thisguy

it's not just about knowing the answers
it's not even asking the right questions
it's the process of finding out
that's i m p o r t a n t

"happiness is good health and a bad memory."
-ingrid bergman

"give my gun away when it's loaded, is that alright with you? if you don't shoot it, how'm i spossed to hold it?"
-nine crimes, damien rice

i try to avoid drama in my life as much as possible, but perhaps this has made me a little too constipated. and as people tend to do when they're constipated, you've no choice but to let things just hang before you can clear up the clogged-ness inside.

instead of resembling damien rice song lyrics, don't you wish your love life and relationships could be as it is in hip-hop songs - sexy, shallow and fit to rhyme?

sitting on a gaudy red couch in a serviced apartment somewhere in the middle east - just lost a long journal entry post to the depths of cyberspace.

my meat shwarma dinner just got delivered.

was planning on writing a travelogue-esque post but i've been writing so much about the country i'm in, i'm a little sick tired of it - i'd rather write bout anything else.

while checking out this girl's blog - recommended by nyx - i came across the term "elevator speech" - trust the MBA wielding community to come up with a phrase for everything yuppies do.

i'm pretty bad at it - those minute long conversations with clients who pay you to spend time with them or colleagues whom you get paid to spend time with. yet given the profession i'm in, it's something i have to learn to pull off better. still, it's like pillow talking with one night stands - not really my thing.

anyway, more randomness some other time. i'm hungry.

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.

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covent garden - for whenever i want to revisit

this has been a super chill weekend. devoid of work responsibilities for once. the weather has been amazing, the traffic jams haven't - yet they've contributed in part to the more interesting moments this weekend. my thoughts don't connect, so i'll write them as they came - disjointed and random.

-

bae was at the wheel, driving his drunkard friends home. i looked out at the side mirror. windows were down. alcohol and cigarette perfumed the night air and wind rushed at my slightly sticky face. i stared hard at my eyes and wondered what ever happened to the big saucer-like eyes that i had once upon a time. those eyes gazed at the mundane with child-like wonder, and more importantly, they let people in - rarely discriminated, rarely doubted and they would stare back with confidence - eyes wide opened.

these days, my eyes are small, heavy, still, faded and they rely on the muscles of my face instead to project confidence. my small eyes seem strained from guarding other people's secrets. shrunken and sometimes more piercing, i'm more shrewd where i used to be shallow. but i'd also like to think my eyes are kinder now than they used to be. stronger than they used to be. but reluctant to relook and relive the shit i've been through so far.

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it rained hard outside. i sat on her couch, that green suede-ish piece of furniture where we first held hands. she studied while i played with her dogs and napped and dreamt of stealing delicacies from a bakery.

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somewhere in a new york moment, something pretty special happened.

-

back here in kl, i'm not sure what magic there is left to believe in or rather, what good it'll do now.