Body Temperature

After weeks of working, I started to look for a seat on train. I was never a sitting down person so I suspect working makes people lazy and stupid.

Today’s the unlucky of lucky. I got a seat, but after a few seconds I felt the body temperature of the lady sitting beside me, and the only word I can think of is glaring. I can’t stand to feel the warmth of another human being, to consciously know that we are touching... is disgusting. As our legs lay side by side, my comfort turned into discomfort.

I thought about standing up, but it would look hell weird as I just sat down. I didn’t want her to feel bad as it wasn’t her fault that she’s warm, and I’m cold. I thought of alighting and boarding the next train but I wanted to go home badly.

I sat in the discomfort thinking of ways to get out of it.

But I could only sit awkwardly, in my own awkwardness. Thawing.

Stuck in the stark reality, with no relationship and knowledge about her, no embellishment no defilement no prejudice; an objective view on, well, body temperature—how repulsive another person’s body temperature can be. In the end they are all the same, sooner or later they all get uncomfortable. Knowing you, loving you, only means that it takes longer. Knowing you, not liking you, only means that it’s probably immediate. You can play around with the factors and it’s still the same.

I remember a time with an ex-boyfriend, when we probably had been cuddling for too long, everything was all right until I feel the heat. I had to put in an arm’s length but of course, I made it look like I pushed him away so that I could look into his eyes. What cheesy moves of yesteryears. Literally, in the heat of the moment. He was such a hopeless romantic in my eyes, incurably charming… but he has body temperature, which is a turn-off. It makes me feel disgusted that we’re touching each other, it’s not sexual; any contact given enough time will become warm. Like how when particles are packed closely together they vibrate and the temperature increases, they have to break free eventually and move from their fixed positions. The temperature at which this happens is called the melting point. I have a low melting point.

How much time I’ve wasted on cuddling (some) people I’m not even in contact with, people whom I do not love and don’t love me, if you look at it now. Damn gross. How do we stop “loving” just like that?

I kind of like listening to another person’s breathing though.

Disappear off. The face(s) of the Earth.

My father asked if I would like to have some biscuits, and gleefully told me that they were taken out from a tin.

The exact kind I dreamt about few days ago. You need to decide how many grams you want, and the shopkeeper will then weigh them. My parents, uncle, and grandmother used to buy them for me =)

In the dream, I wasn’t the one buying, it was a very young HM in the familiar neighbourhood I grew up in. Everything seemed surreal… No doubt it was a dream, what am I talking about?

I mean, I do not feel like I know the place that I’m supposed to know. The young hm is me, but at the same time, she's not. I am not like that, I was like that… that short, haha, and very small palm. An area I know very well, so well it’s impossible to find an identical scene.

I could see the child in him when he talked about seeing a provision shop selling biscuits in tins. It's so difficult to find those tins nowadays, or at least I don't see them around.

He said that his father (I’ve never seen him so I don't call him grandpa) used to bring them to the provision shop and they would buy these biscuits home together, the biscuits were taken out from a tin, not in nice packaging.
He grew up and brought his children to similar provision shops, bought the same biscuits he had when he was young; taken out from a tin, and not in nice packaging.

In future, will I be able to find the same biscuits, in a tin, and not in nice packaging? Will the uncle take them out from a tin or scan the nice packaging?

I'm not as oblivious as you think, I see the changes, I feel them. I noticed a limping bird, I notice each time the big tree that has been there forever as far as I’m concerned is in bloom. It blooms a few times each year, most of the time after many days of rain; the bloom goes along with the sunshine.
After so many days of rain, you see sunshine,
a tree in bloom,
no stunning birds fluttering and chirping but there are crows and pigeons,
no mountains and sea but there are HDB flats,
somehow it still makes a nice picture you know.

I noticed one day there were many dead bees on the floor on a regular path I walk home. I don't know why they die, but they were dead, others struggling, moving a little but they can’t fly. I counted them and gave up counting at 84 because I couldn't go on.

Bees are dying at a very fast rate, do you know that? Bee movie came to my mind, if there are no more bees will the world become what we saw in the movie, dull? We will all die, without trees, flowers, weeds and grasses. Even if researchers find a way for us to survive, would you want to live in a world with no verdure? I wouldn't, let me die, I’ll have my own DIY death. You asked why I am so oblivious, I ask you now what have I missed?

If I start paying attention to the things you pay attention to, I will not see biscuits in a tin in 10 years time, they will be in nice packaging, the uncle will not have to weigh them, he just have to scan them. Either way, they probably are going to cease.

