Don't Know Much

We were in the car yesterday heading out for breakfast - Mark, Russ and me. It was one of those awkward silent moments, where the earlier conversations has ended and no one has anything new to say. We had stopped at the lights at SS2, waiting for it to turn green. I was looking out the driver’s window aimlessly.

In the silence, suddenly the chorus for the song on the radio became very clear, every word of it. And the lyrics went:

I don't know much but I know I love you.
That may be all I need to know.

Just as this chorus ended, I felt an incline from the back of my neck. I turned my head to the left and found Mark staring at me. And he met my eyes, he did not bulge.

The stare hit me, as if he is trying to tell me those three words. I was just taken aback. Out of not knowing what to say or do, I asked him “What?” It was supposed to mean “What are you looking at?” He just blinked him eyes slowly and gave me this knowing look.

I found myself in uncharted territory. I wasn’t sure if he really mean “I do love you” or he was just staring, which he do off and on and it is one of his ways of saying “he likes me” I did not dare to make that assumption. God knows what kind of damage it will to my heart, all the discipline and self-pep-talk about controlling expectations. No, no, there was too much to risk. Plus, Russ was sitting right behind.

So I did the one thing I could control – change to subject to a ‘matter-of-fact’ statement about the ESH warehouse.

Technology... hate it or love it?

I can still remember the good old days before technology… when you didn’t feel handicap without your notebook, and lonely without your explorer and stressed without your email.

I remember the days in Seaport where I learned to use WordStar, the days of the 8” floppy disk that incubates moles. [1988]

I remember the days of graphic designing when illustration and FA was manual – no adobe photoshop (in exchange for birthday presents, I asked for an airbrush); no scanners (the light box was my favorite tool , I would place a torch light under mom’s white wooden glass table to make a mock light box); no fonts (everything had to be typesetted). [1989]. The days in Grey when the entire company shared one Mac and the Mac had its own room, as big as the CDs. [1990]

And the days at Inti when we migrated to the 3 ½” mini disk…. the days when my reports were typed on WordPerfect and printed by the dot matrix printer. [1991]

I remember the days of emailing and chatting on DOS with Rudy, mom and dad from the CBA lab. My house was the first in SS3 to have Jaring. [1993]

Oh, the sweet joy of my first Microsoft Word document. My heart melted. And the great joy of Outlook. [1994]

I remember when I started my first workday at Parkson and I couldn’t find the mouse (they didn’t have one, they were still using WordPerfect). [1996] Yes, the year is right and the company is right. It was true and it was ridiculous.

I also remember my first mobile phone – no not the huge ‘tumbler’ phone, but the Ericsson phone with LED screen and a huge, long antenna.

Wow, what a journey is a short span of time. You wonder what happened in the 80s before technology.

There are a lot of things I don’t remember though. I don’t remember when I forgot how to write.

I forgot when I first got Skype and bosses started calling everyday. I don’t remember when the 3 ½” disk became passé and I no longer has a disk drive. Files are transfer via pen drive, skype or Bluetooth.

Or when I started getting 200 emails a day, and mails became so big that without daily downloading, they would have max out my mailbox limit of 15GB.

I forgot when I used my phone for sms-es more than phone calls.

Moments

I haven’t looked at this picture for a while. We were in Utah, on the way to Yellowstone.

I think that must have been one of Dad’s happiest moments. It was the first time he saw snowfall. Come to think of it, it was more than a snowfall, it was a snow storm. We have stopped the car on the side of the road, so we could get out and feel the snow paltering against our face. I remember the force of that wind. We could barely open our eyes. We had to shout at each other. It was wild.

My dad was cute. He’s a little on the chubby side, with the little round pot belly. Not the “obesed-ly” ugly kind, but a small cute one. I always thought he would have made a great Santa Claus. He has these small almond-shape eyes, the same one I have. His face was so young, despite his age at that time, probably from all the laughter and kindness. That’s my dad – always a helpful friend, always a happy man.

Sometimes I wonder how dad would look like if he were still alive today. He would have been 64. I think he would have still been equally jolly.

