Broken Light

At about one in the morning I suddenly realise I no longer know how to write. Otherwise why should this review be so damn hard? I know I have performance anxiety, but still. I have deleted about 20 false starts. Every word that comes seems trite, stupid, inconsequential.

Full of sound and fury.

Signifying nothing.

Always, nothing.

Dear God, I have forgotten how to write. How did this happen? How did I let me slip away? A simple review, and here I am tied up in knots, unable to produce a damn thing. 187 words, most of which I will delete. And I need 1,000.

Across from me, Mary sits, reading her cheat notes for Streetcar Named Desire. She is hoping she will come across some passage, some sentence, some word, some phrase that will help in this process. She sees that I am in pain. She offers me water, tea, fruit, music, anything to ease the constipation.

She gracefully deflects all my delaying tactics and forces me to write. Rubbish, if I must, but just write.

When did I lose it?

I remember churning out essays at university. OK, the process was increasingly painful. But still, at the end, I would have something I was proud of.

Now, I read the few incoherent sentences jotted out, and think, sheesh, call this a review? Why is it that I am having so much difficulty stringing two words together?

Mary makes an expansive gesture.

"It's everything. It's the environment. It's what you've been writing. You're not happy."

No.

I'm not.

This is not me.

This is not me.

This is not me.

This is not me.

At 3 in the morning, I've finished my first draft. I read it out to Mary, making adjustments along the way.

She says put it away until tomorrow, then look at it again. I nod. Sigh. Drive home. Shower. Crawl into bed. Sleep.

The words have disappeared and there is only silence.

If I Sang Out Of Tune

I'm seated on a meditation mat on the floor of my room, contemplating the mess that is my room, the mess that is my life. There are clothes strewn everywhere. The wastepaper basket is overflowing. Everything is covered in about an inch of dust. And there are unwieldy piles of books on the table, the side table, the floor, the bed. My bedsheet looks grotty.

Ugh.

Seriously.

Ugh.

Cleaning up my room will just take a little elbow grease.

The second, um, that's a little more complicated.

I want to quit my job. But now there are red flags being raised all over. By my mother (who is on her knees praying furiously that I don't make yet another colossal mistake in a life already peppered with colossal mistakes), my friends, who, brows furrowed in concern, ask me, are you sure, are you really sure about this, think very carefully, don't do anything rash...

What with the recession, the rising cost of fuel, the tremendous, tremendous fear that everything is going to hell in a wirebasket.

And all I want to do is slap on a backpack and take off to parts unknown. Where I will make friends, smoke some pot, sit around the fire and listen to stories from people I have never met who will be my new best friends for a couple of hours until I stand up, dust off my shorts and push on.

Where is it you want to go, child?

I don't know.

What do you want to do, child?

I don't know.

How are you going to support yourself?

I don't know.

Jai Guru Deva, nothing's gonna change my world, nothing's gonna change my world...

I'm so tired of being sensible. OK, not sensible exactly, but as sensible as I will ever get. In a job. With a desk. And business suits. Or at least Raoul shirts complete with cuff links, sensible corporate court shoes and dark trousers.

I hate structure. I hate bureaucracy. I hate being forced to write on demand for people I no longer care about. I hate turning my thoughts to what I don't want to turn them to, and trying to figure out solutions to problems I don't give a flying fuck about.

That drunk at Backyard was right. I AM a prostitute and the worst kind, at that.

If I died tomorrow is this what I would spend today doing? Writing an article about the fuel hike for a youth newspaper? Preaching to them about tightening the old belt?

Emphatically not.

Everyone I talk to these days mirrors my disillusion. There is a weariness in their eyes that I feel right down to my bones.

What happens now?

Another suitcase in another hall...

Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang

Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

We've decided to give Backyard a miss on Mondays for the next few weeks. We went yesterday. Mary was out of sorts from work and I was, well, I am always up for Backyard on Mondays.

But that was before this Monday.

We arrived and it was not that crowded. Mary ordered a beer (for variety) and I, a red wine. Not the two hot teas we expected to order, but then, let us be different, or die.

Mark was tuning his instrument. He looked a little out of sorts. He joined us for a while and told us that he was not in the mood. Really not in the mood.

Uh oh.

He started playing soft, slow numbers. Normally, I love his soft slow numbers. Today, however, I found myself yawning and trying not to nod off. There was something missing. Life, perhaps. Soul, definitely. His heart was not in the music as he strummed and sang.

Nearly two hours later, he came off stage for a break.

"You're really out of it today, aren't you? Macam takda daya nak hidup," I told him. Mark nodded morosely. He WAS out of it. Though it was unkind of me to have noticed. Because that meant he would have to do something about it. Mark is the consumate showman. And he can't bear criticism or to be thought to be less of.

So he went up and started rocking the joint. Patrons unglued themselves from their seats and started to gyrate wildly on the small space that passes off as a dance floor. We kept to our seats and observed all this. I leaned over to whisper to Mary.

"The boy seems to have woken up."

But observing him carefully, I realised it was all a performance. His heart was still not into it. Some guys took to passing behind him on stage, invading his personal space, because the dance floor was too crowded to pass. I saw the flash of irritation on his face and realised that despite the upbeat tempo and the few smiles, he was actually pissed off.

Seriously pissed off.

Nevertheless he kept it up, pushing himself to the limit. Though I didn't think he was going to play Mary's request, Travelling Light. Because it would not have been suitable for this crowd. Although he did oblige with her other favourite, Call Me Al(coholic).

I wished we hadn't come. Backyard on Monday nights is usually quiet, empty and soothing. Today, however, Jerry had organised a wine-tasting/pool night which meant an infusion of patrons. When he saw me, he slapped his head, and said he forgot to invite me for the wine-tasting. No matter, Edmund let us have some of his excellent red Chilean.

Mark continued to rock the joint but by now I really wanted to leave. Except that it would have been rude. So we stayed. Being Malaysians, we don't like to offend anyone. Especially people we happen to like. Even if they're in a pissed off mood.

One of Mark's friends, or rather patrons, a Datuk something or other came up to me and asked what my favourite song was. Without thinking, I said: "Fire and Rain." He then went up to Mark and insisted he play it. Which was not good for the boy in his already inclement state of mind. He raised his eyebrows, glanced icily at me and said: "Indeed?" when the pushy Datuk insisted he play the song.

Then it was time to wrap up, and pushy Datuk came over to chat.

I must backtrack however. Another unpleasant thing about last night was the number of men who kept hitting on Mary. She was just not in the mood, and too tired to fight and fend them off, so I gave them bitch glares and did it for her. One kept glaring at me like: "You're the reason I cannot sit by this fascinating woman and engage her in conversation." And I glared back: "You're not good enough to tie her shoelaces, bucko, so fuck off!"

Brian, one of the three Indian dudes who had harassed us when we first came to Backyard way back last November recognised me and said, oh hello, in an unsmiling way. He didn't want to be thought friendly, to say nothing of over-friendly. I stared back stonily. "Hello." And looked away. (Bitch, bitch, bitch, went off in my mind. I don't give a flying fuck! I answered myself)

Anyways there was a particularly persistent Bhai guy who went for Mares hammers and tongs, and she gave him a pained smile that grew more pained as time went by. So I put my arm around her and pretended we were lesbian partners. And glared at him. He got the idea.

There were two very attractive girls dirty dancing with each other and they looked like a hopeful lesbian hook-up. They turned out to be first cousins.

My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes.

Anyways, back to pushy Datuk. He graduated from forcing Mark to play my song, to telling me I should marry him. (Mark, that is, not himself) I reeled. I mean to say, what? Then he invited Mary and I back to his large house in Damansara Heights where they were taking the party for a jam session.

I declined politely. He insisted. I declined politely again. Told him I had to send my friend back. He said, send her back and come then. Did I happen to mention, pushy?

I was tired and my nerves, never at their best at this time of the night, were seriously frayed. Mary had started making tracks for the car. Mark rocked up to say goodbye.

"You're pissed off, aren't you?" I asked him.

"Majorly," he replied.

One of my many useless talents that will never go anywhere. Being able to gauge Mark's actual mood behind the performance.

We left. I sent Mary back and then drove home. Had to have the obligatory "wash Backyard cigarette smoke out of my hair" shower and crawl into bed.

Tired. Very tired.

Woke up early this morning for a meeting that never took place. Not only did it not take place, nobody told me why it didn't. The portly major who was supposed to show up at our office at 10am with boasted military discipline and punctuality, didn't. But since Zafrul wasn't here to receive him, that was necessarily a good thing. Which means they must have cancelled the meeting without telling me.

I really, really, really need to get out of here!

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

Bricks and Mortar

Mary and I figured out that the neck and shoulder pain has to do with my heavy new bag. I loved it because you could fit so much stuff into it, unlike all my old bags which were crammed to the overflowing and couldn't be zipped up once I had tried to fit my new wallet and my new sunglass case into them.

Problem is, I have simply stuffed this one to the brim so it requires a mini crane to lift it. Hmmmmm. And then of course my shoulder started to hurt something awful. And I couldn't (still can't) turn my head properly.

"Angel child, what do you have in here, bricks?" was her gentle comment, on having to carry it for a bit.

Went with Mary and VJ to Backyard last night. We sat outside and enjoyed the gentle sounds of Raymond Cheah while sipping our hot tea drowning in hot milk. It was soothing.

I have a busy day ahead. What with my hectic social life and all. Am meeting Meera earlier in the evening. And possibly Michael later in the evening. And Adeline either earlier or later.

Neck Pains and Near Misses

I am perched on the sofa with my laptop on my lap, and a crick in my neck. Have just returned from Sunday morning yoga (I told Richard he gives a whole new meaning to easy as Sunday morning) and an inexplicable pain in my shoulder. And I find it difficult to turn my head.

