Contrast

I really hate it when people who have not contacted me in a long while, suddenly out of the blue calling me up to ask for money. This is the third time this has happened, I'm so fucking pissed off.

Where were you when you were having the time of your life, when things were going great? I didn't even know that you got married, only stumbled onto your wedding pics on the net. Not that I was hoping to be invited to your posh do, just that I would like to know when my friends got married and all that. That's the least that a friend would do right? Heck, people who only knew me in passing let me know that they're getting married. But I had the decency not to brought it up to you, sparing you the bumbling effort to cover up. How thoughtful of me.

Now that things are heading south, you came looking for me. Sigh. You know what, take your beemer and all your business ventures somewhere else man. I'm done with you.

On a far brighter note, I'm leaving for a long awaited vacation! Take care folks, I need to get away from this madness for a while and detox. Au revoir!

Conversation

Circa 2005.

A: Hey, run away with me. Pack your pyjamas and best dress shirt, and your best shoes. Your guitar and a black notebook; nothing else. I'll bring a chinese robe and a pair of stilettoes; and nothing else. We shall catch a plane to Marrakesh, and take a train from there to spain.
F: Actually, I'd rather that we stop in Marrakesh. Sounds good enough for me there.
A: We cant live in Marrakesh forever. I want to go on the Orient Express across Asia too. Run away with me, let's go to Paris and smoke Gauloises and drink caffeine on the left bank. Then we'll catch a plane to Mexico and walk through the sweaty and dusty streets in the hot sunlight, where all and everything is illuminated like Frida Kahlo's paintings.
F: Wonderful.
A: Then there you'll buy me a cloak from the local market, and then we'll fall in love.
F: And we'll steal a kiss from beneath the shades in the hot Mexican sun.
A: The air, being stiffling and humid; encompassing and still in that moment
F: And not only air, it was as though time stood still itself, for that one brief lingering moment.
A: Fall in love with me.
F: Make me. I'm not that hard to fall.
A: Fall in love with me not because my eyes prick the tiny hairs at the back of your neck, not because a warmth engulfs your chest when we just sit and do nothing, not because we can spend hours reciting dostoevsky and feel everything around us revolve and replace; love me not because you can't write; but merely because you adore me and nothing else.
F: I might just fall in love with you now.
A: What's stopping you?
F: Nothing but my own insecurities. The impossibly high wall of uncertainties and the burdening thick protective shell I've wound around my heart. Help me, help me get over myself.
A: It's only normal, you know. When attaching yourself to another person has left you bruised and scarred, it's normal to be hesitant the next time. Then when it happens again, it gives you every reason to back off.
F: Ahh we men do learn. Scars only serve to thicken the shell, over and over it wounds furthermore. Sometimes, a stray ray of sunshine does slip through.
A: Then let me be the sun and to hell with Juliet.
F: And the heat, that little piece of the sun had just about enough energy to melt it all away. Nay, I seek not Juliets nor princesses and queens, but only mortals who bleed as I do and weeps as I shall
A: "the sun is the west, and Juliet, she is the east".
F: And so shall I turn my back on the Orient, once and for all.
A: Let me be your sun; and I'll keep your ears out of the east. Ohh such lunacy! To be romantically involved with a boy; a boy for the brush of my hand along his face never spoke of the jaded heart of a man within.
F: Never before spoken such beautifully true words. Fall in love with my mind and my heart, for everything else are mere peripherals.
A: All that perishes is not real - rumi. Our hands and our lips, the receptors on our skin will soon rot and combine with the dirt of which from we were moulded; but our soul and our dreams, our emotions and our reasons will always be overhead. So I hold out to you my offer, of a fully and wholly pure; untainted, yet to be jaded heart.
F: We should record this and put it out as a book or something, don't you think? Haha.
A: Yes sure. Save this conversation if you can.

You know who you are.

Speed Racer

I eat fast. Various people have commented that I eat very fast. I know it's not good, but it's a hard habit to kick. Harder still when the habit came into being for survival's sake in the first place.

