About Nude Not Naked

Lina offered traditional massages and was very good with her hands. Everyone loved Lina because she was special. She not only could heal your body. She could heal your soul.

‘I didn’t want it to happen this way,’ I said, then breaking into silent tears. I drew my hand towards me face and wiped a secret tear away. I was lying on my stomach when we had the conversation. How everything breaks down after sometime and how I broke down each time. She kneaded my back, along the back of my spine. She started at my shoulder blades, slowly moving down and worked on my thighs.

‘Turn over,’ she said, lifting the towel whilst I turned around to lie on my back. She covered my breasts with a neatly folded fresh towel. I laid still, eyes closed as she oiled my hands. ‘You should find an older man,’ she said. ‘And don’t get married this year.’

I opened my right eye and looked straight at her. ‘What do you mean by “older”?’

‘Older,’ she said, then pausing for a second. ‘As in much older than you. Ten, eleven, twelve years older than you. Only an older man can understand you and allow you the freedom that you need.’

‘I am hardly going to marry someone this year, Lina,’ I said, the sighing. ‘I can hardly concentrate ten seconds on any man.’

She laughed, then she patted my head. ‘Listen to me, my child. You will feel calmer when you find that man. He is much older than you, so he will let you go and quench all the desires you have inside. A young man will never understand your needs.’

She moved her hands from the sides of my body, towards the center. ‘This is to centralize your womb. Makes you have good sex.’ I laughed when I heard that. I never knew old ladies were ever bothered about sex. ‘Oh goodness! Look at your belly button,’ she exclaimed.

I lifted my head to see the fuss surrounding my bellybutton. Is it bleeding? Is it dirty? Did I forget to wash my bloody bellybutton? I took a look closer.

‘Your bellybutton is special. Women with bellybuttons like yours make sex good for men. Tight inside. Wraps a man tightly inside,’ she said, then tapping the area surrounding my womanhood. ‘Now remember what Mak Cik Lina said. Find an older man.’



*
I was walking around aimlessly. Waiting, I was waiting for the cab to take me to the airport. I hate flying. I don’t know how I managed to like flying when I was younger. I must have been crazy then.

Actually, I am still crazy now. The backpack decided to slouch off my shoulders as I turned around to pace the space again. Sometimes I wished that I smoked. Then I looked normal when I pace. You see, smokers walk up and down three paces whenever they smoke and they have the most serious look on their faces. I had the serious look because I was seriously late for my check-in but I did not have the ciggie.

I hate cigarettes.



*
‘And what do we have here?’ His red car crept up like a cat upon a mouse. I did not hear it roll by. This is what you get for pacing up and down like a crazy homeless lady. A thousand things can happen around you but you would not have felt them one bit.

I peeped through the window. His MGB Roadster always looked exotic on the streets. ‘Who is that waiting for a cab?" He smiled when he said that.

‘Yes. I know that I am adorable, even when I am frantic,’ I said. He always had this calming smile. He pinned the cigarette at the corner of his lip, got out of the car and threw my luggage into the back. ‘Thank you, darling,’ I said as I got into the passenger seat.

Each of us has a role to play in life. His role in my life was always of the saviour. He and his red MG appear at the strangest and most difficult times in my life. It is as if he knew that I needed someone to carry me through the time and it was him who always carried me through.



*
‘I’ll take you for lunch,’ he declared. ‘I think you need something to fill that stomach of yours,’ he said as he poked my belly with his left index finger. He looked strange with the cigarette pursed at the corner of his lip. He looked like Popeye, the sailorman. Hey, that is quite apt seeing he sails in and out of my life.

‘No!’ I said. I crossed my arms in protest, like a spoilt child. ‘I am already late for the god-damn flight! And I don’t want to miss the flight.’

‘At this rate, you have already missed the flight. Don’t worry about it. You and I will go for some quick bite. I will get my PA to arrange a new ticket for you. Where are you going this time around?’

His car zipped down the street.



*
‘My whole life is like an hour on BBC World. It is frenzied with all emotions twirling and raging inside. My life is a drama and I am in a mess.’ I buried my face in my hands.

‘Oh it isn’t that bad,’ he said, then rearranging my brown locks on my shoulders. ‘You will make it through this one, like how you made it through your last one.’ Somehow his words were soothing. He soothed the pain away. And when I feared anything, he was there to sweep it all away. That was his role to play.

I told him how I got into this mess. How now I have to fly faraway to explain myself. How unhappy I am with everything despite having quite nearly everything. How I feared hurting people around me. How I wanted to be free. How I feared being alone but I could never feel comfortable with someone. I never trusted anyone more than myself. And when I fear, I flee.

He poured some tobacco on the paper. He had perfected rolling tobacco down to an art-form. Watching him craft the cigarette into existence soothed my soul. I grew silent and rested my chin in my hands. I sat entranced as he licked the edge of the paper. He lit the cigarette and drew his first smoke.

‘Now I have to go break-up with a person. I am telling you, I can’t do this anymore. My heart cannot take the heartbreaks anymore.’ I cupped my eyes with my hands. I cannot break down and cry. Not in the restaurant anyway.

He lit his cigarette and then he gave me a squeeze. 'Don't worry. I will take you there.'



*
I rubbed my eyes. It is 8 a.m. but it is still dark outside.

What I love most about being away from Malaysia is, it challenges my daily routine. I find myself bewildered by what I normally take for granted back in Malaysia. A good example would be this morning when I got up and looked out of the window. Another good example would be the oh-so-ordinary trip to the neighbourhood grocer.

This morning I was up like usual. The definition of “like usual” would be 7 a.m. It is calm here; not more than the occasional sound of water chugging through the pipes. I took a peep through the kitchen window. The forest looked different. Ah yes, it is different. It snowed. A lot. The forest was pristine white, with dark chocolate brown lines marking each individual branch of each individual tree.



*
‘Are you free to talk, Miss Otto?’ Her left eye blinked through the small gap through my bathroom door.

‘I’ll be out in a minute. I just need to make sure the yellow eye shadow on my right eye matches my left,’ I said then plastering myself closer to the mirror in hopes that I could match my eye shadow as accurately as possible. No pressure.

If I were to name the culprit for my high (real or imagined) stress level, staying across my office would be it. Clients came in every hour of the day and I could never run away from the phone calls. I had a TV and Astro installed late last year but I was never able to watch TV from 7 a.m. to approximately 7 p.m. My bottom was stuck to the office chair from the moment my eye shadow matched each morning till I was too tired to type another letter each evening.

This morning, I am writing a story to you finally. Staying away from Malaysia means I am writing this to you while sitting on the loo. How different my day is after a 13-hour flight to a city where leaves sprout in late May.



*
I wasted a year of my life taking short breathes. Taking short breathes through tiny slits of imaginary air, before submerging myself into tasks that never seem to end, emerging only to take another short breathe.

Today is the first day I slowed down to smell everything around me. Today is the first day that I find time to take a slow, deep breathes, relishing in the air that my lungs received.

I am not drowning anymore.



*
‘Aiya! Why you don’t fly after the lunar new year?’ my mother asked when she found out that I had a ticket booked for Europe five days before Chinese New Year.

‘Nothing special happens during Chinese New year, so I thought I should fly,’ I said nonchalantly.

Which is true. Nothing ever happens. My family is small, consisting of my parents and three brats they call children. When we outgrew our cute phase called childhood, my parents babysat three siblings, who are equally as bratty as my parents’ real children. Reunion dinners never seemed important. Well, we have reunion dinners but it was a small affair consisting of two adult parents, 3 adult real kids and 3 more artificially adopted kids.

We don’t smoke. We don’t drink and heaven forbids if we ever learnt to gamble! Which left us with only one Chinese sin – eating.

I think Eve spends a typical Chinese New Year. It is family tradition for Eve’s father to talk about the bird and the bees to his three girls after having some Henessy. My family finishes reunion dinner by 6 p.m. We then do random non-Chinese New Year related stuff.

Three years ago, we tried to be our Chinese best. We learnt to play mahjong. We should have realised that it was a failed venture from the start. Even the blind can read the tiles better than my brothers and I.



*
To date, I owe the following to the following people:

1. My contractor, a sum of RM13,000 for building renovation on my office.

2. Alex, a letter answering his questions. An emotional debt.

3. My bank, a sum of RM20,000 for an overdraft.

4. My car financing institution, a sum of RM1050 for the pretty car I zip about in.

5. My credit card institutions, random sums of money for random manic purchases which now include a pair of ruby red Camper shoes and a gold bracelet that looks like an earthworm crawling on my wrist.

