accusations pointed towards him and frame it on everyone else. And then he’d say how much other people talk back to him. He believes in national democracy. He practices tyranny at home.

And after getting the store down we cleaned Gary’s aquarium, and all in total it robbed me four hours of my life.

I had bathed in cold water and was preparing to get started on a freelancing script when the phone rang, and said that the grandmother had somehow sprained her waist, which rendered her immobilised, and that she was in so much pain she couldn’t be carried to a car and now awaited an ambulance.

We got there and waited for the ambulance, and when it came the parents went on it and I trailed it on the Accent with 6th Aunt as company. It was the 6th time I ended up in Kajang Hospital, and I take that as something of a bad thing.

I am one of those people that dislike hospitals.

It’s not so much of the smell of sickness, or the medicine, or that looming shadow of death that hung low like a hairy mop in cheap thriller parks. For me, it is that feeling of unreality. It’s like walking into a place that was rightfully and blissfully hidden behind the stone walls, because the old people say that it is horrible and terrifying, and that we shouldn’t gaze upon it because it is otherworldly. I walk into it and find it a completely paradoxical world; I’d see nurses joking and laughing while pushing decrepit patience around on wheelchairs that squeak something in B minor. I’d see children running around and a man holding his urine sample to his chest, and then see the doctors with scrubs looking like theirs the hands of God. Then I’d meet doctors that are saintly in speech and care, and nurses that are too sombre for the life of them, and then that hurt women and burnt men and myself in the mirror, too utterly fine, too utterly fortunate.

I don’t like that feeling.

They made us wait for an hour, maybe two. And when we couldn’t wait anymore we walked into the emergency ward, disregarding that No Entry sign, to find my grandmother somewhat uncared for. All she had was just an injection. And then she was left there until people felt compelled enough to take her for an x-ray.

My grandmother is fine; she had a sprain, but the doctor warned that she, being older now, is starting to have weaker bones.

My grandmother is the greatest grandmother there is. I’ll tell everyone that, and I won’t be exaggerating. That, coupled with the fact that I cannot respect my grandfather beyond the point of obliged piety, makes her my single-most loved (living) grandparent.

We talked to the doctor, who said that my grandmother was free to go, but when we tried to help her up she hurt so much that the doctor suggested that we admit her for one night. We did that, and then regretted it, because the wards are… well, horrible. Perhaps I’m just being a jerk about it, but truly. It’s a horrible place. It’s a place that deserves better, could be better, but it is there, like limbo, like the stuff we can say we detest but truly cannot do without.

My first impression was a World War 2 infirmary. I’m being overtly histrionic. But impressions are impressions.

Here’s the part where it got ironic. We don’t want our grandmother (mother, in my mom and aunt’s case) there. And my grandmother actually got better; she could walk and it didn’t hurt as much. So we say, we want her out. It sounded like a kid wanting to a go at that Ride of Terror, and then realising that it’s all too scary, after the tickets are bought and the seatbelts fastened. We know we annoy, but that’s the thing to do, because it had to be done. Turned out that to discharge a patient from the wards we first require a doctor’s diagnosis, and then the green light. The doctor wanted a night for further observations. We said, no thanks. She said she would need us to sign a letter. And then she said her senior doctor wouldn’t allow that until the senior him/herself took a look first.

So we had to wait.

I’ll tell you that we waited until 11 at night and there the senior never showed up, and by then my grandmother was feeling so guilty for having bothered us this much that she insisted she stay for the night. That was when I got home, took a bath, and sat here, listening to fireworks.



I’m thinking now… imagining it, that my brother would be calling me gay for sitting here and writing into the night. He’d be calling me gay for quoting him somewhat, and I’ll call him a big asshole. Then he’d hit me and ask me to repeat that (and I would, and get hit again; some things never change). But I’ll see him wear that tired face into the bathroom, and then we’d probably end up talking into the night.

We’d talk about grandma and grandpa, about hospitals and doctors, about death and life and dreams. And then, when it’s late, we’d say goodnight and go to sleep.


I talk to a computer screen now. I told it about the longest Sunday.

For a moment there, I thought I was having one of those bad days.

It lasted for half an hour. I sort of just sat outside of my house to ruminate things through, wondering what a stock broker must’ve felt when facing plummeting figures, and then wondering if it’s sort of the same as the bed of nails I was sitting on.

I don’t call it misfortune, because most times it happened because I made it so, in an indirect sort of way. The full circle that came back to bite the ass; the Ouroboros serpent, branded on the skin. I’d still blame it on bad luck, but at the end of it, the reason why that bit of misfortune snowballed into a catastrophic avalanche, was because I was being lazy or an utter dunderhead.

I was, however, luckier than I thought. Someone up there must’ve decided my fate deserves the worst another day, and turned the electricity back on. And then there was light. And the fan. Oh thank mercy. Never mind that I still had to climb the gate to my own house. At least I submitted my FYP proposal.

