The Thing That Lies Underneath

Wow. My last post was at the beginning of this month. Way to go in terms of a long, long time between posts. Most of the time I've felt pretty crummy and a failure...as it becomes more and more obvious that I don't belong here.

Trying too hard is trying too hard. It does not equate with getting anywhere.

For everyone else this whole deal seems to be effortless. When was it effortless for me? Surely there was a time I could remember generating stories. I remember going for networking events and meeting people. I remember going all out and enjoying it.

Now I sit in an office and stew. I don't seem to do much. Just stew.

I have been asked to dust off my CV.

It's just one of those things. In the road to nowhere, you always wish you had already arrived. Right now, I don't know where to go, which direction to take and I trip myself by trying to go in two directions at one.

There is the thing.

And the thing that lies beneath the semblance of the thing.

The thing that lies underneath.

Free, Free, Set Them Free

I'm at work now (but of course, where else?) and I've just finished my first piece on warrants (it was hard and I hardly understood what I was doing and the nice deputy editor took my hand, walked me through it and made a few suggestions so I end the night feeling a little less like a piece of crap than I did earlier). Everyone else had given in their fixtures and I was just...just...well I forgot I had warrants to do. Why couldn't they give me a coffee break? I would have rocked that, no problem. Because I like talking about nothing in particular. Only rules, it has to be vaguely economic, and make you laugh.

So there.

We talked the down market till we were blue in the face.

Technical correction today but the mood is still sombre.

And so, two days ago, I heard in my head this little voice from more than 20 years ago...and it said...Jennifer, you forgot to wish me....and it was said in a sweet hopeful tone. What did I do? Bear that I was, just down for breakfast I bit her head off. And got (rightly so) mauled by my Mom for doing it. And then I called her upstairs and presented her with the presents I said I didn't buy and the little thing was happy again. (I have much to answer for)

I have been thinking lately about how much shit in my life is my fault. And how when I do something wrong, I'm not just content to leave it but I have to take it, worry it and make it worse.

And how many relationships I have dropped hand grenades on. Nuclear power. Explode!

I feel guilty and I know that guilt is not a positive emotion, I mean it doesn't build you up, doesn't DO anything...doesn't repair anything.

And so I picked up a piece that I had worked on, on and off, for about 15 years. Nicely framed. And I couldn't, just couldn't bring myself to give it to her. Not after what's happened. Not after we've become worse than strangers.

I feel tired now. And I woke up feeling sick.

And everybody's cigarette smoke keeps getting in my eyes, my throat, my lungs...and I cough and cough and sneeze and sneeze.

And my Arnold boy is back in hospital because the pus was building up again the two holes had closed up. Now they punctured him again. This time the holes are bigger...but the infection runs so deep.

He's happy when he sees me and he wants me to take him home. I didn't go play with him today cos I was at work. And I feel sad and guilty about it while reminding myself that there are no positive attributes to guilt...it's just ugly and painful.

I keep hearing these words over and over in my head:

Your love is a cage.

And I wonder who is saying it to me. Is it Arnold? Is it Mark? Is it one of my friends?

My love is a cage. So how do I open it?

Re-organising My Life

You know what I was doing yesterday? I was refiling my journals in a box I had bought for the purpose. Basically my filing cabinet is imploding under pressure. And refiling journals from so many years (OK there are some serious gaps in 2006 and 2007, bad years, bad years all round) is fun.

I found an excerpt, a story I wrote that I thought I would post here but basically, I lost it again, shuffling around and organising my 20 or so journals.

I am redoing my room. I figure if I organise the space a little better it would be less likely to descend into chaos in just a week. My desk is covered in stuff. My side table is covered in stuff. My dressing table is covered in stuff.

Clearly what I need, as Sheldon would put it, is a new organisational paradigm.

So on Saturday (or was it Sunday?) I went out and bought two Ikea type boxes. So I could transfer my journals and my cards/wrapping paper/present stuff from my overstuffed filing cabinet. So far, as you know, I've only transferred the journals. But even sorting that out was a huge victory. Maybe today I'll transfer the cards and all. That should be fun. Am wondering whether to put those filing inserts to separate old cards from new cards and fresh wrapping paper etc in the box. The problem with putting those separations in is that I then can't close the box...so the fancy box cover goes to waste.

