yesterday i caused a car accident with my ravishing beauty.

i was at this '+' junction, waiting to merge into mainstream traffic. there was a car on the opposite lane, also waiting for his turn. it wasn't an extremely busy road, but it being a '+' junction, cars were going in all direction. there was an endless stream of cars, all moving very slow. soon enough there was a gap in the flow of traffic. i was in no hurry though, so i signalled to the car opposite that he may go first. he hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then he started to move forward, very slowly.

i have enough reason to believe that the guy behind the wheels was so awe-struck with my radiating beauty that he was blind to everything else. otherwise, my soft waving hand was like a hypnotising wand and the guy was rendered imbecile with my charm. one thing for sure, he was blind. he was moving at supernaturally slow speed and supernaturally slowly hit a car that was driving along the main road. it was like a slow motion picture, brought to you by mgm studios. crash, bang, boom. the young girl behind the wheels was shocked beyond words. how he could miss the car that was also driving very slowly, i have no idea. where else could his eyes be looking except at yours sincerely, because the last time i checked, the registrar of road transportation does not allow blind people to drive. the setting sun was reflecting off his windscreen so i have no way of verifying where his eyes were staring, or if he had any in the first place. perhaps to all purpose he believed that his grandfather owns the road, and he could take his own sweet time to cross it and the world will stand still for him. alternatively, he thought it was the red sea, he was moses, and the traffic will part for him to cross at his will. a million of theories, but no answers.

in a way i feel responsible, because i let him go first, because i am too beautiful, because i entranced him and he couldn't think straight. :-p

people seem to be very crabby these days. is it the weather? is it the food? is it the economy or the politics? perhaps they are not getting enough action in the bedroom. headline: sexual frustration causes all types of social maladies.

one day not very long ago, i walked into the neighbourhood cafe to order a birthday cake. a distinguished looking caucasian man walked in to order 6 pieces of cake.

do you want 7 pieces, the lady behind the counter asked, seeing that there were exactly 7 pieces left of that particular cake. a perfectly normal question if you ask me, and a very entrepreneuring one. sell off the leftover pieces so that you can release the space for a new cake. very commendable, and if she was my employee i would have earmarked her for promotion.

the man, apparently with a lot of pent-up issues, in his pants and in his head, replied in a very agitated voice, "6 pieces mean 6 pieces!". he didn't raise his voice though, i give him that much. i turned to have a better look at him, at this well-dressed man, seemingly an expatriate with a high level position, and wondered why a simple reasonable question could spark off such irritation. a single 'no' wasn't good enough for this smart-looking man, he had to let the woman know that he can count. i never knew a situation when one didn't mean one, two didn't mean two, three didn't mean three, but apparently he did.

she asked meekly after a minute or two, "would you want that separately packed?" with the most arrogant yet indifferent look, he just gave a shrug. some people think that standing behind counters for 8 to 9 hours a day is a bliss, and having rude gruff customers is the icing to their day. forget common courtesies like thank you's and please's, expressing your request in a simple decent way was apparently asking for ice from hell.

i learnt that day not to judge a book by its cover. i've always known to respect people who are lower in the social hierarchy but never thought that the idiom goes both ways. a beautiful red apple doesn't mean there are no worms wriggling inside.

it's quite scary the number of scams that are going around. if you are not on your toes, for even a split second, someone may just be lurking around to cheat you, hit you, deceive you or whatever else they have up their sleeves. you could be doing anything; withdrawing cash from the atm, window-shopping, picking up kids or even just strolling around, you could be the victim of an elaborate well-thought out scheme to hustle you of your personal effects, or even you! your physical self.

the scams are endless, infinite. the ones that are exposed in the newspaper are immediately replaced by more imaginative ones. there is no contest to the imagination of mankind, especially when his boundless wit is used on illegitimate means. i've heard of so many, i've seen quite a few myself, but personally i know of one most elaborate con-job that is not often spoken, yet to be exposed but is probably the most widespread and threatening.

