Feeding the Gods of Degradation.

Perhaps not something someone would’ve done very constantly, but I found myself going through the older posts here (those 3 years ago, when I was considerably much similar to myself now than anything). It took a lot of wincing; reading older things you wrote might or might not do that to you. I won’t say I’ve improved. I do, however, regret that 3 years ago, I could write anything.

3 years ago I don’t think I’ve ever given much thought over anything I’ve written and posted. The aftermaths of which was never really concerned about until it swings onto my face, the force of a wrecking ball.

These days, I think I think too much while writing. It saves me from some humiliation, if whatever I wrote ever did it, but damn - I mean, just writing whatever and whatever else, it’s the sort of free-flight sensation that seems like something a lifetime ago. I guess I missed it.

I guess I’m envious.

Have I made a step forward? Maybe, maybe. But it feels like leaving the great green meadow to find that blue cubicle with a grey desktop and grey keyboard and orange mug of cold tea.

****

I used to like doing this, just for the heck of it;

The word of the day today is Ebullient.

\ih-BUL-yuhnt\

1. Overflowing with enthusiasm or excitement; high-spirited.
2. Boiling up or over.

Supposedly, it helped with my vocabulary, which never improved anyhow. But at least I learnt Genuflect and Nonagenarian and Nimiety.

An example in using Ebullient:

The glasses he wore for astigmatism gave him a deceptively clerkish appearance, for he had an ebullient, gregarious personality, a hot temper, and an outsized imagination.
-- Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life

These are taken from Dictionary.com’s Word of the Day e-mails, which never failed to arrive nightly, though I’ve taken a long backseat in actually reading them.
Well, I guess there’s no harm trying pick it up again.

Learnt something new today…

*******

I feed my soul to the Gods of Degradation.

(Bottled. And. Suckled. And. Over. Dinner.)

They complain that it’s not wholesome enough. Something about imbalanced meals.

Django Reinhardt sings to me with his guitar, his two fingers are four and six and eight and a hundred and eighty five. Stéphane Grappelli joins him and so was the Quintette du Hot Club de France.

Jeepers Creepers, they play. Nothing scary here. It’s only jazz.

Ba. Da. Dadadadadadada.

I sit here all day. I sit here and I watch something. Then I read something. Then I play something nice. Then I go and tinkle and come back and sit. And these hands here they stick tubes in me that link to pipes that link to valves that open to a big gigantic thingy that processes the stuff and put them in bottles and the big boss drinks it, labels it, sends it to his friends.

I need to get out. I need to go park myself at the nearest avenue and leer at the world like they owe me 60 bucks.

But these pipes. They never leave.

And Jeepers Creepers.

Ba. Da. Dadadadadada.

A couple of leftovers.

From the Penang trip. I didn’t take a lot of pictures; comparably, anyhow, to Langkawi or Bangkok, or even Betong. And I didn’t write a lot about it either, mostly because I know everything else would be comprehensively covered the good people whom I went with.

The guard.

This was a weird house. It had a helmet guarding the barbed wires where the gate should be, and looking inside was a manner of oddities. Most interesting, at the window sill, was a deity of Kuan-yin with three D size Eveready batteries in front of it; you’d wonder why the incense were substituted. I noted that candles were lighted there at night, when we passed by.

(It was very obviously occult, though if Bryan hadn’t pointed out its immense peculiarity I would’ve ended up walking in and checking it out and, quite possibly, manage to get something else following me out.)

Anyhow;

The Penang Baptist Church. Which has interesting architecture, and a neon cross. See the red?

These were all taken during the walk shortly after arrival, in which the destination was;

Biscuits. Ghee Hiang.

For all that's worth; that red thing there looked tasty.

Which conjured this odd individual here doing these things;

What the...

Stop getting into my shots

And then; Mansion!

The taking of Pelham 123

Le Gurney Drive;

The smell of fish markets and bogus dead-sea mud

The Maharajah had everything; a grand kingdom, treasures in mountains, personal harems, exotic summer getaways and an awesome turban.

Yep, life is good.

And the he lost everything.

"NOOoooooo..." "GYAhuaaAhuaahAaha!" (ok, he's gonna kill me for this)

And then we got all pose-y, and Li Mei took this shot;

Huff! Happy Birthday XP


Right. I’m all lazy now. Goodnight people.

*********
Maybe some music before i go:




From Sword of the Stranger, composed by Naoki Sato.

For the record, Sword of the Stranger is a decent movie. Nothing too new or too great, but you'd dig the fight scenes, the characters and the sweeping score.

Ah, and also:



From The Sky Crawlers. Composed by Kenji Kawai. The score here reminds me of another Mamoru Oshii movie, Ghost in the Shell. Wait. It's the same composer.

This movie, on the other hand, was refreshingly engrossing, even if it has fewer dogfights and high-flying action as the title might imply. Instead, it's more of a character study type of movie. Riveting.

