How the Fish Chewed through the Glass

(And she sat at the direct opposite of me, and I watched her eat as she tucked her hair behind her ear; one smooth, simultaneous act that seemed so natural. Then she caught me looking, and said;

“ .”

I nodded, said yes, and looked at the grey wall behind her, which made everything - her and the table and chair - seemed like a flat monochromatic picture.

And then I dreamt of something else).


*********

Tough week.

I don’t think I ever remembered feeling in such a state of lethargy that grew into me, as tough embedded into my routine so that no matter how much I will it, I shall never get enough rest.

I’m thankful that I refused dad’s request that I accompany them as they tackled the highest mountain in all of Selangor (which turned into a 10-hour long hike, both upwards and down, and now the parents still groan whenever they made to sit, stand or walk).

I stayed home as much as I could, and watched the movies I never watched, and gave Roxy the Rotty a bath. And, when it worked, played Left 4 Dead 2.

And before I slept, I read. I’m about halfway through Coraline (a short read, seemingly) and I’ll be starting on Pratchett’s Thud!, before I move to the stuff I bought at the Big Bad Wolf Sale. The Harmony Silk Factory was, for the third time, left abandoned.

(It’s not that the book is a bad book. It’s just that it became one of those rare occurrences where I didn’t care about the characters and, thus, never cared about the story).

Ah, and in case you’ve still never heard about it, the Big Bad Wolf Book Sale is still on in Amcorp Mall and it’ll end by Wednesday. The books there are horrendously cheap; so cheap it felt like you’ve walked into a cheat and never knew about it. I’ve picked up 9 books, all of them from authors I’ve never read before, and all of them have just as about the weirdest cover-arts (Un Lun Dun takes the price). Check it out; it doesn’t have as much big titles as other sales, but the place is littered with gems beneath gold and silver coins.

Right. Time for a quick chapter or two, before I head to bed. Bonne Nuit!

****

I forgot to mention that the entire blogpost has no relation to the title in any way, both directly and indirectly.

I do, however, wonder about it.

Mandamus, says the Brain.

Just wrapped up the last dribble of work for the day. It hasn’t been a fruitful; I was plagued by lack of concentration and, eventually, disrupted by a dinner I didn’t want to go but went anyway out of due respect.

(The dinner, lamentably, was a cramped thing where there were too many people at a single table and the food were cold when I arrived, because I was late fetching a colleague home).

Tomorrow, by golden hooks and or by professional crooks, I must complete my weekend quota.

*****

I hate my dreams lately. Mostly for the fact that they are never real and that, in a way, they annoyingly serve to remind me certain things that make me feel all the more despondent when I woke.

It’s like in some why, my brain has decided on a more direct approach, and issued a writ of mandamus so that I get cracking on stuff. Proving a point by saying that We command. We compel. We decide.

Well, fuck you too. Start by making me work smarter.

(Something throbbed. In the cranium. I’m sorry).

More frustrating is the fact that these dreams felt real. I’d wake up, rub my eyes, and realise the cruelty, and bliss, and the bitter-sweetness that lingered in the mouth along with the tang of morning breath. I’d go to work and write and have lunch and it’d float about at the corner of the mind, like a red kite in the azure sky.

And then the stupidity of everything caves in, and the tunnel is shut, and rationality resumes.

(Somehow I felt like I’ve written this before).

Anyhow, if the dreams remain the same, I suppose it’s a revisit I can’t avoid.

I just hope I can decide if they were good dreams, or bad ones.

(I’ve officially given up on Nanowrimo this year. I don’t think there’re other obvious reasons as to why; I was simply either too busy, too lazy or too uninspired. Eventually, whatever words I crammed felt too forced, and I decided that this is no way to write. Right now, this part of me is staring at me with his hands crossed, muttering and glaring and refusing to speak.



Sorry mate, this year just couldn’t be.)

****

Inure.

I think, yeah, there’re things I’ve inured into. People do. If they can’t, or don’t, they aren’t quite people. It’s just how we work.

It’s just that when people choose to voice the hardships they’re in (those that they, as we do, inured in, but will perpetually find time to complain about), they forget that the whole picture is a painting that they can only see a part of. And if they try to see the whole picture, it is to them a stretch of empty canvas. Then they make things up as they see fit.

I think I read somewhere that we draw our perceptions on what we think. In that sense, people who do so draw their perception on nothingness. Their brains are just as empty.

(And what’s all this midnight wool-gathering? Shouldn‘t I be asleep? Shouldn’t you?)

The skies these days are a beautiful, absolutely gorgeous tint of greyness. I’d drive to work or back or walk to the 7-Eleven under it and would just spend a few moments to stare.

I’d rather think that the skies are what that gives colour to the world.

Blue summer skies with thick, heavenly clouds give the world vibrancy; under it the winds sway the grass and the flowers stood with colours proud and bright and the people are just much more cheerful.

A grey, monochrome sky makes the world sombre. And sombreness is beauty sometimes.

