raffles waffles

Fat Ass

2011-02-28T10:47:00.002+08:00

I know I'm not supposed to be here but just wanted to say one last thing.

Let me begin by announcing just how grossed out I feel.

I've not stepped inside a gym for over a year now (did I mention I live right opposite one?) except for that one time a few weeks ago when I attempted to cancel my membership. Then a cute guy told me not to and I totally caved, hence I still pay RM170 a month for nothing and the fact remains that I still haven't worked out in over a year.

Secondly, I've been eating every meal as if it's Christmas lunch. Christmas 2010 itself was a mad frenzy of roasted carcasses and token vegetables, then Sri Lanka was a trip down a never ending buffet line (3 buffet meals a day!). Back home it was catch up on Chinese New Year feasting with "get-together" banquets back to back. Honestly, how is it a "reunion" when we see each other all the time anyway? It really falls hard on people like mw who have more than one family, several groups of friends and work in PR for a living. Then came this stupid Beef Wellington crusade I embarked myself on, just 'cos I have an oven now and feel the need to hold a bake off (against myself!) with pizzas and pastries and scones etc etc too much! too much!

I'm a self-confessed glutton but honestly I can feel, feel my skin stretching to accomodate the additional content. Right now, as I type, I'm actually taking shallower breaths, because my diaphragm will surely pop otherwise. I am not exaggerating.

The last straw was last night. RM30 all you can eat Korean stone BBQ and steamboat.

Fark, I wasn't even hungry to begin with (having had dim sum for lunch, Belgian fries with aioli at Ben's for tea, and a pastry visit to Lavein for fun). But shit who can deny human nature when there are rows of food for the picking and a bargain to be had.

The food wasn't bad per se, but there's something so carnal about raw meat lyng around and all that grabbing and cooking and stuffing. And after I'd stuffed myself so full that I had to stand (as sitting actually hurt - I swear I had to stand with my hands on the table and lean forward, but not too much as to induce a reversal of food flow down my trachea), I felt so so disgusted. Suddenly the smell of burning meat and the flies were overwhelming and I just had to get out of there, except my friends had just got more live prawns to throw into the boiling soup.

When we finally got to paying at the counter, I saw two things that really did it in for me. Firstly an aquarium filled (and I mean packed) with frogs (you know those edible ones Chinese people just can't seem to get enough of: directly translated they are known as "paddy field chickens" - ya rite!). They were all clamouring against each other for air - all uniformly looking heaven-ward as if performing their own last rites instinctively knowing the end was imminent. Then, someone made an order for two and the waiter pulled out two frogs and one by one, held their legs in his hand and slammed their heads on the edge of the aquarium before skinning them and cutting them up for dunking into hot, sweet soup.

Oh Lord, am I never ever going back there again!

I'm so grossed out by myself and all the food that I've eaten that my humble slice of rye bread this morning looked suspiciously like a slice of rib eye. You know what they say about abusive relationships. That sometimes you have to sink to your lowest before you find the strength to say "enough is enough" and get out. Well, in my case, I'm pretty sure I'm sunk (from sheer weight) - the year is almost closing its 1st trimester and it's time to work out, eat healthily and buy lots of makeup in time for the year-end parties!

PS. My bikini is actually too tight now :( and it's Lycra...!

C' yazzzz

2011-02-24T11:47:00.002+08:00

I'm sick to death with emotion. Negative emotions to be precise. Simply bored to tears with it. I think I've been drowning in it for most of my life - mine, others' - too much.

Negativity-free, I'm outta here. Is it a phase? A new turn in the path of life? Who knows? Short of filling this blog with home DIY projects and badly-spelled words, there are only so many ways I can express how content and lucky I feel right now with everything. It would be narcisisstic to go on and on about it. Almost like an advertisement to be jinxed.

So its time for a hiatus, yet again. As they say, no news is good news, right?

Fare thee well poppits :) Till wheneverrrrr...

C'est La Vie!

2011-02-10T10:38:00.001+08:00

My birthday is coming up. And I am asked what special plans have I got? What achievements have I to celebrate?

Yes, it's nice to have a party but to celebrate my life? I've had a happy life, reviewing it makes me happy, makes me laugh out loud in many parts and tear up in others; overall, it fills me with pride and a sense of excitement anticipating what's to come. My life is special to me but only for now and only to me.

Another year and all the cliches apply. How fast time passes, how things whizz by us and how we age, subtly but surely.

If there's anything that I can deduce from my little time here is that while we might think our own lives are so unique, they really aren't.

While we feel our pain and joys so very acutely, it's really going on all around us, everyday to everybody. We might think our own trials and tribulations are so very exclusive to ourselves, they aren't and all the cliches apply.

Meaning, we are spinning with the world and living it as we were made to do. Churning the cycle that churns us, a worker amongst a thousand ants. Never throwing a spanner in the works even though we might think we do with our humanity and evil. Whether a man is murdered , someone ran for Presidency or started a revolution. Someone somewhere at sometime or other has done it all before. Buddha, Hitler, Ghandi.

And so we will come and we will go. Be reduced to ashes only to be reborn to do it all over again. Just like everything before us and everything to come.

Why? Well there is the eternal question that will never be answered.

Working the wheel. A worker amongst thousand ants.

The Black Eyes Peas & Thosai Masala

2011-01-25T10:13:00.001+08:00

I don't really know how I got here but I never ever imagined that I would be the sort to be tied down to a mortgage, to taking holidays in really short blocks and goddammit to be enjoying my work.

It's soooo not what I planned but sooooo working out quite well.

So I guess the whole point is to not bemoan my poor slave-like existence but to actually enjoy life under the whip. The perks of not dreading work everyday, of loving my glorious new flat, of feeling a little bit proud when I give wads of cash to the bank every month, of beating the jam by 5 precious minutes everyday, of substituting my social life with a Black Eyed Peas sing-along in the car as people in the bus stare, of gossiping with fellow Mums and actually enjoying it as intellectual conversation.

Going off on a tangent, I was sitting in Nirvana this morning with my thosai masala when I realised I was surrounded by Chinese New year decorations and "gong xi gong xi gong xi ni" blasting from the speakers.

Life is loveable in all the little things.

Moving Is A Nightmare

2011-01-05T09:30:00.001+08:00

O.M.G.

Am finally in!

But...

...am all over the place and can't get the TVs to work. Oh noooo!

Glad to be back at work and away from the mess though.

Merry Christmas To You!

2010-12-24T17:05:00.004+08:00

It's the first Christmas Eve I've had to work. Yup as people are running around doing last minute shopping or basting whatever's in the oven, I'm here at work (obviously not working) but still here nonetheless.

In fact, it's the most un-Christmassy Christmas. Buying paint, ceiling fans, kitchen cabinets, wall fixtures, blah blah and completely indulging in ordering people around. There's the spirit of giving...giving orders to be precise.

But, I'm pleased to say that moving flat has not put me off jingling bells. In fact, it's made me want it even more. All the trappings of a commercial Christmas: Santa stockings, candy cane, brussel spouts and Mariah Carey's new Christmas album. I embrace them all!

Poor me, I'm basically robbed of a Christmas. Everybody's off travelling and torturing us with pictures of them skiing or slugging wine in some vineyard. Thank you FB for that. Then Mum realises that Bun and I are actually fully grown (and a bit more) and therefore sees no need to celebrate - "I'm not Christian, why should I celebrate Christmas?", she says. My reply that there is absolutely no shame in celebrating a commercial Christmas did little to sway her over-principled Capricorn sensibilities.

And to make it worse, Fellow Corp Comm Practitioner decides to get married tonight...and so there will be rendang and bandung in place of stuffing and mulled wine. Very inconsiderate I told her...

Then there is the matter of this weekend. Which I shall spend painting walls - yes, all by my lonesome self unless Rich Boy Upstairs or Freaky Single Dad really do mean their offers to help out. Do or die Khaki will be transformed to Dior Grey by Sunday evening.

And to add insult to injury, I have to dress up for a fancy dress party on Christmas night! Firstly I don't do dress ups. Secondly, instead of dozing off in a haze of brandy butter, I'm going to have to put on a very tight dress, place a wig over my head and attempt to look like Helena Bonham Carter - or general crazed person. And its Italian food...!

To save me from this very bizarre Christmas, Thank The Lord for Cougar who leaps to the rescue, albeit it reluctantly (because she will be hungover from tonight) with a fabulous Christmas lunch at The Y Mansion. There will be people, presents and potatoes (ie. turkey)! Yippee! So there is Hope after all., which is the overall message of this post and of er, Christmas in general....

So, Wishing A Warm Merry Christmas To All, especially to those freezing in most parts of the world...Cheers!

O.M.G.

2010-12-15T15:25:00.005+08:00

You know the episode in Glee Season 2 when Finn discovers Grilled Cheesus? Well I think its happening to me. But without the grilled cheese.

An explanation for non-Glee fans: Finn discovers an image of Jesus on his grilled cheese sandwich and proceeds to worship it (that's TV for you!) and lo and behold, his prayers come true! Not that I'm drawing parallels between my life and fictional TV plots (Grey's Anatomy is NOT real!) but lately, my wishes have been coming true and I can't help but wonder: could God be finally answering my prayers?

Let me give you an example. As you know, I've gone all homey because I'm doing up my humble new abode (incidentally, it's themed: narcissistic explosion of self indulgence - LOVE). I''m pawing the pages off Elle Decorating and all I see page after page are the most grogeous divine have-to-have Madeline Weinrib carpets in everybody's insanely tasteful homes. Want want want. Unfortunately the cost and hassle of buying it all the way from NYC leaves one with a depressing outlook of Ikea padded floors. I wept an imaginery tear and mumbled for God to be fair.

Scene Two: this afternoon, I bump into Hippo's ex girlfriend and she tells me her family business is customised carpet manufacturing. "We copy all kinds of carpets, including those in magazines," she proclaims, like an office-attired Gabriel handing out her business card. I'm sorry but if that's not God answering a prayer, I don't know what it is.

And then I wished wished for a chandy in the dining room. Of course, all that stupid crystal costs a bomb but lo and behold, after a quick prayer, I find not one but like an entire range of affordable chandies ON SALE in SSF and get this... my colleague whips out her SSF Corporate Card entitling me to EVEN MORE DISCOUNT.

It's freaky and spiritual at the same time.

Then I prayed for thinness and the doctor proceeds to prescribes thyroid medication for weight loss without me even asking! OK so I haven't lost any weight but I can see that God is trying (not His fault that moving stubborn fat is like moving an entire mountain range).

And then! I prayed for a cold holiday seeing that so many people I know are off to lovely wintry vacations and I'm stuck chasing lawyers in stifling KL. Guess what He sends me? An impromptu weekend in Fraser's! Complete with horses, roast dinners and strawberry jam! I'll take it!

There are so many incidents. Honestly, far too many to recount. Like wishing I had a social life and then receiving an invite to hang out almost immediately. Or wishing for money and then somebody writing me a cheque the next day. It is truly freaky and beyond coincidence. God is FINALLY listening!

So Bubbit asked me the other day, if I could have wishes what would they be? So I told him for children to stop starving, for people to stop fighting and last but certainly not least, WEALTH FOR ME!

Perhaps I should start buying lottery tickets?

Wondering About Wandering

2010-12-01T10:20:00.000+08:00

I cannot keep house. My maid has taken it upon herself to extend her holiday for another week and I cannot keep house. The laundry baskets have spilled over, ants are beginning to appear again, the in-house cockroaches are getting smaller (they have been reproducing!), Puffy is getting grumpy and Bubbit is getting grumpy.

I would love to keep house. I would love to douse the place with detergent and just scour with a really coarse brillo pad. Despite my regular lazy self, there is a little Monica inside who just wants to get out and get anal. But there just isn't the time. From shipping Bubbit from one class to another, to sorting out his new school application, to hanging out in Kamdar, to meeting up with contractors, curtain people, movers, etc, to getting a mall opened in January (in that order of priority!) there is simply no time to scrub. No time for rub a dub dub. We simply have to attempt a harmonious existence with baby cockroaches for the meantime.

I often yearn to move out to the sticks and lead a simple life. You know, grow chilli, sell fried noodles, sew my own curtains. Lead a blissfully simple existence and have the time to reflect, ponder, dream, wonder and engage the imagination. It does dawn that I am raising a child in an unsuitable urban environment, where we marvel at skyscrapers and video game graphics rather than fish for tadpoles and learn about the different species of banana. You know, children naturally gravitate towards learning about nature and history and geography and why things are the way they are. And sad to say, I often don't know the answer, being a product of an urban childhood, or don't have the time to find out. "We'll Google It" has become reply of choice. Of course, we never get around to it because once we're online, it's straight to the games. And so we have to contend with Petrosains and the like, which do a marvellous job but it's a further reinforcement of learning from 3rd parties rather than first hand isn't it. It's not the same as fishing for tadpoles is it.

So my point is...well I have no point really, except that I do think about moving away somewhere quieter. And simpler. And I wonder if that really is more than an occasional wish or if it is a viable option. I discovered that I do have a strange liking for small towns - Ipoh, Kota Kinabalu, Mentakab (?!)...Of course I do love the city and being in the thick of it all, so wherever I go has to have access if you know what I mean. I wonder about what I will do to make a living. I wonder what kind of school Bubbit will attend. I wonder if people will visit. I wonder where. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder.

Trippin'

2010-11-12T09:51:00.003+08:00

I'm tumbling fast down the cool slide.

My two favourite places to hang out in are Kamdar and Ace Hardware. Textiles and paint. Life is complete.

Bye bye bars, restos and cafes....kissing your snooty hoochies bye bye.

Last night I stayed up late (well, 15 minutes beyond designated 10.30pm bedtime) to watch You Tube videos on: How To Paint On Laminate.

O.M.G.

Not about how sad that sounds. But O.M.G! Laminate can be painted??

Yup, treat it like any wooden furniture that has been painted/stained. Sandpaper or paint strip it, prime it and paint paint paint!

The flat is now hunting ground for potential victims. I've already identified 8 pieces (laminated and wood-stained) to be repainted/restaind, including my massive bed frame. Poor little maid-en...she's plenty busy! Gotta work for her super expensive plane ticket home to the Philo this month.

While on a roll, lightning did strike (dementia or genius?) - I shall paint my bedroom walls....

Salmon.

Woot woot!

If I had some land, I'd plant some vegetables

2010-11-09T10:58:00.002+08:00

It all started when Edna got me a tray of kampung eggs direct from the wholesaler. So fresh! So tasty! So yellow! It was then when it hit home that we've been eating load of crap. Mushy battery farmed chicken, tasteless fish, onions that don't even sting the eyes anymore. I remember a domestic goddess once showed me a knob of turmeric picked from his mother's garden, as vivid as saffron compared to its pale anaemic cousin from the supermarket.

Last week Bubbit broke out in hives all over his precious baby torso after indulging in a new Twisties flavour: Bolognese Cheesy Onion...as if the name was not a warning in itself.

I'm not going to preach about going all organic and holistic...it can be extremely annoying, especially when people overdo it and start downing enzymes and sticking plasters on their feet to 'detox'. There is a load of hogwash riding pilion on this organic bandwagon, but when it comes to ice caps melting and polar bears drowning and egg yolks turning a whiter shade of pale, my tastebuds and conscience have to hop on take over the reigns! Yee haw!

I recall I wrote Something about this waaay back when I was 'enlightened'. Cause and effect. Living with consequence. Basically shit coming back and chewing you in the arse. That post was so deep, it took me a while to understand it again. In a nutshell, henceforth, I am trying to provide Bubbit and I with a healthier life. Healthier in terms of what we eat (better quality food, more natural food and certainly no more freaky pale yolks), healthier in habit (trying to minimise the binges - hypoglycaemia is no longer a friend), healthier in what we do (outdoor play vs video games), healthier in vibe and energy, well basically everything...

Big change in lifestyleI know, but baby steps...we can't rock and roll all our lives can we? Besides even rockers vinyasa nowadays...

Home Is Where The Heart Is

2010-11-03T09:38:00.000+08:00

Can I just say that I'm in a darn jolly place right now.

Not that I'd been in a horrible place but y'know, it's all sunshine and peonies right now.

I highly recommend buying a flat. If you can afford it, it probably works out in the long term to cost as much as therapy. And hey presto, you come out with an asset too at the end of the day.

Buying a flat comes with all kinds of grown up things to do, such as sorting out one's finances. Meaning like once and for all. Meaning paying off the credit card debt and keeping it off. Now that's a big one for me. I managed a cashflow spread sheet the other day. Yeah, laugh. But it was fun. Quite enjoyed it really.

Buying a flat also means spending one's own money. It's nowhere near as pleasurable as spending someone else's but obviously that's not going to happen, so my cash it will have to be. All very grown up.

And one's home is really an expression of one's self right? So there's also all that "Who am I?" going on in the background. And obviously I have no straight answer to that so my home will, purely by default, take on what I would like to think as a bohemian/eclectic/fune look/vibe/thing. Which will have to do until something more polished and refined comes along.

You know, this isn't my first property, neither is it my first renovation and decorating effort. In fact, the first was bigger, tearing down of walls and new floors and relocating entire rooms. This time around is like paddling in the baby pool in comparison but somehow it feel so much bigger and I have complete buy-in and ownership of the project. It's so scary (the debt!) but at the same time so amazingly fulfilling to be doing this alone.

I've turned down 2 social events this week to hang out with my contractor. This is the life!

The vampires in Bon Ton would not find me appealing

2010-10-13T12:01:00.000+08:00

Crap. I haven't been well.

My gynaecologist declared: "You are imbalanced".

Tell me something I don't know.

You know what they say about not trusting something that bleeds for 5 days and doesn't die. Try 4 months.

Now I understand why my body has been so strange lately. Like how relaxing weekends away exhaust me so much I fall sick. Or why my eyes are so itchy I have to scratch (yes, scratch with like, my nails). Or why I get hot and cold flushes as if I'm 60. Or why I'm either falling asleep exhausted or insomniacally wandering the house at dawn. I think I hit the worst bit last night when, panting from the walk from the sofa to the bathroom (yes, as in short of breath), throat sore with blisters from one measly, not even nice Happy Meal, I thought I'd better have a look at the insides of my eye bags and true enough, there was no blood to be found. Not a drop. Like not even enough for a True Blood vampire to sniff me out.

Crap. I'm like the fattest anaemic person I know.

In my zombie state, I try and stay home. Rest. Chill out. Take it easy. All alien concepts of course.

So totally bored I felt the need to scare myself silly with The Shining.

Jack Nicholson is freaky but Shelly Duvall is freakier.

I'm into Rome now (yes, like 10 years behind). Lots of nudity (male and female, yay) and am spending my nights drooling over Marc Anthony. Am tempted to read Shakespeare's Anthony & Cleopatra again, seeing as that requires no physical effort except blinking and page-turning. Meanwhile, Bub and maid are getting really good at bringing me orders of juice and water. They're good slaves.

I'm sure I'm supposed to link this health dip to some sort of life lesson but the lack of blood has made me really shallow. I can't think of deep things when thinking in itself requires effort. Am far better at rattling off whatever trivia comes to mind rather then analyse the meaning of why I am imbalanced. It's a good time to take a vow of silence and eat lentils at an ashram.

So let's hope I feel better by next week. I need to be back to normal by end of this month. I move very soon and would really like to get started soon! More on that to come.

Spinning Holiday

2010-09-23T22:15:00.000+08:00

My family and I are planning a cycling trip in Europe next spring. Of course I was left in charge of research. I came back with initial thoughts involving undulating lavendar-scented trails of Provence and Eastern European vampiric mystique. I even got off the beaten track. Waay off continent even. Eg. a 14-day Yunnan trail filled with history and beauty. All got shot down. My Dad was very specific and I quote: "Why did I mention Holland? That's right, 'cos it's flat".

So chips and mayonnaise it is.

Back to the drawing block. Or rather Google search.

Jack Nicholson should do the trick!

2010-09-07T14:34:00.005+08:00

Every now and then, I do something very indulgent. I read my old posts and think about how witty and clever I am! And pat myself on the back, for writing. Even if it's just for practice.

This Hedonistic exercise of browsing my own blog shows me how far along I've come - how I've moved on with so many things yet still grapple with some of the same issues. This diary of sorts is a fantastic reminder of how I felt and perceived life, because trust me, once I write something down, it's out like a light. It's forgotten.

Yes, I have a gold fish brain. It's pretty scary because I've read my own stuff before without realising I had written it. Yes, moving swiftly on...

And the comments: I am reminded that people once came by. Though it is not the reason why I post, it's interesting to see how my little corner came to be discovered in increasingly populated cyberspace.

More importantly, however, I notice that there are progressively fewer 'heavy' posts. The strength of this blog, to me, was its posts - that were about anger, fear, frustrations, confusion, of being lost, sadness, happiness etc etc which threw into the air so many questions about life and religion, relationships and connections, universe and our place.

Fark, now, it's all about Emmy dresses and upholstering folders! I mean, I've even covered the blog with floral wallpaper!

It was meant to be a dumping hole. With visitors.

Now, it's a toilette.

Obviously life takes us up and down and up and down. BUT. But, we must always have substance and not rely solely on aesthetics. Sure, upholstering DVD folders is enchanting and cute but what is the Meaning behind it? What have we Learned from it? What's the Message?

I really need to conjure up some deep stufff to blog about. Something dark and mysterious and questioning. Perhaps Jack Nicholson will inspire me? Am trying to psych myself up to watching The Shining. I am PETRIFIED of Horrors but am so curious. Maybe that will shatter this pink floral bubble and I'll change my blog appearance to black again. Well, no, not that opressive black...

How boring were the Emmy dresses this year?!

2010-08-30T22:57:00.000+08:00

Spent the entire day in a series of meetings and it was strangely fulfilling. I'm a little worried I may be enjoying my job more than I will allow myself to.

Nevertheless, I'm glad tomorrow's a holiday.

I'm going to spend it with friends and the gleeful knowledge that I have been asked to audit a couple of spas at exotic locales for a regional award. How lucky am I?!

