Please Don't Let It Be True

Today, death started whispering to me. Soon, it said, soon I will be coming... and I started to weep, for it was not me death was coming for.

That would have been easy, there is little in my life I would care to take; and if death told me early enough, I would burn everything. And then I would lie down to be consumed.

Leave nothing.

Not even the shells, bones and silence.

But no, it was not me death was coming for. I listened carefully, I heard, but I didn't want to understand.

Please, I said, no, please, take me instead, nobody loves me, not really, it would be OK if you took me... I occupy space and maybe in a little box I would occupy less space, or even better, melt me down to essentials and toss me in the air... and I'd not take up any more space than the light in your eyes, the snowflake on your shoulder, the dust on this book.

It whispered. And I said, no, no, no... please take me instead.

You see, when I was little there was a sense of destiny. I was born for a reason. I was sure. I was here. I was present.

But somewhere along the way, I drifted off the path and landed up tangled in the underbrush. And I tore my clothes and scratched my face and got tired of struggling and sat down to rest awhile.

But then I watched life pass silently by, this ridiculous parade, this circus, this pageant, of which I was no longer a part. And slowly I disentangled myself. And slowly they forgot me. And I, them. (Your face, I seem to remember the lines, the shadows...but it resolves itself into emptiness... don't mind me, just for a minute there, I thought we'd met, but don't worry, I forget, I always forget)

There was my heart
A peeled orange
Dribbling juice
down my front.

Unsightly, you said.
Do something about it,
They said.
Orange stains
all over your cuffs.

So I stopped breathing,
Covered it in clingwrap,
and grew a skin,
tough as a scab.

It is possible to stop feeling.

It is.

And still, death whispered.

And down on my knees.

I begged. Please.

Please don't let it be true.

Silence and Tears

They knew not I knew thee
Who knew thee too well
Long long shall I rue thee
Too deeply to tell...

On a whim, I google his name to see what comes up, this old flame who's been in the news. I flick through the articles, the blog entries, the whole apparatus of his notoriety, and shudder.

I guess he was always weird. I just never realised how weird. When something is not quite quite, when the music is sweet but discordant, take note. It will play itself out sooner or later. And you can either brace yourself or plug your ears and run for cover.

The seeds were already there. But then, he was a no-account and it didn't matter how loud he shouted. Nobody heard cos nobody listened cos nobody cared.

But now....

I read an article he wrote recently and feel the weight of negativity settle gently on my shoulders like an shawl of sackcloth. It itches. It's uncomfortable. I fidget and squirm. I throw it off.

He's not a prophet. He's not God. He just thinks he is.

Sighing, I sip my brew of the day and bite into my apple doughnut with the creamy centre and dream of Corica apple strudel. And listen to Michael Buble's Crazy Love yet again.

I've broken my heart so many times I stopped keeping track...

And suddenly I wish I was still talking to our one mutual friend so I could ask her, have you heard about ...and she would say yes...and we would both sigh and let the silence grow between us, encompassing all complications, half truths, hard edges, broken glass, coffee grounds, rotten vegetables.

We wouldn't have to say much. There is nothing to say.

And if I should meet thee
after long years
how should I greet thee?
With silence...

And tears.

Grrrrr....

You know how some days you can feel stressed and like you're not getting anywhere and anything anyone says, no matter how seemingly innocuous, gets on your nerves?

This is one of those days.

Grrr....

Writing My Way Out

Writing is amazing. It gets you through things you never thought you could get through. When you're not writing, and just feeling and wondering if this excess of feeling is going to tail off, politely, it never does.

But then you write, and you sob through the words, and keep writing...and somehow, you come out on the other side. Not quite the same, but then who wants to be the same? Stagnation by any other name is still boring.

There are a thousand ways to fall apart...

I'd prefer to fall apart with a pen in my hand and some paper to scribble on.

Later for you.

Be Still My Heart

Sometimes the storm simply means you're moving through it. The pain comes up to the light, only to be absorbed by it. It's an excruciating process, but clean. Necessary. Better than bearing all my griefs in my arms.

So yesterday was a day of monumental migraines and an expiration for most of the day, when I had planned to leave, to drive some 300 kilometres down South. Instead, I curled up for hours, trying to get comfortable, to get some blessed relief. But someone stood on the inside of my head and banged away with a sledgehammer.

I felt it.

Dhoom, dhoom, dhoom.

And I kept feeling it, until tired from all that pain, I succumbed and took two Panadols. And then a half hour later, the pain subsided. But by then, I was too exhausted from wrestling with the pain, and too weak, to pack up the car and leave.

And now it's today and I can go. I need to get a birthday cake along the way. And I want to go alone.

Somehow, as time goes on, I seem to place a higher and higher value on being solitary. When voices crowd in, I put up my hands and push them away. Shut them out.

Shut everyone out.

For now.

Giving Up

Sometimes when all else fails, all that's left is for you to get over the one you had given up trying to get over.

I feel myself tear open and I'm falling and I don't know what to do when I hit the ground. It being me, I know I'll bounce a few times before I shatter. That's the way it goes. That's the way it always goes.

Why aren't I dead yet? If life is all pain, where is the savour?

Tonight, I got lost in Shah Alam and I thought of you and I missed you. If you were around, I'd have called you to say, hey I'm your neck of the woods and I'm lost. How do I get to where I want to go?

You were always brilliant with directions.

And I miss you. And I wish you were still here.

Why did you have to go?

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, and thou no breath at all?

Maybe you're reading this somewhere. You always said, write to me. And I did.

And guess what? It's been five years and I'm still writing to you.

My heart is broken, the way yours was. You willed yourself dead. How did you do it? What's the secret?

I have an interview tomorrow and I have to be there bright and early, asking questions, nodding and looking interested.

I have an interview and I have to bathe my eyes, red and small from too much weeping.

Why should a horse, a dog, a rat....

I've decided to give up. Something happened and I can't go back there. And I felt my heart start to shatter. And you know the thing with my heart. It keeps shattering, but doesn't quite kill me. It leaves me suspended, neither living nor quite dead.

Are you happy now?

Was it worth it?

We never said goodbye.

I love you.

And we never said goodbye.

And I love you.

And we never said goodbye.

So I'll keep talking to you if that's OK.

And maybe I'll see you around sometime.

Roadworthy

We both drove out, two cars, which seems a little wasteful, but then Maggot destroyed both our number plates. Her back one and my front one. He goes mad dog when it storms (this is a new manifestation and quite scary) and destroys something. Destroys it so utterly and effectively that there is no putting it together again.

We made it to the mechanic fine, my car following hers, going slowly, our lack of number plates on display. The mechanic fixed our problems, laughed at us, asked about the destructive dog (Maggot by name, maggot by nature) and then I prepared to follow Mum back. Which is when things went horribly horribly wrong.

I'm following her as she misses the turning we're supposed to take, the turning she has probably taken, like a million times before, and goes on to Courts, beyond Courts and then the road ends and we are forced to turn into this posh housing estate. A posh housing estate with one entrance which also functions as the exit and Mum is manipulating her car through strange roads trying to find a way out. Instead of simply turning around and going out the way we came in.

We arrive at a great expanse of sand, a house under construction, which effectively puts paid the the road we were on. It's time to reverse, to get out of there. But even then, as she reverses, she stops a postman who is on his rounds, delivering mail in that very isolated and empty area, eyeing us curiously. She stops him and gets him to tell her how to get out. When it should be obvious. I mean, just the way we came in.

And then she turns the car and heads out the way we came in and we arrive at Courts once again. Now if you turn right at Courts, you end up the wrong way on a double lane going in a single direction. What you have to do is cross over to the other side of the road and make a turn into the road going in the opposite direction.

You'd think Mum would know this. She's lived here all her life. She's lived here as we, one by one, moved to KL. Instead, she gets on the wrong side of the road and starts trundling down happily in the wrong direction. I watch horrified, unable to do anything. I horned a few times when I saw she was about to get into the road, but Mum, not knowing who it was horning, ignored it and went anyway.

I have a choice. I could follow her on the wrong side of the road. I could cross over and get onto the right side. I cross over and get onto the right side. After all, two wrongs don't make a right. And watch in horror as the legitimate traffic coming in the opposite direction start honking and flashing her. What on earth does this old lady think she's doing? We continue like this for a while, me watching carefully, Mum, having lost sight of me thinking I'm lost, till we come to a traffic lights. At this point she crosses over to the right side of the road. (which is the left).

When we get home I ask her what she thinks she was doing. She covers it up. I said, why did you turn into that road? She said, she forgot. Didn't know. I say, why did you take us to that housing estate? She says, I missed the turning. How could you miss the turning when missing the turning meant crossing a whole road over to the other side?

She's been sick, very sick this week. That's why I'm here. I came over to look after her. She could barely get out of bed, heavy with phlegm and a shattered throat. I cooked and generally saw that she took her meds, etc. We went to the hospital and to pay a couple of bills on Wednesday. I drove.

Today is the first day she's driving. And I'm starting to be afraid that my ultra-capable Mum, the one who could do anything, talk to anybody, get anything she wanted, is no longer roadworthy.

Backyard on a Thursday Night

Raymond and Mark have taken the floor
And I'm ensconced in my corner
A glass of white to chase
A glass of red
A notebook,
a volume of Sexton
And the music pulses.

I'm alive!
and the world shines for me today,
I'm alive!
suddenly I am here today.
Seems like forever (and a day)
thought I could never (feel this way)
is this really me?

I look up, clap, sing along,
Go back to my book.
Errol asks me: why so alone?
The deejay wants to know:
How can you read in all this noise?
Jerry is curious:
What book are you reading
In all this commotion?

Eccentricity by any other word
is still strange.
He turns over the cover
and shakes his head
Kisses me, and moves off.

Suddenly came the dawn (from the night),
suddenly I was born (into light)
How can it be real?
I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive.

