In conversation

(Finally) Met up with Sha last week and was telling her about how in 5 years time, my mom would regret not letting me date when I was younger. With most of our secondary school friends hitched, i told her that we should have just gotten knocked up when we were 17. By now we'd have a husband, a kid and our own place. Assuming the whole purpose in life as a struggling middle lower class work horse = HDB dream* = accomplishment. It's better than chasing our own selfish personal ambitions and being lonely. Yes, if you couldn't catch it in the tone of my voice, I was being sarcastic. And then we laughed at the sheer irony, clinked our ice cream glasses (we were at Swensens) and toasted to that.

I thought I'd just include a little epilogue of the yardstick. He is there while I am here, separated by at least 16 hours of flight time. I think there is no question about whether he likes me I'm quite sure he does but it's more of whether he likes me enough. 

When I'm with him things are so well executed that I really wonder if i'm just another one of the girls that he's made a move on for the umpteenth time. It is in good counsel that I was told to forget him, words like holiday girlfriend came up. 

I don't think I ever have the willpower give him up when he's the one who looks me up in the first place. It could end well or come to nothing at all but I am not hoping for a happy ending although I have to admit, it'd be quite an awesome story to tell. At this point, I cannot even hope. His parting words to me were see you next year. That fucker.

* rite of passage. Finish school, get a partner, start a career, get a (government subsidised public housing) flat and get married.

Writer's block. Here's an oldie but goodie I came across a while back to keep you company while i go regenerate.

'Aku Ingin' Sapardi Djoko Damono
Aku ingin mencintaimu dengan sederhana

dengan kata yang tak sempat diucapkankayu
kepada api yang menjadikannya abu

Aku ingin mencintaimu dengan sederhana
dengan isyarat yang tak sempat disampaikanawan
kepada hujan yang menjadikannya tiada

"She was someone I loved passionately.

When my youth ended, that existence disappeared from my sight.

Whenever I think of old times, it’s like a dream of beautiful scenes that I shouldn’t remember.

I never called her.

Perhaps I was afraid.

Afraid that I would see those scenes again.

The old memories were mine to keep.  Buried within the depths of my heart"

“ ‘You’ll get over it’… It’s all the cliches that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life forever. You don’t get over it because ‘it’ is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The articulation of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no one else can fit it. Why would I want them to? Jeanette Winterson’s Body

via sabrina

And you'd wonder why I'm still not seeing anyone.

I keep replaying this scene in my head: 

The meeting with the yardstick. 

We had agreed to meet at outside PS, I was walking from Orchard Mandarin. It was a Friday evening and I was strolling down, half excited, worried from not knowing what to say and frustrated at him for canceling on me a month ago. I made out a slim familiar figure in a distance and couldn't help but smile that big silly smile of mine. There he was and he continued to walk towards me. I had consciously put my nervous sweaty hands into my pockets and when we met, he gave me a huge hug. The enveloping, consuming kind and I could not help but put my arms around him. Gently, he tipped my chin upwards to kiss me for what seemed like 2 minutes at least, in front of the Istana, in full view of traffic and passers-by. His first words to me were "I've missed you." 

Me: I waited. (in reference to him canceling on the date he made two months ago slated for the day before)

Him: Seems like you've waited all year for this.

Me: Me? Nah.

Him: Have you been seeing anyone?

Me: On and off but nothing serious.

Him: It must be my distant Melayu blood and Peranakan genes that makes me seem so attractive to you. 

Me: Or not. I say it's natural selection.

And we launch into a conversation about Darwin and Wells. When we first dated some 7 years ago, he was such a self absorbed himbo, so he's gained a little weight in his cheeks and got a little soft at the sides but when we have conversations like these it makes him drop dead appealing. 

I miss you too. If I didn't get to say it. I miss you when you're not here. 

One of the youth performer bands at the event on Saturday played the song Penny and me. I do agree that it's one of those lovely pop-ish songs with a cheery mood attached to it. I could so picture it in my head. The windows rolled down, driving down a freeway on a clear starry night in a red convertible. And Penny would be a huge golden retriever. My bitch.

My posts are getting shorter and I've yet to succumb to micro-blogging. Slowly now, so little time, so many things to do.

"In the year 3000 YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook will merge into one super-time-wasting website called 'You Twit Face'." - Conan O'Brien

Cab conversation

This morning my cab driver has prophesied that at 25, soon to be degree holder and boyfriend-less that I will not get married because generally women who are higher educated tend to not settle for anything less. So does this means I should put off getting a masters after I get married? LOL.

The conversation reminded me of a clip a friend of mine sent to me a few weeks back.