I will expedite payment before Chinese New Year, as I would like to clear as much debts as possible. One should start the lunar new year with as little debt as possible. It is like the act of cutting your hair. You always come out feeling lighter and fresher.



*
The sun is out and it is melting the snow away. A sparkle of jewelled water drops off the end of a tree branch.

Do you think the sun will melt my emotions too?



*
‘And that is why men should only tell women things on a “should know” basis,’ he said, then stumping the life out of his cigarette.

One evening, his girlfriend (ever so innocently) asked him how many girls had he brought home to shag on his bed. He now admits that it was a mistake to tell her the truth. He claims that anger seethes through her pretty rows of porcelain teeth. Sometimes she claimed magnanimity by saying that she was cool with it. (Seriously, who was she kidding?)

‘I knew it! I shouldn’t have told her. You should never tell women the truth. Just tell what is necessary, and that’s it!’ he said.

‘No, no,’ I replied, ‘Don’t ever do that. The one thing that a man should never do is hide.’

‘Why?’

‘You will prefer to be nagged for something that you did than for something that a woman thought you do. At least the nagging is justified. She will make up an answer if you did not offer a satisfactory answer. So you might as well get flak for something that you really did. At least you are punished for your real sins, not imaginary ones.'

He lit another cigarette and nodded his head.

Today I’ve decided to talk about something other than emotional blahs. I think my mind needs to take a break. Actually my heart needs to take a break from all the thinking.

I find that time passes by very quickly. I don’t know whether it is because I have been immensely busy or if it’s because I am a little older now and older people feel that time passes by swiftly. Which is why they stop wasting time pursuing irrelevant things in life such as clubbing and shopping and decide to invest their time in baby farming.

I am not keen on baby farming at the moment, so I think I must still be quite young.



*
If you are wondering what I receive in my mailbox, I will now tell you that I receive a decent number of emails from readers who want to ask me a question or two. Most of their questions are of their personal relationship. I don’t think I am a guru in this relationship business although I was described as a relationship and sex guru in a magazine recently.

I think most readers write because they feel a need to connect. They are compelled to share their stories, the very same way I am propelled to share some of mine. I sincerely think that many already know the answers. They just wanted to hear it from someone else. Just like how I know the answers to my questions and yet I seek for readers to empathise and love me.

So as you can see, you and I are not too different at all. I might even be brave enough to say that we are all sitting on the same boat. The only difference is our destinations, which might differ and for most of our lives, it will remain unknown. Which clearly makes living a really happening course of action to pursue. You don’t know which boat you are rocking.

And if for a moment you think that I am a whole lot chirpier in this post, I will have to agree with you. Somehow there are lots of things to celebrate at 6 p.m. after a good day at work.

But that is not the thing that I want to share with you today.



*
The next question I often receive through my mailbox is my choice of books. Somehow many of you think that I must be very bookwormy since I want to be a writer. Quite a good deduction, I must say. However the deduction is quite untrue. I can never call myself a bookworm, mainly because I don’t consider myself to be one.

I enjoy reading quite a bit and when not buying books, I spend my spare time reading them. On any given day, I read a collection of two or more books. I mean, just look at my list of MiniBoyFriends. If I can keep a few at one time, you can be sure that I can juggle 3 books at a go. And true to form, I have 3 books by my bed stand at the moment.

Purchased on impulse a few months ago, I began reading Haruki Murakami’s collection of books – Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman being the first. If I have to choose one of them as a representation of myself, I would choose “A Folklore for My Generation: A Prehistory of Late-Stage Capitalism”. Somehow that particular story represents all that is in me. Other favorite stories include "The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day" and “A Shinagawa Monkey”.

You can imagine how I felt after I read that book. Oh my god, this is my guru. Oh yes, I found out that day that my book (when it is finally written) will be classified in the same category as Murakami’s. And Elliot Perlman, when I read his “The Reasons I Won’t Be Coming”. Honestly, won’t you want to know what the reason was? I was.




*
I was stuck in traffic for the majority of Friday. I was in Clark at 12 noon, Makati at 3 p.m. and somewhere south of Manila at 7 p.m. It was quite a fascinating place, although I have been told to be extra careful when there. So I kept whatever little gold nuggets I had on before taking off at 7:20 a.m. to the Philippines.

Saw the smallest volcano, inactive of course. It was how I imagined it to be - a pristine ring of green in the middle of the sea. Something like a giant green donut, I guess. Then there were the locals, with their faces similar to the Malays here in Malaysia. ‘They are Malays too, just that they’ve migrated to the Philippines,’ said the locals. So the pretty Philippino Reah or Eia looked like the doe eyed Maya Karin from Malaysia.

So does this mean that the Philippino Reah gets special rights too? Seeing that she is afterall from the same bloodline as Maya Karin.




*
'Excuse me. Are you Sandara Park?'

'Erm, no I am not.'

'You look like Sandara. She's a popular actress here in the Philippines.'

That strange conversation happened more than I could keep track. Almost every single local I spoke to told me that I looked like an actress loved by many Philippinos, Sandara Park. Some online articles described her as an actress without substance. So I guess Sandara is like the Korean version of Paris.

And thanks to the security guards manning the gated community where I stayed, many of its residents started to visit my host's house, waiting to see Sandara Park having BBQ dinner. If you have been asked more than a dozen times if you were someone else, you would be curious to find out how that person looks. So I googled for Sandara when I returned home and found a photo of Sandara.

I am sorry to inform you that I do not resemble Sandara Park. Not even on my best hair days.


There is some resemblance if
you squint your eyes a little....



*
I have been thinking of Malaysia’s 50th year of independence. Specifically I have been thinking of what I am supposed to write. Several thoughts have been looping in my mind but I am still quite undecided. By now, you must have noticed that I have quite an opinion for almost anything under the sun and I have always some personal thoughts regarding the state of ‘we are not a secular state’ Malaysia.

I am also wondering how on earth are our universities going to compete with world class universities if we keep stuffing them full of people who are not qualified to be there in the first place.

I think I am quite colour blind. I think all poor people should be helped and I would be most happy to vote for the next politician who would offer true assistance to the needy. The last I have heard, the Indians are still living in derelict conditions in the rubber estates. I wished more could be done for the natives, who by definition, are the true prince of the land.




*
Whatever happened to my MiniBoyFriends? I am mighty happy to say that I saw MiniBoyFriend R about 2 Saturdays ago. We went for a drink and he promised to have breakfast with me on Monday, which he did not. So if you are reading this, you should be feeling really guilty.

Actually, not. I think people grow up and move on. Just like last night when D called me up for a chat. He was bored. Yes, the manager of a rather swanky drinking hole was bored and he looked for me for supper. But I was already sitting in bed with my favourite Murakami book and was not too eager to jump out of bed, like I used to.

The short conversation made me think of very pleasant and colourful nights. It was approximately 4 years ago when we met up but it feels like it was ten years ago. Strange how we get up one day and just decide to do some other thing. Namely, I have decided to move on to other things in my life. I guess the moment we realise that we are quite mortal is the exact moment we grew up. We can't live on forever and we develop priorities in life. We give up some to get some other. I won't call it sacrifice. I think it's just how life is.

But I still like my shoes high and my clothes tight. That bit of me stays forever. So even MiniBoyFriends come and go but the bad girl stays forever.

Someone asked me if he could do a feature me in a local female magazine. Whilst a little tight on time, I found no harm in doing so. Gentlemen’s agreement, isn’t it so? Then I found out that he had replaced me with some other bloggers while I was stuck in a traffic jam from Clark to Manila.

All I can say is thank you for thinking of me in the first place. Sorry that it didn’t work out and that I didn’t answer those questions on time. It doesn’t matter. Some other opportunities would pop up again, I guess. Till then, this is the interview that was to be.



****
Do you have what it takes?
You might notice that the template has changed. You might also notice that the banner isn't appearing at all. Can someone help me with this? I would appreciate a pretty banner for the above or just to help me stick my lousy design into the template. Thank you in advance.

In the past few weeks I have come to realise that there is such a word called ‘limitation’. Or limitations, as I have realised. It is a plural, not just a singular. Which I guess makes it all the worse. The realisation that there are limitations in my life is sitting on my back. It is like trying to push a tonne of bricks on a broken wheelbarrow. You just can’t do it.

