BREAKING THE SURFACE

Sweetest Tiger

2005-10-26T17:37:00.000-07:00

One of my cats died recently. Her name was Tiger but she was more like Tigger, the cheerful jumpy cat from Winnie the Pooh. I was sweeping the cat's area two nights ago and burst into tears as I remembered how she used to love attacking the broom and how she would play with the hem of my skirt every time I was scooping out the food for them. She was one of the most affectionate cats I've had and she was always excited to see me every morning. And I miss her terribly.

Goodbye, my sweetest, sweetest girl.

blog, interrupted

2005-01-27T01:22:00.000-08:00

There's quite a number of blogs that I check out regularly but I've noticed that a couple of them, which used to be updated almost daily have not had anything new posted since august/sept last year. And it's not as if the entries have been withdrawn or anything. It's just there, unchanged. And I wonder how many other static blogs are out there, floating around forever in virtual space. What happened to the bloggers? And I can't help but to wonder about the poor people who perished in the recent tsunami, particularly those who were on holiday - did any of them have any blogs? Will their blogs now continue to exist forever without them. It's sad and comforting at the same time. Sad that they're gone, but comforting that some small piece of them remains.

silent new year

2005-01-02T18:07:00.000-08:00

In the wake of the tsunami disaster, it seems trivial and pointless to write about anything else. The new year tiptoed in almost unnoticed amongst the subdued atmosphere. Tears well up and the heart breaks at the pictures in newspapers and the internet of crying parents holding the limp bodies of their children or those still searching through the rubble, the morgues, the still uncovered shallow mass graves looking for their loved ones who they just couldn't hold on to against the roaring strength of the current. Holding out hope against hope that the missing will be one of the miraculous few who somehow made it, against the odds.

Other headlines follow the news of the tsunami disaster. Some are the usual headlines of the war in the Middle East, politicians bickering, governments against rebels, civil strife. The catastrophic effects of the tsunami make these man-initiated calamities seem almost meaningless. What are we fighting for?

bites the dust

2004-12-24T01:14:00.000-08:00

You know you're getting older when you start getting the divorce news.

It seems like only a few years ago when all the news you'd get about old friends related to new jobs, marriages and babies. Now, it's about adultery, early mid-life crisis, some deaths and inevitably, the end of seemingly happy marriages.

Reality bites.

I just want to go home and escape it all. I don't want to grow up. In a week, it will be another year. 5 years (or 4 years if you can still be bothered to pursue the argument that the millenium only started in 2001) have passed since the coming of the new century and I still want to be in denial. I miss being young. I miss being surrounded by friends and just enjoying life with what little money we had. I miss hanging out with my boyfriend/now husband where the everyday realities of grocery shopping, errands, bill-paying and in-laws didn't feature. I miss just being.

Christmas depresses me because it reminds me of a fantastic christmas week years and years ago when the streets were so empty and 3 little twits and a big teddy bear scampered about the town in the snow taking pictures in the middle of the street, under random christmas trees, drunk and giggling madly without a single drop of booze in either of us. A cold night filled with the warmth of good friends, which ended hillariously in a marriage proposal by a true drunk.

Monday the 13th

2004-12-13T17:48:00.000-08:00

Having such a blah Monday. Woke up this morning and it was cold and I snuggled deeper under the duvet, thinking hmmmm...how lovely it is to sleep in on a Sunday morning. Then suddenly realised in that split second that it was bloody Monday! That just made the whole morning worse. Ran around the room, dripping water from the 5-second shower I barely had time for, slapped on mosturiser and grabbed an outfit from the wardrobe that I swore I would never wear again because it made me look like a hippo, but no time to think much less to grab another outfit. Just shoved my butt and fat arms into it, ran to the door, ran back inside to feed the cat and grab my keys and drove like a madwoman to work. Became part of the statistics of annoying women worldwide who put on their make-up in the car while attempting not to crash into anyone. Finally made it to the office after swearing at everyone in the traffic jam and vowing that if ever elected leader of the city/state/country/world, I would outlaw motorcycles.

Egotional

2004-11-30T17:44:00.000-08:00

They always say that women are emotional but really, men are quite sensitive in their own way. A man's ego can be easily offended by the most trivial things, words spoken in a certain way, the attitude towards them in the company of others that supposedly affects other people's perception of them.