I remember his funeral and the scores of people that came. They came to pay their last respects. But they also came to relive my dad, to remember the joyful moments they had with my dad. It’s amazing how many lives my dad had touched.

That trip we made across the US was one of the best times I ever spent with mom and dad. They came for my graduation. I remember how proud dad was. I was sitting on the lower floor, and he was on the upper deck. He was so far away, his face was just a speck. But even from that distance, I saw his beaming. He was all excited, running around the Bob Devaney Center deck, snapping picture of me as my name was called and I walked up to the Chancellor to be bestowed my degree. I remember how he put his hand over my shoulder, gave me a pat and said “my daughter”.

I remember the day he died. I was still in bed that morning. It was a Monday morning. It was Thaipusam, a public holiday and I was sleeping in late. Mom was at working, overtime. He opened my room door and asked if I had wanted breakfast. My eyes could barely open. Through those small slits, I had a glimpse of him hovering at my room door. I grumbled “no”, agitated that I was jolted from my peaceful slumber. That was the last time I saw my dad. I was the last person he talked to.

That whole day was like a horrible movie. I remembered that sound – the furious clanging of our padlock against the metal grill. I jumped out of bed to check out the commotion. This kind Samaritan had found dad’s IC, followed the address and found our house. He informed us that dad had fainted in the pool’s shower room. I drove over with Rudy immediately, still in our peejays.

When I got there, I saw him lying still on the stretcher. The lifeguard told me he had called the ambulance about 20 minutes earlier, but no sign of it. To someone in vain, that news was ridiculous, totally unacceptable. I got impatient. I tried to call, but none of the phone in that complex was working. Hopeless public amenities. I had to do something. I told Rudy to stay with dad while I drove home to call for help.

I did find help. I informed Mom and gathered all the things that I thought I would need at the hospital – credit card, money, my driver’s license. By the time I got back to the pool, I was told that the ambulance has taken my dad to University Hospital.

I drove over as fast as I could, dashed into the emergency room. “Things are under control”, I kept assuring myself. “It’s just a concussion. They just had to revive him”. I wasn’t sure where to go. Then I saw Rudy walked out of into the corridors. He was mopping tears off his face. I walked up to him. Between sobs, I heard him say “Dee died, Dee died”.

Those words didn’t sink in at first. I thought it was a sick joke, I thought my brother just got too worried and nervous. Dad had just fainted from a minor fall. He was not sick. He was more than healthy.

Then I saw him. He was still on the stretcher. I called him, “Dee”. I shook him. “Dee” I called again, louder this time. “Wake up”. He didn’t. “Wake up, say something”. I went numb. This was not real, I thought. I was confused. I didn’t know what to do. I always made things happened, but now, I couldn’t make my Dad wake up. I stumbled out of the room. There has to be something that the medics have not been done. Some mistake some where.

I saw Mom walked in. She asked me how Dad was. I didn’t know what to say. I just muttered that he was inside the room. Rudy saw her. He was still sobbing. She asked him what was wrong and he continue to utter the only words he could managed, “Dee died” and broke down again.

I called Vincent. Vincent had special powers. He could tell me something. He answered. I whispered “my dad died”. The line was bad. He went “huh?”. I repeated myself, louder “my dad died”. I think he was shocked, he went “huh?” again. By this time, after myself said the words twice, it sunk in, it really did. “My dad died”. This time I was screaming, and I repeatedly screamed out the same words over phone, as if by getting the words out, the pressure would reduce. Tears gushed out of my skulls and eyes so hard. “My dad died”, I cried. I remember the people in the ward looking at me going hysterical. I don’t remember their faces. My mind had no room for them, it was too welled up with pain. I sunk into the hospital floor and cried.

I had many times wonder what ran through Dad’s mind the moment when he felt his heart cramped, his lungs contracted and his vision blacked out. What were his last thoughts? What did it feel like?

I will never know until it’s my turn. Time and time again, I wished I could turn back the clock to that moment when he opened my room door. Had I known it would be the last time I was seeing him, my last word would never have been “no”. I would have told him how much I loved him, hugged him, kissed him and would never have let him go for his swim.

