exaggeration and tall tales galore

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Scenes from an airport

We take that long drive to the airport. I check in,we go for a drink at Oldtown, and I find it oddly fitting, considering that the first meal I had when I got back was at that very same place. We chit-chat over menial stuff, then it's time to go, so they walk me over to the departure gate and as each of them hugs me in turn, I wonder if I'm going to fall apart but nothing happens and I manage to crack a joke and make my parents laugh, which in turn makes me laugh. I show the attendant my boarding pass and my passport, and I get on the escalator, on which I turn to face my family and start waving and doing the salam malaysia gesture, until they're out of sight.

Then I get through passport control and am walking towards the departure lounge, and as I do so I get pinpricks behind my eyes but nothing dramatic, so I sit down, take out a book, and stare into space. I map out the series of events that will happen once I land. I will get through customs, get a cab, get to the apartment, beep myself in, unlock the door and wheel my huge-ass luggage through the doorway. I will proceed to my room, dump my stuff, and crash onto bed. Then, I decide, the most logical thing to do would be to crumple up into a ball and cry my heart out. Sounds like a decent itinerary.

Later on when we're allowed into the waiting room for the actual departure gate, I properly read the book, occasionally glancing around to take in my surroundings. There's a girl with long, gorgeous, healthy-looking hair, and I mentally compare it to my own tresses, which I've just cut and can't decide whether it looks pretty cute or like the hairdo of a failed anchorwoman. There's a cute toddler sitting on his dad's lap, but he's on the verge of tears, occasionally letting out a cry, and I'm just thinking whether he will become one of those Toddlers That Drive You Crazy With Their Crying On A Plane and woe befall those who sit near him, when I suddenly become aware that the guy sitting next to me is sniffling. I thought he was a guy, but judging by the sound of his sniffles, it sounds like a girl. I don't mean to intrude, but I was deeply curious to whether it was indeed a boy or girl, so I try to sneak a sideways glance at him, which didn't really help, because he/she looks like a girl, but would a girl have manly sideburns?

We're being called to board now, and everyone scrambles to get in line, which I don't understand, since our seats are pre-assigned anyway, so I wait for a bit, and so does the girl/boy next to me, still sniffling. It is obvious she/he is still crying, and I wonder why. As I get up to make my way to the door, I'm tempted to offer an "Are you okay?" to him/her, but I know that if it were me I'd rather be left alone, so I just walk ahead without looking.

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Je ne veux pas retourner

I am 21 going on 22, and I still do things at the last minute, thus causing myself trouble, like the dilemma I'm having right now over my passport and visa.

Well, I'm learning.

Yesterday was a near slip towards the mean reds, I found the very idea of that flight back to Melbourne on Monday night terrifying. I don't want to play anymore.

But that moment has passed, and asides from this whole passport/visa thing, I can grasp the notion of classes starting, handling apartment bills and doing the groceries again. I think.

After spending almost the whole summer not writing, and in fact, not even opening my journal(I think my lack of journal entries are directly related to my lack of communication with God, if you can believe. Sorry, can't resist the whole spiritual analysis thing), I read through it again, and it felt like sweet relief. I could identify with the things I wrote, and I know that sounds idiotic, after all, I did write them myself. But I think, if I may be ridiculously self-centered and melodramatic; I sort of lost myself. Reading my journal gave a sort of deja vu feeling, I recognized what I wrote as me. It was me.

OH-KAY, now that we've gotten the psycho-babble out of the way.

To friends I've lost
To friends I did not earn
To friends I didn't try for
To friends who've hurt me back
I'm sorry.

Well, I said the psycho-babble was over, I didn't mention anything about psycho-haikus or psycho-stabs-at-poetry.

There was this one moment at Phuket, we were walking around at night, and on our way back to the hotel we passed this Irish pub. I looked inside, there was a makeshift stage in one corner, and right when I looked in I saw this guy, a local, I think, standing on the stage with a guitar in hand. He was smiling at something, and then, still smiling, his gaze swung around, thus meeting mine.

Back at school, I once went for this French festival for SBP schools, and I was standing at the food-stall my school had set up, and up came this guy from some other school, I don't know where, and the moment I turned around I saw him, I got this jolt and I do believe I was infatuated, just like that. Infatuation at first sight. He didn't even have to say anything, wasn't even talking to me, wasn't even particularly good-looking. He was just asking the guy beside me a question, smiling, and that was all it took.

Well, of course nothing came out of that, nor this. But I remembered that feeling, that jolt, and I'll be damned, I experienced it again when I saw that grinning Thai guy, wearing a Bob Marley hat in Jamaican flag colours. He looked at me, I got a jolt, thinking he was gorgeous. So what did I do? Instead of summoning my own 1000 kilowatt smile, I dropped my gaze to the ground(probably blushing my cheeks off), and gave a teeny one. To the ground. What was I doing? Trying to channel Vanidah Imran? Nak jadi Perempuan Melayu Terakhir?

Ultimate flirting failure.

