Why, hello there.

It's time to go.

Two weeks.

Two days.

Eve of my departure.

Day of my departure.

Five hours away from my departure.

Nothing.

I remember sitting down and trying to blog at those aforementioned times, but my attempts always marred by my inefficient packing and productive drinking. My last two weeks consisted of me packing my make-up in an orderly manner into a little chest which would protect my babies from the rough trusts of baggage handlers (grr) only to end up dumping them all into my Manchester United pouch at the last minute because of this thing called WE WILL CHARGE YOU FOR OVERWEIGHT LUGGAGES BECAUSE WE DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU. Not the point.

Point is, I am now sitting at the Narita airport, waiting for my flight to New York, and I still feel the exact same as I did two weeks ago. A big fat load of nothing, like ... the luggage of those people in Business Class flights who get an extra 20kg or so.

I am really emotional about this luggage thing okay.

Not the point.

Point is, I thought it would hit me once my bags were all packed and my room was semi-empty. But nothing. I thought it would hit me once I left my house. Nothing. (I even squinted at the last image of my house as I left, trying to picture it like they do in movies, maybe even with a sad background music ... fail.)

Which led me to wonder if people actually do feel anything when they leave home. Wouldn't it make more sense to feel sad to leave something you've only had for a while, as opposed to something you've had your whole life?

Case in point: me and Asian food. Really, I don't miss it (yet?). In fact during the last week or so my body totally shut off its craving for Asian food, sort of like a defense. Stranger still, I got increasingly aggravated with it as my take-off day edged closer, and one dinner I threw a hissy fit that you can only throw at family because they tolerate your shit, just because they chose Asian food over this place I wanted to go.

After dinner I went to Pastamania and packed some really horrible Carbonara fettuccine ... but ate it with joy, just because.

And you wanna know what I really miss in KL? This guy I met last Friday. Because I never got to spend as much time as I wanted to with him and he's perfect and gorgeous and has the most toned arms I have ever remembered seeing (and that is not the only department he surpasses a lot of guys in ... I must say) hence I am sad that I didn't have more time to spend with him hence I miss him.

Wouldn't that be more logical? Missing something because you only had a short time with it, and because your memory of it was more recent, and because he speaks in the cutest South African lingo?

I feel like I didn't have enough options in life to miss what I should be missing. Why should I miss Asian food? I have been eating Asian food my whole life - actually, forced to eat it my whole life. When I have cravings, they're usually for nachos, or pasta, or foie gras if I want to come off as pretentious ... because Chilli's or TGI Fridays or ANY decent food joint was never a ten minute drive away from my house. It's a thirty-minute drive. That I never seem to have the means to get to.

Would you miss tyranny once you know you can be free from it?

Maybe, just like when Debra left, it's not something I can prepare for, and I'll only be able to face the reality of my own departure until reality actually happens, but at this rate I'm going the first few weeks of America is going to feel like an extended vacation. And once that wears off, I might have already settled in and called it home. I don't see any opportunity at all for reality to swoop in over me, catch me unawares and kick me brutally until I fall to the ground, homesick.

And I've been so eager to look at my Malaysian phone contacts and not give a shit if it auto-deletes itself again (which it does from time to time ... how fitting). In a week or so I might dispose of my Malaysian number, never to use it again.

And ... Klang. Oh God how I'm ready to leave you physically (I've left you a long time ago, after I was done with Form 5, and once again for good when I broke it off with my longtime boyfriend). It says a lot when the most exciting thing that has happened to this town is the bus of navy boys.

Maybe I'm just not a sentimental person in general. Or maybe I'm a prime example of someone who is just ready to leave.

I really am.

I may not be prepared for reality yet, but I'm just so ready to leave.

Threadbare.

Oh my God. I finally have time to blog. Been so busy packing, worrying and groaning for two whole days they all seem the same to me now. When I start to pack, I start to do all those at the same time.

