thisguy

i don't often write about her here, but tonight i remembered something that i want to write down lest i forget it :

it was about 2 years ago. there's so much that she's done that warms my heart, but one of the random-est yet most kitten-ish things was when she got her very first luggage set using hard-earned cash from her barrista job for her trip down to london for her boyfriend's graduation.

so it's been 2 years since we were sitting on that fence in westminster watching london revel.

and it's been a year since we were gathered at bahir's place in the city watching the valley revel.

tonight will be relatively quiet, and i've decided that i am ok with that. sobriety should be embraced gracefully every now and then.

if you haven't already noticed, i've not been "in the zone" as far as writing is concerned. but i'm determined to put out a decent post before the evening is over.

without further ado, i'll let the sentimentality take over -

thisyear found thisguy;

• participating in the production of one of Malaysia's most exciting new local films
  
• getting lowballed by some bastards in the industry (and some outside the industry)
  
• gaining weight in penang
  
• setting up house for the kitten in seremban
  
• riding camels in karachi
  
• scoping thai chicks in bangkok
  
• tomb raiding, playing erhu and guzzling amok and angkor beer in siem reap
  
• hitting on hooter girls and sipping s'pore slings with an englishman in singapore
  
• singing queen anthems with the mafia and guzzling speedy's wild boar curry with jon in cherating
  
• chilling, brokebacking and getting super wasted in pangkor
  
• drinking beer topless with the five families and upgrading my software with colleagues in genting
  
• scaring suburban passers by at oktoberfest with the lousiest indian drinkers this side of the city
  
• migrating this blog then losing half a year's worth of journal entries
  
• catching up with old friends and struggling to re-establish ties (didnt do so well in this department)
  
• buying a new christmas tree for my family (it's a symbolic thing)

i don't think i've worked harder ever in my life before, yet i seem to have squeezed in a crazy amount of play too. to top that all, i got my best ever new year's present - my first promotion! (no raise yet though)

if you've stopped by to read this, drop a note and i hope you've had a good year and an even better one to come.

if you've had a shit year, go visit this site, and thank god for not having it as bad as saddam.

"It is impossible to step into the same river twice. No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
- Heraclitus

it's funny how i read that line while sitting on a makeshift swing, a log tied to a tree, swaying over the sands of a beach in pangkor island over the weekend. it was from a milan kundera book i happened to bring along in an attempt to figure out a few things and eventually finish reading what i started almost a year ago.

we found our way on the island after a bout of spelunking, multiple breakfasts consisting of toast, half boiled eggs, begedel, milo and ming court (behind excelsior hotel - so i remember) dimsum. it was a trip to bid rohan farewell and come to terms with another piece of youth lost to the real world (if there really is no such thing, how come we can't seem to ever lose sight of it?).

through the drunken events, go-karting and flippant conversations that ensued, i couldn't entirely get over the sense of melancholy at the back of my head. perhaps that would be why after 8 cans of beers and a very successful round of bluff, nightmares still plagued my sleep.

i've been to the island many times since childhood, to fish, heal wounds with family, welcome new family members, contemplate regrets with friends, flirt with girlguides and now, to say goodbye.

i can only wonder what the next trip there will be for?

endured a seven hour bus-ride back from penang - mercifully it was a pretty comfortable bus and my mp3 player had fresh batteries.

chinese new year mad rushes are part of the fun i guess - getting picked up by a very sleepy kitten made the whole ordeal a lot more bearable.

having slept so much on the bus, i find myself here trying to mark out this moment with some thought. i love the quiet period between 2 and 5 am. just before the birds wake up. when you own every sound you hear and every thought you think.

although i have about 12 days more to celebrate the chinese new year, the festivities more or less end here this year. i fly off to the desert soon, and won't be able to host or make house visits, gorge on cookies and develop a sore throat till next year.

random thought :
has anyone noticed how silently the sms industry murdered the chinese-new-year-greeting-card industry? people used to send those pink envolopes out months in advance to avoid postal "traffic jam" but nowadays, people send out sms-es days in advance to avoid telco service traffic jams.

a hearty arab-styled delivery dinner and french hip-hop finds its way onto my tv screen. black men, rapping in street french makes for some really surreal viewing. but like they say - even cursing in french feels like wiping your arse with satin.

the idea of having this blog was to record as many moments as possible (with the proviso of it not having an impact on my career, reputation etc.) but i feel that i've been leaving too many moments out. i'm losing my ability to link things together. that's what happens, i guess, when your life gets too random - occuring in different time zones, with different groups of people/social settings. if i attempt to recall and talk about things in sequence, in a manner that makes sense, it all becomes too verbose.

i suppose the only way i can record -

• the delay/cancelation of my flight home which left me close to shouting at airport counter people (despite one of them being one of the cutest asian girls i've seen in a while)

• being put on business class by accident - the champagne, conversation with business class passengers (there's a reason why they're a class above the rest of humanity) and service

• the four really special days back home

• the blurry, dreary flight back to the desert

• the many many excellent episodes of west wing (stellar screenplay writing!) i've been absorbing

• the nights out with fellow countrymen out here in the desert

is to just bullet point it, in the manner above. hopefully each bullet point will suffice to trigger more vivid memories as they occured. i wonder if i'll grow old and end up bedridden for the last few years of my life, clutching printouts of these journal entries wishing i took the time to write more...

hmm.

