Three, Four, Shut the Door

The problem with trying to write after taking care of kids all day is that only small words tend to come out. Worse, they are all in CAPS.

Nonetheless, I shall have to get this third entry for Project 52 out, seeing as I’m already a week late, because Pratchett said that if you bail on a commitment for a good reason, soon you’d be bailing on it for a bad one. And because he’s Pratchett, he’s always right. Kinda like a god, but with less irony.

So yes, even though I have to have a thesaurus opened on my browser, and even though I may have to exercise restraint from the region of the Caps Lock button, and even though after each paragraph I type I’m taking a ten minute break to stare into space (it’s slightly livelier than my brains), I’m gonna get it out. Yosh.

If you are reading this, I am utterly sorry. This is painful for the writer, but even more so for the reader, who doesn’t even have the obligation to like it.

Anyway.

Life is like ice cream, sometimes. Live the moment, lick it while its frozen, and Happiness (or at least, it’s younger brother Contentment) makes your taste buds bloom. Leave it to its own demise, saving it for later, and the creamy heaven melts into soured puddle of ick. It perhaps does no good to you, too, if you get right down to it.

Where am I going with this? To quote the sage, “I was hoping you can tell me.”

******

Do our books reflect us, or do we reflect our books?
What a conundrum.
I wonder what Calvin and Hobbes have to say about this.

I should perhaps be reading something more substantial.

Something with more philosophical depth, perhaps. Something argumentative. Something political. Some social commentary. Something brilliant.

Thus, I chucked my “50 Philosophical Ideas You Need to Know” aside and curled up with some good ol’ Calvin and Hobbes.

It’s philosophical.

It’s argumentative.

It’s political.
It’s social commentary.


It’s brilliant.

Calvin’s mind jumps from metaphysics to madness, and stops to poke at everything in between until something explodes. Hobbes is wry, devious, and only probably stuffed with cotton. Together, they made, well, Calvin and Hobbes – possibly the most fantastic comic strip ever written in the history of Humans. That’s an understatement, by the way, but that’d have to do for now.

Granted, I’m a late Calvin and Hobbes fan. In fact, the addiction only started about several weeks ago (but already it has invaded a large part of my consciousness. I now believe that snowmen do turn into Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goon if you try to bring them to life. And that bicycles are Evil - I always knew it’s not my fault that I can never ride them properly.)

I never really got into Calvin and Hobbes when I was younger. In fact, I wondered what the hype was all about. I remember being really into Peanuts at one point, but the jokes got old and Charles Schulz got older. Eventually, I discovered Zits and read it whenever I can, and Baby Blues always got me chuckling. But none of them really registered like Calvin and Hobbes do now.

Perhaps it’s because none of them had Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons.
The charm (again, an understatement) of Calvin and Hobbes to me is that Calvin, despite the restrictions and realities of being a six-year-old, just set out to have the best damn fun he can get away with. That, and grossing out Susie Derkins, a Girl who lives on the same street. His mind is his playground, and although he is sometimes bitter and grouchy about inconveniences of life such as school, vegetables, blockhead bullies, bedtime, and parent-teacher conferences, he still lives life on the fastest track he can put his wagon on, i.e. a steep hill straight down to the river.

And that is perhaps what being alive is all about. It doesn’t matter who you are, or how old you are, or where you are, or even what you are. You will have restrictions, you will have frustrations, and you will have reality. However, it is up to you to turn the Vegetables of Life to a murderous green blob that is trying to eat your face, because heck, it’s inevitable anyway, so you might as well have fun fighting it.



It’s about the Imagination, and the World it opens.

*****

Sometimes I think I should be doing more with my time here in the States. I feel like I should be soaking in all the American experiences that I can possibly get my hands on. I should be leaping onto roller coasters (except I hate them), riding the waves (except I can’t swim, let alone surf), jumping off planes (that’s even worse than roller coasters), and err, other exciting stuff which I would not be doing save for the feeling that I should be doing more with my time here in the States. I should be sleeping less.

The spirit may be willing, but the body is weak. And don’t get me started on the wallet.

The funny thing is, as I was watching the live cast of Barely Legal gyrating to the Rocky Horror Picture Show, it hit me. Granted, Tim curry singing “Sweet Transvestite” didn’t gain a cult following without causing some pain, but this is a different kind of “hit”.

