Voila, la deuxième tentative.

I need to remember that I took the picture that is at the top of this blog. That I saw that scene, had the luck to capture it. It’s cropped from a photo that I took while travelling in Southern Spain back in the spring of ‘04. We had taken a bus to find some museum/ruins on the outskirts of town - I forget if this was Seville or Granada or Toledo. It doesn’t really matter now. But what does matter is remembering that we’d hopped on this bus from the centre of town, and the weather had gone for a crisp sunny late afternoon to heavy showers pelting the roof and windows of the bus, and we’d reached out end destination, only to find out that the ruins had been closed for the day already. And the bus driver had offered us a ride back into the city free of charge (we should’ve paid for the return) to make up for our disappointment with not getting to see the ruins. And in the 5 minutes before the bus turned back on its return route, we’d goofed around taking photographs.

And that’s when I noticed the rainbow. And the stop sign. This picture in its entirety has my friend capturing me in the frame, with an arm thrown out in the air, hanging from the fence. It was truly a snapshot of a moment in time.

And so, these days, when I swing from mood to mood, sometimes wildly, sometimes mildly, but it’s always scary when I’m going downward and try to either stop it, or not be afraid to embrace it, to hold on and be sure in the knowledge that light and balance will be regained, that that’s my life, and so be it.

Ok tiring out of words now. I’ll prolly write more later.

for the time being, words that matter from the last two days -  in no particular order:

julia and a half pint of beer, walking, ingrid and ice cold coffee-based frapuccino, kings cross/st pancras, jeff mok and bus rides and finishing up gelato, hot hot weather, walking and more walking.

when you have people who march into the tube and reach up and grip the overhead bars. UHM…assscuse me, don’t you see the POLE that you can simply hold on to without lifting your arms to flash me your armpits?? guess not. LOSERS. (also, eeyuck).

when you have people who run for the lift, and then, AND THEN when it arrives, go inside and stand in there like it’s their granddaddy’s apartment. Come one, there are other people cramming in from the other side, MOVE A LITTLE BIT, is that too much to ask? (jackasses)

when you have people with bony elbows on the bus who simply NEED to rummage through their bags, and then touch touch you because their bony elbows have to be angled out towards you, INTO YOUR SPACE. And then they never find what it is they are looking for, despite repeated bony elbow attempts to trawl the depths of their bag(s). Le sigh. (Another sign of a LOSER)

when you have folks who think that THEIR MUSIC is DA BEST and that they are doing everybody on the bus a favour by playing their music so LOUD you can hear it out of their earphones (their poor ear drums). Worst is when it’s SHITE MUSIC. omg. and when you realise that YOU’VE forgotten your own muzak…(celaka).

ok that’s all for today.

oh oh wait. i forgot the rail holders who sneeze don’t wipe their hands, and then touch the rails/poles. Or those who have icky looking fingernails. geeeeeliiii……

the last time that happened was a whole year and errr…4 months ago? (counting on fingers, not very accurate)

so two things:

1) found a very apt name befitting the former 3-letter-word of my life. Prabu Salya. I think that sums it up really.

2) just had a bit of a jolting experience relating to my work place. or rather, its location. and the crazies that abound. anyways, am thinking seriously about whether this should be a push in the ‘find a new job’ direction. All those words of wisdom from the elders about ‘well you young ones never stay for long at one place, no more job loyalty these days…’ and ‘how will your cv look like if you’ve never stayed longer than a year at any job?’ abound. But seriously, I guess, when personal safety is compromised, does that not take precedence over all that? I guess it’s also coz I’m stuck often in a comfort zone. except even when that comfort zone ain’t too comfortable, i’m still, like, stuck in it. GAH.

so I’m blogging about food. again. might as well-lah.

So here’s today’s story (we’ll get to the food part, don’t worry).

Was tired at work, and decided to leave early. Felt guilty about it. because well, had been tired, felt sorta stuck, and didn’t feel like I’d done as much work as I should’ve (I hadn’t). But anyways, was pleasantly surprised when le bozz said ‘Go home, you deserve it’ when I told him I’d hit the fatigue wall and was going to have to call it a day. And then he congratulated me on my ’successful launch’ and said that I’d had a ’successful week’. Not sure if I truly deserved all of that, but hey, I’ll take it. (I had the London-wide launch of my project happen on Monday. SO MUCH FOLLOW UP TO DO NOW!!!!) but anyways….so something interesting happened to me at work today (apart from the gemuk charboh yang biasanya blergh being v v nice, hey?! again, not complaining!). I leaned over the shredder to open a drawer…..and part of my pareo (which I was wearing draped around my shoulders/neck like a scarf) got scarfed down by the darn shredder machine. That was quite scary. Luckily, quick reflexes saved the day, and now I have a sort of super unique pareo to call mine. heh.