---
aside : how come the sight of scarlett johansson kissing bill murray is 100 times sexier more acceptable than her kissing justin timberlake?

cnn's been breaking out with news of the worst school/urban shooting in american history. i don't like mondays - indeed.

forget the boomtown rats, tori amos's cover of the song is the most haunting.

everytime i'm having a tedious day in the office, or when i'm bored in the middle of a pointless meeting, i find myself teleporting back to better days and better times.

10am, suburban housing area in klang valley, boy scouts' oddjob week : we used to go round the neighbourhoods near our school to do oddjobs for folks on weekends to raise funds for the troop. washing cars, teaching tuition, bathing dogs and cleaning out aquariums for signatures and token amounts of money. the mornings used to last so long, somehow. we'd be sweaty but enthusiastic, and try to avoid doing too much hardlabour. we'd try to pick the houses that had nice cars and possibly a cute teenage girl or two. it taught us a lot about humility and teamwork but was really hard work - i don't know why, but given the choice, i'd gladly do it again.

3pm on a cloudy afternoon in the shade by the poolside. this was during this chinese new year - i had music streaming from my earphones and a good book about strategy on my lap. kid cousins running around and some bikini clad chicks adding to the scenic splendour of the infinity pool. the perfect state of idle.

there's a pool in a newly built condo right outside my project room window at my client's office. tempting me like a motherfucker every afternoon after lunch when i'm sat down working on a dry assessment report.

sigh. at least i've got my earphones on and this music to take me halfway there.

---

i've written before about how my outlook on life is influenced by dicken's great expectations. it was one of the first classics i read as a boy. i've just had a quick lunch with an ex-mentor of mine. one of my first bosses, whom i trusted and confided in when i needed some strong advice. he had a hand in helping me get my present job. yet, over our quick catch-up session, i'm not sure if my sentimentality and dicken-esque naivette is a huge liability to myself. let's just say, the lunch was free, but came with all the requisite "hidden charges" attached with the proverbial free lunch.

also, i find the characters i come across, are as unpredictable as those in the book. people i find myself instinctively distrusting, have surprised me with their honest insight and truths. and people i always thought i could trust, have let me down with their strategic indifference and apathy at different points of time.

it's funny how i've gone through life quite confused most of the time.

---
covent garden - for whenever i want to revisit

i've picked up this weird habit problem recently. it would be fine if i just mentally undress hot chicks like other normal guys, but, i've found that since maybe a year or so ago, sometimes when i spot a hot chick, -ok this is gonna sound weird- i find myself picturing her old.

i don't know why - i do NOT dig old women ok. on the contrary, it usually turns me off if it's too easy to picture how a hot chick looks when she ages.

anyway, hopefully this goes away - or is it just a sign that i am aging as well?

there is one girl who i find pretty difficult to imagine growing old - and yet - that's exactly what she's doing ...

everybody look what's going down...

• najib's been named in the altantuya trial

• hamas matyrs "mickey mouse"

• glasgow airport is attacked

• two carbombs found in london

all this while brown's administration is barely a few days old, princess diana's memorial, gay pride and wimbledon going on - and it's also a few days before the anniversary of the 070705 bombings.

it's a mad world.

i've given up figuring things out. instead, for the most selfish of reasons, i hope these events don't escalate - and cause delays to my flights back this thursday...

---
my journal entry on during the bombings two years ago :

it's 11.12 am, thursday morning 7 July. explosions in central london reported on the news everywhere, around 10am. Sky news being the first with updates.

affected places so far are Russell Square (Tavistock square!) where a bus was blown up.

many more (as yet, no confirmation whether related or not) explosions heard in the underground tube network. the underground is now closed while rescuers salvage for survivors.

general confusion, but no panic. cabinet ministers have issued statement but do not report fatalities yet. eye witness reports say many bloody and injured. nothing conclusive about fatalities.

info above was obtained from television news reports. i wandered outside of houghton street and walked to a shop with televisions on the display windows. many people were crowded around it, trying to sift for information.

everything is well organised, police and medical services already working like clockwork. sirens all around and choppers in the sky.

stay tuned for more updates.

not going to make inferences, but today IS the G8 summit.

nothing further to add, so far me and my sister are ok and have texted my parents. mobile lines are now shut.

full.

my life feels full.

sunday morning 7am 8th of june and i'm staring out the fogged-up window of a suite on the 16th floor. the room is thrashed. alcohol and vomit and the sickening hue of cupcake colours meshed with the drab shade of the hotel carpets form a stark picture that kind of ties in with the blur from the night before. my friends, my closest allies and new friends, are scattered around. one in a cupboard. two in a pile. three on the bed. two sitting on the sofa, guilt written on their faces. culprits, cohorts, conspirators, companions and cunts, i love them all.

it's cold but i've just had a warm shower to wash off the buttery scent of icing sugar and the sticky sweet smell left lingering on me by the stripper that i barely remember. (was she shaved? not shaved? how is it that i only remember the most unattractive part of her - her face?)

my body feels clean on the outside, but inside i feel poisoned and my mind's in an alcohol-tainted state of remorse and regret. (as i get older, i find my hangovers get worse. is it because there is more to regret in the painful harsh light of a hungover morning?)

still. my overall state of mind is one of extreme gratitude - just for the fact that i survived the night and got so incredibly wasted in the company of my friends.

back to where i started, i was looking out the fogged up window onto thecity skyline. kl - my other good friend. barely awake, she looked as hungover as the rest of us. it looked like one of those grey mornings where the world might just decide to call it a day and everything might just end abruptly.

and i was ok with it.