And I read some more Sexton.

And the drunk get drunker
Move together
Bodies offering warmth for a night
What's your name again?

And I read some more Sexton.

Avoid the eyes of those who are too dumb to know
that eccentrics are not to be engaged.

Down on the corner
Out in the street
Where the poor boys are jamming
Bring your nickel, tap your feet.

They finish their second set
My cue to leave.
And I do, I'm outta there.
At 39, you're allowed to be weird
No one turns a hair.

A Letter to Whoever

Dear Barry,

There are levels to selling your body; selling your mind; selling your talent, hack though you may be. I've done it in various forms (as you so rightly pointed out, one needs to eat and fork out more than 10 bucks for a coffee at Starbucks, if one is to rest, complacent in these shifting sands of commerce and philosophy) but being a PR, writing what I knew not to be true, pretending honesty and upfrontNESS and manipulating outcomes, that was something else.

Some people are good at this. I used to despise them for being good at this, but now I don't. It takes a certain sort of toughness to be able to look someone in the eye and lie convincingly. In many ways I think I am still a child. I try to occupy my body, to be real, but more and more I float off.

I'm reading The Waves again, and funnily enough the character I most identify with is Rhoda, the girl who ends up killing herself, but you don't know it because of the way the novel is written....you just don't hear her voice again, and later someone happens to mention poor Rhoda's suicide...all those years trailing after Jinny and Susan, trying to step firmly in the earth, make an imprint, matter.

At the moment writing is pouring out of me, but mostly broken, twisted things. I got myself a supply of sleeping pills for five nights, but the problem with sleeping pills is that the effect tends to stay in your system a lot longer. I didn't take one yesterday because I had come back to Johor and I only want to take them in KL, when I have to wake up early and work...and I tossed and turned and threw off the twisted sheets and generally made a nuisance of myself.

There is something in me, something, something, something....so slick and slimy and writhing...that I grow so big to contain it and end up disappearing...I don't know. Nothing makes sense and I don't expect it to anymore. What I think is, plod, one foot in front of another, take the next step, do what needs to be done, just do what needs to be done and then see if you can finish it. I hate the tattered remnants of projects unfinished, unnamed, unsigned, like aborted children trailing around, their vague pale faces full of question, full of longing, full of this great big NOTHING in the centre of me.

I'm sorry for inflicting this on you, Barry. It's relentless, I know.

But you caught me in one of those moods.

My New Best Friend

One little pink goodnight
and I'm floating over my body
trying to absorb the intricacies
of financing the roads we travel
the highways
the byways
and the little roads between.

My own road story
to be written by talking to
cotton heads nodding over
glasses of water
or sneezing over
dusty reports
churning out words
I don't care to read.

Not like Kerouac
who took off on his own journey
who imbibed the necessary
I want some of that
I want to drink
and write
and drink
and write

and hang by a thread

and fall

and fall

and fall

and fall...

I'd like to make myself believe
that planet Earth turns slowly
it's hard to say I'd rather stay awake
when I'm asleep
cos everything is never as it seems

And Kerouac told me to
Accept loss forever
Loss? I can't feel it now
Pain? I can't feel it now
I'm in the air looking on
at the body scored and riven
wondering what it's going to feel like
to crash all the way back down

down

down

down

I'll set my alarm now.

Goodnight.

Temporary

Can't you stay a few days? You're just what I need Ben, because I - I have a fine position here, but I - well Dad left when I was such a baby and I never had the chance to talk to him and I still feel - kind of temporary about myself. Willy Loman, Death of a Salesman.

She stands a little ways away
looking in through the window
always on the outside
looking in.

I live a borrowed life, she says,
Unresolved, temporary
on someone else's time
floating over heads
like a thought
dismissed.

And she wonders
what it's like to breathe
to feel her chords vibrate
and words carry over the emptiness
filling the space between.

And she wonders
what it's like to occupy space
solid in this wooden chair
in this anonymous bar
full of people
empty of dreams.

And she wonders
what it's like
to have more weight
than a passing shadow.

Forever on the outside
looking in
she'll never know.

Lodged Between the Cracks

Back at Starbucks. Where it all started out. Well maybe not all. Maybe some. Starbucks takes me back to the one job I loathed probably the most in my life, and the one that paid me the most. Strange, isn't it, how money is unable to paper over misery? Or maybe not so strange.

Anyways here I am, ostensibly to do some research for my next project. Instead, I've had a shepherd's pie followed by a noir (gooey chocolate with cookie centre) and then read some of Naomi Wolf's memoir about her dad. Well, the book is actually about creativity and about how finding your creative passion is the one important thing in life.

And I arrived here with my laptop and bag of books (including a very very heavy coffee table book I will have to go through carefully) and my eyes were assaulted by people. People on people on people. Oh yeah, well, it IS the weekend. And Bangsar IS very popular. But still. Not a single solitary table for me with all my stuff.

And then I saw Adrian, my friend from Hollywood that I had met at a networking event. We don't stay in touch. We see each other once in a few years. And we catch up. He's a writer. And he tells me things I remember. About exiles being walking wounds. About the manipulative games supposedly nice people can play. About superficiality. That sort of thing. He's into a million projects at the moment, chasing life because someone happened to die in his arms. Someone, he didn't know. Someone who was only 40. Someone who had come for a quick game of football. Someone who had a wife and six kids depending on him.

Makes you think, huh? So Adrian has plunged himself into life, this endless eddying stream, not allowing a moment, a microsecond to escape. While I'm sitting here trying to ease myself into being silent and solitary.

I asked Adrian if he was happy. He said yes, most times. And he asked me if I was happy. I told him I was liminal. And he said that's not a word he hears in this part of the world. In fact, he's never heard it here. And I said, yeah, I read it in some poem in Australia.

And before this, on my way here, stuck in traffic, I kept telling myself, I control my moods, not these cars, not these badly behaved drivers, not this heat, I don't have to lose it...calm down, Jenny, calm down.

Then Rod Stewart started up on the radio and I found myself smiling. Rod Stewart reminded me of an old boss who would say, Jenny, do you have a hot date this Saturday? And I would ask why cautiously, knowing where this would lead. And he would say, how would you like to date me? Meaning, how would I like to write this particular column for the week, after which he would treat me to butter prawns. He had something about him, he made working Saturdays fun. I never knew how much fun until he left and working weekends became both interminable and untenable.

And I had a meeting with some bigwig who asked me if I would like to go back to my old newspaper and I said no. It was home, I grew up there, I loved it, but all the people who made it home, all the desks, chairs, clunky old computers, all gone. It had become a foreign place, gleaming and arrogant, not somewhere I would want to be. I told him, I don't fit into organizations. If you want to, give me work to do separately. But I'll never go back. Who was it who said you could never go home?

I don't remember.

But it's true.

So here I am at Starbucks, just getting along, trying to make it through today, trying to go home.

I Don't Know How Not To

Yesterday I gave away my favourite fountain pen. I was sitting in one of those cute little armchairs, all curled up, scribbling away for dear life, when the man I loved showed up. He sat down next to me and chatted. It was one brandy later with no lunch after about a month of not drinking. So I was just a little high. No, higher. Yeah, higher.

And he said, what a beautiful pen, and reached out to take it. Running his fingers over the black and gold, he told me he loved fountain pens. And gave it back to me. I screwed the cover back on and held it out to him. My favourite fountain pen. The one that just minutes ago was recording this whirpool of longing I felt for him, washing over his waterproof boots as he smiled tolerantly.

Polite, but distant, as always.

What the fuck is wrong with me? I wondered. But it wasn't even a question. Here, take the pen. And I fished into my pencil box for the refills. You need to get more of these for it.

He tried it out on a piece of paper I had torn out of my journal. A firm hand. A few words. I don't think I'd really seen his handwriting before. He doesn't write. That's what I do. He sings. And suddenly that torn piece of paper became precious. I wanted to keep it.

So he sang. And I read my book some, clapped some, finished my journal entry some. And at the end, three brandies later, I collected my stuff and stumbled over to where he stood, behind the stage. Here, this is yours. He smiled. No, I can't do that. I can't take your pen. But I held it out, swaying silently, drunkedly determined.

And he took it, thanked me, collected his stuff to head out. No, he couldn't stay and hang out. No, not even for a while as he was meeting someone for dinner and then heading home to sleep. Bad throat and all that. You know how it goes.

Write something, I proferred the piece of paper. He wrote some Lennon lyrics. Signed it. I folded the paper carefully and stuffed it in my wallet.

No, I don't know why. No, I don't know what. No, I can't justify a single thing.

I'm so far past gone that I don't even remember what it was like to be heart whole.

I don't know how to love someone who will never love me.

And I don't know how not to.

Happy Easter

Easter feels weird this year. For the first time, in a long time, I did not observe Lent. Did not give up alcohol or meat or sweets or anything. Did not give up being angry with people who made me angry, did not give up my unforgiveness or judgement, did not give up anything.

So when Mum asked if I was celebrating it, I said, feels strange to celebrate it without preparation.

I have done the fasting and abstinence thing before. Many times. But what I've never given up are my prejudices, my anger or my hatred. Those I've clutched to my chest like treasured bastard children I did not want to abort.

I'm still mad at drama queen though every day I tell myself, look, she's moved on, and I have to forget it. If I get the money back from her, bonus. But really, she didn't ask me, and I can safely blame myself for the whole drama of the weekend. Yes, she led me by the nose. But for someone who's been a reporter all these years and is trained to sift apart what people tell me (if I'm interviewing them) I swallowed everything she said hook, line and sinker without investigation.