It dawned upon me that hey, I’m actually doing okay in the States. I am in a cinema room full of people yelling things at the screen, and I just saw a dancer flashed her boobs, and in a while, when the character of Dr. Frank-N-Furter yells “Great Scott!” we were all supposed to send rolls of toilet paper sailing through the air.

It was oddly beautiful, sailing toilet papers.

Now, how many people can say that?

My point is, although sometimes I wish I can have some fantastically mind-blowing experience to take home with, I guess it counts to just be happy with what I can do.

To stop yearning, and start living.

Because Contentment deserves some credit too.

Well said, Watterson.

Two

Looking Stupid: the mark of things worth doing.

“Well… swim.”

I stopped typing in mid dissent-diarrhoea, and stared at the two words in bold red fonts.

There is that, of course.

****************

I’m in my sixth month here. And I’m frustrated.

Every day, I wake up a nanny, and go to bed a zombie. The most fulfilling part of my day is, when circumstances decide to be kind, the precious moment I steal to dream. This is when Time melts away and Distance goes for a ride, creating a vacuum of isolation where dreamers can rent and be left alone to their romantic reverie.

These dreams – they sustain me. But deep down I know that I have to do more than that. I’m in friggin’ America, for crying out loud (no actually, don’t. I’ve got enough of that during the day as it is). There has got to be more to life than just drowning in little boys’ tantrums all day long.

The truth is, I haven’t been writing anything truly substantial these days. Okay, there was NaNoWriMo, but it was so fun that it practically didn’t count. Of course, I also padded so much that “writing” would be an overstatement. I wrote one article for my Stanford class, which garnered mixed reviews during the workshop session, but for some reason, I am just not happy with that piece. I blogged – though the more accurate description would be I spewed thoughts all over here without the decency to make sense, or to wipe my mouth afterwards, but brevity, you know.

Yesterday, as I stood in the shower, letting the rush of water dissolve the day’s lethargy and drown out the tantrum tornadoes outside that little boys reserve especially for mummy and daddy, I thought to myself, “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t just be a nanny, and nothing else.”

I have told myself that I would, like every other person struggling for their art out there, write after my work hours. I would send my articles to the publications here. I would pursue the Stories, write travel essays, analyse humanity, change the world and wossname.

The truth is, I’m so worn out every day that I can’t muster the energy to arrange my thoughts, let alone laying them out on paper. Whatever is left standing in my body would be trying to commit suicide, once they discover how to do that while dozing off.

Yes, I don’t have the stamina to be a struggling artist.

I do have the frustration, though. I know I have to get out of this rut of idle mindedness, but I don’t know how. There are a million avenues to try and break through, but I’m rooted on the spot.

I felt like I was fretting upon a fast-melting ice berg, knowing that if I don’t jump to another floating piece of ice, I would sink – into oblivion, into mindlessness, into complacency. But the floating ice pieces around me looked a little too far to leap to. I’m scared shitless. I could see the ice berg shrinking, but I could not bring myself to take the leap.

What if I miss?

“Well… swim.”

Two words.

The sage, who have words like “genuflect” and “ruminative” and “pervasive” and “rapple” and for some reason, “lobotomy” in his repertoire, just gave me two words.

And that two words was enough to push me from my shaky, dissolving, and self-pitiful refuge. I crashed into the water, and it was cold, as cold as Reality, and it woke me up.

It just totally made my whole situation with the melting iceberg and the floating ice things and the leaping anxiety a tad ridiculous, and very obnoxious. Like dressing in Edwardian ball gown to a casual house party.

My first thought was, “Damn. I took a while to think of that iceberg analogy too.”

My second thought was, “Why the heck didn’t I think about swimming?”

I was too caught up with the leap. I was too fixated upon landing at the right places. I forgot that there are other ways – practical, simple and straightforward ways – to reach your goals. I forgot that when it comes to writing, you need to get yourself wet, and you need to work those muscles.

Like my boy reminds me in the picture above, sometimes you just gotta clamber to reach for whatever lofty goals you have, even though you have to look a little stupid doing it. Especially if you look a little stupid doing it.

Because heck, stupidity is fun. And it makes the best pictures.

One

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wants to tell stories.

And so she picked up a pen, which according to urban legends, is mightier than the sword (okay, it’s really because pure steel with ruby-studded handle was heavier than she thought), and set out the treacherous path of looking for Tales.

