Musings…

I’ve been bombarded by this question one time too many ever since I reactivated my Friendster account earlier this month: What do I mean when I put my status as being ‘It’s Complicated’? Some very observant new friends in my circle had wanted to know. How do I explain myself? It’s just…erm… plain complicated, to summarize the whole humdrum of life, emotional entanglements, unfinished chapters and random mess that characterize relationships in general these days.

But they are persistent. Either you’re in a relationship or you’re not, they say. A statement of naiveté, no less. Yes, they must not know me very well to be so confident in making that assumption. I suppose there’s more to me than actually meets the eye, isn’t there now?

“Are you in love with a person who doesn’t know or who doesn’t love you in return?” They probed. “Or are you in love with someone you’re not supposed to be in love with?” Not quite, I don’t think. Trust me when I chose that statement, I meant it to the last alphabet: IT IS COMPLICATED. For the time being, let’s leave it at that. If you’re still wondering, ask me personally and I shall feed that burgeoning curiosity as seen fit. Remember though that curiosity killed the cat, so trudge ahead with caution. You have been forewarned. Hawhaw.

Having said that, after all the introspection and reflection on relationships being complicated or not, I find myself wondering, how often does life, if not love, fall into clear segments of black and white instead of different shades of gray? And how often is love so clear-cut and unconditional that it doesn’t blend in with other emotions that really would make it something else? And how often does reality clashes and interferes with mere feelings that serve to bind two mortals together?

I mean, if you’re one of those lucky few who belong to that blessed category whereby your relationship is a dream and is smooth sailing all the way, then congratulations I say, you’re both a match made in heaven. But for many of us, from my own observation and experience, as well as from having heart-to-hearts with some close friends, it’s doubtless that romantic liaisons often fall into that feared gray category of uncertainty. If you know how many midnight calls and messages I receive ranting about the unfairness in love etc, you would know what I mean. Under more severe circumstances, that gray category inevitably translates to people like me branding their love-life as being complicated. *smirk*

Come to think of it, really, love is just this overrated emotion that everyone frets and fusses over and puts so much attention into. Call me disillusioned, but damn, at this moment in time I do agree with The Darkness in belting out that Love Is Only a Feeling. It’s only a feeling, regardless what those poets or writers or composers say. In an attempt to uncomplicate the complicated, one would just have to believe in that. Other than that, blame it on the raging hormones. Blame it on momentary insanity. Or whatever it is that crosses your mind to blame.

What am I trying to get at really? Guess I’m just making a feeble attempt to justify why my love life is just plain ‘complicated’ at the moment. Maybe next time to save myself all this trouble, I’d just change my status to being single. :p

Daddy turns 53 this Wednesday. Why does that fact reduce me to a whimpering, soppy fool? Oh, of old age and growing old. Aren’t those just the greatest fears of all?

I remember discernibly well how I turned misty three years back when Daddy hit the half a century mark. My first thoughts were…wow, a half-a-centurian in the house. Then, a year back, Mummy turned 50 too and… sigh…need I say it? We’re all getting old, old, old, and guess what? It’s beginning to show too.

Birthdays, like the bittersweet day it is (it gets more bitter than sweet as age catches up on you), kind of bring back certain memories of what used to be. To a certain extent it also reascertains what will always be, especially to sentimentalists like me.

There is always this perfect imagery in my head of Daddy and Mummy when I was just getting old enough to remember, toddling around in nothing but underwear and bashing lizards into pulp. They were the hero and heroine of those times gone by – saving me from countless possible mishaps. I was a wild jungle girl who climbed coconut trees and swung from one Angsana branch to another in the evenings, so go figure what kind of mess I always found myself in. There was even once when I fell from trying to jump from one window to another about a meter apart and lost my two front teeth (thanks to that, I have my two big chunks of bugs bunny teeth right now) and Mummy had the fortune (or misfortune) to be greeted by my bloody mouth, no pun intended, as she exited from the bathroom after her bath. She said I never shed a tear. That was one of the fondest stories she liked to tell our relatives at the dinner table.

Years and years have passed since then. Fast forward to today, that perfect vision still remains so clear in my head that I could see it just as soon as I close my eyes and remember Daddy as he was. The perfect father who always took us swimming at the nearby club, who taught us how to ride a bicycle and fly a kite, or took us fishing at the pond down the road, or just lounging at home, checking on our schoolwork and playing scrabble, or monopoly, or boggle or cards.