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

I am standing on the threshold about to enter a room. It is a complicated business. In the first place I must shove against an atmosphere pressing with a force of fourteen pounds on every square inch of my body. I must make sure of landing on a plank travelling at 20 miles a second round the sun - a fraction of a second too early or too late, the plank would be miles away. I must do this whilst hanging from a round planet, head outward into space, and with a wind of aether blowing at no one knows how many miles a second through every interstice of my body.

(Arthur Eddington 1882 - 1944)
- British astrophysicist. -

That was taken from A Treasury of Memorable Quotations, courtesy of Bryan and Li Mei, the former having tricked me to walk a good distance across a mall and into the parking lot to retrieve it. I haven’t complained; it was an excellent present. I can’t thank them enough.

On the other hand, I have to books to write things into; one a Moleskinne planner from Pauline (by jove, she better be truthful about it being on sale), another a completely empty hardbound journal by the 5th Aunt, who saw well enough that the one thing I really wanted was a book with empty pages.

Ah, that was just about the birthday I neglected to write about, above many other things.

*****

This will be a long post.

Undoubtedly, because I neglected to update at all for the past… gee, two months.

Truthfully, it’s because I told myself that I wouldn’t write anything irrelevant to work until I’ve handed up my FYP and finished my exams.

Truthfully truthfully, I broke that oath by writing a short story in the course of 8 hours (into the wee hours of the morning, and completed close to noon after a quick snooze), which I submitted to the MPH short story prize, which I expected not to win anything or even mentioned at all.

And I’ve procrastinated several more weeks so that other post-exam pleasuring would take up my free time.

And now, with most of the fun done away, I have lost all excuse not to start.

Right. Take it away, Mr Sulu.

*****

Hmm.

There was a class party. Yeah.

Here’s a picture:

The quintessential class photo

The food was great. And there was a lot of picture-taking.

Funny thing is, thinking back at it now, it felt nostalgic. Maybe because there was something magical about it. Great nights do. Then again, maybe it’s because I went to the club later that night and drank some J-Walkers and, hating it (and the place, of dark and noisy sobriety), went out and played pool before driving home with the windows down.

(I figure if I had written about it shortly in the days after the party, there would’ve been more pictures and more thing said, but it’s been 2 months now and I don’t quite remember what I had wanted to say about it).

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

My last day as a student.

Probably not.

I think someone said that we’re always and perpetually a student of life.

Until we die, that is.

Then again, whoever said that we never learn in death?

I guess I should be writing a credo, or a memoir, or a passing expression of farewell and gratitude, to my last days as a student. Sometime ago it was at the tip of my ‘to-dos’, but now, if I would have written it, I wouldn’t be entirely truthful.

If I’m being truthful, I would say, It’s been a jolly good 2 years.

And would’ve left it at that.

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

Post exams;

1) Ensure, with immaculate planning and good judgement of parental behaviour, that I do not pass myself off as a loafing, goofing, and ultimately lazing unemployed man, but rather a loafing, goofing and ultimately lazing graduate.

2) Think about the future. The next 10 minutes. Garlic bread will be nice with VONO instant soup (just add hot water… genius, genius).

3) Go on a trip with friends. At least once.

Number 3 did indeed materialise. I found myself on one fair Monday sitting at the backseat of a car prepped in both equipment and spirit of a road trip down to Penang. I had packed a small bag which eventually grew bigger as the mother decided that enough is never enough (for it has to be sufficient, with extras for emergencies; what if a tsunami were to hit and you run out of dry socks?).

So it’s about food. And a lot of picture taking (not necessarily on my part). And the sea. Ah yes, the sea.

And here, Li Mei caught me reminiscing about the cold arctic ocean of which was once my home.

Stay cheap, by the way; go to YMCA.

These are tourists, by the way. You can tell from the slippers

And as fate would have it, we actually ran into classmates on a west-coast adventure, going North to South.

All i can say is; It's a really small world

With most of my money allocated to food, the only things I bought home were 11 odd DVDs (going for dirt cheap) and a remote-control car.

It’s something else, going with friends. The liberty is at the expense of our stamina and durability of our feet. The pacing entirely at our leisure. And we can literally go high and don’t give a shit about anyone else.

You have to have it, you know. At the end of something, it’s always good to go to the sea.

I swear to God, it skipped. Twice.

Feels like you’re there to throw something back. And watch the waves swallow it.

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

Ah, about Number 1 earlier. Let’s just say: Mission Failed.

I’m now officially, in the eyes of my parents, unemployed. Means I’m currently a parasitic entity and some sort of weeding has to happen.

Means I need to get out of the house, and do something.

Only that I don’t feel like doing anything yet. At least, for this week. I’m still in a lazing mood.

I haven’t written my resume yet.

Oh heck.