Obstacles abound, but that was really a mark of a road worth taking. She thought, anyway. Not too deeply though, lest she bump into the lair of Logic and Reason, who thirst for dreams like a baked sponge thirsts for moisture. Dreams were all she had, and have her insides sucked dry would be a tad dampening – or in this case, the exact opposite – to her quest.

And it’s not like she didn’t have other problems already. She had to wade through the icy Waterfall of Collective Doubt from Others, ride – or at least, maintain upright most of the time – in the Whirlpool of Filial Guilt, survive the Delirium of Premature Confidence, hack through the Tangled Vines of Darn-Who-Am-I-Kidding, only to run headfirst into a wall.

Who put the effing Writer’s Block there?

But seeing stars was worth it, once the bleeding subsided, because she did find Stories. In fact, they were pretty much all over the place, if you knew where to look. Some required digging (for politics is a lot like potatoes; it powered the masses, albeit tastelessly), while others you picked with ease, and still others even needed you to do the planting first. There were also those suspicious-looking ones which were jumping up and down desperately to be noticed, and the obnoxious ones that were shoved down her throat simply because they have the purchasing power to buy, err, whatever that is the poetic equivalent of Advertising Space.

So, Pen in tow (or rather, several pens, with the hope that one of them would work), she Wrote.

And then she stopped. Got lazy. Got blind. Got swept away by Life and its Smoulder. Got impatient.

Got stupid.

Writing became merely a pain, a past, a possibility, a perished pride. The blank Microsoft Word page and beckoning prompter is a blatant reminder that her mind was not what it used to be. It is no longer a fertile ground for Words to flourish. Even the bad puns shrivelled, and she had a lot of them.

It is a rocky terrain of a conscience in there, and the jagged hardness give the sloshing brain cells a pretty bloody time. She can only deal with so many howling synapses at a time.

The saddest thing of all is that she stopped looking for Stories. Or rather, she stopped bothering to pick them up. She let them go. And went they did.

For example, the picture above was a street violin player she had the honour to bump upon in New York City. She was just hurrying past with her sister and brother-in-law, when the violin player yelled a question.

“Which country are you from, guys?”

“Malaysia,” her brother-in-law answered, while the patter of their feet grew more urgent.

And then they stopped.

And turned around, mouth agape.

The violin player, with a kind of smug nonchalance, was playing “Negaraku” on his violin. Tone perfect. There was no music sheet in front of him.

“But how--?” they asked in disbelief.

The violinist shrugged. “I like to study the national anthems of different countries.”

The brother-in-law tipped the violinist. They walked away – she with considerable difficulty, seeing that she was trying to kick herself at the same time, for not asking more questions, for not pursuing a Story when it was sitting right in front of her, for being stupid.

Inside every writer there is a story-teller wanting to come out. Mine did, but has, it seems, lost her way in the dark.

Sigh, now where did I put my flash light?

****

And because projects really only mean something when you get right down to doing it, the nonsense above managed to see daylight. This is my first post for Project 52, a writing/photography commitment that HafutotaJE and I are going to undertake (yes, we are ill-advised. Thanks for trying, though). Basically, we upload a picture we‘ve taken and write something, anything, about it, once per week for a year.

Yes, we are still the same people with deadlines/kids to chase and closing week to conquer and procrastination to overcome etc etc. You can tell that sanity and rationality have never been our strong points. For some reason, that is HafutotaJE’s charm, and my demise. Life is so unfair.

Join us in this joy ride if you are ever so inclined. Oh, but do bring your own sandwiches.

And drop us a line if you are hoping on, so that we can also go drool at your stuff ^^

Read-tail Therapy

Today, I decided that it would be quite a good day to shop for books.

Because, gosh, the kids were annoying today.

And ‘cause hey, it’s Tuesday!

And ‘cause, look, I’m wearing mismatched socks!

Okay, I ran out of excuse. I just need to shop okay. And just because my retail therapy happens in a bookstore doesn’t mean I’m a hopeless nerd okay.

Fine, I don’t care if I’m a hopeless nerd, okay.

Anyway, with my Borders discount voucher (which they send you ALL THE TIME, God bless America) in hand, I drove to my favourite bookstore. I heard Barnes and Nobles is boss in Nerdism here, but frankly, I fear too much for my wallet to even venture in that three-storey skyscraper of a bookstore.