Last night I was out with good old Vij (the young one, not the old one konon superstar) and we watched Prince Caspian, which was enjoyable even if they did change the story and play up the supposed hidden animosities between Peter and Caspian and invent a romance between Susan and Caspian and make Peter so much less than he was in the book. Why, I wonder. Anyways, the movie finished at 2.30 in the morning, and I got back around 3.

So there I was lolling in bed, too lazy to get up, reading my book, when I came across this passage:

"Why do we practise Yoga?"

I had a teacher once ask that question during a particularly challenging Yoga class, back in New York. We were all bent into these exhausting sideways triangles, and the teacher was making us hold the position longer than any of us would have liked.

"Why do we practise Yoga?" he asked again. "Is it so we can become a little bendier than our neighbours? Or is there perhaps a higher purpose?"

I smiled. And then gasped. Because I had remembered.

Oh crap, yoga class. 10.30.

What time was it now? 10.10.

20 minutes to get from PJ to Bangsar.

I wondered whether to give it a miss but the thought of my Yoga Nazi instructor had me leaping out of bed to the bathroom for a quick face wash and throwing on some crumpled clothes all anyhow and speeding off.

Of course, it being a lazy Sunday morning, all cars were driving at a leisurely pace not in keeping with my frantic breakneck need to get to class in time. I overtook dangerously, car careening sideways.

I parked illegally and all but ran to the centre. Class had not started yet but everyone was either lying or sitting on their yoga mats, in repose. One girl with pants like a belly dancer, was meditating fiercely. And I mean fiercely. She turned out to be a very advanced student who had mastered that holy of holies, the wheel (which I was able to do when I was 14, but sadly, not since then). She was bendier than the rest of us, and took off straight after class without the customary glass of juice (I have a beetroot ginger concoction which is to die for). I don't think she was very friendly. But whatever.

My heart which had stopped racing, started right up again when Richard took us through these vigorous sun salutations (A), which is a variation on the sun salutations, and added the triangle pose in between for hip opening purposes. Being the least bendy in the class, the hip opening poses are a real challenge for me.

Anyways, after class, pouring with sweat, I had my juice and then took off for home.

Usually I feel great after class. But today, I'm in pain.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the late night and the mad rush to get there. I need to set the alarm for Sundays. Or confine my classes to the weekdays.

This will so not do.

The Week That Was

I am stretched out on the sofa, feet resting comfortably on the coffee table. Near me is my Eat, Pray, Love that I am reading for the third time, splayed open. There is a programme running on the large screen tv. Something motivating and life affirming. (Yesterday I watched The Hours which was beautiful and tragic).

It's been a sorta peaceful week. On Monday, I went to Backyard with Mary and we watched Mark preform and cheered alongside. There were some irritating people over there, but they didn't bother us none. OK, they didn't bother me none. They did bother Mary a tad. But Mark was looking especially cute, so I was not easily distracted.

Then on Tuesday, yoga. After yoga, I went mamaking with Mary, and against my better judgement, ended up at Nirwana for banana leaf. I paid for it the next day with a cheerful day of diarrhoea...would have taken pills, but thought, better out than in.

And then Wednesday, when our Goverment in all its wisdom decided to announce a hefty fuel hike. That did not go down well. And everywhere I went, there were traffic jams leading to the petrol stations. At midnight (when the hike was supposed to come into effect) I heard raised voices. I think a fight had broken out at the petrol station near the house. I ignored all this, however. Despite one phone call and two SMSes telling me to go fill up, I made my way to Kanebo in Bangsar for a very relaxing facial. OK, it was relaxing once she had finished what is euphemistically known as "extraction". I bled. I bit my lips. I didn't scream. And really, the facial lady, Lisa, was very gentle. It cost her a pang to have to hurt me.

Then Thursday. Ah, music therapy with the good Dr (I don't remember his name, only that he's from India), playing his flute like Krishna and activating our chakras for peace, love and relaxation. At the end of it, you feel like melted butter. Or at least, I do. I met Mary later for dinner. OK, I had dinner...fried rice at the Chinese place in Lucky Gardens and we were attended to by Miss Congeniality. Prabs and Mary named her because she has never been known to smile, even in the most smiling circumstances. Actually, that's not true. I caught her smiling. At this dude in the BMW SUV who sat in his car, called her down, ordered his food. She tripped along merrily fetching and carrying for him with wild abandon. Ahh...the joys of driving a BMW SUV.

And then Friday it was yoga again. This time, a make-up class. Richard said, I had been a busy bee that week, having come to the yoga centre all of three days. I said yes. He said, well, at least it keeps you out of trouble. And I said, no it doesn't. Indignantly. And he said, well it should. And I smiled and took my leave. I was feeling extremely tired (so tired that I was bumping into stuff for no particular reason) and just wanted to get a drink (as in Evian water) swallow vast quantities of it, and get home. So, I drove into Bangsar Village, ran out to get my water, and managed to do it within the 15 minute deadline so my parking was free. Then I made my way home, took a few wrong turns (yesterday was a day for taking wrong turns, even in roads I supposedly knew) and parked outside on the verge as Julie hadn't come back yet and one of us needs to book the outside space.

After which I decided I would have a relaxing weekend. Full of little things that give me pleasure. Like reading Eat Pray Love.

I think I've triple-booked on Monday. Which should be interesting.

Breathe, Let Go...

Every so often we have to let go of the older versions of ourselves to move into our dreams. To come into our own, we have to shed our tired skins. But tearing off a skin, like Kahlil Gibran so acutely pointed out, is not like casting off a garment. It hurts.

Part of me is stuck between worlds, wanting to move forward, wanting the comfort (although it grows more toxic by the minute) of staying where I am.

Time can move in circles and you feel like it has stopped and nothing is going anywhere. But stagnation is an illusion. We're always moving somewhere. Hopefully it's not into the Inferno (abandon hope, all ye who enter) but sometimes we need to move through the inferno, to shatter completely, until there is nothing of "us" left, before we can move out into Purgatorio and Paradiso.

I miss so many things. Some of them, stuff that never even happened.

And now, let me get back to it, to breathe, to let go, breathe, let go, breathe, let go.

Amidst the Din and Clamour

I'm at the office now. I had to be in early for a staff meeting (which I was actually on time for, sort of) and then send out press releases for our event on Saturday. We're sending it out today, so it gets into the papers tomorrow - coverage is never very good for press conferences over the weekend - and we have no choice about the timing of the event here - it has to be the weekend.

And now the office is full of a camera crew and the The Firm 2 contestants, directors, etc - as their nth task was to sell Tune Money cards. Dunno who won. My colleague Basil, is judge, jury and executioner.

The boss, who is not used to not being in the limelight has just strolled past on his mobile, to take a look at the action. He has been cooped up in the conference room since our staff meeting.

I was up until five this morning - had a night out with Mary who got back from SP yesterday. We checked out Kianti - this place in Kelana Jaya next to the Kelana Seafood - but only cos Mark was playing there. We bought a bottle of wine - Cabernet Merlot - but it wasn't Wolfblass and didn't have the same effect.

I am bound to think that not all Cab Merlots were created equal.

Mark was on antibiotics, what with his swollen glands and slight fever and a leetle grumpy, in consequence. But one of his singing partners - Sue - rocked up, and he cheered up. He was singing with Victor and it was not bad - but I preferred it when Sue went up and joined them. I first met Mark when he was singing at The Attic with Sue and that is still my favourite combination.

I asked Sue to sing "I Can't Make You Love Me" by Bonnie Raitt, partly because that was the first song I ever heard them do together, and partly because it suited my mood, but she said she needed the lyrics for that. Come back next week, she said, and I just might.

Will think about it. May not need to binge on alcohol next week.

Mary was a sight for sore eyes.

I wonder if I can sneak out now that I have done the needful with regards to press releases.

I'm not as sleepy as I thought I would be, which is very weird.

Containing Multitudes

You know what I love?

The absence of bitterness when it comes to endings.

As you know I am a past master of endings; I scatter them along my path like daisy petals.

I have the quantity. Now I just need the quality.

A beautiful ending is worth a multitude of good beginnings.

The Lost Kitten

OK I have a rewritten profile and a picture to send out and here I am faffing about with my blog. I went to visit with the powerful lunged kitten a few houses away. She (I am sure it's a she) has been setting up a racket for the past day or so. I found her comfortably ensconced next to a tyre and with a bowl of food laid out for her.

Maybe she's crying because she's lonely and her heart is breaking.

Maybe it is already broken.

OK, I have to get back to work now.

Sweet Obsessions

I stare at the white page. I click onto another window to play some Spider Solitaire. And yet another to youtube Annie Lennox doing a cover of Marley's Waiting in Vain.

OK what was good about today?

I ended up at Concorde (it was either that or be caught in a traffic snarl to beat all traffic snarls in the mother of all storms) so I got to catch Mark perform. All two hours of it. He started off grumpy (what with his swollen glands and nasty cough and searing headache) but cheered up once the music and the applause worked its usual magic. He actually even sang a song he wrote when he was 16 with cheesy lyrics.

Soon the place started filling up and the applause didn't only come for me. Mark is the quintessential performer and he blooms like a water lily in all that attention and affection.

I ended up in Concorde because I had spent nearly the whole afternoon acting as errand girl. There was something to be delivered and nobody to do it. So I did. Only I wasn't quite sure where I was supposed to go - so I ended up going to wrong way, after which I called for directions - my usual backward way of doing things. Once I got the directions, I found I was miles out of my way, so it was turning back in traffic so heavy, that it barely moved. I think I was stuck for close to an hour on one stretch of road alone.

The sky darkened ominously. But there I was, telling myself to live in the moment, the moment, with no past, no future, so the irritation wouldn't crowd in. It kinda worked. Sort of. Anyway after much ado, I found the place and delivered the stuff. And then made my way out as the sky started flinging rain drops on my windshield with wild abandon.

