Haircut

Finally gave in and chaperoned James for his haircut. I mean, one can only think of so many excuses. He's been bugging me for 3 months. And his hair does resemble a shrubbery that might catch fire anytime. And I do need to familiarize myself with the roads now that I need to run around to meet up clients. Made friends with a chatty chubby hairstylist, Ray. He swore that he bought pirated VCDs from me before. What the hell? I denied vehemently. I'd rather be accused of peddling hunky male virgins. Must be my hair. It's in streaks/shades of black, hazel and pink. Anyway Ray did such a fab job on James that I almost asked him to cut my hair and dye it ash green. Aaaah. Shall do it for Christmas. It's the first time I exchanged numbers with a male hairstylist who sounded like he really meant it when he said, "Will call you up for a cuppa sometimes!" Oh well. He seemed more interested in James. And I have no qualms at all sacrificing James to have cool hair all the time.

Anyway, we, Catalyst (the band) hereby announce the appointment of Daniel Wang as an additional member with immediate effect bearing the position - rhythm guitarist. This decision is unanimously agreed upon based on Daniel unleashing the rocker within in just 2 jam sessions and had our eyes bugging out from their sockets with his jumping around the stage and teaching us new cool numbers. Awww wight, Danny-boy! Rock on!

dumplings

Watched a movie in my housemate's room last night. I was particularly excited as the movie was banned and would never hit the cinemas around here. It was supposed to be a horror flick, being the sequel to an award-winning eerie production. Maybe we were expecting too much. The movie turned out to be quite bland. I didn't flinch or dry-heave during the abortion scene or chopping-fetuses-up-into-dumplings scene. And no ghosts. Not enough gore. What a let down.

"Boo" to lousy storyline and too much hushed publicity (!!!).
"Hurrah" to free DVD rips and downloads.

credit? discredit?

Or rather, in this case, discredit. And that's not fine. At all. Our designers work with the speed of snails being zapped by stun guns. I am the tail of a rabid dog being chased round and round and snapped at incessantly. My clients blame me for missing deadlines, Designer Dudes blame me for impossible internal deadlines, Boss blames me for not pushing the designers hard enough. And all the time I'm just trying to be nice. Sob. But I still love my job. Something about not having to wear power suits and high-heels to work totally appeals to me. But then they'd better give me a raise soon or I'm gonna be eating doggie biscuits for its high-nutrient contents.

I'm about to collapse any minute. I'm too old to be sleeping at 4 a.m. Damn. No thanks to the Man Utd vs Arsenal match last night. No, don't get me wrong. I wasn't having insomnia because of hyper post-match celebratory adrenaline rush. The match was, in toto, boring. Not much action from Henry and my Gary-baby got himself 2 yellows. During the first half of the match I had to order food (oh I have sinned) to (1) keep me from falling off my chair; (2) muffle the aroma of rotting rat carcass wafting up from the drain beside the table; (3) avoid responding directly to Julian's uber-weird remarks eg "Do you mind me staring at you?" and "You look hot tonight"... (raise eyebrow quizzically)

So what kept me up till the wee, wee hours in the morning? Oh. I've been introduced to the wonderful world of manga. Not just any manga, but scanlation, yaoi, yuri and shou-jo manga. Oh yeah I am fluent (self-professed) in manga-ish now. I can't believe my cousins who're 13 and 17 actually dig these stuff! Tsk tsk. I'm gonna be kept busy for the next few weeks.

Cool shit, I'm telling you.

The night when the electricity went out

I don't understand why people find my swirly time and date piece troublesome and uncool. I think it rocks! Anyway, since David blatantly told me that it's utterly, utterly shitty, I shall take it out. All thanks to Ian my beloved bruh since I know cowpat about css or html. I do know quite a fair bit about CSI though, but that's another story altogether.

As I was nearing home, I felt that somehow the neighborhood looked different. Then I realised that it was dead quiet and pitch black. Great, the electricity went out. I called my housemates to see if they're happily watching a football match somewhere else. They were at home. Drat. Means no ginger tea session for me. Bumped into thousands of menacingly sharp/slippery/crunchy stuff on the arduous 10m journey into the house. Made a mental note to put a frigging flashlight in my car.

All my housemates were in awkward drugged positions on their beds, room doors ajar, staring up the ceiling in total darkness. So this is what's left of them when the computers are not working, I thought disgustedly. Empty shells. Then I realised that I am a computer-dependent internet junkie too.