Daddy was the quiet character who despite his silence, created a strong aura of presence in my world. A man of few words, he was always one who chose to let his actions do the talking. He never told us he loved us, even right to this day, but we were certain that he did, through the way he did little, little things to let us know that he cares and that he is there.

Back when we were schooling, Daddy never missed a day of making breakfast for us, until his big babies left secondary school, spread their wings and flew from home. And he was always concerned about our education, and about the fact that we should build a good profile – because of his encouragement and support along with Mummy’s, I went into all sorts of activity in a bid to prove to the world that I had something to offer.

My days were so filled with activities it’s surprising that I even made it through, thinking back. There were hours and hours of swimming and gym training. There were athletics training after school, there were music and choir practices as well as piano classes, and numerous quizzes and competitions to enter, from history to math to biology and social sciences. All on top of maintaining a good result at school.

Being a teen back then came with heaps of growing pains, as could be expected … while Mummy nursed the occasional broken ego, broken dreams and even broken hearts, Daddy would silently observe at the background. He would say nothing, maybe because it wasn’t his nature to say anything. But Mummy would let us in on how he questioned her about our wellbeing so much that sometimes he wasn’t able to sleep at night. Today, thanks to a more matured mind, I’m able to have meaningful talks with Daddy about life and work, and practically anything under the sun.

So why am I fretting when it will be Daddy’s big day tomorrow? It’s hard to explain. Okay, it’s a twisted explanation if any, but my best bet would be that I cannot somehow reconcile with the fact that my first hero, even before Superman took center stage, has now sprouted a few white hairs on his head, and there is a slight hunch where his back used to be erect. Stubbornly, the earlier images remained: Daddy the tall, strong, invincible hero who could throw out any Boogieman under the bed. It’s funny how certain people in our lives create such a strong impression in the head that they are immortalized somehow. I’m certain that years and years from now, even when there’s nary a black hair left on daddy’s head, I will still look at him and see the man who walked me through 26 years of my life… the exact same person who taught me fishing and biking those years long gone.

My Daddy, my immortal. I know I’ve never said I love you, but it doesn’t mean I love you any less. Happy, Blessed 53^rd Birthday, Dad!

Not so random thought of the day:

Can someone tell me how to rid of the ants coming in and out of my laptop? It’s like they’re building a nest in there. Don’t laugh. I’m dead stark serious. Drop me a mail if you have a solution, please.

Oh, and that certain someone who sent flowers to the wrong address (see my previous entry) simply insists that I write here that it was no mistake for his part. Harhar. So it wasn’t, my friend, so it wasn’t. We’ll leave the mystery of what had happened to the idle mind of Eunice when she has more free time on her hands.

I must apologize for posting so many entries at one go. There have just been some hiccups with the connection so there you go… my third entry in a row.

Last night I had the chance of being entertained along with my dear friends with a magic show right at our table at this place called the Magic Theathre in Sunway Pyramid. Good stuff I swear. I should get paid for writing a sparkling review on them here! Teehee. So there we were, sipping good expensive white wine and having a really lively chatter when this rather cute young magician guy popped by our table and showed us some really cool magic tricks. (I’m a magic dummy – the kind who would applaud to any tricks so…)

I tell you, my eyebrows lifted a foot high watching the illusions. Suffice to say, my jaws dropped the equal distance. Most were the usual now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t tricks, like making a lighter or a coin disappear and reappear before the information synapses effectively from the nerve of the eye to the brain and back. But heck, there was this one trick that baffled the life out of all of us. We could never figure out what exactly happened and probably I shall die trying.

So it went like this. The cute magician guy asked for a cigarette from a girl friend. He had nimble fingers that one, fingers that moved faster than our normal reaction time. Then, much to our surprise (and my horror of horrors), he stuffed the whole cigarette through his right nostril to have it reappear again between his lips. Like yuk. But ok, to be fair that warranted a slight applause.

