> get happy or die tryin'

am i happy?
if you’ve read here for a while you may not think so,.....but the fact is that i am.
it doesn’t mean that i don’t long for things or that i don’t feel bad sometimes. i choose to work out some of my angst here. that’s what a personal journal is for, yes? as what they always said sharing a burden with others lightens the load..

but happy i am.....i am comfortable with myself, i know i am blessed in many ways and i am grateful for a life without a lot of drama. but we, people always want more. i suppose that’s the part of intelligence that makes us unhappy...we know there’s more and we want it....never enough.

next year i will be 41. and in the past month or so i have been beginning to see myself differently. more like a grown-up- or more than that?- and i’m not sure how i feel about that.....i still want to be silly, i still want to play, i still want to be irresponsible sometimes, i still want to wear those ripped and torn fadded jeans....astro-boy t's, sneakers, read comics, anime gig etc... but now i wonder how it looks on me. people's perception of me... i'm curious if their perception matches my own sense of reality...but i guess i really dont want to know what people think of me...and i don’t think i am as concerned about what other people think about me as much as care what i think about myself ...

but sometimes i feel that the one who has the most inaccurate, skewed view of who i am — is myself. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

> searching for the unknown but knowable

when i was smaller, a boy. i wanted to be many things. i wanted to be rich, i wanted to be famous, i wanted to be a loving father of five oriental children. i wanted to be a hero, i wanted to be strong, i wanted to be a soldier so i can help sargeant vic morrow to kill all the bad guys....i wanted to be special, i saw myself standing out from the crowd, never conforming and never apologizing for it. i reveled in being different! i even invented an exotic background to further set myself apart. but somewhere along the way i forgot about all that.....i got scared....the life i ended up with was like a colorful cheap shirt..... it looked good from the outside, with some fashionable detailing and all but was scratchy and uncomfortable and really didn’t fit properly. i felt powerless to change it. the fear had worked its way into my bone, winding around my dna and becoming a part of me.

but things changed, as they always do.... the thin walls of my life suddenly came crashing down around me, and i had to rebuild. it has been a very slow process...... but i’ve finally rid myself of the fear.... and i’ve put together a life that fits me better..i hope so...and yet there is more work to do. a little tailoring here and there, if you will. my thousand-mile journey is far from over...i'm still restless and searching. some part of me understands that this will always be.. it is what keeps me moving forward rather than standing still. but i’m determined to enjoy the journey, take pleasure in the hunt and keep moving forward searching for purpose, to reach for something that sets me apart from the crowd.

> facts of life

lately i’ve been noticing that i don’t look as good as i used to.
i look tired, i look a bit frayed at the edges.........i’d like to say there was a reason for this,

one that i could fix and things would go back to normal, but i don’t think there is.

i think i’m starting to show my age.... and it’s freaking me out more than a little bit.

funny thing about it is that although age creeps up on you slowly, you seem to notice its affects all of a sudden. one day you could pass for twenty five and then next you look every minute of your age. or at least that’s what happened to me.

i have never hidden the fact that i’m vain. it’s something i’ve always owned and simply accepted because it has flown beneath people’s radar......it’s not something that i make obvious or let affect the way i treat others. but now it’s making getting through this stage of my life harder. and the bitch of it is that it is never going to get better—only worse.

i suppose this is part of the process. maybe this is what they mean by midlife crisis. facing your new face in the mirror and realizing this is the best you’ll ever look again. and that one day, before you know it, you’ll be old. but just because i recognize it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy getting through it.
letting go is never easy.......

> a song to me-self

my life is brilliant, my love is pure
i saw an angel of that i'm sure, she smiled at me on the subway..
she was with another man, but i won't lose no sleep on that 'cause i've got a plan

you're beautiful,
you're beautiful
you're beautiful, it's true i saw your face in a crowded place
and i don't know what to do 'cause i'll never be with you
yes, she caught my eye
as we walked on by, she could see from my face that i was fucking high
and i don't think that i'll see her again
but we shared a moment that will last 'till the end

you're beautiful,
you're beautiful
you're beautiful, it's true i saw your face in a crowded place
and i don't know what to do 'cause i'll never be with you

you're beautiful
you're beautiful
you're beautiful, it's true
there must be an angel with a smile on her face
when she thought up that i should be with you
but it's time to face the truth..........i will never be with you

> bit about the woman i love

my mother was really young when my dad left her. he left her nothing except five wounded hearts. me, two elder sisters and two kid brothers.. being a second wife was tough and being single again was really - really tough.... ' mak tua ' never liked mother for being pretty and soft hearted. mak tua and company never liked us for being part of them.....without my dad, it all became worst...

