Love you... Just kidding

"I miss you," I told him. He gave me a grin and said, "me too". I know he's kidding but he thinks I am too. And how do I say that I'm not?

How do you tell someone you've been fun-flirting with that you're no longer joking? That every day that I see his empty chair is a sliver of ache in my chest? How do I let him know that his smile plays on my mind before I go to bed every night, and his laugh echoes in my thoughts when I'm lying there restless and unable to sleep? How do I make it clear that when I say "I can't live without you", I'm expressing what's in my heart?

But more importantly, should I? Or should I carry on tossing out "Love you, darling!" with a cheeky grin that says, I'm just kidding...

A Roaring Year

No matter that the stars may say
The year is not too great for me
Luck and love are too far away
And fortune I will never see

The tiger is the king of earth
The yin to dragon in the sky
It is not known for joy and mirth
Instead for letting tempers fly

The tiger roars, the tiger fights
And in its year it finds no ease
Yet I believe in setting sights
On happiness and loving peace

I tempt fate for a tiger's tale
Far from the one laid out for me
Buffet me hard with wind or gale
I'll not be swayed from destiny...



A Tiger roars from the centre of its being, yet chuffs from the heart.
Also in memory of Tiger the cat, which probably looked a bit like this one.

Lost in Happiness

I hide my sorrow with a laugh,
A smile belies a truthful frown,
You seem happy, the people say,
Yet, deep inside I'm feeling down

I can't negate this dark despair,
Nor easily cast this mood away,
And more, the sadness doubles when,
You say "you should not feel this way".

I can't erase the things I feel,
As words deleted on the page,
How can I ask birds not to fly,
Or tell the storm to stop its rage.

The only thing that I can do,
It works quite well, I can attest,
Is just to smile and let them think,
The sad is lost in happiness.

Beat Me, Leave Me

Would you, a guy, beat a girl? And would you, a girl, stay if you were beaten?
Following Rihanna's beating [allegedly] at the hands of her boyfriend Chris Brown - he was said to have slammed her head against the window of his car, beat her with his fists and locked her in a choke hold – and their subsequent reunion, a survey of 200 youngsters in Boston found that nearly half of them said she was responsible for the beating. Most of them said arguing was normal in a relationship and fighting was also acceptable. See here for the report.

Unbelievable? Truly.
I have always said that I would be strong enough to leave an abusive partner. I did dump a guy after he left bruises on my arm (long story made short: he was trying to stop me from exiting the car), but that could just have been the final straw that broke the camel's back in an otherwise dying relationship. And I hate liars, as that is another form of abuse - of my trust and of the relationship. But I have never been faced with a really abusive partner, either physically or mentally abusive, and I don't really know whether I would be as strong as I think I should be.

Hearing stories of friends and acquaintances facing some kind of abuse or other, also begs the question: Do I just see it differently? One girl was dragged (on her face) from a moving car, and she did not immediately leave, not to mention lodge a police report for causing hurt or attempted murder! And another's husband belittles her about her (non-existent) excess weight and so-called barely there boobs (she does so have boobs).
So is it not abuse, then? Are my perceptions so skewered that I'm mistaking love and caring for trying to kill someone - or their spirit?
Can we even call it kitty love - just like how a cat can cuddle you one second and scratch you the next - and say it's okay if people do the same? [Although this is the premise of Marley & Me, that no matter how terrible the dog was, he was loved anyway.]

So is it all about love and forgiveness?

Explore Me

Renowned anthropologist Helen Fisher, PhD, author of the new book Why Him? Why Her?, says people fall into four broad personality types — each influenced by a different brain chemical — the Explorer, Builder, Director and Negotiator.
Her traits on the Explorer sound exactly like me!

The Explorer:
You know the type: Explorers crave adventure and are willing to take risks. Highly curious, creative, energetic, spontaneous, they have many interests — from hiking and spelunking to theater and reading.
Famous examples: John F. Kennedy, Princess Diana, Angelina Jolie.
Under the influence: The Explorer's behavior is largely affected by the brain chemical dopamine, which is a key player in our experience of pleasure and novelty.
Longs for: A playmate.
Bonds well with: Other Explorers.
If you are an Explorer: My advice is to go slowly. Because you're so impulsive, you can get romantically involved too fast. And because you hate confrontation, you risk bolting from a relationship that could prove fantastic. If you find someone you are genuinely interested in, check your inclination to go out with others, and focus your energy on him or her.
If you're dating one: Be prepared to live this romance one day at a time. Remain flexible, and know that for your partner, "dullness is a misdemeanor," as novelist Ethel Wilson astutely put it.