Anyways, so left work early. Here’s the fun part leading up to my food story. I took 4!!!!! buses to get home. Coz I pandai-pandai thought i’d forgo the tube, and take the bus. Just for kicks. do something different on a Friday. WHILE LUGGING 2000 FREEPOST ENVELOPES (that I’m bringing to my other workplace, the cinema, tomorrow, for distribution - linking up both my jobs here, wahey!). Smart I am not. tired and yes, hungry, I was.

So I took bus #1. Changed at Shoreditch. took bus #2. got off at the stop leading to what is fast becoming my favourite Vietnamese resto. Supacheap, and supayummy, and SUPER FRESH. £4 for a bowl of pho. with slices of beef that OMG make your mouth water and your stomach purr (if stomachs purred, mine would!). But because I’d left work early, they WEREN’T OPEN YET. brilliant.

Lug myself and my 2000 envelopes back to the bus stop. waited FOREVER for the bus#3 that should’ve brought me right back to my doorstep. but IT NEVER CAME. so I took another bus that kinda went in the right direction but then I’ve have to switch on to another one to change direction that would drop me in front of my abode. So I took bus #3 that was sort of in the right/wrong direction.

And so, there’s been this Carribean take-away food place near where those two bus stops intersect (between directions)…and I’d always wanted to try it…but just never got to, because usually when I caught sight of it (and the long queues inside — long queues must mean the food tastes good right?!) I was usually IN A BUS. today was the first time I’d actually have to walk by the place (because I usually don’t change directions after I’ve hopped on one bus, but today’s circumstance necessitated that). So I stepped in. Only non-black person there. Funnily, it didn’t feel odd at all.

I asked the lady over the counter for the oxtail meal (so hard to go wrong with oxtail, I’d weep for the poor oxen if I ever had an oxtail dish that tasted bad for its death would’ve been for naught!)…and told her it was my first time in here…she beamed a smile so big it surprised me. And I learnt that what ‘we’ call herring, are called ’sprats’ by dem Jamaicans. and damn, are sprats awesomely yummy.

So here I am. sitting in front of mibook (I know, pathetic that I use the computer screen for entertainment while eating solo, but I like! today! so it’s fine!) typing away after having polished off the most delicious rice and beans and gravy and OXTAIL meal…..+ some onions and sprats (still have half of the portion left, go me. learning. slowly. to curb excessive behaviour. like needing to guzzle down whole portions of food. sometimes. not at all the times).

Anyways, one last thing to share — so I got an assortment of juices from Marks & Spencer yesterday (lugging juice ain’t fun either lemme tell y’all!) (they were 3 for £5, a good deal, so that’s why I couldn’t resist). and the Pomegranate & Raspberry juice is the brightest/deepest, most gorgeous shade of red I’ve seen in a long long time. Add to the fact that it’s liquid…omg, it’s beautiful.

Ok. well that’s all for now.

A little nothing on a Friday evening about food. and a long journey home.

love to everyone,

~m. xoxox

ps: for own self and posterity’s sake: had dinner last night with 2 of my oldest (almost first, perhaps!) friends from college. And their significant others (my current significant other is my reflection — have said goodbye to the three-letter-word for good. I think. it took a long time to happen. but I think, by jove, (by jeeves? by jolly? by holy mother of god, mary queen of my heart?) it’s happened and I’m none the worse off for it). Anyways, last night was a.good.night. 

tonight, however, I’m tired. well fed, but tired. Thankful, but tired.

Looking forward to tomorrow. xoxoxox

don’t know why that one came out of nowhere yar.

dinner today: almost wholly-Italian, but FOILED by the freeze-flown sambal from Penang…henceforth known as Malaysian Caviar (per Uncle Tom and Aunty Shirley—who enjoy it all the way over in frinton-on-sea too!).

salad: lettuce leaves off of a growing plant, sweet/tart tomatoes chopped up with mozzarella di buffala cheese, tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and pepper. fine and good. shoulda thrown in a little garlic and made it super italian (or so I think only-lah).

but then..aha…the tortelli (the boil for one minute kind, not made from scratch, no time tired-lah)….drizzled olive oil and sprinkled pepper on it right….but then. PLOP. one dollop of sambal. BEST-NYE.

Anyways, enough about food. Am thankful that am ‘doing’ another blogpost so soon again, nevermind if a while back I thought of wiping out this poor poor neglected little repository of my little life memories. It’s all about me me me though innit. Well, tough shit.

