Transitoriness

So there I was about to have breakfast (OK it was past 11 but I have a combination of insomnia and no regular job I have to wake up for, so sue me!) and the phone rang.

"Jennifer...your phoooone!" Julie, with her eyes glued to Criminal Minds, sang out.

So I go, take the phone, don't recognise the number, answer anyway and hey ho, it's Theresa. I thought she wanted me to come in and caption pictures. But no, she didn't need that. What she wanted to do was give me an assignment.

As I frequently get last minute assignments I assumed it would be for today. Not so. It was for Tuesday. Evening. Hmmmm. And it was so very interesting. She read out the press release, then sent it to me, going on nineteen to the dozen about angles etc.

Angle? Origins.

When I got off the phone after agreeing to said assignment, I couldn't help but think how my sister Jackie, our family historian, would have been more suited to this assignment. She has been delving into family history, interviewing the old people (I come along sometimes with a notebook and take notes and promptly lose them), collecting anecdotes....reading about the migratory patterns of the people who settled in Kerala eventually.

Once when we went to Sabah we had two old uncles who collected us and took us around and told us family stories to their heart's content. My favourite was one of this pandit/doctor, who came to examine his mother (my grandmother's sister) who had been bitten by snake and instead of treating her, said...this snake has been bitten before, this snake will bite again. My uncle (a little boy at the time) was crying because he thought his ma was going to die. His uncle (the ma's brother) grabbed said pandit by the collar and said, you bugger, you better do something for her or I'll bash you up!" (which was pretty much par for the course). What interested me was the pandit's complete detachment from the scene going forward and his interest in only commenting on said snake, like it was too too fascinating, more fascinating than my grandaunt's poisoned limb.

Anyway, as I said...Jackie would have loved this assignment. She would probably have loved hanging out with all the cute doggies as well.

Picking and choosing what I want to do definitely agrees with me.

I'm recharging my camera batteries now and will sally forth to get a new cover and then voila, I'll be transformed into a sort of photojournalist, recording KL life. (I'm reading Susan Sontag at the moment and the idea of recording the city as it turns the corner and disappears is one that I find fascinating. On the other hand, I find pictures taken specifically for FB the most repulsive of all repulsive things...however, it captures this present space in time, doesn't it?)

I should have done more to capture this space time.

Backyard has changed beyond recall. It is the end of an era. It is the end of the intimacy. It is the end of the innocence. (And all I have are my memories and a few blogposts).

It would not be wrong to speak of people as having a compulsion to photograph: to turn experience itself into a way of seeing. Ultimately, having an experience becomes identical with taking a photograph of it, and participating in a public event comes more and more to be equivalent to looking at it in photographed form. That most logical of nineteenth-century aesthetes, Mallarmè, said that everything in the world exists in order to end in a book. Today everything exists to end in a photograph. Susan Sontag, On Photography

Deliverance

I have just finished James Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner which I found on the bookshelf at home in JB which I was attempting to put in some semblance of order. I'd never heard of the book but the title intrigued me. It's eaten through by silverfish and towards the end I had to guess at the words, so full of holes were the pages.

The story is like a vicious nightmare that startles you awake; and your heart is racing and as you lie bathed in your own sweat, the images fade and you can't quite remember what so filled you with horror.

Yeah.

Like that.

Andre Gide, who wrote the introduction and reintroduced this book to public notice in the 1920s (it was first published in 1824) was delighted with it. The fanatic and the devil, walking arm in arm, justfying the blackest crimes.

And yet, I felt sorry for the protagonist. He seemed to be weak rather than utterly bad. He was jealous of anyone held in greater esteem, cast off by his father (?) as his wife's bastard, brought up by a pious hypocrite. And the most dreadful thing about it was his description of the devil who dogged his footsteps.

The "friend" that he grew to dread, who always left him feeling horrible, who could argue away any doubt, and who undoubtedly held sway over this weak young man, flattering him, frightening him, pushing him to extremes.

So, you know the devil not by his words but by his effects.

I recognised this.

I recognised the effects.

I remembered.

But I was lucky. Some grace, heretofore unsuspected, raised its head and delivered me.

So let me sit here for a while and count my blessings.

Later for you.

Good night.

Moonlight Kiss

That ole tune by Bap Kennedy is playing on my computer, the mood is mellow...waaaaay mellow.

I can feel my heart
and it's fit to burst
try to clean it up
but it just gets worse
wish I could fall
on a night like this
into your loving arms
for a moonlight kiss

I didn't fall asleep last night after all. There was a fire in my belly and my skin was burning...so I tossed and turned until, to my consternation, my alarm went off, signalling, oh no, it was time to get up.

No sleep, no rest, no blissful oblivion, no sweet harlot of the senses, no Delilah of the mind.

I pondered briefly on whether I would make the best of things and go for an early morning walk and do my "morning pages" (about the only two good things about being up so early in the day) but my cantankerous limbs which twitched like someone was playing Eine Kleine Nachtmusik on my nerve endings, refused to budge. No, not an inch.

So I lay in bed dozing until it was about seven, by which time, I think I could have fallen asleep because it had gotten light and then dark again (one of those early morning thunderstorms that is so edifying and sleep-inducing) but I had Alison to meet, the one bright spot in this dark day (literally and figuratively).

Got to Bangsar just in time for the first large drops to start pelting the car, and then me, as I ran across the street to pay for my parking on one of those machines.

Al arrived not long after. She was exactly on time. Despite the storm which had started to roar and disturb the shutters and pour its wrath on that less than innocent street.

As was our wont we chatted for about four hours nonstop, Convent-style, without pause and then it was time for her to go pick up her son, and I thought I'd stop by at NST and buy the papers with my articles in them.

By then, the sleepless night was telling. Also by then, the early shower had taken away whatever coolness there had been in the day. A concentrated and stifling heat bore down on me a I made my purchases and then took off home.

Another quick shower, another call to Mary (I called last night before midnight so I could give the phone to Mark and Victor to wish her too), and then it was to bed, to bed, to bed.

And instead of working, I slept the day away. I'm awake now but my eyes are scratchy.

And tonight I think I'll pull an all-nighter. I don't want to look at this report much longer. I will finish it. And then sleep again tomorrow.

Oh wait, Kinokuniya called to say they had located my copy of "Ruined" and they would set it aside at customer service for three days so I had better hustle and get my keister over there some time tomorrow.

I wish I wasn't so tired.

I wish I didn't feel so Hamlet before the ghost:

O, that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.

And this too shall pass. It shall. It shall. It shall. But until it does:

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world.

In the Moment

Hey you there, you with Susan Sontag's "On Photography" clutched in your hand, you with the eyes gazing at the new stage and wishing it was the old one, you with your thoughts roving all over creation, COME BACK!

Come back to this minute, it will never recur. I mean you may be here next week sitting in this same chair (don't, it's in front of the frigging speakers for crying out loud, what were you thinking?), wearing the same sweater, watching, listening, wondering....but it will be different.

It's always different.

Times slithers forward like a slippery snake. You can't grasp it (my dear, if it's a snake, I wouldn't, I really wouldn't).

Hey you with the eyes, you with the dreaming eyes, you, who have projected an hour into the future, when you'll have to pay up and leave, just one red wine today, not even squiffy, not even a little bit, COME BACK!

Stop glancing at the clock and mentally calculating.

Stop thinking about the report that sits on your computer still unfinished because you frigging well couldn't bring yourself to do more than, well, what you have done. Will have to stretch this further.

Stop thinking about the early breakfast with your pal Al tomorrow (that'll be nice, but be there then, be here now, OK?).

Hey you! You with the sad eyes, you with the broken thoughts, you with the diffracted soul, call yourself back.

This is now. This is here. You are happy.

Happy enough.

And tomorrow, well that's another day.

We'll deal with it then, OK?

Time for bed now, darling.

Goodnight.

Work Avoidance

Well I've finished Shalimar the Clown (when I got into it, about the time of the Max Ophuls narrative, I couldn't put it down) and Under the Greenwood Tree (Hardy's sweetest novel - the only one where he allowed the woman to remain her happy, vain self) and I was up until five this morning transcribing (not my favourite job). And when I passed out, aching, from crouching over the laptop, there were still four pages left to go.

Instead, I woke up way past noon, had my breakfast, read the last bit of Under the Greenwood Tree (my favourite part is when the carollers shuffle into the tranter's cottage to have some cider) and got on the computer, read a few of my favourite blogs and listened to Zooey Deschanel sing "Baby it's Cold Outside" with Leon Redbone. I love how lazy her voice sounds - no, that's not the word, languorous, yes, that's it.

Beautiful, what's your hurry...

Now I've moved on to Laughter in the Rain.

Hmmmm....methinks I see a pattern here.

If I start reading Lysistrata right around now, it'll be clear.

Work avoidance.

Except I can't. I shouldn't. The damn thing is due tomorrow.

PS: I've just finished transcribing. Now I'm going to have to "clean up the copy", join the ideas, write reports for the presentations, and edit the panel discussions. I've realised that some people waffle just to hear the sound of their voices. They have nothing interesting to say and it kind of stands out when surrounded by articulate experts, they look like fools who can only stutter in some dismal form of broken English. (Am I being mean? I don't care. When I have to edit fools, my blood boils)

The Truth The Desperate Know

The first thing you learn about desperation is that you have no time for courtesies. Unless said courtesies will achieve the desired end. If not, you throw it all out of the window, because all your energies are concentrated on this huge blazing need.

To survive.

The second thing you learn about desperation is that you have no time for gratitude. As the people who have done you a good turn tot things up in their unofficial scorebooks, you turn your back on them, ignore them, and walk (or crawl) away, grasping earth, grasping grass, grasping anything that will keep you from falling away.

Your threatened non-existence.

Your rise and fall.

They, the undesperate ones, the polite, charming, thank you-saying, nodding, smiling gnomes, they will judge you, call you names.

But you heed them not.