(Like monochrome pictures, or monochrome movies, where darkness and light are easily differentiated and colour, if you’re looking for it, can only be found if you know where to see).

(Another round of midnight nonsensicality. I really should be asleep.)

Today’s hike took me to the top of a hill with red earth and low ferns. East was the stretch of hills and mountains that, for the first time, I found to have disappeared into the low greyness of the cloud. The mist, much lighter in shade, moved downwards and enveloped the hills like a deliberate embrace.

I’m not doing it justice; it was one of the most beautiful things I‘ve ever seen, so haunting in its grandeur.

There was a solitary eagle. An actual eagle. I watched it circle upwards and swooped until it merged with the darkness of the clouds.

It rained later, but I was already under a roof then. I wonder how the mountains looked in the rain. Maybe a sombre, forlorn shape in the distant. Greyness poured upon greyness.

But sombreness, yes, is beauty sometimes.

(Right, enough of this midnight wool-gathering. Time to sleep.)

(Goodnight people).

The New Wood Smell

(What’s this? I find myself some free time and instead of cramming in the words for Nanowrimo - which I’ve neglected for 5 days now - I’m here wanting to blog. And afterwards, play Borderlands).

I gave in to impulse, and bought myself a guitar.

It’s a cheap classical. It’s a guitar that those people of the guitar profession would stare at, crinkle their nose, and shake their heads in disbelief. In fact, it was cheaper than another guitar one particular guitar shop told me it was for the picnics.

It is, however, a nice guitar. I stared at it long enough, played unknown chords on it when no one was looking, and decided that yeah, you’re coming home with me.

It still has that new wood smell. Of the plywood type. It’s a cheap guitar, after all.

I suck in playing it.

Never doubted my innate inability to play any musical instrument. But now that I’ve bought a guitar and understood how hard it was to master it, I think it’ll be truly wasted if I never try making it play music that it was meant to play.

I give myself three years. And 38 days. Maybe I can play nursery rhymes by then. Good progression, I believe.

I think I can hear Bryan groaning in regret that he has agreed to teach me.

*********

My Nanowrimo is in abandon. It’s just a few days away from being a complete disaster.

My problem is finding time to make things up - times for this mostly end up being used in gaming, making up unrelated stories, and learning the guitar (since Saturday, at least). Oh, and a little bit of homework.

I’m so far behind now that the only way to save it is to cram 5000 words a night, or reach 25K by the weekend. My tally now is only 4K-something.

And I seriously don’t know what I’m writing about.

Where are the Gods of Writing?

Having stones for brains, and brains for balloons.

The effects of closing week hasn’t worn out yet. The brain is still a slab of rock that is cold and hollow and does nothing but stay stubbornly hard.

I don’t think I can string proper sentences. Somewhere along the lines would be a few oddities that become binaries. It’s aggravating, especially when 1000101001010100101000 about the 110101110111111 like global warming and polar bears losing ice to stand on.

Aw, 1001 it.

Ah, at any rate, it’s Nanowrimo now.

I’ll be trying once more to waste my time away writing 50,000 words for the month, an average of 1700 minimum daily.

I haven’t plotted, made plans, or actually know what I’ll be writing about. I think I’ll just down cups of Lipton tea and hope whatever they advertise will help give me the words and form that plot (and, for heaven’s sake, turn this rock-brain into a regular, mushy one).

As of now, the novel has no title.

And I think I shouldn’t have gotten Borderlands today. The first hour itself is addictive and engrossing, and I haven’t even ventured into online multiplayer.

And I haven’t taken into account that I’m working right now, and that there’s such a thing called Closing Week and that it will, without fail, turn my brain back to stone and milk my time into bottles to be gulped down by a monster with a void for mouth.

And the insanity of everything hasn’t hit me yet.

(And that, to paraphrase from forgotten source, is the fun of it).


*********

This is a Jeembie.
According to Teh Ais Limei (avid Zombtist and author of The Zombie Journal and The Popcapian Zombies of the East Pacific):

Jeembie is an evolved species of zombies whose diet consists of slimy, white rolls covered in brown liquid, also known as the Chee Cheong Fun among the Chinese community. This discovery have led Zomtists to believe that zombies do not necessarily need their staple food, known as Braaaaiiiinnnnsss, to survive, but merely chose to consume them as they are widely available in all parts of the world. On the other hand, a small group of Zomtists opined that Jeembie is not an evolved species, but an underdeveloped one, unable to differentiate between Braaaiiiinnnsss and Chee Cheong Fun, due to the similarities in texture, appearance and in some cases, substance.

On another note, the Zombies Nation International Association of Repulsive Bodies (ZNIARB) have declared Oct 27 a worldwide holiday to commemorate the birth of Jeembie.

Happy Halloween!

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


I’ll be disappearing mostly for the whole of November. It will most likely be due to Nanowrimo, or a strange trip in the form of a ticket given by a man with a broad brimmed hat and brown suit that’ll be the last I’ve ever heard or seen (if the latter happens, just tell my parents that I’ve moved to a happy place).