Anyway, that's not all I did over the weekend. I also went and ordered a cupboard and a single bed. I figure with a single bed, I'd have more room to maneuver in the room. And once it's come and I've dismantled the clunky double bed, donated the mattress to some charitable cause and sent the frame to Addy who asked for it for her guest bedroom, I have space for another bookshelf (I always stand in need of bookshelves.

And I've ordered a new wardrobe. The one I have is falling apart so I am giving it up and moving on up, wardrobe-wise. It would be nice to finally have something that finally fits all my clothes and allows me to separate home/out/work (work being the important bit).

I interviewed my friend Theresa about decluttering and she told me about how she decided some 18 months ago, not to buy a single additional piece of clothing (underclothing and shoes not included in this ban because they tend to wear out), a single book or any of those accessories such as earrings, which she used to be addicted to. I will be featuring the interview on my other blog, The Bright Side, when I do a decluttering week, which should be coming up very soon. In fact, she put a box in her closet and everytime she decided she would not be wearing a piece of clothing, it would go into the box, and when the box was full, she would load it in the car and drive to TMC where she would dump it in one of those "for charity" recycling bins. Likewise with books. As for papers, she allocated a day a week when she would go through her mail, file what was necessary and run everything else through her newly purchased paper-shredder. The shredded paper would similarly be stuffed in one of those paper recycling bins and could also be used as stuffing whenever she wanted to pack anything.

The sum total of this was a great feeling of well-being.

There are the pack rats and there are the minimalists. I guess I'm somewhere in between, because I do get sentimental about certain things and when I'm in one of my spring cleaning modes and give them away, I pine for them some years down the road when I suddenly remember.

So I guess one of the purchases that I will have to add would be a memory box. Although I'd be pretty fussy about what qualifies for it.

I guess I would like to be a little (make that a lot) more organised. My life is truly, "pieces of paper, that I'll get back to later..." and it seems to be about scrambling week to week to make the quota and avert crises, rather than having some plan as to how I am going to tackle said week, with equanimity.

I wanted to update this because it's been a while and the last time I wrote here I was spiralling downwards and guess what...I hit rock bottom, stayed there for a while and then started the long descent out.

Life is what you make of it.

And suicide is no longer an option.

Strangers

Sometimes you are walking along a passage. It's dark. Alongside there are people, standing, watching you. All strangers. Unfamiliar in a way that breaks your heart. Their expressions are neutral, blank. They see you without seeing you. And you pass them without seeing them.

No spark of recognition. No spark of warmth. No spark at all.

And once in a while you may suddenly see someone. A face. A gesture. An expression. And you stop and turn. And your heart fills with joy.

It's someone. You know. You love. Perhaps family. Perhaps more.

And you look closely...but they melt into smoke. And you think you must have just imagined it. That spark of recognition. That slight uplift of spirits. Yes, you must have.

And you walk on wearier than before. Because for that tiny moment there was hope. That this darkness would lift. Some light. Some joy. Some tenderness. Some love.

But maybe this journey is solitary. Maybe there is meant to be no recognition. Only blank faces against a beige wall that fade into indifference.

And maybe, for now, this is all it's supposed to be.

Trapped

What I most feel now is trapped by my life.

What I most want now is to escape.

Again.

Four Stops

It's five in the morning and I've been awake for I don't know how long. I went to sleep drunk. Instead of passing out, I slept lightly and fitfully. So I look at illuminated dials of the tiny clock on my overflowing bedside table. It's quarter to. Maybe I'll sleep some more.

But no. Sleep eludes me. Red wine killed sleep like Macbeth. So maybe I will go back to JB after all. I'm wide awake. And so I text Esther who's in KL. Yes, at five. Surprisingly the text goes through. Usually when people are asleep they switch off their phones. And I get a little alert to say that the phone has been switched off, but no worries, it will be delivered as soon as they switch on the phone.

An hour later (an hour of me, tossing on those twisted sheets, full of bees, empty of sleep) Esther answers. She said "Also can. What time were you thinking?"

And I say, I'm packing now (actually I'm still in bed). I can be over to pick you up in half an hour. And she flails helplessly. No, no, no. I have to get out of bed, shower, etc.

So anyway, I'm supposed to pick her up at quarter to seven. Fine by me. I loll in bed some more. And then get up and rush through packing etc. Arnold is jumping up and down because he thinks, ooooooooh, early walk. But it is not to be and I feel a little guilty because I haven't taken him out for a walk once this week. Not even once.

I pick Esther up. And so begins our fateful journey. We agree not to have breakfast before we leave. No, we'll wait till we get to the rest-stop at Ayer Keroh (about 100kms into our journey to make our first stop).