Hence the gloom that surrounds everything in my life, including this space on the Internet. It reflects the distinct frustration and depression that I have felt in the previous weeks. All my life, I have felt that everything is possible if I only try hard enough. If I only put my heart in it, I can reap the sweet taste of success.

What is the definition of ‘success’? It can be anything. It can be material success, the ability to have anything that my heart desires. It can be financial success in the form of a trip to the bank to hear how the coins in my piggy bank clink against each other. Success can be emotional, the feeling of comfort and security one feels with a loved one. It can be found in friendships and companionship among kindred spirits.

Sometimes success can be in the simplest things, like the freedom to travel as I please and the flexibility in timetable. I have never been bound to a workstation or an office desk. I don’t think I can ever be. Perhaps because I am a business owner and always have been the boss, I do not feel like many others who work in an organisation, no matter how big or small.

‘You can come up with a billion brilliant ideas and every single one of them is rejected. Then you will know your limitations. You are not the big guy up there,’ PY said while sat on the red sofa in my office. I was sat across her, on my table, replying to emails whilst analysing our lives for the 378th time yesterday.

‘How many people do you think work in a company? Say 100. Out of the 100, how many are the top ones?’ PY asked a few minutes later into our mini discussion. ‘Let’s say the top 20,’ she said, then pausing for a little extra dramatic effect. ‘You will realise that you are just one of the 80 below the 20. And that, my dear, is your limit.’

‘But why can’t I be the top 20?’ I asked.

‘You are missing the point.’

‘I am not. My question is ‘Why can’t I be the top 20?’ If someone has to be on top, why not me?’ I asked. That’s what I mean. My whole life, I have felt that I can achieve anything and everything is within my grasp, if I want it enough. If I do not have the thing, it is because I am not bothered to work hard for it. I have always believed that I can have whatever it is my heart desires if I worked hard towards the dream.


*
‘You are driving me insane!’ I screamed in my car earlier yesterday morning. I had decided to give my parents a visit and we were on our way to a café for breakfast at 10 a.m. Tuesday morning. ‘You give so much pressure and you expect so much from me! I am stressed out!’

‘YOU are stressing ME out!’ my mother screamed in return. This has been our usual mode of communication, which is at 45 decibels or higher. Any lower is considered a good day for the two of us.

My mother has been the driving force behind my ‘success’. There isn’t much of a minute that she does not remind me how much my success is owed to her. I am labelled the ungrateful child if I fail to listen to her instructions. And having differing point of views and opinions in life doesn’t seem to help any of us much. She is stuck in her views and I am adamant that I am a person of my own.

‘Nothing is good enough for you!’ I glared at her. In an instant, I felt like a ten year old having a screaming match again. ‘I am never good enough for you!’ I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and pressed the accelerator on. I saw my father’s image on my mirror. He was quiet throughout the whole journey to the breakfast café. Smart man, I thought to myself. Shut up, save own skin and let the two crazy women continue screaming.

My mother used to call the office when business was at a low. A daily performance report, every single morning at 10 a.m. It drove my staff insane. It drove me insane and I was not even the person who answered the telephone call. There was a lot of pressure to perform and come up with the figure – a figure that she would approve of and agree.

Months of intense labour have past and now the business is at a more comfortable level. A level that my mother had set as a target for the business and a level that she had said so many times I could not achieve. You would figure that I would at least get a pat on my back? No, I don’t get a pat. I don’t any praises or approval. All I get is the immediate pressure for me to purchase the office building.

Not two seconds of rest for me.

‘Businesses have highs and lows.’ That is what I used to tell my mother when my business was at a low. It is a cycle. You cannot be the top dog all the time. You just have to ride out the low times and work even harder so you will emerge as the top dog again when the highs roll by. It was a concept that my mother never understood.

‘Your salary is utter rubbish! At the rate you are earning, you are better employed by a bigger profiting organization.’


*
‘All the pressure you experience is the pressure you have set on yourself,’ Alex wrote in an email two days ago. ‘No one set those goals. It was you who set those impossible goals.’

What is driving me to hold my head up each morning? What am I searching for? What do I want to achieve? Why do I keep raising the bar higher and higher, setting impossible goals every single time? Why I have this urgent need to do things, to achieve more and to have more? Why do I not seem to feel satisfied? Why do I want more? What am I going to do with the ‘more’? Why am I not happy with what I have in my hands?

I know the limitation that I am experiencing at the moment. My business is at its saturation point. It has reached its optimum for this period of time. There is nothing more that I can do that will make it grow more. Whether I spend 6 hours working in my office or 10 hours doesn’t influence its income anymore. I am angry that I cannot do more for it to prosper more. This is it.

Even if I piled in the hours, the income would remain largely unaffected. The payback and return are relatively unchanged, no matter how much time, energy, facilities or service I provide. Realizing this is deeply saddening and disappointing. I realised that there is no more that I can do. No matter how much I pour here, this is already it. I can double my time and energy but they would not double my income.

How sad.

‘Just take the next few months off. You have the luxury of time, so make use of it. Take time off, come and stay with me. Kick back and relax. Let your face enjoy more than 6 make-up free hours. Reflect and take a walk in the park. Write your book.’

It is strange sometimes. So strange that someone physically so far but who is able to light up my path more than 10 000kms away. Alex is telling me that it is time to let go. Do not force myself against something that I cannot change. Instead just be happy with what I have, which is time and the ability to travel and be away from my work desk.

Alex reminded me to appreciate what I have in my hands. Do not be obstinate to push myself hard against something that is beyond my control. Instead I should learn to accept what I cannot change and learn where my limits are. Be magnanimous enough to release my heart to work on things that I can.

‘Just take what you can get paid and move on to do other things in life. Let the business roll for you while you do something that your heart desires. You have a gift that not many have. You have an income even when you are away. So hide on some deserted island off Thailand and spend your days writing the book.’

I was happily bopping around with my life like usual when I was greeted by an email by a certain reader (you know who you are!). This email was a defining moment for you and me. We are featured on KL Lifestyle magazine! Yay! So congratulations, my very intelligent readers! You are on KL Lifestyle! Yay!



I would like to thank whoever that felt that ANNN deserved a mention in KL Lifestyle. I sat prettily between Fireangel and Masak-Masak while Cheesie was on top of me. I can see my face in the darn magazine. That’s it! It’s time to go back to the old Yoga photo.

Oh god. You can’t possibly mention me at the worst time, can you? I was just proclaiming that I wanted to commit blogcide last week and the 10 posts before that was 101% pure depression stuff. So I figured that I have to come up with some cheerful post.

That was wishful thinking, by the way. I write whatever that pops up in my head and write things from my heart. Often they are random thoughts, or as the magazine put it, ‘explores the nostalgia of her life as she travels down the road in her journey of life’.

I don’t know if this warrants a new write-up for the ‘author’ section. But I simply can’t. Not after facing years and years of writing on the topic “Myself” in primary school. It is punishment.

There are some things that I would like to mention here though. And perhaps even correct what was written in the feature. And if you will bear with me, I will quickly run through them and use this as my new “author” page. You think?

• Anonymously Yours
  I am an anonymous blogger and would like to remain that way. Thus if you know who I am or have figured who I am, please please please please allow me to live in my own fantasy world that I am an anonymous blogger. The list now includes Kris and Chook. Shuddup, you two. Please?
  
  Actually I am not a blogger but that is still debatable if you promise to feed me some vodka.



• Dead Since Dec 2006
  I do not write for an automobile magazine for a living. And if I did, I would be dead since December last year.
  
  I contemplated if I could (and indeed should) write about my very short stint at freelance writing for a car magazine. I concluded that it is not nice to write not so nice things about one’s employer. It doesn’t matter if it was for freelance. It doesn’t matter if I am right (which I am). What is the most important is integrity and I would like my future employers/editors to know that I have a good dose of it.
  
  So thank you very much, dear Car Magazine Editors (both old and new) for providing me with the opportunity to write for you. Money can be earned but integrity cannot be bought, so you can keep the money.
  
  I work in a company, which I had established some years ago. It has enabled me to do many things that might have NOT been accessible to me if I worked elsewhere. And this same work has given me the opportunity to explore my writing abilities.



• Help Otto score more stars next time
  Yes. Please help. Blog design was awarded only two stars (which sucks almost as much as humor with one star) and IE doesn't like me. I don't know why and I don't even have the vocabulary to bore you with the details of what's sucky about my blog layout.
  