Because the third thing you learn about desperation is that your reputation doesn't mean a damn thing. To hell with what they think. If you could, you would smash each smug visage with your bare fists. Pound them into blood and dust.

Desperation makes you angry.

It makes you fight.

It makes you destroy.

It makes you annihilate.

You drop the child you were carrying and let them find their own way to die.

You fight your mother for her last drop of water.

You sink your teeth into the wild dog fighting for that last piece of bread.

And if you're ruthless enough, you survive.

Even if you're standing in field of corpses.

Even if you made some of the corpses yourself.

Even if the ones you used to love the most are among the corpses.

If you're desperate enough, you survive.

Solvitur Ambulando

It is solved by walking. St Augustine

I took my customary walk at Kiara today. I wore a yellow rain slicker and water pooled on the plastic and made little rivulets in front of my face. The air was soggy but clean. And I I pushed gamely on, puffing through the foggy air, feeling my head slowly clear as it tends to do when I'm there.

Many people have asked why I don't simply go to the less difficult course in Taman Tun. But I don't want to. I love this walk. I go alone as usual, and when I start, my head is buzzing with negativity. It's almost like I'm a bystander while everything from low level anxiety to outright murder pulses through me.

I walk and breathe.

Gradually the thoughts settle down. The physical exertion demanded is, well, it's less than it was before. When I first started walking two weeks ago, I would come home exhausted and aching all over. If I sat down, it would be difficult to get up. Basically I would feel like Lot's wife, on looking back.

That good old pillar of salt.

Something inside me kept pushing me to go nonetheless.

No, it was not a weight thing. I've come to terms with how I look now. I find it difficult to care whether people find me attractive or not. (In case you were wondering, they don't. Wasn't my last boyfriend the one who kept me at the treadmill 45 minutes a day in a desperate attempt to shrink me to size? In case you wondering, he didn't succeed).

I have all this work to do. I am supposed to write this report and one article (which was actually due pronto - as I found out when I sms-ed the editor asking her when she wanted it). But I cannot miss out on my walk. I become nervy and irritable when I do so (even more than usual, which is saying something) and my body feels sad and jaded.

Endorphins is where it's at.

So I go for my walk when it rains (like today) or when it's dark (the streetlamps worked one day and didn't the next - but on the bright side, I saw fireflies because it was dark enough for that). I walk and I talk to God and I talk to the people who exist only in my head and I talk to the different versions of my personal dementia. I walk and roses bloom in my hands and music soothes the savage breast and sometimes, I feel words of poetry well up in me.

Not my own, but other people's.

Like today, it was seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness.

And then I thought about how Jackie and I used to distract ourselves from how tired we were feeling on our jogs by reciting Shakespeare. She had memorized 'The quality of mercy is not strained..." and "to be or not to be...". I can't remember what I memorized. But I do remember the both of us doing the different parts from Les Miserables one (was it Sunday?). That was fun...every time we passed someone else, it was Jackie's turn and she was in the middle of one of the more dramatic numbers:

"What have I done, sweet Jesus, what have I done, become a thief in the night, become a dog on the run..."

I have fond memories of running with her, of running with Siti, of running with Shirene, of running with Anna.

Now I no longer run.

I walk and it seems, I walk alone.

Free

So here I am, slightly tipsy after a night out, and you look at your calendar and say, yeah, it figures, it's Monday. But get this. I'm not tipsy from a visit to Backyard.

The last time I visited Backyard was...um...like last week with my Auntie Ann and Mark wasn't playing. Of course, if I'd known he wouldn't be playing, I wouldn't have gone. As it is though, we had a blast. The band was really good and they played really cool songs. Auntie Ann, was telling me how she hadn't been to a pub in the longest time (like more than a decade) and funnily enough she kept bumping into people she knew there. (That's what I love about Backyard. It's kind of like Cheers. Not everybody but enough people know your name to make it homey). Anyways all the people she knew were from her church. So they raised their eyebrows a bit, because she's all but saintly. (But as I said, we had a blast).

Today I was at Alexis. There was wine, there was chocolate cake, a jazz band and a group of really interesting people. I asked Omar if he'd go to Backyard. He kind of brushed over that, didn't register or whatnot, because my dear Omar is kind of Vere de Vere, and we ended up at Alexis instead - I couldn't believe this was the Monday night crowd. It was simply packed. The band was very very good...and sometimes, I could even hear myself speak.

And funnily enough I managed to make a few new friends. Who'd have thought, hey?

I had Omar all to myself at dinner (which included sake...banzai people!) and we didn't gossip, so much as exchange anecdotes, catch up, and just have a really good time. He's looking about 10 years younger. But then, I always thought he was/is cute.

There are a few contacts who turn into friends and stay with you over the years whether you're an editor of some business magazine or not. Your importance lies in yourself. Not your position. I've met enough of the opposite to really, really appreciate these people.

The week that was...was busy. I have been flinging myself into projects, writing articles (one about doggies came out yesterday) and generally keeping myself busy.

I've come to realise that my pet aversion are the people who cannot understand that I would prefer to be a freelancer, not tied down to any place, not having to answer to anybody. They come forward with job offers, fancy titles, and money...and the thing is, they expect me to fall.

I wonder at this. Of course money is important. There's lots of stuff I want to buy. But I'd rather earn it in a way that makes me happy. I was so miserable in my last job. My health broke down, my peace of mind was all but shattered, when I walked out of it, I remember a few bad nights, where I tossed, turned, talked in my sleep, and ran a fever.

I never want to go back to that again.

Ever.

And there was a meeting on Thursday with someone offering me just that.

I wonder at people sometimes.

I guess we all walk around with blinkers and convince ourselves that what we want wants us back. I know I do.

But I'm working on getting rid of said blinkers. The truth is painful but it sets you free. And that's how I want to be.

Free.

No Hope, No Harm...

I sat on the neighbour's culvert and watched him. It was past midnight and he was stuck to that fence, afraid to move very far from it. At least there, there were other friendlies who wagged their tails and licked him through the bars.

He was limping. That was new. But then, he doesn't seem to have any traffic sense whatsoever. I've seen him sleep on the road, right in the path of cars, black as the road. They mow him down. They don't see him. And if they do, they don't care.

Like the person who abandoned him.

Sometimes when I offer food, he comes close and takes it. And looks at me from under his long black fringe. Deep brown eyes, the saddest eyes I've seen in a long time, eyes that tear me apart and make me want to gather him up in my arms and say, it's OK, I'm here, I'll love you, I'll take you in.

But it's too early. He lets me pat him a bit, his head hanging down, and then limps back to his security fence.

Little dog lost,
Little dog blue,
Little dog yearning,
I love you.

Oven Birds And The Like

There is nothing (and I mean nothing!) like being freshly showered and sitting here on my bed in jammies...listening to James Taylor singing he wishes he had a river he could skate away on.

The day turned out unexpected in a number of ways. For starters, the grand dinner planned for tomorrow took place today...a glass of wine, a book of verse, and thou beside me singing in the (sort of) wilderness (and the wilderness is paradise enow). You know who you are. Nuff said.

So tomorrow has opened up, yawning like the Grand Canyon and all the things I didn't get around to doing today I will do tomorrow. That's what it's there for. Not like I was really procrastinating (perish the thought). But I woke up late and did my moving through amniotic fluid impression.

But it's not too bad if you look at it. I secured some more work, fixed two interviews (heck, I will be filing stories from Saturday), set up a meeting for possible work, wrote to people, connected, called Elba to come look at my oven (they are, oh joy, they are!)...and a friend asked me for lemon curd cake. Sigh. It warms the cockles to have someone ask me for cake. Just like ole times. Num saying?

I have been filling books with thoughts but so far, there is no plot, no coherence, no storyline. Everything is disjointed but then, we have to start somewhere don't we?

The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
(The Oven Bird, Robert Frost)

So here I am, learning what to make of diminished things. It's not so bad. Looking at what I consider diminished things in other lights, they sparkle, they glow, they break out into song.

There's gold, and it's haunting and haunting;
It's luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It's the great, big broad land 'way up yonder,
It's the forests where silence has lease;
It's the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It's the stillness that fills me with peace.
(The Spell of the Yukon, Robert Service)

And so to bed.

Flurries

James Taylor's Christmas album is playing over my laptop. And I'm back in KL. For the past two days I've been doing my headless chicken impression and rushing around to meet people or do all the errands that have piled up on my to-do list. Proud to say I've managed them all (except for cleaning my room, which I hoped to get through today, ironically, the one day without social engagements).

Speaking of social engagements, maybe I should dust off my digital camera (or at least the digital camera batteries - I've lost the charger). To prove I have a life. Because since I've been back, I do. Lunch with Theresa, tea with Nits, lunch with Ambikah, dinner and drinks with Addy (at Sids, Kenny Hills, woo hoo!). Today, I'm alone, alone...but, considering the fact that I woke up at one in the afternoon (there goes all my morning plans) maybe this is a good thing cos I'll get all the home tasks out of the way.

I've been bingeing on eBay (some of the stuff never arives, but what can you do?) and have started my Christmas shopping (did the background music give that away?). So I've looked up wassail recipes but still undecided about that because wassail is perfect on a cold, blustery day when you've been from house to house, carolling under the porch lights....a mug of something warm and foamy (and slightly spicy and alcoholic) with a cinnamon stick stirrer...yum. But how would that go down in sunny and extremely hot Malaysia?

Also wassail is not a traditional scent associated with Christmas here. Will have to think this through.

I wish I had a river I could skate away on....

And then there is the Creole Christmas cake which has, I don't know, five different types of liquor to soak the fruit in for about a week. Angostura bitters. Even the sound of it makes my mouth water. Although I'm sure I'd hate it. What with it being bitter and all that.

I am no closer to starting my herb garden. KL is dry and arid and doesn't make for my more herbaceous fantasies.

I've secured all of two Christmas presents which makes me so proud of myself.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas...may your heart be light...

I'm thinking I have to make another birthday card. But the inspiration, the inspiration, where is the inspiration?