If I can update, I will. So if you’re actually keeping posted on the wholesomely profound ramifications from a philosophical genius that is I, you know you’re being duped and that no refunds will be given.

I hold no responsibility.

Just quickly dropping by to post some pictures of the pups, and to prove that I cannot, for the life of me, take good puppy pictures.

To the right, Ziggy. The left, Della. (Both in dad's tender loving hands)

Della's got more of her dad's brown, and Ziggy's all black save for the white angel-wing spread on his chest.

Both of them got their father's brow.

Right-o. Time for bed before the weekend rush. Bonne nuit

It’s closing week now.

I think it’s best if I write a little something here before I barely have any free time for myself. And what better than a little update on life, eh?

The pups of Marley are doing great; they’ve just opened their eyes a few days back and are now very adventurous with their crawling. We’ve just chicken-fenced the cage to stop them from edging out.

I’ve named them. They’re Ziggy and Della Marley. They both have something of their dad in them.

They are, currently, the cutest things in the world.

****

Perhaps not so much of an update on my life itself, which is currently like a flag that stayed still on the pole, with no wind around to billow and flutter it.

And like flags do, I can only sit and wait for that rich Westerly to blow and flap the cloth against the pole. Better still; wrench it out from the bindings, and carry it far and away, maybe into the ocean.

Wait is both a dreadful and wonderful thing, but it’s much like a mysterious drink served at the bar. And good and bad sometimes depends on your taste.

Ho hum.

***********

I dislike the fickleness of myself.

(Or is it really fickleness? Perhaps not. Perhaps simply a not-so-latent, fairly common emotion prevalent since the dawn of time, and that fickleness is either merely a branch of it, or the root in itself. At any rate, it produces the same results).

Feels like I’m a douche. A dick. An asshole.

And it’s very mutual.

I’m confused. But it’s the time of confusion that don’t sink in to cause massive amount of hair tearing. It’s just a leaf on the surface of the water. It disturbs, and ripples, and there’s all there is to it.

Makes me wonder; What the Fuck am I doing?

And whom am I Fucking with?

And What the Fuck do I think I am?

(Right-o. Emo-ness flies, and hovers).

I think I should let slide. It’s gonna be like leaving the stuff you can’t carry when moving house. It’s gotta go but the separation is there. Something’s left.

And you’re gone.

It sucks.

(I don’t even know what I’m confused about now).

(I don’t even know if I have to right to be confused).

(I think I’ll go to sleep now).

(Nites)

After that event at that clubbing joint at The Loft,

I can’t sleep.

I slept for an hour until 1 a.m before the oddity of dreams woke me up.

Right now I’m kept awake by the stubbornness of thought and ramifications, which only seem to be persistent whenever I’m most keen of not to think, and not to ramify.

Didn’t help that whatever growth I’m having in my brain has spread out like a patch of moss on a jagged rock, where it stays and stunts and eat away.

Truth is my eyes were closing at every 10 second interval. I could really fall asleep if I could let myself.

Why couldn’t I let myself?

I guess I can try. Yeah. I’ll go try.

Good morning, people.

Even if we won't celebrate...



Here comes the cold
Break out the winter clothes
And find a love to call your own
You - enter you
Your cheeks a shade of pink
And the rest of you in powder blue

Who knows what will be
But I'll make you this guarantee

No way November will see our goodbye
When it comes to December it's obvious why
No one wants to be alone at Christmas time

In the dark, on the phone
You tell me the names of your brothers
And your favorite colors
I'm learning you
And when it snows again
We'll take a walk outside
And search the sky
Like children do
I'll say to you

No way November will see our goodbye
When it comes to December it's obvious why
No one wants to be alone at Christmas time
And come January we're frozen inside
Making new resolutions a hundred times
February, won't you be my valentine?

And we'll both be safe 'til St. Patrick's Day

We should take a ride tonight around the town
and look around at all the beautiful houses
something in the way that blue lights on a black night
can make you feel more
everybody, it seems to me, just wants to be
just like you and me

No one wants to be alone at Christmas time
Come January we're frozen inside
Making new resolutions a hundred times
February, won't you be my valentine?

And if our always is all that we gave
And we someday take that away
I'll be alright if it was just 'til St. Patrick's Day

I see the Es and sombreness.

They dance in front of me; a little troupe with maracas and hula hoops over Hawaiian music. Not too hard to descry, though small, and ignorable, and very easily trampled upon.

Eden Eve Eventuality Expectancy Emotions Endeavour Embellishment Exit

Boy, can they dance. And the music.

A wiki wiki mai lohi lohi, Lawe mai i ko papa he'e nalu, Flyin by on the Hawaiian roller coaster ride…


*****

An early awakening. A breakfast at Uncle Wai Tou’s. A drive I don’t remember. Bang, zip and whoosh; and I’m there, suddenly, at the Canon Photomarathon 2009.

I went in with the compact IXUS. The throng of men there had DSLRs and hand-cannon lens. It sure feels small using a tiny equipment *ahem*.