I promised myself that I will only spend $10 in Borders. Because yes, that amount is possible here.

I ended up spending close to $20.

It’s not so bad, considering I actually bought only two books out of the six I was considering (among them, Scott Pilgrim vs The World, Gaiman’s The Wolves in the Walls and The Graveyard Book), after carefully skipping most of the aisles, afraid of what gems I may find.

Behold: my first Neil Gaiman novel.


Okay, to be honest, I bought it really because I wanted to own something that is drawn by Dave McKean. Which is not to say that Gaiman isn’t awesome (he is, immensely). But Dave McKean’s artwork just blows me away and sucks me back in; a sort of visual orgasm, complete with excitable noises.

You didn’t just hear me describe a children’s book with all that.

On the subject of children’s books, I ended up picking this up as well.



I’m not anywhere near a fan of Hans Christian Andersen, but for Joel Stewart’s illustrations, I can very well be. Flipping the pages in the bookstore, I held my breath as the quirkily intricate drawings did nasty things to my brains.

Like shutting it down, leaving me defenceless against my heart.

And the problem with following your heart is that it is never as good at budgeting as your brains. But other than that, there really is no downside.

When I go back to Malaysia, I foresee myself shivering in American-bookstore-withdrawal.

They have rows after rows of all the awesome stuff that you would possibly ever need to read, don’t need to read but nevertheless want to read, and don’t need to read and don’t even want to go near it.

He looks contagious.

I have more things on my mind that I should probably pen down. Like that obligatory New Year post. And the trip to NYC. And Tangled. Alas, dreams beckon, and it seems like tonight, it will be another fantastic one :)

Merry Cry-stmas

I have, on the days when I’m not busy pinching myself to check if I’m dreaming, imagined what will be running through my mind when I land in New York City for Christmas this year.

They are usually thoughts that come accompanied with exclamation marks, occasionally question marks, and during my more sober hours, dollar signs.

In reality, however, all I was thinking while the plane bumped on the runway was “PLEASE don’t let me puke all over the place.”

So yeah, it was a little of an anti-climax, if climaxing at touch down is not contradictory in itself. However, the fault was mine. I had, in my haste and cotton-candied mind (thanks to recent events), completely forgot to select my flight seat upon checking in.

Life has a special kind of punishment for this kind of ditzy. It’s call The Worst Seat in the Plane.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad. But it was the last row of seats, pretty close to the wings, and definitely too close to the cranky baby crying and whining throughout the six-hour midnight flight. The leg room was practically non-existent, and the air was stuffy. Towards the end of the journey, the ride got bumpier, hence my pressing concerns with seeing my dinner from last night again. That turkey sandwich looked like the type to hold a grudge.

Like I said, it was my fault.

(But you know that I’m living a special kind of dream when despite having slept a total of probably two hours in the most neck-breaking position ever after a whole day of work, with the colicky baby’s cries looping in the background, I still woke up smiling like an idiot. ^^)

Now, I’m typing this in JFK Airport, a little dazed and disorientated. I’m lugging around a baggage equivalent of the volume I packed when I moved from Malaysia to the States, only this time its stuffed with bulky winter clothing, which I’m currently feeling rather dumb about, because I’m now only wearing a thin Forever 21 trench coat and the stuffiness is already getting to me. Where’s the blistering winter cold of NYC that everyone was warning me about? The negative degree Celcius weather that the pilot announced before landing? I’m looking out the window now and NYC looks as sunny as California.

Okay, to be fair, I have not stepped out of the airport. I will eventually do so, when my sister’s flight arrives. Right now, I just want to sit down and stone. I have, in my quest for Wifi in JFK, dashed about with the crazy weight of my baggage, before finally giving up and resort to just sit down to reminiscence the good ol’ yesterday of San Francisco International Airport’s free wifi.

Oh, did I mention that you have to pay to get a luggage cart here? As the huge signs on the carts say, “Welcome to New York”.

So, yeah, all in all, not all that superb a morning. But heck, I’m in NYC. Time to put on that empire state of mind. Right after I round up my marbles.

******

I had thought that spending Christmas in New York City was a dream-come-true. Now, it seems like one of those biting realities that someone should have muzzled before it got out of hand.