Life sucks when you only get 20kg of it. Stupid airlines.

***

I finished reading Picture of Dorian Gray recently, and I absolutely loved the book. Going up there with all my favorite books (Lolita, The Stranger, The Catcher in the Rye and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao). Its capacity for evil and depravity, hand-in-hand with the beauty of life as an art, the worship of that co-existence...

I think I just have a thing for evil.

I have so many favorite quotes from the book that I dog-earred the pages. When have I ever dog-earred anything in my life. Here are some:

"The one charm of the past is that it is the past. But women never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want a sixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over they propose to continue it."

"There were moments when he (Dorian Gray) looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realize his conception of the beautiful."

"That awful thing, a woman's memory!" 

"In her dealings with man Destiny never closed her accounts."

Aww... makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Until recently I have never been able to decide if the past hinders or helps, but I have now.

Fuck the past. I've seen people desperately (pathetically) clinging on to the bare threads of their past, using their history as strength, when it is worth as much as the person usually is now: nothing.

It's weakness, in its blindest form. I've seen these people - friends, I would call them even - wanting all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons, just because they can't see what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone today.

These people are weak, and they disgust me.

I use the past to my advantage in my own way as much as the next person, but bitch, please. I say future, is the way to go. The only place the past would serve any purpose is in a CV or a History class.

***

I leave KL tonight. Worrying whether carrying my heels in my handcarry would count as "sharp objects" and if my thirty pairs of fake lashes will be taken away, lest they think I'm trying to sell them illegally to trannies in America.

Paranoia is a gift.

Will blog again later!

The emotional feedback mechanism for humans is a strange thing indeed.

Most people follow the common pathway. Girl meets guy, girl likes guy, girl dates guy, girl shuts off desire for all the other guys, if girl is not some naive little fairy whose religion is Sex After Marriage (but now recently pronounced "Agnostic" ... sure) then lust follows, girl sticks with guy, relationship reaches carrying capacity, more fights than make-ups, more moving out than moving in, and the population of the relationship dwindles to a zero ... girl heals, girl gets over guy, girl fails, girl heals again, and girl tries again.

Simple enough. The break-up and the hope of finding a better guy spurs the girl on to keep looking for Mr Right, to keep trying, to keep wanting. Hope, looped back into the system to control the whole body of emotions within itself.

Then, of course, there is the more evolved feedback mechanism of today's time, rendering primitive emotions useless in the obtainment of pleasure.

Girl lusts for guy, girl meets guy, girl sleeps with guy, girl does shame walk next morning, girl ends all contact with guy, girl starts cycle again. With other guys.

If it's hope that controls the former system, what controls this, you ask? Pure lust. Lust for more, lust for diversity, lust for beautiful things.

But enough on that. I'm not here to talk about that today. I've talked so much about that it's enough to make me feel like I'm almost bragging (people have to realize everything in my blog is pretty much rubbish ... don't delude yourself into thinking any of these mean anything, because they don't. I'm just blogging pure, unadulterated rubbish. It's food for my ego, yes my ego feeds on rubbish, but anyway back to the topic at hand) ... so let's talk about something else today.

The slightly more complex stage of this evolved feedback mechanism: the "crush" stage. I remember tweet-flooding Twitter with my attempts to explain what a crush is to me, and why it's good for me.

This is where the emotional feedback mechanism becomes really strange. I defined a crush as something that is slightly above pure lust, but not strong enough to be considered feelings, hence avoiding attachment, jealousy and all the other mess that comes with feelings.

Which is why it's awesome because for an euphoric moment you feel like you're 15 again ... without actually being 15. You're not stupid, and you won't fall headlong for the guy and come out of the other side, hurt and bruised. You are able to hold back, enjoy the highs for what they are and leave when you have to.

Now here comes the beauty of this mechanism: the self-destructive factor.