You’d wonder if there was some sort of lesson learned here, but I think if you’re actually wondering, you didn’t know better. Oh boy, didn’t you know any better at all…

*******

Malfeasance

\mal-FEE-zuhn(t)s\, noun:

Is:

Wrongdoing, misconduct, or misbehaviour, especially by a public official.

Used as in;

It is part of that vicious circle that if a politician’s malfeasance, practised whether on men or women or the people in general, would return to haunt him till the graves.

(Dictionary.com)

Just so you know.

Emptiness itself is not a wrong; leaving it empty is.

********

There’s probably nothing else that I can really talk about aside from the rain and driving and the hectic atmosphere that comes with the semester, of which is both constricting and exasperating at the same time. And even if I do want to talk about it, it’ll probably sound the same like it had been, and will ever be; that, I figure, is how persistent monotony is.

So classes have started, and on the first day alone we’ve been kindly but very sternly reminded that the semester will be so jam-packed with things to do that any form of leisure should be heralded as grateful grace and gifts. And after having kindly be told so, I spent the week finishing freelancing work and then forgetting everything else, and when I started reminding myself I ended up sitting blankly and finishing nothing.

Somewhere a little voice had started saying, not good; definitely not good. Pretty soon the same voice will yell Game Over Man, Game Over! when deadlines peaked and I find myself amidst the inhabitants of hell, commenting on the rather baking weather.

Right. It’s high time I get started on things.

Say what? Battle for Middle Earth at 10.30? I’m in.

*************

Here’s Aunt 6 (or 6th Aunt) with little Forest. I apologise for the poor quality; apparently that’s the best my phone can produce.



Forest is Aunt 5’s (or 5th Aunt’s) new puppy, which dad was given by a friend and he in turn (and thankfully understanding that 2 dogs at home now is already the breaking point of responsibilities, not to mention the rabbits and the fishes and Gary) gave it to Aunt 5, since they needed a dog to care for the house.

And Forest is quite the puppy. In fact, he looks and reminds me exactly of the puppy Lanna, in the same way that they look like bear cubs, and that they bumble around with their fur puffed up looking like pouncing fur-balls.

I realised today that I didn’t really have any pictures of a puppy Lanna. There’re probably one or two adult Lanna pictures, and some puppy Marley pics, and probably even Latte (which is now living with an aunty friend, apparently rather happy), but no puppy Lanna pics. I figure it was because I hadn’t had a digital cam back then to go snap happy, but all the same I wondered why I hadn’t taken one with the old Olympus, to keep in the album.

The bulk of the pictures are in the old computer… I have to retrieve it someday.

I woke up as though someone had just kissed me on the lips.

There was this feeling… this untruth of it; this lie that was bitter-sweet and profound. I opened my eyes knowing that I have been cheated. I wondered if I dreamt. And if I did, what I had dreamt about.

I brushed my teeth and rinsed with Listerine, but the taste lingered.

******

It’s a strange morning. I’ll warrant that.

For one, I was up earlier than anyone else in the house, something that doesn’t happen in most weekends. I slouched to the bathroom past an empty dining table; no TV, no morning Chinese classics from the mother, no disgruntled talk and chatter. No barks from the dogs, either. That’s really strange. It left the house in this ringing, hollowed atmosphere. Like an empty cathedral; there’s even a sort of sacredness to it. A serenity that I’m wary to trespass. So I found myself closing the doors rather softly, and consciously avoid banging something and cause a ruckus.

There were flowers by the gate, on top of the post-box.

I learned later that it was delivered over by flower vendor at the morning markets; he does it over the 1st and 15th days of the months in the Chinese calendar. The flowers are for prayers, and my dad ordered in for Tuesday. I didn’t quite know that, of course, and the sight of it on the post-box was something. Sentimental. Sad. (I may need to note that it was morning and I was sleepy).

I drove on empty streets. So empty that I didn’t see the next moving car until I turned into Taman Zamrud, and that’s about 5 minutes worth on the main road, plus traffic lights. The restaurant, though, was packed, but I got the breakfast taken away soon enough.

And it was as though things just bloomed up like a cascade of fireworks; I was the 15th car in line at the next traffic light; the newspaper stand was almost crowded; I noticed that there were probably more cars than it should heading down my neighbourhood (turned out that there was a celebration somewhere, and the guests gets invited early in the morning for whatever reason); I drove past joggers and a cyclist and a family walking down to the bus stop; my parents were awake and they were already making gentle bicker over the garden stuff.

I don’t know why, or how it did it, but it left me feeling rather lively throughout the morning.

**************

I wanted to sleep the whole afternoon away.

It was made for that. It rained, and despite a script I must tend to I felt relatively carefree and relaxed. I fell asleep for an hour, woke up thinking I slept for three (misread the clock) and bustled to try and get work done. Then I gave up and played Call of Duty in separate bursts.