(I'm moving from realistic figures I can't draw to abstracts I can't quite conceive. I am tired of allowing a lack of talent stand in my way towards greater and greater mediocrity).

Later for you.

PS: I downloaded a children's book, Understood Betty from project Gutenberg and simply loved it. So much so that even though it's on the computer (my least favourite format of reading) I've read it over and over again. This Dorothy Canfield Fisher woman is a genius.

A Green Thought In A Green Shade

I started a compost heap. It's in a big black bin and so far it has dried stalks, dried leaves, some potato peelings, some burnt ground and anything else I can think of to put in. I've been watching various tutorials on starting compost heaps and I think it's a brilliant idea. I remember this one guy saying we were eating a dead harvest because most food we buy is grown in tired ground that has not been rested or replenished. Maybe that's why whatever you grow at home tastes about 20 times better.

Well, anyway, the basil plant I bought not so long ago and handed to Mummy (asking her to take care of it and make sure it doesn't die) is thriving. Mum's green hands to the fore.

I've also helped Mum repot the large chilli plant (as opposed to the bird's eye chilli, although we did repot one of these as well), and replant some lemon grass that was struggling for existence in a pot filled with other stuff (like lilies).

I've sawed off branches (and have the blisters on my hand to prove it), dug up the ground, tried to start a fire (it didn't work - the rains came down hard and put em fire out)... so basically, I've been discovering the garden. Mum planted three rotten tomatoes and who knows, at least one of them may sprout into a plant. I want to plant garlic (the nice thing about garlic is that after you've done the initial planting, you're supposed to leave it there for about nine months), capsicum, God knows what else. Oh yeah, I know what else - chives, dill, sage, thyme, oregano and parsley.

So maybe I'll go watch more ehow videos on how to plant this and that.

Or maybe I'll go on eBay and look for seeds.

Or maybe (and this is the most likely) I'll watch another Miss Marple movie on Youtube.

Later for you.

The Last Worthless Evening

So I'm still in JB. Waking up in afternoon (except when Theresa calls and gives me an assignment which requires waking up semi-early), having my breakfast, helping feed the doggies, lunch and then it's evening and Mum is glued to the TV for her succession of evening-time Bollywood soaps, and I, I take the dogs for a walk. And come back and give them a treat each. They love it. They love any sort of routine.

Friends. Social networking sites. Jobs. Nothing quite sticks. And in a universe where everything swirls and curls like smoke rising from a joint, I have my blog. It is the still point, the one fixity, in all this chaos.

I find this vaguely comforting.

Maybe I should talk about the man I interviewed, my first reporter-like assignment in a while, and if this was yesterday or the day before I would have. But he has disappeared like water down the drain in the toilet and I can't summon up the requisite enthusiasm.

Speaking of toilets, there is a snake in the downstairs one. One night, tripping gaily into it, I noticed the snake's head imperfectly camouflaged against the cement in the drain. It was waiting for the rats. If there is one thing wrong with JB it's that there's too much wildlife around and poisoning the rats is not as good a solution as you would think cos they die in inconvenient places.

Anyway, I stared at the head to ensure that it was a head and not in fact my imagination, and then thoroughly spooked, I made my way out. I told Mum about it in the morning and came downstairs to find her cheerfully washing said bathroom. I peered into the drain hole to spot the snake and it wasn't there. While I was talking to Mum's the head appeared and I let out the screech of a lifetime and hustled out of there like there was a snake on my tail. Poor Mum who cannot walk very fast, stumbled out of there after me, not knowing where I was looking or where it was...her knees hurt for the rest of the day.

After standing outside and peering in (she kept saying lemme go see and I kept saying, no, no, let's call an exterminator...don't go, I'm scared) she finally got some sulphur and sprinkled it over the hole... the snake withdrew its head.

On the one hand I'm glad if it's helping us keep down the rat population. On the other, I wish it would do the job remotely like a 100 feet from our house or in Tonik Chop Gajah next door.

I made creamy fudge today. I don't know how it tastes as it is now cooling the fridge. Mum and I watched four episodes of Monk Season 3 while I assembled it.

I thought I would stay a week. It's been three. I think I'm going back on Sunday.

But since everytime I was supposed to go, I either didn't feel like it or something came up, I won't commit myself.

I'll be back in KL.

Soon.

Maybe.

Catching Up

Am a bit tipsy now. Just came back from Duke where I watched Mark and Victor perform...for about half a set. Mark said: "I haven't seen you in a looooooong time. How's the book coming along?" Victor just hugged me.

Go figure.

Anyway I had one glass of overpriced house pouring (seriously table) wine on an empty stomach and now am sort of up in the air. Floating is nice when it's only me and when I'm back from watching my favourite misantrophe who told me, among other things, that he hates the place, that the crowd is too young...blah, blah, blah...but I know him...it's just first night jitters and that is how he lets off steam.

I was at Backyard earlier with Jab. Haven't seen both in ages. We caught up.

"I haven't seen you on Facebook for so long."

"Um yeah, that's cos I've deactivated it."

"Oh yeah? I thought you had gone overseas or something."

Sigh.

And I'm meeting Alison for breakfast tomorrow. And Esther on Saturday (to say nothing of my favourite dentist).

And then I'm taking off for Johor indefinitely.

And Mark said, see you real soon.

So I smiled and said, no you won't.

And Katherine will be here in October.

And Shelly whom I came back to chat with is not online.

Early breakfast tomorrow.

And so to bed.

(Am halfway through Catch-22. Yossarian Lives. No really. He does)

Hello World!

Esther just called which was good because I was thinking about her and wanted to call her and ask to meet. So we are. Yay! She told me her brother and his fiance have discovered Backyard and she was able to say rather nonchalantly that she discovered it two years ago and prefers to go on Mondays. (Har har!)

So I'm back from the Farmer's River and plunging into KL life once again (for a while). And then I'll be off to JB.

I'm a transient and don't stay anyplace for very long. And when stressed, I pull away from everyone, curl up into my shell and shut the world out.

I'm peeping out of the shell now.

Hello world!

The Sungai Petani Chronicles

I am in Sungai Petani now. After a night of no sleep (mosquitoes, what can you do?) I took off at six in the morning and arrived here at about 10.30am. Then I followed the signs, made my way to the middle of town, and called my friend Mary, to come meet me. She did. I've been staying with her ever since.

Today I'm having my second glass of jeera water (or water boiled with cumin seeds). I think it's having a very positive effect on my system. Also, despite the heavy traffic passing right in front of the house 24/7 (and I do mean 24/7 because I can walk up at 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning and the traffic outside is just as loud and heavy) my body has slowed down and I'm having a peaceful time.

Mary's mom is delightful. She had been very deaf for a while (a case of misdiagnosis and her eardrums soaking in fluid for six months before the third audiologist found out what was wrong and gave her the required operation) but her hearing has improved marvelously (with Mary here full-time) and we have all these chats where she tells me about the old days and what things were like, in Kerala, in Malaya). As a sort of history buff (I don't care about politics so much, but more about the homely details of everyday life), I lap it all up.

On my second day here we went out to town, for a shop. I parked my car in SP Plaza, stuffed my car keys in my pocket and we walked all over town (stopping at the stationery shop for my Lamy refills, the pork lady for the Sungai Petani Chinese roast pork specialty) and from thence, to the open air market where we proceeded to get kilos and kilos of fruit (mangosteens, rambutans and durians). We left it with Mary's boy:

Boy: Just call me Mi...

Mary: Is that short for Suhaimi?

Boy: Also can?

Mary: Also can? What's your actual name?

Boy: Helmi.

Anyways, then we made our way back to SP Plaza to pick up my car so we could swing by and pick up our things...too heavy to carry and I was already drooping from the heat, which Mary assured me was mild compared to what it could be in SP. When we got back to SP Plaza, and Mary had done some light shopping at the supermarket, we encountered our first reverse. I stuffed my hand in my pocket and realised...there was no car key there.

Things went rapidly downhill from there. We had wandered all over creation that day. It would be next to impossible, firstly to retrace our actual steps, secondly, that even if we succeeded in doing that, that someone else would not have picked it up. We wandered in front of the median swatch of grass in front of the clock tower, and as we dragged our feet I saw the police station. I suggested we go to the police station and see if anyone had found the key and dropped it off there.

After all, that's what I would do if I found a set of car keys. It was a faint hope at best, and I didn't like police stations from various negative experiences in Selangor, where I would go to report something and instead of helping the police would bully me.

First we had to locate the entrance. The actual entrance was locked. The second entrance had something built in front of it. We had to go round the back. When we finally located the entrance and got into the place that would take our report, there was this young Indian girl there talking to the police officer on duty, who glanced at Mary and me (hot, dishevelled and worried-looking) and asked us what the problem was. I thought she was there to make a report as well, and thought, wow, for someone who has just been robbed or whatever, she does not look distressed.

OK, the long and short of it, was that this 24-year-old was not a member of the public but a police detective. And while I was making the police report (which the officer on duty actually did for me), she made some phone calls, and signalled for Mary and I to follow her.

Apparently, she had called the locksmith, was going to drive us there. Which was very kind (I had dreaded walking any further in this heat). But Milani's kindness did not stop there. She drove us to the locksmith, hopped out of the car to get the locksmith in question who could not leave his shop unattended to get on the phone and contact someone from the network of locksmiths in SP to come to SP Plaza, then drove us back to the car and waited and when she found out that we had left food at the market and needed to pick it up, drove us to the market to pick up the stuff, drove back to SP Plaza, waited until the guy had opened the car, disabled the alarmed, fiddled with the keyhole until he had made the necessary measurements, started the car, so I could follow him to his shop, where he made the key, and did not leave until she had seen us safely on our way home.

It was all a little surreal. I had never met any stranger who would be as kind and who would go so much out of her way. It was lunchtime and she was hungry but she refused to leave us to our own devices, or allow us to buy her lunch.