It all started many many years ago in a sleepy town in Perak, where young boys were made to live at an old institution for being some of the best young minds at the time (12 years on, I think it might have dimmed somewhat - at least for me). Leaving the comfort of our own homes were a bitch, even more so at a young age like that. I was a fat kid who never wanted to be there, so it sucked quite a lot for me.

Yeah yeah, I'm getting to the story!

Okay, so we lived almost completely removed from the rest of the school. Our constant contact with the seniors are the 5 prefects who stayed at Prep School with us. I think they refer to themselves as Custodians or something. We had two sets of rules to live by, one is the school rules which are rather standard anywhere you go and the other one is the standing rules. Standing rules were effectively rules that has been passed down verbally throughout the years, prolly with some tweaks here and there. These rules were the ones we really had to adhere to. School rules, who cares? Break those, and you'll get caned or something. Big deal. Break the standing rules, there'll be hell to pay.

There's a rule for every aspect of life. Which toilets/showers to use, how to arrange your clothes on the railings (for the record, must be colour coordinated and neat), how to wear your clothes et cetera. Of course, there were rules on how to eat too.

We would line up in twos outside the dining hall and would walk (don't shuffle your slippers!) quietly and sit at our respective places. We were lucky enough in a sense that our food were served, not like the other boarding schools. Then it's time for the Do'a, which we'll take turns to recite on the platform where the High Table is. After that only we can eat.

We have to use fork and spoon, and have to make sure we don't clang them around on the steel trays. One loud clang will bring about a hushed silence, as we wait for the verdict. If nothing is said we continued on. A dropped utensil, or a loud clang that's too hard to ignore, or the hushed conversations got a bit too loud, and dinner is over. Sometimes it ended before it even started. Baru duduk dah ada mangkuk yang terjatuh sudu. Sigh.

So we learned to eat quickly yet silently. Once the prefects announced that it's time for Do'a again (signalling the end of lunch/dinner), we would shove everything as fast as we can while saving the fruit for later. Choking was considered a nuisance rather than a hazard. Living life in the fast lane.

Hence, so many years later, I still find it hard to chew properly and eat like normal people do. Maybe I'm the only one afflicted, but that's the story behind my speed-eating prowess. I know it's not good, and I do try to make a conscious effort to curb it. Too bad it has become Pavlovian, just minus the request for Do'a.

Abode

I've been busy these past 2 weeks, apologies. Work piled up like there's no tomorrow, and ad hoc projects just kept coming. How the hell am I going to be able to do what I was supposed to do ?

A lot of things happened too, but maybe that's a story for a different time.

I've always had this affinity for old buildings. Colonial era structures, architectural beauties from days long past. There's a lot of them nearby my office, and I would sometimes dream of buying one of them and turn the inside into a contemporary designer penthouse, with the lower floor serving as the utility area. of course, this is not exactly the kind of area anyone would want to be in after dark, but who knows what might happen a few more years down the road. Some avant-garde developer might decide to buy the whole block and refurbish it into a posh row of swanky penthouses, something like the residential version of Asian Heritage Row.

Dream Residence Numero Deux is a Spanish styled villa complete with with the works. Stone facade, check. Wrought iron detailing, check. Ample space for greeneries, preferably with a stream running behind the house. The stream might be a bit hard to incorporate, but again who knows right?

Take a drive inside Tropicana and you can see a lot of definitely huge and definitely ugly mansions. Those folks have money, sure. Too bad all their gazillions can't buy them taste and style. Probably explains Mr Trump's hair too. It's all a lot of ego stroking and wealth flaunting, why do you need a mansion with 10 rooms when you only have 2 kids and maybe 2 maids? There's even one house, probably with Roman styling in mind, that even have statues of Roman soldiers or something on the gates. Way to go, Maximus Aurelius Tan.

But then, ultimately it's their money. I can talk about style and taste but without the necessary dosh, I'm still the outsider looking in. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder right? Though the Roman statues are a tad overdoing it, lest the neighbours get jealous and starts erecting 10-foot tall Zeuses and mini Parthenons in their gardens, overlooking the koi pond of course.