How long?

Abusive relationships - something we read about constantly. And hot on the heels of the recent #metoo and #timesup movements, I feel like I should speak up, albeit slightly too late. Truth is, I’ve debated on whether I should go public with this for fear of the possible backlash, drama, and rumours it might spark. But upon further deliberation, if not now, then when is ever a good time to claim my voice as a woman in this day and age? Especially when the other party is doing all he can to spin ridiculous tales, some as far-fetched as “She threatened to kill herself if I leave her” to his family members. Anything to paint a perfect picture of a nutjob to convince the people on your side to stay on your side, right? Friends would know that I am anything but this person. 

There’s a lot that go into abuse, first being the emotional blackmail.

When you’re backed to a corner, frozen to the point of inaction, fearing that any next move would cause further damage to what’s left of the relationship, silenced from saying much, you’re emotionally blackmailed.

“Bitch, ungrateful, boss-fucker, golddigger”. When, in your efforts to move on, you try to ignore his messages and advances because you recognise the harm they’re causing you, only to be called “selfish” and a slew of other degrading names in return, that’s an emotional and verbal attack.

When he realises he has a power over you and that you would never, ever desert him because your self-confidence has all but been ground into smithereens, then on top of all of it, cheats on you with another person, you’re a fucking emotional hostage.

And it hurts way beyond the physical abuse. Yes, second comes the physical abuse.

Furniture flying across the room.
Your favourite item smashed to bits into the floor.
A punched-in, dented wall in the apartment elevator.
A slap to your face.
A kick in your gut.
Constant shoving to reinstate dominance.

All of the above, checked.

So, what DO you do? Nothing much. “Just move on and move away from him”, right? If only it was as easy. I’ve considered quitting my job because he’s there, sat at meetings collaborating on many projects. I’ve considered moving out of the country to escape anything and everything that has to do with him. Friends say I’m overreacting. If only they knew. So here I am, shedding some light on what I’ve been through the past few years. It’s not easy, and my health and physical being have suffered greatly. I’m free now, but for how long? 

Hidup ini memang palat

Today was overwhelming. Not in a good way. Not particularly in a bad way, either. It’s that uncomfortable, suffocating feeling when there’s too much humidity in the air. A helplessness that washes you over, pulls you under and drowns you. At times it’s unbearable, especially when you realise you’re alone in all of this. 

Tapi like they say, besok masih ada. 

To break your heart first before you crush mine.

How Are You?

"Is everything ok there?"

"Trying to cope. I have my down days and etc." 

*silence*

- 

"How are you doing?" 

"Not good but nobody wants to hear that. Have a good day ahead :)" 

*silence*

Nobody wants to know if you're not okay. They've got their own problems to deal with. You should be expected to deal with your own demons, too.

Best format of reply, for future reference:

"How are you?"
"I'm great :)"

Little Rock, Big Rock

“You’re jaded,” he responded. 

Him and I know everything there had to be known about each other - something that comes with being close friends for an absurd amount of time. Not childhood-friends-long, but long enough. Each up and every down have been divulged to him at our sporadic catch-ups. Sporadic, because we would probably find daily company to our distaste. Sporadic, yet I feel enriched at the end of every meet. 

“I don’t have the words to perfectly put it, but try imagining this,” he struggles to explain to me what he thinks I might be going through. 

“Imagine there’s this tiny piece of…rock. And this is going to sound very stupid, but imagine this tiny rock. And then imagine this big one. Now everyone seems to enjoy this big rock,” he breaks into fits of laughter as soon as he realises the joke. 

“You have been enjoying this big rock, along with everyone for a while now.” Pause. Uncontrollable laughter again. Our ayam masak lemak sits half-touched on the table. 

He takes a sip of sparkling water and continues, “but suddenly you see this tiny rock right next to the big one, and you find that you like it better.” 

“This tiny rock has always been there, remember that. And there are a lot of tiny little pieces of rocks around the big rock and you’re slowly starting to notice them and, well, enjoy them. Take your time.”