"It's not what you said but how you said it" is not an exclusive principle used by women only, it's just that they're honest enough to say it out loud as a reason.

It may just be how I feel today but sometimes a relationship with a man can be so tiring, especially in these times. You just can't feed them and fetch them their slippers and pipe anymore (ok, not that I do this, but anyway). Nowadays, it seems as if you also have to coddle them like the little boys that they are, pacify them when they're sulking and whining. Maybe this is why a lot of women never remarry after they become widows. The romantic part of me wants to believe that it's because they are still in love with their late husbands beyond the boundaries of death. But the cynical (and probably more realistic) part of me knows that it's because living with one man is sometimes enough to last you a lifetime. Probably that's why a lot of old women end up with cats. Cats are simpler, leave you alone when you need space, cuddle against you when you're lonely and take you for who you are even if you are a lazy whingeing selfish bitch. Now, that's unconditional love.

Makes the heart grow fonder

2004-11-29T17:29:00.000-08:00

There is a married couple I know of who have chosen to live apart, not because they are in the midst of separation but because they want to maintain their separate lives while still being together. Couples living apart are not something new but usually it's something short term because of work commitments etc rather than a conscious decision made from the outset, which is what these 2, let's call them Mr and Mrs A, have done. They live and work in 2 different towns which are about 3 to 4 hours apart and meet each other during the weekends. In a way, it's kind of touching seeing her get all excited when there's a long weekend ahead. They maximise every second that they do spend together and their telephone conversations (okay, i might as well be honest here- she sits in the cubicle next to me and I can't help but overhear) are romantic and at times saucy. By comparison, generally, most weekends seem to just fly by for people who actually do live in the same house, maybe because we take our time together for granted. Saturdays are spent grocery shopping or running errands or doing chores. Sundays for TV and just pottering about the house, bitching about having to go to work tomorrow. Whereas Mr and Mrs A fully utilise their weekly rendezvous.

Which is the better relationship? I can see the good points about Mr and Mrs A's marriage, they spend less time on arguing and more time enjoying each other's company. There's also something thrilling about rushing to catch the train or bus on Friday to go and see the man/woman you love.

Personally, I don't think I can handle it, I like having my better half sleeping against me every night even if all we do after coming back from work is to eat dinner and watch tv. But I still remember the excitement I felt years ago when we were staying apart. I would rush to my flat after class to quickly pack and catch the train to see him. The feeling of intensely looking forward to the weekend, the desperate hunger for more time together as Sunday finished all too soon and reality forcing me to catch the train back. Such drama. Maybe it's when we're apart that we realise just how much that someone really means to us.

i killed hopper

2004-11-25T21:03:00.000-08:00

I stomped on a grasshopper yesterday. It was part of a battalion that was making a massacre of the garden. Most of the time, I just hit at them with the high-powered water from the hose and watch them fly across the fence to the street in a sort of airborne water-surfing. But yesterday morning, I saw a huge one happily chewing on one of my helpless plants and got so angry that I flicked it off the plant and stomped on it. I felt immediately guilty. I had to stomp it again to make sure it was properly dead and wouldn't suffer. I can't stop thinking about how helpless it looked, squashed against the pavement. I still feel really bad about it.

where have all the cowboys gone?

2004-11-24T22:17:00.000-08:00

Getting older is supposed to make you wiser.

I'm not sure about that, but a couple of things are making more sense now when I think about it.

Like Paula Cole's song, 'Where have all the cowboys gone?' When it came out, I just sang along, it was catchy but it didn't really mean anything.

Now with age, I finally get it. Where HAVE all the real men gone? The silent and strong all-providers who didn't whine and buckle under a common cold. Who took things like a man. I'm not saying that a man can't cry but for God's sake, can we please do without the whimpering?

Many, many, (I groan when I think just how many) years ago, there was a topic for the school debate entitled 'The emancipation of women means the enslavement of men' (this was way before the age of political correctness). Maybe what the so-called emancipation of women really led to was the emancipation of men's emotions. Perhaps that's why a lot of men now sulk and whine like little boys but can still feel that they are true men.

Where have all the cowboys gone?

pretty woman

2004-11-23T17:44:00.000-08:00

Recently at a shopping mall, I was stepping out of the restroom when I saw walking towards me a beautifully dressed man.

He was beautifully dressed as a woman.