Am thinking about half-pints. And how I’ve developed a sudden affinity for them of late. Literally, half pints. the kind you drink. of alcohol. beer, usually. but it’s not the beer, but rather the quantity that I’ve grown fond of. Odd. I know.

oh, and I saw my old English ah pek with the scarf in his suit with a cane toddling along the same street just the other morning (the same one I saw one evening, cept I was on the other side of the road). I’m starting to see some faces repeatedly, a rare, rare, occurence here in London, so it does tug at my heart a little bit thinking about potentially moving away again (soon - we’re looking end of July here right now)…and starting to get to know another locale again. Yes, I am getting tired of all this moving around. but if you were to tell me to stay stuck here in London, or back home in Penang, right now, at this very point in my life, I’d … I don’t know… book a one way flight to Jalalabad and go fend for myself in the wilderness, rather than stay stuck….for good. or bad. or whatever. talk about not knowing what one wants from life. heh.

ANYWAYS.

love.

those 4 letter words. life. hope. oh death doesn’t quite fit in, but whatevs.

those 4 letter words. or just words. they get you all the time. or me. and you too. US.

xoxoxox

I find myself typing this entry, just before I eat my dinner of scottish salmon and vegetable cakes with cut up beets flavoured with Sarawak black pepper, Malden sea salt, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil….accompanied by a glass of gorgeous tempranillo wine, the color of the beets on my plate, as a means of preserving this moment for the future. A snapshot which I’d like to be able to look back on sometime in the future.

This is being written among a hard period of my life. I thought it couldn’t get any harder, growing up, living, ah was I wrong. but I remain hopeful. because of moments like these. when there is much to be thankful for, and when I’m able to be thankful for all of these things, that could just be so easily unnoticed, bypassed, or their ability to create peace, warmth and joy tempered. I’m grateful for the gorgeous (albeit blustery outside!) sky that I can see from our living room windows, our* loft apartment, the alcove underneath which I’m sitting on the more than comfortable sofa. For Ella Fitzgerald playing right now. For being able to go through banking details later, and to make a small donation to Grinnell, for the plants around me, the meal that I’m about to eat, and that moment earlier, of just simple ‘hey it’s not that bad-ness’. a realization that I’m thankful for.

ok that’s all for now. should eat before the food gets cold.

as always, love and hope to all.

*I use the word ‘our’ because it is by the grace of having a housemate that I can afford the luxury of having a living room all to myself this evening. A single bedroom apartment would be beyond my means as it is, and the place that we have right now is more than enough, no, really, more space than what 2 people really need to live in.

and ‘they’ say that writing helps one heal.

in bullet points then, the little things:

• tried to make yogurt w/ Mum’s yogurt maker that she generously bequeathed to me when she came over last Christmas. Result: errr, I think F for Failure. I’m guessing the bacteria from greek-style cow’s yogurt doesn’t fare that well trying to multiply in goat’s milk? I dunno, was trying to be adventurous I suppose (goat’s milk yogurt, doesn’t that seem like it’s taste much cooler than just plain ol yogurt? hmm. guess that’s debatable actually). Anyways, attempt #1 backfired. Next up, regular whole milk (thought of using guernsey/jersey cow milk…really really thick rich creamy stuff….but then, if it’s just going to ferment….but then into the richest thickest yoghurt possible eh? that thought still has something going for it!) with regular style yogurt as the starter. X-fingers, that combo should be idiot (read: marie) proof.
• last night, saw a bespectacled little old man, shuffling his way across a side street, onto the following sidewalk, he had a suit on, with a tatty (tattered-ish + ratty? old basically) Man Utd scarf slung around his shoulders. I surmised that he was either coming from or going to the pub/home. For a multitude of reasons, just observing that old man made me so so sad. tiny steps. unstable steps (and not from having quaffed copious amounts of alcohol twasn’t that kind of gait)…old age, a weakening body, singularity, loneliness, company, that determination and a purpose yet though, a certain kind of braveness and I don’t care-ness…I don’t know what it was, but those 20-30 seconds that I had the chance to observe him last night touched me in a humbling, sad, but yet wonderous way.
• pretty colourful stick-like shell bracelet that I came across while at a charity shop last Saturday for 50p. I like it. I like it not only because of the delight that I associate with this particular bracelet when I found out it was “only 50p?!?! hella yah I’ll buy it!” (sidenote: cost £5 to repair my 2 coconut shell bracelets that Presha got me from the Brazilian man in Aix from him stand on the side of Cours Mirabeau)…but also because the style of it is similar to one of those aforementioned bracelets, which I still cherish very dearly. Also, I wore it today, and it glinted in the darkness of the auditorium that I was in while the lights came on slightly during the intermission of the play that I watched tonight at RADA (nyahaha, that would stand for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, note Britain’s propensity for everything Royal….heck even the Chinese restaurants here are all Imperial Something or Royal Something or other…..but I digress, as always….) courtesy of Sue, and a lady, a fellow member of the audience appreciated it’s beauty enough to mention it to me…just simply that she really liked my bracelet and that she thought it was beautiful. how rare that is. well yeah, so i like it. because it’s a positive piece of jewellery now. and a girl can’t have too many of those!