Happy birthday to me. 

Happy birthday

Hey Luca,

Been a while, a very long while - since we've talked, and since I've updated this space (it's been more than a year? wtf). It's your birthday today, and if you are still alive (I hope you are), well, Happy Birthday, I miss you.  To be honest, I have so much to say yet I couldn't think of anything to say at all. To say and to think that you would still be reading my blog wouldn't make any sense as even I have abandoned it for more than a year. It's a stretch, but perhaps, maybe, someday, you'll see this.

I don't remember exactly when you decided to vanish, but that wasn't very nice of you, to not say a single goodbye to me at all. You're always in my thoughts, regardless. Have a good one. Have many good ones. And hopefully one day we'll sit down to some Kings of Convenience or Massive Attack and talk. And talk. And never stop. You always have the better stories, anyway.

Love,
Jo.

Well hello

Stuck at work, 2015hrs, rereading everything that's been said and done here and doubting my current self of the capabilities I once never knew I had but only now realise in hindsight. You've come a long way, Jo. Time to start treating yourself like a damn adult. 2014 is turning out to be a tentpole year for maturity, it's not even funny anymore. Good, in a way. Stability is always a good albeit boring thing. Only problem is your reluctance in admitting it. Burning questions of "What if"s and "What for"s make their perplexing rounds every once in a while but no matter, so long as you're still ticking. 

Deaths. Let's talk about it (wow, still morbid I see). No, not so much morbid as curious. Read an article about how, if you fall from immensely high altitudes, you could end up on the ground butt-naked. And obviously dead. What a way to go. 

Leaps and bounds better than this slow, painful one.

-----

Edit: On a roll. 2245hrs. Still at work for no solid reason. Ironic that "words" are what's saving and at the same time killing me right now. So much power in words that we take for granted; use them wisely, kids. Fake them too if they'll make others feel better is what I've been telling the part of me who is still yearning to be a little less selfish. See what I told you regarding the tentpole? Never mind me, running on lunch here. God, I want so much to go home and reward me with some good ol' scrub down and then cuddles. Can't afford the latter however, due a multitude of reasons - lethargy and geography being the two main strains. So this is what we've arrived at, eh? 

Still morbid, indeed.

Mita

My dear Mita, you have no idea what impact you have made on my life. You were one of the few people I was actually moved to be friends with; I simply had to have you in my life, when I saw you back in college. You were smart, so incredibly smart. And that smile of yours, so contagious. Your presence, soft, silent, but reassuring. And to this very day, how we managed to maintain contact is something I'm highly thankful for. I cannot understand how you - no matter how tired or busy you were - could still make yourself available to me when I'm in need of help at work. I cannot understand how we were only just in the company of each other barely two weeks ago, and now you're gone. You didn't have to leave so sudden and soon, you know? More people like me yearn to have a friend like you in their lives. Words can only do so much, for to fit my feelings into sentences is like trying to take a photograph of the colossal galaxy. I can only try my hardest to understand, that things like this just happen. And they can happen at anytime, to anyone. This time, it hit a little too close to my heart. You will be remembered, forever.

Us, 2011

6 Months Later...

I do not know where the urge to put out another post came from but here I am, at another work desk, typing as if my life depended on it. It's amazing, how quite a number of things have occurred and didn't in the past 6 months since the last post. How has it been? Mediocre, according to a perspective; quite thrilling, according to Perspective Two. 

Perspective One insists that there could have been more substance, more...magic. 

"Productivity, you mean," said Perspective Two. "Which you did achieve, to some level. You put out two songs - one went viral, released a music video, played a handful of shows, and you quit your job then took on Cambodia. Celebrated your birthday, got back on radio for 4 weeks, chilled out for 3 months and threw all cares to the winds. I'd say that was quite something. Now, you're two months back in on a desk job and you don't really have much to complain about. So, shut up, One!" 