Brooke and I were talking in the cab last night on the subject of feelings, and she expressed that she cannot wait for the day I actually fall proper for a guy, one that I could actually be happy with and start to ... DAAAYTE.

It's date. She said date. But with the eye bulge and the slow-mo facial expression to enunciate every syllable of its importance... it sounded like that.

I told her not to be silly, that she fully well knows that even if I do end up liking a guy very very much, there will be a series of steps after meant to completely obliterate any chances of us being together. She has seen it happen before, and it will happen again. I am, by nature, a self-destructive person.

And this is not a complaint.

The first step actually starts way before the system kicks in. Being attracted to people you shouldn't. Right feelings, wrong men. All the wrong men. Looks. Men with looks have choices, you don't want a man with choices. Timing. Men who have to go at some point in your life - the physical kind of departure for work, for travel, to go back to their home country, etc. Places. Well you're not meeting this guy in a bookstore ... are you?

And I can't help it. Women like me, we want men that are wanted, we want men who are interesting ... two very lethal factors. The other appeal of these men, though rarely admitted by anyone but me, is that these men will leave. They are capable of it. They have the skills, the looks and the confidence to. These are not men who hold on to nostalgia, who give up other girls just because he met this "smart, cute and funny girl" the other day.

No.

These are the ultimate men of men. They have no emotions, they're not capable of them.

And hell yes, they are attractive. But if you fall for these wrong men, God forbid girls, you better start building your defense. Now.

Second step: your treatment of the guy. Girls who want men to stay are very careful with them. They pace themselves, and rash actions are completely out of question. Show a man you can lose him, and you might very well do. (Logic also works the other way ... but nevermind about that.)

I am careless with my men. I don't see the point in effort with them.

The third and other steps that follow, well, you can see that if you fulfill the first and second steps, the rest will just derail the train on its own. Something is bound to happen, on your side if you're quick enough, but on his side if karma decides to be cruel. I know I make it sound like there's a set formula to send a guy running, but truth is there isn't. It just happens. You don't ask to be attracted to the wrong men, you just do. You don't plan to treat a guy carelessly, it's the only way you know how to treat a guy.

And it feeds back into the loop. Feelings self-destruct. System reboot. Start again.

When the only way you know how to love is to love destructively, what shot do you have at happiness?

The fleeting kind, the temporary highs from the one night you spend together, and then you take it out, before it takes out you.

Greed is good.

"The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much."

- Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987)

Langkawi Love Part Two - Bon Ton Resort

You've seen the restaurant, now for theresort that is known for turning actual kampung houses into hotel rooms! And so the story begins...



This is what we first saw when we parked our car out. I thought it'd just be another Balinese or Thai-style place that I would like, I didn't think it would turn out to impress me so much.


Dinner first, at their restaurant, where we were the only (and I stress here ONLY) non-couple customers.


The first of the many cats everywhere.

And then we got a tour around the hotel rooms by a very patient (it was a long tour), attentive (we got a lot of info) and friendly (who else would give us long and informative tours) attendant of the place.

And the impressing starts ... now.











From the outside they looked exactly like traditional kampung houses, either actual houses already there before, or rebuilt based on kampung houses from the other states.

The white one above is called the Gurney House, derived from the architecture style of the houses in Penang.

And inside! Oh inside...







While looking every bit like a kampung house, and preserving the authentic features and feel of it too, from creaky floorboards to the whole wooden interior (even a wooden bathtub!) ...

... there is also a plasma TV, a flushable toilet, a hairdryer, toaster - everything, and more, you would need to complete your stay in a five-star hotel.

It's like combining the old and the new in one space, with very business-savvy results!

The owner of the place also adds his/her personal touch to the rooms.


Like this strange-looking cupboard he/she bought from overseas and placed it in one of the hotel rooms. Loving the deco.


We try to open it ... dum dum DUM.

We looked at another type of house, very colonial-looking, making us feel like we were standing in the era itself.