i'm talking about babies. you know, those big-shinny-innocent-eyed, chubby-rosy-cheeked thing. those that you can spend hours after hours looking at them doing absolutely nothing except sleep. the ones that melt your hand when they utter a single 'goo-goo' or wrap their hand around your finger. the irresistible, adorable, cute little babies. it is a well-thought out scam. really. exceptionally angelic packaging, enchanting audio, an enchanting package all in all to lure you into the trap. into what exactly? firstly, diapers and diapersful of shit! who in their right mind will want to clean up someone elses' bum and vomit if not for that aforementioned charming packaging? then, a verrrrrry long spell of sleepless nights, guaranteed to transform you into the not-so-distant cousin of the panda. it cries, and you drop everything and come a-running. sounds like some evil plot where you have been hypnotised into a deep trance and is at the beck and call of this thing yet? your life goes on hold for a couple of years, whilst this little thing grows up, possibly trashing whatever material things you may have; computers, cars, walls, clothes and definitely the thickness level of your wallet.

well, if you think that this is the extent of its control on you, you have already been scammed. you are looking at a lifetime of endless worries, back talk, insolence and aggravation. at some point in your journey of parenthood, you are bound to have the thought of 'is there a return policy for this?', however fleeting it may be, and let me tell you right now, right here, that there is no return policy. no exchange either. you are stuck with them for life. you didn't think about that when you were staring at the dark bottomless pool of black innocence and they were batting their eyelids in all sweetness, did you? you spend countless and countless hours supervising their homework, nagging good manners, etiquette and all the good virtues in life, only to realise in the end that they do not necessary practice what you preach, especially when you are not around. you threaten them, you cajole them, you bribe them, you scold them. they have transformed you into a shrew, a gangster, a nagging old woman and a mother who will always be worried about her children. always. all these because they were once a cute,irresistible,adorable little baby. would you have got into all these if babies are disgusting looking things?

if, one day you stop and think, that this is all worth it, that when they are happy, healthy and playing blissfully, that all this has been worthwhile, that you do not need to get back anything for all that you have done and given out, as do all parents, you have truly and totally been scammed. :-p

birthdays are always nice, if nothing more than that people are generally nicer to you than on normal days. you get to exercise your 'comeon, it's my birthdayyyyyy!' prerogative, blink your eyes a couple of times and it gets people moving. even the hard-core lazy bones ones.

they ask you what you want to eat, but you still don't end up screaming 'Japaneseeeee' because you know they are not maniac over sobas and unagis like you are, and there is only so much japanese food a normal person can take before they explode, japanese people not included. they ask you what you want to do, and they shuffle alongside you in the shopping centre like zombies, eventhough you don't patronize your favourite shops or see your favourite things incase one of them does turn into an actual living dead. they give you hand-made birthday cards and write the sweetest things, which kind of make you feel like you are reading your own eulogy, except that you are still alive and kicking, which is always a good thing. they fill your facebook page with the same exact two words, 'happy birthday', and you have to think of a thousand of different witty ways to reply to that. thank you for all the heartfelt brain stimulation. they bake your favourite cookies and name the receipe after you but they don't tell you what that name is, leading you to suspect that they say the same thing to every girl out there, and they crush you with bear hugs, all the time maintaining that cool tough rebellious and definitely aloof teenage exterior. they ask you whether you want to eat your red egg on your english birthday and call you 'girl', transporting you in the blink of an eye to your sweet childhood days when everything was easy and simple.

birthdays are always good, and the age is only a number game. 12 o'clock feels like the bewitching hour and very much like cinderella, everything is transformed back to the way it was.

tick tock tick tock. the clock marks each second with a slight movement of its hand. time has never passed more slowly than when you are waiting for news on the health of your loved ones. to top that off, you are thousands of miles away. the agony of not knowing, not being there, of waiting and hoping, of not being able to take things into your own hands. i have never known such torment. you laugh, you play, you walk, you talk and you eat, just like any other day, except you have a 10,000 pounds weight sitting comfortably on your heart. everything pales by comparison.