Which is why I decided that I would rather weather the storm with a hot tea in one of those plush sofas at Crossroads. I was going to work on an article that was due three days ago, but the music got to me and I couldn't concentrate. So after typing and deleting the same few lines, like 20 times, I closed my laptop and turned my attention to the funky young singer with the long hair and killer smile. It had a salutary effect on my mood.

Although I didn't go to Backyard today for the continuation.

Obsession, sweet obsession...

Thank You For Being My Friend

Fireflies flickering in the trees; wooden oars moving gently through quiet waters. It's nine in the evening, and the moon is a large orange balloon. We're singing Christmas carols. And then we're silent. There is a breathless hush in the air; a sort of magical knowing.

We know there are fairies in the trees. John saw one. Joseph, being of a more scientific turn of mind, wondered what made the fireflies flicker and whether it is part of their mating ritual.

My friend Addy said it was. She said the females flicker 3 times faster than the male. Hmmmm....

We're the only ones here. It's late and the rest have gone home. Or gone on. Or maybe there were not many here to begin with. It's a Thursday night and it's not a holiday and besides, as Joseph points out, this place is not very well-advertised. The "kelip-kelip" in Kampung Kuantan in Kuala Selangor.

I've been here once before. That was with the sibs and Simon. Using Lonely Planet as our guide (disgraceful konon Malaysians, except for Simon) we tried to find our way to the fireflies, but ended up going miles in the wrong direction on unlighted estate roads. I think I broke out in a cold sweat. I know Jackie snuck some goreng pisang into the car and was eating them quietly because she didn't want to share.

Anyways, having been there once, I thought I could find it again. John (Calica, of Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me fame) and his friend Joseph (otherwise known as Harold and Kumar) were game for an adventure.

So we drove into the night. Getting out of the KL traffic snarl took about an hour. Then we hit the North-South Expressway. After a very short time on that, we turned off at the Sungei Buloh exit.

Now, here's where things get tricky. The directions I got off the Net told me told me I had to go in the general direction of Sg Buloh/Kuala Selangor. I did. But the drive seemed interminable. I gazed at the little clock in the car in some consternation. What if we arrived, after this long, long drive and it was closed?

Despite this growing concern, we chatted lightheartedly about this, that and the other. John is the first of my blogging buddies to land up here. Or at least the first one that I actually got to meet. My friend Vijay is a friend of a blogging buddy, so he's like a blogging buddy, once removed, if you know what I'm saying.

I was feeling better that morning after all the emotional squalls of recent days and wondering why I was feeling this way. My Facebook status update said: "Jennifer is feeling happy for no reason in particular."

Then I received a phone call:

"Hello is that Jenn Jacobs? This is John."

The voice was pleasantly accented. I didn't recognise it.

"John?"

He told me who he was and it was like sunlight bursting through the clouds. Suddenly I knew why I was happy. John, being the modest self-effacing dude he is, asked if we could meet for breakfast the following day. Me, being none of the above, said why not tonight.

Of course, getting to the hotel proved a drama and a half. It decided to storm (after days of bone-dry weather) and KL at rush hour is never pleasant. Factor in a storm on top of that, and the traffic has to be seen to be believed. So, I ended up getting stuck in the famed KL traffic jam, inching forward everytime the traffic lights (and there were a lot of them), changed. Then, having misunderstood the directions the hotel guy gave me, I ended up going in the wrong direction.

I called the hotel again. This time another dude, a smarter, patienter dude, gave me step-by-step directions and I found myself outside the hotel. John and his friend Joseph were sitting inside. They saw me and came out smiling (despite the fact that I had kept them waiting more than an hour after the agreed time).

It was wonderful to finally meet him. (Hint, hint). The two boys were so nice and pleasant and easygoing that taking them around was a treat. They told me they wanted authentic Malay food and I racked my brains trying to figure out a decent place for Malay food. We usually have that at stalls.

Then my furrowed brow cleared. Of course! Rumahku! That was in PJ and now I needed to get out of Tengkat Tong Shin to find my way out. I don't know if the guys noticed but I made several false starts, getting lost in KL traffic, trying to get out. (But of course, I always get lost trying to get out of KL unless I am on Jalan Sultan Ismail itself).

Anyway we finally made it to Rumahku and they let me order - we had butter prawns, mutton porial (my favourite), asparagus belachan and mango kerabu chicken. John said the food was "flavourful" and both he and Joseph really enjoyed it. So did I. Hungry, we all dug in and made short work of the spread.

Then it was time for dessert. I told them we needed to go "mamaking" to get the authentic Malaysian experience. So we would have our teh tarek at a mamak in Bangsar rather than here at a restaurant (which was actually a converted bungalow) with a bathroom that was actually, well, a bathroom. We had cake and ice cream for dessert. It was pretty yummy. Joseph had to finish my chocolate cake because I am a wasteful child...and Jackie and Simon were not there to do the needful.

Anyways, we left Rumahku (literal translation, My House) to head for My Backyard. The guys were pretty easy going and didn't mind that showing them the sights, meant, the sights I always chattered on about in my blog. Mark wasn't there (no matter, I dragged them to Concorde the next day to meet him, although they didn't get to see him perform because apparently he had already finished his set) but they did get to see this band playing, where the lead singer was a pretty young Filipina. At least, I thought she was pretty. And so did one of her raving fans who seats himself right in front of the band (kinda where I sit when Mark is playing) and cheers wildly at every cheesy rendition. John told me the girl wouldn't be considered pretty by Philippine standards and I was surprised.

Anyways, we had our orange juice and two Tiger beers (at least I think the guys had Tiger beers, they may have had Guinness) and chatted over the music. Vijay David was there. He walked in with all nine earrings jingling and I pointed him out to John who has met him elsewhere in these pages. He ignored me. Or at least, I thought he ignored me. Actually, he didn't see me. When he did, he came over and planted a very bristly kiss on either cheek.

We left Backyard to go mamaking...Devi's Corner Bangsar (where else) because I thought the boys should have a Bangsar experience...well, at least Devi's if nothing else. We talked some more - there was just so much to catch up on and they told me they only had one more day in KL after which they were leaving for Singapore.

I mean to say what?

We had the traditional teh tarek and fended off beggars as well as people who tried to sell us Mont Blanc knock-offs. There was a minor drama - a bunch of teenagers showed up and started distributing Clear shampoo samples. They left us out. John and Joseph were cool about it. I felt the steam start to rise. They must have sensed it because they provided us with samples as well. Haha.

Anyways, after mamaking it was back to the hotel, where I parked the car and we chatted for a while. I asked them what they were going to do the next day, and they said, dunno, maybe shop. I asked what their plans were for the night, and they were open...so I said, we should do something different. Hmmm. Different. What ah? That was when I came up with the brilliant plan to go see the fireflies.

The next morning, I had a meeting at the office. Having gotten into bed at one something and passed out at past two, I was very very sleepy. Hence, grumpy. But after going home and getting some shuteye, I was all nicely rested. I had to pick J&J up from KLCC.

(This is the part where I whisked them off to Concorde so they could meet Mark...Joseph said Mark had the folk singer vibe with his long hair and all). Then it was off to Kuala Selangor.

But I told you that part already.

The moon's a balloon.

Yeah, man.

The Turning Point

Pain ceases when you relinquish the struggle. As long as the answer is in the air, as long as you can swing either way, there is pain. Once you have decided one way or another, there is only peace.

I have decided. Now as I saw off the limb and set it on the waters, watching it drift away from me, I wave goodbye without regret. Yeah, there are some things I would have done differently, but what's important is that I did my best.

So no hard feelings, huh?

None.

Waiting In Vain

In sooth I know not why I am so sad.
Antonio, Merchant of Venice

I wish I knew what I wanted. I know what I don't want. But how can life always be defined by what we don't want?

We're near the end, so near, so very near, I can taste it. It tastes of ashes. And I smell ashes in the wind. Acrid, burning, unpleasant, sad. And all those goodbyes never said, rise up in me. All those goodbyes that bleed out into the cadaverous silence.

There are no echoes.

But I need the echoes. I need closure. I need the handshake, the gesture, the finality. I need to part on good terms.

Instead, I see bitterness. I see acrimony. I see hard little bullets glancing off my scars. To form new ones. Always new ones to cover the old ones. Scar upon scar upon scar.

I smell the whisky I will imbibe to forget. In so many anonymous bars. Until the air is no longer translucent.

Nothing is.

Nothing ever is.

Tell me something: How can you see through all this smoke?

I taste the bitter tears. And the bad aftertaste you leave in my heart. You weren't who I thought you were. I created you. Adorned you with qualities you didn't have, never dreamt of having, could never have.

My bad.

My fault.

My fucking lack of judgement.

Always mine!
Always mine!
Always mine.

Stupidity is inherent. Stupidity is what takes me from one moment to the next. Stupidity is what keeps me plodding through mistake after mistake. When all I want to do is give up. And lie in the soft dust, while everything around me crumbles, crumbles, crumbles.

And drift.

Because everybody drifts. And none of this is real. And life is just some cosmic joke and I wish, I wish, I wish I knew what the punchline was.

There's an art to goodbye,
Someday I'll learn it.

One Day More

I slept most of today. Until afternoon. Then up for breakfast. Then past afternoon. I just slept and slept and slept. The air was soporific. That, or I was just tired:

I did not live until today
How can I live when we are parted
Tomorrow you'll be worlds away
And yet with you my world has started

And now I'm up. I watched some TV. Dadda came and sat with me for a while. Jackie called and suggested I come to England in September. I can carry art thencewards and Kit Kats back. (Seems like a fair trade). And we will visit Wales. Or Lake District. Or Cornwall. And eat lemon drizzle and a lemony muffin and roast pork in apple sauce and scones (I love cream teas).