(Notice the cat on the sofa.)

This is actually a sitting area for the hotel guests to just chill and read or do whatever they want. It's like a communal area in the old days!


Another photo of the detail and deco of the rooms! A lot of meticulous effort is put into this resort's concept.





Ahh the doors, the paper floor covering, the lighting, all converging to give hotel guests the olden-Chinese feel of this house.

Another example of the different kinds of traditional Malaysian houses they have, made exactly alike those back then:





Faded rustic walls, colors of the past, wooden shutters ... the replication is complete.

As we were visiting the place, we were surrounded by these:

I told you the cats are everywhere! It really adds to the kampung feel, to see cats snuggled up in the sofa next to you or brushing past you as you take your morning walk.

We just had to ask, and we were told. There are over 200 cats and 100 dogs on the resort. They have shelters for the cats and dog, and about 7-8 vets and volunteers to look after the animals. We drove past the shelters on the way out, and saw some new ones being built still. You can adopt the dogs/cats if you want to, but even then the resort people will make sure you have the right conditions to house and take care of them.

What did I tell you. Business-savvy AND with a big heart.

Before we left, we met the star of the place.





At first sight just a random door, with a wall, standing in the middle of nowhere, but this is actually the temple, with a tree behind it.

And this is how the area, The Temple Tree, got its name. This temple has been around since pre-independence days, and the owner decided to keep it. I believe the wall was built around it for that purpose.

It was a truly beautiful place, and we all left it, changed a little. Well, at least I did. It made me appreciate the beauty of my own culture, relive the different kinds of houses I've learned in my school days and just truly proud to claim this culture as my own. One of those times.

Bon Ton Resort

http://www.bontonresort.com/

http://www.templetree.com.my/

"Bon Ton Resort Langkawi is one of the island's most stylish, unique and intimate resorts, with eight individually styled antique Malay villas, the perfect small boutique hotel. Nam Restaurant at Bon Ton is regarded as one of the best on the island."

Rates, contact, address, all a click away if you wish to experience Langkawi the Bon Ton way!

An asshole.

Me: I think men are assholes, and women are trouble.

Guy: So, you hate men...?

Me: Well, I don't exactly hate them. I mean. Well, yes. I hate men, but I'll still fuck you all. See? It's a love-hate thing.

Guy: So you hate them, but you like them?

Me: Yes, in fact, I love men. A little too much. But I also recognize they're assholes.

Me: *confuses self*

Me: *thinks: Okay let me try putting it this way...* Men are assholes, but I accept them for who they are. In fact I feel more related to men than I do with women. I'm more of an asshole than trouble.

Guy: I don't think you're an asshole. You're nice to me.

Me: Well, being an asshole is much better than being trouble anyway. Men are assholes because they don't care, women are trouble because they care too much. Assholes on their own don't cause trouble, it's putting the man and the woman together, that assholes cause trouble. I'm an asshole, because I don't care, unlike most women. So I can see where men are coming from, and I accept that.

At the end of the night the guy made me realize I was trying to convince him that I'm not a nice person.

And he insisted that I am nice, since I'm nice to him (so far) (I just met this guy btw). Well, Guy, you texted me like three hours ago?* I am not replying you, because 1. I want to send the message that I don't care much for replying 2. I just don't feel like it 3. I never intended to give you my number in the first place (don't be offended, I never do to any guy) I have half a mind of not replying you. Ever. Only that would seem mean.

Fuck I hope he never finds this blog.