Sometimes I feel that it's not just the natural resources, species of plants and animals are in danger of extinction, I feel that cultures, the way we live, kindness care sympathy-humanity, the human thing in us, they are going to extinct too. I can see it, and I definitely can feel it.

The people around me think that it's human to be selfish, to mind your own business, to chase for cars and clothes, to work jobs we hate so we can buy shits we don't need, to practice an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth. Why are people telling me all these things that I find no human qualities the most human things to do? Why do adults teach children to love and care and then tell them to not be a dumb arse afterwards? What happened to the standard and values of being a human? How come there is no standard and consistency in rules and teachings and many don’t even shit everyday we are having constipation—a world crisis.

We have different definition of being a human and I feel out of place, but that is no reason for me to join in your parade.

Go shite.

Joke of the Day

Every year, after Chinese New Year, my mother would take a break from housework because she worked hard preparing for cny, and according to superstition, we should not use the broom during cny.

This year, on the 9th day of cny, my father told my mother that she should rest more, but asked if she could wash some of the socks that were piling because he was running out of socks to wear.

2 days later my mother happily informed my father that she had washed some socks.

My father showed me the clean socks—none of them matched. My mother washed one sock out of each pair.

Father then unwrap some new socks.

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We can really use some of these on our future husbands.

Let's Waste Time Chasing Buses – Ice Kacang Petrol

A secondary school boy was sprinting to catch the bus. I was on the bus. He beat the bus because of the traffic light. The bus slowed down as it was approaching the bus stop, so did the boy. I watched as he walked towards the bus, he turned his head, saw me looking at him… and he stopped.

Standing cemented, our eyes met. You could draw a straight line between our eyes --> this sentence is weird but I’m not going to delete it. No matter how I think about it, unless you are standing back-facing or somewhat back-facing, you will be able to hypothetically draw a line between the eyes. And what is it with straight lines, a line should be straight because a curve is a curve and a line is a line. Of course we can have crooked line but a line’s straight by default or by expectation…

Okay, I digressed, I should have stopped at “our eyes met” (and they said hello) but I don’t want to spare you all the gory details in my head. So he gave up the bus because I saw him chasing after the bus. I reckon he thinks like me, because I think that chasing after a bus is embarrassing, it is the sort of thing that you shouldn’t be embarrassed about but you feel embarrassed anyway.

A boy got home or wherever he was heading to a bus later because of our eye contact, not even because I saw him chasing after the bus. Ripple effect. The smallest things make the biggest impacts on me, doesn’t hit me as hard as something as tiny as people watching, which changed an ending. He could have boarded, but he didn’t.

I am sorry if you missed what you were not supposed to miss. But then again, what we missed is probably what we were meant to miss. ‘Supposed to’, ‘meant to’, are very vague in life, we can always argue if something’s supposed to or not supposed to. I refuse to believe in fate and destiny.

Haha, anyway I could be wrong, maybe he just didn’t want to take the bus with a hideous girl, or maybe he saw me killing his neighbour.

Mr Big-Head and Mr Swollen-Head

As he moved around the place like a flitting butterfly, I found myself turning into an attentive audience. The thing is, I wasn’t the intended audience, if it matters.

Someone said it’s because I’m jealous, and jealousy is evidence of love. This is when you really need someone who knows you to stand up for you, because your words don’t count when you are defending yourself, neither am I interested in defending.

So I listened to my two friends discussing my feelings in front of me, how rude.
“She meant it, it really irks her.”
“How do you know it’s not jealousy?”
“I’m not saying that she has no love for him, I’m saying that this is definitely not one of the moments. You look at her face, I’ve seen her in love, and she didn’t have this annoyed look. Most people I know don’t either.”

I can’t remember the exact words but… Exactly. That was definitely not one of the moments.

I can name a few moments.
Evidence of enchantment evident when I look at this look on him that says ‘sincerely interested and sincerely lost’.
Evident when I listen to how he talks about music, which I don’t always understand.
Evident when he came to me with feline facts that I didn’t know of, that he subscribes to feline feeds to “prepare living with cat friends”.
Evident when he listens intently to my view for films and books and occurrences, he’d have this look on him.
Even more evident when he’s amused by things that I didn’t mean to make funny.
Evident when he gets a stupid haircut.