I had coffee with a friend yesterday and we discussed my dreadful naivete. And I came to see that if I like you and esteem you as a friend, I probably will not question what you say even if your actions contradict your words. Case in point, a friend who told me she didn't know why she couldn't lose any weight when she ate so little. Of course, when she was saying this, she was stuffing her face with handfuls of greasy French Fries, but my brain could not make the connection between her rather disgusting eating habits and her considerable girth. No, instead, I believed her until another friend pointed out....poor thing, she does like to eat doesn't she?

Reading the transcendentalists now, who require you to make up your own mind about everything (so I can't sail along oblivious like I usually do) I realise that I have to come to some sort of understanding about myself and the world I live in. It's just dumb to take everything at face value and never question what anyone says because it hurts so much to view anyone I like with suspicion.

Better by far, to question everything, and not get caught out or surprised later on. Because I notice that when the disillusionment sets it, it goes pretty far and I tumble down the rabbit hole and take a long time to emerge. I go from a simple and transient liking to black hatred which eventually dwindles away to an even blacker indifference. The kind of indifference where, if you see the person being mowed down by a truck in front of you, your only reaction would be to turn and walk away in the opposite direction because bloodied corpses are icky and you have no room for ick in your life.

So now it's Easter and I'm still trying to figure out what to give up for Lent and what to give up for life and how to live my life.

I woke up to an empty house - Dadda and Julie must be in church. Years ago, Easter was a time for celebration - there was midnight mass which was always more impressive than the Christmas midnight mass, the lighting of the Paschal candle, the church in darkness....the sweet voices of the choir...all of us decked out in our new Sunday best. The final hymn was always a rousing rendition of "Jesus Christ is Risen Today". And we'd file out of church, hearts beating wildly to kiss all those friends and wish them a Happy Easter.

No presents, no Easter bunnies, no chocolate, but a feeling of joy, nevertheless.

This year, it's all ashes and dust, like Good Friday has decided to extend its transmission. No triumph, no starbursts, no joy.

Just a feeling of lingering desolation.

Drama, anyone?

There's some drama going on with the alleged victim of domestic violence and for now, I'm trying to avoid knowing what it is. She sent me a text saying she was very very sorry, but her new company only pays out commissions on a quarterly basis, so as much as she would have liked to pay me back instantly, well, no can do. Could I wait till June?

Sigh.

And in case that wasn't appealing enough, she said her present salary was just enough to cover her baby's needs.

Look, not like I'm bugging her or anything. I have refrained from harassing her, and I know that if left to just the two of us, she would conveniently forget she has a debt (she's a user and that's what users do. Honour forsooth! And I'm too lazy to come down heavy on users when I'm just so grateful that they're not in my life anymore and I don't have to deal with them again) but two of my other friends are involved and one of them at least, is hounding the life out of the poor martyr. She lent the martyr money as well (in her case, the woman asked, nay, begged) and after getting daily doses of just how awful martyr's life was, was prevailed on to say:

"Never you mind about what you owe me. Put it on the backburner. You concentrate on sorting your life out."

Humph.

When it clicked that martyr was:

(a) as hard as nails, really, and a survivor; and

(b) simply making use of us.

my friend was baying for blood.

But the whole thing seems to have gotten out of hand. I don't know what transpired yesterday because the cough mixture knocked me out and I was sleeping like, the WHOLE day, only waking up late at night for dinner and after that unable to go to sleep again. But when I checked my phone close to midnight there were two missed calls and no less than seven messages. SEVEN!

Most of them hinting at some big thing that had happened while I was snoring away peacefully. A fight? A showdown? Was blood drawn? Unforgivable words thrown at each other?

All, mind you, via the weird and wonderful SMS system.

Am glad I missed out on the drama but not too keen to find out what's been happening because you can be sure it will be sordid and ugly and the way I'm feeling now, I don't have the energy to deal with sordid and ugly.

Oh well, I'll keep you posted.

I Just Finished Walden

After hemming and hawing and trying (in vain) to read Maine Woods, on and off for the past 20 years at least (OK it may be less but it feels like the full 20) I have finally tackled Walden, the book that has been much quoted...the fantasy of leaving everything to live in the woods, to live deliberately off the land, to live in some more innocent, morning of life sort of way.

As expected most of the book was not so much about Walden Pond or the changing of the seasons or the wildlife as it was Thoreau's treatise on man, wicked man, and the life to which he had dwindled, a life led foremost by artificialities, a life that was less real and becoming steadily more unreal.

Do I have a woods to go to? And if I did, could I survive? I'm afraid of the jungles around here, the jungles peopled with the old gods of the place who retreated there when the new religions came, cleared out large swaths of land and forced people to forget the old ways. The old gods, now hostile.

So if I were to disappear into the woods, it would not be the Malaysian jungles.

I needed to write this post because I have just turned the last page of Walden and I need something to mark the occasion. Now I'm wondering whether to move on to Emerson's essays (oh you transcendentalists, you!) or Whitman's poems.

(I know what I do want to read now...I want to re-read Naomi Wolf's Treehouse, because there is a philosophy quite in keeping with what I believe in. Thoreau at times struck me as too austere and priestlike).

Decisions, decisions.

The Lies I Tell

I've been pretty sick recently. The usual story - a slight irritation in the throat which was ignored, and which grew to an overall bone-deep tiredness and then the racking cough, and then the long bouts of unrefreshing sleep that felt more like drowning.

And then as I was not getting any better despite the sleep and dosing myself on cough mixture and Panadol, a trip to my favourite doctor provided the needed meds (another cough mixture and something to dry up a runny nose and fever pills as needed) and today a day later, I can actually say I feel better.

The interesting thing I've found lately is that whenever I fall sick, boundaries start to dissolve, dishonesties in my life surface and I see more clearly.

And this time the subject was me. In sharp relief. And I'm so ashamed. As honest as I think I am, I'm a coward. I run away. I avoid confrontation. I escape. I never tell people what I actually think of them. Or stand up for what I think I'm worth. Even saying no has to be done roundabout. Never directly.

I'm ashamed of how I walked out of my previous job without a letter of resignation. I'm ashamed I let my boss underpay me, never acknowledge my work and then yell at me like it was OK to do so. (Of course, he made a slight misjudgement here, thinking I would take it lying down like I had taken everything else)

I'm ashamed of how I never told someone who lied to me, jerked me around and then boasted to others about it, what I actually thought about him (true, I did it indirectly, by writing two very stinging posts and making sure he read them, but it wasn't the same thing as sending him an email). I'm ashamed that I didn't stick around to face him and show him that he was less than nothing, when I knew he was coming to the bar where I was. No, I left. And I left him and his little troupe of whores to slap their thighs and cackle wildly. One of the prostitutes being no less than the cancer patient I had wasted nights and sacrificed sleep over because she was in pain and had: "no one else to talk to."

Note to self: The moment any relationship seems more effort than it's worth, ditch it.

Abandon anyone anytime.

That's a more honest motto to live by than help anyone who needs it. Or who you think needs it. People don't need it. And if they go out of their way to secure your sympathy, there's something wrong, very wrong, in fact, right down rotten (in the state of Denmark, you might say).

I helped someone recently who called me up late at night, accused her husband of violence, led me to a merry dance of driving her all over creation for the police report, the medical report, and all the accoutrements, only to reunite with him that very day. Oh yeah, and I lent her money I couldn't spare. Not that she asked. No, she just let me know she had RM17 to her name, no place to go, no one to turn to...and then silence. She left it open. And like the fool that I always am, I dove right in.

The only good thing that came out of that is that we're no longer friends and even if he half kills her the next time, mine is not a number she can call. Well, she can call. But mine is not a number that will answer. As I said, people who go out of their way to secure your sympathy are suspect. Let her be somebody else's burden.

Because now I look at it, I realise I don't really care.

No really, I don't.

All my goodwill is just about used up.

Conjoined

Days stretch into weeks,
stretch into months,
stretch into years,
And you're here,
you're always here.

You frighten me
with your inability
to just disappear
and resolve yourself
into the dust
of old Memory.

No, you just live on and on
tough as a scar
buried under layers
of fragile new skin.

I want to rip these scabs
and the scabs under the scabs
and every individual scar
that shields your memory.

But it's an endless onion
and every layer gives way to
fresh bleeding, new pain
And somehow,
I don't have the art
to get to the heart
of it.

However much I want to be free
I cannot.
I think I am
and then...

Days stretch into weeks
stretch into months
stretch into years
And you're still here.

And somehow I know
that as the days stretch into years
stretch into decades
stretch into centuries
that you always will be.

Injured Muffin

I'm sitting on the white marble of the hall floor with Maggot who has his forelegs on a towel and his back legs and a large portion of his tummy on the floor. He is quiet for the moment. I have to sit with him to watch him. Elliot, the other dog, has torn up his nose and it seems to be getting worse.

I wasn't here in JB on Wednesday, or we could have taken him to the vet to get it sutured at once. When we arrived in JB and went to the vet yesterday, she exclaimed in horror at the nose, which had deteriorated (it is torn in half right down the middle and in other places too...his habit of sneezing, licking it, and scratching it with his front paw has made matters worse - much worse) and said infection had set in. She couldn't suture it. She gave us pills to bring down the infection, other pills for his sinuses and instructions to come back in a week when hopefully, the infection would have dried up and they can do reconstructive surgery.

This afternoon, I heard Ivan bellowing for me. The nose had started to bleed. That was the point that I decided to take Maggot into the house so I could watch him until we take him to the vet again, tomorrow. This state of affairs cannot go on. My doggie, who is a mass of dried wounds, legacy of another recent vicious fight, sits quietly beside me. He doesn't whine or complain about the pain. I know he doesn't like being inside the house (has tried to escape twice) but he is glad of the company.

My father is sleeping. Because of his recent illness, he is on powerful medication which makes him dizzy. So two sick puppies to take care of. Although I have to admit, since I've come to Johor, I have done precious little taking care of either.