But yeah, he thinks I'm nice ... so far. Until he finds out that I will only reply his message at 10pm tonight or later claiming I'm busy and never reply him again today as the night time is a good pretext for "resting" and after this if we still do text I'm going to give him progressively longer waiting times between replies and he'll ask me out a few times in which he'll find me "busy" for one and a half week or so, and if I do relent and go out one more time I will not go home with him again because I do not want to sleep with him again I'm just being kind for another dinner and then one day he will ask me out again as he is leaving soon and being a coward I will lie and say I'm out of the country already when I'm actually leaving the day after for my holiday and then I'll be stupid enough to let myself be seen out in KL by him and he'll text me something sarcastic like, "Wow I didn't know Australia was in KL. Guess I was never good at Geography..." and then I'll want to shoot myself in the head and when he leaves Malaysia and goes back to France for good I will not even deign to send a nice goodbye text message of safe flight or whatever but just say nothing and do nothing like the A-Grade Jerk that I am.

True story.

Honestly, it's not that we mean to be assholes. We just ... don't care as much as you girls do. (Yes I have just paraded a strap-on for this speech.) We don't like to be pestered, to feel like we have an obligation to not ignore you, because yes we do feel that obligation, we don't want to seem like the jerk, but yet no matter how it turns out, we always seem like the jerk.

The one thing I seek an ephemeral reprieve from is that I never lead guys on, never giving them hope of a "tomorrow" or "next week" or "this Saturday". The one thing I differ from male assholes is that while they can do all this with absolutely no guilt, I still fall victim to the women (read: wimpy ...and strap-on goes off now) side of me and brood over what a complete and utter jerk I am. I guess I know now why sometimes I go to sleep knowing I'll feel like shit the next morning ... because I know I'm about to do this to yet another guy.

Don't worry. Rest assured that karma will take care of my sorry ass. When I find a guy I truly like, he'll turn around and do the same to me. I am quite sure of it.

*Post written last two weeks or so, but publishing it with present tense because I like it.

Bah.

I usually can't blog about things as they happen, or right after they happen, because of the many - let's call them - factors that surround the situation, directly after it has happened. The moments that follow a big moment are delicate indeed.

But rest assured that maybe one month from now I'm going to blog about this whorehouse for the soul I have chanced upon one eventful night.

For now I'm posting up another blog post written in a time capsule. Enjoy! Not.

I hate cameras/life.

I have had to stare at this the whole day so I'm subjecting you to it too.

No difference, you say? Well yeah guess what, I wish there was no difference to me either. I wish I didn't care either. I WISH I DIDN'T JUST SPEND LIKE 5 HOURS OF MY LIFE COMPARING PHOTOS FIXING MY CAMERA SETTINGS AND STARING AT THOSE PHOTOS.

Yeah. Just one of those days.

Worth Fighting For (WFF)

Today at 4pm, I saw a whole bus of navy and army boys getting off in AEON Bukit Tinggi, KLANG (yes, KLANG).

Getting off. Heh. Heh. Getting off.

But oh yes, navy boys. Dressed in their white navy uniforms, with their white navy caps, and their white navy shoes ... and a smaller number of army boys in their own distinct attire.

It was like Disneyland for me. Then I was thinking, God bless WCT for building AEON Bukit Tinggi Klang so they can set foot into it, God bless Sir Frank Athelstane Swettenham for creating Port Klang so their ship can dock, God bless AMERICA/BRITAIN for glorifying the navy and army and implanting into our heads the image of desirability in those shoulder stripes and chest badges.

(Kay just found out the state capital from Selangor was actually MOVED from Klang to KL because of the more "strategically advantageous" Kuala Lumpur!??!!? WHAT THE FUCK? I COULD HAVE BEEN LIVING IN KL, INSTEAD OF THIS DUMP? Fuck you Swettenham I take my blessings back. Strategically advantageous my ass.)

But anyway, yes, navy boys, a whole fucking bus of them (I even made out the bus to be TWO floors so it could store more navy boys) it was like the best day of life. Navy/army boys are to the females what Victoria Secret models are to males. This is the best thing that could ever happen to me. To anyone.

Two hours later, I was saying goodbye to Debra at Rasta's in TTDI. It was the hardest thing I've had to do in a while, and it felt a lot worse than I had prepared for.