Anyway, my frequent listen as of late has been this song by David Choi. Such a prettily sad sentimental song. After listening to this compared to the original stripped down version with just a guitar, I must say, production can make all the difference. The violins are employed beautifully, and I really like the solitary piano notes played between the lines of the chorus, it sounds so floaty and ethereal, it ties everything up so nicely. Also, I think the video was nifty work, done by the independent Wong Fu Productions.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Small talk


Phuket was:

1. Incredibly hot, with blue skies.

2. A Mat Salleh haven, with everyone walking either shirtless or in their bikinis, positively tanned like roasted chestnuts. I felt so overdressed in comparison.

3. Not wanting to go back to Melbourne.

4. Watching drag queens dance on stage. Some very pretty, other just plain scary, all with better bodies than I'll ever have in this lifetime.

5. Wanting to scratch my eyes out at the sight of topless old ladies and man-boobs. On one hand, I like how they are very comfortable with their bodies and don't give a rat's ass about what other people think, on the other I wanted to screech "WHYYYYY????".


7. Seeing all the massage parlours, with the girls sitting outside. I was morbidly curious to see the sex industry in Phuket. Well, I didn't. The closest I got was seeing a lot of scantily clad girls outside bars and these massage places, with the idea that at least some of them offered 'happy endings'.

8. Spending Chinese New Year there. A lot of food offerings and fire-crackers. Seeing a truckload of lion dancers pass by, banging on their cymbals and drums.

9. Yearning.

10. Eating lunch at a halal restaurant in front of a mosque, hearing the azan and seeing guys in singlets and shorts(quintessential beachwear) drive up on mopeds, park, ambik wuduk, and toss on a jubah or kain batik to do their prayers.

10. A stamp on my passport.

11.Only an hour and a half away.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Swagger

Fact: When there is an acquaintance sitting in front of me, smoking, I can’t help but want to stare. I'll try not to, I'll try to find somewhere else to look, but it's kind of hard. Especially when that acquaintance is talking to me. Every time I look them in the face to address them, my eyes are automatically riveted to the cigarette. Fail.

I want to stare because I am genuinely curious. Growing up, I was never in direct contact with smokers, just the few relatives on my dad’s side. None of my friends smoked (well, none that I knew of anyway). My dad used too, but that was a long time ago, and the only memory I have that can affirm this belief is one of my sister and I stealing his pack of cigarettes in order to hide it. In college, only a couple of people I knew smoked, and they were guys, never girls.

It’s only since I started doing my internship that I’ve continuously been in close proximity with smokers, and I have to say, I am almost embarrassingly intrigued, more so by women smokers(jakun, I believe, is the accurate and term). When they take out their pack of Dunhill menthol lights and plonk it on the table, or surreptitiously pull out a single stick from their bag, I have to resist the urge to stare unabashedly. I like watching the whole process, from the pre-smoking rituals, like hitting the box against the palm of their hand (why do they do that? So that the cigarettes won’t stick together?),to pulling or tapping one out, to searching for a lighter, holding their palm over the flame as they light the cigarette. Then, that first long drag, and that first exhalation of smoke. Wah.

I’m not for smoking, I’m quite heartily against it. But I do appreciate the aesthetic quality of the whole thing. I think it makes the person doing it look cool.

Wait, I take that back, I've seen some people smoke who don't look cool. Let me rephrase: It can make a person look cool, if done properly.

Well, can't it? The way the cigarette is dangled between the second and third finger, the leisurely manner in which it is done, the way some people gesticulate with the cigarette while talking.

Technically my last day of work tomorrow. I'm smiling. On the inside.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

hi

Hark at me being all religiously confounded and shit.

I need some new music man, because I have seriously overplayed most of the songs in my music player, which weren't that many to begin with. I need new songs to adore. My sister is of course a reliable source, but lately she's taken to mumbly french music, which, while very sophisticated and cool(somehow anything french automatically gets two extra notches on the bedpost of coolness), doesn't appeal much to me. K-pop is all very fun and bouncy when you're watching their music videos, but I don't think it's as much fun to just listen to the songs over my headphones.

I was reminded of Placebo's Song to say Goodbye a few days ago, though, and it gives me tingles. The opening lyrics are dynamite, it is hate and bitterness and venom and exactly how I feel sometimes.

You are one of God's mistakes,
You crying, tragic waste of skin.


Does it ever occur to you to start doing a sexy dance whenever you listen to Muse's Time is Running Out? Sort of like the video but without the army uniforms. I do. Whenever the song comes on, I think 'OOOH, this song is perfect for a sexy dance', and I say the term "sexy dance" like how Jermaine says it in Business Time, and then I mentally start stripping or pole-dancing or whatnot.

Pop pleasure of the week: Cheryl Cole featuring Will.i.am., 3 Words. I like it, simplistic lyrics and will.i.am's tendency to spell things and all. I like how it starts with those repetitive notes, and how the beats pile up in layers, die down and then start up again. It makes me want to be all floaty and move in slow motion with a melancholic face (very much like the japanese music video) one second, and break out dancing the next.

bye.