Valentine's Day

I didn't end up watching Percy Jackson. I watched Valentine's Day instead, which I loved, although it still surprises me how big of a deal it is in the US. Speaking of which this year, I wrote out Valentine's Day cards and sent them to a bunch of people. Some, I even gave presents. I guess I was never made to be the Valentine grinch. When I get going I really love it.

And I'm not talking romance.

I remember reading What Katy Did when I was 14 and totally loving that whole Valentine's Day bit and resolving to do something similar. So, I wrote out anonymous rhymes for a bunch of friends signing off "St. Valentine". They knew it was me, of course, but it was still a whole lot of fun. I wrote an awful lot of rhymes when I was 14. Not that many at 15 and still less at 16, but there you go.

This year, the day itself came and went without any hubbub. I think I was asleep for most of it. But the cards and presents, now that was fun. And I met a friend for lunch today that I gave a whole lot of presents to, and when she asked me why, I said...um, Valentine's Day I think. She was tickled pink.

And I've bought Julia Cameron's latest book, Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance which means I'll be doing Morning Pages, Artist Dates and Weekly Walks (Solvitur ambulando) for a bit. Maybe that will crank up and kickstart the old creativity machine.

Chug. A chug. A chug. A chug.

Lightning

Usually I wake up at 4 in the afternoon. Today, I woke up at 4. So no change there. The city goes quiet for Chinese New Year. Except when the pesky neighbours decide to drum up the decibels with a dragon dance or illegal firecrackers. (Thank God Maggot and Elliot are not here, they would go crazy).

I can only say I have done nothing in this time.

Today, in a bid to do something, anything, I am going to Tropicana to watch Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.

So, whatever.

Later for you.

Burning

This heat beats on us in waves - it is everpresent, stifling, dizzying. The air is thirsty, barren and everywhere, people shrink into their air conditioned cars or deep into the hearts of their air conditioned buildings, in a bid to escape it all.

I, on the other hand, haven't left the house in three days. I wake up in the evening (I was watching the first season of Weeds until half past six this morning), have a bite to eat then wander around sleepy and dazed. I feel my face swelling and my body baking. I feel like all the heat is bleeding out of the cold cold North to burn us to a crisp.

I need to go out.

I need to shift this energy somehow.

This overpowering energy.

Burning.

Freefall

At some point, I guess, this pain will get old and dusty and I'll hardly remember the names and faces of the sad occasion (but that's no consolation, here and now).

At some point, it will finally be over and I will not be recycling tired emotions, walking in circles in this thick dark maze, no flicker of light, no way out.

My life has shrunk to nothing.

A teaspoon of leaves.

A grain of pepper.

Nothing.

The road is dark and the ground beneath my feet is no longer simply the shifting sands. It has disappeared.

I stand on nothing.

I am becoming nothing.

This Inferno Inside

You'd think of course, that having nothing to do, nothing to stress me out, no idiots to deal with (idiot being a relative term for anyone who annoys me in any capacity at all, whether they're aware of it and doing it deliberately, or not) I would be all Zen.

Instead, it seems like the rage is stepping up, coming to the surface. For the most part, I'm not aware of it, and then suddenly, someone says something. It may be innocuous or it may not. However, it's like they've tripped a light switch and the anger rises up and blazes forth.

This inferno inside me. And I go from 0 to 1,000,000 in a second. A microsecond. And part of me stands aside, aghast at the ugly thoughts and the ugly words that rise up in the throat and choke me, spill out, engulf, excoriate.

And I try to rein them in and they continue to blaze. I work at my pretty little exercise in futility (I'm told that anger can be channelled into creativity), my journal, read books, listen to relaxing MP3s, but still it surges. And surges.

And I'm hoping that this light switch is a sign that all this stuff is moving through me and getting done with.

But it makes me unfit company for normal people.

I think I'll hang out here and deal, a little while longer.

Resolutions

I started the year pretty disappointed that seemingly nothing had changed. My life was still in the same old rut, and I felt less and less like being upbeat and perky, even for a few minutes everyday, as I read through a list of goals for the upcoming year. I worked on one or another of my exercises in futility (OK, that needlework project may be something I end up giving nobody but it is sure starting to look attractive now). And I decided that I would persist despite the lack of results.

If you're waiting for a breakthrough story right about now, don't hold your breath. There are none. But if I had to zero in on one fault (among, like, a billion) I would say it is a lack of follow through. If I don't get what I want instantly, I stamp my foot, I give up.

Maybe it's the fact that I keep watching for results, rather like one watches a kettle hoping for it to boil sooner, that derails me.

So for now I say, OK, to hell with it. I will keep meditating, reading my goals, visualizing, doing all that kooky stuff.

Maybe things will change inside me. And then outside me. Maybe they won't.

But this sure feels better than wallowing in misery.

I just gave my mother a foot massage. Ever since her stroke, more than 20 years ago, her feet have become more and more non-functional. She stumbles about on them slowly and they hurt more and more. Today, she woke up and they were really hurting.

Until now, because of my habit of awaking only in the evening, I have done thing to ease my mother's pain. So today, I took the muscle and joint cream, asked her to lie on the bed and did a rough lymphatic drainage massage on her feet and legs. (The complete lymphatic drainage massage is a whole body thing and I think I may be introducing that for before she goes to bed every night and watch for results). The last time I did that for someone everyday, (a severely obese friend who had everything and their fourth cousins, wrong with her) for a month straight, there were wonderful results. Her feet, which were permanently swollen, unswelled themselves, her skin was glowing, she could walk rather than stagger and I think she actually lost some weight. Of course, doing the massage every day took its toll on my energy levels and I started to resent it. So I stopped. (see what I mean about becoming derailed?) And all my good work reversed itself.

So maybe there are some good things about this new year. If I look hard enough.

Cut Off

It's 8 in the morning and I haven't been to bed yet. Although I had plans to do something useful tonight, I watched eight episodes of Supernatural (First Season) and worked on my useless piece of needlework that I can't give to anybody instead.

It's easy to shut your mind off and get caught in the world of Sam and Dean (and this season, Dad too) and not ponder on the things that upset me.

I think I'll make a pot of coffee now and have my breakfast. After which I can toddle along to bed.

Nothing is moving, or at least I can't see it if it is and I feel very very cut off from everyone.

Emerging from Oblivion

It's been four very very quiet days. May have something to do with the fact that I only wake up long after the sun goes down and fall asleep in the throes of noontime. I feel very conflicted about a lot of things and basically out of it.

So far the only things that abound are mosquitoes. Mum is irritated at my nocturnal habits but she bears it with her mixture of Bollywood and the trashy novels that Uncle Solomon gave her for Christmas that she can't seem to put down.

Speaking of novels, I have just finished the Lucia ones, and think that EF Benson is frigging genius. They are light, airy (kind of like PG Wodehouse) but here each sting tells. Maybe because all the principle characters are women. And men, such men as there happen to be, are only incidental, and don't really care about the outcomes of all these breathless intrigues. (The main man, the most vivid one there is, does petit point embroidery and polishes his bibelots, rejoices in the name Georgie and acts as Lucia's lieutenant).

I've started a project in New Year's which was supposed to have been completed in time for the Millennium. As you can imagine, it's seriously out of date, but I figured, as I want to finish all the projects I bought from Harvinder, oh all those years ago (the oldest are about 15 years old), I would work on it. I have finished the top border which is pretty good for four days. And it's pretty. And I have nobody to give it to and even if I did, they would think it pretty strange but I try not to think of that. Sometimes we must do senseless thing, to fill the empty hours.

My life is scattered pieces of sunshine and many drops of rain. Really, it's pretty much oblivion and my attempts to emerge from it.

The Old Year is Dying, Let Him Die

I wish to sum up the year, but that requires reflection and its 11am in the morning - and I am in my nocturnal phase, which means I should be fast asleep now. But because Mum insisted I get up and have some breakfast, well the coffee is singing in my brain and I am up, up, up!

This year, I lived by default. I fell into a job because there was nothing better on offer - not that I regret everything about the job - I did meet some pretty amazing and interesting people and I did get to produce two issues of a magazine my way - I fell into flings, I ate my heart out over someone who didn't care and never would care.

Frankly, it all seems like a frantic lack of planning.

Well, I'm starting the next year with a plan. It's slowly solidifying and I'm feeling quite happy about it.

Life can simply happen to you like a traffic accident. Or you can take the wheel.

I'm taking the wheel.

Later for you.

Merry Christmas

What a weird day. I saw it in, puking my guts out and crawling into bed beside my mother. "Ma, I'm sick," I whispered as she moved back to make place for me. And then I shot out of bed again to puke some more. Dry heaves as my stomach had been effectively emptied by first episode a few minutes before.

I tossed and turned, my head in a vice, unbelievable pressure behind my eyes. Pain blotted out everything else. These things happen, sometimes.

And then suddenly, unaccountably, I fell fast asleep.

And today, well today, I wandered through the day, watching Christmas movie after Christmas movie, reading one of my Lucia novels (EF Benson is a fricking genius), working on yet another needlework project (I think this one will be for Helen, Simon's mother).

The day I was due to leave for JB I had dinner with my good friend A. We met at what has become our usual place in Taman Tun, and exchanged gifts. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly considering the fact that we have known each other for 18 years and tend to communicate telepathically, both gifts were handmade. I cross stitched an eagle. She framed one of the few pictures of us together, complete with poem, meaningful words and scrapbook stick-ons. As she doesn't tend to make gifts (that's my weakness) it was more than meaningful. We chewed on our lamb shanks, emptied our glasses of Malbec and the conversation flowed like the wine.

After which I drove back through the relatively quiet highway and Mum had a fit cos I hadn't told her what time I was leaving and all she knew for sure was that I was definitely in KL at 6pm.

I arrived at one in the morning and she staggered out to open the gate as the dogs went crazy. I couldn't let them go, as they were still growly with each other and jealous (they have become significantly more well-behaved since then).

