I will.
It will happen.
My will is mine and not yours.
I am no longer yours to beseech or command or wheedle.
You concerns are no longer mine, and mine are no concern of yours.
Here is the line.
I drew it.
Now you play your part and never step over it.
You think to yourself: is this real or is this real?
When this is composed of nothing more than words and inflection: filtered, distanced, altered. And behind those measured, maturity-laden syllables and fleeting, engaging glimpses into his life and mind, you think stands a person worthy. Of whatever it takes. Of wherever this goes.
Never mind that he’s not here, he might as well be. Because as you gaze upon the stream of black-upon-white words cascading from those magic fingertips like bemusing fairydust, you find it fair, yea, you find him (or the rhetorical him that you think he is) fair. Not just to gaze upon, but to have, to possess and to hold. And you think: is this too good to be true?
When this is the overwhelming desire to sniff along the line of his neck and then bury your face in it. And wrap him close and let his scent overtake you. Hold his hand when you want to. Turn your head and let him swim into your line of sight. So you can drink in the sight of him like the exhilarating elixir he is.
The intoxicating Unknown. The maverick who fires your blood, who can turn the air your breathe into molten lava with a flick of his eyes and who makes your heart shudder against your ribs like a box of caged birds. He’s there. Where you want him. Nothing could be more warm, more real. And you think: is this too good to be true?
Which is real?
Which would you rather?
Would you liefer one captured your body or your soul?
Because I’m having a teenage-emo-angsty moment
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And because this uber-nerd (in a non-derogatory sense) had too much time on his hands and too many nights in his bed spent dreaming of Arwen from LOTR 
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GUY-ISH:
[ ] you own a jersey
[ ] you like being sweaty - euwwww
[ ] you love mud - double euwwwwwww
[ ] you’ve played at least one sport on a team
[ ] you’ve played more than 1 sport for fun
[x] you hate pink - was OD’ed on it by indulgent godparents when I was a kid
[ ] you love hoodies and jeans - Yes to jeans, but I draw the line at looking like an Eminem groupie in hoodies
[ ] pranks are fun
[x] dogs are better than cats
[ ] its funny when people get hurt
Total = 2
[ ] shopping is torture
[ ] pulling heads off dolls isnt creepy..its fun
[x] you dont cry
[ ] sad movies suck
[ ] girl drama is stupid
[ ] painting your nails is weird/stupid
[ ] you own a ps2 - nope and probably never
[ ] you own an xbox
[ ] you own a gamecube
[ ] at some point in time you wanted to be a firefighter (only for the part when they slide down the pole)
[ ] you own a psp
Total = 1
[ ] you used to be obsessed with power rangers
[ ] you watch sports center
[x] you watch sports on tv sometimes - soccer, gymnastics and tennis only please
[ ] gorey movies are the best - NO, is that the sound of a chicken clucking I hear? 
[ ] you arent scared of anything
[ ] you take part in "male bonding"
[ ] you only go to your dad for advice
[ ] you own like a trillion baseball caps
[ ] you aren’t sensitive
[] no pain no gain
Total = 1
[ ] you like going to football games
[ ] night games rock
[ ] spiders and bugs are cool
[ ] you like to freak out your sister or brother
[ ] you used to or do collect baseball cards
[ ] saggy pants are cool - if you think you’re K.Fed they might be
[ ] you get sports illustrated/other sports/ guy magazine
[ ] fire is cool
[ ] you don’t babysit
[ ] you’re immature
Total = 0
[ ] its kinda weird to have sleepovers with a bunch
of people
[x] green black red or blue or silver are your favorite color(s) - yes to black, blue and silver
[ ] romantic comedies are boring
[ ] you hate dressing up
[ ] you dont care about your hair - if I had the time I would :p
[ ] you love to go crazy and not care what people think
[ ] climbing is fun
[ ] contact sports like football are fun
Total = 1
Total score = 10% guy-ish (add up total score and multiply by 2)
GIRL-ISH
[x] you wear lip gloss - lip balm my dears
[x] you shop - when pressed, more like window-shopping wishing I could fit into half of the stuff they have on sale
[x] you wear eyeliner - occassionally, very occasionally
[x] you buy different colored shirts - life in monochrome is tres boring is it not? 