It is not to be. Esther had a bad night. Her note to self: Don't drink bad-ass coffee at 10 at night. Not if you want some sleep. She had just been falling into a deep sleep when the text came through. And after that I'd killed her sleep. So she was kinda groggy.

First stop. Toilet break.

Second stop: She needed to throw up.

Third stop: Breakfast.

Fourth stop: I needed to take a nap as after breakfast, sleep came over me, like a wave, like a whirpool, like the mists of Avalon. I started to drive erratically. Forcing my eyes open while my breakfast was forcing them closed. Enough. I pulled up at the next rest stop. Left the car running while Esther and I closed our eyes.

Immediate REM sleep. In fact, it was so deep that I started dreaming. And then I heard a voice. "The aircon will get hot if you keep it on while the car is stationary."

I jolted out of sleep, heart racing and looked around. Esther was still curled up on her side, but she was awake. The sound of a nearby lorry had disturbed her dreams. And she woke up to find some guy at a nearby car staring at the both of us, sleeping there, in the bright daylight, in front of God and everybody.

But the nap did the trick. I was awake now. And raring to go. I drove at about 120 most of the way. Sometimes 115. Esther chattered on pleasantly and then fell silent. When I finally asked her something, she mumbled. Apparently she was trying to keep it down. Gastric juices rising.

But we made it to JB without incident. And then I deposited her at her doorstep, pale and sweating, looking ill. She texted me to say, hey, you wanna go do a hair spa. (I said, what I really want to do is sleep). And then she texted again to say, hey, I can't do hair spa, am giddy.

The JB air worked its magic. Soon I was stumbling downstairs, a little less sleep-befuddled. And there was lunch. Delicious. And then it was time to take my dogs for a walk. We walked slowly, leisurely and they responded well to terms of endearment rather than my usual short, sharp barks and brandishing a stick. (Arnold has changed me). And then I was off to Giant for a bout of shopping for my mother.

And then it was home again, home again, jiggety jig. With a copy of The Edge and I made the Big M read my article and comment on it. It was an Options article (meaning lifestyle) and the kind of thing she liked (to say nothing of the fact that the dude I interviewed is Johorean and Catholic, two factors that raise him in her estimation) so she read the article and enjoyed it and then told me (because I asked her) why she enjoyed it.

Only my Mummy!

I've got to get to bed now as we're going to the market tomorrow. And then I have a meeting. And then, in the evening, I return to clanging cymbals that is KL where I self-medicate to tune out (not that it helps but I do it anyway).

Later for you.

It's The Forever Bit

This has been a year of death, loved ones disappear, like they're passing into another room, not to reappear, and you wait and wait and realise they're not coming back. I was out at the pub today and I left early, tired. It's my third day on the two o'clock shift and this shift has a tendency of getting to you. And I'd read earlier that my friend Vivian's mother had passed on. Earlier this year it was my friend Alison's husband. And the sadness grew in me as I reached out into the ether to hold on to something, a wisp of smoke, a banished thought, a memory...and felt it all slip away.

And I wrote this. For them. And for all who've lost someone. Including me.

If you asked me
I'd tell you
It's the forever bit
I have trouble with

It's the little things
I stumble over
as I go about my day
catch myself
look up for a smile
and then remember

You won't be there
to smile at me
and if you are
I can't see you
and if you are
I can't feel you
and if you are
I can't disappear
into your arms
the way I always do
the way I always have
exhaling slowly
breathing in your scent

Because you won't
you just won't
be there.

So if you asked me
I'd tell you
It's the forever bit
I'm having trouble with.

Is Someone Trying to Tell Me Something?

I received this from The Universe today. It's noteworthy enough for me to include it here:

Some, Jennifer, are better loved from a distance.

For a while, anyway.

And that's OK.

The Universe

Besides, Jennifer, love doesn't really know the difference.

Oh What A Night!

Drunk again, Monday night, Backyard, what can I say - except that this time Ravin and Gerrick were with me...it was supposed to be Yongie but when he heard that I was on the two o'clock shift and finished only at ten, he begged off. Addy was tired. Anita was at home with her favourite boys.

So Ravin said, Backyard tonight? And I said, sure thing...except that I finish late. He said it didn't matter.