11.11

It had felt familiar. Somehow.

Like I was there before. One way or the other. Front-row centre, or at the Box, with binoculars, listening and grasping the rhythm.

Oh right.

This has happened before.

This was the precipice. This was the edge of things where the next wrong step is the eternal plummet. This was where I sometimes kneel to look over, wondering how far the fall, or how wonderful.

And how dark.

I was so close to falling.

Too close.

Never again…

******

I’ve never had the chance to say this, but I’ve got to at any rate, because it’s somewhere part good news, somewhere part nightmare;

We have a poodle puppy now.

A mini type, which is not quite as large as the regular, not quite as tiny as the Toy. She’s dark chestnut with a patch of white on her chest. She’s gnawing my toes off as I write.

Her name is Missy. I don’t know why I named her that. The parents, however, didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she’s the first dog that I named that they did - and could not - pronounce wrongly.

And since my brother and I are the type to give our dogs full names, her name would be Missy Colette du Fromage.

She smells of milk. And sometimes, cheese.

(For the record, Missy was the name everyone could agree upon, after Anya and Camille by me, and Mochi-Mochi by dad).

We adopted her from my mother’s client, whose poodle had a litter of 6; three of them which died. The lady was worried that the mother wouldn’t be able to care for the other pups properly, and had to give them out. Dad immediately jumped on the idea and voila; a cage in the house, and a puppy who has little mercy for my toes.

She’s grown on us. Especially me. Every warm night at the computer completing work, and she was there asleep by my feet, occasionally pawing my heels.

I’ve broken it to brother. He isn’t taking it too well.

***********

It’s friggin March now.

I won’t deny that I’m counting, but gee; times are so fast now that I couldn’t even remember when it was normally paced.

2 more till 22.

Hum dee dum…

(It starts first with nonsense)

I paid a visit to an Eskimo which I hadn’t seen for a very long time.

The last time I met him, I was dying in the bathroom after some bad food, and he was fishing on top of some ice, telling me that it was not my time. It was otherworldly; I thought I was in heaven or something, you know? Or some sort of limbo, made from the state of your mind, which differs from everyone. A special place. Unique to each individual.

Today I was dying again, and I didn’t know if it was breakfast or the amalgamation of everything chili which I’ve eaten, in bulk, over the weekend. I was probably in cardiac arrest when it all turned cold, and I was watching things in flurries of snow and ice, bounding around towards someplace I didn’t know.

I was on a sled, sitting behind him, hands around his waist. He turned to me, dark-tinted Oakley goggles reflecting my face. “Not so tight,” he said, and I loosened my grip.

We rode for sometime; all I could see was his parka and snow and glimpses of the sky, and there was no way to tell what was pulling the sled or if we’re going downhill.

The stop was sudden, but smooth. He walked off, dusting snow off his shoulder, while I struggled to stand.

I think it was the edge of the ice. The ocean was just there, flopping silently by our feet. I thought it was familiar.

“Back again, eh?” he said. “Couldn’t help what you eat, can’t you?”

“Nope. Born to live that way.”

“Pfft.” He bit the end of the cigar, spat, and lit it with a Copenhagen lighter.

“So, my time is now?”

“No. But the next time, can’t be sure. Just watch what you eat.”

“Will do.”

“Now fuck off,” he said, and settled down on the snow. And I was back, breathing. I went to run the taps and made for the medicine.

Twice in a lifetime, and I’m not 25 yet.

*****

It’s hot, which is probably why the parents are asleep, and they’ve actually skipped the 9.30 drama for it. If nothing’s new, that’s new.

I’m still waiting for the room to cool down before I attempt to hit the sack, and despite the heat, it was a good night to write, hence the utter nonsense you probably had to read through in the top part of this post (you poor, poor creature).

An old friend popped up online, and we chatted for a bit. We hadn’t IMed for a good half-a-year; I’d occasionally drop by her blog whenever I remembered, and she’s doing great apparently, and will be down to KL on March and asked if I wanted to go retrieve our diploma together (fuck, it’s been 3 years. I wonder if they still keep it).

She’s teaching now, and she seemed rather happy about it. And I read about meeting someone, and the story that came with it. All in all, she’s just as about set on the Path of Life. Makes me wonder about myself; the senseless floundering, floating where I could afford to float, dreaming and ambitioning but seeing it from a distance.

Also makes me reminisce about College. The sense of it, at least. Something like standing on the gateway arc to someplace new and wonderful. Only, well, tonight is something more like seeing that arc after a long, long time.

Makes me want to call a few people, and ask them out for drinks, just to talk about old times, and about the new.

I’m starting to think it’s the heat.

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

My addictions (stemming from the uber awesomeness of finally getting a set of speakers that play my music wonderfully);







And they’re all from the movie Slumdog Millionaire, in case the vids didn’t tell you clearly enough. It’s Bollywood, yes (the music; the movie, still distinctly British), so it’s either hit or miss for you.