I had dinner with my friend Meera yesterday who said I was so miserable because I was not where I was supposed to be.

Tomorrow we'll be far away
Tomorrow is the Judgement Day
Tomorrow we'll discover what our God in Heaven has in store
One more dawn, one more day
One day more....

Waiting to Exhale

It's like we're on two different ships, drifting further and further apart. I wave goodbye. The other ships puffs gamely on, out of sight, ignoring me. I shed a furtive tear. Endings are always painful. I think we even grieve the loss of our tumours.

And today I am in here because of a misunderstanding. I didn't understand a request for meeting. It was supposed to be next Friday. I thought it was this Friday. Which is why, bright and early on a Friday morning I was seated at my desk. To find a very interesting letter.

Intrigue, intrigue, intrigue and more intrigue...

And the people revolve around me, as if in some alternate dimension, and I watch them and don't watch them, and don't appear to be watching them and check my email, and check my Facebook, and check my email, and check his blog where people have written in gushing about his latest speech.

I sigh.

I turn away.

And a colleague plunks himself down next to me and tells me he needs two press releases. This is a very novel way to be told that we need two press releases. It's usually the boss who tells me and then we thrash them out in no time at all. Speedy Gonzales, that's me.

This colleague says with a wicked chuckle: "I heard you went to Marriott yesterday."

He thinks it's a great joke. I don't.

Another colleague stops by my place. Forehead furrowed in concern.

"How are you?"

"OK," I shrug.

A chat with yet another colleague. Pretty enlightening. Who knew that a little office, barely a year old, would be so chockful of politics?

As he talked, I felt myself move further and further away from this place, this space, this air...exhaling.

Always exhaling.

I need to get this out of my system.

At The End Of The Day

I leapt out of bed today, my heart pounding. I had only dropped off past 2, a combination of the heat, the mosquitoes and a mind that would just not quit. What time was that blasted meeting again? 9? 9.30?

I turned on the computer and peered at the screen? Oh sweet Jesus! It was 8.30! And in the middle of KL. And it was already 7.15! A quick shower, no breakfast, throwing on my clothes all anyhow and rushing out. Ugh, 50 minutes more. I would never make it to the Marriott in time. And the jam. Better not to think about it. Just go.

Of course, my tank was only quarter full but there was no time to top it up. It would have to last. I screeched out of the doorway and took off on the long noisy highway. By some stroke of genius (NOT) I decided to take the Jalan Duta way. Got enmeshed in a jam of Malaysian proportions along Jalan Semantan and watched the minutes tick by with a slight trepidation.

Once I got onto Jalan Duta the road had cleared and I leapt ahead. A sleep-deprived head laced with a sense of panic is not the best for rushing to a meeting. So naturally, as I put my foot down to see what that baby could give me, I didn't realise I was heading towards a row of stationary cars, waiting patiently to inch their way out onto the roundabout...I braked, the smell of burning rubber, smoke. The car in front of me, got out of my way. Stopped with inches to spare.

Cold sweat. Shaking. Something impeding my foot. It was the car air freshener. I wondered what would have happened if I had actually crashed. Maybe died. Maybe been injured. All for some stupid meeting I couldn't give less damn about.

Shakily I inched my way forward. Got onto Jalan Kuching where the traffic was heavy. Very heavy. And then the nightmare that is Jalan Sultan Ismail. I looked at the cars upon cars upon cars and cursed the person who came up with the bright idea of having a meeting in the middle of KL at this ungodly hour.

By some miracle I managed to get there only about 10 minutes late. I parked the car and pounded my way to the lift, heavy laptop in tow. Then I got to the lobby and looked around. No familiar faces. Wondered for the first time where in this large hotel the meeting was.

I called MS. She answered, a little surprised.

"Where are you all ah?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm at the Marriott. Where are you guys?"

"The meeting was cancelled didn't you know? We had it yesterday."

Ah. Cancelled. There would have been a notification on the calendar. Except that I switched off my computer by about 7. So I didn't receive said notification.

I sank weakly into one of the sofas, feeling a little sleepy, a little hungry, a little frustrated. A little furious. A little like I was not where I was supposed to be. And I hadn't been, for a long time.

All my fault.

No doubt.

But still...

The Beginning of The End

I woke up in the morning and stared out of my grimy windows. It was hot. It was muggy. It was airless. And it matched my mood to a t.

Yes, this heavy feeling had settled in my belly a long time ago. I had tried to ignore it. Resisted driving off the edge of that lonesome highway to crash into oblivion. Poured strong spirits down my throat. Same reason.

Fell sick. Got better. Fell sicker. Got better. Fell sick again. (If it doesn’t kill you, it can only make you weaker)

So how much more before the last time?

I felt things unraveling. How are you supposed to hold on when the threads are frayed and you can’t weave them back together?

No tapestry.

Only tiredness and dust.

Only smoky airless heat.

I know what I have to do.

And I’m afraid to do it.

Without Country

I was re-reading a letter from an old new friend yesterday. He sounded so happy. He was not happy before. And he gives me hope that as badly as you can work at messing up your life, something changes and voila, everything is back on track, better than it ever was before, and you're singing the Ode to Joy in German. (or whatever European language it is sung in).

It's been a rotten weekend. Bad news filtering in through the cracks. A few jellyfish stings about my writing ability, a goddamned article mocking what I wrote (I didn't see it, not reading the papers over here, but my sainted Mamma kindly told me, when I called to wish her for Mother's Day). And other stuff. Just stuff.

Now I feel myself sinking into a black funk. I want to crawl under my blankets and not come out. I want to cancel all my appointments for tomorrow. I'm not in the mood for cheer (not even the kind you have to assume for company). I want to rage against the heavens, cry, storm, shake my fist and collapse weeping on my newly mopped floor.

Yes, my newly mopped floor.

About the only good thing about this weekend was the fact that I finally got around to cleaning my room and removing acres of dust. No, I didn't find anything I lost in the debris. In fact, I discovered that I lost a few more things that I didn't even know I had lost. Like the beeswax guardian angel candle my friend Beatrix gave me when I spent a few days with her in France, in the springtime.

It was beautiful. Both the candle and Paris.

But then, Paris is always beautiful.

And Malaysia NEVER is.

It's high time I plotted out an escape route. I don't want to end the year the same way I started it.

There is a putrid excresence in the air and it's there every night. The kind of stench you get when maggots feed off a carcass.

Betcha by golly wow...

Rainbows and Scarlet Ribbons

My pay is in today. I logged on to my internet banking account and regarded the figures there with satisfaction. Now, ever since last month, I read about about "managing money" which means I need to divide and apportion the money for various things.

First thing to be cleared is my credit card bill. So I wrote out the cheque and made sure I transferred enough money from my savings to current account. Oh boy, that left a hole. But never mind. I will regard it as a one-off thing. Yes, one off. (Chubs, you still haven't paid me yet, you pandi!)

Then I shifted money across accounts for other stuff (like the delayed gratification account) and will be transferring a little to the "financial freedom account". I am pretty chuffed that last month, I actually made my first investment. Now, for someone who has never bought so much as a stock on the exchange, this is a pretty big deal. The company wrote to me and asked if I'd like to go for an investment talk this coming weekend but I had to decline with regret. I can't go home for weekends until I finish the present yoga card and choose different days for my yoga practice as I've decided I'd rather offend God than my yoga instructor. God would forgive me. The yoga instructor will just freeze me off. (I am a huge coward and coldness works better than anything else for controlling purposes, that is, until I cotton on to the fact that you're being cold on purpose to modify my behaviour).

I also wrote out two cheques for my "giving" account. I'm pretty pleased to have found charities that I like very much and I actually want to support. (To say nothing of the tax deduction benefits, which I only realised this year when Chubs, who was doing my taxes asked, what charities have you contributed to, and I shrugged, dunno, and asked why, and he said, it's a deduction, and I said, oh)

I love my filing cabinet. It holds my tax files, my book receipts and contribution receipts and all the stuff I need for next year. It's about the only thing that's neat in my nightmare of a room. I think tomorrow, I will have to work at cleaning it. It's really a disgrace and I cannot think in there. I mean, I haven't written anything in years. Literally. Because everything is so cluttered. Yuck!

Oh well, once more into the fray...

Spices and Condiments

So life is picking up, becoming interesting. I love my yoga classes. By the way, I missed two classes (the first time it was my fault, the second time, it was work and I didn't have no choice) and I discovered that missing yoga without informing the instructor beforehand is not a good idea. I went yesterday and he was furious with me in that quietly Zen way of his.

"Well, well, well," he said, when I rocked up smiling. "You said you wanted a detox class and I did one and you were not there." Pause. I looked at the floor. I didn't have any excuse. I didn't wake up for yoga class because I was out partying till six in the morning. I didn't wake up till noon the next day. And my class was 10.30. You see what I mean?

(Note to self: No more late nights out on Saturday. As long as I have Sunday morning class)

Then on Tuesday I had to go to Bukit Jalil as Zafrul was giving a speech. He was addressing the Yayasan Tun Razak, that is these bright young specially selected youngsters (18-year-olds) from all over the country. He was pretty good. He engaged with the crowd and those kids were lovely. They were bright and enthusiastic and funny and their energy just spilled over.

Although I was not too thrilled to be missing yoga again, I was kinda glad I went (or was forced to go). Those kids were just the antidote I needed for a day of bad and worse news which had me angry and heartbroken and confused at the same time.

The thing about bad news is you are not supposed to let it get you down. You're supposed to hold on to the dream, despite the surrounding chaos and destruction.

I just got a call from a friend. I recommended her company for a project not too long ago (remember that I'm the hook-up girl and I hook people up?) and she called to tell me that they got the account. And they want to give me a finder's fee. I was blown away. I've helped and introduced many people to potential funders or clients. This is the first time anyone has come back to me like this.