Fanatic Finish

2010-08-27T10:03:00.005+08:00

Today I deleted "The Food Fanatic", a blog about my relationship with my one true love. Food. I started in 2006 and administrated it, fairly actively for just over a year. It's being spammed to death and frankly speaking not doing very much since the last post was in 2007! It was thoroughly fulfilling to write in but blogs are like cyber babies, in need of constant attention and a piece of you.

Like this blog, Fanatic was initiated at a time when I was going through a phase of massive self expression but since then, I have moved on with many other things that vie for my time. That includes the starting up of a new blog (oh here we go again!). I'm currently working on its look and trying to teach myself Photoshop from scratch. It is most likely a travel one with super duper piccies (hopefully).
Part of growing up is learning to acknowledge my limits.

Preservation is the key word for those in their 30s. Preserve your sanity while kids/other halves/cretins at work drive you crazy and preserve inner calm when your hormones/skin/breasts/thighs/hair begin to sag/dimple/grow/freak out.

Preservation = slow down.

I am going through a chapter of intense inspiration and gung-ho and its a wondeful and exciting time to be. History suddenly seems so intriguing, art takes on a fresh appeal, politics is freakishly stimulating, sometimes I can't wait to get to work in the mornings. Even staying at home is an event filled with wonder and great fulfillment.

Anyway, the point is my body is saying chill the hell out and get some sleep every now and then.
So, although I haven't been posting on Fanatic, deleting it is very symbolic for me. It's my way of acknowledging that I can only do so much. I do it with a little sadness but of course, I've exported the entire blog onto my external hard drive so its still there in a way. Thank you to those who visited andtook the time to read about my take on our common love.

A Free Palestinian State

2010-08-26T10:37:00.009+08:00

After watching a documentary of our former Prime Minster on the Bio channel, I'm now quite hooked on his blog.

Love him or hate him, the man is legendary. Of the many things I admire about him, I am grateful for his efforts under the PGPO and the drawing of Malaysian interest to the seige of Gaza. Without PGPO's direct involvement, I doubt if many Malaysians (especially non Muslims) would have batted an eyelid when turning the pages of the NST. It would have fallen unnoticed along with the regular reports of suicide bombs and accusations of miraculously disappearing nuclear weapons that have numbed us into indifference. With the exposure gained via PGPO, Malaysians are united against a terrorist nation that has for far too long, escaped backlash for its actions. This is also because Gaza is not a religious issue but a humanitarian one.

I am anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic, hence I do not agree with the existence of the state of Israel. But "Fuck you Jew" slogans and the boycott of bagels ain't gonna inconvenience anyone but ourselves. Going by this rationale, we may as well stop watching American movies and give up hamburgers (Ramly included) for indirectly supporting the continued existence of Israel.

I do not for a second forget that the Jews were persecuted. But the carving out of long occupied Palestinian land and displacing people to make way for an ideal is unjustifiable. Is it too late to undo the creation of Israel? Tricky. Israeli actions need to be criminalised and an independant Palestinian state be allowed to exist.

Enabling this lies in the unity of Palestinians, displaced or under siege, and their supporters.

I chanced upon a comment left in one of Tun's posts and I find in it a hopeful message:

"Living to fight another day. This is the proven point throughout the history. It is etched whether be it in the Indian epics such as Mahabaratha ...or Greek mythology or even Sun Tsu's famous tactics of wars as in--"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious. "....

India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border." - Hu Shih (Former Ambassador of China to US -1891 - 1962)
This applies till today. Just look no further than Mahatma Gandhi,Sun Yet Sen,Ho Chi Minh and etc....They preserved themselves in another land which is a foreign soil till the time was ripe...to fight a fruitful fight which yielded results.

The Palestinians & Muslims have numbers in their side.Which the Jews do not.Trust me , the numbers always win--eventually.Just like China & India for examples.They were once a vanquished land but just look at them now.So will Indonesia.It will rise.Mark my words.
Hence the best bet to fight evil or any evil for that matter is self-preservation.Preserve and nurture a future generation who than will eventually conquer an unjustful empire ; as Israel exemplifies itself now.How?

Because time and tide does not stands still.And the only thing that is certain about anything is change.As the timeless saying goes "This too shall pass" (Persian:این نیز بگذرد, een niz bogzarad, Hebrew: גם זה יעבור, gam zeh yaavor, Turkish: Bu da geçer) is a proverb indicating that all material conditions, positive or negative, are temporary. ...USA military might too shall pass ...and Israel 's honeymoon with US too shall pass..the world's fascination with Jew's military might at the expense of innocent human lives too shall pass....When that happens Israel ceases to exist....and oce again nature takes over. And it gives back to it's natural natives."

2010-08-23T22:50:00.002+08:00

Gosh, is it really still Monday?

I've had a stressful day at work. It feels like ages ago since I got into work just this morning. Spent the entire day working on a Powerpoint presentation and am completely vacant now.

Anyway, can't for the life of me recall why I started this post except to announce that I've set up a new blog for travel and hobbies or just travel. Haven't figured it out yet. Haven't posted anything yet. I don't even know why I have 3 blogs except that I am so inspired these days to pursue every little thing. Full time worker, full time Mum, full time daughter, full time buying a flat, full time photographer, art and crafter, cook, driver, party-go-er, mahjong player and now blogger. I'm not complaining. I have bags under my eyes, but have plenty of eye cream.

As soon as the travel blog is up and running, I shall no doubt do a little bit of advertising on this platform.

I'm merging normal language with work language.

It's time for bed. Nanite folks.

What To Do On A Sunday Evening

2010-08-23T14:55:00.023+08:00

Two weeks ago, I decided to finally ‘upholster’ my DVD folders. I bought the folders at the SS2 pasar malam for something like RM4 each. They come in admittedly boring but fairly decent colours. I initially wanted to do a pale green and rose pink thing but ended up buying silver, navy, red and black too so that went out the window and in came the need to cover them up – quickly!

Again, the initial idea remained an idea. I was going to do them up with gorgeous Heather Bailey fabrics, especially from her Nicey Jane range. After a whole afternoon spent browsing through them a few weeks back, I was set to pack my bags for Vermont and spend my days frolicking in autumn leaves and baking Apple Charlottes.

But I would have ended up having to participate in The Biggest Loser. Plus after buying bits of furniture and art supplies and lycra dresses and prints of Lady Godiva prancing naked about Leicester and what not, I decided to just work with what I had.

What I did, and still do have, is a chest full of fabric. Most of them I cannot bring myself to cut up because I do take them out every now and then and stroke them lovingly. I know, I’ve been told it’s slightly disturbing but we all have our oddities don’t we?

What I could bring myself to cut up was the never-ending metres of sari material from Madras – in downtown KL, not India. They clash in colour but complement each other enough to look good as a series and there was plenty enough so as to not feel heartbroken about setting a pair of scissors on them.

Plenty of fabric glue later, voila! Teddy looks on appreciatively. I think the white and gold go really well with the orange. The blue is a tad cliché but OK. I’m not a fan of the green. It’s way out. I may have to re-do it or store horror movies in them or something.

The folders are padded with….I would like to say “artisan’s foam” or something clever and crafty, but no. I left it to the last minute on a Sunday evening to shop for supplies, so the best thing I could come up with was…air-conditioner filter. Yup that’s right. Despite being thinner than foam I would get at say, a craft or textile shop, I think it’s worked out just as well.

And of course while digging around my craft drawer I also found a bag filled with metres of embroidered ribbon I’d bought in a wholesale market in Guangzhou last year. So there you do, my DVD folders are a clash of Indian and Chinese influences. Let’s not say clash, but a confluence. There you go, now it sounds like Masjid Jamek.

Anyway, I really enjoyed making them and they look pretty alright on my shelf.

Stalker

2010-08-19T08:51:00.007+08:00

That I am.

I've been stalking this artist on Etsy. I'm buying 2 prints from her and am trying to get hold of an original but they get snapped up so fast. I'm at her shop everyday, checking for new listings but I guess there are plenty of girly girls out there in an equal shopping frenzy.

This is in the spirit of setting up my new lovely apartment. It is also to cheer me up and disctract me from the extremely slow pace this whole s&p is taking. My agreement was stamped in April. Go figure. [Eyes rolling]. So we console ourselves with shopping.

I go to Apartment Therapy for inspiration. It's amazing how cosy a 600sq ft broom closet can look! And of course, there is Preston Bailey for the most gorgeous party decor I have ever seen. I thought he was my secret discovery until I found not one, but two hard-cover coffee table books of his displayed prominently at Kinokuniya yesterday. I suppose you can't create such beauty and not have anyone notice.

Speaking of beauty, I'm pretty set on getting a pair of Kartell ghost chairs. I absolutely LOVE the Louise XV design, of course if I can get hands on an old one, I'd rather that but there don't seem to be many around...

I bought my son a bed yesterday. This gorgeous mid-century teak bed frame with a sliding headboard for hiding secrets! Love it! So far, I've managed to find a Singer sewing machine table that I've always wanted plus this bed frame at Second Charm.

And clothes, we must always have plenty of clothes! Inspired from the latest STC movie (Dubai is dead, Abu Dhabi is the new Middle East!), I made a pit stop at my two fav shopping sites of late. One local, Blissfully Beautiful (what a name! Beautifully dressed but blissfully broke!) and of course, the indefatigable online shopping fashion institution that is Asos. I ordered 5 items from their sale last week only to realise at check out that they don't accept Malaysian credit cards. What a bummer! So, my lovely sister had to step in, wielding her prized UK credit card for I was not going to let go of those bargains. Lace dresses are all the rage next season, so it is said.

Then I discovered I was as broke as Jake Gyllenhall's heart in Brokeback and chanced upon the idea of actually painting my own stuff. So off I went to shop for supplies - canvases, and acrylics and brushes. I almost died on the second floor of Kinokuniya. But what makes me think I can paint now when I couldn't at school is still a mystery to me, but who knows? This weekend, we shall find out.

Then I went fabric shopping at the amazing Fah Num next to Kota Raya. I like to call it 'Farnum's' just to up the stylo factor but seriously, the stuff in there ain't cheap. Still I managed to get something. I also like People's Textiles across the street - they have an adorable selection of Japanese prints in there, which I like. What's a visit downtown without popping into Peter Ho? I love Peter Ho because a) I'm going to copy his style of framing Indian miniature paintings and b) it's a lovely oasis from the Petaling Street madness.

So much to do and so little time. Even worse, so little money! Choi choi choi choi!

2010-07-27T13:56:00.003+08:00

Two months ago, I imposed a travelling ban on myself. After China, Hong Kong, Turkey and countless visits to Singapore in the last 6 months I figured it was time to stay put and attempt to take root. I have signed on to buy a fabulous apartment so it's high time I channeled my hard earned dosh into grown up stuff like cabinets and grills rather than fluffing it away on another expensive excuse for a photography shoot.

So even as my all my best mates trooped up to Shenzhen for a long weekend and spent enough to make up the GDP of a small African nation, I stayed in KL and worked. I probably spent all of RM50 that weekend on an overpriced latte and a token pastry but still, I had saved enough to buy ceiling fans!

Moreover, I was thankful for not having to live out of a suitcase - something which I never thought I would say. Or desperately willing time to pass in a generic airport or on a plane sans an entertainment channel (ie. Air Asia).

I have stuck it out for 2 months now. And I think, it is time for the ban to be lifted!

What is it about KL that makes its inhabitants want, no, need to leave it every few months? I have a friend in Singapore who feels the same way. Maybe our position in Southeast Asia gives off the air that we are about to drop off geographically and tumble headlong South if we stay too long? For me, it's definitely a sense of claustrophobia, of the world passing me by. I can practically hear the clock ticking as I draw closer to death with only a fraction of my dreams fulfilled. I mean seriously there is no way I'm getting bumped off without having seen Kashmir first. Or Stonehenge. Or even Kelantan! There is definitely not enough time if I don't get travelling now.

Another friend, thick on wanderlust posted this quote by Mark Twain on her blog:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover."

He should have worked for Star Cruises. Thanks to Huckleberry, the need is to leave and to leave asap. Jakarta seemed appealing but again, that's going South and the whole cluster of Indonesian islands brimming with volcanic activity doesn't seem to inspire travel when one is concerned about premature kicking of the bucket (except for Bali, 'cos of course, Bali is the protected land of the Gods).

So it's North. After much internal debate between Galle and its wonderful vista of the Indian Ocean, the choice has fallen on Hanoi, where I can shop and temporarily satiate my desire of becoming an art collector. After all, I justify to myself, if I am buying stuff for the home, technically, the money is not being thrown into thin air is it? Moreover, in the spirit of letting go of material wealth, I am also gaining spiritual wealth in the form of life-long memories and friend-bonding. I understand my rationale is conflicting but it works for me.

So the travel ban is lifted, yay! But will be firmly reinstated when I return for the rest of the year! (Again, Bali doesn't count, nor does any island in the sun).

In A Flowery Mood...

2010-07-09T15:32:00.002+08:00

The dark ages have lifted and the old design looked opressive....

Have been feeling strangely optimistic this year....

Yayy!

This still needs sme work but for now, pretty is enough yes?

The Path OF Least Resistance

2010-04-10T22:16:00.003+08:00

One of the most invaluable lessons was taught to me by my yoga teacher. As a group of us wannabe yogis sweated and toiled over seemingly impossible poses, my all-knowing guru had this to say:

The pain is in the resistance.

Lean into the stretch. Acknowledge the ache, allow your body to accept it. Don't fight it. Perhaps it is something you will understand when you try. If your muscles are cold or if you haven't exercised in a while, sit with your legs outstretched and try to touch your toes with your fingers without bending your knees. You will feel the burn in the back of your thighs. Maybe your shoulders might start to hurt as it dawns on you just how far away our toes are from our upper bodies. You may even secretly wish you visited the gym more often.

But once you lean into the pose, and stop fighting it, I guarantee you will find that you do have it in you to inch closer than you thought possible.

This nugget of wisdom saw me through two years of Ashtanga and enabled me through many insane poses that hurt like hell to try.

However, I have learned that the magic about this piece of advice, lies elsewhere, beyond the realm of yoga and my physical body.

It applies remarkably well to life too.

If you are someone who is as controlling as I am about how I feel things should be, the concept of not resisting is something that has to be consciously applied. It is not natural for me to not put up a fight. To freely allow fate and other forces to come through the doors of my life and take whatever it wishes with it is frightening. Putting up a fight is an innate, albeit over-used survival tool.

Leaning into the pose, is in effect, acceptance that there are things I cannot always control. It's about knowing my limits. About letting the wind blow one way, and simply flowing with it. Like how the Beatles put it: letting it be.

Today, a meaningful but tortured relationship came to an end. It is sad, yes. But to my surprise, it isn't devastating, like the relationship itself had come to be. And thanks to my yoga teacher's wise words, I realise that the pain had all been in the resistance. Fighting the fact that things were not unfolding in the manner I had envisaged, fighting the thought that it would end, fighting the possibility that perhaps, this just want meant to be. The fight has been painful and completely self-inflicted. Almost a little indulgent if truth be told.

As recent events have come to pass, and as every last ounce of fight left me, there was no other path for me to take except to let go. To allow myself to.

Perhaps I am in denial or perhaps I have just been resisting for the sake of resisting, I have not felt the familiar rise of panic and tragedy that comes with the end of a relationship, especially one as meaningful as the one that has just come to pass. As I said, sad, yes; but the feeling that life has ended? Most definitely not.

So, I'm leaning into the pose. Acknowledging the sadness. Accepting the discomfort. And hopefully, I will find it in me to move forward and on with life. In fact, I know I will and that there are many happy days ahead. I only have to allow it.

Thank you yoga teacher, for helping me get through the entire primary series, and this funny thing called life.

Of Best Friends & Real Estate

2010-03-19T23:40:00.003+08:00

When PMS unleashes its monthly fury, fuelling my insecurities to chomp extra efficiently at my self esteem, there are only two things that keep me away from royally screwing up my life.

One of them is to fervently study the Property pages of the Classifieds in The Star and iproperty and make urgent appointments to view anything vaguely interesting, especially if they are way beyond my budget. Property is sexy and it gets me going. I love looking at homes, imagining how to live in them and how my life would be if I did. Of course, there is also a downside to this because inevitably, when you fall in love with a home that is beyond your budget, you eventually get to the part where you realise that no matter how interest rates may fall, that 6 bedroom mansion with the Balinese pool is way out of your league (and interest rates are not falling anymore). Then you find yourself even more depressed than when you began.

Reeling from emotion and inability to afford anything more than a shack (well, not really but we are prone to exaggeration when we PMS), I tend to at this point start reaching for the booze. Thankfully, this avenue is offering less and less comfort, with a hangover creeping up on me after one beer. I get groggy and just want to go bed, wishing for the blanket of sleep to overwhelm - which I suppose is an effective way of dealing with PMS.

The most pleasant way of keeping the blues at bay, is to turn to my friends and family, the latter of whom I am so connected to despite our love/hate relationships (like any normal dysfunctional family) that they fall into the friend category. I love spending time with them and when that is not possible, a round of SMS, ping or Gmail messaging or at more desperate times, a good tearful phone call, serves as a row of twinkling tealights guiding me away from the darkness and onto the right path again. I am intensely grateful to God for placing these people in my life and I cannot imagine one without them for the happiness and relief they offer me. I really do have good friends. Furthermore, I am so lucky that I have a good handful - I get to unload several rounds of shit without them even realising how I am totally using them for this filthy job of dealing with my mountains of excrement. Whilst others may be able to afford the 6 bedroom house with Balinese pool, I have mates who make my life so much richer by just being there.

So this month, as I bloat away moodily, drinking my Tiger on ice - alone - at home - I am also booking an Istanbul holiday with my sister. So it's not so bad after all, is it?

Fluey Insomniac in KL - not a good combo

2009-10-08T10:38:00.003+08:00

Thank you Lenka for 'Trouble is A Friend':

Trouble is a friend but trouble is a foe, oh oh
And no matter what I feed him he always seems to grow, oh oh
He sees what I see and he knows what I know, oh oh
So don't forget as you ease on down the road
He's there in the dark, he's there in my heart
He waits in the wings, he's gotta play a part
Trouble is a friend, yeah trouble is a friend of mine, oh oh
So don't be alarmed if he takes you by the arm
I won't let him win, but I'm a sucker for his charm
Trouble is a friend, yeah trouble is a friend of mine, oh oh!
Oh how I hate the way he makes me feel
And how I try to make him leave, I try
Oh oh, I try!

Couldn't have said it better.

Why eat the cheesecake when you know it's gonna make you fat? Why leave the work when you know it's gonna pile up? Why pick a fight when you know it's just you who will get hurt in the end?

Am stupefied by human nature.

Sabby & Candy Do Singapore

2009-05-15T15:08:00.004+08:00

The saga continues.

Singapore, home of the Sling, became host to the slappers two weekends ago. With barely a breather since their last series of escapades in Kuala Lumpur, the Dynamic/Desperate Duo were seen once again, this time down South in the Merlion City.

Immigration authorities can confirm that the duo flew into the republic on Friday afternoon and checked into the Holiday Inn...the what??....yes, indeed, the Holiday Inn Hotel off Orchard Road...critics are already speculating the implications of such a choice and 51% of polls indicate that 'inn' must be the new 'palais', however, the remainder 49% believe that the Fullerton must have run out of suites...

They were seen exiting the hotel that night in dark glasses in outfits that were backless, plunging, short and see through all at once. Known for their rebllion against designer labels, the duo have always seen themselves as role models of Bangkok street fashion. Accompanying them was reliable bodyguard Sammy K, flown in from Thailand for just this job. It is believed the girls dined on steak and foie gras at The Screening Room before heading for an unknown destination.

They popped up on the radar later and were seen leaving Le Noir at Robertson Quay for notorious pulling joint, Attica. High on champagne and short of breath from the smoke-free discotheque, Paris proceeded to flirt with Singaporean liquor tycoon, Shanaynay,while Britney, in usual fashion, fell off and out of the VIP area. They were spotted trying out the latest moves from Britney's dance video (a remake of Guns N Roses' 'Patience') to a Nirvana remix and guzzling what they claimed to be Kristal champagne (bottles collected from the table revealed that the party were drinking only Dom P instead). Fellow partygoers included a timber tycoon heir from Malaysia's own Vegas, Ka-ching! (Kuching), and the kidnapped men of Indian and Iraqi descent, mentioned in the previous post, who were obviously still imprisoned.

The Dynamic/Desperate Duo kicked the joint at 4am and moved on to cause a scene at nearby upscale chicken rice roadside stall for closing too early.

While Britney Foong was nowhere to be seen the next day, Paris Sim, was seen shopping on Orchard Road carrying bags from Burberry, Gucci, Dior and Rest N Relax.

At about midnight, the duo, with accompanying bodyguards, tycoons and captives, were holed up at a bar in Emerald Hill, in a private gin-tasting party. They left at 4am and raided a nearby food court where they bought pork noodles cooked by mainland Chinese. In classic duo style, they yelled rascist profanities at fellow Chinese for their inability to speak English.

The duo flew off the next day to KL and Ka-ching! where they retruned to rehab.

The Return Of The Sabby-Candy Chronicles

2009-05-05T13:16:00.006+08:00

Kuala Lumpur, 1-3 May 2009

The Labour Day weekend, a weekend with a tradition of drink and debauchery, was brought a notch closer to the gutter with a series of unexpected sightings at several night spots in the city. With an appetite for destruction and leaving a slimy trail of mayhem, mess and eau de whiskey as they went, long lost duo, Paris Sim and Britney Foong re-appeared from the woodwork. Separated in the early millenium, after several hit and misses at notorious watering holes in the Klang Valley, the duo went their separate ways on either side of the South China Sea in pursuit of depth, baby child and other grown up ventures.

Spotted stumbling out of a chauffeur driven Perdana at 3am early Thursday morning at the renown Changkat strip, the duo accompanied by whom may be a third, new addition to the group, were later arrested and fined by hotel security for stealing display confectionary in their trademark loud, un-subtle manner.