I had fun. I was tired as heck but that was the whole point. Unfortunately the organisers had the foresight of a mole at sea and the crisis-overcoming skills of an octopus in the sky, so the whole event went from great to an exercise of subduing frustration.

In spite of everything, I only took 110 pictures.

Here’re some of them, if you’d excuse the crappiness:





































Yep. Good day. Bad night.

***********

Went off and had a pleasant day today, with Japanese pasta for lunch and someone that I was quickly exasperating to the point insanity (“I’m already used to it,” she said, while simulating a knife through her heart). I guess old habits die hard.

Today felt like a peaceful dream. A calm reverie, under the shade of a tree and the serene melody of the rustling leaves, while the wind sway the fringes of the hair and there is a softness somewhere that embraces and stays.

Don’t think I ever felt so relaxed for a long time.

(Except that I drove home after dropping her back and almost hit a car that cut into my lane suddenly, which made me curse of 5 minutes and it actually stunned the toll-booth girl a bit when I unwound the window in the middle of a Hokkien profanity medley).

At any rate, it’s a great day and I’m grateful for the company.

It’ll be mid-week by tomorrow, which means that it’s time to stop procrastinating and get serious on work.

Cheers, people. Anyong-hi jumuseyo!

Bifurcated

I’ve been feeling like I could write a lot lately. I think it’s a sign that the mind is having a case of the troubles, and that a bout of re-election between brain cells is undergoing (very mildly, as they prefer to backstab or scandalise each other rather than win in a public debate).

(Also, trepanation has failed; the family discovered me in the storeroom with my 3 Steps to a Successful Trepanation Set fully ready to go, and has confiscated it, though I won’t be surprised if they already had it destroyed. What a waste. It has a week full-guarantee return period.)

It’s nights like this that I wish there was a meteor shower.

Streaks of light across the skies, as though we’re watching the migration of a million of stars bidding farewell and high-tailing in a jiffy. And, between all of them, a million wishes, by those that believe in wishing on falling stars.

Just so.

Just for the sake of things. For the mood. For the world to limn things into words that you can whisper out as breaths that disappear into the darkness. The esurient demands that such a night deserves. Your rights. My rights. Maybe.

Fate is never that adjuvant.

I want a lot of things.

I want to stand at the edge of the world and watch as the rising sun incarnadines the skies. I want to take a hand and lead it away from the rain, and under the zinc roof watch as the shower isolates us from staring eyes, like a curtain, a veil. I want to grow ten feet high and sprout wings and take flight and raze the world with fire and terror until a gentle hand beckons my patience, and sooths my pain. I want to wish that things are just as simple as a red thread at the end of your finger that will lead you the right way.

I want a valid reason that I can put into words, say it out, mould it, shape it, tear it, throw it, and let the winds carry it away.

I want a valid reason that I can use to placate this bifurcated mind.

I want a reason I can feel is a reason.

I don’t want reason.

I want to do the easiest thing but the easiest thing here is the hardest to do.
I want freaking balls that power my guts and let me drive through and out and into the unknown void, come what fucking may.

I want no excuses.

I want no doubts.

I want that little sign that tells me that this is the right thing to do.

Yeah, I think I know what I want.

I want


you

A couple of things that were pretty big news but of which I’ve neglected to mention in the previous post, in light of the twins and their Rasta dad;

Aunt 6 (or the 6th Aunt, or Aunty Number 6) has given birth to a healthy baby girl, of which I couldn’t remember the name, but I dropped a visit yesterday and she’s beautiful and she looks a lot like her dad.

Someone I know had an accident where a car ran him over while he was checking on his punctured car tyres, and while it initially seemed like a really unfortunate incident but those laughed over in a few months, I heard that his leg had to be amputated. I was shocked. But it’s the way life turns out, sometimes. You think that the fallen oranges only have dented skins, but peel it open and you might just find it completely messed up inside. Prayers to him, and his father.

I’ve just completed my second issue with the magazine. It’s due out this week, and I hope I hadn’t messed up as much as I did in the previous issue.

And, most importantly, the twins aren’t the only puppies in the house. Shortly before Lanna gave birth, dad brought home a rottweiler pup, which we named Roxy. She’s perpetually hungry and if left on her own devices, would probably devour everything in sight, including the fishes.

Lastly, and something I’m proud to announce; I’ve finally perfected a way to conduct trepanning (or the act of trepanation) safely in the comfort of the home, and with the household drill. Now that I’ve rid off the test subjects and send them on their voyage down Kajang river, I shall be conducting it on myself tomorrow night. That’s right. After tomorrow, I shall have holes on my skull and the knowledge of the world will flow in freely in me, undeterred and unfiltered, and I shall be smarter than any of you.

Cheers.

******

I see no moon and there were considerably less lanterns this time around. And I don’t think I’ve eaten more than three mooncakes, which is peculiar indeed.

I have Bulldog Mansion up, and it’s only now that I realise that they’re closer to Jazz and Funk than anything else, perhaps with a little of pop rock thrown inside. But at heart, they’re funk-jazz. Neat.