25 years and one day old and i think i've gotten the hang of life. i can handle it sober. i can handle it drunk. i can handle it hungover. i can handle it when it's time to pay the bill.

---

yesterday, in the same night, i found myself attending n's wedding and m's 40th birthday. in both cases, i sat in as a quiet observer in the profound moments in the lives of two close/old friends. one on the cusp of her new life as half of a married couple. one partying her socks off to the beat of an approaching mid-life crisis. i remember thinking some rather deep thoughts but for the life of me can't recall it now.

i think it was something about wanting to get drunk on life.

---

i feel full.

these couple of months are going to fly by. macau | hong kong | redang | krabi and perhaps mongolia | dubai in between.

i'm looking forward to it. i like feeling full, secure and satisfied. but travelling will make me hungry again. in a good way. (i hope)

it feels as if i've been living in time warps. time slowing down, then speeding up, then failing to move at all.

i'm in the midst of wrapping up a major project i've been working on sporadically since the beginning of the year. late nights, forgotten weekends and amazing support from some of my favourite colleagues and it'll all be over soon.

finished work late and couldnt get a suitable dinner buddy so i had a nice dinner date with my mom instead. nasi kandar for me and ice kacang for her. i try to eat with my parents at least twice a week, seeing they're my house mates. but i rarely get to eat with them "alone". tonight was nice. my mom will always stick out like a sore thumb in a mamak. but somehow, tonight with a ridiculously huge bowl of ice kacang she seemed to fit in. more so than her tired haggard looking son, in crumpled cotton workwear.

it's really too late and i'm much too tired to blog. but i'm letting my life fleet past too fast. i remind myself its important to sit still for awhile and capture moments.

i'll be heading off to a beach getaway. it's a company trip but i'm determined to get a suitable amount of "me" time or at least get wasted in the process.

looking forward to it. i'm already planning on my pack list :

• sunglasses
• beer money
• sunblock
• loose shirts to wear unbuttoned
• journal (finally found the perfect one in hongkong)
• iphone+music+headphones (need to bring this back from the dead - it's brickd on me)
• underwater camera (courtesy of pohsi)
• guitar (gotta get a new bag for it)

its only a weekend holiday but god knows i need it.

(dear god, please let us survive the bus rides)

... is over," he realised, floating near the edge of the pool.

beer can, girlfriend, bro-friends nearby, a perfect shade of sunshower, water that felt just the right caress of cool.

rohan's leaving on thurs. the last of the abrahams of summer - off to face london's rat race. it's hard to understand why we didn't do more pool afternoons on the sundays he was here.

redang's come and gone. next week it's mongolia and krabi in rapid succession. (perhaps seoul or beijing in between - depending on layover lengths)

i can't say this summer's been all fun and games. the only off-days i took were for company trips to macau and redang. yet weekend after precious weekend i've managed to interlace a weird successive mix of alternate madness/drunkedness and work.

this weekend, was neither. futsal, swimming, kitten evenings and a really good night last night spent watching John Mayer's "where the light is" concert dvd - can i have more of this please?

for some strange reason, the stereophonic's "dakota" is playing in on one of the websites open in my window tray. the song seems to follow me around. making its presence felt most on the last days of summer...

read on for an entry to the beat of dakota written 4 summers ago...

1pm in my shorts i hit facebook before i brush my teeth mouth dry but water is too far away i'll make it someday what's more important is i compile these moments place them on an online photo/note album like the altar of my own existence before time and corporate jargon swallow them in infinity i'm listening to unfamiliar music in the form of an mgmt cd exchanged to my hands in the smoky strobelit indie night that really seemed like morning 12 hours and 4 chicken wings ago perhaps this is what living really feels like...

1.09 am. my iphone is singing to me. random songs on a playlist that's too cluttered to be anything but random.

its the second day of a 5 day holiday. its the second day i've been working past midnight from home.

its getting harder to feel alive nowadays. there's a slight rush i get when i send off a particularly well-put together piece of work. other than that, and some squeezed in moments with loved ones, there's just not enough life in my life.

i dont know why i've been feeling so trapped these days. these are my choices, i'm staying put and waiting on my own accord. so why feel this cornered?

i'm still doing what i love, but things have changed somewhat. a part of me has figured out what's happened and it seems all there is to do is to come to terms with it and adjust until it gets easier.

"all we can do is keep breathing"

breathe. manage my time better. complain less.

easy.