Other personality types are The Builder: Typically conventional, these women and men are honorable and loyal; cautious without being afraid; calm; social; popular; and good at managing people, networking, and building family and community. Drawn to schedules and rules, they are also detail oriented, thorough, conscientious, and dependable. Longs for a helpmate. The Director: Analytical and logical, straightforward, decisive, tough minded, focused, and good at rule-based and spatial skills like mechanics, math, and music. They also tend to be ambitious and competitive, as well as emotionally contained, even aloof. Yet these are the men and women who rush into a burning building to save a stranger. Longs for a mind mate. The Negotiator: Imaginative, intuitive, empathetic, and emotionally expressive, and have good verbal and social skills. Most strikingly, these people see the big picture with all the options. Longs for a soul mate.

So now that I know what personality type I am, I'm going exploring for my explorer mate!

As seen on Oprah at www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200902_omag_love_match

How Interesting. Tell Me More.

Silence is golden, as they say. And in a conversation, silence can create a vacuum which you feel necessary to fill – sometimes with inane facts and sometimes with snippets of your life, or even all of it.

I’ve been noticing this fact with several men I’ve met recently. I wasn’t deliberately baiting them with being mysterious and cryptic, although this is a pretty good game in itself, but rather that was how events played out – they were more than willing to talk all about themselves, and I let them.

In Brunei, I went out with a guy who picked me up in his SLK200. Good start, if he were trying to impress me. Better if he were rich and still humble. But, over one course of dinner (no starters or dessert), I found out practically everything about him. His days of glory as a national footballer who helped his team win the Malaysia Cup in the late 1990s, his marriage and subsequent divorce (blamed on his wife’s supposed infidelity), the family business he’s running (and how successful it is) and the contracts they got, his education, his (various) cars, his (expensive) hobbies, his family… Seriously, practically everything. Since I got a meal out of it and a ride in a convertible, which he drove round a bit top-down, it was not such a hardship to plant an interested look on my face and urge him on and on.
After that I mocked him mercilessly to some of my friends, of course. But for him, it was a great date! Why wouldn’t it be? Here was a girl hanging on to his every word. Oh joy.

Then there was the guy I met up with in KL who expounded on the theory of a winning form in bowling, and his own expertise, naturally.
And another who confessed part of his past, about which he had never even told his wife.

And just yesterday, I met a guy, who sat down at my table because we had shared a chuckle over the fact that his Harley had set off a car alarm. In just an hour or so, I had learned all this about him, without much prompting necessary, just some silence: Where he’s from, where he’s working now, why he is working where he is working now, what he does in his job, how much he gets paid as this product manager of a hypermarket, how much he gets paid extra because his boss wanted to uproot him from JB to KL, where he is staying, how he gets to work, his special-edition Harley and how much people are offering for it, where he went on his Harley rallies, his Harley ring, T-shirt, jacket etc, his other car, his biking history (Kawasaki Ninja to the high-handlebar Harley to this one), his ex-wife, his daughter and how his daughter often complains that Mum doesn’t take her out “jalan-jalan” because she’s so busy going out with Uncle S. That is a lot to take in, from a perfect stranger, no less!

I let them talk, sometimes because I’m not in the mood to share everything about my life. But most times, it’s because they don’t ask.

The guy I met yesterday only asked where I’m staying and what I do, in general. He wasn’t even interested in the answer. And the bowling expert? He didn’t even ask if I had ever bowled before, so I pretended to know nothing about curve balls or wrist flicks, and let him wow me with his knowledge.

This is a bit of a double-edged artform. On one hand, I played the game with this one person I wanted to get to know. Sitting back and listening to him talk with someone else, I noticed how this woman jumped in to cut him off mid-story with her own anecdotes, and he’d patiently wait till she’s done, then continue with his story, which had not reached its conclusion and point by the interruption. So when I had the chance, I asked him questions, and let him tell his story to its conclusion, without butting in. But that’s because I sincerely wanted to know. And I wanted to impress him with my listening skills.