It's my job, she said, every time we tried to thank her or invite her out for a meal or tea or anything.

After a profusion of thanks (she kindly but firmly asked us to stop thanking her) she left and we exchanged a few text messages. We discovered in our talks with her than helping people was just what she loved to do.

She had joined the police force at 18. And while she was doing a diploma in IT at night, it was not because she wanted to get a job outside. She loved being on the force.

Milani was unusual. But everyone at the Sungai Petani police station was courteous, helpful and all said, don't worry, she will take care of you, she will help you. They handheld us every step of the way and what started off as a potentially horrible experience had turned into something really positive. Our hearts overflowed with gratitude and we were carried along, as it were, on the waves of all this collective kindness.

It's been a few days here. What I've learned in this short time is that Mary is a superstar.

Everywhere we go, we have taxi drivers honking hello to Mary (one of them even goes as far as taking his hands off the wheel to bring them together in a namaste), shopkeepers chatting happily and giving discounts without being asked, and of course, our fruit boy Helmi who willingly keeps all Mary's shopping for as long as he's there.

She bought him two Snickers bars.

He grinned and immediately gave one away to one of his friends at the fruit stall (he's a durian man and the three durians he picked for us were so good as to render us speechless).

I've also been feasting on the mangosteens and rambutans. Mary's cooking is superb. She made fried rice yesterday and she is making her famous bihun today. Tomorrow I'm making chicken vindaloo, herbed broccoli and mint and coriander rice. Mary says it will be a treat because they eat very simply here.

She has lost a lot of weight as she walks everywhere here and lives of fruit, vegetables and rice.

We have been downing jeera water like there is no tomrrow.

Yesterday we watched the Middle Earth Paradigm episode of Big Bang Theory. She loves Leonard. I adore Sheldon.

I brought a whole bunch of books to read but am reading her Pickwick Papers instead which I find addictive and I love Sam Weller and Sam Weller's daddy.

So there you are.

Updated.

It is Finished

I'm done. I finished in the wee hours of Sunday morning and celebrated by watching the sun rise and writing a letter to a friend. If not for the love and support of friends and family (and by family, I mean my mother) I would not have seen this through. Definitely. I was so ready to throw in the towel a million points along the way. Every time I felt angry or frustrated or cheated (which was like, all the time).

And towards the end I worked in a vacuum, with no reply for the stuff I sent, no acknowledgement, nothing.

Note to self: Working in vacuum is hard.

But I did it. There was not one point in the journey when I felt everything coalesce, come together. Before this, no matter what I've done, what I've finished, at some point, things coalesced. Here, it was just more misery, one weary foot in front of the other, wading through mud.

But I finished. Every night, I worked till six or seven in the morning. Till my eyes were scratchy and my neck and shoulders ached. Till the whole bloody world dissolved into a single flaming cursor on the screen. Until I could have thrown my laptop across the room and screamed until I passed out.

When I sent the final profiles, I said in the email that I would be stopping at the office to drop off all the material that had been clogging my room these past four months. Of course, it wasn't acknowledged and I had no idea of my reception. Shouldn't have worried. Mr Nothing If Not Fake (or we call it civil), met me with every appearance of friendliness, helped me carry all the stuff from my car into his office, asked me to send him the interview transcripts and then said he would get my cheque ready and if I didn't want to come collect it (if I wasn't back from my road trip) he would bank it in. So I sent him the transcripts and my bank details and as usual, he acknowledged nothing.

I do think I'm going to be paid. There's no reason to drag out this unfortunate connection any further. The question is when.

On another note, have finished Moll Flanders and moved on to Catch 22. Hmmm...Moll seems to have been very adept at lying. She was a survivor who told everyone what they most wanted to hear. And never got at anything directly.

Frankly I think the book is brilliant. I never quite take to Moll (I don't like prevaricators but then they seem to get through life a whole lot better than I do), but I think the way she sums everyone up, the way she manipulates everyone, the way she always ends up coming out on top no matter what her crime...well, she's a true survivor.

Maybe my problem is that I've never had to live by my wits.

The Narnian Gives Way to Moll Flanders

On an unrelated note I finished the CS Lewis biography and I was wrong with my assessment at the beginning. It was written by an academic, there was sufficient meat to bite into, to masticate, to swallow, to nourish. Of course after reading such a biography the normal response would be to rush out and get his books. But I wont. I still have all the unread books on my table (noticeable lessened since I have been hacking away at them and not allowing myself to read books I've already read).

I'm now quarterways through Defoe's Moll Flanders which is a lively tale indeed. Sex, sex and more sex, but told with modesty. I love the euphemisms employed. To do a kindness, to be someone's gallant, to have conversation with...but what I've come to see is that despite the extremely sexist introduction (which now I'm reading it again, appears to be more tongue in cheek than anything, rather like the introduction for Taming of the Shrew which sets that up as a farce) it seems to be a feminist text.

Which is good. Kind as CS Lewis was, he was anything but feminist.

So moving from Ursula Le Guin to him was a bit of a jolt.

I feel like reading Narnia. I did read a children's book, Moonfleet, which Helen gave me all those years ago, and which lay on my desk for just as long without being tackled. I especially want to read Narnia now armed with everything I've read about Lewis. Which is stupid because you take the book as the book, without an inquiry into the author's life to guide you. The text should stand by itself, no?

OK, going to do some actual work now.

Later for you.

Grinding Towards The Inevitable End

This thing is finally, finally drawing to its close. I think when we are assailed by the huge waves, tossed about on a sea of emotion and the pure unadulterated fear of non-performance and overwhelm, we break out into hysteria and madness.

I was mad.

I felt myself going mad.

I knew I was mad.

And try as I might I couldn't do anything about it.

You try standing on a walnut in the midst of the ocean and battling the waves. No matter what you throw at them, the waves are going to win.

Yesterday, for the first time, after a weary night of putting together profiles, I didn't feel scared. I had done enough so the task ahead of me wasn't as overwhelming as before. I could see the shore.

As anyone who has ever despaired can tell you, seeing the shore is the thing.

On the one hand, the other party, whom I faithfully send the products of my day's work, is silent and resentful.

It makes me no never mind. He can continue silent but once I have finished, I can wash my hands off it, and take off without worrying. I cast all worry from my mind.

This job was a mistake. It's hard to see a mistake when you think you're desperate and need to take whatever comes along.

Nobody is ever that desperate.

After Monday, I will need to figure out how to move on from here.

But it's like when I broke up with one persistent millstone around my neck. He said, one day you will come to regret this. I said, maybe, but the relief of not having to deal with you now, the sheer relief makes it all worth it. And then I waited to feel sorry. And I waited. And years passed and I was still waiting. And not only did I never feel sorry, I wondered why I had allowed him to drag out the end for so long, why I had endured his noxious presence for a microsecond longer than I wanted to.

I hear that some people even miss their tumours.

Apparently, I'm not one of them.

Dear Wormwood

It is nearly two in the morning and I still 16 profiles to write. What of that? The important thing is, no matter how distasteful my task has become, to keep on, trudging ahead, even though I don't feel like it, even though I stopped feeling like it a long time ago. In fact, where this project is concerned, did I ever feel like it?

Doubtful.

I see his lips curl in a mocking sneer. "You see, I knew you wouldn't finish. You don't have what it takes to stick it."

And I say: "Oh yeah, then you're double the fool to have hired me."

He shrugs: "Oh well, you came cheap. What can I say?"

And I say: "You don't seriously expect to drag this damn thing on do you? I mean it's already taken forever, we're not talking to each other and when we do, we're barely civil. Other than royally screwing me by making me work for more and more time, with the law of diminishing returns on my back, what do you get from it? You hate me nearly as much as I hate you."

And you say: "You got that right. But I need to win. It's all about winning. And crushing you beneath my heel. You think you can bark? I'll make you howl. And just to be ornery, I will draaaaag out paying you. How's that for charming?"

And I say: "Oh screw you. If I keep talking to you here, I'll burn all the documents, tell you to go screw yourself and take off on my road trip right now. Today. I can't let you get inside my head. You're not worth the emotion, not even this anger. I have to remember that."

And you say: "Oh yeah? Good luck. Hop little bunny, hop. You'll find that you end up doing what I tell you to do. Eventually. Remember that. Over and out."

Mornie Alantie

And in the declining light
of this decaying world
I see only suffering
and the promise of worse
I've got to escape
life is a curse
before the light's
completely faded
and my spirit
completely jaded.

The Morning After

You do not call.

I don't even know
if I expect you to
You were cold when I was there
right next to you
why should you warm up
when I'm a couple of miles away?

For there you lay
turned away
cuddling the cat
soothing the dog
your back
a huge red wall

uninviting

insensitive

unloving.

It resisted me
shut me out.
You know how a back can be.

And so
I tossed all night
on twisted sheets
the dog at my feet
so I couldn't stretch out
sad, uncomfortable
thoughts skittering around
like mice
or white moths
flapping tired wings.

I awoke at four
and waited for six
when I knew your alarm
would go off.

Resisted your offer to "sleep in"
asked to be sent to the station
so I could get back to my own bed
and relax.

But now,
icy sheets piled on me
I can't sleep
I can't get out of bed
I just lie here
in my misery
feeling ashamed
that I did it again.

Starbursts and Glitter

I've painted another picture. I always think when I paint I should come up with a verse to complement it. But so far there are only colours.

Theys swirl around me in starbursts.

All the despondence that came from having to apply myself to a task I would rather not be doing seems to have evaporated.

Which is miraculous.

You know why the centre seldom holds? Because we haven't put in any love to keep it together. When I look at what I've abandoned I realise that it I just didn't care enough, love enough, to see it through.

Loving nothing makes me weak, brittle, just about to break, never quite breaking, on the floor, swept up with the other rubbish, brief, discordant, fading.

Can you learn to love if it doesn't happen spontaneously? I'm not talking about people. I'm talking about projects. Can I pour myself into one I have no feeling for?

I'll let you know.

Second half of the year...you know what that means!