Still, nothing could beat what he did after that. Finally, he had the cigarette lighted. (A minus point was that he did not know that the way to light a cigarette is to inhale! Boohoo.) One of the three dear guys at our table was rendered the lucky volunteer for the trick. The magician twisted a part of his shirt into a small ‘O’ shape and told us to look and not blink, or we’d miss it. Tipsy from too much wine sipping, and feeling unbelievably high, we held on to our seats and forced ourselves not to blink – not once. Our friend joked that he wished the trick would fail and the cigarette would burn a hole in his shirt so that he could claim a new one, but alas! That was not to be. Mr Magician stuffed the lit cigarette through the ‘O’ and it disappeared into thin air! Right in front of our very eyes! Without a single ash mark on the shirt, too! So nobody got any new shirts in the end, but we left with a boggled mind because none of us could figure out where the cigarette went! It never did reappear again although we asked Mr Magician to make it. Dinner to whoever who can explain to me how the cigarette went Poof! Quick! Quick! Quick! Mysteries are insufferable, no less.

Then, there was this stage show, at which we were posed the question: Do you believe in Ghosts? Do I? Heck, if I weren’t such a ninny or the type who would piss in her pants if I so much as hear the wail of a

Pontianak

(or some neighborhood cat), I’d say I don’t believe in ghosts. Don’t anybody try to put that theory to test!!! Unfortunately, I belong to the Kiasi group of people who chant prayers and hang on to the cross on my neck until my fingers are bloodless every time a cold waft of air blows past or the hair behind my neck stands unwarranted.

Food for thought. Ghosts and beings of the third world. Do they exist? My long lost cousin brother explained that ghosts only exist within the space of our minds. And that the unexplained ghostly sounds that we sometimes hear are actually the work of our minds, repeating past voices that echoed in the head due to sensory overload…? Hmmh, I don’t know about that. Though do you ever wonder why ghosts go WOoooooHooooooo or cackle and nothing else?

What I do know is that, bless my soul, I’d never want to confront a ghost again. Nor come close to it. Or to be associated with it in any way. Touch wood. Touch anything that is within reach.

Recently, there was a calling to all writers to submit a manuscript for some Get Spooked series. I answered that calling with much aplomb, literary juices overflowing. I requested eagerly for the guidelines and gave my contact number for future correspondence. The kind lady in charge of the program responded immediately. I was set to go with a bang, bang, bang!

For three hours. And then, like a pup with the tail between my legs, I retreated silently into the night, never to be heard of again. Yes, so sue me, I’m the coward of all times. After doing some research on the paranormal on the internet, reading on how Pontianaks have their innards flying outside their bodies and that Toyols originate from young babies who did not make it and whose souls were stolen by evil sorceresses for their own deeds, I was ready to run hysterical if there was so much as a glimpse of shadow that might be my own.

So as far as beings of the third world are concerned, exist by all means, but let’s draw a line right here. A freaking distinct, unmistakable line. Eunice’s personal space and Yours. I rest my case.

Random Thought of the Day

Have you ever sent anything to any particular person but to the wrong address? Goodness, this is new to me. Hahaha. Now let me sit back and appreciate the echo of my laughter. I sure hope that said somebody who sent flowers to the wrong address last night was not too upset because there was no reply from the receiver. The roses really never came. At least not before I left home. Anyway, thanks, it was thoughtful of you.

And friends…if you by any chance want to send me flowers or fruits or cash or gold ingots, my address is …… just kidding. ;p

Where do men originate from??? The question of the millennium must be. If women were from Venus, men are definitely NOT from Mars…too close a proximity for these two subspecies to misunderstand each other so freaking much, don’t you think? I’d reckon men are from the farthest planet in the system…Pluto was it? A coincidence that Disney’s most famous groveling dog has been named after it too. (I’m not hinting or saying anything here, I swear! Teehee.)

So girls, if you’re planning to take a man off the shelf, please make sure he comes with a complete (and I mean a COMPLETE) SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) manual. Even more importantly, check that the section which entails disaster recovery is in place! Otherwise, it’s catastrophe all the way once their quality management system fails, and from experience, their systems malfunctions every once so often.

I mean like, how many times have you girls been rendered psychics and mind readers by the men in your lives? A lifted eyebrow or a quiet stare and they expect you to read their emotions like from the page of an open book. Or better yet, those that have a pattern of lapsing into longggggg silences, or give the silent treatment. Like, what’s the matter, cat got their tongues? Suddenly they’re reduced to kindergarten mindset and they can’t put alphabets next to each other to come to an effective form of communication a.k.a speech?

“You’re supposed to understand me,” they mutter. “It’s so obvious when it comes to things like these. You’re just supposed to know.” Yeah, and I’m supposed to state Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle in my sleep.