After searching high and low for a lighter (or matches) in the house, I ended up lighting my scented candles using the gas stove. Undressed as slowly as I could. Still no electricity. Then I decided to take a crap (to pass time) and shower (to sleep better in case the fans won't work the entire night). Nearly dropped the candle on my head when I tried placing it on a ledge above the shower (so I won't accidentally kill the flicker mid-shampoo). The candlelight was actually quite romantic, but since the setting is my notorious bathroom... (shower scene soundtrack from Psycho playing)... the candlelight shed only creepy dancing shadows over the moss-covered walls and amplifying the size of busily crawling and buzzing insects.

All was quiet. Never had I heard dung splashing into the depth of the dark waters below with such absurd clarity. I tried to camouflage the sound of Mission: Locate Underside of Porcelain Submarine of those heat-seeking missiles by turning on the shower, shuffling shampoo bottles, slapping at insects and bellowing a popsong. I couldn't hear myself poop any longer but I still had niggling doubts about my housemates in their stupor. Inacitivity enhances senses. What if they're all sporting shit-faced grins knowing that I'm taking a crap? Or, worse still, glueing their ears to the bathroom door and snickering? I don't know. I have a paranoia about people trying to eavesdrop on me pooping. Do they have a scientific name for that phobia?

I was still baffled and traumatized after my private (after all) shitty affair and shower, so I scribbled the thoughts on a piece of paper. And those miraculously transferred themselves into this blog when I logged in a while ago. Awesome.

post script: Remember... no one's listening until you fart.

Teleconversation with A-Ma

Dad called and told me that Gramma's knee gave up on her and she's in a lot of pain and couldn't walk, and that he's coming with Mum for the weekend to visit Gramma, and of course, his two children who haven't been home for months. I told Dad I'll give Gramma a ring to find out how that poor bedridden soul is. Dad was delighted. I've never called Gramma before. Ever. Reason? Well, for starters, there's a language barrier. I can speak only broken phrases of my mother-tongue (Martian) and Gramma speaks nothing beside. Hell, I thought, I'm a 25-year-old adult, and adults can talk to another adult without sounding like a moronic stuttering macaw.

(the following conversation was carried out in Martian which is un-typable, now translated)
"A-Ma! How are you?"
(feeble) "i'm fine. was in pain but now i'm better..."
"That's great! Errr, were you sleeping when I called?"
(clears throat) "no, i was just lying down a bit..."
"That's great! So, have you eaten, A-Ma?"
(stronger voice) "oh yes, I ate."
"That's great! I am just calling to see how you are."
"i'm feeling better, really."

Then I ran out of vocab for a more meaningful conversation. And I think it's kinda rude to hang-up after 20 seconds of calling someone to comfort and fuss about them. So...

"A-Ma! How are you?"
"..."
"Are you sure you're better, A-Ma?"
"... yes i'm sure."
"That's great! Are you sure you've eaten, A-Ma?"
"... yes."

Oh fuck it. This is utterly idiotically useless.

"I'll see you on Saturday then A-Ma. Take care!"
"ok..."

My cousin guffawed into the other receiver when she heard A-Ma's phone click. Bratty eavesdropper! I shall bazooka her room off the face of the earth on Saturday.

married to work?

It's raining pussies and bitches and I'm marooned in the office with amazingly nothing to do. So I will start writing my auto-biography.

I am extraordinary
If you'd ever get to know me
I am extraordinary
I am just your ordinary
Average every day sane psycho
Supergoddess

~The end~

(Two hours later)
I'm still marooned in the office with amazingly nothing to do. And I can't recall what I did for the past 2 hours except the fact that I had coffee and biscuits and put on my headphones. This situation just bring the saying "time flies like an arrow shot out from the ass of an ass with bowel irritation" to life. Oh, and of course, another classic one.

"Get a fucking life!"

I shall go home now.

Damn the connection

Effing Hades. Damn connection is so bad I can't even change my blog template. And I thought my office's dial-up is crap. Have lost whatever remnants of conscious excitement for the day to write. However, received some interesting emails from the SB sistahs which made me laugh out loud at the office. Like how Ange went and bought herself a chilli padi plant to decorate her balcony. Fudging queer! Forgive me, Ange, I know I promised not to reveal anything about you here but this is simply too good to pass up. Here's the excerp:

"Jess: Damn fucking funny email...my gosh...can come and entertain me in Singapore during Christmas? You and E/E and fuck in the extra room and if she is bad, I have chilli padi plant ready for punishment!!!!"