To be fair, a white Christmas does look dreamy. There is something oddly warm and fuzzy about seeing the blanket of fluffy white covering roof tops and shop signs and tree branches – it’s one of those scenes where you wish someone close to your heart would share it with you. And the Malaysian in me is still trying to wrap my head around the memory that I was actually playing in the snow and throwing snowballs at my crazy sister, and laughing at my brother-in-law as he rolled down a snow hill, and building a snowman, no, a snowmidget, more like, in Central Park.

But after a few hours of almost slipping on dirty melted slush (they looked like whipped cream being stomped on), and spending frustrating hours refreshing Delta website because the whole airline services were thrown out of whack thanks to the worst blizzard NYC has seen in decades (yes, my first encounter with snow had to be THAT dramatic), I just wanted to tell the winter wonderland what Ash from Army of Darkness told his girlfriend-turned-Deadite, “Honey, you got real ugly.”

Okay, I'll admit that Winter was a wee bit prettier than her. A wee bit.

Right now, I’m typing this in the JFK International Airport in NYC, holding a stand-by ticket for a plane bound to San Francisco International Airport at 5pm. Stand-by, meaning that there’s a high chance that the plane is actually full and I’ll be camping out on the airport floor tonight, like the rest of the passengers, some of whom had been getting up close and personal with the JFK carpets since Sunday.

The blizzard was all over the news, and the reports on flights just got scarier and scarier. People were spending hours in the airport waiting for something, but all they got was a flight notification board full of the glowing yellow “Cancelled” words, and more bad news – we may be looking at days-long delay in flight. The crowded and chaotic atmosphere in the airports was topped with reports of food and power outage there, which seemed like the perfect setting for cannibalism. Or *dramatic pause* zombie apocalypse.

Optimism has always been my strongest point. Which, if you really think about it, is kinda sad. But oh well.

This is my optimistic face.

Despite the bleak situation, I had to make my way to the JFK airport, because my flight was cancelled, and yet there was no new flights scheduled by the airline. The phone lines were completely jammed up, and the website had erred so much that its probably human. I even signed up for Twitter just so I can bug the airline with my haiku brevity (*shudders at the amount of short forms I had to use*). But there was No Response.

So when push comes to shove, I’d rather not be at the end where you get run over.

After several rounds of frustrated wailings and denial by refusing to get out of bed and bitching about Delta airlines with my sister and brother in law, I begrudgingly left the comfort of my hotel, baggage and a heavy heart in tow, and departed for the JFK airport. I knew it would be a long day, and most like, night. Due to the blizzard, thousands of flights were cancelled, and so you can imagine the backlogged of passengers who have been stranded at the airport way before I am. What chance do I have to squeeze into the pathetically few flights that are finally starting to pull out from the runway?

But heck, optimism, remember?

******

And so, my gallivanting in New York City came to a close with me making one last discovery. It is actually really depressing to be waking up from the table that you had fell asleep on, while the realization that you are still in the airport thudded down upon your bleary conscience. Holding a stand-by ticket, too. And Starbucks is closed, because it’s friggin’ 5 a.m.

Yes, I spent the night camping out in the JFK airport, because the thing about optimism is that it doesn’t pay the bills, nor score you the dream girl or guy, nor secure you a seat in an overbooked airplane. But it’s still a handy thing to have, because it’s probably the only thing standing between you and a certain urge to shoot yourself in the head.

Despite the depressing news reports, the atmosphere in the airport is surprisingly chilled, even though many, like me, have no inkling on when we will actually leave this dastardly expensive place. When we are not gawking at the screen showing the seats assigned to those in the stand-by list with a certain madness in our eyes (gosh, you do not wanna know what’s in our heads), we are a bitter-but-not-beaten crowd, lurching about in the airport with the remnants of restless sleep shrouding our crestfallen faces. Much like anyone you see on the streets, really.

That said, emotions are at an all-time high, and I have not seen so much raw humanity for a long time.

There was a lady who, after waiting in line at the Delta Help Desk for about an hour, promptly sat down and sobbed. I handed her a bag of tissue, knowing that if I don’t get on a plane in another 24 hours, I would probably be sobbing even louder.

I watched a little girl, about 8 or 9, sitting on the ground with her belongings and a blanket. With despair and weariness in her eyes, a wave of crimson started spreading throughout her face, and as her mouth pouted tears started rolling down her cheek, which she wiped profusely with her hoodie sleeve. It was a sort of quiet desperation that should never cross a nine-year-old’s face.

