under the blanket

Impending deadlines have a weird effect on me. I start looking towards my belly button and picking the lint, metaphorically speaking of course. So feel free to skip this bout of self-indulgent navel gazing.

A very astute friend was right when she said that this blog is an exercise in self-actualisation, even though Maslow might not agree, seeing that I’ve yet to fulfil my needs for food [constant cravings], shelter [well, at least this month’s rent is settled] and love [need I say more?].

So, after a couple of weeks of blogging, I’ve managed to “actualise” myself and come to this realisation -- I have an obsessive-compulsive-addictive personality.

Once I get hooked onto something, I find it very hard to let go.

Take this bloggish I write, for instance. [blog + rubbish = bloggish]

Even though it is mostly just stream-of-consciousness style of writing, I spend an inordinate amount of time sorting out my random thoughts and recording mundane daily details. The same goes for amount of time I get sucked into spending on other people’s blogs.

As a friend says, there are lots of bored people in the world, writing and reading blogs. I happen to be one of them, though I am happy to report that I have managed to infect someone else with the blogging bug. And even though I'm sure that I will feel extremely silly when I re-read this in a few years' time, well, I can't seem to stop making a fool of myself for now.

[This is a slight side track, but I find it endearing when you guys email me and say “I read your blog” like it is something to be ashamed of. Yet similarly, I get an illicit thrill from snooping around other friends’ blogs, reading about their lives and looking at their pix.]

Other manifestations of this obsessive-compulsive-addictive side of me include:

-- endlessly looping and playing to death songs-of-the-moment. Currently it is Stef Sun’s cover of That I Would Be Good by Alanis Morrisette. Very dated and uncool, I know, but I find the way she leaves out her T's and D's at the end of sentences so typically Singaporean and adorable. She sings: "That I would be goooo..."

-- religiously watching every episode of Buffy, even though the current season sucks big time. No unlike a vampire, actually.

-- incessantly making lists like this. I also compile a daily list of Things To Do Today, with items that never end up getting done, so it just grows longer and longer every day.

-- MUD. That was a three-year addiction, in which I consumed a million magic mushrooms, fought a thousand monsters and even got betrothed to a warlord or wizard or something evil like that. It was a force beyond my control.

-- my beloved BeeBee for the past 20 years. Last on the list, but definitely the worst addiction of all, as those who have seen me eat it in my trance-like state can testify. I am now down to one last precious packet and withdrawal syndrome is setting in. Eagerly counting down to the arrival of Lilian my drug courier with fresh supplies.