And so there we went. And talked. And listened. And when they left and Mark was still playing, I wrote the following:

Just another untethered soul
in this bleak, smoky bar
I sit with my glass of wine
and my sadness
and listen to the
flickering sounds of the band
it's night here because
it's always night
time for bed
time for oblivion
and the lights
flame briefly and die
and slowly I fade
because it's over now.

It's over.

Novocaine and the Effects, Thereof

I've finally figured it out. When I'm not on the payroll, when I'm suitably unchained and can pick up and go, my feelings are in deep freeze. Slippery as a trout nothing sticks, which is the attraction of not working, or freelancing, in the first place.

But when I'm "attached" to someone or something, so to speak, everything goes into thaw and I fall apart.

I drink too much.

I sleep too little.

I cry too much.

I eat too little.

And I fall apart. And I fall apart. And I fall apart.

The centre cannot hold.

Do you know how difficult it is to get the centre to hold when I carefully inject myself with novocaine and walk around feeling nothing, knowing that after the area is un-numbed it's going to be excruciating?

Well, the novocaine has dwindled. I'm starting to feel.

And it feels like a fucking root canal.

The alcohol isn't helping.

It never does.

I wonder why I keep doing it when it never helped before and will never help. Darkness creeps in through the edges and I wish I could find a way out again.

It's OK not to be OK.

I'm not OK.

Abandon

In an hour I have to be at a friend's house for dinner. She's making/buying lamb. She invited me to break bread with her. We are close. We love each other. That's the way it is with friends. The people who love me seems to grow less as years pass by. And I'm learning to treasure those who do. Make time for them. Spend time with them.

Go to Zeta bar and WIP with them if they want to, even if I feel like a fish out of water there.

My dog lies here, next to me, reveling in his time with me. He has hardly spent any time with me during the whole week. I was out all week (except Tuesday), drinks after work, drinks, drinks, drinks...it could fill a mountain, but drinks, drinks, drinks...do not fill the emptiness inside...there's a hole and it burns and I fall down into it endlessly and I don't seem to be able to find the bottom.

So Arnold got a walk on Tuesday and Tuesday, I didn't come home drunk way past midnight.

Well I feel deep in your heart
there are wounds time can't heal
and I feel somebody somewhere
is trying to breathe

(so free her, so free her, so free her)

And a friend calls me up and says, hey Jenn, you wanna come for a drink? We're going to have tapas tonight at Changkat.

And he said it so naturally, just as if I was real, just as if I existed and I was charmed and I said I'd try to make it but it would be late, late, late.

And Arnold lies here, on the cold floor, with his body turned away from me, just waiting for me to leave again. Abandon him. The way I always do.

The way, everyone always does.

I Wish Words Were Enough

One day I am going to compile a book of poems, most of which were written when I was at Backyard, floating on glasses and glasses of red wine. Yesterday I decided to go home after Mark's first set was over and I'd had two glasses of wine, which is kinda like my limit. But Jerry was sitting there with Deep, whom I've not seen in donkey's years, so of course I joined them, happily. And Jerry said, give her another drink. And I said no, no thanks, going home now. Gotta go take Arnold for a walk.

Instead I sat there and had that wine. And then another.

And then I went and sat at one of those triangular tables in front to watch Mark's last set up close. And I scribbled down a poem because I was on this side of maudlin. It happens when it happens. And there ain't nothing you can do about it.

Past midnight
on my fourth wine
Mark's playing
ain't no sunshine
I'm trying to remember
why I don't kill myself
because life is worth living?
even if there is no love
even if there are no lovers
and it's not over
even if it feels like it is
ain't no sunshine
but there's the yellow moon
and there are the words
I wish words were enough.

Blow by Blow

Yesterday at the office, feelings were running high. Two of my colleagues are members of Bersih, the coalition of NGOs calling for electoral reforms. They were pledged to go march peacefully to the Merdeka Stadium today to present a list of demands to the King. Free and fair elections doesn't seem to be asking for too much.

Not so. This group has been labelled everything from traitors to rabble rousers to anti-Islam. Our dear Prime Minister, in the meantime, launched the MRT project and promptly fled the country to the UK from where he sends asinine tweets such as rumours that Bersih supporters have somehow gotten a hold of submarines and are rising up from the waters in the Klang Valley rivers.

I mean to say what?

I think the moment that got to me the most yesterday was when my two colleagues were explaining calmly to the others who wanted to tag along (but who were unprepared for policy brutality) what to do, if the police started shooting tear gas into the crowd.

Apparently, you step out of the gas, breathe for a bit, allow the choking and tearing to cease and then continue along the way. Don't run because that would cause you to inhale more gas.

