Musings…

I’m so tired my eyeballs are jutting out of their sockets and my head feels frozen somewhat. My mind focuses and loses focus intermittently in front of my laptop and at times I find myself sucked into this deep dark abyss that is really quite nasty. A jerk of the body and I’m awake. Another jerk and I’m drooling a little, floating above the realm of my dreams and Slumberland…mind you I am sitting behind my desk in the office, hoping against hope that I ‘appear’ awake and attentive to the people passing by the glass windows. Sometimes I feel this frantic rush…like… how freaking long have I dozed off for Chrissake? … Only to find it’s been a second or two. Ahhh, sweet suffering, this sleep deficit. Nauseating, no less.

            It’s a little before lunchtime thank god. After lunch, I’ll be moving around quite a bit so that should bite the sleepy spell by the neck. I just hope I won’t fall asleep behind the wheels and end up in some ditch. All thanks to a certain someone…SEAN, I so hope you are reading this. Your business opportunity has successfully annihilated sleep till the clock struck seven today and I had to shake myself up and get ready for work. But okay, okay, to be fair, point taken, I am making the change. I’m taking things into my hands and making it happen. I’m riding the wave, hi-hi-ho…just as soon as I am able to make out what I’m really blabbering about right now in order to keep myself awake during the hottest and most lethargic hour of the day.          

Bummers…4600 people have died in

Jogjakarta

the past few days because of a 6.3 Richter scale earthquake that left 20000 people injured. And in

Bangkok

there are news of Muslim bombings and slayings, in addition to the ongoing bird flu.

            Yeah, I’m shaking in my boots alright, because these are the two places I have to visit for the next two weeks on business. Dreary thoughts, aren’t they? While we sit here, protected in our safe bubbles of life, lamenting on our broken hearts and broken finger nails, the world outside silently suffers. Pain has no voice, so it seems, and is only shared through the hearts and conscience of people with more compassion and less ignorance. So much devastation, so much madness. It just makes me wonder what kind of world we live in now when I’m told to take a cab if I want to get across the street from the hotel I would be staying in because of the violence all around. Guess Black Eyed Peas is right in questioning one and all: Where is the love?

            Where is the love, really?

            Anyway, I hope the angels love me enough to keep me safe throughout my journey. God Bless.

It’s a chilly, damp morning here at my pad. The sun hasn’t risen yet and there are tiny droplets of rain hitting on my window pane. It’s been a wet, wet night. The rippling sound of rainwater running in the drain downstairs is slightly hypnotic and soothing, as I sit here contemplating on a plot for a new novel. Hmmhh, nothing much to say for today except that life is indeed like a chameleon. It changes colors when prompted by life’s circumstances. And it can happen with just a flip of the coin – a probability game it is. Guess there’s always two sides to everything…goodness and bad, strength and weakness, happiness and sadness, darkness and light, truth and lies…the list goes on. Though, suffice to say, we should have the willpower to mould our own destiny and turn grays into exuberant colors once again, if need it be. I’d want to be a chameleon, too, in terms of that. Guess that’s life.

            I received a surprise letter in my mail box from an old friend last night, and thought I’d share since I found it meaningful enough to move me to tears. It goes like this:

            Remember me when I’m gone away

            Gone far away into the silent land

            When you can no more hold me by the hand

            Remember me when no more day by day

            You tell me of the future that you’d planned

            Only remember me, you understand

            It will be late to counsel then or pray

            Yet if you should forget me for a while

            And afterwards remember, don’t grieve

            For if the darkness and corruption leaves

            A vestige of the thoughts I once had

            Better by far you should forget and smile

            Than that you should remember and be sad.

What a bad hair day today. It is BLACK MONDAYY!! S.O.S, somebody please. I woke up with a dreadful nightmare clinging to the dark recesses of my mind. A freakish nightmare that curls my toes when I think about it, even now. Here’s how it goes, or the fragments of what I do recall of it.

            Woman and man swimming in the swamps, yeah, think ‘The Swamp Thing’. Woman dragging herself out of the water, swaying like a donkey with PMS that is on the brink of a black out. Man is ahead, pulling a sampan (???!!). Woman screams and groans.