Ah, I might not need to remind anyone, but I’ll do anyway; next month is NaNoWriMo month, so if you have really nothing to do and there’s a novel stuck in your head, it’s time to get ahead and pre-plan that plot device and dialogue. And yeah, you don’t have to remind me that it’s crazy stuff and that you’ve got better things to worry about.

I wonder if I can pull it off with work in tow now.

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

I’m seeing an unreachable dream.

And I think I’ll try chasing it for a bit. Maybe (of the utmost improbability) I can catch up with it, panting and hypoglycaemic in the process, and ask it if it’s fulfil-able and if I’m not just dreaming a fool’s dream.

Most likely, I’ll die of a burst lung in the first leg.

But I can try, I suppose. And someone gave me a Bracelet of Courage that adds a +1 bonus point to my Bravery stat, so before its effects wane away, I better do something.

Right; armour up. Sword ready. Helmet set. It’s a good day to die.

The Coin Standing Upright

The week was like the rain. Under it I left myself doing nothing, and the undying rhythm of falling water over the roaring and howling winds did its job of drowning me away from over-thinking, and washing away the flecks of trouble that would’ve probably mutated into something mossy and infectious.

And now that I’ve left it, the sun was bright and the warmth gratifying. Somewhere there might’ve been a rainbow.

I’m about to write something that I put off writing for the whole week. I did it because I didn’t know if I could write it. Something told me that I should leave it be, and I left it. And then the week picked up and things went so hectic it felt like the week was one whole, long day.

Now things had settled down, and in a way I’m glad of how busy things went. It felt refreshing, kinda. And now I sit in front of this and the words come.

I guess I did the right thing.

On the Sunday which was the first day of Hari Raya, the Dog Marley passed away.

He was poisoned. That’s all we know. He was poisoned by someone, or some people, with a heart made entirely of dark, stinking shit. I curse that person. I curse them. For whatever malicious intent they did it for, they deserve a similar death. I wish they die alone. I wish their deaths a painful one. They deserved this.

If there’s only one consolation, it was that we were all there beside him when he passed. The whole family. We stayed and waited with our hands on him. I hope that had helped somewhere.

Numbness. No disbelieve. I think I’ve accepted it earlier on. But it pained a lot to come home and see the cage empty, and knowing I can’t call him to come and ask for a kiss, and get that wet lick on the face. Or wrestle that toy away. Or get him to go “Up!” and clamber all over me.

It’s a memory now. Another picture in the hall. One that I’ll see when I walk backwards. I’ll most likely do.

Bob Marley once said that “Love will never leave us alone.” I just need him to know that he never left us, and we will never leave him, and home is always where he belong.

I said it once that day, in a whisper. I write it down now.

Home is always where you belong.





*********

Life’s a coin toss.

Flip it. Call it. Heads, you win. Lady luck and all that jazz. Tails and the world shows you the barren wasteland, and treats you with a glass of radioactive water. It’s all luck. It’s all either good or bad.

But sometimes you get that toss that landed wrongly on the floor. Wrongly because it stood upright. You get one face of the grim reaper with a beckoning finger and a chainsaw and you get the other face of Mona Lisa over the plains of Ida.

Both the good and the bad. And then, that side of the coin that made it stand. The one that neutralised things out. Call it a draw. Everybody loses. Everybody wins.

The bad face of the coin was Marley. The good face of the coin is Lanna giving birth to twins.

Children of the Rastafarian Pup.

I’m one of the happiest man right now. It’s something out of a movie. It’s that feeling of knowing that at the end of the road, there’re new ones. You know that saying. With Death comes Birth.

He left, but he left something behind.

It’s still early; Lanna gave birth this morning and puppies have a shaky first week where things can go wrong. I can only pray, and hope truthfully that they’ll do good. I have my trust in Lanna, but I would like the trust of Fate. And Fate never gives. He only shows.

But golly.

TWINS!

There, I got it out. I’m about to internally combust with the elation.

You hear that, Marley? You see this? You got twins, big boy. You got TWINS.

Watch over them, aights?

*******

There’re a bunch of other things going on, both like the upright coin; a two-sided culmination of good and bad. I’ll write about it some other time.

I’m leaving this last section of the post here to thank a few people. These people were the same people that got some sort of circuitry break in their brains, which ended up turning them into brilliantly insane people (but greatly lovable all the same).

These people are the gang I call friends. And they’ve helped even if some of them didn’t know that they did.

The Monday after Marley passed I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get out like we planned, but I knew I would’ve ended up moody in the room and playing games to drown the thoughts, so I trusted them to cheer me up, give me a good time, and they did it without fail, like they always do.

So here’s to friends; my utmost, greatest, most sincere thanks, for being there and helping me even if you guys didn’t know it. And for those who noticed, somehow, even if I thought I hid it well, thanks for understanding and caring.

Thank you. You guys don’t know how much you’ve helped.

Thank you.

Slurpee in the Rain.