I talked to a Canadian dad with a wife and a five-year-old daughter in tow. He had, prior to flying out of his parents’ place in Florida, checked that his transit flight in JFK would be departing on time. Upon arrival at the airport, however, he found out that all flights bound to his destination had been cancelled, with no reason other than bad weather. He had no idea when he could fly out; his daughter is having a meltdown, and he is spending about a hundred bucks a day to pay for the meals of his family in the airport. He tried getting meal vouchers (which basically lets you buy airport food at a cheaper price), but after being sent from one crowded help desk to another, he still couldn’t find someone who could provide him with one.

“I don’t have unlimited funds, you know,” he chuckled, but without humour in his tone.

Another girl, who was queuing up behind me at the help desk, told me that she had to lug her baggage and ran from terminal to terminal, and from one airline operator to another, because no one could tell her where her flight was supposed to depart from. It was already 6.30pm, and her flight was scheduled to fly at 7 p.m., and she was already on the verge of tears as she begged the officers to please find her flight. In the end, they promptly told her that the flight simply does not exist. In desperation, she forked out another $1500 to buy another air ticket to LAX, thinking that it would help her make it for her transit flight to New Zealand the next day. But, as luck would have it, her new flight was delayed as well.

“I have no more money, everything went to the air ticket. And now it looks like I still won’t be able to make it for my transit flight,” she said, staring dejectedly on the ground.

Further behind in the line, a guy about my age was cursing into his cell phone.

“I just want to get out of here. I don’t want to be sitting in this airport, f***ing j**king myself off anymore. I was on the stand-by list and I saw someone just paid $3000 for a ticket and got on the plane [angry pause] I don’t care, the bottom line is someone f***ing bought my seat with three thousand bucks.”

To twang our already raw nerves even further, the help desk line was barely moving. I had only about 5 or 6 people before me, but had to wait for about an hour before it was my turn. There were only three counters opened in the beginning, and one counter was hogged by this couple throughout the whole time I was in line. People were throwing angry glances at them – what kind of problem could they be having to justify the attention of the agents for an hour, while the rest of our feet are dying beneath us? To be fair, the agents were probably weary as well. People were probably being bitchy to them the whole day.

Thankfully, they opened two more counters, and after another century of waiting it was finally my turn. And while the agent was processing my requests, a girl suddenly showed up beside me and pleaded someone to help her retrieve her saxophone, which she had left in another terminal. She needs to board her plane shortly, and was willing to pay someone for their trouble.

“How much are you willing to pay?” The agent attending to me asked her.

“$40,” the girl said.

“I’ll do it,” said the agent, who practically shoved my tickets to me, mumbled some instructions and then promptly got up and left the counter. I glanced at the long line of people waiting for their turn, while the girl bound for New Zealand smiled bitterly at me. I sighed, and smiled back.

Despite the general air of hopelessness, heightened by the sound of shops and restaurants closing their shutters for the night, people were still trying to maintain a certain light-heartedness. They chatted, make jokes and generally looked out for one another. We may not know each others’ names, but when stuck in the same boat, friendships need no formalities.

And thanks to that quiet camaraderie, and thanks to the phone calls that helped me stay sane, I pulled through the otherwise lonely and scary night in the airport. Granted the whole place was still brightly lit, with cheery Christmas songs playing in the background, and security guards were patrolling the place, and nobody tried to eat anyone yet… but the sort of fear you experience comes from the uncertainty on when you can actually leave this place, how much trouble you’re gonna get from your employers when you’re not back in time for work, and the fast disappearing balance in your debit card. Honestly, I was in the position where I could not leave the airport and find somewhere else to stay, because (1) I don’t have enough money for the cab fare to keep coming and leaving the airport, and (2) the hotels around the airport are probably going to cost a bomb, due to New Year’s Eve and the whole flight-cancelling chaos that has hit all the airlines. Another gnawing worry is that I would soon run out of money to buy airport food. I would really regret having to eat my own leg, because to quote Willy Wonka in the most recent Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie, “humans don’t taste so good.”