If they started shooting with rubber bullets, nothing for it...just run!

The one sitting next to me is only 25 years old. She had been jumpy all day. Not able to concentrate on her story about a quasi-banking group. I heard Anna, who had to go through her story (Shan deciding to take the day off and take his wife on holiday) scolding her. She came back to her place and looked up various things to beef up the story that she really didn't care about.

(Do you know how difficult it is to write something when you really don't give a damn? And your heart is about to jump out of your chest? And all the adrenaline is running so high it's screwing up your brain?)

I do.

Anyway, when she was about to leave she opened her desk drawer, took out, of all things, some scotch tape, left the desk drawer open, left her recording equipment out in the open, hands shaking, and walked out of the office after asking us, where to catch a bus.

No one knew.

We're not an office (or a generation) of bus-takers.

But the roadblocks had started and the roads were like carparks. KL was on lockdown. Buses were allowed. (Although most were forced to stop at some point outside the city) Taxies were allowed (but told to be careful who they picked up). LRTs were still running. But slowly, a cordon was being drawn around the capital.

Policemen thronged the roads which were becoming increasingly empty as the office goers and no one was allowed in.

Pretty soon, there was a tweet from her. "Naik bas."

And then sometime during the night, she was at her hotel room in Petaling Street. Booked ahead. Credit card number given over the phone. And she even tweeted that she had an extra room in case anyone required it.

And this morning, after watching phlegmatically, the police who have been told to show no mercy have been firing tear gas and water cannons into the crowd. But it's like something out of Les Miserables. The crowd waits to recover from the effects and then it marches on.

Do you hear the people sing
singing a song of angry men
it is the music of a people
who will not be slaves again...

The police are being compared to Dementors, the Nazgul, the...I mean, do we need any more comparisons? One tweet showed a pix of the legless (an old uncle who had lost his feet and was making his way along on crutches) marching against the heartless.

And the latest tweet says they have just arrested Ambiga Sreenivasan and the Bersih leaders.

When my colleague was leaving yesterday, hands shaking, she turned and looked at me.

"It will be unprecedented."

No, she was not fearless.

She was so afraid that her whole body was shaking in reaction. Having marched in the anti-ISA rally two years ago, she had no illusions about peaceful marches in Malaysia.

And in the face of all that fear, all those threats, all the roadblocks, everything..she was going anyway.

One of her tweets of what she heard the police say:

"Bodoh, tak le ajar. Ah, lawan lagi, ahhhhh."

(Stupid, cannot be taught. Ah, fight again, ahhhhhh)

Whatever they were prepared for, they were not prepared for this.

They were practising for July 9...but even they couldn't have practised shooting tear gas at a maternity hospital.

I mean, come one.

Enough is enough.

Change is happening whether they like it or not.

After They Embalmed You

After they embalmed you
put ice cubes in your veins
and turned your skin to marble
and your eyes to stones

After they embalmed you
you sat there like a king

and you said come
so I came
and sat beside you
quiet, sad, unafraid.

And you said, kiss me
and I did
your cold cold lips
and your fingers like ice

And I wondered why
you still wanted this
after they embalmed you
after you were dead.

And I shivered
in your embrace
because your hands were
lips were
feet were
heart was
cold.

Cleaner

It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside...

Sometimes you don't know when something is going to hit. There is no warning, no build-up, and suddenly you move from zero to fury in about a nanosecond. And even while it's happening, and just after...you have no idea what set you off and why you're behaving, to not put too fine a point on it, like an absolute bitch!

And then you walk into work, the weight of all the work you neglected to do over the weekend hanging over you, the weight of your behaviour last night (oh yes, your behaviour) hanging over you, the weight of the SMS which is saying, sorry Jen, don't mean to push you but we really really need the draft (and you have no idea what to write) hanging over you.

And somebody has left a copy of the weekly on your desk. And in that moment everything transforms. And the dark funk you have been walking around under...the funk you built up last night with your utterly irrational behaviour...suddenly dissipates and you feel...I'm with friends now.

The chatter rises, falls, friendly chatter...no malice, no forethought...just people swapping stories, catching up, talking about the great march planned for the weekend, talk about wearing yellow, talk about silly houses that look like cakes, talk about, talk about...

And it washes over you. And suddenly you're clean again.

And it's a good feeling.