  ANNN readers unite! Help fix this darn layout problem whateveritscalled.
  



• Humor Shumor
  I would like to thank you for awarding me one star under "HUMOR". I wouldn't even give myself one, so thanks for the encouragement.
  



• Expert in relationships? Pfft!
  I suck at relationships. Which explains why everyone around me has “go forth and multiple”. The only thing that I have multiplied is my boyfriend collection...
  
  Oh God, that doesn't sound good...
  

You know what? Thank God I did not announce where I was sitting for the F1 over the weekend. I was about to launch a Nude Hunt this weekend. Just because I thought it would be fun to catch some of you.

Phew.

Till then, why don't all you guys run and get yourself a copy of KL Lifestyle?
You are all in there with me, baybee.

I am comtemplating if I should close this blog down. The option feels more and more appealing with each passing day.

A conversation is like a game of tennis and when you find someone who interests you in words, it is like you have found your perfect tennis partner - someone that you can slam the yellow ball to and someone who would return the ball hard. A good conversation, like tennis, keeps you running to the corners of your court, banging, smashing, slamming and swearing.

And I love good conversations. I like the fact that you can have conversations anywhere and it can spring up anytime with the most unlikely people. Conversations have the ability to lift dark clouds on grey sky days and add a little zing to your life when you are feeling dreary. I love unusual pieces of conversations and I keep them locked up in my mind, days, months and years after they have gone by.

When executed well, a conversation with a cheeky, cocky and suave man (think Daniel Craig in his Bond role) can be the turning point. The point when I begin to look at a man differently; from disinterest to hot pursuit. Maybe I have watched too many episodes of Sesame Street. I like men who know how to string their words right.

Trust me. Stringing words might be easy but striking a balance between being a bumbling fool trying to pass off as Casanova and an overconfident mouthy human catastrophe is one delicate act that not many are able to achieve. And for every fascinating piece of conversation I have had, I had equal amount of lousy, shitty tête-à-tête. Actually I think I have had more lousy, shitty conversations…

Some conversations throw you off court. They are the unexpected pieces of conversations that grabs your attention from the word “go”. In tennis terms, it is like Martina Hingis running to the extreme right of the court, screaming “ugh!” before sending the ball back to the other side of the court.


***
“We are friends…” I backed three steps before the wall stopped me. “… and friends…” Trapped in the corner. He leaned over and kissed my neck gently. His kisses were like tiny butterflies dancing along my skin. “... and friends don’t do this…” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. My eyes, they fluttered. “… and friends don’t do this…” I said as I pushed him away. “… friends don’t do this…”

“I…” he said as he stepped three steps towards me again. “…never want you as my friend.” His kisses were wild and hurried, like lovers meeting for the first time under the full moon. His hands bundled my hair into a knot, until it was a mop in his right hand. “I want you…” His tongue traced the curvature of my neck. “… as my lover.”

Those were the words I had yearned to hear and when the words came, my fingers ran across his face. Little kisses as light as a drizzle rained on his lips.


***
Every now and then your partner in conversation underestimates your response. He anticipates a softer comeback but with a little wit and perhaps even a dash of cheekiness, you will soon make a mark in the person’s mind. You are the one in hot pursuit and you are the one who is banging the balls hard, back to the other side of the court, in the most unusual ways.


***
“Arent’ you afraid that I would drug you?” His tongue glided along the white cigarette paper. “… that one day, I might drug and rape you?” We were sat in the car on one of our usual drives around the city. He closed his eyes as he relaxed into his first puff. “After all, I bring you your drinks and I have all your things.”

It was true, what he said. Whatever you are searching for, ask AB and he will have it hidden somewhere in his sleeves. He was a DJ afterall and party drugs were as common as a bottle of beer on a weekend.

I leaned over and stretched my arms to embrace him into my arms. I moved towards him and whispered ever so lightly. “You would want…” I began, then moving a little closer towards him. “… to hear me call your name.” I sank back into my seats and I saw a bulge in his trousers. “Now be a good boy.”


***
Certain conversations accomplish simpler things in life. Some conversations exist for the sole purpose of bringing a smile to the recipient. These are random conversations with total strangers. Sometimes it is nice to do something good by lighting up the life of someone. It does not matter if it lasts a second or an hour as long as the person laughed and was lost with you for a moment.


***
The queue was long. There were three people ahead of me. Not too surprising though since it was lunch hour after all. The guy ahead of me had strange things in his trolley. Actually he had a strange thing in his trolley times maybe ten or twelve.

“Why do you need so much sugar?” I asked as the conveyor belt became burdened with many packs of icing sugar. “Aren’t you sweet enough?”

The dark haired stranger turned around. His eyes were searching for the female voice who spoke to him. Was he dreaming again? Did the oriental chick with the cliché Chinese silk dress just said what he thought she did?

“My mother's baking Christmas cakes,” he said, packing his things. It was my turn at the till. I smiled at the cashier. "Hello!" I said, trying to cheer the cashier up a little. Poor cashier must have bleeped thousands of items in Tesco today, I thought to myself when the stranger handed me a torn piece of his receipt. I unscrambled it and saw random numbers sitting next to each other.

012.250.XXXX


***
There are however some conversations that are heartbreaking. These conversations loop in my head, like a migraine on a busy day at work. In their pasts, they burnt hearts and bled emotions, perhaps even tears for what could have been a different future.


***
“Please return the house keys to me,” he said. “You do not need them anymore.”

Tears were streaming down my cheeks as I shook my head. We were sat in a warm embrace in Arlanda Airport. It was the last summer I spent frolicking in the warm summer sunshine in bikinis, oblivious to everything around us. We flew everywhere together. We did everything together, with very few things being the exception. He was the love of my life and after the next sentence, he became a past tense in my life.

“No,” I cried. “I am coming back soon.” I swept the tears from my face. But I guess we both knew that it was the end. I was stubborn and I refused to let the person go. I refused to acknowledge that my heart had moved on to another and it was no longer in 19 Ynglinggatan, Odenplan. My heart has flown away and the only person who knew was the one who lost it.

“Alright,” he said, pacifying me a little with a little rub on the shoulders. He always rubbed my shoulders soothingly whenever I felt stressed. “You keep the keys and I will see you soon, flickkvan.”

“Ja. Jag vill se du snart. Jag älska dig, pojkvän.” I replied in Swedish.

I saw a stream of tears rolling down his cheeks as we kissed each other goodbye for the summer. There in Arlanda stood two stubborn lovers biding goodbye. They were not the first and they will never be the last.


***
Cheeky conversations. What can I say? Some men just have that naughty side and often these men endear themselves to me, for unknown reasons. Maybe I enjoy men who are self-assured and confident. I like my men strong and I like them especially when they have a way of making their desires known.


***
“You are naughty!” I exclaimed as we made drunken attempts to walk towards the bathroom. Seconds before that, he snaked his right arm around my waist, sneaking its five fingers under my blouse. I pushed him and giggled as he swung past me towards the door. His arms were fluttering about. He was trying to latch onto something to stop him from falling down.

For the convenience of this story, let’s assume his name is Johnny (after Johnny Depp). So Johnny caught hold of my right hand and we both tumbled into a heap of laughter. “Johnny is naughty… Johnny is naughty…” I sang, like how child would sing when a friend did something awfully wrong. My head nodded in tempo to the teasing song which I sang. “Johnny is naughty! Johnny is naughty!”

“Johnny might be horny,” he said, then swiftly repositioning himself on top of me. His slender nose was touching mine. “… but Johnny, naughty? NEVAR!” He kissed me and we rolled about the floor, wrestling and fighting. Fighting the fleeting emotions mixed to a heady concoction by the sweet taste of vodka. Wrestling to see if he could undress me faster than me dressing myself up again. There was pushing and shooving and lots of kissing. There were words exchanged, only to be reminded the next day.

“Do you remember what you told me last night?” I asked. His back was facing me.

“Every single word,” he said as he tapped his cigarette into the ashtray.


***
I believe that I have a romantic heart pumping blood through my veins and a pragmatic head sitting on my shoulders. Conversations - the good, bad, sad, mad – all embossed into my soul forever. Some are precious because they are secret conversations and others are replayed on days when I feel sad, so I would laugh and feel a little better.

