Where do I begin

To tell a story of how great a love life can be

The sweet sweet-and-sour love life story that is older than the sea

The simple truth about the love life she it brings to me

Where do I start

It’s been way too long! The guilt of not finding the mojo to post has become quite unbearable. I don’t know what has gotten in to me on this whole blogging thing. I have plenty of things to blog about but no desire to put it all together into a post. Maybe the problem is that I have too much going on for it to come out as a coherent post.

That’s when it hits me. I’m not really an “anonymous” blogger, not as much as I’d like to be at least. I don’t know the people who read my blogs, and it frightens me to death that my families, my neighbors, my colleagues and future or potential employers might one day stumble on my blog and find that I’m not really as angelic as I try to be.

But really? I’m not perfect. I’m only human. Putting all this out there is a big deal for me nowadays. I find myself lacking substance to put here because of this perpetual fear of being judged or whatever.

My life is pretty much mundane, nothing exciting about it. So I ain’t got much hunky dories to share. But really? Life can’t be that hunky dory all the time right? Sigh!

It’s my blogging identify crisis I suppose.

So, that pretty much explains why it is my Urban Notes not my Blog who has been capturing all my thoughts, confessions and observations lately.

The morning routine would start as early as 4:30am if I were to head to another project office of 200km away to attend meetings at 10:00am. By 6:00am I would have checked in KLIA and board the plane heading to my destination. I would still be sulking when the steward/stewardess serves the pathetic peanuts and juice for the 45 minute journey, for losing an hour of beauty sleep.

I must have been too tired or still too sleepy to sulk that particular morning as the plane was about to touchdown, when I looked out the window I suddenly felt so free like a bird; home, home and dry; like a homing bird I’ll fly; as a bird on wings…

Ah, my mundane life is indeed beautiful!

You know you are almost stretched to the maximum…

When, you didn’t realize you were wearing your scarf inside out (the lovely embroidery was hidden by the plain stitches), until one of the waiters of the mamak café sheepishly pointed that out while serving your roti telur and Nescafe breakfast.

When, you didn’t realize you had put on a mismatched pair of shoes when entering the bank until the teller smilingly pointed that out while transacting your ASB account.

When, you can’t remember the last time you shopped for groceries and prepared home-cooked meals or even hot tea/coffee until your sibling who came visiting pointed out that there’s nothing in your kitchen that seems edible.

When, you spent most of your evenings with Anuar Zain instead of the legally wedded spouse lately, where the former without fail would patiently wait, accompany, serenade and woo you with his melodious and romantic dos while you were finishing your work very late alone at night in the office.

When, you can’t differentiate whether it was just a dream, a nightmare or indeed a real instruction coming from your superiors to prepare a special report explaining to the newly appointed Group CEO why we indeed need to extravagantly spend millions on ‘the project’ while the rest of the population in the company have to tighten their belts cutting costs.

When, of all the years having the external auditors breathing on your neck in Dec/Mac, you finally (semi-consciously) had the guts to snap at them (Wahoo!), wrapped them around the fingers and pointed out what they themselves could do in trying to dig any little dirt or possible hidden skeletons in the closest in all the projects executed.

But life is good, I am not complaining. And Thank God I still can remember my wordpress.com password.

It’s hard not to jump into the bandwagon of talking about the subject matter when the word is sprawling all over the blogsphere today. But it is rather harder to fake a similar lovey dovey entry after the attempt for some candlelit dinner plan with Himself felt flat on my face.   

“Yang, let’s have dinner at KLCC XYZ tonight. I’ll wait for you there after your seminar. My treat!”

“Sounds nice. But not today, I gotta rush to Low Yat to buy ZYX. I will see you at home at 6:00pm.“

Oh well! Giving him some benefits of doubt, he should notice the many bouquets of red roses which suddenly bloomed ferociously throughout the city center today. But because he was so preoccupied with his business, he might have thought that the roses were just dumped in the city because of the invasions of snow storms in the west or the bushfires in down under.

Being the occasional melodramatic queen that I am, I video-called him at 4:00pm and I could hear and see the brisk business over at Low Yat.  And, his car entered the gate at 5:30pm, with (only) ZYX in hand.

Ah, he is indeed my Valentine!

Her hypnotically smile captivates millions. Many believe in her portrayal of a sad and depressed lady, but because of her smile even many more think she is a happy lady. After centuries of mysteries and mysticism, her identity has finally been revealed. She is Lisa del Giocondo, a wife of Florentine businessman, Francesco del Giocondo. Even more intriguing is a scientific finding that unlocks the famous smile of mixed emotions; Mona Lisa was 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful and 2 percent angry.  

I don’t know what it is with Mona Lisa that I, in one way or another, feel like connected to her.

Those who are linked to me in Facebook might identify me as just another plain Jane on the street/LRT who tries hard to keep up with the demanding work life. A Jane who is saddened/angered with what happened to the brothers/sisters in Gaza, intrigued with the Barrack-Michelle Obama story, and at the same time letting her hair down on weekends, sitting back & relax, enjoying movies, window-shopping or simply enjoying Kalamansi with Asamboi over a plate of Kerang Bakar at her favorite reclusive lakeside stall.