Every time I think of that moment, it breaks my heart. I still miss my dad. After 8 years, the pain in not one bit lesser. It still makes me cry. Whoever said time will heel a broken heart. It doesn’t always.

The Forbidden Word

Between us, a thousands words we have said
Yet, a thousand more unsaid.

That is the only way I can describe what I have for him. And I am sure he loves me in his own little ways too. But we can never speak of it. The words that bond us are the very words that will tear us apart.

Song of the Dawn

Beautiful sunrise at Gem Isle

My Romantic Sex-capade

I am in Singapore. Cranky and tired as usual. I think I am starting to have problems walking. The short walk from Paya Lebar station to the office has actually stiffened my knee.

Oh, I must write down my most romantic holiday before I forget everything.

We went out to Gem Island over the weekend. It was a birthday getaway and he was just so nice throughout the trip. Well, he has always been nice to me, in his aloof ways, he is definitely someone who knows how to spoil his women if he wants to.

I drove for the trip. We started out in the morning after the rush hour and slowly made our way to Marang, where the jetty was. Too slow I guess, and we actually arrived 2 hours past the last boat at three. But they waited for us. Well, it was only a 10 minutes bot ride out, the island is not too far from the shore.

The resort was nice. It was the only resort on the island (there wasn’t much space on that tiny island for another one) and it had this exclusive air about it. Definitely not a family or children friendly place, which was good – there was no screaming kids. The room we got was a perfect lovers’ nest. The chalet in built over the rocks along the shoreline, so the entire day, you can hears the waves rush in and make music on the rocks. The room had was furnished in modern Balinese style, slate tiles on the bathroom walls, teak wood bed with mozzie net hanging from the top, and a big, comfy daybed.

Since we got in quite late on Friday, we really didn’t do much. Just relaxed, unpacked and had dinner. We sat out at the jeti for a bit, chatted and watched the stars. When we got back into the room, I changed into my secret weapon - the sexy lingerie I got. He could not resist ofcourse. It felt so good to feel him again after 2 long months. When he came, the sound of his moan was like music to my heart.

After breakfast on Saturday morning, we explored the tiny little island. We went back to the room and spent the entire day reading. I was so tired, I was just dozing off most times. But it was great to just be able to relax and be lazy. There was no house to clean, no gym to go to. It felt great.

Sunday was what he called “pamper him” day. I made mid-morning love to him. Kissed, nibbled and licked him from head to toe. Gave him a slow blowjob. I licked and massgae his testicales. He like thats I could tell. I straddled him. Made slow and long erotic moves. He felt obligated to reciprocate. I told him he didn't have to, I just wanted to make him feel good. We had session two later. I gave a hom full body scrub. It was so sexy to have your man standing there naked while you, naked as well, move around him and clean every nook of his body. I massaged him with my BodyShop Strawberry body exfoliator. He smelled like a fruit tart and it was cute.

On Monday, I woke him up to watch sunrise with me. It was beautiful. After the sun broke, we went back to bed. But I wouldn’t let him sleep, no, I was too horny. I don’t think we ever made love as good as that morning. I took him slowly, no rush. And god, after a while, he could not longer just watched me take him body. He went wild. He sucked my breasts so hard, oh it was good. We always have different climax positions, and usually he would make me come first. That night, we came together - same position, same time. I cannot describe how the burst of emotion felt. But it was really good.

I love him so much.

Famine & Obesity

The DJs and Francessca Peters are on the radio going on and on about this 30-hour famine event organized by World Vision. The whole idea is so we could appreciate what famine is.

Interesting considering it was just 2 weeks ago when news broke around the world that there are more people dying of obesity than hunger across the world. If this is not irony, I don’t know what is.

Sexy Lingerie and Elipses

Spent more then three hundred bucks yesterday on a lingerie set. ]It’s a top in beautiful black lace netting and matching pants. It’s almost good as not wearing anything. The material is pretty much translucent. You could see my big nipples peeping through the fabric.

