the force is not with me

I'm afraid my time as an adrenaline junkie is up.

I used to be able to go on daredevil funfair rides, one after the after, with zero ill effects. In fact, I did a story in which I rated all the rides at the UK Funfair when it first came to town a couple of years back. It was the most fun I've ever had on the job, plus my ed was super impressed that I was totally not afraid.

So when I heard at the beginning of the month that the funfair was back, I was super excited!!!!!!!

We finally went late last night.

First stop was the Air Force One, sort of like a revolving Viking. Wheeeeeeee!

Then it was bump and grind on the Takada, sort of like sitting on the rim of a giant frying pan without a seat belt. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Third stop was the scariest -- and most expensive at $15 -- ride known as G Force, which basically spun you from great heights and great force, hence the name. It was 2-1/2 minutes of screaming and pure adrenaline rush.

Very proud of myself for letting go of my death grip on the safety bars and even rallying the stranger next to me to do the same. Wheeeeeeeeeee!

But it was a huge mistake to immediately board the Air Force One for the second time.

As we were hurled and twirled around for the final revolution, I experienced motion sickness for the first time in my life. No wheeeeeeeee...

I hate to admit it, but I am no longer a spring chicken. There was a sick sensation in my stomach that stayed with me for the next hour or so.

But the next morning, even though I had bruises on my elbows and my biceps/triceps/cordyceps ached from holding on so tightly, I was raring to go again. Wheeeeeeeee!

pre-ride jitters

Just the thought of the rides is enough to give me clammy palms, make me break out in cold sweat and put on an insane grin at the same time.

As we were arranging our little funfair outing, I had casually mentioned it to a friend. Later, I messaged him the details.

Me: Up for wild roller coaster rides tonight? Wheeeee
Him: Eat full full then sit lah, lagi exciting
Me: OK, I dare you to do it. On lah?
Him: Ok, but you sit below me haha

In the end, he couldn't make it. So I had clammy palms, cold sweat and grinned so insanely for nothing.

self lurve

My horoscope for the week:

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, but that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anyone, deserve your love and affection. -- Buddha

Which reminds me of a letter from a reader a couple of weeks ago, in response to this Agony Aunt column I do:

I am 40 yrs old and still single. Mr L and me have been working together in the same company for 20 yrs. I have known him from single to married and father of 2 now but my interest for him is growing stronger each day.

Specially so when I have slimmed down since 3 years ago. I have more confidence with my appearance and look now. I have tried getting close to him with the help of my company's secretary (as I am shy) by organising more official outing like lunches (sometime I'll cook for him cos I want him to enjoy my food) and I'll always sit next to him when he drived.

During our D&D, my "invisible hand" had helped me to get a ride from him. I wore a low v-neck top which can show my cleavage but he has no expression, only hold my shoulder when taking photo (with the help of my "invisible hand" urging him to hold me). Immediately after the dinner, he fetched me home and rush back to his wife.

With all my efforts in slimming down and looking prettier has not help him to notice me. He only look at me when my "invisble hand" urge him to. I am saddened and depressed by his "unappreciative" behaviour.

Please do not print my email address or my name for fear my colleagues may read it.

to lurve and lurves

Saturday wait!

Sunday always comes too late!



Happy Valentine's to the pair in the pix and all the pairs out there!

pick me up

According to the latest Elle, Japanese researchers have found that the best pick-up line is "This time next year, let's be laughing together."

The Elle columnist thought it was lame. I kinda liked it, though. I'm easy like that.

cry baby

Something is wrong with me or my hormones. Am now dabbing my eyes with tissue while reading Ella Enchanted alone in the office. A children's book, for crying out loud!

weighing in

I've got a new toy -- digital weighing machine which also automatically calculates BMI -- and I can't stop playing with it.

Gain in weight during the day = 1kg
Loss in weight doing nothing more than just sleeping eight hours = 0.5kg
Gain in weight after a satisfying meal of pasta and desserts = 0.3kg
Loss in weight after a satisfying dump = 0.3kg
Gain in weight after putting on jeans = 0.2kg

quote unquote

"I really love your work. I've got two of your paintings."
~ British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Ian McEwan

boohoohoo

I have not shed so many tears while reading before. The Time Traveler's Wife got me all teary on the very first page:

LOVE AFTER LOVE

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel you own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

~ Derek Walcott

There I was, alone in a cafe that was empty except for a gaggle of high-pitched Japanese housewives, and ridiculously wiping my eyes with a paper serviette. I had to stop after a few pages.