As for the others, letting them talk negated the need for me to share my life story. And, at the same time, suss them out for who they really are. Men who are very proud of themselves, and want you, the little woman, to know all about it.

And by the time they are finished, there is no point, really, in telling them anything about yourself. They don’t really want to know. They might not be able to handle the fact that you're more successful or more interesting than they are.

They just want you to be impressed. And fall all over them. Not a chance.

The Little Devil wants to run a marathon

The Little Devil is really little, if you don't know by now. I'm "five feet in heels", something I say when people ask my height, and petite. In that sense (I'm making the excuse beforehand), I've always thought I wasn't built for long-distance running. Just look at marathon runners, and triathlon athletes - they're tall, big and bulky, with huge reserves of fat to draw from when they're "running on empty", plus huge lung capacities (my lungs are small, thus I always have extra air when scuba diving).

In school, I've only competed in sprints - the 100m dash, 200m at the most. Get me to run 400m and I'm dead halfway round the track. Running 5km would take me more than an hour.

But as old age creeps, or rather, gallops up on me, and I can't sprint in record-breaking times anymore, I thought I'd try to develop some long-distance stamina to get fit and toned. Thus the (day)dream of completing a marathon, and even a triathlon.

Tell you the truth, the dream has been ongoing for years now. And nothing much has happened towards its fulfilment. In early 2000s I ran (or walked) the charity Terry Fox Run, still taking about an hour to complete 4.5km (those hills around Lake Garden are murder!) and last week I took about 45 minutes to saunter the streets of KL for the charity Rat Race organised by my company (it felt a little less than 4km). Oh, now that I think of it, I actually registered for the Penang Bridge marathon in 1999 but didn't go (sheepish grin).

And those charity runs were only 4km. A marathon is 10 times the distance. Seems like an undoable task. The Greek soldier Pheidippides, who had been credited (in some accounts) with running from Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon, managed to run into the assembly, announced "we have won" and promptly keeled over and died. Not very inspiring, huh?

Inspiring, though, are people who have succeeded, if not in elite 2-hour and a bit times, within the set time limit for certain marathons to get a medal (pictured), or if there are no limits, before they open the streets back to traffic, at a pace of 13 minutes (or 14) per mile (1.6km).

If you don't reach a certain cut-off point, runners have to take to the sidewalks, or in cases like the Marine Corp Marathon, hop aboard the strugglers' bus. (That would definitely be me. In high school in Kuantan, when we were doing the 11km Teluk Chempedak to Balok run, my roommate and I took the strugglers' boat!).

And that's the marathon. What more the triathlon, with 3.8km of swimming, 180km cycling and a full marathon to boot in the long-distance or Ironman event. Gal-pal Debby (she of the Miz Cool moniker) says she wants to do this, too, but needs a serious kick up the nether regions to even start training.

Well, I'm afraid I've got sad news... or let's call it another excuse. I've got a bum knee. A bum knee is something which can be used in any or all instances as a reason for not doing something. Just ask some men.

This bum knee developed in 1996 when I was on holiday from uni (let's call it skipping a week before Winter holidays) and touring London with cousin Rozi, her future hubby Meri, Meri's sis Leen, cousin Ziad and Meri's friend Azreezal. I didn't know how it developed, but maybe the cold didn't help. Walking down a flight of steps, there was a sudden ache in my left knee which meant I could not bend it without grimacing.

It has come and gone since then, usually when I've exerted myself. Coming down Mount Kinabalu in 1999 was complete agony, even when favouring the knee meant crab-walking (going sideways) all the way down. In the AXN Challenge in 2005, it started hurting about an hour into the race, thus I was walking/limping/hopping for the next seven hours.

Colleague Pat (whose own knee was ruined by squash) suspects I've got cartillage damage. Thinking about it, I thought it could be from years of school sports and doing the dash, especially without stretching. Or maybe, he says, some people are more susceptible to osteo-arthritis than others.