Then, in the wee hours of Friday morning, Paris Sim was seen exiting a dodgy karaoke in the outskirts of the city dressed in stockings and not much else. According to karaoke staff who were later interviewed, the duo and friends sang a combination of love-struck ballads and soft 80s rock. When contacted, publicist to Britney Foong confirmed that she is indeed planning to release an album soon featuring covers of Guns N Roses songs.

This was preceded with the mother of all sightings the following night at a newly-opened lounge of an upmarket hotel. The duo (plus one) were spotted again; this time, breaking glass, injuring fellow patrons (physically and emotionally) and socialising with lesbians. The new member, who's identity is yet to be confirmed, was unable to keep up with the duo and was caught passed out on a couch in a most unbecoming fashion. Not long after, the duo were heard screaming profanities at a taxi driver while holding 3 men of Indian, Iraqi and Italian descent, captive. After viciously pushing the men into the said taxi, they headed for an unknown destination. But the most outrageous sighting of all must be the one of the Paris Sim mounted on a fast-moving Vesper through the streets of KL at 6am the same morning.

In view of their choice of transportation (Perdana, taxi and Vesper), will the Dynamic Duo now be known as the Desperate Duo? Is the past weekend's sighting the murmurs of a comeback or yet another futile attempt at failed stardom? Just what ramifications will their return have throughout the country and across the causeway in Singapore?

Watch this space as the exciting story unfolds.

The New Age Dump

2009-04-22T15:40:00.003+08:00

You know, I often wonder what courtship must be like back in the day. When men were interviewed by a girls' parents for purity of intention and women went out on chaperoned dates. The days when the notion of pre marital sex was diabolical and romance, ah sweet romance, ruled the day. Roles and rules were cleary demarcated with little room for mistake and misrepresentation. It must have been so much more...simple.

It's a sign of our times you know, that these days when you turn on the radio and song after song is a rendition of the same song, heart brokenly cried out by some female singer.

It's also a sign of our times when relationships, immersed in deep physical intimacy are in other aspects, ie. emotionally, fleeting and impersonal. We connect over vodka, flirt over SMS and fall into a relationship (of sorts) over sex. There are assumptions of affection from sweet nothings imbued into drunken slurs and promises of a future extracted from scrambled eggs the morning after. We find ourselves in 'a relationship of sorts', 'seeing' someone rather than 'going out' and in some cases not acknowledging it at all, except for the sex at the end of the night.

But these relationships, openly acknowledged or quietly carrying on in our minds, are very real. They are real interactions as opposed to the daydreams we have about Brad Pitt. Just because they are never openly admitted, nor discussed does not mean they don't exist. I call these 'grey relationships' because they don't fall into your usual, girl meets boy, they date, they marry etc. It's the relationship of the millenia, the SATC-type relationship.

In many cases, these relationships (unhealthy to begin with), inevitably draw to an end. Without air, it cannot breathe and slowly begins to stagnate. Mind you, there are no big fights, no cutting remarks. In this aspect, the 'grey relationship' breakup is a remarkably bitter-free event. Hints of withdrawal come from a subtle decline of phone calls, fewer texts and a general build up of "Wow, I have so much work!" excuses. It is amazingly courteous.

Problem is, you cannot openly dump someone if the relationship was never officially admitted. Again, it's a sign of our times and we live in an age of minimalism. Welcome to the age of self dumping. Meaning, you dump him in your mind. Meaning you tell yourself that you will no longer respond eagerly to his messages, you will go out with him only if it's with a group of people and you most certainly will not sleep with him ever again.

Self dumping is a very lonely break up indeed, because you can't unleash your frustrations on any act which the other party did or did not do, can't base it on an implied promise or any words that were never expressly communicated.

When everything is based on nuances and innuendos, there's really not alot you can go on.

I'm not quite sure when such casual relationships came into existence. Being a serial monogomist, I have always been in very openly expressive relationships and I suppose I have for many years, been shielded from this very strange phenomenom. I won't judge it however, but I must draw the conclusion that it's just a way of how people deal with their buildup of baggage, during a time when what they want and need the most is love, but they are yet are so afraid of receiving it.

Anyway, I just wanted to make a point about self-dumping. It is by far, the most painless dumping I have ever experienced.

Mojo Revisited: A Short Story

2009-04-17T11:57:00.003+08:00

You know, I spent many years trying to figure out what happened to my mojo. It just upped one day and left. I was so perplexed it actually moved me to attempt to write a book about it. Working title - "Help! I've Lost Me My Mojo: A Memoir".

Needless to say, I did not get past the Foreword.

In case you aren't familiar with the lingo, Google it. Mojo actually has its own Wikipedia page:
"Mojo refers to a magical charm bag used in hoodoo, and in modern usage may also refer to sexual potency." Obviously, I refer to the latter, one's ability to pull.

So mojo left and I was left dazed and confused, and of course, very celibate.

I looked high and low for mojo - invested in all sorts of tools - light reflecting foundations, meal replacements, vodka bottles, lycra...mojo refused to be found.

It was a dark, dark place to be. At times, it felt like I was losing my worth, my measure, my very point of being born female!

I blamed it on hormones, on turning thirty, to being allergic to alcohol, on gay men.

Well, after a while, I just stopped looking and resigned myself to the fact that mojo was lost forever and I may as well make peace with a mojo-free life. After all, it was one less thing to worry about.

Then one day, mojo turned up again!

Mojo, I have learned, never actually left. It had fallen asleep inside my brain somewhere, where I had never thought to look. Now that I have learned this very important lesson, I have placed mojo in a box that fits its size (not as inflated as I thought) where it now sits in a very prominent prosition - where I can see it and always be reminded that it exists and always has.

Whiskey Mornings

2009-04-17T11:47:00.003+08:00

Sigh, it's true what they say. Alcoholic binges kill brain cells.

Forget this blog, even updating my Facebook status requires effort.

Sad as it may be, and speculate as you may as to why, but getting a second wind in your is thirties is just as fun, just as indulgent and far more childish. It's just what I need - pink, vodka-laced icing on top of the jadedness.

Just wonder whether my liver can take it the second time around...

Cheers y'all.

I'm Spinning Around

2009-01-30T09:24:00.002+08:00

Can I just say how much fun spin class/RPM is! It errts like hell but it's soooo satisfying!

Peelar and I joined a gym on the 1st of Jan. Haha, it's 30 Jan today and we have been diligent! Am so proud of us both :)

Clean

2009-01-05T11:53:00.003+08:00

In the spirit of the new year, a short note about the past.

It's amazing what we keep for the sake of old times. In desperate need of filing away 2008, I had to clear out my desk. I was amazed not only that it took me a whole morning (and the task is still not finished), but also by the amount of junk I keep just for memorabilia's sake.

The boarding pass that lead to an unforgettable holiday, the stamped ticket to Ocean World, the Duranduran pen from the '80s, heck even the old handphone that served me so many years.

Moving away from the desk to the 4 floor-to-ceiling bookcases, I discover that there is zero space left to store my new collection of Bollywood DVDs. Old magazines alone have taken up 3 whole shelves. I remind myself that I have since lost interest in becoming a fashion designer and that even if I did, I doubt very much that I will look back to Vogue issues from the 1990s for inspiration. It's time to make the cut and sever these ties that are taking up too much space in storage!

Once you get in that mood, there's no limit to the amount of severance you can get up to. I proceeded to call Astro and hell yeah, cancel the movie package! I mean, seriously, it's something I should have done YEARS ago. Who needs HBO when you have a Media Player? Seriously...

So, I really do think this year's mantra has to be Out with Old and In With The New. You can't add new stuff without clearing out the old junk. And I mean that on all levels - in a day to day sense as well as the airy fairy sense too.

The Lure of Hindustan

2008-10-23T14:07:00.002+08:00

What made Babur, the first great Mughal Emperor head for Hindustan? Apart from not having a kingdom over which to rule, what compelled him South away from the cool mountain air into the inhospital lands his amirs feared and despised - a place hot, dusty and devoid of the juicy melons they adored from where they came.

Indeed, what is it about India that attracts visitors in throngs despite its heat, stink and appallingly backward ways, to its temples, domes, tombs and other (now) tourist traps. I cannot say that I was blessed with a spiritual epiphany upon arriving in India and in my 2 weeks there, I spent as the quintessential tourist. I may as well have had "First Time in India" stamped over my forehead. I was trigger-happy and looked out of my camera lense in anticipation of sheer aesthetic, ignorant of the meaning or historical value of the subject of my photographs.

It was not until I was seated in the dump of our car (after spending 10 cramped days in it), heading for the Indira Ghandhi International Airport and the sucky MAS plane they pass off as international route-worthy, when I muttered, "Goodbye India, I can't wait to come back). I was quite surprised by how I felt and it was then that I realised the sudden flush of seduction.

And this is what India has done to me. It has slowly, hesitantly even, but most certainly wrapped its 6 god-like arms around me and slowly drawn me into what I can only describe as temporary obsession. I never thought I would like India, for its filth and madness, but it appears, I have.

The dread of leaving Jaisalmer: the wish to stay and discover more about our new friends. The gob-smacking awe beholding the Taj Mahal. The under-rated art of block printing. The incredible blue skies over the forts. The indescribable feeling of freedom in the open desert. The entirely unforgettable conversations.

And so much more.

I know, I'm raving like a person just back from holiday. But consider this. I have never before picked up a book about the history of a place I have just visited. Me? History? Study of the English Industrial Revolution lulled me into a slumber that I have only just awakened from. Last night, I inhaled the last few chapters of a 3" thick book on the Moghul Empire, having spent every free minute of the last week in it. Food for thought. I have never before found satisfaction in a dish of dhall. Now I have irrepressible cravings, yes, for simple naan and dhaal, which if I don't get, I dream about insatiably.

We all have different markers for obsession and I know mine. Who knows, when I finally get to Central Asia, the lure of Hindustan may eventually allude me but until then, this obsession remains for I have (fleetingly at least), fallen utterly and inextricably in love.

Ryan Gosling's hotness alone is enough to move anyone to tears

2008-07-02T09:01:00.006+08:00

Unhinged by recent events, I finally watched The Notebook after years of denying myself the inevitable pain.

Oh my God! Who makes movies like that? Why would they want to hurt people that way?

I bawled so hard I had to stop the movie several times to calm myself down. I think the neighbours heard me too.

The next day, my eyes were so puffy my face actually looked thin.

But I felt great! Bought myself a media player, and proceeded to enjoy my photographs of Cambodia blown up 42" fabulous inches! Here's one of my many faves...

Nothing a good, hard, violent cry doesn't resolve. They should work The Notebook and my pictures of Cambodia into therapy programmes.

Bye Bye

2008-06-26T11:24:00.003+08:00

Yesterday, I made a decision to say goodbye to an old friend. An association that we had both long outgrown. Holding on was not only pointless, it was soul-depleting. It is a load I can no longer drag, an idea I can no longer justify.

In my twenties, I set out to meet as many people as I could, to garner as many friends in my (then) imaginary Facebook list. At bars, at parties, at the beach, when I travelled. But here in my thirties, jet-lagged and spent from too many nights of downloaded TV, I am sold to the idea that while one spends their twenties furiously acquiring friends, the thirties are spent sifting through and picking out the viable from the not.

The separate-lives friends, the party acquaintances, the friends you keep at arm's lengths for various reasons, the friends you deem no longer worthy, the ones whom you love but have to get rid of in order to embrace the future (not unlike 80s pink legwarmers).

I have come to believe that getting rid of friends who have not only outworn their use but who's presence has become poisonous, is just like a spring clean. It is immensely detoxifying on a spiritual level. There is no dramatic burning of letters, throwing out of belongings or the meaningful handshake (after all, who needs the added drama in thier 30s?) - just a firm mental note that changes your outlook more than anything else. There is no need to say goodbye outwardly but there is a definite need to do so inside.

This a friend who meant the world to me once upon a time. Saying goodbye to this person (and the idea of this person) is hard. Maybe that is why it has been so long in coming. I barely scrape by with my knowledge of religion but I do know that life is suffering. The four truths — not one — about life: There is suffering, there is a cause for suffering, there is an end of suffering, and there is a path of practice that puts an end to suffering.

I am enlightened in my unsurpressible need to live. To truly engulf myself in the feeling of fullness and vitality. Life consumes me with all its wonder. Whether I am on top of a ski slope or at the bottom of a rock I am about to climb, there is a moment when my heaven and earth are moved by the enormity and wonder of life. I kid not, and for once, I exaggerate not. I realise, despite its cliche, that life at every twist, its every segment, its very juice, is meant to be savoured, like a great big custard apple.

A found a little inspiration on MTV. Jason Mraz was skateboarding and jumping off waterfalls in Central America and opening his heart to love. In a way, by saying goodbye, I choose freedom and I choose, love.

"So, I won't hesitate no more,
no more, it cannot wait I'm sure
there's no need to complicate our time is short
this is our fate, I'm yours

I've been spendin' way too long
checkin' my tongue in the mirror and
bendin' over backwards just to try to see it clearer
my breath fogged up the glass and
so I drew a new face and laughed
I guess what I'm a sayin' is there ain't no better reason
to rid yourself of vanity and just go with the seasons
it's what we aim to do our name is our virtue

well open up your mind and see like me
open up your plans and damn you're free
look into your heart and you'll find love love love love
listen to the music of the moment come and dance with me I
love one big family
It's our god forsaken right to be loved, loved, loved, loved"

Eeek...

2008-06-09T14:36:00.003+08:00

Managed to move a household in a week. Never felt so tired in my life except maybe after that climb in the Batman Caves in Kuching after a huge night.

Walked into the office today, collapsed onto the floor and woke up 45 minutes later.

Oh God, I'm old.

PS. The pork thing...suspended temporarily. Proper nutrition is way more important than a man.

PPS. Dying to watch SATC: The Movie

PPS. Kungfu Panda was one of my highlights last week

Lent For A Year

2008-04-24T11:15:00.005+08:00

So Slapper and I were chatting on the phone last night and we ended up, as usual, back to the same topic of conversation. How is it that some girls get quality blokes with the snap of their fingers while others get nothing but sore thumbs from all the attempts?

Firstly, take me out of the equation. Slapper is hot. As in she's smouldering. She's got all the physical attributes a man would want. Legs up to her pits, huge jugs and a wide open mind. She's been single for years. Bridget-Jonesdom is her comfort zone. And though that's all fine and well, it really really pisses her off that no man has come along worthy of enticing her out of it. Yeah, she meets hot men, intelligent men even. So she come away with a couple of great conversations but no soul-meet-soul connections, no lab-sized blow-outs, nothing happening on a cellular level that believe it or not, seemed so plentiful back in the '90s. Let's not even get into the issue of being too demanding. Life is not meant to be lived in mediocrity. Is earth shattering, you-rock-my-world chemistry too much to ask for these days?

Slapper told me about her best friend: diamond-dripping, Christian Louboutin-heeled, Chanel-wielding, fabulosity on legs, society princess Kimora. Poor Kimora's awesome international merger of an engagement has fallen apart in just six short months. All sad and truly heartbreaking stuff, but guess what, Kimora is back in the fast lane. Within 2 months, she wiped her tears dry, powdered her nose and hey presto, hot, intelligent Prince Charming no. 2 turns up in his C/S/A-whatever class of an automobile and sweeps her off her feet.

Question: Who gets Prince Charming No. 2?
Answer: Many girls do. Smart, ugly, witty, beautiful, fat, short, uneducated, black, white, brown, red, etc etc girls the world over are getting connected mind, body and soul!

I guess that makes Slapper and I Martians passing up as Venusians on planet Mars. Hey, its not as if we're hard up. Jeez, no. We like being single. Most ardently. But you know, we are a little bored. How is it that chemistry was all abundant a decade ago but so unbelievably absent in the millenium? We can't blame alcohol either. While I've been dry now for almost a year, Slapper is still prone to Chardonnays on Sundays (as if the weekend binge didn't kill her off already), so not much going for that argument. Goddammit, dry or high, we just want someone to fancy.

So here's Kimora's secret.

In order for new things to come into your life, one must make sacrifices. Make space for fresh produce. Clean out the fridge. Out with the old, in with the new. Sacrifice something to show the universe how much you want it. (PS. this is radically different from what I proposed in my post entitled May The Force Be With You written November 2006 but never mind, let's just go with it)

So Kimora gave up....chocolate. Within months, she was married to the sweetest guy ever. OK, so that didn't last but the universe didn't stop giving. In reward for her denial of Kit Kats, ganaches and all things brown and gooey, the universe presented her with Prince Charming No. 2.

I totally see the logic in the proposoition (?? well, kind of). I gave up alcohol, smokes, parties and high-heels and got sobriety, sanity and a faint resemblance of knees back didn't I? OK, so maybe I'm grasping at straws but hey, anyone in their 30s would agree that its the new age of experimentation.

So, what would really be a sacrifice for me to give up?

To meet someone absolutely fascinating and mind-blowing, I will for one year, starting now, give up....drum roll...

I will give up Pork.

Blek

2008-04-21T12:00:00.003+08:00

Gosh I can really drone on and on with the heavy stuff...

Neeways, Pilates instructor tells me I have weak legs. Almost non existent inner thigh muscles.

So sad.

Fat and weak.

Ugh!

Re: Parents

2008-04-21T10:46:00.004+08:00

I just realised that for the first time in many many years, things have actually been going well between me and my parents. Somehow, the stifled angst for whatever they did or did not do has sneakily uncurled from my store of 'wrong done to me ' and dissipated into thin air. Where did it go? How did I resolve them? I don't know. All I know is that it vanished and I find myself wanting to spend more and more time with the cantakerous old biddies I call my parents!

I guess we all have our issues with our Mums and Dads. Mine weren't conventional in their choices but I actually think that enriched my life rather than handicap it. Sure, there was a lot of pain and confusion in the past. Endless fits of rage and tears as I wished and wished I had been born into another family.

In the small town outlook of this supposed metropolis I live in, my upbringing appeared dysfunctional to say the least. So Mum and Dad didn't live under the same roof, there were these additional parent figures and of course all those rumours that sad people who have no lives of their own still speak of today. Believe it or not, I have been asked the strangest questions.

To the judgemental majority, it was no environment to raise a child in.

"Poor girl, she is the way she is because she's the product of a broken home".

Jeez. So many comments to make about that.

Firstly, that word 'broken home' totally sucks. It sucks also that I have to point it out. Having to explain the issue I have with it is like having to explain to a white person that I am not 'coloured'.

Secondly, I think people like to categorise. To fit people and situations into stereotypes and piegeon hole them 'cos then it becomes simple and convenient to deal with. I'd like to remind those who have forgotten, that both my parents went on to become part of long-lasting and what I would term 'successful' relationships. If perhaps not at first, they certainly have now. If that's not a lesson (or several lessons) in what works and what doesn't, I don't know what it is.

My parents made their mistakes but I can see now that I am the fortunate one. I've had the fortitude to witness the real deal in the making rather than live through a poor imitation stuck under the same roof "together because of the children".

So here I am defending my parents. Who would have thought.

My family and I have always lead independant lives. They did their thing and I did mine. I was left to my own devices at a very young age. It was easy to lie and pretend I was at over at so-and-so's place when really, I was out clubbing as young as thriteen. And believe it or not, I never ran off with random men (a prude then and a prude now), never took any drugs and certainly never got mindlessly drunk - I left those past-times for university.

It's my independance that has allowed me to weather many storms and it's something I totally enourage of my son. It puts your life in perspective and gives you the courage to live it. I thank my parents for it - from allowing me to leave home in ridiculous Madonna outfits to fully supporting me through bigger mistakes I have made in adult life.

I think what makes it the sweetest thing is that though my parents have given me the full freedom to live my life, and though I may have flown the coop on several ocassions; at the end of a long journey, I just want to hang out with them. Maybe its the Asian in me or maybe they're just way too cool to resist, but I cannot imagine not being close to them -physically and emotionally.

And I think that this coming to peace with them has actually settled a feeling of restlessness. It's not just that it's one less issue to thnk about. It's a feeling that, here comes the cliche again, that though everyday life is so mundane and so incredibly uninspiring sometimes (no man, no money, no dreams, ex boyfriend hates you, hate boss, etc etc), there is still love. Two people (or maybe four people) out there still think you're the puppy.

Life In Imagination

2008-03-26T13:58:00.003+08:00

It took a fiery som tam and an image of Jaisalmer to snap me out of it.

A paragraph describing sunrise over the red sand dunes at Jaisalmer fortress and a whiff of that papaya salad that is so definitely part of the buffet spread in heaven, I snapped. Enough is enough.

Life has to be lived. And lived now. Not whiled away on afternoons of Spider Solitaire. Or camped out at the cafe with Temporarily Jobless Homo. It's been one excuse after another, week after week, year after year. And it's been almost 3 years since I started perfecting the art of procrastination.

Especially in the past month. With my knees in dire starits and with the image of my ransacked home fresh in mind, my sprint has broken into a run. A great big Olympic race to god know where. But for sure, faster and faster away from reality. And I've done it all by sitting still.

It's my own little attempt at a nervous breakdown. Doing the Demi rock ala St Elmo's Fire except saner (wtf?). With my head in the sand, work, duties, responsibilities - they all don't exist. I flit from one good time to the next. Planning dinner parties, holidays, getways, jetaways, breakaways. Whatever, as long as it's away.

For hours on end, I hole myself up playing computer games, and yes, ladies and gentlemen, lately, I've regressed into reading lurid romantic novels. No, not just reading. Gorging would be a better word. It's as if I've substituted my binge eating on binge romance reading. Doughnuts for dongs, mayo sandwiches for salami. Perhaps I have sunk to my lowest point?

I haven't read a romance novel (not of the Sweet Dreams sort) since I was fifteen and I was amazed to discover that many things have changed since then. It appears that we have moved on from blushing heroines to very hungry, very demanding, very horny heroines. Buggery, threesomes, orgies, and 11inch schlongs are the order of the day (yes, hero and heroine actually measured it in Beatrice Small's 'Sudden Pleasures'). They have come out of the shadowy alleys of porn flicks and walked straight into the bright flourescent lights of MPH. Hot off the shelves.