Later, blubbering discreetly on the bus:

Ah, but what can we take along
into that other realm? Not the art of looking,
which is learned so slowly, and nothing that happened here. Nothing.
The sufferings, then. And above all, the heaviness,
and the long experience of love,-- just what is wholly
unsayable.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The next day, while waiting in a quiet nook in a noisy Japanese restaurant, I'm reading again. It's a thick dictionary-sized novel. And for no reason, I'm all choked up and near tears.

Much later, in the still of the night:

Angel!: If there were a place that we didn't know of, and there,
on some unsayable carpet, lovers displayed
what they could never bring to mastery here -- the bold
exploits of their high-flying hearts,
their towers of pleasure, their ladders
that have long since been standing where there was no ground, leaning
just on each other, trembling -- and could master all this,
before the surrounding spectators, the innumerable soundless dead:
would there, then, thrown down their final, forever saved-up,
forever hidden, unknown to us, eternally valid
coins of happiness before the at last
genuinely smiling pair on the gratified
carpet?

~ Rilke

And C was right. The moment I finished sobbing through the story of the wife of a man who travels through time -- it sounds like sci fi mumbo jumbo, but it's more about fate, deja vu, love, longing and waiting -- I wanted to read it all over again. In private this time, so I can bawl without embarrassment.

But my eyes were too swollen to continue, so I went to sleep instead.

birth month

Feels like I've been counting down to my birthday for the past month.

The festivities intensified with last weekend's Crossdressing Pajama Party, and I indulged some more today.

Will be off work for five days, and the birthday break started well with a facial in the late morning. My facialist -- is there such a word? -- said my skin seemed smoother, so hooray!

Next stop was to get more MAC concealer -- still need lots of it before I can face the world, despite supposedly smoother skin -- and as I was queueing to pay, the girl in front of me commented that the beads-brooch combi I was wearing was very unusual. I took that to be a compliment, of course, so hooray again!

Shopped till I almost dropped the rest of the day, now that my self-imposed-shopping-abstinence-in-remembrance-of-tsunami-victims period was over.

When I couldn't walk any further, I limped to the over-publicised Latitude cafe, took off my shoes and read The Time Traveller's Wife until a friend snuck out from work to join me.

Came home, slept for a while with Chinese MTV in the background, woken up by Jay Chou video, mmmmmmmm...

After that, met up with some friends at this glorious chill-out place, The Villa Bali. Little wooden huts, a few mosquitoes, some white wine, great entertainment from two gay boys... and only five minutes away from my place on foot. What a discovery!

Plans for the rest of my break include sewing class, dinner with family, SpongeBob SquarePants movie premiere om Sentosa, reading, more sewing class, dinner with girl friends, haircut and watching lots of daytime TV.

I'm so self-indulgent, I would make a perfect taitai.

post party slump

Under much duress, I'm hereby updating my blog on the much-anticipated Crossdressing Pajama Party on Saturday. Too depressed to work now that it's over and I got nothing to look forward to...except turning 30 in less than a week's time...

Guest of honour: Taufik [But no Sly! Pout!]
Guests of dishonour: Boys who put on nighties but kept their jeans on underneath
Alcohol consumption: Frightening [Where did all the lychee martinis go? I only remember having one!]
Casualties: One down [Three cups of vomit and one ruined cushion]
Birthday cake: Lana [So drunk that I forgot to eat! Guess you can't have your cake and eat it too, hardy har har]
Number of complaints from neighbours: None [Yippee, we can hold more parties! Thick walls = Good sound insulation]
Number of incriminating photos: Too many [Coming up soon...gulp!]

I'm blaming the champagne for my misbehaviour, which I've conveniently wiped out from my memory...I didn't smoke, I didn't hold some cutie's hand, I didn't accuse anyone of smoking pot, I didn't try to undo someone's belt, I didn't fall asleep at my own party.

nebulous night things

Two nights ago, I was woken up in the middle of the night by a tuneless whistling which seemed to be coming from outside my window. I wasn't particularly frightened, though I thought of SMS-ing my sis to wake her up and make her listen to it too. You know, just to make sure I wasn't hearing things, like last week, when there were bells ringing from upstairs, but no one else heard it.

Last night, I was once again woken up by someone covering my blanket over me. Even in my drowsy state, I was creeped out because this someone was standing on the side of my bed which is flush against the window. I tried to scream, reach for my phone beside my bed, twist my toes, anything... but the only sound I managed to make was a thin screeching wail which was too sonic pitched to do any good.

happy birthday, my lurve

These accounts of drunken debauchery end up sounding the same after a while -- apple shooters are not our friends anymore -- but Friday night's episode had a slightly different ending.

At 5am, we were sitting on the curb, cradling a tilam in our laps. It made quite a comfy headrest for our spinning heads.

survey revisited

Had an impromptu sushi lunch with one of my survey respondents [see previous entry].