You know what time of the year it is? It's time to start making wassail, Christmas fruitcake (with enough alcohol to show up on a breathalyser test) and buying and wrapping Christmas presents and hiding them in convenient boxes and figuring what I'm going to give everybody.

Also, this year, I want to make my own cards.

Wow, for the first time in a long long time, I feel happy.

Chewing the Cud

I have been working steadily, maybe because I'm way past deadline and as such, have no choice. The drama is there bubbling under the surface and erupting once in a while in mild and not-so-mild hysterical outbursts, but thankfully, I have the house to myself so there is no one to witness the bouts of weeping, the screaming into pillows, the full out tantrums in front of the TV and the wild angry dances I do by myself to really soft, gentle music, you know the kind with waterfalls in the background?

Sometimes I go out in the garden to pluck stalks of grass and chew meditatively. Is this how it tastes to cows? What if I had four stomachs? Could I stand chewing cud for hours looking out into the uninteresting horizon thinking about...who knows what cows think about.

Maybe they're reciting The Wasteland in their heads. Maybe they're translating Greek poetry. Maybe they're chuckling at a scene from Lysistrata. Maybe they're wondering how to design the next birthday card. Maybe they're trying to figure out what Gary Larsen's cow tools are. (Not the saw, I got the saw, the other two tools)

Anyway, I can't chew cud now. I chew pizzas instead. And have The Big Bang Theory playing in the background as I write about chevron lights. Not a good idea as no matter how many times I've seen the episode I have to watch it again. Sheldon fascinates me. Like a blinking chevron light. Like a median screen. Like tiger's eyes (the road stud not the semi precious stone).

When you're chewing cud you can get sorta thirsty.

My fourth stomach is reserved for dessert.

I may become normal again when I have finished this book.

But then again, it's me we're talking about here.

Which means, I may not.

On All Fours

Sometimes I feel like I have manacles on my feet.

Every step hurts, pushing forward, breathe, breathe, breathe, OK one inch forward, maybe two inches today? So it's half five in the morning and I've finished another section. It killed me to do this and I wonder, why? I am an experienced journalist and I know how to write on demand, hell, how many times before have I written on demand?

It's just that this project is so vast and cavernous and unwieldy. I fall on all-fours and crawl forward. Little by little. Laying track as Julia Cameron calls it.

Deadline come and gone. I don't hear from the person who is supposed to be overseeing all this. He's decided to go silent again.

Never mind.

Crawl a little further. Push a little dirt out of the way.

Move forward.

Just a little today.

OK, little more.

And now, a little more again.

Coming up with tricks to fool myself into writing. There is a blank wall up in front of me. The blank wall is me. The blank wall is my monumental indifference. The blank wall is my fear. I am trying to push past the blank wall. The blank wall is impervious to my fists.

My fists are bleeding. The blank wall is indifferent to my pain. It is deaf. It doesn't hear me screaming. I don't hear me screaming. Except inside my head. Inside my head I'm loud. Inside my head I'm unbearable. Inside my head I cannot find the black hole to disappear into.

Inside my head is a rattling gourd.

Rattle, rattle, rattle.

But the sounds have no meaning.

I want to sleep now.

No more coffee for naughty Jenny.

Ripeness is All

I have finished Ursula Le Guin and have now moved on to a biography of CS Lewis. That the guy who wrote it is not an academic is evident from some of his comments in the introduction.

The book does not have the polish of a Daphne du Maurier or a Claire Tomalin or even, a Peter Ackroyd. But it does have its own charm. And CS Lewis is a fascinating subject. And I find, like me, he only read Kenneth Grahame as an adult and it made him all warm and fuzzy.

There is nothing quite so comforting as curling up with a cup of hot chocolate and Wind in the Willows. (I think it's the food that does it. It's the food that does it in Pickwick as well, the food and the milk punch and the games and the gaiety and the benevolence and the stories,and my dear, dear Sam).

I am a product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.

This was how Lewis (or Jacksie as he liked to be known) described himself.

I've only finished the first chapter which deals at some length with the illness and death of his mother. His feelings about this, while breezed over in his memoir, Surprised by Joy, is treated more honestly in The Magician's Nephew, the prequel to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, written much later:

"And so would you...if you'd lived all your life in the country and had a pony, and a river at the bottom of the garden, and then had been brought to live in a beastly Hole like this...And with an Aunt and an Uncle who's mad (how would you like that?)- and if the reason was that they were looking after your Mother - and if your Mother was ill and was going to - going to - die." Then his face went the wrong sort of shape as it does if you're trying to keep back your tears.

Helen wrote thanking me for the birthday card I made for her and the poem I wrote inside it. I decided to use an original one rather than taking one of the numerous ones I have on standby.

She said it made her cry with happiness, which was a first.

Her card was like a flame that flared briefly in this dark night.

These were the words on CS Lewis's mother's calendar the day she died. The first six words were later to form his own epitaph:

Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither:
Ripeness is all.

The Lake-Sunk Stars Were Ringing

Swinging between Suzuki and Le Guin, one is apt to get a little unhinged.

Nine times the nine white heavens
call the things that creep, run, fly.
Come to the fish-meal, eat from the tympani,
drink from the chasing cymbals.

Or:

We say, "When the night is here, the dawn comes." It means there is no gap between the dawn and the night.

Today, I cleaned my room, because as I sat in the middle of dusty chaos and read about the socio-economic benefits of highways, I found I could not, no I could not, go another minute, minute! with these dusty windows, with my broken bed (how broken, I would need to lift the mattress and find out), unaired mattress, cupboard overflowing with clothes smushed in, floor scattered with the ruins of reports - torn papers, dust, oh my god, dust, dust, all that dust, choking up my windpipe, silencing me effectively.

So yes. After learning however many billion dollars we saved by having one highway, I started to fold some of the scattered clothes on my bed. But stuffing them into that overflowing cupboard was beyond me. I started to pull out the clothes, cast them on the floor, fold them up again...and it was like dropping a tiny pebble from atop a mountain.

It unleashed in me an avalanche of cleaning. I swept and sweated and cursed and sneezed and organized and dusted and found things I had lost (one beautiful bookmark a friend had given me as a present), Cocktail Time by PG Wodehouse which I read in one sitting when I was supposed to be reading or writing about highways - just a few days under the bed and it was covered in dust and old cobwebs.

Under my bed is where dreams go to die. Which is why every time I aim a broom at it it turns on me, snarls, hisses, bites.

The curtains heavy with the dust of years. Years! Maybe decades. Well one decade, at least. I pulled them down. I soaked them in bleach. I will leave them there for a while. And then run them through the machine.

And all the while, at back of my mind, the sad, ponderous clanging of the work I'm supposed to be doing.

Go away!

No!

Go away!

No!

So I sit here, meekly, sorting through the torn sheets, reading through pages, making notes, and soon, very soon, I will start the next piece.

And finish it.

And reward myself with...

Something. Only I don't know what.

What I Really Really Want To Read

I've been reading Ursula Le Guin's essays and now, after reading "The Fisherwoman's Daughter" what I really, really want to read is Three Guineas.

The rationale of exclusionists, as I understand it, is that the material privilege and social approbation our society grants the heterosexual wife, and particularly the mother, prevent her solidarity with less privileged women and insulate her from the kind of anger and the kind of ideas that lead to feminist action. There is truth in this; maybe it's true for a lot of women; I can oppose it only with my experience, which is that feminism is a life-saving neccesity to women trapped in the wife/mother "role." What do the privilege and approbation accorded to the housewife-mother by our society in fact consist of? Being the object of infinite advertising? Being charged by psychologists with total answerability for children's mental well-being, and by government with total answerability for children's welfare, while being regularly equated with apple pie by sentimental warmongers? As a social "role", motherhood, for any woman I know, simply means that she does everything everybody else does plus bringing up the kids.

La Belle Dame Sans Au Revoir

OK so this is how it is. Your perfume clouds my mind. I cannot think. Your colours are a little too vibrant. Van Gogh. Disturbing.

They mock my less-than-neat little world with emotions bottled away and emasculated happiness.

You pace up and down, hands behind your back, forehead furrowed in mock concern. I laugh because I can't help it. We share a Coke, and then a coffee and then a brandy and then some rum. (Please don't mix my drinks or I'll puke all over you, it's what I do:

Projectile vomitting is an art,
and I do it so well,
I do it so it feels like hell,
I do it so it feels real...

Sometimes I don't think it's so bad existing in these fringes and watching other people.

Drama is passing.

Drama has passed.

Drama was "this too."

You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying?

Sometimes when I'm shuffling along the street wrapped in my own thoughts I think I catch a glimpse of you. I turn slowly. Not swiftly because that's not how you do it with wraiths. If you turn quickly, you see the edge of a smile as it disappears. Cheshire Cat-like. If you turn slowly you see nothing.

And nothing is what I want to see.

Get it?

Each smile I see spread out in front of me, on those faces, faces, faces in the crowd, has a meaning. And I see one smile, sad, tentative, haunted, begging for permission. I watch that smile and feel my heart contract. I watch that smile until it disappears because it is the smile I know best.

You know what I'm saying?

There is silence and performance and something in between. There is silence and screaming and nothing in between. There is silence and tears.

There is silence.

Silence.

Silence.

You're gone now.

And you didn't say goodbye.

Goodbye.

Working

I'm sitting in the midst of a swirling chaos trying to write. Robert Cormier used to write on a moving train with three million distractions around him. At least I'm sitting in my bedroom.

Every part of this swirling chaos belongs, in some way, to me.

I will finish and then I will start to clean and clear and dust and organise.

For now, I will write.

One Fine Day

Sometimes abstinence does not cure. As good old Freud pointed out, whatever we suppress rises to the surface. If we rigorously police our waking thoughts, why there is what happens in sleep, with all those neurons firing.

And the heart breaks and the heart breaks but tears in sleep are not real tears. And weeping is for sainted statues (on a monument smiling at grief).