I’m rooting for A.R. Rahman to win the Oscar. I’m just as much addicted.

You need the VISITOR’S PASS.

I start the day with jam.

Apricot; the dregs of it, that clung to the walls of the jar. It didn’t do me any good, mostly because I only had one piece of bread. Cooked some noodles later, with egg and chilli.

And then, for the life of me, traffic jam.

Something to do during jams; start wondering aloud. You probably can’t be heard, amidst the muffled honks and cursing, and if someone spotted you doing it they’d wonder how long they’d take to start to turn into you.

I tried the dad’s detour, that made a sneaky pass through University Malaysia through several different turns and ways, bypassing the Fed Highway altogether. The downside is, you’ll have to pass yourself as a student or bluff your way through the security guards. Normally I’d pass myself off (even my dad did; but maybe they thought he was dropping me off), but today, with things suddenly stricter, they noticed my lack of a UM sticker, which was always (I noticed) emblazoned somewhere top right of any student’s car.

They motioned me to wind down the window. I already had a bluff prepared.

“Just to drop something off to my brother. He’s in the accountancy block.” Just left of the accountancy block is the exit into Jalan University, and 5 minutes from Uni.

“You’ll have to park yourself there, and take the visitor’s pass.”

Shit.

And I had to toss my IC into the guard house, make a round around the campus grounds (rather beautiful by the way, and certain spots overlooking the lake would be one of those poster shots of students under trees with books and laptops), and then return for my IC. Only then I get to drive off and head for class. By then I was already late 45 mins, and had to conclude an answer to a question I barely had time to comprehend (bull-crapped my way through, and winged it).

All in all, I spent one hour 45 to reach a class that lasted (for me) 15 minutes, just to conclude an answer I didn’t give. Oh, and twice the petrol intake of that of a normal day.

****

Lunch was wonderful, and it was Kin Kin’s original spicy pan mee, which was heavenly when I first tasted it; still heavenly now, only that the kick seemed to have lost itself between the 4 spoonfuls of chilli I took.

Dessert, which happened way, way later, was some awesome ice-shaved honey dew thingy with sago topping off every inch.

I was, however, more distracted by the new set of speakers I bought, which emptied the ang pows for this year. I was so distracted by it that I forgot I bought Burnout Paradise for the PC.

Which is in my bag. Ah right.

And I also bought peanuts.

They’re stale now. Shoot.

It's like an oven, only with a little more mercy.

Right now, I’m wishing I can drink that can of coke in the fridge, in my father’s currently unused porcelain glass filled to the brim with ice.

But right now, there’s no ice. And even if I’m tempted to drink it off the can, I wouldn’t, because the can is as warm as though someone had sat on it for a good 2 hours.

That’s because, right now, in the hottest of hottest nights, the new fridge came, and with it being just plugged in 5 minutes ago, I’d bet my toenails that the can of coke is only drinkable by midnight tonight. By then, I think I’ve already melted into goo.

Hot.

Hot.

I was starting to think if my father had a windfall one of these days; new fridge aside (of which, he claimed, had to be bought, as the old fridge was losing its ability to keep itself shut), he went and got a magma lamp (which, I think, is more like an artificial aquarium; it’s a tube that’s a little phalanx-like and it has bubbles and plastic fish in it. Symbolic) and a new all-in-one printer.

The printer was a given, however. We found out the old IP 3000 wouldn’t print anything anymore, and he flew into impulse-buy mode and we picked this one off an offer in All-IT Kajang.

The printer comes with a scanner, which is a Yay.

He almost bought me a speaker set for the PC. I refused. He got rather agitated about it (I had refused him flat-out in front of the sales-clerks and he couldn’t have been happy with it), but I didn’t tell him I was aiming for something a little higher than what we saw. Nope. It’s something I’ll be getting myself, for myself.

What with the new things around the house, his mood is considerably cheery now. Great welcome, especially in such hot nights, where temper from any side might just escalate into a full-fledge bush fire.

Man it’s hot.

Now, to help mom with acquainting the new fridge with the magnets.

******

EDIT: Some bargain bin luck these days;

1) A Study in Scarlet by A. Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes’ First Case, for the uninformed) for 12 buckaroos.
2) Star Wars: The Revenge of the Sith OST by John Williams for RM9.90, about 40 bucks off.

3) A lonely DVD copy of Misery, directed by Rob Reiner, for 7.90, found in some unknown video store at Giant Kajang.

Man, being a cheapskate pays off sometimes.

After the Big Red Celebration (less Red this year, probably due to the recession and a funeral last year), and after unchecked and largely semi-conscious acts of massive bingeing, it was as though the world withered away.