[ ] you wear halters and tube tops - lacking the tone, but I would if I could
Total: 4
[ ] you dont like shopping at hot topic - what the heck is that?
[ ] you wear the color pink
[ ] you consider cheerleading a sport
[ ] you hate wearing the color black
[ ] you love hanging at the mall
Total: 0
[ ] you like getting manicures and/or pedicures - I’d like to one day 
[ ] you like wearing jewelery - again, if I have time
[x] skirts are a part of your wardrobe - more like the same two trusty skirts
[ ] you take a long time doing your hair - nawwwww
[x] shopping is one of your favorite hobbies - window-shopping….er….dreaming I wouldn’t mind if I had the time
Total: 2
[x] you hate the movie star wars - if you mean the sell-out version with Jar Jar Binks then yes I do :p
[ ] you cry in movies
[ ] you are/were in cheerleading, gymnastics, or dance - I can’t think of anything more unlikely, once a music geek, always a music geek :p
[ ] it takes you more than 1/2 hour to get dressed and put on other accessories - what are them there things called accessories ah huh ah huh seriously though, I rarely bother and put in the effort of it’s a special occassion
[ ] you smile a lot more than you should - The exact opposite, I either appear grave to the point of funereal/ serious to the point of looking like I’m perpetually constipated. Unless I’m with my friends that is :p
Total: 1
Total score: 35% girl-ish (add up total score and multiply by 5)
Today was a day of firsts.
Today I had a little boy hanging onto my index finger as I led him around the store, trying to spot the Bob The Builder kid’s suitcase he was playing with earlier and had somehow misplaced. He was happy in the end, so was I.
Today I have finally come to grips with the fact that getting 34 hours of sleep over a week is neither healthy, desirable not deserving of commendation from my friends. They too, have lapsed into a state of sleep-deprived stupor, in which none of their utterances are to be taken seriously. If they don’t pack some sleep into us soon, there are going to be 23 brain-dead OT Masters students walking around misbehaving, malpracticing and mistreating clients and each other *grins*
Today I have finally come to accept that one cannot study + churn out endless literature reviews and session plans and progress notes + work weekends + dust-bust around the house AND still expect to get through the precious hoard of books so lovingly gleaned from the library collection. Cupid and The King: Royal Paramours, Crome Yellow, The Female of the Species and Danse Macabre, you are just going to have to wait *sigh*
Today, I saw, sat and was driven around in L ’s car (2000 Holden Astra, black, three dings from: her grandmom’s walking frame, backing into her own wheelie bin and her kids’ schoolbags)
Today, I found out L and D ’s preferences in Asian take-away (L: A uber-contradictory, havoc-wreaking order of Hokkien noodles stir-fried in Cantonese-style sauce, D: Mee goreng, Malaysian mamak-style, hold the seafood - not that Malaysian mee goreng ever had any seafood in it that I know of)
Today I found out that swallowing rice makes L ’s throat hurt. This has something to do with the interaction between the abrasive properties of rice grains when swallowed in a bolus and the delicate state of the lining of her throat. But she still ordered a double take-away serving of fried rice for dinner.
Today I ate dinner alone at a restaurant I’d never been to before with a menu I could not read: Vietnamese-style pork chops and self-serve Chinese tea from a thermos flask, check your self-consciousness at dining alone at the door, customer service optional.
Today I found out that the Kim Thanh bakery I’d passed by umpteemth times sells the closest thing to Malaysian-style toast I’ve seen so far. Not those garlic-infused, jaw-breaking imposters lurking insouciantly in the gourmet/ deli section of Woolies/ Coles. Not the flaccid, pale imitations of the real thing I once attempted to make with week-old bread and a mini toaster-oven (I say once because making them made me really, really homesick and I had to cease and desist thereonwith).
