wordpress // ocho

(somewhere near the east coast of the usa, in a quietly bustling suburbia of young families and artist-types amongst parks, cafes, and the smell of the ocean)

we are tired. tired and dragging our feet along but the little girl in front of us is still skipping, avoiding all the cracks on the sidewalk, talking with her imaginary friends in between singing random melodies. he and i are loaded down with snacks and toys from the fair, including a gigantic stuffed cat that he won for her during one of those inane carnival games. we walk past the parked cars and families still heading towards the fair, parents complaining about the distance, kids complaining about the heat. none of our tiny family complained. we haven't said much all day, perhaps not wanting to disturb the blissful happiness that was today, a rare day when both he and i could spend time with her. together. but this was more of a day for them. she rarely got to see her father like this: relaxed, unfettered. his cellphone didn't ring once all day, unusual, until he told me he left it at home.

the park is relatively empty today; perhaps the usual afternoon crowd of family are at the fairgrounds instead. she immediately runs off the path into the park and makes a beeline for the swings. parking herself firmly into a seat, she calls for her father to push. she is a picture of perfection, even with the spilt ice cream drying on her summer dress, her hair mussed and hands dirty. he smiles at her, then at me. i settle myself on a bench with our carnival souvenirs and take out the camera. the sun is low. the lighting is perfect. he's pushing our girl on the swings, and she shrieks delightfully as she soars. his face lights up the way it does every time she laughs, an immense fondness in his eyes. perhaps he is thinking that he can't believe how lucky he is to have such a beautiful daughter. perhaps.

i start taking photos. but as usual i stop after a few. it's tiring trying to fit the world inside a picture frame. especially these two. my world. as i sit there amongst the unfinished popcorn and georgia (she named the cat georgia), i look at him with immense fondness. i am thinking that i can't believe how lucky i am to have such an amazing husband. he catches my eye, and beckons me over to join them. i smile. i don't feel so tired anymore.

Vox // to-do, august & september 2008 list (wip)

- clean up bookmarks folder, add to delicious and reorganize subfolders
- clean up my documents folder, delete the unnecessary, move important things to thumb drive
(can't move files yet, boss' pc gave the laptop a virus that i can't get rid of)
- clean up room (seriously need to see the floor, breathe, and find clean clothes)
- finish recording dizzy & the so we can start packaging and planning the launch
- study spanish so i can take nivel a3 placement test
- be a good intern and help mokhtar with battle plans (for the war is his to fight)
- get my gs from those who owe me so i can
- buy a pc and name him jeronimo black and
- buy a canon g9 and name him jenius black and maybe if i have enough left over
- buy a sampler like joe's roland sp-404
- proceed to checkout on amazon and
- buy a nintendo ds and name him.. hmm haven't decided, maybe jetsam? jockstrap? jesus?
- figure out a way to handle new haircut, need to find pomade to tame flyaways
- finish reading unfinished books
- roast a chicken for majin
- actually, get my cooking cravings out of the way before puasa (eg: pizza, red velvet cake)
- put out more flyers for music classes
- cut down on rice again, maybe alternate that with sweet stuff every other day

wordpress // siete

loves of life, in seven chronological parts.

el primero, 1985

the first person i ever loved. strictly speaking, he's my second cousin. blood, however, has never really been a basis for how i feel. ever since we were in our diapers, we were in each other's hair, chasing one another around our homes, tricking the other into giving up our fried chicken or time on the playstation. but whenever we were apart, we missed each other until it hurt, constantly asking our mothers when he was coming up to kl or when i was going to singapore. whether we imagine it or not, whenever one of us is feeling an intense emotion, whether it be anger, sadness or joy, the other would feel inexplicably the same whether or not it was incongruous to the current situation. he is my other half, and although we don't see each other very often still, life without him would be akin to blindness.

compañero de alma, 1999

we first met in 1998. she was in another class, on another floor, with friends that came to high school with her from primary school. i was an island in a sea of girls, weirded out that there weren't any boys around since i was from a co-ed primary school. we ended up in the same class the year after, gradually gravitating towards each other until we sat together at the back of kemahiran hidup classes, planning our nomadic route around the world while ignoring steps on how to make a tissue box cosy. we started our late night phone calls in 2001, talking about anything and everything from linkin park to the meaning of the universe. then after spm we enrolled in different colleges and slowly began to drift apart, making our own friends, building our own lives that we so earnestly spoke about only a few years earlier. i miss her sometimes, but we can't force a relationship to be something it was.

la voz, 2002

he was actually a primary schoolmate but we never really crossed paths then. we met again through interact club events (irony!) and began talking on the phone. i didn't have proper internet connection back then, and we were in different schools of course, with no cars to drive towards each other. so the phone was our way of dating, i guess. we fell in love but never admitted it to each other. he would sing me his songs; his voice would move me to tears but i would mask them so he wouldn't hear me crying. something happened, i don't even recall what it was (maybe i'm blocking it from memory) but we fought. hard. and stopped communicating after that. we eventually did start talking, again, but realized that in the period of silence, we had missed our window of being together and are forever kicking ourselves for that until now. we catch up occasionally, but almost always about superficial things, like it would be too painful to delve any deeper. if there was one that got away for me, it would be him.