It’s just that night, when I put the two of them side by side, both of them looked equally irksome. They are not arrogant… how do I put it? I think there’s something in them, that subconsciously they know that they are charismatic. They probably think that all girls think that they are suave, and all guys want to be their buddies. Somewhere in their head I bet.

When he got back to sit beside me, I asked if he had fun patronising everyone.
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Don’t know, I’ve been observing everyone tonight.”
“Haha, did you happen to notice that I try to take glimpses of this area every now and then?”
“We know what inconsistent attention brings.”
“Hmm… you play this game well.”
“I’m the critic, you’re the player. I don’t know who is better.”
“You sound angry.”
“No, I’m disgusted.”
“By?”
“You?”
And he laughed a puzzling laugh. Like… I don’t know what the laugh was for or what was so funny or if there was anything worth laughing at, but he laughed. Which is laughable in retrospect.

So I looked at the 2 men (more like boys actually) I love had feelings for, side by side (almost)… and I realised how irksome both of them are, how full of themselves.

I am not interested in defending you, or myself.

You Know How to Contact Me

The first year I didn’t look at it at all, I looked at nothing related to you.

The second year I looked at it once, and was determined to not look at it again.

The third year I missed you so much that I took it out again, this time I couldn’t stop and looked at it countless time, through halloween deepavali hari raya and christmas until new year eve, I told myself I am not going to take it out again till your birthday.

I did it.

I didn’t read it again until your birthday, I still muse about it, I still study every curve you made, like a pervert. But this time I feel that I will not bring it out again for a very long time, I don’t know, but so far I haven’t.

Did I say? I saw a postcard that says:
Dear Frank,
I have lost someone very important to me.
I know she is out there.
Please post this.
She’ll know how to contact me.
She’s my Best Friend.
-Thanks

Would I dramatise it and sound exaggerating if I say that my heart must have skipped?
Yea I think I would even if you don’t read it literally.
But I did feel emotional when I saw it. I imagined you wrote it for me, because you missed me, and know that I visit religiously, and you want me back in your life, and that you being you will never speak such words, and before I can think of other ands I realised it’s not your handwriting, and I’m quite sure that after so long you wouldn’t know what kind of websites I visit, the books I read, the music I listen to, the films I enjoy, the places I hang out, the people around me etc and etc and etc and etc.

I thought about it rationally. Though not written by you, it will always be the case,
it will always be me, doing the initiation.
It will always be “she’ll know how to contact me.”

Last year, you made initiation, twice in fact, very encouraging number.

From a year with no initiation, to a year with two initiations. I should be happy?

I am tired of doing the initiation part, next year, you do it.

This is not about giving up, this is about letting go.

Comfortable Silence

My friend likes this so I decided to post it =)

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*In the room*

I turned my head and saw baby sitting quietly behind me. I smiled and said to him, "Do you know how much I appreciate that? I really do."

"I’ve been busy fulfilling the immense attention kiki asks for recently. The way she lifts up her head whenever we pet her is too captivating… cannot resist. But every time I turn around, baby is always somewhere near, sitting quietly. He is my guardian angel," I said to sis.

Sis smiled, "Ya, but he's too playful sometimes. At times the attention he needs is overwhelming."

"I know he needs a lot of attention but he just wants to be near. I can be petting others and he's just sitting quietly near me. I don't know, he's just very guardian angel... I only need him to be near too. No need to do anything else."

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*In the kitchen*

Sis: "men are terrible, they can fall asleep so easily. You can be in a conversation and they're still answering you sanely but 3 seconds later, you hear them snoring. How can they be talking and fall asleep 3 seconds later? Men are so disgusting. If only we can programme them into women."

Me: "But then maybe it won't work. I think opposite attracts. If they cannot fall asleep so easily, you would talk till daylight. Two stubborn people together, disaster. Two opinionated people, disaster. Two quiet people, disaster. You know..."

Sis: "Then two caring people? Two outgoing people? Two kind people?"

Me: "Eh? Can actually. Hahaha."

Sis: "Haha, I think only bad points cannot."

Me: "What about quiet? It's not a bad point but cannot too, I feel."

Sis: "Why not?"

Me: "No conversation."

Sis: "It's just like you and baby, there's no conversation but both of you enjoy each other’s presence. The presence of him for you, and the presence of you for him, is enough."

I looked at her, amazed; I didn't know sis can say such things.

How true, I never thought of it. I spend hours and hours with my cats, without conversations… but that's the most contented feeling I can find in this world.

Original date: 22 March 2007