I paused and pretended to look for something in my handbag as he walked past me. As I glanced up, I noticed I was not the only one. Ahead, another man had stopped and was pretending to look at his watch. We both stood there, like nosy partners in crime, curious to see which door the beautiful man would go to. Of course, as should be expected, he entered the Ladies.

The other man and I looked at each other and exchanged guilty smiles. Sometimes it is the stupidest things (and I mean our immature nosiness here, not the beautiful man) that connect people.

once upon a time

2004-11-08T08:00:00.000-08:00

I watched Before Sunset again yesterday. I just love this movie. It's real. Love is not always happily ever after. As I watched, I cried, I laughed and I remembered how young and optimistic I was when I watched Before Sunrise almost a decade ago. They should make a trend out of this - show a romantic movie where the hero and heroine end up together or ride into the sunset or something like that and then show them again ten years down the road after those ten years have actually passed in real time (not movie time). It was surreal seeing ethan hawke in Before Sunset and how different he looked in the flashbacks of Before Sunrise. I dug out old pictures of myself from almost a lifetime ago. I am always laughing in them, doing stupid poses with my friends. In one of the pictures, my best friends and I are at a beach - it's summer but the water's freezing and we write out our names in the sand, interlinked and I am laughing so hard. In another picture, we are raiding a strawberry farm and eating heaps as if we had never seen a strawberry in our lives. We look sweaty and messy but we are grinning. Whenever I'm depressed I just look at those pictures. It was one of the best weeks of my life.

scent of a man

2004-11-04T17:06:00.000-08:00

I remember the first time I borrowed a boy's shirt. Even after washing it, his scent still lingered and wrapped itself around me when I slipped the shirt on. It was a heady mix of cologne and muskiness. Strange but intoxicating. I slept in that shirt and imagined he was there with me.

Funny how these old memories suddenly come back as you get older.

twin pools i can swim in forever

2004-11-03T23:50:00.000-08:00

I have a weakness for eyes. Once, I fell in love with the beautiful eyes of a Greek boy. They were the palest of green and clear as glass. I used to stare at them as he walked by, longing for the one day I would be able to stare into them. That day never came. I was too chicken and he was too beautiful. Those eyes still haunt me.

karma

2004-11-01T16:53:00.000-08:00

We all know that what goes around comes around. But sometimes it comes around so exact, that Mel Gibson's lines in Signs comes to mind "what if there are no coincidences?"

Two true life examples that I've seen/heard personally:

- I stayed abroad in the same house with a girl once and while she was abroad, her father passed away. She had been the beloved daughter, his favourite child yet he didn't get to see her before he died, though he kept asking for her on his deathbed. After coming back from the funeral, my housemate told me that this was direct retribution for what her late father had done to her mother - years ago, when my housemate's maternal grandfather was gravely ill, her father prevented her mother from going to visit the sick man even though she was the favourite daughter and he (the grandfather) died without getting to see his daughter. More than 20 years later, karma struck in the exact same manner.

- A very good friend lost her mother a few years back and her father remarried the following year which was still too soon for her to accept. She resented her stepmother. Recently she married someone who has a child and she is now herself a stepmother.

Life is ironic.

the era of hot air

2004-10-31T18:31:00.000-08:00

There was a time when people were respected for what they actually did rather than how they presented what they have allegedly accomplished. Not so long ago, you didn't have to be eloquent but your work could speak volumes, you would be viewed as the silent but able type. Nowadays, it is those who are the most capable at bullshitting that rise to the top. I've witnessed it a few times but more so ever since I worked here. The Ultimate Boss of the whole company is a silent do-er type. Mr Anal, my boss, is a hot air balloon who shoots from the hip and at meetings, repeats catchphrases from articles I've just given him that morning, importing them as his own opinions. He is the class-A of all hot air. But at a recent press release when Ultimate Boss and Mr Anal were side by side answering questions, I could see that the reporters were being more impressed with the eloquent Mr Anal. Mr Anal's remarks, though totally plagarised from yet another article downloaded from the internet were the ones being taken down furiously. I sat and watched Ultimate Boss speak clearly but plainly. But I guess, although his remarks were at least original, he just didn't sound glamorous enough. In the end, hot air does rise the fastest.