"But a lot of bigger things could have taken place! You were so, very lazy," said Perspective One, always careful, sensible, dissatisfied. 

Perspectives, arguing it all out, all the time. Some fights can be rather entertaining, particularly as the numbers grow. I remember playing witness to the time when Perspectives Two, Six, and Seven had a go at each other...what an interesting day that was. 

I never meant for this post to go in this warped out direction about the perspectives but that's the thing about freewriting, you just let your mind lead your fingers where it wants to go. Sort of like how someone charges up to you as you were having a cup of coffee and exclaims in your face, "You have to listen to this! Hand me your phone, let me search it for you. I believe this can really inspire you!"

   

And he didn't even know me, really, really know me. Flattering, in a way. Sometimes it feels good to just let things happen on their own accord. We all know, deep down inside that most things naturally fall into and out of place by themselves and for some of these instances, it's nice.

Bibelot

And again we shall attempt to churn out a post out of boredom. Senseless ennui, as I always like to call it.

Today gripped me in confusing ways. I am calm, despite the blow that was the 23rd of January, yet I am bored. The earphones are starting to feel like they're a part of my head, and the sounds that come from them, though not as good as what good speakers are capable of, are not moving me at all. I know not anymore what is a good song and what is not, not with these earphones. A dissolution from over-saturation. Try doing what I've been doing at this table for the past 3 months and you'll probably end up here too.

Hello. Was the journey as sluggish and dreary as mine?

Oh, writing. Drama. Exaggeration without an intention to do so nor knowing why we do so. Of course none of it really matters. In fact, matters like this post on this blog do not matter at all, for I am my one and only audience. Yet I put this out. Why?

Because it is more convenient to type and erase and add and subtract. And seeing that I can't have anything close to a proper conversation these days due to the absence of mortal company/ beating-heart presence, the urge for any form of closure has to be appeased and made manifest here. Please note that I now admit to possible incoherence in my sentences. 

Foreseen, a particular natural query that others are apt to question upon arrival at such posts - precarious, dangerous, personal,  quite inappropriate, and redundant. Why? Regardless of subjective opinions put forth by varying individuals, I personally think that the only justification to my behaviour is aided by my certain propensity to the idea of this outward spewing of nonverbals - whether it is making sense, substantial, and agreeable, or not - to the vast unknown of viable knowns and unknowns. Doing so builds and even accentuates an unmistakable yet discreet sense of inner, unvoiced satisfaction and fulfillment of detachment. Not very unlike allowing the masses to read up on your memoir. Again, I'd like to emphasize that although varying (subjective) opinions/judgments are freely formed and stubbornly stood by, it is, however, profoundly recommended that said opinions and the like be set aside prior to engagement of action (reading). 

And yeah, because you want it out in the open instead of stashed in one of the many notebooks you've bought in your muddled past, and ultimately forgotten in the dust of time, right? There I go again, writing. Drama. Exaggerated drama in writing. Where's that moleskine that's still devoid of content, anyway? Remind me to go home and find it. But do we have time?

Time has lately been cruelly divided into portions uneven and ridiculous for me. I spend a total of up to 4 hours sitting in a crawl on a highway amongst other people sitting in the same crawl on the same highway, every day. And in between that, I sit on a chair at a table with little to no work to do, every day. Then, I am left with the final few hours of the weekdays for things I need more time to do but the productivity in these final few hours will never be fully harnessed, not after dealing with all the demotivation from the stagnant, major prior portion of time spent sitting down not being able to do anything else unless it is work-related. See how it is all so unfair?

Stop.

Look up and around. Inhale with your eyes the fluorescent lights that fill up the space around you and then close them, your eyes. Now open. It's 4.30PM. You have one more hour. You now have a choice to continue stringing together notions in the form of weak sentences, or to venture further into the depths of the internet in search of another entertainment armed well enough to kill off an hour.

Come, let's google conspiracy theories.

Note to mae

Whatever you do, do NOT forget that final week of 2012.

