Married to an extrovert, I am very much attracted to his luminous conversations and outlook on life. I on the other hand hate people. I am not always the friendliest person. Big groups leave me anxious but his sunny social skills uplift me like his ease with people makes people immediately feel at ease with me.

I never like to be the center of attention, never want to stand out in the crowd. I know it's ironic that I am babbling about being invisible yet willingly publicize my life here but I don't over share, I mean it's not a journal or daily update or anything. 

There is so much socializing an introvert can do. Often I feel exhausted from trying to keep forced idle conversations alive, working up fake enthusiasm with much gusto, making up theories about the moon and etc and then I find myself needing to be alone again. I need to recharge. 

I'm at an age where getting news about weddings, newborns, new homes - is what they call the-new-normal. This phase in my life seems all bright and dreamy, it must annoy the heck outta people who are single, having trouble conceiving, and still living with their moms.


I am the kind of person who is able to adjust to many life's cruelties with surprising speed. I myself find it amusing at how quickly things that seem intolerable at first, eventually become things that I learn to live with. As good as I am at drawing a pretty silver lining around otherwise dark moment, there is one particular life's pain that I feel weak and stupid about pondering - death.


I lost a friend, the very day King Shen and I turned two. I've lost a few people in the past, but this one is the first whose death personally affected me. I was beside his death bed, comforting his devastated mother, observing tubes and machines that kept him breathing, then I went outside and all I saw was space.



 I froze.

That was on my timeline two days before said event. He got the date wrong. Al Fatihah.

First smeared on make up when I was 18, face lost its virginity when I was in college; thanks to mother . Loved how it covered the adolescent zits and made me look older. But now I have to wear it to make me look younger?

Don't really pay much attention to it now that I am a domestic goddess. Wear pajamas to run errands even to visit the in laws (they live in the same neighbourhood anyway). I clean, eat healthy, cook everything with olive oil, arrange spices in pretty jars, sauté onions, count calories and put generous chunks of all sorts of greens in everything!

Of course to counter this homeyness, there is this little fashion project i do that generates income while I cook and clean. Also Saturday nights by the pool with husband's cousins laughing and ridiculing life; loyal Uni-mates who still come to Suzy's for our favorite nasi goreng cili padi just like old times. Coffee and cigs with KL based hometown best friends. Uptown friends who party really hard and celebrate absolutely everything, Thursday movie nights with the mobiedicks. Sunday lunch, theme parties and family trips with the extra jovial in laws. Travel buddies who make getting lost in foreign lands and eating bizarre crap so much fun and of course my sweet, kind, loving, supportive family and eight cats back home I see at least twice a month.

Much socialization but good balance I think. Sometimes I just want to efface myself and watch people tell their stories through their eyes, or at least objectively you know...

Did I just skip the entire year of my (honeymoon) life? Hm.

Wide awake and bored at 3am, reading this blog, thinking how spoiled and so unhappy I was in those days when clearly there is much more unhappiness out there. Apart from the typos and over exaggeration of things, I'm glad I wrote this crappy thing to remind me of how hellish things were and how it has shaped me.

Yes, my marriage has greatly affected my life. Quit my crap media job that had only money going for it anyway, for one thing - I have a lot more free time and quite little to do with it. I have sort of lost touch with some of my (straight) male good friends and one of my female best friend is trapped in a luxurious prison of love - can't call, can't text, can't everything,  another female best friend is dating someone of the same sex, boyfriend to another female best friend called off their wedding not too long ago, brother has a son, a gazillion cousins gave birth to a gazillion nephews and nieces. Three funerals. The rest pretty much stay the same over this past year. And of course my family and circle of friends have expanded tremendously.

Doing everything more quietly at this age. Trying to be one combined very together peace loving tolerant unit. No calamitous upsets in my life right now, just kicking back, letting things slide, travel, travel, travel and........people watching.

I guess I'm back! 