Like the game of tennis, be sure you find the perfect partner to have your secret conversations with. Good conversations carry you far and give you an edge above your opponent. A bad conversation is like the tennis ball aiming for your eye. While black goes with almost everything, I doubt you'd like a black eye on New Year's Eve. Neither should you have a rotten conversation on the first day of the new year.

Wishing everyone a new year filled with hope and love. May all your desires be made known and granted in the coming 12 months!!!

With lots of love,
Otto

***
Related Links

• A year ago Otto was... Over

It is December 22nd and I am sitting by the heater, where I am warm in three layers of clothes. A thought of whether what I am wearing is sexy but then again, I do not care much for sexy when I am freezing in the cold. It is my first Christmas in London and I am excited by the trickle of water from branches as the sun melts the ice.

It is December 22nd and I wished I knew more than I do now. I thought I knew everything at 13 but I realised that I do not know much more today than I did back then. The only difference is that I no longer stare at my parents as if I am a parentchomper monster from Roald Dahl’s BFG.

I still do not know if a man is sincere when he says what he does. Does he mean each word when he said he would save me when I drown? Will he scoop me into his arms and cuddle me tenderly when I had a terrible day? Am I truly the only one, when he said I was the only one under the red lattern? Or am I just one of the many ones he kissed goodnight?

It is December 22nd and I still do not understand what makes a woman happy. Sometimes I am happy but there are also times when I am sad. Will I feel happy if I worked everyday like there was no tomorrow? Will I feel happier if I had all the bags and shoes listed in all the branded stores? Will I feel like I have lost something if I do not lust after the car like the rest of my friends? Is doing what I am doing giving me pleasure or am I doing this because it is the only thing I know how to do well?

Am I living a fantastic life, as perceived by others? Or am I afraid of living to the fullest that I can? Am I a coward for not trying hard enough or am I being smart? Did I choose what I did because they were the best for me? Did I choose what I have because I was afraid of losing? Will I always be the winner when I wake up each day or will there come a day my tears will know no end?

Will Alex always bring me laughter and happiness? Will what I feel with him last until I cease to breathe? Am I blissful because it is his arms that I lay in each night or could I be just as blissful in another bed with another man? Will I lose Alex if I did not cling so tight? Will I ever find myself if Alex is not around? Will I giggle like a three year old or will I suddenly grow old?

It is December 22nd so why does my book remain unfinished? Is my life such a long journey that I do not know the end of my book’s character? Did I breathe so much life into Otto that Otto has become flesh and blood, a great part of me? Will the book’s ending be the same mine? Will Otto be happy or will she be lonely? Will she find the love that she craves for and will she be able to finally sleep?

When I was 12, my mother’s hair was thick, black and curly. Now she is a walking grey, like the long winter I feel today. She used to have such warm smiles but all she flashes now is anger and disappointment accumulated over thirty years. Will I be like my mother? Will I feel disappointed with what life had offered as I grow grey? Will my hair wither into shades of white like hers or will I remain as prim as a rose at 30? Will I lose myself completely and grow shabby? Or will I age gracefully?

I cried secret tears one evening when I sat and saw a few strands of white hair on my father. He was asleep so soundly, like a little baby without cares in the world. It feels strange growing up, when suddenly you feel like you are the adult in the relationship. You nag your parents for watching too much telly, the way they nagged you when you were 13, lusting after Jason Priestley on Beverly Hills 90210. You know that the dynamics of your relationship has changed when you reprimand your mother for not attending the line classes that you have arranged for her and she is behaving like the naughty child you were on first day of school.

One more week before a new year and I sit here thinking to myself, what have I achieved this year? What have I done that makes me swell up with pride? What have I not done that brings me great shame? Did I do everything that I needed to do? Could I have done more? Should I pressure myself a little more and grow? Or have I swallowed more than I could chew?

I have discovered two months shy of being 31 that I do not know any much more than I did when I am 30. I do not know if I should worry about this. If you ask me, I would say I have more happy days than sad. I am immensely thankful for this fact. I do not wish to worry and maybe I should not.

It is December 22nd and I am thankful for everything I have experienced. I am happy for every tear I have shed and every smile I have carved on my face. I would not do it any other way. I would not be me, if I did. I can only promise to walk on this earth to the best that I can. There are some things that I will never know and I guess life is rightly so.



***

Merry Christmas everyone!

***
Related Links

• Escape Me Now - how different Xmas is celebrated last year.

Good night my angel time to close you eyes
And save these questions for another day
I think I know what you've been asking me
I think you know what I've been trying to say

I promised I would never leave you
And you should always know
Where ever you may go
No matter where you are
I never will be far away

I walked into the old section of One Utama today. I was meant to be here today. I was meant to be here, waiting for someone to finish work and when he finished at 4 p.m., we were meant to walk hand in hand as the sun set far away. Perhaps we would have had something in Bakerzin. Maybe do our dirty laundry in Laundry. I could have sat next to him, like I used to sit in the DJ console so long ago. Maybe I would have walked and shopped all day, being the usual independent spirit that I am.

Instead I walked alone today, aimlessly among the crowd of people. I could not decide if the turn of fate was to my side. Or was fate just playing an evil game on me. Up and down the escalators, my little self just walked on by. There was always life in a crowd of people and if you hold out your hand long enough, you would feel life sweeping past you.

I imagined us dancing and laughing in Slippery Senorita. We would have been there and we would have been free. I imagined walking around the tiny Pearl of the Orient during the day, looking for pigeons nesting quietly in old houses while he was working. I imagined smelling spices and looking at an old drunk beggar sleeping by the ancient streets. Instead on Saturday I nursed myself in bed alone. I was too sick to protest what fate had offered me on a platter.

“I told you never to contact me unless I contact you first. My girlfriend read your message. She is watching us and now we cannot talk anymore.”

I imagine my last words were the very reasons why he has walked into my life for the past six years and why I kept him in mine for the equal amount of time – “I understand”.

It was the end.


Good night my angel now it's time to sleep
And still so many things I want to say
Remember all the songs you sang for me
When we went sailing on an emerald bay

And like a boat out on the ocean
I'm rocking you to sleep
The water's dark and deep
Inside this ancient heart
You'll always be a part of me

I was asked to join the Pantene search seven times today. I laughed and shook my head whenever they did. I reluctantly told some of them how old I was as some of them persistently walked with me as I walked away.

“How old can you be?”

“I am 30.”

“You sure or not?” they said with that suspicious look written all over their faces. I cannot decide whether that was a compliment or an insult.

I smiled thinking about this. Someone walked through the door some weeks ago and said that I should join the Pantene search too. Three seconds later, he said “Shit, you are too old to participate!” I had that disdained look that said “is that meant to be a compliment because I don’t think it is.” He laughed and patted me on the head, realising what he had said did not come out the way he intended it to be. He tried to explain as we walked towards the Japanese restaurant for dinner. I was enjoying the fact that he was fussing over me.

That was the last time I watched him fall gently into a deep slumber and that was also the last time while he was asleep, his hand instinctively searched for mine. He breathed a sigh of relief when he found what he searched for, when his hand was holding mine. It was 6:42 a.m. on 31st October.

I have watched him sleep many times. He looked like a child each time he closed his eyes. When he sleeps, these voyeuristic eyes of mine witness how all his defences melt away. All that he was left was this child that needed a cuddle. I wondered if she had watched him sleep and saw that he was a child inside too. I have drawn so near, so close to his ears and taken deep breathes so as to immortalise him in me. He will remain a part of me till the next time we meet again. It was the faint smell of baby powder or perhaps even a powdery Issay Miyake. I have gently touched his nose and studied every line and curve on his face. Sometimes he would wake. Each time this happened, he opened one eye, managed a slight smile and patted my head.

“Go to sleep.”

It was cocoon paradise.


Goodnight my angel now it's time to dream
And dream how wondeful your life will be
Someday your child will cry and if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart there will always be a part of me

Someday we'll all be gone
But lullabies go on and on
They never die that's how you and I will be

I woke up this morning, with my mop chopped hair crowding my eyes. I dreamt. I remember that I did. I remember that I was preparing for BestGuyFriend’s wedding on the 16th. I remember that a lady helped me to prepare for the wedding. I was lying naked on the bed, in a pristine white room. The curtains swayed gently against the breeze at the foot my bed. The lady was standing next to me and her fingers were nimbly pressing acupuncture points. I moaned in ecstasy as I usually would during a massage. I am a very tactile person and even as a child, I have always enjoyed massages.