I did the stupidest thing, and bought a Slurpee even though I knew well enough that I’ve been basked in air-conditioner for an entire day at the office, and would be basking in the two hour jam home, and that it was raining and my throat was just about parched, and I Slurped my way to the car (5 minutes under the rain), and Slurped my way home.

And now I have phlegm which might develop into a choky cough tomorrow. Cheers to stupidity.

By the way, a Slurpee in the rain is equivalent to an ice-cream in Genting Highlands after having a go at the water-rush ride thingy that drenches you wet. It’s like a purposely hugging a cactus even though you’re covered in wounds. It’s fun.

****

I’ve been thinking a lot lately.

(This process is known otherwise as Daydreaming, which is healthy in moderation and unhealthy in excess, especially to other people, as collateral damage is inevitable).

I’m starting to think if I’m just being fickle. Lured by a dream that’s hung at a tree like a piñata, vivid and colourful and beckoning with promises in the inside, once beaten open. I guess I’m just being stupid. But it’s there, in my head, and no amount of head-banging-at-the-table is getting it out.

It makes me wonder if I should just sit and let it pass, like it does sometimes, or if I should walk up to it and say hi, let’s do it.

Chances are, when I say hi, there’s no reply.

Shit.

This is really SNAFU.

**********

I didn’t find any old stories over the past few days, but I have a feeling that if I take some time tomorrow, or Sunday, to take a look at the storeroom cabinet, I might find some older notebooks.

Though I’m pretty sure the Terrible Short Stories Book is already gone, perhaps recycled along with the hundreds of used paper over the past decade.

Which reminded me, that two years ago I graduated college with a short-story compilation titled Magnum Opus, all of them written by my college classmates for our Creative Writing course. I found it squeezed between the Webster encyclopaedia and the thesaurus. I’ll probably read it later.

Which also reminded me that I have another Madea to write about, and this time she gets to slay the dragon along with a flower, a cat and an old teacup.

I’ll leave tonight with a video here (that’s awesome, really), before I head to bed.



Right-o. Bonne nuit.

Finding Old Stories

I was clearing out one of the bookshelf cabinets in search of my old certs when I dug out an old folder. I forgot to replace it, and it ended up under my bed until I excavated it from the pile of old bags today. In the folder were a couple of old report cards, and a short story.

I must’ve written it when I was 12 or 13. It was for a friend who asked if I could relate his story in writing, and I did, without any (direct) mention of the people involved.

Gee, it must’ve been my first commission. The first of very few, ahaha.

It’s called By a Piece of Paper. And it happens to be based on something true. It does, however, have no plot or significant meaning.

Let’s see…

Page 1:




My J-E signature is there already, so I’m probably 12 - 14. Denny is the friend who commissioned it. Other names were nicknames of the actual people involved.







Lol, gee, I’m getting Goosebumps, haha.







Yamateh. Brings back memories.








Action!




I spelled sandwich wrong -_-




Oh crud, I used to be called Gary then. The “Terrible Short Stories Book” was never a book; only a few pages of unfinished nonsense.

You can also see that I have already developed necessary skill in escaping possible legal action >.>.

Haha, I really sucked back then, and I still do now. But I remember it as one of the first stories I really, really enjoyed writing. And Denny, well, he couldn’t understand much of the story. I guess that’s why I still have it.

PS: I've unintentionally made the scans kinda small, but I'm too lazy to change anything. Sorry about that.

******

I’ve forgotten.

I used to write a lot. I wrote terribly, but I wrote. A lot. X-files parodies featuring my class monitors (very crude, rude and itself a copy of other parodies). Attempts at making a contributory-type short story compilation book, which didn’t work after a few weeks. And beginning of chapters to novels I always dreamt I could write, but never could.

Some of the unwritten stories are still in my head. I just never brought them back.

I missed those days. When I wasn’t afraid of being judged and weighed. When I was a writer who pride myself in whatever I did, thanks to the naivety of things.

I wonder if the Terrible Short Stories Book is still around.

And the first chapter of Tusanc.

I need to look for them.

And maybe my old, self-drawn comics as well, haha (damn, I never studied).

I wasn’t a student back in school. I was a daydreamer. Who never fulfilled anything.

80 Degrees, and Up

I’ve been trying to tell myself, for the previous two hours, that it’s pointless to write properly when I’m tired and/or sleepy (the equivalent act of trying to fly over a canyon with a cloth and an undaunted trust at the gods of winds), so I don’t know why I’m here, at the advent of imminent exhaustion, trying to write when the words keep forgetting itself every three seconds.

I think someone is having an exam tomorrow, and while she won’t probably read this (she never does, I think, exams or otherwise), it’s still high-time to wish her all the best and go crazy with the broadsword.

I also think that I’ve forgotten something rather important, and I’d really, really hate to wake up in the morning cursing myself.

I’ve been trying to revisit Resident Evil 4 today, considering RE5 comes out on the 15th, forgetting that I absolutely suck in the game and have little tolerance of the constant flow of fear and tension. What transpired was a lot of shouting as I try to run haplessly away from crazed villagers while my mother bustled around telling me to clean my room.