It was, however, sheer luck that this morning, I was squeezed into the last seat in a flight bound to San Francisco despite being No.10 in the waiting list. I don’t know what exactly happened. I was sitting on the ground, trying desperately not to doze off while watching the stand-by list board like a hawk, err, trying not to doze off. It was impossible, anyway, because there were only five available seats. An incoming phone call, and I dreamily drew relief from the comforting voice, and it must have been really a dream because suddenly I heard my name being called – wrongly, of course, but it was my name! I scarcely had time to pinch myself. Dream or reality, I’m getting on! I dragged all my belongings to the boarding gate, shoved my boarding pass and passport towards the officers and after a while, found myself seated in a Delta plane, where I promptly fell asleep again.

It was a most wonderful feeling to be wake up from the window you were leaning on, as the realization that you are still in an airplane dawned upon your bleary conscience.
When I touched down at San Francisco, I very nearly dropped to my knees on the dry and snowless California ground and kiss its sun-lit surface. But of course, I really do not want to attract anymore weird stares, seeing as I’m probably gaining some attention for my hobo smell (okay one night in the airport is not so hobo but the romantic drama queen in me like to imagine that I’ve experienced hobo-ness, just for something to tell my grandchildren. Don’t mind me, unless you’re my grandchildren). Thus, I resort to just march proudly outdoors without having to suffocate in a bundle of thick winter clothing.

That said, I kinda sorta a wee bit miss the snowy scene. Ah well, once my memory fails me again (it’s bound to happen one of these days), I might attempt winter traveling again. In Japan, probably. I’ve heard that the sakura is worth it =)

*****

New York City was, despite everything, pretty darn amazing. Seeing my sister and my brother in law again was even more so! Will be blogging about that later, once I got around to processing the pictures. That will be soon. I hope.

And because I have that much faith in myself, here's the disclaimer.

Writing Withdrawal

This marks the end of my 30 days and nights of literary abandon.

I had dived into my first NaNoWriMo pledge with nay a plot, and came out with nay an ending.

Because 50,000 words are just not enough to conclude the awesome-ness that my writing partner and I had jointly created (he was responsible most of the awesomeness; I was just there to pass the coffee and occasionally, the word count. Better cheat than never, I guess). And because, I think, neither of us had any idea what the hell is going on in those pages right now.

But what can you expect when you have characters which consist of a boy and a girl and a zombie and a badass leather babe (except she’s not) and a snarky hip uncle (except he’s usually a doll) and a robot (named after Dr. Seuss) and a few ghostly girls (always with The Ring’s Sadako feel to them, for some reason) and two combat-ready teachers who would feel right at home in Professor X’s mutant school. And a salesman.

Yes, we wrote like there’s no tomorrow. With false assumptions like that you tend to throw in everything that sounds like a great idea in your head and see which stuck. All of them did, shame on them. That posed several conundrums, but none that we can’t overcome with the wonders of padding and blatant killing of some characters by completely failing to mention them in the next several chapters.

But of course, there is always tomorrow. That’s the whole point. We live to write another 1.667 words, come what brain-deadness may.

It had been a hell of a ride; a journey of self-discovery. For one, I realise that I can actually make things up. At 4-bloody-a.m. And loving every moment of it, even the bits that I fell asleep in, with the laptop teetering on the edge of my lap.

I came to realise how much I love writing fiction. I’ve always considered myself a journalist, with a kind of rock-hard conviction for the Truth. And of course, a novelist seem to require a kind of amazing ingenuity for creating Something out of nothing, and not to mention the ability to look dashingly romantic in a moustache/beard (sorry, blame my stereotype on staring at Terry Pratchett’s mug too much) and a beret. I was sure the Truth would be easier. You just dig and dig and piss everyone off and dig some more. Nothing to it, to quote a dear friend and respectable journalist.

The funny thing is, I’ve always found more truth in fiction. Pratchett’s novels can strike a chord deeper than any news or analytical piece can. Sometimes I find myself reading the newspaper just because I need to.

Heck, I got into writing because of Pratchett. He had said that “writing is the most fun anyone can have by themselves”. I bought his words. And a whole bunch of Discworld novels.

Then of course I realise that I am no Pratchett. My writing doesn’t bear wit like his – most of the time I have to glue the bad puns on and hope that no one would notice. And writing is actually painful for me. It drives me nuts. It made me feel both intoxicated and depressingly sober at the same time.

And then there is the whole thing about the Truth. I wonder if I’m any good at getting them.