the day after i left, the nightmare began. she started out with a weak, listless voice over the phone. i felt guilty for not being there already. the next day, someone called with news that her blood sugar reading hit the roof. what?! she was never a diabetic in all her regular annual blood checks. something is wrong somewhere. the news got worse with each passing day. her ca19.9 reading has just passed the borderline. i feared for the worst but hoped for the best. i was hesitant to speak to her over the phone, afraid even, that my voice will betray what we were all trying to cover up. she has been complaining of a loss of appetite and discomfort in the her abdominal region recently. she has lost some weight. suddenly, for no apparent reason, now her blood sugar and pressure is sky high. piecing all the puzzles together, i am fully aware of what the picture shows. i have been down that road before. yet i could do nothing except to continue playing, eating, walking and talking. my hands fidgeted with the handphone the entire day. i wanted to call, to know what was the lastest development every other second, yet i was afraid of disrupting some important meeting. i waited. i was restless. i said a prayer with every step i took.

finally, the report came. there was inflammation. where? why? what? how? emergency surgery was scheduled. i don't know if i was relieved that it wasn't something related to oncology or distressed that she will have to undergo surgery in the next few hours, and i wasn't even there beside her. sure, it was a small operation. sure, it was routine stuff for the surgeon. but what if? there is always the what if, and i wasn't arrogant nor naive enough to ignore the possibilities.

everything went well. however, even when she rose from the anesthesia and called me back, i couldn't rest easy. the nights are the worse. she was gasping for breath from the lack of oxygen supply in her blood. i didn't dare to talk more. it was going to be a very long night.

i am blessed that the story had a happy ending, as happy as a successful operation can be anyway. by the time i returned, she was once more waiting at home for me. everything seemed surreal, like i imagined the entire incident in my delusional brain. when i came back, everything was back to the way it was. except for that 4-inch gash on her abdomen, surrounded by an entire patch of bruised blue-black.

i'm used to being over-worked and over-demanded. i have accustomed to being the solution for each problem and task. suddenly, it was taken all out of my hands and i was left weak and helpless, not even able to look in from afar. life sometimes mock me to show me how i am blessed but i am left with my energy drained.

the day that nobody remembered.

it started out as a day like any other, but deep in my heart was a sinking feeling because i knew that nobody remembered. it is not such a big deal, i kept telling myself, but i felt myself disappearing just a little. into oblivion, into transparency. how do i describe the feeling of fleetingness, of immaterialism, when nobody remembers the day that you commenced to exist? it was as if nobody valued the significance of your existence; no hands to tie you back, no worth to weigh you down, and so you evanesce a little, fragmenting into a little twirl of entity and dissolving into the air.

it was my lunar calendar birthday, so nobody bothered to remember the date. "not like it was your real birthday". for the past 39 years, i had red eggs and vermicelli to mark the day, with the occasional lapse in celebration. 2 years ago, everybody forgot too. funny how you don't really remember celebrating it, until nobody does as well. this year i marked my birthday with a little tear, brushed away hurriedly with the back of my hand just incase anybody caught me crying. like a cry baby, even at 39.

i have never given much weighting to my real birthdays, being surrounded by interest-motivated people most of the time. i have received large bouquets of flowers, delicious cakes, expensive presents, and i cringe because i can never be certain of their sincerity. i take it with the grace and gratefulness that is requisite of the social game. however, it means nothing more than attempts to further solidify their position in the ladder of life. letting it all go to your head will be a receipe for suicide. many extends their well-wishes, some less, others more. who is real behind these walls of grinning smiles and nodding heads, i sometimes can no longer tell. for some, i know, it is nothing more than a run-of-the-mill business commitment. there is the occasional one, who gives something from the heart, from the hands, and you know, that this is a friend. however, i have learned to take that day with a pinch of salt.

