Recalcitrants

On Friday Arif and I went to OU to watch "I, Frankenstein". It was a pretty snazzy movie. The best part, aside from the hot angel/gargoyle named Gideon, is when the angels/gargoyles shift from their angel/gargoyle form into the multiracial human form. Of the main six gargoyles there were the queen - a caucasian female. the top gargoyle commander - a caucasian male, a middle eastern/south asian female, two middle eastern/south asian males and an east/south east asian male. That make up was very interesting...The commander has this weird "I don't agree with you, and I know I'm gonna piss you and the Archangel off, but I'm gonna do what I think is right, but if you raise your authoritative voice at me, my presumedly existing balls will shrink by 65% along with my manhood and my insubordination, and I will keel over and listen to your orders anyway like the little but super hot and muscular puppy gargoyle that I am" relationship with the queen. It was interestingly bewildering and confusing.

I invited another friend from high school  that I haven't seen in over a year. I had no idea what he has been up to,but the last time we met he was unemployed and seemed to be searching for a job. I found out that he is now running a business where his company fixes lightbulbs. I'm sure it is more that just changing lightbulbs and he did tell me it is on a big scale, i.e. he has a contract with a municipality to fix/install lightbulbs for the municipality's street lights and properties. That's a big deal I think.

The thing is, I am not even one bit surprised that this is the path he has chosen. The boy was simply one of the smartest guy in my class, albeit just like me, he didn't care to put his best efforts in school. Nonetheless he got a scholarship and got his degree in engineering from New South Wales.

"Can you imagine me working under a manager or supervisor? Furthermore what if that manager or supervisor is incompetent?" I nodded furiously, if its even possible to nod so. "You know how we are, Fadzrul". I found myself concurring with his point. I knew where he was coming from.

He and I were once sent to the assistant principal's office for not turning in our essays on time. Our english teacher reported that "she had to beg for us to turn in our essays so many times that it took a toll on her emotional wellbeing". We got a few strokes of rattan on our asses and walked away from the douchebag's office laughing. For one, the dickhead assistant principal was feeling me up a little bit too much before he hit me, apparently "to make sure I didn't have any paddings in my pants". Yeah right. The other reason why we laughed was because we thought the whole damn thing is trivial as fuck. Who gave a shit about an essay? Who gave a shit about some non-existing emotional effect that our incomplete essays may have caused to the drama queen. Who gave a shit about a few strokes of rattan when you studied in a boarding school and had gotten worse punishments from your seniors? My friend and I didn't care for the pompous display of authority but we had nothing else we could do but to play along.

On the way home, sitting next to him in the car, I wondered - have we changed? or we are pretty much the same persons? I have actually stood up against my manager last year and gave a riposte that made her cry. People know me for being vocal and for not taking shit from others. Yet, I'm sure it's not necessarily an admirable thing in their eyes.

I may still have that stubbornness in me. But the fact is I'm at the bottom of the bureaucracy layer cake. I let myself take instructions from incompetent people. I bitch about it. I fight. I get tired.


I exited his car, said goodbye and walked towards home thinking... I wanna open a restaurant.

Imagication

Today from the train station I decided to take the 40 minutes bus ride instead of the 10 minutes cab ride home.

The bus was packed but it was the fact that there was a long line of immigrants flagging every cab that passed by that drove me to take the bus. God forbid they were going my way and offered me to ride with them. I like immigrants and even more, courteous immigrants. I just don't like sweaty, smelly, vagrant-looking immigrants.

I managed to score the last empty seat on the bus. David Sedaris time~

...oh wait, I left the book at the office.

I don't quite remember the train of thoughts - it involved some images of hot air balloons...and some fried chicken wings...and I think... a hot Turkish man in thin cotton loincloth scrubbing me as I lie on top of a marble table in a middle of what seemed to look like a garden themed bathhouse- but it made me wanna go somewhere.

I suddenly has this urge to leave KL and just fuckin' go somewhere. But I did not know where. I thought of somewhere where I should be going - Melbourne. And then images of fine cuisine and me chocking and slapping a scrawny, skinny jeans-wearing Melbourne hipster came flashing in my head. I don't like hipsters. I think I broke his glasses too.

"Josh wants to go to Australia too...maybe I should go somewhere he doesn't care for...China!"

I looked out the window and the bus was passing a huge Chinese restaurant. The kind that sells everything from Bak Kut Teh to human fetus. We got China here. Surely it couldn't be that different.

30 seconds later, the bus drove by a poster of Messi. BARCELONA. That's it. I'm going to Barcelona.

But I hate people... And Barcelona is like tourist central. and gay central.  And I haven't even recovered from the tan I got in Phuket which was exacerbated in Okinawa... Nahhh... no Barcelona.

As the bus got closer to my stop I slowly came back to reality. I was on my way home. I was entering the mean streets of Selayang. I got off the bus and ordered some pisang goreng and karipap kentang from the hawker stall next to the bus stop...

Sure Melbourne, Kunming, Guangzhou and Barcelona would be nice... I will get to meet Syahir in Melbourne, get fat in China, and hating while drooling over the hot guys in Barcelona...but when I took the first bite from the karipap...I felt at home. My head didn't go anywhere far. It tasted right and it definitely, wholly, felt right.

Obligatory New Year's Resolution(s)

I thought long and hard about what to aim for this year. What to do, what to change, who to do, etc...Apparently I need to come up with a list of all that. Or some say I may just need to have one resolution.

I have always wondered if there was actually a history to this whole New Year's resolution thing. Who thought of it? Or it's really just so ingrained in us, socially, that whenever a dawn of something new approaches, we promise ourselves to be better for it. whenever a new baby is born parents make promises to themselves that they'd be better parents. The same as athletes at the beginning of a new season or students at the beginning of a new semester.

Most people just decided to improve themselves here and there at the end of last year as we ushered in the year 2014.

Why?

I told Josh once that it's hard for me to make wish lists for my birthday and christmas because if I want something and I could get it, I would have gotten it instead of wishing for it. If I couldn't get it at the point when I first wanted it, people can bet that I'm working on it.

As far as I can remember I do not ever have a New Year's resolution.

I decided that I need to start going to the gym as soon as my pants gave up on me and ripped in the middle of a mall.

I decided to travel more because I now make my own money from slaving myself as a desk jockey...so I deserve some Fuzz time.

I intermittently decided to eat healthier because I got some plans coming up. i.e. Summer vacation, visits to Seattle, a hot date, etc...

I decided to be a better partner because the distance has given me time to reflect on how I wasn't a great partner to Josh during our first few years.

I decided to spend more quality time with my family because I realize that I may not have that much time left to enjoy their love  and the headache they give me.

I didn't wait for January to start something. I make a decision as soon as the fact hits me. And sometimes the decision is to, simply, not do anything...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_sZQP36bt4