But I don’t know what is it about lingerie, but that black lace outfit is extremely sexy. I swear, each time I try on the outfit and look at myself in the mirror, my pussy get juicy. I know, it’s crazy. I have never had that feeling before. But I thought if it could have that effect on me, it will drive the men up the roof.

Started art class over the weekend.

I had an easel to myself. I have never drawn standing upright. It was always a seated setting. It felt weird at first, I wasn’t sure where to rest my elbow and my wrist. Plus my back and feet were getting tired. But it does give you a sense of space and freedom.

The style that the teacher taught me was quite interesting. We started with a circle, then shrunk the circle to an elipse (the last time I came across this word, it was in the book Punctuation Power and elipese meant "...'), and then lines. And pretty much, every item can be broken down to there three basic concept. Thus, when you draw, you look at the object and breakdown it into circles, lines and elipses. Instead is drawing an over, you imagine yourself transferring the shapes from a 3D environment into 2D environment. And drawing became so surprisingly easy.

Procrastination versus prioritization…

Procrastination versus prioritization… the distinction is just a fine line isn’t it.

Yes, yes. Procrastination is when you have the time and refuse to do what you’ve plan to or have to. Prioritization is when you simply have more important stuff to attend to. It’s true, there are people who are perpetually busy… Me. Me!

This whole exercise of waking up 30 minutes earlier every morning is starting to kill me. I know I am griping, but seriously, I am not an inspired housewife trapped in a bored life.

I have more than enough excitement in my daily life. As it is, I am not sleeping enough. Now, I have 30 minutes less.

Sigh… why did I put myself through this…..

Be Mean and Be Quick

It’s a wet, lazy morning.

May as well. I went to bed at 4 this morning. The gray sky is a good excuse to stay in.

My brain is very awake, though the ache at the back of my neck tells me otherwise.

I have concluded that men need to be treated like garbage. You do that and they will come running after you like Velcro.

You become overtly nice to them, they take you for granted. Is this self-inflicted self-torture sadist attitude in them. They want to chase and hunt for their food. If food is always readily in front of them, they become lazy bastards.

So bitchiness will help you get laid. Niceness don’t.

Speaking of which, I am again reaffirmed that older men are better fucks. Younger men… I don’t know… they seem fell obligated to go through the entire kamasutra before they hit the home run.

Hallor… somebody please tell these guys, witching positions disrupts intensity.

The old fashion missionary position is under 10 minutes is anytime better than 36 positions in 30 minutes. Call me old-fashion, I don’t anything kinky nor enjoyable about it. Pussy does get tired you know. The guys is banging away, and in your mind, you keep saying “common, get on with it, I want to sleep”. Shit, I sound like some pros working on the hour now. Haha.v

Dried Sahara

This morning, my heart hurts.

I cannot really explain it, but I think it’s time I stop seeing him.

The last month, my emotions have been yo-yoing between joy and frustration.

Sure, I admit, I have developed expectations. But how can I not? We met on AFF. We met for sex.

The rules used to be quite simple. We’re free, we meet and we fuck after that, or at least try.

It has been drier that the Sahara for the last 2 months. I have been driving myself nuts trying to cook up excuses for him not wanting me. Fatigues, declining libido, tough day, inconvenience.

I have been driving myself up the wall questioning if my expectations have been unreasonable. And then ballistic trying to create justify my behavior.

But it has been 2 months! It’s has exceeded the reasonable period for inconvenience and mood swings.

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it when I feel like a needy puppy and have to beg for affection.

I have been telling myself to stop seeing him many times. Each time, I allow myself to be drawn back into it.

I don’t know what it is we have between us. I have never been able to vocalize any discussion about it.

What are we? We don’t have a relationship for sure. Just-for-sex friends – that kind of friendship, I can deal with – the likes of David, Robert – it’s OK, the when-it’s convenient-I-am-horny friends. But we are definitely more than that. Then I guess we are friends who also have sex – but if it’s that, we have come to a point that I am not longer sexually desirable. Well, guess that makes us just friends.