It's the thought.

It makes me feel so good.

Changes

There is something in the air. Remember how Mary Poppins flew away when the wind changed? That's what I feel like right now. Except that I always feel like flying away and never feel like staying put. I was born discontented and three feet from my body, trying to stay, looking to run.

Most times, I trip.

Most times, I fall.

First there was peace.

Then there was the churning (like butter).

And then there was change.

Isn't that always the way?

This Way To Hell

I can no longer rationalise my life. It doesn't make sense. It just fucking doesn't make sense. Everything is discrete, digital rather than analog. Events are non-connected, just little bumps on the road, no continuity, no one thing leading to another.

I must be seriously fucked up inside to have created this mess.

I'm sweltering. It's so hot. I can't take how hot it is. I can't take the heat waves that keep emanating from me. I can't take this perpetual burn.

Everything melts in this heat.

EVERYTHING!

They Say Her Face Was White As Rain

I feel tired and washed out. I had an accident earlier today and it was totally my fault. I was having an angry conversation on the phone while negotiating a very busy roundabout and I suddenly felt the car jerk from impact. I had hit the car in front of me. I hastily got off the phone and chucked it on the co-driver's seat to confront the blazing eyes of a very irate mother. She had her two small kids in the car. If we hadn't been practically stationary, there may have been serious consequences to my stupidity.

We parked there, at one of the busiest roundabouts in the whole of Malaysia and she growled at me: "Why did you hit my car...why did you hit my car." It was a little Kancil and there was a slight dent at the boot. I didn't want to stand there arguing so I started to offer her money to settle it.

Thank goodness I had a few hundred in my wallet at the time (courtesy of Jackie) and figured that it would cost about at most RM150 if she chose to repair it. As she was interested in how the accident had come about, I was more interested in terminating the scene. I took out my wallet and gave her RM200. After a few more rhubarbs she got back into the car and drove off.

I was badly shaken and had to find my way to the place I was going. It was very hot on the outside, and I was a freaking geyser on the inside. I got to the place (an artist's house) and tried to make small talk. She gave me ice water which I downed and kept downing and she topped up my glass.

Everything felt hot and sticky and just plain awful.

I drove home after, not feeling all that much better.

Then I watched one of the Jane Austen DVDs Mary lent me - Persuasion - and somehow that simple gentle story, penetrated this black funk that pervaded my being.

Something has to give.

I hope it's the sky.

We could use some rain.

Walking In This World

I'm sitting at the lobby of the Putrajaya International Convention Centre. The boss is here to shoot the opening montage for his appearance as The Terminator (the CEO for the last four episodes) in The Firm 2. It involves a lot of standing around and looking cool. I got bored watching, so here I am with my laptop plugged into one of the numerous power points (they are numerous but inconveniently situated), taking advantage of the excellent wi-fi provided. (I think all of KL should be wifi-ed, that way we will always be connected to our blogs and our Facebook, what else is there?)

OK Zafrul is now doing his opening shot which involves walking through automatic doors and answering his Blackberry. (The most natural shot of him, I think)

He told me his speech in Kuwait went OK. Thing is, the three other speakers on his panel spoke in Arabic. He was the only one to speak in English and everyone had these little earphones for translation purposes. He said his speech at PNB had gone better. Thing is, it's over, and he is not really interested in going through either to give me feedback about audience response.

All the contestants for The Firm 2 are sitting around. They look like a particularly serious bunch. One of them is so tall and formidable that I'm actually a little intimidated by her. They're all in suits. And here I am in my jeans and crumpled Tune Money polo shirt. They look tired. They've been shooting since about seven this morning. It's now past noon. (I think we've been booked to be here until 2 but I can't be sure).

I used the new highway to get to Putrajaya. It cost only RM2.50 in tolls (OK all roads lead to PLUS) which was not bad (considering) and it was fast and traffic was so very light. I wish I had used this way to get to the airport before. Next time I will.

It's funny that the most glamorous shot of CEOs these days is one of them walking while conversing on their Blackberries, heads furrowed in concentration, because they are so important that they have to be constantly in meetings, even while walking.

Stuff Like That

I miss Jackie. She's gone back to England (although she called and spoke at length). I miss Mary. She's gone back to SP.

But it was a peaceful day nonetheless. Started off with yoga at ten in the morning where I failed to distinguish myself (so what else is new). Then I came home and sweltered in this unmitigated heat (no, no rain, no rain at all, what is up with the universe?) and sweated, showered, sweated some more, showered some more). Then in the evening I took myself off to my yoga centre for a night of "musical healing". This guy plays various ragas on a flute. Each raga is meant to stimulate a different emotion (happiness, peace, etc).

We had to intone some notes to stimulate various chakras in ascending and descending order.

Then lie back and listen.

It was so good.

I fell fast asleep. I may have even snored. I came back up to the surface when Van (the owner of Yoga2Health)'s voice parted the mists of sleep. She urged us to do a namaste, open our chakra centre and send peace and love to various countries and people. If you're reading this, you were probably on the receiving end).

Anyway I emerged from there very peaceful. I think that all this healing makes me feel good temporarily because what's broken is still broken. I need to heal the cause rather than the effect. Sweep up the broken glass. Dissolve my pain body. You know, stuff like that.

Heat-Induced Torpor

I'm sitting at home in front of the large screen tv over which Joe Vitale is telling me some stuff. Dadda, who succumbed to diarrhoea and then giddiness, is asleep in his room. I'm alternately answering emails, editing some pages, checking my facebook, and the like.

I think I need to write another article but although I write the most beautiful articles in my head, the pipe is choked when I apply fingers to keyboard. Will have to get over that...ahhh me.

It's hot. Very, very, very hot. The kind of heat that induces a torpor. So I'm in a torpor at the moment...so whatever you read after this, bear in mind I was in a heat-induced torpor. (I just like saying torpor)

Jackie has already left for England.

I seem to have picked up some expensive stuff over the way in the past month. Like my new Guy Laroche wallet. And my new Dolce Gabanna shades (present from Jackie). And my Birkenstocks (OK, I know they're not supposed to be expensive, but they are here).

So it was with some trepidation that I opened my credit card bill yesterday. The trepidation was warranted. There must be some mistake I stammered, as I went through each item and actually whipped out my cool phone to calculate (not trusting the bank, because what do they know about numbers) the total.

How on God's green earth had I spent so much?

It's the lure of that little silver card. You just whip it out, sign the dotted line and forget about it. Until of course, the lady at the crystal shop tells you, that sorry miss, your card got some problem lar. And your sister cocks an inquiring eyebrow at you: "Exceeded your limit, huh?"

So of course, I decide to pay up and tighten my belt for the rest of the month. I make plans to buy loafs of bread and sandwich meat and maybe some lettuce to serve as lunches for the week. Of course this is when the company decides to play silly buggers and not pay us.

I ask our head of HR about it and she profers a languid smile. "Maybe end of next week."

It figures.

For Posterity

Sometimes I wish I was more regular in updating this. Although nobody may be reading it anymore (ever since I password-protected it) it's still a good record of what is happening in my life at any one time.

I'm back in JB now. It's the Big M's birthday today. We had a midnight sort-of celebration and there was port. I had two glasses which made for a very deep sleep after.

I'm leaving for KL early tomorrow. There are various things I have to do and bloody Maxis has just threatened to cut off my phone line yet again. This is a phone bill I've already paid twice this month. Only, first time I paid it, I stupidly did it over the internet. I didn't know it takes three days to clear. So when they cut off my phone line the next day, I marched off to Maxis' office in Bangsar only to be told that internet payments take that long to clear and if I wanted to open my line I would have to fork out RM100. Which I did. Surely RM100 is enough to see me through the three days plus two (weekend). But sadly, it was not to be. I woke up today with another threat SMS-ed to me. Ye gods and little fishes. So maafan one!

I think the best thing I've done this year is quit the gym. My yoga class is great and Richard (from New York) is the quintessential yoga instructor. He's this very interesting person who, among other things, meditated for a year at a monastery in Burma. He regards my pathetic attempts at the asanas with patient tolerance. (My favourite is the shivasana at the end, the dead man's pose where you're supposed to lie relaxed and go into deep meditation - from my snores, you can tell that my meditation is particularly deep).

This seems to be turning out a very strange year. Very strange indeed. Kookier than all previous ones. Nice to break out of the 'more of the same' cycle.

Later for you...

(Oops, I just remembered, I missed Mark's birthday this year...the other Mark, the one who wrote a book. It didn't even cross my mind...wow, I think we're officially not friends anymore, how sad)

The Song From The Singer

I went to Backyard last night on a Monday for the first time in a couple of months. I was there with Mary. We sat in front and listened to Mark play. He smiled a lot like he always does, and played very well, like he always does. Four other musicians took turns on stage - it became a veritable jam session.

Mark sang "Call Me Al" for Mary and "Return to Pooh Corner" for me and various other songs for various other people.

A guy called Cletus who works for BMW (and drives a Beemer cos he has no choice about the matter) got up on stage and sang some other selections (he dedicated his first song to me and Mary).

Vijay went up on stage and sang some and dedicated some Beatles number I have never heard to us.

Two guys tried to pick Mary up. A Malay buaya with a goatie and paunch who was dressed as if he had come straight from work (he moved on to a lady with a beautifully exposed cleavage when Mary proved uninterested) and a Finnish guy who told Mary she was beautiful and he liked her teeth. She managed to blow him off as well.

Basically it was very nice to have all these songs sung for us and Backyard wasn't crowded or smoky which is always good, and I was very tired so I leaned back and tried not to fall asleep. The music was soothing and I think, I think, I really think that:

I have finally managed to separate the song from the singer.

(It's hard to belong to someone else when the right one comes along!)

Interesting...

