Bits and pieces and Selamat Hari Raya ...

Hey. Heavy and pointless stuff aside, here are snatches of things going on in between my torrid and sometimes placid life:

• Haze is back, smoggier than ever. Before you complain that the whole forest burning is choking the life out of you, look down at your plate and be thankful for the kampung rice that you love so much.

• Independence Day and Raya falls on the same week, so prolonged holidays. Two weeks ago I was involved in the Kembara Merdeka Ramadhan 2011, organised by our sister department, the Information Dept Ministry. It stretched for 14 days with a convoy of 6 cars starting from Kuching and ended in Weston Tow, Sipitang. Fun, the trip was although I was in it for 5 days only, rounding up my turns from Sibu to Miri. The trip was fun, relaxing in a way, and made me realised how fortunate I am to be born and raised in Sarawak, the biggest multi-ethnic State in Malaysia. 

Vanity shot @ Daro ferry point. With my ex-boss from Info Dept.

• Double celebration means longer public holidays of course. Looking forward to clear traffics, less road bully, and more road racing! What 80kmph? We go by 120!

• Watched The Bridesmaids two nights ago. A hilarious and pathetic adventure of a 30-plus attractive lady, single, broke, jobless and who was uncannily picked to head the Bridesmaids squad -- a colourful mix of friends -- by her soon-to-wed bestfriend. I would've chucked it because it sounded kind of too familiar, but then we're not feeling sorry for ourselves, are we? All the single ladies, watch this and see if you don't laugh and cry at the same time.  Didn't know a broken tail-light can be a hard-to-ignore pickup line, hey. 

 Google Pix

• Tried my hand at Italian food, and with a smashing success I might add! Beef bacon with egg and chilli cheese pasta... Seriously fun to do, quick and not over the top. Perhaps the only thing missing is the Italian -- picturing the Godfather himself coming over for dinner. Sigh. Thank you Wilson Chin for the idea. 

 Tada! Bella italia!

• And ... Thank God for FB, now I can save my phone credit and just send the Raya greeting via walls and messages, since most everyone I know is connected one way or another. Amazing how much money and time you save. Did I miss out anyone? Sorry I'm a cheapskate, but so what. That's what technology is for right? Utilise and conquer! Good stalking tool too, that. 

So here's wishing everyone celebrating the Raya: 

SELAMAT HARI RAYA,

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

and 

SELAMAT HARI MERDEKA!

Romantic fools will go far ...

Here's another indulgence you might not understand.

So what if I'm romantic? It makes my world go round. So what if I spend my money on books with covers my dad would scowl at? Good investment, each one. Hey?

There are reasons why I read my novels. One purely being that I love the wits laced with sarcasm some might mistake them for sugar. Two being that I pick up words I don't normally see played down so brilliantly in other genres it gives me enough ideas to form my own. Three because I so adore intelligence in a woman, and a romance novel is 90% written by one and most assuredly 99% starred in one. Closely related to that, four being that men featured in them are usually ones with many contradicting features it helps to understand some of their weaknesses, to my endless advantage. And five... simply because I am an utterly hopeless romantic and forever have the need to romanticize everything, even an entry post like this, because what else can I do about it except glorify in it?

Yes you caught me at it a few times already. Did I use that clever line on you? No I came up with it on my own a few more hundred times. Improvised, you know. Plagiarism is bad business, don't copy, imitate in your own way. You will get the hang of it.

How else did you think I get so well argued with my interviewers, mostly men who liked to think they're intelligent, that I managed to change jobs from good to better a few times in my life? There. How else did you think I managed to scare men away? Not always good that, not always bad either, but humor me.

Oh you can have your stuff ... crime, thriller, horror, science, futuristic, journals, biography, autobiography, travel guide, poetry, political... I have nothing against them, in fact I do alternate on rare occasions. Except they don't stir my soul quite as well as my romance collection. I don't read them for the intimacy and birds-bees stuff, although there is that too. And I pick my authors, like you'd pick your lingerie brand. Before you smirk and dismiss me as some sex-crazed moonstruck kookie -- Dude, to each his own.

Hmm. I think I'm going to start on that book project now. *Flipped another sexy cover from the shelf. Ah.*

Source: Crisismagazine.com

Noteworthy: We the romance readers don't read dime novels for teenagers, we read the thick and complicated ones that help us learn our grammars, build our vocabs along the way, feed points into our arguments, sharpen our wits, improve our charms, and aid us in our everyday dealings with the men in our lives.