But something akin, if not closely related to those crunchy rounds of bread that the ubiquitous Indian roti man always had, packaged in clear cellophane bags, dangling off the back of his motorbike in their dozens. You know the type? Buttered, toasted rounds of bread liberally encrusted with gleaming sugar crystals - thank goodness the roti man never underestimated the compelling drive of a sugar high
The type that is toasted to the point of aridness, to splinter in your mouth at the slightest hint of pressure, before dissolving into crisp shards of toast?
That kind.
Today my sister attempted to showcase her barbecuing prowess in front of her friends, but only got so far as omitting to separate a packet of bacon and a rapidly melting bag of ice in the esky, creating the new taste sensation known as waterlogged bacon slices.
Today. It was interesting.
As requested by Pinkpau =)
Here’s the deal: ask me about ‘My Top Three _ _ _ _ _’ and I’ll reply as truthfully as I can.
Why do I get the feeling that you’ll be the only one who’ll be kind enough to play, Pinkpau? =D
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This has been stuck in my head for the past week - and it’s playing again and again and again.
I need the Hit-xorcist - argh!
Silver wire ring: 4.95
Silver wire ring after application of staff discount: 2.97
Pleasure derived: Priceless
Conclusion: It’s the small things that count.
1.35am 19.08.06
It’s Friday night. Or should I say was Friday night. It’s actually the wee hours of the morning of the day after my only day off in five weeks.
And what did I do, you may ask?
Did I party? Did I shop up a storm? Did catch up on the pile of rapidly-accumulating assignments that are theatening to topple over and engulf me?
No. No and No.
I slept. I slept more today then the first four days of the week combined.
I crawled out of bed before lunch, and feeling suitably energised by my long slumber, actually whipped up a meal that involved cooking (in my books that means the application of heat to an edible substance).
I heated, yes I did. I made couscous with parsley, tomatoes, corn and caramalised onions. My stove must be ready to call this a red-letter day. It hasn’t been turned on since semester started 5 weeks ago. Most of the time, I subsist on salads, wraps, tins of sweet chilli tuna and plain microwaved potatoes - what my sister calls rabbit food. Last time I checked rabbits didn’t use the microwave, sis :p
I surfed the net.
I put on a load of laundry.
I blogged (duh?!).
I vaguely recalled having to return some novels to the library before I get my sorry ass slapped with a fine.
I didn’t leave the house at all.
And now I am sitting here writing about the inanity of my day, wearing a makeshift poncho consisting of a $9.95 polar fleece blanket and a clothes peg. Don’t laugh OK, it’s cold, I’m slowly freezing to death and I just put my fleecy pyjamas in the wash.
And I’m also contemplating whether to have some Ryvita crackers with cottage cheese.
Sigh. Late night eating. Bad. I know.
But my excuse would be that my body thinks this be late afternoon and not late-night at all. Ah, blessed solace of getting re-acquainted with my bed. Oh lovely mattress, I had almost forgotten your soothing contours. Oh long-missed quilt, your heat-retentive qualities have diminished not at all.
I’m working tomorrow and the day after tommorrow. Gah. Seven-day weeks. I thought they’d be a thing of the past, seeing as how I’d told my manager I needed to concentrate on uni a bit more this semester.
This is due to the fact that I will actually be on placements and in contact with real clients, and I really do not want to kill anyone before I finish my degree. That comes after. *Just kidding guys, or am I?*
So what does The Manager do? Go off on her 4th holiday of the year. I kid you not. Hence the need for me to work the entire weekend. That woman has apparently ‘accumulated’ so much annual leave, she might as well make vacationing her full-time occupation and pop into work when she’s sick of buying AUD $5000 handbags and spending her husband moolah.