Pictures, pictures, scenes, disparate, disconnected (my dreams are never linear and they don't make sense) swirling like the colours of a rainbow.

I dreamt KL was drowning. Someone called me, an analyst and he said, do I have a story for you. He said, KL is under (I don't remember how many) feet of water. And I said, really? What happened to our beloved drainage and irrigation department? Wherefore the Smart Tunnel? And he didn't answer. He rung off after telling me that all the major cities were under water. Including the one I happened to be in that time.

The rain pelted down. It was pelting down in the waking world too. Maybe that's why. But it rained and rained throughout my dream where strange and wonderful and not so wonderful things were happening.

I was stranded in a weird place, stuck in a room with someone I loved and someone I hated.

I woke up with my sick father shaking me. "Did Julie arrive?"

Sleep fogged, I answered: "I think so. Mum said she did when I spoke to her."

And he nodded OK. I sank down again. (Fighting the flu, at the moment odds are even) He woke me up again. "Do you want chappati?"

No. What I really want is to scrub my heart and my mind clean of images that obstruct and make my heart shrink in sheer misery. It's not fair that this is happening now when I thought I was over it.

Jeez. How long does it take to get over someone?

Now I have the impetus to finish this project that is weighing me down like an Eiffel Tower around my neck.

I'll finish it and go on a road trip.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Alcohol doesn't help. And old haunts are haunted.

And if I run far enough and fast enough maybe I'll be too exhausted to dream.

The ten thousand things arise together
and I watch their return.
They return each to its root.
Returning to one's roots is known as stillness.
Returning to one's destiny is known as the constant.
Knowledge of the constant is known as discernment.
To ignore the constant
is to go wrong, and end in disorder.

-Lao Tzu, Book 1, Chapter 16-

Adore: It Rhymes With Abhor

There are some people who fill your heart with such joy that being in their mere presence feels like basking in sunshine. Not the searing sunshine of summer. More like the ambient glow of autumn when everything turns golden. Indian summer. Where the sun blesses rather than blazes.

Yes, I know some people like that. And even if a million people tell you there's something wrong with the object of affection, you can't bring yourself to accept it. You draw up a list of reasons, read it carefully, but the words are just words. They don't move into your body, they don't connect. You cannot believe your own words. Light speaks louder than words, I guess.

Yes, I'm supposed to hate you.

But when I see you, I break into blossom.

Damn you for being so beautiful.

Damn you for filling me with such joy.

And then there are others. They seem perfectly nice. They say the right words, smile in the right places, and yet, and yet, there's something rotten in the state of Denmark. And the aversion takes hold. And it grows. And grows. Until you hate them so much it's difficult to share the same room. Or breathing space.

And nothing exists but the hatred.

Hating without reason. As inexplicable as liking without reason. Or loving without reason.

There may be a warning in there.

I know what it means.

I just don't know what to do about it.

Running the Gamut

I found this in my pen drive today. It was the introduction to a series of stories and poems I had put together for a friend as a Christmas present. It amused me. Perhaps it will amuse you too:

Running the Gamut is a collection of stories and poems by JCJ, the illustrious unknown author who hangs out in her pyjamas and composes rhapsodies to the ordinary things in life (like butter pecan ice cream topped with chocolate fudge). JCJ, a rolling stone who manages not to pick up any moss, has wandered through life dabbling in everything from telecommunications to dotcoms to tolled highways. None of it sticks, for which she is thankful. In between these abortive forays, she takes long walks in shopping malls and contemplates the nature of joy in a post-Disneyesque planet. She also watches different versions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and reads the fiction of Lewis Carroll, to discover the Meaning of Life. It’s hidden there, somewhere.

Scrapheap

It is ironic that I should be reading The Infernal Life of Branwell Bronte now - the story of the man related to women who became famous, while he lurked in the shadows, an unacknowledged genius, an unrecognised giant, or not.

This book even doubts his one (personal) claim to fame, his highly wrought affair with "Mrs Robinson" that he blamed for his undoing rather than his dissipation, his lack of application, his inability to stick at anything.

That last is where I most resonate. Inability to stick at anything, the tendency which has been growing on me, I hold on to things so lightly and let them go, because nothing is worth holding on.

And no one.

I read this when I'm wondering whether to turf my current project, return all those reports that have been littering the floor of my room for months and which have oppressed my spirits to no common degree.

I've been advised by various friends to suck it up and keep on keeping on. There is a track record here I have to break.

But every word wrung from me is sheer misery.

And today, the other side went silent. I'll give it till Monday and then send an email to ask what's what.

I don't feel like doing another lick of work. Especially this is just going to go on the scrapheap of projects I've abandoned.

I'd like to finish something for once. But anger and hatred swell in me now and I don't know what to do about it or how to curb it.

I think I'll paint another picture.

Sauce And The Consequences Thereof

I am seething, gently simmering here like a rich French sauce that you are going to use to cover your slightly turned fish so that no one will know the meat is bad.

An interview that was supposed to have taken place last week has been cancelled/postponed for the third time. Each time this was done at the last minute. The very last. The first time it was cancelled, I received the call just before I left the house.

Well and good.

But if that wasn't bad enough, I get a call from the PR guy of the regulatory body who has commissioned the book to ask if I can come to his office instead, which is all the way in the boondocks, at a very inconvenient time (it's far away, I have to pay a toll getting there and back, I will be caught in a jam getting back and best of all, I will be compensated for none of this as I didn't think to ask for "expenses" in my contract).

And get this: he wants me to come to his office on the off chance that I will get to interview the lady in question who has a meeting there. He hasn't checked with her yet. And going by his track record, she may just have to rush off for something else making my whole trip a complete and absolute waste of time. For which he will smile and treat me to some inane anecdotes and questions...such as...how is the book coming ah?

Well not very well, considering that I'm sitting in your office wasting my time when I should be writing it.

Isn't that just the Malaysian way?

Since I am an underling, a "contractor" so to speak, they can dick me around as much as they want to and the creeping deadline doesn't matter.

Except that it does. They do expect the work to get done in time. No matter how many spanners they throw in the works. It's called "magical thinking". The notion that no matter what the circumstances everything will work out magically and there will be a shining manuscript at the end of the process.

Let me correct that.

It's called utter bullshit.

I asked Martin once, how he put up with all this. He said, you have to be very patient.

Right.

Patient.

Anyone who's known me for more than an hour will know that patience is not my defining quality. Unless I happen to like you very very much, in which case I will overlook a multitude of sins, slights and downright rudeness. But only for a while. Once I've stoppped liking you (and it will happen, it's just a matter of time if you're dicking me around) everything will rush back with added force and I will hate you forever. And not speak to you for about that length of time.

In this case, it's not the inconvenience I mind so much as the lack of respect it implies.

So I've sent a message to Martin that I will not be going today or in fact, entertaining any calls from the PR in question. If they want to deal with me, they can deal with me through him. I tried to be respectful in the text I sent him because I realise that all the frustration I feel for these clients, I take out on him. Which is not fair. Because it only means that he has to manage hysteria on both ends.

I will be working on the chapter I was talking about.

And if they want to get a new writer I will gladly finish what I'm doing and hand him everything I have at the moment.

Money is one thing. But there comes a time when you just have to take a stand.

Dude, I'm From New York!

Here's the thing about pushing the body into uncomfortable positions. It's, um, well, umcomfortable. Also quite frequently exhausting. And painful.

I was there for my yoga class all bright and early, despite a lousy night tossing and turning, and worrying about tossing and turning and getting no sleep. Perhaps I should have switched on the light and continued with my Didion. Perhaps I should have continued transcribing my interview for the day. As it was, I did none of these. I just tossed. And turned.

The alarm went off at six and I switched it off automatically. Then I managed to force myself up at 7.30. I hear some people are naturally morning people. They jump out of bed at six or seven, raring to go. I'm not one of them. I could be, if I went to sleep early enough, but that's the whole point. I don't seem to go to bed early enough.

So there I was, signing up for classes.

Richard asks me: "Are you ready?"

I say: "No, but I'm here anyway."

And I go spread my mat and try to get comfortable. The studio starts filling up with women, whom I can only imagine are expat wives. If their husbands come, they come in the evening. One nice Aussie woman told me just that.

"Why don't you go with him?"

"Are you kidding? By the time he's finished and grabbed a bite to eat, it's almost 10.30. That's already bedtime. No, I'm a morning person."

Ah, one of those mythical morning people. She tells me she started class about 3 months ago, went for 4 classes and then got injured and so had to stop for about 2 months. Her husband went in the meantime and after only 2 months, he can clasp his feet in the forward bend. She still can't reach them yet.

I nod sympathetically. Those forward bends are killers.

So we go through the different asanas. Slowly, as this is a beginner's class. But I find myself faltering at the warrior pose, unable to keep my balance at the tree pose, unable to lean forward very well, when it comes to the forward bend. Oh well. It has been 2 years. The last time I did this was in 2008.

I start to sweat profusely and regret that I forgot to bring a towel. I bedew the floor and my mat with drops, making it slippery and slick. Heck, my whole body is slippery and slick.

Richard walks around correcting positions. He's sterner than I remember him being. I guess it's because this is his own business. I guess it's because he's not a dabbler and tends to take the practice very seriously.

And then glorious, glorious, it's time for the final pose, the corpse pose, although there's a difference...he continues the hip opening element in this. But he says, if you feel uncomfortable, you can stretch out your legs. I do. I stretch them out and proceed to fall into a deep sleep.

Richard is sitting in lotus, meditating. Just a few seconds before he tells us to turn over and make ready for getting up, I find myself conscious again. It's like an invisible command has gone out from him, to us.

We sit up, namaste, bow.

He tells me I did good for the first class. I look at him incredulously. "Didn't you see how I struggled?

He laughed. "Everyone has to start somewhere."

I can sense a difference though. This time, I am not "enduring" the classes. This time I intend to practice, to stiffen my spine, to acquire structure.