Forgive me if I'm wrong

But who am I to say or know who matters until I waste precious moments with them? Lately, I’ve placed a particular amount of guilt-trip on myself, especially upon reflection of certain people in my past. I regret every moment that I spent with someone who caused me pain, but then I reflect on it, and it’s not regret. 

It’s defense. A barrier that I put up, so that when I talk to other people, I can make it sound like I’ve got my shit together. But none of us seem to have it together, even when we believe that we do. And the reality of my situation is that I never regret what I was wholeheartedly passionate about in that moment of the past, even if that passion no longer exists today.

EMPT

Answers!

Do I really, really have this much time in my hands or am I just a super shiteous employee? That's right, cue the pointy fingers and point them, oh you point them until the whole ordeal gets too pointless for pointing. How pointy is the tip of the sword of a swordfish? Never mind.

I'm taking the time to compile another CD for the Waj-diggity. Taking the time? No, couldn't be. Time was given without my even asking for it. Hence I'm USING this time and simultaneously appearing stupider than stupid. No scratch that. Restart. 

I've been using a good amount of time catching up on things only accessible through this 14inch of a screen. Reading, mostly. Finding out, reading. It's weird, cause it's as though I'm slowly becoming smart again. Smarter that my stupid radio self. Just smarter than stupid, in truth. 

Let's go away now. Ever wondered how our liking for songs has swayed so much over the years. I have, and I know it's weird. Weird, in a good way, I'd say. Weird, in a quite eccentric kinda way, some might say.

  
It's weird, because we reject the mainstream in hopes that there is something more. There IS, and always will be something more, hence we search...and sometimes we find those lil gems in the rough. No diamonds. A "diamond" is merely part of human nomenclature. Let's stick with gems for now. Because we have hopes for something more. Always. 

But that's a diamond you hold in your grubby hands..that's a diamond alright, my friend! 
Oh I wish I believed you, friend. 

Watched Life of Pi last week. Touched my heart in many soft places, but I guess you can never be fully satisfied with a screen adaptation of a book you've read 3 times, even more so when it's one of your favourites of all time and you know it all by heart. No blind Frenchman conversation, but I'm glad they featured the freak island. It may seem like the whole piece is just a page-filler - a separate, completely irrelevant, hallucinated and deluded entity - but wait, there has to be meaning to this! An island that welcomes you with refuge and rest, but kicks you out just in time before it eats you up? It's saying, "don't you get comfortable now. Move on, sail away, great things await. Go!" 

It's the idea of settling for something you think is good, abandoning the notion that there could be something better. How then, do we know if what we have in our grubby hands now is a rare, blazing piece of rock we call a diamond?

But of course

Oh hello, 

Who's bored? Eat a sandwich.

But if you're only just mildly there, then I suggest you do what I'm doing - write a post with no intention nor direction at all as to what said post would be about. Great, now that we've shaken hands and exchanged hello's, onwards!

You know, I really wonder at how everyone around me in this office has come about to propping themselves at their cubicles from 9-5 every single day for the rest of their lives. Why do people do that? Is this what we've been taught to do as we were growing up? To go through school and college and uni and then...this? Accepting reality. Accepting life. Being responsible. How is it even comfortable to begin with? 

Then spread your wings and go out and discover the world and be happy, they tell me. But how, with no money to exchange for this...happiness? Is happiness then, not free? But of course! All things in life are free of charge if you pay for it :) but.of.course. 

Money is such a shit form of currency. Whoever elected to use money as a medium of exchange probably thought it was the most brilliant idea ever. Look at us now. 

Imagine if happiness was in its place. How much is this sandwich? 10 happies, sir. Here you go, now I'm sad. But in 10 minutes, someone will be coming around to make you happy again. And that happy is free, because it is your heart that is happy, not your pockets. You're right, may you earn a lot of happies today. Thank you for the sandwich, good day, good sir!


Good day back atcha.

Freewrite

Hello month of December!