which makes the chinese birthday all the more distinct. only those closest and dearest have privy to that information. only those who are most sincere and true. perhaps when you are setting yourself up for something like that, you are destined to fall the most painful. life is that cruel. what you don't care for, you have plenty. what you value, you have none. it hurts. no doubt about that. but what can you say? you can't force people to remember. you can't make people value you more. you take what you get, and you move on.

and so, it became a day like any other day.

received a friend invitation in facebook today.

sooooooo?

received one from someone i do not know. no inkling whatsoever. her face, name, or anything else for that matter, does not ring a bell.

sooooooo? what's so special about that? at some point in their facebook existence, everybody receives a few of these invitations from 'very friendly' strangers hoping to increase their circle of friends, by a couple of hundred thousands. doesn't really matter if you are fat or thin, tall or short, pretty or ugly, as long as you are a human being. actually, i don't think that is a requisite either, as long as you have a facebook account and you qualify as one extra friend. apparently, some people out there are collecting 'friends' on facebook like i will collect stamps, and my daughter collects aluminium can tabs. go figure. the evolution of the hobbies of collecting to include modern technology :-p

well, the thing is this lady in question has only 4 friends. not exactly the high-flier in facebook. i don't know any of her friends. it sure does not help that her profile picture is a black and white creepy side profile in dark lighting. you can't see it here, because i won't repost it but brrrr, believe me, it gives me the shivers just remembering it. actually, the creepy part is that she has posted my profile picture on her wall! her wall of almost nothing short of a few posts, and i am on it grinning in a kawaii way. how creepy is that?

?!?!??!!? what is that all about? please kindly interpret what does all this mean for me? i seem to be the only other race in her group of 4 friends. i get friendly, but i seem to be singled out for very peculiar reasons that even i do not comprehend. freaky.

our side of the world is becoming less and less efficient, because we tolerate mediocrity. we accept the flaws in people, as we rightly should, but even lame excuses and feebly -covered laziness are part and parcel of the deal. it has grown to the point of being so in your face. yes, i am lazy, yes i am not willing to lift a single finger and get off my metaphorical big butt. soooo?

somewhere out there someone expects me to stay at home 24hours a day, and that person isn't even my hubs, until he sees fit to visit. he assumes, in that empty echoing brain of his, that i have nothing better to do than sit at home and lay my golden egg. without even asking what i do for a living, what type of lifestyle i live and what my schedules are like, he assumes that i will be at home, waiting, pining, anticipating his arrival.

gasp! who can be so righteous, so full of himself, you may like to know. a charity organisation, would you believe? i am trying to donate the sofa that we have grown to love and adore to someone else who may still be able to extract many more years of good use from it, seeing that it is still in very good condition. i vetted potential candidates as i didn't want it to be abused by those worms missing cardiac organs and conscience, who milks charitable intentions for their own personal profit. finding a respectable organisation, i emailed them to see if they can pick up the sofa. what is the condition of your sofa??? three question marks! she must be a very inquisitive person. i commiserate that many people genuinely mistake their organisation as dumping ground for whatever rubbish they have brewing at home, but that is another kind of worm which i do not want to go into. i send her photos of my sofa and she was apparently satisfied. can you please pick it up on 24th morning? ok, i will make the arrangement on 24th morning. please kindly read carefully. not 'i will arrange for the pick-up on 24th' but rather i will make the arrangement on that morning only. i know not how to answer to that. i emailed her again on 23rd morning; can you please ask them to come before 10.30am? she did not reply. apparently, charity is a very busy organisation.

i woke up bright and early today morning to give a last clean-up and a lingering look to the sofa. i have not heard from them since their last email agreeing to make arrangements. what arrangements exactly, i am apparently not authorised to know. it is top secret stuff, this sofa recycling business, lest people may come and kidnap the sofa.