In this lucid dream, my love petals swelled to crimson red and my eyes fluttered. She leaned over and whispered into my ears. I shook my head as my body squirmed. I was fighting and a second later I was relenting. As I opened my eyes, I saw her burying her face between my legs and the dream felt so real that I thought I felt the sensation of a warm tongue gently threading down to my secret garden in this physical world.

I reached out and with a trembling right hand, I protested and pushed her away.

“Just relax,” she said as she drew near me again. She crept slowly like a serpent snaking up my legs. “I love you, Otto. You know I love you. Just relax.”

“I can’t relax. I will never be relaxed,” I said as my hands slid down. I sighed as I pleasured myself. She laid by my side as I said to her in my dream that there was only one man who could satisfy my soul and quench my sex. And as the waves of orgasm rushed to me, I called his name.

The dream was so distinct that I remember every little detail, even the sensation of a woman’s tongue on my scarlet bud. And I remember the name I had subconsciously mentioned in my first same-sex dream. I remember the name of the man who satisfied me so completely that I cannot have another, not even the sweet taste of a woman’s soft tongue.

I remember the name of the man who fulfilled my every need and the name did not belong to him. I caught a glimpse of him sitting on a makeshift box in a corner. His eyes were focused. It was always nice to watch him work, with his work-self being more reliable than he usually would be. It was the one time when he was sharp and disciplined. Instead of the usual me - running towards him and feeling all excited and happy - I turned around and walked away silently in my magenta tulip skirt.

“My chapters are written and my book’s complete. Goodnight, my angel. It’s time for me to go. Someday you and I will be gone but words will stay on and on. Words will never die and that’s how you and I will be.”

***
Related Links

• Cocoon Paradise

Ok. I sat in Starbucks since lunchtime hoping to finish up some stuff. Failed dot com. Checked YC’s blog, then Malaysian Alien’s and then KinkyFairy’s. So fail. I tried to divert attention and wrote for ANNN instead. Could not write, despite exploring three different topics.

Feeling so stressed out, I picked up my mobile phone. I scrolled down all the way to his name. With one swift motion, I deleted AB’s number from my phone book. Then his office number and another number relating to him.

I think girls should stick to changing their hairstyles whenever they are stressed. I would have done that if not for the fact that my hairstylist butchered my hair last week when all I wanted was a little love and nip at my fringe.

So now that my shopping budget’s burst, my hair’s like a rabbit infestation and I feel like killing myself because words do not seem to flow out of my fingers. There is nothing that money can buy at the moment since I don't have much moolah but here are some creative ways to do medicate myself:

• Drown myself in my backup bottle of Absolut Vodka during lunchbreak.


• Dance around naked, worshipping some pagan god in my bedroom. Or maybe for realism sake, around the Jambu tree in my parent’s garden.


• Get a huge ass tattoo on my lower back. Just because some people like fondling me there.


• Visit a circus with a rich old man. Preferably Hugh Hefner in a wheel chair and I, complete in nurse outfit and bleached blonde hair and D cup boobs. I wonder who then is the circus freak?


• Drink lots of water and then wait to see how many hours my bladder can retain the water without passing out.


• Stuff myself with 3 litres of lousy Walls ice cream. A sure way of losing 5 kilos by tomorrow because the icky ice cream will make me sick.

Oh I know what I need. That doctor I met three weeks ago in Starbucks. His name is Dr. Khoo. I do not find too many Chinese men attractive but Dr. Khoo had a sense of calmness in his eyes that was very appealing. I sat next to him for five hours some weeks ago and then I met him during suppertime with some of his friends. Being the usual person that I am, I never ask for numbers and I never give away numbers. So how now?

I hate the ladder theory, by the way. There is no way of winning, is there? Either you are top of the ladder and you do not like the guy THAT WAY or you are second/third/insert your favourite number on the ladder, thus confirming that you are not the most appealing creature in your friend’s universe. A girl cannot win either way.

A relevant example would be HighSchoolSweet, who beeped to inform me of his new fabulous lifestyles at exotic weekend locations. He mentioned that he was returning to KL at the end of November during our MSN conversation yesterday. He was using the “laughing” tactic to see if I would spend a week staying over at his bachelor pad.

When I said I would meet him in a coffeehouse or something, he asked if I would visit Milan. Milan’s a beautiful place – I’ve heard HighSchoolSweetheart and Francesco said a million times.

“You pay for my ticket and spending money?” I asked HighSchoolSweetheart.

He flashed the smiley emoticon.

Speaking of Italians, I did not write about Francesco because of a weird email he sent me. Basically we spoke on the phone when he was in Athens and the conversation continued when he got back to Milan.

“Please text or call me on my mobile during office hours”

What does that tell you, my dear readers? For me, that’s a clear sign that he does not want me to call him at home.

And why can’t a woman call a man at home?

It is only because there is another woman at home.

So that’s what I wrote to him. “Your last email made me figure that you have a girlfriend or a wife”. And he double confirmed it as "a very beautiful but jealous girlfriend".

I had a question but I did not ask Francesco and it goes something like this ---> If your girlfriend’s beautiful, why are you still calling other girls? There is nothing wrong with calling other girls as friends but clearly you do not consider me as an ordinary friendship, now do you, since you need to hide me and all? I don't figure women to be so hormonally crazy that they cannot accept normal friendships. Then again, the damn ladder theory...

Instead of asking him the question, I responded in the other available fashion, which was non-response response. I did not reply his email. So guess what he did? He wrote me an email later, asking why I hadn’t written to him, to which I replied that I was busy. That was indeed the truth but it was more so that I did not wish to communicate with him, out of respect for his very beautiful but jealous girlfriend. He then threw a hissy “I shall await your email. Please include a photo of yourself when you do get to writing me the email, which is likely to arrive next year or so.”

Fwah. Damn drama. This is so ala Darren & Joanne. For once I am outdone in the camwhoring category. I have decided to post a flattering photo of him, so you boys and girls can grasp an idea of who/what/where/why I am writing about.

Wash your eyes and weep.

Yes, that’s men for you. The ugly ones drive you insane because you don't like them that way and the good looking ones drive you insane too. The bad boys make you cry and the good boys make you yawn. Can't blame the men though because unlike women, they aren't born perfect.

"Paging for Dr. Khoo, please come to The Nude’s office. Your expert service is needed immediately."

***
Related Links

• Because No Cat Will Say "No" To Fish


• Old One Don't Go New One Can't Come


• A Love Letter

I am trying to keep myself occupied. That is the easiest way to trick your mind into not thinking. If you give yourself enough tasks to send it spinning, you will have no time for your thoughts to sink in or to think about what could have been. And once I do not think about it long enough, I will forget.

I turned around and walked away the moment I got off the bus and the destination was over. Three seconds later, I turned around and watched him walk away. I quickly reached for my mobile and so I typed, “I promise I will not cry. I feel that I had died again and again for something that I can avoid.” Hold, just hold it all in, I thought to myself.

I soon found PY and I got back into what I was doing for one whole weekend – shopping. I bought a rather pretty black dress from Salabianca, thus further bursting the already burst budget for this month. There are just some things that retail therapy can cure. And then there are things that you can never heal. Maybe you can heal if you allow yourself to forget. But if you forget, how are you going to write? Where will you draw your pain from and where will your inspiration flow?


***
“What do you need in your life?” he asked.

I paused to think for a second. Then I paused to think for a second longer. I could not think of anything significant. Until and unless I consider him a need, then I guess I do not really NEED anything. Because I am quite happy with all that I have. Come to think of it, I must be a rather easy person to please. But oh no, I need to torture myself a little. Pick at the emotional scab so the wound will stay fresh, so I can write another story another day. Beauty is always conceived in pain, be it emotional, mental or physical.

“See? You have everything and so you lack nothing in life.” He laughed gently, licking the small white piece of paper.


***
“Do you know why people laugh? Like in sms-es, why do people place ‘haha’ at the end of their sentences? The boys and I were talking about this and boy, there were a lot of theories regarding this topic.

“I wrote somewhere in ANNN that we laugh to make things feel normal again, to make things feel right again.”

“Precisely.” He smiled, then exhaling. I followed the trail of smoke as it disappeared into the ceiling again.


***
On the topic of growing up and growing old, we were checking each other out. I asked him to smile. He looked older, with fine lines running at the corners of his eyes. I turned to my left a little and smiled, so he could see my wrinkle lines too. He denied that I looked older and I believed him because it was more fun to do so.

