Archive for June, 2007
the homemade chicken rice on the table that is now cold is proof that my family and i do not spend enough time at home. we never eat the food Kak Nur makes. and yet everyday she still puts so much thought into what dishes to cook that would whet the appetites of 5 phantom people who never come home for dinner anyway. sometimes i feel bad that all the untouched food goes to waste, but it is the wasted kindness that i feel worst about.
i love this time of year. june heralds the return of everyone from abroad, back for the summer and sporting new hairdos or weird foreign accents that disappear after the second teh o ais limau sucked down in hot balmy weather. it is that long shriek (ohmygoooooooooooooood it’s YOUUUUUU!!!) and that first hug after so long that i cherish most about these reunions; catch-up palaver comes a dangerously close second. who’s going out with who? you did WHAT? and then what did he say? oh my god tell her how you had sex in the laundry room with that guy from your econs class!
yes i do love this time of the year. but spring/summer collections are going to be the death of me. sigh! it seems that my father has learnt to wield the lethality of the Guilt Trip with most impressive effect; scans of all my credit card bills are now being sent each month to my email inbox. with the purpose of bullying me into cooperation, doubtlessly. well, it is working. i am now pale with shock and faint with grief! how does one go on living with such shameful evidence of sin, avarice and wrongdoing? O, happy dagger!
actually, i must confess with the utmost seriousness that i would not be able to stab myself in the (unlikely) event that suicide is in order and next on the agenda. too much blood and gore, eeeep.
it is time now for an insertion of this most beautiful conjunctive adverb that has been known to distract from exceedingly awkward moments, or when you want to change the topic of your blogpost that have gone most astray -
ANYWAY,
earlier tonight i went for the Martell Presents KLue RSVP Dinner, held at Market Place, which is a fairly new restaurant that has crept stealthily into and made its home in KL’s dining-out arena. it is situated in a quiet lane off Lorong Yap Kwan Seng, with the likes of Munakata, Sasso Rosso (panna cotta that is divine like you would not believe) and Aunty Nat for neighbours.
i was with the ever cheeky Kelvin and the lovely Kimfluttersby, and i think us three make a good team! kismet has brought us together to compare deserved remunerations and boyfriends-who-are-abroad, as well as to snap way too many photos of the restaurant and the food! i so love it when i am in the company of people who understand the need to take pictures of food :D
aforementioned pictures of food :
the amuse bouche of a watermelon slice and an unidentified sambal-like topping; a combination so orgasmic that i did not stop to attempt recognition of the unidentified sambal-like topping.
wild mushroom soup with vanilla cream
kelvin’s main of pan-fried cod with wasabi mash. hahaha! no salmon for him today.
the beef tenderloin with apple puree that kim and i had. spinach bed at the bottom. YUM!
dessert!! i was so tak sabar for this to come. chocolate mousse with a drizzle of passionfruit syrup. zomg there is no need to say how good it was. i love chocolate mousse. i love chocolate mousse that is well done. i love market place’s chocolate mousse. the end.
the Martell babes!
this is the photo i stole from Kelvin. you can stalk him at that email address
from upstairs, where we quietly slinked off to
the crowd
this is my second time at the Martell/KLue RSVP dinners, and i mussay this time around was much better than the previous at Ninja Jones. coz this time the food was nicer and Martell gave chocolates hahaha. nvm the fact that their brand was stamped all over it, it was still good chocolate. free flow of Martell as always, who would have thought green tea and cognac go together so well!
after dinner, Azlan and i went to watch Snow Cake which was awesome. then we went for a satay feast which was even more awesome. seriously, satay peanut gravy is the one thing in this world that gives my life some semblance of meaning.
June 30th, 2007
it starts with the crisp lemony smell of the cabin, followed by the flight attendants’ checking of your boarding pass to tell you which of the two aisles to go down. i used to really dislike the former but i have since developed a kind of nonchalance toward it, and the latter i try to avoid completely by pretending to be totally absorbed in the headlines of the local newspaper i just picked up even if it’s in a foreign language.
i’m talking about coming home. as fun and exciting as travel is, there is nothing like the fluttery feeling that you get in your stomach as you step on the plane to return home. time sloshes around in a beaker when you’re on the plane; all those hours garnished with peanuts and orange-juice-from-a-carton trudge on like days on end, and even when you wake up from a nap and think that you’re almost at your destination, you’re actually not, and there’s still a long way more to go. sigh. books dont even help anymore these days, i cant remember the last time any book was reliable company during a flight, despite the fact that i’ve read some good books lately.