And then, I find I cannot get into my locker, the key doesn't work. Richard tries and then he opens up a paper clip and proceeds to jiggle the lock.

No cigar.

He calls his contractor, who is on leave that day and who has promised to call his boss to see if there's anyone who will help. I go sit down outside and wait. My staring at him jiggling the lock and cheering him on doesn't seem to be doing the trick. And then Richard calls out: "Jenn!"

I go back to the locker room and voila, the door to my locker is swinging open. My mouth falls open. "Did you pick that lock? You're brilliant!"

"Dude, I'm from New York."

There are four missed calls on my phone, and when I call back the PR of the person I was supposed to interview today, tells me my interview has been rescheduled to tomorrow. Normally I would be pissed, but I'm so tired now, I'm elated.

"Sure, no problem."

"OK, make sure you be here by 2.40, k?"

"Yeah."

I put down the phone, beam at Richard.

He asks: "Your next lesson?"

I say: "You have a morning class tomorrow? Then maybe you'll see me tomorrow."

"Cool."

I stumble out of there and take myself off to Devi's Corner for lunch. I haven't had breakfast yet and I'm famished. My Didion of the day splayed open I dig into my roti canai and mutton curry. And then a bru coffee. It's been months since I've been here. In fact, more than half a year. I don't recognise any of the waiters and my favourites are not there. No matter. The ones who are still smile in a friendly manner, bring me my orders and shuffle off.

Some grocery shopping and I think, oh well, I have time for a nap. I get up at half past five with most of the day gone.

Think I'll tackle the rest of the transcription now.

I've just finished Joan Didion's "Where I Was From" and it's left me with the sort of bleak, desolate feeling, all honest books that explore identity and cannot bring itself to sum things up into neat conclusions, do. I loved it. Now, that I've finished all my Joan Didions, I think I will eventually get around to getting "A Year of Magical Thinking". But for now, I will read "The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte" by Daphne Du Maurier. When I finish this one, I'll send it off to Mary. She sent me a text today to see how I was doing and I haven't responded. Sometimes, you just don't feel like texting. I'll send her a letter when I'm done.

Also worthy of note, I got a friend request from an ex, one of those who came, saw, broke my heart and left without saying goodbye. Normally, I would agonize over these things and it would take me a week or two to click "ignore". This time, I did it in two seconds, without thinking about it.

I definitely recommend sitting zazen. It seems to be having a positive effect on my life.

Structure

I sat across from Richard, watching him intently. Of all the people I knew, he was the most graceful and poised. That is not to suggest, effeminate. But as someone who has been practising yoga for nearly half his life, and someone who spent a year in Burma as a monk, meditating, he is probably the most controlled and deliberate person I know. There is no wasted motion here. Precision is not just for the asanas. It is for every movement.

The thing about sitting zazen every day, even if for only a limited time, is that after the discomfort in the legs sinks into numbness, the psychic pain surfaces. And I would find myself anxiously thinking, OK, how many minutes more, I need to do this, I need to do that. Just sitting, observing my breathing, watching my thoughts, had me scuttling for cover. I don't know what I was so afraid of. Or maybe I do.

I have only been sitting zazen for a week. Maybe a little more. But I guess, even a week of effort has its rewards. I realised suddenly that my life was so untidy, because frankly, I was a mess. I had no structure, my bones were made of jelly, I did not sit so much as flop forward, I did not walk so much as shuffle, I banged into everything along my path vaguely aware of the dull pain and the bruises, I did not step lightly, I treaded heavily.

I did not have a practice. I stuck to nothing. Once I had yoga but after a while it seemed like I was doing it out of a sullen resentment. Part of the resentment had to do with the fact that the one who owned the yoga centre was surprisingly mercenary and tried to make as much money as she could off me and was not accommodating if I happened to miss a class. You miss without warning, you forfeit the class. That's just the way it was. That's just the way she wanted it.

But if that were the real reason I would have jumped at the opportunity when I bumped into Richard earlier this year and he told me he was starting his own centre. I didn't. I hemmed and hawed and said, maybe, sometime, whatever.

He didn't push it. Richard isn't an in-your-face marketer.

But yesterday when I realised how flabby my life had become (I guess physical flab reflects a sort of mental flabbiness, a laziness, a lack of discipline) I thought of Richard and suddenly, I longed for the simple discipline of his classes. Extend your hand, breathe in. Pull back your hand, breathe out.

I wanted bones rather than jelly. I wanted structure. So there I was, in Richard's office, looking over his schedule.

"What are you doing tomorrow?"

"I have an interview."

"What time?"

"4.30."

"Well, there's a class at 9.30 in the morning. You could make that one."

Huh. A morning class. Wouldn't it be great? Especially since I usually spent the mornings tangled in my blankets, willing myself to get up, never quite making it, the guilt building up. No wonder I was so full of self loathing.

"9.30 it is. See you tomorrow."

When Drunk, I Don't Care How I Look

And there goes Chekhov. Interesting, his short stories. A heck of a lot funnier than The Cherry Orchard (was that supposed to be a comedy? It was included in our readings for Theory and Practice of Comedy anyway).

So, feeling the need for fresh air, I took myself off on a walk, my face loose and vacant, my jaw hanging slightly open, when I bumped into someone I'd known from a long time ago. OK, not so long ago. Maybe two years.

I was brought up short and abruptly because we did not part on the best of terms. Actually there was no final scene, I just withdrew, the way I usually do when someone has been proved to be a liar beyond the shadow of a doubt.

There was no use is extending the misery by allowing him to "explain" or seeing him turn away coldly, not bothering to. So I left. And stayed away. And when I came back, it was all over, no more calls, no more...well, whatever.

And here he was, in front of me, as big as life. You know the funny thing my darling? The funny thing is that I was busy thinking I should be feeling way more than this. This big fat empty NOTHING.

But one of the very few good things you've done is to erase his face. I looked and looked and tried to see now what I saw then. But I couldn't. He was as thin as paper, as transparent as fog, and just as wet. We saw each other, we knew we saw each other, and we walked on, going about our ways without much concern. Maybe I'll turn into an anecdote to one of his female admirers. I can't bring myself to feel sorry for them because they keep on keeping on, knowing what he is. He will tell them how I've shrunk and shrivelled into this old version of me. Maybe they will laugh together talking about it, before they plant one pair of lips on another, for one big wet sloppy kiss. Her soft and unresisting, him redolent with cigarette smoke and a really really foul body odour.

I am vaguely aware of what I look like now. Not that it bothers me much when I don't think of you. But when I do, I sigh, sit down and cover my face. All the money in the world won't change this face. It may make me a little more presentable. But not enough. Never enough for you.

When I'm with you I wish I was beautiful. Beautiful enough for you to see me. But one good thing about this face is that it allows me to fade. Fade into the background. You don't see me. But nobody else does either.

So I read my books and mark my time and write this letter to you that you'll never read.

Maybe now I'll move on to Didion. But I also have Calvino. And Joseph Heller.

Decisions, decisions.

The Truth The Lonely Know

I want to mark this day, this hour, somewhere. Here. Why not? After all, this is a more permanent mark than my frantic scribbles in the air. Air evaporates into nothingness and my words fly away.

I finished Lighthousekeeping today. My third Jeanette Winterson in as many days. These books sat on my desk for years. I can't remember how many. I let them gather dust. And now, in one fell swoop, I am devouring them, blood, bone and gristle.

Written on the Body. The Passion. Lighthousekeeping.

And before that Robert Graves. Goodbye to All That. And before that, Evelyn Waugh. Decline and Fall. Brideshead Revisited.

And now I'm thinking of the one remaining Joan Didion on my table. But I shall settle for Chekhov instead.

This is the truth the lonely know. We people our world with creatures of other people's imaginations. We choose the people. We drown in the words. We switch off the light and turn off the tv and say, no more. We withdraw from life. We sit in cafes with a notebook, a book and rueful smile.

We sit in bars alone, watching. Waiting. In the quiet dark, for something, someone to spring. No, not the one with the clumsy thoughts, clumsy hands, eyes like dishcloths, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Not him. Not her.

We listen. Not for the endless interminable conversations full of meaningless drivel, dribble, drip, drip, drip, a leaky faucet somewhere...somebody turn it off. Turn off the main.

Oh for God's sake, shut up!

This is the truth the lonely know.

We could choose to be part of the pageant but the pageant no longer makes sense to us and we choose not to.

The dark envelops, overwhelms, comforts, caresses.

And we fall asleep.

Circles

I intended to stay an hour but I barely stayed half. I saw the boyfriend and went up to him with a smile and a hug and gave him my card. He said, you alone? I said, how long have you known me? Haven't I always been alone? And he smiled.

There are circles. And circles within circles. I sit outside the circle.

I sit alone.

I make my way along the outer rim and grab a seat. Order a tepid Coke because I don't want beer. And those are the only choices with the cover charge.

Singing.

It's nice here, outdoors, feels like the beach. That's what it's supposed to feel like.

The boyfriend comes up to me after a while, his plate full of greasy food that he really shouldn't be having, not with his arteries in the condition they are. He feels sorry for me, sitting all alone, so he chats.

I see you there. Dazzling as usual. I see you there but you don't see me. And then you do. You see the both of us chatting. And you raise one hand in acknowledgement and disappear into a crowd, swallowed up by your popularity.

Within all those circles.

I sit outside.

It's not an hour yet, the time I've given myself to be here, but I cannot take it. I'm not as strong as I thought.

I hug the boyfriend, say I only came for a little while, I only came to show my support. He smiles and nods. He understands.

I leave.

Large gasping breaths, but I make my way demurely to the car I parked far away because I didn't think I'd find a place here.

Farther and farther from the circle containing you.

The Heart Asks The Pleasure First

My darling, a card lies drying on my table. It's for your boyfriend. Well, one of them. The only one I liked.

He of the broken heart, externalised. I made him a card I will put in his hand tomorrow if I see him. Along with some money. Very little. I have very little money on me at the moment.