            “Take it out! Take it out!”

            Now, before you lapse into your corrupted thoughts, the woman was talking about… *drum rolls* : Leeches. Big, fat, juicy leeches the size of oranges.

            Woman swoons, ready to faint because she doesn’t dare to touch the icky leech on her foot but wants it taken out anyway.

            Man falls on his arse suddenly and with his fingers, pulls out a leech from his own foot, stretching it so much you could see through it. With a pop the leech comes out…no, flies out. Here’s the weird part. Unlike normal leeches that only stick onto the surface of the skin; this leech buries itself into the flesh. And holy cow, when it is disengaged from the body, it leaves a hole as huge as itself, that you could peek into and see your cartilages and bone and whatever it is you have under the skin and flesh.

            Man, with some serious zest, throws the fat leech onto the hard ground, where it smashes into pulp like a juicy berry. Splat!!! And it echoes through the swamp.

            Woman screams some more. She has leeches between her toes, at her left heel and right thigh. Man proceeds to help her de-leech. Woman stares into the holes in her body after leeches have been pulled out and screams endlessly.

            And her screams turn into the alarm clock’s shrill ring at 715 on a Monday morning.

            Suffice to say, the woman was me. Who the man was, go figure. I still can’t for the life of me find out what that bizarre dream means to tell me, if at all it means to tell me something.

Alas.

But isn’t it fun to delve into my twisted subconscious mind once in a while? Haha.

RAWWRRR!!

            With a roar, May is a little more than half over can you believe it. Yeah, I know I haven’t been posting for quite a while…I’ve had people messaging and asking me whether I’m still around hawhaw. Sure I am – still alive and kicking! It’s just that May is one of those months that flashes by in an instant and after it passes you by, you’d sit and wonder what actually hit you.

            So many things have happened since my last entry. I went to Port Dickson for a short vacation on the Labor Day weekend, and the weekend after, I was off to Pangkor for a much, much awaited blue-seas,-blue-sky retreat. Oh, finally I could show off those bikinis n beach clothes I’ve blasted a hand and a leg on hahaha. As of now, I’m nicely baked and bronzed from romancing too much with the sun, wind and sea. Though, despite sun burns, peeling skin and all, life is wonderful indeed. Couldn’t ask for more, really.

            In Port Dickson, this cute (if goofy hahahaha) sailor boy finally took me sailing, fulfilling his promise since eleven years (!!!) ago. Hell of a long wait, yeah, but worth it, I would say. I haven’t a bone in my body that can sail a boat. The first and last time I tried to sail an optimist, I got stuck out at sea and had to scream and wave like a madwoman for help, after which I was towed back to LAND oh LAND by a motorboat, humiliated and brick-red. So basically, I was just lounging around the boat, sunbathing, fooling around with sea water, hoping no turtle or jellyfish would nip me silly and relaxing while he did the mechanics hahaha. Oh, of course, not forgetting to duck when we were about to change directions so that I don’t get a bump in the head after being kissed by the … err…what’s that metal shaft thingy called…a boom? A boon? A *&$^*&^#>>???

            Anyway, it was great up to a point when my back started stinging from too much sun and saltwater and my pony tail became hard and erect behind my head like an excited bamboo snake, saturated with salt. Argghh, icky, icky! Nevertheless…

            Ahhh, beautiful, lazy, hazy days of swimming, sunbathing and eating nonstop and wondrous nights of seafood, booze and nonsensical blabbering…it is truly the way to go. Port Dickson is still the place to go if you want to lie down at night and stare up at velvet night skies with lovely twinkling stars…you can see naught in PJ – it’s simply too polluted here! And life is just too hectic back in PJ that the thought of taking a break to stargaze would probably never cross your mind at all to boot.

             If good old PD was rejuvenating, Pangkor was simply heavenly. Oh, there are simply too many good words to say about it that I simply trip over myself trying to describe the wonders of it. Okay, maybe I’ve been deprived of a vacation for far too long, haha. But sun, sea, wind and food are such a good combination, don’t you think?  Throw in a little antic by the monkeys from the nearby forest and the hornbills as they feast by the poolside in the evenings, not forgetting kayaking into the sunset, moonlight walks by the beach, and sipping cocktails by the pool…ahhh, paradise indeed.