We now live in the jungle on the hill top, King Shen and I, where monkeys and birds live just few steps away from our balcony. Feeling like being held in a coccon of deliciousness of cool waves of air that never ends; all I hear is the wind through the trees, daily annoyances are brushed aside and words cannot describe the peace. When driving up the hill with music turned up, the road ahead is practically empty, I feel like im in a movie, driving my rickety car against the backdrop of the ruins.

Its humbling, that feeling.

This is the 14th house that I have moved into. Yes, fourteen. Funny where my life takes me. Feeling blessed, and loving this post wedding - vacation feeling. Time to start reevaluating things and mull over big decisions now. Blah.



Oh wedding updates coming soon, letting Junee and Joel do the job for now ;p

Although I might not necessarily want you to know all the sordid details, here's a glimpse of the storm after the calm. I suppose some might argue that your last night as a single woman actually happened way back, right before you met your now fiance


but why split hairs? 

Maid of honour is the culprit behind everyone wearing a veil that night. Mind you the veils must be hand made. The theme was black with a pinch of gold and silver, but as bride to be, I can pretty much do whatever the heck i want, so i wore...........white instead.

The night started off tame enough with our three course dinner with everyone chatting away. Not everyone knew everyone, some were my best friends from school, some good friends from work, some travel buddies, so I made all my bridesmaids gave speeches, some were very very sweet and some very very honest.


I'd like to think that i have the kind of friends everyone should have; people who like the same party places i do, who are up for adventure at any time, who knows my emergency contact numbers and most importantly, who are okay with leaving a place whenever i say i have to go, even if they are having a really good time. Awww I LOVE MY GIRLS & 'GIRLS' !!!

Second part of the night ensued chaos. Some psy DJ was playing that night. Of course we started off  at our own private spot by the corner, shaking our heads rapidly from side to side, letting the music splash around inside us. Pretty soon after, it was as if we had been given fresh shots of adrenalin, jumping up and down in time to the music. We were kinda cute on the dance floor, wearing full faces of make up, heels, veils, forming a circle with me in the middle doing some shit moves. I probably got a lap dance or two, pretty sure there was some gropping, squeezing, rubbing and thats all im going to tell you...

 

Its the month before brother's wedding. For some strange reason, everyone decides to get married this year. My family have gone through three weddings already, since January - a cousin's wedding, another cousin's wedding and another cousin's wedding, and now my brother's, which will be followed by mine very very soon.

Parents recently threw me an engagement ceremony. We were not even aware that our 'merisik' session had somehow became formal. Although I did not have any major worries about being engaged; it was the thought of being the center of attention that scared the heck out of me. Add on the fact that some of my family are judgemental gossip-hounds, who love to nitpick every details of an event apart for sheer entertainment.

I am glad it happened, the engagement. It kinda gave this part of my life a slight nudge. A day with this feeling of celebration in the air, of happy anticipation and everyone sort of looked different, like little sparks seemed to burst off their skin and fill the air


and King, burst with delight.

"Oddly enough, as many times as I’ve heard the word stupidest (and believe me, if I sold my soul to the devil in order to have eternal life, that wouldn’t be long enough for me to count the number of times that I’ve heard it over the past few years), I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard anyone use the word stupider. Maybe that’s because people know how stupid the word stupider sounds and that the correct form is more stupid. Then why don’t they know how stupid stupidest sounds and that the correct form is most stupid?" languageandgrammar.com

Never in my life has the word 'stupider' been so appropriate.

HAPPY TWO O THIRTEEN!!!
One hundred million bagazillion things to look forward to!


 

In England now with a lot of free time and very little to do with it hence this post. Was in Amsterdam earlier; I remember as I watched the english skies became dutch, an icy chill traveled down my body while I was hoping for some out of this world adventure and it was out of this world indeed, but for the wrong reasons. 

I guess all that wrong reasons have made me realize who my source of strength and support is, in this world that is unjust and untrusting. Maybe happiness is a finite quantity. Maybe you only get a set of quota in your lifetime, no more, no less. Maybe if you're sad and grouchy all the time, you're just wasting whatever little you have. 

Its funny how someone can invade all aspects of my mind, who wants to go where Im going with me, make reality look a little less real and give me the kind of feeling people write songs about. To put in simplest of terms, he's beautiful. He really is.