when i got home last night, the first thing i did was eat a cup of instant noodles. then i laid on my bed (which now smells suspiciously like it was imperialised by Short Brother), and stared at the smattering of glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling which i taped up there when i was 13 but then got lazy and never finished taping all of them up.
anyway yes kawan-kawan sekalian, i am home, but only till monday before i am off again. ya i know. dont whack me. lately it seems every phone or email conversation i have begins with “hey su ann are you in kl?”. slowly but surely my circles are starting to do things without me because they assume (and not wrongly either) that i’m not in town. i am trying my best not to mind.
and a big thank you to all the people who still take some time off to check on me whether or not i’m in town :) as well as furiously hunt me down for dinner or movies or just to chill when i’m back. it’s always very nice and at times like these i am reminded of who my real friends are.
i jinxed myself the other day. on the plane to Singapore, i realized with some irritation that i had forgotten to pack my cosmetics case. there was just this very vivid picture of that darn orange mesh bag sitting on my desk at home. so when i got to Changi, i immediately went to MAC and bought 400 bucks worth of makeup essentials; bless travel-sized (and travel sized-priced!) brush sets!
but thennnnnnnnn, later when i got to Hong Kong, i found that i DID actually pack my cosmetics case! arghghghhgh so i spent 400 bucks for nothing.
and now one week later and back home, i unpacked to find that i left BOTH my cosmetics case AND my newly bought makeup at Martian’s place. !!!!!!! sibeh tulan. how now you tell me.
ditz moments aside, i’ve been highly strung and stressed out lately. too many things to do and too little time, as well as expectations that are too high. sometimes i dont quite know what to do with myself. and the not knowing what to do infuriates me to no end.
i’ve always been a high achiever, or at least that’s what i want to be. falling short of my own standards and not getting what i want make me angry. and then when i try to tell people that, they say i’m a perfectionist, as if it’s so bad to have aims and goals. so i tell myself these people know nothing about drive, they know nothing about ambition. but then i feel bad after that for thinking such thoughts against people who just dont know the right things to say to someone who just needs a little bit of encouragement.
in the KLIA Express on the way back to KL Sentral, i ate peanut butter cups and just stared out the window for the entire ride. it was a splendid 28 minutes.
————
because Kiasu Andrew promised me badges and bumper stickers :
TheCICAK has launched a competition themed 50 Years, 50 Heroes: Young Malaysians You Need to Know in conjunction with Malaysia’s 50th Merdeka Day.
All you have to do is write a story of 1,000 words or less in English or Malay, take a photograph, and you stand a chance at winning the grand prize of RM5000 cash. The best 50 stories will also be published into a book. Submissions deadline is July 15th 2007.
If you are confused or have questions or want to take advantage of the special deadline that only a select few know about, email Andrew Loh at andrewlza[at]gmail[dot]com. Remember to say that you also want a badge and a bumper sticker.
June 27th, 2007
the ruthless sounds of incessant drilling and the clanging of metal-on-metal are no longer just in my head. this particular slice of culture shock has me vexed and sleepless in my hotel room; who the fuck does construction at 4 in the morning? i want to furiously fling open the window and vociferate the choicest expletives i can wrap my tongue around, but alas, i have discovered this window is unsuited to be flung open, furiously or otherwise, because it has to be first unlatched and then carefully slid open. where is the satisfaction in that, i ask you? absolutely none - it is like venting your anger by trying to slam a swinging door. and so i sit here grumpily at my laptop, pounding my frustration into the keyboard in rhythm with the pounding of hammers and nails coming from next door.
go to bed, you insensitive constructioners, so that others may too do the same!
what’s been up lately :
humphrey hops
dragon boat races in Stanley
cute bean dolls purchased from cute bean stalls
many sulks
schedule clashes aplenty
watching imaginary TV with cardboard cutouts
heart-shaped spring onions in (salmon belly) miso soup
crabby Tim Tam
schoolgirls and french maids
harassing rickshaw drivers
horrific SAT results (this is your cue to not ask what i got)
Cashback - most awesome movie i’ve seen lately
my hot boyfriend
what’s coming up soon :
weekend at penang. asam laksa, imma come get you
global xounds on friday
Menopause the Musical
Harry Potter the movie AND the book, oh my god, someone please get me a chair i think i’m going to faint from the ecstacy
Sarawak Rainforest Festival, finally!