            Anyway, paradise island aside, life otherwise had been quite the rollercoaster ride it promises to be. After that crash-boom-bang episode, publishers have been quite queuing up to pay me. Haha, would you believe it! Mom had been right after all, even if she was a little superstitious. She told me after my accident that it takes a little Bang! Bang! (accident) to achieve a little Boom! Boom! In the bank. Haha. And I’ve received calls from editors asking me when I would be submitting my next project. Time to get my lazy bumming arse up and running! There’s money to be made and fun to be had! Muahahaha.

            Maybe that is one of the reasons why life has been so hectic of late. I’m halfway through a kiddy project right now, one that I am hoping and keeping all fingers and toes crossed, I would finish a.s.a.p so that I could finally concentrate on writing a fruitful novel. I haven’t written any at all this year, I am so disappointed. Maybe, I’ve been parched of ideas. Or maybe, I’ve lost that twisted side of me along the way…

            I’ve been getting a little too mellow for 25, really. Happiness and contentment, I guess does that to a person, doesn’t it? When one is filled with angst and dissatisfaction and unhappiness, they have a tendency to be filled to the brim with creative juices, if they channeled their energy the right way. I wonder if anyone agrees with that. Having said that, I’ve just come out of a particularly rebellious state of mind. Maybe my placid existence does not augur well for a dramatic novel (all novels are dramatic anyway). Good and bad, I suppose.

            Yeah, finally I could say out loud that I am happy. I am contented and although I still gripe sometimes about the washing machine, lights and car failing on me, I am enjoying myself truly. I suppose I see things from a very laidback perspective these days. The other day, the car failed on me, right at the traffic light on my way back home from the office. It just died on me, no sputter, no spark, nothing. Anyone of you caught in a mini jam on the back road to Giant from Putrajaya highway last Monday, yeah, that would be me, though don’t curse me, curse the battery that died on me without showing a single sign it was going to.

            Oh, was it mentioned that I spent a full minute in panic trying to start the engine, drenched in sweat… one full minute before God sent me a relief…haha. Heaven spoils me, don’t you think? A knock on the window, and my brother came by, ready to assist. A twist of fate, wasn’t it? Anyway, as poor Eric in his shirt and tie went about to look for a mechanic, the blasted machine on four wheels sputtered to life and jerked for about a meter before moving like nothing had hit it.

            Anyway, I had the car checked and was told that there was nothing wrong with it. Weird wasn’t it? Of course it was. Which was why, the next morning, after running in the pouring rain for about 15 meters from the foyer of my condo to the car, I cursed every single word under the sun that I knew as best as I could with my teeth chattering out of cold. The car wouldn’t start! As though the heavy morning downpour was some sort of cataclysmic sign…it was the first morning ever since I moved in to this place that it had rained while I was leaving for work. To make a long story short, I had to retrace my steps back to the main building, sponging up rainwater for the second time around and apply for a half day leave. My suit was stuck to my skin and all I could think of when I got to the foyer lugging my laptop and handbag, looking absolutely disheveled was: “Thank god I don’t wear make up!” Imagine what mascara under the rain would look like. Freddie Kruger in the making hahaha.

            Boy was I ranting mad then. I had to keep calming myself down and telling myself to breathe, breathe, breathe. I directed the surplus energy into good use the only way I knew how when it was pouring outside and I couldn’t leave my pad. Spelt simply:  Spring Cleaning. A mini one albeit, all before my colleagues picked me up for an important training in the afternoon. I gave myself a pat on the back at the end of the day, at least if it was a screwed up day, it wasn’t an unproductive one.

            Anyway…suffice to say, I’ve got things under control now, with a car plan on the way. Been looking at the budget sheet and reworking it for a million times now, too. Hopefully I’ll be getting a new set of wheels some time soon.

            Ahh, it’s a beautiful morning, it’s a beautiful day…

True happiness and contentment despite life’s challenges and shortcomings is pure bliss.