And in the darkness, I started seeing goats. Grey ones, brown ones, Disney ones, which all started head butting an oversized cardboard cut-out of the Marlboro Man. And I thought, the world’s gone to the goats. There’s nothing we can do. Like the full cycle of life, it always end and start with goats. The song of the world; the first tune, resonated and echoed among hills and canyons, was MEEEeekkkkkkk.

MEEEeekkk became the wind, that the wind made the waves, and the waves cut the rocks and turn them to sand and from the salt came life, MEEeeekkkk was the first word it says.

And then it’s the Planet of the Goats.

Such easily were we forgotten.

******

I had to write that down.

Admittedly, the sole reason that I’ve been putting off blogging for so long was because I forgot how to write nonsense. Nonsense is the best thing to write. Nonsense is shaped with the whimsicality of clouds and the carelessness of freedom, and if you don’t know the therapeutic properties of utter and inconsequential nonsense, you’re either too uptight or you’re too bound to the seriousness the world demands.

Then again, too much nonsense means you’re crazy.

So, it’s after the Big Red Celebration, and the Big Damn Bingeing, and it was over and done with like an assignment you’re glad to rid off. Maybe it was because the brother isn’t here, but for all that’s worth, this year’s CNY was quiet. I welcome the newfound serenity. I detest the extra workload. Either way, I still rather dislike CNY.

Ang Pows are not incentives.

For now, classes were back on, with the holiday mood veiling over it, so it’s rather hard to see what’s going on and start focusing. The lecturers were speaking poetry behind their notes. It’s easy to fall beyond it. Sleep. Let the words wash over you.

Chap goh meh on Monday next, and hopefully the veil is taken down.

When it boils down to life…

I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I’m in the wrong building.

- Charles Schulz- (1922 - 2000)

(For those that didn’t know, the great Charles Schulz authored and drew the comic strip Peanuts, which, above all things, one of the greatest things ever conceived by the minds of men and women.)


I’m going to repeat the word “great” again. I’m going to say that borrowing a book of 2458 of the best things anybody ever said, is great. Mainly because you get to read things like this;



No sane man will dance

- Cicero - (106 - 43 B.C)


And


To eat is human.
To digest is divine.

- Mark Twain - (1835 - 1910)



To which George Bernard Shaw, as if in agreement, said;



There is no sincerer love than the love of food.



Amen. Amen to all of that.

The best quote for me, however, was this one;



A blank page is God’s way of showing you how hard it is to be God.

-Unknown-


That one, I cannot disagree. In no any other way.

******

I realised that I forgot to mention where I got the blog layout from.

I got this one, and another one for Monochrome Smogs, here:

http://btemplates.com/

(Hehe, here you go, Essie.)

Monochrome Smogs is now displayed over Moleskine. I will always find that awesome.

*****

I’m still having marshmallows for brains. Exercise didn’t work. Trying shock-therapy.

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

Stop this Train (By John Mayer)

No, I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind
But I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

Don't know how else to say it
Don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man
Said "help me understand"
He said "turn sixty-eight
You renegotiate"

"Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train"

Once in awhile, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark
Singing

Stop this train
I wanna get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train

A Notebook from long ago.

Everything now felt like marshmallow left too long over the fire; all gooey, sticky and falling apart, plus a little singed at the side.

Note 114 from the Dodgy Doctor Handbook (Harper Collins, 1988)

Excessiveness, or the expunging of any useful thought, logic and coherence, may lead the brain to turn into a 1400gm marshmallow. It will be all soft and squishy, and if you let it burn out over a fire it becomes taffy. Yum.

-Dr. Mack T. Shortenheim.-

Also, it makes you very lame. And you can’t decide if you’re being deliberately so or otherwise.

It also robs you of your writing capabilities. I feel mentally challenged (retarded).

Woot for 2009!

I’ve been trying to mess with the Blogger layout settings over the New Year holidays and somehow - despite it being idiot-proof now - managed to accidentally overwrite the blog’s layout and gadget placements, which pretty much turned the blog into a blank page of errors while deleting my links in the process. So I started template hunting, and settled for this one, which has a coffee-ring at the top corner like the one over at Nanowrimo.

And I’m not one that remembers whom I linked to in previous blogs, and what you see now is all that I’ve managed to salvage from my decrepit memory. I’m sure I’ve missed half. And if it’s your blog, would you kindly drop in a reminder?

I’ve not really settled over a proper title yet, so I named it The Pragadissio Notebook, an old notebook I lost which title meant nothing (I’ve searched, online and off, and really, it means nothing) for the time being.

This is as far I’m updating for tonight; I’ll only put up something proper once I sort out this marshmallow-of-a-brain problem. I hear some sort of exercise works wonders for it. According to Dr. Mack, anyway.

Gnites peops.

The Obligatory Pre-New Year Post.