It's been a while, hasn't it? You have no absolutely no idea what has happened since November...and November was only just last month! 

I sit here, right now, in an office. Yes. AN OFFICE. Because one day, sometime in the past 2 weeks, I woke, put on my clothes, headed for work and subsequently a beeline to the bosses and said to them, goodbye. 

Pretty much yanked the plug on that one. I still question myself if it was too quick of a decision. But then again, it just, simply, had to be done. Complacency is a very, very bad thing. And as stupid as it sounds, I'm running out of time to make something of myself. 

Dreams, ambitions, goals and the sheer wanting of....something. Meh.

So, goodbye radio. Goodbye VT room which I've grown to love. Goodbye odd working hours, goodbye empty afternoons, goodbye tofu at the cafeteria, goodbye perez hilton, goodbye no make-up face, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

And hello adulthood?

They say the year you're 25 (next year for me, holy shit) is a crucial year wherein you will, er, change (for lack of a better word). I guess that's true to a point - you'll realize who you are, your priorities determined, and you'll generally see a much, much bigger picture of things. I mean, why not? 25 years is a quarter of a century. Ample time to grasp ample understanding of the world and its oddities. Hopefully it applies for me. 

One thing I've learned though - expectations yield much heartache. Don't mean to sound so negative here, but that's how it is. So take things easy, not everything will hit the exact mark you desire. 

The difference between "I don't know" and "I Don't Care". Ignorance vs Apathy.

But oh well I wouldn't know for sure until I've experienced 25, hey? Then again, here I am, already going through one heck of a month - it's like one big sandwich of bacon-awesomeness, lettuce-awkwardness, ketchup-sweetness, and grain-randomness. 

Doesn't sound like a good sandwich? Well, I'm gonna have an amazing sandwich for lunch today to make up for shitty writing. 


You should too.

Witching Hour, they say

Back from my absence and here's the reason why. Well, sort of. Been working on this song for about 3 months and finally mustered enough courage to share it with the world. No idea why but we were so anal about this baby. The drums weren't right, the snares were too loud, the reverb wasn't enough, the kicks don't kick, etc etc. But inspiration came one day, like how it would and tadaaa! Really pleased with what we accomplished in this track, using only GarageBand, mind you. So I thought this definitely deserves a place on the borderline non-existent blog.

Happy November!

Vomit

Sometimes, to some people like me, rejection changes your whole life. That's the thing about us humans that makes us incomparably different to all other beings on this planet. We feel. 

And when I feel, I am reminded to do me a favour and feel; to plunge into the depths of my self and lie in it for a while. It is what draws one being to another - that sinewy, sticky substance that reaches out and pulls people to people. And if that is not beautiful enough, it is also what destroys the own self.

But we destroy to rebuild. We must always feel.

Back to rejection. You don't know how much this matters until you have truly been rejected. But I guess we have all been there before at some point. Then we leave the confines of that cold, cold place. Slowly, resolutely, eventually. Maybe even hopefully, still.

But the truth is this: that place never leaves us. Talons ever-sharp, it latches on to our shoulders and steers us towards where it wants to go. And in time, it becomes our only motivation. It becomes all we know.

Then one day you stop to take a look at yourself, and your eyes, they light up with sudden realization - the person you're staring at that fateful day was born from one place only. A place called Rejection. 

Tsk tsk

Looking back on 2010, & 2009 and wondering why the hell do girls my age get so insecure and feel so shitty about ourselves. We curse at ourselves, tell ourselves to get a grip, hate on ourselves, get so heartbroken by random people, so obsessed with people unworthy of being obsessed about, and somehow felt it so important to let it all out for the whole world to know.

Us. Girls. So Funny. Vying for attention that nobody would be bothered giving because it's just so so so typical. We all grow up soon enough though.

Otherwise, grammar-wise, impressive I should say. Perhaps it's really time to work on this blog again. Here are some resolutions: stop slouching, stop cracking knuckles, drink more water, read more books, read a lot of books, maybe run a little. And work on the blog.