Anyhoo, seeing as Malaysians do not have easy, or cheap, access to physiotherapists, I doubt the problem will go away, and pushing through the pain might make the problem worse. Sigh. So in the end, will the dream remain a day dream? For the time being I can only sit here, with my knee elevated to relieve the ache, and wonder.

I Turned Around and You Weren't There

I just learnt that I can't work alone. Unsupervised, yes, but not alone, especially when the work regards writing. An essay, article or headline, I work better if there are other people around.
When I was a reporter at The Sun, there was always a hubbub of people talking, asking for advice, in some cases yelling, that this was never a problem. Not so much that I noticed, as I seldom did my writing at home. Then it was on to subbing, still with many people around me.

Most recently at the Brunei Times, when I got back into writing feature stories, there was colleague Arfa, and then Juli, off of whom I bounced ideas. Sometimes they didn't even need to say anything - all that was necessary was a pretence of being heard and the answer was there, whether it was the most perfect word for a headline or a sentence structure which would not make me sound like a moron.

It's like those proverbial "at the tip of my tongue" things - what you're looking for is there, you just need an impetus to bring it to the fore, and usually this involves sounding out a query. But maybe I just like the sound of my own voice... hmmm...

Well, anyway, I'm on my own now. And I'm struggling. I've been trying for weeks to work on the article for my high school reunion this weekend, and I have come up with nothing. Nada. Zilch. Satu kejadah pun takde apa-apa. And I despair at the idea of freelance writing, thoughts of which I'm entertaining for some extra dosh.

But I can't write by myself. I sit at the desk I've put up by the window in my room (pictured) and stare at the blinking cursor on a blank page, then stare out at the bit of swimming pool and garden down below. In front of me are my clothes on the rod hanger, and they're not really into having conversations. To my left is my bed, with not even a teddy bear to feign concern. And when I turn around, there's nothing but an empty wall. And no one behind me.

I guess I'll just have to heed my own words, usually said in a hoarse whisper to Juli when she goes home late a night: "Jangan Pandang Belakang."

Can I borrow your mother?

My mother has been gone now for 18 years, three more than the 15 during which she was in my life. And yet, why are the memories still there?

Why do I still dream of her, and during these dreams sometimes totally forget that she has passed away? Sometimes in these dreams I rationalise the years that she's been gone - in one dream she had to "disappear" (like in those movies where people go into protective custody) for several years, in another she lost her memory, and in the others she was just there. No real explanation. I had my mother - the one who died when I was 15 - and we did the normal mother and daughter stuff.

Is it me? Is it a subconscious calling out into the darkness of the mind for my mother?

My daylight soul would dismiss this in the first instant. I'm a grown adult. I don't need my mother. I barely knew her, and when she was around, I only knew her as a mom who worked odd hours for the Malaysian News Agency (Bernama). She was a bit tough with us kids (she had a bit of a temper - probably where I got mine?) and hardly seemed to be at home. We were brought up mostly by the maids.

But I do remember once she ran over our kitten and bought us toys to soften the blow when she broke the news. And she and my dad often took us on holidays, when I suppose it would be easier to travel without kids along.

And when I went to work at Bernama, I found out more about this woman my mother. Well-liked, friendly, a good sense of humour - all the things a daughter would never really know, even if she were still alive.

Do I regret not having a mother? Maybe up to a point. In a Malay (or Asian) society, mothers are not the "best-friend" confidantes they are made out to be in Western books or movies. Do we really talk freely about our boyfriends, our periods, our expectations of the first night of marriage, for instance? Can we discuss our bodies, our confidence in our looks or talents, our dream of meeting this great good-looking guy who can make the earth move? Can we ask how Mom and Dad met, how they fell in love and how will I ever get over this jerk who dumped me?

And yet ... I find myself daydreaming of finding a man with a mother who will love me like mothers should.

Today, March 28, is my mother's birth date. Just after midnight, I was going through some of my jewellery, and picked up the jade bracelet that once belonged to her. I don't know if she ever wore it or it had been bought for investment. I've never worn it (it's too big) and it's been sitting wrapped in red paper, in a blue velvet case, for the past 18 years. It's one of several things that I have of hers, picked up after Dad remarried.

So I have my mother in snatches of memory. In items left behind. In the eyes of friends who knew her better than a daughter ever could.

But really, I don't have a mother at all.