I can see why its so easy for women to get so caught up with them. They are written by women for women after all. And who knows what women want best? All prerequisites fulfilled, all needs considered, all fantasies played out in minutest detail. Despite my initial balk at these novels, I figured, what's a harmless dalliance? (Note: My prose is beginning to read like the novels in question). Before long, I found myself wanting to know more about the Italian count with the smooth chest, dark hair, the piercing blue eyes and the scent of danger about him! Oh, but its been a breathless start to the week.

But enough already. I marched urgently into Times today to buy my latest fix (anything with an Italian count - whcih narrows it down to just about 2 whole shelves - the other is taken up by pirates and vampires equally). Somehow I drifted to the travel shelf with the Lonely Planets. India. That's when I saw Jaisalmer and I realised how I just can't wait till September when I hop on that plane I finally fulfill a dream.

I've realised one thing about myself. I am one hell of an escapist. I often think how content I may be locked up in solitary confinement, alone to live out my lives in parallel universes. But with that image of Jaisalmer and that utterly enticing scent of som tam outside the bookshop, I was pulled back into the busy thoroughfare of Plaza Damas at lunchtime. My life can be so much more. I know it's there right in front of me, willing me to do something with it.

I think I'm made of sterner stuff than Spider Solitaire mindlessness. And certainler sterner than a poor slave girl waiting for a count to whisk her off her feet.

So I came back and wrote this post.

Birthday

2008-02-19T11:05:00.003+08:00

Sitting on a chair lift in -20 degrees, wind biting my uncovered cheeks and snow on me, on my skis, on the ground below, on the slopes all around, and for hundreds of miles beyond, she asked me "So, how old have you just turned?"

"32", I replied, by instinct, without thinking. I cursed aloud. "Sorry, jeez, where did that come from?" I chastised myself for sounding like a bimbo. I mean, really, at my age.

"I'm 34 today. Which I guess puts me in the mid-30s."

Thankfully I was answering someone who was 44 and still on the roll. Ski Buddy has that quality that enables her to flit from being deadly serious to deadly funny in about a second. Which means that she can innately blend the opposing personalities of serious lawyer and fluffy party bunny into strangely, one sane person. She really ought to considere a career in PR should she ever decide to call it a day as a partner in her own firm. It's a talent for some, bloody hard work for me, to relate to people.

She said "Nah-lah, still young". I glanced at her, as she grinned from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat, loving life, and more importantly, living life.

Ahh, birthdays - the little milestones on that road called life. To be perfectly honest, I don't have an issue about getting older. I am one who believes that knowledge is power, and if wrinkles are a by-product, there's always surgery. I had a fabulous youth filled with drama, zits and unrequited love. My salad says were fulfilling and I have enough memories to fuel me to the winter of my life. My birthday wishes are not for the return of my youth. Since hitting 30, my birthdays fuel an angst within for a life yet to be lived.

I knew very early on that I wanted to live a full life. That there would be choices I would make that would be wrong but lead me down a path filled with stories and adventures that I would be able to one day impart to my grandchildren. I know that all sounds very romantic in the context of our daily lives as they are but I have increasingly come to realise that living in Malaysia, remaining cocooned in the small little village we call KL Society has trapped us unknowingly to its standards, beliefs and culture.

Its a life where we are expected to act a certain age when we reach a certain age. Married by 30. 2 children by 35. Millionaire by 36. A culture that has specific expectations. Like not wearing colourful print unless it is a baju kurung once you hit 30. Like keeping your hair short if you are over 50. Like heaven forbid you wear a fake designer. Or crack a joke that's not appropriate. Or laugh like a child.

Success measured by your name card, what car you drive and what class you fly.

I was raised by parents who instilled in me how little all this meant, yet when you are surrounded by it, it's hard to not be sucked in.

Watching enviously as glamourous women decked in diamonds flow out of expensive cars on the arms of titled men, I have often wondered "Why not me?" Why do I not have the home in the gated community, why am I not the one shopping for groceries during office hours, why am I the one without the supplementary credit cards? After all, I am not that young anymore, if it doesn;t happen now, it is likely it never will.

It's an immoral standard to have held myself to.

After all, I have made the choices I live with. I'm not the one in compromised relationships, not the one who has to be nice to someone because he keeps me, not the one who has anything to lose. I pay my own bills, I dictate my own time, and I live my own life. I live my life with as few regrets as possible.

And if I wasn't in KL, I wouldn't have to keep reminding myself.

When my lousy Japan Airlines plane touched down in KLIA over the weekend and I walked back to the sights, sounds and smells of my litle village, I felt a huge wave of disgust that I had never felt coming home. I felt the true meaning of touchdown. This is my reality, this is where my life will continue.

This birthday, I am thankful for my supportive family, angels around me disguised as friends, my strength and above all, a gift in the form of my son, and I am happy. Undoubtedly, I am happy.

But where I live, the people I live among, the web of culture they have weaved, I increasingly dislike and increasingly wish to be away from. This birthday, I wish I remained far away.

I've Started Dating Again

2007-09-20T12:41:00.001+08:00

Yes.

I'm aiming for us to see each other at least three times in the week and since he's stationed just down the road from my office, there really isn't any reason why we shouldn't see each other more often. But you see, my body aches after each date, and until my body is able to cope, it will just have to be three dates per week for the moment. I do often think about my dates, yes there are more than one for I get really bored and I confess that I like all my dates equally, though sometimes, I'm more in the mood for one than the other.

Yes. I am openly admitting it. I am dating the treadmill, the stairmaster and the elliptical trainer all at the same time.

Scandalous.

To gossip mongers out there....tsk tsk... sad that celebrity mags don't satiate your hunger for gossip and you have to graze local pastures for news.

Bottoms Up!

2007-08-14T11:02:00.000+08:00

Last weekend, my friends and I celebrated Actor's birthday. In typical diva fashion (but of course), we pounced on the occassion to dress up to the nines and partied the night away as if we were starring in Fergie's Glamorous video. Out came the faux gems, the gold heels and the Nippits.

Zeta Bar is nothing to shout about. Actually, it's nothing to even write about. It's Hard Rock with drinks priced as if it's Bar Marmont, it's the nirvana of travelling white men, the diamond mine of SPGs who began their journey at The Beach Club. You get what I mean right?

For a very long time, I was a stalwart subscriber to the notion that I could not have fun on a night out unless I was:-
a. completely inebriated with alcohol
b. completely inebriated with alcohol and had a love interest present
c. completely inebriated with alcohol and passed out in somebody's car

Fast forward to last Saturday night - I realised that with only one whiskey soda all night long and no cigarette in hand, I was actually having fun. Great, great fun! Great, great fun at Zeta Bar!

The first time I realised that fun was possible without alcohol was back at the Rainforest Music Festival a month ago. Before the Black Label fest began, I was sober and loving every moment of partying outdoors at such an amazing gathering, high on the idea of kicking the pretentious KL scene in the butt and imagining myself in a Woodstock moment. Of course, sobriety is equated with being diseased in the pickled-liver town of Kuching, so I was quickly 'remedied' by locals. With twenty slugs of whiskey (straight out of plastic Coca Cola bottle) and some token water, I was no longer the leper. But the point is, there was a short moment of sobriety and in that flicker of a moment, there was happiness.

I have probably been waiting for this to happen ever since I stepped into Faces for my 13th birthday in 1987, complete with parental entourage.

Is it truly possible? Apparently it is. At Zeta, I danced like a maimed donkey, posed like a salah Paris Hilton and pranced about in a very Benny Hill fashion that is, if you really think about it, stupendously salah. The idea was to celebrate a friend's birthday, not just in action, but in feeling. The door to liberation had indeed sprung open and I was amazed I was allowed to gain admittance.

My explanation is this: As corny as it sounds, it comes with being at peace with myself. With not having to prove anything to anybody, especially me. Not having to please anyone, or to include anyone else's feelings and wants in my selfish pursuit of hedonism. It's about acceptance - largely about accepting that perhaps, I'm not all that (egad!), that plans don't always go the way I want, about being happy with what I've got - not constantly trying to make it better, or be with certain people or somewhere else completely. I know I come off really sad at this point but if the truth be told, this has a been a real obstacle for me to overcome (I really am that shallow). I'm not entirely sure how I arrived here, only that I have.

Having said that, here comes the disclaimer: I am not saying that I don't enjoy being off my face - of course being drunk is REALLY LOVELY, but what I'm saying is that it's no longer the precursor that stands in the way to a good time. I genuinely have a good time when I choose to - and I think that with most things, when it comes from inside out, it's all good.

Erm...almost everything. Not puke.

I Love Nicole Richie

2007-08-08T14:56:00.000+08:00

For those of you who shop till you drop (and you know who you are wink wink)...

If you have exhausted Eye Candy yet still have this desperate need to throw your money away, there's Wondermomo to restore your faith in KL retail.

Here's a place where you will find edgier, more current, funkier stuff. Lots of DvF, Stella McCartney, Missoni, Marc Jacobs and plenty of accessories - Coach hats, Chanel sunglasses, Kate Spade bags, ugly ass shoes... The theme is current - many of the labels will actually tell you which season the things come from and many were as recent as spring/summer 2007.

Mind you, prices are steeper too. A too-die-for DvF mini bell dress (none of this wraparound shirt thing going on) in cotton, expect to fork out about RM499 with a measely 5% discount if you buy two.

You will find it in Mont Kiara - on the ground floor of the Sunrise tower block itself (the one with the Subway, Maybank ATMs and the supermarket).

I almost cried when I left behind three dresses that Nicole would so approve of - one olive silky girly thing, the bell (in all its glorious variations) and a colourful cutesy girly number by I can't remember who but I just can't afford to blow over a grand at the moment. Boo hoo...but seriously, you go. Spend! Rub my face in it!

PS. Their jeans are on sale. Rock & Religion for RM50? Log off already!

The Prayer

2007-08-06T11:05:00.000+08:00

A while back, I wrote about how Crystal Healer taught me the concept of asking from the universe and receiving. When it comes to love, it is possible to conjure the qualities you want in a man and simply to wish him to appear in your life. Despite the Cinderella ring to the whole notion, I listened very carefully. She told me to be very specific, after all, she was when she asked for her man and Prince Charming (now Mr Crystal Healer) really did appear four months later as if she had ordered him straight out of a catalogue. He was exactly as she had requested.

This idea of custom-making and pre-ordering Mr Right was nouveau to me - not just novel in its concept, but outright audacious in its nature. It leaves nothing of fate and to suggest that us mere mortals are capable of conjuring a dream partner practically reeks of withchcraft and godlessness. I battled with it, I really did. I'm not sure if it's Asian humility or just my family upbringing but asking and receiving with no reference to whether one deserves it or not, is just completely outrageous. Yet, somewhere in the inner sanctum of my consciousness, I liked it. I really really liked it. It made so much sense. What's the big deal? Ask and you shall receive! Who could resist what Crystal Healer was suggesting? Create the man and he will come! It's almost like Harry Potter being told he can have his parents back.

After alot of tossing and toying and wondering and debating, I got to work on my man.

Has anyone ever watched that '80s flick "Weird Science" starring Kelly LeBrock and Anthony Michael Hall? It's where these two teenage geeks stumble on a computer programme that enables them to create the woman of their dreams. Well, it's a little like that minus the technology and the big hair.

It took me a while to think up the qualities I wanted. It's hard to deal with intangibles. Physical attributes are easy. Tall, hunky, lean muscles, six pack, no BO are pretty much standard orders. Hobbies too came easily. I wanted him to be outdoorsy, to value nature, to enjoy travelling so we could wander the world together, to be adventurous etc etc. But his virtues, that was a bit harder. I will never forget my step mother in all her unrealised wisdom, who taught me the importance of kindness in a partner. Kind is not a thing that springs to mind when you are checking out guys at a party. Some girls checkout booty, others check out eyes and hands even, I check out hair on the head. Nobody checks out kindness. I have been out with unkind men. I tell you, it's a vital factor. It's whether he opens doors, whether he curses violently when the car in front slows down or just shrugs his shoulders and makes a joke instead, its whether he will yell at his mother in public or just deal with it in a dignified manner. It's true, it's the little things that matter.

So I finally got my list done, and it spanned a couple of pages. I mean, it's important to be meticulous in such a situation, no?

And everyday, I asked the universe. I added this 'prayer' to my list of prayers. I know what the universe must think. Here comes the demanding one again...

Funnily enough, months later, I believe the universe answered. It sent me The American. When Dear Friend saw him she gasped, gaped and gawked at the same time. When my gay friends saw his photo they Googled him. He climbs rocks like a fiend. He really kicks butt. He's a scientist. He's published 'findings'. When I saw his body, I silently thanked God for creating the world in all its beauty. He is thoughtful. He is unpretentious. He isn't throwing away Daddy's money. He's clean. He eats organic. He doesn't have BO! He fit my 'prayer' like a glove it was uncanny.

The problem is, and continues to be, me. I didn't fancy him. There wasn't an inkling of fancy. I liked him, he was nice but he did not make my heart race and my knees weak. There was nothing to not fancy and everything to fancy, but there was no fancy. End of story. I quickly smsed Yogi and asked if the universe ever got mad if one turned down something one asked for. Perhaps I had not been precise enough in my prayer. Perhaps what I thought I wanted was not what I wanted. Perhaps I did not know what I wanted.

The Universe sent me another candidate. Out of the blue, The Englishman made me a friend on an online community. As a friend of a friend I replied his message and we became friends. He made me laugh out loud with his wit, he was generous, he allowed me to ramble on about me, me and me. He acknowledged my oddballness and found it a laugh. He flew thousands of miles to see me and as touched as I was, I wasn't. So here again, on paper, the boy fit. Again, the problem is and will continue to be, me. I cannot say why not, I just cannot say yes.

Mind you, I'm not saying these two are throwing themselves at me. All I'm saying is that on my part, I cannot find the spark to even start the engine. I hope the universe is not mad at me. It appears to have answered my ad, only that now, I'm not sure whether the job opening is really there.

I wondered if perhaps I'm all loved up. That I had a go at love and I blew it and nothing will ever compare. That I've gone off the waves and cannot ever tune into the right frequency again. My quota is up.

But that's just so defeatist.

Or maybe what I want is not want I want. Maybe we know so little of ourselves that sometimes, it's impossble to break it down to a checklist of requirements. We know what we don't want, and we work from there, relying on instinct and 'a good feeling' to guide us to The One.

To be optimistic and positive about the whole thing, I am thankful for my two new Transatlantic friends. Though there's no lurve vibe going on, their appearance in my life has reinforced my belief that there are good men out there and that yes, they are in Asia too. Maybe the time is not right for me, maybe despite wanting to be loved, I'm not as hard up a I thought. Maybe I have no inkling of what I want in a partner, maybe I have worked myself into a corner with too many specifics. The bottom line is that it all reverts back to you. The good men are out there, they really are. Yes, single, available, good men of our age. The issue is not what's out there, it's what's going on inside. Inside you and inside me.

Alive and Kicking

2007-08-06T10:35:00.000+08:00

Oh I know...smack my hand why don't you...

I'm back. No, I haven't been in Kuching all this while. I did come back in one piece (barely) and live to tell the tale.

In truth, I haven't blogged because frankly, I'm a little intimidated. I know, it's hard to imagine how someone with such a supersized ego could possibly be so easily intimidated, but I am walking proof.

It worries me that this is actually a public blog. Oh, I know, it's on the web but I really thought that the only people who read it were the ones who commented. And they are admittedly a handful of people I know and those whom I don't but have come to know over the months/years. They're friendly parties, with their encouraging comments and "I'm so happy for you" remarks. It reassures me that whatever crap I write, I'm safe.

It just goes to show how people like to believe what they want to. Safety on the internet - that must be a classic.

No, I haven't been attacked in cyberspace or anything. Just over the months, I have come to discover that an old flame has dropped by, a Rinpoche has circulated one of my posts and when shopping at my favourote discount designer store, the owner thanked me for bringing in a customer who read about it on this blog.

I am honoured that people drop by. I do churn out mounds of crap but I am glad to see somehow, there are the odd few who don't see it as that. But at the same time, I'm not one who likes to disappoint. I'm the type of person who buys things that I cannot afford just to please the sales staff (I'm working on that and conveniently blame my unconventional childhood and my role model parents for this hungry need to please). It just feels that now there is an audience of some sort, it is accompanied by a pressure (self imposed nonetheless) to cater to expectations. Now I have to think up more profound things to say, more issues to divulge, more boats to rock, more revelations to post. Oh, it's lame I know. I just don't like to disappoint, that's all.

So, I've been running a few issues through my mind that would be worthy of posting alongside all the notable contents on the worldwide web, and surprisingly, I didn't draw as many blanks as I thought I would.

But that's fodder for future posts. Just want to say, hello, I'm alive, life is good. It's mid-summer in the Northern hemisphere and relatives are invading. It's one of my favourite times of the year when people suddenly realise I exist and include me in their plans. It's the season of birthdays, the race to the calendar finish at work, hastily booked holidays as half a year has miraculously flown by and a big gear up to the end of the year festivities.

I am so looking forward to the next six months.

PS. It's also my son's birthday today! I'm so proud. I can't believe I've mothered someone for so long.

The Significance Of Kuching

2007-07-13T11:23:00.000+08:00

When I was busy trying to make an unworkable marriage work and cleaning baby shit, my peers were flying business class to important conferences on the other side of the globe, partying in Shanghai and the rooftop bars of Bangkok, comparing the latest Ws and voting in best airline polls.

Travelling is one of the greatest sacrifices of young motherhood. From being able to take off at any whim and fancy (budget allowing) pre-motherhood, to making endless packing checklists (motherhood), my holiday destinations dwindled from luxury party destinations and exotic locales to family-friendly resorts (with mini club please).

I had once prided myself in being a travel junkie, but when my marriage broke up and I was forced to reevaluate my dreams, I realised that in the last few years, I had been nowhere new and it was one of the causes why I felt so isolated and removed from this world. I am embarrassed to admit that just like I'd defined myself by whom I was dating, I'd also defined myself by where I had been. I have stood at the Parthenon, therefore I am kind of thing. Sad but true (notice all of this is in the past tense).

The thing about motherhood is that even when you do get time to go off by yourself, you are never free of the guilt that you left someone behind. And you allow it to eat at you, until you realise that instead of working on that black on the ski slope, you're on the phone, counting 8 hours ahead.

Holidays with young children are holidays for them, for a parent, it's work as usual. But as ZW grows and becomes more independant, so my heartstrings stretch and relax. I have learned that he can live for a few days without me, and vice versa. I know that he not only lives, but actually has a blast! No Mummy means no vegetables, no bedtime, no nagging. I also realise as he gets older that hey, he can come with me! He can walk, listen and most importantly, understand! No, this does not mean he's ready for the Everest Base Camp just yet, but we are slowly getting there.

This weekend, at the behest of Slapper, I shall be travelling to Kuching for the Rainforest Music Festival and ZW is coming with me. Travelling to Kuching may not sound especially exciting to some, but for me, it's the first stop in my quest to visit at least one new place every year. It is the first step in a long time, a first step for things to come. It's a place I always said I would go but shelved for another time, whenever that was supposed to be. It will be first tick in my freshly drawn up checklist of Places To See Before I Die.

In that respect, it symbolises my first step in the right direction.

I am really looking forward to it, to travelling with ZW, Chum and Chunk, and spending time with Slapper and her friends.

Of Food Fights in Cyberspace and Devils in Gucci

2007-07-09T11:33:00.000+08:00

I haven't been in the mood to write. It's not from the lack of content, mind you. Life has been eventful, in a good way, but I reckon sometimes there's a need to get in there and live it rather than write about every episode that comes along.

What have I been doing? I've been living in Facebook - reliving days when my nickname was Spadie. I've been busy throwing food in cyberspace, meeting very strange people and comparing baby notes with an ex boyfriend.

Haha, we live in a strange and surreal world.

I've been living in Philip Pullman's worlds - the one which we share with daemons. The Northern Lights (aka The Golden Compass) is alluring. Am about to launch into another universe in The Subtle Knife. I've been living in Hogwarts too, with The Making Of The Order of the Phoenix and the showing of The Goblet Of Fire on HBO last night. I'm eager to see The One Who Cannot Be Named in a Gucci suit in the movie installment of the former and waiting with bated breath for the release of The Deathly Hallows.

I've been imagining what it must be like to volunteer in a Nepalese orphanage. Wondering if The Silk Road is as captivating as I imagine it to be. Conflicted over whether to still travel to India and face the touts in Delhi come October or trek to the Everest Base Camp.

I've eaten lots of durians, lots of pork and lots of McDonalds chocolate sundaes.

The tummy is happy, the mind is ticking, the heart is full. My, it's good to be alive!

Back To The Future

2007-06-27T14:22:00.000+08:00

On one hand, it's such a tool for showing off. Look, I have 275 friends! On the other, it really is nice to see old friends again.

Friendster, Facebook, and the like.

I don't know how I got sucked into Facebook but I've spent a whole precious morning 'reconnecting'. Friends from school, friends from university, friends who know friends who you didn't know were friends, you get the drift.

With the photos so small it's sometimes difficult to indentify if the Tom Brown you went to university with, the player who tried to feel you up once, is the same Tom Brown staring back at you from the screen - the one with the beard, in the in the tails, standing next to the bride.

At first I was a bit worried about approaching people whom I had lost touch with for so many years and ask them to be my friend again. After writing so many "remember me?" messages, I did feel like a silly broken record but what the hell...they did remember me!

I even found an ex boyfriend and my heart lurched a little because we have not kept in touch for over ten years. I wonder if I ought to say hi; our last contact was when he dumped me in a letter for someone else! Would he think I was trying to get back together? Hahahaha...

It's funny how you can spend so many years of your life with a person only to one day be afraid of approaching them again. It's as if the closeness never existed. The friends I made at school and at university were so close that we knew everything about each other. How we ate, how we slept, how witty/slow we were, what our toilet habits were. When we graduated, our different paths in life brought us to opposite ends of the world and our friendships faded in the distance. They feel like strangers now. Actually, they are. Scrolling through their friends lists, I realise how small a part I played in their lives, and theirs in mine.