lo contrario, 2003

i have three brothers by blood, and am fond of only one of them. from when i was little i would look for familial connections elsewhere, and for some reason would find even more 'brothers'. finally i met her and almost immediately knew she was my sister. we met through her 'brother' whom i was dating at the time; plenty of his and her friends decided that he had severe issues for dating someone who was so much like his 'sister'. we're alike in many ways physically, but almost none so otherwise. to put it very simply, she and i are the same, only that we turned out different because she makes choices for the present and i make choices for the future (over-generalization, but so is everything else in this entry - years could go by and i still wouldn't be able to explain any relationship i have with anyone in full). we are both presented with a lot of similar choices in life and i almost always take the happy-homemaker-picket-fence option and she the adventure-explorer-new-worlds option. neither one is bad or good, but we also sometimes look at how the other's life turned out and think the grass is greener. i love her like a sister, but like a sister, there are times when all i want to do is slug her for being an idiot. you don't choose your family. i didn't choose her. she just happened. and i am honestly grateful she's mine. i probably wouldn't have any of the friends i do now if it wasn't for her, any of the opportunities, any of this, if it wasn't for her. everything comes back to her. she gave me my life, and i thank her for that.

más auténtico, 2004

we found each other's blogs through lo contrario's, and began commenting then texting in earnest. we didn't chat online much in the beginning as i still didn't have proper internet connection yet. but the texting, oh the texting. i was going through architorture hell, and he was up north in university. neither one of us finished what we were studying (now we're studying at the same place) but oh the texting. we went through credit like water; we couldn't get enough of how we just connected and understood each other so profoundly like that. it was intense - it still is - how we communicate (we've moved beyond texting to seeing each other almost everyday, or at least once a week). he's my lifeblog; we tell each other everything, and i mean every single thing. we've passed so many points of no return; we know more about each other than humanly possible. there isn't a day that goes by that we don't talk in some form or the other. he's more of a brother to me than any of my 'real' ones are. he drives out of his way, spends the last bit of change, takes all my whining; all for me and i don't know how i deserve someone like him in my life. he's probably the only man alive who would take a bullet for me, and i thank god every day for that.

casi, 2006

my first real relationship, the first (and maybe only) person i loved with such fervor. we met on a social networking site. though we had many friends in common, our paths would have rarely crossed since he was and still is working on the weirdest schedule. he was seeing someone at the time we met, but they were already slightly rocky. i was the light in his crazy life, i guess, and no matter how he or i spins it, he left her for me. we were together for a little over two years, squashing any whispers of me being a rebound. as wrapped up in himself as he was, as bewildering as our fights were, i loved him more than my own life in those two years. we made plans. we were going somewhere. until i realized that he wasn't with me because of who i was to him, but what i was in his life. he was never tender. never paid attention to the little things. things that in the end, i wasn't willing to look past. i guess i was trying to fit him into my life too. call me picky. call me young. call me anything you want. i left him one night. it was the best thing to do, and no more shall be said about him pertaining to this matter.

la preocupación, 2007

we knew of each other, i think, but were introduced by a mutual friend by way of a group chatroom. we didn't chat much in the beginning, but all the late nights of him in the office and me bored at home eventually led to us being fast friends. he has the sharpest wit, the warmest heart, and is not the kind of guy you want to bring home to meet your parents, but is the guy you want to bring home to meet your parents. but god is fair, and despite all his good points, he's more wounded and broken than most of us. probably because he has a built in masochistic self-destruct program or he is a fan of flagellation, but most times he seems unable to resist digging himself into a hole. he is built to be a husband, a father. no woman seems to want to stick around for that. that, or maybe he subconsciously drives them away. all the time in the world can't make me figure him out. nothing breaks my heart more than to see him in pain. i would give my life to him, to keep his heart from breaking. to hold him and make sure that nobody will ever hurt him ever again. all the time in the world to figure him out. to help him be what he was built for. but he's in love with lo contrario (everything comes back to her). that's okay. i'm not ready to close all the other doors, cut out all the other options in my life for him just yet. which makes me wonder what's wrong with me.

this entry was the easiest and hardest thing for me to write. describing how i felt was easy. holding it back was not.

wordpress // seis

probably as a result of the last post's subject, i've been bloody irresponsible lately. canceling jamming sessions, flaking out on friends. just pulled out of playing for a gig tomorrow, wasn't quite in the mood to travel 40km into town and back just to play one song. everything's just been so on edge lately. i laugh too easily, cry too easily, get pissed too easily. i used to know exactly what was going on in my head. now it's just a muddled messy fog of thoughts that i can't and don't want to sort through because i don't think i can handle what i'm supposed to be thinking about. if that makes sense. even my eating has gone to pieces; i've been eating rice every day and my stomach is screaming in pain but i won't stop. internship starts next week. better hope i get my shit together soon, or los truenos is going to think twice about handing over his house keys to me.