Mostly because I feel that, as a writer, there is something at the end - and at the start of things - that has to be written about. I don’t know how it fits to logic, or reality, or anything else for that matter. I pretty much filed it as personal delirium - compulsiveness, if you may. That madness in all of us.

In truth, however, I have nothing to write about (gya-har-har-har).

Nope, I have not drawn my New Year’s resolution yet. It seemed like a pointless thing to do. That’s right; I’m one of those people who’d have the gall to draw a list and call it a Resolution, proclaiming to the world that by rule of death and living it shall and will be fulfilled… and then turning that list into a paper airplane to see if it flies well down the third storey. Oh dear goodness.

This year had been a wonderful year. Every year had been. I am a fortunate man (it feels odd, and maybe a little too ambitious, to put myself in that ‘man’ stature), and I have friends that make me feel like I’m loved. I am happy. And I hope somewhere I’ve made people happy too.

And I know that I’ve made people sad or angry; you always know if you did, intentional or not, and for that I apologise. Sorry doesn’t wipe the scar, but if it does something at all, then I can only say it, and ask that I’m forgiven somewhere.

I’ve not done a lot this year. Some I had promised, most I had not. I’ve done so little that looking back, it was a wasted year. The few that I did, well, were nothing. Maybe it wasn’t. But you’ll have to tell me. I don’t see anything myself.

But yeah, all in all, it was a good year.

And for that glorious ‘09, here’s to wishing that it will remain - at the least - like it was; and here’s to wishing that it will become something else entirely.

Something more beautiful, of course.

Happy New Year!





P.S: And to my good mates, namely Bryan, Kelvin, Pauline and Vic (and everyone else, even if you‘re not mentioned, but remembered in heart) ; in the good nature of 2009 being the year of the Ox, it’s gonna be full of Bull-crap.

Here’s to you, with hopes that you don’t take bull-crap from anyone, and that yes, bull-crap is very much welcomed if flung here in good jest XD.

Once again;

Happy end of 2008!

No Christmas Lights Tonight.

Somehow the power-box managed to short circuit itself, or at least the rain had helped in more ways than one, so that trying to turn on the lights to the garden Christmas tree (it’s not pine, not anything else, but it’s tall and it looks like any Christmas tree) will result in the main fuse tripping.

Not that it matters, since we don’t quite celebrate Christmas, but it’s nice to help brighten the festivities with a tree of blinking lights to decorate one small side of the road.

For a little bit of speciality the family decided on KFC for dinner, and guai ling-gao for dessert (bitter as hell, but a sign of good quality), and instead of a humble fire and some popcorn we sat and watched TV and cussed at the ever unchanging grievances of Hong Kong soap dramas (at least, dad and I did).

This evening we found the first grapes of the house.


We’ll we watching if more will follow, but from how my mother accidentally killed the other vine with her random trimming, the future looks bleak.

*****

Here’s a note for you, if you even plan to have a house with a garden that gives you a lot of space to plant and grow trees or flowers;

Avoid. Planting. Bougainvilleas.

They can look very nice, especially when good balances of rain and sun come around with the weather, and they can bloom into a menagerie of colours, and when the flowers shed onto the ground it can look like it came out of a Victorian painting (at certain perspectives, also depending on your tastes). But when it comes to upkeep, you either make it a point to trim it consistently, or prepare to hack at it one fine evening, ala Prince Phillip to rescue the Sleeping Beauty.

Damage report; several splinters, a couple of cuts, a thorn through the pirated Crocs and into my feet and twigs and brambles and leaves in the hair on both days of battle.

Also, I neglect to mention; as it is pretty much common for people to plant it by the fences, an untended bougainvillea can cause mega damage to it, as it grows outwards and if you have those wire-type fences, it can push it outwards and pretty much open up holes where it shouldn’t.

We don’t have wire-fences now, but I remembered that year where gardening led to discovering that the fence was fucked up by a rogue bougainvillea, which led to the father engineering his dream fence, which led to the most miserable month of self-construction, and golly, it had hurt so much.

Do yourself a favour, and skip on bougainvilleas. Pretty yes, but the thorns and the nature of it, it’s like something Maleficent herself would throw up for good measure.

***********

I don’t know why I keep finding stuff like this:



Oh, and this is some neat animation:



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

Ooh nuts, it’s pretty much belated since I uploaded it so late, but

Merry Christmas everyone.

And here’s wishing that you’re with the people you love and that you’re out giving love.

And if you don’t celebrate Christmas but just the holiday, I hope you had a great day.

Cheers!

That’s funny.

It’s already two years now. Two years since the last.

And these two years had been incident-free. In that sense.

There was one thing. But it’s different. Very.

There’s no asking why; the answer’s pretty much straightforward.

Laid like red apples, on white canvases.

I simply didn’t talk.

And unsurprisingly;

It’s what that makes it matter.