Holding My Hand

It's weird. He's holding my hand and instead of the warmth I know I'm supposed to feel, I just want to snatch it away. No matter how hard I try to pretend, this is just wrong.

Wrong.

And hours later, I hold my own hand and there it is; the warmth I was missing from contact with another human being. I feel it holding my own hand. I want to hold my hand longer and think about this for a while, and revel in that feeling, that feeling of being held, but I can't.

I'm at work and I need to use my hand for other things.

Like writing my stories.

So I struggle. I struggle against the need to need. I struggle against the need for external validation.

"Hey, so what did you think of my story? The one about you?"

"You mean it's out? Sorry Jen, still haven't read it."

And I deflate like a balloon, like a punctured football...and think, oh well, never mind. I liked my own story anyway.

And I'll hold my own hand.

It's The Story Of...

I've just finished writing my first cover. For the main magazine. I also wrote the cover for the lifestyle portion but that I finished on Monday. (Efficient, girl, efficient, efficient). I now have to write the sidebars to go with the main story.

Instead, I am rummaging through my various bags trying to find my iPod. No cigar. I must have left it at home when I tumbled out the contents of my bag onto my bed. My phone battery is on its last legs. Forgot that it was time to charge it last night. And this is a battery that goes from hero to zero in about a split second. No warning.

I wish I could have gone and hung out with Mark last night. Mark and friends, that is. They were celebrating his last day at the Concorde. There was to be lots and lots of alcohol and no one was supposed to remember anything in the morning. But if you're doing the cover, you don't go party with your friends (especially if you've already been out partying twice that week).

I am constantly pickled. So much so that I burp up red wine during lunch time and think...hmmmm.

I'm relatively OK with my story. I scribbled it out at Sids in Taman Tun yesterday, whence I repaired when my clogged brain was just not giving me any love at the office. The moment I sat down and smelled the familiar fumes, I called for a pipe and I called for a bowl and I called for my fiddlers three...no, I actually called for some paper and started to write furiously. I got the intro. The second para. The third para. All the stuff that required quotes I put up a ... I scribbled a three-page long story (complete with ellipsis) And somewhere through my pen ran out of ink which is no problem when you know the manager and Rick let me borrow the pub's pen which meant that for the duration I was scribbling away, all of them were sharing one pen.

(Journalists really ought to carry spare pens and name cards - also paper...I am a disgrace to journalists).

I received a call from the PA I had trouble with a couple of weeks ago. Or was it last week? Time seems to travel so quickly over here, that:

I thought I saw a Rattlesnake
That questioned me in Greek:
I looked again, and found it was
The Middle of Next Week.
'The one thing I regret,' I said,
'Is that it cannot speak!'

Yeah, that kind of thing. There I am strolling along in the balmy weekend and suddenly I'm kicked into the middle of next week. It's an unsettling feeling. Alcohol may have something to do with it, especially the blood of grapes.

Anyway bout the PA: she said that she loved, she simply loved my story about her boss and that all the staff including him, were very excited about it, and that it was very well written, and we should do tea sometime and she would come to my office because her husband works in the next building and she would come over with him and we could have tea and she could pick up the paper with the story that they missed...and...and...and

OK I'm going to go look for coffee now. I'll walk, clear my head, come back and write the two side stories.

That's what you do when your mind is a labyrinth, a torrent of swirled threads, tangled, tangled, tangled....who is that again? Is there someone on the outside looking in?

The Lady Next Door

There's something going on with the lady next door. Only I don't know what. She has been there for years, and I notice her without noticing her. I notice the children she babysits (kind of like background music because they spend a good deal of the time bawling their heads off), I notice the friends she has over (and old lady), I notice her getting thinner and thinner, I notice her going out with a girl, for lunch.

I notice without noticing.

And recently her "husband" who left her and went to China came back, all smiley and pleased with himself. He had his new wife and little baby in tow. Proudly showed them off. Here, right under his wife's nose. His first wife, that is. He showed up just after the disaster in Japan, when the radiation could have spread to China. He showed up and just expected to be put up. I don't know what happened but he was there a few days and suddenly wasn't there anymore.

I couldn't believe he could do that to her. To not only leave her like that, but to show up and rub her neighbours' faces into his new life. This was a nice guy, a smiley guy, it didn't seem like the kind of thing that he would do.

But then, he didn't seem like the kind of guy who would ditch his wife and take off with some nubile young thing.

And he did.

And she grew thinner and thinner. She took in these spoiled, annoying kids to make ends meet. Kids who would start screaming their heads off the moment their parents tried to drop them off.

