Oh folder, wherefore art thou?

Like a sandal left on the beach, forever separated from its mate,

Like a little girl suddenly alone, looking desperately for Mummy,

Like a twentysomething searching for direction,

is a folder containing hundreds of e-mails I was compiling for work.

Lost.

Driving with Spunky

I love my yellow car with the horses. I do. I love how my brother says he doesn't need me to ring the doorbell when I arrive, because the yellow glow that precedes it already tells him I'm outside. I love that friends find it easy to follow me when we're going to a place they don't know. I love that I was able to buy the car I'd been eyeing for a year, for 1/5 less than market price but in near-new condition.

However, I am not so crazy about the fact that almost every day, I only have to drive past a bus stop or busy pedestrian walkway to find people waving at me with great fervour. It's not because Malaysians are a friendly bunch. It's because they think my precious Spunky is a taxi.

Sigh. Talk about not knowing a good thing when they see one.

Wish for the day

To love You all my life and have all Your dreams for me come true.

Picture by Audrey Johnson, Stock.Xchng

One day at the curry house

Two friends walked in to enjoy their weekly roti.

Unfortunately, the owner refused to serve the fluffy pastry with the traditional side dish of lentil stew. "I hate the stuff and am not having any of it under my roof."

"As long as I am the boss, there'll never be a dhal moment here."

Flowers for...

The other day, I thought I'd put some flowers at the place where my mother's ashes are kept.

I haven't brought flowers there for a long time; most of the recent times I've gone have been on the spur of the moment, after any sane florist's normal business hours.

"Why put flowers there?" is a question I've often asked myself in the past. It isn't for her; my mum isn't even present at this place. Then... for whom? The squirrels and snails that populate the shrubbery nearby?

Still, out of habit, when I found myself near a florist's that was open, I walked in all set to buy the usual white daisies.

A couple of minutes later, I stepped out with gerberas instead: I used to be so one-track-minded that "no daisies" would mean "leave without buying any flowers". But somehow, that day I was so drawn to their joyful, elegant appearance that I didn't want to leave without them.

Now that I think about it, gerberas were the last planting project my mother undertook, and the one in which I had the most part. When I was younger, I had so little interest in gardening you'd think I was suffering generational PTSD from the Eden incident. But with the gerberas, it was different. For some reason, I took a liking to them, and they flourished.

Then her cancer came back, we had other things to do than watering, weeding and pruning, and the gerberas died.

As I pulled into the parking lot, I wondered again exactly what the reason behind putting flowers at her place is, and couldn't find an answer that satisfied me.

At home later, I found an old glass vase from my mother's huge repository of "cosmetic collectibles", just the right height and width to hold three gerberas. For the rest of the week, their presence was a sweet reminder that life isn't only for the living, but that it's for living. Yes, silly me, I'd begun to forget. Again.

Image by Danny de Bruyne, StockXchange

A disturbing statement

"Divorce is the new marriage."

I came across this at work. I understand that it was spoken tongue in cheek, a joke.

But I never appreciated those jokes about half-dogs, red and white things that say "ho ho ho OUCH", or injured blondes, either. Not funny.

After decades or maybe centuries of getting it wrong, I hope my generation can finally end this insanity with the conclusion that marriage is the new marriage. All right? Not the superficial commitment, or the "my-parents-are-getting-old-and-will-write-me-out-of-
their-wills-unless-I-produce-offspring-by-next-year" covenant or the "I like his biceps" decision. Marriage, with all its resident inconveniences, sacrifices, obligations ... and most of all, blessing. After all, look whose idea it was.

The end begins

I just told the "parking man" not to renew my parking pass after this month. It's begun: the change to the little, mundane bits of my life that the job switch will bring on.

I need to insert a little, unsolicited snippet of praise for the "parking man" here. (I know his name, but in case he's shy I won't mention it.) Before I knew of his existence, renewing my local council parking pass entailed going to the stationery shop around the corner one week before expiry, paying cash in advance, then walking there again a few days later to pick up the new pass.

Then I discovered the parking man. All I had to do was call him once, and from then on, I didn't even have to remember when my parking pass expired. I'd get a phone call every month as a reminder to have the required amount of cash in hand, and the next day he'd be at my office front desk with the new pass. With this small, simple service (at no extra charge), he's made my life more pleasant. And really, isn't that one of the best things we can say of a person?

I will fear no evil

Shadows remind me that there is light.

I'm Not an "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" Buyer

It happened sometime on Saturday. I just realised that this bag has lost all of whatever appeal it ever held for me. I've found someone who'll buy it off me without it ever being in my hands; she'll pay me and go get it from the store.

Freed from the perilous grasp of pretentious capitalism. *Breathes a sigh of relief*

Futile isn't worthwhile

earlier i went to visit some guy who has terminal cancer and he's only 29yr old

he's just waiting to die within the month

The above was part of what a friend said to me last night when we were chatting online.

Imagine waiting to die within such a short time-frame, knowing that unless a divine hand swoops in to breathe life and health back into you, it's curtains.

At times like this, the futility of my working long, long days at my present job seems all the more apparent. Just what is the long-term ROI in fashion publishing? Are the seconds, minutes and hours spent here gaining compound interest for eternity? Even in the here and now, it feels as if every evening I spend slogging at my desk or fast asleep at 9pm trying to recover from the previous week's slogging is time I didn't spend with precious people; time I'll never have again.

I need to make some adjustments so that even if death were to come tomorrow, I would be satisfied knowing that I lived today.

What is worthwhile?
A very popular British designer label launched its cotton shopper bag today. The bag is what I consider a marvellously intelligent marketing stunt. It's made of one the cheapest natural materials. The proprietary embroidery, spelling out an "environmental concern" message, plus the presence of a small logo gives the bearer an air of 1) ecological consciousness, which is the new cholesterol scare in terms of public attention; and 2) brand-display credibility, at a low price... something many Malaysians seem to crave.

By noon, we'd heard astounding first-person accounts of just how far things went out of control at the launch. Apparently, the queue went from the store entrance, over that whole floor of the mall, and apparently to the next floor. I still wonder how that's possible unless the queue reached the escalators and, finding nowhere else to go, the people at that point in the line decided to get some exercise while keeping their place, and marched on the spot up the down escalator. Then there was talk of mall security, riot police, rampaging shoppers offering black market prices on the spot to those lucky enough to leave with a bag, and stampeding aunties yelling about being deprived of their right to own such a statement piece of social consciousness.

I'd pre-ordered one of these bags because I thought they're cute and reasonably priced, and the perfect size to hold all the stuff I regularly lug around. Now I'm not so sure. I don't know if I want to be identified with something that inspires such ugly behaviour for all the wrong reasons. It's just a bag to me, but who knows what other connotations have been added to it by this morning's fiasco. Is this bag worthy to dangle off my arm?