And now, it's the wee hours and I'm awake because there is something, something, something...on the edge of my consciousness and I don't know how to reach out and grab it, or if I should let it light softly, like a feather, on my shoulder.

Perhaps, the latter.

Mark's only present to me ever was his song that he bluetoothed to my phone, which I have subsequently transferred to my Ipod. And when I listen to it, that umbilical cord I thought was cut, twinges.

If music be the food of love, play on...

Never mind.

It is Christmas after all.

Or at least, Boxing Day.

And lemon cakes and moist chocolate cakes and chocolate chip cookies and puddings and mince pies abound.

Sometimes a good friend is all you need

Mary is packing up to leave and I'm transcribing furiously. Furiously. This guy is chattering on about strategic active hedges, and I grit my teeth and type. Did I mention furiously? I pause the recording and look up longingly for a while.

"You leaving?"

"Not unless you want me to stay."

I grin.

"Stay. Please. Then we can have dinner and I can send you home."

She seats herself right down, and decides to go through her voluminous google alerts.

I resume typing. Bad English and all. I don't bother to edit. Too tired. Too fucking tired.

Mel leaves. Then Gerry. And we're alone by the skin of a second. Mary removes her fancy sequinned red purse which contains the all-important keys. We will be LOCKING UP. For the first time. I cram my water cup and coffee mug into an overflowing sink. Lady will be coming tomorrow to wash. Mary moves things around at her desk.

We switch off the lights. Zap ourselves out. And then I rush into the bathroom outside leaving her to get on with it. I come out and she's on her knees trying to jam the keys into their supposed sockets.

"Child, I think she gave me the wrong keys. I've never tried these but they don't seem to fit."

"Give it here."

I try. And try. And try. Maybe there's a knack to this. Maybe not. We look at each other in consternation. "Mel? She only just left. Maybe she hasn't gotten far."

Mary calls her. Mel is already in her car driving away. She will call the boys to see if anyone is in Marketplace. If not she'll come back herself to effect rescue. By now, Mary and I are sitting cross legged on the welcome carpet outside. Except there's no welcome carpet. So we're basically sitting on the floor. Laughing at each other.

"Do you think Dana did this on purpose? Gave me the wrong keys cos I bugged her for them so much. Shoved this unlikely pair in my hands while thinking, he he he I got you, just wait till you try these?"

Now Dana is this inoffensive nice Indian girl. The mousy kind who hides behind her dupatta. You know what I'm talking about. I say, yes, yes, typical Indian drama queen. Maybe she will come here singing then run to one corner and then the other, shade her eyes, and sing...aaaaaaaaaaaaah (you must imagine the wobbliness of the aaaaahs)

Mary and I are rolling on the floor. Charles calls. He's the one coming to our rescue. He's a bit tipsy (they have been at it at Marketplace since 6. It's half 8 now) But he's coming up anyways. He does. Greets us sitting on the floor and shakes his head. Tries our keys just to make sure that the two ditzy females didn't get it wrong. We didn't.

So he locks up for us like the nice boy he is.

And says he might see me at Backyard later. If I'm going. Tired as I am, I tend to drag my ass to Backyard on Mondays just for the sheer punishment of it.

Mary and I make our way to Devi's Corner. Hungry as I am, I tell her my ghost story through mouthfuls of roti canai and mutton curry. Suddenly she remembers:

"Our boy is getting married. He was hanging around the other when you were paying and I wondered what he wanted, and he told me he was going to be away for a few days...going back to India to get married."

We look at each other. If our boy is going to get married, we have to give him an ang pow. Thing is, we don't have any red packets. Or white packets. Or even brown packets. I suggest we nip across the road to see if they have any likely looking envelopes. Mary is all for coming back on another day. But I say, no, we must give him the ang pow before he leaves, not after he comes back.

(For those not in the know, our boy is the best waiter in Devi's Corner. The one comes charging along when he sees us, providing us with water, napkins, and all the attention he possibly can, while attending to 100 or so other customers at Devi's. He's the reason we're platinum card holders there).

Anyway, we are nothing if not subtle. After asking him when he is leaving, we hurtle across the street, look for envelopes, find only ugly brown ones, ask the nice Bangladeshi fler there to show us other envelopes, he shows us some shocking shocking pink ones, Mary blanches, but I think they look festive....so I buy the packet, RM1 for all 25...and we take our own envelopes, write touching notes on the cover, stuff our money into it....then go across the street from him and signal for him to cross the street, present him with the envelopes....ahhh furtive....ahhh drama queens, I hear the tablas and the veenas...

And then Mary slips into the DVD shop and I follow her. She's promised to buy one, just one...or two, no more than two...and the first one is there and the second is sorrylar miss, not arrived yet....and she starts leafing through a pile and I grab her and drag her out of there bodily (I have to, if Mary gets going, we could be here all night).

And I send her home and hoping that one of my other colleagues doesn't come to Backyard with Charlie boy. "Mark doesn't like him lar...but then, knowing Mark he'd have to recognise him before he remembers he doesn't like him..."

Mary: "Oh yeah?"

Jen: "Yeah. Remember how hard I had to work to get him to remember me? I mean, he'd come out to get the morning paper and stumble over me at this front doorstep....Jen, what are you doing here? Me (giggling sheepishly): Oh I just happened to be in the neighbourhood...and then he goes to his neighbourhood mamak to have a teh tarek and there I am behind giant shades and a broadsheet....and then he's driving and glances in his rearview and there I am...

"Child, you're a stalker."

I acknowledge the truth with a sigh: "Yeah."

And we collapse in our seats laughing.

And I don't care that tomorrow is going to be even more complicated than today.

And oh yeah, I decided to give Backyard a miss after all.

No More

All my life it seems that I have been adjusting to one prison or another. Safe behind these golden bars, because I'm too afraid to venture out, alone, in the dark. Safe behind these golden bars, because I'm afraid of what will happen if I do.

I step out, step out into the dark and fall.

And I know now, having lost everything, having to start anew, it's time to be stupid. To let go.

I'm about to step out.

I'm prepared to fall.

In sooth...

In sooth I know not why I am so sad.

I should have that stitched on a sampler and put by my desk. So I could gaze at it at leisure and just get lost in the interminable sadness that to me, seems to characterise this existence.

I fall.

I keep falling.

I haven't stopped falling.

I wish I knew where to go from here.

Creaky Bones

It's about 11.04 in the morning now, which is pretty early for me up to be up, considering. I took knock out cough mixture last night but the effects were temporary. So I spent most of the night tossing (bed was full of bees, empty of sleep).

Before dropping off I attempted to make a start on Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night A Traveller. All I can say is he messes with your mind to such an extent that you begin to feel unstitched. Lovely.

In a few minutes I'll have to take a shower and head off for the mechanic to see why my car is leaking. On Saturday they said I could have blown a gasket. Oh well...once it's fixed it's fixed.

Presumably.

This is a car we're talking about.

Counting the Minutes

I finished Baldwin's Giovanni's Room last night. Or rather, this morning at 7am. And then I went to sleep. And woke up at 3. With Mum hollering for me from downstairs from breakfast onwards. Poor thing. I should have taken the knock out cough mixture and gone to sleep.

I wonder which book I'll go for next. Probably Go Tell It On A Mountain as I have that book too. But alternatively I might go for the Italo Calvino book. Hmmm, decisions, decisions.

Giovanni's Room was unbearably tragic. The tragedy was foreshadowed on the first page, the fatal flaw, so to speak (although as a homosexual, I wonder why he considered it a fatal flaw, or maybe, it was the closets who pretended and tried to lead hetero lives despite their proclivities, lying to everyone around, lying to themselves and then destroying everyone around them, who were fatally flawed).

I wish I had a volume of Tony Curtis's poetry now to break the mood.

Let everything that is to fall, fall, beginning with tired love...

Oh well.

I've survived one day more.

This Deafening Silence

Mum stood by the door chattering. She was telling me how she had nearly lost me before I was born. She was 8 months pregnant and in hospital because "the baby was in distress". She told me about the doctor, she couldn't remember his name, but he was very senior, a lecturer even, who sat there with her, recounted his life, told story after story, to calm her down, so they didn't have to operate. One nurse kept coming in to take her blood pressure, etc.

After this, the nurse told her: "You're very lucky. The baby's chance of survival at 8 months is very slim."

So it took another month of distress and a C-section for me to be dragged kicking and screaming into the world. Actually into an incubator as I was so tiny.

And I listened and tried to feel grateful that I had been spared. And I wondered if the baby that was had decided to give it a miss.

All I feel right now is unbearably weary. Like life has passed by and somehow, I missed the bus. And now there is nothing left for me but the slow process of growing old and dying.

And I see his face, white and mocking floating in front of me, laughing. Saying come out and play. And I look at him, beautiful, cruel, angry - and I think...oh God, not again. I know you. And I know what you will do to me. Go play with someone else. I'm not sure I'll survive you.

He withdraws.

All is silent.

I can't bear this silence.

The End

Virginia left her last letter (dated 28 March 1941) on the writing block in her garden lodge. About 11.30am she walked the half mile to the River Ouse, filled her pockets with stones, and threw herself into the water. Her body was not found until 18 April, when some children discovered it a short way downstream. She was cremated at Brighton on 21 April with only Leonard present, and her ashes were buried under the great elm tree at Monk's House with the penultimate words of The Waves as her epitaph: 'Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!'

Final page, Selected Letters, Virginia Woolf.

Because You Left Me

I was reading Virginia's last letter to Carrington (this was just before Carrington's suicide) and I cried. Just bawled. Who knew that a letter could convey such depths, but then it was Virginia Woolf writing, so that would explain it.

Lytton Strachey had just died and Carrington was unravelling...she was in some ways already dead.

Somehow, in her letter, Virginia managed to capture that sense of loss and futility, reaching out to someone, your arms closing over nothing, the emptiness washing over you, bottomless, irreversible.