It really puts into perspective the whole idea of our lives being lived in chapters. That the present doesn't really matter because it will pass eventually. New issues surface, values are reevaluated, new people become meaningful. Things from the past don't become less important, but they become less urgent if you will. There isn't that need to press, push, maintain or hang on for dear life.

My friends from a previous life will always hold a special place in my heart but there is no way intimacy can be re-established to what it was before. But they're still there in the parallel galaxies of Facebook and Friendster, testament to the fact that they did once exist in my history, and still continue to uphold my life as it once was.

Fat Girls Are Hungrier

2007-06-22T09:56:00.000+08:00

Especially when they've lost all their weight.

It's like somehow they've found a way to convert all the stores of shiny, blubby, white fat into a bottomless well of motivation and hunger.

They fight harder. They're the ones meticulously picking out the fat in the fried rice, the ones you mistake for demons right at the front of spinning class, the ones who have sworn off puffy sleeves lest they highlight their imaginary fat arms. And the amazing thing is that they do it consistently. Ie. for the rest of their lives. They have taken a vow, a pledge to the inner fat girl to never ever be fat again. Whatever it takes to never ever EVER return to what they were once before.

I have never ever seen so much self control. Not even in a monk who's accidentally swallowed a Viagra pill.

I am amazed at the kind of commitment and dedication. I mean, we can all diet, and we have. Sometimes they last a few a days before we get withdrawal symptoms and reach for the sugar bowl. If we are lucky, a few months, in which case we may lose a couple of pounds but then someone offers us a glistening KFC and in a moment of weakness, we reach out and inhale it. Sometimes even a year if we suffered a major heartbreak and need a new figure to match our new 'outlook' in life but in comes someone new and off we are again, having cake. But to keep at it year in and year out, FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE...well, that's like being married to your diet.

These days, they call it a lifestyle change. You're not on a diet, you have merely changed your eating lifestyle. Oh crap, if you're cutting down sugar, cutting down fat, eating low fat mayo and all the rest of it, it sounds like a damn diet to me!

Apart from vanity, which I think all women are guilty of, I really believe that this will to ward off the fat stems from far deeper. It goes way back to childhood days or teenage years when these girls were big. When boys bypassed them for thinner girls, when parents and relatives made their weight a topic at the dinner table to the laughter and delight of others. When they couldn't finish the race because they were huffing and puffing too much. When they couldn't wear mini skirts and halter necks when everybody else was. When in photos they appeared so big next to the regular-sized person they look like they were superimposed. It does things to your mind and leaves scars that in time, become as much a part of you as your DNA.

The irony is that it's these very memories that sting so much that now serve as the very impetus to keeps these girls going - to run the extra mile, to wait another hour before the next meal, to forego the baby doll no matter how adorable.

What I find commendable is that they've taken the negative and turned it into the positive. And as cliched as that sounds, it's what life is all about isn't it? They're in it for the long run. It's not just some fad diet they embarked on, but a lifelong commitment.

To all the fat girls gone thin, a standing ovation from me. Well done! Fight hunger with hunger!

Note: At the other end of the spectrum, you will find girls like me. The fat girls on the fence. The ones who have not taken the vow but who want to be thin just as much. They also have their fair share of fat memories and scars but somehow just can't find the hunger to fight the hunger. As a result, we yo-you our way through our adult lives, swinging from the end of a self-imposd pendulum as it brings us from fat to chubby to thin and back to chubby and fat again. And so it continues to swing, year in year out. Who would have thought French fries and chocolate cake could cause so much trouble!

Juicy

2007-06-20T09:10:00.000+08:00

I wasn't going to share this juicy little secret, especially not on the net, but I am learning the art of detachment from all things material, so here goes.

In Wisma Atria in PJ, you will find a shop called Eye Candy. In there, you will find all sorts of treasure from Diane von Furstenburg wrap dresses; to the sweetest BCBG and Karen Millen babydolls; Ted Baker tops; Seven, True Religion, Rock & Republic jeans; and evening dresses to die for. I have put on hold a Ted Baker dress and a BCBG top. Trying very hard to resist...but they're so PURTEEEEE....!

The best thing of all is that they are real, current or last season only and they are at least 40% off rack prices. Go! Go now!!!

I have Resourceful Mama to thank for sharing her find. Thanks to her, I will have a wardrobe of lovely clothes and plenty of debt.

Old Song, Timeless Lyrics

2007-06-19T15:05:00.001+08:00

唯獨你是不可取替

曾聽說有許多戀愛
沒有結果卻剩傷心者感慨
令我都刻意避開
是我不敢相信真愛
但你不惜真心真意對待
竟令我再感到意外
讓我獻出同樣被愛
全面喝采

如果今天將失去眼前的一切
剩低清風兩袖也不計
唯獨你一個是不可給取替
是我生命裡的一切
哦oh如早知今生跟你有幸可相愛
在當初應更努力為未來
其實我知道是可一不可再
下半生准我留住你一直相愛

Only You Cannot Be Replaced
Composer: Nakayama Miho/Useugi Shou/Oda Tetsuro
Lyrics: Canny Leung (梁芷珊)
By: Andy Hui

I've heard of many relationships
Ending without results leaving behind hurt and regret
I've avoided them deliberately
It’s me who cannot believe in true love
But you treated me with sincerity
I was surprised again
Allowing me to give all my love in return
And all my happiness

If today I lose all that I have
I won’t care if I have nothing left
Only you cannot be replaced
You are everything in my life
If I had known that I would be fortunate to love you in this life
I would have worked harder for the future at the start
Actually I know it is once in a lifetime chance
Allow me to be with you in my next life

Who else is like you to appreciate me?
There’s no one else who understands me so well
What else would I need?
I wish for the rest of your life to be handed to me
Allow me to take care of you properly
Please let me understand your needs
So I may give you all my love

If today I lose all that I have
I won’t care if I have nothing left
Only you cannot be replaced
You are everything in my life
If I had known that I would be fortunate to love you in this life
I would have worked harder for the future at the start
Actually I know it is once in a lifetime chance
Allow me to be with you in my next life
Loving each other forever

Welcome To The Fairytale

2007-06-12T10:59:00.000+08:00

PMS is a delibitating illness. It targets your self esteem, shoots down all the hard work you have spent building it and stomps all over your confidence and self image like a barbaric neanderthal.

We can try to fight it off with herbs and pills, in my case red clover blossoms and plenty of calcium. Whilst it does take the edge of the PMS bite, I am learning that it doesn't really tame the beast within. Without anti-PMS herbs = Medusa on a bad sulphur trip. With anti-PMS herbs = Glenn Close boiling rabbits. Ie. not as scary, but still as psycho.

It is a curse, I tell you. At my age and correlating baggage size, PMS begins two weeks before the actual event. That's two whole weeks of griping with emotions, moods, insecurities, unresolved issues and a steady bloating of the belly. Then D-Day announces its arrival with a huge splash of red that despite years of this monthly torture, still never fails to shock when you go to the loo and it glares its angry surprise back at you from your knickers.

Then come the cramps. OK, I must admit, my period pains have noticebly numbed post pregnancy, but still, cramps are cramps - numbed or otherwise - and it makes you want to crawl up in bed (not snuggle) , tenderly nest over a hot water bottle and drift into a semi conscious state of hopelessness and helplessness, ie. hell.

This lasts for another 3-4 days and it is of no help that you have to visit the loo every 3 hours if you are tamponing or have to walk around with a big fake smile on your face so as to not give away that there is a loaf of a pad wedged between your legs as you bleed out.

Finally, as the period wears off, so does this PMS beast and you return to 'normal' before it begins all over again in less than a week's time.

And so, it brings me back to the person who asked me this question when I was a pre-teen, "would you rather have been born a girl or a boy?". With hindsight, I conclude that this person must not only have been of the male gender, he was also mocking me despite my naivete - not only revelling in the fact that we live in a man's world, but rubbing in what he already knew was coming - that I was on the brink of experiencing PMS for a good three weeks every month for the rest of my god-damned life until finally, even menopause is welcomed with open arms.

Have a nice week girls.

Just Get Over It!

2007-06-01T08:51:00.001+08:00

I'm a hopeless friend to have around if you've just broken up with someone. I can never find the right balance between being the sympathetic "awww, you poor thing" shoulder to lean on and the short and straight friend that tells it as it is - "pick yourself up and stop being so pathetic".

I do genuinely feel for people who have had their hearts broken. I know what it feels like. It's horrible. Like falling down a black hole and not knowing where you will land. Yes, the 'mourning' period is not nice, with its accompanying thoughts of suicide, lack of will to eat (hang on...that's a good thing, no?) and loss of of motivation to live. Yet, its a necessary step to take in order to get back on our two feet again.

But it's also so horribly annoying. OK, I'm not the most sympathetic person, but really. I mean, especially if we have been hurt before, and we have, why do we simply set ourselves up again? Have we not learned from previous episodes that it hurts and reliving every little detail of what happened over and over again just ain't going to change anything?

Of course, its easier said then done. I'm not the one who's heart is in pieces right now. I have been extremely fortunate to have around me a network of people who have been my safety net at times like these, and their efforts are immensely appreciated. There are some people who are better at cooing and coaxing and others at being blunt. The most effective advice I have ever had after a devastating breakup many years ago was "Just Get Over It".

It was said with a tinge of exasperation and it was exactly what I needed to hear. It woke me up with a jolt. You know, sometimes when you are in shock, all you need is for someone to give you an order? It's that - I needed a direction. Enough talking, enough analysing, enough wondering, enough plotting. This deal is done.

I guess the crux of the matter is this: how long exactly is an appropriate public mourning period? Of course, that depends on the person, the relationship, the time in life...no, you can't say 2 weeks or 2 months or whatever. What I mean is that a part of you will indeed mourn for a long time, however much the relationship meant to you, but you can mourn inside.

When you've exhausted the details and there are no more twists to the plot, enough! I am guilty of long drawn out post break up public mourning and it need not have been so. It was indulgent of me to have carried on doing that to myself. One needs to move on from the frantic need to relive and enter the phase of quiet reflection.

The key to turn that locked door of awakening? It's perspective. Once you put that huge relationship in the long and vast life you have lived and will go on to lead, and then put your life within the context of the world around you, and then put your world into the context of the universe at large, you kind of get the message. The relationship moulded who you are going to be, but it so is not your life!

I don't like seeing weak people. When I see refugees, people abused in their childhood, those living in poverty, and I see survival in their eyes, I think everyone is capable of strength, of great strength. They just don't know it.

Orlando...

2007-05-31T10:20:00.000+08:00

...Swooon...........

I loved the incoherent madness, the endless battles, the lame humour and ridiculous characters of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. I loved it that it went on and on and that I got so confused from the minute it started that it just forced me sit back, chill out and take it for what it was.

Pure entertainment.

No thinking, no expectations...just alot of pirate accent decoding and of course, plenty of...swooning.

Nice jacket Will...

Of Dharma and Reborn Rugby Players

2007-05-30T16:56:00.000+08:00

An interesting point was brought up by His Eminence Tsem Tsulku Rinpoche, a Lama who spreads Dharma teachings. I have never been to any of his talks at Kechara House, but have seen him in person when he came to bless Camp5 on their first anniversary. I recently chanced upon his website and managed to listen to snippets of his many talks.

One thing UTube is great for is not only spreading the pubescent legs of pornography but also the word of religion - though technically Buddhism in all its forms, including Dharma, is not a religion (as there is no God as such) but rather a matter of your mind and soul attaining enlightenment.

I am always rather sceptical about religion or any teachings. Whether copied off the pages a school book or rolled off the tongue of a theologian, I can't help but to question its authenticity and validity, even if it comes from the mouth of a man dressed in an orange robe. Whilst my mind, soul and spirit are collectively trying to wrap themselves around the religions of the world, I do neverthelesss believe that religious teachings do purport many truths that we would all be better off knowing.

Tsem Tulku Rinpoche is not your regular lama in an orange robe. Have a look at some of his downloadable talks and you will see that in a parallel life, he would also do well as a stand up comedian. He is funny and had me laughing out loud doing one of his many impressions, but he is also serious about getting his point across. I mean no disrespect in what he is saying. I take it and I look at it in my life, and I look at it in the lives around me. My spiritual awakening comes late and my outlook is naive.

One of the many things he said stuck in my mind and shot off questions marks in my head like a universe alight with comets.

I hope I am not quoting out of context as some of the talks are viewable from start to finish so I may have missed a big qualifier somewhere. He said that we ought not to spend our time acquiring material skills in this lifetime, because when we die, so too do those skills. Like being able to knit or couturing (is there such a word), or painting or sculpting or whatever. They die with us and when we are reborn we begin clueless and have to start all over again.

He said that we ought to invest out time and efforts in is acquiring skills of expanding the subtle mind - as opposed to the gross mind. In developing our subtle mind - the one that we carry with us from body to body, from life to lfe, we build a layering of knowledge (I am using my own words here) and when we are born in to our next lives, we already have those skills inherent in us - a mind more open to developing the conscious - and I suppose with each life, we also build on that consciousness and eventually we find ourselves, or rather our subtle minds, etching our way to nirvana.

He added that we are closing our minds by investing in material things of pleasure - like gambling, sex, money, fun - in a way, running away from the unhappiness in our lives and filling it with external stimulators. I thought he had a point.

I pondered if I had done so with my life. I am certainly guilty of getting mindlessly drunk after the breakup to run away from the impending doom I felt my life was descending into. Who hasn't is lying. I wondered if I use climbing as a diversion. Well, I had always maintained that climbing is a mode of escapism for me. No doubt. During a trying time, it brought me sanity, calm as well as a lot of pleasurable physical pain!

But there is doubt in my mind. And all through rock climbing yesterday, I pondered further.

There, I top roped a killer red route on the overhang lead wall. I did not get to the anchor and I stopped about fifty times on the way up, but I did feel a sense of achievement and satisfaction. After that, I did something I have not done in an age - I mamaked till midnight and smoked three Dunhill Lights!

And under the neon glow of Ming Tien, I concluded my response to Tsem Tulku Rinpoche's proposition. Yes, perhaps he is right that we delve into pleasure to escape the unhappiness that lurks within. If I may elaborate further, perhaps it is also true that the feats that we achieve in these pleasures - the things that make us feel good - ie. downing the fifth beer, reaching the anchor of a multi pitch, making a cheongsam from scratch or sleeping with a supermodel - may give us a sense of achievemet, that feel-good is also temporary and does nothing for us when we are departed and our soul emptied of memory.

All true. Or maybe not? Wait a minute. What of people who can only express themselves through skill. Say art? Take Jean-Baptiste Grenouille of Patrick Suskind's Perfume for example, I know he is fictional but what if he was deprived of his only form of expression? Could a being with so much passion and love for beauty and perfection not leave this life and enter another with no imprint on his soul? Or Degas, Bach and Shakespeare perhaps reborn as rugby players remain just that or will their pursuit of beauty not have had any impact on their subtle minds? Will there be no lessons imparted nor imprinted, not in their brains but in their soul? And if not, who says?

Well, actually a lama reborn several times, may be the best person to know....

That I wonder. And I continue to wonder...this dialogue does not end here.

HELLO??!!

2007-05-18T09:54:00.001+08:00

How many blogs on the net today are going to be talking about this disaster?

Bouldering (what not to do)

2007-05-17T10:54:00.000+08:00

These were taken one warm sunny evening in Shah Alam. I love this picture...JUST USE THE LADDER!

I'm petrified. I do not want to slip and scrape my face against the rock and me forever known as Scarface.

Flex, Mount & Conquer!

(what happened to gaya, mutu & keunggulan?)

Make that a vodka tonic...

2007-05-17T09:56:00.000+08:00

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!!!"

Sweaty Hot Pants and Little Big Boys

2007-05-11T16:48:00.000+08:00

I was sent an email of David Becks in the nod today. Assuming its real, I'm not impressed, way too much skin in the way of the goods...

Anyway, in an unrelated story, I may have to invest in a pair of hot pants, print my company logo on the touche and get them all hot and sweaty. The pants that is. As part of our Save the Environment efforts, my company is taking part in the WWF Expedition Challange 2007. Yours truly signed up of course thinking it would make a good substitute to the Amazing Race that never was, but subsequently discovered that laps across the lake and uphill sprints may be involved in full view of gasp...onlookers! Forget stamina, my body is so not ready to be laid eyes on right now!

Anyway, training (TRAINING?!) starts tommorrow at would you believe, 730AM! And that I had to fight for - it was originally 7am! Wish me luck, save the seahorses.

Upstairs at work, the boys on the top floor are playing their little games. Power suits, Zegna shoes and I'm bigger and better than you 'strategies'. They may have silver hair and just as silver BMWs, but they're still back in that playground comparing penis sizes. Meanwhile, I continue to churn out PR fluff.

Have a good weekend folks. Look out for The Edge tommorrow!

E-yes!

2007-05-07T13:54:00.000+08:00

Whoever created E Entertainment ought to be given a knighthood in every country the channel is aired.

Yes, yes I know, I really shouldn't be suporting any form of media that encourages the business of the paparazzi. They are a despicable lot but, honestly, aren't these pretty, shiny people just so hard to resist?

The last few nights have been filled with such pleasure. With ZW tucked into bed, I'm snuggling up to a bowl of low fat vanilla ice cream doused with Milo and learning all about Jennifer Aniston Britney Spears, Halle Berry and the like. Last night, I had to turn it off at the Olsen twins - enough is enough.

I wonder what is on tonight...Starworld? What's that?

Recess

2007-05-07T13:37:00.000+08:00

Oh how I love the great outdoors.

Before we learned to dress ourselves, before we learned about decking ourselves, before we had technology do it all for us, we had our bodies and our minds and we worked them.

Why do I love climbing so much? It reminds me how to use my brain and my body. It takes me out of 2007 and brings me back to cave days where I had to use my arms and legs and my brain to plot my next move. And with the wrong step, I could die.

Yes, yes, of course there are all sorts of safety catches like ropes and harnesses and carabiners to make sure that doesn't happend, but you know, you get the idea.

I have said this before and I will say it again. I cannot live from one weekend to the other in some shopping mall, in some fancy restaurant, at some cushy little get-together. I cannot do coffees. I will stifle, I will stagnate, I will go mental.

I need to see the sky, I need to smell nature, touch the grit of soil. Be it ski, climb or sea, I just need to be reminded of where I stand in the big, big picture. And I think that if everyone did a bit of outside time in their lives, we would find ourselves alot humbler and happier.

Yesterday, after climbing at the gym, the F8 climbers ventured out to the skateboard park in Shah Alam. They've got some cool boulders and some excellent wall routes there too. When we arrived, we were like little children running around, wanting to try everything at once. The sky was blue, the clouds were amazing, the 'rocks' warm and the setting sun an excellent backdrop for cool rock climbing photography silhouttes. We attempted routes that were far too hard for us, clambering up with no technique, let alone style, stepping on loose holds and swinging out 20 feet in the air. Oh it was fun, it really was refreshing. I think this is something everyone needs to do once in a while - and that is, to PLAY!

Life Purpose

2007-05-07T13:08:00.000+08:00

I knew a long time ago that my life's purpose was to experience everything under the sun. I remember sitting by my window late into the night as Casey Kasem played the 80s and just knowing that life was there to be experienced. And at that point I remember wishing for God to throw me everything he had - good or bad - as long as on my deathbed, I was able to rest knowing, first hand, what things felt like.

At that time, I was about 12 or 13 and the soap opera, Dynasty, was all the rage. I remember wanting to be like Alexis Colby - the bitch with the long list of surnames, because to me, she was someone who had it all - not just the luxuries, but someone who had the power of knowledge. And just like her character, I wanted to live life with all its ups and downs, all its highs and lows. I wanted to know.

And I guess, now, many people may look at my life and think that I have worked myself into a corner. After all, there are not many exit plans for women in their thirties who are divorced with a kid. Who would want her now? Some people look at me with pity - the girl who had so much promise, who ended up in a dead end. It does seem archaic but trust me, KL minds are filled with limited ideals and in reality, I am viewed by the population of prospective mother in laws and bird-brained Asian men as spoiled goods.

But thankfully, I don't think so. Well, I can't because I simply cannot conform to ideals based on what's on the outside. I may be heavier, less pretty and a lot less fashionable now, but I am also alot more mature, grounded and aware than I have ever been. Seen on the inside, I have so much more to say, so much more to contribute and am so much more than before.

I am grateful that I experienced a horrible time in the past. Grateful that I have done the breakups, the cheating boyfriends, the bad marriage, the divorce, the being poor and desperate, the whole out of control thing. They are by no means over, I am sure there is more to come in all forms and fancies, but I welcome them with open arms.

Because not only do I learn from them invaluable lessons, I also know that there are just as many highs to look forward to. And I have had the privelige of loving and being loved, of having choices, of experiencing the beauty of nature, of immense freedom, of priveliged luxury, of intense happiness and above all, of knowing.

And if God came to me today and asked me what I wanted, after the svelte body, the huge bank account, the God-like boyfriend and the roomful of beautiful children, I would still ask for him to throw me whatever he had - hopefully more good than bad, but still the good and the bad.

Overdose

2007-05-04T10:18:00.000+08:00

Is it age or beauty? I think for me its beauty. I don't mind growing old as long as I am forever beautiful.

Yesterday I went a bit crazy at the pharmacist. My Mum introduced me to Millenium Pharmacy in Taman Mega that gives really good discounts on vitamins, sometimes as much as 25% off the prices marked in places like Guardian. Using that as a licence to splurge, I did.

I am on calcium, vitamin C, red clover blossoms, spirulina and vitamin E supplements in addition to a new Multivite with added B complex as well as Dermareen, an Imedeen-type supplement. Did I mention I like doing things in extreme?

