I've found almost everything ever written about love to be true. Shakespeare said, "Journeys end in lovers' meeting." What an extraordinary thought. Personally, I have not experienced anything remotely close to that, but I am more than willing to believe Shakespeare had.

I suppose I think about love more than anyone really should. I am constantly amazed by its sheer power to alter and define our lives. It was Shakespeare who also said, "Love is blind". Now, that is something I know to be true. For some, quite inexplicably, love fades; for others love is simply lost. But then of course love can also be found, even if just for the night. And then, there's another kind of love. The cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims. Its called unrequited love. Of that I am an expert. 

Most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other. But what about the rest of us? What about our stories, those of us who fall in love alone? We are the victims of the one-sided affair. We are the cursed of the loved ones. We are the unloved ones. The walking wounded. The handicapped without the advantage of a great parking space! Yes, you are looking at one such individual. And I have willingly loved that man for over three miserable years. The absolute worst years of my life! The worst Christmases, the worst Birthdays, New Year’s Eves brought in by tears and Valium. These years that I have been in love have been the darkest days of my life all because I've been cursed by being in love with a man who does not and will not love me back. Oh god, just the sight of him! Heart pounding, throat thickening. Absolutely can't swallow.

It took 2009 to realise that 2008 was awesome!

In 2008, at one point I was a student, an intern, an employee, and a freelancer all at one go. I had flings, I dated, and I also committed. I got full use of a spare car, I wrote a short story, I completed my degree course earlier than mapped out by my course counselor, I made great friends, I achieved monetary goals, I took up an array of classes and courses, I was in a band (even if only for a couple of weeks), I even took on a stray Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano with the muscle of a Mitsubishi Evolution 8 (yes, it must be said, that this was the highlight of the year). 2008 deserves a pat on the back.

2009, on the other hand, sure hasn't packed that much of a punch. Graduation was the biggest waste of six hours I had ever spent at any event, hands down (even driving to Kuantan and back for no reason would have been more gratifying). I'm single. I crashed the spare car. I got three short stories running on no substance. I have less time to spend with my great friends. Running a startup means that I'm spending way more money than I'm earning. My array of classes have dwindled to two and yet I feel the strain. I have no band. I have no access to any vehicle that can compete with even a Satria GTI.

2009, you have another three and a half months to prove your worth.

Men. Hot-wired for going forth and multiplying.

Women. Hoards, protects, and nurtures by instinct.

Marriage. A pandemic disillusionment.

If men, by order of evolutionary purpose, are inclined to spread their seed far and wide, and women can't suppress their inner calling to protect what's theirs by interfering with man's philandering ways, then marriage of the two opposing forces appear a grave mistake.

In life, I want it all. I want wealth and health. I want education and beauty. I want food and fitness. I want a sensitive manly man. I want a rationally irrational manly man. I want a driven, purposeful man with time to spare. I do want it all.

Think about it. If men are essentially the same from when the world began then, taking into account elementary and evolutionary changes, traditional men are the ones most likely to wear wedding ring marks into their wallets. Can't blame them. It's in their blood. So then maybe men who are more in-tune with their emotions, have a greater tendency to hoard, protect, and nurture i.e. effeminate, make better candidates for monogamous relationships? Because of the traditional man's inability to accept monogamy, and the traditional woman's inability to allow for polygamy, marriage of the traditional couple makes for an unhappy union built on discontent. Maybe now is the time for the hybrid couple. Feminine meets feminine, masculine meets masculine; no one makes up for anyone's shortcomings. And I don't get it all after-all. 

Life's a bitch. Watch YouTube.

Nothing goes better with a piping hot chocolate brownie than vanilla ice cream, nothing gets out the aftertaste of a bad date better than beer (and lots of it), and nothing washes away the long hours of the day better than a hot shower.

Switch on the heater, run the water for a minute. That first step under the shower head would feel like a Coca Cola ad: "Ahhh." The water's gentle caress wipes away those motorcyclists who, after years of self-loathing, have apparently forgotten that their bikes come equipped with brakes. The constant pounding sprays on the shoulders massages away the one hour of persistent trying to get through a government department helpline that finally wasn't of much help anyway. The stream cascading through portions of hair and scalp tickles away the wet shoes from today's erratic downpour, washes away the half hour of waiting in line just to save RM3, and swiftly blocks out the waiter who called me aunty.

Take a walk with me and I'll tell you a story. My story. You see, sometimes I think I don't talk about myself enough. People tend to develop strange assumptions based on what they perceive, and what they perceive is based on what we choose to show. So this is a dedication to me, in all its self-loving, self-loathing, narcissistic glory.

Now, I'm the kind of person who throws away furniture and repaints an entire bedroom when depressed. I'm the kind of person who buys a pet fish just because of one lonely night. I'm the kind of person who helps old people with stairs but gets irritated by beggars who work eateries. I'm the kind of person who spends hundreds on clothes but calculates beer savings to the dollar.

I'm the kind of girl that needed a man to discover her woman. I'm the kind of girl that knows the difference between feminism and gender supremacy. I'm the kind of girl that will always feel guilty for eating that extra piece of pastry. I'm the kind of girl that cringes at the sight of blood and melts at weddings, pet shops, and chick flicks. I'm also the kind of girl that is happiest between the sixth gear and the bottom of the gas pedal.

In all honesty, I actually can't stand pet fish. They don't respond to you the way you would want a pet, you can't touch them, they just swim around. They're basically an expensive ornamental fixture which you have to feed everyday and clean its tank every week. Might as well get a plant. So, why did I get myself a pet fish? I really actually wanted a dog. But the dark of that night was especially deep, I found myself at a pet store and the Fighting Fish only cost RM5 with a 10% discount on top of that! I was sold.

I chose not to name my pet fish. Some people thought it was cruel of me but I just didn't see a need for me to name it. I taught it how to follow my finger and how to jump for food. I guess teaching it how to jump was the cruel part because one night I came home to an empty bowl and a crusty fish on the ground.

That happened almost a month ago and I have yet to fill its bowl with life again. Maybe I grow too attached to things. I'm the kind of person that has collections of the most useless things. I have a stash of movie stubs dating back to the first ever movie I watched without my family, I kept LRT season passes, bus passes, clothing tags, cute plastic bags... Note the word "kept" because I'm also the kind of person that goes manic on random days and gets rid of years of history to make way for a new photo frame.

After coming back from Australia, life took a strange turn for me. Don't get me wrong, Australia was beautiful.



So anyway, life took a strange turn for me after coming back from Australia. I just wasn't satisfied with the way things worked here, everything seemed so mediocre. I felt mediocre. I hadn't accomplished what I thought I would from Australia. I had big plans to gain boundless inspiration from being in a different country but that didn't happen. I had big plans to take up a course overseas and experience the hard life of an independent working student but that didn't happen either as flights to Canada cost more than my entire study budget. What did happen was small doses of depression, feelings of isolation and immense pressure from all sides.

I chose this path. I chose to take a year off to learn, explore, develop, and perfect; all things that may get kicked off my list of priorities once a full time job sets in. Somehow being cautious and prepared begot only ridicule and judgment. But I don't regret anything. If no one else, at least I had time and freedom on my side. And something's afoot.

I thank God for the organic nature that is life; its amazing ability to swing from bumming to so-swamped-have-to-resort-to-power-naps-and-15-minute-dinners within a day. I thank God that I gave myself the time to say "yes" to anything I wanted to and also for the fact that I'm young enough for ridiculous notes like these to happen.


Word of the day: The face of contentment is ugly.