That's Debra in 12 out of 59 of my Facebook profile pictures. I believe God made me look good specially in pictures next to her so a) I can remember her for life b) she can leave an immutable trace in my life, so hard to remove no one will even TRY. (You wanna be the first person to try deleting a Facebook Profile Picture Album ...?)

And c) to show how involuntary my love for her can be, just like setting a profile picture.

(Also I'm aware one of the pictures is with her dog Cookie, but whatever she took it so it counts too. And don't get me started on my involuntary love for Cookie as well ...)

Well, the goodbye was horrible. It didn't start to hit me that she was leaving, until we actually had to say it. When you've had friends like that in your life, you won't know how it feels to part until you actually do. You can never prepare yourself for it. It's just not possible. For God's sake I was still thinking about the NAVY BOYS until the last minute. (And also NOT in my defense, I just do that. It's just ... me. It'd be a funeral and I can still be thinking about men.)

And then it happened. The goodbyes. And that's when your insides start to connect with your emotions, and you just get a bad sick feeling overall. We said our teary goodbyes, I got into cab, she back home ... and it was possibly the most awful cab ride back home I've ever had. I wasn't even thinking about the navy boys, or anything, just nursing the horrible feeling in my stomach was distraction enough.

That's when I realized, yes I could have gone home then (it was still early, it was 9pm, the navy boys could still be there), I could have seen the men and Disneyland and be jolly and happy and all that, but at that moment I just wanted to turn the cab around, make my way back to Mont Kiara and spend the last night with my SOUL MATE properly.

And so turn the cab around, I did.

It was much easier the second time round. Tips to people parting with their soulmates: have two goodbyes. First the teary get-all-feelings-out one, and then a second one. You'd feel better. It would also help if in the second goodbye all you do is watch your soulmate rush around her room, packing in the last minute as she had NOT YET PACKED IN ALL THE FREE TIME SHE HAD.

So on the second cab ride home, it was relatively better than the first. I've spent every second of time I had at my disposal with her, and I got home just in time to make the parents happy as well.

Now I'm not saying that if I had not turned the cab around and instead gone back to see my navy boys, I would have been unhappy because I ditched a friend bla bla bla. I ... don't think that'd be true. I'm sorry, but, navy boys. They make anything better. They make anyone happier. Disneyland, dude. THEY ARE GOD'S CREATION AND GOD ORDAINS US TO LOVE ALL CREATIONS.

Like I said, it's just me. Men can cheer me up, I do put men over friends, bla bla bla, I have no morals so let's not pretend I do. And Debra understands that. She knows that more than anyone else, and if I weren't her friend I'd be the creature she disrespected most on the face of this earth. And she's honest with me, she lets me hear it. All the times we went on "girls night out" and I've gone home with a man, and she with drunken phone calls from me, all the times I know I've either fucked her over, or came very close to fucking her over, all the shit she's had to take for being my friend ...

I never understood why she'd still remain my friend, but tonight I do. It's just involuntary. People keep telling me how once I find The One it would come natural to me to have to stop fucking other guys ... but I've never had that feeling, obviously. But I think with Debra, it felt close. You just snap, and you just automatically stop wanting what you'd usually want (men, men ... let's see, oh yes men), and you do what you have to do.

AGAIN. NOT SAYING I'M A CHANGED PERSON IN ANY WAY. I'm still a shitty friend. I still put men over friends. I would still keep your boyfriends away from me, if you know what's good for you. (Or if you have trust issues with him that you would like to cover up with a convenient excuse of SLUT IS GETTING NEAR MY BOYFRIEND.)

But I guess for some things in life (family, career, friends WFF*, Debra, a really good coffee maker), I have space in my ink-colored heart for them. Especially for people who know that no matter how much I don't seem like it on the outside, when the time comes, I will turn my cab around for them.

Okay now I feel all disgusting and wholesome after this post. I have to go take a shower.

*Worth Fighting For