My current boss likes to talk about things in 3s. He says it’s a nice number. I think a bit of that might be rubbing off on me, because I think I shall stop here. 3 bullet points are good. good enough. good ok.

ok fine, maybe not. here’s a fourth

• celebrated St Paddy’s day tonight by having Baileys on the Rocks at Birkberk’s Bar (first time in there - twas right across the street from RADA afterall I think is why we went there). And by wearing one of those big green n black “Guinness”/”St Patrick’s Day 2009″ hats. somewhere out there on someone’s camera is an image of Sue and I with those ridiculous hats on. Quite a difference from St Paddy’s Day celebrations from 2006 :A

  

3 entire years ago those pics were taken (there’s the magic 3 again) hard to believe how fast time flies sometimes. Almost everytime I think about the increased speed with which time seems to fly by though, I am reminded of John Mohan, and then it makes me think but he’s living on forever in the memories of those many people that he touched in his lifetime (I wonder how many people he shared his theory on the passing of time with….I’d like to think I’m part of a special group of people whom he shared it with, and who remember him for that, and pass on his memory to others when we share who it was that we heard this concept for the first time).

Ah well. Time’s flying by now and it’s time for me to go to sleep anyway, and tomorrow shall arrive all too soon I’m sure. Some things don’t change, I still don’t seem to be able to get as much sleep as my body seems to think it still needs when it comes to waking up in the morning…..

as always, love to all.

~m. xoxox

So I was wrong. here’s another blogpost before I turn 26.
A couple of things this time, as always, writing is a form of catharsis.
I intend to write the introduction to my thesis tonight before I go to sleep. At least so I can have a little something to look at tomorrow to continue off on, or stare at in amazement that it’s actually coming to life, nevermind that it’ll prolly change shape at least twice before being handed in.

But 3 things this time.
Home. Nostalgia. Music.

I’m thisclose to deciding what’s going to happen next year. Let’s just say that the realization of having upheaved and moved and adjusted and re-adjusted to living on three different continents in the past 3 years (actually, 4 different countries in the last four years if you think about it. 2004 started off with throwing myself in the melée that was the South of France, 2005 saw me finishing up my last year at Grinnell and then transitioning to post-graduate life, mid-2006 saw my return to Penang after my 5-year hiatus, and 2007 saw my calamity-ridden intro to living and studying in London)…well yeah, all that has factored in my decision for what comes next once my big baby of a D gets handed in.

Which ties in to coming back home. The first time I left home - in 2001 - there was a sense of freedom. Of I don’t care when I’m coming back next, I just know I’m FREE for now….and suddenly, 5 years went by. And then I decided it was time to go home once again, to reacquaint myself with the 4/5ths of my life that I’d left behind (because leave it behind I did, I have to admit somewhat ashamedly. I was more concerned about the Iraq war than I was about the impending stepping down of Mahathir in 2004, and more in tune with what happened with Hurricane Katrina because I fell in love with New Orleans back in 2002 when I visited, rather than with what happened with the Christmas ‘04 tsunami). And this time around, being home made me realize that even though I was hankering to leave, it wasn’t about escape this time. It was about needing to find the space to grow, to experience and savour the opportunities offered by the world, that I was privileged enough to grasp, outside of Malaysia….but that it wasn’t a matter of if, but when, I’d be back again. And back to make more of a difference than I did in the 9 months that I was participating in Malaysian society. This time, even though abroad again, I’ve kept track of the going ons back home. And while it heartens me that the people that I met while back, and the events that had just started to unfold then have progressed beyond belief, it still makes me extremely … I can’t find the right word. it’s not morose, neither is it depressed, nor angry, I dunno. There’s just so much crazy happening back home right now, it’s hard to see if there’s anything decent that can come out of it. I know, I know, come on right, there is. Heck my dissertation’s all about the possibility of change and all that….but really? it’s just all crazy.