Are we? Is he even worthy as a friend? I would like to find reasons to hate him, but I can’t. I can’t. He has been a nice and decent friend.

The problem is me, it’s my mind. I thought I was in control of these games, in control of myself. But I have lost it.

I think I should just move this whole thing into friendship mode, where even sex is not expected. That would make matters between us much clearer and totally free of expectations.

Bitten by the Learning Bug Again

I think the learning bug has just hit me again. I started a writer’s course yesterday. And I signed up for art class yesterday too. I also decided that I would pursue my PhD.

I don’t know what happened. I have been mulling and procrastinating over these decisions for the longest time. Then it just hit me yesterday. I felt that I was ready. The time felt right.

It’s amazing how your heart takes over the certain decision-making process.

But it felt good. It’s like a new beginning… a new chapter.

I have always enjoying the learning environment. It’s not really what they teach you – most times they are theories and concepts that you already know. But it’s the isolation of your interferences of live, the quietness of mind, and the voice within your soul can start to speak.

You start to discover who you are. You remember what you used to be and reflect on what you have become. And you wonder what you want to be.

My Sun Catcher

I love my sun catcher. It captures the sun rays and makes rainbows in my room, not one, but a lot of rainbows…hundreds at times. Some times, it will make the rainbow dance. Those days, my heart will dance too.

The Orchestra Outside My Window

One of the perks of living out here on the far edges of the suburb is the orchestra of birds I wake up to every morning. Some chirp, some coo, most just sing their hearts out. It’s sweet melody for the soul.

Throughout the day, the birds will be flying up and down, in big and small groups. On rare occasions, a lone ranger will wander into your home. It’s a little playground for them. It’s a sanctuary for me.

In the times that we live in now, where air, noise and spiritual pollution reins, these are precious, tranquil moments. It’s a reminder that there is more to life than just living.

You remember to be grateful for the things we take for granted all the time. The air we breath, and the fact that we are breathing. The sights we see, and the fact that we have sight. The things we feel, and the fact that we can feel, both in sense and in the heart.

Holy Cow

I live along Jalan Lapangan Terbang Subang. I love the area, except that about once every week, my drive to and from home will be greeted with a most fowl scent and scene - cow droppings.

Huge patches of them lining the streets. And after a while, the patches are rolled out along the entire street after unassuming cars run over them. And they are just left there until mother nature (rain) takes care of it. If it does not rains, that’s it, they are left stinking to the high heavens.

I have no idea where the cows come from, but surely, this ain’t no playground for cows. No, no, I have nothing against the cows. Sure, they need their space, their walks and their grazing patches.

But not along a 4-lane highway. They are a public hazard – they and their dungs. Last month, one of the cows wandered into the highway and was knocked over by a car. The poor cow died of course, but the car was in no less damage running into such a huge animal.

By the way, I live on the Petaling Jaya side of the Jalan Lapangan Terbang Subang – the half that just recently became a city. A glorious city with increased assessment fees and monthly cow droppings.

A Very Brilliant and Very Malaysian Way to Lose Weight & Save Money

I have always wondered why government agencies always find it necessary to serve food at every meeting.

I know, I know. It’s the Malaysian way, we say. We must be courteous to our guests. But seriously, do we really need to lavish colleagues with so much food. In the private sector, cold and warm water is as good as it gets.

Food is served and guests are obligated to eat. If they don’t take a bite, they feel it’s rude. So in Malaysia, more often than not, you go to five meetings with government related agencies, you end up eating five times. Each time coconut, sugar and cholesterol-laden “kuih muih”. And don’t forget the coffee and tea laced to the brim with sweetened condense milk (and we wonder why we are short of sugar supply and have too many fat people in Malaysia)

It’s a business meeting. You just want to get productive, address the issues and get back to work. No, no, you put the food on the table, you have to allocate an extra 15 minutes non-productive time for small talk and for the guests to swallow their food.

Now, let’s just play with some numbers. The food and drinks is estimated at RM3 per pax. Assuming that 5% of our entire 1.1 million civil servants workforce have to attend just two meetings a month. That’s a whopping RM3.96 million in food cost!