—————-
the construction people are still at it. sometimes i wish to be oblivious to all the bangs and booms that have become a tax on the 21st century society’s love of gleaming concrete-and-glass skylines that make such pretty postcard pictures but turn us all into melting, sweaty puddles of heat whilst global warming helps us cook eggs on the sidewalk. but ignorance is not always bliss, and ignorance is what gives us hard boiled eggs that will eventually roast to a crisp as the chickens and humans in cooling suits look sadly down upon the remnants of the eggs that lie on their cement graveyards that is the pavement of the new office building down the street from your old high school.
June 25th, 2007
words fail me sometimes. not because i’m a verbal perfectionist who always has to find and use the precise word that correctly captures the essence of the situation, but because sometimes i’d rather just soak it all in than struggle to think of what to say. it’s a little bit like camping out on some rocks to take photos of the perfect sunrise; adjusting all your settings over and over again and attaching the right lens as you wait patiently, but at the split second that the red-orange rays finally burst through the horizon, you find that you’d rather just stand back and watch the sunrise in awe - for yourself and by yourself - than squander away that one precious moment in frantic clicks, flashes and shutters.
my insomnia is getting bad; these days i can only fall asleep in the daytime when i’m just outright exhausted. the quiet of nighttime and lack of sunlight just make me feel more vibrant and alive. last night i watched him as he slept, my angsty man. he was holding my hand and when i moved to straighten my nightie, he held my hand tighter. i kissed his bare shoulder. ran my fingers across his stomach. there’s nowhere else i’d rather be.
June 20th, 2007
he’s a fretter. always fretting. ‘go back into your room and change your top!’ he would growl while flailing his arms about; as if by concealing my cleavage from his sight, it would somehow go away. i always respond with a distracted ‘aiyahhhh’ before i grab my keys and am out the door into the car of the next boy waiting. one time i looked up and saw him watching me from the balcony with a cigarette in his hand. the balcony - that’s where he goes when he wants to smoke and i’m in the room. i notice these things but i’m just too proud to acknowledge it. i once said thank you; it was barely heard over the voice of the CNN newscaster, and i said it as if i wasn’t impressed, merely aloof, but i know he heard and i know he knew i was impressed. ‘you’re welcome,’ he said. and after his smoke he came back to the couch and we continued watching TV, tsking and shaking our heads together at all the misfortune and bad news the world seems to go round on.
i dont quite know why, but he has this thing against wet hair. whenever he sees me with my hair still wet from the shower, he always tells me to go dry my hair, lest i get a headache. like i said, fretter. ‘yes lah yes lah,’ i will mutter but i wont do anything about it because everyone knows air-drying your hair is better than blow-drying it, plus i’m lazy. a grown man pulling a hairdryer by its extension cord and then blow-drying his daughter’s hair in the middle of the night as she plays The Sims 2 is a funny sight.
when i was little, i used to draw stick figure pictures of me and my dad, where we both had heads too big for our stick bodies and bright orange skin. i would write corny things like My Father My Hero across the top, but once i put the finishing touches on my 7-year-old objet d’art, i always forgot about it, like children are prone to do when other things catch their fancy. but many years later when i was rummaging through my parents’ wardrobe, i found a whole stack of aforementioned corny stick figure pictures in my dad’s underwear drawer, folded neatly and tied up with a rubber band.
it’s the little things about him that i love - the piles of books he buys but never reads, how he has absolutely no fashion sense, how he orders cappuccinos without foam, the way he pronounces Skype, his dentures hahahaha, his passport picture, how he never knows what to order at McDonalds, how he hates all my boyfriends, how he always says sorry very nicely when he makes me cry.
happy father’s day, pa. dont eat so many cholesterol thingies! and dont always make me cry. i love you.
(i forgot to mention this, but my love for my father has multiplied tenfold because he is the only person on this planet who will take me to watch Michael Learns To Rock when they’re here next month, and not make fun of me for liking them. sniff. *grateful)
(part of the Rice Bowl Journals collaboration for June 07)
June 18th, 2007
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