But what is money, anyway? It's everything when you need it to pay for an operation. It's everything when without that operation, you die.

He looks at me, we acknowledge each other's presence. We're not enemies, but allies in this scourge. We both dove for cover, we tried to self protect, but you were relentless.

Lustrous, shining, as hard as diamond, we threw ourselves against you, and we ended up...

Well you saw how we ended up.

Him nearly dead. Me still dying.

I will put this card into his hand, with the appropriate sentiment. (Did you know I've taken to painting? It makes me feel closer to you. You used to paint, once upon a time)

But how does one commiserate a fellow broken heart?

I say, follow your heart.

But should he? Look where it got him.

Look where it got me.

My darling, when the paint dries, I shall outline the words, Happy Heart Day which surround a blood red heart. The rest of it I painted swirly waves of pink and yellow. Just because.

And I shall write inside:

The heart is so easily mocked, believing that the sun can rise twice or that roses bloom because we want them to. In between freezing and melting. In between love and despair. In between fear and sex, passion is.

And I'll give it to him.

But I mean it for you.

I Follow

I've taken to hiding behind doors and pictures to get a glimpse of her. Skin like silk and a face as limpid as plasticine.

We don't always get to choose what we fall in love with. Or whom. I meant whom.

I listen to her voice in my head and us talking, only it's not us, it's her, I'm silent catching the words as they fall from her lips, saphires to be stored away, sweet saphires I pop into my mouth, sultry saphires that taste of midnight.

Ah, but the moon is orange tonight. And unreadable. And you saw me hiding behind the picture and turned and smiled.

Why was I following you around?

I'm sorry. I thought if I did it quietly, unobstrusively, you wouldn't mind, you wouldn't notice.

And you offer me a glass full of blood. No, wait, it's wine. Yes, wine.

Drink up, you say.

So I do.

I always do.

If you told me to dive into my wineglass I would.

That's how much.

And then you've filled my glass again. I didn't see you do it. I was not looking. You always do things when I'm not looking.

She laughs, her teeth glinting like teardrops. Oh my, but it's wonderful here, in this world that shifts and wobbles and bears me up like waves. Motion. Motion is all I have.

I don't have her. You. You're just a dream and I'm not talking to you here. Not really. You're too beautiful and you only see other beautiful people.

I don't love you. I drown in you. You've taken my volition and I find myself grinning stupidly.

Oh my, but I have no volition. So I follow her dumbly, ducking behind doorways like she hasn't already seen me, accepting glasses of wine when she does, because that's all I know how to do.

I follow.

Love, love, love...

So are you to my thoughts, as food to life,
Or as sweet season'd showers are to the ground...

Love, love, love...

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire...

Love, love, love...

Don't turn around, don't smile at me, don't beckon and please, please, please...

Don't love me back.

The Afternoon After

First, I assume the position. My version of the lotus. And as I sit, I allow the horrors to beat over my head. Primarily self loathing, but Suzuki says, to observe your breathing, and just let it be. So I let it be. I step outside and look at myself, a piece of scrap on the junkyard of life, and just...let it be.

Of course, the mother of all hangovers doesn't seem to work. I'm just thinking about my next drink.

But instead, I take my laptop and start typing. I have to do the various morning (afternoon) chores and then I'll write some more of the "history" section of my book. Flawed, but then, what is editing for if not to correct flawed copy?

Wish someone would edit me, but I resist all editing from anyone, however close or distant. If I had a guru I would probably kick her in the balls.

The screaming keeps on screaming. My head is a cage of spiders. I spit out a large glob of green silk and watch as I weave my phlegm from one point in the window to the next.

Pretty webs. Pretty pretty webs. Why should spiders have all the fun? For that matter, why should cockroaches?

Sit. Breathe. Observe calmly.

Never mind tonight.

I won't think about tonight.

And last night is just a blur. We are supposed to forget. Memory is not our friend.

Let me rephrase that.

Memory is not MY friend.

Wasted Away Again in Margaritaville

It's been awhile since I got smashed, since I dove from a skylight into a puddle, since, since...I forgot what I was about to say.

This is pleasant, this softening of colours, the familiar smells, sweet and noxious, the pain that reaches into my marrow and slams me to the floor.

Do I weep?

Do I vomit?

Decisions, decisions...

There's something vaguely cleansing about the whole thing. Like a benediction. I look out of my little corner and smile sweetly at the blurred, indistinct figures all around.

Ah, someone is talking to me, but I can't hear over the noise (music?)and my ears are already blocked from the absinthe. Who is that? Is he looking down my front? What am I wearing again?

I glance down, oh dear, acres of cleavage.

I want to lean back, but that wouldn't be a good idea. I might fall and there would be no one to catch me. Because I'm here alone. As always. Alone. I don't mind. You get used to it after awhile. I just wish that guy would get his face off my chest. It's slightly uncomfortable. I know I'm supposed to be outraged but find it difficult to care.

Yet.

I'll care tomorrow.

And maybe I should take a walk outside because, because, because, I could keep the rats company and wave at strangers and sing to myself....

Wasted again in Margaritaville
Searching for my last shaker of salt
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame
But I know, it's my own damn fault.

And Then Silence

I choose to. I don't choose to. Those are the only answers we ever need. We don't have to explain, there's no one out there important enough to deserve an explanation.

And yet we find ourselves stumbling over words trying to justify a course of action that has nothing to do with the person we're trying to justify it to.

When really, the only words we need are:

Because I choose to.

Because I don't choose to.

Deep breath.

And then, silence.

I Tawt I Thaw a Puddy Tat

So there I was, seated at the traffic police section of the police headquarters, waiting for my number to be called, deep into Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, the short, short chapter on control. I liked the way this book was laid out and the short chapters (from which Natalie Goldberg got her inspiration to write Writing Down the Bones) and I didn't bother to check my wallet to see if I had enough money to pay for the fine.

Of course, the only reason I was fined in the first place was that in an attempt to get away from home and work somewhere else, I had taken myself to a nearby Starbucks and parked illegally so as not to pay the exorbitant parking rates there. Nothing as exorbitant as what I would have to be forking out now for my fine.

Somewhere at the back of my mind I was vaguely aware of a RM50 note in my wallet so I was none too fussed about it. I didn't even bother to check.

Finally my number was called and as I dug into my wallet and ran my finger through the notes, I swallowed nervously. No, it couldn't be. There was RM26 there, two 10s and six singles. What about the RM50?

I checked and re-checked and in the meantime the police cashier starting getting restive. I mean, it was only RM30 for crying out loud. Surely I had that much on me?

I didn't.

Actually I did if I counted the coins, but I was way too flustered to think of pouring out all the coins and counting out RM4. So I asked if they accepted credit cards, she said they didn't, gave me back my summons and I removed myself from there with all speed.

All the way home I fumed. How could I have lost that RM50? I ran my mind over all the things I had bought in the past few days since I last visited an ATM machine and took out RM100. Well, there was that RM10 that I had to add to the credit card payment. And then there was RM2.05 for that card to Helen, the card, mind you, that I had made myself (no more am I going to fork out impossible amounts for Hallmark). And then there was that RM5.15 for water (the cheapest thing I could buy to sit at Starbucks). And today, there was about RM12.05 at the grocers for a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter and grape jelly. How much did that come to? Oh yeah, and there was RM3 that first day, for a loaf of multigrain bread. (have since decided to shift to white because it's cheaper, lasts longer, and I'm nearly out of money till my next cheque which, knowing this company, will take its time in coming).

So that was little over RM30. I know I had some money left when I withdrew RM100 on Sunday. Where could it have gone? Where could I have dropped it? I ran through various scenarios in my mind as I drove home, completely flummoxed.

When I got home, I overturned my large large bag and set to work. Checked every compartment of my voluminous wallet (emptying it of sundry receipts, hey lookie here...there's the receipt for RM180 for the passel of books I bought from Kino just Friday...oh well, books, you know...it's not a waste of money, it's a tax deduction) I carefully put away the receipt in the envelope marked "Book Receipts 2010" in my tax file. (Yeah, who knew I could be so organised...that filing cabinet changed my life, it did)

And then, there was a faint glimmer of light. Or the cousin of light. I didn't withdraw RM100 on Sunday. I withdrew RM50. Which meant that...I was lucky to have the RM26 in my wallet at all.

Oh dear. I thought of the chapter on control that I read, which urged us to watch our chaotic thoughts, just observe and do nothing about them, feel nothing about them. The first two chapters had to do with posture (fail) and breathing (also fail).

So I sat down, all Zen-like, acknowledged that I had messed up, made myself a pot of tea, and settled down before our rather large television set, popped in a DVD of random Grizzly Adams episodes, and read my Robert Graves memoir.

Now it's Sergeant Bilko on. And I guess I'll read some of my notes.

Just Zenning in the Rain.

What I Really Really Want

1. Seeds from a Birch Tree - Clark Strand.

2. Both seasons of Grizzly Adams.

3. To paint a picture full of purple and yellow.

4. Time to simply read my poetry books and not worry about highways.

I Thought I Heard You Laugh

You were always a joyous creature, a child of laughter, a lighthearted soul, and if you had to go, I wish you had gone simply, sweetly, like falling asleep after a long day.

I would have had you laughing till the end. Not diminished until your voice thin and tired barely made it across the phone line that last birthday, when so many miles away, I called.

It was the last time we spoke. You said you were ready to go. Immolated by the blaze of radiation, poisoned by the chemo and then, the two strokes.

Now I understand that you had to go. But I wish you had chosen some other way. I wish you had believed in a merciful God, I wish the angels had carried you off lightly, like a song, half-remembered, like the flutter of butterfly wings, like the whisper of mist. I would have waved goodbye and it wouldn't have hurt so much.

I know you're in a better place now, but your going the way you did has left a bitter corner in my heart.

So today I take back your death. I erase the pain, the deterioration, the indignity of it all.

No!

You stepped into another room.

You dissolved into light.

And I thought I heard you laugh.