Well, first of all, beloved, I'm usually pretty much stuck where I am during Christmas. Lots to take care of, the works. 'Sides, people flock to Singapore like birds flying south for winter. If you think I am wagging my tail (whatever) in anticipation to be stuck in hellish hot weather for 3 hours on the connecting bridge then you are very, very wrong. And if there is gonna be any hot action at all, I'd rather it be you than E/E. After all, we did... you know... ok, ok, not telling without your permission. HJ is still whopping his head to the wall for missing that. Damn I can still remember the white thong you had on. And also the scary image of happily-shitfaced E/E's bare ass and uhh... Val licking her you-know-what... Oh I can just visualize HJ whopping the wall even harder now. LCL stayed out of all the fun because she had constipation. Sometimes I have no effing idea how I can remember these stupidest details.

Great. Now everyone will think we had ourselves an orgy. We didn't. It was a girls' night out with us playing cards and laughing and bitch-slapping our kidneys with vodka. Oh, and a worried boyfriend (LCL's) who tagged along and got locked into the bathroom on numerous occassions when things had to be censored.

Back to Ange's email. How on earth do I render punishments with the damn chilli padi plant? Smash it into paste and smear it on E/E's arms and ask her to stand under the sun?

And if you SB sistahs think I should be a columnist (and I'm not collecting shoes like Carrie!) then start reading me already, lazy bitches.

Quiz

Interesting little quiz. I scored 40% for this "How Well Do You Know 80's Music" test. Considering that I only learned how to not pee in my pants and bawl my heart out when I couldn't find the remote to switch on Thundercats during the 80's... I must be a genius.

Laters. Am going out jamming with the band. We're slowly cutting down covering songs brilliantly written by others and start to write some serious rocking shit for ourselves. Woo hoo!

Slouch

Been indolent with updates here. I wasn't particularly busy, but I did have to submit a report on the history of my life for a 14-year-old's project, rattle some sense back into an extremely annoying SB sistah (SB: our sorority: Sluttinibus Bitchum chapter*) Val who has this tendency to victimize and rip genitals off (figuratively) men who have the catastrophical misfortune to fall in love with her, assuage the anxiety of another SB sistah LCL married last month with PMS - Post Marriage Syndrome... etc. So I was emotionally drained.

*Total members of this chapter: 5. Val, LCL, Ange, E/E and moi.

Anyway, highlights of the week:
(1) Monday night. Spent an hour wondering if I should include my stories about my four exes in my report for Homo Ethanus. (homo as in homo sapiens, not homo homo) Decided against it. Used up all my "Quadrant B: Wittiness" brain juice at work anyways. Instead, tried to link to my housemate's computer to watch one of his ripped DVD movies. Access Denied. Screamed obsceneties at him to fix it. He promised to as soon as he finished talking to his galpal on the phone. I fell asleep waiting.

(2) Tuesday at work. Derrick kicked the beach ball in the office Becks-style into a cabinet and the ball exploded. Okay, it didn't. It shrivelled into a prune-shaped lump with a piteous "pffffft". AJ Fok and I screamed obsceneties at him to buy us a new past-time. I spent the rest of the day mourning the grave parting of our loyal friend in stressful times, Ball.

(3) Wednesday at work. Went to see a new client who markets mobile phone accessories. She gave me an imported, expensive looking pair of dangly stuff for my phone. They're not too girly. And they're blue! Happiness. I swore to give her my 101% effort for her ad and lifetime allegiance to her products.

(4) Thursday night. Literally tore up the road forcing Lisa into overdrive to pick up housemates from home for The Bourne Supremacy. Screamed obsceneties upon finding out they weren't ready and good to go. Burnt rubber again flying Lisa to the cinema, blaring music at ear-splitting volume to drown out my passengers' shrieks and flailing limbs. We reached just in time for the movie and I had a whole box of caramel popcorn to myself, since the others lost their appetite after spewing their guts once they got out of the car. Okay, that was a tad exaggerating. But I did have one box of caramel popcorn all to myself. The movie was so-so.

(5) Friday at work. Out of sheer boredom I flirted with AJ Fok. Dangled one of the accessory (I had two from my client, remember?) in front of him provocatively and asked if he would like one and be a pair with me. He raised an eyebrow, curled his lips into a sarcastic smile and returned his full concentration to his Mac. Well, Fok you, AJ Fok. One day I shall perfect my art of dangling things provocatively. During lunch, Derrick bought another beach ball. And I promptly lost interest in dangling things.

Received a copy of Homo Ethanus' report. I feel totally misrepresented. Those weren't what I meant! I guess I know now how Britney or Paris feels. Heh. And ain't I darnded glaid I din't giv no histuhry aboot mah puhreveeose relayshunships. Yes sirree. Misrepresented, I was.