I don’t know what exactly comes through the minds of those who skim through my tiny blog; but it seems like they are curious about this anonymous & faceless pathetic blogger. Well being somewhat a geek, I do know the way to discreetly install an invisible webcam behind this blog which is able to sense the readers’ emotions and compile them for some other intelligence purposes. And all credits should go to Leonardo and Einstein who had just been abruptly awoken from the graves to launch the technology…muhahaha! Seriously, this is what WordPress is hinting to me; my sporadic ‘Under My Duvet’ or ‘Dear Diary’ entries logged the highest hits so far.     

It also somewhat tickles me when I could be perceived as belonging to those insecure and clingy categories, just because of my ‘PS I Love You’ entry in BlogHer.com, a women blogger community which I was looking forward to join, after US First Lady, Ms Michelle Obama, herself was blogging her heart out in there (but it looks like she has recently stopped writing in BlogHer.com).

For the life of me, I do hope the perception isn’t true.

We could never have all the perfections that we want in life.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say. Facial or verbal expressions can be played, but what lies in the heart can never be fully understood by all the people, all the time. I do love my life, and I am confident to enjoy both the happiness and challenges that He bestows upon me. He knows the best.

Alright, I confess here and now that I am stuck in this love/hate relationship with blogging.

At times in between meetings my mind enjoys that pit-stop-wandering, and a few stories, wit, insight and clever thought suddenly springs, yet  finding the right time/mood to craft witty, meaningful and interesting prose is almost impossible, at least that’s the way it seems to me now.

My mind is now behaving as if it is spending a day in a museum, a bit of everything comes into play. And all these bits serve as a fizzing intro to the interconnecting myriad of corporate/personal life, the universe and everything.

(Note: This was written 2 weeks ago as some sort of a sequel to my previous entry on kampong life)

It’s now 7:00am and unlike the usual rush hour morning beating the traffic to make it to office on time; I am now typing this journal at the most wonderful place I can ever wish for, enjoying my rather long year-end vacation with a specific mission (hope to write more about it later). I am now seated at the worn out sofa at my family home’s verandah back in the kampong.

I don’t know what it is with kampong ambiance which makes as though the clock ticking away very slowly, the day seems to be passing by very leisurely. The air is so soothing and refreshing, it seems like it is filled with more oxygen that enables me to breathe more calmly. The sound and feeling of calmness or nothingness around make it the most ideal place to de-stress any tired bodies.    

Perched on the rambutan trees that had just finished delivering the bountiful fruits, is a family of small little birdies. It is not as though there were no birds back in KL but the serene kampong ambiance makes the birds’ lovely chirping sounds more convincing and serenading. There are also cockerels which seem to have no other things in mind besides flirting and running after the voluptuous hens, although there’s clearly a group of young broods still trailing behind the hens. Hei guys, can you at least let the hens enjoy the leftover rice which Mak has just spread on the feeding ground first! And can anyone tell what exactly those funny looking birds are trying to say while cuckooing on top of the durian trees?

From where I am jotting this note, I can see Pak De is busy accumulating the dry rambutan & chempedak leaves and old coconut branches for burning. His IC says he is already 80 years old but we all suspect he is actually 5 years if not older than what the paper says, since his energy or rather quite youthful look makes people half his age envious with both curiosity and guilt. Can you imagine not seeing obvious strays of grey hair for 80-year old man, and when we pester him to share his secrets, he just smiles and says maybe it is all the bitter ulam-ulam he is very fond of. Oookie, I guess I’ll just stick to visiting the hair salon for the necessary hair makeover then, *chuckle*.

Pak De has been up to his sleeves since 6:30am this morning while I was still shivering taking shower and washing up before the prayer this morning. Once he is done with them, he moves on to water the chili trees, the lady fingers, the brinjals, and all the ulam-ulam. His tiny garden seems to provide endless supplies of fresh vegetables for him and Kak T, his daughter who is staying with him after Mak De passed away about 15 years ago. Kak T a fulltime housewife and her lovely family of 6 are like my own family, not just cousins; and I suspect Mak sometimes feels that too. Well, being away from home, it is quite hard for me and my sister to be home for every single kenduri that Mak and Bapak arrange. It is Kak T, plus Mak Su, who has always been helping Mak prepare for the all kenduris. Sometimes, when I am home and almost bringing down the kitchen looking for ingredients to make asam pedas, it is Kak T would inform me where Mak is keeping all the asam keping, which part of Mak’s small garden is housing the daun kesum and all.

Sadly, it seems like life back in kampong is not all that rosy all the times nowadays; there are genetic urban problems which seem to be creeping slowly into the once lovely fairy tale like kampong life. That is what Mak, Bapak, and Kak T have been telling me and my sister when we confess how we enjoy our short stay back in kampong. There are increasing numbers of burglaries by desperate drug addicts, there are also hideous stories being discreetly passed around the households on unwanted and out-of-wedlock pregnancies among teenagers and college-going students, and the occurrence has become much more rampant. Kak Y, another cousin, who is a medical officer at the nearby hospital’s maternity ward, has also been supporting the story by sharing with me the grim and sky-rocketing numbers of such incidents.    

That’s the price of modernization I supposed, not that I am condoning the ugly acts. My once a sleepy hollow small town is transforming into a bigger township, and with all those modern factories and community colleges mushrooming almost every other day, there bound to be exceptions to the patronizing glory stories.