Government decision-makers, many NGOs, and international consultants usually start the work of poverty alleviation by launching very elaborate training programs. They do this because they begin with the assumption that people are poor because they lack skills. Training also perpetuates their own interests - by creating more jobs for themselves without the responsibility of having to produce any concrete results. Thanks to the flow of aid and welfare budgets, a huge industry has evolved worldwide for the sole purpose of providing such training. Experts on poverty alleviation insist that training is absolutely vital for the poor not to move up the economic ladder. But if you go out into the real world, you cannot miss seeing that the poor are poor because they cannot retain the returns of their labour. They have no control over capital, and it is the ability to control capital that gives people the power to rise out of poverty. Profit is unashamedly biased toward capital. In their powerless state, the poor work for the benefit of someone who controls the productive assets. Why can they not control any capital? Because they do not inherit any capital or credit and nobody gives them access to it because they are not considered creditworthy.

excerpted from Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus

Gate-Crashing and the consequences thereof

So Mary and I have the best seats in the house at this posh party at Planter's Jim in Bangsar. It's the owner's mother's birthday. The owner happens to own the Social as well. Which is also in Bangsar.

And there were are, uninvited, sitting at the table directly facing the band. The very famous band with Vijay, Albert and Badar (and let's not forget Azmi on sax). I feel distinctly uncomfortable and start edging towards Mary trying to take up less space.

Vijay sings his heart out.

And the band plays on.

The birthday girl comes up to speak to Mary who stands up to wish her. I edge towards Mary, trying to compress myself into an even smaller space.

Thing is, we didn't ask to be here. Thing is, Vijay invited us to gatecrash cos he was performing and also cos he fancies Mary. Thing is, we were happily ensconced in our traditional Devi's Corner with our chappatis and mutton curry and I texted Vijay to let him know we were there. We knew he was performing somewhere in Bangsar and we thought he could duck out during breaks to come and join us.

The moment I texted him, I got a call. He told us later that he received the text afer the band had only done one (one!) song. And he said, we're going to be taking a break now and hightailed it out of there, running the length of Telawi 2 to join us at Devi's. He sidled up to Mary and put his arm around her as comfortably as a long-time boyfriend. (not like an almost maybe not quite boyfriend). He stayed with us so long that Mary and I started to get nervous.

"Aren't they expecting you back? Aren't you supposed to be performing?"

He was. And he received a call from Azmi saying, bro, we're up for another "set". So he ran all the way back (whatever it was, it was good exercise for the Vijay boy)

A minute or two later, he called me, asking if we would like to make our way over. I said aiyo Vijay, private party lar. You want us to gatecrash?

He said no problem, the old flers have started karaokeing and they kicked us off the stage. You come and sit with the band.

I said, hmmm Planter's Jim, very expensive. Are you going to be buying us our drinks? He said, no problem, no problem.

So Mary touched up her lippie (she was looking very fetching in a short maroon dress) and we made our way over. The band were sitting outside. I talked to Albert while Mary and Vijay were engrossed in each other. Azmi talked to Badar. I called them both kudikarans as they were the only ones having whisky. OK, Vijay was having whisky rocks as well. Albert wasn't drinking. He's a sober cat.

I asked Al if he was mechanically minded. He asked why? You want me to fix your car? I said, no, my handbag. I had inadvertendly caught up the cloth in the zipper. Or in non-technical terms, the zipper was stuck and it would take some doing to unstick it. Albert tackled it gamely and then told me I would have to cut the cloth around the zipper.

Now, this bag had been a present from one Prabhakaran, and I wasn't too keen on destroying it. Vijay, who has the Convent knack of noticing ten other conversations while engaged in his own, said, hey bro, pass it over. Then he proceeced to attack my bag with a spike, some oil, a screwdriver (OK, no screwdriver), in fact, with everything but his teeth.

No cigar.

Then Badar took over. A minute later he was handing me the bag properly zipped out. My mouth fell open. I had been resigned. Now I was unresigned. I gave him a million dollar smile and thanked him.

Then the band was up for another performance. OK here's where things get tricky. Mary and I were proceeding to as near the stage as possible to watch them when we noticed that Vijay had arranged our drinks on the very best seat in the house. We sat there and became progressively more uncomfortable. At least I was. I wasn't drinking see? Apparently I can't anymore because it has adverse effects on my mood (I want to kill everyone in the vicinity and I'm not talking maybe, baby!). So I stuck to punch. Two glasses of wine were sloshing around in Mary's belly and she was glowing like a fog lamp. Which means that she was less uncomfortable.

So birthday girl came up to talk to us (us being Mary). The one of the daughters asked us to join their conga line. Another daughter asked us to cha cha. An old fler apologised to us for making so much noise. The birthday girl came back and asked us to request a song.

If you're wondering about the VIP treatment, well frankly, so were we. You don't gatecrash a very posh party and get treated like guests of honour.

Anyway I leaned over and whispered to Mary: "So you're Vijay's girlfriend and I'm your good friend and you don't go anywhere without me and he don't go anywhere without you. Stick to the story!"

Mary was pickled enough to agree.

When Vijay came down from stage for a breather, Mary informed him of our respective positions. He looked at her with a "tell me something I don't know" look. "I already told them that. And the lady said, wah, your girlfriend ah? Why you so clever to choose?"

She took a shine to Mary. She has excellent taste. No wonder she owns two successful restaurants in Bangsar.

Apparently, we were not gatecrashers. We were INVITED. The lady had invited us because Vijay kept disappearing down to Devi's Corner to see his girlfriend and friend. They wanted him to stop disappearing. So really, by coming, we were doing them a favour. Once we (OK, Mary, not me) were there, his attention was no longer distracted.

It was a wild night. We sang at the tops of our voices. I shook my fist at Vijay for suggesting I could dance. He bought us both orange roses.

We went to Devi's Corner after and then I sent both the cooing doves home. To their separate establishments. I got the sweetest text messages from them this afternoon.

Haha, Praby, if you have questions, go to the source.

Btw, that same source insisted that I blog this. So it's not like I'm bocoring rahsia or anything.

So They Did

Have you ever walked around just pretending? While everything around you crumbles, crumbles, crumbles, you pretend that everything is as it ever was and all this chaos is simply more of the same.

I hate frozen looks that tell me nothing.

But I guess frozen looks is all I will get since I stopped up my ears and refuse to listen.

Leave me alone, I cry into the wilderness.

Leave me alone.

Leave me alone.

So they did.

Sicky Sicky

By the pricking of my thumbs - OK Dadda fell sick on Easter Day. After crawling out of bed to make my breakfast, he went right back to sleep. I unclosed an eye at 11.45am to find him still sleeping which was highly unusual. So I asked if he wanted to go out for lunch. He muttered and grunted.

"I'm sick, mol."

Which I should have guessed. Seeing as he was sleeping. Seems he picked up the bug that's been going around. Flu, body ache, the works. So I went out and bought tom yam. Because he asked for tom yam. Vegetarian tom yam as he didn't want to wrestle with meat, not even seafood. (Ironic that Easter Day and I'm still vegetarian).

So it was a pretty dismal Easter. News that the Dadda-man was sick spread like wildfire among his siblings. Now the thing is, he's sick. He needs to sleep. So it doesn't help when I get one phone call after another asking to speak to him. I refused a few and then didn't answer the phone and considered taking it off the hook.

When someone is sick they need rest. Not twenty thousand concerned phone calls asking the same thing.

Are you OK?

Well, duh!

Obviously NOT.

Way to go, Captain Obvious!

OK, I realise that much of my angst was alcohol-related. It also had to do with hanging out, almost every day, in a pub with other creatures of the night. It seems that in the dark, smoky interior of the pub, other rules prevail. Everyone is running away from something. Even the poor girl everyone despises, who picks up a different man every night, when she's too drunk to see straight, and ends up having sex with them right there. I think you cannot possible plunge into an atmosphere of loss and longing, night after night, without adverse effects. Yeah, and that's no matter how good the music is.

So yesterday was the end of Lent. Which means, technically, I could go out and get rip roaring drunk if the mood so takes me. Except that I am pretty happy with my newfound sobriety. And I realise all the stuff I was giving up (like peace of mind) for a few minutes of oblivion.

Instead, I went to yoga class yesterday and tried to stretch myself as far as I could go. I think the body echoes the mind, and it helped me see just how inflexible the mind is.

When I got back, I showered, glugged some Italian Aqua Vitae and read some Cleveland Amory (I finished the second book, The Cat and the Curmudgeon), watched Stardust (I love it, love it, love it, and besides, I had finished my Twin Peaks box set), and worked on my project.

I have started making my gifts for Christmas. It's the best thing to do when stretched out on the sofa, watching my DVD du-jour. Now that I quit the gym, I realise that I was never home before because of it. Every night, at least two hours of my time puffing away on a treadmill with nasty headbanging music blaring at me from the speakers (you could try to stuff your own ears with the iPod, but it wouldn't work). Coming out feeling a little worse (rather than better) about myself.

So it's the first day post-Lent. And I was supposed to get drunk.

But maybe I'll give it a miss.

Clearing

Nits and I were having lunch and she (having just read Eat, Pray, Love) asked me what my word was. You know, that one word that can be used to characterise my life. Well, no prizes for guessing (although I am working on changing this)....my word is "fight". I don't think I've met anyone quite so agro as me. And even when I'm not being agro something in me seems to trigger the agro-ness in other people. Within the space of a month I have been attacked (and I mean seriously attacked) verbally by two people, so that I came out of those encounters quivering, my nerves jangling like plucked guitar strings. (Oh yeah, and I vowed never to speak to these two people again for the rest of my natural life)

One of those fights occured on Election Day (yes, I deliberately left it out of my narrative as I was very upset and I didn't want to give it undue importance or record it for posterity).