Wenz

Had lunch with Wenz (cousin married off to the States) and Rubes (cousin cum my he-bitch). Today I want to tell the happy-ever-after story of Wenz and her husband, B.

Wenz grew up a plain girl in an armpit of a town in the middle of nowhere, where village folks go about their business on antique motorcycles sans shirts and crash-helmets, and chicken and stray dogs own the streets. She didn't have an easy childhood. Her father died in an auto-accident when she was very young, leaving her mother to work 3 different jobs a day to make ends meet and put food on the table for Wenz and her 2 brothers. Her mother, being uneducated, couldn't secure any cushy office jobs and had to sweat for every cent she made. The children were often left unsupervised, and the children soon found other more interesting activities to be involved in other than studies. They were often disparaged and being compared to their more fortunate, valedictorian cousins. Wenz often wished she was born smarter, richer and prettier. But she was just another ordinary, plump, bespectacled pimply-faced girl with bad hair and unattainable crushes on hot guys from school. Until she got to know B and her world was turned upside-down.

After highschool, Wenz went to the city and enrolled herself in a college with her portion of her father's insurance money. She struggled with the course and dropped out a year later, working odd jobs to pay the bills and feed herself. One day, she responded to an ad in Hotmail Classified. B was interestingly from half a world away, and Wenz's friends were making lots of friends this way. What's there to lose anyway, she thought. What she didn't know was, albeit her broken English and unfunny jokes and limited general knowledge of the world's happenings... she got B falling really hard for her. Throughout the years of their courtship, B flew from the States to see her 3 or 4 times yearly, and Wenz was, well, still naive, plump, had bad hair, worked low-class jobs, and couldn't speak a perfect sentence of English. But love isn't a language that demands immaculate grammatical skills. When they smile into each other's eyes, I still get pangs of acute urges to roll my eyes heavenwards and shudder while goosepimples creep up my spine. Oh yes, love is a wonderful thing.

Their courtship was no easy deal, mind you. Wenz went through hell trying to go over to the States. She applied for a visitation visa and was rejected on financial grounds. She applied for a student's visa and was rejected because she didn't have good enough exam results, and she didn't have any relatives in the States. Then B proposed, she said yes, and he promptly bitch-slapped some embassy people to their senses and finally her visa was approved. In total, they met for less than 10 times before they got married. Funky. So he whisked her up onto his white horse and they rode happily into the sunset? Yeah right. Wenz's family and relatives cried bloody murder about the white-man conning one of the clan to go over to the States so he could prostitute her off or chop off her limbs to beg on the streets. After much convincing and interrogation sessions and B's parents and grandparents sending over videotapes of snippets of their lives and house... the bird left the nest.

Today, Wenz is happily married for 2 years. She's in SF, happily relating to us about the places B brings her to, meeting B's friendly relatives and friends, her skiing trips, the baseball games she watched, and enormous Haagen-Daaz ice cream buckets they stock in the fridge. She's still plump, bespectacled, has bad hair and for the life of her can't pronounce "redeem". I still get the urge to strangle and rattle her. I am still envious. I bet lots of the other cousins are, too (secretly). I bet we'll envy her even more once she starts popping out adorable, exotic-featured Mat Salleh tots. If I'm still partner-less after 2 years, I shall register myself with MSN Classified. I could do with some fairy-tale romance in my life. I'll risk the prostitution and chopping of limbs part, dammit.

I'm genuinely happy for her. I'm as green as an ogress can be with envy, but I'm glad that this Wenz has finally found her man and snagged him to cuddle in bed and grow old together.

Issues

Mum called me at work today, surprisingly. She asked me the question I haven't heard for quite some time, "Have you been going to church?" I swear, the closer to God that woman walks, the better she can read minds. I haven't got the question for such a long time. A few years back I dreaded her phone calls, as picking it up would mean lying about going to church when I'm not (and feeling damn mendacious afters) or forcing myself to go and hating the ordeal. Over the years though, I settled down with my current (ex?) church, made friends, found an extended family (well, I treated them as one), got involved in activities, and stopped making excuses. Phone calls with mum would be sharing biblical knowledge and latest happenings in our churches.

"No..." I replied.
"Hmmph," she said. "I knew it. Something's bothering me to call you."
"!!!!!" (more of a reaction than a response)

I told her everything. And swore to myself that was going to be the last time I go into that room of my brain's archives. This shit exhausts me, physically and mentally. Then mum said,

"The same thing is happening to my church."
"!!!!!" (what? with Uncle Chong and Pastor Leong and the wondrously lively worship sessions?)
"We had just been confronted and challenged by our speaker last week about pretentious churchgoers."
"!!!!!" (speakers who confront -> brutally honest -> awesome)

I couldn't describe my feelings then. Elation? Excitement? That somewhere somehow, some church is going through the same test. That somewhere somehow, some church is acknowledging and fixing her problems.