This morning at 4am, I woke up with pains of burning indigestion in the back of my throat. I had swallowed 6 pills before going to sleep and my body was evidently screaming in rebellion. This was a mere 5 hours after I swallowed a previous 8. And let me add that these pills are not small - the Multivite looks like a large black beetle on steroids.

The whole idea is to space out the vitamins for enhanced absorption. I am due for 8 this morning but just can't seem to stomach it - the indigestion is still screaming its way further down my esophagus.

I mean, how nerdy can you get? OD-ing on vits...

For the last time, I'm fine.

2007-05-03T17:43:00.000+08:00

Really, I am.

I did think long and hard about blogging about this, but then again, there really isn't anything to hide. Yes, its not always in good taste to comment about past relationships and air dirty laundry, but then again, that's not what I'm doing at all.

ExH remarried last weekend. Yes, it is a little awkward, I must admit. Especially so soon. A little like having an out of body experience because, well, he has only been married once before and that was to me, so it does take a little getting used to. But to those of you who look at me questioningly when the topic is raised or try to find surpressed sorrow beneath my smiles, there really isn't anything there, I assure you. And the more you look, the more it makes me question myself that perhaps there ought to be, which tends to make me look more guilty, when really, I am fine! Really, really, really!

I cannot say I wish them unwell, nor do I wish them well either. I really have no take on the issue - and don't read into that comment as if I've subconsciously numbed myself to reality because I haven't. I am the most un-numb I have been in a loooong time. And that's for you to believe or not, because it really doesn't bother me.

I only wish them luck, for I know every marriage needs a bit of that.

My only negative concerns in my life right now are my weight (as usual) and strangely enough, my climbing (that seems to have lost a bit of its fierceness lately). Yes, it's that trivial - my last post will certainly corroborate this. Actually, there is one more thing -but that one relates to a relationship with someone very close to my heart - someone from another life altogether whom I am sure will be the subject of another post to come.

So really, when it comes to this wedding, I am fine. My ex-mother in law has asked me out to tea this weekend to 'chat'. I really would rather not go. I don't see why I need to subject myelf to an hour of explanations. I really don't need them. It's in the past and nothing she can possibly say will make any difference. I have healed and rebuilt foundations by myself, with the help of my inner circle, and that's all done.

So, please don't question the point of this post. No, it's not to convince myself that I am fine either. It's to just say, please stop looking at me like that. And that's the final say on that matter. Let's move on! Next!

Steady Now

2007-04-30T14:56:00.000+08:00

Actually, for the first time in a long time, it's all good.

There are no intense highs - no new love, no winning lottery ticket - that kind of thing. But there are no intense lows either - nothing major breaking down in the house, no bad karma coming at me in full force.

I hope I am not speaking/writing to soon, but this is good. It's stable, it's calm and strangely, Safe. There are pleasant barbeques and dinners, feel-good pressure at work, fulfilling climbing sessions, genuinely fun mummy-son bonding moments and short family get-togethers.

Around me though, it's not quite the case. Maids getting pregnant, extra marital affairs, break ups and blow ups.

Remember Bjork's It's So Quiet? What applies in love applies to life too?

Singapore On My Mind

2007-04-18T17:10:00.000+08:00

I'm a little psychotic and I'm sure many people who know me will gladly attest to that. I don't know if it's the A-type personality I am told I have, or just the inherent kiasuness that comes with being Chinese.

It began to show when I decided to bring ZW down to Singapore for the weekend. The idea came from feeling so tired of KL. Long weekends looming in the horizon pushes people to think they can have a break from the monotony of where they live and gives them that shove to do plan a weekend getaway. The advantages and disadvantages of KL is its location. Bangkok - been there too often. Any further north - too far, too costly. Andaman islands - been there too often. Bali - been there too often. East Malaysia - feel like getting out of the country and using the passport. Singapore - hmmm, Singapore feels like a Western country invaded by Asians, like Vancouver minus the cold. Sounded good. Besides, it's child friendly, it's just down the road and I get to use my passport.

When I research something, I tend to get a little involved. I combed through Asiarooms and Directrooms, I double researched every hotel that suited my needs and the ones that didn't by visiting their website or if there wasn't, I searched for reviews, I read almost every review, I cliked on all the photos, I noted their location on a common map, I downloaded the Sentosa Island map, drew up an Excel chart of the attractions that would appeal to ZW and their location and cost, visited the Night Safari website only to strike it off the list because we have already been there, visited the website of First Coach, Airebus and Nice Bus, called and spoke to their personnel about price and availability, and even made 2 hotel room bookings.

By the end of the day, I felt I had already gone to Singapore five times and back, with three children.

So guess what? We're staying home in KL. In fact, on Saturday, I'm going to bake, have friends over, play mah jong and enjoy my house while I still have it!

Faraway Land

2007-03-23T11:55:00.000+08:00

I made a resolution this year that each year, I would travel to somewhere new. It's so easy to fall into the Air Asia deal cycle and end up at the predictable destinations of Bangkok, Siem Reap, Bali, Shenzen or whatever. Whilst I am sure those places are great places to holiday, I refuse to allow my travel experiences be dictated solely by price and good deals.

The project this year is Rajasthan, in the northwest of India. I have always wanted to visit India, especially the Hawa Mahal in Jaipur, whihc has been to me, the epitome of mystery, romance, epic history and drama, an India I have always imagined and wanted to see.

The more I read up about Rajasthan, the more I am convinced it is exactly what I need to have in my portfolio of travel. It's the one place that can save me from the self imposed rut of mall-shopping wherever I go without depriving me of the need to spend in return for pretty things.

Rajasthan, with its desert, culture, architecture and history, for me, strikes the perfect balance between exoticsm, adventure, sightseeing and shopping that I wish.

So the wheel begins to turn. In 7 months' time, I'll be on a camel safari - actually sitting on a stinking, spitting, hissing animal, bound like a mummy from the shifting sands and sleeping out in the open desert. Sheeit!!

Literally!

2007-03-22T09:38:00.000+08:00

If you were to write something that is presumably going to be read by a large chunk of the literate nation, you would of course, apart from making sure it's damn well written, ensure you get your facts right, right?

I belong to a climbing group called F8 - a bunch of fellow climbers who literally hang outdoors once a month. A reporter from The Star came along last Sunday to climb with us as part of a feature she was writing for her publication.

Her article, as endearing as it is, is peppered with misinformation.

Let me attempt to clarify.

Firstly, F8 is not a club, but a group. We're not clubby, we're not in the least official (except for paying money to a treasurer to ensure our equipment doesn't fail us), we don't do club member stuff. We don't have logos/banners/a constitution/an HQ and other such clubby things. In fact, apart from our knots, we're loose - and constantly climb with just about anyone who will climb with us - be it indoors or outdoors.

Secondly, F8 does not maintain the Nyamuk Walls of Batu Caves. Maybe apart from Jon who owns some 'bolting equipment' , I don't think any of us even know how to put in a bolt let alone maintain one. People like me have a phobia of snakes, wildlife in close proximity and take a good ten minutes to clean an anchor, so maintainence is beyond my gene capabilities. I believe I am not alone. More importantly, nobody maintains the Nyamuk Walls.

Thirdly, Orange Juice is not a top rope route, nor are the other routes in Nyamuk necessarily only lead routes. What makes a route a top rope one or a lead one is whether there is a rope threaded through the anchor. If there is, then you can top rope it. If it isn't, you have to lead it. So basically, one can top rope a lead route - as I often do in Nyamuk.

If one had spent the last 6 weeks taking intensive climbing lessons, as the reporter claims she has, I would have thought this would have been made obvious.

I don't mean to gripe, but feel I must. Mis-reporting mis-informs and creates mis-conceptions of what climbing is. Yes, it is intimidating and daunting to those who are approching it for the first time. Especially if you have a fear of heights. Unfortunately, there is a fine line between encouraging people to try and completely putting them off. And something like rock climbing really doesn't need the bad rep.

I know reporters, I have friends who are, and I deal with them on a regular basis. Yes, they are the jaded bunch they are reputed to be. Articles, badly written or not, are not for me to correct in a public forum, but please, at least get your facts right, because as I said, as great as an article may turn out to be, it is rendered a little silly with a lack of meticulous fact checking.

So No Life Pt 2

2007-03-20T14:46:00.000+08:00

So I steal things from other people's blogs. So what? Here's another:

() Stolen a car
(x) Been in love - Ouch
(x) Been dumped - Double Ouch
(x) Shoplifted
() Been in a fist fight
(x) Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back
() Been arrested
() Made out with a stranger
() Done more with a stranger
() Had a crush on a teacher
( ) Seen someone die
(x) Been on a plane
() Met someone in person from the Internet - Many persons!
( ) Been moshing at a concert
(x) Been in an abusive relationship
(x) Love someone or miss someone right now
(x) Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by
(x) Made a snow angel
(x) Had a tea party
(x) Flown a kite
(x) Built a sand castle
(x) Gone puddle jumping
(x) Played dress up
(x) Jumped into a pile of leaves
(x) Gone sledding
(x) Cheated while playing a game
(x) Been lonely
(x) Fallen asleep at work/school - Please tell me who hasn't
(x) Used a fake id
(x) Watched the sunset - I'm still waiting
( ) Felt an earthquake
() Touched a snake
(x) Slept beneath the stars
(x) Been tickled
(x) Been robbed
(x) Been misunderstood
() Petted a reindeer/goat - ??
(x) Won a contest
( ) Been in a car accident
() Had braces
(x) Felt like an outcast
(x) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night
(x) Had deja vu
( ) Danced in the moonlight
(x) Hated the way you look
( ) Witnessed a crime
( ) Pole danced
(x) Questioned your heart
(x) Been obsessed with post-it notes
(x) Squished barefoot through the mud
(x) Been lost
(x) Been to the opposite side of the WORLD
(x) Swam in the ocean
(x) Felt like dying
(x) Cried yourself to sleep
(x) Played cops and robbers
(x) Recently colored with crayons/colored pencils/markers
(x) Sung karaoke
(x) Paid for a meal with only coins
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(x) Made prank phone calls
(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(x) Danced in the rain
(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(x) Been kissed under a mistletoe - Now that would be nice
(x) Watched the sun rise with someone you care about - Read 'sunset'
(x) Blown bubbles
( ) Made a bonfire on the beach
(x) Crashed a party
(x) Gone rollerskating
(x) Had a wish come true
( ) Humped a monkey - What the ?!@%$#?
( ) Ate dog/cat food - Again, what the %@?!#&?
(x) Told a complete stranger you loved them
(x) Kissed a mirror
(x) Sang in the shower
(x) Have a little black dress
(x) Had a dream that you married someone
(x) Glued your hand to something
( ) Got your tongue stuck to a flag pole
( ) Kissed a fish
(x) Worn the opposite sexes clothes
( ) Been a cheerleader
(x) Sat on a roof top
(x) Screamed at the top of your lungs
( ) Done a one-handed cartwheel
( ) Talked on the phone for more than 6 hours in a row
(x) Stayed up all night
( ) Didn't take a shower for a week
() Pick and ate an apple right off the tree
(x) Climbed a tree
( ) Had a tree house
(x) Are scared to watch scary movies alone
( ) Believe in ghosts
(x) Have more then 30 pairs of shoes
(x) Worn a really ugly outfit just to see what others say
( ) Gone streaking
( ) Played ding-dong-ditch
( ) Played chicken
(x) Got pushed into a pool with all your clothes on
( ) Broken a bone
(x) Been easily amused
( ) Caught a fish then ate it
() Made porn
( ) Caught a butterfly
(x) Laughed so hard you cried
(x) Cried so hard you laughed
(x) :P mooned/flashed someone
(x) Had someone moon/flash you
(x) Cheated on a test
() Have a Britney Spears CD
(x) Forgotten someone's name
(x) Slept naked
(x) French braided someone's hair
() Gone skinny dipping in a pool
(x ) Been kicked out of your house

So No Life

2007-03-19T18:09:00.000+08:00

One of your scars, how did you get it?
The one on my right knee. In primary school, as I was walking to asssembly which was held on an untarred stretch of road. Some kid ran past and pushed me causing me to fall over and bleed to near death – well, almost.

What music do you like to listen to?
I like the sound of male bands. Duranduran (the early years), The Killers, U2, Suede, Pink Floyd, the like.

Do you know what time you were born?
About 7 in the evening when the tigers come out to hunt.

What do you want more than anything right now?
Equilibrium.

What is your most prized possession?
My son.

Do you get scared in the dark?
Not if I’m PMSing, no, ‘cos then I’m the monster lurking in the dark. Normally, a little. Especially if I’ve just accidentally watched a horror movie trailer.

What kind of hair do you like on the opposite sex?
Mmmm…not long as in Fabio, not mullet as in German rockstar, not bald or too closely cropped, not bobbed. Anything else is fine.

Where can you see yourself being proposed to at?
Near water – beach/lakeside/snow/pier.

Coffee or energy drinks?
Neither but a kopi tambah manis is great when I’m in the mood.

Favorite pizza topping?
Everything on it.

If you can eat anything right now, what would it be?
Zinger or Chicken McDeluxe. Or a really huge prime rib straight off the Vegas strip with some New Orleans onion rings to go with it.

Who's the last person you made mad?
The person I once had the misfortune of marrying.

Do you speak other languages?
For laughs, Malay and Cantonese. For hysterics, French and Mandarin.

Would you fall in love knowing that the person is leaving?
Do you ever have a choice?

What's the best way to tell someone how much they mean to you?
Haha… write them a letter and watch it all crumble before your eyes.

Blondes or brunettes?
Lately, blondes.

What annoys you most?
Locally produced advertisements.

Your weaknesses?
Men, shoes, clothes, emotions.

Where were you born?
Bangsar.

First job?
Perfume pusher.

What were you doing before filling out this survey?
Surfing Oprah.

If you could get plastic surgery, what would it be?
Lipo on my arms, back, thighs, tummy, face; nose job, boob job, butt lift.

What do you get complimented about most?Hair, when it was long. Tan, when I had one. Skin, when it was flawless. Legs, pre-cellulite. Figure, pre-kid.

What do you want for your birthday?
An all expense trip to far, far away.

How many kids do you want?
3.

Since when has it been a crime to want more?

2007-03-09T15:45:00.000+08:00

Two weekends ago, I spent a sweltering Saturday night out in one of the hottest spots of KL's night life. As I walked passed ISKL teenagers downing tequila shots, the latest Dior bags wearing their wearers and supposed 'It' girls sashaying out of BMWs (a sight to behold I warn you), I realised it was a scene I did not miss. On the unfashionable end of the Asian Heritage Row, in a trendy restaurant bathed in the neon glow of the mamak shop across the street, an old friend and I dined on the garlickiest fettucine and the cheesiest risotto on the strip.

Princess and I have known each other for a good ten years. I used to go out with her brother, so we were forced from the start, to like one another. But then, she is not difficult to like and over the years, as romance faded from the relationship that brought us together, our friendship has managed to withstand the superficiality of KL friendships - we swear to 'do lunch' and end up actually 'doing' dinners instead, rare as they may be.

Princess is extremely eligible. If she was a horse, many would say she is of good breeding but then, she is not. She comes from a perfectly respectable family, is well educated, works hard at her career, is well dressed, pretty, fashionable and above all, mature and intelligent. The problem she faces is that everyone - especially her mother, reckons she is a bit odd.

You see, Princess has remained single ever since she returned from the UK - a good 5 years ago at least. Even more mind boggling to many, is that she has chosen to remain single.

Her mother is at a loss of words and is on the verge of a crisis. Her friends have run out of male friends to introduce her too and guys whom she wants to be 'just friends' with think she's playing them. And poor Princess is just sick and tired of everyone around her asking "who?", "when", "why", "how" and "what?"

"Who are are you waiting for?"
"When will you find a boyfriend and get married?"
"Why won't you go out with so and so?"
And etc etc...

Why is it a crime to want more? Why is it a crime to expect more out of life? Why on earth should she just date someone just 'cos its expected? Many of you single women out there would agree with me in saying that as it is, talent is lean in this town. Mind you, that's not say that Malaysian men are of a lesser breed. No not that at all. Only that we - the women who expect more - connect lesser with them.

We want to be with the one who takes our inquisitive minds to places its never imagined, make our hearts sing in tune for once, make us laugh like hyenas, makes us feel like Elizabeth Taylor and make our bodies sizzle like sausages on a hot grill! The one that rocks our world, shakes our foundations. The one that makes it all worth the while. Is that asking too much?

I have blogged enough about this, dating someone you are SO not into, is not only unfair to the guy (especially if he is into you), it's downright tedious. Staying at home watching reruns of CSI is far more appealing.

People get me wrong and call me a snob, just like they call Princess a snob. But in this day and age where we are striving for more as women - better pay, more senior positions at work, voting rights at outdated country clubs we belong to, why, oh why then, is society telling us to settle for less?

And you know what? Let's leave society out of it for the moment. It's women themselves judging other women by indirectly telling them that they are worth less walking into a party on their own instead of off the arm of a distinguished man. Women are the ones reminding us that our shelf life is running out when they constantly moan about the importance of really knowing a man before marrying them. Mothers are the ones rushing their daughters into marriages when many of them bitterly regret theirs. And so on so forth. Oh, the irony of it all.

And the men? Well, they never go into too much detail. They just think we're a bunch of lezzas.

Yeesh, Love Again

2007-03-06T15:54:00.000+08:00

How many times have you sat there with your girl friends asking yourselves what love is. And you rake through your resume of boyfriends and assess each relationship only to gaze back at each other with a resounding no. No. We do not know what love is. We do not know what love is because we have never loved.

See, I have been in such a situation before. I have sat there countless times, and had this same conversation, with the same people. And each time, despite having had amazing relationships, and sometimes during an amazing relationship, we each concluded that we do not know what love is.

Funny that thing called love. You just can’t write about without sounding like a catalogue of old songs. Its very nature is clichéd.

My theory is this. That being in love is one thing. But knowing what love is quite another. You see, of course people find love. The love that everyone talks about. The love that makes the world go round. The one that everyone wants. That rare elixir of life that nourishes the being. Mostly people do recognize it and are grateful for being blessed. And they go on and live happily ever after until one dies and the other one dies soon after from suffocation (‘cos when you love deeply and a lover goes, you can’t breathe).

But then there are other people who are not so switched on. Those who maybe don’t know themselves so well. Or others who are so entangled with issues that they cannot grasp the notion without tripping and falling flat on their faces. Others are maybe a combination of the two. They just don’t see the trees from the woods and are unable to identify that love has hit them in full force.

I am one such person. I found love and it was a lightning bolt. Not a loud one. But there was certainly a jolt that came from within that electrified me into noticing that this person was worth more than just a glance. That was finding love. Finding love is loud. It’s exciting, mind-boggling, heart-racing, pulse-hyperdrive, sensational and irrational kind of stuff. It’s vivacious and bursting with flavour. It makes you happy, it makes you suicidal, it makes you feel alive.

That’s all well and good, but finding love is one thing. But knowing it, is quite another. You could very well have found the love yet be completely oblivious to it. And then you sit in that café with your girls and talk about how great this guy is but, heck, you don’t know what love is ‘cos we expect more, more, more.

I know that there are things that you are just born knowing. But if you are say, too young or too tanked up with issues, or maybe even too afraid, how do you identify one happiness from another? What separates one good boyfriend from another? You can’t and therefore, you think you haven’t found true love, because you think true love is an aggressive creature and it’s supposed to hit you in the face until your black and blue because it will not be ignored.

What we expect of love is what we see in the movies. But we forget that movies are a condensed version of life. Yes, some things are portrayed realistically and some things aren’t – but they all have to fit into a 3-hour slot or else people wouldn’t come and watch. So we always expect and wait for a clear and unmistakable sign or act and ignore the slow realizations - the ones staring at you in the face. We wait and wait for the clouds to part and for love to shine on to us, but has anyone ever told you that’s not how it happens in real life?

Alas, really knowing true love is subtle and quiet and has none of the showiness that first attracted you to it. For some people, it could take years to realize that they truly loved and were loved in return. Knowing love is like the silent dawn. The one where you are convinced it’s the dead of night and suddenly when you least expect it, there’s a glimmer of light in the horizon. It’s as unstoppable as the sunrise but just as sure. And before you know it, you just know it and its broad daylight. A new day has dawned, and it’s dawned upon you and finally and quite simply, you know.

For some, like me, the dawn comes late. Sometimes the lover has fled the scene and you are enjoying the sunrise alone. Now, that is a sorry situation to be in. What can I say? Well, on the bright side, you are no longer in the dark.

Flood Waters

2007-01-17T09:50:00.000+08:00

I am sorry to say that I am taking a break from this blog. Many things are happening in my life right now that require my serious attention and focus, many of which dig into the very core of my personal life. There are many issues and experiences to blog about but sadly, it's something I am only willing to share anonymously. So, as you know who I am in 'real' life, know what I do, what I like to eat and where I climb, until all these issues are resolved and life takes on its rose-tinted, light-heartedness once again, I bid you adieu.

This blog has helped tremendously along my journey and I've tried hard here to be truthful and honest. I won't be serving it any justice by blogging about trivia that does not touch on what I am feeling at the moment. And in case that sounded like I'm having a major meltdown, I'm not. I'm feeling what everyone in their thirties feels, only my life has spun itself into more complications than the regular.

If you notice, this is not the first time on this blog that I have taken a hiatus. It just needs to be done every now and then. Time now, to move on to another subject - to lie low until the flood waters recede (sorry, I have to make some reference to the sad situation down south). Perhaps its time to revive the old food blog.

Thank you for stopping by and for all your thoughtful comments. I am grateful for the interest and the sharing.

New Year, New Beginnings

2007-01-05T11:29:00.001+08:00

Happy New Year everyone. May 2007 bring you lashings of happiness, good fortune and health. May you find what it is you are looking for.

I certainly hope I do.

The fact that my microwave broke down as it was defrosting my leftover lasagna and my new-ish Nokia decided not to work as I was receiving new year messages left me wondering. As I pondered whether someone upstairs was trying to tell me something about my life, the pen I was writing with broke in half and my son dropped the house phone thereby rendering it unworkable.