And stale platitudes are less than useless, except for the vague sense of someone out there attempting to reach out a hand and comfort you.

But goodness knows, blind as I am, I know all day long whatever I'm doing, what you're suffering. And no one can help you...

Getting Ready To Jump Again!

My life takes on a sameness after a while...walking the dogs in the evening (they look forward to this almost as much as their mealtime), playing Bejewelled Blitz on Facebook, reading my Virginia Woolf (I'm at 1930 now and she's writing to Ethel Smyth of having torn her skirt, knickers and some tender parts not mentioned even between ladies, on barbed wire - ouch!).

So Mum asks when I want to go fix my car (the RPM is all out of sync - Mark trying it out told me to switch cars - he tossed it off lightly as if buying another car was a walk in the park - and maybe it is - I live in a world with imaginary fences which I am afraid to cross and maybe, just maybe, there are no fences but in my head)

And to pay some bills and post my first batch of Christmas cards (I wrote out all of 10 yesterday). I'm listening to Ordinary Miracles by Sarah Mclachlan now on Youtube, I find it particularly evocative. Sun comes up and shines so bright and disappears into the night. Except that the sun hasn't come up, or if it has, it is hidden behind muggy blanketing clouds that obscure and obfuscate the day itself.

Oh well, I'll stop prattling now, and stop playing BB and have a shower and take off for the wild blue yonder.

Later for you.

(I miss Mark. No, not that one, the other Mark)

Flaneurs

The rhythms of this place is like balm to a wounded soul. I see myself slowly coming up for air. It's like a time-out from life. Hard to think that just 5 months left me this bleeding mess. That's all it took.

And I think I'm so smart but I never, never recognise the signs. The falling apart, the forced withdrawal from life and all I hold dear, the mounting irritation at my friends who are doing nothing more than simply staying in touch.

And slowly I start to feel like I'm going to fly into a million pieces.

And then I do.

Phew!

That was close. Almost too close for comfort.

Maybe I was born to be a flaneur. Now I just need to find my City Lights and my brew of choice and there I'll be.

Later for you.

If Tomorrow Comes

And the next day, I loaded up the car, and took a slow drive back to JB. Slower than I intended because it was tropical storming, so heavy, there were times I wondered if I was going to make it. What with buses and lorries flashing me for going too slow and all that.

So, tension.

And when I got back here, I just fell apart. Sick as a dog. I crept into my mother's bed and stayed there. Phone switched off. I went dark for a week.

Slowly, I felt my spirit knitting itself back together. Slowly.

And a week later I switched on my phone. Now this being my network, all the calls or texts that came during the week would be wiped out. But the phone started to ring. One by one, friends started checking in.

I started to reconnect.

A night spent tossing and turning after these conversations...and now...

What happens tomorrow?

I wonder.

And So I Jumped

And so I finally came to the end of Virginia Woolf's Selected Diaries. The last word in them (unless the last word was edited out) is rhododendrons. Not even a word I know how to spell without looking up. The last year has a sort of unreal quality to it - the war slowly destroying everything she had taken as real and sweeping away the ground beneath her feet. Before that, even when depressed, she was light, sparkling, piquant, provocative and even in all her insecurity - secure in herself.

And yesterday I walked out of a job of no more than five months. I walked out before he ground me beneath his heel, having brought in my replacement and flaunted her in my face and attempted to order me to go for a special lunch in her honour.

"She'll keep you on your toes."

"I wasn't aware that I needed keeping on my toes."

"She can help out in the magazine."

Uh oh. You make your motives very transparent when you say things like that. You hired her for the newsletter. You want a clear delienation between the newsletter and magazine. And you say, she can help out in the magazine?

You said, would you like to come for lunch with...And I said no thanks. And you glared at me, went back to your office and issued an order. Via email. All of you are to come. Which I ignored. And then, you yelled at me in public for not showing up. Everybody else showed up. Why couldn't you?

But you see, you did it to the wrong girl at the wrong time.

I wake up every day with a tension headache wondering how we are going to see yet another issue through. I wake up everyday with a good for nothing deputy who comes and doesn't come to work as she pleases and who doesn't answer either my calls or emails asking for an update on her stories. I wake up everyday, now to your displeasure and the smouldering hatred in your eyes. Marshalling your forces. Making up the charge sheet. Preparing.

I see it all, neatly laid out at my feet, the course you follow. The course you always follow. I guess you must secretly despise me for agreeing to the low salary. We're all worth what we think we're worth. Never mind the fact that you make me work about five times as hard as my predecessor and that I successfully turned around your stupid magazine.

Never mind that.

You're looking to the international face of it, your new acquisition, oh, isn't she just precious, isn't she bout the cutest thing you've ever seen. A master's degree, some experience as a practitioner, she speaks the language...what more could one want?

And now, I've become the one who has defied you one too many times, the one who says no, the one who doesn't sugarcoat her no's to take into account your massive ego.

And so.

I have to go.

Not until this issue is closed, of course. I mean, there are only four stories in....still, oh, I don't know...another nine to go? Yes, let's all be civilized about it. Close the issue and then we'll have our fight and I'll either demote you or push you hard enough so you'll quit on your own accord.

No one is indispensable Jennifer, I thought you knew that.

And if I'd actually given two shits about you, I would have paid you properly.

So I jumped.

Without a net.

Without a parachute.

I cleared out my desk. Left my tag and my key on it.

And because of your frantic phone calls and your frantic texts (which I haven't read) I've switched off my phone and it will stay switched off.

Goodbye.

The Loony Files

I just wanna stop, and tell you what I feel about you babe....

I'm huddled in a corner crooning to myself when Steve shows up and eyes me nervously. He seats himself far away enough to be out of reach, but close enough for a conversation. He's disgusted, but he's fascinated. It's not everyday you meet a loony you used to know before they crossed over.

Mind you, even in those days, he suspected, he saw through me...yeah, I didn't take him in. Not for an instant.

I nod affably and go on singing. I pause for the sax solo and he cuts in.

"Um, hi Jennifer, how's it going?"

"Wonderful, couldn't be better!" I wink at him.

I just wanna stop. The world ain't right without ya babe...

"It's been awhile..." he pauses, unsure how to continue.

"So, did you lose your mind all at once or did it happen gradually," I chortle, filling in the blanks for him. He doesn't get the reference (Fisher King, in case you were wondering) and moves a little ways aways.

Imperceptibly.

Except that it isn't.

Not to me.

We loonies notice everything.

EVERYTHING!

"So, are you supposed to be out here, all by yourself, with no one to..." he trails off again. No keeper. No one to look after me. No one to see that I don't attack respectable citizens at the train station, with places to go, people to see, things to do.

"No, no one, no one at all. I lived in a bubble and it burst!" I'm laughing so hard it's hard to continue singing. But I manage nonetheless.

For your love...for your love...for your love...

Hold on, I switch off the smile abruptly, narrow my eyes and glare at the respectable citizen.

"How do they classify you? Human? Subhuman?"

Steve recoils. I have offended his delicate sensibilities. He wishes he hadn't started this conversation. Curse his compassionate heart! It ALWAYS gets him into trouble. You can't talk to these people.

"Look," he mumbles, "I have to go."

"No!" I bellow. "Human or subhuman? If you're classified human, you have in effect, been breaking the law. Hear that? The law? The Law? The LAW? Humans are not allowed to talk to subhumans. You know that, Steve, you of all people, know that!"

(I'm a nice person but it really gets to me when people break the law)

Steve has moved off. And I'm screaming into the emptiness of the train station.

In Cape Town you're always looking away into nothingness which accounts for the sharp precarious beauty of the city.

In Lappland, you dive into the snow and it absorbs all your noise. And angst. And poetry.

It's 10 below now. Hot, by local standards. Step into the sauna to heat off. Then into the snow to cool off.

Blow hot.

Blow cold.

That's me all over.

They said that the subs have to be euthanised.

They said it was for the best.

They said no one would miss us.

The song has changed. I don't know this one. I sit quietly and wait for my song to come around again.

You see, I lived in a bubble once.

And it burst.

Suffering for our Art

It's a school, it's a frigging school, the kids are walking past in their teenagerly nonchalance, and some of them glance at us a little puzzled as we sit there puffed out from the uphill climb to get here. I stare into space, Jackie curses eloquently and Simon, peacemaker that he is, tries to smooth things over.

We have taken to blaming the sat nav (satellite navigator, for those of you who are unfamiliar with these funky abbreviations) for everything, most times unfairly, but this time, with considerable justification. We were meant to be heading towards the Musee de Matisse. Instead, it led us to a school, a perfectly ordinary school, with the kids just having finished their morning session. And there we sit, like paedophiles-in-training, staring at them staring at us.

"You have reached your destination," the electronic male voice tells us confidently. We experimented briefly with Yoda and Darth Vader voices - but none of these were clear. And when you're navigating you'll take clear over amusing any day.

When Jackie programs the actual address iof the museum in (by street this time because it is obvious the sat nav has no clue where the Musee de Matisse is) we find we are 9 miles off. And there is no way in holy hell any of us are going to walk 9 miles to get there.

"I wonder if Matisse appreciates all the trouble we are going through to get to his place," Jackie wonders idly, as we puff our way back into town to refresh ourselves with an extremely overpriced Orangina each. Then we find our way to the Chagall museum instead, which is apparently nearer. If that bloody sat nav hasn't fooled us again.

The Chagall museum is the only art museum in Nice with an entrance fee. 8.5 Euros each, to be precise. But Chagall is breathtaking - his reds are basinfuls of blood, his blues are the colour of the sky in the South of France, his greens are emerald dreams. We wander around speechless, reading the little notices next to each painting which explains the imagery - mostly Jewish - he seems to like cockerels and Hanukkah candles. And there is the creation of man, and there is Moses, and there is Adam and Eve...and he likes to look through windows a lot. And there is a short filmlet of the mosaic he designed for the Plaza in Chicago. The New World. In 1977.