I looked intently at him and saw his receeding hairline. I laughed, pointing my right index finger at him. Perhaps even gently feeling his hairline that used to be a little closer to his brows.

“Eh your hairline is receding, wei…” I said.

“Ya lah, ya lah.”

I don’t think he likes being reminded that we are getting old. That is what time and age does to you. No one can escape growing up. Not even those who hide in the shadows.


***
Oh god, I promised myself that I would not write anymore about him. No more, no more, no more. But what can I write if my muse is dead? If there is one thing to learn from this whole trip, what would it be? Otto, you can do this. What would be the lesson that I should take along with me once the bus ride is over and I have to return to the point where I started.

Oh yes, about being a woman, about love and being loved. This story is so common that we no longer attach any emotions to it. There is just something about being a woman and wanting to feel a sense of tragedy. Maybe womenfolk could live happier if we could learn to love ourselves a little more and take care of our own hearts first, above others. Instead we enjoy the extra drama we can squeeze out of our twenty four seven.

I stared at my mobile and I talked to myself. Why can’t you just be with someone that who is eager and excited to see you? Why should you belittle yourself by wanting something that does not want you? It sounds absolutely absurd but then it made sense. Life is only beautiful when there is a small amount of tragedy and pain. And this destination that I go to every now and then is my very weakness and my muse.

Some artists physically hurt themselves, so they can get their juices flowing. How many singers and actors do you know that do a line or two so that they can catch a bus ride to Ecstasy? Maybe for me, it shall be my muse. Look at it this way - my addiction can be either him or cocaine or a bottle of vodka a day. I think he is the healthiest option. I just want to write a book and the journey I take to a future destination will be the words.


***
“I am sorry for all the broken promises.”

I wanted to tell him that he did not owe me a thing. I am a prisoner here, of my device. It was I who created this dingy world I wake up to each morning and it is I who can set myself free at the end of the day. Everything around me, I have painted it in shades that I so please. I can leave if I wanted to but I chose to stay so I could feel the pain for yet another stale day. Perhaps to punish myself for all the bad things I have done in my life. Maybe this is the payback for all the men who cried at 5 a.m.

I did not tell him the other day when we were together but I am writing this now. If you are reading this, then know that you do not owe me anything and you do not need to feel bad. I do not need your pity. All I wanted was sincerity and from the very beginning, that was something that you gave me. So do not apologize and do not say you are sorry. There is nothing to be sorry for because you are my muse. I created you in my mind and I gave you life. I am fucking going to write this book and I am going to immortalise the lives of a young woman and the men surrounding her life. And when the time comes, you can’t ask for royalties.

All right everyone. Now is the moment I laugh.



Her mind is tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz.
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends.
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.




***
Related Links

• I wrote This Ride while sitting in PY's car on my way home. That's what the muse does best. He gets my creative juices flowin'.

I finally arrived home at 1:30 a.m. after a nice supper with mum and dad. The journey was made hellish by the fact that we had to sit in the taxi area for 2.5 hours because some smart person checked his/her luggage into the hull but failed to show up for the actual boarding. Security checks were inevitable, prompting the airplane to lack the adequate fuel it needed to fly the 13 hour journey to Singapore. Which only meant we were all punished to sit in the plane even longer while they refueled. The stewards and stewardesses were excellent though and the journey was fine as soon as we took off.

On the opposite aisle sat this elderly couple. We exchanged smiles occasionally while on the 13 hour plane journey but we broke into laughter when we saw each other again at the Gate F52, to board the connection flight to KL. We soon warmed up into a lovely conversation. They were gentle and warm, extremely maternal/paternal, which was really nice while one is travelling alone. I found out that they were Burmese and so I related the story of how I have relatives living in Yangon. The man then said that I looked Burmese and I smiled.

It is a compliment. Burmese and Thais have about the prettiest girls in the world. Vietnam too, from what all the travelling tales I had heard. While waiting for the skytrain to arrive, a man asked me for directions. We chatted when the train arrived and I told him that he could follow me as I was going towards the baggage area. By luck or chance, we were actually on the same flight!

"So where are you from?" I asked. From his accent, I knew he was not British.

"Italy," he said.

"Oh? My ex-boyfriend recently started work in Milan."

"Milan is a beautiful city."

"That, I knew," I said, as I turned towards him and smiled. "My ex-boyfriend made sure I knew it."

He was chuffed.

I love conversations. I enjoy great conversations with the most unusual people. Like the elderly couple from Yangon, who are now professors in IMU. Like this new man, who asked me for directions. Needlessly to say, he flashed his business card when we walked through the immigration. Perhaps he was pleased that I really waited for him, when I said I did.

"So (are) you going out any time in the next four days?" he asked.

In my mind, thoughts of drinking with YC and new Italian blonde haired Francesco (that's the second Francesco from Italy that I know) flashed through my mind, like the neon lights and pyro. It is hard for a leopard to change her spots.

Rolled in my bed and as I had expected, I fell asleep right after the Muslim first call to prayer. It was my bodyclock working right on time. At least something worked like the clock! This morning I got up to 8 emails from Alex. Seven of them were facts about Malaysia. Alex and I were discussing about power generation in Malaysia before leaving. But seriously who cares about the second, third, fourth or fifth email? I only cared for the first, which was a private love letter.


First email on the first day back home in Malaysia.

Hello there. Was strange driving back. Charged with emotion, made listening to ipod songs more interesting, as if hearing them for the first time. Ate the other half of the chocolate tart, now feeling bloated. Got 8 mini scotch eggs from Tesco for 18p on my way back... Quiet when I woke up this morning. I remember it took me a while to get used to the noise when you first got here, now I have to get used to the quiet.

Love,
Alex

***
Small Talk
ANNN turned one yesterday and I celebrated it with Alex in London. Spent 4 hours exploring the HMS Belfast (a WW2 cruiser) and then walking to China Town for delightful yummies. I'm going to spend today packing my stuff and preparing to return back to Malaysia. My flight's tomorrow night, touching KLIA at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday the 27th. Have a hair appointment at 10 a.m. the following morning but not before having my grand breakfast back home.
***


Day 364
One of the few movie scenes I remember from my childhood was of a little boy, riding his tricycle and witnessing a pair of twin girls inviting him to play with them forever and ever. It has taken me more than 20 years to learn that that scene was from The Shining. I have always thought that it was from The Omen.



I hopped straight into bed after watching the whole of The Shining on my own. In bed laid Alex, mewing like a little lost kitten. We curled over at the girl’s side. That would be mine. Then he rolled over to his side. That would be the boy slime (boys sweat a lot in their sleep) side. We started talking somewhere between struggling in his slimy side and rolling in my little corner of seven pillows.

“Just admit it,” he said. “You will never be a successful entrepreneur.”

“What do you mean I am not a successful entrepreneur?” I questioned in the dark, five seconds later.

“Because you are like me. We are not great PR people and all entrepreneurs are social oriented.”

I was offended beyond belief! I was huff puffing in my little corner, burrowing deeper into my two down pillows. I felt like a little porcupine as we exchanged words intermittently. I was crossing my arms by the time we got to the part where I asked him to substantiate his claims and his reasons were that I did not have the personality, according to his post graduate business course in University of Bath.

I fully admit that I am not the most sociable person that I know of. The most sociable person would be E, milking her PR skills to the fullest. However I find that people’s skill is very much like computer literacy or learning a new language. It is something that you learn and acquire, if you do not already have it. And you will work hard towards those skills, mainly because they are necessary for your professional growth. Alex of course, begs to differ. PR skills are in born, not acquired.

”You okay there, babs?” he asked me, then extending his right arm near me. “You know that I am right. You cannot be someone that you are not.”

“Don’t you fucking touch me. I am a prickly porcupine at the moment.”

Alex sniggered and cuddled closer, holding me in his arms. I crossed my arms and rolled around my side of the bed, within the confines of his arms. I made him stay up until 2 a.m. explaining his words. You do not sleep until you resolve your frustrations, so take it as a tip from Miss Love - do not start an argument in bed at midnight.


Day 365
Some of you might know that previously, I had spent many days frustrated. When I started writing in ANNN, I had wanted it to be a success. Tell me who would not want their blog to be a success and I would show you a complacent soul. I wanted a lot of things from ANNN. On top of the long list, I wanted a huge readership and comments into its hundreds.