wordpress // cinco

been stretching myself too thin lately. emotionally - i can handle, living with the mother has driven me so constantly to the edge that i'm not only cool with being on the edge, i constantly have picnics with my legs dangling over the side of said edge. physically - rarely happens, but i've been catching up on sleep and my night chills are lessening. creatively - this worries me some. all this sessioning for so many different bands has been taking a bit of a toll on my head. sorting out the different moods and themes and riffs for all the different musicians. i suppose this is but a tiny taste of how constantly fucked up los truenos must be, recording all those metal bands, then recording quiet bands like mine, and all those in between. i suppose also that if i really do want to make this a part of my future, this is something i have to get used to, and take into stride. on the bright side, it's training me to come up with riffs on the go. on the not-so-bright side, i fear the riff repository might run out if i keep squeezing it as such. also, needless to say (though i'm still saying it), i've been stretching myself monetarily too. going to have to up my music classes and soon; i can't keep relying on project money to get me through.

*mushes self back together*

wordpress // cuatro

or empat, or 四. the death of ideas, connections. of people. there's been a lot of deaths recently. so much so that if feels like the universe is tidying up before it blows itself to pieces. where do dead things go? do we keep them in memory? record them like this, perhaps. a hazy trail of lost worlds digitized in reverse chronological order. it's hard for me to do that. from day one it felt like i was cheapening the memories, though in the beginning i would make sure i typed out every single word, emotion, gaze and touch. but who was i doing it for? it certainly wasn't for me. i may not remember exact conversations, colors of an outfit, when left to my own devices. instead i remember smells, sounds, the ultimate mood and feel of the moment. which is more important for my own catalog of the past.

but i digress.

i've never lost so many things in such a short period of time. the little people handling the records department in the cavernous space called my mind are working overtime, waking me up in the middle of the night with chesty coughs, forcing me to stay awake so i can make sure that i'm still pondering over the memories. making sure that they're being filed correctly into the appropriate spaces. i can't switch off. i need to stop losing things. stop things from dying. not because i can't let go. because i can let go all too well.

Vox // internship update

Internship place decided. Surprise, surprise, I'm going to be keeping Mokhtar company for the next couple of months! I would have really loved to work at *Scape, there's just too much to take care of back home that I can't put off. What with everything else I have going on, working with the man is the best, most flexible option. Since I'm rather handy to have around (hah!), I'll probably be his PA, driver, designer, cook, etc rolled into one. Not too sure what hanging around the perve for two months straight is going to do to my head though, aih. I'll be seeing a lot of you Subang-ites soon!

wordpress // tres

your scent hasn't even left my sheets yet. but you're right. no sé what the future will bring, either. you need to learn, however, that you can give fate a hand. nobody's really stuck where they are. everybody can choose. whether it'll work out, that's secondary. but everybody can choose. everybody can try. this all-too-short time with you, one of my best friends in the world, ever, was the best non-relationship i've had. i'd be hard-pressed to find someone who can kiss me like you, make time for me like you do. starting this wasn't a mistake, but i believe completely that you ending this now, this is a mistake. it's not even in its infancy (it hasn't even been born). there are no accidents. we should have ridden it out. not gotten rid of it. i love you still, you prat. i always will.

wordpress // dos

(somewhere in the south of argentina, not too far from the beach, with vast expanses of rolling fields around, the next neighbor 40 miles down the road)

sitting on the porch with my son, sorting out the day's crop from our little farm in the backyard. it's the afternoon, but because it's so far south from the equator, the sun's hanging pretty low. my boy and i in sweaters reclaimed from old blankets, our feet covered in clogs i made the summer before. the record player is going in the house, playing old tori amos vinyls that i brought to this home from my old home. as i watch the cat curl up next to the dog, i think 'it's a quiet day'. it's quiet every day.

my son looks up to me from where he is sorting peppers according to color, asking in spanish more fluent than mine about what's for dinner. maybe i'll make that beef pie you like so much, i say to him. he smiles his brilliant, affectionate smile and returns to the peppers, leaning on the porch banister, his feet propped up against mine. as i watch his eyes dance in happiness as he compares colors and shapes and sizes, i think 'i found my man who loves me unconditionally, after all'. finally.

wordpress // uno

susah sangat ke nak cari a guy that loves me? most people i know have people falling all over them, want to spend lifetimes (yes plural) with them but they don't take up on it because they're too busy falling over other people. i'm just here. i don't like to think that i've become emotionally adaptable throughout the years, taking what i can get, but that's it, that's me. i think i'm old enough to know what will work and what won't, i just wish that the men that i want (not collectively of course) can see that. i'm a catch, fucking hell. what're you doing with her? when i go to argentina, i don't think i'll come back. i'd rather be alone in a place where nobody knows me and vice versa, than be alone in a place where people know me, but pay no attention. i can take a lot. but not when the other person can't.