(In the end, I got decapitated by Dr. Salvatore, or so I believe he’s called, with a chainsaw while getting stuck behind the staircase without the shotgun).

******

Sometimes I tell myself that Broga Hill is softcore while maintaining a certain allusion that it’s just as hardcore as things can be if you take away the extremities of what people always put themselves through. Hence, the allusion becomes an illusion and I pride myself rather pathetically for being able to scale a very easy hill weekly.

But extremities, as it tends to be, is what that makes up the greater portion of Life as we know and love, and while mostly avoidable, tends to present itself in the bare-faced grin only the Grim Reaper can give, hoods down.

Today was one of the extremities. It wasn’t the foliage of new, freshly trekked jungles unfamiliar to anyone. It wasn’t entirely the feeling of growing disappointment that middle-aged aunties (with leotard-tight, um, tights, and walking sticks) besting me in terms of stamina and endurance. It wasn’t the mosquitoes nor the several bugs that managed to find its way into my clothes every now and then. Truth is, I’ve been through most of them and I love them. I have a sense of naïve adventurism that’s just as it is, naïve.

Today’s extremity was the 80 degrees, almost perpendicular, almost Vertical Limit vertical slope we faced. Three times I said, “Hot Diggity Demon.”

And yet I surprised myself. I expected to die halfway up, my lungs collapsing inwards as my brain fall into pitch darkness, my legs failing as I tumble downwards and rolling on top of unseen rocks and burnt grass until my body lodge itself between two trees, which at that time meant that I’m as dead as the cadavers in India.

Somehow I get to keep going, and going, and going, and somewhere I wondered if it’s really out of the hands of muscles or cardiovascular endurance. It’s probably adrenaline or some sort of elixir-type rejuvenation caused by some obscured insect bite, giving me a temporary burst of strength.

No place to step. Find it. Climb. Step. Look up. Say Hot Diggity Demon. Climb. Step. Climb. Step. Slip. Climb. Oh FUCKING HELL IT ENDED.

It’s gonna hurt in the morning.

But strangely, as I say it, and believing it, it was wonderful. Great. Worth everything. No beautiful view at the top, no nothing. Just some minute sense of self-satisfaction that I didn’t die halfway up. It feels great. It feels like I can do it next week.

It’s just as extremities are. Going to and sometimes over your limits.

Yeah. I might just be able to do a bit more next time.

(And yet, for tomorrow and the days after, I will hate climbing the stairs to the office and ending up trying not to pant in front of colleagues).

One-month Mark

Crossed it. It’s like a concrete bridge over The Endless Void; still steady, still safe, but one slip and it’s aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh…………… (hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……)

I’ve been spending the week trying to pass myself off as somehow who understood whatever the presenters said, which I probably can try if I’d exert a bit of concentration, but most of the time they lost me whenever the introductions end.

I’d nod occasionally and smile at the jokes, but inside I’m imagining scenarios where 12-footed monsters start barging in and tossing everyone around, impaling the presenter with the chair and kicking a hapless PR rep out the hotel window, while I ran the heck away.

I don’t hate anyone. It’s just so incredibly boring and, well, jargonistic (not a word).

(And I’m not exactly part of the industry. At least, the non-writing parts >.>).

Secondyly.

The month’s issue came out, and I have it at home with me. I’ve made a couple of mistakes and by golly, there’s so much room for improvement, I better start buying a new mop and brush, plus robotic limbs to help me through.

For the most part, all I see are mistakes, mistakes, mistakes (by me).

Secondyly was one of them.

Time to buck up, baby.

********

I wish I’m better looking. That way, that mug of me over the Ominous Grey Column would be of a handsome, well proportioned face. Instead, you’ll be looking at an eggplant with acne.

Now, I hope I get feedback. Someone to tell me that I’m sucking very badly so that I can get better and start making sense. Or to tell me that I’m better off quitting the industry. Either way, it’s so I can stop assuming things. Worse things. Better to get the slap firsthand than to realise an obscured knife between the shoulder blades several years earlier.

At any rate, I’m still kind of irrepressibly happy.

Like Fred Astaire in a certain gym, the weighs don’t matter once you hear the rhythm and the music.

And then there was none.

At first, Happy died in the gutter. We wrapped him up in a plastic bag and dad returned him to the ‘green, green grass of home.’

Then dad went on his Euro trip and came home with a grand proposal; after observing how the Europeans keep their rabbits, he announced that he would be letting the rabbits roam free in the garden, where food is in abundance and the cage would never require cleaning again. Part of me rejoiced. Another wondered if this hare-brained idea would work when all that’s left to protect the rabbits are the fact that they should be able to outrun any potential danger.

Then the dad announced that both dogs will be freely roaming the garden as well.

Sometime later, Miss Grey was found dead with her eyes close to popping out of her sockets.