It couldn't have been fun.

And she rented out rooms.

Except that recently, it doesn't seem like she has any more tenants. No one parks inside. The tenants always used to park inside.

And I never thought about how lonely she must be. And how miserable. I never thought that maybe, one day, when I made muffins or red velvet cake, I could have offered it to her over the fence.

Some gesture. Some friendly gesture.

Yes, I know there were friends and she was rarely alone.

But I never allowed myself to think about how miserable, sad and lonely she must be.

And today, one of her friends was banging on the door. I was outside and I looked. Her friend smiled sheepishly and continued to bang and call her.

No answer.

And just now, I heard someone calling again. And this time it penetrated the thick fog of white noise that envelops me, making me oblivious to my surroundings.

Where was she? If she had gone off on holiday, why didn't her friends know?

Could she have...would she have...?

And for the first time, I thought of the slow rotting inside...the sense of betrayal, the anger, the having to survive somehow, while he was smiling and happy and showing off his new wife, his new kid.

What must it have been like for her when he came.

What must it have been like for her when he spoke to us and said, lookie here, my wife, my kid...lookie here.

And that look on her face, the look I saw without seeing.

How could I have been so oblivious?

I will watch out for her tomorrow. I will watch and see and update these pages, some record at least of a person, a sad, lonely person, who is here near me.

I once sat next to a woman on a park bench and she spoke to me about her life and all I could see was her loneliness. That's all I registered.

But she wasn't just her loneliness. She prayed for everyone around her. In fact, she managed to get me to follow her home and put me on her hard as board sofa and I heard the Rosary beads clicking as she prayed for me that night, glad I was there, glad that for one night at least, she didn't have to be alone.

And I fell into a deep, sweet sleep, one of the deepest and sweetest sleeps I have ever had.

She was a powerful prayer.

We were on the train and a young man, the long-haired dodgy-looking type came up to her and said, do you remember me? And she looked down, afraid, because she tends to attract violent types.

But he said...I was one of those youth in that church...and you prayed for me. Thank you.

He said that to her.

She was a powerful prayer.

And I think about her now because I'm thinking...all this time, I couldn't spare one prayer for the poor, lonely lady next door. Couldn't say, God, please lift her spirits, strengthen her, raise her up, give her back her joy in life.

I say it now.

Now, when it may be too late.

And For The Record I Was Lost

Thursday I got lost.I drove for two hours circling around, paying about a hundred dollars in tolls, running out of petrol, and guess what? Forgot to charge my phone so it kept beeping to tell me, hey, I'm running out of battery. I prayed, I screamed, I begged, I implored, and still I circled.

In all the wrong places.

No petrol station.

No more petrol.

Yet another toll booth. I asked the guy. Hey? Petrol station? Anywhere? Anywhere?

He smiled. Nodded. Said...just follow the signs for KL.

I asked Hulu Langat? How do I get to that exit?

The serene smiling Buddha said...just follow the signs...the signs for KL.

OK, so I was getting somewhere. The first good thing was finding a proper petrol station. And getting some food into my baby that had been shuddering frighteningly in the middle of nowhere. That would have been the icing on the cake.

And the next was finding that fricking exit. Yes. 9th Mile. Only I went straight along the road, ended up on the outside, turned back and went straight to the...police station.

A cheerful officer came out to show me the way. He gesticulated...go straight along this road, you'll see a sign. A big sign. You cannot miss it.

Problem is...go straight along this road could have been in two directions. He didn't think of that. And of course, I didn't see the sign. Because the road I chose, there was no sign. Double back in heavy, heavy traffic. A traffic light that doesn't change for hours.

The PA has managed to make one more call to my dying phone. She estimated that close as I was, I'd be there in 10 minutes tops.

Stuck at that traffic light it had already been 20.

I was so so late, it was not funny. I could feel my stomach heaving and churning. I felt my throat close up, a recent symptom of stress. My forehead burning. Roiling is a good word. I was a roiling cauldron of emotion. Only the bad ones.

The PA seemed more amused than anything. And sarcastic. She said, go ahead, take your time, we have nothing better to do but wait for you. And when finally, finally, I was on the right road, and saw the bleeping sign and made my way up the bleeping right road, and found the place (oh glory, glory) and got out the car and ran for it...she came smiling sweetly and said...people have gotten lost before, they've been late before, but never two hours.

Smirk, smirk.

I don't know why she hated me so much.