RM3.96 million of taxpayers’ money on food to feed “kuih muih” to civil servants (who are already paid salary and bonuses to serve the rakyat). And later, probably another RM500K on a campaign to help our obese civil work force shed the extra pounds.

So if we cut the food:
We save RM3.96 million or more.
Cut the 15 minutes required to swallow the food, we will get an extra 3 hours of productive for the staff attending the meeting (at 5% of the 1.1million work force, that’s 165K additional hours).
We save on the 500K to run a weight loss campaign.

OK, maybe my numbers are flawed, but hey, I hope someone gets the picture.

Whining Taxis

It’s quite amazing that we have the president of the taxi operator association whining about why operators should not be penalized for the acts of their drivers.

The question is: why not? The drivers are their employees. As with all businesses, employers are directly responsible for the any acts their employees perform on their behalf.

I applaud the authorities for taking this firm action and I sincerely hope they don’t relax this expectation of the operators. How many times have the operators been asked to improve? How much more tolerance do these operators expect from the public?

No need to look far, Just look south and compared our taxi drivers to Singapore taxi drivers. It’s mighty high time operators buck up.

Instead of the constant complaining, I would like to see the association come up with more constructive solutions and get relevant parties to help improve the situation.

How about paying your drivers better so the job becomes one they can’t afford to lose? How about providing your driver with a incentive plan for good behavior? How about a penalty plan for bad behaviors? How about deferred compensation based on measured KPIs?

Bite the bullet and get creative. There are many ways to address the problem other than to sit around or go to the press and whine.

Welcome to Malaysia

I was in Singapore for another one of my business trips. People who knows me knows how much I dislike Singapore. However, this time, I somehow paid attention to other details the tiny island provided.

Start with the trip from Changi Airport. As the taxi drove me to my office, the scenery was a very pleasant greeting. The highway from the airport to the city is lined with rows and rows of coconut trees, palm tress and bougainvilleas.

I returned to KL on Friday. The road from the KLIA to KL is lined with nothing much but billboards.

The drive to and from the airport is very important. It’s the first impression visitors have of our country. I remember back in the heydays when we were still flew from the Subang Airport. The stretch of road from the Federal Highway to the airport was beautifully landscaped with trees and flowering plants. It was certainly a grand welcome to visitors.
Visit Malaysia Year 2007 is coming. I am quite sure not much would change but I already know what I could expect. More billboards springing up along the highway that say "Welcome to Malaysia".

I wonder what kind of city I am living in?

Shrouded in haze by day, flooded up by night.

I cannot comprehend how, Kuala Lumpur, a city of modern standards, can be flooded after a heavy downpour.

Not a freak downpour. Don’t even call it flash flood. Something that happens repetitively year after year after year, can no longer be classified as freak or flash.

I wonder what kind of city am I living in?

I have lived all my life in PJ. Even when I bought my own home, I bought one in PJ because I cannot imagine myself living in another neighbourhood.

So it hurts me deeply to see how my beloved neighbourhood has dilapidated into its current state.

The recent billboard fiasco is a joke. Has anyone noticed how many empty billboards there are in PJ? Just along the PJ’s section of the Federal Highway. Between the Subang and Jalan Gasing intersection, there are at least 5 empty unipole billboards.

And here we have the PJ City Council allowing more billboards. Why do we need more when there isn’t even enough advertisers to take up the current ones?

I also wonder about this “billboard concession-for-pedestrian bridge” exchange. There’s a mammoth across the Federal Highway (it spreads across 6 lanes) near the Jalan 222 interchange. One wonders how many pedestrians will climb the flight of stairs to use the bridge when the can easily cross at the traffic lights at Jalan 222? I would seriously like to know what kind of study is done to determine the location of a pedestrian bridge. What’s the use of building bridges in areas where there are little or no pedestrians? If a bridge is built for the primary purpose of putting up an ad, let just call it what it is – an ad bridge, not a pedestrian bridge.