Classes start tomorrow. I noted disdain from myself and several others in regards of Mr Money-moron returning as our tutor. He’s rather bad, really. Passionate, slightly, but his teachings are in shambles.

I might not be the only one saying this, but truly; this semester break feels really short.

Ah well, time for things to get back on track.

Goodnight people.

Stale. Repugnant. Decadence at the state of rotting splendour, dour and grim and black. The state of it; in its entirety, is useless. There is only turning back, but turning back is going back into the pig-pen, reliving the same stoic wallow; the same muck and fence and food. Going forward is the running out into the sunlight-basked fields into the unknown; crevasses and cliffs or diseased blight, hidden by promised valleys and daisy-strewn hills that rule the eyes and brimming with White Light Majesty.

It’s simple; it is simply hatred. It is reluctance and bitter sighs of regret which, for all its worth, the mark of despise and catatonic abhorrence stemming from basic like-or-dislike factors. There is no reason; this, itself, is the explanation. Plainly said, I hate it. I dislike it. I give it loathe and I give it curses and I bid it to hell.

I write it to reap its benefits but I write it as though I am typing it, churning it, gobbling the same repeated points and information, chewed and regurgitated into a less comprehensive form; but chewed at least, because they want it chewed. They want it masticated and spat out looking like moulds of brown lumps discoverable at failed cafeterias. I give what they want, and that’s the one important point. The whole other unrelated one is how I find it detestable and how I take it upon to myself to do it.

Uninspiring is the word. Shallow, hollow, decayed and the likes come secondary. After sales service, they say; get it from us and get something else. Two birds with a stone, two cockroaches with a single slipper; hit one get another twice the benefit double the fun. Up yours, I say. Go fuck something else.

Boring. Boring boring boring boring. Dull. Like watching flower grow. Like watching metal rust. No, wait, like penning the next Magnum Opus of Magnificent Bore, starring the silent symphony, attended by the ghost of crowds going for Transformers 2. What joy. What prospects. Gay-yippee-yay.

Imperative. Important. Prominent. Culmination. Amalgamation. Benefits. Repeated to the point of conundrum, humdrum, ho-hum. Like train announcements. Ever heard it go? Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6. Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6. Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6. Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6. Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6. Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6.
Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6.
Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6.
Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6.
Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6.
Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6.
Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6.
Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6.
Train to Seremban Arriving at Platform Number 6.

You missed it.

No. It’s a death trap. I refuse that cheese. I’d renounce cheese just so I won’t be tempted back into it. You go in there and the trapdoor shuts, and they put you under the sun. Everything dehydrates. Everything leaves. You die dried like salted fish. Of course, you’re not just quite dead dead. You just lose it all.

This is the last one.

I will not go through it again.

*******************

For the record, Adaptation., written by the ever bizarre Charlie Kaufman, is one of weirdest movies I've watched. It's either a win big or lose big type of movie; it's either you love its peculiarity or you hate it and go wtf.

For the other record, I really liked it very much.

I have seen moments like this. I start of with a casual sentence; the reason this post took so long to write is because… and then I drag the mouse over them, press Delete, and then start over, with the same sentence, over and over and over…

And then I’d settle on something else. Something that felt like a start. And then I’d wonder why I ever needed to be so picky.

And then, for a momentary wonderment, I’d feel envious for people who can start their sentences off effortlessly.

****************

The reason this post took so long to write is because it so happens to be the 200th post. I thought it was a big deal -- initially. I told myself that big plans had to be made; we simply can’t be done away with a simple offering, darling, we need a hall and decorations, Renaissance , and yes, darling, never without a band. Never! Give or take a few days later, I was settling towards merely a simple celebratory thing, starting off saying Yay! Des Dos-ciento! and then be contented.

Yesterday, I thought, to hell with it. To hell with all of it. And I guess I stuck by it.

Truth is, I reckon, probably has a lot to do with me wondering what to actually write about. I’d sit down, get some work done, feel the urge to write and draw out Microsoft Works Word, and then spend the remainder of the night writing and deleting. And I thought it’d be useless, might as well leave it be and do something else. A few minutes later the urge comes back, winking and eye-batting, and I’d sit down writing and deleting and then surrender, feeling impotent (powerless. Not… you know. Right)

Days went by. I see my writing furling up into smoke and ashes.

I’m still being hypocritical. I mean, I spend a lot of time telling people that stubbornness is the way to go; don’t give a damn what you write, just write and if people don’t like it, you make a note and smile, saying thank you. The gung-ho way is the way to go. Then, when I sit down to write, I give myself excuses.

It feels rather stupid to have a philosophy you can’t abide to yourself.

But if there’s something that I tell myself to abide, even by severe incapacitation, is to never neglecting the art of writing. I still believe that it’s an art you need to keep in touch with; neglecting it means you lose it, little by little. I already felt mine rusted, crumbling in parts. Whatever that’s ever intact. It’s not a good feeling. It feels like losing part of the bones that hold the flesh.

Lose too much, and something breaks. Sometimes, bones that break, never heal.