He kept changing his mind, refining it even to the last minute. The poor sod who actually had to cut the tiles sighed heavily at all the changes and extra work, but went gamely ahead. When you're dealing with a Master, you submit to the Master. Every whim.

When Chagall finally says: "I am giving you so much trouble - I am hard on you but only because I am hard on myself. Some people are so easily satisfied." He shakes a bony finger at the notion.

An artist is NEVER easily satisfied.

Then we make our tired way back to town - to have lunch. We are all starving by now. A nice little cafe with an old man waving at someone near us (I nearly wave back cos I think he's waving at me, I seem to make that mistake a lot here). This cafe is cheap and cheerful and everyone seems friendly. A baldy smiles engagingly at us as he bites neatly into his baguette.

Then as we're walking back to the carpark (we think we'll give the Matisse museum a miss for today) we run into a little adventure.

There is a police car with sirens blaring inching forward in front of the cafe. This is unusual as testified by the fact that everyone is craning their heads to look out. A police car attracts attention here. Simon is chugging on cheerfully ahead, in front of both us as usual, and I notice a man trying to hide behind a car. He looks so innocuous that I can't believe he is what all the commotion is about. He passed us a little while ago, hurrying but trying not to appear to hurry and suddenly a tall official looking man barks out:

"Arrestez vous!"

The crouching man straightens up and goes without a murmur. The plainclothes policeman stuffs him into the noisy police car. Simon steers us off into the opposite direction in the meantime. Jackie has visions of Simon (who was closest to the guy) being dragged into a hostage situation. But really, for an arrest, it was severely anti climatic.

We giggle a little hysterically, recount what we each saw, and try to figure out what crime this guy must have committed.

Robbery?

Drugs?

Can't say. He looked harmless enough.

Anyway we finally find our way back to the car (and the massive parking bill) and decide we will spend the afternoon at the beach. But stop at the supermarket first. To get a few essentials. Like an adapter (Jackie cannot use her straightener and her hair is getting curlier every day) and...snacks. We get tarts and eclairs and cakes.

All we do is eat. And look at art. (hey, I just realised that art rhymes with tart)

And then we're on the beach unloading our booty and watching some poor sods windsurfing not very successfully. Jackie and Simon are reading. I am writing postcards.

Just another ordinary miraculous day.

But Jackie will never forgive that sat nav.

Fire Walk With Me

I remember writing an essay in the good ole days when I had essays to write, arguing that Jabberwocky is nonsense. All attempts to impose a meaning to it being the result of the human need for order in the midst of chaos. Lewis Carroll himself may have said that he didn't mean anything more than nonsense, but good ole David Buchbinder eked out a meaning - calling it a quest, etc, etc.

Which may be why I read so voraciously these days, attempting to find the hidden code to what is happening in the world now, stringing together random words from various books like some sick Dadaist poem, fingers...desperately....turning....pages....

And I watch Twin Peaks which was one helluva mystery beyond the murder mystery and the "who was Laura Palmer, really?"....and wish and wish and wish they had the sense to allow a third season so it wouldn't have finished in the air, so to speak, with the bad Dale returning from the Black Lodge. I mean, it ended on a cliffhanger, for crying out loud. A cliffhanger and they cancelled it...so the ending was European, at best, leaving you with more questions than answers.

I had lunch with a good friend today and we talked of many things and I told her about Plot Against America which I had just finished and which she would probably like as she followed the recent elections so closely, listening to every debate, following the issues and arguments, while I avoided all of the same.

And I walked into a bookshop to get a birthday present for a friend and ended up buying two other books (one depression memoir, another an appetite memoir) because I couldn't, couldn't, couldn't resist them (although I have enough books unread to last me till the end of the year, and that's if I read fast).

And I realise that the only place I get the candy store reaction, is the bookshop. You could turn me loose amidst oodles of chocolate and I would make my desultory way through, maybe tasting a bar here and there, but not really caring, you could turn me loose in a make-up counter, or amidst clothes and shoes and bags, and I would get bored, tired and ask the air...aren't we done yet? Can we go home now? Please?

But a bookshop, now that's different. I recognise the signs of addiction. It was like that time when I had nothing but juices (fruit and vegetable) over the course of a month and I started going wonky in my head, reading recipes like it was extremely accomplished porn, closing my eyes and tasting bloody meat on my tongue, fantasising about spaghetti and meatballs and avoiding Kentucky Fried Chicken because the aromas made me miserable. Aromas that I normally ignored or never even registered when I was eating normally.

And that's how I am with a bookshop, even when I have loads to read and re-read....and I don't understand why.

But excuse me, I have to go read one of my new books now.

Amazing Grace or Because It's the Right Thing To Do

I forced her to watch It's A Wonderful Life and Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, so she held a gun to my head and forced me to watch Amazing Grace.

And I watched it today after I emerged from a very deep evening nap in which I all but passed out.

And I woke up and crawled out of bed to have some dinner, reheating what had already been put away, and decided that I would watch the second of the DVDs Mary thrust on me. (Watched Northanger Abbey, the older version earlier and was not impressed)

And to say I loved it would be putting it mildly. Even as I watched it I wondered at my reaction and thought maybe, just maybe it was because it was about one man, in fact, a bunch of people who banded together to fight the good fight, without any hope of gain or political mileage, doing something right because it was right, because it was the humane thing to do.

I know why every time I watch or read something where the characters have integrity and a sense of purpose, I am blown away. Especially when I read the news about crossovers and those who take the easy way out and remember the people who made a guest appearance in my life last year, the toxic ones who lied and schemed and cheated, trying to outdo each other for a prize that was so far shop-soiled and diminished that it was difficult to comprehend. Or give credence to.

And the image of the Coyote keeps popping up in my mind. The trickster. The one who gets run over by a truck, then gets up to see if that was a truck who ran her over, and gets run over again.

The Coyote.

The trickster.

Me.

Lying Low

The message was clear: Keep your head down, keep your nose out of trouble. Paralysed is good. Action is bad. In effect, I was supposed to lie low and deal.

Arriving at home, exhausted, I thumbed through the last few pages of Ceremony but was too tired to finish. This book cannot be skimmed. It is not a straightforward narrative. You have to read every word or you get mixed up. Halfway through a passage I realise she is not talking about a mare anymore, but a woman. I wonder if the writer knows that you have to introduce a subject before you substitute it with a pronoun. But it keeps you on your toes. So much so that my already muddled head cannot take it. My eyes ache. I need to sleep.

And in the morning, before anything, breakfast, morning pages, morning rituals, I finish the book. Stunned at the violence that comes to a head. It was building up. If I'd paid attention to the markers Francine Prose tells us we have to pay attention while reading, I would have seen it coming.

And I set down the book and glance at my table, clearer than before, but still piled with books I have yet to read, and run my fingers along the various spines, settling on Philip Roth's Plot Against America. Earlier, I thought I'd finish Virginia Woolf's Diary (not the Writer's Diary which I finished sometime in December, but the other one, the compressed rest of her life diary, the one with the gossip and the bitching and all the stuff her husband found nececssary to excise from the demure Writer's Diary). However, I'm now 80 pages or 2 chapters into Roth. And I find the book chilling. Maybe I'll do a happy book after. Do I have a happy book?

And while lying low, there are all these projects which I put on the backburner some 10 years ago, or whatever time it was I abandoned them that I can resume. Finish them little by little while I "deal", while I wait out this phase of my life.

Cleaning my room turned up a lot of stuff. I'd forgotten how much I had, or rather all my "stuff" was hidden in all that clutter under layers and layers of dust. Now I take each object out (or pot of goo) out, dust it off, set it on my table, and use it. Nice.

And there is still The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain I bought a couple of years ago that I can dust off. And learn to draw. I drew my last picture sitting on a park bench in Fraser's Hill (actually I think it was a summer house) overlooking some pine trees, in the rain. Sketching, trying to drown that edge of desperation that kept rising up and choking me.

Because I didn't want to be there anymore. And I didn't know how to leave.

But then I learned.

The beauty of life is that nothing is indispensable and you can say goodbye to anything.

Or anyone.

The Myth Behind the Meaning

In roughly an hour I will be on my way to pick Mary up and find out how her first week at work went. I called her at an hour past noon and she answered, the both of us having just unclosed an eye. She has an excuse. I need to get my act together. Phew.

Having said that each day is pretty productive and items are flying off to the to-do list like autumn leaves. I now have lists for everything, so things actually wind up getting done. A very satisfactory state of affairs.

And I am three quarter ways through Silko's Ceremony. I didn't really notice the burgeoning anger or the meaning of the symbols till now, when she spells it out for us (just in case we're as blur as me, and have missed all the symbols). It is a powerful (though difficult) novel, and I am glad to have finally got going on it.

I watch four episodes of Supernatural every day (while it holds out) and that's a lot of fun (a less brooding James Dean, bright witty repartee - corpses and clowns - an unbeatable combination). I also watched It's A Wonderful Life yesterday and have decided that it IS the best Christmas movie ever. (This is after having ploughed my way through so many unsatisfying ones these holidays).

Yesterday I decided that the root of all my problems was second level signification. Or rather, not what someone says, but the meaning I ascribe to their words. You know how we're always asked not to make assumptions? And then we make assumptions about having been asked not to make assumptions (what did they really mean by that?).

Well that's where I'm at, at the moment.

Strange Dreams

Maybe it was the oils that I mixed together willy nilly in a terracotta burner to fragrance up the room. Maybe it was watching The Man in a Grey Flannel Suit just before I went to bed. Maybe it was Francine Prose's Reading Like A Writer that I finished just before I dropped off at, what was it, 2? 3? in the morning.