My friend Mary (who was present at the attack) suggested I do ho'oponopono in it.

I love you.

I'm sorry.

Please forgive me.

Thank you.

(You gotta repeat those four phrases over and over again, while concentrating on the problem)

I agreed. I didn't feel much like saying these things but I agreed anyways. Anything was better than how awful I felt.

OK, it's been a week and some days since the fight. Today, out of the blue, I get a call from the person who attacked me on Election Day. He apologised. It was very formal but still an apology. After gaping wordlessly for a few minutes, I matched his formality and apologised for any offence on my part.

We parted with mutual civilities and (probably) a desire never to speak to each other again. But it was so freeing. No need to hold any more animosity (though I have to admit, the animosity was waning).

This stuff actually works!

I repeated the phrases when driving. I listened to the audio files I bought from Joe Vitale (which transmits the message subliminally). Basically I flooded my mind with this (and Twin Peaks, let's not forget Twin Peaks).

The premise of ho'oponopono is that we are responsible for everything in our lives (that includes the war in Iraq and the starving hordes) and that if there is disharmony somewhere in the universe, it is because of some programme of the world that we hold, some limitation we have bought into. So you repeat the phrases over and over again, asking for forgiveness for holding that negative belief. This is known as "clearing". When you clear the negative belief in you, it gets cleared in the rest of the world. Or at least the other person you are at loggerheads with. The angrier you get at some perceived wrong or injustice, the more you feed into it. So anger doesn't really solve anything. Not even righteous anger.

This has been my first demonstration of how effective this is.

Oh my.

Still reeling.

A Little Bit Of Something

I feel sick today. It came on on Saturday night (scratchy throat) and has bloomed into an overall body ache and lassitude and the feeling that everything is fucked up and I just want to crawl between the bedcovers and sleep (sweet harlot of the senses, Delilah of the mind).

So here I am at D'lish, answering emails, editing stuff and just feeling crummy.

I finished George Orwell's essays and As I Lay Dying and Snowflake in My Hand. Have started on James Frey's My Friend Leonard (the sequel to A Million Little Pieces) which is poetic, but not designed to make me feel better. I have also started on a book of essays by Ursula Le Guin which I find quite fascinating. I'm passing on Orwell's essays to Mary Z cos she was intrigued when I talked about them.

I hung out with her and Vijay on Saturday. We sat at Devi's Corner (Bangsar) and discoursed on the lack of discourse in our society. Vij is going back to Bangalore in May and he said he would be getting us really good Indian movies or films (like Malgudi Days, woo hoo!). We discussed Gandhi (Mary just watched the movie again) and Partition and Hey Ram! and all in all it was very edifying. We talked about Othello (I still haven't read the play altho I know how it ends, having watched two versions of Desdemona's murder in Stage Beauty, which is one my favourite movies, like ever!).

I have been watching hours and hours of Twin Peaks. I usually have to watch something else after because as quirky as Twin Peaks is, it's depressing. Everyone is so impossibly beautiful (Agent Cooper, oh my). And the themes. Well, let's not go there.

Last week seemed to be a week of healing. I went for yoga class and musical healing (where you lie down on a yoga mat and this guy plays ragas on an Indian flute that is supposed to stimulate particular chakras) and I had no less than five dikshas from good friend who went to India, enrolled in an ashram for 21 days for an intense course and has come out somewhat changed and able to bless.

I woke up on Saturday feeling surprisingly good. For the first time, I was not a mass of raw nerve endings and I didn't feel the need for alcoholic oblivion. (I think Lent and the enforced abstinence has been very good for me).

So it was quite ironic that come evening, my throat starts to feel scratchy and it's like hello, what do we have here? And that I'm feeling like this today.

Love is All You Need

I want to plunge into narrative but they stole all the words. And George Orwell (to say nothing of Ezra Pound) said we should go in fear of abstractions and evasions and vagueness.

So I want to tell you a story. And I want the words to bleed red over the page, so you're there, you're present, it's real, it's definite and we can all exhale together at the end.

But then, you see, like the milky covering of a geriatric's eye, all I see is blurred and unfocused.

Hey Kid, get your ass outta here....no, let him stay, let him stay, let him stay...

I watched:

Across the Universe
The Sleeping Dictionary (!)
Must Love Dogs
Friends With Money
The Darjeeling Limited
40-Year-Old Virgin

in the last two days.

And I'm reading Faulkner's As I Lay Dying and Housden's 10 Poems To Change Your Life and George Orwell's Collected Essays at the same time. And another book by a cat vet, A Snowflake In Your Hand. Also the second book in Cleveland Amory's cat trilogy. And I am partway through other books as well.

If anyone suggests a lack of focus in my life at the moment, I would gladly agree. No focus. I am wandering through fields searching for patches of daffodils. (Or dandelions)

Because I always seem to be in vacant or in pensive mood.

Especially vacant.

When Rae Armantrout talked about being a connoisseur of vacancies was she talking about me?

Oh well:

All you need is love
All you need is love
Love is all you need.

NOW is the time for change!

When I read that the song below, (Jentayu, Phoenix) was a poem written by poet Usman Awang for Anwar's wife, Wan Azizah, its political overtones were buried under the fact that I just liked the song, it appealed to me for some strange reason. And it's not one of the typical Malay love songs either. Listening to the lyrics carefully, I realised it's about holding on when every hope seems to be lost and they are breaking you, breaking you until there's nearly nothing left. (But there's always something left until you actually die, and even then there's something left in those you leave behind)

Wow. The elections yesterday. I mean, what an upset!

I woke up at noon without having voted (but meaning to), had a leisurely breakfast, and wondered about how to get to the Sri Aman school, which was my voting centre. I had registered to vote in 1995, and so far, that had been the only elections I had voted in. The next two, I was conveniently out of the country and didn't really care. I mean, the government would remain the government, corrupt and oppressive as ever, and there was nothing a little Jane Bloggs like me could do about it.

This year, however, I was determined to vote. Unlike the Americans, who listen carefully to the debates between candidates etc, our votes are usually foregone conclusions. If you're a government supporter, you'll vote for the government (or national alliance) candidate no matter who it is. If you think the country needs a good opposition, you'll vote opposition, no matter who is standing.

So there I was lingering over breakfast. I had received a text message asking me not to vote until after 2. I didn't rightly understand why, but hey, I trusted the friend who sent me the text message, and besides, I was busy sleeping in the morning, after a night playing several hundred rounds of Spider Solitaire and listening to Jentayu over and over again (spliced for fun with Mariah Carey's Touch My Body which I find real catchy).

I took a shower and dripping in my towel, decided to call my good friend Mary Z to see if she needed help getting to her polling centre. She did. I said I need to go vote first (we have different polling centres) and then I'd come get her and take her to hers. She was ecstatic. I said I'd call once I was done and heading over hers. But wouldn't you know, I left my mobile at home. Since there was only one and half hours of voting left, I decided not to go home to get it, but rushed over to her house. She was not expecting me yet, and thrown into a tizzy, throwing everything into her handbag and rushing out.


The thing about it is that we had both dressed up to vote, complete with nice clothes, nice shoes (her, not me, I was in my crummy sneakers) and nice hair (I was wearing the flowers again, but I took it off because it was giving me a headache).

Anyway we found her polling centre with little difficulty. Now, when I had gone to vote, it was such a civilized process (our seat not being a hotseat) that I was in and out of there in five minutes (really, I kid you not!). Now Mary was voting where Shahrizat, our Women and Community Development Minister (her posters kissing babies and hugging old women have to be seen to be believed) and Anwar's daughter Nurul Izzah were contesting. It was a VERY hot seat. Mary struggled through the two bands of supporters who stared at each other from across the tiny street, obstructing traffic waving and giving thumbs-ups to both equally (we're Malaysian, we don't like to offend anybody) and so it took a while to get to the school (I had parked some distance off because of the mad traffic). When she finally got back to the car after voting, she said she felt saintly for having fulfilled her democratic obligation. Yeah, me too.

I was hungry (not having had lunch) so we took off for Raju's to repair the tissues (Mary didn't want to go as I couldn't have the luscious curry puffs but I twisted her arms). Then we went on a pirated DVD search for classics (she is looking for the top 100 movies on the British and American lists) and I just picked at romantic comedies and some other stuff (I managed to get a box set of Twin Peaks which I can't wait to watch!).

Then we went to Backyard which was across the road. Our friend Vijay was playing and Mary said, I bet he won't remember me. What do you want to bet? I had been just about to dig into my vegetarian fried rice when I snapped up with a we shall see about that look upon my face and made my way into Backyard before Mary had time to gape. Vijay was all togged up in a cowboy costume and talking to some people when I went up to him and said, would you come out and meet my friend? He followed me out without a word.

When he saw Mares, his face lit up and he leaned over and kissed her. He not only remembered her, he had been wildly attracted to her that first meeting so many months ago, when we had come for the finale of the JAM (Jairus Anthony Music) festival. It's one of my favourite stories. We had just met Vij and were leaving before the second set. So I went to say goodbye.

You're going? he asked, then practically shoved me aside in his eagerness to get to Mary and kiss her goodbye. Every time I told that story I added a little more. Till finally, there was a Jennifer-shaped hole in the wall, where he had shoved me and I died. But then resurrected a while later to make our way out of Backyard.

Mary's usually response to this (amidst gales of laughter) was: "Nonsen! How you exaggerate child!"

OK Vijay stuck to us like chewing gum on the bottom of a seat. No matter how many others came over to claim his attention (he was never gone for long). When we told him our version of that story, laughing, he didn't laugh.

He looked a little embarrassed. And he didn't deny shoving me out of the way to get to Mary (so I exaggerated a little, but not a lot). Mary looked uncomfortable. But it was nice getting all that attention.