super anal fragelistic

2004-10-31T17:59:00.000-08:00

I am so sick of anal people imposing themselves on others. I have nothing against people wanting to torture themselves, people who feel that having an extra spacing in a document or having a coma where a semi-colon should be is the biggest sin in the history of the world. But for God's sake, do they have to impose their belief on others. It seems as though these people, after finding out they have no personality whatsoever or talent or even friends for that matter, decide to leave their mark in the world by being The-Person-who-never-makes-any-typo-or-spacing-errors-in-documents, forget about the actual contents of the document, forget about making it user friendly. What is paramount is that editing wise, it MUST be PERFECT!. And of course, being at the bottom of the food chain that is management, guess who gets to make sure Mr Anal's documents are typo-free - toot-tootootodooo-me! The phrase 'killing me softly' has a whole new meaning for me.

getting old

2004-10-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

Someone emailed me this quote:

"Inside every older person is a younger person -- wondering what the
hell happened.
-Cora Harvey Armstrong-"

I still think about 1994 as being only a few years ago - I still get taken aback each time I realise that that was 10 years ago. Where did all the time go? I'm getting nearer to a milestone birthday and I used to think people of that age was ooooold..and now here I am, only months away...woopeedoo. Bring on the candles!

rambling along

2004-10-25T13:39:00.000-07:00

Saw an old traffic policeman waving the traffic along on my way to work this morning, he looked about 60 - he could be younger though because I think they probably have an age limit but with his tanned wrinkled skin (obviously a non-believer of SPF) he looked quite old....and I just thought, what a way to end your career, as a traffic cop. I wonder if he started out as one or was he later reassigned to it because of his age.

Office politics of last week ended quite anti-climaxly, our so-called team was the ultimate survivor but more by default, the other team didn't even bother putting up a strong fight. Quite dissapointing actually, all that compiling of evidence and no face-off to show for it.

Last night, saw an old Oprah repeat on celebrating milestone birthdays and thought about my own milestone birthday coming up. Was already dreaming about having a big eating and spa fest when a sobering thought hit me. I may not even be alive then.

CYA

2004-10-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

Recent office drama - a project has just nosedived and everyone is scrambling to avoid the blame. It's now time to play "Coverrrrr your ass!!!" Two main teams are in the running. I'm in one of them. We're running ahead at the moment, having collected a whole file of emails and documentary proof that it is NOT our fault. So far so good. But you can never say with these things, at the last minute, the other team might just Outdocument, Outproof & Outcover us.

new victim

2004-10-20T23:23:00.000-07:00

Someone new just joined the office and was assigned to work directly for the Evil One aka the boss aka he-who-shall-not-be-named, since the last person who held the position gave immediate notice to quit.

On the first day, the new guy (NG) greeted us cheerfully, happy to be joining our office, excited and eager to begin working.

Just after 2 weeks, NG is already overworked and has been screamed at, blamed for things that went wrong that were actually not his fault, cursed and humiliated by the Evil One.

Welcome to our office, NG.

There is now a running bet on how long he will last before quitting.

if we took a holiday

2004-10-19T01:18:00.000-07:00

I have a fantasy. My best friend and I take a week off work, tell our spouses that the office has sent us to City X to help the shorthanded team there, switch on our message boxes at the office, bribe the receptionist at our respective offices to keep our story straight and take off for a beach holiday, just the 2 of us, pure freedom, from work, from family, from life.

We would eat massive amounts of chocolates and crisps throughout the entire drive there, check in, eat some more, swim in the sea, read trashy novels on the beach. Just relax and do absolutely nothing, with no worries about deadlines or housework or cleaning up. Just sleeping and eating and really enjoying life without responsibilities...that's what we need sometimes, a break from life.

Unspoken words

2004-10-14T22:37:00.000-07:00

After you've been living with someone for a while, you find that you're able to know what they're about to say right before the words come out. But when you've been with someone for what seems like forever, you can even hear all the words that remain unspoken and respond to them with your own unspoken words. Whole conversations can be carried out silently following what seems like harmless remarks. And the effects can almost be the same as if those words were actually said, because you know for a fact, just by looking at the other person's face, that that is what he/she is thinking.

Case in point:

He says: "I'm dreading this weekend, there's so many chores to do! When will I ever get the chance to rest!"
Unspoken words: Why can't you keep this house clean? When I was younger, my mother had 8 kids and cooked for the entire family and still managed to keep the house neat and tidy.