I found myself explaining my Malaysia to friends last night, and it didn’t make sense. To understand it all, one has to submerge oneself in some kind of hegemonically twisted ideological world with flawed logic and subverted sense of justice….it’s just so warped. And it took a non-Malaysian to tell me "But Marie, that just doesn’t make sense at all" for me to realize how I have two selves, one which tries to see things objectively…and the other which has internalized this confusing, roiling, rotting mess of what makes Malaysia Malaysia (the Malaysia that I gleefully left behind the first time around).

And it’s hard to believe in the hope, or the small pockets of reality that do exist, where an alternative Malaysia can and will exist (the Malaysia that I caught a glimpse of while back last year, and that I want to claim and build for myself and possibly my children). One where you don’t have to convince yourself that a certain policy has logic to it if you were to only look at it this one way…from a certain viewpoint.  A nation where its people are allowed to thrive regardless, or perhaps BECAUSE of their diversity and spontaneity and ability to adapt and change and create and reclaim.  A homeland to be proud of and to love because, and not in spite of. Maybe I’m dreaming of being in the wrong historical era, or pining for a Utopia where manmade divisions based on "race" and religion and "gender" and age and class and language don’t play that important a role in our lives both private and public. but oh well.

I’ve gone off again, rambling away…and there went a good couple of hundred words I could’ve used instead for my intro to the big D. ha.

I guess I’ll end with just this short mention of music. Just in the past 3 days I’ve become obsessed with finding a version of "You Belong to Me" that isn’t butchered into sickly sweetness (Carla Bruni and Bob Dylan especially, SHAME on you two!!!!!). The original, released in 1952 sung by Jo Stafford is pretty awesome, but I do believe I’ve found my favourite in Kate Rusby’s version of it. And what creeps me out, besides the fact that the key phrase in this song is "You belong to me" is the haunting melody that just draws me into a orange-purple hued sunset of a nostalgia in my mind — for what I don’t know…but the internal workings of my mind tell me that I may be thinking of a certain boy and how things turned out with him (and I dare mention this openly because he knows not of the existence of this blog, and quite possibly, if he ever stumbles upon it, things will have evolved such that this is all neatly tucked away on the shelves of memories already…or who knows, maybe he’ll still be in my life and will turn around and ask "was that me you were making reference to?" and I’ll just give a smile and not answer yes or no) when I play this song on repeat….continuously for hours on end. I do do that quite often though, get fixated with just one song, and play it over and over again, or find different versions of the same song and play them on repeat, my all time top repeat hit was Bobby McFerrin’s Siamese Cat Song, I used to even play it through the night…and oh, once upon a time, Build Me Up Buttercup too (used to drive Katia mad…and an ex-boyfriend too…but that was when I kept singing along to it…on repeat. hehe). But yeah. so just weird. I guess I should just stop listening to this song if I want to let this weird mood dissipate but do I really want to? I guess the answer is no. I have a bit of a masochistic streak in me that way.

On the whole though, I’m reminded daily of how blessed I am, and I do try not to lose sight of that. I’ve been eating well, and staying quite in love with being alive, and laughing a lot. And trying to pass it all on. Most days I feel like I haven’t passed on as much as I’ve received, that how (I hesitate to say good) it’s been. But I’m constantly surprised by Life, I am, be it through people, events, tastes, moods, smells, textures encountered. For that, I whisper a grateful alhamdullilah in my heart.

Well then. On that unabashedly soppy note, I shall end with a picture, as always, it says a thousand words more.

Love to all,
~m. xox

This might be my last blogpost while still 25. I turn 26 next month. And seeing how fast time’s going by these days, it’s pretty likely that’s what’s going to happen.

Again, I have a 4 week deadline to my 10,000 word dissertation, so I’m updating this blog. ha. no sweat. I’m going to start on it, like, right after I finish this post, in the next 12 minutes. (because it’ll be 16:00 then). mhmmm.

So what do I say? what do i update about? so much has happened. And yet. I feel strangely the same.

So again, we’ll go with the word linkages: choosing own music (to life), mipod, barbeques for burmarelief.org, rare sunny sundays, the magic of red buses and public transportation, good meals, cooking meals, hanging out clothes in the sun to dry (after 9 months! they smell and feel different from coming out of the dryer), finally submitting to paying for, and thus getting to eat reasonably good M’sian food, sempoerna’s, fragility, fleetingness, foxes and birds, windows and sunlight, scents - smells - ringing/alarm tones, nostalgia, acceptance, fuck-yous! to fashion and the weather, carpe-diem-ing, moments of bliss, cuddling under covers and sprawling across a queen sized bed all stretched out with no one to share space with, naps, vivid dreams that donate answers to worries, laissez-faire-ness, cajoling, merry-making, crying, understanding, holding, hugging, being swung in the air, water, bridges, wasting time, being thankful.