with nothing, my mother started her unpromising life with ten ringgit that mak tua 'painfully' parted with from money donated by people who knew him. ten ringgit for the six of us....what year were we at that time?...ahh it was at 1978...kalau jimat that ten ringgit can last two to three days lah.

being young and pretty were my mother advantages, she was the perfect company for dad's business and political functions. she was pampered and loved more than mak tua. was she good at cooking? i don't remember, maybe she didn't cook at all. i was too young to remember.

but that all changed after dad left us. she had to work as a cashier at a school canteen and was lucky enough to be promoted as the ' tukang masak's' assistant which earned her a few extra ringgit.

with the help of two sisters in the family, mother started a small home based 'nasi lemak' business. all went well. i helped her sell the 'nasi lemak' in school. the business was so good that it made the school canteen owner so unhappy...... alas .. i was caught! the schoolguard confiscated all of my 'nasi lemak'. i was nine at that time and it was really one hell of a shocking experience.

the headmaster gave me a warning and asked me to ask the canteen to help sell the 'nasi lemak' ... no more black market 'nasi lemak'.

my 'nasi lemak' retail price was dua 'kupang' per packet, lima 'duit' commission to the rich canteen owner. that was what i told my mother ... at least the business can still go on.

one week past and business was good. she was happy. but .. one day .. the 'nasi lemak' sale suddenly became bad. i was told it was because my nasi lemak was dirty. they found a cockroach in one of my 'nasi lemak'....!!!

business then became really bad and this time they found another type of insect inside one of many packets. the same pattern went on and on and on and mother got the hint. the business was stopped with - tears.

mother worked hard, i would say ten times harder than any woman her age in the kampung but the money was never enough. i was forced to transfer to a school nearer to my house as she couldn't afford to pay my school bus fees. her vision of me getting a better education at a better school thus vanished....

> retrospective

+ today is supposedly my big day

once in a while something happens that forces me to take a long look at myself, reevaluate my life and started to doubt all of the things that happened to me in the past few months. once in a while happened this morning......if you don’t know what I’m talking about, consider yourself lucky.

i tried to shake free of those memories, wondering why they'd re-surfaced with such clarity... was it because i am now wise enough to realize how unusual it was to like someone so quickly....or simply because i felt guilty......i don't know.

lately, it seemed i didn't know a lot of things......there were people who claimed to hv all the answers, or at least the answer to the big questions of life..but some of the answers may seen difficult to believe..there was something about the assurance with which they spoke that seemed self justifying.. but if there is one person who could answer any question, my question would be this -

' how far should a person go in the name of love? '

i could pose the question to hundred people and get a hundred different answers...most were obvious, a person should sacrifice or accept or forgive or even fight if need be...the list can go on and on...and i knew that all these answers were valid, but it cant help me.......something just were beyond understanding...
thinking back, i recalled events i wished i could change, tears i wished had never been shed, time that could have been better spent and frustration i should have shrugged off.

life, it seemed was full of regret, and i yearned to turn back the clock so i could amend my mistakes... and as i considered the question of how far the person should go in the name of love, i knew what my answer would be..........' sometimes it meant a person should lie....'

> meant to be a post here

i am so busy doing nothing... that the idea of doing anything - which as you know, always leads to something - cuts into the nothing and then forces me to have to drop everything.

it’s been a while since the last posts but there have been many good reasons for the hiatus. lately i’ve been quite busy and i cannot be unhappy about the fact that offline activities are taking more and more of my time these days. i still got a few pending tasks regarding the theme, the concept or other crazy things , but i can’t say when i will go back to work on those projects...guess its ok to play lazy once in a while - brain cells got to rest right? so....i got on the Internet checked e-mail - pretend to look busy...you got what i meant....,then browse several websites, want to shop for a couple of things i couldn't find in the store - didn’t find them online either...no matter what i still want that white converse!

then logged on to blogspot... but i didn’t start writing. not right away. i checked stats.
i visited blogs that linked to me.....happy to see jazz and diver are totally in love - now i'm dying to eat nasi minyak...aiz was excited with her billingham trip - she's in billingham by now - miss her already, husni is so happy with his recent project - congratulations b......spena finally became part of underwater community - successfully make me jealous..., neome sharing her love+life evolution, cat bat is in a mission impossible..everything is possible girl - cheer up, gomba with never ending most scary ghost story....

now it’s getting late, time to go for a hair cut and hopefully can jump back to the pav in time for a 7.30 show .....and i still have no idea what to say...and yet look at the words i’ve written. i don’t have a MD in bluffing for nothing, do i? the truth is, not much is going on right now, at least no much that seems worth blogging about. there’s no drama for now, no angst, not one memorable exchange with a random stranger or bizarre dream. things are just… mellow. it may not make for an exciting blog post, but i’ll take it. and count my blessings because i know that’s not the case with everyone out there ...but there is more space to fill this week.....