So how do we bridge that distance between Pluto and Venus, if that is even possible in the first place? The answer is communication. It’s our only hope to even come close to getting associated with each other better, don’t you think? Communicate! Say one, say all! Talk. Shout. Rant. Cuss. Bitch. Whatever. But get through. Get connected, Nokia style. We females are not inbuilt with some Morse code decoder that can interpret long silences, or silences peppered with grunts and groans and burps and other nasal sounds I can’t care to name.

Having said that, I don’t personally have anything against men in general. Men are like chocolate cake. They so completely ruin your calories budget for the day, heighten your cholesterol level and make you fat, but you love them anyway. Yumyum. Peace out!

23 February 2006 - the date that I’m finally able to shift my skinny arse into ‘blog mode’ and join the rest of my predecessors in this virtual world of ranting and bitching and griping about life and whatnot…angst, angst, and more angst … life is all about that after all, isn’t it? If you live, if you breathe, there must just be something somewhere that is not perfect, something that warrants being in the age old gripe box.

Whether your life is just so completely topsy-turvy (like mine) at the moment or whether your left leg is shorter than your right, or one eyebrow more crooked than the next, people just find the reason to complain and complain and complain. Thus, we arrive to the fact that humans are never contented with what they have. 

I’ve had that told to my face a couple of times before… I’m never satisfied with what I have. At one hand, it may be good to join those lucky people who have found a niche in their comfort zone, leading a laid back life and enjoying whatever comes. But at another, could one blame me? It’s such a competitive world out there, ever shifting, ever changing… morphing, morphing, morphing as we speak, as we eat, as we sleep. If you are just plain contented with what you have, how do you step forward and rise above yourselves? Detect some seeds of kiasuism (I see some eyebrows of those who knows me best twitching hahaha)? So shoot me. Guilty as charged. But so what? It’s a female dog’s life after all.

Anyway, what is the push factor for this shift to virtual reality, you may wonder. A mini O2 and a brand new Acer Aspire 5612N laptop - both within a span of two weeks. It’s Eunice’s Electronic Month, must be. Quite a feat for a gadget illiterate like me, really. My Mini is such a darling…the world at your palm literally. Now, I’m supposedly more connected to the big bad world out there with just a couple of taps on my PDA screen anytime, anywhere. And thank god for WIFI, I can sit at Starbucks sipping my Chocolate Ice blend bought at an obscene price and rant about which leg is shorter than the other and which eyebrow is more crooked than the next. The earth has just gotten a lot smaller! Hawhaw.

Rite…rest assured though that mismatched eyebrows and legs are not the highlight of my days. A warm welcome into my world filled with multiple trains of thoughts, some of which have never found a station to stop long enough to be permanently etched in the mind. Let’s hope that with starting this page, these trains of thoughts will be translated into words and remain as a footprint in the journey of our lives, just as an anecdote, if not a lesson.

Okay, to be painfully honest, one of the reasons I’m blogging is because I’m trying to overcome that awkwardness of being read and being heard and crossing the line from being a private person to being a more transparent character. Catch no ball? I’m just plain weird, I know. I’m a published novelist, but as of now, have never been able to promote my books openly because (gasp!) I’m afraid that people would be able to see through to the core of me… to the part that is vulnerable or just downright twisted. I’m a drama queen by nature…so you could just imagine, in my novels, the drama is a hundred fold.   So there, I said it. Naked, raw emotions scare me. I know I have them excessively… I need them to be able to write effectively. But so long as nobody knows about it, I have it under control. So how do I synchronize being a writer and a private person? That’s what I’m trying to find out.

In conclusion, writing gives me a voice, but one that is hidden behind that vulgar pseudonym I have (no, I’m not going to divulge that here). Not even my closest friends know which of my books are in the market at the moment, so heaven help me.

Random thought of the day:

Why do ants and mosquitoes and insects exist???!!! ARRGGGHHHH… a stupid question for a Biotech graduate I know. But still… ants are somehow attracted to this new gadget of mine and are crawling all over my thighs as I sit here musing. Like Halloooo! What does this laptop’s innards have that my kitchen doesn’t??? Apparently, their heads are too small to fit a proper brain. Oh, and to be reminded of that unfortunate night not so long ago when the electricity got cut and we’re reduced to being just like our cavemen ancestors, fending off jet sized mosquitoes swarming around the head as we sleep. I swear I was so well practiced in the art of killing mosquitoes I went on a killing spree in my sleep. Whoosh whoosh whoosh and they lay dead in my palm as seen the next morning with my dried up blood as proof of their crime! Good gripes.