Whatever it was, I had the strangest dream. So strange (even for me) that I woke up still caught in it silken web, thrashing my limbs feebly trying to sort out what was real and what wasn't.

The phone rang. I let it ring. After all, if someone wanted to contact me directly they would call on my mobile. After staggering out of bed to check said mobile, I discovered that it was off. The battery had run out. Oh glory.

And now I want to read Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony but it's pretty hard going. Doing an inventory of the books I still have piled on the various surfaces of my room, I realise that if I don't buy another book this year, I still have plenty to last me for at least the next six months. (To say nothing of the books that I simply MUST re-read because they were so good).

I think I'll go switch on my phone now.

Completion

I'm feeling somewhat relieved. My room is now practically pristine...I realise now, after cleaning each thing individually and seeing all the spares I have, that I may have to catalogue what I have, just to keep track and not keep buying the same thing over and over again.

And wonder of wonders. My writing desk is actually clear enough for me to ...you guessed it, write. Oh happy day calloo callay!

A few more odds and ends to get through but basically, you can stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Recycling

It's 11.38 in the morning and my recycling (or charity) man has been here to collect my stuff. There was a suitcaseful of clothes, my old radio (which I had faithfully repaired three times already but given up for lost when it broke down after only less than a week back from the repairshop), my old laptop (the one the repairman said was only good for parts), shoes, teddy bears, and lots of books.

Old aspects of my personality falling away. I guess I should feel freer. Except that I've always found it easy to let go of "stuff". I might miss said stuff 10 years from now when I start to wonder whatever happened to such and such...but that never crosses my mind when I'm offloading.

And now there are sweaters and scarfs scattered on the floor (all my warm clothes which I emptied from the suitcase I was giving away) which have to find some more permanent place of abode.

And there are all the errands I have been meaning to run since I got back but haven't gotten around to yet. And there are still the three letters I was intending to write but which I still haven't.

Sleepy.

Shifting Dust

It's late, very late now, and I've just watched the last episode of Monk, Season 6. Kind of fascinating how his arch-nemesis Dale the Whale is the perfect opposite of the fastidious, obsessive compulsive detective. Over the past few days a few of my friends have expressed surprise that I am into Monk, but I think if they just watched a few episodes (from the start that is), they would find him funny and endearing (rather than irritating).

So much for that.

I spent the day shifting dust in my room (still heaps and heaps of dust more) and I must say, for the first time since I got back, some order is emerging out of all this chaos.

Tomorrow the recycle man will pop in and I shall offload a great deal on him. I think I will breathe easier after that.

Interesting thing whenever I clean the room, and I mean a real clean as opposed to a desultory dusting, I find so many former aspects of my self. I read bits out of books on my shelves, decide that a few of those books really don't serve a place on my private shelves anymore, come across journal entries, letters, scraps of things I wrote to myself...I keep finding surprising bits of me buried under all those layers of dust.

Even the to-do lists or to-buy lists are interesting after a space of time. Nice to see what I was making or what was in my life at any one point in time. In the same way, it is nice to go back in this blog and see what was happening at any one point in time. If I bothered to update at that point, that is.

I am not tired yet (although I should get to bed as I have a couple of appointments tomorrow) and will resist watching Supernatural or It's A Wonderful Life or The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit.

Maybe just some more to-do lists and then it's to sleep, perchance to dream.

Check Your Bills

I was sitting around wondering about how I managed to rack up such a high Maxis bill, when I had changed my plan from paying for RM150 of airtime I didn't use to RM50 of airtime I didn't use, when I decided to follow my friend Mary's advice and scrutinise the itemised printout (for which I paid RM5 a month, after all) to see where all the extra charges came in.

Hmmm, there was RM50 for changing my SIM card. Except that I hadn't changed my SIM card. Of such "little additions" do the telcos thrive. I called the Maxis customer service number and after negotiating myself through a maze of menus (press 1 for English, press 1 for bill inquiries, if you still have a question hang on the line and our customer service consultant will be with you in a couple of hours) and finally got put through to a human voice.

When I told him of my predicament, adding that I had NOT changed my SIM card anytime within the last four to five months, he said he would check up on it and call me back. And he did apologising for the error (it was theirs) and saying that the RM50 would be credited into my next bill. Unfortunately, they would not be able to give me a refund.

Which sucked out loud, seeing as I had planned to disconnect my bloody postpaid service and get another prepaid starter kit (at least with prepaid, you know what you're paying for - with postpaid, they just tagged on charges upon charges as they pleased) and now I would have to wait a month, till the company had refunded my money. And I am determined to do so.

Not being in the habit of scrutinising my bills I just wonder how much extra I have paid for services I did not use, without knowing it. I am sure billion-dollar telcos like Maxis live off suckers like me.

But just in case you think Maxis is bad, I was having a drink with a friend who uses the DiGi postpaid service, and who, like me, is not in the habit of checking her bills until one day, almost by accident, she noticed they were charging her a large amount for MMSes. This, at a time when her phone did not have the MMS capability. As per SOP, the customer care consultant apologised profusely (our mistake) and rectified the problem.

Are these honest mistakes? Or are these giants deliberately out to cheat us, relying on the fact that like so many careless Malaysians, we will never scrutinise our bills at the end of the month?

Maybe this is how they pay for their huge advertising campaigns and price wars.

If times are as hard as people are determined to make it out to be, I don't think we can afford to keep subsidising these big bad corporations. RM10 here, RM50 there - it all adds up.

Time to start checking our bills.

The Shadow People

They emerge from the shadows and are suddenly right in front of you like a traffic accident, in fact, worse than a traffic accident, because traffic accidents you can ignore, and these shadows will just not leave you alone.

Sometimes it's the little boys who beg: "Please akka, please." wanting you to buy a bunch of pens you do not need. They pretend to be hungry. You may have forked out if you hadn't seen the pimps, but now, you think you'll give it a miss. No point in funding yet another syndicate.

But I especially like the little old lady - she's Indian, she appears diffident and peers at you uncertainly. You think she is lost (how can you be lost in front of the Bangsar Maybank for crying out loud?) and wants to ask the way to somewhere or other.

Until she prefaces her request with "Sister..." and you remember where you met this little old lady with the sad and sorry face, the kind of face that makes your wallet tingle. It was with the Dementor, and she asked for money (bus fare I think it was, if it wasn't money for a meal) and he told her off for begging, for lying and for trying to pull a con.

"I've seen you before, auntie, and I know you do this every day. Not today, auntie, not today," he says and she smiles sheepishly and amazingly, walks away leaving you alone. (The Dementor had some uses)

This time, however, she gets you alone and has made eye contact before you realised she was a crook, before you realised it was better to avoid her gaze. She steps forward hopefully. But by then you've remembered. So you turn and walk away. Quickly.

And she follows, her footsteps ringing angrily on the cement pavement behind you. So angrily that you look back to see her following, her face twisted in demonic rage. Once you catch a glimpse of the face, the footsteps cease. She slinks back into the shadows from whence she emerged.

Waiting it out. For the next victim. This is Bangsar. There's always a sucker to be had. Today, thanks to the Dementor, that sucker isn't you.

But vaguely shaken from that glimpse of that evil face, you keep looking over your shoulder for the rest of the day.

Oh God, It's Such A Tip!

I put away my suitcase. Which is a big big deal cos it took up so much space and I kept tripping on it every time I took a step. And all the various and sundry travelling bags that had been unseated when I took down my suitcase.

But the room is still in terminal condition. Monk would die. He would simply die! And now I look at the clothes and the books scattered on the floor and just cringe. I need to impose some order.

Instead, I took a break and watched four episodes of Monk (Season 6) back-to-back.

They cut off the water supply which means it will be difficult to take a shower after cleaning the room. It also means I wont be able to mop it, as there is no water.

Oh the humanity. Oh the destruction.

Some order please, some order. Any order.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Procastination Is The Thief of Time

It's not just that my room is a tip. It's that it's such a tip that I prefer to sit outside and contemplate it and sigh heavily. I know I have to gird the loins and set to cleaning it up. But I dread the job. So in true Jenniferian spirit, I am procrastinating. Or as some wit whose name I can't remember said:

"Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. And never do tomorrow what you can put off indefinitely."

So yeah, I'm back in KL. And yeah. Real life is rearing its head.

Houseguests and High Teas

We have a houseguest. She is one of Mum's classmates. She is a former nurse, pretty nimble and active, which contrasts to Mum's more stately movements. They sit and exchange memories. They're both going for the great reunion today.

One of the most interesting things about our houseguest is that the man she refers to as "grandfather" had a road named after him in KL. That old Kapitan China - Yap Kwan Seng. In case you're not familiar with the road - the Aussie High Commission is there. And a further claim to fame would be that Mary is going to be traipsing there every day to her new office. And if you haven't been to Malaysia for more than 50 years or so, it used to be called Circular Road. (I know this because Auntie Bhujee told me this when she was recounting the exploits of the House Boy which are elsewhere in these annals).

Yap Kwan Seng had 17 wives and concubines. Apparently at the time, if you were rich enough, you could have any number of wives and concubines (rather like King Solomon, n'um sayin?)

The Great High Tea Chase being a washout (there is no high tea in JB for love or money) the 65-year-old girls (I can't help calling them girls - Mum calls them girls) are settling for lunch at Danga Palace, which is apparently very nice.

Another friend is coming to pick these two chicklets up and cart them off to the party.

I was supposed to leave this morning but I didn't get up. So I'm still not packed and anyway, I have to prepare the dogs' food before I do. Or maybe wait for them to come back.

Sleepiness may have something to do with watching five episodes of Monk (with one break for Intan) last night. Went to bed at about 2 in the morning. No, it was 3. Definitely past 3.

Yesterday the phone started to beep again. Chinese New Year is over. Wheels are starting to whir. Time I got on with it.