I wasn’t there; I was at work, which is a thankful thing, because I would’ve had to wrap it up as well. Instead, the brother had to do it. That night, we mused to ourselves the possible assailants of Miss Grey, concluding with a consensus that it was one of the dogs.

A few days after, Lucky was killed and her head was missing. The crime happened in plain sight of the dad. It was Lanna ‘the bear cub’ Wolfenstein.

We never found the head. It was either devoured or buried as winter food.

Now we have no rabbits and the cage is an empty reflection of a home abandoned, and slowly claimed by time.

We’ve had two. Then it became three. And then there was none.

A thread of deafening silence hung in the air (now forgotten, for the rabbits were, well, rabbits…).

*********

I never blamed Lanna. It was instinct. The awakening of a dormant impulse, surged outwards in a single instant and wham; we have a wolf. A hunter. An urge formed by the German Sheppard within her, escalated by the blood of a hound-mongrel that was her father. No more rabbits.

We did punish her, though.

She’s still back to her playful, oblivious self. Maybe she will dream about it as the finest achievement of her life; the successful hunt. The bear cub, now closer to a bear.

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

I forgot to mention, what with the advent of work and the stuff that comes with it, that the brother is now back from the English shores and has comfortable reintegrated himself into Malaysian lifestyle and culture.

He hasn’t developed an accent, but has learned how to break an arm in various ways, and I am already the unwilling dummy.

He is, rather unfortunately (for me), still the same.

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

While watching the blade of grass dance to the soft wind on a hill overlooking the world’s horizon, I suddenly came to a revelation.

It was the type of revelation in a form of a resolution. And I’m going to do it. But it being a resolution would mean I would eventually either forget about it, or give it up halfway.

Between the chirps of the passing sparrow and the early chorus of crickets, it felt as though the wind has bound a Japanese “YOSH!” headband over my forehead, not really ebbing even after dinner.

I cracked my knuckles.

Wings, and about the first two weeks.

She departed with bags in her hands, and we waved from the railings. She disappeared amidst the reflection of lights and solid roofing on the marble floor, like traipsing away on tiled stars that bridged into a place we cannot follow. What a stupid analogy. It sounded like that other journey, and bear in mind that this isn’t. But it just seemed so that day. A farewell of gravity that didn’t sink in until the apple drops, so much later.

I’m glad I went to say goodbye.

I don’t mean to make it sound so sombre, for it isn’t. It’s a wonderful sending-off with lots of laughs and great memories. In another way it’s like giving H1N1 the middle finger and marching into the airport to bid bon voyage. I guess I’m allowed to exercise a small degree of sentimentalism, no? Brand me as guilty.

At any rate, I heard that she’s safe in Australia and is probably having fun. Cheers :)

But I guess we have these kind of moments in life. Watching a person with metallic wings on their backs that blink in red and blue, flying away, and wondering when you’ll see them and revisit old times, however briefly.

That night, a shoulder shook. Slightly. When I watch it walk away, slung over the shoulders of another , it seemed heavier and ready, then, to start growing its own set of metallic wings with blinking lights, to pick up the coming wind and in time find itself southland.

(Ok, sentimentalism over. Emo filtered out of body and selectedly vapourised).

******

I can’t say much about the first two weeks of work. That’s because it’s still a blur to me, and if I try to recollect, it’s like re-watching a movie with an impaired eyesight looking through sunglasses. But, even if I ask myself to be truthfully honest (bare bones completely naked type honesty), I can only truthfully answer that I’m actually having a lot of fun.

I’m happiest, I suppose, because I’m allowed to write. And this is actual writing. Writing with a stake in hand, with actual readership to inform and entertain, with lots to lose and lots to gain. Writing with a degree of creativity and freedom. Writing with enjoyment.

It’s perhaps still early to say, being only two weeks, but I think I like this job.

I just hope I don’t catch myself here months later to bitch or blame or bombard in a show of pure, utter hypocrisy. Lets not get ahead of myself.

Ah, I’m hired as a Grade E5 Writer, the grade meaning absolutely nothing to me, unless it denotes my corporative rank, which is rightfully correct, then; I’m lowest of lowest, so to speak, and it’s the way to start off a career.

For the moment, I spend my time writing for the magazine, with the occasional proofreading and light editing in between. Away from work, I try to invest my time in picking up more knowledge to improve upon the topic of which is my magazine’s niche (which, sad to say, is not exactly my strong point).

I went to work at the calm before the turmoil, of which wasn’t anything chaotic, nor exactly immense in workload (yet), but takes up long hours of the day. In a twisted sort of manner, I found myself working midnights at the second week at work. It wasn’t a horrific experience; on the contrary, I actually enjoy it very much.

Right now I face a third week, which so happens at the start of the month, and I expect to start doing work a little more independently.

I have my own business card now. It makes me feel… yeah. Whoa yeah.

*********

Some stuff before I sleep:



I’m a wee bit disappointed; perhaps I was overhyped a bit. But it looks beautiful.

Here, a song I dedicate to those who remember, and are remembered:





Bonne nuit!