This is after I discovered a few days before 2006 closed its sleepy eyes that my maid had been sneaking out of the house to meet her Mexican boyfriend and giving out my home address to literally, every Tom, Dick and Harry.

Then a series of little mishaps, my Touch 'N Go card refusing to work as I exited a shopping mall, my electric gate refusing to lock, my cheques bouncing because of the holiday period and the bank charging me RM100 for it, my son starting school with a schedule that no flexi-time could possibly adhere to. All this culminated in some rapid decision-making as 2006 handed over the torch to 2007. The live in maid structure goes, I will do everything myself with the help of a part timer. I am selling my house and buying a new apartment. Returning to full time and a full bank account has to wait until some dust settles.

I don't mean to begin the new year with a big whinge and frankly, I don't see it that way at all. In fact, I have discovered that while gardening is absilutely no fun at all, hanging clothes up to dry is.

Yes it's certainly an unusual situation to find oneself in and though some may argue I am denial, I think not. I am sitting alone in a dark house after throwing out the garbage with a wry smile on my face rather that in a pond of salty tears. The shit has hit the fan and funnily enough,I reckon that shit raining down on you is an experience one must savour at least once in their life time.

I guess, it's all a message, a cause and effect. Perhaps I ventured on with my life too soon. Rushed into things. Ran a hasty race. Cut too many corners. Too eager to get to the finish line first with all the trophies in hand. And certain foundations, pillars and corner stones were not put in place.

Lesson No. 1: You can't get from A to Z and bypass all the letters in the alphabet without a proper infrastructure in place.

So 2007 begins back at square 1. It's back to basics beginning with a process of re-evaluation, putting workable and reliable systems in place and only thereafter can the building blocks come out to play.

I suppose not everyone will have a blast doing this. It is in essence, taking several steps backwards, but a move that is both necessary and essential for any future growth. I am as ever, grateful for this to happen now - better sooner than later I have been saying.

This is not about of horrid luck, in fact, its a blessing in disguise.

So whilst I don't wish shit to rain down on everyone (there must be a better way of doing this!), but I do wish you all progress, smooth transitions and welcoming chapters.

New Year, New Beginnings

2007-01-05T11:29:00.000+08:00

Let It Snow, let it snow, let it snow

2006-12-26T10:39:00.000+08:00

Happy year-end all! Wishing you good tidings for the year ahead, may it be filled with happiness and fulfillment.

December is one of my favourite months in the year, apart from February which the month of my birthday, and June just because I like the sound of it. December is when people take time off work, dress in shorts, gush loudly about their holidays in the snow, bump into old friends in neighbourhood shopping malls, throw parties and are generous with the invitations, up the ante on charity work, make long distance calls and frankly, eat themselves silly. A time when young children cry at the realisation that snowflakes don't exist in Malaysia.

It's a time when people are relaxed, jolly, friendly and as genuinely caring as they are going to get in a town like KL. It's a time of nostalgia and hope, of spirit and energy. I think it's a time where people adopt a hidden grace and unlike the din of CNY where its actually expected of you to be big and brash, Christmas and New Year demands a certain refinement of character that suggests that all the well wishing may actually rub off on you after all.

Nonetheless, it's still an unbelievably hectic time of year. Of baking, shopping, eating and socialising. I really feel like I've slogged the whole year, where in actual fact, I've really just pushed myself in the last 3 weeks. My belly would make a moist char siu, my internal organs are groaning in unison from its squashed confinements, my eye are bags the size of the latest Samsonite model and my voice resembles a scratchy old record discovered in the attic.

The pressies have been good this year. I got a funky vanity case, M&S underwear, snacks and trinkets, Tom Parker Bowls' The Year Eating Dangerously, a carabiner, accessories, Pink Floyds's newly released The Wall DVD, a jar of home-made lemon curd and a tin of ginger biscuits. Yayy!

I am looking forward to welcoming the new year at home, with my son, watching the Star Wars special on telly. Maybe I'll throw another party. Hmmm...shall I, shall I??!

What is it about love?

2006-12-08T17:01:00.000+08:00

That has us up in arms, entangled in questions, spun up in theories and rhetoric? How come it is that some people just have that je ne sais quois, that intangible magnetism, that draws romantic interest to them effortlessly, whilst others are so magnetically insipid they may as well as have dropped of the edge of Planet Love. And I'm not talking about looks or anything like that here. Whilst yes, it is probably correct to assume your regular celup VJ on telly openly gets more fanfare than the regular lian on the street, but then again, the regular lian on the street, may just well be the silent one to watch.

There exists a particular breed of female species of questionable origin (maybe they are aliens?) that appear in various forms. They range from superhot to super normal, some have blonde streaks, some have black roots, some prefer LV bags, others prefer knapsacks. But they all have one common denominator. They have an innate ability to draw men to them. In hordes.

No, these men don't flock, they throw themselves at these girls, not in search of something as banal as sex, but brandishing jewels, supplementary platinum cards, G3 phones and champagne roses - serving up their eternal love on gold platters alongside self-composed song lyrics and marriage proposals. And what have these girls done to be worthy recipients of so many suitors? Apparently, absolutely nothing.

"I was just crossing the road", claims one.

"All I did was smile", says another in defense.

Then there are the regulars (guess which category I fall into?), who are non-offensive, resonably intelligent, fun-loving and capable of a conversation or two. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Empty glass. No man, no woman. Nothing. Like the dry, dusty road in the middle of North Dakota that witnesses the pleasure of a passing car once in six months. Or is it a year?

Exactly how does this work? I just don't understand it. I've studied these chicks in action and I am sad to say, I am no closer to their secrets than before - is it in the wink, the subtle drop of the eyes, the manicured toes, the accidental brush of a shoulder? I just don't know.

A bunch of girly friends and I practiced our "come hither" looks last night which had us rolling on the floor, cackling like hyenas rather than smouldering like seductive goddesses. Maybe we should have spent our time painting our toe nails instead.

Whatever it is, kudos girlies with the pearlies. Perhaps one day, you will share. Meanwhile, the market is yours to conquer!

No Words

2006-12-06T10:21:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, a friend walked into work, turned on his computer, opened his emails like we do day in, day out and discovered that his brother had passed away a week ago. It's not the best news to start the day off with, but then again, is there ever a good time for bad news?

I imagine he must have been in a daze, but he was surrounded by support, and the presence of a Tibetan monk, that whilst in no way makes the pain any lesser, is more than what most people have around them and I guess, makes that first day easier to deal with in the face of the many to come.

I watched my friend blink back the tears and carry on, step by step. I only imagine how difficult it must have been. And today is another day. Another day to carry the loss, and another day closer to healing.

Compassion welled up within me and my throat choked with emotion, yet I could find no words to say, no actions to impart that could make the pain go away.

Death confounds me. Over the years, I have come to realise that I don't know how to deal with it. Therefore, I have admired from a physical distance as my closest and dearest friends and family move through the motions of mourning the departed.

I would not say I am fortunate to be spared the experience so far, for whilst I do not wish death to come anytime soon or under tragic circumstances, I am aware that it is inevitable and so is dealing with it. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but it will somewhere down the line. I can only imagine the shock and pain and I truly doubt that I have it in me to see it through with grace.

I can only express my highest regard for people around me who have lost a mother, a father, a brother, a sister or a child. For they hold themselves up so well in the face of grief, and moved on in acceptance. It's strength in at its steeliest, bravery at its best and I have nothing but utmost admiration in return.

I just want to say to my friends and family who have lost, and you know who you are - that I am sorry I did not comfort you at a time it was most needed, for it's not that I do not care, it's just that I don't know how. I only know how to make people smile, but in the face of death, smiling just doesn't seem to be right. I have racked my mind for the most appropriate thing to say but it doesn't exist. Even sending my condolences or saying "I'm sorry" seems empty. Please take my silent presence as support for that's as much as I know how to give.

It's that time of the month when I.....

2006-11-22T09:21:00.000+08:00

* Wonder why my life resembles the plot of Das Boot
* Ask myself what I want and my answers are the same as my son's - KitKat Chunky, KitKat Lemon Cheesecake, KitKat White Chunky, KitKat, KitKat, KitKat
* Sob uncontrollably watching festive commercials
* Turn into a knife-wielding psycho if my maid slices the carrots diagonally instead of julliening them
* Suck in my stomach and I still look alot like Roseanne Barr
* Have options but consider them to be obstacles
* Want to drink - alot - but can't handle the hangover(s)
* Think my life is hopeless and it is
* Truly believe that I will die the infatuated old woman at the beginning of Superman Returns minus the money
* Fool myself into believing that chee cheong fun, nasi lemak and Frosties cornflakes contain no carbohydrates nor sugar nor fat
* Want to buy a carton of Salem Lights and smoke the night away
* Dream of climbing but paranoid that I might leave a giant red stain on the wall that might be mistaken as a hand hold
*Actually buy daisies and rip out their petals whilst melodiously singing, "he loves me", "he loves me not" and then tearing their heads out of their stems
* Am so bloated, I may just float away like a giant red balloon.

Happy, happy Mid Week everyone!

School's Out!

2006-11-17T11:08:00.000+08:00

Today is the last day my son will spend in his nursery school. It's the closing of a chapter for him and come January he will begin a new one as he steps beyond the gates of a big new school with red uniforms.

He skips happily to his classroom and it is me who feels the sadness creep up. As I walk down the long open hallways, pass the mini toilets and gaily-coloured pictures of friendly lions, I wonder if he knows that life for him is about to take one of its many twists and turns - you know, those inevitable ones that change everything as you know it to be.

I am the one sending out notes to the Mums, desperately willing for them to call me lest our children lose touch. When I think back to my primary school days and recall my best friends then, all I can see are blurred images with form but no features. Sadly, they are the ones that I've not kept in touch with since school broke out.

The older I get and as time winds its course around, the childish quality of detachment gets slowly eroded away and I find myself increasingly reaching out and grasping whatever I can to just try and slow it down. Permanence is always elusive, forever out of reach.

Nowhere

2006-11-16T00:38:00.000+08:00

If only you knew
How I've tried to erase
Your eyes from my gaze
The smile on your face

If only you knew
About my spirit you've enlivened
The sins that I’ve forgiven
Of being shy once bitten

If only you knew
The rush of my heart
Yet the calm I impart
Each time you depart

If only you knew
Of the stories of our lives
You would be surprised
To see the world I've weaved and contrived

If only you knew
Of the heart I wish I could fill
Your soul I would capture
The passion we could instill

'Cos then we wouldn’t be here
Me at mine, you at yours
Way past midnight
Wondering if there could be more

If only you knew, if only you knew
If only

Worried Wart

2006-11-13T11:21:00.000+08:00

If you could add up all the time that you spent doing something completely worthless, you could add a good 10 years to your life I reckon.

Take worrying, for example. Some worrying is good, mind you. Like if you are worried about an exam, it may just be the impetus you need to get some revision done.

The worrying I'm talking about is the type that is completely unfounded. Ie. the one that has nothing to do with what's going on outside, but everythng to do with what's going on inside - in your mind to be exact.

Those who read my last blog entry and those who spoke to me last week would have known of the plight that consumed me 24 hours a day for about 7 days. I fussed over my diet, over whether to rest or to climb more that week, and nights were restless as I went over moves on imaginary routes in my mind. I was tired before I even began.

Saturday came and went, as did Sunday and I realised from the moment I sat down to listen to the instructer, white-knuckled and tense, to the moment I unclipped my last quickdraw at the bottom of the route in Batu Caves, I realised that I had been wasting my time.

And I don't mean the lead climbing course.

I did not get kicked off the class, did not do anything unneccessarily stupid (except for forgetting to clip myself to the anchor on my first climb and for not screw-locking my carabina on the daisy chain). I may not have known the answer to some of the basics, but then again, I was there to learn. I was in essence, qualified to attend. And to appease my inner kiasu bitch, I don't think I was any lesser or weaker a climber than the rest of the 6 people who were on the same course, all of whom were male, by the way.

I have to consiously remind myself of how well I have done, how committed I am to it, how hard I work at it, and how lucky I am to have found a sport I can see myself doing for years to come. (Right now, I think I could devote my life to it, but that's cos I'm on a high.)

I do wonder that if I can apply this kind of self confidence to other areas of my life, that would a large problem solved wouldn't it? Why are we always doubting before we have a chance to prove ourselves? Why do we rely on reassurance to find our confidence?

I will never ever doubt my climbing again. Or allow anyone to cast a shadow of doubt over it. No, I am not a superb climber but I am not talking about standards here. I'm giving myself (the one with the forked tail sitting on my shoulder) a hard talking-to about knowing what I can do and what my limits are. It's highly personal information that only I am privy to and therefore nobody alive is in the position to sway me into self-doubt.

On that note, climbing ROCKS!

You Are What You Eat

2006-11-09T09:24:00.000+08:00

So there I am sitting underneath the 6B+ route wondering why I can't reach the top when I had done so on two previous occassions, and why my climbing buddy yesterday could practise - practise - his he-moves on the purple (probably 6a) when I couldn't even lift my torso above the small - small - overhang at the top. It is a route I know I can fly up and I don't why I was struggling.

Now, I'm taking the plunge and taking the lead course this weekend, which means large falls are in order. There are climbers who climb far better than me who don't feel they are ready to do it. Yet, I'm impatient to get to the good stuff and well, some people think I'm ready, and I would love to believe them.

But I simply cannot afford to climb like the woose that I have been in the last few weeks and scramble up a 6a. To say that I am nervous does not do my wobbly jellied stomach any justice. I have been obsessing about lead climbing for the longest time and being the irratic climber that I have been just does not cut it.

So I have spent many hours pondering about my suddenly atrocious climbing. Bad habits overtake technique when you are desperate to make a move. I'm placing my hands far too high above my head, not twisting enough for holds and not using techniques like the drop knee that I have learned (and used!).

Then I realised my diet. When I was eating anything I could get my hands on - ie. overloading - I was strong - in fact, I had to consciously tell myself to let my feet do the work and not my upper body. Then I became vegetarian for a month and quite frankly, that killed my climbing ability - I just did not have the strength to get very far. I really began climbing like an idiot. Then I started eating like a pig again and then climbing improved. But now, since I've been on Atkins, I am findung that whilst I have the strength to get quite high up the wall, I don't have the endurance. I get pumped so easily it's not funny.

So theoretically, if I begin including carbohydrates again in my food this week, I ought to be on track to climb up 6Bs without red pointing it. Ahh, if only it were that easy. The confidence is rattled and without that, you could have all the muscle in the world but it would still have you climbing like an idiot.

So what to do? Neorvous like hell. The course is from 10-3 on Sat and Sun and I just have a nasty feeling I'm going to make a complete fool of myself in front of everyone. It's like being back at school again and not being able to do the math.

Inner voice speaks:
This attitude won't do! You know you can handle 6Bs! You have done it indoors and outdoors! You just need to eat properly and you will be fine! You are just as capable as eveyone else on the course! No the instructer is not going to pick on you! Stop acting like a big baby!

Yeah yeah whatever....Boohooo, I'm scared!

May The Force Be With You

2006-11-07T09:50:00.000+08:00

I am the classic consumer. The one you want walking into your shop. Throw me anything with a story, and most likely, I'll lap it up and buy one in every colour.

Lately, strange things have been happening, that have lead to even stranger things. It began with the snatching of the handbag. Then came the losing of the parking ticket and subsequent RM50 fine. Then the three failed attempts to the IC department to apply for a replacement - it just so happens that each time I went, their system happened to be down. And then the corresponsing 3 - also failed - attempts to KLCC Maybank to bank in cash - because funnily enough, their system was also down. The straw on the camel's back? Maybank charging me RM50 for being overdrawn as a result of a cheque clearing before I could bank in the money.

My yoga-practicing friends urged me to clear my qi. The chakras were clogged, they said. Practive yoga everyday and sweat it out, said one. Come visit my friend, a crystal healer, said the other.

The consumer in me stirred and I ran, money in hand, in hope for solutions in return.

What I got out of my crystal healer was not what I expected. Firstly, by peering into my chakras she saw thoughts and feelings that I had not even begun to put into words. Things old and new that I had known inside but not outside. I came out feeling refreshed - yes - like I just had a good cry. And for days after I felt calmer, more settled and for once, accepting.

But now, a few weeks later, I am faced with several unanswered questions. You know, those that don't have an answer? Those that you will probably have to search your whole life for and then discover on your death bed that there is no answer?

Do you believe in the universe? Not just about the existence of the planets and stuff they teach you in encyclopaedias, but the energies that dwell within. Do you believe in 'angels'?

The whole notion of asking from the universe and receiving, is foreign to me. Reward was always something you earned, something you did more than just will. But the more I think of it, the more it makes sense. Why would I not receive if I asked? If the universe is loving, if good and bad are principles created by man and therefore inapplicable in the larger scheme of things, why would I be deemed to receive if I merely asked?

It does appear to be the easy way out. Want something? Well, just ask for it. But isn't that what we do sub consciously anyway? It's no secret that you can will things to happen because without realising it, you are conditioning your mind and will to achieve it.

Strange but true. Since my session with the healer, new opportunitities have come my way. And I suppose it would be easy to say that they came because I asked the universe. But equally easy also to say that they came because the session centred the subject in my mind and I talked to people about them and when you do, I suppose opportunities make themselves seen.

I don't claim to fully understand the power of the universe and how it works. But if anything came from cleaning my chakras, it was a reminder of the power of the universe and the reinforcement that yes, things do happen by what we view as chance - messages sent from someone/something upstairs to draw our attentions. And then, once we are engaged, our minds and will are powerfil. We do the rest of the work really.

We do determine the path of our own lives ultimately, but I believe, within a pre-detemined setting and unseen parameters, and certainly with a little help along the way.

That's what I believe anyway. Right now. But who knows? What I believed 10 years ago, I don't now, so who's to say what new beliefs lie in the future. But that's life isn't it? Change.

Say No To This!

2006-11-02T22:38:00.000+08:00

Isn't Edwin a genius?

I don't know why he didn't post this. It is by far my favourite photo of the Fairground Series.

It was the second ride we went on - when we were in between feeling really good and really bad, so it was a good ride.

Did I mention we are going again this weekend? And bringing suckers with us? It's going to be a hoot!

Ageing Junkies

2006-10-31T09:31:00.000+08:00

The Euro Fun Fair behind the 1 Utama Shopping Complex is a blast and brings me back to a time when I was at school in England, crunching on toffee apples and sneaking puffs from cigarettes.

It has the same tacky feel of a small fair - you know, the type where you wonder whether you will make it out alive but you still go anyway. As the Cranberries' 'Linger' blasted us up into what felt like space and caught us as we fell, I wondered why I was doing this to myself. Apart from the obvious exhilaration, the feeling also made me sick to the bone. At this age, one cannot afford to be knocked around like before.

Nevertheless, I still found myself venturing from one ridiculously scary ride to the next. Egged on by Edwin and our combined sense of kiasuness, we surrendered our bodies to the machines. Like rag dolls, we were swung us around at crazy speeds as centrifugal forces flung us into the sky and centripetal ones sat down hard on our chests, making breathing sorta out of the question. Not to forget also the strobe lighting placed at strategic spots to distort whatever sense of sky and earth we had left.

I can still taste the bile on the back of my tongue.

Still - I highly recommend it. There are plenty of kiddy rides too and on an earlier family visit, I proudly witnessed my son's first ever bumper car ride that ended appropriately beneath a stack of blockades. He also went on his first roller coaster with my father crammed into the front seat with him and I had the privelige of his muffling his bawls on the top of the Ferris Wheel - that came not from fear but anger from being deceived by this large wheel that did nothing but go round and round at a snails' pace.

It was a time to bump into friends in family mode - hungrily eyeing the bigger rides but having to settle for the kiddies carousel instead.

It comes by once a year I am told and I find it pretty reasonable. RM3 to get in of you are an adult, less for kids, and each ride, depending on fear factor ranges from RM4 to RM8. For great photos, click on to Edwin's Photoblog.

The Layan

2006-10-27T10:00:00.006+08:00

Like in the brochure, The Layan sits gaily on a hillside, terracotta and green against the stark blue sky of occasional clotted cloud. It strides the ridge it lives on, smiling prettily back at the lifeless, damp stretch of sand that is Layan Beach, a lesser-known, lesser-appeal cousin of postcard-exploited Surin and Bangtao further down current.

The two staff and the one grey-looking manager who greeted us at the reception did so with such zeal – as if they had not welcomed guests in an age. Smiles as large as calzones; eyes focusing just beyond our heads, as if we are shorter than meant to be.

“We welcome you vely much to Layan. We hope you stay vely long and enjoy.”

Gentle, melodious voices of hollow seduction.

In a triangle, the three lead us on an undulating garden path that seemed to take us nowhere, fringed with the sweet scent of jasmine, ash and fallen tropical fruit. I marvelled at how silent it was despite being so close to the sea. No squealing kids, no beach tunes, no wish-wash of waves in the distance. What a secluded hideaway!

The swaying gait of the three brought us finally to our room, at the far end of the resort, just before it hinges off the cliff. I blinked twice at the familiar sight of blackened trees in the sea. In a flashback they were green. The equatorial sun again, distorting colour and form.

Still, it was sunny, though the room had not been aired and smelled like well-aged dust.

We tipped the smiling porter, his shirt sleeve receiving the gratuity.

The three departed.

That night, tanked with too much local brew, the tuk tuk driver hurtled through the inky blackness, seemingly lost. He had looked a little perturbed when we asked to be taken back, glancing often at his rear view mirror at our pale, untanned faces. The salty sea air raked through our hair, breathing life into split ends.

After dead turns that met at the sea, we stopped for directions at a small, fluorescent-lit hut in the shadown of a hill. We gazed back at its ware of dead cockroaches.

We watched the Thai exchange and the wide-eyed look of disbelief register on cabbie’s pock-marked face.

He turned back at us, eyes in slits.

“You say Layan?”, he asked, voice suddenly gruff.

We nodded drunken yeses.

He paused. Right hand inched closer to his back.

“Cannot be…fire. Burn down 9 years aledi.”