Idol rAchel has aged so much and gone on to become someone at Harvard. She is, also, no longer fun-seeming. Still inspiring, nonetheless.

Oh, life. You peculiar thing. So minute and trivial yet too slow and magnified for our human brain comprehension. Hence, we look to idols and random people unworthy of being obsessed about.

Only human.

Hello Mr Nazari

I write upon your request. You got a point there - I have not been updating. Well mainly because I've been so aloof from everything personal. To put it simply, I haven't had much time of my own after August.

Life has seen a tenfold increase in social activity (and workload but we shall talk about that later), and I think I got it somewhere in a corner of my mind to be a weekend warrior. Has it been good? Yes. And bad at the same time. This blog, for instance, has not seen an update and it does seem as though I've met with a grave, sudden...uh, something bad.

Well, I was just distracted.

And I'm fatter now, said my brother just now - my brother whom I've only last met last month. Yes I'm currently back in Penang for the Lunar New Year holidays. This could possibly mean that I will be getting even fatter for it is quite impossible to NOT feed Jake, here in Penang. I missed Penang. I missed you, in Penang. I missed you.

I was just thinking how retreating from the city to things of a smaller scale once in a while helps so much in terms of reflection and keeping a sane mind. It's been almost 2 years of service to the company that you hated so much once upon a time. And those "almost 2 years" took me up, down, far from, and very deep into myself. I realized that it's probably time to throw in the letter and go. Where to? I don't know. This year could very well be an insightful one, compared to 2011 - the year I failed to update my blogspot.

Apart from work and being fat, I've also found myself a group of friends who are simply awesome, and delved a little bit into music-making too. Check this out:

+ by +2dB

All in 2011 :)

Nothing too impressive. But it's been fun. We're just fooling around, really. As for pictures, come on, my facebook is not short of them. Sri Lanka happened, Bali happened (twice), plus a whole lotta concerts and nights out and letting loose and getting lost.

Here's a short paragraph on something you'd be absolutely clueless about. Skip it if you want to. But you won't. I know.
KL has been struck by a sudden wave of young adults wanting to be "hipsters". I, personally despise that term and anyone who proudly calls themselves that. What in the world is a "hipster" and if it means "not mainstream" then can someone explain why it is so "cool" and popular? What's worse - they've adopted it on to the radio and made a show, specifically calling out "hipsters"...and then playing dubstep. Oh, so hipsters listen to dubstep?

So much pretense, it saturates everything and everyone. You never really know who anybody really is in this crazy city.

Thanks for the email,
and good luck, Yeti Tracker!

♥

August Blabbers

Holy dolphin was August eventful or what? If there was one word I could describe the past month with, it would be "Hurtling", (grammar, structure, and whatnots aside) cause it really did feel like I was hurtling/hurtled past the days, through the weeks, into the mornings, and out of bed. Rinse, repeat, thank you very much.

Frankly I can't even recall half of what happened in the 3 weeks that were; it was a vague mosaic picture of (in no particular order) cuddles, good food, mosquitos, chatime, literal fast breaking, weekend debaucheries, hours away from home and self, weekday stowaways, electro-esque earish fantasies, and finally possibly finding someone whom I think could very much help me from my self and state. His name is Anwar and mom doesn't have to know.

It's really back to that phase of busyness that has yet to be defined; the one where you don't exactly know what you're doing and why you're doing so, nor where you're going with what you're doing. All you know is that you're indulging and having genuine fun, and that's all you think about, sort of all that really matters.

I'm strictly refusing to think of it all as a bad thing though. Instead it shall be acknowledged as a process; a transition point, if you may. The positive wagon hasn't come back since the last time I fell off, so I'm guessing this is what I do as I grapple and while the time away till it comes round the mountain again. Perhaps what I'm really doing is building my own wagon...can't fully rely on the volatility that is the Schedule and Times of the Positive Wagon now can we?