In between listening to the music etc, we were watching the large TV with the election results. Every time the Opposition scored a seat we would crow wildly. (The band naturally thought we were cheering for them and we did the thumbs-up thing again, not wanting to disabuse them of the notion).

Other election watchers kept coming over to update us on the news. Penang fallen to the Opposition. BN trounced in Kedah. Kelantan, foregone conclusion. And now it looked like Perak and Selangor were also going the Opposition way. Nurul Izzah beat Shahrizat (Mary cheered loud and long over that). Samy Vellu lost in Sungai Siput. Koh Tsu Koon lost. At first they said Khairy had lost and asked for a recount. Then the flashing results informed us that Khairy had won by a majority of over 5,000 seats. Darn!

Wow. Malaysians, that silent, disenfranchised majority had spoken. We left Backyard at three in the morning. I dropped Mary at home, came back, had a shower and turned on the TV. Dadda, who had been sleeping woke up to come sit with me. I told him that Kedah, Penang, Kelantan had gone over to the Opposition and now it looked like Perak and Selangor were heading that way too. I also told him that BN had failed to get the two thirds majority in Parliament. He grinned cheerfully, sleepy as he was.

What about Petaling Jaya? I didn't know. So far, I hadn't seen any results for our constituency. But this morning I saw in the papers that the Opposition had won our seat by a majority of some 19,000.

Ahmad Talib, a former NST group editor came on TV. He called it an elections tsunami. They cut to the press conference given by our surprisingly-not-sleeping but grey-faced Prime Minister Pak Lah. The mood was somber. Amid flashing lights, he shrugged his shoulders and said, if this was what the people wanted...

Of course someone asked if he would step down because of this barely victory that was almost like a crushing defeat. He said nobody had pressured him to. When asked about his Cabinet Ministers who had lost their seats, he said, lose, loselar!

Then he stood up to fend off further questions.

I would have liked them to cut to former Prime Minister and to all those politicians who had lost their seats. But Malaysian TV is ever demure and would leave those clowns to mourn in private.

And CNN and Al-Jazeera had better things to cover than our elections.

I fell asleep in front of the TV.

All in all, an interesting day.

Phoenix Rising

Just Because...

The goodbye we never said bleeds out into the cadaverous silence,
There are no echoes.

I Can't Breathe

Sometimes the body feels strange, heavy, lumpen, leaden, like it belongs to someone else.

I can't even breathe...

And I stare at this purple glitter that looks like it came from one of those three-dimensional pictures - a depth that goes on forever. I hate it. Why did I do it? Or why did that other spirit that took temporary possession of this body do it?

Not that I'm the old spirit. I'm another one. Another one that doesn't fit. I feel the accumulated sadnesses of this body. Everything jars. The space, the silence, the darkness, the misery spilling out into the sour stratosphere.

And I can't breathe...

And I lie curled up in bed in the middle of the day, worn out but not able to sleep. I close my eyes. Tight. I heave a deep sigh. Then another. Then another. Then another. Until I start weeping quietly. But not even that. Not even that lightens this terrible load on my chest.

And I can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

God help me, I can't breathe.

Rant If I Want To!

It seems like I woke up on the wrong side of the bed or something. I'm in such a foul mood and no amount of "clearing" or positive thoughts or pretty music seems to be working. I feel these waves of negativity flow out from me to everyone all around.

I'm in BV1 now, with a cranberry juice and a mineral water (I don't feel like lunch), steaming away. Started with this stupid woman who wants the boss's picture like now. I hate people who rush me to do something. Especially if they happen to me from some dumb make-up company.

(I don't care if you charge RM40,000 for a moisturiser, you're just not that important and your "urgent requests" read like fucking jokes, see?)

I told you I was in a bad mood!

And so, the boss's secretary who doesn't know how to convert an AI file to a JPEG file calls me and sends me increasingly urgent messages about this stupid woman who wants the picture.

I mean, come on, what is this, a pimple cream emergency?

I know I'm being sexist and rotten and whatnot, but I don't give a flying fuck.

It's my party and I'll rant if I want to.

Oh, and after I've rushed to a place with free wifi to send the pix (which was rejected by the dumb bimbo's server) I am told by the boss's secretary, that, don't worry, our head of marketing (who presumably knows how to convert the file to a jpeg format) has already sent it!

Grrrrrrrrrrr!

Unexpected

So there I was reading my book on ho'oponopono at this little kopi tiam at Sri Hartamas. Mary and I had gone there once for breakfast and I remembered it as being peaceful, soothing and out of the way. Oh yeah, and the food was nice.

However, this had been on a Saturday morning. Which is very different from a Tuesday afternoon. I fought my way through extremely slow-moving traffic to get there and wondered if I would be able to get a parking space anywhere close by.

Whaddyaknow, I got one almost directly in front of the kopi tiam, woo hoo! I texted Jerry (of Backyard fame) to see if he was anywhere close by, but he was off for a meeting and said, see ya later, darlin'!

So nemmind, I was eating my excellent fried rice and reading my book, when I looked up to see VJ, one of the Backyard musicians, passing by. He came and joined me, looking tired and out of it. Thing about VJ is that he is almost always upbeat and springy, so it was quite strange to see him out of it. He said he'd join me for a while, and me, being me, told him all about the book I was reading and the formula for "cleaning".

He listened and smiled. I asked him if anything was wrong and he told me that a coupla things were preying on his mind. This and that. We talked about "this and that". (I am an inveterate busybody and I like knowing everybody's business)

Anyway I ended up going home with him (he lived around the corner) and hanging out. It was a nice large spacious house he shared with a few people. His little doggie Chloe came over and proceeded to lick my face with some intensity. She was a very loving dog.

VJ shared his philosophy on life and gave me one of his paintings. He also proceeded to sketch me as I sat curled up on the sofa, dreading having to go back to the office and tackle insurance web content (does anyone know how to spell BORING?)

It was an unexpected afternoon.

I like unexpected afternoons.

Flowers in My Hair

So now I've got flowers in my hair. I went to the one place in BV2 where you can buy fake orchids attached to clips and scrunchies and tried on various variations. Of course, since I had just re-layered my hair, I had difficulty getting anything to stick. But I was DETERMINED to have flowers in my hair. If this was the closest I could get to pretending I was in Hawaii, I would do it.

Then a lady walked in. She had recent stitches on her lip and looked kind of sad. She saw me trying on the various flowers and said, hey that looks cool. And although I don't think she meant to buy any flowers for her own hair, she ended up doing so. She told me she had spent 10 years in the US (5 in New York and 5 in LA) and was not exactly thrilled to be back. Especially since one of her friends was behind bars for having spoken out against injustice.

"You know freedom of speech is something you take for granted there. Coming back is like taking 10 steps back. I just can't believe it."

She looked sad and tired and pained.

We chatted and one of her friends came up and joined us. Her friend is a Backyard kaki. I asked if they would like to join me there (yesterday being Monday and all). But they begged off. Seems like my new friend had just had her lip stitched up. She was in pain and did not feel like facing a bar full of guys.

Her friend, the Backyard kaki, said that this pub is not like that. Nobody would even look at you. Hmmm. I don't know about that, but it is one of the most laidback pubs in KL and everybody knows everybody and there is a sort of ease and family atmosphere.

Anyways, they called me later to say, not today. Maybe Friday? I said, sure, no problem.

And with much difficulty, I attached the flowers to my pitiful shrunken ponytail (I don't think I will be layering my hair much from now on) and walked around trying to pretend I was in Hawaii. Except that I wasn't. So I got back home and shared a pitiful meal with the Dadda man who then watched his customary football while I got onto the computer and played a couple (or a coupla hundred) rounds of Spider Solitaire.

Then I had a shower and washed out all the purple glitter from my eyes, and settled down underneath warm sheets to shiver and read my book on ho'oponopono.

Tiny bubbles in the wine,
make me happy, make me feel fine,
tiny bubbles make me warm all over
with a feeling that I'm gonna love you 'til the end of time.

Purple Glitter

So there I am leaning back in this comfortable leather armchair with this nice lady rubbing lavender lotion into my feet. Another nice lady is filing my nails. Square instead of moon-shaped this time around.

And they ask me, do you want nail polish?

And I nod: Yes. Purple glitter.

And they giggle. And I giggle. Because it is all so funny. Purple glitter is not sober. But to hell with sober. I am THROUGH being sober. I will be ME!

So yesterday I wander around Megamall searching for the tackiest glittery purple earrings I can find to match my now glitterry fingernails and toenails. I didn't find the tackiest, but I found some that were close. (3 for RM10, tacky is not expensive)

And I also want to buy those flowers that I can pin into my hair. I want flowers in my hair. I want leis and hakuleis. I want Hawaii. I want gently swaying hips to Tiny Bubbles (what's that guy's name again?) I want to embrace my hippie side (to hell with dark corporate clothes and stiff-collared Raoul shirts and cuff links).

Something is happening. Some change. Some revolution. Inside me.

I know now that the reason I was severely under the weather last week was because of my wisdom tooth coming out and causing a ruckus in my gums pushing all the other teeth aside. I know God is wise and all but I still don't get the wisdom behind wisdom teeth. Oh well. Some mysteries are meant to remain mysteries, I guess.

OK I need to go have banana leaf with Nits now. We're trying to decide between Anjappar's in Bangsar and Kanna's Curry House in Section 17.

Either way, yum!

Later for you.

Addendum: Oh and I forgot to add. On Saturday I quit the gym. Of course, informing the gym that I was quitting on the 1st of the month is never a good idea. Especially since their invoices go out on the 25th of the month, which means I was stuck paying for another month and I may just use it in the mornings (though I've decided not to gym at night as there's too much noise). I've quit the gym and joined a yoga place that's like really serious about the whole thing. So I will assume the lotus position and intone "Ham sa". And from now on you'll find me calm, centered and so very ethereal.

Yeah.

Right!