She’s gone to Phuket and Msia this time around, with an itinerary I wrote out for her, the royal command being that she wanted to frequent the ‘most expensive, high-class’ places. Her words, not mine. So I wrote out a list which, hopefully would minimise any chance that she’d have to mingle with the masses/ slum it with the hoi polloi (or as she calls it, the natives o.0 )
So I directed her to Star Hill/ KLCC/ other lofty places where expatriates were plentiful, SPGs abounded, and everything, from Evian drinking water to crocodile-skin stilettoes were over-priced and uber-hyped. Glad I could be of service *winks*
I wasn’t able to tell her how much a Louis Vuitton handbag would cost in RM though. Not even after she asked me to ask my mom, certain in the knowledge that Mom has a huge stash of branded totes lurking in her wardrobe.
I laughed myself stupid. And when I told Mom, I laughed myself even stupider. Because she didn’t even know the whos/ whats/ whys/ wherefores of Lousy and Villified LV
But yeah. I know I can sleep tight. Unlike certain people.
In case you’re thinking I am sounding insufferably smug for no reason, I had a run-in with the ex on Thursday. My sister and I were having a bite to eat at the food court when who comes waltzing by but that liar/ coward/ mummy’s boy in diapers.
With a pseudo-friendly grin on his face, he sat down next to two friends and began his awshuck-ain’t-I-nice-and-friendly routine. Yeah, yeah, I fell for it once, but never again.
Bastard obviously didn’t spot me. Probably due to the fact that he has a girth that doesn’t enable him to see his toes anyways.
Cheap shot? I think not.
Considering he plugged his sob stories of emotional over-eating due to his parents’ constant undermining of him (both as a son and frankly, a plain human being) ad nauseam to me. And considering that when we were together I tried and failed, to persuade him to change, even a little, his misconceptions that KFC was included in the major food groups. And considering that he then turned around and said he couldn’t lose weight because I couldn’t make him happy.
Oh, and his mom thought I was the Devil’s spawn for the same reason too. Never mind that her idea of nutrition was scoffing down a bag of fat-reduced cookies (since it’s fat-reduced, you can obviously ingest the entire packet with no adverse effects, right? Not.) and eating vegetables boiled into a state of pallid colourlessness.
Oh, and the fact that I refused to get hitched to her still-attached-at-the-apron-strings son, just on her whim. Her schedule, her way, my life. She was talking engagement invitations four months into the relationship without discussing it with anyone except herself. Not even me.
WTF?
So it’s understandable that my sister was all for dropping him right then and there. In the shopping centre. In front of a gazillion witnesses.
Hawdehaw.
Methinks I have a better idea. So I said we should just nonchalantly stroll past. It’s a public space. I’m a big girl. I’ll walk past if I want to. What’s he going to do? Slap a restraining order on me? Tell me to speak to his lawyer?
So we did.
And by God, you could tell that old sins have long shadows. It’s been almost a year since the ignominous coward enacted his idea of a break-up on me (it resembled a drive-by dumping more than anything really), but obviously someone has NOT been sleeping easy since then.
His face blanched, then turned that bright shade of beet red that I know so well. It meant that he was 1. panicking 2. looking for the nearest exit point 3. shitting his pants 4. realising that neither 1, 2 nor 3 were viable options since he had to keep up his Mr Nice Guy act in front of his two females friends he was with.
So I walked past again.
His eyes bugged. His shifty, furtive gaze flickered frantically. His hands twitched. He bit his lips. He fiddles with his collar. The his hair. He was the picture of conscious guilt.
Why?
Because the bastard owed me an undisclosed sum of money (in the four figures), said figure having accumulated over the period of three years, in my misguided sympathy for his financial situation. Namely living with parents who also employed him and did/ did not pay him wages as they saw fit. Eg: If he forgot to bathe the dog, he got his wages docked for the week.