I am yet to achieve either of those wants. And I could have been very frustrated and angry if not for the fact that I had discovered something between Day 237 and Day 315. After venturing to many blogs out there, I had realised that blogging was like music. It had many genres and to compare one to another was and still is utterly unfair and unachievable. You will never be happy if you compare your blog to someone else’s (be it someone better than you or someone worse off than you).

Blogs Are Like Music
Some blogs are like Gangsta rap. They talk about blood, politics and murder. Some are like Paris Hilton, where talent was not essential and all you needed was lots and lots of photos of your and your friends in the dressiest clothes, having loads of fun. A cute pooch would be a bonus. Emo blogs can be likened to the Alternative and Punk genres, with melancholic and depressive themes.

It took me a while to find my own spot and to discover my own genre. I cannot be what I am not and I am not like any other blog out there. There were periods where I tried to do the Paris Hilton thing (have you seen how many readers some of these blogs commanded?) but that was an utter failure, to say the least. I would have loved to delete those posts, if not for the fact that I wanted to keep them as a reminder to never be someone that I am not.

Being Nude
Ironically one of the most important things that I have learnt in the past 365 days had to do with the word, “nude”. Being in my skin, being myself and being comfortable just that way. I had to accept my blog just the way it was. I cannot be someone else and be successful at it. I can only be me.

I came to terms with the fact that perhaps my blog was a little like India Arie. A beautiful voice but never had the same recognition as Alicia Keys (for whatever reason). You just cannot compare India Arie with Eminem. They are from totally different genres and do not have anything in common. Not even their listeners. And just because Eminem has more listeners, I hope you agree with me that numbers did not reflect how talented he was as a singer.

If there were any rules to go by, then it would be this; your readers reflect your blog and indirectly it reflected who you are. I can happily say that I do not have many comments in my blog but each and every comment and reader I have visiting ANNN are a smart bunch. I am most thankful that this is the case. I rather have a smaller number of smart readers and commentators than hundreds of useless comments spamming my posts each day.


Pacing And Having Fun
Which brings me to the next point. When ANNN started, I wrote on a daily basis. I thought that it would generate hundreds of comments because ‘hey, who doesn’t want to talk about love and relationship?”. As the days and months passed, I began to realise that this genre is an India Arie, rather than an Eminem. It was more soulful and thoughtful and thus required readers with greater attention span and intelligence.

Somewhere along the line, I discovered that I had to pace my posts. Instead of tying myself to the worktable, slaving for the blog, it was better to enjoy myself in London and to observe everything around me. I wrote far better and received more comments when I started to write on alternate days. I filled the rest of the time away from the laptop and away from ANNN.

I have learnt that pacing is important, lest I lose my juice. I need to live a life before I can write about having one. A wrinkly and shrivelled lemon is unappetising to your senses. What makes you think that a blog that is dried of ideas and topics does not do the same to your senses?


Day 366
So here on Day 366, I am a little happy bunny. I could have sat here at my laptop on Sunday morning writing Post Number 184 or I could get out of the house, visit the HMS Belfast, take loads of photos with the Tower Bridge as a backdrop, have a super late lunch (or early dinner) with Alex in Café Hong Kong (Miss Sour Face was not working today!) and walk around Oxford Street, having fun. I am so glad I chose the latter.

Incidentally I am launching an advice column called Ask Miss Love. The fashionable agony aunt is answering the questions that you have asked in the previous week. The question of the day is "Pregnant While On The Pill?". Find out more about safe sex and precautionary measures. Have your say in this topic or dedicate a hate site to Ask Miss Love because she believes (and openly promotes) honest sex education empowers young people to protect themselves.



***
Related Post
Ask Miss Love, a great avenue to find the answers to questions that you do not dare ask your mother/grand uncle/third sister/best friend/best gay friend/etc, lest they die of laughter or you die of embarrassment, whichever comes first.

The top two HOTTEST posts are:

• On Merdeka - We Are 47 Years Old Now And What Have We Achieved?


• On sex - Losing My Virginity

The better posts that Otto is quite pleased with are:

• On friendship - A Matter Of Convenience


• On past relationships - My Swedish Love Affair


• On life changes - Diamond For Pearls


• On sadness & lost - How It Feels When You Lose


• On relationships - Fears And Forgiveness

I wished these were never written:

• Example of what I am not Part 1 - How To Be A Drama Queen - The Daphne Teo Satire Part 2


• Example of what I am not Part 2 - The Almost Penguin Post

The post that is so horrendous, it is giving Otto nightmares...

• The type of posts you should write if you aim to own a sucky blog - Otto's Two Tits

~ You Can't Hurry Love

Click and read the following post.

The one thing that you wish as a child is to grow up as quickly as you could. And when you are grown, you realise that you do not wish for time to pass you so swiftly.

It is the month of September and I seriously question myself what did I do in the last 8 months. What have I achieved? What impact did I make in this world? Where is my stamp?

I was in London exactly a year ago. I was pursuing a writer’s course and started to blog out of curiosity and as a writing practice. It all began with Nude Not Naked, with the little tantalizing relationship stories of a fictious mid 20s girl with the men that surrounded her life. Perhaps a confession of some sort. The writing practice grew a small number of faithful readers who read and wrote very personal emails to me, relating similar experiences.

Then grew the second blog, About Nude Not Naked – which is also the very blog that you are reading at the moment. This blog was developed as necessity to answer readers' queries and make announcements. Readers were not only curious about the heroine in Nude Not Naked, they were curious about who the writer was. So About Nude Not Naked dealt with the real me.

When I started to blog about myself, I did not know what to call myself. I knew I wanted to remain anonymous because you must admit, some of my stories are very personal and maybe not just the kind I want my workmates reading. So I took on the same name as my heroine in Nude Not Naked – Otto. This proved to be a rather short sighted solution because new readers were not able to differentiate between the fantasy storybook character and the real me.

One of the first few questions that readers ask is "So what's your REAL name?". And so, twelve months on, I am ready to tell you a little bit more about myself. I will start with my name. My real name is Love. Now do not laugh because I am not kidding you. My name is indeed Love. How ironic that I am writing mostly about the name my father gave me *smiles*

I shall be turning 31 years old in about 6 months. I am not too worried about my age, other than the usual worry. I work in an environment that I absolutely love. I believe what I do make a difference in the world. Yet at the same time, I crave for something greater. Isn’t life all about stretching ourselves to the best possible? I want to write and I determine in my heart to write at least one book in my lifetime.

Meanwhile to feed my penchant for Aldo shoes, I write short articles for a car magazine. A reader once requested for a snippet of my articles and then remarked, “You are the Paris Hilton for automobile enthusiasts”. Ah yes, I am earning small coins by writing girl-friendly car articles. In shorter words, I make cars relevant to girls. I relate them to fashion, to art and all things beautiful.

ANYWAY… back to the topic at hand...

Through the past year, I have received a good measure of emails from readers who stumbled upon my blog, who came to share about their stories and problems. Some asked for opinions and others just wanted to share their experiences. So I figured why not start a dilemma column as About Nude Not Naked’s first year anniversary approaches.

I was once very down and during the most difficult time in my life, I received no adequate help or necessary support. Looking back, I am sure that things would have been easier if I had more information and support to help me with my decisions. Here is a chance for me to maybe help one or two people who needs a helping hand and some empathy... Because I know how much difference a little nod can and understanding can do for people who feel tormented in their situations.

The objective is to answer (and discuss) questions about sex, love and relationship matters candidly. Ask-Miss-Love will be an open arena for people to share their experiences and perhaps find a solution. What I can promise is discretion and privacy. My readers can attest to that, I think. What I offer is honest replies to your questions ranging from “How many times do couples have sex on average?” to “Why do I still love him when he is so shitty?” and "Does size really matter?".

The whole column is dedicated to just answering questions, so shoot me with a couple. Remember to spread the LOVE around.


***
I would like to thank all my readers who had taken a journey of discovery with me. Thank you for twelve good months of learning. I would like to especially thank some of you who became such great companions. May all of us have more laughter than tears till we celebrate ANNN's second anniversary.

Much love,
Miss Love



***
Small Talk
"You Can't Hurry Love" is one of my favourite wake up songs. A very catchy tune and very wise words for all of us who are searching for love. Do check the original video by Diana Ross & The Supremes if you have the time. Well worth the extra click!