******

On a couple of side-notes (now yellow and Stick-It):

I’m back to a semester break and when put into perspective (by a late-night, accidental glance at a MSN private message), it’s the last semester break I’ll be having, for this course, at least. I doubt I’ll ever be in another course again so this is just as much as finale as the curtains drawn over the bowing actors.

Make the best out of it? Perhaps, haha…

It also opens up several new things to consider, but I’m not talking about that tonight. It wouldn’t quite fit. A better night would call for it, if it comes.

Ah, and there’s the matter of the new Prince of Persia game.

I like it. I don’t love it like I did with Sands of Time, but as far as this rebooting-of-the-series goes, it went on a beautiful, vastly joyous direction.

So, I heard there’s a sequel. Thank you.

Next stop, possibly, properly play Fallout 3.

And then there’s RE: Chain of Memories. And Persona 4.

For some reason, Christmas 2008 has been generous with games.

Yes, yes, I know; I have a final year project to complete and I’m way overdue. But golly, Christmas is soon. And there’s something about spirits and festivities and the universal agreement that a somewhat deprived gamer would get his games, no?

No?

What Christmas are you celebrating?

Sometimes I piss myself off. I’d piss myself with a bad case of urine infection and watch it stink, then feel the burn. Then go Fuck Shit Mama, it Hurts like Nails down the Pipelines. Hear it ring and clang? Clatter clatter clatter clatter.

The aftermath of it; I put it behind, among the shelves and old cabinets, and when something like this resurfaces I get to look back and say, well, been there, so might as well be careful. Maybe I’d forget it. I know myself to do it sometimes. At any rate, it was a stinking bad piss-off. Like bed-wetting incidents, I should just go hang it out to dry. Then spray some FeBreeze.

It’ll smell like pine, but beneath it all, you know it’s stained.

*****

Skipping Stones.

I miss doing those, really. Whenever I do it I happen to be with my brother, and we’d just start picking pebbles to fling them and compete to see whose stone can skip the most. He’d win, mostly. Sometimes I luck out. Importantly, however, was the sensation of seeing the stone skip across, leaving ripples at its wake, which mould into one another and become intricate, shimmering webs.

Ripples settle back into steadiness. Placidity, and unbroken calmness.

Then we’d toss another few more stones, and watch them skip.

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

Excuse what I just wrote above. I’ve been struck with a case of emo-ness lately and it had started to turn into a mess of boils and pus, so I better put it down in a more arranged manner. So it wouldn’t mutate. That might turn ugly.

Now, as I always do, and now it’s almost tradition, really, and a by-product of years and years of increasing laziness; I summarise 10 days worth of events in bullets and points, which saves time for both you and I, and goodness know we don’t have much of those lately:

1) Broadcast Journalism took several days to properly edit, and I’ve just taken a look at the marks the other and I thought it wasn’t anywhere bad, just nowhere great. No better results, truly.

2) My NaNoWriMo novel, somehow, managed to complete itself, at 50, 539 words. They gave me a few digital badges and a certificate that I can print and laminate and hung on the wall, but I think I’ll just keep it in the computer.

3) I fell sick. This sickness came with fever which made me hot and cold sometimes, to the point I had started wondering if it had to do with certain objects and the relative distance between myself and it; I lost voice for 3 days and mostly I couldn’t do anything but try and sleep.

4) I fucked up for Online JR assignment. That’s the easiest and least painful to way to put it.

5) After everything was finished, I went ahead and spent the afternoon completing Dead Space. I sat through the credits feeling rather shaky, and when they allowed me to return to the game with the equipment I had plus the new Stormtrooper looking suit I went ahead and spent some quality time stomping with brand new white boots.

6) I have managed to hitched an addiction towards Left 4 Dead, which is turning out to be one of the best zombie shooters out there, and one of the best co-op games I’ve had the pleasure to play.

7) I’m facing trouble for my Final Year Project, because I’ve not been able to submit anything final and I’ve not even drafted the questionnaires yet. Future looks bleak.


I’m so glad it’s over -- even if it didn’t go particularly well -- that I’ve been spending the past few days loafing and goofing and fooling around.

Now, there’re the exams to worry about…

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

Ah, yes, and because I needed to gloat about it one way or another, even if it wasn’t anything great or amazing:

Also, I found out something about a script frenzy thing, which, like Nanowrimo, will have you writing a 100 page script in 30 days. It starts in April, I think, and it sounds all fun.

Do check out the MPH-Alliance Bank National Short Story Prize 2009, if it’s your kind of thing.

Well, for tonight, oyasumi!

Deadness of the Brain; Petrifaction, Calcification; The Frozen Leaf.

Snow. I’d like some snow now.

I’d like to feel cold beneath layers of clothing and working on a computer that will inevitably freeze up, and I will proclaim that work and assignments and the entirety of it useless, pointless, and go sledding at the nearby hill. And then I’ll chuck snowballs at random people. And then I’d return home, cold and wet, and I’d drink hot chocolate and make myself a fire and go to sleep.