Of course, as the years go by I also came to realise that writing is as much of a pain to even the best of writers (they just get paid a whole lot more). And you get better at digging, for Truth is a lot like turnips, but without the practicality of the latter.

It was not until NaNoWriMo that I actually felt Pratchett’s words. Making things up is a whole new universe of fun, especially when you’re doing it at unearthly hours with a support system in a different time zone cheering you on. It’s an opportunity to sit back without having to have 500 Firefox tabs opened on various research materials, and just let the brains and fingers foxtrot into free-fall fantasy.

Of course, I still love journalism as heck. Because it's so damn hard. I'm probably a masochist.

Here’s to all who stood by me when the writing bumped along, and sometimes crashed into walls. I was hanging on to the rope entwined with your encouragements, and that was the only thing that has saved me from being swallowed into the dark abyss of Giving Up.

And here’s to my partner, for being a genius and a wonder-friend :)

Now, to finish the novel! Synchronizing plot ninja!

Streams of unconciousness

It was yet another defining moment for me as I sat in the pitch darkness, listening to two tiny noses breathing noisily.

I had, for the first time in my au pair life, put my host kids to bed. And they actually slept. It was the kind of feat that you had to do it by yourself to understand how hard it was. As I finally managed to haul them all onto their beds, get them to stop talking and kissed them goodnight, my inner self ran victoriously around the field with arms outstretched – tip-toeing, of course, while hysterical fans whispered their cheer. Four-year-olds have better hearing than you think.

And then I was hit by a wave of misery. Come on, my biggest achievement these days is putting kids to bed? Oh wait, no, my greatest gratification is when they finished all their vegetables. Uh huh. Very important, vegetables.

I buried my face in my hands.

It’s my fourth month in the States now, and these “what-the-hell” moments have been more often – especially when I looked at the state of the living room and realise that if this wasn’t hell, then someone had just raised it. Yes, I now think that eternal damnation means an eternity of picking up toys and stray pop corns and melted lollipops off the carpets. And a never-ending surround sound of childish shrieks. And being gratified by things like how well the kids pooped. And having to say “good job!” until Judgment Day.

Apologies for having been on hiatus for so long. To those of you who still like me, I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart and with hot grateful tears rolling down my cheeks, “What’s wrong with you guys?” Nonetheless, I’m here now. Got some rotten eggs to throw? Sure, but do get in line.

So much had happened for the past few months. So much that I’m having trouble believing them. I have made new friends as quickly as I lost them. I have gasped at the quirks and characters of America as much as I have gotten used to them. I have understood the realities of life as deeply as I had been baffled by it. I have taken spontaneous risks as often as I have passed up rare opportunities. I have discovered the beauty of true friendships and buried some of them.

I have broken hearts, promises, and trusts.

I have put my money in the wrong things, and paid the price.

I have come to realise the preciousness of friends who doesn’t let 9000 miles of distance, my incessant ranting about being lonely and our completely different lives now get in the way of nonsensical banters, lengthy conversations and juicy gossip exchanges.

I have seen America in all its immensity and intensity, and decided that this country really has no use for me, other than to probably put its next generation to bed.

I have lived; a little exhausted, but too high-strung to sleep.

I came to the States to learn how to be a better writer; I did everything but write. I came to the States to figure out my path; I am more confused than ever.

It had, however, been one crazy ride. During my early months here, I felt like I was running on sheer momentum – if I slowed down, I may hit the kind of wall that marathoners talk about, the kind that cripples you and drags you down. With the aid of some disappointing friendships and a minor car accident, my momentum did get thrown out of whack, and I did run headfirst into concrete.

It was an unpleasant jolt, but one that I needed. I was burning out, while everything around me went past in a blur. Perhaps that is why I did not blog for so long. My mind was a mess – it was no telling what may come out of it. Most of all, writing required a kind of ability to make sense, which was beyond what my state of mind could have mustered.

This month, I’m learning to slow down. I am currently in my 30 days of writing exile (NaNoWriMo rawr!) and had never been happier. There may be so many things I’m confused about, but at least I’m sure that writing will always be the thing that can both stitch my broken pieces up and tear me apart from within.

There’s a song that goes “It’s gotta be like falling in love; there’s something to believe in.”
The line encapsulates why I still love writing even though it strains me so, love my messy life even though it tires me so, love the even messier Malaysia even though she pains me so.

I believe. It’s a whole lot like optimism, except way more stubborn.