11 more days to go.

Chulia Street, Penang Island.

That night we were on a boat in pitch black, amazed by the sight of nature flickering in the night, hovering over mangrove trees along the river bank; like seeing teeny bright stars up in the darkest sky slowly making their way down to us. Just one of those 'for our eyes only' moment, where even the best performance camera fails to capture.

That's firefly watching in Cherating, in case you wonder.

We just sat there in the absence of light, not really talking, not even looking at each other, just enjoying the moment. The kind of feeling thats so overwhelming it scares you. I wouldnt describe it as happiness; its beyond that. Its comforting to be around someone who already know your stories, who can cut through the bullshit and tell you exactly what they think of you and know your mistakes and love you just the same.

Oh, we're getting married. Pop that confetti!

The King; Telok Chempedak, Kuantan.

Men think its all about lace and cleavage; that our panties are either Thongs or G-strings or pretty Briefs. And wired bras are hot! Never mind the fact that they leave angry red lines when we take them off or the extra mile we take to squeeze the water out very carefully when washing them if not the whole damn cup gets bent out of shape. Hey, they don't even know about the Old Jockey with a hole and the Ancient Cotton Bra with blotches we still keep in our drawers.

Just like how they assume women are just creatures with boobs; born with nonsensical issues. Wrong but hey, who really wants to lose all the allure of being that unfathomable extraordinary woman and let the enigma vanishes ay?

There's this feeling I get sometimes when I get surprised by adulthood, where life sneak up on me, tap on my shoulder and make me jump and I think of something that I desperately need to tell someone - its somewhat like a secret, but more like a brilliant idea that i absolutely must share or I'll explode!

Quite a nice, easy feeling, everything tumbling over a really beautiful chaos.

im not too crazy about meeting a friend's significant other. it always turn out to be a bit of an ordeal because im expected to relentlessly analyse and deconstruct and perform complex body-language-decoding brain functions while friend's eyes constantly beseech me for approval.

now, lets put yourself in that person's (significant other) shoes : you see,  usually you will know when a group of friends are really curious about you, you would sense their collective anticipation and you would react to this with laughter that grows more defiant or maybe loud greets with much forced gaiety which i think are completely unnecessary unless you dont mind trying too hard to be a loon.

of course they will judge you - are you ordinary looking? do you have anxious expression? weird accent? of course they will make mental tally in their heads, so they can elaborate on their other friends later. and yes, you will wonder if you're steadily losing points. which got me thinking - its probably completely worth it just to be the object of the kind of devotion someone seems to have around you, just to be taken care of, when all the boys we know are fucking around, contemplating their wedding days or making statements like ' i need to figure things out' or ' i think i still have feeling for you but...' and etc.

ya know?

the coming of age phases - from being a nerd and skinny and growing breasts, to being free, footloose and not really worried about where life is taking me, to realizing relationships will not last forever, to being twenty three and knowing that people change, that friendship and loyalty are all subject to change, to  daringly progressing from making out to heavy making out, till it seemed like the room would explode from the intensity of  desires and the discovery of the most momentous of all experiences -- love?

been listening to that word a lot ,these days especially. of course, there were times when it has been greatly misused.

i guess in a saner, sober moment; i knew that sometimes everything had to change in order for it to be the same and at some point in the future we'll find ourselves right back at the start. 

while been busy doing....well nothing particularly fruitful, its been actually lovely chilling to my own schedule. its nice to slow down for a change; feels like calmness flood through me like water. filled with an overwhelming sense of relief, an idyllic last-minute weekend getaway trip miraculously happened. amazing how perspective can change after a quick trip.

read more on that here , here and here.

also i have this love-hate thing going with the hometown, well essentially i am a city person; thrive on action, on people moving rapidly around me, on drinking coffee with music turned up to deafening levels, even on traffic jams, all evidence to the contrary. so i guess a weekend of being away is all i can take and i guess every now and then its important to do what you want and just screw everyone else.

Pangkor Island, Perak via Anne.