I’d like some rain, at least. To make the night a cold one.

Funny thing is, it rained today. Once in the afternoon and all the way till 4, where it stopped for a bit and then continued until 8+, after I bought dinner. It had rained and it was hot, and stuffy, and even under the drizzle it felt like going through a line of hot water shower. Somewhere I started wondering if my car’s air-conditioner stopped working; it had seemed compelled to give me more of warm circulated air.

I had thought I was having a fever. I was not, of course. I figure I was only being delirious.

This heat is getting on my nerves.

Tell the truth
Sing the story
Write the words
Wish the glory.

NaNoWriMo on imminent failure; I’ve clocked 37K but I haven’t been properly updating for days now. The story had pretty much walked out of my hands and dived down somewhere among the muck and convulsing concoction of horrendousness that some stories turned into. In another word, it’s starting to mutate into something I don’t ever remember making up. It pretty much woke up and started strangling me. Now feel like I should rouse the villagers, arm them with photon cannons, and take them on a hunt to kill the creature I created. But I might not. It’s my creation after all.

Somewhere along the lines I started thinking about making it a wife. As in, writing a sequel. Holy nuts. Maybe they’d start having kids.

At the rate of work and assignments, I probably have to spend the best of 3 days writing 13000 words. I won’t finish the novel, but I intend to finish the race. And one fine afternoon I’ll start thinking of rewriting it down. Maybe. Possibly.

The room,
And burning coal.

The smoke, smog
Steam
Dryness and wetness and all round constriction

Deadness of the Brain
Petrifaction of the Mind
Is the Calcification of Thought.

The Falling Leaf
Frozen in the Air.

And because I’m too tired to NaNoWriMo tonight;

1) Things are still as it is.

2) I bought an external HDD the moment my cheque came and now I’m back to being broke.

3) Broadcasting Journalism is fun, but dear goodness, inexperience with the camera can cause you trouble

4)




I’ve missed fulfilling NaNoWriMo quota for two days now, so I figure I have to make up for it over the weekend, provided my father didn’t rob my days off like he always does.

On the side note, EA’s Dead Space is probably one of the best survivor horror action game to come out since RE4, and if you’re talking about being immersive and downright scary, Dead Space is topping charts for a long way to go.

I should probably be back to updating regularly, if I ever did, once the month’s over and I can safely put myself away from Nanowrimo.

For tonight, Goodnight.

This one is with some explaining to do.

I’ve been occupied with a few things. It hadn’t robbed me of my life and turned me into a recluse, but all the same it strayed me away from this blog, and I had to walk a full circle and past the bridge and across the paddock to get here.

Right now, I’ve been kept busy by;

A) Final Year Project

B) Assignments

C) Nanowrimo.


Of all which takes up my free time unless I made ensure the time is occupied by something else, such as slacking in secret, or asking friends to join me for lunch/dinner one Sunday.

I predict that I wouldn’t be updating for sometime, considering the slowly but surely growing stack of work, both given and taken.



These were what happened over the past few days;

Firstly, of which I am still rather dazed yet somewhat proud of, is the fact that I’m still actually participating in Nanowrimo after 10 days and has been making steady progress. My current word count is 20,014. It is the worst novel ever written. I kid you not.

I’ve been writing without actually thinking, which is an interesting thing to do. I’ve pretty much screwed structure and limning and grammar and vocabulary and had spent the last 10 days dumping whatever word or dialogue or parts of the story that I felt relevant into the word processor -- the result is a mish-mash of scenes that don’t make sense holding together a paper thin plot with the stupidest dialogue made by characters who never turned out into what I wanted.

But it is all fun. Great fun, in fact. Only very tiring. I only write nearing midnight and so far I’ve been damned sleepy everyday.

Only 30000 more words to go. My God, I feel that I really want to make it.


Secondly, I’ve been left home alone - literally - for the first time in the 21 years of my life. The father went outstation for work and the mother went on vacation. The brother is in the UK. I was suddenly given unprecedented freedom to do whatever I want whenever I want, over the course of 3 days. What I did was have the guys over to Kajang for lunch and dinner and as much fun as we could handle.

It was not without its problems, though. I had to spend 4 hours of Saturday cleaning up the house and ensuring nothing really died. So far I have only one casualty; the shark-like fish in the deep tank. I flushed it down the drain. So far, so good.


And that’s pretty much it without me having to go into details, and details I would rather try and place into the Nanowrimo novel. I have a 2000 word minimal quota daily.

They say writing is a voyage into the unknown; the majestic beauty and enchantment of it, the shadows and blight and deprivation. Well, Nano is a 50000 mile marathon into it, and I’d tell you, it’s quickly getting very exhausting.

Very, very quickly.

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.