Him: You are too picky lah.
Me: I'm not! I'm not! I'm not!
Him: I got Ah Beng friends, introduce to you, want?
Me: Dowan! Dowan! Dowan!
Him: And you say you not picky...
Me: There's a difference between picky and having standards.
Him: You're picky!
Me: I need to marry a rich man. A rich husband would solve all of my problems.
Him: And why would a rich man need someone like you?
Me: Ummmmmmm...I'm cute? I'm intelligent? I'm funny? I'm shameless?

survey results

It seems like ages ago, or it may have just been yesterday, but I was conducting a survey among my friends. I just found the notepad on which I had scribbled the results.

There was only one question in this pathetic survey: "In your opinion, why am I still single?"

KT: "You're too introverted."

AL: "You're not trying hard enough."

KH: "You're not meeting enough people."

DO: "You haven't met the right guy. Or are you secretly lesbian?"

GT: "There's no one that you like."

CC: "There are no good men left."

TPL: "You appear very self-sufficient."

LG: "You hang around the same people, so you don't meet people."

MF: "You need to widen your circle. Consider divorced men?"

Since the survey was done, two of the respondents have gotten married -- one secretly, the other shotgun -- while another has a new man in her life.

People all around me are falling in love, out of love, getting married, breaking up, getting divorced, having a dog, having a kid.

Me? The constant single. And the survey hasn't helped one bit.

wish you weren't here

Saw this really "good" photo of a ravaged street in Banda Aceh, with what looked like a limb hanging from a barren tree in the foreground.

You can't help but take a closer look. It is actually a damaged mannequin that had been swept from a shop window and deposited there, but somehow it drives home the message more subtly than if had indeed been a body part.

Morbid as it sounds, I think postcards from warzones and disaster areas can be quite impactful. And sell rather well too.

As I was walking past one photog who had just returned from assignment in said disaster zone, it was on the tip of my tongue to ask: "So how was Phuket?"

But decided it sounded too much like he went on vacation there, when it was anything but.

Anyway, my fave photog also came back yesterday and was regaling me -- in his usual goofy manner -- with stories of sleeping in tents filled with Milo water [ie. mud] and newly orphaned kids playing in refugee camps ["See? No parents but still so happy."]

Then, suddenly very serious, he said: "And this is the picture you never saw..."

While they were driving through the totally destroyed town, they went past a woman sitting on the curb with her head in her hands and one lonely battered suitcase beside her.

As they trundled past, he grappled with asking the driver to stop for him to shoot a photo.

He decided, in the end, to leave her to grief in private.

how lei

C: Yes yes, I love Tong Lei by Stef Sun too!!! Sigh, when will we ever find?

Me: Sigh sigh sigh

C: We are in that horrible in-between category. We are neither gorgeous enough for some guy to grab like a prize, nor are we docile plain Janes who will satiate a guy's ego by never rocking the boat. We just have to wait for the alchemy of the tonglei, if that happens.

Me: Basically we're looking for a not so good looking guy who isn't looking for a xiao nu ren type of girl.

C: Ya lor. A not so good looking guy who is satisfied with having found a good friend whom he finds entirely agreeable shagging. I think every single word of this formulation is important, especially "satisfied" -- as opposed to someone with roving eye and commitment issues.

Me: You have just discounted half the male population with that last part.

C: Ya lor. Depressing init

C: Sigh... There's a package out there that men go for, you just have to fall into that. Average height to tall, slim, some curves, clear skin, proportionate features, okay dresser, non-embarrassing communication skills... ok now I am depressing myself. I have to stop.

C: What the heck since I am almost there shall go full throttle into self-pitying mode. I am too short, too small, I slouch, my features are irregular, my skin is oily and my hair is too thin... hahahahahahaha

belated pix

New Year's Eve with the Eiffel Tower


Romantic dinner for two on the cable car


Cable car dinner part deux

same species

I have favourite songs of the moment according to my mood. Currently, it's Stefanie Sun's Tong Lei on constant repeat mode.

Wind, it blew and then it stopped/I suddenly thought of someone
Day, it was bright and then it grew dark/I grew older by a few years
Heart, warmed and then disheartened
The world, sometimes can be so lonely/Longing for someone feels the same

Somehow, Chinese song lyrics sound maudlin and superficial when translated, even if they are meaningful and poetic in the first place. Could it be the Yoda grammar?

ha ha ha

In Africa, there is a river called Limpopo.

In Nepal [or is it Tibet? Or Inner Mongolia?], there is a mountain pass [or is it village?] called Zingzingla.

In Singapore, there is a [perhaps fictitious] bar called Simpopo.