Watch and listen, you just might miss it ...

See. You can get lonely in a room full of people. Just like you can die of thirst standing knee-deep in the water. Or get hit crossing the road on a pedestrian walk. Or fall in love with your worst enemy.

Who's to know when it will hit you, or who will ever understand the workings of the world? Sometimes your prayers get answered, sometimes it doesn't, but who are we to argue with God that we know more what's best for us than Him? 

Pretty hard facts, all those, but the irony of things is that nothing is always what it seems. Every face has a story. Good, bad, happy, sad, amusing, tragic, strange, miraculous, complicated, sometimes something no one can quite explain. Won't you want people to look at you and wonder about the mystery of you? Where you have been, what you have gone through, who you met a few seconds ago that probably changed your life, things you saw along your journey that made the person you are, a thousand things in your mind you wish you had the courage to say and do but didn't, regrets you wish you could wipe away, memories you prayed you could forget or cherish forever?

When you sit in the interview room waiting for your turn, do you look around and assess everyone down, sizing them up, wondering what brought them there or how you could ever compete? When you walk along the busy pavement and see a wretched couple begging, do you wonder about their history or if they were victims of circumstances or crime, and do you stop to drop a few coins or say a few nice words, or walk away hoping somebody else will do it? When you drive your way through the busy traffic and a car cut in front of you without warning, do you curse at him and honk angrily, or pray he'd reach safely wherever he was rushing to because he probably has good reasons, like an emergency? When your close friends don't call and keep silent for days on end, do you feel neglected and let down, or wonder if they are alright and do you make the call first? When a child tug at your hand while you're occupied, do you tell him to be quiet or do you stoop down and ask what he wants to say? If you saw a woman crying in a crowded place, do you chide her to behave and that she should stop embarassing herself, or do you comfort her and tell her it's alright that you are there to listen?

Or do you walk away from it all because it has nothing to do with you?

See. Some things happened to each of us somehow some ways that shaped who we are, every tingling moment. We had better be careful not to discount each one and dismiss it like it means nothing. When we take the time to get past the facade, we just might surprise ourselves.

What would it take to draw the story out in the open, do you think?

Note: Life does not end just because you have a broken heart. If you want your story heard and understood, listen to others'.

Please Lord, keep me strong ...

Photo credit: thegirlinthecafe.com

This is all too fast. Too fast for me. I would beg for a time to at least react to it, but I guess I am not so fortunate. 

What would you do if someday you wake up and realise the world has passed you by and you just missed it?

Wake up now, girl!

p/s: Coffee Girl is taking a short break to find some healing balm. Be right back. Don't go anywhere, but say a little prayer for me. Thank you.

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Coffee no alibi ...

Men are all the same, especially the guilty ones, and the guilty looking ones. A mere observation.

They offer to go for a coffee break with you, when you don't need one nor the company. Which tells you something about the whole scene, that it's either the coffee break, the coffee, or the company they're interested in. And they will pick a secluded cafe that people are unlikely to patronise. Or if they have a hankering for expensive coffee, they'd pick a far end corner or a spot hidden by pillars or flower pots. The slightly bold ones will pick a public place and giving the impression that they care a whit about public opinion, except that they keep looking beyond their shoulders or checking the perimeters every now and then.

Busted.

And once they're spotted by a friend, a colleague, a relative, or just an acquaintance, they will go all that length to be extra friendly, going over to the person, chat about nothing, making sure the other person makes no such wrong impression about who you are or what you are to him. And mother of paranoia -- not even bothering to introduce you. Like covering a crime scene.

Hmm... quagmire... unneccessary.

Let me tell it to you straight: I like my coffee, I dont necessarily pick my company on that note. I would enjoy a cup because that is what I do when I feel like it. If you want to buy me coffee on the pretext of having the same brew interest when in fact you are interested in me -- and I'm not being coy here -- I would appreciate someone man enough to admit it head on, taken or not. So that I would know how to act around you, and deal with the situation better. I most certainly will not pretend anything else other than the intention to drink my coffee and drink it till I'm done.

If you're married, or conveniently single while your spouse is away somewhere else, or having a girlfriend somewhere in your conscience, best bets is you would look guiltier than me because your intentions are always apparent maybe not to me at the time, but to someone else. I hate having people look at me like I'm some home-wrecker, husband snatcher, relationship break-up device, or the other woman, when in your company. I hate looking like a guilty person just because you were not honest enough. I hate the looks I get. Because yes, that is exactly the wrong kind of impression they will get when you dart your eyes frantically around and across the room every now and then.