You know how some people smile and you feel like they're chewing ground glass?

You know how some people are perfectly civil to you, and you feel like they're spewing vitriol?

That was her.

But perhaps I'm being unfair. I mean she had only blocked the interview by pretending her CEO was not interested and had postponed it indefinitely and telling him I had found someone else to interview.

She laughed on the phone, speaking to me, in one of my numerous phone calls and said...yes, yes, I'll see him today, I'll ask him again. It doesn't look good though, I have to tell you.

Yeah, I have to tell you.
Couldn't lie to you
Wouldn't want to do that
No, we both wouldn't want that.

Operator the line is dead.

And finally, I said, fuck this, and sent him an email directly. And he said...surprise, surprise, I thought you were no longer interested. And proceeded to give me a time instantly.

A time, mind you, that I had already missed.

And being an important CEO of a listed company, he was chock a block with other meetings.

And my photographer had already come and gone.

So...

I arrived. Was treated to her unctuous smiles and "you just sit there and cool off, calm down, my, my, but you're late, really late, no one has ever been this late before."

And her boss turned and glanced at my disheveled self and said...take your time, don't worry. And then although there were two merchant bankers and one VIP already there, waiting on meetings, and let's face it, much higher up the food chain than some stray reporter, he proceeded to give me a one-and-a-half hour interview.

She stuck her head in halfway, grinning like a banshee...I'm so sorry, but they've been waiting too long...what do I tell them? It's time.

Hurry up please, it's time.

Hurry up please, it's time.

Hurry up please, it's time.

Hurry up please, it's time.

And he nodded calmly, waited for her to close the door again, and went on talking.

I said, I'm sorry this is all my fault.

He said, don't worry about it, they can wait.

And so they waited.

And I staggered out of there one and a half hours later.

Found my way home with no trouble at all.

And promptly fell ill from all the stress on Friday. When I had to file the story.

But I did. Oh Sigmund. I did.

Am I Crazy Or Falling In Love

I've just finished transcribing an interview. I want to go home now. I was a cool interview and I found myself smiling incessantly. So Joyce, who's sitting across from me thinks I have yet another crush (she thought I was crushing on her contact she introduced me to...I liked him...he was charming...but considering crush? I don't think so).

I put pictures of my friends and my dog around me. Also two poems. And it was a very very good idea. Sometimes when I'm smiling it's because of what the interviewee was talking about. Sometimes, it's because Mark is standing there with his guitar and smiling at me in that blurred reproduction taken with my phone. Or because Mary and Prabs and struggling with their umbrellas pulling in different directions, laughing. Or because Arnold has perched his forelegs on my bed and is looking at me intently. Or because I have my arms around Nits and we're both smiling in close-up. Or because Jackie is laughing with the setting sun in Cagnes sur Mer in the background. Or because I'm in my Santa hat with my arms around Yong and Addy on either side.

And sometimes I read Lao Tzu:

In the pursuit of knowledge,
everyday something is added.
In the practice of the Way,
everyday something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.

And I breathe and take it in. Something to remind myself of from time to time. And there is my Edge Financial Daily mug stained with lipstick. Sort of dark red. Can't remember what I used today. And there is some red fabric draped around one side of my cubicle, courtesy of Anna, whose desk I am up against.

And there is my crushed napkin with the scribbled words - I was going to throw it away - but my colleague Zaquan, who dropped in on my sandwich and book for lunch and told me his favourite author of all time is David Foster Wallace...told me to save it. He said..hang it up, as is.

Zaquan's an artist. In fact, they seem to be crawling out of the woodwork here. They look so corporate and professional on the surface. And underneath...oh Sigmund, underneath.

Decorating my desk was a declaration of sorts. After keeping my head down and just doing my work for the three weeks I've been here.

I raise my head. I sniff a little.

Now I can go home now. I can email my transcription to myself and work on it at home.

Or else I can go music shopping. I recently discovered a local artist I want to hear more of.

If it's the mind that causes suffering, then if you learn to control your mind, you alleviate said suffering. So when I'm stuck in a funk unable to figure out how I'm going to get a story, I take a deep breath, say a prayer and relax. Doodle on my notepad. Write crazy Facebook updates. Comment on my own updates. Chat. Listen to Rainbow Connection. Crush (that seems to be a theme in my life right now). And send out good thoughts. Good vibes. Uncomplicated by the static of hopelessness and helplessness and sheer panic.

At least I hope I do.

Later for you.