i called her but no one answered. i tried again later. they will come before 12pm. can you let me know around what time? before 12pm. only now i understand that it takes rocket scientist discipline to come up with the scheduling of charitable pick-ups. i'm not asking for the timing right down to the seconds and milli-seconds. the approximate hour will do as i have to make a trip back home to be around for them to pick up. they will need detailed complicated calculations to come up with a decent answer, with theorems, algebraic equations and formulas. apparently, all people who will like to donate their stuffs to charity are people who have nothing better to do than shake legs at home.

so, i joined the group of well-meaning people out there and shook my legs until 11am, when i still haven't heard a peep from them. there goes my morning, but this is for a good cause, lady, so pipe down. by 11.20 i know they will not be turning up before 12, as the good lady says. i called again and asked for the lorry driver's contact. lorry drivers have a very esteemed position in the charitable organisation's framework, it would seem. as you have often heard, it's not what you know but whom you know. in this case, it is the lorry driver! so people out there, don't look down on the small people. *shaking index finger* so i called him. before 3pm, he says. why do i have the funny feeling i am being given the run around? sigh. before 3pm? yes, before 3pm.

so, now i have nothing to do but continue to shake legs until 3pm? at this rate, i will have very skinny and toned thighs. however, as i have grown rather attached to my elephant thighs, i threw in the towel. i actually went out and did some other productive stuffs. gasp! the nerve of me!! when they see fit to appear ala david copperfield style. i will then do my harry houdini too.

who knew charity can be so complicated?

coming down with a bug.

why is it coming down and not up? is it because you are feeling down when you are sick? or is it because you lie down when you are not feeling well? i want to be coming up with a flu! *sniff*

feeling sick sucks. people ask you where are you feeling unwell? duh, the whole body! from head to toe. sick and yet you have to conduct indepth analysis of your sickness. please do not bother me if you are not handing out t.l.c.'s.

*grumpy mode on*

the stupid alarm clock rang. i turned around, ready to hit the off button on my alarm, only to realise that it is coming from the other side of the bed. 6 o'clock. crazy as i sometimes am, i am still not deranged enough to set the alarm to ring whilst the sky is still dark out, the roads quiet and no soul is stirring. even the imaginary cock is fast asleep in his warm hut. however, someone in my household is a full-fledged member of an asylum and wakes up at the same time every day. the looney, however, is nowhere to be found. barely conscious, i rolled over and tap the source of my irritation.

i still have another half hour before i have to join the legion of semi-conscious zombies. come on, sleep! just when i was about to fall back to sleep, the darn alarm clock ring again. oh noooo!, i whined to myself. peering with slitty eyes, i realise that it is again not my clock. why are there so many alarms ringing in the dead of the night, and no one is waking up?!?! what's wrong with my room, the den of haunting alarms?! an unseen hand stirred and reached out to stop the alarm. no one woke up. sigh. one minute later, my own alarm rang. by then, i've already thrown in the white towel and was ready to wake up, lest another alarm ring in the cursed room.

there really is karma in this world, so people beware. whatever you do, or not do, will come around and haunt you. many eons ago, so long that it seems to be the dinosaur era, i was a pig. in that i really need my sleep. not that it did anything to help my case for beauty, but it was something that i needed a lot of nevertheless. one less hour of sleep, or even half an hour for that matter, and i will fall sick. sleep came before anything else.

apparently, i've over-used that quota for the rest of my life. i've dried up the number of hours i can laze in bed and vegetate until the sun shines down my bum, or the my mother breaks down the door. by contrast, i now have to wake up whilst the sun is still snoozing and whilst the cock is dreaming of sexy hens. no more excuses, sleeping beauty.

i am tired. i seem to be tired all the time, perhaps more from the routine that is life rather than physical strain. i have forgotten how to stop, to slow down and smell the flowers, so much so that i feel too guilty to indulge in such unproductive pleasures. a good book, a warm cup of tea, blues filing the air, my feet tucked under me whilst i snuggle into the folds of the oversized armchair. my soul yearns for the comfort. laughters, good company, a glass of red wine. all these are missing from my life for too long. i feel drained, dehydrated of the little pleasures in life.