"Go to another church, then."
"Ma, I don't wanna be a nomad and church-hop. I thought you taught me to face challenges and not escape from them, and the Bible did say that......."
I gave her a long sermon.

"But I just want you to be happy and grow spiritually..." (*touched*)
"... and I don't think you can find a boyfriend in your current church."
"!!!!!" (what the...)
"Maaaaaaaaaa..."

Mothers. I love mine to death.

Letea

I love letea! Originating from Hakka, China, this delicacy requires a certain taste and does not appeal to everyone. I acquired the taste for it thanks to Jarod, an ex-boyfriend who happens to be a Hakka (hence knows an impressive lexicon of vulgarities) and a great cook. Jarod is recently singled (around the same time I lost my Love) and lonesome in Australia and is whining to me a lot about missing his girlfriend and bla bla bla. Talking about exes, Cowpat (the one after Jarod) was blubbering to me about how his girlfriend went to another side of the world and ditched his pathetic ass. Waaaait a minute. Am I the ex-boyfriend-recently-exed-again-club's president? Pillow of comfort? Crying shoulder? I'm suddenly the magnet to all ditched souls. Aaaah, to heck with that. It is kinda fun, talking to them again after losing contact for years. I guess being the nicest ex (and girlfriend) in the whole world, they feel comfortable sharing their deepest, darkest secrets and fears (and tears) with me without being ridiculed. I'm feeling warm all over.

Anyway back to letea. Besides being uber-yummylicious, it's healthy! Minimal meat, lotsa greens. First we have rice (plain or with smashed garlic lightly oiled) topped with mountains of long-beans, tortoise-beans, leafy veggies (I'm horrible at naming green stuff), tofu, groundnuts etc. Then, letea is poured into the mixture of rice and greens (which, according to my colleagues and friends, now look like something a farmer would feed the pigs with), and after mixing everything thoroughly, the bowl of rice-greens-tea is now murky brown/green (depending on the letea's ingredients) and ready to be attacked ravenously. Only usually by this time, the faint-hearted and weak-tummied would suddenly be very interested to have salad instead. Letea (the tea/soup) is made from green tea, sesame, groundnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and lots more eeky-sounding but healthy grains and greens. All the ingredients are mashed and grinded before adding cold and hot water, and voila, letea is served.

I love letea. Next to Japanese food.

Grieving

How does one know if she is over a person? How can one tell if her broken heart has mended? The saying goes "everything grows with time, except grief". Have I really grieved the passing of Love? Have I really screamed and cried and accepted the fact that Love won't be around anymore? Or have I simply shoved the fact into a closed trunk at the back of my mind because I didn't want to deal with reality?

I admit, the pain of Love leaving has ceased somewhat, to a dull ache in a corner of my heart only summoned to the surface by the occasional song on the radio, a familiar place Love used to go, Love's favorite phrase being uttered by someone else.

Have I stopped harboring hopes that Love isn't entirely gone? Have I moved on and stop thinking of ways to rekindle the flame when Love comes back? IF Love comes back. I don't know.

Is there Life after Love? I don't know.

Isn't this the best part of breaking up?
To find someone else you can't get enough of.
Someone who wants to be with you too.
Wouldn't it be beautiful?
But
Why can't I breathe whenever I think about you?
Why can't I speak whenever I talk about you?
I don't know.

Alterations

Someone complained that my blog's pop-up is too distracting so I took it off. I did away with the background music while I was at it. Getting on my nerves. So here's to a slightly new look.

After working till 3am the whole weekend, we finally got everything together for the presentation. If we do win the pitch, there'll be more 3am's and non-existence weekends. If we don't, well... Boss will make us slave and produce work with more quality so we can easily win the next pitching. I think I like the sound of the former better.

It's not even 11pm! Damn, have no idea what to do until bedtime. Here are some logical questions I came across while surfing the www which got me thinking...

(1) If a word is misspelled in the dictionary, how would we ever know?
(2) When man discovered milk came from cows, what did he THINK he was doing?
(3) If crimefighters fight crime, and firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?
(4) If blind people wear sunglasses, why don't deaf people wear earmuffs?
(5) What would have happened if Kuwait's main product was broccoli?
(6) If you're cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right?
(7) If work is so terrific, why do they have to pay you to do it?

Gee. I don't wanna have insomnia again tonight. I shall go fry my brains with Japanese drama instead.