"Evelybody die. All the staff. All the guests...", his voice trailed off as we smiled.

The Weekend

2006-10-16T10:25:00.000+08:00

The Banquet - Whodunnit?!
Spent the weekend glued to the TV - The Devil Wears Prada (You go Meryl!), Basic Instinct 2 (the only things looking up were Sharon Stone's fake boobies), Crash (wow!), The Banquet (the ending is killing me!)

Why is rock climbing such an expensive sport?
(RM330 for the most beautiful pair of Evolv shoes, RMXXX for sending my shoes back to Saltic to be re-soled, RM300 to join CFas so that I can climb outdoors once a month, RMXXX for discovering I now have sweaty hands and am in need of chalk)

Does anyone die from OD-ing on eggs?
(Been on Atkins about a week now and it's been pretty OK except for the tub - yes tub, of pork floss I inhaled yesterday. Been eating truck loads of eggs...has anyone on Atkins ever died from high cholesterol?)

Why do men never call when they say they will??
(A universal mystery - enough said)

Shopping Binge Disorder (SBD)

2006-10-12T10:04:00.000+08:00

People totally underestimate a woman's vanity. It often defies all logic and any measure of reasonableness. Take me, a prime example. Yesterday, like most days, I felt horribly horribly pudgy. I put on my 'slim' clothes and nearly fell over at how much weight I've put on from my vegetarian service to the environment. I stuck my tongue out at the Monster Fat Girl who stared back at me, defiantly waved my middle finger at the resolution to stop shopping, and drove like a maniac to Cats Whiskers - the shopperholics supermarket - and proceeded to shop, Shop, SHOP away the fat.

In this fat month, I daresay I have spent a shameful RM2k on attempting to beautify myself and make myself...well, less fat. I admit, it's a disgusting amount to spend when on a tight budget. I already shopped myself to near death on my trips to Bangkok and with ongoing house maintenence, two holidays coming up, road tax, car insurance, and other year-end expenditure, shopping is simply too expensive and frivolous a therapy to be engaged in. Yet I just can't help myself. I am stupidly convinced that eye lash extensions, ball gowns, baggy black tops, yet another black dress, shoes, shoes, shoes, and enough lipgloss to make a whole cookbook shine gloriously will make me beautiful and attractive to all.

Oh state the obvious why not. That beauty comes fron within...blah, blah, blah. Try telling a fat girl that! Beauty comes from within alright - ie. there's a thin girl inside me just dying to get out!

The point I'm trying to make is that vanity has everything to do with what's ticking upstairs. To others you may look alright but to the mind's eye, alright means hideous. Stomach rings, thighs, butt cheeks, face cheeks, arms, calves are magnified ten-fold. Oh, someone call the plastic surgeon please!

The battle against delusion is a much harden one to win than than the battle against the bulge. The physical can be modified with diets and exercise but upstairs, the wiring is complicated. Years of conditioning, brain washing and image haunting from let's-not-name-the-sources can take decades to undo and is an ongoing, tiresome, boring boring issue to have to overcome.

Mind you, some days are good, when the hormones are stable, the jeans button up and the boy you fancy makes eye contact. But most days, the oestrogen ODs and your face shines worse than the Exxon Valdez slick, the fat has nowhere to go and spills into your jeans pockets and the boy you fancy gets chatted up by the hot chick with the long legs and shiny hair.

I know, they say if you feel good, you look good. But seriously girls...how true is that?

While you try to come up with a convincing answer, excuse me, I have some shopping to do.

Remembering Your Dreams

2006-10-11T10:13:00.000+08:00

Before the flakes of daily life landed on your shoulders and snowed you down. Before your last thoughts as you dozed off at night were about the scheduler on your Outlook. Before weekdays became chock-a-block and weekends were spent recuperating, what did you think of? What carried you off to cloudless sleep, what sprung you out of bed in the morning, what kept you going - forward on the treadmill, up the ladder, or down that garden path called life?

I spent so much of my teenage years in a permanent dream state. Sitting by my bedroom window gazing out at the twinkling lights of a city asleep, as Casey Kasem droned on for 40 songs. I dreamt of being Madonna, of being swept up on stage at a Duranduran concert like Courtney Cox was by Bruce Springsteen, of being a millionaire by 30, of the name to paint on my fleet of private jets, of my Oscar acceptance speech, of being on the cover of Cosmo, of being thin in pink legwarmers.....the dreams were many, and manyfold, with every detail imagined, enacted and relived day in, day out.

My twenties were spent inside a bottle of Absolut where I only came up for air every few months. Time imploded a little because I believed I was invincible and that everything would remain as it was forever. And the dreams, they slowly whittled away because who needs dreams when there are so many drinking games to play?

Sobering up now and smarting from mistakes of the past, I wonder why I walk listlessly, am constantly overwhelmed yet haunted by sleepness nights and a blank mind. I realised that, like many, I had forgotten my dreams, the intangible food that nourishes my soul.

We have become so robotic in acting out of instinct that we have lost the skill to analyse why is it we feel what we do (or don't). Why we crave. Why we urge. Why anything?

In order to live rather than exist, I've tried to recall my dreams. Do or die, there are things I need to get done or I will forever haunt this earth in a state of unrest. Oh, they range from the monumental (winning an Oscar for adapting something amazing for film or climbing Mount Everest [serious!]), to achievable if I got my arse together (publishing damn good written work), to the frivolous (finding the poppy field in Ismail Merchant's A Room With A View and once there, be passionately kissed as in the film). Possible or not, is not the issue.

Cleo-Jean reminded me of one thing. That it is now or never. While dreams may float about until you breathe life into them, our bodies sadly don't have that kind of shelf life. They wither away. What could be worse than having the will but not the capability? Why waste all the capability we have now on lack of will? Wake up! Get moving! It's now or never! You can't rely on your next life, what if you came back as a Freesian cow?

Breath Of Fresh Air

2006-10-09T21:50:00.000+08:00

Hack, hack, hack...the haze is killing us all! What does sky look like again?

I pulled away the curtain of smog two weekends ago and played under the loving gaze of blue skies and sunshine. In yet another pursuit of nature and spirit, I gathered a bunch of friends up to Gopeng, Perak where we abseiled down a waterfall and flew over the rapids and white water of Sungai Kampar. Neither activity was particularly difficult, and perhaps a little disappointing in the fear factor department, but I still had buckets of fun in Mother Nature's playground. There's nothing like mandi sungai, swinging of tree branches, being carted around like cattle in a lorry and eating damn good sambal al fresco.

Thumbs up to Nomad Adventure who do a great job of hosting adventure trips where you can customise activities of choice - combining the fun of white water rafting or kayaking, caving, high traversing over chasms, firefox, waterfall abseiling, jungle trekking and so on.

Whilst out in the middle of nowhere, we chanced upon a quaint little resthouse with rolling grounds and cute 'lil huts, called Rumah Rehat Adeline. If you close the eye that rests on the humungous waterpipe that runs alongside it, it is actually located smack in the middle of the most beautiful surroundings. There is the smell of nature, the lull of chirping crickets and babbling brook, and the invaluable feeling that lots and lots of wild, wild life out there, outnumbers us humans.

The experience is what I would akin to posing for a nude photograph (not that I have, I can only imagine). A heady sense of fear but complete freedom as you are stripped of fluff and reminded again, in your birthday suit, of whom you are and where you stand in the grander scheme of things. A mere human being in the face of far greater picture of life and art in motion. I reckon the jungle is a fantastic place to get off your face, run around naked and syiok your nerves nicely.

I wonder if it is age that's getting to me, or the city. But the need to get out of KL is getting stronger. Out of its shopping centres and night clubs and away from the 'fringe' people (people that don't actually feature in your life - but who are just there to periodically irritate you by asking probing questions like 'still no boyfriend yet?' or 'when's your next baby coming?' or the best one yet - 'do you know you have put on weight?').

My inbox these days are a reflection of my inner urge - newsletters from nature from organisations like Wild Asia and The Malaysian Nature Society.

I asked myself when I was in Gopeng, ducking my head in the face of oncoming tree branches as we hurled our way through the wilderness. Could I live out here? Forever? Could I practice what I preach? Live in a hut and feed chickens? Thing is I really don't know. But what I do know is that lately, I see through my life as it has been. I see its utter frivolity, its unnecessary frills, its man-made adventures. It doesn't mean I wish to pack up and head for the jungle but it sure has me rethinking about what really matters.

I know I rant on about this but I can't say it enough. That life is so much more than material wealth, climbing the corporate ladder, than being smarter than the next person or leading a more 'successful' life. I want my son to grow up feeling wet grass on his feet, knowing the scent of rain, experiencing the icy cold of river water, being awed by the complex hues of the sky and feeling in his bones the true greatness of the earth. Not from the flip of an Astro decoder, the pages of a travel magazine or even worse, from a lame re-enaction in a video game - but by him, first-hand, standing on top of a mountain, or looking down from a rock face or from inside the vastness of an cave in the hollow of the earth.

This is what I believe life should be.

Note: Save the rainforest! The 300,000 hectare Belum-Temengor virgin rainforest is partially located in Perak and stretches North, is 130 million years old (older than the Amazon - wow!). It's right here at our doorstep! As with every other natural or historical thing in this developing country, it's under threat, in this case by logging and deforestation. Just thought you might want to know...

Life Or Something Like It

2006-10-08T20:17:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, I attended a wedding of an old friend. When he walked down the aisle, so handsome in his tux with lovely wife on arm, my heart lurched with pride. So this is what it feels like to see someone close get married. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been to a million weddings- after all, it’s a KL past time – only that this isn’t a shot gun one (!), and it was the wedding of a friend who was close during a very happy part of my life. The event filled me with wonderful memories and glad tidings for the future.

The wedding was a reunion of old friends too. People I partied with, cried with, laughed with, could have slept with, worked with, fought with, holidayed with, dined with, drank with, ended up in the police station with.

When you attend a funeral and a wedding back to back, it does things to you. I guess I am reminded of what life is. No matter where you are – in India or in Ireland, in hiding or not, you cannot escape the cycle of people being born, people uniting, and then eventual death. From the coolest person you know, to the saddest, the prettiest to the not so, everyone follows the same old cycle. Life is just that – a book with many chapters. The same for everyone.

With childhood friends, we all grow up together, lead our separate yet inextricably parallel lives – whether some marry or not, divorce or not, have kids or not, live abroad or not, make money or not – we all age, we all get our fair share of wrinkles and handles and we all meet perfunctorily at each other's life's milestones – at weddings, funerals, full moons, etc.

It’s strangely comforting to see other people go through what you are going through – albeit with a small degree of variation. There is comfort in numbers. We are all finding ourselves, dealing with ourselves, adapting as we journey together on this giant bandwagon community along the road called life.

Goodbye Saw Eng

2006-10-08T20:17:00.000+08:00

On Friday, my stepmother’s mother passed away, with her three children and host of grandchildren around her. They say she was at peace, despite her laboured breathing, a result of an impossibly blocked heart.

Her funeral, on the same day, filled me with so much regret, a feeling that by rule, I try not to entertain. I am a believer that you act to the best of your ability given the information you have and state you are in at the time. But death always has a way of eating into that, leaving me with nothing much but a bunch of half baked excuses.

Auntie Por Por, as I called her, for want of a better name, was a woman whom you could never think anything ill of. She was one of the most generous people I've ever known and she always looked out for everyone around her. And I mean, always.

If my son were to cough once out of the blue, she would dispense advice on what herbs to buy to improve his respiration. If you were to step in to the house, her first concern was whether you had eaten. And if you hadn’t or replied with a moment’s hesitation, she’d already be in the kitchen whipping up a storm. Indeed, when she was lying in ICU for the last 2 weeks, hooked up to a gazillion tubes and high or morphine and discomfort, her only concern was to send her children away so they could be more comfortable at home. The day they discharged her out before she relapsed and had to return, she cooked up a storm for 40 people at the mosque and managed to feed the whole family for buka puasa.

My regret is that I never tried to get to know her better. She was a woman of no barriers. And I am one with many. I approached her as somebody else’s grandmother (whom she is), but I have no doubt that she would have embraced me warmly if I had let her in. I am a critic ultimately, and I don’t give many people the honour, but Auntie Por Por was a role model. Yes, she puffed, gambled and danced her way to death, but in her treatment and respect of others lies her ultimate salvation.

Did I mention that she died on a Friday? Of Ramadan month? And for a joss stick-wielding Muslim that she was, it was also the 15th of the month – the night of the Moon Festival.

I know she is in a good place because bad places don’t take people like her in.

After the funeral, I picked up the phone and called my grandmother.

It’s All Gone!

2006-10-08T20:14:00.000+08:00

Five days ago, I fell victim to the phenomenon that many Malaysian women are already too familiar with. No, not the Grand Nationwide Sale.

Snatch thieving.

See, I have this theory that if I were a snatch thief, I would never pick on someone like me. Simply because of my build. I mean, I look like the type who is likely to drag you off your bike instead, that I wouldn’t go without a fight. I also seem like the type who could really scream and draw enough attention to myself.

But I naively assumed that the modus operandi of snatch thieves are confined to grabbing bags when on foot or on a motorbike. Well, these days, they hunt in packs of three, on board red, shiny Kenaris. And they get you in quiet leafy neigbourhoods, outside hospitals that you would otherwise have no reason to go to unless visiting a sick friend or relative. They get you when you choose to walk on the road because the sidewalk has been turned into a flower box sprouting thorny bougainvillea every five paces. And they get you when festival time is approaching, when they need the money to celebrate.

It was of course, a terrifying experience. And shocking, no doubt. And something else I can’t put my finger on. I looked into my attacker’s eyes as we played tug on my poor bag. Maybe it is my imagination, for it is easier to feel hate rather than sympathise with a man who is so desperate for an easy way out – but I thought I saw ruthlessness in him. That he had crossed many points of no return and would stop at nothing for he could not. And I felt defeated for they won. Out of sheer strength and advantage, they won. It was not an equal fight. I go mad in the face of injustice.

I let go because of vanity. Because I did not want to see the road scrape the skin off my face. And the best I could do was a feeble “bloody shit you!”

So, ladies, and gentlemen too, beware on the road outside Damansara Specialist Centre – apparently snatches occur there twice a week, right outside the guardhouse. I know it seems like you hit a gold mine when you find a plethora of lovely available spots - all in the shade right outside the hospital. Free and legal too! And you don’t wonder why they are empty? Park inside and pay your RM2!

Beauty

2006-09-28T09:24:00.000+08:00

Noticed this on a friend's blog. Sent goose bumps up my right arm. I often wonder if lyrics are lost in songs and melody - they seem so much cleaner on paper or read out loud to yourself. Anyway, this one is beautiful and surmises the uncompromising creatures of the world that we all are today.

To have every man but to love only one
To wake with the moon and sleep with the sun
To be a sinner and saint, a lover and friend
To know a beginning but never an end
To fly in the ocean and swim in the skies
Believer in truth, defendant of lies
To know the purest love, the deepest pain
To be lost and found, again and again and again
To know the power of wealth and poverty
To taste every moment and try everything
To be hailed as a hero and branded a fool
Believe in the sacred and break every rule
To give into pleasure with no boundaries
Living in chaos and harmony
To feel the touch of a man, a woman's caress
To know the limits of torture and tenderness
These are the dreams of an impossible princess

by K.Minogue/S.Anderson/D.Seaman

Foo-Liauuu!!

2006-09-25T23:30:00.000+08:00

I finally took my climbing shoes outdoors to smear some limestone on Sunday.

I knew it would be good.

I didn't think it would be fantastic.

But, it was fantabulous!!!!!!!!!! If only there was such a word...

A bunch of hard core climbers took pity on the top rope climber that I am and permitted me to to tag along and use their equipment. Would you believe I actually went outdoor climbing without a belay device?! Time I get one methinks...

I was treated to a 5 minutre trek through hard core jungle (well, hard core for me urban person) and I say 'treat' beacuse I have been longing to get into some green for the longest time. My only comment is that I could still hear the sound of traffic from the Kuantan highway up on the wall - but I guess that's the small price you pay for fab walls within the vicinity of KL.

Nyamuk in Batu Cabes is aptly named because the mosquitos are the size of horses and come charging at you as you step off the grass of the kampung behind you and the enter the beckoning lushness. We practically smoked the place to death with mini fires, mosquito coils, insect repellant and insect spray and managed to stave them off for a while. The climbing was really really fulfilling. I started off with Orange Juice before nearly getting stuck up on In Guns We Trust (forgot to come out of a crack and realised that I had overshot the skinny exit - so had to retrace a few steps). Then the rain came down and we were forced to trek back on slippery mud.

Over fried chicken and chapati in downtown Bolton Industrial Park, the sun came out again and we decided 2 hours wasn't enough. We made it to Damai for the rest of the afternoon and I had the best fun up on AciAci Buka Pintu and another with a boulder start that I can't remember the name of.

I'm still suffering from a major high and its hardto focus on work when your mind is still outdoors. I'm so proud - I managed a 6b rating without red pointing but then again I did that top rope so its more like a 5c - 6a. I am so proud of myself for not freaking out at all - not even for a second despite the 30m high walls and very disconcerting red ants and bird shit on my hands.

Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous.

Can't wait to climb on Wednesday, even if it is indoors.

Justice Prevails

2006-09-15T12:15:00.000+08:00

To be sung to the tune of Nirvana’s Lithium:

“I’m so happy
‘Cos today my man’s in th’house
Lookin’ good
‘N kicking Dilana in the mouth
Friday morning
What Evs down and Ice Man fried
To head the band
‘Till forever comes and goe-sssss……

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeaaaaaaaaaah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!”

A First

2006-09-14T10:30:00.000+08:00

Hahah! Inspired by TLee and his gang of rockers every Weds and Thurs (and after today no more for a year - boohoo), I've written my first poem/verse of sorts - ever! It's fun!

My One Regret

I’ve traveled beyond the endless seas
Flown with a dozen airlines
Shaved ice off brand new skis
With a ton of air miles they call mine

I’ve sunk into caves under the waves
Found holes to hide in the skies
Stood up for myself eyes ablaze
And cried for a million good byes

Life has been kind
Life has been wise

But I still cannot forget
The smile you left behind
The key to my acquittal
You dared me to find

I’ve walked on moonlit nights
Feathered pages of volumes old
Giggled with Google and other sites
Apologized for the lies told

I’ve sung Canto and popped
Flushed toxins from inside out
But the memories they do not stop
Of a time when we loved out loud

Life has been kind
Life has been wise

But I still cannot forget
The smile you left behind
The key to my acquittal
You dared me to find

Time ticks its usual reminder
Memories fade and turn sepia
But each day the truth grows stronger
I await redemption but for how much longer?

Life has been kind
Life has been wise

But I still cannot forget
The smile you left behind
The key to my acquittal
You dared me to find

Eye of the Storm

2006-09-13T09:42:00.000+08:00

You know, there is so much to be said about breaks. I say breaks and not holidays because often, holidays aren't - I have been on holidays and returned even more stressed out than when I left - and breaks are. A respite from everyday, that is, a reminder of life and its meaning. Because as I mentioned before, we are all born knowing deep down.

In the last few weeks, I have travelled quite a bit - twice to Bangkok and Hua Hin. And though they have been for work, one was more like an awakening and the other, the absolute in retail therapy.

Hi, my name is Candice and I am a shopper. I admit I never fully realised the benefits of shopping until now. Snigger and pigeon-hole me all you want. There is something about raking a city's malls with a fine-tooth comb that at once exhausts the physical self but nourishes the soul. Indeed, snigger and piegon-hole me all you want.

The deep meaningful conversations I had with myself as I combed Chatuchak market were a classic. The noise and din of salesmen yelling, the burn of the sun on my freshly-tattooed shoulder, the suffocating heat underneath the makeshift plastic roofing were like the necessary conduits to hear my inner voice. Meditative peace amid the chaos?

"Oooh, love that top, let's take a closer look."

"Are you kidding me? You'd look like a housewife. Not being seen with you in that!"

"You know housewives are a misunderstood species - given alot of bad press."

"You don't say. If only people truly felt what it was like".

"The repressed few. Well, not few. A good slice of the population these days. Who fights for their rights?'

"God I expect. In salvation. Housewives go to heaven where they become men and screw women around."

"Ha...so they come back to earth then..."

Conversations like that....either the beginning of my descent into madness or elevation to enlightenment. Same thing, in essence, no?

Anyway, there is a book that I am writing as a Work In Progress. It's called Caffe Conversations. I once showed bits of it to an ex who brushed it off as cockswallop. It smarted at the time, but I giggle now at the memory. Ah well, not everyone can be a fan.

You see, I am a lover of conversations. When I chance upon a good one (with or without myself), my heart races, my eyes dilate and I am yours truly 100%. Conversations are like nights out on the town in KL. You keep having them, but none are memorable until suddenly when you least plan it or least expect it, a mother of one hits you. Like having the best fun in a really uncool bar or pulling when wearing stone-washed jeans for example.

And strangely enough, I've had the best conversations mostly in cafes or places of drink (ie. pubs). Some under the influence of alcohol; inevitably, one's throat gets dry from all that talking, but mostly sober.

So this little book is a compilation of conversations - the ones that blew my mind. The ones that I can still recall, word for word, to this day. The ones that are a bit like the little vinyasas in life, that bridge one chapter to another. Perhaps the faded manuscript shall be discovered when I die by mourning grandchildren, at the bottom of my underwear drawer, moth-balled amid tents of granny knickers. A bit like the ribboned love letters in the attic but not as romantic.

It's always good to dream. 'Cos without realising it, we make them happen. Every inch of our actions, every lift of an arm, every step in the direction, every decision made is sub consciously an effort to steer ourselves towards the heavens. Make concrete that cloud in the sky.

I know you may question my sobriety at this point. For goodness, sake, it's 10am on a Wednesday morning. I have a 4-year old to pick up from school in 2 hours. Sometimes I too forget I am a mother. I haven't consumed a drop of alcohol in 2 months, not inhaled a puff in one and not taken a bite of meat in 2 weeks. Things have never been clearer.