She says: "I'm also dreading this weekend, I've got so much work to do and that assignment is due on Monday."
Unspoken: Bloody hell, your mother did not have to have a full time job and impossible deadlines to meet and traffic jams both ways going and coming from work. Besides, when I was younger, my father managed to somehow earn enough without my mother having to work plus he took care of everything for her. I'm tired of having to work, I'm stuck in this job because we need the money. If you were earning enough, I could quit this job and have the luxury of choosing a job I love or doing freelance work. Why am I the one who always has to take care of the finances? When will I be the one who gets taken care of?

I've had so many silent arguments with my partner. We'd be sitting down in front of the tv after a long day at work and make spoken and unspoken remarks like above and before you know it, I'd be pissed at him because I can see him silently comparing me to his mother and he in turn would be hurt because he can see how in my eyes despite all he's done, he still doesn't measure up as a man. So we remain stone-faced and ignore one another all night because despite all the hurtful things we know each other is thinking, we can't officially get into a fight because officially we never said all those mean things.

So why don't we just say it? Probably because even we realise how unreasonable they would sound aloud. Possibly because it's already late at night and we're too tired to really fight. And maybe because ultimately, although we have the knowledge and power on just how and where to hurt each other, we just don't have the heart to do it. Maybe this is really what love is.

I am Dilbert

2004-10-07T04:19:00.000-07:00

Another loooong day at the office and it's still not over. My life is a Dilbert strip. I spend hours preparing a paper on an urgent basis (every damn thing is bloody urgent! i never realised just how valuable my paper was for the survival of the universe) and by some miracle manage to somehow complete it with all the diagrams and summaries of the executive summary of the whole damn bloody paper only to be told as i submit it to the boss..."hmmm, maybe we don't really need to send this in". i swear they should classify this as one of the justifiable grounds for killing someone.

The amount of bullshit work we do and undo and redo just to be seen as relevant to the company is unbelievable. I'm amazed no one has jumped from the top of the building yet. Hmm..maybe it has something to do with the fact that all our windows can only open up to 2 inches and that the door to the roof is heavily guarded - security, my foot! we have nothing whatsoever of value to be taken. Even the computers belong to the 1980s era.

silent accomplice

2004-10-06T01:53:00.000-07:00

There are many things that have happened which i feel guilty about. But one that stands out and for which I still have not (and may never have the chance to) apologised for is the day I said nothing as I witnessed an innocent woman enter what we all knew from the outset would be a disastrous marriage. We were from the groom's side. The groom was not a good man. They had met a couple of times before and i don't know how he pulled it off but somehow he managed to get her to agree to marry him. I met her for the first time on their wedding day and realised how innocent she was. Before they took their vows, I sat near her and I watched her. And still I said nothing. I should have told her what to expect. I should have told her he was an emotionally abusive man, a spoilt child used to having his way. Instead I did nothing as the marriage ceremony proceeded and we all went home.

They had several children together before one day, she couldn't take his shit anymore and left him. Now, there's issues about custody. Though he is a terrible parent, he now wants to take away the only thing she got from their marriage. Maybe now's the time for me to speak up.

I wonder how many other people are guilty of being silent accomplices. Keeping quiet when we find out that a friend is sleeping around behind his/her spouse's back yet seeing that friend day in and day out and not saying anything about how wrong it is. Does that make us just as guilty?

inertia

2004-10-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

I'm stuck. I see myself in the next 10, 15, 20 years doing the same thing, waking up every day to get to this mediocre job I have no passion for, dreaming of the weekend, feeling great on Fridays and shitty on Mondays. I have a mortgage, car payments, a family to support.

But there have been days when I'm in the usual morning crawl to work, that I feel the strongest impulse just to turn left into the highway and drive south to God knows where. Leave life. Take out my savings, go to the beach and rent out a shack by the ocean until my money runs out. Catch my dinner. Swim in the sea. I wonder how homeless people end up that way. If you discount the drunks and the gamblers and the drug addicts, I wonder how many decided one morning that life is too short to be stuck in a tiny cubicle and just left. But I'm afraid. If I stay where I am in this mundane suburban existence where I wash my car on Sundays, do the groceries, mow the lawn, fight with my spouse, I'll look back at my life and think how I've wasted it all. But if I leave, I'm scared I'll end up at 50, with no money, no family, no house, no job and think how I've thrown my life away.

So here I am, still. Stuck in inertia.