Never mind that the upkeep of canine hygiene has nothing to do whatsoever with his job as a draftsmen. His dad is a pseudo-draftsman (pseudo because he isn’t tertiary-qualified, but happened to fall in with a bunch of builder-drinking-buddies who utilise his services because he’s cheap and he’s there and they couldn’t be arsed looking for a proper architect) with a one-leg-kicking ‘practice’. Said practice involves a whole lot of hand-holding from everyone else in the family (Gee, I wonder where The Bastard gets his neediness and mummy’s boy-ness from?), myself included.
I spent six weekends re-arranging the filing system. Picked up stationery supplies as needed (I now know they best brand of staples and sheet protectors to purchase :P). Rearranged the office furniture. Photocopied. Posted documents. Ran errands. And made them dinner twice a week when The Ex’s Mom was having a bit of a sulk, as she does, bi-weekly, just like clockwork. All FOC and part of the package of what I thought a good girlfriend would and should do.
Or they simply stopped paying him because they’d run short of money for the week, what with his mom’s penchant for china collection at AUD 80 a pop and his dad’s wine club subscription, which sees the delivery of a case of wine every fortnight, at the very least.
But wages? Awshucks. Who gives a crap about wages when you have a son/ employee whom you know is in for the ride, because he is too much of a sissy pants to get another job (one that requires an interview process, a resume and actual skills). So they paid him. Or not. As they saw fit. And many, many weeks the need to complete the Royal Doulton plate collection and wine bottle #936 won out.
With the consequence that when we went out (which we did a fair bit, because although The Bastard was still attached to his mother’s teat, he couldn’t stand them any more than I could. Weird family dynamic) I ended up paying for stuff that we did.
On top of that, I offered to pay rent, which they refused, because they wanted to have the option of invading my privacy whenever the urge struck (read the next paragraph, and you’ll see how). And of course, apart from picking up the tab for The Bastard (meals, tickets, even his frickin’ uni parking fees) and his family (groceries, gifts, flowers for the house), I was also sucked into the joint endeavour of keeping his dad’s pseudo-practice afloat despite gross incompetence (His? Theirs? Who knows?)
And I had to witness their insanely callous treatment of The Ex on a daily basis. How many parents do you know would barge into your shared bedroom at 5.30am, carrying on about how everyone should be up, just because they were. And in the same breath informing their son that he should begin his toilette at that crackpot hour because they think he stinks. Literally. As in they wanted him to have a two-hour shower because they thought he smelled.
The mind boggles.
My only regret is that I stuck with it/ him for so long.
But I digress. Back to the encounter at the shopping centre. So I strolled past and his discombobulation (only the descriptive powers of this word can do the situation justice) was as obvious….as……..er…..his continuing state of morbid obesity? This is despite the fact that he had been single (and supposedly HAPPY) for close to a year. Guess that he was still stuffing his face and feeding his lard-rolls even though I wasn’t there to decrease his happiness quotient huh? *rolls eyes*
Whatever.
And guess what? Regardless of his holier-than-thou attitude and his cavalier, rough-shod treatment of me, he did not look like someone with a clear conscience. He did not look like someone who could fall back on the certainty of a moral high ground. He did, on the other hand, look like someone who escaped a debt by changing his mobile number, getting his dad to respond to my emails and trotted out his family lawyer to avoid having to repay the money.
This despite the fact that I worked for that money, whilst he still lived at home, supposedly was employed in the ‘family business’ and was wont to bleat for more money as oft as he felt like it (his parents would probably cough up some moolah if he bugged them enough, probably about six weeks later)
So much for integrity hey?
And I just found out that bastards abound. They really do. Because someone I knew had the same parasitic problem, but instead of quashing him like the insect he was, she went the opposite route and tried to get herself quashed. Literally. By stepping off the balcony of her townhouse 0.o
It was fortunately only 8 feet up and she didn’t suffer any adverse effects apart from jarring her back. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to nag her into getting an x-ray and a check-up soon. And maybe a lobotomy too, if she gives in to his demands that they hook up again. (Guess that thieving leech decided he was going to go for Round 2 as he hadn’t completely decimated her financial reserves yet)
After all this, who could believe in happily ever after anymore?