As for you, you can stop wasting your time there. Go home to whoever you belong to and dont even hold the thought, dash it right away. Mister, if I had wanted the company I would simply ask for one, from my own group status kind. No finesse needed.

But if you're not the above, then take it easy man. Don't look so guilty because you will make me look guilty as well. Drink up, and relax.

I am not playing hard to get, I am merely smarter than you. Give me a break, I can only manage one man at a time. If you can't handle the coffee, don't even contemplate it.

 Don't encriminate my coffee, or you will pay for it...

........

That aching feeling ...

[bleak dreadful silence]

"Do you think we will ever get past this? This need to look over our shoulders hoping the other one will look back, even though we have both chosen to go our own ways?"

"We have to try, even if we know it is not always the best course."

"You're certainly calm about this. I don't know how you do it."

"You think I'm calm? Then you do not know me well enough."

"Who is to say if a person can ever know another too well or not well enough? Why do we do this to ourselves?"

"Because it's expected of us. Because we made a pact. Because if it had been any other way, we wouldn't even be here right now."

"Bullshit. We never adher to society rules. Why now?"

"Don't make it sound like I approve of this. We both agreed to it."

"Yes yes. Mutual crap stuff."

"Why are you being difficult?"

"Why are you being irrational?"

"You know how I feel about you!"

"There should be a ping sound accompanying that, for giving a correct answer. Wait for it."

"Are you making a joke now? Are you? Because if you are, you are downright mad throwing that at my face."

"And shall I say you know how I feel about you too? You have been throwing that back at me since ages ago."

"I never did such things. I just didn't answer you back."

"Clever answer. Education tells me, that is the same thing."

"Well education also tells me you can believe whatever you want."

[dark dragging silence]

"Are you alright?"

"Shh. Do you hear that?"

"No ... What is it?"

"That's the sound of my heart breaking."

"Strange, I could almost hear a terrifying echo on this side."

"If I had it my way..."

"Shh. If I had it my way too ..."

Photo Credit: Bored Now

Late night ...

Checked fingernails. Nipped, neat, and practical. Nothing broken there. Nothing bitesey looking.

Checked the toenails. All in good order. The tiny toe on the right foot looks off-ish, but I'll walk okay.

Checked hair. No silver there yet. Running fingers through it. One or two strands came off. Tough.

Checked moles on left cheek. Looking good. Some people used that as a pick-up line before. Trust me, they'd use anything to get your attention. Lame.

Checked fridge. Stock looks enough to hold for another 3 days. Need more ribena, and probably some cherry tomato. Tomorrow.

Checked wardrobe. What to wear tomorrow? Wait... I'm on leave. I don't need to worry about what to wear.

Checked fingernails. Again. Mimicking Elle Woods "..She's got the six-carat Harry Winston on her bony, unpolished finger" on Vivian the fiance snatcher.

Checked Blackberry messages. Craps. All of them. I don't read work stuff after midnight.

So what do you do if you can't sleep? Exhausted all my books, awaiting the new arrivals in another 2 weeks if I'm lucky. Exhausted all my movies too. I could watch Secret Diary of a Call Girl season 4 again, but I don't like the detached feeling the heroin put on sometimes, you can't be all that human and normal can you? Nothing's good on TV either at this time of night. No one's up and willing to talk to me either right now.

Maybe my biological clock is acting up, giving me one hell of a wake up call. I need sleep, and yet I finished an entire entry about my unslumberous state, and still wide awake. Why is that?

Is that the effect of the half jug of black black hot brew I washed down that's been keeping me wide-eyed and actively tossing and turning and finishing a sentence each and rummaging and fidgeting and finishing another sentence in between and wiggling and kicking air and finishing a whole entry to publish?

God. Maybe the effect is stronger than expected.

Need sleep. Need sleep. Come on pillows. Cooperate!

........

Abstinence ...

No coffee for a whole month. Achievable?

 

Bear up the hands that hang down, 

by faith and prayer; support the tottering knees. 

Have you any days of fasting and prayer? 

Storm the throne of grace and persevere therein, 

and mercy will come down.

~ John Wesley

Here wishing all my Muslim friends and readers, a Happy 1st Fasting Day! 
.....